37 A Spear Boy's Side Quest
(Cao Cao POV)
Looking at the unconscious woman, I sighed to myself and left a clone with her to explain what just happened to her and maybe open up a new opportunity, though I needed to find that Island.
Thankfully, the Golden Fleece exists as a beacon of magical energy. However, to a normal magician, this may seem impossible as magic, divinity, and even concepts themselves seem to be drained or negated in this place.
Thankfully, the essence of skill creation, as well as my various resistances, make it so I am unhindered by such things, so as I nodded to my clone, he summoned a bed for her to sleep on and waited for Scylla to wake up.
While I began running across the ocean as a means to train my chakra control and to just enjoy the view, I could have just teleported and been done with this, yet I wanted to see everything.
From the motion of the emerald sea as, I sensed various sea monsters, from small krakens to small sea hydras, and while this would be alarming in the case of regular mortals being rated by these things, they would often ignore mortals, and the sea itself would eventually spit them out unless they literally had no means of escape.
A small thought entered my mind of making this place my own little Ocean Reserve for sea monsters once I had more time on my hands, but for now, I could see a small island in the distance that, while having some cliffs and large rocks, was otherwise undefended.
Other than Polyphemus, of course, who was the rather large and carnivorous cyclops that took advantage of the Fleece's magic to grow his sheep.
Since it was the middle of the day, I saw him tending to his sheep, which seemed to be dulled due to the Fleece making everything so vibrant and nice.
Using my all-seeing eyes, I observed the aura coming from the Fleece, and it quite literally exuded a Divinity of life and fertility, which was impressive as it seemed to be self-sustaining and even growing in strength.
It may be due to the fact that the story of the Golden Fleece is so popular that the Fleece itself has grown in power over the years, and it looks like a fleece taken from a giant ram. The tree it hung on was alive with color and various fruits while the sheep slept and ate what seemed like endlessly growing grass.
Polyphemus was sitting down near the tree as he was taking a break, and I walked up to back and asked, "Hello, Polyphemus. I was wondering if I could proposition you for that Fleece you have."
The giant cyclops simply turned around and, upon seeing me, smiled with a face only a mother could love, to which he laughed, "You try to make a deal for my Fleece?! Hah! Demigods become really proud since old times. No, I eat you and take your skin for pillowcase."
He then grabbed his giant shepherd stick, which looked like a giant club to most, and tried to swing it at me with reckless abandon. While he may be a threat to a normal or new demigod, this was a pitiful display. As the swing got closer, I simply stopped the giant club with one hand, and as I grabbed it, he tried in tandem to pull away.
As he struggled, he yelled out, "How you be so strong?! I am son of Poseidon! No thieving demigod will take my sheep again!"
"Oh thief, you say? But didn't you steal this from Athens before coming here? And how rude of me. I haven't even said my name. Well, I am Nobody." The name did not make him happier as he roared in rage.
"Nobody! NOBODY! I KNEW YOU WOULD BE BACK! I WILL SMASH NOBODY TO PIECES FOR WHAT NOBODY DID TO MY EYE!" He then tried to slam me into the ground as I took his club, which he let go of and smacked his legs with it.
All that could be heard was a sickening crunch as his legs were broken, and he screamed in pain and fell over with his sheep, not even caring as their senses had been dulled so much.
One even came over to me and laid down next to me. These sheep are really living life well until Polyphemus would eat them, of course.
As he grunted on the ground, he tried to crawl at me and grab me. I swung the staff onto his back, which caused him to yet again scream in pain.
"You know, if you just let me leave with the Fleece, I could have made another one for you, but no. You took my olive branch and smacked it to the ground. But you are always very much a fool. Truly, you exist as one of the worst aspects of Poseidon, his dull rage and single-minded pursuit of violence."
I sighed in disappointment as I truly just wanted to take it and go, but I thought he could be reasoned with.
I then looked at him, unable to move due to a broken back and legs, as I then lifted his head up using my telekinesis. He then saw that a claw had broken through reality and a large cleric beast had crawled through, and as he saw it, he began to scream.
"I AM SORRY! PLEASE LEAVE ME BE! I WILL GIVE YOU FLEECE. IF YOU KILL MY FATHER WILL KILL YOU DEAD. NO, NOOOOOO!" He was then taken into the Land Of Shadows to be torn apart and become a part of my armies. As while, here, he is entirely useless. I can make use of his reckless strength, and while the threat of recompense from Poseidon may be likely, it does not matter.
If Poseidon is willing to get into a fight with me for a failure like that, Cyclops, then I truly do question the intelligence of these gods, and I may give them too much credit already.
