"Better...hm? Only 500 this time?" Jody mumbled upon confirming his thesis.
"Who is there?!" yelled one of the warriors after sensing energy fluctuations. However, before that warrior could turn around to search the area on the other side of his tent, he saw the menacing gleam of a blade light rapidly descending. "Yah...ARGH!!"
Riiiiiip~
Jody used his mana and natural strength to chop down ruthlessly before this guard could yell again. The blade of his new glaive split this warrior in half as blood and entrails colored the scene crimson.
"Wicked." Xavier complimented.
Eureka jumped down from Jody's head and ran over to the mutilated corpse, letting out a mew that seemed to resonate with Jody's soul. The corpse was instantly encased in a pink block of solid ice.
"Mew," Eureka looked at Jody expectantly, leaving him baffled.
However, he could understand Eureka's intent through their connection. She wanted him to store this corpse away so she could eat it later!
"Do god beasts also grow stronger by consuming flesh and blood energy? It's not just desolate beasts?" asked Jody, the two god beasts in his mental space.
"How astute of you," replied an indifferent yet oddly sarcastic voice.
Lately, Sylvester realized that Jody wasn't stupid but had difficulty investing his interest in most topics. This was likely because he was still a child and felt limited in his behavior. Or maybe it was hormones.
Thinking up to here, Sly's tone became slightly less sarcastic, "This is indeed the case. Unlike you heroes who practice energy arts mainly by using heavenly energy and life essence, we origin beasts can promote our life essence by consuming the flesh and blood of powerful creatures. Flesh and blood full of origin energy can easily promote our strength; we merely have to wait patiently for our origin energy to accumulate and fortify. She froze the corpse in serenity so that malignant death forces didn't contaminate it. The death force consumption separates us from desolate beasts and demons."
Jody suddenly hated that he was a human instead of a beast.
How cool would it be to grow stronger through a little cannibalism?
"What cannibals? We can't eat our own species, you weirdo," Xavier berated Jody's inner thoughts. "We can only refine the lifeblood powers of species with a different source than our own. Beasts are not all one species like you humans, negus, and elves."
Did X refer to himself as a beast? How rare.
"Ah, so it's like this," Jody's space ring flashed, and the frozen corpse disappeared. Due to his experience as an operative and assassin, such scenes didn't disturb his state of heart in the slightest. He had very few scruples, "One down, nineteen to go. Hmm?"
Jody noticed a ring with a shining opal stone similar to his space ring on the ground next to the frozen blood, and he picked it up, "Interspatial ring? Lucky."
"What was that? Is someone fighting?"
"Enemy attack! Round up, round up!"
Swish~
Swish~
"Archers!" a warrior screamed, "we're under sie...galup"
Puchi.
An arrow silenced the warrior through the throat before he could continue.
Swish~, Swish~, Swish~
Puchi. Puchi.
"Enemy fire! Magicians, load up! Archers, respond!" a burly man with pale skin and a bald head suddenly ran out of the most massive tent, covered in sweat with his clothes barely on. Seconds later, a beautiful woman wearing a loose dress appeared from the tent behind him. Her pearl skin was tinted red with lingering passion.
"Stewart, take the west end. I'll handle the east," The sound of arrow fire could be heard from outside the camp, causing the woman to feel panicked instantly.
"Relax, Martha, we knew they would counter," replied the burly man, Stewart, as he started walking to the west end of the camp. "We can easily escape as long as we have our secret weapon. What rookie could stop me with that thing? I'll be a war god starting today. Throw me the thing."
"The weapon is with my baby brother! We need to find Chucky immediately!" said Martha anxiously.
"WHAT?!" Stewart turned around, wholly startled. His previous complacency was out of the window now, "Why the hell would you do something like that?"
"We were...you know." Martha blushed fiercely, "I only thought that we may be ambushed while the isolation barrier was up...how would I know you didn't even intend to set one up, wanting your boys to hear me suffer."
"Ah...this..." Stewart rubbed his nose in embarrassment, but his face became grave as another deathly scream was heard. This was the sound of someone being savagely cut down! Stewart knew such a sound well. "Shit! It's not just archers. They've already invaded the camp! No time for defense, find Charles, and let's move now!"
"No need," came an immature voice from behind Stewart.
Jody had been listening to their conversation as soon as he sensed someone exit the tent. Stewart frowned, and the ring on his hand flashed as a saber appeared in his hand. Stewart's true essence thrummed as he slashed out behind him.
