Kapitel 367: Chapter 367: Meeting the Other Four: Fundamental Champions Interlude Part 1
Elsewhere, somewhere outside the Primordial Blade barrier...
"Left ear."
RIP
"Both femurs."
CRACK
"Right eye."
SQUELCH
"Nails."
TEAR
Sanity, the fundamental champion of the mind pillar, was giving orders in a monotone voice to her comrade Havanah and directing the cat cultivator to dissect certain parts of a rather large ogre. It was a unique variety of the monster but, honestly, neither Sanity nor Havanah bothered to check what made it special because it would die like any other ogre did when faced with a fundamental champion's might let alone being in the presence of two. This thing could not have been more screwed and this was like two eighteen year old bullies picking fights in a nursery. Havanah was dancing around the ogre, occasionally dropping to all fours as she dashed about and scratched about. From time to time she would bring out her giant sword treasure and chuck it with ease before controlling the heavy thing remotely with her gravity magic. Sometimes she kicked it, sometimes she hopped aboard it and rode it through the air, and sometimes she just swung the thing with pure brute force. Regardless of what choice she made her movements were wild and erratic, lacking rhythm and regularity thanks to her magic enabling an unpredictable fighting style.
Lighter gravity meant quicker strikes whereas heavy gravity brought the pain through mightier attacks. Both gravity types could be combined as well for a fast swing with a thumping result so Havanah was a rather odd fighter to watch. You never really knew if she was going to randomly speed up or slow down in her assault and understanding what was going through that feral mind of hers mid combat was mostly impossible even for someone like Sanity who was typically an expert in such things. These two were not the only people in this forest right now, however, as there was a man with them who was constantly checking his wrist watch and tapping his feet like he was on a tight schedule. To be fair, most of the time, this rather plain looking man really was; it's just that nothing he ever did made any sense, really. Whether he was busy using a boomerang to play catch with Bedlington Terriers, or teaching a group of civilised buzzbladers how to cook lamb liver properly, he was always in the middle of something completely ridiculous and nobody could really ever tell why. He had valid reasons whenever asked it's just that people had gotten so used to the bizarre arrangements he regularly made that they just assumed he was doing it for the good of everyone else around.
This man was Oliver Laplace, the founder of the Fundamental Organisation, name change pending, and had a very limited amount of free time. A lot of his unusual endeavours resulted in monetary gain to keep the organisation afloat as well as valuable connections formed with people that had some kind of power in the wider world. In the case of the Terriers, the dogs belonged to a rich ruler of a domain who'd been looking for a temporary babysitter and the boomerang was a sort of dog chew toy treasure that kept the little barkers busy. God only knows what the buzzbladers incident was about but Oliver came back from his tutoring session with a heap of cash so nobody cared to ask. The result was all that mattered with this man and he was very capable of bringing back phenomenal results time after time without fail. How he even got these odd jobs in the first place, and how he managed to so consistently complete them despite being a relatively weak cultivator, was something only he knew but everyone else was familiar enough with his dedication to trust him when it counted. So as for why he was constantly checking the time... Well, for whatever reason, he was obligated to run a blindfolded and barefoot marathon across a frozen planet for charity in a few days... Again, better not to ask where he found these odd job humiliation rituals and why they always paid so damn well... Then again, if he was doing crap like that for pennies somebody would have stopped him by now for his own sake.
Anyway, Oliver was here now with these two fundamental champions because the organisation's higher ups, himself and the champions, were effectively taking a field trip! All of the fundamental champions were interested enough in meeting the pagoda clone of Ares so Oliver decided to tag along and introduce himself. The white and black pillar champions were elsewhere when the decision to do this was made so they would arrive at the pagoda by themselves but Oliver was being escorted there by these two. Though Oliver was a man of many talents he was weak, and quite nervy a lot of the time, so he needed bodyguards for just about everything. Even when he was falling behind whatever messed up schedule he'd set, like now for instance, he was effectively never rude to these bodyguards because of his pushover personality even if he was secretly hoping everyone would hurry up a bit. He would stand up for very specific beliefs, and do so fervently, but he was a very weak presence most of the time and had to have other, more reliable, negotiators speak on his behalf often. He wasn't soft spoken per se, he was just very easy to ignore be it accidentally or intentionally. All in all, he was a rather odd fellow who seemed capable of just about anything this whacky world threw at him and yet also completely useless in just about every way conceivable. Still, the people around him got to used to both sides of this coin and understood there was no one better suited to run this organisation because his heart was in the right place for personal reasons and his loyalty to this organisation was unquestionable. There were no lengths to which he wouldn't go for it and, given some of the more unsavoury jobs he'd done in his past, that was self evident. Others could make up for what he lacked but there was nobody else in the organisation that could fill his shoes.
So if Oliver was obsessed with being on time for these strange plans he always made, why was this trio taking a detour to brutalise this poor ogre? Simply put, money! Travelling to the pagoda was an expense that didn't need to be paid for by the organisation, as it leaned more towards being a personal trip for four fifths of the people going, so it was coming out of everyone's own pockets... Unfortunately Havana and Sanity's pockets were empty. Havanah left her stardust back at home with Golgo, because she was clumsy and forgetful about such mortal possessions, which was her excuse. Sanity's excuse, a valid one mind you, was that she loaned the dumb and broke Havanah her own stardust so she could go buy food in the organisation's cafeteria but then Havanah forgot that bunch of stardust in her personal room and left money behind AGAIN. In other words, Havanah had singlehandedly rendered two fundamental champions penniless because of her forgetful and lackadaisical attitude.
This wasn't surprising, however, as Havanah rarely used or needed money before. Her dad, Golgo, ruled the entire planet and domain he lived in so what use was money when she could just snap her fingers and get whatever she wanted for free? Plus if she was hungry she could just go hunt an animal and eat it then and there... Nobody in the nearby city dared charge her for food, as she supplied them with more meat than she ate on average, so she was basically unfamiliar with stardust and didn't care for the stuff or understand its broader importance. This was relevant now because, in order to take the teleporter to the planet the pagoda was on, they needed that stardust she'd forgotten! Either her own stash or Sanity's! Oliver wasn't doing all those strange jobs for free so it was painfully obvious he had no money either. Everything he earned went straight into the org's coffers so he was equally as broke and, now, stranded with these two doofuses. To fix this cash conundrum, the trio had stopped off at a local guild and become temporary adventurers to go track down 'rare' monsters for money; hence the bullying of this poor, legendary ogre. You wouldn't think it was some rare monster the way it was being man... Or, rather, cat-handled, but it was! Anyway, what the ogre really 'was', to Sanity and Havanah, was worth a crap ton of stardust!
Following Sanity's instruction, Havanah was skilfully removing the important parts from this beast and gradually killing it while trying to extract any and all satisfaction she could from a fight this boring. The ogre couldn't match Havanah in terms of strength, speed, magic, treasures owned, or technique so the beating was one-sided and not even interesting to spectate despite the involvement of a fundamental champion. All in all, it wasn't a shocker when the fight ended shortly after it began with the winner taking zero injuries and not even coming close to sustaining anything even remotely resembling 'damage'. It was so boring, in fact, that the first thing Havanah did was complain about it while picking her teeth with one of the extended claw nails on her hand. "Tsk. Is that monster really as good as it gets around here? I know this is a lower domain compared to what I'm used to but aren't these things way too pathetic? Better yet, isn't that Ares guy from a lower domain? Won't he be weak too? What on earth was Golgo thinking... Actually, he probably wasn't... He tends not to." Havanah kicked some dirt and rocks at her feet while her tail swayed aimlessly back and forth and she clapped the tufts of fur on her palm together. She looked around for more entertainment but clearly wasn't going to find any despite the noise she was making to lure in monsters. The legendary ogre round these parts just got its ass beat so no way any other intelligent animal was coming this way and her obvious provocations could get lost!
Sanity sighed as she took the spatial ring with the ogre's body parts off of Havanah. "Yes this Ares individual is from a lower domain, that much is true, but the pagoda evens out cultivation during a fight. He will be projected to you at a level that is equivalent to yours or within the rough ballpark."
"Heh, you said 'ruff' and 'ballpark'. Dumb dog."
SIGH
Sanity took a deep breath and refrained from fighting with this stupid panthera. Sanity, and most other K9s, had a general disdain for these annoying cat kin and putting up with them on the regular was hard work. "Whatever. Point being, he ought to be a fair fight that will keep you interested with a challenge worth your time. He's made a serious name for himself as of late so the chances of him being weak are effectively zero. I don't know why you arbitrarily made him your mate but, for what it's worth, he won't disappoint you in combat at least. In fact, given your general lack of training with pressure compared to an expert, I don't think you're going to beat him at all. Cheat and use reality magic all you want but the odds are stacked against you so don't expect to walk away with a win. Beating Armageddon, Ject, and Veteran is no small résumé... Although you have no clue who any of those people are, I'm guessing? Stupid cat... You'll find out for yourself anyway just how clueless you really are about other people's talent. You've not seen enough prodigies to have a proper grasp on anyone's strength other than your own. At bare minimum he will be as strong as I am, probably more based on what the news has been portraying him as."
"Hmph. Sure. What 'bout you then? Why are you coming along? You don't care about contests of strength, not with a thin and weak body like yours." Havanah was poking fun but, actually, Sanity was not that weak compared to a normal cultivator in the strength department. Sure Sanity specialised in mental magic but she wasn't inadequate in hand to hand either. Fundamental champions had enough benefits and advantages at their disposal such that there was little excuse not to at least be somewhat well versed in just about everything. Ares was an exception due to his adept trait, so building up physical strength wasn't possible, but really the only disappointment in that regard was Mako... That guy seriously needed to pick up the pace with CQC but he was still in an ok position for now and not completely awful. he still let the fundamental champions down on average, though. Anyway, Havanah was just comparing Sanity to herself, and there was an obvious difference there, so it wasn't necessarily incorrect to throw out such a petty insult as the general gist of the point was accurate enough.
