Odyssey of the Blind God

Two hours passed in the blink of an eye. In the meantime, Nial had focused on absorbing and annexing the mana from the origin crystals that had been lying around him.

Nial's control over mana was steadily increasing, and it allowed him to absorb more mana than both Bella and Mathias.

In fact, with his superior mana veins that were still growing and improving, Nial could already be considered to have an extremely high innate talent for mana.

After he absorbed the lesser Titan youngling's heart his proficiency over mana had increased rapidly, while his innate talent skyrocketed as well.

The mana from the origin crystals swirled around him, entering his body through the pores on his skin that had opened instinctively.

With a powerful surge, which pulled the surrounding mana towards him, Nial spent the two hours calmly sitting on the ground.

Numerous origin crystals had been drained of their mana to nourish his mana core.

However, owing to the fact that his mana core had been enlarged externally after absorbing the Lesser Titan youngling's heart, Nial's progress was relatively slow.

But even then, he gained lots of attention from the Originals, who were walking past him and his friends.

While the young participants of the Teradan military camp could only look at him slightly baffled, the camp's instructors took note of Nial's high affinity toward mana as well.

Meanwhile, Nial was oblivious to this and he merely got up from the ground when he sensed that both Bella and Mathias finished their short training session.

The two were patiently waiting for him, and intently staring at him as if they wanted to find out something.

"Just how much mana does he require to expand his mana core?!" Mathias mumbled, utterly dumbfounded.

He could clearly sense that Nial absorbed twice the amount of mana he had absorbed in the last two hours.

According to him, this automatically meant that Nial could enlarge his mana core twice as fast.

But from the looks of it, Nial was still in need of lots of mana before he would be able to enlarge his mana core once again.

This was simply too confusing for Mathias, only for Bella to clear his doubts.

"Didn't you notice it already, Mathias? Nial's mana core stores more mana than an ordinary 3rd Origin rank should be able to. That means he needs more mana to enlarge his mana core.

I guess he could be considered to have reached the 6th Origin rank, solely from the amount of mana he can utilize right now."

Even if Mathias had already noticed that Nial could use an oddly high amount of mana despite his low rank, he had never expected his friend to quickly bridge the gap between them both and be considered to have reached the same Origin rank as him.

'Wait…doesn't that actually mean that he can create Advanced Origin rings the moment he reaches the 7th Origin rank? And…if he can be considered to have reached the same rank as I have, I should really start working harder!!'

Many thoughts flashed through Mathias' mind, but the most important was that he began to compare his achievements with Nial's.

This was a big mistake as it soured his mood for a moment.

In the beginning, Mathias had been quite certain that he would receive numerous advantages solely from the fact that he was a reincarnation.

After all, being a reincarnation had always been considered something miraculous and exceptional as if one had been reincarnated owing to Heaven's will.

His reincarnation and the belief that his Innate ability was the most powerful had been one of the few reasons why he had applied to the Teradan military camp, to begin with.

Yet, the longer he was around both Bella and Nial, the less special Mathias felt.

This was not necessarily bad but it certainly shattered his dreams and dragged him down from the throne he had imagined himself to be sitting on.

He might have high potential in terms of talent for mana, and his Innate ability was certainly powerful.

However, there was still a difference between possessing talent and being favored by Heaven!

Too many prodigious Originals could be seen inside the Teradan military camp but there were only a few that were truly capable of achieving something great.

Those few Originals were the most hard-working, had encountered numerous dangers, or had faced incidents in the past that they never wanted to witness again.

There was something that made them strive for more strength to be able to change their own fate and overcome all kinds of obstacles.

And that was something Mathias could understand the best.

However, even if he understood it, he took way too long to realize that it was his actions and decisions that would change his future, not some 'Heaven's will' or whatever.

It was his future, so he had to give his all and strive hard to change it as per his liking.

Mathias' gaze followed Nial and Bella, who had already gotten up from the ground.

'They're also giving their best to rewrite their own future…I cannot lack behind!'

That thought reverberated through Mathias' mind as he followed his two friends to the Miriad trading firm's assessment center.

A huge fortune awaited them there, after all!

Nial walked absentmindedly as he made his way to the trading firm. He clenched his fist and was trying to figure out something weird he had noticed while absorbing and annexing the mana from the origin crystals.

