Chapter 85 – Puppets evolution and panic attack

Next few days went by quite quickly. Cassandra left the next day, and Tessa had some urgent business to attend to so she was spending almost the whole days speaking on the magic-far-talking device with some people.

Noah was busy teaching puppet and doing some minor repair works here and there in the mansion. When he and Dryads scanned the house for the work that needed to be done, there was an almost unending list of work. Some of them were too much for him and a puppet with their nil knowledge, regarding any manual work. Thankfully the mansion was wooden and wood was Dryad's element. So Noah left the hardest thing in their hand, asking them to leave the thing they could do with the puppet. Puppet was developing quite quickly. It already mastered its hands quite well to hold tools and could walk almost without awkwardness in its gait.

Brianna was a common company for them. Stalking them from around the corner waiting for Noah to ask if she wants to play with the puppet as well and then happily running to them and being more of an obstruction to the work than help as her interest was only in the puppet and how it worked rather than helping out.

Other days he went to the library and studied books on alchemy. Before trying to make some concoctions he had to first study the basics and learn how to use poison slimes better. His other target was finding the best potion to make with the best possible payback that would sell well.

After work Noah found time to meditate to deepen his control on his senses and his inner magic circulation. Thanks to the hellish training he got from Paula, he now had quite a good understanding of how to meditate right.

In the night he would go to the mind realm to read some stories. His recent fight with the shadow hit squad made him realize how much he is lacking in a fight sense. Mountains of stories that were accessible for him had quite a skimpy understanding of magic and was not of much help in this regard. At least he did not find any helpful ones yet. However there were a plethora of stories that had quite good martial arts knowledge in them, so he used them as a study material and then practiced different styles in his mind realm.

His night battles with Tessa were a usual as well, however Noah noticed that whatever business Tessa tried to solve, it looked like it didn't go well. She had a more serious face by the day, now having dark circles of worry under her eyes and had less enthusiasm in bed. When Noah asked her what bothered her, however, she quickly changed topic and explained that he need not worry and she'll solve it soon.

The cleansing of the territory surrounding the mansion went quite well, and the fog that was previously covering the dry ugly trees in the distance backed off quite far away becoming very thin and almost transparent.

The menacing looking twines behind those trees were a bit of a problem. Although Dryads were masters of nature and could control plants and trees, those twines were getting monsterified from all the evil energy and were able to resist the dryads, attacking them in retaliation. The three Dryad ladies of course were not someone to be easily messed with. Everywhere they stomped, ground crumbled and the roots ripped out of the ground with invisible force pulling them to the surface. Everything they touched immediately dried and crumbled. Monster twines however were not simple as well and were regrowing at a great speed.

Noah and the puppet have decided to help out as well. For Noah it was both a good practice for his skill and a way to get familiar with puppets capabilities. Not only did the puppet had a way to shoot energy blasts that pulverized everything on its way with quite a short cool down, making it a good long range attacker, it also could turn hands into energy blade and energy shield, becoming a close combat warrior. With Noah's degenerative touch and dark energy beam they were quite a nice team that complemented each other in back to back fight quite well.

When Dahlia saw Noah's hands clad in black energy she stood in thought for some time but did not comment on it. Noah however was a lot more surprised with her powers. At some point Dahlia went to the dried trees alley and spread her hands for some time standing still. After that Noah saw how dry trees started to bend as if high grass in the wind and then intertwined with each other, and started to merge. A few moments later several trees transformed into one big trunk that suddenly started to crack and in the lower part divided into two leg-like trunks. Then that huge tree started to walk on its legs toward the monster twines while its branches merged and intervened, becoming its many hands. Huge wooden monster with many hands jumped at the twines and started to rip it apart.

Twines were not easily outdone and fought fiercely, however by the time they finally overpowered the tree giant and bound its body, another similar giant jumped at it and started to rip it apart freeing the captured giant as well.

Each girl created a few similar giants to add to the fighting force making a squad that ripped the monster twines surrounding the outer ring of the territory faster than they could regrow.

This squad however was barely enough to clear out a patch of land that dryads later started to cleanse under the wood giants protection. Once it was cleansed they started to clear out a new patch. Weeding this twine monster from all around the territory of the mansion was a task taking several days.

Noah wondered why they didn't make more wood giants, however when Dahlia noticed his questioning look, she explained that the trees were dead and they had to use their own vitality to create them. With no good source to renew their vitality here they could not waste it any more than that without harm to themselves. This however pointed out that Dryads were almost omnipotent as long as they were within a forest. With inexhaustible vitality of forest they could create an army of such giants easily and could basically heal from anything if they were not destroyed completely. Which made Noah realize just how lucky he was to not fight them back in the forest of Labyrinth.

