~~~~~Rox's P.O.V~~~~~
What is maturity? What is morality? As a loner who had very few people in his circle on Earth, I had a lot of time to deliberate internally about a lot of philosophical ideas.
Recently, I just snatched for myself a few subordinates and I have been trying to access their strengths. Although Au is quite slow, she has a lot of attack power in the form of fire and flame magic. She also has skills that prevent close-quarters combat types from getting close to her. Putting it simply, if you are not a long-range attack type do not approach her or you will get burnt. If you have resistances against her speciality or you are strong enough to shrug them off and get close enough, she becomes a paper tiger since her defence is very low.
Epei is a very great Swordsman. In my suppressed state, he is faster than me. By using his speed and skills, he could have won if I didn't use heavy attacks against him. He also made a blunder. It seems my [King of Cheats] title makes sure I get the most optimised versions of the skills I gain as long as they are not titular skills. Because of that my skills require less mana and stamina compared to Epei.
If you consider the fact that I have more (MP) and stamina than him and the fact that my mana and stamina recovery are faster than his, his trying to keep up with my use of skills puts him at a huge disadvantage. I could have drawn the fight out but I used a powerful [Blade Arts] attack to finish the fight.
For Eu, it was a drawn-out fight. She had resistances against all of her skills and with her high durability, it was hard to hurt her. She has a lot of defensive skills and her attack skills cause less damage.
Come to think of it, she was barely hurt when I met them although the odds were against her side. Even with my optimised skills breaking through her defences was very hard.
In time I thought of improvising. I studied science in high school back on earth and as a noble and the only heir of my father's, I had to study a lot. I used my wits as a half-baked scientist to come up with a plan. First and foremost using water nature skills against her was futile. She has intermediate resistance against it. Her ice nature skills were basic and she had basic resistance against them as well so using ice nature skills against her was also futile. Frankly, even without her resistances, basic attack skills wouldn't be able to go through her defences. Her barriers are intermediate class so basic attacks won't be able to go through. So I created an intermediate ice sphere, froze it using an ice nature spell I found in my spells and accelerated it towards her.
Mass times acceleration equals force and the velocity of the ice ball that was approaching her made it powerful enough to break through all of her defences and probably kill her.
Ansah asked me to save her. She also told me I created my first technique. Since the technique was faster than me even at my full power, I had to come up with a faster way to save her. In the end, I had to use Kuma.
In a split second, I walked in between the ice and Eu and punched the ice lightly. Part of the ice, the part that made direct contact with my fist together with the parts linear to it expanding at a thirty-five degrees angle from my fist was instantly vaporized and the other parts turned into tiny ice particles.
I didn't check the effects of my punch and turned to look at Eu. She was acting like a girl in love and I think she had fallen for me. It was probably the suspension bridge effect working on her since I saved her.
I ended up taking her inside the barrier in a princess carry. On my way, I realized the devastation I caused with my light punch. I levelled up even though I was using Kuma.
I hate that I killed all those lifeforms with Kuma's help. If I had done it on my own, I would have gotten a lot of experience. Enough experience to level me up past level sixty. Who knows? It could have pushed me past even eighty.
I got a new title but it felt like Ansah and the system were mocking me so I cut the conversation with her short. I was already in a bad mood for wasting all that experience so I wasn't ready to put up with her.
I got a lot of praise from my subordinates which put me in a good mood. After the rain of praises and the short shower of rain resulting from the devastation caused by my punch, I realized Etit was jealous of Eu because of the fact that I picked Eu up. I know my subordinates can not go against my commands in any way so as my oracle, Etit may have similar effects on my subordinates so I wanted to experiment with it.
The main reason though was that if they couldn't go against her commands, she had the power to command them to kill themselves and they would do it without question.
I asked her to give an order to any of my subordinates and as expected she asked Eu to kneel. It seems Eu usually tells her when she is going overboard so since Eu didn't protest and did as she was told before asking why, she thought she was in the right.
When I asked her to give a second order, she asked Eu to slap herself and Eu slapped herself so hard that her (HP) went down.
