Krysta
Three months later, Krysta appeared in a large castle along with the other members of the Bronze Legion’s army. Having sent the skill to the army’s general—who her mom suspected was actually the summoner and not Brom Karendesh—she was now a commander, so the System gave her more information on the stage than would be given to a soldier.
Apparently, both armies would be given fortified castles during this stage, making it very difficult to attack each other, and the winner between the two would be whoever could take over the most of the surrounding land.
But Krysta didn’t care much about the stage and quickly looked for the suspected incubus she’d met in the Trial Tower. The aura of someone following the path of the Heavenly Spark was incredibly distinctive, so it should have been easy, but she wasn’t able to find him, even though she scanned everyone.
There was, however, someone very weird who was about the right size. He was sitting in a room using telekinesis and several crafting skills to create what looked to be extra law armors, and he himself was wearing one of the black armors with a full face mask and boots, seemingly the sole psyforce specialist of the army.
He didn’t give off any aura as she approached, however, let alone one with the traces of 36 Laws, and to all her abilities he felt completely like an ordinary mortal, nothing special about him at all.
She wanted to ask him a few questions, but she couldn’t as Sarra was there, bowing to him while holding another set of the black version of the law armor in her arms. “Thank you for the armor, sir. I won’t trouble you any more.”
The man nodded at her. Then he looked at Krysta, summoned another set of the black law armor from the spatial storage ring on his finger, and threw it at her.
The throw wasn’t hard, and Krysta managed to easily catch the armor, but then she felt the air near her pushing her and Sarra out the door and she didn’t fight against it. The door to the room, however, a large wooden thing nearly half a foot thick, then slammed in their faces.
“According to the soldiers I talked to, he goes by the name Crafter and he’s actually the most powerful person in the army,” Sarra explained as Krysta stood there in a daze. “He never talks, though, and if you annoy him one of his original team members will come and speak for him.”
“Huh.” Krysta didn’t really know what to say. She was pretty sure it was the same man given the skills she’d seen him use, but he felt so different.
“Ms. Lin’Talic.” The summoner had somehow appeared right in front of Sarra without Krysta even noticing. Sure, she hadn’t been paying attention, but that still implied a level of stealth skill extremely uncommon among E ranks. “Why don’t you go prove your skills by acting as a scout?”
Then, as Sarra ran off, she turned to Krysta. “Ms. La’Vordi, come with me to one of the castle’s secret chambers so we can have a talk.”
She started walking away, deeper into the castle, and Krysta, still holding onto her set of black armor, silently followed her. What had happened to the man to cause his aura to change so much? Was her mother wrong and the summoner had actually told her the truth, that he’d been experimented on?
As they walked deeper into the castle, the light of day no longer reached them and the summoner summoned out her nine-tailed fox light element spirit to illuminate their way. Then they entered into a room which looked like it was designed for small conferences, the main furniture a thick wooden table and a set of chairs which could seat twelve, and the summoner took a seat at one of the heads of the table, indicating Krysta to take the other.
“So, how much has your mother been able to guess?”
Krysta felt her heart start to beat faster as she put the armor down on another seat and sat next to the summoner. “Your name is Diana Alvaro?”
“That’s pretty easy to figure out.” The woman’s yin spirit appeared and shrunk down to the size of a normal snake, wrapping around her left arm. And her yang spirit also appeared in a small form, landing on top of her right shoulder. “Helen and Dioscuri aren’t exactly common spirits.”
The woman, Diana Alvaro, used her left hand to rub the head of her yang spirit and then turned back to Krysta. “Are you aware of my true appearance?”
“None of the appearances of anyone from Earth were part of the reports.”
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“Good.” Ms. Alvaro’s tone became a bit more friendly. “What else was she able to put together?”
“You just assume I wouldn’t be able to come up with anything on my own?” Krysta felt a bit insulted, even though the woman’s assumptions were correct.
“Yes.” The two spirits turned to look at her as well and Krysta felt uncomfortable. “Given your actions a decade ago, until I see otherwise, I’m not going to expect much from you.”
Krysta looked down at her hands, but then Ms. Alvaro said something that made her feel quite a bit better.
“Granted, when I was eighteen, I did some incredibly stupid things as well. So, I’m not going to hold it against you in the future.
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Krysta. But I do think you are a bit sheltered and ignorant as a result.”
Krysta looked up and took a deep breath. “My mother also thinks the man I met in the Trial Tower is your younger brother, which is why you’re angry with me.”
“Correct.” Ms. Alvaro nodded and her spirits both stopped staring.
“She also thinks he’s an incubus of some kind.”
