Chapter 350

Despite the ridiculous song that Jacob is singing — which comes straight from Shit’s Creek, a chant that the miners used to keep themselves entertained while insulting the foreman and other people — the crystal responds very well.

The song does become more vulgar as Jacob goes on, and Princess Yekaterina is fully beet red by the time he’s done and he’s approaching the Mana node. But even King Blade can see that Jacob’s insane theory actually worked in practice.

Jacob inserts the core of the Skill Crystal into the Mana node, and everybody watches as a Skill Crystal is born out of nowhere.

King Blade can’t believe his eyes, and then suddenly says, “See? I told you that you would figure this Skill out without me explaining it to you.”

Jacob looks at the man with a frown. He knows that King Blade most definitely didn’t know how to use the Lullaby Skill. But he’s happy that he got to keep his life, and now he takes the Skill Crystal mid-air and hands it to King Blade.

“Well, Jacob Cloud, you have done the unthinkable. You truly are my grandson.” The jolly man erupts in laughter. “Now, absorb this.”

“I’m sorry, Grandpa. I don’t think it’s the best idea. I am only Diamond Rank, and even though my power reaches Imperium Rank, I doubt it will be best for me to absorb all these crystals. I don’t think I could absorb all nine, and perhaps it’s better if Count Myshkin does it.”

Jacob is also doing this because, despite having just used the Lullaby Skill successfully on a Mana node, he’s had success because he could insert the core generated by completing the murals that King Blade had made. Without such a core, he’s not sure he would have been able to do what he would need in order to mine more of the same Mana crystals.

“Hmm. That is indeed a good objection,” the king says, and then nods. “All right. Myshkin, son, come here.”

King Blade hands the Skill Crystal to Count Myshkin and orders him to absorb it.

And so Jacob settles into a rhythm of turning all the Mana nodes into Skill Crystals of different rarity. For the higher rarity ones, he needs help from King Blade, who’s very happy that the Skill kept his name. And before the day ends, they’re done — with Count Myshkin already having set up a crew in the mines and generating dozens of copies of Wrath of Blade as a Skill Crystal by mining Mana nodes.

Jacob is exhausted by this whole ordeal that he has been put through. But King Blade, even just in spirit form, organizes a banquet and has Jacob there as the guest of honor.

That night, as they’re tasting beers, Jacob is celebrated by the whole of Zamorye for his genius artistic sense, and for the fact that he managed to turn Wrath of Blade into a Skill Crystal — a feat that not even the legendary King Blade was capable of. And after declining to sing the song again for several people, King Blade sung it himself, leaving everybody speechless. But in their drunken stupor, they started actually singing the song nonstop, with Jacob contaminating another aspect of Zamorye’s court. With a vulgar song instead of an artsy lullaby.

As the night gets deeper and dawn approaches, King Blade says, “Grandson, my spirit will dispel soon. It was an honor to meet you. To meet a descendant of Gornyakov.”

“Grandpa, if I may,” Jacob says, “I do have two questions.”

“Please tell me.”

“So, well, the first is actually two. I was wondering how I would go back to my family, if you guys now have what you need. I’d like to take a break. I am very, very tired, and I don’t think I have it in me to fight another war. I’m mostly not sure I would even be able to have much of an impact at my level. So how do I go back? And is Zamorye a pocket dimension, or—”

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“Oh, I see. Zamorye is on another world, Jacob Cloud. This is a whole different planet.”

Jacob stares at King Blade and then asks, “I’m sorry, Grandpa, what do you mean, another planet?”

“Well, there are two different worlds. One is the world with your Headmaster, and this is the world of Zamorye. You didn’t know that there were multiple worlds in this universe, did you?”

“I guess I didn’t,” Jacob frowns.

“A lot of this world is plagued by a Primordial God, Apocalypse. Which is why it was sealed off from most other worlds. You cannot just travel between worlds willy-nilly. But with the right portal, you can. We do have a portal that brings you back to your own world, but we sealed it a long time ago, because we didn’t want Apocalypse to eventually destroy Zamorye and reach your world.”

