Chapter 210: Duke Andy

The next morning.

The cats packed their gear and set out for Witch Peak once more.

Tally had been unusually excited last night.

In a single night, she had earned Rod nearly two hundred Lust Points.

As for the two Headless Knights, Mimi had experienced a bout of idle placement.

Under the torment of the 【Charm Fluid】, she was much weaker this morning.

Her sister Tata, having no head, had not been affected by the 【Charm Fluid】 either, and had slept like a corpse in the middle of the night.

In any case, both sisters had been knocked unconscious and stored inside the shadow.

Their black horses were a native spiritual art of the Headless Knights, which had dissipated and vanished the moment they lost consciousness.

Upward they went.

The daytime mist was thin, making the path very easy; before noon, they had already reached the halfway point of the mountain.

Rod carefully sensed the joy emanating from the forest; the points of 【Growth Spirit】 shot straight upward, smoothly breaking through 100.

He did not hesitate.

He directly threw twenty points at the black slime.

【Special Body Slime (Unnamed) acquired skill: Memory Devour】

【Details: Growth Spirit activated a native spiritual art of the Special Body Slime (Unnamed) that it had not yet mastered; this skill can devour the memories of living beings, converting them into its own energy or knowledge.】

【Special Body Slime (Unnamed) acquired skill: Super Absorption】

【Details: Growth Spirit activated a native spiritual art of the Special Body Slime (Unnamed) that it had not yet mastered; this skill allows the slime to directly absorb necessary nutrients from the environment, possessing an efficiency that ordinary slimes lack; the efficiency brought by absorption will also allow the slime to grow faster.】

【Remaining Growth Spirit: 82】

After Rod finished reading the entries.

The slime in his hand, which was clearly no larger than half a palm, rapidly grew and expanded until it was the size of a soccer ball.

But immediately after, it slowly shrank back to its previous size.

"【Memory Devour】 is actually a quite excellent skill; it would be great if I could share it."

Rod had tried to enslave this thing before.

But the Nu Yi Zhou returned an error, stating it did not accept races without gender.

At that moment, the black slime in his palm suddenly moved.

It extended two tiny hands, hugged Rod's wrist, and then rubbed against him like a small animal.

"Oh?"

This was the first time Rod had seen this little thing move.

Although named slime, it was actually no different from a lump of flour.

He glanced again at the entries for the two skills.

"It seems it is 【Super Absorption】."

In a good mood, it had undergone a clear change; elemental resonance with it was no longer far off.

Rod summarized his actions over this period to strengthen his physical origin.

First and most effective were definitely the Spirit Seeds.

Over the past half month, swallowing ten Spirit Seeds had not only improved his physique but directly raised Rod's talent ceiling in every aspect.

The miserable state of being unable to learn gravity spells no matter how hard he tried would never happen again.

The same applied to spiritual arts; currently, he could apply 【Giant Slash】 to every strike, 【Aethelorn's Flash】 had reached the 【Nine Flashes】 level, and 【Ten Flashes】 was not far off.

As for the thickness of his spirit, there was no need to say more; the day he slashed the Wen Yi Fa practitioner Amel to ruin was no joke.

Although it was a war of attrition at the time, that was because the opponent possessed a heaven-defying spell far beyond ordinary seventh tier that allowed constant resurrection.

One could only say: once the spell is broken, kill at will.

Second was the 【Gravitational Frog's Tongue】.

One word: stable.

As long as he persisted in using it every day and sweated, he could clearly perceive his body strengthening bit by bit.

This sense of feedback was very addictive.

As for the War Soul and elemental resonance,

these two points were somewhat lacking; neither had taken effect yet.

The War Soul construction had a problem; it was cut down and rebuilt before it even began; as for elemental resonance, that was the current state of the black slime.

However, at least there was hope.

Just as he was sorting out the threads of thought, a sinister wind blew through the mountain path ahead.

The faint mist was swept away.

In its place, black gas surged up from the ground and constructed circles in mid-air.

Pudding and the other cat sprites went on alert again.

"My lord Rod, it is Duke Andy; I have seen his ability before."

"What do you mean?"

"This is an evil cursed field that shrinks living beings and makes them cuter; please be careful, once you touch the black gas, you will be infected by the curse!"

"?"

Rod was stunned for a moment, thinking he had missed something.

"Besides that, are there any other effects?"

Pudding looked at him in astonishment: "Is that not evil enough? Does the Dragon God's Envoy not care about such a curse at all?"

"First of all, this so-called 'curse' has no effect whatsoever on combat power."

"But it will make us cuter, and smaller! What could be more vicious than that!!"

Realizing she had gotten too worked up, Pudding hurriedly apologized: "Sorry, Lord Rod, I know that with your strength you don't care about this curse at all, but I'd rather die than be tainted by it."

Including him, all the cat-fey showed fear on their faces.

They were actually all showing signs of backing off.

Fighting the Headless Knight to the death, you lot didn't care in the slightest, yet faced with such a ridiculous 'curse' you choose to retreat.

Rod pressed a hand to his forehead.

"Tally, do you know anything about cat-fey? Do they have any peculiar quirks or strange values?"

The succubus laughed from the side: "Not at all. Cat-fey are actually an extremely rare intelligent race on the continent. My mother's inherited memories contain no records whatsoever about cat-fey. If anything, the fact that some witch-cat could actually get to Bahadur surprises me even more."

"Forget it. Go drag that Duke Andy over here."

"As you wish, Brother~"

The next instant, Tally plunged downward like she was falling into an abyss, vanishing into the shadows.

Less than ten seconds.

She reappeared, already holding upside-down by the leg a cat-fey dressed in splendid finery.

"Duke Andy?!"

Pudding exclaimed: "Lord Rod, how did your servant—"

"This curse has no effect on us."

The cat-fey were all utterly shocked.

The looks they gave Rod and Tally grew ever more reverent and envious.

Rod: "."

Duke Andy, dangling upside-down, was furiously enraged.

In his hoarse voice he cursed everyone viciously, Rod included.

"Fools! Traitors! Cat-traitors! Pudding, you spineless coward, you're destroying the Cat-Fey Paradise!!"

Pudding was completely unaffected.

He said firmly: "You've lost, Duke Andy. The crime of abducting Princess Mei Mei has already been exposed. Besides, Princess Mei Mei and I have long been in love. Using such crude methods will only backfire on you."

"Abduct? In love? Nonsense! Princess Mei Mei and I long ago pledged ourselves to each other in private. This very trip is our elopement. What does it have to do with you, a little tail who only ever brings stinky wildflowers and writes a couple of shoddy love letters?!"

(End of chapter)