After an intense morning workout, Lucius massaged his own muscles and bones.
He had learned not to underestimate the grumpy old man with the tough bones.
'He's really good,' Lucius grumbled.
Although his punches weren't hard, they were all too precise. With his body in its current state, naturally every one of those blows hurt.
Thanks to the Silver Marrow Elixir, he could now move normally. Although mana was still leaking from his body uncontrollably, he could fight without any trouble, so he took advantage of that to train all morning.
After lunch, Lucius headed toward Scrap Street hoping to find something good. But since there was nothing there and he didn't even find old Garen working, he went to his house.
"Old man, I came to visit you. Haven't you died yet?" Lucius shouted from outside as he pushed the door.
He received no answer.
The house was deathly silent.
'Did he really die?' he thought, and walked in without a second thought.
In the living room, many tools lay scattered on the floor, strewn everywhere. All of them were useless, waiting to be restored. But old Garen wasn't there.
Lucius crossed the living room and entered the room where he had trained…
There he found the old man.
He was lying on the floor, staring intently at some tools in front of him.
"Old man, I thought you'd died." Lucius let out a sigh of relief when he saw he was alive.
Old Garen frowned and turned to look at him. "Oh, it's you. Kid, look what I found." He pointed to what he was looking at.
Lucius turned his gaze to the indicated area and frowned. "Those are… Holographic Puppets?" he asked in shock.
"And there are four of them!" Old Garen exclaimed.
Lucius quickly stepped forward and examined them. The tools were square and didn't look anything like puppets. But that's normal. They're holographic puppets. Right now they're deactivated, but when they're activated, all their limbs extend and they become useful for training.
"Where did you find something this good?" he asked in shock.
"The Asturians threw them away!" Old Garen replied with a chuckle. "I picked them up from those guys' trash."
"The Asturians?" Lucius raised his eyebrows and stared at him. "Stealing from those guys isn't a good idea."
Old Garen raised his fingers, made the peace sign, and said with a smile, "It's not considered stealing if they were already on the public sidewalk."
Lucius couldn't help but laugh and shook his head in surrender.
"These two require Mana Marks to activate." Lucius pointed to the two largest ones. "They require Rank E Marks. Unfortunately, I can't get my hands on any right now."
"What about the others?" asked old Garen, his expression shifting from joy to gloom and then from gloom to hope.
"They don't require Mana Marks." Lucius sat up straight and grabbed those two tools. "I can fix them. The problem is they're going to need a lot of mana to function," he said.
"How much?" Old Garen stepped closer to examine them. He knew he had a lot to learn from this boy.
"It's quite a lot, but I've already thought of an alternative. If we install two overload-type magical tools that absorb a lot of ambient mana, they should work without any problems for long periods of time."
Old Garen looked at him and, in shock, asked, "Can that be done?"
"We'll find out soon."
Lucius didn't waste any more time. He threw himself into repairing these puppets. Although he had planned to train with the grumpy old man at the inn that afternoon, he would have to put it off. With these tools, his training would go much better, and he could be more than ready in 15 days.
Old Garen watched him intently from the side. Although he wanted to learn how to repair them, it was quite difficult, so he simply watched in silence. Although he could repair magical tools, they were ones that weren't in as bad a condition as these.
And so, the hours passed.
Since they were such complex tools, it took Lucius the entire afternoon until nightfall to fix them and install the other components that would serve as the fuel for their operation.
It was 8 p.m. when Lucius let out a sigh and stood up.
Old Garen stood up behind him. He watched every move he made. "Are you done?" he asked.
Lucius didn't answer. Instead, he activated the tools implanted in the Holographic Puppets and walked away.
The tools activated and began absorbing mana from the air. At the same time, the Holographic Puppets did the same.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The moment they activated and the limbs emerged from every orifice of the puppet's perfect square, they fell to the ground, failing to reach their full potential due to a lack of mana.
They both waited a little longer. The mana seeped through the magical tools and entered the copper "veins," quickly becoming part of each limb made of bluish mana.
The limit on the amount of mana they could absorb was quickly reached, and the puppets could not be completed.
"I'd forgotten. Most of the mana here is corrupted. The copper veins are so saturated with corrupted mana that they simply can't activate them." Lucius sighed heavily.
Old Garen had noticed it too. "Maybe if we go deeper into the Iron Suburbs, it might work. It didn't take long for them to be fully charged," he said, looking at the puppets on the ground.
"Let's try it at the inn where I'm staying. Even though it's not in a good area, it shouldn't be a problem to activate them for a while." Lucius turned off both puppets and picked them up.
Old Garen nodded and followed him all the way to the inn.
"Do you have friends?" asked the grumpy old man as soon as he saw them arrive. "And a very peculiar, money-grubbing one at that." He laughed.
"Tsk." Old Garen turned his attention elsewhere. "So you were hanging out with this old cheapskate."
"Do you two know each other?" Lucius asked.
"I have no idea who he is." Old Garen shrugged and followed him out to the courtyard.
"We know each other because he's a loan shark who wants to sell junk at high prices," said the grumpy old man from the inn, trailing behind them.
Lucius could only laugh at the nonsense spouted by these two grumpy old men.
"For your information, you cheapskate, that junk you're talking about now costs thousands of credits—or even tens of thousands!" exclaimed Old Garen, basking in his newfound status as the owner of expensive magical tools.
"Ha. Old man, I told you not to go to those remote places. The corrupted mana is already killing you and making you hallucinate," mocked the grumpy old man from the inn.
He hadn't even finished speaking when suddenly two rather large, square-shaped appendages sprang to life at Lucius's feet. The process was slow, but much more satisfying than the last time.
The appendages grew without a hitch, and once they reached their maximum length, they stood upright.
'They still have all the knowledge they acquired in life embedded in them,' Lucius thought in wonder. 'My family is so stupid they don't even know they should take that off and put it on a new one.'
'Well, I'm just claiming what rightfully belongs to me, I suppose.' With a satisfied smile, Lucius looked behind him.
"I think the training sessions will go well. It can run for eight hours straight without interruption here. We should start training right away—I only have 14 days left."
"This…" The grumpy old man at the inn, in shock, looked at old Garen.
Old Garen puffed out his chest proudly. "Even though I didn't do anything…" he muttered quietly.
Lucius grabbed a sword and tossed one to the grumpy old innkeeper before standing in front of the puppet.
He was ready to begin his arduous training. Now he felt more determined and confident. He knew he would have enough time.
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