The Conciege
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ROTLE- Chapter 52- Fate Walker
🕑 Added 2024-09-15 14:57:53 +0000 UTCThe forest was dark. Night had fallen and taken reign. It was a moonless night, leaving the faintest of starlight to guide anyone. The sky had broken a few minutes ago, bathing the world in its dramatic rain. It alternated between heavy and light, raging downpours one minute and slight drizzling the next.
It was as unsure as Valdan’s decision to remain in the service of king Brandis fourth of his name. Unlike the rain, however, he was not fickle. He was a man of duty and honor. A man who kept his word. He knew what decision he would come to.
Valdan walked behind a boy who had claimed that Aiden had sent him. He walked quietly, a simple orb that let off a sun-colored glow in hand. Rain drenched him, a heavy pitter-patter of sound with every drop. Behind him were two other men, taken from amongst Lord Naranoff’s soldiers.
Each one held an orb of their own and wore their light armor where he was dressed in casual clothes with different enchantments sewn into its seams. His sword remained the thing of very obvious value.
As the boy—Fjord, he had called himself—led, Valdan followed with the men behind him. They kept their attention about them, watching, anticipating. The men were obvious about it and Valdan couldn’t blame them. After all, while he wasn’t a man walking with his head on a swivel, it didn’t mean he wasn’t paying any attention.
For all he knew, this could easily be some kind of foolish ambush. Fjord had said he was a reluctant poacher that Aiden had saved. How much of everything he said was true remained a mystery.
“And you said you were hunting a Fharanal?” Valdan asked, voice slightly raised to surpass the sound of the rain.
Fjord nodded, moving them around a corner, past a tree. He moved like a tracker, trained but not enough to be granted a system skill in the art.
A Fharanal was a creature Valdan had never heard of before. But his lack of knowledge was not surprising. If the boy really was a poacher, he would know far more monsters than Valdan would possibly know in his lifetime.
“And you guys were interrupted by another poacher?” he asked.
Again, Fjord nodded. “He took them down without using a skill.”
“But you made it out alive.”
“The young lord stopped him from getting to me,” Fjord said, voice timid.
“And that was when he told you to come and find us?”
“He said I should find the Lord’s manor,” Fjord answered. “That I should tell them what I said and ask for help.”
Valdan ran a tired hand through his hair. He moved a few loose strands plastered against his face away. We’ve only been here fir a few days.
He hated to admit it, but it was getting quite worrying how easily Aiden was getting himself into trouble. Valdan couldn’t necessarily say the boy was doing it intentionally, but it was worrying. First was the cave.
That was intentional, Valdan thought, of that he was certain.
The cave fiasco had been even worse when you considered the fact that Aiden had gotten himself into that mess with the princess at his side. Now he’d gone out to update his adventurer detail and get whatever rewards he’d been talking about.
And that was just yesterday.
Valdan had seen him this morning. They’d sparred, then gone their separate ways.
Now he’s gotten himself tangled with poachers.
Unable to stop himself, Valdan rubbed his forehead with thumb and forefinger, smoothing away the crease that was there. At this rate he was going to grow older than he was.
But Melvet will like him.
Melvet had always had an odd taste in people. She had very few friends but all of them were eccentric in one way or the other, and verily so.
“Were you able to learn anything about the man that stopped you guys?” Valdan asked Fjord.
“Only that he was bald and fast,” Fjord answered.
“Only?”
Fjord scratched his head in thought as he walked. “He was also strong?”
Is he asking or telling? Valdan didn’t doubt that the man was strong. But how strong? Aiden’s level was in the thirties, and he had been able to intercept the man. Valdan had a feeling Aiden would be a match for whoever this man was.
“He also had a telekinesis skill,” Fjord said suddenly. “Bora, one of the poachers, threw something at him and he stopped it in the air just by raising a hand.”
One of the poachers, Valdan thought. How easily he tries to isolate himself from them.
The boy either really thought that way or he was smart and was intentionally using words and phrases that tried to establish that he was not one of them, at least not willingly. If it was the latter, then the boy was smart.
