The Arcane Emperor Chapter 96: Weaknesses

Chapter 96: Weaknesses

Rainer briefly glanced at Melony, before turning his attention back towards the building. It was just one of many Kara and he visited that had an owner more willing to sell than others. There were truly few buildings for sale in the Neutral City despite recent problems with their neighboring Empire.

Most being offered were from the Lamia. Though not within their grove. Rainer didn’t actually care about the building itself, but more of the plot of land. After all, the land he bought would hold his enchanting guild made of Ashen Dwarf metal rather than the stone of Neutral City.

He briefly considered switching to an enchanting cla.s.s soon. That he gained Magus t.i.tle related to enchanting a few months ago certainly helped that choice. Given that he needed both money and proof of his enchanting prowess, it could prove to be a good idea. He also wanted to test the effect of switching cla.s.ses while still having an Avatar active. Would its cla.s.s change too?

Something to consider both before and after they visited Kara’s mother in a month or two, and when he didn’t need as much overwhelming power as before. His Werewolf paramour was planning on taking her 2nd Tier Trial then. She had level 9 with all her cla.s.s skills with the exception of her two recently purchased Werewolf Cla.s.s skills. He privately hoped she wouldn’t manage to level all of them to 10 so quickly, but he knew full well the combination of her Talent and the limitless Aura of [Sleep Learning] made that unlikely.

Given that Kara fully planned on using [Werewolf Avatar] to take advantage of her new blades, he had another reason to switch to an enchanter cla.s.s. Creating an enchanted set of items for a Werewolf should be interesting adventure.

“You like what you see?”

Rainer got the feeling the Lamia’s question wasn’t referencing just the building. He gave a polite glance to the stretching Melony showing off her midriff before answering. What a lovely facet of their culture. No matter how much Kara nudging at his side said otherwise.

Kara looked too…

Rainer mentally complained, but was smart enough not to voice it when his Wolfkin wasn’t actually mad at him. No reason to change that.

“I plan on demolishing whatever place I make my home,” he added, seeing no reason to keep that secret.

“That might be a bit of an issue, but so long as it stays within the general style of the city, there’s no real problem.”

“A dark metal tower and buildings of the same material around it?” Rainer asked just to be sure, having already checked his idea with Ele.

“That would work,” Melony said, mostly wondering how that was even possible. But the Lamia Leadership had decided in no uncertain terms to encourage him to make a home in this city. The possibility of a teleporting mage protecting their fleets was hard to pa.s.s up, even if there wasn’t any sign of him agreeing to such a thing yet. Elelaria’s influence, Melony guessed. She wondered just what that Elf was planning, and subsequently the Archon next to her.

“So, did you have any preference on location then?”

Rainer thought it over, and decided it truly didn’t matter. Especially since he wasn’t planning on making the city a permanent home. But he would like part of his Guild to be underground, which meant as far from the cliff-edge as possible.

“Something with a bas.e.m.e.nt already there, and away from the coast as much as possible,” he added and, with a few directions from Melony, disappeared in a Void-walk.

A few hours after finishing up with the Lamia Amba.s.sador and dropping Kara back to their temporary home, Rainer glanced around the Void Lords’ ‘base’ on this world. Along with Aurora, there were four other Void Lords here and the recently brought Dwarves who worked on a gate. They were on a tiny island not too far from the Bear King's capital for whatever reason. The Bear King abandoned the island as a forward base for the simple reasons of it being heavily infested by monsters.

The monsters were unique in being low leveled and yet not easily killed,making it very unrewarding to try to clear them out. Along with an insane birthrate, these burrowing small black mammals that were essentially a gopher version of a large fanged rat, were horribly inconvenient. Only obliterating the whole island wholesale would get rid of them as they were extremely resistant to curses and poisons. And only the Northern Mage Guilds could do that in a relatively normal timespan.

The Void Lords’ base itself wasn’t on the island so much as it was underwater and attached to the side of it. Magic-manipulated metal that could be made permanent was certainly an interesting thing. [Metal Manipulation], like all his manipulation skills, could create metal. That the metal disappeared in seconds made it far less useful in this subject than any other similar skill. It might have some use for making arrows, a.s.suming you’d fire it immediately. If one ignored the structural weakness of the metal he had created so far.

