The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 661 – Calamity affinity (2)

Ishkuria wasn’t surprised that the Maradorians and those with the Void Decree had easily dominated the contest. Despite her protests, this wasn’t the first time the organizers had talked her into opening her garden up for the tournament. It was a well-established fact that having any experience with multiple affinities gave the participants a major advantage.

Seeing Remlat cross the threshold of a Crude spell caused the corners of her beak to curl up. The younger Inimit was slightly behind the two-cored Maradorian from earlier, though the other gods had informed the titaness that Remlat was far ahead of the frog-person in the main leaderboard, filling her with pride.

Perhaps, the child would even surpass Ishkuria one day, becoming one of the Void Hand’s six-elemental deities – the exact level of their current leaders. Sadly, he wouldn’t be able to acquire a seventh element, since his first core contained a composite affinity already.

At most, it would allow Remlat to skip the early parts of the Elemental Acquisition stage. It wasn’t nothing, but the young Inimit would never become one of the promised champions that would hopefully keep the Moirai monsters of tomorrow at bay. By the time he reached the peak of the Elemental Acquisition stage – assuming he ever did – a six-elemental deity wouldn’t be valued nearly as highly as they were today.

‘Such a waste. If he didn’t have a rare affinity to start with, they should have just allowed him to pick a second composite one. I would have made him my disciple.’

Annoyed that she had been robbed of yet another potential research subject, Ishkuria shook her head, resuming watching the competition. Eventually, another mortal caught her attention.

“Who is the young woman with the time affinity?” she asked the other gods.

It was unusual for somebody with only a single core and no secondary affinity to nearly touch the threshold of a Crude spell in the contest, yet the female Denyte had done precisely that, even surpassing a couple of Maradorians in the process.

“Her name is Zurvanai. Despite this being her first time in the tournament, she won every fight and was previously the favourite to finish at the top of her group,” Thelenius helpfully explained. “For a while, I thought that Remlat was going to displace her during this event due to his advantage, but it looks like she’s going to barely stay ahead of him with this kind of performance.”

“Zurvanai?” Ishkuria asked, furrowing her brow. She was quite familiar with Denyte naming traditions, so the meaning hadn’t escaped her notice. “Is she Lord Zurvan’s…?”

The younger deity nodded, confirming her guess. “It’s one of the reasons I agreed to bother you with our request.”

“Interesting…” the titaness muttered under her breath. “Dokorin, it looks like your people have truly lucked out with the girl. Please convey my warmest congratulations to Lord Zurvan the next time you see him. Perhaps, granting this batch of mortals access to my Decree won’t be a complete waste. If the stars align, this young lady might one day become one of those seven-elemental deities we were just discussing.”

“Of course, Lady Ishkuria.” The Denyte god cupped his fists politely, his previous rudeness gone without a trace.

There was nothing like a couple of compliments and some mild bootlicking to butter a person up, though Ishkuria didn’t mind lowering herself like this. Not only was the mortal girl genuinely talented, but Lord Zurvan also happened to be one of the few figures in the alliance Ishkuria respected.

Slouching back on her jade throne, the titaness’ gaze returned to the screen, through which she watched the second-to-last participant undergo the test. He was a male Ollorian with a light affinity. He wasn’t bad, but he ultimately failed to keep up with the front-runners.

Upon realizing that the final contestant was just a Thess’kalan, Ishkuria lost any interest she may have had in the competition. While she was admittedly a little curious about the mortal’s ruby-coloured scales and whatever circumstances had allowed a member of a weaker faction to make it this far into the tournament, it wasn’t enough for her to waste time observing him.

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Even the organizers of the tournament – whose job was to oversee the competition – appeared to share that view. The three outsiders withdrew their senses from the puppets without so much as bidding Ishkuria farewell, causing the exteriors of the devices to melt and shift back to their original, smooth textures.

Only Thelenius stayed in the room, purely out of respect towards her.

Ishkuria was about to excuse the younger deity and turn off the screen, when the Thess’kalan began working with the illusory ice mana that he had selected. The sheer ease with which he wielded a composite element that he clearly hadn’t possessed a moment ago caused the titaness to pause, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Even Thelenius – who had looked like he’d been trying to find the right words to extricate himself just now – kept watching the demonstration in stunned silence as the mysterious Thess’kalan continued to dazzle his audience.

