“What’s a Paragon Anomaly?”

A dark-haired girl raised her eyes from the work on her desk to stare at the 27-year-old man sitting on one of the armchairs in her study.

“You just don’t give up, do you,” she stated flatly.

Her aide narrowed his silver eyes at her. “I’m sorry. My superior who is responsible for the entire Faction, and who is our first Faction Head since the Founder himself, ditched me for an entire day without giving me the slightest notice and now refuses to tell me where she went. I think I’m entitled to ask another, less important question.”

She gazed at him for a moment, then sighed. “How much did you hear?”

“From the part where you said you were going to visit another Paragon Anomaly, and thereon,” Vincent replied.

“Could you not just drop this conversation topic? It has been well more than a week since. We have to prepare for the debut in a fortnight,” she told him, leaning her chin on one hand as she looked at him.

The silver-haired man shifted his glasses as he gave her a flat stare. “Well, if someone could answer my question, then I could devote my whole mental effort to completing our preparations.”

Lucy groaned. “Can’t I just say you’ll find out eventually?” she pleaded.

He glared at her and sighed. “Has this Paragon Anomaly thing got any relation to the Citadel’s Paragon?” he asked.

She blinked and then straightened up. “Oh. Definitely not,” she said, shaking her head. “I can tell you that much at least.”

“I suppose that’s a relief,” he said, frowning slightly. “But I still haven’t heard the term before.”

She gave him a dismissive wave. “Go ask All-Aeon Athenaeum.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so it’s an official designation or similar? A term used by researchers?”

She hesitated and shimmied her hand. “Close enough I will say. It’s a very niche term that would normally never come up in any conversation,” she said, willing to give him that much information. “It’s a System Scholar term.”

“Hmm,” he replied, eyeing her curiously. He sighed and then shrugged. “Well, let’s leave it at that for now. I will, of course, be asking more about this at a later date, and I expect a more comprehensive answer than this when the time comes.”

“Of course, your noble lordship,” she replied drolly. “This mere commoner will certainly find a way to satisfy your lofty expectations.”

The strange expression he made when she called him ‘lordship’ made her smirk slightly, but she went back to her work, and he, his.

A while later he looked up from the documents at his table. “Have we gone over how exactly you will act at the debut? We have to put on this ‘puppet leader’ show for them all somehow.”

She looked up. “I basically just have to be immature,” she responded.

He eyed her for a moment, thinking. “I don’t think that area needs much improv-” He dodged the flying pen thrown his way.

Lucille gazed at him with narrowed eyes and then huffed as she leaned back in her chair. “Nobody except the Counties know I’m mentally older than 18, so it should be fine if I pretend I have a short attention span. It will be so I don’t get caught up in long conversations. I’ll put on a cheerful disposition. But I also want to make them think I’m thoughtless and irresponsible.”

He stared at her, and she could see the cogs ticking in his head as he thought over the events of the week earlier.

“You’re thinking I’m already irresponsible, aren’t you,” she said with narrowed eyes.

He slowly shook his head. “No, no, definitely not, my lord,” he replied with a cheery smile.

She rolled her eyes and got up from her chair, walking over to another table with a pile of documents in hand. She hit them against the table to straighten them up.

“But why the thoughtless part?” he asked her.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “So I can say insults straight to their face and get away with it,” she replied calmly.

“….what?”

She grinned. “I’m kidding. Maybe.” Seeing that he wasn’t amused, she explained, “I want to make it so I appear as someone who doesn’t consider the consequences of my actions. Remember, many people are going to wonder how I found the Prophetess, right?”

He slowly nodded.

“Then by pretending I’m thoughtless, we can ensure they know it’s a lucky coincidence, and that I saved a random girl’s brother on a whim because I wanted to appear like the protagonist of a story.” She placed down the pile. “This will give me justification to go to other places I might need to appear in person to resolve issues, by acting ‘curious’, and treating it like I’m going on a holiday or adventure.”

He considered it for a moment and then nodded. “I can see the merits. But ‘justification’?” he said with narrowed eyes. “Don’t tell me the reason why you won’t tell me where you went is because you don’t have a good enough excuse to ‘justify’ the Commission Head going there?”

She paused and then turned around. She tilted her head as she looked at him. “You know, if I wanted to, I could make a very convincing liar. Would you like me to create false reasons and distort the truth for you every time I need to do something unusual?” she asked him, not smiling. The room was silent.

“Well, no, but….” He gazed at her for a while with a complicated expression, hesitation warring on his face. When he finally spoke, it was on a seemingly unrelated topic. “Lucille, why did you become the Commission Head?”

