BlueShear
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Chapter 40
🕑 Added 2025-01-12 23:52:58 +0000 UTCCHAPTER FOURTY
As it turned out, consuming the Alpha Cymbal Clang Primate was both, far less of an ordeal than he’d thought, and so much worse than he’d been anticipating. Less of an ordeal because, for whatever reason—be it a quality of their glittery rainbow blood, or some other factor he wasn’t currently aware of—the beasts, at least all those he’d come across thus far, transformed into a candy-like substance upon death. Granted, the argument could also be made that they always had beensome form of candy-made constructs, though who was going to volunteer to test out that particular theory?
Not him, certainly.
It meant that, while the beast might have looked like an unappetizing dead body, it was in fact, nothing of the sort. Patchy tufts of fur became brown cotton candy. Corded muscle became taffy or licorice. Bones became oddly shaped jaw-breakers and so on. Of course, the rather pertinent downside he had somehow failed to predict, was the reaction of the children as he tore into the chocolate filled, gummy worm intestines of the freshly dead corpse.
And of course, his entreaties for them to “try it and see for themselves,” didn’t go over particularly well either. They maintained a wary distance from him for a while after that—and quite understandably in his opinion. Instead gathering on the far end of the densely forested monster den, hidden behind a copse of trees. And, if the sounds were anything to go by, diligently practicing the straight punch he’d taught them just the other day.
Strange? I would’ve thought they’d have moved on from that by now.
Surely there were more interesting ways to wile away their day. Richard pondered on the oddity for a while, slurping down yet another ropy, glitter sheathed intestine. In the end, he figured there could be no harm in it. And whatever kept them preoccupied, and thus out of his nonexistent hair, was fine by him. Besides, if being a pariah among toddlers was the price he had to pay for progress he would gladly pay it. Unfortunately, his reprieve could only last for so long.
Penelope, not nearly so squeamish as the others, was the first one to approach. Catching him in the middle of a set.
“Ah! Well if it isn’t my favorite little empress! Give me a second,” he grunted. “Be with you in just a moment!” he huffed, bench pressing the fallen log a couple more times before shoving it to the side with a grunt.
It landed with a thump, creating a miniature quake that rocked the nearby vicinity. Richard clambered to his feet, dusting off his hands.
“You needed something, my precious protégé?” he asked.
Sporting a devious expression, her only response was a smirk, clear challenge flashing in her eyes. In the next moment, ten bubbles of tethered mana appeared in a halo around her, swiftly followed by twenty seven writhing mana tendrils. She didn’t even give him time to react before she went in on the attack. Her only thought that she’d be rolling in chocolate cake by the end of the day, so long as she had anything to say about it.
In that initial volley, trunks were splintered, leaves were scattered, and suddenly, their little slice of monster den became a chaotic whirlwind of wholesale destruction.
+++
From that point on, their days fell into something of a structured routine.
Every day would be filled with exploration, as they ranged further and further afield in search of greater and greater challenges. Of stronger and stronger elites to help fuel his meteoric rise in attributes. In turn observing how different zones were home to different seasons, climates, and even time zones.
One minute they were marching through a dry deciduous forest near the height of summer—exploding with wildlife, insects, and the chirp of cicadas. And in the next, they were tramping through an autumnal maple grove, just on the cusp of entering winter. Kids being kids, not once did they miss the opportunity to leap into the largest pile of leaves they could find. Even pressuring him to join in a time or two, something he had assured them would never happen again.
In this way, every new day became a brand new adventure, at least in so far as the little brats were concerned. Of course, each of these so called “adventures” were rife with deadly danger and very real threats to their lives, but then, what was an exciting journey without a little high stakes involved? Besides, for whatever reason, they seemed to trust him to get them out of any truly sticky situations. Laughing and bickering happily inside the monster infested forest, without a care in the world. As if they didn’t have anything to fear so long as he was around.
He didn’t exactly know how he felt about that.
As for Richard, these little expeditions brought to mind memories, so old and buried, that he hadn’t even known he possessed them until now. Of similarly trampling through the untamed wilderness that extended from his backyard along with his classmates. A wilderness that had seemed, to a young and naïve Richard, as vast and unending as the tutorial was in truth.
