Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 779: Past Arrogance and Meanness
For a moment, Christina felt very happy.

Oh my god, is it so cool to be a pawn of a big shot?

Even Albert Lore, the "future star of the universe", had to bow to him!

...Although he must have been saluting Alice in reality, it still felt great!

And yet, at this moment, her body was moving on its own.

"Oh, yes. I remember you..."

Christina suddenly understood, nodded, and said bluntly: "You are the girl who was chosen to sleep with someone, but because you are so talkative, you were bought by someone before you could get fucked."

……what?
Christina felt as if she had heard a big news, and she and Aurora quietly opened their ears and listened.

"Yes, I guess you are the spirit following Miss Aleister," Albert said without any shame, even puffing out his chest and looking proud, "The person I was chatting with at that time was the greatest alchemist in the world, Basil Valentine!

"I really wanted to spend more time with him... but the ceremony ended too early. If possible, I would have even wanted to spend a hundred years in that ceremony! From discussing alchemy, to witnessing the 'Sundering War', then the founding of the Star Antimony Nation, and then personally seeing that great man off... Compared to that miracle, even becoming a girl or a blood slave doesn't matter at all!"

"...I heard you say that."

Aurora suddenly realized: "But you didn't tell me that you turned into a girl to see Valentine I..."

"That's normal, isn't it?" Albert shook his head. "If it wasn't for that kind of occasion and that kind of identity, how could I, who wasn't even at the fourth level at the time, have the opportunity to come into contact with that adult..."

And Christina gradually understood.

Miss Aleister seems to have met Count Leipzig and Albert at the same promotion ceremony.

Obviously, not to mention Albert... even the great Count Leipzig was at a disadvantage. Otherwise, Alice would not have called the Count Leipzig by his code name in such a casual tone.

Although she knew that Miss Aleister had defeated Count Dawn and resurrected herself, Christina still didn't quite understand how strong she was. After all, she had a very powerful bodyguard with her. It was normal for a spellcaster who could come back from the dead and a lady of noble status to have a bodyguard with stronger combat power than her.

Otherwise, why would we need guards?

And now with Count Leipzig and Mr. Albert, she finally had a concrete understanding of Aleister's strength.

Catching her thoughts, Alice was a little surprised: "Wait, don't you know who my master is?"

[…What? Should I know? ]

Christina responded somewhat confusedly.

"I thought that with your social experience at school, you must have heard of this name... It turns out that you didn't know it from the beginning."

Alice sighed and said to the two, "My host doesn't seem to know the identity of her benefactor. What I said may be biased... Please help me explain it."

After that, she dived back into Christina's heart.

Christina's consciousness surfaced again and she regained control of her body.

“…Where should I start?”

Albert hesitated for a moment, exchanged glances with Aurora, and then decided to start from the beginning: "When I first met Miss Aleister, she was with a gentleman who was adapted to the Tao and codenamed 'Gray'. She was only at the second energy level at the time, but she could fully control the power of the Shadow Demon, which is said to be absolutely impossible. And that Mr. Gray also had the ability to control shadows."

"...I may have seen the 'Mr. Gray', but the Shadow Fiend..."

Christina hesitated.

She knew that the mentor's follower demon should be the "night demon", the black crow. But she had no knowledge of demons, so she didn't know whether this was normal or not, and she didn't know whether she could say it.

——Perhaps Shadow Fiend is the trump card, and Night Fiend is the demon summoned on a daily basis.

So she kept her mouth shut and decided not to reveal her mentor's privacy.

As for Mr. Gray, he should be the strong man beside her who is adapted to the Tao.

Albert continued to narrate: "Later, I learned a very horrible thing... That Aleister was actually an ancient son of the moon from the imperial era."

"...Ah," Christina nodded, "Yes, she is a very powerful Moon Child."

This can always be said - after all, the Son of the Moon needs to suck blood, and those red eyes are so bright, so his identity is not easy to hide.

"Her other identity is the lover of the Eternal Pope Aiwass."

Albert replied. "...Ah?"

Christina was a little confused: "The Eternal Pope? He is not the Iron-Blooded Queen's..."

"It is said that Aiwass and the Iron-Blooded Queen have conflicting positions," Albert shook his head, "and his true love is Ms. Aleister. Originally, Aiwass was limited by his status and might not be able to refuse the marriage proposal from the Queen of Avalon... But now he is the Pope, so he can do whatever he wants.

"——In other words, Ms. Aleister is the first lover of the Eternal Pope in history. This status is definitely higher than that of the queen of any country, even higher than that of Valentine VII."

"The seventh generation passed away not long ago, and now it's the eighth generation..."

Christina corrected quietly.