“What of the rest of your team?” Valdan asked. “You said your leader might be over level fifty. Do you think he would follow?”
Fjord shook his head. “He normally likes to send us out to do the small work. I think it makes him feel important. The only thing that would make him move is if…”
The boy’s words trailed off ominously, in a way Valdan was certain he didn’t like.
“Is if?” he pressed the boy.
Fjords feet suddenly started moving in a hurry. He walked faster, increased his pace, like a man about to take off in a run.
“The young lord was strong when we ambushed him and the others,” Fjord said, tone thoughtful. “If the others tell him that they met someone possibly over level fifty, he might make a move.”
“How would you be able to tell?” Valdan asked, picking up the pace. “It’s not like he’ll show you his level.”
Behind him the others moved faster as well.
Fjord was leading them, weaving through trees and taking sudden turns.
“I’m weak,” Fjord said as if in explanation. “Most of us in the group are. But we’ve seen enough people over level fifty to know how they behave. It’s in the confidence. The way they carry themselves. They act assured…”
“…Like even if there were ten of you, you still wouldn’t win,” Valdan finished for the boy.
“Yes,” Fjord confirmed.
That was Aiden. A boy who sparred against a knight from the moment of his summoning and did it without fear. A boy who tested and tried new things when facing a knight. A boy who cared nothing for a princess, requested an audience with a king as if it was his right, and defeated an opponent almost twenty levels higher than him in a friendly spar.
Aiden definitely carried himself as if he was powerful in combat, more powerful than his level or class implied.
Now that Valdan thought about it, anyone in the lower levels would think Aiden was over level fifty if they encountered him. He certainly carried himself with the certainty of someone with a manifesting skill.
“Will your boss go alone?” Valdan asked. “As a man of honor.”
Fjord snorted in derision. “Voshret has no honor. He’ll take every man he can and use him to weigh the young master down before he attacks.”
Valdan’s feet moved faster until he was almost moving past Fjord.
“Hurry,” he told the boy. “Run if you have to. If the young lord dies, all I will know is that you are a poacher as you have declared with your own mouth.”
Valdan didn’t have to repeat himself. Before the words were done, Fjord was already running, sprinting through the forest, guided by the light of Valdan’s orb.
“Hurry!” Valdan called to the men behind him. “Do not fall behind.”
Although, he doubted they would.
There was a very high chance that Fjord would not be able to outrun them, even if he tried.
The boy led them farther. His steps were sure. He never stumbled or slipped, despite the wet ground. Valdan noticed how he kept his head on a swivel but never hesitated on his path. He kept his eyes to the trees as if he was looking for something. Every now and again, Valdan looked up, sought out whatever it was the boy was seeking.
He saw nothing.
It was a while before Fjord’s footsteps began to slow. They came upon a different section of the forest. It had an elevated ground and the trees seemed equidistant from each other. The one thing that stood out about it all, however, was the hole burrowed into the elevated ground.
Fjord came to a slow stop in front of it. Something pricked Valdan’s senses. He came to a halt and drew his sword without hesitation.
Fjord looked at him in worry but he ignored the boy.
There was a significantly high chance that someone over level fifty was within the hole. King Brandis and a few of Valdan’s peers had told him that level fifty wasn’t all it was made out to be. And he would’ve believed them if it wasn’t the one level he’d been stuck unable to get to for months now.
Level fifty might not be all it was cracked up to be, but it was still level fifty. There were people that spent their entire lives at level forty-nine. It was currently Valdan’s fear. An unreasonable fear, but a fear nonetheless.
“What’s wrong?” Fjord asked, looking between Valdan and the burrowed hole.
Valdan raised a silencing finger to his lips. “Blood.”
It was all he could say.
The smell of it was strong, very strong. If not for the fact that he knew his perception stat was on the high end and affected his senses, he would’ve asked how the boy wasn’t smelling it. But it wasn’t just blood. There was a touch of burnt flesh as well.
