Chapter 56.

Amber of course, didn’t really care about the fact that Velda had attacked her. Instead, she was just glad to be seeing her friend again; it had been eight months and some weeks since they last saw each other after all. 

She stared at the two sisters for a moment, first was Velda who looked annoyed at her, and there was Liz who looked embarrassed rather than anything. Amber wasn’t entirely certain what to say, but as she stared at the two mages she used Identify. 

 

[Mage. Lvl. 63]

[Mage. Lvl. 76]

 

“You both have leveled up a lot.” She smiled.

“And yet, you are nothing but questionmarks for me,” Velda said in reply. 

Meanwhile Liz’s eyes widened for a moment but she said nothing. Though their small interaction was enough to send the nearest adventurers into whispers. 

“Did you hear? She is called Amber.”

“Amber as in the hero of Cytel? That woman⁠— no chance, there is no way she can travel all the way here so fast!”

“But look at her level!” 

Amber scratched her head at that and Velda raised her brow, Liz too seemed a bit confused but smiled a moment later. 

“Looks like we missed out on some news while we were out adventuring?” she asked, amused. 

“I guess?” Amber wasn’t too used to having renown, but here she was. “How long have you two been gone?” 

“Two weeks,” Velda answered simply. “So, a whole lot less longer than you.” 

Amber paused at that and Liz chuckled, getting closer. 

“Sorry about that, she’s just upset about not seeing you for quite a long time,” she said. “Maybe we should catch up over a nice dinner?”

Amber nodded but after taking in the appearances of everyone including herself, she spoke.

“Then how about we all clean ourselves up and then, go get something to eat?”

Velda slowly nodded and Liz smiled. “Sounds like a plan.” 

Amber was happy, though the muttering from the adventurers behind her irked her a tiny bit. King Octavius had gone a bit too far with all the announcements it seemed. Though, that reminded her of the news she had to give Liz and Velda.

Though as the queue advanced, she decided that the conversation was much better suited for dinner. 

“So, Amber, considering your absence, I take it the trip went well?” Velda asked. 

Amber looked back at the younger sister who, for lack of a better word looked hostile. But, in consideration to Liz’s words, Amber decided to ignore it and nod. 

“It did, I made lots of new friends and I got to level up a lot, what about you?”

Velda blinked for a moment before thinking. “Well, we traveled to a lot of different places and I almost died several times but it was… enlightening.” 

Liz grabbed her sister by the shoulder, chuckling. “You should have seen how motivated she was at the start, she kept talking about surpassing you basically every day.” 

“And I will surpass her,” Velda snorted. 

Amber smiled at that. Considering Velda had gained over 40 levels since she had seen her, it was something worthy of respect. Meanwhile Liz had gained less, but she had still grown quite a lot. But Amber decided to give her some advice.

“If you want to surpass me then you’ll have to follow the same steps as me,” Amber said, before leaning forward and whispering. “Climb the tower of the capital for eight months and use my name to your advantage.”

Velda blinked at that. “What does that even mean?”

“You’ll see later.” Amber smirked. 

And a moment later, it was their turn to go into the city. Velda and Liz got in without troubles, and Amber⁠— she was stopped by the guard who seemed rather tense. 

“W-what is your name and purpose to visit Laria?” he asked, somewhat nervously. 

Amber raised her brow. “I’m Amber, I’ve just come back from an eight-month long trip to see my friends.”

The guard paused, his eyes growing wide by the moment. “A-Amber…?”

“Yeah?”

Amber raised her brow and the guard stiffened before speaking in a hurry. 

“Please wait a moment.”

With those words, he called over another guard and left. Liz and Velda had stopped looking at the interaction and came back with confusion. The new guard also seemed nervous. 

“What’s going on?” Liz asked. 

“No idea,” Amber replied a moment later. 