There was however another surprise that awaited Noah. What he found out a few days after they began weeding the garden is that the puppet could evolve with the help of information from his story reading as well. At some point the puppet suddenly started to shoot out energy blasts in bursts and scatter shots that Noah saw from the weapons in the story he read that night. It was exactly like the machine gun and shotgun blast that Noah learned of. The coincidence of it starting to use such a thing exactly after Noah read about it was too unnatural, so the system theorized that the companion has access to that information to some degree as well through its link with Noah.

With Priscilla everything was a bit strange. She did get better the next day and came to lunch with everyone, just wasn't very talkative in Noah's presence, which she was quite understanding of as they were basically strangers an she must have felt awkward. What was strange however is that Noah ran into her occasionally in the mansion finding her lingering without particularly doing anything. Sometimes he met her sitting in the armchairs of the main hall with a fireplace or walking aimlessly in corridors simply circling the mansion. Every time he would pass by she would snap out of her strange behavior and skitter away in silence, when he tried to talk to her however she was quite snappy and rude.

Well snappy wasn't only her. Two week after the girls came back home, Tessa received delivery from Cassandra. Big caskets with provisions were brought in by the huge spiders from outside the barrier and were stored in the mansion's storage. After that Tessa was busy with Priscilla in the weaving training hall for days without showing up. Noah understood that they needed to be left without distractions while training weaving so he did not bother them. A few days after that however, when they finally left the room, Noah noticed that Tessa's irritation grew visibly. Always calm and emotionless Tessa, from that day was also snappy and seemed always angry, to the point she started to snap at maids and Brianna for minor things. Nothing serious, but he felt it was getting worse.

Noah felt it was time to have a talk with Tessa again. Whatever she was bothered with did not seem like going as she planned so he wanted to know if there was anything he could do. Also Tessa did not really know much about his system so she could not know for sure whether he might have been helpful or not.

However the night when he wanted to have that talk he made a mistake. Ever since coming to this mansion he was trying to avoid the horror stories that would be the source of new Nightmares in his mind realm, as he did not wish to add to their force too quickly. He decided that his previous schedule of reading horrors after every few good stories was not smart. They may have been more useful, however they were very dangerous in consequences.

That night however he made a mistake.

It was among the suggestions of the people for some guy that asked for something wholesome in CS. Noah knew how vile these suggestions could be, so he checked a few stories in the search to see what tags they had and seeing that there were no problems, started to read through them one by one. He did not expect however that the guy who suggested them made it tricky on purpose.

After a few good stories there was a story with a nice yet misleading name, that had something to do with spirals, was mixed among them. Noah opened it without a second thought, ensuring that this guy was trustworthy after he checked the tags for the first few stories.

However what greeted him was typical horror that he wished to avoid. It did not have monsters like in the previous horrors he met. This one had something to do with some kind of unnatural phenomena in a rural city, where people started to die in gruesome ways every time they met some kind of spirals in nature. Twisted bodies, squeezed out organs turned to paste. Horrifying mutations, insanity and despair, the kind that only a truly crazy mind may be capable of producing, was put into the story. All of this flooded Noah's mind at that point.

"Madam!" Sounded Aster's worried voice when everyone was sitting behind the dining table in the evening, waiting only for Noah to appear. "Master, Noah is! I don't know what's going on! He…he…" Said Aster with hurried voice.

Tessa immediately flashed out of the room moving at breakneck speed toward the room that Noah chose for privacy when he read stories. What she saw when she entered was Noah laying on the ground in fetus pose shivering all over with vomit under him.

"Noah!" Screamed Tessa rushing toward him and lifting his head while spreading her senses into his body checking his health, yet finding nothing that could cause it.

"Dear, talk to me. What's going on?"

Noah lay hyperventilating with his eyes glazed when Brianna and Priscilla rushed to the room after their mother.

"Mom? What's wrong with Noah?" Asked Priscilla with fear in her voice.

"Dahlia, can you do something?" Asked Tessa looking over at one of the Dryads standing nearby with stupefied faces.

"I...I am sorry but…I don't see what's wrong, madam." Answered Dahlia hesitantly. "It looks like a panic attack."

Noah grabbed Tessa's hand and squeezed it tightly, muttering something.

She bent over him to listen and then asked everyone to leave. Dahlia pulled everyone out of the room but Priscilla still lingered around with a worried face until Tessa asked her to leave again. She looked at her mother and then walked away biting her lower lip.

Once everyone was gone, Tessa lifted Noah and brought him to the bed sitting down by his side without letting go of his hand.

It took him more than an hour to come to himself enough to be able to speak.

"Dear. What is wrong? How can I help?"