Alone in a room with Aurora, Rainer made a mental note to figure out why Talvara was so cross with him as to prevent him from interacting with anyone but this Void Lord. This went a bit beyond the initial prank. Or perhaps she was angry with Aurora?

“Ready to begin?” Aurora tiredly asked. The novelty of him being worse than a child at escaping her [Void Grasp] had worn off quickly enough. That he gradually progressed at it bothered her as well as, despite her enjoyment at looking down at him, she was technically helping him at the same time. She also quickly realized that he was training a spell, and likely one of an unimaginable high tier to mimic the skill that made Void Lords so feared. So she might eventually be helping him level his cla.s.s too. All around unpleasant prospects.

“Why’s this place underwater by the way?” Rainer asked. The Void Lords could literally make their base anywhere in the world with their abilities. There was almost no such thing as convenience of location.

“Being underwater along with an obscure Void Skill protects us from Divine tracking for the most part. Makes it an easy place to bring back any we plan on sacrificing to our Overlord. So long as there is no direct intervention with Divine Sight, we won’t be found here.”

“And the rat-infested island.”

“Protects from being found physically. No need to kill those who provide us no benefit.”

“And why don’t they just use Divine Sight?”

Aurora looked at him as if he was stupid. Or, at least he thought she did. All her looks towards him generally carried an air of superiority. He supposed it wasn’t completely unwarranted, as he doubted the current him could beat her in a fair duel.

“Because it would be a waste. They would find us and we would simply leave elsewhere in the world. Tarai, despite her unusually large following, would not waste power like that. At least I would a.s.sume. My capture was from her descending and using a large amount of power to fight off my father and me. Though, I suppose it was a waste because of the Overlord’s Intervention.”

Rainer didn’t even bother holding back a chuckle at her not mentioning his role in her rescue. She promptly ignored him and kept talking.

“Besides, now that we are building a gate, it will not be long before more join us and they will be unable to fight us outside of their consecrated ground.”

Rainer wasn’t sure how he felt essentially making their job of sacrificing people with Divinity in them easier. Initially, he had a bit of sympathy since the Empire hadn’t actually done anything to him, but the more he thought about it, the less and less he cared about what happened to any Taraniens.

Almost any of their citizens would happily kill both his girlfriends, or do worse. After all, for all the talk of being too disgusted with Magical beings to do anything other than kill them, it was unlikely everyone was that fervent. For better or, more likely, for worse.

At this point he was amazed he was bothered about killing that first [Priest] and rescuing Aurora at all. He felt a.s.suredly silly about that moral dilemma. They could wipe out the Empire for all he cared. And it wasn’t as if his relationship with anything Divine was good. He could only wonder when he’d eventually be made the objective of a quest. Given his recent discovery about the Ashen Dwarves metal and the Avatar Ritual, with all implications of that combined with his Mana-Well, who knew when he’d be crossing the line the [Arch-Lich] apparently did.

At the very least, he’d stay away from anything that involved taking the Mana-Well power for oneself.

“Stop zoning out when we are talking. You accidently use that weird Arcane form of [Mana Presence] whenever you are angry. It’s disturbing.”

“I do?” Rainer asked, easily a.s.suming she was referring to [Arcane Presence], something he had been practicing often in his talks relating to politics. He supposed it was possible to come out accidently, given that he altered it in the first place with his intentions and emotions during subtle uses.

“Yes. Now let’s begin.”

While Rainer himself trained with Aurora, his Avatar sat in a lone room with the Mana-Well. Sc.r.a.ps of metal surrounded him as both minds thought over just what enchanted items he should make.

His full plan was to offer any Guild Members a signet ring of the Arcane Order, that was also a spatial ring, signifying their belonging to the Enchanter’s Guild. People seemed to love that kind of status symbol, so he figured that would be just as tantalizing as infinite Mana for their enchanting use. Though, his progress on even the simplest of Spatial Rings wasn’t anywhere near that goal.