After the slap, Eu started begging her without knowing the reason why. This made Zairitz think she didn't do anything wrong but I opened her eyes to the truth.
Eu did it because she was compelled to by my skill. The skill was absolute when dealing with my subordinates.
I asked Ansah to make sure that my higher-ranked subordinates wouldn't be able to order those below them to directly kill themselves and made the skill a little lax. Then I told Etit to not let her emotions control her.
For some reason, I can mentally do some calculations that I would have needed a calculator to do easily now. Based on the time structures of Planet Ko and Soyzy, I was able to first convert Zairitz's age to Earth years and confirm that she would be thirteen on Earth. I later subconsciously converted my age which is sixteen on Planet Soyzy to Earth years and realized I was younger than I thought.
All this while, I have been thinking of Zairitz as a kid not knowing I am also a kid. This made me start thinking about Nana. Did I spend a night with a minor? No. As Holumni, we are adults and our bodies actually look like sixteen years old kids on Earth.
Just because a dog is only three years old doesn't make it young. It is old enough to procreate. I can not force human ideals on species that are not humans.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Since I am now a Holumni, I should follow the Holumni culture. Not that in the past it wasn't normal in some Earth cultures to let young people marry and procreate.
'The period needed to mature into an adult defers for different species.' I came to terms with that and decided to move on. Morality is subjective so I put that one aside as well. Each planet and its inhabitants have their own way of doing things.
*******
Since the barrier was set to block rain too, those inside it didn't get wet. I was also protected by Kuma so I didn't get wet while outside. Eu was wet but she used her skills to absorb the water.
Before we started sparring, I checked Abre's stats and skills;
Name: Abre.
Race: Lower Divine Xerxi.
Level: 17.
Health Points(HP) = 107200.
Mana Points (MP) = 20400.
Strength (ST) = 11600.
Speed (S) = 180.
Durability (D) = 2800.
Stamina (E) = 29200.
Skills: [Intermediate Knuckles Of Steel], [Intermediate Battle Hardened], [Intermediate Battle Instinct], [Overcomer], [Physical Reinforcement], [Area Awareness] and [Speed Boost].
Resistances: [Intermediate Physical Attack Resistance], [Intermediate Magic Attack Resistance], [Intermediate Fire Magic Resistance], [Intermediate Water Magic Resistance], [Basic Slash Resistance], [Basic Stab Resistance], [Intermediate Blunt Force Resistance], [Intermediate Earth], [Basic Plant Magic Resistance], [Intermediate Poison Resistance], [Intermediate Fear Resistance], [Intermediate Intimidation Resistance]etc.
Titles: [The Brave], [Brawler], [Rox's Subordinate].
He doesn't have a weapon but his body itself is a weapon. His [Knuckles Of Steel] skill makes his fists strong enough to withstand the recoil of the power behind his punches allowing him to punch very hard objects. His [Battle Instinct] skill lets him assess the threat of an attack or weapon helping him decide whether or not he should block or avoid an attack. It also increases his reaction speed by forty per cent. His [Overcomer] skill increases his stats by fifty per cent when he is against a more powerful opponent.
The [Overcomer] skill is a titular skill. Titular skills are fifty per cent less effective when used by a person without the corresponding title and I found that out the hard way. They come already highly optimised making it hard or maybe even impossible for my [King Of Cheats] title to create cheat versions of them.
Both [Flame Magic Boost] and [Water Magic Boost] are also titular skills that correspond to [Flame Mage] and [Water Mage]. All titular skills give a boost to a certain attribute of the host. In this case, both [Flame Magic Boost] and [Water Magic Boost] give a fifty per cent increase in potency to their related nature magic and skills when used by the host. Without the title, you only get a twenty-five per cent increase in potency. I was only able to overcome that difference when I was fighting the mages because my [King of Cheats] title created cheat versions of the skills I got from them for me. I didn't even use [Flame Magic Boost] when I was fighting Au because my skills were highly optimised. Against Eu, I used it but it didn't make much of a difference.
