You have killed a Pseudo-Demigod as a Level 100.
This feat has never been done in the history of this world. Attempting to calculate rewards…
Failure, feat simply exceeds any potential rewards one may receive at Level 100.
Attempting to recalculate…Failure.
The System is requesting guidance from *#@*#(...
Guidance received and confirmed. Beginning calculation of rewards for Entity Alisha “The Fox Chef” Piper.
I ignored the messages from the System as I gazed at the body of Tessa, the remains of her heart within my hand. I stood there, calmly, remembering the voice that had rang out in my mind before I crushed her heart. A power beyond words could be felt from the heart, making me want to consume it to gain that power but I held back. The time wasn't right, I continued to look at her corpse, Alice standing next to me nervously.
After what felt like an eternity, it finally happened as the voice in my head had said it would. An overwhelming amount of energy, magic and Lunar magic erupted from Tessa's corpse, a massive pillar of magic reaching the heavens. I continued to stand there as the air trembled, her corpse expelling more and more magic.
Soon, the pillar started to slowly disappear and as it did a wave of pure mana surged towards her body, flooding it completely. I could see minute changes happening to her as a giant magic circle spread out below us.
I heard a gasp come from Tessa’s body which then twitched. I felt relief spread from my stomach knowing that it had worked. At that moment of hesitation, when I was about to let go of her heart, her voice rang out in my head. There is only one way to be released from being a Blessed of a Goddess. The Blessed had to die, and Tessa knew that.
"Alisha, my death will give me freedom. Please, release me."
Those words had rang in my mind. In my emotional state I had failed to sense the magic she had used to implant them into my mind. The flood of pure mana slowed down before stopping. Tessa slowly stood, her wounds completely healed but she looked pale and weak, far weaker than what she had once been, though it’s better than how she had been...much better than being dead.
Our eyes met as she smiled lightly, seemingly having trouble standing. She looked at my hand which still held the crushed heart before chuckling.
“A rather grim sight I suppose, seeing my heart in the hand of the one who killed me. It’s like a fairy tale I once heard. You can eat that when you want, I don’t know what kind of power you’ll obtain from it but it’ll surely do something.”
“Are you okay?” Concern filled my voice as I stepped close to her as she chuckled once more.
“Oh don’t worry about old me, Alisha. It’ll take a long time, but I’ll regain my strength. After all, a reset might be a good idea.”
“Reset?” Suddenly my mind clicked as I checked her Status.
Level 1 Human
Tessa
“Level 1?!”
“Did you think Resurrection Magic would come with no cost? Well, I didn’t exactly explain it in my little message. The cost is everything I had accumulated up to this point in life, after all I did die. The upside is that I will no longer be bound to Celestia and thus will never have to harm you. Compared to that fate, this price is little to pay.”
I felt dizzy, such a large price to pay. She’s weaker than the merchants in the camp!
“I-I-”
Tessa chuckles as she walks over, pulling Alice and I into a warm hug.
“Don’t apologise, Alisha. This is my choice. I’m free now. Though you have a new problem, Alisha.”
“W-what is that?”
Releasing us, Tessa grins as she points at herself. “You’ll have to put up with me. I’m weak now, I’ll need a strong person to protect me. Of course, only if you’re able, I won’t burden you.”
Realising what she meant, I took a moment to react before nodding slightly. “Of course…of course! Come with us, Tessa.”
“Then I will! This will be fun, levelling all over again! Maybe I’ll choose a new magic to pursue…ooo, I could try out Arcane Magic! No no, Time Magic, I have a lot of tomes from a treasury in one of my many bags! Oh, eat that heart now before that Captain wakes up.”
Looking at Tessa’s heart, I hesitated for a moment before bringing the heart filled with massive power to my mouth and eating it in one go. As it made its way down my stomach, I didn’t feel anything change for a moment, but suddenly the power from it surged through my body before arriving in my mana realm, and checking in there I saw a large moon in the sky, only that it had a golden hue to it. Nothing else had changed, nor had the System said anything. Telling Tessa, she smiled lightly.
“I see, well it’ll be a good thing. Have those mana spirits within your mana realm hatched yet?” I shake my head as Tessa nods. “As expected, they’ll hatch when you step onto your Path. It can take up to a decade before they hatch, but with the sheer amount of magic you hold your evolution will give them more than enough.”
I nod slowly as I take everything in that has just happened in the course of the last hour. From what I had thought to be just joining the merchants for a dinner turned into me killing Tessa who then resurrected into a Level 1 Human. I just gazed at her in wonder before realising our current situation. Tessa chuckled at the sight of me.
