Chapter 433 - Man overboard (Patreon)

Everyone on the shiptrain flying thing seems to have mana batteries on them. Some just have a few of lower quality, others dozens of them put all over their clothes.

Most of them don’t like me looking at them, counting the mana stones, but mostly just a glance at my crown is enough to leave me alone.

I don’t think they know it’s [Mana Crown], but crowns seem to be rare enough for them to not want to mess with me. Especially now that they can’t regenerate their mana the moment they spend it.

The same as them, I also save my mana even though I have plenty of it. My crown, my reservoir, and my body. I would be very surprised if there is anyone on the shiptrain flying thing with more mana than me. Plus, after my training with Liss, I constantly work on efficiency. It still pisses me off that I was unable to do something during these two weeks, so I constantly train it.

It is a shame it’s now even rarer for me to use all of my mana, but at the same time, it could be said that increased efficiency means more mana? And more mana is good. So I take efficiency more seriously than before.

Just a few hours ago, my [Mana Manipulation] leveled up because of that, and the crown not that long ago as well.

When I feel a presence moving closer to me, I let it come, it revealing itself as a man around my age with a blank expression, long brown wavy hair, and blue eyes.

On his waist, he has two short swords, and his movement is very nimble and trained-looking. The way he steps on the tips of his toes before landing on his entire feet.

Unlike most of the others, he has a single mana battery, but of high quality. A big blue mana stone embedded in the middle of his chainmail made of black metal. The way he moves shows it doesn’t even weigh that much.

“[Mana Crown]?” he asks and also rests against the railing, looking at the Mana Desert we fly over.

“[Notyourfuckingproblem Crown],” I correct him.

“I see,” he answers, unbothered.

Unwilling to leave first, as I came here before him, I continue to look at the desert as well while even now trying to detect what dares to mess with my mana.

So far, my Mantle construct doesn’t seem to cause it trouble, and neither does using my [Mana Domain] and concentrating it in my body. The effect of Mana Desert is either that powerful or that tricky.

“If things go to shit, want your and my group to stick together if needed? I’m already going around and asking a few more powerful groups to do the same. There are four with mine already, and yours would be fifth and last.”

“Because of my [Notyourfuckingproblem Crown]?”

“That and your friend’s [Lightning Crown].”

I examine him again. He seems on the stronger side, taking into consideration the rest of the people.

(Tess, some guy wants us to join their secret 5 strong group super secret alliance. To stick together if things go to shit,) I send through the link.

(Is he strong?)

I glance at the man again.

[Dawnslayer - lvl 265]

(I like his class name. It’s Dawnslayer, and he is level 265, decent equipment as well. A few upper epic pieces.)

(I think I saw him already. You can agree for now and tell him to meet me on the deck in around 30 minutes.)

(Will do so.)

“Sure, our group leader will be here in thirty minutes so you guys can talk. The blonde with the crown.”

He looks at me, still with a blank expression, and tilts his head to the side a bit as if something surprised him.

“I will do it,” he says.

After that, I let him be and leave. On the stairs, I slow down and reduce the effect of Restrictive Training Emblem just a little bit and rest against the wall for a moment.

Damn, that thing is evil.

Still, I refuse to look at my stats for fear of being disappointed, and after a while, I head back down and allow myself to lower my guard a bit only as I enter our room.

My monobloc mana chair… no, my manabloc chair is still there, with Biscuit laying on it.

(Food!)

“I didn’t find any.”

(Gone?)

“Something like that.”

(Sustenance?)

“Probably a week.”

The next message doesn’t come, Biscuit looking too shocked to say anything. Reaching my manabloc chair, I lift him up, sit down, and put him on my lap.

As he turns around, I meet his eyes, and they are wide open.

“It will be fine,” I pet him and ruffle the top of his head, even giving him some scratches until he calms down slightly.

“You promised me, so don’t eat people, okay?”

(Food!) he complains, how I allow myself to mention something so dumb.

“Just making sure,” I pull him closer and lean back.

“We can talk out loud now. Sophie improved her web, and I don’t think anyone will be able to listen to us, but can you check just in case?” Tess asks me.

