Mordred scanned the room he was summoned into. It was surprisingly empty and barren, uncharacteristic for a personal lodging of someone who can fund and wage war by herself.
“Most of Captain Shion’s precious fabricators and artifacts are stored within her dimensional storage,” Ayame whispered behind him as if already knowing his thoughts. “What you typically see like the tower shield and gunlance are incapable of being put inside dimensional storage due to its material composition.”
“I see.” Mordred nodded, his gaze locked into Shion. “Why have you summoned me into your private quarters, Miss Shion?”
The woman in question is currently busy tinkering with a circular, handheld object. Explosive, presumably. “We’ll soon reach the Southeast Hunter Academy, our mission will soon come to an end and we will part ways after the test.” Her attention shifted to Mordred. “Satoru, why do you want to keep your grade-S spirit talent hidden? It’s easier for you to enroll in the Royal Academy if you were to simply announce your talent.”
Mordred paused, changing his expression into doubt and hesitation before speaking his mind. “Back then, I was unaware that having a grade-S talent was a free pass, and even so, I was afraid. Back in my home village, every time I accomplished something that made me remotely stand out, the others would try to pull my leg, harshly. Having a grade-A spirit talent is, according to my assumption, an acceptable compromise between what I can reveal and what I should conceal. Until I have a sufficient number of hidden cards under my sleeves, I think I shouldn’t draw too much attention.”
Shion shook her head. Although he raised some good points, she disagreed with his opinion. “Let’s say you are introduced into a new environment, like the Hunter Academy. What kind of stance would you take when someone tried to infringe on your benefit?”
After some pondering, Mordred replied, “I’ll fight back, but I’ll refrain from showing my true abilities. Unless absolutely necessary, I'm going to hold back in showing off my cards.”
Once again, Shion faintly shook her head in disapproval. “That would make you timid, no? You’re also being contrarian to yourself. Aren’t you the one who grovels at Sumire’s feet when you can’t unfuck yourself from a disadvantageous position?”
Modred blushed because Ayame quickly interacted with their wrist computer, producing a holographic video when he groveled at Sumire, asking to enlighten Desir with her wisdom-path method. “Pride is just a currency. If I can trade my pride for more important resources, then I have profited.”
“Well, at least we’re at the same frequency on that subject.” Shion shrugged. “But I still don’t agree with your point of view. Concealing your true abilities unless you’re put in a situation where it is absolutely necessary to reveal them is the perspective of the weak. You should change your condition, and find the best time to unleash your potential to get the maximum amount of benefit.”
She added, “In the same situation, if I were to be introduced to a new environment, I would break the strongest guy to establish my dominance, like for example, cut off his dick or something. Only then can I ensure a smooth cultivation journey.”
“I can confirm, that is true.” Ayame interjected, “Captain Shion had almost cut off Kenji’s genitalia at some point.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t replicate your situation. Unlike me, you are the princess of a great clan. With a wave of your hand, the resources of your clan will mobilize according to your will.” Mordred retorted. “Forgive my audacity, but you are the epitome of an elitist cultivator who was born with a golden spoon, while I am just a grassroots cultivator who has to exploit others, and fight tooth and nail just for my cultivation resources.”
Shion smiled. “Then why don’t you grovel at my feet? I want to see you beg like a dog.”
“As of now, I don’t see the benefit of doing so.” Mordred will perform the most shameless, outrageous acts to accomplish his mission, but it doesn’t mean he will do it on a whim, especially with no strong incentive. “Miss Sakuya has been providing me with all the things that I needed.”
“Heh.” Holding back a chuckle, Shion’s gaze met with Ayame. “You remember the guy who was very arrogant to me… What was his name?”
“Kubikiri Yoshiro, a distant cousin of Shiro and Kuro.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Right.” Her sight turned back towards Mordred, “I broke his rib cage and extracted his essence blood to make a gunlance part. As of now, his metallic bone is one of the best anti-barrier weapons in my repertoire.”
“Your point being?” Mordred raised an inquiry.
“I hate seeing other people being arrogant, especially if they don’t have the strength to back them up.” her tone was cold and flat as if speaking of a completely unrelated topic. She never excludes killing intent, but as an antimage assassin, it is within her specialty not to leak her intention to the world. Mordred could guess what her true feelings were.
After all, he also shares the same sentiments.
