Chapter 427 - Knight (Patreon)

“So what can Noodle do? You spend most of the time with him,” I ask Izzy.

Meanwhile, the said white snake with emerald eyes coils around a piece of the bone I gave him, the one from Veil Ignition Station no. 2. He straight-up ignores the second one from the Bone Fortress.

So far, he doesn’t eat it or anything similar. He just keeps flicking his tongue towards it and touching it with his scaly body. There is also some mana used, and I observe the process, even activating my trait to do so.

Izzy watches it as well. “Noodle can eat mana from the air. He can also perfectly store and digest it to the point where it can’t be felt from him at all.”

That seems somewhat similar to Biscuit’s primordial energy or my black mana. The difference is that Biscuit seems to be able to… well, who the hell knows. He just does some weird stuff that scares some people a lot.

My black mana is an extremely dense mana that tries to absorb and dominate any mana it reaches. Meanwhile, Noodle actively eats it, and then it… it disappears or gets used for something.

“Can Noodle grow bigger or use that mana?” I ask.

“He…” Izzy hesitates, as if there is something she is hiding. Her eyes glance at me, Biscuit, and Noodle. “He can grow bigger if he wants to. And I think he needs a lot of time to slowly digest that mana and use it to become stronger. He can absorb a lot, but then it takes even longer.”

So something akin to his own reservoir where he puts that absorbed mana, and then it changes and transforms over time to something he can use?

From my own testing, I know using mana from someone else is extremely difficult. Each person has a slightly different kind of mana. Part of it can be avoided by changing frequencies, but it’s not as simple. It’s very difficult, and the results of using mana that isn’t yours can turn out catastrophic. Of course, if you aren’t a monster like Lissandra.

That’s one of the reasons I want to improve my [Resonance] and master my eyes more. My skill set and my [Mana Manipulation] should allow me to do that. Maybe not now, but sometime in the future. There is one very situational but extremely powerful build I have in mind.

A set of skills I could use to mess up anyone using mana in the presence of my domain that is now strengthened by my Pride.

Oh boy, this stuff will be scary in a year or two.

“Noodle also seems to be acknowledged as Isabella’s pet or something,” Sophie lifts her head from the construct she is working on. “His growth is influenced by Isabella’s, and later she might also gain some abilities from him if I had to guess. Noodle is even now capable of easily resisting her flames so they do not damage him, and he seems to be good at reading people, similarly to her skill.”

After that, all three of us turn to the snake that continues to ignore us. I’m absolutely sure he heard and probably understood what we were talking about. Even that it was about him.

Yet he pretends not to hear and snuggles the bone.

“This one is for free, but I have a few more pieces that you will have to work for,” I tell the snake, and grabbing Biscuit, I stand up with him in my arms.

Noodle looks at me and then moves his head just a tiny bit, almost as if nodding.

There are some things I want to try on the snake and examine his skill. Using a few pieces of bone isn’t that high a payment.

Lily already got a few as well to work on ways to modify her and then my body.

***

Later that day, I meet with Maya, who returns from her hunt she had with Tess and Lily. She is holding Bloodthirst, the claymore I gave her. I have decided to let her borrow the weapon and examine its effects while I work on my own stuff. She agreed quite easily, totally excited to try a new weapon.

“So?” I ask. “How was it?”

“Well, we almost died. A strong three question marks monster popped up out of nowhere and nearly ate Tess. It even resisted Lily’s [Disintegration] a few times because of its size.”

“Huh? There are such strong ones around?”

“Yup, all over the place, mostly sleeping or hibernating or something. They are often marked on maps as places to avoid, but we started checking them out. The one we met escaped, but Tess left a mark on it, declared it her prey or something, so we will go after it tomorrow.”

It almost makes me want to grab that map and go out on my own, but I push these thoughts away. I have to stick with my plan.

Maya seems to notice that and smiles, lifting the sword with a white blade that has a red shine to it. “As for the claymore, it’s very sharp and even sharper when cutting anything living. I also think that the moment it ‘tastes’ the blood of its target, it becomes more dangerous against that target. There might be some weird debuff too?”

“That’s it?” I ask and take the claymore from her, examining it as well.

Bloodthirst (Arcane, Damaged) - Bloodthirst thrived on the essence of life, growing stronger with each battle. Its hunger for blood has lessened, but it still sporadically draws strength from fresh wounds, offering glimpses of its once insatiable power.

“I think it’s also absorbing some blood, but I haven’t noticed too big a difference. Maybe it needs to absorb more to do some stuff?”

The blade, even though sharp, is clearly damaged in multiple places, a piece of the hilt also missing and broken. It looks like the weapon was chipped away by some powerful force. Maybe it was damaged from clashing with another weapon or skill.

Hell, maybe it was a full arcane item, and Whitey destroyed it.

Thinking of it, there isn’t anything too useful I could learn from it at the moment. At least not more useful than the things I’m already working on.

