"I’m going to step out for a bit. I’ll be back in just a few hours, okay?"
Clentine just gave a thumbs up without taking her eyes off the book.
Chuckling, I left the hot spring cave and began slowly flying away.
I didn’t need to go that far, but seeing the destroyed ground around and the debris of a fallen mountain, I kind of felt bad.
So I went straight west, to the plains.
There was a long river between the mountains and the plains.
Hanazora ended at the river, and from what I recall, this whole territory of plains, up until the ocean, belonged to the barbarians.
It wasn’t the biggest land, and there were more countries surrounding it from all sides, basically cornering and pressuring the barbarians.
Also, despite them being called barbarians, all they were was just people wielding axes and having primarily body-enhancing Gifts.
Since they were much stronger than others and wielded axes, there was so prejudice, obviously.
Since I didn’t see a single barbarian near the Hanazora border, I just landed wherever.
The grass was really tall, but so areas were a little shorter, as though soone had already walked through here.
Of course, there were also a few paths ahead, and they probably led to a village or camp.
Since I didn’t co here to mingle with the barbarians, I simply cleared a few ters of area and sat down.
The main idea of creating a Guardian is understanding the nature of your manipulation Gift.
Sothing like water would be calm and gentle.
Fire would be chaotic and dangerous.
As simple as it was, these were the basics, and they would define the personality of a guardian, as well as its specialty.
But I’ll be skipping all of those basics.
I didn’t have years to figure out the Black Lightning Manipulation’s minor details.
I had months before the world ended.
So with that in mind, I closed my eyes and focused on the black lightning energy in my heart.
Then, I raised my right hand and channeled black lightning directly into it.
A faint crackle of black lightning appeared in my palm, which soon expanded into an all-out lightning bolt, containing a chunk of my energy.
But before I proceeded, I compressed the lightning bolt until it was the size of a marble and carefully placed it in my other hand.
Taking a deep breath, I repeated the process once, twice... ten tis.
When a faint trickle of blood ran down my nose, I knew I was finally out of energy.
I glanced at the ten black lightning marbles in my left hand and began rging them all as precisely and slowly as I could.
The process was long and painful, as the more I rged the compressed lightning, the more it affected my body, slowly charring my left arm and even revealing bone.
But this wasn’t even remotely close to the pain I had felt inside the cauldron.
And so, when I eventually finished rging all ten of them, a nail-sized black marble rested in my palm.
Though not for long, as I soon tossed it high into the sky, boosting it upward with my Telekinesis.
Then, with a single thought, I disconnected my energy from the black lightning marble, causing a loud whistle to resound throughout the plains.
ZZZZZZZZZT
The whistle turned even louder and more eerie, and once I felt as though the marble was about to explode and nuke the whole plains, I sent my energy upward, connecting it with that black marble.
CRAAAACK!
The recoil broke every bone in my right arm, and as the imnse amount of energy from the marble entered my body, I winced slightly, holding myself together as the loud whistling stopped.
With that, the marble soon landed on the ground beside , its energy completely drained and back inside my body.
I just laid there for a few minutes, disoriented and waiting for my body to regenerate.
Once that was done, I slowly rose to my feet and glanced around.
A Guardian didn’t appear.
I really hoped to do this in one attempt.
But then again... even in the ga, there was only a 5% chance of this working.
In easier terms, getting a Guardian to react to the sudden burst of energy and then attach its own consciousness to it was the sa as trying to start a broken pull-start chainsaw.
So that ant I had to do this again until I get it.
"..."
This’ll take a while.
***
ZZZZZZZZT!
RUMBLEEEE!
"Oh?"
About damn ti.
Instead of the energy of the marble traveling back into my body upon the connection, it suddenly began expanding, dyeing the already dark sky completely black.
Black lightning began sprouting out of the marble, and as if it had a mind of its own, it began swirling around, forming into so kind of shape.
I was blinded by all that black lightning, so I relied on my Mystic Eyes to follow the energy traces and see that way.
But all I was t with was a crimson red eye that stared directly at .
It felt like it was trying to pry into my mind, but because of my high ntal Resistance, the crimson eye couldn’t do anything until it eventually gave up.
The black lightning dissipated and scattered.
Yet in the next instant, I felt sothing light land on my shoulder, followed by a deep, manly voice directly inside my head.
[Do you always knock 30 tis on a door?]
"..."
"Does it always take you 30 knocks to answer?"
I turned to my right and spotted a pitch-black raven.
Its left eye was crimson and radiated a lot of energy.
The other eye looked clawed out, and what replaced it was an ugly scar.
Judging by how the ends of this raven’s feathers had crackling black lightning, I guessed this raven was my guardian.
"Could you ease up a little? Your claws are digging into my shoulder."
[You don’t seem very bothered by that fact.]
I rolled my eyes.
It didn’t hurt much, but if this is how it’s going to be...
"Are you the rebellious type of Guardian?"
[Rebellious?]
[Rebellion implies I am your servant. I am not. I sensed your energy, and I decided to answer.]
[And so far... I haven’t seen anything that would make this visit worthwhile.]
"Is that so."
In that case...
"Then get out and call another Guardian to take your place. It’s late, and I’m exhausted."
I fell backward, landing on my back.
The raven flapped its wings a couple of tis and landed on my chest.
[There’s no one else to call.]
Ah.
It must an that there aren’t any more rogue Black Lightning Guardians out there.
So the only way to get soone other than this raven is to create a Guardian from scratch.
With my ti limit, that’s not possible.
So it seems like I was only left with one choice.
I need to get along with this raven and make it my guardian.
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