'Even Mid-Common graded Origin crystals are insufficient for me?'

Throughout the last two hours, Nial had been forced to use several dozen Mid Common graded Origin crystals to increase the amount of mana within his mana core by a little bit.

It was not even noteworthy to say that he had spent two whole hours absorbing mana.

Despite that fact, Nial could clearly tell that the same amount he had absorbed before would have been more than enough to fill more than a quarter of his mana core.

However, right now, it was far less than a tenth. If he sensed everything properly, his mana core was merely filled by 2% contrary to the quarter the same amount would have filled before.

'Do I require more than ten times more mana than before, or is it just the low quality of the origin crystals that deteriorates the progression?'

Nial was pretty sure that the latter was true.

As such, he told himself to purchase Peak Common grade Origin crystals next time.

These origin crystals would allow him to test the limits of his current mana control as well.

This excited Nial quite a bit, which was also why he didn't notice that they were already at the Miriad trading firm.

In fact, Bella was already talking to a burly middle-aged man, whose body was wide enough to fit two ordinary humans.

For a moment, Nial was astonished about facing such a broad man but the moment he heard the man's calm voice, the tension within his body was released at once.

"Hello dear customers, after thoroughly examining the runic armaments I have arrived at a price of 271,651 military merit points. Is that price to your satisfaction?"

Nial could tell that the middle-aged man was slightly nervous. The mana within his body was not stable and owing to Nial's range of perception he was able to tell that the manager of the Miriad trading firm's branch was trying his best to not show his nervousness.

That could have multiple reasons but Nial was pretty sure that it was nothing serious.

It was simply too difficult to determine a proper price for most runic armaments because mankind had never heard of them before.

While a few ungraded runic armaments had already been sold to them, the Tier-0 runic armaments were a whole different story.

Nial and his team were the first ones to sell Tier-0 runic armaments. If sold to the right merchants and families, these runic armaments could fetch them a huge fortune.

The worth of runic armaments had yet to be finalized. For now, there were not that many runic armaments, which meant that a low supply met a high demand.

This was to the three friend's advantage and skyrocketed the price of each runic armament even though their real value might be slightly less.

However, that was exactly what worried the middle-aged man right now.

From the information everyone got to know, there were only a dozen or so towers in the ancient ruins.

It was possible to plunder these towers as long as one killed all beasts around and within the tower. Afterward, one had to spend a few days, or possibly a week or two to avoid being killed by the traps and carefully move around to loot everything.

This would definitely take some time, which meant that several thousand ungraded runic armaments and hundreds of Tier-0 runic armaments would suddenly appear on the market.

Such a number was still way too low to meet the demand, but it would still be enough to greatly reduce the fortune merchants could earn, meaning that one had to be careful at what price one purchased these items!

Thus, the manager of the Teradan military camp's Miriad trading firm branch chose to pay around 270,000 military merit points as the price, which would hopefully satisfy the three young Originals in front of him.

'They won't choose to go somewhere else with that price, right?' There were quite a few other trading firms in the Teradan military camp.

Because there were other choices for Nial and the others, they could pick the best one that suited their interest.

However, Nial was not really worried about this. By dividing 270,000 military merit points, each of them would have a total of 100,000 military merit points in total.

This would be the case when they would add their existing military merit points that exceeded the figure of 10,000.  Each of their accounts had gained a little over 10,000 points because the government rewarded them rather handsomely for the ungraded runic armaments they had sold to it.

100,000 military merit points were more than enough for everything they needed. Thus, Nial didn't want to make things difficult for others, even less because he could clearly tell how worried the middle-aged man was.

"I'm fine with that price." Nial simply stated his opinion, while Bella was still deep in her thoughts.

She was equally clueless about what figures to expect for selling her share of the runic armaments. That was why she had planned to use the mysteriousness that revolved around the existence of the runic armaments in order to earn a huge fortune.

But seeing that Nial readily agreed to the price and that he faintly smiled at her, she could only agree as well.

'Is he foolish or just too generous?!' Bella could tell that Nial would never become a businessman.

However, that was not necessary as long as he wouldn't be extorted. And that was something she doubted would ever happen to him.

Nial might be a fool or overly kind but at the same time, he was decisive and slightly scary when the need arose.

That was something Bella had already witnessed several times…