《Domain Warz》


 Preface

    This is just the preface. If you don''t want to read some boring author nonsense, just skip to chapter 1.


    Hello dear readers. So, I¡¯m starting a new book. This one is going to be slightly different from my first book ¡®Techno Cultivator¡¯ but is still based in the techno cultivator¡¯s universe. You¡¯ll know why if you read the first book.


    In saying that, it¡¯s unnecessary to read the first book in the Techno Universe, because this book will be completely ... mostly ... slightly different. Although it has some links to my first story it won¡¯t reduce your ability to understand what¡¯s going on and they''re more akin to easter eggs for my older readers.


    In fact, it will probably be slightly more enjoyable if you didn¡¯t read my first book. Then you won¡¯t suspect all the surprises later on!


    The theme of this book is closely linked to a few themes often seen in computer games. You don¡¯t need to worry if you¡¯re unfamiliar with computer game lingo because I¡¯ll try and make a comment on any game terms I throw out.


    Unlike James in my first book, our MC isn¡¯t going to be entirely evil ... entirely? I mean he¡¯s definitely a hero this time! His conscience is as clean and pure as the Virgin Mary¡¯s and his heart is as pure as gold.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    I¡¯d like to add, I¡¯m trying to do this novel with changing perspectives as a writers experiment. If you find it too confusing or difficult to follow, then let me know and I will change it back to 3rd person narrative similar to my first book.


    To help readers adjust more easily, I¡¯ll try to structure my writing with some helpful demarcations for these confusing changes.


    >< Will indicate the beginning of a section of First Person inner monologue.


    ARGH! MY EYES! THE SUN IS BURNING MY EYES!


    <> Will indicate the change to a First Person Narrative.


    The sun was so bright it burnt my eyes!


    -- Will indicate the change to a Third Person narrative.


    The sun was so bright that it stung his eyes. In his opinion it was burning them, but that¡¯s because he¡¯s a massive pussy.


    However, it will all probably end up something more like;


    _______________________________________________


    Because I''m dragging across from SOL were I usually post first, and they have some more rigid formatting rules over there. From the chapters I''ve posted there already, no one seems to have a problem following the changes.


    Similar to my first book, I will probably upload a few horrible maps and other reference material as the book develops, so everybody can look forward to that.


    Lastly, because I work as a contractor, I will have times where I may disappear for about a week, so there won''t really be a fixed posting schedule. If you''re the type that prefers to wait until the book is completely uploaded, then this won''t bother you. Everyone else, apologies in advance.


    Dear Readers, please enjoy my new butchery of literature, Domain Warz.

 Chapter 1: Welcome to Domain Warz

    The year 1001 PH. 01/01/01. Today was a day like any other for me. I awoke at 8:30 am and marched off to high school like any other teenager. Tired and late.


    Hey! I can¡¯t be blamed for that! Do you not realise how addictive gaming is! With the recent release of Uplink technology, where a person¡¯s conciseness is actually sucked into the program, and you experience it like real life in another world, almost no one wants to sleep anymore.


    I won¡¯t deny, this technology is still somewhat lacking. Sensations are dull, and things like taste and smell still can¡¯t be fully processed. However, who would want to lose out the chance to fly! Or better yet, to slay a monster with your bare hands? Superhuman strength? God Like Power?


    No one would pass up this opportunity!


    Not only that, but there are tonnes of other important applications. Therapy, giving blind people a chance to see or disabled people the chance to use all their limbs. It can also connect everyone easily. The glorious Data Stream allows everyone to connect together easily.


    Before Uplink tech, everyone had to interact with the Data Stream through digital media devices. Now we can interact with it by just Linking Up and surfing the data stream with our mind! How convenient is that!


    ¡°!@#$¡±


    Err ... what¡¯s that sound?


    ¡°Murphy!¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± I said very cleverly.


    Hmm, it appears I drifted off in my own little world again. That¡¯s becoming a very disturbing habit. My inner monologue is like a book written by an Alzheimer¡¯s patient. Seems to just continue on endlessly and deviate constantly. I wonder if this is from Linking Up too often. Perhaps I should...


    ¡°Murphy!¡±


    ¡°What? Oh! Seelie, I didn¡¯t see you there. Wait ... why are you running late?¡±


    Walking beside me as I dazed off into space mindlessly is my childhood friend Seelie. We have lived nearby each other for as long as I can remember. Which isn¡¯t as far back as I should be able to remember. If 6 years can be considered a long time. Everything before that, although I have some vague memories of that time now and then, I make an effort to forget.


    After I had moved to Capital City 6 years ago, I shed my past like a snake skin and started a new life. It has been a while since I even thought about the time I spent back at ... Forget it! What was I thinking about a moment ago?


    Ahh Seelie, oh Seelie. What should I even say about this girl? She¡¯s rather strange in a sense. She¡¯s quite short. I¡¯ve never measured her, but if I were going to guess her height it would be ... shorter than I am. I¡¯m not a measuring laser! Actually, I wonder how tall I am now.


    I just went through a big growth spurt, so I¡¯m probably just short of 6 foot now. Not as tall as Uncle Calligso but I¡¯m catching up! That hairy old bastard better watch out, or I¡¯ll be looking down on him soon and then...


    ¡°Oi! Stop fucking daydreaming!¡±


    Once again, rudely awakened from my reverie.


    ¡°Sorry, I was just thinking about stuff. So, why are you running late?¡±


    ¡°Ughh...¡± Hmm, it¡¯s that sound she makes when I¡¯ve made her repeat herself. I was probably distracted. I should pay attention this time.


    ¡° ... and it took me nearly an hour to finish it! Then I remembered I had to finish my history assignment...¡±


    Hmm doesn¡¯t sound important. What was I thinking about before? Oh yeah ... Wait. History Assignment? Shit!


    ¡°Hey Seelie what did you do your assignment on?¡±


    Uh-oh. She¡¯s giving that look like she¡¯s trying to peel my skin off with her eyes. Just smile warmly like you¡¯re making polite conversation and not planning to pilfer her assignment. Hmm, that doesn¡¯t seem right. Her eyes are squinting even tighter. Pretty sure she knows.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t do the assignment?¡±


    Yeap ... she knows.


    ¡°Errmm. I guess not?¡±


    Smooth. Super smooth. Didn¡¯t even need to come up with a lie I¡¯ll have to remember later. After all, Seelie already knows Barf, my stupid, ungrateful dog, refuses to eat any paper. No matter how hard I try to train him. The dog ate my homework would never work.


    ¡°I did my assignment on the speculations of the Great Sage and the New Beginning. Today¡¯s the first of the first of the first. You know that means it¡¯s the day the Great Sage said the world would change.¡±


    The who and who? Great Sage? Is this a terrible movie plot? I don¡¯t remember anything like this.


    ¡°The who?¡± So articulate. My tongue is in fine form today.


    ¡°Sighh. Sometimes I wonder about you, Murphy. Do you not watch any news streams? Or check Social? Everyone¡¯s talking about it. Today¡¯s the first day of the new millennium. It marks 1000 PH - post-holocaust. 1000 years since the holocaust of the old world order and 997 years since the Great Sage cleared the planet of radiation and rescued the Originators.¡±


    ¡°Originators? You mean the people that survived after humanity made a valiant effort of fast tracking extinction? You don¡¯t actually believe those old fairy tales do you?¡±


    Oh boy, there¡¯s that look. Shouldn¡¯t have said that. Prepare yourself for a long lecture.


    ¡°There¡¯s factual evidence you big dork! They have eyewitness accounts, and endless numbers of scientists have proved that the technologies back in that day were far too lacking for anything like clearing the entire planet of radiation. Not to mention how all the wildlife and forests seemed to suddenly pop up out of nowhere!


    ¡°They don¡¯t even follow the same genetic structure of biological life forms from before the holocaust! Not even radiation of that magnitude could magically cause such diverse life forms to just suddenly grow in a period of 10 years!¡±


    Oh boy, she¡¯s still just rearing up. This one¡¯s going to be long. Let¡¯s just do what I usually do.


    ¡°Yes, yes.¡±


    Ha! Classic. Now just nod your head with a pondering expression a few times, annnd ... there we go! She¡¯s back into lecture mode and not paying attention to me at all now. Hmm ... what was I thinking about before...


    <hr>


    This continued on for some time. It wasn¡¯t unusual for the sensation of time between leaving my house and reaching the school to stretch out from the usual ten minute walk into an eternity when I was walking with Seelie.


    I often felt like I learnt more in that ten minutes than I did in my entire school career. However, that is neither here nor there.


    I should introduce myself. My name is Murphy 21.08.31.0. I¡¯m sure you¡¯re wondering so I¡¯ll tell you. Everyone¡¯s last name end¡¯s in a number. It¡¯s part of the laws of the world since the Colonies united over 800 years ago.


    It met with quite a bit of resistance back then, but eventually, they passed it. In the new world, everyone¡¯s last name is a designation of their Colony number and family number. My colony is number 21 of 78, and my family unit is number 08.31. That means that my family unit is descended from the eighth line of ancestry that founded this colony, and I am of the thirty-first generation.


    The zero at the end, however, is the greatest blotch on my existence. It tells the world that I am an adopted child. The other children in my family are all denoted with a number signifying their birth order.


    Juwan, for example, is the eldest son. He¡¯s 20, three years older than my 17-year-old self. His full name would be Juwan 28.08.31.1. Family lineage is a scarily important thing to people in this world. From what I remember of a long lecture given to me by Seelie, this naming system came about due to rampant incest.


    When the world was still being recolonised, and humans were starting to get their shit together again, women became a heavily sought after commodity. Everyone needed manpower, and so children were a sought after resource.


    Because pretty much all law and order had been wiped out by huge nuclear warheads, many people lost to their baser desires. Then the mutations started appearing. At first, it was standard stuff, like growths and deformities. But suddenly a child was born from an incestuous couple that defied all reason.


    It had strange powers and as it grew it became more and more powerful. It was a great and tragic thing. Because with great power, came complete madness. The child reached 18 and then began enslaving colonies like some vicious warlord.


    It got worse after that. Numerous children like this appeared. Strangely, only from incest. They all grew up with powers, and then went mad. The first child, referred to in history only as The First Abomination, grew wary of these other children and went on a rampage to snuff them out.


    He ruled for nearly 150 years before he finally died from some unknown intervention. All witness accounts simply referred to it as a heavenly tribulation in which lightning rained on him like water until his corpse was nothing but ash.


    A similar scene played out every few hundred years like some strange curse. It wasn¡¯t unusual for one of these children to pop up out of nowhere, cause a huge war and kill millions, then suddenly die from the Tribulation.


    However, once again I digress. So after that, everyone agreed there was some strange unexplainable phenomenon involved and tried to put a stop to it. A tattoo was invented that was carried in a parent¡¯s genes.


    When two adults copulate, the child will carry on the father¡¯s last name, with the order of birth and generation changing.


    The reason why being adopted is such a headache is that it means before I was part of this family, I never had a genetic tattoo. It means my true parents and the nature of my birth was in question. As such, being a Zero meant that people viewed me as an outsider. A freak. A potential Abomination.


    Which is why I was always very closed off from everyone and preferred to live in my own little headspace.


    It was also the reason I was so enamoured with Uplink technology. In the DataStream, I can be anyone I want to be. No one will ever know my true identity and question my origins.


    Apart from Uncle Calligso, who is my adoptive father, and Seelie, who is just ... unusual, everyone else looks on me with trepidation and suspicion. Even after I turn 18, which is universally considered the Day of Madness for most Abominations, people will still treat me as a ticking bomb.


    Anyway, I¡¯ve completely derailed from my original intention of introducing myself. My name is Murphy 28.08.31.0. I¡¯m a 6-foot male. My interests revolve around gaming and technology. I¡¯m adopted. I¡¯m a Multi. My skins quite tan, many of my features resemble Pure Bred Caucasians but have distinguishing features from a few different backgrounds, such as pure black hair that¡¯s like straw from some Asian heritage, clear blue eyes, thick bushy eyebrows and a slightly crooked nose.


    My jawline would be considered strong, and my build is neither stocky nor lanky. I¡¯m rather thin and wiry, but overall, if I put on some nice clothes and smiled occasionally I would probably be considered handsome.


    If you¡¯re curious, which I know you are, Multi¡¯s are people that have a lot of traits from multiple genetic ancestors. It¡¯s like having put the DNA of 20 different nationalities in a blender and then pulling out a finished product.


    Pure Bred, on the other hand, are the families which try to keep their line of descendants pure. Although there are few to nil ¡®pure¡¯ family trees, they like to try. People of that nature tend to have a very over inflated ego and like to lord it over us dirty commoner multi¡¯s.


    Although they used phrases like ¡®mixed blood¡¯ or ¡®lucky mix¡¯ to insult multi¡¯s, they are generally seen as families that inbreed and so are looked down on as much as people like me, who are adopted. The only reason they get away with it is because they have enough ¡®pure¡¯ relatives with more than 3 separations on their family trees.


    Technically it¡¯s not considered incest if you¡¯re rooting your cousin three times removed.


    Anyway, I digress. This story isn¡¯t completely focused on the state of the world. Instead, it¡¯s focused on my path in the greatest and most incredible game the world has ever known. Domain Warz.


    This isn¡¯t like any game you¡¯ve ever heard of. It¡¯s very different. This game bends the rules of the universe and changes everything we know and understand.


    On the first of the first of the first, 01/01/01, while I sat in class daydreaming about getting back home and Linking Up, a bizarre phenomenon occurred around the world.


    The 78 Colonies all discovered a box. In every colony was a single, black, mundane looking box. It was about 6 feet high and was smooth as glass on every side. It was about half a meter in width and length with rounded edges, and it looked completely foreign.


    It just fell out of the sky in the middle of the day. No one knew where it came from. No one had even detected it, it just appeared at midday as if it had always been there. The strange part though, was when someone approached it.


    You¡¯d suddenly feel a weird sensation and then it would spit out another little black box about the size of an eraser. No one else could touch this little black box except the person who felt the odd sensation.


    In a matter of hours, these boxes were cordoned off by the Protectors, which is pretty much just new world police. Then all sorts of government officials started probing them and inspecting them. However, it was too late to stop those few thousand first boxes from disappearing along with their owners.


    The world went into a panic and uproar. Great Sage fanatics believed these boxes to be a gift sent by the great sage. Scientists had no idea what it was and claimed that for the moment it was indestructible. Conspiracy Theorists believed this was the premise of an alien colonisation of Earth.


    Many things all started happening at once.


    By the time I left school that afternoon, it was already under great public scrutiny, and everyone knew about the black box. Out of curiosity, Seelie and I went to investigate. The black box had appeared in the colony centre, which was a huge market district in the middle of the colony city. It was also about the same time I arrived that the box started doing something different.


    Apparently, the boxes were greatly displeased with the Protectors limiting people from visiting them. So the Protectors just disappeared. One minute, they were there, the next minute, they were gone. Naturally, in a situation like that, panic became the norm, and normal conscious thoughts left everyone as they trampled each other to run.


    About half an hour later, when everyone realised nothing was happening and were all hiding as far away from the box as possible and watching it from within the DataStream, the Protectors suddenly reappeared. They then left. Without a word, they just walked off with strange looks on their faces.


    Then all the big head honcho¡¯s of the 78 Colonies came to the box and suddenly disappeared. They then reappeared and also left. It was the most mind-boggling thing anyone had ever seen.


    Another half hour after that, the black boxes were declared safe, and people were free to approach them. At first, no one had the courage. All sorts of strange conspiracies were flying around about the box.


    At the moment, no one who had interacted with the box could explain what the situation with the little gift boxes was. None of the Protectors or leaders of the colonies could explain what had happened to them. So everyone was suspicious.


    At a moment like this, with curiosity building like the waters of a dam, everyone was waiting expectantly for the first test dummy to step out and get disappeared.


    Being either incredibly brave or a huge idiot, I was the first person to go to the box in my colony. Don¡¯t ask me why. I already explained. It was me just being a huge idio ... being incredibly brave. Also, it was a result of my total lack of self-control when it comes to my curiosity.


    I¡¯m glad I¡¯m not a cat, otherwise my complete lack of restraint would most likely have gotten me killed long before now. Reflecting back on this action, I¡¯m now very pleased with my ... bravery.


    As I stepped in front of the box, I felt a very invasive feeling. Like a thousand perverts were watching me naked. Just as quickly as it came, a little black eraser sized box was released from the ... I think I¡¯m going to have to call it something. Dispensary? Nah. How about ... the ... you know what, strange black box will just have to stick.


    On the other hand, I quickly named my personal little black eraser. Little strange black box ... let¡¯s put some effort in this time. Little Black. Nope, sounds like I¡¯m naming a cat. How about ... Artefact. BOOM! Yeah, that¡¯ll work perfectly.


    So, I received my Artefact and turned to see Seelie standing next to me with a very firm but nervous expression. It appears I wasn¡¯t the only one that raced here to be first.


    Very soon, Seelie had her own Artefact, and we both rapidly fled the scene like a pair of bandits.


    We then spent a very fruitless afternoon inspecting our Artefacts. In the end, discovering nothing. At about 9 pm, Seelie had to return home, before too many strange rumours started. Hmm, before too many more strange rumours started. That would probably be more accurate.


    However, even after Seelie left, I continued to stare expectantly at my Artefact. Waiting for something to happen.


    In the end, nothing happened, and I fell asleep disappointed. Come morning, I woke up early and then continued staring. If I could stare this blasted artefact to death, I would have melted it into a hot mess by now.


    My staring was so intense my eyes grew red and began to water. At last, I could no longer maintain the endless staring match and decided to risk going for breakfast.


    My adopted family¡¯s home was rather lavish. It was a 4 story house. Me and my two younger sisters stayed on the 2nd floor. My elder brother and sister stayed in the 3rd floor and Uncle Calligso, and his wife and mistress, stayed on the 4th floor.


    The first floor had everything else. Lounge room, kitchen, dining room, laundry, and patio. The whole nine yards. Which metaphorically means we lacked for nothing. I very quietly descended to the kitchen like a thief in the night ... even though it was morning, and I made a conscious effort to reduce my presence out of fear that my adopted siblings would notice me...


    Unfortunately, as excellent as I have become at being almost unnoticeable, my eldest brother had the countering trait, which was something like an ¡®adopted radar¡¯. The moment I, the adopted one, stepped foot onto communal soil, the first floor, he appeared like a ghost from the shadows.


    <hr>


    ¡°Little brother.¡± With a smile as sickening as paedophiles, Juwan beamed his pearly whites at Murphy. His voice sounded jovial in his greeting, and if said by anyone else with that tone of voice, it would most definitely sound friendly.


    To Murphy, however, it sounded like a thousand cats trapped in a little room filled with cat pheromones. Incredibly disturbing.


    The moment Murphy heard that pleasant voice, his body tensed like a spring in preparation to make flight. Cold sweat dripped down his back, and his palms became clammy. Just as he stepped forward to make his escape, a strong hand slapped down on his shoulder and restricted his movement.


    Murphy put on a forced smile as he turned to greet this huge asshole.


    ¡°Juwan. It¡¯s good to see you. Don¡¯t mind me, I¡¯m just going to grab some breakfast.¡± After hurriedly forcing that out, Murphy immediately turned back to leave. That large hand, however, remained in place and firmly restricted Murphy.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be in such a rush little brother. Come, it¡¯s been a while since we practised together. Join me in the yard for a quick spar. It¡¯ll make your breakfast worth it.¡±


    Unfortunately, in this situation, Murphy had tried many things to escape. Every time he came up with an excuse, he would later get cornered on the way home from school by numerous of Juwan¡¯s ¡®good friends¡¯ and beaten within an inch of his life.


    The spar in question was a match in martial arts. Calligso was a martial arts genius and had travelled the 78 colonies and mastered every art known to man. He then passed these teachings on to his children.


    Of all of his children, the one with the best aptitude was not his eldest, or any of his blood-related children. It was Murphy. Unfortunately, it was because of Murphy¡¯s talent that Calligso had adopted him. Murphy knew this fact sat on Juwan¡¯s heart like a heavy blade.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    The more attention Calligso showed this scum Zero, the more Juwan wished to bully him. Making this situation worse, Murphy couldn¡¯t resist. Calligso encouraged his children to spar regularly to train them, and Juwan would never allow Murphy to resist his beating.


    Although Murphy could resist, the last time he did that he was hit by a car and hospitalised. A day later, his elder brother returned home from a ¡®business trip¡¯ with a large ding in his hover car. Of course, Murphy was certain it was Juwan, but it couldn¡¯t be proved.


    As this situation arose once again, Murphy was forced to capitulate. He still had a twinge in his leg from the ¡®accident¡¯ and had no plans to attempt surviving another car accident. As such, although Juwan fought like a bitch, Murphy let him wail on him. If nothing else, it helped him train his pain tolerance and body endurance.


    Half an hour later, Murphy returned to his room with a bowl of cereal and face with a split lip and eyebrow. He occasionally wiped some blood away with a tissue and ate his cereal as if this was the most normal thing in the world.


    Meanwhile, he was secretly holding in the anguish he felt at living under the same roof as that sickening bastard Juwan. Well, that, and also he was pretty sure one of his ribs was broken.


    As he sat back on the bed, his eyes were automatically drawn back to the Artefact, sitting in a very lonely fashion atop a desk near the wall. Without thinking, Murphy strolled forward to once again pick it up, and death stare it for a while.


    As he reached the desk, his vision grew blurry, and he reflexively wiped the blood from his split eyebrow with his thumb. He then reached out to pick up the Artefact. Just before he did, he stopped. Moving to wipe the blood on his thumb off, a very strange scene followed.


    The blood on his thumb stayed there. Like it was just stuck in the air and couldn¡¯t move. Murphy looked at his thumb in shock, only to glance back and see that little bit of blood get sucked into the Artefact.


    Moments later, everything went white, and he heard the words;


    ¡°Welcome to Domain Warz!¡±


    <hr>


    What the hell! Where am I? Hmmm, all white space in that direction. And white space over there too. Everything is just empty whiteness. Oh god! I¡¯m not blind am I?! Oh, nope never mind. I can see my hands. Hmm, that¡¯s odd.


    Hoh shit! My hands are fading away! Their like half invisible hands! Is this what life is like after death? I wonder what that voice before was. Domain Warz? That sounds like a game to me. Maybe some powerful being from the stars abducted me?


    Oh no! It was the artefact! Seelie! Damnit! How do I get out of here!


    ¡®beep.¡¯


    ¡°Hello and welcome to Domain Warz. The latest and greatest in inter-dimensional entertainment. Your Soul has been registered to your Dimension Key. Please do not lose this key, it is the only way for you to enter the game. I am the Game Master, Jasmine.


    ¡°Would you like to register an account and build a new character?¡±


    Uhhhh ... What? Wait! WHAT?! It¡¯s a game, right? It¡¯s definitely a game, right? These strange little boxes are all just part of a cosmic entertainment system? What the hell! Wait, how do I get out, does that lady¡¯s voice know how to get out. Ahh great. I¡¯m trapped in purgatory with a random woman¡¯s voice.


    Sighh. She sure does sound beautiful though. I¡¯ll bet she¡¯s really pretty. Wait! No time for daydreaming. I suppose I have no choice but to ask her.


    ¡°Um ... hello?¡± God, I¡¯m smooth. If they gave out prizes for articulate youths, I would be first place.


    ¡°Hello, would you like to register an account and build a new character?¡±


    ¡°No. I want to go out.¡±


    ¡°Very well then. However, if you leave before setting up an account, your Dimension Key will be logged as inactive and returned to the Key Receptacle where you acquired it. If you¡¯d like to register another key, your soul will first need to undergo 100 years of indentured servitude to ¡®Dark Brotherhood Games & Co¡¯.


    ¡°Are you sure you wish to quit now?¡±


    Not when you put it like that I don¡¯t. Sigh, all these latest games are filled with traps to suck customers in. Whatever happened to the good old days when you only had to pay once and could play free forever. Crappy pay to play games.


    ¡°Then, I guess I¡¯ll make an account?¡±


    ¡°Excellent choice. Would you like to customise your race and appearance?¡±


    ¡°Um ... no?¡±


    ¡°Very well, would you like to set a new name for your Avatar?¡±


    A new name? I guess I¡¯ll just go with the game name I usually pick.


    ¡°Murphy Law.¡±


    ¡°Registering your Account.¡±


    ¡®Beep.¡¯


    ¡°Collating Data based on body and mind.¡±


    ¡®Beep.¡¯


    Oh? What¡¯s that? Some kind of status screen? Hmm, it seems to follow my vision around. Let¡¯s see.


    ¡°Oi, oi, oi! What¡¯s going on with my stats?! Why are they all so messed up? Lady voice ... Uhh ... Jasmine! What¡¯s wrong with my stats?!¡±


    ¡°Your stats appear normal Murphy Law. If you¡¯d like, you can review the ¡®Game Guide¡¯ once you are in the game so as to understand them properly. Now, please enjoy your time in Domain Warz.¡±


    GAGH!! My Eyes! I can¡¯t see! Ahh, what the hell is going on with this place! Oh, wait ... what the hell? Why do my eyes suddenly feel so good?! Wait, is that the Hurts So Good Special Trait? What the hell?!


    <hr>


    The fact that my eyes felt good while my retina was being burnt out was rather disturbing. To say that a day would come when being hurt would feel so good ... sigh ... why me?


    Anyway, it only lasted for a minute before I found myself standing in the middle of a rundown prehistoric village. The houses were made of stone and thatch, the road was all dirt. In every direction, all I could see was the middle ages. My clothes had at some point changed into some dirty old peasant clothes made of deteriorating cotton. Also, my shoes were gone.


    The only thing I had with me was a little cotton backpack.


    I stood at a crossroad in the village, which was eerily quiet. The fires were still lit near various houses, and smoke was wafting from chimneys every now and then. Suddenly, another bright light flashed. My body collapsed like a tower of sand being hit by the waves of the sea.


    I started seizing and flopping around like a dead fish and frothing at the mouth. It felt like a whole bunch of random information had just been forced into my head. I want to say that I had the worst headache of my life, except the ache was so pleasant!


    Unnatural. This sensation of feeling good when I should be feeling pain. Even my body that was violently seizing felt rather nice. Like I was enjoying a warm bath.


    When I was finished flopping about, I stood up warily and wiped the froth from my chin. I then had a strange inspiration. I willed it, and I soon found myself floating in that white space again. For as far as I could see, there was nothing but whiteness.


    Then inspiration hit me again, and I waved my hand. With that, a bunch of strange holographic screens started popping up around me.


    The initial stats shown when I completed my character creation was there, as well as stats and readings from all sorts of other things. A visible recreation of my body was floating around me as well, covered in all sorts of numbers and readings. I¡¯m assuming that those figures were showing the distribution of my strength and endurance around my body.


    The most eye-catching one was a figure with a little line pointing to my crotch. It was flashing in bright red letters letting me know that I was a ¡®VIRGIN!¡¯. To have this being so blatantly pointed out by the game system made me feel somewhat embarrassed.


    Only for that embarrassment to feel slightly good. It disgusted me to no end. At the same time this negative feeling suddenly became a pleasant feeling, I noticed the screen displaying my special traits light up.


    I also saw a subcategory of endurance light up called ¡®mental fortitude¡¯. It slowly increased in experience from 800 and kept climbing.


    So that was how it worked then. Even negative feelings could increase my endurance stats. This was both a joyful occasion and a disturbing occasion. I felt very mixed emotions regarding this weird trait I¡¯d been given in the game.


    Having these mixed emotions only made the speed my mental fortitude grew at increase. I couldn¡¯t help but sigh at my bad luck. What the hell kind of game was this anyway?!


    With that in mind, I explored all my stat screens for a while more. Observing a real-time display of all my faculties really was a depressing thing. Especially when I observed the strength stat of my right hand.


    When I focused my attention onto that stat, it suddenly sprung open and displayed a list of things that the right hand did for increasing the strength stat. When I read that the highest stat booster, at 64%, was masturbation, my mental fortitude seemed to jump almost 200 points in a single go.


    At the same time as all this self-observation was happening, and the ¡®Please Sir¡¯ trait was raising my mental fortitude, my Masochism stat was slowly growing as well. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to stop the stupid thing.


    After a while longer of this, I eventually decided to stop my self-torture and return. I opened my eyes and found myself still standing in the same spot. Only now, I saw a little peasant girl running towards me with big watery eyes!


    ¡°Please young adventurer! Help me! Our village was attacked by bandits! Please help our villagers to fend off the bandits!¡±


    So far, this is a very ordinary plot for the start of a game. It was all very realistic though. Nothing like the Uplink technology I¡¯m used to. Everything felt real. Like I was actually standing here. Even the ... nice feeling from the headache felt real. No Uplink tech I¡¯d ever heard of was that good.


    After considering my options for a while, I decided that since I¡¯m already here, I might as well play for a little bit. I¡¯ll just skip school today.


    That thought in mind, I decide to get into character a bit and be a good hero for the little damsel.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry young lady, show me the way! I¡¯ll help you rescue your village!¡±


    ¡®Ping!¡¯You have accepted the beginner¡¯s quest, Help the Villagers!


    The little girl with big tear filled eyes looked up at me and nodded her head. She then grabbed my hand and started running towards the end of the village. After a while, I found myself following the girl into a forest. It was only a little while until we came upon the entrance to a dark cave.


    I very valiantly told the little girl to stay outside and be careful. Then like the heroes in the tales, I marched on into the cave.


    The moment I stepped into the cave I saw a few wooden cages filled with people and about 5 bandit looking guys all sitting around a fire eating something.


    After slightly closer inspection, I realised they were eating the people. The bandits were eating the god damn people!


    My mind shook at the sight! What the hell kind of game was this! What kind of game actually has people literally eating other people? Only after this thought did I come to realise that these bandits weren¡¯t ¡®people¡¯ people. Rather, they were some kind of ¡®beast¡¯ people.


    Their pupils were long slits reticent of a cat¡¯s eye, and their teeth were all jagged and vicious. More disturbing was the strange pitch black nails that upon closer consideration were like claws.


    This, however, was a game. Therefore, I should technically be unafraid of such a situation. Instead, I was terrified! I could smell the irony acrid stench of blood and hear the crunching sound of the sharp fang-like teeth crushing bone.


    Before the chance for my terror to completely paralyse me came, I instead felt it become a somewhat calming balm on my soul. My mental fortitude was skyrocketing just from witnessing this scene.


    What should have been fear became determination. Very out of character for my usually reserved self, I clenched my fists and walked into the cave like I wasn¡¯t even slightly affected by the scene.


    The 5 bandits all looked at me in synchronise. I then heard a strange ¡®chit chit chit¡¯ sound and as if by spoken agreement they all stood and started rushing towards the mouth of the cave ... or rather towards me.


    I felt my It Hurts So Good reaching its limits as my terror intensified. I finally felt just the tiniest bit of fear cloud my calm determination. I continued to walk forward slowly. The moment they had gotten closer, the leading bandit creature leapt towards me like some animal.


    It was almost laughable watching it trying to just jump straight towards me while I was watching it. The first rule of fight club is to ... wait that¡¯s not right, I meant the first rule to fighting is to never overextend. This is the most basic mistake that all rookies make. They charge up for a big attack and for anyone with some experience become like an open book.


    When they finally strike, they¡¯ve put all their power into their attack, leaving them wide open for an attack.


    As if to verify that concept, I simply sidestepped the beast bandit that had launched itself then smashed out with my left hand. My fist struck the beast bandit in the temple, and it lost consciousness. The next attacker finally arrived and swung its big claw fingers at me in a slashing fashion.


    A simple step back then forwards and I had evaded the childlike strike. An uppercut came from my right arm and flipped the bandit into the air. In a very unfortunate fashion, it seemed to land at an odd angle on its head, and a crisp ¡®crack¡¯ sound echoed through the cave.


    While the other three bandits were stunned for a brief second, I slid forward and spun my body. My heel came down on the neck of the next bandit, and his body toppled like a sack of shit. Following this rotating motion, my axing foot landed, and my right foot flicked up connecting with the jaw of another bandit.


    In this brief moment, I cleared 4 bandits. I don¡¯t mean to brag, but my martial arts are rather good. At last, the only remaining bandit seemed to realise its situation as it started backing away. The peasants in the cages had realised what was going on by now and were shouting and rattling their cages like animals.


    At first, I couldn¡¯t quite make out what they were saying, until an incredibly sharp pleasurable feeling suddenly came from my neck. It was then followed by a burning pain when the pain overwhelmed my ¡®It Hurts So Good¡¯ trait.


    ¡°ARGH!!¡±


    That¡¯s me screaming. My hand came up to my neck as my eyes filled with shock. I felt soft hair attached to a very standard shaped head. I now realised I¡¯d just been bitten. What the hell! When did one get behind me!


    I grabbed the hair and pulled. The pain in my neck intensified and my hand reefed the head away. I turned to see that sweet teary eyed little girl staring at me like and angry savage. Her eyes had turned from big watery doe eyes into sinister slitted cat¡¯s eyes. Her mouth was filled with razor sharp fangs and dripping blood.


    Her hand whipped out with absurd speed, and her arm was just long enough for her claws to reach me. I felt the mixed sensations of burning pain and pleasure streaking across my face over my left eye. My fear and anger exploded, and without restraint, I whipped the little beast girl about with her hair and smashed her into the rocky cave wall. Then I pulled back and whipped her tiny little body around to smash it into the cave wall again.


    After I vented my frustration for a while and calmed down, Hurts So Good finally was able to cover up most of the negative emotions and pain. My reddened, maddened eyes slowly turned and locked onto the last beast bandit. It had a rather odd expression. I imagine I must have looked somewhat frightening with three long scratch marks crossing my face and blood slowly dribbling out of the bite mark on my shoulder.


    Without conscious consideration, I sprinted forth and struck it in the face with a kick. As it fell I then quickly followed up with more strikes. I won¡¯t lie, maybe Hurts So Good still wasn¡¯t strong enough to contain all my feelings at the moment.


    So I vented some more. After some searching a found a few weapons and other equipment. As was standard in a game, there¡¯s always some loot in caves and dungeons. Every time I touched something and willed it, it would get sucked into my ¡®inventory¡¯. This knowledge was another gift from the seizure-inducing light when I first appeared in the village.


    I closed my eyes and started looking through my inventory. Old sack. Burnt Stick. Broken dagger. Worn Belt. Shoes with holes in them.


    It was pretty much all garbage. After some more thought, I pulled the broken dagger out. With a brief flash of light, it materialised in my hand. I then relentlessly ¡®finished¡¯ all the Beast Bandits. Making sure they were done with.


    Strangely, each time I killed one, a white mist would flow out of their body and then into mine. After closer inspection, I realised these were experience points. These 6 Beast Bandit creatures all gave me about 5 points. The girl bandit gave me 15. She was clearly the greatest threat.


    I then looted the corpses of their equipment. Leather Belts, Leather Pants, Leather Jerkin. I used the cloth of the girls dress and bandaged my bleeding neck. Although I was feeling somewhat giddy from the blood loss, Hurts So Good seemed to be negating that slightly as well.


    After this, I approached the cages. Everyone was dressed in rather shabby hides. They were the epitome of feudalist style villagers. A very gentle looking old man, with the help of a young girl, stood up slowly and approached the edge of the cage.


    ¡°Young friend. Many thanks for your timely rescue. They¡¯d already eaten nearly 3 of my people. Please help us back to the village.¡±


    Yup, very basic introduction questline. This must be a tutorial sort of system. However, everything¡¯s so real in this game I really thought I was going to die! If it wasn¡¯t for this sick special trait, I might have actually wet myself already.


    Taking this into account, I used the dagger and cut the bindings of the cage and freed the villagers. A short walk back and everyone was home again. It seemed like the NPC¡¯s were waiting for something as they all stood at the edge of the village.


    I turned back, and the old man, who I assumed was the village chief smiled at me very amiably.


    ¡°Young friend. My people are very grateful for your timely rescue. If it weren¡¯t for you, we would have been eaten by those vile beasts!¡±


    He then turned and looked at his villagers. As he looked at them, his aura seemed to change from a frail old man. His slightly hunched back straightened and his amiable old face became stern and cold. His bearing became rough and forceful instead of old and peaceful.


    ¡°Alright you bunch of louts! Now that this fellow has slaughtered the rest of the villagers we can finish ransacking this shit hole. Pillage everything of use and burn the rest to the ground.¡±


    Wait, what?! You mean ... but I thought ... hold on, isn¡¯t it...


    I watched on numbly as the bandits then marched into the village and began dragging out supplies and equipment from everywhere. Anything useful was pulled out, and huts were filled with flames and burnt to cinders once they were emptied.


    I seemed to be stuck in a trance for a little while until the Old Man, or rather ... the bandit leader, returned. Apparently, the villagers had stripped the bandits of their gear and left it in the village somewhere because everyone was suddenly dressed in bandit equipment and had swords and bows.


    The Bandit Leader stepped up to me and placed a weathered old palm on my shoulder as he smiled brightly.


    ¡°You did good kid! I¡¯m glad there¡¯s such a talented young bandit in the Bandit Guild that came to help us out. Since that¡¯s the case, let me give you something as payment for the rescue.¡±


    The Bandit Leader then pulled out an old scroll from a sack on his belt and handed it to my now stupefied self. By habit, my hand reached out and took the offered scroll. The bandit leader then chuckled again and started barking some more orders to his subordinates.


    <hr>


    To say that shock was the only thing Murphy felt as he watched the bandits clearing the village off the face of the map would be an understatement. He felt a great many things, all of which were quickly swallowed up by his Hurts So Good trait.


    This trait, Murphy now realised, was a blessing and a curse. Even his feelings were being manipulated by it. He couldn¡¯t quite bring himself to the point of feeling miserable about this turn of events because the harder he tried, the more jovial he felt.


    As such, despite knowing he actually felt incredibly dejected and dissatisfied with how this all turned out, his face was smiling brightly and he seemed very pleased with the old Bandit Leader¡¯s praise.


    Deciding to just give up on feeling anything for the moment, and reminding himself that this was all just a very realistic game, Murphy moved his focus onto the scroll in his hands.


    After opening the scroll, he saw the picture of some kind of vine covered in thorns and sharp spikes. In his vision, a game like overlay appeared and showed a name floating over the scroll along with a description.


    Scroll of Thorny Punishment (Absolute)


    If a person uses this scroll, they can cast a single use of the spell Thorny Punishment. Whoever they point at after unleashing this spell will be enveloped in vines covered with thorns and spikes. The more someone resists, the tighter they will restrict.


    Absolute status means this spell works on every power level. Anything struck with this spell are limited by its effects.


    Along with this was a few other little notes. The most disturbing side note was left by the Game Master, Jasmine. ¡®Because this is a quest reward it will be tailored to suit the job class and traits of the quester.¡¯


    Murphy couldn¡¯t stop his feelings from becoming dejected. His entire game career was going to be destroyed by this stupid masochism skill. He then was happy about it ... because that is the curse of Hurts So Good.


    As he rolled up the scroll and prepared to send it to his inventory, a system notification sounded in his ear. Then a whole bunch of them sounded.


    ¡®Ping! You have failed the quest, Rescue the Villagers. -1 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, Free the Bandits! -2 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, Slaughter the Villagers! -5 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have been awarded the Title, Unstable, for slaughtering the villagers of the beginner village without warning or cause. -3 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have been awarded -10 renown for completing 3 negative quests or titles within 15 minutes.¡¯


    ¡°Oh shit! How is that possible! This is hardly fair! Those beast things attacked me! How was I supposed to know they were the villagers! This is bullshit! What kind of crap is this!¡±


    As Murphy started warming up to rage, his grip on the old scroll in his hand grew tighter. Finally, the ancient old brittle piece of paper couldn¡¯t handle the strain and ripped. The moment it started splitting slightly, it suddenly flashed brightly and became a light as it surged into Murphy¡¯s finger.


    Murphy was somewhat stunned. He looked at his finger and then as if to inspect it closer pointed it towards his face to look at the strange light on its tip. The moment it was pointed at a living target the light burst out and shot onto Murphy.


    In a matter of seconds, Murphy was entangled from head to toe in vines covered with barbs and thorns. Just the slightest movement on his part and the vines got tighter. The thorns started digging into his skin. Murphy couldn¡¯t stop himself from letting out a little moan of delight.


    He was immediately disgusted with himself. How could he possibly make such a scene of himself? All the bandits watched on with strange expressions as Murphy¡¯s control slipped again, and he started writhing and moaning inside the constricting vines.


    It wasn¡¯t long before he was panting like a pervert and the thorns had dug completely through the skin and blood was dripping from the vines. However, Murphy continued to moan and writhe about. His breathing sped up and grew coarser until his mind couldn¡¯t handle the overload and a wet patch suddenly appeared on his already dirty leather pants.


    Still, he couldn¡¯t stop the writhing, and the vines kept trying to squeeze the life out of him. However, it was at this point when things rapidly spiralled out of control. The vines started getting pushed out from his skin. The tighter the vine tried to become the more his skin seemed to heal and slowly force the vines thorns out.


    It got to the point that the vines simply weren¡¯t strong enough to force themselves through his skin anymore. At this time, Murphy had been locked in the vines for nearly an hour. He slowly started to stand up as the vines just tried to tighten even more.


    All the bandits watched on with horrified expressions as Murphy climbed up and appeared to be a man wearing vines as clothes.


    Apart from his eyes peeking out from inside the vines, no other part of his body was visible. The vines had wrapped around him like a second skin.


    The Old Bandit Leader finally remembered himself and approached Murphy.


    ¡°Err ... Young friend. You are aware that the vine magic isn¡¯t supposed to be used on yourself right?¡±


    ¡°Mmph. Mpmmhphmph. Mmphphmemp.¡±


    Replied Murphy as eloquently as he could with his mouth sealed by the vines. The Bandit Leaders look at Murphy only grew stranger. Murphy could see the man¡¯s disgust at Murphy¡¯s earlier action in the bandit leader¡¯s eyes.


    He could almost read the man¡¯s thoughts. ¡®Fucking creeper. What a creepy weirdo.¡¯


    Murphy started trying to pull the vines off. Only for them to seem to get even stronger and tighter. Finally, the Bandit Leader took some pity on the weird pervert and gave him some advice.


    ¡°Little friend. Is this the first time you¡¯ve used magic? You should know that certain magics, like this vine, have a trigger that deactivates them. This vine, for example, would trigger if you died, or if you just didn¡¯t move for an extended period of time. Apart from that, because the scroll was an (Absolute) Version, there¡¯s no other way.


