Odyssey of the Blind God
Chapter 55 Variable

After regaining his senses, the memories of the past few minutes flashed through his mind.

Everything felt blurry to Nial and he had trouble recalling everything he had done in the past few hours.

To be precise, even the memories that flashed through his mind were somewhat unclear to him, and Nial doubted that he was the one to do all of this.

Yet, when he stressed his brain to recall the missing pieces, he could remember nothing that had occurred after he had felt the second pulse.

He knew that he had done something but not what or why.

This confused him, but before he could spend time thinking about it, Nia's attention went to the corpses of thousands of beasts that were wrung dry of every last ounce of mana and left to rot on the ground.

Their bodies that were void of mana were outlined by the subtle mana currents that filled the room once again.

As such, he was able to perceive his surroundings, which allowed Nial to sense and pick up the crystals that had dropped from the numerous opponents.

In fact, there were more than a hundred origin crystals, one more [Petrification Eyes(poorest)] ability crystal, and the special crystal that had dropped from the summoned beast.

Storing all crystals away except the special one, Nial tried to inspect it through touch in an attempt to figure out if there were any kinds of dangers he had to be careful of.

Meanwhile, he was walking back to the surface without realizing that the cave was collapsing.

His mind was drawn to the crystal he was holding, and only when he reached the surface did Nial dare to insert his mana into it.

It was just a moment later that four words reverberated through his mind, causing him to feel utterly dumbfounded.

[Mana core limit enhancement]

First, he didn't believe what he had heard, but after the words flashed through his mind over and over again, Nial could barely digest that what he was hearing was true.

However, this confused him because he had never heard that it was possible for a crystal such as the one he was holding in his hand, to exist, in the first place.

'Is…that a new type of crystal? Or did I just not know about it?' Nial wondered while tormenting his mind for an answer which never came.

Yet, he didn't make the mistake of throwing the crystal away or even thinking of selling it as he thought that he had more than enough resources to sell in order to rescue his sister.

With that in mind, he smiled lightly as he accepted the energy of the crystal without hesitation.

Just at that moment, the vast amount of energy that was stored in the special crystal shot through his arms before it arrived in front of his mana core.

It invaded his body and his mana core, metamorphosing his core while causing tremendous pain.

This was something Nial had expected, but it was just at this moment that his entire body felt like it was zapped by a bolt of lightning as the overstrained muscles, mana veins and even his mana core were reacting to the additional strain he was putting on his body by accepting the crystal's energy.

Through this, his entire body went rigid as a stone, and he could feel his brain becoming fuzzy as his eyes grew heavy. He was slowly losing his consciousness and the last thing he could think was a simple thought.

'Why am I so fucking restless?!'

Afterward, he lost his consciousness, but fortunately enough, his body had taken the last step before he arrived in front of the dungeon portal through which his unconscious body fell to the ground with a soft thud.

No sooner had he slumped to the ground, face down, weapons were pointed in his direction by several soldiers that were ready to slaughter him.

Yet, only a moment later, the dungeon portal behind him closed because the dungeon had been cleared by Nial, and every single boss had been defeated.

This shocked everyone and the soldiers quickly retracted their weapons as a familiar woman, who had been standing next to a familiar young man stepped forward.

"It…really is him…" She just mumbled before turning around to Jack, who stared at the unconscious Nial in shock as if he was seeing a ghost…or someone who should have died.

As her eyes flicked from the unconscious Nial to Jack, the young woman named Nina Melion couldn't help but smile.

Her cadets had long since returned, but they had been severely injured after encountering the first group of petrification rats.

Yet, the young blind man, whom they had ridiculed before, had achieved something, not even the trained military units had been able to do.

Single-handedly he had not only helped several students to survive an attack by a large petrification group, but he had also helped Jack and his unit to defeat the Horned Earth Ratour.

However, that was not all because even though he was currently unconscious, Nial had evidently survived the onslaught of a petrification rat flood and the huge beast that Jack described as powerful enough to annihilate every possible prodigious human they could have sent inside!

The fact that Nial survived without anyone's help, while facing more than a thousand weaker opponents, and one seemingly undefeatable force all by himself, spoke volumes about the hidden talent he had!

And that was even more so the case when the dungeon closed behind him, which meant that he had cleared the two-element dungeon that had forced the entire military in the small shelter to gather the strongest junior units!

They had just finished their preparations to conquer the dungeon and had barely taken their first step when the scouts returned from the dungeon portal, with the collapsed survivors right next to them.

Only Jack was still conscious, and he had readily told Nina, who was currently in charge of most juniors of the military, everything that happened.

Thus, she knew about Nial's combat prowess, the fact that Jack regarded him highly, and that he should have died but miraculously he was just passed out.

As such, she first sent him to the infirmary before calling the Originals association to cross-check the information of Nial's awakening once again.

There had to be something wrong, and she wanted to figure out what exactly it was!

However, even after she read through the information, there was nothing odd that she could replace out.

This only approved Jack's information about the fact that Nial had yet to bind an ability to his mana core.

