"He denies it!" the man said. "He denies a truth so public it can't be hidden! The Herald of Light is an aristocrat attempting to rewrite history!" He spat at the floor again, which was stupid, considering they were in his store. "That's a new low for the Light."

Aaron's answer was to put another gold coin on the countertop. He had borrowed five total. The man opened his mouth to say something, but Aaron beat him to it. "Don't push your luck. I'm paying you this much because you delivered the news first. But I bet any person on the streets would love to get paid much less to tell me what I want to know."

The salesman closed his mouth and looked from the coins to Aaron and back. Finally, he pocketed the money, and said, "What do you want to know?"

Religion was all nice and good, but the man was a merchant. It was rare to find one who didn't believe in money more than in their god. Both could give him power, but the former was much easier to amass.

"Everything," Aaron replied. "Tell me everything you know about the butchering you talked about."

The man obliged. He needed some prodding here and there, but in the end, he spilled all the beans.

Aaron left the store with a leather bag containing his purchases and a frown.

The tale had been both disturbing and enlightening. The Goddess of Light had acted coy with him, so he had considered her a pushover. Her actions at Illyria made it clear he had been wrong.

She had ordered her followers in the capital to massacre people in her name, and they had obeyed. He had seen how many of the followers of the Light in Red City were closet fanatics, considering even common people prostrated themselves before him. Yet, for a baker to one day just go outside and murder people from a clan because their goddess asked it of him was a bit extreme.

The religious undercurrents of that kingdom, maybe the empire or even the world, ran deeper than he had thought.

And then came the reason the goddess had provided as the reason for the attack: the Herald of Light had declared an irreconcilable enmity between the Guardian Sword clan and himself. One of them had to go, and the Temple of Light would fight for their herald.

It became clearer than ever that the Herald of Light title he had been given was not just for show. People would kill to right the wrongs done to him. He guessed that it was the goddess' way of telling him she hadn't been messing around when she told Lana to obey him in all things. After all, she hadn't given her Temple of Light to him, but they still went to such lengths for him. Lana would go even further.

There was another message there though, one he didn't like one bit. A message of a deep bond between the goddess and Aaron.

No matter the power his herald title might have given him, if he hadn't used it and dropped it later, people wouldn't care much about him. The enemies of the Temple of Light would just let him go. No reason to attack a guy who just passed by.

Now, however, she had tied him inexorably to her. The power he had came with protection from the Temple of Light, but if he were to leave the temple, old allies of the Guardian Sword clan or pissed off enemies of the Light would come for him.

She was forcing him to walk hand to hand with her, and he hated being manipulated only a little less than he hated getting attacked.

"Goddess of Light," he whispered, "I am not amused. You better give me a good explanation about the attack on the Guardian Sword clan, and until you do, my previous offer is off. I do not make alliances with manipulative people."

He then went back to the inn room. He had a ring to crack open before he could even protect himself from a possible attack from a pissed goddess.

Aaron had left Lana in the inn to look after Alys. Despite the risk of Lana going out, a Priestess of Light was relatively safe in any city of the Thenor Empire. It would have surprised him to see any harm come to her in a city filled to the brim with believers in the Light.

To no one's surprise, Lana was not in the room when he returned, nor could he feel her in the surrounding five hundred yards. He would look for her later.

He went to the wooden counter on the wall, took two large glass vials from his bag, and sat on a bench. Then he used Arcane Energy to open the containers and handle the one pound of minerals they contained, powdered silver and liquid mercury. His last preparation was placing his spatial ring on the counter.

Arcane Formation Arts: Momentary Hijack-Overload-Repair Formation!

When he used any skill from his formation arts, he first analyzed the elements already present in the place where the formation was to be drawn. The Wood on the table, the Earth from the very little dust there, the slight Fire from his body heat, the Metal in the counter's screw, and the Water in the air's humidity were analyzed so that the formation would be in perfect harmony with the world and the universe.

Following that, he made minute adjustments to his formation design to take those elements into account. Once he was satisfied with it, he used Arcane Energy to draw the formation with a precision impossible to bare hands.

Aaron used the silver to draw a circle twice the ring's width around the ring, a seven-pointed star around the small circle, a big circle around the star, and lots of arcane symbols inside the big circle. He used the mercury became a small circle just around the ring, three vortexes connecting the smaller circles, arcane symbols through the length of the big circle, just outside it, and a slightly bigger circle surrounding everything.

Soon, he had a formation just a little less complex than the false laser spell from the Goddess of Light. He double-checked it, then inserted almost all his Arcane Energy into it.

The formation started shining from outside in. The biggest circle lit up in silver-white light, followed by the mercury runes. The powered silver was next; the big circle, the runes, the seven-pointed star, and the small circle. The three mercury vortexes lit up slowly, as if the light was struggling to push toward the center. When the light connected to the mercury circle just outside the ring, it instantly lit up, and the entire formation shone bright enough to illuminate the entire room.

Then Arcane Energy poured from Aaron's formation into the ring's spatial formation.

