Chương 14: The Discoveries

The morning air inside the militia's training hall was crisp, carrying the sharp, bitter scents of polished oak, cold sweat, and the faint metallic tang of old oil. Sunbeams shone through the high windows, showing dust floating in the air. On the dirt floor below, two people walked, kicking up small clouds of dust with their feet. Stelle lunged forward. She deliberately softened her posture, dropping her shoulder just enough to execute an intentionally clumsy, ragged upward swing.

Her wooden practice sword cut through the chilling air with an ugly wobble. With an effortless flick of her right wrist, Vira parried the blow. She didn't even use her full weight; she merely redirected the kinetic energy of Stelle's strike. The impact reverberated through Stelle's arms, deliberately loose in her grip, causing the practice weapon to spin out of her hands and go clattering loudly across the worn floorboards.

"Too slow and entirely too weak," Vira remarked, her voice dripping with disappointment. The commander didn't lower her blade. Instead, she advanced a half-step, keeping the blunt wooden tip pointed directly at Stelle's throat, just inches away from the pale skin of her collarbone. Vira's posture was relaxed, yet her muscles were coiled like a spring.

"I expected a great deal more from someone who managed to survive the horrors of Frost-Veil Peak," Vira continued, her sharp eyes scanning Stelle's face for any micro-expressions of guilt or panic.

"Or maybe you're just too shy to show me what you can really do? Perhaps you don't trust your current company?" Stelle remained perfectly silent, a mask of pale innocence washing over her features as she looked up at her instructor. Her wide, crystal-blue eyes mirrored nothing but unblemished vulnerability before she bent down to grab her sword from the ground. But beneath that eyes, her internal processor was mapping Vira's words.

Early this morning, a report arrived via a device called Arcanograph—a tool capable of sending and receiving messages through teleportation magic. After reviewing the message, her entire demeanor shifted, growing noticeably colder around her. So Vira has finally received the scout report. The group of scouts that trace my path in Frost-Veil Peak. Stelle then look at the woman. Vira knew something. There was no doubt about it now.

"The scouts... They saw a group of goblins and a hobgoblin remains from where you came from. Base of their injuries... They are not killed by a normal beast or other monster."

"Did you know anything?" Vira look at her with sharp eyes this time. So the scout really informed her about the slaughtered remains of the goblin horde in the Frost-Veil and examined the bodies. This would make them think either that someone else had helped her, a hidden companion, or that the girl they discovered was a trained combatant. If they had a way to trace her path, it would be useless to fabricate a lie around the first two possibilities. The better choice was to reframe it.

"Back then... when the green creatures found me... I got scared and couldn't run," Stelle stammered. She lowered her head, twisting her small fingers together in a display of nervous agitation.

"They surrounded me. And when one of them jumped at me..." She paused, letting her voice tremble slightly.

"I somewhat knew how to fight them..." Not entirely false, she just explained it in different way since she couldn't outright deny the combat when the physical evidence on that mountain was so absolute. So the only choice is to reframe it.

"I don't know what happened. I just... did what my body wanted. I just fought until everything stopped moving."

"Is that so? Muscle memory..." Vira murmured, her tone unreadable.

"You should be more confident, Stelle. In this world, relying on instinct alone is just a slow way to failure." Then, without a single breath of warning, Vira lunged. The commander's calm demeanor vanished beneath an explosion of violent intent. Her wooden sword became a swift, lethal blur, whistling through the air as it aimed straight for Stelle's unprotected left shoulder. She decide to gamble, the blow carried enough velocity and weight to fracture bone.

Vira was betting that when faced with pain, the girl's true power would show itself. [WARNING: INCOMING LETHAL STRIKE] For a microsecond, Stelle's calculated facade slipped. Her body moved. Twisting her hips inward, she brought her wooden sword up in a flashing, crossed-arc motion, bracing a phantom guard. Thwack! The heavy wooden blade collided violently against her sword.

A sharp, dense crack resonated through the entire training hall, the sheer physical force of the impact radiating through the air and kicking up the dust beneath their feet. Stelle had intercepted the blow with the precise block of a Tier 1 Awakened, her wooden sword absorbing the shockwave until it almost shattered. The force of the impact staggered her backward. The strike was perfectly blocked. For a long, tense second, neither of them moved.

Vira's sharp eyes locked onto Stelle's flawless defensive stance, a predatory, victorious glint flashing in her gaze. Yet, just as quickly as her focus had sharpened to a needle point, Vira relaxed her posture. The killing intent evaporated into thin air, and she pulled her sword back, lowering it to her side with a calm, deeply unnerving serenity.

"Everyone has secrets, Stelle," Vira said smoothly, turning around to slide her practice weapon back into the leather sheath resting at her waist. She turned back to face the girl, crossing her arms over her chest.

