LEVEL 0 IMMORTAL-Chapter 159: You Walk Through The Underbelly of The City

Elias was amazed that someone could acquire such powers at such a young age. Before this child reaches eighteen, he will be a Peak-level Fury Forge, and who knows how quickly they could become a Mist Phantom.

However, Elias was not jealous because he had gained many more benefits as an Ascendant Candidate even when he began his journey rather late in life. For all intents and purposes, he had used four days to grow from a Wisp to a Fury Forge, and if this news were to circulate around, then the entire city may be shaken by it.

He had already achieved so much, it was just that when he was beside someone as powerful as his master, and all the issues he was surrounded with, it was as if his explosive growth was moving at a snail’s pace, and only when he was out into the light that the full weight of his achievements was catching up to him.

Still, it was not enough... at this point, he was only a slightly larger ant, and perhaps if he could survive his second Incursion and reach Mist Phantom, or maybe Amber Exile in the near future, would Elias think he would be able to relax a bit?

Placing the grim thought of the future aside, Elias appreciated the beautiful upper tier of Stormfall, and he knew that most of the residents of that part of the city had never truly experienced what it was like below, and the amazing thing was that from Elias present position, he could see all three layers of the city, and it only took him looking down a bit to see that below the grand spires... the city changed.

The buildings here were older, built from the same stone as the road Elias walked on, but they had been modified, expanded, and patched over the centuries of use. Balconies jutted out at odd angles, connected by bridges of wood and rope that swayed in the wind.

Smoke rose from countless chimneys, but these were not the smoke of simple fires; they were thin, almost luminescent vapors from alchemical workshops. This was undoubtedly the heart of the city, and where the city worked.

Elias’s nose, enhanced by his transformation, caught a symphony of scents. There was the sharp, metallic tang of Profound Iron being forged in smithies where hammers fell with rhythmic precision, the sweet, almost sickly odor of alchemical reagents bubbling in glass vats, a smell he recognized from his own experiments, and the warm, yeasty aroma of bakeries where bread was baked in ovens heated by controlled flames.

Underneath it all was the ever-present smell of humanity, sweat, cooking oil, incense, and the faint, coppery hint of blood from the butcheries and other unsavory sources.

The streets here were crowded. Siphons of every stage moved with purpose. Fury Forges with arms like tree trunks, carrying massive crates, Wisps hurrying between jobs, their faces drawn with the exhaustion of those who had not yet learned to manage their stamina.

Children darted between legs, playing games that involved small bursts of Lumina, a flash of light here, a tiny flame there. And before he knew it, his legs began to move on their own volition, and perhaps hours passed as he walked among them, and because of his attire, which was clean but clearly meant for an environment like this, Elias could walk through this part of the city without being interrupted.

A street vendor caught his attention. The man was selling skewers of meat that sizzled over a fire that burned with no fuel, just a small, perfectly controlled flame that danced at the end of a metal rod. The vendor’s hands never moved, but the flame responded to his will, flaring and dimming as needed.

"That’s a Talent," Elias murmured to himself. A minor one, perhaps, but a Talent nonetheless. And here he was, selling food on a street corner. He wondered if other cities were like this or if this was just unique to Stormfall.

Elias knew that Stormfall was a rather strange city, extremely isolated by the nature of its surroundings, so it would not be strange that its culture was more distinctive than that of other cities on the continent.

The vendor glanced up, as if sensing he was being watched, but Elias had already moved on.

This district held the Guilds and other organizations, along with the homes where most of the city’s inhabitants resided, and Elias found himself walking past the Guilds and heading towards the other outskirt of the city that faced the ocean.

Past the middle tier of the city, which Elias saw as the lifeblood of Stormfall, the city seemed to descend into shadow as a weight of poverty, desperation, and the cracks where the light of the upper tiers could not reach.

There would always be places like this, and even though this situation could be avoided, Elias knew that many vested interests of powerful families and individuals in the city would want something like this.

Elias had seen enough of the depraved side of life that he understood that if there were no places like this, the entire city might descend into chaos. The buildings here leaned toward each other as if conspiring, and the streets were narrower, darker, lit by Ember Orbs that had not been recharged in years, causing their light to flicker weakly like dying fireflies.

Even the smell changed too, less alchemy, less baking, more of the things that accumulated when people were packed too closely together.

He had been here before, but with his new perception, even when he was walking past quickly, he could still pick up details that the casual observer would miss.

Like a family huddled in a doorway, their meager properties thrown on the ground, and the parents trying to shield their children from the surroundings with nothing but their own bodies. The father was a Siphon; Elias could sense the faint Lumina in his core, but he was weak, probably never able to advance past Wisp, and his eyes held the dull acceptance of someone who had given up.

There may be many reasons why this man and his wife could not earn enough money for even a home, most likely it involved a debt that they could not pay, and Elias could almost smell the blood that their situation was spreading in the water, and undoubtedly, there were many sharks that were circling this family, and he would not be surprised if a week from now, every member of this family would be dead.

This world was a brutal, unforgiving place, and it was easy to forget this truth when you were above in the light.

A group of youths clustered around a small fire, passing a bottle between them. Their laughter was too loud, too desperate. One of them had a knife hidden in his sleeve. Elias noted it, cataloged it, and moved on.

Not far from the group of youths was a woman with hollow cheeks and empty eyes standing in a doorway, her clothing too thin for the weather. She was just a low-level Wisp, barely at the third level, and in a place like this, she was nothing... she was prey, and from the way that group of youths was eying her, her fate in the next several hours would not be a good one... Elias continued walking.

He could feel his old instincts begin to simmer to the surface, as the hunter’s recognition of the hunt filled his senses, but he suppressed it, these were not his prey, just pale imitations of the real thing, at least for today, he would let the lesser ones to thrive.