Further Into the Gaming Arcade

Despite splitting off from Scarlet and telling her to fight on her own, Collin can’t help but keep an eye on her as he fights, making his way just a bit closer to the core without getting too close to it. Because he isn’t a high enough level to deal with the demons at the core or even near it, having to wait for reinforcements from the base for that.

And what he finds when he watches her still surprises him just as much now as it did when he first saw her fighting after reaching Class II. The girl simply puts up what he can only assume is a field of null magic before rushing forwards and maneuvering around the fomorian’s attacks, striking back at them when they give an opening using her shapeshifted arms, and taking attacks without so much as flinching sometimes just to create more openings. All while the acolyte seems to struggle with using its magic skills, seemingly using up far more mana than it should otherwise need for each skill.

That is most definitely null magic. There’s no doubt about it. But for her to have null magic along with her blood magic, she’d have to have etched skills. And the only human with null magic in the world at Class V… is White.

Collin doesn’t stop killing demons with his silver lightning as he runs through the building, keeping one eye on Scarlet through a camouflaged drone that she has most likely already heard. Considering just how great her hearing has become.

Could she be White’s daughter? It’s possible, considering just how powerful she is. And while it is incredibly rare, some children who have etched skills do end up getting a magic that is nothing like their parent’s.

Seconds pass by, and with each one of them another demon is turned to ash by his lightning. All while he ponders over the subject. But eventually he decides that she is most likely White’s daughter as that would be the only plausible explanation for how she has both blood and null magic.

Not like it matters to me who her parents are. But at least if she knows about it, which she probably would if she got an achievement-locked skill, then she should know she’s not an orphan. And the public will likely know this too when they figure it out themselves.

Collin feels himself relaxing ever so slightly at that. Because ever since he found out she was an orphan, he couldn’t help but feel worried that her background would be discovered by the public and she would end up ostracized.

Whether or not she was raised in an orphanage or not doesn’t matter. Not if she has etched skills to prove who she is.

With that thought and one last glance at the girl who constantly reminds him of his late sister and is currently killing the acolyte with several blades of blood, taking advantage of the fomorian’s focus on her, Collin, otherwise known by the public as Sylver, focuses all of his attention on his own battles once again.

Scarlet

“So you decided to go off on your own after just minutes of entering the Fracture and gaining about a dozen levels?” Allen asks, trying to gather all the details of what went down in the first Fracture. Followed by the Fracture afterwards, neither of which actually had anything interesting happen. Nothing beyond me getting to about level one hundred and twenty from hunting demons.

“Yep,” I answer with a nod while opening up my terminal as I sit in his office on the very comfortable sofa beginning to search up if there’s any news on my use of null magic.

“And you got a new null magic etched skill unlocked as an achievement-locked skill?” he continues, making me nod without taking my gaze from the terminal. “I’m not really sure why we didn’t think of this before, but now that we have White’s permission to go through with the adoption, we can just let the public know you’re her daughter, and we won’t have to worry about your being raised as an orphan. Since the people and government wouldn’t treat you as an orphan after that. They’d treat you as the daughter of one of the five Knights of Humanity.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m fine with using my null magic skills in public,” I comment right before finding what I’m looking for. Some streamer going on about his speculations for me being White’s daughter. “It certainly didn’t take long for them to start speculating either.”

I raise my head finally to find Allen rubbing his temples as he says, “Well, your biological mother is the only Class V user of null magic in the world, and also the only one who has ever gotten a universal notification announcing her acquisition of etched skill slots. So it’d make sense for people to assume that.”

Wait… what?

“You mean universal notifications are public knowledge?” I ask, my confusion likely showing on my face.

Allen raises his head to look at me with a tired expression on his face and asks, “You didn’t know that?” He blinks for a moment only to shake his head. “Right. Of course you wouldn’t. They don’t teach as much as they should in those Tier 3 city schools. Not as much about Guardians at least, compared to how much they teach in higher Tier cities.”

Oh.

That’s annoying.

“And why wasn’t any of it mentioned in the textbooks I borrowed from…” I pause in the middle of speaking as the answer to my own question comes to me. “Never mind.”

It’s because I never had a class that focused solely on Guardians in school before university. Sure we had history classes, and classes over demons and stuff. But we never had one focused solely on Guardians.

A minor oversight on my part.

“It would certainly explain how the people are automatically jumping to the conclusion that White is your mother just from seeing your use of null magic,” Tar adds his two cents in, and I can’t help but nod.

Especially if they have some sort of website or something online used to keep track of the universal notifications. Which in hindsight I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

Actually, I open the browser and search that very thing up. And lo and behold, there really is one.

Interesting.

From the looks of it, most of the Demon Lords have about three or four etched skills, with the Lord of Death and the Blood Lord having four, whereas most of the Knights of Humanity have two etched skills, with White being the only one with three. Which answers my question of how many etched skills White has.

It doesn’t list any of their Titles though, presumably because they got most of them before the System was initialized on Earth.

But the Demon King… holy shit.

“Is this… is this accurate?” I can’t help but mutter out loud, drawing Allen’s attention to what I’m doing – the man having previously been muttering to himself.

“What? The Demon King’s etched skills?” he asks after seeing my screen before grimly answering, “Yes, the Demon King has six etched skills.”

“Wow…” I mutter, unsure of how to take that. “Wait, doesn’t that also mean that…”

“Yes, it does,” Allen says with a grimace. “The Blood Lord, the Demon King’s son, has all six of those etched skills along with his own four etched skills on top of them. Although whether he has those skills unlocked for their higher rarity or not is unknown.”

I stare at him with my mouth agape, unsure of how to respond.

“Don’t forget that the other Demon Lords have parents too, all of whom have etched skills of their own even if they don’t have anywhere near as many as the Demon King,” Tar suddenly chips in, making my shock turn into downright fear. “And most people only ever etch mythical skills, so those are likely to all be mythical skills. Most likely are Title-Bearing ones as well. Assuming they’ve met the requirements for the mythical version of the achievement-locked skills that is.”

No wonder the Demon Lords are all stronger than the Knights…