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Chapter 262: Black Stuff
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Zola roared like a Chinese businessman who lost his business and went bankrupt.
He broke down, holding his head, crying, gaining the attention of the passersby around him.
“100% stats points?! I’ve never even heard about this before!”
When he had confirmed where all of his 100 free stat points went the surprise and despair he felt moments ago instantly turned into curiosity.
“Spirit? I never knew you could put points on the Spirit Stat…”
Originally, he wanted to recreate his former build on this avatar. But now, that plan was ruined by a knight valet that wanted to cut corners and tripped on him.
He checked again and was thoroughly convinced that he wasn’t dreaming. His cry of despair turned into a broad smile as ideas upon ideas began to take root in his mind.
The original foundation of his plans went into a total overhaul and a new plan immediately came up in his mind; a better plan… a better revenge!
“Not only you can put points on the SPIRIT stat, but all my basic stats have all turned into their advanced form! This… this…. Wait. What about my initial ability? What were my choices?”
As soon as he thought of this, he pressed on the [Ability] slot on his player panel and a list of abilities suddenly appeared in front of his eyes.
“Jackpot!”
Momentarily forgetting his anger, Zola browsed the list as he sat down in an inconspicuous spot near the plaza… his eyes gleaming with plans and plots on how to deal with Kladis and Siva at the same time.
“All of these abilities are Unique Abilities! I really hit the jackpot!”
But then, somewhere along the list, close to the end of his browsing, his smile suddenly turned cold and sinister as he looked at two greyed out abilities. Meaning, they weren’t on his choices.
He thought he was the first one to discover this secret but as it turns out, he was actually the third.
As much as it angers him, it wasn’t that huge of a blow since the game has been operating close to two years now and so it was natural that there are people who’d want to capitalize on this secret and tell only the closest people beside them.
How he knew? Because that’s totally the NEW plan he came up with.
Zola was planning to capitalize on this and bring a group of his loyal supporters inside the game and create an organization made up only of people with a Unique Ability.
As a prince, he has no shortage of men willing to work under his banner.
Yes, their country was slightly threatened with how they depended on the Uglya Kingdom when it was in regards to business, so, he plans to use this chance to earn money thru the game.
“If I’m successful, I’d even get the chance to be father’s heir!”
After reevaluating the importance of this discovery on his mind, his ambitions began to soar higher and his aspirations were affected as well as his formerly supposed grand plans!
“Wait, what is this Emperor’s Haki? I’ve never heard of someone who had that ability before.”
Siva’s [Killing Zone] was famous and it was an ability dreaded by almost all of the players in the current era of the game. The reason why many people knew of this is because he participated in the War of Two Powers in Espada.
But the other one, Emperor’s Haki, no one has yet to know who held such ability.
“I will have to ask Alfred to investigate that later.”
Zola tried to read the information regarding the two abilities that’s already been taken but there was no response.
Meaning, he can’t spy on their effects. But aside from them, he can read all of the available abilities on the Unique Abilities portion of the large list and so he took his time that lasted for around 7 hours.
After seven hours, “I see now. At least now I know where his strength is coming from… now I know how his abilities work! Siva works alone and he doesn’t have my advantage of lineage and birth so I can use this chance to crush him and Kladis!”
The reason why Siva was able to suppress anyone and shock them with just his presence that could decrease anyone’s defenses by 70%...
Is because of his high Spirit stat.
In short, it was Intimidation…!!
Zola wasn’t stupid and he knew that these Battle Stats were actual stats that were one way or another helpful to a player’s prowess. As such, it was this little bit of information that explained just how Siva could ‘intimidate’ anyone.
“Killing Zone… heh. Now that I know your strength, I now also know your weakness! I will use number against you! And even if you are able to use that humanoid warship and your so called The Company… seeing that there are still so many available skills on this list means that you haven’t told anyone else regarding this secret. This also applies to that other person as well!”
As he was looking at his stats, he realized that while his Battle Stats all changed into their advanced forms with the SPI stat increasing to a monstrous level, the number didn’t change a bit and that he was basically still just a normal human being (adding the Humans’ added 5% stat on DEX, INT, CHARM, and STR —see Volume 1 Chapter 9) with the difference of having advanced form of all the stats.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Yes… the reason why he materialized in Castle City Jeremiah is because he chose the Human Race as his career’s race.
“My original plan to become a Knight and also a licensed Nano-Engineer has just become easier with this. I shouldn’t waste any more time here. I have to move fast!”
Because he knew the secret of The Providence, he will climb the highest ladder to power using the shortest route with the strongest card he have.
The strongest force in Terroa is the Human and Terran controlled Kingdom of Jeremiah.
Its ruler was King Altair Astarte Isley.
Zola may be a new soul to the citizens of Terroa but he has knowledge of his former career that he can exploit as much as he can.
Knowing about this Unique Ability list is just an added bonus that’s too large to not be happy for.
“Just you wait Siva, I will come for you.”
Murmuring these words, he selected an [ability] from the list of Unique Abilities in front of him as he stood up and dusted himself towards the direction of the headquarters of the Wall of Jeremiah Knight Order.
Under his name, Zola, his ability appeared.
Its name was… [Elementis].
*****
Two hours earlier, when Rex woke up from the game to take a real rest, he was surprised to see something.
“Wh-What is this?!”
As soon as Rex woke up, he felt as if his bed was thrown into the lowest bottom of the sewers where the concentrated shits and filth of the human society were located.
It’s like he had stained himself on his bed.
“Fuuuuuuuccckkkk!!!”
He felt the stickiness along with the most rancid and the vilest of all smells he’d ever smelled in his life sticking on his skin like a goo.
