Rider
patreon
The Valdez situation
🕑 Added 2022-09-16 11:36:39 +0000 UTCOne year slowly passed and during this time, more and more teachers started passing by Seth’s class, getting answers to their questions and making progress in their long-stalled cultivations.
His parents also kept donating food to the poor, just as Seth told them, and became quite famous themselves. Every time Seth passed by their house, they would have someone over, sometimes even letting people without a home live there for the night.
All the students in his class broke through into the second shell, with only Henrietta being left behind. Since she wanted to create four sources with no prior knowledge, no matter how much effort she put into learning, it was simply too much material to cover.
Seth’s progress was approaching the limit of the second shell. He visited the brothel a few times and got his lust source ready to break through, as well as taking his perception source to the brink with his constant robbing of Necros’ treasury. He only needed a few more days to fill his other sources as well.
The damage from his confrontation with Iris was also more or less fixed, making him able to use his destruction energy once more without issue.
Tiana joined Maya and Seth in bed about twice a week, but Seth hadn’t told her anything about his sources or other secrets yet.
Aleena wanted to come and ask Seth where he would get all those books, but she couldn’t get inside the academy and Seth hadn’t appeared to speak to her ever since his first visit. He would only deliver books at night, teleporting them straight inside the library. Aleena eventually resigned herself to just enjoying the constant supply of literature.
Iris started avoiding Maya and Seth while extending her domain to cover the royal palace, afraid Seth might try anything.
The king also stopped trying to send shadows to keep watch over Seth and his family after the Iris incident. For a long time, he was even scared of falling asleep at night, having even more assassins protecting his royal chambers.
It was now the summer of year 674, Age or the Ascended, and Seth was back in his youthful body for over two years.
Today, Seth was sitting in his dormitory room and rubbing Maya’s back while looking through the kingdom’s situation. Once he broke through to the third shell of his sources, he would be strong enough to make bigger moves.
Because he was the reason many teachers in the academy had already broken through their previous bottlenecks, his image improved considerably inside the academy. His parents’ little charity also brought him some reputation through the outer ring, since his parents would occasionally boast about their son being a teacher at the academy.
As he was working on how to start the kingdom takeover, an unexpected notification appeared in his vision.
<Changes in timeline detected.> <The Valdez family’s execution has been set for the winter of this year.>
Seth frowned at the sudden notification, not expecting this to happen so soon. Pearl has already given up on her family, thinking they were all dead by now, but Seth knew they were still alive, only impassioned.
The king was new in his position and needed time to win the people’s hearts before executing a very well-liked family like the Valdez. It was just that this time was a lot shorter than the last timeline.
‘What is going on?’
<The surrounding kingdoms had gotten news of a destruction ascended joining the academy and all of them are moving faster. Even their alliance might happen a lot sooner this time.>
‘That is troublesome. I guess I should have taken care of all the spies ever since I arrived here…’
‘How long will it take me to reach the capital of the Wrath kingdom?’
<Three months if host uses his space energy at maximum capacity.>
‘Too slow. I will barely make it there to watch them die…’
Pondering for a moment, he asked: ‘How long will it take Iris?’
<With her sixth shell air source, she would reach the Wrath capital in less than two weeks.>
‘What about Hollie?’
<A month and a half.>
Frowning slightly, Seth smacked Maya’s butt and said: “I need to go somewhere.”
Maya looked up and, seeing the frown on his face, asked worriedly: “Did anything happen?”
Seth nodded and said: “I might need to leave the kingdom for a bit. Some things happened I didn’t expect.”
“The kingdom?” asked Maya with a surprised face: “Where are you going?”
“Wrath. I’ll explain later. Now I need to speak with Iris.”
Maya nodded and kissed his lips before getting down from his body. Seth quickly got dressed and teleported out of his room. With a few more teleportations, he reached Iris’ room and knocked on her door.
Iris was surprised to hear someone knock on her door so late at night, and stood up to unlock it. Seeing it was Seth, she took a step back and started channeling her energy.
“I didn’t come here to fight or argue with you. I need a ride out of the kingdom. How about it? This would also allow you all to sleep better at night.”
Iris raised an eyebrow and returned to her desk. “Where?”
She was still jumpy around Seth, but her fear had lessened a lot during the last year.
“Wrath Kingdom. I would ask someone else, but you are the fastest air ascended around.”
Iris frowned and pondered for a moment over all the news she heard from Wrath, but nothing came to mind, so she asked: “What for?”
“They set the execution of the Wrath family for this winter, and I need to get them out of there.”
“Valdez Family? What is your relation with them?”
“None really. Will you agree or not?” said Seth.
“As much as I would indeed like to get rid of you, even if only for a while, you should know that my presence inside an enemy kingdom’s territory will only bring trouble. The pact can’t be broken.” Said Iris while shaking her head.
Once Iris broke into the fifth shell, the former king sent her into war and she wiped two battlefields on her own. The other kingdoms got scared and spent most of their combined treasury to hire two fifth shell ascended from the far north to push Iris back.
The fight between Iris and the two ascended wiped out all soldiers caught between, and Iris had to retreat after getting injured. Since they couldn’t keep the hired ascended for too long without going bankrupt, a pact was signed that ascended higher than the third shell are not allowed to take part in the war.
The Oath kingdom was forced to agree, or the other kingdoms would have emptied the rest of their treasury to have the two ascended march on the Oath kingdom.
