In the next few days, my life settled in a new constant rhythm. I went to school from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm, where I charmed the teachers with my cuteness, intellect, and some occasional sweet words. My only friends were issei and irina, who I usually spent most of my time in the school with. Not that other kids didn't try to stick their noses down my butt but I swiftly turned them away. Two kids were enough for me.
After school, mother and I practiced our Spear-wielding, while also focusing on holy and demonic power.
My Increased intelligence showed it's effects when it came to object creation. My imagination was now much more stronger than before, and I could hold the image for a longer time in my mind. I have no doubt that I'd soon get to mum's level and even surpass her. Not that she was untalented mind you, but the gamer abilities were just too op.
Mother was still shocked at my expert Spear-wielding
On the other, more grimmer matters, a piece of news quickly spread through the gossip corners of kuoh academy and eventually to the whole city.
'Hikamaru Suzuki was found dead under mysterious circumstances outside the school borders of kuoh academy. The autonomy revealed that the man died by heart failure due to shock after receiving an extreme case of testicular rupturing quickly followed by testicular trauma. Police suspects revenge murder due to the man's unsavory history of being a suspect for involvement in two rape cases. But the authorities were unable to find any substantial evidence after interviewing his previous victims; eventually leading the case to be closed while the man's death was declared as an 'unfortunate accident' due to falling on a sharp boulder and crushing his own pelvis.
'The people of kuoh are taking this as a sign of karmic retribution and the man has become the butt of many a jokes. The story of a drunk rapist falling balls first on the stony fist of God will forever be told as an amusing but cautionary tale for all the young miscreants in making.'
To be honest, I was quite conflicted on the matters. Afterall, I did commit outright murder. Yes, the man was ogling my mother, yes he was also suspected to be a rapist. But murder was murder. The thing was, I felt absolutely nothing. No guilt, no regret. Just a little frustration that the death was due to me losing control and forgetting my own strength, instead of a conscious event. What I actually felt for the man was sheer contempt, and a dark satisfaction at ending the cretin. When did I become such a cold-blooded killer? Perhaps it was due to subconsciously thinking of the man just like one of those monsters that I merciless killed. That would explain the no guilt part. But no, I felt like there was something deeper. I genuinely believed that if I killed a human randomly, I would feel nothing.
This fact in itself made me feel hollow...for all but two minutes, after which I was back to my old self.
I was a god, maybe my mind just saw this mortal as unworthy of my grief. Whatever the case, I felt perfectly at ease from the moral side. It was just my previous life's sensibilities that made it a little troubling.
I could handle that.
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After getting comfortable in my new lifestyle, I started researching the physical difference in each tier.
For the first tier, my dear friends (useful minions) Issei and Irina were a lot of help. Both had absolutely bogus strength and physical capabilities, so I could easily calculate what the value of each stat was. So when the school shut down at 31st july, I gathered my labours from their houses (which was a 10 minute walk away from mine) and dragged them to my own, bigger, better, and more luxurious mansion. Mum was quite happy to see me mingling with children my age, so naturally I abstained from telling her why exactly they were here.
I took them to one of the unused rooms (there were many such rooms), while I observed their stats.
Issei Hyoudou
Race: Human
Tier: 1 (Mortal)
Level: 6
Stamina: 70/70
Health: 60/60
Stats
Strength: 5
Speed: 6
Dexterity: 6
Endurance: 7
Constitution: 6
Mental: 9
Irina Shidou
Race: Human
Tier: 1 (Mortal)
Level: 7
Stamina: 70/70
Health: 60/60
Stats
Strength: 6
Speed: 7
Dexterity: 8
Endurance: 7
Constitution: 6
Mental: 14
It was strange, looking at the stats of beings that I could kill by mistake. Of course, I had better control over myself than that...barring some extreme cases. Even more unusual was Issei's stats. The dummy's highest stat was mental. How amusing was that? A lot.
"Alright, minions! Attention ahead!" I clapped my hands to break their awe. They've been like this since they saw the mansion. They woke up when meeting Gabriel, but one look at her and they were back to awe. Did I break them by showing something out of their comprehension?
"Your mom is so pretty!" Irina squealed, speaking for the first time in a while.
Issei nodded in a daze. "...and those big big oppai.."
I stared at the boy, my anger slowly building like a dam about to burst."What..did you..say?"
The startled boy looked up before panic filled his eyes. "I mean... I mean those...these..ah, doors! And windows! So big!"
My fist hit him in his head, dropping him like a pile of potatoes.
"I thought I beat his perversion out of him. It seems it'll take more than a beating though." I muttered to myself, wiping my hands.
"Oh! Well, he told me to not tell you but I will anyway." Irina stuck her tongue at the blacked out boy in rebellion. "Issei goes to listen stories from a creepy old man who always keeps talking about women and their oppai!"
"Tell me more." I ordered with narrowed eyes.
Thus, Irina shidou aired all the dirty laundry of the unconscious boy. It seems I'll have to pay this old guy a visit, can't have him turn my minion against my wishes now, can we?