Abre's resistances are also numerous making him a force to be reckoned with.
*******
I invited Abre outside the barrier and suppressed my stats to only thirty per cent because, after my increase in level, I far exceeded him in power. I told him I have decreased my power to his level and I'll only use skills similar to the ones he has so he should give it his all and maybe he will win.
The moment I said so, I saw Abre visibly transforming in front of me. He started becoming more handsome and his skin started glowing.
As I was watching him transform in [Thought Acceleration] mode, Ansah suddenly informed me that she must restore my power.
"Why?" I asked not knowing what was going on.
"Abre is taking his Lower Divine Xerxi form and it seems it has given him a temporary five-level increase in level making him far more powerful than your suppressed state. Luckily he can only stay in that form for no more than three seconds." Ansah briefed me on the situation and showed me Abre's current stats;
Name: Abre(Lower Divine Xerxi Form).
Race: Lower Divine Xerxi.
Level: 22.
Health Points(HP) = 254966.
Mana Points (MP) = 48520.
Strength (ST) = 27590.
Speed (S) = 428.1.
Durability (D) = 6660.
Stamina (E) = 69450.
His stats increased past mine when I was at level eighteen. As I was checking his stats, I saw Abre coming at me so fast that I could barely block his punch. I lost about five per cent (HP) even though I blocked.
I restored my stats and asked Ansah why I do not have that form as part of my skill set after going through my skills.
"The Lower Divine Xerxi Form is not a skill but a form that only Lower Divine Xerxi can take. You can only take that form after killing a Lower Divine Xerxi and copying their form using the [Ability King Sirus] Supreme Skill."
"Do I have a Supreme Divine Seed form?"
"You do but you are too weak to use it. If you try using it now, you will die."
My current stats after restoring my power were;
Name: Rox Ben Nide.
Race: Supreme Divine Seed.
Level: 19.
Health Points(HP) = 294156.
Mana Points (MP) = 63130.
Strength (ST) = 29416.
Speed (S) = 505.7.
Durability (D) = 6788.
Stamina (E) = 81459.
I thought I would be able to handle him now but his stats immediately skyrocketed once more. I activated all of the defensive and enhancement skills I got from him but I could barely keep up with his flurry of punches.
I tried to use the [Overcomer] skill which Abre activated the moment I became stronger than him. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Although the [Overcomer] skill has doubled his stats his actual stats are below me so it didn't activate.
"Master, you don't have the [The Brave] title so even if it activated, you would only have gotten half the effects of the skill " Ansah hit me with a bombshell when I was doing my best to block Abre's punches. I could barely block half of them and in two milliseconds, I was down to eighty per cent (HP)
Then I got an idea, if I can't use the skill because my stats are above his then it stands to reason that if I suppress my stats to his level, the skill will immediately deactivate for him. I checked the conditions for the activation of the skill and after I realized the skill was a passive skill that only activates when the opponent is at least, ten per cent stronger than you, I let Ansah reduce my stats to the point that I was only nine per cent stronger than him.
After that, the fight turned easy. My (HP) was at fifty-two per cent by the time I was able to turn the tables on him. I knew I lost because initially, the condition was for him to beat me in my suppressed state but as the all-powerful God known as Rox, I couldn't just lift my hands and say that I have lost. I couldn't also let him beat me to a pulp. That would be disgraceful.
Using any skill that he doesn't have against him will also go against my words so I think I handled it the best way I could.
Although fighting him became easier, he started using his legs in the battle and did his best to prevent me from instantly winning.
Abre decided to use his Lower Divine Xerxi Form for only one second so he stopped fighting the moment we reached one second. After that, Abre found himself in extreme pain. He kept on screaming while everyone was complimenting him on how good he did against me.
The other subordinates could barely follow our fight. Because of that, they were all amazed that a mere level seventeen could put up that much of a fight against me and actually hurt me. Yes, I bled when I was confronting him. His initial punches were so heavy that my hands went numb and the only reason I kept on fighting was that I couldn't accept disgracing myself any further.