Jacob starts considering the implications of this and asks, “So Rafnov — his legend spans more than one world across the universe?”

Jacob didn’t really have much notion of what planets in the universe were. He had read some of it, and he had discussed it last year while studying runes in the Astral Library with Elder Karl.

“Well, worlds are usually walled off from each other because they fear wars. So each world minds its own business. But Zamorye, our kingdom, which spans most of the world here — at least the part that is not plagued by Apocalypse — fears the opposite.”

“I see,” Jacob replied.

“And what is your second question, grandson?” King Blade asks.

“Well, I came here because I was chasing an Evil God’s incarnation. I killed one that was trying to get access to Zamorye, and then I chased another one, which was killed by a guard here since it was pretty weak. It possessed, uh, one of my distant family members on my mother’s side, which is the side of Rafnov’s blood. And I wanted to know where the weapon is that they were looking for.”

Suddenly, King Blade — who was about to offer another beer sample to Jacob — freezes and turns mechanically to the young man.

“What did you just say?”

“Um, the Mad God was looking for a weapon,” Jacob replies. “It was rumored that there was a very dangerous weapon in here.”

King Blade pauses for a second before saying, “Come with me, Jacob Cloud. Your Karma is truly something else.”

“Is it?” Jacob asks, confused. “Why?”

“Come.”

They leave the banquet hall and go through many corridors until they’re descending into the dungeons of the palace.

“What did you say was your father’s name?”

“Um, my father is called Lucas Cloud.”

King Blade sighed, and a sad expression appeared on his face.

“You… Jacob Cloud, do you know who your father is?”

“Um, I mean, my mom told me he was a descendant of Luriev. And you told me that actually he is a descendant of Gornyakov.”

“Your father is a traitor,” King Blade says.

And suddenly Jacob notices that many guards have appeared around him.

“A what, sorry?” Jacob says, feeling a cold shiver running down his back.

“Your father is the reason Gornyakov died. We walled off Zamorye because we feared that Primordial Gods would spill over to other worlds. We knew that the world you come from had already faced them, but their presence had not created a stronghold yet — thanks to Rafnov. Gornyakov was fighting them across worlds. And when he came to your world, he perished. He perished because he had told his son that he knew how to awaken the weapon.”

“Oh,” Jacob frowns.

“Your father’s real name is Lukyan. He is Gornyakov’s eldest. The traitor.”

“I see,” Jacob says, noticing that the guards around him are eyeing him with a dangerous glint. “So my father betrayed his father — my actual grandfather, Gornyakov. So how old is my father?”

“Your father is very old. Older than me,” King Blade says. “And he was lusting over the power that the Primordial Gods possessed. So he started working with them, because he understood that Rafnov’s power could not just annihilate the Primordial Gods, but also steal their power so that it could become ours. But that bargain would come with the complete loss of humanity. It is something that Rafnov warned all of his descendants about. The weapon is the personification of it.”

“The personification of a Primordial God’s power?” Jacob frowned.

“Gornyakov was able to complete Rafnov’s weapon. It was an experiment that should have never, ever seen the light of day. But Gornyakov was an exceptional man with a pure heart and a traitorous son. When he revealed the method through which he created the weapon, your father thought that the best way to put an end to the Primordial Gods was to become a thief. To steal their power and turn it against them. Rafnov had already done the same — Rafnov’s Bounty, the curse, was consuming the Primordial Gods in order to enrich humanity and all living creatures, away from the control of the Primordial Gods. But there was a fundamental difference. Rafnov knew that transplanting that power into a living being would twist him, and would create—”

King Blade sighed, looked at the guards and said, “Step back.”

He sketched something on the ground and then pointed at Jacob Cloud.

“Come, Jacob. I will show you what Gornyakov made, and what the folly of your father wanted to control.”