Rip~
A green wave of energy lacerated the air, landing on a warrior who was running toward the west lines and removing his arm from his body! Blood rained out from his injury as he moaned painfully.
"AhRGH! Boss...boss Stew...why?" the warrior collapsed in a puddle of his own blood, gasping heavily and wincing from the pain. However, he quickly sealed his injury with true essence to staunch the blood.
"Eddie? The fuck..." Stewart was confident he slashed in the direction of the voice.
"He's right there, you dummy!" Martha screamed, and she immediately chanted a spell. Instead of sound, her words formed incantation runes in the void. The primary force phenomenon slowly manifested to form 12 white light spheres, and some ten blurry cyan-colored marbles of light were also beginning to develop.
"Not a chance," shouted little Jody.
He sidestepped the big lummox before him and shot toward this Sage vixen. Jody would never let those remaining lights form because her momentum would then grow too powerful for him to eliminate her in one strike without activating his astralis.
"A Freshman brat? The fuck..." Stewart was absolutely puzzled, but a moment later, he noticed the primary force phenomenon above Jody. Since Jody was circulating his force, the serenity earring could no longer mask his aura. As a sophomore scholar, Stewart could easily sense this shocking event. "His power level is 12 BP? How? Wait...no, the Baleful Glaive! Fuck, he went to Charles' tent! Martha dodge~!"
In Stewart's mind, Martha would be heavily injured at best, as the kid was currently just as strong as her. However, he had underestimated not only Jody's strength but his ruthlessness as well. He hurriedly poured the force of eleven blade crystals into his glaive.
"Winter's Gale, Hurricane Wi..."
Puchi
[Imp: Enemy slain! Loot Captured!]
[Imp: You have slain the Sophomore Scholar rank Sage, Martha Westbrooke.]
[Imp: Loot - 50 death crystals, 50 water crystals, 25 wind crystals, 200 origin crystals.]
[Imp: Esoteric knowledge of spell weaving flows into your mind.]
Just as Martha was finishing her spell, a terrifying blade stabbed through her neck with impossible speed. Her force momentum popped like a bubble as her flesh was impaled. Blood trickled down the polearm as Jody twisted his wrist and ripped through her neck, spinning the glaive back around and severing her body from the waist.
"MARTHA!!!" Stewart's eyes went scarlet and full as he couldn't believe what he just saw.
How could a rookie brat with 12 BP kill Martha so brutally like that? She was already using her battle force momentum. One would need at least 24 BP to gravely injure her in that state, let alone kill her so quickly.
Of course, how could Stewart know that Jody's physical strength already surpassed 24 BP? If Jody used mana alone, he would only have a power level of 12 BP. But every time he attacked, his power would be bolstered by his physique and rage.
"Ahhhh!" Stewart lost his mind at that moment, and a yellow atmosphere surrounded his combat saber as he savagely hacked down repeatedly.
He was trying to smash this little brat who wasn't even half his size. In fact, the brat wasn't even the size of the Baleful Glaive he wielded.
"Right on time," shouted Jody.
He was delighted that this idiot had lost himself to rage. Now, Jody wouldn't need to use astral light to deal with this problem. Jody perfectly timed a parry, knocking his opponent's saber up. He didn't hesitate to sweep with his glaive, and Stewart suddenly saw the sky above before he witnessed the last sight of his life. A blade surrounded by baleful energy came crashing down on his face.
[Imp: Enemy slain! Loot Captured!]
[Imp: You have slain the Sophomore Scholar rank Sage, Stewart Warbuck.]
[Imp: Loot - 50 death crystals, 50 blade crystals, 200 origin crystals.]
[Imp: Esoteric knowledge of the blade flows into your mind.]
"So it's called the Baleful Glaive, huh? I like it... Oh wait, looky here," Jody unceremoniously picked up Stewart's interspatial ring as Eureka ran over from freezing Martha's trisected corpse before doing the same to Stewart's corpse. Jody was uninterested in his pet's antics as he pondered on the two's previous conversation, "If only I were able to find that Chucky, or whatever. Then I would also be able to see this so-called secret weapon and what makes it so unique and secure."
Jody had no idea that Chucky and Charles were the same person.
He casually stored the two frozen corpses in his space ring. Sylvester had long since told him that only items with life shouldn't be put in a space ring, as they wouldn't be able to survive the environment. However, anything else was fine. "Well, the Frozen Night Rookie Squads got here way quicker than I thought. Time to vamoose."
