While it was an inconsiderate comment to make, especially when you're in the domain of an elven monarch—which means I even filter what comes out of my mouth because he could and is most likely hearing whatever we say—I couldn't help but think that if Goblin had heard what Aquaflora said, he would have had a more positive opinion of her, for those were words that would have without a doubt resonated with him.
Licht, Bortz, Lucy, and to a certain extent, Blondie—I have raised them or at least tried to raise them in a way that I believe would allow them to infiltrate the society of the race they were born into. Goblin benefited the most from this upbringing, being raised on the elven continent, but it couldn't be argued that with him, this program backfired the most. One of the things I had him do was infiltrate the Argyrian family to see what would come of it.
Needless to say, he didn’t last long—merely seven years. His reason was the same one Aquaflora is complaining about: elves aren't like humans.
This is particularly the case for elves living as part of an elven family. Elves living in villages, like the one close to the mansion, are an exception as those elves have decided to stay away from the conventional elven family "lifestyle"—from their perceptions of relationships, of time, and of how things should be.
A lot of what's normal for elves is different from humans, and someone who sees humans as the norm will see the elven lifestyle as alien.
I personally think that it doesn't have to be like that; it's only like that because of the existence of what makes elves alien.
On several fundamental levels, elves aren't all that inhumane. The fact that I didn't feel all that weird by them is proof of that, which is certainly due to my long and varied experience. But still, I believe I have the objectivity to say that elves aren't all that different from humans. What I believe makes them somewhat alien is their relationship with their monarch.
In an elven family, elves are born for the sake of their monarch; they're literally the ones who gave them life and as such, everything they do, feel, live they feel they owe to their monarch. But in moments like the one where I saved them, I could see it in their eyes, them realizing that they don’t owe just everything to one they call monarch, which frankly is the reason why I decided to remove myself from the capital.
Saving my people is something I don’t regret, , but instilling any sentiment that might make the patriarch feel like I want to overthrow him—with his ego—wasn't wise. Ego or not, I wouldn't blame him for harboring negative feelings against me, given my antecedent of troublemaker. So, really, exiling ourselves here was for the best.
A couple of hours after Aquaflora came back from her daily humanitarian mission in the capital, I was still seated at my bamboo seat, throwing lime leaves into the outdoor stove to ward off mosquitoes, checking on my stats which with my recent level up I just finished attributing my harvested attribute points.
---
[Arianna’s Interface]
- Name: Arianna
- Level: 76 (50+26)
-Race: Highbreed
- Class: Hexcaster + Weaponry Ascetic
- Title: Blessing of the Ascetic, Peerless Sorcerer, Chainweaver, Kinslaughterer, Demon Slaughterer, Beast Slaughterer, Eldritch Nightmare, Mistshard Queen, Scholar of Arcane, Great Champion, Archmage's Blessing, Dexterous Performer, Archon of Heresy
- Experience: 411,685 / 301,475,022
[Status]
- HP: 11,445 / 11,445 (+1722)
- MP: 118,834 / 118,834 (+37,578)
- SP: 39,827 / 39,827 (+1722)
- Fatigue: 0.1%
- Defense: 5094
- Offense: 24,061
[Attributes]
- Strength: 49
- Agility: 52
- Constitution: 58
- Intelligence: 65
- Wisdom: 70
- Charisma: 63
- Faith: 65
- Luck: 65
[Skills]
- Amplified Frostbite: Level 7
- Anti-Appraisal: Level 2
- Arctic Avalanche: Level 7
- Arcanic Codex: Level 10
- Arsenal Dance: Level 8
- Blighted Domain: Level 7
- Celestial Ice Cage: Level 5
- Chains of Permanence: Level 7
- Cryostasis: Level 7
- Cursed Weaponry Conjuration: Level 10
- Draconic Breath (Ice Dragon): Level 7
- Elemental Immunity: Level 5
