Short summary of the last chapter:
Spoiler :
Voice taught his ‘apprentice’ how to do compound ingredients, dry them, then fuse them together. He also learned how to buff himself with an insane 15x speed buff. He realized that with his Instant Analysis he basically slowed down time for everyone else.
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That night, I went over to the boy’s house. He had been speaking with his mother at length about various things, but it was time for his nightly ‘meditation’.
I knocked lightly on the door. After a few moments the woman hesitantly answered. “Hello?” Her meek voice was almost scared.
“Ahem. It’s me. I came for Kile. It’s time for his meditation.” I said so in an almost apologetic tone. She slowly opened the door, and made sure I was who I said I was.
When she finally let me in, she bowed. “I’m sorry sir, I just didn’t know who would come around this late.”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Don’t fret. As long as I can continue the boy’s education, I’ll be content. I must make sure he meditates tonight to get the full effect of his learning thus far.”
The boy was already sitting on the ground, when I peaked in on him. His mother nodded, obviously not understanding why I made him meditate. Or perhaps she didn’t even know what meditation was. Either way, she let me in, and I saw to the boy.
When I put the various buffs on him, I changed one of the instructions. Before it had been five instructions of Obey your Alchemist Master’, and four that said, ‘No orders from your Alchemist Master says will harm you’.
I changed two of the five instructions, and one of the four. The new given instructions were: ‘Meditation is good’, ‘You want your mom to meditate’, ‘Convince your mom to try meditating’.
I was hoping that the next day the boy would pull his mom into getting meditation done. If that was the case, I’d be able to extend my influence slightly. The trap was that I still only had nine orders I could give at one time.
If I could somehow get her to convince herself to follow me, that’d be great, but I knew that I would have a tough time of it. I could make an enchanted set of stones, but if I branched out to other people, they might get suspicious if multiple people found those stones in their houses.
Plus keeping up with that many enchantments would be a headache. Unless I made them with a set amount of mana, or made it so they absorbed mana from the environment, I’d have to fuel them with my personal mana stores.
After switching up Kyle’s instructions, I spoke to his mom a bit. She showed me to the sitting area, and we began to talk. I spoke first about her son.
“Kile is a very good sort. He obeys instructions well, and doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. I like him. Have no fear I, Karma Lithe, will make sure he lives up to his highest potential.”
I started off giving her a false pseudonym. She needed to know ‘my’ name for the next part of my plan. “When the boy is finished with his apprenticeship, I will let him wander the world.”
She looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression. “But sir, why would you let him go free after all of the work you will have done giving him his skills?”
I smiled and shrugged. “I don’t want a lackey. I want someone to carry on my skills and methods once I’m dead. As long as he takes on a disciple in the future, well that’s all I can ask.”
We spoke of several things for a bit, mostly involving her son. After a while I departed. I went outside, and hid myself with darkness mana. After I made sure no life mana signatures were next to me, I activated my Instant Analysis, and my speed buff. I searched out light mana signatures, and quickly found a group of wolves. Not demon wolves, just regular ones. I had a thought, and switched what I was looking for. Around me popped up four darkness mana signatures. I followed one, and found out my idea was correct. Demon wolves and other demon animals had darkness mana signatures.
I activated my wind mana shoes to walk on the wind. It only took 10 mana every 15 seconds, but that was because my speed was 15 times normal. I circled around the demon wolves, and made a plan of action. I started by equipping myself with both Eli and Golem, they each to several seconds to coat me. It had always seemed instant before.
The wolves were asleep. They slept huddled closely together. I picked up a few rocks as I circled them, and then started my plan. I took out my staff, and pulled out the two blades hidden within. I threw a rock at the closest wolf, and ran up towards them. At the same time I canceled my wind shoes. The noise from my faint, but exceedingly fast steps, slowly roused the rest of the wolves.
The first wolf was already on its feet, and beginning to chase after me. Unfortunately for it, I was already on the other side of the pack. I hit a few of the wolves with my blades. The damage was still calculated at the moment I hit them. I jammed my blade into the left flank of one of the wolves. The blade itself seemed mired in a thick molasses. It took considerable effort to force the blade to cut deeply into the pelt of the wolf. Far more effort than normal.
