Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 194: Evening Experiments

I will take down anyone who ever tries to mess with Biscuit.

Must protect!

The little doggo is too precious for this darn world, and I don't care if he might become Earth's Absolute or some eldritch abomination that will end the world. Even those creepy mana arms, I can deal with.

Biscuit can do whatever he wants and must be protected at all costs.

Damn, if I were a more emotional man, I might have started crying back then, seeing the affection of the little animal.

One hundred boops for almost making me feel that way!

It's already late afternoon, and I spent the day slacking around, doing some tests with Mana stones and my new skills to avoid feeling useless. I also swiped some sweets from the kitchen.

While I was locked in my room, sitting on the armchair near the balcony and training while enjoying the view of the city, I tried to examine the web made of mana that Sophie set up.

It's something I don't think I'd be able to create right now. It's as frustrating as it is amusing. Of course, I would like to know how to do that, but at the same time, I don't feel a real need to learn it, already having plenty on my plate.

I like that others are also experimenting, and even the kids are slowly using their brains more, choosing what they want to do and improving. It's good for me. If members of Group 4 improve, I can pick a thing or two I like and try to learn it from them if I think it'll fit into my build. It's like having them experiment for me!

Good, very good.

(You did mess with my web.) Sophie's voice sounds in my head the moment she, Isabella, and Hadwin enter the house.

(I just tried to observe it a bit, but it was too trigger-happy.) I send back at her and sense their presence as they return from the hunt and walk through the house.

(That's the point, isn't it? It's here to detect intruders.) Sophie feels more relaxed than ever before.

It seems like the deal we made about a clean slate made her happy. I don't think she fully believed me, but Isabella most likely confirmed my honesty to her older sister.

(We can start with the coordinates in 1 hour? Living room?) I suggest to her.

(Deal.) She answers and she and Izzy move through the house. Soon they enter the bathroom, probably to take a bath or shower and clean off the dust and sweat from the hunt.

I'm already turning off my [Perception] when Sophie's mana spikes up a bit, and an area forms around the bathroom—an area that I can't see through with my [Perception].

What the heck! Does she think I would peek?! I already located all the restrooms and bathrooms and excluded them from my senses other than just feeling mana signatures.

Annoyed, I stand up, walk a few meters toward the sweets I put on the table, and grab a few. Then I activate [Tether], and with the skill consuming a chunk of my mana, I teleport and reappear back in the armchair where I left the anchor.

[Tether - lvl 1 > Tether - lvl 2]

Nice.

I pop a few sweets into my mouth.

The skill is still disorienting to use and takes too long to create to be useful in combat right now. It also requires a sizable chunk of mana that would be easy for an enemy to sense and try to mess with the anchor. But for hit-and-run tactics, it should work wonderfully. Especially when I learn to leave longer-lasting anchors and multiple of them.

(Kim is asking you if you would like to be guild master.) Another telepathic message reaches my mind, and I identify it as Dennis.

The same as with Sophie, I let it connect. I've long considered an enemy doing something similar and disrupting my concentration, but my construct called Mana Sovereignty Mantle would block it too. Yet every time I feel their mana or Biscuit reaching my mind, I let some of it pass, just enough for them to talk to me.

(What do you think?) I send back to Dennis.

(I'll tell him you are not interested!) He says quickly.

Before he cancels his [Connection], I send him another message, (Dennis, it's fine to mess around a bit, but don't forget where we are, okay? Don't let your guard down no matter how easy it seems right now.)

(Tess and Hadwin keep telling us the same, heh. Thanks.) After that, the presence of his mind disappears.

When it's about time, I leave my room and walk downstairs where Lily greets me immediately, "Aren't you bored being locked in your room?"

"No, I had company." I can't help but tease her, and Lily's wide-open eyes are fun.

"Wh-what?" she stammers, "Who?" she looks around.

"The best company, obviously, myself." I pass by her.

"Nat! You can't do that to me," she complains and quickly takes a few steps, walking by my side.

It's not like I lied, though.

"By the way, I've learned a few things, and I can't wait to show you!" her voice is excited, and I can see that she also has fun discovering what she can do with her skills.

Skills that are maybe too strong. Heck, her [Disintegration] made even a cockroach-like Absolute hesitate.

"Sounds fun. Some other day then? I have something with Sophie right now."

"Sure!" she says happily, but there's a weird glint in her eyes, which quickly disappears.

Did I imagine that?

"Nat," as often before, Izzy welcomes me with a short hug and then moves back to Sophie.

The two sisters are sitting on the couch, wearing comfortable-looking homely clothes. There's some warm drink in front of both of them, and they have a big blanket wrapped around them.

"Hey," Sophie just says shortly. She and Isabella both have black hair, green eyes, and similarly tanned skin. It's extremely easy to identify them as sisters.

