Tia's heart sunk as she saw Aaron climb down the pyramid.

They had succeeded. Aaron's tactics weren't all talk. Her father's words about the dangers of the world made more and more sense.

She couldn't wait to return home any longer, she needed to prepare her family for the Ironblood clan's arrival. Though she was against her parents' way of doing things, especially her father's, she still loved them.

As for Aaron, she didn't doubt he would leave this tiny kingdom and head for the Imperial Center eventually. He had enough power for that.

"Alys, Lana, sorry for leaving you with this monster," she murmured and broke the black crystal.

Master-level Space Energy enveloped her and instantly teleported her away.

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Alys was proud of helping bring down a Five Star Entropomancer, and it gave her hope for the future.

Tia was too soft sometimes. She didn't see how her clan's power only mattered because they were willing to use it in ways she considered excessive. This was a dog eat dog world, and weak clans — in either might or will — either submitted or disappeared. Even a mere mercenary unit like the Fire Wolves could only operate freely because Alys' presence meant the Arcane Circle would avenge her if something happened to them.

The Patriarch's ruthless disposition didn't displease Alys. On the contrary, she felt reassured by it. His tactical know-how would mean nothing if he didn't have the willpower to use it against his enemies.

Those born with exceptional talent and luck reached high in the world by themselves. Those like her, with just a bit of talent and no luck, could only bend the knee to the right master.

From the looks of it, joining the flourishing Ironblood clan would propel her to heights she had never even hoped for before.

Maybe being the first to join would even let her benefit even more from it!

Lost in her contemplations, she didn't even notice when Space Energy enveloped Tia and teleported her away.

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Lana took a deep breath as she watched the Patriarch walk through a sea of ​​corpses for the third time.

He always left dead bodies in his wake, which went against everything the Temple of Light believed in. But that was sort of his purpose, wasn't it? When a Herald of Light walked the world, death followed.

The Soul Machinist had cried hypocrisy, but it didn't faze her.

Lana trusted the Goddess of Light with all her soul.

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As Aaron descended the pyramid, he extended his hand at the still floating Sky Splitter Sword. Alys quickly brought it down to his hands.

He estimated the quality of the Arcane Energy in the sword to be around Champion level. From what he had heard, that sword was too powerful for that kingdom, worthy of Imperial Clans.

That, of course, if it weren't for the three huge flaws that Aaron felt in it.

First, it required a level seven Arcanist, a Master, to display all of its power, despite the item being only capable of releasing attacks at the Champion level.

Second, using it caused enormous stress to the body. With his current Three Star level, he could only use the sword to launch a single attack equivalent to the Five Star level, and then he would pass out.

Third and worst of all, the sword would break after two uses if its wielder wasn't a Grandmaster at least!

There was only one assessment he could give for that sword: absolute trash.

Everything he had found in that kingdom was rubbish. The enchantments he had seen left objects full of exploitable weaknesses. Thus, he had elected to use common weapons and clothing instead of magic items.

But though the Sky Splitter Sword was useless, it was exactly what he needed to test the Heavenly Skill Check Item for the first time. He hadn't heard of such a skill in the Market, maybe because it was so basic, but Alys had commented on it while talking about golems.

'Check Item,' he thought, and a black tooltip appeared above the sword.

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[Sky Splitter Sword]

Quality: Pinnacle Mystic

Effects: -

Skills:

1. Split the Skies

Produces a blade of Arcane Energy and shoot it at any visible target.

The blade will chase the target no matter how far away it is or how it tries to dodge.

May it split the very heavens!

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Surprisingly, the Check Item skill was extremely useful for him. He couldn't use Qi outside his body, so he had no way of analyzing artifacts in detail.

His energy sensibility let him determine the power of an artifact, its most glaring weaknesses, and its general use, but he couldn't analyze items' inner magical formations to find out exactly what they did. Unless he used the sword, he couldn't have found out it released energy in a blade shape, or that it pursued its target.

The Check Item skill covered that shortcoming. The convenience of the Check Item and Check Level skills also explained why no one improved on their energy sensitivity in the kingdom. Probably only a few specialized classes cared about it at all.

Happy with his findings, he looked at the spot where Tia had been an instant before. He didn't know where she had gone or why she left the group right after helping them, but it didn't matter. He considered their relationship over, with no debt or favor owed from either side.

When he reached the ground, he stored the sword in his spatial ring, then turned to face the pyramid. "What the hell is this?" He gestured at the Arcane construct.

"It is a simple tactical pattern, Patriarch," explained Alys, using the local name for magical formations. "The leaders stay on the summit, in a privileged position to control the flow of the battle, surrounded by allies who are there to protect them."

