Enigma of Sin

As Kayn entered into the Villa, the first thing he did was go to the room he left Lara to play in. He hadn't been gone that long, maybe an hour or two at most, so she shouldn't have gotten herself into any trouble during that time.

Sure enough, Lara was just running and jumping onto a big fluffy mat Kayn had made when he was back at the farm. Seeing that she was entertaining herself just fine, Kayn moved to the room that was adjacent.

This room was special in the fact that it had formations in place to help draw in ambient mana and concentrate it around the individual who was sitting at the center of the room. While normal mages couldn't exactly absorb it consciously, places of higher mana concentration tended to help improve their cores by leaps and bounds compared to normal areas.

Kayn had used this room before and with his Void Star technique and Demonic Dragon Heart, he was hopeful to breakthrough to the 4th stage during this session.

Sitting in a lotus position in the center of the formation, Kayn began circulating the new and improved Void Star technique as well as taking in deep breaths through his mouth, releasing his exhalations through his nose.

As Kayn began to focus more and more, he started to feel his Demonic Dragon Heart craving for the mana he was breathing in and greedily absorbing and converting it to his own at a rapid rate.

He knew that he was about to break through and since he hadn't broken through a stage with the Demonic Dragon Heart yet, he could only pray to whatever higher power was out there that it would go smoothly.

To Kayn's surprise, just like a normal breakthrough, the mana in his core compressed before expanding, but rather than the container holding the mana in, i.e. his Demonic Dragon Heart, compressing and expanding, the mana only expanded until the walls before compressing more and expanding again. 

This process continued for a few hours until finally his heart let off an audible ba-thump that completed the last compression. The mana inside of his Demonic Dragon Heart now contained four colors rather than just three. There were now black, white, red, and blue clouds circling around the infinite void that resembled a black hole.

As the mana from his new 4th stage core began circulating through his body, he could feel every bit of his flesh relishing in the new feeling and becoming stronger, further pushing any unnecessary things inside of his body out.

Impurities, as Kayn liked to call them since he had read about it in his past life, came out of every pore on his skin and even dripped down his face like tear drops from his eyes.

Kayn could instantly tell that the mana flowing through his body had now increased in purity and potency. Rather than stop and clean himself off, Kayn refocused on his Void Star technique and absorbed more of the ambient mana to stabilize himself at his new stage.

After about half an hour and as if to celebrate Kayn's evolution, a voice reverberated inside of the room with him.

"Evolution process complete, please visit the control room to verify the update."

Kayn was elated at this as it meant that the Wanderer's Villa had finally fully upgraded to its Noumenon Artifact form and he would finally be able to make changes to the settings.

Without further ado, Kayn used the dark element to erase the impurities, followed by water and wind to freshen himself up a bit.

Kayn hurried to the control room where he pressed every spot in the exact order it needed to be pressed while imbuing his mana and after a few minutes he finally finished the order and gained access to the control orb.

Once he accessed the control panel, Kayn's eyes opened wide as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

[Admin is allowed a maximum of 4 residents in the Wanderer's Villa in addition to their own person. Any resident that the admin would like to allow to stay inside the Wanderer's Villa while in soul form must place a drop of blood on the control orb to register, otherwise any non-resident will be kicked-out upon soul absorption. Current number of residents including admin: 1/5]

Without even looking at anything else, Kayn sprinted back to the playroom to fetch Lara and bring her back to the control orb. Kayn apologized in his mind before making a tiny pinprick on his little sister's finger and squeezing it to drip a drop of blood onto the control orb.

[Would the admin like to add resident to list of included individuals? (Yes) (No)]

Kayn immediately pressed the yes button.

[New resident has been registered. Current number of residents including admin: 2/5]

Kayn was acting a bit sporadic by this point, but he quickly placed Lara back in the playroom before exiting the Wanderer's Villa completely and then trying to absorb it into his soul.

Unlike the other times that he had tried to take it in while Lara was still inside just to test things out, it actually worked this time and the Villa flew directly into his hand and disappeared upon contact with his skin.

However, he quickly placed it back into the open and went back inside only to see Lara back to playing with the toys spread out inside of the room as if nothing had changed for her.

"Godsend! This place is truly a godsend! Thank you Elder Yvaris!!" Kayn was so excited that he couldn't help but shout out loud. He picked Lara up and raised her up high before spinning around while laughing joyfully. Lara didn't know what was happening, but she enjoyed being lifted and spun so she was laughing too.

