Chapter 341 - Better than a stick (Patreon)

Congratulations, you have ended 2nd spot in the 1st event - Survival Domain and you have also reached 1st place in points collected - 441 pts.

You can exchange your points for shards. 1 point = 5 shards.

Rewards for the 2nd overall spot are 3 thousand shards.

You can decide to receive all the shards and pick one of three rewards or to not receive the shards and that increases quality of the three rewards you can pick from.

I close my eyes and lean back in the massive armchair I have taken for myself and currently moved to the terrace, offering a decent-ish view on the common area and grassy hills with houses surrounding it.

So 2nd spot it is.

Tsk.

If he didn't get that goddamn arcane item, if he didn't absorb a bit of Lily's [Disintegration]...

And what the heck is even that skill and how long can he store absorbed skills? I'm pretty sure his skill does something like that after seeing it at work.

So is that asshole storing tricolored orbs I shoot at him? How much mana does it require to store them? What's the name of the skill? How the heck does he have [Dawn] and even the mana stone from Tristan that he gave to Lily?

Did he get chummy with Champion Tristan back on the second floor?

Biscuit! I need my emotional support. I'm annoyed!

As if hearing this, the best doggo of all tournament floors comes floating slowly and lands on my legs. He also got defeated so he is quiet and just rests on my lap while I boop his nose a few times and then pet him.

“We will get our revenge during the other events,” I whisper to him.

He woofs in agreement and I focus back on the notifications.

Should I try to gain as many shards as possible or hope for good rewards? The rewards seem to be personalized so improving them in exchange for losing a bit of shards could be well worth it.

I can also make some shards by selling items in the tournament shop and it's not like a few thousand shards will do that much for me.

“Biscuit, shards or better rewards?”

(Food.) He says cleverly before closing his eyes again, stretching and continuing to rest.

Cute.

Rewards it is.

You have decided to not receive your shards. Please pick one of the three following rewards!

Epic grade passive skill

Epic grade item

Summon disciple (24h)

Looking at the rewards, epic grade, and item must be at least mid-grade and most likely upper grade for them to be here, but I'm not even thinking of them.

“Pick the last reward.”

The window disappears and my slowly souring mood becomes immediately better. The item is called disciple summon and not minion summon token but I can live with that.

Grabbing Biscuit and holding him at my chest, I stand up and head towards the living room where the others are.

A lively conversation immediately cuts off, awkward looks face me.

Are they worried about my mood because I lost… because that asshole cheated and got 1st place?

“I'm fine, I said I will get that dick during the other events. But the more important thing. Tess, get Channeler and tell him to look for frozen pizza or someone who can cook pizza for us. I'm offering an epic item for that.”

I let the stream of questions miss me and already start planning.

1st day was a welcoming day without an event so now after the second day and first event, full 5 days remain for 4 more events. If the events are of similar length to the 1st one, it means that there will be one free day, most likely before the last event to let us rest.

I need to confirm it, but if I'm right, that day will be the day when I will introduce my very first minion to group 4.

 ***

Flashback Savant - 1st Floor

They fight against the small green monsters and I watch as a few of them die, pierced by primitive weapons.

Wounds the weapons cause are severe, the kind that in the wilderness without antibiotics would make them die anyway. There are already a few people with high fever and sepsis from earlier attacks.

As they scream and cry, I do not pity them. They left me behind to die here.

It's a reasonable decision, without my prosthesis I can't move as quickly as them and would only slow them down. That much is confirmed even now as three goblins surround me, two normal ones and a goblin shaman. All the warriors went after the group.

I watch as a shaman comes closer and even being smaller than me, it smiles in glee, fire flickering over its palm, forming into a small orb.

It's captivating. I know it says it's possible thanks to a thing called mana, but that doesn't explain much. 

Is it such advanced science I can only see it as magic, or is it a force we can't understand yet?

And why is my group so slow to adapt to it?

When the shaman pulls me down by my hair and reaches to push the flame orb into my eye, his guards snicker.

The flame is about to touch me and I can feel its heat scorching my skin and then I use my skill and absorb it.

Seeing it disappear, the shaman squawks, and I move that bit of mana I got from the system and burrow my middle and index fingers into the shaman's eye as deep as I can. The length of the fingers should be enough to reach the monster's brain, judging from its size.

When the body starts twitching, one of the two goblins charges at me. It comes at a speed similar to other goblins of the same level I saw before. It also does the same kind of attack, aiming at the middle of my body below the rib cage.

I avoid it and throw my body ahead, crashing against the little green monster, both of us falling to the ground. The monster's body feels tougher than expected and it attacks, biting my neck and scratching my arms.

While it does so, I find the dagger on its belt-like article. It’s still in the same place I saw it before the attack.

Grabbing the dagger, I want to stab its heart and slide the blade in between ribs but change my mind, unsure of the anatomy. Instead, I burrow the dagger into the bottom chin of the monster, stabbing up.

The other goblin has only a short-range weapon, a dagger, so as expected, it moves closer and jumps on my back. They often use their bodies first when they are angry because of dead clanmates.

