I was still lost under the control of Gluttony. It had fully taken over my body in order to gain sustenance. I was able to start slowly gaining mental focus after what seemed like an eternity of just vicious crunching and slurping of flesh and bones.
"sus...Vex..s....VEXS.... VEXSUS!!!!!"
"CAN YOU HEAR ME COME BACK TO US."
"MASTER WAKE UP, SNAP OUT OF IT."
'I hear you all, I would respond if I could but my body is fully in control.'
I needed to regain control over my body and thankfully I could start to see the system messages I got from eating the corpses and with that I knew I could use my skills again. So I just did what I thought would remind my body who was in charge here.
"OH god why is his mouth glowing. IT'S GLOWING EVEN WHILE HE'S EATING, EVERYBODY MASTER IS GOING TO USE HIS LIGHT BEAM GET BEHIND COVER."
I forced my skill Breath of Light to disintegrate the corpses so my body would stop eating while also shocking my body hopefully back into submission.
"AHHHHHHHH I AM IN CONTROLLLLL"
'BOOOM'
As the dust settles and the cave stops shaking the group gets out from underneath a dual elemental shield that was used quickly by Sondar and Sylvania.
"What did he just do?"
"I know what happened but please don't think bad of him it's only because his body used up all of the stored nutrients in order to regenerate."
The group, even the other goblins all looked at Shorunt with inquisitive looks.
"Masters sin Gluttony has the ability to store anything he eats for later use. As either a means to get stronger like gaining new abilities or as you saw earlier, a means of emergency regeneration. HIs sin took over because it was devoid of sustenance. I only know this because of the connection we share by being his first pact. But Even master does not know that I can use this connection to 'see' into him, I know what he is feeling and with enough concentration I can get foggy images of what he is thinking about. That is the only reason I am telling you this because Master has repeatedly thought about how he is trusting you all more and more. Master is the kind of person who went through alot of hardships in this life and the last he doesn't trust easily but you all are changing his mind about letting others in."
Shorunt who basically gave away my secret so nonchalantly assured them that I wasn't a monster and that I was regaining control as they spoke. Meanwhile I was in a crater that my beam made and after finally getting my mind back on track with my body I was able to stand up and slowly start to climb out.
"HEEEY CAN I GET A LITTLE HELP DOWN HERE PLEASE?" I found out shortly that I was way to weak to climb as my legs gave out under me and I was forced to sit at the bottom of a 8 ft. hole. I was impressed at how powerful that attack was and even more surprised that I wasn't bottomed out when it came to my MP thanks to my newly leveled up MP storage it filled back up as soon as it was emptied. I just have to take some time and refill the storage again, better safe than sorry.
"Master, The others are unfortunately a little afraid of you right now and they think it would be best to keep you down in the hole until they come up with a plan. I tried to talk them out of it but they wouldn't listen to what I have to say."
Shorunt told me that but all I heard was that 'they are afraid of you'. My heart sank a little, I didn't want my new friends afraid of me I don't want them to not trust me. I even tried to save their lives from the explosion, ofcourse It's my fault that it happened I should have known that it would happen and should have explained to Sondar not to infuse so much mana all at once.
But thinking that led me to another thought.
'Hey wait a minute, now I know this world works differently but am I wrong in the thinking that the rock was actually creating its own mana? System is that possible for that to happen?'
[It is a very improbable thing to happen but in this world many variables exist, In dungeons there are what is known as Mana Crystals which can emit mana of their own but this cave has shone no signs of them. One moment please.]
I was a bit confused about the whole mana crystal thing but I just chalked it up to another thing I should learn when I could.
[Diagnosis of current location analyzed. Ambient mana has been identified in very small and negligible amounts in the surround rock. User is encouraged to examine and experiment with surrounding rock to identify.]
'That's nice does that mean that we are in the center of a minefield?'
[No, Earlier accident was the result of infusion of large quantities into an otherwise low-quality mana absorbing material.]
Ok so with that cleared up somewhat I start to look around. But all of it just looked like the same cave that was always around us. So bright idea time and I used Detection on the earth around me to see if anything stood out.
