[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 124: School’s Out

Sam found Raiko asleep under the Sacred Tree, an encased potion bottle resting on her chest.

For a moment, it was tempting to swipe it. But if she woke up, it wouldn’t be a good look.

Not that he wanted to steal it, necessarily, but he was very curious what it was. However, he wasn’t like Komachi, who had the Seeker Legend and had an actual [Examine] skill.

What Sam had was just the basic version of the skill, which only seemed to function if he held something up or spent a while focusing on it. And as ogling a sleeping woman was never a good idea no matter what world you were in, Sam nudged her gently with the toe of his boot. “Raiko, your armor is done.”

She stirred, then opened an eye. “Is it? Are you sure it isn’t in pieces and you’ve swapped it for something else?”

Sam held it up triumphantly. “I’ve seen the stats, Raiko. This thing is a beast. Take it.” He held out the armor in his arms. “You’re lucky I didn’t break it, honestly.”

“Wouldn’t blame you, it was in terrible condition.” Raiko took it into her arms, causing the potion bottle to tumble. She caught it in surprise. “One of them gave something back?”

She then held out the potion to him. “Thank you for repairing my armor.”

Sam took it and tilted it this way and that. “What’s this from?”

[Rarity Up Potion]

(Potion) (E-Class)

(★☆Uncommon)

A stoppered bottle containing a golden hued potion that increases the Rarity of a single item, skill, or ability that you use this on. One time use. Awarded from a successful tribute to the War Kindred.

“Damn,” Sam said. “I didn’t know something like this even existed!” The fact that it could level up the rarity of not just an item but an ability or skill too was insane.

He immediately knew he’d try it out on his bloodline if it were his. Or maybe his Void mana affinity.

Though it was hard, Sam handed it back to her. He thrust it out ahead of himself like it was going to bite him.

“It’s very rare.” Raiko got up, looking over the gearset. “See what I did there? No? Well, that’s for the best. You can decide who uses it, and on what.”

“You want me to hold on to it and dispense something as rare and valuable as this?”

“I’d rather it be immediately used. Reap the benefits as soon as possible.”

“Good, we’re in agreement then.” He tried to push it onto her. “Take the damn thing!”

“Well, if you insist, o’ King.”

“Sure. Fine. Whatever.” Sam eyed the bottle, now in her hands. “I wouldn’t know who would benefit most from it. But you know if anybody ever found out, they’d want it. Do you know how much work I’ve done just to get tier 4 of [Basic Maintenance]? Constant repairs far above my skill level, and hours of sweat, and I still have not gotten Uncommon rarity.”

“There are a lot of potential uses for it. One of them is waiting for a high rarity skill or ability, which is rather aggravating, because it seems all that much harder to increase over time.”

Sam shrugged. “Is it though? I agree up to a point, but when you really think about it, just like every level is harder to come by than the last, each rarity tier is harder than the previous as well. And the threshold between one rarity and the next seems substantial.”

“Well, another option is using it on one of our new Professions to get an even greater boost. What if one of us can craft armors or weapons, and then that primary skill gets boosted by this potion? Whoever that was would probably be able to create even higher rarity items.” Raiko frowned in frustration. “I hate that it sounds like a good idea.”

“I hate it too,” Sam agreed. “But it makes sense. If somebody has a useful Profession, then we could use the rarity potion to sort of leapfrog them into higher skill levels so they can make better stuff. That’d… honestly be the best use of it. Whoever gets the most useful skill would be able to ply their craft and use it to benefit us all.”

It would be a lot nicer to avoid the whole copper or bronze stage of armor and weapons. With a rarity bump, perhaps whoever was best suited to Blacksmith or Weaver or Builder could jump past the basic portion of their craft and make something useful immediately.

“Then that’s what we’ll use it for,” Raiko said. “A Profession’s Skill Sphere of some sort. Too bad it can’t be used on a Job, Profession, or Path themselves. Now that’d be too good to be true. War didn’t favor me that much. But maybe there’s a potion out there that does exactly that.”

“War?” Sam asked. “How would you have gained a Kindred’s favor?”

She placed out each piece of the gearset with exaggerated care, not looking at him by too unlikely of a coincidence. “I’ve made various tributes to Kindred War over time. I did last night. It seems he liked what I offered.”

For some unknown reason, that grated on Sam’s nerves. He soldiered on though, because it was unreasonable and stupid. And they had better things to focus on.

Still, he found himself eyeing the potion bottle skeptically now.

Why would a Kindred help them?

Weren’t Sam and Raiko some sort of reflection or descendant of them? They were supposed to be above the gods themselves and were so scary that most gods wanted to stop an Incarnate from making that pivotal leap from mortal to godhood on their path to becoming a Kindred proper.

Despite all that, Sam didn’t know much about the Kindred. Nobody seemed to. They had names like War, Dream, Ardor, Wisdom, etc., but they didn’t have actual names. Even “The Hidden One” had a name.

“You have one hell of a way of phrasing things,” Sam told her.

“Do I? I am from another world than you.”

He turned and looked toward the horizon. The hill the Sacred Tree rested on was high enough that up at its base, they could just slightly see over the tops of the canopies between the Sacred Tree’s wide green umbrella of leaves and those covering the rest of the settlement.

