D.I.O

Chapter 257

Woong!

The Chintamani Marble was considerably large—a reflection of its previous owner’s size. Merlin touched the Gold Dragon’s Chintamani Marble, which was several meters in diameter. The marble then quickly reduced in size until it fit snuggly in Merlin’s hand. However, what was unusual was the reactions of Quiet Heaven and Ellie when they laid their eyes on the marble.

“A Chintamani Marble…”

“Ah, so it really does drop and appear in this world… ugh…”

Neither Quiet Heaven nor Ellie could take their eyes off the Chintamani Marble. It was as if they were bewitched by something.

When Merlin moved the Chintamani Marble slightly to his right, the two pets’ eyes followed.

“What? Do you guys need this?”

“O-of course, we need it! Although the one you’re holding is most likely just a replica… But even if it’s just a replica, a Chintamani Marble is an aggregate entity of transcendent power. Half-bloods like us, who possess Noblesse blood, can quickly raise our rank by consuming a power source like that.”

“Then eat it.”

“…!!”

“What?!”

Hearing Merlin’s words, Quiet Heaven and Ellie were startled. They could only stare back at Merlin dumbfoundedly.

With a trembling expression, Quiet Heaven asked Merlin a question, “D-didn’t you say that you required an essential item? Isn’t the Chintamani Marble what you were looking for?”

“That’s right, but if you eat it and become more powerful, that’s not bad either. It’ll just take me a little more time to achieve what I want, but I already know that achieving my goal is something that’ll happen eventually.”

Quiet Heaven was Merlin’s dutiful pet, but it was actually lacking in many ways to be labeled as one of Merlin’s useful [options].

This was because Quiet Heaven’s specialties weren’t in combat, and Merlin had already become way too strong way too fast.

Since Merlin was an entirely different being from the average user, it was not easy for Quiet Heaven to keep up with Merlin’s constantly developing abilities and skills. In truth, Quiet Heaven was one of the top pets in the game. However, unlike Arthur’s pet Toothless, Quiet Heaven didn’t possess the same combat power as a top-notched summoning beast, so it wasn’t much help to Merlin in times of battle.

“That’s… I really appreciate it, but I can’t eat it.”josei

“Is it forbidden?”

“Yeah. You players and us pets have different positions.”

Although this Chintamani Marble was a replica, it was still a considerable asset that even the Noblesse couldn’t dish out easily.

Even though mixed-race beings like Quiet Heaven and Ellie also belonged to the Noblesse, it was impossible for the Noblesse to give half-bloods like them many resources without a guarantee of a commensurate return. In addition, if pets could consume such items within DIO, wouldn’t it be commonplace for pets to deceive or plead with their user owners to absorb the marbles and magic stones they picked up?

Miho, who had remained quiet and still up to that point, made a confused expression. “Wait a second. I don’t know or understand much about the organization called Noblesse, but does it make sense that they’d give resources like the Chintamani Marble to users but not to their own flesh and blood race?”

“It is not given; it is entrusted. All of the users’ bodies are tied to DIO anyway.”

“Aha.” Miho immediately understood and nodded.

In other words, the Chintamani Marble wasn’t given to users, per se. In other words, as long as the users were under the control of DIO’s system, the operators could retrieve the Chintamani Marble, as well as anything else that was given to users within DIO, at any time.

“Then, I guess we’ll have to stick to my original plan,” Merlin said casually and lifted the Chintamani Marble.

Hearing that, Quiet Heaven spoke up, “What plan? Even if what you have in your hand is a replica, you, as a human user, cannot simply absorb the enormous spiritual power within the Chintamani Marble. You may be able to forge it into a usable item…”

Crack!!

“What?!”

“Kyak?!?!”

Merlin struck the Chintamani Marble and caused cracks to form on it. The two pets, who watched everything unfold, screamed out in surprise.

Sungmuk, who was not quite as surprised as the two pets, asked, “What are you trying to do? It’s the first time I’ve actually seen a Chintamani Marble, but shouldn’t you maintain it in as pristine a state as possible if you’re planning to absorb its powers?”

“Well, the problem is that absorbing spiritual power of this magnitude is not normal or simple.”

As an analogy, absorbing the Chintamani Marble’s power was like shoving 10 tons of food all at once into a 10-year-old child. Unless the child was the second coming of a divine, overpowered, and superpowered glutton, the child would most likely suffocate to death before digesting all the food.

Sungmuk continued, “But your ability to control isn’t at a low level, right? You should be fully [capable] of absorbing the powers within the marble. As long as you have time…”

However, Merlin shook his head at that moment. “That’s the crux of the issue. I’m fully capable, but time is the issue. It will take me about six years to completely absorb spiritual power of this magnitude.”

Of course, Merlin couldn’t utilize the training room and its expansion of time as the training room only elongated time by accelerating one’s mind. Six years in DIO meant that it would take Merlin an entire year in Earth time to properly absorb the power in the Chintamani Marble.

Time passed twelve times faster in DIO than on Earth. Calculating based on that fact, half a year should be enough time for Merlin to absorb all the power within the marble. However, the [rule] that only twelve out of every twenty-four hours a day could be used to access DIO elongated that estimated time frame. Earth’s restricted login access was a problem that even Merlin couldn’t resolve easily.