The rest of the day passed with practical research. I created numerous dumbbells and had irina pick them all up one by one. The maximum amount she can lift at one time was 29 kgs. That would mean 1 strength stat equates to roughly 5 kgs in tier 1.
After Issei woke up, with a small bump in his head that I convinced (threatened) him to cover up as an accident, I had him go through all the weights too. The boy could only lift 25 kgs at most and was mocked and teased by Irina for the rest of day. He sulked in the background like the background character that he was.
But that confirmed my research on this subject. In tier 1, a single stat in strength equate to 5 kgs. So a being at the max of tier 1 with 100 stats in strength could lift 500 kgs.
Had I been tier 1, I would've still been a superhuman, able to lift 1150 kgs. Sheesh.
Now I needed to find a tier 2 being.
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As amusing as Issei's perversion was, I did not want it to turn towards my mother. Issei was a friend, no matter how dumb he may be, and I really didn't want to hurt him seriously. Which I definitely would've, had he not changed.
Luckily, after convincing (threatening) the old man to only tell stories that I wanted issei to hear, the boy turned out just fine. I genuinely found it disturbing how the boy was so...easy to influence. A couple of passionate stories from an old man made him go mad for tits. And when the man started telling stories about science and research, slowly but steadily the boy's personality underwent a huge change. I couldn't understand nor comprehend how anyone can be so susceptible as issei was. It was like he was desperately searching for some true passion in his life that was missing...
While it was strange, I used it to my advantage by making him interested in physics, maths, research... whatever may be helpful to me in the future. I had to admit, the credit mostly went to the old man's story telling. The way he described these subjects made the children actually interested in studying them. Had he been a teacher, I have no doubt his students would've grown up to be very competent. And thus I gained my first personal lab attendant, Issei hyoudou. And by the gods was I shocked to note that he wasn't a complete dunce in it. Especially considering how disgustingly low his mental stats were.
Except that, my research in tier difference came to a temporary halt as I couldn't find a low-class devil by the end of my holidays. I knew there were quite a few stray ones littering the city but I just didn't have time or resources to search for them.
While that came to a halt, my skills were improving quite nicely. Especially Spear-wielding.
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After three months of practice, I knew I was close to leveling up Spear-wielding again. My techniques had grown a lot and the precision with which I struck was amazing, even to me.
Maybe today was the opportune day.
"Alright, Mikael. Let's start with the basics." My mother said, taking a normal fighting position with her spear, the tip at the height of my eyes.
The basics were a bunch of simple basic level techniques that every fighter should know. I was already way past this stage, and even my system agreed, but mother always insisted on practicing them anyway.
Of course, I never argued. I wasn't the spear master here.
I took my own stance, with left hand extended at the height of my stomach, gripping the body of the spear as it pointed at my opponents eye. While my right hand was at my hips, clutching the base of the spear. Left hand was my main hand, the one which I was the most sure of, which is why it was at the front, doing all the aiming and thrusting, while my right was the one directing and fine tuning my strikes.
"Thrust." My mother commanded.
Instantly, my left hand thrust forward while my right lifted the butt of the spear from hips to pelvis. My left leg bent slightly while extending further alongside my left hand. The point of my spear, which was at the height of mother's eye, instantly came at just an inch from the said eye, before backing away as I assumed my previous guard position.
She didn't blink. Even a bit. That was the amount of trust she had in me, even though we were both using sharp-edged metal spears.
"Thrust."
Again, in a fraction of a second, my spear tip approached her eye before falling back. My leg work was impeccable, moving with a surity only the most experienced will have.
"Long thrust."
My left hand and leg moved the same but my right hand went from hips to under my shoulder, almost at the armpits. The point of the spear came to rest against my mother's temple. Then, with the same smooth motion I went back.
"Long thrust."
This time as my spear was thrusting to the side of her temple, her own spear came and wacked it aside. I recovered instantly, taking a step back and slashing my parried weapon back to the position in front of me. In a battle, not guarding your upper body with your spear was a death sentence. The lower body could be protected by your leg-work, but for the upper body, your spears needs to always guard your face, even when you are attacking.
This reminded me of my newfound contempt for the movie Troy. I used to think that thing was the coolest movie ever, like Achilles using that spear so perfectly...and I realised I could skewer Achilles in less than a second if he fought like Brad Pitt. Shows how much research those movies does. Then again, their main point was probably showmanship.
But that won't work here.
"Start. Only basics." Mother snapped out the command and we started fighting.
My spear snapped at her eyes, and instead of parrying she simply tilted her face while her own spear came for my neck. I took a step back and blocked her strike with the wood of my spear, a bad move considering the sharp edge could easily cut through the wood at our level of strength. I quickly brought back my spear point in front of me to parry her further counters. My spear's body definitely had a small cut in it, but not to the level of breaking. The handle of our spear was made from Australian buloke so it could definitely handle some light punishment even from us.
