[MA] 183. Training Tools (Patreon)

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[A/N: I'm recovered from my friend's wedding. Let's get back on track.

Chapters this week: 1/3

Late chapters: 3

Next release: In a few seconds ]

Everyone tried to talk at once, except Shen.

He was still incapable of understanding how that strange liquid had been able to change his body without permission. It had simply bypassed all his defenses as if they weren't there. Then, everything went blank for an instant, and four notifications waited for him when he came back to himself.

| Max Health Points: 270 → 300

| Health Regen: 30/h → 1/min

| Max Stamina Points: 400 → 500

| Stamina Regen: 25/min → 1/s

Those changes were overwhelming. Shen could now fully heal in 5 hours and recover all his stamina in 8 minutes.

Such fast stamina regen was much better than one might think at first glance. Shen always had to worry about his stamina as he fought, despite his qi usage greatly decreasing how much of the more biological energy he used.

Yet, if he could take advantage of—

"Shen!" Alicia's yell finally took him from his reverie. When he focused on her, she saw a face as red as a tomato and recalled he was still naked. "Pay attention," Alicia said and pointed at Marzia.

Before complying, he looked for his robe and didn't find it. He bought another from the system and put it on, unhindered this time.

| Purchased: Equipment (G) | -90 AP

| Remaining AP: 1,836,532

Marzia started talking, being as fast as possible to gain time. "I don't know what's going on, but she told me to explain who she is. I know very little, really. She is the Drow Maiden, an Alliance-appointed Observer. I met her and five other Observers in the standard tutorial. They are here to observe us and report to the Alliance, though they didn't say what they are looking for."

Shen's mind turned to the new information. Hidden Observers on Earth sounded weird. The Guardian System was already around, after all.

His best guess was that they were here to find ways of getting benefits for themselves.

Then again, the Guardian System had directly attacked Void Spawn in the tutorial, but no human had suffered a direct attack that he knew of. Even when he returned from the Void, it had only threatened to issue a Bounty against him, not kill him. It was evidently bound by rules.

Maybe the Observers were a fail-safe?

Marzia continued. "I first met them when they told me humanity had used seven atomic bombs. They helped me with the Decree against weapons of mass destruction. Then, when you were forced to kill people, they tried to sell me ways of stopping you. Not directly, but it was heavily hinted that I would owe them."

That was about what Shen had expected. The Alliance had already revealed it had different factions when they said the mind healers were provided for free to those who left the Pioneer Tutorial due to prior criticism in other tutorials. It was expected that some groups would try to exploit new races.

He looked at the Drow Maiden and didn't like that she was an Observer and had already meddled with his body.

Shen was his Path, and she had just forcibly changed him. That had severe implications that he would have to investigate in depth. Moreover, he doubted the extraordinary gains he had received had no drawbacks.

One obvious drawback was that he didn't feel bad about the changes. That should be impossible. They had happened against his will; his Path shouldn't have accepted it so easily—or at all.

Yet, he felt only a sense of... cleanliness that was hard to put into words.

He felt lighter and better.

That, in itself, made him feel much worse than if the changes had caused an immediate backslash. He hated being changed and having his very existence approve of it. He hated that he wasn't recoiling in disgust at his new self.

Shen felt like a puppet in someone else's hands, a toy to be done with as the drow saw fit, a dog who even liked whatever his "master" had done for him.

That went against almost everything he believed in.

Shen wasn't a completely wild soul; he saw value in being part of a hierarchical organization like the Eternal Empire. But even then, he had disobeyed one of his Emperor's decrees. He valued being his own self.

The drow, however, had taken the decision from him.

How could he accept being made a slave after Valentina?

So he whispered "Inspect" to check her rank and decide how he would attack her when the time came.

| Liya (C) — 3,000 / 3,000 HP

| Drow Maiden

Shen frowned. He had never seen someone with so much HP or fought a C-rank, and the speed she had shown was beyond his ability to even witness, especially without his aura.

He would find a way anyway.

C-ranks used Laws, but the Void Embryo he had killed had also used Law-magic. That proved Shen wasn't defenseless against it. Using his Limitless Denial again would injure his soul further, but his previous fight had also proven that he only needed to strike the right way at the right time to triumph against a stronger foe.

