Everyone on the island had the sa ability as Vorden. They could all copy an ability through physical touch, including the ones in the castle, but not everyone could copy the sa amount. The ones that marked the castle mbers as different was the fact that they could copy more than 2 abilities.
To copy more than two abilities is what made the inner castle mbers special, it ant they could pool the MC count of one ability into the other, increasing its level beyond that of the normal 8 level limits.
Vicky could copy 3 abilities, and their grandfather could copy 5, but strangely, there was the exception of Vorden, Raten and the little one.
Vorden could only copy 1, Raten could only copy 2, and the little one with 3. There was once a ti when it was different, when they could copy and pool together the MC of 6 abilities, bypassing their grandfather, but that was no longer the case.
As Vorden descended down the stairs to the basent of the castle, he allowed Raten to take control over the chair. This was sothing that required Raten as he was able to pool together the MC levels of the level 7 water ability, and the level 5 invisibility ability, creating a level 12 invisibility ability.
This made it so they could stay invisible for 24 minutes, an amount that wasn’t possible for most invisibility users. They were going to need every second trying to find the last ability that they needed.
At the bottom of the staircase, there was a grand door, with a few servants coming in and out with cups of water and food.
"Rember, wait until there’s a large enough gap between you and the door—" Vorden began, before Raten shooed him with his hand.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m not an idiot," Raten shot back.
It had taken them 2 minutes to descend the stairs, and another minute to wait for a servant to open the door long enough for Raten to slip in.
Then, there was the vast room, one with hundreds of blindfolded, gagged people, all chained up to large poles, all wearing ragged clothing. They were known as the chained, as they were aptly called, the people that gave their family power.
Vorden winced, and he took a step back in their shared mind space. Even though they were necessary to allow their family to copy their abilities, Vorden didn’t like touching them. When they were younger, Vorden always made Raten copy from the chained instead of him.
"Alright, now look for one with the water breathing ability," Vorden whispered to Raten.
Raten imdiately started exploring the cavern. With how many had been chained down here, they had to be marked with what level and ability each person had with a label on their poles. As Raten looked around, he saw people listed with abilities like lightning, transformation, plants, and more.
Raten passed by soone, a guy with sunken cheeks and long light blue hair, glancing at the na plate above his head.
Danny Wang, level 8 wind.
"Not him," Vorden said.
Then Raten passed by an old woman with both gray and moss green hair. Her na plate said Nora Sine, level 8 earth.
Raten then went up to a small lady, one with light brown skin and long matted black hair.
"Nekar Kotai, level 7 octopus transfor— where’s the damn water breathing!?" Raten ntally yelled.
Vorden was finding it harder and harder to watch. Judging by what he could see, Nekar must’ve been here for so long given how much her body had atrophied. Her clothes were hanging loose on her, and she barely so much as twitched when near her presence.
Raten left, and continued to walk around the place. They had spent 11 minutes so far just trying to find a water ability, but the truth might’ve been that they didn’t even have soone with the ability. Maybe the previous user had died of old age, or they were taken sowhere else for another of their family mbers to use, or Hilston was smart enough to not keep a water breather around in case soone tried to escape, but Vorden could’ve sworn they had it.
"Fuck this, I’m copying the octopus lady," Raten ntally cursed, turning back around to where he had last seen her.
Vorden gritted his teeth, but it was their next best option. They were just going to have to hope that the octopus transformation allowed them to breathe underwater.
Tapping the back of her neck, Nekar didn’t even flinch, feeling sothing touch her. She was too far gone.
Not wasting another second, Raten was out of there, back at the entrance, back up the stairs, and back into the castle. All together, they had used up 17 minutes of the 24 total minutes of the invisibility ability.
"Alright, now let take control," Vorden said, now sitting in the chair.
He was back in the castle hallways, and had turned off the invisibility. They were going to need to conserve their MC for later, and it seed like no one was around.
’Alright, good, now let’s—’ Vorden thought as he turned a corner, only to spot Hilston in the halls.
Vorden tried to turn around before Hilston spotted him, but it was too late.
"Vorden! No need to be shy, co on over here," The large man gestured to him with his hands.
Vorden’s body tensed up, but he had to act natural. Swallowing his fear, he walked over to his grandfather as calmly as he could, despite his clammy hands.
"Now then, what brings you here?" Hilston casually spoke.
"Shit, don’t tell he has us figured out!" Raten guessed.
"Um, I live here?" Vorden awkwardly answered.
Hilston looked at him, his expression unreadable. It must’ve only lasted a second, but to Vorden, it lasted forever.
"Hahaha!" Hilston laughed with his full chest.
He slamd his hand on Vorden’s back, causing a slight stinging pain from an old scar, and for him to stumble forward from the force used.
Vorden didn’t want Hilston to actually get suspicious of his silence, he had to fabricate sothing, "Well I was just... heading to the library."
"Oh really?" Hilston raised an eyebrow, "This late?"
Vorden nodded, "Yeah, I had a midnight question about one of the chained. I rember you copied an ability from one of them, the uh... one with the moss green hair, was it?"
Hilston placed a hand on his chin, thinking about the last ti he had used that particular ability.
"I did not take you to be interested in their lives, but... I believe that one was from the Sine family."
"Yes exactly," Vorden continued, anxiously trying to get the conversation to end as naturally and as soon as possible, "Thank you, that’ll help narrow down my research."
Vorden was trying to walk past Hilston, but he was stopped by his hand.
"Now, why would you need to go to the library? I could answer a question you may have about her."
Vorden gulped, then slowly turned to face him.
"Well, uh, I wasn’t sure if you had ntioned her to be part of the big families, or not. As far as I know, there’s not a single Big Four leader with the earth ability."
That part wasn’t a lie, he had actually been curious about this before in the past, but hadn’t ever made the effort to figure it out for himself, fearful of the reason.
"Now that’s an easy answer," Hilston began, "You see, a long ti ago, the Sine family had tried to go against the Blades, and the leader did put on a good fight, but in the end, she was no match for ."
Then Hilston decided to add a little extra fun fact, "Actually, I believe she was the only survivor. Once she’s gone, I’ll have to find another earth ability user, as she’s the last of the Sines."
"Oh, is that so," Vorden awkwardly squeaked, "Now that’s... It answers my question, thank you."
Vorden turned around, about to leave, when Hilston called out to him.
"Err, where do you think you’re going? Aren’t you going to give your grandfather a kiss?" Hilston asked.
Vorden paused then turned around, giving Hilston a quick peck on the cheek.
"Goodnight," Vorden said, before hurrying out of the hallway.
Hilston didn’t say anything back, as in that mont, he had copied the sa abilities Vorden had.
’What does he think he’s planning with these powers?’
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