Ch219-Conditions Apply (Patreon)

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Ch219-Conditions Apply

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Sylver double, triple, and quadruple checked his work.

He wasn’t doing this to buy time, he decided to open the box, and that was that.

It was more to do with the fact that undoing a 4th-tier seal, with barely enough mana to be considered 2nd-tier, was fucking hard.

And yes, while there was a fair amount of overlap between undoing a 10th tier seal, and a 4th tier seal, there was still more guesswork involved than Sylver would have liked.

10th tier seals were arguable easier to remove, than 9th, 8th, and so on.

A magical seal, regardless of tier, is simply a combination of several magically retardant components. The purpose of those is to slow down the magic a mage would use when trying to break the seal open and increase the amount of mana required.

In some cases, the mana requirement could be increased to such a high degree that the seal can be considered to be “unbreakable.”

Right now, if Sylver tried to use brute force with his current mana regeneration, it would take approximately 9 years of continuously pouring mana into the thing, until it eventually opened up.

Alternatively, he could take the time to figure out the combination of mana retardants the seal was made out of so that he could make a mixture of components that would neutralize them. But that wasn’t an option right now.

The components weren’t the type you could buy in the local alchemist’s store. Not to mention the fact that Sylver wasn’t familiar enough with the materials a 4th-tier seal would use, and he was worried he would accidentally strengthen it instead.

A 10th-tier seal was easy in that sense because Sylver was intimately familiar with all 3 possible magical retardants that it could be made out of.

But on the bright side, more often than not, seals were built with mages that used positive mana in mind. Which meant that mages that primarily used negative mana could, theoretically, ignore the retardants, and remove the seal as if it wasn’t made out of the positive mana equivalent of lead.

Sylver checked his calculations a fifth time, as he opened and closed his hand, and gradually saturated his finger bones with mana.

He focused on the box he was sitting in front of and moved the small stack of calculations out of the way, as he very carefully placed a single page on top of the seal. The drawing on the page was a rough copy of the seal, with 5 small holes in the paper.

Sylver didn’t even need to say anything, as Ria placed her golden hand on top of the page and touched the seal using the holes in the paper as a guide.

“When you feel it vibrate, start turning it counterclockwise. It will be very hard to turn it at first, but the moment you stop feeling resistance, turn it clockwise, as hard and as fast as you can,” Sylver explained, as Ria quietly nodded at him.

“What should I do?” Faust asked as Sylver took a moment to look up at the one-armed cultivator.

“Just stand there and look impressed,” Sylver said, as Faust chuckled.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how amazing is this?” Faust asked.

Sylver thought the question over for a second.

“8-ish? For reference, the thing I did for you and Bruno is about a 5. I’m manipulating raw negative mana, with the kind of precision that every reputable mage would say is impossible,” Sylver explained, as Faust raised an eyebrow at him.

“So, in your eyes, removing a magical seal is almost twice as impressive as creating two bodies?” Faust asked as Sylver nodded at him.

“This is impressive in a different way. That was impressive because of how clever it was, this is impressive for how much practice a person would need to do it,” Sylver explained, as Faust shrugged his shoulders, and gestured for Sylver to continue.

“What happens if you mess it up?” Ria asked quietly.

“4th tier seal, 11 centimeters in diameter, multiplied by the half centimeter thickness… Depends on how badly I mess up. Worst case scenario, it will react with the mana inside my body, and I’ll be cannibalized by my own magic,” Sylver explained, as he placed his hands on either side of the seal and cupped them around it.

Ria chose to keep her follow-up questions to herself, as the waxy seal started to vibrate so hard that it made the leather-bound box it was keeping closed shake hard enough that Faust had to lean down to hold it in place. Not a great start.

There wasn’t anything fancy, no dazzling lights, no showers of sparks, not even a lightning bolt, just a very uncomfortably intense buzzing sound.

For an entire minute, no one moved, breathed, or so much as blinked.

As the buzzing suddenly stopped, Ria turned the seal clockwise, and yelped quietly when it turned into a liquid, and almost instantly evaporated. The blank fabric wrapped around the box did the same.