"You can't."

"Noah…" Started Tessa.

"It's alright. It's not the first time. I just need some rest, I will be fine soon. Don't worry." He said to her.

"It's not ok, Noah. Please…"

"It's connected to my system. Don't worry."

Tessa opened her mouth to speak to him, but then closed it bitting her lip. It was rude to try to fish for other peoples systems information, but families of course overcame it. She wanted to question more, but at the end wondered whether she had the right to. She was holding him in the blind regarding her problems as well, so why would she expect him to share his problems with her.

She stayed with him until he finally said that his ailment passed, starting to slowly stand up. Tessa helped him a bit, making him smile with a sad smile.

"I am fine now, dear. Really." Said Noah.

"Will it happen again?" Asked Tessa with worry in her voice.

Noah opened his mouth to answer but hesitated, which made her understand that he did not want to lie.

"Maybe. I was just negligent. I will try to avoid it for some time."

"So it is inevitable to happen again?" Asked Tessa.

Noah nodded at her.

"I will have to pass this periodically. I will try to control it to happen in the night so as not to worry everyone again."

Tessa looked at him with her trembling from worry eyes, but did not say anything.

When they exited the room they were met with Priscilla pacing around the corridor near the door to his room.

"Are you alright?" She asked with a worried face when she saw them both exit the room.

"Umm…yeah." Said Noah hesitantly as he was surprised a bit by her talking to him. "I am fine. Just met some minor issues while training my skill. I am very sorry about worrying everyone. It won't happen again." Apologized Noah.

Priscilla gazed into his eyes then shifted her gaze toward Tessa that stood silently nearby and then biting her lip, nodded and ran away.

"What was that?" Muttered Noah.

"She was worried." Said Tessa shrugging with a nonchalant face, but Noah noticed her eyes shifting to the side in an uncomfortable manner.

"I thought she disliked me." Said Noah.

"No!" Exclaimed Tessa, suddenly making him raise his eyebrow. "No." She repeated again with a calmer voice again. "She doesn't hate you. Just…shy…near men." Said Tessa, making him feel like she was finding words carefully.

Noah sighed and shook his head walking to the dining room.

When he entered five girls were whispering in the room but stopped when he and Tessa came in.

"I am really sorry for worrying you all. I am fine now." Said Noah sitting behind the table, while offering Tessa a chair with all etiquette.

Dahlia and Aster went immediately back to the kitchen and brought dishes that they put away into the stove to keep them warm.

"Girls, why did you wait? You should have eaten without me." He said seeing that others sat down to dine with him.

"Are you a really fine master?" Asked Zinnia, who was left standing in the room.

"Yeh, no need to worry." Smiled at her Noah. Then he looked over at Priscilla and Brianna who were looking at him carefully.

"Is it because of us?" Asked Brianna suddenly.

"What?" Asked Noah surprised looking at her and seeing that she had trembling eyes as if on the brink of tears. He Noticed Priscilla's face shift into horror from those words."

"No!" Exclaimed Noah. "Of course not! Why would it be your fault? I just had an accident while training in the skills of my system. That's it. I swear. It is not your fault in any way."

Brianna nodded at him carefully.

"Please be more careful." Said Priscilla and quickly turned away when he looked at her.

Noah looked over at Tessa and she smiled at him taking his hand, while Dryads served food.

Noah looked at the soup and thoughts of swirling it came back to his head.

Tessa noticed the shift in the look on his face when he suddenly squeezed her hand tighter.

"Don't want soup? Girls get Noah something harder for this dinner." Said Tessa quickly.

Dahlia quickly moved the soup away and served another dish.

Noah smiled at Tessa weakly and then they started to eat in awkward silence with Noah sensing the gazes on him.

"So Bri, you learned how the puppet was able to modify his skills?" Asked Noah more to break the awkwardness.

"No!" Answered Brianna with her enthusiasm returning. "I have no idea. It does not look like there are any changes in its body's inner circuits."

"Modified skills?" Asked Tessa with interest, adding to the conversation.

"Yeah! Mom. You would not believe it. It learned to change the fire rate for energy blasts and adjust strength."

Tessa was quite busy these days so she almost missed everything that went in the garden. This evening however she spent catching up with events.

Mother and daughter, both huge enthusiasts of crafting, started to hotly discuss the crafting methods and circuits needed for adjustments and how to replicate what the puppet did, making Noah smile.

At some point Noah shifted his eyes to look at Priscilla and noticed that she was watching him, but shifted her eyes quickly away when he turned to her. He felt something strange about it considering her behavior toward him all this time. But did not say anything and enjoyed the liveliness and happy voices that returned to the family that evening while girls talked.