After the destruction of the orb, Talia knew that she could not dwell upon the discovery about the unknown danger she might have unknowingly dragged herself into, therefore she returned to Priest Omar straight away upon the retrieval of the Red Fishkin’s body and other pieces of evidence.
Upon seeing Priest Omar, she explained in great detail about the experience she had within the sewers, which was taken very seriously by the priest as he already informed her he will be sending an urgent message containing what she told him to the upper echelons of the ‘Order of Templars’.
As a Priest under the Order of Templars, Priest Omar knew spells which can indicate whether a person is telling him the truth, and additionally Talia was sent by Priestess Anita, so he knew she could be trusted.
Talia also handed over the Red Fishkin’s corpse and the evidence she had managed to obtain which also included parts of the strange altar which was left intact upon the disintegration of the orb, which was met by a great deal of gratification by the Priest who upped the reward of the quest as a result of her efforts.
Afterwards, the Priest informed her that if she could offer a helping hand once more to the ‘Order of Templars’ she should return to him within a few days for an additional quest which will give them time to inspect the knowledge and evidence they have just received.
With that Talia hurriedly exchanged pleasantries with the Priest, before she left the Church, knowing that her time left within the game world was coming to its end soon.
Therefore, without bothering to check the rewards she gained from the quest, she found some inconspicuous corner within the Town, that should be a safe place to re-enter the World in and prepared herself for her inevitable return.
And she didn’t require to wait long, as the familiar sound of the mechanical voice appeared once again.
*Warning! Player has now reached the limit of your maximum game time, exiting World, in 3…. 2…. 1….*
She felt her vision go black, as her surroundings quickly changed from being within an alleyway in Stonehead Town back to Princess Talia’s bedroom within the Kingdom of Alcaria.
Once again finding herself back at the familiar bedroom of the princess, she began thinking about what her next move should be.
She knew that she was running out of time at the moment, so she should aim to increase her combat strength as quickly as possible, and that would mean using the ‘Dawn of the Corrupted’ world to the fullest.
However, she also knew that she should aim to progress herself here also, and that would mean taking advantage of the resources that a Princess of a Kingdom should have.
Although she knew at the moment her standing wasn’t too great, she still had access to a great expert which she can use to train her skills daily, though despite there still being more she could set out to accomplish, at this moment in time she felt it was best to focus on this first.
For spells, and rewards that she gained from the ‘Dawn of the Corrupted’ world, she decided to practice and inspect them once she entered the game world, as she felt it was too much of a risk to do so here at the moment, maybe she would after the hidden danger was finally removed she would choose to do so openly, but now was not the time, so she decided to look into her gains from the quest she completed once she returned back to the game world.
*Knock, Knock!*
She was awoken out of her ruse after she heard the sudden banging on the door, knowing it was likely Kaelyn, she said, “Come in.”
Abruptly the door opened upon hearing her answer, and the figure of an energetic, adorable young lady appeared as she entered the room holding a tray filled with an assortment of dishes.
“Ah, your highness, I have brought into today's breakfast, as Sir Gregory said Miss required the nutrients to both support the recovery of her body, the Chefs within the Kitchen has specifically prepared a larger portion of food today,” Kaelyn responded with a bright smile, as she set upon the tray expertly in front of Talia handing her a knife and fork.
“Thank you Kaelyn, I would also like to mention that I am very great full for you caring for me in this past year whilst I suffered from that illness, dealing with people like Edward does not look easy so I am very thankful for your efforts despite this,” Talia said politely after she came to the realisation at how much pressure the young girl in front of her must have had to deal with in terms of returning to the palace daily despite people like Edward harassing her as a result of her no longer having the Princesses protection.
Kaelyn brushed a deep red in embarrassment from Talia’s words, as she said, “No thanks is necessary your highness, it is my duty to ensure that I set out to meet your needs as a servant under the Kingdom.”
