Chapter 41: The Amstrong Dutchy Takes Revenge?
When the battle with the giant python had ended, a meeting had been arranged, and all the important people in Cromwell Barony were seated at a round table.
Nathan was sitting at the center as usual.
"An Intermidiate Tier that is almost on par with a King Tier. It's the first time I'm hearing something like this," Nathan stated. In truth, he had heard about the attack on the northern side of the wall, but he didn't intervene, thinking that Elvin and his strike team could handle it.
However, that wasn't what had happened, and they even lost an Awakened.
Luckily, Eve had dealt with the beast, so the situation hadn't escalated further. Still, the loss of one life didn't settle well with Nathan.
"I think it must be the doing of that bastard Felix," Elvin spat out, a bulging vein in his temple. Because the person who died was a member of his strike team, someone who had gone on several expeditions with him, he was quite shaken.
"He must've experimented on the pythons and lured it to our walls," he added with bloodshot eyes.
"Is it really him?" Nathan asked with a creased brow. Even though the Duke of the Armstrong Duchy was their rival, he didn't just want to jump to conclusions and make baseless accusations.
Also, he could tell Elvin was merely speaking out of anger. After all, in a state of anger, most people didn't tend to think before they speak.
'Could it be?' Aina, who had temporarily suspended her training with Nyx, frowned. 'Could it be he wants to take revenge for what I did to his son? That must be it. No father would let something like that slide, after all. Crushing someone's lungs is no different than crippling them.'
"It's definitely him," Elvin replied to Nathan. "If not for Eve's timely intervention, most of my strike team would have died—"
"Actually, it was Nox," Eve interjected, catching Elvin off guard.
"Huh? Th-that shield... wasn't it you?" Elvin stammered with an incredulous expression. He knew Eve wasn't the playful type to joke around. To think it was that unserious, mischievous Nox that saved them from being corroded and turned into nothing.
"What did little Nox do?" Celine asked the question that had been on the minds of the others.
After hearing Eve and Elvin's explanation, they were all stunned and remained quiet for a while.
"You said my grandson can somehow see the skills of beasts?" Nathan asked just to make sure. "You mean he's not restricted like us?"
"That's exactly what I said, old man. Because of that, he was able to intervene in time. If not, there wouldn't even be a strike team to save."
There were several reasons why Awakened were cautious when facing monsters. It was because of their hidden, unpredictable skills. Because of this, countless had lost their lives in the fight against magical beasts.
It had remained like this for centuries now...
'But not anymore. Even those appraising artifacts that are worth a fortune could only see so much information.'
But this ability, this ability was truly a game changer! With this, he would have a much easier time fighting monsters because he would know each and every one of their hidden cards and stats!
'This kid is playing life on easy mode,' everyone thought collectively.
From the beginning, Nathan had known his grandson was unique, so he didn't pry into his personal life too much. As such, he was oblivious to the things he could do. But now that they've heard of what he could do, he wanted to sit the boy down and have a long question and answer session.
While everyone was still trying to come to terms with the realization, Aina spoke up. She was usually quiet and didn't participate in these meetings until recently. Seeing that she had something to say, everyone gave her rapt attention.
"No matter what, no one should say a word about Nox's ability." She narrowed her eyes with a hint of threat in her voice. Her father-in-law was close to these people, not her. An outsider, she came from a distant place, and there were only a handful of people she trusted in this room.
They were: Celine and her father-in-law.
The last thing she wanted was for one of them to sell this information and jeopardize Nox's safety.
After thinking about it for a while, everyone thought it perfectly made sense, so they nodded their heads and decided to keep it a secret.
...A secret they'll take to their graves.
***
Cromwell Manor
Inside Nox's room
[Blue Fanged Python Egg]
'The snake was pregnant? This makes a lot of sense now. Pregnant women could get annoyed very quickly,' Nox thought as he rubbed the surface of the egg. After seeing the text, he had placed the egg inside his inventory and took it back to his room to take a proper look.
And he was a bit disappointed when he couldn't see the stats of the python, its racial skills or evolution path; but he was sure they'll be similar to that of its mother when the egg hatches because Thirteen also had a similar evolution path to its father.
"I wonder how long it would take to hatch. If I keep it in the beast taming space, would it be faster?"
Stopping his train of thought, Nox placed his hand on the egg.
[Tame Activated]
From the resources he had consumed back on Earth, Nox knew very well that there wouldn't always be success in taming creatures, especially adult creatures who could think and make decisions for themselves, except if the creature really liked the beast tamer.
However, compared to taming adults, there was more success rate in taming baby monsters because of their limited intelligence.
Right now, the egg was not even a thing, but after seeing the destructive nature of its mother, he decided to tame it now that it was harmless.
After successfully taming the beast within the egg, Nox placed it inside his beast taming space, which would help nurture the egg. When he was done, he briefly glanced at his stats and his progress.
This past month, because of his constant training with Eve, he hadn't had time to hunt beasts or focus on his daily quests, which resulted in not making any significant progress.
But Nox didn't feel like he wasted those experience points because of the things he learned from Eve, who happened to be a very good teacher; just within 30 days, he could now perfectly split his focus in the heat of battle without any hiccup.
Still...
"I need to level up."
Before the tournament, he wanted to increase his levels as much as possible.
"It's time to use this thing. I wonder which dimension I'll appear in."