    ¡°If this were just a normal scroll of Thorny Punishment, it would still be destructible, and you could cut it. But it¡¯s an Absolute, so it¡¯s impossible unless you sit still and let it unwind over time ... or die ... or I suppose if you had some kind of escape skill like Shadow Walking or something similar.¡±


    Murphy simply nodded his head then turned around and started walking off into the forest.


    The bandits all watched him walk off with very mixed expressions.


    Every step he took, Murphy shuddered slightly from the pleasure. His mind was spinning like a top as he considered his options. After a while, he considered this both a blessing and curse. Thanks to his Please Sire and Hurts So Good traits, this vine had basically become an invincible armour for him.


    From what he understood from the Bandit Leader, nothing could damage the vines and the only way they¡¯ll disappear is if he¡¯s inactive for a while or somehow dies. Thanks to that, he felt that this was great. However, the constant feeling like every pore of his skin was the tip of his knob, and someone was busily licking it was very uncomfortable.


    Even worse, was the constant sensation from his dick that was actually in full contact with a few thorns. He was pretty sure he was still in the middle of an orgasm right at this moment, and his body had just run out of stuff to fire from his exhausted cannon.


    Anyway, in the end, it seemed this was the perfect opportunity to go and find some strong creatures to fight. It would allow him to level up fast because the vines were basically indestructible.


    Unfortunately, the first creature he met in the forest was a troll carrying a club made out of a tree. With a single swing, Murphy felt immeasurable pleasure and pain simultaneously as his entire body was crushed into a paste.


    The vines stayed true to their name of Absolute and didn¡¯t even seem to get a scratch. Unfortunately, Murphy overlooked the lack of ability to prevent blunt force trauma.


    Now that his skin was rather durable, the tree club of the troll simply disintegrated his insides and launched his sack of skin filled with mush off into the forest.


    The next thing he knew, he was back in his room panting and sweating like he¡¯d just run a marathon. He could have sworn that he¡¯d actually died at that moment. He was certain that he most definitely had been killed.


    At the moment he was sure he had died, he felt a huge suction force and then next thing he was on his hands and knees in his room at home sweating like a Pedo at a kids¡¯ Wiggles concert. It was a very disconcerting feeling.


    As he slowly got himself under control, he leant back on his bed and glanced at the clock. What had been nearly an hour of game time turned out to be only 15 minutes in real time. It was only 8:30, and he had to go to school.


    In a rush, he got ready and went to head out. Before he left he glanced over at the black artefact silently sitting on the desk. The moment he reached out to touch it, his head buzzed and he found himself in his white space.


    He glanced around and saw a flashing system alert where his body display had been. With a tentative hand, he reached out and touched it.


    ¡®Ping! You have been killed. Because you are still on Newb Planet, you won¡¯t suffer any penalties and will respawn in ¡®Beginner Village.¡¯¡¯


    Murphy cupped his chin in thought. As he thought about that moment of death and the fear started to rise inside him, his Hurts So Good kicked in and he suddenly felt like he could take on the world and that death was nothing.


    For a rare change, he was actually happy that his Hurts So Good was so god-like in its perversive mind altering. Although even when it altered his feelings, he knew what he was ¡®actually¡¯ feeling, that didn¡¯t change the fact that he ¡®felt¡¯ the opposite.


    With this in mind, Murphy decided he was going to go back in and try again. This game was too interesting and far more intriguing than school. That thought in mind, he logged out and sent a message to Seelie. He then gripped his Key and willed himself back into the game.

 Chapter 2: Newb Planet

    Murphy respawned in the Beginner Village. Unlike his first time, the village was mostly just smouldering rubble. It appears that the Bandit Group had stuck around and were busy drinking and chatting at an open fire pit. There also seemed to be a few more new bandits.


    Murphy presumed that these new bandits were the bandits that he was supposed to help the little village girl defend from.


    After a brief glance about the place, he decided to go and see if they had any quests. Normally in these sorts of games he¡¯d have thought he would have been thrown into some long serial quest that was essentially the main story line of the game.


    However, he instead found himself standing in a smouldering village without the slightest clue what he should be doing. As such, he presumed that because he killed the villagers, the main quest line hadn¡¯t been able to start.


    That only left the bandits. As he approached them they quietened slightly, until the Old Bandit Leader smiled brightly and welcomed him over.


    ¡°Haha! Well if it isn¡¯t the young bloodletter. We were just discussing your ruthless rescue of us brothers with these fellows from the guild hall.¡±


    Amongst the new comers was a very suspicious looking fellow with oily black hair and thin twisty moustache. He wore something resembling magician robes, which were black as the night, and had half a dozen flasks or phials filled with colourful liquids strapped to his belt. He looked like a clich¨¦ bad guy.


    Seeing this fellow, Murphy suddenly realised he was most likely about to get sucked into the evil side of the main story line and become a bad guy. Everything about this felt wrong and definitely did not want to start doing the evil story line.


    With that in mind, he simply nodded in acknowledgement, then stiffly turned away and decided to leave. Hoping in his heart that he could find somewhere else to join the good guy main story line.


    <hr>


    ¡°Hey!¡±


    Ah shit! That evil guy is calling me. Does that mean that because of the mistake with the villagers I¡¯m suddenly going to be forced onto the evil quest line. This is bullshit! What kind of crappy game is this!


    Wheww ... It¡¯s alright. Just calm down. It¡¯s going to be fine. Just smile and politely decline if he wants to give you a quest.


    ¡°Oh? Yes, can I help you somehow?¡± Very polite! Nicely done!


    ¡°You¡¯re a newbie, right? You haven¡¯t had an instructor teach you the ropes yet, right?¡±


    Instructor? Teach me the ropes? What the hell? Don¡¯t tell me this guy is meant to be my tutorial guide. Damnit! Why is my tutorial guide a god damn evil guy!


    ¡°Ahh. No not yet. Is there a town nearby with an instructor?¡± Please say yes, please say yes.


    ¡°Heh heh, you¡¯re in luck kid. I happen to be the instructor for the Bandit Guild. Because you helped our brothers and killed all these villager fellows, I¡¯ve no doubt you¡¯ll fit in great with us!¡±


    Damnit! God damn! Why me? Mother fucker! Wheew. Ok just politely decline to join the bandit group.


    ¡°Uhhmm ... well you see, I don¡¯t really plan on joining the bandit guild...¡±


    ¡°Kill him.¡±


    Uhk! What? I only said I don¡¯t want to join the bandit guild! What the hell! You¡¯re going to immediately kill me for that?! What the fuck kind of game is this?!


    <hr>


    With a single command from the evil looking instructor, I now had to fight off not only the handful of bandits that recently came, but also the entire bandit group of nearly 20 that I had just rescued.


    Making the situation, and my feelings, worse, was the fact that the bandits I rescued didn¡¯t even bat an eye. Without reservation, they simply stood up and drew their weapons with sinister gazes. From what I could gather, they all looked at me like I was creepy pervert anyway.


    Those cold gazes hurt the most. Then almost as quickly seemed to feel good. Ahh ... how cruel this special trait is. It might just send me mad eventually.


    Seeing everything devolving into a brawl, I now had no other choice than to enter combat. I pulled my trusty broken dagger from my belt and readied myself.


    The bandit group charged as a single entity. Waving their swords very threateningly and and calling me names like pervert and creepy. The first to arrive swung his sword for my neck. His strike was very wide and open.


    Taking advantage of the wind up for such a strike, I slid up close and stabbed my broken knife into his neck. Using his limp body as a shield, I pushed forward to the next closest bandit and threw my bandit shield at him.


    In that moment of confusion, I once again slid forward aiming for the neck. After this bandit became limp, I made a roll to dodge a chopping strike from the side. At the same time, I borrowed bandit number two¡¯s sword.


    With a real sword in hand, my weapon arts training from Uncle Calligso came rushing back to me. Without reserve, I went on a rampage. 5 bandits, 10 bandits, 21 bandits.


    By the time there were only a handful of bandits left, my body was covered in amazing feeling cuts and bruises. Every time I moved my exhausted and sore muscles screamed at me in joy. Sigh ... I really hate this special trait.


    The final four bandits were spread out and showing very guarded stances. They were waiting for me to approach them. One of them, the evil instructor who hadn¡¯t made any moves until now, finally acted. He pulled a few strange phials from his belt.


    Seeing this action, the other three bandits all suddenly had worried expressions. Before they could say anything or run, the evil instructor threw those phials onto the ground, smashing them open. A purple fog suddenly formed and spread out from the liquids on the ground.


    In less than a second everyone was enveloped in the fog. The bandits all started rasping for breath and collapsed onto the ground while violently jerking around. The evil instructor pulled another phial from his belt and drank it as he quickly retreated out from the fog.


    I, as opposed to everyone else, fell too my knees powerlessly for a different reason. My whole body was tingly like a had pins and needles. My skin, flesh and even my bones had a throbbing pleasant ache like when you take a hot bath with sore tight muscles.


    That wasn¡¯t the only thing of mine that was throbbing, but ignoring that for the moment, my body was limp because it felt too good. Having every inch of my body suddenly feeling amazing to the point that I was almost delirious, was very disconcerting.


    My throat and lungs bore the brunt of it though. Whatever this stuff was, it was powerful enough to overwhelm my Hurts So Good when it made direct contact. My eyes nose and mouth were stinging somewhat and my lungs and throat felt like they were on fire.


    All I could do was sit there and wait as my body occasionally shuddered outside of my control. Unfortunately, even my Please Sir trait couldn¡¯t seem to keep up with the rapid deuteriation of my insides. If anything, it only slowed the poison fog down so that I didn¡¯t die quickly like the other bandits and instead had the joy of suffering from a very prolonged death.


    Eventually, I was still quietly suffering even after the poison fog had been dispersed by the wind. The evil instructor just watched on with a stunned expression as my hips occasionally thrust into the air and my body slowly decomposed from the inside out.


    It looked like he wanted to laugh madly at my slow demise, but was instead greatly disgusted by my reaction to such a vile and deadly poison.


    After a very long time of this, at least an hour, I finally died. I then suffered the experience of dying all over again, only this time I was slightly more composed than the first time. I found myself on the floor of my bedroom sweating profusely.


    I was now somewhat glad that I hadn¡¯t finished that bowl of cereal, otherwise it would have all ended up on the carpet of my floor.


    Taking a moment to recompose myself again, I stared hard at my Key. I felt a great deal of trepidation and fear about going back into the game, however at the same time, my fury and anger at that evil instructor was ablaze to the heavens.


    With vengeance in mind, I stood up and reached out to grab my Key.


    <hr>


    Murphy found himself back in the white space, which he somehow intuitively knew was his ¡®Status Space¡¯. Presumably that blinding flash of light in the beginning had uploaded some knowledge or something into his head.


    Right now, he had no way to explain it. He already accepted that he simply couldn¡¯t fathom the depth of technology that was behind this game. Everything so far had already blown his mind and he simply chose to roll with it. After all, it was just a game. If it became too invasive, he could just quit, right?


    Having returned to his Status Space, Murphy took a moment to peruse his inventory and status. Starting with his inventory he sorted everything by what he perceived to be most valuable to least valuable. He then picked out the equipment that was in the best state of repair and would fit him. When he was done, he surveyed his floating body that had everything equipped.


    He then sighed dejectedly and questioned why the gods were so cruel. Everything he was wearing was bandit equipment. If he tried to walk into a city wearing this he¡¯d be arrested on the spot. He also hated the idea of being labelled a bandit. If he actually wore this stuff, he felt he would be taking the first step towards being evil.


    Obviously, he wasn¡¯t counting the whole incident with the beast people villagers that he¡¯d slaughtered. That was an accident. Some things are unavoidable. He chose not to think back on it too much because he knew if he did he¡¯d just keep replying the scene of that first beast villager tripping on a rock and him attacking him because he immediately assumed he was a bandit.


    Murphy refused to admit he was totally in the wrong and being completely racist toward beast people. Therefore, he just blocked the whole thing out.


    After assessing his equipment, he just sighed again then unequipped all the bandit armour. Leaving him with only some crappy villager clothes. Once he was re-equipped he was wearing a dirty cotton shirt and trousers with a simple leather tunic.


    He had a leather belt equipped with a simple sword in a plain sheath and his little backpack. Because all the shoes that he had, that didn¡¯t have the label ¡®Bandit¡¯ on them, had holes in them, he decided to just go barefoot.


    He may hate his weird special trait but that doesn¡¯t mean he can¡¯t make use of it. If he just roughs it around everywhere barefoot he can let his feet slowly build up a god like endurance. Who knows, perhaps one day he could walk on lava barefoot.


    The finishing touch to his adventuring ensemble was a little short bow and a quiver of arrows. With his outfit now complete, he turned his attention to his status.


    First, he checked his overall status.


    Murphy sighed in distress as he checked his main stats again. Now that he had the time to review them properly, he felt like his stats were all messed up to some epic proportions.


    ¡®For starters, what the hell was going on with those last two stats? Cement? What the fuck is that supposed to represent. And his luck! Why the hell was his luck in such a negative! It looked like it had dropped even further into the negative after he¡¯d killed all those innocent villagers.


    ¡®Then there¡¯s charisma. Did that drop by 0.3? What the actual fuck? I¡¯d hardly even used the charisma stat! Wait, was the charisma stat dropping because of the shameless actions whenever I¡¯m was in pain? Argh! That damn special trait is fuckin curse!¡¯


    Such were his thoughts on the matter. After a slightly more in depth review he discovered that his bodies resilience had sky rocketed. That nasty poison he¡¯d been sucking up prior to his last death had given him stronger endurance stats in every part of his body.


    Even his bones and muscles endurances had risen. Also, having to endure that whole escapade, his mental fortitude stat was leading his other endurance stats by miles. At this rate, his mental fortitude was going to outclass every state he had before he even finished the tutorial.


    Finally, the titles. He¡¯d only been in the game for a few hours and already had a title. Unfortunately, it was a very disturbing and unsavoury title. He was hoping that this ¡®need¡¯ would not be like the special traits and literally bend his psyche. He also hoped that if it was, that his special trait Please Sir could raise his endurance against this need before it could consume him.


    After assessing himself once more, he respawned again. After looking around for a while he found the evil instructor busily looting his dead bandit friends while muttering in a vary disgruntled manner.


    Murphy hid himself nearby then checked the surroundings. After assuring himself that no one else was nearby he snuck out and crept up behind the instructor. He pulled the broken dagger from his belt and quickly raised it to the instructor¡¯s throat.


    ¡°Don¡¯t move!¡±


    The instructor was shocked. He quietly glanced at the sharp broken dagger pressed against his throat, then gulped.


    ¡°Heh, heh ... whoever you are, I¡¯m sure we can work something out. I should tell you that if plan to kill and rob me, that would be a bad idea. My guild mates are already heading this way to meet me here and will be here any moment.¡±


    Murphy furrowed his brow for a moment. He could just kill this guy and run but he needed someone who could tutor him on the game system. He also needed directions to the nearest town. With that in mind, he decided to risk it.


    With his dagger still pressed to the fellow¡¯s neck, Murphy reached around and started undoing the instructors belt.


    ¡°Hey what the damnation do you think you¡¯re...¡±


    Murphy¡¯s dagger pressed into his throat a little more until a little trickle of blood started to flow. His hand continued its action as he defended his actions.


    ¡°Shhhh. Just calm down dude. It only hurts the first time ... wait no, I mean, I¡¯m not going to hurt you, I¡¯m just disarming you.¡±


    A cold sweat broke out on the instructors back as Murphy finally got the claps free and took the man¡¯s belt with all its nasty little potions on it. He then quickly shuffled back away and flicked his bow out before knocking an arrow.


    ¡°Turn around.¡±


    The evil instructor turned around to see Murphy aiming at him with an arrow pulled back in the bow from about 10 meters away. It was far enough to not be taken off guard if the instructor rushes him, and close enough that he could instantly kill the instructor if he tries to start dodging.


    ¡°It¡¯s time for you to instruct. I want to know how the game works.¡±


    The instructor smiled wryly. Unfortunately, he was bound by certain rules. He couldn¡¯t lie about the game. He wasn¡¯t even able to skirt the truth or imply things that weren¡¯t true. If a knew player asked for instruction, he was obligated to instruct. That was his purpose after all.


    ¡°Heh, well I don¡¯t know how it works. No one does. I only know the basics, the rest of it you¡¯re expected to learn as you go.¡±


    Murphy furrowed his brow slightly.


    ¡°I see. So then, what can you tell me about stats, skill and traits?¡±


    The instructor let out a long sigh. He then glanced around and ambled over to fallen tree to use as a seat. He then sat down rather dejectedly and looked back at the young man pointing a bow and arrow in his direction.


    ¡°Fine then you brat. I¡¯ll tell you what I can. The basics are as follows. By now you¡¯ve surely inspected your Status Space at least once. You know that you can determine the statistics of your body, mind and soul all in a single convenient and up to date place.


    ¡°You¡¯ve died at least once, so you¡¯ve probably come to terms with the possibility that you quite literally exist in this world while you¡¯re playing the game and when you die the game system rescues your soul and body and puts it all back together before it ejects you back to your dimension.


    ¡°You¡¯ve clearly also been playing with the inventory and you most likely were summoned with a special trait considering your ability to survive so long under the torture of my poison fog.¡±


    At the mention of the poison fog, Murphy made a reflexive grimace. Just imagining experiencing it again made him feel delighted ... wait, made him feel disturbed ... or should have made him feel disturbed? That¡¯s just how Hurts So Good works.


    The Instructor continued with his lecture, none the wiser at the inner turmoil of Murphy over how exactly he felt about dying a slow torturous death by poisoning.


    ¡°So, let¡¯s start with the Status Place. Should be a white world with all sorts of interesting figures about every aspect that is ¡®you¡¯. Stats are the broad term for your foundations. Things like strength and intelligence. You can view each of these broad stats in more detail all the way down to the methods you¡¯ve used the most to increase them.


    ¡°The broad stats are the average of your body and reflect your overall status while specific stats, like reflexes in the agility status, are more specific. This means that if you have one part that is low, for example your whole body is very strong except your wrists, then it will drag you broad stats down.


    ¡°Skills are learnt through practice. The more you practice a skill, the more experience it accumulates. Some people have unique skills that are slightly abstract depending on their life experience and personality. Every time a skill levels up your get a modifier when using it. As an example, if you have level 10 cooking, then regardless of whether you cook a 5-course meal or a boiled egg, they will both taste 10 times better.


    ¡°New skills can also be learnt through practice. Most people start off with a handful of skills based on their life experiences before coming here. However, they generally have a lot of skills already that haven¡¯t even been developed. They just don¡¯t show up in the Status Space unless you specifically search them. Until they reach level 1, which is about 1000 experience, they will remain invisible.


    ¡°Skills and Stats have no limits. You can easily level these to infinity. Now onto special traits, these are usually earnt during gameplay or assigned when you¡¯re first summoned. They are based on certain skills, stats and life experiences. They¡¯re affects can vary wildly and as far as I know it¡¯s almost as likely to meet two people with the exact same face from different dimension as it is for two people to have the exact same special trait.


    ¡°Next is dying. Here, on Newb Planet, you can die as many times as you like and explore as much as you want until you feel you¡¯re ready to go out into the big bad game world. Usually at first you will be scooped up by some faction like the villagers or the bandits and complete a bunch of mission to help you get accustomed to everything.


    ¡°You don¡¯t seem to be taking any of those routes and are clearly just a madman that enjoys killing people, so I won¡¯t bother with discussing that too much. When you want to go kill some more people just head along the south road until you reach a city called Gateway. You can travel through there to start the game in earnest.


    ¡°Once you pass through you will start learning about the game for real. At that time, it will also unlock the Player Store, where you can purchase things only the players can get their hands on. Us little NPC (Non-Player-Character) fellows have no such luck.


    ¡°Um ... let¡¯s see, then there¡¯s your inventory. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve got it mostly figured out but I¡¯ll explain it anyway. It pretty much acts like a separate dimension. If you touch something inanimate in the world, you can suck it into your inventory. Similarly, you can will it, and suck something out from inventory.


    ¡°You probably haven¡¯t picked up much yet, but once you do you¡¯ll learn that everything has a weight value. The weight that something adds to your backpack is equivalent to the items weight divided by strength and endurance.


    ¡°The last thing for me to mention is the experience points. You¡¯ve probably realised that every time you take some poor bastards life you receive experience points. These are essentially Player currency. It can be used to purchase from the Player Store and from what I understand has many other uses later.


    ¡°Once you leave the newb world it can also be used to directly increase certain skills or stats. However, that¡¯s incredibly expensive as a latter investment. With every level in a stat or skill doubling the number of experience points needed for another level, you would need almost a million points to level something beyond level 10.¡±


    By this point, Evil Instructor had run out of breath and was sweating profusely. His whole body was a tense as a coiled spring and his eyes were very worriedly staring at Murphy still holding the bow taught with a shaky arm.


    It looked like his arm was losing its strength and could accidentally let go of the string at any moment. As if to prove that the instructor¡¯s fears were valid, a bird flew by overhead and relieved itself mid-flight. The bird¡¯s gift fluttered on the wind like a rain drop and eventually found its way to Murphy¡¯s head.


    At the time, Murphy was mostly absorbed in processing everything the instructor was saying and had almost completely forgotten about his hand holding the bow string because it had gone numb with that pleasant tingling feeling.


    When the bird¡¯s shit landed on his head, by pure reflex, Murphy lifted his hand to touch his hair where he felt something landing, letting go of the bow string in the process. When he realised his mistake, it was already too late.


    The instructor now had an arrow protruding from his eye socket and a face filled with shock and disbelief. Murphy, somewhat stunned by this sudden strange turn of events, went to step towards the Instructor, only to hear the ¡®crunch¡¯ of glass shattering underfoot.


    He didn¡¯t even need to look down to realise he¡¯d just stepped on the instructor¡¯s belt by accident, because his body was already aching all over in pleasure and his vision was once again clouded with poisonous purple fog.


    The valiant efforts of his Hurts So Good and Please Sire special traits kept him alive and suffering for almost two straight hours this time. Unfortunately, they still weren¡¯t powerful enough to grant him total immunity.


    He reappeared in his bedroom and smashed his hand on the floor in frustration. When he did, his face became strange and his eyes suddenly widened in shock.


    <hr>


    NOOO!! What the hell! Why? Why does it feel so good! It should be hurting! It should be painful! Something is wrong! Don¡¯t tell me ... my special traits have somehow followed me out of the game?


    Wait! Whew. Just calm down. Think rationally for a second. Ok, let¡¯s try open my Status Space. Open!


    ...


    Shit! What the hell kind of twisted game is this?! Everything followed me through? All my stats and skills are still in effect outside of the game. Oh ... I wonder if that means...


    Inventory! Hmm, well I guess that was too much wishful thinking. So, my game stats followed me out of the game, but I can¡¯t open my inventory. My special traits also followed me out of the game. I wonder just how strong my endurance is now.


    With all the poison I¡¯ve ingested, the Thorns of Punishment incident, the damage from the bandit group and then from the troll smashing my body into pulp...


    Time to test it out. First let¡¯s head to the kitchen. Juwan is probably still home so I need to be quiet.


    Sneak, sneak, sneak ... Skip the third stair form the top. That stair always squeaks. Okay, check that the coast is clear. Excellent. Now too the kitchen.


    Sneak, sneak, sneak. Hmm, let¡¯s not go to overboard. Let¡¯s just start with trying to make a little cut. That knife is the sharpest so let¡¯s use that one. Hmm ... nothing? What the hell? A bit more pressure. A bit more. Ahh ... it feels good. Pretty sure I¡¯m just mincing the flesh in the finger now.


    My skins indestructible! HAHAH! Invincible skin!


    ¡°Oh? Little brother, I thought you were at school? You stayed home today?¡±


    Eeek...


    ¡°Heh ... hey Juwan. Yeah, I just wasn¡¯t feeling too well after our spar this morning. Don¡¯t mind me, I was just heading back to sleep some more.¡± So honest and natural. I nearly even fooled myself.


    ¡°Oh. Was I bit rough this morning? Hmm, well, you need to train harder little brother. You used to be so formidable, but now your just ... Let¡¯s go and have another quick spar. Perhaps if you sweat it out for a bit you¡¯ll feel better.¡±If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Hmph! Who do you think you¡¯re fooling huh? I know you just love having an excuse to beat me! I see through your charade you bastard.


    ¡°Ehh ... not this time Juwan. I really don¡¯t think I can. Tomorrow! I promise to have a good long spar with your tomorrow.¡±


    <hr>


    I then fled the scene like a thief in the night, leaving the super sharp kitchen knife on the bench. Ignoring the fake concern and bewilderment on Juwan¡¯s face, I raced up the stairs to my room.


    As I sat down on my bed and stared intensely at my Key, I got a message from Social on the DataStream. Closing my eyes, I Linked Up to the DataStream through my implant and used my mind to navigate to the Social area.


    When I arrived, I found a message from Seelie reading; ¡°I just tried the blood thing and it seemed to work. Should we make a public post in the Social and tell everyone about it?¡±


    Without even considering it I replied; ¡°No. Let them figure it out for themselves. Come around tonight and we¡¯ll discuss our findings from the game.¡±


    I then decided to just sit for a while a consider the implications of this ¡®game¡¯ ... before I got too far into my pondering, I slapped myself in the head for being an idiot. Why would I sit out here in the real world instead of going into the game?


    4 minutes in the game is equivalent to 1 in the real world. I¡¯m wasting time sitting out here. That thought in mind I reached out and grabbed my Key and willed myself back to the game.


    Once again, I found myself in the now familiar white world of my Status Space. I checked my stats and skills then respawned into the beginner village. The moment I respawned system alerts started sounding out.


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, Revenge for the Villagers. +3 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, I Know What I¡¯m Doing, by killing both instructors in the beginner village. -3 renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have developed a new stat to level 1. Poison Resistance.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have earned the title, Lone Wolf, by killing everyone you¡¯ve met since the beginning of the game indiscriminately.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have killed 20 Bandits and 2 Bandit Leaders in less than an hour. +10 Renown.¡¯


    I couldn¡¯t help but sigh as I tentatively checked my Status Space to investigate my new title.


    <hr>


    Lone Wolf


    Killed everyone in the beginner village, good or bad.


    Bonus Stat and Skill growth when operating alone.


    NPC¡¯s will feel discomfort in working with you as a team


    <hr>


    Well, at least it wasn¡¯t as bad as the ¡®Unstable¡¯ moniker. Unfortunately, it¡¯s only useful if I remain alone and most likely will limit my interactions with NPC¡¯s. I couldn¡¯t stop the sigh of dejection from slipping past my lips.


    I then realised, thanks to the Hidden Quest: I Know What I¡¯m Doing, that there must definitely have been another instructor, most likely part of the beast villagers that I ... was involved in an accident with.


    After checking my status again, I then searched around the village until I found all the dead bandits. Without reservation, I robbed their corpses. Everything they had, I took. I even pilfered the Evil Instructors corpse and retrieved his belt of potions.


    Finally, once I was finished, I felt a huge weight pressing down on me. That most likely meant that I¡¯d picked up too much stuff. So I opened my inventory to start organising everything. Considering my propensity for being injured, the majority of the ratty cloth and fabric was ripped into bandages.


    All the bandits leather armour was sorted through and assessed. Unfortunately, this game didn¡¯t have anything like defence modifiers or anything on the equipment. Or if it did, I simply couldn¡¯t view it yet. So I spent almost an hour sorting all the equipment and throwing out anything that ¡®looked¡¯ damaged or worn.


    If I had some sort of skill like Identify or Inspect, then I could probably determine the quality and prices of most of these items. Unfortunately, I had no such skill.


    Once that was done, I investigated the few interesting items I¡¯d picked up since I started the game. The first was a hair pin. I didn¡¯t remember picking it up, but it was a hair pin the little village girl had. I could tell it must have some interesting effect or attributes, but I just couldn¡¯t guess what they were.


    I kept it though, because it was light and probably will sell for a decent price.


    The next was the sword of the Bandit Leader. It was clearly the best of all the blades I¡¯d picked up in terms of both quality and craftsmanship. When I equipped it and gave it a few test swings, I discovered it was unusually sharp and very light in comparison to the simple swords of the other bandits.


    That wasn¡¯t all. I also managed to luck upon another magic scroll. It had the image of flame on it, but unfortunately I couldn¡¯t tell what the scroll did. I knew it had to be a magic scroll because it was almost exactly the same as the Thorns of Punishment scroll, but I couldn¡¯t tell what it did because I didn¡¯t get the little overlay showing its name and effect when I investigated it.


    All I got was ¡°Old Scroll¡± when I tried.


    The last, and in my opinion most interesting thing, was the Instructors potion belt and all the potions he had apparently still been hiding on his body. When I equipped the belt, it automatically adjusted to fit my size.


    Even more magical was that as soon as I equipped it, the potions in my inventory from the instructor started popping into existence on my belt. I had no idea what any of the potions did, but it was magical nonetheless.


    Having finished sorting my inventory, I felt a little bit lighter. I finally decided it was time to head towards Gateway City. I had no idea what to expect but I was still very curious.


    <hr>


    Murphy was both excited and wary as he started marching south towards the direction the instructor told him to go.


    The road was peaceful and quiet. Now and then he¡¯d spot some little animal running about in the forest. A rabbit or a deer. He walked for hours, until his feet were swollen and sore, and legs ached ... It felt great. Any normal person would have collapsed from pain and exhaustion long ago, but Murphy continued on despite his better judgement.


    At about midday, he felt his guts rumbling in protest to their lack of sustenance. Considering that this old dirt road was travelling through a forest and both side of the road were covered in trees, Murphy decided to try his hand at hunting some fresh game.


    He¡¯d never had to skin or gut an animal before, but he had a feeling that was going to be part of this game. He silently hoped that just by touching a corpse with a knife it would automatically do those actions for him, but at the same time he was aware his luck stat was negative eleven and he would most likely have to suffer through the traumatic experience of cleaning a fresh kill.


    Pushing down those dark thoughts, Murphy reached back and unshouldered his bow. Taking an arrow from the quiver he walked off into the forest. Sneaking about as quietly as he could, he started looking for any creatures that would be tasty.


    It seemed however, that despite having seen dozens of tasty looking forest dwellers on his journey so far, the moment he wanted to encounter one, they¡¯d all disappeared. He continued a little deeper into the forests and then a little deeper.


    Finally, after a few hours of travel, he spotted something furry off in the distance behind some trees. Without considering the repercussions, he blindly shot an hour into the forest towards the furry creature.


    ¡®Twang!¡¯


    ¡°ARGH! Motherfucker! Who?! Who the fuck just shot me?!¡±


    Murphy was stunned and froze in mid motion. His eyes widened in shock as he watched that furry thing stand up on its hind legs and roar out. He could now clearly see that it was a giant talking bear! It was the biggest god damn bear he¡¯d ever seen.


    It almost looked as tall as a two-story house and was as big and wide as a truck. Murphy sneakily crept backwards and slid in behind a tree.


    ¡®Fuck! Why did it have to be such a monstrous creature! A god damn talking bear!¡±


    ¡°ROAR!!!¡±


    The giant talking bear roared into the forest causing little forest creatures everywhere to suddenly spring up out of their burrows and hiding places then start scurrying off into the forest.


    Murphy¡¯s face became dejected when he realised that he¡¯d been surrounded by all this potential food the whole time but had just failed to find it. Instead, he found a potential food but it was the size of a truck and could probably squash him flat in a second.


    He started to consider his options. How was he going to get out of this situation? After considering everything he finally chose to just confront the bear. If he ran, it would catch him! Then he¡¯d be in an even worse situation.


    Then, an idea struck him. He couldn¡¯t help but secretly pat himself on the back in his heart for his clever plan.


    He very nonchalantly walked out from behind his tree and started approaching the bear in a casual manner.


    ¡°Hoh there Mister Bear. My apologies, my apologies. My arrow missed its target and accidentally shot off in this direction!¡±


    Seeing the tiny human form of Murphy casually approaching it like this wasn¡¯t a big deal, the bear was slightly shocked. This could only mean that this human was most likely confident that it could survive in a battle with the bear.


    However, being a bear, it had its pride, and being shot in the ass with an arrow most definitely did more damage to his pride than his hide. This in mind, the giant bear roared towards Murphy loudly, in an attempt to shake his confidence a little.


    It would be a lie to say that Murphy¡¯s confidence was not shaken. In fact, he was pretty sure he was a split second away from wetting himself. However, all that negative emotion was clouded by the Hurts So Good, that was busily turning his emotional pain into pleasure.


    In the eyes of the bear, Murphy seemed completely unshaken by his terrifying roar. Before the bear could make a move to squash this little bug of a human flat, Murphy made the first move.


    ¡°Ahh, sorry, sorry. I¡¯m sure it must be painful. How about I make it up to you. I happen to be a potion master and have a potion here that will fix you up as good as new. What do you say? I¡¯ll give you the potion and we can call it even?¡±


    The bear was stunned. The human wasn¡¯t attacking it but bartering. It wanted to barter away the arrow it¡¯d shot into this mighty bear¡¯s ass! What kind of human was that.


    However, it¡¯s ass did hurt. It also knew that it would most definitely have trouble sitting on its haunches later from the constant stinging. If it could get a potion to fix it, then it would be happy. Then it could just kill the human anyway.


    That in mind, the bear growled threateningly once more and approached towards the human.


    ¡°Very well then human, give this Mighty Bear a potion to heal himself and it will grant you your puny life.¡±


    Murphy put on his most gallant and friendly smile as he started to take potion after potion from the belt. He didn¡¯t know if any of these potions actually had the properties of healing, but what he was certain of was that at least one of them was an incredibly deadly poison.


    That in mind, he decided to just mix them all together and give it to the bear, hoping they were all poison. Knowing his luck, every single own of these potions was poison.


    Murphy pulled out a flask from his inventory and started pouring all sorts of different coloured potions into it. He then gave it a quick shake to mix them together and flicked it over the giant bear. The bear, with bizarrely deft claw movement, caught the flask between two big black bear claws.


    If you need a comparison for the level of difficulty that should pose to a creature this size, then imagine yourself with two thumb tacks glued to your thumb and finger, then having to use those tacks to catch a fly. That was the magnitude of the bears achievement.


    After catching it, the bear didn¡¯t even seem to suspect any foul play, being only barely considered a sentient creature. It tipped the flask back and consumed the potion. The moment the mixture in the flask reached the bears tongue, it widened its eyes in surprise. This potion was heavenly!


    It tasted like sweet fruit juice and quenched the bear¡¯s thirst as if it was the first drop of water after crossing a desert. It was like celestial wine made by the gods!


    Murphy watched on expectantly as the bear swallowed every last drop, only to become slightly dejected when, even after a minute of the bear closing its eyes and enjoying the potion, nothing untoward happened.


    No sudden explosion of poison fog, no roaring indignation from the bear who should by now be well and truly dead. Murphy was incredibly disappointed. The bear dropped the flask, eyed Murphy strangely, then gave him the equivalent of a bear bowing.


    Murphy wasn¡¯t exactly sure how to process this situation and was still trying to figure out what was going on when the bear finally spoke.


    ¡°Many thanks to this wandering potion master. Your skills are truly godlike. If it¡¯s not too much trouble, this Mighty Bear has a request. This Mighty Bear¡¯s kin are plagued with a sickness. Even this Mighty Bear could not avoid it. But your masterful potion skills have freed this Mighty Bear of its disease. Please help this Mighty Bear.¡±


    With an entreating look, the Mighty Bear¡¯s lowered head gazed fanatically at Murphy. Suddenly, Murphy felt very uncomfortable.


    ¡®Why the hell am I getting sucked into some strange quest? I just wanted to eat something!¡¯


    As he had that thought, a couple system alerts popped up.


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the Quest, Bear King¡¯s Sickness. Renown +10.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have developed a new skill to level 1. Alchemy.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have created a new potion recipe! Miracle Water.¡¯


    Finally, after considering everything, Murphy decided to just wing it and try to help the Bear King. He had the potion recipe so he could just make more of the strange potion. Although he didn¡¯t know what all those other potions were or their effects, they were still labelled in his inventory with a number.


    Murphy assumed that these numbers were an assistance from the game system in helping him determine the which potions were which. Although he hadn¡¯t identified them, he could differentiate them.


    All these thoughts in mind, he decided to just roll with it. It wouldn¡¯t hurt if he could complete this quest and fix his negative renown score from the ... accident, in beginner village.


    He gave humble bow to the Bear King and agreed to assist him.


    After a short trek through the forests, Murphy find himself a rocky hill filled with caves. This was obviously the home of the bear clan. Most of the bears here were only a little bit bigger than normal bears. It seemed only the bear king was as big as truck, as befitting his status as a king of bears.


    Murphy didn¡¯t feel like sticking around here for an extended period of time. Mostly because the place was littered with the bones of other adventurers that had wondered here and been devoured by the bear tribe.


    As soon as he arrived, he went to his Status Space. He found a piece of old parchment floating around in his space with the recipe for the Miracle Water. Because he didn¡¯t know what the other potions he used were, they were all simply labelled as their corresponding number on the recipe sheet.


    He opened his inventory to start pulling out all the potions he needed, only to realise that one of them was missing. He had dozens of potions in his inventory from the Evil Lecturer, but it just so happened that one of them needed for the Miracle Water was apparently quite rare.


    This left Murphy in a somewhat awkward position. He couldn¡¯t just tell the huge Bear King that he had been pulling his leg and couldn¡¯t save his clan. As he stood there near the hill, the whole clan had come to gather around him waiting with expectations filling their eyes.


    He almost felt guilty for leading them on to this point. So, he firmed his resolve and decided he would just have to wing it.


    He pulled out all the potions for the recipes that he had, then picked another potion that seemed equally rare to replace the one he was missing. The bears watched on with hopeful gazes as Murphy carefully followed the same steps he had before and mixed another batch of Miracle Water.


    He put the cork in the flask and gave a swirl to mix the ingredients, then popped the cork. Moments later, he watched on horrified as a thick viscous green gas poured out from the flask and spread into the area. Bears started dropping like flies.


    One bear after another got a whiff of the green gas and collapsed to the ground. Murphy tried to put the cork back in but it was too late. The pressure building the flask blew the cork back out and poured even more green smog into the surroundings.


    The enraged and distraught roars of an entire tribe of bears filled the forest like a chorus of woe and indignation. Murphy also wasn¡¯t lightly influenced by the smog as his body collapsed to the ground and was shaking like a leaf.


    His body started sweating buckets and his skin felt like it was on fire. His hair started falling out as his skin began to develop rashes and welts. His lungs felt like he¡¯d just breathed in fire and his mouth was dry and parched.


    The Bear King, who had been watching the entire process, was filled with wrath. Unfortunately, despite the magnificent vitality of a Bear King, he too was as weak as an ant in front of the green smog. Just dying a little bit slower than all the rest.


    For 3 full hours, Murphy sat in the green smog while his body was tortured to death. Unlike the last time however, his body only reached the very precipice before somehow miraculously stepping back from the edge.


    Slowly, another hour passed and his Hurts So Good and Please Sir traits managed to keep him alive. He sat up slowly feeling as weak and powerless as a kitten. He couldn¡¯t move and could barely even sit up. His body was still covered in rashes and his skin had started splitting like an over ripe tomato.


    Another hour passed and the green smog remained in the surroundings. Murphy sat in the centre of it looking haggard and half dead. In this 5 hours of drowning in poison fog, his poison resistance had reached level 3 and his overall body endurance had gone up by another 4 points.


    His masochism had also lurched forward by almost 200,000 experience points, rapidly approaching the tipping point to reach level 11.


    When he reached poison resistance level 3, his endurance managed to reach the point in which it wasn¡¯t just holding back the poison¡¯s effects on his body, but slowly repairing all the damage. Out of everything, although his skin seemed to take to brunt of the damage from this green smog, it was his bones that benefitted the most.


    This poison smog completely devoured his bones. It made his bones so frail and weak that if a sharp wind blew past, it would probably had snapped him in half. Now that Please Sir had been busily increasing his bones endurance for more than 5 hours, they were finally counteracting the poison and miraculously growing sturdy and strong again.


    It was almost 7 hours after the incident when Murphy was strong enough to stand up. Strangely, even after this long, the green poison smog continued to linger in the area.


    As he stood up, indicating that he¡¯d somehow managed to survive this huge accident, the system started spewing prompts at him.


    ¡®Ping! You have failed the mission Save the Bear Tribe. -3 Renown¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have slaughtered an entire tribe of Ancient Bears that have run rampant through the forests of Newb Planet for centuries. + 20 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have created a new alchemy recipe, Endless Poison Fog.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have gained the Title, Bear Hunter, for killing an entire tribe of ancient bears.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have gained the Title, Poison Master, for killing a king class creature with poison, creating a new biome with poison, and creating a new high class poison recipe.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have raised a new Skill to level 1. Poison Mastery.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have gained a new Special Trait. Murphy¡¯s Law.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have gained a new Special Trait. Misery Loves Company.¡¯


    Murphy was deeply aggrieved and pleasantly surprised. Aggrieved because he had somehow managed to get himself another weird sounding trait, and surprised because he was finally in the positive with his renown and had gained some interesting sounding titles.


    Murphy surveyed his area, which was covered in the lifeless bodies of tens of bears and the numerous long dead remains of many adventurers. The thick green smog seemed to be a permanent fixture of the area now, and instead of being blown away by the wind, it appeared to be growing thicker and more toxic the more it eroded the forest and creatures in its area of effect.


    Murphy willed himself to his Status Space and started surveying his status over view.


    Murphy wasn¡¯t sure if he should cheer loudly or cry sullenly. The new traits, Misery Loves Company and Murphy¡¯s Law were both amazingly great, and equally terrible.


    He still wasn¡¯t sure exactly how the luck modifier worked, or why he seemed to be generating more and more of it as time passed. If he had to speculate, he assumed it was something similar to the amount of accidents and misunderstandings he caused.


    The more stuff ups he makes unintentionally, the worse his luck stat becomes. By the same token, if he sets out to do something and achieves it without causing mayhem, it will increase his luck stat.


    For the time being, he was sure the luck stat would mostly affect chance encounters, similar to having met the Bear King in the middle of the woods, and would also subtly affect other things like circumstances, equipment, quests, etc.