- Enlightened Monk Vitality: Level 2
- Enhanced Recovery: Level 4
- Pain Immunity: Level 7
- Ethereal Mana Core: Level 5
- Frost Glide: Level 7
- Hexweaving: Level 5
- Hydroclasm: Level 5
- Ice Elemental Arcana: Level 9
- Ice Immunity: Level 10
- Identification: Level 10
- Judgment of the Firmament: Level 10
- Life Control: Level 8
- Longevity: Level 3
- Lunar Cataclysm: Level 8
- Magical Immunity: Level 5
- Mantle of Harmony: Level 7
- Magical Reinforcement: Level 8
- Manifest Spiritual Armament: Level 8
- Perfect Sight: Level 10
- Perfected Evil Eyes: Level 10
- Resonant Recovery: Level 9
- Shivering Doom: Level 7
- Spiritual Infusion: Level 7
- Transcendent Renewal: Level 6
- Water Elemental Arcana: Level 5
- Wind Elemental Arcana: Level 6
- Yin Physique: Level 11
[Abilities]
- Ascetic’s Fortitude: Unlocked
- Blood Oath: Unlocked
- Curse of Dominion: Unlocked
- Debilitating Surge: Unlocked
- Demon Bane (Monarch Killer): Unlocked
- Echo of Agony: Unlocked
- Elemental Affinity (Ice): Unlocked
- Elemental Affinity (Ice-Water-Wind, Impotence): Unlocked
- Eyes of Perdition: Unlocked
- Fate Reversal: Unlocked
- Frozen Heart: Unlocked
- Hexcaster Weaponry: Unlocked
- Human Bane: Unlocked
- Ice Complete Immunity: Unlocked
- Icy Veins: Unlocked
- Death Manifest: Locked
-Legacy of Agony: Unlocked
- Mantle of Serenity: Unlocked
- Negative Resonance: Unlocked
- Peerless Constitution (Yin): Unlocked
- Spectral Summoning: Unlocked
- Unyielding Spirit: Unlocked
- Wraith’s Touch: Unlocked
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
As always Since my class change, I've been allocating my acquired attribute points to strength, agility, and constitution, as those are the attributes my secondary class scales to. It also mainly scales to wisdom, secondarily to intelligence and faith, but I already invested points in those when I became a Hexcaster. So, I could afford to dedicate all my attribute points to these three.
Staring at the screen before me, I wondered what else could be upgraded, and the thing that immediately came to mind is the status disparity between my MP, SP, and HP. The difference between them was astronomical, but luckily for me, I understood exactly what needed to be done to fix that.
As of now, despite being both a Hexcaster and Weaponry Ascetic, I am still mostly a Hexcaster than the other. Heck, at this point, I am even more of a mage than I am a Weaponry Ascetic, but that's only because as a Weaponry Ascetic I'm only level 26 and have yet to properly invest my attribute points in the corresponding attributes.
I just need to level up.
Easier said than done when the experience point requirement is this high, but that's to be expected in my novel. No, who am I kidding with this, of course, this is not normal.
The system is fair in its own ways and unarguably consistent. It generally imposes an experience point requirement threshold for each level, which varies according to one's class. For example, a level one barbarian would need more experience points to level up compared to a mage or sorcerer. However, this logic of escalating experience thresholds changes dramatically beyond level 3. Additionally, the introduction of titles, skills, or abilities that provide passive enhancements can further disrupt this pattern, leading to significantly different requirements for each class. As levels increase, the disparity between classes can widen. Nevertheless, as long as one does not compare these discrepancies, it might seem to each class holder that their progression is simply following a normal, exponential increase.
Here's the thing: since I wasn't comparing myself to others, I observed my level-up requirement normally increasing up to a specific threshold—level 50. At this point, I had to make a decision: continue as a Hexcaster or choose a secondary class. I opted for the latter, which significantly altered my system requirement. It didn't reduce to the level of a level 1 mage, but it did decrease substantially, only climbing back to the previous peak between level 49 and 50 when I reached level 67.
