Masenia: Chapter 25 Problems with Trained Bunnies (Patreon)

Chapter 25

The Problems With Trained Bunnies

Offering of Tribute: One of your minions has conquered a minor node and is now offering it up as tribute to you, their one true master. Do you accept this offering?

Seeing the message, Maria was momentarily at a loss about what to do before she greedily accepted the offering. Though, she was worried about the amount of time that had passed.

A year went by, so long of a time that Maria almost forgot that she had sent her minion to conquer one of the adjoining minor nodes. This was after the original five years she spent training the last remaining rabbit, which of course mostly dealt with her trying to kick the terrible habits that her rabbit had gained from training on its own for the first two and a half years of the integration, or as a clock would say the first thirty minutes.

With the time being as they were, Maria calculated that the time until she managed to take control of the node was roughly half an hour. From there, logically one could logically deduce that for five years was an additional hour, and then this last year would be twelve minutes. Making for a total time of integration being almost two full hours of real time. What Maria was not aware of was the change in times awarded by the arbiter for actions that were conducted by Maria but had in fact been blamed on hostile forces. This meant that the time since integration, including the first thirty minutes that it took Maria to get to the node, was a grand total of thirty-seven minutes since the start of the integration. Unaware of these changes, Maria felt that the minute it took her minion to get from her primary node to the minor node was closer to twelve minutes and was therefore too much time to have wasted on a minor task. Still, she was glad that she didn’t have to leave her own dominion of power to take care of such a minor inconvenience herself.

Still, Maria found that she was worried about her minion, a full year that was lost from training meant that while he might have been able to conquer the last minor node, it meant that his five years of expert cultivation would soon be normal for most monsters. Realizing this, Maria decided to train her rabbit once again in some more moves, if only to give him a competitive advantage with the next node. However, for the moment, she was just happy that she saw such a message.

Minor-Node Conquered: Linking Minor node to other nodes you control. Primary Node found. This is now listed as a secondary node and will be converted to producing spirit mana.

There were no other messages, like those related to her gaining titles once more for conquering minor nodes. But then a quick thought let her realize two things, first she already had those titles and likely couldn’t get them again. Then the second major point was that it had been the rabbit who had conquered the nodes, and thus he should be the one to get the titles.

After thinking about it, Maria hoped that it was in fact her rabbit that had gotten the titles, as this would mean he would be just that much stronger from this whole ordeal.

With her primary node linked to the minor node, she could feel the increase in ambient spirit energy being released from her nexus.

With the minor node connected, Maria could see far off into the distance, heading in the direction of the nearest minor node. Seeing the connection, Maria realized that she was somehow able to see the real world from her current area. It was almost like she was looking at a frozen snapshot of time from within her dominion.

This was an odd sensation, it was like she was in the real world, looking down at what was an imaginary realm connected. Of course, this was not the true case of what happened, but it was seemingly close. With a start, she realized that in addition to the high school, she also held some of the side streets leading away for miles in one direction from her node. Seeing the distance, being at least three miles to the anchor point of the minor node, Maria felt somewhat mollified, realizing that the rabbit had moved at roughly four minutes a mile, something humans had a hard time doing before the integration. With that rationalization in mind, Maria decided to work with the rabbit on improving its speed, when it got back. Which, it could see running even now. Being as there were a total of two creatures within her realm, it was easy to see the subdued bunny minion coming towards her.

While the rabbit did appear fast, seemingly coming up on her in no time, Maria still felt that speed was something the two of them could both work on together.

Panting-panting.

The rabbit got back, flecks of black fur in its mouth and red blood on its white fur. Seeing the condition of the rabbit, it was clear that the rabbit had apparently fought a mouse, and had come back to her immediately after completing its assigned task.

Sitting back on its hind legs and looking up at Maria with stars in its eyes, Maria, who had tried to have a stern expression broke. In particular right after the giant rabbit that came up to almost her shoulders while sitting let out and adorable, “squoo.”

“Fine. You did a good job. But we need to be faster.” Maria said, patting the rabbit on the head, while instantly giving into her nurturing side, a side that she had long ago thought was dead and buried, but came back to life with the adorable killing fluff ball before her.

“Squa?” The rabbit let out a pitiful sound, as its large ears began to drop and droop behind its head.

Seeing this, Maria realized she might have been a bit too harsh. With that, she decided to explain herself better.

“No, you were fine. And I am glad you are safe. It is just that while you are out of here, time flows faster, meaning the time you are out is time that our enemies can catch up to us. As such, we will need to work on speed, so we can get to other nodes faster. Okay?”

“Squooo.”

Hearing that Maria took the sound and the overall demeanor of the rabbit to be a happy sign. As such, she nodded to herself and then began with the first order of business.