“You will walk beside me,” he said to the boy, still not trusting him. Then he turned to the others. “Draw your weapons. We may run into issues, maybe a level fifty class. Do not hesitate, fight with your life on the line and you will stand a chance of coming back out with it.”
“Yes, sir,” all three men chorused, voice low.
Valdan turned and placed a hand on Fjord’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
They moved cautiously towards the entrance. There was a chaotic display of grasses and shrubberies lying carelessly on the ground. Chances were that the rain and breeze had thrown them aside, pulled from somewhere or the other.
Valdan ignored it, pushed forward. The moment they were within the confines of the hole, he took his hand from Fjord and dimmed the light from his orb with a touch of mana.
He tossed the orb forward, allowed it roll across the ground. In the light of the orb, the ground was glossy. The walls and ceiling as well. Someone had covered it in something that looked like fluid.
Behind Valdan someone knocked a gauntleted hand against the wall.
Like glass, Valdan thought at the sound it made.
In front of them, the orb continued to roll forward. Valdan and the others followed it, steps careful, silent. Valdan didn’t activate [Stealth]. There was no need as far as he was concerned. Especially if Fjord wasn’t activating the skill.
The tunnel went deeper still, a straight path curving only ever so slightly. There were no branching paths and winding paths.
The orb stopped on its roll twice, and each time Valdan pushed it forward with his foot, rolled it further along. Finally, it came to a stop, illuminating something new.
The orb was stained red as it rolled no more, stopped by a small puddle of blood. Everyone stopped and Valdan’s heart took a deep breath.
“What the hell,” someone muttered behind them in a low voice. A worried voice.
Valdan forgot about Fjord for a moment and stepped forward. Although his sword was suddenly heavier in his head, he did not put it away. He did not drop it. He did not sheath it. But he held it down, low enough that it touched the ground at the tip.
The farther he walked, everyone else behind him, the deeper the breath his heart took. At some point, his heart began beating so loud he could hear it in his ear.
There were bodies, yet not enough blood. The smell of burnt flesh was as heavy if not heavier than the smell of blood. Even the smell of the rain outside hadn’t been able to usurp it.
Why?
At some point, Valdan came to a stop. He stood amidst a small artwork of corpses. Each man had died in a different way. There was a man with a severed hand slumped over in a puddle of his own blood. At his shoulder, where he’d lost his arm, Valdan could see whispers of cold smoke.
There was a man with a stab wound in his neck. He was battered and bruised. Cuts riddled his body. Each cut was stained a pale blue, as if he’d fought off an ice user. Or had been wounded and left out in the cold.
Or fought against someone that used an ice enchantment.
Valdan’s hold on his sword relaxed.
Please be alive, he thought, walking forward.
Bending down, he picked the orb with three fingers, making sure he didn’t get blood on his fingers, then tossed the orb forward casually.
It soared through the air and Valdan saw what he needed to see before he hit the ground.
His shirt was torn in some places. There were no obvious injuries. He wasn’t wearing his overgrown coat that stopped at his ankle, and Valdan didn’t know if he’d even worn it out. His pants weren’t too bad, but they had been better. There slight splatters of blood on him, but his arms were coated the most in them.
Tired eyes moved to the orb before it hit the ground. The yellow light gave those eyes an amber hue, almost like Brandis’.
They looked tired, thoughtful. They looked almost fed up.
Those were not the eyes of someone that needed to be scolded. Those were the eyes of someone who…
I don’t know, Valdan thought to himself. I just don’t know.
In the end, he settled for something he hoped would help. Because those eyes didn’t belong to a young boy, not one the age of the person that owned them.
Valdan gestured around casually, took in the bodies around him with a sweep of his hand. “I see we’re reaching new heights. I’m impressed.”
He did his best to put as much casualness into his tone—to sound truly impressed not alarmed.
Those eyes moved from the orb still on the ground. They looked up slowly, tired. They settled on Valdan. Valdan watched him a smile try to touch them and fail. There was a hesitant touch he hadn’t seen in them before.