Like a water balloon that burst, a light pink liquid leaked out of the box and was quickly followed by a pale hand. Sylver grabbed the hand, while Faust tried to get a grip on the box’s lid to open it, but everywhere he touched it, it just disintegrated in his hands, as if it was made out of sand.

Sylver’s robe helped him get a better grip on the slimy hand he was holding, and he was very careful as he continued pulling at it, and inch by inch, pulled a small woman out of the black leather-like box, that was crumbling to pieces with every passing second.

Sylver just barely caught a glimpse of the birthmark on the girl’s shoulder blade, because he couldn’t take his eyes off the thing she was clutching with her other hand.

She was holding a small red ball, about as big as an apple. Inside there was a small ship, that was spinning in a lazy circle.

Sylver was pulled out of his trance, as the nude girl he was sliding along the slippery floor started to cough and belched out a stomach full of the same liquid she had been swimming in.

Sylver released her wrist, as she continued to cough, and further added to the mess on the floor. Both Sylver and Faust just stared at her, as she arched her back like a cat, and vomited out the last bit of gelatinous fluid.

“Where am I?” the girl asked with a strangely familiar accent.

There wasn’t any panic in her voice, her question almost sounded casual.

No one got a chance to answer her, as she seemed to lose all strength, and her body went limp.

The only thing left from the box was a pile of smoldering black and grey sand, that was dissolving in the very liquid it had previously contained. Sylver didn’t even think about it as he walked around the unconscious girl’s body and picked up the small sphere she had been clutching.

As he pulled it out of her hand, the boat inside the sphere stopped turning in a lazy circle, and now pointed at her. Faust placed a towel on top of her to cover her up, as Sylver continued staring at the small red sphere.

“She’s breathing,” Faust said, with a gesture towards the ripples on the wet floor she made as she breathed out through her nose.

Sylver pocketed the small red sphere, as he tried to focus on the girl, and discovered something very unpleasant.

He couldn’t see her.

He could see her with his eyes, but to his mana sense, and his [Lesser Perception], she didn’t exist.

Faust tucked the towel underneath her, as he picked lifted her from the wet floor. Her long blond hair was glued to her scalp in a wet clump, her face was littered with freckles, but what stood out the most was the odd strength in her limbs.

There weren’t any muscles of which to speak off, but her hands and feet swung with a heft that shouldn’t be there.

***

Sylver, Faust, and Ria were all sitting in a small square-shaped room. The shield heir girl’s bed was attached to the wall, and Sylver and Faust had a small circular table between them, as they sat with their backs to the door.

A small wisp of dim light floated near the ceiling and illuminated the somewhat cramped room.

“So… we’re just waiting?” Faust asked.

Sylver continued to play around with the small dark red sphere and watched the tiny ship inside slowly move back and forth, always pointing towards the girl’s body. Sylver had rinsed off the majority of the slimy liquid, and right now had what remained of the box sitting in a large jug in his office.

“She’s immune to magic. And smelling salts, as it turns out. So, for the time being, yes, we’re just going to wait,” Sylver explained, as Faust reluctantly nodded at him.

They sat in silence for a few seconds.

“How old do you think she is?” Faust asked.

Sylver looked up at the cultivator and then turned his head to look at the sleeping girl’s face.

“Assuming she’s fully human… early 20s? She’s under 40 for certain, going by her teeth. But look at how thin her thumbs are, one of her ancestors was an elf, possibly a high elf,” Sylver explained, as he gestured with his free hand towards the girl’s face.

“I see…” Faust said.

Sylver went back to staring at the small sphere Nameless/Aurick and company had most likely used to track this woman down.

He wasn’t sure how to proceed from here.

Faust’s people were in the process of buying all the dark leather they could find, so Sylver could make a copy of the box the girl had been trapped in.

He planned to act dumb when Owl asked him to bring the box to wherever it is they wanted him to bring it. “This is the box you gave me, what are you talking about?” Sylver would say.

