Soren!

After a full week of his new life, Seth still hadn't used his new techniques. He felt that there was no reason to put anything on the line just yet, he still had a long time to grow. Augie had shown Seth around the first floor of the castle throughout the past week and he now almost had a full map of it filled in. Although a few spots were missing, they didn't bother Seth, he would be able to fill them in eventually. He was a little concerned about the upper floors, but Augie said they were off-limits, Seth had to just give up on mapping it out.

Seth had grown a lot over the past six days, most of his base attributes had gone up by about 4200, increasing them by more than half. His magic stats were a little bit lower though, as they started with 1000 less and had a lower growth rate. His Magic Regeneration, specifically, was at 9999, just one below 10000. Seth's growth speed was unimaginable, he had also figured out the speed of growth compared to his growth rate, it was around 10 growth speed per 1 attribute per day. This was really unfair. If people could even grow this fast, how on earth had nobody grown to be very strong on Earth?

This question made Seth think a lot more than it should have, he spent almost an hour staring at the wall, thinking. In hindsight, it was pretty obvious. How could you rate the strength of a world if no matter what world, you could gain the same strength at the same speed? The world's strength probably affected the power of attributes or the speed of growth. If there is a peak of the world, the strength of the world probably affected it. Nothing that Seth had realized really meant anything to him, yet. He knew that understanding the system would help him in the future, but it wouldn't affect him right now.

Seth shook his head and got out of bed, his family wasn't like those rich arrogant royals on Earth. They were much more down to earth and although they were much richer, they didn't flaunt their wealth or use it on completely unnecessary things, such as royal dressers and the like. Seth was very content that there was nobody always with him, he had a lot of secrets to keep. He stepped out of his room after dressing and was greeted by his brother.

"Heya, Sethy! What are we gonna do today?" Augie was, of course, very enthusiastic about nothing. Seth just looked Augie in the eyes and walked to the dining room without saying a word. He was slowly gaining more control over his emotions and the impulses of his body. His family had noticed that he had become more reserved than before, but they knew almost nothing about him and assumed that it was just his personality. They didn't know that he was suppressing his own emotions and personality, forcing his soul into control.

Seth ate breakfast with his family, as per usual, and went for a walk around the castle. Over the past week, had been walking around the castle trying to find any secrets around it. He had been Inspecting people as he walked, trying to find anybody with an allegiance to the god of light. He had found none so far, but he wanted to make sure his home was safe. His parents hadn't bothered with him doing this, even though he didn't bring guards. Augie, however, always wanted to follow him and ensure he stayed safe.

As Seth wandered around, he noticed a man walking sneakily a few thousand meters away with his map. His map's range had greatly increased from his magic and affinity growth. He hadn't expected to see anything new, his routine was just insurance at this point. Seth crouched down and turned towards him, he slowly made his way to the unknowing man. As he grew closer, he noticed that the man wasn't human. The skin on his hands was grey and mottled, he was wearing a cloak and a silver mask. The mask looked like the face of a monstrous beast, bearing its fangs in rage.

Seth cast Inspect on the man, only getting asterisks in response. Seth was shocked, how could Inspect have not worked? Perhaps this man is stronger than he seemed. Inspect had levels, just like his other skills, maybe he would need to level it up. Seth continued to sneak around the grey man. Maybe the man was at the peak of the world, is this why the world is rated as the strongest? The man walked towards the castle, not missing a single step, seemingly unbothered by anything around him. If this man was so strong, then why was he sneaking? Did the castle house some unknown power that even he was wary of? If this was true, Seth needed to be careful.

The man stopped and turned to look Seth in the eyes, his eyes glowed an eery red as he seemed to look into his soul.

"Hello, young master Seth. May I ask why you are still following me?" His voice was like nails on a chalkboard, hurting the ears with every word. Seth shuddered. Seth stood up, he knew he had been noticed and there was no reason to continue hiding.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" Although Seth didn't want to hear the man's voice again, he still asked him questions.

"Ah, I am just a little wizard, my name is Soren. I am here to congratulate your father for having such a genius as a son." Soren seemed to wink at Seth before he turned back to sneaking around. Seth was dumbfounded. This guy was too nonchalant for what he is doing right now, he was hiding from something but he was still acting so mysterious and omnipotent.

"Why are you trying to sneak into the castle if you know my father?"

"Ahem, it is of no concern to you little boy." This old man was really shameless. Seth just rolled his eyes and turned away from Soren.

"I'll leave you to your own devices then, Soren."

