“He did what!?” Her voice came out high-pitched in both surprise and frustration.

“He killed plenty of grizlards, all between level 5 to 7, my lady,” he said. He had also found it hard to believe and he had seen it with his own two eyes.

“How is he now!?” the lady demanded. 

Cold sweats broke when he heard the cold tone. The lady seemed to be very invested in the boy. An oddity for the so-called ‘ice queen’. Funny nickname as ability-wise, it didn’t suit her at all, but if he could notice that, her enemies would have seen right through her. 

The boy would be snagged away and used against her in a blink of an eye. Jake was sure because he would have done the same if the lady had threatened his daughter. 

“He is remarkably stable, my lady,” he ensured her. “Artus had threatened to kill me and grabbed one of the local girl’s chest, but that’s it. Nothing serious. He must have above two hundred essences now and he is, let me check. He is meditating, my lady. That much essence in a short amount of time, other men would have already gone crazy without some sort of a release. Are you sure he is at level zero, my lady?”

“I’m pretty sure, merc,” she spat at him. “And you didn’t need to tell me what happened to people who are flooded with essence.”

He let out a nervous cough. Jake was mostly talking to himself but he rather not say anything about it. The reputedly next Matriarch had burned people to ashes for less, at least what he heard from the rumors.

“Got it, my lady, but his Spirit, it must be really high, right?”

“For his level, yes, it should be,” she answered offhandedly. “But how?”

“His awakened spirit must be someone special,” he laid down the hook. 

“But I know him, he’s nothing special,” she expressed her worry in an odd way. Even Jake himself would feel sad if he was called ‘nothing special’ so seriously.

“Nothing to you, I guess. But a high spirit is somebody who went through plenty of hardships but remained stoic. Their [Spirit] had been tempered by the anvil of fate.” 

The lady visibly reacted to that. Jake sighed inside before he continued.

“His Willpower must be high and also Faith. He may not be wise but a high Spirit person could endure more than anyone else. And he is, most definitely, bitter to no end,” Jake chuckled. “And let me add, the church is going to throw [Acolytes] at him while trying to win him over to their side.’

“How did you know all this?”

“Not everything written in books, my lady, most of that came from the experience of meeting all kinds of people.”

“Are you trying to promote yourself?”

“Ah, I’m caught,” he laughed as his plan went well. “But most certainly I’m, my lady. Merc life is tiring, I want to settle down for a little bit.”

“Only a little bit?”

“Well, you know, get whoever is willing as a wife or two, have a child or two. Watch them grow until adulthood, and we’ll see after that, well, if I’m still alive.”

“You just want to see him grow, aren’t you?”

“Yes, a part of it,” he shrugged. “He made me want to try to settle down, that boy called me an idiot, and when I think about it, he is right.”

The sorceress laughed. Jake had never heard she was capable of it. The laughter took him by surprise until he suspected something was wrong.

“See to his level up merc and we shall see, and tell him that I want to talk to him after the level up.”

Yes. The lady might not realize it yet, but she had indeed fallen for him. People would use him against her if they notice this. 

Had Artus and her realized this and decided to go separately?

“Yes, my lady, but what about the two sides?”

“I’ll handle it, you have no place to speak in our discussion.”

Jake sighed inside, “glad to be out of it, lady Verona.” They should already find her missing right about now and he didn’t want to hear anything about it.

“Good, cut transmission,” her water shape disappeared from the pool and Jake breathed out in massive relief. 

Taking face to face with the blue-flame sorceress was nerve-wracking. He might have a huge sword but it would be useless if he could use it. 

Her flame could even melt enchanted steel for fuck’s sake!

-

[Name: Artus] 
[Age: 17]
[Essence: 329] 
[Status: Awakened (+28 Spirit)]

[Attributes]
[Body: 14]
[Mind: 9]
[Spirit: 31]
[Health Pool: 11/11]
[Mana Pool: 20/20]

[Affinity: Aether 27%]
[Core: Level 1]
[Slot 1 - Arcane Shell]

[Ability List]
[Axe Handling - 3%]
[Chop - 5%]
[Lady Killer - 25%]
[Spell Scribe - 30%]

He had lost count how many he had killed with the Diamond Spinner. More than a lot, or maybe he had also killed high leveled monsters. But it’s performance wasn’t that great if he would be honest.

‘Back to the drawing board, I guess,’ he mused.

Regardless, the status reminded him that he didn’t know a lot about pretty much anything. How his stats compared to others at his age or his core level? Was he ahead or far behind? He should make that his goal as soon as these things settle up.

