The Knight felt that the story had been going on for a while, even Arduo had tried to issue a report during the first week of its stay up here, but the Knight postponed it until later. Nothing says trust like speaking to a spy in the middle of someone's home.
Each Laurel would stand up, regaling the Knight of the parts that they most remembered. It had been a whole eight months since the Knight went to this island.
And by the looks of it, their stories were nowhere near over. The Knight didn't mind one bit, because the information they shared with it was so clear, real, and concise it was mimicking the knowledge only seen in the books in the wisdom series. This was because, they weren't just telling the knight, occasionally, they would give it a few memories because they were there themselves.
They didn't understand much about the void, but in turn, all other things that they understood were crystal clear, as such, the Knight was gaining knowledge levels. It didn't even mind the fact that it was wasting the remaining two years it was supposed to have before the event starts.
The rarity of the information they were sharing was so high that even the Grand Master had only read a smudge of it in the knight Archives, and the Knight was about to learn why all this information was so scarce.
One thing that landed though, is that not only had it found its sword, but it had struck informational gold. At first, the Knight was a bit irritated at receiving Backster's memories, it had no need for them currently. But being confused for Backster by the Laurels made all of them loose lipped, and the Knight wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste.
"More time passed, the assault by the darkness as pressing as ever. They were relentless, as they were mysterious. Today I was having a meeting with the only manifestation that had somehow experiences marginal losses during the purge, the cloud folk.
"I see you are still as determined as ever not to rejoin us; you cloud folk can be quite the problem. If I remember right, the second legendary hero did help you."
Just like us, the cloud folks had retained some imprint that someone had saved them, and that someone was the second legendary hero, but his memory had been wiped clean from their minds. But using the remnants, they understood my context.
"He surely did, but what need do I have for your help now, because of your leadership, the world lost two legendary heroes, I'm afraid you'll just send us to our deaths. And also, cloud folk is such as flimsy set of words, please, I insist, call us god."
"A god capable of fear is no god if you ask me. And if you think you are so worthy of that title, why is it the darkness does not obey your oh so heavenly will."
His face became serious, covered by shadows, the clouds floating around them moved like agitated snakes, "We both know that those things can't be trifled with so easily, regardless, they lack even the ears to hear my divine proclamation."
Our chats led nowhere, eventually all I managed to do was convince them that should they see the darkness coming, even if they don't need our help, it would be prudent to keep us posted on its location, in turn I would check for them if any darkness were close by. No-one wanted a repeat of the cage that took a legendary hero from us.
The clouds swimming around their bodies like fur formed into soft comfy chariots, and more clouds from on above descended, forming a path for which to roll on up into the heavens. I looked at these fools as they rode on wheels that shone of gold, wearing barely any clothes but white linen and a lot of gold.
Like… who do they even think they're impressing, gold is as useless as dirt to us. And why would I give a damn about their chariots, I could fly, and not only that, once again, I was the strongest being alive. We don't consider destroyers to be amongst the living for obvious reasons.
For all their prim and proper demonstrations of power, they had a real spine underneath, so I knew their word at least was as good as gold. Their power was not hard to learn, but it's disadvantage was their personas. Somehow, it got them thinking crazy. But honestly, even that was just a guess, at the time, I didn't know the full scope of their power, and the real advantage and disadvantaged it carried.
As soon as they left, I looked back, specifically at one of my special Escorts.
"Don't you have a witty come back this time."
"No mother, there's no need, one look at your face and I could tell you were already thinking of one yourself."
The others chuckled only slightly, trying not to burst into laughter. The knights next to the one who said this smacked him on his helmet, making his ears ring. This had become tradition for every time he did or said something so blatant. It was the same knight who made that promise to me all that time ago.
Unfortunately for him, getting to level 300 was hard for some reason. I myself had already crossed it, and so did Ouran, he died at level 325. Level 299 was no seal, just very hard to cross to 300 for some people. The next seal was at level 350, which is where I was stuck. I realised, after level 250, there was a blockage at every 50 levels, and powerful one got, the harder it got to level up.
Honestly, I had hoped that the final level was at 300 before Ouran passed it. I had enough strength in my fingertips to destroy the entire earth, which made me more frightened of those of darkness, because they were still far beyond this.
The knights had gotten strong, all of them were at level 299, still under training from Laurel Egnism, she had reached 350 before me. They were doing well before they hit level 299.
The way Ouran and Egnism described it to me, is that… wait, can you explain."
"Sure, I'd be glad to. I'm not sure how Ouran explained it, but he made sure to explain that it was not like a seal, it was more like an imposed seal. If one had a goal in mind but just isn't sure what path to follow it blocks them from continuing. For us Laurels, we had already decided to fully absorb the persona of mother, so it was a sinch.
