Chapter 387 - You are free to try it anytime (Patreon)

When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is the Veil high in the sky. Feeling a presence near me, I turn my head to the side, and Lissandra sits there on the fallen trunk of a tree.

Myrra is nowhere to be seen.

“I sent her to level up,” Lissandra says.

“Got it.” Sending thermal energy through my body, my passive activates, and it starts healing my wounds.

Lissandra lets it happen, and only after a while does she say, “You are free to challenge me anytime.”

With piqued-up interest, I watch her. Even after all this, I can’t help but sense a lot of admiration towards her. She is the only being I’ve felt it towards so far. The strongest being I’ve met through the floors, not counting the Ruler of Greed and the Ruler of Envy.

“I never backed down from a challenge, little pup. I have defeated more than a dozen Absolutes. I have beaten all the Champions eyeing my title and thinking they are ready to challenge me. Just through my own power, I have made my planet victorious in every Pairing.” A long silence follows her words.

Lissandra continues then, “Before these two weeks end, you will know more, and I won’t kill you if you do not break the rules I set. So come, challenge me, little pup. Test yourself and see what breaks sooner, you or your pride.”

“I would ask why, but you wouldn’t answer, right?”

“I don't feel like it, but if you use that head of yours, you might come up with my reason.”

“What did you do to my black mana dagger?”

“I turned it into my external and temporary mana heart. As you have realized, I do not have a mana heart, so I have to rely on using external mana. For that, I modified the dagger you left behind.”

“What is that black mana?”

“I will tell you if you survive.”

“You used Hadwin’s skills.”

“Yes.”

“Why would you need my status then? You can take over Hadwin’s?”

"I told the Ruler of Envy I can't do that. He was surprisingly gullible and believed that. He also used one of the tutorial’s functions to bring that other man here, so I could give status to little kitten."

It seems like old Liss is making plans of her own. I would like to ask more, but she seems to be at her limit. All-powerful Absolute cockroaches aren’t used to lowly people like us asking too many questions, so I better stop here. Instead, I go through the list of my skills and the ones I could most likely push to level 50 in these two weeks.

The ones most likely are [Focus] which is at 49, [Mana Manipulation] which is at 47, but something that I think I have a high chance to get there. Then the last one is most likely [Redistribution] currently at 48. Either that or [Resonance] currently at 45.

There is [Perception] at 46, but I don’t think I would be able to get it there in time. It’s not a skill that I can level up that quickly.

I also start right away. Lissandra doesn’t seem to want to mess with my training much further, even though I’m sure she is watching. Still, for now, I push her presence to the back of my mind.

What I start doing is similar to the mana shaping exercise she kept doing on the 2nd floor. A ball of mana constantly growing and shrinking. That alone wouldn’t be that great, so obviously I added some challenges I’m sure she also used. I increase the density of mana, I spin it, I increase the speed.

It takes only a few minutes, and I hear Lissandra stand up and walk towards me. I look up, and she looks at me and at the mana orb I use to practice.

She flicks her hand and sends it flying far away where it expands between the trees and bursts open.

Making sure I watch, she then gestures at me, and I send a chunk of my mana towards her. That mana gets absorbed by the black dagger, and from it, Lissandra pulls it out. Out of that mana, she creates a small mana orb and then another. In quick succession, dozens, then hundreds, come into existence.

While looking at me and not even seeming to try that hard, she shrinks them, all to the size of the eye of a needle. Like a swarm, these tiny orbs move and create the shape of an orb.

They are so small the newly created orb seems like a single orb instead of thousands of tiny orbs forming it. The sheer control required to do something like that makes me unable to say anything.

With fascination, I reach my finger and touch the surface that ripples like water, thousands of tiny orbs reacting to my touch and reforming the fake smooth-looking surface.

Lissandra then moves her hand, and as if it’s not more difficult than breathing, all the orbs burst open and in a blink form into a single orb. But it’s not that simple. Sending my senses toward it, I see another orb inside of that.

Then another.

And more.

Each orb is smaller than the previous one, with an insanely thin layer separating it from the previous one. The amount of orbs feel like they go on infinitely.

With another movement of her hand, all the orbs disappear and instead, just two smaller orbs are formed inside the third one. These two orbs inside start spinning around each other.

Gradually, the speed of their spin increases to a terrifying degree. A vortex is created between them, trying to pull the mana from the orb they are spinning inside of. Yet that orb resists simply, not even letting the sound of the two orbs spinning at impossible speeds get out.

Then the orbs disappear, turning into particles of mana that Lissandra waves her hand and sends away.

“Little pup, it pains me to watch your clumsy attempts at mana shaping. The exercises I just showed you are something everyone capable of breathing should be able to do.”

Here it comes. This is something I really didn’t miss that much.

