Chapter 292: Gacha Scrolls

Everyone ate, Enyo scolded her sister, and things had settled down in the household with everybody taking a seat in a circle while the scrolls were brought out. Ares was currently seated on Blo Blo's lap as she was being forced to look after him properly for once as punishment. Ares couldn't help but feel this was like handing over a piece of garbage to a road sweeper and expecting it to treat the rubbish gently but, alas, Enyo's decision was final and there was nothing for it. Bellona seemed to be taking her responsibilities somewhat seriously at least and wasn't in the mood to toy around with mini Ares anymore. Maybe she was actually interested in the scrolls or maybe Enyo had threatened her sufficiently in one way or another but, regardless of the truth behind the matter, Bellona seemed to have mellowed out on the bullying Ares front for now... That or she knew that if she pushed around mini Ares he would be snatched away and he could be kinda cute sometimes so she wanted to keep holding him. Calla was here and motioning towards her cub with her outstretched arms, almost as if she was trying to will Ares to float on over to her by channelling her mental powers. It was likely this was also partly Bellona's way of messing with Calla, if anything, and so she was on best behaviour to keep Ares away from the fluffy matriarch. It could be any of these things, or maybe even a bit of all of them, but regardless it looked like Ares was going to be stuck in her muscly arms for the foreseeable future.

Ares dug into his Primordial Blade and pulled out the scroll, placing the rolled up mystery treasure trove on his lap. Now that he had some cultivation he could access the blade and retrieve it on his own. In hindsight, putting it in there for safekeeping was a silly mistake and he should have had Enyo put it in her spatial ring instead. The only reason Ares was able to put it in there is because Enyo had channelled some mana in his direction at the time. He figured it was best to keep the scroll safe but really it's not like Enyo wouldn't have been able to keep it safe either. This wasn't Aejaz he was handing it to so it would have been in good hands... Speaking of which, Aejaz had to fidget around and waste about five minutes looking for the scroll in his ring... This guy's spatial ring must have been cluttered to high hell with pointless books and stolen objects... This was why Ares had a prejudice against relying on other people's spatial rings, it all originated with this guy! So many times when they were younger had Ares given this doofus something to hold onto temporarily only to lose it for nearly a day or two straight before it was finally found again... Ares was going to have to remind himself that not everybody was as incompetent as Aejaz in this regard and he could actually trust someone like Enyo or Bellona with his belongings!

Anyhow, Ares, Enyo, and Aejaz all had their scrolls out and ready to open. It seemed like it was going to be a one by one affair and Enyo was starting things off. She was the only one here that didn't get a technical specifically so that sort of implied her new magic was going to be the strongest overall. Or at least that was the expectation, anyhow, as closed-pillar specific scrolls were usually rarer than technicals and better on average as a result. She unravelled the scroll and stared deep into the contents which spiralled off the page and drilled into her forehead with a flash of bright white light. After giving her a few seconds to digest the information with her eyes closed, Ares broke the silence with the burning question on everyone's mind.

"Whaddya got? Anything good or no? If no, I'll go pick a fight with the C.O!" Ares was half serious about this as Windsor was still in town and he could try bartering with her for something better. If it got out that the winners of the tournament had been duped and their scrolls, that had been intentionally picked (for the winners at least, not the runner-ups), were terrible, dog-water tier, then that would be catastrophic for them. Cheapskates! People would spit on the metalworkers creating the C.O building in the middle of town for weeks to come. Ares wasn't afraid to push the C.O around because they stood to gain the most out of everyone who was going to be riding along on this landmass when it finally took off. The only other group who was gaining like them was the sect but that was because Ares would have direct control over it so they'd reap all the major rewards. The C.O would gain a significant chunk of power and maintain, mostly, freedom of operation so Ares was going to make them suffer losses here and there without any remorse! That being said, it seemed like they hadn't skimped out at all as Enyo shook her head in the negative to Ares asking if he should hassle the C.O. She finally opened her eyes and summoned a barrier that had a strange white tinge to it. The white tinge looked like tiny pieces of flickering flames but that was strange because Enyo's holy fire typically never applied to her barriers... Was this something more than an art? She hadn't cast anything so it was looking like this would actually turn out to be a mutation!