Fjord peeked out from behind Valdan. “Lord Lacheart?”
Aiden’s eyes barely acknowledged the boy. They remained on Valdan instead, stained with hesitation. Worry.
“I count ten,” Valdan said.
Aiden looked down at the corpses. “Twelve,” he corrected, then he cocked his head to the side, deeper into the tunnel. “There are two more. Unconscious. Not enemies.”
Aiden was counting his words, speaking with caution.
He’s afraid of the punishment for murder, Valdan thought.
The boy had spent a lot of time in the libraries back at the palace. It was difficult to believe that he didn’t know at least a thing or two about the laws of Bandiv.
He’s worried for what will happen.
Valdan pushed the foot of a corpse calmly, as if making sure the owner was dead. The owner was, not that he needed to confirm.
“Fjord tells me they were poachers,” he said.
Aiden nodded. “They were after a creature called a Fharanal.” He paused, thoughtful. “We found it.”
“And someone else,” Valdan added.
“And someone else,” Aiden agreed, solemn. “He helped. Then fled.”
Both men remained silent while Fjord looked down at the corpse, taking them in, giving them his attention. He looked like he was taking a head count.
“Did you see which way he went?” One of the soldiers with them asked.
Aiden spared the man a glance, then shook his head. “But he took the beast with him.”
Fjord’s head shot up in surprise.
“Didn’t you say that the Fharanal was a large creature?” Valdan asked, sparing Fjord a glance. “As tall as a man and as wide as three.”
“It was,” Fjord replied quickly, a slight panic in his voice. “I swear it.”
“It is.” Aiden reached down, retrieved something, and rolled it along the ground. “He trapped it in one of these before he ran off.”
Valdan bent and picked the item up. It was a contraption, round. He knew of them. The items were created by different kinds of artificers and enchanters, sometimes mages. It followed some laws of spatial spells or enchantments that warped the space. It was very similar to a storage space.
Objects like these were also intelligence bound. Creatures of certain levels of intelligence couldn’t be held in it. If he wasn’t mistaken, it had something to do with their self-awareness. The higher it was, the more difficult it was to move them from their space without their permission or significantly higher will and power.
Valdan sheathed his sword. It hissed with its return. “What of the two that are unconscious?”
“Adventurers,” Aiden said. “I’ve worked with them before. Good people.”
Aiden looked up to the ceiling and let out a sigh. It was heavy, tired. It said he had been through something he didn’t want to go through.
“Poachers who wield their weapons and or skills against someone of noble birth after being caught committing a crime are doomed to a severe level of punishment,” Valdan said simply. “Do you know what that punishment is?”
Fjord took a hesitant step to the side, away from Valdan. One of the soldiers stepped closer to him ominously.
Aiden looked at it, then back at Valdan. He said nothing.
“You can’t tell me that for all the time you spent in the library you never learnt of this,” he said. “That would be vastly irresponsible of you.”
“Death,” Aiden said simply.
Valdan nodded. “Death. Under certain circumstances, the noble is allowed to execute judgement on the spot.” He gestured around him once more, indicated the corpses. “In this situation, you have administered justice. Lord Lacheart, your actions are justified.”
Aiden didn’t look convinced. Maybe it was because he wasn’t an actual Lord as one of noble birth and decent would become, or one with a system sanctioned appointment.
“And even those that are not lords,” he continued, “possess a permission of their own. Are laws are not so strict that they would not allow a man defend himself. One against ten is a situation that cannot be denied. You were within your rights to defend yourself by any means necessary.”
Although this looks systematic, Valdan thought, eyes taking in another severed arm. Vicious even. But justified.
Valdan raised a hand, gestured forward. “Find the unconscious. We are taking them back.”
Two soldiers stood at attention. “Yes, sir.”
Then they moved into the darkness beyond.
Fjord stepped a little more to the side as if he needed to be sure that Aiden was watching him. The third soldier moved closer to him.
