Odyssey of the Blind God

After the two sisters had apologized to him, they retracted their pressure and immediately Nial felt relieved.

What he hadn't realized until now was the factor that not only his senses had improved, giving him advantages, but that also the presence, aura and intent of others were clearly perceptible to him.

As such, Nial sensed the anger and suffocating pressure released by Kira and Mara which was ten times more intense than what he had felt being around anyone else.

Thus, they were slightly baffled by his reaction and relieved once they retracted their inadvertently released pressure.

Yet, after Nial had begun explaining everything, stating that his senses and physique had been enhanced through the Curse he bound to his mana core, they were slowly starting to comprehend the big picture.

Initially, Kira hadn't been all that impressed by Nial. It was mostly his unbending will and desperation to reunite with his family by all means, followed by her gut feeling that made her choose Nial as her recommendation.

In the few days that had passed after their first encounter, Kira realized that he had changed quite a lot.

And to think that the biggest change originated from a Curse that acted just like a blessing baffled her a little bit.

There were quite a few powerhouses she knew, who had bound Curses to their mana core.

However, most of these Curses had been tested with hundreds of volunteers in order to figure out even the slightest disadvantage the Curse could bring forth.

They had taken extreme care and precautions before binding one after being satisfied with its efficiency and 'harmlessness'.

This was completely different from Nial's case because she had never heard about the curse called [Hodur's Heir].

Even Mara was clueless about the curse, which made her use the governor's access permit in order to look up the Curse.

Oddly enough, the Cursed crystal had only been found once, and its origin was shocking enough to turn Mara speechless.

She didn't say anything for a few minutes and then mumbled.

"The monster that destroyed Tiara, Nicoan, and Orit…you bound the Cursed Crystal that dropped from this beast?!?!"

Her voice climbed an octave with each spoken word and Nial felt as if she was suddenly lecturing him as if he had done something terrifyingly bad.

Unfortunately, Nial had no idea what she was talking about as he explained where he got the crystal for the curse from.

"Katu has a Cursed Crystal shop, and I just bartered it with an Earth affinity crystal that has the comprehension tag. It looked like the owner of the Cursed Crystal shop needed this crystal because he left the moment he got his hands on the Elemental affinity crystal!"

Now that he thought back about it, the situation was truly quite weird.

Both the sisters were stunned to hear his words.

"You…got your hands on an Affinity crystal with the Comprehension tag?? How…and why didn't you bind it to your mana core…it could have helped you much better than a Curse, even if it looks like you were quite fortunate with the organ of your body that is cursed!"

Nial figured out what Kira wanted to convey, but he didn't answer directly.

He knew that the Earth affinity might have been helpful to him, but it wouldn't have solved the issues of his blindness.

This was completely different from the Cursed crystal to which the Odyssey seed had been attracted.

As such, Nial was confident that there hadn't been any dangers for him in binding it.

Rather than his barter turning out to be a huge loss, he was sure that the Curse [Hodur's Heir] was much more valuable than the Earth elemental affinity crystal, even if it might only be for him as an individual.

In the end, it was his decision, and the sisters could tell that Nial was able to act and move around just like any ordinary Original without being restricted due to his blindness.

This was something extremely important in order to fight against powerful opponents that were able to see.

Yet, from what they understood, Nial had used up his one and only ability spot in order to even out his disadvantage.

It was great that he had managed to achieve all of this alone, but from their point of view, he had a disadvantage against those who were born with an Innate ability, while being able to bind any kind of powerful ability to their mana core.

Thus, they figured that it would be the most important to find out every single condition of the Curse, what it might have enhanced, and how the Curse affected him.

Did the Curse really only affect his eyes negatively, or was there a hidden condition, not even Nial knew about?

Unable to tell this right now, they listened to Nial's explanation about the Two-element dungeon, and how he had procured the Earth Elemental crystal.

After he finished his explanation, Nial chugged down the water because his mouth had gone dry from speaking for more than half an hour.

The sisters hadn't even given him the time to properly breathe in between his sentences as they kept bombarding him with questions the moment he took a pause.

They were certainly being nosy, but Nial didn't dislike this.

Rather, he liked the fact that they were genuinely inquiring about information from him in order to find out his current situation, his strengths, weaknesses, what kind of restrictions his talent had, and much more.

This astonished him quite a bit because it was not something he had expected from the sisters that had been uninterested in his condition before.

What Nial was oblivious to was the fact that many things had changed in a matter of days, which included the biggest factors revolving around the lives of all three of them.

First, he accepted Kira's recommendation to the Teradan military kingdom, which meant that he had to be powerful enough to fight against the prodigies of numerous families from the nine shelters.