As she opened her mouth to answer him, he held up a hand to pause her as he frowned slightly. “I know you said it was to protect your world, but I don’t think that’s it,” he stated seriously. “You said you’re 249. 18 years of your life is very short in comparison. I don’t think you could’ve gained that much emotional attachment to something, whether it be your home or not, that you would become the Head of a very large Faction just to protect it, because of that short time, compared to the rest of your life.”

“If it was just family members, you wouldn’t have needed to say, ‘the world’,” he continued. “And you wouldn’t need to try so hard to expand the Commission either. The power in your hands, if you used your Faction Authority, is large enough to protect millions of pre-System individuals. I could understand if you wanted luxury, but you don’t seem to care about that either.” He crossed his arms. “So, what is it?”

He’s surprisingly good at analysing my motivations. I thought I kept it vague enough, but apparently not.

She cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “What, getting suspicious of me?” she replied with mild amusement.

He gazed dully at her. “I have been suspicious of you from the moment I met you. It multiplied tenfold after that meeting.”

She blinked, not having expected that answer. She considered how to answer for a second before she smiled widely. “Vincent. Do you know why none of the Counts have asked me this question? If you think I’m being suspicious, then don’t you think the people who have lived for several centuries would think this too?”

Her aide looked at her with confusion. “I don’t see where you’re going with this,” he replied.

She walked over to her desk and picked up her cane that was leaning against its side. “It’s because they don’t care,” she stated calmly. She used one arm to lean on it as she looked at him. “My existence here is currently beneficial, so they don’t care. It is an implicit arrangement to not ask each other why we are doing what we are doing what we are doing, or why we are following the requests of each other. As long as I act within the boundaries I have shown them I’ve set for myself, they are willing to let me do whatever I please.”

She pointed the cane at him. “So, if they don’t care, why do you care?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

He frowned at her, perplexed by her answer. “Because as your aide, I feel like it’s important for me to know. You said I needed to make sure my plans align with your intentions. I can’t follow your intentions if I don’t know what your intentions even are," he pointed out.

She gazed at him for a while and then let out a long sigh. Putting her cane aside, she crossed her arms and leaned against the desk, tilting her head at him “Look, I don’t know how to put this lightly. Vincent, I have killed people.”

He looked startled by the abrupt admission, but she didn’t think about it. She moved over to the window opposite his armchair, ignoring his reaction as she peered through it. “You see an 18-year-old girl. I’m not,” she told him. “You might see me as someone who acts on a whim. I’m not.” She turned around and leaned against the windowsill. “Sure, an Ascendant gets multiple lives, so they fight more often. That’s not what I’m saying. I have personally hunted people down to oblivion, and I have done it willingly. I didn’t kill to level up.”

He had wide eyes as he stared at her, taking in what she said, but he scowled. “I’m not sheltered.”

She shook her head. “I’m not saying you are. As a member of a County, you couldn’t be, and I was there when Count Ravimoux admitted to killing his brother right in front of you. But here’s the issue. When I said I was an illusion mage, what was the first thing that came to mind?” she said. “Fancy distractions, sending people to sleep, minor hallucinations. And yes, maybe I could do those if I wanted. But you’ve forgotten I’m a manipulator of the soul.”

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She smirked slightly. “I said I don’t bother with mind reading. Not that I haven’t done it at all.” He looked taken aback as she continued, “And not the petty kind that passively occurs. I mean flooding someone’s mind with my own soul power, scouring every second, every minute of their past, every little dark secret revealed as I withdraw after a mind wipe and they never remember what happened. But I have a perfect memory. I remember everything I’ve seen.” Her smirk widened. “Now, what sort of person am I if I’ve done something like that?”

He just stared at her as she gave him a lazy shrug. “What I’m saying is this. Do you really know what you’re asking right now?” she said, tilting her head at him. “Knowing what I was in the past, knowing what I am, and what I want? I don’t think you really want to know.”

She gave him a humourless smile. “And did I tell you I was a professor? I meant to say I was a professor for less than ten years out of 249.” She narrowed her eyes as she smirked. “Much shorter than 18, don’t you think?”

The room descended into silence as she stopped talking, and Vincent remained quiet. He looked down at the ground, thinking, while she just watched him with expressionlessly, as he couldn’t see her. She pulled out her pocket watch and flipped it open. She glanced at it and snapped it shut with a click, making Vincent look up, and then grabbed the cane leaning against her desk.

“Well, I’m off to lunch,” she said in a bright, upbeat tone that didn’t match the solemn atmosphere. “I’ll be in my living room if you need me after that. See you.”

