Novel Full Chapter 799: 799: A Visit to the Vault
Chapter 799: Chapter 799: A Visit to the Vault
Mires led the way through the marble corridors of the College’s inner sanctum, his steps brisk, his back straight. Kain followed, still thinking about the bizarre detour into the Broken Gallery. The dried root he’d chosen was tucked away in his space ring, pulsing faintly with a rhythm only he seemed to notice. Suspicious or not, he couldn’t deny the connection he felt to it.
They stopped before a massive door of black stone etched with shimmering sigils. Last year’s vault had looked similar, but Kain’s sharp eyes caught a detail he hadn’t noticed before: three small stars engraved above the handle. Here, on this door, there were four.
His heart skipped. So this one’s higher-ranked than before? Excitement flickered in his chest, melting away some of his lingering irritation.
Mires turned with a knowing smile. “Noticed, did you? Yes. You’ve earned your way up, Kain. Few students have ever set foot in a four-star vault, and there is only the 5-star vault above this one. Consider it a testament to your growth.”
Kain’s polite expression stayed firmly in place, but inside his thoughts were racing. Four stars! That has to mean rarer treasures, maybe even something better than the Threads of Destiny?
The professor placed his palm against the handle covered in sigils. With a deep rumble, the stone door split open, releasing a wave of energy that made the air tremble. Beyond the threshold, the vault glowed faintly, shelves stretching high into shadow, each lined with rows upon rows of objects.
Kain stepped inside.
The atmosphere here was different from the Gallery’s dusty gloom. The shelves gleamed with polished crystal lamps. Glass cases displayed artifacts that shimmered faintly with spiritual light. Scrolls floated above pedestals, their surfaces glowing with etched runes. Eggs the size of his torso rested on cushioned stands, each radiating the faint aura of rare and powerful spiritual creatures.
Kain gave the eggs only a passing glance. No matter how impressive they were—Thunder Dragons, Moonlit Griffins, even what looked like a Frostflame Phoenix—none of them mattered to him. He couldn’t contract them, not with his unique affinity tied to microorganisms. To him, they might as well be paperweights.
He wandered past racks of gleaming weapons—swords that pulsed with lightning, spears humming with wind, bows strung with threads of light. They were masterpieces by any measure, the kind of things nobles would fight over in auctions. Again, Kain passed them by. With his connection to the blacksmith Halreth, he didn’t want for any weapons.
His real goal lay elsewhere.
He made his way toward the shelves marked with a sign for spiritual skills. That was where he needed to look. Not for raw power—though that was tempting—but for something useful, something practical. Something that could help him hide the truth about the Director and Gabriel.
The section was vast, rows of manuals suspended in shimmering light. Kain scanned the titles one by one, his brow furrowing. At first, disappointment pricked at him. Most of the skills didn’t sound as mysterious or as awe-inspiring as the Threads of Destiny had last year.
But the more he looked, the more he realized it wasn’t that they were unimpressive. Quite the opposite. Every skill here was powerful, polished, and practical. Unlike the Threads, where he took a huge risk in exchanging for a powerful skill that most people couldn’t successfully learn. They were reliable. And, most importantly, their thresholds for learning them were far lower.
He remembered how the professor last year had warned him against choosing the Threads of Destiny. “Few have ever succeeded,” the man had said. Even now, Kain had only mastered the first layer, perceiving the threads of fate around him. The higher levels were still out of reach. For most people, even touching the first layer would have been impossible.
By comparison, the skills in this four-star vault were designed for brilliance but still achievable brilliance. The kind of techniques that could increase ones strength without demanding years of hopeless effort and luck to learn it.
Finally, his eyes caught on one that made him stop.
Veil of the Hidden Star.
Kain lifted the glowing manual from its stand. The description flared before his eyes:
Veil of the Hidden Star — A spiritual skill designed to suppress and conceal one’s spiritual presence. Rather than masking spiritual power with a cover like most skills do, the user learns to condense their power into a compact star-core within their body. This sealed form prevents any leakage, rendering their level undetectable to outside senses. Unless one possesses a Gift or skill capable of peering within the body itself, even a nine-star beast tamer will be blind to the user’s true strength. Learning threshold: minimal — requires only the ability to condense spiritual power into a stable form.
Kain’s eyes widened. His heart thudded. This… this is perfect.
The description continued:
Note: Though easy to learn, mastery determines the density and stability of the veil. Beginners may only hide a portion of their spiritual power, but those who refine it can vanish entirely from spiritual perception.
Kain’s grip tightened around the manual. For most beast tamers, this was a niche skill at best. Who needed to hide their strength when being strong was a badge of honour? But for him, for his family—for Gabriel, for the Director—this skill was a saving grace.
He pictured Airalai’s face, her sharp eyes narrowing as she sensed the Director’s impossible strength or Gabriel’s impossible awakening. He imagined her reporting it back to her masters. And then he pictured the Black Dawn descending upon their home, tearing apart everything he had built.
This skill could prevent all of that and even allow Gabriel, who Kain had intentionally kept at home all this time, the ability to live and go to school normally.
He could teach it to Gabriel. To the Director. Even to others, maybe. The description said the threshold was minimal. If it only required condensing spiritual power into a ball and engraving the sigils from this skill upon it, then even ordinary people with empty, affinity-less stars could, in theory, learn it. He almost laughed. A concealment method usable by almost anyone? No wonder it’s locked behind four stars. This could change everything.
A grin tugged at his lips. “Found you.”
He tucked the manual under his arm, confirming his first selection, before turning back toward the endless rows of shelves. But he didn’t have too much anticipation for the remaining 2 items. This time felt very different from his selection last year.
Back then, when he first stepped into the College’s three-star vault, Pangea had been little more than a barren world with a single seed of the World Tree buried in its soil but not yet sprouted and Aurem the 5-clawed golden dragon had just hatched.
His background was shallow, and though he had chosen well with the Threads of Destiny, he’d walked those aisles with the mindset of someone desperate to grab anything useful.
Now? Things had changed. Pangea was thriving with millions of spiritual plants, veins of rare metals, and unique spiritual creatures for his exclusive use.
With Halreth’s support as the Empire’s greatest blacksmith, he already possessed more access to top weapons than most nobles could dream of.
To say he wanted for nothing wasn’t arrogance anymore—it was fact.
The only gap left in his arsenal was a spiritual skill that could hide the impossible truths about the Director and Gabriel. Which he now had. Anything else was garnish.
But Kain still had a lingering hope, ‘Could something that even he needed but didn’t already have be lying around here?’