Arthur stayed in Fate's dark space for a long time, but not even a second passed in the dungeon. When he returned, the green dragon's corpse was still turning into mana and getting absorbed.
He thought Fate was done with him but was quickly proven wrong.
「 Ascension Successful
You have ascended.
Rewards: +100 points to all stats; domains 」
Just like that, his strength and agility doubled.
Arthur felt his stats improve like never before. He had never increased all stats at once, especially not by 100 points. On top of that, he also felt deeply connected to the life element this time. Lastly, he understood his body incredibly well after all the passive spells he had cast. All that let him intimately feel and comprehend what was happening.
With that came an astounding realization: the prince could do the same! He could permanently change his stats without using stat points!
He meant to pursue that finding but received another window before he had the chance.
「 Establishing Domains
You have received authority over the following elements:
- Metal
- Life
- Death 」
Suddenly, Arthur felt; there was no other way to describe it.
He felt every last atom—a word he had only learned in his enlightenment—belonging to metal or any living being all around him. He felt every dead or dying cell in his body and in the dissipating dragon corpse.
And he felt the authority to rule over them all.
Once more, another window distracted him from exploring the novelty.
「 Domain Rules
Your domains are limited by your elemental affinity and understanding.
Current understanding:
- Life: 33%
- Metal: 23%
- Death: 8%
You can no longer level up or learn skills.
You'll be awarded 100 free stats points for every understanding percentage.
- Life: +3,300 free stat points
- Metal: +2,300 free stat points
- Death: +800 free stat points
Climb the ladder to your ultimate fate by better comprehending your elements.
Reach 100% comprehension in all of them to break free from the shackles of mortality. 」
It was the first time Fate explained anything to him. Not that it was the best explanation he had ever read, of course. It lacked a lot of things.
For instance, what were domains? How did they work? What did Fate mean by "breaking free from the shackles of mortality?"
But it explained enough for him to understand something: thirty thousand stat points awaited him at the end of the ladder.
Fate was being genuinely generous. More and more, Arthur had to admit this was a form of ascension. On top of the 100 points he had received on each stat, he had 6,481 free stat points awaiting his distribution, both from his elemental understanding and his last level-up. Not leveling up or learning skills was an inconsequential price to pay for all of that.
Arthur had finally reached greatness, and there was more on the horizon.
It confirmed one thing to him without a shadow of a doubt: he would win his father's war.
But first, he had to understand his new power.
Arthur's new domains sounded interesting, but he was much more excited about improving his stats without Fate. It would be impressive enough if he accomplished it on his own stats, but what if he could also improve other people? Wasn't that the same as being capable of developing the strongest army to have ever existed?!
He had a war to win, and that ability sounded perfect for that. The prince had to test it as soon as possible.
His vitality, mind, and mana stats were too high for him to improve them. He estimated he could only increase a stat up to 450 or so with his current comprehension. That wasn't a big issue; he would rather test the new ability on his least useful ones, strength and agility.
Fate was done increasing his stats, so it was his turn. He prehended his body and willed—
His intent string snapped, and he got a new Window into Fate.
「 Stat Disconnection Warning
Do you want to disconnect your strength and agility stats? 」
The message didn't explain exactly what such disconnection implied, but Arthur could guess. If he continued, his strength and agility would be disconnected from Fate itself. It was almost guaranteed that he wouldn't be able to use free stat points to improve them any longer. He had no plans of ever investing in the two stats, so it was no issue.
"Yes," he replied.
And then came pain.
It was like two plugs somewhere deep, somewhere even he had never realized he had, were cut off. It felt like his every bone was sawed, his jaw was pulled, and his brain was compressed. Then, just as quick as the sensation came, it disappeared, leaving emptiness in its wake.
The pain was horrible, but not enough to completely shut Arthur's mind down. He thoroughly analyzed the changes as they happened and matched them against his knowledge of the life element. He could now tell that some things he had previously credited to Fate were, in fact, part of his body. Likewise, a sense of energy he had thought was from his absorption was obviously from Fate instead. Like the message said, he was connected to something grander than himself.
