CHAPTER 29: UNUSUAL NIGHT

Ray was so engrossed in reading the books, he didn’t keep track of time.

By the time he decided to stop reading, night had already fallen.

He raised his head, looking outside from within the comfort of his room.

Outside the window, a suffocating darkness had befallen the outskirts of the town.

The moon and stars were hidden behind thick black clouds, and not a single lamp lit the streets on the town’s outskirts.

"The wind is not blowing, and there’s no thundering. It seems like it won’t rain tonight."

Ray felt glad as he didn’t like rainy days.

Anyways, he didn’t feel like going out tonight.

He stayed at home, taking out the enchanted map and studying it thoroughly under the light of an oil lamp.

Humanity had lost much of its valuable wisdom in the Dark Age. The ways of producing large amounts of electricity were lost with it. In the kingdom, electricity was actually considered a rare resource. The masses, especially the poor, couldn’t enjoy it. Only the rich could use it willfully.

Ray wasn’t poor by any means, as he had items worth over 40 gold coins if his interspatial ring was to be counted. He also had a few hundred silver coins. But he didn’t feel like wasting electricity, as there was no need. The light from the candle provided sufficient illumination for him to read the map.

According to it, around sixty kilometers to the east of the town, there was a slime nest, a place where a king-type slime could exist.

"I will give it a visit tomorrow," Ray decided.

The night was strangely calm, making him think to himself, "This peace is nothing but an illusion."

"According to the Tale of the Dark Age and the History of the Leon Kingdom, humans inhabit barely a fraction of the earth’s landmass, so they are aggressively expanding."

"The kingdom is structured in a way that makes this expansion possible. From town masters, also known as barons, to city lords and counts, everyone can contribute to the growth of the kingdom by clearing out the wilderness and colonizing the areas freed from demonic creatures."

"Most city lords and counts were once barons. Through sheer effort and willpower and perhaps some support from the royal, they expanded their territory to what it’s today."

"The demonic creatures naturally can’t tolerate the growth of humanity. As a result, clashes with demonic tribes erupt along the borders from time to time. The last war happened only two decades ago."

"This fragile calm could shatter in an instant."

The last war in which the divine object was used erupted twenty years ago.

While it gave birth to legends like Warlord Garrick and proved the absolute supremacy the human race’s Overlord, King Leon, held over others, it also cost countless lives.

In that war, King Leon defeated three Overlords all alone, but in that war, people like Ray were used as cannon fodder.

"Every second matters. I need to grow as strong as I can before another wave of invasion starts."

Having died once, he definitely didn’t want to end up so pathetic and miserable so he felt an intense urge to grow stronger.

He put the map away, blew out the candle, and sat down on the bed, closing his eyes to practice the Tyrant’s Soul Cultivation method.

As for sleeping and eating, it wasn’t on his mind. He felt too energetic to care about those things.

[You have started practicing a unique type of soul cultivation method.]

[The quality of your soul will continuously increase until you stop cultivating.]

An hour passed.

Then another.

Time trickled by quickly as Ray continued to cultivate, entering a unique state of calm, effortlessly refining the primordial essence present in nature before absorbing it into his niwan palace to boost his soul and enjoy the benefits that came with it.

While his magic power restoration rate stopped improving after a slight increase, his magic power itself kept rising as he cultivated, surging past two thousand and two hundred units.

If he broke through to the bronze rank now, his magic power would be a little bit greater than average peak bronze rank beast tamers!

***

A masked figure rapidly moved through the night. Kicking off the ground, he easily scaled a wall, entering a simple courtyard.

With steps as silent as a cat’s, he crossed the courtyard and pressed his ear against a door.

From behind the door, slow, steady breathing could be heard, making him believe that whoever was inside the room was asleep.

"This will go as easy as planned."

Creak~

He opened the door as gently as possible, but the door was old and unoiled, so a sharp noise was still produced.

Ray’s eyes snapped open, brimming with anger.

He had clearly entered a unique state, making cultivation as natural as breathing, neither fun nor boring. But that state of mind was forcefully broken by the sound of the door creaking open.

Who did it?

He looked toward the door, only to see it half-open.

A masked figure slipped in, stepping into the same space as him.

"Who are you?!" Ray roared. He did nothing to hide his anger. His voice rumbled out like thunder.

"You’re awake? No matter. You’re still going to die tonight," the masked figure said,

revealing himself to be assassin who has come here to kill Ray!