Chapter 215: Vael

A screen containing detailed information about the Class and Rank of artifacts appeared before Vlad’s eyes.

---

Artifacts are evaluated using two separate metrics: Class and Rank.

Class represents the qualitative tier of an artifact, including but not limited to its material purity, craftsmanship, and inherent potential.

Rank, on the other hand, represents an artifact’s relative standing within its own Class.

A higher Class always takes priority over Rank.

ARTIFACT CLASSIFICATION:

The recognized weapon Classes, from lowest to highest, are:

Common → Rare → Elite → Legendary → Divine

RANK DESIGNATION:

Each Class is further divided into Ranks, ranging from:

B → A → S

IMPORTANT NOTES:

1. An artifact’s Rank does not allow it to surpass the boundary of its Class. In simple terms, an S-Rank Elite-class weapon is still fundamentally inferior to a B-Rank Legendary-class weapon.

2. Artifacts of the Divine Class cannot be directly obtained. Only a rare growth-type artifact can be upgraded to the Divine Class. All the Genesis Artifacts are growth-type artifacts and have the potential to reach the Divine Class.

---

"Wow, that’s a whole lecture right there," Vlad gasped as he carefully read the screen.

As he read the last sentence, a bead of sweat trickled down his temple. "The Eternal Eye that I absorbed must be worth a fortune. Even if I did it to protect my friends, the artifact still belonged to the academy. They wouldn’t carve out my eye to claim it... right?"

The thought alone sent shivers down his spine. He shook his head, banishing the unnecessary thoughts.

From his storage ring, he drew a dark key with the number Three carved into it.

"Chloe and Sera must be worried about me," he muttered, his tone turning serious as he walked toward the locked double door on the opposite wall. "I need to clear the Ascension Dungeon quickly and return to the academy."

He inserted the key into the lock and rotated it clockwise. The sound of heavy gears shifting echoed through the room. Slowly, the door opened with a metallic groan, revealing a similarly dark room beyond.

Once he entered, the door closed behind him, sealing shut. It was a relatively smaller room than the previous two, illuminated by similar glowing stones embedded at regular intervals along all four walls.

There was no attached room on this floor. The only other door, apart from the one through which Vlad had entered, was on the opposite wall and most likely led to the fourth floor.

At the centre of the room stood a large stone slab, nearly the same height as Vlad.

Ding...

[You have entered the third floor of Ascension Dungeon!

Learn the Dragon Tongue to pass the third floor.]

"Dragon Tongue?" Vlad raised an eyebrow as he approached the slab at the centre.

It had numerous ancient symbols engraved upon it that Vlad had never seen before. "Is this the Dragon Tongue the system wants me to learn?" he wondered, tilting his head.

There was no pronunciation given for these strange alphabets. Not to mention, there were 128 of them engraved deep into the stone.

Vlad looked around the slab, hoping to find a guidebook or something similar. He even asked the system to provide him with a translation.

[Access Denied!]

"What do you mean by Access Denied?" Vlad retorted, his brows furrowing. "Am I supposed to learn the language just by blankly staring at it..."

His words stopped mid-sentence as he felt a strange sensation while looking at the first symbol at the top right.

"H-huh, what was that?"

His eyes narrowed as he stared intensely at the symbol, trying to sense that strange feeling again.

After a few seconds, he heard a deep voice speaking inside his head.

Vael.

"Who is there?" Vlad snapped, looking to either side. There was no one in the hall except him. He pressed his temples between his fingers and thumb, feeling a mild headache.

It didn’t take him long to realize where the voice had come from. It was coming from the symbol, telling him how to pronounce it.

He sat cross-legged before the stone slab and stared at the symbol again.

Vael.

He tried to imitate the voice. "Vael."

Nothing happened.

"Was that it?" he murmured. "Should I try the next word now?"

He focused on the next symbol, but no voice spoke in his mind.

Half an hour passed.

During this time, he realized a few things. The voice was telling him how to pronounce the symbols. But even though he was speaking exactly as the voice did, he could not hear the voice for the next alphabet, meaning he was doing something wrong.

