Chapter 53: Chapter 52 – Luck, Manipulation or Both?

"A storage ring? Where did you get this?", She uttered curiously, then she used her mana and removed it from my claw. 

Of course, I did not resist and allowed her to do as she pleased.

She also said a storage ring, I used to call it an inventory ring, but in hindsight, a storage ring made more sense only I would have the idea to call them that.

"You are really my lucky charm little birdie, everyone has a storage ring except for me!", She spoke with a voice filled with joy and surprise. Though her eyes did not glance away from the ring at the end of her tail at all!

"Screech!"

Seeing her engrossed in admiring the ring and using it to store a leaf and then bring it back out again, I made what sounded like a happy voice, my intention was to wake her from that daze and possibly make her shift some of her joy into me. 

Hearing the voice she reluctantly glanced away from her previous treasure and turned to look at me and said, "Alright since I'm feeling  especially magnanimous today, I'll take this ring in exchange for your life."

Hearing her words at first I was shocked, I simply could not believe but then I was over the moon, but I did not let it show on my face.

I was ready to pay a heavy price for my life, and yet!

"Screech"

I voiced cluelessly.

Just as I was happy at the prospect of her leaving us, I felt the air all around me shrinking. I could feel the wind elements turning solid in a sphere shape with me as the center and it was getting tighter at a noticeable speed.

I started feeling suffocated.

Then! The snake bolted towards the direction I came from and the sphere followed!, the nearby landscape was changing too quickly that I was not able to make out anything.

Just a blur of trees and shrubs moving at an ultrasonic speed.

After what felt like a couple of seconds, the snake abruptly stopped, the constriction around me crumbled away and I fell, due to the sheer craziness of the whole situation I was not even able to open my wings to stop the fall.

*Thudd*

I heard another small thud only to see that the gecko was also brought along. When I peered at the snake's previous location, I found nothing.

She disappeared just as fast as she came in, for some reason she seemed to be in a hurry.

Checking my surroundings, I saw some familiar trees and I was immediately overjoyed!

I hurriedly grabbed the still unconscious small dark white spotted gecko and darted off towards the camp.

I could not help but re-think everything that just happened.

I still could not believe it, the last hour had certainly been an intense emotional rollercoaster and a series of unexpected events.

Especially with the white snake, she was a Core Formation monster if not even higher.

I could not help but think, was I too lucky or I played my cards perfectly well?

I think as someone who was very anxious in their previous life, and how overbearing my mother was. I learned very well to read people's emotions from their tone, body language, and facial expression. As sad as it was to admit, I knew how to please people, how to compliment and how to avoid touchy subjects, and give them what they wanted without pushing any of their buttons.

How to talk without really talking.

I knew what to exactly say or do to get the emotional reaction that I wanted, of course, there were no absolutes but I think I was pretty good.

I took a gamble with the snake and it worked surprisingly well, but all of that was solely based on the fact that I provided no value to her.

To her, I was just a High Body Refinement, physically useless. Even though I was still very weak I never touched Low Body Refinement monsters, the value they held to me was abysmal that I don't even bother. 

Then, by going outside the general script and not attacking her just because she appeared harmless, but actively sought to play and seemed harmless must've been a very new experience to her, especially since she looked so uninterested.

As she got closer and started moving around my body she witnessed my deep injuries coupled with my previously harmless approach and my pitiful cries she could not help but feel bad, this was also a gamble on the monster's ability to feel empathetic.

Unfortunately, the gecko's appearance was going to affect the whole narrative I was building in her head.

Thankfully! No, Thank god, I had a storage ring and she wanted one which did not affect the emotional build-up I worked towards but even helped solidify it through joy.

And all of these factors combined rested on the fact of whether they had any concept of goodness, whether she knew that doing is good is something commendable, because without that tiny positive feeling she'd get from doing that 'good', there will be no incentive to help get out. She could have just left me there, or worse killed me to alleviate her boredom.

But when she uttered the word magnanimous, I knew she had it!

Joy, pity, boredom, and a vague concept of good. Those were the reasons I was still alive.

Of course, the scaredy cat that I was, I was only able to play it cool because I had another card up my sleeve. My ability to talk.

I very much doubted whether there were any Body Refinement monsters or even Foundation Establishment capable of talking, she'd know the difficulty herself since she was able to talk.

Using how special and different I looked I probably would have negotiated with her or something I could not tell I needed to know the emotions involved to act accordingly.

It might have been some sort of negotiation, or if she was very much shocked I'd just claim to be some very strong monster and show her my divine manual which would undoubtedly shock her to the core and promise her good cultivation manual of her own if she worked for me or something.

Of course, I did not want to talk at all because the stakes would immediately jump to the skies, but compared to my life I'd have paid any price.

In conclusion, it was both my ability to emotionally manipulate her, cough I meant acting yes, and luck.

There were a lot of moving parts outside of my control her personality, her feelings at the moment I met her, the way she reacted to an injured bird, her previous experiences, and how much value she put on the ring.

All in all, this was a very good learning experience, because I learned one thing. The stronger you are the less you have to rely on whimsical concepts such as luck.

The life I started to appreciate and grow attached to, and the life I worked so hard towards was no longer mine the whole time I was with her. It was very embarrassing and shameful to put my head down and start acting like a toy, just so that I could appease her left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Just if one random thought popped into her head, I'd have died. For example, just as she was approaching me and trying to entertain herself a sudden thought of some injustice she experienced suddenly popped into her mind. Some monster who took something from her, the memory of a close one dying or anything. Wouldn't she vent out that rage by squeezing my body till no breath remained.

