Chapter 310

  Usurpers and Prayers

  Buzzing.

  All around me are the odd tingling sensations of energy that seem to flow into and fill me completely. Even as I seem to focus my hardest, doing work that should ultimately leave me feeling at least slightly tired, I still feel refreshed.

  No, not just refreshed, but fully awake. As if I’ve been forced to drink high performance energy drinks one after another to get to this state, and still there is more.

  Only after pausing from my mission of fixing Rob. Well, fixing Robi’dob’dob from his mythical state of being that was clearly killing him.

  Looking back on it, and his state of being, he was like a slug slowly dying from being exposed to salt. While it might have seen like a cruel fate, the Teleiotís might have saved his life. As they took him here, right to one of the old production factories that I first converted as a homeland for the Teleiotís.

  This land was once desolate but now it is thriving with energy. Not just mana, but all kinds of energy, thanks to my Arcane Geomancy.

  That was the thing, while I had Arcane Geomancy and could thereby force more areas to become magical, it came with an eventual cost. The cost being that eventually, I would take damage from areas that I had not otherwise enhanced or influenced.

  While this might seem like a minor thing, it was huge.

  For Arcane Geomancy, it also allowed me to bring to life multiple new species that were unique to this world. Looking back, this was a power that was extremely dangerous, if left in the hands of unscrupulous people.

  That was part of the reason why I couldn’t allow Rob to remain a true Spiritlight.

  First, he didn’t have any of my Bloodline Perks that I had unlocked through my various activities. These helped make what happened with my Bloodline Evolutions make sense and palpable. They also enhanced the ultimate effects that I had been able to unlock through my own efforts.

  When I designed my Bloodline evolution, particularly the Mythical variant, I had done so for me. Knowing that what I wanted was to be a one-off example.

  Finding out that Rob had somehow managed to bypass these features at first felt hollow. Like all the work I had done was able to be purchased for the right price. Which according to the developers was a simple seven-point Merit.

  Yes, the developers put a lower price point on starting off with a stolen mythical bloodline than they did about me masking my actions for three minutes each day.

  Fortunately, this seven-point merit was actually a poison pill in disguise, as it only worked for me due to my skills, my already high Attributes, my classes and their related Auras, and every other step I had taken to get myself to this point.

  The system seemed to all but encourage me to remove a few things from his ability list. First and foremost I was all but forced to remove his Arcane Geomancy.

  This instantly freed up fifteen points in flaws, which I was able to use to balance out and remove two flaws that would likely kill the knucklehead.

  This was the most important to remove, as it meant that Rob would no longer die if he went anywhere that was not converted by myself into a magical habitat. There were other places, like magical realms, Towers, and Dungeons that he could also go to, in order to survive. But this meant that most of the world would be off limits to him, until he managed to get strong enough to survive.

  After that one flaw was removed, I then went onto the next most obvious reason for Rob’s current condition.

  Apparently, just having this flaw made it so the jostling created by different Teleiotís grabbing him caused both micro and spiral fractures in his bones.

  I hope that these lessons will help set him straight and make him realize that sometimes taking items from other people is not worth his troubles, but I doubt it.

  Then to balance it out, I once again had to remove another merit. Or at least, I felt that removing this merit would make it so Rob would be less likely to be held prisoner and experimented on.

  Yes, I removed his pixie wings.

  The last thing I needed was another damsel in distress mission, where I had to be sent out to save Rob again. This time I would have to save him from people who would tie him down and effectively cut off his ephemeral pixie wings as high-powered ingredients for alchemy.

  Not going to lie, my official excuse for the removal of the wings will be because I don’t want Rob to break his neck by falling. I don’t. But I have imagined what it would look like to see his neck broken, tongue laying out limply, as he begins to choke thanks to his own stupidity and hollow bones. I did find that image to be oddly comedic.

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  Of course, in such scenarios I would be right there to Heal and help him again, but that seemed like a chore.

  I let him keep everything else. Everything from magic eyes to the third eye, to the enhanced Angel’s Sight and other merits and flaws.

  For a second, I thought about taking away his Colossal Flaw, it was a flaw after all. But ultimately, I decided to let him keep it, so he could at least deal with others normally.

