Chapter 328: Day 761 – A Pet Rock

Chapter 328: Day 761 – A Pet Rock

Teeth and mouths snapped at me as the monster tried to twist and reform itself out from under my thick and hard rod. The jokes with these things would never get old. The Rod of Taming was chugging away as the mental timer counted down from 100 minutes.

It was late in the evening and we had pushed hard to get to this monster today, but I didn’t want to waste time. I wanted to get in as much practice as possible. “This is both scarier and more underwhelming than I thought,” Bao Wang said, and I agreed with him as he sat on the ground watching the scene.

“It is the difference in stats. It just can’t move at all or damage my hard sturdy rod. That is pinning it to the ground,” I replied.

“The jokes got old after the first one, but it is amazing to see how much of a difference stats can make,” Bao Wang said. He was getting in the right mindset. At least that was my hope. The fact we weren’t going back to grinding was probably a big help.

“Well not like there is anything else to do. Almost done now,” I said. I was being careful not to injure the monster, since I had no way to heal it. Just like the Divine Empress had pinned by head with her boot, I pinned the monster with my rod.

“Hopefully this works since your entire plan hinges on dressing this monster up as the Divine Empress. We are both going to die horribly,” Bao Wang muttered the last part.nôvel binz was the first platform to present this chapter.

“Yee of little faith. You just need to believe. And done!” I said as the monster went still. I felt the connection to the Rod of Taming in my hand.

I closed my eyes and I knew where the monster was and could sense what it could do. I focused on the Divine Empress. Transform, change. I opened my eyes.

Okay, that was progress. But it wasn’t good. It was like Picasso had sculpted a rock and tried to make it look like the Divine Empress.

“Maybe if it is very far away people will be fooled. Very, very, very far away.” I ignored Bao Wang’s teasing.

I focused on the head. The rest of the body could be covered. The rock mimic didn’t know what a person looked like. It could just do the boulders instinctively. But it could change shape and color. I just needed a Divine Empress boulder shaped head with the right coloration.

Very slowly the monster’s portion that was its head began to take shape. It didn’t understand colors. I had to use mental sliders for each portion of the face. It was splotchy at first. It wouldn’t be able to speak either.

It took two hours, but I finally ended up with a passable head. “What do you think?” I asked Bao Wang. While he had only seen her once, it was clearly an experience that had stuck with him.

“The lips are a bit off. The eyes are dead. The hair needs a lot of work.” Well, the rock mimic didn’t like hair and the texture was tricky. “It would only fool someone who has never seen her and is an idiot. Can it speak?”

“No.”

“Then that will be a huge complication. Can it move its head?” I had the monster incline the head slightly and turn it.

“Completely unnatural. It is bulging in weird places, not like muscles at all.”

“I am going to have nightmares. What is with the second head and the injury?” he asked. I explained my new plan to him.

“Let me use the bathroom first.” He walked a short distance away to relieve himself. After his business was done, he came back and looked closely at the monster and both heads up close.

“Much better. The eyes are off, but it can pass if no one stares for a long time or they don’t her very well. I can’t say more than that. The injury, now that is interesting.”

“It can work you think? No one would want to question her while she is injured?”

“Yes. But it will take a lot of work to get it just right. We will need to practice. So, it does things when I say certain phrases.” I winced at that since my Chinese was terrible. As good as I had done with the rock mimic, I was terrible at learning the language. Even with all my practice, my brain just did not think in Chinese.

“Will need to make them very clearly enunciated and five at most,” I replied.

“That is workable. It needs some touch ups. But the wound looks good and will push away any questions or difficulties. I will need to think about the story I will craft very carefully. To get my answers just right.”

“Well, that is good. Now we just need to name it.”

“A name? Just call it the Divine Rock and be done with it,” Bao Wang said. I gave him a scandalized look. I then went over and hugged my pet rock.

“Don’t listen to him. Team members get names. And you are going to do great things. Alright, time to go back the way we came,” I said.

“The swamp? This place really needs roads,” Bao Wang complained, returning to his usual annoying self.

“Yes, I don’t want to go through the war front. Can’t let people see my pet rock.”

“We will need to get the outfit just right. Isn’t the rest of the monster a bit large?” Bao Wang asked.

“I thought of that. It can slide over the ground, watch,” I said. It moved slowly, but it slid over the ground. “Can just have a solid lower part where the legs should be. It will be a bit tight, but no one should tell the Divine Empress to hurry up.”

“The longer things go for, the more time people have to ask questions. But I suppose from the gate of the outer ring of the Forbidden City to the plaza isn’t that far. You should practice switching between the two heads. To make it appear as if the Divine Empress has healed herself from the pillars.”

“Good thinking. That way we can go right to the airships and escape. Or maybe go into her palace and mess things up first.”

“We should escape immediately. The treasury is the only thing of real value. It isn’t like there would be a horde of weapons or something valuable. Unless you plan to steal her underwear?” Bao Wang asked me and that got me to chuckle.

Stealing the Divine Empress’s underwear. Oh boy. It might just be worth it to imagine the expression on her face. Would stealing her treasury or her underwear piss her off more and would the rage combine causing her to explode. It might just be worth it, so she would go even more nuclear on her return.