Path to Transcendence

Chapter 795: Gilded Cage

Julius simply stood there while Leander and the old man discussed things. To be fair, he wasn’t too worried. Yeah, those old fogies at the estate might blame him for the rift going out of control and shutting down temporarily, but the truth of the matter was that he didn’t have anything to do with it.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t completely true. But in fairness, the rift was already having issues, and it was bad luck that it finally went out of whack when he entered. If they wanted to blame him for it, then they could try all they liked.

He had finally sensed the people Old Man Rivers mentioned were coming. They were moving quite quickly, and they would be here within a minute or so.

During this time, he quickly looked over his rewards, making sure that they were safe. For a bit, he had been worried that the old man would try to steal or at least examine his rewards, but fortunately, he had left them be.

The fruit still seemed to be in good condition, and he had a day to consume it before it started to lose its efficacy. The book was something that would need some closer inspection. So he quickly put it into his dimensional void space for safekeeping until then.

While he did that, he finally started to contemplate what Leander and the old man had talked about. According to the old man, someone had tried to mess with the rift when he was inside. This was a little disturbing for a few reasons.

The most disturbing reason was that he had been inside and didn’t know if the plan specifically targeted him or if it was just bad timing, like the whole situation inside the rift had been.

He was also curious whether or not the Conclave had anything to do with this. He already knew that someone was trying to mess with rifts all over Corvus. The rift he found when he first entered Corvus was still at the forefront of his mind. He recalled that Velmora had said something about a human being with a horde of corrupted beasts who attacked her.

He hadn’t been able to get a good look at the cylinder that the old man gave to Leander before it was shoved inside the man’s storage ring, but it was encased in some of the strongest and strangest metal he’d ever seen.

It was still prudent to acknowledge that he didn’t know if the Conclave was necessarily behind this. For all he knew, it could have been another equally evil and nasty organization. But seeing how large and dangerous the Conclave had proved itself to be, he wasn’t removing them from the list of potential suspects.

The issue with Goldmere and the Golden Tear’s Spring was another matter too. They were clearly doing something. But Julius didn’t know exactly what it was.

If it wasn’t them behind this incident, then there were still plenty of other suspects. He imagined that Clan Dawnfield had created more than enough enemies over its history for some rival clan to try to destroy or damage the rift.

He eventually just shrugged. It didn’t really have anything to do with him, and all he wanted was to eat that fruit he got and take a peek at that beat-up little book he got.

Unfortunately, he had to get through this particular issue at the moment. Still, he was going to shamelessly rely on Leander to help him. The man was very reliable, and hopefully he would help to make sure that Julius wasn’t going to be kidnapped and tortured by the elders.

The door to the rift room opened once again, and Julius watched with an emotionless expression as three people strolled in. Two were people he was familiar with. One was Elder Yuna, who had given him a bit of a hard time when he first arrived. To her left was an elder who had accompanied her during that time.

His name was Elder Cog if Julius recalled properly. Leander had said something like that, but there were too many elders for Julius to put names to faces, so he couldn’t be too sure.

Next to Elder Yuna was a man he hadn’t seen before. Unlike Elder Cog, who looked old and had wrinkly skin covering his face, this person was quite young. At least that was what he looked like. For all Julius knew, the man could have been old enough to be Julius’s grandfather.

The man was Tier 5, much like Elder Yuna and Elder Cog. And like Elder Yuna, he had a weight to his presence that made Julius believe he wasn’t just your average Tier 5. As he had come to learn, the higher one went, the more dramatic the differences within tiers became.

For example, that Tier 5 crafter he helped Emil kill all that time ago was probably at the lowest end of the Tier 5 spectrum, whereas someone like Marcus was towards the very top. Even if a hundred of the former went against Marcus, Julius would still put his money on Marcus coming out ahead. That was just how vast the difference was.

“What happened here?” Elder Yuna immediately asked aggressively, looking over at the rift and then back at Leander for an explanation.

Leander did just that, using the story that he and the old man had briefly discussed before they arrived. They told her about the man who had supposedly infiltrated and attempted to mess with the rift.

This copied chapter came from Royal Road without approval, while the author's own posting there supports the person who wrote it.

“Where is this person then?” Elder Yuna asked with a frown and a pointed look at Old Man Rivers.

“Dead. Killed him, and his body was turned into dust soon after,” Rivers responded calmly.

“Convenient,” Elder Cog scoffed under his breath, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

Elder Yuna gave the older elder a sharp look, but quickly returned her gaze to Leander. “You saw this yourself?”

Leander pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No, but I trust Rivers.”

“You must know what you are implying then, right?”

“Yes.” Leander nodded firmly.

