Chapter 798: The fifth day of the development trial (part 10)
Chapter 798: The fifth day of the development trial (part 10)
When Aster and the others heard from Vivian about her manual’s first technique, they couldn’t agree more with the name of her profession being "Miracle Alchemist" as in it would be a miracle for someone like that to appear.
Just think about it, to obtain this technique a mortal would need to consume hundreds of toxins and materials with detrimental effects and remain in a healthy state, without the need for antitoxins according to the white-haired girl’s explanation.
Besides someone like Vivian who even as a mortal has an extreme immunity to any toxins, no one else can fulfill such a condition, well, maybe Aster with his insane vitality and recovery abilities can survive after consuming all that, but he would for sure end up feeling sick while his body cleanses all those toxins in his current state, so he’ll fail the requirement at the end of the day.
In exchange for its really harsh requirements, the technique obtained by Vivian was really powerful when paired with her innate abilities, it’s as if it was tailored for her, perhaps the one who created it had the same constitution as her, or something quite similar to it.
Said requirements were there for a good reason too, the "Heavenly Benevolence" technique required its user to take the toxin into their body and while the negative effect was nullified and transformed into something positive, the limit of this technique’s effect was a percentage of the amount of toxicity that the user could endure, instead of the usual fatigue that it would cause which puts a strain on the physical body and or the mind depending on the manual, it was perfect for Vivian.
"Still, I honestly expected the poison granted to you by those guys to be stronger than this, luckily Aster always has a backup plan up his sleeves", happily said Vivian as she took out a pinky sized crystal tube out of her pocket which contained a multicolored liquid, that reminded her of her own heart, which she then unplugged.
The moment that tube had its plug removed, the lynx who was about to pounce at Vivian, had his body freeze on the spot.
’What the hell is that, is it blood from the protector of the forest?’, wondered the dead lynx king, he thought it was Guardian’s blood for a reason, he felt afraid on a similar level as what would happen if Guardian used her lineage suppression, minus the mental damage he would have suffered due to it, but he attributed that to the fact that it wasn’t the real thing, but just blood from the lynx.
Of course, that was absolutely not the case, though it did contain someone’s blood, as in that was a special mix of toxins refined with the help of Vivian’s own blood and further enhanced with Aster’s blood.
"What happened, I thought the whole point of turning into a dead animal was to not be afraid of poison, but don’t worry this is not for you, after all Aster asked sister Mylene to make it especially for me~", said Vivian as she drank the content of that small tube, which of course took the lynx by surprise.
Though he understood that his poison was somehow helpful for the enemy, he had a hard time believing that a living creature could drink that terrifying multicolored liquid and not die on the spot, even with his dead body he didn’t want to even be close to that, let alone ingest it after all.
"Crack!", the dead lynx king suddenly growled as he was forced backwards out of nowhere, his claws left a trail on the ground as he used them to stop his retreat, but that’s not what drew his attention but the large slashing wound that travelled all the way from his shoulder to his shin.
"Mmm, I now have more respect for Alice’s careless attitude, it’s really hard to control a strong body properly", mumbled Vivian who was now standing on the spot where the dead lynx king was a moment ago.
There were deep stepping marks where she used to be originally, the dead lynx king finally understood what happened, the white-haired female creature moved so fast that he lost sight of her, by the time he reacted, she had already attacked him with that stick and the impact was so heavy that he was sent backwards even with his claws acting as anchors.
In fact, had that not been the case, he would have probably been flung away twice the distance instead, as to how Vivian suddenly became incredibly strong, that’s thanks to the "special drink" that Mylene made.
That thing contained poison that destroyed the muscles, caused nerve damage, damaged the organs, numbed the senses, paralyzed the target and prevented healing, so Vivian’s body was monstrously enhanced right now.
In a rough calculation, she was around eight times stronger and faster than her normal self, which actually helped her reach Alice’s level, this was possible because even if the limit of her technique is just a small percentage of the toxicity she can endure, she has such a high resistance.