    Even though the Murphy¡¯s Law trait essentially promised him he would fail in many things and cause plenty of miraculous stuff ups, he at least could take solace in the special trait, Misery Loves Company. With the Misery trait, he would be able to offload the bad luck before it became too troublesome.


    After some time inspecting his status, Murphy returned his focus to the world. He was still hungry, but seeing the state of the bears, he wasn¡¯t sure if he should eat them or not. All their hair had fallen out and their skin was covered in rashes and welts.


    He could only sigh at their luck. Being able to die quickly, and not have to suffer through 7 hours of the poisons effects, it was truly fortunate for them. After considering for moment, he took the sword from his sheath and approached a bear.


    He then somewhat ruthlessly chopped down, severing the paw of the bear. He then also took the bears head and any other parts he thought he might be able to sell in the city. He considered skinning them and taking the hides, but their skins were so messed up he decided not to.


    After that he wondered about and explored the caves for a while, looting the corpses of other adventurers in his travels. Finally, he reached the biggest cave, presumably the bear king¡¯s home. When he entered, he could see all sorts of treasures scattered about.


    Gold and silver coins here and there, weapons and armours were left scattered about covered in dust and claw marks. Out of everything in the cave, the thing that drew Murphy¡¯s attention wasn¡¯t any of this stuff though. It was instead a single old tome that was very auspiciously floating in mid-air.


    When Murphy reached out and touched it, a system prompt came up.


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the quest, Elizabeth¡¯s Magic Tome. +10 renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have received the quest, Who the fuck¡¯s Elizabeth?¡¯


    Although Murphy had nothing to say about the choice of words used by the system, he was still curious about the tome. At the same time as he received the quest, the tome fell into his hands and flashed with a bright light.


    He then fell to the floor and started spasming and flopping about with foam coming out of his mouth. He¡¯d experienced this before, and thanks to his Please Sir and Hurts So Good traits, he quickly came out of the seizure and wiped his mouth.


    The tome had magically disappeared and was followed by another system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! You have raised a new skill to level 1, Sinister Magic Arts.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have learnt the spell, Curse: Ain¡¯t No Rest for the Wicked.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have unlocked the Stat, Mana¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have raised a new skill to level 1, Mana Manipulation.¡¯


    Murphy once again returned to his Status Space. This time, he discovered a knew Stat called Mana. His race modifier was 0 and his human modifier was 2. Based on his experience with games in the past, Mana was needed to cast spells.


    As he focused on the stat, it split apart into two sub categories. Maximum Mana and Mana Generation.


    When he focused closer on them, a description came up on his stat screens.


    Maximum Mana: This statistic represents the maximum amount of mana that the body can safely store.


    Mana Generation: This statistic represents the rate at which a player can generate mana to replace used mana.


    Although it wasn¡¯t as helpful as he¡¯d have liked, it was enough during the basics. He would look for ways to increase these later. He was also a little disappointed with how slow the regeneration was. Only being able to generate 1 mana point per hour.


    After this, he wondered about his endurance. When he split the average stat, he saw tens of other statistics that all added up to create the overall stat. One of these statistics was called Regeneration. Its value was almost 30. Presumably, this was the result of his Please Sir, rapidly increasing his regeneration to combat the effects of the poison.


    He couldn¡¯t help but sigh in praise at the absolutely bizarre special trait. It was completely god like, but it came with a huge price. He had to suffer a great deal of pain ... and enjoy it.


    When he checked his skill list, sure enough he now had two new skills.


    Sinister Magic Arts: Sinister magic is, by its namesake, a very cruel and sinister branch of magic. Very few people choose to study these magic arts because they tend to have tremendous adverse effects on the caster.


    Often, people being introduced to these magics are either driven mad or killed before they can even reach a beginner¡¯s level of proficiency. That said, they are also a very powerful and very difficult to deal with type of magic.


    Murphy immediately hated it. He hated it so much he tried to find a way to unlearn it. Unfortunately, there was no way to unlearn something in his Status Space.


    After raging for a brief time, and Hurts So Good quickly confusing his discouragement and disappointment into happiness and jubilance, Murphy returned to focus on the next new skill.


    Mana Manipulation: This is the most important and useful skill to a mage of any type. The ability to manipulate Mana properly plays a huge part in the power of spells. If a person is skilled in mana manipulation then they can even create their own spells!


    Finally, he focused on a new object in his stat world. A floating tome. It was a very sinister and evil looking book. It seemed to suck the light in, giving it a very gloomy dark aura and making the book completely black except for an intricate network of veins glowing red across its surface.


    Murphy felt a great deal of discomfort just looking at the book. After considering for a little while, he eventually worked up the courage to open it. It only had one page with anything on it, and the rest of the hundred odd pages were empty.


    The single page with something on it was the curse, Ain¡¯t No Rest for the Wicked.


    Curse: Ain¡¯t No Rest for the Wicked.


    This curse is a vile curse with sinister intention. When cast on a target, the target will suffer from insomnia until the caster releases the curse or is killed. While in effect, the caster must spend 1 Mana point per hour to maintain the curse.


    The curse prevents the target from needing or desiring sleep, however at the same time it increases the person¡¯s irrationality and irritability proportionally to the time the curse is in effect. The rate at which the negative aspects of the curse increases is determined by the amount of Mana used when casting the curse.


    Murphy wasn¡¯t sure if he liked or disliked this curse. It had very severe effects and would be useful, but at the same time it was rather cruel and evil in nature. He decided to first test his new skills and see their effects before casting final judgement.


    Once he was finished inspecting his status, he looted everything he felt was of worth from the cave and then tried to find his way back to road, and hopefully find some food along the way.


    <hr>


    As I wondered about through the forest heading south, a strange scene suddenly transpired. When I kill an enemy, there¡¯s usually some kind of white misty light that come out of the body and then merges into mine. This is usually experience points.


    As I was moving through the forest a whole bunch of experience mist rushed towards me and was sucked into my body. I had no idea what was happening until I suddenly got a system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! Your Poison Mastery skill has reached level 3.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, Assassinate the Prince of Kindness!¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have gained a Secret Title. Poison Assassin.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Your Secret Title has gained -120 renown. Poison Assassin is now a wanted criminal.¡¯


    ...


    ¡®Ping! Your Mental Fortitude has reached level 30.¡¯


    I couldn¡¯t hold back my confusion.


    ¡°ARGH!!! What the crap?! How the fuck did I accidentally kill the Prince? Don¡¯t tell me he fucking walked into the poison fog? What the actual fuck?!¡±


    Even my Hurts So Good couldn¡¯t limit my feelings this time. The sudden shock of having killed someone called the Prince of ¡®Kindness¡¯ was too much even for my godlike special trait to limit. My Please Sir trait didn¡¯t seem to mind though, as it pushed my Mental Fortitude to new heights.


    I wanted to chalk this up to Murphy¡¯s Law, but I hadn¡¯t even set out to do anything yet! How can something go drastically wrong just from me setting out to hunt some food? It¡¯s too illogical!


    After some shouting and some raging, I calmed down enough for Hurts So Good to once again revert my emotions to the opposite end of the scale. Blessing ... Curse ... Hurts So Good was both of these things.


    Once I was smiling and jovial again, I decided that this must have had something to do with my luck. When I checked my Status, I found my lack had taken a sudden huge dive and was now -18. The accident from killing the Prince definitely had very adverse effects on my luck stat.


    It was time to test out my new special trait. I rummaged around in my inventory and pulled out my trusty broken dagger. I stared at it intensely for a moment, then uttered the curse; ¡°Misery Loves Company¡±.


    The dagger suddenly lit up like a flashlight and illuminated everything. A moment later, it looked like an ordinary broken dagger again. I checked my status and found my Luck had dropped back to -3. I then scrutinised the dagger closely until the game¡¯s overlay came up displaying the items properties.


    <hr>


    Broken Dagger (Unlucky)


    This broken dagger was stolen from a group of harmless innocent villagers.


    The thief was a villain of the highest order. After slaying the villagers, the villain carried this dagger as a token of his achievements and slowly imbued it with his evil intentions.


    Wielder experiences hidden luck modifier of -17.


    <hr>


    After checking its status, I assumed that the parts in red were a hidden effect. Presumably that meant no one would be able to tell this dagger was actually unlucky. They would only know that it was a broken dagger stolen from some villagers.


    As I held the dagger, I wondered what should be done with it. Although the hidden description made me a little sick in the guts, I ignored it. After considering a while, I just decided to abandon the dagger in forest. After all, it was useless to me at this point.


    So, I just tossed it off into the woods like garbage.


    ¡°ROAR!!!¡±


    ¡°Ahh shit...¡±


    I should have known better. An unlucky dagger with -17 luck. How could that not be a recipe for disaster if carelessly tossed about. Without turning to investigate the source of the sound, I ran like the wind.


    It would be more precise to say I huffed and grunted like a pig as I walked at a brisk pace through the forest. I¡¯d picked up so much loot in the bear cave that my inventory weighed almost more than I could carry.


    The only reason I could still move was because my Hurts So Good was busily resisting the pain and torment of carrying so much loot on my back.


    As I waddled through the forest at a brisk walking pace, a huge rush of wind blew past me. I turned back to witness a huge dragon climbing into the sky behind me. It was a grand and majestic sight, filling my entire field of view as it slowly ascended.


    Each flap of its wings nearly pushed me over just from the force of the air it was disturbing. It was a good thing my inventory was so heavy, otherwise I may have just flown off like a leaf in the wind.


    The dragon was covered in dark green and dirty brown scales, which was probably why it fit in with the forest so well that I didn¡¯t even notice walking past it. On its scaled head was a single glowing red scale that was inverted to the direction of the other scales.


    ¡®Is that the rumoured inverse dragon scale. They say every dragon has a backwards scale that makes them go into a rage when it¡¯s touched. I thought it was a metaphor for when people get angry at others for crossing their bottom line. I now see that it was true... ¡®


    As I was thinking to myself, I noticed there was something sticking out of the glowing red scale. I scrutinised it from a distance trying to work out what it was.


    ¡°Oh ... so that¡¯s where it went.¡±


    Realisation struck, when I determined the thing sticking out of the middle of the dragons forward was in fact the Unlucky Broken Dagger.


    At the same time, I quickly checked my status and noticed my luck had already dropped back to -8. It seemed like no matter what I tried, my luck would always be terrible.


    By this point in time, I was frozen in place as I observed the grandeur of the massive and frightening forest dragon taking flight. That didn¡¯t last long though, because I very quickly discovered its big golden yellow eyes staring directly at me.


    I considered if I would be able to escape this situation in a similar fashion to the bear incident, but before I could think of anything, a huge ball of flames engulfed me. My body was roasted to a well-done state on contact and was blown away by the force of the collision like a cannon ball.


    A little moan of pleasure escaped my lips as I rocketed through the sky like a missile. My body flipped and tumbled about like a ragdoll and I¡¯m sure my leg was missing. I then watched on horrified as I started to rapidly descend towards the ground.


    There is sometimes fortune in misfortune. In this case, I was lucky and unlucky. Below me, was the rapidly approaching ground, which was very unlucky. But at the same time that rapidly approaching ground just happened to be a part of a big city ... most likely, the city I was trying to reach. Which was quite lucky.


    Unluckily, I couldn¡¯t slow my descent and continued to rocket towards the city was great speed. Somehow, by some miracle, I didn¡¯t immediately die on impact. Instead, the bones of my lower body, which connected first, were disintegrated.


    Everything then happened very quickly. I heard crashing sounds and screaming and crying as my body continued along the ground creating a little crater and displacing a tonne of dirt and cobblestones from the road.


    Luckily, just as I felt my consciousness slipping, and the world was growing dark I heard a system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! Congratulations on reaching Gateway City. Setting new respawn point!¡¯


    Unfortunately, the system prompt didn¡¯t stop there.


    ¡®Ping! You have gained a new Title. Orphan Crippler. -40 renown.¡¯

 Chapter 3: Orphan Heart

    Oh, Sage! Something terrible just happened! That final system prompt was definitely not a good sign! Orphan Crippler? What the hell kind of title is that? It already sounds terrible! How the hell am I supposed to come back from something like that?


    ¡°Sigh...¡±


    At least I managed to set a new respawn point! If I had to hike that road all over again Sage only knows what accidents I may have run into.


    Let¡¯s see, what¡¯s the time ... Holy Crap. It¡¯s only midday. Let¡¯s see, I got sucked in at 8:30 ... so that¡¯s three and a half hours. In Game time that¡¯s equivalent to four times that ... which is 14 hours! Man, this game¡¯s so brutal.


    I¡¯ve only got 3 hours of game time, and I¡¯ve already died more than three times. ¡°Sigh...¡±


    Well, I¡¯ve been starving for almost 14 hours, so I should go and eat something. I wonder if Juwan is still home or not...


    Guess I¡¯ll go down and have a little peek in the fridge.


    Sneak, Sneak, Sneak. Avoid the third step. Sneak, Sneak, Sneak.


    ¡®Ping! A new skill has reached level 1. Sneak.¡¯


    Oh shit! The game system still works even out here in the real world! How is that possible? Hmm ... maybe I should experiment with the system in the real world as well.


    ¡°Growl!¡±


    But first I should eat something. Ok ... Sneak, Sneak, Sneak. Hmm, let¡¯s see what tasties are in the fridge. Cheese ... Milk ... Carrots ... mmm ... oh, there we go! Looks like Alice left some cake in here. Hmm ... I probably shouldn¡¯t ... but it looks so good...


    Num, num, num. Cake is the best. Whoever invented cake is a genius! Ok, back to my room!


    Sneak, Sneak, Sneak...


    ¡°What the hell are you doing home you little shit stain?¡±


    Ahh shit ... looks like Alice is home. Sage, I hate that bitch!


    ¡°Ah ... haha ... Hey, Alice! I didn¡¯t realise you were home. I¡¯m feeling a bit sick today, so I was just resting up. Heh heh...¡±


    Ahh ... she¡¯s making that face she makes. Like she wants to bludgeon me to death with a soft blunt instrument. Like a pillow. I assume that would be her weapon of choice because the longer it takes me to die, the happy she would be.


    ¡°Whatever! Just keep away from my stuff in the fridge! I know it was you who ate my pudding that last time! Let me warn you that if there¡¯s a second time you¡¯re going to get an ass whooping.¡±


    Heh! You wish, you prissy little bitch. We both know you¡¯ve never been able to get the upper hand on me.


    ¡°Oh, Little brother. How are you feeling?¡±


    Ah great. This giant prick is still here as well. Oh is that what I think it is?


    ¡°Hey there Juwan. Is that a Dimension Key you¡¯re holding?¡±


    ¡°A what? This is one of those things from the mysterious black thing in the city centre. A Dimension Key? You know what it is?¡±


    Heh. Do I ever! Mmm. Yes ... Let¡¯s introduce you to the world of Domain Warz. Let¡¯s watch you suffer the endless torment of the twisted Game System.


    ¡°Hoh. Not really. I¡¯ve only heard its name. If you want to interact with it, you need to splash some of your blood on it. Then you can do something like this.¡±


    Log In!


    <hr>


    Murphy didn¡¯t get to see what Juwan¡¯s face was like when he suddenly disappeared from the middle of the kitchen, but he liked to try and imagine it.


    When he respawned, he appeared in a totally different place to the previous smouldering, decimated village. As he surveyed his surroundings, Murphy found himself in the centre of a bustling marketplace filled with a variety of shops and stores. His respawn point was the city centre.


    Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t get a chance to fully inspect everything in the market square, because a group of knights clad in shiny silver armour crowded around me with their pointy spears and swords facing my direction.


    ¡°Halt! You¡¯re the one that crippled all those poor young orphans and left them on death¡¯s door? How dare you show your face in Gateway!¡±


    As this was yelled at Murphy, a knight in gold armour stepped up with a piece of parchment. He then unrolled it and started reading a list of very undesirable things.


    ¡°Murphy Law, The Unstable Lone Wolf Poison Master and nefarious Orphan Crippler, your renown has fallen below -20. Consider this an official warning. If your renown drops below -40 you will be marked as a wanted criminal by any law-abiding city. Take care in the future.¡±


    He then rolled it up sauntered off with his posse of shiny knights, leaving Murphy standing in the middle of the market square with everyone giving him hate filled gazes.


    If a stare were like a bullet, Murphy would have been riddled with holes and perhaps even completely vaporised by the magnitude of the burning hateful gazes he received.


    If his Hurts So Good weren¡¯t forcing him to enjoy all these angry glares, he¡¯d probably have long since run away to hide. Instead, he just smiled his most amiable and charming smile as he wondered into the markets.


    The first thing he did was found a quiet place to sit down and organise his inventory and to check his stats. He picked up a few interesting things from the Bear Caves. First among them was a set of boots. They looked like comfortable soft leather boots, but he felt there was a little more to them.


    As he investigated the boots and tried them on, he realised that they drastically reduced the weight of his inventory. He decided that he would be keeping these boots for himself and left them equipped.


    He also found a simple conical bamboo hat which seemed to make all those hateful gazes turn away and back to their own business. He assumed this hat must have some kind of attribute that hides the person¡¯s identity or makes the person difficult to identify.


    Either way, it was a Sagesend at this moment in time.


    He also found a simple looking dagger with a slightly greenish blade. The moment he touched the tip he regretted. It seemed the blade was super sharp. So sharp that it could stab into his skin even after it had an endurance level approaching 18.


    Even more disturbing was that his whole body suddenly lit up in ecstasy as a burning pain filled his every nerve. If it was anyone, the level of pain should have rendered them paralytic. Murphy, on the other hand, appeared to only be feeling a slight bit of discomfort.


    He decided to equip this dagger to a little leather dagger sheath on his belt. He then sorted through all sorts of other things and tested them out to try and identify their properties. As he did, a system prompt popped up.


    ¡®Ping! You have levelled a new skill to level 1, Identify.¡¯


    ¡°Oh ... interesting. It must be a skill for identifying the properties of something.¡±


    With that thought said aloud to himself, Murphy poured through all the equipment in his inventory and equipped to his body one more time. This time around, instead of a game overlay that just showed a name and basic description, he started seeing other stats and attributes of equipment.


    He discovered that most weapons had a damage modifier, which increased the damage they would normally do. Armours and wearable items had some defence modifiers and accessories generally had some simple attribute bonuses.


    The hairpin of the little beast girl gave a bonus of 2 to the maximum Mana. The Sword of the Bandit Leader had a sharpness attribute that made it sharper than normal. The Evil Instructor¡¯s belt had two special effects. It could automatically pull potions from your inventory and also had a 1% chance to ¡®magically¡¯ duplicate a potion when it¡¯s pulled off the belt.


    To test this function, Murphy started pulling potions off the belt then throwing them back into his inventory. Probably thanks to his terrible luck score, he never got to witness the belt magically produce a free potion.


    Unfortunately, out of all the equipment in his inventory, the armours were even more useless than his own body¡¯s endurance and only added weight to him if he equipped them. Thus, he was better off staying in the dirty village clothes he¡¯d robbed off those innocent villagers.


    When he scrutinised the Dagger again, he discovered its name and properties. It wasn¡¯t that it was sharp in the sense the edge was sharp. It was rather that it was incredibly pointy. The attribute it had was simply defined as Super Pointy.


    It was also apparently poisoned with a level 2 poison enchantment, which Murphy had already discovered. What he found strange though, was that even if it was poisoned, the enchantment was only level two. The reason this confused him was that it still seemed to do plenty of damage and hurt a lot, by comparison, he managed to reach the point that he could stroll around mostly unaffected in the green poison smog, which was considered a high-class poison recipe.


    The last thing identified were the potions and the magic scroll. The Magic Scroll had the apt name of Flaming Balls of Fire. When broken the scroll would summon 4 balls of fire that fired in the direction the caster pointed in.


    The potions varied and unsurprisingly were mostly poison. He¡¯d used the two super rare ones, so he wasn¡¯t sure what they were, but the remaining ones made him even more curious about the state of his poisoned dagger.


    This was because the purple fog poison was apparently Level 4 ... and he suspected he could probably breathe that stuff like normal air by now.


    He thought he understood the reason when he finally got around to checking his stats properly.


    When he went to his Status Place, he felt that it was starting to get very crowded. As such he tried altering what his stat screens showed.


    After some playing, he simplified it a little more so that he could keep track of everything easily. The discovery that he could customise his status screens led him to imagine some possibilities in the future, but he chose to ignore it for the moment.


    Murphy now understood why the poison from the little dagger could still affect him. It was his own damn fault! Poison Assassin allowed the poison of the dagger to negate some of his poison resistance. He could see this being a good and bad thing ... but mostly bad.


    He had long since come to the conclusion that poison was the best method for him to help increase his bodies endurance through taking damage. It was a constant damage over a prolonged period of time and could affect nearly every part of his anatomy.


    With Poison Assassins passive buff to his poison, it meant he could use poison to keep damaging his body to make it even more durable.


    The downside is, letting Please Sir and Hurts So Good operate sped up the rate that his weird Masochism skill levelled. Just looking at it, he could tell it was only 20,000 experience points away from tipping over into level 11.


    He hated this skill because it gave birth to those creepy special traits. He didn¡¯t know how the game system assigned these skills in the beginning. He was definitely not a masochist. In fact, he hated pain more than anyone.


    Somehow though, the system seemed to think otherwise ... either that or this entire game was a huge joke!


    <hr>


    I could only consider this entire game as a joke at this point! All of my stats were wacky and twisted. How it¡¯s possible that I ended up with some disgusting skill like masochism was beyond me. Unfortunately, for now, I would just have to silently suffer.


    With a long sigh of dejection, I rose from the quiet street corner I¡¯d been sitting at and moved to a nearby vendor to trade all the junk I¡¯d picked up. Thanks to my new bamboo hat, the vendor didn¡¯t recognise me.


    I was only guessing, but I suspected all my titles and negative renown would impact my ability to sell or buy from the NPC¡¯s. It hid my identity and renown making me look like just another normal customer.


    After some haggling, I sold some of my things. Some of it I had to keep. Even the vendor seemed to think it was junk. I then spent 3 hours walking around trying to sell off everything and empty my inventory.


    While I was exploring the city and checking out shops and vendors, I heard some rather disturbing rumours about someone who fell from the sky and obliterated a little orphanage in town. My heart bled for these little buggers.


    I should know how tough life for them is, after all, I too was once a lonely orphan. However, this sentiment quickly became bitterness when I realised that the heartless bastard who destroyed a full orphanage and crippled half the residents, was actually me!


    I was the Orphan Crippler! If it weren¡¯t for Hurts So Good somewhat holding my feelings in check, my heart might have literally started bleeding from the bitterness and unfairness of the world. To think that my accident would create such a cruel state of affairs.


    With that in mind, I decided to fix this situation no matter what! I would help those orphans even if it came at the expense of my own life. With this resolution in my heart, I started exploring the city with greater vigour and purpose.


    Strangely, on this planet, the sun was very slow to cross the sky. By now I¡¯d spent more than 24 hours in the game, and the sky was still bright and sunny. Based on the position of the sun it was just after midday. In the real world, it should have been getting close to 3 o¡¯clock in the afternoon.


    However, even though the real world was moving much slower, I was running on the game world¡¯s clock and was starting to get tired. That being the case, I grit my teeth and firmed my resolve again by thinking about my time back in the orphanage.


    For the first time, I tried to use magic. I intuitively knew that I could summon my Spell Tome from my Status Place. Therefore, I found a nice quiet place out of sight and summoned my Spell Tome.


    With a little flash that lit up the dark alley for a second, it appeared in my hand. I then opened the book and focused on the only spell I had. After a little while ... I realised I had no idea how the hell to even cast the spell. Most of the stuff I needed to know was intuitively gifted to me when I claimed the Tome and it filled my head with information.


    I assumed that the spell needed me to use Mana Manipulation somehow, but I wasn¡¯t sure how. I sat down in the dark alley and tried to remember everything that had been forced into my head at that moment. After contemplating on that information for a while, I found a method.


    I closed my book and practised for a moment. I focused my mind and tried to imagine the Mana in my body slowly flowing around like gas in a container. I then tried to imagine it flowing into my finger.


    Once I managed that, I opened my eyes to discover my finger dully glowing. I then touched it onto the page with my only spell. A strange pattern lit up on the page of my spell book. It was complex and difficult to make out all the different lines. Along with the strange pattern was some strange words that I couldn¡¯t understand or comprehend.


    ¡°Cast!¡± I quietly commanded the book. With that, the strange pattern briefly lit up, and the colour of my finger changed to a dull red glow. At the same time, I felt the Mana focused in my finger change in a subtle manner, like it wasn¡¯t just some neutral energy but had instead become sinister and evil.


    ¡°Gulp.¡±


    Although I am a cowardly person, and really didn¡¯t want to cast some evil curse on myself, the thought of the suffering I unintentionally caused those poor orphans pushed me forward.


    I pointed my finger towards myself and willed the spell to fire. I then felt a strange sensation as a gloomy dark red light shot into my body. All the tiredness and sleepiness from a moment ago dispersed like dust being wiped from the cover of a book.


    I felt refreshed and not even the slightest bit tired. At the same time, I started to feel calm, relaxed and clear minded. If I had to guess, that feeling was a result of my Hurts So Good automatically reverting the impatience and irrationality of the curse into a positive sensation.


    I checked my status and witnessed my Masochism rising at a slow and steady rate. At the same time, my Mental Fortitude in my Endurance Stat was also very slowly rising. Thank you ¡®Please Sir¡¯ trait for being so useful.


    I calmly considered the potential repercussions of this. For the moment, nothing bad would happen, but eventually my Hurts So Good won¡¯t be able to quell the tide of my rising irritation, and I will start to feel it.


    With that in mind, I quickly sent my Spell Tome back to my Status Space and head off into the city to complete the mission I¡¯d set for myself.


    After another hour of searching, I finally found what I¡¯d been looking for. Around the city was a few alchemy shops with herbs and ingredients and everything needed for alchemy.


    I bought some equipment from these places, but the two things I needed most were a recipe to help heal the orphans and a guide that can teach me how the alchemy system works.


    To my dismay, both of these things were very expensive. I could only afford one. Considering that, I felt that the need to know how alchemy worked was more important. That could at least give me a steady source of income, and I could eventually find a way to heal the orphans from that.


    I didn¡¯t want to create another accident like the incident in the forest with the bears. If I set off a poison fog in the orphanage, I¡¯m sure not even the Sagely ¡®Hurts So Good¡¯ could prevent the regret and heartache from literally killing me on the spot.


    As such, I chose the guide. The guide I found was an amiable looking old man with a gentle smile and fluffy white beard. He was a bit rotund and if I were to liken him to anyone he would resemble the image of that ancient Santa Clause fellow from the old era on earth.


    He wasn¡¯t wearing a red suit though. Just normal commoner clothes. After paying him an exorbitant fee of 200 silvers, he invited me into a simple alchemy laboratory filled with all sorts of equipment. The centrepiece of the lab was a big black cauldron that looked like it was stolen from a witch¡¯s coven.


    I then delved into the glorious laws of alchemy. Which actually turned out to be somewhat complex with all sorts of strange rules. If I had to simplify it, then alchemy in the game was basically using certain ingredients to create a potion that gave the desired result.


    In this game system, the probability of successfully ¡®refining¡¯ a potion will depend on your Alchemy skill. Later on, once you gain more experience with certain types of potions, you can gain Mastery¡¯s which also add modifiers to your potions. In my case, I¡¯d accidentally managed to get Poison Mastery.


    It took me almost 3 hours just to complete the basics. Just completing the basics course raised my Alchemy to level 3. At the same time, I levelled up another skill to level 1 and raised my Identify skill to level 2.


    Memorisation: The higher the level of memorisation, the easier it is to memorise and remember things.


    I was somewhat surprised that this sort of thing could become a skill, but it was a happy kind of surprise. The reason this skill managed to level up was that one of the most important parts of alchemy is memorising how certain attributes interact and affect each other during potion refinement.


    Identify levelled up thanks to the huge number of potion ingredients I had to learn to identify. Thanks to ¡®Identify¡¯ I didn¡¯t have to worry about memorising the herbs attributes because once I identified a herb, the system remembered it for me and I could view its attributes and special effects in potions just by looking at it.


    Of course, I came to learn that Identify wasn¡¯t omnipotent. If I tried to Identify something with higher levels and stats than my Identify skill, then it either wouldn¡¯t show its attributes or would only show part of the objects information.


    That meant that I might still not know all the stats of the equipment I was wearing. Luckily, I found a way to determine if my Identify failed to learn everything the system could show. If an object were fully identified of all its properties, the overlay that appeared on it to show its name and attributes would have a little # symbol in the corner.


    I didn¡¯t notice it before, so I suspect it was a result of Identify reaching level 2.


    Continuing from my deviation, 3 hours and a few lab accidents I won¡¯t mention later, I waved goodbye to the kind, clean-shaven Santa and left the city.


    Don¡¯t ask why he was clean shaven, I refuse to discuss it.


    Anyway, I left the city because if you wanted to properly identify the properties of something then you must either buy expensive books filled with boring lines of text describing it, or you would have to investigate the item in question and test its effects yourself.


    So, even though my heart bled for the Orphans, I, unfortunately, didn¡¯t have the money to buy the recipe for a rejuvenation potion that could help them. Worse still, after investigating, I found out the potion was nearly level 6.


    That meant my failure rate wouldn¡¯t even be 50% unless I had an Alchemy level that was equivalent. Worse still, ingredients for that sort of potion were all expensive.


    Luckily, the hills and forests surrounding Gateway City were exploding with alchemy ingredient. Unluckily, they were also filled with endless amounts of danger, as can be attested to by the few incidents I had stumbled into on the way to the City.


    As I ambled about in the forests scrutinising everything in sight, my Identify skill was getting a severe workout. It soared by leaps and bounds thanks to the nature of my method to identify something¡¯s properties. Whenever I encountered something I couldn¡¯t get any information on from the system, I would think of those poor orphans, firm my resolve and eat it.


    I suspect thanks to my luck stat, almost everything I ate was a deadly poison of some description. By the time it was afternoon on Newb Planet, My Poison Mastery, Endurance and Identify Skill had all gone through substantial growth.


    At one point in my collecting, I got an alert from the system.


    ¡®Ping! Masochism has passed level ten and evolved to Pain Mastery!¡¯


    When I got this notice, I jumped back to my Status Space and investigated. Sure enough, Masochism had become Pain Mastery. Apart from the name change, the experience and level reset to 0 and 1 respectively.


    Interestingly enough, even though the experience counter had dropped to 0, gaining experience in the skill was now a great deal slower. What would have increased my Masochism by 100 points before, now only gave Pain Mastery about 20 points.


    The only thing that made me feel good about this development was that it wasn¡¯t named something as perverse as ¡®Masochism¡¯. In addition to the change to the masochism skill, the special traits specific to it also seemed to have evolved.


    The moment I returned to the city I checked my status.


    From what I could see, I had some increases in all my stats ... except for wisdom and charisma, which both still sat in the negative levels. I couldn¡¯t figure out why exactly these stats remained in the negative. From the sub-stats under the average scores, it seemed to indicate that I was just generally a complete idiot when it came to any form of social interaction.


    Earlier, when I managed to convince that giant stupid bear, by charisma stat increased, only for it to fall again after the whole thing involving the orphanage. Wisdom was much the same. Although it seemed to indicate that I was wise in matters that I was detached from, in personal matters my wisdom dropped through the floor.


    Unfortunately, for a change, I couldn¡¯t argue with the systems evaluation of my social skills. I will readily admit that my ability to socialise properly are all rightfully portrayed by negative figures. Unfortunately, I knew that these stats definitely affected other parts of the games system.


    For example, I had a sneaking suspicion that things like Mana Manipulation would require high wisdom and intelligence and if these stats were high, then Mana Manipulation would most likely have a boost in experience gain.


    That was just a personal suspicion though. I hadn¡¯t found anything yet to validate that thought.


    It would most likely be the same if I wanted to gain a skill like bartering or leadership or something. These things would most likely require a high charisma stat to increase quickly.


    I¡¯m not entirely sure which stat affected the speed of growth of my Pain Mastery, but if I had to guess, it would be the Cement Stat. I still couldn¡¯t figure out what this stat was supposed to be.


    It seemed to be like luck, and didn¡¯t have sub-stats or anything that needed averaging out. This made it difficult to determine what exactly the hell it was. Just reading the name of it makes me remember an old proverb I heard from Uncle Calligso on regular occasion when he first started training me.


    ¡°Eat a tablespoon of cement and harden the fuck up.¡±


    ¡°Sighh...¡± Just thinking about the potential origin of this strange stat brought back a flood of unpleasant memories.


    I also took note of the Introspection Stat. It apparently had levelled up at some point as well, but what I did to accomplish that was beyond me. Once again, after some pondering, I speculated that it was from all the time I spent considering the origin of some of these stats, or possibly from when I did the imagining technique to visualise mana ... or maybe both of these things?


    It was too hard to guess exactly what the fuck was going on with these crazy stats.


    My Luck had apparently dropped again, but after Santa lost his fluffy white beard, I already expected to see that happen.


    After my return to the city, I looked around and found an old run down cottage on the outskirts of the city that was abandoned. It was quiet and out of the way, which suited me perfectly.


    By this time, it was about 6 o¡¯clock in the real world. Just as I had settled into my new cottage and was about to, for the very first time of my own accord and without dying, log out, I received a system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! Another player is attempting to log in nearby your log in point and is requesting to create a party. Would you like to accept?¡¯


    This was the first time I¡¯d received a system prompt like this, and it left me speechless for a moment. For the sheer novelty of it, I unhesitatingly accepted. It was only after I said ¡®yes¡¯ that I considered who it might be.


    After remembering that I¡¯d told Juwan how to activate the Key, I realised I¡¯d just agreed to form a party with the person that I hated the most. By that point in time, it was too late to take my words back, and I was forced to watch on with a bitter expression as Juwan materialised out of a flash of light in my rundown little cottage.


    ¡°Yo, Little Brother. I was worried about you!¡±


    <hr>


    Ahh shit! Why the hell did I accept the party request? I should have known better. Do I truly lack that much wisdom ... or perhaps, in this case, it should be considered common sense? Damn!


    ¡°Err ... hey, Juwan. Fancy meeting you here.¡±


    Ok, let¡¯s just be polite for a few minutes then log out.


    ¡°Little Brother. This is some game you¡¯ve discovered. Took me all this time just to finish the Instructor¡¯s tutorial quests. Luckily when I asked about you, the Instructor knew how I could get in touch with you.¡±


    What? Your Instructor actually gave you such useful information? My Instructor was ... hmmm ... well, never mind about what happened to my Instructor. I¡¯ll just learn these things as I go. More importantly, let¡¯s try something.


    Identify!


    ¡®Ping! This player¡¯s skills are too high a level to inspect.¡¯


    ¡°ARGH!¡± Fuck my head! It¡¯s killing me! What the hell! Is this some kind of backlash? How the hell can Juwan be so powerful already?!


    ¡°Little Brother! What¡¯s wrong?! Oh! You must have tried to identify me, huh? Sorry about that. The Instructor told me that there were some accidents when you first started and you haven¡¯t finished your tutorial yet. If you want, I can help you out. There¡¯s a lot of important things you¡¯ve missed.¡±


    What ¡®help me out¡¯? What ¡®important things I¡¯ve missed¡¯? Shut up you smart ass! Trying to rub it in! It¡¯s not my fault I was born into this world with negative luck stats! What the hell do you understand about adversity?!


    Wait...


    ¡°How does the Instructor know who I am?¡±


    ¡°Oh, well, she said that you were spawned into her original village and killed everyone because of a mistake. Because she¡¯s a guide, she was respawned in another village, which was where I first spawned when I logged in. She did ask me to get her hair pin back though.¡±


    What?! That vicious little beast girl was the Instructor? Ahh ... my luck really is no good. No good at all. Hmm ... I¡¯ve spent more than 24 hours in the game now. I wonder if it¡¯s ready again?


    Hah! Excellent. Ok, make it look casual. You just need to touch him.


    ¡°I really have been unlucky today Juwan. You should be careful around me, after all, Misery Loves Company.¡°


    Ah! What the hell was that? Did he just flash with silver light?!


    ¡®Ping! Special Trait Modifier ¡®Endurance¡¯ was not strong enough to overcome the target¡¯s Special Trait Modifier ¡®Kindness¡¯. -5 Luck.¡¯


    What the fuck?! This is just too cruel! This is too horrible! This is too disgusting! Fucking ¡®Kindness¡¯?! Why the fuck does a massive dick like him have ¡®Kindness¡¯ as a special skill?! He¡¯s the most snakish, vile, forked tongued bastard I¡¯ve ever met?!


    ¡°Oh wow! Thanks, Little Bro. That¡¯s a pretty impressive special trait. Being able to give out luck to people. You truly do have a charitable heart. My special trait is somewhat boring. It¡¯s called ¡®Kind Men Won¡¯t Suffer¡¯. All it does is protect me from negative status effects and damage.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ¡°My other trait is even worse, it grants me a second life. Meaning if I receive too much damage I instantly heal back to full health. I feel like they¡¯re bad traits to have. They¡¯re so selfish, only helping me. I wish I had a trait like yours where I could give people luck!¡±


    You bastard! You evil prick! How dare you make yourself out to be so humble and gallant! Bastard! Liar!


    ¡°Err ... heh ... yeah ... giving people good luck. My trait¡¯s called ¡®Lucky Charm¡¯...¡± Come on Murphy! Even I wouldn¡¯t buy some crap like that!


    ¡°Whew ... You really are a good Little Brother. I admire your selflessness greatly. I only stopped in to tell you that I¡¯m almost finished my tutorial quests. My last quest is to meet the Lord of Gateway City and receive a reward for slaying that Dragon that recently went on a rampage.


    ¡°That means I¡¯ll be heading to the next place before you. To be honest, I want to stick around and work together with you till you¡¯re ready to go through as well, but after slaying the dragon, I received a system prompt telling me I ¡®have¡¯ to leave Newb World. I think it¡¯s some kind of method to prevent people from just living here and levelling endlessly.¡±


    Dragon? When did a dragon go on a rampage? You¡¯re making things up! You didn¡¯t slay a dragon! No way did you slay a dragon! Fucking dragon slayer my ass!


    ¡°Anyway, I¡¯ll see you later ok. Mum¡¯s putting dinner out soon so be sure to head back and eat something. I don¡¯t know how this game world works and if eating here will actually fill us, but you should join the family for dinner once in a while. Everyone misses you when you close yourself up in your room.¡±


    Fuck sake! Stop nagging me like and old women! You think I don¡¯t see through all your veiled criticisms and jabs at my character! I know I¡¯m anti-social! Just piss off!


    ¡°Oh ... uh ... ok.¡± Sighh ... It¡¯s alright, one of these days I¡¯ll speak my mind. One of these days.


    ¡°Mnm. See you at dinner Little Brother!¡±


    <hr>


    To say that Murphy is a little bit socially awkward would be a deliberate misinterpretation. It should be rather clear by now that his social acuity can only be labelled with the word; Inept.


    In this case meaning that he¡¯s very, very bad at it. Apart from Seelie, who is the only person he¡¯s spent any time around, Murphy can read other people and understand social cues about as well as a child could understand advanced quantum theory or a wild animal could understand how a car works.


    In saying that, his ineptitude isn¡¯t all encompassing. He can at least understand some simple things ... like saying something when other people speak directly to him, or not farting in crowded places.


    From there, adding even a single more person than 1, complicates things for Murphy beyond his ability to fully comprehend. Joining an ongoing conversation, just being part of a conversation, and even trying to follow a conversation between more than 2 people is so far beyond his realm of comprehension that he¡¯s forced to shut down.


    All the sounds become ¡®mph mph mph¡¯, and it¡¯s not rare to see him simply staring back dumbly when asked a question. Adding the general nervousness around people he¡¯s unfamiliar with, which is pretty much everyone, Murphy¡¯s ability to comprehend a social situation drastically devolves.


    To the point that he would even forget to not fart in a crowded place.


    Which is very much the situation that has just happened at his family dinner. Making things even more troubling, was the innumerable number of suspicious and questionable alchemy ingredients he¡¯d ingested today.


    About halfway through the dinner, just when Uncle Calligso had turned to ask him how his studies at school were going, Murphy forgot to control himself and let slip a little fart. It was only a little one. So small no one even heard it.


    Unfortunately, the sheer toxicity of this accidental slip caused everyone bar Murphy and Juwan to fall unconscious, thoroughly destroying this pleasant and peaceful family event. Juwan, who was sat next to Murphy, and made a habit of sitting next to him for as long as Murphy could remember, became slightly hysterical seeing everyone collapse.


    Making him even more unsure of what was happening was a very shiny armour made of silver light that flashed into existence the moment Murphy had accidentally released. It seemed to be straining so hard to repel the negative status effects of the gas that it was starting to crack.


    Juwan thought some kind of gas leak must have happened and quickly started rescuing everyone from the dinner table.


    This lead to wasting a whole hour before the Department of Safety cleared their house for them to return. While everyone was outside in the fresh air, a strange girl turned up at his house and just started talking to him about inconsequential stuff out of nowhere.


    Murphy, being the social butterfly he is, just nodded and smiled politely until his house was cleared.


    ¡°OK, I¡¯m heading back inside now.¡±


    When he said this, the strange girl started to follow him.


    ¡° ... Um ... something ... I can help you with?¡±


    The girl made a ¡°Urgh!¡± sound that was very familiar to Murphy. This was then followed by a long silence in which the two people stared at each other for almost a minute. The expression the girl was giving Murphy was very similar to another expression he received from another girl on a regular basis. Like his skin was going to be peeled off by the severity of the glaring at any moment.


    ¡° ... Errr ... do I know you perhaps?¡±


    Murphy¡¯s eloquence once more came to the fore. The intensity of the death glare he was receiving increased. If anyone else nearby was to see this, they might have been mistaken into think these two were lovers, lost in each other¡¯s eyes.


    Only Murphy was able to sense the very real threat to his life from that stare. Clearly, this girl¡¯s patience was very robust because she just continued to glare and wait for something. She was clearly expecting Murphy to suddenly remember something.


    He thought back onto the moment she showed up out of nowhere and very naturally started talking to him like they¡¯d known one another forever. Suddenly it clicked. He somehow managed to remember one of her sentences containing something about school.


    ¡°Do you perhaps ... go to my school?¡±


    It seemed even this girl, whose patience appeared without limit, had finally lost her patience.


