Cultivating Talents [LitRPG Mana-cultivation]

"We did no such thing," Eileen said, frowning. "That is a rumour spread by the Zulen nobles. As a matter of fact, that's why we're here. You haven't seen—wait a minute, you aren't with them, are you?" She cut herself off mid-sentence, as if she'd just realised who she was talking to.

Hector blinked at her. This? This was the leader of the Flower Bank Mercenary Company. She seemed more like a noble who'd come out to play with a few stragglers she'd rounded up. No wonder she'd gotten into a fight with the Zulen family.

"We are with no nobles," Hector said, "as a matter of fact." A growing storm of excitement whirled within him, as this would be the first time he'd actually stated who his team was. Puffing out his chest a little, he squared his stance. "We are the Clear Sky Mercenary Company."

Eileen frowned, turning back to her group. "Do you know them?"

"No," one man replied. "Never heard of them."

She turned back to him. "We've never heard of you."

Hector nodded, letting out a strained chuckle. That was not unexpected after all. They hadn't exactly gone around making a name for themselves, and people wouldn't know who they were unless they told them.

They had kept secret the few actions they'd taken since entering the trial realm within the Shade Forest, and many people remained unaware of them. Maybe Aiden and his two friends could qualify, but he had known Hector as just that, 'Hector' or 'the ghost' as he affectionately called him.

"I see," Hector said to Eileen. "Either way, to answer your question, we aren't with the nobles. The Zulen, I believe you called them?"

Eileen nodded, her ponytails swinging as she shifted her weight and crossed her arms. "We thought he'd be in there," she said, nodding to the garden past Hector, her gaze practically travelling through him as if searching the place through the small amount she could make out from the doorway. "But since you're coming out and you say you've seen no one," she continued, "I guess we'll have to continue our search further down."

"Continue?" Marcus eked out from behind. "But I'm still—"

Jodie's hand clamped over his mask, and she dragged him back a little.

Hector scrambled for his words. While Eileen and her team didn't represent a threat, that was only for now. There was no understanding between the two groups that both of them could complete the quest. Whoever had the quest might have too—

"What was that?" Eileen asked, raising a brow.

"We have our own thing going on down here," Hector said. "We're just trying to complete a few of the rooms and see what we can find."

Eileen's lips split into a smile, her hands falling to her sides. "I'm not stupid. You couldn't have gotten down here without solving the riddle, and no one just stumbles through that mist-choked forest up there to land on some random, unassuming crypt and just head straight in. You're here for something. And if I had to guess, you're here for the inheritance."

There it was.

Hector's chest tightened. How quickly would he be able to summon his blades? Would they attack before then? [Vault Runner] was on cooldown. How many of them could he even take out?

System, scan them.

As it did, several pings of Minimum Gravity Forging Three came back. These mercenaries were trained. So, definitely not slum dwellers recently turned into a mercenary company. Hector bit back a curse.

Just his luck. There were what, six of them? With Lincoln's current state, he probably wouldn't be much help. Though Talents gave them an advantage when compared to normal cultivators like this.

"So, am I right?" Eileen said.

Hector hesitated to speak, picking his words carefully. If he said the wrong thing, this could escalate, and fast.

Seeing he wasn't responding, Eileen chuckled and shook her head. "Don't worry, we're not here to hamper anyone's quest." Then her face dropped as if a mask had slipped into place. Her eyes steeled, smile shrinking. "I just want the noble. That is it. He killed one of ours, and we want to pay it back in kind."

"You want to attack a noble?" Jodie said from behind, glancing at Hector as if she'd heard the craziest thing ever.

"Yes," Eileen said, regarding Jodie with a frown. "I don't care if it's a noble or a slum dweller. If you hurt one of ours, payback is payback. It's as simple as that."

Hector could appreciate that. If someone were to hurt someone he cared about, he'd do what he could to make sure he got revenge. Hell, that's what he was currently doing with the Coller gang, no matter how slow that was going. But as soon as this trial realm finished, he'd have more than enough strength to reduce them to ash—provided he used the right talents.

"So what now then?" Hector asked.

"Well, we're going to continue down there," she said, raising a hand and pointing down the hallway. "You guys can follow, or do whatever you like. But we kind of want to check out that room first, if you don't mind." She pointed past Hector into the garden.

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He shrugged. "You can do what you want, though I would warn you—I'm not sure how this crypt works. If you go in there, your man there," he said, pointing at the brown-haired boy whose quest it clearly was, "he may have to make a potion, and you will have to defend him."

"Oh?" Eileen said, smiling. "That's rather nice of you to, you know, give us a heads up."

Hector shrugged. It cost him nothing to inform someone, and from the looks of it, whilst strange, this girl didn't mean harm to anyone. At least, unless you harmed her first. It was more of an olive branch and a test. If they returned the favour in the future, his decision now would pay off.

Hector and his friends then stepped out of the doorway, moving to the side and letting Eileen and her group pass. The girl gave him one last nod and an oddly cheerful smile before dipping into the room; the large wooden doors creaked closed behind them, and then finally slammed shut with a deep thud.

That answered one question: the doors wouldn't stay open after you completed the trial, but did that mean everything inside was reset? Hector's gaze moved down the hallway to the black obsidian door that they'd passed through to get into this hall. It too was closed.