Kayn decided to take Lara with him while he explored the remainder of the options and to take a quick nap before starting to travel the remainder of the way to Palatine.

…

In the end, there was just too much information for Kayn to go over in one session, so he settled for enhancing the protective formation as well as adding the invisibility formation. This would make it so that no one but himself would be able to see the residence from the outside, adding an additional layer of protection for himself and Lara. 

Kayn had initially wondered how the Villa operated and what its power source was for everything, but after reading through the new information, he noticed that it had advanced its own mana absorption system.

So, if one paid close attention they would notice the ambient mana being absorbed by the Villa, but the feature itself stated that it absorbed it from the ground it was placed upon, so unless one was very sensitive to the flow of mana, they would never know.

While the Villa was in his soul, naturally the formations were not active as they were not needed. Only the basic necessities for the residents were still functional, and these were powered based upon the strength of the administrator's soul, in other words, Kayn's own soul strength.

Kayn left the control room and sealed it before heading to the kitchen to feed himself and Lara, then took some well deserved some sleep before starting the last leg of his journey.

Meanwhile, outside the Villa, Strag was grazing on grass and enjoying its time of rest, none the wiser to what was happening.

…

Another week and a half of travel later, Kayn could see the skyline of Palatine and its massive towers that formed the defensive formation around it.

There was a somewhat sizable town along the main road and Kayn decided to stop there and see what he could do about Strag as he wouldn't need a horse once he actually got to Palatine.

Whether it was luck on Strag's part or pure coincidence, one of the farmhands from Gransdale's animal market was present at this town's animal market.

Gransdale was where Kayn initially purchased Strag and the farmhand worked for the man who sold the horse to him. He asked the farmhand to deliver Strag back to the man and also added on 50 silver coins for his troubles.

The farmhand was initially confused as he recognized Strag, but upon hearing the story from Kayn, he couldn't quite believe his ears. This young man bought Strag for a few gold coins, and yet he was just giving him back to the farmer as well as paying him 50 silver coins to take him back when he had to return anyway?

What kind of a joke was that, no one is that nice, especially to regular folk when the one being nice was a mage as they tended to look down on non-mages.

Kayn ended up explaining it off as he didn't need a horse in Palatine and because Strag was such a well-trained horse, he was sure that the original owner had put a lot of work into raising him. There was no point for Kayn to sell him off to someone that might treat him bad in the end when he could just return him to where he knew he would be treated well.

Kayn thanked the farmhand and then patted Strag's head before thanking the horse as well before departing the town once more. Kayn was traveling with Lara outside still as he didn't want to enter into Palatine without them knowing about her and then finding out later and getting into trouble for whatever reason.

He passed by more and more people the closer he got to Palatine, and eventually he arrived at a long line that extended for about a kilometer. These were all people waiting in a queue to enter into Palatine, so Kayn had to join them at the back.

During his wait, he observed a few people who bypassed the line and were able to directly enter after flashing some form of identity or being recognized by the guards, but as Kayn didn't have that kind of privilege here yet, he could only wait for his turn.

Kayn eventually got bored while the line slowly moved forward and started to listen in on other's conversations to see if there were any interesting rumors being spread. But sadly, it was all meaningless gossip, some of which Kayn wished he could have never heard in the first place.

When it was finally Kayn's turn to get inspected and pay the entry fee, he pulled out his identity plate from Myrem that just had Kayn engraved on it before handing it to the guard in front of him.

"Just passing through or attempting residency?" The guard asked while eyeing Kayn up and down and then looking at Lara. "Does the child have an identity plate yet?"

"I would like to apply for residency if that's possible. Also no, she doesn't have one yet, but I plan on getting her one as soon as I have the chance." Kayn replied without hesitation as he had been thinking about this for several months now.

"Entry fee into the city is 1 silver for non-residents. You can apply for permanent residency at the outer ridge Town Hall, which will cost you an additional 10 silver per person and proof of employment in the city. Only after you receive your resident permit are you allowed to purchase a place of living, for now you'll need to find an inn." 

Kayn handed the man two silver coins before asking one additional question before finally entering his destination. "By chance would you be able to recommend a place to look for work as a healer?"

"You're a healer? You look a bit young though. Anyway, if you are looking to get an apprenticeship as a healer or looking for work as one, the best place to go would be the White Hand Society. They are located in the inner ring of Palatine and have a massive white hand with an eye in the middle as their logo, can't miss them."

"Thank you very much for the info." Kayn gave the man another silver before making his way into the city. He was finally making progress towards his better future.