“You can leave that one,” Aiden said absently. “He’s with me, currently under my employ.”
Valdan’s brows furrowed at that. “Are you sure, Lord Lacheart?”
“He currently is,” Aiden said. “I sent him on an errand and haven’t concluded his payment. Which places him under my employ in some way.”
“And after he’s paid?” Valdan asked.
Aiden shrugged. “I may have a use or two more for him. I can’t be completely certain just yet. For now, I’ll keep an eye on him.”
The soldier on Fjord took a single step away from the boy and Fjord let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Lord Lacheart.”
Aiden acknowledged his gratitude with a tired nod. Then he pushed himself to his feet. He rubbed his chest with the heel of his palm as he did.
“Are you fine?” Valdan asked him.
Aiden’s hand froze. He dropped it. “Yes. Just have somethings on my mind.”
“And your chest?”
Aiden looked down at it and dropped his hand. “It’s heavy.”
Valdan understood that. Such a thing would make a man’s heart heavy. A thought came to mind and he remembered something else.
“There was supposed to be a level fifty class,” he said. “Did you—”
Aiden cocked his head in a direction and Valdan looked behind him.
“He had a skill that made spear attack from random places,” Aiden said. “In the end he used a skill that summoned a number of spears in the air that he just kept sending at me.”
That sounded like a weak manifesting skill. Unless he could fight while using the skill, then it would be a boon in combat.
The man Aiden had gestured at, the man Fjord was currently looking down at, was the one that had a hole in his neck and various cuts that were a pale blue. Unlike the others who carried a few precise cuts, two or three or four, it bore too many as if from a drawn out battle.
Valdan took in Aiden’s clothes once more. The cuts were much, and each one carried a blood stain. He must’ve used a potion to heal himself.
More importantly, however, was that Aiden had killed someone above level fifty. Valdan wasn’t sure what his level was, but he had his suspicions of what this meant. Aiden was growing too fast. At this rate, by his estimate and that of his peers, the boy would leave the rest of the summoned in the dust. Teaming up with them will hold him back.
If he was to continue growing, he would need to work alone. Or with someone strong enough to match his level.
Someone like you?
Valdan banished the thought. The summoned were destined to go beyond the castle walls, beyond the kingdom of Bandiv. Theirs was a fate that sent them into the world to save the world. His was a fate that protected Bandiv from evils within and without.
But at this rate, Aiden was going to outgrow him as well.
Valdan found himself wanting to ask certain questions, curious questions. He stopped himself. They were not questions you asked in public. They were questions asked in private, away from ready ears.
“We should return,” he said, turning away as the other soldiers returned with a male and female adventured being carried. “We should place them with the adventure hall and return to the manor.”
Aiden agreed, walking forward.
“Let’s.”
…
Aiden lay on a soft mattress, staring up at the ceiling above. The ceiling was plain, simple. A gentle milk color stared back at him ignorant of his ability to be a ceiling as he was of its ability to be human.
He had been here, staring up at the ceiling for the past half hour. From the burrowed hole, they had taken Otid and Taliner to the adventure hall, walking under a rain that teased them with heavy falls and light drizzles.
Both adventurers had been abandoned to an infirmary and left to the care of the Healers. That they had remained unconscious for so long was testament to Olstead’s power and precision. That Bora had gotten up so early, however, was one thing he figured he could add to the wonders of Nastild.
Now, he was forced to focus on something else. The exact same thing he had been focusing on before Valdan had arrived. His heart.
It was heavy. On that he hadn’t lied to the knight. And it remained heavy, even now. Once again, he pulled up his notification.
[You have achieved one of the criteria to unlock skill Locked]
…
[You have slain an enemy 20 levels higher than you]
[Remaining criteria: Unknown]
He’d never heard of a skill that required you to kill an opponent significantly stronger. The closest thing he’d heard of was a skill that took a massive chunk of a person’s mana. She had been some warlord in some unknown lands. The woman had possessed a skill called [Falling God]. It was, in a sense, overpowered. And it took far too much from the woman. Luckily for her, she had a skill that served to store mana.
