Odyssey of the Blind God

"The Empress told me to bring you to your room. You'll stay in Yggdrasil for a week to get to know all the information about the Golden Armaments Union, your opponents in the tournament, and so on," The Royal Princess explained while pointing at a simple wooden door.

They were outside Yggdrasil if one could call their current position as such, and Nial had yet to see Master Crevian or Meryl.

The air that swirled around him was frigid and Nial began to shiver as he turned his head to look at Princess Evalyne.

"Are you sure that you don't want to kill me? I mean, this room is literally thousands of meters above the ground and a single push would be enough to end my life... You're not planning to end me like this, right?!" Nial's lip twitched as he asked her bluntly.

They were still on Yggdrasil but they were not inside the tree anymore. Their current location was on one of Yggdrasil's thick branches, where numerous wooden huts were located. The wooden hut he was assigned as a temporary stay by the Princess was located on one of the thinnest branches and Nial was not even sure if it could endure his weight.

It might just break the moment he would step inside the hut.

"Why would I allow you to see so much of Yggdrasil and to climb so high up, just to kill you? Don't worry so much. The branch may look thin but it is one of the strongest!" Princess Evalyne started to treat Nial with the same air of casualness as him, giving a wide berth to being formal.

She had never liked formalities and making people bow to her just because she had been born as the Royal Princess.

Formalities irked her the most, but she had not received the chance to just be herself and not a princess while interacting with someone. Nial was a rare opportunity for her, which Evalyne had grasped after she had warmed up to Nial and his weird personality.

"Maybe you have a kink?" Nial responded with a shrug as he stepped inside the wooden hut without hesitation. He smirked and could clearly visualize Princess Evalyne's reaction, which nearly caused him to laugh out loud.

"You...really are tired of living, aren't you?!" Princess Evalyne shouted as she followed him with quick steps inside the wooden hut.

She wanted to teach him a lesson but Nial didn't seem to pay her much attention as he had already picked up a book from the stashes of books that had been prepared for him.

'Argh!! Crevian reported that he is good at provoking others but this is... beyond anything I could think off... ' Princess Evalyne thought while glaring daggers at Nial.

'If that's how he acts with a Royal Princess, how did he treat Crevian and his disciple? How is Nial even alive?' She genuinely wondered, clenching her fist to prevent herself from doing anything stupid.

"Will it be necessary for me to meet the Empress?" Nial asked quietly when he finished visualizing the content of the first book in his mind. His gaze flicked to the Princess, who was certain of knowing the answer to his question.

"She's not in Yggdrasil," Evalyne gave him a curt reply, which caused Nial to smile lightly.

'That's good then...' Nial nearly sighed in relief but he noticed early enough that Evalyne was still looking at him. She squinted when she saw his reaction but didn't probe him any further.

Nial could tell that everyone was a bit wary about his dark energy and that it was looked at with suspicion. If not for Jilas, Nial would have never used it in the presence of the older Elves, let alone the High Elves, who could have known the dark energy from encounters in the past.

Fortunately, they didn't know that the dark energy was limited to the God of Darkness, or Damian, to be precise. If they would have known this, even being favored by Yggdrasil wouldn't have stopped them from killing him.

As for meeting the Empress, she was bound to know about his dark energy and the fact that only Damian had this type of destructive energy. Nial avoided many problems by not meeting up with the Empress as the dark energy remnants would linger around him for a few days after the last time he used it.

"Will I be meeting Master Crevian to study, or am I supposed to be imprisoned in the wooden hut, caught in a cage like a bird?" Nial asked with a faint smile on his face.

"What the hell do you think about our race? We, Elves, are not that bad, you know?!" Princess Evalyne started to get annoyed at all the prejudices Nial seemed to have against the Elves. She was not even sure where the prejudices stemmed from because she doubted that he must have faced many troublesome encounters in the Forest of Life.

"In that case, I can read all those books in a day or two and join a few other classes about Runiciers, right? Is there anywhere in Yggdrasil where I am not allowed to be?" Nial ignored Evalyne's frustration as he kept asking her questions.

Princess Evalyne stomped her feet on the ground and took a few deep breaths before she was able to answer in a somewhat calm voice,

"Just do whatever you want and go wherever Yggdrasil allows you to go. Crevian will be holding classes in the following week before he brings you to Ximatra. Afterward, you will be on your own! Bye!"