That realization allowed him to understand something about life that had previously eluded him, and Fate rewarded him for it.
| Life: +1% → 34%
| +100 free stat points → 6,581 total
Arthur wasn't surprised by not receiving any achievement for increasing his understanding by himself for the first time. Ascending was obviously a step towards decreasing his dependence on Fate. For instance, there was no leveling up or learning skills anymore. The prince was willing to bet there were very few, if any, achievements meant for level 100 awakeners, though he wasn't sure about things that he might've achieved before.
With Fate out of the way, Arthur prehended his body again and willed his strength and agility—
Once more, his intent string was snapped.
「 Stat Disconnection Warning
Do you want to disconnect your vitality stat? 」
The prince frowned. He hadn't tried to touch on his vitality at all. But it seemed he hadn't perfectly limited the stats he wanted to improve. For all that watching Fate improve his stats had shown him what to do, Fate had improved all his stats simultaneously.
The strange part was that the first disconnection warning hadn't mentioned vitality, despite him attempting the same thing both times. He guessed Fate analyzed his intent first, then his actual actions.
Well, that didn't matter much. He had the perfect way of figuring out what in his body was and wasn't related to vitality.
He added a point to vitality, then another, then a third. With each point, he got a clearer view of what it did to him—and what it didn't.
| Vitality +1 → 1,101
| Remaining distributable points: 6,580
(...)
| Vitality +1 → 1,112
| Remaining distributable points: 6,569
Twelve points later, the prince knew what to do.
For the third time, Arthur prehended his body and willed his strength and agility to improve. His intent string didn't snap this time. Life mana flowed freely throughout his body, enhancing it little by little.
The prince had expected the mana cost to be humongous, but it still surprised him. He spent almost all his life mana and accomplished very little.
| *Strength +3 → 203
| *Agility +4 → 214
Each stat name was now preceded by an asterisk. It obviously symbolized them being disconnected from Fate.
Arthur was glad to find a way to bypass Fate, but his actual gains were minimal, which foiled his plans of raising an unbeatable army. Although he could improve himself more, he didn't have the mana to do it quickly. It was a long-term project.
Even so, it was still a powerful ability. He could at least improve the weaker stats of a few elite troops over time, making up for some of their weakness.
Yet, for now, he was more interested in the two things he had discovered while improving himself.
First, he found where his traits lay. They were tiny isolated orbs, spells made of pure mana, almost like skills but much more potent and unique. However, just feeling them hurt him, and he instinctively knew that Fate would not like him to mess with them.
Second, he also found ways to assess his magic affinities. Supposedly, that could only be done with expensive and rare enchanted artifacts or skills. Well, not anymore.
His analysis let him tell his metal affinity, which Fate had set at 95%, was around eight times as strong as before.
In other words, even Arthur's 55% death affinity should be around five times as strong as his metal affinity had been. And Graham had stated that even Arthur's previous metal affinity was the highest the man had ever found. The prince's current elemental affinity placed his magic potential at a new level that might have never been seen before—in the world.
Arthur concluded he really liked ascending.
Fate hadn't mistreated him at all.
Speaking of his elements, it was time for the prince to understand his new senses. What were his domains? How and why did he feel all metal, life, and death around him? How exactly did it work?
Fate's last ascension message greatly assisted him on that front. "Your domains are limited by your elemental affinity and understanding," Fate had stated, and it was right on point.
Arthur's domain size was based on his mana reach, currently around 680 yards. Then, it was affected by his elemental affinity and understanding. It was a straight-up multiplication.
With a 95% metal affinity and 23% understanding, he could feel all metal within around 150 yards. Life, at 75% affinity and 33% understanding, reached almost 170 yards. And death, at 55% affinity and 8% understanding, only went as far as 30 yards.
