Sitting comfortably on a chair within the living quarters, I continued to stare disrespectfully at the man in front of me, my uncle, whose name I had just learned to be Urila. A rather interesting name to call your son. It means Negative when directly translated to our language. Who would have the foresight to envision their own son's future like that? Or perhaps it was some curse somehow related to the name that he had turned out this way.

Now, I wasn't the type to distastefully attack a person's character like this behind their back, and trust me, if he even cared to respond, I would happily say everything I'm thinking directly to his face.

Also present within the room included my mother and adopted sister Lita, sitting upright anxiously around a small wooden coffee table on two other available seats. Why were they sitting anxiously? Because of my uncle of course.

“Do you really think the monster could be of threat level ten!? T-That could lead to the downfall of the entire region, we would need the king's help to even begin to counter such a threat!?”

“An Ancient classed monster…” Lita followed up, her voice, for the first time, shaking slightly.

Monsters could be ranked from one to ten, usually their class and level were the main factors used to identify this. For example the wyvern I fought earlier, would barely touch the rank of three. Although I couldn't see its class level, I could tell based on the fact that its class had a rank of B and its inherited race ‘Wyvern’, usually classified at rank two. Unless it gained more intelligence and evolved its class or race, wyverns would rarely ever surpass rank four.

Rank ten on the other hand, was a catastrophe that could annihilate a country, even fabled dragons said to have reached the Transcendent tier tier would need to be somewhat cautious when facing such a foe.

The monster ranks were recorded as. (1)Lesser -> (2-3)Common -> (4-5)Greater -> (6-7)Elite -> (8-9)Mythic -> (10)Ancient -> (???)Transcendent. Transcendent class monsters were simply known as fairy tales. Ancient class monsters were at the peak of this world, each one a colossal threat.

Looking uninterestedly at my mother and Lita, as if his task was already accomplished and everything else was unimportant, my uncle got up and began to exit the room. The entire time, he hadn't even given me a single glance. Hell, he barely even looked at my mother while he was talking to her, he was basically just talking to himself, choosing to ignore almost any questions that came his way.

I stared daggers at his back all the way until he left the room. What a piece of work. Returning my attention back to my mother and Lita, I more or less knew what was coming next.

“Tene, you are to leave with Urila towards Snowpeak Cape tomorrow morning.” my mother said sternly.

Huh? I couldn't help but be genuinely surprised, Snowpeak Cape was the largest city within the Snowpeak Region. It was a commercial hub for the trading of goods from simple utensils down to magically crafted artefacts.Many large businesses and guilds such as the adventurers and merchants guilds had large headquarters located there too. It had the largest school in the region - reputed as one of the finest in the country, and was actually where I would have enrolled in the coming months. It was the region's pride.

The reason I was so surprised was because… it didn't make sense to send me there. It was tactfully the most dangerous location on the map to send me. The town attacked by the Ancient monster, although smaller, was still a relatively bustling mid-scale town. If the monster was really as strong as Urila mentioned, its chances of attacking the next largest town was high.

“B-” I tried to reply but was rudely cut off.

“You don't have a choice in the matter either. The duke, your grandfather has… Chosen to abandon the region and request for reinforcements instead. Also, isn't this in line with what you wanted?” My mother replied. So she did know. This just made me all the more confused.

“Don't get it wrong Tene, that man gave Urila his three Grand Artefacts. One of them allows for instant teleportation to a place set within its parameters. If the monster appears I want you to see yourself how reckless you have been and give up. Is that clear?” my mother said firmly, not giving me much of a choice at all.

“.....Yes, mother” She was still hiding something from me. I knew this for a fact. There was no way in hell my mother who had locked me up for years would ever risk something like this. She wasn't lying though. My mother was a terrible liar, anyone who knew her could tell right away. During our discussion, she had never averted her gaze.

“Great, you may leave now. Begin packing your bags.” she said, dismissing me from the room.

“...” Standing up, I quickly glanced at Lita to see if I could divulge any information from her.

Huh!? She averted her gaze. Ok, they're definitely hiding something from me. I walked briskly towards the exit of the room, my thoughts muddled.

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I watched as my troublesome daughter finally left the room. I knew she wasn’t the type to listen, so I had to do what I did. I would do far worse for her sake. This was nothing. She could hate me as much as she wanted, alive and well.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“You won't inform her, mistress?” Lita spoke up somewhat hesitantly. It was a strange thing, the bond between mother and child. Even though I had told myself I would treat them the same. I couldn’t hide it, it was almost impossible. My overwhelming love for my daughter Tene seemed to eclipse everything else. At times I truly felt terrible about it.

Ever since my father took her in, during those terrible days, I had only ever failed and disappointed her. The least I could do was not drag her into my mess at the very end.

“...No, that would be too unfair, I left a note, read it to her ‘yourself’ later if the worst occurs” I replied. I wasn’t taking no for an answer here either. She knew me well enough to understand this.

“...”

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There was definitely more to this and I needed to know what that was. Sitting down comfortably at my bedside, I glanced casually at my packed bags, a pretty small load compared to what you would expect from a child of noble descent. I had taken only the bare minimum essentials, such as a number of basic sets of clothing, three unread books from my curriculum and a number of other items I couldn’t do without such as toiletries and low artefacts. They were packed within three mid-sized satchels, made from a material called leather.

We would apparently be staying at the town until either the king's reinforcements came down to investigate the issue or the ancient monster made an appearance. In the latter case, Urila would swiftly teleport us out.

