THEOS

A shadowy figure writhed around them, and Blinky draped herself around Rex in her cape form. Jittering, in what Luke presumed was happiness from finally being reunited with her human. A presumption that he knew was probably wrong to make for a creature of eyes and teeth that had been only hours ago, rendered countless rabicorns into mists of blood.

I wonder where she puts away all that meat. He thought, and then in an effort of will, ripped his eyes away from the dreadglare and focused on Rex, just now remembering he had posed a question.

“What do you mean?” Luke asked, walking up to him with Spiros and Arya in tow, they watched as the other teen fiddled with the scroll. Each of them raking their eyes over it, as if doing so would reveal all of its secrets, only to feel disappointed that it didn’t have any, or at least none that were apparent from a few feet apart.

“Should I open it or something?” Rex asked.

“I mean… It’s a scroll, so it would make sense.” Spiros shrugged.

One vote of confidence turned out to be all the confirmation he needed. Because the second the words left Spiros’s mouth, Rex unfurled the scroll without an iota of hesitation.

The result was anticlimactic, to say the least. A small part of Luke had still been holding out for something, maybe a surprise, or perhaps another caveat to the challenge, but that turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

The scroll was a mostly blank white surface, with a fancy arrow, drawn in black ink, pointing to the east of them. Deeper into the forest, and towards their next objective. Rex rotated the scroll, and sure enough, the arrow, like a compass, didn’t stray from its chosen direction.

“So I guess that’s where we need to go get the black scroll.” Luke said. “We could go after it now but…” His ring flashed and his sword returned to the space inside it. “I say we rest up for a bit. I don’t know about you three, but I spent a lot of mana. If the next fight is anything like this one, then I’ll run out for sure.” He lied. With Maximus essentially doubling his reserves, and how stingy he had been with the use of his abilities, he felt he could go another round with the hydra, if it weren’t dead that is. Especially considering the fact that out of the four of them, he probably had the most mana to start with anyhow, without even counting the fact that his sword doubled his reserves.

Just because he wasn’t at his limits though, didn’t mean they weren’t at theirs. Even if he didn’t know exactly where their limits were.

And it’s better to be the voice of reason, than not. Not that I really need to, Rex isn’t the brightest bulb but he understands the need for caution, and neither Spiros or Arya are especially gung-ho. That said, Spiros is trying to impress his lady friend, so he might be. Which isn’t the worst, this isn’t the pyramid anymore, caution to the point of being lethargic won’t do us any favors.

Both Spiros and Arya looked at each other before nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, that’s fine with us. It’s getting dark too, maybe we should find a defensible space, and get some rest. Depending on who has the scroll nearest to us, they may already be on their way, so we’ll need to keep that in mind.” Said Spiros.

“As long as we’re not sticking around here, I’m good with anything,” said Rex, turning his nose up at the corpse.

“We can go somewhere a little less messy.” Luke said, and then on a whim, he walked up to the hydra's corpse and kicked it. “Is it fine with you three if I take it?”

“If you want.” Arya said, looking at him oddly. “There’s no point though. We’re not allowed to use talismans, including preservation ones, so all the mana in it will dissipate by the time you can do anything with it. The venom might be valuable though, but that would be in the fangs.”

Oh right. Time passes normally in my ring, and putting it in the Seed’s inventory is probably a bad idea… My rings are a Saint tier artifact though, so it’s not like I’m hurting for room, but there’s not much point carrying around a rotting carcass either.

“Well, you never know when some poison might come in handy.” Luke joked, and looked back at her with a smile. He didn’t actually plan on poisoning anyone, but he hadn’t planned on poisoning Yjarn when he had collected the scorpions venom either, and that had proven very useful. “But I don’t see the point in lugging around the whole thing either– Rex, do you think Blinky will be able to eat it? If she grows a little stronger, or even breaks through, things will get a lot easier… as for the heads, we can split them four ways.” Luke offered.

Rex shifted uncomfortably. “I… I’m not so sure,” he hedged.

“Why not.” Spiros asked, poking around through the decapitated heads. Picking one up, he brought it to his face, and looking into its eyes. Nodding in satisfaction, he tossed it around in his hand, and a moment later his ring flashed and it disappeared.

Rex watched him for a moment, before taking off and beginning to pick out his own severed heads, not answering right away.

“She’s easy to control, because she’s still in the Mortal tier. I’m not sure our bond will hold if she advances.” Rex sighed, and reaching over his shoulder he rubbed a hand over one of Blinky's glassy eyes, only to flinch back and dry his hand on his robe a second later when her jaw-lid suddenly snapped shut.

“Nel and Lukeus don’t have any problems, though.” Luke pointed out, regretting the words as soon as they slipped through his mouth. Realizing too late, he was encouraging Rex to make his monster stronger. No matter how cute she acted, she was still a demon, one belonging to Rex. A perfectly nice guy, if a little slow and antagonistic at times, but not someone Luke, or most people who knew him, felt should be responsible for a creature as dangerous as Blinky.

Or maybe I’m being too harsh. Nothing bad has happened in a few months, things could stay that way. Luke rationalized.

Rex looked like he had swallowed a particularly bitter pill. “Their bloodline is stronger than mine, and their familiars are with them willingly. So is Blinky, but I bonded with her while she was still in her egg, and hatched her after. She’s never really tried resisting the bond, probably because she doesn’t know what its like not having it, but I was a lot stronger than her when she hatched, and now I’m a whole tier higher than her. If we’re on even footing… Well, it's hard to say if she’ll…” He trailed off, carefully choosing his next words. “I don’t know if she’ll respect me enough to stay with me once she has the option to break free, or even respect me enough not to kill me or any of you if she does get free.”