It might pale compared to his mana reach, but there was no limit to how many things he could feel at once. He felt everything without growing confused. He knew where the elements were, how much of them were there, and their states.
Within that limited range, Arthur felt omniscient.
Even more astonishingly, he was already connected to everything he felt without needing an intent string. In other words, he could prehend anything in his domain at a thought.
Unfortunately, he couldn't control everything at once. Just like his domain size was limited by his mana reach, his control was limited by his number of intent strings. He currently had six intent strings, and his affinity and understanding of each element affected that number. He could only exert authority on 1 metal object and 1 living being without an intent string. He could do nothing with the death he felt.
The number might be small, but Arthur thoroughly ruled over anything he used his authority on—without spending mana. He was the ultimate ruler of metal, life, and—in the future—death. He willed it, and they obeyed.
On the not-so-bright side, that came at a cost. That power was entirely based on his comprehension. If he didn't understand something he was trying to do, it wouldn't work, and he couldn't use mana as a clutch as with traditional magic. Without an intent string, he simply couldn't push mana into something.
Instead of feeling dejected, the prince felt elated. Even without mana, some things might just get slower instead of not working. He might not understand metal and related forces enough to instantly turn solid steel into liquid, not without mana, but what if he kept applying his understanding over time?
He tested it on a metal sphere, and it took him minutes to heat it slightly.
It was just as he had thought! That was the perfect training tool! Arthur could now quickly test how much he understood something, if at all, based on the effects of that new form of magic—Fate had called it authority, right? Moreover, with his increased affinity, he could better feel the metal sphere and what was happening to it, which would assist him in improving his elemental understanding.
Arthur lost himself in wonder. He moved the sphere here and there. He tried to melt it and failed completely. He kept trying, reviewing the knowledge in his mind, and comparing it to other spheres—
Hours later, it softened slightly.
| Metal: +1% → 24%
| +100 free stat points → 6,669 total
The notification woke him up. He could barely believe how easy it was to increase his understanding.
However, it made sense. Experimenting with his powers and comparing them against his new knowledge would let him better understand many things he had memorized. At first, he should quickly gain a few percentage points, but he would eventually exhaust how much he could gain from that. From then on, he would need to create and test hypotheses to progress his understanding. He also imagined things would get much tougher the closer he got to 100%.
Arthur used his authority to try to improve his strength and agility. If that worked, he would have a workaround for its high mana cost.
Unfortunately, he instantly felt his body disappear from his domain's senses.
「 Stat Disconnection Warning
Do you want to disconnect your vitality stat? 」
The prince hadn't understood the division between vitality and his other body stats as well as he thought. Mana had helped him fill the gaps. But now he at least had hope of creating an army and could use his domain to keep testing the differences between stats. It could even become a sort of benchmark for his life element!
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That put him at a crossroads. He had thousands of stat points to spend. Should he focus on short-term gain for the war, which meant mainly investing in his mana stats? Or should he play the long game, focusing on his mind stats first, so his understanding could increase faster?
Arthur guessed he was already a mighty mage. But was that enough to change the course of war? As a sorcerer, he was still vulnerable to having his mana disrupted, and now he didn't even have his life-saving skills. They had become spells, which wouldn't work if he got cut off from his mana.
Then again, he had many advantages. He was level 100, but if he counted the 900 stat points Fate had distributed among all his nine stats, he was comparable to a level 111 awakener. He should also have more achievements than the average awakener, further widening his stat gap to anyone. His body stats were higher than most mages, and he would keep increasing them. Lastly, he could cast spells using three magic elements.
He was powerful.
But was that enough?
Arthur considered asking Graham and Tamara for help, but whenever they talked about his future, both insisted he should decide alone.
"What happens after you reach level 100 is up to you, master," Tamara had explained. "That was His Royal Majesty's command. I'll disobey if you ask me to, but I agree with his logic. We already know too much about you, which puts you and your loved ones in danger. Our information being outdated will make you and everyone you care about safer. After all your training and experience, you should be ready to decide your future by yourself. I believe in you."
