Blood Assimilation

Holy Knight Randy turned away from Randy shortly after. He walked toward the corpse of Zolat Grant, the Holy Knight Captain. After stripping the corpse of pieces of Holy Knight's armor and a long sword, he put the armor on without hesitation.

Holy Knight Randy deliberated whether or not to transform into Zolat Grant, but he decided against transforming into him for the moment. He chose to transform into him later when he returned to Imperial City.

With that settled, he looked into the empty void of space in front of him before he tentatively spoke: "System, are you here? Challenger's system?"

Instantly, two flashes of holographic screens with different hues were displayed before his line of sight, hovering side to side.

[[I'm here]]

[Yes]

Both Randy's original system and the Challenger's system responded one after another.

Seeing the two screens, Holy Knight Randy unconsciously smiled and then instructed: "Challenger's system, send me back to my main body's previous location."

[Understood. The transmission will begin in:]

[3]

[2]

[1]

Fwhoosh!

A blinding beam of light instantly enveloped Holy Knight Randy before disappearing. At the same time, Holy Knight Randy's figure vanished from the scene, leaving Randy staring into the space where he stood.

There was a brief moment of absolute silence.

Suddenly, Randy heaved out a sigh of relief.

'Finally, he left! Too strange! Too strange! This is too strange! How could anyone get used to this? Even twins don't behave the same way despite looking so much alike. And yet, my second incarnation mostly acts and behaves exactly like me, except for his demeanor. He kept smiling the entire time, which was like me being carefree. My recent experience, however, should make me cautious or tense. So, why are all my incarnations' moods different from mine?'

Randy shook his distracting thoughts. He decided not to dwell on it too much. With that resolved, he resumed his training. He would create another incarnation with the last portion of elemental essence crystals.

Before that, he needed to recover his depleted mana and retain his lost blood. To create this time's incarnation, he sacrificed more of his blood without any reservations. After all, he wanted an incarnation that was flawless in every aspect.

Additionally, the consumption of mana points and divine points weakened his body, causing him to feel slight fatigue. Before he could resume the creation of the third incarnation, he had to recover from such a fatigued state.

…

The Outside World.

Holy Knight had successfully been transported to the medical room used by Gutz before Randy departed. However, he was stunned when he appeared in the room. He proceeded to awkwardly stand in the medical room without moving for quite a moment.

As for why he was acting like that? That was because, at this time, there was someone occupying the room. As they seemed to be resting in the room, they didn't notice him when he appeared in the room. However, they were immediately awakened by the sound he made when he took one step due to the disorientation caused by being transported by spatial transmission.

The moment the person opened their eyes and saw him standing in the room, they jumped from their bed and shouted in an apprehensive tone: "W-Who the hell are you?! How did you appear out of nowhere like that?! I could've sworn that I locked my door before sleeping!"

"…"

Randy was at a loss for words as to what to do at this point. After pondering for a moment, he decided to knock him out first. With that in mind, he slowly approached the occupant of the room, who was actually a gladiator, with a warm smile on his face.

"W-What do you want to do?!"

The gladiator could discern that something was amiss with the young man that unexpectedly appeared in his resting room. As such, he didn't dare approach the other party carelessly. Therefore, he instinctively decided to back away. However, despite his actions, he was still a warrior, so he decided to fight back if the other party wanted to fight.

With that decided, he fiercely looked at Holy Knight Randy and declared: "I don't know who you are, but if you come any closer, I will retaliate!"

Holy Knight Randy didn't bother to listen to him and continued to walk at the same pace. Then, suddenly his figure disappeared and reappeared behind the gladiator. Before the gladiator could react, he felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck, followed by an overwhelming sense of drowsiness.

However, he overcame the drowsiness he felt very quickly. Holy Knight Randy was mildly surprised, but then he recalled the first time he fought Zolat Grant in the Meistic Forest. With that as a reference, he increased the strength of his attack by activating his [Body Strengthen] skill and focusing it on his arm. Only then was he able to successfully knock out the gladiator.

