Chapter 60: The First To Be Chosen.

His eyes were glowing as he said, “There are a lot of unknowns about this fellow. My best bet is that he is a descendant of a powerful Tyrant and carries his ancestor’s bloodline.”

“That’s going to be tricky. His bloodline family won’t like that I enslaved one of them. But considering that he was born somewhere far away from here, maybe they won’t find out,” he said uncertainly.

“Anyway, I must enslave him. I cannot lose such a talent. Now that he has fallen into my hands, his fate is to become my tool forever and ever.”

“If my plan succeeds and I advance, he will be the first one to enslave,” Lord Bane said, their eyes gleaming with a ferocious light.

Alexander didn’t hear all of this, but he was still panicking. He remembered everything that happened from when Lord Bane asked him why the worm’s mind was so powerful.

For a split second after he was asked, he became aware once more and realized someone was in front of him. When he recognized who it was, he immediately shuttled his consciousness deep into the Life Forge.

He didn’t even think about it. It was simply his instinct to run away from someone who could read his mind.

Even then, the Tyrant was still able to coax answers out of him. The best he could do was modify some of the answers to hide his secrets.

So he was aware when the Tyrant interrogated the worm and saw Lord Bane make it forget the whole thing. What spooked him most was that he also saw the Tyrant disappear right in front of him.

The Tyrant was there one moment, telling them to forget about what they saw. Then the Tyrant disappeared into thin air.

‘No wonder he was able to approach me unnoticed with that size. He is Abnormal,’ he thought, still shaken and hiding at the depths of his existence.

‘I can’t believe I once thought I could kill this monster. What was I thinking?’

‘No wonder Tessa laughed at the idea of me killing Lord Bane. It is definitely a joke now that I think about it.’

‘Tess was definitely right. Power is getting into my head. I need to reach Rank 3 before I can ever consider fighting him. He is too powerful.’

He tried to be brave and act as if nothing had happened, but he couldn’t get his mind off what he’d witnessed and what he felt while it happened. It was so bad that he felt that the experience was as traumatic as being raped.

Lord Bane had violated him mentally and forced answers out of him. It was not as painful as physical rape, but he still felt diminished and traumatized.

At the very least, he had now lost all faith in his eyes. He couldn’t be sure whether the Tyrant was nearby. He couldn’t believe the things he was seeing.

If his current meditative state didn’t dull his perception and emotions, he would be freaking out. He might go catatonic and be unwilling to do anything for a long time. That’s how traumatized he was.

‘I have died twice before, but my deaths weren’t as bad as being mentally violated. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but it was still bad.’

‘Anyway, I can’t continue like this. Something has to be done as quickly as possible. I have to grow stronger as soon as possible, and escape or become a Tyrant myself, if only for the fact that if this guy tampers with my mind, the Life Forge won’t save me.’

The Life Forge will only save him from death and grant him immunity to whatever killed him. It won’t save him from mind control.

If he had any doubts about the Life Forge’s capabilities before, he definitely didn’t have any when it did nothing while he was being mind-controlled.

‘To be fair, the Life Forge made my mind stronger and more resistant. If it hadn’t, I might never have noticed that I was being mind-controlled at all.’

‘Plus, something like that is a temporary mental injury or strain. Since the Life Forge won’t save me from a temporary injury or illness, then I shouldn’t expect it to save me from being mind-controlled.’

‘However, as blameless as the Life Forge is, it is now much clearer why the previous three thousand candidates died. With someone around me who can control my mind, even if I die many times, as long as his mental control didn’t kill me, he will still be able to tamper with my mind.’

It would be an understatement to say he had a lot to think about. In fact, he had his entire life to think about.

Most of what he thought about were worst-case scenarios that frightened him more the more he considered them. But in the end, his thoughts circled back to growing stronger so something like that would never happen again.

His resolution to become stronger motivated him enough to forget his anger. He didn’t notice when it happened, but the tree stump took on Lord Bane’s appearance. This spurred him on, making his strike at the tree stump harder.

“That’s enough,” Franklin said from the side.

When he didn’t stop, Frank shouted, “That’s one hundred strikes.”

But he still didn’t stop. His meditative state had dulled his perception, so he didn’t hear much of the shouting. Instead, it let him focus on only one thing, at the expense of everything else. With only that image of Lord Bane in front of him, his meditative state made him too focused on it, so he kept striking the tree stump.

Frank had to come over to stop him. But Lord Bane was walking around Alexander, examining him from every angle, so the green-skinned Small Boss ran into Lord Bane.

But before the two could collide, Frank stopped in front of Lord Bane. Then he went around Lord Bane and continued his journey. He made this series of complicated movements without knowing why or remembering that he ever did it.

————–

I need your help, and every bit of support counts.