<h4>Chapter 12: Damien Devereux</h4>


    Ss slowly returned to consciousness, groaning. His head throbbed and he could taste blood in his mouth. He opened his eyes. Looking at himself, he could see that his body was bound in a red rope. A blood red rope.


    stair. Amp illuminated the area, casting flickering shadows across the ground. When he looked up, the face that was staring back at him was not the face of stair Devereux. He looked simr though. He had the same chiseled features and blue eyes. Maybe a brother or a cousin.


    A cruel smile twisted the man''s lips. "Hi, Ss is it? The name is Damien Devereux. My brother, stair, informed me of your transgression. You raised your hand against a Devereux. A mistake you will pay dearly for."


    "We are going to throw you over the side of Arcanium. The fall itself will kill you, and the carnivorous tiger fish will devour your body. There won''t be a trace of evidence left. You''ll just disappear like many have before you."


    [System Notification: Host in danger]


    [New Quest: Defeat the hostile students]


    Ss wanted toplete the quest and get out of there, but when he struggled to get out of the rope, it was no use. It held him too tightly. Three other students stood nearby, with their hoods drawn up, hiding their faces. It was then that Ss noticed the railing behind him marking the edge of one of Arcanium''s floating tforms.


    "Do you have anyst words? If you beg for forgiveness, I might change my mind." Damien smiled, revealing a perfect set of gleaming white teeth.


    Ss narrowed his eyes at Damien, his blood boiling. "People like you are the reason life is so difficult for everybody else. I would never beg for forgiveness from an elitist piece of garbage like you."


    "You insolent worm. You''ll regret those words on the way down." Damien leaned down, his face inches from Ss''s. "Throw him over the railing."


    [System Notification: Prolonged eye contact established. Initiating Soul Link]


    Ss''s vision blurred, his consciousness entering a state wholly unfamiliar to him. He could feel Damien''s mind intertwining with his, thoughts and emotions transferring to him. shes of Damien''s memory flickered at the front of Ss''s mind, a childhood of privilege and entitlement, and a deep seated arrogance instilled by his family''s status.


    Damien held his head and squeezed his eyes shut, his confident sneer faltering as he experienced glimpses of Ss''s life, living in a world unable and unwilling to ept him, being treated as defective, having a loved one ripped away from him.


    In that moment, their souls touched, illuminating the divide between their vastly different lives. One would think this would bring them closer together, create a bridge of understanding, but that couldn''t be further from reality. This look into each other''s souls only served to solidify their views about one another, fueling the fire of hatred between them.


    Damien''spanions tossed Ss over the side of Arcanium University. As he plummeted towards the water below, Ss struggled to break free of the rope binding him, but he just wasn''t strong enough. It would take superhuman strength to remove it, which he didn''t have. Not yet.


    When he hit the water, Ss broke several bones. The bones in his feet, legs, and ribs. One of his ribs punctured his lung.


    At the same time, Damien experienced all the sensations that Ss did through the soul link. The pain of the impact made Damien go unconscious.


    [Defeated stronger opponent. +10 Exp (42/40)]


    [You have leveled up! You are now Level 4. You have 20 affinity points and 4 ability points to distribute.]


    [Warning: Host is in critical condition. Death imminent.]


    [New Quest: Survive]


    ''Thanks,'' Ss thought through the pain. His mind was barely functioning at this point. ''Am I just going to die?''


    ''You are not going to die,'' a voice said. It was Evelyn, his mother. ''Now I need you to do exactly as I say. Go into your biomancy skill tree and buy the skill ''Regenerate.'' It will allow you to slowly heal yourself in exchange for mana. Do it now.''


    Ss could barely understand what she was saying, but he did what she said. He mentally navigated to the biomancy skill tree and purchased ''Regenerate.''


    His body slowly began to heal itself. He wasn''t out of the woods yet though. His body was fully submerged underwater, so he couldn''t breathe. Ss tried to move his body, but it still wasn''t healed enough.


    If only he could breathe underwater. That gave Ss an idea. He navigated back to the biomancy tree and opened up the full list of skills. He scrolled down until he found what he was looking for.