However, you might think this change could be exploited to accelerate leveling, but that's not possible. Not conventionally. The system is designed to be fair and has safeguards in place. From level 50 to 75, I could only harvest experience through magic-type skills—anything I defeated with spells, curses, or hexes granted me no experience. So, there was nothing to exploit here unless you were already skilled in magic, like I was from my days as a sorcerer.
Despite having the potential to abuse this mechanic to rapidly advance my level, I chose not to. Instead, I focused on properly developing as a mage, which was the primary reason I opted for this class path over one that might have compensated for my weaknesses, specifically my disproportionately low defense compared to my offense, and my lower HP and SP relative to my MP.
Life was good until I reached level 75, when I made a class change going from mage to Weaponry Ascetic. It's explainable that when I took mage as a class I got a level requirement reduction, well, when I made that second class change I got served with the opposite. I could blame many things for that, namely the system for understanding what I was pulling out and punishing me for it, also my overlapping system requirement, but also and mainly the fact that I kept most of my mage advantages despite going from a mage to a completely different class. In any case, I got hit hard, but well nothing unhandleable.
As ridiculous as the experience requirement seemed, it just meant I needed to kill more. There's no shortage of things to kill; you just need to know where to hunt them and when to engage—or not. So, facing these stats, while their decadence gnawed at my perfectionist mind, I knew all I needed was a little experience harvesting fest. After all, I've just ended the 50-year level-up fast I imposed on myself. But first, I need to wrap up my business here.
Deciding to stop pretending he wasn't there, I closed the floating interface before me and said, "One of these days, I might accidentally act on impulse and cause a diplomatic incident. Would you blame me when that happens?"
There was a silence just long enough to be awkward before he responded. His form materialized a few meters away, and he said, "I would," his voice steady, "after all, you and I know very well, there's no monster in my domain nor anyone foolish enough to attack you."
"That's the thing, Patriarch, I'm not so sure anymore, wasn't there very inside that very domain a few days ago," I jabbed at him to which he replied with a "hmph," as he approached the seat I invited him to take, it was the same seat Licht sat in earlier on, but he did not sit down.
"Anyway, you look better now. I may not look the part but deep inside, I'm very relieved to see that you sustained no debilitating injuries."
He sneered, "He mainly dabbles in elemental attacks, not curses like you so of course I received no debilitating injuries."
"Oh," I responded, slightly surprised by the reaction.
"But who am I saying that to, you know that better than anyone."
"If you're making a reference to what I once told you about squabbling with him as I said it never went down to actual shedding of blood, so I'm not so clued in as you think I am, Patriarch."
"Yet you didn't seem all that surprised by that outcome were you?"
"Not surprised? I guess yes…I wouldn't say that I was surprised, in my mind there were only two outcomes: either he falls, or..." I said, eying him.
"Or I fall?" he completed.
I nodded, then shrugged. "I didn't expect there could be a third outcome where it would end in a tie, with him just giving up on trampling over your domain," I explained. After the return of the Patriarch to his domain, which marked the end of the battle between the Patriarchs, I was informed and witnessed the stampede retreating. Although I didn't see him during the retreat, I knew it was led by the Argyrian family patriarch. Consequently, the battle concluded with both sides withdrawing—the Argyrian family patriarch to his next destination and the Umbryan family patriarch to his domain.
"Mind explaining in detail what happened then," I asked curiously.
The Patriarch, in his silence, didn't seem like he was about to entertain my request when he answered, "We fought, to a tie," then with a voice filled with frustration and straight up anger, he added, "we did until his monster joined in the fray," then looking at me as if expecting an answer from me he asked, "What's the deal with these things?"
"Those are just monsters part of his—"
"That is not what I'm asking," he cut in, "how is he controlling these creatures? He is a monarch ruling over elemental affinity, how is he controlling monsters!"
That was a good question, unfortunately, you're not getting an honest answer from me, "I would say I'm as clueless as you but I was given an explanation, a theory if you feel a little more critical, that I got from a collaborator of mine and Aquaflora who'd seen him rampage for the first time,"
"You're talking about the fact that he tried to accommodate an Ancestral Tree manifested from a Nature subaffinity?"
