Chapter 117: Mission 1
A question had been gnawing at Rhys. It was a simple question, but the answer felt vast and dangerous.
He had been so busy surviving, fighting, and building that he had never stopped to truly ask it.
He had accepted the power he was given without looking too closely at the hand that gave it. Or was it true? About the hand gave him the strength?
What is the System?
He sat on the cold stone floor of his small room in the outer disciple dormitories of the Azure Sky Palace.
The first month of his new life as a disciple had passed in a blur of routine. He attended the boring lectures, went through the simple drills, and ate the bland food.
He was just a number, another face in the crowd. This quiet, unremarkable life gave him something he had not had in a long time: the time to think.
And the more he thought, the more the question burned in his mind.
He had always assumed the System was a separate being, a powerful and all-knowing entity that had chosen him for some unknown reason.
He believed it was helping him on its own, that its knowledge of the world was complete.
It was a comforting thought. It meant he was not alone.
But the events in the Azure Province, his home, had shattered that belief.
The System had been blind to Kaelen’s true nature. It could not analyze Seduction.
Its knowledge was not limitless. It had holes, big ones.
He should have started to doubt it earlier, but the sudden and massive increase in his own power had made him arrogant.
It had blurred his reasoning. He had been so focused on using the tool that he had never stopped to look at the tool itself.
The System needs his lifespan to work.
That was the core of it. He had always known this, but he had never truly understood what it meant.
The System was not an independent power source. It was a machine, and he was its fuel.
Without him, without his infinite lifespan to burn, it was just a silent, useless thing.
It could not analyze, it could not create skills, it could not evolve his cores.
It could do nothing.
If that was the case, then a new, more difficult question appeared.
If the System used his infinite lifespan as fuel, why was its knowledge limited?
He had an endless supply of energy to give it. Even if the System burned trillions of years of his lifespan to gather information, it would be nothing to him.
So why was its knowledge limited to the mortal world they were in?
Why could it not tell him about the higher realms, about the true nature of gods and Chaos?
The excuse that it was "limited to the current world" no longer made sense.
A limit implies a cost that cannot be paid. But for him, there was no cost.
He could pay any price.
So why the limit?
Rhys closed his eyes, his mind replaying every single time the System had analyzed something for him by burning his lifespan.
He thought about the moment he had perfected the Spark Fist, the moment he had learned the principles of formations from Elder Solon’s scrolls, the moment he had created the Void-Tainted Shadow.
He focused on the feeling of that new knowledge entering his mind. And he realized something that sent a cold chill down his spine.
It never felt like a foreign memory being added to his brain. It never felt like someone was downloading information into his head.
It felt... familiar. It felt like he was remembering something he already knew, something that was buried deep within him, covered in a thick fog.
The burning of his lifespan was not the price to acquire knowledge. It was the price to unlock it.
The knowledge was not coming from the System. It was coming from him.
The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. The System was not a helpful guide. It was a key.
A very advanced, very powerful key that was unlocking a library that already existed inside his own soul.
But who had built that library? Who had filled it with such impossible knowledge?
His mother? His father? Some long-dead ancestor?
And why was it locked away?
Rhys knew, with an absolute certainty that settled deep in his bones, that the System was hiding something from him.
Something fundamental about its own purpose, and about his own true nature.
"...and that is all for the introductory principles of Qi circulation," the voice of the elder droned on, pulling Rhys from his deep thoughts.
The lecture was over. Rhys looked around. He had no idea what the elder’s name was or what he had been talking about for the past two hours.
He had been so lost in his own mind that the entire class had passed in a blur.
The other disciples began to stand up, stretching and talking loudly as they filed out of the massive lecture hall.
Rhys waited until most of them had left, not wanting to get caught in the crowd.
He stood up and walked out of the hall, his face the same calm, unremarkable mask he wore every day.
The schedule for the day listed a practical combat class next. For the other disciples, it was a mandatory part of their training.
But Rhys had no interest in practicing basic sword swings against training puppets.
It was a waste of his time.
He needed to be out in the real world, hunting real monsters, earning the Contribution Points that would be his ticket to the inner sect.
