Chapter 197: Dragons

The fourth floor of the Grand Archive contained fewer students than the levels beneath it, but far more books.

The shelves no longer held broad introductions. Every section had been designed on the assumption that its readers had already awakened, understood the existence of soul power, and possessed either an instructor or enough good sense not to imitate whichever technique happened to have the most impressive-sounding name.

Ravian possessed neither an instructor nor that particular variety of good sense.

As usual, he compensated with Absolute Focus.

The first subject he pursued was the Soul Crown.

Dozens of books described it according to different traditions, but their common foundation remained consistent. The Soul Crown was the spiritual structure through which a soul stabilized its growth, preserved the Records accumulated through ascension, and endured the pressure created by increasing soul power.

Every Awakened possessed one.

Most could not clearly manifest their Crowns at the lowest ranks, particularly the Tenth Rank. They sensed their weight during meditation, glimpsed them in moments of advancement, or perceived them only after someone taught them where to direct their awareness. Their visible appearance varied according to the soul, path, element, and methods used to refine them, while the gemstones formed upon them served as marks of successful ascension through the Gates.

Ravian’s attention instinctively rose toward the exact place where his gray Crown rested above his head.

He knew that two crimson gemstones now rested within it.

The books explained why the Crown existed, yet none of them explained why his had manifested without instruction or why its presence had felt capable of bearing down upon the world around him. That difference belonged either to Sovereign Pride, the unknown rank of his soul, or something no publicly available text was prepared to discuss yet.

He added the question to the growing list within his mind and continued.

Ravian finished each book at an astonishing speed and swiftly returned it to its place, though he certainly did not read everything. He focused only upon the most important subjects and ignored anything useless to him, such as books on this world’s geometry or those nauseating guides to noble etiquette. Instead, he continued delving deeper into everything related to Soul Crowns and the nature of the soul.

Ordinary Awakened refined their Crowns in three principal ways. Spiritual meditation gradually increased the quantity of soul power they possessed and their control over it. Battle forced the soul to adapt under genuine pressure, transforming experience and danger into Records capable of supporting later advancement. Spirit stones supplied concentrated energy that reduced the time required for refinement, provided the user absorbed them through a compatible method and did not damage the Crown by forcing more power into it than the soul could stabilize.

Rarer methods existed as well—bloodline rites, inherited domains, relic-assisted refinement, religious blessings, and techniques guarded by ancient families—but every book warned that exceptional methods produced exceptional failures.

The most dangerous methods, however, were merely acknowledged as existing, without evidence or meaningful instructions explaining how they could be practiced. Even so, an extremely small number of the texts Ravian encountered contained what appeared to be genuine methods of application.

The System had been correct to tell him to study this himself.

If Ravian had treated the demands of Sovereign Pride as the normal path followed by every Awakened, he would have misunderstood almost everything. Others did not receive lists of required deaths or survive disasters merely to satisfy a path that judged their worth. They refined their Crowns until their souls could withstand the next Gate, then attempted their ascension through methods developed and perfected across generations.

Ravian had to do that as well.

He simply had to satisfy himself and Sovereign Pride on top of it.

’What a headache,’ Ravian thought, though a faint smile appeared upon his face.

The records concerning the ranks occupied another section large enough to deserve a library of its own.

At the Tenth Rank stood the Awakened, those whose souls had opened and become capable of perceiving spiritual power. At the Ninth Rank came the Walker. An ordinary Walker selected a principal road—Aura or Magic—and established the foundation that would shape every technique they learned afterward.

Ravian paused there.

His body possessed an Aura Core and mana circles simultaneously.

Several books declared that attempting to establish both was inefficient, while others described it as outright dangerous. One particularly severe treatise insisted that the two circulations would interfere with each other, deform the Crown, and leave the practitioner weaker in both fields even if they somehow survived.

Yet according to everything recorded within those books, nothing resembling Ravian’s condition had ever happened at all.

That meant he was either the first of his kind or an entire category unto himself.

