Odyssey of the Blind God

Because the Linaton race didn't bother Nial too much anymore, he chose to spend the next few days taking a look at the other shelters.

When he had been in the shelters to assassinate the Linaton Ambassador of each shelter, Nial noticed a few things that attracted his interest.

He could visualize the shelters in their entirety when he emerged in the teleportation station of the respective shelter. Thus, Nial knew where he had to go even if he had never been to most of the shelters he visited right now. He had only been there to kill the Linaton Ambassadors, that was it.

All 'secret' organizations, created by other races, were trying to expand their territory of influence. They used the shelters in the territory of the origin human's race to achieve this as quickly as possible. Origin humans were useful thanks to the racial trait to bind five ability crystals to their mana core, after all.

'The shelters look much better than I expected. The shelter walls are a little run-down but people seem more satisfied in the other shelters…'

Nial realized quickly that the Halheim shelter was the only one that could consider waging a civil war. The civilians of the other shelters were not agitated enough to reconsider waging war with their own government.

That was not caused due to the terror the Linaton Investigators but it was something the secret organizations of the other races caused.

There were many brawls that broke out between the secret organizations that were trying to hinder each other from expanding their territory. Everyone wanted to make as many gains as possible and they didn't even think about sharing.

Thus, seeing the members of the organizations' fight in the shelters, most ordinary civilians couldn't help but become afraid of Originals. The members of the organizations were origin humans, who had been given martial art techniques.

It was obvious that these techniques couldn't be learned for free, however, that was not something the ordinary civilians could even think about when they witnessed the bloody brawls of their own people firsthand.

Nial witnessed a bunch of brawls in the four days he had spent in the remaining human shelters. He procured some information about the dangers of the wilderness around each shelter, made sure that the economy was doing fine, and visualized and analyzed the combat prowess of the secret organizations' members.

Nial could tell that they were a lot stronger than ordinary origin humans, but that was a given. After all, Martial art techniques allowed the wielder to unleash potent energy from the depths of their body.

The better the foundation of the practitioner, the more strength they could unleash with the use of a martial art technique.

Of course, it was also important that the martial art technique was compatible with the practitioner and that the technique's rank would be high enough to be of actual help to the practitioner.

If a technique was nothing special, even possessing perfect proficiency and great mana control would provide a worse result than the practitioner using no technique and just his instincts, creativity, and understanding of his own body.

Techniques had been created to make use of a certain amount of mana and use it in the most efficient way, however, not every technique was perfect. In fact, most techniques weren't! How could it be easy to find, let alone create a perfected Martial Arts technique, after all!?

Either way, the casualties caused by the brawls between the secret organizations were extremely small, and no civilian had died until now. Thus, nobody said anything. Everyone joining an organization of guild knew, for sure, that their life as adventurers would be dangerous.

Death was not uncommon when living the life of an adventurer.

They took a high risk by seeking opportunities to become stronger and they would either get high returns, or their life would end badly.

Nial understood this as well, especially since he had encountered more trouble than most ordinary humans could even fathom.

Nonetheless, he felt that the brawls were a nuisance. The secret organizations had been created by foreign races. Shouldn't it be better to act sneakily while expanding their range of influence, rather than openly fighting with other organizations?

Nial couldn't help but feel a little bit odd about that.

He was thinking of an answer to ease his suspicion and he came to a quick conclusion when he finished visiting the last shelter.

'I think it's time to spread the Orion Association's influence to the other shelters!'

Nial's answer to the doubts he had was pretty easy. The Orion Association had many members and they were better in terms of skills, and stronger than the average of most organizations. But there was another reason for his confidence to become the apex predator within the remaining shelters…

Even the lowest-ranked members of the Orion Association were in possession of, at least, two pieces of runic armaments!

It didn't matter that some of them had been produced by Rookie Runiciers, or that they were Tier-0 runic armaments. The only important factor was that the Orion Association had equipment of much higher quality than everyone else.

They had Nial, the unique Grandmaster Runicier, after all!

When he made his decision, Nial acted quickly. He told Melheim to purchase land in the other shelters and look after the construction of the Onyx Association's buildings. It was also necessary for him to look at the permission to accept missions in the different shelters, but Nial simply ignored that. Melheim and his people could take care of the paperwork.

Nial, meanwhile, was ready to get to work, create thousands of Runic Armaments and focus on the progress of his Mana Core's training.

He had yet to finish the 10,000 Refinements of Imperfectia as well. Knowing that Nial purchased more nutrition solutions and he came up with a rough schedule to plan everything.

He adjusted his plan in accordance to the information provided by Melheim but they didn't actually change a lot. In fact, Melheim's information made it seem like Nial would be the one who was bound to slow down the expansion to the other shelters.

'To think that we would have so many new applicants. Are they interested in the Runic Armaments, in my people, or in the association?'

Nial wondered, hoping that it would be the latter.

"Well, we will see in the future…" He mumbled before he diverted his focus once again.

It was time for him to go full throttle and work hard to become stronger rather than amassing more and more wealth!

Nial stayed in the Artisan's building with that in mind. Ryu came over to him as well, mostly to reunite with Nial but also to make use of the Essence of Darkness which Nial released subconsciously.

The subconscious release of his Essence Darkness was also why many Dark Elves and even Nightshadow Elves had requested to stay by Nial's side. It was a weird request but it made sense.

His Essence of Darkness strengthened beings that were affiliated to the darkness element.

That was why Nial ended up getting paid for allowing others to cultivate when he was doing the same.

Who wouldn't want to earn a fortune in such a way?

It was easy money, and the people around him were getting stronger as well…a win-win situation!