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As practical and rational, I was still an emotional creature with a sense of self. Though I was still alive and kicking, this left a scar.

Sigh...

I also remembered that the snake mentioned something about the flower being called Zedinac. For her to know its name, it only meant one thing, they were on equal grounds. The flower was also a core formation monster, or stronger...

Realizing that I had just brazenly fought a plant-type Core Formation monster, I shivered.

Fortunately, it was plant type so by definition its movement should be limited I was also at the outer edges of its domain but even then, I almost died.

This experience also taught me another very important thing, the impracticality of fear.

One is afraid of death but through his fear of death, he only gets closer to what he's afraid of. I managed to stay cool entirely based on the fact that I had another thing up my sleeve and it was not certain death.

But what if I had nothing? Wouldn't I be very afraid and start shaking? When the monster sees through my fear wouldn't it feel powerful, bored, and just eat me?

I also understood another fact, there are two kinds of fears. One is biological, thus inevitable and the other is psychological which is preventable.

The first time I encountered the drake, I felt this gripping fear inside of me even though my mind by then was blank after seeing a legendary creature.

There was no active thinking on my part, or more like there was no one fanning the flames of fear, it was strictly and purely biological.

However, in my encounter with the snake, it was very harmless and it did not evoke any feelings of danger whatsoever, I only knew the heaviness of the situation when I was unable to appraise it, then I freaked out and started thinking of the worst case scenarios, imagining it breaking my neck, cursing my luck and just fell into a downward spiral of thinking worse and worse.

What I needed to do was to increase my self-awareness, so that when death comes as it'd inevitably come I could be prepared and do my best to prevent it, think rationally, and not give up instead of just being swept away by fear.

As I was thinking that I had already reached the camp and directly went to the watchtower. 

Ashe was startled by my arrival and even more so shocked by my appearance.

Even though the dark green pill did help tremendously, I still had an open patch in my stomach with no feathers and my right eye was closed and looked rotten.

"Screech!"

She made a low cry, I knew she wanted to talk. I dropped the gecko and formed a mind link connecting us both.

"What happened why do you look like that?", She quickly interjected with a worried look as she looked me up and down examining my body.

"It's the flower monster you told me about, it was very very strong. I only fought with the flowers at the edge of its domain and I almost died.", I looked at her and said sighing. 

Hearing what I said she sounded furious, "That damn plant! I..", She just wanted to add something but she stopped herself.

"You what?", I asked puzzled, even though I could tell what. She did not have the confidence.

Her previously furious demeanor crumbled away just as fast as it came into being. "You don't think you are capable of killing it, right?"

She sighed and nodded.

"Well, you can't", hearing my answer she seemed surprised but also hurt. However, I quickly added, "But you have something none of them have, an opportunity to change your whole fate, if you work hard and believe in yourself I'm sure you can do it!"

"Don't worry, I won't let you down son!", She stood up with a determined smile remembering her heavenly arts.

"Alright, I'll leave my brother's death and my almost death, to you to avenge.", I also stood up and looked at her with a gentle smile.

Her smile turned even brighter, "You are trying to motivate your mom, aren't you?", she finished with a slight chuckle and looked at the gecko "Why do you always bring other monsters?"

"It is easy to only care about those close to us or no one at all, but as long as we could lend a helping hand to others why not? If someone helped us in fending off the flower my brother would still be alive and well right now. He might have been also playing around with Kali and the rest."

She seemed to think about what I said, after a while, she added, "I suppose you're right."

I simply looked at her and broke off the link and closed my eyes.

Of course, I did have any intentions of changing her, it had to come from her. I only said how I viewed things, how other people interpret things was up to them. 

I stopped thinking about that and focused on the task at hand.

I needed to remove this strange mana preventing my eye from healing. 

It was wild and it sought to destroy everything in its wake. This acid was projected from the disc florets of the biggest flower I was charging into in my escape earlier.

As I was fighting off this invasive mana that was slowly seeping into the depths of my eyes, I sensed some movement.

The black gecko!

Although Ashe sensed it, she did not move. I opened my eyes, stood up and I raised my guard. I had no idea how this monster would react to waking up in a strange environment after a previous deathly battle that resulted in, well his almost death.

Almost every monster I had saved in my quests so far runs away the moment I hold off their attacker, even the intelligent ones. Because to them it just seemed like luck that I appeared and fought off their attacker.

Except for the rabbit, he did chase after us even though it was a death sentence, I went to look for him afterward but found nothing. 

This was also one of the practical non-emotional reasons I wanted to go to a human city, to use the element of gratefulness. I did not want to manipulate people, I'd save them regardless of their reactions I would not care I have enough compensation as it is, a sense of meaning, and the system rewards.

However, I'd be a fool to neglect the fact that some humans do indeed feel grateful and would want to repay their benefactor.

Who am I to take that away from them?

Just as the gecko's eyelids seemed to be quivering, I changed my tactic. I no longer waited passively, but I created eight small Umbra hands and controlled each one to hold a specific body part. Four held his hindlegs and forelimbs, two on the tail and the last two on the head and neck.

Although the Umbra hands created were small in size compared to the ones I used to create, their strength was by no means weaker. Just a compressed smaller version.

Suddenly, his eyes jolted open!

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