Almost immediately my mind was attacked as all I could see was bright light all around me. It was like looking at the sun with nothing but infrared.
"AHHHH Dammit that hurts, Motherfker. Shorunt whats going on up there?" Having fed up with waiting after being blinded by how everything around me is supposedly mana conductive. I needed to get out of this hole and talk with the others. Thankfully this time it wasn't Shorunt who came to talk to me.
"Vexsus, listen what we just saw was a very shocking thing not only did you basically explode into a blood and blue flame fountain. We also saw you regenerate faster than any of us had heard about. Then you were not responding only to wake up and devour multiple bodies like some savage beast. We need time to deal with that don't you understand?"
I looked up at the voice to see Kitsoma with a look of poorly veiled fear. I was a bit mad at myself at making her feel this way towards me but I didn't have time as the surrounding was slowly getting more charged just by us being in proximity. It was leeching out our power slowly but surely.
"Kitsoma I understand but I just discovered something that needs to be figured out right away. The place we are in right now is low grade un-refined mana crystal it is sapping our strength we need to leave now or else we could be weakened severely!"
The look of fear over me turned into a look of fear at the surroundings as she looked around almost in non belief. She didn't say anything else and left to go talk to the others. I called over Shorunt to speak to him in the meantime.
"Shorunt Hey so what are they doing? And what are the girls doing right now?"
"Well master the other goblins are training with eachother as we speak. Konna and Liosa are sparring and Tinoa and Vinoa are focusing on their magic. The others of our group are busy speaking about what you just told them."
"Great, ok so have the sister's start focusing on learning mana manipulation this is an important skill for our group ok? and have the Konna and Liosa discovered any magical potential?"
"Will do master and as for the second question, no they have not. They did however try but Konna got fed up and punched a wall so hard that her knuckles broke haha. I healed her don't worry."
I laughed a little at that just because I could see the now thick-headed Konna doing something like that.
"OK I want Konna to focus and try and imagine her body flexing so hard that it becomes hardened. I want Liosa to work on becoming as quiet as possible to the point that not even a god could find her."
"Your message will be passed along. Are you hungry?"
"I'm fine I can last for a bit longer but if the others still don't decide anything go ahead and subtly hint that I am feeling peckish ok? I may trust them but if they are going to treat me like this then I'll just do what I want when I feel stronger got it?"
"Yes master." He leaves immediately to do what I said as I close my eyes and concentrate on recovering my mana. I keep using Detection to keep an eye on the stone around us that way I can measure how much it is sapping from me as I draw in the magic. I found out that per 10 mana I regained the stone around me took away 9. I was barely refilling my MP but I was also starting to see a possibility. If the mana in the dungeon is able to be absorbed by the rock and then turned into crystal over time, what if I just went all out on my absorption for a little bit and sped up the natural refining process a bit?"
It was about an hour later while this whole time I was using MP Absorption. The rock around me was starting to faintly glow a deep almost imperceptible shade of blue. My MP Storage ability was able to level up again as it was in a constant state of being drained by the stones and being refilled. Shockingly as the stones purity got better the amount they drained from me got worse. I was now having to absorb up to 20 MP per minute just to keep up with the drain from these stones. I took a break from doing that to rest my mind. It may not have taken any MP or stamina to do this but the mental focus required to do that for little over an hour was very taxing.
About that time was when I started to feel a shaking before steps were made into the ground next to me leading up and out of the hole. I was still physically a bit weak but I went ahead and walked up. I was greeted by the goblins first before the group stood in front of me.
"Vexsus we came to a decision." Sondar spoke up as he stood as the center piece to the others.
I was a bit apprehensive just from the looks of fear that still lingered in their eyes but their body language was misleading. Sondar and Howy stood like a wall infront of me while Sylvania and Kitsoma were more open and not as threatening.
"And? What is it Sondar? Are you guys going to cast me aside like a piece of trash, EVEN after I saved you all from the mistake that YOU made?" I decided I wasn't going to be nice about it if they decided that I was a threat. Yea I may have some issues but after everything I did for these bastards I wasn't going to be used up and tossed away.
