Ruvia felt the sun's rays caressing her face. Her eyelids blinked, and she slowly woke up.

With a sudden realization, she sat up abruptly, looking around anxiously.

She was in a small stone house, with a few small windows without glass, adorned with wooden shutters.

The room wasn't very large; no more than 20m², with a bed, a table, and two chairs.

She pushed back her blanket and got up. She was still groggy, but she regained most of her strength.

"Phew!"

She sighed in relief when she saw the small metal chest on the table.

She reached out to take it but the door opened, revealing a tall creature, part humanoid, part snake with red eyes.

"Oh, you're awake!" Liam said as he closed the door behind him.

Ruvia looked at him suspiciously and reached out. She used her spiritual energy and several pentagrams appeared in the air, quickly forming a bluish barrier around her body.

Liam smiled.

"You don't need to worry that much, young Valyr. If I wanted to harm you, you wouldn't be alive right now."

It was only when he mentioned her race that Ruvia realized she was dressed in a new white dress that revealed her race.

As she panicked, Liam sent his spiritual sense into her barrier and made a slight notch with his will.

After all, he was a higher existence. Even if it was a mere incarnation, how could a beginner mage fight against him?

Ruvia saw the crack in her barrier and widened her eyes. No one had ever been able to damage it so casually.

She sighed inwardly and dispelled her barrier. She knew that Liam could easily kill her if he wanted to.

Well in fact, he would not kill her unless he wanted to be disqualified from the exam, but she didn't know that.

Liam smiled at her quick wit and invited her to sit at the table.

Ruvia took the chair and sat with her arms crossed under her chest.

As for him, well, the nagas had a more or less strange way of sitting.

The upper part of their body was "sitting" on the chair, and their long snake-like body was coiled around the chair's feet.

In the meantime, Liam couldn't help but give a second look to the Valyr. Eventhough it was the first time he saw one, Liam noticed she was different from the others.

She had the same white hair and the same tail as the others, but she had more scales, but her horns were almost black, while they should be purple.

They started from her shoulders and went down behind her arms to the middle of her forearms.

Similarly, some scales were on her thighs and feet, as well as a beautiful line of scales along her back.

Even though she had more scales than the others, they were much more beautiful and refined, forming pretty patterns all over her body, highlighting a beautiful skin that was much lighter than the one of other Valyrs.

With her beautiful face, she perfectly fit the human standards.

 

[PICTURE HERE]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18rddwz7N125jniIQfAWD3M0LN9VNPJ9F/view?usp=sharing

 

It was Liam who had healed her and dressed her, and even he found her particularly beautiful; almost reaching the beauty of the girls on earth.

Reaching such standards was already very impressive. After all, humans had been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years.

If you were still ugly nowadays, then you could only blame your fate.

Of course, that wasn't enough for Liam to do anything to her. He could control himself after all, but he knew there must be a story behind it.

He didn't stare at her for long.

"Well, let's start from the beginning. What's your name?"

Even though she seemed to be sulking, she answered.

"My name is Ruvia Luminara."

Liam nodded.

"All right Ruvia, tell me what could have possibly led one of the last Valyrs alive to risk her life in the sewers of a ruined city.”

…

This was followed by a long discussion between the two parties.

Ruvia was indeed one of the last Valyrs, but she didn't experience the war. Well, at least she didn't remember because she was less than one year old at the time.

As far as she could remember, she always lived with her grandfather in a small cabin lost in the middle of the forest.

He taught her everything; from reading to magic, through the history of their world.

Speaking of which, even though she knew they lost the war, she didn't know that their people had almost been completely wiped out.

She rather thought that they were already few in numbers and that they had lost the war due to lack of manpower.

Even though it seemed strange, Liam didn't do anything to clear up her confusion.

In any case, even though he knew the global history, he far from knew every detail and wouldn't be able to convince her.

As for the reason they crossed paths in the city of Vinaya, it was because her grandfather was getting old and had a strange illness. No matter how many healing spells she cast, she couldn't improve his condition.

In desperation, she followed one of the old maps her grandfather kept at the back of a closet and entered a so-called hidden treasure vault of the Valyr race.

Everything went well at first, and she was able to find what she was looking for. The problem is that while leaving, she went too close to the main rat nest and killed several rat cubs.

This angered the group, and you know the rest.

Hearing the story, Liam couldn't help but look at her strangely, as well as the box.

"Um, tell me, did your grandfather give you this necklace?"

He said, pointing to the adornment around her neck.

Even though the question had nothing to do with the discussion, she couldn't help but proudly raise her head.

"Yes, he engraved it himself and gave it to me when I was ten years old!"

Liam sighed inwardly at the childishness of the Valyr and continued.

"Do you remember if his illness worsened afterward?"

She hesitated for a moment before answering, confused.

"I think so, but don't tell me you think it's related!"

Liam could only gently shake his head and look her straight in the eyes.

"If what you're telling me is true, then I'm sorry to tell you that not only there is a connection, but it probably greatly worsened his condition. You've never seen him use magic, do you?"

She didn't answer but simply shook her head, making Liam sigh again.

"If I'm not mistaken, your grandfather should be a celestial powerhouse, but he was probably severely injured during the war. Even if he survived, his wounds don't heal and worsen every time he uses magic."