"But I looked into your eyes during that strike. You didn't counterattack, and you didn't panic. You hide your true nature exceptionally well, more importantly, you don't have a venomous gaze. So I am going to make a rare exception. I won't interrogate you. I won't demand any secrets from you." Vira took a step closer, her voice dropping into a low register.

"Instead, let me lay out a proposition. It is quite simple: I can help you, and you can help me. I can train you to be truly capable in the eyes of the public, masking whatever abnormalities you possess. I can even grant you a high status and a life of luxury within this militia, provided everything goes according to my long-term plans. What I am trying to tell you, Stelle, is that I am not your enemy. I am an opportunity." Vira breathe, and in one motion she relax.

"I'm not forcing you, I want to help you. So think. Tomorrow I will take you in the Union, so prepare yourself." As Vira walked away, Stelle stood completely still in the center of the quiet training hall. Vira is sharp. She isn't easily fooled, Stelle analyzed, her internal thoughts moving with cold, mechanical precision. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. At just twenty-six years old, Vira is already a Tier 3 Awakened.

She acts as one of the brains of this entire militia. When she realized I was not as innocent as she initially assessed, she changed tactics to a business transaction. She has already revised her plan. Stelle looked down at her own pale hands. I could have simply accepted her attack earlier, and it would have caused her more confusion than providing a real answer. But... She looked at her smooth fingers. Remembering her first scar. Something much more problematic would be revealed.

If she discover that I can heal any injury within a short timeframe, it will flag me as an entity outside of a normal human. And that is a scenario I cannot allow to happen. Vira paused, looking back over her shoulder for a few lingering seconds. A faint, unreadable smile touched the commander's lips.

"Then let us end today's session here. You are free to explore the town or to the library and read our books to pass the time." With that, Vira turned and vanished through the heavy doors of the training hall. Stelle watched the empty doorway. She is granting me freedom around the town to test me, Stelle realized. She also knows I can read. Her mind instantly recalled the moments she had spent glancing around the command tent at Ember-Watch.

Vira must have a way to know I looked at those documents, she reasoned, cross-referencing the memory against her Knowledge Archive for a plausible answer. According to the book The Elite Regressor, a Stalker could sense the movement and vibration of their surroundings without ever looking directly at them, tracing lingering disturbances left behind on objects long after the fact.

It was possible that Vira, even while absent from the tent, had used her ability to sense Stelle's movements within it then later read the residual traces across the table and papers to confirm exactly what she had touched. I see. I thought I was doing fine. If I were on Earth, my current procedures would work flawlessly. But this world is different. They have concepts that make things impossible on Earth but fully possible here. I need to adjust and improvise better.

I shouldn't rely solely on my Knowledge Archive. I should take every opportunity to learn more. Placing her wooden sword back onto the equipment rack, Stelle slipped out of the training hall and made her way through the Barrack's Library. The library was a quiet sanctuary of towering oak shelves, smelling heavily of aged parchment, dried ink, and dust. She found a secluded corner, pulling a massive, leather-bound volume from the shelf titled The World Catalog.

Sitting in the dim light, Stelle let her processing speed do what no ordinary reader ever could. Pages that would take a normal human hours to digest were scanned, parsed, and uploaded directly into her mind within seconds. The grand, tragic history of the planetary system unfolded before her. [DATA RETRIEVAL: THE CHRONICLES OF MYTHOS AND THE FOUR REALMS] According to the text, the planet she currently stood upon was named Terra and the cradle of humanity. But Terra was merely one piece of a cosmic puzzle.

There were three other sister planets orbiting a massive central world: Aura: A vibrant world of wild mana, home to the Elves and Fairies. Ignis: A harsh, volcanic land belonging to the Anthros, the beast-kin. Umbra: The dark, volatile realm where the Demon race originated, hidden from Terra's direct view. At the center of these four worlds sat Mythos, a colossal planet where higher beings and gods resided. Thousands of years ago, during the Age of Serenity, the gods of Mythos sought to unite the species.

They constructed monolithic, planet-spanning Towers on Terra, Umbra, Aura, and Ignis, creating permanent spatial bridges directly to Mythos. This monumental achievement marked the birth of a new epoch, officially designated as the new first Era: The Age of Unity. For a time, the plan worked. The races commingled, hatreds slowly faded, and commerce thrived through another two prosperous eras before the greatest calamity fell from the sky. A cataclysmic cosmic disaster known as the Dark Star crashed into Mythos.

It brought with it the Abyssal Apocalypse—a corrupting, malevolent energy that drove existing beasts into hyper-aggressive mutations and polluted the atmosphere with a abyssal plague. The corruption spread like a cancer, eventually spilling into the Towers and bursting onto the four outer planets. They called it the Great Darkness the beginning of the fourth era. Billions died in a matter of years. Entire civilizations vanished as mutated monsters flooded the realms.