Despite the lax attitude and careless chatter, however, their time was not spent idly.
Hours were devoted to sniffing out den’s, defeating alphas, then spending the rest of the afternoon either in training or eating. Richard consuming nearly a hundred times his body weight in a single afternoon, following a run in with an honest to gods, Lvl 59 Gummy Wyrm. As in W-Y-R-M, distant cousin of the capital D fire breather. Thankfully, even a beast like that wasn’t completely invulnerable.
And while, yes, in the end he’d needed to enlist the help of Penelope’s “friends” to pin the beast down—the girl calling upon all the ambient mana in the surrounding area to flatten the draconic beast to the ground—a couple thousand overloaded blades exploding in its face had eventually gotten the job done.
Bottomed out his points total in the process, but then, points were rather easy to come by. His only real complaint that it hadn’t been a named monster. In fact, none of the beasts they’d fought this far had been, apart from the very first. It was actually beginning to make him worry.
[Rare Class Acquisition Checklist]
Kill an Elite Monster 20 Lvls Above You: (1/1)
Kill a Named Monster 15 Lvls Above You: (0/1)
Raise 1 Stat to 20: (5/1)
Kill 1000 Enemies at least 5 lvls Above You: (1000/1000)
Craft 1000 Items of the Uncommon Rarity: (1000/1000)
Every night would be spent marching back to camp and wiping away the evidence of that day’s escapades. And every morning, he would wake up to explosive leaps in his parameters.
DAYS LEFT BEFORE RARE CLASS CUT OFF DATE: (9/15)
[Current Parameters]
Strength — [49 of 90]
Endurance [45 of 90]
Regeneration — [31 of 90]
Control — [57 of 90]
Mana Capacity — [17 of Unknown]
And that wasn’t everywhere he’d improved either.
v SOUL SEAL – PERCENTAGE OF COMPLETION: (32%)
Spending every free moment he had funneling mana into the soul seal had payed considerable dividends. Going by his estimations, if he managed to keep up this kind of pace for the next few days or so, he’d probably be ready to focus all his attention on one final push to full completion.
And he wasn’t the only one who’d significantly improved. Ever since he’d trounced her with that little trick on their very first training session, Penelope had seen fit to make absolutely sure that he was, not only never able to pull something like that again, but would very quickly adapt to any other surprise had in store. As he’d suspected, the girl was a genius, even among Imperials. She never fell for the same trick twice.
Extremely observant and infinitely adaptable, with a seemingly bottomless mana pool, and the worlds ambient mana at her beck and call, really, the only reason he routinely won more times than he lost, was the faulty crystalline latticework of her mana constructs. A deficiency which she was rapidly addressing by the day. It was actually almost scary how fast she improved. That, coupled with her false belief that he was somehow impervious to death by a million spearing mana tentacles—I mean, really, who had given her that idea?—and it made her an absolutely terrifying opponent.
Which meant that, for Richard the way he was now, it was becoming increasingly difficult to eke out a win.
DAYS LEFT BEFORE RARE CLASS CUT OFF DATE: (8/15)
Richard pumped his legs, his breaths coming quickly—vapor clouds misting in the air before him. The crunch of snow, his racing heart, and his ragged panting the only sounds that reached his ears.
His face was freezing, snot dribbled from his nose, and the tips of his ears were so numb, he might’ve been convinced they’d fallen off completely. And yet he dared not raise the hood of his winter jacket, no matter how cold it got, for it would only serve to hamper his peripherals. And when he was actively being chased by a bona fide monster, a wolf in sheep’s clothing if ever there was one, a drop in his perception was the last thing he needed.
He tore his way downhill, weaving in between the thick trunks which populated the pine forest. Trying to maintain his speed an addition to his balance, even as he slipped and slid down the steep decline. Briefly, he caught the telltale flicker of movement from out of the corner of his eye. Body reacting before his mind fully registered the danger, he kicked off from a nearby tree, raining down pine needles from above, and catapulted himself to his left at speeds that would’ve crippled, if not killed him, only days earlier.
