I Reincarnated Into A Single-Celled Organism! - I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 58

“She’s eating now,” I said. “Leave.”

Rather than take up my generous offer, the bald-headed man glanced at me smugly. “Who are you, her boyfriend?”

“Ye-”

“Brother,” I responded, interrupting Mara, and causing her to pout. “Eat up, Mila.”

I gave her a pointed look. Mila was the fake name we had chosen for her. The less connection she had with the Tanners, the better, and so we decided to change her name publicly for the time being. I even thought about dying her hair and changing her face, but in some ways, changing too much could make things that would otherwise be quite ordinary look suspicious.

“Well, Big Brother…” He grinned my way. “How about you let us take care of your little sister for a while? We’ll fill her up real nice.”

Mara’s face turned red, but it was mostly from outrage. I gave her a look to reassure her.

“Not necessary,” I responded simply.

His smile turned crooked, and some of the men back at his table chuckled. “Well, you don’t seem to understand the situation. I wasn’t asking, yeah? If you don’t want me to break every bone in your body, then hand her over. We’ll bring her back once we’re done with her. That, I can promise.”

He gave a grin, showing various gold teeth. Such dentistry was common in this area. When he finished threatening me, several of the chairs scooted as several of the other men stood up. I barely reacted.

“I’d be interested to see you try,” I answered.

His smile twisted. “You don’t seem to understand who you’re talking to. We’re from Blackbolt.”

I glanced at Mara, wondering if she knew what that was. She shrugged. I turned back.

“Never heard it. Never heard of you.”

The man maintained his fake smile while grinding his teeth. “Blackbolt owns this territory. Most of us are paragons the lowest are quasi-evolved, and our boss is a Champion. A little mortal like yourself doesn’t want to mess with us, mate.”

“I’m… mortal?” I asked in surprise.

I wasn’t surprised by his words. I had known that half of them were paragons. The others appeared to be high-level mortals, very near their first evolution. I supposed that was why they were called quasi-evolved, although this was the first time I had heard such a word. I had a feeling it was a childish braggart term like saying you were ten and a half.

From the best I could tell from the farmers I had met as well as the current innkeeper, it seemed like most commoners sat around level 5-6 mortal. Children were lower level. Carolina had been a level-nine human, which probably meant that she had been quasi-evolved. It was probably why she was able to hold out as long as she had and put up such a fight.

If I had to rank most of these men, they ranged from 8-9 mortals to as high as 6 evolved, which included the bald guy threatening us. They were still lower level than the knights that Tanner had defeated. They might be enough to terrorize farmers, but they would have been nothing against us. Even their boss sounded weak, although my own experiences with this world might give me a skewed view of things.

“Did you think with a mana level that low, you could fool anyone into thinking you’re a paragon?” The man laughed. “We’re not playing games here.”

I was a level ten evolved. My body contained an incredible amount of mana for a human being. However, this evolved thought I was weak. This told me a couple of things. First, Paragons had some way of detecting other paragons. Of course, I could detect paragons, but it was safe to leave my own experiences as an exception to the rule. I didn’t fit the standard mold in a lot of things.

The second thing I learned was that I appeared quite weak. Was this because I was a single-celled bacteria at one point? Maybe, he could only see the mana of a single cell? No, that didn’t make sense to me. Perhaps… I couldn’t help but recall that I didn’t get mana during my entire evolution process. Each status only began to rise once I unlocked a skill within that status. Whether it was attack, defense, or stamina, those skills didn’t change until I reached a level with their respective skill.

The first skill I had unlocked with magic was Basic Magic, which only came with being human. Thus, I had no evolutions with it and no exponential rises. My magic was literally at 2, matching my level. This caused me to have a realization.

“Exactly how much mana do I possess to you?” I asked him earnestly.

“You don’t know?” He asked, laughing, but then he squinted at me, and his eyes widened. “Two? H-how are you that low? Even someone pathetic at your age should at least be a 3 or a 4!”

The other men started mumbling between each other.

“Is he a two?”

“Holy shit, my twelve-year-old niece is a two. Has this guy never been outside?”

“I see…” I nodded slowly.

It seemed like my predictions were correct. Although you stored mana, the only thing low-level paragons could see is your magic. In this world, it seemed like magic was used to gauge a person’s strength. This alleviated one of my major concerns. I had been worried my high evolution status would stand out and be noticed. Once people found out what I was, they might label me a monster that needed killing, and that would be troublesome for me, as well as Mara’s mission.

However, it turned out that your internal mana wasn’t so easily read. What normal paragons were able to detect was the amount of magic you released, or your magic status. Since mine was laughably small, then for all intent and purposes, I appeared as a level two human. If I had been a human who got magic when I was first born, then this method of assessment would have been completely accurate.

“Can you detect higher-level paragons?” I asked, wanting to learn more. “Like, if you encountered a Champion, would you know what level they were?”

“Huh? Detecting the levels of the evolved and mortals is piss easy… Paragon levels is where it starts getting tricky. You just know they are stronger…” He shook his head. “What the hell? Who’s asking the questions here? Are you making fun of me?”

It was as I thought. It was rather simple. It was a scaling issue. Status increased by a factor of ten every evolution. So, when they were within their factor or lower, it was pretty easy to tell. After that, an evolved might be able to tell if someone was Flawless or a Champion, but the specifics would start to blur, and you’d only perceive a great pool of magical potential.

“I assure you, I wasn’t-“ Before I could explain myself, he grabbed my collar and lifted me out of my chair.

I could have stopped him, but I was a bit curious. It might be good to get punched a few times by this guy. He was so low-level that he wasn’t capable of harming me, but perhaps I could use him to get a grasp on my strength. I had honestly worried about that. I was afraid of using too much of it. Often, when dealing with Mara, I wouldn’t even touch her for fear that I would injure her. As for these guys, I cared very little if they died.

Once I was out of the chair, Mara cried out, but her expression didn’t hold fear so much as worry.

“Since you’re looking to die, I’ll make it easier on you… ahhh!”

“Let go…”

The people standing in the corner suddenly appeared right in front of us. The person in charge had suddenly grabbed his ear, twisting it like he was an insolent child. Their voice had also been female. To my surprise, despite his paragon status, he let out a cry and let go of me. I didn’t sit back down, but I watched the newcomers with curiosity.

“You bastard!” he roared. “Who do you think you are?”

The other men started to draw their weapons, standing up. As for the innkeeper, he suddenly seemed to find a reason to be in his kitchen.

The girl let go of his ear, and then pulled back her hood. There was an immediate intake of breath. This was because she was shockingly pretty. She had silky long hair and a heart-shaped face. In the center of her forehead was a red jewel suspended from an elaborate diadem she wore. Although the cloak she was wearing on the outside was quite plain, the hints of her dress that could seen were quite well-made. It was clear this was a woman of money.

Things were getting more complicated by the minute.