Albert stared at Christina, his voice gradually getting louder: "I once had the honor of participating in the same promotion ceremony with His Holiness the Pope. I witnessed His Holiness the Pope transform into a light brighter than the sun, and I also learned that he was the blessed one of the Twin Mirrors... As early as that time, I knew that he would become a great man..."

…It was then that I finally understood what those experiments meant.

Albert said this in his heart, lost in memories.

He had learned to distinguish the dead from the living before he had learned to read; he had understood the anatomy of the human being before he had understood the geography of the planet. To him, necromancy was a sacred art. It was art, and it was truth.

To him, the blood and entrails were like mud and beetles to other children; he stitched up the bodies like other children built sand castles. To him, this was the best and most interesting game in the world, and he was born to be good at it.

Just like a talented star player!
But Albert was never proud.

Because when he was a teenager, he had been discussing necromancy with experts who could be his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. He had lived in an environment of "I know nothing" since he was a child, eager to collect all the knowledge he could get his hands on, and eager for all the progress he could make.

He longed for recognition, and hoped that he would no longer be treated as a "future genius" and be well-received by others, but that he could now become an equal to them and participate in discussions.

All I need is fame and recognition, Albert thought.

In order to become famous and attract people's attention, he did a lot of work. He constantly made "micro-innovations", further optimized the predecessors' technology in strange places, and then registered patents and published them in newspapers as soon as possible, hoping that the masters would have a serious discussion with him - for example, whether the random lightning-attracting ability of the Thunder Walker can be accurately located through antennas or branding; or whether the Earthbound Spirit can obtain mobility by "miniaturizing and carrying"...

But no one ever noticed him.

During Albert's most arrogant years, he even lied and deliberately stole other people's inventions.

While reading academic journals, he saw that a master of necromancy who had taught him claimed in an academic conference that he was creating a lizard-like undead that "can devour dry land and excrete black silt." His brain started working quickly, and he used the idea of ​​earthworms and another simpler way to construct a snake-like undead with the same function. He registered his own patent before the master's undead was registered.

At that time, the entire academic community of Xingti was in an uproar - although the master proposed the idea first, it was Albert who registered the patent earlier.

Some people think that Albert copied the master's idea and published it first; others think that the invention of this thing cannot be completed in one or two days, so it was just two people who had the same idea; some even think that the master took advantage of his seniority and stole Albert's idea for his own use...

When Albert saw that he had become the talk of the entire planet, he was so happy that he went crazy.

He deliberately did not dispel the rumor, but let people speculate, letting the controversy escalate. He even imagined in his mind that the master would compete with him for the patent, and then the two would become academic rivals, and finally he would take the initiative to repent before the master died, ending the feud and becoming close friends regardless of age, and the story would be passed down by people from then on...

However, the master finally publicly stated that his invention was far inferior to Albert's - even if his invention was successfully implemented, it was destined to be eliminated by Albert's invention due to its overly cumbersome production steps and its instability. Therefore, he highly praised Albert's invention and even privately sent him a handwritten experimental record to allow Albert to further optimize the project.

——The master paid no attention to this dispute at all.

...That was the first time Albert felt what regret was.

He regretted his arrogance and meanness.

At that time, Albert woke up from his madness, and in the strong sense of emptiness, he felt the true meaning of the twilight path.

From then on, he changed his ways, wrote a long letter to the master to apologize, and then calmed down to do research... until the invention of the "armed gargoyle" changed everything.

Unlike the last time, this time he became a big man respected by people entirely by relying on his own abilities!
Therefore, Albert used up all his energy and even stopped his research on alchemy... At that time, he had already completed the fourth energy level of the Path of Dusk and the second energy level of the Path of Balance, and became a "Disaster Splicer".

However, due to his investment in the research of the Armed Gargoyle, he neglected the progress of the Tao when he had full resources, and used all his energy to continuously make subtle optimizations to the Armed Gargoyle that were invisible to the naked eye. He made more than 60 different versions of the formula for the flesh armor alone. The specific optimal load-bearing plan - the balance of firearms, bullets and armor - was calculated through countless mathematical calculations.

In the experimental field, he used various carefully crafted "high-speed air undead" that simulated griffin riders as targets, and constantly let various gargoyles attack them. Individuals, teams, groups... After each round of attack, he carefully collected data, and then resurrected these undead and gargoyles, optimized them, and then experimented again.

By analyzing the lethality and penetration power, these undead are repaired and resurrected before being subjected to the next round of tests.

In addition to this type of high-speed undead, he also let the armed gargoyles attack regular undead such as zombies and armored zombies to test their lethality to the army.

——It was not until he tested the Thunder Walking Zombie that he had optimized that he suddenly realized that the experimental data was not right.

These armed gargoyles seem to be somewhat afraid of thunder...

(End of this chapter)