Krista drank a potion from her vial while being vigilant about Eren's presence. Lambert was on his toes as well.
The elf channeled her healing spell as the healing potion kicked in. In the next moment, Krista's chopped hand started regrowing from her amputated injury as well. Unlike Eren's painful but quick regrowth, the elf's healing process was slower and without any pain.
There was one more significant difference between Krista and Eren. She had lost a part of her mana circuits that were present inside her chopped hand.
She could recover her hand using the premium-grade healing and recovery potion provided to her. But she couldn't make the new hand have the same complexities of the mana circuits she had in her original body part.
Krista was going to have a bottleneck in her rank until her regrown hand became as capable as her original one. It meant that her troubles in progressing further in the rank had increased many folds.
She would have trouble casting spells as well. Her weapon handling as well as her spell performance was going to get compromised even with the regrown hand.
Eren, on the other hand, didn't have this problem. The hand that he had regrown using his bloodline powers was as capable as his original one.
'Hmm. The third guy isn't attacking. He is counting on these two buffoons to make an opening for him. I need to do something extreme to force his hand.'
Eren thought to himself as he looked at his regrown hand. He had already retrieved his labrys and his chopped hand using the Water Whips. He had a wild thought of using his own chopped hand as a raw ingredient in a few concoctions. So he stored both of them inside his storage.
The next weapon Eren took out of his storage was a hammer's handle without its head. It seemed like he was adamant about using various weapons to test his limits.
'I told you you should stick to the spells and battle styles you have already mastered, Eren. Are you not satisfied with the effects they produce?'
Sedated Perception!
Eren was about to make his move when he heard Alephee's voice in his head. She sounded a bit annoyed. He immediately activated his time-element spell to slow down the passage of time for himself to reply.
'It's not that, Alephee. I understand your emphasis on me sticking to the spells and styles I already mastered. There's a huge room for improvement in them. So refining them with each battle would serve me well.
I'm also somewhat satisfied with the progress I've made so far.
However, my potential as a special half-blood would get wasted if I didn't try these things and incorporate them into my ranking path. I don't have to master them all. But I need to work on them from Adet rank and put some effort into them if I really want to make use of my elemental neutrality.'
Alephee also understood this problem at the beginning. But she believed that Eren shouldn't bite more than he could chew.
She was not trying to limit Eren's ranking path. But more often than not, having more options made things worse instead of making them better.
And it wasn't like Eren would become a more powerful ranker than anybody in his generation just because he had multiple elemental attainments and weapon comprehensions.
It would certainly give him an edge over the others if he plays his cards right. However, the outcome of any conflict would almost always be decided by who had better mastery of their elements.
Alephee had instructed Eren to walk on a steady path that was devoid of many diversions. That's because she knew that his powers would eventually allow him to tap into his true potential all the same as he kept on progressing in his rank.
However, it seemed like Eren didn't want to wait that long. He preferred putting in grunt work to make everything he had digested on his own than waiting for his bloodline powers to hand them to him in a metaphorical gift wrap.
He realized what Alephee was thinking. So he explained his stance some more.
'Look. I am not trying to get anything out of my efforts in the present. I know there are a lot of loopholes in my using the current tactics.
But how will I make the best use of the digested elemental attainments and weapon comprehension if I only make them lay dormant in me? It's like buying an expensive outfit only for it to gather dust in your closet.'
Eren said while clenching his hammer handle with both of his hands. The weapon's runic inscriptions started to light up as Eren imbued it with his water-element mana.
This hammer was created by Alephee using similar runic inscriptions that were present on his previously owned artifact. The same artifact that he had destroyed in trying to kill Har Jahar. As such, he had named it Har Jahar's Hammer.
A water-element hammer's head was starting to form at the other end of the handle as Eren poured in mana. There was a hammer face on one side of the weapon and a claw on the other side. The weapon's head grew as it was injected with more mana.
'Hehe. Always playing the long game. You never cease to surprise me, Eren. '
Alephee finally got around to Eren's way of doing things when she understood the reasoning behind his actions. Scanning the three Blood Punisher Force members with her soul sense once again, she provided him with additional information.
'Make sure you don't kill them, Eren. At least not now. They have a runic mark on them that would get activated when they die.
The senior members of the Blood Punisher Force would probably become aware of their deaths along with some details related to you if you kill them straightforwardly.'
Eren raised his eyebrows when he listened to Alephee. He became pensive for a bit before coming up with a solution.
'Alright. Incapacitation first. Then kidnapping. Easy peasy.
Thanks for the heads-up, Alephee. I'll treat you to loads of Extols when I'm done with these pests. Hehe.'
