Ryan spent a little too long drooling in that cell.
He couldn’t move his body, and neither were the guards willing to go into the cell and put him up in a more dignified position. Instead they believed their optimal location was to huddle outside of his cell, and point their various weapons and shields in his direction.
It took an entire minute of trembling before they realized they really were just pointing at a helpless vegetable that could not defend itself.
Ryan lay there with nothing but a pounding headache, trying to figure out what exactly had gone wrong.
Apparently, [Conceptual Meditation] didn’t mean he could just combine concepts. He could use the Epic to detect others’ concepts and resonate with his own, it didn’t mean he could just interact with them like they were malleable.
Sure, the concepts of [Guide] and [Adventurer] were there with him, but to make them into something new? It had been foolish to believe he could make that happen with just meditation alone.
Even Unity wouldn’t be enough. If anything, trying to force unity might actually end up killing him from the overuse. He hadn’t even come close to being able to combine the two. It was like… trying to change the meaning of reality itself.
Far, far beyond the scope of the skill.
The problem was… Ryan believed he had done it before. He had picked up new classes like they grew on trees.
Or maybe that was exactly what classes were. They embodied what existed in reality, those concepts that had been defined by the world long ago.
But those were classes you took on your own. Hadn’t he come close to doing something like that in the Manager’s Abode?
Back then, he had the [Aura Tyrant], [Aura Crystallization]... and the Trial System class orbs.
Ah. Maybe I need to try it with the class crystals. Or maybe that ends up killing me.
Ryan decided to stop thinking about it. The headache was getting to be too much anyway.
A couple minutes later, the door in his cell opened with a too-loud slamming of metal. The ninth realm adventurer, Werrick, threw down a golden badge alongside a book right in front of his face.
The clattering noise of the badge and the slamming of the book made Ryan wince.
“You’ve been registered as a gold rank adventurer with all the rules and obligations that follow. You will be expected to match the standards of all adventurers or you will be punished accordingly.”
Ryan groaned in response.
“I have a headache, can you read it aloud for me? I do well with a deep and soothing voice. Yours isn’t as good as Grevich’s but it’ll do.”
Werrick considered it for a second.
“We do, actually, have an abbreviated audio version. Just one moment.”
A couple minutes later, Werrick came back and threw down a ring with tiny crystals embedded within. They started to vibrate and filled up the room with a loud shrilling voice that spoke of the major rules and regulations expected of gold ranks.”
At this point, Ryan could move his arms to cover his ears.
“It’s normally used as a light punishment for new adventurers, but since you are in no state to read. I believe this is appropriate.”
“Wait—”
But Werrick was gone, and in his place was a very loud recording.
——
Back in the Adventurer’s Guild.
The watch party was in full force as they toasted another round of the fall of Artigan. Great Marshall Vedit couldn’t help but nod approvingly.
“Your student does good work.”
“As he should.”
Fetters seemed to hold the elf with a little less ill will because she was more interested in actual issues.
“Have we identified the threat yet?”
The Guildmaster shook his head.
“No.”
They put down their glasses then. It wasn’t like this was just an impromptu watch party of their greatest bully. They were officially here because they all knew that when Artigan appeared, it was in a pivotal moment for their kingdom.
What really threw them off was that he had appeared so late… and so weak.
Plus, he appeared in the capital, the most well-defended place in the world. With one of the only two confirmed ascendants in the world.
If you didn’t include that damned dragon.
Rhinestone scratched his chin.
“Maybe the dragon found a way in?”
Vedit nodded.
“It’s possible. I’ll have to double check our security measures.”
Fetters had her hands roaming over a spatial bag. The one that Artigan had so generously donated. The Kingdom of Valmere had never seen anything like it before and it was one enchantment amongst the plethora that Artigan had brought that might change everything once again.
While she did so, she also watched a recording of Artigan. The moment where he had passed out.
“A pivotal moment doesn’t have to mean great strife. Perhaps there’s another reason for it?”
All of them stared at that recording, being played over and over again.
It was tiny but reality seemed to warp for a second. No mana signatures, no qi output, just someone staring into space and making reality shake.
“Are we still doing as King Theskar recommends?”
If it was decades ago, words like that would have gotten Rhinestone censured. Now…
They all turned to the Great Hero Agrinth Deu Jalinmar, the Great Hero. The adopted son of King Theskar of Valmere, and more recently, the Son of Valmere. The ascendant watched the figure who he knew by another name. He thought of his world and its purpose and the nearly century of conflict he had gone through.
