Soul Art Online:
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 30: Towards the Capital
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- Arthas -
The next three days passed by similarly.
I woke up early for my daily runs, went to the Knight's Academy right after that to train with Sir Ralph till evening to master Battle Aura and in the evenings, went around Greenfrost with Rose or Veena.
Veena mostly gave me time alone with Rose to help us get together. She was genuinely enjoying teaching Rose about different things.
Kurumi maintained her distance from Veena but was somewhat closer to Rose. Due to this, Rose looked much happier and confident now.
As for Gasper, he was getting better?
I don't know but I guess since he has at least been able to sit in the same room as us, even with that scary ass mask of his, he is at least improving.
Veena told me that not being able to use his Sacred Gear has actually helped him a lot. There was more than one reason for Gasper to be as he was now.
First thing which prevented him from associating with people was his uncontrolled Sacred Gear.
He has always been extremely powerful since he was born.
I had some memories of it being due to his mutated Scared Gear which had the remaining will of the Evil God Balor whose eye was used as a core for the Sacred Gear. This power had killed his mother at the time of his birth and spooked the vampires out of their minds so much so that they had kept him locked in a dungeon since his childhood.
Then again, from what Veena told me, the vampires in this world were quite abhorrent. They had more pride than even the proudest Pure Blooded Devils, almost similar to the Old Satan faction people.
According to Veena, most of the vampires actually treated dhampirs very badly. It was due to their own feelings of superiority at being 'Pure Blooded' but a large part of that was due to their own inferiority complex.
Dhampirs didn't have any weaknesses to sunlight, or at least not to the extent of Pure Blooded Vampires who could actually burn in sunlight. The most a dhampir would feel would be irritation and that's why they were called daywalkers.
I remembered that a similar thing happened to Valerie Tepes, the owner of the Sephiroth Graal.
Then they had the gall to implant the idea that whatever was happening to Gasper was his own fault.
All this had led to the second reason which was Gasper's crippling social anxiety. When in the presence of other people, he often got over excited, and his unstable emotions caused his Sacred Gear to rampage, stopping everything around him, making things far scarier for a kid like him.
Just imagining a world where everything has stopped, especially when he was afraid of something… would not be something different from a horror movie when a child is as young as Gasper.
This led him to completely shutting himself up in a room. It was only after years of trying that even the Gremory were able to get him to talk with them.
Now however, with his Sacred Gear out of the game, he was at least freed from having to face the frozen world whenever he became nervous or afraid of anything.
Due to this, he was actually improving. Especially when we add Kurumi's extra upbeat interactions with him.
Veena told me that he had actually gone out to get an antidote for Kurumi's poisoning when she was unconscious. This showed not only his improvements but also the bond between the two of them.
Since Kurumi was having such a positive effect on him, Veena decided to let her keep taking care of Gasper when they were busy. It was also a show of trust from her towards Kurumi.
The girl understood this and although she still kept a distance from Veena, she didn't reject the request.
Apart from this, we had gone for another hunting trip to the nearby forest, this time with Veena.
She didn't want to get left behind the other Guild Members.
I did get another level from the trips too but now the difference between the levels was becoming more obvious.
"That skill of yours… it's a lot like Touki." Kurumi said as we walked towards Greenfrost from our latest hunt.
"Because it is Touki… although I don't know which Touki you are referring to." I added after remembering that I wasn't supposed to know anything about the Touki of the supernatural world.
"It's a manipulation of the life force of a being for enhancing their body to drastically increase the physical parameters as well as attack and defence. It usually manifests in the form of a thin film of aura around the user's body." She explained, patiently.
"Yes, that's what it states in the skill description. I didn't know it was something based on the real world." I said, exchanging a look with Veena and Rose.
"Touki is not that famous as it's not used by people much. The main users of Touki are youkai who are more attuned with Nature and Senjutsu and thus more in tune with their own internal energies. There are some other methods of unlocking Touki but that method basically requires someone to nearly break their body through training but that's quite rare." Kurumi shrugged.
"Oh. I would have thought more people would try to learn it. I got the impression that people value power a lot in the supernatural side of the world." I asked, directing a questioning look at Veena.
