Chapter 306: The Logic of Monster Tutorials (Patreon)

Diana

Diana approached the six meter tall mantis-like D rank monster, the sword in her hand ready to dig out the large crystal in its chest for the extra rewards mentioned in the second challenge’s starting prompt, but Mr. Tedros, or Vanar as he’d asked her to call him, put out an arm and blocked her over thirty meters away.

“The level of primal energy in the air doesn’t seem right. It’s possible the prompt was a trap. And we have three more days we need to survive, so there is no rush.

“Let’s wait two more days before we harvest the gem just to be safe.”

Understanding he had way, way more experience than she did, Diana decided to follow her new instructor’s recommendation and they both moved away, walking to he edge of the forest where the boss monster had made its nest.

***

Raven

As Raven moved close to the mantis-like D rank monster, one of its scythes flashed and he barely managed to move out of the way, almost losing an arm in the process, but thankfully avoiding even a scrape.

Then he ran away.

The beast was obviously dying given it wasn’t chasing him, Lord Aalam’s plague having had a strong effect, so he’d come back later to harvest the crystal.

***

Wen

As Wen lay on the ground, bisected and bleeding out, he regretted his life choices.

He should have just been a farmer like his father, never joining the warfront. Then he wouldn’t have been captured and sold as a slave, needing someone as powerful as the Heavenly Spark Soul King to rescue him. And he should have listened to the Mistress of Oaths and Deception’s advice and not been so conceited when relying on the power of others.

Blade beasts were very resistant to diseases. He’d known this. And he’d known the nightmare level challenges in the tutorial were incredibly dangerous. But he’d pushed his luck anyway, trusted in the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s disease too much, and now he’d lost his chance to be reborn.

***

Aalam

“What do you think the reason is for making these challenges so difficult?” Aalam’s space clone looked down at the D rank beast, finally truly dead three hours after it began its faking. “If the point of the monster tutorial is to make beasts for the Divine Child to eventually eat and absorb, you’d think he’d want variety, or at least stupid yet talented people to do well.”

“He probably did.” Immortalia, still in her humanoid elf badger form, sat down on a rock nearby as Aalam’s clone began to dig out the monster’s crystal. “But he would have had to make a deal with Primordius and Quandra, and they almost certainly didn’t want to waste the System’s energy.

“Do you realize just how much your rise has cost? Just your initial body alone was worth several A rank resources, not to mention your wife’s, and the advancement of your planet must have cost at least 5% of the System’s reserves.

“The System was made by Primordius, Quandra, and the Radiant Behemoth to act as a regulating body for their competitions with each other so they wouldn’t weaken the Prime Material, with the side missions of helping to raise up mortals to fight in their wars against other universes and the ability to detect any foreign invasions. While it is incredibly useful, it also uses up a ton of energy.

“The Prime Material is the largest of all known universes, and the System covers all of it, along with several smaller universes as well to a lesser extent.

“It’s not really designed for a handful of mortals using up larger chunks of its energy reserves than a dozen gods could generate over many trillions of years.”

“Hmm.” Aalam’s clone nodded, acknowledging the point. Then he gave verbal acknowledgement as well. “That makes sense. Thank you for the information.”

***

Diana

Diana looked down at the second skill orb Aalam had prepared for her, Yang Force (G-Legendary), a supplementary skill which empowered other yang aligned skills—i.e. skills of the life, light, and fire elements—and frowned.

“Should I be worried?” She looked up at Vanar, who was changing the settings on the training room in the mansion they’d so far spent all their time in, hiding from the natives also undergoing the monster tutorial and, more important, the gods who could take them on as acolytes given that, unlike the tutorials of Earth, the church in this tutorial was working. “I was a summoner previously and so far I haven’t gotten any summoning skills.”

“Did you like your previous combat style, or was it just based on a racial ability you no longer have?” Vanar drew the sword on his hip from its sheath and lunged at her, Diana defending with her own quickly drawn blade.

“I don’t know. Probably a little of both.” She managed to defend herself against the sword master for three moves, which was much better than when they’d started. Then he stabbed her in the right lung—the room’s effects making sure there was no damage—ending the fight. “But I don’t like the lack of choice. And you don’t know what my brother is planning, while Nana Xara won’t say, which makes me think there is some secret deliberately being hidden from me.”

She looked over at the large two meter spherical metallic object in the room’s corner unhelpfully called Diana Alvaro’s Rebirth Chamber (G-Legendary). It had no openings, though she was almost certain her body was meant to fit inside, and her magical senses couldn’t penetrate it, but Vanar’s Law of Body, which was still a bit more focused on blood than other materials, could sense a complicated runic structure seemingly written in blood, and Diana didn’t like the sound of that.

“Empress Li allowed Lord Aalam to design her build.” They started again and this time Vanar stayed on the defensive.

“Yeah.” Diana lunged, overextending herself ever so slightly, and quickly ended up on the floor with what would have been a brutal stab wound. “But you do know Mila wanted to kill him for the choices he made, right?”

Vanar helped her up and they started again, Vanar attacking slowly as he answered. “And now they’re happily married and she has the greatest confirmed cross-rank kill count of any C rank ever. I’d say she changed her mind over the years.”

“This is my brother we’re talking about.” Diana got distracted by her thoughts and ended up stabbed again before jumping back to her feet. “Power is not what I’m worried about. It’s the moral lines crossed to get it.”

***

Immortalia

Immortalia watched as the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s showed off a level of energy control which had yet again noticeably improved.

It made sense. His main body had an adept class, he was naturally talented in the field of energy control already, and he was mostly self taught, so, as Sorin would have said, he had all the right hardware already while his software was shit. It thus wasn’t surprising he’d been able to improve rapidly as she taught him some simple tricks, correcting some of the bad habits he’d gotten into. But the level he’d reached at such a young age? Now that was surprising.

The boy’s main body had 36 Laws and, if Immortalia’s judgement was correct, when they’d started he could infuse 9 of his Laws into a single skill, more with certain buffs applied. And this was all as a C rank.

With her help, over just one month, his main body could now likely use 10 Laws at once, and this was ridiculous.

She’d thought he would be just a flash in the pan, maybe shake the power balance of the Prime Material a little if he ever reached B rank, but now she wasn’t so sure.

The gluttonous disgrace to all bird kind would likely try to keep him safe so the god could later eat him. And Quandra would be interested in the chaos the boy could achieve, so her force would probably stay out of his conflict with Primordius, at least for a while. And this meant the boy might get the chance to make it to B rank—his clones’ reasons for joining the monster tutorials rather obvious—and even rise to the top of that rank.

Were this to happen, and if what she saw was true, his power might be able to match her own at her height, and this might make it possible for him to even reach A rank.

By the nine hells, if what she’d managed to gather about his wife from talking with the boy was true, there were probably already plans for raising him to A rank in motion, plans the information in Immortalia’s possession could make better.

And this wasn’t even mentioning how the boy seemed receptive to helping her get revenge on Sorin’s killer, now one of the faction-less gods after earning his class upgrade requirements through Sorin’s death.

Was she seriously considering taking another apprentice after all these years? Was she seriously considering allowing herself to again become emotionally attached to a set of mortals?