    ¡°Murphy, one of these days I¡¯m going to say something incredibly important and then never repeat myself. If you¡¯re not listening when I do, then you can only blame yourself.¡±


    A huge boom went off in Murphy¡¯s head. He¡¯d heard this saying hundreds if not thousands of times. He now realised how he knew this person.


    ¡°You must be a friend of Seelie¡¯s. I¡¯m sorry, I forgot who you are.¡±


    Once more, a long, long awkward silence.


    ¡°Murphy ... I am Seelie. It was the first thing I said to you when I came up next to you on the street. I chose to customise my appearance when I created a character, and it became permanent.¡±


    ¡°Oh...¡± Replied Murphy very awkwardly.


    He then scrutinised the girl in front of him. Apart from the eyes, which were still the exact same eyes that could stare a war veteran to death, she¡¯d changed completely. She was now taller, about two or three inches shorter than Murphy.


    He hair was long, black and was as smooth and straight as silk. She was slightly tan, and her body was now somewhat more developed. She looked like she¡¯d suddenly become quite fit.


    Unlike the Seelie he knew, this girl was wearing somewhat revealing clothes. Tight stretch pants that revealed her taught ass and slender thighs and seemed like they were even a little tighter than they should have been, appearing like a second skin and revealing ¡®everything¡¯.


    She was also wearing only a simple singlet that was also a size too small, making her bust seem on the verge of busting out. She was sexy and gorgeous, and it was very difficult for Murphy to see her as Seelie. Still, the most important part, the eyes, were definitely Seelie¡¯s.


    Not knowing exactly how to react, and getting a little chilly standing out in the cold night, he invited her in. They started to discuss everything they¡¯d discovered while playing today. It seemed Juwan must have had some huge stroke of luck, because Seelie was still only part way through her tutorial missions and had only just gotten the mission to come to Gateway City.


    Apparently, part of the tutorial missions is creating a class. Class creation was somewhat different from other games. Unlike in other games when you select a class and it limits you in your choices of development and skills, Domain Wars class creation is more selecting what areas you want to get a boost in development from the system.


    For example, Seelie created her own class called Scholar. This Class gave her bonuses to Intelligence, Wisdom and Endurance. By giving a growth bonus to these stats, it also gave a growth bonus to things like learning skills related to magic, the mind and special skills.


    Similar to Murphy, she had a weird skill like Masochism. Hers was something not creepy though. Patience.


    She even displayed one of the special traits she received from this skill. ¡®Since you didn¡¯t listen.¡¯


    When she touched Murphy, he suddenly heard a system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! Receiving memory implant. Would you like to accept.¡¯


    With a tentative ¡®yes¡¯, Murphy suddenly experienced the strange memory upload of the system, only this time it came from Seelie. He felt her memories from the entire day suddenly pour into his head. He watched on as her memories of the day flashed past like a fast forward movie through his mind.


    At one point, he couldn¡¯t stop himself from blushing bashfully when he witnessed the scene of Seelie very vigorously masturbating on her bed before she came over tonight. He wasn¡¯t sure if she meant for that to be in the implant, so he chose to just ignore it.


    What he didn¡¯t realise was that Seelie had a sly smile on her lips when she caught Murphy blushing like a little school girl. She knew how socially inept he was, and chose not to push the topic. She couldn¡¯t help herself from thinking the same sentence she thought to herself every day.


    ¡®One of these days Murphy... ¡®


    After this short sharing session, and while Murphy was awkwardly trying to suppress the rock trying to protrude out of his pants, they decided to head into the game. Because they were next to one another when they logged in, the system asked if they wanted to form a party.


    Naturally, Seelie did, so Murphy accepted, and they spawned into his run down little cottage. Because Seelie was trying to learn everything she could about magic, and Murphy was determined to help all those poor crippled orphans, they split up.


    Seelie left for some place called the Mage Academy, and Murphy remained in his dilapidated, gloomy little cottage, slaving over a big black cauldron over a fire as he started mixing all sorts of random things in the hopes of finding something like a rejuvenation potion.


    It was only about an hour later, that a huge incident happened in the city. A small neighbourhood in the outer slums was suddenly shaken by an earth shattering ¡®BOOM!¡¯. A whole bloke of little shanties and cottages was obliterated in a huge ball of fire.


    Murphy grimaced as he got the system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! You have levelled a new skill to level 1. Explosives.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the hidden quest. Clear the Slums! -5 renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have created a new potion recipe. Level 8 Volatile Concoction.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Your special trait, Murphy¡¯s Law, has caused an accident. -1 Luck.¡¯


    He then watched on as he once more completed an arc through the sky and rapidly approached the ground at high speed. Luckily, the slums had just been turned into a tempest of flames, so there weren¡¯t any orphans underneath him this time.


    A moment later, a sickening thud sounded out. Unlike with the Dragon, which used enough firepower to level a castle, Murphy¡¯s Volatile Concoction was only about half as powerful. That meant that after a brief hour of lying in his own blood, his body managed to mostly pull itself back together with the help of his unnatural endurance.


    He then returned to his, now charcoal and ash, cottage. His cauldron was apparently as durable as he was, having somehow survived that explosion. He sighed in regret as he surveyed his surroundings. He came to realise that he was going to need to buy that absurdly expensive potion recipe after all.


    He just wasn¡¯t sure if he¡¯d be able to afford it. Although he now had nearly 100 different potions in his inventory, almost all of them were poisons, explosives, acids and even a weird potion that was basically a very weak infectious disease.


    He¡¯d also now depleted his stocks of ingredients he¡¯d just spent 24 hours gathering. He looked up at the now dark night sky and once more sighed in joy ... while trying to sigh with exasperation.


    He decided to try his luck and marched back towards the city centre where there were market stalls and street vendors scattered everywhere. After asking around for a little while, he discovered a place that will buy his questionable potions.


    In a very dim and eerie alley, Murphy followed a huge, fat, greasy man that looked like he eats babies and massacres villages. Strangely he was very receptive and careful when dealing with Murphy. Murphy wasn¡¯t completely sure why until the man opened a dingy little door at the end of the alley and told him to go ahead.


    ¡°Mister Unstable Lone Wolf Poison Master the Orphan Crippler. This is the entrance to the underground society. Please try not to cause too much trouble here.¡±


    Murphy couldn¡¯t help but become somewhat solemn as he walked in.


    ¡®Did he have to use all of them? I mean, couldn¡¯t he just say Mister Law, or Mister Murphy? Or better yet, couldn¡¯t he call me Bear Hunter?¡¯


    After descending a very long and cramped staircase, Murphy found himself in a strange cavern under the city. The entire cavern was full of very seedy and sinister looking people. Murphy, being as keen on the uptake in social environments as he is, completely neglected these ominous signs.


    To the desperate for money Murphy, this was just a convenient marketplace that happened to be underground. The kind of people in it didn¡¯t even register with him.


    He put on his Bamboo Hat to hide his identity and started walking around.


    Everywhere he looked people were selling weird stuff. Necromancy scrolls and sinister sounding ingredients were everywhere. There was even a part of the marketplace selling cages. Murphy was quite impressed with their sale methods.


    ¡®Oh, they even filled all those cages up with people to show how good they are.¡¯


    While exploring, Murphy came across a little alchemy shop with something that caught his interest.


    He approached the shopkeep and then glanced back at the shelf.


    ¡°The rabbit foot?¡±


    ¡°3 silver.¡±


    ¡®Holy Crap! Three silver just for some poxy little rabbit¡¯s foot! Even if it has Luck +1 isn¡¯t that too much? I¡¯ll never be able to get enough of them.¡¯


    Even with that in mind, Murphy spent the last few coins he had and got the rabbit¡¯s foot. He then wore it on his belt, dropping his luck back to -11. Continuing on his exploration of the underground markets, he decided that perhaps it would be easier if he just set up a little place of his own.


    He found an empty area at the edge of the market, pulled out a thin blanket to display his goods, then started setting his potions up. As he did, he pondered if he could ever become a famous potion master, perhaps he should mark his potions with a signature symbol.


    When he had that thought, the system loyally answered his internal query.


    ¡®Ping! Would you like to create a Signature Insignia?¡¯


    With a ¡®yes¡¯, Murphy suddenly found himself in his status space staring at his status screens. Unlike what he¡¯d initially thought, he wasn¡¯t given a chance to design his own insignia. Instead, the system seemed to randomly generate one based on his achievements and stats.


    Murphy was as bitter as a lemon when he saw the generated insignia. His insignia wasn¡¯t something gallant and noble, it also wasn¡¯t humble and reserved. His insignia came out as a Wolf head holding a Dagger dripping with poison in its mouth.


    He immediately hated it. He hated it so much that he didn¡¯t even want to use it. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, or perhaps because the system was just a bitch, all the potions that he had in his inventory suddenly flashed and then had the insignia inscribed on the phial.


    He could only silently cry on this inside as he placed all the potions out on the sheet and waited for some customers. It wasn¡¯t long until someone came along. Strangely, when he saw him, Murphy intuitively knew this guy was another player.


    It wasn¡¯t until now, when he wasn¡¯t fully absorbed in ignoring everyone around him, when he realised that almost everyone walking around here gave him that feeling. About 3 in every 4 people here was a player. He suspected that it was somewhat similar up in the city as well, he¡¯d just never noticed.


    The player was a short, lanky fellow that looked like he¡¯d spent his whole life on the other side of the law. He came up and perused the phials in front of Murphy before suddenly his eyes widened in shock.


    ¡°What are these? I¡¯ve never seen any poisons with such quality. What are the effects?¡±


    Murphy then went through the motions of pointing them out one by one and describing the effects ... which he had personally verified. When he was done, the man pulled out a little coin purse filled with 3 gold coins and nearly a hundred silver coins.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take them all.¡±


    Murphy, whose bartering skill was negligible to none, simply nodded, took the man¡¯s purse and started walking off. Murphy didn¡¯t realise it, but he¡¯d just made a huge haul. If he ever told someone that he earnt 3 gold coins for only 100 odd bottles of poison, they¡¯d laugh him to death.


    3 gold was equivalent to 3000 silver coins. Most poisons wouldn¡¯t sell for more than 10 or to 100 silvers. In this deal though, Murphy lost out. All his poisons were level 4 or greater. Some of them even got as high as level 10 poisons.


    The potion level¡¯s weren¡¯t intentional. In fact, it was very much the opposite of what Murphy had wanted to accomplish with alchemy.


    After exploring the markets for a while more, he went back up to the city to go and find the recipe he needed. Just as he was leaving the staircase back to the surface, a system prompt arrived.


    ¡®Ping! Your Poison Mastery has reached level 5.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Your Poisons have received attention in the underbelly of Gateway City. Because you were hidden by an item, your insignia has been attributed to the Poison Assassin title. -20 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! The item, Hat of Clouded Identity has gained renown and has been given new effects.¡¯


    Murphy quickly scuttled away and removed his bamboo hat. As soon as he took it off, he noticed a change. Underneath the front brim of the hat now had the insignia of the Poison Assassin, a wolf holding a poison dagger. As he inspected the hat, his Identify skill operated and he let out a breath of dejection when he read the new status of the hat.


    <hr>


    Poison Assassin¡¯s Hat of Concealment


    This hat was once a nameless hat that hid the identity of the wearer. However, later in its life, it came into the hands of a notorious and villainess assassin who¡¯s skills in Poison and Assassination were renowned throughout Newb Planet.


    With the use of this hat, the poison assassin moved unhindered in the world and perfected his skills.


    -This hat conceals the identity of the wearer.


    -Bonus growth to Concealment and Sneak skills


    -Bonus growth to Poison and Assassin skills.


    <hr>


    Although the hat was now renowned, it kept its ability to conceal the wearer¡¯s identity, which was really the only important thing that Murphy cared about. Those other weird bonuses didn¡¯t matter. When he finally gets rid of this bad luck, he plans to try and push his stats back from the horrid direction they¡¯re travelling in.


    Obviously, sneaky assassin skills and poison skills weren¡¯t what he planned to achieve.


    Now that he had the money at hand, the goal Murphy had set out to achieve was finally close at hand. He raced to the shop with the rejuvenation recipe and bought it. He then hurried about and got all the ingredients he needed.


    Surprisingly, good poisons were quite the money maker. He only spent about 1 gold for everything he needed for the rejuvenation potion. He then quickly returned the still burning rubble that was the slums and started concocting.


    In the middle of his concocting, he got another prompt from the system.


    ¡®Ping! Your spell, Ain¡¯t No Rest for the Wicked, has reached level 2.¡¯


    That immediately sounded ominous to Murphy. Unfortunately, as useful as the spell was, he could still feel it¡¯s effects slowly accumulating. At the moment it wasn¡¯t anything too bad. In fact, since his Hurts So Good trait had evolved it really helped to reduce the impact.


    However, it wasn¡¯t a good thing that the spell levelled up. Its main effect wasn¡¯t to help the caster eliminate the need for sleep, it was to cause irritation and irrationality. Its levelling up only meant that the negative effects would start stacking faster.


    Luckily ... or unluckily, his other nefarious trait, The Unstable, hadn¡¯t had the time to accumulate. Although it was indirect, and he chose to try and ignore it to prevent himself from crying, he had just obliterated the slums ... and those few innocents that didn¡¯t commit crimes to survive there.


    It was only because it¡¯s the very nature of the world to ignore those types of people that even the system didn¡¯t seem to care much and only tagged him with -5 renown for the hidden quest.


    As he pondered on it, he wondered where all these hidden quests originated from. If it was a quest ... shouldn¡¯t it have a reward?


    He quickly checked around in his Status Place and tried to imagine a Quest Log. As he tried to will it into existence, a new book with a plain leather cover on it popped into existence. Open opening it, a list of all the quests he¡¯d completed came into view. Some of them had Completed next to them, and some of them had Pending.


    He flipped through the book to check some of his quests. Each page had a quest title and description of the quest and how it was completed. It then had the system rewards.


    A few of these quests simply had renown as a reward. These were the quests that were marked completed. Among them, only 2 quests were still marked with pending. The first was a quest the system had given him when he first found the magic tome.


    <hr>


    Quest Giver: Game Master Jasmine


    You found an old magic tome in the Cave of the Ancient Bear King. Inscribed on the back of the book was the name ¡®Elizabeth¡¯. Find the owner of this tome.


    Reward: Level 2 Spell Model


    ¡°This can be considered a tutorial quest. Because you killed your Instructors, but mostly because I find your struggles amusing, I am helping you out with some tutorials.¡±Jasmine.


    <hr>


    Murphy was stunned.


    ¡®Personal tutelage from the game master? How lucky is that!¡¯


    At the same time, he was slightly dubious.


    ¡®Was it the Game Master who set it up so that I would receive such a sinister spell tome?¡¯


    Well, for the moment it didn¡¯t matter. Murphy glanced at the other quest that was still marked as Pending. This was the hidden quest for assassinating the Prince of Kindness. On the bottom of the page was the drawing of a box with ¡®Continue Quest Line.¡¯ written in it.


    Murphy could tell straight away that if he touched that box, he would be getting sucked into some doubtful plot and would undoubtedly be on the wrong side of it.


    He didn¡¯t even need to consider and immediately closed the book. As he let go, the Quest Log Floated back out into his white space and started circling around him along with the Spell Tome and all his other status screens.


    He glanced over at a stack of sheets loosely bound by string. That was his potion recipes. Unfortunately, apart from 3 pages, all the rest were either red or green. This symbolised that all of his recipes were either explosive or poisonous.


    Of the three that weren¡¯t, one of them was some accidental cure potion he¡¯d cooked up for the Bear King, Miracle Water. The other was the rejuvenation potion he was in the process of refining. The last was bug repellent.


    He looked at the loosely bound pages with bitterness for a moment longer before returning to the game world and focusing on the rejuvenation potion.


    <hr>


    I continued the potion refinement with my fingers and toes crossed. Every time I dropped another ingredient in I would silently pray to the Great Sage. I spent 100 silver coins running around town buying all sorts of knick knacks.


    I don¡¯t know why, perhaps because of the nature of my stats and special traits, but I regularly found really cheap ordinary things that had a luck modifier. No one else seemed to be able to identify the luck modifier, and I didn¡¯t plan to tell anyone that their useless junk was actually incredibly useful.


    As such, I was now adorned with all sorts of strange accessories that granted luck. It seemed lucky accessories were somewhat rare because almost all of them only gave +1 luck or simply had an attribute like Reduces Bad Luck by 1.


    After hunting for almost an hour, I managed to get enough accessories to get me all the way to 1 Luck ... as opposed to -1 luck. This was when I felt that I might just survive this potion refinement ... as opposed to suddenly being engulfed in flames again.


    Very tentatively, I crushed the juices out of the last ingredient and dripped a few drops into the cauldron. Within a few seconds, a sweet and refreshing aroma wafted up from the cauldron. I scooped a little of the mixture out into a phial and scrutinised it closely.


    After nearly a minute of death staring the potion, my Identify skill finally seemed to catch a glimmer of the potion¡¯s properties.


    <hr>


    Rejuvenation Potion. Level 3.


    This Potion helps to heal all manner of ailments. Within 24 hours can fully heal minor injuries from burns and cuts to broken bones and indigestion.


    <hr>


    I was ecstatic. At last, I succeeded in completing the rejuvenation potion. To test it out I took out my Sword of Sharpness and with a little effort managed to cut a slice in my arm. Because my Please Sir had driven my regeneration rate to an unnatural level, I started healing at a visible rate.


    Luckily it wasn¡¯t so fast as to not be able to test the potion. I quickly swallowed the contents of the phial. The moment I¡¯d swallowed I noticed something had gone horribly wrong. It burnt all the way down. Although it was sweet and tasty on the tongue, it was violent and toxic on its way down my throat.


    I felt my body getting pins and needles. I felt my pores close up giving me goose bumps and preventing me from sweating. Slowly my body began to burn up. Thanks to Poison Assassin, my poisons neglected quite a bit of my poison resistance, and so if I administered poison to myself, it often ravaged my body uncontested.


    My muscles started to spasm and flinch. A few ingredients I¡¯d left sitting on the edge of a rescued bench were knocked off and fell into the cauldron. The contents of the cauldron suddenly lit up in flames and bubbled and frothed like the liquid had come alive.


    I smelled a filthy rotting stench suddenly burst forth from the cauldron. Instead of what I had expected, which was the gases from the cauldron making me even worse, all my afflictions seemed to slowly start lessening and then as quickly as they came, completely disappeared.


    Stunned, awed, shocked. I had no idea how to explain what just happened. Conveniently, the Game System jumped in to let me know.


    ¡®Ping! You have created a new recipe, Honey Pot Potion.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have created a new recipe, Instant Recovery.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have earnt the title, Taste Tester, by testing all of your potions on yourself.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused a Happy Accident. +1 Luck.¡¯


    ¡°Ha ... haha ... HahaHAHAHA!¡±


    I couldn¡¯t stop myself from laughing in jubilance. Even the growing tide of irritation from my curse spell couldn¡¯t stop my happiness from exploding out. For once, I finally had some good luck! I finally had something good happen by chance.


    I quickly checked my status to investigate the new title and the recipe descriptions.


    <hr>


    Honey Pot Potion


    At first glance, this potion is a rejuvenation potion. Unfortunately, that¡¯s only at a glance. Although it does truly have the ability to restore the body to perfect condition over a period of 24 hours, it first has to destroy the body. The pain and agony of this process is unquantifiable, and even people with the strongest pain endurance will suffer from it.


    <hr>


    Instant Recovery


    This potion is quite miraculous in its effect. After consuming, restores the body to peak condition. Can even cure some poisons and ailing status effects.


    <hr>


    Taste Tester.


    By eating all sorts of dubious things just to test the effects and even consuming unidentifiable potions, your ability to determine the attributes of ingredients or potions by a simple taste is almost uncanny.


    Eating something will grant a x2 bonus to Identify.


    <hr>


    I rushed to fill phials with the Instant Recovery potion I¡¯d just accidentally created. Although it smelt dastardly, it had incredible effects. I then packed up all my alchemy gear and even took the rickety half burnt table.


    It didn¡¯t take much searching to find my way to the orphanage. I was rather surprised by the mess I¡¯d made of the place. The orphanage resembled a little chapel and had a dozen odd children morbidly ambling about with crutches or covered in bandages while trying to play in the yard.


    The little chapel also had a huge hole in the roof and out one of the walls. Following that hole was a long stretch of ripped up dirt and cobblestone, almost reaching 20 meters away from the orphanage.


    I was rather nervous as I approached the chapel. I don¡¯t do well in these sorts of situations. Although I wanted to help people, I am the first person to admit I lacked a key attribute to achieve that goal ... social skills and courage.


    Nonetheless, watching those little orphans mulling about looking like someone took a crap on their birthday cake, my heart bled. Metaphorically of course. With my level of regen, the only way my heart would start bleeding is if someone managed to first stab through my skin and flesh.


    I procrastinated and lurked about for a bit as I tried to get my courage up to go in and help the orphans. For a change, I was glad I had the Hurts So Good. Although it dimmed the nervousness and trepidation, the more I thought about it, and it grew, the more of it was converted into courage and confidence.


    However, Hurts So Good can only do so much. That first step, to actually walk into a place I had destroyed and try and help lives I had ruined, even if by accident, required my own personal courage. No matter how powerful Hurts So Good was, things like this still required a person to muster up their true feelings and push forward by their own willpower.


    Finally, after lurking for almost half an hour and muttering incoherently as I stared at the chapel, the pressure and discomfort from all the glares I was getting from passer-bys looking at me like some creeper outweighed the need for courage. Thus I quickly ran away towards the chapel to avoid the continued silent persecution they were giving me.


    Wait! I mean, I wasn¡¯t running like a coward, I was marching in with courage and confidence. Definitely not being more afraid of the continuous glares then facing my fear of rejection. Definitely...


    Ahem...


    Yes, so I marched into the chapel like a triumphant hero to find the curator of the orphanage. As I walked in, all the orphans looked at me like I was the monster from under the bed. I felt my Hurts So Good go into overdrive as it tried to correct the very negative feelings created by being feared by these innocent little souls.


    Eventually, it reached its limit, and I was overcome with sadness. I still forged on though. It was too late to turn back at this point.


    Once I stepped into the chapel, I saw a figure in plain commoner clothes on his knees and facing the huge hole in the wall I¡¯d created by accident that day. He seemed to be praying. After closer inspection, I realised that he was praying to a half-broken statue that was directly in my flight path.


    Apparently, not only did I destroy a roof and wall, I even obliterated the statue of the patron of the chapel.


    My Hurts So Good felt like it was an invisible armour that was about to explode. My mental fortitude went up another level just watching this scene. Hearing my footsteps, the man stood up and turned towards me.


    The moment his eyes locked onto me they were filled with fury and hatred. Even though my social skills are poor, I knew this was a moment when I should interrupt and explain myself before he could start yelling.


    ¡°Errm ... the orphans ... I want ... umm...¡± Smooth. So smooth. My charisma probably just gained 3 points just from that short explanation.


    ¡°You bastard! What the hell do you think you¡¯re doing here?! You came back to finish us off huh? I¡¯ll bet you¡¯re one of that rat-faced bastard¡¯s men, aren¡¯t you?! Well go back and tell him he won¡¯t get his damn money! We had a deal! You wouldn¡¯t hurt the children, and we would pay you the protection fees! You tell that bastard he broke his word!¡±


    ¡®Protection fees? Someone¡¯s trying to extort an orphanage? What a bastard! What a malicious prick!¡¯


    My mind raced as memories I¡¯d made a great deal of effort to repress all started flooding back. Hurts So Good finally seemed to snap under strain and my body shuddered from the feelings of rage and madness exploding from my heart.


    ¡°Tell me ... who!¡± This wasn¡¯t voiced as a request. For a strange turn, my anger had completely clouded my normally messy and incoherent mind.


    ¡°Don¡¯t ¡®who?¡¯ me you fucking prick! You go back and tell Taritz that he can get fucked!¡±


    Just as I was about to respond, another voice joined the suddenly rapidly spiralling out of control drama.


    ¡°Who can go get fucked? Huh?! You tryin¡¯a flake on the boss you fuckin bitch?! Huh?!¡±


    Walking in from behind me was a group of 6 rough looking hooligans. They carried shabby swords on their belts, and more strutted about like they owned the place than just simply walked.


    The leader of this group was about mid-twenties with a face full of stubble. He held one of the orphans from outside by the scruff of her neck. She was only a little girl and one of her arm was all red and swollen. Clearly, she¡¯d suffered from a broken arm after the ¡®accident¡¯.


    The leader pushed the girl forward, making her collapse to the ground. He drew his dented old sword from his sheath then pointed it at the girl.


    ¡°We¡¯re here to make our collection. Taritz doesn¡¯t like late payers so you¡¯d better pay up or we¡¯re gonna be starting a butcher¡¯s shop. Heh, first on the menu, premium orphan meat.¡±


    I slowly turned to look directly at these intruders that were rough housing the little girl. My eye¡¯s reddened, not with sadness at the scene, but with madness and anger. The curator become fretful seeing one of his charges being visibly threatened in front of him.


    ¡°Wait! Please wait! We only had a few donations this month. With all the damage and the injuries, we can¡¯t afford it. Please just give us some time!¡±


    The leader was about to respond when he finally noticed me, standing only slightly off to the side, staring at him with a somewhat vicious expression.


    ¡°What you lookin¡¯ at punk? Huh?! You wanna get the shit kicked out¡¯a ya? Huh?!¡±


    Finally, something snapped. I couldn¡¯t control my body as one minute I was standing more than 5 metres from the group then the next I was standing between the girl and the hooligans slowly drawing my Sword of Sharpness.


    ¡°Scum deserves death.¡±


    With this short explanation for them to know why they died, I charged forward. My sword flashed as I closed distance with the leader. He stepped back in a panic and waved his sword out to try and deflect my strike.


    ¡®shink!¡¯


    My sword of sharpness continued on through the man¡¯s blade as if slicing tofu. Apart from a slightly grating sound and the ¡®ting¡¯ of half the sword falling to the ground, the chapel turned silent.


    Finally, the group of louts managed to process that they were being attacked. They also managed to realise that their leader had just had his throat slashed and was busy spilling blood down his front like a waterfall ... except bloody.


    They all rushed to draw their weapons. Once the enemy has the initiative, it¡¯s difficult to take it back. Remembering this old adage, I pushed the leader back causing him to collapse onto his back, I then stepped over him and rushed forward to take full advantage of their slow reactions.


    With another swish, my sword arced out and cut the wrist of the next attacker. My body shuffled forward and then slashed upwards across the torso of another hooligan. 3 down. I could see the fear building in the eyes of the last remaining 3.


    Their reactions caught up, and the closest of the three cut across diagonally with a chopping motion. His two companion had also sped forward and were thrusting towards my abdomen, trying to pierce me. Unfortunately for me, despite my training and quick reflexes, I couldn¡¯t deflect three swords at once, and I was too late to dodge.


    This in mind, I decided that if I¡¯m going to die, I might as well take them out with me. The most threatening strike was the chop towards my neck. I chose to raise my arm and block this strike first. I then felt a dull jolt of pleasure in my stomach as my sword, which had just deflected the attacker¡¯s, was already rapidly swinging back down towards his own neck.


    I felt the sword slice through his flesh like cutting butter with a hot knife. I glanced over to see the other two attackers staring at me like I was a monster.


    It was only at this point that I realised the two swords I thought had stabbed into my stomach, had in fact not stabbed into anything at all. Apart from two shallow cuts in my tunic and on my skin, that were rapidly healing at a visible rate, I took almost no damage.


    Seeing this, I felt that all the pain and suffering from my strange traits was now worth it. Not forgetting to take advantage of this brief pause of confusion and hesitation from the final two attackers, I slashed across, slicing both across the necks.


    ¡°Watch out!¡±


    I heard the high pitched scream of the little girl. Then a moment later, a sharp jolt of pleasure and even a little pain flooded my body from my back. I felt the effects of fast-acting poison. Based on my experience with such things, I was pretty sure it was actually one of my own creations.


    I slowly turned around to see the attacker I¡¯d left alive with only a cut wrist. Seeing me not suddenly falling to my knees in agony, and still having the hilt of the dagger poking out from my back, the attacker was befuddled and terrified.


    The reason for his terror was because, despite my efforts to stop it, the pleasure I was feeling from the poison made me feel good all over. Although in any other situation my smile simply would have looked happy and honest, this situation instead made me look like a smiling demon.


    As if his existence didn¡¯t even matter, I slowly put my sword back into its sheath. Seeing my focus leave him for a brief moment, he tried to run. ¡®Tried¡¯ being the operative word, seeing as my hand shot out and connected with his throat as he made to move.


    He fell to the floor with his eyes bulging out of his head and struggling to try and breath. I slowly pulled the dagger out from my back. Slowly, because it felt so good.


    ¡®Sage damn it ... This weird trait is definately turning me into some kind of pervert. I never would have taken the time to enjoy the feeling of pulling a blade out of my back before I came to this world.¡¯


    With the blade out, I then, in a very unceremonious manner, started looting my enemies. Some money, a few interesting looking accessories and the dagger. They were obviously poor and useless. Even the experience mist that rushed out of them into me was negligible.


    At last, my focus turned to the curator, who was now standing in front of the little girl protectively. All the commotion had also drawn the attention of the other orphans who all stood at the door of the chapel with varying looks of amazement, fear and awe.


    I wasn¡¯t too sure how a situation like this usually ends. For starters, I just killed a bunch of people, they probably don¡¯t want their bodies sitting here stinking the place up.


    That in mind, I pulled out a potion called Burning Acid. I feel it¡¯s a pretty self-explanatory name. With a couple drops on each of the bodies, they all lit on fire. Strangely the fire was green and gave people the feeling it was sticky and greasy.


    However, it let off no smoke or even heat. It quickly consumed the corpses and even the blood on the floor, disintegrating it all into ashes. Once the bodies and the blood had all been dissolved, I took out another potion. I looked the curator in the eye as I quickly slashed myself with the sword of sharpness then consumed the potion.


    The wound I slashed had some strange twinkling light start to pour out of it and moments later was completely healed. I took out a little bag filled with dozens of these potions and then also took out my coin purse.


    ¡°For ... the accident...¡±


    With a vivid and well-articulated explanation, I threw them both to the curator, reached out and grabbed the surviving attacker, then fled the scene as quickly as possible.


    As I stepped off the grounds of the orphanage, the curator ran out of the chapel.


    ¡°What about Taritz? He¡¯s going to come after you for killing his goons.¡±


    I just turned and smiled at him as I resolved my heart for what I was about to do. In my mind, as I looked at all these pitiable little orphans and remembered my own time at an orphanage, I whispered...


    ¡®I¡¯m going to kill him!¡¯


    <hr>


    The moment Murphy resolved himself to this act, then turned and dragged the weak coughing body of the goon into a dark alley, a few pleasant system prompts all started popping up.


    ¡®Ping! You have gained the title, Orphan Heart.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the quest, Prevent the Orphans Suffering. +15 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Your donation to the orphanage has raised your status in Gateway City. +10 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have accepted the quest, Kill Taritz the Gangster.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Overcoming your fears to help the orphans has shown your true mettle. +1 Cement.¡¯


    Murphy decided to wait for a moment before investigating the new status updates. He had something else to do for the moment. After pulling the goon through a few alleys, he threw him against a wall in a quiet secluded place.


    He pulled out three potions then forced one into the man¡¯s mouth, instantly restoring his raspy swollen throat.


    After coughing up some coagulated blood he seemed to be OK, so Murphy grabbed him and forced another potion down his throat. Moments later, the goon arched back in pain as he started shaking and screaming out uncontrollably.


    This was something called Corrosive Poison, another of his accidents while trying to refine something that could heal the orphans. Unlike other poisons which cause cells to rapidly die and by extension influences the nervous system of the body causing pain and discomfort, this poison only targets with the nervous system.


    By slowly burning away at the pain receptors and then the nerves in the body it¡¯s a very effective torture method. Eventually, it just leaves a person in a crippled state, burning the nervous system all the way back to the brain and then consuming that too ... eventually.


    In his hand, Murphy waved another potion in front of the man.


    ¡°Taritz ... for the cure...¡±


    Once again displaying his -3 charisma stat, Murphy explained his proposition to the screaming man. The man, seeing the cure being held only a foot away from him, couldn¡¯t control his mouth and spilt everything he knew about Taritz.


    Murphy didn¡¯t care about the man¡¯s life story. Based on the quest name he¡¯d already guessed the man was a gangster boss of some description. All he wanted to know was where the man was.


    Finally, after some stop and start explanation by the man, who was unintentionally increasing the time he suffered by being so long winded, he revealed the location of Taritz. Murphy then grabbed his sword, flicked it out then just as quickly sheathed it.


    He then dropped a few drops of the potion in his hands on the corpse and walked off as it rapidly dissolved into ashes and scattered about the alleyway.


    He then retreated to his burned down cottage to prepare some things and check his status.

 Chapter 4: Sinister Undying

    I completed my goal of helping the orphans I¡¯d accidentally crippled in the horrifying accident. Then ended up picking up another goal to go and kill a Gangster that was terrorising the orphanage with ¡®protection fees¡¯.


    I once suffered some horrible experiences when I was young, and some of the worst were at the orphanage. With a great deal of effort, I¡¯d managed to mostly forget those experiences. Having stood there and witnessed that poor little orphan girl being threatened, all those memories came flooding back.


    Now, because they were once again fresh in my mind, the rage boiling in my heart had completely overwhelmed my Hurts So Good. Although I was pretty sure it was still operating, nothing could quell my wrath this time.


    I couldn¡¯t stand to see someone suffer that treatment again. No matter what, I had to protect those orphans!


    After a cursory inspection of my status and inventory, I left to the east side of the city.


    Buried amongst rows of cramped fancy houses all 3 or 4 stories high was a villa that took up an entire block all by itself. When I arrived, the villa seemed to be in the midst of a party. It was close to midnight in Game Time. Retrospectively, out in the real world, it was most likely about 11 PM.


    By now I¡¯d stacked up nearly 74 hours of game time.


    I quietly inspected my mood and found that the curse I put on myself was already drastically affecting my judgement. The reason I knew this was because despite me feeling a little irrational for trying to break into the gangster gang house, I irrationally didn¡¯t care and decided it would be fine to leave the curse running for a bit longer till this job was done.


    Now that I¡¯d determined I was most definitely out of my right mind, I put some specific potions onto my potions belt and put on my Poison Assassin¡¯s Hat of Concealment. I started trying to be as sneaky as possible as I quickly approached the villa. Once I was close enough, I snuck a look through a nearby window.


    Seeing the party in full swing, I was half tempted to just throw some poison fog potions through the window and run. But I didn¡¯t know who Taritz was, or if he was even in the crowded dining hall of the villa.


    Unfortunately, I was too irritable at the time and didn¡¯t pay any attention to the goon¡¯s story. If he described Taritz, I couldn¡¯t remember it. After circling around the villa a few times to assess the place, I chose an unguarded rear door. It was, of course ... locked.


    I was so tempted to just bust it down anyway and charge in throwing poison and swinging my sword around.


    So, with my irrationality and irritability now having reached the point that even my Hurts So Good can¡¯t hold it back, I decided to do exactly that.


    I took out a little exploding powder and then dusted it onto the door. Then with as much force as I could muster, I kicked it. The sudden pressure from my kick caused the somewhat violent powder to do justice to its namesake and explode.


    The door blew wide open while at the same time I was shot back like being hit by a car. I rolled along the ground a few times and spryly jumped back up. I then ran in swinging my sword and preparing to throw potions everywhere only to realise the locked door that was left unguarded was some kind of storage shed with gardening implements.


    There was no way into the mansion through here.


    With the advent of my explosive entrance to the gardeners shed, the whole villa suddenly lit up with flaming torches as gangsters started rushing around everywhere thinking they were under attack.


    As I was preparing to leave the garden shed and try another door, one of the cabinets along the wall suddenly slid open. A man in exquisite looking clothes rushed out as if he was trying to escape for his life.


    His fat body jiggled every which way, and his rushing was more akin to brisk waddling. Unlucky for him, he rushed straight into me. Seeing as I was discovered, I decided to just kill the fellow and make use of his secret escape route.


    ¡®Swish.¡¯


    My sword made a graceful arc through the air, and then the fat man¡¯s head made a less graceful arc through the air, followed by his blood making a disgusting arc ... everywhere.


    By habit, as everyone does in a game, I looted the corpse of anything interesting then raced up the stairs of the secret escape route. At this point, my irrationality was stacking faster and faster, and I decided hunting down that Taritz fellow was going to be too much trouble, so I¡¯d just kill everyone in the villa.


    When I reached the other end of the tunnel, I found myself in a lavish library filled with books of all different sorts. Without reservation, I looted it of everything.


    I then started passing through the villa room by room while throwing Poison Fog Potions everywhere and looting everything of value. Hell, I even stole the kitchenware and the fancy jade plates.


    By the time I¡¯d walked out of the front door of the villa, every step I took caused my bones to ache and left a big imprint of my foot behind. Even with the Boots of Burden, which halved my inventory weight, the weight of everything I reappropriated from the gangsters was just too much.


    Unlike the stealthy quick getaway I¡¯d been imagining when I decided to come here, my every step was a loud thud, and they were spaced apart by many seconds. It took almost an hour just to walked all the way back to the slums. Of course, I chose the route carefully so as to avoid leaving a trail of footprints leading the guards to me later.


    At last, I arrived at my burnt down cottage. Seeing some nearby shanties, huts and cottages that were still smouldering, I couldn¡¯t stop a wry smile from forming.


    After removing my backpack and dropping it to the ground, I expected a loud thud only for it to drop to the ground as if it was light a feather. Creating further confusion, I still felt the weight of my inventory pressing down on me.


    The weight of the inventory didn¡¯t simply make my back feel heavy as if I was holding a huge backpack. It was a fully invasive and pervasive force. It was easier to consider the weight from the inventory as some kind of personal gravity field that increased the gravity of my body.


    This indicated two major things I¡¯d neglected to consider. The first was, if the Games System¡¯s inventory weight still weighed down on me, then that could only mean my initial assumption in the beginning, was wrong ... my backpack had nothing to do at all with my inventory at all.


    The second thing was that the inventory weight was affecting every single fibre of my being. Even parts of me that normally wouldn¡¯t be affected by poisons was being influenced by the brutal pressure of my inventory weight. It also explained why my agility and strength were slowly growing despite me not making any effort to actively increase those stats.


    The first thing I did after these two neglects had been realised, was to palm myself in the face. If I¡¯d known earlier how useful the inventory weight would be for training my body, I would have just walked around picking up everything I could find. Hell, I would have even started stashing trees and rocks in there.


    The other thing I did was to find out what the fuck was in the backpack.


    Upon opening it, I wanted to slap the shit out of past Murphy for being an idiot. Inside the bag were two books, rations enough for at least two days in this world, and a polished Jade rock in the shape of a little triangle.


    Of the two books, one was an introduction to magic, teaching you how to best utilise mana. The other was an introduction to the Status Place and basic guidelines on some of its functions. The most interesting thing in the bag was the Jade.


    The moment I touched it, I felt the same sensation I did when I gathered mana in my finger. A moment later, my mana shot into the Jade. The Jade then disappeared into my Status Place and had the title ¡®Class Booster¡¯ written on it.


    Presumably, this Jade was the method people used to set a class.


    Even though I¡¯d just discovered a whole bunch of things I desperately needed before now. My curse was building to a furious level, and I was pretty sure if I didn¡¯t deactivate it soon I might just lose the rationality to do so at all.


    So, I finally focused my mind on doing the imagining technique of mana in the body. I perceived it as a wispy smoky gas that filled my body.


    Interestingly, without my own initiative to imagine it, some of my mana had formed into the picture of a little devil. The diagram was simple and crude, and it also stank of sinister Mana. However, seeing this made me a little excited.


    The fact that something like that popped up without any effort on my part meant that I wasn¡¯t just imagining my mana, but actually viewing it in my mind.


    My excitement quickly dulled when I realised that the little devil diagram wasn¡¯t alone. While I was viewing it, it pulsed with light and sucked in a whole bunch of mana. The next moment, another devil, this time huge, appeared inside my body and suddenly grew a little bit bigger. It then quickly became invisible again.


    I could only speculate that the huge devil was most likely the curse effect, and the little devil was the part that stayed with me to channel mana into the curse every hour.


    Having determined that, I quickly ¡®willed¡¯ the little devil to explode. In my mind¡¯s eye, I watched on as the little devil slowly dissolved back into normal mana. At the same time, the big devil suddenly appeared again, seemed to make a silent roaring action as if telling me it¡¯s indignation, then dissipated as well.


    The moment the big devil disappeared, I felt fatigue smash into me like a bus. It wasn¡¯t just sudden tiredness, but an instant coma. I hadn¡¯t even realised what had happened until I woke up nearly 16 hours later, still lying in the middle of my burnt down cottage.


    <hr>


    When Murphy finally awoke from his very long slumber, he felt remarkably refreshed. He slowly crawled up from the ground and patted all the soot and charcoal off his clothes.


    He then noticed that his body had compressed the dirt in the area when he was rolling around in his sleep.


    The magnitude of weight his body was capable of surviving under was completely unreasonable, and as he slept it had slowly compacted the ground to the point there was a clear outline of his body almost half a foot deep on the ground.


    After stretching himself for a little bit and enjoying the pleasure of what should have presumably been sore muscles, Murphy was finally ready for a brand new day.


    He quickly came to realise that his inventory felt slightly less heavy this morning than it had the night before. After checking his stats, he was shocked to find that his average strength stat had gained almost 4 points just from his sleeping under the extreme pressure of the inventory system.


    Not only that, all of his average physical stats had gone up a few points. Strength was now just over 7 and agility had climbed above 5. Even his pain mastery gained some experience.


    As Murphy considered the outcome, he decided that from now on when he went to sleep, he would stack so much shit in his inventory that it was almost crushing him to death. This way his body could get stronger without him even needing to do a thing.


    It was then time for some breakfast, which he luckily had on hand now that he knew his backpack had rations in it. Finally, he investigated the books and Jade triangle he¡¯d found. Just as he was opening the book on magic, a few system prompts he¡¯d been expecting rushed in.


    ¡®Ping! Poison Assassin has cleaned out a den of gangsters in Gateway City. +30 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Taritz has died. Return to the Orphanage to receive a reward.¡¯


    Murphy immersed himself into studying the basic game guides he¡¯d found in his backpack. He decided to start with the Introduction to Magic because that was the one that was most interesting to him.


