Chapter 126: Just Someone Helping (2)
Joe led Oliver to the basement below the gym.
It was pitch black, with no light at all, and the air was musty.
With a click, the light turned on from a ceiling lamp.
“Wow…”
Oliver let out a sound as he took in the scene before him.
The basement was just as large as the ground floor, but there were far fewer metal exercise machines.
Instead, it was filled with a giant ring, sandbags stained with blood, mitts, gloves, and even blunt weapons like chains and blackjacks.
“What is this place?”
“It’s the training ground for the fighters belonging to this gym. I’m no longer officially part of it, but I can still use it.”
“You’re not part of it anymore?”
“…Before I joined the Fighter Crew, I was a fighter in illegal arenas. All the guys who train here are the same. Gangsters, thieves, pimps, and illegal martial artists—they all make their living through violence.”
Oliver glanced up at the stairs they had just descended. Maybe it was to be expected?
In X-District, it wasn’t easy to find decent jobs, or so he’d heard.
His curiosity welled up again.
How could J-District and X-District be in the same city, yet so different?
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
Joe called out to Oliver, who was lost in thought.
After some hesitation, as if pondering something, Joe spoke carefully.
“Since you mentioned it earlier, I’ll just speak casually. You really don’t mind, right?”
“Yes, of course. In fact, I’d prefer it if you did.”
Oliver answered while recalling the countless people he had taught in the past, including Mari and Peter.
Every time he taught them, every time they improved, every time they grew fond of him, the pretty light they originally had faded away.
It was an immensely sad thing.
“…Alright then. Teach me here. Like I said, no one will come here for a while. What are you going to teach first?”
At Joe’s question, Oliver pulled out a vial from his coat. As expected, it contained emotions.
“I’m not particularly good at teaching, so I’d like to check your abilities first. If you don’t mind, could you extract the emotions in this vial?”
At Oliver’s request, Joe pulled out the vial and began extracting the emotions.
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Why are you so slow?”
Oliver asked as he watched Joe’s extraction process.
It wasn’t a joke—he really was slow.
At this rate, it was comparable to the level of a lower disciple from the Joseph Family.
It hadn’t seemed this way when they fought.
“…If the emotion isn’t processed, it’s usually this slow.”
“Processed emotion?”
Joe hesitated for a moment, then took out a vial from his clothing and handed it over.
Oliver inspected the vial.
Inside was an emotion. However, it wasn’t an ordinary one.
It had been processed to be easier to use, just as Joe had said.
To put it in a metaphor, it was like a fish that had been cleaned of its blood, scaled, and filleted.
It was convenient to use, but its power was diminished as a result.
“Where did you get this?”
“You can get it from the Fighter Crew. They don’t just hand it out freely, but you can get as much as you need.”
“So, you’ve only been using this?”
“Yeah… Is there a problem?”
“A problem? Yes, there is. Stop using this from now on.”
“Why?”
“Because processing the emotion reduces its original power, and if you keep using it, you won’t improve any further. You won’t even be able to use the Black Suit.”
“I don’t really understand… Why is that?”
Oliver fell silent, thinking about how to explain.
“Hmm… Hold on a moment.”
With that, Oliver reached out into the air.
At the same time, the emotion in the vial Joe was holding burst out.
The emotions gathered into Oliver’s hand.
“You said you wanted to learn the Black Suit, right?”
“Yeah. Disease-type black magic is too dangerous to use frequently.”
Joe was right. Disease-type black magic seemed like a technique that could temporarily enhance the body in a powerful and intuitive way, but it forcibly drew upon physical and life force.
As long as you didn’t overdo it, it was manageable, but if used too often or too intensely, it could become dangerous.
That’s why Oliver had developed the Black Suit as an alternative.
“Do you know how to make a Black Suit?”
“The recipe? No.”
“The recipe?”
“That’s what we call the way to use black magic.”
Ah, that jogged Oliver’s memory.
Black magic had suddenly emerged across various places during the same era, and the terminology and methods of use differed widely from place to place.
Recipe, cooking, processing, spells—people called it by different names.
“…Yes. Anyway, this is how you make a Black Suit.”
Oliver demonstrated slowly.
He drew out the emotions in long, thin strands as if they were thread.
Because Oliver controlled them entirely, they didn’t dissipate weakly but instead gathered into a bundle of threads in mid-air.
Joe silently watched the scene. His emotions were full of admiration.
After finishing the entire process of turning the emotions into thread, Oliver spoke.
“This is the first step to making a Black Suit. Or rather, the 0.5 step, to be precise.”
“0.5?”
“Yes, you have to do the same thing with life force.”
Oliver immediately extracted life force from a vial and turned it into thread just like the emotions.
Once again, Joe watched in silence. The admiration in his emotions didn’t fade, but grew stronger.
“Once you’ve completed these two steps, you’ve officially reached step one.”
“…What comes next?”
Instead of answering, Oliver began manipulating the bundles of emotional and life force threads.
The threads, divided into dozens of strands, moved like threads in a loom, weaving together in an intricate pattern.
Though Oliver slowed down the process so Joe could observe, Joe’s eyes darted about, unable to fully grasp what was happening.
Before long, a large, tightly woven fabric of emotions and life force was completed.
“This is how you make a Black Suit. You turn emotions and life force into thin threads, weave them into fabric, and then wrap it around your body. To perform these three steps, you need a fairly high level of control.”
A fairly high level of control… Most black magicians would never agree to such an understatement.
Emotions were powerful energy like mana, but they resisted the magician, making them notoriously difficult to control.
This was one of the reasons why, despite black magic being easier to get into than other types of magic, only a few black magicians ever reached a high level of skill.
Understanding this, Joe spoke.
“It’s impossible.”
“What is?”
“Turning emotions and life force into thread like that, and then weaving them together. Each step is difficult, and the process takes too long. It would take several days to make, wouldn’t it? In battle, speed is everything. This method wouldn’t work in real combat.”
“You can overcome that with practice.”
“This isn’t something you can just practice your way through.”
“…Hmm.”
Oliver fell into deep thought.
It was a strange sight, but it made Joe feel nervous without realizing it.
It was as if he were a student being scolded by a teacher.
He had only ever felt this way before when he had met the chef, the head of the Fighter Crew.
The overwhelming presence of an unapproachable master.
Joe was feeling that same sense of pressure from Oliver now.
Suddenly, Oliver spoke.
“Have you tried it?”
“Tried what?”
“Practice. Have you tried it?”
“…”
“Like I said earlier, I’m not talented at teaching. I can only help you grasp the basics by making you practice over and over. But with this method, I’ve seen people make significant progress. I once helped someone who couldn’t even handle emotions properly become a decent black magician.”
“….”
“If you really think it’s impossible, then don’t do it… But if you’re willing to try despite the difficulties, I’ll come regularly to help. What will you do?”
...
Fortunately, Joe was a remarkable person.
Instead of giving up, he decided to give it a shot.
It was admirable. Truly admirable.
However, the road ahead was long. Knowing this, Oliver calculated Joe’s abilities and broke down the steps into small, manageable assignments.
The first task was to practice extracting unprocessed emotions.
To extract them perfectly from start to finish.
Only after mastering that would reducing the extraction time and keeping the emotions in his hands come into play.
Joe struggled with even that, but with Oliver’s guidance and practice, he gradually began to grasp the technique.
If he continued practicing diligently, perhaps by their next meeting, Joe would be able to extract emotions properly.