But for now money was needed, which meant something far simpler to be sold. Like a Ring that increased Vitality and, subsequently, skin quality. Perhaps Const.i.tution and Strength which affected general life improvement. He knew full well what an 80 year old using a walker would pay for a single point of strength in his old world. It wasn’t hard to imagine a similar thing here. Unless of course there was already magic relating to that.

The Avatar manipulated a piece of sc.r.a.p into a simple ornament and then a small chain for a necklace. With some more focus, a simplified version of the Rune for the element Arcane, the same one that appeared on his forehead when he used Final Arcanum, was inscribed into the circular piece of metal.

Now to enchant it.

Rainer briefly wondered how Saya, the Lamia he was about to enchant with a Mana-Control Rune, managed to look both extremely embarra.s.sed and yet equally baleful. How anyone managed to be as scary as her while blushing to a degree beyond human measure was an achievement. That she was blushing as a Lamia was certainly a surprise. He figured they wouldn’t be as embarra.s.sed in this type of situation.

“The first enchant functions as a central control, connecting one’s Mana or Aura to the enchantments themselves,” Rainer explained to the Lamia around him, which included the Founding Head, Mala.

“Is it different depending on the source?” Mala asked, hovering over him and Saya, her hand resting on Saya’s chest as she leaned over. Clearly, she was using him to tease her granddaughter as much as possible even if he understood that having such a powerful Lamia receive the enchantments was the smartest course of actions.

Rainer opted to ignore said teasing as best as he could. No reason to have a grossly powerful long-range Archer p.i.s.sed at him more than she already was. What was it with him and glaring women these past couple of days? He’d like some variety, Rainer mentally quoted Luna.

“The rune itself has only slight alterations, the main point being I use my own Aura to connect it to the subject’s Aura when it is an Aura Control Rune.”

“Is your own Aura unique in some way?”

“Yes. I am one of the few of my people capable of making Body Enchantments with Aura,” Rainer responded; there was little reason to lie in this case. And Ele had gone over extensively with him a full story for his homeland, though he wouldn’t reveal anything unasked.

“Interesting.”

Rainer took that as a dismissal and went to work. Unfortunately, Lamias were different enough from most races that his Anatomy and Body Enchantment skill only started at level 3. Which meant lots of uncomfortable noises, much to Mala’s enjoyment it seemed, and further baleful glares from the source of said noises as he proceeded onwards.

He ended up only finishing a shield and strength enhancement as Saya stormed out, perhaps slithered out, of the room complaining about illicit magic and that all mages were the same.

Luna lay in ‘Rainer’s’ arms, sleepily noting the real Rainer and Kara doing something else alone in their room as they sat in the common area. The Wolfkin was likely being louder than usual, even if the Fairy currently couldn’t hear anything at all. The sound-proofing that the Lamia normally did to bedroom gave them more freedom in nightly activities.

She was glad Rainer had Kara, as she wasn’t particularly interested in the non-Fairy stuff more than just a few times a week. If only the She-Wolf saw the benefit of even more variety. Luna had confidence she’d bring her around eventually.

They did have the benefit of being only in the earlier years of their centuries of life. And she doubted Rainer would ever let them die unwillingly, even if he had to drag them back from Death itself, so perhaps far more than a time measured in mere centuries. Luna quite enjoyed Rainer denying a Divinity of a Soul when he healed that Fairy as well as her caretaker’s mother of their sickness. Him pushing the possibilities of what was possible always made her happy.

“How’s the training going,” Luna whispered to Rainer’s Avatar who she cuddled against, knowing it was a secret he was training [Avatar Control] while doing anything with Kara.

“Surprisingly, I’m already at level 3. I guess being so heavily distracted and yet still managing to control it properly helps. I can even sort of think as two separate people,” Rainer answered and made a brief note to visit Amer as soon as possible and get his opinion on [Avatar Control].