    Most of it was things he¡¯d speculated or that had been jammed into his head by the memory implant that flashed when he first got the spell tome.


    Mana is the source of all magic. It is endless and comes from the void. The more it¡¯s used, the faster it replenishes. While reading, Murphy also discovered a few tips for increasing his mana. The first, and most obvious, was to use spells continuously. The more he cast spells, the more he would interact with his mana.


    It meant that the Max Mana and Mana Regen both accrued experience similar to skills and other stats. After some more reading, he determined that he didn¡¯t even have to use spells. If he focused enough, he could manipulate the mana in his body to simply discharge.


    If he learned to control it properly, he could even form it into different forms of energy and give it different properties. He¡¯d already experienced the sinister energy of sinister magic arts, so he had a fair idea how it worked.


    Contrary to how simple the explanation was though, it was incredibly difficult to control his mana without some form of medium, such as a spellbook or another item.


    That said, he discovered that he could imbue things with his mana while he held it, such as his sword, giving it a boost in its attributes.


    With some more reading, he also learned that the strange pattern and the words that appeared on the page when he was casting the curse spell, where in fact two other forms of casting.


    One was referred to as a Spell Pattern. If a person managed to reach a certain level of control and had the ability to memorise the pattern, they could create the pattern with mana and that would cast the spell as well, without the need to even touch the spell tome at all.


    The other method was the strange, incomprehensible words that appeared on the page when he cast the spell. Normally it took a while to learn these words, and it was generally required to go to some kind of magic academy.


    That said, if you could learn them, then you could recite the words instead of building the pattern, and that would fire the spell as well.


    The difference between the three methods was varying depending on the needs. For example, if you were casting with the tome, you first had to touch the tome and then point at the target. This was somewhat cumbersome in battle and could even be life-threatening. However, it didn¡¯t require you to learn a bunch of strange words or memorise a complex pattern.


    The spell pattern was the fastest method and significantly more powerful than the tome. However, it required a person¡¯s mental acuity to be phenomenal because memorising the pattern was incredibly difficult. Adding to that, during battle it required a person to focus long enough to rebuild the pattern in their head so they could cast.


    If they were quick, then they could cast quickly. If they were slow, then they would most likely get chopped in half with a sword while they were focused on their inner mind.


    The chanting method required a person to learn a very ancient and complex language, and even sometimes a few different languages depending on the spell. It took time to recite a few verses and fire a spell and the pronunciation and remembering the lines was also no picnic.


    However, it was more powerful than a spell pattern and the tome and it was possible to recite while still in the midst of battle, requiring a little less focus than recreating a complex pattern in your head and not needing a book in your hand.


    The most powerful method of casting actually wasn¡¯t any of these three methods though. It was the use of a Spell Model. Which was essentially the combination of all three together.


    When casting a full Spell Model, the person uses the book as a medium to boost their power, they create the pattern in their mind and use it to help focus the mana on the book¡¯s pattern, and then they chant the spell while channelling mana into the book.


    If a person casts a spell model instead of just a spell, there¡¯s a good chance a great catastrophe is about to come. The power of casting with a spell model doesn¡¯t just increase the potency of the spell by a single magnitude. Rather it increases it by multiple.


    If Murphy were to learn how to cast the Spell Model for his Ain¡¯t No Rest curse, there¡¯s a good chance it would most likely immediately send the target mad and would quite probably become a permanent curse instead of just a little channelling curse as it was now.


    It wasn¡¯t unusual for spells to create rather dramatic effects when they¡¯re cast as a Spell Model.


    Murphy wasn¡¯t interested in learning strange languages and casting magic though. He was more interested in another use of mana. Which was termed as imbuing.


    This form of mana manipulation was more along the lines of direct combat and focused on pouring mana into an object to make it stronger. If you altered the attributes and properly controlled the mana, then it wasn¡¯t impossible to make a sword that can cut through the heavens or armour that could protect you in the heart of a star.


    Later on, you could even use it for enchantments which imbued an object and even his potions with permanent status effects.


    Unfortunately, this required the use of spell patterns and ancient language, so he decided not to pursue it for now, although he was definitely interested in it.


    After he had read through the Introduction to Magic, he moved onto the next book, which was the Introduction to the Status Place.


    Many of his earlier theories about how certain stats influenced the growth of certain skill was discussed in the book. It even went over certain functions of the Status Space that even Murphy wasn¡¯t aware of.


    He also learnt that the Stats and Skills usually encompassed the three parts of the ¡®Self¡¯. The Body, Mind and Soul. Whereas other things, such as spells and alchemy were a reflection of the ¡®Self¡¯ influencing the three parts of the ¡®Universe¡¯. Matter, Energy and Space-Time.


    For example, ¡®strength, wisdom and introspection¡¯ reflected the three parts of Self, ¡®mind, body and soul¡¯ respectively.


    Mana Manipulation is the skill of manipulating a certain aspect of the universe, namely ¡®energy¡¯, to achieve a goal.


    Alchemy would be the same, except influencing ¡®matter¡¯.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Space-time was a whole other kettle of fish though, and Murphy couldn¡¯t even pretend to understand anything about it.


    The book went on to describe how stats generated and other helpful information. Something interesting he did learn was that the Game System made experience gained with skills permanent. Even if he never used alchemy again, he would always retain the skills and knowledge he had regarding it.


    Not only that, it was apparently incredibly difficult for a stat to drop back a level. For the stats related to his body condition, such as strength and agility, he would have to literally sit in place for a year and not move at all for these stats to lose even a single level.


    This was disturbing for Murphy, because 2 of his stats, wisdom and charisma, seemed to rise and fall like a yo-yo. If what the book said was true, they should only slowly continue to rise unless he didn¡¯t use them.


    He only realised when he read a later note, that doing very negative actions with regards to a stat would drop it more quickly.


    For Murphy, this was only in regards to stats to do with the mind and soul. Thanks to his traits and his inhuman regen speed, all damage, even if it disintegrated his body, would only be helping him get stronger.


    Perhaps the only thing that had been increasing his mind stats was the mental fortitude that seemed to be skyrocketing lately thanks to ¡®Please Sir¡¯.


    The most ambiguous Stats were the soul related stats. The guide didn¡¯t go into them too much and simply said that they were generated based on a person¡¯s personality and life experiences.


    At last, Murphy had finished his basic introduction to Status and Magic. The last thing on his agenda was to investigate the Jade triangle in his Status Space.


    With a thought, he appeared in his space. For a long time, he stared at the Jade Triangle. Clearly feeling some trepidation towards touching it. He didn¡¯t want it to be like the insignia and be auto generated.


    Eventually, he came to the conclusion that he was being a little too cowardly.


    Even if it did auto generate a class for him, from what Seelie told him it would only be boosting growth in certain stats. Worst case scenario his class would boost weird things like sinister arts and pain mastery.


    Firming his resolve, Murphy reached out and touched the floating Jade Triangle.


    ¡®Ping! Would you like to start building a class?¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Would you like to auto-generate a class?¡¯


    Murphy answered with a ¡®yes?¡¯. The moment he did, he hated himself, the world and everything in existence.


    ¡®Why the hell did it ask me two questions in a row? It was clearly a trap! It¡¯s a fucking trap!¡¯


    In truth the only person who duped Murphy in this situation was himself. If he had a tiny bit more social skill, he¡¯d have been able to recognise that this was two questions that required him to verify what he was saying yes to.


    If he¡¯d said something along the lines of ¡®I want to start building a class¡¯, then he most likely would have had the opportunity to build his own class.


    Unfortunately, he¡¯s an idiot when it comes to proper social decorum and simply answered the first question. Giving Murphy more than one social cue at a time is too hard for him to wrap his head around.


    As such, the Class Booster lit up the Status Space with a green light and then disappeared.


    ¡®Ping! Generating Class based on skills, life experience and status.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an accident. -1 Luck.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Altering Class structure based on titles and special traits.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an accident. -1 Luck.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Assigning stat, skill and title bonuses.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an accident. -1 Luck.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Class assignments complete. Congratulations for generating the ¡®Sinister Undying¡¯ class.¡¯


    <hr>


    The fucking what class? Sinister Undying? What the fuck kind of class is that. And what were all those prompts from the system? Murphy¡¯s Law?


    Fuck that fucking traitorous special trait. I thought I was in positive luck. Murphy¡¯s Law should have caused a happy accident ... don¡¯t tell me that my lucky charms don¡¯t work in the status space?


    Even if you didn¡¯t tell me I¡¯d refuse to hear it! I don¡¯t want to hear it! It¡¯s nonsense! Sage Damnit!


    ¡°Whew...¡±


    Ok, calm down. There we go, nice and calm, Hurts So Good has caught up with my emotions. Nice and calm again.


    Ok, let¡¯s turn nice and slow and check the status screens. Keep calm. Keep calm. Nothing to worry about.


    <hr>


    Sinister Undying


    This is the class trait auto-generated by the system. It is a reflection of your stats, skills, traits, titles and life experience ... some accidents happened to the system while calculating.


    Your grotesque level of regeneration and your perverse enjoyment of pain has helped you to develop the ability to survive in almost any situation. Adding to your unnatural levels of endurance has made you almost impossible to kill.


    *All body stats get x2 growth rate.


    *Aging is permanently halted.


    Your predilection for disturbing and sinister skills and titles as well as your immortal lifespan has brought you closer to others with immortal souls and similarly questionable integrity, the Demon Race.


    *Summoning Magic gains x2 growth rate.


    *Demons summoned by you are incredibly loyal and consider you to be a Hero of the Evil Races.


    *Grants the Innate spell Summon: Demon Spawn.


    Your endless interaction with poison and your profound mastery and use of it to create your Undying body has given you unique insight into the uses and effects of poison.


    *Poison related skills gain x2 growth.


    *5% chance of poisoning anyone you touch.


    *Poison can never kill you.


    *Your blood has become poisonous.


    Although you are Undying and have profound skills in doing evil, your luck has, and will always be, abysmal. Fortunately, you have been able to offload it most of the time. Unfortunately, it seems to just rub off onto everything you touch.


    *When luck is negative. Luck is doubled.


    *When luck is positive. Luck is halved.


    *1% chance for Misery Loves Company to auto-activate on things you touch.


    *Misery Loves Company can be activated 4 times a day.


    <hr>


    What the actual fuck? At first glance, it was all, yay! I¡¯m immortal! But now it¡¯s all ... oh ... I¡¯m the hero of the evil races, everyone I touch has a 1 in 20 chance of being poisoned, and my all of my equipment is going to get cursed with bad luck.


    ¡®Ping! A new skill has reached level 1. Summoning Magic.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have developed an Innate Spell. Summon: Demon Spawn.¡¯


    Fucking demons! Fuck! Fuck the demons! I don¡¯t want any fucking demons! Sage damn it!


    Whew. Calm. Calm and controlled. Centre yourself first. Ok. Nice and calm. Sigh ... Well, if nothing else, my class is quite powerful. Even the demons might be useful. Although a demon is probably quite violent and foul, if I have complete control over them perhaps they can achieve some good.


    And who said a demon can¡¯t be a good guy? What¡¯s this about good and evil races? The only thing that is evil is people¡¯s intentions. I¡¯m going to train my demons up to have hearts as big as the Great Sage himself!


    Ok, let¡¯s take a look at the spell.


    <hr>


    Summon: Demon Spawn


    Summons a loyal Demon Spawn from the depths of the Hell Plane. Requires a fresh corpse as the medium.


    The Demon Spawn will grow over time and slowly level while feeding on the corpses of your enemies. The longer it survives, the more powerful it becomes.


    *Each kill by the demon spawn grants the caster 3/4 of the experience.


    *Maximum 3 Summons.


    *Cost: 1 Mana per summon.


    <hr>


    Ai ... so it¡¯s like that. I need a fresh corpse to summon them. That in itself sounds bad. They also grow by feeding on the corpses of my enemies? Well ... surely that¡¯s not as grotesques as it sounds ... right?


    Whew. Well ... let¡¯s take a look and see what goodies I scrapped up from the gangster¡¯s villa.


    Most of these books are rubbish. The History of Ancient Religions by Master Gilligan? The Rise of the Most Heinous Demon Lord? Aren¡¯t these all just fairy tales?


    Oh, there¡¯s a scroll. Scroll of Sudden Amnesia ... well, it¡¯ll probably be useful eventually.


    Let¡¯s see, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish ... Ah! Pendant of Curse Suppression. Reduces all curse affects based on Mental Fortitude ... JACKPOT!


    Haha! Eat it Murphy¡¯s Law! Even I can¡¯t be unlucky all the...


    ¡®Ping! Misery Loves Company has auto-activated. Pendant of Curse Suppression, -21 Luck.¡¯


    ¡°Damnit! You piece of shit! You horrid bastard!¡± Fuck! That bloody class is too brutal! Too overbearing! I can¡¯t stand it!


    Oh? Wait a moment ... I only have enough trinkets on to get me into positive one luck. Then after the accident with the system, I was back to -3. So I only had -17 bad luck in total.


    Does that mean ... I can give away bad luck I don¡¯t even have ... what¡¯s my luck stat now I wonder?


    8 Luck! If it¡¯s half ... then that means I have almost 16 luck. Minus the plus 12 from my items ... so I gained 4 Luck by putting more bad luck into the pendant? I guess that makes sense. Even if I¡¯m on a lucky streak, it¡¯s not like I can¡¯t have bad luck. I guess it¡¯s like making an extra payment on a loan...


    Hmm ... it¡¯s a damn shame. Fucking half luck. It¡¯s too cruel! To abominable!


    Whew ... well, I can¡¯t afford to wallow in my self-pity. I¡¯m going to have to just forge ahead and hope I can build up enough good luck to keep me in the positive, even if it means I have to work twice as hard.


    Ok, let¡¯s see. What else have they got? Crappy swords ... Crappy armour ... oh ... some clothes...


    Hmm ... is that a skill book? Let¡¯s have a look then...


    <hr>


    Mana Cartography.


    The ability to accurately draw maps using your Mana.


    Prerequisite skills required: Mana Manipulation, Design, Memorisation.


    <hr>


    Well, I¡¯ll be damned. Sure, let¡¯s learn it. Can¡¯t have too many skills.


    GAH! The light! It¡¯s that fucking light again! Peh, Peh. Why does it always make me foam at the mouth? With the level of magic and stuff in this game, surely they could have designed this ¡®memory implant¡¯ thing a little better.


    Hmm ... this is the first skill I¡¯ve gotten that had prerequisites. Ok ... focus your mind. Try and focus on the information you just got for the skill.


    Oh? Interesting.


    <hr>


    The Mana Cartography Skill was quite interesting. Although it didn¡¯t have any direct use like a spell or something, it was nonetheless a very powerful skill.


    First, it created a globe in my status space. The globe was flat white and bare. However, if I was so inclined, and provided I remembered the details with some level certainty, I could slowly build a 3D map on the surface of the globe.


    If I explored the whole planet, then I could fill the whole globe. All it required was a little bit of mana, and then next thing you know, everywhere I¡¯d travelled was created on the globe.


    Based on the size of the globe, I could tell that this planet was actually tiny. So small in fact it was probably closer to being a moon. It would at most take me a few weeks to explore the entire thing.


    I also discovered that depending on the level of detail in my memory, I could control the detail of the map. If I was so inclined, I could zoom all the way down to inspect a grain of sand. Unfortunately, neither my memory nor my patience was good enough to record a map in that much detail.


    Still, the map had other useful features. For example, even though my view was spinning wildly at the time, I was able to catch a few glimpses of the ground in my travels through the sky after the dragon accident.


    Thanks to that, my map was able to be filled with a somewhat fuzzy depiction of major landmarks, roads and other interesting things around the city.


    Inversely to the level of awesomeness this skill had, was my level of interest in it. Although it was a cool toy, I didn¡¯t feel like the map was really all that useful at all.


    After playing with it for a while longer, I finally pulled my thumb out and moved back into the city. Apart from the skill that was useless, the pendant that was ruined and the scroll I almost forgot I even had, the only other thing of interest were some nice clothes.


    Unfortunately, I quickly discovered a problem as I was getting changed. Apparently, the ¡®anyone¡¯ in ¡®5% chance of poisoning anyone you touch¡¯,  included me.


    Thanks to the additional help of my Poison Mastery making my poison touch stronger and my Poison Assassin making my Poison ignore Poison Resistance, I was wracked with comfortable agony after changing outfits.


    At last, I walked into the market square with some nice black slacks, a simple cotton shirt and a long black leather coat. Because my renown was still horrid and in the negative, and also because I was trying to sell stolen goods, I also had to wear my Poison Assassin¡¯s Hat.


    It took nearly 4 hours to sell all the junk and useless stuff from my inventory. By the time I was done, I¡¯d met 6 orphans begging or walking around, 2 of which were crippled and 1 of which was poisoned. The combination of Orphan Heart, Orphan Crippler and my Sinister Undying class was like some kind of cruel honey trap.


    Strangely, even after the two boys touched me and suddenly broke a leg or arm, they didn¡¯t even hold it against me. Seeming as if, in their eyes, I could do no wrong. At the same time, just from the act of them crippling themselves by touching me I got almost 20 experience points from each of them.


    Of course, I couldn¡¯t just leave them like that. Even if my Orphan Heart didn¡¯t threaten to give me a heart attack by leaving an orphan crippled in the street or suffering from poison, I myself would never be able to forgive such a transgression.


    Thus, all the money I¡¯d just made and the money I¡¯d stolen from the gangsters was invested in the ingredients I needed for instant recovery potions. I spent almost 4 gold and cleared out 3 alchemy shops buying everything I needed.


    By the time I was finished refining, Alchemy had reached level 4, Murphy¡¯s Law had caused three accidents dropping my luck back to 2, and I¡¯d ended up with almost as much poison as I did recovery potions.


    I then decided it was time to close the orphan quest and move onto the tutorial quest from the game master. It¡¯s without a doubt that such an action was a bad choice.


    The moment I entered the yard of the orphanage all the orphans sprinted towards me with fanatical eyes like I was some kind of great hero.


    Even if I wanted to, there was no way to escape quickly enough. Following my first step into the yard was a cacophony of screaming, and once again crippled, orphans.


    The curator of the orphanage had no idea what was going on, but seeing me standing there and half the orphans around me on the ground with broken limbs, I could already guess what was going through his mind.


    I started throwing instant recovery potions around like confetti to try and allay any potential incidents. I then rapidly distanced myself from the orphans and pulled the curator inside where I explained what was going on very clearly and eloquently.


    ¡°... 50% chance ... of that happening.¡±


    Luckily, he seemed to recognise what I meant and simply looked at me with eyes filled with so much pity my Hurts So Good nearly collapsed.


    I then managed to complete the quest when I thoroughly explained what happened after I left last night.


    ¡° ... Taritz ... died.¡±


    So smooth was my explanation, the curator only had to spend 20 minutes dragging a little bit more out of me till he understood that I somehow was responsible for Taritz¡¯s death. Apparently, it didn¡¯t matter that Poison Assassin was the one who got credit for the kill. The curator just seemed to assume that I had somehow hired him.


    As a reward for my harrowing and valorous deed, I was given another skill book. I¡¯d figured out by now that things like quest rewards tended to be randomised after you picked it up. For example, the tome in the bear cave just looked like an ordinary leather bound book ... that was floating ... until I touched it.


    The same was for the skill book I received from this quest. Unusually, my luck seemed good for once as I actually got a useful skill that I really wanted.


    <hr>


    Imbue


    The skill of imbuing mana into something to achieve specific results.


    Prerequisites: Mana Manipulation.


    <hr>


    To say I was ecstatic about getting something so awesome for my second quest reward would be an understatement of my happiness. I immediately opened the book to let it shine its glorious memory implant light on me so I could start the skill progress.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an accident. -1 Luck.¡¯


    Just as I was opening the cover of the book, an unexpected system prompt came. I paused opening the book to look around suspiciously. From what I could tell, no accidents had happened.


    Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and everything seemed fine. I was curious, but my focus was drawn in again by the book. My desire for the Imbue skill was palpable. Although I could probably learn the skill myself if I practised, the memory implant of the skill book would shoot my experience directly to 1000 points and give me enough knowledge to be able to do it without practice.


    Just as I opened the book and was preparing to receive the light, a bird flew into the huge glass window of the orphanage and shattered the mural of stained glass everywhere. The light shone forth from the book and as it did pieces of stained glass scattered between my face and the book causing all sorts of weird colours and beams of light to flash.


    ¡®Ping! A new skill has reached level 1. Deprive.¡¯


    ¡°Fuck!¡±


    I immediately opened my status to check the damage only to become horrified by the outcome.


    <hr>


    Deprive.


    During a freak accident while learning ¡®Imbue¡¯ you¡¯ve completely misinterpreted the intentions of the skill and developed some malignant sinister skill that is the complete opposite.


    Instead of imbuing something by pouring mana into it, your mana will naturally deprive anything it touches of mana. It can even deprive an object of enchantments and eventually deprive a person of their life.


    This Skill eliminates the possibility of learning Imbue.


    <hr>


    It was something weird again. Another fucking weird skill! My Hurts So Good fired up like a great big furnace as it tried to burn away all these negative feelings.


    In the end, I still walked out of the orphanage smiling, even after another 3 orphans who got too close needed an instant recovery potion.


    I was trying to smile bitterly, but instead looked like I was beaming with joy. Hurts So Good truly was a coin with two faces.


    I made the decision to lock this skill away in my hidden skills list and pretend I didn¡¯t have it at all. The last thing I wanted was to deprive anyone of anything. Even the name of the skill made me feel a little nauseous.


    Unfortunately, I now felt like the game system was making a deliberate effort to destroy me. It was almost as if every time I wanted something, the System found a way to ruin it. Imbue was the mana skill I wanted most, and now it had been corrupted into something perverse.


    With an initially heavy heart ... that quickly became a light heart, I continued on my journey and the only quest I still had left. ¡®Who the Fuck is Elizabeth?¡¯


    Having no idea where to even start, I decided that the best choice would be to go and visit Seelie at the Magic Academy. With any luck, she might know someone that could help me. It was only a guess, a sneaking suspicion, but I had the feeling if I started running around asking about this Elizabeth person then I was going to be disappeared.


    This was for no other reason than the fact that her name was written on the back of a magic tome which was focused on ¡®Sinister¡¯ Magic Arts. If this person was some kind of mage or wizard, then it was likely the other Mages probably didn¡¯t particularly like her.


    I would go so far as to say ... she was probably a fucking criminal of some sort.


    As I passed through town towards the north end of the city, I suddenly started getting an odd feeling. Every time I looked at a civilian, I had to take a second look. With every step, my eyes kept being drawn to the most innocent people within my field of vision.


    Nun, little boy, another orphan, nurse, baker, that wise old man who always has advice.


    By the time I was near the academy, my eyes were red and my fists clenched. I finally realised that my Unstable title was trying to compel me to waltz up and hack one of these people to death. It was almost uncontrollable.


    It seemed that because I hadn¡¯t killed anyone innocent by accident since the slums, which was more than 48 hours ago, my Unstable Title had reached the point that Hurts So Good couldn¡¯t control it. I briefly checked my stats and saw my Mental Fortitude slowly creeping up faster and faster as the urge became more insatiable.


    Still, with all my strength of will, I held back. There were a few close calls, but I managed to control myself. I kept my hands buried in my pockets and my Hat of Concealment lowered, making a valiant effort to not suddenly start throwing poison potions about everywhere in the middle of town and doing that strange thing where you laugh maniacally with a big sinister grin while tears stream down your face.


    I reached the Academy not a moment too soon. It was probably getting to be about 10 in game-time, and the Academy grounds were lively and filled with all sorts of happy students strutting about with huge books and mages robes.


    The Academy looked somewhat like a courtyard. On the 4 sides of the courtyard where 4 huge buildings about 5 stories tall and quite long and wide. One had verandas all along each side indicating it was most likely a dormitory of some description.


    Another had a big library sign on it, and another had classrooms. The last one looked like some sort of lords castle and was presumably where all the teachers stayed and practised or experimented with magic.


    In each corner of the courtyard between the buildings was a huge tower that was another 5 or 6 stories taller than the other buildings. The base of the towers connected the 4 side buildings and closed the courtyard off.


    Surrounding all this was about a kilometre of cleared land with a few other buildings and magic laboratories spread about the place here and there. At the end of this 1 kilometre was a high brick wall that seemed to brim with all sorts of strange magic. Just getting near the thing gave me the shivers.


    At the front of the school was a huge gate that acted as the access for students and visitors. Following that road led to a long street filled with shops and vendors all selling things of magical nature or ingredients for spells and potions.


    This was where I came to buy the rejuvenation potion recipe and also where I bought most of my ingredients.


    Now that I had the need, and desperately wanted to avoid innocent civilians, I rushed up to the gate of the Academy to find the gatekeeper. The big gate was closed, and like the wall it was covered in ivy and vines. On either side of the gate was two huge stone statues in the shape of wise old wizards. It was all bristling with queer magic and seemed to be rather dangerous to try and force open.


    With no gatekeeper nearby, it most likely meant I was going to have to sit around here and wait, which was going to end up in disaster. I ended up pacing back and forth in front of the gate looking very impatient and nervous.


    For nearly an hour I patiently waited in front of the gate. Finally, something happened.


    ¡°Deary you look so hungry. Would you like to buy some bread rolls! Fresh bread rolls!¡±


    A sweet old lady walked up to me, apparently selling bread rolls from a tray. She looked very amiable and very innocent with a toothless old grin and kindness filling her eyes. Because most people tried to avoid approaching the gates unless they had business in the school, the area directly around the gate was mostly clear.


    Apart from the old lady and me, no one was close enough to make anything out. I was greatly alarmed. The whole reason I stayed near the gate was so no one would be stupid enough to approach me. And now some sweet old lady, thinking I must be hungry having stood out here half the morning, is trying to ease my burdens.


    ¡°No!...¡±


    Unlike my usually fluent speech, all I could do was growl out a ¡®no¡¯. And it very much was a growl. Strangely, that sweet old lady was very much oblivious to the very real danger to her life and insisted.


    ¡°Come deary, only 3 coppers, fresh baked bread rolls. You¡¯re surely tired from...¡±


    I finally snapped. With such an innocent and sweet old lady within direct reaching distance of an arm, my Unstable title overcame my resistance like a flood of water blowing away the walls of a damn.


    ¡®Shwing.¡¯


    ¡®Click.¡¯


    My blade of sharpness made a shining arc of light through the air and was then once again buried in its sheath.


    Before the blood could seep out from the sweet old lady my hand flicked and some Burning Acid turned her into ashes which spread on the wind.


    I was horrified. Morbid. My self-hatred was eating me up. Without control, I buckled over and expelled my breakfast onto one of the gate statues. This was the first time I¡¯d actually purposely killed someone I ¡®knew¡¯ was innocent.


    Before this, it was an accident or misunderstanding, but this time was very much different than the rest. I knew beforehand and acted. Having the Unstable title, in my mind, wasn¡¯t an acceptable excuse.


    Making me feel even worse was the huge release of endorphins the title caused when suddenly fulfilling that sick desire to kill someone innocent.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused a Happy Accident. +1 Luck.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Your ¡®Party¡¯ has completed the quest, Someone¡¯s been poisoning the students! +5 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Your ¡®Party¡¯ has completed the quest, Find the Witch of Eastgrove. +10 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Your ¡®Party¡¯ has completed the quest, Drive out the Witch! +20 Renown.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, Assassinate the Witch of Eastgrove. +20 Renown.¡¯

 Chapter 5: Thorny Tower

    Murphy was too busy feeling ashamed of himself to feel happy about the renown and nearly 300 experience points. Even if he¡¯d somehow accidentally killed some evil witch, the fact remained that he¡¯d just ¡®thought¡¯ he¡¯d killed an innocent civilian. The guilt and pain in his heart ... even Hurts So Good couldn¡¯t make something like that pleasant to Murphy.


    Nonetheless, this was a game, and Murphy did the first thing all players do after killing an enemy. He looted the corpse. Although the corpse was just ashes now, there were still some little bags of coins and accessories she¡¯d been wearing.


    Unlike before when he¡¯d killed someone, something extra dropped from the witch. Presumably, this was something like killing a boss monster, so there was also a little black bag that was dropped which was called ¡®Boss Loot¡¯ by the system¡¯s overlay.


    Inside this bag was some strange crystals, a magic tome and a few rare ingredients. There was also a magic equipment that almost made Murphy cry when he discovered it.


    <hr>


    Charged Gloves of Ire. (Level 8)


    How the enchantments of these gloves work is a mystery to even the greatest of magicians. However, how they work is not nearly as important as what they do.


    In the pursuit of magic, it¡¯s not unusual for a mage to draw curses and strange diseases to themselves and a whole boat load of other magics that cause the magician to have a dangerous touch. These gloves act as a magnet for the probability of causing an affliction and stores it as a charge.


    *Each time a ¡®% Chance to operate¡¯ trait or title activates, the gloves will charge that skill instead of releasing it.


    *Maximum Number of Charges: 10


    *Charges can be released onto a target if the two middle fingers are simultaneously pointed in their direction.


    <hr>


    To most other people, gloves with these sorts of traits were useless. However, to Murphy, who had a 6% chance of ruining anyone he touches, especially orphans who have a 56% chance of being afflicted by his touch, these gloves were a Sagesend.


    He didn¡¯t wait to try them and put them on as soon as he had discovered them. Once they were on, like most magic equipment¡¯s do, they morphed shape a little to be a perfect fit. Murphy now had a set of black leather gloves.


    After sorting through the loot from the Witch of Eastgrove and picking out a few things he thought Seelie might want, he went and sold all the junk.


    When he returned to the academy gates, there was a group of teachers and students all standing around pointing at things near the gate and muttering and talking quietly.


    Murphy had no idea what they were doing and frankly didn¡¯t care. Instead, he continued past them to head through the gates.


    Just as he was moving past the group, one of the normally very dead statues suddenly pointed at Murphy.


    ¡°It was that one.¡±


    Murphy suddenly had a bad feeling. The last thing he wanted was for people to string him up on a cross because they thought he¡¯d just killed some sweet old lady. As such, he turned to one of the mages nearby, who looked to be in charge, and explained the whole thing.


    ¡° ... there¡¯s a witch ... killed it...¡±


    Feeling that he¡¯d explained everything he needed to, he quickly turned to escape into the academy and find Seelie.


    Unfortunately, the mage who he¡¯d just turned to obviously had very poor listening skills, because Murphy¡¯s well detailed and thought out explanation had somehow been misinterpreted.


    ¡°Who are you calling a witch you little brat?! You think you can talk that way to me in my academy?¡±


    ¡®Shit! Nobody ever listens anymore.¡¯


    Murphy then stopped walking, turned back and looked at the lady mage. She looked like she was at least in her 50¡¯s with greying hair tied back in a bun and a few wrinkles creasing her brow and eyes. Her complexion was ruddy and her eyes sharp and piercing.


    Similar to someone else he knew, she seemed to be trying to stare a hole through him with her glare. Only, it didn¡¯t seem to work on Murphy at all. Having suffered under the eyes of Seelie for half a lifetime, whose stare could stop a man¡¯s heart, Murphy wasn¡¯t even remotely phased.


    The two people¡¯s vicious glares were like two opposite planes of existence. One felt like a cool breeze on a hot sunny day by comparison to the other, which felt like gremlins had pinned you naked onto a cold metal table in the middle of the Arctic, while busily stabbing sharp icicles the size of a finger into your flesh.


    Murphy, still glum from his loss of self-control earlier, just looked back at the mage lady with dead, lifeless eyes. Finally, after some thinking, he¡¯d managed to cobble together a proper explanation and had rehearsed it in his head a few times.


    The fact that he had the time to accomplish something like that, which would normally take Murphy nearly 15 minutes of puzzling and thinking, was apparently a remarkable feat in the opinions of the other mages and students who were busy watching from the sidelines.


    From their quiet but excited discussions, the only other person to ever come into the academy that could withstand the Head Mistress¡¯ glare was some girl with eyes so sharp the Head Mistress bled from every orifice when she tried to out glare her.


    Now another freak had come along who seemed completely impervious to the Head Mistress and didn¡¯t even seem to recognise that he was being glared at. In fact, he looked more like he was trying to remunerate over something.


    Finally, Murphy had worked up the courage and words to explain properly what had happened.


    ¡° ... so ... a witch came ... at the gate ... and I killed it...¡±


    He then looked with expectant eyes at the big talking statue nearby, as if pleading for the stature to explain the rest.


    By now the Head Mistress understood that this boy was another... ¡®special case¡¯, comparable to the strange girl that came to the academy the day before.


    It was then that the talking statue, which had seemed completely inanimate earlier, now chose to speak up. Because Murphy now had a positive renown, for a rare change, the statue even went so far as to embellish the story a little.


    Apparently, the way NPC¡¯s viewed you was directly affected by your renown. As an example, before he accidentally killed the witch, his renown was -30 and everyone automatically looked at him with disgust, fear and distrust. Now that he had +25 renown, suddenly everyone viewed him in a good light.


    Well ... not everyone. Renown worked inversely depending on who you were interacting with. If the person you interacted with was inclined towards ¡®good¡¯, then they would view you poorly with negative renown and positively with positive renown. Although this wasn¡¯t ironclad, it more or less happened this way.


    Inversely, if you interacted with people inclined towards evil then negative renown made them treat you well, and positive renown made them dislike you.


    For a rare change, Murphy was in positive renown and wasn¡¯t treated entirely like a freak. Unfortunately, his charisma was still -3, so that also affected how NPC¡¯s interacted with him.


    After some explanations by one of the statues that guard the gate, Murphy was properly defended, and the misunderstanding was cleared up. When he asked how to find Seelie, everyone had strange gazes as they looked at him and directed him to one of the towers connected to the library.


    After a little searching and some exploring, Murphy found his way to the tower they were talking about. From what he¡¯d heard, the four towers each represented something significant in the Academy.


    One was the library tower which held all the restricted books and tomes on magic, one was the head mistress¡¯s office and living quarters and another was where most of the staff slept while their labs and research were in the adjacent building.


    The last one was a total mystery even to the Head Mistress. It apparently contained secrets from way back when the Academy was first founded nearly 3000 years ago. But no one knew how to get into it.


    When Murphy finally reached the Library¡¯s restricted tower, the Librarian, an ancient looking old man who seemed only minutes away from death, went up to the apex of the tower and informed Seelie that Murphy had come.


    The librarian was rather surprised to see her suddenly drop everything and race down to meet with Murphy. In the time she¡¯d been here, she didn¡¯t even deign to go and meet the Head Mistress, let alone some adventurer type that had stumbled into the academy.


    <hr>


    Ai ... I wonder how Seelie¡¯s been since yesterday. Hmm, I wonder if there¡¯s any spells or some method to reset my character in the system. Even if I had to start all over again from scratch, I¡¯d have no problems with it. Any opportunity to rid myself of these accursed stats would be welcome.


    Oh, looks like someone¡¯s come down.


    Oh wow! Seelie looks amazing today. Ahh ... don¡¯t stare, don¡¯t stare. It¡¯s rude. Great Sage please guide me, it¡¯s a hug! She¡¯s hugging me! Ahh, they¡¯re so soft and big. Was she always this big? She sure is hugging me for a long time. She smells so good.


    AH!! Stop stop stop. You evil thing go down! If you start poking her, I¡¯m going to get beaten to death! Quick think of something! Uhmm ... Ok just disengage from the huge. Disengage gently. Slowly lean back.


    Wait! No! Don¡¯t lean back! It¡¯ll touch her! Oh, Sage! It¡¯s too late. Ahh! She¡¯s looking down. She knows! What do I do! What do I do! Ah, she finally let go. Sweet freedom.


    OK. Clear your mind. No dirty thoughts. Blank space. Nothing here. Man, they were so soft. I swear I could feel her nipples getting hard. AH! Stop stop! Abort the thought process!


    Blank space. Blank Space. Just close your eyes and then when you open them, pretend nothing happened. Oh, please don¡¯t get angry at me Seelie!


    Oh? What a queer smile. Why is she looking at me like that? Oh, Sage! Is she already planning some revenge?


    ¡°You look great Murphy. Where¡¯d you get those clothes.¡±


    Hmm ... how do I explain the origin of these clothes ... well, it¡¯s Seelie, so I¡¯ll just tell the truth.


    ¡°Robbed some Gangsters.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Fair enough. Well, let¡¯s go to my room and we¡¯ll catch each other up. I can tell you¡¯ve been busy because I received some prompts earlier about one of the academies quests being completed by the party. Something about a witch?¡±


    Oh. Ok. Well ... guess we¡¯ll go to your room.


    Gah! She¡¯s left underwear everywhere! What¡¯s with these panties? Lace? Silk? Is she now an underwear model maybe? Hmm, best not to think about it. None of my business.


    Mmm... ¡®Great Big Book of Teeny Tiny Magical Creatures¡¯, ¡®Teeny Tiny Book of Great Big Magical Creatures¡¯, ¡®Very Ordinary Book of all the other Magical Creatures¡¯, what strange books.


    Oh, there¡¯s even books on how to level certain skills the best and how to create your own spell models. Hmm, that¡¯s odd, why would Seelie need a book titled, ¡®How to get an idiot to notice you love him¡¯?


    I could never imagine her having trouble with boys. Even before the changes from the game, she was pretty. Now she¡¯s smoking hot! How would she have troubles?


    Well, not my problem. Seelie can worry about her boy issues by herself. I¡¯m curious who it might be though. I haven¡¯t met many of her friends. In fact, I¡¯m not sure I¡¯ve ever seen her with anyone else. Must be some boy from her neighbourhood then?


    ¡°I¡¯m just gonna get changed quickly.¡±


    Doesn¡¯t matter, doesn¡¯t matter. It¡¯s not my place to barge into her social life. I don¡¯t really care that much anywayyyyy...


    Oh Sage! She¡¯s getting changed right here?! While I¡¯m standing here. Damnit! She could have at least done it in the corner of the room I wasn¡¯t facing! She¡¯s standing right in front of me! Gah!! Turn away! Turn Away!


    She¡¯s going to kill me if I keep staring. Whew ... that was close. That was way too close! Man, she really doesn¡¯t have any inhibitions that girl. Getting changed in front of a boy in a little room with no one around. If I was anyone else, something bad might have happened.


    Especially if they saw those plush perky ... and the tight round ... and these cute little...


    AHHH!! Too much! Too much! ABORT, ABORT! Abandon ship! Blank Space, Blank Space, Blank Space!


    Gah! It¡¯s seared in! It¡¯s stuck! I¡¯ll never be able to get it out! How cruel! How torturous! This was your plan all along wasn¡¯t it! That¡¯s why you smiled like that earlier. You¡¯d already come up with a method to torture me!


    Whew! Calm down! Calm down! Calm like an ocean. Gentle cool breeze in the summer. Refreshing clear spring in the mountains. Bright, beautiful day in the park.


    There we go. It¡¯s going down. Whew! I¡¯m safe! I¡¯m finally safe! Just don¡¯t think about it.


    ¡°OK, let¡¯s catch up and see what we¡¯ve learnt so far.¡±


    <hr>


    Disregarding Murphy¡¯s social ineptitude, the duo started to discuss everything they¡¯d been up to. When Murphy talked about his backpack having the class stone and game guides, he received a look from Seelie that very much said; ¡®I already told you that earlier.¡¯


    In the efforts of saving some time, and preventing Murphy from somehow looking like he was listening while not, Seelie simply poured all her memories into Murphy like she had earlier. Turns out, either she couldn¡¯t control it very well, or she could only send it in big sections.


    Because she showed him literally ¡®everything¡¯ she¡¯d done since the exact moment they left each other¡¯s company the day before. Even the parts where she did naughty girl things that boys shouldn¡¯t know about ... which she apparently did frequently and for extended periods of time.


    Of course, it wasn¡¯t a matter of her control or even a limitation of the special trait. It was all very purposely done. If Murphy was so oblivious that he couldn¡¯t realise her feelings, then she would just make it so he would never be able to stop thinking about her in that way.


    Every time she did an implant, she was going to fill his head with her and only her, until one day he finally wakes up and realises that all he could think about was her.


    It wasn¡¯t the most honest method to achieve her goals, but it was probably the only way apart from literally raping Murphy that she could get him to realise her feelings. It was almost as if he already very much knew her feelings and very deliberately ignored and even misinterpreted them.


    Anyway, after that sharing process, which was followed by Murphy refusing to stand up for almost 20 minutes, Seelie took him around to some teachers and asked about this Elizabeth person. Finally, they met an old professor who seemed to almost pass out simply at the mention of the women.


    He told quite a tale of how back in his days when he first started at the academy there was a girl who seemed like the sweetest thing you¡¯d ever met. She was polite, cordial and stunningly gorgeous.


    The only problem was, that if you ever got on her bad side, curses and evil magics would rain down on you as if the heavens themselves had marked you and the demons were seeking to destroy you.


    It was only later, after numerous students and teachers had been killed that she was discovered to be a practitioner of evil and sinister magic. She was chased out of the school and now resides far off to the north in a place called the Tower of Thorns.


    Many adventurers had attempted to go forth and slay her only to respawn in the city terrified of ever going back and refusing to complete the mission.


    With all this, Murphy immediately decided that he would be the hero to go forth and slay the Witch of Thorny Tower. Seelie still had some things to work on and had elected to stay behind. Although she wanted to travel with Murphy, she wanted to be fully prepared for everything and so first planned to memorise the entire library of the Academy.


    She wanted to be able to assist him in everything.


    Murphy didn¡¯t mind. For starters, he¡¯d feel rather guilty if she joined him only to become targeted by some of his misfortune.


    Murphy gave Seelie a few gifts he¡¯d picked up from his travels and then made to leave. Seelie declined the spell tome he got from witch, saying he needed it more.


    Before he left, the Head Mistress tracked him down and rewarded him for completing the Witch of Eastgrove quests. It was a rather sizable sum of money and a few accessories and other useless things. The only thing that was any real value to Murphy was a book of +1. It didn¡¯t specify what it gave a plus one boost too.


    The Head Mistress had explained that it would randomly pick a skill and add enough experience for the skill to level. He was somewhat dubious but decided to try it anyway.


    After the blinding lights from the memory implant had come out of the book, Murphy received a level to his Deprive Skill.