The ‘system’ here also offered no explanation of what the skills actually do. He could only speculate based on the effect while using the skill. 

[Lady Killer] for example, gave him hints on what the woman wanted or whatever. It was vague most of the time. If he wanted to please them he had only needed to follow these hints. He could also use these hints or ideas to chase them away as he had with Kelly. 

The girl had only wanted to parade her quality but loathed to be touched. He could tell between the facade and the true, well, most of the time, but it was exactly what he wanted.

Other skills were pretty much the same. All of them were what he wanted or needed at the moment of its creation or breaking. 

A manifestation of my will. 

If that is true, then the spells could be turned into skills just like how Verona, a sorceress, uses spells. That aside, what he crucially needed next was a sensing skill. Something like echolocation might have a glaring weakness but had to do for now. 

Or perhaps not. What if he used Aether ‘wave’ instead of soundwave?

Now he knows that Aether is wild mana. Or mana which was unconfigured to suit a certain person, and it was everywhere. He had the gist on how to use that fact. 

Artus scribed a marble-sized simple shell with zero hardness which vibrates at a constant rate. He closed his eyes and focussed on the vibrating shell’s surface. A shell with that property wouldn’t interact with anything, but after long observation, something became obvious.

He could feel it on the skin of this shell. An almost imperceivable nudge that was the Aether itself. The ‘wave’ from the vibrating shell didn’t go around or bounced off him, but it ‘teleported’ or skipped the space that his body occupied.

The human body created a hole in the Aether wave. He had no clue why but that wasn’t important at the moment as it reacted differently on other things like the bed. The other nonliving things as it went right through while changing its ‘color’ a little bit.

Changing color is the only way he could describe what he saw in his mind’s eye. The Aether wave once again skipped the space Eliane occupied. 

It skipped again right beside the bed. Artus cursed inside when he realized what this meant. He had worried for nothing. 

Of course, the lady wouldn’t be left behind alone with him. How naive he could be? He decided to ignore the other person and continue to explore what he could do with the spell.

An idea came to him and he added another thing to the spell. A link to his mind, just like how the word ‘bubble’ had been linked before in the [Arcane Shell]. Well, before he replaced it with a math formula.

Activating the marble-sized shell flooded his mind with everything. He canceled the spell immediately. It felt like his brain was going to explode and turned to mush.

A mild headache came right after that, but luckily he might know why. Artus had to rest for a minute or two just to gather his scattered brain cells. More adjustments were made to limit the range and he would stick with visual input only for now. He kept the option available but disabled for the sake of his brain.

Activating the spell came with a big relief. His breath of relief had made the silent watcher react when the empty space stood up from the bed and turned towards him. He didn’t want to show it, but he wasn’t that great at hiding things

The outline wasn’t perfect in his head but he could tell it was a female spy guarding the lady against him. So much for trust, and he should have known.

[- Ability Break -]
[Aether Sense manifested, 24% mastery]

[Aether Affinity increased by 10%]

‘So if something was linked or fed to the mind directly it counts as an ability?’ Artus shrugged. ‘Well, whatever.’

His mood was completely dampened even if he had just found the most amazing ability he could think of right now. He tested the ability limits until the lady began to stir in her sleep. He got up and left the room as she woke up. She called for him as he was closing the door but he decided to ignore her.

He went downstairs for another glass of water just to quench the raging feeling he got bubbling inside. All this time he was worried about her safety for nothing. The spy probably would kick his ass if he tried anything more than just kisses and chest rubs.

He almost got to the door when he noticed the other person who was on the other side. The big ass sword told him that the person was Jake.

Artus opened the door first before he slipped past the surprised Jake. He wondered why he felt like he was riding an emotional roller coaster right now.

Everything feels wrong.

“Hey, man, where are you going?” asked the man from his back.

Artus stopped. “Away from here,” he gave the vague answer after selecting the less confrontational ones. He couldn’t say anything else.

Who knows what the invisible lady was capable of, and without a doubt, Jake was with her. They had exchanged glances as he stopped Eliane at the door.

His best bet was to get away from everything so he could calm down. Artus erected the speed shell and headed towards the exit. There was no need to worry anymore, Eliane was in better care than he could ever give. 

The three of them even might just be using him as a front.

Claire gave him a surprised nod as he passed the gate. It pained him to miss the chance to see her in a more casual set of clothes. 

He wondered if he still should head to the same destination while speeding on the road. He also needed to figure out how or what to do with these essences.

Did it have something to do with [Core] level up? 

A prompt later brought a smile to his face. He sped up even more. There was no doubt the leveling up process could be simple. After much thought, he decided to go off-road.