“Well, I want to inform you on how appreciative I am of your efforts anyways.” Replied Talia, as she began munching into the food, her face scrunching up in pure bliss at the taste of the great food that she still hasn’t gotten quite used to.
She didn’t know why but you’d think a medieval world quality of food would be worse than her old world, well maybe this isn’t your classical middle-aged world with the magic and all, yet she was still impressed at how much better the food was from her experience so far.
Well, maybe it may be due to the fact that her diet wasn’t particularly the greatest beforehand, she can confess that the majority of her meals did consist of pot noodles as she wasn’t particularly a great cook, but she still had to admit it was better than the restaurants she been to.
Kaelyn on the other hand, seeing that the Princess had still retained the vigorous appetite from yesterday let out a smile of pure happiness that Talia’s good health has truly returned, as she had heard the gossip around the castle that this is only a temporary thing before the Princess once again returned back to normal.
Although Kaelyn has a mostly positive outlook on the princesses health returning, she still felt a bit worried that she would find the Princesses illness flaring up once again in the morning, but now she couldn’t be any more elated at the situation, causing her to suddenly remember what Sir Gregory told her to the inform the Princess.
“Oh yes, your highness, Sir Gregory has told me that he has planned a special training session for you today upon seeing that your physical health is very good,” Kaelyn mentioned, leading to Talia removing her face from the food for a moment.
“Special training session?” Talia wondered out loud.
“Oh, I’m not too sure what it is about either! But, I expect Sir Gregory will only provide things which are beneficial to the highness!” Kaelyn said assuringly, worried that Talia was feeling anxious about the training session.
“Mmm. That’s ok, I trust Sir Gregory to aid my development in the right way.” Talia said, trusting that an experienced man such as Sir Gregory would be able to gauge what level of training is suitable for her just by practising with her for a few hours.
At the same time, she wanted to know roughly how strong she was at the moment, so she could gauge what the power granted by the game world translates to this worlds strength levels.
So it would be best if she could experience something which would provide her with a better understanding of this.
Shortly, Talia soon finished the meal, in which Kaelyn removed the tray from her lap before leaving for a moment, only to return a while later, which led to Talia beginning a chat with her while waiting for Sir Gregory to arrive.
The conversation ended up leaving Talia with a nice feeling, as it was the first real interaction she had since coming to this World, although she talked to Sir Gregory briefly it was more punctual and strict, fitting the requirements of a personal trainer teaching his client rather than a closer exchange.
Talia felt she learnt a bit more about the young lady serving to her needs, because she hasn’t looked into the memories of the Princess fully yet, her understanding of Kaelyn was a bit lacking before, but it turned out that the young girl had seemingly known the Princess for a long period of time, and was, in fact, close friends with her before the incident.
They grew up together, and Kaelyn was, in fact, a minor noble, but when she found out that the Princess was being neglected in the Palace with the maids and servants serving the taking advantage of her absentmindedness to do a poor job of looking after her, she volunteered for the role instead after Sir Gregory was looking for a trusted person to replace the servants.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Many found the situation the idea of the lady of a noble family, no matter how much of low tier noble house she belonged to serving a practically crippled Princess preposterous, yet it still went ahead smoothly in the end as no one would dare to refute Sir Gregory, and at the same time Kaelyn was truly sincere in being the Princesses maid, so no one went out of their way to deny her in the end, even her family who instead thought it was rather an honourable act instead of an embarrassment as they were one of the few loyalist noble houses to the Royal Family remaining.
She found out some of this knowledge from sudden memories of the Princess which appeared during the conversation, allowing her to discover another way of integrating the memories of the Princess more efficiently.
Kaelyn, on the other hand through the conversation discovered that the Princess had greatly changed within a year, but she thought that it was mostly a good thing, as Talia now came across as more mature and independent than before.
Talia actually didn’t know that her personality was fairly similar to the previous Princess leading to Talia not even slightly considering the fact that there may be another person within the princesses body.
However, the pleasant conversation soon came to end when the figure of Sir Gregory emerged from the entrance of the room after he knocked to indicate his presence.
