Sovereign of the Ashes
Chapter 1178: Gifts

Chapter 1178: Gifts

Even though Sein warned her quickly, it was still a little too late.

Lorianne’s finger still got zapped by the purple electricity.

At first, she did not think much of it. It was just a spark, after all.

But the moment it made contact, she felt the refined quality of the energy particles inside it. They were powerful enough to break through the defenses of a Rank Four being, and her expression immediately shifted to one of disbelief.

On top of that, a trace of Sein’s aura had leaked out when she touched the mask. Even so, it had been enough to catch her off guard.

Since Lorianne was physically so close to him, she had clearly sensed Sein’s current state in that split second.

Her apprentice had advanced far beyond what she expected!

From just that brief leak of elemental energy, Lorianne was reminded of her own state back when she had been preparing to break through to Rank Four.

“You’ve reached the peak of Rank Three already?” Lorianne asked, absentmindedly sucking on her injured finger to ease the pain.

It was almost a reflex action as her saliva carried powerful healing properties, thanks to the dendro elemental laws she commanded.

But even then, the burn left behind by the Faceless Mask’s purple spark refused to heal easily.

Only after realizing what she was doing in front of her own apprentice did a slight blush rise to Lorianne’s cheeks, and she quickly lowered her hand.

Rather than responding to her question right away, Sein began analyzing the mark on her finger with the help of the Faceless Mask.

Since the injury was caused by the mask itself, it could naturally scan the affected area and recommend the best method for healing.

Sein began pulling out various strange tools and rare materials, many of which he had collected during his time in Faeloria.

Lorianne simply blinked, watching silently as he worked.

Within moments, Sein had already prepared a small vial of gray potion. It was not exactly a magic potion, but it was effective enough to speed up the healing process.

After carefully applying a drop of the potion to her fingertip, Sein let out a small breath of relief and finally said, “Yes, I’ve reached the peak of the demigod realm. That happened while I was in the Knight Continent.”

Lorianne blinked again, stunned. It was a lot to take in all at once, and she did not even know where to begin.

Following Sein’s words, Lorianne raised an eyebrow and asked, “You made another trip to the Knight Continent?”

“Well, I was sent there by a powerful elder from the Western Archipelago. He asked me for a small favor,” Sein said with a nod.

Then he added, “Master Lorianne, your finger will be fine. This potion helps stabilize elemental dissociation.”

“It’s not a big deal. How could that little spark possibly hurt me?” Lorianne replied, pulling her hand back.

The spark from earlier had not been the Faceless Mask’s full power. With Lorianne’s strength, that small injury really was nothing.

Still, she was definitely startled by it.

Lorianne gave her apprentice a long look, her gaze drifting over him and settling on the mask for quite a while before she finally spoke again.

“Seems like you have run into some pretty absurd experiences over the years, huh?”

She narrowed her eyes slightly. “That mask of yours... Hmm... How come I can’t even sense any strong elemental fluctuations coming off it?”

Sein had no reason to hide anything from his mentor.

While he did not go into detail about certain matters involving the Spider Queen or the request from Sir Klopp, the knight overlord, he still gave her a fairly complete summary of his experiences over the years.

By now, it had been at least fifteen hundred years since Sein left the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring. The exact duration was difficult to measure due to the time distortion in the space-time corridors he had traveled through on his way to Faeloria and back.

And during that long stretch, far too much had happened for him to condense it into just a few sentences.

Even though Sein tried to keep things as brief as possible, by the time he was done talking, a full day and night had passed.

At some point, Lorianne’s brain felt like it had short-circuited.

Some of the things Sein shared were simply beyond her ability to grasp. His experiences were bizarre, especially when he described his visit to a massive, foreign world that the Magus Alliance was not even aware of.

He had gone into detail about the strange and unique laws that governed that plane, and it was not that Sein explained them poorly—it was that her mind could not fully process them.

And as if all that were not enough, Sein casually pulled out the Goddess of Waters’ divine relic and offered it to her as a gift.

Lorianne stared at him, pointing with one hand.

“Th-Th...” she stammered, but never managed to form a coherent sentence.

A dendro-attribute divine relic would have been a better gift, considering the elemental laws she wielded.

Sein did still have a broken divine relic fragment from the Verdant Wilderness God. But Lorianne had clearly refused it back then, saying she did not need such a thing.

Unfortunately, Sein had not hunted any dendro elemental deities during his time in Faeloria.

The divine relic from the Goddess of Waters, while holding the law of waters, was still highly compatible with dendro elemental law—after all, water was the source of life.

If integrated into Lorianne’s World Laboratory, the relic would undoubtedly enhance its structural integrity and greatly boost the overall vitality of the system.

Still, after taking a long pause to process the gesture, Lorianne shook her head and turned down her apprentice’s thoughtful gift.

“The core of a Rank Four creature is more valuable than you might imagine. You should hold on to this, I don’t need it. I’ll take that coral staff instead,” Lorianne said.

“Looks like you’re really rich now!” she added with a teasing smile. She looked at Sein with a glint of pride, like an artisan admiring a masterpiece she had crafted with her own hands.

The coral staff, once wielded by the Goddess of Waters, was a divine artifact too.

While the azure pearl at its tip was not as powerful as a Rank Four divine relic in terms of amplifying hydro elemental laws, it was still a valuable addition to Lorianne’s world laboratory.

Of course, part of her decision to take the staff might have had something to do with her natural fondness for pearls and jewels.

The pearl was of exceptional quality. It would not have been used in a divine artifact otherwise.

“I have quite a few special resources from Faeloria on hand. Once I finish sorting through them, I will send some your way, Master Lorianne,” Sein said with a smile.

“Those were the gifts you told me before, right?” she asked.

“That’s very nice of you, but don’t send too much. Just a small batch will be enough for my research,” she added, her eyes sparkling with interest.

She still had no idea how much her apprentice had gained. In fact, she thought that the Goddess of Waters’ divine relic was the only one in his possession.

“You still haven’t told me where you got that mask,” Lorianne said, reaching up as if she were about to tap it. But then she hesitated and lowered her hand with a small sigh.

“For it to suppress the raging elemental energy in your body so effectively... that’s no ordinary item,” she added thoughtfully.