Chapter 40

Shael looked at the box with curiosity.

“What’s inside?”

“Just open it.” Rydel urged her.

She sent a pulse of spiritual energy and dispersed the formation before opening it. Inside, there was a dagger.

The dagger was completely black, the blade was thin but sharp. The hilt didn’t have any decorations either, it looked quite simple.

“Inject a bit of spiritual energy.” Rydel encouraged her.

Shael was surprised when the dagger became covered in a black substance that made it quite difficult to discern that it was even there.

“I’m quite proud of it. The dagger was imbued with my Dao of the Moonlight, and that substance is ink from a brush artifact. Combining both, I made a dagger that’s perfect for sneak attacks.”

Shael looked at it and played with it for a bit.

“I like the gift, although I’m more of an open combat person.”

“Don’t worry about that. You can use it to throw it when your enemy is near you.”

“Do you have an arsenal of these types of daggers then?” Shael curiously asked.

Its craftsmanship was rough, clearly made by a novice. However, artifacts made by imbuing a type of Dao could be very effective depending on the situation. Like this dagger, that was perfect for assassins.

Shael thought that if Rydel trained under an established artificer, he could live off making this kind of thing.

“It’s the first one that I made. I have practiced in my school a little bit of my craftsmanship, but it wasn’t until recently that my Daodrop evolved enough to be imbued into things.” Rydel admitted.

“Did you want to impress me that badly?” Shael teasingly asked.

“Of course, you are my passage to the capital.”

“You know, you aren’t cute when you are that sincere.”

Shael didn’t know what to think about Rydel’s obvious flirting. He seemed serious sometimes, and at others he appeared to be joking.

At least she felt appreciated, it was a nice change of pace. Moreover, everything was better than being forced to see Dakath’s face.

She didn’t mind having him accompany her to the capital, but she didn’t like the way he had asked it. Although, she considered that gifting his first crafted artifact was a nice gesture.

“I accept your sincere apology.” Shael said before putting the dagger on her spatial ring.

Rydel looked at her in silence.

“You can come with me.” Shael sighed. “With one condition.”

“Sure, what condition?”

“I want to attend the Ceremony of Ascension.” Shael said calmly.

“Out of the question.”

She bit her lower lips and looked at his eyes pleadingly. Rydel looked uncomfortable for one moment before focusing on hers.

“You know how personal the Ceremony is, don’t you? I can’t decide to include a stranger on a whim.”

“But I’m not a stranger, Lady Allyna will probably convince Galather to join anyway. This way I won’t miss anything.”

“I- Right. I’ll talk with my mother, but I can’t promise anything. It’s ultimately her decision.”

“I understand.” Shael responded with a happy smile.

After that, they both changed the topics to more lighthearted things and spent an enjoyable day eating a picnic. They returned at almost night-time, Rydel leaving Shael on her residency before coming back home.

When he got home, he saw that Thalia was in front of Edyrm, the latter with his eyes closed. Meanwhile, Thalia was doing something with her spirit that Rydel couldn’t quite comprehend. He decided to wait until they were finished by playing around with Naveena for a bit.

A couple of hours later, he asked for her mother’s permission regarding Shael’s request. To his surprise, she agreed without asking too much. At least that was one problem less, the ceremony was planned to be in a week.

After that, he’d accompany Lady Allyna’s party to Osserion, the capital of the Elves.

***

After fighting in the forest for the last few weeks, Rydel’s foundations were stable enough to level up a few more times. The equivalent of two levels worth of ether were collected on his soul space.

There was a time limit of about five years, where he’d need to become peak E-grade. It’d be impossible if he didn’t put pressure on himself.

The humans were interrogated shortly after departing from the ship. They were all mortals in the F-grade, some of them didn’t even have the system unlocked.

This wasn’t surprising, genes had a major weight in determining the potential of a kid. If his parents were Ascended, then unlocking the system at an early age wasn’t too rare.

This wasn’t written on stone, as there were always exceptions for everything. There were even the extremely rare cases of atavism, where the genes of a powerful ancestor were passed down the line to a long distant descendant who inherited them. This case was more common in beasts.

The place where the humans originated was an island ruled by the Hiral Kingdom. It was a confessional nation where the Caretaker was venerated, the God of the Church of Humility.

According to the humans, the kingdom was overpopulated without many occupations needed, resulting in a great part of the population being poor.

There weren’t many jobs as those with higher power could easily accomplish what thousands of people of lower levels could, and with better quality.

Of course, even if there were a great number of poor people, they weren’t despised or treated with indifference. The Church wouldn’t allow this type of activity.

