Chapter 57 Ralph

Ralph’s POV

It has been almost six months since the day that Jace and the princess disappeared through the portal. We were able to get someone with a talent for investigating to determine that the thing that Derek threw at Jace was a type of portal grenade.

Duke Aureus was investigated due to his association with Derek, but it was ultimately determined that Derek had been acting independently, at least on the surface. In reality, he had several guards under his influence and had conspired with a few other nobles. The entire scheme turned out to be a plot orchestrated by Heirarchon to destabilize our country. Unfortunately, there was no concrete evidence beyond the testimony of a few individuals who claimed to have spoken with a man allegedly from Heirarchon.

While the investigation was going on, the king paid a personal visit to Travis and made it crystal clear that he would not be creating a guild using the System without approval from the royal family. It was determined that the potential growth of people in the System was too great and that a basis of power was needed to make sure that law and order remained.

With that understanding, it was decided that I would establish a guild. The king, acknowledging my family's longstanding service and my own proven reliability, entrusted me with this crucial task. My leadership experience, combat skills, and direct involvement in recent events made me a natural choice.

Since the king had personally granted my family its surname, he was well aware of our history. Typically, a low-ranking knight or a guard captain would not be known to the king, but as the sole authority in elevating families to nobility, he had thoroughly investigated ours.

Through that process, he came to trust me to create a guild. Its purpose was to help the royal family maintain stability and empower trusted individuals to begin leveling, ensuring that as the System became more widespread, we had capable people to manage any consequences.

Figuring out how to create the guild was straightforward. I simply thought about the option to establish a guild, which unlocked a new tab labeled 'Guild.' That was the only easy part though. Upon opening the guild tab, I found that in order to create the guild I had to have five people in order to create it.

That would have been easy enough, however the five people had to already have access to the System. Which if we included Travis, we did not have enough people for. Not that we would include Travis, as he was wanting to start his own guild for adventurers, and we had no idea if he joined a guild how long it would take before he could leave. Prince Robert was under the impression that once someone joined a guild they would be allowed to leave and it would not matter, but even he admitted that he was not positive.

In the end it was decided that we should wait until Robert gained the System. Not only because he could be the one to create the guild, but to see if we could find others that Jace had used Identify on. Based off our rough estimates Marian would have been one of the first people to gain the System as Jace used Identify on her only a couple days after he first had access to it.

John, our hunter friend that had taken Jace out hunting, was gone when we figured out that Marian had the System and had only returned a few weeks ago. Apparently, he had been following the tracks of an Orc tribe that had left their homes on our Eastern border and travelled along the Southern coast for some reason. When he returned, we found that he had not been granted the System.

As the months went by, we never heard of anyone coming forward to claim something weird was going on. Not that we truly expected them too, but we also did not see anyone who seemed to be getting strong unexplainably quickly. The few people that we thought might be getting stronger we decided to use Identify on and while they did have high levels, it did not seem unreasonable. We did make sure to only use it on those we thought would not cause problems once they had the System and wrote down the day and who they were.

All of that led us to today. The day that Robert was possibly going to be getting the System. It had been six months since the first day that Robert and Jace met. After today, we would only need one more person to create a guild and Robert thought that it might be likely that Jace had used Identify on their friend Madison while they were in class. At least that was his best guess.

Due to everything going on, I was also no longer in the guard. Which while I was granted a position that was basically, become strong enough that if someone gets out of line, you can deal with it, I had lost my profession in my Status.

The only ability I had received so far was a passive boost to my attributes while performing my duties. Losing it wasn’t a major setback, but the sensation of its absence felt strangely unsettling. Not in the sense that I was surprised to lose the ability, but losing the ability actually had a physical sensation of something being pulled out of me. While not exactly painful I would also not recommend it to anyone.

With the loss of my profession, I decided to choose the knight profession this time around. This profession gave me an ability similar to my guard captain passive. The only difference was that instead of gaining the attributes while performing my duties, I gained an attribute increase while following the orders of my liege, which in this case happened to be the king. And, because I was gaining strength and creating a guild for the king, at least currently, I always had a 15% increase to my attributes. Which was pretty nice while clearing out a few Dungeons around the city.

Clearing Dungeons proved to be an engaging challenge. Robert, eager to obtain the highest rarity class possible, participated in several Dungeon expeditions with me. However, we discovered a strange anomaly within the System, whenever I was present, Robert was completely unable to absorb essence. We weren’t certain why, but it was clear that my presence had some kind of unexpected effect.

It was decided that I would go to all the Dungeons with him, allowing him to gain practical experience and merits fighting and beating Dungeons, while not letting him level up. We even went so far as just the two of us going in some of the Dungeons. With his ability to become invulnerable, all he had to do was stand there while I fought creatures close to my level. Once there were only lower-level creatures, he would be the one to fight those. They were still 30-35 levels above him though, so we thought it would help.

Apparently, it had not helped at all. That evening I was sitting in a meeting room with Robert and a few others that we had decided would help lead a council of sort for the guild. The meeting did not involve me in anyway, but I made sure to pay attention just in case. While the others were going to be on the council for Robert’s guild, currently they were just advisors.

Among them was Xander Finder, renowned for his keen analytical skills and uncanny ability to discern patterns from the smallest details. While many speculated that his talent was rooted in pattern recognition, the exact nature of his abilities remained uncertain.

He had just finished explaining that the Orcs that John had been tracking for several months, were only passing through. Apparently, Heirarchon had chased them from their homes when they found them close, not in mind you, just close to their borders. Robert had ended the meeting and asked me to stay behind.

“Well, it looks like all the Dungeon runs and what not were for nothing. I received the uncommon class called Unyielding Warder. I mean, it’s a nice class, but there is no way I will be able to keep up with Jace with this class. Any ideas?” Robert explained after everyone had left.

I took a moment to think about it and remembered something Jace had told me about meeting the Elven Grand Elder, “We did not consider it, because at some point, whether it was just a belief or he read it somewhere, I don’t remember, Jace said that it had to do with attributes, accomplishments and the like. Maybe accomplishments are revelations?” I said slowly.

“I have a rare class, and I have only had my third revelation, while Julliane has an epic and she has had her fourth revelation.” She had been pushing much harder than I to gain her revelations in order to allow her emotions to show more.

Robert let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping as he ran a hand through his hair. His expression was a mix of frustration and resignation. In a defeated tone, he muttered, “Well, at least Jace will be the only one ridiculously strong around here.”