Since that wolf still hadn’t registered the pain, I went to a different one. Giving a few light strikes against the wolf didn’t seem to take any effort above the norm. Instant Analysis, in addition to speeding up the processes of my mind, showed me the perfect way to attack in the manner that I wanted. In only a few light swings on the same spot of the wolf, I was able to duplicate the depth of the wound from the other wolf. A few light swings took much less time, and gave about the same damage.
I guess I’ll be doing light damage repeatedly while moving quickly from now on.
I looked around, and noticed the entire pack of twenty or so wolves was staring at me in anger. My mind flashed a danger warning. I instantly began to plot an escape route. Instant Analysis showed me the best was to escape: a brisk walking speed.
I followed Instant Analysis’ opinion, while looking back. The wolves seemed to be pushing themselves as hard as possible, but the gap between us only continued to grow. Eventually the wolves were so far behind me, I had to use Instant Analysis to even be able to pick them up. My eyes lit up when I noticed them, metaphorically speaking of course.
I turned back, and decided to play with the pups for a while. I knew all of their designed moves, I could easily out maneuver all of them with my speed, so I was going to put my buff to the test. I wanted to test the absolute limits of my buff.
I ran back towards the wolves, only to stop in the middle of them. Most of the wolves jumped backwards, only two remained within striking distance of me. I quickly dispatched the two that were foolish enough to stay close. The remaining wolves formed a circle, with me at the center. I was paying full heed to Instant Analysis. The wolf facing my back jumped at me, but I was warned instantly thanks to my skill.
I bent down at my knees, and brought both of my swords into an arc above my head. The force of the jump made the wolf just barely meet the tip of each sword. A small trickle of blood fell from the wolf as it passed harmlessly over my head. At the moment the first wolf was passing over me, two other wolves pounced at me. One came from the left area behind me, the other came from my right. The wolf from the right jumped at my legs, while the wolf from my left went for my head.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
I watched the slow motion jumps, and waited for the perfect moment. The wolves looked like they were slowly flying towards me. They continued to sail through the air for a full two seconds, before I easily stepped out of the way. I turned around to where I had been a moment ago, and stabbed downward with one of my swords.
I put as much weight behind the strike as I could. Even with Golem’s help, I had a tremendously hard time puncturing the bone of the wolf. After a full second of effort, the skull gave way. Thick liquid brain matter sprayed from the open wound as I took my sword out.
The wolf that aimed for my legs was still mid jump, so I gave it a hard kick to the stomach. Seeing the force of the kick didn’t do a lot to change the direction of the wolf, I kicked it a few more times. After watching for several seconds, I noticed the direction start to ‘abruptly’ change. I moved out of the path of another jumping wolf, and kicked the wolf I sent flying again. After repeating this a few times I noticed something.
Kicking the wolf once would do as much damage as a normal kick, but it would seem to take longer for it to take effect. Kicking multiple times closely together amplified the power of the kick. It was like I was kicking with 15 times force if I kicked it 15 times.
While I was digesting this new information, three wolves jumped at my simultaneously. I created three earth spikes, and watched them slowly rise from the ground. Each spike perfectly impaled an incoming wolf. With Instant Analysis working so well, and the ability actually function so quickly, I could perfectly execute any play I tried.
I continued to play with the wolves for about an hour, or four minutes from their perspectives. I learned a lot of valuable information from them, so I decided to resurrect them with darkness mana. They were much weaker than corpses Kretchof could summon up, but they were just throw away tools anyway.
It hadn’t been very long, so I wasn’t really tired. An hour of fighting seemed like a while, but honestly it was like a light workout. I had no adrenaline rush, no fear of death. I also gained a pitiful amount of exp. From the battle. I had Eli and Golem release their transformations for the moment, and went to hunt other demons.
I hunted demons throughout the entire night. None of them even made me anxious. Not a single one could actually pose a threat to me as long as I was paying even slight attention. I even dissected a demon rabbit while it tried to attack. My speed boost did have certain interesting effects.
