Talk with Loki
Nox knew he had dug himself a nice hole and jumped in but said hole was about to get even bigger, this time, without even Nox's drunken self sabotage.
Chloe and Lunoire looked at each other with a conspiratorial grin before approaching Anya and whispering something to her cat ears.
Seemingly liking what she was hearing, Anya nooded with a cute smile and the three minxes moved in to execute their devious plan.
In an instant, as Nox tried to figure out a way to save his hide from the raging fires of jealousy, the three girls jumped on him, Anya pressed her nose to his as what seemed to be an expression of affection for Cat People while Chloe and Lunoire took his sides and each kissed one cheek at the same time.
The result, all hell broke loose.
The guys that were cheering and clapping before were now burning with envy as they shouted Nox was a Hoes Before Bros type of guy, which was not exactly wrong but pissed off the the girl surrounding the boy due to the somewhat offensive designation they received.
If the rest of the girls were burning with the raging flames of jealousy before, now they were an all consuming hellfire ready to incinerate Nox's soul.
Syr just looked on with shock, mouth open at the shameless conduct her coworkers had just demonstrated on her crush, right before her eyes.
Ais seemed to actually be pouting, less due to jealousy and more due to the fact she wanted to get near Nox but was being blocked by the three offenders that did not seem to inted leaving their current positions.
Ryuu on the other hand, being the first to receive a gift in the first place was just narrowing her eyes at the spectacle, she did not really feel threatened by her three coworkers.
This was because even though she realized that did have some attraction to Nox, especially Chloe who was into younger boys, Ryuu knew they were just mostly fooling around and Anya was still quite innocent on such matters.
In the end, after much back and forth which amused the uninvolved audience like Finn, Gareth, Riveria and Loki, Nox was unreasonably burdened to make gifts for everyone.
'Well . . . They said nothing on when I should make them.' He deviously thought.
After spending so much time in preparations, Nox was truly raring to go back into the dungeon and crack some skulls so he did not want to waste time making a bunch of personalized gifts.
'I could just make a bunch of standard stuff but it goes against my principles as a craftsman.' Nox thought to himself.
After all, he liked giving his best when making something, regardless of what it was, it was his nature and something he quite liked in himself., so Nox was not planning on breaking his way of crafting over some extra work.
The guys also started asking for gifts as a joke but Nox, showed his Hoes before Bros side and mercilessly shut them all down to multiple booing sounds.
A good while later, the party was over and Nox went back to the Twilight Manor. It seemed Loki figured something out from Nox's incredibly vague explanation and wanted to talk with him in private. How she did that, he didn't have the slightest of ideas.
'I should've know slipping important info by a goddess of scheming and trickery would not go well but I guess Loki is trustworthy, so I'll just share some stuff with her . . .' Nox considered.
In Loki's room, Nox was sitting on a chair, facing Loki who sat in her bed, cross legged while staring him down.
"Alright, fess up!" Loki demanded.
"Now what could you possibly be talking about Loki!?" Nox replied as if he had no idea what his goddess was talking about but while exaggerating his voice and expressions immensely.
"So I'm basically right but ya don't really want to get into it?" Loki drew the right conclusions from Nox's little play. It amazed him how much she was able to pick up from so little.
"Sorry but that won't cut it this time. Before you say it, I know I promised not to get into yer personal business but I still worry for ya and know ye're not the time to stop for two months for yer general run of the mill adventurer issues." Loki explained her actions.
*sigh* Nox relented with a sigh.
"You've guessed it already but it is the Sanguinare Vampiris Skill." Nox confessed.
"I knew it but I'm puzzled why the description of the skill didn't change." Loki responded.
"Well, I can manipulate how my status appears with my magic. The skill did change, I just prevented you from seeing it.' Nox revealed.
"SHIT Noxy! Ya know the consequences of an ability like manipulating an adventurer's status appearing!? Regardless of its costs and limitations!?" Loki complained.
"Yeah. It's why I kept it to myself." Nox replied.