He briefly looked over to Sarah who was explaining something to Lilia. Gunthar off to the side looked liked a proud parent as Tiamat grew closer and closer to complete success in flight. The little dragon was preening from the attention and praise and Rainer wondered if maybe he should put a little stop to that before her head got too big. Rainer got the feeling the Undead sometimes forgot what Tiamat would grow into. A spoiled full-sized Dragon that likely surpa.s.sed the third tier wasn’t something he wanted to see.

The image involving the creation of another Dragon Isles because Tiamat wasn’t allowed to have dessert before dinner was frightening.

And then… there was the newest member of their group.

“Just because this isn’t my real body, doesn’t mean you can chew on my head.”

“Sorry fake brother, second head is mad.”

Rainer sighed at the distorted giggle that went out behind him. This was the gift he also planned for Luna, he simply needed to get the courage together to ask the [Chimera Shade] to become Luna’s familiar. The Fairy herself couldn’t just easily make a familiar like he seemed to be able to, but just like with the dog he guessed he could connect the shade to her.

That it also increased her safety, and eventual 2nd Tier trial success, certainly helped his decision in trying to make the Shade a permanent member of their group, despite Kara’s fervent protests when he told her of his gift idea. He didn’t view her objections ‘but it’s so gross’ and ‘if that thing goes near my hair I’ll shred it to pieces’ as valid excuses since the Wolfkin was just complaining to complain. The moment he mentioned the Trial benefits, Kara had accepted his gift idea immediately.

Seems they both were protective over their Fairy.

Though, pointing out that she likely couldn’t even touch, let alone shred, the oft incorporeal being had certainly not made the situation better.

“Rainer?” Luna looked up at him from his arms.

“Hmm?”

“I call dibs on your fourth Avatar. Luna wants it as a permanent cuddler.”

“Luna, I’m barely strong enough to make and control this one.”

Luna just stared at him unblinkingly.

“Alright it’s yours.” Rainer didn’t bother to ask why the fourth specifically. a.s.suming more than one Avatar was even possible in the first place. Which given that he knew next to nothing about how the Ritual actually worked, or it’s creator, made it an even further impossibility at his current level of knowledge.

“Yay,” the Fairy responded as she buried her head in his chest.

“Fourth Avatar she says…” Sarah grumbled, taking a moment away from what she was helping Lilia with.

Rainer chuckled, earning himself a semi-serious glare from his sister. She truly was jealous over him having an Avatar.

“Can we start now?” Ele asked, sitting over to his right on the same couch, though a bit away from the lounging pair.

Rainer blinked a few times as he remembered part of the reason him and Luna were out here. Tomorrow he’d be meeting with the Hammerfell Dwarves leadership and then the Blood Moon Elves the next day.

“Explain away…”

“Your excitement for such matters is admirable as always,” she drolled, and went into it, not even expecting him to pay attention. Her surprise for all his astounding abilities had turned into a combination of envy and annoyance when he used it to avoid doing any real political related work. And then there was the… yes… Shade-being hovering behind him occasionally taking a nip at his hair. Ele didn’t even want to think about that. So she did not.

Nor did she think about the Dragon she had most certainly not even noticed before. Had her Lord thought she already knew about that and no longer bothered hiding it? About a d.a.m.n Dragon playing around with a sentient Undead like it was normal? Like any of this was normal? She almost wished he trusted her less so she didn’t have to deal with any of this. The prospect of a Dragon raised by this impossible man was scary beyond all measure. Being raised by a cooing and doting Undead was only marginally better.

Ele forced her thoughts back to Rainer’s lack of interest in politics and just pretended she hadn’t seen anything else. He was her Lord. And any annoyance with politics would only be to her advantage in the end. Everything else she’d leave as background noise.

“For all their distaste, or rather just lack of interest in politics, there are many things to note about meeting with the Hammerfell Dwarves…” Ele started and moved her mind from her ruminations.

In [Sleep Learning], practicing further [Avatar Control] as his Avatar dueled with his sister, Rainer watched Kara do training of her own. It was about all he could do while his Avatar fought, being a far more mentally strenuous, but at least more entertaining, task than doing the same enchant over and over again for hours. He knew it would be a long time before he could actually fight with both bodies at the same time.

