Chapter 21 - Cursed marks

Chapter 21 - Cursed marks

- Night -

At the moment, Glade who was seated in bed, recalled what the elder from the Blessing-giving council did to him and got more furious.

He then looked at the place that he was struck and saw that the pattern that once appeared there when he was hit by the palm of that elder, was still spotlessly clean. Nothing was there.

Previously, he was thinking that the mark would return once it was night. But up till now, nothing had surfaced. Not even the slightest mark or spot.

"Did I recover from the strike or what?" Glade asked himself with a puzzled look on his face.

After thinking for some time, he began to feel that he probably had another Blessing.

Once he thought up to here, he brought his palm towards him and thought of using that Blessing, to see if anything would appear on the surface of his hand.

Abruptly, to his immense shock, his palm began to glow in a black-crimson light. It was a profound ominous light that would invoke both dread and alarm in the hearts of anyone that would gaze at it.

He then looked in wonder and marvel at the eerie marks that had appeared on the surface of his palm. They seemed like he was bitten there by a twelve-fanged viper—viper with six fangs on its upper and lower jaw.

These marks shone forebodingly on the surface of his palm, causing Glade to shake his head with a deep light of mystification emitting from his eyes.

As the marks continued to shine on his palm's surface, Glade immediately recalled that the elder's palm strike emitted a black-yellow light. But his was currently emitting black-crimson light, seeming as if it were upgraded.

"So, can I inflict people with sickness?" Glade asked himself, puzzled.

After a while of thinking, he felt he could do so.

With a thought, the marks vanished. While the atmosphere in his room immediately returned to normal from its exceedingly gloomy state.

...

- Morning -

"Mom, good morning. How was your night?" Glade asked when his mom came to the sitting room.

"I am fine, son. What about your night? Slept well?" Villaria asked.

"Surely, mom." Glade answered while Villaria smiled.

"I trust you." Villaria said while Glade simply smiled.

"When do you plan to leave home for your training?" Villaria asked further.

"In an hour's time." Glade answered while Villaria nodded her head.

"Make sure to be careful out there. There are lots of people who wouldn't like the fact that you have more than four Blessings and will begin to orchestrate multiple ways to annihilate you, okay?" Villaria asked.

"Okay, mom. I promise to be careful out there." Glade said while Villaria nodded her head and went back to her room to do some things.

As she left, Glade said to himself with a frustrated expression on his face, "Frigging Blessings, you heard my mom. Especially that damned fire and lightning Blessing. Fully submit yourself to my control, you wild, totally crazy things."

"Same goes for you, enhanced hearing. Assist me in picking words or sounds from thousands of miles away without inflicting me with unbearable, tremendously severe pain and aches." Once he said that, he shook his head and stood to his feet.

***

"Brother, you are going there today, right?" Aphestoles asked.

"Yes. You just leave everything to me." Vaertha said while Aphestoles nodded his head.

"Alright brother. I will be leaving for the academy soon. Lateness is not tolerated." Aphestoles said while Vaertha nodded his head.

"Okay. We'll set out together. Then I will follow the path that leads to that place, while you follow yours to your school." Vaertha said while Aphestoles nodded his head.

Two hours later...

"Honored Vaertha, you are here again. What can I help you with?" A man wearing a dark-black cloak that had its large hood pulled over his head, entirely hiding his face, said with a deep guttural voice to Vaertha who was seated across him.

"Thyrrhane, there is this lady I want you to abduct. She is a daughter of the wealthiest family in our nation. This family is insanely rich that the second family on that ranking—Affluential Family Ranking, is like a thousand levels below them. Their purchasing power is so high that they could buy off all the lands in the nation. Heck, they could buy the nation itself and employ numerous Ancients as their bodyguards." Vaertha said. While Thyrrhane simply smiled.

"Vaertha, you don't need to lie to make the lady you have your eyes upon too special. If there was any family like that, I would have long known. So, just speak to me and tell me where to abduct this girl, so that you can fulfill all your fantasies with her." Thyrrhane said while Vaertha shook his head.

"Then that means you know nothing. You are really out of touch with the current happenings in the nation. There's this family that unexpectedly, inexplicably boomed, reaching the top of the wealthiest family ranking in the nation in only a month or so. How it happened, is totally unexplainable."

"To be sincere with you, the way they suddenly gained incomparable, tremendously massive wealth, fully borders on the supernatural. No one can explain it. Even Ancients, if summoned to elaborate how their sudden, colossal acquisition of wealth happened, won't be able to do so."

"Okay, they were doing fine and all. But suddenly, they started acquiring organizations, buying them off at whatever outrageous or crazy amount was demanded by the owners or founders of these establishments."

"At the moment, they should have up to two thousand organizations. There is this new one, a flying-vehicle-making company that they want to build in the hundreds in different nations. These specially-crafted, sky-traversing vehicles will have large capacities—can carry up to a thousand people at once and can move in the air at a high altitude from one nation to the other at great speeds."

"That's what has been proposed, with lots of crafters—artisans endowed with Blessing of Engineering and Crafts-forging employed to make this a reality."

"Once those are built, and being the first people to ever do so, they are going to rake in more money, making them all the more wealthy. Lots of nations will rush this hot cake, further tremendously enriching this family's pockets."

"But we are not here for that, to decipher how they acquired such astronomical wealth, or to talk about them with admiration in our eyes and hearts. What I am here for, is to ask for your service in kidnapping the woman I have my eyes on, which I believe will be flawlessly executed by you." Vaertha said while Thyrrhane looked at him with furrowed brows. But he saw that Vaertha was totally serious work him.

"Such a family actually exist?" Thyrrhane asked with his usual deep, frightening voice. He couldn't help but question this to confirm.

"Sure, it does. You should learn to read more to acquire knowledge. Sleeping around with beauties will only keep you blind to great and spectacular things happening to people, or in the nation as a whole." Vaertha said while Thyrrhane smiled.

"Give me her details. Everything about her."