Tyarius started to chew the mana crystals and drinking the potions. Adelaide looked at him in shock.

“What the hell are you doing you’re not supposed to eat them, you’re supposed to put them around your neck, and they’ll slowly regenerate your magic over time, if they crack, they’ll… explode… or maybe not…”

She was confused.

“Adelaide, you see I’m very efficient at absorbing mana so it will not explode.”

Replied T.

He calmly continued chewing the mana crystals. The cracks on his body slowly became smaller and some of them disappeared completely. When he drank all the potions and ate all the crystals, he felt the magical power flowing through him. He also felt that he grew a little stronger, but he still wasn’t even close to his original strength.

“Hey Tyarius I was thinking about the nickname, and I thought of one.”

Suddenly said Adelaide.

“Well then, tell me what you came up with Adelaide.” ./?

“I wanted to keep it simple so how about T because I like tea.”

Adelaide looked nervous.

“Very well, I’ll refer to myself as T.”

“Also, T… would you mind calling me Adele?”

“Alright I shall call you Adele.”

Adele let out a sigh of relief. She was worried that Tyarius might dislike her suggestion.

“Do you have a library in this household Adele?”

Asked T.

“Yes, we do, but it’s just a small one.”

“That’s alright, even a small one should be good enough for now, where is it?”

“It’s on the second floor in the first door to the left, but why do you want to go the library?”

“Obviously, I want to read.”

Answered T bluntly.

Adele was a little pissed because of his answer.

“At least tell me if you’re looking for information or you just want to kill some time.”

“I’ve already killed enough time by sleeping in my dungeon,

and now I need all the information I can get.”

T opened the door to the library and entered.

“I mean… yeah, you’re right.”

“So yeah, you can go read and I’m going to take a bath.”

Her head was full of unanswered questions ever since she went to the dungeon and met him.

Her head hurt from all that thinking, she hoped that she could relax in the bath. Unfortunately for her, her mind couldn’t stop replaying all the things that happened after the encounter with a literal god. The one that most of the people from their nation worship. The God of Knowledge, Tyarius.

And she nicknamed him T. She felt the pressure of the whole nation on her shoulders.

When she washed and dressed herself, she went to check on T. He was still in the library.

When she opened the door, she saw Tyarius sitting in a glowing magic circle. Opened books were floating around him.

He wasn’t reading, he was consuming all the information from the books.

Adele was shocked. She wanted to know how he was doing that, but at the same time she didn’t want to interrupt him. She was watching him for a while.

T knew that she was watching, but didn't say anything, because he was too busy processing information from all the books.

After a while Adele fully opened the door and entered the library. T didn’t even look at her.

“So, you finally decided to stop watching me and came inside.”

“Wait you knew about me?”

Adele was surprised.

„Yes, I already told you that I can sense mana in my proximity, so yes, I knew about you. Even though your mana isn’t exactly spectacular I couldn’t miss the presence of those odd mana crystals that seem to be modified by some strange mechanics.”

Pointed out T as he dispelled the magic circle.

„Wait you can sense them? They’re supposed to be hard to detect!”

 Said Adele upsettingly.

“Now tell me what the purpose of these crystals is embedded in your body."

“They’re summoning crystals with which I can summon four guardians. Because my magical power is quite weak my parents asked their friend, who’s a doctor, to implant them in me. Thanks to them I can protect myself against the forest wildlife, bandits and thieves when I’m exploring.”

She explained.

“Well sounds a little bit too invasive to implant four mana crystals into your body, but well I’m no doctor to judge.”

Uttered T.

The pendel clock down in the hall struck midnight.

“I should go to sleep, or I won’t be able to wake up in the morning.”

“Alright, good night, Adele.”

“Oh yeah, I should prepare a bed for you T.”

“There’s no need for that, I already slept long enough and I’m Creator’s creation, so I don’t need sleep.” said T.

“Well goodnight then, T, I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Adele.”

T proceeded to “read” through the whole night.

When Adele woke up the sun was already high on the sky. She gasped.

“Oh no did I overslept!? We were supposed to go to the capital!”

Tyarius was sitting next to her bed.

“I think we have enough time to get there, it’s only around eleven o'clock.”

Adele screamed and fell out of her bed because she wasn’t expecting him to be there.

“Why the hell are you in my room?!?” asked angry Adele.

“Don’t worry about that, we should get going, even though we have enough time.”

T ignored the question.

“I am going to worry about it. You sneaked into my room and watched me while I was sleeping.”

Whispered Adele as she stood up.

“Well, you should get changed and I'll make something for you to eat.”

Offered T as he left the room.

After Adele dressed and went to the kitchen.

She was pleasantly surprised by the sweet smell of maple sirup.