Because if they considered him incompetent enough to be incapable of opening a mere 4th tier seal, they would probably believe that someone could have stolen the real box without him noticing.

And if that didn’t work, he-

Faust grabbed the bed the girl was sleeping in, to stop it from falling over, as Sylver stood up from his seat and steadied himself as he opened the door and made his way down the stairs. The building was shaking so hard Sylver could hear the wood strain under the pressure, as it swayed back and forth, and flung the furniture all over the place.

Sylver used [Fog Form] to get to the ground floor, but when he saw that the ground itself was shaking, he jumped into the air, and kept jumping, until he came out of the sect’s barrier.

It was a strange sight to Sylver’s [Lesser Perception], he couldn’t see the waves of Ki, but he could feel the mana being disturbed because of it.

Off in the distance, there was an enormous cloud of dust, so big that it covered half of the Schlagen mountains. Sylver just stared at the cloud, and as the dust dispersed, he saw that the 12 mountain peaks, had been reduced to 11.

He used [Fog Form] to get back inside the building once the shaking had stopped.

“The White Boar sect has fallen,” Sylver said with an odd smile on his face, as Faust stopped crouching near the bed, and sat down on his chair.

“I take it you mean it has literally fallen?” Faust asked as Sylver nodded.

“Either it’s a coincidence, or her being out of the box is somehow speeding up the decay,” Sylver said.

“Decay of what?” a sleepy woman’s voice asked, as both Sylver and Faust turned their heads towards her.

She was yawning into her hand, while she used her other hand to stop the sheet from falling.

Sylver and Faust wordlessly took a step away from her, and the near festive mood Sylver had created was replaced by tense caution.

As a general rule of thumb, anyone who woke up in an unknown location and wasn’t panicking was either stupid or powerful enough that they had no reason to panic.

“Where am I? And who are you?” the woman asked.

Sylver had been a bit off with his age estimates, this “girl” was in her late 50s. Her tone was polite, and just a bit “regal.”

When neither Sylver nor Faust said a word, the woman continued.

“My name is Anastasia-”

“Da’Munio. You’re Anastasia Da’Munio, first in line for the Varsun Duchy,” Faust said, with an astonished tone.

“Have we met before?” the woman, Anastasia, asked.

Faust opened his mouth to speak, and then seemed to realize something that upset him immensely.

“I uh… I knew your brother,” Faust said.

Both Sylver and Anastasia noticed his use of the word “knew.”

“Where am I?” Anastasia repeated. There still wasn’t any fear in her voice, but there was now a note of urgency.

“You’re in the area around the Schlagen mountains. My name is Faust, and this is Sylver,” Faust explained, with a gesture towards himself, and then at Sylver.

Anastasia gave Sylver a very odd look.

“Do you have a family name?” she asked.

“Sezari. Sylver Sezari,” Sylver answered.

Even if Faust hadn’t said that she was a noble, the calm and collected way with which she spoke would have given it away.

“I’ve heard of you. You’re the one who brought my uncle back. You’re Lola Aeyri’s boy, right?” Anastasia said.

“I’m a bit too old to be called anyone’s “boy.” But yes, to both. Forgive me for being direct, but why are you so relaxed?” Sylver asked the nude woman.

A tired smile appeared on her face before she waved the question away.

“How much do you want to escort me home?” Anastasia asked.

Sylver didn’t react to her question, but Faust did.

“Can I at least let my family know I’m alive?” Anastasia asked.

Sylver was impressed with the subtle way she changed her voice. Now she sounded the age she looked. She sounded as if she was a defenseless little girl.

But it didn’t work on him. As a man who fell for this specific trick too many times, he was immune to it.

Faust on the other hand wasn’t as lucky to have suffered the way Sylver had.

“It uh…” Faust mumbled out.

“I’d like you to leave the room, Faust,” Sylver said calmly. He phrased it in the form of a request, but both of them understood that it was anything but.

Faust gave Anastasia an almost apologetic look, as his body became blurry, and disappeared. Sylver waited until the door swung shut.

