Chapter 457 - Show them

The first test of the giga web made with the help of [Ley Line] was a huge success!

I didn’t die.

That’s it.

There is no need to talk about what happened. I’m sure the next attempt will work out! I just need to iron out some… things.

I’m also kind of amazed by my new passive. Even with all that… happened… I didn’t even break a sweat. There was barely any strain on my mind, and I think that part excites me more than the results of the giga web test. It means I can push myself harder.

My mind is something I was constantly worried about. The body can be fixed, limbs can be replaced by mana, but the mind? If my brain melts, it would be unfortunate. You can’t just power through getting your brain destroyed, unlike the body.

But with the arcane passive?

Good, I have ideas to improve my constructs, I have ideas for enormous inscriptions that are compressed to the size of a fingernail. The amount of information I can process now is only limited by my skill, not my mind.

Maybe I was a bit disappointed at first after picking this passive. It’s something I was saving for for quite some time, but part of that disappointment has lessened now. Now I just need to meet some powerful opponent with mind magic bullshit and totally stomp them. Only then will I be happy.

Bringing myself back to the real world, I glance at our new camp that is around a mile away from our previous one. We had to change the location because of… stuff.

I look at the twins and increase the difficulty of the evil orb, making them drop back to a single one instead of two. Used to it, they don’t complain much and continue to train. The blood, sweat, and effort they put in is proof of their will.

In two hours, we will stop with the evil orbs, and instead, we will spar. It’s something we’ve done a few times already.

The method could be considered cruel, but the intention is for them to get hit and to get hurt.

As much as possible.

Lily will restore the limbs, she will fix the pierced lungs and stop the bleeding from the cut neck. It brings me no pleasure hurting them that way, and instead, it feels like a job, something I have to do.

Still, each and every single time I ask them: “Do you want to continue?”

I listen to their answer, but more than that, I watch their reactions. Their expressions, their eyes.

And even though they are shaking, scared of what’s to come, they agree.

Dennis and Aaron don’t like to get hit. Often, even a smaller wound makes them drop out of the fight, lose consciousness, or try to run. They rely on their high speed, illusions, and amazing cooperation to never get hurt.

There is a big weakness in that. A balance needs to be found between being careful and continuing to fight at your full power, even with a wound, or knowing you will get hurt. So you don’t freeze mid-combat.

They just need to get used to it, and I’m helping with that. Causing them a small wound wouldn’t help, they have to sense danger, so I do just that.

“How will you try to attack me this time?” I ask them curiously.

If they have the mind to spare to answer, I will up the difficulty of the orbs.

“This time we will try to win through sheer speed. One of us will be the main attacker and will get healed by the other so he can go all out,” still not taking his eyes off the two orbs over the palms of his hands, Dennis answers.

Aaron also adds, “We thought of using ranged attacks, but we have a suspicion you would bombard us with these explosive orbs or start teleporting around.”

"It's just like in video games! When you attack the boss from a distance, it switches up its moveset, gets more aggressive, and starts pulling out some annoying ranged attacks."

“The goal is to force you to go into a second stage one day,” Aaron smiles playfully.

“The loot drop would be amazing,” his brother joins in.

“Maybe his second stage would be him dying, then some orchestral music would start playing, and Biscuit would be revealed as the real boss all along.”

“They both have similar skill sets: mana creations, flying, orbs, so it makes sense.” Dennis seems to agree.

Almost with fascination, I listen to their banter, as amused as I am confused by their train of thought.

“It’s just a shame Nat does more damage to himself than we ever could,” Dennis sighs in the end and turns to me. “You want to turn up the difficulty of the orbs, right?”

“How did you know?”

“You always do that when we improve just a bit or poke fun at you.”

“Wouldn’t it be smarter to pretend you have trouble or to not poke fun at me?” I ask curiously.

“It would, but I think you would notice, and wouldn’t that render the training useless? Both Aaron and I want to improve.”

His brother nods, “The suffering part is not nice, but it’s somewhat easier seeing that you are doing the same thing, and to an even bigger extent. It then feels a bit shitty to try to avoid it.”

Dennis pops his orbs, “It would be a bit pathetic of us to try to avoid it, especially if you are taking your time to do it. I know you probably won’t say it, but I think you wouldn’t do it if you didn’t care.”

“And we appreciate that, really.” Aaron nods seriously.

“Of course, we still hate you a bit for that, and given the opportunity, we will get our ‘revenge.’”

“That’s how it should be,” I confirm. “You are free to try it anytime.”

***

A day later, Lily places another mark on me, and I watch the entire process.

It’s something we have done multiple times already.

Unlike her body that is used to her mana, healing, and is more durable than mine, my body is great for testing and revealing mistakes she makes.

It also means that my left arm gets damaged a lot. And damn, it hurts.

As a few times before, I watch the bones grow through each other, shattering and breaking in the process while new flesh keeps growing over that mess at the same time.

“It seems like you used too much mana around the edges of the mark,” I note and stretch my messed up arm towards her.

“I thought I made good enough improvements for the mark to handle it,” she sulks, and gray mana coats her arm before she cuts off the mess she made.

Then, as my arm regrows, she uses [Sacrifice], causing the severed arm to vanish, turning into mana that flows to her.

“How much more mana did you use compared to the 7th variation?”

"I think about three times more? Using double the mana worked really well, so I thought it would be fine. I also made adequate changes."

“You should check the mana stone Savant gave you again; you broke the loop, and it messed up the distribution.”

“Isn’t your weaker body the problem? I tried the mark on me, and it worked just fine.”