However, as they weren’t people that contributed anything to society, they needed to accept what they were given. People there just lived without ambitions and motivations, just scraping by and trying to be happy with what they got.

Nonetheless, not everyone would be happy with this status quo. That’s what happened to the humans that were sent on a voyage to discover distant islands.

One of the ways that people contributed to the Church was the life worms. Apparently, these worms feed on the ether that was generated by the host.

They could only grow in levels if their rate of gaining ether was greater than what the life worms could absorb. It wasn’t a normal case.

Also, if they didn’t generate enough ether, the life worm would enter a hibernation period, just living with the scraps of ether that it received.

Supposedly, every person in the Kingdom of Hiral needed to contribute with their own life worms. After every couple of years, the worm was retired in a painless procedure to donate to the Church.

This was the most efficient way of processing the ether that wasn’t being used for anything useful, as the weak needed the strong for protection, it was only natural to help them with their progression.

This was the common way of thinking in the Kingdom of Hiral.

However, this group of humans thought that they were only used as nutrition pots, that it was impossible that the higher-ranked members of the nobility were treated in the same way. In an act of defiance, they made a reunion where they carefully removed the life worms with a knife.

Alas, they were snitched somehow. The Church had forgiven them for their mistakes, as every person deserved a second chance, and new life worms were bred inside each of them.

A couple of months later, they were on a ship towards the unknown.

Rydel thought that humanity in the Hiral Kingdom was pitiful, they didn’t have any freedom. The Church wasn’t evil, as the common people weren’t suffering, they just were caged.

Besides, the results spoke for themselves, as even a random ship that could be lost at any moment, which did happen in the end, had five Ascended.

Nonetheless, they were quite weak compared to the elves’ side Ascended. Their power was hollow, they didn’t even have Daostreams to support their attacks.

Elves were also stronger in general than humans at the same level. In exchange, the fertility of humans was much greater and the population was gigantic compared to those found in elves’ settlements.

Rydel thought that it was a good opportunity to see other types of cultures and to check if everything was as bleak as they had heard from the captives.

Besides, that Church of Humility didn’t give him any good vibes. If they had managed to reach the Elphyra’s Clan once, then nothing prevented them from reaching it a second time.

True, they had come by pure chances after a storm. But Rydel hadn’t forgotten about the Wheels that had flown from the Serpent’s head.

For all he knew, they already knew of the battle’s result and everything that had happened here, and they were already mounting an army to kill them.

He didn’t think that was the case, as the distance was too great even for an Ascended skill. That was without taking into consideration the possibility of someone that has surpassed Ascendancy being in the Church.

If that was the case, he better start writing his will, as elfkind wasn’t prepared to stand against someone like that.

Moreover, after having asked Naveena a bit for information, she had ultimately told him that he didn’t need to worry about that.

She didn’t know much about the C-grade, only that they were walking calamities. Her mother had also assured her that there wasn’t an expert of that level on this planet.

Of course, she could be wrong. Hopefully not. After all these years, he had deduced that even if Akemi wasn’t a C-grade being, she couldn’t be very far off.

Alas, asking Naveena for information was useless, she had begrudgingly admitted that her education only consisted of the basics, mainly about the mortal stage of a lunar fennec.

Rydel prepared himself, it was time to rush for a couple more levels.

Rydel put his focus on not committing any mistakes. His meridian pathways became a little more solid after a few hours of revolutions of his cultivation technique.

The cap of the early stage wasn’t so far away anymore. Rydel checked his status.

Name: Rydel Elphyra

Age: 15 years

Race: Astral Elf

Class: Starborn (Level 15)

Daodrops: Dao of the Moonlight (Late)

Traits: Moontouched, Perfected Being (F), Superior Protosoul.

Vitality: 65

Strength: 30

Dexterity: 30

Endurance: 40

Perception: 223

Spirit: 390

AP: 0

Rydel grunted in discomfort. This was the absolute limit that he could level up before hurting himself even after investing all his free attribute points in endurance.

His body felt uncomfortable, like he was wearing clothes that were two sizes too small.

“I shouldn’t have done this…” Rydel annoyingly said.

He had overestimated himself. He had the urgency of quickly leveling up to not be left behind, to have adventures in the sea. He had been greedy, thinking that his body could handle a bit more of spirit.

He needed to ask Elder Roshia to make him pills to raise his endurance, as it was quite urgent. To have a better effect, he would have to aid her in the making of pills, injecting his Dao of Moonlight to achieve a better affinity.

This complicated the process, but the results couldn’t be compared to a normal pill.

He needed to prepare himself for lots of things. However, Thalia’s Ceremony of Ascension would be in a couple of hours, and that took priority over everything else.