My mother searched for any further mistakes I made, and I made sure to always pay attention. This may be basic level fighting but my opponent was a master spear-wielder. She could defeat me by simply using basic moves if I didn't pay attention.
The clacking of wood echoed throughout our terrace as our spears met each other again and again. She parried one of my strikes downwards and using that momentum I turned the deflection into an attack by slicing at her feets. But her footwork was even better than mine as her feet twisted aside just a couple of inches while her own spear struck at my face, making me quickly duck under the attack and back off, instead of keep pushing on her legs.
"Up." She said, and increased the complexity of her techniques.
'Up' was simply a way for us to say 'increase difficulty' without breaking the flow of our battle. Instantly, our spears moved with a skill and speed it hadn't before.
Her every strike was the beginning of a chain. If I parry, she'll roll my spear aside to keep coming. If I dodge, she'll extend further to slice. There was no such thing as thrust and back now, every attack was a series of thrust and slashes, targetting my entire body. I had to be absolutely perfect for this. My timing must be impeccable, even a millisecond of lateness and her spear will rest against my neck.
Of course, I was just as deadly. I'd been able to keep up with her at this current difficulty since I hit advanced spear-wielding lvl 5. Before that, I would always, always, make a mistake; may it be overextending or simply not recognising which combination attacks she was using, I would always lose sooner or later.
Now? This was just light work.
"Up." She snapped again.
And I had no time to think anymore. Now was the fight between experts. Multiple thrusts came at me back to back, and I was pushed to my limit. Feints inside feints hiding her true attacks, and I had to keep up with everything. If I fell for a single feint, I was done for. Her thrusts targeted my entire body. Her spear flew around the air, creating a whirlwind of metal which tried to pierce my guard.
At this level, I was reminded of all my disadvantages. My low height became a huge damper, taking off from my reach. My spear was twice my height and very unwieldy, and it's weight was so light that I was feeling like I had a plastic weapon in my hand. It just wasn't enough to showcase my full strength, dexterity, and skill of my spear-fighting. I could manage earlier due to sheer Skill and experience. But here and now, skill alone cannot help me. The rain of thrust, strikes, and slashes all hidden under feints and double intentions would've sooner or later overwhelmed me.
Had I not been given permission to use air manipulation.
Any strike that was too fast for me to handle, I used air manipulation to deflect. Any feints I failed to recognise, I deflected using blasts of winds. Occasionally I also sent gusts of wind mixed in with my own strikes to unbalance her enough to take a win.
[Skill Leveled Up: Expert Spear-wielding] Lvl 2
It happened in less than a second. My senses abruptly heightened, I knew exactly which of my thrust will manage to poke holes in her guards, I knew exactly what she will do to cover those newly created holes, and I knew just what I will have to do to take advantage of that.
The heightened senses receded as my spear point changed directions midair from her right shoulder to her midriff, before turning into a feint as it went for her collarbone creating a 'U'. Her spear tasted empty air from my feint and she hesitated between attacking my clearly unguarded chest that I'd left for her, or defending from my double feint. She attacked, her spear leaving her upper body unguarded but putting pressure on me, even as her footwork changed, trying to dodge back from my own attack while not disturbing the flow of her thrust.
Instead of responding to her move, I continued my attack. I didn't even move from my position, instead putting all of my speed and focus behind my strike to make sure it connected while the air around me slowly converged towards us. Her spear almost touched my neck but instead, it hit a wall of solid air. Her eyes widened as it broke through the wall half a second later and I barely managed to jerk my head to the side as the blade sliced my shirt open. She'd managed to injure me, bringing an end to the bout.
But my own spear had also managed to touch her collar bone, too fast for her to dodge completely at her limited speed.
We both stepped back and checked each other. My right shoulder had the tiniest drop of blood drizzling down that we can both see from the cut open shirt. While her skin was utterly unblemished, but that was more due to her constitution than my lack of skill. My spear definitely made contact, we both knew this. And we both knew that we both knew this.
I smiled victoriously at her but my mother didn't share my happiness. Concerned eyes rested on my shoulder as she scrambled towards me. "That was reckless, kael! Very reckless."
"Mum, it's fine. Don't worry." I flapped my hands up and down to calm her.
The cut was superficial at best, my own constitution wasn't to be underestimated. A normal human would probably have been cut in two, even with mother limiting her strength and speed to my level. But for me?
Tis nothing but a scratch.
"More importantly, I won!" I exclaimed.
I didn't of course. It was a clear loss for me, and even stretching some rules, it was a tie at best. But that was still a win in my book when an opponent like Gabriel is against you. Sure, she was drastically limiting her strength, speed, and even skill, but I still got a hit!
My mother smile softly at my words, her eyes still examining my injury. "Of course you did, love. We will go out to celebrate tonight."
I beamed up at my mother happily. "Yay!"
She laughed at my enthusiasm, taking me in her arms as we left the terrace above us.
Now was the time for some tasty food.