Chapter 128: Predictable

Bael woke up to the very familiar sensation of wind swirling around his body. The healing card worked wonders, which is why he felt none of the dizziness or fatigue that came with a kick that would knock him out, but no spell could heal his wounded ego. Fighting him had been like childsplay to Nero.

From start to end, Nero never saw him as anything more than a means to placate his father, which for some reason infuriated him even more.

"Bael, you are no longer a child, so why are you acting like one?" the commander asked, his massive figure looming over Bael.

"I am not a child, I'm a warrior!" he said through gritted teeth.

"That's what I'm saying. You're not a child, so why are you behaving like one? What sane soldier goes around provoking unnecessary enemies? When have you ever seen me nurture hate in the heart of my subordinates? Not only have you fostered a poor relationship with an artisan with a great future, you have turned a great potential ally into an enemy.

"Now imagine if you and Nero had been friends instead. You could have learned from one another, and aided each other in the battlefield. Now, if you ever face a desperate situation when you get deployed, and Nero discovers it, the best you can hope for is that he ignores you. A more realistic expectation is that he will sabotage you instead."

"You... you think he wants to kill me?" Bael asked, shocked.

"Of course. He is an extremely talented man who works harder than anyone else. He has incredible drive. But at the same time, he is just a kid, and he is predictable. That is why he is being used like a tool by his betters. That is the fate of anyone talented who does not have a background sufficient enough to be protected.

"For example, though he wants to kill you to avoid future potential problems where you target him, he cannot because he does not want to provoke me. He is surrounded by unknown and lacking significant allies, which is why tomorrow I expect him to play directly into my hands. That is what I meant by the fact that he is talented, but predictable.

"The same is true with you, only that you're even easier to manipulate. You did not even realise as the whispers in your ears set you on a path of self-immolation. You ruined your image in the eyes of your superiors, and made enemies among your peers. This is the first and last time I will intervene."

Bael clenched his fists as a feeling of frustration enveloped him.

*****

Nero tried to guess the implications of his most recent exchange. The commander seemed indifferent to Nero's existence entirely save for how he could use him. That was not the best situation to be in, but it was far from the worst. He had promised to keep Bael from targeting him in the future, but Nero was not going to bet on that.

The big kid clearly had anger issues, and if he listened to his father to begin with this whole situation would never arise. Not to mention their original grudge, Nero had beaten that kid up a few more times right now, so he found it hard to believe this would be resolved so easily.

But today, whether it was luck or because of his increased experience, his hand was unusually steady. Every step he performed perfectly, and each ingredient he prepared just as the recipe required.

In one continuous flow, without any breaks or pauses, Nero set everything up and then began crafting the card. Just shy of his second hour, to his genuine surprise, Nero finally managed to craft the card!

Name: Radix Augmentation

Image: The silhouette of a tree with a massive root network

Type: Augmentation

Star rank: 0

Ability: [Use external aids to enhance aether absorption]

Flavour text: "From the earth we are nurtured and grown" - ???

The card was simple, and surprisingly smooth. Nero almost expected to have created substandard work, but the card was virtually indistinguishable from any other card. Yet this card was his mothers family's legacy.

He wondered how they got their hands on its recipe, and what was so special about it. He wondered if other prominent families had similar secret cards that helped with speeding up their growth.

But what others had did not matter to him. With this card, he could absorb the vitality from something recently killed which would help his growth.

To test out the effectiveness of his card, one of the ingredients he asked for was a jar of living cockroaches. These ugly looking insects were actually aether rich, which is why they were used in many recipes. Asking for live specimens was not unusual, since sometimes the ingredient needed to be fresh.

Using his cryoflames, Nero killed one and then placed its frozen body in front of himself, and activated Radix Augmentation. The frozen roach shattered, and Nero felt a trickle of aether flow into his chest. The amount was absolutely infinitesimal, but it mixed perfectly with his own aether, and did not leak from his body.

The contribution was not great, but it was already faster than naturally trying to absorb aether by almost a dozen times!

Nero killed another roach, this time by crushing it, and tried again. He needed to see how much the feedback was affected by the condition of the body and method of the kill.