The Almighty Ring

By concentrating harder, Jiang Fei tried his best to understand the particles and the foreign energy. He dared not simply alter the membranes’ vibrating strings; even though it would not be his first time as he had spent a good amount of time experimenting on himself. Still, he was a novice in quantum physics. Altering a string’s vibration led to a change in the particles’ behavior. He might cause more harm than good to himself if he were not careful.

He was planning on removing the poison in his body by altering the foreign objects’ string frequency. With just one string affected, the cascading effect would take place and change the nature of the poison itself. The gambit here was the effect. Jiang Fei did not know whether he would be changing the poison into something harmless or something far deadlier than the Reaper’s Potion. Killing himself was a probability with that one action.

“F*ck it. I have no time to worry about that! I do not believe my luck is that bad!” Jiang Fei thought. Determined, he focused his thoughts onto the string and reduced its vibration frequency.

“That ought to do it,” he said to himself. At the very least, he was still alive. In Hyper Concentration, Jiang Fei’s perception was from outside of his body thus, it removed all of his senses. As soon as he stopped concentrating, he returned to his normal self and quickly examined his leg.

His entire calf was on the verge of sliding off his bones while the other mildly affected regions had an oddly, sickly, blue hue. Whatever it was, it was not causing Jiang Fei any pain nor was it spreading further.

“The heck did it turn into…?” Jiang Fei mumbled as he gulped down several bottles of healing potions.

After several potions, his calf started healing. The blue liquid that was still in his legs remained in his body. At the very least, it was not damaging. He would have to wait until the trials were over to let 0541 thoroughly analyze it.

The bottom of his left foot had it worse. Almost all muscle tissues had rotten away, revealing all of his bones. However, with a couple more potions, muscles grew and healed his foot entirely. It was fortunate that only the muscles on the sole of his foot were affected. If he had lost his calf, he might have to indulge in specialized training just to have his calf muscles resume its previous glory.

A few minutes was all it took for his muscles to regrow and with one or two more bottles, his skin regrew, restoring his legs to how it was before the fight.

“I shouldn’t have been too hasty in trying to end the fight. I would never have stepped on the damn blood if I had just simply resorted to the kiting technique!” Jiang Fei scolded himself for being too impatient.

“At least the mission is over now…” He had paid the price for accomplishing the mission objective.

“Eh?” Jiang Fei barked as his heart sank when he could not feel anything in his right pocket. The dagger that he had purposely kept there was gone!

“Dammit!” Jiang Fei roared. He could only assume that the dagger must have slipped and got disintegrated by the Grundel’s blood when it fell to the ground.

“F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! Just how unlucky can I be?!” Jiang Fei barked again and again as he regretted not putting the dagger in the ring’s inventory when he had the chance. Despite being nervous and angry, he had to remain stationary as his legs were healing and not yet combat-ready. He had to wait until he regained his feeling in his left leg.

After an hour of proper rest, Jiang Fei got to his now fully-healed feet. Consuming so many bottles of healing potions had granted him energy like how Redbull gave you wings.

“Where could it possibly have dropped?” He attempted to find the dagger around the altar, all the while hoping that it had not been eroded by the Grundel’s poisonous blood.

…

“Screw you!” Jiang Fei bellowed from the top of his lungs after wasting twenty minutes searching for the dagger. He had covered every nook and cranny of the altar and each of the corroded craters that the Grundel’s blood had made, but there was no sign of the dagger.

“Captain, if it’s the dagger you are searching for… Somebody came in while you were concentrating and took it from your pocket,” said 0541 after finally figuring out what Jiang Fei was looking for.

“And you waited this long to tell me?! Bah!” Jiang Fei said, exhaling a long breath. The anger and resentment he had for that prick was too much that it rose in him like vomit. He had spent so much trying to defeat the freaking monster and the dagger had simply been pickpocketed from him!

…

“Sir? I don’t think you should have done that…” said Alston as he awkwardly gazed as Commander Alexis while he played with the dagger.

While Jiang Fei was in his Hyper Concentration mode, Alexis had snuck into the simulation and quietly took the dagger without him noticing.

Technically speaking, rules did not allow any interference with the trials but the culprit was none other than Commander Alexis himself. Who dared to go against the ruler of Redstone?

The reason Commander Alexis stole the dagger was to remind Jiang Fei to be alert at all times. One must never lower one’s guard be it in the battlefield or in a safezone.

“Calm down. There are other weapons in the simulation. He could simply grab it from the others,” said Alexis confidently. The worry he had for Jiang Fei was dispelled when he snuck around him. At such close proximity, Alexis could feel the power of the Blackhole Core albeit not knowing what it was.

“I… er… I’m not worried about Jiang Fei. It’s just… the other trainees would not stand a chance…” said Alston. Commander Alexis’ action of taking one of the weapons out of the trial would surely affect the entire outcome of the trial.

“Leave it be,” said Alexis with a certain tone to end the conversation.

“Aye, commander,” Alston replied dejectedly. If the leader of the entire planet had spoken, it would be treason to act otherwise.

…

Jiang Fei had spent a good hour at the altar moping about the loss of his dagger. He tried to reason with it but considering all the trainees around, no one was as strong as he was. With his powerful perception ability, no one could simply waltz around and steal his dagger from his own pants.

“Argh. I’m sure there are other altars like this one…” said Jiang Fei with a heavy heart. He was not looking forward to another fight with another Grundel but he had no choice.

He got up, dusted himself off, and left the altar. Along the way back up the valley route which he took to enter this altar, many more golems appeared. Jiang Fei had had enough disturbance as it was, so he defeated those golem with a single overpowered punch. The golems were not strong enough. At most, they gave Jiang Fei a scare which annoyed him even more.

“I wonder how are the others doing… Someone must have finished the mission and left…” Jiang Fei grumbled disgruntledly as he ventured on. By the time he left the valley entirely, the sun was setting and Jiang Fei decided to set up camp in a nearby forest.

Not far from where he chose to sleep, he saw a flicker of light. After close inspection, he identified the source of light as a campfire.

“Who on blood Earth dares to set a campfire like this?!” Jiang Fei rolled his eyes, going toward the light.