Hidden Lineages

Vaelen's father commented, and his uncle nodded along with his grandfather.

"I think it is time to give you the access card for leaving the city," Vaelen's father said while smiling, clearly pleased with his performance. But suddenly, he remembered something and looked toward his wife while coughing.

"Cough... of course, if you allow it, honey," he added.

"I will give it to him tomorrow, so you don't have to worry about that," she replied.

All of them were surprised, except Vaelen. It was a rare occurrence. Until now, putting Vaelen in any kind of dangerous situation had been a no-go for her.

Dinner ended peacefully, and Vaelen returned to his room. It was time for another round of battles. He would try five this time. If he got a good opponent, it would be all good, but if not, he would log out and sleep.

...

After entering, Vaelen arrived at his usual location on the tree.

At night, there were even fewer people here, and the lake did look a little creepy in the dark.

On a whim, he opened his social contacts to see if he had received any friend requests.

The moment he did, a flood of endless requests filled his screen.

He looked at them for a second before deleting all of them without a care and started queuing up again.

In just three seconds, he found his battle.

He also wondered how many people had followed him. It was a completely different function, and he couldn't delete his followers. They would always get notifications when he was matched.

Oh well, he would find out in a moment.

Vaelen appeared in the arena, which seemed to be set atop the peak of a mountain. The moment he appeared, some new spectators arrived, but not as many as during the day.

Maybe most of them were watching from their communication devices.

He looked toward his opponent.

[Ashenveil (Rank 1) (8/0), Element - Darkness, Affinity - Hidden] vs [Lunarshade (Rank 1) (9/3), Element - Ice, Affinity - 71%]

It wasn't a bad matchup, but it wasn't great either.

Just as he was thinking this, Lunarshade spoke.

"It's a pleasure to match up against you. You're quite famous," she said.

Vaelen was slightly surprised after hearing her, but it was obvious. In the evening, those who fought against him were newbies who wouldn't check forums, so they wouldn't have known about him. But after this much time, people might already recognize him.

[00:00]

This time, Vaelen didn't move first; he let his opponent come to him. Now that he had decided to fight only five battles, he would at least enjoy them.

Vaelen's opponent wasn't holding any weapons, so it seemed like it would be a pure brawl.

Lunarshade didn't disappoint Vaelen and sprinted in his direction. When she came near, she jumped, twisting in the air to kick his head from above.

Vaelen watched the incoming kick with eerie calmness, as if he didn't want to dodge it—but just as it was about to hit his head, he moved slightly and bent his neck to one side, letting the leg hit his shoulder, which was already reinforced with essence.

Thud!

This might be the first attack that had landed on him. It stung a little, but that was it.

Lunarshade was shocked to have hit him, as she thought he would definitely dodge her attack as seen from his previous battles.

This cost her life, as Vaelen moved forward the moment the kick landed on his shoulder. Since her leg was still on his shoulder, it disrupted her balance.

Before she could even balance herself properly, Vaelen caught her hand and pulled her toward him, using his other hand as a blade aimed directly at her heart.

His hand passed through smoothly, but after he moved away, he thought of something else: he shouldn't have aimed there. Some bastards might start calling him a pervert.

But it was the only option to kill someone quickly in that position, so he would do it again if given the chance to go back a few seconds.

...

"As expected of this guy, he never fails to surprise us, taking an attack just to imbalance his opponent so calmly, like he knew the kick didn't have enough force," a spectator commented.

"Well, that girl knew who he was, and if she had seen his battles, she would have definitely expected him to dodge it," another added.

"He certainly knows how to use every detail to his advantage. Now I'm really wondering if he's a newbie," someone else said.

"Well, I don't know if he's a newbie or not, but his rank is real, and given he's getting matched with newbies, his essence level is similar to newbies too. The wisdom slate wouldn't make mistakes anyway," another voice chimed in.

"So, has anyone found anything about him?"

"None from my side."

"Yeah, same..."

...

Vaelen came out of the arena, back to his original tree, and matched again and again, winning five battles without much enthusiasm, as his opponents were even lower level than his first opponent.

Now he had 13 wins and 0 losses, but he was still unranked. He had watched previous streams, so he knew that if he won 20 to 25 matches, there was a possibility of him getting ranked somewhere between 990 and 1000.

Most rankers were only at Rank 1 in the Last Sanctuary. The numbers would decrease exponentially as he climbed the ranks, so it was an expected outcome that he still wasn't ranked after 13 wins in rank 1 category.

He stopped matching, and since there was still some time before bed, he decided to check the forums to see if anything new had happened or if his popularity had decreased a little.

He opened the forums and, to his surprise, saw that the trending news wasn't about his battle but about someone else. It was information about a new person appearing.

He already knew who she was. It was none other than Lysara. After seeing her information, he sighed. At least she had hidden her affinity and face.

But that was just superficial. Even after doing so, she was trending right now because she was from the Luminara family.

It was written in her name, but it wouldn't have mattered even if it wasn't, because of her hair color.

Hidden Lineages have a distinct property: their hair color matches their element, along with their eyes. This didn't happen among the general public who awakened with the same element, only among the Hidden Lineages.

There was a perfect reason for this, though. When the first nine members awakened using meteorites, they were affected to the point where their hair colors changed, along with their eyes, and their descendants inherited similar properties.

So, hair color became an exclusive tag for Hidden Lineages. He was spared from this type of treatment because the Tenebran family had black hair and eyes, which were quite common among the general public.

Looking at the reactions to her news, he sighed inwardly. The Luminara family was the most famous among the Hidden Lineages. First, they were supreme elementalists; second, they were utterly beautiful to look at.

And if a girl from the Luminara family appeared who was not known to the world, it was bound to cause this much chaos.

There was no other woman in the Luminara family right now who had awakened with the light element.

Lysara did have one cousin, but she had awakened with the fire element, just like one of Vaelen's cousins who had awakened with the earth element.

It all came down to affinity. A child born to parents with distinct elements would have both elements but would only awaken in the element with far higher affinity compared to the other.

Oh well, this news wasn't going to leave the trending list anytime soon.

He clicked on the available profile for the public.

...

Name - Celestra (Luminara) (Rank 1)

Element - Light

Elemental Affinity - Hidden

Faction - Luminara

...

Should he send a friend request? Wait a second, had she sent one? If she had seen the earlier trends, she might have figured out it was him. She had seen him in reality, so even if she didn't know he was good at fighting, she could always figure it out by his height and the fact that his element was darkness.

And if she had sent one... oh well, the moment he deleted those friend requests, those who had sent them must have received a notification of rejection.

He hoped she would resolve this with her mature personality rather than acting like a kid, or else it would be a long endeavor if she decided to stretch it out.

Vaelen decided not to send her a friend request back. Her friend list would have been filled by now, and even if she deleted them, it wouldn't matter—they would appear again. People were shameless.

There was an option to block, but you had to do it manually for every single one. It was a burdensome task, to say the least.

Forget it. He followed her and closed the panel.

She hadn't fought a single battle, judging by her battle stats. It looked like she had just come to test things out, or maybe she got scared of all the people surrounding her and left. Who knows?

No one could even touch someone inside the Parallel World unless they were friends or in a battle, so she would have been safe even with people surrounding her.

He pressed log out and left.