[MA] 71. Overdue Wisdom (Patreon)

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The battle was simple and straightforward.

Shen killed as fast as possible, always with a single spear swing or  thrust. He didn't find Evelyn in there, but there was another guy who  had developed something close enough to her gravitational powers. Shen  filled his body with Boundless Qi and just ignored his power.

His E- spear had three enchantments that made his job much easier: anti-wear, sharpness, and penetration.

At the E- tier, the anti-wear could even regenerate tiny bits of the  spear if it craked. He never broke it, but it almost instantly fixed  significant scratches. The weapon left his fights as pristine as it  entered them.

The sharpness enchantment made the weapon capable of cutting through  the best armor available at the store—F-tier ones. By applying the  wisdom of his Concepts and techniques, even without any qi usage, he  could simply ignore said armor. When he used Qi, it went through armor,  flesh, and bones felt as easily as if he were cutting a piece of paper.

And the penetration enchantment assisted the sharpness by making the  spear go a little further, though it was more effective in his thrusts.

Using qi against his foes required him to spend willpower as their  souls countered the energy. Fortunately, the system gave him the spent  willpower back when the battles ended. Shen went all out, and it made  him a killing machine.

His final kill count was exactly twenty-five hundred kills in thirty-six hundred seconds.

He made a very sneaky move at the end. He didn't know how much AP  Alicia had as she was nowhere to be seen, but the cut had decreased to  around ten thousand AP. There were enough people like him targeting  those just above the cut. She might make it.

His last act of help to her was targeting a guy with precisely the cut amount fifteen seconds to the end of the battle.

Shen could've killed the guy quickly and moved on, but it might give  his foe the chance to recover his lost AP. So instead, he just defended  until two seconds were left, then killed him with a single strike.

The guy screamed in rage and panic all the while, but Shen ignored  it. Cultivator tournaments were also about using the rules to bring the  most to you and your clan.

It wasn't his fault if the guy ended up not having anyone doing the same for him.

= - = - =

Fire.

Fire dominated Alicia's thoughts.

To burn, to kill, to turn into ashes. She used her fire to destroy, obliterate, annihilate everything.

She felt she was onto something there, but it didn't quite click.  There was a tiny gap between her and whatever was beyond that she  couldn't bridge.

So she killed her frustrations by killing others. She killed and  killed—and died a few times too—until pointing a finger did nothing  anymore.

The countdown reached zero.

Thousands of people were immediately teleported away. She looked at the top right corner of her vision.

| 9,744 AP required

Her net worth was 10,233 AP.

She fell to her knees and started crying in relief.

= - = - =

Shen read the messages that appeared.

=

Tutorial - 3rd Stage

Congratulations, you've won!

For being in the top 10% of this tutorial, you shall be rewarded with a free stat upgrade to the E- tier.

You must be at the E-rank to use it. If you aren't at the E-rank yet, the upgrade will still be available when you make it.

If all your unlocked stats are already at the E- tier, you'll be rewarded 8,000 AP instead.

=

| +8,000 AP

| Total AP: 402,964 AP

That wasn't bad, but it still wasn't the best news he got.

=

Tutorial - 3rd Stage

You've cleared this stage without dying even once.

Nurturing great talents is a tenant of the Multiverse Alliance. Most  of the time, it's better to let one develop by oneself. Only  self-reliant growth can lead to stable power.

However, sometimes a tiny push might help more than hurt.

Not dying in this stage despite walking the path of supremacy is  further impressive because there was no consequence to dying multiple  times except losing this reward. Almost all your peers used it to train  sub-optimal techniques or attempt to kill those beyond them.

Thus, the reward is also better than usual.

You've been given a free level up to any Skill of your choice.

You must use it before leaving the tutorial. It'll be lost for good if you get expelled before using it.

=

Shen immediately decided he would purchase the spear art Skill next.  He had a little over four hundred thousand AP and was already strong for  his rank if the people he had fought against were any indication.

He had been considering saving up for the D-tier learning ability  upgrade, but he might take longer than the end of the tutorial to reach  the D-rank. He didn't doubt he would, one day, reach it, but his  arrogance had made him lose enough already.

He would get the spear art and level it up instead of his footwork  because it was higher ranked, and thus, probably harder to improve.

Shen looked for Alicia but didn't find her. "Teleport to Alicia  Winter," he said, but nothing happened. He hoped she had made it.

A few moments after the end of the fight, the system teleported them away without further word.

= - = - =

Shar'Talon, the dark elven main world. The surface was entirely  covered by a swirling dark mist. It reached into space like the flames  of a star, giving the place an eerie atmosphere.

Liya approached in a small grey shuttle, a spacecraft of orc origin.  She was accompanied by the orc Bik'Ar, the High Chieftain. The trip had  been long, if eventless, and it gave her a long time to think.

Back in the orc homeworld, she had believed she had made the right choice.

As she drew closer to Shar'Talon, things changed.

It was one of the drow's best-kept secrets that they were all  connected to the Bloody Mists of Shar'Talon, and being closer to it  strengthened their bodies and soul. It was one of the reasons they  hadn't lost this world yet despite losing the last seven ones they had  called main world.

The unfortunate price they had to pay for it was that the drow got  weaker the further away from the Mists they got. They lost the  strengthening effect about a hundred galaxies away, and if they moved  further away, they became weaker than their base power, up to fifty  percent of it.

It was one of the main reasons planet Shar'Talon moved around so much in their wars.