"Vexsus you behaved like a savage beast earlier, how can you blame us for being this way towards you. You scared us, Yea we are indebted to you but what happens when this happens again and there is no food nearby for you to consume huh? We don't know if your going to attack and try and eat us just because your Gluttony needs to be fed. I personally can't risk that without insurance."
"OMG you Fcking retard. I was in a Coma from having the whole center of my body blown up from the inside because you were so gung-ho about trying to learn a new skill after I hurt your feelings. For one get over it I want to be stronger I need companions who are strong and will continue to grow. You got upset about me not wanting to use you like a shitty tool factory anymore. I wanted you to conserve your strength for fights or for expanding your power, not to make fcking shovels or be the main labor force of our group."
"Another thing is that When there wasn't food did my body attack you? or the others? Or did my body only act out when a source of food became available? That's right it only ate the corpses because I felt a trust between us and my body even subconsciously knew not to attack my friends. But if this is how your going to treat me after saving your worthless lives than screw you all I'm gone. Also by the way the whole area around us is still in the process of sapping our strength I refined it a bit to strengthen how much it would drain have fun."
I proceeded to have the goblins follow me as I left the mana cave. I entered into the entrance cave leading to the ant colony but was stopped shortly after by the leftovers.
"Hey wait Vexsus. We didn't mean it like that man comeon don't just throw us away like that we're sorry ok please stay." Howy was the first to reach me and started pleading for me to stay with them. They others shortly arrived behind him and did the same thing. Kitsoma and Sylvania apologized for not standing up for me, they were just to shocked by the recent events and were stuck deep in thought. It wasn't until Sondar came up to me that I really started oozing out anger towards them.
"Look I made a mistake man. I messed up with the rock and I was just to mentally messed up afterwards and when we came back to see you dive bomb into the corpses and start slinging around intestines and shit I just lost it for a minute. I swear I wasn't going to ask that you leave. I just wanted to make sure where we stood with you. I still want to be your companion, I just got scared because of how powerful you are man." He spoke all this while looking down. He looked at me a couple times but I still couldn't bring myself to calm down.
"Ok then riddle me this. Why was I left in a fcking hole for over an hour while you guys talked about what to do?"
"That was just the best way I could think of. You weren't in danger or anything and it gave us some comfort. You have to see it from our side Vex you showed us just how vicious you can be when you have no food and your Sin takes over. We just needed that space to get some clarity. That's why after we decided we were still wanting to travel with you that we let you out. We were going to discuss it calmly but Idiot Sondar spoke up first."
Kitsoma hurried up and stepped in front of Sondar to say that just to make sure that he didn't make another mistake. I was starting to calm down now but some anger was still left over. So I told them that they were in charge of making this entrance defensible again while me and the goblins went to look for food in the colony. I didn't care if the goblins came back and that they were strong enough to handle a few goblins without me.
They all nodded without much input, only a couple 'OKs' were spoken as I left with my minions.
It was time to hunt and boy did I need it. My anger was starting to overflow again just thinking about the shit that went down all because of an idiot. Unknowingly a red aura started to ooze out of my body but just faintly.
"Master, are you ok?" Shorunt looked over at me with an odd look.
"No why?" I asked without realizing that I was subconsciously leaking mana out of my body that combined with my current feelings. I was to mentally overwhelmed to realize what was happening.
"Well your starting to leak out mana. You need to keep that in check master. You don't want to alert the enemy of our presence."
After having it pointed out to me. I come up with a great plan to satisfy my thirst for blood.
"You see Shorunt. Right now you should be preparing for a fight."
"Why? do you sense enemies approaching?" He and the others got into a battle position quickly and looking all around.
"No but they will be." I say before unleashing all of my mana and anger creating an overflowing aura of emotion that caused a loud and ear piercing squeal to come from deep in the tunnels.
"Get ready....I just summoned the queen."
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[Breath of Light] 0 -> 1
[Detection] 55% -> 60%
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