For Ouran, he had already accepted the path of being a knight, this was when he broke the second seal. In future teachings, due to the simplicity of this block, and how similar it was to level 9 – one could not reach level 10 without a special skill – but since no-one thought to count this as a seal, we chose not to consider 299 to 300 as a seal either.
The rule we established is simple, if you are stuck at a level ending with 9, it is more like a placeholder, but if it ends in 0, it is most likely to be a seal."
The Knight thought about this.
'If this is true, it would mean that I didn't get stuck on level 299 like Adriel because my path was clear and needed no confirming. Something interesting has also found it's way to me. If it is true what she says and in fact, being stuck on a zero is a seal, and considering all monsters in dungeons are stuck on a 0, this would mean that the creator of all dungeons found a way to create an artificial seal that could not be broken, interesting.'
Whilst mulling over what it was learning, the Knight still kept listening to the story, as it switched back to Lerva.
"Soon enough, many if not all of them crossed level 299 and became 300, except one knight, the quick witted and hot tongued Arulli. He came to me to ask advice as I drank my morning supplement.
"Sorry mother, but tell me, why am I the only one who is still stuck at level 299."
I looked at him with a confused look, because I thought he knew why.
"Have you learned a power yet?"
"You know I haven't, I'm still trying to find the right one."
"There you go."
"what do you mean?"
I took a long sip, still trying to decide if I should tell him or I should let him discover it on himself. I only told him because, quite frankly I though he was taking too much time. Learning a power when one is a low levelled as 100 is a feat only Eruil, Vanarus, me, and a few others had done.
This set the standard, but the truth is usually, naturally everyone learns a power starting at level 160 to 250. Anyone who did it early was known to be exceptional. Even still, Arulli delayed it more than most did. He was so undecided that he had reached level 299, and now this choice looked him in the eyes.
It was quite extraordinary that he was so strong and determined despite his lack of a power. The thing that made him even more exceptional was that he made sure to learn specific set of skills that when used together, gave him so much more flexibility than one would come to expect from a level 299.
But this was his problem, he was so picky, on top of being a perfectionist he denied himself the power that had been waiting for him. He wanted a specific type of power, and well, he knew of none that fitted him perfectly. Whilst our knowledge on skills was extensive, power was still unique, and thus he did not enjoy this luxury.
On the other hand, time is something I had learned not to waste, so I explained to him what he was doing wrong.
"Arulli, tell me something, would you give a florist a gun and give an officer flower seeds?"
"No. Are you saying I need to be a florist?"
"Not at all, I'm saying, even though I myself don't know whether you're a florist or an officer, I know that you do know what you are, and yet you still take the wrong one, why is that?"
He didn't answer me, and I had things to do. I left for my study hall, I had demanded they stay outside, they were distracting. Before I closed the door behind me, just as blatant as ever, he screamed at me.
"Don't worry mother, if I have to plant flowers I will, if I have to pick up the gun I will! Either way I know what I must do now!"
I closed the door shut; he really was distracting.
A week later, he walked into the room, now at level 300, but somehow, I couldn't tell if he had a power, so I asked him.
"Did you get one?"
"Oh, mother, I did."
"Tell me then, are you a florist or an officer."
"Neither mother, I'm a pattern smith!"
The others had been dead still a moment ago, as confused as I, they all turned their heads, looking at him intently. I asked the question that was looming in their heads.
"What even is a pattern smith?"
"Well, I remember that during the great purge, the biggest issue was an early warning system and communication between the Order of Knights and the people. And to this day, the only communications are electricity, which is failing miserably, and people who learned telepathic skills. At level 156, I had an epiphany, I could become the utility that this world desperately needs.
I knew of a property to choose, linked to my special skill, [Improve]. But as you said, I wanted to be a florist or a gun man, because these two could keep the promise I made to you to become this world's saviour."
Everyone never laughed to mock each other, but we all couldn't help but laugh our heads off. This did awfully sound a lot like something Arulli would do. But now that he had gotten our curiosities raised, we had to know what kind of power could mostly be considered a utility.
Due to power being such a hard thing to get, everyone who did get it committed to powers that could save them in a pinch. Any and all forms of utility came as a side effect, like the forest and mountain folks powers. Whilst it allows them to build things like sturdy buildings, armour, and even weapons, all of this was just side effect.
Take my power for example, I may be using it for collecting and analysing memories, my power as shown by Laurel Sdoli in battle, was a force of nature. She often removed peoples memories as they made them, similar to how in the darkness most could not hear their thoughts. She could also alter or plant false memories causing many to kill themselves or at least slow down enough for her to finish them herself.
But if what Arulli was saying was true, and that his power's main purpose is utility, then this would make it the first account of a power of which battle was just the side effect.
Arulli took my half full cup from my hands, and for hours, he sat there carving lines that could almost be confused for runes, but not quite. These were finer, so fine they created an optical illusion.
Hours turned to days, and days into weeks, he sat there in the garden carving, not even uttering a single word."