232 The Blood Knight [2] - Calculated
"Oh? Let me guess. Gilea told you about me?" Silas didn't show any shock on his face. He could already see that the woman before him had a ruby core, but it felt different from a normal mana core for some reason.
The mana within didn't feel like it leaned toward any particular element, and at the same time, it didn't feel like it was leaning toward pure mana either...
It was something else—a mixture between mana and something truly sinister.
'I can't tell what her core grade is. All I can tell is that she has ascended to the ruby-core within the last few decades.' Silas smiled at her as if there was nothing wrong with his situation.
"Heh... Gilea might be powerful and well-versed in the knowledge of this world, but that's it. She's not omniscient. No one is. Or at least no one can currently be classified as such. But Gilea... and believe me when I say this..." A calm smile grew from the corner of the woman's lips.
"She has no control over the things that are not from this world."
Silas controlled his expression once more. It wasn't hard to control his expression since he always did it in his previous life. However, when reaching a certain level of power, one loses the need to do something as trivial as controlling one's own emotions.
Why control your emotions when no one around you could even dare to touch you?
There was a difference between the woman before him and everyone else he had met in the academy.
The headmaster was a prime example of this. He had power that was only a little stronger than Ivy's, yet Silas found him so much more threatening than Ivy herself because he was wise. He was a man who possibly had more experience than Silas had in both of his lives combined. That was made him so threatening.
Of course, if Silas were to use all the bloodlines he had collected over the years, the man wouldn't stand a chance. However, Silas was aware of a greater being within the academy. Exposing something like his bloodlines to someone as strong as the woman before him would have proved detrimental toward keeping his secrets hidden from those around him.
Hell, even the people closest to him don't know about the true extent of his power. All they know is that he can consume and cultivate the blood of certain creatures.
They all assumed that it was some kind of cultivation technique passed onto him by a powerful figure... How wrong they were.
He trusted many of them with his life, but that was beside the point. They might not rat on him, but whatever enemies he might make in the future might have ways of getting that information out of them.
He couldn't risk it. He couldn't risk it even if he enslaved every single one of them.
So, he had made a plan. A plan that would come to fruition the moment he stepped into the academy. A plan so thought out that even the people around him would not know the difference between instances he had created and reality itself.
Silas knew that Ivy would appear in the academy. He only had to take precautions for when she would appear. Of course, she appeared a lot earlier than he had expected due to Gilea's interference, but other than that, everything went according to plan.
He knew that she was a part of the royal Dryad family. He had thoroughly researched her and discovered exactly who she was and what capabilities she held.
He also knew that she could find him whenever she wanted. She was powerful, but he mother was on a whole-nother level. A woman capable of connecting with what they called "the almighty tree" would most likely have the ability to find him in an instant.
However, if that wasn't enough, he left subtle clues about where he would go. He knew Ivy was infatuated with him by how much she monitored him. Of course, she couldn't monitor him the entire time; he had to ensure clues were left behind.
That's why he created such a ruckus on the way to the academy. Yet, just like every action he did, those clues he left behind were not just for Ivy. They were for everyone else, especially the few eyes that noted his movements in the past few years.
At the same time, the idea of going to the academy was his idea, to begin with. Throughout the last year, he had subtly manipulated every organization to create such an idea in their heads. His being against going to the academy was an act he had to put on. It was a part of the plan.
He needed library access for his future goal, but that could wait for now.
He knew that Ivy would come for him, and he knew that they would fight. Or, at least, he knew that he would instigate the fight. He only miscalculated her strength, havin' to whip out his armor mid-way through the fight. Otherwise, it would have been interrupted before he could finish the transaction.
And, of course, the transaction was the contract, or as Ivy put it, "The collar around" her neck. However, Ivy was not the only person he wanted to get in the good books of. Ivy was a princess, not a queen. She didn't have much power other than the fact that she could influence her mother into making a certain decision.
He needed someone powerful. Someone who could influence the entire continent with their power.
Someone who could influence everyone with a snap of their fingers, and mobilize a quarter of a powerhouse's army with a single thought.
He knew that kind of person was in the academy, watching everyone's moves... He just didn't know where to look.
She was clearly sealed in some kind of space that even his mystic eyes couldn't see through... So he had to pull her out of wherever she was and bring her before. He knew the only way he could do that was to show her something she had never seen before. Something that would rile up even the strongest people on the planet.
So, he learned alchemy, understood it, and not only improved upon it but also did something that, within his knowledge, only someone like Gilea could do.
Forceful genetic transmutation.
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