“Princess, I assume Kaelyn has informed you on what I have planned out for you today, so do you want to head there straight away?” Sir Gregory said bluntly upon entering the room.
Talia nodded straight away appreciating the straightforwardness of Sir Gregory who faces remained expressionless from beginning to end.
Sir Gregory turned to Kaelyn and said, “I’m not sure if this time it will be suitable for you to attend, so I will say straight away say that after reviewing the Princesses capabilities yesterday I believe that she is easily good enough to participate in a session with the guard trainees.”
A look of shock appeared on Kaelyn’s face after discovering Sir Gregory’s intentions, and she straight away replied, “Sir, is this truly appropriate though? The Princess has just recently recovered a few days ago…”
Kaelyn was about to continue but instantly recognised that she could be seen as overstepping her bounds as a maid because for a moment her concern for Talia outweighed this thought in her mind.
Sir Gregory responded curtly, “That might be so, but her capabilities both physically and her swordsmanship is already well above average for a trainee, so she will be fine.”
Talia smiled after hearing Sir Gregory's assessment of her ability, as if she was ‘well above average’ previously, then with her gain of four additional levels and the attribute points she gained from the destruction of the source orb, not to mention the increment in her skill level in swordsmanship, she wondered how she would fare among the trainees now.
In fact, Sir Gregory even understated Talia’s previous capabilities, as what he didn’t bother mentioning was that Talia was already fairly close to the strength of a Tier 1 Warrior through bodily strength alone, which would be considered extraordinary as Warriors mainly rely upon a form of cultivation which was expanding the essence channels within their body in order to break through a person limit which enables them to then store more essence within their body.
An individual will also require to constantly purify and refine the essence within their body as only when both the amount, purity of their essence to reach a certain standard can they then promote their rank from a Tier 1 Warrior to Tier 2.
And this continues all the way up to a Tier 9 Warrior.
To become a Tier 1 Warrior you would need to first open up your essence pool which requires both resources, talent and a good warrior cultivation technique.
The training of a Warrior's body was secondary, as it was viewed that no matter how strong your bodily strength was the limit of the human body would never be able to compete with the warrior cultivation system, additionally a benefit of also cultivating is also an increase in longevity which makes even more individuals focus on that path instead of increasing the strength of their physical bodies.
Although a Warrior's body is usually stronger than the average humans, their body strength is nowhere close to the strength of a Tier 1 Warrior with full use of their cultivation.
A mage cultivation system on the other hand completely different to a Warriors, as it is a much rarer degree of occupation due to not as many people having the talent of being a mage making it usually more valued.
Compared to a Warrior they also cultivate with the use of the essence in the surroundings yet they use a unique method which condenses the essence they absorb into something known as an ‘essence core’ as it requires not only more skill but a certain degree of talent which leads to far fewer people being eligible in becoming a Mage.
The difference between both cultivation systems though is that a Mage stores their essence in a core which expands to contain more essence, they similarly upgrade from a Tier 1 Mage to a Tier 9, nonetheless the way both classes use their essence is very different, a Mage uses their stored essence to form into spells whereas a Warrior uses their essence as a form of body reinforcement which increases their strength and defence greatly.
There is a third occupation known as Priests, but their cultivation system is a completely different one in many ways, as they are in fact awfully similar to the ‘Dawn of the Corrupted’ world Priests in that they use unique energy known as divine energy instead of the essence which naturally appears in the surroundings.
They again progress from a Tier 1 to Tier 9 Priest but the nature of their powers greatly differs from the other occupations.
A Tier 1 Warrior would already be considered an elite soldier in most Kingdoms, so it could already be seen how formidable Talia is according to Sir Gregory's previous assessment in comparison to a trainee, and that doesn’t account now to her current strength.
Kaelyn stared at Talia in amazement upon hearing Sir Gregory’s comment as from yesterday she knew that the Princess looked fairly competent for a girl who had been ill for the past year, but as a result of her being suppressed throughout she had underestimated the Princess not realising just how incredible she really was.
