"But I don't think that I have anything precious enough to pay you with for your help and also, I wasn't the one who issued you the mission regarding the strange creature. I am not trying to shortchange you. We can discuss what you want as the reward and I will try my best to meet your demands." Reiler said while lowering her gaze.
Kyle had an interested expression on his face as soon as he heard this.
"Are you trying to bargain with me, thinking that I won't be able to bear seeing your pitiful expression? How cute! You have truly grown up." Kyle said in a bit of a mocking tone.
Reiler felt a stinging pain in her heart and wanted to spurt blood. Kyle's 'How cute!' continuously repeated in her mind. Although The wording was different, both of them knew that the words actually meant 'how childish'.
Kyle looked at her hurt expression and chuckled lightly.
"Listen carefully. Since you are now a transcendent, you should know that as ascenders, in most of the cases the rewards that we receive from the inhabitants are just a surplus. The true rewards that we receive come from the Ascension Temple itself upon completion of the task. That is also the part of rewards that we care about the most as those rewards help us pave the way to get stronger. I don't know if the Transcendents like you get rewards the same way, but the mechanism shouldn't be much different."
"Really!" Reiler exclaimed in shock.
"Yes" Kyle replied while he opened his mission panel.
[Special mission: The apocalypse from upper worlds]
[Mission description: Survive the threat of World destruction by destroying the intruder from outer dimension. All the stats of the intruder will be halved for the duration of the mission.]
[Time limit: 5 minutes]
[Rewards: ???]
[Status: Completed]
[Calculating Mission rank.....]
[Mission rank: X ]
[Claim mission Rewards?]
[Yes/No]
'Yes' Kyle said in his mind. He was excited about the mission rewards because he had never heard about any mission which was ranked 'X'. The lowest tier of missions were rated (G-) while the highest were (SSS+).
[Mission rewards claimed.]
[Monarch's Right (Nameless)]
[Supreme grade weaponsmith's fuser×5]
[True monarch series skill scrolls×3]
[Karcellen core essence×2]
[Karcellen bones×5]
[Floor transversal scrolls×3]
[Life token×1]
[All stats ---> 9]
[Title unlocked: Saviour of a world.]
[Effects:]
[1. Aura of the saviour (All the inhabitants and ascenders hold you in awe and respect. All strangers have a favourable first impression of you.)]
[2. Higher chance of triggering hidden missions.]
Immediately after claiming the rewards, Kyle felt as if everything around him had slowed down, his thought process sped up and he felt unlimited vitality flow from his muscles. Kyle who was slowly getting used to the process of increase of stats knew that all of these were just the result of sudden increase of stats.
After this process was over, Kyle could finally take a look at the remaining rewards.
His eyes brightened at the sight of the long list of rewards. There was only one thing that he didn't have any idea about in the list of rewards which was the first reward, the Monarch's Right (Nameless). So he decided to save it for the end.
First were the weaponsmith fusers. Kyle had heard about fusers before, but the highest quality fusers available in markets were medium grade. As the name suggested, fusers were used to combine two or more weapons of other artefacts. The medium grade ones could only replicate 20 percent of one weapon's buffs and effects and fuse them with another. But according to the system description, these Supreme grade fusers could completely replicate the effects of two weapons and add them to a third weapon.
[True monarch series skill scrolls×3]
[Locked]
[Activate the True Monarch's path to unlock.]
Kyle had no idea about how to activate this 'True Monarch's path.' Maybe it was related to the first reward.
Next two rewards were the body parts of the corpse, most probably from before it died.
The floor transversal scrolls was something that he knew about the most out of all the rewards. These scrolls have a kind of teleportation spell imprinted on them. Whenever a fixed amount of energy was supplied, they could teleport the user to any floor of the Ascension temple which they had been to before. It was something well known to humanity and nearly every state level guild had at least one or two of these with them at all times.
When Kyle wanted to ask for help earlier, he wanted to report this mission to one of the state level guilds and invite someone who was at least Ascendant level 20 or above to the first floor of the Ascension Temple using one of these scrolls.
The last reward was a life token.
[Life token ×1 detected]
[Absorb life token ×1?]
[Yes/No]
As soon as he took the life token in his hand, the notification to absorb it appeared before him.
Kyle immediately chose yes and absorbed the life token.
