Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial and the others didn't think any further about the Black Market or the Cultivation Drug.

They allowed the Royal Princess to make all preparations before they would call Nial and his father for help.

Until then, Nial would take care of other things, such as the creation of better runic prostheses for those who need them, and a thorough check of his Onyx Association and the Orion Artisan Guild.

There were definitely a bunch of black sheep in his organizations and Nial had to remove them before he could focus on supporting the growth of those who wished to unlock their talent.

He was ready to spend lots of time and work to ensure that his organizations were safe and considered the strongest.

"Is there a reason for you two to follow me?" Nial asked Master Crevian and Meryl when he reached the large piece of land his organizations were built on.

The trees belonging to the Dark Elves and Nightshadow Elves were still present, but there weren't as many Elves guarding it anymore. But that was to be expected since Nial had not been in the new shelter for quite some time.

The new shelter's name was Halheim, and Nial knew that his Essence of Darkness was essential for the Dark and Nightshadow Elves to increase the potency of their darkness affinity and Shadow energy.

That was why the number of guards slowly decreased since the person they needed was not even close to Halheim.

'Well, they will return now, one way or another,' Nial figured, not minding it too much. He understood their thoughts and it was already a wonder that a handful of Elves decided to stay behind.

"We want to know more about the creation process of your runic prostheses. They're just like weapons, and work perfectly normal as arms, legs or eyes at the same time. I tried to replicate the runic prostheses with the help of your blacksmiths and also researched half of the prostheses you created, but it's much harder than I would have expected..." Meryl acknowledged grudgingly.

She didn't dare to look up from the ground and could only sigh deeply. Never in her life could she have expected that Nial would become a better Runicier than her. It had only been a few years since Nial had learned that an occupation like Runicier exists, to begin with, yet, he was already much better than the vast majority of Runiciers all over the Universe.

Only the cream of the crop was able to reach the Grandmaster rank below the age of 100. But, Nial was even better than that. He was just breezing through the ranks of Runiciers without a care of the pride of the Originals he hurt with his devastating talent.

That was frustrating, but it was also quite obvious that Nial was working tirelessly to become stronger. It was not as if his high comprehension and precision in the arts of rune engraving were the sole reason for his success. Meryl had understood that albeit a bit late and she was ready to learn from Nial rather than cursing him in her mind whenever his name came up.

"Are you also interested in the runic prostheses, Master?" Nial asked in curiosity. It was quite obvious that Meryl had yet to learn lots of things, but if Master Crevian was ignorant of the existence of runic prostheses as well, it would mean that Nial must have invented something entirely new.

That would be quite an achievement, but Nial actually doubted it.

"I am also interested in the runic prostheses you've created, especially since it looks like you used quite unique ways to connect the prostheses to your patients," Master Crevian pointed out what he found the most interesting, and Nial nodded his head.

'Well, it was obvious that I didn't invent something new. That would have been too weird...haha,' He laughed in his mind for a second or two before he averted his focus back to the current situation.

"If you see any drug addicts around here, just let me know. I have yet to figure out how to find them because I can't see the addiction marks on their body," Nial requested all of a sudden and the Elves nodded their heads.

At the same time, Miles just kept listening to the discussion of his wonderful son and the two renowned Elves with great interest.

'My son is really a prodigy... He is the best!!' Miles concluded and he began to smile from ear to ear.

"If their addiction progresses to the second stage, you should be able to sense their addiction marks with your mana as well. But we will help you, nonetheless, of course!" Meryl explained shortly, providing Nial with a few more pieces of information.

He returned to the office with the others, and Melheim Zorn was already waiting for them with several stashes of reports and application forms.

"I prepared everything you've asked for, Master!" Melheim Zorn said, his chest swelling with pride as he bowed lightly to Nial. Nial nodded his head in response, and he approached the stashes of reports.

He put his hand on top of the first stash of papers and released mana to visualize every single detail of the papers in his mind.

Afterward, he went through the application forms in the blink of an eye. Following that his head stung for a second or two, but Nial ignored this as best as possible as he went over to the second stash of papers.

They were the reports that revealed the statistics of the Onyx Association and the Orion Artisan Guild. The statistics of the Onyx Association clearly mentioned how many dungeons they cleared every month, which rank the dungeons had, how many association members were involved in any dungeon raid, and how many ingredients they had brought back to the Artisan Guild. At the same time, it was also mentioned how much the Adventurers of the Association had grown since they joined.

Furthermore, every single conflict was reported down to the finest detail, no matter how insignificant the conflict seemed to be.

As for the Orion Artisan Guild's statistics, they mostly revealed how much his Artisans' progressed and how efficiently they had used the provided resources. The number of goods they finished crafting in a certain period was also duly noted as well as the internal and external conflicts.

"This is great. I didn't expect to find such detailed and succinct reports. That is quite helpful, good job!" Nial praised Melheim before he walked over to the last stash of papers. It was also the smallest stash with only fifty or so papers in it.

"The only downside is that we have not received any commission requests. It looks like the Elves and other foreign races started to sell runic armaments on a larger scale as well, but that was something we could have expected. Our Runiciers are not exactly considered talented, for now, at least," Nial revealed when he finished visualizing the details of a few commissions in his mind.

"That's right, we don't have many commissions. That is also the reason why the Orion Artisan Guild members are mostly focusing on mass-producing goods..." Melheim Zorn revealed, not daring to look in Nial's direction.

"They would be better off studying the books I left behind in the library. What's the use of earning a few extra Origin crystals if they won't improve?" He asked mostly to himself rather than others. There was no need for anyone to answer his question.

"But what I'm curious about is the reason for the foreign Originals to join us. I understand that some of them are crippled and that they want to receive a prosthesis made by me, but I don't really get why the others would be so eager to join me.

There is even some foreign Original at the Keltia rank in our members...nobody ever questioned that, or did you?" Nial asked sharply, not understanding how nobody could have questioned the Keltia ranked Original about why he wanted to join an Organization filled with humans at or below the Prometheus rank!

"We...actually did ask..." Melheim said before shutting his mouth when he realized that his response would seem like a rebuttal.

"Oh? And what did he say was his reason for join us?" Nial asked, his interest piqued.

"Well...he just said that this place feels...comfortable..."  Melheim answered honestly, not hiding a thing.

However, Nial was not satisfied with the answer. He tilted his head in an attempt to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Comfortable? What is comfortable about a place that might as well be under attack at any moment if some random race were to decide to destroy Halheim and kidnap all of us?" Nial asked an extreme question but Melheim could only shrug his shoulders.

He didn't know the answer either.

"But this place is very comfortable...don't you feel that as well?" The Little Oracle exclaimed all of a sudden.

"Huh?"