Chapter 85 Lead
Upon hearing Kira's words, somehow everything began to make sense to Nial.
Owing to her background Kira was likely to have received many resources, which allowed her to become a powerful Original in a very short time.
Adding her own talent to it further increased her chances to be considered a prodigy.
As such, Nial believed that Kira was currently trying to expand her own network and build more connections.
And, if that were to be the case, the Teradan military camp was likely to be the best choice for her to achieve this.
However, instead of going by herself, which would be illogical, she had to send a dark horse into the fray.
Being the biggest underdog she could have stumbled upon, Nial was the best pick for Kira.
Understanding this was not difficult, and as long as he was promising enough, Kira would reap countless benefits.
Maybe the same would even apply to her entire family, but that was something Nial was not sure of.
In the end, Kira had used her recommendation as an individual with connections to the government's higher authorities to give Nial a chance.
This was a big gamble and a risk for her because Kira didn't know anything about Nial.
She had not even bothered to do a background check before proposing to recommend him to the Teradan military camp.
That was mostly owing to his noble reason to become stronger, and the fact that Kira had a good feeling about Nial.
Kira had already interviewed hundreds of youths in Katu, but none of them had been impressive enough to shake her.
Only Nial seemed to be an exception, and Kira didn't even know why this was the case.
It was solely her gut feeling telling her to gamble her one chance on him.
Because, when she had heard a few things from her sister, followed by Nial's revelation that he bound a curse to his mana core, Kira knew that it would be a big mistake to allow Nial to roam around in Katu without proper guidance and teachings.
As such, she brought him to her mansion.
Having listened to her sister, who was now waiting for Nial at the door of the mansion, Kira was of the opinion that it had been quite useless to take Nial away from Mara.
'In the end, she will teach him a few things, either way…Well, at least, I got to recommend him and not Sis!'
Convincing herself that everything was going according to her plan, or at least, to some extent, Kira followed Nial who was already standing in front of the stairs.
His mana perception fully released, Nial was able to sense everything.
In fact, he was even able to control a bit of the surrounding mana particles.
It was not much, and his control was quite lacking because the mana particles hadn't been annexed by him, thus being natural and raw.
Nevertheless, it was fascinating, and Nial couldn't help but smile lightly.
The revelation about the background of the siblings was quite a shocker, but he had had a hunch that there were not ordinary Originals from the beginning.
As such, it didn't take long before he was able to regain his composure.
His interest overwhelmed his other senses, and Nial tried to figure out how dense and pure the surrounding mana was.
'It's a few times denser than the mana inside the redwood tree dungeon, but that's it. The mana is not as pure as mana that originates from Origin crystals!'
This fact was quite interesting because even the Lowest Common Origin crystal was relatively pure, which was noticeable right now.
Hence, Nial felt that the experiment of the government seemed to have failed.
But, the way in which Kira had spoken about the test made him a bit doubtful.
It was not difficult to figure out what Nial was thinking about because most guests were doubtful of the exact effect of the experiment they were conducting.
However, most people were missing a simple fact, which Mara wanted to hint to him.
Yet, even before she was able to say something, Nial suddenly mumbled.
"Do they want to accelerate the awakening process of Originals?"
This was just a thought that flashed through Nial's mind and he blurted out more to himself than the sisters, but when they heard this, they halted in their tracks.
It took Kira a moment to realize that Nial had arrived at the conclusion pretty easily.
This reaffirmed the fact that her choice had been correct, and she began to smile, proud about having chosen Nial as her recommendation.
"Absorbing and annexing the surrounding mana works too, but the purity is not exactly great. You probably noticed that too.
However, your assumption was correct. The government is currently trying to figure out ways on how to naturally awaken more Originals.
The reason is obvious, right?"
Mara had regained her senses quite fast, and she didn't seem to hesitate to reveal some facts about the government that was likely to be a secret.
This was unexpected, but Nial simply nodded his head.
The reason to start the experiment, to begin with, was the obvious threat the dungeon posed to mankind.
Not only were there only a total of nine shelters left on the continent, but even they weren't safe.
If the so-called safe havens of humanity were not safe and secure enough, problems would occur.
Unfortunately, the biggest issue was the fact that more dungeon portals seemed to emerge inside the shelters.
Some of them seemed to be quite dangerous too.
Luckily, there hadn't been the emergence of the more disastrous dungeon portals inside their shelter, but Nial had heard more than enough rumors about their other shelters. Those shelters had been destroyed before he was born.
It was great that mankind had never given up, and with nine shelters left behind, their situation was not that bad either.
Yet, the situation was, by no means, great, or on the way to improving.
