Chapter 492 - Young white haired demon (Patreon)

My room is an even bigger mess than before. Most of the furniture—aside from the bed, a few armchairs, and the sofa—has disappeared along with the carpet. The floor is now covered in etched inscriptions, with some extending to the walls, accompanied by mana batteries powering them and more.

Once-functional protective arrays are reworked and Frankenstein-ed to work in the way I want. The same goes for the inscriptions on the huge windows on one side of the wall.

At the moment, my room is excluded from the tower's array and fully under my control. There are also multiple Ley Lines connecting some of the inscriptions to the Framework, which I constantly monitor.

Made out of the high-quality materials I collected, there are also two bases, for a shield and an ax on the ground. Just the sheer quality of the materials should easily push them to upper epic rarity, but I purposefully don’t finish them. Instead, they are half done, waiting as I continue with my plans.

In the corner of the room, a box made of white glass also waits. The same as the ones I brought with me to Beyond not that long ago, filled with the white sand from Mana Desert. Next to it, a few weapons from the Mana Desert as well. I still remember my promise with Sophie to try to work the white sand into a damaged arcane weapon called Golem Heart that I gave her. By this point, I’m sure she’s improved it, and it might be possible to start experimenting with a grain or two of sand.

The only problem is that Sophie has been locked in her room for a few days already, and there are two people freely going in and out—Izzy and Tess.

Otherwise, it’s been a few days since we saw Sophie, and the only sign of her presence is feeling her checking on the protective arrays or confirming her control over the mind mages she controlled. No one comes to visit our tower. There are no attacks, and even the amount of spying on us has lowered and become more careful, confirmed by Tess, who likes to keep guard.

The ignition of the Framework is getting closer, so it's quite a mess with one of the most powerful mind mages missing and people under his control freed. I’m also curious what happened to that vyssari with thermal energy and the rumored second primordial energy. That curiosity isn’t big enough to go out and try to find out. She seemed skilled but nowhere near Melel's level or talented enough to make me want to learn from her.

A presence appears in front of my door, and I activate the mana construct I put on them. They open on their own and close when my guest enters, the protections reactivating.

Noodle swiftly slithers in between the golden chains, pieces of metal, and stones and climbs onto the armchair, careful not to touch Biscuit, who is sleeping on my lap, still not awakened.

"Just in time," I tell the snake and pull one of the floating mana orbs near me closer.

As I put it in front of him, Noodle patiently waits.

“So, sorry for the last time. I thought a low addition of thermal energy would make the orb tastier.”

The white snake just closes and opens those weird eyelids that snakes have.

“It seems like you can only absorb mana and likely normal fire because of your bond with Izzy. Since she doesn’t possess thermal energy, that's the reason why you got a bit... sick. This orb I modified a bit again. Frequency of mana, density, and amount are different. So, what do you think?”

His tongue flickers as he tastes the air in front of the orb, and only then does he open his mouth and take it from my hand gently.

The orb disappears in his mouth, and Noodle “blinks” with that snake way.

When he looks at me, he nods, but only once.

“Hmm, so not as tasty as the last time, but better than the previous one?”

He nods again.

“I will modify the next version a bit more,” I promise the snake and gesture at him, to which he coils around my arm.

Making my mana seep through my skin from the arm the white snake is coiled around, I activate my eye trait and carefully observe him.

As a few times before, Noodle starts absorbing that mana through his mouth, it disappearing inside of his body without any trace left behind while I try to pick up at least a bit of how he does it.

***

The next day, I stand over an inscription-covered circle that surrounds the two weapons I made but haven’t finished. They took a lot of precious materials, but if my plan works, it will be well worth it. These inscriptions and the circle around the weapons, as well as the shield and ax themselves, are connected with Ley Lines that are then connected to the main Ley Line, which is then connected to the Framework.

Satisfied with the result, I leave it there and stretch after standing up.

Min-Jae, who sits on one of the armchairs with Biscuit in his arms, waves to get my attention.

“I went through the simplified blueprint of Restrictive Training Emblem with the twins the other day, and I think you were right. I should be able to make my own version that would increase the weight of the person wearing it.”

“But?”

“I’m not that good at this kind of stuff, so I can only do it actively and don’t know how to apply it so someone else can activate it on their own. And modifying it so they can use their own mana to activate something I made is even more difficult.”

“That’s okay, it’s all meant to be an inspiration for the future.”

“I won’t complain,” he nods, and the glass with some juice on the table in front of him floats in the air before the liquid inside floats out of it.

That liquid spins slowly, staying together and forming a sphere that Min-Jae gulps. “Do you have more blueprints or information about Skyhold Islands? I already went through the most.”

“Left corner of the room, placed on the green shirt, oval mana stone. And also take the grape-sized round one next to it—it contains some basic inscriptions and some very flowery theory on creating lasting constructs. You might need them if you want your own floating island.”

