cerim
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Chapter 654 - Behave
🕑 Added 2025-07-02 08:48:52 +0000 UTCThe building of the Primordial Knights Guild branch is massive and not that far from the Black Tower where the Enforcer lives.
That building is made entirely of some sort of whitish metal and glass. Multiple tall trees tower even over that huge manor, and there are pretty gardens nearby.
At first, I’m about to think how wasteful all of this is, but then I realize something. Wouldn’t creating a building like this take just a few days for someone very powerful and skilled in something like [Metal Manipulation], or whatever that material is? The same goes for the trees. I already saw Sophie grow an entire tree from a tiny seed in just a few minutes when she was practicing.
That would also explain why what I suspect to be other guild branches are equally interesting. There is a big wooden pyramid, another tower nearby that is as tall as the black one, a circular building with a myriad of windows, and a tree growing from the middle of it.
We are let into the building belonging to the Primordial Knights almost instantly. Weslin just sends a bit of mana to the gate, and it opens automatically. Right after that, a few people come to welcome him, all of whom I estimate to be locals.
I asked Weslin before, but it seems like every guild worth something employs plenty of locals to take care of upkeep, trading, organization, and that kind of stuff. Meanwhile, attendees are in positions of leadership, deciding the direction of the guild while learning from attendees who led it for a few years and are about to leave the tutorial, or from locals who can share some information.
It all seems to be a system that both sides are used to, to the point where if I asked someone why it is like this, I’m sure I would hear something like, “It has always been that way.”
From the moment we enter, everything moves quickly. Within minutes, I’m standing with Weslin in front of the guild branch leader, an older but massively built human. He towers over us in a way that makes me wonder if he might be part velnar.
At this point, I do not even have to ask why, even though the Primordial Knights are supposed to have the most demons, I have barely seen any. These maniacs are surely deeper into Beyond. The same goes for the local demons.
Weslin and the guild branch leader seem to know each other well and are friendly with one another. They talk for a bit, but in the middle of that conversation, the door opens and a lynthari in messy clothes looks over the room.
When his eyes land on me, they stay there.
The crazed-looking lynthari pays no attention to anyone else in the room and charges straight at me.
“You should have told me he was here!” he hisses, his fangs showing.
His clothes are in an even bigger mess than his hair. They're still the same white with a mix of blue, like the other people from the Primordial Knights, but stained with red and black liquid, torn, and even burnt in places.
The branch leader seems used to it. “He is in Primordial Knights, so you know what that means. Behave.”
To my surprise, he lies, we haven't even gotten to the contracts yet.
“You! You petty man! Did you not inform me before he became a member on purpose?” the lynthari complains.
“Obviously. And I warn you. Nyssa will want him on the 4th floor as soon as possible, and Weslin seems to like the guy, so again, behave.”
“Sure, sure,” the disheveled lynthari scratches his chin with stubble and walks around me.
The entire time, he doesn’t even bother talking to me. Instead, he observes me. There are even some rude checks that I deflect, but that doesn’t seem to bother him too much. He continues with modified and even more probing ones. He even puts on some round glasses with dark purple lenses that hide his golden eyes and continues to stare at me.
So far, he doesn’t try to touch me, but I can see how much he wants to from how his arm and fingers keep twitching and sometimes almost reaching toward me.
“I see. I see. Interesting. What the fuck.”
He fixes his glasses and makes another, slower circle around me.
“This is weird. This is even weirder. What the fuck. Oh, so it's like that!”
The branch leader continues to look at me, as if expecting me to react, but so far, I just stand there, not that bothered. More than anything, I’m a bit curious.
“What the fuck. What the fuck. How? Broken, twisted. So weird.”
When another circle around me stops, he puts on another pair of glasses over the purple ones. These ones are bright yellow, with lenses as thick as my finger. Around their edges, inscriptions are etched.
“WHAT THE FUCK!”
“Please, don’t swear so much,” the branch leader tries.
The Doctor just glances at him and shakes his head. Then, for the first time, he reaches out to touch me. His finger, his arm, stops mid-air, held there by my [Redistribution].
In a quick reaction, he attempts to do something to push through it, and a weird barrier flickers around his skin. But instead, I just use more mana and brute-force overpower that weird thing around him.
“Tsk,” he says and pulls his hand back, and I let him. Then he pulls a cute little scepter from his clothes and starts waving it around me.
The mana stones at its top light up, and the glasses he has on light up as well.
For a moment, he stands there in sheer shock.
“There are six good reasons you should be dead, and ten more lesser ones why you should be either in pain, dead, or crippled. How do you continue to exist?”
"When you hear people say it that often, it just turns into background noise," I say.
His ears twitch, and he smiles in that way only lynthari can, the kind that shows their fangs in full beauty. Slowly, he takes off both of his glasses and puts them away.