And with that, she left the study, leaving Vincent all alone. He had a troubled look as he tried to ponder the implications and meanings of her words. A while later, when Lucille’s perception couldn’t see the room anymore, he groaned and leaned back in his chair, then took off his glasses. He rubbed his face.

“What’s an expression regulator?” he muttered in the silence.

…

“Again, are you sure you want to do this?” Lucille asked her bond.

He didn’t look at her as he navigated a path through the slightly damp ferns and vegetation.

“Yep, yep, yep,” he replied, flapping his wings to dislodge a twig that had taken up residence within his feathers. “I’m certain. If I don’t get a human form soon, I feel like I’m going to go insane.”

They were in one of the artificial garden biomes of the Pavilion. In fact, they were in the very same biome that Scytale had been trying to use to access one of the three biomes Ashale’viaf had sealed away from him and then got caught and sentenced to impromptu jail time in an arctic cell.

“Have you been to the place I’ve told you about yet?” she said, stepping around a mossy log that had been artistically placed to seem like it had naturally fallen.

He glanced at her. “Not yet. I don’t think it would be a good idea to go down there as the nobles begin arriving.”

She nodded. “Hmm. True. They will be arriving in the next few days.” She ducked under a low-hanging vine. “When I have time, would you like to check out the Founder’s vault?”

He paused. “Isn’t the Founder’s vault just a System storage artifact? The kind made for Factions? Normally the Faction leader just gets a screen pop-up containing the list of contents and you click on one to get the item.” He jumped over a long stick. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to ‘check’ that out.”

“The Founder’s vault is a dimensional storage artifact,” she told him. “You can physically enter it.”

“Wait, a dimensional artifact?!” he exclaimed, shocked as he turned around to look at her. “I thought nobody could get their hands on one, besides the All-Aeon Athenaeum’s Artificers. And they keep those to themselves.”

She smirked as they turned a corner. “Well, the Founder’s is a System artifact, so he earned it as a reward in an Event somehow. Likely when he earned his Faction Command. I’m not sure anyone really knows it’s a dimensional artifact.” She looked at him. “I haven’t been in yet,” she added.

“Do you think it might be useful for some of your plans?” he asked her.

Lucy shook her head. “No. As a System artifact, it comes with strict limitations. It’s not transportable, and I can only access it while in the Headquarters. I can’t even access it if I’m at one of the other Counties.”

He nodded as he turned back around. “That’s disappointing. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask,” he said, glancing at her. “Everybody just kinda calls him the ‘Founder’, but who was he actually? Nobody ever talks about him.”

“Ah. Well, this generation of the Commission wouldn’t know him, so I guess they just don’t find him relevant. He was only in charge of the Commission for a century before he left, after all,” she said. “His name was Crawforde Lockhart.”

The snake gave her an odd look. “Only a century? Why would he make a Faction and just ditch it?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” she said after some thinking. “I didn’t really care about him, so I don’t have much information on him. But from what I’ve gathered, he was a battle addict. It was the Counts who ran the Faction.”

“Wait, how old was he when he left?” Scytale asked.

“1,054,” she reported, her thought strands dredging it up with near-instant speed. Then she blinked. “Now that I consider it, that’s rather young for him to just disappear. Usually, someone’s over three chapters before that happens.”

“I remember being really confused once why all the old guys don’t seem to exist,” her bond said. “Now I’d kinda prefer to keep not knowing why.”

“And that’s why nobody really gets quests besides the realm quests until that age. For them, ‘information’ is a tastier reward than strength. Of course,” she continued, “You get some like the old generations from All-Aeon Athenaeum who stick to the dogma that such information is ‘forbidden’, and they just hole themselves up and research for fifty chapters or longer.”

“Which makes that Saufren Lestial guy even weirder. He should be part of that same old generation, yet he’s been investigating outer regions for… what,” He looked at her. “A hundred thousand years?”

She contemplated it and slowly nodded. “Around that. But he was over a hundred chapters before the Mystical Realm was even assimilated into the Tower. And most of those chapters were him doing the same thing he is now, just safer now because he has the System.”

They paused their discussion when they came to the glass door of the next biome that Scytale had tried to enter a few weeks ago. The slowly rotating mana-circle on its front was still there. As Scytale slithered forward a bit, a flurry of pink petals accompanied by the scent of roses appeared, and Ashale’viaf materialised. When he saw Scytale, he scowled, but his expression quickly changed to a ‘polite’ smile when he saw Lucille.

“Greetings, Faction Head,” he told her. “And….” He shot a glare at the snake, who was smugly raising his head and flickering his tongue. “Scytale,” he stressed in a flat voice.

