A Dragon’s Curiosity

 

 

The unexpected surprise was that the lever had barely stopped on early stage before it jumped to middle stage, as if there was no difficulty at all.

Right as Elinor doubted whether there was a mistake, the marker went up another stage and ended up on third rank, late stage.

That was no longer a cultivation a member of the younger generation should have.

Even some of the city guards were not necessarily at the same cultivation, and they either oversaw the city or spent their time on training like the army.

Just hard work and persistent effort were not enough to reach the peak of the first three ranks, not to mention that they would need even longer to struggle against the first great divide in cultivation after that to have a chance at reaching the fourth rank.

That was also why knights were conferred only upon reaching that milestone, it was out of reach for most commoners and needed talent as well as dedicated effort.

In return, the kingdom rewarded their diligence with a title and a special address, either Ser or Sera, as well as a title if the individual wished for it.

But under the lifeless eyes of the staff member Elinor, the marker gave her fragile heart one blow after the other.

After reaching the extreme of the first three ranks, the level indicating the stages fell back to the early position, whereas the uppermost row left the rank of ordinary civilians and entered the realm of knights and court mages.

The upper row was already behaving impossibly, yet the second row did not like to be outdone either.

It almost looked like the second lever struggled to jump from early stage to middle stage several times, but it had to give up the endeavour in the end and obediently stay at fourth rank, early stage.

Elinor stared blankly at the result, unable to formulate a coherent thought at the moment.

The elf, on the other hand, was rather satisfied with the machine.

It had accurately grasped her elements and cultivation base, though it was a surprise that it judged that Nisha was close to the middle stage.

 

Due to the contract with her two beasts, it was not easy for the dragon to improve her own cultivation at the current point of time.

Any additional training would be diverted to Accalia and Eisen, who needed to break through first before the elf had a chance to advance again.

Perhaps if Nisha obtained a superior potion made from a natural resource like a 50 turn old precious fruit or a flower that collected the essence of nature for that long, then she could escape the bindings of the contract and reach a higher rank first, but the contract would suffer correspondingly if the difference in cultivation was too big.

Overall. It was safer to train slowly and wait for the familiars to catch up first.

Right as Nisha basked in the satisfaction of having achieved a small goal in her cultivation, the voice of the attendant Elinor tore her out of her thoughts.

“Uhm, Miss Nisha, there‘s probably a problem with this machine, we have to change rooms and try again.“

Seeing the results, the staff member did not even entertain the idea that these were genuine results of a new member from the [Royal Academy].

People with knight level or court magician level cultivation were rare to begin with and it took the Arena a great deal of effort to invite them for matches.

Whether there was a matchup between those great figures once every other three or four days was not guaranteed, anything above that frequency was already a great blessing.

And while the academy ultimately aimed to elevate their graduates to that lofty height, most were stumped by the great first divide in cultivation, otherwise that particular distinction would not be as infamous as it is.

Hard work and persistence were worthless in front of that great chasm, it took enlightenment, a suitable chance and fate to overcome the difficulty of attaining the fourth rank.

Children that were too young were unsuitable to cultivate hard because it could influence their growth and foundation, at most the offspring of the upper class had better resources at their disposal and could get a small advantage by eating and drinking meals made from superior quality ingredients.

Concurrently, those of simple origin might come into contact with high level materials through the work of their parents and absorb a small bit of the ambient energy by chance.

 

Nevertheless, it would never push a kid to the second rank in either aura or mana cultivation with passive methods alone, the late first stage was practically the exclusive territory of the most outstanding geniuses and the admission criteria for the [Royal Academy] and would guarantee admission.

In truth, most of those that reached the late first stage before officially attending the school cheated by relying on the methods and manuals accumulated by their family and used the more harmless and mild training practices to gain a small advantage, though the gains were limited and carried a small amount of risk.

“Is there a problem? Everything looks good to me.“

No matter how one looked at it, there was a fundamental misunderstanding between the two of them at play here.

Despite hearing the words one by one, Elinor failed to make sense of them despite several breaths passing.

When she looked at the petite elf, who might just snap in two if a stronger wind passed through, the words ‘fourth rank warrior and mage‘ just failed to overlap with her figure.

As an attendant for the arena, she had seen her fair share of high level cultivators and which of them was not a mighty and valiant figure?

Some of them did not accept the title from the kingdom either for personal reasons or because they served under someone else, while others nominally reached the baron or viscount rank but had neither territory nor the matching House, but all of them had proven with blood and sweat that their cultivation was the real deal.

Their presence alone usually was enough to subdue weaker fighters and they were rather aloof, a stark difference from the polite girl in front of her.

“No, you see … I mean … it‘s … - wait, what?“

Elinor stammered her way through her sentence and tried to convey her thoughts several times, but the glaring lever stuck at the fourth rank cultivation level destroyed her rationality every time.

That was the great divide, after all!