Rex turned his gaze and saw something black and greyish on his hair, face, arms and legs, and it smelled so awful and so putridly vie that it was a smell that could easily induce vomiting.
“Where the heck did all these came from?!”
Shocked and mostly confused by this substance, he dared not to inhale deep through his agitation and only studied the black-greyish sticky stuff for a few moments before giving up since he can’t stand the putrid smell invading his nostrils.
When he tried to sit up, he realized that the whole bed was invaded by the source of this smell.
He was practically swimming on them!
From his pillows, to his hair, to the bedsheets, to his blanket, to the expensive soft leather skin of his hydro-bed… the excess black substance was like his outer skin and his sweat, in a form of this gooey stuff, in one.
When he tried to sit up, the rotten smelly stuff that stuck on his hair softly stayed on his pillow and the sensation of parting with them created tiny sounds of snapping twigs, morbidly horrid in every word of the sense. (A/N: wait, what?)
“Wadafaaaaack!”
It wasn’t that effortful to sit up. What made it look like he was being pulled back to the bed as he tried to sit up was the fact that the outer layer of the sticky substance had already dried and is like a withered gelatin that snaps like a twig when he parts with it.
With every splitting, snapping strand of that inner-still-soft gooey substance, the visible grey ‘dust’ its brittle outer layer made smelled like concentrated blobs of farts that came from ten men who only ate egg for a whole year.
The smell was an unbearable scent, like a poison odor only read and seen through fictional worlds.
He can’t breathe in if he stopped and so he had to endure and close his mouth to make sure that none of the ones sticking on his cheek and temple were going to fall inside to choke him.
Just the mere thought of tasting what this black substance was made him so frightened and so mortified that he forced himself upright with great amounts of effort.
It’s like he was going to taste a physical form of a silent bomber*. Ack! (*seriously, google this)
“Pwah…!!!”
It didn’t take long, in fact, and from the moment he tried to sit up until he did so, it was only four short seconds or less.
But for the mere action in on itself, it was still very visible that he did endure something there.
Rex tried to shorten his breath and calm himself.
He looked at his arms and carefully pulled them, the series of tiny, almost inaudible snapping sounds carried endless amounts of revolting thoughts that creeps on his mind.
“Just what is this thing?!” His mind battled with the logic of his last impression before logging in. “I remember not even having much food and Manang Fe was even there and…”
When his thoughts traveled here, he cried out for the Manang, and the old woman practically ran her way upstairs only to stop as soon as he opened the door to his room.
Her eyes widened and he put her hand to her nose, almost even to the point of vomiting from the sickening nauseating smell.
“What is that?!” she exclaimed.
“I don’t know!” Rex replied and pulled his left arm to clear the blanket on his leg. “Help me get up.”
Manang Fe reluctantly came forth to pull his left hand and when her hand touched the attached black substance on his hand, the sticky feel made her release her hand involuntarily and whisked it away towards the door.
“Yuck! What is this thing?!”
Her action made him lose balance and he stumble forward face first towards the floor.
Out of reflex, his left foot took a step forward and made him balance himself and he looked at the Manang with widened angry eyes.
“Why did you let go?”
“Because that black thing on you just touched me!”
The Manang*** wasn’t someone who chose work and is disgusted upon seeing a golden whale in the toilet bowl, but the mysterious black gooey stuff on Rex and the awful smell it had was just enough to trigger her repulsive defensive reflex.
With one hand on her nose, Manang Fe pulled the sticking blanket on Rex’s leg and just as she was about to turn around, she looked at Rex with a wide-eyed gaze.
–No, to be exact, she wasn’t looking at his face but rather to his left leg.
“Y-Your leg’s healed?”
“Hm?”
Rex who straightened his body realized the key to her sentence and he looked down his left leg as if he was looking at a ghost.
His eyes widened in shock and he lifted his leg to check for pain and to his surprise… there was nothing, none, no pain.
“What’s happening here?”
He could only gasp but with such action, he just inhaled some of the putrid smell and the thought of his left leg immediately escaped his mind as he ran towards the bathroom.
The vomiting sounds echoes in the room and Manang Fe shook her head as she spent more glare to the bed thinking about the mystery of how Rex’s leg healed with just over a night like that.
She could clearly remember how he stubbornly removed the metal braces and the mechanical support on his leg and spent the next weeks in a limping fashion whenever he wanted to head up and down the house.
Rex may have been physically healed and his exterior appearance may look okay, but whenever he’d hobble as he stepped that injured leg, he’d always grimace in agonized pain.
He was just that stubborn. He believed what that twin doctors had said; that the human body is as miraculous as a lizard’s tail… and so much more!
Forcing the regenerative abilities of cells to the limits by stimulating stress and feeding it with an enormous amount of adrenaline, guided by the mind’s hypnotic thoughts… is like a double edged sword that although theoretically and is medically possible, can also lead to severe consequences.
Manang Fe was born in the late 21st century and so she was of course influenced by the various technology and propaganda, as well as movies and many entertainment materials that did not lack anything from fantastical information to scientific fictional and theoretical resources.
She was a modern woman of the 22nd century.
And yet, to see that leg earlier as if it was already healed and him using it to fully support his weight without grimacing in pain was just an atom short of a miracle.
“Just what did they do to you?” she could only ask in a murmur since it was just a few hours ago when she watched those four men bring a metallic box in his room and leave seeming to have unloaded what was once inside that metal box.
“Don’t tell him we came.” Graham instructed.
Manang Fe couldn’t say no to him.
She was just the house’s keeper.
That’s all.