Chapter 14 - Weak
"Young master, you are not fully healed yet. You just woke up. You need to rest more," an old man in a butler suit said to a blue-haired young man who was changing his pajamas to fighting equipment. The young man removed his clothes and bandages were wrapped around most of his body.
"If I stay on the bed more, I will be left behind by them," said Lance while gritting his teeth. His body was in pain but he refused to rest because the other candidates in the clan were working hard to get chosen as the successor of the clan.
The butler felt pain in his heart. He clenched his teeth and said, "Young master… try to enter your mana sea." The butler's face looked sad and worried while he said that to Lance. Lance saw his old butler's face and he had a hunch that something bad had happened to his mana sea.
Lance concentrated his mind and entered his mana sea but no matter how much he tried to concentrate, he could not enter his mana sea. His face was blank. He did not want to think of the worst and he tried again and again but no matter how much he tried, he could not enter his mana sea. No, he could not even feel any mana in his body.
"Grandpa…" Lance stared at the old butler. His eyes were shaking. He could not believe what had happened to him. The monster soul he had inside his body was gone and his body felt weak. Really weak. "Did my attacker destroy my monster soul?" Lance asked.
"…" The old butler did not answer Lance. Lance stopped from trying to change his clothes. He stood in front of the wardrobe listlessly. "You are permanently removed from the list of candidates to succeed the clan," said the old butler.
That incident happened a month ago. Lance was a member of a strong clan called the Thunder Roar Clan. The Thunder Roar clan was a massive and ancient clan that was founded since the beginning of the age of magic. The clan was also one of the twenty clans that fought at the frontline on Earth to defend humanity from extinction.
Since then, the clan had become one of the pillars of humanity and many super-geniuses were born from the clan and contributed many things to humanity. The Thunder Roar clan in Planet Mykon was the branch family of the clan.
When Lance became a magician three years ago, he was shown to have talents as a magician when he could calculate and construct his magic skills by himself without any help from the clan. After that, he had contributed a lot of other things to the clan and had grown as a magician faster than his peers by a lot.
As a 21 years old magician, Lance had become a Rank 6 magician by himself without the help of his clan. He gained that all by himself and got the attention of the main branch on Earth. After that, he was named as one of the candidates to be chosen as the successor of the clan.
The competition was fierce and Lance understood how big the universe was when he met other candidates and their magician rank was at the same rank as him and a few others had exceeded him by a rank. He worked hard as the candidate as he had become the hope of the branch clan he was part of.
However, he was ambushed by an unknown enemy and that enemy destroyed his monster soul. Due to that, Lance lost his magician power and had become a normal human. He could work hard to raise his rank again but finding a new soul was hard because they were rare. Getting an artificial soul was a definite no too because it had more minuses than plus.
His family had investigated the incident and they found nothing but the suspect was one of the candidates. It was obvious because Lance was one of the leading candidates to become the successor and everyone had known that many of the candidates were hostile with each other. Though the clan made a rule that there would be no infighting, it was not a surprise for them to do it secretly.
Since Lance lost his chance, he went back home to Planet Mykon. At the moment, he stayed away from his family as he needed to calm himself and went to the small city, E-47 to rest. He had fully healed physically thanks to the main clan but not mentally. He was alone in his apartment. He did not let his butler come with him because he wanted to be alone.
"Apple Forest might be a good place to try," said Lance. Though he was not a candidate anymore, he had yet to give up as a magician. He decided to hunt in the Apple Forest to find a soul he could use to become a magician again.
Lance knew that the chance to find a soul was nil and the chance for the soul to be compatible with him was nil too. He wanted to get the same soul he had used before but that monster was rare and strong and thus, the soul would be rare too.
Lance equipped himself with many types of light armor and headed off to Apple Forest. He passed through the gate and went inside Apple Forest. While walking inside the Apple Forest, he saw a man around the same age as him, pitifully fighting a small blue slime.
A few magicians stopped by to see the spectacle while holding their laughter. The man fighting the slime did not even know the right way to use his dagger and he was hit at the face many times by the blue slime. His movement to avoid the slime attack was awkward and it looked obvious that the guy had no experience in fighting.
"Yo, kid. Need my help?" said a magician while holding his laughter.
"Piss off!!] Kyle and Dodo said together though they could not hear Dodo's voice, Dodo was mad and embarrassed too that Kyle was so weak and useless.
[You idiot! What are you doing?! This guy is freaking slow and you cannot even hit him!] Dodo was madly shouting at the incompetent Kyle. Kyle had tried again and again but he always missed his attack and instead was attacked by the slime.
