Chapter 15- Artifacts

However, with people having crossbred for all these years, their bloodlines have become impure, and the artifacts' strength has declined.

Even a few of them use energy cores derived from demons to enhance the strength of their artifacts or rely solely on their pure bloodlines.

The purer the bloodline one has, the greater their strength.

Alternatively, if they obtain the energy core of a stronger demon, they can gain temporary power.

However, the demonic energy in that energy core slowly corrupts their mind, a phenomenon referred to as void flux—a type of flux that enhances the strength of an artifact but comes at the cost of mental corruption.

There are artifacts aligned with holy energy that protect one's mind from corruption.

Of course, this depends on the strength of the artifact regarding how long it can stop the corruption.

For example, if someone uses the energy core of a stronger demon, then they need a higher tier of the artifact with holy energy to protect their mind.

However, over time, it is inevitable that they will be corrupted.

Still, in their last struggle to survive in this world, most do not hesitate to use Void Flux.

For him, who had a less pure bloodline, considering he was an illegitimate child with a mixed breed of royal blood and an impure bloodline, he inevitably had very weak artifacts, which were at the level of shattered tier.

To clarify, he possessed the weakest tier of the artifact.

He thought that this may be the reason why his stepmother was so hateful towards him, considering he was too weak to be a king.

Even if he had knowledge of battle tactics and all that a king needed to learn in this life, without artifacts, he was just another target of hatred for his stepmother and the noblemen who looked down on him.

But now the system was telling him how he could extract fragments of artifacts from other people, which in itself would make things much better.

However, he needed further clarification and inquired, 'What about their dominion?'

Though he was able to extract the artifact, how exactly did it work?

Did he get that artifact out of their body and even dominate it, considering how dominions were related to bloodlines, not the artifacts themselves?

[No, to put it exactly, host, you are able to extract that artifact which could be extracted and used by you and the person from whom the artifact is extracted, but for dominion, you need permission from that person who would allow you to use it.]

'I see.'

Now it made more sense to Akhil why the system had suggested he go for the opposite gender, considering how it would be hard for him to pursue men to give him access to their dominion but not for the women whom he could manipulate using love.

'Cardinal Vandriot has to be dealt with first.'

Akhil thought about the high priest, who was the main culprit behind all this.

He needed to be dealt with to degrade the morals of the aristocracy.

Considering it was impossible for corruption to end in a single day, what he needed was to set an example through that Pope's body so that people would understand what it meant to go against him first.

But for that to happen, he needed artifacts.

With his weak ones, there was no reason for him to even think that he would be able to beat them.

'It seems I need to meet Astarra,' Lys thought as a glint passed through his eyes, knowing that if he needed a pure artifact, he had to extract it from that woman.

As he invisibly clenched his fist, he remembered all the torments he had to go through at her hands.

Though, of course, it was more like how she wanted a good king—a better one for this kingdom, not him—which was why he didn't blame her.

But of course, he didn't forget or forgive her either.

[Host, to extract an artifact, you need to establish a connection first.]

'What?'

Akhil suddenly interrupted in the middle, hearing about the connection.

The tone of the system was slightly dripping, and he felt that something was amiss here, like the terms and conditions added in very small letters on an advertisement where the "free" section is written big.

He understood that there was something hidden in this.

[Connection...Ahem, you get it...𓂸 𓂺 𓂹]

'....' Akhil looked towards the screen that popped up revealing that exactly what he needed to do when the system told about establishing a connection was definitely not what he had expected.

But again, where the person comes, where his life was on the stake, even though if he survived today, it was not guaranteed that in the future they would not be killed at the hands of the demon king. And he also needed to take revenge on many people.

Considering the destruction of his kingdom, there were not only the people of the holy church or aristocracy, but also the influence from a few of the neighboring kingdoms, and the people from the empire were also entangled in all this.

[Also, you are able to repair the artifacts using obsession points!]

It was as if the system sensed how he could just call it useless in his mind; it instantly gave him another offer, signifying how, after extraction of an artifact, considering how the bloodline impurity line dilutes the artifact's effect and breaks it, there was a possibility of upgrading the artifact.

'Show me all the options,' Akhil realizing that the system was not clarifying things he just inquired about what options he had regarding an artifact.

[1. Inspect Artifact

2. Extract Artifact

3. Repair Artifact

4. Synchronize Artifact

5. Sacrifice Artifact

6. Store Artifact]

As it is, suddenly, a window popped up in front of him, revealing all the things he was able to do with the artifacts.

Looking towards the screen, he came to know that there were several things he was able to accomplish.

First, he was able to see which artifact one possessed, considering how, mostly, they had the ability to hide it in their dominion—To put it simply, Dominions were like a space from where those people manifested their ability, at the same time able to hide their artifacts in that place.

Secondly, he was able to extract the artifacts after establishing a connection, as the system told him by intimacy he would be able to see all the artifact fragments attached with a portion throughout the bloodline.

This meant that, for example, if the person had parents with different artifacts, he would be able to see 50 percent of both artifact fragments in them and could extract them based on the obsession points attached to those artifacts.