Talia’s joy was soon cut short when a pair of strong hands patted her on the shoulder awakening her from her daze.

Realising it was Priest Omar she was about to smile however catching sight of the number of dead bodies behind him all sense of accomplishment she had seemed to evaporate.

“How many…” Talia found herself lost for words as she saw the number of dead bodies.

She was not unfamiliar with death by now but this was her first time seeing so many dead humans, the other humans she saw killed before were a bunch of scum who had bad intentions towards her so it played little on her conscience but these were a bunch of good men who died protecting her.

Indirectly it could be said to be her fault, she couldn’t help but feel guilty looking at how much death Alexander caused.

‘Maybe if I was quicker…’ was a subconscious thought in the back of her mind.

Priest Omar seemed to realise Talia’s thoughts smiled and said, “Stop thinking like that, it is us that should be remorseful not you involving you with such a dangerous encounter with these cultists… is a big error on my judgement and it would have been far worse if not for you. These men are alive because of you, I have no idea what you did, but none here is foolish to think that we had anything to do with the death of that creature, they may have used their lives to protect you but they died without regret, this Town to these soldiers and even my own men lives are indebted to you, nothing would have stopped that creature from slaughtering the Town if it was not stopped here, do you understand now? Each of these men's wives, children were saved by you.”

Hearing Priest Omar’s sincere words Talia calmed down a bit, she still felt some accountability yet did not blame herself as much.

Turning to Priest Omar she said, “Thank you for the kind words, I needed that.”

“What I said is nothing but the truth, you will learn what I say with experience, in the end when you have responsibility you feel an obligation to protect everyone but one of the first things to learn is you cannot save everyone. We can learn to improve our competency to reduce casualties, but it is impossible to guarantee everyone's life, this mission can be viewed as a great failure to me, however now knowing the strength of the target, we are lucky that even this many managed to survive.” Priest Omar said.

Talia just nodded in agreement, she thought these words of advice would be useful to her in the future, coming to this World as a stranger she felt no sense of belonging as a Princess of a Kingdom but just through meeting a few of her ‘subjects’ she already felt a sense of responsibility for them already.

She could already imagine in the future the sense of responsibility she would have, hard decisions involving the lives of others would be enforced upon her whether she wanted it or not.

Speaking of which she remembered the bet with those nobles challenging the trainees.

Although not comparable to a life and death situation, she still felt a desire in ensuring their victory because the battle had everything to do with her.

Edward only was targeting them due to her after all so she viewed it as a matter of importance.

With the aid of the Tier 1 Physique Potions, she hoped it was enough to defeat the nobles.

Focusing back on her present situation she found Priest Omar was still beside her looking at her with concern, knowing she should console him she said, “You don’t have to worry about me I’m fine, I will be good here now you should go to your men now it would be selfish of me to keep you here any longer.”

Priest Omar smiled and said, “You got a good heart girl, we will arrange a proper burial for the fallen and search this base further to see if we can find anything of importance, but your role in this is over, I was planning to pass on your reward afterwards however I will be busy for the next few days sorting out this mess so I will hand it to you early. You deserve this although it isn’t anything special for the Church standards a soul cultivation method is still not something you can come by easily, I would gift you a more impressive one but I am not permitted to hand out any secret manuals from the Church but I hope this one I happened to find in my travels will be of the aid of you.”

The notifications for completing a quest filled her vision, alongside the rewards, once again she received hefty experience, not enough to level her up once again but brought her on the verge to the next level.

Besides that, she received the highest momentary reward she received in a quest yet alongside the most prized reward, the highly coveted soul cultivation technique which she desired greatly.

Quickly summarising her gains from this quest, she gained a new skill, six additional levels bringing her up to level 25, two magic tomes, a rare potion that will bring her great benefits in the future and finally a soul cultivation technique.

The risk and danger she faced from this quest alone were far higher than any other she has had in this world so far, she nearly lost her life numerous times yet the profits gained was equally immense.

However, she still was not eager to jump right into another quest like this in the future despite the apparent benefits because she was not the type of person who would continue to gamble their life continuously for big rewards.

She couldn’t guarantee everything would work out like this every time, nonetheless, it was not the time to worry about such things but to continue progressing her strength.

Now she not only had the Governor to worry about but the mysterious faction within the game world which will be coming after her life.

The only thing she could do in the meantime is growing stronger.