This may exclude the prodigies from the well-off families, and some other specific individuals that had been scouted by all kinds of organizations, but that was not something Nial would be concerned about.

After all, his competition was fierce enough, and to the extent that even the weakest participants were likely to be stronger than him….if one were to exclude Nial's unique trait which allowed him to release the black miasma, or the second pulse of his Odyssey seed.

However, these unique conditions, or traits, what Nial liked to call them, were something that didn't belong to his individual combat prowess.

Rather, it was something he would consider an emergency protection function of his body.

He was being a little bit harsh on himself, but Nial was fully aware of the fact that he was just too weak, ignorant, and lacking in numerous ways.

As such, he didn't even realize that he was opening up to the two sisters just because they showed their concern towards him.

Fortunately, their concern was not only based on the first reason and factor to help him.

Rather, the first factor harbored many reasons for them to help Nial, whether it was for their own good, to strengthen him, or their attempts to support him in searching for a proper way to enter Liondra.

Nial required all kinds of strength, including knowledge, physical strength, mental strength, a high comprehension, innate talent, battle awareness, and so on.

Thus, once the two sisters figured out nearly everything about Nial, excluding the pieces of information that had to do with the Odyssey seed, they felt thoroughly informed.

The siblings fell silent while trying to process everything while coming up with the best and most efficient ways to provide proper tutelage to Nial.

It didn't seem like he was stupid, even if Nial thought of himself like that.

Rather, Kira and Mara believed that the discrimination against disabled people was much more of a problem than either of them wanted to acknowledge.

He said that he had left school because his mother had wanted to homeschool him, but she was obviously not qualified to do that owing to the little time she had to teach him properly.

Other than that, Nial's mother seemed to have no idea what exactly she should teach him first, or how to teach him.

Thus, everything Nial knew was self-taught, which was pretty impressive in the two sisters' opinion.

On the flip side, it was the reason for Nial's lack of knowledge about too many subjects.

Even if he were to spend three months studying, it should be close to impossible for him to be on par with everyone else in terms of knowledge.

And this included only the most basic topics.

Nial was embarrassed about the bitter truth, but there was nothing he could do against it.

As such, instead of running away from it, he faced everything head-on.

​ "I just learned how to read and write thanks to my Mana perception and the fact that I can visualize everything in my surroundings.

Shouldn't that help me to study much faster than using books that were written in the language for blind people? Just give me a crash course on the most basic topics, and some books that teach everything more in-depth, and I'll take care of that!"

Nial came up with an idea that made both the siblings feel weird.

It was evident that he was hiding the facts about the part in his past where he had been bullied.

However, if he had really been bullied previously, his confidence was just too odd.

He had awoken his origin just a few weeks earlier, and shouldn't have had the time to build up his confidence.

At least not to the extent Nial was behaving, including the numerous things he had already overcome and lived through in the short time he was able to make use of mana.

For the two sisters, it was simply too weird, but it was nothing worth complaining about. They simply took Nial's words into consideration before focusing on preparing a schedule.

While Kira and Mara were doing this, Nial began to walk through the mansion, wondering why there was no one else.

'It must be quiet and lonely here…I'd rather live in a small house that is filled with people…'

Nial might not like it if the surroundings were too loud which would obstruct his senses from perceiving better, which happened quite easily in crowded places, but loneliness was what he hated the most.

Yet, in order to grow, he would have to overcome the sadness of being lonely.

That was something Nial was fully aware of, and instead of evading it, he should rather embrace the loneliness, and use it as a driving force to grow stronger at a much faster pace!

Thus, walking through the mansion, Nial didn't focus on the loneliness that permeated the entire place.

Instead, he tried to find a good spot for him to start working out.

Knowing that Kira and Mara would take quite some time to create a proper schedule for him, Nial didn't want to stay idle.

However, he didn't have many origin crystals to absorb either, and his mind rejected the surrounding mana, thinking that it was too impure.

It was just a weird sensation to be exposed to the impure mana in his surroundings, and it felt wrong to absorb, let alone annex it.

With that in mind, he expanded his Mana perception and found a perfect place to train with his spear outside.

Behind the Mansion, Nial sensed an outdoor training station with many wooden poles, through which one could move, or even utilize it as parkour.

Leaving the mansion through the backdoor, he entered the training station, but instead of using the parkour he perceived, or simply training his spearmanship by attempting all kinds of different movement sequences, Nial tried something different.

Lifting his hand, he manifested the Viper spear in it.

Jumping on top of the wooden poles that were placed at a short distance from each other, he moved on them, while slowly moving the Viper spear.

'That should work, right?'