Hidden Lineages

When your essence drops to zero, nothing serious happens other than a little headache. Vaelen slumped back on his bed to rest and let his natural essence recover.

There are two ways to recover your essence, one is to wait for it to recover slowly from the natural environment, or to use beast cores to recover it quickly.

Since Vaelen didn't have a beast core with him, he could only lie down and wait.

There was one thing he hadn't paid much attention to, when he was in his armor mode, he was able to see clearly even in darkness.

But now that it was gone, his eyesight was back to normal, but he had no doubt he would be able to see clearly in darkness when he could manipulate his element.

First, he had to increase the limit of his essence, and this was again done by absorbing beast cores, but this was not the only way. Although humans or beast can't actively absorb essence from the environment to increase their level, their Lineage Core automatically does it.

It is similar to how their Lineage Core absorbs essence to recover itself. After your essence is full, it doesn't stop its absorption, it still keeps going.

This increases your overall essence limit, but this is a very slow process that it isn't even mentioned, not to mention on Earth where all the layers are still not open and essence is thin.

So, using beast cores to reach the limit of your rank is the only preferred method.

Well, today he will go outside and try to get beast cores on his own. He could have asked his mom or brother for them, as his fighting skills are already top-notch, but it wouldn't feel fulfilling.

Since he is capable, he will hunt for them.

It is already morning, just the sun hasn't come out yet.

He waited for half an hour more to let his essence recover fully, recovery with the natural process is really time-consuming.

Once his essence was full, he stood up and stretched a little before coming to have his daily morning routine of exercise. His mother was already there practicing her skills.

When Eiselle saw him, she was surprised.

"How did you wake up this early? Or didn't you sleep in excitement of getting the access pass?"

"It's nothing, Mom. I just had a nightmare."

Eiselle was a little surprised, nightmares aren't unusual, but he had stopped having them when he was a kid.

"Oh well, good morning. Your access card is ready. Let's first complete your exercise, then you can have it."

"Yes, Mom."

Vaelen was thinking if he should ask his mother about the armor ability or not, but if the wisdom slate had mentioned it, then she would have definitely told him about it yesterday.

Forget it. He will ask about it later. What if she gets a little worried and doesn't even allow him to leave the city?

They both practiced their skills, and after some time, Eiselle said to follow her.

They arrived in a special area used to store important stuff. Eiselle took out the card she had placed on the table earlier and gave it to him.

"I want you back here before dinner. If you are late, then I will take it back."

"Yes, Mom."

That was more than enough time for him to enjoy outside.

Usually, descendants of Hidden Lineages don't go solo—they always have a guard with them. Eiselle herself wanted to go with Vaelen, but she also knew that he wouldn't like it.

She would have gone if his identity wasn't secret and people knew about him, but since his identity was secret, nobody would care for a rank 1.

Vaelen took the card and was just about to leave when his mother spoke.

"You don't want money?"

Vaelen stopped in his tracks and moved back, opening his hands, it was an important thing.

Eiselle shook her head and put a silver card in his hand. It held more than enough for him to easily stay out for a year, much less for a day.

After taking the money, Vaelen took off immediately.

Vaelen came out of the property belonging to the Tenebran family. He was a little reluctant to meet his brother, or he might just tag along with him on a whim. He was relieved to not meet anyone till now. He was already wearing a plain black mask.

It wasn't because he wanted to hide his face, as no one knew him anyway—the reason was simple—he looked like a kid right now. His age really was the real problem here.

A 14-year-old going outside the city would be a little suspicious. Height isn't the issue, as many people are small even if their age is above 20.

He had already planned how he was going to live his two years before even thinking of joining the academy. He would make his essence reach the peak of rank 1 and join the academy, using low affinity.

So, For now on he can only hone his fighting style and master control over his darkness element for these two years, which is perfect as it matters a lot for one's overall strength.

After he came to the road, he moved to the nearest bus station, it was just 500 meters away from here.

After moving for a while, he arrived at another entry and exit point into the Tenebran family—it was for the Lineage branch. He could finally see some people here.

Most of the Lineage branch people always go out of the city to complete some mission, so they already have official Ranker Cards, and those who don't have an official Ranker Card can apply for an access card from the family.

Ranker Cards are mainly given after passing the Ranker test from the government. Not many take that test just after awakening, so if they want to go out, then they apply for the access card from the Lineage they are part of.

There weren't many people who were going toward the bus station, as there were not many main members in the darkness faction anyway. If it was the exit of any other house other than Tenebran and Luminara, then the number of people leaving would easily be more than ten times.

The biggest faction in terms of the number of rankers is House Ignis right now, followed closely by other normal elemental houses.

When others saw Vaelen coming from the main house side, they were surprised but didn't react overly, as many people go to that side just for a walk.

The reason why they were surprised was that they hadn't seen him. Mask aside, there was really no one with this physique in their Lineage branch.

Maybe he is a new guy whom they don't know about.

They didn't try to talk to him, as Vaelen didn't try to stop seeing them, which means he didn't want to communicate with them.

They all moved toward the nearest bus station.

It wasn't much further—it started the moment the area of the Vaelen family ended.

They arrived on a wider road, which was the main road that circled around the whole city, connecting every single Hidden Lineage, and with this road, they could reach the southeast exit.

They all stopped and waited for the bus to arrive. Occasionally, Vaelen would feel some gazes at him, but he just ignored them.

The bus arrived in just two minutes—there were too many buses going on this route, so they didn't have to wait for long.

This bus was quite longer than the buses that existed in the history of Earth.

Because of essence, the engines were so strong that they could easily carry a much larger payload.

There were already some people inside the bus—they were mostly from House Glacien, as this exit was also nearest to them.

The moment he entered inside, a lot of voices entered his ears. As expected, House Tenebran and House Glacien really get along with each other.

Darkness is a vast concept—it isn't just related to coldness but various other concepts—like death. Similarly, light isn't only related to hotness but also to life. There were some others, but these are the main concepts that define these two elements.

The abilities of light and darkness are also mainly based on these concepts.

Just as he was thinking while sitting in the back of the bus, which had already started, he heard a conversation that perked his ears.

"Have you guys seen Ashenveil's videos?"

It was asked by someone from the Glacien family.

"Since you guys saw, how can you expect us to not see? It was quite the topic in our branch."

"So, who is it?"

"That's the problem—no one knows that. Even boss Zareth didn't have a clue."

"So, he isn't interested in joining your Lineage, huh? A darkness elemental user isn't interested in joining one of the supreme Lineages—it's quite surprising."

"Did you see his moves? Those were top-notch, so even without joining, I doubt he would be losing much."

"Yeah, but there are so many privileges in joining a Lineage."

"True, but not everyone wants to be known in the world. You can already see he wears a mask, not to mention he is a little shor—"

While saying this, the guy from the Tenebran family stopped. He immediately turned to look at the back seat where Vaelen was sitting.