His Rare Smile

Kylian recalled that Lady Farah had been an expert in fire-type magic. That coupled with a hot desert and her temperament must have created a hell on earth.

"When I finally opened my eyes, it was like hell. Fires raged around me as smoke rose to the skies. The screams of my fellow brothers were doused by the sounds of her epic battle. I looked toward the source of the sounds and saw something I will never forget.

Fireballs the size of meteors rained from the skies with devastating effect. Flames scorched the sands, turning all into molten glass.

Lady Farah herself was covered in a halo of flames, illuminating the battlefield like a second sun. More often than not, I was blinded by the light and forced to cover my eyes. To be honest, I'm not even sure what I saw for those few moments. What I can tell you is that after she finished and moved off to find her next opponents, there was nothing: no Spirits, not even remains, not even a piece of debris.

Her flames had flattened the earth and scorched it into a magnificent glass-like spectacle.

After that, I immediately returned to camp to rest. That was when I learned from the others of her ongoing slaughter.

Being Indomitable made her incredibly powerful, magnifying both her power and splendour, but it also brought out her hubris and bloodlust, making it impossible for her to fight cooperative battles with other Spiritknights. This allowed the powerful Spirits to plot against her and take her down, even if it was for a huge price."

Donald's sombre recollection brought chills to the usually stoic Kylian. He could not help but wonder what she could have achieved had she lived longer. It was believed that she had not even yet reached the peak of her power and that she could have grown stronger. Alas...

"Indomitable effects differ from person to person. This is affected by their ability class and the user's personality."

(*Editor's Note: This is kind of repeated in Ch. 18, but it has some new info so I left it here*)

Spiritknights were separated into multiple levels of power. Each level contained 3 sub levels.

The four main levels or steps, were Courage, Honor, Valor, and Glory, with Courage being the weakest and Glory being the highest. This resulted in there being 12 sublevels of power, with each group of 3 sublevels representing an entire stage.

To advance to the next sublevel, one had to absorb a Dantian of that level. One could only do so once their body was capable of doing so. Raising the quality of one's body to receive a dantian required a lot of training physically and mentally. Talent also played a crucial role.

Each sublevel was called a star. Since Darius had absorbed two Dantians, that meant that he was a 2-star Courage Spiritknight.

Each dantian brought with it an ability. These abilities are also arranged by the four levels in the same manner Spiritknights were. The higher the level of the ability, the more powerful its effects were and the more demanding it was for the person using it.

Donald continued his explanation, "Judging from what we saw, I think it's safe to assume that the boy's Indomitable is at least at the Valor level. There is even a small chance of it being at the Glory level!"

Kylian could not help but be impressed. Glory-level abilities were extremely rare and ridiculously powerful. If Darius' Indomitable ability was at the Glory level, then it immediately made the young man an important asset. Not just because of the ability's class, but because it was his first ability!

…

The soil on which one plants a tree is a determining factor in how much the plant will grow. The same applied to Spiritknights, with the first skill they gained being the 'soil.' If one had a high-class ability as their foundational ability, one's future was limitless.

"Glory level Indomitable as a foundational ability. Sigh, even I am now getting jealous," said Donald with a hint of envy.

"Don't jump to conclusions," barked Kylian, "It could still be just a Valor-class ability. The gap between Valor and Glory is extremely large."

Donald could not help but nod at his compatriot's words. "So Kylian, do you want to recruit him?"

Kylian sat back in his chair, deep in thought. Donald valued his opinion quite a bit, not to mention that Kylian was much better at observing potential than the brutish man was.

"I'm not sure. On one hand, we have a clearly incredible talent, potential Glory class foundational ability, and an incredibly well-trained body. On the other, we have an uncertain bloodline history and a volatile ability, not to mention that we are hardly the only ones observing this test. Ethereal Forge Academy is a den of dragons and tigers. It would not be an odd thing for one of the old monsters hiding within these old walls to fancy the boy."

"Bah! Nonsense! If anyone wants him, they can only get him if we aren't interested," scoffed Donald.

Kylian ignored his old friend and fell deep into thought. It was not that simple. Kylian was a cautious person by nature, so he wanted to make sure everything was what it seemed to be before making such an important decision.

"There is more time. Let's see how he performs in the next exam. Besides, we haven't even seen the class of the second dantian he got. Who knows what ability it's hiding?"

Donald scoffed at his friend's words and went to sleep. He was not one to waste time on things he couldn't deal with or guess at without any firm evidence. Kylian brought up some recordings from the day's earlier events on his mobile device. He kept going over Darius' various encounters, trying to see if he had missed something. He didn't notice it himself, but a slight smile was on his face while he watched the young man struggling to survive. A smile on Kylian LaPorte's face was quite charming, and even more so, rare.