"This is incredibly stupid. Anyone can attack the leaders from down here."

"In most cases, this pattern is used with others. I don't know why the Soul Machinist didn't use them."

Aaron frowned and checked the Soul Machinist's spatial ring, which he had already stored into his own ring.

To take any object out of a storage object, he only needed to focus on what he already knew was there. But he didn't know what the Soul Machinist's ring held and had to investigate.

Checking a spatial ring's inner space was like teleporting his mind into a white room full of floating items. Aaron could move his vision or the objects around just by willing it. The ring was full of stuff, including what he was looking for, two identical formation plates.

Formation plates were portable objects, usually metal discs, with formations inscribed on them. They were activated by pushing the right energy of the right level into them; it depended on what the formation had been created to expect. Qi was obviously out of the equation because it couldn't leave the body.

Aaron analyzed the formations on the discs' surfaces. They were simple ones, capable of creating an Arcane Energy shield just like the door he had destroyed when he entered the room. Looking at the door, he noticed a slight relief on the dirt floor.

He went over there, dug it with his foot, and found a broken disc there. When he had destroyed the door, the rebound had also destroyed the formation plate that was maintaining it. That was a shame. Formation plates were valuable, and he never said no to spoils of war.

Speaking of valuables, he was still feeling upset at the Mouth-Man. The beast had had the last laugh after all.

Some beasts had innate storage organs in their bodies. The Mouth-Man had produced his ax out of thin air, and Aaron had found no spatial storage object with the beast, so he had a storage organ. Such organs were extremely, extremely valuable because their spatial spaces were as stable as only Lesser Pinnacle spatial rings could be in this world.

However, they were physical, biological organs that had to be properly preserved. The Mouth-Man's organ had decomposed because of his skill. It had spewed out no item either. Whatever good stuff the Mouth-Man might have had, the king had stolen long ago.

Luckily, the Soul Machinist had done his best to make up for it!

'Check Item!' Aaron thought while looking at one of the deceased Two Star Golems.

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[Stone Golem | No Soul]

Quality: Greater Mortal

Effects:

1. +2 Earth Elemental Energy to embedded soul

Skills: -

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When a golem had no soul inside, the Check Item skill worked on it, contrary to what Alys had said that normally happened with functioning golems. He also checked the Three Star Golems. They were Pinnacle Mortal golems and provided a bonus of three points to Earth Elemental Energy.

The hundreds of golems were a treasure trove that he started to store away. Along with the Soul Machinist's spatial ring and its contents, he had gained quite the wealth.

"Patriarch," said Alys, "I don't understand one thing about the battle. What if the Soul Machinist had helped the Mouth-Man?"

Aaron didn't stop with his plundering to answer. "From the moment we put Plan C in motion, and thus surrounded the Mouth-Man with spatial blades, he could only die. The Soul Machinist's help wouldn't have been enough to beat you and Lana together if all he had were golems, so the spatial blades would remain in place until the Mouth-Man ran out of energy and I killed him.

"If the Machinist had some ace up his sleeve to kill you quickly or destroy your spatial blades, which is likely, the Mouth-Man would have been free to attack you and Lana while I went after the Machinist, else his army of golems would slowly grind us down. The battles would be chaotic and there's no way to predict with precision what would've happened, but I believe that the Mouth-Man would most likely flee, and I would kill the Soul Machinist. The Mouth-Man's escape would be a shame, but it isn't always possible to eliminate all your enemies when you want to. As for you two, your survival would've depended on you. I'm your Patriarch, but there are battles that you must fight for yourselves, never forget that."

Aaron found the formation plate that created the Arcane pyramid and looted it too. Unlike the standalone Arcane door's plate, which could fuel itself with energy taken from the environment, the pyramid plate was beside two Arcane crystals. Arcane crystals held Arcane Energy and were worth good money. He had really profited this time!

After properly plundering the whole place, he asked Lana to heal him. As soon as she was finished, they turned toward the door to leave.

That was when a group of five armored people entered the room.

One of them wore imposing red metal armor from head to toe — nothing less than a Greater Mystic armor! — and as soon as he entered, he immediately pointed at Aaron.

"What did you criminals do to the young maiden you kidnaped?!" he shouted.

Behind the five, a sixth person appeared, one of the two whom Aaron had heard following him from the first day in the caves. He wore black metal armor with inlaid green gems that shone and exuded Nature Energy. The man was a Five Star Naturamancer.

His helmet was open, revealing a familiar face:

Logan Seccos.