    Now that he¡¯d calmed down from the incident that happened when he gained this skill, he started thinking along a similar line to what he¡¯d thought when he reviewed the demon skill. It¡¯s not the skill or the spell that is evil or sinister, but rather the intentions of the people who use it.


    As long as he used it for good, it didn¡¯t matter how evil people thought his skill might be, it was just a skill. He would make it good!


    As Murphy left the Academy and started trading in town for everything he felt he needed, the system updated his quest.


    ¡®Ping! Quest, ¡®Who the fuck is Elizabeth¡¯, has been updated.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have received the quest, Find the Thorny Tower.¡¯


    Luckily for Murphy, he had a fairly promising idea about where the tower was located. Thanks to his Mana Cartography, he¡¯d determined the location the tower was in would most likely be the part of his map that had a huge spire covered in thorns.


    If that tower wasn¡¯t the tower of thorns, then there wasn¡¯t a tower of thorns on this planet.


    Once he¡¯d spent all his money on ingredients and caused a few more accidents in the slums while refining more potions, he set out to kill the witch.


    As he passed through the woods, he used his Identify on everything he saw. Trees, rocks, plants, animals. Seeing how important the skill was, he felt it would be prudent to level it up as quickly as possible.


    Speaking of trees and rocks, he discovered that his inventory had a volume limit. As powerful as a magic inventory was, even it had to have limits. When he was trying to level things up as he travelled through the forests, he thought back to his idea of loading the shit out of his inventory¡¯s weight to increase his agility and strength.


    As such, he started touching trees and boulders and trying to put them into his inventory. After the first boulder, the weight of which quite literally crushed him into a thin paste and forced him to restart the journey, he managed to pick up another.


    By the time he had two boulders in his inventory, his strength had reached 12, and his endurance was nearly 30. Unfortunately, the higher his strength and agility got, the lighter the weight of his inventory got.


    Even more unfortunate than that, the two rocks he¡¯d picked up that were about the size of a car, had completely filled the volume space of his inventory.


    If he wanted to train using his inventory, he was going to have to find things with more weight and less volume. Lead or gold was his first thought. Another thing he¡¯d been patiently levelling up was his Deprive Skill. Although it seemed quite sinister by the description, it actually wasn¡¯t so bad.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    He used it on plants, trees and everything he could find. Everything he touched while operating Deprive had its mana sucked out. This was a double-edged sword though. If Murphy¡¯s Mana was filled up to his Max Mana, then depriving something of mana meant that he was trying to force more mana into his body when he didn¡¯t have the capacity.


    Turned out that Mana kind of acted like life force for many things. If he had too much, his body had to try and adapt. Every time it had to try and adapt it would cause excruciating agony. It was a pain that didn¡¯t come from the body. But one that came from the soul.


    The more he overloaded his body with mana from trees and plants, the more agony his soul felt...


    Well, that is a little misleading, it should rather be described as the more mana he forced into his body, the more pleasure he was engulfed by. It took quite a lot of mana to cause the amount of pain needed to overwhelm Hurts So Good.


    He also worked on various other skills in his travels. Occasionally he would meet a creature like a goblin or a kobold or something, and they would be quickly dealt with. At one point, he even ran into a unicorn ... which he accidentally dealt with.


    In the dark, eerie woods north of Gateway city, heading in the direction of the Thorny Tower, Murphy stood over the corpse of a Unicorn that was busy bleeding out into the dirt of the forest floor.


    His face was covered with a smile that looked jubilant but was meant to be wry and bitter. He knew he was very upset about killing such a magnificent and beautiful creature, however as hard as he tried he only felt some perverse level of happiness.


    While secretly cursing his Hurts So Good, he watched the Unicorns body twitch now and then from the severe poison attack it had received. Unusually, despite what he¡¯d expected from the system, he had been awarded good luck for this accident.


    He had thought that Unicorns most definitely must be considered a good creature. However, when he was trying to discharge the built-up poison and bad luck that had been charged up into his gloves, the Unicorn had walked out from behind some trees just as he was aiming in that direction.


    Receiving a sudden onslaught of -46 luck and 7 charged Poison Attacks from a Poison Assassin with Poison Mastery at level 5, the Unicorn really didn¡¯t have much choice in its next actions.


    Just as it tried to run, and as it appeared to be trying to cast some kind of cure spell, it tripped. Usually, a very innocent action that wouldn¡¯t result in anything more than a scratched knee or a little bump on the noggin.


    Unfortunately for the Unicorn, its -46 luck caused it to trip into a branch that just happened to be pointing up at an odd angle causing part of the branch to stab into its throat and disrupt its casting.


    As if the Game System somehow had a very particular hatred for Unicorns, one of the ancient trees in the forest suddenly fell over for no reason and directly smashed into the unicorn.


    Still not satisfied, a huge lion, as if it was only interested in making sure the unicorn was dead, shot out of the tree line and bit into the unicorn¡¯s neck while shaking wildly until it heard a ¡®crack¡¯.


    It then looked around confusedly and sprinted off back into the forests like it wasn¡¯t even sure how it had ended up in this strange situation.


    The system awarded Murphy 6 luck for that accident.


    Murphy was sure that he¡¯d just been set up and had become the scapegoat for an Assassination on the unicorn by the system itself.


    Murphy then did what all Players did in such a situation. He took advantage.


    After some effort clearing the fallen tree, he butchered what he could from the unicorn. Filled phials with its blood, cut off its horn, made an effort at taking its pelt.


    Although it was his first attempt at cleaning a fresh kill, he didn¡¯t do too badly. The only problem was, the only knife Murphy had on hand was the Poisoned Super Pointy Dagger. As such, he managed to rescue the pelt, but the entire Unicorn was now a poisonous trap.


    Apparently, the meat of these sorts of supernatural beasts was very good for increasing your stats. That said, the only person that could eat the meat of this beast now was Murphy, who can¡¯t die from poison no matter how much of it he takes into his body.


    After lunch, Murphy used Deprive on the Unicorns body and drew out the remainder of its mana. Turned out, Unicorns are very magical creatures. In the wake of Murphy¡¯s journey so far was a trail of decrepit and dead trees. All of them were once glorious and flush with life ... until he used them to practise the deprive skill.


    Every time he deprived something like a tree or plant of its mana he would suck that mana in and the tree or plant would shrivel up and die.


    What he didn¡¯t plan for was that Unicorns, being innately magical by nature, were filled to the brim with mana. As such, when he used Deprive, the mana being sucked into his body was almost 4 times more than his current maximum. It dwarfed the mana of the trees and plants.


    He then had the joy and agony of suffering for a few hours as his soul was torn apart from the influx of mana and then put back together by his Please Sir trait. When he was finally able to withstand the pain and stand up again, his Maximum Mana had risen to nearly 25 points, and his deprive skill had reached level 4.


    At last, Murphy was ready to start levelling the last skill in his skill list that he¡¯d avoided until now. Summoning Magic.


    Summoning magic was slightly special in that it needed a median to activate. In the case of demon summoning, he needed a fresh corpse. Although the Unicorn had been dead for a while, it was an innately magical creature, and its corpse magically stayed fresh.


    Even after he¡¯d cut some off and eaten it, the corpse was still amazingly fresh.


    He summoned his tome and flipped to the Demon Spawn spell. With some focus, he sent some mana into his finger and then activated the spell from the book while pointing at the unicorn.


    In a gory explosion, the unicorn¡¯s body was blown apart by supernatural forces. Bits and pieces of it slowly started swirling around in the air until they formed into the formation of a spell circle.


    With a bright red flash, 5 little red creatures appeared. They looked like tiny humans with little horns, red skin and pointy tails. They each held a little dagger made of some kind of black rock and were clothed in tribal looking beast hides.


    The moment they appeared, 3 of them turned around and started violently massacring the two smallest ones. Murphy then watched on horrified as they consumed their brethren and then turned to the now dormant pieces of unicorn meat scattered around the forest.


    Murphy wanted to stop them, but they ate every bit of unicorn they found. Unsurprisingly, they all then fell sick from poisoning. Murphy wasn¡¯t sure how he felt about that whole scenario, but because they were his summons he needed to at least make sure they wouldn¡¯t die.


    It¡¯s somewhat like owning a pet. If you have one, then you need to feed it and take care of it.


    With a few rejuvenation potions, his demon spawns were all better. Because he didn¡¯t actually consider them to be ¡®people¡¯ he had no problems talking to his demon spawn.


    It was very similar to the case with the Bear King, where he had no problems properly vocalising himself. It¡¯s only people he can¡¯t handle very well ... or rather can¡¯t handle at all.


    The first thing he learnt was that the demon spawn couldn¡¯t actually speak. The only sounds they made were ¡®rar, rahr, raw, rah, rar, roar¡¯. The clearly didn¡¯t understand how to communicate and were somewhat childlike in nature when they weren¡¯t killing and eating something.


    He also discovered that even though they had worse communication abilities than he did, they could understand his commands perfectly fine. If he taught them something, they seemed to remember it. He taught them how to make a fire and how to make a little hut.


    He even taught them some fighting techniques.


    Murphy had been in the forest for nearly a full day in game time, and it was already approaching the morning of the next day. Thanks to that he had taken a few naps in the forest and each time his little demon spawns would all crowd around him and guard him while he slept.


    Then when he woke up, he would practice martial arts for an hour or two, which the demon spawns joined in with.


    Apart from the incident in the beginning when they ate their buddies, they were very loyal and followed all his instructions.


    He figured out later that he¡¯d forgotten the ¡®Max Summons¡¯ limitation of his spell. He could only control three demon spawns at once. Because he¡¯d used the equivalent of 5 mana when casting the summon, 5 spawns had come out.


    Because two of them weren¡¯t controlled by Murphy and completely loyal to him, they were immediately considered enemies by the other spawns.


    The only other downside to this was that one of his demon spawns looked like a little woman demon spawn. This wasn¡¯t so much a problem of him being shy around girls, not considering that he thought of the demon spawns as very clever little animals.


    The problem came from the fact that just like animals, they would do naughty animal things whenever Murphy stopped for a break. The woman spawn got quite a workout from the two men spawns whenever Murphy was having lunch.


    Even though he considered them animals, they were still doing it right in front of him while he ate lunch or was stopping for half an hour to have a snack or break. Most people would be uncomfortable at the site of two dogs rooting right next to you while having a picnic.


    Unfortunately, even though they were very loyal and obeyed him in most things, they refused to capitulate on this and insisted on doing naughty demon man-woman things where they had a clear line of site to their master.


    By the morning of the next day, Murphy had trained them in quite a few things, and they¡¯d killed dozens of rather weak looking forest monsters.


    To help him level his spell, he put his curse on the three demon spawns. From what he could tell, they seemed to be immune to the effect of the curse. If anything, they loved it. Curse magic seemed to be a boon for them and only helped make them stronger.


    The reason Murphy did this was to try and level up his Mana Regen. Although he managed to level it up once the day before by cursing himself, it was still too slow. After cursing his demons, the sudden load on his mana caused it to quickly drain.


    When he reached 0 mana, and his spell was still active, he received a huge backlash and nearly died. However, Murphy, being cursed as he is, was only made stronger by the near death and his mana regen soared.


    What he hadn¡¯t expected to encounter on his journey was a big poisonous marsh. The place was filled with a somewhat familiar green smog, and all the plants and life in the marsh looked as if it had been withered away by some arcane force.


    The reason he didn¡¯t expect to meet a place like this was that on his map, this should all be a forest. After all, he had been through here once before when he was sneaking away from the accident with the Bear King.


    As he stepped into the green smog, he got a system alert letting him know what was going on.


    ¡®Ping! You have entered a Biome you created. Green Smog Marsh has reached the limit of its potion level, the biome will no longer grow bigger. Inside your biome, you are a king. You can control the Green Smog Marsh at will.¡¯


    Murphy wasn¡¯t sure how to feel about the poison smog. He knew it had still been expanding because of every now and then receiving experience points when some unsuspecting creature or adventurer wondered into it.


    Occasionally someone slightly famous would walk into it, and Poison Assassin would gain some more renown. From some of the rumours he heard in the city, there was a huge bounty out for the Poison Assassin, and everyone believed he lived here in this boring dead marshland filled with poison.


    Murphy knew the truth, but it was one he¡¯d never speak.


    He marched on through his personal biome and used his control of the smog to keep a little safety bubble of clear air around the demon spawns.


    Despite his bitter efforts, no matter how hard he willed it he couldn¡¯t make the smog disperse. As if to spite him, like some kind of vindictive woman, it would all rush in and concentrate around him whenever he tried to disperse it.


    It didn¡¯t bother Murphy though. In fact, it was quite a pleasurable journey for him, and he didn¡¯t even bother to will the smog away from him. If anything, he was secretly encouraging the smog to try and concentrate the most powerful poisons it had towards him.


    After travelling around his poisonous marsh for a while and updating his map as he went, he started to notice something ominous. Based on his map, if his poisonous fog had spread out uniformly in every direction, then it would have to have passed through the area the Thorny Tower occupied.


    If that was the case ... Did he somehow poison the witch to death already?


    Murphy chose to ignore the possibility, considering he hadn¡¯t received a system prompt telling him he¡¯d killed her.


    When he finally arrived at her tower, he realised that he¡¯d greatly underestimated the witch.


    Not only didn¡¯t the poison fog seem to bother her tower, but it seemed to instead be feeding the defences of the tower.


    Not far from the middle of the poison bog, which was also the ex-bear cave, was a huge tower that reached up into the sky. It looked something similar to the rib bone of an ancient giant beast and was at least a few hundred meters tall.


    The rib bone tower was somewhat strange though, in that it was covered in huge bone-like protrusions that could only be described as thorns. Even on closer inspection, the walls of the tower were covered in thorns and thistles ranging in size from a few meters in length to the size of a tiny little sewing needle.


    Naturally, just because the owner felt there weren¡¯t enough thorns already, all the thorns had thorns. If those thorns were big enough, they too would have little thorns. It was a hell of a sight and something Murphy had never expected.


    However, although it was a wondrous sight, the first line of defence wasn¡¯t the tower¡¯s walls. It was instead a huge patch of thorny vines and shrubbery that stretched around the entire outer perimeter of the tower like a high wall.


    One would usually expect something like that to be devoured by the poison fog, but it instead seemed to be rather enjoying the fog and was glowing with a very eerie and sinister green glow.


    Murphy looked at the tower. Then looked at the huge patch of thistles and thorny vines in his road. He climbed a dead tree and could tell that this stuff extended all the way back to the tower walls. It was about 4 or 5 meters high, so if there was a door on the base of the tower, it was hidden from his view.


    Murphy sat and considered his options for a while. He occasionally played with his demon spawns and every now and then picked some herbs that had started growing in his forest to make some potions.


    As he wandered around the outskirts of the tower trying to think what to do, he finally got a little impatient and decided to just try and hack his way through the vines.


    He took out his trusty Level 3 Sharpness sword and began his advance. With a ¡®shwing¡¯ ¡®shwing¡¯ ¡®shwing¡¯ he started carving a path through the compact vines and thistles.


    Trying to be helpful, the little demons also raced in with their little black daggers and started cutting away at the vines. Strangely, where ever they passed, the vines would all quickly scurry back.


    To the great consternation of the demon spawns, they couldn¡¯t even get close to the vines.


    Murphy was stunned. After some observing, he came to realise that it was his fault the vines were moving away from the demon spawn. He¡¯d told the biome to keep clear of the spawns, so they didn¡¯t get poisoned, and he discovered that it was his will being followed by the fog that was making the vines pull back.


    He was certain that these vines were some kind of spell of the witch¡¯s. However, it appeared that they¡¯d been seduced by the Poison Marsh Biome, which Murphy was coincidentally the master of. Thus, the brambles and thorny vines were within his purview as the ruler of the biome.


    Having come to that realisation, he felt slightly guilty for attacking the vines indiscriminately earlier. He¡¯d cut his way through at least 10 meters of the dense shrubbery before reaching enlightenment.


    Now that he understood what the go with the vines was, he willed them to part, and part they did. Like a little moat of twisted vines and branches, they parted like Moses parted the red sea, allowing Murphy to simply walk up to the tower.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has created a Happy Accident. +1 Luck.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have arrived at the Sinister Witch¡¯s Thorny Tower.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Quest Updated, Complete the Magic Tutorial from the Sinister Witch Elizabeth.¡¯


    ¡°Tsk! Damn Game System, trying to force me into some weird quest again. Sorry for disobeying your good intentions Game Master Jasmine, but I¡¯m going to just kill her and skip the magic tutorial. I already know enough about magic.¡±


    Having said that, only because he felt he was alone, Murphy stepped up to the tower and passed through the only door.


    As he stepped into the big rib bone tower, he found himself standing in a huge empty circular hall. The hall was almost completely empty, with the exception of a young woman, perhaps the same age as him, who was passed out next to a set of spiralling stairs leading up into the tower.


    The girl looked like she was slightly malnourished and was covered from head to toe in bruises and cuts. She was wearing scrappy torn maid¡¯s clothes and looked like she¡¯d been thoroughly abused. Even from the doorway, Murphy could intuitively sense the girl was a player.


    As he cautiously approached, automatically thinking it was a trap, he remained alert. When he was a few meters away, he pushed a spawn forward.


    ¡°Check if she¡¯s dead.¡±


    The little spawn waddled up to the body of the girl and lifted its little black dagger as if to stab her.


    Murphy was aware by now that some things seemed to be lost in translation with the demon spawn. For example, in this situation, when he asked to check if the girl was dead, it had assumed that dead was the state its master expected it to be in and decided to just make sure. Then checking would be superfluous.


    ¡°Oh shit! Stop! Stop!¡±


    Luckily, Murphy had been quick enough to stop it. He let out a tensed breath as he wondered if he¡¯d ever be able to correct the twisted hearts of his cute little demon people. He had an ominous feeling that this was simply their nature though, and he¡¯d just have to be more careful with his words in the future.


    ¡°Check if she¡¯s alive.¡±


    Having corrected himself, he watched on as the little demon person pushed the body of the girl a few times. It was only now that he noticed she had shackles on each of her feet, wrists and throat. They only had a few chain links remaining, and it made the girl look like she was a slave.


    While his mind wondered off observing the shackles, he watched on horrified as the little demon pushed the girl a few times and not seeing a reaction decided it needed to use a little more effort to check if this body was in an edible state yet. i.e. dead.


    So, it reared back a leg and gave a mighty kick to the girl¡¯s guts. Although the demon spawn looked like a very thin little human, only about knee height, they still packed a punch. Murphy had played with them often and knew that they were almost as strong as he was.


    With that kick, the girl let out a strange groan as she soared through the air of the hall before landing about 10 meters away and rolling along the floor a few times.


    Murphy was worried she was hurt and was about to race forward when he noticed her slowly lifting herself up into a position in which she was on her knees and hands, looking at Murphy with a very, very disturbing gaze.


    Her eyes looked slightly glazed, and every breath she took was like steam. Murphy was a terrible judge of these things, but he was convinced the look on her face was something more akin to sexual excitement than distress or pain.


    As if to reinforce this brief thought, she crawled towards him and then started rubbing her head on his legs like a cat asking for food.


    ¡°Oh, young hero! Please punish this little maid some more. Punish this little maid forever!¡±


    Before Murphy had the chance to properly process this situation, which being Murphy would have taken a long time anyways, his demon spawns seemed to take exception to some strange hussy flirting with their master and started whooping into her like they were trying to kill her.


    Murphy couldn¡¯t stop them fast enough. Once he pulled them back, they all lined up behind him and glared daggers at the maid girl ... who was currently shivering and rolling about in pleasure as she started touching naughty places on her body.


    Murphy was now so confused as to what was going on that his brain was about to overload and fry out. He started thinking that this girl was something like him, with some twisted special trait and had come here for her tutorial as well.


    Then she somehow ended up ... weird.


    While Murphy was trying to work out what was going on, a woman in a long elegant white dress appeared at the top of the stairs. She was absolutely stunning, and her face looked very noble and regal. She had pointy elven ears, and her hair was tied back from the sides in a braid. She looked down with an empty apathetic gaze towards the maid and then towards Murphy.


    ¡°How did you get in here?¡±


    Murphy was already having trouble processing the situation when yet another social variable arrived. If before he could probably speak to the strange girl with some effort, his ability to articulate had now divided by two. Proportionally to the number of people he didn¡¯t know that were now in his surroundings.


    As he worried about whether or not he should even say anything heroic or just rush up the stairs to kill the witch, the witch made the first move.


    She seemed slightly annoyed that Murphy had just been staring back at her for almost a full minute without answering, and so flicked her hand. A spell that Murphy was familiar with suddenly materialised and enveloped him in thorny vines.


    The spell of Thorny Punishment. Murphy didn¡¯t even register it as he continued trying to think up a heroic line to scream out as he killed the witch. He even started to make a pondering expression as if the thought required for the task was rather strenuous.


    Seeing the intruder simply ignoring her spell and making an expression of deep thought, the witch was slightly annoyed. With another flick of the hand, dozens of poisonous thorns materialised in front of her palm and shot towards Murphy.


    They could just barely pierce his skin, even with the fierce speed they had from the spell and the incredibly sharp points. As if laughing the attack off, Murphy tensed for a moment, and all the thorns simply popped out, with the little pricks rapidly closing as if he¡¯d not been injured at all.


    He didn¡¯t even seem to register that he¡¯d been poisoned.


    The demon spawns didn¡¯t seem to be paying much attention either. They seemed to sense that their master didn¡¯t want them to act yet and so made themselves busy trying to continue beating the maid to death, who seemed just like Murphy in that she took all that punishment and seemed to only be getting off on it.


    If she was a normal human, she should have died long ago. She seemed to have a similar trait to Murphy and was instead not that harmed by the attacks. Her trait seemed slightly different though, in that she was constantly covered in injuries. After the spawns had inflicted a few new bruises, old injuries seemed to be quickly healed.


    The whole time she was doing very dirty things to herself as she was getting the shit kicked out of her by the demons.


    Seeing the girl was enjoying herself, and he¡¯d rather the spawns stay out of trouble for the moment, Murphy didn¡¯t mind them running off to beat on her. Instead, he was still focused on whether he should say something to the witch before he killed her. It seemed like something that was expected from heroes in these situations.


    Something like, ¡°You shall pay for your misconduct in hell, Witch!¡±, or other righteous sounding lines. Murphy had a couple, he was just worried if he could properly deliver them.


    As he continued to ponder and practice his line in his head, the witch was now looking somewhat more irritated than before. She¡¯d waited for the poison to take effect but still nothing had happened even after another 3 minutes had passed.


    Thus, she decided to change tact. She¡¯d just burn him to death.


    She pointed at Murphy, and a strange pattern materialised at the tip of her finger. At the same time, a similar pattern suddenly appeared underneath Murphy and grew to a few meters in diameter with him trapped in the centre.


    With a cute little grunt of effort, the Witch started channelling a huge amount of mana into the spell. A massive pylon of fire suddenly erupted from the spell pattern engulfing the witless Murphy within.


    This fire wasn¡¯t just some normal magic fire. No, this fire was Sinister Fire and was designed directly for the use of killing a creature with a soul. This fire didn¡¯t burn the body but instead burnt the soul.


    She watched on with a smirk of satisfaction and victory as Murphy collapsed to his knees in the flaming pylon and screaming out. The Thorns of Punishment, being a plant spell with a very weak life force, withered up immediately.


    Seeing him still alive and not having his soul split apart instantly, the smirk of the witch dropped into an irritated scowl, and she channelled even more mana into the spell.


    Suddenly, she felt something go drastically wrong as the spell pattern she¡¯d created to channel her mana started sucking mana instead of simply receiving it. The Sinister Flames of the pylon were all suddenly sucked into the gloveless hand of Murphy.


    The sucking was so fierce that it didn¡¯t appear to just be sucking up flames the magic circle underneath him expelled towards him, but instead started sucking the flames directly out of the circle instead.


    The witch was stunned as she felt her mana being quickly depleted and the magic circle became like a vacuum sucking up a cup of sand.


    She very quickly broke the connection to the spell circle and stumbled back pale faced. She¡¯d had almost all her mana depleted by that freak down in the hall. Even more perverse was the fact that he was somehow still alive.


    He was currently locked in a silent scream as every muscle in his body locked up, and his soul was rapidly being ripped apart by the magnitude of the mana he¡¯d sucked up while his special traits tried to put it back together.


    Like the first time he¡¯d come to the forest and created the poison biome, he was stuck in a state of very slowly approaching death while his Please Sir trait tried to keep him alive and his Hurts So Good tried to block enough of the pain to somehow keep him sane.


    As good as his Hurts So Good is, even it has its limits and for the first time, Murphy received so much pain that he passed out. His Please Sir managed to keep him alive though and even after he¡¯d passed out it kept churning away, reinforcing the endurance of his soul to be able to withstand the truckload of mana he¡¯d just sucked into himself.


    Nearly 8 hours later, he awoke to discover that he was somehow still in the game and hadn¡¯t died. Even more, he¡¯d awoken in the Witch¡¯s Tower on a big bed in a private room and dressed in silk pyjamas.


    His thoughts quickly turned to the little maid he¡¯d met when he first came here, and he started checking his body for any suspicious marks.


    The very next thing he did was to check for his little demon spawns. He quickly found them all sleeping at the foot of his bed like dogs. As soon as he got out of bed, they all yawned cutely and stretched out like cats, then quickly jumped off the bed while staring at Murphy expectantly.


    Murphy was feeling somewhat out of sorts and slightly uncertain as to what exactly his situation was. He wanted to believe the evil witch had evilly captured him, but considering the state he awoke in, and the condition of his little demon spawns ... and that there was breakfast tray next to the bed filled with all sorts of delicious looking things, Murphy was slightly uncertain of the situation.


    After a quick search of the room Murphy found his equipment piled up in a corner. He started dressing while pondering over whether coming here to kill the witch was a clever idea, considering he¡¯d only heard one old guy¡¯s story about her and didn¡¯t actually judger her character himself.


    After quickly getting dressed, Murphy decided to check his status first, before going to investigate what was going on in this crazy rib bone tower of thorns.


    Just before he managed to enter his status space, a few system prompts started popping up.


    ¡®Ping! You have gained the title, Mana Demon.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Deprive has reached level 5.¡¯


    <hr>


    Title: Mana Demon


    Your soul¡¯s ability to take a beating from Mana Backlash and Mana Overdraw has caused your soul to be shattered and reformed so many times it has mutated to be able to cope with the level of your own self-torture.


    *Soul now reforms 4 times faster after being shattered by Mana Overdraw and Mana Backlash.


    *Can¡¯t die from Mana Overdraw or Mana Backlash.


    *When Overflow or Backlash occur, mana goes into wild flux and causes all sorts of strange phenomenon.

 Chapter 6: How to Magic

    Before I left the room, presumably provided by the witch, I checked my stats and skills. I was quite happy with the amount of progress I¡¯d made in training my skills during my journey to the Witch¡¯s Tower.


    The most surprising were the sudden huge jump in my Mana Capacity and Mana Regen. It seemed the ordeal of sucking up more than half the Witch¡¯s Mana had greatly boosted my Mana stats.


    It was only a pity that Mana was the thing I was least interested in. Although magic was cool and all, it was generally connected with boring things like reading endless books and researching boring things. Personally, I preferred the idea of fighting dragons with nothing but a shield, my body and a good sword.


    Using only my wits and skills to defeat my enemy instead of relying on some overbearing spell that would most likely have huge repercussions and ruin endless innocent lives along with my target.


    Unfortunately, I could only do my best with what I had, and right now I had so much Mana I couldn¡¯t possibly use it all even if I tried. I was regenerating nearly 20 Mana an hour, and my maximum mana had reached nearly 80 points.


    After some more checking, I found my Athletics, a skill I generally ignored, had progressed rather quickly thanks to stacking my inventory with rocks. Having to try and move around properly when being so encumbered had greatly improved my co-ordination.


    Adding to that, my strength, endurance and agility were all rather fast in growing. My strength had reached 14, and my agility had reached 8. My endurance was a whopping 30.


    From what I understood about stats, that was something akin to my strength being 14 times stronger than the average strength of every player and race when they first create a character.


    My endurance was now high enough to basically be on the same playing field as a creature made entirely of rubber.


    Not only had my stats and skills evolved, but my two spells had also both levelled up once.


    Demon Spawn seemed to gain experience both from the summoning as well as the growth of my demon spawns. Although my spawns had only grown about half an inch in height since I summoned them, their strength and other body stats had increased by half of what they were born with.


    I was pretty sure that if they kept growing at the same rate, then they would outgrow even me in a matter of weeks. From what I could tell, the only bonus to having the spell at level two was that I could now spawn 3 more demons, giving me a total of six.


    I then checked my Curse spell. It appeared to have levelled up thanks to my casting it on my spawns. I guessed the shock from the mana surge earlier had dispelled the curse diagrams in my body and released the demons from the curse, which was why the lazy buggers had been sleeping instead of guarding me.


    Without hesitation, I cast it on them all again. Unlike what a person would usually expect, the demons all started making delighted ¡®yah rah raw!¡¯ noises and dancing around when the curse came back into effect.


    Their eyes filled with a dim red glow, perhaps indicating that they were powered up by the curse somehow? To be honest, I had no idea what the curse did to them.


    I only knew that apart from them seeming to love it, no negative reactions happened. Even after nearly a full game day, which is about 96 Earth hours, the demons didn¡¯t show any negative side effects.


    However, unlike the last time I cast the spell, I now realised what the side effects were on the demons. After only a few moments of the spell being cast, the demons all started being very randy with each other and very quickly the once tidy clean bed of silken sheets was turned into a depraved demon love nest.


    It only now struck me why the demons always seemed to insist on doing naughty demon things with each other. It was because my curse was acting as some kind of perverse demon aphrodisiac. I wanted to dispel the curse but the moment I tried the demons actually started getting upset.


    So I was then stuck between a rock and a hard place. I could have cute rational demons that were good and loyal, but a little bit randy, or ugly irrational demons that were angry and violent. The decision was very difficult for me, considering I was the one who had to suffer as they insisted on remaining within line of sight with me.


    If I tried to leave and let them do randy demon things, then they all stopped doing randy demon things and followed after me. If it even remotely looked like I was about to sit down or stop for a while, then they would immediately start doing the two backs ... or in this case three backs demon dance.


    Only making the scene more disturbing was all the ¡®YAH! YAH! RAR! RAHW!¡¯ sounds they made while in the act.


    I decided to ignore it and continue checking my inventory and status. Usually, they finished after a little while and then raced up to me like loyal little minions wanting to follow me everywhere and waiting for orders.


    If not for the debaucherous and randy actions between one another now and then, they would have appeared rather cute.


    As I continued to check through the inventory, I remembered a spell tome I¡¯d picked up from the sweet old lady/witch that I¡¯d killed in front of the academy.


    After some thought, I decided to try my luck. Originally I¡¯d intended to leave this tome with Seelie, but she declared she didn¡¯t need it. Her ability to learn magic from the books of the academy meant that she didn¡¯t require the use of a tome from the system.


    I, on the other hand, had no ability to make heads or tails of those confusing books and so desperately needed the memory implanting ability of system skill books more.


    With a little trepidation, and having checked my surroundings to make sure nothing could disrupt me this time, I decided it was safe enough and touched the book to identify it. After closely scrutinising it, even after a few minutes, the overlay didn¡¯t change from ¡®Unknown Spell Tome¡¯.


    With no other choice, I could only tentatively open it and absorb the spell to find out what it was.


    ¡®Ping! You have learnt a new spell in Sinister Magic. Curse: Rampage!¡¯


    I wasn¡¯t even surprised anymore. I¡¯d simply assumed by now that everything I picked up would most likely be some kind of trap set up by the system to drive me further towards evil magic and cruel traits.


    After quickly checking the spell description, I could only sigh bitterly in my heart. Very quickly though, I corrected my thoughts. Even if the skill was sinister, it was just like all my other skills. Only the method of use was sinister. If I used it properly, it would definitely be a force for good.


    <hr>


    Curse: Rampage!


    When cast on a target, the target will become enraged and start rampaging. This spell will give the target bonuses to all resistances, defence and body stats.


    Bonus stats and duration of Rampage will be determined based on the Mana Spent, Spell¡¯s level and Player¡¯s Sinister Magic Arts Skill.


    Cost: 5 Mana or greater.


    <hr>


    By nature in a game, Murphy wanted to test the skill straightaway. He turned to his busily rutting demon spawns and then cast the Rampage on all three of them with 15 Mana each.


    The moment the curses activated, the three demon spawns stopped their rutting and suddenly started to bulk up. All their skinny, wiry little muscles became bulky and powerful looking. This bulking up was especially pronounced in very specific muscles of the little male demon spawns.


    In addition, that strange red glow in their eyes flashed and then dimmed back to a slightly brighter red glow than before.


    In an instant, the rutting of the three demons became frantic and unstoppable. Their need to copulate became so powerful it looked like if they didn¡¯t make babies with each other within the next second, then they were going die from exacerbation.


    As if to reinforce this image, the two male spawns ¡®expanded members¡¯ started firing nonstop. It amazed Murphy that it was possible for them to even store that much liquid in their tiny little bodies. The depraved love nest that was once a beautiful, classy bed quickly became even more feral, and the entire room soon followed.


    It was like two fire hydrants had suddenly exploded in the middle of the room. Murphy had to dodge into the closet to hide from the friendly fire that was just a little bit too friendly.


    Just as Murphy hid himself away in the closet, the door of the room opened, and the maid girl from earlier walked in. As opposed to the last time he¡¯d seen her, the maid was cleaned up and had no marks on her. The only thing still remaining was the shackles.


    The moment she entered the room, she encountered a face full of friendly fire from the demons. Suddenly, the three demons glowing red eyes all turned and focused on her simultaneously. Murphy was forced to close his eyes out of fear he was about to witness some heinous crime.


    15 minutes later, all sounds in the room became quiet, and Murphy peeked out to check if the coast was clear. What was once the bed had been shredded apart, and the entire room was in a disorderly mess.


    Lying in the middle of the floor of the room was the maid who seemed to have passed out with a very pleased expression on her face. Surrounding her were the three demons who were looking around somewhat confusedly for Murphy.


    The moment he stepped out from the closet they all quickly ran up to him while making excited ¡®YAH YAH RAR!¡¯ sounds. As if they were very pleased with Murphy¡¯s new spell.


    Seeing the little demon spawns jumping up and down covered in some gloopy clear liquid, and noticing the state of the room which was also almost entirely doused in clear gloopy liquid, Murphy had no chose but to smile very bitterly.


    He then glanced at the naked body of the maid who was moaning in her sleep and had all sorts of fluids covering her or leaking from her. Murphy then decided that a quick escape would be best and made to leave what could only now be described as a crime scene.


    After escaping the guest room, he began to explore the tower. All the walls were covered in thorns that seemed to follow his movement. Every stop he took the thorns would align perfectly so that if he bumped into the walls, they could stab him.


    Out of curiosity, he even reached out and touched them. The moment his finger made contact, all the little thorns and spikes suddenly enlarged and tried to skewer him. Instead of hurting him, the thorns seemed to be like a stalk of grass trying to push against a rock.


    They were simply bent back from trying to extend from the wall and then snapped. They couldn¡¯t even break through the simple barrier that was his skin.


    Having then lost interest, Murphy continued on. It wasn¡¯t long before he came to a room with a window overlooking the world from the top of the tower. The room was filled with books and looked something similar to a study.


    Sitting in a chair was a somewhat lonely seeming silhouette. It was the Thorny Witch. She sat in a chair of bones and looked out of the window at the landscape below.


    As Murphy entered, she glanced back at him and made a somewhat disgusted face.


    ¡°Sighh ... so another freak has come to my tower. If you¡¯ve come to kill me, get it over with. If you¡¯re like the other one and came for ¡®Punishments¡¯, I¡¯m afraid I haven¡¯t got the temperament to entertain you.¡±


    Murphy simply looked on, trying to decide how he should proceed. Eventually, after a long and awkward 10 minutes of staring at her as she looked out at the world, he spoke.


    ¡° ... the game master ... tutorial quest...¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡° ... tutorial ... quest...¡±


    ¡°Pardon?¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    The Witch, Elizabeth, gave him a scalding glare as if telling him to just spit it out. It was bad enough that she couldn¡¯t kill him even after trying, but he seemed to have some kind of brain aneurysm from the mana overload and couldn¡¯t even form sentences properly.


    With a wave of her hand, a curse was suddenly cast, and Murphy felt his ability to properly structure a sentence increase a hundred fold. Which was just enough for him to be able to form a complete sentence.


    ¡°The Game Master Jasmine ... sent me here to complete ... a Magic Tutorial.¡±


    As if it had suddenly completely depleted all of its energy just helping Murphy form that single sentence, the curse suddenly shattered like glass made of sinister mana.


    The Witch watched on stunned. That wasn¡¯t just some little curse. It could cause even quiet introverts to become so talkative everyone would hate them. It was a curse designed specifically for tormenting anti-socials who hated interacting with other people.


    She cast the spell again, this time with double the mana.


    ¡°So, I came here because ... I thought you were evil or something ... but the quest ... and you seemed alright...¡±


    Shatter


    The spell shattered again. This time lasting only a little bit longer than the previous one. Elizabeth¡¯s curiosity was now piqued.


    ¡®Does he have some kind of Curse resistance? Curses are a rare magic though so not many people would be able to build up any sort of tolerance for them. Hmm ... perhaps he has Sinister Magic Arts as well? That would explain why he summons those little demon creatures... ¡®


    Elizabeth stood up from her chair and started walking out of the room. Just as she passed through the archway that was the entrance to the study, she beckoned for Murphy to follow.


    ¡°Come along then, if you¡¯re to be my pupil, I¡¯m going to need to train you from the beginning.¡±


    Murphy, somewhat still unsure of what actions he should be taking, decided to just go with the flow for now. If this beautiful woman really was evil, he could just kill her later on.


    <hr>


    Ahh, what a strange tower. I wish I could go and fight an evil wizard in a tower like this. Save a damsel in distress who¡¯s all like, ¡°Oh my hero! Let me reward you!¡±, kiss, kiss, kiss...


    ... or something like that...


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s the Hero! Please punish me! Wait! Let your demons punish me some more!¡±


    Of course ... there is something like a damsel in this tower ... sort of. Oh, there they go again. Not sure what the little demons have against that maid girl but they don¡¯t seem to let up whenever they see her.


    Hmm, I wonder where that elf lady is taking me. Oh, a library? Oh ... it¡¯s a library. Great. So I¡¯m going to have to spend my time reading after all. What a cruel game. Please let my next tutorial be a combat tutorial.


    ¡°Since you have summoning magic, then you should start with these books. Then go and learn these books on sinister magic arts since I¡¯m pretty sure you have that as well. Hmm, also you should learn about demons since you seem to have a special sort of bond with them. Is there any other magics I should teach you about?¡±


    ... another type of magic I want to learn about. Well, in all the old stories people with holy magic and stuff were the best. More importantly though, that sort of magic has healing properties. If I learn that kind of magic, I can help everyone!


    ¡° ... Holy?¡±


    Oh, she¡¯s giving me a weird look. Is that ... pity?


    ¡°Heh. Young man, if you¡¯ve already started on the road of sinister magic arts, learning holy magic will be very difficult. Nigh on impossible. If you really want to learn holy magic now, you¡¯d need some kind of special trait.¡±


    Ahh ... of course it¡¯s that way. I shouldn¡¯t even be surprised. The damnable game system! It¡¯s so cruel! So evil! I swear! One of these days I¡¯ll break through this game system! I¡¯ll make it to the top, and I¡¯ll find the evil bastards that created such a thing! Then I¡¯ll punish them!


    ¡°OK, well, that should do for now. Read through these quickly then come to the top of the tower. I¡¯d teach you magic outside, but some strange poison fog showed up, and I can¡¯t go out from the tower anymore. Even that strange girl can¡¯t seem to survive in the fog and dies every time she goes out.¡±


    Oh ... she¡¯s giving me another strange look. Does she suspect me? Please don¡¯t blame me beautiful elf lady. It wasn¡¯t my fault. Ahh damn. It¡¯s showing on my face. The guilt is written all over my face.


    Quick avert my guilty eyes. Just nod politely and pretend to listen.


    <hr>


    Hmm, it¡¯s been almost 12 hours. I wonder if the tower has any food in it? Let¡¯s go ask that maid girl.


    Ahh ... Let¡¯s see...


    ¡°Rar rar rar!¡±


    Oh? The demons can smell her? Well then, lead the way, little buddy.


    Ah ... what a strange room. Oh, what¡¯s that? An automated whipping machine? Did she make that herself?


    Hmm, is this a torture room? This is definitely a torture room, right? Oh? What¡¯s that ... oh Sage! What is she doing to herself! How is that even possible! Is she okay? She looks like she passed out in that state? Why are her hips still doing that?


    Ahh. Who cares! I don¡¯t want any more contact with this freak than necessary.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s the Hero! Have you come to let the demons ravish me again? Please say you¡¯ve come to give me some demons of my own! Please please please!!¡±


    ... how am I supposed to respond to that? Hmm, the little demons definitely don¡¯t seem enthusiastic about the idea.


    How do I ask if they have food? It¡¯s somewhat rude to ask for food, isn¡¯t it? I mean, I¡¯m sort of just a freeloader now, right? Should I have brought my own food? Hmm, what if they don¡¯t want to share any food with me...


    ¡°Growl!¡±


    Uhp! Never mind. Looks like my stomach has taken it upon itself to express its opinion. Whew, that¡¯s lucky. I really didn¡¯t want to have to try and explain what I was looking for. Man talking to other people is so hard!


    ¡°Oh. The hero is hungry huh? Well, there¡¯s nothing to eat in the tower. All our rations were finished yesterday. Ever since the weird poison fog, we can¡¯t leave the tower. It¡¯s such a strange fog that even the Lady Elizabeth can¡¯t dispel it long enough to escape.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s right! Didn¡¯t you come in through the poison? Wah! You¡¯re body¡¯s so powerful! I wish I could go out and enjoy the poison but even for me, it¡¯s just too strong. I can¡¯t stand it at all! Welp, I guess that just means you¡¯re going to have to go out and get food for us all Mr Hero! Good luck!¡±


    Hmm ... how did I suddenly become responsible for food? It¡¯s not my fault your tower was in the range of my Poison Marsh! How was I supposed to know some weird poison smog was going to bust out of that flask! I mean, I only changed one damn ingredient!


