After weighing both options, he chose to head to the kingdom's capital.

He had trained twice before reaching the Red City and twice after leaving it. But one of the times after the city was where he had found the cubs. In that direction, there was only the possibility of finding one more bud, while before the city, he had two chances.

Furthermore, the Master Thunder Elementalist bird they had found proved that the Red Forest was dangerous. Alys was still unconscious and Lana was mentally unstable. He couldn't take them toward more danger, nor did he want them out of his sight. For those same reasons, he couldn't camp in the forest to cultivate once more and get himself a new sprout. Even Red City only felt safe because of the number of people, but if the bird attacked, no one in there would've been able to defend against it. It was best to leave the forest as soon as possible.

Finally, even if he ended up finding no sprouts, the Sorcerer's words were the final confirmation he needed that the buds were a side effect of his cultivation. After arriving in the capital and ensuring the safety of the two members of his clan, he could simply train again and harvest the bud that emerged.

For now, it was time to check up on Alys using his new energy.

Arcane Sensory Arts: Precise Analysis!

Arcane Energy left his body and covered the woman. It gently entered her body, spirit, soul, mind, and heart. Her soul tried to resist at first, but it was still damaged and failed on doing so. When Aaron's energy did nothing hostile, it stopped trying.

Alys' body was in perfect condition. Her spirit was healthy. Her soul had some fractures and was weakened, but it was already recovering. It was in her mind and heart where things were complicated.

The Sorceress's mind was in metaphorical tatters. The repeated tortures she had suffered, first from Logan's attack, then from the elementals feast, had devastated her. And the primary cause was her heart.

Alys was decisive when it came to making decisions, like when she had decided to learn from him instead of being paid, but she was ultimately weak-willed when it came to facing hardships. Her willpower attribute had reached level four when she leveled up but had not yet consolidated. Her heart had succumbed under the second torture and once that had happened, it had left her mind unprotected. It had almost shattered from the trauma.

She had almost died from it. She could still die.

Aaron could not heal her directly, for One Star Arcane Energy could not directly affect the soul, mind, or heart of others. Even at the Two Stars level, it could only affect the soul, not the mind.

But he could help her indirectly.

First, Aaron changed his aura to give out feelings of hope, stability, and encouragement. Then he filled her soul with even more of his Arcane Energy. Mind and heart did not have a fixed location, they could only be felt at random locations in the soul. By filling her entire soul, he made sure it would affect them.

Then he hugged her energetically. His energy conveyed comfort, affection, and care. "Everything is going be alright," the energy seemed to whisper. He was there for Alys.

The effect was immediate. Her confused mind relaxed, and her heart seemed to feel that maybe it should fight for her. It wasn't instant healing, but with time, it would bring her back.

Aaron would keep both his aura like that and his energy within her permanently from now on.

He needed a third of his Arcane Energy to comfort Alys. Thankfully, just like the half he used in his active perception, this skill was also raw energy. He could withdraw it from Alys and reuse it in some other skill if needed.

Lana soon fell asleep again, and he placed her beside Alys. Then he read the letter from the Arcane Circle.

"The Arcane Circle, by the grace of the Goddess of Light, has three responsibilities and three privileges, all officially recognized in the Capital of Light in the World, the Thenor Empire.

Responsibilities:

1. Identifying and investigating the enemies of the Thenor Empire

2. Identifying and investigating the enemies of the Temple of Light

3. Identifying and investigating the enemies of the Arcane Circle

Privileges:

1. Investigating the members of the Temple of Light

2. Investigating any Third-Class Imperial Citizen or lower

3. Punishing enemies

Under my orders, at the behest of the Goddess of Lights, inside the Kingdom of Illyria, these rights and duties now fall on the Herald of Light, Aaron Ironblood.

-- Lars Manor, Arcane Master, Guardian of the Light of the World."

Aaron concluded the Arcane Circle was officially just a police arm of the Goddess. He had known that the Circle also dabbled in trade and took Sorcerers under their wings, but apparently, that was just something they did on the side.

The way the letter presented the rights and duties was interesting.

Theoretically, he needed to identify and investigate enemies, but he had no responsibility to inform anyone when he did so. He wasn't under anyone's rule. He owed no one an explanation. He could not do his job, and no one would know it.

The term "enemy" itself was also broad and vague. The letter didn't specify what defined one as such. Thus, as far as he understood it, if he said someone was an enemy, they were an enemy, the end. If he said they weren't, then they weren't.

Interestingly, punishing enemies was a privilege and not a responsibility. It was up to him to decide whether to do it. Since he could basically investigate anyone, he had free passage wherever he wanted in the kingdom and the privilege of eliminating them at will.

The Arcane Circle obeyed the Goddess of Light, who certainly had internal rules about it all. But he didn't give a damn about what she said.

The politics in all of this was complex. The Arcane Circle had been powerful in the Kingdom of Illyria, but it hadn't been free to do whatever it wanted. For instance, the king had ordered that any traveler be searched in the police blitz through which the Fire Wolves had passed. The captain of the Royal Guard hadn't cared that Alys had been from the Arcane Circle.

Just as the Arcane Circle could identify and eliminate enemies, other official forces could probably do the same against the Circle. This ended up balancing everyone involved in an eternal political tug of war.

That was one of the oldest tricks in the book for rulers. Let your subordinates fight each other so they won't fight against you for your power. Meanwhile, the emperor's position was kept unshakeable.

That wasn't a bad thing for Aaron. He was too far from the emperor — politically, geographically, and power-wise — for it to matter to him. Here, he had gained local political power without having to do anything though. He had practically carte blanche to do whatever he wanted in the Kingdom of Illyria.

At least officially.

