Chapter 841 - Keep yourself together (Patreon)

After yet another release of her presence, I find myself re-manifesting inside of this mental space. Currently, I'm confident that out of my year here, a few days have already passed in what feels like just a flash. I wonder, would it be normal to say that I’m having fun?

It might be this cockroach’s doing, but all my abilities seem to work pretty well. My traits, my insight into mana wavelengths, passives, stats, and all that. It all feels just like it does outside. Of course, the difference is that there are no level ups. I can’t open my status, and it is difficult to describe, but my improvements feel weird and hard to point out.

Of course, I adapt to what Lissandra does and continue to improve, but it doesn’t feel like I become more resilient, improve my reflexes, or anything like that. It is more that I know that in one second I will get hit by a car from my left and flung into the air, then a truck will roll over me, a bunch of lions escaped from zoo will bite into my flesh and drag me across the city, then a plane will crash against my crumbled body, and then a grandma on a bike will run me over while ringing a bell.

It is as she warned me regarding this kind of training. My body outside won’t get integrated muscle memory, and even my brain won’t rewire to work efficiently in reaction to the training. I just gain the knowledge, and that knowledge will allow me to improve faster outside. Maybe knowledge is not the right word. Experience? Well, I do not like to think about these things too deeply, but it isn’t anything bad for me, I just have to stop popping like a balloon every time she…

I find myself re-manifesting again, and Lissandra, who still looks like her version from the 2nd floor, looks down at me.

“You don’t have to stop, I can keep going,” I say.

“Little pup, even a gray lizard can keep going as it keeps screaming and repeatedly running against a wall, yet it means very little. Why aren't you improving?”

“Well, sorry I'm not at the level of nobl-”

“Enough,” she waves her hand, and her eyes haze as she thinks of something. “I knew what I was getting myself into, so there is no reason for me to start getting frustrated now. I need to control myself.”

Looking at her, I can only think that I will scream if she says she wants to punch my face for some mysterious reason. Her eyes narrow as she looks at me, and I can’t help but remember that even the huge house pest that is the Ruler of Diligence wanted to punch me, and he can’t even read human faces. Surely it can’t be that bad.

“You have a few minutes to rethink your approach,” she says, standing where she is.

I look at her, and she looks back at me, causing me to scratch my chin and look away.

Then I force a part of me to start rethinking what I should do. I find it partially exciting and partially annoying, after all, most of the time I prefer simply enduring and overpowering this kind of stuff with my superior mana reserves.

Yes, it is fun to go for efficiency. Yes, better efficiency means a bigger kaboom, as Minion would say, and even if my reserves do not increase, that in the end is like getting more mana. But… it’s not where my talent lies. I don’t think I will ever use mana as efficiently as someone like Weslin, Savant, Tess, or Sophie can. And at the same time, I think they will never be able to match the speed with which I can gather mana and move large amounts of it.

Once again, I turn my eyes to Lissandra and ask, “You keep saying that current Absolutes are all trash and nothing in comparison to how they used to be, but what do you mean by that, actually?”

“For your own good, I hope you are dedicating appropriate effort towards your improvements rather than this idle chat, little pup. It is as I have said. Though I was born after the System War, there still were Absolutes and Champions remaining from that era. That war culled many of them, and the surviving ones were those who had faced the gods, elves, and dragons in battle and survived.”

She pauses as if reminiscing on good old times she never experienced firsthand. There might even be a bit of longing.

Would things be different if someone like her lived back then? Could a singular being even be able to bring such change?

While I think that Lissandra continues to talk, “I’ve heard stories of dozens of Absolutes cooperating together just to kill a single god. Preparing items and arrays that are incomparable to even something like Beyond’s main array. Items they created that were capable of destroying planets and techniques millions of people worked on to develop for killing specific gods. And dozens of those Absolutes perished instantly as they threw themselves against their opponents. All in hope of rewards that, as you can imagine, were equal to the danger.”

“Are many of those Absolutes still alive?”

A small smile, unusual for her, appears on her face. “Most certainly, there are plenty of them. Warmongers waiting for yet another war, explorers in distant parts of the universe, or broken ones searching for a peaceful end. Some died as I challenged them, even their rewards proving not enough. And many more died challenging Pride. Little pup, when you are able to, give it a bit of thought, ask yourself as to why so many powerful people seem to want to challenge that man. As for you, be very careful if you ever meet someone who survived the System War and lived until today’s era.”

“I will try to. But how do they differ otherwise, other than experience and some fancy rewards?”

“Fancy rewards… are you dumb, little pup? There were some that gained things such as a sixth passive skill. Just a mere few out of the many who fought, with most of them long since dead. But it still shows the desperation of the system. Even if I guess, desperation isn’t fitting as the system bears no such emotion, it just follows its nature to spread and evolve. But it shows how highly it calculated the threat back then to offer such rewards that haven't been seen since and will likely never be seen again.”

“Did you ever gain such rewards?” I ask her.

“I did not. Ten active skills, five passive skills, three traits. I’m as human as they come. Yet in my hands, even this is enough. Little pup, what do I always say?”

“That I am worse than noble ladies' pets.”

“Do you want to get beaten?”

“Not that? Something about my mana control being…”

I blink and find myself remanifested as she released her presence. That then rapidly repeats around a hundred times in a row until I stand there, wobbly on my feet and light-headed.