Luke, Arya, and Spiros all took a step back from Rex and the demon he was wearing as a cape.

Rex scoffed, and rolled his eyes. “Look, she’s not a normal animal. She may not seem like it, but she’s hungry all the time, and she doesn’t care who or what she eats. If it weren’t for my bloodline dominating and pacifying her wilder instincts and making her more agreeable, then she would have eaten me when we freed Heracles.”

“Free Heracles?” Spiros perked up.

“I’ll tell you another time.” Luke chimed in. The last thing he wanted was Rex blabbing about Zeus asking him for favors or something. Not with Hepheastus listening to every word they said. It was one thing lying to the likes of Lukeus and even Cyzicus, but none of them had given any indication that they had a direct line to actual gods, or even enough significance to get them to pay attention to them. Hepheastus very well might bring it up in casual conversation the next time he saw the King of Gods though. Which was unacceptable.

“Fine”. Sprios grumbled, before shaking his head. “I’m assuming the power of your bloodline is dependent on the relative difference between you and your bonded animal's power?” Spiros asked.

“It is, kinda. There’s more than one thing that goes into it though.” Rex said.

“But she’s already stronger than you.” Luke said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Maybe bu–”

“Come on. You’re saying you and Blinky, one on one, is a conversation?” Luke scoffed.

Rex deflated, even as he picked up another severed hydra head. “Okay, she might win were me and her to fight, but my mana is heavier than hers, and my willpower more focused. Which is what matters.”

“Oh.” Luke nodded. “So I guess the plan is, we don’t give Blinky any good food until you’re at the Hero tier, or she might advance to the Warrior tier and kill us all. Got it. Out of curiosity, how far is she from the Warrior tier?”

“Very.” Rex said confidently. “I talked to Gramps a little before… you know, but he said demons cultivate differently than humans. They get really strong for their tier, stronger than most cultivators actually and regular beasts, but it's very hard for them to advance. Unless I start feeding her higher tier blood, she’ll be mortal for decades at the least, if not centuries.”

“And let’s say you fed her the Rebel’s corpse?” Luke asked.

“Oh, we’d die so fast.” Rex shivered, even as he patted one of Blinky’s eyeballs again.

“What happened to her corpse anyway?” Luke asked.

“You don’t know? We fed it to Aura.”

“Really? What if I wanted it?”

“You should have said something.”

“I was– never mind. Let’s get these heads and get out of here.” Luke sighed, and kicked one of the hydra's heads. Arya had decapitated that one, and it was in such poor shape, that just prodding it made the jaw fall off. Not wanting to touch it due to its diseased appearance, Luke moved on to the next. Taking the chance to open his Status as he did.

Status | Skills | Quests | Inventory

Name: Lukas King

Tier: Warrior

Bloodline: Eyes of Insight

Mana: 86 321 / 132 834

Rate: 17% per hour

Strength: 254 > 276

Agility: 256 > 281

Constitution: 506 > 524

Arcana: 506 > 507

Stat Points: 0

Charges: 7/10

Hephaestus, Luke realized, really must have been keeping an eye on everyone, because the Seed hadn’t once deigned to touch any of the excess mana that had accumulated in his body.

Normally it would whisk away every drop that wasn’t absorbed immediately, and store it as Stat Points, but with the god watching them, Luke figured it crossed the Seed’s threshold for acceptable risk/

It was good knowledge to have. He had always been worried about the fact that someone would be able to detect him suddenly growing stronger in bursts, but Mortals, Warriors, and even Heroes were unable to detect mana that precisely.

It’s nice to know though, that the Seed cares just as much about hiding itself, as I do about hiding it. So long as I don’t have the icon of an eye watching me, I’m good, but if I do… best keep things on the up and up. Which, hopefully, shouldn't be too often.

Gods really ought to have better things to do, than to Big Brother the citizens of Theos, and obsess over mortal and other low ranked cultivators. Hopefully.

Still, this isn’t bad progress. The mana is so thick here, that even with all the excess mana evaporating and being wasted, I’m still up what– sixty-six points. That’s bonkers for less than a day's worth of effort. That said, it's not that much of an advantage either, because everyone here will have grown this much.

If Spiros grew up in a place with mana even remotely like this, then no wonder he was kicking so much ass at the Society, even when he had barely started cultivating.

If I’m remembering right though, his family kicks everyone out, until they become warriors. Thats… brutal as fuck. This kind of mana density, he could have become a warrior at ten, if he really worked at it. Which begets the question, why isn’t he. Actually, why aren’t all the gods' children already at the Hero tier?

Even Heracles is bumming around on Sylcra instead of hanging around Zeus’s palace. What, to gain experience or something?

The conclusion seemed as likely as any other, Luke decided, dismissing his Status, and collecting the last head. This one too had been severed by Arya, unlike the rest she had cut though, he decided to keep it. Not for the poison, but for the rot still spreading through it.

He doubted he would learn anything from it, especially when compared to watching Arya in action, but it was better than nothing.

Just as he was about to send it to his ring though, he noticed a shadow move through the woods. Fast as he could, he chucked the severed hydra head at it, his ring flashed, his blade appeared in his hand, and he activated the First Truth of Death.

“Woah, take a deep breath brother!” A voice echoed out through the woods. Luke lifted his sword in response, as someone began to walk out of the tree line, his hands raised over his head. He relaxed slightly, when he realized that no ghostly apparition was moving from the figure– which meant that, for the moment at least, whoever it was, wasn’t hostile.

Only to tense again, when a face, exactly like his own, smiled at him. “I’m Theseus… It’s nice to meet you!” He grinned.

Fuck me.