Arthur guessed the best thing he could do before deciding anything was test his new power. And the best way to accomplish that was by facing an enemy.
He headed straight into the next room and started killing.
----------------------------------------
A colossal lizard corpse fell from the skies. Arthur didn't even look at it. His thoughts were far from the cave chamber.
In the past couple of days, the prince had discovered four obvious advantages to his new power compared to before his ascension.
First, his greater understanding and elemental affinity meant his metal spells cost only a tenth of the mana from before. He could do way, way too much with his mana pool.
Second, his mana pool had increased threefold. He had mana of the three elements inside his body now, as much of each as he had had of metal before.
Third, he could cast spells of three different elements. His versatility would be the downfall of many of his future foes.
And fourth, with his superior elemental understanding, his prehension magic had reached new heights and easily crushed all resistance in his way.
However, four significant factors made Arthur weaker than he could otherwise be.
First, he was still limited to six intent strings. They could connect to any of his elements, but once a string connected to one element, it was limited to that one. If he wanted to change it, he had to let go of the string and "create" a new one from his body.
Second, he lacked experience. He had lost skills and needed to adapt to his new condition. It wasn't too relevant when fighting a single monster, but in a tight fight, trying to activate a skill he didn't have might kill him.
Third, he needed to translate all his knowledge into proper spells and practice fighting with them. He couldn't stay limited to prehension magic. He didn't think creating the new spells would be too difficult, but it needed time.
Fourth, and worst of all, his absorption wasn't faster than before. The mana his body took from his surroundings was split into three different elements after it entered him, even if one of his elements was filled to the brim. In practice, his metal mana regeneration rate had decreased to a third.
Arthur had been wondering what to do about his free stat points.
Now, he was confident he had the answer.
First, he added 2,595 points to absorption, pushing the stat to 5,000. The stat's traits were useless, but doubling his absorption rate was good enough for his purposes. He couldn't even be a mage without that.
Taking the stat to 5,000 netted him the A-tier Boundless Absorption V achievement and 96 extra free stat points. It showed that, yes, he could still get achievements for things one might do before ascending.
Then, he spent 400 points on perception. It reached 1,000 points, a threshold for his Enhanced Senses trait, which made his five senses about four times as good as a moment ago.
It also unlocked the Senses Beyond Senses trait, letting him feel everything in a 9-yard range around him with any or all of his five senses regardless of obstacles—though enchanted objects might block it. The trait was his main goal, a way to make him safer if he found himself without his magic.
The prince promised himself he would never use it inappropriately, especially not when he was close to Sophie.
He got another achievement for pushing his perception that high, the B-tier Boundless Perception IV achievement, which gave him 48 free stat points.
Next, he invested 900 points in intelligence, pushing it to 2,000.
Arthur needed the extra mental space to hold more data if his understanding was to keep growing. More importantly, he needed to better access the information stored in his mind. There were too many things in his brain, and without a high intelligence, he wouldn't be able to put any of it to use in a battle.
Memorizing and accessing information was only so useful, though. Moreover, the Knowledge is Power trait, which only worked on old knowledge, wasn't helpful for him now. He needed another way of better understanding the things he memorized.
Therefore, lastly, the prince put all the remaining 2,918 free stat points on wisdom, pushing the stat to 4,018.
Wisdom made it easier for him to comprehend anything and to make logical connections. It would directly assist him with improving his elemental understanding. The higher his elemental understanding became, the more powerful he would grow as a mage and by using the free stat points he would receive. In other words, the higher his wisdom, the more likely he was to grow more powerful faster.
Wisdom also had practical applications in battle. He had to quickly decide what to do, and now he had a plethora of new options to pick from.
There was only one thing remaining for him to do.
Arthur had been avoiding thinking too deeply about his new knowledge. Graham had been very adamant in stilling into him the urgency for safety. His ability to protect himself came first, and he couldn't do that if he didn't understand his power.
