CHAPTER 40: DEMON STATUS

After exploring Floramere Keep (secretly), the time passed to the evening where they were set to depart using a skyship. Myrin had only briefly explained what it even was—he just knew it was some sort of contraption that could fly. His expectations, however, were blown away instantly when he first saw it.

Soren had no proper way to describe it. It looked to be a hybrid between a wooden mast ship and a blimp. Except, its body was shaped like that of a whale. The wooden deck was apparently made from Spirit Blossom Willow wood, allowing it to conduct the mysterious energy that originates at the heart of the tree’s roots. It needed this energy for the countless spellforms flowing in and out of its colossal form.

A true marvel of magitech engineering.

Aside from its unusual shape, Soren’s gaze was attracted to the large balloon-shaped blimp envelope above the deck. It was made of a see-through filament of some kind and dyed in a shade of cyan. At first, he assumed it was being used for lifting the skyship in the air, however, that turned out not to be the case. It served a much more fascinating purpose: absorbing the strange energy from the Dragon Vein. A strange energy Yadrians called ‘Aether’.

Its bottle shaped design allowed it to store more of this energy, and the filament that made up its body was supposedly created through processing the leaves from the Spirit Blossom Willow. On the center of the ship’s deck, a single tree rose up—its branches slithered like snakes, wrapping around the see-through envelope. Soren theorized that aside from just acting as a support beam to hold the envelope together, it also had the purpose of siphoning the Aether it had gathered to power the spellforms etched across the wooden planks he stepped on. The entire deck was covered in runic symbols.

The skyship was docked next to a stone platform that extended out from Floramere Keep. Soren could feel the wind hitting him—looking down at the tiny buildings sprawled beneath him was one quick way to disorient himself. He’d never been that fond of heights.

Still, regardless of the fear, it was exciting.

“Hahaha, did you overwork your feet or something? They are shaking.” A jolly voice entered his ears—Myrin.

Soren rolled his eyes, “aren’t you the one that freaked out over a roach crawling on your nose while we were camping out in Point Sylvia?”

He coughed, “let’s not mention the past.”

Soren ignored him. It was still an hour too early for them to depart—he had come to the ship to explore for a bit. He glanced at Myrin and smiled. “I guess you’re going to miss this place after all?”

“Are you kidding me?” He sighed. “If I had 20 Imra for every noble that has invited me to their home in the past two hours, I’d have wealth comparable to the royal family.”

Soren chuckled. After his performance in the Royal Yasini Ball, his popularity exploded. Even those in the Luvin faction who heavily opposed his presence couldn’t help but be enamored by his music. A few of them tried to indirectly approach him for a performance through other households—even with their supposed dignity on the line, they couldn’t resist themselves. Saintess Sylia’s plan had worked very well.

“At least this means you’ll have more opportunities here in Yadria. You should give thanks to the holy Saintess for this, Mr. Prince.” Soren didn’t fully know about his situation—all he knew was that his unblessed status caused him a lot of scorn. Soren had always suspected that Myrin had some sort of noble lineage. It was only after making it to Yadria and learning about the Zinrie Royal Family did everything click into place for him. Unlike other unblessed who were subject to countless injustices, Myrin’s status as a royal countered his status as an unblessed. It spared him from the cruel fate everyone else had to go through.

Though, that was merely a single positive in a sea of negatives. In the end, his family found him to be a disgrace to their name—he had faced countless assassination plots throughout his childhood. Only through the protection of his aunt did he make it into his early teens. But even that didn’t stop his life from taking the worst possible turn—excommunication.

The Saintess of Blossoms ordered his exile out of the sacred forest to preserve the dignity of the royal family. For him to return to Yadria now and manage to convince many to his side through just a single performance amazed Soren.

Myrin chuckled. “Prince of dancing apes, perhaps. I'm just a glorified performer to them.

“Still, you are not wrong about it being a blessing in disguise… This will prove helpful in our next set of negotiations. That is if Luvin doesn’t set us up again…”

Soren sighed, “that bas—, that man always has something in store, for sure.” Even after everything, he still needed to watch what he says—who knows where the Court of Nightshade was currently. They could be listening into their conversation.

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It had to be noted that even after Soren and the others proved their innocence before not only the nobility, but also the Matron of Faith Herself, Luvin had still tried to make life hard for them. He first ordered the maids to assign them rooms that had not been cleaned, and when that didn’t work, he resorted to trying to make excuses for why the skyship couldn’t be used. If not for Myrin’s new found status amongst the nobles, it would have been hard for them to find a pilot that would take them toward their destination. After all, offending a saint was akin to ruining your entire life—not many were willing to take that risk.

