Chapter 973: Adventurer Guild

Keith lowered his head and nodded before turning around and running off. Kana pursed her lips and wondered if she was pushing too much on him. But she was also afraid to let him leave and do his own thing outside the palace until he was strong enough to protect himself. He was still young, and unlike Devan, he did not have death energy, nor did he have chaos energy like Mana and Nana. Kana was too afraid to form cores in him just yet because of how young he was. She wanted him to naturally take in the different energies and strengthen his body naturally before anything else.

"Don't worry, Mama. We will talk with him." Nana and Mana said as they hugged Kana's waist.

"Yeah, he will be fine. He just sees everyone else being so strong, so he feels like he is being left behind." Devan did not want his Mama to think she was not a good Mama.

"I will go talk with him…." Kana said as she disappeared, leaving everyone else there. Mana and Nana looked at their empty arms, and their eyes glowed. They couldn't wait to be as powerful as their Mama.

"You girls go cultivate. I need to go. Also, be a bit nice to Keith. Praise him when he does good." Devan said as he patted his sisters' heads. They all stuck their tongues out at him before giving him a hug. "Good luck Big Brother!" The two girls said before running off.

Devan smiled before heading out of the palace. In a small courtyard where a small lily pound stood, Keith, sat on a rock nearby and stared out over it. Kana appeared behind him and looked at the sulking little guy and walked over and jumped up on the same rock, and positioned herself behind him with her legs on either side of him, pulling him into a hug. "Keith. I know it is a lot to handle at your age. But Mama just wants you to grow up strong and able to defend yourself. The world is not a nice place. Whether you become Emperor or follow Mama in the future is up to you, but where we are going is going to be even worse than this place. The Devan Empire is at peace, and if you are to become Emperor, you will need to be strong enough to look down on everyone here. This is my wish for you. Because there will be a day when you fall in love, have a family, and move on. But no matter where you are or what universe you are in, Mama will always be a call away."

Keith curled up into Kana's embrace and closed his eyes. He loved the Scent of his Mama as it calmed him down no matter how he was feeling. She was saying a lot of things that were hard to understand, but the main gist of it was that his Mama wanted him to make his own choices in the future, and he had to be strong to do so. He could only guess that this was why she was teaching him so much. "I understand, Mama…."

Kana smiled and leaned down, and kissed her son on the head. She was happy that he seemed to understand at least some of what she was saying.

A while later, Kana finally found some free time for herself. She decided to sneak out of the palace for a while and headed to the adventurer guild disguised as her alter-ego, Sophia! She wore a mask and a black hooded cape and walked into the new Adventure guild.

While she could not go on long excursions, from time to time, Kana would come here to take a request and spend time away from the capital for a few hours before returning to the guild and turning in her request. She never did kill quests and only ever took the herb gathering quests as it was the most relaxing request one could get.

Normally these gathering requests were posted by alchemists seeking to restock their supply. Or the colleges and schools that were set up to give kids a chance for some real world experience. Of course, the school requests came with the limitation that one must be a student to take the request from such and such school.

It was a good way to boost the confidence and give the kids rewards for their hard work. On this day, Kana walked in in her bestest disguise that no one would ever recognize her in and walked up to the request board and pulled down a herb gathering request, and brought it to the counter to apply for it. The receptionist looked at the familiar figure and sighed as she said: "You maj… Ahem…. Sophia, I haven't seen you for a while."

"Ahaha… I was busy taking care of my grandmother, she gets sick often. I will be taking this request out today." Kana put the request paper down for the receptionist to look at. The receptionist, who went by the name of Pa Na, took it and read it over. "Mmm…. Your Hi… Ahem… Sophia, you should really think about doing more quests per day, or you will never rank up at this rate."

"It's fine. I only do this to get away, you know? Grandma is always nagging me to get married." Kana replied.

Pa Na's lips twitched. She wondered if the empress really liked rubbing in the fact that she was married to the most handsome man on the whole ascended plane! "I see…" While she so wished to yell out and cause a ruckus, she held it back since the empress was supposedly undercover. But she did wonder when the empress would think about disguising her tail, wings, and horns. "Then let's get this set up for you, shall we?"

"That would be great, thank you!" Kana replied with a small bow. After she got her request stamped and was told it was okay to go ahead and do the request, Kana smiled and took off. After Kana left a young man with a smile on his face walked over and leaned on the Counter. "Pa Na, it must be hard to deal with the empress like this."

"No… I just wonder if she truly thinks she is hiding her identity. Does she not know we all have a hard time trying to ignore the fact that the empress of the Devan Empire is coming to do a guild request!?"