Shen started preparing for the incoming fight by absorbing qi as fast as possible. He also bought a couple of stamina crystals to speed up his regeneration.

| Purchased: Minor Refreshing Crystal x2 | -9,000 AP

| Remaining AP: 1,827,532

The store seemed to be back to speed again. The drow said nothing as he used the crystals. She would learn to regret that soon enough.

Marzia's tale wasn't over. "The Drow Maiden interrupted another Observer's sales pitch to reveal something much more important: your rampage didn't matter; Earth was doomed anyway.

"An Observer complained when she told me that. She then created a protective dome around us to stop the attacks they all threw at her as she kept speaking. That's when she imparted the truth about rifts on me.

"As you know, rifts appear randomly around Earth. What I didn't tell anyone, and the Drow Maiden told me, is that the rift's tier is also random, and the upper range is determined by our highest ranking Guardian.

"You're D-rank, and so are two others that I haven't identified yet, though I highly suspect the newly minted and mysterious Chinese Empress is one of them. So, we would get a D-tier rift sooner or later."

The reveal of there being other D-ranks around stung Shen's pride. Despite his cultivator background, he still hadn't beaten everyone.

However, it felt reassuring to not have his ranking up speed be indirectly responsible for the deaths caused by the rift. Even if he weren't around, there would still be D-ranks causing D rifts to appear.

Learning about the Chinese Empress was interesting. Did she have anything to do with the Immortal Emperor? If a dog of the Yinhu Clan was around, maybe the Emperor had an agent on Earth?

He doubted it because no one but the Immortal Emperor was allowed to call themselves Emperor or Empress in the Eternal Empire. He would check right after he dealt with the drow.

Shen wondered if he could even believe the drow about the rifts, though. The D rift might've appeared for other reasons.

He definitely didn't trust her, especially because he still couldn't tell why he felt she was familiar. The liquid she had forced him to drink had affected his Path enough for it not to feel bothered by the chances. What if mind-control or a more subtle way of affecting his mind was at play?

Could the drow actually be Valentina in disguise? He didn't think so because Valentina wouldn't need such subterfuge. Yet, the drow and Valentina might be best buddies or fellow conspirators.

Marzia continued, "From my observations from the rifts we got—I can get a report of how many there are and their tiers—the more people of a rank, the more likely a rift will be of that tier. The Drow Maiden said nothing about it directly, but she did state that if a D rift was opened, the likelihood of another appearing would decrease. So, with so few D-ranks around, a single D rift greatly decreases the odds of another D rift appearing elsewhere."

"That is correct," the drow said for the first time since Marzia had started. She sounded dry and bored.

"Or a lie," Shen injertected.

The drow didn't reply, but Marzia did. "We can discuss her trustworthiness later. Back to my explanation, back then she also told me how to buy a rift of a chosen tier at any location I wanted and suggested I put it in front of you. That, she said, was the best way of protecting Earth from you and from a D rift appearing in a place far away from a D-rank human. So I did it."

Shen reckoned he couldn't stay in this conversation without believing in the drow. He would try to disprove her as soon as possible, but for now, he had to take her words at face value.

That Marzia had opened the gnolls' rift was big news. If the drow had lied, Marzia became responsible for many deaths.

Shen felt terrible for wanting the one he would kill in a few minutes to not be a complete liar.

"Why didn't you tell the world about that?" Sai asked Marzia. "Some people were saying he opened the rift. That this war is his fault or that he crafted it to come out as the king of the world or something."

Marzia glared at the man as she replied, "And if I told them that I opened the rift to stop him from killing more people, that I had to open it somewhere less dangerous because his rank would cause D-tier rifts to appear anyway, it would only confirm to them that it's all his fault."

"There are other D-ranks," Sai insisted.

"None of which have revealed themselves, despite the Rift War," Marzia countered. "If I said anything about them to protect Shen, I would just come out as a liar. This is real-world politics with many things on the line, not school gossip. There are both easily misled and ill-intended players on the board. I have my goals too, things I want to do for the good of Earth, and getting discredited would make accomplishing them much harder."

