On the other side, while heading towards the player's starting village on Big Horn Mountain, Han Xiao encountered a tough opponent.
That's because while he was driving his car peacefully, a crazy guy suddenly appeared right in front of his car!
Han Xiao used all his driving skills to swerve around the man, sighing with relief as he managed to slide the car sideways without damaging the bodywork.
But just as Han Xiao was about to get angry, a hand grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him outside, throwing him away. Han Xiao quickly adjusted himself in mid-air, drawing his pistols and firing.
The man was dressed entirely in black, the shots hit him, but the damage was ridiculously low.
The man's name only appeared as [???] but the color of the name was clearly green, furthermore, he could barely see any skills and statistics, most of them were hidden, even the tag [Fatally Dangerous] was visible, this confused Han Xiao deeply.
He stopped shooting as soon as he landed, he wanted to talk to see what was going on.
But before he could speak, the man turned and went into the forest without looking back. -Follow me, Six sent me, I'm here to give you the 'gift'.
Han Xiao was confused for a moment, but he remained thoughtful, he wasn't stupid enough to follow a random man. But the next moment, he received a message.
Looking at the "6" on the screen, his lips pursed before he glanced at the message. - {Hey, follow the strange man in black into the forest to get the "gift" (#ºuº#), I bet you'll like it, it's a "big" gift.}
Han Xiao's lips trembled fiercely, he clicked a middle finger emoji for himself and sighed, he didn't think Ringo wanted to hurt him besides, the interface didn't lie, the man wasn't an enemy, but an ally.
Annoyed, Han Xiao locked the car and sped off. The dirt road was isolated enough that he didn't think it would take long. He was genuinely curious, but he didn't let his guard down completely. The man walked slowly, so Han Xiao quickly caught up with him.
On the other hand, Ringo, or rather, the leader of Germinal controlled by Ringo's clone, was smiling behind the black mask.
His plan was to teach Han Xiao the Body of Steel, and to do that, he needed to understand how the leader learned it. Well, the process was truly grueling, basically training until his bones cracked before he could even get up and continue.
Sure, Han Xiao didn't need to go that far, his interface would do the heavy lifting, but Ringo shouldn't know about that, right?
So he led Han Xiao deeper and deeper into the forest, feeling very happy inside, hoping that Han Xiao would take long enough for him to enjoy himself.
--x--
Ringo's real body, on the other hand, was traveling through the Somar Desert. He thought about bringing Will and Jack along to stretch their legs, but gave up on the idea when he realized he was heading into the desert.
Even if the pair could survive there, it would be extremely uncomfortable for them, so he gave up.
Eva was focused on the children, Lena on managing Hell and Hila didn't want to go when she found out it was basically a search for a needle in a haystack.
Yes, his objective there was quite clear, to find the Godoran called Angora, his clear passage to the galaxy.
Ringo could actually simply use a communicator from one of the six nations, as a Super Rank B, he could be transported to the galaxy by Godora.
But what was the price? The service? Besides being at the mercy of an advanced civilization, even if only at a star system level, they had Rank A supers.
Besides, they'd like to know his Super power, wouldn't they? Even if he pretends otherwise, there's still a small chance he'll find out.
In any case, there were many drawbacks to pursuing affiliation with Godora, not least because Godora is an extremely xenophobic civilization, but also extremely liberal in terms of romance. This leads to a large number of hybrids emerging and these hybrids, in the vast majority of cases, suffer ostracism.
In any case, Ringo didn't quite understand how Godora worked with supers from weaker civilizations, if Han Xiao hadn't been from Aquamarine, the Godoran's attitude would have been very different when the mutation crisis occurred.
Just because they had a good relationship doesn't mean Godora was a saint, on the contrary, how many star civilizations don't have blood on their hands?
Ringo refused to go down that path, so he could only take a different one.
Furthermore, without the Germinal Fall mission, Han Xiao would not receive the Destiny's Child character summon letter, thus he would not find the fallen Godoran ship, nor would he find the Silvers, and consequently, he had extremely low chances of joining the "Dragon Emperor" Ames.
Therefore, Ringo needed to work alone to get out and the easiest option was clearly Angora.
Ringo didn't know his exact location, but he knew he was in the Somar desert.
Searching here for someone else was like looking for a needle in a haystack, after all, this place is extremely large. But Ringo had an advantage, not only could he sense souls from long distances, but he also had his newfound precognition. He hoped this would help him "choose" the right path.
Thus began Ringo's pilgrimage.
Flying in his nightmare form, he followed a map, searching first in rocky locations, hoping to find the cave where Godoran was hiding.