The creature, swinging the way it did, probably waited on the other side for another group. Eileen and her crew didn't look like they'd suffered any damage coming through the door. Perhaps they'd been in a fight, perhaps not. There were more of them, and they probably could've divided the thing's attention a lot easier than just Hector and Jodie.

"Are you sure about that?" Lincoln asked, breaking Hector from his thoughts.

Turning to his friend, Hector narrowed his eyes. "Sure about what?"

"You know," he said, gesturing towards the door with the tip of his spear, "giving them advice, letting them know what awaits them. Helping them out."

Hector narrowed his gaze at his friend, his thoughts swirling. On one hand, he could see where Lincoln was coming from: play your cards close to your chest, give nothing away, and make sure you had all the advantages.

Though you could never know when something could be useful. Sure, they may not reciprocate Hector's kindness immediately, but in the future, they very well could. And that was a gamble he would take.

"Well, unlike you, Hector isn't a complete selfish idiot," Jodie said from the side and shook her head before turning to the other end of the hallway. "Either way," she continued, "I think what Hector did was right."

A smile came to Hector's lips. At least that one wasn't a criticism. She could see the benefit in his gamble, too, and for now, that would be enough.

"Alright," he said, turning to Marcus, the one who was leading them through this nail-biting adventure. "I take it we have to move down there?"

Marcus didn't react, as his gaze lingered on the door. Eileen and her team had just entered, and he seemed worried, as if their going in had somehow caused him an issue.

Though Hector could guess why. This inheritance was important to him; it was something that could very well change his entire life, and now someone else competed for it. If Hector were in his shoes, he'd be worried too.

"You alright, Marcus?" he said, reaching out and resting a hand on the boy's shoulder.

Marcus's head snapped to him as if he'd just woken up from a dream, and he shook his head with a weak chuckle. "I'm alright, just thinking, you know?"

"I know," Hector said, nodding. "Back to what I was saying, though, just continue down the hallway, right? What's the map say?" Hector asked, glancing at the boy's wrist and the bracelet that rested on it.

Marcus raised his arm, his eyes skimming over the blank air above his bracelet for a few moments before he nodded. "Yeah, just down there. There seem to be two more rooms."

"Two?" Lincoln said. "We're gonna have to fight two more of those plant monsters?"

Jodie scoffed, twisting her heel into the red carpet and leaving grass stains as she did. "You? Fight? You mean cower behind that mud wall of yours and pray you don't get noticed?"

Lincoln rolled his eyes. "Okay, I admit I'm having some performance anxiety, but I'll be fine."

Hector gave him a sidelong glance but said nothing. They'd talk. They'd fix his so-called performance anxiety, or else Hector was going to have to re-evaluate his position in their mercenary company.

— — — —

The icy wind whipped through Emela's fringe as she twisted, then dragged her sword along the side of the ice hound, cutting clean through its ribs and spilling its guts onto the frozen lake. She raised her foot and shoved it back with a hard kick, sending its body sliding across the ice as its tail fell limp.

Behind her, Nyx bumped into her back. "Sorry, Mistress," she said.

Emela didn't even nod. She didn't need to. Nyx knew what to do, and if she needed to step back for support, that was fine. Emela's gaze shifted to the battlefield as tens of ice dogs continued to assault the small squad she'd arrived with.

They'd made a circular formation when they'd initially plunged in, supported by various other mercenary groups who were also pushing the line. In the end, that had mostly fallen apart into small patches of fighting groups, like islands in an ever-shifting ocean.

One particular pair made Emela more than curious as to where they'd trained. Rana Delcord and Lilla, the black-haired girl Palmen had watched skillfully cut down an Ice dog earlier, made a striking pair.

The two of them seemed to almost know where the other was as they cleaved through dogs with much more ease than any of the other mercenaries.

Combing a loose strand of hair behind her ear, Emela let out a breath. The two girls were almost like twins, though they looked nothing alike. The manner in which they fought spoke of years working together, yet Emela was certain that before this, the girls had never interacted.

After all, Rana hadn't even known Lilla's name when they first met. It was only after realising that she couldn't keep calling her "commoner" that the noble girl decided she should ask how to address Lilla.

"Are you alright, Mistress?" Nyx asked, bringing Emela back from her thoughts.

Emela nodded and whipped her sword to the side, blood splattering onto the ice. "I'm fine. As soon as we take care of these dogs, I'll be even better."

"Even then, Mistress, I don't think your brother would let you rest." Nyx's gaze then travelled across the ice to the cluster of Frostkeeps still watching from the lake's edge.

Her gaze followed, narrowing as she spotted her brother and Noelle. The annoying girl was practically jumping at her brother's heels. No doubt filling his head with all sorts of compliments, licking his boots cleaner than any servant could ever shine them.

"I don't think so, either," Emela said, letting out a huff, mist slipping from her lips and drifting into the wind. "But that doesn't matter. All we can do now is continue to get stronger and hone ourselves. These ice dogs, while dangerous, are good practice."

"Please, Mistress, being overly positive isn't you."

Emela rolled her eyes. Was it not? She considered herself quite the outgoing person, trying to put a smile on anyone's face when… The thought died faster than it arose. No, she wasn't a positive person, but she wasn't negative either.

She was someone who held the middle ground, saw reality as it was. And she'd make sure everyone saw it too.