Afterward, he mobilized his Psionic energy and allowed it to infiltrate the mind of the unconscious gladiator to manipulate his memories. Indeed, this was also part of the memory-searching spell known as [Mental Scour]. Apparently, even though it was designed to scour the minds of the dead, it was originally devised to search through the memories of the living. But this was only possible if they were unconscious.

Furthermore, when used on the living, one could easily manipulate or erase their memories. It was essentially a forbidden spell as it could even destroy the ego or personality of the one it was being used on.

Despite being aware of the possible danger using this spell might bring, Holy Knight Randy had no choice but to employ this method to cover his tracks. Not to mention that for some reason, he realized that his control over Psionic energy had improved.

Holy Knight Randy wasn't sure if it was because of the incarnated body or simply because he inherited the [Synergy] skill. If it was the [Synergy] skill, he hadn't activated it yet. Despite this, he could still feel that his control over Psionic energy had undergone a change, which was intriguing and baffling at the same time.

Regardless, Holy Knight Randy still activated his [Synergy] skill to ensure success in manipulating the gladiator's memories by making him forget seeing him in his resting room.

Moments later, Holy Knight Randy retracted his hand from the forehead of the gladiator. He had succeeded in erasing the gladiator's memory of him.

With that issue addressed, he took off the golden and white pieces of armor and a long sword on his side that looked like a decorative weapon. Then, he carefully put them on the floor of the medical room to avoid making any noise.

Fortunately, the gladiator was still unconscious. Therefore, he could take his time to handle the current matter with peace of mind.

Holy Knight Randy looked around to search for something to carry the pieces of Holy Knight's armor and long sword, as he didn't want to wear such flamboyant armor out of the room. After all, that was the Holy Knight's armor specifically worn by the Captain of the Holy Knights of the Church of Light.

The moment he steps out of the room, his identity and whereabouts will be revealed. Even if he disguised himself as Zolat Grant, it wouldn't change the detrimental effects revealing himself in the Coliseum would bring him, as it would still foil his plans to infiltrate the Church of Light. As such, he needed to hide the Holy Knight's armor and long sword until he left the Coliseum.

A few moments later, Holy Knight Randy found the sleeping gladiator's storage pouch, which was more spacious than the one Randy gave him that included the spatial items used by Zolat Grant.

After checking and discovering that there weren't any mechanisms attached to the storage pouch, Holy Knight Randy forcefully opened the storage pouch. He took out the things inside, and then placed them inside his own storage pouch that he emptied beforehand.

Afterward, he placed the items he took out of his storage pouch, including the Holy Knight's armor and long sword, into the gladiator's storage pouch. Of course, his pouch had now become his.

Fortunately for the gladiator, there was enough space in the storage pouch Holy Knight Randy replaced his pouch with. Therefore, his things wouldn't be misplaced as a result of Holy Knight Randy's actions.

As both Randy and Holy Knight Randy weren't sure whether or not they could open Zolat Grant's spatial items without triggering a mechanism set up by their ancestor, they left it as it was. As a result, Holy Knight Randy couldn't use any of Zolat's storage items to store the pieces of Holy Knight's armor.

When the pressing matter was dealt with, Holy Knight Randy adjusted his posture, put on a smile, concealed his presence using [Absolute Stealth], and covertly walked out of the room.

Even though he had the [Absolute Stealth] skill, including the [Traceless Form] Technique, he still wasn't confident it would be effective against some powerhouses. Therefore, to be on the safe side, he decided to walk out as 'Randy' whose identity was only stated as a newbie gladiator.

Even if they found out about his concealment, he would simply come up with an excuse that he just didn't want to stand out. However, if he was discovered as Zolat Grant, no amount of excuse would explain why he was in the Coliseum when he should be on his Holy Knight duties.

Moments later, Holy Knight Randy came outside after avoiding the perception of the gladiators he met on the way, including the receptionist in the Coliseum's lounge. Without delay, and while still under the effect of his concealing skill, he marched in the direction of the city gate.

But before that, he planned to stop on the way to find an empty alley to change into the Holy Knight's armor. Then, he would transform into Zolat Grant, officially assuming his identity as Captain of the Holy Knights of the Church of Light.