"Honestly, it must have taken him a lot of time and energy to engrave your necklace. Not only is it made of mythril, but the spells engraved on it can resist the attack of a pinnacle celestial being for some time."

"YOU'RE LYING!"

Ruvia shouted, making Liam sigh.

"Even if I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure I'm right."

The young Valyr clearly refused to accept reality and bit her lip, holding back her tears.

"Listen, take a few days to digest the information. We're in a small town here, and there are only us, the Red-Moon Nagas, and a vassal race, the novarians. You can walk around freely as long as you don't break anything. I'll come back to you when you've calmed down."

With that, he didn't wait for her response and left, closing the door.

Indeed, he brought her into his divine realm.

It wasn't out of kindness. He hoped to get something from her. Not to mention the hidden treasure, he noticed the presence of the necklace from the beginning and hoped to trace it back to its creator.

He wanted to find a master for Nevra and the future mages of his divine realm.

At the same time, he had organized a huge ceremony to honor the dead of the tribe.

This battle was by far one of the most difficult. All the surviving rank 1 nagas had overcome the chains of their bloodline and started evolving to become warriors.

At the same time, two other nagas broke through to become great warriors, while the great warrior severely injured by one of the spider queens had advanced to a confirmed rank 3 naga.

Even though the tribe's strength increased significantly, Liam lost eighteen nagas, and if he could do it again, he wouldn't let his army be encircled in the spider cave.

There simply weren't enough nagas.

In addition, the nagas were almost sure to continue improving.

For example, the one who became a confirmed rank 3: it might have taken him ten or fifteen years, but he would have reached the confirmed stage alone with enough training.

After a hundred years, he could reach the advanced stage, or even the pinnacle.

Only crossing a rank required a certain accumulation, and for the six nagas who reached rank 2 and the two who advanced to rank 3, he would never sacrifice twice as many people.

Unfortunately, there was no medicine for regret, and he could only accept the situation.

At least he ranked first and had a 10 000 point lead over the second.

Given the damage it caused, he didn't plan on taking another 5-star quest soon. If the first place continued to outpace him, he could only admit that he was inferior.

...

A week later, Ruvia's state of mind had improved a lot.

 At first, she didn't wanted to go out and even had trouble to eat properly.

The more she thought about it, the more she blamed herself for causing the illness of the person she loved the most in the world.

Fortunately, Liam sent his best asset: Nevra.

Maybe because she had always been marginalized, she had great empathy towards others, unlike the other nagas who only thought about fighting and becoming stronger.

They quickly became very close. Two days ago, Nevra had even managed to show her around the town.

Indeed, the original tribe migrated elsewhere and had begun to build a city on the continent, near the coast.

Even though nagas and novarians could live on land as well as in the sea, they preferred to be close to both.

Building a submerged city near the continent would have also posed many problems such as water retention and erosion, and for the nagas who were beginners in construction, they would have struggled to manage that.

Thus, the city had been under construction for a few years. There wasn't yet a wall around it but it would serve no purpose for now. Not only there was no one to attack the city, but at the same time, it was constantly expanding.

It would only cause problems.

The city already had more than three hundred stone houses scattered around two large stone roads that formed a cross where a square stood.

As the concept of family spread more and more and as novarians became more civilized, each family could have its own house. Singles often had to cohabit.

A fifteen meters huge altar stood on the only square of the city.

Around the square, most of the houses had two or three floors, and the farther away from the city center, the smaller the houses became.

The nagas lived in the center of the city, while most of the novarians lived on the outskirts. Only the novarians warriors were accepted in the city center.

Liam did nothing to address this discrimination. The novarians were destined to be at the bottom of the social pyramid of his divine realm. The stronger the nagas became, the more pronounced it would be.

Even as a god, he didn't want to put them on equal footing because it would diminish the nagas' faith.

As for the opinion of the novarians, in reality, it didn't matter much. Anyone with a minimum of brain capacity would find it normal for the strongest to be privileged.

As for Ruvia, she had walked around the city and seemed to slowly regain her smile.

At the same time, the more she learned about the divine realm, the more shocked she was.

She quickly realized that it was a different world that had nothing to do with hers.

In fact, she cast an ocular spell and saw the spatial wall around her, which she certainly couldn't do in the plane.

At the same time, she noticed that there was no spiritual energy in this world. All the mana she spent could not be recovered here.

She had, however, noticed the spatial channel, which Liam had moved to the square next to the altar.

In addition, she heard a lot about the god of the two races, a certain Lord of the Azure Abyss.

She even observed several great prayers, which took place every morning and brought the whole city together in the square.

Even though she was a bit surprised that such a strong tribe still believed in a non-existent god, several small tribes and clans of monsters believed in strange gods, like the god of fire, the water spirits, the god of war, and many others.

However, her grandfather told her that before the war, the Valyrs had determined that gods didn't exist at all or were completely out of reach.

Thus, she looked at it with sadness. It was a shame that such a powerful tribe wasted so much time believing in a being that didn't exist.

She tried to convince her friend Nevra, but she told her to get lost and not to repeat it to anyone else.

Fortunately, Nevra wasn't a fanatic, or she could have tried to kill her on the spot.

Liam was pleased with how things were going. He already planned to bring Ruvia and her grandfather back into the divine realm and make them his believers, even if it would take some time.

That day, Sylvera and Liam entered the house near the city center that had been assigned to her; it was time for a real discussion.