Truth Beyond the Veil Chapter 21: Chapter 20: What could have happened here?

Read chapter 21 of Truth Beyond the Veil by DarkCosmos on NovelPedia.

Summer, 18:45; Location: Testing grounds, outside Theo’s villa; "Ugh! I really hate this place," Leo sighed heavily. "See, there's no grass. Even Mother Nature hates this area." "I don't think that's the case," Victor said, surveying the familiar surroundings. Click... click... "We're literally blasting this place with fireballs every two to three days," Theo said, snapping the modules onto his staff. "It would be weird if this place still had grass." Victor crouched down and scanned the ground with his watch. "The strange thing is, the soil is still fertile even after all that." "Well, if I had to guess, it might be because of Leo," Theo said. "His fire has some sort of property that retains the soil’s fertility." He pointed at a much drier patch of ground. "See, this patch is still dry. This is the area where I blasted two or three days ago." "Hmm..." Victor rubbed his chin for a few seconds, deep in thought. "It seems our Leo is eco-friendly." "Pfft... Bwahahaha..." Theo burst out laughing. "What the?" Leo, who was waiting for a profound discovery, felt cheated. "Did you seriously come up with that after thinking for so long?" "Well, is there any other explanation?" Victor asked. He looked at the evening sky, which now held the afterglow of the sunset, and continued, "It's already late. Let's finish testing our weapons." "So, who's going first?" Leo asked, shaking his head. He didn't have an explanation for his own powers, either. "Umm, Leo should go first," Theo said, stabbing his staff into the ground and stretching his body a bit. "By the way, did you guys finish quenching the weapon edges?" "Ah, yes… Now that I think about it, what was that liquid?" Leo asked as he pulled out his gauntlets attached to his belt, which looked more like bikers' gloves. "It was an experiment… A successful one, I guess," Theo answered. "It was refined fruit juice that I made from the fruits of mutated trees we collected." "Oh, it smelled great. But shouldn't oil be used?" Leo asked in confusion as he put on his gauntlets. "This is my weapon. It's a gauntlet, though it looks more like gloves." Victor examined the gauntlet and realized they indeed looked more like gloves, just as Leo described, and one was even fingerless. The gauntlets were matte-silver with golden-bronze patterns all over, making them look odd but incredibly artistic. "Nice design! Are those bumps for offense or defense?" "Both! Since Leo is a tank, I decided to integrate his offense and defense," Theo answered. "At first, I thought of giving him sharp claws, but Leo rejected that. And to answer Leo, yes, oil is generally used, but my vision skill noticed these weapons are sucking energy, so I decided to use the fruit juice of mutated plants, which is rich in energy." "Ah, makes sense. By the way, I noticed all our weapons have these patterns. Is that a coincidence?" Leo asked, and Victor also looked curiously, though he seemed to have an idea of what they were. "Ah, those are some beautiful coincidences, you could say," Theo replied with a mysterious smile. "You see, although the white bead mixed all the metals homogeneously, …which is incredible in itself …and some metals are present in larger quantities, like copper. You could say those patterns are marks of the overflow." "Huh, why did you use so many metals in the first place?" Leo asked, visibly confused. Victor shook his head. "In our experiments, we confirmed that metals that conduct electricity can also conduct 'mana.' Among them, gold is great but too soft and expensive, so we went for something strong and cheap ... though it turned out to be anything but cheap. " "Yup," Theo nodded. "The excess metal floated when churning the liquid in the mold, and with Victor's fast refinement, this is the result. I'm just not sure why all the weapons have a matte finish." "Well, I guess that has something to do with me," Victor sighed. "It's probably due to my excess energy." He wasn't like Theo, whose control over energy was s