Lucy smiled. “I haven’t been able to meet you very often, as I’m usually quite busy within the Headquarters’ main building. I hope you’ll forgive me,” she said with a polite nod.

The pink-haired spirit smiled and shook his head. “I’m just the caretaker of the gardens. There’s no need for you to greet me.” He shot a look at the snake on the ground next to her, who was getting smugger and smugger by the second. “May I ask why you need to enter this biome?” he asked in a slightly tense voice.

Lucille gave him a cheery smile that made him flinch. “I need to select an Ancient ranked natural treasure.”

“… why?” he asked nervously.

She looked down at Scytale. “For him, obviously.”

He stared at her for a while, before his gaze slowly moved to the silvery winged snake. One of his eyebrows twitched. “As he is a magical beast, I would like to caution you against letting him eat whatever he wants. It will destabilise his bloodline and-”

“I know,” she interrupted, holding out a hand to pause him. She smiled. “Only an Ancient ranked light treasure. Then he’s not allowed to eat any more. He wants to reach advanced rank.”

Ashale’viaf hesitated, thinking about it, and then gave a slow nod in acceptance. “I will be stopping him if he tries to eat anything else.”

He stepped aside and held out an arm to gesture to the door. “Please enter.”

Lucy nodded and stepped forward. She placed a hand on the mana-circle, and inserted her magic. The facilities of the artificial biomes had already registered her magic signature, so she could enter whichever biome she pleased due to her Total Faction Authority. The crystal door swung open, and she stepped through. Scytale followed after her, but he turned back to look at Ashale’viaf.

“Be grateful! After this, I won’t be coming back here for some time!” he exclaimed grandly. Ashale’viaf actually smiled, but the snake continued. “You will have to suffer without seeing me. From now on, I will explore the fabled library!” He turned back around and followed Lucy, the door clicking shut behind him. He didn’t see the spirit’s stiff expression.

“But…. I’m the librarian….” he murmured in despair.

…

Before Lucille and Scytale was a gorgeous golden fruit with a glossy sheen hanging off the branches of a tall oak. The weight of the fruit made it sag. A tantalising scent wafted from it, and like the psychedelic film on a bubble, it shimmered and flickered with a multitude of colours that had coalesced as its mana reached incredible density. A glittering cloud of pale yellow and gold mana enveloped it, and they could feel how the non-elemental mana that made contact with it slowly changed to the same tone, becoming attracted to the fruit.

If it had been a Legendary fruit, the entire biome would’ve been filled with dense golden mana that pulsed and resonated along someone’s veins as the body naturally drew in the mana due to how much there was. As it were, it was Ancient, and so the density of mana was still localised to the fruit. Lucille activated her shard to view the Status Screen of the natural treasure.

[Natural Treasure – Type: Light, Fruit]

Rarity: Ancient

Desc: The fruit of the placid Incandescent Aureus Oak contains some of the richest light element found in Ancient ranked natural treasures. It naturally halts at Ancient ranked, the oak incapable of producing fruit of a higher rank. That does not mean the fruit is poor quality, however.

Purity: 96%

[ ]

She turned to him. “This is the treasure your instinct is pointing to? It has very high purity, I’ll admit that.”

Scytale nodded. “Yep. I bet if it had a few more years then it could reach 100% purity and would scatter into pure light element. This one had the highest purity on the tree, which means it might not even be four months until I reach advanced rank.”

She hummed musingly. “This biome is about ten times as large as the normal artificial biomes, and only filled with high-ranked light element plants.” She smirked at the snake. “I think one of the other biomes he’s hiding from you must contain high-ranked illusion treasures.”

“But what would the third contain?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I haven’t checked with my perception yet.” She looked around again. “If this is for light element, they must have a large biome for each of the essential elements.” She turned back to her bond. “Want me to pick it?”

“You’ll have to. I can’t reach,” he said with amusement. “But yes, please. I would prefer not to have Ashale’viaf trying to kill me for damaging a valuable plant.”

She nodded and stepped forward. Acting on innate instinct as a magical plant, the tree began to withdraw the fruit from her, but she reached forward and firmly gripped the thick stem above the leafy light-gold crown above the fruit. Withdrawing Ouroboros from her waist, she kept her in dagger form as she held the silver-white dagger upright and firmly sliced at the stem. It was important for someone to only make a single cut when harvesting from a magical plant, as a damaged stem could mean the tree would be incapable of producing fruit from that stem in the future.