But now, he closed his eyes and took full advantage of his improved mind stats, letting himself review everything he had learned during his ascension with abandon. When he finished, he examined it again. And again. And again. Arthur went through it all dozens, hundreds, thousands of times, making connections, deepening his understanding, even inferring new things that had probably been shown to him but he couldn't recall.
As he had expected, his understanding increased by leaps and bounds at first but soon plateaued. When that happened, he killed monsters non-stop for a few days to test a few theories. Then he meditated again.
Time passed.
----------------------------------------
Weeks later, Arthur checked his stats.
「 Stats
Level: 100
Domains:
- Metal: 39%
- Life: 41%
- Death: 17% 」
His metal understanding had jumped from 23% after his ascension to 39%, an overall increase of 16%. It was the element he had the highest affinity with. He had also spent the most time in his ascension getting "memories" about it during the enlightenment process. His life understanding had only started higher because all his passive skills had been translated into life spells, so he had gained a lot from that.
Indeed, while his life understanding was still higher, it had increased much less, from 33% right after his ascension to 41% now, a mere 8% increase. He had already gained almost everything he could from life without researching it.
Lastly, his death understanding jumped from 8% to 17%, a 9% increase. It also increased more than life because life was higher than it should be. Moreover, many of his gains from death came from opposing some of his knowledge about life. Death was just too elusive. Arthur wouldn't even have improved that much without his killing sprees in the past weeks.
「 Stats
Available points: 0
Body:
* Strength: 366
* Agility: 400
- Vitality: 1,112
Mind:
- Perception: 1,000
- Intelligence: 3,000
- Wisdom: 6,214
Mana:
- Absorption: 5,000
- Magnitude: 2,100
- Efflux: 4,100 」
Arthur kept improving his strength and agility whenever he could, but his most remarkable improvement was in wisdom. He had decided to push the stat all the way to 10,000 before investing in anything else. He only had to understand another 38% of his elements overall, and he would accomplish that with the 3,800 extra stat points.
Investing in wisdom was precisely that: an investment. The prince put points into it to gain more points. It was almost like watering a field of stat points. He only had to wait for the plants to bear fruit to harvest them, plant a few more, and give them more nourishment.
He even wanted to keep watering those fields right now. After weeks, he had only reached a small hurdle in improving his elemental understanding. He felt he could keep going for months before every step became a big challenge.
However, he was ashamed to admit he had lost track of time. What if he should already have left the dungeon? What if his extra time there was strengthening the damn thing?
His high mind stats should prevent that, but he had been too focused on killing dragons first, then on his elements. He had to talk to someone to get an update on how much time he had left in the dungeon.
As he always reminded himself, high stats didn't make him perfect, and high intelligence or wisdom didn't magically turn him into a sage.
Anyway, it was time to visit Graham.
Arthur was next to the cave chamber that led into the core's room. A dragon stood in his way. Arthur stepped into the chamber and did what he had been doing to improve his understanding for the past few dozen hours. He approached until the monster was within his mana reach and pushed three intent strings into it.
With one of intent string, he prehended the metal from its belly to its tail. With his outstanding 95% affinity and 39% understanding, he could find and pull all metal quick and easily with only one string. He turned it into a tiny rotating disk and started cutting the dragon from the inside.
The disk moved and rotated much faster than ever before. Elemental understanding wasn't just about knowing his element but also how it interacted with everything. Arthur had improved by leaps and bounds in anything pertaining to movement and bypassing biological defenses. But he still wanted more. The faster he could kill his enemies in a war, the better.
The monster roared in pain and rage.
The other string focused on its middle body. Arthur prehended the monster's life from its neck to its belly and pulled. As its vitality started being taken from it, its flesh grew tougher and browner, and its bones brittler. It was slow but lethal. It would die within minutes if it didn't escape or use magic to counter Arthur's.
It reacted, of course. It prehended its body.
When two mages prehended the same element on the same target, their wills clashed, and their intent strings snapped violently, lashing against each of them.
