Chapter 28 - 26 - Fissure

Chapter 28: Chapter 26 - Fissure

"Leopold. Sebastian" Julius greeted calmly after reaching them.

Both of them nodded respectfully in response to his greeting.

He then turned his gaze and lowered it a bit towards Flynn and Aiden who were still waiting for someone to explain what all this was, as was evident from the startled and questioning looks they had on their faces.

"And I presume you two must be Aiden and Flynn Belmont?" Julius rhetorically asked, his voice carrying a sagely feel to them.

Both brothers nodded in response to this.

Although they still had no idea who this was and still could not pinpoint anyone with similar features in the novel, they knew from his demeanor that he meant no harm.

"Well this is certainly interesting..." Julius said, his hands stroking his beard as he stared at Aiden.

'B-rank at such a young age... He'll probably reach high-tier B-rank in the next few months...' Julius mused to himself.

"Aiden. Flynn. Meet Julius Hargreaves. An executive of The Tower" Sebastian finally said to both teenagers, answering all the questioning looks they had on their faces.

Aiden and Flynn had their eyes widen from surprise when Sebastian introduced who it was that was standing before them.

To the rest of them there, it might've just seemed like both teenagers were amazed to have met one of the highest ranking people from The Tower but that was far from what was actually going on in their minds.

'Julius Hargreaves! One of the SSS rankers who took down three of the demon king's general all on his own at towards the end of the novel' both brothers inwardly thought to themselves.

'I always found it weird that he just popped out of nowhere towards the end of the novel but considering that the novel was written from Aiden's point of view, it's understandable that a few things would never get touched upon until they directly affected him. That's probably why there were no descriptions of Julius Hargreaves...' Aiden continued inwardly.

"Aiden Belmont... Would you like to join The Tower once you're done at the Academy?" Julius calmly asked.

Sebastian was about to interject but Leopold beat him to it.

"Julius, with all due respect, I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to rope my son into joining the Tower. He should be allowed to make whatever decisions he'd like to without anyone's influence"

"I see..." Julius remarked, unperturbed by Leopold's words.

"It's nothing really. I just thought he'd be a great addition to our forces in the future" Julius spoke again, after which he continued.

"But you're right. He should be allowed to make his own decisions" he finished with an amiable smile.

A weird silence passed between all of them after Julius's response.

Flynn watched Aiden's fingers subconsciously move over to tap his spatial ring and immediately smacked his hands quietly. n()o(/V-/e()l-)B./I-)n

He then gave him a look that said 'You were really planning to pull out that popcorn, weren't you?'

Aiden responded to Flynn's gesture with a similar look that replied 'What? It was just getting interesting. I couldn't resist!'

The other three watched the weird interaction between both brothers without any idea what it was they were doing.

Julius's eyes however reflected his willingness to not push the topic any further. After another brief silence passed between all of them, Julius spoke up once again.

"That being said, I would like to thank both of you on behalf of the Tower for your involvement in catching Corneo" Julius began.

"Although that may not have been your intent considering you had asked Leopold to request for The Tower to keep what happened under wraps, it was still very important to us. Thank you once again" Julius concluded.

Both brothers nodded once again in response to his words.

"Now, with that out of the way, let's get you that weapon art Flynn Belmont" Julius said, his arms outstretching and his hands placed onto the concrete wall.

As he did, a white hue covered his palms and suddenly, the walls disintegrated into white dust-like particles to reveal a white room with a large transparent glass window and about a hundred scrolls carefully arranged onto small concrete pedestals on the other side of it, each scroll having its own pedestal.

Julius calmly walked over into the white room, the large transparent glass window automatically opening in response to him.

The ceiling lights illuminated the white room even further with a faint golden glow and Julius who was walking pretty leisurely upon reaching a certain pedestal came to a halt.

He then picked up the scroll on it and walked back towards Flynn and the others. Upon stepping back out of the room, the walls immediately reassumed their structure and reintegrated.

"I wonder what type of magic he uses to be able to do things like that" Aiden muttered to himself.

"You must be pretty confident to want to practice this weapon art" Julius said with a bit of interest in his voice while giving the scroll to Flynn.

Flynn just smiled at his comment while receiving the scroll.

You see, the thing with the {Moonveil Art} was that it was a theoretical weapon art. No memories were infused into the scroll when it was created. Instead, it was written by someone purely based on theoretical application.

To use or master it, an individual must be able to accurately imagine and have a ridiculously strong visual representation of how the weapon art works and functions.