His formation was called temporary hijack-overload-repair formation for good reason. It was temporary because it would destroy the spatial formation once it was done. But first, it hijacked the ring's formation entirely, taking control of its energy flow and how it interacted with the universe.

Aaron could use that to change many formations in any way he wanted, but not a spatial fold formation like that. If he changed things too much, the spatial fold it maintained would burst. So instead, his formation overloaded the spatial formation.

By overloading it with energy, he could brute-force damaged functions into working again. The ring became way too hot, the metal turning red. Aaron kept at it until all the spatial formation's functions were repaired, also fixing things here and there where the energy flow was too warped.

Instants later, it was done. By then, the ring was was white from the heat and risked melting. His formation would help prevent that and also protect the wooden table below to a point.

He focused inside his ring. A moment later, another spatial ring materialized in his hand. He had been storing it inside the first one, and it now contained all his possessions.

Now that there was nothing inside the damaged ring anymore, Aaron willed his link to it to be destroyed. And so it happened. The ring had just become an ownerless artifact.

It was already melting on the very edges despite his formation's protections — it was just a One Star formation after all. The wood on the counter was also blackened, but he doubted the innkeeper would let him pay for that.

He had what he needed, so he stopped his formation, and without its fine control over the internal energies of the ring, they went out of control. There was a tiny explosion inside, like a pressure bubble, and the object distorted into a formless molten metal blob.

The silver and mercury from his formation were blackened too. They had turned into a kind of magical trash coal that was brittle and didn't conduct energy well. It had few uses, none of them interesting.

The difficult part was done, now came the slightly boring part.

Aaron had rings within rings to organize everything he had out of necessity. He would rather have a single ring for everything, but he couldn't find any with a large enough internal space. He would also rather not have to put rings inside rings, but the spatial rings in that realm were pathetic and created a new spatial fold in the person's soul each time the person bound them. Souls were not made for that. If over one spatial fold was inserted on them, they would explode.

Thankfully, as with most things created by weak cultivators, it had an exploitable loophole.

By inserting his mind in each fold before linking a ring to himself, he would create folds within folds and would not strain his soul. It wasn't even a secret, any well-made spatial storage artifact did this automatically, which allowed them to be kept outside.

Aaron had to do that manually though.

Most ownerless artifacts required only a little blood and some willpower to be bound, and the ring was no different. He put it on, made a small cut on a finger, and smeared the blood on the ring while willing it to become his. A moment later, he felt the spatial fold appear in his soul. Then he stored some of his blood into the fold and pushed his mind into it.

He found himself in an empty gray area surrounded by absolute darkness. The area was shaped like a cube fifteen feet to each side, for a little over thirty-three hundred cubic feet total.

There was no gravity there, and his items floated all around him. In there, there were a thousand gold coins, a thousand silver, a thousand copper, five copies of the rogue robes he usually wore, spears, swords, daggers, bows and arrows, clubs, and other weapons, some blood, and another ring. Half of that had been in the destroyed ring, but he had placed it here before taking this ring out.

The other ring had shields of all kinds, plate armor, and another ring. Then came a lot of food and food-related items. And so it went.

He willed the blood and the ring there to come to him, smeared some blood on it, and bound it to him. Then he entered its spatial fold too. Rinse and repeat, he soon had full access to his fortune.

Aaron smiled, glad for his success, no matter how small it was. He took out a rogue suit, a sword, and two daggers for himself. He also removed a black robe from one of the inner rings to dress Alys.

After dressing Alys and himself, he stored his borrowed clothes and jumped out of the window.

It was time to return the clothes and the money with interest, find Lana, question her, and resume his travels.

He found her on the Red City's main street, feeding her club with milk donated by a vendor. Aaron took the chance to also feed the panther, buy some extra food for the journey, and talk to his maid.

"Lana, please stand up and look at me," he said.

She had been caressing the wolf while he ate and obeyed. She put her hands sweetly behind her back and looked playfully at him. "You're not going to propose, are you? I'm waaaay too young for that, you know." She smiled.

"No. I need to ask you another kind of important question. Its answer is of vital importance to me. So vital that I shamelessly ask you to allow me to use a skill on you to verify the truth of your words as you utter them."

Lana wasn't an enemy, she was his maid. He would never use a lie-detection skill on her unless he had her consent or robust evidence of betrayal. Suspicions didn't matter, this was about respect.

Her eyes widened a little before she laughed. "I'm a Priestess of the Light, silly! There shall be no falsehood in thy words, the Light demands. I have a skill myself to let people know I'm talking the truth!"

Aaron didn't trust any skill from the goddess. "Will you allow me then?"

She rolled her eyes and opened her arms. "Yeah, yeah, of course, I do. Du-uh."

He was glad Lana took it so well. It didn't matter how easy it was to her, he still valued her permission highly and wrote that gesture in his heart.

Arcane Sensory Arts: Targeted Lie Detection!

Just like it had happened to the Sorcerer when Aaron used that skill on him, Aaron's Arcane Energy covered Lana in a way that would allow him to monitor her reactions and determine the truth of her words.