He reaches his hand toward me, as if to shake mine. “Nice to meet you, I am…”
I halt that movement as well.
“There is no way I would fall for that.”
“Tsk,” he sighs and gestures at the branch leader, then at me. “I want him unconscious so I can examine his body!”
“I won’t be doing that,” the branch leader disagrees.
Once again, that crazed lynthari seems annoyed and makes another circle around me.
“Listen,” he says, circling me again, fingers twitching like he’s resisting the urge to grab a scalpel. “You’re either a complete mess or something pretending really well to be one. Either way, I want to cut you open.”
“Metaphorically,” the branch leader adds quickly.
The Doctor waves him off. “Fine. Metaphorically. For now.”
That weird-ass lynthari sniffs the air. “You don’t even feel right. There’s no harmony in your mana signature. It’s like… someone chewed it up and spat it back into your shape. So many things and such a gloriously fucked up body.”
He tilts his head at me and mumbles, “Did someone experiment on you? Did you get possessed? Or were you born like this? No, wait, don’t answer. I want to guess.”
He pulls out a notebook, flips to a page full of cramped symbols and messy diagrams, and starts sketching something while occasionally glancing at me. “Are your organs where they’re supposed to be? Can you confirm? Do they move on their own?”
I stare at him.
He blinks. “Rhetorical. Mostly.”
Then he starts making strange clacking noises and activating some kind of skill. I feel incredibly small and weak soundwaves clash against my body and then bounce back toward the Doctor. He repeats that, this time using voices and constantly shifting the pitch of his voice and the frequency of the sounds he's making.
I look at him and then at the branch leader, who mutters, “He does this sometimes.”
The Doctor suddenly looks up, wide-eyed with excitement. “Can I borrow your left arm? That pale one? Just the outer layer of skin and a few bones. I’ll return it. Maybe.”
“How many shards?” I ask.
“Ugh. So greedy.” He taps his temple with the end of his pen. “But your mana doesn’t echo like a normal person’s. And why the hell is there so much of it? Rookie, what is your exact stat distribution? Did you go by the golden standard? Did you follow ancient ways? Some school I don’t know about?”
He eyes my chest thoughtfully. “If I could knock you out for ten minutes and do a non-lethal incision, I bet I’d learn so much.”
“Please try,” I reply.
His ears twitch in amusement. “You’re fun. I hope you don’t die soon. Well, not like you have much to say in that. Oh, maybe you do. You can obviously make it come quicker.”
He cackles and scribbles a few more things down, then spins on his heel, talking to himself. “Nyssa will praise me again for telling her she would want you after I heard about that black mana. Yes, yes, yes. She’ll love this one. Show me that black mana.”
“Nope.”
He pauses.
His eyes slowly drift back to me, wide and blinking, like his mouth had outrun his brain, “…Wait. Did I ask that of you out loud?”
He snorts and taps his forehead, his tail swaying. “Stupid mouth. Always skipping ahead. Can’t be that rude!”
Then he leans closer, just slightly, just enough to narrow the distance, his voice lowering into a strange mix of wonder and unease.
“But how can I endure? There’s a signature. Very faint. Not exactly present, but pulling. Like a fucked up mana someone dressed up in fake mana skin and forgot to give it a name. Have you ever had people get headaches just from standing too close to you? No? You probably didn’t notice.”
He twirls the pen between his fingers and glances at the ceiling.
“See, once, once, long ago, I read about a field researcher who claimed she’d met someone like you. I wish I still had that mana stone where it was mentioned. It wasn’t mana she saw. It was… collapsing. Consuming. Dominating. Something that she didn't know how to categorize.”
He looks at me again, a smile twitching.
“She wrote it was mana black as a night sky without stars. Compressed. Hungry. Like something that had forgotten it was supposed to cooperate with the world.”
He shrugs, casually flipping through his notebook. “She is long dead, that researcher, so it's not like I can ask her more. I don’t even know her name, and all the other mana stones turned to ash when I started reading them. But she did talk about her pet fish in one that endured. Apparently very cute.”
The branch leader sighs. “Get to the point, Doc.”
“I don’t have one,” the Doctor says cheerfully. “It’s a feeling.”
He leans back and tilts his head at me like I’m a magic puzzle box that hasn’t decided if it wants to open or eat him.
“Have you ever suppressed something so hard that the suppression itself started leaking? Because that’s what this feels like. Like there’s a door. And it’s locked. And behind it is something that eats keys.”
Something about that sentence is very fascinating to me. And the more I observe this man, the more curious I get. He might be crazy as fuck, but there are things I try to pick up on and understand.
The others in the room seem to be annoyed, and it’s possible I would be as well if I knew this creepy lynthari longer than a few minutes, but for now, he is something new. And I’m curious.