"Shut up! Stop shouting in my head! I need to concentrate too," shouted Kyle in his mind. He was not stupid enough to shout with his mouth. Since there were many people around spectating his fight, he did not want to be seen as crazy when his pride as a man had already fallen.
[Urgh! I told you again and again before to exercise and train your body and now see how pathetic you are!] Dodo was dissatisfied with Kyle's performance and the spectator's chuckle added more to his anger.
Kyle did not say anything. He knew he was extremely bad at fighting. Although he won when fighting with some of his peers, he realized that they had no intention of killing him, and thus, the fight was less physical but more words. However, the slime he was fighting at the moment was different. It wanted to kill Kyle badly.
[I don't want to interfere with your progress as a magician but this is too pitiful] said Dodo and he added, [I am going to transfer the knowledge of basic footwork and basic dagger handling to your mind and I will alter your body so that you can use the moves immediately without any training]
"You can do something like that? Why didn't you do that earlier?" Kyle was mad. If Dodo had that method, he should have used it earlier so that Kyle did not need to get that embarrassed in front of so many magicians.
[Yes, I can but I want you to achieve it by yourself. Also, there is a limit to how much I can do this and your body might get side effects too if I do this too much] said Dodo and without wasting for more time, Dodo passed on the knowledge and altered Kyle's body.
Kyle wanted to attack the slime but suddenly, he felt pain all over his body. He fell on his knees and clenched his teeth and fist while holding the pain. If he fainted in front of so many people, that would be shameful and they would think that it was because of the slime.
The slime saw Kyle fell on his knees and decided to use that chance to tackle him. The slime launched itself towards Kyle but suddenly, something fast was coming at the slime and slashed him. The slime was split into two. Kyle's arm was raised above his head while holding the dagger. He killed the slime and he was smiling.
"How is the show? It is interesting, right? Hehe, I am just playing around earlier and I hope you guys enjoy the show during this tense situation," said Kyle confidently while smirking at the spectators and left the area. The other magicians looked at each other and laughed loudly. They did not buy it.
Kyle hid behind a huge tree and took out a potion from his storage and immediately drank it. His body slowly healed and the pain he felt all over his body had subsided.
"I didn't know that the slime is that strong," said Kyle while sighing. He thought that he could at least fight a slime easily but he was pummeled by that small slime.
[Now you know how dangerous the monsters are. Anyway, you will be fine now since I have altered your body and you can use that knowledge to fight properly and this will not happen again] said Dodo and Kyle nodded.
"Can you give me a more advanced move? What you give me is too basic," said Kyle but Dodo ignored him and added more to what he said earlier.
[I increase your body coordination with your mind. If you know of a certain move, your body can execute that move easily to a certain level. However, if you want to master the moves, you need to train more] said Dodo, and Kyle appreciated that help.
Kyle sighed while he thought of all the humiliation he faced earlier. "Anyway, did we get the slime data?" Kyle asked. Their main point of coming to the Apple Forest was to get data about the monsters by killing them. He could get the data without killing the monster and only absorbing them like how he absorbed the trees and plants but the monsters had a strong will and Dodo could not absorb them without killing the monsters first.
[We get 10% data on the body of the blue slime and 15% data on the soul] said Dodo and he continued, [We could get more data on the body if you did not leave the body behind]
"How can I absorb the body in front of so many people?" Kyle wanted to absorb the body too but with many eyes around him, they would get suspicious about him and that would call for more dangers towards him.
"Anyway, did you collect the natural soul too?" Kyle asked. The one Dodo mentioned was the data of the blue slime not the product from the blue slime.
[The dispersion of the soul is quite fast but I managed to get around 5% of the blue slime natural soul] said Dodo and Kyle nodded. Though they did not get the standard 20% natural soul, 5% was better than nothing.
"Is it possible to perfect the soul to a higher percentage?" Kyle asked. This was the most important matter regarding the soul.
[It is possible but I need more data on the soul] said Dodo and Kyle nodded. [Ah, it is also possible to combine all the same natural souls to a higher percentage. Because each of them is a fragmented soul, they can be combined to become a perfect soul] said Dodo, and Kyle was happy to hear that.
[I previously used this combination method to get the perfect soul of the vegetables or else, I will never be able to produce so many fresh vegetables] said Dodo and he continued [No matter what we do, we will never get the perfect soul from the dead monsters. So, this is the only way we can get a perfect soul but as I always mentioned before, I need more mana to do this]
"In the end, we need more mana generators," said Kyle and he sighed. "Anyway, let's continue to search for more slime and get more data from them. When you see what you want, no need to scream and tell me calmly. We need to focus more on our surroundings. We got too careless earlier," said Kyle and Dodo agreed.
