The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 502: Lords, Scions and Demons

”Let’s What about the Lords... How did you learn about those... Was it SE?”

”Ah…. No… The info came much later, after we investigated the remains of the last Imperial family, the Von Eines… One member from that family who escaped the destruction took refuge with us, and in exchange, some old records from her family. In the imperial age, they were responsible for experiments on Lords and such… The data she had was incomplete, though… “

“The Spark you had…”

“Yes, it came from her… In fact, she was my maternal grandmother, but she passed away very early while giving birth to my mother!” Alpha explained.

“Oh… So, what do you know about lords?”

“About their nature, not a lot… Just that they use Sparks to go far beyond what any other player can…”

“I know this stuff… “ Victor sighed. “I mean, about the lords that existed beside SE…”

“SE was a lord?” Alpha friend.

“...” Victor paused. “It is clear that she must have been…”

“My family believed that she must have been something even greater… According to the data, when SE first came, some other lords appeared, but in no time, she subdued them all and locked them away, forbidding any lord from ever entering this world! The von Eines family’s mission was responsible for investigating any unnatural lord activity, though, so sadly, other than the few pieces of information about the nature of lords themselves, we don’t have any data about their identities…”

“I see…. Wait… Each family had a mission?”

“Ah… Right…” Alpha quickly explained. “The biggest were the Von Eines overseeing Lords, the Von Zwei, overseeing Demons, and the Von Tries overseeing Scions…”

Victor frowned; other than the Von Zwei, he had never learnt of the other.

“They had been destroyed with the capital!” Alpha, as if reading his mind, explained. There were 7 numbered families, and only the von Zwei survived.

“Oh…” Victor nodded. “What about my family? What about the Von Krone?”

“The Von Weise were one of the three Imperial Guards families. They were responsible for the white shields, the personal protection of the Emperor… The Von Krone were the Imperial Custodians; they seem to be keeping some kind of a treasure for SE, but we are not sure about it…. “ Alpha explained. “My family was responsible for investigating crimes and such… They operated the Court systems…”

“Oh… Then the other Oligarchs?”

“Not sure about the von Astrom’s mission… It has something to do with fate and predictions using the stars, though…” she said, then paused a bit. “The Von Geldstadt were naturally the ones responsible for the treasury and taxes…” Alpha said. “The Von Rosen were not a major family, but a side branch of the Von Zwei who split about 500 years ago… “

“Oh…” Victor nodded. Now the families’ names began to make sense. “Returning to the subject of Lords, how did you learn how to use your lord power? To offer that Spark to the system?” he asked.

“Ah…. In the data I have, Lords gain power by offering their Spark to the system, and in exchange, they gain power to use its element! I only had to think about doing it to be recognized as a formal lord!” Alpha said, looking at him as if asking wasn’t the way it should be done.

“...” Victor looked at her as if looking at an idiot.

“What?” she couldn’t help but ask. The way he was looking at her made her feel a bit offended.

“Why was all this information hidden?” he asked, deciding not to tell her that she might have missed the chance of her life to become one of the strongest beings in existence.

”It was the playerʼs councilʼs decision, they didnʼt want people to go digging through things and didnʼt want any demons who were hiding to realize how compromised their state was... There might be other reasons, but those were the ones they gave... Only the patriarchs of the major families and the supreme elders knew the truth... Or parts of it at the very least! And no parts of it were allowed to be recorded!”

”Oh...” Victor nodded. No wonder he learnt nothing about this in his past life. It seemed like, even as the royal librarian, he knew nothing!

“Then, letʼs change the subject.... What about the system node?” he asked, pinching Alphaʼs arm softly.

“Ah….. “ Alpha swallowed. “It presented itself to me the moment I became a lord… It seems to have a lot of functionality, but my access level is only level 9, so I only have read-only access to some things…”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“What are those things?” Victor asked. Emira did tell him about that.

“I can read people’s status, I can read some statistical data about the world, I can take a look at the world global rules, I can access the System Merchant Market and finally I should be able to discover a dungeon if I am 10 KM around it, though I will not be able to enter it due to the restriction on lords entering or leaving this world…” she said.

“...” Victor frowned. Those things were not that important. If he had to make a guess, this access might have been granted not for the lord’s benefit, but as a way for the Sprite lord to sense their existence using the system! “I see… Just that?”

“Yeah…”

“Tell me about those global statistics and rules….”

“Ah… I don’t remember a few things…” she said, embarrassingly.

SPANK!

“Ouch! I am telling the truth… Can’t you remove that curse and make me take a look again!”

“No!” Victor flatly refused. “Try to remember!” he said.

Alpha sighed. “Well… There were a few about the number of players in the world and statistics about each class level or something…. The numbers I recall are about 130,000 players with only 1% having an S ranking class, 5% with an A ranking…. “ she said.

“I see… You will write those for me later. What about the rules?”

“Those are the ones governing this world, like a glorified edict shard or something. There are 13….” she said.

“Write them down…” he interrupted as he grabbed a notebook from the side and pushed it into her hand.

“Can you let go of me then…”

“Don’t worry, I will hold you tight, so you can freely use your hands…”

“.... bastard….”

“Come on…”

“Look… Those ones are pretty complicated, so don’t blame me if I make any mistakes…” Alpha said as she began to write.