Blackmail, intimidation, and murder in the dead of night were common in the political game. The more he flexed his power, the more likely it would be for others to come for him.

Anyway, he had to admit that the Goddess of Light had not acted against his interests until now. She had given Lana to him, made him some kind of messiah to her people if their reactions to him were any sign, and now had given him political power.

He had asked for none of that though. Well, the Herald of Light title had come as a way to appease his suspicions, but he hadn't asked for it specifically. So, she would probably not fight over him for what he would actually ask of her right now.

"Goddess of Light," he whispered, "I appreciate the gift. You are now under my good graces. To move our relationship even further, to allow us to cement an official alliance, I ask you for one thing only: renounce your claim to Lana completely. Starting by removing her class."

There was no answer, but he didn't expect one. His mind couldn't be invaded, thus the goddess couldn't address him directly. Perhaps when Lana woke up, she would bring some news from the entity.

But now, it was late, and he hadn't slept last night.

Arcane Sensory Arts: Triple Condensed Perception!

Not even he could pay attention to everything happening five hundred yards around him in his sleep. So, he condensed all the Arcane Energy of his active perception spell into three hollow spheres. One surrounded the inner space of the room, another the room itself, and another a radius of fifty yards around the room.

The furthest sphere would only detect powerful death auras or beings that were not hiding their hostility towards Aaron. The one in the middle would detect any cultivator who invaded. And the closest would detect anyone or anything at all that passed through it.

Each time any of these conditions were met, Aaron would feel it. It would then take him to a half-asleep state to analyze the threat. His analysis would lead him to either waking up or going back to sleep. Moreover, even sleeping, he could still hear anything in or around the room, and pure habit would also determine if he would wake up.

Tonight, he wouldn't depend on others to have his back.

Tonight, only his own competence and that of the enemy mattered. If he died in his sleep, he would die knowing that there was nothing he could have done differently. Except staying awake, of course. But knowing how to balance action and rest was also important to avoid future mistakes.

The feeling of slightly more control over his life relaxed him and once again, he felt confident in having made the right choice in cultivating Arcane Energy, no matter how slow it might make his future cultivation.

Aaron slept well for the first time since arriving in Liech.

In Ardom, the Imperial Capital, only the emperor could sit on a throne.

At the beginning of the Thenor Empire, no clan dared to have even chairs in their audience chambers. Gradually, small cushions sneaked their way into the rooms, to be eventually replaced by increasingly larger cushions, then by increasingly refined stools, until reaching the chairs of today.

Nowadays, the Leader Chair in the audience chambers of all Imperial Clan was richly adorned. They had no arms though, and all clans argued that it was proof enough of them having no thrones.

In the Sapphire Audience Hall of the Mystic Prism Clan, a young adult woman with red hair and blue eyes, wearing a dirty gray cloak, was prostrating herself before the Prismatic Chair of the Sapphire Leader. The seat was as empty as it had been for the past three days.

But today, the Sapphire Heptarch came.

He had long snow-white hair but appeared to be no more than thirty. His skin and the clothes and pelts he wore were also snow-white. His hair was tied in a more beautiful and intricate ponytail than that of the kneeling girl. A touch of black mascara in his eyes made his blue eyes even more prominent, the only contrasting color in his looks.

His body was packed with muscles, and he walked like someone who was powerful and knew it. The hall was large enough for around three hundred people to attend comfortably, yet he seemed to fill the entire place with his presence.

He passed the kneeling girl without even looking in her direction and climbed the steps to the only chair in the room. It was made of silver, with a feather pillow of Subtle Cloud Flamingos on the seat, and a single sapphire the size of a fist encrusted on top.

The Sapphire Father sat with his legs spread wide and his body leaning forward. His arms rested on his legs and his hands intertwined in front of him.

Finally, he looked at his damned daughter who had been holding the official position of the Sapphire Daughter of the Mystic Prism Clan against his wishes.

Why didn't she understand that a girl birthed from a concubine who had fallen from grace should just go die in a dark corner? He already had seven daughters from his new favorite waiting for the position that this stupid girl held.

Not even forbidding her to level up had worked. The daily humiliation directed at her should have made her disobey him and cultivate even a little, which would give him a reason to remove her position or kill her. But she had resisted.

When that failed, he used a lot of his political capital to facilitate her escape and prevent her from being located by the other Prismatic Families, who were still searching for her even today. Yet, she had refused to die out there despite her low level.

Now, she returned with tales of imminent danger from a border kingdom somewhere, the name of which he had never even heard.

He had ordered her to prostrate herself for three days as a punishment for telling her father lies. The goal, again, was to be disobeyed. She hadn't moved an inch since.

But this time, he had another plan built into the first. Today, he would end this.

She was just a One Star Qi Manipulator. Going three days without eating or drinking was no guarantee of death, but it could happen.

It would happen.

The other Families of the Mystic Prism Clan would investigate, but the Clan Leader herself had agreed to look the other way this time. Even she concurred that the Sapphire Daughter should have left the position for the sake of the clan.

"Daughter," he said, "raise your head."

She did.

Her eyes were empty, her body weak. That was good, it would give credibility to his words. Satisfied, he pulled Time Energy from his dantian to use a spell that would stop her heart and kill her in an almost untraceable way.

Then the doors of the hall opened and an Imperial Protector entered.

"The emperor demands the immediate presence of Tatiana san Lind-Sanlere, the Sapphire Daughter of the Mystic Prism Clan," he bellowed. "The resistance of others will be punished by death. The Sapphire Daughter's resistance will be punished by non-lethal dismemberment."

He wore the originally white metal armor the empire's elite troops used in wars. The more they killed people of the same level as or stronger than them, the redder their armor became.

The Protector's armor was crimson and the sword he wielded was dripping blood.