NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 1030
<1030 – Master of Darkness (8)>
After the commotion settled down.
Jiang barely parted his dry lips.
“What was that just now?”
“The Soul Sculptor!”
“I mean what those people said.”
“I’ll share the teachings. By chiseling a better body. Instead of a human form, an excellent body of a fly with 8003 eyes and two wings, capable of giving birth to 75 offspring at once.”
Each story sent chills down the spine.
“They were originally a bit unbiased, you know!”
“Not just a bit! They make one want to give up being human!”
“Come on, Jiang, you’re worrying unnecessarily.”
“So you’re going to seal dimensional magic from now on?”
“You have to use it when needed!”
At least, Jiang felt a bit relieved knowing there wouldn’t be rampant use like before.
“Are you really okay with this? The power and skills I felt for a moment… Honestly, it was no joke.”
“Not as strong as the professors, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s because the Soul Sculptors are former gods who lost their bodies. They drift through the universe until they can recreate a body they like since they were once divine beings!”
“…Oknodie.”
“Yeah?”
“Never learn necromancy that possesses souls. Promise.”
“Sure! Got it!”
As long as they could answer, they weren’t too annoying.
Jiang felt a little sulky at Oknodie’s overly cheerful response.
That’s how human relationships were.
The one who cares more tends to suffer.
Even if they weren’t a couple in love.
Jiang felt a twinge of jealousy and stepped on Oknodie’s foot.
“Ouch!”
“If I stepped on your foot, it’s still Oknodie’s fault. You’ve filled my mind with worry. My feelings are being trampled on.”
“Hey, just let it go this once.”
“Then what were you doing here instead of cooking Oknodie?”
“Farming Spirit Herbs! Want to see what I gathered?”
Oknodie poured out the Spirit Herbs from various regions that Professor Red Mountain had sought, which the professor himself couldn’t find.
“Are you insane? How many is that even?”
“Counting the lesser ones, it’s over a thousand!”
“Are you planning to dry up the roots of the Spirit Vein in the Eastern Empire…?”
It was enough to shock the Senior Instructor of Professor Red Mountain.
Spirit Herbs can artificially distort the flow of the Spirit Vein.
With all those Spirit Herbs uprooted, it wouldn’t just affect one region.
“Isn’t this going to cause the Spirit Veins of the East to shift entirely to the West and drastically reduce the distribution of Nature Mana here?”
“That’s the idea! Because of the mountains and the sea, it’s hard to cross over here every time. The invading species will appear more in the Western world rather than the mana-free Eastern Empire. So it’s more advantageous for defense in the long term, right?”
Oknodie was solidly laying down plans for the impending hundred-dimensional invasions after graduation.
Excluding the Eastern Empire from future fights.
If the distribution of Nature Mana drops extremely low, spirits will focus on attacking the Western world, which has more mana needed for their existence.
Monsters of immense strength.
Existences borne of all dark energy.
If all of them were eliminated, the Eastern Empire would effectively become a barren land where it’s hard to find supernatural abilities using internal energies like Qi.
“Is Sia and Sister Sia okay with that? Their hometown would be a wasteland.”
“I don’t care. Those warriors were nothing but trash trying to exploit even monsters of immense strength. An Eastern empire without supernatural abilities is a better world for the people born and raised here to rid themselves of evil-doers prioritizing their own interests and restore justice.”
The forces that exploit their members as mere consumables for the gain of the family would decline along with Oknodie’s actions.
One could say Oknodie’s actions were ultimately to prevent the tragedies suffered by Sing and his younger sister Lin from repeating.
When the Spirit Veins vanish, the level of the warriors wouldn’t just decline; the manifestation of monsters of immense strength would also greatly decrease.
“Oh, Sister Sia is here too.”
As the door at the entrance of the garden opened, Sing, swinging a sword dripping with blood, shook off the blood.
Behind her waist, Sadi waved her hand with a bright smile, as if to announce her presence.
Jiang, who had gone through hell dealing with Sadi in Professor Sadako’s cadacomb, frowned immediately upon seeing a face he didn’t want to welcome.
“Oknodie, everything’s good, but do you have to carry around something like that? You really love people too much. Can’t you just kill Sadi to remove the threat?”
