Chapter 433: Man overboard

Everyone on the flying ship/train thing seems to have mana batteries on them. Some just have a few of lower quality, others have dozens of them woven into their clothes.

Most of them don’t like me looking at them, counting the mana stones, but mostly just a glance at my crown is enough to convince them to leave me alone. I don’t think they know it’s a

[Mana Crown]

, but crowns seem to be rare enough for them to avoid messing with me. Especially now that they can’t regenerate their mana the moment they spend it.

I’ve been saving my mana as well, even though I have plenty. My crown, my reservoir, and my body. I would be very surprised if there is anyone on the flying ship/train thing with more mana than me. Plus, after my training with Liss, I’m constantly working to improve my efficiency. It still pisses me off that I haven’t made any progress during these two weeks, so I’ve been training constantly to make up for it.

It is a shame how much rarer it’s gotten for me to use all of my mana, but at the same time, it could be said that increased efficiency means more mana? And more mana is good. So I may as well start taking efficiency more seriously.

Just a few hours ago, my efforts gained me a level of

[Mana Manipulation]

, and the crown not long after.

When I feel a presence moving closer to me, I let it approach, revealing itself to be a man around my age with a blank expression, long brown wavy hair, and blue eyes.

He has two short swords strapped to his waist, and his movements are nimble and well practiced. In particular, the way he leads each step with the tips of his toes before resting on the entire foot.

Unlike most of the others, he has a single mana battery, of high quality. A big blue mana stone embedded in the middle of his black chainmail shirt. His movements displaying a complete disregard for the weight.

“

[Mana Crown]

?” he asks, coming to a rest against the railing, looking out over the Mana Desert we fly over.

“

[Notyourfuckingproblem Crown]

,” I correct.

“I see,” he answers.

Unwilling to leave first, especially since I got here first, I continue to look at the desert as well while continuing my attempts to trace the thing that dares to mess with my mana.

So far, my Mantle construct doesn’t seem to be affecting the process at all, and neither does using my

[Mana Domain]

and concentrating it in my body. The effect creating the Mana Desert is either that powerful or that tricky.

“If things go to shit, would your group be willing to work with mine? I’ve already been going around to ask a few of the more powerful groups. There’s already four others working with us, and yours would be fifth and last.”

“Because of my

[Notyourfuckingproblem Crown]

?”

“That and your friend’s

[Lightning Crown]

.”

I examine him again. He seems like he’s on the stronger side, taking the rest of the passengers into consideration.

(Tess, some guy wants us to join their secret 5 group super secret alliance. To stick together if things go to shit,)

I send through the link.

(Is he strong?)

I glance at the man again.

[Dawnslayer - lvl 265]

(I like his class name. It’s Dawnslayer, and he is level 265, decent equipment as well. A few upper epic pieces.)

(I think I saw him already. You can agree for now and tell him to meet me on the deck in around 30 minutes.)

(Will do.)

“Sure, our group leader will be here in thirty minutes so you guys can talk. The blonde with the crown.”

He looks at me, his blank expression unmoving, and tilts his head to the side a bit as if something surprised him.

“I will do that,” he says.

After that, I let him be and leave. Once on the stairs, I slow down and reduce the effects of my Restrictive Training Emblem just a little bit and rest against the wall for a moment.

Damn, that thing is evil.

Still, I refuse to look at my stats for fear of disappointment, and after a while, I head back down and allow myself to lower my guard a bit as I enter our room.

My monobloc mana chair… no, my manabloc chair is still there, with Biscuit laying on it.

(Food!)

“I didn’t find any.”

(Gone?)

“Something like that.”

(Sustenance?)

“Probably a week.”

The next message doesn’t come, Biscuit looking too shocked to say anything. Reaching my manabloc chair, I lift him, sit down, and put him on my lap. As he turns around, I meet his eyes, and they are wide open.

“It will be fine,” I say, petting him and ruffling the top of his head, even giving him some scratches until he calms down slightly.

“You promised me, so don’t eat people, okay?”

(Food!)

he complains, how could I even allow myself to entertain such a dumb idea.

“Just making sure,” I say, pulling him closer and leaning back.

“We should be able to talk out loud now. Sophie improved her web, and I don’t think anyone will be able to listen in, but can you check just in case?” Tess asks me.

