Hidden Lineages

Some members of the Tenebran family understood why this guy had acted that way—they also looked back at Vaelen.

The people of the Glacien family hadn't seen Vaelen climb the bus, as he had done so from the back side, but when they noticed the Tenebran family's reaction, they turned back and saw a guy wearing mostly black leather clothes and a mask.

They couldn't exactly tell his height since he was sitting, but he was definitely not big, and the Tenebran family's reaction was enough to give them basic clues.

Vaelen still didn't react, but inwardly he sighed—it was bound to happen. His physique was easily recognizable, and being from the darkness element, once he went in public, those who had seen his battles would definitely recognize him.

Well, whatever—as long as he didn't admit it, they could only speculate. No matter how right they were, it would still be an unverified truth.

As long as he wore the mask, no one would see his real face, so it didn't matter anyway.

The only problem was if they decided to gang up on him outside the city—this wouldn't end well for him, because many of them might already have peak essence for rank 1.

If he stayed near the city wall, nothing like that would happen.

"Cough… Hello."

Vaelen looked at the guy who had just called him—it was none other than the person who had first turned to look at him.

"What is it?"

He tried to make his voice a little heavier—it worked, but now he had to ensure he always did that before speaking.

"Ah… well, are you Ashenveil?"

"Who is that?"

Vaelen asked back—this question was enough to deny that he wasn't Ashenveil, and forget about him being Ashenveil, he didn't even know him.

Although Vaelen thought this would be enough, the people listening to him didn't seem to believe him.

Dammit, whatever—they could think what they wanted. He could only look outside the window and avoid their stares.

They went back to normal too, and in 10 minutes, they arrived at the exit gate.

Vaelen looked at the massive gates and was amazed by them. They were too big—he had seen them in some videos, but being able to see them in reality was another matter altogether.

They were made big for the passage of beast materials, which were too large.

After the bus stopped, everyone had to go through the front door, as the payment process was done there.

Vaelen went last, as his silver card was quite a big deal, and as expected, when he took it out, the bus driver's eyes widened a little—he smiled and nodded to Vaelen.

After the payment was done, Vaelen got out and looked toward the wall, which covered the entire last sanctuary in its embrace.

The wall was at least 30 meters high, but it wasn't a problem, because it was just a base for the actual shield, which covered almost all of the sanctuary like a dome.

The shield was invisible, so he couldn't see it, but the bending of light around it was enough to prove it existed.

He moved toward the small gate on the side of the big gate—it was a checkpoint to verify access cards or ranker cards.

There were other people present here, mostly nearby rankers who went outside to hunt beasts for beast cores and materials.

Most didn't belong to any organization and just formed parties on the spot to leave outside.

Those who were from organizations had their parties already decided by their superiors.

Overall, everyone wanted a balanced party consisting of multiple elements.

Usually, there were nine elements, but a party could be formed with only five people—it wasn't a rule or anything, a party could become as big as you wanted.

In the end, it was just a grouping of some rankers who went outside the city for a similar purpose.

Five was considered best because you could earn much more due to fewer members, and it was also easy to manage.

Mostly, a party consisted of two damage dealers, one tank, one healer or support, and one scout.

Damage dealers mainly came from elements like fire, thunder, ice, water, wind, darkness, and light—healers were mainly from the nature element and light element, while tanks were from the earth element, and scouts were from the wind or darkness element.

Some elements were multipurpose, but it also depended on affinity—damage dealers always needed to have high affinity, preferably above 70 percent.

But there weren't many who were above 70 percent, so finding them in the general public was hard.

If there were some, they would always get recruited by an organisation with an offer they couldn't resist.

Vaelen made his way to the gate—as for joining a team, he didn't care at all. He would roam around the nearest area to just kill some small beasts, which were too low-grade for others to pay attention to.

"Hello there, would you like to join our team? We are just about to hunt some horned rabbits."

A voice entered Vaelen's ears, and he looked toward the guy who had called him—he was part of a party of four, with two boys and two girls. Seeing that they were all about 18 years old, it wasn't hard to guess they were newly awakened.

The academy would be opening next month, in August, so most people after awakening went outside the city in hopes of getting some beast cores.

Horned rabbits were one of the weakest rank 1 monsters, so hunting them was really easy.

But it also depended on the essence level in beast cores, similar to humans—a peak essence level beast could easily kill this newbie party.

Vaelen himself was aiming to kill those rabbits, but he had no intention of partying with anyone, so he just shook his head and moved on.

Vaelen arrived at the gate, where a party from some organization had just left—it was easy to recognize them, as they had the same dress code.

"Ranker card," the gate guard asked, seeing him.

Vaelen took out his access card and showed it to him.

The guard looked at it, nodded in approval, and Vaelen was allowed to pass through the gates.

Vaelen had a small smile under his mask—he was about to leave the city for the first time. He moved immediately, took his first step, and crossed the gate, coming out immediately.

The first thing that entered his eyes was a lush green forest and vegetation. Even though his house was in a natural environment, it was more structured and managed.

But this was pure wilderness. Vaelen took a deep breath of air and sighed in relief—this was what real nature was, far different than the parallel world and far different than even their own city.

The world outside could be described in one sentence—wilderness. There were no roads left from historical times, though there definitely existed many structures of previous cities, but they were only ruins now.

Vaelen moved and went to the side. Although he had come outside the city for the first time, there was a well-documented guide for the monsters living near the city—it was like a helping guide for most newbies who came out of the city for the first time, like him.

So he already knew where most of the rank one monsters lived. The reproductive rate of rabbits was quite high, so the horned rabbits were in abundance just about 100 meters from his location.

While moving, he looked toward the distant mountains, which were at least 100 kilometers away from here—going there would be fun. The beasts living in the mountains were the real deal.

Vaelen sighed inwardly—he was still too weak to explore far away in this world.

He increased his speed and started running. There would be an increase in newbie rankers who would come here later, so morning was the best time, and it seemed like he was alone in the area for the time being where he was going, so it was better to utilize it.

He arrived at an open field with a lot of burrows nearby. He could already see many horned rabbits eating and mating—what a horny bunch, it was only morning, for God's sake.

When the nearby rabbits saw him, they became attentive. Beasts might not have the ability to learn skills like humans, but they were born with some skills . They also had one special sense that let them know the exact amount of essence one possessed.

So these rabbits were immediately able to tell that Vaelen had awakened recently.

If Vaelen was someone at the peak of rank 1, they would have ganged up on him or would have run away from him.

But seeing that Vaelen was only newly awakened, they all eyed him fiercely, wanting to tear him apart.

Vaelen took out his dagger and smiled a little at their behavior—internally, he was quite amused. Killing these rabbits wouldn't even cost him a single percentage of essence, even if they all came together. His fighting skills would be enough.