Ascension of the last Celestial

Walking away from the training grounds, Valerian’s calm facade slowly melted into a heavy sigh.

’Well, that was disappointing.’ ’Sure, we didn’t go all out, but still... wasn’t that a bit too easy?’

The sole reason Valerian had been able to secure such an "effortless" victory was due to his Unique Skill, [Law Breaker]. For the first few months after awakening it, he hadn’t truly comprehended how to use the ability. It certainly hadn’t helped that the vague description provided by the system offered absolutely no helpful information.

But after an immense amount of trial and error, he had finally mapped out its boundaries. In the beginning, it manifested as minor adjustments, slightly altering the gravitational pull on a small object, or making the water in a glass solid. But after years of practice, along with his increasing rank and expanding mana reserves, he had reached a point where he could manipulate the laws around another person.

On the topic of mana reserves, Valerian always had a lot of mana, way more than anyone in his rank was supposed to have. But even those large reserves were different; his mana seemed to be of a higher purity. He needed less mana to do the same things others did, and thanks to his large reserves and pure mana, he never really had to worry about using too much. Paired with the insane mana regeneration provided by [Child of Mana], he had never once exhausted all his mana in ten years. The only times he got close to running dry was when he used his Unique Skill, since it was a glutton for mana, unlike his affinities which took a laughable amount.

He remembered hearing that even if someone was born with a rare Space affinity, they could never use it to the maximum since the mana cost for the smallest of things was just too high. But it was never the same for him. Even when he teleported hundreds of meters into the sky, which he tried by teleporting into the sky, the cost didn’t increase much compared to a ten-meter teleport.

Reflecting on his fight with Captain Ford, another moment came to his mind, the moment when the captain activated his affinity, Lightning. He remembered the feeling of Ford’s mana turning to pure electricity, the blue arcs dancing over his skin, and something humming inside his own core.

Gripping his chest directly over his heart where his core was located, Valerian could feel something building up, begging to be released.

’Just what the hell is going on?’

But the feeling didn’t stop. It kept building until it felt like his core was going to burst. Not wanting whatever was happening to take place in the hallway, he pushed his mana through his space affinity. Space folded cleanly around him, and he appeared in his room.

Falling to his knees, he felt that using his affinity pushed the process to happen even sooner. Finally, something in his core broke. It was like a dam breaking down, flooding his body with power. He closed his eyes as a blinding pain hit his body, like a thousand tiny needles stabbed his veins with electric currents. He kept his eyes shut, holding back the scream threatening to burst out.

His other senses picked up the sound of electricity zapping something and the smell of ozone in the atmosphere. As he opened his eyes through the pain, he could vaguely see black lightning with a deep purple color thrashing out at his surroundings.

’Lightning?’

Even though he was confused by the appearance of the lightning, he couldn’t spare much brainpower on it as the pain didn’t let up. After what felt like an eternity, the pain finally died down. Valerian lay on the floor completely exhausted, heaving heavy breaths with cold sweat drenching his entire body.

"What... what the fuck was that?" he wheezed into the quiet room.

He still couldn’t logically piece together the situation, but he clearly felt that something in his core had changed. After collecting himself and taking his time to calm his racing heart down, he checked the window that held the answer.

’Status.’

[Status Window]

[Name: Valerian von Astrea]

[Age: 15]

[Titles: Last Celestial, Child of Mana, Prince of Solaria]

[Race: Celestial 60% | Cosmic Dragon 40% (Hybrid)]

[Bloodline: Celestial Dragon]

[Core: Rank S-]

[Affinities: Space, Cosmic Fire, Void Lightning]

[Attributes]

[Vitality: S-]

[Strength: S-]

[Agility: S-]

[Dexterity: S-]

[Intelligence: S-]

[Mana: SS-]

[Charm: SS]

[Unique Skill]

[Law Breaker]

Everything remained the same, he was still at the beginning of S-Rank, but under his affinities, a brand-new entry appeared: Void Lightning. Not wanting to waste another moment, he called upon the description.

[Description]

[Affinity: Void Lightning

Void Lightning is the evolved version of the Lightning affinity. By interacting with your Celestial Dragon Bloodline, it turned into something beyond normal. Unlike normal lightning, void lightning isn’t loud or bright. It is erasure; it removes instead of burning. It is faster than regular lightning while also being less volatile to the wielder.]

’So my bloodline naturally filtered a standard lightning element and evolved it into Void Lightning... I get that part,’ Valerian deduced, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the screen. ’But how did I even trigger the acquisition of a lightning affinity in the first place?’

Confused how he got the lightning affinity, he was sure it had something to do with the spar against Captain Ford. ’If him using his lightning caused me to get an affinity, why did it only happen now and not over the last years? People have been using their affinities left and right. Unless...’

There was only one thing that he could think of that changed: his rank. Just yesterday, he broke into the S-Rank.

