Chapter 138 - Another Level of Power

Name:Otherworld Adventure Author:xxAlter
"Ouch, ouch, ouch..."

Cecil was currently on a carriage that was heading back towards Angla City. It took him some time to destroy the Orobos by only relying on his legs.

"Tsk...What kind of guardian was that thing... it was more like some end game boss monster." Cecil grumbled.

He pulled out a small black crystal from his white ring and rolled it around his hand. "Can't believe this little thing was actually that monster's nucleus..."

Cecil thought back to his fight with the Orobos. It was the most difficult fight he had gone through ever since he arrived on Alterna, other than his first encounter with the Blade Ursa.

The Orobos had 3 different forms, reminiscent to the boss monsters in games that he's seen before while on breaks with his brothers.

The Orobos' first form was the spiky exterior red crystal form. The next form was the purple crystal form that had the red crystals covering its outer shell. It lost its spikes, but the disgusting part about its second form was that it could shoot petrifying death beams from all the red crystals that were dotting its outer shell.

The purple crystal was also a pain in the ass to deal with. The large purple beam that it shot out had the ability to bring life to the surrounding earth. Basically the Orobos was splitting its consciousness with the earth and creating smaller versions of its self to assault Cecil.

The fight only became hard with the red beams of petrification flying about and the mini-orobos' moving around erratically and smashing itself onto his body. It was a hard fought second round, but Cecil still pulled through.

The final form of the Orobos was actually kind of easier. The black small nucleus that Cecil was holding in his hand had actually flown out of its protective crystal shell. Then the mini-orobos' were reinforced by the Orobos' nucleus with the earth in the cavern so there were 4 bigger mini-orobos' by the time Cecil finished the fight.

While still dodging the red beams of death launched from the Orobos' main body, he waved his way through and solely focused on destroying the small black nucleus.

The problem was that it turned out to be much harder than he had anticipated. Cecil could only break his promise and pull out his spear. He then kicked the spear and it flew, piercing through the black nucleus.

Of course, he justified it as him using his legs to 'kick' a projectile which then ended the Orobos' life.

The crystal, after being punctured by the spear, lost control of the 4 mini-orobos'. They crumbled into dirt once more while the main body just fell down from the air powerlessly. The odd part of the nucleus was that after Cecil pulled out his spear, the nucleus quickly recovered into its original shape, only turning a little smaller.

It began to harden from its polymorphic state and was now the small, fist-sized crystal currently in his grasp. It resembled a piece of obsidian and Cecil now had the perfect 'gem' to use to craft a necklace for his foster mother.

He didn't tarry and quickly made his way out of the mines, he almost came across Jena's group while he was heading back up to the exit, but they just missed each other on a corner.

Cecil was going back up the way he came down, but Jena's group was cutting corners and taking shortcuts through heavily infested monster areas to quickly head down and back up Cecil, thus the two parties missed each other.

After the tension died down, Cecil didn't forget to check the condition of his aching legs while he was on his way up. It was surprising but at the same time disgusting. He smelt a foul odor coming from his legs on his way back up. He quickly ripped open his pants and saw thick black-colored foul smelling liquid oozing out of the pores of his legs.

It almost caused him to retch in disgust. Cecil thought that he must have really damaged his legs to the point of no return. He quickly pulled out some of the potion medicine his foster mother gave him and quickly drank a couple of vials.

It did help alleviate the aching pain he was feeling, but it only caused the black liquid to ooze out even more than before. He had to use some of his drinking water to wash out the black liquid sticking to his legs.

To his surprise however, once the oozing stopped, Cecil felt his legs brimming with energy. He tried testing his kicks and felt them much more powerful than before. His kicks even caused the mana inside his body to flow and circulate naturally, which in turn enhanced his kicking power and damage.

After scanning his legs with Mana Sense, he found the pathways inside his legs had already healed back up. They had also successfully transformed into Mana Circuits.

It was fortunate that he wasn't actually crippled or anything. The black liquid that was oozing out of his body just turned out to be the impurities that had piled up inside his lower body.

The process was actually the marrow cleansing that his elders have always been ranting on and on about. It was his first time experiencing this, but he felt awfully good after all the pain he went through.

It was odd however that his arms hadn't gone through the same process, but he could only let it rest since such an occurrence couldn't be foreseen or controlled.

With his powers upgraded Cecil happily got onto a carriage and decided to kick back for the rest of his return journey to the city.

After this, they would be participating in the Dueling Tournament. There was much to hope for, but Cecil thought he could at least unwind during the tournament. Using only his martial arts and no mana would be thrilling.

At first he was planning on just bulldozing through the tournament with his abilities, but after fighting with the Orobos and limiting himself, he felt that the tournament would be more fun if he didn't use any mana at all.

Cecil also wanted to test his newfound body, his legs and arms had upgraded and he thought it was high time for him to just grit his teeth and endure the pain. He had to quickly cultivate the Mana Circuits inside his torso and abdomen regions.

The awesome feeling of control that he got from channeling his mana through the circuits in his arms and legs were something he yearned for. Since he couldn't upgrade his body anymore, then maybe he should upgrade his insides.

The Mana Circuits, his organs, bones, and everything, it was possible! All of it was. All of this was possible through mana. Mana wasn't something that could only be used for casting spells or a temporary enhancement in physical ability. From his findings alone, Cecil felt that he could practically transform and change his body using mana.

His legs were already living proof of this. Although he was supposed to cultivate on the Mana Circuits, but with the mana that leaked from his broken pathways, it had somehow washed his muscles, bones, and ligaments, upgrading his body into a higher level.

Unlike his usual body training where he would develop his muscle mass, resilience, and power, the washing of mana on his legs were like a qualitative transformation. It was very painful to do, and he literally had to destroy his mana pathways in order to achieve it, but the resulting transformation was something he dearly wanted.

The only problem was that... it was really painful. Just from destroying the pathways in his legs, it had almost caused him to be disabled. If not for the medicine his foster mother had given, he wouldn't know how to heal back his pathways and not become a cripple.

It was even more dangerous for him to do it on the pathways on his torso and abdominal region. Just from overusing the pathways it had caused him so much pain, just thinking about what kind of pain he had to endure to break open his other pathways... really frightened him.

Also, he had to procure more of the potions since they seemed to be the only things that could heal and patch up his mana pathways.

'Once I get back to the city... I better write a letter to mother...I hope she has more of that, if not I'll try and help her gather the ingredients so she can craft more.'

It was already deep into the evening by the time his carriage had set off, so now they were going to camp out for the night.

Cecil quickly set up his sleeping bag and quietly went to sleep. It was a good thing that the carriage had hired adventurers to escort them back. None of the adventurers recognized Cecil as Silent Sword however.

If they knew, then his presence would surely cause a commotion. Since just earlier today, there was an emergency quest that was issued for his rescue.

Cecil of course didn't know this and just silently snoozed away.