Lily ultimately didn't ask who Nathan was going to marry. Even she was able to tell that it was inappropriate for the atmosphere. It was also not the reason she offered help.
Even though the destination was far from certain, all the roads that Nathan Modernson walked after he had known that he was the saviour in The New Prophecy headed towards a singular direction: to change the world in a way that nobody had, or could, ever before.
Nathan Modernson visited Principal Nox right after he returned to the Imperial Academy, not to apologise or to express his gratitude, even though he did these as well, but simply for the promise that his hope for him was not going to be in vain. The burden on him stacked up like a mountain, a weight that reminded him that his destiny was never exclusive to him alone. Only now, he realised that this burden was not a hindrance. Instead, it was the only motivation that kept him from backing away from his responsibility and choosing a much simpler, comfortable life as the most renowned aristocrat of all aristocrats. It is often the burdens that your free will chose to heave up that bend your back the most, and the ones that you are least likely to discard for convenience.
Though his life rapidly drained away outside the academy, Henry didn't seem any different from what he looked like before. The pain and corrosion inside his body were paused and desensitised by the extreme deceleration of time. He refused to tell Nathan how much time he had left exactly. It was obvious that the answer wouldn't be pleasing to hear.
Nathan knew that both Lily and Henry Nox were aware that there must have been a deeper motive behind his request. Henry told him that even if there wasn't, he would've probably still chosen to offer help. It provided him with the most powerful evidence to show how much he was willing to do for Nathan to his parents, which was one of the only things that he cared about at this stage.
In his words, there wasn't any better way he could've spent his life.
If Nathan knew how the conversation between Lily and Henry went, he would've surely experienced even more guilt, but both fortunately and unfortunately, he didn't. He never did.
The next person Nathan went to consult was none other than Daniel Whitedawn. Whether The Undefeatable's ultimate goal was to rebuild the Pompeii Manor or not, it was always worth it to build a house in a place so stunningly beautiful. For the clan famous for their Construction Rune Arts, restoring the landscape and erecting a palace comparable to the Edmonds Manor was easily within reach. If Angela didn't want to live in it, Nathan truly would consider moving in, or rather, he outright hoped that he could.
Daniel's eyes lit up the moment Nathan proposed his request. His father would've turned down the proposal if it was practically anybody else, but it was Nathan Modernson on the question here. A regular residential builder would pay to have the honour of building his estate, and before Nathan's status, every builder was regular, to say the least.
"Maybe it will even bring my clan into Endnest's inner circle again," he murmured with excitement, almost talking to himself. "Maybe they'll even promote me to a Representative Student like I should've been."
Nathan didn't reply directly. He knew that it wasn't even a possibility. Maybe the King would welcome the Whitedawn Clan with open arms, but to a clan with only a glorious name and no real power, this welcome was perhaps more of a disaster than a boon. That was why the Whitedawns moved as far as Gemville hundreds of years ago, and the same hazard remains to this day.
After everything within the academy was settled, Nathan headed directly to the Tower of Domination through the teleportation station to find The Undefeatable. The four Pathtowers were each located in an isolated area in the four directions from the capital city. Close enough to Endnest for convenience, and distant enough from each other to avoid inconvenience. The Tower of Domination was situated in the North, the direction of Lostburg and the Outer Realms.
The teleportation device was placed in the tower, so Nathan didn't need to care about all this information. As the light of the rune beneath him dimmed and he caught his first glimpse of the institution, he laughed within himself at how ironically stereotypical it was of what people would've thought.
At first, it felt like a minuscule version of himself had entered a large crucible. Dark, metallic partitions snared the rooms, and frightening sounds echoed within them. The only light source was the flames that were not even restrained inside lamps, bellowing wildly in the open. Nathan instinctively pulled in his robe to hide his wands. He had a feeling that a Light and Darkness Element Rune Artist would be a source of laughter to everyone in this place.
