Pov: Ryuk
Calming the surging blood in my chest, I looked at the system screen floating in front of my eyes and said with anticipation, "System, show me my updated status and give me my reward for completing the first quest!"
Immediately, the golden-black obsidian screen expanded in front of my view, displaying my new status panel first.
Name: Ryuk (Previous: Ryuk Ashborn / Rajeev)
Age: 1 day (Body physical maturity: 16 years)
Body Constitution: Asura Martial Vessel (Artificially created by Dark Wizard King Morven)
Talent: None (Replaced by supreme physical foundation)
Possession: Beacon of Truth (Level-1), Fragment of a Fallen Kingdom (1/2), Sigil of Evolution
Bloodline: Synthetic Martial Origin
Martial Arts: Four-Armed Asura Combat Technique {Pro} (0/2000) Magic
Occult Arts: Ancient Astrology {Level 1} (15/100), Par-Kaya Pravesh {Beginner} (1/100), Dead Rising {Uninitiated}
Realm: Grade 1 Martial Artist (Initial Stage — Base strength equal to 40 adult men)
System Level: 1
System Quest: 1 of 5 completed
Title: Emperor of Humanity???, Successor of the Dark Wizard
After looking at my status, a second panel popped up right in front of me with golden letters flashing on it.
"MAIN QUEST: BREAK INTO GRADE 1 MARTIAL ARTIST REALM (1/1)" "COMPLETED FIRST QUEST, DISTRIBUTING REWARD."
"1. Second Fragment of a Fallen Kingdom."
Seeing the name of the reward, my eyes widened in pure surprise.
"The Second Fragment of a Fallen Kingdom?!" I exclaimed out loud, my voice echoing off the stone walls of the underground laboratory.
I quickly looked back at my system quest list, and just as I thought, another notification immediately chimed inside my head!
"DETECTING THAT HOST HAS OBTAINED THE SECOND FRAGMENT OF A FALLEN KINGDOM."
"MAIN QUEST COMPLETED: OBTAIN THE SECOND FRAGMENT OF A FALLEN KINGDOM (1/1)."
"QUEST COMPLETION: (2/5)." "SECOND QUEST REWARD AVAILABLE."
I couldn't help but laugh out loud. This was what you called hitting two birds with one stone! By completing the first quest, the system directly rewarded me with the exact item needed to finish the second quest!
My luck from my previous life really hadn't abandoned me. Even though I had suffered a tragic betrayal at the hands of Reynolds and that golden-masked woman, once I survived that dead end, my fortune was bouncing back stronger than ever.
Before claiming the reward for the second quest, I first looked at the two Fragments of a Fallen Kingdom floating in my system inventory.
Back in Town 16, when I got the first fragment, the system description told me that once two fragments were obtained, I could fuse them and place them on any land of my desire, transforming that land into the lost part of an ancient fallen kingdom containing structures and inheritances.
Even better, Looking at my third main quest—Establish your first settlement in the Fallen Heartlands (0/1)—if I placed these two fragments down in this forest, wouldn't that automatically build a base for me and complete half the requirements for the third quest too?!
"Hold on, don't get too excited yet," I told myself, taking a deep breath to calm down. "I can't fuse and place the Fallen Kingdom down here underground, otherwise the structures might get crushed by the cave ceiling. I need to find a wide, open clearing in the Blackwood Forest first."
Thinking this, I turned my attention back to the system screen and said, "System, give me my reward for completing the second main quest."
"MAIN QUEST: OBTAIN THE SECOND FRAGMENT OF A FALLEN KINGDOM (1/1)" "DISTRIBUTING REWARD."
"1. Eye of the Sovereign (Spiritual Construct)."
"Eye of the Sovereign?" I frowned slightly, wondering why the system gave me an eye-related item. "System, tell me the details of this reward and how to use it."
