Chapter 68: E-Rank Strengthening

Lin kept explaining to his students some more nuanced details that the students would be required to know later on. He covered everything that was related to the academy's rules and regulations.

It was already lunchtime when the lecture was finished. The students rushed to the canteen and started having their lunch in a jiffy, lest the ordering window gets closed.

Jake and Eren did the same. But this time they were accompanied by a pair named Becky White and Steve Austin. Jake did most of the talking. Eren had already known about their BTPs of 10 and 12 respectively.

***********

The ID stone was an all-purpose artefact. It could be used to make note of things the user deemed necessary. A thought was all it took to store a text. The stored data would be seen on a spectral screen and could be accessed anytime.

Eren had made a special note of any student having lower BTPs than him. He had filtered out their names on the spectral screen and made a separate list containing the same.

Eren was going to hunt for these weaklings first for an easy load of merit points. He was no fan of beating a stronger opponent than himself just to get the mental satisfaction of being a superior ranker than them.

He had lived a life of old age. That age had taught him there are no benefits in cultivating hubris. Never underestimate your opponent or overestimate yourself. Because someday it'll lead you to your downfall.

He felt no shame bullying the weak. He knew he'd enjoy doing it because It'd give him maximum benefits with minimal effort. Although he wasn't shy about doing hard work, her didn't like to work in vain.

************

Steve and Becky had joined the duo because they were looking to form a party for the upcoming inter-class battle. The party needed a minimum of five and a maximum of seven students to be formed. Steve would need only one more member should the due decides to join them.

Eren gave a nod to Jake and the latter accepted their proposal to form a party. Steve looked like he wanted to say more but Eren got up from the table, indicating their conversation was over.

**********

Eren had not received any party request in his previous timeline. He wasn't even an F-Rank back then. He needed to search for people with similar bottom tier status as him to form a party with and compete with other such students.

It was an unwritten rule in the academy that rankless students will be left alone to their devices. That rule had saved Eren from being completely eaten up whole from the get-go.

Later on, when he entered the F-Rank, he formed a party with a few bottom tier students. They only entered the ranking wars to meet their minimum requirements and were ready to lose some points in exchange for double the penalty they'd receive by not participating.

But this time, Eren had decided to wring these students dry of their merit points. He can't continue to crawl at the bottom tier and expect to get his hands on good things placed at the top.

And Eren won't stay a recluse either. At least he won't let his nature become obvious to guess. He needed to mix up with students while masking his ambitions and plans. He needed his presence felt just enough so that he could remain part of the crowd while trying to gain one up over it.

That's why he thought of partying with Steve when the latter approached him in this timeline. The guy was aiming to become a berserker. He had the qualities of a natural leader.

Steve's presence was overwhelming on and off the battlefield. And he had a good eye for people. Eren's presence would get masked under the guy's shadow if the former made the right use of him.

Eren didn't care about Becky White. She was an average healer from what Eren remembered from his past timeline. She didn't excel or suck in her job.

Steve's team in Eren's previous life was average at best. Only the leader stood out from the rest. It was to be seen if his party in this life would follow the same fate or break the pattern!

********

Eren retired to his room again. Lin's lecture had continued from where he had left off. The guy got to his core subject, which was the basic functions of arrays. Eren could see Lin's lack of expertise in the subject.

It was obvious that Lin was no genius in the field of arrays. He had been given that subject because of his parents and the guy couldn't refute the role to maintain his image of being worthy of the name given to him.

Academy wouldn't do something like this under normal circumstances. That meant Lin was forced to teach and in a way re-learn stuff about the field of arrays by someone higher in the ladder at the expense of students' misery. They would often get confused because of his conflicting statement in the field.

Only then did the class of 1/C understand why the previous students complained about such a professor being their teacher on arrays. The honorary hunter's first name didn't paint a fair picture above his calibre in arrays.

Eren locked the door of his dorm room, took the coffee mug off his shelf, and ordered it to return to its normal form. Reen had been given the choice of either turning into a coffee mug or necklace and she chose the former. She felt her first inorganic form was the most relaxing one while she was forced to do nothing.

Reen soon morphed into a mass of slime before plopping over his shoulder.

Reen assumed the shape of Elena over Eren's shoulder in a miniature form and rubbed her body off on his neck by engulfing it like a necktie with her stretchy hands. Her eyes were closed and she had a smile like that of an innocent kid while she did this act.