Perhaps that concern was unwarranted, because nobody seemed to have paid any attention to him. They were either experimenting with some destructive Rune Arts that could even be described as cruel, or climbing the rocky pillar at the centre to reach a higher floor. No, not stairs, not even ladders, just a wall with a rocky surface.
Nathan wouldn't be shameless enough to say that he wasn't confused or even afraid of the surroundings, but he knew that the only way to avoid trouble was to act as confident and fearless as he could. Abandoning the previous thought of finding someone who could tell him the Spirehead's whereabouts, Nathan decided to just go climb the wall on the next floor and see where he could get to.
The climb wasn't supposed to be easy, but Nathan was famous as a great climber since his Lostburg years. His speed surpassed even some of the muscular monsters who were more than a head taller than him, and he didn't even seem to break a sweat. The people around him sent him stares and nods of acknowledgement and admiration instead of envy or disbelief.
The second floor wasn't too different from the first, just with more private buildings, equipment and RAPIs that the Rune Artists could toy with. Nathan didn't even bother jumping off the walls to take a tour around and just continued climbing. The number of ledges and dents that he could hold onto gradually decreased. When Nathan noticed on the third floor, there was already a sizable gap between each point of support, to the point that he had to make dangerous leaps.
Starting from the fourth floor onwards, it was less about practising Rune Arts and more about real combat. The higher the floor, the more intense these skirmishes were. All Nathan could say was that he was glad that he didn't see any casualties.
He finally decided to take a rest as he reached the seventh floor, where the way upwards almost felt like a bad joke. There were barely any dents or protrusions, or at least you had to squint your eyes to locate them. Interestingly, this floor seemed to be the destination of all the climbers. No one continued to the next. This was a hint that it was likely that the eighth floor was the spire of the Tower of Domination, where the Undefeatable was most likely residing.
On this floor, the combative training was still taking place, but it was no longer between Rune Artists. The main reason, Nathan soon realised, was that if these attacks were used to fight other Rune Artists, this floor would be devoid of humans in the next ten minutes.
There were training dummies, or rather, combative humanoid RAPIs that could reintegrate themselves back together once blasted into pieces. It seemed like the Rune Artists in the Tower of Domination didn't oppose the implication of RAPIs at all. They only cared about what could improve their Rune Art Mastery.
Once Nathan was ready to climb the pillar once again, all he could do was stare at the pillar in irritation. Climbing this route didn't seem possible for anyone. But at least, to his fortune, the last part of this climb was extremely short. If anything went wrong, he could just jump back towards the seventh floor without worrying that he was going to break a bone.
Hence, the effort of reaching the spire had begun. Nathan climbed and fell, climbed and fell, to the point that he forgot how many times he fell and climbed back up. He repeated the same process until it literally got boring. The strain on his body was somewhat eased by the approving nods and words of encouragement from the Rune Artists on the floor. They didn't care why somebody needed to reach the spire to find their Spirehead. All they knew was that a skinny, young man persevered through both the physical and emotional stress of the continuous failure.
Once Nathan finally reached the final dent in the wall and grabbed it with his hands, a small crowd had already gathered below him, applauding his wavering body. There wasn't anywhere he could support his feet on, and his body was too worn out to pull itself up from such a flimsy holdpoint. Nathan sighed at the realisation that he might have to disappoint the Rune Artists below him, but at least he proved that it was possible for him if he could just take some rest to recover.
However, just before he let go and fell backwards, a hand reached out from the aperture centimetres above him. Without any hesitation, Nathan used his final remaining breath to grab onto it firmly. The hand pulled him up like he was some kind of doll.
Nathan didn't have the strength to lift his head to examine his saviour's face. He fell flat on the cold, concrete ground. The weirdly calming sound of the burning flames buzzed in his ears.
"Not too bad, Nathan Modernson, if I had to say." A woman's voice interrupted. Nathan didn't need to look up to know that it was the Undefeatable, Angela Pompeii.