Both suffered a painful mental rebound, but Arthur's willpower was stronger. He should have about two thousand more mind stats than the dragon. He merely got a killer headache. The dragon fared much worse. Its mind shut down momentarily, and it even stopped flapping its wings for a few seconds.
Arthur took the opportunity to prehend its middle body and pull its life force again.
He was trying to replicate the Lifesteal skill, but he couldn't find a way to temporarily make that stolen vitality his. Whenever he tried to pull it into him—
「 Stat Disconnection Warning
Do you want to disconnect your vitality stat? 」
His intent string snapped again, but not painfully. Fate could do it without causing a rebound.
The prince sighed and kept trying.
Meanwhile, his third string was connected to the dragon's head. In there, he prehended its dead cells and pushed that death into others. Those other cells died, too, adding to the "deathness" under his control. He kept pushing it everywhere, trying to better perceive the instant when life turned into death and what that—
| Death: +1% → 18%
| +100 free stat points → 100 total
Oh! So that's how it was! Arthur was enlightened by the subtlety of death, the final transformation, the ultimate destination. His death magic became slightly stronger. He pushed the stats points into wisdom and kept going.
Unfortunately, the extra wisdom didn't make his necromancy any faster. It would take him hours to kill the dragon like that.
Death was the prince's most limited element. He could tell that the way forward was to add death to his attacks to make them even more lethal, but it was beyond his ability. He needed to understand death more before getting there.
For now, the best way to use his necromancy was to sense lethal intentions, which might hinder any assassination attempts against him. For instance, the dragon finally got his bearings back, and he could feel how much it wanted to kill him.
There was death there. Not manifest, not yet, but in potential form. Just like seeds were filled with the promise of life, so was killing intent filled with death.
The monster wasn't consumed by its desire to kill Arthur. It could still think. It had just found out Arthur's magic overwhelmed it, so it rushed at the prince instead of prehending its body again.
Arthur hadn't hurried to kill the monster, but he wasn't here to learn. Instead of dodging or keep experimenting, he pulled his metal string to the dragon's head. He used it to pull all metal nearby into a tiny ball in the middle of the monster's brain. Then, the prince violently exploded it in all directions. He controlled the explosion, making the metal grains move in spirals for maximum damage.
Brains were very delicate things. Even a grain of sand going from the middle to the skull, destroying everything in its path, could do a lot of damage, much less the baby-fist-sized mound of metal that also moved sideways. Arthur had known that for years but only found a way to put the idea into practice after his ascension.
There was no suspense in killing monsters anymore. His metal affinity and understanding were just too high. He even had high life affinity and knowledge, making him thoroughly understand a living being's weakness. And the death element also helped him figure out ways to better kill anything.
Arthur was just too powerful, which was one of the reasons he hadn't bothered to invest in efflux. There was no need. Wisdom was the way to go.
The prince was about to enter the dungeon core's room when the dragon's corpse reached the ground. Suddenly, a small space inside the dragon's body disappeared from his senses. It meant only one thing: a skill crystal. Although Arthur could no longer learn skills, he still earned skill crystals, which were still as rare as ever.
Despite his ascension, he still couldn't tell how the crystals were created. It was accomplished with pure mana, and Fate formed them instantly. He couldn't even see the mana condensing with his mana sight, which suggested it came from a spatial fissure Fate created in the middle of a corpse.
Arthur couldn't prehend corpses that were already turning into mana, and one of his most significant losses during his ascension was the Telekinesis skill, which he had no direct substitute for. His best workaround used metal to accomplish a similar effect.
He willed a prehended sphere to turn into metal dust, which happened instantly and wasn't even too mana costly. Then, he enveloped the crystal with that dust and pulled it.
The prince had no spatial storage artifact. It was beneath him, as royalty, to carry his own things like some kind of pack mule. He had servants for that.
Personally, he didn't mind, but Tamara, Graham, and even Sophie insisted he shouldn't debase himself. People would talk, and it might affect the kingdom's prestige.
