Chương 189: Chapter 186 - The Noxweed

Clara rinsed her face with water, taking deep calming breaths. She was in Valee's incredibly fancy bathroom, still a little rattled by the sudden emergency. Clara had still been fine then, at least until Ryan had come back with Grettfield looking ready for war himself. Even then she believed she had been fine. It wasn't until Sideark's video had come out and she saw just how horrifyingly monstrous the 'Flesh Titan' was that it became too real once again. Clara stared at the mirror.

"Okay, calm down. It's okay. We've been through this before. Valee is fine, everyone is fine. Game face on, for Barry." Clara had no idea what she was going to do if Seffara died. They were all trying to keep Barry's mind off things he couldn't control. Being happy and bubbly Clara was important for everyone's morale. Though she herself wasn't sure how she would keep it up if Seffara actually died. What would happen to Barry, what if he left? It'll just be me trying to keep Ryan sane. Not that he is sane.

In fact, Clara wasn't sure how she was going to feel if Seffara died. Sure the heroine [Knight] was a little loud and annoying but she was at least cool and—Clara was hyperventilating.

"Deep breaths. One-two-three, four, five. Six. Seven. Eight…" She couldn't do this, she was just a stupid sheltered girl from Brentwood. A part of her wanted to just go back to working at a restaurant, but with what Ryan was going up against, she wasn't sure how she could just leave. She had resolved herself to at least stick it out until at least Seffara had come back. Things had been fine for a time. Sure looking at Barry's hurt uncertainty was depressing but it was at least something to do.

She could still keep acting like herself… But THEN, having seen the FLESH TITAN in video, and remembering how Ryan talked about it as a 'cool ass fight where he just spun and kicked all its limbs away and made it blow up by stabbing its chest'... Clara had no idea how she could keep laughing and smiling during the after-action reports. She was hyperventilating again. Her eyes flicked to a card that Grettfield had left in her pocket without her knowing. It was in neat, cursive writing.

If you wish to chat, my door is always open. I believe you have potential as a Witch. Trial System or not. That was just more anxiety.

"I just wanted to live like a normal person. Why is that so hard?" It wasn't even like a normal life where you ran away from home then had to pay rent was good either. But at least she had been finally making progress! At the very least she wasn't trying to participate in something she had no business in. Clara scrunched up the note and tossed it in the trash. Or at least that was what was supposed to happen. Instead, the note hovered in midair.

For a moment Clara thought the note was magicked by Grettfield and regretted carelessly tossing it away. Then an ugly book appeared in midair, coming out of invisibility. It was holding the note in its pages, and then rose and stared down at her. In what she assumed was in anger and intimidation. Chester, Grettfield's ugly book familiar, was offended that Clara had disregarded its master's letter. She threw her hands up in the air and stormed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Chester simply opened the door with telekinesis and chased after her, rippling its pages in anger. Clara ignored Chester, if she pretended it didn't exist, it didn't exist, right? When she entered the lounge, neither Barry nor Milock bothered to look up the trailing book behind her. They were both focused on their own business. Milock having thrown himself into whatever crap he was learning from the Secretary, and Barry was glued to his phone, likely looking up updates on Seffara.

Clara sighed then threw herself on the couch next to Ryan's body. Then she took out her marker. If in stress, draw on your friend's faces while they were unconscious. That's was the one good thing she'd learned from Seffara. Ding-ding. Right as she finished the first drawing, a doorbell rang throughout the mansion. Milock looked up from his laptop, raising his eyebrow at her—as if expecting her to do it. Then he looked back down on his laptop. Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.

Clara threw her hands up in the air and stomped over to the entrance. Taking an entire minute to navigate Valee's stupidly large 'vacation mansion', and opened the door.

"WHAT!?" Only to freeze. Behind the door was a figure Clara had only met once. The person in front of her had been posing as a hostess on Seffara's jet. Except this time she was wearing a skimpy ninja outfit with completely pink hair. Pinkie the draconic dragonslayer. Oh, and she had a bloody brown sack over her shoulder. Pinkie smiled at her brightly.

"Hi. It's Clara, right? Is Ryan here? I have a favor I need from him." She bumped the bloody sack on her shoulder and it started squirming like mad. There was a muffled screaming coming from it as well. Pinkie was completely unbothered by it. Clara's eye twitched.

"Sorry, Ryan is a little busy right now." She tried to slam the door in Pinkie's face—only the dragonslayer used one of her fingers to stop it from closing. Her teeth baring sharp points at her.

"Don't worry, I can't wait. Oh, hi Chester, it's funny seeing you here!" Grettfield's familiar broke its invisibility behind Clara and used a [Haste] spell to flee as quickly as possible from the monster, rippling its pages in distress and panic. Pinkie just grinned. —— The Realm. It was impossible to try to predict the future. Logically, Ryan understood this better than anyone. The Manager was a prime example of the futility in doing so.