“So you’re saying that one of our clan divulged the location of the rift to someone outside of the clan? For what purpose? To destroy or sabotage it?”

“I’m not sure,” Leander said with a shrug.

“Preposterous. As if one of our own would betray the clan like this,” Elder Cog shot out. “We all know that there is a much more plausible and likely scenario.”

Leander turned his gaze to the older elder. It was hard and cold. “Elder Kong, it is not the right time to make assumptions.”

Oh, so it was Kong, not Cog, Julius noted with a nod to himself. That made more sense, though he might have preferred Cog.

“Is that not what you are doing? Making assumptions that someone else tried to sabotage the rift when the likely candidate is the outsider the clan allowed to enter the rift without any supervision? An idea that many of the elders and members of the clan adamantly opposed?”

“You do realize how dangerous it is to make that accusation, Elder Kong?”

“Someone must say it out loud. Just because of his master, we are supposed to assume he won’t do any harm or harbor any ill intent toward the clan?”

“For what reason?” Leander asked, sounding displeased by this quickly deteriorating situation.

“Didn’t one of us insult and offend him? Going so far as to challenge him to an honor duel? Who’s to say that he didn’t plan this?”

Even Elder Yuna, who hadn’t looked necessarily accusatory towards Julius at the beginning, was looking over at him with a doubtful expression on her face.

It looked like the older elder was convincing her that Julius could have played a part in this situation. To be honest, the annoying Elder Cog made a decent point.

“That is quite a leap in judgment, Elder Kong. And I can assure you that Julius doesn’t harbor any lingering resentment toward Clan Dawnfield. He has even willingly come to our estate, despite knowing some of the risks.” Leander still tried to alleviate their concerns.

Elder Yuna decided to intercede. “Okay, I’m not sure exactly what happened. But Leander, you must admit that the circumstances are a bit suspicious. An outsider enters the rift unsupervised, and now it suddenly does this? Maybe a person really did show up and mess with the rift. I don’t think Rivers is lying about that. But that would mean that one of our own elders or more important members of the clan voluntarily shared information that would damage one of its best resources. If that is the case, why now? Why not before?”

“To shift the blame to someone like Julius. What better way to hide their involvement?” Leander argued.

Elder Yuna nodded, acknowledging the point. “True, that is something we need to consider as well. But the fact remains that something happened to the rift. We don’t know what, and we don’t know who is responsible.” She said this last part with a direct look at Elder Kong, who seemed to wilt slightly under her gaze.

“That being said, we need to take precautionary measures. We need to keep an eye on Julius while we investigate the issue further and gain more evidence of what happened.”

Leander stared at her and shook his head. “You’re saying that we need to shove him in a cell?”

“No, we don’t need to do that. We will make sure he is comfortable and has what he needs, but we need to ensure that he can’t leave or communicate with any potential suspects until we are finished with our investigation.”

Leander squeezed his nose with his fingers. “This is absurd. You understand what will happen if word gets out to Cain about this, right?”

“We aren’t putting him in a cage, and we aren’t going to torture him for information.”

“A gilded cage is still a cage,” Leander shot back.

Elder Yuna glared at Leander with a little more aggression. “We will do our investigation into what happened and will call Acturus to resolve matters once we have all of the available information. In the meantime, nothing will happen to young Julius. You have my word.”

Leander was going to argue more, but Julius walked over and placed his hand on the man’s arm. “It’s fine. Let them investigate. As long as they don’t shove me into a dark hole, I’ll be fine.”

“Yes, but you didn’t do anything.”

“It doesn’t matter. They don’t know that, and some,” he said with a look at Elder Cog, “don’t want to believe it. As long as they are reasonable, I don’t mind alleviating their concerns.”

Leander obviously didn’t like it, but eventually nodded.

Elder Yuna seemed grateful that he was being understanding and cooperative. They did some measurements of the room, trying to see what might have happened in here. But after a little bit, they finally decided it was time to head back to the estate. Julius wasn’t put in any cuffs, but he could feel Elder Yuna’s domain surrounding him like a barrier, making sure he couldn’t try and escape.

Normally, Julius would have been annoyed by this, but truthfully, he didn’t mind it too much. He didn’t like that he was being accused of something that he didn’t do. He had no idea who had come to the rift and tried to sabotage it. But he also was kinda responsible for what happened just because of his own personal circumstances and because Zereth tried to steal his body. Therefore, he was more than willing to wait until they figured out that the rift was fine. He also needed some time to absorb his new treasure.

So, in a way, he was the one trying to rush them to get him inside the estate. Because once he got there, he was going to improve his kinetic affinity, and he was excited to see just how much of a leap it could make.

He didn’t know how good the fruit would be, but considering all of the effort he put into improving and bartering for his rewards, he was hoping it would be pretty good.