Admittedly, the scaled man did fumble his initial attempts slightly, but his control over the ice improved noticeably with every passing second, to the point that Ishkuria was starting to question whether he had violated the rules of the contest and picked an element that he already possessed.

Thelenius shook his head, probably guessing her thoughts. “Everything should be above board. Had he cheated, the tournament’s system would have flagged him already. It’s hard to tell what his original affinity is through the screen, but I seem to recall that it was metal.”

Tentatively accepting the explanation, Ishkuria continued observing the strange Thess’kalan. About a third of the way in, the mortal casually crossed the threshold of a Crude spell, and it didn’t seem like he was even done yet.

The titaness’s fascination with the man reached its apex a few minutes later when he finally stopped practicing and unleashed a powerful and elegant volley of spinning shards that dug deep into the soil near the edge of the flowerbed.

The resolution of the feed left much to be desired, and it was impossible to scan the contestants’ mana cores through the transmission, so there were still several details that Ishkuria had failed to make out. However, she was pretty sure that the Thess’kalan had incorporated three distinct variants of ice mana in his spell – liquid, gas, and solid – which was an advanced trick that only experienced users of the affinity were capable of.

‘Did he meditate near an Elemental Source or something?’ she couldn’t help but ask herself. ‘No… even if he had done that, his performance is still quite impressive.’

Ishkuria had no idea where the Thess’kalan’s talent in manipulating new affinities had come from. He might owe it to a mutation, a bloodline, or something else entirely, but it didn’t really matter. Whatever the case, his skills would be extremely useful to her.

After firing the barrage, the mortal didn’t bother training any longer, clearly aware that this was already enough for him to win the competition. However, he did repeat his demonstration a couple more times before his turn was over, probably to ensure that the flowerbed registered it correctly – though Ishkuria knew that was unnecessary.

By the time the demigod declared the Thess’kalan’s victory, an excited glint had found its way into the titaness’ eyes.

“Thelenius… mind doing me a small favour?”

“Lady Ishkuria?” The younger god shifted nervously as soon as he was done picking the bottom of his beak off the polished floor, probably realizing that she was about to request something troublesome.

“Delay the mortals’ return by twenty minutes. I wish to talk to the Thess’kalan in private,” she demanded.

The male Inimit frowned. “Lady Ishkuria, he has just climbed to the top of his group before the eyes of the entire alliance… There’s a lot of attention on him, and you know that any unauthorized contact with the participants is strictly forbidden.”

The titaness scoffed. “Oh, don’t give me that crap! Make it fifteen minutes then. Say that there was a malfunction with the teleportation runes. Nobody will know.”

“This…” The weaker deity sounded somewhat apprehensive.

“If anybody finds out, just pin the blame on me,” Ishkuria insisted with a shrug. “There are only so many gods in the alliance who would dare complain to my face, and I’m willing to bet my left wing that none of them would bother with something this dumb.”

“As you wish.” Thelenius slouched in resignation. “What am I to do with the rest?”

“Entertain them. Keep them busy. Treat them to a fancy meal. I really don’t care,” the titaness said. “Oh, but make sure that you don’t displease the girl. The last thing we need is to piss Lord Zurvan off.”

The young god swallowed hard, though he ultimately kept whatever words of protest were undoubtedly swirling inside his handsome little head to himself. Not wasting any time, he promptly retracted his senses from the puppet like the others had done before him, already off to make the appropriate arrangements to fulfil Ishkuria’s request.

The titaness herself lingered on the throne for a few seconds longer, crossing her legs as she considered how to best approach this matter.

‘The others won’t be happy if they find out that I influenced a mortal’s affinity selection, but there’s no helping that. I’ll never stumble upon a more talented research subject to test that on. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to force him. If anything, I’m doing him a favour by giving him more options.’

She sighed. No matter how she tried to justify it, she knew that she was about to ruffle a few feathers. But should the mortal agree to her request, it would all be worth it.