Snorting, Ren ignored Asher’s blatant contempt. Besides, he had nothing to prove to the aggrieved Nobleman. The more time he spent in his presence, the more Ren realized how much of a sore loser he truly was. Throughout his centuries of sentience, Ren had encountered humans like this before. And every single time, he had been unable to grasp why natural evolution allowed them to exist.
Spending a few seconds on each page, he flipped over to the next, his irises not missing a single detail. At first,everything was a combination of weird shapes, illustrations and squiggly lines. Undeterred, Ren continued to categorize and store the unique symbols, building a robust repository for his data model to crunch on.
Ten minutes later, he had flipped through all the pages of the tome having identified about ninety unique characters of the ancient alphabet. Without much fanfare, he started flipping through the pages again, starting from the first page. Having separated the unique characters of the ancient language from the encryption the Wavegazer clan had added to the tome’s pages, he began making sense of the secrets they had already unearthed about the languages syntax, preposition and overall structure.
He was impressed to find within the tomes pages, a partially constructed ‘Rosetta Stone’, something that mapped the lost language of the Frangemented Realm, to modern language. A frown soon formed on his face as he realized that the Rosetta Stone’s complexity was only rivaled by its incompleteness. He tsked and flipped an annoyed glance at the oblivious Nereus who was fiddling with the ward-breaking array across the room.
From what Ren could see, despite spending hundreds of thousands of gold and manpower, Nereus’ Wavegazer clan was still missing massive chunks of the lost language’s alphabet. It was impossible that the Wavegazer experts were not aware of this fact based on the creative ways they tried to compensate for this in the Rosetta Stone’s creation. Still, this made things very tricky when using the tome as a guide for interpreting the lost language.
Luckily, Ren had a solution for this.
Fifteen minutes later, he shut the tome’s pages with a loud snap, further irritating the Duskflame heir. Using the information he’d collected in his repository, together with thousands of processors and machine learning algorithms, Ren was able to build an improved version of the Rosetta Stone!
With the information absorbed, he estimated he had a 75% chance of correctly interpreting information rendered in the ancient script.
A loud harumph interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up to see haughty Asher’s upturned lips. “Temple cretins like you should stick to what they know best — groveling at their betters and leave the intellectual pursuits to those born for it.”
“Well Whiskers, don’t assume everyone is as dumb as you,” Ren smirked at the flames that suddenly coated the nobleman's fist.
It was an impotent threat and they both knew it! With Ren safely behind the ward and Asher unwilling to risk injury by jumping through the flickering barrier, there was little the man could do to Ren. The fact that Asher had resorted to petty displays of strength was unendingly hilarious to him. Enjoying the grimace on the man’s face, Ren decided to infuriate him further.
“You don’t believe me? Well the Armor you are trying to snatch is not called Blazing Armor. The inscription actually translates to something along the lines of [Forgemaster’s Fury].”
Asher snorted at about the same time Nereus gasped. The mustachioed Nobleman snapped his head towards his companion, his eyes narrowing in silent question.
“Ah believe the Temple Warrior is correct.” Nereus shrugged.
“Really?” asked Asher, incredulously. “Why did you not inform me of the treasure’s true name?”
“Starving Krakens, Asher! Ya think I’m one of ya lackeys?” Nereus barked, clearing his throat and forcefully spitting to the side. “I don’t work for free!”
Ignoring the raised voices of the men, Ren casually tossed a book on irrigation practices back onto the growing pile after a brief skim. He then turned his attention to the collection of maps, meticulously scanning them and taking note of the various cities scattered throughout Grothluk's Demise. A magical nudge from one of the documents highlighted his current location on the map. He appeared as a white dot in a city on the south-western part of Grothluk’s Demise.
According to the maps, the Greendale Cultivators had landed in Zh'lonu City within the Fractured Realm, but there was no indication of where the Mistypeak Cultivators might have ended up. Due to the nature of the teleportation arrays and tokens, they could have materialized in the same city or in a completely different location within the Fractured Realm. Only time would tell. But one thing was for certain - when the two groups eventually met, bloodshed was sure to follow.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Some of the marked buildings on the map were potential treasure locations, but to Ren's surprise, the building he currently occupied was classified as a high-risk, low-reward spot. Considering the spacing between the key locations on the map, Ren felt fortunate to have stumbled upon this building. However, after glimpsing the other points of interest, he was eager to conclude his business here and find a way to escape with his treasures and life intact.
Carefully placing the maps back into the Interspatial Necklace, Ren picked up the final item—a scroll stored inside a glass tube adorned with an unfamiliar sigil. Upon closer inspection, he identified the sigil as one of Greendale origin, based on a small inscription carved at the bottom. The sigil itself depicted a three-eyed bird of prey soaring through the heavens. Examining the tube, Ren noticed dried blood splatter staining one of its ends, his gaze flickering briefly to Asher and Nereus who were still engaged in their verbal sparring.
