Chapter 408: Unexpected Meeting I
"Darian? I heard what he said, I know he doesn’t have good intentions." The smile on Lian’s face slowly disappeared.
"A person who stands over his brother’s corpse and talks about how much easier his work will be because you died usually doesn’t have good intentions." Seris said without the slightest joke.
She didn’t know what the relationship between these two brothers was like and didn’t want to speak in a way that made it seem like she was trying to ruin the relationship between the two brothers.
But she still thought it was necessary to warn him, she had felt something was wrong about Darian from the very beginning.
"I’ll be careful." He looked at her for a few seconds, there was no reason to pretend he didn’t know anything.
He could already guess the reason behind his brother’s intentions, but since it seemed that he might have already left the base or even the Ruined Realm, he couldn’t go after him directly.
But that wasn’t a problem, he could find him later and his instincts told him that sooner or later, they would meet again.
On the other hand, this answer was enough for her, she didn’t ask what he planned to do and she wasn’t curious about Darian’s motives.
If Lian said he would be careful, that was enough for now.
"When are you getting discharged?" Lian changed the subject after a short pause.
"In a few hours, the main treatment is finished and the rest only needs some rest, I don’t need to stay here just to rest." Seris answered calmly.
He looked at her condition, the bandages still covered a large part of her body, but she didn’t seem to have any other problems and most of her injuries had already been treated.
It didn’t seem like this girl had any interest in staying in the treatment center for more days either.
"Are you going back to the Pendragon Family?"
"I’ve been away from home for a long time, I need to go back." She had duties that she had to do and couldn’t ignore.
And the amount of time she had been away was long enough that many changes might have happened.
There were no succession conflicts in their family like there were among the Vorhelms, it was almost certain that she would become the heir of the family, although it had not been officially confirmed.
Because of that, she wasn’t worried about her position, even if she didn’t become the heir, she wouldn’t care, that position had no value to her.
What she was worried about was her mother.
"What about you?"
"I’m going back to the Academy." Lian answered without needing to think.
Nine months had passed, the Academy must have changed.
There were students, rankings, powers, and people that he really wanted to know what they had done during this time.
Of course, there was another reason, the Academy had its own exams and he couldn’t ignore them, he had to take the exams.
He and the rest of the group had missed the midterm exams, but they had an excuse for that, even though they couldn’t ignore the final exams.
"Nine months have passed, there are a few people I want to see and find out what they’ve done during this time."
"We’re probably behind most of them." Seris said without emotion.
But the sentence had another weight for her, she had lost nine months of growth.
People her age had hunted, gained levels, evolved, and even learned new skills.
But her?
She hadn’t just lost time, she had burned a thousand points from her permanent stats and had fallen from two thousand to one thousand stats.
The mission reward had only given her two hundred and fifty free stat points.
Even if she used all of them immediately, she would only reach one thousand two hundred and fifty.
She was still seven hundred and fifty points weaker than the power she had before the battle.
While everyone else had moved forward.
For someone like Seris, becoming weaker was scary, she wasn’t afraid of losing, although she didn’t like it, but that wasn’t her fear.
She was afraid of falling behind and staying weak and it was one of her biggest fears.
But that didn’t mean she was worried, she trusted herself enough to know that she could return to the top in a short time and even go beyond it.
Lian looked at her face for a few seconds.
"That’s true but but catching up to them won’t be hard for us." Lian said without trying to deny it for no reason.
He wasn’t saying this just to make her feel better, especially since she didn’t seem to care much, he was only telling the truth.
He was an anomaly, he knew that himself.
But Seris wasn’t normal either, among all the people he had seen until now, he didn’t know anyone with better combat talent than her.
It wasn’t an exaggerated compliment, it was the truth, this girl was a genius, in fact, she was the real definition of a genius.
A few moments later, Seris’s eyes moved over Lian’s body again.
He had grown a little taller, his shoulders were wider and even the way he stood was a little different, not only because of his confidence, but because of a real change in his body’s structure.
And all of this had one meaning.
"Did you complete your first evolution?"
He nodded to show yes.
"Did it take long?"
"The evolution itself? Not really." Lian answered and then sighed.
"It was easy, what opened after that wasn’t."
"What opened?" Seris became a little more curious.
"Traits, Skill Fusion and the Innate Traits tree."
She didn’t notice anything strange about this, all of these were common knowledge about the first evolution that almost every awakened, including her, knew about.
"The main problem is that all of them need Fragments too." Lian added with a tired tone.
"That’s normal." Seris answered.
"You don’t understand, some Traits for the first level need hundreds of Fragments and just the first branch of my Innate Traits tree needs more than 4000 Fragments just to unlock."
"Several thousand?" This time the Young Pendragon really turned her head slightly toward him and asked with a small frown.
"More than four thousand."
Silence filled the room for a few seconds, this amount was terrifying, especially when it was only for the first Innate Trait.
Seris had heard about the value of Fragments after evolution since childhood.
The elders of the family always said that awakened didn’t understand their true value before their first evolution.
But more than four thousand just to unlock one branch? This number was not the same for everyone and each person’s Innate Traits tree was different.
But considering Seris’s talent and class, the amount she needed would probably be around the same.
"The family always said that after the first evolution, Fragments become more important than stats, I thought they were exaggerating." She finally said calmly.
"They’re even more important than money." Lian also emphasized and added another point.
"With money you can buy equipment, buy potions, get services, but right now almost every part of the system can only be unlocked with Fragments."
Seris nodded.
A wealthy awakened could buy the best armor.
But they couldn’t create thousands of Fragments out of nothing.
In the end, they had to hunt or do Quests, getting Fragments from the first method was completely based on luck and getting Quests from the system wasn’t easy either.
"How many do you have?" she then asked curiously.
"Seven."
"What? Didn’t you get a hundred from the mission?" Seris’s eyes widened slightly.
"I did."
"Then what happened to the rest?"
"I spent three hundred to bring One back."
"One is back?" The Young Pendragon immediately asked.
"I summoned him this morning."
"Is he alive?"
"Yeah, his injuries haven’t fully healed yet, but he’s out of danger." Lian also answered calmly and realized that the ant seemed to have become important to this girl too.
"Good." Seris stayed silent for a few seconds and finally said with a kind of hidden relief under her coldness.
At that moment, the door opened.
"The discharge—" Aurelia entered, although her sentence stopped halfway when her eyes fell on Lian.
She stayed silent for a second and then an amused smile appeared on her face.
"Oh, oh... the handsome Vorhelm is here too." She finally said playfully.