“Hehe. Sorry, I usually use whatever works, regardless of the faction!”
Of course, later on, he would also pull out builds that would shock even demons by using characters with high ‘self-destruct efficiency’ as disposable bombs.
“Sigh, I don’t even want to think anymore. Just take care of that. If I get caught, I’ll head home and sleep.”
“Is that okay, Senior?”
“How can I stop someone who swept away strong individuals at the professor level and below? I thought ‘Avatar of the Outsider’ rumors were pure lies, but looking at it now, they were just straightforward facts.”
The senior instructor’s motivation understandably dropped.
It wasn’t new for professors to push unreasonable missions onto instructors, but there should be a limit to it, right?
The gap in skill between the Senior Instructor and Oknodie was vast enough that it could trigger rage and animosity toward the professor who gave the order to block it.
A small giant.
That phrase suited Oknodie perfectly, possessing immense power.
“So how are we supposed to harvest that ‘Everlasting Grass’? Honestly, just looking at it makes my knees buckle.”
The Spirit Herb grows from the Spirit Veins and holds immense energy, which can change its properties.
Among such changes, new attributes or functions might manifest, and even bodily organs can grow.
Judging by the total amount of energy felt from the Everlasting Grass, the types of power that manifested to build up such strength wouldn’t be few, and among them, there would definitely be means of resistance.
‘Since it’s going to be taken away anyway… I’ll devour the Everlasting Grass you’re after!!’
Believing the situation was over, Jiang reacted instinctively to a sudden act from a palace warrior popping up among the pile of corpses.
Even after taking Jiang’s memory, before the poison could spread through the body, the warrior severed a part of his body and managed to withstand Sing’s blade.
Even as his back was slashed, the swordsman firmly grasped the Everlasting Grass with one hand.
“Gaaaahhh!!”
And while screaming in real-time, he lost his vitality and slowly turned into a mummified state.
With all life drained, the corpse turned to ash and scattered, and seeing that, the Instructor recalled how the sacrificed person had died and started frantically pressing the return button the Professor Red Mountain had told him about.
But facing the return button, the Professor Red Mountain couldn’t see the signal as he was losing his mind in real-time.
– I put so much effort into that curse! How could that bastard be holding it now?! I want him to die. Those trash warriors. I will kill them all!
To capture Oknodie, Professor Red Mountain consumed an enormous amount of treasure.
And to make matters worse, he even wrecked his lecture, so he would end up just paying a fine as punishment.
There was no way he could notice the instructor’s plea for help.
“…Is that something a person can harvest?”
“Not at all. If you touch it, it just speeds up your aging.”
Oknodie honestly admitted.
Everlasting Grass.
An item that prevents its users from aging.
This mythic herb cannot be harvested by humans.
Only beings that are not human.
Only such beings could harvest the Everlasting Grass.
Absolutely
Fake Lin popped her head out of the ring, firmly expressing she wouldn’t let Jiang shift the burden onto her.
Of course, Oknodie had no intention of sacrificing fake Lin either.
No matter how fake she was, touching her would mean turning Sing against him.
“Then we need to summon a being that can harvest it!”
“…Are you suggesting the Chairman of the Foundation summoning technique?”
The Undead are already dead.
The concept of lifespan does not exist.
Jiang tilted his head, joking half-seriously about benefiting from his dad’s connections.
Oknodie’s summoning circle.
The spell was extraordinary, but the size of the portal for adjusting the summoned creature was disproportionately small, in his opinion.
A tiny summoning circle that could barely let any Spirit Herb of a similar size through!
Thud thud thud.
While Oknodie was popping his head through, a strong tremor emerged from beyond the summoning circle.
A summoned creature with an immense amount of mana, high control ability, and a mighty physique.
As the summoned creature peeked its head through the summoning circle, Jiang was greatly surprised to recognize a familiar face.
“UwU!”
Howling Mandragora.
The lab creation massacrer had begun an external activity along with the meeting of the Spirit Herbs.
At the lively voice of Howling Mandragora, even the Everlasting Grass trembled and began to blink its eyes among the weed clumps.
“Buuuu.”
“UwU!”
Not knowing what was scary, they decided to take a commemorative photo first.
Jiang took the magical photo-taking tool he received from Oknodie and busily circled around, snapping pictures.