"Well, you got the core," Aethion says as Reign's face turns into one of annoyance.
"I know that we got the core, what I'm asking is what the hell that is?"
"Ohhh, so you don't know what the core is, I see, I see," Aethion says with a fake surprised voice, making Reign and the others all annoyed once more.
"Alright, alright, I'll explain."
"The building you were just in is called a Transcendent Altar, you see, once a Transcendent gets used to his powers, there are multiple things to do in order to grow stronger, one of them is by forming connections with other worlds and making transactions with them."
"Now, that might sound time-consuming and useless, after all, what could those beneath the Transcendent realm offer to a Transcendent right?" Aethion paused before smiling and continuing.
"Well, a lot actually."
"You see, a Transcendent merely needs to put a part of his soul in order to operate the altars, he can simply do anything else he wanted while the fragment of the soul makes the transactions, it's actually a nice way to gain more resources and one can even grow stronger that way, of course, compared to other ways of getting power, this one is the slowest, but also the safest."
"I see, but, how can you become more powerful simply by making transactions with people?" Shadow asked with a confused look on his face.
"No idea kid, I never did anything close to that, I simply decided to raise an army of the dead and try to take over a world that had multiple Transcendents living there, much more dangerous, but a lot faster to become stronger."
"Ahh, I sometimes forget you were a crazy necromancer that was hell-bent on destroying your world." Reign shakes his head as he remembers reading the diary of the fallen soldier and their battle against Aethion back in his underground base.
"Not destroying, merely taking over, I wasn't going to kill everyone, after getting full control of the planet I was going to put my army in one place while the rest of the world would function normally, not to mention the fact that wars would stop since everybody would be united under one rule."
"Yeah yeah, kill half the planet and dominate the world to achieve world peace, honestly, that's something a bad villain from old movies would say." Reign said as he yawned. They had finally reached the top of the pyramid and were currently running back down, the pyramid was crashing and they definitely didn't want to be on it when it fully fell.
"World peace, who the hell do you think I am kid, I don't care for such stuff, I only wanted to become more powerful," Aethion spoke with an annoyed voice as Reign rolled his eyes.
"Alright, I get it, can you tell me what the hell I can do with the core then?"
"I'm surprised you still haven't figured it out, you can use the core to make a Transcendent Altar, then you can choose a Transcendent you wish to connect with and bam, you can start trading with them."
"Of course when I mean trade, it's more of a chance for you or anyone that has anything valuable in the territory to give in and get the Transcendent to use his powers to either bless an item, make something for you, or anything similar to that."
"I don't know, it just sounds useless, to be honest." Tank said as he yawned.
"Hahahahahaha!" Aethion suddenly laughed.
"You lot are the only ones that could actually say something like that, but I do have to agree, for you guys, this truly is useless, your current strength is above your level and even if a Transcendent was to empower your weapons with his aura, it wouldn't be as beneficial to you as it would for most."
"But, for most people in your territory, a chance to get a blessing from a Transcendent or for their armor or weapon to become more powerful for a period of time is more than useful as it would allow them to fight against enemies that were far too strong for them in the past."
"I see, so this will be useful for the whole territory, not just us." Tank said as he nodded after thinking about it.
"Yes, but be careful when choosing a Transcendent, you don't want to choose one that wants live sacrifices like the one you just met," Aethion said as the others nodded in agreement.
"But I'm a bit confused, why did he just give us the core, he could've tried to haggle or something, right?" Reign asked with a confused expression while Aethion scoffed.
"Haggle, maybe some would, but the thing is, once an altar falls, the core will simply disintegrate if not taken out beforehand, so there really was nothing for him to lose, not to mention the fact that he saw this as an opportunity to do you a favor."
"But we just destroyed a base and killed so many of his people."
"Once you get to the realm of a Transcendent, a number slightly below 1 000 is nothing, a base that he created in a new world is not worth much to him, while you guys, you all have marks on you, making it incredibly enticing for even Saints to form a good connection as there is a possibility of you joining their ranks in the future."
"I see, it's all about getting the most benefits."
"Yes, when you get to the Transcendent realm, your lifespan and powers reach a degree that is almost impossible for mortals to comprehend, even the weakest of Transcendents can live over 1 000 years and have to go through plenty of battles, to sacrifice a small base or even a city in order to perhaps gain something in the future is nothing special."
Reign and the others simply kept silent after hearing Aethion's words. To sacrifice so many lives just to get benefits didn't sit well with them and even though the Transcendent they had met didn't do so, they didn't have a good opinion of him after being inside the altar.
"You're still young, you'll see in the future, there's no ultimate evil or good in the universe, what might be evil to some can be seen as good to others and vice versa, the only thing that matters is power, the more you have it, the freer you are and can choose what you wish to do." Aethion sighed before speaking.
"Hey, what happened, I saw you enter that building and then leave, only for it to crash," Aelrinder spoke as Reign and the others left the base.
Reign and the others told him what had happened, they were after all allies and there was no need to lie about something like this.
"I see, it's a good thing me and Laura stayed out of the base, even an avatar could have easily sensed us if we were inside the territory that the base covered," Aelrinder spoke without mentioning the core, if Reign and the others build the altar, then it would, of course, be useful for the elves as well as they could use it to trade and get benefits.
"I'll get more people and then search the base, no monsters should come here for a couple more days, we should try and get anything that's valuable before they start appearing."
There were a couple of new corpses on the ground further away from the base, probably Tainted that tried to run away after seeing Reign and the others enter the pyramid, unfortunately for them, they chose the wrong path, and Aelrinder and the others took care of them.
"So, what do you plan on doing next?" Aelrinder asked Reign and the others.
"Well, there's nothing urgent we need to deal with right now, so we'll probably spend more time in the mountain range and level up, we haven't been able to find the location of the group we dealt with in the grasslands, but I'm sure they won't simply wait for us to find and attack them, they're definitely going to become stronger in order to deal with us." Reign said to Aelrinder as the man nodded his head.
They had previously interrogated Bone, and even though the man didn't know exactly where their base was thanks to the fact that they moved often, he told them about some outposts that Reign and the others visited, only to find them completely empty.
The group they were up against was incredibly elusive and hard to track, in order not to waste time by blindly searching for them, Reign and the others decided to simply continue fighting and get stronger, no matter what the enemy might try to do in the future, they would make sure to crush their plans with overwhelming strength.
"I have a favor to ask." Aelrinder suddenly said.
"You see, I'm currently the only one that has managed to reach Tier I, could I maybe join you guys on the mountain range?"
"Oh, of course, man, just come to the base tomorrow morning and we'll go together."
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