    Whew! Calm down. It¡¯s OK. Hmm, I really want to leave here as soon as possible, but I¡¯m going to have to study all those crappy books first. I wonder if...


    ¡°Little demon guys. Why don¡¯t you go out and hunt for some food for me?¡±


    ¡°Yah yah yah! Rar rar!¡±


    Oop. And off they go. That was surprisingly easy. Oh, one of them stayed behind? I guess they must be really protective of me huh? Hmm ... should I have given them some more specific instructions? I don¡¯t want them to go and start stealing someone¡¯s cattle or something...


    Oh well. I¡¯m sure it will be fine. No one even lives all the way out here anyway. At most, they¡¯ll find some forest beasts that we can cook up.


    Hmm, maybe I should do some more study about the demon spawns first. It would be better if I could understand enough about them.


    Ok, let¡¯s see... ¡®How to summon a demon¡¯ ... hmm, I can already do that. Umm... ¡®Demi-Demons, a controversial investigation into subspecies derived from demon¡¯s cross breeding¡¯ ... well, I might need that later ... my demons tend to be quite ... promiscuous.


    Ah! Here we go! Creatures of the Demon Plane 101. Let¡¯s see, Grotesquery, Demon Hound, Black Dragons ... umm ... is that supposed to be a succubus of some kind? Is this a graphic novel? Why is the drawing so ... you know what, let¡¯s avoid summoning one of those ... I¡¯m only human after all. Even my self-control can only take me so far.


    Ah! Here we go.


    <hr>


    Demon Spawn.


    The rarest form of demon in the Demon Plane and also the creature of the Demon Plane with the greatest potential for evolution and growth.


    Unfortunately, this demon has the lowest birth rates among all demons and is often ostracised by other demonic creatures due to it being very weak at birth.


    Although they have the greatest potential for growth amongst all demons, they have two huge flaws that greatly limit that potential. They can only grow stronger when under the command of a summoner, and they have a sex drive so low that it¡¯s almost none existent, making reproduction so slow that the race is on the verge of completely dying out.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    The elders of Demon Spawn tribes have had to resort to forcing their kin to reproduce just to keep their small handful of tribes alive. If a mage ever found a method to help these creatures breed, then he would be considered the greatest hero of their sub-race and would be drowned in their undivided loyalty.


    The reason that the Demon Spawns are normally considered so weak is that the only way for them to become strong is to learn from a master and gain traits from their master through constant contact. It often makes these demons act very endearing towards a master and rarely want to leave their side.


    At the same time, it¡¯s not unusual for Demon Spawn to be summoned, grow stronger, then return to their tribe as a very powerful demon. Unfortunately, because of their species of demon being completely devoid of sexual desire, and the tribe elders having no control over the strong demon spawns, forcing them to copulate and create a stronger bloodline of demon spawns is very rare and near impossible.


    While that is the case, Demon Spawns lay eggs instead of live childbirth, and if they had even the remotest increase in sexual desire, their reproduction rate would explode.


    A freshly hatched Spawn would mature within days of birth to the limit of their bloodline potential then reproduce and lay at minimum a batch of 20 spawns within 3 days of having reached maturity.


    Even more disturbing and the reason this creature is considered so frightening and with one of the greatest growth potentials is that the progeny of this creature receives inherited memories and fully inherits the average skills and stats from its parents.


    <hr>


    Murphy was forced to swallow as his throat suddenly became somewhat dry. Somehow, he had gotten a creature that was on the verge of going extinct in the demon realm and had even found a way for them to start procreating.


    An entire species¡¯ future could be decided by him personally. Or more accurately, an entire species¡¯ survival was resting on his shoulders.


    He now had a few choices to make. If he simply summoned all the Spawns to this plane, then they would all go into a mad frenzy and kill each other. He could essentially wipe an entire Demonic Race out of existence.


    At the same time, and more in line with Murphy¡¯s personality, this was an opportunity to help an entire race of beings evolve and at the same time teach them some of his own philosophy. Such as not indiscriminately killing everything in sight, which was probably one of their current major flaws.


    He looked over at the demon spawn that had remained behind to guard him against danger. It was currently scurrying around on all fours and sniffing books on the table or pointing at pictures and screaming ¡°Rar rar Yah!¡± while jumping up and down.


    It was hard to believe this little imp like creature had so much hidden potential.


    While he busied himself with some more books, he suddenly had a huge rush of experience mist surge into him. Quickly following that the system gave him some prompts.


    ¡®Ping! Snappy has died in battle with the Evil Wizard Garfol.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Chuckles has killed the Evil Wizard Garfol.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Chuckles has cleared a level 3 dungeon.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Chuckles has reached level 3 and evolved.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Summon: Demon Spawn has reached level 3.¡¯


    Initially, Murphy felt sadness. Learning of the death of one of his Demons upset him quite a bit. Then he felt a slight bit of comfort in that Chuckles had somehow survived. He hadn¡¯t been aware his demons even had names.


    He glanced at the Spawn nearby and used identify.


    <hr>


    BitchTits


    Race: Demon


    Species: Spawn


    Level: 2


    Status: Severely Pregnant.


    Loyalty: Infinite.


    Evolved: No.


    Evolution Bonus: None.


    <hr>


    So it turned out not all of his Spawns had pleasant names like Chuckles or Snappy. That aside, Murphy was stunned at the status of BitchTits. From outer appearances, she didn¡¯t seem to be pregnant. She still seemed to be the same red skinned skinny little demon from before. Only a little taller now that she¡¯d grown a bit.


    Murphy then grew somewhat confused ... what was a dungeon? And why the hell were Chuckles and Snappy in a dungeon when he¡¯d only sent them out for food. Not to mention, that was only a few hours ago, how did they suddenly get into so much trouble?!


    He decided he¡¯d just have to wait until Chuckles came back and hope his charade skills were up to par.


    About 5 hours later, Chuckles returned and the smog parted around him as he approached the tower. Being hauled behind him was a cart he¡¯d stolen from somewhere which was filled with all sorts of creatures.


    Bears, foxes, goblins, bandits, rabbits. The crowning Jewel to the cart was a faceless man in black robes and had a sinister looking spell tome swinging from a chain on his belt. Still attached to the man¡¯s lifeless corpse was the lifeless corpse of Snappy who appeared to be biting a hole through the man arm and had it severely restricted.


    Among the corpses were various trinkets and shiny things that had been looted from the dungeon. When he pulled the cart up to the door of the tower. He stood proudly and started screaming ¡°Rar rar rar!¡± at the top of his little voice.


    Murphy came out with BitchTits to see Chuckles standing very valiantly with the cart behind him. He was markedly different from when Murphy had sent him off. The first thing was a huge burn scar he¡¯d presumably received from some kind of fireball spell.


    On top of that, he was now more than a foot taller and reached up to just past Murphy¡¯s waste. His usually wiry and skinny body now had some muscle mass, and his red skin had changed to a strange purplish red colour from its normal shiny red colour.


    The crowning jewel to his evolution was a strange barb dripping with what can only presumably be poison on his tail, and his two little horns had grown a tad bit longer and more pronounced.


    Murphy was impressed. He couldn¡¯t hide it, and he knew that some positive reinforcement was needed. First, he checked to make sure his main fear hadn¡¯t come true and upon seeing that Chuckles hadn¡¯t brought back the bodies of any civilians, he walked up and patted his head like he would a dog.


    ¡°Good job Chuckles. You¡¯ve done well. Do you want a reward?¡±


    The moment Murphy finished asking, Chuckles started jumping around excitedly while screaming ¡°Rar Yah Rar!¡± Everywhere.


    He then went and grabbed two bandit corpses from the top of the cart and dragged them up to Murphy. He then pointed at one while going ¡°Rawr Raw rAr¡± and then he pointed at himself and BitchTits.


    ¡°You want to eat the bandits yourself?¡± Murphy asked curiously. He was pretty sure that his demon spawns knew by now that Murphy didn¡¯t eat other human creatures so they would be getting to eat the bandits later anyway even if they didn¡¯t ask.


    Chuckles shook his head then started pointing some more while going ¡°Rar rar yah!¡±


    It took almost an hour for the creatures with more social talent than Murphy but couldn¡¯t talk to explain to Murphy who had no social talent whatsoever but could talk, what they wanted.


    It turned out, the one whose charades skills weren¡¯t up to par was Murphy as any other normal person, with an hour of miming from the two Spawns, would have been able to guess what they wanted.


    It finally clicked when Chuckles started pointing at BitchTits stomach area. As such Murphy pulled out his spell tome and cast the De-Summon on one of the corpses so they could go back home for a while.


    Before they left, they both rushed up to Murphy and grabbed his hand while putting it on their heads. They then pointed at the spell tome in Murphy¡¯s hand.


    Murphy was little quicker on the uptake this time and used all the manner in his body to recast his Insomnia Curse on the duo before they rushed into the portal that formed out of the exploded bandit corpse.


    Murphy then looked over at the other corpse Chuckles had dragged over and realised Chuckles was telling him to summon more Spawns so that they could evolve and receive a sex drive. He wanted Murphy to act as a sex hotel for his kin.


    Murphy, being weak to the whole species is going extinct thing, didn¡¯t even need to consider. He walked up and started using deprive to drain whatever little bit of mana remained in the corpses on the cart. Once he had enough, he quickly re-opened the summon gate using 12 Mana and 12 little spawns came out.


    On a glance, his identity told him their names and status¡¯. None of them was over level 1, and some were even level 0, indicating that they hadn¡¯t even reached full adulthood yet. Clearly, Chuckles had gone back to set things up so they could send all their young through to let them have a chance to get stronger.


    For a Spawn, living longer than a month was rare. Chuckles most likely wasn¡¯t expecting to come back, but instead planned for all his young ones to eventually be summoned by Murphy and get stronger as well. He had, quite deliberately, put the hope of his entire species onto Murphy¡¯s shoulders.


    The first thing Murphy did was to curse all his new spawns. He could see them all becoming giddy with excitement, but they controlled themselves enough to wait until Murphy didn¡¯t have something for them to do first.


    He had them all drag the corpses into the tower then taught them how to clean a corpse and butcher it. He only taught them to do it for things he¡¯d eat. The humanoid corpses were left alone for the demons to eat however they wanted.


    He also taught them the most important skill ... Looting.


    They quickly took all the interesting looking stuff off the bodies of the bandits and the wizard then disappeared their corpses in a somewhat violent and brutal manner.


    Once they¡¯d finished gorging and Murphy had sent a demon to bring the maid to store the meat from the monsters, he returned to the library to finish his tutorial quest.


    Over the next few days, Murphy spent all his time in the library. His identify skill and memorisation skill both shot up by a few levels with Identify reaching level 5 and Memorisation reaching level 6. His intelligence stat rose by 7 points because every time he finished a book, the elf witch would give him 2 more.


    After a week, his physical stats had barely moved, his demon spawns had all levelled up at least one or twice and all the female demons were pregnant again.


    Murphy had avoided creating the scene with the Rampage curse again, but because he was always busy in the library, whatever demons didn¡¯t go out to hunt stayed behind and busied themselves with saving their race.


    He could tell Chuckles and BitchTits were still alive because they¡¯re curses were still in effect, so Murphy half suspected that the Spawn Tribes were currently going through a rough week with those two going wild.


    Interestingly, the constant use of his curse had raised it to level 5. Luckily his spawns hadn¡¯t somehow ended up in another dungeon and weren¡¯t bringing back any villagers as food stuff, so he was pleased with their progress even though none evolved, and his summon skill didn¡¯t level up.


    Strangely, these Spawns all seemed to have some natural hatred of the Maid as well, so she often came to play with them on regular occasion.


    For a rare change, having been forced to live with other people frequently interacting with him in one way or another, his wisdom and charisma both slightly rose. Not much, but enough for him to see hope in them eventually reaching a positive number.


    Also of interest was that he¡¯d learnt quite a few new spells under the tutelage of the Witch. Most of them were, of course, cruel or sinister in nature. But they were all powerful and could help him later on, despite making him feel somewhat bitter at the effects of them.


    The Tower became lively again for the first time in a very, very long time.


    By the end of nearly a month in Earth time, which was only about a week in game time, Murphy had read the entire library of Elizabeth¡¯s Thorny Tower and received a prompt from the system telling him he¡¯d completed his tutorial quest for magic.


    When he was preparing to leave, he asked Elizabeth, because he could now talk to her without help, if there were a combat tutorial he could do next.


    ¡°Umm ... is there ... combat tutorial?¡±


    As eloquent as ever. When he asked this, Elizabeth gave him a strange look.


    ¡°How much do you know about the game after Newb Planet?¡±


    ¡° ... Nothing ... I think...¡±


    Elizabeth couldn¡¯t help but sigh slightly as she saw him still struggling to form a full sentence in the presence of anyone apart from his little Demon Minions.


    ¡°The world after the tutorial is greatly different. It could be said, the purpose of the tutorial is to train you in the mechanics of the game so that you can use them to your advantage later. After this, unless you prefer to, there isn¡¯t really a need to engage in single combat.¡±


    Murphy looked at her strangely as he started trying to imagine what kind of game this supposedly became after he left the tutorial world.


    ¡°That said, combat mechanics are the most simple, and a tutorial for something like that is useless. In the end, you will develop your own fighting style, and if you¡¯re good at it then you¡¯ll be good at it, or if you¡¯re bad, then you¡¯ll just die a lot.


    ¡°Anyway, now that I¡¯ve taught you everything I know, you can piss off back to Gateway City. Take this with you, it will act as your token that proves you¡¯ve finished the tutorials.¡±


    Murphy wasn¡¯t certain what to think or feel now. For starters, the witch had never told him anything or taught him anything. She only cast spells on him now and then or had him cast spells on the maid occasionally.


    Every now and then, she¡¯d pick some books for him to focus on, but in the end, for some reason, she¡¯d just forced him to read every book in the tower.


    He didn¡¯t realise it, but his reading ability was profound, and the rapid increase in his memorisation skill only made it all easier. She couldn¡¯t claim to have memorised every book in her library, whereas Murphy, the freak, somehow could.


    This wasn¡¯t because his reading skills were particularly profound but more because his Hurts So Good made the boredom and tedium of reading endless books into joy and anticipation. Having the right mindset can dramatically affect a person¡¯s ability to study.


    Not only that but the stat which affected his memorisation skill the most wasn¡¯t solely intelligence but mental fortitude. It didn¡¯t matter if he could understand everything he read. As long as he remembered everything, then a day would come when it would just click, and he¡¯d understand.


    Having such a monstrous mental fortitude and helpful Hurts So Good was the key reason he¡¯d completed his tutorial as quickly as he had. It also helped that he wasn¡¯t required to understand everything he¡¯d read. If that were the case, he¡¯d probably be stuck here a lifetime. He understood about 1/100th of what he¡¯d read.


    At last, Murphy left the tower with his demons in tow. Instead of heading directly back to Gateway City, he decided to do a little bit of exploring. He had to send all the female Spawns back because they¡¯d all ended up pregnant. As such, he just sent the whole lot of them back together.


    He then found a nice fresh corpse and channelled his summoning. A strange magic circle was formed, a flash of light passed, and then standing in front of Murphy was Chuckles and 11 other Spawns, 4 of which had purple skin and poison tails. These were the newly evolved Spawns from Chuckles¡¯ brood.


    As soon as he appeared, he rushed up to Murphy while jumping about excitedly and screaming ¡°Wah yah, Rar rar!¡± everywhere. He rubbed against Murphy like a cat then started talking the demon spawn gibberish to his brood.


    At a glance, Murphy could tell that each of these spawns was level 3 and evolved. He was quite surprised when he used Identify to inspect them.


    <hr>


    YaHoe!


    Race: Demon


    Species: Spawn


    Level: 3


    Status: Healthy


    Loyalty: Infinite.


    Evolved: Once.


    Evolution Bonus:


    *Gains all Poison Related Skills of the Master.


    *Immune to all Poisons.


    <hr>


    The other 7 Spawns were all around level 1 or 2 and were clearly fresh. Nonetheless, Murphy happily welcomed them, and they began to hunt.


    Unlike the last few times, only male spawns came through this time. He worriedly cast his curses on them hoping not to see something unseemly. Luckily, they did appear to become a little more lively and active, but they weren¡¯t displaying any signs of doing weird things with each other.


    Murphy was quite glad that his Spawns had started sending only male groups. It was obvious to him that they were trying to send just males to prevent having to keep sending some of them back all the time. That way, the group could stay with Murphy for longer and then go back when they had evolved or levelled up enough.


    As they hunted Murphy finally encountered a Dungeon. It was just what it sounded like. Some kind of sinister place filled with sinister creatures and people.


    The first few dungeons he encountered people and creatures thought he was another sinister being that had come to take over their dungeon as his own lair. After he¡¯d cleared a few, word spread and the dungeons became on guard against any sinister looking interlopers, which was somewhat abnormal for a dungeon.


    As he travelled about, his lower levelled Spawns all started levelling and evolving. Some evolved with only his physical stats, and some evolved into being able to cast some of his curse magic. The ones that could use his curse magic were hailed as heroes by their brethren.


    They were like priests of fertility to the Spawn.


    Curse Spawns were suddenly highly revered by the other Spawns, and they were often protected by their brothers with almost as much enthusiasm as they protect Murphy.


    By the time Murphy returned to Gateway City, he¡¯d evolved nearly three sets of Spawns at least one. Murphy¡¯s summon spell levelled up to level 4, and he could now summon 24 Spawns at once. Usually, it was always young normal spawns that came through, and Murphy would run around levelling them up for a bit then send them back once they evolved.


    The only spawn that had stayed with him the whole time and refused to go back was Chuckles. Because he stayed with Murphy the longest, he reached level 9 and had evolved again at level 6.


    His outer appearance mostly remained the same, only becoming a little taller again and being the height of Murphy¡¯s navel. However, his second evolution gave him some strange powers.


    He received something akin to Murphy¡¯s Hurts So Good and Please Sir traits. Since then, he often sparred one on 23 with the other demons and raised his endurance to levels almost as unnatural as Murphy himself.


    Murphy was pretty sure if this continued that Chuckles¡¯ next evolution would cause him to evolve Murphy¡¯s weird luck traits. From what Murphy could tell, he wouldn¡¯t have to worry about that until after Chuckles reached level 12 though.


    From a guess, he was pretty sure that the level needed for evolution would follow the number of maximum summons he could make at once.


    So it would start at three and then double each time. After level twelve, Chuckles would most likely have to wait till he was level 24 to evolve again.


    By this time, Murphy had been away from Gateway City for nearly 8 weeks in earth hours. Of course, in game days and real days, it had only been 2 weeks. On earth, he¡¯d been missing for almost 2 weeks.


    Juwan seemed to be the only one who was sure he was alright, and everyone else believed that he and Seelie had eloped somewhere.


    It was about this time that the method of activating the artefacts that suddenly appeared was released by someone onto the data stream.


    The whole planet went into an uproar of madness. Everyone was screaming their beliefs to the sky, and all sorts of people were trying to have all the artefacts either confiscated and locked away or utilised for war.


    Slowly, people started joining the game. Murphy, of course, was oblivious. As people from earth started appearing in Newby Villages similar to the one Murphy first appeared in, Murphy was just stepping back into Gateway City as people rapidly ran away from him in terror.


    Or more accurately, they were running away from the visage of Chuckles, who had refused to leave Murphy¡¯s side no matter what. Murphy even threatened to throw him through the Spell Formation only for the little bastard to latch onto his arm like a dog and not let go until the spell pattern faded away.


    This left Murphy in the somewhat awkward situation of returning to the City with a demon creature following him around like a loyal little servant.


    Before he¡¯d even made it the main city gates, he and Chuckles were surrounded on every side by soldiers in shiny silver armour pointing weapons at them. Murphy felt a vague sense of d¨¦j¨¤ vu as a knight in golden armour stepped out.


    Unlike the last time, the knight directly drew his weapon this time and didn¡¯t even bother with a warning.


    ¡°Vile scum! How dare you bring demons into the city! Are you trying to ruin the great city of Gateway?!¡±


    Murphy, with words as sweet as honey and cobbled together as if by a poet or wordsmith, explained the situation to the guards.


    ¡° ... a ... pet...¡±


    The scowls of the guards grew more rigid, and they seemed to become slightly more alert as if they were preparing for a great battle.


    ¡°You some kind of Demon Tamer? You want to bring that thing into the city?¡±


    Murphy considered for a moment as he and Chuckles shared a look as if mutually conversing with just their expressions.


    ¡°Tamer ... I suppose ... Demon pets ... aren¡¯t allowed?¡±


    When he asked this, the city guards all became silent for a moment. It was true that no one had ever tried to bring a demon into the city before, but everyone knew they were vile and wicked beasts. If they let this creature in now, there may be no end to demons entering the city.


    However, in saying that, Gateway City prided itself on being friendly and accommodating to all races. The laws of the city specifically stated that no one, regardless of origin or race, was to be persecuted simply for being a part of that race.


    This left the guards in a tough spot. The laws of the city were ironclad and they as guards had sworn an oath to only uphold the law and justice and nothing else.


    Finally, the guard captain thought of a way he could rid the city of the demon, and its master.


    ¡°The rules of the city state that no pets of dangerous origin or nature are to be...¡±


    Before he could finish his statement, the guards watched on with rapidly changing expressions, as a little child was knocked over by commoners quickly trying to escape from nearby the demon. What the guards were watching though, was not the little boy, but the demon.


    Seeing the boy with a scraped knee and injured by the rush of the crowds, the demon Chuckles rushed out towards the boy faster than the guards could properly comprehend. They could barely keep up with the creature¡¯s movements let alone rush forward to stop it.


    Their faces all then went from worried and horrified to befuddled and confused, as Chuckles helped the little boy up and patted the dust off him, then pulled a potion from his dirty tribal looking clothes and poured it on the boy¡¯s wounds.


    Very quickly the crying boy was cured of his ailments and didn¡¯t feel any pain anymore. The crowds all watched on as the little boy hugged the demon and thanked him before running off to his very worried looking mother.


    The whole scene was simply too unbelievable. To the adults, who had already been fed many prejudices since birth, the demon Chuckles was just a demon and a vile creature but for some reason showed some sincere kindness, leaving them all confused and questioning their beliefs.


    To the children, who all believed what they saw more than what they heard, Chuckles was just a cute little man about the same height as them who had some strange features like horns, purple skin and a pointy tail. If anything, they found the visage of Chuckles to be ¡®cool¡¯.


    To the guards, who had just been hoping to accuse Murphy of harbouring a creature that could only kill and cause mayhem, Chuckles really was a little demon. It was almost as if he knew that they were going to try and use such an excuse to throw him and Murphy out of the city and used this method to shut them up.


    The guards were unwilling. So, so unwilling. It almost physically injured them just holding back the desire to immediately try and slay Murphy and Chuckles. The only reason they did hold back was that they weren¡¯t certain if they could kill the pair.


    Chuckles was already somewhat beyond their ability to contend with. If Murphy had tamed that creature, then it meant his power must be on a level even higher than the demon¡¯s. How anyone had remained on Newb Planet long enough to reach such a level of power boggled their minds.


    Normally, if a player had reached a certain point and trained enough skill to be deemed capable of surviving in the Domains, then they were highly encouraged by the game system to move on from Newb Planet.


    If they stuck around for too long, the Game System would simply suspend them, and they¡¯d be punished until they eventually left Newb Planet.


    Luckily for the guards, someone came along that was capable of calming this escalating situation down.


    ¡°Hoh? A young player with demon summoning abilities! Very rare. Young man, you must be the player that has received approval to move on yes? Well then, come along.¡±


    All the guards turned at the sound of the gentle and amiable old voice. Having approached through the crowds gathered to gawk at the spectacle, an old man with a big red beard had appeared, riding atop a very gallant and powerful looking white steed.


    He looked like he¡¯d come straight out of one of those fairy tale books about ancient Heroic Kings.


    All the guards suddenly bowed and greeted the man in unison. ¡°City Lord!¡±


    Murphy simply looked at the man, then after glancing at Chuckles and the guards for a moment, started walking towards him to follow him.


    Strangely, even the City Lord seemed a little apprehensive about getting too close to Murphy and his demon. He kept a steady pace while remaining at least 5 steps abreast of them. If Murphy moved a little closer, he would take another pace away but act as if nothing was amiss.


    Chuckles, seeming to have noticed this, couldn¡¯t stop himself from having some fun with the old City Lord and purposefully stepped closer and closer to him until the horse was nearly about to walk into the side of a shop front.


    Murphy ignored the spectacle and simply followed behind. He didn¡¯t care about his Spawns having some harmless fun. As long as they remembered the promise they¡¯d made him. That they would only kill to fill their belly and in self-defence.


    He knew it would be too much to make them promise to never kill innocent humans. After all, to the demons, innocent humans were the same as innocent cattle. Sentience had nothing to do with the argument. Who cared if something was sentient or not. If you are hungry, then eat. It¡¯s a simple rule of nature.


    Only humans, with their overinflated egos and strange views on things, seemed to fail to realise that they too were edible and part of the food chain. How arrogant is it to think that you can eat other creatures but them eating you is barbaric or cruel.


    That said, although Murphy could recognise the situation from his Spawns point of view, it didn¡¯t mean he endorsed needless slaughter or any such thing.


    To live in this world filled with strange creatures, magic and danger, then potentially being killed or eaten by something stronger than you is an inevitable outcome for every creature, humans included.


    Murphy, was of course, more impartial than most in this respect. Thanks to being close to his spawns for such a long time, and having read so many stories and arguments on similar subjects in Elizabeth¡¯s tower, Murphy had come to understand that right and wrong was relative.


    As long as he felt what he was doing was right, that was really all that mattered. With that in mind, he taught all his spawns his own personal beliefs on what was right and what was wrong.


    For example, it¡¯s not wrong to need to eat, only wrong to eat more than you need.


    It¡¯s not wrong to take an innocent life if it serves a necessary purpose, only to take a life for no purpose at all.


    It¡¯s not wrong to attack if provoked, only to attack unprovoked.


    Many similar beliefs were expunged by him unto his loyal demons. All of whom, being young and impressionable, ate it up. Murphy came to realise just how ostracised and isolated the Demon Spawn species must be.


    For a race that has the power to pass on memories from the parents to the children, the only way they couldn¡¯t have become more powerful by now was for someone or something to deliberately isolate them.


    Anyway, the point was, Murphy was more or less a pragmatist, but he believed in trying to do good. If something he believed was wrong, was happening in front of him, then he would step forward to help ... provided there wasn¡¯t a big crowd, and he wasn¡¯t expected to say anything.


    If he still believed this to entirely be a game where everyone was just made up from data and pumped into his head, then he would probably have no problems with talking, similar to how he at first had no problem speaking to the little girl or the instructor in the beginning.


    After the instructor had verified that this was, in fact, a whole different world, things changed slightly. Although it was still a game, all the people here were real. He still wasn¡¯t certain if all the NPC¡¯s were inhabitants or if they got warped out similar to him when they died, but he chose to believe in the second option because it was more soothing to his soul.


    If it were the first possibility, although he was sure he could handle it, he would probably not handle it well. After all, he now had a few innocent lives on his hands by now.


    <hr>


    At last, I stood at the gateway to the next part of the game. My time in the tutorial world was over. Surprisingly, waiting for me at the gateway was Seelie. Apparently having found some method to do something ... Honestly, I¡¯m not sure, I stopped listening about half way through and just nodded politely as she spoke.


    The Gateway was slightly anti-climactic. It was just a simple archway with two wooden doors. When the doors were opened, there was only whiteness on the other side.


    We received no lavish send-off. If anything, the City Lord and Head Mistress of the Academy, who were the only ones present, seemed to be encouraging us to leave as quickly as possible. They were almost a little rude in their eagerness to push us through.


    I shared a look with Chuckles, and we both simply walked through to the next realm with Seelie beside us.


    Just as we stepped through the Gateway, Seelie grabbed my hand for some unknown reason, and then whiteness enveloped us.


    The next thing I knew, we were standing in a white space similar to the status space in that it was white and endless.


    Unlike the status space however, there was nothing here at all.


    Chuckles had disappeared, and the only ones here were Seelie and I ... holding hands still...


    ¡®Gah ... so awkward ... has she noticed she¡¯s still holding my hand?¡¯


    I, very awkwardly, tried to let go only for her hand to tighten. She looked at me with an odd expression which I couldn¡¯t understand at all and then she looked back off into the vast whiteness.


    I wasn¡¯t about to insist that she let go of my hand, so I just lightly held hers back and decided she¡¯d let go of me eventually.


    Finally, something came. We both heard a now very familiar, ¡®Ping!¡¯, and then a very unfamiliar person suddenly appeared.

 Chapter 7: Morbid wants a Home!

    To describe the person that had appeared before the duo as beautiful would perhaps belittle her beauty. If this person were described as stunning, that would perhaps be an understatement of the effect she has on people when they first meet.


    Murphy, being young, dumb, and full of cum, almost couldn¡¯t hide his body¡¯s instant reaction to meeting the lady in front of him.


    Even Seelie was overwhelmed by a powerful feeling of inferiority when standing before her. Which was strange, because the woman almost looked like a splitting image of Seelie, only a little older, more refined, and more matured.


    The most significant difference between the two was their bearing though. It would not be wrong to say that a person¡¯s bearing can completely change how they are looked upon. In this case, the bearing of the woman that appeared in this white space was unqualifiable.


    Her long black hair was as if silk and her complexion flawless without a single imperfection or blemish. Murphy and Seelie both a felt a need to reach out and touch the woman just to be sure she was real. She almost looked like a model of a woman created by thousands of years of hard work on a single computer generated image.


    It was impossible for any creature in the universe to be so perfect.


    The woman looked at the two, glanced at their hands, then looked specifically at Seelie with a slight knowing smile.


    At last, she spoke.


    ¡°Congratulations on completing the tutorial Seelie, and you Murphy. I¡¯m the Game Master, but you may simply call me Jasmine. Let¡¯s get started shall we?¡±


    With that, she waved her hand, and the duo¡¯s status screens popped up at the same time and began to rapidly change and morph with all sorts of other strange readings that Murphy didn¡¯t even know existed.


    After a few seconds of that, Jasmine looked through their status¡¯ and nodded with a smile.


    ¡°Looks like everything is in order. You¡¯ve both completed at least 2 tutorial missions. Although it seems to have taken you quite a while, Murphy. You¡¯re perhaps the person with the single longest time spent in the Newby Training phase.¡±


    Murphy wasn¡¯t sure if he should be proud or ashamed of that feat, so he simply nodded and remained mostly confused as to what was going on.


    Jasmine started touching parts of the status screens here and there, and finally, she looked satisfied.


    ¡°OK, it¡¯s time to join the real game. Newb Planet was just an appetiser. When you respawn, you¡¯ll appear on your first Domain. It will have traits similar to your own. You¡¯ll have 10 days of protection in which you can¡¯t be attacked.


    ¡°You will have a single Warp Portal which links to a random Quest World, and you¡¯ll have a beginner house where you can control your domain from. You will also unlock the Player Store, and everything else you need to know will require you to purchase a guide book through the Player Store, or you¡¯ll have to figure it out on your own.


    ¡°The last thing is that from now on, if you die, you will be locked out of the system for 12 real time hours. That¡¯s 48 hours in the game. So try not to die too often, or it will severely limit your accomplishments.¡±


    Jasmine then looked at Seelie. ¡°I see a young me in you Seelie. Are you sure you want to tether yourself with such an ill omen?¡±


    Murphy, at this point, had somewhat zoned out and was in his own little world. The short speech by Jasmine had already been too long for him to remain focused and he was still busy wondering what the hell a domain was.


    Seelie looked over at Murphy, who appeared to just be staring off into space like an idiot. She then smiled a most enchanting smile and nodded towards Jasmine with firm resolution.


    ¡°Haa ... Very well. Because you came through together, you will both be residents of the same domain and treated as a single entity. The domain will pull traits from the both of you in its creation, and the both of you will be the Domain Controller¡¯s. Do you have any objections to this Murphy?¡±


    Murphy, still gazing off into the endless white space, felt Seelie squeeze his hand and looked over with a confused expression. He then realised he¡¯d wandered off into his own little world again and probably just got asked a question.


    ¡°huh? ... Whatever is fine...¡±


    Jasmine felt her heart ache for this poor girl who somehow fell in love with a total idiot. She then snapped back to reality and gave a hard stare at Murphy. Being a Game Master, she had a fairly good idea about the pasts of these two people.


    When they first joined the Game, the System reads their memories as far back as it can. Murphy was somewhat of an anomaly in that his memories were very scattered, and areas were rather difficult for the System to pull out of him without some effort that would probably have turned him into a vegetable.


    None the less, she knew a great deal more about Murphy than anyone else did and she felt that this whole space gazing, mentally challenged act was somewhat of a farce on his part. She was slightly shocked that just now she had been pulled into his gait and was fooled for a moment.


    She started to question whether the memories the system pulled out of him were even his memories to begin with. Perhaps he really was just a fool with someone else¡¯s memories? Whatever the case was, she only became more interested in watching Murphy struggling about in the Game System.


    Finally, with Murphy¡¯s ¡®whatever¡¯ which was essentially consent, she waved an arm, and the duo disappeared. After the pair had disappeared, Jasmine simply stood there in the white space for a while as she pondered.


    Before long, another figure appeared in the space. It was a handsome young man that was completely golden. He looked like his entire body was made out of golden light. As soon as he appeared, he spoke somewhat hurriedly then disappeared again.


    ¡°Haha, Jasmine quick! Come watch this war between these two fresh domains. They¡¯re really going at it this time. That old orc fellow crashed his domain straight into the elf domain and nearly wiped half those prissy bastards out in a single shot! HAHAHA!¡±


    <hr>


    The Domain. It¡¯s in the name of the game, but until now I¡¯ve had no idea what it even is. When the flash of light ended, I found myself standing in a little single story, single room stone house. It was empty inside and was completely bare of furniture and usual amenities.


    The only things inside the stone house were two shabby looking wooden chairs. One had my character name on it. The other had Seelie¡¯s character name. Which was apparently just Seelie.


    I then left the stone house and discovered that I was on a little island. It was probably only about a kilometre in radius from the stone house. The most unusual part of the island was that it wasn¡¯t in the sea.


    In fact, it wasn¡¯t in any kind of water at all! Instead, it was floating around in space! In every direction I looked, I saw stars shining brightly. The next most noticeable thing about this place was it seemed to have a few sections of clashing biomes.


    The house sat on a shallow hill in the centre of the island. Just high enough to be able to survey everything. The hill looked very peaceful and serene. With soft green grass and gentle, fresh, clean winds.


    About 400 meters from the house was the end of the fresh grassy area and lead into a barren dirt wasteland biome. Strangely, the dirt and rock were all black and sinister looking, and the few trees or plants in the biome looked more likely to eat you than to actually be edible.


    This Biome was about 300 meters long. The last one was a Biome that I was very familiar with. Somehow, the Poison Smog Marsh had followed me through from Newb planet and made its new home on my Domain.


    It essentially filled the last 300 meters of the island with and impenetrable wall of poisonous green smog and twisted dead trees. The ground was covered in swampy wet areas and the whole biome stank of death.


    These three contrasting biomes each circled around each other from the centre of the island like three great big rings. I was mostly just glad that the centre biome was calm and peaceful. As I explored the Domain, I came across a strange swirling mist behind the house.


    It was just normal white mist, but the fact that it stayed there in one spot and surged about every now and then gave it a somewhat eerie feeling. It only seemed to take up about 2 or 3 metres of space and apart from swirling and surging now and then didn¡¯t appear to be doing anything else interesting.


    I then approached the edge of the Domain and peered over. From what I could see, my Domain was like an upside down iceberg. The top was mostly flat in comparison with the bottom, which was like a huge earth spike piercing downwards into empty space.


    At last, I was satisfied with searching about and returned to the house to see Seelie sitting in the chair with her name on it. Seemingly meditating or something with her eyes closed.


    Out of curiosity, I also sat in my chair. After sitting for a while, I couldn¡¯t figure out anything special in regards to the chair and decided to check my status which is what I presumed Seelie was doing.


    The first thing I noticed when entering my status space was a new 3D map. It was basically just a white, plain 3D version of the Domain. After using a little Mana, I filled it all in with the Mana Cartography skill and the next moment I now had a perfect 3D replica of my Domain.


    The next thing I discovered in my Status Space was ... someone else. I hadn¡¯t noticed at first because she was standing behind me and the map was the first thing I saw when I came in. Now that I had turned to check other status screens, I came across the smiling face of Seelie.


    ¡°About time. I don¡¯t have enough Experience points for everything. You¡¯re going to have to buy these upgrades.¡±


    Seelie then went through a long list of things I was supposed to buy, none of which I understood. When she realised that I¡¯d spaced out halfway through her explanation, she simply reached out and did an implant. Naturally, I accepted the implant because she probably knew what the hell she was talking about better than I did.


    She seemed to make a habit of uploading a lot of useless stuff. For example, she could have just uploaded the bit since we got here but she uploaded from all the way back to just before we left Newb Planet when she was busy doing ... well moving on...


    I, like always, then had to hide my growing erection as I tried to process the useful information, which was pretty much all in the last half hour while she¡¯d been in here.


    Basically what she¡¯d learnt so far was how the Player Store worked and also how the Domain Control worked, which was more or less the method used to take care of the Domain.


    She¡¯d also learned that in 10 days, our Domain would lose protection from the System and other Domains would be able to come and loot us. I wasn¡¯t really too sure why that would bother us if it happened, but then I learnt that if we got looted, we¡¯d lose some of the land from our Domain and even any resources we¡¯d cultivated here.


    Not just that, but we¡¯d also lose things like experience points and stat points. On top of that, if we were killed during a raid, we¡¯d be locked out of the game for 12 real time hours, and during that time people could come and strip us bear, forcing us to basically start again from scratch.


    From what I could gather of the memories Seelie gave me, if our Domain lost too much land it would reach Desolate Rank and would basically only be the house on a little floating rock. If we both died in that state, and the Domain didn¡¯t have a controller, we would lose the privilege to rule a Domain and become normal Players.


    I also understood that for a raid to be considered successful, the enemy party had to claim our main base. Which in this case was our poxy little stone house that would probably fall over in a strong wind.


    Seelie, of course, had spent all of her points on books so that she could learn the rules of Domain Warz and figure out what exactly the goal of the game was. Which apparently, is to build your own world eventually.


    The idea is, as you raid and steal land from other people¡¯s Domains, your Domain gets bigger and bigger. Eventually, when it¡¯s enough to be considered a planet, you get two options. You can keep playing, and make your planet even more amazing and gain it another Rank, or you can back out, and you get the planet all to yourself.


    The only cost of that is you will be cut off from the Domain Warz, and your planet will become your new home planet and a Quest Planet for the game. Naturally, you also get to keep all your cool stats and skills from the system, and you can even keep improving your planet, it just won¡¯t ever grow any bigger.


    From what Seelie could tell, there already appeared to be thousands if not tens of thousands of Planet Rank Domains, and when they went to war to try and raid each other, the entire populace joined in. Essentially, every member of a planet was part of the game and enjoyed the benefits brought about by the system.


    If they lived in a Domain with a good Controller, then that controller would set up resurrection points in their Domain for citizens. If not, then the players that joined a Domain as a citizen and died in a war would respawn on a quest planet and have to try and find a way back or find some way to join another Domain.


    In the end, it was a huge game to build yourself your own little world. Then when you¡¯ve had enough fun, you retire in peace with a planet all of your own and other players and adventurers come to your planet to earn experience points so they can make their own skills or domain more awesome.


    That white mist out the back was apparently a portal to a random Quest Planet where we could farm experience to upgrade our Domain.


    From Seelie¡¯s point of view, the thing we needed the most now was to prepare our Domain to be attacked. We needed to invite players or other creatures to come and live here so they can act as the defences to our domain.


    In order to invite them, we first needed to have something they needed. In this case, we had to start building structures that would draw in some players. If we built a library or something, then low-level players that are interested in magic and books would come to our Domain and request to become a citizen so they could use our facilities for free.


    This was also where questing came in. If we could finish some tough quests that gave us something unique, like a unique magic spell, then we could advertise that and people would come to take advantage of it to increase their skills.


    There were also plenty of players that wanted to live in a biome which reflected their nature or the magic they practised. For example, my Poison Smog Biome was unique and would probably draw in a few races that prefer to live in poison areas and found it beneficial to their stat growth.


    After some consideration, I asked Seelie to hold off for a moment because there was something else I wanted to try first. I searched through the store, not holding out any hope.


    Surprisingly, I found what I wanted. For 100 experience, I purchased it and then walked outside the hut followed by a curious Seelie. The next moment, her face became strange as she watched me ¡®will¡¯ the fresh corpse of a giant lizard out of my inventory.


    Without explaining, I simply pointed at the corpse and willed my innate spell to activate. This was an experiment I was uncertain about, but considering the nature of the Domain, I was certain I¡¯d be correct. Despite not having read anything to support my idea.


    We then watched on as the huge body of the lizard, probably close to the size of a small truck, exploded into a gory mess. Pieces of the beast showered all over the island and then slowly started to float back and form a huge summoning spell pattern.


    A bright sinister red light flashed, and then there were 26 Demon Spawns all with different types of evolution and even a few with none. When they appeared, they all started cheering loudly in their cute little ¡°Rar rar yah!¡± sounds.


    I watched on nervously as they all started running around everywhere and investigating everything and eating the leftovers of the corpse I summoned them with. When they moved into the black dirt biome with the disturbingly sinister trees, a little red gleam appeared in their eyes, and they all started doing naughty demon things.


    <hr>


    Murphy let out a tense breath and checked his status screen. Sure enough, his max summons was 24, and according to the system, his current summons remained at 0.


    This showed that in his Domain, his summons were essentially citizens and didn¡¯t use any summoning points. Most likely, it would only cost him summoning points if he tried to summon them in another domain or on a quest planet.


    Murphy then returned to the Player Store and wasted about 1000 experience on some Mana Recovery Potions and a few more dead beast corpses.


    He spent nearly half an hour casting Summon with all his Mana and summoned as many of the Spawns as he could.


    It turned out that the Spawn species really had been on the verge of extinction. After he¡¯d only summoned about 900 spawns, he couldn¡¯t summons a single one more. In fact, on his last summon, even though he used nearly 80 mana for the summon, only a dozen older, sagely looking spawns came out.


