Chapter 491 - We don’t talk about sparring her

Back in my room, I walk in front of the mirror. My body is nearly restored. Just the right side, which got damaged by Fracture down in the tunnels, heals a bit slower, the skin still not fully regrown and parts of the bones visible through.

[Bone Knitting - lvl 22 > Bone Knitting - lvl 23]

The first somewhat proper test went really well. Thanks to having so many healing marks from Lily, I could let them hit me properly, and even though my flesh didn’t endure due to weak constitution, my bones did. In the future, I’ll find a way to stop relying on these healing marks.

[Bone Knitting] is a new skill I got while attempting to get a healing one. Unable to do so for so long, I just decided to go a different way.

My thought line is very simple. If I do not die instantly, I can have thermal energy and future healing passive to heal me over time. Flesh and tendons can be sacrificed, but bones take longer to restore, so the only reasonable thing is to make them stronger.

Thanks to all the experimenting during the tournament, body modification data from Savant, and the ones I collected, bones of powerful monsters and such, I’m quite good at understanding them. Weaving threads through them was something I came up with after getting [Ley Line] and developing Mana Weaving.

There are two parts of me that need to be protected the most: brain and heart. If the brain is gone, that’s it. The heart can be sacrificed, but seeing how much trouble Lady Lissandra is having with restoring hers and how often the system emphasizes Mana Hearts, it’s probably not a good idea.

[Bone Knitting] strengthens my skull and rib cage the most, making it much more difficult for attacks to reach them.

I consider it a very reasonable series of actions considering active healing skills are something I just can’t get for some reason.

Finally, the last wound closes, and I stretch my body, twisting it, bending it. Everything feels in place, so I step into the shower and choose the coldest possible water. Only then do I feel like I’m calming down. My wildly beating heart quiets, and the anger I felt dissipates.

Then I reminisce about feelings Izzy shared with me. The worries about her sister. The horror as she watched Sophie slowly change, refusing to acknowledge she might be influenced, even forgetting about their conversations. The two weeks she spent watching her older sister, pretending everything was fine, slowly and carefully building up to asking Sophie to call us in, hoping it wouldn’t be too late and Sophie wouldn’t refuse.

That realization when Izzy knew she wouldn’t be able to do anything alone. Incapable of killing the man on her own and being locked in by her beloved sister, who didn’t even fully realize why she was doing that.

Pausing the water, I step out of the shower, looking at my reflection in the mirror until my expression changes and turns back to the one I’m used to: the kind of expression that makes people want to punch me.

As I dry myself and am putting clothes on, I think of how easy it would be for Sophie to end up mind-controlled, fully in grasp of that man. Possibly dying, and her sister following. Just a mistake from her side and overconfidence.

I believe it will be a great lesson for her, and I will also take it as a great reminder.

Sometimes, I might catch myself thinking I'm already too strong for Hell difficulty and that only Beyond could challenge me. It's a thought I need to make sure never takes hold too strongly.

Only when I’m fully dressed and check my expression again do I open the door.

Izzy stands there, and she has been waiting the entire time since I returned.

“I was so scared.” Even though she tries to control herself, I notice she is shaking, her body sending vibrations of kinetic energy as she does so, even unknowingly to her.

“I know. It’s okay now.”

She shakes her head and looks at her feet, her black hair covering her face and stopping me from seeing her expression. “You said he didn’t have any connection to her, but I worry. How much did he influence her?”

“Honestly? And you can connect to my feelings to confirm, I don’t think he was able to do much. I killed him because I decided we wouldn't need him to undo whatever he did. He was the kind of guy who goes slowly and sneakily, too weak to go against Sophie in a direct clash. Sophie might want to keep you locked for a while. She might want to control more mind mages or be avoiding Beatrice and whatever impulses he placed into her. But it won’t grow further beyond that because that man is already dead.”

As I’m saying that, I know I mean these words.

Stepping closer, I poke her forehead hidden under her hair. “I think the rest will be up to Sophie, to realize what he did as his influence weakens. There is nothing else you or I can do.”

“Yes... Nat, for a while, please leave me and Sophie alone. Now that that man is gone, I want to try harder to help her.”

“Will do.” I then squat in front of her, finally seeing her green eyes. “Don’t worry, if anyone tries something again, I will blow up the entire city, Framework or not.”

“I don’t even have to connect to your feelings to know you’re serious.” She quickly rubs her sleeve against her eyes before putting her arm away and returning my gaze. “Thank you, Nat.”

“You are welcome.”

***

Min-Jae dodges my attack, his body moving almost as weirdly as mine with the use of kinetic energy. Just in his case, he uses [Telekinesis] and [Gravity Well] to do something fairly similar. His movement is sharp and clearly meant to hurt without holding back. Plus, the gravity field he created around us slows me down and forces me to use more and more kinetic energy while he is excluded from it and moves as quickly as at the start.

He fails to predict my movement in Pulser Stance, and I reduce the power of my hit, the punch hitting his side and sending him staggering.

Gravity around me increases even more, and he moves his body swiftly through the air.

He dodges my second attack; rather than his movement or reflexes, he just moves it with [Telekinesis] like he is puppeteering his own body. It looks eerie and unnatural, but he is clearly used to it.

I let his punch connect, and my unique passive transfers the kinetic energy of the attack into mana to my reservoir. Fairly surprised by the output, I let him punch me again, wanting a noticeable addition of mana to my reservoir.