Agrinth did not answer immediately.
——
Back in the cell…
It took two hours for that damned screeching recording to finish. Two damned hours about how the world was a dual support system. How society supported adventurers and in return, adventurers stood up for the commonfolk. How they had responsibilities for the resources mined and produced by the citizens of the kingdom.
Ryan knew propaganda when he heard it. There was zero chance that the adventurers he had met could be as fun as they were and still actually believe in any of the stuff that had been screeched out into his ear.
The headache still hadn’t gone away.
Two hours had been only enough for him to sit up, grab the noisy ring and realize that it was designed for punishment. Ryan couldn’t stop it from playing without breaking the surprisingly sturdy enchantments.
When he squeezed down on it it got louder. He also couldn’t churn his volatile core without throwing up so he had to sit down and suffer through it.
By the time it was all over Ryan checked the timer.
Time remaining for the completion of the sixth Trial.
72:12:02:21
Seventy-two and a half days. It was pretty much the maximum amount of time you could be allotted for the sixth Trial. Made sense given how vague his completion conditions were.
Too much time for someone with a mission, and yet…
Ryan wanted to see and explore. See what the hell was going on with his sixth Trial with ascendants walking about. Did he not deserve at least that much? To witness the kingdom that had been created as a consequence of his actions? To see how much the Trial had deviated from what he knew?
This was unknown territory. He couldn’t help but get excited by it.
So… just a little bit of time off to check out the kingdom and its version of the internet.
Just…
“Where’s the rest of my stuff?”
“You donated it to the Kingdom of Valmere, remember?”
“No, I was donating the sack and the contents of the spatial bag.”
“Well, we have rules regarding unknown enchantments, they must be thoroughly vetted to confirm they won’t pose a threat to society.”
“Is that why you took my soulweapon as well?”
He had noticed that it had been conveniently taken from the cell before he got up.
“Is that what you call it? Yes, until we can confirm its nature, you are not to summon it. Of course, that does not apply if you are in danger.”
“You know, I would have happily shared all of this with you guys, right? You’re just making me not want to cooperate.”
“It’s a good thing we don’t need the cooperation of a single gold rank adventurer.”
“You know your entire kingdom was the result of my cooperation right?”
“And I’m certain the public will take great interest in the words of a rambling elf from nowhere.”
To illustrate the point, the security guards that were manning the checkpoint had snickered at the entire conversation. Not the result you wanted when you were claiming to be a founder of their great city.
Ryan sniffed then walked out of the prison. A completely free man.
Free with nothing but some Valmere branded clothing, a golden badge, and a ring he was told to keep as a reminder of the rules and obligations of an adventurer.
They didn’t even give him a minder.
Just threw him out in the cold like he was just another prisoner.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed as he activated [Spellweave Perception]. He winced in pain but still kept the skill active as he scanned around him. In the cell, he couldn’t really tell one enchantment from another apart, but on the outside?
Ryan shook his fist at the scrying spell watching over him. When it didn’t go away, he looked around for a rock to throw and found that the entrance to the prison was shockingly clean.
“Damn.”
With nothing left to do, Ryan walked into the city proper.
They would regret letting someone with an uncontrollable aura of fear free. He wouldn’t even break any rules and just let the city panic as he innocently walked around the city.
Though, those thoughts melted away as Ryan walked around the city.
This… was like if Ulverra wasn’t so optimized for emergencies and evacuations. A true modern magical city that far, far surpassed anything that San Kingsgrove attempted to be.
Tasteful skyscrapers that were separated by well-designed architectural buildings, ensuring that light would not be choked out of certain areas. There was less overt enchantments—but in the places that did have magic?
Ryan was slack-jawed as—in the distance, a massive blue crystalline structure dropped to the ground and pulsed the air with dense mana. It lifted up slowly again as what looked like [Mages] filed out from the area.
And the people…
At first they screamed from his aura. Then they took a closer look at what he was wearing—particularly, the sparkling golden badge. Then they waved at him, a little hesitantly, but not the effect Ryan was used to from civilians.
Taken unawares and forgotten about causing some chaos in the city, Ryan waved back meekly at the couple, a little embarrassed he had made them scream out loud.
Wait what am I doing, I’m supposed to be causing chaos.
But he couldn’t. There was just so much to see, so much to do and… well.
“Three hundred velars for the phone and you’ll need at least twenty per month for roaming charges.”
“Does this badge uh, give me discounts?”
