Bab 12: Chapter 12 - Strange Feelings
When Sophia finally stopped laughing, Lord James once more spoke up.
"Speaking of Eric, he should be here soon. Word of your arrival must have already spread"
And on cue, a handsome man with long blond hair and forest green eyes came bursting through the door and flying at Sophia. He tackled her to the ground in a tight hug. Her face revealed a shy smile as she blushed and returned the hug. This expression was completely different from her normal ones, and for some reason, it made me feel slightly upset. Before I could ponder on the strange feeling, Eric got up and glared at me.
'He's probably suspicious of the random guy following Sophia around'
A few minutes later, Eric was bowing to me in a similar fashion to his father and apologizing.
"I'm so sorry, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for saving my fiancee!"
"Don't worry about it, we have more pressing matters to discuss"
"Yes we do, and we should get to them quickly. Looking at their means, this traitor can only be a handful of people"(Lord James)
"Whoever it is, the loss of three rank 4s should be a heavy blow to them"(Sophia)
"Certainly, and as I've never heard of the people you described, there is a high chance that they are from Palence. As for the traitor, I think it might be Commander Xiao"(Lord James)
""What!""(Sophia & Eric)
"He's always been a greedy bastard, but he's the best strategist we have, so people turned a blind eye. I never would have thought he'd betray his country, but it seems I was wrong. The only problem is that there's no way to prove this. Sophia, you should head to the Mountain base and continue your mission. After losing so many rank 4s they won't be sending anyone after you anytime soon. I'll deal with this traitor Business"(Lord James)
Sophia seemed to want to object but she kept quiet. She saluted Lord James and walked towards the door. I was about to follow suit when Lord James stopped me and handed me a letter.
"Take this, it contains my recommendation as well as a notice that will let you withdraw a large amount of money from the bank in the capital. I would love to give you more, but as you're leaving right away, I can't do much"
I nodded to the man in thanks and jogged to catch up to Sophia.
'That's the recommendation down, now I just need to get promoted. But things have been going too well lately, I should expect something dangerous to happen in the near future'
When I caught up to Sophia, I asked a question that had been nagging me since Lord James had smashed the table in the conference room.
"Is Lord James rank 5?"
It took Sophia a moment to respond as her mind seemed to be elsewhere.
"huh? ah, yes. He's one of the six rank 5s in the kingdom. The others being the rest of the archdukes, the captain of the imperial guard, and the king himself"
she paused for a moment before continuing.
"We need to hurry up and get to the mountain base. The main forces of Palence will be advancing soon, and there is much to be done"
With that, she picked up speed and began running towards the eastern gate, I followed. Once we had left Monolith, Sophia sped up even more and began talking.
"We should be able to reach the base in a day at this speed"
"What's my next mission?"
"I'll be sending you along with some other high-level operatives that specialize in stealth to gather intelligence on the enemy army and sabotage their supply lines. It's a risky mission, but it grants lots of rewards. Oh, and once we reach the base I'm promoting you to level three. Killing two enemy rank 4 ascenders single-handedly netted you plenty of merits, and your strength is obviously high enough"
I was pretty happy with my new assignment, as I had finally gotten a higher level stealth skill.
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[Shadow Cloak]
Rank A
Weave a complex blanket of shadow essence around yourself, making you blend in with the surrounding essence and disappear.
- due to this skill eclipsing the power of [Camouflage], [Camouflage] had been absorbed into it
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As Sophia had predicted, it only took a day to reach the mountain base. After weaving through narrow mountain passes for hours, the base finally came into view. It was quite a sight. The large fortress had been carved out of the side of a mountain. When Sophia laid her eyes upon it, she sighed in relief. The battle the day before had already tired her out and running for a day straight barely an hour later had completely exhausted her. I, however, was doing fine. After my body had been reforged, I discovered that my stamina had been boosted many times over and my essence regeneration was even faster than it was before. Sophia had been astonished when she found me completely fine a few hours ago. As we approached the mountain fortress, Sophia a few feet in front of me, my premonition from the day before came true.
A figure covered in red cloth appeared right behind Sophia, a small knife in their hands. As the blade approached Sophia's neck, many thoughts passed through my head.
'Shes too tired to react, she's dead'
For whatever reason, this made me angry.
'Even with my speed, I'll arrive a second or two after the blade makes contact. Forming a [Wind Bolt] is no good either. [Earth Manipulation] takes too long to respond as well. I can't do anything'
This made me even angrier. It was a pointless endeavor, illogical, but I gathered all my strength and essence into my legs. I knew I wasn't fast enough, I knew I wouldn't make it, but the feeling of anger that came out of nowhere spurred me on. There was a loud explosion as I shot forward, much faster than I should be capable of moving. The dagger in my hand struck the back of the assassin's head with such force that it exploded into a rain of meat and blood. I fell over in surprise at what had just happened. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn't move. I looked down and found my legs covered in blood and torn up. They looked like a chew toy that had been used for years. As I observed the gruesome sight, the pain finally hit me. I could faintly hear the sound of shouting before I passed out from blood loss and complete essence deprivation.
