An Adventure With an Immortal Mosquito

Chapter 60: Evolution Complete

While the result of becoming a moving punching bag for the puppets that he has to beat up had traumatized Ichor enough that the memory of it is subconsciously put away to the deepest recess of his mind like many others, he can't exactly say that everything about it is bad per se.

'There's a lot of information about the Hero's group and their synergy, it should be enough to mull over for now.'

Of course, the biggest reason for him to do that is to return the favor and beat them up himself. But there's also a part of him that wants to make them grow a bit stronger so that they can deal with his problems and let him be a bit safer too.

Although... This might be a conflicting statement in hindsight, with how many 'lethal' injuries he had purposefully put himself through just in this month alone. But hey! It's a good point to start at least.

'Furthermore, there's only a few hours left before Crimson finishes her evolution. I feel like I shouldn't go away from her during that time for some reason.'

There are not many things that Ichor thinks can cause a problem for him while he's in [Armory] at the moment, but he's also very much desensitized to getting into harm's way most of the time. So for him to suddenly feel a sense of mortal danger for a moment when thinking about doing something is as shocking to him as seeing the sky raining frogs in the desert for anyone else.

'Well. Since I lose nothing in doing that, I might as well do it. It's not like I have anything to do anyway.'

Forgetting about the fact that he's going to learn about blacksmithing tomorrow somehow, Ichor spends his time activating <Growth Cycle> Skill and rerunning the fight in his mind, constantly picking the flaws in his actions and creating ways to prevent them from happening again. At the same time, he checks up on Crimson every now and then to make sure that nothing's going on at the moment.

Surprisingly enough, this learning experience is actually more beneficial than he thought it should be. And the main reason for that is surprisingly due to fear.

'Who would've thought that being scared out of my wits is what I needed to understand my ability further?'

In all the battles Ichor has fought so far, the feeling of fear is always in the backline, overshadowed by the rest of the emotions. He can feel shocked, worried, angry, and pissed off just fine, but fear is few and far between in its appearances, barely able to show itself in the spotlight against the desire of the enemy to kill him.

But this fight with the puppets was different because the desire was not the same. The puppets are here simply to test him out with their fights, not kill him. And while Ichor can say with a straight face that he isn't scared of being dead, being fatally tortured is a completely different thing altogether.

For him to even have the chance to enjoy it, he must have a whole lot of irregular preferences in self-harm to back it up. And unsurprisingly enough, he has very few in that regard. So naturally, he has to find a way to evade it better than before.

'I think that part could be done better by making a Control drone laser here instead. 

'Maybe that part shouldn't be that hard if I make some distance for each of them. Letting them stay close is problematic in hindsight.

'Huh, why did I jump the gun and go to attack him at that moment? It's better to let them tire out themselves for a few seconds to get a better shot at doing it.

'And that too...'

Unknowingly to himself, Ichor has spent the remaining hours focusing on this self-review session. The benefits coming from this are fairly large, letting him understand his abilities a lot better than before.