“Was it so obvious?” he smiles in his typical shy way, and the stones fly into his hands.

“It would be a shame if you didn’t want it with your combination of abilities. You can ask Aaron and Dennis for more info; I drilled some basics into them, and they are quite good at it.”

“The infamous 2nd and 3rd disciples of Nathaniel Gwyn.” He gently puts the sleeping corgi puppy onto the blankets on the armchair and then adjusts one so only the head is poking out.

As he leaves the room, I think of the last words he said but in the end decide to shrug it off and think of it later.

Closing my eyes, I appear within my mind space.

This one is unlike any I’ve seen before, and I know right away it’s not from my memories as this happened a few times before already.

I look to the right at the white-haired demon standing next to me and then follow his red eyes, looking in the same direction.

Within all the yellow sand surrounding us, a beautiful oasis stands below us. A huge jagged rock pierces the ground in the middle of that oasis, creating shade, and the grass, trees, and forest grow around it. The jagged rock itself is bluish with a metallic shine, and even though there are no inscriptions, it has a similar feel. Within that oasis, a few demons move around, all of them tall and slim with horns similar to Whitey's and the same red eyes.

Sticking out like a sore thumb is a single demon with long white hair, the one wearing the worst, worn-out clothes and with wounds all over.

The demon is very young, likely somewhere between Vega and Izzy, just a bit under 10 years old. The demon looks sickly, his heart beats weakly unlike the other demons, his limbs are thinner, and he even seems to be paralyzed on the left side of his body, his left arm moving slowly, and he often pulls his leg behind him or takes clumsy steps.

“Demons can be born with one trait, powerful ones with two. How does that work without the system?” I ask and sit down in the warm sand.

Whitey looks away from the oasis and sits next to me. “Some traits can give you access to primordial energies. Most of the demons are born with hearts that give access to one. Some can be born without a demon heart and have demon eyes instead, or rarely both. I heard of traits such as physiques, circuits, skeletal structures, and more. It varies a lot.”

“Free traits should be considered cheating. So getting the system awakens mana?”

“From what I’ve heard, yes. There are fragments of eternal fire, fragments of eternal wind, and more. There are also primordial energies and likely some other things you can get even without the system, but only the system can awaken mana.”

We watch as the white-haired demon slowly moves up to the dune. He almost falls a few times but slowly reaches the place where we are and sits an arm’s reach away from Whitey.

He clearly can’t see us; he is just a memory.

Calming his inconsistently beating heart, he closes his eyes and throws a handful of sand into the air.

Most of the grains fall down, but a few stay there, floating. They move from side to side, they shake, and it looks like they’re about to fall down; in the end, they do. To that, the young demon smiles brightly and laughs happily. He lays on his back, tired even after such a little thing, and wipes sweat off his face.

Inside the oasis, little kids, probably half the white-haired demon kid’s age, do the same thing, throwing two big handfuls of sand, all the hundreds and thousands of grains then held in the air with ease.

“Such a dumb little fucker, isn’t he? Damned untalented crippled freak.” Whitey stares at the young demon, who, even though malnourished, bears a similar handsome face to the grown demon.

“I quite like his spirit.”

“Yes, he was always a bit dumb. Some might consider it a strong spirit.”

Whitey stands in one smooth movement and stomps. The entire dune we stand upon explodes into the air, all the sand shooting high up before all of it stops. The yellow grains shine as the sunlight finds its way in between them, creating incredible shadows all over the place.

“Out of the 7 stances I have shown you, there are a few that are clearly your favorites.”

Whitey’s hair also floats in the air, held there by the same force that holds all the grains of sand.

"Pulser Stance suits you well, and you’re not half bad—you just need more practice. The same goes for Breaker Style. As for Wraith Dance, you seem to use it mostly for movement rather than anything else."

“I agree so far.”

His teeth show in a smile. “As if you could counter my opinion, you little shit. I know more about kinetic energy than you will ever know.”

I bow. “I’m sorry, master.”

That makes him smile even more, and I know when we spar, his punches will hurt more than usual.

“Your Resonance Flow is powerful. Your ability to handle massive amounts of raw power is probably better than mine, but that’s understandable given how accustomed you are to managing such disgusting amount of mana. Your fine control, however, is a bit lacking."

Whitey pokes one of the floating grains of sand, and it slowly falls to the ground. “Your Needle Point is trash. Close to mid-range, you can use bursts of kinetic energy to attack, but long range is just abominable. Your Counter Flow is decent, and your Steelroot sucks.”

"Sounds about right."

He smirks deviously. "Today, you’ll be using only Needle Point, Steelroot, and Wraith Dance."

All the demons within the oasis, along with the young white-haired demon near us, vanish like the memories they are.

The dune collapses in a cascade of sand, and we clash amidst the chaos.

***

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