Well, it looks like Izzy will be there as well during our experimenting. Aaaand Lily too. I glance at our healer who sits on the couch I planned to sit on, one that is opposite Sophie and Isabella's, with a small table in between.

Lily shamelessly ignores my look.

Damn, she knows that with my tendency to lose body parts, I need her, and she can annoy me almost freely.

Dangerous, Hell difficulty people are dangerous. And shameless.

Jerks, all of them.

“This is what I was able to do. I tried to copy what Lissandra did, but I wasn't able to do it fully,” I pass a small mana stone of lower value they use here to Sophie.

I've tried to do what Lissandra did while giving me the coordinates of her world. She did it in a few seconds and with a tiny amount of mana. I spent a few hours and used a lot of mana, yet it feels not even close to being right. The coordinates are currently stored in my mind, but “writing” them down is something else.

Sophie reaches for and takes the stone, then leans back while Izzy snuggles up to her under the blanket. As she examines it, her little sister starts dozing off.

“I tried to mark parts that feel off,” she says after a few minutes and hands me the stone.

Then I spend a few minutes examining it, “I disagree with this one. I think I did it correctly,” I say and hand her the stone.

Sophie shakes her head after just a moment, “No, it's bad, look,” she gestures and puts the stone on the table, and both of us touch it with the tip of our pointing fingers.

“If you do it this way, then this twist will break everything,” she explains while both of us use our skills to watch what's happening inside of the stone.

Sophie with her [Manipulation] and me with my [Mana Manipulation] and [Perception].

“But if I do it the way you told me, it will block this part,” I point out.

“Oh, you are right. Hmm, how about changing it like this,” she reaches out and makes a small change before I'm able to say anything.

The delicate structure inside of the stone immediately dissipates. It's as if every twist and corner is supporting the structure of the coordinates.

“Oh, sorry,” Sophie immediately realizes what she did.

“It's fine, I'll try to do it again. This time you can watch how I'm trying to inscribe it. It might help." I say as I take out another mana stone.

The living room is dimly lit, and it's getting darker outside. There are blankets on the couch, and the house has become quiet as everyone does their thing inside their rooms or quietly relaxes somewhere.

Isabella is already asleep, and I can hear her soft breathing, a child with a blanket over her and resting against Sophie, who is leaning over the table and touching the mana stone between us.

Like me, her eyes are also glowing while we experiment, and every obstacle only seems to make her more eager to finally succeed. It's as if she doesn't even remember why we started doing this and just enjoys the work we do.

At some point, Lily also tries to lean against me in a similar way as Isabella does with Sophie, but I just pinch her nose and push her back, to which Sophie gives me a slightly surprised look.

“What?” I ask her. I don't have to explain anything. It's fun pinching Lily's small nose.

That's how we spend our evening and a significant part of the night. In the end, we didn't succeed. No, this feels like something that might take at least multiple weeks, maybe months. Yet I can't deny that I have fun doing it. Working on something I consider interesting and with someone who shows a similar level of excitement isn't that bad at all.

I also notice that as time passes, Sophie becomes a bit less stiff, her words become less cautious, and deeper into the night she doesn't have a problem actively disagreeing with me.

We confront each other's opinions and improve our skills in the process.

I wake up and stretch in my bed. Ever since the body upgrade at level 100, I don't need to sleep as much or watch my food intake and can go a few days ignoring it, yet I still prefer doing so. It's more a psychological thing than a physical one.

For a moment, I just look at the ceiling and replay our experiment with the coordinates from last night in my mind. I grab one from the small table near my bed and examine it.

Yup, not even close. This will take longer than I thought. Maybe one or two months if we work together?

Cockroach Lissandra did it so quickly; it made me think it would be easier. Well, at least it will get me a good amount of shards. Maybe even enough for another amazing passive. I'll have to see how much the system will try to scam me.

I stand up, stretch a bit, and while yawning, take a shower in the bathroom connected to my room. The shower is similar to the one in Edwal's manor on the third floor. Heated with a mana stone that apparently needs to be changed fairly often and powered by more mumbo jumbo stones with weird etchings.

Similar to stones I encountered on the second floor, they seem to be coded to prevent their competition from copying them easily. The act of coding them decreases efficiency a bit, but I think that's something they don't care about. Maybe I should try to decode some just for the fun of it.

After taking a shower, I use the anchor I left over my bed to teleport back onto it and quickly burrow into the blankets. This anchor took an immensely wasteful amount of mana, just to stop it from dissipating while I took my shower.

I burrow deeper into the bed. It feels so good, damn it. Maybe I should just stay like this the entire day. The sensation of a warm shower followed by slipping back under the blankets is amazing. Something worth trading an epic item for.

But anyway, what does my passive, Mana Reservoir do? Is it already full?

I check the mana pool that is separated from my body and realize that it's already twice the size of my mana pool and showing no signs of being full.

Oh boy, this is getting scary.