Chapter 372 - What were you talking about (Patreon)

"Hello, I'm Miwa," the woman introduces herself with a small bow.

"I'm Vega!"

"It's nice to meet you, Vega."

Both my disciple and I look around the small but cozy kitchen of Miwa's house. Unlike the smithy she rents with multiple people from Hard and Hell difficulty and uses at set times, the house is hers only. On the table, there are some ingredients prepared.

Vega already knows what the surprise is and seems to be excited. After saying goodbye to group 4, she became happy the moment she heard about the food we would be making.

Meanwhile, group 4 got only a few short words, with Biscuit and Noodle being the only exceptions. Maybe also Tess and Lily, whom Vega seems to judge as top of the pack.

"We will prepare the dough first. Do you want to do it, or will you do it on your own?"

"We will do it. Vega, sleeves up, and let's wash our hands before we start."

"Yes, master!" The little half-demon washes her hands as I lift her up to the sink, and then I do the same, waiting for Miwa's instructions afterward.

I'm a terrible cook, and it's not even something I usually enjoy, but at this moment, it seems like it will be fun.

"See the bowl I prepared? Add a bit of sugar and yeast and mix it in warm water. Then we will let it sit for around 5 to 10 minutes. The yeast might not be that good anymore, so it's possible the dough will end up terrible. But there is nothing we can do."

"Not a problem, you warned me before. Vega, you will be mixing, okay?"

"Yes!"

Following the instructions, I take the yeast and sugar and put them into the bowl with warm water.

When Vega starts mixing it clumsily, Miwa helps her and gestures a better way. She also stops Vega from eating the raw dough.

Done mixing, Vega washes her hands again, making me lift her up to the sink, and Miwa covers the bowl with a towel.

"While we wait, you can add flour and salt to the bowl where we will add the dough when it's done." Miwa then gestures to Vega how much, though Vega messes up a bit and flour spills on the table.

When the dough is ready ten minutes later, I take it and put it into the bowl with flour and a bit of salt.

Vega sits on the chair nearby, watching every movement as I add it all together with some oil and then mix it. The mood around her is still a bit awkward because of what happened during and after sparring, but being so young, she quickly shrugs it off and seems to be having fun right now.

As before with Vega, Miwa shows me the best way, and I knead it on the table where she throws a bit of flour to make it less sticky.

Somehow it's relaxing, so I even take a small chunk of dough and fling it at Vega.

The little half-demon giggles and shoots a mana projectile at my face that I disrupt. The playful attack is strong enough to kill someone from Easy difficulty.

I continue kneading for 5 minutes, and Miwa corrects me multiple times, even asking how it's possible to make the dough so non-elastic and ugly. Behind her back, Vega furrows her brows and forms more projectiles, but I disrupt them before she can send them at Miwa.

Next, Vega oils the bowl, and we put my kneaded dough inside, cover it with a damp cloth, and put it near the heated oven so it can rise. This will take an hour or so.

While we wait, Miwa talks to me about crafting, her expression extremely lively when she gets to talk about it. Meanwhile, Vega noms on some kind of snack she found and most likely stole from Miwa.

***

An hour or two later, we are done and the pizza is finished. The result is as expected: the Perfect Pizza.

"Master, should it be so black on the bottom?"

"It shouldn't be," Miwa says carefully.

The pizza was made only by me and my minion. With some cheese on top and a few pieces of salami and tomato base. It was even Vega's idea to use my flames to cook it, so I tried to mimic the temperature of the oven-like thing Miwa set up with a few mana stones with inscriptions for heat.

I just surrounded the entire pizza with the heat while keeping it afloat with an arm made of mana.

The result is impeccable.

"Master, it's very crunchy."

"Careful, you will break your teeth," Miwa warns her.

I never made pizza before, but my first attempt is much better than expected. Maybe it is because of the minion's help and a tiny bit of help from Miwa, yup.

"Master, why are you not eating?"

"You shouldn't be eating it either," Miwa says useless things.

To that, Vega moves closer to me and offers me to bite off her pizza, which I do. That makes her smile, and I take a piece off my plate and eat it.

While devouring crunchy pizza, Vega makes satisfied noises and keeps smiling even more widely than when she ate candies back in the house. It's the same smile she made when I invited her to eat with me for the first time.

I did it even now to Miwa's confusion and Vega's happiness.

Yes. The pizza might be slightly lacking. Some ingredients are a bit stale, especially the cheese. There is just a tiny bit of tomato sauce, and the salami is very oily, not meant as a topping. The dough is pretty good, but it didn't rise enough, so the pizza is dense and now burned because of my inexperience.