Well, less a duel and more pushing Sarah past her limits as he killed her over and over again. It was at her own request, and he was thankful that it being his Avatar doing it made the action at least a bit less unpleasant. Both [Enchanted Flesh] and [Enchanted Blood] were stuck at level 9, with [Enchant Manipulation] stuck at 7. That Rainer himself hadn’t leveled a manipulation skill to level 10, making him think she was barking up the wrong tree with trying to rush that to 10.

But he wasn’t about to dissuade her own choice to extend the time to the 2nd Tier Trial by waiting until she had [Enchant Manipulation] at level 10 as well.

Kara was leveling her last two Cla.s.s skills to level 9, two new recently bought Werewolf specific skills that were basically useless to her given [Aura Blade]. One was a skill to harden and sharpen her claws with Aura, and another to do the same with her teeth while strengthening the jaw and mouth as a whole. It was part of the reason the Werewolf Tribes were among the most feared despite never having produced a Prince-level Demon. Slicing through magically enchanted metal and Aura defenses like they were hot b.u.t.ter had that effect.

It also fit in with Kara’s family skill, given that the strengthening’s main weakness was an increased weight. One that went up exponentially with the strength at a certain point. He recalled the story Kara told him about her Werewolf grandmother taking over the tribe through speed and skill rather than brute strength, and imagined that was only ‘technically’ true. If her claws were sharp and strong enough to simply ignore her opponent’s claws and his Aura then it made perfect sense. Regardless that Demon men and women had a far larger gap in natural strength than that of humans.

Rainer himself was using [Sleep Learning] to constantly create slightly stronger and stronger metal targets for Kara to cut through. And bite through. It was an interesting thing to witness her tear through steel when just before they went to bed she was snuggling between him and Luna for once. Declaring it was her turn be held by both of them instead of the Fairy usually taking that role. He had to admit himself that having two warm bodies hugging him on both sides did make for an easy sleep, so he understood her request.

Rainer turned his attention back to controlling his Avatar in a fight with his sister, all the while pushing things he could do with his main body at the same time.

It was a few hours later that Sarah took that time to take a break and work on deconstructing more enchanted items. And Rainer subsequently took a small break from Avatar Control. As of now he had thought of two primary ways of removing or disabling people’s Body Enchantments. One would be a targeted spell or skill to disable, disrupt, or outright remove the enchantment. The second would be creating some sort of backdoor. The only issue with creating backdoor is he can’t think of a way of making one that wouldn’t require a connection of some sort to the target.

So unless the Fae had a solution, and were for some reason willing to share a huge weakness of their race, he went another direction. Calling Kara over, he gave her a quick explanation of what he wanted to accomplish.

“Will this hurt?” Kara asked.

Rainer thought that over for a moment. It cost more Mana and was quite more difficult than just enchanting, but erasing body enchantments shouldn’t be painful. So long as the subject was relaxed and unmoving as the enchanter performed it. More importantly, that the enchantments weren't in use.

However, erasing them with a spell or skill from a far distance might not be so benign. a.s.suming it was even possible. Though destroying enchanted items without destroying the item itself wholesale was supposed to be impossible, so Rainer had quite a bit of faith in his Arcane Magic that was capable of just that. That is also could destroy the item, often spectacularly, made him nervous on who he was testing that on.

“Maybe. I’d get ready to recreate your body in case something unbearable happens. I could always test this on a corpse,” he offered, but internally knew it wouldn’t be the same. He needed a test where the enchantments were in use.

And she seemed to know as well even though he told her nothing of the sort. Dueling against her was hard enough. Her just standing there as he flinged magic at her was far worse.

“No. If you are giving or selling these enchantments, you need a protection against them. Even better that it hurts, since if you are removing them this way in the first place they are your enemy.”

“Well… let’s start,” Rainer said, knowing it was important for both their futures and he wouldn’t insult her determination.

Kara held out her arm, activating her Strength Enchantment which had a small portion going up and down said appendage.