"Maybe I would have more muscle mass if I ate raw meat like a savage too." Sanity spat in disgust at the wild animal called Havanah before continuing on. "I'm not interested in Ares. Rather, I'm not interested in anyone for any reason at all. What I care about is how his magic functions and to what extent it interacts with mine. Can destruction destroy my mental magic? That is the only question I need answered. I've heard from the psychic pillar deity, and even the mind pillar itself, that the answer is almost definitely yes... But I still want to see for myself. Honestly, the more I hear about destruction magic the less I like it. It makes me uncomfortable that such an absolute existence, one that can deny all other existences without fault, is permitted to wield such power uncontested. It feels like a step above even the rest of the fundamental magics and that concerns me deeply. Not that your pussy cat brain would understand the implications of such a thing if it winds up being true.
Perhaps I'm just being paranoid but that's my reason. As for White's reasoning, he seems like the type to be interested in his allies' capabilities so he knows how to strategize around them in combat. I won't even bother with Black because their motives are unknowable now and always. Maybe if they could open that damn mouth of theirs for once we'd know what they were up to or thought about literally any given subject." Sanity shook her head and stepped through a portal that Havanah opened up with her magic. Havanah's magic wasn't just gravity oriented as that was simply one aspect. Reality was a broader concept than just that and could affect, you guessed it, reality! Overlapping points in reality to teleport was pretty basic and there were some far more complicated things this relatively silly cat could do. Specifically the rule breaking aspect allowed her to defy common logic and break the rules of reality without breaking a sweat so she was a fearsome foe in many ways. And yet, what was about to happen was not something that would cause her to instil fear into the hearts of observers because it was... 'Play time'.
See, after a dull fight, Havanah got sulky and wouldn't stop hassling Sanity for a fun fight to make up for it. If Sanity didn't comply then Havanah's mood would just get more, well, catty and she'd become insufferable. So, in a roundabout way, Sanity obliged the cat and gave her something to play with by trapping the cat in her own mind and summoning fake monsters for her to fight. It was like a portable Training Field that could simulate various encounters inside the foe's mind. Normally Sanity would make it so that these fake fights inflicted real damage but, given that Havanah was an ally, she refrained from doing that despite having been asked to on multiple occasions from the person herself. It made the fights feel more real to Havanah when she was done with them, as the fatigue and pain lingered, but Sanity did not want to be responsible for anything that could possibly go wrong and smartly refused every time. These were not easy fights she was dumping on Havanah and the dumb cat had died in them more than once already. Sanity summoning multiple versions of herself in Havanah's mind to fight, for instance, was very possible and there was no way Havanah was beating multiple fundamental champions at once no matter how talented she was.
Normally there was a cap to what Sanity could summon inside other people's brains and mental realms, and it changed depending on various circumstances, but when being given full access like this she could basically do whatever she felt like in the moment. If she wanted Havanah to fight a God that was very much in the cards. All this to say that, right now, despite Havanah's usual fierce attitude in combat, and despite her oaf-ish, thuggish, an lazy nature outside of it, she was wearing a very different façade right about now. Havanah took on a very distinct 'style' when it was 'play time' and she bore great resemblance to a cat, considerably more so than usual, as she happily meowed, purred, and swiped at the air in front of her with limp wrists and a smile on her face. She was enjoying herself in a dream and this was just what the real body looked like under such a circumstance. While the brain was away, the cat did play. This would be incredibly embarrassing for anyone else but Havanah neither knew nor cared. Luckily for her, though, Sanity wiped this sight out of the memory of strangers so it was a side of Havanah that not many people knew about. Sanity felt second hand embarrassment which was why she refused to be seen, or even remembered, in public with this literal kitten fawning over imaginary enemies that she wanted to treat as scratching poles. Also, though Sanity wouldn't admit it, Havanah was also, technically, in some ways, potentially construable as a... 'Friend'... So this was also a... 'Friendly'... Favour... Kinda...
Anyway, after putting Havanah into what Sanity dubbed 'play time', as opposed to her usual 'nyanderthal' state, she went into the local guild and received renumeration for felling the not-so-legendary ogre. Sanity was recognised on multiple occasions during her day to day but people knew to leave her well enough alone lest they had a nightmare in public and freaked out like some kind of weirdo. Some famous people were approachable, Sanity was not. She did not interact well with people she didn't know already for an extended period of time and, even then, barely ever warmed up to people. Cat kin and dog kin, funnily enough, had personalities that tended to be opposite their animal counterparts. Nobody knew why, this was just how it was! Thanks to this, she was able to take her stardust payment in peace and leave with the harmless kitten and Oliver watch-checker Laplace. The trio would make their way to the pagoda shortly without too much off a fuss but, elsewhere, White and Black had gotten into a scuffle with some annoying pests.
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
TWC_Guy
TWC_Guy A shorter chapter today as I'm unfortunately busy but this was always going to take multiple parts anyway so I'll make up for the word count during part 2 tomorrow. Also apologies for the early upload but, again, I'm too busy to write more and edit it for later.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
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