Princess Evalyne disappeared the moment she finished speaking. Nial's grin widened and he sat down in front of the wooden desk next to him.

"Her reactions are really cute," Nial mumbled before his thoughts went astray. He started to visualize the content of all books on the desk one after another before he imprinted the content and knowledge written on the pages in his mind.

Nial didn't possess a perfect memory but his [Mana Sense] could imprint everything he had visualized in his mind for a certain period.

As long as he wanted to visualize it once again, Nial could do so until it would disappear. Nial had to read and learn everything about the books he had just learned but he didn't need to have the physical copies of the books with him.

He was done in less than half an hour and went outside the wooden hut. The content of one book was visualized in his mind and Nial read through it while he paved his way over Yggdrasil's long branch back inside the hut.

"I can go wherever I want as long as Yggdrasil allows it...I will do that then, I guess," Nial mumbled with a faint smile on his lips.

He didn't feel like offending anyone, not anymore but Princess Evalyne told him that he could do whatever he wanted...even if that was just something she said in anger.

Yggdrasil didn't really restrict him. The Sentient ginormous tree provided him with tremendous mana and vigor that entered his body whenever his feet touched the ground.

Nial had long since removed his shoes and socks to let his bare feet touch Yggdrasil directly. A tingling sensation and overflowing vigor entered Nial's body through his feet, invigorating him.

'The Ankh is truly useful,' Nial thought as the Symbol of Life continued to pull mana and vigor towards it. Nial absorbed and annexed the mana while the vigor that spread through his body was suctioned inside the Symbol of Life.

It was slowly changing, being nurtured and reinforced. The influence of the Symbol of Life was slowly increasing. While the Odyssey seed's dark energy, the Darkness Essence, and Damian's memories were something that influenced Nial, making him more violent and feel less bothered, or even guilty about injuring others, the Ankh was doing the exact opposite.

The Ankh influenced his mind and his body to stay calmer in all kinds of situations. It invigorated his body and allowed him to stay at his peak form every time. It hadn't been much longer than an hour since he was poisoned and his mana had been drained completely but he was already fully invigorated and his mana core was overflowing with mana.

Nial was, in fact, already working on compressing his mana to generate another droplet of mana which he would use to advance the progress of his third Ancient Origin ring.

As he was busy reading the books he had been given to study and compress his mana simultaneously, Nial didn't even notice where he was heading or that faint golden lines spread through his feet.

They traveled upward towards his knee and continued to advance until they connected with the Symbol of Life. After the golden lines spread around the Ankh and the Odyssey seed, they moved toward his head and his arms before they returned to the Ankh.

The golden lines were clearly visible to everyone, but there was nobody around to see Nial as he walked through the paths that no one had ever been inside. Nial was oblivious to where he was going or what was happening with his body.

He could only feel that multitasking was much easier than expected, that his understanding of all the content in the books was extremely easy for him to understand, and that the surrounding mana was much easier to annex than usual.

It wouldn't take him long to absorb enough mana to compress another mana droplet once the first one was compressed. This astonished him a bit but he didn't even think about complaining. He was happy that everything was going much smoother than he could have hoped for and that his mind was free of any doubts.

The golden lines spread through his entire body by now and they could be clearly seen wherever his veins were visible. A golden glow shrouded the blue veins that were visible to everyone's eyes.

Hours passed and Nial had already finished studying the third book. By now, he had created a total of eight mana droplets and it felt like he could go on for hours.

However, by now, he could tell that something was wrong. His range of perception had enlarged and he could clearly sense everything and everyone inside Yggdrasil. The entire tree was not just within his range of perception...it was almost as if the tree itself was his range of perception.

Nial shuddered when he realized this and as he regained his senses, he wondered where he had ended up for the first time since Princess Evalyne had left him.

"I'm in the deepest parts of Yggdrasil? Why though?" Nial wanted to walk through Yggdrasil to see more Elves and to figure out their strength, how advanced they were, and to experience the feeling of being around sub-races of Elves felt like when he perceived them with his [Mana Sense].

There were various things Nial was curious about but none of it was related to the deepest parts of Yggdrasil. The tree had opened various paths to him and he was now as close to its ginormous roots as possible. This confused him, but it was not the only confusing part.

Nial felt as if his body was connected to Yggdrasil. The Symbol of Life created a link between Yggdrasil but Nial had no idea what he was supposed to do with that link.

"Just what is going on?!"