Allen fled several kilometers in a panic before finally stopping and looking back.
At that moment, Lokkishi turned her head and looked back as well.
The two met each other's eyes for a moment, then turned around and continued on their way.
The road was not level.
Allen had just gone down a slope, and the middle stretch of it blocked their view of each other.
More accurately, if not for that slope, Allen would still be running right now.
Whew. That was dangerous. Is this what an invitation from a god feels like? Honestly, when I saw Lokkishi, I really wanted to agree right away. After traveling throughout the Asura Kingdom, she'd been alone all these years. Even though she was now striving to become a Water God-level Magician, after seeing my skills, she probably subconsciously wanted an adventurer companion who shared her ideals.
Whether it was helping the disciple she had not seen for years search the world for family after the Great Transfer, or acting cold when she met her parents again before breaking down in tears after learning how they truly felt, all of it proved that Lokkishi was, at heart, someone who valued close relationships. It was only because she had been discriminated against from the Millis Continent all the way to the Central Continent for her hair color and small stature over the years
that she always put on a cold front to protect herself.
It could be said that Lokkishi had the most tragic background and experiences among the heroines.
Allen sighed.
The Butterfly Effect is already showing itself, but I still have to keep pushing the system missions. Besides, I can't give up my fake Future Sight. Sorry, Lokkishi. Wait a little longer. The time isn't right yet.
As he spoke, Allen slowly drew his sword. The instant the tip left the sheath, he released the hilt, and the blade spun around his wrist with the hilt as its axis, like a fluttering butterfly.
When Allen caught the hilt again, he was holding the blade in a reverse grip, its cold gleam stretched before him.
The tip hovered exactly one centimeter above the skin on the inside of his left arm.
Allen lowered his head to look at the tip, raised his brows, and licked his lips.
Stab.
The blade sank into his skin without resistance, blood slowly seeping along its surface.
Without pulling the sword from the wound, Allen frowned and murmured.
"Healing Spell Rune, activate."
The moment he spoke, he felt his mana flow like water toward the Dragon Saint Battle Qi Core Embryo in his abdomen, climbing over the tree-shaped rune. The tree emitted a hazy green glow.
Then, as if dyed, the mana within his body was coated in a green radiance. The glow followed the mana and instantly surged into his arm.
The wound closed, damaged skin wrapped around the sword tip, and the bleeding stopped.
Allen stared fixedly at the wound, silently counted to nine, and swiftly pulled out the blade.
Visible to the naked eye, the wound immediately sealed shut before any blood could even spill out.
"Healing Spell Rune, deactivate."
Allen lightly touched the hairs around the wound with the sword tip. There was only a faint white mark there, and in the time it took him to blink, it became flakes of skin and blew away in the wind, leaving fresh skin beneath.
He smiled in satisfaction.
The activation time is the same as the time mana takes to flow through the body. Nice, it's fast. I can keep it active at any time during combat too. It's basically like having a Silent Casting Healing Spell running constantly. Heh, this system actually has a conscience.
Its healing effect was no different from Intermediate Healing Magic.
The mana consumed during ten seconds of activation was a loss.
Allen sensed the state of his mana for a while, and his expression instantly darkened.
About one-tenth? That's way too much. The fixed mana expenditure needed to maintain my Battle Qi's internal circulation is only kept at one-fifth year-round. And I'm only at four-fifths of full mana right now. Damn it, the mana this ten-second Healing Spell consumed would take me nearly a hundred days to recover.
Allen's mana consumption was equivalent to Orsted's, while his recovery rate was one thousand to one.
In other words, the mana an ordinary person could fully recover with one good night's sleep would take him a thousand sleeps to restore. This was why the system called this growth path the Path of the Swordsman, because it practically eliminated the possibility of Allen firing off a Water Cannon every now and then between sword swings.
The other Path of the Mage basically copied Rudeus's growth trajectory. His body could not be wrapped in Battle Qi, so he would have to take the route of a close-combat mage using Magic Armor.
It was worth mentioning that the system had copied its templates from characters who had already appeared in Mushoku Tensei. The Path of the Swordsman came from Orsted, while the Path of the Mage came from Laplace. It was foreseeable that, by taking both paths to their ends, he could become a complete replica of those two.
Of course, that would take a very, very long time. Without breaking through the limits of lifespan, it was highly unlikely he could achieve it.
Allen had previously analyzed the mission templates and concluded that they might be related to the phone embedded in his forehead before he transmigrated. When he died, the only novel saved on his phone was Mushoku Tensei. If he had stored more novels on it, perhaps he could have brought in character templates from the worlds of other novels.
It was a shame, but things had come to this. He could only face reality and accept it. After all, it was just a theory. Even if he had saved other novels, there was no guarantee there would really have been more character templates to choose from.
What if the system was not gathering novel data at all, but randomly drawing from every entertainment file on the phone, resulting in some bizarre template getting mixed in? That would be disastrous.
After all, no one wanted an Ito Makoto template, right? Reaching the Tutoring Period only to have Eris cut off his head, then sail out to sea holding it in his arms—that kind of development would be utterly ridiculous.
Allen let out a breath, looked at the Dragon Saint Battle Qi Core Embryo in his abdomen, lowered the sword tip, and cut into his skin.
I hope Dragon Saint Battle Qi's mana-consumption reduction buff can stack with this healing buff. If it can't, I'll shut down the rune immediately.
Dragon Saint Battle Qi Core Embryo and Healing Spell Rune, activate simultaneously.
With high-quality Battle Qi wrapped around his body, Allen overloaded his five senses once more so he could clearly perceive the changes occurring within his body in real time:
Then, a wondrous sight appeared. The rune slowly began to pulse like a heart, drawing streams of mana from Allen's body into itself like liquid before expelling them toward every part of his body.
He did not feel any additional consumption from the Dragon Saint Battle Qi. Perhaps because the rune itself was on the Dragon Saint Battle Qi Core Embryo, it could directly draw mana through the embryo as a medium and benefit from the reduced mana-consumption buff without additionally wearing down the Dragon Saint Battle Qi.
The rate of mana consumption had clearly slowed.
Likewise, after counting to nine, he pulled out the blade. This time, it took some effort, because with Battle Qi wrapped around him, the muscles around the wound tightly gripped the sword tip.
Watching the wound rapidly heal, Allen immediately deactivated the Healing Spell Rune.
He kept the Dragon Saint Battle Qi Core Embryo active, because the mana loss this time was relatively small, and he needed the enhancement of Dragon Saint Battle Qi to see it clearly.
There was no difference in activation time. Dragon Saint Battle Qi provided no additional amplification to the Healing Spell Rune, and correspondingly, there was no increase in healing effectiveness.
The mana consumed in ten seconds was one-fiftieth of his body's full mana, meaning one day's mana recovery could sustain it for 0.5 seconds. Using a full Healing Spell would consume mana that could be recovered in a few days. If used only when needed, it was manageable and basically self-sustaining.
If I keep it active during combat, my Battle Qi requires one-fifth of my mana year-round for internal circulation. In an extreme situation, I can squeeze the remaining four-fifths into maintaining four hundred seconds of continuous combat. Divide by sixty to convert it into minutes.
6.666666666
6.
Tomorrow, I'll make contact with Rudy's family and enter Rudy's affection route. Things will get interesting.
But the overall story during the childhood period was far too peaceful. To verify Allen's true strength, he needed a more intense conflict-driven plot, and the chain Butterfly Effect caused by Allen and Lokkishi would bring that about.
Before you continue