"They do." Veena replied without missing a beat.
Rose nodded too.
"I am not saying that they don't. It's just that… there are easier ways to get stronger than that, so not many people use Touki." Kurumi replied and then continued looking at the confused look on my face. "Learning Senjutsu… is hard. Mastering it… a lot harder. I am not bragging but I am quite good at Senjutsu, enough to hold my own against Ultimate Class beings and even flee from stronger ones." She added, her eyes flashing towards Veena for a quick second before returning to me. "But that part is largely due to my Nekoshou race. I am a rare variety of Nekomata Youkai who are innately good at Senjutsu. Other people, even Youkai, have a harder time learning Senjutsu. They mostly rely on Yojutsu or Fear."
"And the second method?" I asked.
"If you put in that much effort in learning reinforcement spells from any school of magic, you would have better results. That method is generally used by people either monsters who live for fighting or people who have a very low amount of magic power. It is after all a method of using life force. Not many people like to mess with that unless they have no other options."
"What about humans? Do they learn Touki?" I asked.
"Some do but the number is very low. Even for humans, not many people have enough potential to train their life force to high levels unless they possess some kind of bloodline. Supernatural beings have a higher potential of learning Touki due to their innately stronger life forces. Tell me, would you spend your time learning a much safer, more efficient method of becoming stronger or would you risk your life to learn a method which is most likely to make you fall short against your competition?" She explained.
I nodded.
That kinda explained something I had been confused about in my previous life about Touki. Why was it that so few humans learned Touki when it was such a strong skill? Turns out that there was so much to it.
On screen, working hard and unlocking some power might look like a piece of cake but in reality… it could be as hard as winning an olympic medal… or even harder.
It made me respect someone like Sairaorg a bit more and then I recalled the fact that even after doing all that, even after getting a Longinus on top of that… he still lost… due to boobs.
Yeah… the game world was suddenly looking good.
Maybe the Game Master was onto something after all.
"Still… to think there would be another power system exactly similar to the real world. I am starting to feel there is more to this.." I said in a low voice and yet it was enough for Veena and Rose to hear.
Veena nodded. "Yes. I don't know what they want to do but this is definitely not a coincidence. If he wanted to, he could have easily created fictional powers in the game. There was no use of adding any real power systems in this world."
"And it seems that he is also pushing people to learn how to use these powers through the hidden mechanics of the game, as we get to use them without them being in our quick access list if we know how to invoke the powers, making us far stronger than normal players." Rose added. "It's almost as if…" She paused.
"Training of some sort." I finished as silence came over us again.
Kurumi was, however, looking confused. "Wait wait, what other powers from the real world are here and what do you mean by the hidden mechanics of the game?"
Rose went on to explain what we had discovered in the Mage Class Advancement of the game.
By the end of the explanation, she was quiet in thought.
"Well, no need to waste our time thinking about this. We have much greater concerns for now. These thoughts will only matter when we get out of this world. Let's concentrate on that first. Thinking about these things right now is useless." Veena said with a smile, getting nods from us.
Indeed.
One step at a time.
We reached Greenfrost by the time it was time for the sun to set. Veena had already rented a house for us to live as well as to serve as the base of the Fairy Tail Guild in Greenfrost. Our plans to develop the territory in Greenfrost was put on hold due to me becoming the City Lord of Alverton but that didn't mean we should completely stop the trade. Alverton was still under Greenfrost and thus the rented place.
Veena went on to prepare food for everyone while Kurumi and Rose actually helped with the cleaning… something which I realised could have been easily done by Veena with her new magic and yet she left the two to talk with each other, probably wanting them to get to know each other.
Kurumi ate with us and took food although she didn't live with us, still preferring to stay with Gasper at the Blacksmith's shop. She did however take food which Veena packed for Gasper.
Veena also made sure that she brought home cooked meals for the kid during mornings before we went out for our hunts.
During this I also got to know more about him.
Gasper is a very simple kid from what I had seen of him although very shy, he was growing up nicely.
As usual, I went ahead to get washed up while Veena went on to prepare dinner.
We sat together to eat dinner a while later.