As I approached the tree and placed a hand on the Fleece, I could feel my core begin to produce more healing-based and natural energy, and I decided to take a moment. I sat on the ground near the tree and mediated.
With my chakra control at its peak, I needed to take the next step, so I began to focus and feel the nature around me. With the Fleece acting as a conduit for pure natural energy, it felt like the perfect moment, and as I summoned a clone to keep watch over me.
To keep the flow balanced is to have equal parts sage chakra and normal chakra, as an imbalance of either leads to disastrous consequences. As I focused on my chakra, I felt the natural energy flow into my being and try to overtake my physical and spiritual energy.
Yet with my core being as controlled as it is as well as adaptable to new energies, it simply absorbed the energy like a black hole, and as the energy kept coming, I kept sucking.
Wait, that sounded wrong.
You know what, never mind.
Feeling my core absorbs the energy, I felt my body grow slightly stronger as I became closer to the natural energy around me. The world seemed much more vibrant as I could feel the heartbeat of the sheep near me, the calm of the sea, and the motion of the breeze.
Opening my eyes, I saw my clone looking back at me with a passive face as he asked me mentally, "So when will we tell her?" I gave him a questioning look as he continued.
"You know as well as I that we can't keep this secret forever. Our knowledge and general maturity have already made her suspicious. Are we willing to keep our circumstance a secret forever?" Sighing, I looked at him and said.
"But since you are me, you know why we can't. Even if she has her suspicions, they are unfounded at best, and you know, rule number one of transmigration/reincarnation: never tell anyone that you did either or are either. I can keep this on my chest forever if need be, but I wish I could tell someone. But we are here now, and that life doesn't matter anymore." My response made him frown as he sat down in front of me.
"So that's it? We forget who we are and move on. What about..her? Are you already set on moving on?" His questions were sharp, and his tone sharper as he looked at me with a piercing dissipation.
"Yes, yes we are,. We can't keep holding ourselves back. She would never want that for us. In fact, if she were here, she would want us to move one. She was truly better than me." The clone then nodded, and as I dispersed him, I stood back up and disabled my new sage mode.
Unlike the normal sage modes in Naruto, I don't take on any particular animal trait as my nature chakra is more divine in nature, but I did notice from my clone's memory that my blue all-seeing eyes became a golden color when I used sage chakra, which makes sense considering the source of it.
I then looked at the Fleece and grabbed it, and the effect of its removal was immediate as the Island began to die, which makes sense as it should have already disappeared into the ocean as the Fleece was the only thing keeping it all together.
The sheep, noticing this, looked up at me, and I made a new choice as I spent 30,000 LP to upgrade my pocket space to rank C and then three million to upgrade to rank B as now I could store items that were alive and they would not deteriorate. So I used my telepathy to knock all the dozens of large sheep out and placed all of them into the pocket space.
Before leaving, though, I did look into Polyphemus's cave and found a decent amount of weapons, armor, camp half-blood beads, drachmae, and other items. Let it be known that I am a bit of a hoarder in this life when it comes to treasure, and besides, no one else was going to use it anyway.
Looking at my current L.P. stock, I noticed how my L.P. had gone down to 28,074,000, but it would go back up as I left the Island, as it fell to pieces and then simply disappeared into dust and memory. I then stared at the Fleece in my hands and then decided to do one last thing before leaving the sea of monsters.
I spread my mana sense over the place and found a small void in the sea, and while this may be ominous, I knew what that void was.
Circe's Island was the place or C.C.'s beauty salon as it was these days. A haven for lost people or at least lost women that Circe took in to work for her while all the rowdy men were turned into gerbils of hamsters.
The place looked modern enough with it being built into the cliffs of the Island, and while the old ships were a bit off, anyone else would think that it was a design choice.
So, as I let down my concealment, I felt the wards in place since me, and from the main doors, I saw two women exit the place with fake smiles on their faces; while I could sense their contentment with working there, they definitely did not enjoy my presence.
I had already changed my clothes to ruffled normal clothing to seem lost and lowered my magic to so little they would think I was a normal human.
As the girl, who I assumed was Reyna, exited, she said, "Welcome to C.C. Salon and Massage Center. I am Reyna Ramirez Arellanoa, and this is my sister Hylla. Please follow us."
They then grabbed my arm and forced me to move, yet as we entered a small room, I saw a woman with purple hair. As soon as she saw me, her eyes widened with a myriad of emotions showing in them.
And I simply gave her a small wave in return with a knowing smile on my face.
(Should the MC let his closest friends or lovers know of his reincarnation? Let me know in the comments, but by default, I don't plan to tell anyone.)
