BXBX NOVEL Chapter 51 Arrival Of The Cardinal
3 Months Later, Zephystrand City.
Three months have passed since the attack of the Magical Beast Horde consisting of the Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps. Of course, no signs of the Drider were found, even when Yvraine ordered to search for the creature, and City Guards and Silvermoon Knights were searching everywhere.
But, of course, as expected, they found nothing. Neither Yvraine nor Samiel expected the Drider to be found. That creature was cunning and smart, so of course, it would hide somewhere where it was safe.
If Samiel had a guess, that Drider probably used some kind of Divine Magic or Blessing from some Dark God to keep hidden. So unless Yvraine or someone like her went to search for the Drider, the results would be futile.
Though what has changed at the Zephystrand was defense. Ever since the attack, Nesser Dynasty sends some more soldiers to bolster up the defenses. There were whole squads of the Silvermoon Knights arrived, all of which were at the peak of the Bronze-Tier, and even some Magicians arrived.
Samiel saw even a whole bunch of Silver-Tier and Gold-Tier arrive a week ago, though they would not be fighting unless there were enemies of the same Tier not to disrupt the original purpose of the Zephystrand and the cycle already established here.
And if he were to guess, Lanlaris Daragan should have remained at the Zephystrand, and probably, even more, Legendaries arrived in secret.
This only confirmed his assumptions that the Zephystrand was more important to the Nesser Dynasty than it seemed, especially when the Nesser Dynasty started bolstering the defenses of the city to the absolute extreme.
Usually, the strength of the Division of the Tower was as follows.
The average Tier for the 1st to 15th Floor was Iron-Tier, but that changed with the arrival of the Asura Tribe and the creation of their Slaughter Trial on the 2nd Floor, and thus this changed to the Steel-Tier. This technically, while causing a grand slaughter, also, at the same time, increased the collective strength of the Tower's inhabitants by one whole Tier compared to other worlds in the Cosmos.
From the 16th Floor to around the 30th Floor, the average Level of strength was Bronze-Tier, though on higher Floors, closer to the 30th Floor, one could occasionally see some Silver-Tiers as they would become more common.
From the 31st Floor to the 40th Floor, it was mainly a living area for the Silver-Tier beings, together with even weaker beings there were Bronze-Tiers. On these Floors, one would often meet Silver-Tier Professionals, as they were the strongest people on the Floor, at least in the open.
Above the 40th Floor, the enviroment was varied because the Mana Density was high enough, so the Gold-Tiers were more and more prominent.
Legendaries usually lived on the 60th Floor and above.
Of course, this was just an orientational, and one could encounter plenty of Legendaries even on the lower Floor, just like Samiel knew how pretty messed up the 1st Floor was. This didn't really mean that, for example, from the 40th Floor, only Gold-Tiers would be living on them.
No, this division meant that in this floor range, using the previous example, starting from the 40th Floor to approximately 60th Floor or so, the strongest beings one could meet without any hardship or searching for them would be the Gold-Tier.
But even on the 3rd Floor, there were plenty of high-tiered Magical Beasts and Monsters; most of them were just keeping hidden or were in hibernation. If one searched enough, then in various places across the 3rd Floor. In that case, one could encounter even Gold-Tier Magical Monsters, which were hegemons on entire regions.
Past three months, Samiel mainly spent repeating the same training process with Sarun, as he proved to be a good sparring partner or studying magic. He was focusing on the Necromancy Arts and basics of the Void Magic, from the Basic Principles of the Void Necrosis.
He even attempted to find the Black Emporium once more, but unfortunately, to no avail. Even Yvraine couldn't help him with this because nobody could find the Black Emporium shops when they didn't appear by themselves.
During these months, he didn't really increase his Level, as he preferred to save the Mana Crystals and use them as currency rather than just wasting thousands of them to increase one more Level. As a partial Eldritch, requirements on his Level Up were drastic, and he often cursed at how much mana was needed for him.
On the good side, he managed to find an antique shop in the some back-alley of Zephystrand and bought there a Necromancy Grimoire. Even now, he felt he was overpriced after he threatened the shopkeeper to flay him alive, and he lowered the price only to 2,000 Steel-Tier Mana Crystals.
With Necromancy Grimoire, he got his hands on some rudimentary spells, which he quickly mastered. Now his arsenal was enriched by a whole bunch of 2nd Level and 3rd Level Spells, which vastly increased his combat prowess and efficiency.
