Bloodbound Codex: I Grow Stronger in Secret

Chapter 101: Shadow Explorer

Atlas stared at the page without blinking, he narrowed his eyes as the first words started to form, waiting to see what it was going to show him this time.

The heading formed within moments and he twitched his right eye at the word that appeared, not understanding it at all, "What is this, this time?"

[ Title ]

He focused below it, where other words were forming, his gaze drifted down and locked onto the line of carved ink appearing on the blank page.

[ Shadow Explorer - Rank S ]

Then his eyes shifted to the note section below it, which had always been where the Codex gave him something to work with.

[ User acquired this trait through remaining a "Shadow" among Explorers, as user has not been able to remain in shadows for long the Rank has staggered at S-rank ]

[ Note: Titles take effect passively at all times, for permanent Assimilation and details user must use Sanguis Stylus and tap on the name ]

Then another note appeared beneath those two before he had finished reading them, and his eyes shifted to it.

[ Note: User can acquire Titles through fulfilling certain unknown conditions, these conditions can be filled at certain times and situations based on User’s actions ]

The words stopped forming after that and Atlas read through all of it carefully, taking a few moments to get the full picture of what it was telling him.

"Titles...are they like King, Queen, Viscount and Duke?"

It was the closest reference he had, the only thing he had heard that sounded anything like this kind of classification, he had come to know that even Nobles had hierarchy among themselves, though he didn’t know the exact order of which ranked above which, and he had heard those titles were bestowed by the King of a continent, or in the Angelic Continent likely by the Queen herself, it seemed the Codex had assigned the Rank based on what Atlas actually did rather than who granted them to him, which meant this Title had formed entirely from his own actions over these past weeks without him knowing it was building toward anything.

He turned back to the trait name and thought, ’Is this because I have been hiding my identity under the hood and mask the entire time?’

Then his eyes caught the specific words again — as user has not been able to remain in shadows for long — and he frowned at that, ’I haven’t been able to remain in shadows for long?’

It wasn’t talking about literal shadows though, instead it seemed to be talking about him staying concealed as an Explorer while being far from ordinary, remaining unnoticed while doing things that should have drawn attention in every city he had entered, and it was telling him that his concealment had slipped too many times for the rank to go as high as it could have, which meant there were specific moments the Codex had flagged as failures in his cover without him realising it at the time.

That led directly to the next thought, ’S-rank staggered...that means it could have been SS or even SSS rank?’

The more he thought about this the more irritating it became, if the rank could have gone higher then whatever this Title did after Assimilation would have been proportionally more powerful, and he had no idea yet what it even did because he hadn’t Assimilated it, but the difference between S-rank and SS-rank in anything he had encountered so far was not a small gap at all, it was a completely different tier of ability, and the same logic applied here.

Then the specific moments where his cover had slipped started coming back to him one by one, and each one sat worse than the one before it.

"First mistake was keeping that name in the Guild, tch, I had thought half lie and half truth would make a good enough lie, but it seems those pesky Nobles were wrong about that one..."

He said it while remembering where he had picked that trick up, the Nobles who used to come into their village and take children without any explanation, speaking partial truths to whoever was left behind so they wouldn’t react immediately, he had watched them do it more than once and assumed it was a reliable method...but it seemed flawed that didn’t work in every case.

"Second was the connection with the Rosaria Household, I still don’t understand why she even approached me only because of that Relic..."

The moment those words left his mouth Reiden glowed faintly on his arm, Atlas shifted his eyes to it and stayed with that for a moment before speaking, "You were made from that Relic...so it seems that Relic had something special about it even before Veloran worked on it, something that made it stand out to her the moment she saw it."

Reiden glowed softly again and went quiet, which was confirmation enough.

Atlas turned back to the Codex, "Third mistake must be the relentless Ruin clearance...that’s why people started noticing and my name spread further than I intended, clearing Ruins that fast as a commoner with no known background is not something that goes unnoticed in a Guild city, word moves faster than I had accounted for."

"Damn it!" He cursed under his mask, the weight of avoidable mistakes sitting heavily in him now that he was looking at all of them together, each one had been a small thing in the moment and a larger problem in the sum, and the staggered rank on this Title was the direct result of all of them combined, a record of every time he had slipped from the shadows without realising it was happening.

He let that sit for a moment, then pushed it aside and looked around the forest, extending his senses outward and finding nothing nearby except animals keeping their distance from the area where the fight had happened, the destruction from the battle had broken the ground and cleared trees in every direction from the crater, and the surrounding area showed it clearly.

The route he had been travelling was far from where he now stood, the monster had sent him a significant distance from where they first clashed, "That punch...it sent me quite far, an S-rank really is a different thing."

He turned his attention back to the primary reason he had come through this route, the Abyss-Rank Ruin cores sitting in his bag from what the Rosaria Household had given him before he set out, and the Ruin still ahead on this route waiting for him, that goal hadn’t changed because of the fight, it had only been delayed by it.

So he closed the Codex without Assimilating the Title for now.

He could do it inside the Ruin, the option was technically available here since no one was nearby, but... he had no way of knowing what Page Four would do when activated.

Page Two had produced dangerous results the first few times and caused visible reactions during Assimilation, Page Three with the Bloodline had locked his entire body in place for three full hours without him being able to move even slightly, Page Four sitting one step beyond both of those could be suicidal, and going through that in open forest with the Central route nearby and no enclosed walls around him was not worth the risk when the Ruin provided exactly the kind of closed space he needed for it.

"Terminate."

The Codex returned into his chest.

He turned and started moving back toward the route, his bare feet on the forest floor, internal organs fully healed, headache gone, Reiden quiet on his arm, the four books from Harleks and the cores both sitting in his bag alongside whatever materials remained from the fight.

While Atlas moved toward the remaining Abyss-Rank Ruins and the S-rank threshold he still needed to cross, chaos had already spread across the world in ways he had no awareness of, and the captain of the Martial Cleaver, known as a Special S-rank, was already closing the distance between them.

- - -

[A/N: Guys at Chapter 79 you might have found the Rank of the Bloodline to be ’A’ but...that was a mistake due to autocorrect in my device...but I have corrected it, it should have been ’???’ instead of ’A’...

The rank of the Bloodline will be revealed later in the story, you know the lore thing right? Hehe~

Now I would like you guys to join the discord for many discussions about the novel, side character arts and suggestions also, if you can then please join,

Link: https://discord.gg/8WaQP7CWYH

I apologize for today’s 1 Chapter, I was way too busy today...

Thanks for reading!]