3111 Enjoy It
Leonel's situation was a bit… complicated.
Before, he only needed one thing to progress: an obscene amount of energy. But now, it was a little more tricky.
Unfortunately, he still needed a ridiculous amount of energy. There was simply no getting around that. But the irony was that getting this large amount had become several fold easier.
In the past, he was on his own. But now, he didn't mind stealing from his grandfather if he had to. And, in fact, he already had.
Before they left the Fawkes Empire, Leonel and Nilrem had done a nice little raid on the Fawkes treasure house… again.
But therein lay the problem.
He had resources in spades now. But his body situation was different.
The first and most important point was that the foundation of his body had become his new, still unnamed Innate Node.
This Innate Node took up residence in his heart, directly replacing it, in fact. And, it was this Innate Node that became the first Weapon Force Innate Node in all of existence.
Leonel was certain that this was the right path, but it made other things many times more tricky.
For example, his Metal Body. It wasn't exactly a Metal Body anymore and had instead become a Weapon Force Body. On the one hand, it was great because Leonel's body was essentially an extension of his weapons, he could gather more Weapon Force per any given action, and he could even assimilate a much wider range of Forces into his body now compared to before.
Because his Innate Node was a concentration of both of his Weapon Force Sovereignties, and all four of his Creation and Destruction Sovereignties, it was unique in the sense that it could help his Weapon Forces to become anything.
And by extension, it allowed his "Metal Body" to absorb anything.
Unfortunately, as great as that sounded, it would be truly stupid to just start swallowing any and everything.
Leonel had spent too long in his journey battling out with having too many diverging paths of talent to fall back into the same cesspool.
Then there was his Divine Armor.
He already had a decent idea of how he wanted to create his next Divine Armors. Once again, he found himself in a situation where he could start from scratch, applying everything that he had come to learn over the course of this journey into action.
The obvious choice was to recreate Heirlooms turned God Armaments that could stand head to head with either.
But even Leonel somewhat felt he was overestimating himself with the ideas he had come up with. He wasn't some omnipotent God of Crafting… yet. And even the Fawkes treasure stores would start taking a hit if he really did do what he wanted to do.
And yet, there were still more problems yet.
The aspects of his talent left in the greatest shambles were his Northern Star Lineage Factor.
Without the Dream Force foundation of his Dream Asura Bloodline to anchor it, it had practically gone awry.
Although he had pretty much sacrificed it all for the sake of improving his Constitution, he had lost all of that after his rebirth. And even if he hadn't, he would have replaced it all with his Weapon Forces anyway.
This meant that the Northern Star Lineage Factor was like a loose end wiggling about in his body with no start and no end. Without being organized, it could easily trigger a disaster for him in the future or waste his potential in the present.
It was hard to tell which would be the case.
With all of this laid out, it was no wonder Leonel didn't even know where to look first. He had been very certain of the first step before he started, but now he was flying like a headless chicken… or in other words, flailing around on the ground in a pool of his own neck blood.
PENG!
At that moment, Leonel's spear was suddenly stopped by the pinch of two fingers.
He blinked in slight surprise before looking up and seeing Nilrem, who had a funny little grin on his face.
"It seems it's time for me to shine."
Leonel raised an eyebrow, not quite understanding. Although this man called himself his master, he had never really done anything of the sort. In fact, Nilrem had tried to kill him many times and hadn't even been there during the most important moments of his life.
However…
Leonel had never had any hostility for Nilrem. That was because he could see that his intentions were pure even though he was nigh impossible to read…
It was a clearly contradictory statement, yet it seemed to make perfect sense to Leonel.
"Your time to shine? In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a mentally fragile teenage girl. Isn't that your usual M.O.?"
Nilrem looked aghast. "The number of sophisticated older women this esteemed gentleman has bedded is beyond your imagination!"
"Not denying the fact you've targeted fragile little girls is a… choice, sure." Leonel said with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't try to get me caught in your word salad, brat. I only bed women who are of age!"
"Of age for what? Potty training?"
The banter of the two filled the forest until Nilrem seemed to realize something and grinned sinisterly.
He grabbed Leonel's shoulders and hurled him into the air.
Leonel didn't even know what to say as he spun through the skies. What was this damned old man doing?
"Do you know how many reincarnations you've put me through? How many times you've made me suffer through the same timelines again and again? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I'VE DIED, BRAT?!"
Leonel didn't even know what to say to this.
"Well, I've got thousands of those lives in my head, each one representing a different path you took completely without my consent or guidance.
"And now I'm about to drill you with them all.
"And enjoy it."