"See, you've heard of it yourself," I responded.
"I have a hard time believing that he...He was arrogant, but certainly not stupid."
"And yet you've seen what became of him."
The five main affinities—nature, elemental, arcane, spiritual, and artistic—are the categories into which one can manifest or accommodate one or several Ancestral Trees. However, there is a critical condition: the sub-affinities involved in the manifestation of the Ancestral Trees must all belong to the same main affinity. Now, the inevitable question arises: what happens if they don't? No sane elf has dared to find out, as they instinctively understand that mixing affinities in such a way could lead to their demise.
I didn't believe him when the Umbryan Patriarch said that he had a hard time believing that theory that the Argyrian acquired and tried to assimilate an ancestral tree manifested from a nature subaffinity, for I have the conviction that that's what made him confident in fighting this battle on his own. I was willing to bet that he genuinely believed that the Argyrian family was weakened because that's what his nature led him to believe. To be frank what his nature most likely dictated him is that the Argyrian patriarch should be dead if he really did what was theorized he'd done, but he's not so his second assumption was to think that he's weakened and thus them being normally equals would equate to him having his chance to defeat the Argyrian patriarch by himself.
I would have given everything to see the face he made upon realizing that the only thing burdening him is his mental affliction and that on top of having access to all his power of patriarch he has control over an army of monsters, among which are a consequential amount of primes.
"I know it's pointless to try to understand his madness, but I would like to confirm," I began before asking, "when fighting him, did you feel he was after your life, no that didn't come right of course he was, what I meant to ask is was he—"
"Was he after my ancestral tree?"
I nodded.
Finally taking a seat he took a moment as if trying to analyze his memory before ultimately answering, "I suppose he was." Then through a logical reasoning ask, "you think he's trying to acquire and assimilate all the ancestral trees."
I nodded, "From the logic of his actions, him sending his monsters straight to the fraction of your ancestral tree you left to the capital, the very of him and his monsters seems to indicate that, I'm no ancestral tree expert but from the pattern which tells that he's right now headed for the Aurian lands I'd say that yes he's trying to gather up all the ancestral trees and accommodate them as he did the first."
"Madness..." the Patriarch mumbled, tapping his feet in frustration.
"Without a doubt but I'd reckon that at this point I don't think he got much to lose, he either fails to accommodate them and dies or he successfully accommodates them like he did the one that put him in this state, but no matter how you flip it, either outcome is terrible for you, Patriarch. For him, accommodating your ancestral tree implies you being out of the equation, in rougher terms dead, unless...perhaps you surrender your ancestral tree to— from that expression I guess that's not an option," I chuckled. "Then why not consider my offer, Patriarch, it's currently the only reasonable solution to the problem this continent faces."
At the proposition, the Patriarch looked at me with an annoyed and exasperated look, "...you were only waiting for the opportunity to make this offer again, weren't you? That's why you tagged along."
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't, but frankly," I began, feeling a little more comfortable to say it, "is my offer that bad? From my point of view it's a good, very benevolent offer. I dare even say. I lend my hands to you to deal with something that'll eventually be a problem to you…all of you."
Still staring at me with that expression he asked, "it's that benevolence that is particularly questionable."
"Questionable," I echoed, feigning slight, to which he responded with a nod.
"Fair enough, if it's my benevolence you're questioning, you might be reassured to know that it's not entirely out of benevolence," I began, my tone carrying the weight of unresolved grief. "I've told you about my reasons for wanting to see the threat he poses extinguished. He's responsible for the death of one of my little children and the loss of a being very dear to another of my children. I doubt you've forgotten, so I assume it's just not a good enough reason for you. So, I'll be clear," I continued, locking eyes with him, "it's not just revenge I'm after. I want more."
"More?" he asked, his voice cautious, despite having likely guessed the reason but still needing my confirmation.