Rainer grimaced for a moment before steeling himself and moving forward. Undoubtedly destroying the enchant directly would work, no different than any magic that would obliterate her arm. But if he was capable of doing that to an unwilling target, there was no reason to worry about their enchantments in the first.

His greatest hope for it was in fact [Arcanium Descent], but having [Arcane Presence] still stuck at level 9 that wasn’t an option. Still, he attmpted it with [Arcane Presence], keeping the goal in mind as he focused on her arm. No reaction it seemed.

Thinking it over, he decided to try a skill he put in the back burner, [Arcane Repulsion]. His grandfather had to have had put the effort into making it stronger for a reason. Starting with low power, the Arcane wave of force merely blew Kara’s hair back as it pa.s.sed by harmlessly.

“Ah, wait,” Kara said and stopped his next attempt. He merely waited for her to explain.

“It kind of sort of worked.”

“I’m guessing by that it worked so little you barely noticed?”

“Yeah. It was as if my skill level went down, or perhaps… more like there was a block. Like for a few seconds it became harder to use, but by such a small amount I only noticed because I was paying attention.”

“Good, let’s try again then.”

The more he used, the more effective and longer lasting the block was. As if it was almost a disruption against her enchantments. It gave Rainer pause as had wondered just what else were the applications, considering his grandfather had clearly trained and enhanced the skill to such a degree. He certainly wouldn’t have bothered if it only worked against a magic that may not even exist on Earth.

Shortly after a few tests, Rainer went back to training his [Avatar Control], now fighting with Kara instead of his sister. As he was both limiting the power and number of Body Enchantments given, it was still a bit early to use up a large amount of time working on something that may not even work that well.

Most of the night pa.s.sed quickly as he tried again and again to do common tasks while his Avatar fought with his full attention and ability. Staying asleep a bit longer and now alone in [Sleep Learning], Rainer called for Talvara.

“h.e.l.lo, Rainer.”

He kept down a sigh at her always appearing behind him. It was hard to get used even when he expected it.

After exchanging greetings, Rainer got to the point of the matter.

“I’d like to receive the Void Will reward, please,” he asked. Not only was Will apparently incompatible with Mana, but who knows what effect it would have on Kara being a Half-Demon. They had both agreed on him accepting it.

“Whenever you are ready head to the Abyssal Planes with Aurora or any other Void Lord, have them contact me. I’m afraid I must be off.”

Before Rainer could get another word in she was gone. Though he noted she was a bit chipper, and had offered him to ask a Void Lord other than Aurora. So he was left clueless once more as to what he did to make her happy or previously cross with him.

He shrugged, and let himself wake up.

Going to train with Aurora first thing in the morning, Rainer’s Avatar focused on enchanting. Creating the first line of goods from the Arcane Order: Necklace of… a name he’d think of later. Youth was a bit misleading, and Vitality would be selling it short. It increased Vitality and Const.i.tution, both attributes which increased skin quality and helped general age related type issues. It was also why amongst most races, Demons aged the best. Their healing factor being related to a naturally high Vitality.

He had managed to, over his month of controlling the Avatar, get [Attribute Enchantment] to level 4. Combining both Vitality and Const.i.tution on a single item was possible, though he was still working on increasing the attributes themselves. There was no harm in creating weaker versions of the necklace to function as tiered products. Well, no harm when one had a Mana-Well.

During his month with Aurora, he also thought on what exactly were his weaknesses in combat.

One, and perhaps far more important than anything else, were others’ ability to stop his [Void-walking]. Without that ability, few stood a chance against him. Unrestricted [Void-walking] on top of [Arcane Blade] and his other spells and skills were far too strong. After all, with Jor blocking the World Tree from grabbing him, he killed the arguably strongest Fairy with relative ease. It was only his need to extract Yulia’s flame, and admittedly quite a bit of anger, that prevented him from instantly killing her. And the Wolf King’s Aura strings would be mostly useless against him offensively if he could just disappear when they grabbed him.

Void Lords were the strongest in the Abyssal planes for a reason.

