Free Web NovelChapter 21: Ascendant rank [3]
I sat at the table with my parents, eating my favourite food, cooked specially for me by my mom.
We were laughing and joking as we ate. It was something we did every time, and it filled my chest with warmth.
Just as I was about to take another bite, the vision of my parents, of our home, slowly faded and I started to fall.
’No, no!’ I screamed as I dropped into the darkness.
My eyes snapped open and I found myself reaching up toward the night sky with my right hand.
My whole body was drenched in sweat, my breathing heavy.
Where was I?
"Bad dream?" I heard Ezio’s voice. He was roasting meat over a fire nearby.
"Yeah. I dreamt about your ugly face. Quite the horrifying dream." I said.
"I really should have left him to get mauled by the monkeys..." Ezio muttered something under his breath, a frown on his face.
"Right, I’m no longer with them..." I murmured, calming down as I sat up.
"How long was I out?" I asked Ezio, noticing the moon and stars were already out.
"Not that long. About six hours." Ezio said, turning the meat skewered on a wooden stick.
I noticed I had been covered with a blanket, and when I checked, I was in newer clothes instead of the ragged ones from earlier. My wounds were also fully healed.
"Did you undress me?" I said with a frown.
"Of course." Ezio didn’t even look up as he said it, casual as ever.
I just stared at him.
"Oh, so you’re undressing kids now?"
Ezio looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.
"Kid, don’t make it weird. Of course I didn’t take your underwear off." He said, clicking his tongue. "And why are you being shy, we’re both men."
"Two men alone in a forest...no one knows what could happen, especially when one is so much stronger than the other." I smiled.
Ezio’s face scrunched in disgust, a vein popping at his temple.
"You idiot, knock it off and come eat!" Ezio shouted, pointing a finger at me.
"Hahaha." I laughed loudly at his reaction, which only made his face redder. Bro was clearly about to explode if I pushed any further.
Ezio looked away and sighed. "God, give me patience, because if not, I might need bail money."
As I stood up, I felt how much stronger my body had become, my power having grown considerably. The mana capacity of my core had doubled, now twice the size of a typical Ascendant Awakened.
Perks of ranking up.
"Let me check my system first." I said.
"Oh right, congratulations on your awakening and on winning the fight. You did good."
"Expect nothing less from your young master." I puffed my chest out with pride.
"Yeah, right."
I called the system.
╔═════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ══════╗
✧ Name: Yves Noctis Laurent
✧ Age: 15
✧ Titles: [Unwanted Child]
✧ Rank: Ascendant
✧ Subrank: Low
✧ Soul Fragments: 0/200
✧ Story Fragments: 0/150, 0/1000
✧ Main Story: [He Who Yearned for Death], [■■■]
✧ Abilities: [Esoteric Darkness Manipulation], [Calm], [Eyes of The King]
✧ Story Relics: —
╚═════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ══════╝
I was now at the Ascendant rank, and yeah, I had gotten there fast. From here on it wasn’t going to be nearly as easy to collect soul fragments, but that was fine by me.
Below Rank, there was now a new entry called Subrank.
Just as monsters and beasts had Classes to categorize their power, humans and other Awakened beings had Subranks for the same purpose.
It started at Low, the lowest, and went up to Peak, the highest.
This was where things really started to matter. The Awakened rank had just been a starting point compared to what came after.
The Ascendant rank brought benefits like increased soul power, physical strength, mana capacity and regeneration, and lifespan. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
But it also came with new conditions for further ascension.
The first was that the amount of soul fragments now required scaled with each subrank, meaning I couldn’t jump to the next overall rank without first breaking through every subrank along the way.
That alone could take months, if not a year.
The second condition, tied to the first, was that I needed a minimum story rank to break through to the next overall rank.
For example, back at the Awakened rank, my story had defaulted to the Awakened rank as well, which let me ascend without any issue. But now, in order to break through to the next rank, my Main Story also had to reach at least the Ascendant rank.
I could max out every subrank, but if my story wasn’t at the required level, I would be stuck at the Ascendant rank regardless. And mind you, collecting soul fragments was already difficult. Story fragments were far harder, since they required hunting very specific monsters.
Plenty of Awakeners stayed stuck at the Ascendant rank for years simply because their story held them back.
That wasn’t the only way to gain story fragments, though.
You could also earn them by challenging what was called a Story Rift. Outside of that, there was no other method.
And well, I would manage in two months what took some Awakeners years. Perks of being the author.
I kept reading through my details, and the other new addition was:
✧ Story Relics: —
Basically an inventory for weapons, nothing too remarkable. It read zero since I had no Story Relics yet, but I would soon.
Closing the system, I finally sat down next to Ezio, who was busy grilling meat. The sweet smell of roasted meat hit my nose.
"Damn, you know how to cook?" I asked, glancing over at him.
"Obviously I do. There’s no assassin worth his salt who doesn’t." He handed me a stick of roasted meat.
I took it and bit in right away. And God, it tasted good.
"This is good!" I said through a mouthful.
"What kind of meat is this? Deer?"
"Monkey meat."
"..."
My face went pale.
"Say that again. I think I misheard you over the fire."
"I said it’s monkey meat." He pointed behind him.
My eyes followed his finger, and a couple of meters away lay the corpse of the Fire Monkey king, or what remained of it, chunks of flesh missing.
I honestly shouldn’t have looked, but it was too late.
This bastard had fed me monkey meat!
Before I could even spit it out, it had already gone down my throat.
"Why would you feed me this?!" I conjured a dagger of darkness and threw it at his face.
"You ate it yourself, I didn’t feed you shit!" He shot back, grinning as he slapped the dagger out of the air.
I wanted to wipe that smile off his face, but there was nothing I could do.
"Bahhahah! I wish I had a mirror to show you your face right now, it’s hilarious! That’s what you get for calling me ugly." Ezio laughed loudly. "Besides, it tastes good. I don’t know why you’re complaining. Tsk, typical noble."
In this world, some beast and monster meat was edible, though you had to be careful since some of it was poisonous.
Not everyone ate it though, especially nobles, who considered it barbaric.
It did taste good...but it was unsettling and gross knowing I was eating an actual monkey. Where I came from, we didn’t eat them.
Well, with the exception of some people who would eat just about anything with meat on it. Not naming names, but still.
This treacherous bastard had baited me into eating it.
I didn’t even know why I had agreed to his offer when I had food sitting in my storage ring.
Sighing, I pushed the thought of it being monkey meat out of my head and kept eating. There was no way I was throwing it away, not when it tasted this good.
That didn’t mean I liked monkey meat though!