If Vivian’s base mortal physical body was as strong as an average person, she would have only needed a five or six times multiplier for that, but well, Vivian is not known for her physical performance.
And that being the case, Vivian is of course not used to such a powerful body, which is why instead of slashing the neck of the dead lynx king with her spear which was her aim, she ended up slashing his shoulder.
Still, judging by the bright smile on Vivian’s pretty face, she was having a blast due to this new experience.
"Crack!", the ground below Vivian’s feet produced some sounds as her legs tensed before she charged at the dead lynx king.
"How funny~", merrily said Vivian as she jumped around five meters high into the air to then descend like a meteor, spear first towards the enemy.
"Boooom!", this time the lynx managed to jump and avoid an attack that would have shattered his bones, based on the fact that the spearhead had completely dived into the ground leaving a small crater on it.
"Grrrr!", the lynx tried to jump and slash Vivian’s pretty face with his claws, only to be kicked on his right side by the white-haired girl, for someone that is not used to mortal physical brawling, using their legs is way more dangerous than using their fists.
Not only it is easier to self-wound one’s feet, but losing their balance due to a failed kick can lead to an instant death, so Aster had warned Vivian to only use her fists alongside the spear against the enemy until she had boosted herself with the special mix prepared by Mylene.
The white-haired girl of course listened to Aster’s warnings, so until a moment ago, she had only punched the lynx a few times, with the protection of the gloves prepared by Aster, even if she didn’t really cause damage to the lynx, her hands wouldn’t suffer any harm as well and it was a good way to mess up with the enemy’s rhythm.
However, this time it was different, the dead lynx king felt as if he was hit by a boulder when Vivian’s kick landed on his side.
"Grrrr!", with a loud growl, the lynx was sent flying a couple of dozens of meters into the distance due to the impact, despite not feeling pain nor having much blood in his body to spill, a stream of blood flowed out of his mouth and he had a hard time getting up, but managed to force it just in time to avoid Vivian’s spear.
"Boooom!", the spear dived into the ground to then be retrieved by the white-haired girl who thrusted it at the dead lynx king the next second, with a heavy step Vivian’s spear clashed with the lynx’s claws.
"Crack!", the lynx’s pupils contracted like needles, under his expression of disbelief, his claws shattered, the white-haired female creature in front of him clearly wasn’t surprised due to the previous result, in fact her confident and happy expression made the lynx think that she expected things to be like this with a one hundred percent of certainty.
With a "swoosh", Vivian disappeared from the sight of the dead lynx king, and next darkness invaded the lynx as his consciousness faded, this time for the good, with a "thud", the severed head of the dead lynx king fell to the ground and Vivian placed her right hand on her chest and slightly bowed at him.
"I hope you can rest in peace this time...", mumbled the white-haired girl, though they were enemies until a moment ago, according to the wounded wolf and Guardian, the dead wolf and lynx kings had their original selves erased and overwritten by the supervisors, because they wouldn’t have used their tribe members as cannon fodder even if it costed them their lives.
The living wolf and lynx kings who belonged to the western tribes had willingly submitted to the bear who had the backup of the supervisors, in exchange for power and to save their hides of course.
In comparison the kings of the eastern tribes outright refused to join the bear’s banner, because even if they lived, their subordinates would be at the mercy of the bear’s orders.
The sad part is that some among the tribes betrayed their own kin to supposedly save their lives which ultimately led to them being killed once the loyal lynxes and wolves were wiped out, since of course the western lynx and wolf kings wanted to have more cannon fodder so that they could keep some of their subordinates alive after the battle, that’s why ultimately only the bandaged wolf survived.
So even if the dead lynx king now actively supported the bear and of course aimed to kill Vivian, who didn’t hesitate in the slightest to kill him in response as he was an enemy, the white-haired girl with her good heart still wished him to be able to rest this time.