Countless people in the kingdom constantly sought after the chance that would allow them to break through and soar into the sky with one step, and yet a girl that probably did not even cultivate properly for a full turn already crossed that important step?

For one reason or the other, the staff member short circuited and was unable to come to a conclusion whether the machine was broken or if the results were genuine.

 

“Miss Elinor, what seems to be the problem?“

Since Nisha had already resolved herself to go crazy for once and fight with all her power, then she naturally had to find someone of the same cultivation level at least.

Withholding only one trump card was already the limit, hence the dragon candidly showed off her attainments.

It did surprise her, however, how much the arena staff struggled to accept the results of the test.

“It looks like there is a problem with the test equipment … no, there definitely is!

I am sorry, Miss Nisha, we have to change to a different room and try again.“

The arena attendant suddenly had a moment of epiphany and understood everything.

Something had to be wrong after all, it was safer to just repeat the test and report this unit as broken.

Sadly, her ideas were great, but reality did not quite go along with Elinor‘s thoughts.

“What problem is there? I think the measurement is pretty accurate.“

Nisha was rather helpless in this regard.

She also knew that her cultivation level definitely bordered on the term abnormal, but if she did not intervene now, it was unknown if the dragon could still sign up to fight in the arena.

Thankfully, the arena was just below the [Adventurer‘s Guild] when it came to confidentiality and would not easily leak the details of their fighters.

And even in the worst case, it would only arouse the doubt of some people and make them exclaim over an unusual case at the most, Nisha did not really do anything forbidden or illegal to have her current level of cultivation.

The attention would dissipate over time, given that the elf refrained from stepping into the spotlight deliberately.

Overall, the risk was small and within the scope that the Dharnas family name could bear, allowing the elf to do as she pleased.

 

“Accurate? But it says here that you reached rank four with mana and aura cultivation.

Obviously …“

The last part of her sentence - … there is something wrong - was stuck in Elinor‘s throat.

She had thoroughly explained the mechanism of the measurement device to the girl and they both saw the same results.

Since it was quite unlikely that the student of a renowned figure ended up being a fool that‘s unable to understand the reading, there was only one other possibility when the elf said that the outcome looked accurate to her.

It was just too difficult to unite the idea of a mighty fourth stage cultivator with the petite girl in front of her, hence Elinor asked in a daze.

“Excuse me, miss, but when you said that the reading is accurate, did you mean …?“

The end of the sentence trailed off as the room lapsed into silence, a rather awkward one at that.

Nisha suddenly reconsidered if she should have looked for the same attendant, as the person in question looked a little silly right now.

She had already answered the question and was disinclined to repeat herself, it was up to the other party to believe her or not.

In the worst case, the dragon just had to find someone else and ask to sign up again, which was a little waste of time but not too bad if it achieved her goal.

Elinor, on the other hand, took the opportunity to gather her scattered thoughts in the break of their conversation, going over the past events again and trying to find the exact moment where reality started to break down and went in the direction of fantasy.

A girl pretty much half her size with the cultivation at the fourth rank, and dual cultivation in mana and aura at that.

Not even the bards at the inns and the square told tales as unbelievable as that, the crowd would beat them to death for insulting their intelligence.

Unfortunately, reality was sometimes stranger than fiction and the prolonged silence only confirmed that her wild thoughts most likely were the truth after all.

 

“You‘re really at the fourth rank? This is very important, there‘s a large difference between those that took that step in cultivation and those that did not.“

Elinor gulped and stared at the elf with wide eyes.

She even forgot to use polite language, no longer calling Nisha young miss.

Although the Arena was probably the place with the second largest gathering of cultivators after the Dungeon near the guild, it was not easy to come into contact with those of a higher cultivation level.

This was not based on a feeling of estrangement once the gap in level became too big, but also because the needs of different stages in cultivation could vary greatly.

For an attendant on the lower levels, occasionally taking a look or serving refreshments was the limit when it came to coming in contact with the esteemed figures that agreed to fight in the Arena.

Nisha expressed her mood with a frown, yet still answered since the other party already mentioned that it was important.

“Yes, the reading should be more or less accurate. The results are very close to what I sense about my own situation.“

What was the point of asking her to go through a complicated process if they would end up taking her word instead at the end?

Was this not purely wasting her time and unnecessary overall?

If there was an alternative venue where the dragon could fight frequently, she would have taken her leave by now and tried other places.

Perhaps sensing the change in attitude and the mood quickly cooling down, Elinor got a huge fright.

Having a rank three fighter under her would already be a huge achievement and could guarantee a huge profit, she could not even imagine what it would be like to have an esteemed fourth rank cultivator under her care.

Wouldn‘t she directly leap to the top of her career with a single move?

If she allowed Nisha to walk away after going through the procedures and request someone else to handle her affairs, then the attendant might as well just quit and look for a different job.

“This … please excuse me for confirming it twice, it‘s just too difficult to imagine that a young lady such as yourself is already so accomplished in the path of cultivation, Miss Nisha. It‘s my mistake.“