Elena was a healer from Dom's party. She was one of the first females Reen had eaten. The slime demoness would often shift between morphing into females she had eaten so far.

"Eren, why do I have to separate from you every so often? I feel lonely when you are not with me."

***********

Reen's cognitive abilities had started growing at a rapid pace. Her intelligence wasn't to be underestimated. She just lacked experience in certain things when it came to societal and human interactions. The same experiences that she was gaining slowly but surely.

Reen had started realising her sense of existence more prominently, and consequently her master's too. It had dawned on her that she missed Eren. And Eren's promise of feeding plenty of 'food' to her in exchange for her prolonged inactivity wasn't going to cut it anymore.

Eren had another headache to worry about. How to feed Reen inside the academy? He certainly can't kill a student here. There were easier ways to commit suicide.

That left Eren with only a certain option. He was going to use that option extensively for the coming week to polish his combat skills and feed Reen at the same time.

*******************

"Don't worry, Lil Reen. This arrangement would only be for a few weeks more until I have enough merit points to get a few things. Let me get a special spell for us from the academy. Then we'll never have to stay apart from each other"

Eren assured Reen to curb her feelings of longing and loneliness. Reen agreed and started rubbing her 'mini-Elena' body on him even more.

Eren had to go "all in" in the ranking wars in this timeline. He had many reasons to do so. One of them being Reen's problem, which needed to be sorted out sooner than later.

************

Eren remembered his aptitude test after looking at Reen. The newly found inherent nature of devouring must have been the result of his connection to Reen. Forming a bond with demoness slime through blood ritual must have changed his mana signature, resulting in him gaining her inherent nature as well.

Eren wasn't sure if the gem only granted him the element of time. Or if there was something else. According to Lin, the XX error was an array miscalibration error.

This was because Lin didn't know about the existence of the gem inside Eren. It would have been a normal case of miscalibration had there not been an external and extraordinary factor added into the equation. But Eren knew the case wasn't normal. He guessed the gem would have the prowess to generate that error.

Eren didn't want to ask anyone about it and land himself in even bigger trouble. Curiosity kills the cat! And even her nine lives aren't enough to save her hide when that happens. So Eren didn't press Lin either and let him conclude the matter with miscalibration.

**************

The Butcher thought of something and wanted to try it out:

"Reen, isolate this room using your mana sense first. Then armour my body like usual."

Reen obliged. She first covered the dorm room using her mana sense. Then started coating Eren's body to make him enter his devilish form. Eren wanted her to start from the most basic power-up she could grant him.

Eren then observed the changes in his body stats using the spectral screen. As he thought, the ID stone was able to quantify the boost he received after entering the devilish form.

His MP and INT didn't receive any boost. But the values of HP, AGI, and STR had gone up. This affected his BTP value as well.

Eren's BTP was at 14 before assuming this form. But that value had been shot up to an incredulous number of 30, which was regarded as the limit of F-Rank.

Eren asked Reen to strengthen him some more and that had finally changed his BTP value to 42, in the realm of E-Rank. This was the limit at which Reen could strengthen Eren before his body started facing drawbacks.

This was an improvement. Eren could only strengthen himself to the limit of F-Rank when he was rankless. But now that he was in the initial stage of F-Rank himself, he could skip an entire rank and enter E-Rank after Reen strengthened him.

The BTP value of 42!

Eren had to field-test and adapt to these strengthened body stats before he could make use of them. But he needed to be away from prying eyes before commencing his battle practises.

This was tough to do in the academy. But not impossible. Eren would need to spend some merit points to book an isolated practise room for himself. Another reason for him to earn more of them.

=====================

Author's Note: Hello. I wanted to ask readers of VEH, do you want to dictate Eren's visual profile? In case you haven't noticed, it has not been explicitly mentioned how Eren looks in this timeline.

It wasn't that I forgot. I'm trying to make a dedicated VEH Wiki Fandom for the novel. So I decided that I will reveal Eren's visual profile once his image for the wiki page gets finalized. I've shortlisted a few images.

But before I go with any of my choices, I thought of asking the readers if they want to contribute in deciding how Eren should or would look. So drop the images for Eren's potential visual profile in this chapter's comment section.

I've also included my choices in the comments section. Only place your thumbs-up on any one choice that you like the most. We will wait about a week and go with the one that has maximum likes. ;)