Chapter 283: Mortals and Cultivators (1/2)

Zac was starting to regret choosing the Lord of Cycles rather than the Undying Fiend inheritance. This person was almost as bad as Brazla. Or had perhaps all the predecessors gone crazy stuck with the Tool Spirit for those untold ages? If that was the case then the inheritances might be useless.

He barely survived his trial and he was far stronger than anyone else on the island. How could he in good consciousness let his sister enter the trial for the Invoker if this was how it was going to be? But still, Zac had pushed through the trial and he wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do much about my face, but I guess it’ll get better as my race ranking improves. Why did you set this place up if you didn’t want to find inheritors?” Zac probed.

“Because of that stupid Brazla,” the man said as he leisurely ran his fingers through the pond. “I needed him to create something for me, and he wanted me to set this place up as payment.”

“Brazla?” Zac asked with confusion. “You made a deal with the Tool Spirit?”

“That little spirit is not Brazla,” the man said with a chuckle. “It has just confused its own identity with his creator and ours over the years. Brazla was a peak D-Grade artificer, and he also called himself The Celestial Artisan. That a D-Grade cultivator dared call himself that tells you all you need to know about his temperament.”

Zac’s brows rose in surprise from that little tidbit. He finally understood why the Tool Spirit acted so haughtily. It had taken various traits from the 8 predecessors, including his own master’s. And if Zac was a betting man, he guessed that the narcissism came from the individual in front of him.

“So you made a deal with the real brazla. He created something for you, and you set up an inheritance. Why did he want to create this place? And may I ask what your name is?” Zac probed.

“Money isn’t enough to create a true heritage for a clan. Brazla was rich, but money can only buy unimpressive and widely distributed skills and cultivation manuals. Things that might take you to early D-Grade but leave you with a pitiful core that can’t evolve,” the man said with a disdainful snort. “And my name is Yrial, so you can call me Lord Yrial or Beauty Yrial.”

Zac really wanted to roll his eyes, but he held himself in check since Yrial seemed pretty capricious. Who knew how he would react if Zac did something that he considered disrespectful.

”So why not go to someone else? Don't you need to cut off a piece of your soul to create an inheritance?” Zac probed.

”Do you think it's that easy to hire skilled craftsmen that are at peak D-Grade or C-Grade? They are extremely scarce, and most are snatched up by superior forces. Rogue cultivators such as myself can't hire them no matter how beautiful we are. Brazla was simply unattached because he was obsessed with creating a force of his own for some reason,” Yrial explained.

Zac frowned when hearing that. He was hoping to hire a blacksmith to create a real Spiritual Tool Shield for him, but if things were as Yrial said it might be harder than he expected. Still, that was a problem for later. He first needed to make this narcissist cough up some valuables.

“Well, anyways. I’m here now. I proved my cycle and I defeated the construct,” Zac tentatively said.

“Don’t you think I don’t know your so-called cycle is fake? Those fractals shouldn’t have lit up at all,” Yrial snorted as he threw Zac a disdainful glance. “But I have to admit, using the spy core for such a thing is pretty novel. I’m not sure what you encountered to allow your Duplicity core to work like that.”

“Spy core?” Zac asked with confusion.

“That’s what the duplicity core usually is used for. You take the race of those you wish to spy on. But usually, you shouldn’t get a true copy as you have, but rather a watered-down version that only gives a fraction of the bonus power. For some reason your variant seems a lot stronger,” Yrial said with a shrug. ”Even I can't understand the fractals covering the core.”

Zac wasn't too surprised that the ghost knew about his situation. He had been probed by that monument just a few hours before, and he guessed that whatever the monument found out, so did the Lord of Cycles.

“I did some research on it when I was exploring my path since it contains the potential for duality,” the ghost added. ”But in the end, I didn’t feel it was a good fit.”

“What do you think caused the difference with my core?” Zac eagerly said.

It appeared that this man was far more knowledgeable about his specialty core than anyone he’d met so far. And if the construct was any indication it was pretty likely that Yrial might be able to help him fuse his classes, or at least improve upon the core.

“Who knows?” the Lord of Cycles said with disinterest. “The multiverse is full of odd chances and miraculous things. Almost everyone who reaches any distance on the path of cultivation has survived some insurmountable odds and encountered some strange opportunities. You made your specialty core much better than normal, which is good but nothing too exciting.”

Zac slowly nodded, though he wasn’t really sure what to believe. Greatest seemed to have been of another opinion, and Zac truly felt that getting two classes was a pretty huge deal. He was more inclined to believe that the man in front of him downplayed or simply didn’t understand the greatness of his Duplicity core. Or perhaps nothing that wasn't related to himself could enter his eyes.

“So, I might not be what you’re looking for in a disciple, but I still passed the test,” Zac said, focusing on what was important. “I should be given some treasures, right?”

“I guess,” the man grumbled, and reluctantly got to his feet. “It’s not like I need any of the things stored here in any case. Come here and let me sense your talent.”

Zac was elated and hurried over. Yrial indicated for him to hold out his hand, and it looked like he was going to inspect him directly. However, the moment before their hands touched the spirit seemed to have a change of heart, and first conjured a napkin to place over Zac’s hand.

Zac couldn’t help but feel pissed off. Was his hand that disgusting that a damn spirit needed some extra layers of separation? But he held his tongue since he knew that this was not the last time he was seeing this infuriating ghost. He would also administer future trials when he reached the E grade and higher.