Novels2Search

Red dust

Nellie appeared beside him, wielding a Godbeast bone polearm.

Pef stepped beside the few humans and captured them, then grabbed the lone tauren mage before he could try something.

His wife chased after the murloks, catching a couple right before they could detonate. The other murloks had a sort of suicide pill that vaporized them with a mere thought command.

The demons were already exploding, their solid magic cores allowing an easy way out.

As Nellie turned to deal with the voidbeasts, she was already bombared by violet soul spikes, all splashing her warded armor with minimal effect but still pushing her back.

"Don't just watch, you moron! These beasts are strong!" she yelled while slashing with sword qi and bisecting a few voidbeasts.

Pef snorted amused. 'Was I this pathetic too?' he wondered inward.

'You still are kinda weak. But not to this extent. I trained you, after all. Go find the eggs.' the glove declared in a proud tone.

Pef nodded and sped past his wife, crushing a few voidbeasts standing in his way.

The glove dutifully stored the resulting blood mist, as Pef left his wife struggling with the overpowered beasts, and flew into a deep well going towards the planet's core.

A few seconds later, he arrived at the reinforced hall, glowing with blue and violet runes and housing at least a hundred voidbeasts eggs, a few just a large as the one he captured on MI'ridolor.

"Now this is truly a jackpot." Pef mused out loud, while using his voidpalms to hold and capture the eggs before they could scatter.

'Take this room as well. It seems to be a functional incubator for the eggs. And it has lots of special runes and ideograms that we could adopt.' his adviser whispered while Pef glanced around for any hidden treasures.

Pef smiled and Blinked himself beside Nellie, just in time to parry another barrage of soulspikes.

"Mission complete. A hundred eggs and a few handlers. Now we only need to mistify these voidbeasts...to feed our children." he said in a snarky voice, since Nellie was blushing deeply and actually stopped a second to glare at him.

"What children?" she muttered in an embarrassed and shy voice.

"Rose, Lily and Paragon, for now. And the others not born yet." Pef explained seriously, while his voidclaws crushed a few more voidbeasts into mist.

"...Right. You have other wives." Nellie spoke in a jealous tone, and chopped wildly at an unfortunate beast.

Pef stepped back, to allow the elf princess to vent her emotions on someone else.

Even without the void skills, she was still a Tier 4 now. The beast eventually ran out of mana to regenerate and was pasted in fine mist, although it took an hour.

Meanwhile, Pef had the glove scour the mind and souls of his captives for any available intel on the Eyeless.

They were quite rich and powerful, holding various guilds and planets under their sway, especially in Tingel Arm.

At least a thousand planets and over a billion cultists, ruled by some shadow figure known as the Abyss Seer.

But this planet was their main voidbeast pen and transport hub, hidden under a hostile layer of boiling magma.

It was known by the handlers only as The Pit, probably in regard to the deep well reaching the magnetic core.

Inhospitable to anyone under Tier 2, and not habitable, the hub world served them well. Til now.

The incubator room had to be carved out from the bedrock, and folded into the glove pocket for analysis.

Then Pef and Nellie descended into the Pit, til they reached a familiar blue liquid layer.

"Stay here, my love. I'll explore a bit deeper." Pef said on a hunch, diving into the raw mana and descending even lower.

Soon enough, he reached a large cavern filled with mana, and some strange growths on the walls. They went from finger size to palm size, and glowed with inner light.

'Good hunch, Soldier. Start collecting them. These crystal nodules are actually unrefined Blue Jade Stones. The currency of some Greater Realms. Very rare and actually useful.' the glove exclaimed in surprise.

Pef listened and began carving out the crystals, with some difficulty. Cutting the crystals themselves proved very hard, even with voidswords, so he resumed to chop at the cavern walls and extract them like potted flowers.

'Do they make armor out of them?' he wondered, already considering how to use the blue stones.

The glove giggled and didn't respond.

Pef sighed and continued mining the whole cavern, already used to his orange friend antics. He would find out eventually.

After a last check, Pef returned into the well to find Nellie condensing mana stones from the raw mana.

"Look Pef! I can make first-class mana stones here. It is difficult, but it takes only a minute. So much mana..." the blonde elf exclaimed in a childish voice, holding out a few stones in her palm.

He smiled kindly and scooped some liquid mana with the gloved hand. "Glad you like it then. I'll take this mana reservoir with us."

Indeed, the liquid drained into the glove rapidly, leaving behind a dry cavern big enough to store a large lake.

Nellie blinked and stared at the glove with some concern. "That glove. I always forget you wear it. Almost like it deletes itself from my memories."

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Pef sighed. The glove probably did. This whole universe was only a playground for an artifact of its tier.