That being said, after offering her respect, Vivian turned around to gaze at the dead animal army which had shrunk to around half of its size in the meantime, the cobras had initially helped the horses kill twenty of them, leaving around seventy something enemies left.
And while Vivian was battling the dead lynx king, they killed another twenty, so from ninety they went all the way down to fifty, what’s more out of the almost twenty second in command level animals, only ten remained at this point and they all reacted the same way.
"S-She killed the king, everyone disperse, go inform lord bear about this!", shouted a second in command lynx, only for a spear to fly at lightning speed, pierce the body of that lynx by its side and pin it to the ground due to the impact.
"Don’t let a single one of them escape", said Vivian.
"Yes!", the king cobras and the black horses answered in unison as they charged at the remaining dead animals, under the cover of the clip-clop sounds of the horses that pulled on the war chariots which made rounds around the battlefield to prevent any enemy to slip out of this carefully prepared trap.
With Vivian quite literally "jumping" into the battlefield, as in she made another one of those leaps who seemed to defy gravity as a mortal, due to the current boosted state of her body, the battle ended quite fast, unlike the dead lynx king, the average members of the dead animal army couldn’t withstand let alone a slash or thrust from Vivian’s spear, but even her punches and kicks.
With a single one of those, she broke the bones of an animal, what a joke she was wielding strength on par with Alice’s, though she is obviously weaker in terms of battle prowess as she lacks the instincts and experience that the wild dragon princess has for close range physical brawling, she can easily overwhelm average animals.
"Phew, I’ll need to start training my body now, wait a second... I can ask Aster to make me a body tempering routine for our next date~", mumbled Vivian as she looked at the broken spear which she was holding.
Due to her own inexperience, she ended up busting the spear during the fight, still now that she thought of the new experiences, she will be able to enjoy since her body can become stronger, she couldn’t help but smile.
Right now, they were in a place where they couldn’t use their cultivation, so Vivian had to rely in external means to power up so she needs to carry alchemic products, but once they are out, Vivian could create the toxin to boost whatever aspect she wanted whenever she wanted.
Just imagine it, she could both empower herself and still use her poison if she wanted to at the same time, so she would be a super strong poison princess that will bring nightmares to her opponents.
As to whether they could bring the techniques obtained through the manuals in this place to the outside, Aster told them not to worry about that, with the help of a certain sword girl, the contents of the manuals are being recorded in jades, he couldn’t let his family and those cute juniors leave empty handed in case there was a need to leave this place due to some bastards playing tricks behind the scenes, after all.
With that and the girls in question having experienced the techniques firsthand, Aster is sure he can recreate the techniques with some effort, and this doesn’t count as "cheating", it’s just an insurance.
"It’s done miss, we have checked and all the enemies are dead", said the old king cobra as he approached Vivian accompanied by Mule.
"Mm, is everyone alright, if you feel any discomfort due to the corpse poison tell me, I’ll help you get rid of it", said Vivian, though she couldn’t empower herself more than this, since her body wouldn’t be able to endure it even if she improved her toughness and recovery like she did, she could still take the poison into her body.
The limit she reached was the limit of her empowering, not the limit of the percentage from the amount of toxicity she could endure, because obviously the physical strain her body could endure was way smaller than the toxicity she could endure, which also means that there is a lot of room to improve for her, in the future she might be able to fight with main body path cultivators with just her physical body alone thanks to this technique.
Mule felt like crying as he shouted to his insides "Why can’t this benevolent human female be the one in charge of us!", if it was Alice the black horse was sure she would say something along the lines of "Tough it up unless you want me to beat the hell out of you".
Of course, it’s not like Vivian was soft with the black horses in specific, she was put in charge of them by Aster so she of course wanted to do a good job that’s just Vivian being responsible, she does care about the king cobras personally though, maybe because she sympathized with their previous situation and she found the baby cobras really cute, there is also the fact that as venomous animals they felt close to Vivian as she is like "royalty" among them.
