Free Web NovelChapter 221: The Plans Ahead
They nodded at each other across the distance and that was sufficient.
Then he heard her.
Ileana came out of the main building at a pace that was not her usual unhurried movement but something faster, and when she came through the door and saw him standing in the courtyard the expression on her face was the unguarded version she only had in the first moment after confirming something she had been waiting to confirm.
She crossed the courtyard and he barely had time to open his arms before she was in them, her arms around his neck and her body against his with the force of someone who had been waiting fourteen days and was not interested in being measured about it.
He held her and she held him and for a moment neither of them said anything.
Then she pulled back just enough to look at his face with the thorough and immediate attention she gave to his physical state when he came back from something, checking him over with the eyes that were always looking for damage he had not bothered to mention.
She found what she was looking for in terms of him being essentially intact and then she leaned in and kissed him, warm and direct and without any ceremony about it, and he kissed her back and the courtyard was quiet around them for that moment.
When she pulled back her eyes were bright and her expression was the full version of its warmth, the one she kept for moments that had earned it. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
"You took longer than I expected." She said.
"Fourteen days." He said. "More than I planned."
"I know how many days it was." She said, with the tone of someone who had been counting them.
He looked at her properly.
The changes were real and immediately visible, the 4th Origin Mythic Class she had reached sitting on her in the way power sat on people who had grown into it rather than been handed it, her bearing and presence carrying something more substantial than the version he had left, the graceful quality she had always had now accompanied by something that was simply more, more presence, more refinement, more of the particular quality that made her remarkable.
She was looking at him with the expression she had when she knew she was being assessed and did not mind it.
"The healing hut." He said.
"Upgraded to the 4th level." She confirmed. "It went to 4th Origin Mythic Class when the domain reached the 4th Order." A pause that carried a great deal of her feelings about those fourteen days in it. "Nemo handled the evolutions correctly, she contacted your teacher for the additional material the second evolution needed."
"Both of them." He said.
"Both of them." She confirmed. "Come and see."
She took his hand and they walked through the domain together and he saw all of it.
The expansion was significant, the interior space of the 4th Order domain substantially larger than the 3rd Order had been, the additional courtyard sections already in use, already purposeful, already carrying the lived-in quality of a domain that had people in it who knew what they were doing with the space.
Bob appeared from around the side of a structure he had apparently been the architect of, his large frame covered in dust from whatever material he had been working with, and his expression when he saw Neil was the broad and immediate version of itself. freewebnovel.cσ๓
"Lord is back!!" He announced this at a volume that covered the entire new section of the courtyard and probably the street outside the gate. "Come and look at what we built!"
Rob appeared beside him with the composed precision that was Rob’s baseline, his expression carrying the particular quality of someone who had been building something they were genuinely satisfied with and wanted it to be examined by someone who could appreciate the precision.
"The new workshop section." Rob said, more quietly. "Completed three days ago."
"Good work." Neil said, looking at the workshop section, which was indeed substantial and visibly competent in its construction, the black rock of the domain’s material used precisely and with care.
Bob’s expression went to the maximum version of its satisfaction and he clapped Neil on the shoulder with the force of someone who did not always calibrate the difference between a greeting and an impact.
Mob was near the storage building in his habitual position and he turned when Neil came close enough, his expression carrying the quiet and genuine welcome of someone who did not perform emotion but felt it clearly.
He nodded, which from Mob was the equivalent of a speech.
Neil nodded back.
The barracks were visible from where he was standing and the activity coming from inside them was the activity of an upgrade in progress, the energy of it readable through the walls, the troops inside in the process of becoming something better than what they had been when he left.
He stood in the courtyard of a domain he would not have fully recognised from fourteen days ago and looked at all of it, the black rock walls and the taller gate and the new buildings and the better archers and the domain barrier that ran at a depth and density that made the previous version look like an early draft.
Everything that had needed to happen had happened.
More than he had asked for.
He was still taking it in when he heard the gate open again and turned to find Randy walking through it with his hands in his pockets and the expression of someone who had been nearby for a while and had been waiting for the right moment.
"You." Neil said.
"Me." Randy said, agreeably, walking forward with the unhurried stride of someone who moved at whatever pace he felt like moving at and had never been given a sufficient reason to change that. He looked around the domain interior with the particular attention of someone whose perception went considerably deeper than casual observation and was applying that depth now, taking in the domain’s current state with the comprehensive read that he rarely made visible. "Your domain has been busy."
"Nemo." Neil said simply.
"Yes, and two evolutions while you were gone." Randy’s eyes moved through the domain’s energy signatures in the way they moved when he was doing a serious read of something. "The 4th Order." He let that sit for a moment. "Impressive does not fully cover it."
Neil walked toward the campfire pit.
It was no longer in use in the way it had been when the domain was wooden and the evenings were simpler, but the stone circle of it remained and the seating around it remained, and he sat in his usual position and Randy sat across from him with the ease of someone who had sat around this specific campfire enough times to have a usual position of his own.
"I am a bit surprised that you were able to return as quickly as you did from that place." Randy said, and his voice carried something genuine beneath the easy surface of it. "The Wooden Poisoned Realm is not a place people typically return from on schedule." He paused. "Thanks to you, I won a significant number of bets."
"I know." Neil said.
"The over-under on your return date was weighted heavily toward later." Randy said, without any apparent shame about this. "Much later. Some people were convinced the under was more than optimistic."
Neil said nothing.
Randy looked at him with the particular attention he sometimes produced without warning, the one that went through the surface of things and checked what was underneath.
"How many." He said. "And up to what class."
Neil was quiet for a moment.
He was at the 3rd Origin, which Randy knew, and fighting 4th Origin creatures from that position was already a significant achievement by any reasonable measure, the ability to even match a Silver class at that tier gap considered exceptional by people who understood how these things worked.
"Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond." Neil said.
The quiet that followed was different from Randy’s usual quiet.
Randy was looking at him with an expression that had gone past the surface-read and was doing something more serious behind it, the easy manner of him still present but carrying weight underneath it that the easy manner did not usually carry.
"Diamond class." Randy said, and it was not a question.
"Multiple." Neil said.
Randy looked at him for another long moment.
"You are at the 3rd Origin." He said, with the tone of someone placing a fact on the table not because they doubted it but because the arithmetic of what he had just heard required it to be stated.
"I know what Origin I am at." Neil said.
Randy exhaled once through his nose, not quite a laugh but adjacent to one.
"Well." He said, and did not immediately follow that with anything else.
He looked at the campfire pit between them and his expression was doing the thing it did when he was thinking several things simultaneously and had not yet decided which of them to put into words.
"Your plans." He said eventually. "Going forward."
"Evolve." Neil said. "Get ready for the lost elven kingdom."
Randy nodded slowly, accepting this.
"And the other matter." He said, his tone shifting into something more careful.
"The attacks have been increasing in frequency. Over the past fourteen days while you were in that realm the numbers have gone up significantly." He paused.
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