So did that mean the answer was to simply hope that the next generation of adventurers would be able to clean up whatever disaster might happen next? To hope they would be enough to take care of the mess that the older generations had left behind? It was still a horribly irresponsible answer. Incomplete, though perhaps the answer was a little closer to his ideal. For now that would have to do. After all, there were more pressing matters at hand.

Two S+ Trial rewards available: If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Trial Skill slots: 5/6 One extra Trial Skill Selected. [Conceptual Meditation] learned! [Conceptual Meditation] level 0 -> level 1! Trial Skill slots: 6/6 One S+ Trial reward available: By learning [Instant Dodge] at Raidco's Mastery, he had freed up a Trial skill slot allowing him to be able to use a reward on [Conceptual Meditation].

He activated the skill while he was breaking the sound barrier. He didn't really feel that different, though that might have been because of the continuous sonic booms he was causing due to his speed. It was utterly insane how fast a fifth realm could run. Ryan was barely breaking a sweat, even with his durable backpack from Valmere and Rax's heavy golem wrapped around his body. It seemed like he'd make it to his destination far, far sooner than he first expected.

That just went to show just how much he was still rushing things. Though the sonic boom was actually quite annoying. Fields of purple-black noxweed were ripped up as he traveled. Their wide leaves flying behind him in a trail of wanton ecological destruction. The fauna that were disturbed all fleeing, those that hadn't seen him only started panicking after he had passed them because he had surpassed the speed of sound. Ryan slowed down.

Trying to see if he could use [Conceptual Meditation] to see just how his fear Epic worked on the monsters. It didn't work.

"Hey Gamielle, got any tips on how to silently break the sound barrier?" Gamielle was silently traveling at his speed. She just shrugged.

"There's lots of spells that can do that, they're not that hard to learn, [Silent Gale] took me like two days to learn at realm three, just learn that."" Thanks." Ryan said sarcastically. They both knew full well that he had no chance of learning a complicated spell like that in any reasonable amount of time. Not without a foundation and definitely not without some actually normal mana to draw upon. Gamielle shrugged.

"I'm a [Mage]. What did you expect?" She was using his own phrase against him. Not that he was the first to use that kind of phrasing. She was still a little mad at him for teasing her earlier. He just sighed in response.

"Guess the Realmnet really is a superior source of information after all." Ryan tried to focus inward, to see if [Conceptual Meditation] was doing anything. He tried to focus on his left arm to see what was going on and it didn't feel any different. The [Arcane Saboteur] was still there, the concepts of sabotaging the arcane still being in the forefront if he wanted to call it out. His right arm was more interesting.

Ryan could feel the concepts swirling around his arm, feeding off the core of [Unrelenting Aura of Intimidation]. Was it recovering? Or was it just changing form. It was difficult to say. The concepts aren't what's broken, they're just not a cohesive whole. Whoa. Was this the effect of [Conceptual Meditation]? It felt like he was just coming to these definitive conclusions naturally. When he focused on trying to gather them back into a whole—it came up with nothing. He moved onto the real test. His Trial class.

He could vaguely feel the concepts that the Trial System had surrounded him with. It isn't just my soul that's been covered by the class concepts but my entire body—even the surroundings. Wait that would mean [The Rogue Adventurer] was just underneath. Can I access—"What are you doing?" Gamielle's voice broke him out of his contemplation.

"What?"

"What skill are you using?"

"Something I picked up from the [Conceptual Reaver]." Gamielle drew back slightly.

"What's it called?"

"[None of your business]." Ryan ducked a magical lightning bolt that shot out at three times the speed of sound. He readied an [Arcane Volatility] knife before he felt something weird shifting in the air. A spell so complex that Gamielle was focusing. Something massive started to cover the field, it was about to envelop him whole. He threw his knife and found that it simply passed through the net, not finding any magic to latch onto.

[Instant Dodge] The edges of the spell barely touched him, he stiffened expecting something weird to happen… But the Conceptual Metamorph did not like to be identified before it was complete. Ryan blinked. He was almost certain the spell had hit him, yet nothing had happened. It should've been magic but he had felt no mana from it. Gamielle's eyes went wide.

"How the hell did you see that?" It was an instinctive reaction with his Epic open, he was still staring at the wave passing through the ground.

"What was that?"

"[Conceptual Inspection]. A spell I learned from my mother. The one I used to check out your [Aura Tyrant] class." She was giving hints again, warning him that her mother could use the same thing on him.

"Should I not have been able to see it?"

"No. Not after it's formed." Gamielle was silent for a bit, trying to process everything that had happened.

"Be careful with conceptual skills, Ryan. Especially those that let you understand multiple things. It sounds good on paper, but there's a reason why the Trial System only focuses on one class. It's easy to get pulled in many directions and lose yourself." It was a little hypocritical of her to say that considering she had used it on him and had even looked nervous when confronting the [Aura Tyrant].