Flipping madly through the air, he managed to catch the exact moment when an invisible force slammed into the spot where he’d just occupied. Ripping into the frozen earth and digging a massive crater there. Meanwhile the tree with his footprint still firmly imbedded in its bark was summarily blasted into wood shards and toothpick sized splinters. All of it happening in an instant, as if a grenade had gone off.
Richard’s reunion with the ground wasn’t exactly what he’d call gentle, but staying where he’d been would’ve been outright suicide. He rolled downhill through the snow several times before springing to his feet. He shuddered from the cold that slid down his collar as he rose.
Without even looking, Richard sent two needle thin mana darts to where the blast had originated from—confident in the ambient mana’s compulsion to protect her, in the event the worst came to pass and he somehow missed his target. An unnecessary concern it would seem, as his blind throw was immediately rewarded with a wordless howl of frustration. Richard grinned.
Bulls eye.
Then the ground beneath him shifted and his grin slipped. From underneath the frozen earth, eight mana tendrils, each the size of tree trunks, burst free with sprays of fresh snow, cold earth, and frigid mulch. Four of the massive tentacles immediately rushed to meet him, while the remaining four hung behind, waiting in reserve. It was a strategy she’d adopted after he’d slipped from her ensnarement maneuvers one too many times.
Richard huffed.
This girl really is too much at times.
Point first, the tentacles descended, eager to tear him limb from limb. Richard spun up half a dozen tendrils of his own, quickly setting them to revolve—creating six elastically flexible drill bits. Closing his eyes, he listened to what his senses were telling him. Tried to feel out the faults in her latticework. He didn’t particularly like what he got back in return.
The flaws in her constructs are shrinking by the day. Soon enough, I won’t even be able to scratch her constructs, let alone defuse them.
As it was however, there were still weaknesses to exploit. Small ones. Barely noticeable by anyone who hadn’t spent a large chunk of their adult life toiling over the intricacies of mana.
His tendrils lashed out, worming their way in through the cracks to compromise the structure as a whole. Just as one dissipated however, another rushed in to take its place. His tendrils lashed out like snakes, compromising one of her tendrils, unfailingly, with every precise lunge. And yet the assault never abated. The reserve acting as it should, and constantly being replenished besides. Tendrils crawling out of the tunnels burrowed into the ground, like earthworms after a summer storm. There was simply no end to the things, and, to make matters worse, his mana was growing dangerously low.
With a feeling equal parts pride and frustration, Richard was forced to use one of the few meager trump cards in his possession. The first time that had happened since they’d initially begun these training exercises.
Realizing it was a losing battle, he stopped defending, and instead went on the attack. Focusing all his attention on creating a path. Nearly draining his mana core dry, he sprouted five extra mana threads, one for every point of mana he had left. They tore into the constructs behind him, no doubt taking the empress by surprise. At which point Richard dripped the very last drops of mana he possessed into the mana crystals tied to the daggers strapped to his chest.
The mana crystals fractured, Middling F Grade mana came spilling forth. Lighting up the runes engraved in the propulsion daggers and hurling him backwards through the opening he’d created. As if realizing what he was doing far too late, the tendrils reached out, made to grab him, but he was already long gone. Pine trees whipped past at frankly ludicrous speeds.
The winter wonderland reduced to a series of blurs, every tree a dark splotch in the corner of his vision. The wind roared, his heart jackhammering in his chest. Racing in anticipation of when his luck finally ran out.
The impact came fast and hard. His back slamming into the trunk of the tree with such concussive force, that the veritable giant was rocked by the collision. Needles falling down like snowflakes to blanket him in sharp smelling pine. Richard groaned, still being pressed into the trunk by the contents of his bandoleer. He sawed both daggers free with two sharp motions—letting the infernal things whip past to lose themselves in the forest.
Falling to the snow covered ground with another groan, he slumped over, and went eerily still. He didn’t know how he knew, but it was obvious when the little empress neared. Something in the air quality growing denser. More concentrated for her presence. He let the façade go on for a little bit longer. Until her wary suspicion finally turned to genuine concern. At which point he sprang to his feet with a cry, and clawed the final bubble from the air with a mana coated finger nail.