“Tag!”

With that, Maria began the first stage of training to help her rabbit become faster.

As she trained, she was slowly informed that her Attributes were increasing from such endeavors.

+1 Strength

+2 Speed

+1 Endurance

With the bonuses from just a few hours of playing, Maria realized that at the very least this training was paying off for her. As such she also made sure to take breaks, forcing both herself and her rabbit to sit down and cultivate.

Even with her eyes closed, it was clear that her rabbit was bored and not taking the times to meditate seriously, as it would open its eyes and look around distractedly. Maria could feel this, partly due to the way the rabbit’s movements disturbed the spirit energy that surrounded them, but also from the way no energy was being drawn into the rabbit.

“You know, by failing to cultivate you are making it so you will always lose at tag.”

“Squoo?”

“I mean it.”

***

From that day, the rabbit would at least use part of the time to cultivate. Unfortunately, the rabbit had no clear goal or opponent. Maria realized that she was far outside of the rabbit’s ability range, and this was causing the rabbit to become complacent.

“Squeak, squeak!”

“You want to fight the monsters at another minor node?” Maria asked.

At that the rabbit nodded its head emphatically, as a look of glowing hope filled its dark beady eyes. Seeing that the rabbit had itself fallen into a bit of a lull, Maria agreed that the rabbit going out and trying itself against another animal couldn’t hurt. Both of their speeds were far superior to normal humans, and the rabbit had long ago met its own personal Attribute limitation for its current power base. Unfortunately, the rabbit had not been particularly gifted, nor had it received the blessings of the four wise spirits, like Maria herself had. As such, the rabbit had been ready to push through to the third realm of cultivation, but found that they could not.

Realizing that battle was likely the best way for anyone to experience a personal breakthrough, particularly a beast like the evolved rabbit, Maria felt it was now time to once again set her rabbit free on the world.

“Fine. You will go from here. Head immediately to that minor node.” Maria said, holding out her hand and pointing to a black dot off in the distance. While a dark haze still surrounded her area, the addition of the minor node did make it so that nearby minor node points were highlighted. Seeing the node, the rabbit nodded its head and roared loudly with confidence. “SQUEAK!”

At that, Maria let out her next demand, “also no more of taking a year to get there. That is three miles, you should be able to do that distance easily.”

At that, the rabbit dropped its head in understanding. This was something that she had emphatically reinforced within her minion. That the faster it was in getting from here to the nearby connected node, the faster it could break through its bottleneck and achieve the next level of cultivation.

Maria had long ago met the conditions needed for a partial or a failed increase. Her Spirit Attribute had long since reached her current maximum of 400, but she wanted to have a far better cultivation base then that, as she wanted all of her Attributes to be at their maximum rating. Meaning that she would still need to practice running and other forms of fighting styles to improve her physical Attributes. By contrast, her rabbit seemed to only have a maximum base rating of 150, not the worst, and far better than most, but nowhere near her level of achievement. This was also part of why the rabbit had gotten so distracted with their training. By now, Maria was easily twice as fast as the rabbit, despite the fact that the rabbit had long ago met its physical limitations for being on the same tier. Additionally, there was one final requirement that Maria had in spades, thanks to her past life, that her rabbit minion did not, and that was killing intent. Something that was only able to be manifest after destroying countless lives. With Maria’s killing intent, she was easily able to get up to Tier VII in almost all forms. This was why Maria was content to sit back and continue to train in skills and Attributes now, especially while receiving the benefits of the increased energy from her node.

***

In contrast, the rabbit found itself to be very weak. Worse, it heard all the words of its master and realized that she spoke with an air of knowledge and understanding. Every word she said, spoke of a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and understanding.

Looking back on when he had been an arrogant node holder, he thought that his master was foolish for challenging him. Even after seeing the way, she tore through his children and wives, he still was foolish enough to think he could best her. Yet, after seeing her, he realized the truth, that he was just a small insignificant creature that Master had thankfully taken pity on.

Yet, the rabbit was grateful. From the work of the master, the rabbit had gained sentience, he could even communicate with the great master. When he first went to fight the crazed den of rats for master, he found that they were all weak and slovenly. When he had returned, he felt pride in his accomplishment, but that feeling of accomplishment was short lived when master scolded him for taking so long to complete the task assigned.