I do that, and it seems as she said. The web was made to detect such attempts and block the sound from passing through.

After making a few quick changes because of the access I have to it, I nod at Tess, and even she seems to be satisfied with that.

“Are you not ashamed, passing annoying stuff for Tess to do constantly?” Maya turns to me.

“Would you like me to deal with these people instead?”

That makes Maya pause, and after a moment of thinking, she seems to change her stance. Even so, to my satisfaction, she doesn’t say anything, and she must know how I’m feeling, and that seems to annoy her.

“Evil orb?” I ask.

“Evil orb,” Maya sighs.

I create an orb I modified especially for her. The intention behind it is to help her with [Armament] to make her mana creations stronger.

Working on it, I had plenty of fun, and I believe this kind of stuff will help me with crafting and, surprisingly, to increase the efficiency with which I use my mana.

“You two too,” I turn to the twins and send one orb to each of them.

Theirs are slightly different, more focused on pure [Mana Manipulation]. No changing frequencies, just a changing amount of mana the orbs require to stay.

Used to it already, they grab them.

“Here Nat goes again, making us play with his balls,” Dennis sighs.

“Two of them even,” Aaron nods seriously.

“Sophie, do you remember when they said that…”

“I fucking remember that, Nat, you don’t have to bring me into…”

“Well, they said a bit more, but I understand if you don’t want to hear.”

That makes Sophie pause, and she glances at the twins whose orbs shrink… ehm… disappear. Heh.

There is a bit of paleness to their expression. I sense them trying to open a private link to talk with me through [Connection], but I resist the effort.

In the end, Sophie just shakes her head and turns to Tess, “Want me to go with you to talk to the guy?”

The blonde, already on her feet, nods, “Why not. Nat, please don’t bully the boys.”

“Want to hear what they said about you? It’s…” I lift my hand and block the lightning she shoots at me, and then another one.

She adds a dozen more, each small as a pinkie, and shoots in quick succession, even forcing me to use kinetic energy to boost my movement. Even so, it’s just playful poking at this point. Probably as dangerous as a bullet shot from a pistol, but playful.

As Sophie and Tess head towards the door, Biscuit jumps from my lap and wobbles quickly to them.

(Food!) he shouts as he joins the group.

“Please make sure he doesn’t eat people. They are dirty,” I call to Tess.

(Asshole!) Biscuit shouts, turning to me, and then follows outside as they leave.

The door closes, and the defenses reactivate, leaving me in the room with our youngest and Maya.

“There are plenty of young people in the tutorial, don’t you think?” I ask Maya while creating orbs for her and the twins, the first ones I made already gone.

“Younger people are quicker to adapt, could be why,” she shrugs and furrows her brow, focusing on her orb.

Knowing how annoying it is when someone interrupts your training, I leave her be and turn to my own experiments. My never-ending pursuit of mastering mana and lately increased efficiency.

Not needing to move or walk, I increase the setting on the Restrictive Training Emblem and feel my muscles burn. A constant painful reminder in the back of my mind. No pain, no gain, right? Some people would kill me knowing I train my muscles just by sitting, but sooner or later, I will need Lily and her modification.

I have started to delve deeper into the Restrictive Training Emblem, and the thing is more interesting than I thought. There are multiple parts to it. Some focusing more on dexterity, others on strength, and some on constitution.

Currently, if I’m correct, it seems like the main objective is my strength, followed by dexterity and constitution.

Following this path, history will repeat itself, my constitution unable to handle my other increased stats. It has already gotten used to mana, and there are multiple ways I help it, but strength and dexterity are different things.

Body modification seems like the way to go. That and modifying the emblem a bit, but currently, I’m far, far from being able to do so.

Part of me wonders if it’s something Sandra the Cockroach had done on purpose.

Hah.

Who am I kidding? Of course she did.

The emblem is as evil as I thought.

***

POV Dennis Dalton

Nathaniel just sits there. Menacingly.

For some reason, even that sitting seems to cause him trouble, and once in a while, tears appear on his skin, blood following through. At some point, one of his fingers twitches and then bends with an audible crack.

That makes him open his eyes and glance at the wound for barely a second before closing them again.