Jody activated his serenity earring, and his atmosphere turned sluggish within his body. Although it was still there, it was moving so slowly that it would be tough to detect. Jody nodded in satisfaction before saying, "Sek Si."
"Yes, young master?" Sek Si appeared directly next to Jody, which he was still not accustomed to.
Her sensual voice was something he couldn't handle so well up close. Luckily, she looked like a tiny ninja, eliminating the seductive feeling completely. Jody had forgotten that Sek was a bit taller than him when they met.
"Can you take us back to camp with your shadow avatar?" asked Jody inquisitively.
"Hmm..." Sek Si appeared to be in thought, "I can get us close, but not in the camp. Barriers."
"Good enough, let's go!"
Several minutes later, Jody casually appeared in the camp after walking through the barrier and asked for his mother's whereabouts. Upon discovering she was still out, he just went directly into the tent his mother and himself shared. The tent didn't look too excessive from the outside. It was a standard commander-tier arrangement. However, inside the tent was not a small space. It looked like a luxury log cabin in the mountains, and it was decked out and sexy!
'Now, this is magic. How does an entire luxury lodge fit into a tent?' Jody marveled to himself.
Jody went straight to his room and sat in the lotus position in the center of a white gold platform with a significant magical array formation. This was the Ascended Heaven Formation! Jody was super excited that he was able to keep this transformation platform. He wanted to steal many things from his grandfather's place in the underground world, but that incident ruined all of his plans. Luckily, his mother had stolen this platform from the room before they left, installing it in her own personal quarters.
Quarters which, by extension, were also Jody's private quarters. Jody wondered what his Grandpa Geb's reaction would be once the staff of the Magic Fish Lounge charged him for the damages and losses.
Jody cast his spiritual sense into his space ring to check his recent harvests. His space ring seemed large enough to fit an entire skyscraper within, and currently, piles of items were scattered around. Jody spent 15 minutes organizing everything by making shelves of spiritual force before taking inventory. The first shelf had dozens of serenity crystals, including the neon crystal Eureka had given him. The second shelf had nine C-Grade origin stones, the origin gem, 500 gold zeni, and 6 prism zeni, and two interspatial rings.
"Now this is wealth, bwahahaha," Jody laughed boisterously at his harvest.
He had stolen this money from the interspatial rings of Stewart and that other guy. On the third shelf was Jody's new combat gear, the Baleful Glaive, along with the Bright Star: Battle Book and some other books he had either taken from the library at home or stolen from one of the people he had killed today.
"Hm? What's this?" As Jody was going through the interspatial ring that came from the first guy he attacked, he was stunned and speechless. This ring actually had 500 more gold zeni and 10 prism zeni. This brought his totals to 1,000 and 16, respectively. Apart from that, there was also a small collection of combat gear. There were 3 matching armor sets and a couple of weapons. There were expensive dresses, light armor, a bow set, and what looked like a scepter. The scepter, in particular, seemed to be surrounded by a powerful force.
This was without anyone touching it at all!
"This must be...so that first guy I met, the one they called Charles...so, he was Chucky?!" Jody was shocked to discover this.
"Your luck is indeed not bad," responded Sylvester in that cold voice that always made Jody feel like the former wanted to kill someone.
"Yeah, but that Baleful Glaive sure is hard to use," when Jody was wielding this weapon earlier, his mana was rapidly consumed with each movement.
If he didn't have powerful muscles as support, he would not have been able to use it at all.
"This is because you are…" Sylvester started to retort but was cut off by Jody.
"Weak, I know, I get it!" Jody was so tired of being insulted by this mutt.
After thinking about the word mutt, he heard a vicious growl in his head, causing him to smile wryly as he started to meditate and settle his mind.
After meditating and adjusting his breathing for about thirty minutes, Jody took out a mana stone and used his spiritual sense to galvanize the array formation. He was finally ready to race to the next rank of the Scholar stage. Although the Jody of the past didn't really care what people thought about him, he must not let down his father's expectations, nor could he allow his actions to cause insult or injury to his mother.
On top of that, he was a medjai of death and the underworld. He had his own honor and glory to build and uphold! Jody would prove he wasn't trash who couldn't properly transform origin despite having potential. What was challenging about it? He only had a month left to show his talent! With his determination refueled, Jody felt more confident.
He didn't care what people thought of him as long as he could make it to the next rank. His strength would soon speak for itself!