"Okay, bye Seth." Soren whipped his cloak and a small bottle of rainbow liquid flew into Seth's hands.

"Drink this liquid, it will help increase your talent a lot. There are only so many of these treasures, be sure to use it wisely." Soren went back to sneaking into the castle, completely forgetting about Seth. Seth sighed and looked at the bottle, he didn't trust Soren in the least, so he wouldn't drink the liquid unless he knew all the effects. He walked away and went back to patrolling the castle, with the bottle of liquid burning a hole in his inventory. The thought of the bottle reminded Seth of something. Over the past week, he had been using his skills a lot. Through the use, Seth had learned that he could use Inspect on objects. Seth didn't actually expect anything to come of his Inspection, as Soren had only brought up asterisks.

Seth Inspected the little bottle. To his surprise, not only did the Inspect work, but the liquid was also really good and would not harm him in any way. The liquid's name was Elemental Water, every milliliter drank would increase his growth speed by 1000 for his Magic Growth and Magic Regeneration Growth, but only 100 for his other stats' Growths. He had a total of five milliliters, which is 5000 more growth speed for his magic. This was great, now Seth had another way to increase his growth speed other than the system.

Seth didn't trust the system very much, it was too unreliable. If the system failed, he would lose everything. Seth needed to build up a standing without relying on the system for everything. He needed to be self-sufficient if he wanted to survive, just like he always had in the past. As if his expression of discontent spurred the system to help him, there was a ding as a pop-up appeared.

---

Achievements +1 (met [Peak Mortal] enemy without dying)

Achievements +1 (found heavenly treasure)

---

Seth was amazed, he could gain and use his points while he was alive. This means that he could regain all of his lost points and even make more. One thing that Seth didn't really understand is why he gained the same amount of points from swearing at a High Ascended being as just surviving an encounter with a Peak Mortal, the two should be in completely different leagues. Perhaps it had something to do with his soul having once been ascended.

Before he knew it, Seth was already back at the front of the castle. Soren had already finished his sneaking around, he was an enemy so he probably ran away. He wouldn't have a reason to talk to Seth's father at all. Just the strength of Soren showed Seth that his family was indeed at the peak of the world's strength, to even be able to have an enemy that was almost ascended means that they were strong enough to fight him off.

The fact that he was even called a Peak Mortal told Seth a lot about the strength rating structure the system used. It used the words Lower and Peak, which means that there should be a Higher or High ranking before Peak. There are at least four rankings for each level of existence. Judging from the fact that there is an Overlord, there are at least 4 levels of existence: Mortal, Ascended, Divine, Overlord. Augie hadn't even broken the limit of Lower Mortal, but Seth had when he was born. Seth still didn't have a lot of information on the system, but he at least knew a few things about it.

Seth looked around, noticing that he was just standing in front of the castle doors. People were staring at him, their gazes made him uncomfortable. Seth hurried inside the castle, away from the people. He made his way back to his room, his parents had filled it with toys so that he could entertain himself while they were working. He hadn't really been using the toys as they were meant to though, he had been using them to practice magic instead.

He had gotten them to float around, he had even been able to infuse one with magic and elements together and have it keep the elements in it. He had done so to a small wooden cube, it had come in a set of building blocks. He had infused it with fire elements, the cube now had a special property. Its special property was that it burst out flames when it was thrown, it also passively generated heat as a side effect of a large number of fire elements shoved inside it.

Seth hadn't been allowed to use weapons yet. If he had, he could've probably made a really good enhancement to it. He hadn't tried to fully infuse multiple elements into anything yet, he was too afraid of the consequences if he were to fail. He had failed many times to infuse elements into his toys before he succeeded with the wood cube. All of the failed infusions had exploded. The one time he had tried to experiment with multiple elements, he had tried less than ten elements each of water and wind.

When those few elements mixed together they created the biggest explosion of any he had made before. He had woken up the whole castle and brought tens of knights running over. His entire room was ice cold and covered in frost, the knights shivered when the cold air was blasted out at them when they opened the door. Seth learned after that, he wouldn't dare try to infuse multiple elements into the same container in the castle ever again.

Seth felt that his magic control and element control weren't good enough for the task at hand. He would need to level something up if he wanted to try to make his element infusions stronger. Seth closed his door and sat on his bed. He took the bottle of Elemental Water out of his inventory and downed the entire bottle. His body was wracked with pain as his talents were refined. Seth gritted his teeth in pain, trying his best not to scream.