I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 185

“You must be here for the same technique.” Her eyes brightened.

I shook my head and pulled out the true technique book. “I’ve already stolen it. The only thing left in the treasury is a fake I placed there.”

Her eyes widened when she looked at the book in my hands. “If you already have it, why did you…”

“I was going to tell you not to waste your time.” I frowned. “You’re the one who attacked and poisoned me.”

Her face flushed in embarrassment. “That… I’m sorry.”

“Are you? You were willing to steal the technique from the Capala household a moment ago and even kill some random guards.”

She made a face. “The only guards that still work for the Capala household are at the end of their lives and only continue out of some misplaced sense of loyalty to Abigail. I’m just putting them out of their misery. Besides, the Capala family is hardly organized at the moment. To put it simply, the right-hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing and vice versa. Many in the Capala family wish to see Abigail fail and be forced to return to the capital. It might even be the best outcome for her.”

“So, that makes it okay to rob Lady Capala?”

She snorted. “Abigail doesn’t even own this technique. It belongs to that commoner.”

“Isn’t that commoner her future husband?”

She laughed. “Are you acting foolish? I’d bet my virginity that those two only have an engagement in the name. She only offered him a position in her family to get some pressure off her back, but by bringing a hot item like a high-ranked technique to her, he’s only put her and the Capala household in the spotlight. The way I see it, taking the technique is doing her a favor.”

“In that case, I’ve done the favor.” I cut in, slapping the book closed and throwing it into my luminal space. “If you wish to help the Capala family, you can tell everyone it’s no longer with them.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why? What’s the Capala family to you?”

“Who knows?” I responded with a shrug, trying to act as coy as her. “Maybe, I’m the same as you… an innocent lady of a respected paragon family by day, and a disreputable thief by night.”

“You…” She watched me carefully. “What is your goal?”

“Right now?” I smiled. “To gain powerful techniques, speak to beautiful women, and live a carefree life without regret. What about you?”

“If you hand me that technique, there would be a place for you in the Stride family,” she continued, ignoring my question. “They could be your support.”

“Who says I need your support?” I asked. She blinked. “If anyone wants the technique, I have it. You can tell anyone you want. I don’t mind.”

“Is that because you’re confident that you can deal with any threat that comes to you, or because you’re confident no one will be able to determine who you are?” she asked.

“Why can’t it be both?” I smirked.

She looked at me with a slightly amused expression on her face. “How can-”

She stopped and looked away as if she had suddenly heard something.

“That’s my cue to leave.” Without another word, I turned and ran back down the hallway.

As I left, she watched me with a mysterious smile on her face. She backed away, but as she reached the shadows it was like her body became absorbed.

“A tribulation? At this time? I wonder who-” Her voice disappeared as she did, not a trace of her left behind.

I didn’t watch where she went or try to figure out how vanished. I had already succeeded with my own goal. As long as she left the Capala residence thinking that the technique had been taken, she would naturally spread the news to the Stride family. As for who took it, they might suspect the Frankford family, as they were the only other family to know the true value of the technique. At least, this is what the elders would think.

The Frankford family would likely learn the Stride family suspected they had it, and through that, they would learn that the technique was also stolen. The Frankford family would then suspect the Stride family had stolen it and was only blaming the Frankford family so that they didn’t look guilty.

With both families blaming the other, even if they suspected a third party was at play, the only people they wouldn’t suspect were the Capala family. In this manner, the pressure was no longer on Abigail or myself. To these self-righteous paragons, it was only natural that a commoner like me wouldn’t be able to hold such a prize for long. It was all too easy.

However, my focus wasn’t on that, but on Mara’s evolution. She had suddenly sped up her progression, and the tribulation I had thought I still had hours to wait for was suddenly upon us. I quickly escaped the Capala mansion and only after making certain I wasn’t being spied on did I drop my disguise. By the time I returned to Mara’s side, she was covered in sweat and breathing hard. Clouds had formed overhead, circling over her.

I could feel her mana was incredibly powerful. She didn’t just evolve, but she had mutated too! It was a double mutation of magic. That meant that despite being evolved, her magic levels would match someone who normally needed to evolve twice more. When someone mutated, they said that the tribulations were even more porblematic. Worst of all, Mara was still unconscious. If she was struck like this, she would assuredly end up injured if not dead.

Thankfully, I was present. I carefully sat down and waited as the clouds continued to build up overhead. Eventually, even I could start to feel the energy building in the air. I pulled out a long metal spear. I had requested this from Abigail’s treasury in preparation for this moment. There was nothing special about it except that it was a solid metal. I then held that metal straight into the sky, while putting my other hand on Mara.

It was another few minutes, but when the first lightning bolt struck, it hit the tip of the spear. The energy flowed down the spear and entered my body. As soon as I received it, I blocked all of it and stored it. This wasn’t the same thing as absorbing it. Instead, I was merely collecting it. I began to let the energy trickle into Mara. There was a buzzing feeling around my hand, but the sensation was bearable.

This was why a tribulation wasn’t held somewhere safe like underground. It would be exceptionally simple for a human to avoid the tribulation energy simply by staying indoors. However, they always faced it head-on, even at the risk of death. This was because the energy the tribulation provided also served to strengthen and fortify their body as well as help them settle into their new level. If a person didn’t receive their tribulation energy, it made it that much harder for them to reach the next level along their evolutionary path.

Normally, I’d let Mara face the tribulation head-on. Abigail had prepared an item that, once lit, would produce a smoke that would invigorate and wake Mara up so she could face her tribulation. I didn’t use the vial because I wanted to try a different method that I felt might be more efficient. I had never experienced a tribulation of my own. At first, I had considered that maybe I had failed to absorb that energy and it was all lost, but as I thought about things and read the books Abigail provided me, I couldn’t help but think about my final tribulation.

It turned out that the tribulation into humans had exceeded the tolerance of this world. The reason my tribulation lightning never came was that this world couldn’t support such a powerful tribulation, and the laws of the world broke it. When it broke, all the energy from that tribulation came down as a gentle rain instead. I ended up losing most of the energy from the evolution. I didn’t know how that would cost me in the future, but for the moment, it gave me this idea.

I suspected that with every previous tribulation, the pond would be struck by lightning, and the energy would disperse into all the living beings in the pond. Since I had eventually come to absorb every living thing in the pond, I had absorbed all of my tribulation energy. For me, the pond had ended up acting as an energy sink, with every living creature in the pond holding my tribulation energy for me.

If this was possible, then I would be able to do the same for Mara. If she let the energy strike her, she’d only be able to absorb a small part of it. Most of it would be lost in painful lightning bursts. This was because the energy exceeded her body’s capacity. In electronic engineering, there was an item known as a capacitor. Its job was to store the energy until it was ready to be released. I made myself the capacitor, and by storing her tribulation, I could make sure she received it all in a smooth stream.

Although she was a mutant and this would be a more vigorous tribulation than most mortals experienced, it was still merely a first-level tribulation. Altogether, there were five strikes of lightning, and I continued to trickle the energy into Mara until the sun began to rise.

She had now become a paragon.