Yet, even then, Nina was unable to think that Nial had simply survived using just his combat skills and common sense.

As such, she told the nurses to conduct a second test on his mana core.

When they ran the test they could spot slight changes of his mana core, but nobody was able to figure out what exactly they were.

Nonetheless, there was still no ability bound to the core, which caused Nina to be even more confused as the changes in Nial's mana core seemed to be similar to breaking through one's mana core limit.

Yet, right now, Nial was not undergoing his mana core's first enlarging process, but it was more like the limit of enlargings he could undergo was changing.

At least that was what the results of the examination the nurses and doctor that were present in the quickly constructed infirmary had figured out.

This was weird, and a natural breakthrough in one's mana core limit was unheard of.

As such, he would have to take some kind of medicine, which caused Nina to look at his spatial ring in doubt.

'Blacksmith Arnold doesn't have the means to procure a medicine that allows the mana core's limit to enlarge naturally…otherwise, he would have given it to his eldest daughter. He shouldn't be in possession of a forbidden serum either...the dealers haven't reached Katu yet…'

Trying to figure out the answer about Nial's survival, Nina could only reach the conclusion that Jack was lying to her.

However, that was close to impossible because Jack knew that the others would be able to tell the truth once they regained their consciousness.

Thus, it was unlikely for Jack to lie, even less because she knew him to be an honest, and straightforward man.

This made him very likable even if some younger cadets made fun of him for having awoken his origin quite late.

Fortunately, this was something Jack made up for with hard work and the fact that he had awoken an Innate ability that increased his strength by a large margin.

He was amongst the strongest young cadets Nina had trained so far, and his evaluation of opponents was shockingly accurate, which was also owed to his Innate trait that enhanced his instincts.

Because of that, Nina couldn't help but do something she never believed herself to do- she blatantly ignored the military's laws for the first time in her life.

In fact, the only thing Nina did was to satiate her curiosity by adding Nial's contacts to her Originals ID card in order to contact Nial whenever she wanted.

She believed that this was something she would soon do either way once the higher-ups would replace out about Nial, a blind young man who had cleared an anomalistic dungeon by himself, while being at the 1st Origin rank, without an ability and just had awoken his origin a few weeks ago!

Nial didn't even have a high standing in the society or any connections…or so Nina thought, which made her believe that he might be the perfect candidate for the military.

'If..only if he truly managed to defeat the beast Jack spoke about…he might be able to enter the military!'

This thought caused her to smile subconsciously because it was rare for someone with a disability to be able to enter the military in the first place. Furthermore, most of these people awoke an innate affinity that made use of their disability, turning their weakness into a major strength.

Through this their disadvantage was turned into an advantage, but even then most of these individuals belonged to families with a great heritage.

As such, Nial was an exception and owing to the military's conservative behavior, they might think that Nial's blindness might be too much of a disadvantage as he didn't have something that would balance out this weakness.

Because of that, even his high combat prowess might not be enough to change their opinion.

With that in mind, Nina could only wait before the other Originals woke up.

When they finally did, they were bombarded with all kinds of questions about the two-element dungeons, and everyone said the same thing- Nial saved them, he fought on par with Jack, and reacted even faster once to save them from the ape rat's attack.

However, in the end, everyone also said that he must be dead, and that there was no way for him to have survived the flood of several thousand petrification rats and the huge beast.

As everyone said the same thing, they were allowed to leave once they had undergone the necessary examinations and tests to check their injuries and overall health.

Most of them were taken home by their parents and other family members that had already been waiting in front of the barricades the military had put up.

Thus, when Nina saw blacksmith Arnold and Shana reuniting, she couldn't help but approach them, asking the blacksmith why he had asked Nial to enter the two-element dungeon to search for his daughter.

The request of blacksmith Arnold to send a blind newly awakened Original to the two-element dungeon was something she had recalled just now, which was both extremely weird and unheard of, to begin with.

Adding the dangers of the dungeon to the mix, Nial was destined to die.

As such, Nina felt obliged to ask the blacksmith about his reasoning.

However, Arnold was unable to give her a rational answer. Instead, when he found out that Nial was the reason for the survival of most Originals, including his dear daughter, he was as astonished as everyone else. Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he mumbled faintly to himself.

"To think that my intuition was correct…"

He had long since realized that it was pure madness to send someone like Nial inside the two-element dungeon, but that this madness had saved the lives of more than a hundred Originals was truly bewildering.

Yet, he also understood that this decision could have caused Nial's death, even more so after he heard how dangerous the dungeon had truly been.

'And I told Nial that there were only a few hundred petrification rats…It doesn't look like I simply used up the favor he owed me, but almost sent him to death's door…don't I owe him a favor now…?'

Confused, blacksmith Arnold went home with his daughter, who was bombarded with the information of everything that happened inside the two-element dungeon.

Meanwhile, Nina was still wondering about what exactly had been wrong with Nial, only for a young familiar man to appear in front of her.

His expression was filled with worry, and guilt and his face looked haggard.

'Isn't that Nial's friend? The one from the Tyr family?'