He turned away from the stream of disciples heading towards the training grounds and walked in the opposite direction, towards the Mission Hall.
The Mission Hall was one of the largest caverns in the outer sect. It was a vast, circular space, its high ceiling lost in shadow.
The curved walls were covered from floor to ceiling with thousands of small, wooden tablets, each one detailing a mission available to the sect’s disciples.
The hall was a hive of activity, filled with the loud voices of disciples forming teams, haggling over rewards, and boasting about their past successes.
Rhys ignored the noise. He walked to the section of the wall reserved for Outer Disciples.
The missions here were simple, and the rewards were low. He scanned the tablets, his eyes passing over the mundane tasks that made up the life of a new recruit.
Mission: Collect 20 Fire-Ant Mandibles.
Location: The Ashen Hills.
Difficulty: Low.
Reward: 1 Contribution Point per 10 mandibles.
Mission: Patrol the Western Mines.
Location: The sect’s iron mines.
Difficulty: Low.
Reward: 10 Contribution Points per week.
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* *
These were the safe, predictable missions that most disciples took. They were a slow and steady way to earn points and resources.
Rhys was looking for something else. He was looking for something that would get him far away from the sect, far away from the watchful eyes of the elders.
He found it on a small, dusty tablet in a forgotten corner of the board. It looked like it had been there for a long time, ignored by everyone else.
Mission
: Noble Escort.Client: Her Highness, Princess Emma of the Fallen House of Lyra.
Task: Act as a personal guard for the princess on a journey through the Glimmerwood Forest to the ruins of her ancestral home on the border of the Unclaimed Territories.
Difficulty: Unknown.
Reward: 200 Contribution Points and 1000 high-grade spirit stones.
Rhys’s eyes narrowed. The reward was absurdly high for an outer disciple mission.
Two hundred points was a fifth of what he needed to even be considered for the inner sect.
And a thousand high-grade spirit stones was a fortune that could support a small noble family for a year.
The high pay was a clear sign of high danger.
The Fallen House of Lyra. He had read about them in the sect’s library.
They had once been a powerful and respected noble family, but they had been destroyed in a war against a rival house a century ago. Their lands had been lost, their wealth plundered.
The name "Princess" was just a courtesy title now, a sad reminder of a forgotten glory.
No one had taken this mission. The other disciples were not stupid.
A high reward for a simple escort mission meant one of two things: either the client was impossible to deal with, or the journey was a suicide run.
The words "Unclaimed Territories" were a clear warning. No sane disciple would go near that place.
Rhys walked to the counter where a bored-looking elder sat, stamping mission scrolls.
"I will take the Noble Escort mission," Rhys said, handing over his iron disciple token.
The elder looked up, a flicker of surprise in his old, tired eyes. He looked at Rhys’s plain face, then at the dusty mission tablet.
"That one?" the elder asked, raising an eyebrow.
"That mission has been on the board for three months, boy. Every disciple who has looked at it has been smart enough to walk away. The last team that tried to escort a researcher to the edge of the Glimmerwood never came back."
"I am aware of the risks, Elder," Rhys said calmly.
The elder sighed, a long, weary sound.
"You have a strong foundation, boy. I saw your results from the trial. It would be a waste for you to die in that cursed forest. Take a simpler mission. Hunt some beasts. It’s slower, but you’ll live longer."
"I am confident in my abilities, Elder," Rhys said, his voice firm but polite.
The elder looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged.
"As you wish. A strong will is a good thing, but arrogance is a quick path to a shallow grave. Don’t say I didn’t warn you."
He took Rhys’s token and stamped it with a heavy, final-sounding thud. He handed Rhys a sealed mission scroll.
"The client is waiting at the Whispering Willow Inn in Sky’s Edge. Go there and present this scroll. And try not to die."
Somehow, Rhys never sensed any true sincerity in the elder’s words. There was melancholy in his voice, yes, but it felt... unnatural.
It reminded Rhys of Sera, unhappily tearing up when she realized she had accidentally mutilated the rabbit she’d caught—ruining it beyond eating.
Rhys took the scroll and gave a respectful bow. He walked out of the Mission Hall, ignoring the curious looks of the other disciples.