Zilan and Kifo chatted with Fujo long into the evening before finally, separating.
Fujo had offered them rooms in the castle however, Zilan declined and asked to be given one of the stone houses outside instead.
Zilan thanked him and quickly settled into his new house.
“Why couldn’t we stay in that castle?” suddenly asked Kifo.
“With our secrets, it’s better to accept worse facilities in order to guarantee our privacy.” smiled Zilan. “Also, the thought of a half-breed staying in their castle would bring me even more unwanted attention. This time, I can’t afford any mistakes.”
He then sat on the small bed in the corner of the room before sighing and looking outside the window.
“I’ll be spending quite some time in this place.”
Hearing this, a sly smile bloomed on Kifo’s face,
“You’re that confident in passing the tests?”
“Ha! If I can’t even pass such small things then I might as well dig my own grave now.” Laughed Zilan. “After the first compulsory test, I’ll challenge the second test. As for you, don’t think about it and only focus on the Fire Guardian trial. With your rare darkness attribute, it shouldn’t be too hard.”
When Zilan spoke about his Darkness attribute, Kifo’s eyelids twitched and his body visibly shook.
Naturally, Zilan caught onto this strange behaviour and immediately asked,
“What is it?”
Kifo hesitated. He remembered that ‘Grandmama’ had once told him never to tell another soul his greatest secret. However, when he thought about Zilan’s unique ‘ability’ he didn’t see the point of hiding it when the other party could easily see through him.
“You really don’t know?” asked Kifo.
“What are you talking about?” wondered Zilan. Kifo’s strange behaviour was giving him a bad feeling, as if he’d missed something important.
Just in case, he ‘opened’ his eyes and two magnificent stars appeared in his pupils. Once again information about Kifo’s descent, and his two Divine abilities appeared before him.
He glanced through it but despite it being slightly more detailed, there was nothing particularly new.
Meanwhile, Kifo who was being subjected to this ‘search’ was feeling extremely uncomfortable. Any time he looked into Zilan’s eyes, he would suddenly feel sick.
“So these are the eyes that can see everything?” thought Kifo as he made sure to lower his head.
“What are you talking about?” Zilan once again asked this question. No matter how much he looked, there was nothing noteworthy that he didn’t already know.
Kifo looked at Zilan with an astonished gaze. His current expression was even more shocked than when he first saw the two stars in Zilan’s eyes.
The reason for this? He had now confirmed that even with his all mighty gaze, Zilan was unable to perceive his secret.
Now he was faced with a dilemma. “Should I tell him?”
Zilan patiently waited however, he was starting to get somewhat annoyed.
“What game is he playing?”
After a few minutes of going through it in his head, Kifo finally came to a decision.
“Compared to his secret, mine is nothing. Besides, me staying silent will only delay my purpose. And was it not Grandmama who told me that I should trust Zilan? Our fates are linked, nothing bad can come from this.” Thought Kifo.
He then turned, faced Zilan and while avoiding his gaze, stretched out his hand. He took two deep breaths and said,
“Darkness isn’t my only attribute.”
“What!?” Before Zilan could bombard Kifo with questions a faint golden wisp of energy began flying out of Kifo’s palm.
With a glance Zilan instantly identified that Kifo’s second attribute was without a doubt, [Light]!
Of course, the fact that Kifo possessed two attributes was not the shocking part. After all, many geniuses would have dual attributes, for example Zilan was fairly confident that Fujo had two attributes.
What was truly not just mind blowing but also frightening was that he, after careful probing was unable to even detect even a wisp of a second type of energy coming from Kifo’s body.
If it wasn’t for the fact that he was seeing it for himself right now, Zilan would never have imagined such a turn of events.
He then stared at Kifo unblinkingly before shaking his head and wryly smiling.
The Book of Path had suddenly activated and a line of words appeared in front of him,
“You do not possess the key to view this information.”
After that the Book of Path became dormant once again.
Zilan on the other hand was in a state where his thoughts were jumbled. The more he looked at Kifo, the more confused he became.
“I can’t see through him.” Laughed Zilan. Unfortunately, his laughter was not triggered by joy but rather was due to frustration.
He tried to trace the light energy in Kifo’s palm back to its origin however, each time he tried to penetrate the skin with his gaze, an indescribable block that he most likely would never have noticed unless he was looking for it, actually stopped him.
“No wonder that ‘Grandmama’ person, emphasized that my Ancestor wanted me to protect him. He was definitely involved in some way but how is that possible…?” Thought Zilan.
His eyes then went back to normal as they no longer had a use. A situation that he never would have dreamt of occurred.
“Your attributes…are indeed special. The light is weaker than the darkness but that is because your soul is currently too weak to support both. Once you have enough strength, then maybe one day, harmony of the two great elements can be achieved however, until then you mustn’t reveal [Light] or else calamity will befall you. Especially from humans.”
Hearing this Kifo sighed but he nodded in understanding before putting away his energy.
As Zilan saw this, he suddenly realised something.
“Your soul. I can tell your souls strength! Why is that?” The usually most mysterious aspect of a living being was easily sensed by Zilan, with a little bit of concentration.
Needless to say, it was a strange discovery but a greatly welcomed one.
“This is a start to figuring out your mystery.” smiled Zilan.
He then for some reason seemed to recall the reasons why Kifo was unable to awaken his second [Darkness] Divine Ability.
“Extremely thin bloodline, unworthiness or a blood seal.”
“Could this be a clue?” whispered Zilan.
Kifo was also quite lost since it appeared that Zilan was taking the shock better than he expected. From Grandmama’s description, he figured that Zilan being unable to see through him would give him a big shock. However, unexpectedly not only did that not seem to be the case, it weirdly looked like in a way Zilan was slightly happy.
………….
With the bright moonlight shining into the window, illuminating the small stone house. Zilan suddenly became aware of the time.
He then waved his hand and sent Kifo away.
“Go rest. The tests begin at dawn, we’ll sort everything else out later.”