"So, answer me truthfully: did you know the Guardian Sword clan was destroyed?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, was it? Wow. Why?"

"Just answer the question, please. Did you know it or did you not?"

"Nooooope. Not even a little." The wolf stopped eating and started jumping on her leg. She took him in her arms.

"What can you tell me about the Herald of Light title?"

"Not much. The public scriptures speak of it being a harbinger of change at the behest of the goddess. Veeeery prestigious thing and all. Look at all this bowing!" She laughed and gestured to the people around who stopped walking, bowed to him, then resumed their journey. "But to Priests, you only have about the same stand as a deacon of a local temple. Not veeery high. You'll get respect from the low-level Priesthood, we need to obey some simple requests you make, but that's all."

Aaron frowned. "That doesn't explain why the Temple of Light would destroy the Guardian Sword clan in my name."

Her eyes shone. "Woooow. Did they? That must have been awesome!" Then she frowned. "Wait a second there! The goddess is love and grace! We aren't supposed to kill heathens without her rightful fury guiding us!" And then she widened her eyes in realization. "Wow! You knew the Guardian Sword clan was evil all along! That's the reason she made you a Herald of Light!" She raised the pup to her face level and started talking in dog-voice to it. "Isn't that right, Tatou?" It seemed she had named the beast. "Huh, huh? Isn't it right? Wasn't the Guardian Sword clan evil? Wasn't it? Huh? Yes. Yes, it was. It waaaaas." The pup barked happily in response.

She hadn't lied. Her conclusion showed how well the Temple of Light had brainwashed her, but the important information was in the words, "public scriptures." There were scriptures he could read to better understand things, and there were also non-public ones that might explain to him what the hell a Herald of Light was.

"A harbinger of change, is it?" he said thoughtfully. Lana didn't hear, her full attention was on the wolf.

Aaron considered having Lana ask the goddess about it, but he chose not to. He didn't want to incentivize her to look for the goddess for help, not when he wanted to make her loyal only to him. He could get that information in other ways.

After the panther finished eating, he put her over the floating Alys and searched for a place to buy or rent a mount. He found none, and they resumed their journey toward Illyria on foot.

The new trip had no surprises. One day after leaving the city, they reached the spot he had trained for the first time inside the Red Forest. Unfortunately, there was no sprout there.

Another day after that, almost by nightfall, they finally left the forest, and they did find something different there.

A military operation was taking place where Aaron had used the Rise to the Heavens cultivation method for the first time. Stone walls surrounded the area and hundreds of men were stationed ready for battle around it. Sandbags and spears were stuck diagonally to the ground were in front of them, protecting them from enemy charges.

As soon as Aaron and Lana left the forest, a rider was dispatched.

She was a Two Star Naturalist and was dressed in a gambeson with the blue and gold of the Kingdom of Illyria. She held no weapon but a white flag instead. She was a messenger.

She stopped ten meters away from Aaron, dismounted, and approached on foot.

"Are you the Herald of Light?" she asked.

"I am," Aaron replied with curiosity.

The message took a scroll from a bag, removed its seal, unrolled it, and read it.

"The King of Illyria, Third Sentinel of the Southwest, Guardian of the Blue Ice Mountain, hundred and forty-third in line for the Imperial Throne, begs for Aaron Ironblood's forgiveness. In return, the king offers:

"The Sky Splitter Sword already in the possession of the Herald of Light;

"The Duchy of Lyr and its corresponding hereditary title, given as sovereign land independent from and recognized by the Kingdom of Illyria;

"A unilateral defense treaty in which the Kingdom of Illyria shall be under the obligation to protect the Duchy of Lyr for one hundred years, even if the Duchy of Lyr is the aggressor in a conflict;

"Exemption from taxes for importing or exporting products or services from or to the Kingdom of Illyria for a hundred years;

"Unconditional open borders between the Kingdom of Illyria to the Duchy of Lyr, for a hundred years, be it for civilian or military troops from the Duchy of Lyr;

"Free passage to the Herald of Light throughout the Kingdom of Illyria, including all royal installations;

"One hundred thousand gold coins a year, to be paid for the first time within one month. Such a period is necessary for the crown to amass this amount, which corresponds to a third of its annual income;

"And the protection of the miraculous plant that was produced by the Herald of Light close to the Red Forest. Said protection is to be carried out by a royal battalion until the Herald of Light commands them to leave the site or removes the plant.

"The aforementioned tribute already belongs to the Herald of Light, regardless of his acceptance of the king's request. Then again, the king also invites the Herald of Light to a conference if he requires anything more to accede to the king's pleas for forgiveness.

"Said conference can be held whenever, wherever, and in any way or form the Herald of Light wishes. If the Herald of Light is interested in it, the king asks the Herald of the Light to send a reply by the messenger who gives him this message. The king's doors will also be always open for meetings at the Herald of Light's convenience.

"So I have spoken, and so it shall be.

"May the Goddess of Light bear testimony to the truth of my words."