Scrolls contained arts but, occasionally, they could contain parts of cultivation manuals that were outside the norm. Much like how Allie found a dedication cultivation manual that was great for alchemy, the phoenix one from the Vargaraad tomb, there existed plenty for other pillars too. Rarely, but not never, a cultivator would be willing to share parts of these manuals via scrolls. it wouldn't affect the reader's cultivation type, forcing them onto dedication or anything, but part of the benefits the new cultivation method brought about could be shared in small doses. In other words, there existed a holy pillar cultivation manual that someone took a small chunk of and copied onto this scroll. Why? Maybe they wanted to sell the manual in full and gave out a taster to prove it existed but the scroll got lost along the way somewhere and ended up in the C.O's hands. Maybe they sold it in auction and the C.O found it. Honestly, who knows or cares?! This was a major get regardless! At the bare minimum, whatever this cultivation manual segment did for Enyo, her holy pillar magic, all of it, seemed to come pre-attached with holy fire now. If Ares had to guess, the cultivation manual did this but also additionally brought a bunch of benefits that targeted and altered the holy fire to make it more impactful. The manual would make the holy fire ever present no matter what the cultivator did and then mutate it to be extremely powerful which was a neat way of taking the pillar to new heights. In short, it was a damn good cultivation manual the scroll maker possessed and for Enyo to get even a fraction of it was going to make her even more ridiculously powerful than she already was... The only question now was, what extra effect did she get from the scroll? The ever present flames were one thing but, based on Ares' deduction, it should just be the starting point. There should be a little more to this display and he wanted to know what because the C.O were clearly being very generous here.

Enyo floated the barrier over to Ares and curved it into the shape of an arm bracer that fit snugly on his kiddy-sized arm. The fire burnt a little but Ares ignored the pain because he wanted to understand whatever it was Enyo was trying to show him. If she was stunned silent and had to demonstrate it, probably because she couldn't believe it herself, then Ares couldn't care less about a bit of heat on his skin! It barely took Ares even a second to figure out what he was looking for because, ironically, his current child predicament gave it away instantly. The fire was purging mana! Enyo had a mana burning holy fire that slowly drained away the victim's mana reserves whenever they were in contact with her holy fire! Ares had figured this out fast because his low cultivation base meant his mana reserves disappeared on the spot as soon as he touched the flames...

This was stupid...

Enyo had actually gotten even more powerful and not by a small margin either. It might not have been obvious at a glance but this was a HUGE deal for two reasons. First, Enyo having easy access to the holy pillar buffs just from summoning her barriers meant she didn't have to waste time using other arts, or standing in any specific spot, to take advantage of them. The one time she'd really made much use of them, as far as Ares could remember, was back during her fight with the Lighter Duo and, even then, it was only for a short while as she ran along the fire trail that her Aletheia left behind. Not only did she have to use Aletheia, when there were probably more important things for her to be doing in a fight with her phenomenal barriers, but having to walk along the specified path to have her holy buffs be active was annoying. Like this, she could just quickly summon a barrier around herself whenever and, hey presto, holy buffs have been activated on the spot! She could even create armour out of her barriers and become some super woman who was buffed to high heaven and impossibly strong in close quarters combat, sort of mimicking Ares' enhancement in a roundabout way. Enyo's control over pressure was abysmal but she had a lofty amount of it so if she stuck it in her buffing barriers and covered herself in them instead... Wasn't that basically holy enhancement? She didn't have a bloodline that enabled it in the truest sense, like Ares' annihilation enhancement, but this was honestly just as scary and Enyo was rapidly reaching fundamental champion calibre... Just when Aejaz finally managed to catch up to her she went and pushed herself even further with this incredible find. Plus it didn't end there as, second of all, the mana burn synergised perfectly with her new treasure. She could absorb mana from destroyed magic but could also destroy mana with magic! Beating her in a drawn out fight was now literally impossible as she regained mana while you were losing yours by the droves. 

Seriously.. What had Enyo become?! She was defying the limits of an ordinary human big time here as she was outdoing even famous historical cultivation experts by a wide margin. If her talents could be seen in the outer world, outside the Blade barrier, there would be havoc as people tried to recruit her left and right. She was the next big thing and would likely go on to even dethrone Ayane and Davey at this rate. Her strength made no sense at this point and everything about her was bizarre... And none of this had even touched on her pleasure affiliation yet! That was still mostly unexplored territory... Spooky woman! Was Enyo just going to be his most powerful wife forever going forward? He felt a little sorry for Blo Blo because she'd been complaining about this recently and now... Now Enyo had gotten even more out of hand again! If only Blo Blo knew what she'd become in the future then maybe she'd feel better right now but, regrettably, she did not and was taking it out on Ares by tugging on the back of his hair in indignation. She wanted a cool power up too! This was bullshit! Ares patted her leg and that seemed to calm her down a bit... Poor jealous Blo Blo. At this rate, Enyo had to be more fearful of the cleaver than Ares did! Still, she'd have her time in the spotlight one day, she was convinced of it and so she dropped the matter without spoiling everyone's fun at discovering Enyo's new potential. Bellona wasn't so petty that she would be openly envious of her sister and get actually mad about any of it. She was happy for her, if anything, as it made the family stronger overall and that was always a positive regardless of what form it came in.