Whoosh!

While they were talking, golden steam spewed out from the Chintamani Marble with terrifying momentum.

Quiet Heaven and Ellie watched the scene restlessly, but to their surprise, the golden steam did not scatter in all directions and instead formed a round shape like a balloon that was being filled with air.

This phenomenon occurred because Merlin was controlling the golden steam of spiritual power—the Gold Dragon’s qi.

“But this…”

“… It’s so much.”

“That’s amazingly large.”

The party members couldn’t help but nervously laugh at the massive bundle of spiritual power, which grew to be so enormous that the surroundings were filled with gold light in an instant.

When Merlin created his planet Earth by releasing energy outside his body previously in his No Living World, the energy bundle had only been about the size of a soccer ball. The enormous size of the Chintamani Marble’s energy bundle proved that the spiritual energy held within was astronomical.

Ting!

At that moment, a magic circle began to cover the area around the spiritual qi.

Merlin’s preparations were sufficient; he had already completed all his spells beforehand. Moreover, he had reviewed his preparations many times over, even before going into battle.

[Grr…]

The growl of a beast resonated within the magic circle as it covered the Chintamani Marble’s qi.

This was Chaos—a new magic lifeform that Merlin created.

Quiet Heaven, who had already seen Merlin invent and apply reinforcement on items many times before, opened its mouth to speak. “That’s… an evolved ‘Salk’.”

“Correct!”

Merlin was an excellent creator of novel inventions and processes, not only among users but also among the Noblesse—especially the great mages, who kept a keen eye on Merlin’s creations. Merlin was the inventor of [Reinforced Weapons], so it was possible for Merlin to remodel or retrofit a reinforced weapon—the likes of which most other mages couldn’t even fathom, let alone create.

However, Quiet Heaven, who was quietly observing the technique Merlin was using, soon made an expression that showed he couldn’t understand Merlin’s approach.

“But Merlin, is it possible to construct something without Beast Metal?”

In truth, the metal that went into creating reinforced weapons was more important than the magic spells applied to the weapons.

So, strictly speaking, what Merlin invented were not reinforced weapons but Beast Metal itself.

Beast Metal contained a spiritual creature that ate away energy.

Regardless of attributes or characteristics, the Beast Metal overlapped and reinforced the magic spell or spells placed upon a reinforced weapon by eating and digesting any form of energy.

This was why even Merlin couldn’t make reinforced weapons without Beast Metal. Without it, there was no foundation on which to firmly plant or engrain his magic spells.

“Chaos and Salk have similar but also very different systems. In addition, since there is so much spiritual power to control, this creation might naturally acquire an ego on its own without the need for Beast Metal. It’s the same principle for reinforced weapons.”

Merlin knew that if a reinforced weapon—a weapon that was reinforced twelve times or more—were given a strong thought or will and cherished for a long time, there was a very high chance that the Salk nested inside that reinforced weapon would awaken a true self, or an ego.

In other words, a reinforced weapon could become a growth-type weapon—a weapon that all warriors dreamed of. However, it required a very special environment and a long period of development for an ego to develop, so this objective wasn’t something that Merlin was aiming for in his current endeavor as he was in a rush.

[Kyak!]

At that moment, Chaos swallowed the power in the golden sphere and let out a scream.

Chaos only had the intelligence level of a dog or cat, so it was difficult to communicate with it, but Chaos’ scream of utter pain was obvious to anyone who heard it.

“What the hell…? The spiritual energy is more than 3.7 times more than my estimated maximum?”

Merlin’s expression grew serious as he closed his eyes and scanned through the stream of information conveyed by his magic circle.

In fact, long before he decided to fight the Gold Dragon, Merlin had already known that the Gold Dragon was a fake transcendent being. Actually, Merlin realized this fact the first time he laid eyes on the Gold Dragon.

This was because his insight ability was excellent, but in this case, his insight was more poisonous than beneficial.

There should have been no way that the Gold Dragon’s Chintamani Marble—something that originated from a fake transcendent figure—possessed a spiritual power level equivalent to that of an actual dragon heart.

Nevertheless, it didn’t matter to the Noblesse if the Chintamani Marble was used to create a Gold Dragon or a magic weapon. As long as the Noblesse ran DIO, whatever was inside the system was presumably under their control.

The Noblesse probably never even considered the possibility of a user consuming the Chintamani Marble’s enormous spiritual powers, but this didn’t matter to them either.

As long as the spiritual power was contained within DIO’s system, the contents were perfectly protected, regardless of whatever form the power or energy took or where it was located. In essence, DIO was a huge safe and warehouse for the Noblesse.

Thus, unbeknownst to Merlin, the Gold Dragon’s Chintamani Marble was the real deal. It was a marble that the White Divine Celestial Dragon—Thousand Scents, who was one of the Grand Masters of the Eight Holy Lands—obtained after defeating her arch nemesis, the Golden Divine Dragon.

The value of the Golden Divine Dragon’s Chintamani Marble was considerable; this caused many beings to search for it. Nonetheless, Thousand Scents didn’t have much use for it, so she kept it safe within the confines of DIO.