Chapter 269: Just Isaiah (Patreon)

Krysta

“May I join you for a bit, Ms. La’Vordi?”

Having stepped into the compound where Krysta, her mother, her father, and her uncle Parvorax were sitting in a courtyard watching the fights up above, Deimos Karan, the Slaughterer, bowed to Krysta’s mother, completely disregarding the lack of etiquette involved in having entered the compound uninvited.

“Feel free.” The Alchemist of the Deep Woods gestured with her right hand, growing a fifth wooden seat around the courtyard’s center table, right between herself and Krysta.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Taking the offered seat, the Slaughterer transformed, his black hair turning lavender, his eyes becoming indigo and draconic, and his dark skin lightening, purple and gold runic tattoos appearing on his exposed arms and feet. Then he bowed slightly to the two gods present. “Lord Kilvorax. Benefactor Parvorax.”

“Isaiah Kent, I presume?” Krysta’s father raised one eyebrow ever so slightly and the aura of space around him shifted, allowing Krysta to know he was annoyed.

Isaiah, however, either didn’t notice or, possibly, just didn’t care. “That is the name I went by in the Forest Cauldron. My original surname comes from a clan who tried to sacrifice me to a bloodline curse, however, so most of my friends and coworkers just call me Isaiah.”

Isaiah bowed his head again. “Thank you both for your help when Bellessia arrived at the Forest Cauldron. I’ve been told mental magic can be incredibly dangerous. So I want to express my thanks for you protecting my lord’s master and Krysta from such a fate.

Isaiah then turned more directly toward Parvorax and bowed again. “And my lord would like to thank you for the resources you helped him gain access to during the Universal Auction. If you personally, or anyone from the Lord Divine Child’s force, has need of divine artifacts, arrays, or alchemical products in the future, my master will craft them to the best of his ability using any materials you provide.

“And, as the inheriting disciple of Steel Swamp Sorin, all benefits you accrued with his first master will be applied to my lord’s products as well.

“For making requests and passing resources, you can use this store.”

Isaiah waved his hand and a red metallic card landed on the table in front of Parvorax, one showing the image of an anvil and a soul net link to a store called ACME Corp, which Krysta quickly took a look at through her soul net connection. There she found a normal looking soul net store interface, an open field with every item the store sold on display, but the items floating around the field were not as impressive as Krysta would have expected, mostly items for G to D ranks, and rarely of the maximum grade for any given rank.

But then she started to look at the items, and each was listed as a different product from companies within the Heavenly Soul Universe, ACME Corp seemingly more of an umbrella corporation for the Heavenly Soul Universe to sell items to the main universe than a corporation representing Aalam directly.

When she looked at the center of the field, however, there was a small open air pavilion and, underneath its roof, there was a barter interface represented by a large set of measuring scales. There a cultivator could drop representations of artifacts, raw materials, and other tradable items on one of the scale’s plates and then a scrollable interface would appear on the other plate allowing the cultivator to set the parameters of a custom made item.

And, above the scale, in large floating words, was a sign: ‘Requests to the Universe’s Best Ever C Rank Crafter: Able to create any artifacts, arrays, and alchemical products B rank and below’.

It was a rather bold statement, something Krysta’s mother would never even come close to saying, but Krysta couldn’t help but remember Aalam’s old store in the Forest Cauldron, Universe’s Best E Rank Processed Materials, and how that store’s name had actually been honest, a smile appearing on her face.

“Is your lord confident of reaching A rank?” Parvorax, instead of Krysta’s father, asked.

“No.” Isaiah stood up even while still bowing, Krysta starting to suspect he’d been sent because he, unlike Aalam, could easily and honestly show respect to her father and uncle. “But, thanks to your help, that won’t be an issue. My lord can already make A rank artifacts, arrays, and alchemical products, so, when he reaches the peak of B rank, divine items will not be out of the question.”

“Interesting.” Krysta watched as her uncle appeared thoughtful. “You can tell your master he can expect some requests from us at that time.”

“Thank you, my lords.”

Isaiah bowed again, and then, as his fake identity had just been called up to fight, he rose into the sky to face the current 13th seed of the tournament, Twilight Illusionist Ren Kimbal of Sunrise Valley.

“You’re Isaiah Kent?” The Twilight Illusionist, a handsome middle-aged-appearing man with dark skin, shoulder length dreadlocks, and silvery-black eyes, looked straight at Isaiah, or at least a fake image of him did. With Krysta’s senses, it wasn’t hard to find the man’s real body two kilometers away.

“Just Isaiah is fine.” Isaiah, however, showed no signs of being able to see through the Twilight Illusionist’s illusions and stealth, despite his senses having been much stronger than Krysta’s back when they’d both been E ranks. “That surname is fake.”

The both of them then summoned out their weapons and armor, the Twilight Illusionist using four Empyrean grade flying swords filled with the power of lightning and metal and an Empyrean grade set of armor filled with the power of darkness and light, while Isaiah still wore the same Fabled grade armor and wielded the same Fabled grade Halberd as he’d done throughout the tournament.

