For a solid 40 seconds after saying my part, there was no response from Xilia. However, I could feel her gaze burrowing a hole into the side of my head, and I knew what she was thinking.
"Look, don’t give me that, alright? How am I supposed to know shit that was passed down by word of mouth thousands of years ago? Even if I delve as deep as possible into the lore, at best, I will have basic knowledge about the Dievas; it’s not like they were as popular as Olympus or Asian Deities; the Slavic Gods had their time, and they were wiped away into the annuls of history."
"Hell, the only reason I have any knowledge of them to begin with is because of a random Reddit thread I stumbled on in the Origin Timeline, and even that didn’t go in-depth into the over 50 Slavic Gods, apart from a brief description." Drumming my fingers a bit harder on Baby’s Steering wheel, I rolled my eyes and ran my tongue along the inside of my bottom teeth.
"I see…ok, I can accept that. It’s just you always seem to know everything about everything, so I find it refreshing when there’s something that has you stumped; anywho, where are we heading, and how long till we get there?"
"Well, you slept through more than half the drive, but we still have about five and a half hours; our target location is Cambridge."
"Cambridge, as in Harvard Cambridge? Oh, I get it; you wanna hit up the Library there since it’s got a bunch of old texts and such." Nodding her head, Xilia reached into the back seat and grabbed the blanket before wrapping herself up and leaning on the window.
Unfortunately, it was well into the late hours of the night, so apart from random flashing lights every now and then, there wasn’t much scenery to observe.
"So…you wanna talk about it? Or are we gonna ignore the Elephant in the Impala?" After several minutes of silence, Xilia broke it and turned the topic onto something she noticed was subconsciously bothering me.
"Tsk, that contract connection of ours is quite annoying. Sigh, do I want to talk about the fact that someone got into my head, and it took everything I had to get them out? No, not really." The drumming stopped as I white-knuckled the steering wheel.
Honestly, I was fuming internally at what had happened in the motel; however, as I had bigger issues to worry about, I decided to focus on the steps to move forward, but now that it was brought up and I had confirmed it aloud; I knew Xilia wasn’t about to let it go easily.
"Look, it happens; you can’t be prepared for every situation and scenario, Taylor; there will obviously be holes and gaps you can’t account for." Based on the slight twitches under the blanket, I knew that Xilia was fighting the urge to reach over and touch me.
"It’s not a matter of being prepared; it’s a matter of how much power I had to burn; it took every single point of PC I had to protect my mind and force him out…I don’t like that, it makes me appear weak, but that’s how it goes with those old fuckers."
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"All of the old beings, be they long lived Myriad races or anomalies calling themselves Gods, they all have EXTREMELY HIGH Intellect Stats, and if they happen to have a skill or ability that gives them some type of mental attack, I am forced on the back foot."
"Yeah…I get that, Taylor, but shouldn’t you be able to surpass them?" Xilia asked with concern in her voice.
"Not until Gamma Rank, that’s when I get a passive stat boost to my Meta-Physical Defense and My Intellect Stat thanks to my Talent, but even then, there are still going to be fuckers like Albeon or Croldroth who can keep up statistically since their race doesn’t have caps on certain stats."
"Taylor….you do realize who you are comparing yourself to, right…the Elvin King and Draconic Overlord, two beings who have lived for 10s if not hundreds of thousands of years, you can’t expect to…"
"To what? Be smarter? Hell no, I am not nearly naive enough to believe something like that. They have WAY more life experience than me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t win in a battle of wits with either, and Radegast…is no exception."
"I don’t like losing Xilia, and this….feels like a loss."
"Hah, if that’s how you feel, so be it; what’s the plan, don’t get all angsty and try avoiding me because I know you, and I know damn well you’ve got at least five working plans right now, give me the one we are doing first."
Now, it was my turn to be silent. The truth was, she was correct. I did have several plans, but most of them were incomplete due to a lack of knowledge; that was the main reason we were heading to Cambridge in the first place.
I needed to get my hands on as many old texts about the Slavic Gods as possible. If there was one thing I could count on being in the Harvard Library, it was that there would be plenty of tales and epics revolving around the battles of the Slavic Gods and their exploits.
From there, I could extrapolate a rough estimate of their Stats, combat ability, and skillset, and then, it was a matter of running those numbers against my own, and if a large discrepancy emerged…well, let’s just say there was more than one way to overcome said numerical disadvantages.
"When we get to the Library, we will sneak in undercover with your stealth skill and search for anything old; that’s the first step. Odds are that what we want won’t be in any book published in the 19th century, so we have to go to the restricted section where they keep tomes, scrolls, and other ancient works."
"Sooo, sneak in, find the old stuff locked away because no one can read them due to it being written in dead languages, and we what? Steal the super rare and incomparably expensive relics of old?"
"…." Turning my head, I blinked three times slowly at Xilia and resisted the urge to smack her.
"Why in the fuck would I need to steal them? A single glance is all I need to memorize everything; the point is to get in and out without being caught because I don’t doubt all that shit is being heavily monitored."