But he did have a workaround, his robe. Not only was it enchanted for extra resistance, but it also had a couple of sneaky pockets that were enchanted to be much larger than they should be. There was no issue with mages carrying some magic stuff with them.
So, he stored the skill crystal in one pocket, which had many others.
And finally, at long last, the prince entered the dungeon core's room once again.
----------------------------------------
Every time Arthur visited, he found Graham sitting cross-legged in a corner, his sheathed longsword resting on his lap. He kept one hand on the hilt, another on the sheath, and stared straight at the core. The prince suspected the man even slept in that position.
Arthur found it appropriately paranoid.
He had felt the life in a dungeon doing his ascension and knew for a fact that it cared for nothing but protecting itself and growing up. It used every means at its disposal to accomplish that. It was technically sapient, but only barely. It had no sense of honor or morals and had trouble thinking long-term. It was like a hazardous smart animal, even worse than the monsters it spawned.
Dungeons should never be trusted.
In fact, the prince felt compelled to destroy this one. He didn't even care that it was a fantastic tool for leveling up if you could purchase the potions to prevent it from growing stronger.
What if someone messed up, and the core reached level 100? He doubted Fate would help a dungeon or monster ascend, but what if it underwent a similar change? What if it made the dungeon even stronger than him? What if it overflowed and level 100 monsters escaped, drowning the world in mayhem?
Alas, this wasn't his decision to make. Being level 100 didn't make him above the law or this dungeon's owner. He would explain things and argue with his father, but the king would be the one to decide on this dungeon's fate.
He considered all that in an instant. Graham was still turning his head to the prince.
That reminded Arthur of something he had to do: slow his thoughts down. At over 6,000 wisdom, he thought too fast, and the world felt too slow. It gave him an edge in combat, but interacting with people with slower minds might become a core if he didn't limit himself.
"Good to see you, sire," Graham said. He stood up and, a moment later, half-yelled, "Level 100! You did it!" Arthur smiled, though the man couldn't see. The prince, however, could feel the man's face light up in absolute joy. "You really did it! Fate!" He laughed wildly.
Arthur nodded. "I did, Graham. Did you know how powerful level 100 would make me? Did my father?"
The knight answered while attaching his sheath to his belt. "I take it something remarkable happened, milord? As far as I know, no one ever reached level 100. We hear stories of the heroes who saved the world when Fate first arrived, but how true are they? If His Royal Majesty knew anything, he never informed me, and I know nothing about it. Nor do I want to know."
The prince nodded. His stats and abilities were supposed to be absolute secrets from now on. But there was one thing he couldn't hide from the man.
"I can probably increase your vitality without Fate points," he said. "Slowly. With your low vitality, I should be able to push you to 300 points within a couple days."
His life understanding had substantially increased since he first improved his strength and agility. He had also gotten plenty of practice. Nowadays, Arthur could increase his stats by about fifteen points overall before his mana was exhausted and recover all his life mana in half a day. He should be able to improve Graham's vitality by over thirty points in one go. So, it should go from 200 to 300 within days.
Graham took moments to comprehend Arthur's words. They were too outlandish and had too many implications, and not only for the war.
Pushing the knight's vitality to 300 meant increasing his life expectancy by nine years. He would also grow healthier and rejuvenate a little. He would even regrow some of his hair, which was now only a few strands here and there.
It also meant he might heal his cancer.
Arthur clearly felt the man's disease. It was in his lungs and was likely another reason the grand knight had been weaker than Tamara when both fought the prince. A high vitality could heal almost all diseases, but the ones that weren't healed took a heavy toll on awakeners. It worsened the closer they were to the end of their lifespan, and Graham had about ten years remaining—if cancer didn't kill him first.
Graham knew he was sick. His stats would reflect that. Yet, he had never said a single word.
