Chapter 191: Chapter 191

Zephyr sat calmly in front of Lytheron, as though they’d not been in a fight just a few minutes ago.

Because of the clause, he wasn’t fearful of the elf in the slightest any longer, all traces of his previous wariness fully disappeared.

Zephyr raised a brow, crossing his arms in silent expectancy for Lytheron to start.

The elf took a deep breath and started immediately. "The Will of Origin is still tied directly to the history of spell logic itself. So to understand it, I need to explain this history to you."

Zephyr let the elf continue.

"Well... after Mother Aurelis sealed Drasil from every other world, she had purged Drasil of every single foreign blood, but the damage had been done. Humans and other races — in particular, dragonkin, demons, orcs, dwarfs and titans — had gained acknowledgement from origin, giving the new path they had stolen, reality.

"The offsprings born of these people who had stolen and embedded cores into themselves, were fully of their own blood and race, without any elven features, but now with naturally occurring mana cores," Lytheron narrated without any inflection to his tone.

"They had practically created a new species of themselves, and yet origin had allowed it."

"Well, you said that was how it worked back then right?" Zephyr shrugged. Not that he agreed with the methods of the ancient humans and other races, but Lytheron had been subtly emphasizing that it was they, the elves, that had created this path in the first place, and all others were thieves.

It could be thought of in that way, yes. But he simply wanted the elf to know that he was aware of what he was doing.

Zephyr would get to decide how to feel about these ancient figures, not someone else coloring his opinion so blatantly!

The elf cleared his throat, getting Zephyr’s meaning. But he continued unabashedly, "...They kept a closely knit relationship between themselves — all six races that had found this secret knowledge. And to prevent a similar scenario of what they’d done from happening to them, they restricted access to their worlds from other races that were not of their alliance."

Knowledge gatekeeping... Not surprising, Aegis suddenly chipped in. The classic move.

’Yeah, probably to prevent another ’Algernon’ situation from happening,’ Zephyr sent his thoughts back.

At that point they must have realized that someone would surely surpass them if all worlds were to know of the new method.

’It’s still kinda low though,’ Zephyr scoffed lightly, ’but yeah, I guess to maintain power, they had to create that gap themselves.’

He returned his attention back to Lytheron who still continued without pause.

"But since they could at least pass knowledge amongst themselves, their rate of development wasn’t as limited as Drasil’s," he said with a resigned expression. "It was just as straightforward as that. Mother Aurelis became the first Tier 7 Lawbearer on Drasil and any other world, and she remained so for years. But the next Lawbearer didn’t come from us elves. It came from humans."

"That was the era I came from," he looked down at his hands, "That same peak which Mother Aurelis reached, which made her a legend, was easily reached by humans, and then dragonkin, demons, and the like... even we elves found it easier after that. In my era, I myself also reached Tier 7 relatively easily — it was not as though it was a smooth journey, but compared to Mother Aurelis who toiled all her life to forge that next path to Tier 7, we who already had the pathway found it much easier..." he sighed.

"Why was it so difficult in the first place?" Zephyr asked curiously. "What is so different about moving to Tier 7 that made it take that long before anyone did...?"

Lytheron looked back up at Zephyr, raising a brow as he did, "This does not concern you yet. Matters of a Lawbearer’s progression are beyond your comprehension at your level," he shook his head, "it will only serve to confuse you. You should focus on the present for now..." Follow current novels on novel-fire.net

"Well, that’s for me to decide, no?" Zephyr shot back. He knew what he was asking had nothing to do with the Will of Origin he needed clarity on. But he was curious about it.

"I know it has something to do with bending reality—"

"That much is to be expected," Lytheron shrugged, waving Zephyr off. "The modern era is sure to have more Lawbearers on Astralis now than it did during mine, so you should already know that—"

"I already know it involves creating a construct—"

Lytheron remained unconvinced.

"I know flaws can be found in them—"

Lytheron frowned slightly. That seemed to have gotten his attention.

He stared at Zephyr more intently. "How do you know this, yet still do not have more commonly known knowledge? You have been in a render?" He asked, genuinely surprised.

"Heh, so it is really called a render," he muttered softly to himself.

"Yes. I have been in a render before," he sat a bit straighter in pride, "and I escaped through a flaw... or a bug...? I don’t know the official term..."