Yvraine was even teaching him the basics of the Metamagic, but that was going relatively slow. But even some progress was better than none. Samiel focused on Combat Casting so that he could learn this Metamagic Skill, and he believed that after some months of practice, he would be able to succeed.
Metamagic requires a lifetime to master or to be a monstrous genius when it comes to magic and grasps it quickly. Some were born even with it, which made the process much more effortless in unraveling its secrets.
Unfortunately, Samiel wasn't born with it, so he was left with no choice aside from learning it from scratch.
***
Outside of the Zephystrand City, several miles afar.
"Come on, Estrid! You are slacking once again."
Shouted a female voice belonging to an enchanting female vampire as she looked annoyed at the young dragoness. The duo was, of course, Karliana Kircheisen and Estrid the Red Dragoness, daughter of the Red Dragon Zaldidraax.
Only a few dragons have practiced the usage of a surname, as they usually had only their first name. Usually, only a few of them had a surname, and those were rare cases of long dragon lineages who chose to go with this tradition to distinguish themselves from others.
Or in other words, they were even more arrogant than other dragons.
Though it was mostly among the Chromatic Dragons, they were the most chaotic and liked to flex around their power, while the Metal Dragons were more aligned with the concept of Order rather than of Chaos.
"But I saw something shiny there! It looked like a gem..."
Retorted Estrid as Karliana frowned at her. Currently, her annoyance was just increasing with each passing second.
'Dammed lizards and their fucking obsession with treasures and shiny things.'
Karliana cursed as she dragged Estrid with her. They were already close to Zephystrand City, and because Estrid wanted to walk through the path and Karliana was a bit suppressed by the Tower, as she was on the low Floor.
The journey was long.
Long and arduous, and right now, Karliana wanted a hot bath and finally some luxury instead of this dammed forest and magical beasts everywhere.
After one more hour, they arrived at the gates of the Zephystrand, where a handsome middle-aged High Elf was already waiting for their arrival. If one observed more closely, he could see that he was a bit nervous about what was to come or better said, who was to come.
"Oh? Do we have royal processing waiting for us? A stuck-up High Elf has lowered himself to welcome us unworthy."
Karliana provocatively bowed to Lanlaris Daragan as his brows twitched at blunt provocations in anger, but he chose to remain silent on this matter. He knew that she was just trying to rile him up, as she was doing it to everyone else.
"Your Excellency Kircheisen, what has brought you to our humble city?"
He asked politely; despite both of them being Legendaries, Karliana could squash him like an ant if she wanted, as she was far, far above him in terms of strength. Not to mention if he treaded dangerously around her and her switched turn on, she would kill him for real.
Madmen from the Hall of Kadath were absolutely unpredictable in their actions, and nobody knew what they would do next.
"You know very well why am I here, pretty boy, so stop with this charade and let us not the city. I am tired as hell and want to take a bath. And call out your honorable guest. I wanna have a talk with him."
She said or ordered, depending on the point of view, as Lanlaris Daragan just nodded. He knew that messing with someone like her would resort to death, so he went with her antics.
Lanalris Daragan was aware of that the woman before him dared to kill one of the Pale Ancestors who was personally blessed by the Blood Gods, not to mention one that was her own Primogenitor.
Even though the Nesser Dynasty was strong and was one of the 13 Gates, in front of the Hall of Kadath, such petty titles didn't really matter, as those lunatics did what they wanted and killed whom they wished.
The word "consequences" is not in their dictionary; it never was and never would be.
Thus he led them into the city, straight into the Citadel of the Zephystrand. For Karliana, it was not the first time she had visited the Zephystrand; instead, she was here many times, as she liked elven cities; they were always so tranquil and calming.
Meanwhile, Estrid looked bored. There were no Arenas, street fights, or any possibilities to destroy something, so this place was horrendous for a Red Dragon like her.
If she were to choose, she would stay on the 2nd Foor and participate in the Slaughter Trial... it was more fun for someone like her; at least there, she could fight and destroy things. Even if the Asura were not to be trusted, as a Red Dragon, she wasn't thinking much about it.
Karliana looked at terrified Estrid; she chuckled at her behavior as they followed Lanlaris to the Citadel of the Zephystrand.
"Nowadays, you have here far more soldiers than the last time I was here."
Commented Karliana as she looked around the streets of the Zephystrand. The last time she was in the city, it had nowhere close to the number of soldiers and experts protecting the city right now.
"Indeed, we have a slight security problem with the dark ones."
He answered, and Karliana knew that he was talking about the Drowes, as she quickly connected the dots and was able to realize that Drows were targeting the Zephystrand City through some schemes of their once again.