“Active skills are the most important, as is your control over your abilities. What good are many skills, passives, and items if you can't even pull the most out of what you already have? You asked me how Absolutes of my era and of the System War era differ from the current ones.” Lissandra says.

She takes a few steps and, in a gesture that feels extremely natural to her, locks her hands behind her back. She is taller than her younger version, and she wears a near-black suit, too, yet the atmosphere about her is the same.

“A good example to explain it is through techniques and domains. Absolutes and Champions of old were always more combat-oriented, with a greater extent of detection abilities and domains that allowed them to negate the first attack. Back then, whenever you entered the domain of an Absolute, you had to be ready either to fight or for one side to go into submission. Nowadays, domains don't seem to be as common, and techniques are instead oriented toward ease of use rather than lethality. People also don't seem to specialize that much, and instead go for the more general builds.”

I check on the part of my mind coming up with a new way to counter her pressure and switch my attention back to her.

As always, I find myself curious about this kind of stuff. Even if there is nothing that useful to gain from it, just satisfying my curiosity is enough. The powerful people often seem to like to share that kind of information, or at least plenty of those that I met did. I wonder if it is all because of how seriously the system takes the passing of knowledge with first generations, disciples, and all that. Maybe people like her are just used to it.

“So techniques nowadays rely on the system more?”

“Obviously,” Lissandra nods. “As pathetic as it is. They rely on traits, passives, and items. They are too safe to use, too clean. Pre Champion me would destroy most of the current Absolutes in combat. During the era of System War and during my era, many techniques were developed that were as dangerous to the user as to the enemy, and nowadays these... people call them obsolete. How obtuse. But you have been dallying enough, we continue.”

I don't even have time to say anything as that presence expands from her in the center and crashes against me and past me like a wave.

For a mere moment, a really short one, I move my mana to try to counter it. I don't do it by force, I long ago learned that something like that is useless. I also don't try to make my own presence sharper to cut through it or make it pass by me. That would be useless as well, as it would surround me anyway. What I am imagining in my head is my presence behaving like a willow bending in the wind.

In previous attempts, I experimented with constant shifts in my frequencies and cycling them. I tried to mirror her presence, I tried to reflect it, I tried to pulsate it, and I tried even more ideas. Some of these I came up with on my own, and others I read from mana stones Min-Jae stole from the Academy.

Still, even if it seems inefficient, I find myself constantly coming back to the idea of my own presence behaving like a willow in the wind in response.

Is it because of the Fragment of the Nameless Tree imbued in the back of my left hand? I could try to use [Eclipse], [Redistribution], [Weave], or possibly even [Manifestation], but I don’t. I don’t like to acknowledge it, but I kind of seem to understand this woman sometimes. I don’t think she would want me to do that.

And so now I’m trying to be a willow, bending in the wind while changing and modifying Mana Cycling during all of it. But in the end, I’m still someone who learns the most through experience and brute-forcing it rather than sheer talent. I continue with my attempts while Lissandra flawlessly and consistently creates the perfect copy of the same pressure. Everything about it is exactly the same.

This process reminds me of the second tournament and the training I did during it. Since it is impossible to die here, I exploit this training just as I did then. There are many other things I would like to do at the same time, but it would annoy her if I didn't give this my best effort and as much attention as I can spare. I have no illusions, she would cut this training short if I didn't.

And so we continue. Hour after hour passes, and after some time, I have a feeling it stretches into days. Very soon after, I entirely lose track of the passage of time. None of my subminds wants to count to keep track of it, and there is nothing else to watch to measure it by. However, isn’t the passage of time unimportant? I just need to focus on this task, and give it my utmost best and more.

With all my effort, I watch another wave shoot from her. At this point, I know it better than I know my own face. I have observed it with much more effort than I ever did with my own reflection.

I track the waves and wavelengths, and I release even less mana than I did previously. It weakly flickers up to arm's reach around me, while the rest of my mana cycles through my body in a way that feels like bellows fanning a flame. That flame, which is my presence, bends back as if under a strong wind. I let it flicker to the point it even seems like it is about to die off, only for it to blaze firmer as that first small wave washes over me. Many more waves follow, all in the fraction of a second that I track by sending my mind into overdrive, and with my presence bending and staying just firm enough not to disappear.

Still, it bursts. It is washed away, and almost reflexively, all my mana blazes to face that presence, only for it to wash away with even less resistance than my attempt did.

I once again find myself remanifested. For a bit, I wonder how much of her presence I have already experienced, but just like the passage of time, that question becomes unimportant.

"You have ten minutes to rest and think," Lissandra says, and she disappears from in front of me.

"But I can still continue," I call into the empty air.

Her voice then sounds, though she is not here. "This training and this sort of thought acceleration is dangerous to your feeble mind. Don't forget that. Make sure to keep yourself together."

At first, I don't get what she means. Then, I hear a cough from behind me. When I turn around, a mysterious man wearing all black is there. On his head is a black, wide-brimmed wizard hat that entirely covers his face. As he lazily leans against a tree nearby, I notice a sleek wizard staff he is holding.

"Well, if that wasn't a terrible use of fluidic mana shell integrity and adaptive waveform interference principles," he says.

In a smooth gesture, he lifts the brim of his hat enough to see his face, my face. Gray and brown eyes, Preeminence Eyes, scars, and all that.

What a nerd.

Next Chapter

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Author's note: The break is over and we are back to the usual schedule! I hope you are as rested as I am and ready for the new book!