Whatever he does, I don’t want it. I also don’t want four of these orbs to float over my head as he does. Just one of them is scary enough.

Then a few hours later, he stands up, clearly moving with extreme difficulty. He calls it Burden Enhancement Inscriptions and says it’s for his kinetic energy training. Over and over again, he repeats a simple set of movements and mumbles things like, “That’s not it,” “It doesn’t feel right,” “She did it differently,” and then throws curses at someone called Sandra.

(Who the fuck is Sandra?) I can hear Aaron.

(I don’t want to know. Do you think he will make us do the same?)

(Most likely. You heard Kim talking about how Nat trains him once in a while.)

(Fuck.)

(Yea, fuck...)

A few hours later, our group is at the deck together with a few more groups. According to the schedule, it’s our time for defense, but as up until now, there is no one attacking the creepy ship we are on.

Bored, suicidal, or straight-up dumb, two smaller groups, ten people combined, start antagonizing our group.

At first, they, sure of their numbers, make fun of Nat, who falls down a few times because of his training he does even now. His expression is even more empty than usual as he focuses on his training, and he seems straight-up unaware or weak. Even so, he glances at the group, not bothered at all, returning to his training instead.

Kim is the first one who wants to fight these people, to defend Nat, but he is stopped by Tess.

Our Korean friend just doesn’t seem to understand why Nat just lets it pass. He never does. But he should know by now. We’ve been told it by Izzy and Tess plenty of times.

Nat is usually very laid back and patient when harm is done to him. He seems to be more comfortable when people treat him like that, as if he is used to it. Of course, there is a line that when you pass, you are done, but that line is very broad.

That all changes very quickly when Nat isn’t the target of these attacks.

The people bothering us, a combination of three different races, notice Kim raring to go and start making fun of him. Tess sighs, knowing what is to come, and holds back, gesturing us to do the same.

Becoming braver because of our reaction, which they interpret as fear, they shove Nat away and start poking Kim, who, following orders from Tess, also holds back.

Nat opens his eyes and watches, his gaze cold yet deeply curious. Unfriendly, but with moments of surprising gentleness.

Unlike us, Nat has a lot of mana, so Tess lets him deal with it.

A torn-off arm flies into the air, and the ex-owner of it looks down at his shoulder and then at Nat, who stands nearby already. Before the man can even scream, another punch sends him across the deck.

Nat moves again, in a way that can only be called creepy - rapid bursts of incredible speed, each one ending in a powerful, fluid attack.

(W-wasn’t he mostly ranged and bombardment type?) I get from Aaron.

Nat moves from person to person, and his movements are extremely unpredictable. Sometimes he stops mid-attack as if he isn’t at all bothered by the inertia of his own movements, so even I can’t predict where he will move.

One after another, he beats the people from the group in a span of a few seconds, not a single external skill used. Just his body and who knows what else. Not a whiff of mana can be felt from him, and he does so extremely efficiently.

The guy who seldom fights melee now tears through a group of 10 people over level 200 as if it's nothing.

Lastly, he grabs the man who appears to be the leader by the neck and throws him over the railing. The rest of the members are on the deck, bones broken, limbs missing, holes in their bodies caused by his punches, but alive. Just the leader outside lands on that white sand.

No one calls for the ship to stop, no one tries to help him. And Nathaniel stands there, watching with that curiosity as he observes what’s happening.

The man starts screaming and running, trying to catch up to the ship. Bursts of mana shoot from under his feet, a set of barriers he layers there.

But it’s all useless. Each step across causes the white sand to fly into the air and pierce through the barriers easily, and just as easily, it goes through his legs. Like some nightmare sandpaper, getting rid of his skin, flesh, and bones the longer he runs.

Just a few moments later, there are just pieces of bones and flesh left under his knees, and the man falls onto the sand, his blood seeping around him.

We are far away at this point, and Nat moves to the back of the ship to watch longer, golden circles around his pupils.

The wind outside blows into the white sand that even now constantly moves across the tall dunes, and its waves clash against that body. Each pass takes more and more of him until there is barely anything left, and then, even that little disappears.

***

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