“Okay, okay, don’t worry. I made a promise, so I will keep it,” Elysian stated before going into another monologue again. “As a son of Ironspire…”

“Shut up!” Everyone said it in unison, as if they had practiced it to perfection. This made everyone listening laugh as they started to see the new side of the boy, far different from his usual tyrannical and pompous self that was in the making of a despotic ruler.

“By the way, why did you all look so fierce earlier?” Elysian asked curiously as he looked around at the soldiers who avoided his eyes, not wanting to answer his inquiry. Instead of being deterred by the response he got, it made him want to know more, so he shifted his eyes to Hugo. “Captain? Is there a problem?”

Hugo looked at his men for a moment before sighing in resignation. “You already know we are at war, right?”

“Of course, that’s the reason why my father and brother are not here. They are currently fighting against Eldoran.”

The officer nodded and said, “Because of the war, most of the soldiers are with the Baron. This has just left around two hundred men in the barony. In most cases, this number is enough, but we’re not like other places. We are Ironspire, where our borders touch the most wild and dangerous places in the whole of Thorin.”

“What Hugo is saying is that our forces are stretched thin,” Lucas suddenly said, joining the discussion. “You’ve been here before, so I think you’ve noticed that most soldiers here are very young and are new recruits.”

‘So that is the reason why I mostly saw the young soldiers training here. Now, I understand.’

“Yes,” Elysian said, nodding his head.

“Because of the few available soldiers, my men and I, including the other units, have been in the field far longer than normal. Protecting such dangerous areas plus burnout causes the damned deaths of many fine lads,” Hugo muttered as he gritted his teeth, staring at the ground and trying to control his anger.

Elysian immediately noticed that the atmosphere of the place had turned very heavy. Not only was the captain affected, but even his men were visibly upset.

“After we got here, we thought that we finally had our break, lick our wounds and spend time with our families,” Hugo continued, shaking his head. “But no. We were told to prepare, and that we should expect some fighting in the city.”

“Fighting?” Elysian muttered, confused by his statement. “What do you mean by fighting? Are we going to be invaded by another barony? That’s impossible.”

“We wish,” Lucas responded, snorting at the idea of an invasion by the other nobles. “The soldiers from Highbury and Alderwick are nothing but decorations. Well, Wildmere might cause some problems, but most of their men were also sent to the war. The only ones left there are only enough to defend their border against the beasts from Grimwold.”

“If not the other baronies, then who has the power to threaten us?”

“I know you’ve just woken up, but I believe you’ve been told what happened to the Crimson Talon?“

‘Sh*t! Now, I understand. F*ck, f*ck, f*ck! I’m the cause of all this.’

----------------------------------------

After talking with the brazen captain and feeling apologetic about what’s happening, Elysian went to his father’s training hall—the one he used before. There, he meditated immediately, trying to recover while his two companions, Brand and Osric, were out, doing their daily workouts and training. He was originally joining them, but with the unexpected fight, he more than fulfilled his daily quota. What he needed now was to rest and recover.

‘It’s painful, but it seems the injury is just minor. Luckily, that b*stard controlled his power; otherwise, I’ll be in trouble.

Tsk, this is why a head-on fight with other cultivators is very dangerous. More so, when they have higher cultivation than you, or even at the same stage. They might have some unexpected abilities that will turn your plans into sh*t. In this case, I was able to perfectly evade his attack, but it seems the range of the waves he created was longer than I expected. This is my fault; I miscalculated. That is why information and knowledge about your opponent are key, though they will not guarantee victory.

I’m curious though, why didn’t I feel his force hitting my body earlier? If I remember correctly, he did say that his ability wasn’t affecting me, so he greatly increased the force of his attacks.

Hmm… Wait, didn’t the Shroud of Tenebris give me a passive ability?’

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‘Yeah, it seems I now understand what happened. His earlier attacks were likely prevented by the Veil of Tenebris. However, when he greatly increased the force behind it, his ability overcame the Veil, which acts as a shield, protecting me. When the Veil failed, his attacks hit me like a hammer.

This is a good reason why I needed to know more about how my abilities work. The Veil did protect me, but it also left me clueless that I was being attacked already. Before I knew it, I was hit by a force that made me unable to move.

Without a doubt, I really f*ck up today. If this had been a real fight, I might have died today. Sigh.’

Being a mental cultivator, Elysian’s recovery was much slower than those who chose qi as their core. Though that might be the case, his recovery was still a lot faster than that of a normal human. With the help of meditation he learned from the east, he was able to recover faster, as if he hadn’t been injured. However, it greatly helped that it was just a minor injury.

As he continued to inspect the state of his body, Elysian’s eyes widened in surprise.

‘Did I just increase my cultivation level?

Yeah, it seems so. Not only that, I also skipped a level. It seems I’m now a Novice level 3 cultivator, or what the East calls an Initiate.