"Ms Perfect over here adding yet another tool to her already expansive skill set..." Mini Ares chimed in with his thoughts on the matter but, if anything, he was still underselling Enyo's non-sensical status. She had impeccable defence thanks to the barriers, enduring longevity thanks to the new treasure, punishing compliance to play her game thanks to the invisible timer her mana burn put opponents on, and deadly offense thanks to her immaculate control over her barriers shapes. Ares had no idea how a regular cultivator was supposed to beat Enyo and he wasn't even sure if it could be done. There was just no avenue to wear her down or survive her pressurised barrier onslaught. Hell she was so powerful now that she might actually even be able to win one out of ten matches against Mako and that was truly a frightening thought. Under no circumstances should someone be able to beat a fundamental champion if their cultivation bases are close enough to one another. There would have to be a myriad reasons why the champion in question was drastically underperforming for such a thing to ever even be remotely possible. Was Enyo this daunting a cultivator because of her natural talents or because of her past as a real Goddess? It was impossible to tell but it was inarguable that she was a cut above the rest. Now it was fundamental champion > whatever the hell Enyo is > Aejaz with mimicked fundamental magic > prodigy > regular cultivator. Even if you averaged out a God's cultivation to be fair comparatively to Enyo's they would still get the floor wiped with them as things stood currently. They had millenniums worth of cultivation resource absorption, body tempering, pressure practice, and magic development and yet winning against this freak of nature woman would be an uphill battle... Enyo was not normal!

What was perhaps the most confusing aspect of all of this was how much the C.O was willing to give away. Sure they recognised Enyo's talents and had to reward her accordingly, as was per tradition, but even this was a little much. After having received the Decompiler Enyo would never complain if they'd gone the cheap route with the scroll, not that she'd have even known about it as there was no way for her to have knowledge of everything in the C.O's possession anyway. The C.O could have very easily gotten away with not handing out this calibre of prize as everything Ares had seen thus far was costing them a small fortune. This was not normally how they operated so it was abundantly clear that they were trying to write their names down in everyone's good books. Their primary target was likely Ares, and so getting to him through Aejaz and Enyo was part of their strategy, but to go this far? If everything that was happening during the tournament, involving the pagoda stuff, was being recorded and sent to the strategist of the round then this particular venerable was really placing a lot of emphasis on maintaining a functioning and long lasting relationship with Ares.

Yulo could attest to how insufferable, underhanded, and annoying the C.O were on a regular basis but Ares' treatment was generous if nothing else. They weren't pressuring him to join them, they hadn't even asked as of yet, and they were dropping rare rewards on his head like nothing... It was suspicious. Highly suspicious. Why invest so heavily into someone who'd already openly stated they weren't hanging around in this place forever? What did they stand to gain and what was the strategist playing at? Ares had a gut feeling he would come to understand in due time but, for right now at least, he had to just dance along in the hands of this unknown foe..? Maybe a foe? Maybe a friend? If they were trying to be openly kind then the backstab would have to be devastating to make up for their losses so perhaps that wasn't what they were after... Ares must have been looking at this from the wrong angle but he didn't have enough info to go on right now. Then again, nobody knew exactly what the strategist of the round was ever thinking, Their head wasn't screwed on properly and their brain worked in mysterious ways as a result. Hell, if Windsor had come back without being entrapped in Red Sun by Ares then the strategist would have actually sent her back regardless. If anything, things were going incredibly smoothly from this odd person's point of view. They weren't done intervening in matters quite yet but they needed to wait for a perfect opportunity; one that, if her guess was correct, might even happen sooner rather than later. It was a well known fact that Ares was headed to Xasca via the Freeride Federation and so the chances of things going the strategist's way were high. Would Ares fall into the bait or would he spot it and take advantage? The result of such a question was more massive than he knew, and the strategist was banking some pretty major decisions off of the result of this one trick up her sleeve but, hey, she had a propensity for going all in like this so it wasn't too surprising.

Unknowable goals of unknown people aside, it was now Aejaz' turn to open up his scroll and display his new technical to everyone present. As the scrolls were already confirmed to be technicals there would be no more pleasant surprises like with what happened to Enyo so everyone's expectations were tempered now that the crème de la crème was no longer in play... In this household anyway, it was still entirely possible that Li Li and Esme also received something equivalent. Unlikely though as Enyo and Aejaz were the ones closely related to Ares and so they would be the main beneficiaries of nepotism. Aejaz rubbed his hands together, picked up the scroll, and opened it as he stared at the writings left behind by the creator. Though it wasn't particularly relevant, as it always varied depending on many factors, the writing on the scroll slithered into Aejaz' eyes instead of drilling into his head like Enyo's had. 

