The Arcane Emperor

Chapter 176: The Four Towers

Having already scouted this planet filled with far more than usual World Energy ahead of time, Rainer figured it was safe enough to relocate to as quickly as possible. They had five Tier 3s on their side, not to mention two of those didn’t sacrifice the rarity of their classes in order to advance. While Rainer wouldn’t claim to have fully scouted the world, the seven 3rd Tiers he saw were all bargain-brand at best. Perhaps even a bit lesser than the three among the Nature Elves and Humans.

Rainer frowned as he made repeated trips, needing a total of five to carry all the 3rd Tiers over. What the Aura user had said about Alvra had complicated things. It was neither the bloodlines nor the normal resources of the world they desired most: rather it was the Forbidden Lands. To the point where many a spy was either pulled back or sacrificed in obtaining the information on where Alvra was.

That was unacceptable.

And now Rainer realized another problem: he needed the body of a Vampyr for Gunthar as well. The Ling Dynasty didn’t have anywhere near enough to steal the whole tribe, but they took many or killed them outright. Given their teleportation ability and lack of a Demon Prince, they might have prioritized that tribe. He imagined a bloodline with an innate teleportation ability was quite tantalizing to an Aura user.

Rainer was stuck in more ways than one. Alvra was no longer a planet he could give ground in. Nor could he just wait and let them get settled. He wouldn’t sacrifice Gunthar’s future in any way. Not to mention Gunthar’s father, though that Undead seemed content enough given a Fae’s attraction to Mana over matter.

He took two Avatars with him, leaving one still in the City of Wealth with Elelaria. As he still had much to learn about the city, it was unlikely he’d be moving that one any time soon except to transport goods. And he imagined that he might be able to take on a lesser 3rd Tier in actual combat if he had three of himself fighting.

The combination of using Arcane-Weaved Chains and [Void Hold] on top of everything else in his arsenal should be enough to give him a chance to attack with either [Arcane Blade] or, better yet, [Blade of the Void]. A part of him even looked forward to a chance at conflict. Though he wasn’t in any rush. If their Enchanter’s Guild didn’t ruffle any feathers he would laugh and give away items for free, because clearly this world would deserve that for being so reasonable.

Flying into the first major city he saw, it took only a few minutes for Rainer to find a map. He threw a random attribute increasing ring at the store owner and took the most detailed one before vanishing as quickly as he came.

“Surprisingly detailed,” Frederick said, looking over the map with the rest of the group. They planned on splitting up and heading to every major population center. Finding the best location to set up their Guild was a priority, even if the eventual plan would be to construct their own city. Testing out the waters before setting up a permanent base and bringing non-combatants over was a must.

“Even with this technology level, an Aura user of enough strength could travel the world in a few days easily enough,” his other grandfather added on.

Unlike Alvra, this planet was entirely explored. There were plenty of places more wild but there was only truly one circular zone that was considered off limits.

“The Not-Good Place,” Rainer read aloud, chuckling to himself. Fairy translation wasn’t perfect after all. He vanished a moment later and questioned the same map maker, who was staring down at the ring he just recieved.

“Hey,” Rainer said, getting his attention, “What’s the Not-Good Place on the map?”

The man looked up at him, blinking owlishly.

Rainer just chuckled and threw over another random ring.

“I-It’s a land of monsters, some of the 3rd Tier variety. The outskirts are safe for hunting, but killing monsters outside your Tier will attract the attention of the stronger ones living in the center,” he answered, his mind swirling as he wondered how someone so powerful wouldn’t know such basic knowledge.

That was strange. Rainer knew there were intelligent monsters, [Ice Wolf Queen] case in point, but that was a weird rule to exist. But the land it covered was quite massive and it would be interesting to explore it later on. Maybe he might try and earn a favor from an aging 3rd Tier monster to act as a familiar for the Trial? The Soul was usually the limiting factor in familiar bonds after all.

“Appreciate it,” Rainer said, before vanishing again. Leaving the shopkeeper just as stunned as before.

Rainer and a glamoured Sun Elf Gunthar walked side by side as they entered their chosen city. Tiamat, currently sitting on Gunthar’s shoulder as a parrot, was the final member of their group.

He chuckled a bit looking at Gunthar before turning his attention back to the city. Why or how Luna dressed him as a pirate should remain a mystery. Given that Sarah looked just as surprised as the rest when Luna did his glamour, he couldn’t pin it on her.

“This brings back memories.”

“The city reminds you of Nalmar?”

“No,” Gunthar said, “the gawking of the people does though.” His voice cut through the crowd, causing more than a few women to turn red, either in embarrassment or anger.

Rainer chuckled, wondering if the serious Gunthar was a reluctant heartthrob back in his day. He was good-looking even for an Elf after all. And he didn’t seem like the type to date casually.

“The curse of beauty, we can suffer together.”

