Sovereign of the Ashes

In the end, although Sein had given away quite a few of the materials he had gathered on the Divine Descendants World battlefield, he also received plenty in return from his elders and seniors.

Most of these gifts were materials the Verdant Flame Faction had obtained on the Grand Apocalypse World battlefield.

In terms of scale, the war there was only slightly smaller than the one in Divine Descendants World.

Naturally, some of the things Gregory, Bernice, and the others brought out were interesting to Sein.

However, when Grandmaster Feylis was about to give him a gift as well, Sein quickly stopped her.

“Grandmaster, I’ve recently encountered a major bottleneck in my exploration of the pyro element. What I need most right now is your guidance,” Sein said respectfully.

Feylis smiled at him.

“Very well. You may come directly to my laboratory whenever you need. I’ll repay your generous gift with knowledge instead.”

The divine relic Sein had gifted Feylis was not only Rank Six, but also the highest-ranked among all the divine relics he had given out.

Likewise, the blood crystal of Venerable Tianyang that Feylis received was the largest Sein had given away.

For a mage, knowledge was among the most valuable things in existence. And in some cases, its value simply could not be measured.

Naturally, Sein had no reason to refuse Feylis’ suggestion. He immediately bowed his head in gratitude.

Aside from the members of the Verdant Flame Faction, Sein had also prepared a gift for Berecca, the grand master of the Order of the Green Bounty. It was a small piece of Heavenly Sun Crystal.

Berecca clearly had not expected Sein to prepare something for her as well. A hint of surprise flashed across her face as she accepted it.

“Thank you for watching out for Reina, Sia, and the others while I was away, Lady Berecca,” Sein said.

During the years Sein had been gone, the knightly orders established by Reina and Sia were still in their infancy and naturally lacked experience in many areas.

Berecca frequently operated alongside the Verdant Flame Faction, and over the years, she had indeed given them quite a bit of help.

“It was no big deal,” Berecca replied, casually tucking a strand of verdant hair behind her ear.

Sein merely smiled in response.

The gathering of the Verdant Flame Faction continued for quite some time.

Of course, Sein’s path toward Rank Six was not something that could be explained in just a few words.

There were many complicated problems he had encountered in his exploration of the pyro element, along with the profound principles of body tempering he was currently trying to understand.

For matters like these, Sein would have to visit Feylis privately and seek her guidance in detail.

Fortunately, judging from the Verdant Flame Faction’s upcoming war arrangements, Feylis should be pretty free for the foreseeable future.

As the gathering gradually drew to a close, Feylis brought up another matter. If Sein had time in the future, she hoped he could occasionally give lessons to the younger members of the Verdant Flame Faction.

Feylis no longer accepted new apprentices herself, but she still cared deeply about the younger generations in her faction.

Naturally, she hoped that more outstanding mages like Sein, Aelid, and Selphy would emerge among them.

Sein had never taken on an apprentice of his own, so teaching the younger members of the Verdant Flame Faction would probably feel somewhat similar to giving lectures at a divine tower academy.

The main difference was that those attending his lessons now would most likely all be full-fledged mages.

After considering his grandmaster’s suggestion for a few seconds, Sein agreed.

Having weathered one crisis after another, he was no longer the young mage he had once been. Both his knowledge and strength had already reached a level where he was more than qualified to guide others.

In fact, Sein had gradually begun thinking about taking on an apprentice of his own.

It would be a great pity if everything he had spent his life studying, including the secrets of the Ashen Flame, body tempering, mechanical arts, alchemy, and the apothecary knowledge inherited from Lorianne, were simply buried with him if he happened to perish on some mission one day.

For mages, passing down knowledge was itself a continuation of one’s spirit and will. Even if Sein were to die, as long as what he had learned continued to be passed down, some part of him would remain.

Teaching the younger members of the Verdant Flame Faction could therefore serve as a trial run before he eventually sought out an apprentice of his own.

They don’t need to be geniuses. As long as they’re eager to learn and have a genuine respect for knowledge, that should be enough.

That was what Sein thought.

***

After taking his leave of the Verdant Flame Faction, Sein finally returned to his Ashen Fortress.

He had made no particular effort to conceal his whereabouts after arriving in the Apocalypse Star Domain, so Marie, Reina, and the others had long since learned that he had reached Primeval Wilds Plane.

From a distance, the colossal Ashen Fortress looked much the same as it had when Sein left more than a thousand years ago. But upon closer inspection, traces of the years he had missed were everywhere.

The massive fortress now bore far more scratches across its surface, along with numerous patches where damage had clearly been repaired.

In terms of sheer size, the Ashen Fortress was more than three times larger than the planetary-class war fortress Sein had once commanded in Divine Descendants World!

