Science/Magic 190 Prelude to the Selection 3

...

The first thing Bloed did after Eve and Liu Ying left was to activate his stealth device.

Before entering the competition, Bloed received one of the storage jewels Regina carried with her. He had stored Tito, Leto, and some things he was planning to use during this competition inside.

One of them was this stealth device.

By the way, he had given a stealth device to Liu Ying as well.

When the stealth device was activated, Bloed's figure disappeared, hidden from sight. He then kicked the ground and moved out.

According to the rules, he had one hour before the start of the Hunt. That hour was the time given to him to make the preparations he needed.

Bloed was planning to use that hour as much as he could.

Perhaps to other people, one hour was not much time, but Bloed could do a lot of things using that time.

Moving through the city, he found a place hidden from sight and deactivated his stealth. Then, he used his psychic power to activate the storage device.

One second later, the mechanic puppy, Tito, appeared before him.

*Woof!*

The current Tito was a bit different than before. Its size was the same, but its figure was a bit sleeker.

If before, Tito looked like an adorable puppy, now it looked like a puppy learning to hunt.

However, its appearance was not the only change.

With his ascension to B-Grade, Bloed had modified his trusty puppy.

Firstly, Bloed increased Tito's individual capabilities. Now, the puppy could show C-Rank abilities for itself.

Moreover, in armor mode, Tito's defensive abilities doubled and the enhancement it could provide to Bloed increased by thirty percent!

Besides that, Bloed also added a new ability to the puppy. It was called [Overboost].

Overboost's use was simple. When needed, Bloed could activate this ability and Tito's specs would double for a limited amount of time.

This ability had a drawback, though. Just like Leto's flight, Bloed needed to use Tito��s reserves of energy each time he activated this ability.

Thus, he could use it only for half an hour at most, and after that, he needed to wait twenty-four hours to activate this ability again.

But even like that, this ability was a great boom for Bloed. Mainly because it could make up for Bloed's main shortcoming; his physical strength.

After Bloed took out Tito, he ordered the puppy to turn into armor mode. Tito barked once before turning into metallic sand that wrapped around Bloed's body.

With his armor on, Bloed took out his second pet.

Leto.

Just like Tito, Leto was a bit different now.

The wolf was much bulkier than before. Taller and stronger too.

Before, Leto's height reached three meters in his strongest form. Now, though, its height increased to four meters!

As for its strength, the wolf had reached peak B-Rank.

However, Leto's main changes were not those. Instead, Bloed replaced and added a pair of new features.

Firstly, he gave Leto the ability to split itself. A wolf of four meters of height was too tall to move freely in some circumstances, so Leto could split itself into two two-meters-tall wolves, each with medium B-Rank abilities.

Bloed improved Leto's sand mode as well. During his recent battles, Bloed had realized that he relied a lot on Leto's sand mode, not only as a shield, but also as a weapon, and as a tool to stop the movement of his enemies.

Thus, Bloed added an electric current to Leto's sand mode.

Now, each time Leto wrapped around an enemy, he would emit a powerful lightning current that could stun or outright kill Bloed's enemies.

Plus, if the enemies were stunned, Bloed could take advantage of that to use any of his sure kill methods to deliver the final blow.

In exchange, though, Bloed eliminated Leto's breath attack. The main reason behind that was that Bloed's new machine already filled that role.

With Bloed's order, Leto turned into two wolves that stood in each of his sides. The wolves were ready to start the battle at any moment.

But Bloed was not finished yet. With a thought, a third machine came out of his storage device.

It was an eye-like machine of one meter of diameter.

The machine hovered beside Bloed silently, scanning Bloed's surroundings and sending information to Bloed's eyes.

This was Bloed new machine. And the only brand-new machine he created after his breakthrough.

He called it, [Oculus].

The eye in the sky.

As its name indicates, Oculus's main purpose was to observe.

It had a stealth module installed on it that allowed it to move in the sky in an almost undetectable manner. Furthermore, it transmitted the images it saw to Bloed's eyes, allowing Bloed to have bird sight of the situation at any time.

Oculus's second function was scouting. With a thought of Bloed, it would split into thirty small dragonfly-like drones that can act independently while retaining most of Oculus's observation mode's functions.

Unfortunately, when Oculus turned into dragonflies, the information Bloed received simultaneously multiplied, burdening heavily his mind. Thus, Bloed would be unable to realize any other task while this mode was activated.

Finally, Oculus's third function was heavy firepower.

When Oculus was in its observation mode, it could attack in two forms. The first one was an AoE suppressive fire, and the second one was a single-target plasma ray.

Bloed was confident than even an Rank practitioner would die if he receives this attack head-on.

Unfortunately, Oculus needed to charge for three seconds before realizing this attack. Bloed was satisfied with this, though. After all, Oculus could charge the attack in stealth mode while Bloed distracted or stopped the enemies.

It was especially compatible with Leto's sand mode.

After taking Oculus out, all of Bloed's new equipment was ready.

Of course, Bloed had also realized some other upgrades during the last month, mainly to his eyes.

After his advancement, his eyes were much stronger than before.

Bloed took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Then, he activated Oculus's scouting mode.

With a thought, the floating eye turned into tens of dragonflies. The dragonflies then turned invisible and spread through the city.

For the next hour, he was planning to use them to find the location of the hunters and the other contestants.

Oculus's scouting mode showed its usefulness almost immediately. During the hour before the hunt started, Bloed located two hunters and thirteen candidates.

Using that information, Bloed thought on a strategy.

Soon, it was noon.

And–

*Boom!*

An explosion sounded in the sky, creating a blinding ball of light that brightened the city ruins.

That was the signal to start.

Opening his eyes, Bloed ordered Oculus to return to its observation mode and started to move.

Now, it was time to hunt.

...

P4TREON: patr-eon.com/aidnovels

Chapter end