“I can’t imagine you suffering from such a thing, Sorcerer. But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Did you forget I was chased by slavers,” Rainer said as they walked through the city. Gunthar was right though. He was quite happy with having his Charisma leveled. Even if there was nothing wrong with the old him, he couldn’t imagine not having any insecurities given both Kara and Luna. And the fact that there was two of them.

“Weren’t you quite happy they chased you?”

“That’s not the point,” Rainer said. He was quite happy, since it saved him the trouble of looking for someone to get information about the city from. Even if it was insulting to be captured because of his beauty rather than his other numerous talents.

“True. Then let us suffer together, Sorcerer,” Gunthar said, his mood uplifted.

Rainer looked around, ignoring the huge amount of attention both of them drew. Their loud conversation hadn’t helped that. Elves didn’t seem to exist here and Gunthar was no slouch in that department. Even if he was a bit uglier in Luna’s imperfect recreation from [Sleep Learning], one would still be hard pressed to find a Human better looking than him.

And Rainer was… well, he was someone who attracted slavers the first time he visited the City of Wealth.

They spent some time just walking through the city, attracting attention everywhere they went. Gunthar focused most of his own attention on Tiamat on his shoulder. The glamour didn’t prevent her from getting pet.

“There are a lot of loose Souls in that direction… They are… strange…” Gunthar suddenly said, pointing to his left.

“Let’s check it out,” Rainer said, quite interested as [Arcane Revelation] covered his eyes.

Walking into the deserted store, Rainer had done a double take when he saw its name. And now when he stared at the first weapon to attract his attention, he wasn’t able to take his eyes of it.

[Hammer of Power: A metal hammer. Inscribed to increase its durability. Enchanted and Inscribed to store a Soul. Soul of the Frigid Ox: Increases power and speed of swing by 40% three times per day. Soul Use Restriction: Tier 1.]

The Soul was inert, likely not having an inch of consciousness. In other words, if Gunthar tried to absorb it, he’d either fail or get nothing from it. It was woven beautifully into the weapon with what looked like an incredibly simple enchantment combined with an impossibly complex Aura inscription.

Beautiful, likely to his eyes only.

Rainer suddenly sighed and placed his face in his hands. The answer was so obvious and yet he missed it entirely. For seemingly no reason, their progress on converting him Draconically had stalled. It seemed perfect yet his body rejected it everytime. Even as he got better at mimicking the monster-like way of absorption, even though he hadn’t gained a skill yet, it didn’t help at all.

Nor did they make any progress in converting that last bit of Wyvern in Tiamat to a pure Dragon. But now Rainer understood. Amer’s still missing arm and the scar on his cheek should have made it obvious. A Soul reflected the body and likewise.

They needed to change the Soul with the body.

A shame Tiamat was already converted as much as possible naturally, else he could watch her Soul more closely during the process. Especially since his [Arcane Revelation] reaching level 2 directly related to seeing a Soul more clearly.

Rainer suddenly thought of the half-Lizardkin boy. Wouldn’t his partially Draconic dog be the perfect thing to see this? And it wasn’t as if it was onerous, he would be making the dog stronger and likely granting it a longer life and in exchange all they had to do was let Rainer watch it happen.

It shouldn’t be too hard to find a hybrid Lizardkin with a powerful Draconic monster as a familiar. That was a hard thing to miss. He sent one of his two Avatars outside the city back to Alvra. There was no reason to wait. Especially given the invasion of any force, even more than just the Ling Dynasty and the Zan, could happen at any time. It would be truly regretful, not just for his experiment—he helped him in the first place because he was fond of him—for the boy and his dog to die because he chose to wait.

He glanced around the room, seeing similar weapons and then numerous jars with Souls stored in them. The inscription looked like a crude version of Ling Yun’s Soul tablet, but it was effective for its purpose of storing an inert small part of a Soul.

His eyes finally looked up and he saw someone he couldn’t feel with [Aura Detection]. He was definitely in the high ranks of the 2nd Tier in terms of Aura, though what was most interesting was the 20 or so Mana he had as well. Mages were a rare thing in this world as far as he could tell.

The man sat in meditation and likely considered it his own training to protect the store secretly. Or perhaps he just had fun screwing with people.

“Sorcerer.”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think I can do something similar with my bones and class skills combined with your Body Enchanting?” He was deeply interested just what sort of effects that could draw and whether it could let him use yet another Soul derived ability at the same time.

“Not the slightest clue. But I’d love to try.”

“I expect nothing less of you, Sorcerer.”

Before they could continue, Rainer received a message from Sarah. As interested as he was in this method and the man behind them, they weren’t going anywhere. Prior to leaving, he dropped an enchanted ring on the floor and-

“The Enchanter’s Guild sends it’s greetings,” he said loudly, his voice infused with Arcane, before vanishing in a Void-walk with Gunthar and Tiamat.

What was the point of being a Sorcerer if he couldn’t be mysterious?

It was only a few moments later that Rainer found himself regrouping with Kara, Luna, and Sarah. The currently little Fairy had already repossessed his head as her perch. She traded a few glances with Tiamat as if daring the little Dragon to challenge her position. Fortunately for either of the two, said Dragon was happy with Gunthar. The Undead was spoiling her as usual as he scratched under her chin and her chest.

