Chapter 779: Past Arrogance and Meanness

For a moment, Christina felt very happy.

Oh my god, is it so cool to be a pawn of a big shot?

Even Albert Lore, the "future star of the universe", had to bow to him!

…Although he was definitely actually saluting Alice, it still felt so good!

And yet, her body was moving on its own.

"Ah, yes. I have an impression of you..."

Christina suddenly understood, nodded, and said bluntly, "You're the girl who was asked to sleep with someone, but because you were so talkative, you were bought away before you could even get a chance to be fucked."

……What?

Christina felt as if she had heard a big news, and she and Aurora quietly opened their ears and listened.

"Yes, I suppose you are the spirit following Miss Aleister," Albert said without any shame, even puffing out his chest and looking proud. "The person I was chatting with at that time was the greatest alchemist in the world, Bashir Valentine!

"I really wanted to spend more time with him... but that ceremony ended far too early. If possible, I would have even wanted to spend a hundred years in that ceremony! From discussing alchemy, to witnessing the 'Sundering War', then the founding of the Star Antimony Nation, and then personally seeing off that great man... Compared to that miracle, even becoming a girl or a blood slave is nothing!"

“…I heard you say that.”

Aurora suddenly realized: "But you didn't tell me that you turned into a girl to see Valentine I..."

"That's normal, isn't it?" Albert shook his head. "If it weren't for that kind of occasion and that kind of identity, how could I, who wasn't even at the fourth level at the time, have the opportunity to come into contact with that adult..."

And Christina gradually understood.

Miss Aleister seems to have met Count Leipzig and Albert at the same promotion ceremony.

It was obvious that not only Albert... but even the great Count Leipzig was at a disadvantage. Otherwise, Alice wouldn't have addressed the Count Leipzig by his code name in such a casual tone.

Although she knew that Miss Aleister had defeated Count Dawn and resurrected herself from the dead, Christina still didn't quite understand her true strength. After all, she was accompanied by a seemingly formidable bodyguard. It was not unusual for a spellcaster capable of resurrecting the dead, and a lady of noble status, to have a bodyguard even more powerful than herself.

Otherwise, why would we need guards?

And now with Count Leipzig and Mr. Albert, she finally had a concrete understanding of Aleister's strength.

Catching her thoughts, Alice was a little surprised: "Wait, don't you know who my master is?"

[…What? Should I know?]

Christina responded somewhat confusedly.

"I thought, with your social experience at school, you must have heard of this name... but it turns out you didn't know it from the beginning."

Alice sighed and said to the two, "My host seems unaware of the identity of her benefactor. What I said may be biased... Please help me explain."

After that, she dived back into Christina's heart.

Christina's consciousness surfaced again and she regained control of her body.

“…Where do I even begin?”

Albert hesitated, exchanged glances with Aurora, and then decided to start from the beginning: "When I first met Miss Aleister, she was with a man who had adapted to the Tao, codenamed 'Gray'. She was only at the second level of energy at the time, but she could fully control the power of the Shadow Demon, which was said to be absolutely impossible. And Mr. Gray also had the ability to control shadows."

"...I may have seen the 'Mr. Gray', but the Shadow Fiend..."

Christina hesitated.

She knew that her mentor's demon follower was the "Night Demon," the black crow. But she had no knowledge of demons, so she didn't know if this was normal or not, nor did she know if she could talk about it.

——Perhaps Shadow Fiend is the trump card, and Night Fiend is the demon that is usually summoned.

So she kept her mouth shut and decided not to reveal her mentor's privacy.

As for Mr. Gray, he should be the strong man who has adapted to the Tao beside her.

Albert continued to narrate: "Later, I learned a terrifying thing... That Aleister was actually an ancient Moon Child from the Imperial Era."

"...Ah," Christina nodded, "Yes, she is a very powerful Moon Child."

This can always be said - after all, the Son of the Moon needs to suck blood, and those red eyes are so bright, so his identity is not easy to hide.

"Her other identity is the lover of the Eternal Pope Aiwass."

Albert replied.

"……ah?"

Christina was a little confused: "The Eternal Pope? He's not the Iron-Blooded Queen's..."

"It's said that Aiwass and the Iron-Blooded Queen have conflicting views," Albert shook his head. "And his true love is Lady Aleister. Originally, Aiwass, due to his status, might not have been able to refuse the Queen of Avalon's marriage proposal... But now that he's the Pope, he can probably do whatever he wants.

"--In other words, Lady Aleister is the first lover of the Eternal Pope in history. This status is definitely higher than that of any queen of any country, even higher than that of Valentine VII."

"The seventh generation passed away not long ago, and now it's the eighth generation..."

Christina corrected quietly.