SKILL [DEMONIC PURGE, X] TARGET: BLOODLINE== DEMON* && SIGMA_COND==NULLSKILL [WORLD BARRIER,X] TARGET: NQ11, CLASS = ( OATH!=PLAYER[0] || !PLAYER[0] )&& (LORD || APPLYABLE_CLASS_LIST.CONTAINS(LORD))_SKILL [GREAT FORTUNE, G] TARGET: FATE== S && (G.ASSIGN(WORLD. REVIEW.FATE_THREADS.COLOR.R.SUM>9) || LIST_3.EXISTS(NAME, UID)) APPLY CONDITION SCION_SKILL [GREAT MISFORTUNE, X] TARGET: FATE== S && (WORLD. REVIEW.FATE_THREADS.COLOR.R.SUM14 || BETA_COND > UNINITIALIZED )_SKILL [MARK, F] TARGET: AUTHORITY>10000, LIST_4SKILL [CREAT PLAYER, SS] | (TRANSFER_AUTHORITY(1,ARTIFACT_09,*)) TARGET: * PLAYER.LIST.COUNT > 500,000 || DUNGEON.COUNT > 50,000 _SKILL [SELF IMPLODE CURSE, SSS] TARGET: NAME.CONTAINS {DAWN DEMON, DUSK DEMON, TWILIGHT DEMON, ZENITH DEMON, ZIFR THE GREAT, OLMICA THE GREAT, TANGERINE THE GREAT, NEONE THE GREAT, GLASS THE GREAT, THE ONE MIRROR, OSTEAL THE DESTROYER, DOCTOR BILTARA, BLACK HEAVIN }SKILL [CLOSE GATE, S] TARGET: GATE.DIST > 89 WU_SYS [SYSTEM.ELEVATERIGHTS, U] TARGET : COND=EMPEROR,U || ( LIST_3.EXISTS(NAME, UID)) && $S.OATH==TRUE)_SKILL [CALL OF NATURE, SSS] TARGET: BLOODLINE==SPIRIT*_SYS [TRANSFER_AUTHORITY(1)] TARGET1: PLAYER.EVENT.INIT TARGET2: ARTIFACT_09; TARGET1.ADD COND: SEMI_PLAYER._SYS [UGRADE.CLIENT.FORCE] TARGET: *PLAYER.LISTReading this list, Victor opened his mouth wide in shock. “Shit….”

“Yeah…” Alpha, as if understanding his feelings, said.

Ignoring her, Victor began to make sense of what he read, translating the rules into plain language one by one.

1. Demons will be purged… that Sigma something might be to allow those who were summoned using a skill or had a contract to be excluded, but Victor was not sure.

2. This one was the barrier stopping lords from entering or leaving this world. It seemed like an expedition for some people, but he was not sure who… Probably the spirit lord and her disciples.

”Did SE have any disciples?” he asked Alpha, who was still squirming in his arms.

”No... Not that I know of... Can you let go of me now?”

”No!” he said as he continued to read.

3. This one about scions… They have to be favorable to the world, or belong to some kind of a list…

4. This one is about Dark Scions. The condition must mean something about being bad to the world.

5. This one was about dungeon creation when strong otherworldly beings enter this world!

6. Mark?

Victor paused at that one. It states that all those with Authority greater than 10000 should be marked and added to a list!

He quickly looked at his status screen. There was no Mark…

No… He quickly noticed an underscore before each of the skills. [_SKILL] Could this mean the skill was hidden?

He frowned as he really had no way to figure this out… He didn’t like being on a list, unless it was a VIP one. Still, with only authority bigger than 10000 being the condition, it shouldn’t be very dangerous… He should only remain cautious.

He decided to check it later before continuing.

7. This one must be to make all the people players just when the reckoning happened. Clearly a backup plan! It also adds one authority point to each player… Wait… wasn’t that what happened in the other timeline?

8. This one was to make certain people explode based on their names… Was this Spirit Lordʼs naughty list? Still, heʼd better make sure not to disguise his name using one of those, just in case!

9. This one was to close the gates that are far away. He was not sure how far 89LU was, but knowing that a gate to ismeralia existed, this distance must be higher!

10. This one… Give more rights to access the node? Could it be what happened to Mona? It seems to be tied to a list of names and… An oath? Could it be that Mona was the Spirit lord’s disciple in the other timeline? Then Lily….

OH!

Victor frowned as he jumped to the next entry.

11. Call of nature? What the fuck was this… It seems to secretly apply this skill to all Spirit bloodline holders… wait… Spirit? Didn’t both Mira and Aria have bloodlines like that? Could there be a connection between them and the spirit Empress?

Feeling uneasy, Victor jumped to the next rule.

12. This one transfers one authority point from every player to an artifact upon his awakening, making him a fake existence called semi_player… So that’s why!

SHIT! So it was all on purpose. Looking back at rule 7, it was clear that this artifact must have been some kind of Authority bag that would be used later to give all people one extra Authority point in case of emergency!

He sighed as he turned to the last Rule.

13. This one was about forcing the system to upgrade through existing players…

“What do you think?” Alpha asked him as she watched his facial expression change constantly.

“...” he glared at her. “I think I might be screwed…” he told the truth. All of his current plans needed to be reworked.

In the end, he might really have to go attend that Tournament, the prizes in it were clearly something that he and Lily had completely underestimated!