But at the same time, it's something me and Vega prepared together, and that seems to make the little half-demon happier than if it was a perfect meal.

Together we devour it all, and when we are done, we leave, saying goodbye to Miwa.

"How long?" I ask, walking by the side of my minion.

"Five minutes."

"I see. Take this." Into her hands, I put a small bag with multiple inscribed mana stones.

Most of them are akin to cyphered trials, their contents can be opened or be reached only if she gets through intricate inscriptions I made and fixes the parts I blocked on purpose.

It's training that will improve her control and open up contents that contain more things when she is ready to master them. Most of the stones are tiny, even smaller than the fingernail of my pinkie. It's the stones of Nevan's dead friend we found in Veil Ignition Station, and I still have a lot of them. Their size is something that makes it simple to smuggle them.

Vega freezes on the spot, and I look where she is looking.

There near the lines of trees, Savant is passing. His long hair tied into a ponytail and green eyes with his typical expression. Clinical and sharp like a scalpel.

The same as me, he notices my signature and looks towards us. At me and then at Vega.

My minion stiffens and moves behind me, her arm reaching to my clothes and grabbing them. I can sense her heart beating wildly.

Savant turns his eyes away and disappears somewhere behind the trees, and only then does Vega relax a bit. An expression of shame on her face as she realizes what she has done.

"Are you fine?"

"Yes, master, but that man... he is..."

"It's fine. Just another person for me to deal with."

"Is he?"

"Yes, nothing to worry about." I put my hand on her, and she lowers her natural barrier, allowing me to teleport us further away. We reach the place with a nice view of the entire common area.

In silence, we wait here as the time ticks down.

"Thank you for inviting me here, master. I know you could have trained much more if I wasn't here."

"It's fine. I still trained a lot."

"Is it really fine?"

"Yup, it was me who invited you here so why are you worried? So how did you like my group and my favorite food?"

"Pizza was amazing."

"Liar."

"It was! And for your group, I liked Biscuit, and wolfy was fun. Maybe Lily a bit too; she would be a great demon."

"Possibly yes but don't say such scary things."

"But I'm happy master seems to like these people and that you are doing well in the tournament. You have to win the remaining events and then the entire tournament."

"That's the plan." I grab one of her horns and shake her head gently, "This time it will really be a long time, probably years until we see each other. I might contact you or send a message when I get 6th-floor rewards, but until then, do your best."

"I will be much stronger the next time we meet."

"Kaboom?"

"Kaboom!" Vega nods happily.

"Sounds like a plan."

To that, Vega turns her eyes to the side, and I know she is looking at the portal back to her planet.

Minion rushes to me and hugs me shortly, squeezing as hard as she can. When she lets go, there is a bright smile on her face.

"Master is the first person who ever missed me. You even summoned me so early... thank you. Now master has to win the tournament, and I will become strong. I will make sure to find a good healer and reliable minions, the same as you did!"

"I wish you all the best. Take care."

"Yes!"

The last bright smile, and she disappears, passing through the portal.

After that, I reach into my pocket and pull out a folded piece of paper she put in there while she hugged me.

Slowly I unfold it, revealing an extremely clumsily drawn picture. Something akin to stick figures standing next to each other.

One of the figures has two big red dots instead of eyes and is seemingly standing on the body of a giant black something. Probably a wolf. With red color, there is drawn a pool of blood underneath.

A bit to the side, another stick figure is. This one is much more delicate and detailed, showing a lot of time spent on it. It has black spaghetti-like hair, and instead of eyes, there are two dots, one brown and another gray.

Around that figure, yellow flames burn as it stands in a heroic pose. There is even something floating in the air next to it. It is burrito-shaped.

Well, I guess I know what Isabella and Vega were doing so secretly.

Very carefully, I fold the paper back and put it into my pocket.

Now then, i need to talk to someone.

I activate an anchor I left on one of the men from the Hard difficulty group that Channeler invited for a spar. When I appear near him, he is there with the two other Hard difficulty attendees.

"Hey," I greet them.

All three didn't sense my anchor or the use of the skill, so they jump on the spot. Their expressions change from smiles to nervosity.

"Hello."

"Oh, hey."

I ignore them and turn to the man who is quiet with the most nervous expression, "What were you talking about during the spars?"

"I... ehm... just about people we know."

"Did you? Who exactly?"

"You heard, right?" He laughs awkwardly.

Unlike back then when Vega was fighting, and he kept talking, his arrogant expression is gone, and the man is extremely tense.

"Go on, tell me." I invite him.