"Go thank The Undefeatable and Principal Nox…" Nathan panted heavily, unwilling to move an inch.
"No, not that," Angela said. "I'm talking about your physical capabilities."
Of course Nathan had strong physical capabilities. He wasn't a spoiled aristocrat who couldn't live a single week without support from others. He grew up in Lostburg, a place where it was fight or flight or die.
"I guess that's credit on me."
"Going as far as actually ceasing the explosions and climbing the impossible route to the spire," Angela continued. "You really wanted to become my apprentice, huh?"
"You've saved my life once," Nathan answered slowly. "Apprentice or not, I did what I could to pay you back."
Angela sounded pleased to hear that response, though Nathan couldn't be certain, coming from someone who was rumoured to be a complete psychopath.
"Good attitude. I'll take you in."
Nathan sighed and finally got up with difficulty. He scanned around the room curiously. Different from all the possibilities he anticipated, the spire was a large yet empty space, similar to Henry's office, only there were weird patterns carved into the walls. Nathan felt uncomfortable looking at them. It gave him the feeling that something was going to break out any second.
"Can you teach me how to fight?" Nathan asked without wasting any more words.
"Teaching a Light and Darkness Element Rune Artist to fight?" Angela ridiculed. "People would actually think I'm crazy."
"If it's other people, people will think they are crazy," Nathan said. "But if it's you…"
Angela lifted her head slightly in pride, ready to hear Nathan's praise. After all, the boy had the reputation of always speaking words pleasant to the ear.
"They already think you're crazy, so don't worry about it."
Angela laughed. The response was even more pleasant than she thought.
"Fine, then," she said as she walked closer. Without asking for permission, she grabbed Nathan's arm and squeezed his biceps. The sheer strength almost made Nathan wheeze.
"I didn't look wrong," she murmured to herself. "These muscles weren't something to flex about, but they surely were enough to knock someone out."
Nathan held his urge to pull his limb back and asked, "Why does that even matter? Am I expected to knock somebody out in Rune Art Combat?"
"What else can you do?" Angela looked at him and snickered. "Use Rune Arts?"
"I don't know whether you are good at illustrating runes or not, but the elemental energy within you is quite… below average." She concluded coldly, "There's no practical way you could use the few offensive abilities of Light and Darkness Rune Arts."
Nathan sighed internally. He was destined to be completely hopeless in terms of Rune Arts.
"Before Rune Arts were a thing, people used weapons to fight; before that, their fists," she explained. "Just because Rune Arts existed now, it didn't mean these other methods were useless."
"A punch would serve just as well as a fireball if you could land it in the right place."
"There's like… thousands of Rune Arts that could defend against a punch or stop me from coming near." Nathan didn't sound too hopeful.
"That's when Rune Arts come back into the equation. If there's anything Light and Darkness Rune Arts can do, it's creating illusions," Angela replied professionally. "You can fake your death, pretend to be something else, conceal your form, hinder their Rune Arts… the possibilities are infinite."
"No matter how hopeless you are at Rune Arts, as the second strongest Rune Artist in terms of combat, I'm confident I can teach you."
It never felt good to say that you were the "second" best, let alone if your title was "The Undefeatable." Who was the strongest? His mother? In Nathan's understanding, V never dedicated herself to combat. It was probably not the case.
"But before that… you need to know what the 'right places' are." A mischievous smile appeared on her face.
Nathan tilted his head in confusion. "Just the face is enough, no?"
"That's called a friendly skirmish. In real dead-or-alive combat, there are only three parts of the body you want to aim for."
"The eyes." She pointed to her eyes. Nathan blinked uncomfortably.
"The throat." She pointed to her neck. Nathan swallowed in fear.
"And to men especially," she emphasised and pointed downwards, "the crotch."
Nathan didn't have the courage to even think about that. Perhaps she was the one who grew up in Lostburg, not him.