Chapter 337: Return Of the Shadow To the Harbor
When you have a whole world of stories and entertainment, how could one not use such a world? He wasn’t one to neglect such a world, that he knew.
Aether looked around the Infinite Library for anything that would capture the interest of his little mind. When he found it, he was going to read all of it at once, after all, since he wasn’t awakened yet, he could do so without any worry.
It was one, and maybe the only plus of not being a Reader, though he can’t say he wouldn’t give everything up for awakening. After all, he was the only one in the family who was still not a Reader.
"It’s fine, though, my time will come." He said, smiling, while his small hand trailed through the many books. Most in this part of the Library seemed to be really dusty, which was pretty annoying, but it just went to show how some worlds can exist for years without anyone even looking at them.
Sad he couldn’t see what their class and rank were. That way, he could understand their story, and not the one written inside of it. It was ironic how books showed them the wanderers of the people inside of them, of characters, battles, wars happening all inside a small book, but never their own story, how they got here, and how they were written, what was the inspiration behind them. And why the author decided to make them.
Maybe it was just him, but he would have liked seeing a book like that.
Picking some of the books he liked most, Aether laid them down on the floor, cupping his chin with his small hand, as he decided on which to read next. And for him, such a decision was in no way easy; it was hard, one of the hardest things he could do, but in the end, he came up with one. Putting the others back.
But as he was about to start reading, he noticed someone. It wasn’t unheard of to meet someone in the Infinite Library, even more so if you came in with them; you would always meet them, but he hadn’t been coming in with anyone, it was just a pure coincidence they had found each other.
It was a girl with hair like a blank canvas, untouched and pure. And below that, two really strong golden gems, reflecting the gaze of the sun onto her hair, are drawn on the canvas with golden paint.
She looked to have seen him first, which was pretty embarrassing since he was royalty. Did a random girl really have better awareness than he did?
But the girl didn’t plan on staying there, leaving soon after they had met, really more like noticing each other rather than meeting.
’Wonder who she was...’ Aether smiled. ’She was pretty, I wonder if we can be friends in the future...’
...
...
...
Aether awakened from his slumber near his campfire, his hair nearly touching the fire. It seemed his sleep rest had been very needed, as not only had he slept for a while, but he had also slept very... well, he had just said that he had almost rolled over in the fire. But all of that was because of how tired and exhausted his body has been lately. So it was a good thing that he had taken a little break to let it regain itself.
After all, he was close to the Harbor; there was no reason for him to rush things all of a sudden.
After all, the hard part was done, he had gotten the shard, and traveled almost all the way back. Had getting back from the Lowlands been easy? Never, it was as annoying and insufferable as getting there; the amount of bandits he had faced had been over the top. Extremely exaggerated. Still, if he had to say, the desert had still been the worst one to get back through, this time also being alone, and without a compass guiding him if he went a bit off track, it had been hell. Plus, the scorpions didn’t help at all.
He felt as if he had fought a lot more getting back than he had done getting to the shard, maybe because back then he had been with Kade, and the boy had also helped, but it had really fatigued him. To a point where he couldn’t wait to get back to Veyr.
Sitting up, Aehter stretched his body, releasing all the tension in his muscles. And there had been a lot, after all, after all the killing he had done, it was obvious he was going to be really drowsy. It felt as if he had continued at the pace he had done while getting here, he would have probably killed enough to reach the Beast level, just reach not unlocked.
Since he had to get a killing instinct like a Beast to unlock that rank, whatever that meant. No one really explained what the killing and destruction instinct was, and how to get it when talking about rank. It made him wonder if everyone had their own way.
"Whatever, I will just figure it out when I get to that point, plus, it’s not my priority. I can always awaken as a Seeker. I have already done something only a few have done as Readers, that being reaching the Echo rank, I’m not even sure someone has ever reached Beast at this class before."
Aether put the backpack back on, alongside throwing his bow over his shoulder. The boy whom he had spent time here, training his skills. He enjoyed it, fighting with the bow, and if he ever had the luck to get a relic of one, it could be beneficial to know one well enough to fight in if he couldn’t use the blade.
Being able to wield as many weapons as possible was beneficial, even if it was only two. Of course, knowing one was the most important; the gap between not knowing any weapon and knowing one was gigantic, and while the gap between knowing one and two was big enough to be noticeable, it was not nearly as big.
With one, you were able to fight and protect yourself; two gave you more flexibility, and allowed you to adapt to your opponent and terrain more, but without one, you were powerless and vulnerable.
Still, he was far away from getting a bow relic. If he didn’t have the luck to get one through a kill, he was never going to have the money to actually buy one, since he was poor, really poor in the outside world. He would argue that Embers were easier to get by a long shot. So you could maybe think getting a lot of Embers and using the Codex’s shop to get a relic was a better idea, but with what prices they had, you would be here for at least one year for cheap things, that is.
He was just going to have to hope that he got one. Actually, he had been really unlucky recently, after all with how many he had killed, he had not even gotten one relic; that was pretty insane, to not even get a useless one.
Still, it wasn’t like he would have used any of the relics he would have gotten, but still, it was worrying that he had this luck, after he reached a high rank and Voidpiercer wasn’t enough, what was he going to do if he didn’t have luck with relics? How was he going to get a weapon?
And armor, even if he liked this one, he was going to need to get a better one someday.
The worst part was that he couldn’t even control what type of blade and armor he got. What if he had the luck to get a wide blade that specialized in slashing and heavy armor? He was probably going to have to sell them, especially the heavy armor.
He had gotten accustomed to light weapons and armor, like his rapier and mantle.
...
...
It didn’t take long for him to reach the Harbor. It had been quite a while since he last saw this place, and yet it looked exactly the same as it had been back then, back when he had left with Kade... how many memories came to his mind. After all, that was the point where they actually started their journey, he remembered they left with some bandits, and Kade almost got killed.
’Good times.’
Aether chuckled, knocking on the giant gate. Watching it open a guard steps in.
"If you wish-"
Aether already had the money ready, quickly handing it to the guard and moving inside before he could even realize what had happened.
’I do hope I still have enough to be able to buy another dinghy, if not, I’ll just do some jobs or something to get the money, it’s not that expensive either way, so it won’t take long.’
...
"Aether?"
His eyes widened to see two familiar faces.
One belonging to a magician, and the other to a small boy, with a fire burning deeply in his eyes. What were Kade and Lucien still doing here?