Ravian quietly placed that book in the pile he intended to revisit.

The Eighth Rank was the Soul Liberator, where soul power could be manifested beyond the restrictions of flesh and employed as a tangible force. The Seventh Rank was the Riftmaker, whose presence and techniques began to affect space itself. At the Sixth Rank stood the Guardian, capable of establishing a personal domain within which the soul’s influence became vastly more difficult to resist.

The Fifth Rank was known as the Sealbearer. Explanations differed according to the path being followed, but every reliable source agreed that reaching this rank involved fixing a lasting spiritual authority into the Crown rather than merely releasing power through it.

Naturally, the books also described the differences in spiritual talent between one person and another. Those differences influenced their future strength at every rank, their compatibility with particular elements, and the qualitative advantages they might possess in individual confrontations or large-scale battles.

Then Ravian reached something he had long wanted to examine.

At the Fourth Rank, where everything changed completely and fundamentally, stood the Nation’s Wing.

Any being who entered that rank began to separate from mortal nature altogether. It was a form of partial immortality in which the individual became an embodiment of a Law intimately bound to both their physical and spiritual existence, rather than merely someone capable of using that Law.

That ascension marked the first true comprehension of a Law. The title was not ceremonial; a single Awakened who reached that rank could alter the military balance of an entire nation, while the emergence or death of one was treated as an event significant enough to rewrite treaties between nations, sects, and even races.

Then came the Third Rank.

Calamity.

The descriptions became cautious there. A Calamity did not merely comprehend a Law but exerted it with enough stability to transform the conditions of a battlefield, a city, or something far larger depending upon the individual. Historical accounts disagreed about their limits because few witnesses capable of measuring those limits survived battles between them.

After that...

The ladder stopped.

At first, Ravian assumed he had selected an incomplete book. Yet the next volume ended at Calamity as well, as did an older reference work, a military classification guide, and an academic comparison of advancement paths. Some acknowledged that two ranks existed beyond the Third, but none supplied their names or any usable description of them.

In several books, the relevant pages had been removed.

In others, the final table simply contained two empty rows.

’Now that isn’t suspicious at all...’ Ravian thought dryly.

Even his authorization granting him access to every floor did not resolve the omission. The most heavily restricted references he could locate spoke of those beyond Calamity only through vague designations such as higher existences, transcendent authorities, or those above, but none identified either rank by a formal name.

Either the Academy did not possess the knowledge, or the information had been concealed more thoroughly than even an Earl’s letter could overcome.

Ravian did not waste time growing angry at an empty shelf. He memorized every indirect reference he found and continued into the classifications of beasts.

Their ranks followed a progression remarkably similar to humanity’s.

A Tenth-Rank creature was classified as an Awakened Beast. At the Ninth Rank, it became a Wandering Beast and developed either an elemental affinity or Beast Aura. The Eighth Rank produced a Primal Predator capable of materializing its soul power, while a Seventh-Rank Riftbreaker could disturb space much as a human Riftmaker did.

At the Sixth Rank, bloodline became more important than any universal title. Beasts at that level manifested a field or domain inherited through their species, and from that point onward, creatures of the same rank could possess wildly different abilities.

The similarity was too precise to dismiss. Humans and beasts used different names, bodies, and cultivation methods, but their souls crossed comparable thresholds.

What shocked Ravian most, however, was something else entirely.

He discovered that dragons existed and were classified among the beast races as well.

The discovery disappointed and interested Ravian in equal measure because the dragons described by this world’s scholars differed from the creatures preserved in Earth’s mythology. The term encompassed several related yet distinct bloodlines. There were aquatic dragons adapted to seas and great rivers, draconic bloodlines associated with the Children of Sin, and a far older group known as the Original Dragons.

Most draconic races were openly hostile toward humanity or served powers whose interests placed them on opposing sides. The Original Dragons were the sole exception as a group. They were not allies, and approaching one remained an excellent way to shorten a person’s life, but they did not appear to regard humans as enemies merely for being human.

’I really want one now.’