Considering the quality of the sigil on the tube, Ren couldn't help but wonder whose life had been extinguished for Asher to obtain this scroll. He couldn't tell much from the limited splatter, but he suspected blade-work was used to carry out the deed. That would eliminate Asher as the killer since he had only seen the man use fire techniques. Unless the man had other weapons hidden somewhere on his person. However, such details held little significance for Ren at this point, especially since the scroll now belonged to him. Twisting off the cap from one end of the tube, he let the scroll gently fall into his hands. Ren could feel the textured material of the scroll as he cleared a space on the floor and settled into a comfortable position.
The scroll was tightly wound, its yellowed parchment secured in place with red wax. During his time in Greendale, Ren had learned about Technique scrolls. The lower-grade ones typically contained descriptions of cycling patterns, energy manipulation techniques, or spell mnemonics useful for conjuring specific spells. The higher-grade versions, however, held much greater value, as they directly implanted essential knowledge into the reader's consciousness. Given Asher's social status and the fact that he had kept this scroll after killing its original owner, Ren suspected that it belonged to the latter category of Technique scrolls.
Bracing himself for the memory influx, he unfolded the scroll and took in the contents. His eyes widened as he gazed upon the scrolls content, a gasp escaping his lips.
“Oh, come on! What is this bullshit?!” Ren exclaimed in utter frustration.
The scroll that had cost the life of another Greendale Cultivator was completely worthless! It contained no Cycling Techniques. Neither did it hold any Energy manipulation secrets. Instead, Ren was staring at the portrait of a beautiful woman in her mid twenties. The image must have been infused with essence because her playful eyes followed Ren’s as he frowned at the scroll. The flowers braided into her hair, fluttered under an invisible wind as she smiled back at him.
“Nothing of your concern, I assure you!” Asher snapped back at him. “Now take your filthy commoner hands off my bethrothed’s image.
Ren glanced from the man, back to the smiling image in the scroll. “Sure,” he replied with a shrug, letting the scroll roll back into itself. “Actually, as a sign of good faith, you can keep her.” Ren immediately tossed the unprotected scroll towards Asher—right through the shimmering Ward.
“N-NO!” the mustachioed man screamed as the rolled parchment of the scroll made contact with the ward. Similar to last time, the ward temporarily swallowed the item, before violently reflecting it back in the direction it came. The only difference was that this time, the object itself was made of parchment which the corrosive energies of the ward shredded before reflecting it back towards Ren like so much confetti.
“Oops, forgot about that,” said Ren in a deadpan voice, as fragments of the parchment fluttered around him.
“You..You…” Asher hissed, lost for words, his voice dripping with venom.
Just then, the room reverberated with a loud pop as the ward-breaking array finally destroyed the barrier protecting the Armor Asher had been waiting for. Nereus whooped in excitement, his hands grabbing the Nobleman’s shoulders in celebration, even as waves of intense heat rushed out of the treasure’s alcove, in the absence of the protective Ward.
“Bloody Currents! It’s done!” the man boomed in a loud cackle. “Grab it so we can leave as soon as possible. Wouldn't want me to add interest on top of the money ya owe me, would ya?
Asher spared a second more, to glare at Ren, before turning around and walking into the Alcove. The man was many things, but Ren respected his decisive attitude, as he immediately stored the [Forgemaster’s Fury] inside one of his backup interspatial storage devices.
Even trapped behind his Alcove’s Ward, Ren noticed the temperature immediately cooling by several degrees the moment the burning armor was stored away. The blistering heat that had smothered the room in the few seconds between its protective Ward’s destruction and being stored in Asher’s storage device, spoke to the quality of the armor's enchantment. And the Nobleman knew it too.
He turned around with so much confidence, his chin high and his posture impeccable. He walked out of the enclosed space and headed towards the main door of the Octagonal room, stepping over the corpse of his men and completely ignoring Ren.
Seeing this, Nereues sighed heavily, shaking his head, and followed behind the Duskflame Noble. Unlike Asher, he tilted his head in a small bow towards the fallen men, paying his respects and acknowledging their existence. By this point Asher had opened the main door and stepped out of the room.
Nereus made it up to the threshold, then stopped, glancing back to meet Ren’s eyes. “Ocean’s grace to ya Ren,” he said in a serious voice. “I hope ya gods have their ears peeled to this forsaken Realm. Nobody deserves to die trapped and alone.”
With that he pulled out the glowing Rune Key and stepped out of the room, the main door shutting behind him.