"I... I was telling Blue and Jai about how your teammate, that Korean boy, how he atta... talked to us after the 3rd challenge against his Avatar." He shifts from foot to foot, and unconsciously, he moves mana inside his body.

I laugh, "Oh, I saw it too. It was quite pathetic, right? He almost cried losing those items."

The man’s expression becomes shocked. A sheer surprise.

"I watched him multiple times, and he was always like that. Just moving around confused and trying to copy other people. Then acting like a little kid anytime something goes wrong. And damn, constantly comparing himself to the others. Pathetic, isn't it?" I smile at him.

"Yes..." The man laughs awkwardly, but I notice that he is calming down.

The smile he gives me is more honest now as he quickly says, "Man, I didn't know you had the same experience. But it makes sense seeing how you deal with other people. Of course, I don't mean it as an insult!"

"It's fine. I guess it does make sense others see me like that. I don't like people that much. Well, most of them."

"Yes. But it was amazing what your Avatar did, even though it lost me some shards." He laughs, and his expression reverts a bit to the one he had while talking about Min-Jae, "And that boy, yes, such a crybaby. Man, I swear we laughed at him for an hour..."

His body turns into shiny particles as he dies.

Reappearing a few steps away, he has a confused expression and throws up right after. Cold sweat flows down his forehead.

Hyperventilating, he falls to his knees with a painful expression on his face.

"F-fuck... what..."

"I killed you." I stop in front of him. It's interesting that Hard difficulty attendees endure it so terribly.

"What?! But why!"

"Well, 'killed' might be the wrong word since you can't die here, but you get what I mean." I take a step closer, and he turns into shiny particles again, appearing this time a bit further.

I place an anchor through my extended domain and teleport in front of him.

As before, he throws up again and falls to the grass, shaking and squirming in pain.

"Man, this is pathetic. It's not even that bad, so man up or something, okay?"

"P-please, stop. What did I do!? Tell me!" he coughs.

"Nothing terrible, really. Min-Jae partially deserved it. But something about the way you talked pisses me off. Anyway, I have to go. After I kill you a third time, the system will teleport you much further away, and I'm too lazy to look for you. But if you want me to find you again, keep talking shit."

I don't even wait for his answer, and as before, I release highly concentrated kinetic energy from my Vortex Core that would tear his entire body apart, and he turns into shiny particles.

Using one of my anchors I teleport away and watch the countdown until the start of the fourth event.

The 4th event - Duels will start in 1 hour!

There will be 16 groups created. 12 with 148 participants and 4 with 147 participants.

The winner of each group will go to the final round, and from them, the winner of the 4th event will be decided.

Note: No [Restriction] can be placed during this event.

Note: It's possible to forfeit your duel by calling or thinking strongly "Forfeit."

Finally, it will be starting soon, and I check my stats one last time.

Name: Nathaniel Gwyn
Difficulty: Hell
Floor: 6 - Astral Prison
Time left until forced return: 3y 359d 23h 58m 51s
 Traits (2/3): Mana Circuit 2/3, Mana Wavelength Iris 0/3

Lvl 237
Strength: 113
Dexterity: 110
Constitution: 268
Mana (Stage 1/3 - Vast Mana): 1015 + 1015

Primary Class: Focused Channeler (Epic)
Sub-class: [Initiate of Pride]

Active skills:
Focus - Lvl 49
Perception - Lvl 45
Redistribution - Lvl 48
Resonance - Lvl 45
Mana Domain - Lvl 38
Tether - Lvl 36
Infusion - Lvl 29
Mana Crown - Lvl 22
Mana Manipulation - Lvl 45

Constructs:
Reinforcement (Construct)
Thermokinetic Mana Heart (Construct)
Mana Regulator (Construct)
Mana Sovereignty Mantle (Construct)
Vortex Core (Construct)

Passive skills:
Mana Reservoir (epic)
Arcane Resilience (epic)
Phoenix Embrace (epic)
Mana Overload Absorption (epic)
Cognitive Fortress (epic)

Titan's Backbone (epic) 1/3

Shards: 123,129

***

Next Chapter

***

Author's note: So, it's the second chapter today so we can close this Minion mini-arc.
As I mentioned on Discord, there will be some changes in future Book 4 that will go on Amazon—9 months later, lol. Or maybe I'll forget and keep it as it is, who knows!

There won't be a chapter tomorrow since you got it today—just letting you know.

Things have been hectic for me lately because I'm busy in real life. As some of you probably know, in 2-3 months I will finally be unemployed (by my choice) and a full-time author, so until then, it will be a mess.

After that, I should have much more time and energy to do stuff I haven't been able to do until now. :)