Before Sai could reply, she turned to Shen. "As I was saying, I don't know why the Drow Maiden doing any of this or her goals. I don't trust her. But I know that she doesn't need to lie unless she has a long-term end goal. The most obvious possibility is bringing you, one of our strongest, to her side. That's all I know about her."

Shen turned to the drow. "So? What do you want from Earth? What do you want from me?" She didn't reply. Shen turned to the others.

The drow had told him to "put his matters in order," and he would do so slowly to gain time.

And although he doubted he would die even if he failed his attack—she claimed to want to train him—he would also prepare for that by saying a few things that needed to be said.

"Marzia," he said, "we still have to sit down to talk about you entering my clan, but now is clearly not the time. So I want you to keep Alicia by your side. You must protect each other. I trust her more than anyone in this world."

Marzia twisted her lips but didn't reply.

He turned to Sai. "You wanted to talk to me, too. We don't have time. You're on vacation until I come back."

He also seemed unwilling to let things go like this but understood the time constraints. Really, Shen had surrounded himself with some mature people.

Finally, he looked at Alicia and stopped for a moment before stepping closer and hugging her. "I really like you and your company. You're a great friend, and I don't deserve you. Thank you."

Alicia was tense for a few seconds, then relaxed and silently hugged him back.

After a full minute, he let go of her and smiled kindly at the three. "You should go and explain things to everyone else." He nodded at the hundreds of thousands looking at them, a few thousand approaching slowly.

"Don't dare mention me," the drow said. "I'm invisible to everyone but you three. If any of you even hint at my existence, I'll know, and I'll kill you and everyone I even suspect might have learned about me."

Surprisingly, Marzia smiled smugly at that. "Observers aren't supposed to intervene directly, isn't that right?" She seemed to be quoting something the drow had told her in the tutorial.

Her declaration was a double-edged sword. She was both implying the drow didn't want anyone to know about her because she was doing something illegal in taking Shen away and that attacking humans would be further illegal.

The drow's response was to cut Marzia's head off.

The strike was instantaneous, and Shen never saw the weapon. Marzia's head simply fell off without warning.

Before he could even react, the world twisted, and he found himself alone with the drow in the middle of vast grasslands.

"First lesson," she said to the still shocked Shen, "never underestimate someone's willingness to act against what you believe to be their best interest. Info can always be wrong or outdated, and living beings can always just act stupidly."

Shen barely listened. Marzia had died just like that? That had to be an illusion, right? A lie. That didn't make any sense.

Then righteous fury grew kindled him like a blazing sun demanding retribution.

"Second lesson," she continued, "never keep yourself open for attacks like this, you sorry excuse of a Guardian."

The drow spoke so fast that he hadn't even had the time to focus his sight on her before she attacked. At least this time, he barely glimpsed the air moving like blades at the corner of his eyes.

All his four limbs were cut off at once.

Gravity had barely started pulling him to the ground when she spoke again, once more much faster than he could move.

"Ah, I almost forgot: I believe pain and humiliation are great training tools. If you ever cut off your pain receptors, I'll pry open your skull and soul and drill into them with barbed wires." Then she gave off the most demonic smile he had ever seen. "I dearly hope you didn't pay attention to my first lesson and underestimate my willingness to do something an Observer isn't supposed to. It's been a while since I last used barbed wire. I miss the good old times. Oh, and if you fail to live up to my expectations, I'll rather kill you than have anyone ever know I trained a failure."

He no longer believed she wouldn't kill him.

As Shen fell like a potato to the ground, he understood he had severely overestimated his power—and vowed he would make that woman pay for killing Marzia and treating him like a toy.

Forget Valentina, Hui Huang, and the Void; Shen refused to share Reality with that Liya.

He wouldn't rest a single second until she was dead.

She wanted to play pretend at training him? So be it. He would show her his power and, if she actually made him stronger before ending his life, debut his improved mighty by taking her head from her shoulders.

He created four limbs and a spear of pure qi and attacked.

[A/N: Next chapter, we get some wider universe POVs, then a training montage/actual explanations for stuff. I plan on showing things more from Liya's side for perspective. This will be fun.]

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