Albert stared at Christina, his voice gradually rising: "I once had the honor of participating in the same ascension ceremony with His Holiness the Pope. I witnessed His Holiness the Pope transform into a light more blazing than the sun, and I also learned that he was the blessed one of the Twin Mirror... As early as then, I knew that he would become a great man..."

...It was then that I finally understood what those experiments meant.

Albert said this in his heart, lost in memories.

He knew the difference between the dead and the living before he could read; he understood the anatomy of the human body before he knew the geography of the stars. To him, necromancy was a sacred art. It was art, and it was truth.

To him, the blood and entrails were like mud and beetles to other children; he stitched up the corpses like other children building sandcastles. To him, this was the best and most interesting game in the world, and he was born with a talent for it.

Just like a talented star player!

But Albert was never proud.

Because when he was a teenager, he had been discussing necromancy with experts who could be his parents, even grandparents, and great-grandparents. He had lived in an environment where "I know nothing" since he was a child, eager to collect all the knowledge he could get his hands on, and eager to make all the progress he could.

He longed for recognition and hoped that he would no longer be treated as a "future genius" and be treated with goodwill by others, but instead hoped to become an equal and participate in discussions with them now.

Albert thought, "All I need is fame and recognition."

To achieve fame and draw attention, he'd done countless things. He constantly engaged in "micro-innovations," optimizing previous technologies in bizarre ways, then promptly patenting them and publishing them in newspapers, eager for serious discussions with the masters. For example, could the Thunder Walker's random lightning-attracting ability be pinpointed through antennas or branding? Or could the Earthbound Spirit gain mobility by miniaturizing its equipment and making it portable?

But no one ever noticed him.

During Albert's most arrogant years, he even lied and deliberately stole other people's inventions.

While reading an academic journal, he saw that a master of necromancy who had taught him claimed in an academic conference that he was creating a lizard-like undead that "can devour dry land and discharge black silt." His brain started working fast, and he used the idea of ​​earthworms and a simpler method to construct a snake-like undead with the same function. He registered his own patent before the master's undead was completed.

At that time, the entire academic community of Xingti was in an uproar - although the master came up with the idea first, it was Albert who registered the patent earlier.

Some believe Albert plagiarized the master's idea and published it first; others believe the invention of this thing couldn't be completed in a day or two, so it was just a coincidence of ideas; some even think the master took advantage of his seniority and stole Albert's idea for his own use...

When Albert saw that he had become the talk of the entire planet, he was overjoyed.

He deliberately didn't refute the rumor, instead allowing people to speculate, fueling the controversy. He even imagined a story in his mind: the master would fight with him for the patent, the two would become academic rivals, and finally, before the master's death, he would repent, ending their feud and becoming close friends regardless of age, a story that would be told forever...

However, the master eventually publicly stated that his invention was far inferior to Albert's - even if his invention was successfully implemented, it would be doomed to be eliminated by Albert's invention due to its overly complicated production steps and instability. Therefore, he highly praised Albert's invention and even privately sent him a copy of his handwritten experimental records so that Albert could further optimize the project.

——The master paid no attention to this dispute at all.

...That was the first time Albert felt what regret was.

He regretted his arrogance and meanness.

At that time, Albert woke up from his madness, and in the strong sense of emptiness, he felt the true meaning of the twilight path.

From then on, he changed his ways, wrote a long letter to the master to apologize, and then settled down to do research... until the invention of the "armed gargoyle" changed everything.

Unlike last time, this time he relied entirely on his own abilities to become a big man respected by people!

Therefore, Albert used up all his energy and even stopped his research on alchemy... At that time, he had already completed the fourth energy level of the Path of Dusk and the second energy level of the Path of Balance and became a "Disaster Splicer".

However, his devotion to the Armored Gargoyle led him to neglect his path, even with his resources fully utilized. Instead, he devoted all his energy to continuously making subtle refinements to the Armored Gargoyle, invisible to the naked eye. He single-handedly created over sixty different versions of the flesh armor alone. The specific optimal load-bearing formula—the balance between firearms, ammunition, and armor—required countless mathematical calculations.

In the experimental field, he used various meticulously crafted "high-speed airborne undead" that simulated griffon riders as targets, repeatedly allowing various gargoyles to attack them. Individually, in small groups, and collectively... After each round of attacks, he meticulously collected data, then resurrected these undead and gargoyles, optimizing them before conducting further experiments.

By analyzing the lethality and penetration power, then repairing and resurrecting these undead, they will be put into the next round of testing.

In addition to this high-speed undead, he also let the armed gargoyles attack regular undead such as zombies and armored zombies to test their lethality to the army.

——It was not until he tested the Thunder Walking Zombie that he had optimized that he suddenly realized that the experimental data was not right.

These armed gargoyles seem to be somewhat afraid of lightning...

(End of this chapter)