The tree pulled back with involuntary movement as the dagger cut in, but she kept her gloved hand gripped tightly on the stem. The tree shuddered as the fruit and part of the stem came free, when she quickly placed Ouroboros’s handle in her mouth, but she kept her hand around the cut stem and bent down to hand Scytale the fruit, who had to activate his Primal Descendant skill to open his jaws wide enough to get a grip on the fist-sized object. She straightened up and inspected the end of the branch. “Doesn’t look damaged,” she murmured, after removing Ouroboros from her mouth.

She put away the dagger. Using her teeth to peel off a glove and then tuck it into her belt, she placed her fingertips on the inch-wide stem’s end. She willed some of the semi-aqueous, mostly gaseous mana within her body to her fingertips, and frowned a bit. Lucy looked at the snake. “Can I have a bit of help with light element mana, please? It’s being attracted to the other plants.”

He nodded, with his mouth still full, and translucent glittering golden mana formed a vague aura around him. He extended a tendril to Lucy, who drew it into her body and forced it through her fingertips into the plant. The tree stopped trying to pull away as it received the energy. The stem’s flat end slowly extended and grew out with a short, pale young sprout, which grew three new leaves. Within the centre of the leaves formed a tiny golden dot, the size of a tack. She stopped inserting mana after that point, as the atmospheric light element quickly became attracted to the dot, and it grew to the size of a marble in a few seconds. It stopped growing at the same speed after that point, the speed of its growth slowing as it increased in size.

Scytale detached his tendril of mana from Lucy, who quickly began drawing dense silvery-white spiritual energy from her soul and condensed it into strands, then flushed it through her body, aiming to get rid of the residual light element, in case it began to give her an affinity. She stopped when the light element levels in her mana pool and body returned to normal, if slightly higher due to the biome they were in. She removed the white glove from her belt and pulled it back on her right hand.

“That should make Ashale’viaf slightly happier. The clean cut and mana injection will mean the lifespan of this branch will not degrade and can create a fruit of the same quality because I haven’t picked the fruit off normally,” she told her bond.

“I could do with some help removing the stem and leaves though,” he said, fruit still in his mouth.

Lucy nodded and kneeled on one knee, then took the golden fruit from Scytale’s mouth. She turned it in her hands, inspecting it. “I might use Apophis for this. I didn’t on the tree because his demonic energy could injure the plant, but his serrations would be good for this.”

She unsheathed the black and red jewelled dagger from her belt and began cutting the fruit away from the remaining stem and leaves. She chucked the stem and leaves back at the oak, which used its branches to snatch them up and absorb them into itself, the new marble-sized fruit increasing slightly in size.

“Is that thing nearing sentience?” Scytale asked, peering around the kneeling Lucy to look at the tree.

She glanced over her shoulder and then turned back to Scytale. “I think it is already. Magical plants in artificial environments normally gain sentience faster than in the wild, and Ashale’viaf is a plant beast spirit king. His domain would automatically aid the growth of all plants and attract the spiritual energy needed for them.”

The white-gold-winged snake turned to the tree. “Uh, sorry?” he apologised, using his innate ability to communicate with every living thing.

The oak shook its branches at the serpent, presumably in anger, making Lucy roll her eyes. “It has the fruit to spare. If it was in the wild and needed the fruit to attract a strong beast to guard it, then maybe I’d pity it. Here though, the fruit will only disintegrate into pure light mana. It probably wants the mana so it could evolve.”

She placed the fruit of the Incandescent Aureus Oak back on the ground in front of Scytale. “One stem and leaf-free natural treasure. Remember not to puncture it with your fangs.”

He flapped his wings indignantly. “Hey, who’s the magical beast here? I’ve been on this rodeo plenty of times.”

Still in his enlarged form, he gently placed his mouth around the fruit, making sure his fangs didn’t puncture the fruit, which would cause it to release its high mana density. He tilted his head up as he opened his mouth wider, and slowly he managed to get the fist-sized fruit down his throat. He gulped as it slowly slid down. Unlike in a mundane snake, the fruit visibly shrank within his neck, leaving him looking just like he did before he had swallowed it. He opened his jaws again in a yawn as his eyelids began to lower.

“Wake me…. up….. before you go to…. the Forerunner’s…. Event….” he said sleepily. His eyes closed fully and his breathing slowed, shrinking himself down as he entered hibernation. Normally a magical beast would take a natural treasure to their den and then settle down to digest it or go to sleep in the case of snake beasts, but Scytale had Lucy to move him.

She sighed and picked up the snake, putting him around her neck. She glanced at the tree again and then looked around the biome.

“I’m surprised at how close you are to a full manifestation,” she said, seemingly speaking to no one. "But Scytale wouldn’t do anything to you if you let him in that biome. Neither would I, for all that you seem intent on avoiding me to the utmost of your ability.”