“I’ll go hide in your carriage. Explain the situation to him but don’t tell him about the Resurrection Magic, it is after all knowledge one would kill for. I’ll explain more once we’re safely inside. Don’t worry, I just knocked him out.”
Alice leads Tessa to the carriage, though she casts me one last glance before doing so. Watching her and Tessa walk off with a smile, I turn my attention to Roland as my smile fades. He had thrown himself in front of Alice and I without hesitation and refused to move when Tessa demanded him to do so. Thinking of our earlier discussion, it did seem he had meant what he said. Leaving him face down in the snow, I kept a lookout, thankfully he woke up after ten minutes.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
I explained what happened to him, but slightly twisted the truth by saying Tessa had wanted to test my resolve and had forsaken Celestia herself. Roland looked confused at those words but didn’t question the story. I knew he could tell I had left parts of the story out, but he didn’t try and force me to say everything. Leaving Roland who had gone over to calm the merchants, I glanced at the campsite before sighing and heading to the carriage.
Entering, I saw Tessa fawning over Alice, squeezing her cheeks while giggling, Alice looking lost on what to do.
“Ah, she’s so cute! You’ve grown so much since I last saw you!” I couldn’t help but smile at this scene, Tessa really did seem to be overflowing with joy, a stark difference to when she had first appeared.
“Tessa?” After Alice sent me a look like she wanted help, I sat on the bed next to Tessa. “What happened? I mean, with you appearing and that Resurrection Magic.”
“Ah! I should tell you.” Letting go of Alice, who nearly ran to me and sat on my lap, Tessa pondered for a moment.
“Where to start…I suppose I should explain where I’ve been recently. As I mentioned before, I travelled south of Vale and found the garden. It’s beautiful, beyond words. There is extremely powerful Lunar Magic there, enough for us Lunar Mages to bathe in and feel comfortable. I’ll show you where it is, you have to set up a Home there when you can Travel.”
“A Home? So I should build a house there?”
“Ah, I keep forgetting you have no idea about the outside world. Staying in Vale is all well and good, but you should travel the world, you know?”
“I’ll probably do that once I’ve stepped onto my Path. I’m withdrawing from the war in Vale, I plan to sign the agreement when I return.”
“Oh? Well, small stuff like wars won’t be of any concern with your potential anyway, you’ll have bigger things to worry about.”
I wonder what could be bigger than a war? Before I got lost in my thoughts, Tessa looked towards the kitchen portion of the carriage. I heard the cry of an empty stomach as a blush spread on her face.
“Could I get food first? Having my body lose everything it’s accumulated is rather taxing.”
Getting up and making a quick meal for Tessa, she talked while watching me work.
“So while I explored this beautiful place, Astraea appeared before me. This is about a week ago now, and she told me that I had to fulfil Celestia’s task. When you, Alisha, became an Eclipse-Class individual I was to hunt you down and kill you. Astraea never told me why, only ever saying that this is the duty I had to perform to Celestia and I must not fail Her.
“I didn’t know what to do. I made a promise a long time ago and I didn’t want another friend to die, much less at my own hands. That’s when I remembered the Resurrection Magic I had. An extremely powerful item, it can resurrect an individual, but it has to be consumed ahead of time and if not used within a day it won’t work anymore. The drawback is as you can see, my body has been completely reset, all of my previous evolutions gone, no magic or mana realms. I’m a blank canvas.” Tessa gives me a wink before chuckling.
“How did you find me?” I had been curious about this question, and Tessa obliged in answering it.
“Luck, for the most part. I had been Travelling back to Vale to find you, but the other day I sensed you, as well as a Delta-Class. I arrived shortly after it had finished but you were extremely wounded, so I decided to hide and wait till you had recovered. When you exited the carriage tonight, I saw you had mostly recovered and that’s when I decided to put on that act…sorry about that, I had some unresolved emotions about you. Before I lost everything, I wanted to be sure you had resolved yourself, but the moment you asked me to protect Alice I knew you had the resolve. Your eyes showed that.” Tessa looked at me with a faint smile as I handed her the food I had prepared.
“Oh? You can make food on this level? Even just casually?” The food I had given her would increase her Stats by 500, and while I felt worried giving her food like this, I knew she would know if she could handle it. “Well, a jump start sounds wonderful. I plan to stay at Level 1 for some time and build my foundation.”
“Tessa?”
“Call me Tess. You have that right.”
“Tess…do you know why Celestia told you to kill me?”
“Oh, you sound like you have it figured out! Alright, let's hear it, I want to know if my theory makes sense.”