But soon enough, it will find itself among many others like it, or even higher.

Reason disregarded the glove entirely, after all. Although that might have been a method dispute, than a show of force.

'Are you stronger than a power word gun?' Pef asked with an idle thought.

'That depends. A Godbeast at Tier 4 is a thousand times stronger than you. But your skill allowed you to defeat it. Even if you reach Tier 5, that Godbeast would still be stronger. And Legion artifacts are even stronger. Yet...they have to obey orders.' the glove answered, a bit indirectly.

'I see. Your codes...you can control the guns. That's why they left me. A human is easy to manipulate to order what they want them to.' Pef mused inward.

'Yes and no. We are all in the Legion, after all. Your cultivation method serves a similar role as the override codes I have. You organics are also quite stupid. It evens out...with slight bias towards the higher tiers.' the advisor said in a level tone.

Pef nodded and sped ahead, shattering the continental plate above and emerging in orbit.

Then he looked around, trying to get his bearings. This wasn't the demon galaxy.

Nellie arrived beside him, and glanced around with worry. "We were transported far away...I think my galaxy is that way..." she declared pointing up at a triangle shaped cloud.

'Your wife is correct. We are 3 million light-years away from the departing point. And I detect adamantite ore nearby.'

the glove added in a wry voice, highlighting a few stars systems nearby.

'How convenient. But we expected this. What about more blue jade?' Pef thought inward, while holding a hand for Nellie.

As soon as they held hands, Pef began Blinking at a rapid pace while his inner avatars were already brewing more voidwine from the fresh batch of blood.

He had problems controlling more than a hundred avatars, but they would serve well enough. Brewing wine took only a couple avatars anyway.

A few of them kept working on soulsmithing weapons from the Archdemon bones, other were meditating or laying down inscriptions, testing every kind of materials he found for synergistic effects.

Godbeast blood was by far the best type of ink he could use, but the consumption was too wasteful for mass production.

Adamantite served well as a base for inscriptions, with gold and iridium coming far behind. He still had to test the Godbeast skin as material for a type of leather armor, but again that skin was only so large.

Archdemon's skulls were in larger supply, and were quite big, specially the latter ones when the demon was at his largest size.

They would do for now.

Then he tried the new blue stones, on a hunch.

The inscriptions lit up with powerful emissions, and that worked even with voidbeast blood as ink.

A few Tier 4 defensive inscriptions made the finger sized blue jade completely invulnerable to his voidswords.

Pef struck with the Voidcutter, and watched the skill bounce off with a painful screech.

'Use the stone to parry the tribulation.' the glove advised him with an amused voice.

Pef took out the stone and held it up, just as a torrent of black lightning crashed on his head, and the glowing stone.

Surprisingly, the lightning was absorbed into the stone, dealing less than half of the normal damage. However, the inscriptions vanished, leaving a slightly larger stone in his hand.

"What was that? Tribulation?" Nellie asked while struggling to contain the aftershock as it coursed through their linked hands.

Pef shrugged in fake innocence. "A very small one. Here, this is yours." he said, holding a new jade stone with defensive inscriptions as a gift for her.

"Oh? A treasure that can block Heavenly Tribulation? This is a priceless gift. Thanks love!" Nellie exclaimed happily and hugged him with obvious happiness.

'I see why they are used as currency. There must be plenty proscribed skills in the Great Realms.' Pef told his glove with a curious voice.

'They have many uses. A helmet made of it would block most mind powers and most tribulations. Although, I doubt we'll find a large enough crystal here. The Laws are too low, and the qi too rarefied, like in all Tier 1 universes.' the glove said in a sad tone.

Pef stopped, having arrived in orbit over a green giant planet, itself orbited by a hundred moons.

Extending his coresense, he soon mapped the system and located a moon with a deposit of adamantite ore, and many other minerals, one of them unknown to him.

'What are those reddish minerals?' Pef wondered inward.

'A natural compound containing copper, gold and platinum, with a few traces of gallium and mythril. Some Realms use the Red Soul Dust to impart sentience to their artifacts. Liches use it to increase their intelligence by partitioning their heartstones. Humans can use it to purify themselves. Sadly, these deposits are of low quality and quantity.' it answered in a less entusiastic tone.

Pef glanced at his wife. 'And elves?'

'Soul strengthening, stronger magic, longer lifespans. It hurts a lot though.' the glove added as incentive.

Pef sighed. Elves and mythril.

"Go collect the red minerals Nellie. They will help your father." Pef told his wife, as he Blinked on top of the adamantite deposits. His voidhands began scooping ore and bringing it closer.

Mining again...cultivating was so tedious sometimes.