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When I woke up, I was disoriented and felt a dull pain in my legs. It took me a second to recall the events that had transpired before I passed out. My first two thoughts were
'How the hell did I do that?'
and
'Is Sophia okay?'
While the first one was understandable, I surprised myself with the second one. My thoughts were interrupted when someone spoke at the side of my bed.
"Ah, Mr. Witherthorn, you're awake. I advise you to stay still, your body is still recovering. I will be right back"
I ignored the warning and sat up. Every part of my body was incredibly sore. I looked around and determined that I was in an infirmary. I decided to look to see if I had missed any system notifications. What I saw explained my feat.
[new skill, Sacrifice, has been devised]
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[Sacrifice]
Rank S
Gather all your essence and strength into one, devastating move. This puts extreme stress on the body, causing heavy injury.
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'So I can make my own skills, makes sense, but this one is useless. You'd need an incredibly specific situation to even consider using it'
At this, the door to my ward burst open and Sophia rushed in.
"Magnus, you're ok!"
The sight of Sophia struck me with a feeling of relief, similar to that of picking up a book after a long time not reading.
'OK, what's going on. First, I get super angry for no reason and almost kill myself. And now I'm relieved to see Sophia ok. Wait, wait, wait, really? I was... worried? Why?'
"Magnus?"
Sophia's question snapped me out of my thoughts.
"Yes, I'm fine. I should be ready to go on the mission tomorrow"
"What? Not a chance, you're staying in bed for at least a week"
"But why? My injuries are almost completely healed"
Sophia looked surprised and turned to the doctor beside her.
"Really?"
"Yes, it's astonishing really. Once we had him stabilized, his body started healing at an almost visible rate. When we applied some healing spells, this became even faster. His wounds were gone by the morning, not even leaving scars. Given some food, he will be good as new by tomorrow"
Sophia sighed and looked back at me.
"You really try hard to keep up that unstoppable genius act huh? Stronger than you should have any right to be, pulling out new spells like they're cheap candy, and now healing overnight from an injury that you should have died from. An injury that you inflicted on yourself by moving so fast that your body couldn't keep up. Whatever, you can leave on that mission tomorrow"
She sighed once more before continuing.
"Thank you for saving me, again. If I had been paying more attention none of this would have happened. Do tell me if you need anything"
With this, she placed a book she had been holding on the bed and left. The doctor then spoke up.
"A meal will be brought to you momentarily"
As he left as well, I pondered on what had just happened.
'Unstoppable genius huh? Yeah, I suppose that's what I've been going for. It's good for getting promoted and receiving benefits'
I then picked up the book that Sophia had left me.
'[Essence Milestones and Racial Abilities], this seems important'
I quickly got to reading, which was very pleasant after almost a week of not having the chance to. What I found made a few things fall into place and also made me forget about the strange feelings I had been experiencing lately.
"At certain ranks, ascenders gain special talents. These talents usually pertain to the type of essence the ascender is absorbing or the skills they use. But for almost every race, their first talent is predetermined. This talent is known as a racial ability. For humans, the first milestone is at rank 4. Their racial ability is known commonly as sense. This ability grants a human incredible perception in a certain range. Inside this range, not a single detail can escape, not even the smallest speck of dust. This perception can easily pierce straight through almost all stealth skills used by someone of the same level. The range of this ability increases as a human's rank increases. Because of this talent, high-rank humans are almost impossible to sneak attack. One human, known only as the omnipresent sage, was known to attack would-be assassins miles away from his residence with perfect accuracy"
'So I was wrong, it wasn't just a high-rank essence sense that broke my stealth, it was a racial ability. But special talents huh? I really need to hurry up and find an essence absorption technique that works for me'
The book was really thick and discussed the many theories on talents and racial abilities, by the time I was done night had already fallen. I ate some more of the food that was left for me and went to sleep, I had a long day ahead of me.
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The next day I stood beside three other operatives, all rank 4, in Sophia's office.
"Harold, Cicely, Sanir, meet Magnus, he will be joining you for this mission"
The woman named Cicely spoke up, annoyance apparent in her voice.
"Why do we have to bring this kid, he'll only slow us down"
I didn't want to have to deal with her, so I moved. Before she could blink, I appeared in front of her, one of my daggers at her throat. I stayed still for a moment before returning to my spot at the side as quickly as I had left it. Sophia sighed, she seemed to be doing that a lot lately.
"I think that will be enough of an explanation, now let's get to the briefing"
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone