MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

"Clan leader Nocril, is this the way the Uzash clan treats its heroes?" Alex said, having recognized why he was being hung like a prisoner.

"There are those who celebrate the heroes, and there are those who envy them, and the strength that you have shown would be envied by weak and strong alike,"

"Your display of strength is bound to resonate through the whispers of Mother Nature, and soon, the weak and the mighty alike will come knocking on my clan's doors to take you."

"My clan does not have the means to protect, and you don't hold enough value to the Elven Empire for them to protect you from the various powerful Beast clans and Beast Emperors,"

"As you clearly have something linked to a Beast Monarch because of the Aura you have shown, so the only end for you would be being sold out to the highest bidder," Nocril calmly said, and at this point, could only just shake his head knowing his month of effort was gone in smoke.

Alex felt terrible for losing a month of work, but he also felt a bit relieved knowing that he had the means to make a recovery and potentially achieve better results with much less work.

'All is not lost, as now that I have the complete Dauanting reality mask, but it is only more troublesome work for me,'

'I need to use the Mana Nova and kill myself,' Alex thought, knowing this was the only option to get out of the situation, as running away could result in those unknown figures killing the Emperor.

Alex felt the demons could be involved, but even if they were not, whoever was behind the scenes was a great power, and he couldn't risk alerting them with his escape.

"But my thinking is different, so the moment I got the report of your situation, I sent a loyal clan member with a criminal of the same strength and physique as you to kill and place him in your place,"

"So, in everyone's eyes, you are a dead hero mourned by thousands and buried in my clan's graveyard of heroes,"

"Now, If you give me your secret, then I promise you protection and also give you a high position in the clan, obviously under disguise and rich of your wildest imagination, and even help you advance to the Elemental Ruler Rank," Nocril said, making Alex take a step back as he might not need to kill himself to get out of trouble.

'If he is telling the truth, then I can escape, and there is nothing he would be able to do about it nor alert anyone as keeping me dead is his best option because knowing the truth, the Elven Empire wouldn't be happy knowing he tricked them and also lost such a potential resource,'

'There is most likely a Law isolation barrier in place, so the temporal beacon skill wouldn't work, but after the incident with the demon champion, I have prepared for such a scenario,'

'However, I need to cause a distraction to cover the disturbance of continental teleportation, but with mana sealed, it is going to be very painful,' Alex thought as he steeled his mind to blow his mana heart.

"How do I know you are not lying and this is not just a trick to take what you want and then kill me?"

"Because if you wanted to negotiate a deal, why would you bind me with mana-draining chains, leaving me just enough mana to stay conscious," 

"Take a Law oath confirming what you just said, make it clear that no one beside you and few people of trust knows about your plan, and then we talk," Alex said, after moments of silence and creating a plan of escape if things panned out right.

"You are a strange one, so I just made preparations so we can have a peaceful talk and everything stays under control," Nocril said and followed with taking the law oath.

"You twig fuc***, stop blabbering because nothing you say would get you what you desire, but you are not going to believe me, so take it from my corpse if there is one left," Alex said, as he condensed the mana in his Ancient heart to use the Mana Nova skill.

The continental teleportation would only cause minimal space disturbance, not enough to be detected by someone who was not very familiar with the element of space and void, and this was a fact that he confirmed from Varon.

So unless someone saw the whole process of Alex getting engulfed in momentary darkness that after his Ruler Arthroutiy's promotion only lasted for a mere three seconds, he would not understand if he was getting devoured by darkness or getting teleported.

Alex planned to use minor Mana Nova to make it appear he condensed mana in his heart and detonated it, and as the darkness devoured him, all Nocril would see would be his body getting erased by darkness, and even if he had his doubts, he wouldn't be able to do anything.

The consequent blast would destroy both his heart and a section of his body, but he would survive, and that was all that mattered.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU MAD BASTARD," Nocril roared as he felt all the mana in Alex's body gathering in his heart, and a magic circle with purple runs appeared below his feet that disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

Nocril, in the moment of urgency, lifted his hand, creating chains of shadows that rapidly moved and got hold of their target, but to his horror, he saw the rapidly condensing mana explode, ripping through the madman's chest and back before darkness grew and engulfed a few feets of his surrounding.

The tightly held chains moved freely to the side, ripping through the deepening darkness, their edges erased clean, and to the horror of Nocril, who had all smiles moments ago, the man was gone with a trace.

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'I hope I don't need to do this again,' Alex considered as he felt his additionally most spit body recover from the damage he had done to it.

Alex lay on the green grass of the Royal palace with his guardian, telling what happened to Varon, who looked alert and worried, seeing him lying in a pool of blood with his body attached to his almost shattered spine and tendons.

As Alex waited for full recovery, his mind worked to salvage the situation because even though he believed he was in trouble, he couldn't be more cautious with the whole human continent at stake.

So, the only considered on his mind was returning to the Elven Continent, finding a good target to get him into the Royal palace, and working on locating the Emperor.

Alex additionally realized he required to find another way to deal with Light Elk because, if possible, he couldn't spend another month improving his strength, as much could happen in four weeks.

So, after a bit of thinking, he could only think of two options, with the first one being to upgrade his Armor and gain a few percent extra stat boost, but that was not worth changing his entire set of armor skills to newer and unfamiliar skills.

The second option was restoring his legacy weapons and hoping that it would unlock some great time skills that could help him deal with the insane speed and power of Light Elk.

Alex wanted to get comfortable with his skills and gain better control over Darkness and Chaos manipulation, as both elements were suited to deal with the element of Light, but with the unpredictable nature of the future, wasting any time didn't sit well with him.

So, with a simple in mind, Alex waited for his recovery, and moments later, when he was back to full health with Varon, he made his way into the Royal treasury.

Alex started absorbing tens of gold and epic-grade weapons, with each stash taking only a few minutes, and at the rate, the recovery percentage was growing, he expected to reach 40% in less than twelve hours and unlock two new time skills.

Five hours and a few thousand weapons later, the 30% restoration was reached, and a new skill was unlocked, and to say it was amazingly useful in battle.

After seven hours, 40% restoration was reached, and the skill that got unlocked was so good Alex felt like doing a small celebration. 

While it was right about now, he expected the weapon restoration to start growing at snail pase like last time, but he was not disappointed as both new skills were just excellent and would be invaluable in the battle against the Light Elks.

However, to his absolute delight, the restoration was still progressing at a relatively acceptable speed and much slower, but It would only take around eighteen to twenty hours for it to reach 50%, and Alex could happily spend that time on another great Time element skill.