The comical look of surprise on Penelope’s face made the bruised ribs more than worth it. Very quickly though, that look of shock turned to one of offense. She crossed her arms indignantly, clearly ready to give him flack for his underhanded tactics, when he interrupted her.
“Ah ah ah! Before you say anything! Think. What exactly did I do that was against the rules as I defined them? Remember, I said that so long as the bubbles get popped, and I’m the one that pops them, everything else is on the table. Your only job was to make sure I didn’t do mine. Which, well, we can see how that turned out.”
The girl stared down at him petulantly, arms still crossed. She shook her head vehemently, as if she very much disagreed.
<Penelope Green> Not fair.
<Penelope Green> You cheat.
<Penelope Green> Again.
“Oh? Okay. So then, are you implying that I didn’t abide by the spirit of the rules, merely the letter?”
The girl nodded her head emphatically.
“Well, on that account, my dear, you would be absolutely correct,” the girl’s eyes widened, mouth hanging slightly ajar. “You’re right! I did not play by the spirit of the rules, nor the letter, for that matter. I was downed and at your mercy, and so, by the rules I myself have outlined, it should have been your win. Categorically.”
She nodded along hesitantly.
“But you see, the sorry thing is, my young protégé, that in war, as well as in life, there are no rules. No referee to step in and halt the match before anyone gets hurt. Do you truly believe that, if I was an actual enemy, I wouldn’t do everything I could to triumph over my attacker? Be that through the use of guile, betrayal, or deception?”
The girl uncrossed her arms, frowning deeply in consternation. Likely contemplating the harshness of reality and not liking what she saw. Richard, for his part, hated to wear away at her innocence like this, but it was inevitable. This was simply the weight an empress carried. Better to his mind that she be fully prepared for all that was to come, than be thrust into the viper’s den confused and unawares.
Especially since this was what probably happened in his initial timeline. And why there had originally only been six out of the seven imperials humanity’d been promised. A major blow to their survivability as a whole. Seeing that she was beginning to look a bit downcast, Richard tried to end the lecture with a compliment sandwich.
“Now, that said, you’ve been doing much better with subterfuge of late. The way you hid your presence near the beginning of the fight was very impressive, I must say. You had me on my toes since the very beginning. In fact, if it hadn’t been for my, ahem, less than sportsmanlike conduct, you’d undoubtably have won.”
Suddenly, Penelope gave him a look that said she very much still counted that last round as her win, no matter what he said. Richard chuckled, reached forward to pat her head, before retrieving it just as suddenly with a grimace. An unreadable look clouding his expression momentarily, before he was all smiles once more, if a bit more forced than before.
“Yes yes alright! I’ll bend the rules just this once-!” she glared at him. “Okay sheesh, twice. I’ll bend the rules a second time. You get half a cake and a scoop of ice cream, any flavor you want.”
Immediately the girl began salivating, and his chat box was spammed with a series of messages.
“Alright alright!” he chuckled. “Enough already, we’ll sort it out when we get back to the clearing. Besides, I’ve got abilities to train.”
Comments
Liam Cassilly
Not the author but to hazard a guess I would assume the mana might help her in understanding things. For example the MC has a skill related to understanding all languages therefore it is not that big of a stretch to assume that mana could inherently do the same things as a skill, furthermore I’m sure she might even have an ability similar to his eye as well that might inform her about how certain items work.
CloudyBall
I understand that she is getting smarter as time passes, but where is she learning the meaning of Richard's words? It's not like he gave her a dictionary, and I doubt he sits down to explain them either. Intelligence doesn't inherently provide knowledge
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter! Then why not tell her that she is literally almost killing him now that its actually getting really really close? I mean it IS pretty irresponsible to risk himself who is basically among humanities only Hopes, in training with a baby imperial bc he didn't tell her that yes he will indeed die if she tears him apart with Mana attacks... Also interesting to see the Rare class stats brought up again... So I missremembered and its "only" a level 30 Named Elite necessary and it would seem time passing in the trial didn't count? I thought thats why the 15 days were up already and basically only the "reach level 15" condition was tied to "needs to be archieved in at most 15 days".