"Don't look at me like that." She snapped.

"If I was more careful I wouldn't be dead." That was true enough. Though Ryan didn't say that out loud.

"Well, you also did tell me I should've taken the [Conceptual Reaver] class." Gamielle waved her hand, clearly regretting saying that earlier.

"I'm assuming that [Conceptual] focused classes like that come with built in protections against taking in too many concepts. I also told you that it was probably the right choice not to take it." It was perhaps a little too late to give him these warnings now. … Twenty minutes later. Ryan arrived at the base of the spire only a few hours into his run. Gamielle having disappeared as she always did when there was potential danger. He was walking through some of the thickest Noxweed leaves he had ever seen.

The sleeping pollen thick in the air as he tried to adjust his aura to filter it. It didn't really work, the pollen was just a little too small to be filtered out by [Aura Condensation]. Though he didn't really feel that much worse, it was good to remember that getting injured or tired would make his movements even slower being exposed to Noxweed like this. Cerul was excitedly flying high, high above, squawking their entrance and excitedly waiting for what was inside the spire to come out.

Ryan started hopping up the rocky little spire, covered in Noxweed roots. Realm Five mountains were called spires. Tall and narrow, with holes dotting all over the surface. Apparently these spires were created through the purple-black Noxweed plants over centuries. Their root system dragging up the earth to create some sort of connected cave system to both pump their spores out and attract unsuspecting monsters into the caves for an eternal nap.

Ironically, when the Noxweed plant became too old, they became so lethal that no monsters dared to sleep in its vicinity. They starved to death, leaving piles and piles of nutritionally dense roots that could help monsters get stronger. Sector Five was a weird balance like that. This spire felt like a place where the reigning Noxweed had died and a single powerful monster had taken the stores for itself. At least the air was thick with decaying plant matter that indicated as such… He took a couple steps in…

And Ryan stumbled. [Dangersense] rattled in his mind. He barely had the presence of mind to use [Instant Dodge] and fly outside of the cave. My… mind is starting To… … Shut Down. Ryan hit the ground at terminal velocity. Amongst the widening plants. The shimmering leaves shaking their pollen in a hypnotizing pattern. Mana. Oh… the plant was still alive. All of this is it… — Despite the impact his eyes were so heavy.

Even falling at terminal velocity wasn't painful enough for his fifth realm body to do more than think some sporadic thoughts. Roots started to rise from the dirt, trying to cover his body, to take his nutrients for itself. A notification alerted him… but he didn't open his window. A feather stabbed his hand from above, making him grunt out in pain. Another stabbed his foot, right through his boots. More and more pelted at force. The sharp points hurting, but not destroying his robes.

Though it was painful enough to wake him up somewhat. Ryan immediately took out his shattersword and expanded it. A thirty foot long blade of pure aura spun, cutting all the plants around him apart and throwing all the pollen in the air. He took out a knife and stabbed his own thigh. It wasn't enough. The potent Noxweed pollen was still in his system. Ryan had fucked up. He hadn't expected the Noxweed plant to be the system enhanced monster.

The entire field he had run through was one giant monster with its main root system in the spire. Outside of his aura, the pollen started to form a natural hypnotizing spell circle. The only thing that prevented the hypnosis was his damned [Rebellious] title, reducing all mental effects. The physical effects? That was a stacking debuff that was breaking through both the title and the pain and the panic. The roots were breaking through the clearing made by his sword. Moving faster than a hundred miles per hour.

Glacial speeds for a fifth realm, though Ryan didn't have the mental capacity to keep fighting. Nor did he think he could run through the massive field before his body shut down. He took out Rax's golem, and sent an order through it. Telling it to kill all the roots around him. [Return To Earth] [Return To Earth] initiated. 5 minutes remaining. Multiple [Aura Blades] flew out, trying to widen the clearing as much as he could before… The hail of feathers kept flying down, cutting off the incoming roots.

Rax's golem tore into the lines, cutting away the roots in a circle. Ryan tried to stay awake as long as he could, but it was… It was all… so… Down… ——"Finally!" Pinkie's words echoed throughout the mansion. She slapped Ryan's face excitedly, then frowned. His thigh had been stabbed a couple minutes prior but that was the damage in The Realm reflecting on Ryan's body. Pinkie could tell better than anyone when someone's soul re-entered their body.

She frowned, surely he wasn't thinking that she wouldn't be able to tell. He wasn't stupid.

"I'm going to kill your friends if you don't stop messing with me." Pinkie's pupils dilated, suspicious. Knowing better than anyone just how much the boy scout valued his friends. Then she sniffed, there was an odor that she was familiar with that was coming out from the unconscious adventurer's pores and breath.

"Noxweed powder?!" Pinkie started to wonder whether it was Ryan or the Witch Tyrant messing with her.