Isn’t it too fast? It hasn’t been a month since I returned. In my previous life, my cultivation was an unending struggle. I needed to constantly push myself to the limit just to earn a level. Now, I’ve leveled up two times easily.

Hmm… Easy? Now that I think of it, it was fast but not easy. I’ve faced monsters from Jareth to BloodShade just to earn these levels. If I had faced the same situation in the past, I would surely have died. Well, I wouldn’t have done what I did but would have just whined to my uncle.’

Standing up, Elysian suddenly released a few punches before adding a variety of kicks. “That felt good. Hmm… about twenty percent from before?” he muttered before testing his body again by executing some attacking maneuvers. “Yeah, twenty percent.” Satisfied with his advancement, he pondered for a moment and softly said, “I can now open some extra nodes. From my previous level, I opened three already. This means that I can open at least three more for each level, which would equal nine. With three levels, the likelihood that I can open more is about seventy percent. If I'm right, I believe I can open ten in total. That will be enough to form the cheapest ability.”

‘Hmm… Will I use it now or wait until I have more nodes? From my previous life, I did learn a lot of abilities that are quite good, but most of the really useful ones needed more nodes to create.

Hmm… I'd rather wait for now. An ability embedded in nodes is permanent. I shouldn’t make a decision without considering it carefully. This isn’t the past where I needed anything I could get to increase my chances of survival. Also, with the many new abilities I just got, I think it’s better to wait.’

“That’s decided, then,” Elysian muttered as he stretched his arms and legs in preparation for his training. “How do I summon the knife? Tsk, I forgot to ask BloodShade,” he muttered to himself. Suddenly, the serpent tattoo on his wrist moved to his hand, coiling together to form BloodShade. To his surprise, what appeared had changed considerably. The boy brought the knife closer to him as he inspected it carefully. “This looks beautiful and…and dangerous.”

Long gone were the rust and holes that riddled the whole blade. It now looked new, as if it had just been bought from some well-known smithy. Aside from looking brand new, the appearance of the knife had completely changed, as if it were a different weapon. Instead of an ordinary knife one could buy from some expensive shops, it now looked like a true legendary artifact—a quality so pristine that it should fit perfectly in the treasure vaults of any king.

The most notable change was the handle of the knife. Now, the twin serpents coiled together to form the grip of the weapon before separating apart, each head on each side of the knife. They stared sinisterly forward as if to strike at any unsuspecting enemy. Though the blade itself looked like any other without designs or carvings, the color of the metal was black as midnight before gradually turning to crimson at its edge. Without a doubt, everyone who looked at it would know immediately that this was a weapon forged with only one purpose—to take a life.

Elysian’s lips slowly curved upward into a grin as he admired the weapon.

‘I can’t believe that I finally have a Soulforged weapon. True, I have Eye, but it looks like I’m not truly its owner. This is different; however, this legendary artifact is truly mine. Mine. Damn, I can’t believe I truly own one.’

Elysian suddenly willed the artifact to vanish, and just as he wanted, the knife uncoiled and slithered back to his wrist, forming into a tattoo again. “Great. Now, let’s try to summon it again,” he said, willing it to appear, but nothing happened. “Hmm… What did I do before? Let’s see…. BloodShade,” he muttered the name of the weapon before willing it into existence. Just like that, the knife reformed again.

As Elysian continued to test and practice summoning the artifact, he learned how to summon and make it disappear again. It seemed that he didn’t need to say BloodShade’s name aloud; thinking of its name as he willed it into existence was enough.

As he continued his practice, Elysian noticed that he could now summon and unsummon the artifact much faster, as if it were appearing magically out of thin air. “Good, this is very good. BloodShade told me that our souls are connected. If this is true, I’m curious if this will work,” he said as he put the knife on the ground before walking a few meters away from it. He then unsummoned the weapon. Like before, the artifact uncoiled, turning into an inky shadow as it slithered along the floor, climbing up his legs before returning to his wrist. “Sh*t, it works! Damn, this is going to be useful.”

Elysian tried it again with a greater distance this time. Just like before, the artifact returned to him. As he continued testing with even greater space, he discovered that distance didn’t seem to matter. However, he wasn’t sure about that since he could only test the maximum length the training hall could offer. After he was done with that, he then tested placing some objects or obstacles in the way before recalling the knife. The artifact returned without any problem as it easily slipped through any tiny openings.

“It seems the distance and obstacles don’t matter, and it always chooses the shortest route to me,” Elysian softly muttered, pondering the results of his test as he considered how he was going to effectively use these new findings. “Well, not really the shortest route, since it always chooses to pass through the ground. Can’t it fly directly to me?”

Elysian started another experiment as he tried to get the artifact to fly to him, but no matter what he did, it always slid along the floor towards his legs. As he continued his test, he failed each time, to the point that he became so frustrated that he thought it couldn’t be done.

“Why not practice with my new abilities first before I try this again,” the young noble said, sighing in frustration.