  That’s when I was given the ability to rename his new mythical bloodline variant.

  I was even lucky enough to see the quest completion notification from Rob’s nearly lifeless body.

  Seeing the messages, I felt oddly sick by the idea that it noted who Rob could apparently procreate with. Especially as I never received such a message.

  Then thinking about it for a moment, I paused and realized that it was likely due to my still being a minor and therefore protected from having to even consider such options.

  Finally, once I was done peeking at the changes that I made to Rob, I closed my third eye and felt my consciousness slowly expand to its usual distance around me.

  That’s when I saw the different Teleiotís around us. There at the forefront was the one Teleiotís that had been assigned to watch over Rob.

  Seeing them all, I could feel their reverence.

  While I couldn’t see it, not yet, I could feel it. The energy of faith that they seemed to have in me.

  It was mildly terrifying.

  The energy was unbridled and wild.

  Yet, I could see that there was hope in their prayers. Hope that I would Heal them, or their loved ones. For some reason that energy that they provided came with extra ties. Similar to Karmic ties, but different.

  There was no real obligation on my part, as one would expect with the strands of Karma.

  In a way, Karma was an easier power to utilize. You went and did good things, and then you were rewarded justly.

  Here, with this faith, or what I could only consider to be faith, there were unspoken rules. Hidden wants behind the energy.

  If I focused, I could almost hear the unspoken prayers.

  "Please Heal me."

  "Please Heal my loved one."

  "Watch over us and protect us."

  While I couldn’t do anything for the third one, the first two were possible.

  Looking around, it was clear that these Teleiotís had been in war. Apparently, this was the reserve forces, where they sent their dead and dying. Many had missing limbs, and appendages.

  It was odd to see sparkling blue lights of mana slowly escaping from deep mechanical wounds. But that was likely to be expected. Still, I was a Healer, and seeing the problem, I decided to act, without need for the prayers.

  Focusing, I used my Quintessence Ethereal Healer Trait Dual Quintessence Healing and began Healing everyone.

  Within moments, I saw the effects of my magic begin to work.

  It was draining, using Arcane Geomancy and normal Healing magic to begin to patch together these giant robots of death.

  Yet, seeing them here, like this, they seemed oddly calm.

  I watched as they just continued to pray, even after their wounds were sealed up, so that no more mana would inadvertently leak out from their wounds.

  They seemed to know where I was in my rotation around the room, as I started with the most injured and continued to work. Not feeling tired in the slightest, despite casting magic that was multiple levels above where I could normally go, while keeping up a grueling pace.

  Not even focusing on how I should be tired, I continued to Heal everyone, until finally every gathered Teleiotís was completely healed.

  Somewhere in this, Rob, well Robi’dob’dob, awoke to find himself suddenly surrounded by hundreds of praying killer robots. Well hundreds of praying killer robots and me, though not having met me yet, I might be a little shocking to him.

  I could see him getting up, looking around in panic and then trying to run away for the exit. An exit that was covered by not one but two giant Teleiotís who were currently being Healed.

  Then with what was quite possibly the greatest look of panic on the earthbound pixie’s face, he first looked shocked. Then seemed to reach behind his back, before twisting his head around his body to try to look for the clearly missing wings.

  Once the right side proved fruitless in this pursuit, he doubled around to his left side, causing him to spin about wildly like an unbalanced top.

  “Wha…ahhh…” Rob began screaming as he spun about on the magically smoothed floor, only to trip over a plate of uneaten food that lay on the ground.

  Crack.

  He fell straight down, using his knee to crack open the plate with food and a fork masterfully. Shards of the plate instantly shot out, cutting up his low-level knee, right there on the spot.

  Heal.

  I was already healing him, before he had a chance to roll over onto his backside and begin to pull out the shards.

  Now mind you, I wasn’t alone in this.

  After he was done being Healed, which took only a matter of seconds, I like everyone else just stared at the poor flightless pixie. A pixie that now clutched at his knee like he was six and fell on the road and was rubbing away the last of the tiny micro shards from the food plate.

  Even as a Usurper, his blood still glowed brightly.

