‘What do you mean I can see them all?’
I asked her, failing to understand how one would be able to see all the cities. She put her hand to her chin, mauling over her possible answer.
‘Got any reasons, agent?’
<<None if from a normal perspective. However, it is possible to see all cities at once through magical means>>
‘Are you talking about with magic?’
“No. Hmm… it’s a bit hard to explain. I’ll show you when we get there.”
‘Sure… in that case, I guess I’ll need to prepare.’
After coming to a conclusion, I decided the best option would be to prepare for the upcoming event. Even after we both came to an understanding, Daxia still wanted to fight me to assess my true strength and kept bugging me about my true name. Obviously, I never conceded to any of those requests and focused on my preparations.
Akkun and Akira were both on a roll, with Akira’s progression into the Dark Arts raising to a whole level 4. I acquired a few new magics. [Blood Magic] and [Curse Magic]. Both of which were terrifying magics to me, especially since they needed something in addition to mana to function. For instance, [Blood Magic] as its name suggested, required blood to perform spells, although the most effective form of blood would be that of the caster themselves. There was a wide array of possibilities that could be performed with this form of magic, going as far as elemental magic to summoning magic.
Next was [Curse Magic] which was more focused on causing effects on targets rather than outright damage. Something like terrible poisoning on a target or giving them bad luck of sorts.
Both were really terrifying forms of magic given the seemingly limitless possibilities with them, proving how dangerous the dark arts actually were. Hopefully, not many people knew how to use the dark arts, that was taking out the fact that devils existed. Fortunately, devils couldn’t exist in this physical world without some sort of contract – a limitation of sorts if you will. Whoever put up that rule was definitely terrified of what they could do to the residents of this world. Then again, that was how it was like in every manga, so I just didn’t need to think too much about it.
Akkun had also come up with various skill formations. My personal interest was on the fusion of [Camouflage] and [Super Stealth]. It gave me [Immersion]. A skill that allowed me to perfectly blend in with my environment. The way [Camouflage] changed my body to match my surroundings and [Super Stealth] erased almost all my presence, [Immersion] did both freely, although I couldn’t escape the gaze of a blindfolded Daxia. She was simply different.
After a bit of contemplating, I asked if I could take a look at her ability set. Oddly enough, she agreed to it and I was… well I say this a lot, but I was horrified.
She was S rank. And she had a somewhat new stat compared to others.
STATUS
[Name: Daxia
[Species: Adult Shark Fishman Level 112/70
[Status: [Excited]
[Age: 30 years
[Rank: S
[Race Rank: Tier 2
[Class: Swordsman Level 17
[Sub-Class: Swashbuckler Level 8, Aura Master Level 8, Sword Deity Level 1
[Titles: [Of World], [Giant Crab Slayer], [Cannibal], [Merman Slayer], [Fishman Slayer], [Vulture], [Fast Learner], [Queen of Bandits], [Country Demolisher], [Chaos Beast], [Corrupted Sacred], [Antagonized by The World], [Tested Chaos Beast], [Kraken Slayer], [Sacred Event Cleared], [Champion of The Depths]
[Blessings: |Blessings Are Not Permitted on This Target|
[Level: 152 Exp: -
[Chaos Rank: 1 Test: 3/8
[Health: 130,999 Stamina: 121,467/230,000 Strength: 14,560 Speed: 20,380 Defence: 19,810 Dexterity: 17,915 Intelligence: 1670 Luck: 100
[SKILLS]
[Currently under calculation…]
I was left dumbfounded after a while, but the agent explained it all to me. According to it, once a being became a chaos beast, they lost the blessings of gods automatically. It was just one of the laws of the world, one that wouldn’t allow for a creature using power that was not of the gods to receive any further help from them. Their [Sacred] being corrupted was the result of them emanating [Chaos Energy], which was a no-no to the gods.
I quite possibly just found the gods kryptonite and was interested in actually developing this ability now, but I thought to the being who had given me their [Sacred] and the system master who was watching me closely. I wondered if they’d even allow me to get such an option, but decided I would consider it later when I properly understood the implications.
The next issue for me were her stats. Daxia was strong. Terrifyingly so at that. Even Minerva wasn’t this much of a monster and that was Minerva we were talking about. She and Goliath were actually kind of close in terms of physical ability, but I doubted Goliath could acquire the title [Kraken Slayer] so easily. To obtain the [Slayer] title, one needed to have killed a certain amount of that species and just a baby kraken was more than enough to beat several of her men easily, yet she alone had this title.