“I think I can see the Academy,” Sam said, more as something to say to get off an oddly uncomfortable topic.

Which needn’t have been done because a few seconds later, huffing and puffing, Lenal came up from the settlement below, holding that brass compass of hers. “Have… arrived… Academy….”

“Catch your breath, Lenal. Nobody wants you to throw up again.” Raiko put away the potion into her Inventory and began putting on her armor in front of them.

Lenal held up a finger as she gulped down the fresh air of the Sacred Tree. Eventually, her breathing normalized, far faster than it would have on Earth, Sam realized.

Even somebody relatively weak here was still quite a bit stronger than your average human back home.

Sam pointed. “Is that it?”

Lenal followed his finger. “Oh! You can see it from here? Look, there’s the Tower of Art! It’s one of the oldest buildings in all of Islegard, and even the apocalypse couldn’t topple it!”

“Impressive,” Sam said, more because he felt it was expected. And, in all honesty, it was. Something that old that survived the breaking of not just one, but two Worldshards seemed… well, impossible.

It brought to mind seeing the random Starbucks building at the beginning of their journey. He had kept a weather eye out for any others in the meantime, now that they had the ability to rudimentary steer the Skyshard, but none had materialized.

In fact, over the last day, the area they were in seemed oddly devoid of many other Skyshards. I wonder if I should be worried about that.

Every so often, the same question popped into Sam’s head. Where are all the other people? If billions were suddenly magicked here… shouldn’t the sky be filled with floating Skyshards full of thousands of people?

The visage of the Aker Academy was grand enough to dislodge most of those thoughts from Sam’s head as they headed out to one of the [Grassland Tiles] at the edge of Raiko’s Skyshard.

As they drew closer, Sam was impressed by the sheer size of the thing. The entire Skyshard seemed to be one big college or university, though instead of brick as one would expect, the blocks of stone were some glittering white substance.

The walls and buildings shimmered in the midday light, bright enough at certain angles to make Sam squint against the glare. And that’s when he saw it.

Black marks radiating outward from one of the walls that resembled an explosion. The wall itself had caved in, leaving a ragged, black-rimmed hole.

He wondered if nobody else could see it, but a few moments later, as they drew even closer, he heard Lenal gasp.

“Is that from the attack of the Zuu?” Sam asked her.

“I do not know,” she said worriedly.

Sam didn’t think it was, and Lenal seemed to feel likewise.

How Raiko was able to alter the altitude of the Skyshard, Sam didn’t know, but as they lifted up to the altitude of the Academy, more and more damage became apparent.

It was beautiful still, of that there was no doubt. The closer they came, the more gorgeous it looked despite the damage that littered the exterior walls and some of the blue-tiled turrets still leaking black smoke.

The whole thing looked like somebody had smashed up all the fantasy castles into one rambling super structure that was far, far too big to be made by anything other than magic.

“Almost looks like home,” Raiko whispered with longing.

Whimsy didn’t begin to describe the twisted turrets, countless spires, gorgeous facades, and stained-glass windows depicting moving scenes from time out of mind.

“I am sure everything is fine,” Lenal said as the Skyshard drifted right up to the southern wall where there was a large gate.

Unlike the rest of the Academy, this area seemed entirely intact.

It even had a bit of an ancient cobbled road and some trees that suddenly ended as if it had been scooped out of the previous version of Islegard and set adrift.

It probably was, Sam thought to himself.

“This used to be the Student’s Road,” Lenal said, pointing at the path. “You would come down from the mountain pass that led into Lightfall Valley, where the Academy used to reside. From there you’d wind through the towering trees and meadows, up to the bluff where the Academy rested.”

“It’s charming,” Matt said. “But a little… quiet, don’t you think?”

“I am sure they are merely hiding,” Lenal was quick to say. “There never were enough of us to defend all the walls. The Academy is quite large, as expected of the premier school for magic and artificery.”

“Artificery?” Raiko asked with caught interest.

Now that they were close enough, Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to use the [Source Chain] to anchor the Skyshard to theirs. He felt that he could. This was practically what the ability was for… but if there was something wrong and it got into Sil’mara….

Sam shook his head. It didn’t matter. They were near enough that any monster that would threaten their home would find little difficulty in jumping or flying from one Skyshard to another.

The [Source Chain] would make their lives easier.

“Yes, the Academy was home to some of the most prolific artificers in all the world! The Tower of Art—short for artificers, naturally—was their first creation. No matter where you are, if you look up, you’ll find the Tower of Art. It’s also the largest building here.”

Sam had a feeling that those two facts were, somehow, entirely unrelated.

Raiko made a series of hand signs at the gathered dullahan, who formed a protective line roughly where the Skyshards would meet.

The moat did not form a complete circuit around Sil’mara, making this a suitable bridge as any. The hills bordering the [Grassland Tile] weren’t exactly defensive in nature, but they were better than nothing. Some of the dullahan lowered themselves prone on the opposite side of the hills, so they were more difficult to spot.

Another of the dullahan went off, accompanied by militia mandys, presumably to patrol the rest of the Skyshard.

Using the [Source Chain], Sam launched the Sourcestone’s spear into the side of the Aker Academy’s Skyshard. They were close enough that it took no time at all to pull the two close enough that they could simply step from one Tile to the other as if the two Skyshards had always been joined.