"I believe that you don’t know the strength of the technique you are purchasing," Kayden said and remained silent while Athena saw the first technique in her life that made her doubt reality.
She saw impossible cures, attacks that could flatten an entire city or cut a mountain in half, even breaking the sound barrier using mere words was not capable of causing this reaction in her, and why? Because she found herself faced with a technique without limits.
With all her knowledge, she could easily become the strongest combat mage to ever exist on this planet, at least if her body wasn’t chaining her to the early apprentice levels.
"What do you want for the second technique?" the woman asked this question expecting another ridiculous request.
"Nothing much, just obedience and absolute loyalty to the Heart house." If Athena didn’t have all her experience, she would have let out a cry of surprise, but in reality, she just looked at Kayden and...
"Unfortunately I can’t do that." No matter how crazy she was, she wouldn’t join an unknown ship, even if the means didn’t matter, that didn’t mean the ends would justify her death.
"Do you have a high-grade healing pill?" Athena didn’t understand Kayden’s question but nodded. "Any problems with injuries and blood?" This time she shook her head. Kayden decided to use his final card to sell his fish.
"Part of what allows me to absorb mana without being poisoned is my mana heart, which you may already be aware of." The woman nodded. It was the biggest revolution in farming methods in recent centuries. "I need you to sign a confidentiality agreement about what I’m going to say. Of course, I’m not going to tell you the technique, but some important details about my appearance."
A strange look appeared on the woman for just a second and Kayden became suspicious, but his worries were gone when she signed the contract without asking any more questions.
"I have some veins responsible only for transporting mana, they do not join my body except at specific points. This is not the main thing but added to my first technique and my cultivation environment, I can have zero contact with mana." Kayden directed the mana into a finger on his hand and caused it to become extremely sharp, the blade formed from pure mana began to cut a part of his arm deeply.
Athena saw Kayden, without any expression on his face, remove a piece of his flesh and reveal some veins on his arm, and as if the wound wasn’t on him, the boy began to confirm his words.
"These are normal veins and these are mana veins," Kayden cut the two and showed their differences, meanwhile Athena watched in amazement and at the same time with fear in her eyes when she saw the way Kayden was presenting the situation. "Please give me the pill, Lady Athena. I believe this information pays for it."
The elderly woman took a pill out of thin air and threw it to Kayden. As soon as he swallowed it, his body was healed in seconds and was as good as new, the blood was drawn out with a simple water spell and fell into the sea of clouds.
"Do you know what this method means?" Athena knew. "You will be able to cultivate." The woman remained silent with thousands of thoughts in her head, the offer was very good, but she knew she could easily die for any mistake.
The slightest mistake would cost him his life, but... did it matter? She had no family, her parents died a long time ago, and she had no other half, it was practically the last years of her life for decades, every time her age increased a little, but her quality of life was low, in the end she he was just a person who lived too long.
"I accept both offers, the first one will take a few years." Before she could continue, Kayden interrupted her.
"No, at most 1 year for each treasure realm. I know you must have this ability." The woman’s brow furrowed at Kayden’s speech, but she had to nod in acceptance since the boy had the knife and cheese in his hands.
"The first kingdom can be handed over tomorrow, and the rest every year, the loyalty contract I can sign now." Kayden felt that the woman was signing this contract too easily, but her concerns were low, the contract could not be broken.
’He doesn’t know’, Athena thought when she saw Kayden blindly trust the contract. It wasn’t his fault, he just hadn’t lived long enough to know that everything could be broken. The elderly woman took a ring off her finger and threw it to the boy.
"This is a space ring, it has a small room separated from reality inside it, you can store your things in it by putting mana, the lock is your mana signature, accept this as one of the fourth realm treasures and a gesture of trust ."
Kayden smiled and did not express any further reactions, he already suspected that something like this could exist, he saw several figures taking things out of nowhere and now his hypothesis had been confirmed.
Over the next few hours, Kayden explained in detail her cultivation medium and how she could develop it, explained about the mana veins and every little detail, this took about 6 hours about the woman’s big questions.
Athena took a pill and didn’t need to sleep anymore, she had been doing this for a few centuries, she just took a nap every few weeks, each pill cost a few billion and was a ridiculously high expense.
Then, Kayden began to explain his path and how to remove the mana’s will, and the woman again asked thousands of questions.
"This is the safe limit so that the world doesn’t attack you, you won’t survive if that happens", Kayden was referring to the point where he met the golden eyes. "I won’t go into details, just don’t go past that point."
Kayden didn’t know, but even if the woman tried, she wouldn’t be able to get past that point, it was a matter of many factors, first the mentality, the boy at the time didn’t feel it, but for every second that he took away his sister’s will, his body trembled in intense pain.
The second point was that to enter this point, you would need to be in an absolute state of enlightenment, you should have accepted all the bad points in your life and good points and simply ignore them, your mind should be in absolute white and Kayden only achieved at the time after going through a traumatic event and his unique life experiences.
The explanation of how to bend mana to his will took a few more hours and finally, Kayden was released to test his ring and receive the treasures, he saw Ravena appear to pick him up and at that moment he noticed that the woman had not gone up with him into the clouds.
"How can I contact you?" Kayden asked before heading downstairs.
"Just go to the central library and ask to speak to the most ignorant of the staff." Kayden was surprised by the way of contacting her and smiled when he understood, that the most ignorant person is the one who knows the limits of their knowledge, because only then can human beings know the extent of their lack of knowledge.
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"Holy shit", Kayden blurted out as he looked at the small pile of treasures in front of him, there were some seeds that overflowed with mana, in total, there were five of them, and two other things were chalices containing a golden liquid and another three were fruits, one being apple, a banana, and a whole watermelon.
Next to each thing was written its use and benefits, Kayden was amazed at how much he achieved just by giving away his secrets, something he didn’t even care about, he was the best and only that mattered.
Kayden quickly redefined his training goals for these months, he would consume one mana seed per month and use one chalice every two, while for the fruits he would consume one every three.
As much as he wanted to simply consume everything in a row, he knew that this was not ideal, firstly that he would not be able to get used to his strength gains in an ideal way and secondly, he still had to take advantage of the libraries and classes of this kingdom, in addition to the private class with Athena.
Without thinking much, he threw all the treasures into his ring, he easily figured out how to use it, but he didn’t understand how it worked at all, it seemed like the mana was transported to a different place, when he put his mana in, the ring returned to him the shapes of the objects inside, but that was it, no other characteristics were possible to be seen until he took it out of the ring.
Taking just one seed, Kayden began the process of advancement. He had only been at the fifth level for a short time, but with all the treasures he consumed in the bubble and a little more cultivation, he was already very close to advancing.