Chapter 173 - Alone In The Swamps (3)

"Wait! You're talking about the 'Brahmastra'? Do you even know how dangerous that thing is supposed to be!" Allen shrieked at the top of his lungs, "It's like a pocket-sized nuke!"

Allen's response took Arnold but surprise. He didn't know Allen was interested in Hindu mythology that much but yeah the weapons from the mythology were quite famous as even Arnold knew that the Brahmastra was supposedly one of the most powerful weapons that were mentioned in almost every Hindu mythological texts, but he wasn't aware of the effects of it so he turned to Talos once again to check whether what Allen was saying was true or not.

"...it's true master. It's often said that the use of Brahmastra or any other 'daivi astra', is strictly forbidden on the battlefield until and unless you're facing someone who is consumed by evil. Whatever that's supposed to mean." Talos narrated everything he could find on the internet as well as what a little bit of recollections he had from being a part of the elder (Arnold's system) before getting ejected to become an automaton instead, "But in my opinion, it's just a way to exaggerate the deadlines of a weapon as there are no authentic records of any event like that happening." (Author's note: 'Daivi' means godly and 'Astra' means weapon, so 'Daivi Astra' means 'Godly weapon'.)

"It's highly possible that what the texts say is true..." Arnold mumbled, and got lost in his thought, "I would've never believed that monsters or Gods exist in the real world before all this happened, but now we all know it's the truth. They do exist. So even if the information about these 'godly weapons' is a bit exaggerated, I'm sure these are deadlier than anything anyone has ever witnessed, apart from the nuclear weapons I think. Either way, it's not certain whether I'd get the material to make the Brahmastra. After all, I could get anything out of the five materials."

"Yes, that's true." Allen chimed in, "But rest assured, you'll get something awesome from the box and even if you don't, I'm sure you'll make a good use of the material, you're a creationist after all."

"I hope so, but why are you still here? Don't you have any job to do?" Arnold barked at Allen, "Get moving already, I'm not going to work today so you're in charge."

"Aww, man... I thought you'd allow me to rest and prepare myself for tomorrow-" Allen protested but was interrupted by Arnold.

"Alright alright... You got two options-"

"You're really the best stepbro-"

"Hear me out first!" Arnold barked once again but this time he had a smug look on his face, "You got two options. Either you walk your ass outta here, or I'll throw your ass outta here. You've got ten seconds to decide."

Allen looked at Talos, who raised his hands in the air. He wasn't going to step in front of his master, but if his master needed help to throw Allen out, he would gladly do so, after all, he did need to serve his master faithfully.

"You guys..." Allen mumbled and turned around, "Why I'm the one who keeps getting bullied by everyone..."

Arnold smirked briefly for a moment before turning back towards Talos, "Do I need to know anything else?"

"That's all I know, master," Talos said and handed the material box back to him.

"Don't worry, you've helped me more than what I was expecting. At least I'm not clueless anymore." Arnold replied to his 'advisor', "I think I should open it up as well... at least that way I would know which material I would be working on. Don't you think?"

Arnold was a bit excited, but Talos was unphased by his Master's emotions. Although he was continuously learning and growing mentally, he couldn't yet grasp the concept of emotions, not yet anyway.

"Strategically speaking, it would be helpful to filter ideas about making something if the master decides to open the box." Talos replied in his emotionless voice.

Arnold thanked him and Talos turned to leave, but right then Arnold remembered he wanted to ask something else too.

"By the way, I forgot to ask you about the experiments," Arnold said, referring to experiments that Talos was conducting on the Orcs and ogres to study the effects of consuming beast crystals as a part of Arnold's quest.

"Analysing essential data..." After saying this, Talos went silent for a minute, "Analysis complete. Would master like to hear the detailed report or an abstract?"

"The abstract please."

He knew Talos wouldn't have gained much information about the weird evolution of monsters as it had been only two days since Talos began the experiments on the monsters, that's why he opted to hear the abstract, instead of the full report.

"Yes, master. As you know I started the experimentation two days ago. The first test subject was an ogre, in the beginning, I gave it a small dose of three white beast crystals but nothing happened." Talos began narrating everything to Arnold as he took out the Wyvern egg from his inventory and gently placed it on the floor. "Thus I decided to increase the dosage and rarity of the beast crystal, but the result was the same, so the dosage and rarity of the beast crystal were increased once again. I kept repeating this process but I wasn't much hopeful that anything would happen. However this time, something did happen."

"What happened exactly?" Arnold asked while tending to the giant egg which was now reaching almost to the level of his chest, 'hmm... looks like its about time I shifted the egg into the void. After I feed it this time, it'll grow up to my size.'

"The ogre grew in size and its skin turned reddish, a clear indication of successful evolution. I decided to test whether it's attributes to see if there was any change there as well and it was confirmed, the ogre had evolved to the level of an ogre captain. I stopped the trial there because I was afraid it might go berserk if I fed him any more crystals and decided to wait out for a few days before continuing the experimentation. In the meantime, I'll be remotely observing the ogre."

Arnold nodded and took out a vial from his inventory before pouring its content all over the Wyvern egg. The vial contained thick black blood of the grey lizardman whom he had hunted earlier in the swamps.

"Would you like to know anything else, Master?"

"No, that's all, for now, Talos, but keep me updated with the progress, also I hope you're keeping the ogres locked up in individual cells as I told you? I don't want a couple of monsters going berserk in my base."

"Yes, master they have been chained and locked up."

"Great then, you can leave now."

Talos quietly bowed and left, leaving Arnold alone with the Wyvern egg in the workshop.