BXBX NOVEL Chapter 4: Hell Flames
4 04 - Hell Flames
Reading the message, Noah finally felt that all those years of being mistreated, running for his life, being judged, and sometimes even being beaten and called useless were worth it. Knowing that this was the only opportunity to change one\'s destiny from someone useless to someone powerful and important, Noah answered "Yes!" mentally.
[Ok... the analyses have already been done on the user during these last years. The result is that the user has an aptitude rate of 98% plus a synchronization rate of 95.2%, the highest synchronization rate ever found among all other synchronized humans. Congratulations user; now you are the first and last user of Lucifer\'s Descendant System.
As a reward for completing your first task, you received (1) (Random Skill Token), do you want to use the token immediately?]
In those 4 years, Noah wasn\'t just wondering what was happening to him. No, he spent a lot of free time looking for anything that could relate to this system. He started his search from the concept of Blessings, then he looked through material from the ancient ages of mankind, even before the dark ages, where beasts and monsters started to appear, searching for everything he could find about this god called Lucifer who blessed him.
Then, after so much research, Noah finally put together the theory he found most plausible, that for some reason Lucifer and the Christian God suffered some kind of loss and thus were unable to help humanity during the Dark Ages, so the smallest deities managed to appear and help in the ways they could. But now after multiple years, Lucifer somehow managed to convey to someone his blessing in the form of this System similar to a video game.
But with so little information, Noah didn\'t know if all this he guessed was what had really happened, or if in fact it was all a setup, a war, or a disease; without any proof, he couldn\'t know for sure. However, according to what the task had told him, following Lucifer would lead him to the truth and to the path of power, so maybe it was only a matter of time before he knew what really happened.
In those years that Noah depended only on himself and on the information he managed to gather, it ended up generating in him a mania of always wanting to know what was happening, how things worked, and to find some way to control them. Even though this was probably unethical, wanting to control everything was one of the things that kept him alive until now, and now that he had power, he had no will to cast these feelings aside.
Leaving riddles aside, Noah said mentally, \'Yes, I wish to use the Token immediately.\'
For more information, the user can open the profile itself.]
Reading the system messages, Noah felt something change inside him. It was as if the skill was in the palm of his hand, as if a sixth finger had been born. It was as easy to control as all the other 5 fingers of his hand, but looking at it, his hand was still completely normal.
He had to control himself a lot to not use that sixth finger of his which appeared after 4 years fighting without any force now that he had finally acquired some power. Noah\'s instincts only said to him, "USE THE CALL", but the same 4 years fighting without any force taught him to be cautious and always hide his true strength to use only against the enemy.
Even if he really wanted to use the flame, he knew that now was neither the ideal time nor the ideal place for it, since the other Blesseds could perceive and notice if something was strange about him. \'Better leave it for when I\'m inside the Fortress,\' Noah thought to himself.
After so many years, Noah finally understood what it felt like for people to always talk about controlling their own Blessing. Even though he had never controlled flames in his life, Noah instinctively knew how to control the Flames of Hell he now possessed. However, he felt that these flames were still very weak.
Remembering the second message the system sent him, Noah decided to try a hypothesis. \'Profile.\'
[User: Noah Stern
Level: 01, 0/100 exp
HP: 10/10
Strength: 10
Agility: 10
Stamina: 10
Skills:
(Hell Flames Lv 01): A technique that consists in invoking the flames of hell itself. The flames of hell were no different from normal flames, but after purifying so many sins and so many sinners, it became the most powerful flame, having even burned the god of the flames himself, making him beg Lucifer to put out those flames before he died. To increase the power of the flaming ability of hell, you must burn either sins or sinners.]
Reading the description of the ability, Noah\'s eyes grew wide. He knew that the blessings the gods gave to humans could be strengthened with time, but he never heard of such an absurd means of improvement.
From what he discovered while researching, the most remarkable improvement was of a Blessed who, when she was blessed, received the healing Blessing. Initially she could only heal small external wounds, but with the years using her own blessing, praying to the goddess of life, and training herself, her Blessing became powerful enough to heal large wounds, or even make small appendages like fingers grow again. Of course, her Blessing had a high rank.
Now, the skill he acquired was nothing but a common flame, but according to what the description of the skill said, if Noah continued using this skill and raised his level by burning sins and sinners, the flame could become powerful enough to burn the flame god himself... How absurd was that!? It was insane to the point that he, for a few seconds, believed that the very blessing was actually a Rank A blessing... maybe even Rank S... but that thought did not stay for more than a few seconds in Noah\'s mind.
In this time being mistreated and fighting for his own life, there is one thing he learned: that having hope is no different from deluding oneself, regardless of the strength his flame may reach in the future. The important thing for him was how strong it was now so that he didn\'t die overestimating his own ability.
Without him noticing it, his hand started to exert so much force as he closed it that little drops of blood started to leak. This was not due to anger or any negative feeling. No, if someone looked into Noah\'s eyes now, they would see a completely different person. Unlike before, Noah always had a cold, serious and emotionless face, but now deep inside it was possible to find a determined look, a determination to become stronger in order to save her.
"All right, everybody; we\'re here. The booths to leave your personal belongings are in the usual place. If you\'re new, just follow after the most experienced person you can find," The bus driver suddenly said in a monotone voice.
If they had been Blessed Rank D, surely his treatment of them would have been much better, since for the government, Blessed Rank F were just cannon fodder used to clean up the garbage that other adventurers thought was worthless. That is to say, the fortresses that are left to Rank F adventures yielded almost no profit, often almost not enough to have any money left at the end of the month. The only times that there was a little extra money left was when many people died during the invasion, so half of the profit of whoever died went to the family and the other half went to whoever stayed alive in the end.
The Blessed Rank D or above usually started in the Rank E Fortresses since these Fortresses were not so difficult and would at least bring a little profit to whoever invaded them. So here in the Rank F Fortresses, only Blessed Rank F and E appeared to get some change to survive back in town.
Noah even wondered why people preferred to come to Rank F Fortresses, knowing the danger and the miniscule profit. But after seeing how deluded these people were, thinking they could get much stronger and advance their classification to get rich, he understood when these people realized that there was no way to improve anymore because of how limited their blessings were, it would be already too late. Their bodies would already be all marked with scars and the knowledge they had before would have been forgotten a long time ago, making it impossible to leave the Blessed lifestyle behind.
Getting off the bus, Noah saw the teenagers following the adults and gave a slight laugh at the discrepant difference in outlook between those who never experienced the difficulties of a fortress and those who lived their whole lives having to risk themselves in these hells.
But this time Noah was feeling different. This time, instead of the immense weight of worry he normally carried on his back, he now felt light. Feeling the control of the Flames of Hell he now possessed, Noah saw the fortresses as a beautiful pig farm just waiting for him to start slaughtering the fat pigs called monsters.
"Pfft, even though you\'ve been a Blessed for so many years, you still have a HiPhone XX? Do you know how long this phone has been out of date? Does it still work to send messages?" One of the teenagers laughed at Noah\'s phone while putting his HiPhone ZY in the temporary closet used to store the Blessed\'s belongings. "Yeah, maybe the life of a Blessed Rank F doesn\'t pay that well..." The teenager laughed with disdain.