“No one has to know, and you’ll only have to take me there. I can take care of everything else on my own.”
Iris shook her head and said: “I can’t do that.”
Seth fell silent with a frown. The idea of abandoning the Valdez family even passed briefly through his mind, but he threw it away right after. This would buy him the undying loyalty of both Pearl and her family. Not having Iris’s help would only make things more troublesome, but he still had ways to do it.
Looking into Iris’s eyes, he thought about something and said: “I’ll give you the secret to the seventh shell for one of your sources.”
Iris’ entire body shook, and she froze. She had no clue where to even start with breaking through the seventh shell, nor what was after that. As far as she knew, there was no way she could progress further, no matter how much she tried.
It took tens of thousands of years for this world to have its first ascended that broke into the seventh shell and that was normal. The seventh shell was the fusion of the source with the soul and no one had any knowledge about the soul.
Iris closed her eyes before shaking her head. “That’s impossible. There is no seventh shell ascended in existence.”
Seth sighed and nodded. “There might not be, but you know there are nine shells. You should already know the sixth one can’t be the end of the road. You are just missing the required knowledge to break through.”
Iris shook her head again: “Even if you gave me the method, I will need the one for the other source as well to not cause any instability.”
“Indeed, but knowing one method will let you figure out the method for the other source as well. It’s not so different after all, and the price I’m asking for it is almost nothing.”
Iris sighed and stood up before walking to the window of the room. Seth could see her hand shaking on the windowsill as she asked: “You’re not messing with me are you?”
“I am not. You already know my knowledge and strength amount to a lot more than you can see on the surface, but there’s an extra condition.”, said Seth before his tone got serious as he added: “But I need you to make an oath of loyalty to me.”
Iris lowered her head with a sad smile before shaking her head. She was about to agree until she heard about his condition.
“Goodnight, Seth.”
Seth sighed and turned around to walk out. When he reached the door, Iris said: “You know, the moment you turn your hand against the royal family, I will have no choice but to fight you to death. My life is not mine to decide what to do with anymore.”
Stopping at the door, Seth said: “For that pact, made hundreds of years ago, you’re going to ignore everything they do and continue to protect them? You know they will abandon you away at a moment’s notice as long as the situation suits them.”
Iris chuckled and shook her head before turning towards Seth, tears rolling down her cheeks. She never looked so weak in front of another person before as she said: “Will you break your word to the man who gave his life to save yours? He was the kindest king this country has ever had and only had a single wish as he drew his last breath in my arms. To keep his family safe.”
Seth shook his head and didn’t reply as he walked out. Rushing towards the teacher’s dormitory, he muttered: “I won’t, but you already paid back your oath a million times over. It’s about time you think about yourself as well…”
‘System, what made her break her oath and wipe out the entire kingdom and the enemy in the past timeline?’
<The king sent Maya to die on the front lines and the situation gave her no way to protect the royal family anymore. She chose to end everything at that moment, herself, the oath, the kingdom, the academy, and the royals.>
Putting his thoughts about Iris on the back of his head since there was no way he could replicate what happened the last time, he continued on his way until he reached Hollie’s door.
Hollie opened the door and was quite surprised to see Seth looking for her so late at night as well.
“Did anything happen?”
“What would it take for you to give me a ride to the Wrath kingdom?” asked Seth directly, not willing to just go through another round of negotiations.
Hollie frowned for a moment before saying: “I don’t need anything, but I’ll have to announce the students and prepare some materials for them to study. The only problem is the pact.”
“I can make sure no one would find out about your involvement and I don’t need you to do anything else but take me there. The pact only mentions participation in the war.”
“Fine. When do we leave?”, said Hollie with a nod right away.
Seth found her attitude quite refreshing as he said: “Tomorrow. I’ll give you some books for your students and a vial of mixed energy for each of them. This should save you a lot of trouble.”
Hollie agreed, and they decided to meet again in the morning. Having solved his transportation problem, Seth quickly went home and let his parents and Pearl know he would be gone for a couple of months as well, without explaining to them where he’ll be going.
He then went to the inn that paid 500 gold coins to assure his parents’ protection for the period he was gone.
After he was done with everything in the city, he returned to Maya’s room and explained the situation to her as well while preparing some books for Hollie’s students.
In the morning, he asked Maya to look over his parents and students before handing Hollie the materials and going to inform his students of his departure.
With Lisa breaking into the second shell of her space source, Seth had her carry all the books in her space storage to make sure no one would snoop around the place while he was gone and asked them to be extra careful when they practiced.
A few hours later, he met up with Hollie and they went to Iris to inform her about their departure.
“We need permission to leave the capital for a while.” said the two at the same time once inside Iris’s office.
Iris sighed and took a paper before writing something on it and asking: “Reason?”
“I’m close to breaking through, and I need some time away from the capital to do it.” Replied Hollie with an excuse they already agreed on before.
Iris knew where they were going, but she still wrote the fake reason before nodding: “You need to return before the admission period at the start of spring.”
“No problem.” Said Seth before adding: “I don’t think I need to tell you, but it would be in your and the royals’ interests if nothing happens to my students or family while I’m gone. The surrounding kingdoms won’t be what you all have to worry about after that.”
Having said his peace, Seth and Hollie didn’t linger around and walked out. Hollie created an air bubble around the two and they flew right out of the academy.
