Sara tilted her head to the side and put a finger on her chin curiously.
“Hm? What do you mean new friend? Are you talking about my new pet?”
Kairos was actually a little surprised that despite knowing Sara was lying, it was hard for him to tell. In fact, without any prior knowledge, he wouldn’t have caught on at all. As for Daniel, he rolled his eyes before uncrossing his arms.
“Don’t think that I’ll fall for that. At the very least, your friend here has to brush up on his acting.”
Nyoka raised an eyebrow.
“And what exactly is missing from the so-called acting?”
Daniel rubbed his chin and thought for a moment before speaking.
“I must say, he does have the look down really well. Even the bones are shifted in a way that fits a monster more than a person. However, the biggest problem is the lack of a monster in his demeanor. He looks far too civilized. In fact, I’d say this person is more civilized than even the grand majority of people.”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“And what exactly is civilized about me?”
Daniel laughed after hearing that and held out his hand like he was reaching out to catch something.
“For starters, the moment you got in this shop, you started to analyze me, like I’m a piece of paper or something. That’s definitely not what most people do, as they understand there isn’t time for that. They instead get ready to fight. Even though these three are long-time patrons of mine, they still have their guard up against me. They are ready to throw everything they have into fighting.”
Kairos smiled bitterly.
“It appears that I don’t have the right mentality.”
Daniel couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when he heard that.
“Honestly, I’m quite surprised. Usually, people that don’t have this kind of mentality already ingrained into them are dead. It’s not as though it’s something they try to do, but rather something they do whether they want to or not.”
Kairos furrowed his brows.
“How does that make any sense? Isn’t being reckless and charging in all the time suicidal?”
Daniel seemed taken aback by his words. He paused for a moment, needing time to process what Kairos had said. Nyoka couldn’t help but smile bitterly. Then, Daniel laughed fairly loudly.
“And what else are we supposed to do? Most of the time, you don’t have a chance to run away. Where can you run in the first place? Maybe into more danger, I guess.”
Kairos felt a little strange. Was it really impossible to just run away from the danger? Though he didn’t like to run much himself, it didn’t change the fact that he had done it before, and it was the only option he had to survive.
But it appeared that for whatever reason, doing that was suicidal down here.
“Then are you supposed to just fight someone that’s clearly stronger than you?”
Daniel smirked.
“Just think about it. If someone is stronger than you, that means they have more stamina and can move faster than you. If you run away, you are wasting more of your own stamina, making you more exhausted for the eventual fight afterward. The best you can do is to make them scared that they will be more injured than it’s worth, in case others try to come and kill them after smelling the black blood.”
Kairos narrowed his eyes slightly.
“That does sound like the mentality of an animal. Is it really that problematic to use logic and deduction?”
This time, it was Nyoka that spoke up.
“Unfortunately, you don’t really have the time to think about those kinds of things. It’s almost always a requirement to put everything into pushing your body to its absolute limits. If you use even a second to think about anything else, you may very well die.”
Kairos opened his mouth, ready to say something. Yet, right as those words were about to come out, he closed it once more. He was going to say that sounded stupid, but he couldn’t help but remember when he had his fight with the wolf so long ago.
Though his memories weren’t that clear, there was one thing he definitely remembered.
He had essentially devolved into an animal. He didn’t plan anything in advance. The only thing in his mind was to either dodge or launch his own attack. Not only was there no time to think of anything else, but his mind was also already too overwhelmed to even come up with any new strategies.
“I think I understand now.”
Though, while he said that, he still didn’t plan on following their methods. After all, he was able to artificially increase his willpower through his status, while these people had to do it by going through grueling situations.
Going by that logic, he should still have the mental capacity to think about his next move while fighting.
Not that he was going to mention it to the others.
He then felt a pang of hunger in his stomach, then looked up towards Daniel.
“Is there any black flesh I can eat by the way? I’m feeling a little hungry.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes and glared back at him.
“I’m not giving away free black blood, alright?”
Kairos scratched the side of his head with a claw.
“Then what about just the flesh?”
Daniel didn’t respond after hearing that. Kairos wondered if he possibly pushed a little too far and pissed him off. Nyoka cleared his throat.