To some extent, she could understand that her level put the guards on edge, considering only the city lord of Laria was only over level 100 or something? She couldn’t remember all of the details, but at the same time she felt that the reason for the guard’s reaction hadn’t been due to that, but instead something else. 

The question was: what? 

A minute later the guard came back and dismissed the other guard. He was holding some sort of piece of smooth paper. It was small, but he looked at it, then back at Amber, then back at the paper. Before finally, showing it to her. 

“Is this you?”

Amber blinked looking at a what was essentially a black and white photograph of herself. She was smiling and was covered in some soot. She didn’t even know when it had even been taken⁠— or the fact that photographs even existed. 

“That is me, yeah.”

At her response the guard’s eyes grew slightly wide before he knelt immediately, his head bowed low in shame. 

“I’m sorry for not immediately recognizing you, your grace.” 

Liz raised her brow at that. “Your… grace? You are a duchess…?” 

“Oh…” Amber paused. 

The guard immediately stood up and shot a glare to Liz. “Of course she is, she has been personally given the title by the king himself! Every knight of every city knows of the savior of Cytel!” 

Liz and Velda stared in shock, meanwhile the guard turned to her apologetically.

“Sorry for not recognizing you sooner, your presence wasn’t expected so soon.” 

“Right, it’s fine,” Amber dismissed. “Can I go in, now?”

He straightened. “Of course, please go in. I shall inform the city lord of your arrival⁠—”

“No need for that, I just want to hang out with my friends,” Amber interrupted walking past the guard. “So, see ya.” 

With that half-assed goodbye she left the man standing there in confusion. Thankfully, no one else had witnessed what happened at the gate, which saved Amber a small headache. Though, unfortunately, it didn’t save her from Velda and Liz’s questioning.

“So you went missing for eight months to pursue nobility?!” Velda asked in frustration. “We are nobles too, so you could’ve just asked us to adopt you into the house or something!” 

“No, it’s not that,” Amber sighed. “It was just a reward.”

“I assume it’s the reason you are called the hero of Cytel now?” Liz asked, raising her brow. “Well, can’t wait to hear all about it,” she chirped.

Amber shook her head. “You say it as if you aren’t obligated to share about what you did in the past eight months.”

“Well, obviously I traveled with Velda given my level,” Liz answered with a haughty tone. 

“And I obviously went to the Primordial Spirit tower,” Amber huffed.

Liz chuckled at that as they continued walking. They all headed to the same inn, where Amber paid for a room and a bath, before splitting off from the group, and with that, everyone got ready for dinner. 

 

* * * 

 

Amber got into the private bath room, and to some extent she felt nostalgic. She could remember the first time she had used one, how she had leaned all her possessions against the wall, but now it was different. 

She had stored everything that was on her person away into the storage ring she had gotten as a reward. Even with everything she had thrown into it, it had at most 3% of its capacity taken. Amber closed her eyes as she sat down on the bathtub, the water soaking every inch of her body. 

So much had changed since she had arrived at Vir, and she was happy. She didn’t miss Earth too much, though part of her did want to return just to show off how capable she was now. Things that were monumental tasks physically were now child’s play. She wondered what the coach of the college would say⁠— what the other people she had met would think. 

In the end, those thoughts were intoxicating to her. 

Amber smiled to herself, even in the past week a lot had changed. She stared at the black ring on her finger, it sheened with the light with a beautiful rocky pattern. 

I can essentially make a personal room and transport it in its entirety probably. It was akin to a mobile apartment or something. Though of course, she wasn’t going to waste the space on the ring for that kind of stuff. But those thoughts were nice. 

Amber took out the Cursewelder, which she gently placed into the bath with her, making the water immediately start boiling. The currents caused by the temperature tickled at her skin, and even though the water would have burned any normal human, Amber found it comfortable instead. 

She was essentially a superhuman now. 

And to think this was just beginning, to think she could reach level 400 and above and still be missing an entire section to the path of true strength. 