    In the skill tree, there was a skill titled ''Water Breathing.'' He figured since it was biological maniption and he was part leviathan, that he would be able to gain the ability to breathe underwater.


    When he saw the cost, his heart sank. "Cost: 30 affinity points," it said. Now what was he going to do? He was reaching the point in holding his breath where it was starting to hurt, and he still couldn''t move.


    He was going to die. There was nothing else he could do. It was hopeless. The clock was ticking down to zero. Pretty soon he would pass out from holding his breath, and when that happened, his body would instinctively try to breathe. His lungs would fill with water and he would drown.


    Just as Ss''s vision was starting to go dark, he saw a light, piercing the surface of the water. It was moving, searching. When the light hit him, it stopped.


    A metal object like a big dull hook plunged under the water and hooked underneath his arm, in his armpit. He was roughly pulled out of the water and flopped into a small row boat.


    There was barely enough room in the boat for one person, let alone two. Atop a pole sticking off the front of the boat, sat a litntern. A stranger leaned over him, cast in the orange glow of thentern. The man had a dark brown beard and a scar over one eye. He was bald and he was wearing the robe of an Arcanium professor. Ss could tell by the emblem over his heart.


    The man lightly pped Ss''s face. "Lad! Are you alright? Do you need a health potion?"


    Ss was at least halfway healed at this point. "Yeah, I think I''ll be ok." Ss spat up blood as he said that, his voice weak and raspy from the still punctured lung.


    "You don''t look alright," said the man. "Here, have myst health potion." He opened a vial and poured the red liquid down Ss''s throat.


    Ss swallowed and almost immediately he felt better. The bone pulled out of his lung, his lung resealed itself, and the bone put itself back in ce in his ribs.


    [Quest Completed: Lethal fall survived! +5 Exp]


    Ss coughed up some more blood and spat it over the side of the boat.


    "Whoa, don''t do that," the man had started to say, but it was toote. Ss had already done it. "Oh well. I guess we''re gonna have a fight on our hands soon. Tiger fish love the smell of blood. We may die, so I might as well introduce myself now. I''m Rathgar. Rathgar Ironforge. I''m the artifice professor at your school."


    "Nice to meet you, Professor Ironforge. I''m Ss ckwood." Ss wiped the blood from his mouth and wiped it on his robe this time.


    "Nice to meet you too, Ss. Just call me Rathgar. I wish we could''ve met under better circumstances. Are you any good with a harpoon?" Rathgar asked.


    "Never used one, but I''ll do my best," Ss said nervously.


    "Here theye!" Rathgar said, handing Ss a harpoon.


    [New Quest: Defeat the giant tigerfish (0/36)]


    The murky depths below the small rowboat churned with movement. A dark mass undted just beneath the surface. All of a sudden, sleek bodies breached the water, rows of razor sharp teeth glistening in the light of thentern.


    A school of giant tiger fish swarmed the boat. The scent of Ss''s blood had drawn them in. They circled the boat relentlessly. One by one, they started taking bites out of the underside of the boat.


    Small leaks began to spring up. Rathgar started thrusting his harpoon into the water repeatedly. "Just start stabbing Ss! We need to thin them out so they can''t sink us!"


    Ss just started plunging his harpoon into the water as fast as he could. His enhanced stats were really paying off here. He was using all his strength and agility to thrust the harpoon into the fish, but he didn''t even feel out of breath. His muscles were starting to burn a little, but that was it.


    [Giant Tigerfish defeated! +5 Exp]


    [Giant Tigerfish defeated! +5 Exp]


    [Giant Tigerfish defeated! +5 Exp]


    Those system notifications just kept going off over and over. Ss tried tuning it out, and the notifications stopped showing up.


    In the upper right corner of his vision was an icon with a number next to it, and the number kept going up. That was much better. Now he could check his notificationster, after he was out of danger.


    More leaks started springing up, sinking the boat faster. Ss and Rathgar were making decent headway. They had taken out around half of the school by now. Still the boat began to sink. The water was up to their ankles at this point.


    They kept working their way through the fish, and by the time the boat had almost sunk, they were down to five tigerfish. Then the boat lost its battle with gravity and sunk, plunging Ss and Rathgar into the water with the fish.