Between his performance on the perilous return journey and how he held his own during the ambush in Mormont City, Alex had earned the genuine respect of the knights who now escorted him through the castle grounds.
Beyond that, this particular knight could read the writing on the wall—Earl Drake favoured Alex. Only something monumental could shake his standing within the family.
Alex, of course, saw through it.
The knight was kissing ass.
But as the saying went: you can’t punch a man who’s smiling at you. Alex let it slide. He’d be seeing a lot more ass-kissers soon enough, once he began to establish his power base.
Just to be sure, he swept the knight with his Spirit Sight—consciously activating a new feature that had emerged after his True Names first awakened back in the Sanctuary Subspace.
Since then, the scope of energy signatures Alex could detect had expanded slightly. Most notably, he could now perceive negative energy—specifically the kind directed at him.
In other words, he could sense strong hatred or malice directed toward his person. With enough observation, he could even detect deceit, though this wasn’t as straightforward. It required active deduction, not some magical lie-detector.
At first, he hadn’t understood how or why he’d gained this enhancement. Spirit Sight was already a complex ability, and its development had always felt linked to his unique physiology.
But now, with a deeper understanding of the Furor Bloodline, it made perfect sense.
Infernals were creatures that fed on negative energy. Of course they would evolve senses that could detect their most delectable delicacy, negative energy directed towards them.
The only downside? This new layer of Spirit Sight wasn’t passive like the original. He had to consciously activate it each time he wanted to use it.
He swept his gaze over the knight.
No hatred. No deep malice. No ill intent.
"Alright," Alex said with a nod.
He was already dressed, so he simply followed the knight out.
This time, the knight had brought a horse for him.
Alex mounted the steed smoothly. Fen leapt up right behind him, shrinking himself to his smallest size—adorably tiny, practically a plushie. The perfect camouflage. Cute and disarming.
’I’m walking into a battlefield,’ Alex thought as he stared at the towering structure of the Ashen Castle. ’Better to keep my cards hidden a little longer.’
They rode in silence, the hooves of their mounts clopping against stone as they approached the main castle building.
The training grounds were alive with movement.
As always, Fury soldiers were undergoing morning drills in the castle’s open courtyard. Unsurprisingly, there were far more warriors than mages. A noble house built on martial prowess was bound to lean toward the warrior class.
The soldiers trained in different forms.
Some practised alone, others sparred in pairs. A few worked in small squads, rehearsing battlefield formations with the precision of a well-oiled war machine.
Alex observed them quietly.
And then—an idea struck.
The knight beside him almost smiled, mistaking the look for admiration.
He thought the young lord was simply impressed with the soldiers’ discipline.
Alex was impressed, but not in the way the knight thought.
What caught Alex’s eye wasn’t their strength or their aura, but their methodology. The Fury soldiers trained with complete professionalism. They weren’t slackers or show-offs. Each one moved with the intensity of someone preparing for an actual battle, not just a spar.
It was like watching a live drill of military-grade readiness. And that gave Alex an idea—one that could potentially bridge his Rune-Tech with the family’s martial heritage.
This place is a fertile ground for data collection...’ Alex thought, stroking his short, full beard in contemplation as he observed the Fury soldiers drilling in formation.
’If I can somehow encode the Fury family’s discipline and combat drills into Sub-AIs for the Nest Queen’s drones, I’ll have a professional army ready for deployment.’
The thought made his heart race.
’The best way to capture this would be through audiovisual data. That way, I can feed it into the AI’s machine learning protocols. Once I train a single AI module to an acceptable standard, I can clone it endlessly for Sub-AI replication.’
Alex could already envision the outcome—swarms of RuneTech drones executing perfect synchronised combat formations, all patterned after the Fury warriors’ brutal efficiency.
But he forced himself to breathe.
’Ehem, let’s not get ahead of ourselves... First things first.’
To collect that data, he would need to create Rune-Tech lenses capable of recording practice drills from all angles, converting them into digital datasets usable for training AI modules.
’Fortunately,’ he mused, ’I already laid the groundwork with the Rune Phone and Rune-Net projects. I won’t have to start entirely from scratch.’
He itched to return to his lab in the Sanctuary Subspace and start crafting immediately. But first, there was the matter of meeting with his father.
Alex turned to the knight beside him and gestured forward. They continued on their way, careful not to disturb the soldiers at training.
They eventually arrived at the castle courtyard. Stable hands were already waiting to receive the horses. Alex dismounted, and Fen leapt down, still in his miniaturised, cuddly form.
Together, the two entered the grand castle.
They’d barely walked far into the corridor when four individuals stepped into their path.
Silver-grey hair. Crimson-red eyes.
Each one bore the distinct traits of the Fury bloodline—purebloods, without question. The resemblance they shared with Alex only confirmed it.
Buried memories—those of the original Alex Fury before the True_Sage took over—surfaced from deep within.
Like most high-ranking nobles on the Pangea Plane—especially on the Arun Continent—Earl Drake Fury had taken multiple wives. Four, to be precise.
The first was Alex’s mother.
The other three? Two came from distant branches of the Fury clan, while the last was from a vassal noble house tied to one of the Empire’s Three Grand Duchies.
The four before him were born of the two Fury-blooded wives.
"Ulfman," Alex said calmly, eyes settling on the tallest of the group.
A boy of around fourteen, but like many Fury youths, Ulfman looked older—more like seventeen or eighteen. His build was solid, posture trained, his frame already showing signs of martial cultivation.
Alex’s gaze shifted to the two standing beside him.