“Er, he’s a little strange in that he actually needs black flesh to live.”
Daniel furrowed his brows rather intensely after hearing that.
“…Is he a person or a monster?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“Weren’t you the one that was super confident in me being a person earlier?”
Daniel smiled bitterly after hearing that. Black hands appeared out of the wall, and within its palm was part of a dried-up carcass. He picked that carcass up and tossed it towards Kairos. With a plop, it landed and slid to his front.
Kairos gave a quick nod.
“Thanks.”
Then, he went to eat its flesh. Although it tasted terrible, it was quite bearable because he was in fact really hungry. After finishing it all, Daniel sucked in a cold breath.
“Wow, you weren’t lying at all. Now I’m really doubting myself, is he really a monster?”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders as he took his last few bites.
“I guess it isn’t that bad of a disguise, right?”
Daniel smirked.
“Anyway, let’s hurry and show you around the place. I don’t have all the time in the world.”
Kairos nodded and got up on two feet. From there, Daniel walked up to each individual core inside the place and gave a brief rundown of their abilities. The first one was a bright glowing blue core with the ability to create orbs of black blood for the purpose of trade. It was priced at ten black orbs.
The second one was a glowing dark green core with the ability to create poisonous sacks within the body. Unfortunately, there was no way to actually expel those sacks, so one was required to dig them out of their own body and use them that way. It was priced at three black orbs.
The third one was a light gray glowing core with the ability to give the user wings. One thing Daniel noted was that the cost of creating those wings was great, and with only one orb the wings wouldn’t even be the most functional. Yet, despite all of those downsides, it was priced at twenty black orbs for each one.
That seemed to show how valuable the ability to fly was, at least to the people coming to the shop if it was priced that high.
There were quite a few more that they went through. From one that gave the ability to breathe black fire, one that temporarily increased one’s strength, and even one that let one create a duplicate that would automatically gain the user’s consciousness after the original body died. That one wasn’t even priced though, nor was it actually on display.
Daniel only mentioned that he had it and was willing to trade for something of similar value.
Out of all the options, the first one, giving the ability to create black blood orbs, was useful for buying everything else. Though, to try his luck he decided to ask for a workaround.
“Is it possible for me to just cut myself and use the black blood that comes out to buy things?”
Daniel promptly shook his head.
“No, dealing with unstored blood is too much of a hassle.”
Nyoka rolled his eyes after hearing all that and shot a glance at Kairos.
“I can just make some balls for you. How about I provide a couple for your first purchase?”
Kairos rubbed his chin in thought.
“How about you buy me that orb skill and I’ll pay you back right after? As for other things, I’ll think about it later.”
Nyoka raised an eyebrow.
“Are you sure? I’m not sure if you’ll be able to pay all ten black balls back right away.”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll just pay it back a little later then.”
Nyoka had a complacent expression as he then tossed ten black orbs to Daniel, who caught them promptly. A black hand reached out of the ground next to Kairos, showing the blue core that he requested. From there, Kairos ate it.
Once the assimilation process is completed, a notification popped up.
[Acquired Special Ability – Reserve (???)]
He opened up his status panel once more to look at the exact ability description.
[Reserve (???)]
[Gain the ability to store black blood within compressible gels. While stored in the body, it can be released back into fluid forms for use. Other uses are unknown.]
Kairos couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that last sentence but decided not to worry about it now. From there, he began following up on his promise, using the reserve ability immediately.
From there, Kairos felt the blood in his body get drained. He very quickly felt a hollow feeling within his body. In fact, he even ended up falling down onto one knee due to the weakness in his body.
And the worst part of that was the fact he only felt one black ball of blood congeal in his body. He got rather confused at this since he definitely ingested more black blood than this amount. After all, he literally ate a ball of black blood when Nyoka originally gave him one.
He used his conversion spell to restore his black blood reserves, which worked surprisingly fast. Soon enough his entire body had been restored with black blood, with a bit of excess produced. Though, that excess quickly went into evolving his Abyss form further.
With that, he finally understood how black blood worked with the body in the first place.
