-65

The first bullet hits Flash Gordon. The shot barely takes a chunk from his enormous health pool. Flash Gordon gained experience from the snails and the guy that’s dead body is currently in the janitor's closet.

Name: Flash Gordon.

Nickname: Flash Gordon.

Species: Spirit Stone (Rare Rock)

Level: 20 1300/5000

Evolution Requirements Not Met

~

Health Points: 515/575

Mana Points: 0/0

Armor Points: 35

~

Might: 0

Agility: 0

Vigor: 100 + 15

Mind: 0

Spirit: 20

Luck: 5

~

Traits:

Spiritual Body A

Armor increases by Spirit. Can hit Spiritual Entities.

Hard as a Hard Stone D

Armor is increased by 15

~

The other bullet flies into Charlie as the boss looks on in horror. Charlie dived in front of the gun, he didn’t catch the first bullet, but the second one rips into his stomach.

“WHAT DID YOU DO, GODDESS I’M SORRY” the boss starts pleading. He falls to his knees staring at the undamaged statue of Merita. He starts crawling to it.

“IT WASN’Y MY FAULT, HE DID IT TO HIMSEL-” he suddenly stops talking. His golden form melts away and pools around him like a puddle of paint revealing his normal self.

He clutches his neck as molten gold starts violently streaming out of every orifice on his body. His screams are muffled by the heavy metal. I ignore his gruesome death and walk over to Charlie. I hold his head up and he starts talking to me.

“Ellis, sorry for dragging you into this, I’m sure you have many questions.”

I do have many questions, but I’d rather leave and let the enforcers handle the rest.

“I bought a sketchy book from some merfolk, you know it’s super sketchy when even I acknowledge it,” Charlie laughs at his self-burn and spits up blood. I let him continue talking.

“It gave instructions on how to make a deal with the goddess of wealth herself. I used all my savings and the 10 grand you gave me to perform the ritual. By oath, I can’t tell you the specifics, but I sold the idea of a digital currency to her. Right now the deal is finalizing.”

I look down at Charlie, then look over at the boss. He is still writhing on the ground vomiting gold, his skin is searing from the heat.

“What is happening to that guy.”

“The Goddess wanted to make sure I stay safe until the deal is over, she must have sent a message to her followers that were closest to me, to tell them to protect me because of an ongoing deal. Unfortunately, her closest followers were these scumbags.”

Charlie seems pissed at these guys, the boss is no longer moving.

“Hurting someone that is dealing with their goddess is a big sin, and as retribution for killing me, he was forced to vomit up all his wealth.” Charlie looks weakly away. “Sorry Ellis for dragging you into this.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” I pour the rest of my mana to close his wound. “You wouldn't have been shot if I wasn’t so adamant about making sure you were okay.”

The enforcers barge into the room.

“Bluefield ED. Put your hands in the air.”

I stare blankly at the enforcers and just like the time outside the fracture I slowly put my bloody hands in the air. I see the Captian that I made Nelson call. He looks around the room in shock, especially the remains of the casino boss.

“We need a healer here.” the caption calls out, an enforcer comes over to Charlie and me and starts to tend to our wounds. I call out to the captain.

“What took you so long?”

“Our mission was to secure the prisoners and to group up any criminals we came across. Since some of the casino workers were uncooperative, we had to put them down.” replied the Captain.

“What is your name sir?” It would be petty of me to hold a grudge.

“You can call me Captain Doyle. How are you doing Ellis?”

I go to check my health, and what I see appalls me. I didn’t get any exp from this guy, did the Goddess’ Retribution eat away all the exp too? Fuck, even a fraction of that experience would shoot me up quite significantly with my [Fell the Mighty] title. This puts a dampener on my mood.

“I’ll be fine.” I leave Charlie in the care of a healer, I walk over and start moving the fragmented bones together so Rob can reassemble faster. I find Duchess laying on the ground in front of the broken aquarium, fat, and content.

“Were you pigging out while I was fighting for my life?”

[Nope, thisss one started feasting after the ruffian started vomiting metal.]