Was that similar to what was happening?
Aiden thought it was, yet he doubted it at the same time. He placed a hand against his chest, feeling the weight of it. Lying on his back, it pressed downward so that it was like a weight on his chest.
I hope I don’t have to live with it like this.
Aiden’s best guess was that the mana gained from killing enemies that helped a person level up had somehow accumulated instead of being distributed to making him more powerful. But what did that mean?
He opened a second notification.
[Congratulations Prisoner #234502385739!]
[You have reached level 40]
…
[You have gained stat points]
[You have gained 8 unallocated stat points]
[Your existing stats have gained additional points]
[Dexterity 20 --> 26], [Agility 12 --> 17], [Mana 19 --> 25], [Speed 17 --> 22], [Perception 13 --> 18], [Strength 10 --> 14]
…
[You have 8 unallocated stat points]
[Would you like to use unallocated stat points?]
[Y/N]
Aiden watched it, unsure.
He’d been staring at it for a while now, contemplating. He’d done the same in the forest. But with the weight on his heart, he’d been worried. He knew it was mana but didn’t know why. And it wasn’t even the type of mana people could use.
So he’d been worried. What would happen if he allocated his stat points with whatever was going on?
Something could happen just as easily as nothing could happen. There was also the possibility that he would carry the weight in his heart until he unlocked his [Locked] skill.
Too many new things were happening to him. Not that it was a bad thing.
“Alright,” Aiden sighed. “Here goes nothing.”
Then he allocated. Whatever was going to happen to him, he at least knew he wasn’t alone. He might be alone in his room, but he had enough ears on him to save him.
Dexterity was his highest, and while it was necessary for his class, Aiden wasn’t sure it needed any more stats right now. In a pickle, he could always use [Broken Weave]. So he put that aside for now.
Strength was his weakest, and significantly so. He put three points into it. There was no point being a skillful fighter if you lost to a clash of strength. Perception gave him awareness, and with his close save from [Stealth]—if he could really call it a save—he found his mind leaning towards it.
He gave perception two points. It put him down to three more points.
He distributed them among speed, mana, and agility, evenly.
[Dexterity 26 --> 26], [Agility 17 --> 18], [Mana 25 --> 26], [Speed 22 --> 23], [Perception 18 --> 20], [Strength 14 --> 17]
With the new stats, he waited. He braced himself for impact. All that happened was that the weight in his chest reduced. It wasn’t a significant reduction, but it was something. Noticeable.
I guess it’s just locked to the skill, he thought as regards the weight in his chest.
That said, he pulled up his personal details.
[Name - Aiden Lacheart]
[Species- Human]
[Age – 19]
[Class- Weaver Lvl 48]
[Class Skill]
[Enchanted Weave (Mastery 31.41%)], [Walking Canvas (Mastery 19.04%)], [Unarmed Engrave (Mastery 12.38%)], [Modify Engrave (Mastery 02.49%] , [Broken Weave (Mastery 00.21%)], [Locked (Mastery 0.25%)(U)]
[Affiliation]
[Kingdom of Bandiv].
[Title]
[Goblin Slayer], [Defier], [Protector], [Stone Guard], [Giant Slayer]
[Skill]
[Tongue of the Visitor (Mastery 100%)], [Basic Swordsmanship (Mastery 99.73%)], [Unarmed combat (Mastery 62.10%)], [Willpower (Mastery 04.14%)], [Mana manipulation (Mastery 32.42%)], [Basic Enchant (Mastery 50.17%)], [Dagger-wield (Mastery 19.33%)], [Stealth (Mastery 02.01%)], [Detect (Mastery 19.21%)], [Leap (Mastery 09.14%)], [Pathfinder (Mastery 02.00%)(U)), [Spearmanship (Mastery 03.48%)].
[Stats]
[Dexterity 26], [Agility 18], [Mana 26], [Speed 23], [Perception 20], [Strength 17]
[Life]
[Health 100%], [Stamina 100%], [Mana 100%].