“Incubus Emperor now, Incubus Prince when you first met, or at least variants thereof.”
Krysta didn’t know what to say, so she just decided to move on. “My mom also thinks you have a deal you want to make with her and, given she believes the Yin Yang Sage is behind you, she’s interested.”
“Good.” Ms. Alvaro’s voice became more business like. “According to what I’ve learned about the Alchemist of the Deep Woods, she hasn’t taken on apprentices in the past. But that seems to have changed after your birth, with you taking up the single free slot she can use on a descendant. And now she seems interested in using the first of her two main apprentice slots on Henrietta Vin.
“My master thinks it would be mutually beneficial were she to use her last apprentice slot to take in my little brother.”
“Oh.” Krysta hadn’t expected the conversation to take this turn, as she was used to people approaching her mother for pills, but not usually for much else. Still, she’d been training under her mother her entire life, so she wasn’t a stranger to negotiations. “Is there something he can offer that the child of a powerful force like Henrietta wouldn’t be able to?”
“Yes.” Ms. Alvaro seemed calm, but Krysta was able to sense a hint of pride from her aura. “Aalam currently has the Soul Prince skill and the Heavenly Spark Pure Soul racial ability.”
Krysta had no idea what those did, but she knew her mother would, so she didn’t ask. “Anything else?”
Ms. Alvaro shook her head. “That, along with the knowledge my brother’s current race has the requisite affinities to allow any Law to rise to the stage of a peak grade Law Pupa, should be enough.”
Krysta just stared for a second. Her race, bloodline, class, and even a uniqueness worked together to give her a high enough space element affinity that she could theoretically raise her space element Laws to the middle grade Law Scarab stage, but most Laws she wouldn’t even be able to raise past the Law Larva stage.
The biggest source of bottlenecks in the universe was from a cultivator’s affinities not being high enough to allow their Laws to advance to the stage and grade required for their class advancements—Krysta was pretty sure her own mother had this problem. Yet this Aalam Alvaro’s race at E rank, where the highest possible Law needed for class advancement was only a middle grade Law Pupa, would allow any of his Laws to rise two grades beyond that.
This was ridiculous.
Krysta was about to ask more questions, but then the castle started to shake slightly and Ms. Alvaro jumped out of her seat, though her aura was still calm.
“Put your armor on and meet me on the battlements.” With that she merged with both her yin and yang spirits, something Krysta hadn’t realized she could do, and quickly left.
Krysta then changed into the new armor as fast as she could, which somewhat disturbingly fit her perfectly, and opened up a spatial gate to step out onto the battlements as well.
There she saw Ms. Alvaro and who she assumed was her little brother looking out into the distance, along with the spearman and two other women wearing black armor as well, both also with full face masks and boots.
They were looking at a crater about as far away as Krysta would have suspected the other force’s castle to be, and the auras of the spearman and the two women showed shock.
“What happened?” Brom Karendesh and another coran walked up and Brom spoke to Ms. Alvaro, who quickly turned toward him and bowed slightly.
“Sir, Crafter had a design he wanted to try out but didn’t feel comfortable creating in the real world, so he decided to attempt it in the War of the Chosen.”
Brom just looked at her for a second. Then, slowly, he asked, “So, he’s been making a bomb capable of taking out an entire army behind incredibly powerful fortifications while within our camp? And he wasn’t completely sure of the design?”
“Yes, sir.” Ms. Alvaro bowed again. “My apologies, sir.”
General Brom looked out at the completely destroyed mountain where the other force’s castle had been, taking about twelve seconds. Then, when his aura was completely under control again, he just turned and walked away, the other coran following him.
When he had left, Ms. Alvaro walked over to Krysta, lifted Krysta’s hand with one of hers, and then slipped a ring onto one of her exposed fingers, Krysta’s gloves and helmet both hanging from her belt.
“Everything we talked about is a secret, I hope you understand. While we wouldn’t be able to do anything to your mother in the short term were you to expose our secrets, you wouldn’t live unless you spent all your time hiding by her side.” Ms. Alvaro then patted her on the shoulder. “We look forward to working with you, Krysta. Don’t let us down.”
Krysta just stood there as Ms. Alvaro, her brother, and the three others left, taking a second to look at the telepathic ring on her finger which would allow her to talk to Ms. Alvaro whenever she wished.
Given the defensive power of their own castle, it would have taken the power of a mid level C rank’s fully charged attack to do as much damage as they’d just seen. So, unless they had some way of getting a weaker bomb into a fortified and defended castle within minutes of the stage starting, which would be almost as scary, it meant the E rank Aalam Alvaro had the ability to effectively craft talismans with C rank power, which was utterly terrifying.