After claiming all other rewards, Kyle finally took out the Monarch's Right (Nameless).
A fist sized object appeared in Kyle's hand. It looked like the king in the set of chess pieces and had a semi-illusionary texture, as if Kyle's hand would pass straight through it without any hindrance.
When this object was in his hand, Kyle felt a strange carving for it from his entire body.
[Monarch's Right (Nameless).]
[Bound]
[Absorbing Monarch's Right (Nameless).]
[Title unlocked: Monarch of the nameless throne.]
[Effects:]
[1. Intelligence stat × 2.]
[2. Aura of Supreme]
[3. Higher chances to trigger hidden missions.]
[4. MeP restoration rate ×5]
[Title: Monarch of the nameless throne equipped.]
[Unlocked access to all True monarch series skills.]
[Activated True Monarch's path: Monarch of the nameless throne.]
After a series of notifications, Kyle finally snapped out of his daze.
Looking around, he saw Reiler kneeling on the ground. She had closed her eyes while also not daring to turn her face in his direction.
Kyle felt like he was reborn. All his senses had improved beyond his expectations, although his stats hadn't changed, he felt as if all bodily restrictions on his strength, agility, etc had been lifted and he could apply much more strength in his every move. His field of vision had widened and he could see things much more clearly.
"What happened to you?" Kyle asked Reiler.
"What happened to me?" Reiler, who raised her head from the ground, repeated his question in an interrogative tone.
After looking up, she gave a light yelp and stood up.
"Wh-what happened to your forehead? No, what happened to your entire body?" She asked Kyle while staring at him with an expression full of curiosity.
"I remember that the strange chess-piece melted in your hand. Then it seemed like you were sleeping with your eyes open. After some time, you began to levitate from the ground while unconscious and some strange powder-like substance began to secrete out of your body before disappearing. It smelled so bad that I nearly passed out as soon as the first particle left your body."
"After that, a small blackhole formed behind you and slowly covered your entire body with a strange black cocoon that looked like the night sky, black and full of stars. When the cocoon covered you, a very powerful force began emerging from you and I- I felt like all my bones would be crushed if I kept looking at you and my body moved on its own to prostrate before you." Relier finished her speech while shivering. She didn't tell Kyle that now he was tens of times more handsome than before and his height also seemed to have increased a bit. But no matter how handsome he was, looking towards him, she could only feel a sense of fear and awe.
Kyle looked at Reiler who was shivering ever since she got up and was a bit confused.
"Are you afraid? Do I look dangerous in any way?" Kyle asked in a joking tone.
"No...no-no!" Reiler said while stuttering, but at the same time, her head moved vertically in a nod while her shivering got more intense and her face paled.
Kyle, who had just asked to tease her a bit, was shocked by the answer. It was clear that she was fearful of him, but Kyle didn't know why. If she was scared by his ability to kill the seemingly invincible corpse, she would have the same reaction when the both of them interacted earlier.
He could only think that it had something to do with his transformation which she had described a few moments ago.
Kyle once again looked through the notifications and spotted something.
[Title: Monarch of the nameless throne unequipped.]
His assumption was correct. As soon as he unequipped the title, Reiler's shivering stopped and she seemed more relaxed.
"Were you trying to make fun of me earlier by releasing that frightening aura? That's so mean and petty of you." Relier said as soon as she relaxed. There was a sign of tears welling in her eyes.
"Believe me, it was an effect of the transformation and I was unaware about it earlier." Kyle replied.
He wasn't entitled to answer her, but he had grown to like this little girl a bit over the course of this mission. It wasn't the romantic attraction, he just felt that she was a bit amusing.
Although she was weak, she was much more courageous than most of the grown up men. Also, she didn't run away when he was fighting the corpse despite her initial bad impression of ascenders. A person of integrity was liked by everyone and Kyle was no different.
Speaking of, "Where is the guard who was accompanying you?" Kyle asked.
"He was hiding behind you and got killed along with you when you first attacked that strange creature." Reiler said with a mixture of shame and rage. She was embarrassed to have such a coward who was too intelligent for his own good as her guard.
"And also, I am sorry that I fell to his persuasion and used you to scout the dangers for us. I would never have agreed to it if I hadn't been muddle-headed due to all those thoughts about my father's safety."
"Are you feeling guilty?"