Not to mention, he felt a headache that he strongly resisted each time he heard the voice.

"What am I doing wrong?" he muttered, rubbing his chin. "Oh, right. The system told me to learn Dragon Tongue, but all I’m doing is mimicking the voice I hear without actually learning the meaning behind the word."

He shifted his gaze back to the first symbol. This time, when the voice spoke in his mind, he didn’t resist the headache.

"Agh!" he groaned as the pain continued to intensify. Several images appeared in his mind, the scenery before him changing.

The next moment, he found himself standing on the stage where a massive sphere was placed. It was a familiar place, with a large number of people standing in the grand hall.

He immediately recognized the place. It was the Church where he had undergone his awakening ceremony.

"Tch, just a D-Ranked trash," a voice came from in front of him. He found Priest Mikael standing there, his golden eyes staring at Vlad with disgust. "What gave you the confidence to come here for an awakening? Move back to the countryside from where you came."

Before Vlad could speak, the other people in the church also shouted, "Move back, trash!"

They began throwing stones at him.

"Get lost!"

"Trash!"

"Don’t show your face again!"

Vlad’s jaw tightened, his fists clenching at his sides.

Several streaking lines appeared before him, and the scenery changed again.

"I-it’s all because of you..."

Vlad’s eyes widened as he heard the familiar voice.

Chloe lay before him, her back resting against the wall of the narrow passage between the buildings.

She was covered in blood, her ankles bound by red-hot chains.

"You couldn’t protect me, Vlad," Chloe murmured weakly. "I’m dying because of you."

"N-no!!!" Vlad screamed, rushing toward her.

He had taken only a couple of steps when something struck his temple, slamming him to the floor.

It was Theo, holding a rod in his hand. Matteo stood beside him.

"Stay down, weakling," Theo muttered, glaring down at him. "You can’t protect anyone with such a pathetic talent."

"A D-Ranked bastard dared to provoke us," Ronald’s voice came next. He held the other end of the chains that bound Chloe.

He extended his hand toward Chloe, a concentrated sphere of flames forming in front of his palm.

"No, stop!" Vlad shouted, trying to rise to his feet. Before he could move, the fireball was released from Ronald’s hand, striking Chloe.

"Noooo!!!!" Vlad’s broken scream echoed, his sclera turning bloodshot.

Everything turned bright as the fireball exploded.

When the vision returned, the scenery had already changed.

"Y-you told us to explore the second cave," Seraphina’s weak voice reached his ears.

Vlad’s legs shook, his feet staggering backward in shock at the scene before him.

Alisha, Raphael, and Hugo were lying lifeless before him, the ground beneath them crimson with their blood.

Seraphina was barely alive, her body punctured by numerous branches, hanging in the air.

"S-Sera..." Vlad murmured, moving toward her. "H-how could this happen?"

"We are dying because of y-you..." Seraphina muttered, glaring at Vlad with eyes filled with hatred. "If not for you lying to us about the Second Genesis Artifact, we wouldn’t have been hunted by Daemoth.

Are you not ashamed of living yourself? I hate you. Die! Die! Die!"

Vlad fell to his knees, his breathing turning ragged, his irises shaking.

"No, no, no," he mumbled, holding his head with both hands. "They all died because I was too weak. My fault. It’s all my fault."

"Vlad..." A soft voice reached his ears, the voice that he had never forgotten.

His eyes widened, his head rising. In the distant fog, a figure stood, too blurry to make out.

"Give up. You can never save me."

He dragged his fingers across the ground, blood seeping from beneath his fingernails. Veins bulged across his forehead as he muttered, "No. I won’t give up."

He slowly rose to his feet and looked at the distant figure with determined eyes.

"I will save you, you hear me," he roared. "I will become the Legendary Knight!"

The figure looked back at him over their shoulder, a faint smile appearing on their lips.

The fog vanished into thin air along with the figure, and he found himself in the dungeon again, standing before the stone slab.

"VAEL," he spoke in a firm tone, understanding the meaning behind the word. "It means will."

The first symbol on the slab flickered twice before gradually beginning to glow with a warm golden light.