With that, they went around the Apple Forest and searched for more slime. Whenever they encountered monsters other than the slime, they would slowly retreat because Kyle did not have enough confidence to face them. He wanted to train more by fighting the slime.
A few hours later, it was evening and Kyle killed the last slime of the day. He absorbed the body of the slime and Dodo did his job by analyzing the slime. As it was getting late, Kyle decided to end the day and went home.
"So, let's set up the teleporter here," said Kyle, and Dodo set up the teleporter in the Apple Forest. The teleporter was not a physical one but a magic circle. Only Kyle could use it and he was the only one who could see the magic circle. Dodo made the magic circle especially for them so that they could easily be transported everywhere they had gone to.
Kyle had set up about 5 magic circles in 5 different locations in Apple Forest. If by chance the magic circle was destroyed accidentally by someone, they would have other magic circles they could use. Once the magic circle was set up, Kyle teleported back home.
Once he got home, Kyle had a shower and had his dinner. Once he finished all of that, he lied on the bed. Kyle was extremely tired. That was the first time he fought monsters and he learned a lot from the fights. He had improved a lot in his fighting ability while fighting the slime. It was all thanks to the improvement Dodo did to his body. It could be said that Kyle had become a fast learner in learning how to fight.
"Dodo, tells me the results of our hunt today," Kyle asked.
[Although we only went around the outer part of the forest, we harvested a lot of things especially plants. We managed to get many magic plants we can use to produce many types of useful potions we can sell to the masses] said Dodo and Kyle nodded.
[Other than that, we manage to get the complete data of the body and soul of seven different types of slimes. At the moment, I have created a planet to produce the slimes. Also, we managed to collect many fragmented souls of the slimes. Since I have used the energy to create the planet, we need to wait until tomorrow to combine or perfected the souls] said Dodo.
"Hmm… Let's keep the soul as it is for now. How about the eagle soul?" Kyle asked. By chance, they accidentally found an eagle nest in a tree with three younglings inside. Kyle did not want to kill them but the parents appeared out of nowhere and attacked him.
Since the eagle was basically an animal, Kyle easily killed the two parents. Thanks to that, he got himself two fragmented souls of the eagles. One was 13% and the other was 17%. Luckily enough, Dodo expanded most of the energy he had to collect data of the eagles and got themselves 100% data of the eagle soul.
[It is better to wait for tomorrow to create the perfect soul] said Dodo and Kyle nodded. He was excited to get the first-ever perfect soul in the universe. Dodo had yet to fully explain the benefit of the perfect soul to him but he knew it would be good. Anything perfect would usually be the best of the best.
While they were talking about the souls, Kyle found out more of how Dodo could create the perfect souls. He had mentioned before that there were two methods. First was combining the fragmented souls to one perfect soul. Second was perfecting the fragmented soul with mana using the complete data on souls they had.
Dodo could not create the soul from nothing because of the life energy the soul had and thus, the only way he could create the perfect soul was the method he mentioned earlier.
According to Dodo, the easiest method was the first one but they would need a few fragmented souls to combine. This method used less energy but needed more than one soul. Also, since there was more than one soul, there would be more than one life energy. Due to that, Dodo needed to get rid of that many different life energies and that was a waste.
The second method was harder because it needed a massive amount of mana to perfect the soul. The structure of the soul was created with concentrated mana and was injected with life energy. Due to that, Dodo would need to use a massive amount of mana to recreate the missing structure of the soul and he needed to do it in one go.
Not only that, the mana the soul possessed was specific based on the species of the monster. Their current mana generator could be used to collect different types of mana but it was specially designed to collect the basic mana that was used widely everywhere in the multiverse. To get the right amount of specific mana, they needed to wait for the mana generator to collect them.
[Even if I said I will do it tomorrow, you might not get it tomorrow. It will take a bit of time] said Dodo.
"I guess I will need to use this artificial soul for one more day," said Kyle and he asked Dodo, "What monsters should we hunt tomorrow?"
[Let's aim for the horned rabbit. There are a few species of them in the Apple Forest and we should get them all] said Dodo. Kyle played around with his phone and he fell asleep immediately after that.
Meanwhile, deep inside the Apple Forest, a white cocoon the size of a car was pulsating. Suddenly, there was movement inside the cocoon and cracks started forming on it.
"Blush!!" Two red wings broke out of the cocoon. It stopped moving for a second before the wings burned and engulfed with fire forming wings of fire. A bear head broke out of the cocoon and it roared menacingly.