For instance, once I dropped an item, it began to flow with regular speed. If I picked something up, it began to move quickly. The exceptions were things held by others, a bone in a wolf’s mouth for instance, or living things themselves. Even if I grabbed a demon wolf, I couldn’t make it move quickly. It was like I was pulling a very heavy object tied to a thick rope. I could run on water by slightly condensing the water mana, or by making a small amount of air mana form a circle around my feet.
I got the idea from the water-striding lizard. They have huge foot area, and can distribute their weight evenly across each foot, making it harder to break the surface of the water. It’s like piercing someone’s skin with a needle, or a frying pan. The pan might hurt, but it probably won’t break the skin.
The problem there was the limited mana regen. With so little mana regen, only about 3 per second of my enhanced time, I had no way of keeping up with the drain of using such a skill. But it was one more move I could hold in case of emergencies.
For the entire night I cleaned up demons around the town. I didn’t get any real experience, but I did get a nice amount of items. Since I had manual item grab on, I had to personally skin and clean the demon animals. I did get a lot more items from it though.
Before daybreak, I went back to Kile’s house. I enchanted a small stone with a recording, and installed it in the cooking area. I canceled the buff after I made the stone. The sound it made was a low volume but high frequency one. It simply repeated ‘Obey Karma Lithe’. It would have been easy to make her fall in love, but it would also take a lot of time, and some preparation I wasn’t willing to spend. So the stone.
After cleaning up around the town for a while, I began to think of ways I might be able to make the town conform to my suggestions. The boy was an apparent success, at least so far, but I didn’t even know if the brainwashing would hold after the skills were deactivated.
I had a sudden epiphany. A way to create an army from the masses. Something most people would be unable to contest against. I closed my eyes, debuffed myself, and felt for the metal mana near me. I discarded all signatures above the ground. I focused solely on the metal below the ground. After only several seconds, a small jagged rock floated up. It was not a normal rock, but a small topaz. I smiled as I thought of my plan’s success.
I would pose as a jeweler, find some reason to sell for cheap, and give the entire village trinkets that would enslave them!
Meanwhile, I had my small horde of undead wolves wait underground. The next night was shaping up to be pretty fun.
At the same time, in a place some distance away:
A dark room, lit only by a single black candle. A man clad in demonic black and red plate mail, toyed with a small harp. (Picture Daedric armor) He almost seemed nostalgic. He suddenly clenched his hand, and angrily crushed the harp into dust.
‘At least he didn’t lie about that. This armor really does increase my strength. I almost didn’t believe it would allow me to increase my strength past the limit of the class.’
A small red imp with horns and wings seemingly formed from the shadows. It looked around almost as if it were scared. The moment it noticed the demonic armor, it flew towards it.
In an extremely deferential tone, it spoke.
“Greetings revered one. Master commanded me to hand you this letter, as well as tell you ‘The Dragons have arrived as promised.’ ”
The imp fluttered its wings hastily, as if to retreat. A broken stub where its tail should have been, quivered as it flew. The man wearing the armor sneered. “Did I say you could leave?” His hand shot out faster than the eye could track. Instantly the imp was within his palm. With a light squeeze the imp turned into a glob of blood and muscle.
A red light suffused the armor. ‘My stats went up again. It really looks like I’ll be in this armor forever.’ He sighed angrily as he looked at his level. 1. The armor, while granting him superior stats in almost every category, permanently reduced his level to 1. If he were to ever take it off, then he would have to gain at least 50 levels before he could wear it again. All of his stats had been drained by the armor, but then reinforced him anyway. The result was that while he wore the armor, he would have his old stats, but when he took it off he would go to 1 point across the board.
With a casual flick of his wrist, a hole appeared in the nearby wall. Outside of the man-sized hole, streamed in light from the red sun. A landscape of death and decay greeted the man. A thunder of dragons roared nearby, ready for the blood they were owed.
“Voice, I’m coming for you.”
Hey guys! Thanks for reading another chapter! I want to let you guys know that I’m back (I have already put an update about that though). I also want you all to know that I’m either going to be putting the story into two halves each chapter, or do separate chapters for Voice and whoever-the-heck-this-is. Let me know what you guys think, and why!
The poll is up. I am starting another chapter right now though. So however the poll goes in the next few hours will determine at least how the next chapter will look.