  “GAH!” He cried out in pain, while still rubbing away imaginary shards.

  Again, the entire thing was just entertaining.

  Chuckle.

  Now I wasn't the only one to laugh, for all I could feel was the mirth of the other Teleiotís laughing, which of course caused me to also laugh.

  “What? You are laughing at me?” Rob began.

  Hearing him, I gave him back one of his favorite lines to use on me. Saying it, I felt a slight thrill of karma come through.

  “Oh come on, tis merely a flesh wound. Pour some dirt on it and you should be good in no time,” I responded. Using Rob’s old line to the kids, right back at him.

  Hearing the all too familiar phrase, he paused and stared at me.

  For a moment, I felt that there might be a moment when he recognized me. But either the constant buzzing of the Teleiotís distracted him from making the connection, or he really was still suffering from fantom pains from his now Healed injury.

  Either way it was clear that he had never seen me before in his life, which was good. As it would hopefully make the breakup that much easier.

  As he looked up, he got a cute pout to his lips. Seeing it, I was reminded of better times. Times back before he left and before everything became so real.

  I don’t know why, but that brought another smile to my face. Which brought an equally amusing scowl to his face.

  Snort.

  Yes, I caught myself, but I did end up snorting at the image of a scuffed knee child sized Rob, grabbing his knee and getting angry at my amused reaction to his pain.

  “That’s not funny,” Rob began.

  Chuckle.

  I didn’t snort, but I couldn’t help but laugh at that.

  Yet, Rob was still not amused.

  That is when I hit him with one of my favorite lines.

  “Oh, come on, I’m laughing with you here, you’re just not laughing yet.”

  At that, he paused, seeming to finally make the connection in his mind.

  I could see the little gears moving slowly, but finally they clicked into realization, that’s when he asked the million-coin question.

  “Who exactly are you?”

  “The person who was forced to retrieve you, after making an exceptionally poor deal,” I responded honestly, but as I did, I was already picking up his small frame with Telekinesis and preparing to move him through an Arcane Geomancy Teleportation tunnel.

  “What kind of deal?” Rob asked, as I popped the tunnel right behind him.

  With his own version of Angel’s Sight he seemed to feel the tunnel appear behind him. With a look of awe and mystery on his face, he turned to face the portal. This was perfect for me, as he was now standing right in front of the one-way tunnel.

  “The kind where I had to read a terrible book.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Don’t blame me, blame your daughter,” I responded as I then used that exact moment of confusion to Telekinetically push him through the portal.

  I paused, half hoping, half checking to see if he would get sucked up into space as I had a month ago.

  No such luck.

  Or maybe I was lucky, as I would have likely needed to go fetch him again from the Void Queen.

  He made it through, and instantly jumped up, turned around and tried to force his way back through the one-way tunnel.

  I just shook my head. I would have to point out how it was clearly the wrong way in this one-way tunnel, but then decided against that. I had no intention of becoming his teacher, especially not for magic.

  With him gone, I felt my obligation to Gwen break apart, as I felt golden threads of karma wrap around me, letting me know I was once again in the positive.

  Feeling their odd energetic sheen around me, I took a deep breath and relaxed.

  Then I hesitated once more, preparing myself to go through the tunnel. This time, I cast my Cosmic Anchor, making sure to latch it just beyond the edge of the portal and past Rob.

  Rob for his part seemed to see the anchor and immediately backed away from it, like it was a scythe.

  Chuckle.

  Once again, seeing his scared face brought yet another smile to my face. Maybe I am just a little jaded about being elated at his fears.

  Then before I go, I turn to the other Teleiotís and speak sincerely in their odd mana language, “well I’m off. Again, thank you all for protecting the big lug, he might not look it, but he is important.”

  I was going to say to me but then cut myself off before I lied too much. He was important, but to Gwen and more than likely Rob Junior, I mean Trenton.

  Still, all my words to this point were honest, and maybe he might mean something to me, but to be classified as important? I don’t know.

  With that mental waffling on word definitions over in my head, I waved and was about to go through the one-way tunnel, when the one Teleiotís charged forward from the circle of murder bots and exclaimed, “wait!”