Chapter 80: You Did Not Lose Yourself

Elias smiled self-deprecatingly when he heard Kaelen speak about gaining a spine. With his previous character, the first thing that Elias would have done was to hide his radiance, cut his hair, and make his back hunched, so he naturally lost some of his prestige. He would try as much as possible to slip in between the cracks, so he could survive and hunt in peace; however, his situation had changed, and Elias reacted to this change quite quickly.

He took a lot of time deliberating on issues, but if he wanted to make a move, it was almost instant. He could no longer be in the shadows if he wanted to grow and attract the right kind of attention. In a fair world, he would be able to slowly gain all the tools and resources he needed to grow, but this was not a fair world.

Elias did not forget that, although his special body and mind allowed him to unlock a hundred pools of Lumina, without the special Vitality Absorption technique given to him by the Order, he would not have been able to even see his Lumina Space, and being able to become an Ascendant Candidate was also tied to their efforts as well.

He was a boy with no family of his own, no influence, and his past was covered in shadows. There was no way he would be able to survive in this world without trying to stand out, even if it would draw the wrong kind of attention.

The tallest tree draws the wind, and the nail that stands out gets hammered, all of this he knew and understood, but he had no choice, and besides, he knew he was far from helpless and that the secrets he carried were deeper than most would expect. Anyone who thought he would be easy to manipulate or crush would find out that he was not prey, but a terrifying predator.

“Did you slip in any Lumenite Growth Hormone inside his food when we were not looking?” Pyrra, the Firekeeper, turned to the Cook, Orwin, beside her with amusement in her eyes, and the man grunted and stood up, already moving around the table with surprising speed for a man his size. His round face split into a grin so wide it threatened to disappear into his bushy beard.

“Look at you!” he boomed, stopping just short of Elias and staring up, actually up, at the boy who had once had to stand on a stool to be able to reach the cupboards in the kitchen. “You’re a man now. A proper man. And you’re wearing purple like some highborn lordling!”

He reached out, hesitated, then clapped both hands on Elias’s shoulders. testing the muscle there, feeling the reality of it.

“Gods above,” Orwin muttered, almost reverent. “You’re solid. You’re solid. Did you dump all your points into durability? Damn, is this what having a hundred pools does to your body?!”

Pyrra stayed where she was, arms crossed, leaning against her chair, but her eyes traced every line of the robe, every fold, every subtle shift of gold along the edges. Unlike Orwin, who was focused on Elias’s body, she was more concerned about his clothes. She seemed to have figured something out, and she tilted her head with a smile,

“That’s your talent… this robe,” she said quietly, and it was not a question, and her voice caused the gathering to go silent.

Elias had been expecting this question from her. Among all the members of the Order, he knew that Pyrra had one of the most powerful Talents; her blue flames were so hot that he knew that it scared even Rhys, the madman who seemed to have no fear.

It was time to go for broke. If she accepted his lie and saw no issues with the Talent he was claiming for his own, then he would have scaled through one of the biggest hurdles in his quest to hide the true scope of his powers.

Elias hated lies, but he knew at the moment, he needed to lie, and one day, he hoped to be able to tell the truth about who he was without hiding. He met her gaze and nodded,

“Yes, I gained Armament as my Talent.”

She pushed off the chair, walked over slowly, and stopped in front of him. Reached out with one soot-stained finger and touched the gold band at the collar,

“Feels alive,” she murmured. “Far more detailed than any Armament Talent I have seen, but you are a freaking Ascedant Candidate, Elias, only Thera knows what that does to Talents like this, what I want to know is simple, did this Talent serve you well and was the cause of your survival?”

“With the aid of all your teachings, my Talent served me well,” he answered.

Pyrra’s lips curved into a smile,

“Good. I will be taking this Talent of yours to the limits, and you will impress me.”

Elias could only nod helplessly as she turned around and returned to her chair. He looked at Kaelen, but the one-legged man had hopped back to his chair and was stretching his hand for a new bottle of wine, and Elias could not even take a step before Bram, the groundskeeper, walked over.

He didn’t speak. Elias knew he never did unless he had to. But he looked Elias in the eye for a long moment, so long that it was getting almost uncomfortable, and then he reached out and placed one callused hand flat against the center of Elias’s chest, right over the nine purple marks.

He held it there, and it was as if he was feeling Elias’s heartbeat, then he nodded, “Your heart is strong and steady. You did not lose yourself in the Fragment, I am glad.” Bram stepped away, and Elias did not know how to feel at the moment.

Anya hadn’t moved from her spot near the path. She simply tilted her head, studying him the way she studied a new lock or a suspicious shadow. Elias knew this look very well, as he usually suffered from a painful punch during their practice after she had that glow in her eyes.

It was as if she no longer saw him as a person, just individual parts under a microscope, and sometimes Elias wondered if all the lessons that he had learned from these varied groups of people were what made him a monster.

“You’re not wearing boots,” she observed, and Elias groaned inside. Of course, she would be the first to notice.

“Didn’t need them,” he replied, knowing that she would not believe his excuse, and she snorted.

“Of course you didn’t.”

Lyssa did not behave like Anya, who sat and observed Elias; like the rest, she stood and walked over with the careful grace of someone who measured every step. Elias knew that he had copied the way she walked during his hunts, but only with his new eyes could he see subtle differences that he had missed before.

She stopped in front of Elias and looked at the robe he had created with [Armament]. She had taught him how to sew, and Elias was eager to hear what she thought about his creation, even though he knew that part of the style was copied from the palatial robes of the children inside his Lumina Space.

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