At first, the rabbit was angered by the statement, but soon realized that his master was only concerned about his safety. From there he tried diligently to do everything that master spoke of. Even following the arts of meditation, which did help improve his ability to process, yet he felt his body finally reach a moment that he could not improve any further, at which point he soon realized that part of why he was now at a bottleneck was that he did not have the intense killing intent of his master. Even fighting a thousand battles against rats might not be enough for him to process the pure strength and will to succeed that master always called on whenever the rabbit got close to challenging her. That was why the rabbit had pushed so hard for his chance to prove himself once more. A chance where he could form his killing intent, even after months of master constantly working with him, such intent was nearly impossible for the rabbit to form on his own. Partly because he truly did not wish ill upon his master, he now saw her as a benevolent deity that was sent here to instruct and guide him to a better and stronger future. Realizing this, and that his master finally felt he was worthy of a second chance to prove himself, he left.

Exiting from the node, his home, the rabbit directed himself towards the direction of the nearest minor node. Then with a focus that could only be instilled after months of training to finally get a chance to achieve one goal, make it quickly to the minor node and conquer it for his master.

Kaboom!

With a powerful stomp on the ground, the rabbit took off and began scampering forward, not wishing to waste a moment of time.

Outside the node, time flowed normally. It was currently 12:39 PM, and a small cloud lazily drifted by the sun, momentarily causing an afternoon shadow to descend on the sleepy town of Washington.

Monsters had appeared and began roaming the streets. Those fortunate enough to have been driving at the time of the Integration found that their opponents more often than not, appeared outside their vehicles and were thus avoided.

Honk! Honk!

Cars honked and swerved out of the way of not only oncoming traffic, but of fur covered beasts that darted into the road with reckless abandonment.

The rabbit, seeing all of these opponents as little more than minor speed bumps, sent out speed kicks and swipes at the monsters. Remembering his master’s training, he charged forward, and was surprised with the fact that not only did his sharpened claws make contact with the slow-moving beasts, but actually sliced cleanly through them as well. This was a shock for the rabbit, as master would often move slow at times to lull the rabbit into a false sense of security, before delivering a counterattack. Yet, no counterattack came.

Squish.

Instead, all the rabbit was left with was a sliced-up pile of flesh beneath its feet. Still it didn’t lose focus, despite the quick and easy victories. Realizing that the path given was right down this street, the rabbit made its way through the horde of enemies, making sure to avoid attacking humans as the master would clearly be angry with such an act. Thus, killing the stinky monsters that smelled of poison, the rabbit quickly made its way through the streets, swerving in between cars that looked like they might as well have been parked given how slow they went in comparison to master.

Then finally, after the three mile sprint, the rabbit found the minor node entrance and entered.

***

A frightened officer sat in his car, his trembling hands clutching at the unloaded shotgun that he had been forced to carry. While he was glad he was offered such a weapon, he couldn’t find the strength to use it, especially not to target the wild beast that had been tearing at his car door. A car door that was now well and truly scratched up and needing of a fresh paint job, and like a few more reinforcement bars.

Swoosh!

Just when officer Jones thought everything was over, and saw his life flashing before his eyes in the form of a monster with giant teeth, a blur of a white streak passed by.

Splat!

The next second, rather than a monster tearing its way into his car door, he saw a pool of dark red blood splatter onto his window and windshield.

“Holy shit!” Jones called out, his instincts trying to back away even more, yet all he found was the same center console that stopped his initial retreat. Then after a moment, he saw that the spray of blood was slowly sliding down. Breathing heavily, he decided to calm down, by letting out a long breath. Then with his mind slightly calmed down, he turned on the windshield wiper and found that a dense red film still stuck to the windshield, but soon found that he could see. To his surprise, he found that all of the monsters that had been attacking everyone in the streets were dead. The only sign that anything bad had happened was the pools of blood and bones that lay on the ground next to each and every vehicle.

“Adam 12, are you done with your lunch?” The voice of the dispatcher called out, fear evident in their voice as they seemed to be having as bad of a day. Reaching up to his walkie talkie, Jones was surprised to see that it still worked. Fortunately, it seemed that the CB radios were able to be run from the back up generators that instantly kicked in once the power from the main powerplants abruptly shut off after the integration.

“This is Adam 12.” Jones said, as he tried to sound calm over the lines.

“Can you return to base, it seems that there is a rat that somehow got loose in the station.”

“A rat?” Jones replied, almost wanting to chastise the dispatcher, though this wasn’t the first time he had been called for such extermination duties before.

“It is a really big one. Come quickly, please.” The Dispatcher pleaded, and while Jones couldn’t be certain, he was almost sure he heard the sounds of loud scratching coming from somewhere near the dispatcher. Realizing the situation for what it was, Jones felt that taking care of a rat, might be a blessing compared to having to deal with the paperwork from filling out the police report for what was happening around him.

Turning on his lights, Jones rolled down his gore and grime covered driver’s side window and darted through the streets filled with dazed and confused drivers and headed back to the station. This was likely going to be one of those days.