Chapter Thirteen
The First Bad Omen
The Lion’s Palace was designed like a hotel, crafted from deep red, bloodwood and painted in dark black. Its pathways were peculiar, like a labyrinth of wood, with interlocking doors and rooms scattered along long corridors.
Although it was a strange design for a house to be looking like a maze, Sero understood that it was not made for the pathless who can simply walk to their rooms, but for mages.
A lot of mages had movement shards that allowed them to climb walls or jump high, so the Anira palace was made to encourage them to use such ways in their daily lives, following their beliefs of the world and mana.
"According to the key number, this should be my room," muttered Sero as he opened the door. It wasn't much different from a modest inn room, except that the window offered a broader view of the village compared to the inn’s window.
Sero slowly poked his head out the window and took a deep breath, then exhaled sharply as if releasing all his exhaustion from his body.
He had exerted a lot of effort in a short time, and his spirit was tired when he was revived. On top of that, he had to constantly absorb mana, and even with his low talent, he tried to refine his first shard.
Despite all this, he had to devise a plan to gain a glance from the clan. Although he had suppressed himself from openly rebelling against the laws, he wouldn't have dared to do so in the first place.
"I have no other plans until I get a shard suitable for combat. I don’t think they give those to students in their early stages, which means I have to buy what I need from the market. So, most of my needs will be training this worn-out body to become more resilient," Sero muttered in a tired voice, then withdrew his head and went to sleep.
……
Through the dark clouds of the summer shines sun rays that fell on the Geist village, although not enough to light up the village it was a joy to look at. One of these rays fell on the window of the temple and illuminated the place, showing the faces of the three clan elders as they gathered for a small meeting.
"Any developments among your students?" Annalise spoke softly as she sipped a cup of sweet red tea that filled the place with its aroma.
"The Hervolt family is progressing well! My sons refined their shards in five days! This generation seems very promising," Elder Shiasu laughed harshly as if secretly boasting about his sons, but it was clear as the light of the day to both Annalise and Nyoska.
"Don’t flatter yourself, you foolish monkey! My daughter refined hers in three days!" Nyoska immediately retorted, her cheeks puffed out. She had no intention of letting Elder Shiasu boast over her, even about his children.
"Both of you have strong descendants. Although I don’t have any notable talents in my family, that has changed. One of the orphans from the Geist family showed exceptional talent and managed to refine her shard in just two days," Annalise said coldly.
"Are you referring to Risa Geist?" Nioska asked without thinking, drawing surprised looks from Shiasu while making Annalise's eyes flicker a bit.
"Surprised that you remember the names of the rats. Have you had your eyes on them before?" Shiasu responded indifferently as he poured another cup of tea for himself.
But his words hit the mark. Nyoska had read the complete record of Sero and Risa’s family, but unlike what Shiasu thought, it wasn’t Risa she was after, but Sero.
"His twin sister refined hers in two days while he did it in one? But her talent is six candles, so that makes sense. The fact that they are related is still strange. It seems she inherited the magical power while he inherited the wisdom," Nioska pondered deeply. As for Annalise, she felt that Nyoska was going after Risa, yet she didn't have enough pieces of information to confirm it and simply buried it deep within her as a gut feeling.
Twins were a rare occurrence among the clans, and their presence in a family was seen as fate dividing its blessings between two newborns.
Usually, the family would choose the more talented twin to invest resources in, while the other lived in their sibling’s shadow. Thus, the less talented twin had to find their own way, using their desire to compete with their sibling as motivation.
In the case of Dread and Drada Hervolt, the brothers were equally talented, and they were fortunate enough to belong to a wealthy family that could provide resources to nurture both.
As for Risa, she was considered the more deserving of the twins for clan support. To bring her into the Geist family, they used the excuse of having information about her parents, and naturally, a naive child like her fell for the trick.
Sero, on the other hand, was merely a one-candle talent. His abilities weren’t enough to attract the Geist family’s attention after they took in his sister. It was even more impossible for him to draw the Hervolt family’s attention, who were the strongest among the rising generation, due to his weakness.
His choice of the Anira family wasn’t out of desire, but it wasn’t even a choice! He was forced into it, or he would have faced a fate worse than the trial punishment.
If he had chosen the Geist family like his sister, he would have had an easier time, but his skills would have been attributed entirely to his sister, and she would have gained the attention he deserved. In fact, even her talent was thanks to him, but who cares about the one who deserves credit in a world ruled by power?
What the Dark Waters Immortal realized after the awakening ceremony was that mana absorption didn't depend on the soul but on the body. It was like filling a bottle with water; the larger the opening, the faster the bottle filled.
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In this case, Risa’s opening was like a ping pong ball, while Sero’s was like a pinhead, hence his body didn’t absorb mana abundantly.
Natural absorption was something mages did unconsciously, and as if it was a price for the Dark Waters Immortal second life, he couldn’t perform the simplest mage skills.
Fortunately, mana stones were perfect for such cases, and as long as he had enough of them, he wouldn’t care about his current mana absorption problem.
"Haah, a week has passed since the awakening ceremony, and I’m confident we have taught the students enough to let them walk their own paths," Shiasu laughed.
"Our mutual decision was to teach them refining using a simple shard in their first week, then leave the responsibility to the professors for teaching at the academy. But I have another idea: what if we expel those who couldn’t refine their shards from the clan?" Annalise spoke with a fervent tone, leaving a fierce impression on both Shiasu and Nyoska.
Unlike them, Annalise didn’t have any respectable talents in her family except for Risa, making her family the weakest among the three families. Her words were a kind of attempt to assert dominance over the other two families.
"I completely reject that! Not only are we wasting valuable human resources by expelling them from the clan, but we also lose the chance to use them as pawns against the Ryokin clan!" Nyoska spoke sharply, as if defending the weak talents, something that surprised both Shiasu and Annalise.
"The ruthless venomous snake feels pity for the untalented?! Are my ears deceiving me?! Ha-ha-ha, who would have thought I’d live to see this day! I’m not drunk, am I?" Shiasu laughed loudly, and even Analis stifled a laugh.
Nyoska was known for her captivating beauty among the clans allied with the Geist clan, but that was nothing compared to her title in battles. She was known as the Venomous Snake of the Lan Grasslands because of her unusually long fangs and the shape of her pupils, which became sharp when she felt excitement.
But the biggest reason for that title was her lack of mercy towards the weak. Among the three elders, she had the highest kill count in clan battles in the history of the Lan
Grasslands, so hearing such words from her was like a serial killer and world criminal talking about peace and love.
Not only was it madness, but also a likelihood of her having a significant reason for saying that.
That reason was Sero.
He was a weak talent, but he managed to gain the attention of the Anira family’s elder, something only a few mages in past generations had done, all of whom had high talents or connections with the family’s high-ups.
Sero was the first to gain her attention solely through cunning planning, and he was the first among all the students to refine his shard. However, Nyoska didn’t want to boast about him just yet.
He was an orphan but still from the Geist clan, and she feared that Analis might try to secretly bring him into her family using his sister and his mother’s past as leverage, something Nyoska couldn’t fight for two reasons.
The first was that she didn’t have anything to attract him to her family. She was rather surprised by his choice of the Anira family. She didn’t know his reason for choosing, but it certainly showed that he was an important resource for the family.
The second was that if they found out about him, they would try to recruit him using underhanded methods, citing his one-candle talent. Not only would that eliminate any chance of conflict, but it would also put Nioska in an embarrassing position since she would be defending and trying to keep him within her family, and the other elders would then guess he was an important resource, increasing their desire to obtain him.
All these thoughts tangled in Nyoska's mind. The battle for clan control was a major obsession for all three, and now she had to be careful to keep Sero as a trump card.
It was as if Sero was an important pawn not to be sacrificed but to be used to its fullest potential, but she was playing against three cunning elders known for their devilish ideas, pretending to reconcile, and even Nyoska herself wasn’t entirely innocent. In the end, she exhaled deeply, regaining her composure and poise.
"Alright, enough talk about the youngsters; they are still unaccustomed to this harsh world. Any news about the Ryokin clan’s movements?" Annalise asked seriously.
"On that, I have good and bad news. The good news is that they haven’t made any moves yet. The bad news is that our spies picked up information about their new rising star named Kamisori. It seems he is an Abomination," Shiasu's voice pierced through the room, laden with such tension that it stabbed at the hearts of both Annalise and Nyoska.
Annalise felt a burning urge to smash something, but out of respect, she suppressed it. Meanwhile, Nyoska's pupils contracted to a fearsome degree, becoming as sharp as a serpent's, revealing an intense desire to kill.
The world was just, and for every good thing, something bad would happen under the justice of the world, earth, and sky.
For every Rin, the world created an abomination among beings, the sky conjured a great natural disaster, and the earth birthed an ancient beast.
There were nine Rins, and thus nine abominations, nine natural disasters, and nine ancient monsters.
Those who did not use mana were considered pathless; those who used and understood it were considered mages, and those who became one with mana were considered abominations.
An abomination not only possessed high talents, surpassing six candles and a terrifying mana absorption rate, but their magic realm was immense, ten times larger than that of others on the same path. Moreover, they were born with the power of the world imbued in them as if they were living breathing shards, able to wield it with their soul alone, without needing mana.
"Is this what we were missing? Which abomination is this wretch? Was it the Adapting one? Or the True Immortal? Legends spoke of nine of them, and are all recorded by our ancestors, so we have prior knowledge of their threat, but he can be any of them," Nyoska muttered in frustration.
"I haven't confirmed that information yet, but we now know about their trump card. Also, in the northern western plains of Lan, especially between our village and the village of Asghan, something strange was discovered in some of the hunted animals," Shiasu muttered gruffly.
"Continue," Annalise replied.
"Black worms were found inside the meat of those animals, likely some kind of parasite. I didn't think it was important, but just to be safe, I passed on the information since many animals, both herbivores and carnivores, were afflicted," Shiasu sighed slowly.
The atmosphere in the hall was stifling, not just because their enemy had an abomination, but also because they lacked good talents to fight against them, and now there was a parasitic plague on top of it.
In short, the mood was grim.
"But not all news is dire. We received word from the Vyre and Ying Tao clans in the eastern region of Lan. Both clans had a fruitful year in their harvests and commercial activities and decided to send trading caravans to their allies. According to their estimates, they will arrive next week," with these words, Shiasu shifted the gloomy atmosphere to a slightly brighter one.
After all, trading caravans was one of the ways those with weak talents could change their fate.