“Are you perhaps making pancakes T?”

Asked Adele as she entered the kitchen.

And indeed, T made a whole plate of pancakes.

“Wow T you can cook?”

“You see, I never had to cook because I don’t need to eat. But since I had nothing better to do and I found a cookbook in your library I tried to make something.”

Described T.

When Adele ate her breakfast, they packed a few things and headed out to the capital.

“So, T, did you find any useful information other than the cookbook?”

Asked Adele.

“I did. I know a lot more about the nature of your kind. It helped a lot.”

Thanked T.

“It doesn’t really sound like you actually appreciate it when you say it with such a cold tone.”

Disagreed Adele.

In order to get to the capital, they had to go through a deep forest. At first it was a pleasant walk but as they were going deeper into the forest T sensed a rather strong magic source.

It definitely wasn’t a beast for the source was too strong. It started to get closer to them.

“Adele, something is coming closer. We might be in danger.”

Whispered T.

“It was only a matter of time.

These woods are territory of the infamous bandits.

They have lot of members, two automatons and on top of that their leader,

Pullio, is a strong magic user.”

 Whimpered Adele.

“That sounds troublesome, but they shouldn’t bring all of their forces because of two travelers.”

T thought out loud.

“That’s right but I heard that the leader Pullio is always with them and that bothers me.”

Whimpered Adele again.

They continued walking.

“Adele, please don’t summon your summons, I want to take them on myself.”

T looked at Adele and she nodded.

The source was now about fifty meters away. Adele was more and more nervous.

Suddenly a bunch of Demakarians ran out from bushes and jumped down from trees.

Before they knew it Adele and T were completely surrounded.

Then one of the bandits came forward. It was obviously the leader.

T felt a lot of mana coming from him.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here, a young lady and her guardian?

It would be really sad if we had to kill both of you, now wouldn’t it.

Let’s say that you give us everything you have, and we’ll let you live.”

Threatened them the bandit leader.

“What if we refuse, Pullio?”

Asked T calmly.

“Amazing, you even know my name.

Anyway, if you refuse, we’ll have to kill you.

Or at least you, “mister” guardian, because we might have use for the young lady.”

Answered the bandit leader.

“We refuse to give you anything, so try and come at me.”

T raised his voice.

As he said that the bandits started to attack them. T was successfully fighting them off. T killed a lot of them and consumed their mana, but suddenly two bandits came from behind and knocked out Adele.

“Fall back, we have the lady!”

Shouted the bandit leader.

“If you want her back alive, you'll bring us 10 000 credits by the tomorrow's noon or we’ll either kill her or sell her. It's up to you, mister Guardian.”

Proposed the bandit leader. After that the bandits all vanished.

Except the dead ones. Obviously.

T had no intention of paying the ransom. Instead, he tracked them to their hideout. It was a valley with a cave. He was searching for a place where they kept Adele. He didn’t see her, but he felt the presence of her summoning crystals.

“She must be in that cave.”

Said T to himself.

He didn’t want to get ambushed in the cave. He decided that he’ll wait for the bandit leader to come out and then kill him and the rest of the bandits in front of the cave.

During the night he hunted a few beasts for extra mana and when the morning came, he was ready to eliminate every single bandit he saw.

Around nine o’clock the bandits started to come out from the cave. They were getting ready to receive the ransom they requested.

Around eleven o’clock, even the bandit leader came out.

Everything was now ready.

As soon as the sun reached the top of the sky T stood up and approached the bandits.

“You’re late you know that mister guardian.

And on top of that it doesn’t seem like you have the credits we requested, you useless mercenary.”

Mocked him the bandit leader.

T didn’t react to his mocking.

Instead, he raised his hand and snapped. Suddenly everything went silent, it seemed like time had stopped.

“How do you like my time manipulation, bandit leader. It costs me quite a bit of mana, but your body is overflowing with mana, so it’ll be worth it.

Bragged T as he approached the bandit leader.

Anyway, I'll be taking your mana, but you don’t have to worry about that.”

Ts’ hand took the shape of a blade, and he stabbed the bandit leader through the chest. He absorbed every last drop of his mana and then he snapped again.

Everything started to move again. The bandit leader was dead before he hit the ground. All the bandits were in shock.

“Run for your lives!”

Screamed one of the bandits and started running away.

T looked at the deserter and in the blink of an eye the deserter had a hole in his chest. T concluded that it’s not worth it to use time bending to kill the lesser bandits, instead he infused his arm with mana and unleashed a massive magical slash that split all the remaining bandits in half.

