Wolf of the Blood Moon - Book 3 - Chapter 56 - Catalysts (Patreon)

                                                       Scarlet

“That didn’t take long,” Grandpa says with a raised brow after appearing out of nowhere in my room, making me jump in surprise straight off the bed, the man having been busy with something when I got back to the castle. “You ready to learn about catalysts in full? More than just what the humans know about them?”

I quickly nod my head, honestly not having expected him to finish his business in just a few minutes. Seeing as I literally just sat down on my bed in the first place after getting here.

He raises his hand, making a crystal shard appear in it covered in blood as he says, “This here is a Class II Fracture Core Shard, one of the many possible Catalysts. And to ascend with it, you’d need two of these.” Then he raises his other hand, making three objects appear there, each covered in blood as well with one of them – some sort of purple organ – pushed out a little closer to me than the others. “This is the heart of a Class III demon, and to ascend with these, you’d need one hundred Class III demon hearts as only fifty of these combined count as a Catalyst.” The heart moves in a circle, making the next object – some sort of crystal – move to take its place. “This is a Class III Metal that has passively absorbed mana for thousands of years, and to ascend with it you would need at least a few kilograms of the stuff.” And lastly, the final object – some sort of glowing orb – moves to take its place. “And then there’s the pure brute force manner of ascending. With a core or other object packed full of mana.”

“Wait, something like that can act as a catalyst?” I can’t help but ask, looking at the orb that I’m pretty sure is just a random magical item designed to hold mana that someone filled to the top.

Grandpa nods, “It can and does.” The orb vanishes with a snap of his finger. “But you’ll be using the demon hearts since you’ve already got quite a collection growing of them.”

That has me blinking in confusion, only for a pile of hearts to suddenly appear in the room, somehow not making a mess of the floor.

“You didn’t think your bodyguards were only there to protect you, did you?” he asks with a smug grin on his face. “They were also there to collect the hearts of any demons you killed and preserve them for your ascension.”

My jaw drops open.

How the heck did they manage to do that without me noticing? I’m pretty sure it should’ve been rather obvious if they were going around digging through the bodies of the demons I killed.

“Right now you have a total of forty-nine Class III demon hearts,” he says, sounding slightly impressed by the number. “So tomorrow you can go ahead and hunt just Class III demons for more hearts and if you get enough by the end of the night, you can go ahead and ascend in the bath chamber.”

I nod at that, only to pause at the mention of the incredibly nice bath chamber.

He smirks at that and adds, “Don’t worry, the bath can easily cleanse the ascension impurities.”

Thank the stars. I was notlooking forward to experiencing that again. The pain is bad enough already.

“What’s a Class III Metal exactly?” I ask, genuinely curious as I look at the crystal. “We don’t have those on Earth.”

He moves the crystal closer to me and says, “They form in areas of high mana usage, generally after a contractor uses a strong enough magic that it floods the area with mana, making the world in that area begin generating its own mana after having its reality touched by the powerful magic. And it would be more accurate to say that they don’t form on Earth yet, since it takes hundreds or even over a thousand years for them to form from the ambient mana.”

Oh.

“And Earth’s only been in the System for two hundred years,” I finish, making him nod. Then he snaps his fingers once more, making the Class III Metal vanish along with the Core Shards.

Grandpa suddenly pats me on the head, making me frown and push away his hand, but he just laughs and says, “Well, I’ve gotta go, dear pup. I shouldn’t make those Demon Lords wait too long just because I left to see you.”

My jaw drops open.

“Did you really-” he vanishes before I finish, trailing off part of the way, “leave in the middle of a meeting…”

Tar starts laughing as he appears, draping himself over my armored shoulder.

He really just dipped on his meeting to go see me and explain Catalysts? I hope the Demon Lords don’t blame me for that.

Wait a second.

I frown.

How could The Reaper have been in a meeting with him if he met with me in the forest?

“It was probably a clone that we saw,” Tar says, finally getting over his laughing fit. “He’s certainly strong enough to make one.”

True.

Oh, shit. He left so fast I didn’t get the chance to ask him about The Reaper…

“You can ask him later,” Tar says with a cute wave of his paw. “Not like he’s going anywhere permanently.”

Hmm, you’ve got a point.

I walk over and lie down on my bed again while deactivating my armor, resulting in me once again being in casual clothes or a T-shirt and pants. Although I stopped wearing my jacket it could get damaged on Tartarus beyond Repair’s capability to repair it.

One thing I should definitely ask Leonidas about later.

“What is it?” Tar asks, sounding curious as he crawls onto my chest and lies down.

The armor is missing one of its most important parts.

Pockets.

The tanuki just snorts and closes his eyes, seemingly going to sleep without bothering to say anything in response.

I mean it. They really need pockets.

And I don’t mean the spatial ones they have.

Real pockets I can put my hands in, because I’m too used to putting my hands in my pockets as I walk. So it feels awkward now that I can’t do that.

Tar doesn’t respond, instead snoring.

I roll my eyes at that before glancing at the window to find the sun rising.

Then I close my eyes, beginning to go to sleep myself without caring about the open window.

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