Chapter 58: The Portal and The Path of Sigh Mountains.
The bell had barely faded when the groans began.
So grunted, others rolled over in annoyance, but all froze when they saw who stood by the door.
Roderick.
The very na silenced the room. Fear filled the cracks of every slave’s body like water into a broken vessel.
Even those who had been hardened by a life of cruelty—Centaurs with arrogant hearts, Reptilians with predatory gaze, and Dark Elves with prideful deanor—stood without complaint.
Adding to the deaths by his hand, they still rembered the night before.
They rembered what Roderick did to the Centaurs.
In fact, no one feared him more than they did.
Formally, the Centaurs had walked tall, chins high and shoulders square. Now, they stood hunched, their heads bowed like beasts that had been thrashed one too many tis.
At least in the presence of Roderick, this was their new form.
And this was just a few hours in the box of blessings. They was more to co.
But just as they had fallen, the Reptilians would follow.
Then the Dark Elves. And after that?
The winged people would be realigned from.their coward ways.
Humans?
They were the easiest to break. Most had already shattered on the ship.
Oliver stood silently, taking it all in.
From what he rembered of this place, this was only the beginning. This was day 2.
This training period would span three months—ninety days of conditioning, pain, and transformation.
He would not waste it.
He would rise during this period.
He would beco a Wrapped.
Roderick’s voice cut through the silence. Cold, flat, and efficient.
“Eat and get ready. You move out in five minutes.”
Attendants strolled in with wooden trays.
Each held the sa miserable offering: burnt bread, and a bonus thick sar of what passed for porridge—what Oliver had always called at paste, though it had the sa color and texture as shit. A bold sniff would confirm the resemblance.
Oliver, thankfully, had his pouch that acted as inventory. He had already eaten a very good al.
Looking at what was served, Oliver swore that any future opportunity to steal food again would be utilised by him.
The Reptilians and the winged ones would eat nearly anything that ensured survival. It was just humans, Centaurs and Elves that had to force down their pride and humanity with every bite they took.
anwhile, Garron side-eyed Oliver. He didn’t say a word, just stared with mild confusion.
The boy hadn’t eaten yesterday either.
The last ti Garron had seen him touch food was on the ship.
With the energy they’d expended during the trial to the outer wall, and the grueling slave task of repeating the Imperial Slave Value System a thousand tis, it was only natural to faint without food. But Garron looked at Oliver again and frowned.
The boy… didn’t seem weakened.
If anything, his eyes were sharper today. Clearer. Focused.
Also, his tummy looked filled...
Before Garron could speak, Roderick returned.
“Ti’s up. Move.”
The group was herded out of the warehouse like livestock, and led into a courtyard bathed in pale morning light.
At the center of the space stood sothing surreal: a swirling, glowing circle of pinkish-red energy. It pulsed gently, crackling at the edges with streaks of golden static.
Beside it stood a man holding a staff.
He wore decent robes—neither luxurious nor poor—and had the slave mark burned into the skin of his neck. Despite that, he stood tall and proud.
A mage.
Oliver knew that this man had graduated from this sa training process, risen as a result of the dungeons, and now, he wielded portal magic. A very useful skill in the somara empire.
It was no wonder he had that look of pride on his face.
Oliver knew it for what it was—Usefulness —Nothing more.
If for any reason, he was no longer useful, they would do away with him.
Also, the power he was so proud of, could be taken and given to another if he ssed up.
The portal shimred behind him like a window into the unknown.
“This,” Roderick said, gesturing to it, “is a portal. It will take us to the Sigh Mountains.”
He said nothing more. He just stepped back and motioned toward it.
The crowd froze.
Most had never seen anything like this.
With Aether so scarce in the world, such creations were whispered about like legends. Ancient history. Impossible dreams.
So slaves—commoners from forgotten villages—fell to their knees, gasping, hands raised in trembling awe.
“A blessing! The gods are here!”
“Please… forgive my sins!”
“Is this… is this the Gate of Heaven?”
A man with rotted teeth wept openly. Another man clasped his hands and bowed until his forehead hit stone. A boy muttered the na of a forgotten saint.
But the nobles and royals? They rolled their eyes.
A tall, slender Dark Elf sneered.
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He walked past the groveling old man and kicked him aside with practiced contempt.
“Trash,” he muttered, voice silky with venom, before walking through the portal without a glance.
The other Dark Elves followed him—aloof, condescending, cold.
Oliver narrowed his eyes.
He knew that elf.
A234.
