Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

”What is it?” the Ancestor asked from across the room, noticing her sudden silence.

”He... he is still in the latrines,” Nayu whispered.

The Ancestor’s eyes narrowed. He set his cup down instantly and crossed the room in a flash, taking the tracking mirror from her hands.

He stared at the red dot glowing statically where the latrines were located.

Very quickly, he looked up and gave a signal to the second shadow still kneeling before them, and immediately, the shadow disappeared.

He even gave another silent order, looking to the corner of the room where his own personal shadow — the first shadow — was hidden. That shadow also left the room, heading to the latrine to check on the current situation.

Meanwhile, Nayu was frantically flickering through the pages of the books on the table, as if looking specifically for something she had glimpsed earlier.

Suddenly, she stopped at a page of a random book.

It was an obscure, mundane log detailing the daily duties of lower-branch servants and outer-sect workers — a book a noble like Nayu An would never glance at in a hundred lifetimes.

It listed protocols for cooks, sweepers, lawn trimmers, waste handlers... Essentially, it was a guide for the menial staff who kept the inner sect running.

In this book, she had specifically stopped on the page detailing the tasks of the latrine workers.

And on that page, aside from the tasks of latrine workers, there was also the schematics of the latrines in the inner sect.

Unlike the crude, open-pit latrines of the outer sect, the inner sect facilities were remarkably clean and organized, constructed with an interconnected sewer line.

Every individual cubicle drained into a central, covered waste channel running directly underneath the sect, emptying into a massive septic tank that was well away from the main area of the inner sect.

Nayu An stood up abruptly, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest.

Behind her, her grandfather had also deciphered everything from a glance at the schematics. He took off immediately, dashing out of the room.

If Uhtred escaped, then Nayu An’s life... the future of the entire An clan... was completely forfeit.

Within Nayu An was an artifact that her grandfather had discovered many years ago. It took the latent potential of simple young men of lowly birth who had no means of unlocking that potential.

In Jor-than’s case, the boy had been born with a secret affinity for esoteric magic. He was also an elemental, but controlling the elements was not where his true talent lay.

The An clan was purely an elemental clan. Their techniques, their fighting styles, and everything about them revolved around manipulating elements.

As a result, someone like Jor-than had never reached the true potential of his abilities. He had not even been discovered until that final battle, when Nayu An detected him with the help of the artifact in her body.

The moment she sensed his latent potential, she activated the artifact without hesitation, locking onto him as her next target.

The origins of this artifact were mysterious. One could call it a fortuitous encounter that Nayu An’s grandfather had discovered and bestowed upon her, but it could just as easily be considered a curse.

The moment she locked onto a target, she placed herself in a vulnerable position. She had to bond with her target, and the target had to willingly bed her, not just once, but multiple times.

That was why a marriage proposal was her standard method. Numerous young men, particularly those from the outer sect with hidden potential, had been brought into the inner sect, promised endless rewards, and married to her in secret, only to have their talent drained away before being killed.

Uhtred had been the outlier. He had not reacted the way the others had, wagging their tails like eager dogs and jumping to bed her without hesitation. Some had not even made it to the marriage stage before she got to suck them dry of their potential.

So one could easily imagine her surprise when Uhtred barely reacted to her beauty and charm.

Of course, the clan doctor had diagnosed it as memory loss, but her gut was telling her something else entirely. She felt he had been fully conscious and aware of everything the whole time, watching her like someone with a broad view of the whole chessboard.

Her heart thudded in her chest as she stared at the schematics, completely dazed.

If Uhtred escaped without the two of them intermingling, the soul artifact would devour her from the inside out as time passed.

Allowing Uhtred time to recover had been a necessity. If it weren’t, she would have forced the marriage through immediately. However, with the doctor’s diagnosis that his mind was compromised, she had been forced to wait. Otherwise, during the binding ritual, she would permanently inherit his memory loss.

The mental well-being of the target had to be certain before she could proceed.

”But this...?” she whispered, barely able to breathe. ”How can he be so decisive?”

Even if he had been plotting an escape, he had only left the library literally less than an hour ago!

Normally, he should have returned to his quarters to think, observe guard rotations, confirm whether he was being watched, and then develop an actionable strategy.

Instead, immediately upon leaving the library, he had gone straight for the latrines. The cubicles there were extremely small, which meant the third shadow assigned to watch him would be forced to wait outside.

In theory, Uhtred could simply slip down into the waste channel, passing through not just his own cubicle but underneath all the others, wading his way through the disgusting filth and shit all the way to the septic tank outside the inner sect.

”...That’s impossible!”

Nayu An shook her head vehemently, not willing to believe that Uhtred was willing to go to such lengths. She pictured those calm, unfazed eyes of his, and a trace of doubt entered her mind.

”No... There is no way he’s that crazy!”