Chapter 930 - All that slander (Patreon)

“Tess, I have never been so insulted in my young life, and-”

“You are twenty-four, almost twenty-five; you aren't that young anymore.”

“-I can't believe you would even ask that. Of course we will kill all the kaijukakalulu.”

“It's Kaiepochjiu, actually.”

“Shut up, Sophie. As I said, Tess, I'm terribly hurt. But you guys will have to hunt them down. I will be searching for the body of the Demigod, and I can't afford to level up that much.”

“How many levels did you get?”

“I'm 487.”

“That might put a ding in your plan of killing the Champions on the fifth floor.”

“That is true. Honestly, I have been thinking of getting an achievement or two before getting to level 500, but now I'm not sure. Should I win the tournament first? Would it be better to take all of the Champions at once-”

“You are saying some ridiculous things.”

“-or maybe it would count more if I kill kaijukakalulus?”

“Kaiepochajiu.”

“Shut up, Soph. Then there is also an option of heading to the 13th floor and reaching level 500 there. Though, I suspect it won't matter that much. It's just a body upgrade, so my traits, state of body, and possibly some experimenting we will do with Lily and the Doc will work the best.”

“That doesn't seem to be all,” Tess notes.

I nod. “I'm thinking if Christoph possibly just reached level 450 to fulfill the base requirements and then became a Champion. Maybe that allows for some fancier stuff.”

“Well, it's too late for that, so why don't you just go all in? Get to level 600 if you dare and become a Champion at that,” Sophie says.

“Wouldn't your Handler tell you about that if it truly mattered that much?” Tess asks.

That causes me to pause for a moment until I nod. When I think of it for a bit longer, Tess makes a lot of sense. Ruby is likely the third most powerful Ruler, so she would probably give me some hint, even if she likes to leave me to do things my way. And I know that I would rather follow what Ruby did, after getting it beaten into her DNA by Lissandra, rather than whatever Adrian is doing.

"The fight against Tariel the Undying went well then?" I ask.

"Some wounds, but no one got hurt too badly. And we got some nice levels out of it. And you?"

"It was easier than expected."

"Your easy might not be the same easy everyone else is using."

"What's with all that slander today, Tess?"

"Is it really slander if it's true?"

"I don't know all these extrovert-y rules, you tell me. Or you know what, don't, I'm not that curious anyway."

"Not telling then. And how about the other kaijukakalulu, will they be without the barrier now?" Tess asks.

Both of us stop and look at Sophie, who is currently gently caressing Izzy's hair so she doesn't see. But as the silence stretches, she looks up to see both of us, and Maya for some reason, looking at her.

"Say it," Maya nudges.

"Fuck's sake," Sophie groans, "it's Kaiepochajiu."

"Shut up, Soph," the three of us say at once, getting two middle fingers from Soph in exchange.

"What about the mana batteries?" I ask Maya. "Did they work well?"

It's not that long ago when Maya and I experimented with me giving her my mana through [Jüdrajil]. Of course, not all of it. We did testing with under 5%. Surprisingly, [Jüdrajil], while giving my mana, automatically adapts its frequency to perfectly match the host. It is a weird function when I take into consideration that it doesn't change much. Be it your frequency or mine, if you get all my mana, you will likely end up having a bad day.

But, of course, I observed it all through my eyes. I have some previous experience with it, but through that testing, I learned to make my mana closer matching to Maya's. Not perfectly, of course, but good enough.

And so one of the first proper tests was this, me filling mana batteries for her so she could use that mana in combat. That's why I'm curious now and asking her.

"There is still half of the mana left," Maya says.

"Huh, was there any problem with it?"

"Not really, I just couldn't channel or use it all. Either you have a problem with efficiency for you to think I would need it all, or the fight didn't take long enough for me to use it all."

"Well, it's better to have too much and not use it than to end up needing it," I note.

"I'll carve it into your tombstone when that one fated stat point into mana finally makes you explode."

"Thank you, Sophie, that would be nice. You know what I will carve into yours?"

"I don't want to know."

But I answer anyway. "Kaiepochajiu. Just that. No name, no dates, just the word you died defending."

"For fuck's sake, okay, okay, I will call it kaijukakalulu. Are you happy now, you petty asshole?"

"Thank you, Sophie, for behaving like a true, honest, Group 4 member."

"Fuck off."

"And you, Maya, any more feedback on the batteries?" I ask.

"The match with my mana wasn't perfect, so there was some loss in efficiency. It was also more difficult to manipulate than mine, especially when it came to compressing. If I had to go with a number, I would say it was a 70-75% match of mine without compression, but when I started using it, it felt like a 50-60% match."

"So the compression likely compounds whatever mismatch there was," Sophie says.

"Seems like it. Well, but it is a decent enough first step," I say and yawn.

"Nat," Tess whispers.

"I don't like your tone, Tess."

"You still plan to set up [Weave] and have people connecting to it and getting mana from you in the form of a subscription, with it always perfectly matching to them."

"Kind of?" I say carefully.

"Wouldn't that make you a true Mana Daddy, you know, like a sugar..."

"It isn't funny, Tess, so wipe that smirk off your face. Don't think I don't see your mouth twitching," I retort.

Finally, I allow myself to fall back and lie in the soft grass. Though there is still a charred smell in the air and some dark clouds remain to block the sun, it is nice.

