Curse The Mainframe!
/ Curse the Mainframe! 260 Customized Seal
He refused to back down or show weakness, even if all he wanted to do was rub his aching cheeks. How could it hurt so much, when even stabs didn't hurt this much?!
More than that, wasn't this a completely unprovoked attack!?
Alec took Sekai's sheathed sword and stabbed him with it, prodding his head angrily a few times.
"You," Alec started, then took a breath to calm himself down. "How can you call this sacrilegious work a seal?!"
Sekai growled, trying to grab the sheath as it continued prodding him with his teeth, before Alec's words took him aback.
"You take that back!"
"No!"
"My seals are not shitty!"
"I've seen complete beginners better than this!"
Ye Sha watched the two bickering with pure anger, snickering the entire time.
Somehow, the Main Character had managed to make Alec behave childishly like this.
Then again, he supposed that the pure disrespect that Alec felt the other was doing to his field of interest was just grating him in an entirely different way as compared to when the other had given him all those bad reviews that forced him down to this planet.
Alec held up a sheet, stabbing his finger on the page. "Look at this! Look at it! What are you doing?! You… the lines of conversion are all wrong! Your handwriting is sloppy! The use of your brush is sub-par!"
The moment Alec started, all the complaints he had came gushing out. Especially because he'd been forced to stare at that peacefully sleeping face when Alec's indignation had been mounting.
Sekai look stumped. The blank and uncomprehending look on Sekai's face just infuriated Alec more.
This… this was a travesty.
He'd never seen such bad results from someone. He wasn't lying when he said that he'd seen better from a complete beginner. And, of all people, it was the Main Character that he'd sent off, no less!
Of course, what Alec didn't realize was that he'd only seen the beginners from his sect, who had been handpicked out of thousands to join his division.
The ones that had been picked had a lot of talent in the area, and Alec had watched over their first steps, which was obviously better than many people out there.
Even if they couldn't all be called geniuses, they still had talent in the field that would get them far enough if they just put in enough effort.
Alec felt like he got a shock when he saw how badly Sekai was doing in his practice.
He'd found all the papers lying around the cave, but he couldn't find much improvement either.
Of course, Alec was trying to hold it in. There had been improvements – minimal as it had been – what he really couldn't forgive was someone who hadn't properly finished learning the knowledge trying to move onto practical drawing when they obviously had not yet mastered the knowledge!
Ye Sha was just laughing at the side since he knew what Alec was going on about.
Sekai actually wasn't that bad when compared to the normal person, but when compared to the people in the Heavenly Ascension Sect's array division, Sekai wasn't even in the same league.
Sekai felt very offended by how horrified the System was of his skills. He shouted at the other. "Hey! I'm doing my best alright! Do you think I really want to learn it?!"
Alec angrily prodded the other a few more times with the sheathed sword. "You have some improvements I'll give you that," he hissed. "But you haven't finished learning the basics yet! Yet here you are, trying seals already?! You're obviously rushing for something, so why aren't you leaving it to the professionals!? You're just spitting on our line of work if you're just doing it half-heartedly!"
Sekai hissed at Alec a few more times, his head trying to dodge the sheathed sword in vain. How was it that the sheathed sword kept stabbing at him with such precision!?
Alec dropped his smile and glared at the other, and Sekai actually felt a bit relieved when he saw that smile disappear.
The last time they'd met, the System had been rather blank-faced, and even in the end, he'd been glaring at him, so the smile the System wore really freaked him out.
"So, start talking. I already know you have some sort of seal stuck on you."
Sekai jerked. "You… how do you know about that?" he asked suspiciously.
Alec put down the sheathed sword. He silently pointed at the golden pin on his collar.
Sekai's eyes slid over to the pin, his eyes widening. "Eh? Damn System – err, you, what's your name?" he said shakily.
Alec raised a brow. He could tell that the other man at least had some knowledge in the field, even though his practical experience was horrendous.
He'd looked over the sheets of paper, and he could form a vague impression of what the other was trying to do, so he'd wondered just how much he knew.
Since he knew about the pin's significance, he should know about the people at the top of the Kaoriht continent.
"You're Alecris Neil?!" Sekai shouted loudly at him. "I should have known something was fishy when an eleven-year-old can top the competition! We've all been scammed!"
Alec actually resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Sekai flailed, but only his head whipped around amusingly.
Alec prodded him with the sheathed sword again, trying to get the man back on track.
Sekai calmed down a little, still a little miffed at the thought that he actually idolized Alecris Neil for a bit. His face burned.
Still, he grudgingly admired the other's skill in the area. Sekai already knew that he'd never be able to catch up unless he had a lot more time to practice.
Not right now, at least. Not with the fucking brand the company put on him to limit his freedom of thought.
Even up to now, he still didn't have a clear idea of what it could do, but the appearance of THE Alecris Neil gave him a little hope.
Still, he couldn't hope for much either.
After all, both he and the System had fucked each other up, apparently.
As if a high and mighty System would deign to come down to a planet if they weren't somehow being punished. At least, that's what he thought. Unless the other came down to mock him?!
Just as the Main Character was thinking, Alec was also studying the Main Character.
He'd gotten a good look at the seal earlier, and Alec could only feel disgust at that perverse seal that he could only call a brand.
Never had he felt such a feeling for something that he felt so strongly about. They'd taken the beauty and flexibility of seals and warped it to such a state, instead using it to limit and control other's thoughts.
It made Alec sick just thinking about it, but the worst part of it was that it was a customized seal.
It was like Alec's Spectre seal, meaning that it appeared in the form of an image where the runes that made up the seal all melded together in a tight space, giving the impression of an image.
It was a specialized thing that only those who were at least array masters could do. Not only that, Alec didn't recognize the crafter of said seal.
Every array master had a special way of working about their things that would allow others to get insight into the crafter, but Alec had not managed to gleam anything from this person at all.
Which meant that there was an array master out there that was in hiding.
And that someone had basically created an enslavement seal that would allow them to control and limit those that had it on.
The reason why it filled him with such disgust was because knowingly or not, Dorian had tried to get him to go down that route those years ago, where he ultimately rejected it even as he pretended that he complied.
Of course, Alec had managed to explain it to the man eventually after they got closer, and the man had accepted the revisions. It helped that Alec's Master had been there to back him up, as well as the relief Dorian felt when he knew he wouldn't be putting his son's life into someone's hands after all.
So, even if it was someone that he couldn't stand, Alec wasn't going to let someone suffer under the gross misrepresentation of what a seal was supposed to be.
Alec prodded the head sticking out of the ground. "Start talking."
Chapter end
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