Before the second goblin stabs me, I use the skill and release the flame I absorbed from the shaman, hitting the head of the attacking monster.

While it thrashes and screams on the ground, I crawl closer and stab its neck a few times with the dagger I still hold.

I level up and my skills do as well.

Crawling back to the corpse of the shaman, I take a dagger and burrow it into the monster's leg, cutting, slashing, and tearing through the flesh and tendons until I separate it right under the knee.

I invest stat points into mana, then take the severed leg and place it on my stump. The length isn't perfect, but my leg ends somewhere in the middle of the shin and the shaman's under the knee so it's similar to my normal leg.

Then I try and use my skill and observe as my body absorbs the monster's leg into mine.

It looks awful, a thin green leg connected to my skin, smaller feet, no shoes, no hair. Even as I stand up, it's hard to keep balance.

But it's better than a stick.

 ***

Congratulations, your items were all sold in the tournament shop! You have gained 1120 shards. Ten percent will be taken by the system.

And here it is. Taxes indeed are one of the certainties.

But even then, the revenue isn't bad. I set the asking price of 6 items at 150 shards and received closer to 200 for each, which is the price of a low rare item in the system shop. Did they like my items that much? I will have to look into it.

With net profit being around 800 shards, it's not that bad for a few hours, but damn, I miss the nice time of looting Veil Ignition Station.

Done with crafting five more items, I also put them into the shop. Two daggers, one small shield, a spear, and a short sword. All of them are of rare rarity, but it's hard for me to say if I made them of low or mid grade. All I know is they are ugly as hell and sold by Fuckyouintentbitch. But the effects are nice.

I set the calling starting prices a bit higher now, at 160 for the daggers and shield, and 170 for the spear and sword. I set the end of the auction in 3 hours as well.

Satisfied with that, I stretch, but now that I'm done, an annoying thought about the result of the 1st event comes rushing back. So I block them a bit. It's fine, the time will come.

Outside of the facility, I meet Lily in the garden, currently throwing gray mana against the poor trees.

“We fighting trees?” I ask her.

She doesn’t seem to be amused, “I hate that Savant was able to absorb my skill; it shouldn’t be possible.”

I agree with her. His skill didn't absorb my black mana, but it succeeded with her [Disintegration]. The interesting thing is that the system allowed that even as he put the same [Restriction] on himself as Lily. So his skill must be quite good.

More to think about. I also already plan to test out black mana properly. Being unable to die gives me some amazing opportunities, and now seeing that it is really impossible to die and that my body and mana will be restored after the event, I can do just that.

“I think it could be that he used a shitload of mana for his skill to be able to absorb yours. Maybe his skill is of a much higher level than [Disintegration], or it counters yours partially,” I tell Lily.

“Or maybe I became too confident in [Disintegration]. I kept leveling my other skills and somehow thought that it would just stay powerful.”

“That’s also an option. But your skill is capable of damaging someone a hundred levels higher and with a powerful body, so it's not just that. But as you said, leveling it up won’t hurt.”

“And you? Are you fine?”

[Focus - lvl 48 > Focus - lvl 49]

“It’s okay,” I pinch Lily’s nose. “By the way, in a few days, I will introduce you to someone important to me.”

As I say it, Lily seems to start panicking, “Someone important?” she whispers.

“Yes, you will like her.”

“H-her?”

“Yup, anyway, I’m going to train on my own for a bit so later.” Before she can say anything, I teleport to one of my anchors and then fly for a while, reaching a clear area in the forest without anyone nearby.

Checking my surroundings again, I then move my mana to test something I wanted to do since the start of the event.

A pale blue orb forms over my palm, quickly changing its color multiple times until it's pitch black. But unlike the event where I was restricted, I can control that black mana quite comfortably.

I let it seep into my body and at first, I use it to power [Focus]. Then, when the world feels as if it's slowed down, I create a bigger one than before, using quite a bit of my body mana.

In this state that feels so addictive, I let that black mana permeate me, and this time I feel the pressure. It makes it much more difficult to control as black mana inside of my body reaches a certain amount, but I pay it no mind.

Ignoring the pressure and wounds, I let it all seep in and then use it to power a different skill.

[Mana Domain]

Immediately the domain I create expands, and then more, and again. The size is unlike any I used before. 

Observing it with fascination, I try to understand as much as possible and learn a lot before I lose control. The black mana even inside of my body threatens to slip, and even controlling the one I used to power [Focus] becomes much more difficult.

Through the domain, I sense the mana of every being within it. It feels like I should be able to do even more, but as I attempt to, the world blacks out and I die.

I die…confused, I look around, still at the same place, just my skills deactivated and after checking, a chunk of my mana is missing.

The feeling is extremely disturbing even though I quickly reactivate [Focus], this time powered by normal mana.

It takes a few moments to calm my beating heart and I replay what just happened. Nice start, the system didn't let me die so that means only one thing.

Let's try it again. First, to see how black mana reacts with some other skills and then how much I can try to control it. I have a lot of time before the 2nd event starts.

***

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