The hunt for mole vultures was rather uneventful as the speed of his immortal darkness energy synchronization with his body was already at 13% which led him to be a lot faster than all the vultures combined. Dios Simply snapped their necks, and within an hour cleared almost all of the vultures with the rest being frightened away.
Ol'Coors kept his word and got him a nice bowl of some meat stew with a freshly baked bread his granddaughter had made for everyone.
After having finished his meal right in front of the barn, the day was still long so Dios decided to adventure out in the farms while thinking of his next steps. Ol'Coors told him for now, there wasn't much else to do as everyone else had finished their tasks or were completing them but told Dios to stay nearby in case something came up.
Dios fine with the arrangements simply wandered off. The walk was rather nice and peaceful especially with a nice view of the large farm and he always thought how nice it must be to grow up somewhere like here.
On the walk, he couldn't help but consider how free he really aside from the few goals he had to accomplish as a promise to Gray.
He was always an upbeat boy when he was growing up until the loss of his family and the torturous work he did as an errand boy for the bandits. The new reality in front of him gave hope to his true inner self and he didn't wish to waste it even if he were to be a practitioner of the "Death Scripture".
"Oh, might as well check up on the void crystal," Dios said to himself. He started calling the black crystal the void crystal as that was where it came from and every time he made progress something new would usually show up.
Usually, the next step to his current techniques or a new support technique would appear. He loved the crystal once he got past the eerieness of the "intended purposes" of said scripture.
Sitting down and meditating a little, he managed to enter the crystal and started reviewing what he had learned so far.
[Steps of Darkness]-19%
[Immortal darkness energy synchronization] 13%
[Demon Mount] 0%
Looking through the list, he was happily surprised to find a new technique.
The list was a convenient feature he created within his mind after surprising himself with the level of concentration he had in meditation and some immortal dark energy which gave way to a rather accurate description of his progress which was rather mystifying to him but the crystal held more secrets than he was aware of.
Reading the technique, Dios was mesmerized by the creativeness of Gray for the way he built such techniques that could turn a beggar into an emperor.
The technique described a way for one to pick any living creature and train it to turn into his everlasting [Demon Mount]. The purpose was really simple as any practitioner of the myriad of worlds would need to attain the higher tier of the rankings in order to cross space and travel through the worlds unhindered.
However, the [Demon Mount] was a method to simplify this process as the mount would be trained to assist its owner with some of the burdens of traveling through the myriad worlds as well as make traveling in the world itself much more convenient. It even had capacities for being a battle mount depending on the training given so that you would never truly be alone in any fights.
The only issue Dios realized was that it would take a long while before the mount could start crossing space but Dios wasn't perturbed as he knew from some deductions that he made that he had quite a bit of time. Gray never requested a specific time to free him. Just to do it, once he reached a certain level in the [Death Scripture].
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Happy at the new technique and Dios immediately started pondering what would be a good mount to train into a Demon Mount.
----------------------------------------
Back at the farm, Ol'Coors was talking to his granddaughter about how he found a young man lost in the forest and was happily chatting away with his beloved granddaughter.
She couldn't help but laugh as he recounted the whole event to really make himself look better while unceremoniously using Dios as the butt of the joke. She grew more curious about the young man but as a proper granddaughter, she couldn't try to pry too much information from her grandfather as he was rather overprotective and wouldn't let her get near boys he didn't consider okay.
Her beautiful eyes that looked like limpid azure ponds, and a smile that could capture you in a trance, she giggled at her grandfather as her curiosity for the boy grew. Which just happened to capture a few of the working men around the farm who caught a peek before a small "Hmph" echoed in their ears as Ol'Coors warned with his eyes.
"Elia, go play now. Got some work left to do before the evening arrives." Ol'Coors gently said.
"Okay, grandpa!" She yelled as she ran away to talk with the farmer's wives on the other side.
As the hours went by, Elia just finished some of her daily chores around the farm as she spotted a young man covered in all black yet completely tattered clothes staring intently at a makeshift crate of some sort. As she got a little closer, her curiosity grew as he didn't leave his eyes for a moment from the crate.
Inching closer and closer, she eventually managed to get a few meters from the young man.
"EEEEEEYAAAAHHHH!" She screamed at the top of her lungs before gunning it for the house.
Dios startled silly by the scream jumped up almost knocking over his crate before turning to see a beautiful back figure running away. Before he realized it, Ol'Coors and several sturdy farmers had already appeared in the vicinity staring at him with a gaze that looked like he had insulted their mothers.
"What. Did. You. Do. BOY!?" Ol'Coors said through gritted teeth and squinted eyes. Dios was beyond confused and a little scared at the dangerous vibe the old man was giving off.
After a few seconds of gathering his thoughts, he couldn't help but retort in anger: " The HELL you mean WHAT DID I DO!? It's your family coming near me and running off screaming while I was minding my god damn business!" Dios retorted. He had enough of getting beat while being misunderstood on purpose by others. He wasn't the same little twig from before nor was he anywhere near as weak.
Ol'Coors was surprised at the tone. He got closer and saw something quite grotesque. A giant caterpillar the size of a small bird crawling in the crate. Several body parts from different insects and some reptiles were strewn about as the caterpillar slowly munched on the carcasses.
"What are you doing?" Ol'Coors said with a mildly disturbed tone.
"King of the crate," Dios replied while smiling evilly at the dark blue caterpillar which had several, ice cold looking, spikes sticking out of it.
He was at a loss of which creature to take to try his new technique on especially considering it would be a rather long relationship due to the benefits outweighing redoing the technique on better subjects along the way. With that, he had simply decided to find all the different creatures from the area that looked a little special and threw them in a crate.
The spectacle involved two snakes one black and one silver, four praying mantes all of which were different colors, a rat he found with weird stripes on its fur and a few other insects that looked peculiar. This caterpillar was originally a small blue caterpillar that fell on him by accident near a burnt tree.
He was surprised most by the caterpillar as it grew from the size of a finger into a small bird and it did nothing but walk around piercing its skin's spikes and they all died from a weird frenzy after having killed each other. The thing started eating them as the ones with larger vitality took longer to die off. The shock wasn't the only thing that happened, a small piece of information about caterpillars, in general, came through his mind and it excited him to no end. They metamorphose!
"I'll call you 'Little Death' hehe," Dios muttered while smiling.
Ol'Coors got a general idea of what happened from the name of the crate Dios gave but he felt a little perturbed from the name and decided maybe, it was better for the kid to be on his way and especially far from his precious Elia.