The salvation of the universe came at a catastrophic price... a desperate act of cosmic surgery written in the blood of the mortal and god. When the Abyssal Apocalypse threatened to consume all of creation, Aurelion, the Dragon King of Mythos and also known as the Heart of Mythos have finally made the ultimate sacrifice against his own divinity.

He tore out his own Primordial Core, the blazing stellar engine that had sustained his immortal life for thousands of years, and detonated it, casting a permanent celestial seal over the Dark Star. This catastrophic sacrifice became a memento of hope and a new beginning birthing The New Dawn or the fifth Era. With the Dragon King's sacrifice, a fragile glimmer of hope returned to the five planets.

The remaining living gods and surviving mortal races found the strength to fight back against the relentless tide of corrupted monsters. Across the bleeding face of Mythos, ancient rivalries were forgotten as all races united to preserve their dying world. A grueling war of attrition began. Slowly and agonizingly, new civilizations began to sprout from the ash and ruin of the old. For thousands of years following the death of the Dragon King, the war raged on.

Near the end of the 5th Era, the four great continents of Mythos where the planetary portals of the towers is standing—were successfully reclaimed from the Abyss. To secure their hard-won peace, the survivors erected grand barriers to hold back the lingering threat of the Dark Star's remnants. The completion of these barriers marked the end of the bloody reconstruction and signaled the birth of the current and 6th Era: The Era of Liberation.

With the continents secured, the rulers of Mythos regained control over the long-dormant Towers. They decreed that the gates would remain sealed throughout the harsh cycles of the world, unlocking only after the final season had drawn to a close. Consequently, those colossal structures no longer served as peaceful highways of interstellar trade and diplomacy; they had become the ultimate trial.

Every year, the planetary rulers of the four outer realms gathered their chosen Awakeneds and marched them directly into the jaws of the Towers. It was a merciless filtration system designed to weed out the weak and harvest only the elite. These survivors were hurled onto the front lines of Mythos, joining the eternal, grinding war behind the great walls where dying gods still fought the shadows.

[ARCHIVE CROSS-REFERENCE: TOWER OF GODS] Her system flagged another match from her archive books, cross-referencing historical records with the book Tower of Gods. Stelle scrolled her visual feed directly into the history section to search for connected records regarding the tower. The very first generation to climb these vertical hells during the early years of the 5th Era were known to history as The Pioneers.

During that initial, chaotic clearing of the Towers, thousands of brilliant Awakeneds vanished inside the infested structures. According to the records, Humanity's home planet, Terra, was notoriously the last of the four outer realms to successfully clear its Tower. It was a historic scar that left humans looked down upon by the other, more proficient races of the cosmos.

Only after those few surviving Pioneers finally secured the summits did they harness the remaining divine technology to restructure the Towers, turning a chaotic dimension into a formalized, tier-based testing ground for future generations. Those who successfully reached the peak gained the title of Ascendants. The word lingered long in her mind. Before searching for another book.

"I need more information..." She walked through the quiet library aisles, searching for a text that could provide a definitive answer. Resting on a shelf in the fifth column, she found a slim, leather-bound volume titled The Way of Ascension. On the four outer worlds Terra, Umbra, Aura, and Ignis. The ambient mana in the atmosphere was thin, stagnant, and heavily restricted. An Awakened born on these minor worlds or lesser realms was shackled by an absolute ceiling of Tier 5.

The base mana of the four small planets simply could not generate or sustain higher levels of power beyond that; attempting to force a breakthrough on one of the lower realms would cause an Awakened's mana core to implode from mana starvation. Mythos, however, was a world of dense, boundless cosmic mana—an ocean of raw, divine energy.

Out of all five planets in the cosmos, Mythos was the only place where a mortal soul could shatter the planetary ceiling, breaking through to Tier 6 and beyond to claim terrifying higher tiers or even god-like authority. For the fiercely ambitious, the power-hungry, and the tragic heroes stuck at the suffocating ceiling of Tier 5, the Tower was not a death sentence. It was the blood-soaked staircase to godhood.

Stelle slowly closed the heavy book, the soft blue data stream fading from her eyes as they returned to their calm, crystal-blue depth. I see it now... So it's leading me... towards it. She returned the volume to its resting place on the fifth column, the heavy wood of the shelf absorbing the quiet thud of the leather binding. The library remained still around her, oblivious to the fact that a little girl just casually learned the thousands of years of cosmic history in a matter of minutes.

Outside the narrow stained-glass windows, the afternoon sun was beginning its slow descent behind Oakhaven's towering stone battlements, casting long, shadows across the quiet archives.