“It’s to make me stronger…” Explaining everything to Tess while we ate, including about what happened in the Underworld Trial, Tessa’s frown continued to deepen.
“That’s…” For the first time since I’ve met her, Tessa had become completely speechless, her eyes swimming around as if searching her memories. “For Her to go to such lengths, but why? She’s already a God, she has command over the night sky as it is…”
“Not exactly. She has command over the moon, not the night sky itself.” Speaking up, I told Tessa about my revelation that led to merging my magic into Noctilucence. Tessa sunk into thought before slowly nodding as I told her about what happened to Melody, my mother.
“You’ve gone through a lot, haven’t you? Do you mind me hanging around you like this for a while? If not, I can always find my own way.”
Shaking my head, I looked at Tessa. “No. You’ve done so much to help me, let me help you now. I may also have a way to help you too…” Deciding to tell Tessa about the Dungeon Core, she became speechless for the second time, her mouth opening and closing before standing up, her half eaten meal completely forgotten about.
“Alisha.” Tessa sat down, gracefully as if her looking shocked didn’t just happen. “Don’t use that in Vale. And not for the belief that they don’t deserve it. That dungeon has too much potential to be stuck in a city. Oh right, we completely sidetracked about what a Home is, but this is perfect, you can set up that dungeon core there, it will help it immensely too.”
“I’m confused, Tessa. What’s a Home?”
“I’m explaining that, silly. You really do need more help learning the outside world.” Tessa sighs as she looks at me. “A Home is a point where you can Travel to, regardless of distance. You can only ever have one and there are rules to it, unique to your path. For example, my old Home had to be constantly within sight of the Moon. It made it rather difficult to find a suitable home. By setting a Home at a location, it means no matter where you go in this world, you can always return home, though it will mean you need to travel again.”
“So I still need to get to Black Grade.”
“Pff, Black Grade? Alisha, take the Sapphire Grade test once you’ve stepped onto your Path. Going through the normal route will only ever lead you to leadership, you’re not a leader you’re a fighter, don’t make the mistake of becoming a leader. It doesn’t suit you nor me.”
“Sapphire Grade test?” I knew about Sapphire Grade, the grade above Black Grade but could only be obtained by special means.
“Mm, what has Alexander been teaching you exactly?”
“Magic control, I can walk in the air now.”
“Sigh. Once I’ve recovered enough I’m going to sit you down and lecture you about this world, you truly don’t know anything. Alright, I don’t know the inner workings of the Guild, I never bothered joining but you’ve made the right choice in joining, they have a lot of power in this world and will be a good resource for you, like the teleport gates in cities, while owned by the respective cities can be accessed by those at Black or Sapphire Grade.
“About the test for Sapphire Grade, you need to have exceptional feats to even be eligible to take the test, and you’d have no problems with that. The Guild Master of the entire Guild will then assign you a task, this is the start of your test. I have no clue what the test includes, but if you are successful you will become one of the Sapphire Grades. Last I heard there were only three Sapphire Grades in the world, not even the Guild Master is one, it’s a test that has been passed down since ancient times. That’s all I really know.”
A bit surprised by all of this, I pondered for a while. Only three in the world? I don't know how big this world is, though there are a lot of people in Vale, and lots of Gold Grades. I didn’t exactly have an idea on what a lot of people looked like, but I knew if there were only three Sapphire Grades it meant becoming one is extremely difficult.
“You think it over, Alisha. It’s your choice at the end of the day, I’ll just tell you what you need to know. I have to rest, losing all of my strength isn’t easy. I may sleep for days on end, I’ll be relying on you to protect me and feed me in the brief moments I awaken. I need energy more than flavour, so don’t go overboard for my sake. Mind if I sleep in your bed?”
“Sure. I don’t need sleep unless I fight, we should be okay with Roland here.”
“Alisha, never assume your safety. I’ve just abandoned Celestia and I’m riding with you who also has abandoned Her. It’s extremely possible that Astraea will send a Demigod from the Sisterhood to hunt us down or a powerful monster might wander towards the convoy, don’t let your guard down.” Tessa looked at me with a very tired expression, as if she would fall asleep at any moment.
“Okay, I got it. Go and sleep, Tess.” Helping her to the bed, she thanked me before falling asleep before her head even reached the pillow. Looking at her, I still felt overwhelmed by everything that had happened earlier. The fact this incredibly strong person who had always supported me is now a weak Level 1 that is sleeping in my bed depending on me had left me feeling rather emotional, to the point where Alice had become affected. She too looked sad and giving her a stiff smile I sat down next to her while we both remained silent.
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