Chapter 93: Tsundere

Jaxir hit the ground hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs, rolling twice before coming to a stop on his back. For several seconds, all he could do was stare at the sky and breathe while his Mana pool felt like someone had taken a huge bite out of it.

As fun as that had been, it cost a ridiculous amount of MP, and that was while holding himself completely still. He’d anchored himself to things that were either stationary or close enough to it that Sparkle Route and Sparkle Alignment could establish one arrangement and keep feeding it back to him without everything changing every fraction of a second.

Trying to move would have been a completely different problem. The instant Jaxir changed position, every relationship between himself and the objects around him would change with it, forcing him to recalculate which pulls mattered, how strong they were and how to realign them in real time.

That also would have taken a ton more mana too because he’d have to force those threads to keep moving along with him.

Jaxir pushed himself into a seated position and rubbed at his forehead. "Yeah, no. I think I’d rather not liquefy my brain."

That made the technique considerably less impressive than actual flight, although hovering over a cliff wasn’t exactly useless. If his Mana became higher Grade, he might be able to rely on fewer gravitational threads and stronger influences instead, which should cut down on how much information he had to process at once, and the number of threads he had to manipulate.

Making himself even lighter would help too, and Jaxir’s gaze dropped toward his boots as that thought settled in. Gravity was the weakest of the four fundamental forces, something he also remembered from physics class.

It took a ridiculous amount of mass to make gravity feel strong on a human scale, which explained why forcing hundreds of tiny gravitational influences to do anything meaningful had drained him so badly. Jaxir chuckled as another thought occurred to him.

"No wonder Gravity Boy is always overcompensating."

A flicker of light drew his attention toward where Auren had died, and the first thing left behind was the enormous chest plate he’d been wearing. Without the Village Head inside it, the armor looked even more ridiculous.

Nick had already warned him not to ignore equipment, though he wouldn’t have anyway. Even if not for the Nightmare Dungeon, who knew how much money he could get out of it if he could sell it.

The lights grew brighter and Jaxir’s rewards began to manifest.

The smallest condensed first, taking on the shape of a Card before solidifying completely. Jaxir’s interest sharpened almost immediately when he realized it wasn’t another template or strange inheritance construct, but an actual Vestigem Card.

"Well, hello."

Vestigem Cards could technically drop from almost anything, but their natural drop rate was terrible enough that most people bought them or fought over reliable sources instead. Luck of the Draw had improved Jaxir’s odds, yet despite the frankly unreasonable number of things he’d killed since entering Divinity, the only Card he’d actually seen drop naturally for him had been Twinkle Step back inside his first dungeon.

He reached toward it, then stopped himself when the second reward finished forming. This one expanded until it was almost as large as Jaxir himself, unfolding into a pair of enormous wings made entirely from layered feathers that looked carved out of sapphire and emerald.

The colors shifted through each feather whenever the wings moved, and Jaxir stared at them for several seconds before giving a small nod.

They were also large enough that he had no interest in figuring out what they did while half a village watched him from above. Jaxir moved to store them, only for the final reward to finish forming beside the wings before he got the chance.

An orb hovered a little above the ground, but Jaxir didn’t even get the chance to reach for it before the staff in his hand jerked forward. His grip tightened on instinct as the weapon pulled again, stronger this time, while the Mana inside it stirred in a way he’d never felt before.

Jaxir frowned and loosened his grip just enough to test what would happen, only for the staff to move toward the orb on its own again. He caught it before it could leave his hand completely and stared between the weapon and the floating reward.

"...What?"

Equipment responding to compatible Mana made sense, but this didn’t feel like passive resonance or some simple system interaction. The staff wanted the orb, and Jaxir had never even considered that an item could behave in a way that felt so close to intent.

"I didn’t know you could do that."

For the first time, the staff almost felt alive, and under different circumstances Jaxir would have happily spent the next hour poking at that problem until it made sense. Unfortunately, movement along the top of the valley caught his attention before he could do anything with it.

The number of people gathering along the rim had multiplied while he’d been distracted, with players and NPCs alike staring down toward the place where Auren had died. Some were pointing at him, but what concerned Jaxir more were the ones who had disappeared after getting a good look.

The dungeon entrance existed down here, and Jaxir knew perfectly well he hadn’t been the first person to clear it. There were workable routes into the valley somewhere, whether that meant hidden paths, climbing equipment or specialized movement Skills, and if some of those missing people had left to prepare one of them, standing around inspecting loot suddenly sounded like a poor idea.

Jaxir shoved the Card, the wings and the strange orb into his Inventory without checking a single one, then pushed himself back to his feet. His Mana was low enough that climbing would be annoying, but the opposite wall of the valley offered plenty of ledges and surfaces for Twinkle Mana to work with.

He started across the valley floor while plotting the same sort of route he’d used the last time he’d escaped people here. Attraction pulled him toward the first ledge, his boots softened the landing, and a small repulsive pulse carried him toward the next without wasting more Mana than necessary.

A laugh slipped out of him as he climbed higher and glanced back toward the distant figures below. "This is the second time you’ve helped me escape a party."

The valley had almost killed him once or twice too, but Jaxir didn’t see why that had to ruin the relationship. It had given him a dungeon, helped him escape enemies and now provided another conveniently annoying obstacle between himself and everyone who wanted whatever he’d just looted.

He reached another ledge and looked down one final time as several figures began moving. As expected, some had begun to make their way down, glaring daggers at him. In fact, some of them seemed to be from a very familiar guild.

Jaxir might have been annoyed if he hadn’t been in such a good mood. Nothing could get him down now. He only had one more village head to kill and he would be in the clear.

Lucky for him, the valley might have almost killed him several times, but it had helped him escape just as many times.

"You’re just a cute little tsundere, aren’t you?"𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