I check Duchess’ [Status]

Name: Duchess

Nickname: Bitch

Species: Feathered Boa F (Rare)

Level: 10 (MAXED)

Evolution Requirements Not Met

~

Health: 50/50

Mana: 20/150

Armor: 0

~

Might: 10

Agility: 15

Vigor: 10

Mind: 25 > 30

Spirit: 10 > 14

Charisma: 15

Luck: 0 > 10

~

Holy shit were those golden koi actual [Golden Koi]. I hold her by the tail and shake her.

“Why didn’t you share with your master, huh! You little bitch.”

[Thiss one will throw up if you don’t stop shaking. This one had a feeling that I needed to eat them.]

I quickly recheck her status and notice something different. It no longer says ‘Evolution Requirements Unknown’. I stop shaking her around. When I focus on her ‘Evolution Requirements Not Met’ a new window pops up.

[Evoltion to Winged Serpent

Unlock Luck: Completed

Reach an Altitude of 50,000 feet: Not Completed

Consume a D-rank Crystal: Not Completed]

“Winged Serpent? Also, how am I going to meet the other requirements?

[Did you say Winged Serpent?! That's Incredible!]

“Isn’t that just a snake with wings? What's so special about it?”

[...]

[Winged snakes are regarded as gods in most cultures]

Captian Doyle comes up and speaks to me before I can rebuttal. “Your friend is going to be all right. By the way kid, thanks for calling in that tip, we have been wanting to take down this guy for quite a while now.”

“So why haven’t you? You just came in and swept up, why couldn’t you do that before.” I was genuinely confused.

“There is something called politics, we needed one final thing to make sure this all goes down smoothly. If we go in without the right reason, then we are the bad guys in the eyes of the court. But since we had a phone call that came within the compound from someone not affiliated with the enforcers, we can use probable cause to come right in.”

That doesn’t sound right… as long as I don't have to do anything else concerning this place, I’ll take any explanation.

“Speaking of which Ellis, are you interested in a job?”

At those words I leave as fast as possible, taking only a brief moment to check on Charlie and make sure I’m not leaving anyone behind. I keep going until I’m out of the building. There are enforcers in a perimeter around the building keeping out the populous. I discreetly grab my bag and leave the crime scene.

I try to spot Winkleton in the crowd of victims being escorted away but I don’t see him anywhere. There goes that money…

~

I decide to start training my tamed beast like any good master. Rob is still underutilizing his new evolution and using his reassembling trait as a crutch in battle. It’s great that most attacks won't kill him, but being out of the fight if he gets scattered is a huge detriment. It turns out that his [Create Tool] isn’t called [Create Shovel] because he was some serious leeway with his tool making.

He can make multiple hand trowels or a large trenching shovel for example. His favorite one was a combat shovel, I think he just liked the sharpness and the serrated edge on one side. I’d throw up some tin cans and he’d hit them down with his hand trowel with surprisingly accurate throws. I finally taught him a technique to use with his [Move Earth]. The idea is that he would fling dirt in someone’s eye, then beat them up. I had him spar with me, the goal was to let him hurt me for the resistance and for him to learn how to doge.

[resistnace: Blunt 15 > 16]

Duchess was easier since she can't evolve right now and the only thing she has is [Mind Magic] I made her cast her spells on me. It trains her magic and it trains my resistance. Her mana regeneration and capacity are trashy though. Mana regenerates with rest and proper time, but in battle, there is none of that. On Rankable, some wizards posted about learning a passive mana regeneration skill if you constantly bottom out your mana pool. I take what people say on the internet with a grain of salt, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

[Resistance: Mind 1 > 3]

Flash Gordon needs no training, he is perfect.

Both Rob and Duchess leveled up their skills, my [Master’s Whip] ability really quickened things up.

[Shovel Mastery D lv1 > lv2

Deal 30% more damage with shovels.

+5% per level.]

[Mind Magic D lv4 > lv5]

The only thing that changed for Duchess’ spells is that the range slightly increased. The next level in her magic should rank it up, but it will take significant effort to do so.

Tomorrow is the test for the tamer course, the so-called showcase. Should I reveal Duchess’ magic, or show off my immortal skeleton. Should I just leave them in awe with the might of Flash Gordon? In bed, surrounded by my tamed creatures, I remember the reason I left to find Charlie in the first place. I needed money to buy a terrarium so I can finally be alone in my bed.