There were a number of methods for teleportation within our world.

The first were skill based teleportation skills. The type and level of the teleportation ability affected not only how far you could teleport but what you could take with you. This skill was exceedingly rare and the few people capable of using such a skill would struggle to teleport the distance of even a couple of kilometres.

For example, my fathers teleportation skill was derived from his void skill, a subset of space magic and was therefore far more powerful than a teleportation skill derived from, say, a shadow magic based skill. Yet, even my father based on his understanding of void would be unable to travel great distances due to the large mana intake it required.

Which brings me on to the next method. Teleportation through artefact. Sadly , I’m not too versed on artefact crafting. My father, however, is a maester crafter or rank 5 artefact crafter. He’s rather famous in his field actually. Our transportation mirror was even hand crafted by him.

Anyways, the topic of wide scale, country level implementations of teleportation is something written in books as a pipe dream. Yet, the benefits of accomplishing such a task within a country would be astronomical, so wide amounts of research had already been undertaken within the field. My father being one of the best crafters within the country was privy to such information.

Basically, from what I had read within his documents in his study… I had snuck in once or twice. An item that could teleport a user across cities would be extremely difficult to create. Not only would the crafters crafting skills need to be high, they would also require a monstrous amount of mana to make the artefact ‘sentient’, meaning it could regenerate its mana back after usage. Finally they would require deep knowledge on the skill inscribed within the artefact, deep enough that they could accomplish the feat themselves. Such an item would instantly become a ‘Grand artefact’. A grade of item greatly desired by many across the world.

My mother said Urila had at least one such item currently within his possession…

I want it. I mean, if void magic was used to imprint the rune then studying it in action could easily lead to a massive boost in my comprehension and foundation of my void skill. This was yet another reason why Grand tier and above artefacts were so sought after.

Well, I didn't particularly like my uncle so, time to do some digging. Both my mother and uncle were hiding something from me so I was planning to investigate him either way.

Exiting the room, I walked down the corridor until I arrived at one of the guest chambers. In reality, the room I took was also once called a guest chamber as well. The mansion was simply too large so ninety percent of the rooms more or less qualified as guest chambers. This room wasn't just any guest chamber either. It was my uncle's guest chambers. The room he should be staying in for the night. For some reason he refused to stay within it and had wandered off somewhere. In his place however was his luggage which he dropped inside before leaving.

I wasn't planning to ‘steal’ the artefact… just have a look and perhaps gain some insights. After all, if a powerful void teleportation skill really was present as an inscription, the benefits would be astronomical. Just trying to figure out the inscriptions on the dress my father had given me as a child had raised the skill a couple levels after all and was the main reason I could even use my void magic.

Quickly glancing left and right, I had to make sure nobody was aware of my entrance. Getting caught by my mother here, I would suffice to say, would be pretty bad.

Seeing nobody around, I gently entered within range of the door. Gently shining, its green inscription picked up my presence, wind magic gently pushing the door open. The theory of motion inscriptions was relatively simple really. It detected major shifts in the atmosphere close to it and activated a second inscription based on that. So it's not perfect, as even objects thrown at it would have the same effect. You could also choose to lock the motion sensor, therefore locking the door.

Honestly if that dull, uncaring uncle of mine chose to do such a thing, I would have honestly readily re-evaluated him, slightly more impressed.

Moron.

Walking into the room, it was nearly a perfect copy of mine. A large king sized bed, with a simple window to its left. Basic dark wood flooring and walls covering all sides. The difference being it still had that unused new room smell. Looking towards the corner of the room, under a simple mahogany table, was Urilas luggage. Two simple white overhead bags.

Here I thought I was a light packer. His bags were half the size of mine. Did he not have many items of importance to his name? No, he was the only son of a duke, and looked highly favoured in that regard too, that was close to impossible. Travelling the entire region with so little didn't really make a lot of sense though.

Stepping carefully towards the bag, I made sure to scan my surroundings, just in case I underestimated him and he left a trap behind. Opening the first bag, I quickly checked its contents.

Some basic clothing such as hiking boots and a coat. Rations such as beef and canned foods. Some necessary artefacts for such a long journey such as a mana compass, Monster detection crystal and echo communicator.

Huh, what's this? Hidden deep within the bag was a black crystal sphere. A strange inscription of four white, chalk lines decorating its surface. I've never even heard of such an inscription before. It was lacking in… detail.

Analysis.

Name: Poor man's sphere

Rank: GRAND

Mana: 200/10000

Stored: –

Living is to take from your surroundings, decaying is to give back. Secretly, quietly, seize back your worth from those who stole from you.

Temporarily copy and store a skill from an opponent's status.

Jackpot. This was a relatively powerful Grand item. Being able to copy and store any skill was incredibly useful. It also looked like It did so without the opponent being aware.

I want to ‘play’ with it. Did it have a limit to the skill it could store based on the level? Was it capable of storing any type of skill? How did it bypass the appraisal of the opponent, making them unaware? Did a high enough appraisal level not mean it wouldn't work? Agggh, I wish I had a higher appraisal level to discern more details. my latest level up seems to have added a biography of sorts. Other items I had appraised in the past certainly didn't have this.

Shaking my head, I quickly returned the stone, best not look at it any further lest I steal it. It was a good find, but not what I was looking for.

There's nothing left within this bag.

Looking towards the second bag, I replaced the bag in my hand and began Opening it up.Looking at the contents that revealed themselves, I couldn't help but gasp in shock.

“W-womens clothing??!”