’Did me breaking into S-Rank cause me to somehow copy his lightning affinity? I’m pretty sure if that’s what happened, my [Child of Mana] and [Law Breaker] had something to do with it. Does that mean I can go around and copy every affinity someone is using around me? It can’t be that easy.’

Looking around his room, he noticed that it was dark. ’Wait, is it night? How long did that process last?’

Walking to the clock on his nightstand, he took a look and indeed it was past midnight. ’Haah... I’m fucking exhausted. The situation with the affinity I can also work on in the morning.’

Valerian slowly began to undress and just jumped into bed, too exhausted to shower and wash off the smell of lightning still clinging to his skin. It didn’t take long before sleep finally took him in its sweet embrace.

Waking up from his sleep, Valerian immediately sprang up and sprinted to the shower. Yesterday he hadn’t cared how he smelled since he was so exhausted, but after waking up, just the thought of smelling made him recoil in disgust.

After taking a long, hot shower in the luxurious bathroom, he executed the same maneuver as the day before, teleporting directly in front of his wardrobe. Selecting a grey loose shirt and fitting black pants with silver engravings, he tied his long white hair back into a loose ponytail. He didn’t want to waste any time walking through the oversized palace and just instantly teleported to the training grounds, leaving the space he occupied completely empty without even a disturbance in the mana.

Once he was there, the knights immediately noticed him. It wasn’t hard, since he was the only one in the castle to have white hair and black horns coming out of his head. To his dismay, the whole bowing and greeting thing still happened, even though he told them a dozen times not to do it.

This time, he didn’t seek out Captain Ford, but walked straight to a knight he knew had a Wind affinity. He knew this because he had previously sparred with the man and utterly wiped the floor with him. The warrior was a young man in his early twenties, possessing shoulder-length brown hair tied securely in a tight bun and brown eyes.

When he saw Valerian walking towards him, he began to sweat heavily as he thought the prince wanted to fight him again. As Valerian stopped in front of him, the knight—who was slightly taller than Valerian due to the age difference—shrunk in front of those piercing purple eyes. Even while cowering in fear, he couldn’t help but feel like they were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Paired with his divine face, it left him completely mesmerized.

’Snap out of it! I don’t even like men!’ the knight thought, lost in his internal debate.

While the knight was slightly lost, Valerian opened his mouth. "Don’t be afraid. I just want you to use your affinity."

Hearing his request, a heavy sigh of relief escaped his mouth and a heavy weight left his shoulders. Even though he didn’t understand why, he complied and summoned a small tornado over his outstretched hand.

Valerian stared at the tornado with burning intensity and a scrutinizing gaze. Seeing him stare at the tornado so much, a whole other fear came over the knight. ’Is it not good enough, should I make it bigger?’

Before he could decide what to do, Valerian sighed and turned around while waving his hand. "Thank you for your time."

Valerian left with a disappointed expression, leaving the knight with an existential crisis. Once he walked off the training ground, his form disappeared and reappeared lying on his bed, limbs outstretched like a starfish.

’Nothing, I didn’t feel anything. Maybe I can only copy another affinity when I breakthrough again?’ ’No matter. I really want to test this new affinity out, but I can’t really use it in a sparring match since the description said it erases instead of burns.’ ’I guess I have to ask Father if I can leave the castle to go hunting some beasts.’

After that, his body disappeared again, only to appear in front of the king’s office in the next instance. The door was familiar because it was the same office he met the king on his first day here. Looking at it for a second, he just pushed the door open without knocking.

When the door opened, the same minimalistic office appeared with Helias sitting behind the table signing some document. Without looking up from the paper he was reading, he addressed Valerian. "Really? Without even knocking? I don’t think your mother taught you to be so polite."

Hearing the complaint but knowing there was no real offense behind it, Valerian just calmly walked to the seat across from him and made himself comfortable, crossing one leg over the other, like he owned the room.

Looking up from the document, Helias spoke. "So, what can I do for you?"

"I want to go hunting some beasts."

Surprised by the request, Helias laid the document back down. "In ten full years, you have never once asked to leave the castle. What changed?"

Valerian knew there was no real reason to hide anything. He summoned the black-purple lightning to cover his hand and explained what had happened yesterday.

"You got a new affinity just like that?" Helias muttered. "Damn, even I had to work hard and take a lot of resources to get another affinity. But you’re right, you can’t use it against our knights. You can go to the Voidwoods. Do you want me to send a group of knights with you?"

"No, that won’t be necessary. If something goes wrong and I have to flee, I can always just teleport away."

Helias didn’t really have a problem with Valerian going to hunt alone because he knew just how brutal the world is, and Valerian needed some real fighting experience with real life-or-death battles.

"But make sure to tell your mother before you go."

Hearing that, Valerian froze into a statue because he knew convincing his father was never the hard part—it was his overcaring and overprotective mother that was the problem.

"Gulp."