Bloodbound Codex: I Grow Stronger in Secret

Guildmaster Harleks spoke as he came down the staircase, his footsteps echoing slightly in the hall as everyone around stopped their chatting and turned to look.

Atlas looked at the tall Angel, his wings catching his attention first — silver and gold mixed together, and his face looking younger than someone in his position had any right to look, Atlas thought, ’Damn it all...Now even the Guildmaster is here? He is an S-rank, there is no telling if he can sense Null from me.’

Harleks looked at Atlas and frowned, his eyes narrowing as he thought, ’Huh? Why is atmospheric Spirit moving away from him?...and centring itself in that claw instead?’

This was the first time he had ever seen Spirit behave this way, and even before Atlas had entered the Guild, he had been picking up fluctuations from the upper floor that didn’t fit any pattern he recognised, spiking in his senses at one moment and dying down the next, which was unusual enough that he had come down personally to check what was going on.

He turned to Bella and nodded once, Bella caught the signal immediately and spoke to Atlas who was standing at the counter, ”This claw clearly belongs to an A-rank Monster so you don’t have to worry about double confirmation, we will prepare your reward money, just wait a little...”

She took the claw from the counter without examining it and went to handle her task.

Atlas watched her go, then turned back to the Guildmaster as Harleks spoke, ”I am Guildmaster of this branch, Harleks, follow me Atlas Crosswood, we will have a simple conversation.”

Atlas stared at him for a moment and then nodded, he couldn’t refuse it after all, the tone was polite and direct at the same time, and on top of that the sudden shift of everyone’s attention toward him the moment he had walked in made it difficult to simply walk out without giving the Guild some kind of answer, so he followed.

Harleks walked upstairs at a steady pace and Atlas followed him step by step, after a short while they were both in front of Harleks’ personal office room, the place where he handled paperwork and gave instructions to the receptionists managing the Spirit screens that displayed ruin descriptions for Explorers below.

The door creaked open on its own as Harleks stepped in front of it, the room was plain and straightforward as Atlas looked around, a table with a chair behind it, a bookshelf along one wall, and a long couch positioned a few meters from the shelf, Harleks sat down behind the table and spoke, ”Sit on the couch, I have some questions for you...”

Atlas nodded and sat down, his whole figure battered and worn from everything that had happened, though Harleks didn’t seem bothered by the state of his clothes or the missing boots.

”First of all I would like you to tell me, if you can, why is the Spirit around you behaving like that?...it’s moving away from you, it’s not fear or anything of that sort, Spirit is energy so it carries no emotions behind it, but it’s moving away from you like something is obstructing its path.” Harleks spoke with a firm tone, his eyes staying on Atlas as he said it.

Atlas thought immediately, ’It’s obviously because of Null but I can’t tell anyone that and it seems he can’t sense ’Null’ after all...’

”I don’t know why this is happening either, I only noticed it just now when everyone looked at me strangely and Bella pointed it out...” Atlas said, keeping his voice steady, it was a lie mixed with just enough truth from what had actually visibly happened in front of everyone, which made it harder to pick apart.

Harleks nodded, he had no way of knowing Atlas was lying, and one might wonder why no one simply used a lie detecting relic to sort through this, but the answer to that was straightforward - Relics came from ruins and even after hundreds of thousands of years, no one had ever figured out how ruins were structured or what governed what they produced, they gave out relics related to growth, rank, combat power gauging and weapons, a lie detecting relic had never surfaced from any ruin ever discovered, making it an impossibility in the whole world, or at least something no one had ever confirmed to exist.

Harleks spoke again, this time with a slightly more serious tone, a subtle pressure carried in his words, ”Now could you tell me how you got so strong so quickly?...I had sensed you to be around C-rank when you first entered this Guild, but after twelve consecutive days of Hollow-Rank ruin clearance you came back at A-rank...and no normal A-rank, you cleared an Abyss-Rank Ruin in just one day.”

Atlas sat with a pause, the pressure in Harleks’ tone was noticeable and intentional, he clearly wanted the truth, but Atlas had no intention of giving it to him, not the real version at least, he would never in any situation reveal the Codex, the consequences of someone else knowing about it were too unpredictable and losing it was not something he was willing to risk even in thought.

He had already prepared for this kind of question though, knowing it would come eventually when he stayed in one place long enough for people to notice his growth, and so he had an answer ready that revealed the outermost layer of what was true without exposing anything real.

”I can’t speak about the specifics but I can tell you that I grow through fighting each battle...against monsters especially, my growth speed increases after each fight, I don’t know what to call it, maybe talent but I wasn’t talented from birth so it can’t really be that either, that’s why even I don’t fully understand what it is.” Atlas spoke it plainly, it was the outermost summary of what the Codex actually did, close enough to sound genuine and far enough from the truth to be safe.

Harleks twisted his eyebrows in confusion, ”What?...your cultivation speed increases after each fight?”

Atlas nodded and Harleks went quiet.

A long silence stretched between them as Harleks stared at Atlas, letting the statement sit in his mind because of how outright ridiculous it sounded on the surface.

After a moment he spoke again, ”You know that a person grows by absorbing Spirit from the atmosphere and expanding their spirit veins at each rank right?...there is a threshold for each rank, meaning when you reach the peak of a rank you have to absorb a massive amount of Spirit at once to push through to the next one, but...”

”In your case I never sensed you reaching B-rank at all, when you returned from those ruins you came back directly at A-rank, how did that happen?” Harleks said, his eyes staying on Atlas as the dots connected in his mind.

Atlas smiled behind his mask, he had already anticipated this question and was ready for it, ”That’s because before I even came to this Guild I was already a B-rank in pure physical terms, but my Spirit control, flow, reserve and output from my own body were all far too low, which is likely why you sensed me as C-rank when I first came in, I had also held back during the assessment.”

He continued without hesitation, ”Even right now I am holding back more than half my Spirit inside myself, to appear as a normal peak A-rank.”

He had already planned to leave this city and move deeper into Celestara’s central continent, so revealing at least this much to keep the conversation manageable felt like an acceptable exchange.

Harleks’ eyes widened for just a moment before he settled himself and spoke, ”Hmm...I assume you don’t want your total Spirit output revealed openly then?...well, let me be direct, do you think you are S-rank now, or close enough to it?”

Atlas paused at that, he hadn’t expected that specific question.

He considered it honestly for a moment, he still felt he wasn’t fully at S-rank yet, and the main reason for that was simple, he had seen Velgrath and he had seen Mark, both of them existed on a level that still felt distinctly above where he currently stood, so if he excluded his Active Vector from the equation entirely, he didn’t feel confident calling himself S-rank.

[A/N: Atlas doesn’t know about equations, it’s just my writing so that everyone understands quickly]

But if the Active Vector was included?

That changed everything, Kankon-Rei could restore any rank to zero regardless of what it was, even an S-rank’s power could be nullified if he applied all his Null pressure, the strain would be unbearably high but he could do it now, which meant in a practical sense the gap between him and an S-rank in a real fight was not what it looked like on the surface.

He didn’t say any of that out loud.

”I think I am close to S-rank rather than a complete S-rank...” Atlas said after a long pause.

Harleks grinned at that ”Oh? Is that so?”, something in his expression shifting as he stood up from his seat and spoke, ”Follow me, I have something to show you...something that will make you understand the true gap between an S-rank and an A-rank...even an abnormal one.”