“What am I looking at?” Rainer asked.

“The new home city of the Enchanter’s Guild,” Sarah answered, waving at the city gates they were quite a bit from. Did she even enter the city?

“And over there?” Rainer pointed, referring to the four large towers a bit away from the city. Judging by their architecture no one in this world could match, they were likely some sort of Dungeon. There was a massive singular black spike of a tower in the center, triangulated by three other towers.

“All four are Rank 6. The first Dungeon blocks all abilities other than Aura. That includes Enchanted items and the like. As you can imagine, it was beaten quite quickly given the state of this world. “The Seven Masters” are the surviving original party that beat the first version. All 15 had beat it. It was “The Seven” after the Trial. Apparently over a hundred of the best Tier 2 parties had died to the Dungeon before hand. Though the difficulty was massively reduced after they defeated it once.”

“That’s a pretty high success rate,” Rainer said, inwardly wondering if those 15 were the most talented Aura users on this planet, and that the 7 who lived were smart enough to understand their limits and pick the easiest classes possible for their advancement. Then it wasn’t too unbelievable. Especially since they likely raced against many other parties in order to complete the Dungeon first.

Or… Perhaps all of them had chosen the safe route. Which made the Trial just that more fearsome. If he considered his own group, and knowing them, none would be choosing anything other than a rare class, except maybe Furtak, his aunt, and his mother. They all had too much pride for anything but that. And he wasn’t even sure about his his aunt or mother, that was just wishful thinking.

“The second bars everything other than Magic. But it’s difficulty was much lower and the first and only party of level 24 2nd Tier Mages had passed it. They now sell runs through it for those wishing to challenge the third.

“The third requires you to have beaten the first and second. It forcefully lowers and sets the maximum for all your attributes to 10.”

“You still haven’t explained why you chose this city,” Rainer said, knowing other cities were near dungeons as well. It was almost a requirement to feed a city without advanced enough agriculture techniques. There was likely more than one Dungeon nearby. And perhaps other cities had ones even more popular than these towers.

“My dear brother, there is one thing I have yet to mention.”

“What?”

“What indeed,” Sarah said, her eyes sparkling.

What a ‘great’ use of her talent in [Mana Manipulation].

“The third is pay-to-win. And it also carries the best rewards and has never been beaten fully. The system is truly a wonderful thing. I’m sure many are curious just what’s in the fourth Tower given it requires beating the third.”

“I’m assuming Enchanted Items and otherwise are fully allowed?”

“Exactly.”

“What’s pay-to-win?” Luna asked.

“It means achieving victory because you are richer than your enemies,” Sarah answered.

Luna leaned over the edge of his head and looked into Rainer’s eyes. Or rather, one of them given her current size.

“Luna would like to do some of this pay to winning more often.”

The lazy Fairy dodged a puff of air from Rainer’s mouth.

“Isn’t being carried more your style, Luna?” Sarah asked.

“Yes?” Luna responded, before Sarah explained what she meant.

“Luna would like to do some more of this carrying.” She repeated her request in the same exact manner, looking into his other eye this time.

Rainer laughed, knowing a lot of Luna’s power came from being “carried”. Whether that was her Tier 2 Shadow-being familiar or her current passives that granted a physical body stronger than Rainer. Her Fire technically counted though Rainer considered that she had well earned that.

“Anything for you Luna.”

“Let’s look around for a building to buy then,” Rainer said, seeing no reason to interrupt the rest of his party. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t set up shop in other towns if they found a reason to.

Lilia listened attentively as grandpa Frederick spoke about runes. They were currently taking a break within one of the restaurants in the city they were visiting. He was a great teacher, better than any she had even if she enjoyed being taught by her Master more. Having heard that Sarah had a complete lack of talent for runes and yet had extensive knowledge of them at a young age spoke well of Frederick’s talent as a teacher.

Across from them at a nearby table sat the one with the Devilish Soul, the One with the Huge and Pleasant to look at Soul, and the One with the Disturbing Soul.

She shivered a bit looking at the last one that resembled life sucking roots with no place being in a living thing. It twisted and spread throughout his body as if it existed normally within the world. At least he wasn’t looking at her. That always made it worse.

Even seeing the Soul of the 3rd Tier Locklar didn’t really produce awe to Lilia. Nothing really compared to the awe she felt when she saw her Master’s Soul. Whether that was the Arcane above or the Void below, or the world in the center. There was no Soul that could compare, nothing more fearsome. But that didn’t make her afraid of it.

But the red-headed old man… she stared at his Soul. A feeling of creeping vines touched her skin and the smell of rotting wood, left and forgotten in the rain, filled the air. A decayed world spread out around her-

“Careful where you look.” Frederick’s voice snapped her to attention.

“Sorry,” she apologized and returned to listening to his lecture. Grandpa Frederick always had the best advice. She hoped her Master would be less busy soon so she could look at his Soul.