CHAPTER 218: EX 218. BLUEBALLED

Leon flipped through the brittle pages, his eyes narrowing as the script detailed the Emperor’s climb.

From the moment Julius grasped power, he hadn’t stopped there. The journal explained how he refined his method again and again, chiseling at its flaws until it became something greater. A discipline. A legacy. He later named it the [Imperial Art.]

Leon leaned forward, lips moving as he traced the Emperor’s words. The journal revealed the discoveries Julius made along his rise.

The first was startling; professionals, those who followed the art system, awakened affinities at Rank 4, the same level as a C-rank beast. Leon froze. That alone set them apart from beasts, who never gained such a boon. Beasts lacked affinities entirely; only raw instinct and power carried them forward. This meant anyone on the using the art system had an advantage Julius himself had built into the system.

The second revelation was even more staggering. At Rank 5, a professional awakened their core.

Leon’s breath caught. His voice escaped before he realized it.

"That’s new..."

Trial takers simply ascended by perfecting their arts, no hidden thresholds, no sudden transformations. The idea that professionals gained a core midway through their journey, it changed everything.

Leon leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming on the journal’s edge as his mind raced.

"So does that mean... professionals stopped at Rank 5?"

It was a reasonable thought. After all, Julius’s lifelong pursuit had been for a core. To finally obtain one should’ve marked the end of the road. But the next lines in the journal carried the Emperor’s voice, blunt and unyielding.

His goal was never just to forge a core. His goal was power. And a core, no matter how valuable, would never define his limits.

Leon chuckled under his breath, shaking his head.

"I’m liking this guy more and more."

He turned the page, eager to see what came next, only for his heart to sink.

The neat handwriting collapsed into silence. The journal ended abruptly, leaving nothing but blank parchment staring back at him.

Leon’s expression hardened, crestfallen disappointment pressing into his chest. His fingers clenched the edge of the page.

"...Where’s the rest of it?"

The chamber was silent, save for the faint rustle of paper, but the question hung heavy in the air, unanswered.

****

Leon flipped the book over, half-hoping he’d missed something tucked in the back. Blank parchment. He checked the margins, the spine, even the cover for hidden slips of paper. Nothing.

With a grunt, he set the journal aside and reached for the neighboring shelves, pulling down volumes at random. Some detailed beast anatomy. Others rambled about geography, wars, or trade. But none carried the continuation of Julius Arman’s words.

He slammed the last book shut with more force than necessary and muttered, "Did I just get blue-balled?"

The crude phrasing slipped out before he could stop himself. He winced, dragging a hand down his face.

"...Cliffhanger. That’s the word. Cliffhanger."

Still, frustration gnawed at him, and for once his perverted vocabulary had found the perfect crack to slip through.

Exhaling, Leon slumped back in the chair. "Seems I’ll have to figure out the rest myself."

Yet disappointment didn’t erase the truth, he had walked away with more than he came for. Information on Pandora’s history, its races, its regions. And above all, he had uncovered a path of power he could chase for himself.

"It’s most likely my squad was scattered across Pandora," he murmured, his gaze hardening. "And I’ve got a gut feeling where each of them might be."

The problem wasn’t intuition. It was strength.

He clenched his fist tight, nails digging into his palm. "If I can’t even cross the boundary of this forest, let alone leave the empire; then I’ll never reach them."

The rate he was growing by absorbing beast cores was impressive, almost absurd. But now he knew something else: creating a core of his own could push his strength into leaps rather than steps. And those leaps were what he needed.

He wasn’t Julius Arman. He wasn’t the first emperor, a monster who’d built an empire from nothing. But Leon believed, no, he knew, he was a genius in his own right. If Julius had forged the path once, then Leon could walk it again. And maybe even surpass it.

He leaned forward, blue eyes gleaming with quiet resolve.

"I’ll create my core. I just have to figure out where to start."

That conviction burned in his chest as he closed the journal and set it aside. The library held no more answers, not for now. Rising to his feet, Leon straightened his jacket, casting one last glance at the shelves before turning toward the doors.

"Time to wait for Crystal," he muttered, pushing them open and stepping out into the cool air beyond.

****

As James and his squad left Leon to his books, they made their way through Shantel’s bustling streets until the manor of the city lord loomed before them. Its wide doors opened without resistance, as though the guards had already been warned of their arrival.

Inside, they were escorted to the meeting hall, a broad chamber with banners of faded gold and green hanging from the rafters. The silence there was thick, broken only by the crackle of a torch at the far wall.

At last, the city lord entered. His steps were measured, but his eyes betrayed him. The look on his face was plain as day; you actually came back alive. Yet in an instant, he smoothed it away, wearing the cold, practiced mask of nobility.

"So," he began, voice calm, "did you discover anything?"

James and his men stood straight, their expressions grim. The lord’s own thoughts churned as he waited for an answer. For them to be here at all meant only one thing: the new ruler of the forest had spared them. His heart skipped.

’Does this mean... we won’t need to flee? If that’s true, then Shantel’s rise could finally begin.’

But James’s next words shattered his fragile thread of hope.

"We confirmed that the tyrant is dead."

The city lord’s expression didn’t flinch at first. That much he had already expected. But what came next was not something he or anyone in the hall, was prepared for.

"And the one who slew the tyrant bear... is in the city’s library."

The words fell heavy into the room, dragging silence in their wake. The guards stationed along the walls froze, their hands tightening unconsciously around spear shafts. Servants dared not move. Even the lord himself, a man trained to mask every flicker of emotion, faltered. His lips parted slightly, his mind trying to catch up with what he had just heard.

James, seeing the disbelief, repeated himself. Slower this time, sharper.

"The new lord of the forest... is here. In Shantel."

The hall seemed to shrink with those words.