Rainer paused in his thoughts for a moment to try and get past Aurora’s [Void Grasp]. While they both had the skill at level 10, Aurora’s use of it was far better than his. It was the equivalent of both being dart throwing masters at their peak, but she knew where to throw a dart to make a man sleep, cry, p.i.s.s, or die, an entirely different skill altogether, whereas he did not have the slightest clue how to do more than annoy someone with astounding accuracy. The same skill, but completely different abilities.

When he tried to stop teleportation with [Void Grasp], he grabbed around someone as if a hug. Whereas she only tried to stop it in a single specific direction using her impressive detection ability and general knowledge of traveling through the Void, making it far more effective and cheaper. Not that she needed to do so against him, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Rainer tried to shift direction and was stopped once again, Aurora looking more bored than actually paying attention despite how impressive her [Void Grasp] was. Going back to pure pushing with [Void-walking] against her blocking, he thought of his second weakness.

Accuracy. The Wolf King made it all too clear how much that was an issue. Even hitting him with just one of his powerful Arcane spells would have taken a large chunk of Aura to block or heal. He could manually improve that accuracy through manipulation, but that required both focus and power, and likely his own death while he was distracted with doing so. Even then, if they dodged well enough he’d expend even more power to turn the spell around and try again.

It was good he had an entire clan of Archers looking to get into his good graces, even if their goal for him was far different than his own. He’d see if there was anything they could teach him. Or perhaps any cla.s.ses with useful accuracy-based cla.s.s skills the [Archon] cla.s.s bonus could cheat him into. Well, an entire clan not counting the one who hated Mages and transferred the hate almost fully to him.

He hoped her testing with the shield and strength enchantment changed her mind at least a bit. What little he knew of archery told him Strength was extremely important in the more war-type archery. Knights were not the strongest men of medieval battlefields. And with magically constructed bows, who knew what the upper end of draw strength was.

As Saya was also by far the strongest member of her clan he learned, while perhaps geniuses made for poor teachers, she would certainly have useful insight. At least, when he had the [Archon] cla.s.s on his side. Only her love for her family and little care for such power kept her from taking control of her clan.

The final issue was just raw battle experience. He was only a 20-year-old facing against veterans of war and those who lived centuries. He deeply wished to invite people like the Wolf King, Amer, Furtak, Delilah, and any Void Lord into his [Sleep Learning] but knew that may not be the best idea. Yet. He needed power, more than just his personal one, before he could reveal his secret in such a manner. Even though he barely had the slightest idea how to replicate the ability, what were the chances anyone believed that?

“Focus,” Aurora snapped, noting he stopped trying to travel through the Void.

“Sorry.”

In between his training session and the meeting with the Dwarves, Rainer headed back to the Abyssal Planes to finally receive the extra Void Will. Given his plans to switch to an enchanting cla.s.s, of course keeping [Archon], bolstering his Void abilities in any way would be a plus.

Rainer stood alone in his room, Jor floating back and forth in front of the door. Aurora should be contacting her Overlord right now. Feeling a strange tug, Rainer didn’t resist as he knew he could. Calling for Jor to reenter his shoulder, Rainer vanished. If it wasn’t for the fact Talvara could have ordered her Void Lords to kill him ten times over, this would have been a large gesture of trust.

He tried his best to not resist as he felt a bit of panic at being here again, remembering what happened last time. Void Will flowed, but having the pool already inside him there were no physical changes to resist against. His pool of Will expanded, and Rainer soon realized he was receiving a bit more than planned. At least, than he expected.

And, as if he never disappeared at all, he was back in his room. Rainer let out a breath as he pulled on his Void Will. A new total of 231, far higher than just double. He supposed that answered the question as whether they were friends or not. If it wasn’t for that resistance he started to feel towards the end, he may have received even more. But this was likely the upper limit of what he could manage, not that he had a clue as to how that was determined or trained.

It wouldn’t be long now before he had the strength to reach his family. In fact, he may be able to use [Void Seer] to see them even if he couldn’t reach them. Rainer vanished through the Void moments later, Aurora in tow. It was time to meet with the Hammerfell Dwarves and hopefully take another step toward his goal.