"Odds On Me..."

Aejaz chanted the name of his new art and... Nothing happened! Whatever had changed, it clearly wasn't apparent just by staring at Aejaz' pretty boy face. Aejaz seemed to mull over some stuff as if he was deep in thought before nodding to himself and seemingly coming to the conclusion that 'this art is good. Not great but decent enough and helpful' based on his facial expressions. Ares knew this guy well enough to pinpoint each and every change so he already had a feel for how much Aejaz appreciated the art even if he still didn't know what it did. That problem was resolved, however, when Aejaz looked up at everyone and explained.

"I can't say it isn't a simple art. Basically it just raises the chances of my magic connecting with an opponent and being 'successful'. I don't really know what sort of implications that last part has on a broader scale but, ultimately, this means my thievery magic will be even harder to block, even if the opponent is aware of me, provided I use this first. It pairs well with the binocular treasure too as missing once could alert the target and hitting them with my magic on the first try could be finnicky at longer ranges. This will alleviate that issue considerably so, yeah, it's a fantastic magic, just a bit odd. I don't know why it needs to specify both 'hitting an opponent' as well as 'being successful'... I would have thought those two things were one in the same? I've never heard of any kind of dud magic that can hit an opponent and not do anything but maybe it exists? Either way, not something I really have to worry about as the first half of the art is what's relevant to me. So yeah, I'm happy with it... Although I still want some attack magic or offensive based treasures..." Although Aejaz was complaining about his lack of aggressive means, which was a valid concern to some extent as long as you ignored his access to fundamental magic, this was a good art. It upped reliability which was an important factor that often went overlooked. An attack that could instantly kill your opponent was great and all but if it only hit one in a billion times, and it was the only art you knew, then you would still almost definitely lose to one guy with a painful art that had a 100% hit rate... Unless he got extremely lucky but the point still remained that one was consistently way better than the other! Ares couldn't help but agree with his brother, though, that the wording of the art was strange... Not that he or Aejaz could possibly know that this art would be one of the key ingredients to Aejaz' magic spiralling wildly out of control and bringing him back up to a level that could match, or even sometimes dwarf, Enyo... But that was a long way away yet and not something to be concerned about right now. For now its current uses were more than enough to see Aejaz through whatever troubles came his way.

Two for two! Two great scrolls thus far meant Ares was feeling confident. He didn't know what his own scroll had in store for him but surely the C.O hadn't gone all out in punishing him and gimped him with this prize too?! That would be too cruel! Showing him all the cool stuff everyone else got and then dumping some kind of technical on him that makes a farting noise, or something equally stupid, would be miserable! Ares was a child right now and that meant he was allowed to cry you know?! He would seriously do it and make everyone feel bad! He had the power!.. Although he really shouldn't... Calla would go on a rampage and obliterate the C.O... Though, on the bright side, Ares could then loot the remainder of the stuff in the warehouse... No! With great power comes great responsibility! Though Ares' inner revenant was cackling at the thought of it all, Ares wasn't evil enough to do something so mean and heartless for his own selfish amusement! Besides, he had a gut feeling the scroll wouldn't be bad. He didn't know if it would be at the same level as Enyo or Aejaz', as they'd both received something that was guaranteed to be great for them, but it wouldn't be unusable. That was Ares' guess so picked up the scroll and unfurled it just like the other two before him. He went through the hoopla of the letters jumping off the fabric, and curling into him before vanishing just like everyone else, but he was the first person to come away from this experience with a frown, He let out a loud sigh and bemoaned his fate.

"Of course... Why am I even surprised this is what I get?"

Ares clearly wasn't too happy with the result but he didn't seem angry either, just tired and accepting. Everyone else was waiting for him to show off his new magic but nothing ever came. There was an assumption in everyone's mind that he really did get nothing of value but that wasn't entirely true... Ares did get something, it was just a more complicated matter in regards to being able to use the thing he just got properly. He gave a rather succinct explanation to the confused crowd that didn't necessarily answer all their questions but gave them a good enough idea of what was going on.

"Basically, the art I was given has been split into five parts and this was one one of them..."

Poor poor Ares. All he wanted out of his rewards was a new toy and he got 'nothing'! Santa had given him coal for Christmas but, on the bright side, at least this could potentially be amazing if he found the other pieces!... Until then, though, he'd been duped pretty hard... Delayed gratification? That was one way of looking at things that helped get Ares through this!