“You can keep it for a week or two if you want,” I offer it back to Maya, who takes it without any hesitation.

For a moment, I give her the look. She is dark-skinned and probably the oldest out of us here, not that I will say it out loud. She was 28 or something, I think. A professional trainer in her past… I pause with a feeling of amusement. In her past life is what I was about to say. Just a year into this all, and that’s how I’m thinking.

“You are not going to sell these items to get your passive?” she asks me after a moment.

“I was thinking of that, but they are damaged and not made by me. Arcane items start at 100,000 shards, so undamaged found on the floor would be 10-20k shards. Made by me, it would be 50k shards. So damaged arcane items like these would be probably around 5-10k shards. Nice chunk, but still a bit off. For now, I will examine them and maybe use their materials to make something later.”

“Anything for me?” she jokes, spinning the claymore in her hand.

“You are called Knight in the Community, right? We also share the same skill, so I will be nice." I try to act pompous, "How about you become my knight, call me 'Lord' and handle annoying things on my behalf? I would treat you nice, even get you an item or two.” Feeling in a good mood because of my progress so far, I joke.

Surprisingly, Maya seems to take it seriously and thinks of it.

In the end, she answers back with smile that shows she is half serious, half joking, “Sounds better than minion. So as your knight, I would kill your enemies, lead your forces, and collect taxes, right? I could do that.”

My knight... it sounds weird, but it somehow makes sense that things like that would happen with how events have progressed. We saw it on these floors, and things like that will for sure happen on Earth. Maya, even though deciding not to attempt to enter Beyond, is strong even when compared to the Hell difficulty attendees we met during the tournament. She is just that little bit below what is required of someone willing to enter Beyond.

The way how seriously she is taking it even now surprises me.

Not wanting to deal with it now, I don’t reject her, but push it into the future, “It doesn’t sound too unreasonable.”

“Got it, oh my Lord,” she says courteously and bows gracefully. Then, with a wave of her hand and a cheeky smile that breaks the immersion, she leaves towards the area where she likes to spar with Lily.

***

Boosting myself to the top of the tower our group has taken as our headquaters, I stare down at the fort stretching there. It’s the secondary place of Black Tower as HQ was mostly destroyed, but it’s still somewhat impressive.

I watch mana moving in the air as it powers the web stretching there and much further. It’s something that this place already had, and Sophie improved on it in the past few days. She is getting quite good at it as I watch the changes.

As for the prisoners, there are a few dozen of them, mostly using this place as a safe bastion against the monsters. The power is in the numbers, as it is said. They are mostly brutes not dissimilar to the ones I met. It’s not even like all of them are powerful. In this place and “rural” areas, they are weaker than our group.

It seems like towards the “central” area, it is much better, with prisoners even creating something akin to cities if you want to call it that. Or maybe it is. 

This moon seems to have been used as a prison for hundreds of years, maybe even longer. With people at a certain level able to live for centuries, some of them have had enough time to set something up for themselves.

There are rumors about multiple Champion candidates; there is even something akin to legend, whispers about an Absolute candidate thrown here, wounded and left to die, betrayed by people of his planet.

The information is very sparse and hard to get by, as most of these people care mostly for their survival and not in the luxury of caring about this. There were already a few attempts to kill our members when they went to hunt. A group trying to kidnap Sophie, a group trying to force Min-Jae into betraying us, and more.

All of these people were dealt with quickly, cleanly, and with cruelty, showing others we are not to be messed with, because that’s the only thing that this place seems to understand.

Joining me on top of the tower is Izzy. She is alone this time and doesn’t try to connect to my emotions, instead sits next to me and also looks down.

I still remember her from the time the two of us appeared on the 3rd floor, with her being under [Geas]. Izzy right now seems more mature. She is 11 years old, a young girl forced to spend 5 years in this tutorial. To kill to survive, to make hard decisions. She might be very childish at times, but sometimes she feels like the most mature of all of us. So I do wonder if her allowing herself to be childish sometimes isn’t how she overcompensates for all of this she has to go through.

“Sophie decided to go to Beyond,” she says and looks at me with her green eyes. “She is strong, so she will do well, but she is also dumb sometimes, so will you help her? For me?”

As an answer, I poke her side, “We are the same group, so I will. So why so serious?”

“You are hard to read sometimes, so I want to be sure.”

With a sigh, I allow her to connect to my emotions, and she does so very gently. Lately, she seems to be getting nervous when she is unable to sense the emotions of people, as if she has gotten too used to it. I wonder if it's a similar situation to my overreliance on [Focus]. I will mention it to Sophie later.

“You aren’t using that skill to block your emotions anymore,” she sounds somewhat happy saying so.

“It somehow happened,” I shrug.

“Maybe you aren’t as dumb as I thought,” she declares.

To that, I decide to stay quiet, and Isabella only giggles quietly, sensing my emotions.

***

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