“The way my uncle described you, I imagined you to be smaller,” Anastasia said. Her “little girl” persona vanished along with Faust.

“I had a very eventful 5 years,” Sylver said, as Anastasia cocked her head to the side.

“5 years?” she asked.

“When exactly did your uncle return?” Sylver asked.

They might have kept her suspended in time, until the moment they needed her. Slowing down time wasn’t above a 4th-tier mage’s capability; it was just extremely expensive.

“Not 5 years ago… Can you call the other boy back, I want to talk to him,” Anastasia said. Sylver shook his head.

“If you will allow me, I’d like to explain the present situation,” Sylver said, with as polite of a smile as he could muster.

Anastasia just stared at him and didn’t say a word. She didn’t nod, she didn’t shake her head, she just looked at him.

“You and the current emperor share an ancestor. The ancestor’s bloodline had thinned over the generations, and as it stands the current emperor doesn’t possess enough blood to do whatever it is his father had been capable of doing,” Sylver said, as he relaxed his shoulders, and maintained eye contact with the woman as he continued talking.

“I’ve been told that you and the emperor possess two halves of a very powerful bloodline. If you two were to have a child, it would have the same abilities as your shared ancestor. The emperor hopes to use this child, to continue ruling over this place,” Sylver explained.

He waited for Anastasia to say something, but she just stared at him.

“If that child is born, it would be a catastrophic loss for me. Initially, I planned to give you a potion that would sterilize you. But since you’re immune to magic, it won’t work,” Sylver said.

He expected Anastasia’s eyes to widen in horror, but instead, they remained the same, and she looked as if she was about to laugh at him.

“There’s a slight issue with your plan,” Anastasia said.

Her calmness was almost eerie. It was certainly better than hysterical screaming and crying, but this wasn’t just bravery, it was a complete lack of fear. Sylver would have been insulted if it wasn’t so genuine.

“I’m aware of that,” Sylver said, as Anastasia rolled her eyes.

“You won’t be able to sterilize me,” Anastasia said, matter of factly.

“It isn’t as difficult of a surgery as you imagine it to be. You won’t even see a scar,” Sylver said, as Anastasia shook her head.

“I meant to say, you can’t sterilize me. No one can,” Anastasia said, as Sylver tried to understand what she was trying to say.

“It’s reversible. It will just take a couple of years after I put everything back in place,” Sylver offered, but Anastasia just shook her head again.

Did I actually expect her to agree to it?

Maybe I should have waited before saying it… Then again, Owl could decide to check up on me any minute.

Actually, since the White Boar sect just fell, aren’t they already on their way here?

“I’m invulnerable. No knife can cut me, no weapon can hurt me, no magic, spells, poison, technique, or whatever else, can affect me,” Anastasia said.

Sylver stood up from his seat and walked over to her.

“Would you mind if I made sure?” Sylver asked, as Anastasia slapped her hand down onto the table near her bed and pressed it flat against it.

“Be careful not to cut yourself,” Anastasia said, as Sylver’s robe placed a dart into his hand.

He was very gentle as he placed the dart over the fleshy part between her thumb and forefinger and slowly started pressing down on it.

For the first few seconds, Sylver waited for the dart to pierce her skin, as he gradually increased the force. The skin turned slightly white from the pressure, and just when Sylver was sure the dart was going to go through, he stopped feeling a reaction.

It was as if he was trying to make a hole in a bar of steel.

Sylver pushed harder, and harder, but even when he was applying so much force to the dart that his skin was starting to smoke, he couldn’t pierce the woman’s skin.

Sylver took the dart away, and there wasn’t so much as a mark from the dart’s tip on her skin.

Sylver summoned a dagger into his hand, but this time didn’t bother being slow about it and stabbed the back of the woman’s hand with as much force as he could muster. The dagger cracked under the pressure, but the woman’s hand was completely unharmed.

It was like trying to stab a statue with a toothpick. Sylver pinched her pinkie between his thumb and forefinger and ended up dislocating his forefinger from his attempt to crush her pinkie.