"You most definitely did not escape a Lawbearer’s render." Lytheron chortled matter-of-factly, bursting out laughing like he’d just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world.

Zephyr wasn’t offended though, he simply watched the elf with a flat, lazy smile playing at the edge of his lip, waiting for him to finish laughing his ass off.

Lytheron’s laughter soon subsided. He rubbed the tears in his eyes, repeating Zephyr’s words again like it was the funniest thing ever.

Yet all the while, Zephyr’s lazy smile still remained. The elf stared at him, still chuckling, but eventually started to frown after Zephyr didn’t flinch a bit.

"You truly escaped a Lawbearer’s render...?" he whispered softly as though he was speaking blasphemy.

"I, along with some others, had been saved by a Lawbearer’s construct as the Grade 9 rift world we were was being destroyed—"

"Hold—" Lytheron interrupted with a fist held up.

He had an incredulous look on his face. "There are Grade 9 worlds now?!!"

"Uhh... yeah?" Zephyr was taken aback by Lytheron’s outburst. Were there no Grade 9 worlds when he lived?

"A grade 9 world?! Tell me, what lives there? Plankton?! Ants?! Does the strongest entity there even register as a visible speck of dust?!"

"Y’know, there were actually ant monsters there..." Zephyr mumbled somewhat amused.

"Ants." Lytheron repeated like Zephyr was messing with him.

"Well, along with some other creatures too... Also, they weren’t as weak as you think. I almost died to one of those ant— no, Skarnids!"

Lytheron swallowed the next words he was about to say and stared at Zephyr with a look that encapsulated disappointment to an absolute.

Even Zephyr became uncomfortable, feeling like he’d brought shame to his ancestors and they were roiling in their graves wherever they were.

"You were almost killed by an ant..." Lytheron looked Zephyr up and down again, like he was seriously rethinking his choice of a Scion.

Zephyr felt affronted. He wanted to raise a justification in retort, but he held his tongue since he didn’t want to reveal how weak he was at that point.

It would only draw questions Zephyr wasn’t willing to answer yet.

He cleared his throat lightly and quickly continued his retelling so as to move on.

"Basically, the world was dying and the Lawbearer helped us cross the void in their render."

"Let me correct you there," Lytheron interrupted again. "If it was truly a Grade 9 world you escaped from, then the possibility of this ’saviour’ of yours being a Lawbearer is even slimmer.

Zephyr’s forehead creased slightly, "But she made a render..."

"On a world that weak, you don’t need to be a Lawbearer to make a render. A decently powerful awakened can impress a render on such a weak world even without the necessary requirements," Lytheron shook his head in a scoff. "In fact, so long as you are at the peak of Tier 6 GrandMaster, then you should be able to make a small render even in a..." he paused for a moment, weighing his words, "...Grade 7, and potentially Grade 6 world... if you’re talented enough and have an extensively detailed understanding of the render you want to create."

’Oh...?’ Zephyr mused silently. This was new information to him. In fact it changes the whole view he had of Grand Commander Regina.

’So she most likely wasn’t a Lawbearer at all...’

That must be why her render had been so easy to break through,Aegis added. I previously thought it was an optimization attempt on her part, like she had been using Level of Detail (LOD) techniques by drastically lowering the texture resolution and poly count in areas the inhabitants weren’t meant to inspect too closely... but now it seems it was just a skill issue.

’Okay... I don’t know what that means right now, but I think I get your drift. She was not powerful enough to prevent such an obvious glitch.’

Zephyr returned his attention to Lytheron, "So, I take it that the higher the grade of the world, the harder it is for a non-Lawbearer to try rendering a construct?"

"Precisely," Lytheron nodded, looking at Zephyr with an ’I told you so’ look. The elf had been genuinely taken aback when Zephyr had said he escaped a Lawbearer’s render.

Zephyr noticed the look and shrugged, "Well, it’s not like I had a reference to know she was not a true Lawbearer... and also, you’re still being tight-lipped about the main thing. I know this much already, so just tell me what Lawbearers fully entail," he urged Lytheron with an exasperated voice.

Lytheron considered it for a few seconds then shaking his head in resignation, huffed. "I hope you’re not a daredevil... because if you are, and you try this before your evolve to the required stage..."

"...well, your body will be mine for the taking, so why do I bother myself," he waved a hand dismissively, smacking it on his thigh with a clap.

"So you want to know how to become a Lawbearer?"