System vs Rebirth

"So, tell me what do you know." Anna narrowed his eyes.

"No, it's you who needs to tell me what do you know." Noel returned it back to her. They were glaring at each other, without a single intention to back down.

Both of them wanted to know why they knew about the Ancient Demon Tree.

However, they were interrupted by the raging wave that somehow splashed them.

"…" The duo turned their heads around and saw what was happening.

To their surprise, the raging wave gradually disappeared as if nothing happened.

"This is…" Anna frowned. There were a few questions in her mind, but she only had one way to get the answers.

Without hesitation, she jumped into the water to check the phenomenon herself and found a few green lines buried underneath the ground.

Anna widened her eyes in shock as she never expected to see these lines.

'Impossible.' Anna gasped for air and came out to take another breath. After that, she started sweeping the dirt that covered the lines and made sure its existence. 'This is Sealing Rune. How can there be a Rune in this place? Noel was supposed to invent the rune… But Noel fought against the Ancient Demon Tree in the past, he might learn something from this seal and re-invented the rule.'

She said 're-invented' because the rune had existed in the past and Noel simply discovered it and remade the rune so that people could use it.

'Or there might be a treasure that explained the runes inside…' Anna frowned and explored the rune for a bit more. After another ten minutes, she discovered that the rune was still intact.

'Hmm. I don't see any problem with the rune, but the raging water… is there something wrong with the rune? I can't understand.' Anna frowned.

On the other hand, Noel also saw the glowing lines after Anna cleared the dirt on top of it. As if recognizing the rune, Ardagan suddenly presented him with a new training and skill.

[Recognizing Arvart Ardagan's Rune.]

[Opening up a branch of career.]

[Because the host has chosen the swordsman, the career is adjusted.]

[Rune Swordsman is opened.]

[Career: Rune Swordsman]

Skill: Rune Mastery (0/10)

Requirement: 5 SP

Noel gasped when he saw that name.

"Arvart Ardagan? The ancestor of Ardagan Family?" Noel's face became pale as he looked at the green lines on the lake's floor. "But what do you mean the career is adjusted? Becoming a swordsman seems to be the reason. So, if I chose 'Commander,' I would be a Rune Commander?"

Noel frowned, albeit he received no answer.

"Still, Ardagan said he didn't want me to know much about my ancestor… Did he lie to me? But Spirit doesn't lie. In that case, it was my misunderstanding. The reason Ardagan didn't want to tell me was simply to make me choose my own path instead of chasing after my ancestor.

"Finding this was obviously out of the equation, so it gave me all this new stuff." Noel wasn't one hundred percent sure about his conjecture, but he couldn't meditate to meet Ardagan for the time being, so he could only believe this assumption for the time being.

After a while, he saw Anna returning to the surface.

"And now I'm wet…" Anna let out a long sigh. "Maybe I should have taken off my clothes first… If only the little pervert wasn't here, I would've done that."

Noel's eyebrows twitched as he asked, "So, what did you find there?"

"Why don't you go there and find out?" Anna smirked, taunting him.

"If you don't want to say anything, that's fine." Noel shrugged and looked away. Assuming that Ardagan could predict the future by showing how he could know there was an Ancient Demon Tree underneath this lake, he realized that the time limit was real.

No matter what he did, the Ancient Demon Tree would only come out near the time limit since he needed a bit of time to kill the Ancient Demon Tree.

'In that case, one day or two days before the time limit.' Noel thought. 'The demon will be severely weakened because it just wakes up. Considering my ancestor was the one that made the Ancient Demon Tree fall into slumber, the tree hadn't woken up for around a thousand years. Even the current me had a chance against this demon tree.'

Anna looked at Noel's expression and said, "How about you ask me one question and I ask you one question? It's obvious that we don't want to tell our secrets, so a question about that is a no-no. Only general questions are allowed. What do you think?"

Noel contemplated for a moment. Although he knew about the time limit, knowing more about the rune itself was good, so he accepted the condition. "I'm alright with it."

"That's good. In that case, I'm going to change my clothes first." Anna nodded and returned to the tent.

While Noel was thinking about the question he wanted to ask, the light from the tent distracted him. There was a silhouette behind that thin cloth that separated them. Although she was an evil woman in his mind, Noel almost forgot that Anna was considered one of the top beauties in the kingdom.

Even if it was only in the form of shadow reflected by the light, her curvy body could be considered perfect and it was still growing. He didn't realize it until now.

"!!!" Noel hurriedly shook his head and screamed inwardly, 'What are you doing, Noel? That's your enemy. Don't have any weird thoughts about her!'

Noel ended up closing his eyes to calm his thoughts until Anna finished changing.

Fortunately, he managed to control his emotion that when Anna came out with a short pants and tight white shirt, he had no change of expression.

Noel maintained his calm face and sat near the campfire, asking, "Who will be the first to ask?"

"Since I'm so magnanimous, I'll allow you to ask the first question." Anna smirked.

"Then, I will take up your offer." Noel nodded, shamelessly accepting it.

"Wait, what?" Anna widened her eyes in surprise. "Shouldn't you suppose to say, 'Hmph. I am more generous than you, so I'll answer the question first?' That's what I thought you were going to say from your previous action."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Noel rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I'll be asking the question."