My Servant System

Dragging in a few deep breaths, I pulled my pants back up and stared at the wet sand below me for a couple of seconds, trying to cleanse my mind from what had just dirtied it for a few minutes while also feeling some shame because of it.

After the wave I had just immediately got to work helping myself as I also declined the advancement, leaving me in this space as the floating paper that listed off all of my rewards waited for me to claim them.

I had the time and I needed to do this, so I did it, relieving myself on my own with sinful thoughts that definitely shouldn't have been there in the first place, but now that I was done I could finally get up and claim those rewards.

The aftereffects of those thoughts still made my legs tingle while my midriff was swabbed in a very comfortable heat, and my heart was aching in a conflicted way as the shame warred with the adrenaline, making me feel oh so good.

"Oh... maybe I shouldn't have done this, but fuck it... now... what was the reward for that again..?"

My mutter was just because I felt a need to break the silence, to get rid of it lest it allow those thoughts to slither back into the darker crevices of my mind where they could fester and lure me back for something more.

That was not what I wanted at all, so I made sure everything I was wearing was on properly - adjusting my belt and securing all of my gear while also ignoring the grains of sand that scratched at my legs - and made my way back over to the floating paper, looking it over and taking in my bounty.

All sorts of goodies were written down for each round, and I parsed over the various materials with some intrigue before focusing on what I had forgotten in my tired stupor that had led into a fight against a mana construct.

There were two rewards that were fascinating to me, two rewards that were a step above everything else that I was going to be given; the first was another material, but it was a rather rare, potent material that felt like it had come just straight out of my System Shop.

A bolt of pure, crimson scaled cloth that came from a Drake I had killed that was infused with its blood to amplify the Fire Mana inside of it by quite a lot, and while it didn't sound like a lot the power that radiated off of the scaled cloth was enough to singe the hairs on my arm when I grabbed ahold of it.

That was the first, and after looking over the beautiful cloth and imagining the amazing armor that it could be woven onto I placed the bolt back into the paper and stared at the second reward, the one that had came from the death of that mana construct.

A purification of my Core and an additional set of pathways that connected even more of body to my Core, allowing my mana to flow even more uninhibited than it had before; that was another reward that was underwhelming on paper, but one that would take the larger capacity I had and ensure it could be used even easier.

The moment I accepted this reward of mine I was subjected to an assault of overwhelming pain as my entire body was set ablaze from the inside out, new sets of veins meant to carry mana and not blood to every part of my body.

Pain became a very close acquaintance for a minute or so when I accepted my rewards, and I had to embrace it for another few minutes as I waited for everyone else to finish their Trials, apparently...

'So I had rushed for nothing' was what I was thinking even as I was in pain, and that made me chuckle even as my arms grew heavy and my heart did an agonizing flutter that was filled with bemused regret.

~~~

Leone PoV

Letting out a sigh, I reread my paper and took stock of my rewards before ruminating about how similar the others reward list would be to mine, and if they would have identical materials or if they would be the same class of item just with a different elemental affinity.

Perhaps they were the same, and if they were that would be very alright by me; these Mana Crystals were already quite the bounty, but those ingots and these alchemical ingredients were the real prize here.

The things I could make with those alchemical were quite enticing already, but the real reward was something that I couldn't touch; initially I had received an additional set of pathways, but after that I had also gotten something rather fun.

A drop of a concoction that supposedly gave the blood you were living from a boost; a potion that searched through your blood and sought out a way to improve it, to make you better on a genetic level that only perfectly ideal selective breeding could achieve... for the next generation.

It was a black drop of liquid that was contained within an elaborate crystal tincture that looked extraordinarily expensive even to me... and it was oh so alluring as I stared at it, sloshing it around and contemplating what to do with it.

There was a large part of me that was wanting to use it myself, to see if my blood - a bloodline that was so accidentally perfect - could be improved any more than it already was, but I was also very curious to see what I could do with it if I used it on someone else.

Jahi was a prime candidate, the Demoness having two separate yet equally potent bloodlines combined into one, while Anput could definitely take a large step up if she had it used on her; then there was the logical decision to save it for way later, to use on one of my children instead.

Or I could give it to Kat and see if her bloodline - one that was rather... paltry compared to ours - could be taken to another level if she had this to rely on... but I was also assuming she would stop at the waves before this one, wasn't I?

Though the mana construct had been one hell of a fight even for me, so maybe she had called it quits then and there... I wouldn't know until we regrouped sometime soon, so until then I was just left sitting here, staring at the liquid as I wondered what to do with it.