"1. Eye of the Sovereign: A supreme spiritual construct forged from the origin of order. Though the host lost his original Immortal Pupils along with his former flesh, an Emperor cannot look upon his domain with ordinary mortal vision. Once fused with the host's current eyes, this construct will reshape the host's ocular meridians, granting the ability to see through illusions, gauge the loyalty and potential of subjects, and perceive the flow of both Martial Energy and Mana."
Reading this description, my four hands clenched tightly in excitement.
When that golden-masked woman ripped my right eye out of my skull back in the ravine, I thought I had permanently lost my ocular talent. Even though Morven's Asura body had sharp eyesight, it was still just normal biological vision compared to a divine talent. Now, the system had given me something that sounded just as powerful—and specifically tailored for an Emperor!
"System, fuse the Eye of the Sovereign with my eyes right now!" I commanded without hesitation.
"COMMAND RECEIVED. INITIATING FUSION..."
The moment the system spoke, two beams of warm, liquid golden light shot out from my inner consciousness and flowed straight into both of my eye sockets.
Unlike the agonizing pain I felt when my old eye was gouged out, this sensation felt like soothing warm water washing over tired eyes. Within a minute, the heat subsided, and when I opened my eyes again, the entire underground laboratory looked completely different.
In the dark corners of the room where there were no lamps, I could see every single crack in the stone walls as clearly as if it were broad daylight. More than that, I could see thin wisps of dark gray mana lingering around Morven's old magical arrays, and when I looked down at my own four arms, I could clearly see the golden streams of martial energy coursing powerfully through my meridians!
If I looked into a mirror right now, I would see that my dark pupils now had a faint, majestic ring of golden light encircling the irises.
After testing my new vision, my stomach suddenly let out a loud, rumbling growl.
Grrrr...
Breaking through to Grade 1 and fighting for ten straight hours had burned through every ounce of nutrition in this body. Even though I had absorbed the energy of pills and beast cores, my physical stomach was completely empty.
Since the corrupted beast meat outside was poisonous to eat, I searched through the rest of Morven's preservation vault until I found several sealed jars of high-energy dried spirit meat and nutrient paste that hadn't spoiled. Sitting by the stone table, I ate three whole jars until my stomach felt satisfied.
While eating, I pulled out the beast-skin map I had found earlier and spread it across the metal desk.
With my new Eye of the Sovereign, I noticed faint hidden markings written in mana ink on the map that I hadn't been able to see before!
According to the map, the Blackwood Forest was divided into three rings: the Outer Ring where I had hunted Grade 1 beasts today, the Middle Ring which was ruled by a terrifying Grade 2 Corrupted Beast King (a Giant Blood-Scale Bear), and the Inner Core where Morven had marked a large red skull.
However, what caught my attention wasn't the beast king—it was a small green circle drawn near the border between the Outer Ring and the Middle Ring, about fifteen kilometers east of this laboratory.
Next to the green circle, Morven had written a small note in mana ink:
"Exile Village — A pathetic gathering of crippled martial artists and banished criminals who fled into the Fallen Heartlands to escape execution. Useful for testing dark magic curses or collecting fresh blood samples."
My eyes stopped on those words.
A village of people living in the Fallen Heartlands!
I immediately looked at my fourth system quest: Gain 100 subjects under your rule (10/100).
Earlier, I had been wondering how I was supposed to find ninety human followers inside an uncharted, monster-infested forest where no normal humans lived. I thought I would have to travel all the way back to the human federation first.
"Who would have thought there is actually a settlement of exiled humans just fifteen kilometers away from here!" A bright smile appeared on my face.
To Morven, those banished people and crippled martial artists were just lab rats for his dark experiments.
But to me? They were the exact foundation I needed to build my first territory and complete my system quests!
Folding the beast-skin map and storing it back into my Emperor's Storage, I stood up from the chair. Since it was already late into the night, and even an Asura body needed sleep to let the newly broken-through realm stabilize properly, I lay down on a stone bed in the back room and closed my eyes.
Tomorrow morning, I would head east toward that Exile Village, find a place to deploy my Fallen Kingdom fragments, and begin building my rule in this savage land.