And from this, I could conclude that the highest level I would probably see was level 200 or so. Given how even an S rank was level 152. There probably wasn’t much to go beyond that, but after thinking about it, I realised gods existed. Maybe the level cap for gods was close to 300 whereas for mortals it was close to 200? Something of this sort. Some more investigation was required to do this, but unfortunately for me, the agent couldn’t give me such an answer so easily. It had only recently even found out about the system’s existence and its functions.
We returned to Daxia’s camp to host a meeting of sorts, but the seen before us was weird. Bastien, Daxia’s right-hand man, was beating the shit out of a bunch of fishmen. He completely overwhelmed them and barked for their leaders to step out. He scolded them before attending to Daxia who had hidden her aura completely. The bandits were all terrified once they noticed Daxia had been observing the entire scenario, but she didn’t even focus on them.
“So, we aren’t killing the creature?”
He asked nonchalantly about my death.
“No. I’ve come to take a liking to her.”
“Her? I could have sworn that was a him. Ah well. What’s the plan then?”
‘W-Wait! You thought I was male?!’
Bastien faced me with a weird expression.
“Yes. Sorry if that offended you.”
‘This ojisan is blind.’
‘Which means we act like a boy.’
‘Which means we can still be recognised as a boy.’
‘That means we are a boy.’
‘But that logic implies tomboys are boys too.’
‘Huh? T-Then are people who like tomboys gay?’
‘W-What kind of logic do you two come up with sometimes?!’
‘Don’t look at us. You’re in on this too.’
‘Gah! Sometimes I wonder how we share the same mind.’
“Enough of that. I’m guessing that was a rebellion just now?”
Daxia asked calmyly about the issue as if it didn’t concern her in the slightest. Bastien put his hand to his chin… jaw… neck? He thought over how to respond to her.
‘If I say it’s an outright rebellion, she’d kill them all. If I say it was a simple fight she’d come up with another stupid tournament like last time and kill off everybody this time. Training session would end up with most of them having to go through the actual trial. I doubt any would survive that. Dealing with this brat just gets harder and harder.’
Listening in on his internal turmoil, I couldn’t help but sympathise with him. Sure, I probably didn’t have it as bad as him, but I could understand what it was like having to reign in a monster that was way stronger than yourself.
‘I don’t think that’s important right now, Daxia. Let’s focus on other plans.’
I tried providing an out for him. Daxia glared at me, but due to [Super Fear Resistance] I got off with only flinching.
‘Is she trying to help me? Well, guess I can’t waste this opportunity.’
He spread his arms out.
“Ah yes. Have you decided on what we’re going to do now? You normally don’t get involved in such troublesome matters, so I-”
“Eh? Like I said the day that brat came here: We’re joining the fray! Get your stuff ready. It’s gonna be a long journey for you boys.”
Paying no mind to what we were trying avoid all-together, Daxia managed to dampen Bastien’s mood. The mood around him changed from a gentle one to a vicious, cold one. He growled at her menacingly.
“Daxia, you know I love you and all, but sometimes you just have to listen to me. Our men can’t join the fray. We just lost a quarter of them to your new friend. We lost half of them a year ago. Morale has been bad for the long run. Sure, because of you we are still possibly the strongest nation, but if we keep going, we can’t be considered a nation anymore!”
“To hell with your nation. I told you from the very beginning, didn’t I? I have no interest in making a nation. You promised it would be exciting. Well guess what, Bastien of the Deep! It’s not fun. And as you said, a queen has the final say! Prepare the men. We move out today.”
Daxia swam off. The tension between the two was kind of thick and Daxia’s body was starting to radiate [Chaos Energy] again. However, my new skill [Energy Transcriber] took care of that no problem.
[[Chaos Energy] absorbed.]
[Storage space of [Energy Transcriber] has been used up.]
[Convert to which form for use?]
[Mana]
[Aura]
I managed to get a look at how my new unique skill worked. It would seem the skill simply converted incoming energy that I can’t use into one that I could use. Basically, I could derive energy from anything releasing it. In its basic mode, the energy is first stored into a subspace that [Energy Transcriber] possesses. Once this subspace is filled up, the energy is passed on to me. However, it is possible for my reserves to get filled up as well and fortunately, [Evolver] came in with a clutch, forcefully creating a massive expansion in my mana storage capacity. That was why I now had over ten thousand mana points.
The question was what [Evolver] required for me to get that expansion. So far, there hadn’t been any visible side effects yet. Maybe because of the skill [Soul Armour], I was being saved from the effects of [Evolver]? Then again, weren’t mana circuits more physical than anything else?
Agent ended up explaining more about the mana circuits, stating that the mana circuits are located in the soul. I wasn’t sure if it had said something else before, but didn’t that contradict the reason for my mana circuits needing 60 days to fully form? I decided to shrug it off.
