Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

'This guy… his aura is similar to Steve's.'

Eren thought to himself as he looked at the startled Horen Laal.

With a simple glance, Eren quickly figured out Horen's Path. After all, Steve from Anfang was also a body cultivator. However, Steve had used Body-strengthening Art that tweaked his Path as a Ranker and fine-tuned it to focus on his body more.

Eren could inherently feel that this was not the case with Horen. The man in front of him had obviously started walking on the Body Cultivation right from the start. He practiced a Tantra instead of an Art, which allowed him to progress at a faster rate than Steve could ever possibly hope for.

Blue: [ Horen Laal holds feelings of anger towards you. You have earned 0.2 Origin Foce Points ]

Red: [ Horen Laal holds feelings of anger towards you. You have earned 1 Origin Foce Points ]

'Hm. The Origin Force Points I receive by interacting directly with people are vastly more significant than the indirect interaction,' Eren thought to himself as he looked at the newly appeared notifications in the sub-panel. 'But whatever indirect interaction lacks in quality it more than makes up for it in quantity.'

Eren was very satisfied with the harvest of the Origin Force Points he was receiving by directly and indirectly interacting with people. He had to say that his abominated divinity was working wonders for him.

He could guess that the rate of the Origin Force Points he received with his indirect reaction was a bit low because he had kept his identity hidden. He would have received a lot more of the Origin Force Points from his audience had he gone in front of them without the mask.

'Safety comes first,' Eren thought to himself. 'I am fine with a slow but steady and safe source of Origin Force Points,' he concluded as he looked at the distinct notifications he received from his direct interaction.

The blue notifications that Eren received in the sub-panel were because of the Origin Force Points he had received from acting as a masked man in Agora. However, the red notifications were because of his direct interactions. The color-coded notifications made it easy for him to distinguish them.

'So the guy's name is Horen Laal. I sure remember seeing his name when I debuted in Agora. He just lied to his friend when he said he feels nothing about the true inheritor of Elder Ichor,' Eren looked at the red notifications and shook his head.

He couldn't blame the guy considering almost all of the living beings would try to hide their true feelings from one another for simply no reason whatsoever. Eren was one of them as well.

After unlocking the core potential of his divinity, Eren had met a lot of such people who said one thing but felt completely opposite. This had been an eye-opening experience for him, which allowed him to give up on trying to understand someone's consciousness.

"Calm down," Eren looked at Vasco and smiled before speaking further. "I know I should have led with this but anywho! Hi. Nice to meet you, Name's Eren. I am a Ranker," he answered casually to Vasco's question.

'And this man is an Elementalist,' the butcher concluded as he sensed Vasco's presence up close. This was not his first time meeting an Elementalist in Labh Salem. Plus, he had already met with Shallot Lancelot's ghost inside the isolated space of the Shallot's Mirror.

He had to say that Elementalists were a bit difficult to distinguish from Rankers. Especially if the other party purposely tried to hide their Elemental Attainments for some reason.

Blue: [ Vasco Joel holds feelings of anger towards you. You have earned 1 Origin Foce Points ]

Red: [ Vasco Joel holds feelings of greed towards you. You have earned 0.2 Origin Foce Points ]

'And this guy's name is Vasco Joel. He is eyeing my Elder Seed Artifacts. But at least he is honest about his greed,' Eren understood a lot about Vasco with just this brief interaction alone.

"So this is the Dimensional Gate for our use, huh?" Eren said as he looked past Vasco and stared at the two giant doors, his voice coated in curiosity. When do you think this round will start?" he asked the duo without looking at them.

Vasco and Horen both looked at each other with a bit of wariness in their eyes. But then that wariness subsided before it was replaced with a bit of shame for their own jitteriness just because Eren had sneaked up behind them.

"It… it should start in a few minutes," Horen Laal said and relaxed his visibly tense muscles. "My name's Horen Laal and I practice a Body Cultivation Tantra. I take it you are one of those candidates who have been selected for the final round from the start?"

Only the candidates were allowed to be anywhere near the gate. And since Horen and Vasco hadn't seen Eren in the initial rounds, they could both guess that Eren had been pre-selected for the final round because of his connections.

"Yes," Eren nodded before turning to Vasco, waiting for him to introduce himself. The latter sighed before speaking up.

"Elementalist. Vasco Joel. Um. Nice to meet you, Eren.

Is… Is there a reason for you to strike up a conversation with us in such a weird way?"

Vasco eyed Eren from head to toe as he asked. The man clearly knew that the duo would act this way if he were to alter his Spiritual Force and sneak up behind them. And yet, he had diffused the tense situation he had caused just as effortlessly. He could tell that there was something definitely weird about Eren.

"There's indeed a reason," Eren smiled at Vasco.

"I believe there will be a test that will require the candidates to fight in groups. I didn't join the initial rounds like you guys. So I don't know anyone here. I thought I should introduce myself to a group that looks promising to me.

I don't want to sound romantic when we don't have a female company but you know what they say, right?

The best way to predict the future is to create it together."