The store clerk eyed him weirdly. They could tell he was an adventurer from his uncontrolled Epic but apparently that question was a little stupid.
“I’m a—uh not from around this… time period.”
“Really? Are you one of those elves that come out of seclusion or something?”
“Something like that, it’s been like a century or something? Honestly, all of this is quite a lot for me to process.”
“Damn, never heard of a friendly elf out of seclusion, and they trusted you with a gold badge?”
“I passed an aptitude test. They’re just giving me this temporarily so I don’t uh, scare everyone.”
Ryan had prepared some of these lies beforehand. It was actually remarkable how everyone seemed to know about random elves popping out of the woodwork. It was supposed to happen once for your sixth or seventh Trial and that was it.
“You better have if you were given a gold rank. That’s a privilege, not a right. You know?”
Am I—getting a dressing down from a store clerk?
Apparently he wasn’t the only one that thought this was incredibly stupid because the manager of the store came up and hit the guy in the back.
“Excuse me, my employee doesn’t have any instincts for self-preservation. I hope you don’t take any offense.”
“None at all. I’m still sort of adjusting here. I was told I could get all the information from a phone and an internet connection.”
The store manager was all smiles.
“I’m sorry, could I just take a look at that badge real quick?”
They brought out a device and scanned it, sort of like a super distance rfid chip?
“Everything checks out. Just one moment.”
The manager actually packaged up one of the more expensive looking models in the store, slotted a chip in and then handed it over to him.
Here, on the house.
“Wait, really?”
“Of course. We citizens support the adventurers and the adventurers defend us. Just remember the store when you’re well off, understand?”
Ryan had become better at looking at a gift horse in the mouth—only, this really was just a random store he picked to enter. He couldn’t believe that they would have set up everyone as actors or something.
The scrying orb, of course, was following him around still.
So, Ryan stepped outside and took a seat on the curb. He checked up on this remarkable device that looked very similar to the phone he showed Fetters. Apparently, she had gone on to perfectly replicate a smartphone in the Trials.
As someone proud of his generation would do, the first thing Ryan did when entering a new foreign kingdom was to surf the web.
Historical events, current, present, past and future, people’s thoughts, people’s beliefs, culture, everything could be found through the internet. Sure, it might not have been the most perfect indicator of how people really acted in real life but he believed it was good enough.
Though he did get stuck on the history side of things.
Because the Kingdom of Valmere… had gone through a lot.
Disasters he recognized, continuous sixth and even seventh Trial threats had assaulted the kingdom of Valmere. This… was not a peaceful world at all.
The dwarven chapter of Dunval had been unearthed and then quashed. The nobles had tried to stage an uprising—three times. Civil unrest over rights of different species. Evolved elves popping out of the woodwork like mad.
All of these events were things that he should have been summoned for. All of these were sixth Trial threat worthy.
It confused him greatly, at least until he took some time to think about it.
The Trial System liked putting you in pivotal moments where you could change the outcome of great events. You could say that none of these had been pivotal moments.
They did cause strife and chaos for a brief period of time, but Ryan being there would not have changed the outcome. Not unless he would decide to take a stance against Valmere—which he would never do.
In other words, there was no great achievement to be found here.
That just left the question. Why summon him now? What problem was so great and pivotal that he could change the outcome here?
He dug further, ignoring the crowd that was slowly starting to gather around him.
The system screen mentioned a… unrest was happening, yet from what Ryan could tell, it wasn’t like a major civil unrest. More of a council of elects arguing over each other to get re-elected to their position.
King Theskar had already been removed fifteen years ago. Publicly abdicated the throne because public outcry had been that he was unfit. The greatest ‘uncertainty’ that was going to happen was an election and well…
That was just something that happened every six years.
Maybe he was supposed to root out corruption? Or maybe he was supposed to get involved in the election process?
It sort of made sense if you thought about it. Ryan was a tyrant, a saboteur, and when he walked into the Trial, he had also been an assassin.
Ryan shook his head at the ridiculous idea and finally stood up.
Multiple people moved back from him out of instinctual fear. Though apparently it wasn’t enough to keep them at bay because they were still recording him, like a gold rank elf squatting by the sidewalk with a permanent aura of fear was the most interesting thing in their day.
Well, good to know that nothing changes when you give a society phones.
Ryan waved at everyone with zero survival instincts.
He would later find out that while the general populace had forgotten about Artigan. His portraits were still out there on the net, alongside his old promises.
Sometimes, the pivotal disaster for society was simply you.