I do that, and it seems like it should work the way she said. The web was made to detect eavesdropping and block the sound from passing through.

After making a few quick changes here and there, I nod at Tess, and even she seems satisfied with that.

“Are you not ashamed, leaving all the annoying stuff to Tess all the time?” Maya turns to me.

“Would you like me to deal with these people instead?”

That makes Maya pause, and after a moment of thinking, she seems to change her stance. Even so, to my satisfaction, she doesn’t say anything, and on some level, she must know how I feel, and that seems to annoy her.

“Evil orb?” I ask.

“Evil orb,” Maya sighs.

I create an orb I modified especially for her. The idea is to help her improve

[Armament]

with the goal of making her mana creations stronger.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I had plenty of fun working on it, and I believe this will help me with crafting and, surprisingly, to increase the efficiency with which I use my mana.

“You two too,” I say, turning to the twins and sending one orb to each of them.

Theirs are slightly different, more focused on pure

[Mana Manipulation]

. No changing frequencies, just an ever changing hunger for mana.

They grab them already knowing the drill.

“Here Nat goes again, making us play with his balls,” Dennis sighs.

“Two of them even,” Aaron replies, nodding seriously.

“Sophie, do you remember when they said that…”

“I fucking remember that, Nat, you don’t have to bring me into…”

“Well, they said a bit more, but I understand if you don’t want to hear.”

That makes Sophie pause, and she glances at the twins whose orbs shrink… ehm… disappear. Heh.

Their expressions have gone a bit pale, and I sense them trying to open a private link to talk with me through

[Connection]

, but I resist the effort.

In the end, Sophie just shakes her head and turns to Tess, “Want me to go with you to talk to the guy?”

The blonde, already on her feet, nods, “Why not. Nat, please don’t bully the boys.”

“Want to hear what they said about you? It’s…” I lift my hand and block the bolt of lightning she sends my way, and then another one.

She adds a dozen more, each small as a pinkie, flying my way in quick succession, even forcing me to use kinetic energy to boost my movement. Even so, it’s just playful prodding at this point. It’s probably about as dangerous as a pistol round, but playful nonetheless.

As Sophie and Tess head towards the door, Biscuit jumps from my lap and wobbles quickly after them.

(Food!)

he shouts as he joins the group.

“Please make sure he doesn’t eat people. They’re dirty,” I call to Tess.

(Asshole!)

Biscuit shouts, turning to me before following them out as they leave.

The door closes, and the defenses reactivate, leaving me in the room with our two youngest and Maya.

“There’s a lot of young people in the tutorial, don’t you think?” I ask Maya while creating orbs for her and the twins, the first ones I made having already disappeared.

“Young people are quicker to adapt, that could be the reason,” she shrugs furrowing her brow and focusing on her orb.

Knowing how annoying it is when someone interrupts your training, I leave her be and turn to my experiments. My never-ending pursuit of mastering mana and as of late increased efficiency.

Not needing to move or walk, I increase the setting on my Restrictive Training Emblem and feel my muscles burn. A constant painful reminder in the back of my mind. No pain, no gain, right? Some people would kill me knowing that I can train my muscles just by sitting, but sooner or later, I will need Lily and her modifications.

I’ve started to delve deeper into the circuits of the Restrictive Training Emblem, and the thing is more interesting than I thought. There are multiple parts to it. Some focus more on dexterity, others on strength, and some focus on constitution.

Currently, if I’m correct, it seems like the main objective is my strength, followed by dexterity and constitution.

Following this path, history will repeat itself, my constitution rapidly growing less capable of handling my other stats. It’s already gotten used to mana, and there are multiple ways I help it along, but strength and dexterity are different things.

Body modification seems like the way to go. That and modifying the emblem a bit, but I’m still a long way off from being able to do that.

Part of me wonders if Sandra the Cockroach did this on purpose.

Hah.

Who am I kidding? Of course, she did.

The emblem is exactly as evil as I thought.

POV Dennis Dalton

Nathaniel just sits there. Menacingly.

For some reason, even that sitting seems to cause him trouble, and once in a while, tears appear on his skin, blood flowing through the cracks. At some point, one of his fingers twitches and then bends with an audible crack.

That makes him open his eyes and glance at the wound for barely a second before closing them again.