At that moment, his forehead immediately hit the cold steel floor with a dull thud. “I beg forgiveness for my insolence. I had gotten used to Miss Sakuya’s grace that I’ve forgotten my place, please do not take offense to my actions.”
Shion looked at Ayame. “Will this suffice?”
Ayame nodded. “I’ll edit and butter up the rest of the scene. At the very least, it’ll alleviate Sumire’s complaints. Psychometry will also give the same result, you now have the justification.”
“Good.” The antimage's attention returned to Mordred, “Satoru, raise your head. I don’t care whether you’re being arrogant or not, youths need to be hot-blooded and aggressive. Since you cultivate fire-path, that point is even more important than you think. Anyhow, I need to mix truths and lies. You are a grade-S spirit talent, so I want some assurance before I leave you to your own devices.”
“I beg your pardon?” Mordred acted innocent, but he had somewhat connected the dots.
“Psychometry,” Ayame whispered. “I can only ‘edit’ some scenes, not fabricate one. It doesn’t matter what reason you grovel, as long as you grovel to her. With this, Captain Shion has the justification of giving you something, since you begged her…”
Shion pulled a box from underneath his bed. When he opened it up and presented the content to Mordred, he could see an antique-looking weapon, its design very similar to a weapon found in Industrial Revolution-era Holy Terra, the Model 1873.
“Small arms like the revolver in your hands have a very limited amount of space for engraving runes and magic bullet calibers, this limits the amount of abilities that can be bestowed onto it and its firepower threshold, thus forever classifying them as an anti-human weapon. No matter what kind of bullet you use, it can never truly match a real anti-beast weapon. So, this is where it’ll come in handy…” Shion took out the black-red rifle and she revealed its function.
“This is a +3 lever-action rifle. Despite being a rank 0 magic gun, it has been enhanced three times, the absolute limit of enhancement that any rank 0 artifact can receive. The enhancements are as follows: Firepower, Velocity, and Knockback Reduction.” She handed the lever-action rifle to Ayame for a more in-depth assessment.
When she received it, her eyes glimmered in prismatic glow, “+25% firepower, +25% projectile speed, and +25% Knockback Reduction.” She gasped, “Captain, this is worth more than 350k crystal coins!”
“I made that thing last night.” Shion waved her hands. From her perspective, it wasn’t something significant, but in reality, having a +3 rank 0 weapon is almost unheard of for someone from a frontier village like Satoru. Due to the limitation of materials, rank 0 weapons can only be refined with 3 enchantments, furthermore, the enhancement quality is the top-tier, so this +3 artifact is the quintessence of its rank. “He’s a grade-S spirit talent, so this magic gun will be very helpful to him. Of course, if you want, I can give you my gunlance, but as a Bloodline Warlock, you need at least a rank 2 cultivation base to use it to its full potential.”
Mordred produced an expression as he was holding back his excitement as he received and played around with the rifle’s lever. “I don’t have the physical capacity to hold a heavy weapon like that, so I’d prefer this one… Captain Shion, thank you!” He offered a ninety-degree bow as thanks.
“That gunlance is an artifact for Power Armor, not for human usage anyway.” Shion shrugged, before taking out some more boxes from underneath her bed. “Here are the spell potions used to activate them…”
Each of the ammo boxes contains its type of spell potion, er, magic bullets, and there are three such boxes. “Metal-path [Armor-Piercing Rounds], fire-path [Phosphorus Incendiary Rounds], and metal-path [Full Metal Rounds], each has its advantages and limitations.” She introduced each of the color-coded magic bullets. Unlike the ones used for his revolver which was barely as big as a distal phalange and is fundamentally a modified [Fireball] spell, each bullet for the lever-action rifle is as big as his finger with its unique characteristics.
Mordred excitedly inspected each bullet. Although all three types have the same tubular transparent glass-like bullet casing holding some kind of liquid, there are quite noticeable differences between each.
For example, the Armor Piercing has silvery gray liquid, with its pointed metal tip having the same color, the Phosphorus Incendiary contains pure white powder, while the Full Metal is black.
“Your primary armament would be the Full Metal round, as it is the cheapest bullet but has the greatest cost-performance ratio in general situations. Since you’ve seen firsthand the limitation of your revolver, you should be aware of what the rest are for…” Shion briefly explained, “Ayame will train you how to use the rifle and the method to refine the bullets in a virtual environment later.”
Mordred happily accepted the rifle and the bullets.