When T finished the bandits, he went inside the cave to retrieve Adele. It was a rather deep and dark cave. When he reached the end of the cave, he saw a cage. Inside he saw Adele. She was unconscious, her clothes were ripped off from her and she had a few bruises. She had a strange choker on her neck. T approached her, but suddenly two automatons emerged from the dark corners of the cave. When T heard that the bandits have automatons, he thought they’ll be some old industrial automatons that they stole, but these two automatons were obviously military grade melee combat automatons.

“I guess you won’t go down that easily.”

Mumbled T.

The problem was that he didn’t know much about these automatons. Last time he saw them was before the mana discharge and since then they have changed a lot. Even though he read about the new ones in Adeles library, there wasn’t that much information about them. All that he knew was that their armor was tough, and they had some strange magical barriers so he couldn’t just stab them. For a second, he thought about the fact that he didn’t sense any mana from them even though they were obviously powered by mana crystals inserted in glass cases on their back. After that he came up with an idea. If he just gets behind their backs, he could get a hold of the mana crystals. He could just use time bending but he didn’t want to use any more mana than he had to, to perform an action that he wasn’t sure would work.

T prepared for a melee attack, but as soon as he got closer to one of the automatons, he felt something was wrong. When he was about to hit one of them his blade suddenly stopped midair. His attack was blocked by some kind of forcefield.

He wasn’t expecting that. He expected that the automatons would have a layer of magic barrier on their armor, but no, it seemed like both automatons had their own forcefield domes. After that the automatons started attacking him. He couldn’t attack them, so he tried to either block or dodge the incoming attacks. They were slowly chipping away his strength.

After a while T noticed that the forcefield disappears in the places where the attacks come from meaning if he could time it right, he could possibly destroy them even though their forcefields were still active.

He waited for a good opportunity to strike and when he did, he put so much mana into his attack, that he split the first automaton in half. When he tried the same thing on the second one, he only chopped off its arm. Although automatons are not alive so they shouldn’t have emotions, but this one looked shocked that T was able to counter their attacks and even defeat them.

The second automaton then tried to stagger T by a forceful bash, but T was waiting for that. T then finished the second automaton.

He took their mana crystals and consumed them.

“Even though I went through such an intense fight, it sure was worth it. I recovered a lot of mana thanks to these bandits and their automatons. It’s enough to enable my automatic mana recovery.”

In conclusion, T now doesn’t have to rely on receiving mana by potions or by killing.

(From outer resources)

When T came close to the cage in which Adele was held captive, he saw that the choker that she had on her neck was a magic sealing relic. He just now noticed that there was something wrong with Adeles summoning crystals. They were weakened, and it appeared as if they were to stop functioning properly. Suddenly something unexpected happened. Pullio appeared out of nowhere, there was not a trace of the hole in his chest.

“So, you thought you got rid of me, huh. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t expecting you to be this strong, but that doesn’t matter because the lady will die if you move even a millimeter from where you are!” shouted Pullio.

“fuck YOU in particular PULLIO” mumbled T to himself.

“Alright, I won’t move, but tell me, how are you alive?

Did you use creation or illusion magic? Did you manipulate the shadows, or perhaps did you just clone yourself?”

T questioned Pullio.

“You sure know a lot, but what happened is that I had a phoenix feather.”

Answered Pullio.

“That’s good to know, because that means if I will kill you now, then you’ll perish from this world for real.”

Stated T.

“Even though you’re right, it doesn't mean you’ll do it because she’ll die if you try something.”

Responded Pullio.

“Did you already forgot how I killed you the first time?”

T didn’t even wait for Pullio’s response and snapped his fingers and stabbed him in his chest once again. After he killed him, T wondered if it’s physically possible for somebody to be this fucking dumb.

Pullio wasn’t the brightest opponent T fought but at least he had a lot of mana. T’s body now didn’t have a single scratch or crack on his once damaged body.

When he finally got to rescue Adele, she was almost conscious. T got her rid of the choker. She was confused and disoriented. It seemed like she forgot everything (didn’t remember anything) that happened after they got attacked by the bandits, so T explained everything that was important.

To her shock Adele found out that her summoning crystals didn’t respond, meaning that they were broken. They came to the conclusion that Pullio must have figured out that it’s going to be a problem if they get attacked by Adele’s summons.

It was a surprise that she didn’t develop severe PTSD, instead she developed hatred towards bandits and swore, that from now on, she’ll kill every bandit she encounters.

They spend the rest of the day looting the bandit camp. The next day they were back on their way to the capital. The rest of their trip was safe and before sunset they arrived at their destination. The capital of Alanke Ngwako. The Atmopolis.

End of Chapter 2

 

 

Today I woke up and I knew that I was going to diss Pullio into oblivion, even though I have no fucking clue who the fuck is Pullio.

Fuck YOU in particular PULLIO