Very soon, Akuto learned why the dragon vein had reacted.
It turned out that when Liliana was transporting Hera's Pillar to Palermo, she had passed through the skies over Tuscany—close to the monastery where Alesa was staying.
And because "Hera's Pillar" carried extremely intense goddess divinity, it catalyzed Artemis's dependent to a certain extent. The Moon Goddess's dependent—who had been weak to the point of collapse—recovered a good deal of vitality, even crawling out of the monastery and beginning to release her divine power…
On Akuto's side, the moment he sensed that divine power through the land veins, Akuto—who had already fully unlocked the "Vamona" Authority—took a single step into Tuscany and stomped that rampaging Moon Goddess dependent underfoot.
After that, Akuto directly sealed and subdued the divine beast, then brought Alesa back to the mansion where he lived.
When he reviewed everything afterward, Akuto suddenly realized that the root cause of this whole chain of anomalies… really did seem to be him.
In the original plotline, "Hera's Pillar" only began accumulating life force because "Athena used the Gorgon Stone."
But now, "Hera's Pillar" started reacting because "Akuto used the Gorgon Stone."
Of course, Akuto only remembered that in the original plot "Hera's Pillar" would be awakened by the "Gorgon Stone" in some fashion after listening to the witch Diana's report. Making "Hera's Pillar" react had never been Akuto's intention.
His intention had been to use "Hera's Pillar" to summon a god.
The situation in Tuscany was similar as well: after being affected by Hera's Pillar, the divine beast emerged ahead of schedule.
…
After dealing with the divine beast, Akuto brought Alesa to his mansion. That night, he bit down on Alesa's adorable white ankle socks and pulled them into his mouth, savoring them. Since their first meeting had been the classic "hero saves the beauty under threat from a divine beast" scenario—and since Alesa was inexperienced and sheltered—Akuto had actually already finished "capturing" her long before meeting Lucrezia Zola.
After all, back then Akuto hadn't exchanged for the "Extraordinary Piece" yet, while Alesa's strength and stamina were both extremely limited. She didn't even last half an hour before passing out.
With Akuto's tireless "cultivation," by the time a full night had passed, he had successfully unlocked four more initial ability slots, bringing his total number of initial ability slots to six.
So deep into the night, while buried inside Diana, Akuto idly toyed with her cute calves and silky white stockinged feet beneath her gorgeous dress, and at the same time finished exchanging for the rest of the initial ability slots.
Yesterday, Akuto used the initial ability slots he had obtained from Arianna and Saint Raphael to exchange for "0.6 of the Boosted Gear" and the "Usurpation Disk."
Today, Akuto used the newly obtained initial ability slots to exchange for "The Holy Spear That Pierces the World," the "Extraordinary Piece," the "Unmarked Spellbook," and "Immortality"—abilities that were particularly useful to him.
"The Holy Spear That Pierces the World" was a crimson-rank weapon of terrifying power. Not only could it be used as a weapon, it could even be used to cast Demonic Shadow magic through it.
"The Unmarked Spellbook" could automatically gather every formula and technique in the world it was in. In a high-tier world like the Godslayer world, the Unmarked Spellbook's value would be enormous. What's more, Akuto also hoped to use the spellforms recorded within it to see whether he could do a better job of dragging those gods down from the Divine Realm.
As for the Extraordinary Piece, it went without saying—an essential tool for resurrecting others.
Immortality was the same. To avoid getting blindsided by the gods or Godslayers of this world, Akuto rarely chose to exchange for something as defensive as "Immortality."
After completing the exchanges, it wasn't long before the dragon crest on Akuto's body unconsciously expanded. And at that exact moment, Karen woke up as well—so Akuto began another round of the usual "process."
The next day.
Erica discovered, tragically, that her maid once again couldn't make her morning wake-up coffee.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]