The fight then started and, unlike what Krysta had thought, Isaiah still showed no signs of being able to see through the Twilight Illusionist’s stealth and illusions, just passively defending himself from the powerful flying swords with his halberd, even occasionally swiping at the Twilight Illusionist’s fake flying swords as well when they came within 2 meters of his body.

“Kil, what do you think of the boy?” Parvorax casually asked, drinking from a goblet of fire wine he’d brought out much earlier as he and everyone else in the courtyard looked up at the fight.

“For a C rank, especially one only a dozen years older than Krysta, he’s terrifying.” Krysta’s father, Kilvorax, spoke calmly, but there was a hint of respect in his voice, something rare from a god. “It would probably take all twelve of us fighting together back when we were C ranks to beat him. It’s a pity about his bloodline, though.”

“Could you elaborate for those of us with less experience?” Krysta’s mother turned her eyes to Kilvorax with an expression of slight surprise, apparently, like Krysta, not seeing what the two gods were talking about.

“It has nothing to do with experience, but level and divine power.” Kilvorax lifted his right hand and pointed at Isaiah. “The boy’s revealed pretty much nothing at the level your senses can pick up, which is part of what is amazing. And, as a result, his seed in the tournament is unlikely to rise at all from this fight, which is almost certainly his goal.

“With our divine power, however, and especially with us being dragons as well, there are some obvious secrets on his body we can sense now that he’s undone his disguise.

“First, he’s not a balance dragon like he was back when he was E rank, but somehow a mix of balance, runic, and chaos dragons, with all their usually unique racial abilities, something I never even knew was possible. Maybe they discovered some sort of clue from the inheritance of Steel Swamp Sorin. He was from our universe’s original monster god faction, after all.

“Second, Isaiah’s soul is abnormally strong. Beyond having a strong soul variant race and already having an oath, he appears to have two Empyrean grade classes, and the second lowers the strain of high stat effectiveness, a very rare ability. There’s a distinct possibility he could change his race to become a sublime soul variant in the future, like his master, something I’ve only heard of being done five or six times in my lifetime.

“Finally, third, from the way he moves, he’s already well past the one with a weapon stage with his halberd, a weapon I’m guessing from the reports we have is not even his primary. When it comes to pure technical skill, he’s only behind Devil Blade Vanar Tedros and Sword Saint Milan in the entire tournament, and the two of them respectively have a peak grade and high grade Law Scarab of The Tactician.

“It’s hard to tell just what level his Laws are at given the power of chaos in his energy, infused with over 60 Laws, but his cultivation technique seems to be at the 14th level, so, even with two Empyrean grade classes, it seems he’s already met most of the requirements for making it to B rank.

“What we’re watching right now isn’t anywhere close to an even fight. From what you’ve told us, Isaiah’s skills include a powerful berserking skill which almost certainly became the base of his chaos core, yet he hasn’t used either at all. He’s not just a servant of the Heavenly Spark Soul King, but a friend, so, given the crafting capabilities your apprentice has already shown, he definitely has artifacts better than almost any other contestant. And, finally, he’s under multiple levels of soul shackles, weakening his skills down to the equivalent of Fabled grade with no boosts and his stats down to what would be expected of a normal max level C rank cultivator with a maxed out Heroic grade race.

“He’s not taking this fight seriously at all, almost certainly due to some sort of plan.

“The only thing I can’t quite figure out is why his bloodline doesn’t seem to have advanced at all from when he was an E rank.”

Krysta had a theory on that. Isaiah’s bloodline had been based on the race of his girlfriend, Aalam’s older sister, and keeping the bloodline was likely one way he had to remember her. Also, possibly, Aalam had some crazy plan for how to properly advance it, one which they hadn’t been able to implement yet.

Krysta, however, was more focused on something else.

“Dad, did you say you couldn’t sense any of this before Isaiah took off his disguise?”

“Oh, that’s a lot less impressive.” Her uncle Parvorax waved his hand, answering instead of her father. “The boy has an Empyrean grade Polymorph skill. When he’s transformed all his magical emissions are altered, so even an elder god’s passive perception would be fooled. That’s why most gods have trained themselves to actively check anyone of interest, an act which would easily bypass the disguise. We’re just not allowed to do so against contestants in the Universal Tournament.”

Krysta’s mom started chuckling at these words and everyone looked at her.

“So, knowing these rules, they abused them. That sounds like them.”

“Hmm.” Both the two gods nodded, appearing thoughtful.

“What’s your thought on Aalam’s offer?” After her mother’s question, Krysta also focused on her father and uncle, and she noticed as her father closed off the space around them from outside interference.

“I don’t see much reason to refuse.” Parvorax shrugged once his brother was done. “Like with alchemists, we don’t have a divine level smith or array master either. And the boy’s chance of becoming a god are so slim there’s no need for us to interfere, yet alone his feud with the Primordial Humans. We probably won’t do anything to help, but there’s no reason I can see to refuse a business relationship during his limited lifespan. Master was also friends with Steel Swamp Sorin back in the day, so dropping that name was a good idea.”

“Good.” Krysta’s mother started to smile as she looked back up a the fight which was still ongoing. “I’d personally rather you not become enemies.”