“Another thing is your weak body. I have noticed you have used Active Tempering multiple times with somewhat passable success for someone so clumsy. For now, you are forbidden to use it. In the way you fight, it’s obvious you rely on your mana and primordial energies a lot, so I will have you train your body.”

“Are you that bored?”

“If you live as long as I did, you will learn how rare it is to experience something new. I told you multiple times that the rank of Champion is the highest you will get, little pup. It’s something I still stand behind. Yet you keep refusing that assessment. Determination is here, more than enough of it, only your talent is lacking. So I want to see how far you can make it.”

“Lucky me.”

“Indeed. In my long life, I did have only one disciple, and the number of people I gave my guidance to could be counted on the fingers of my hands.”

“You mean Ruby. Was she really that talented?”

“I judged her capable of reaching my level. If that’s not considered talented, I don’t know what is.”

Done talking, Lissandra takes a step closer and pulls a bit more mana from the black dagger.

“Lower your defenses,” she orders.

I do it without much hesitation.

Lissandra taps with her finger on my chest where my heart is, and from it, an incredibly intricate web of inscriptions crawls onto my skin, some pathways even connecting to my heart that starts powering them.

“A long time ago, even before my Keiron was born, I saw one fresh Champion do it. I have never tried it before, but it seems simple.”

The inscriptions look anything but simple. The intricacy is easily comparable to the inscriptions of the damaged arcane item in my possession. In some ways, they are even more impossible to follow. But of course, for the monster in front of me, even things like this are considered banal.

“I think that man called them Burden Enhancement Inscriptions. Back then, the young ones really liked coming up with fancy names for everything.”

Even while talking, she continues to inscribe, not even for a second does her concentration slip.

“Little pup, I won’t ask you if you agree and what level I should set these for. We both know your answer. That stubbornness of yours is one of the reasons why I find you interesting.”

“That’s nice to hear from someone who threatens to kill me.”

“I knew people like you. You are the kind who does the best when they are at their worst. But little pup, not even for a moment think I didn’t mean what I said back then. If you fail, I will kill you.”

“It would be nice if you declared me an Absolute candidate if I succeed.”

“If you succeed, you will prove you are capable enough to be declared a Champion candidate by my standards. That's it.” She finishes and takes her hand away, leaving delicate inscriptions behind.

“What are the advantages of being a Champion or Champion candidate? Are there any actual advantages?” I ask.

“The system doesn’t like to waste its resources on the weak. If you prove yourself talented enough to become a candidate, your body will start changing in preparation for you to become a Champion. It’s different for everyone, so you will find out on your own.”

“Something like a body upgrade, but…”

“Enough.”

I shut up immediately. Well, this is as much as I will get from her. I might have pushed too far and asked too many questions. Old people have no patience at all.

She takes the last remainder of my mana from the black dagger and sends it towards me. That activates the inscriptions, and I fall to the ground.

It’s as if an immense pressure is pushing me down. Something akin to increased gravity. The only difference is that there is no external source of that. All of it is caused by the inscriptions, my mana, and my body. I can’t even twitch my finger, and it’s difficult to breathe.

“I have noticed it, but you possess kinetic energy, little pup. So I wonder, why do you keep using mana to strengthen your body? Kinetic energy is extremely rare and one of the best ways to do that. I knew knights who would kill for it, yet you waste it like that.”

Unable to answer, I just lay there. No matter what I try, I can’t move at all. The only reasonable way seems to be to get rid of these inscriptions that do not allow me to use my mana to strengthen my body. They also make this bullshit happen. But something tells me Lissandra wouldn’t appreciate it.

“You might even say that using mana is more efficient than transforming it into kinetic energy with your heart. Maybe you will also say it doesn’t matter as you have a lot of mana and could probably get the same result with it as with kinetic energy. You are wrong.”

She takes a few steps back and sits on a stone. With one eye, I can see her pulling the pale white arm from the bag, and she starts painting on it with mana conductive paint. The lines she draws are extremely smooth and thin.

From there, she glances at me and declares, “You won’t be sleeping for the next two weeks. Every morning, you will spend five hours in the state you are currently in. When you show improvement, I will make changes and increase the pressure.”

I would love to say something nice to her, but I can’t even squirm like a worm, so I reach into my Vortex Core and let kinetic energy seep through my body.

“After these five hours, you will spend five more hours hunting and leveling. Then I will let you rest for one hour. After that, you will spend ten hours doing the mana shaping exercises I will show you.”

The inscriptions she made do not hinder kinetic energy at all, but even though I have some experience with it, it’s not enough. Not even when I use a crazy amount of it am I able to lift a finger.

“The remaining three hours will be randomly picked by me during the day. I might have you do maximal bursts of your mana or primordial energies. I might rouse up the entirety of your mana and have you put it under your control.”

She stops drawing on the arm.

"After these two weeks, you will probably hate me enough to want to kill me."

She makes sure I’m looking at her. “You are free to try it anytime.”

***

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