Thanking Priest Omar for the reward, she was escorted outside the complex by two templars who offered their gratitude to her at the entrance before she departed the area of the building.

A few town guards and other Templars also offered their thanks to her on the way out, her reputation among them already improved greatly and will continue to increase as time went by.

Unknowingly she had gone from being some minor figure to someone of note in just a few days within the Town.

She was previously planning on leaving the Town soon to travel to the destination belonging to the next line of quests from the game, yet the hidden quest she received from Priest Omar has delayed her plans slightly, she will need to stay a further few days as well waiting for him to carry out his duties dealing with the aftermath of the operation.

Quickly planning a few things in her mind, she decided she will stay a further few more days here, speaking to Priest Omar once more before she departed which she assumed will bring about some benefits.

Normally in the game when a character told you a meet them at a certain deadline it will unlock the conditions for a further quest, but this is the real world unlike the game world so she was not fully confident.

However, she still decided to wait and see even if it holds back her levelling for a few days just because the rewards she received from the hidden quest were already substantial.

Looking at the rewards she received, she decided to look at the soul cultivation technique first, upon bringing it out of her inventory she received a prompt from the game system.

*Ding! Technique Manual discovered, would you like to learn its contents? Y/N
Warning: This would result in the destruction of the object after the relevant knowledge has been transferred to the player.*

Answering ‘Yes’, a brief headache emerged in her mind similar to the stress she felt from overworking her brain as new information filled her mind.

Understanding the new technique in her mind she immediately understood what soul cultivation methods are like, the contents of this technical manual itself couldn’t really be considered a technique yet it contained a bunch of useful information for someone clueless about souls herself.

It instructed basic ways on how to manipulate the soul, and learn some of the first things one would know about the soul such as hiding its aura from those who could sense it.

She could already understand what Priest Omar meant by that the aura from her soul was very bright, her soul was very strong for a person without directly training her soul so it meant she unconsciously fully unleashed the aura of her soul, to untrained individuals who did not cultivate their soul they would only notice a minor sense of pressure from her which is very hard to notice.

A means of attack from soul cultivators is they would normally direct this pressure towards an individual target amplifying the pressure on them multiple times whereas she was unconsciously releasing without a target diluting the effects brought by her great soul strength.

It was already an accomplishment she could even make others feel pressure with her unrefined control over her soul as normally a newbie soul cultivator would have to train greatly to even exert this soul pressure on an individual person.

The knowledge gained from the manual also shown just how lucky she was beating the creatures twice, the only reason she even managed to win was that on both occasions the orbs had been weakened from being in the process of draining their power to taint the other beings in their surroundings, the strange energy in her soul also seemed to have warded against them greatly.

She also picked up a few methods on how she could better, refine, strengthen her soul although these methods were common regarding soul techniques it is still something useful which she can do in her spare time to continue to increase her strength.

Satisfied with her gains she was about to look at her other rewards until she instinctively noticed that her time in this world was running out and she would soon be returning, she knew it was time to find a safe place to depart.

Deciding she had plenty of time in the future to open the two new tomes since she was planning on staying here for a few days, she quickly found a safe place.

Not waiting too long she noticed her surroundings once again changed with her once again finding herself in her bedroom.

Already familiar with a routine, the knocks from Kaelyn indicating her breakfast had arrived filled the room.

“Come in” Talia answered.

Not long after a beaming Kaelyn entered the room with a tray full of steaming, hot food.

Kaelyn had been growing visibly happier every day since Talia had woken up, the awakening of the Princess had made her feel hope and joy at having her childhood friend back.

Before she promised not to raise her expectations too high knowing the severity of the Princesses illness but after a few days of seeing the familiar healthy, bright looking Princess she had gotten used to spending her days with Talia hoping it never goes away.

It didn’t take long for Talia to devour her breakfast, no longer surprising Kaelyn who has grown used to the Princesse new-found appetite.

Rubbing her stomach contently from the delicious food, she turned to Kaelyn remembering the task she had set out to do when she returned, “Can you bring Sir Gregory here? I have something to show him… tell him it is something of great importance, which can not only aid the Kingdom’s young talent but perhaps also himself.”

Kaelyn just nodded having no idea what Talia meant but seeing the graveness in the Princesses gaze she took the orders seriously.

Taking the tray filled with empty plates with her, she hurriedly left maintaining perfect balance as she navigated her way around the Palace, the task given to her by Talia fully on her mind.