“Ria?” Sylver asked.

It will be difficult to convince Ria to do the surgery, but-

“It’s like she’s made of stone,” Ria said.

Sylver looked down and saw a drill-shaped tendril fruitlessly spinning against the woman’s completely non-reactive skin.

Sylver tried to look at her primal energy using [Mutating Override] but she didn’t have any primal energy. It was as if she wasn’t there.

Sylver had met “invulnerable” people before. But even the ones immune to magic had a primal energy field.

If Sylver ignored what his eyes and ears were telling him, this woman didn’t exist.

Sylver got the feeling Ria wanted to say something, but he also got the feeling she couldn’t say it.

System shenanigans… Of course…

“How do you cut your hair?” Sylver asked as Anastasia pulled her hand back.

“I have a perk that keeps it at a set length. Same for my nails,” Anastasia answered.

Sylver massaged his hand as he stared at her.

“Do you need to breathe? Eat? Sleep?” Sylver asked.

Her complete non-reaction to the question disturbed him.

“I feel tired if I don’t, but it won’t kill me,” Anastasia said.

“Why did you pass out?” Sylver asked with a raised eyebrow.

Even without his soul sense, he was fairly certain he would be able to tell if someone was pretending to be asleep.

“Side effect of not eating or breathing for a while,” Anastasia answered.

The worst part of it was that Sylver had no idea if she was telling the truth or not. Sylver might have been able to read her if he could feel her body with his mana, but his eyesight alone wasn’t enough.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Sylver asked as he sent Spring out to search for Faust.

“Going to bed. Then I heard a knocking and knocked back. And now I’m here,” Anastasia answered.

“Tell me if I’m right… You can’t be hurt, but you can’t hurt other people…” Sylver said.

She was the “shield” heir after all. Anastasia shrugged her shoulders.

“My strength, dexterity, intelligence, and wisdom are capped at 0. I can hurt people, but I’m not good at it,” Anastasia explained.

That sounded about right for someone who was “invulnerable.” Bloodline-related magic usually came with matching limitations.

The emperor probably has the exact opposite… Extremely high strength, dexterity, intelligence, and wisdom, in exchange for being made out of glass…

And if they had a kid, the two would combine and create a person with a perfect defense, and a perfect attack.

“Can I speak to the other one now?” Anastasia asked as Sylver tried to come up with a path forward.

I can’t sterilize her, and she’s simultaneously unkillable and vulnerable. Bury her underground, and hope for the best? Throw her into space? Send her to Lola so she can seal her away?

“If someone tried to rape you, could you stop them?” Sylver asked.

He realized a half-second after the words had left his mouth, that there were about a million better ways of asking that. The woman had thrown him off, with her lack of fear, and the fact that Sylver struggled to see her as a “living” creature.

“According to my mother, there’s a size limitation. But aside from that, no,” Anastasia explained, as Sylver nodded his head.

So, provided the emperor’s tool is big enough, I win? He won’t be able to impregnate her because he won’t be able to get his thing inside?

Her skin moved a little when I touched her, it only started to get hard once I applied enough pressure for it to start hurting…

Is that what her bloodline does? Stops everything before it has a chance to hurt her?

Wait, the size doesn’t matter… He could just get a long syringe, and…

On the bright side, since magic doesn’t work on her, even if she does get pregnant, I’ll have at least 5 months… Wait, fuck, if the emperor only needs the child to possess the bloodline, I’ll have less than 6 weeks…

“I want to know if my family is alright,” Anastasia said.

Sylver stopped staring into space and focused on her.

“Only the women in your family are invulnerable,” Sylver stated.

“Not all of them. Only the first child is invulnerable, and so far, they’ve always been girls,” Anastasia said, as Sylver nodded.

Always been girls, until the two separated bloodlines return to being one…

On the bright side, at least I don’t need to worry about her running away, Sylver thought, as the door opened, and Faust walked in.

Sylver sat down in the corner, and barely heard a word Faust said to her, as he tried to figure out what they should do from this point onwards.

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