“I knew your movement is weird, but this is too much, Nat!” he shouts, attacking again.

Even though he is smiling, his lean muscles stretching and moving his body, and his brown and yellow eyes wide open, watching my movement.

Once again, he dodges my attack, doing some movement that every acrobat would be proud of. And the entire time, he keeps that gravity field around me. His Primordial gravitational energy makes his already strong skill even stronger, even in melee, but the boost to his mid-range attack is incredible and, with some preparation, even to long range.

We continue for thirty more minutes and only then do we stop.

As Min-Jae cancels out the gravity field around me, I feel insanely light and, for a while, move carefully to get used to the feeling.

“You didn’t hit him as much as you hit us,” Aaron, with an evil orb floating near him, notes.

“He is more natural when it comes to it, so there is no need to,” I answer him.

“Tess had Maya beat me up,” Min-Jae acknowledges.

“Oh.”

Min-Jae smiles. “It helped in the end, so I don’t mind, but most of my training went into [Telekinesis], and even though my output isn’t as high as Tess’s, my fine control is better. Plus, she rarely moves big things and instead uses it to simply make her javelins more deadly.”

“What’s the biggest thing you can move?” Dennis asks, not stopping his training.

“Huh...hmmm, we once got attacked near some ruins by a big monster, and I kept throwing car-sized stones at it. So even though it costs me some effort, multiple tons is fine. I also, just for fun, used [Gravity Well] in combination with [Telekinesis] to lift a huge stone high in the air and then pulled it down while increasing its gravity. I swear it looked like a meteor.”

He turns to me. “Some time ago, you mentioned tungsten rods orbiting the earth and the possibility of them being as damaging as a nuke, and I think it really should be possible. Just need to keep myself connected to them, keep them in a semi-stable orbit, and do some calculations about space of impact, pull them out of the orbit and boom.”

“And we can sneak around, make decent projections, and sometimes use your skills against you,” Aaron mentions.

At that, Dennis shakes his head. “If you compare it to nuking the city, we are quite behind. Hey, Nat, why didn’t you teach us something similar? I also want to nuke the city.”

“Then get some skills to allow you to do so. But I can tell you that as you are now, each of you can beat Min-Jae up.”

“Huh, really?”

“If I had your skills, I would be able to, and you two… I would say you would win in 7 out of 10 fights. If you were the ones looking for him and initiating the fight, then in 8 to 9 out of 10.”

“Suck it, Kim.”

“Yeah, suck it, Mr. I-can-nuke-the-city-maybe-now.”

Knowing when to ignore them, Min-Jae curiously asks, “What are my chances against Lily?”

I don’t even have to answer, and Dennis, already standing, comes closer and puts his arm around the Korean boy. “Kim, buddy, my sweet delusional friend.”

Aaron looks around, confirming Lily is not here, and joins from the other side. “We don’t talk about sparring Lily.”

Enthusiastically nodding, Dennis confirms, “Lily picked up terrible habits.”

Aaron points at me. “We blame that man.”

“I’m sorry,” I agree.

Confused, Min-Jae keeps looking between us. “What happened?”

“That guy. ” Aaron’s voice becomes louder as he keeps pointing at me. “He taught us, but he also taught Lily. They did some crazy experiments most of the time, but they also sparred often.”

“Really a lot! Even though Nat likes to go kaboom, as that cute half-demon would say, he also likes to go face-to-face and punch stuff.”

“We have a theory he does that to vent.”

“Plus, he is also kind of a battle maniac. But what’s important is that Lily really liked his style, and Kim, my buddy, that girl is more talented than we thought.”

Once again, Min-Jae looks at me, and I confirm, “I’m sorry.”

Dennis shakes his friend. “You know how Nat fights, right? Losing limbs all over the place, getting hit ten times to get the opportunity to get in one hit that will splat you against the wall? Muscles torn, bones broken as his body is unable to endure the strength and speed?”

“It really sounds like Nat.”

“Because it’s Nat’s way of fighting. So, Aaron and I watched as Lily started picking up on that way of fighting more and more, mimicking those weird movements he does. Nat uses kinetic energy for it, so you'd think doing something like that would be impossible with just your body, right? Well, Lily disagreed. Apparently, you can mimic it somehow—if you're willing to accept that your body will get fucked up in the process.”

“You could say she fought that way before, and you would be right. But there was hesitation, and she was learning some martial arts from mana stones she got all over the place, but once she started sparring Nat, she gave up.”

“That’s true,” Dennis confirms. “She strengthened her bones, she improved her constitution, and did some nasty things with [Sacrifice]. Count in her healing, and she wins against Nat in 7 out of 10 fights when it comes to close combat only.”

This is where I step in. “That’s not true, it’s 5-6 at most out of ten.”

"Even if she ditches the ax and uses the mantle?"

"Mantle doesn't count. If I try to tire her out, I will win 7 out of 10. If I face her directly, she would win 7 out of 10 times."

They dive deeper into their theorizing, but I’m only half-listening. Even Whitey confirms Lily’s close combat capabilities, so it’s clear I’d have trouble if I faced her using only kinetic energy. But seeing how well I hold up, considering it’s not my primary way of fighting and I can still win half the time, I don’t mind it that much.

Really, I don’t.

It’s fine.

***

Next Chapter