Suddenly, Amber found herself excited, but as the water burned away she realized that she had more pressing present priorities like actually bathing herself. 

So, she hurried on that. 

 

* * * 

 

It took about ten minutes, but Amber had cleaned herself up and wore casual clothing as she got out into the lobby of the inn. And not a minute later Liz came wearing a rather fancy looking dress that made Amber raise her brow. 

“Why the occasion?” 

Liz snorted. “I expected you to dress nicely considering you haven’t seen us in eight months.”

“Counter point: I am an adventurer,” Amber answered simply.

“Correction: you are a noble now, so part of your duty towards your title is dressing nicely,” Liz said. “So, put something else on.”

Amber shook her head. “I don’t have anything else, these pants and shirt will make do⁠— oh and my armored boots.”

Liz sighed, Amber couldn’t tell if it was one of exasperation, annoyance, or disappointment, but Amber didn’t care all that much about dressing nicely⁠— well that was a lie. She did care once upon a time. What kind of girl didn’t like to look pretty once in a while? Though, she didn’t care all that much anymore.

“If you have clothes I can borrow, I’ll use them,” Amber said as an attempt to keep Liz happy. 

At that, the blonde mage immediately piped up. “Of course, just come with me.” 

And just like that, she was dragged to the sister’s room, where she met a very casually dressed Velda. And⁠— Liz didn’t have none of it, so in the end, all three ended up dressed nicely. With dresses rather than shirts or robes. In the end, Liz ended up doing the hair of the two of them as well. 

After that, they went off to dinner, though the two mages still kept their staffs. 

 

* * * 

 

Contrary to expectations, Liz had chosen a fancy restaurant inside of Laria. It screamed nobility through and through, which Amber didn’t know what to make out of it. And it was even more awkward when the different people around the restaurant looked at her, staring for long periods of time. 

It didn’t stop until they got a private table to themselves far away from the public.

“Why is everyone looking at me like that?” Amber asked, shaking her head. 

“Because you’re pretty,” Velda answered flatly. 

She paused. “Ha?” 

“Don’t mind it,” Liz chuckled. “Every person here has seen each other once or twice, but given you are new, it’s only natural they’ll stare at you.” 

“Right.” Amber nodded, that made sense to her. “So, why such a fancy place?”

“Why not such a fancy place?” Liz answered. “We haven’t seen each other in forever, might as well make it memorable.”

“I suppose so.” 

A moment later, the waiter came by and food was ordered based on a menu that was on the table. In the end, Amber had gotten herself some kind of fancy cut of meat. And just like that, they were left in silence. 

“So what were your adventures like, Amber?” Liz asked, quite happy. 

“Well, for that I must know that nobody is listening, I can’t exactly talk about this stuff openly,” Amber said. 

Liz nodded and grabbed her staff as it began to shine in a white light. 

“Silence.” With her words, a small ripple of white covered all of them. “Detect.” Then another ripple came.

Amber blinked, Velda said nothing, and Liz began to explain.

“No one will be able to hear our conversation that is beyond our table, and I will be alerted of the people that approach,” she said simply.

“I thought you were a fire mage?” Amber asked.

“I have some general skills, no one in the establishment is over level 50 thankfully, so we shouldn’t worry about rogues listening in or something. And if someone was strong enough to listen in⁠—”

“We wouldn’t be able to stop it.” Amber sighed. “Well, good enough for me.”

Considering she wasn’t going to tell them about Ill’hine, the information wasn’t all that sensitive. It was more likely for the Arcane Council to catch wind of her being friends with Val’leri from the knights of the kingdom than from Liz and Velda anyway. 

“So, why are you so secretive?” Liz asked.

“Well, it all started with sneaking past the knights that were outside the Primordial Spirit tower near the capital.” 

With that statement, both of the sisters seemed as interested as ever.

“Then, I spent eight months climbing the tower, before finally I met the Primordial Spirit near the capital,” Amber stated simply. 