A royal-born Dark Elf. Elite. Terrifying. Ruthless.
One day, the dungeons would speak his na in reverence. But even his tale… would pale beside hers.
The half-Dark Elf.
The little girl with more monster than elf in her blood.
Oliver wondered how she was doing under Thalia’s guidance. If he rembered properly, and he did, Thalia had used certain thods to fish out exceptional slaves from the won she trained.
That half elf should be one of them.
Her target had not been bloodline quality—although it mattered. It had been Character quality. Oliver rembered that Thalia was like her mother.
Oliver never t the woman as she was long dead when he was a slave. But he did hear stories about her.
She ushered in a new school of thought within the Vaelcrest when it ca to the training of slaves.
Of course, while so considered it, many did not agree.
Thalia, on the other hand, pushed her mother's theories, and used it to make a na for herself in the empire.
Her father agreed with her thods. Not because it reminded him of her mother or he was in support of them. But because he knew they were effective, and the honor at the end of the day, went to him—boosting his reputation even further.
But that was by the way, and not much his business. It was the half elf girl under her that was more important.
Oliver knew that if everything followed the past, that elf girl would soon rise like a storm. An unstoppable force. A valuable asset in the right hands—His hands.
His thoughts shifted as the Centaurs began to move.
At the front was the one who had spoken up the night before—and suffered for it. His na? B123. A noble-blooded Centaur.
He looked exhausted. Hollow-eyed. But he moved.
The rest followed behind him in unison. Their discipline hadn't faded, even if their spirits had cracked.
The Reptilians were less unified. They slithered forward at their own pace, eyes sharp, tongues flicking.
The winged people—silent, graceful—entered the portal with wary stares, their clipped wings half-folded in caution.
Then ca Oliver.
He stepped forward, walking through the shimring circle with quiet determination.
---
The world shimred.
Colors bled into one another, reshaping the horizon. Sounds warped. The sensation of weight vanished, like falling through silk.
Then, suddenly—
The Sigh Mountains.
A jagged sprawl of cliffs and peaks—so so high they pierced the clouds. They rose like ancient gods from the earth, their roots buried deep in mist.
But what caught the breath more than their size… were the ones that floated.
Massive mountains hovered in the sky, their undersides carved by wind and ti. Gigantic vines, as thick as towers, curled up from the ground and anchored them to the earth.
Each vine glowed faintly, pulsing with faint Aether.
The sight was overwhelming.
It made you stop.
It made you sigh.
Oliver stared upward.
“No wonder they’re called the Sigh Mountains.”
His lips curled into a thin smile.
He could almost hear them breathing. It was not his first ti here, but even now, the awe of it was there.
He was not the only one that felt this way.
The mont they erged on the other side of the portal, a collective breath left the group.
The Sigh Mountains lived up to their na.
No one spoke for a while. Most simply stared in disbelief.
Roderick’s voice bood from above, echoing across the rocky expanse.
He stood atop one of the lower floating boulders, seated lazily on a crooked throne made of stone and thorny vines. That sa small bell in one hand.
"You all received the task description from your slave sigils," he said without rising. "So you know what’s coming."
But the a sudden groan ca from among the Centaurs. B123, the sa noble from last night. He stepped forward.
“Our hooves weren’t made for climbing,” he spoke up.
Roderick grinned like a man who fed off despair. “If the Somara Empire wanted a fish to fly, it would grow wings and soar. Your hooves better adapt, or they’ll be nailed to a cliff.”
The crowd stiffened.
“And for speaking out…” he added, lifting the bell and letting it tinkle like a lullaby from hell, “—your climb will happen with each person carrying half their body weight.”
Gasps rippled through the group. So if them cursed at the Centaurs in their minds.
He then pointed to a jagged peak floating high above the rest, connected by vines so thin they looked like threads in the sky.
“First to reach that mountain gets rewarded,” he said, and then his eyes darkened like storm clouds. “Those who fail… will also be rewarded.”
The implication was clear.
He rang the bell again—ting—and turned away, vanishing into mist as though he had never been there.
But even before the others moved, Oliver was already rushing.
While Roderick was speaking, Oliver had slipped away, gathering rocks and wrapping them in vines like an experienced craftsman.
He had selected only the finest vines, drawing upon knowledge gifted by Accra as a result of his contract.
Quality mattered—not just weight, but durability. Up there would feel like hell, and he did not want his stone to loose and fall.
He slung the rocks over his back, his slave sigil blinking green in his eye sight to confirm he had t the required burden.