"If you think about it," I say, "it makes a lot of sense. I will put a backdoor into [Weave] that will allow me to take all their mana if needed."

"How much of it is an actual plan, and how much is you just thinking of it because it sounds cool?" Tess asks.

"Yes."

"Understandable."

"Yes," I repeat and continue to look towards the sky. I yawn once again and ask. “How many levels do you think Vega got?”

“One hundred. Eighty. Four,” Ruby says.

“I see,” I nod understandingly and look over my room in the Headquarters of the Primordial Knights that she broke into. “So that is how much she would get if the system gave her all the experience for participating in the killing of the Demigod. Now, how much did she get after all these reductions and stuff?”

“That is after the reduction.”

“Ruby, you have become a great joker since the last time we saw each other.”

“You absolute lunatic. Your disciple now has a higher level than most of the Beyond attendees. A ranks included. Oh, and by the way, don't take it as me complaining. Unlike Diligence, I appreciate this sort of fuckery.”

“Hehe.”

“Don't you dare ‘hehe’ me.”

“Ruby, I can see that you don't care. You even seem to admire my resourcefulness.”

“You literally just go across the entire tutorial abusing every single system mechanic you can find just so you can poke Champions and mess with higher-grade natives. At times you don't even seem to care about getting stronger or leveling up, you just want to see how high-level of a native you can annoy before it gets mad and erases you from existence.”

“I bet every attendee is doing that. But how is that level possible? Didn't the system take her performance into consideration?”

“Actually, it did. There was no previous record of the communication token being used that way. Out of curiosity, I checked some records. You might be surprised to learn that someone else used it in a similar way, though not quite like you. Sixty-one thousand years ago, an S rank combined it with a mid pristine item that required sacrifices to be used. He then let his disciple stack it up as much as possible.”

“From your tone, it didn't end up well.”

“He blew up nine other S ranks at a meeting to steal their items. Unfortunately, he blew himself up as well, and some random A rank that got there first took all the items and returned to the tutorial to never enter Beyond again.”

“Smart guy.”

“The system patched it up, obviously. There was also a velnar crafter who kept using disciple communication tokens to help him create ego weapons. You would be surprised that this one took a while for the system to patch up, and the guy created six such weapons, each carrying a perfect copy of his disciple's mind. I think the Crimson Forge still has one of them.”

“This one is a bit nasty. Even if it is an ego, doing that to a disciple's copies...”

“I agree with you here. Oh, there were a few more, but this one is my favorite, from four thousand years ago. That woman did have “black mana” as well, and at the end of the tutorial, just a few seconds before being pulled back, she found a way to use five tokens at once. She timed it, and then instead of returning to her planet, she got pulled to her disciple's planet.”

“I would like to see the record of that.”

“No way in hell.”

“Maybe one day.”

“Maybe not.”

Confident that she will come around in the end, I let her have her victory and ask, “So the system patched up what I did.”

“Yes, with situations where it doesn't have enough data, situations like this can happen. You are correct to think Vega shouldn't get that many levels, if any, but in the view of the system, she fought a Demigod that was a much higher level than she is. It likely also noted that Vega is invincible due to the workings of the disciple communication token. If I had to say, that final decision was fifty-fifty, and luck seemed to be on your side.”

“Honestly, Ruby, I would not expect that.”

“Does it feel unfair to you?”

“Yes, the system is quite good at rewarding your effort. With my minion being invincible, this feels a bit off.”

“With time, you will realize the ridiculousness of what you have done. And newly awakened, like you tend to look at the system that way. As an absolutely fair, perfect thing that is balanced, and to a great extent, that is true. But things like this have happened previously. There are people who abused the system and got much greater rewards than they should have. But at the same time, there are counterbalances.”

“A Warning.”

“Yes, a Warning, for example. That and the fact that beings leveled around Champion are powerful, but to the system, it is just something that it doesn't pay full attention to. At around Absolute rank, things like that wouldn't pass. Say if you are level 700, then the system takes gaining one level much more seriously than gaining fifty if you are below 500.”

“And the Warnings?”

“As it sounds, some are heavier, others are lighter. You can get dozens of them, or you can get one that puts an eradication quest on you, and that is what they are for. The system won't take anything from you without you agreeing, and it will work for you even if you turn against it.”

“Is it something the Black Mana God put into a contract with the system, or is it something that is inherent with it?” I ask.

Ruby stays quiet and even gives a small apologetic smile.

“So whatever it is, the system learned to work around it by putting a hit on you,” I try again.

“Correct.”

“Should I worry?”

“Not really. Usually, the quest would be given to the people from your planet. Then it would extend to surrounding ones, and further and further the more warnings you gather or the heavier they become. System encompassing eradication quests like the Last Elf are extremely rare.”

"Maybe one day."

"Sure, why not. I promise to warn you if I decide to kill you for an eradication quest."

"Thank you. But now, may I ask what you are doing in my room, drinking cola, and don't think I haven't noticed the missing box of soap."

Ruby lifts an expensive-looking glass made of crystal, filled with a dark brown liquid, to toast me, and she even gives a shameless smile. "You remember the Beyond event I told you about?"

"I remember something like that, indeed."

"Good. There will be three teams, and I want you to join one with Brich and one of the new S-ranks, Fiona."

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