Now that she was so close to the Mists, Liya was twice as powerful as  her base power. That made her four times as strong as back in the orc  world, which was far enough for her to be weakened to fifty percent of  her base power.

The extra soul strength let her tell that she had been charmed.

Back then, Liya hadn't questioned the blatant lie thrown at her face. She knew she had been doing the Ritual of the Rising Challenge yet hadn't asked  for clarification when they claimed it was a stupid Ritual of  Fornication instead. She wasn't senseless enough to do all she had done  in that world without thoroughly confirming her information first.

Liya was the Drow Maiden, and she knew better than to go to battle without verifying the information she had on her enemies.

The orc ship traveled unhindered. Just as she could feel the Mists,  so the Mists could feel her, and the Autarchs thus knew she was in the  vessel.

The Mists didn't damage the vessel as it approached, though it would  turn any other to shreds. She pointed the way, and they landed at what  looked like a random place. Like the entirety of the drow world's  surface, it was made of pure black rock.

The drow had long learned that staying on the surface only made it easier for orbital strikes to decimate their people.

When they left the spacecraft, they were teleported into the Chamber of Betrayal.

The room was enormous, for not only it could hold dozens of betrayers  at once, but the powerful magic matrices etched on it also required  that much space. It was made entirely of Phoenix-Quenched Troll Heart  that looked like dark red rock.

At the far end of the room, a hundred and thirteen steps led to a misshapen throne made of fossilized drow blood and drow bones.

Each Step of Deception leading to the Throne of Overdue Wisdom had  been put in place after each attempt of other races betraying the drow  as a whole, their Maiden, or their Rising Star. Whether the effort had  succeeded was irrelevant, though it was their shame most had.

Liya's clothes had automatically changed during the teleportation,  her blacksmith garbs replaced with black dragon-scaled armor and a dark  red cloak.

Bik'Ar hadn't been as fortunate as Liya. The High Chieftain found  herself naked and kneeling in the middle of the vast magical formation  covering the entire room, etched in bass relief then filled with the  most expensive materials.

Despite the resources, thirteen B-rank drow were also there, helping  it function and ready for anything Bik'Ar might do. For them to be here  was to forego other things that required their attention, but the  Chamber of Betrayal was almost an absolute priority when activated. The  drow had learned better than to ignore warnings of deception or to  underestimate betrayers in their main world.

Drow history was one of painful education.

Bik'Ar tried to struggle against the formation. Her body barely  moved, and there was no mana inside the formation for her to use.

"How dare you, elven bitch?" Bik'Ar screamed, forcing her lowered  head to raise and meet Liya's. She failed. She couldn't even reach the  lowest of the Steps of Deception.

"Did your people lie to me when you said I was doing Ritual of  Fornication instead of the Ritual of the Rising Challenge?" Liya asked  with a level voice.

"Yes," Bik'Ar replied despite herself.

The drow hadn't invested so much in the formation for nothing. Even B-ranks would tell the truth under its compulsion.

Bik'Ar widened her eyes in surprise. Indeed, the resources to make a  B-rank talk were staggering. Yet her surprise, Liya could tell, came  from arrogance, not the price paid. She had believed herself beyond  being treated like a random dog.

She had been wrong.

"I demand to talk to your leaders!" Bik'Ar screamed. "I officially  represent the orc race! Touching me is an offense that will lead to  war."

Oh, she had been so very wrong.

"Uk'Gaar, your Rising Star had betrayed the Drow Maiden. You yourself  said it would be sufficient to lead war once I returned. That was one  of the reasons you came. Now, I learn that even a High Chieftain is  involved. This makes everything a betrayal of orcs against the entirety  of the drow."

"Yes!" the orc insisted. "I am too important for you to touch! Get me to your leaders!"

Liya laughed humorlessly. "You're mine by Right of Deceit."

How heartwrenching it was that the drow had been deceived enough  times to establish entire sets of rules about how to deal with it.

How miserable that their culture had been molded by their failings.

How sad that Liya had allowed herself to walk the same steps despite being trained to know better.

She stood up and descended the Steps of Deception. They were a  hundred and fourteen now, the last one seamlessly added on top of the  others through magic. It had been so very long since the Steps had  gotten a new addition that some believed the drow had become paranoid  enough to avoid all betrayal. Yet, as proven time and time again, there  would always be a next time.

She stopped in front of Bik'Ar and slapped the orc. The unprotected  and weakened High Chieftain's head flew from her body. Her corpse fell  on the floor, but her soul remained, kneeling in the same place. The  formation let all in the room see it like an orc made of light.

"You were right in one thing," Liya said to the dumbfounded orc. "You  told me that when something is as old as the Alliance, it's common to  find repeated mistakes being made over and over again. You said that  strength doesn't always bring wisdom.

"Your mistake was to coddle your Rising Star despite his failings.  Now your entire race will pay for the mistake of one, as many have  before you. Uk'Gaar might not have known better than to cross a Maiden  of another race, even an exiled one, but you did. Yet you chose to go  forth with it all the same."

She turned to a B-rank. "I invoke the Right of Revenge. Question the betrayer while I visit the Autarchs.

"I swear on my blood that the drow will be at war against the orcs by the end of the day."

[A/N: Nothing interesting to see in the final battle. Too EZ. Let's hope the fourth stage brings a more fitting challenge for Shen.

And we get a glimpse at Liya after so long. Who noticed how she didn't react too much to being told she had been doing the Ritual of Fornication back in chapters 43/44?]

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