"You know about me, surely you know what my relationship with Emperor Cleon is like," I said, gesturing as if dusting something off. "I want him gone, but reality has it that I, as strong as I am, don't stand a chance to defeat a monarch without being one myself, but..."
While I was biting my lips at the tragedy of my situation, the Patriarch completed my sentence, "but you know you will never be one."
Is that supposed to be funny? I wondered but only kept that thought for myself. "This was less embarrassing to admit in my mind," I chuckled, then added, "but you're right, I'll never be a monarch. However, that doesn't have to stop me from wanting to bring him down. If I can't defeat him on my own, I can always seek help."
"You want me to help you kill your monarch?" He surmised.
"I would be very grateful if you made that offer, Patriarch, but I believe I've come to know you well enough these past few weeks to understand that you wouldn't support me on such an endeavor, so…luckily for you, I never planned on making such a demand. I had a different plan in mind, one that I can easily guess."
Staring at me with cold eyes, the Patriarch responded, "You want his Ancestral Tree."
"Bingo," I clapped.. "Neither you, the Aurian family matriarch, nor the Ferron family’s patriarch are compatible with that Ancestral Tree, unless one of you would like to attempt the same stunt the Argyrian Patriarch pulled. But I doubt any of you would, so I don't see any reasonable objection to one of my little children taking over that Ancestral Tree instead."
He sneered, "You think you can replace a patriarch so easily."
"I don't," I replied quickly, my tone firm. "That's why I came here personally to oversee the whole process."
"You really think too highly of yourself," he retorted.
Then, a silence fell between us, one that he eventually broke by asking, "That person, that child of yours, who you talk about taking over his Ancestral Tree, is it the girl, Aquaflora?"
I thought briefly, Sorry, Patriarch, she's not one of them, though I suppose with what I've seen these few days, she might make a decent candidate—if she was one of them, that is.
"Yes," I nodded, lying as smoothly as I breathed, hoping that since he at least knew of her, he might view the whole plan more favorably. "But I have another candidate that I favor slightly more."
"Is it the one you mentioned having sent to the Aurian family?"
I nodded, "Though compared to Aquaflora, I don't think he would actually make a good patriarch for the Argyrian family," then I said with full conviction, "but, he, I know he would give everything including his life to see me win my war against Cleon."
"Mh," he mused, sinking into a contemplative silence, one that he once again broke, to ask, "Why? What is it that you have so much against him."
"Against him, huh… I would like to say that I have nothing against him personally, but that would be lying."
"First, I hate him, for the simple reason that he's responsible for the death of someone very dear, another one of my little children, if you may;" I explained, then added, "I've given you a similar explanation and you weren't content, so I'm going to put it in a way that'll resonate better with you."
"As of now," I explained, "Cleon has put the land of men in an awkward stasis where no one can ascend beyond him, every ember of potential extinguished just for having their warmth stolen by him. I want to break that stasis. To do that, I'd have to kill him. Now, I'm sure you're wondering what would be the point as even if I managed to somehow defeat him, I will never be able to stand where he stood due to—as you've put it clearly the other day and today—my mortality. But that's fine, I'm content with that as it is in human nature to eventually die, so I'd argue my mortality is what's most human about me. But what makes me really content with this is that even if I can't replace the monarch that he is, I have no doubt, that—wait, now that I think about it, this must be an alien concept to you elves and very particularly you, long-lived as you are."
"What is it?" he asked, curiosity in his voice I could tell.
"Legacy," I answered. "Unlike you elven monarchs, it is my greatest wish to see those little ones I've seen grow outgrow me. That is why it is up to me, who currently stands tallest, to make sure to remove this ceiling that undoubtedly will stunt their growth."
"How selfless of you," he said, I could tell he meant it in a diminishing way, but I chose not to take it that way.
"What do you want," I responded with a smile. "I'm just that kind of person," then, in a much more serious and solemn tone, I said, "Now then, Patriarch, what do you say about my offer now that I have answered your questions?"