Chapter 81 Acceptance
Having regained his senses, Nial felt as if his entire body was on fire.
Chugging down an entire vial of the healing serum, he didn't even realize that Kark and the others were looking at him oddly.
He was just focused on himself, and the fact that he had killed the horde of bison just as demanded.
Yet, sensing the weird mana fluctuations of the others, Nial was unable to remain quiet.
"What's wrong? I didn't steal anyone's prey, right?"
Unsure how exactly the allocation of prey worked in a team, Nial grew uncomfortable and felt as if he had been too greedy about killing the other bison.
However, he had wanted to show everyone that he was not as weak as they assumed him to be.
Little did Nial know, that this doubt was not only completely shattered, but that everyone was also scared of him now!
Nobody answered his question, which made him feel uncomfortable.
With that in mind, he turned towards Kark, feeling as if he had to say something.
"My combat prowess was decent enough, right? Does anyone have some pointers for me? I need to improve my physique because I'm still not strong, agile, and flexible enough to cope with the strain of doing difficult movement sequences because I fear that my muscles might tear…"
In the end, Nial was trying to ease the tension that seemed to have accumulated within the others, but that was more difficult than expected.
Before the fight, everyone had been at ease, which was what Nial found the most confusing.
After all, he was subjected to surprised stares, and only after some time had passed did Kark regain his senses as he answered,
"Your combat prowess…is definitely more than decent. About pointers…we might be able to give you some advice on how to build up a proper physique. As for the rest…I don't really think I or anyone else in our group is competent enough to give you advice."
The others just nodded their heads, thinking exactly the same as Kark, which confused Nial.
He was only perceiving that they had suddenly gone numb when before the fight they had been eager to see his potential which confused him a lot.
Nial expected to receive excellent pointers to improve his cultivation speed, fight better, train his body, and much more.
However, from the looks of it, the others were reluctant to teach him.
This was quite discouraging, and Nial could only sigh deeply, feeling as if he had done something wrong.
'Maybe they find my fighting style weird? After all, I'm blind, and it might only look cool in my imagination!'
Having no idea what he had done wrong, he just thought that anything could be the reason for their sudden change in behavior.
Seeing Nial's disappointed and gloomy face upon hearing their answer, everyone felt bad.
Yet, even if they wanted to, giving Nial pointers on how he should move might lead to teaching him something wrong.
It might even cause tremendous damage in terms of Nial's combat talent being wrongly used just because they had misguided him.
This was not something they wanted to happen, which was the main reason for each of them to refuse giving him pointers about his fighting technique. Though after seeing him fight, their initial plan to show Nial that he was not yet powerful had crumbled to dust.
Having miscalculated Nial's strength, they could only help in the topics they were knowledgeable enough about.
As such, they approached him, knowing that their earlier answer made him sad.
"Rather than giving you pointers in martial arts, how about we help you with other things? There is not much we know about, but Miriam is an alchemist and is specialized in healing, which also includes her ability to heal others in multiple ways.
Meanwhile, I and Dwayne can provide you some support in terms of building up a proper physique. It might be hard and you might not notice a world-shattering difference in only a month, but over time you will figure that our suggested plan will help you.
As for the others, you can ask them anything, maybe they can help!"
By clearing the misunderstanding, Kark gave his best to ease Nial's mind which was polluted by all kinds of groundless reasons for Kark and the others to possibly hate him.
Hearing what Kark said, followed by the encouraging comments of everyone else, a heavy weight was lifted from his heart as he began to smile once again.
"In that case, is it possible for someone to help me figure out a way to hasten up the absorption process of mana? My mana vein is quite strong, but absorbing and annexing mana smoothly is much more difficult than simply using mana, which is quite easy for me!"
Nial had not encountered even a single problem while absorbing and annexing mana, but that didn't mean he was using the best possible technique in order to do these two processes.
There might be things he was missing out on, and as long as he was able to increase his strength at a faster pace, everything would be fine.
Knowing that he had asked the questions he had in mind, fully aware that he had yet to reach the limit of his mana perception, including the control of the mysterious energy that permeated the air of every single dungeon!
Nodding their heads in response to Nial's question, some even spoke out loud, saying that everyone could help with this.
Kark and his group knew that Nial had just awoken his origin, not too long ago.
As such, it was already amazing how easily the young, blind man had learned to control mana.