"We are fine, thanks for asking miss", said the old king cobra, he already took the precaution of verifying with everyone before coming to report to Vivian.
"Then we can wrap things up here, give the signal please", said the white-haired girl to one of the archers of the war chariot unit.
"Okay, sister Vivian", the girl in question took out an arrow which had a small green bead glued to the place where the arrowhead would normally be placed, pinched it with the tip of a spear and then shot it upwards.
The bead rose into the sky leaving a green powder trail that was thin enough so that only animals flying in the sky and with powerful sight would notice, like for example let’s say... eagles.
...
The king of flying beasts who had been watching over the sky saw the signal she was told to look out for and then descended from the sky landing on the railing of the watching platform where Kana was standing.
"Chirp!", the giant eagle let out a soft sound to which the little girl nodded in response.
"Okay, thanks miss eagle, I’ll let big brother know", said Kana as she took out an arrow with a green painted head to then draw her bow and shoot it towards the battlefield.
"Hm?", Aster who was calmly standing while observing the battlefield and also watching Guardian clash with the bear who was the main threat, heard a whistling sound coming from his right, he turned around just in time to see an arrow land a few meters away from him, he noticed the green painted tone of the arrowhead and smirked.
"The playtime is over, feel free to go wild you all!", shouted Aster in a voice just high enough for everyone to hear.
The bear couldn’t understand what Aster said because he was distracted by Guardian’s claws coming at his chest, but he couldn’t help but be invaded by an unsettling sensation, that made sense a few seconds later.
"Grrrrr!", first, pained growling sounds coming from multiple lynxes at different parts of the battlefield reached the ears of the bear.
"Awoooo!", then, pained howls coming from wolves were added to the mix, this was caused by the members of the sect suddenly stopped having "trouble" blocking two animals each, in a matter of seconds spears slashed or pierced shoulders, sides and paws of lynxes and wolves.
"What!", the bear couldn’t help but exclaim in disbelief, only for his focus to be forcefully returned to his own fight due to Guardian’s speed suddenly increasing by a third.
"Rooaaar!", the bear’s claws missed the timing to block Guardian’s ones and a slashing wound that practically followed the same exact path as the scar the bear got from her in the past, appeared on the bear’s chest, making him roar due to both pain and humiliation.
As surprising as it might appear, the bear chose to remain a living animal, though he could have still gotten stronger even if he became a dead animal as he had the backing of the supervisors, the bear wanted to thoroughly enjoy his revenge match with Guardian and as a dead animal his emotions would have been dulled quite a bit, on the other hand this also meant that he felt pain and bled.
"You damn lynx!", screamed the bear as he raised his paws to then aim to smack Guardian against the ground.
"Boooom!", the bear’s large paws heavily landed on the ground creating a large crater, but the bear didn’t feel happy in the slightest, because Guardian perfectly avoided his attack and elegantly landed a few meters away from him.
"What is this, did you spread poison to weaken my subordinates!", shouted the bear at Aster who chuckled in response.
"No, I simply gave my allies the green light to stop restraining themselves to create the illusion that they were "struggling" against two animals", casually said Aster.
What was happening was simple, Aster wanted to get rid of the biggest variable at large scale, the dead animals, before anything else, so he gave the order to the girls of the sect of only keeping the enemies busy while Vivian dealt with them.
Now that the source of the corpse poison was taken care off and at a distance large enough from the main battlefield, so that even if something "funny" were to happen, he could have the leisure to deal with it, those fierce girls didn’t have to restrain themselves anymore.
And the first one to go on a rampage was of course that wild dragon sister of his.
"Where do you think you are going, those horses have been behaving well lately, so I need new disposable sandbags for my mission, come here and let me break your necks!", shouted Alice as she flashed from her previous position to then use her metal reinforced gloves to punch the neck of a second in command lynx.
"Crack!", a loud shattering sound made quite a few animals shiver, the lynx in question had blood coming out of his mouth, nose, eyes and ears as it collapsed on the ground, dead.