Chapter 369: Destruction’s Bottleneck
"You doubt me? Let’s settle this like men."
[No problem.]
As if on cue, another recruit slid a table in between them and Arthur jumped down before placing his arm on it. The tall guy also crouched a bit and did the same, with the two resting their elbows on the table.
The person who brought it, then stood in between as they clasped their outstretched hands.
"3! 2! 1! Go!"
And so, began a very random arm-wrestling match.
The guys all gathered around both of them as they saw the two Recruits ’struggling ’ to push the other down.
Of course, winning was a breeze for Arthur whose strength could make Legendries hide their faces, but since he was just messing around, he was playing along.
Seeing all of this happen, the girls and young women nearby all facepalmed and shook their heads while having a single line of thought.
’Boys will always be boys.’
Arthur and the tall guy put up a fight, with the nearby recruits chanting their numbers which were embroidered on their uniforms.
A lot chanted for Arthur, and a lot also cheered for the tall guy, but eventually, Arthur defeated the tall guy and the ’referee’ raised his hand and declared the result.
"659!"
"YEAHHH!!!"
"You owe me lunch for two weeks!"
"Damn, I wanted 812 to win!"
Just as they were celebrating the good news and lamenting their losses, a loud voice boomed across the entire area.
[Why are you all making so much noise?!]
They all felt a rapidly approaching presence, quickly figuring it was a higher-ranked soldier and the recruits began scattering like the wind.
As for Arthur, he straight-up teleported right beside Rachel and continued his meal like he never left.
His action evoked great shock from Rachel as though others didn’t notice it and believed it was simply that he was ridiculously fast, she realised what had just happened since her gaze had never left Arthur ever since he stood up.
’He vanished and reappeared! Even if speed is his speciality, it should not be to the level that I cannot see him at all.
In that case...perhaps, teleportation?!’
"What? Could it be...you want my shrimp?!"
Arthur’s random question snapped her out of her thoughts and she looked at the boy in front of her who was shifting away with his shrimp bowl.
"No, I don’t want your shrimp."
"Then, it’s the catfish you’re after?!"
"No, it’s not!"
This little conversation of theirs was overshadowed by the booming voice of the Private soldiers who were scolding the other Recruits he ’abandoned’.
◇ ◇ ◇
Though the new recruits were scolded for the noise, there wasn’t any real punishment for them so they were all set free after dinner.
Some wanted to take the chance to explore the Mega City that was Duskhand, but upon thinking about the line-up of activities they had the next day, from parades, to combat training, they decided against that and opted to sleep.
Arthur played along with them, but at around midnight, he left an echo of his presence in the dorm room and leapt out through the windows.
He concealed himself and moved through the city, admiring the ’Outer City’ where they currently were.
Duskhand was a massive city with a total area that spanned roughly 30,000 square kilometres. Half of that was the Outer City and the other half was the Inner City,
The ’Outer City’ was shaped like a doughnut, surrounding the ’Inner City’ in a rough circle.
Most civilians and non-commissioned military officers and non-combat military personnel lived in the Outer City, while the Inner City was where the top dogs of the army, the commissioned officers of ranks Second Lieutenant and above were based.
That place was the ’True’ Duskhand Bastille, the headquarters of the Allied Races’ Army, with various military facilities situated there.
From the roof of the highest clock tower of the Outer City, Arthur overlooked the entirety of Duskhand, before raising his gaze to the night sky.
"I’m taking a liking to high places now."
He thought about everything that happened in the past week, his journey to Valmone, meeting Alvey, the abrupt battle where he was branded as a Demon Summoner, meeting McEnda going to Militopolis and meeting with Sigesi, and then sneaking into Duskhand.
"I have a year here, huh?
I’m going to have to make the best of it."
As he thought that, he dipped his hand into his subspace and pulled out a law crystal which he had gotten from Lucifer, taking a deep breath as he muttered the name of the law it contained.
"The law of summoning..."
Frankly, Arthur didn’t want to add another law under his belt, after all, comprehending too many laws at once would actually slow him down, rather than help him.
These days, he had not even attempted to increase his comprehensions in the law of time. Not even by the slightest bit.
Since he had gained a Pseudo-Authority there, he wanted to bring his other laws up to the same level first.
Especially as he now had a soul capable of holding more than one Pseudo-authority.
His next target was the law of destruction, and he could tell that he was getting close; he just could not figure out what he needed to take that final step.
The laws of space and gravity trailed behind, and from his conversation with McEnda earlier in the day, he was very close to achieving one in gravity as well.
’Let’s say I get it at 50%, the sheer amount of time and knowledge in that remaining 12% is almost the same as the previous 38%.’
Arthur twirled a ring of destruction energy in his palm, looking at the red light as he struggled to understand what was the cause of the bottleneck he was facing.
"Mum did say that witnessing mass applications of the law one was comprehending could help them.
Like how she gained comprehensions in gravity by watching Grandma Inglis collapse spacetime and generate a black hole."
He applied that logic to his current case and his eyes widened at the result he gained.
"Should I witness the destruction of something massive?
I would have asked Alvey to blow off a few mountains for me but he does not use the law of destruction, and neither does McEnda.
That’s gonna be hard to get..."
The boy heaved a light sigh before returning his focus to the law crystal in his palm.
"The goal was to get Space, Gravity and Destruction to Pseudo Authority level, before moving on to Extinction and Concealment.
Only after that did I plan to take in another law, but I guess that plan’s a bust."
The Divine Humans and Flugels had considered Arthur a summoner and had already reported to their superiors that he was one, so he had to at least look the part, right?
"This is just a basic law crystal, but for the current me, it’s enough."
He spun around the law crystal in his palm, remembering the first time he ever used a law crystal, remembering how Alexia ’tricked’ him into using it wrongly.
The yellowish energy of the law of summoning flowed out of the crystal and seeped into his body, with a slight headache affecting him.
"I can never get used to this feeling.
Guess, it’s because I’m not a Transcendent, yet I’m absorbing law energies..."
As he spoke, the yellowish energy of the law was slowly influenced by his aura and turned to a silver hue.
"All my law energies are all affected by my innate energy..."
He held up his both hands and created rings of law energies around each finger, watching as they all slowly changed from their respective colours to silver.
The ones from major laws like Space, Extinction, Gravity and the Elemental laws took longer, but eventually, they changed.
"...All except time and destruction."
