I Level Up Dragons with My Evolution System

Edward swallowed hard at the thought.

Betraying the national hero who had slain the dragon that had nearly wiped out the entire Western Province and other provinces was surely a capital offense. The kingdom would never forgive him and would hunt him down relentlessly.

That would explain why he tended to stay in hiding or let others take the blows.

’Has my father been faking it all this time? Maybe he really is still powerful, but has had to hide because of what he did,’ he thought.

Even if his father were a traitor, he wouldn’t blame him. He must have had his reasons, and he’d like to know them.

But thinking that way also went quite against what he knew of his father. Was a man so loyal capable of betrayal?

’Silas...’ Edward suddenly remembered Silas.

More than once, he had shown that he hadn’t been an ordinary person in the past. He was a powerful beastmaster, someone his father had trusted. And he treated Línnava like a nest of treacherous rats.

’I myself have witnessed that this is so.’

He felt that the things stirring in the darkness of Línnava were a jumble of political battles. It seemed that everyone was fighting for the throne, everyone was seeking to dominate politics, and if betrayal meant they could achieve their goals, they would do so without remorse.

He had witnessed that.

Blaming his father for treason made no sense in a kingdom where everyone betrays one another.

’The traitor who betrays another traitor is forgiven for a thousand years. Though I’m stealing the thief’s saying, it makes sense.’ Edward laughed.

As he was lost in his own thoughts, he remembered his sword.

101 patterns... Those 101 patterns that hid a whole bunch of tools behind them. 101st Regiment... Could that mean something?

"Are you listening to me, Young Master?" Harry asked suddenly.

Edward snapped back to his senses immediately. "Oh. I’m sorry, I was listening to you. By the way, why do they call him the Great Toolmaker? What kind of tools did he create, or what was he?"

"I don’t know why they call him that. Maybe only my father knows, or people from that era. All I know is that he was a man who used many magical tools to fight. It’s said he had a sword capable of transforming into many things in seconds, which gave him a huge advantage."

"I-I see." Edward smiled and feigned surprise.

’My sword...’

"Well, enough small talk for now. I need you to go check on the state of that basement at dawn. Start investigating the other areas as well," Edward said, standing up. "I’m going to get some rest. We’ll have a lot on our plate this month."

"All right, young lord." Harry stood up and saluted with a tap on his chest. "I’ll leave immediately and keep in touch with you through letters. If I need anything urgent, I’ll come see you."

After he left, Edward closed all the doors and windows. Then he went to one of the rooms, which he also locked, and sat down in the middle of it.

Without thinking too much about it, he drew his sword and looked at it closely.

He followed the established patterns to unlock the 101 patterns, and after having all the tools in his hands, he looked at them closely.

He didn’t know why, but he felt that there was more to this than met the eye.

He examined all the tools carefully. He found signs that they had been used before. He also discovered how each tool connected to form the 101 patterns.

Each one was crafted to precise measurements, so that while they varied in length and width, they all had the same mass. But they weighed exactly the same.

If he added up the weight of each one, it would equal the weight of the sword. So there was nothing unusual about that.

As he poked around and tried to look for clues, he picked up the three tools used for engraving scenes, noticing that their connections were slightly different.

The connections that attached the sword were the same as those on the other tools. But each had two additional connections underneath them.

’Do they form a triangle with rounded corners?’ he wondered.

He tried arranging them according to that pattern.

And he hit the nail on the head.

The triangular arrangement, with its slightly rounded, poorly defined corners, formed a single tool that immediately began absorbing energy from the other tools.

"Did it really work?" Edward stepped aside, his heart racing.

He wondered what was going to happen...

"There are some things it’s better not to know, my dear son." A voice suddenly rang out in the room.

Edward was on high alert and looked behind him.

An empty doorway.

He turned toward the window.

There was nothing there either.

His eyes were illuminated by a light from outside at that moment, just as the tool fully activated.

A video showed a wounded man, his face smeared with blood and mud. He was tall and imposing, but he was lying on the floor of some cave where sunlight didn’t reach. He was carrying two people in his arms.

His eyes were red, likely from crying or from not having slept in days.

"Father..." Even though the man in the video was much younger, he recognized him immediately. He looked more lively, and next to him lay a vast array of buried magical tools.

No one knew what that meant.

But there was a gap in front of him, in that cave.

One of the two people he was carrying, in his right arm, was a stunningly beautiful woman, around 30 years old.

’Is she dead?’ he thought.

His gaze shifted to the other person in his arms; his body trembled and froze.

That baby in his arms, barely a year old or younger... that was him.

He was sleeping peacefully, and you could tell his breathing was calm. As if nothing happening around him could disturb his peaceful sleep.

Abraham placed the baby in a small straw bed he had made and then looked back at the device recording him.

"My son, I don’t know how many years have passed. I don’t even know if you’ll ever see this video," he said, smiling as he looked behind him. "After all, when I’m recording this, you’re still a baby with your whole future ahead of you."

He turned his gaze back to the recorder. "But if you ever turned this on, it means you’re now a Master of Beasts. Just like me... just like your mother."

"What a pity... you could have lived a longer life if you weren’t one. But you are a Lux, my son. And Luxes aren’t meant to be small. We’re destined for greatness... even if some fools want to take it away from us."

"Surely the way you met me doesn’t give you any sense of my greatness. What have I become in your eyes? A blacksmith in a distant village? A frustrated writer? Or maybe I decided to go work in the mines to pay for your education? Heh, whatever I may have become in that uncertain future, to you I’m not a figure of greatness."

"But I am a Lux, my son... Or at least I bear their surname and a bit of their genes. That’s why, even though I’m not a pure-blooded Lux like you, I was still destined for greatness. I was once great," he said.

Finally, the man took the woman in his arms and smiled lovingly. He stopped speaking to the camera, turned around, and knelt before the hole. His body was mortally wounded, but he was still strong.

After cradling the woman in his arms for over 30 minutes, unwilling to part from her, he sighed and climbed down into the hollow to place a pile of blankets to cover it completely.

Finally, he laid the woman there and climbed out of the hollow, which was clearly a grave.

At one end, he placed a small plaque. It had no name, no dates.

It simply read:

-Here lies the body of a legendary soul.

Not a word more. Not a word less.

With a dazed Edward watching and the baby Edward snoring beside Abraham, he filled the grave with dirt and then sealed it with many stones from the cave.

His body moved slowly, not only because of his wounds, but also because of the heartache of burying his beloved wife.

He carried an unprecedented weight on his shoulders. Though invisible to the eye, it was palpable. It wasn’t there, but you could feel it.

After what seemed like an hour, Abraham knelt once more and bowed his head to the ground three times.

"I hope you rest in peace. In my next life, I will seek you out and protect you with my soul," he vowed silently.

Then he stood up. His forehead was covered in mud, but he didn’t care. He walked once more toward the device recording him and stared at it.

"Someday you’ll have to come here to pay your respects to your mother. Remember well what you see, because I won’t be there to bring you. You’ll have to come on your own," he said, though he didn’t give any directions. He simply grabbed the device and made it float behind him. He picked up the baby in his arms and then began walking out of the cave.

"Let’s walk a bit. I’ll tell you some things about me... and about you."