Odyssey of the Blind God

Once Nial was done purchasing the entire nutrition solution stockpile in the Halheim shelter, Nial returned to the wooden hut in the Forest of Life.

His father was awake and he rushed to Nial, who stood in the wooden door frame with Ryu in one arm and holding the little Oracle's hand with another.

However, Miles didn't care about them at all. He rushed toward his son and hugged him tightly.

"I thought you would never come back…" Miles said in a low voice that cracked a bit. Nial felt a sting in his heart hearing his father and it was just a moment later that he noticed his empty hand.

The Little Oracle had let go of him with a gentle expression on her face. Nial patted his father on his back, while ignoring Ryu, who chirped out at the sudden pressure that weighed him down.

The Gryphon was squeezed in between two men, who hugged each other tightly, waking him up from a pleasant dream, at that!

Ryu chirped out, both liking the emotional hug and suffocating from the force that was put on him from both sides.

"I think you should write down what you want to tell me, the next time you have a big secret to expose. You are really bad when it comes to explaining something verbally…" Nial said when he realized that his father had no idea what he was supposed to say first.

There were so many things Miles wanted to say, but it felt as if everything that left his mouth would somehow create a big misunderstanding.

"O-okay…just never think that we picked you up as a replacement for Kilian…we would have loved to see both of you grow up as brothers…" Miles finally said after contemplating for several minutes.

Nial's expression changed slightly when he heard this and he nodded his head.

"I know…"

There was not much to talk about for the father-son duo. Both could tell that they needed the hug.

Nial felt that he had been a bit too childish when he found out that the people he had called his parents all his life had never actually been his biological parents, but he didn't mind that anymore.

Was it even important, who his real parents were? Nial couldn't disregard that question but he was able to tell that he wouldn't want to replace Miles and Maline with someone else, no matter what! They had done a terrific job raising him with love and care while doing exactly the same with his sister.

Money hadn't been easy to come by for them but they gave their best to be good parents…and that was everything that counted for Nial.

Now that he thought about the past, Nial felt melancholic.

It was almost as if decades had passed since they had been too poor to even think about purchasing powerful weapons, let alone waste precious money by absorbing mana from within Origin crystals.

Nial felt like a hypocrite at that thought because he was now wasting millions of Origin crystals to do numerous things. First of all, he had wasted close to seven million Origin crystals to bind the Summoning ability and to summon the Tyrant of Destruction.

That was not even that long ago, and it was just the first time he wasted a good amount of resources. What followed afterward was his splurge of Origin crystals to empower the Teleportation device, allowing him to return home as quickly as possible.

As if that was not enough, Nial was ready to use the remaining bunch of several million Origin crystals to practice the 10,000 Refinements of Imperfectia as quickly as possible.

He had invested a humongous fortune, which would have been big enough to allow several hundreds of Originals to advance to the Prometheus rank, just to refine his body a little bit.

His actions might seem ridiculous, but it made total sense to Nial.

He needed a perfect foundation before advancing to the Deux rank and if he could accelerate his progress by splurging a fortune of Origin crystal, he had even more reason to do so.

"I forgot to give you a few things when we talked a few days ago," Nial finally said when he separated from his father.

Ryu was struggling in Nial's arm. He wrestled out of Nial's tight grip and jumped on top of the blind Original's head. Flapping his two pairs of wings, he disheveled his master's long hair without mercy.

Nial didn't mind whatever Ryu did as he retrieved a few books from his spatial ring.

He put them down on the nearby table before sitting down on the comfortable wooden couch that had been padded with soft cushioning.

"I have yet to write down the translations for the techniques, and I'm not sure if the effects will be the same if you don't learn it in the original language as I might mistranslate a bunch of words, but these two techniques are a neutral body refinement technique that focus on the cleansing of the body rather than the accumulation of brute physical strength.

Practicing these techniques is possible for every human-like race and it will help you circulate mana through your mana veins much faster than you can now. Basically, it increases the rank of your Mana Veins by reinforcing and cleansing them," Nial stopped talking and took a few breaths before he continued.

"As for the other technique, it is a Mana Breathing technique. Practicing the technique will allow you to sense mana with much more precision and absorb it more naturally than through the crude ways we usually absorb mana. I have already learned the technique and I think it will suit you very well…though it might feel a little bit weird to change the way you breathe, even if it's just a little."

Nial had a lot to explain about the techniques but Miles lifted his hand as if to ask a question, or to ask for permission to interrupt his son.

"I learned a translation ability because it was too hard for me to learn all the different languages…" Miles said when Nial stopped talking to listen to his father.

"Oh, well that makes things a lot easier."

Nial understood his father's reasoning to bind a translation ability to his mana core, but he felt that it was a bit of a waste.

Learning other languages, written and spoken, was merely something that required effort. Some had to put in more effort to learn a new language while others had it rather easy, nonetheless, one had to put in effort.

However, that was already it. Effort and persistence were all it took.

Thus, it would have been far more efficient to learn a different type of ability to his mana core rather than the translation ability.

'It's not like dad wants to start fighting again…he was never really a good combatant, either way. Maybe becoming a foreign race ambassador or interpreter will suit him better?'

The future was bound to have several instances when mankind would encounter new races- races whose language was alien to humans. It would be difficult to find ways to communicate with each other, which might eventually turn into a conflict due to differences in culture and misinterpretation.

Someone's polite action might turn into a challenge for a life-and-death battle. Knowing that it was only obvious that interpreters would play a crucial role the more races were to emerge on Jundra.

Nial tried to accept this, but it was very hard. He would rather have his father bind one powerful defensive ability and four abilities that reinforced his defensive ability to prevent even Gods from being able to scratch his father.

Unfortunately, it looked like Miles didn't feel like doing anything like that, not even remotely. Miles didn't possess a single ability for his protection, and knowing his father well enough to understand his actions, Nial was able to tell that Miles wouldn't bind a defensive ability to his mana core even with five empty ability slots at his disposal.

'Why is Sabrina not here…she would scream at him until he would listen to her and do whatever she wants…this little girl… whenever you need her she is not around, so frustrating…I hope she is fine though…'

Thinking about his sister, Nial felt a little bit complicated. He wanted to scold her a lot, but at the same time, he wanted to make sure that she was doing fine.

And then there was the revelation that he was not actually her brother by blood. That would shock her a lot, probably more than it shocked Nial.

Scratching the back of his head, Nial figured that he had a really complicated family.

'Well, it's not like I didn't know that they're all nutcases…'