There were a few weapon arts like that too in this world but it was exceptionally rare, with most of them being either common or rare grade. {Moonveil Art} art was the only epic one to have been created.

It was created by an unknown individual around the early periods when mana was introduced to the world and its power, according to the few people who had been able to learn it and use it, was exceptionally powerful, rivalling and even beating some of those that were created by the big families.

Theoretical weapon arts like this were not exceptionally hard to learn but the {Moonveil Art} was just on another level.

However, for Flynn who had played "The Lone Hero" multiple times and had equipped that same weapon art so many times on multiple playthroughs, he had a very strong visual and mental representation of how the {Moonveil Art} functioned.

"Thank you Mr. Hargreaves" Flynn eventually replied after a few seconds, a slight smile still adorning his face.

***

After Flynn had been given the weapon art, Leopold who had expected his schedule to be rather free today, had an impromptu situation come up so he ended up staying back.

He however gave the car keys to Aiden and Flynn, along with a sizable amount of Arceum, 5,000AR to be precise and told them to go get Flynn's weapon.

He had also informed them that after they were done with that, they could come back at any time and he would be ready to head home along with them.

With that, Aiden drove out of the gates of The Tower along with Flynn, a temporary guest pass given to both of them for when they were coming back.

As Aiden drove through the city streets of New Eden, he pressed on a button that caused the convertible roof to open and retract. The cool breeze of the late morning blew both brother's hair, ruffling their hair gently as they cruised through the streets.

Both teenagers enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere of the car drive but suddenly, the radio which had been playing a soothing waltz immediately transitioned into the voice of a female news anchor.

Aiden and Flynn perked their ears to listen to the reason for the sudden switch.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen. We have breaking news coming in from downtown Little Redania where we've received intel that a sudden fissure has appeared at a nearby construction site. According to our team who's presently on ground, rankers from various guilds have arrived and are getting ready to delve into it. It has been rated B-tier based on its mana levels so it should be sorted out as soon as possible. As we receive more information, we will continue to bring you live updates. Do ensure to steer clear of getting too close to that area and remember to drive safely"

Aiden and Flynn upon hearing those words immediately looked at each other, their eyes conveying their curiosity and without even a single hesitation, Aiden turned around at the next corner.

They were literally 15 minutes away from Little Redania from the current district of Frostshire they were in. There was no way they wanted to miss seeing a fissure they had only read about in the novel for real.

After about 11 minutes of "very" safe driving, Aiden and Flynn were now at downtown Little Redania and as expected, a crowd of people were also here, although they were being regulated by multiple barricades from officials of The Tower who had probably been patrolling the area before the fissure's appearance.

Popular rankers and guild members were going to be here, and considering how they were treated like celebrities, you really couldn't blame so many people for being here and even disregarding the warnings of various news channel.

"Look! The Onyx guild and Serpent guild members are about to go in!"

"I wonder if any of their guild masters or big guilds are planning to show up..."

"Why would they? It's only a B-tier fissure"

"It sure would be nice if they could show up"

"It's Hamiel Brock from Onyx! God he's so freaking cool!"

"Like he could ever be a badass like Lisa Frostburn from the Serpent guild"

Aiden and Flynn who were here due to their curiosity couldn't help but hear the various conversations the crowd was having.

They had seen the fissure, an irregularly shaped obsidian-black vertical slit that was about 15m long in height and about 7m wide. Its dark exterior looked like a starry night and it was exuding quite a bit of mana.

"So this is how a fissure looks like..." Flynn said, amazement in his voice.

"Yeah... It's so unreal..." Aiden responded, a similar trail of amazement present in his voice too.

After waiting for a few more minutes, Flynn and Aiden watched as the rankers delved into the fissure, completely armed to the teeth with their combat attires, weapons, potions and other required equipment.

"Yeah... I think we should head on over and just get your weapon now Flynn" Aiden said, immediately igniting the car's engine.

"Sure... we'll find out about the results of their delve anyway later through the news" Flynn responded as his brother drove away from the site of the fissure's appearance.

They then went to a nearby weapons store where Flynn, after perusing through the variety of light weapons present in the store, settled on and bought about a dozen Katanas. Considering he was going to be using it for training, he had a feeling he was going to be needing more than just a few.

Upon doing that, both brother's headed over back to The Tower to pick up their dad.

On their way back, they had heard from the same female news anchor that the fissure had been successfully cleared.