In his nightmare form, he traveled extremely fast through the desert, encountering mutant creatures and nomads from time to time.
In the middle of the desert, Ringo looked at the rock formation and sensed several living beings down below, but none with a strong enough consciousness, only beasts, this was the third place he had checked.
With a slight irritation, he quickly moved away towards the next location in his hybrid form, his purplish shape leaving residual images across the desert.
Along the way, he came across a battle, a group of three teenagers were fighting against a group of yellow sand lizards.
Ringo observed with some curiosity, the lizards were quite weak, barely considered Rank F, but there were almost 50 of them, all the size of large dogs.
But the three boys were still able to hold their own with some worn spears. Ringo sensed that the soul of the strongest one, clearly at the Rank F level, hadn't even awakened its energy yet, but even so, a strange kind of bond was connecting the three boys.
Ringo watched with curiosity as they fought and noticed that the spiritual flow seemed to nourish the boy with the strongest soul.
But at the same time, the ability created a kind of feedback loop, also making the other two boys stronger, though not as much as the boy with the ability. Armed with newfound strength, he managed to kill dozens of lizards and the other two managed to avoid pincer attacks. In the end, the lizards gave up and ran away, leaving only a dozen or so bodies scattered on the ground.
Ringo watched as the skill slowly ceased and its owner fell to his knees in the sand, breathing heavily, while the other two boys approached, worried.
-Interesting.- Ringo returned to the ground and assumed his human form, still dressed in his standard clothes, but slightly adapted for the desert.
As they approached, the trio noticed him and quickly assumed fighting stances.
-Stop right there! You bastard! This is our prey!- One of them shouted, spears raised. The boy in the center faltered slightly, but managed to stay on his feet. Ringo noticed that the older ones were only about 14-15 years old and the youngest, who had the Super Awakened gene, must have been around 12-13 years old.
Ringo ignored them as he approached, the boys attacked and... ended up eating sand, literally.
Ringo moved at the speed of a normal human, but even with his current abilities, despite being so limited, the boys were still lying stretched out on the sand, groaning in pain.
Ringo looked at the younger one, who had a growing bump on his head, a gift from Ringo.
He bent down and placed his hand on it.
-Let go of Price, you bastard!- One of them jumped up in anger at the sight and attacked Ringo from behind. Ringo simply yelled "Sleep" at him, causing him to fall to the ground, snoring loudly. He did the same to the other boy, only leaving the younger one awake, but still confused by the blow to the head.
Ringo began to analyze it, it was clearly an Esper gene, with a spiritual character, but also energetic. Its function seemed to be related to general enhancement, that was all he was able to discover.
But what intrigued Ringo most was the connection with the two boys, so he also got his hands on them, they had some Super potential, but weren't really talented. Even so, neither of them had unlocked any super gene, meaning it wasn't some kind of collective gene.
In other words, the connection was made exclusively by the boy named "Price".
Ringo looked at him again, thoughtfully, this strange ability seemed very promising.
By this point, the boy had fully woken up and looked at the "corpses" of his friends, he was furious.
-You bastard! I'm going to kill you!- he yelled, his anger evident, raising his fist to punch Ringo.
Ringo smiled and easily dodged the punch. He watched the boy fight, but saw no further improvement. Seeing the two on the ground, he seemed to understand that the skill required not "partners", at least not at his current level.
Ringo grew tired of playing and said. -They're just sleeping.
Price stopped, looking at the two of them, noticing their chests rising and falling, he breathed a sigh of relief, collapsing to the ground with regret, looking at Ringo with complicated eyes.
-What do you want? The corpses of Desert Lizards? You can have them.- Price tried to negotiate.
-No, actually I'm more interested in you.- Ringo looked him up and down, finding the brat interesting.
Price gave a look of disgust and crawled backward, hiding his backside.
Ringo took a moment to understand the gesture and rolled his eyes, annoyed. -I'm saying I'm interested in your skill, what the hell are you thinking? You perverted brat!
Price seemed both relieved and embarrassed, but pretended nothing had happened. - Skill?
-Didn't you notice? That increase in strength when you fight with your companions?- Ringo asked curiously.
Price gave him a genuinely confused look. -What are you talking about?
Ringo paused for a moment. Rank F Supers hadn't actually fully awakened their genes yet, nor were they able to use any energy, it made sense that the boy felt nothing.
-You're a Super.- Ringo decided to be more direct. -More specifically, an Esper.
The boy froze, confused. He, Price, was a super? How could he not know that?!
-Sir, you didn't make a mistake, did you?- The boy swallowed hard.
.
--x--
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+34 chapters of Jugo - Father of Devils on P_treon.
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