Chapter 270: The Path to the Heavens Begins With Dancing With Gorillas.

[Rael’s POV]

I shook my head, dismissing useless thoughts as the contents of the letter became visible to me and the very first sentence instantly captured my attention.

[I, your humble servant, Eidolon, greet you, oh great successor of the Trickster. Forgive me for being unable to greet you properly but the descendant of my old friend, the current Demon King, advised me against it, saying it would only create more trouble for you.

I humbly wish to let you know that as my benefactor and now my master, I shall carry out any task you wish for me to undertake. Please do not hesitate to call upon me whenever I am needed.

Along with that, I also have a small gift that my son, Winter, left for you in gratitude before departing for his divine realm.

The gift is hidden within the envelope itself and shall only reveal itself if you inject your mana into it. Nobody else should be able to access it except you.

Once again, I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to you. I shall remain at the Ashborn Estate and grow stronger while doing my utmost to assist your family with my pitiful knowledge.

Thank you for giving me a second chance, Young Trickster.]

I read through the whole letter as a smirk appeared on my face.

Judging by the fact that he called Ashanvar the descendant of his friend, I was sure that guy didn’t even suspect that Ashanvar himself was that friend.

But well, he seems to be doing well, huh?

Though I still couldn’t understand why he had chosen to stay in this world instead of leaving with Winter, I didn’t mind.

I mean, this guy had been one of the strongest back then. Not to mention, he was one of the greatest blacksmiths to ever exist in history, so I was sure he would be more than useful. And honestly, I couldn’t dislike such a humble and respectful guy anyway.

With a small smile on my face, I reached for the envelope again and pushed a small amount of mana into it as a small ring fell out.

It had a green gem embedded at its top.

Ohh, an artifact?

I immediately checked its details.

[Ring of Fabrica Aeterna]

[Rank: Unranked]

[Details: A ring signifying the highest authority over the worshippers of the God of Forge in the mortal world. Only five of its kind exist. Grants the rank of Saint within the Church of Forge.]

Damn, this almost seems useful...

But...

From my knowledge, that bastard Winter basically had zero followers here on Nytharria.

The universe was divided into many planets harbouring living beings and except for the Primordial Gods and Gods of Underworlds, who ruled over all of them at once and didn’t care about trivial stuff like domains, most other gods divided different planets among themselves as domains.

But from what I knew, there had never been any mention of the domain of the God of Forge in the novel since Winter was never a very relevant character. That didn’t mean he didn’t have any, it only meant that I didn’t know where it was.

But I was sure his domain definitely wasn’t in Nytharria. Otherwise, with his strength, he would have at least had a church here or maybe even a few major cults. And that ultimately made this ring completely useless to me for now.

Since the ring turned out to be mostly future investment material, I pushed it into my domain before shifting my attention toward the thing I was actually excited about, the martial manual Ashanvar had given me.

Unlike many other manuals that were directly absorbed into the brain with the help of the system, this one seemed old-school and had actual pages lined with information.

Hell, even the great Heavenly Principles, which had a voyeuristic habit of revealing the details of every little thing, didn’t show anything about this manual.

Honestly, I had a few guesses.

Maybe this manual didn’t even originally belong to this world and had come from somewhere else where Ashanvar had existed before... or maybe it was too profound for even the Heavenly Principles to comprehend. Or maybe it was simply too shitty to be considered anything worthwhile.

It was hard to tell.

But well, I didn’t really care much as I opened the first page. It had a small note written there along with a strange symbol.

[With enough patience, even a drop of water can pierce stone, with enough patience, even an ember can burn through a forest and with enough patience, even a fist could slay the heavens.]

"Damn, quite the edgy start, huh?"

I muttered, already feeling excited about the profound art hidden beneath these pages but as soon as I turned the page...

There was a particular exercise written there to begin practising the martial art and the moment I saw it, all I could think was,

"Fuck you, Ashanvar."

Because the instructions weren’t anything profound. Hell, they weren’t even normal. There was only one line written there.

Dance with a Gorilla.

Like seriously, what the hell was this supposed to mean? And why gorillas of all animals?

And more importantly...

Why dance?

Before I could curse him further, my eyes fell upon a smaller note written at the bottom. I immediately squinted to read it.

[The path to the heavens begins with dancing with gorillas. Pffft... so don’t go doubting your master, Rael, and do enjoy your dancing session. And don’t use mana or anything else. Just dance. Once you can dance without getting hit by the gorilla for three hours, open the next page... until then, it will remain locked.]

[PS: By the way, the Gorilla you must dance with is in the Academy’s forest. You can ask Lillith for directions, I have already instructed her to watch over your progress.]

My eyes twitched...

This old bastard wrote a fucking heavenly proverb about patience only to send me dancing with gorillas.

For a moment, I genuinely considered whether this was just some elaborate prank that guy was pulling. Strings of curses threatened to explode out of me but before I could unleash them, someone knocked on the door to my room.