He didn’t hesitate.
He climbed.
Faster than anyone else.
His fingers dug into the vines, his body low to reduce wind resistance, and his mind hyper-focused.
Behind him, Garron’s eyes widened.
'That boy again…'
He mimicked Oliver, choosing his vines carefully and beginning his own ascent.
As they did, they recited the Imperial Slave Value System. After all they still had to recite it a thousand tis daily.
But as more joined the climb, sothing changed.
The higher they went, the heavier the air beca. Not just in temperature or weight—but in pressure.
The Aether clung to their bloodstreams, weighing down their very life force.
Those of commoner birth gasped first. Their skin paled, their limbs trembled. So vomited from the internal pressure alone. Nobles felt it next—slower, but visible in their sweating brows and gritted teeth.
Only those of royal blood could endure it well, but even they could feel the shift.
This was a test of bloodline.
The Centaurs fared the worst of the group.
Their hooves clattered uselessly against rock. They tried to wrap vines around their equine torsos, but their size made every movent agonizing. B123 bled from his palms as he tried to balance his form on narrow ledges.
Luckily, Centaurs usually had incredible strength in their upper bodies just as much as their lower bodies.
Reptilians, on the other hand, had it easy. Their clawed fingers dug in effortlessly, their sinewy tails curling around vines to provide extra balance.
The winged ones had to curve their clipped wings even tighter.
While they were lighter on the vines, their wings did not help against the wind.
But the elves…
The elves climbed as if born for it. Graceful, unburdened. Especially A234.
His limbs barely strained, his breathing remained steady, and his eyes were locked ahead—until they spotted sothing that broke his confidence.
Oliver.
Still ahead.
Still climbing.
A ten-year-old boy... climbing like a phantom.
'What the hell is that human?' A234 thought, his silver eyes narrowing. He didn’t even stop to rest once. Not once.
He had expected the human boy to burn out after his first sprint.
In fact, he even sneered at him when he saw him rush up the mountain. After all, he was human and not elf.
There was only so much strength a ten year old boy could have, even if he was Awakened.
If Oliver was an elf boy, it would be understanding.
Elves were natural climbers. The woods, mountains, nature was their ho.
But that's the thing. Oliver was not an elf.
Again, he was only human.
There he was—his tiny limbs pulling him higher, sweat glistening on his brow but no hesitation in his movents.
'No... he’s not normal. Maybe royal-blooded?'
But even that didn’t add up.
That kind of climbing... that pressure-resistance from the compounding aether in the air... it was almost demonic.
anwhile, Garron had fallen behind.
His arms burned, his legs ached, and yet he watched in disbelief as that boy had gone out of his sight into the fog ahead.
'How?' he thought. 'How is he so strong?'
But no one was more disturbed than Leston.
Oliver's step-brother.
The sa boy he had bullied for years. Weak, fragile Oliver who never fought back.
He was supposed to be nothing...!
Leston growled, digging his nails into the vines. His arms trembled under the pressure of the Aether and the weight of the stones. Even manifesting his Aether to reduce the pressure didn’t help much—it drained more than it aided.
'What the hell is this? How is he ahead of ?'
Above them all, Oliver climbed, the world falling away beneath him.
He didn’t stop.
He didn’t look down.
Every pull of the vine, every breath, was deliberate.
The vines cut into his palms. But that was the least of his worries.
He still had the injury in one hand from the bout with the monk from the night trial.
If not for that injury that made his climbing slower, he would have been so far gone, that A234, that dark elf, would not be able to see his silhouette.
Oliver could not help but Sigh at this. He found it to be quite disappointing.
He felt he was too slow. After all, his goal was to make it in ti so that he could slip into the night trial again.
Any opportunity to get eight hours of sleep would be taken advantage of.
He had even forgotten that when he had climbed this place in his forr life, it had been anything but easy.
But now, he had a Deity's bloodline. And it was Awakened.
The Aether that should pressurise him rolled off his body like the very wind. As if to make way for him to pass.
While the others sweat from the pressure, to Oliver, it was a walk in the park.
Because of his acquired strength from the night trial, even the stones were weightless on him.
The Sigh Mountains may have made others weep.
But to Oliver, they were the first steps of ascension.
Roderick watched from a distance. He could see all of them climbing.
He too made notes for those that were proving themselves to be exceptional.
He nodded to himself from ti to ti.
At such a ti, a portal shimred behind him, and a figure stepped out of it, "hello, nephew."
Roderick did not even need to turn about, he knew who it was...
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