He giggles again, the sound high and bright and just a little too sharp.
So I ask, “How much could you really tell me if I let you examine something?”
That shuts him up. Instantly.
His ears twitch, his eyes narrow, and his tail freezes mid-flick.
Then his grin widens slowly.
***
Comments
Chun
Probably the most hints we’ve gotten on black mana so far? The only other notable examples I remember I Lissandra just telling Nat not to over rely on it, and savant and his theories after he absorbed it in the first tournament.
Winston Farris
Pretty sure the very next line is: Doc: “Did we just become best friends?”
Stoney
I'd assume both. But my guess it's the constructs being the main cause
Stoney
ngl i love more info on all the random crap that's flying around. getting drip fed makes sense and i suppose more info coming out in the later years makes sense as well. but i want more details now! :P TFTC
RJ Barnes
This is hype!
Johnny
This is as good as a crazy fight scene. Love it. Hopefully some mysteries get solved, and always love the other POVs of Nat’s craziness
Johnny
“I see. I see. Interesting. What the fuck.” Hahaha
Vik221
Guys what do you think that nats mana signature is not correct. Is it because of black mana or too many constructs?
William Johnson
The only other normal person in the tutorial you mean?
AFunkyLad
I have a feeling Nat is going to lose his left arm again
firte
Holy shit I’ve been thinking we get a heist floor for the longest and the Locke lamora books are money you’ve got good taste sir!
firte
Thanks for the chapter!
Poutine Au Syrop d'érable
Damn.
Mark Bullock
I wonder if the doc can see his second heart ^^
BlackRazaras
Thanks for the chapter
Andrew
Thank you!
Ken Horne
Excellent! Was that as fun to write as I imagine it was?
Fdrugc
Tftc I want nat and the doc ti fight
Tyrant Villager
I feel like two people who should have never met have just done so. Someone as nutty as our favorite Mana Daddy is bound to encourage even worse behavior in him
frankie doerr
Cerim is building up a climax just to take it away on the last day before his trip we already know he relishes our spite and it gives him great pleasure what better way to enjoy a vacation than to start it off with people begging him to come back
Konrad Pagacz
Hot damn, man. Last couple of chapters were really top notch writing, I have to give it to you. Specifically, I want to mention the effort you put into dialogues (which I hope is there). Taking the time to make the lines snappy and at the same time somewhat realisitc is hard. I love the mad doc vibe - you didn't pull any punches there, just went there and made him utterly fucked up and I love that. The dialogue reminds a bit about Locke Lamora's books. I know that you are going for a completely different vibe, but there's potential in here to have a fantastic heist plot with really snappy dialogues and hopelessly determined main character. I think you could pull it off, but it might not be something you can give proper due dilligence with an almost daily release schedule. Anyway, take it as I mean it - you're doing good job mate, thank you for this.
Terri Harris
So fun!
M van Dongen
New Friend guaranteed.... He's endlessly curious (and obsessed ) about how and why things are as they are. I think Nat can respect that.
Morgs
Tftc!
mitchell kaiser
Pretty sure Doc is the most normal guy in the tutorial, other than Nat of course.
zoarian
Just wanna say I really like the mystery of black mana. It really feels like something outside of the typical system parameters, like actual magic. Beyond being powerful, it's cool as heck.
zoarian
Nat: I am the one who eats keys
Josh Cothran
A little ball of black mana shouldn’t be too bad in controlled settings. His mastery has improved pretty drastically since he first started using it. That said I’m sure everyone in there will go apeshit before he absorbs it lol
ChildConsumer
"Like there’s a door. And it’s locked. And behind it is something that eats keys.” THERE WAS NO REASON TO MAKE THAT LINE SO HARD BUT DAMN!
Oaktree
Some time later after doc learns that nat has just given several dozen arms to lilly for free. Doc: HOW DARE YOU GET RID OF PERFECTLY GOOD EXPERIMENTS!
Oaktree
Nat’s going to be a regular of doc’s. Sometime in the future. Doc: Hows patient zero today, come up with any new ways to mess up your body? Nat used to the shenanigans: just shows his 7th construct. Doc: “I see. I see. Interesting. Yes. Yes. Bloody madness I love it. Give me your arm I must study it.
Adrian Rake
Cerim is cooking so hard in this chapter 😉👍 Let’s hope that the final dish will be delicious. Otherwise I will be very very disappointed.
Borbino the great
Nats about to tear his arm off in front of all these people and freak them the hell out😂
Daniel Francis
Tftc!
Nerø
Soph is 100% right. Both are very normal and has the potential to become best friends in the near future lol
frankie doerr
Best buddies instantly mini Sophie was right
Dandaveeto
Ah questions questions and more questions about nates mana
Nerø
TFTC!!
vEnviouz
TFTC!!!