Aiden couldn’t even remember when he’d gained the [Stealth] skill. In this life, it had been so insignificant a skill that he hadn’t cared for it. In its place he’d lost [Quick Movement] and [Light Step].
As for his stat build, he was beginning to consider what he was going to do. Maybe I should get the others to twenty before moving the others along.
He wasn’t sure he was comfortable with the gaps between them.
Aiden was still contemplating when he heard a knock on his door. He rose from his bed, covered in the clothes he’d changed to after having his bath, and walked up to the door.
He placed a hand on the small enchantment he’d created just below the knob, right next to the enchanted lock that came with the room. He channeled a touch of mana into it, then turned the knob.
The door opened to someone he hadn’t been expecting to see.
Elaswit gave him a friendly smile. “Hi.”
Aiden took a beat before he answered. “Good evening, Princess.”
Elaswit frowned at that. She looked left, then right. She did it so obviously even though there was no one in the hallway.
Aiden knew that she did it to make the fact that they were alone obvious.
“So, we’re really back to that,” she said finally. “Princess not Elaswit.”
Aiden wasn’t sure what to say to that. She was a princess. She would be powerful and continue her role as princess. He knew the power that came with being considered a friend of royalty. He also knew the responsibility.
He wanted none of it. As for Elaswit as a person, he simply couldn’t bring himself to care enough to usurp the fact that she was a princess.
“It’s nothing,” Elaswit said into his silence. “It’s no reason to think so much about it, love.”
Aiden cocked a brow at that. “Love?”
“There he is.” Elaswit’s lips widened. “We might not be close—even though I thought we would be after what we went through—but we can still be nice to each other. Right?”
Aiden could do that. “That I can do.”
“Good.” Elaswit’s smile turned into something mischievous as if she’d just caught him in a trap. “Since you’ve said that, I’m just here to remind you of the ball tomorrow.”
Aiden’s brows furrowed. He had a bad feeling about this.
“So,” Elaswit continued. “You’re my date for the little soiree Lord Naranoff is holding tomorrow.” She held out a folded piece of paper and he took it. “That’s a tailor Lord Naranoff uses. He can get you an amazing attire for the night. See you then.”
Then she left without a word, leaving Aiden in his silence.
Aiden closed the door and unfolded the piece of paper after reactivating the enchanted lock.
“Now I just have to—what the fuck?!”
His interface appeared in front of him.
[Achievement unlocked!]
You have done the impossible, faced an adversity beyond your comprehension and survived the eyes of those who peer into your fate. You have learned to walk a path not fettered to fate. You have become the master of your own fate… Quite literally]
[You have earned a new title!]
[Unfettered]
[Effect: +20% damage resistance to Time and Space based attacks.]
[Effect: Skill Fate Walker (Mastery 0.00%)(U)]
…
[You have gained class skill Fate Walker]
[Fate Walker (Mastery 0.00%)(U)]
You have realized your existence at the edge of fate. You walk where even gods fear to tread. You are an anomaly unknown.
…
[You have achieved one of the criteria to unlock skill Locked]
…
[You have gained a Fate based skill]
[Remaining criteria: Unknown]
Aiden frowned as worry wrinkled his face.
He had resisted a fate-based skill. Was it an attack or had someone been overly curious? He didn’t know how to feel about that, but the none of the options he had were good.
What do you know about fate based skills?
There were very few, and all of them were only attainable—if they ever were—after you crossed the threshold of level 400.
Someone in the level 400s had used a fate based skill on him.
Aiden’s frown died. His expression relaxed, then slackened.
He grew pale.
What did I do?
Comments
Justas Kondrusevicius
Didn’t he also gain a few Spear-based skills while sparring with Valdan several chapters ago?
IdolTrust
The unknown skill has to be something like “Loom of Fate” which he can cast a new fate for himself bypassing his fated death. It would be a luck plus fate skill that has a chance to trigger. It could be a passive skill.
