Chapter 18

Serilla brought Keith to Cadata’s largest military base, Fort Hellsing. Teleportation was restricted here, so they had to walk in from outside. As they approached the entrance, one of the guards stationed there moved to stop them, but before he could say anything, Serilla flashed a diamond badge. Startled, the guard stepped back and made a signal to his companions, who then opened the gate leading into Fort Hellsing.

Keith followed his Aunt in, observing the guard as he passed. The standard-issue armor worn by the military sported a sleek silver design and was as imposing as it was stylish. Keith approved.

Upon entering the compound, Keith immediately noticed the placement of the buildings was disorderly and wasted a lot of space. Serilla seemed to know Keith’s puzzlement and answered, “An underground array spans across the entire base. The buildings sit above important nodes.”

“No wonder.” Keith nodded, vaguely understanding that nodes served a critical function in arrays.

Switching his attention to the people, Keith found he had to adjust his understanding of a military base. Unlike the guards at the entrance, the people inside wore formal military attire, a mix of silver and black. They weren’t soldiers prepared for combat at a moment’s notice but seemed more like office workers in a hurry.

A few minutes later, the two entered what Keith found to be the busiest building on the base, with people continuously entering and leaving with joyful expressions. As the base’s only armory, anyone with military merits could come here to purchase whatever their heart desired. Although Keith had no merit to his name, his Aunt did.

After waiting ten minutes in line, Serilla approached the newly available counter and passed over her diamond badge and the list Keith handed her not too long ago to the clerk. “I want these skills.”

“Ah?” The male clerk, a youth not much older than Keith, blinked his eyes at the badge, then at Serilla. “You are…?”

“The skills,” Serilla repeated coolly.

“Right, sorry, ma’am.” The clerk wiped the non-existent sweat from his forehead and looked over the list. “Um, this will take me a few minutes to get. Please wait.”

When the clerk disappeared to grab the goods, Keith gave his Aunt a thumbs up.

“Hmph.” Serilla raised her chin slightly, satisfied with the clerk’s reaction. Typically she wouldn’t give such interactions a second thought, but now that she was with her nephew, she strangely felt the desire to show off.

A few minutes later, the clerk reappeared carrying a large crate. Placing it on the counter, he slid it over and released a breath. “Everything you want is here, and I already deducted your merits.”

“Thank you,” Serilla replied as she gave Keith a nod.

Putting a hand on the crate, Keith stored it in his inventory. The box contained what he needed to control his orbs and the skills to socket into them. As every orb would likely hold four to five skills each, and because Keith didn’t know how many orbs he could control, he decided to plan long-term and get a whole bunch.

From skills with high mana cost to low mana cost, high cooldown to low cooldown, technical to traditional, debuff to buffs, support to control, he pretty much got skills of every type.

As they walked out of the armory and headed towards the exit, Keith glanced at his Aunt and grinned. “I thought you didn’t like how spoiled I was?”

Serilla looked ahead and replied without any shame. “As long as you’re working to improve yourself, I don’t see a problem.”

“Haha.” Keith gave his Aunt a side hug as they walked. “Well, in any case, thanks for spoiling me. It must have cost a lot.”

“Not really. As a member of the four families, my merit points are infinite. I can get more whenever I want,” Serilla explained.

“Oh. That doesn’t seem right,” Keith suddenly felt awkward. Was the military meant to serve the four families or protect humanity?

Serilla clicked her tongue. “You think I just take whatever I want? I have responsibilities to fulfill for this benefit.”

Keith shuddered at the word ‘responsibility.’ Such a word wasn’t in his vocabulary, what with his Mom giving him whatever he wanted his whole life.

Arriving home a short while later, Keith asked his Aunt a question. “Auntie, why didn’t you believe Zeidrick? I had a famous university teacher lecture at school once, and she made some very reasonable arguments about higher tiers existing.”

Serilla sighed in exhaustion as if she had had this conversation many times before. “That lecturer must’ve believed in the multiple dimensions theory, right?”

“Yeah, she did.” Keith grew excited just thinking about it. “For example, if you pay attention to the words of the skill attached to a teleportation ring, it says ‘create a portal to a previously explored location within the current dimension.’ Why does it say current dimension? The System isn’t known for being vague.”

Serilla countered. “If there are other dimensions like our own, why haven’t we discovered them in all these years?”

“That…” Keith had no response. Before Yara united the warring human tribes, humanity had existed for thousands of years. Surely there’d be signs of other dimensions over all this time?

“Speculating and theorizing is all good and fun, but in the end, I only know that in our world, or dimension as some call it, mythic is the limit, no matter what methods you use.” Serilla paused for a moment. “Level 500 is the limit as well.”

“Does that mean someone is level 500?” Keith gasped in surprise. He knew Uncle Doven was level 442, but each additional level took ages to acquire.

Serilla raised her head to the sky. “Yara and your father have definitely reached level 500, and I’d imagine a few core people in the military have as well.”

“Wow, I’m only level 159 and already feel so powerful, so how strong would someone level 500 be?” Keith’s thoughts went wild as he imagined juggling mountains. “By the way, what level are you?”

Serilla looked back at her nephew. “Level 493.”

“Damn!” Keith clicked his tongue and felt a bit embarrassed. “Was training with me even a warmup for you?”

“Nope, it was like playing with a baby,” Serilla smirked as she glanced at her watch. “I have work to do, so I’ll take my leave.”

Keith watched his Aunt disappear through the teleportation array before heading into the house to regale his sisters of his meeting with Zeidrick. At the same time, he decided to inform them of his family’s true identity, but to his surprise, Annallee and Elora already knew the truth when they turned 18. A bit disappointed that he didn’t get to see their reactions, he went to his room after catching up with his sisters and began sorting through the hundreds of skill gems.

Keith thought about adding them to his Collection Grimoire to see if anything would unlock at the shop but decided against it after figuring he’d need to spend a lot of gold to withdraw them for the orbs. Regardless, thinking of new functions reminded him of what he unlocked yesterday after spending his second paycheck.

Equipment Repair – 1 million CP

Description: Repair the durability of a piece of equipment. Durability repaired and mana cost varies. No cooldown.

Equipment Enhancement – 5 million CP

Description: Temporarily enhance the stats and abilities of a piece of equipment. Enhancement percent, duration, and mana cost vary. No cooldown.

At the time, Keith contacted Adeiv to inquire about the money-making potential of the skills, and according to Adeiv, Equipment Repair was too common, but Equipment Enhancement held promise. Unfortunately, Keith was a few million CP off from purchasing it, so he laid the idea to rest for now.

Sadly, there were no functions related to monster eggs yet. Keith hoped his Grimoire would gain the ability to customize them soon, as the monster egg market was incredibly lucrative. Some people could fuse monster eggs, upgrade their inherited stats, or change their skills, resulting in a more powerful monster pet.

Of the rarer abilities, there was Big Sally, a chef with an innate gift that allowed her to cook monster eggs, or Ska’dur, a barbarian that could absorb monster eggs to gain its traits. In battle, he could morph his body into different monster parts as he pleased.

Keith didn’t mind what unlocked as long as it wasn’t something like Ska’dur’s. Keith was quite satisfied with his current appearance, so turning into a human-monster hybrid didn’t sound all too appealing.