Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1009: Investing Stats

Breakfast at the Moon-Thread estate the next morning was served at a civilized hour, and Kaiden Grey ate it like he had bled all over a valley less than two days ago.

Yunohana sat at the head of her own table in plain morning silk, hands folded, watching the third bowl of rice go the way of the first two.

”The kitchen has been told to expect this for the length of your stay, Lord Grey,” she said. ”They are delighted.”

”Nobody’s ever fed me this well,” Kaiden replied, meaning it.

”KMHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Alice suddenly seemed to have a seizure.

”Kai...” Alexandra muttered, dejected.

”I obviously meant nobody outside the family,” Kaiden corrected his blunder rapidly.

”What a blunder,” Luna shook her head sagely, gravely disappointed. ”Now little sis will demand an hour of pampering or she’ll keep throwing a fit.”

”An hour????????” Alice asked, bewildered by the insanely low number.

...

The status window had been waiting for him since the kill in the chamber under Kawanami. After breakfast Kaiden sat down with it on the veranda and looked at the number, letting Alice sit on his thigh and hum happily.

She was visibly regenerating the damage she sustained from the words spoken at the table.

[Unallocated: 50]

Fifty points. Some awakened fighters didn’t get this many after a year of active grinding.

He gained it in a day.

What Kaiden thought about, looking at them now, was the chamber.

A carcass that outmassed a truck had lain on him from collarbone to knee, and with the Blood Monarch’s Gauntlet set against it and everything he owned behind the push, he had moved it two centimeters.

That was one. All the speed in the world had not mattered, pinned on his back.

The second was the blood.

The spur had gone through the muscle above his hip, and a body with his numbers had still lain in a spreading pool of it. Every centimeter of leverage had cost him more, until the only weight between him and emptying out was a dead monster holding the hole shut.

And the third was the cold.

He had not had the breath to price it down there, but he had felt it on every breath he spent in Envy, a draw on his mana that kept drawing for as long as the room stayed cold.

Mana had never been the stat he prioritized. Lust burned it slowly and Pride spent it in glyphs, and he had always been able to pay both out of what he had.

The cold drank faster than either of them. If he ever wanted to hold a room cold for longer than a few breaths, and especially retain some mana afterward, the well needed to be deeper.

’Feed the new one, and fix the two things that nearly killed me.’

He spent the fifty patching the hull.

[Vitality: 340 ➣ 355]

[Strength: 458 ➣ 473]

[Mana: 320 ➣ 340]

[Unallocated: 0]

’Okay. Now let’s find out what you actually are.’

...

He told his girls on the veranda, with the pond throwing light on the ceiling and his family arranged around him in various stages of digestion, Alice still parked in his lap.

”Envy.” Kaiden set his tea down. ”That’s the fifth one. The system calls it the Dispossessor.”

”Ooh,” Calypso purred, delighted by the word.

”Here’s what I know about it. When I’m in it, the room around me goes cold, and anything standing in that cold stops getting to keep what it has.”

”Sounds like a pervy stance,” Luna said, chewing. ”Why is Envy more horny than Lust?”

”Master lusts for us,” Bastet theorized. ”If he was not such a loyal man, his Lust Stance could’ve become quite the filthy thing.”

”And what does it cost you, Kai?” Aria’s hand found his knee and stayed there. ”The last time you used it, your leg folded under you down there and you walked out on a hip that shouldn’t have held you.”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

”That was the cycling. Every breath I spent cold was a breath Gluttony wasn’t drinking, and the hip paid for it. This one pulls on my mana too, harder than anything else I’ve got.”

”Perhaps it’s a question of control,” Nyx mused.

As the queen of control, having started with the most powerful ability out of all Valkyries but a body that couldn’t keep up, she knew how important it was to pace oneself.

”It’s plausible you were burning through all your reserves there considering the situation you were in, but maybe you can learn to spend less.”

”True. Big Brother was burning himself down there...” Alice muttered, biting her lips. ”If only I was stronger...”

”Don’t go there,” Kaiden shook his head, patting the girl. ”It’s a terrible rabbit hole. We just need to keep growing at our best pace. That’s all.”

”...” Alice didn’t seem satisfied with that, but she stopped tensing her body up and instead leaned back against his chest.

Bastet’s ears swiveled toward him. ”And what does it take from us when we stand beside you in it? I don’t want to be forced to keep a distance from Master...”

”!!!” Aria’s eyes narrowed into deadly slits. ”Kai?”

”I don’t know,” Kaiden admitted. ”We should run our tests to find out before I ever take it into a gate with all of you inside the radius.”

”It didn’t touch Alice,” Calypso noted.

”But Alice was attached to Kai,” Nyx countered.

”We should just fuse into Kai like the little sis does then,” Luna offered.

”No. I want to stand by his side.” Aria’s hands turned into fists as she corrected herself: ”I must stand by his side.”

”Then test it on me, Darling!” Calypso was already on her feet. ”But if you take off my horns you’ll have to take responsibility by loving me for the rest of eternity even without them!”

”...I don’t love you because of your horns, Caly.”

”But it’s my sexiest feature! I’m the only woman you can grab by the horns and-”

”Shut up, masochist demoness. The adults are speaking,” Bastet hissed.

Nyx stretched, unbothered.

”Let’s test it on everyone. Seven of us will provide a better sample anyhow.”

Alexandra had been counting the estate’s teacups on her fingers, and the total had gone somewhere bad.

”Test it where?”

Yunohana had risen from her place at the end of the veranda, and she answered before he could.

”The lawn by the pond is wide and mostly grass, Lord Grey. If a stance must be learned, my family’s garden is a gentler place to learn it than a dungeon or an underground training facility.”

”Lady Yunohana, the maples-” Alexandra started, aghast.

”The gardeners will be honored,” Yunohana said softly, and that settled it.

...

The lawn sloped from the veranda steps down to the pond, a long green field with old maples along one side and a row of stone lanterns along the other. Kaiden’s family spread out across it like children told to go play.

He took the middle of the grass. Alice’s halo climbed into place above his head, dark and eager, and her ten percent buff of all attributes settled into his limbs.

”Forty meters is about where it started stripping the monsters in the chamber.” He looked around the ring as they walked it out. ”Have something running when I go cold. I want to see what it takes, and I want you to feel it go, so you’ll know it on the field.”