After all, when he first purchased it, the Ashen Fortress had already been classified as a “heavy-duty war fortress”.

If Sein were to use the Magic Cube to modify such an enormous fortress and eventually transform it into a gigantic fortress robot, its destructive power would undoubtedly be several times greater than what he had achieved before.

And unlike the Gallant Federation’s secondhand planetary-class war fortresses, the Ashen Fortress itself already possessed far greater firepower and offensive capabilities.

Then there was Sein’s ultimate idea of combining and modifying multiple space fortresses together... Even he could not help wondering just how terrifying the finished product would be!

Outside the Ashen Fortress, Sein spotted Leena, Marie, Reina, Sia, and the other women who had arrived ahead of time to welcome him back.

Several of his work partners were there as well, including Gin, Jessica, Mussor, and others.

Even the foreign gods affiliated with Sein through the Magus Alliance had heard the news of his return. Those who shared particularly close ties with him, including Kram, Beatrice, and Maya, had already arrived.

Sein smiled and nodded at the gathered group before flying into the fortress ahead of them.

They were all close friends, after all. There would be plenty of time to meet with them one by one later.

Sein had never been particularly fond of frequent social engagements, but once someone reached a certain position, there were simply some things that could no longer be avoided.

***

Leena was still sharing her body with her mentor, Mikaeli.

Unlike in the past, however, Mikaeli had become much more well-behaved in recent years. Leena, in turn, had gained plenty of tangible benefits from their unusual circumstances.

Sein still remembered that when he and Tourmaline were swept into the space-time corridor, Mikaeli had unleashed her full strength and worked together with Leena in an attempt to save him.

Could it be that after sharing Leena’s body for so long, and inevitably being dragged into some rather intimate moments between Sein and Leena, Mikaeli had somehow developed a special fondness for him?

Whatever the reason, Sein was certainly more tolerant of Mikaeli now than he had been in the past.

That was especially true after seeing that Leena had advanced to Rank Five as well.

More than seventy percent of Leena’s astonishingly rapid progress could be attributed to her soul fusion and shared memories with Mikaeli.

Through their connection, Leena had effectively inherited the knowledge and life experience of a mid-stage Rank Five black mage.

As their soul fusion deepened, however, the connection between them also became increasingly thorough.

Even the secrets Mikaeli had buried in the deepest recesses of her heart, along with emotions hidden beneath layers of old memories, were gradually laid bare before Leena.

Naturally, the same applied in reverse. Through Leena’s memories, Mikaeli came to understand just how devoted she was to Sein.

Sometimes, while Leena was busy conducting experiments and Mikaeli’s soul was resting, the latter would find her thoughts drifting without even realizing it.

When Leena was taken to Blackhaven in the Western Archipelago, Sein traveled billions of miles just to find her.

Then another thought would inevitably follow.

Why didn’t anyone come looking for me when I was taken to Blackhaven back then?

Whenever her thoughts reached that point, Mikaeli would sink into a long spell of melancholy.

Through their shared memories, Leena eventually learned the full story of what had happened all those years ago.

Mikaeli and the Master Dark Flame had indeed belonged to the same faction.

Back then, the two had been extremely close. Their relationship, however, had been far more innocent than Sein and Leena’s.

After all, Sein and Leena had already confessed their feelings for each other while they were still initiates.

Eventually, the black mages’ hideout where Mikaeli and the Master Dark Flame lived was raided.

Master Dark Flame was rescued by divine tower mages and eventually lived his life as a normal mage.

Mikaeli was not so fortunate. She was taken to Blackhaven by several severely wounded black mages.

Given what kind of place Blackhaven was, one could only imagine what Mikaeli had endured before finally clawing her way up to Rank Five.

The suffering she experienced along the way was something most mages who had spent their lives within the relatively stable environment of a divine tower could scarcely imagine.

At first, Mikaeli had waited for her senior with hope. But when no one came, that hope slowly turned into resentment.

And over the years, that resentment eventually festered into hatred toward Master Dark Flame.

Perhaps that alone was enough to show just how complicated human emotions could become.

By now, however, Mikaeli no longer felt much of anything toward Master Dark Flame. She had already hated him for long enough.

As for love... That was even less likely. After all, Mikaeli had never actually confessed her feelings to him in the first place.

Instead, after being forced to witness far too many private moments between Sein and Leena over the years, Mikaeli had somehow become more interested in Sein.

Perhaps the relationship between Sein and Leena represented exactly what Mikaeli had once longed for herself.

Few would ever imagine that a notoriously vicious Rank Five black mage from Blackhaven could possess such a delicate side.

Then again, perhaps not every black mage was evil through and through.

Some of them might simply have spent too long waiting for someone to reach out and pull them back.