On the contrary, it was obviously becoming more dangerous for the military to pay attention to all dungeons, and the attacks of beasts from the wilderness.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many public dungeons that were still pending verification.
First, there was the Machnam dungeon he conquered, and afterward, the Redwood tree dungeon that had all items the government required.
The public might be unaware of the real dangers that the wilderness posed, but Nial had figured it out to some extent.
If the few dungeons inside the shelters were already posing a lethal threat to mankind's survival, outside it would be tens, if not hundreds of times worse!
Nial didn't like what he was comprehending, but it was a bitter truth and one more reason for him to strive to become stronger, possibly the strongest.
He was not sure if that was feasible or not.
However, he could not afford to dwell any further on that.
If something had to be done, one had to take the first step, even if he were to be the first.
That was what Nial was currently imagining, only to recall that he was way too weak to even think about taking the first step for anything.
Shaking his head, he got rid of the confusing thoughts and smiled lightly at Librarian Mara before he nodded his head.
"We are living in a dangerous world, after all!"
He knew that he didn't have to answer the rhetorical question, but when Mara heard him she nodded her head before opening the door.
"Come inside, we have lots of things to talk about, and even more things to take care of….your Curse, for example is one such thing!"
Nial could imagine what Mara wanted to talk about.
Nevertheless, he couldn't really understand why her voice had become angry as if she wanted to lecture him.
He was confused by the abrupt change in her tone but simply followed her up the stairs.
After entering the mansion, Nial didn't sense anything special.
The exterior of the shelter governor's land was the most interesting, and the interior was plain luxurious.
Wealth and luxury hardly mattered to him so he didn't even give it an appreciating look.
As such, instead of admiring the glamorous interior, Nial focused on the mana fluctuations of every single object inside the mansion.
Because he was able to perceive the vast majority of the mansion with his extended mana perception, it was quite easy for him to accidentally infiltrate the privacy of others.
However, in order to perceive his surroundings properly, there was not really much he could do about it, except suppressing his perception.
This was exactly what he did after gaining some understanding of where he was.
Approaching a quite ordinary living room, if one were to exclude the fact that his entire house and backyard would fit into it, he walked inside.
Kira sat down on the lengthy couch before pointing next to her.
"Sit down. Once Mara starts, it will take a while. Be prepared for a long talk."
Kira seemed accustomed to her sister's behavior because she was nonchalantly sitting on the couch, her head leaning on the backrest.
She was already annoyed, knowing what was about to happen, and her body reacted instinctively when Kira heard that her sister was returning to the mansion as well.
With a jerk her upper body leaned upward, and only due to her legs resting on the ground did she not shoot into the air.
This made it pretty clear as to who had the upper hand in the household, which caused him to smile lightly.
"Do you want to drink something? Water, Tea, coffee? Maybe you'll need something stronger…how about wine? Or do you prefer something Vodka-based, a cocktail?"
Nial felt that Librarian Mara was quite nonchalant, which was quite different to how her sister seemed to think about her.
This told Nial that Mara was currently being polite, and not displaying her usual behavior.
"I don't really like alcohol. If possible, I would like to get some water."
Nial didn't really need anything to drink, but he didn't want to come across as rude to reject such an offer.
Mara just wanted to ease the tension and to show him that she was friendly to guests.
As such, she returned to the kitchen, only to stop midway as she gathered a large amount of mana around her.
Moving the stream of mana towards the kitchen, she turned it into a hand which was retracted a few moments later, and now held a glass of water in it.
Afterward, the mana hand disappeared and was replaced by Mara's hand that grasped the glass of water that she held out to Nial only a moment later.
It was obvious that she wanted to demonstrate her strength, the extent of her mana control, and much more.
However, Nial didn't mind that, at all.
Rather, he felt that it was quite interesting because her precise movements made him eager to find out more about how exactly she was doing everything.
Nial's control over mana had improved, even more so after he had bound the Curse [Hodur's Heir] towards his mana core.
As such, he was eager to find out more about learning more to have precise control over mana.
Yet, before Nial could do anything, Mara sat down next to Nial, who was squeezed between the sisters as she said.
"I guess you can already figure out what my first question will be….why the hell did you bind a Curse to your mana core?!"
The question was truly not unexpected, and Nial was ready to answer it.
Unfortunately, the pressure that radiated from both the siblings rendered Nial unable to say a single word, and it nearly suffocated him.
It caused his heart to beat wildly loudly, and the two sisters could only look at him in confusion not knowing what was taking him so long to answer.
But after seeing Nial's beet red cheeks, both cursed out simultaneously.
"Fuck, sorry!"
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