To Kaelyn already being above average for a trainee at Talia’s age indicated that she would be considered a top talent among Kingdom of Alcaria’s prospects, and that was whilst also having a severe illness for the past year.
“I’m alright, with watching if the Princess is good as you say she is, I believe she should be fine, it will also be inappropriate for me to be absent from the Princess as I will not be able to carry out my duties if so,” Kaelyn said firmly.
Sir Gregory nodded in response acknowledging Kaelyn statement thinking that he made the right the choice in pushing for her to be Talia’s maid despite the Governor's protests.
After all, he had already had a faint suspicion that the Governor may have had something to do with the Princesses abrupt decline in health, so he was wary of outsiders tending to the Princess, which is why he had thoroughly changed all of the servants attending her soon after her illness, including the cooks, guards and maids.
The only reason Edward had managed to enter previously was that he had taken advantage of an incident in the palace allowing him access to the Princesses chambers unknowingly.
Nevertheless, they now headed towards the training area following Sir Gregory’s lead.
Shortly, they had arrived outside the Palace after passing numerous groups of guards who stared at her inquisitively on her way through but didn’t make any moves in stopping them, only acknowledging Sir Gregory and her briefly.
Now, standing directly outside of a building which she presumed was a barracks of some sort, after a brief pause outside the building for Sir Gregory to inform the guards outside the intention of their visit, they quickly entered not before the guards stared at her with complete puzzlement as if wondering what they heard from Sir Gregory was correct.
Walking through the barracks, they had come across a room which was likely the training area.
She could already hear the clanging noises coming from swords and shields colliding with each, before entering Sir Gregory entered by himself firstly to announce their visit and intentions.
Not long after, she was indicated to enter the room by Sir Gregory and had quickly found herself entering a room which seemed like a low budget, but larger version of the training room in the palace that Sir Gregory had already taken her too.
Standing next to Sir Gregory was a stern-looking middle-aged man who stared at her straight away with an examining gaze as if he was trying to decipher how capable she was.
And filling up the rest of the room behind Sir Gregory and the middle-aged man was four rows of young-looking men between the ages of fourteen and thirty, each staring at her with a various mixture of expressions each wondering the purpose of her visit.
“Alright, I’m sure you boys are wondering why both Sir Gregory and the Princess has visited! Well, I’m here to tell you he has brought her here as he believes that she already has the better of you lot and that she will be competing with you today! NOW, are you going to tell me is he right or wrong?” The middle-aged man abruptly shouted.
Each of the young men now looked at her with a completely different look from before, each of them seems to radiate a look of determination and assertiveness as they thundered back, “No sir! He is wrong! He is wrong!”
A look of complete and utter surprise filled her face as she turned to Sir Gregory to see if he took any insult of being told he was wrong by the groups of young soldiers but that was when the middle-aged man stepped in and said, “If you're looking for your mentor to be annoyed girl, look away, we permit them to challenge us whether we are right or wrong depending on our judgement of their ability, we are not arrogant enough to believe that we are all-knowing. If they want to prove us wrong, they can openly say it, if they are right in the end they will be given a reward, and in the end, they become a better soldier which will serve the Kingdom better! On the other hand, if they ended up being incorrect, this is not bad either, most usually motivate themselves to come back stronger and emerge better from the experience, we promote ambition here, the only thing which we will not allow is harming our own comrades, a disagreement on an opinion, on the other hand, is not worth mentioning!”
Talia felt greatly impressed after hearing the middle-aged mans speech, in fact, she felt that this idea was very forward-thinking for the middle-aged setting of the world.
As she turned observe to Sir Gregory she did indeed found that his face still remained expressionless as always, and he did not even slightly react to the shout from the soldiers.
Turning around she met the eyes of the soldiers unblinkingly and said, “If you think I’m not good enough then bring it on, let’s begin this training session right away.”
Talia was never one to back down from a challenge, and she was ready to prove her worth straight away.