"Probably for the best, I won't blame ya, nor do I want to know more about that side of yer exploits, but I do want to ya to show me your actual status." Loki did not pursue more into the status manipulation avenue but still did not give up on the problem at hand.
"Fine, you win." Nox accepted the terms, undoing his spell and showing Loki his back.
*
Name: Nox Lyros
Race: High Human
Gender: Male
Level: 3
Abilities:
STR: G-264 -> E-432
END: F-337 -> D-599
DEX: H-189 -> F-387
AGI: G-298 -> E-456
MAG: E-472 -> B-768
Luck: H -> G
Archmage: C ->B
Craftmaster: C -> A
Martial Lord: G
Perfect Body: D -> C
Unbreakable Bulwark: G
Irresistible Force: G -> F
Genocider: G
Tamer: D
Magic:
. . .
Skills:
. . .
Sanguinare Vampiris - The Bloodcurse of Vampirism: Permanently boosts the user through the consumption of blood no matter the source. More powerful sources of blood show greater effects.
Consumed blood is stored in a blood pool and can be used to perform "Blood Arts" a special type of magic that does not require slots or Mind.
Mental energy can be used to access Night Powers that involve the manipulation of darkness, shadows and mental effects of various kinds.
As a cost, the user must regularly satisfy their thirst for blood and if this is not done, they will slowly fall into a feeding frenzy and attack anything on sight, letting the beast within out and transforming into a monstrous form.
Changes the users physiology to grant several vampiric traits like charm, glowing blood red eyes, pale skin and fangs. These can be disguised however it limits the power of the curse when done.
Gives use access to the Stygian Beast Form that draws on the user's vampiric traits and monster like qualities to gain a monstrous form of untold power. In this form, all vampiric and physical abilities are drastically enhanced and one's Level is boosted by one.
The beast within has awakened, lending the user its power but threatening to extinguish his humanity first and eventually his sanity. Continuous use of the curses abilities will speed up the process, particularly, the Stygian Beast Form.
Keeping yourself well fed and restraining the use of the curses abilities will restore you to a certain point. You will always be a monster but so long as you maintain your hold on the beast, your humanity and reason will never completely fade.
*
Due to his long break, Nox's stats didn't grow that much. His reliance on Sanguinare Vampiris to fight showed and his endurance upped due to him taking hits without caring too much by taking more risks in battle since he knew it wouldn't backfire, or at least he thought he knew back then.
As for his magic, with all of the spell practice and testing he did over his break from dungeoneering, it just kept rising, once again leaving the other abilities behind as per usual.
Nox had no idea how one trained their Luck so he didn't know how the development ability progressed but the others he had quite a good grasp of.
Archmage was the one he always had the easiest time raising due to his magical research netting him incredible progress in that department, not to mention his reliance on magic to boost him and attack the opponent during combat.
Due to all the crazy gear, Nox had made, Craftmaster suddenly rose to become his highest ranked development ability which came as somewhat of a surprise to Nox, but he then revised his thinking, seeing that the various powerful items he created made such progress extremely believable.
Martial Lord stagnated due to Nox's reliance on magic more than martial might, making him consider mixing up his style, specially since he had a lot more toys to use right now.
The only thing to gain from the change in his Sanguinare Vampiris Skill other than the much needed wake up call, was the growth of his Perfect Body development ability.
Unbreakable Bulwark was a defence based skill and since he could heal rapidly,, Nox usually did not put much emphasis on defence if any so it naturally stagnated.
Nox's brutish power based assault methods that did not care much for injury did wonders to his Irresistible Force development ability however.
As for Genocider, it was founded o the premise of killing huge amounts of beings in a short time and since Nox had been more focused on fighting single powerful opponents, it did not show any growth whatsoever.
Finally, since he didn't tame any more monsters and the rate at which his three tamed ones got stronger slowed, the development ability lacked much progress as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!
The link is: https://www.p.a.t.r.e.o.n.com/lusoba without the extra dots of course.
You'll get to read up to FOUR weeks ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.
There's also my other novel Kage of Kages, do check it out!
I would greatly appreciate any support since this is going to be my breadwinner.