“Okay. Will you say the same if Grumpy breaks like my arm when you try to heal him?”

Lily freezes mid-movement, shock written across her face, with a flash of anger too. After a few seconds, she calms down, pushes those feelings aside, and doesn't even yell at me.

So I explain, “I think you are often forgetting how different we are from normal people, Lily. You, me, the twins, Biscuit, the entire group 4 are much stronger, so we don’t break so easily.”

I open and close the hand of my freshly regrown arm into a fist before looking back at her, “You often let these things slip by you. You sacrifice efficiency and don’t care about full mastery, relying on your skills to fix it up or your body to endure it. It’s also how you like to fight, and I think during the tournament, Tess showed you how foolish it is.”

Taking a few steps, I locate the mana stone Savant gave to Lily in our baggage nearby. The one with information on body modification and much more. An extremely valuable piece of knowledge made by Hella, disciple of Champion Tristan.

Something Lily didn’t study as deeply as I would’ve liked.

I hand it to her, “The decision is up to you.”

If I were her, I’d be studying this research data, experiment results, and ideas until I could recite them, even if someone woke me up in the middle of the night.

Then I watch as she closes her hand around the stone, nodding once while looking at the ground.

***

Later that night, we sit around the fire. Well, maybe "fire" is the wrong word. It’s my trademarked thermal cube.

It’s vastly improved from before, and even its insides are made from multiple layers with the intention of testing how much I can concentrate thermal energy through it.

For the fun of it, I make it spin slowly and flicker in a similar way to the light of campfire.

It still doesn’t let out any sound of crackling firewood, but it’s something I’m working on. With the help of modifying its insides and maybe with the use of kinetic energy, I should be able to make it make some noises.

There is also a single evil orb floating over my shoulder. The most evil variation yet, giving trouble even to me. It forces me to split my mind into multiple parts, each dealing with a different annoyance the orb does.

But doing that brought some rewards as well in the past few days.

[Mana Manipulation - lvl 49 > Mana Manipulation - lvl 50]

[Mana Manipulation - lvl 50 > Mana Manipulation - lvl 51]

[Mana Manipulation - lvl 51 > Mana Manipulation - lvl 52]

[Focus - lvl 53 > Focus - lvl 54]

My precious skill that has returned to me is getting stronger every day, and soon it will be at the level from before I used it for combination. It partially surprises me that it’s not back to it yet, as some things I do are things i haven't done before, but who the hell knows how the system calculates this stuff.

“I thought you would want us to do some hunting. To level up and become stronger,” Dennis says.

As always, he is a bit braver of the two brothers. Aaron likes to let Dennis initiate the conversation before joining in.

“What do you think is the most important from our status?” instead of answering, I ask him.

“Skills?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yup.”

“But wouldn’t getting some stats make us stronger?” Aaron doesn’t seem to fully agree.

“Let’s say you have a thousand stats in a single attribute, and you spend days leveling up and gain three stat points. How much stronger did you become?” I counter.

It’s funny to see his gears spinning, trying to come up with a counterargument.

Reaching to my lap to pet Biscuit, I continue, “Even if my level dropped by 100 now, I don’t think I would become much weaker. The same goes if I got 100 levels and put 300 stats into mana, which would double with my attribute upgrade. 600 stats more, but that’s it.”

I know what Dennis wants to say, so I lift my finger to stop him.

(Food!)

“Oh, sorry.” I quickly put my hand back down and continue to pet the best doggo of the Astral Prison. “Of course, there are other things that level-ups are good for. At certain levels, Primary Class upgrades unlock, we get body upgrades, also Traits, probably another attribute upgrade, and some more stuff. I just wanted to say that your priority should always be your skills.”

(Food!)

“And eating well,” I add.

“Shouldn’t Biscuit train as well?” Unsatisfied, Aaron can’t just let go and looks for something to poke at.

I glance down at Biscuit and then at the silly twin.

“Show them,” I whisper to the corgi.

Biscuit lazily opens his eye and yawns, his pink tongue sticking out as he does so. With a cute sound, he then closes that maw.

Then the mana that constantly kept moving inside his body comes to a halt. Something akin to Mana Cycling, but more primitive.

That purple mana of his seeps out of his body a little, and all the sounds disappear.

The twins start looking around, confused, and there is no sound as they open their mouths to talk.

My thermal cube flickers, and the heat it radiates decreases. It gradually becomes darker as if all the light around it is being pulled away, in my direction. Towards the creature on my lap.

Biscuit’s body feels much heavier now, his presence overwhelming, and even though I see only the back of his head, I can imagine his purple eyes.

In the small flicker of the thermal orb, Biscuit’s shadow expands and increases until it’s much bigger. Maybe too big.

And then the growl sounds. A deep growl that wakes up my primal instincts. A need to run, a need to grab a stick and fight back. A need to just fall to my knees and beg.

A myriad of umbral tentacles extends from the shadow, surrounding our camp, and then they stop and change direction, all of them heading toward Aaron, who stands up, his chair falling as he struggles to avoid them before they reach him.

“That should be enough.” I put my hand back on Biscuit’s head.

All the shadows freeze and are slowly, gradually drawn back into the enormous mass, which begins to shrink.

The light returns, and my thermal cube glows and radiates heat once more.

The twins and Lily also stand, their faces pale, holding their breath. I can even sense the mana gathering inside their bodies, ready to fight—or flee.

Slowly, Biscuit turns around, and when I see his face, it’s the usual cheeky corgi.

"Good boy."

***

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