Whatever he’s doing, I don’t want it. I also don’t want four of these orbs floating over my head like they do his. Just one of them is scary enough.

Then a few hours later, he stands up, clearly moving with extreme difficulty. He calls it a Burden Enhancement Inscription and says it’s for his kinetic energy training. Over and over again, he repeats a simple set of movements and mumbles things like, “That’s not it,” “It doesn’t feel right,” “She did it differently,” and then proceeds to curse someone called Sandra.

(Who the fuck is Sandra?)

I can hear Aaron.

(I don’t want to know. Do you think he will make us do that too?)

(Most likely. You heard the way Kim spoke about Nat’s training.)

(Fuck.)

(Yea, fuck...)

A few hours later, our group is at the deck meeting up with a few of the other groups. According to the schedule, it’s our shift on defense, but up until now, no one’s bothered to attack the creepy ship we find ourselves on.

Bored, suicidal, or straight-up dumb, two smaller groups, ten people combined, start trying to antagonize our group.

At first, they, sure of their numbers, make fun of Nat, who falls down a few times as a result of the training he’s doing even now. His expression is even more empty than usual as he focuses on his training, and he seems straight-up unaware or weak. Even so, he glances at the group, completely unbothered and choosing to return to his training instead.

Kim is the first one to push for a fight with these people, to defend Nat, but he is stopped by Tess.

Our Korean friend just doesn’t seem to understand why Nat just lets it pass. He never does, but he should know by now. Izzy and Tess already told us, plenty of times. Nat tends to be laid back and patient, especially when harm is done to him. He seems to be more at ease when people treat him like that as if he were used to it. Of course, there is a line you pass, and when you do, you’re done, but that line is usually very broad.

That all changes very quickly when Nat stops being the target of these attacks.

The group harassing us, made up of three different races, notices Kim itching for a fight. They start mocking him, even activating some of their skills and drawing weapons. Do we really seem like such easy targets, or is the system deliberately making the natives antagonize us for the sake of the tutorial?

Tess sighs, knowing what is to come, and holds back, gesturing for us to do the same.

Galvanized by our reaction, which they interpret as fear, they shove Nat away and start poking at Kim, who holds back, following his orders from Tess.

Nat opens his eyes and watches, his gaze cold and deeply curious. Often so unfriendly, but with surprising moments of kindness.

Unlike us, Nat has a lot of mana, so Tess lets him deal with it.

A severed arm flies into the air, and the ex-owner looks down at his shoulder and then at Nat, who already stands at his side. Before the man can even scream, another punch sends him flying across the deck. Nat moves again, in a way that can only be called creepy - with rapid bursts of incredible speed, each one ending in a powerful, fluid attack.

(W-wasn’t he mostly a ranged, bombardment fighter?)

I Aaron shouts in my head.

Nat moves from person to person, his movements unpredictable. Sometimes he stops mid-attack as if he’s completely unbothered by the inertia of his movements, so even I can’t predict where he will move.

One after another, he beats the other group in a span of a few seconds, without using a single external skill. Just his body and who knows what else. Not a whiff of mana can be felt from him, and he acts with extreme efficiency.

The guy we rarely see engaged in melees is now tearing through a group of 10 people with levels over 200 as if it were nothing.

Finally, he grabs the man who appears to be the leader by the neck and throws him over the railing. The rest of the members scattered across the deck, bones broken, limbs missing, holes punched through their bodies, but still alive. Their only casualty, their leader crashing into the white sands below. No one calls for the ship to stop, no one tries to help him. And Nathaniel stands there, watching with the same curiosity as he watches events go by.

The man starts screaming and running, trying to catch up to the ship. Bursts of mana erupt under his feet, as he tries to climb a set of his barriers.

But it’s all useless. Each step causes the white sand to fly into the air and pierce through the barriers with ease, and just as easily, it does the same to his legs. It peels away his skin like some kind of nightmare sandpaper, tearing away his flesh, and bones as he runs.

Just a few moments later, the only thing left below his knees are scraps of flesh and bone as the man falls to the sand, his blood seeping out around him.

We’re a lot farther away now, and Nat moves to the back of the ship to watch longer, golden circles enclosing his pupils.

The wind outside blows into the white sand which even now moves across the tall dunes, and its waves crash against the dying body. Each pass takes more and more of him until there is barely anything left, and then, even that disappears.