It was obvious to Soren that Luvin’s behavior was highly suspicious. It didn’t make sense to him why he would target them this heavily. Yes, he and Tina were humans and Myrin was an exile unblessed. Their entire group consisted of undesirable people. People Luvin found despicable. But that still didn’t justify some of his actions. It was as if he was trying to make it as hard for them to move in Yadria as possible.

Myrin had also noticed these oddities, but due to them still being in Floramere Keep, they couldn’t speak about the situation just yet.

Soren said goodbye to Myrin and headed for his room in the cabin. He wanted to settle in before their departure. But aside from that, there was something he wanted to test.

Ever since his conversation with the demon, something continued to bother him. It was the last words the demon had said to him before his astral projection was whisked away, back to its mortal shell.

“Though if you ever change your mind…”

What did the demon mean by that? Soren had assumed that the entire thing was a test, was it not? Why would he change his mind on the contract?

It only then occurred to him. Even if they had intended for it to be a test of faith, Soren had truly confronted a real demon. The Subterranean Shunning Grounds, as Myrin called it, was a sealed area filled with powerful demons kept there since the War of Swords of the Third Age of Fantasia. Demons who most definitely desire to escape their confines.

Though, he did doubt the demon’s claims that simply signing a contract with it would allow it to escape its bindings. If that was the case, they would not have let him take the test—it would have posed a risk for them if Soren had chosen to accept the deal. The process to allow the demon free was most certainly more complex than that.

And yet, that demon was certain it would be as simple as Soren changing his mind. That puzzled him.

Am I missing something? He glanced over at his Soul Weapon which was sitting on the bed next to him. A simple idea struck him—one he had no proof of.

Soren commanded his Soul Weapon to awaken. Responding to his thoughts, The Records sprung to life—it levitated next to him, surrounded in a thick layer of golden aura. The pages flickered slowly like enchanted flames. Soren then ordered it to show him information about the demon. At that time, his Soul Weapon wasn’t near him, so he didn’t have the opportunity to use it—the likelihood for his book to have anything on the subject was very low. But for whatever reason, his gut feeling was telling him to test it.

And within an instant, the pages shifted to what he desired to know most. He expected the page to be blank, but surprisingly it was anything but that.

Status

Name: Tazzith

Race: Knowledge Demon

Age: 10,000+

Spirit Body: Blood of Taboo Wisdom (Unique) (Tier Unknown)

Affinities: Knowledge Granting, Affliction, Wards, Mimicry, All-Seeing

Skills: ???

Titles: ???

Rune Collection: ???

Soren was speechless. My Soul Weapon can do this?! It should have been obvious to him—if he could have his own status page, why wouldn’t he be able to [Record] ones for other people as well? He planned on trying it later on Tina and Myrin.

Aside from that, he was much more curious about how he had obtained this information. The Records wasn’t with him when was held in that cell. There was no way he could have used [Record] on anything, let alone even see the demon using [Eyes of the Fairy]—which in retrospect, he was thankful for. If he had gazed into that demon using the Beyond, Soren wasn’t sure what would have happened to him. Judging by the age shown on the status sheet, he was most certainly powerful. Possibly comparable to the Saintess in strength, if not stronger.

He theorized that maybe his ability to passively record information had kicked in, but that also didn’t really make any sense. That portion of his ability only activated for knowledge he himself already knew—like the ability to play chess or speak english. The knowledge he was staring at right now were things he never knew before. And yet… It felt as if he had already known that information from the very beginning.

It was only after Soren had glanced at the demon called Tazzith’s affinities, that things somewhat made sense.

Knowledge Granting.

He didn’t know what exactly that entailed, but it definitely hinted at a way to transfer information into someone.

It terrified him. The fact that he was injected with something he had not even consented to and had no awareness of was worrying. If he had implanted me with other more dangerous information… Soren shook his head. There was no time to think about scenarios. Now that he had experienced this once, he needed to make sure he could guard against it in the future. Hopefully my conversations with their mistress will help me figure out my place in this world…

Suddenly, his eyes caught something beneath the faintly printed status sheet. More words he had not noticed earlier. An event log.

Event Log

New Message Received: [Title: Contract?] (Author: Tazzith)