To be precise, his control over mana had been exceptional, but that didn't mean they couldn't give a few pointers.
After all, they had decades worth of experience using mana!
Giving Nial enthusiastic and favorable answers, the group around Kark was trying to please Nial.
This was not because he was strong or talented.
Rather, when Nial's expression had changed, he looked extremely sad, and lonely, as if he had been abandoned by everyone.
Seeing this made them pity him which was why they began encouraging him.
Even if they only provided a shoulder to lean on when it was difficult, this was more than enough.
In the end, Kark and the others didn't even realize that they had accepted Nial into their group as if he was someone who belonged to them since the day they had created their small and cozy group.
Looking at Nial, they smiled brightly, feeling that the kind and weirdly emotional youth was completely different from how he had been before the fight, let alone during the slaughter he had unfolded.
If they were to know that Nial's suppressed emotions had been temporarily released after the first pulse of his Odyssey seed, they would probably pity him even more.
After all, his revealed emotions were bound to be restricted once again, and be tightly sealed, letting only a fraction of them be released.
What most people didn't know was that Nial was an emotional kid who had been unable to hold back his emotions in the past.
However, not only the incident 15 years ago, but even more so the awakening of the Odyssey seed had changed everything for Nial.
It was as if his past self had been exchanged with a tougher and emotionally resilient version of himself, only for his memories to stay behind.
Yet, Nial knew that he was still the same, and if something had changed, it was the fact that the Odyssey seed was influencing him.
This was certainly not great, but nothing he could really change.
As such, he was not yet sure about his opinion of the Odyssey seed, because it had first changed his life negatively, only to drag him out of the swamp of doubtful and negative thoughts a few weeks ago, allowing him to awaken his origin.
Everything was quite complicated, but with Kark and his group next to him, Nial felt much better.
Roaming through the dungeon for some time, they encountered a few more groups of beasts, but Nial was not even able to pay any attention to them because Miriam was soothing his sore muscles.
Everyone had noticed that he was barely able to move, and after he explained what had happened during the fight without exposing the Odyssey seed, the others were shocked and relieved at the same time.
It was shocking to find out that a youth, who had just awoken his origin, was able to overcome his limits and release 100% of his strength.
On the other hand, it was equally relieving because they had presumed Nial to be some sort of monstrous prodigy.
Because that didn't seem to be the case, everyone was much calmer while conversing with Nial, which allowed them to realize that his knowledge was far behind what he was supposed to be aware.
This eased their mind even further, even if it was quite a hassle to explain some commonly known facts to him.
Even five-year-old kids would know certain things which Nial was oblivious to.
Yet, somehow, everyone thought that this was adorable as the young man was embarrassed about not knowing everything.
It irked Nial, and given the seriousness with which he asked all kinds of questions, the others couldn't help but answer them seriously as well, while smiling brightly.
Meanwhile, they annihilated the hordes of beasts that had attacked them while searching for their boss.
They didn't even care about the fact that the redwood trees were extremely valuable because this would make them lose time and postpone their plans which they did not want to do owing to Nial.
After all, they had to conquer five more dungeons in order to meet their newly established daily goal.
Finding new ability crystals, even more so rare ability crystals, rare bosses, and other types of loot dungeon beasts could drop was the most important, and wasting several days to cut down trees that were worth a few hundred thousand dollars was certainly not worth it.
Rather, they would leave the dungeon behind for others to make some pocket money.
With that in mind, they kept killing the beasts until they found the dungeon boss an hour later.
It was a Small black horned minotaur that was large enough to reach the height of Dwayne.
Nial found this quite intriguing, but instead of commenting on its size, he tried to sense the exact strength of the black-horned minotaur.
However, it was at this moment that Nial sensed that his mana fluctuations had been blocked for the first time in his life.
They had been repelled as the body of the minotaur did not accept the mana fluctuations, which intrigued Nial.
Yet, instead of focus for too long on the minotaur, Dwayne, the battle-axe wielder charged toward the boss monster.
Bringing down the battle-axe, Dwayne cleaved through the broadsword of the minotaur, before reaching its head.
Cutting the minotaur's entire body from its head to tail in two parts in just one powerful swing, Dwayne turned around only a moment later as he casually remarked,
"I'm done, let's eat something!"
The way in which Dwayne acted nonchalantly caused Nial to gulp nervously as he suddenly mumbled to himself.
"I'm glad to be on his side…"
**
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