Velda’s eyes widened for a moment, and Liz nodded, as if she had already expected it.

“Wait, you met another Primordial Spirit?” Velda asked in shock.

Amber blinked and Liz smiled sheepishly.

“I kind of told her of the first one you met…”

“Right…”

Amber thought about it, given she had given Liz permission before to talk about her goals in regards to Primordial Spiritis, she supposed that it only made sense that Velda would find out after so many months. Plus since they were looking into the Arcane Council it was probably useful information to know. 

Finally, Amber nodded. “I did meet another one.”

“What were they like?” Velda asked in great interest.

“Eccentric, when talking they more often than not reinstated the same thing twice.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Liz raised her brow. 

“It’s not that complicated, not that hard to understand,” Amber said as an example and both sisters blinked. “I learned a lot in regards to a lot of things, from how extensive is the power of the Arcane Council to secrets of the world and things I basically swore not to speak of.”

She was met with nods before Velda began.

“Actually, we did look into the Arcane Council, it seems that they went to a Primordial Spirit tower recently,” Velda said. “They were trying to summon a Primordial Spirit, but seems that they failed.”

Amber raised her brow. “They failed? Why?”

“I don’t know, based on sources what they used should have summoned the Primordial Spirit even if the target didn’t want to be summoned,” Velda stated lowering her head.

“Right…”

Was that why Val’leri told me to not worry about the beacon? Amber pondered for a few moments. 

“So, did you get information in regards to your friend?” Liz asked. 

Amber nodded. “I did, and he’s safe.”

The blonde mage nodded. “Well, I suppose before we ask more about that, I we should share what we were up to, right Velda?”

Her sister nodded. “Yeah…”

“Basically, we looked into the Arcane Council with the help of Velda’s connections, which turns out⁠— the Starkell family has access to quite a lot of information brokers. That’s how we learned of that summoning,” Liz stated. “Though the information wasn’t cheap. We also learned a lot of stuff, which you can find in this envelope, here.”

Amber stared at the letter that was being slid towards her and then made a mental note to pay the sisters. And as she grabbed it and put it away from sight before vanishing it into the ring, Liz continued. 

“While that happened, I also leveled up and tried to help Velda get levels, as you can see my sister got a lot of levels,” she gestured. “Aside from that not that much has happened.”

Amber blinked. 

“Wait that’s all?”

Liz smiled. “Just kidding, I did do quite a lot of stuff, I went on some adventures on my own and conducted my own research, but I do doubt that any of that is enough to get me called hero.” 

“I doubt we did anything exciting enough to really compare with anything that Amber did,” Velda said. “Kind of not fair.”

“Well, you did get a very rare class advancement,” Liz pointed out. “And Amber hinted that you should meet the Primordial Spirit of the capital in the future, so there is that to look forward to.”

“I guess…” Velda agreed, somewhat discouraged before turning to Amber. “So, what would you say is the bare minimum for me to try?”

Amber frowned. “I can only speak of my own experience, but being able to forego food, the need for sleep and being able to fight for weeks straight were requirements for me.”

“Right…” she pondered for a moment before nodding to herself. “So I guess I’ll only go after I reach level 100, then I can leverage your name like you wanted me to.” 

Amber nodded at that, and Liz smiled before speaking in a more serious tone. 

“Now, there is something that I have to tell you about, Amber.”

Amber lightly tensed and Velda nodded, seemingly knowing what this is about.

“What is it?”

“Continuing the topic of your friend,” Liz began. “I went to the Primordial Spirit tower in the Arthra forest, and there I met a Primordial Spirit.”

Amber blinked in shock and Liz met her gaze before smiling. 

“But it wasn’t just any Primordial Spirit, it was your friend, the Primordial Spirit you always talk about.”

She met him? That wasn’t possible, but still, Amber chose to listen, and hearing the following words from Liz, she froze. 

“I met Ax’thra.”