When the knight finally understood what was happening, he looked wide-eyed at Arthur, who stared sternly at the man. "I can also heal you, regardless of your vitality. Never hide such important information from your superiors again, Graham. You have no right to hide how weak you are. If I asked you to do something beyond your power in the past, Tamara or Sophie might've died."
The man smiled sadly, sighed, and replied, "Please, let me die."
Arthur could hear the world's weight in the grand knight's voice. Graham felt he had lived through too much. He was tired of suffering and yearned for eternal rest.
Yet, the prince didn't even consider accepting the request. "Do you know why I know you're speaking nonsense? Because I was in the same place as you not long ago. I was saved and found new happiness in life. You will, too. Remove a piece of your armor, and I'll prehend your body. I'll heal you and start working on your vitality."
Graham didn't promptly obey. He was torn. His heartbeat increased, his brain was bathed in multiple hormones, and his face went through all sorts of emotions. He was seriously considering disobeying the prince.
Arthur added coldly, "You promised Charlotte you would protect me. You promised her corpse you would take revenge on Fate for her. You can do neither if you're dead, Graham."
The knight froze. Then, a few silent tears streamed down his eyes as he slowly grabbed one of his gauntlets and took it off.
"For Charlotte," he whispered.
Arthur nodded. "For Charlotte."
His intent string snapped the first time he tried to improve Graham's vitality. The knight said he got a window asking him whether he wanted to disconnect his vitality. Arthur explained what that meant and the incoming pain.
They spent five days in the core's room. Twenty level 95 dragons awaited outside, and as powerful as the prince was, he would rather not risk fighting them without life mana. It only took him three sessions to push Graham's vitality beyond 300 points and another three to bring it to 402. Then, he waited for another half-day to recover his mana.
There was no rush to leave. It turned out that Arthur had been too lost in his killing spree before his ascension. He had perfected his dragon-slaying ability beyond his wildest imagination. So much so that three months still remained until they had to leave the dungeon.
"How are you feeling," Arthur asked after the last session improving Graham.
"Alive, my prince," came the answer. The man was breathing haggardly, and his voice was blurry. "Such a powerful biomancy. If only someone like you was alive back then. If only someone like you could've saved Charlie."
"I saved you, Graham. Now, we both can save other people. Together."
The man cried for hours before he calmed down.
----------------------------------------
"It's time," Arthur said. "Come out with me; it'll be safe. I want you to at least witness the fruit of your labor. The time you spent isolated in this dungeon and the care you showed me wasn't for nothing."
"Yes, sire."
They stepped onto floor 95...
...and found it empty.
Arthur frowned and immediately stepped back but didn't return to the core room. The archway into a vast empty cave chamber had become just that: a simple archway. He went through it into the room he could see.
He had to kill the final boss to enter the core's room, but there was no final boss to kill.
Some dungeons only generated one boss per floor per delver inside it. After those delvers were done, they had to leave the dungeon and reenter it to find respawned bosses. However, it was the first time he heard of a dungeon that exclusively didn't respawn the final boss after some time. His experience with the life element during his ascension wasn't enough for him to know whether it was normal.
"Nothing I can do, I guess," he said. He would report it to his father and let the king decide what to do.
Arthur displayed his powers to Graham on floor 94's boss instead. A single metal sphere was enough to explode the golems' heads. That didn't kill them, but exploding their upper body next did.
Golems depended on elemental cores to live. They were always on their heads or chest. Arthur could feel their position, but he had wanted to show off.
As expected, Graham's jaws dropped in shock.
"I take your speechlessness to mean the Golden Kingdom will have no trouble winning the war?" the prince teased.
He mentioned the lack of words, not Graham's open mouth. He had never revealed he could feel the man. It was a piece of information that might foil an assassination attempt, so he had to keep it to himself. Graham's armor could stop even the perception stat's Senses Beyond Senses trait, so Arthur's domain was special indeed, at least as much as the crimson drop he had gifted Sophie.
"The war," Graham said. "Yes, of course. We'll win for sure."
Arthur chuckled at the reaction and led his knight back to Sophie.