    They had little beards and looked ancient and withered in comparison to the rest. These were clearly the elders of the Spawn Tribes and were the only ones left to summon. Among them was a familiar Spawn, Chuckles, who immediately raced up to Murphy screaming in excitement and jubilation.


    Many of the Spawns started digging strange little burrows all over the place to make their new homes, and the majority of them decided to live in the second ring of the Domain which was the strange dark and sinister biome.


    The dozen elders all dug little burrows up around the stone house and Chuckles led all the poison evolved spawn, which were basically all his own progeny, down to the final ring where they frolicked and played like very evil looking wingless fairies.


    Seelie had a strange light in her eyes when she watched the Spawn¡¯s busily making little burrows and doing lots of ... naughty demon things.


    For the next day or so, Murphy and Seelie planned out their domain. They weren¡¯t certain about a lot of things yet and so tentatively spent some experience to build a little Mage Tower next to the stone house. The Mage Tower was basically like a laboratory for mages to practice and develop spells.


    When they bought the plans for the tower, it turned into a little scroll that just appeared floating in mid-air. When Murphy held the scroll, a 3D blueprint of the Mage tower appeared in his field of vision, and he could move it around by will.


    After some playing with the build system, he picked a spot right next to the house and the mage tower magically grew out of the ground. It looked almost like it had always been there hiding under the earth and then when he tore the scroll for it to build, it just suddenly sprouted up.


    Almost immediately afterwards, dozens of evolved Spawn with the Sinister Magic Arts skill swarmed into the building and next thing he knew, curses were flying everywhere. It seemed that the Spawns could use the building to practice magic too.


    The only problem was, they didn¡¯t have any real knowledge about how magic worked and basically only had one or two curse spells that were innate. In other words, they didn¡¯t have to summon a book and just cast the spell by some kind of primal instinct.


    It was only when these creatures first evolved and started casting innate spells that Murphy realised his innate spell Demon Spawn Summoning, could also be cast without the spell tome.


    Anyway, they seemed to intuitively understand the purpose of the tower and used it. After that, Murphy decided to try something else he was curious about. If it¡¯s possible to buy a pre-built building through the store, then was it possible to simply build the building instead?


    That in mind, he unleashed his rarely used design skills from school, which he had now consecutively missed for more than 2 weeks, and designed a small-scale castle to replace the dingy little stone house.


    It took him almost an entire game day, which was 96 hours. When he was finished, he called all the little Spawns over and started pointing at the drawing to explain how it worked and what was needed to building the thing it depicted.


    Before he was halfway done with his explanation, one of the elders walked over and very impolitely snatched the drawings. Scrutinised them for a moment then started screaming and yelling at all the little Spawns and the other Elders.


    He then started pointing at things on the drawing while trying to communicate something with Murphy. In the past few weeks of interacting with them, Murphy¡¯s charades skills had blossomed to a whole new level, and it was almost as if he could read their little demonic minds.


    He then pondered for a bit and tested another idea he¡¯d had. He gathered up a group of Spawns and marched through the portal behind the house.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Luck has caused a Happy Accident. +1 Luck.¡¯


    Thanks to his gloves and the 1% chance to rub luck off, Murphy had managed to maintain a constant positive luck modifier. Every now and then he would have to throw some trashy object away that had received -60 odd luck from him discharging his gloves, but that was only occasional.


    In fact, although 1% sounds small, you touch thousands of things a day. That¡¯s one in every hundred touches. In the span of 24 hours, it¡¯s not unusual for Misery Love Company to activate nearly 3 or 4 times without him needing to activate it himself.


    That said, even with the constant positive luck modifier, Murphy¡¯s Law was often random in the kind of accident it caused and more often than not it was negative. Thus, it was a constant battle to keep his luck modifier above 10 luck. Especially when big accidents happened, and he got -30 luck in a single hit.


    Regardless, in this case, it seemed Murphy¡¯s Law did him a solid. The portal behind his house sent him to part of a quest planet covered in trees with huge rocky boulders everywhere throughout the forest. Without reservation, he sent his Spawn out to start harvesting materials. After checking his status, he noticed his summon limit had been reached which gave credence to his earlier theory.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    When he walked back through the portal, even though the Spawn were still on the other side, his summon limit went back to 0. This meant he could send his Spawn out to raid Quest Planets and provided he wasn¡¯t there, then as many as wanted could go.


    The only problem with that was they tended to get up to all sorts of mischief without him around, and he wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he got a system message later telling him his Spawns had just slain the king of a country and raided the entire place for loot.


    That in mind, he put Chuckles, the spawn he¡¯d spent the most time with and had instilled all his ideals into, in charge of the resource gatherers. Following this setup, all sorts of things started coming back through the portal. Logs and stones that were cut for building, monster corpses and even loot from various dungeons and bandit groups.


    On Murphy¡¯s side, the Elder started screaming and yelling and whipping all the younger spawns into action, and the stone house was ripped down like it was made of paper, as a swarm of Spawns poured over it.


    The Elder started making little changes to Murphy¡¯s drawings, and then the other Elder Spawn all got involved and the next thing he knew, Murphy was looking at a completely different but far more magnificent set of designs and the Spawn were all running around laying foundations and starting construction.


    Seelie had simply remained silent and followed after Murphy for most of this process as her eyes lit up with a strange gleam and she seemed to be having all sorts of strange ideas.


    After a few days, Murphy got a message that the Portal would randomly switch to a new location. He called all the Spawn back in and then waited till the portal switched. When it flashed a bright light indicating its change in location, Murphy went through with Chuckles and a handful of Spawn to investigate.


    Unlike last time, the portal this time came out in the dark alleyway right in the centre of a huge city bustling with crowds of all sorts of strange races. He now truly felt that he was part of a ¡®cosmic¡¯ game, because the number of humans he saw around the place were less than 1 in 50.


    Perhaps that figure would still probably be a generous estimation.


    More interestingly, most of the races all seemed like creature races. Only a few races appeared to actually be humanoid in origin. There were all sorts of cat-like races, lizard races, slugs, three-headed humanoids with six arms and centaur looking creatures with four legs and a human torso.


    There were even bear races that all suddenly felt a shiver run up their spines and simultaneously looked in the same direction as if some great and evil enemy of their race had just appeared.


    Even bear races on the very outskirts of the city suddenly felt a strange sensation like death was standing right behind them and rearing back his scythe for the final strike.


    Apart from them, no one even seemed to pay attention to Murphy or his Spawns. In fact, most of these creatures didn¡¯t seem to think little demon like creatures were strange at all. If anything, Murphy was even more the odd one out than his summons were.


    After some thought, he returned to their Domain and discussed this with Seelie. She insisted that they go back together and start looking around. Most especially she was interested in anything that could help their domain and was interested in looking for some quests that had large experience rewards to spend in the Player Store.


    Murphy didn¡¯t mind doing some questing, as they still had 6 days until they lost protection from the system.


    As he was about to walk through the portal mist, he scrutinised the starry sky. It almost looked like some of those stars were brighter than before and were getting closer.


    He wasn¡¯t sure where the light came from in this place, because he could pretty much control how bright it was in his domain when he sat in his chair, and there was no sun or sky. Thanks to that strangeness, he was curious what all those other lights in this space were, if not stars.


    Letting the thought sit for a moment, he decided not to worry about it and passed through to the Quest World.


    <hr>


    Murphy sure was being extra spacey today. I wanted it to be like a date! You know, go and visit some interesting things, have a romantic dinner and talk about things, and then finally he would ... I was a little too wishful in my thinking maybe?


    Although there was no end of interesting things and I even helped Murphy spend the remainder of his experience points, which by the way, how the hell did he get 12,000 experience points anyway?


    While he was gallivanting about on Newb Planet, I was completing quests endlessly to make sure I¡¯d have enough to help him when we moved to the next realm. I thought I¡¯d done pretty well and managed to accumulate nearly 3000 points, but when we started our domain he was so far ahead it was unreasonable!


    How am I supposed to support him if I can¡¯t pull my weight?! Haa...


    Well, it doesn¡¯t matter. The whole reason I dragged him to this world was for a date! The only problem was, and I had a feeling this would be the case from the beginning, Murphy is just too dense sometimes!


    I¡¯ve been dropping hints like a DJ dropping beats and he still somehow remains oblivious. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that he literally never speaks to anyone else and that his body reacts to me, I might have thought he was deliberately putting on an act to put me off.


    Actually, if I¡¯m being honest, I still think that¡¯s the case! It¡¯s just he doesn¡¯t seem to show any interest in boy-girl things at all, apart from reacting!


    Sighh ... the only upside was that he brought all his cute little pets with him and they seemed to take a liking to me. They almost treated me like royalty, which was strange considering every other female that interacted with Murphy, even other races, were very much disliked by the cute little guys.


    Which indecently, only made me fall more in love with them.


    Chuckles especially was my favourite. He seemed to understand my feelings better than Murphy! Who I¡¯d been dropping hints for since forever!


    After some shopping, and having mostly spent all our money on study magic tomes, skill books and some things Murphy decided to buy for his little minions, we went searching around for quests. Normally, it¡¯s not difficult to find a quest in these sorts of games in the DataStream.


    It appeared things were a little different here though. Since basically everyone here was considered a player and was part of the game, quests were player created. It meant you could get all sorts of weird quests from cleaning a house to crusades and dragon slaying.


    It also meant that running into a good quest with a good deal of experience as a reward was a matter of luck!


    We were walking through a crowded street when it happened. It was the first time I¡¯d ever seen Murphy¡¯s special traits in action. He¡¯d told me all about them, and I always kept them in mind in case I could think of a way for him to use them that would be helpful, but seeing it in action was something else altogether from what I¡¯d imagined.


    As we were walking, he got a system prompt and froze on the spot while suddenly grabbing my hand. I could tell he got a prompt because he always gets this twitch in his facial muscles like he was expecting something bad.


    After stopping me by grabbing my hand, which I might add completely stupefied me seeing as it was the first time ever that he¡¯d touched me of his own volition, he then started looking everywhere like he was searching for something.


    It was almost as if he was reacting to the presence of his arch nemesis. Finally, his eyes focused in on a horse-like creature with a horn on its head at the very opposite end of the street. It was almost 500 metres away, but he still reacted like it was going to reach out and eat him.


    He quickly pulled me into a side alley and pressed me up against the wall while worriedly looking out at the street. We were so close. I felt my heartbeat speeding up as I looked up at his handsome face, made only more handsome by how stern and serious he looked for a change.


    It was almost just like back then! It was so rare to see him not being all dazed and spacey, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I¡¯d seen it. That time, when we first met, that was the first time I¡¯d seen him look like this! I¡¯m pretty sure it was also then that I fell in love with him.


    The alleyway was quiet and secluded, and the only thing I could hear was our breathing. Our faces were close together, and he had my body pinned against the wall with his body pushing up against me as if he wanted us to merge into the wall and disappear, which in the very next moment, we did.


    I couldn¡¯t help but try to think back on his abilities. He¡¯d said while he was training his creatures he¡¯d found all sorts of weird skills and learnt tonnes of strange technics! I could only assume this was the one he very dejectedly said he learnt while running away from some kind of ... Unicorn Bounty Hunters?


    It was some kind of concealment technique that allowed him to merge into the shadows and disappear. At the same time as we disappeared, Chuckles started making some quiet ¡°rar rar¡± sounds to the other 23 Spawns. They all then started climbing buildings and getting up high out of the street.


    They then started looking around like sentries as if they were keeping a watch out for something.


    Every now and then I¡¯d hear one from up above somewhere making some kind of sound. The more often he sounded out, the faster I felt Murphy¡¯s heart beat get. Soon it was pounding! I felt like the only thing I could hear was his heart beating like a drum!


    It was only at this point I realised that whatever was going on, now wasn¡¯t the time for me to be dreamily staring at his face and imagining him finally kissing me! If it had him so worried, then it must be something incredibly dangerous.


    I turned to look out to the street and saw that Unicorn creature standing at the entrance of the alleyway making snorting noises and looking around. Occasionally its pointy horn would let off a glow of light, and it would snort some more.


    Finally, it turned around and started to walk back out of the alleyway. Just as it turned to leave, Murphy stepped back from the wall, breaking his concealment technique, pointing both his middle fingers towards the sky with his arms pointing towards the unicorn.


    I saw those black gloves he always wear¡¯s suddenly flash with light. The next moment part of the building that made up one side of the alleyway exploded. A huge ogre like creature was blown out from the building and smashed into the Unicorn.


    The force of the impact sent the unicorn hurtling into the other side of the alley wall and seemed to knock it about. Just as it was preparing to get up and retaliate, a tiny little dwarf man with a big bushy red beard shot out from the now destroyed wall and smashed into the ogre again, making it once again smash into the unicorn.


    ¡°You try¡¯na cheat me aye?! Think you can cheat ol¡¯ Greggor you great lunk?! Im¡¯a chop that stubbly little head¡¯o yours off¡¯ya big fat body!¡±


    Murphy then turned around, grabbed me and started sprinting out of the other side of the alleyway. I was completely confused as to what had just happened. The Demon Spawn apparently weren¡¯t though, as they risked their lives to rush in and drag the body of the unicorn out of the alley.


    After they had dragged its mostly crushed body out onto the street, Murphy touched it, and a stream of beautiful and majestic mana poured out from the corpse into Murphy. After which, he simply touched it again sending it into his inventory.


    He then started walking off nonchalantly as if nothing had happened, his little demon¡¯s falling into step behind him like truly loyal underlings.


    I was a little shaken by the sudden actions when he became alerted till now. I raced to catch up to him as he, in his normal dazed spacey manner, would look at something in a street stall for nearly a minute then start walking off again.


    ¡°Murphy, what just happened?¡±


    As is usual of Murphy, his answer was succinct and to the point.


    ¡° ... Unicorn Mercenary ... Since the accident with the Unicorn King¡¯s son...¡±


    A what and the what? I then pondered back to a story he told me where he felt like the system had set him up to assassinate a Unicorn. Then, later on, started getting attacked by them all over the place.


    From what I understood, they just started turning up as he was hunting with his Spawn and accusing him of murdering the Unicorn King¡¯s Son while he was doing the Game Tutorial. Apparently, the Unicorn King¡¯s Son received so much trauma from the event that he refused to return to Newb Planet to complete the tutorial unless Murphy had been killed.


    Thanks to that, he had apparently developed a sixth sense of sorts ... but it only worked with Unicorns.


    After that, it was only one strange incident after another. I know Murphy was once an orphan, but I never realised how serious he took being an orphan. Every time we met and orphan and they asked him to do a quest for a pittance, he would gallantly race off to accomplish it.


    The few times he had to decline a request for some reason, it looked like it was very literally killing him.


    The more time I spent with him in the city, the more I would see him somehow subverting some terribly unlucky accident.


    It turned out, it wasn¡¯t only Unicorns he had a sixth sense for, but bad luck as well! Which from some old fairy tales I read are close to the same thing, seeing as according to ancient lore, unicorns consider themselves somewhat to be ¡®luck police¡¯ and hate when people play with luck. Something about subverting the natural order of the universe or something.


    They hate demons and spells that can change people¡¯s luck and they especially hate ¡®leprechauns¡¯ whatever those are, I¡¯ve never found much information regarding them.


    Anyway, by the time we¡¯d spent nearly a full day exploring the city and completing odd quests here and there, I decided that any chance of this turning out like a date was ruined and opted to head back to our domain to keep getting ready for any oncoming attacks.


    Before we left, Murphy decided to do just one more quest. It wasn¡¯t one either of us found, but rather one that a few of his Spawns had overheard a conversation about and had dragged him towards. They seemed rather interested in the quest, so Murphy dotingly agreed to take it on with them.


    I decided that I may as well join them because I needed the experience. At the rate things were going, I saw Murphy pulling away from me faster and faster, and I felt my slight inferiority complex starting to burn up.


    It wasn¡¯t a complex of being inferior to others like you might think. I didn¡¯t care much about anyone else, it was a complex about being too inferior to be his woman. That was what burned me up the most and was my driving force to become, if not as strong as him, then strong enough that I wouldn¡¯t need him to protect me!


    <hr>


    Seelie seemed very contemplative today. Like she was thinking about lots of hard things to think about. She also somehow seemed a little depressed about how the day was going. I thought she¡¯d be happy that we got so much cool stuff for our domain but it seemed there was something else on her mind that completely eluded me.


    I thought Chuckles had been trying to tell me what was going on with Seelie at one point but it turned out he was just telling jokes. Apparently, demon humour is weird because I didn¡¯t really get it but I chuckled just so that he felt like I thought he was funny.


    Instead of making the excited ¡°Yah yah yah!¡± sounds he usually makes when he thinks I¡¯m pleased with him, he simply palmed himself in the face like he had given up on some difficult puzzle. Clearly, my chuckle wasn¡¯t convincing enough, and he¡¯d realised his jokes weren¡¯t very good.


    I just gave him a consoling pat on the head then followed after the other little demons. It was shortly after that, they all disappeared into the city. When they came back, they were all telling me about some grand quest with lots and lots of loot and experience.


    They seemed fanatical about doing this quest, and since it wasn¡¯t every day that they wanted to go and do something other than rooting and looting, I acquiesced. After all, the happiness of my loyal minions was important to me too.


    Chuckles led the way towards some magnificent looking garden filled with all sorts of strange bird people. When we arrived, I saw some of my minions making ¡°rar rar yah!¡± sounds towards an old owl person.


    The owl then made hooting sounds as if it actually understood the crazy talk of my summons and then turned to me and Seelie who¡¯d just entered the garden.


    The owl, and all the other birds, were huge! I called them bird ¡®people¡¯ but that¡¯s only because they are sentient life. Really, they¡¯re beasts with human-like intelligence, and in this case, bodies as big as humans.


    The owl¡¯s big eyes seemed to survey Seelie and I for a short moment and for a brief second it felt like it could see through my heart and read me like a book. It gave a loud ¡®Hoot Hoot¡¯, flapped its wings and waddled towards us.


    ¡°Young Human creature. These little fellows tell me that you are looking for a quest and would be the best applicant for our task. On our homeland, the floating island of Treesal, some ¡®Hoot Hoot¡¯ has summoned a demon.


    ¡°He lost control of it and it¡¯s now rampaging uncontrollably about our island. We need someone with experience with demons, and these little ones claim to be demons summoned and controlled by you. If you truly are a Demon Tamer we beg of you to heed our request.¡±


    Like I always do in these situations, I carefully considered my words and structured a well thought out statement to properly convey myself.


    ¡° ... sure...¡±


    They seemed to take the long minute of silence I left to consider my next words as the end of the discussions on my part, and the Owl and another Bird Person let out their huge wings, flapped up and grabbed both me and Seelie before flying off.


    I was still trying to figure out how to broach the subject of a reward when I finally realised I was already in the sky outside the city and rapidly approaching a speck off in the distant skyline.


    It was difficult to make it out until we were almost there because the sun was getting close to setting and was directly on the other side of the island meaning I spent most of the flight with my retina slowly burning away.


    If not for my Please Sir constantly making my eyes stronger and helping regenerate them, I¡¯d most likely be blind when we landed.


    Seelie seemed to have some spell in her arsenal that allowed her to dim the sun¡¯s direct light and protecting herself. I felt it was a little rude that she didn¡¯t bother to cast it on me, but perhaps it was because she felt that the experience would make my eyesight stronger.


    After considering this, it seemed that I¡¯d forgotten about that prospect in my training. If I sat next to something producing a deafening sound or stared right into the sun all day, I could probably increase the durability of my senses and in turn, increase their sharpness.


    I would have to consider later on how best to train my senses. I could tell that my sense of touch was very different than it once was. It was definitely stronger than ever, but at the same time, things like pain were somewhat muted.


    When I rubbed my finger and thumb together my sense of touch was precise enough for me to feel each individual ridge of my fingerprint, but I sometimes ended up stabbing myself while eating and could only tell the degree of pointiness of the fork but not feel pain from it.


    This was win-win in most situations, but there were some things I didn¡¯t particularly like about it. For example, dandruff drove me absolutely nuts, and I often found myself sitting around picking it off my head with precision accuracy.


    I ended up having to return to earth at one point and buying a shit load of specialised shampoo, which made my hair look so silky smooth I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if people mistook me for a girl. It was probably only because I kept my hair so short that I never had that problem.


    Anyway, I digress. The bird people dropped us on the island and then quickly fled into the distance where they could watch from the sky. Some of them were kind enough to give Chuckles and the other Spawn a ride up, so they all spread out around me protectively the moment we landed.


    It was very quickly that we encountered the demon. Seeing as all the birds had fled, it was the only creature on the island and the only source of noise.


    We encountered it after half an hour of walking around in the huge forest of trees on the top of the island, as it crashed through the forest making a mess in its wake.


    The moment we made eye contact, the huge demon suddenly sat on its haunches while its tongue sat to the side of its mouth drooling slobber and spit everywhere. It seemed to review us with some curiosity and especially looked at me a few times.


    The Demon creature wasn¡¯t anything like the Spawns. It was actually something I¡¯d read about, so I was somewhat familiar with it. The creature that sat in front of us was a dog.


    More accurately, it was a Hell Hound. A vicious and violent creature that was born of pure brute strength. The Hell Hound in front of us was the size of a house at the very least, and its huge evil looking fangs protruded from its mouth like razor sharp spikes.


    If it were angry, it would probably be incredibly frightening, but at the moment it was acting like a cute puppy and had the most adorable big puppy dog eyes while it looked at me. It almost looked like it was begging.


    The Spawns reaction was completely different however. By now they had equipped themselves with all sorts of loot from various enterprises and were fitted out with shields armour and helmets all of which were amusingly too big and looked somewhat dorky on them.


    When they saw the Hell Hound, they all started yelling excitedly and clanging their little black daggers on their shields or helmets as they started jumping everywhere.


    Before I¡¯d realised what was happening, they¡¯d swarmed over the dog and were hanging off its pitch black fur or its big droopy dog ears seemingly trying to be sucked into its beautiful coat. It turned out my Spawn had a huge soft spot for monstrous, violent, fluffy dogs.


    The dog didn¡¯t even seem to acknowledge them as it stood up and approached us. Seelie backed away a few steps and summoned her spell tome in preparation to do battle.


    She didn¡¯t seem to understand, that against a creature like this, even if we all went out at full strength, the best we would achieve was a draw. Hell Hounds were especially good at killing magicians because their coat was like a big magic sponge.


    The only way to kill one of these things with magic would be to pour more magic into it than its body could handle. Which is a shit tonne of magic. Even with my 140 odd mana, I would probably need ten of me to cause this beast to suffer Mana Overdraw.


    I wasn¡¯t too worried though. As soon as I saw this beast, I felt like I¡¯d met a kindred spirit. As if we¡¯d been buddies since forever. I suspected this was because of the Sinister Undying class which gave me a great affinity with the demon races, but it was also just something about the Hell Hound itself.


    Hell Hounds were usually solitary creatures and only got together when they were in heat so they could mate. After that, they basically split up again and rampaged about the Demon Planes doing whatever the hell they wanted.


    I felt like that was something like me. I wasn¡¯t good at socialising either, so I immediately felt a bond to this huge solitary beast.


    When it was only a few steps away from me, it sniffed a few times then tentatively reached out its big dog head the size of a small car. Feeling some compulsion from within, I too reached out my hand until my hand and his big wet nose made contact.


    After which a huge spell formation appeared around us, and the system started throwing out prompts at me.


    ¡®Ping! You have created a contract with the Demon Beast Race, Hell Hounds.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! New innate spell, Summon Hell Hound.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the Quest, Save Treesal!¡¯


    ¡®Ping! You have completed the Hidden Quest, Morbid wants a Home!¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Summoning Magic has reached level 5.¡¯


    The moment the system prompts finished, Morbid, the massive Hell Hound, reared back and let out an excited howl. It then started playfully jumping around like an overexcited dog and wrecking trees left, right and centre.


    Demon Spawn were thrown about like being shot from the back of a bucking bull, and the ground was shaking like an earthquake as Morbid jumped about the place in his jubilance.


    ¡° ... Heel!...¡±


    With a command from me, Morbid stopped jumping and rushed up to sit down in front of me obediently. I then reached out my hand again, and Morbid lay down to let me touch him.


    I could now no longer control myself as I, much like the Spawns had, threw myself into his fluffy black coat and hugged him so fiercely it looked like I was afraid he¡¯d escape. I rubbed and petted him for nearly an hour before Seelie finally reminded me that we had a quest we were supposed to have completed.


    Morbid seemed a little unhappy that I stopped petting him but quickly cheered up when I climbed onto his back to ride him as my mount. The fact that Hell Hounds usually were so violent they hardly ever took a master was apparently completely lost on Morbid and I.


    After helping a rather nervous Seelie up onto Morbid¡¯s back, and all the Spawn jumping on too, we marched off towards the edge of the floating island to report the completion of the quest.


    Unfortunately, when I had to send Morbid back to the Demon Plane for a little bit so we could leave the island, he became so upset he almost went on another rampage, and his howling wails could be heard even from the city which was only a tiny speck far off in the distance.


    It was only because I made promises to feed him Unicorn meat and have the Spawns give him a belly rub that he somewhat reluctantly complied and stepped into the de-summoning spell pattern before disappearing in a flash of red light.


    The rewards from the bird people were plentiful. For suppressing the demon, we got nearly 4000 experience points and some gold and magic crystals for crafting. We also received some strange seeds which I wasn¡¯t too certain about, but it took me too long to question their purpose, and we were dropped off back in the city before I could voice myself.


    It seemed to me that people were just too impatient these days. I¡¯d only been thinking about my question for 10 minutes, and they¡¯d already lost patience. Perhaps it¡¯s because they¡¯ve got little bird brains? Who knows, who am I to judge?


    Finally, after a very long day, we returned home to our Domain. Where I immediately summoned my new best ... seeing the sly glance from Seelie as this thought crossed my mind, Morbid was immediately delegated to ¡®second¡¯ best friend status.


    Appearing in his new home, Morbid got a little bit too excited and started running around sniffing everything. When he encountered the poison fog in the outer layers of the island, he discovered something even his robust endurance couldn¡¯t fully handle.


    Luckily I¡¯d somewhat expected it and had the Spawn all pull him out. Even though I had some cure potions by this point in time, they still weren¡¯t strong enough for a beast the size of Morbid. His first day in his new home and he immediately ate the rat poison and got sick.


    Unfortunately, when dogs get sick one of two things generally happen. The first is, they barf. The second and slightly more troublesome, is explosive diarrhoea. It was rather disturbing watching Morbid going into the crouched position on his haunches and releasing his stomach¡¯s displeasure.


    If it were to be likened to anything, then it would be similar to forty firemen all grouping up together and turning their hoses on simultaneously for a few short seconds.


    Take a moment now to imagine that scene, then replace the 40 fire hoses all grouped up with a big star shaped dog¡¯s anus that could swallow a man whole if he was standing in the wrong spot when the said dog sat down.


    Then try to imagine that the moment those hoses turned on, instead of clean water pouring out in a geyser-like fashion, it¡¯s more akin to very sloppy mud and thickly chopped stew mixed together.


    It was only a few seconds now and then when it happened, but almost 40 Spawn lives were lost in the resulting explosion of earth and flooding from the event. The squad of Spawns acting as emergency services had to dig huge ditch¡¯s to drain everything off the island where it would just sort of ... float off into space.


    I was amazed at the ingenuity shown by the Spawns when their lives had suddenly been endangered by the huge house sized Morbid. Even after this incident, the Spawns didn¡¯t seem to hold those few deaths against Morbid and if anything looked at him with a sense of pity and comradery in having experienced similar pain and heartache when encountering the Smog.


    It was only after all this happened that I remembered I could simply ¡®will¡¯ the smog to avoid Morbid. By then though, it was too late. Morbid had developed and innate fear of the smog and refused to go near it unless he absolutely had to. Even then, he would clearly be holding his breath as he approached.


    Even after I taught him that the smog would stay away from him from now on, he remained cautious whenever he was near it.


    It took an entire day, and cost 200 experience points to cause a full day of rain and wind before the smell and leftovers of Morbid¡¯s encounter with the smog had been washed off the island. It was somewhat of a pity actually, because I discovered what the seeds did the next day.


    Turned out the seeds grew into rapid growth trees. In just the span of a day the few seeds I¡¯d planted had sprouted and grown to my head height. The most amusing part was, they gave us a sack of these seeds that appeared to have no end.


    It was almost as if the sack magically created the seeds. I wasn¡¯t sure though because even my level 6 identify couldn¡¯t see through the attributes and status of the sack. Nonetheless, this was a boon for us in that we could use it to grow tonnes of trees in the green part of our domain, then use those trees for construction.


    However, the reason I said it was a pity we¡¯d washed away Morbid¡¯s accident was because every time he dug up the ground and shat somewhere, it was like it had suddenly been cultivated into the soil of heaven. Everything we planted there would grow twice as fast as usual.


    Thanks to that, I ended up teaching Morbid that he had to shit in a special box. There were then various unlucky Spawn that had the task of processing his shit into compost for my herb garden.


    Morbid, being a big dog, often went potty at least once every 20 to 30 hours. Which was more than the little herb garden I¡¯d started for my alchemy could handle. In the end, we discovered that selling the excess on the Quest Planet raked us in a fortune.


    Alchemists were clawing each other¡¯s eyes out and bludgeoning one another to death with beakers and cauldrons to try and get our compost. Turns out, Hell Hound shit is like the A grade compost for magical herbs and plants.


    The only people more excited about it than alchemists were people from plant-like races ... I didn¡¯t ask what they did with it and chose to ignore the hungry looks in their eyes whenever we were visiting the planet.

 Chapter 8: The First Battle

    Haa ... I really hate it when I¡¯m right. I hate it sooo much. I knew this space place was suspicious. So all those stars really are other domains. There¡¯s just so many. Haa...


    I knew the day would come, but I definitely didn¡¯t expect the first domain we bumped into was another poison domain! Damnable luck! You¡¯re supposed to be in the positive! Why are you such a huge pain in my ass all the time!


    Calm! Calm like a gentle breeze. Ok, let¡¯s see. The guides said we can steer the Domain about. So ... let¡¯s run away. Unless they have some kind of rocket, let¡¯s just see them catch us!


    ¡°You cowards! Runnin¡¯ away aye! I¡¯ll bet you¡¯re noobs! Hah! The more you run, the more other domains¡¯ll steer towards you! Then it¡¯s gonna be noob stompin¡¯ time! HAHAHA!¡±


    I wonder how he projects his voice all the way over here. We¡¯re like, 50 kilometres apart. Is that some kind of domain option I haven¡¯t found. Oh ... voice projector? That¡¯s probably what I want.


    Hmm ... how does one respond to this situation? Should I taunt him back with something witty? Some remark insulting his manhood perhaps? Or his ancestors maybe?


    Oh! I know.


    ¡°Morbid. Come. Make the sound for Murphy. Do the sound. Go on. You can do it buddy.¡±


    ¡°FART¡°


    Heh heh. Yeah. Eat it you scorpion bastards. You eat that stink right ... up...


    ¡°Great Sage! Morbid what have you been eating? It¡¯s Chuckles, isn¡¯t it?! That little bastard has been feeding you chocolate again hasn¡¯t he?¡±


    ¡°Ruff!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t give me that look. The poor Curse Spawn are still flushing out their burrows from the last time. You tell that cheeky little bastard that if I catch him feeding you chocolate again, I¡¯m going to tie him to the ballista.¡±


    ¡°Ruff!¡±


    ¡°Hah! He probably will evolve wings if I started doing that all the time.¡±


    Hmm ... all that aside. What am I going to do about this? Should I set up an observatory of some description to keep an eye on all my neighbours? Arh! What does that matter for now! It¡¯s my Domain¡¯s first battle. I can¡¯t just keep running away like this otherwise it¡¯ll make us look weak.


    If we look weak, we¡¯ll become easy prey, and other Domains are just gonna gank the shit out of us. Maybe it¡¯s like those old movies of people going to prison. I need to walk up to the biggest guy in the yard and beat the shit out of him to scare everyone off.


    Ahh ... who am I kidding? The biggest bloke in the yard probably has a planet 4 times the size of earth. If I go and start a fight with someone like that it¡¯ll be like asking to get beaten to death on my first day.


    Whew ... I wonder what Seelie¡¯s doing ... probably in her wizard tower again coming up with some weird spell. The last one she made turned the tails of half my Spawn into flowers.


    Sure, their farts smelt like a spring breeze, but in the end, they grew up with their tails. It¡¯s half their balance. It was like watching a cat after you cut their whiskers off. They just stumble all over the place looking confused. Took nearly a whole game day for them to revert back again.


    Oh! That¡¯s it ... Hah! Let¡¯s turn this boat around and give those scorpion bastards a whooping.


    <hr>


    Murphy played with the controls in the Domain¡¯s Control Space and locked onto the nearest domain. With that, the domain would automatically close in on the scorpion people¡¯s domain and move over to ¡®dock¡¯ with it. Which was really just a gentle way of saying it was going to collide with the other domain and form a bridge, which would initiate a raid.


    In these cases, the raiding party is usually the side that steps foot on the other domain first. This usually leads to a very bloody and aggressive battle on the ¡®bridge¡¯ area until one side steps onto the other.


    The reason this was such an integral part of the Domain Battle is that if you¡¯re the raiding party, you can retreat and break off the engagement to run away. If you¡¯re the defending party, your domain is in a locked state and can¡¯t move until you¡¯ve killed all the enemies on your domain or have been successfully raided.


    It makes defending very passive, but at the same time, if your defences are strong enough, you can wipe out invaders quickly and then pursue the invader¡¯s domain and initiate a raid of your own.


    Normally, a domain¡¯s speed through space is determined by its size. Smaller domains are much faster by a general rule of thumb. There are methods to increase your domain¡¯s speed or slow down other domains, but those are usually very expensive.


    The reason this is mentioned is that, after a battle, the raiding domain is slowed down to 2/3rds the speed of the domain they attacked. It meant that if the defending domain cleared all the raiders fast enough, then their domain would be faster and they could counter attack.


    Murphy marched out of the still half-finished castle into the little wizard tower. After some searching he found Seelie teaching some weird magic spell to some of the Curse Spawn. Through a few quests, they¡¯d managed to get some Spell Tomes to allow the little tricksters to cast other magic apart from their innate spells.


    The problem was that spell tomes were expensive and apart from the initial tome, so they could summon a book, they couldn¡¯t simply give them all more books and let them learn spells how Murphy normally did.


    They instead had to learn new spells the hard way. Which was learning about them from reading or another mage and then practising them.


    When Murphy arrived, they were busy trying to cast a curse magic that slowed a target¡¯s movements. Murphy used this magic frequently against other monsters, but he suspected the reason the Curse Spawn were learning it was because it had the complete opposite effect on the Spawn.


    Instead of slowing them down, it made them hyperactive and incredibly fast. It only had a short duration and required a high mana cost, but when used in the right situation is was very powerful.


    Regardless, Murphy didn¡¯t come here for that. He came to ask Seelie about another Curse.


    Out in space, the two domains were rapidly approaching each other. One had three rings of different biomes, and the other had only one type of biome. Although seeing multi-biome domains isn¡¯t unheard of, it¡¯s still very rare.


    Most others usually only have a single biome. In the case of the Raiders trying to attack Murphy, the biome they had was a sandy desert that continually released puffs of poisonous smoke.


    The smoke all accumulated around the floating island that was the domain and gave it a very sinister appearance. A poisonous desert.


    The leader in this domain was a huge scorpion that had a human head instead of a scorpion head. All his brethren were similar, in that they were scorpion creatures with human faces. The only difference was, they were about as big as a dog, whereas the leader was about as big as a car.


    It was rather clear that the pecking order of this race is whom was bigger is the boss. Either that or this man faced scorpion had some midget complex and only allowed similar raced creatures that were smaller than him to exist on his domain.


    He called his brood of man faced scorpions to the edge of the domain and readied to charge forth and do combat the moment the bridge was formed. He then witnessed a somewhat strange sight. Something was shot from the other domain.


    At first, the distance was too great, and it simply looked like a glitter of light. It was quickly followed by another, then another and soon nearly a dozen. The leader man faced scorpion simply scoffed. He assumed they were blindly trying to fire arrows at him before he could make contact.


    Even if they were elves with their amazing enchanted bows, there was no way they¡¯d be able to fire across the remaining 2 or 3 kilometres before contact. Even if they could, their accuracy would be so poor that they would most likely hit nothing.


    He then seemed to become shocked for a moment and his gaze focused in on the glittering specs which were clearly getting closer. Before he could fully comprehend what he was seeing, a huge bolt the size of a tree suddenly fell into his domain.


    The moment it made contact, a little purple demon, somewhat dizzy and shell-shocked, cut loose the ropes holding him to the bolt and then started darting off into the domain. Following this scene were a dozen more bolts and then the familiar sound of a system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Domain has initiated a raid. Your Domain has become locked until all invaders are dealt with.¡¯


    Murphy was still in his domain, standing next to a huge ballista that he¡¯d had the Spawn build leading up to the last day of protection. Now that he had to go to war with another domain, he was going to use the rules to his advantage.


    By sending some elite special forces suited to sneaking about in poison, he could lock down the enemy domain and claim the initiative in this battle before their two domains even met and formed a bridge. It was an incredibly devious method of battle and was also an original method.


    Although there were other races that had tried this, they were usually flying races and travelling through the space between the domains was impossible unless you¡¯d already built up enough force to carry you across. Thus, they usually had to wait until the bridge was formed and then fly across.


    After all, there¡¯s no atmosphere between the Domains. Just empty space.


    That said, there¡¯s also no gravity, which makes what Murphy achieved even more impossible, seeing as anything he launched out of his sphere of gravity should not have made the seemingly huge arc that the bolts did.


    This was more a result of some carefully placed phials of volatile concoction for direction and propulsion ... essentially turning the tree sized ballista bolts into rockets instead of simple bolts.


    If he could get the aim of the ballista¡¯s right and properly control the flight path of the bolt instead of just being able to hit the general area of the opposing domain, he could probably just strap a bath tub sized container of concoction onto the tip of a bolt. He would then be able to treat it as something akin to a cruise missile.


    Unfortunately, the technicalities and precision needed for something like that was still beyond him. Even Seelie who had the Calculation skill couldn¡¯t properly account for all the variables with their medieval level of equipment.


    Anyway, the point is, that man faced scorpion and his brood of angry little scorpions had been cheated of the chance to take the initiative, and Murphy now had a handful of impish little demons running around on their domain.


    It was too late to be able to track them down and kill them all, but in the end, it didn¡¯t matter too much. He could just go and kill everything on the enemies domain then come back and clear his. After that, he can just disengage then re-engage. If anything, it just meant that his raid had now become a little bit of a pain.


    He wasn¡¯t too worried about them destroying his main base, which was the victory condition of a raid. It was hidden deep under the sands of his poison desert and had structural integrity enough that it would take he, himself, nearly 12 hours just to breach it.


    Murphy watched with glittering eyes as the enemy remained standing at their battle front and didn¡¯t pursue his special operatives. This would make it easier for them to complete their missions. He wasn¡¯t too worried about them, even if they had been chased down. Chuckles volunteered to lead the mission, and he could damn near put up a fight with Murphy at this stage.


    He was already level 11 and close to another evolution, so Murphy often joked about what his next evolution would be. He was actually quite curious, because over the week he¡¯d spent hunting with the spawns on Newb Planet, he¡¯d picked up and even self-learned all sorts of interesting new skills.


    The majority of them he was rather displeased with because they were, by nature, somewhat evil and sinister. But as had become his motto since he started this game, It¡¯s only evil if it¡¯s used for evil.


    A perfect example is how well behaved and fun his Spawn¡¯s are. They only eat innocent creatures and people if they¡¯re starving now. Thanks to that, they more often than not go out to complete quests which require them to kill people doing bad things ... because they¡¯re hungry and know Murphy doesn¡¯t like them eating just any random off the streets.


    The number of bandits, evil wizards, witches, violent trolls and every other type of villain that has encountered the locust-like Spawn¡¯s and still had a whole body afterwards could be counted on a single hand. Even then, they only had a whole body remaining because they had some weird disease or had blood that was actually considered ¡®holy¡¯ as opposed to ¡®sinister¡¯.


    The demons greatly disliked blessing magic and other magic ¡®considered¡¯ to be good magic. While curses and dark spells gave them boosts, blessings and healing magic made them sick or dramatically affected their combat prowess.


    Of course, as with most things, that didn¡¯t stop them from eating it. Only the very few that had too much holy energy radiating off it weren¡¯t consumed. This was because it would give them the runs for days, and if all 1000 odd spawns took a bite, then it would probably be worse than the time Morbid first investigated the Poison Smog.


    Alas, once again this narrative has digressed. The point being made is that Murphy had made significant gains in the week he spent levelling his spawns, and when Chuckles finally evolved again, there were any number of strange possibilities he could end up with on top of his poison and endurance evolutions.


    Most likely, after this battle, he would probably go through his third evolution, and among the Spawns, he was the best choice for the mission Murphy had given them.


    Murphy observed as his Domain quickly approached the enemy¡¯s Domain. The moment they were in range, the man faced scorpions started chanting or channelling spells. Creatures of this kind usually had most of their spells develop innately. Meaning chanting or spells tomes were unnecessary. But it wasn¡¯t uncommon for them to learn some new and more powerful ones.


    The moment the two domains smashed into each other, a huge shudder shook both floating islands, and the earth seemed to merge into a new biome, and a stretch of about 50 meters on both domains became barren of any biome. Just becoming dirt.


    At the same moment, the Scorpions started blindly firing spells into the poison smog that surrounded the outskirts of Murphy¡¯s domain, expecting his forces to be hiding in the dead and twisted trees and marshland.


    To their surprise, there was no response from Murphy¡¯s forces. Apart from some trees being obliterated and the smog churning and broiling, nothing else happened. The man faced scorpion was unperturbed though and simply charged forth with his underlings.


    After the first 300 metres of smog, they suddenly emerged onto a rocky area filled with black rocks and dirt with only a few twisted and sinister looking trees scattered about here and there. Still, there was no movement from the enemies and apart from Murphy standing nearly 700 metres away at the top and lush grassy hill next to a half-finished castle, there was nothing in sight.


    The man faced scorpion couldn¡¯t stop from boasting at his luck.


    ¡°Hahah! So you really are a total noob! Apart from some sneaky little imps, you have no other forces than yourself. Hah! Bet you thought you were clever trying to draw us away from the front lines but you¡¯ve underestimated This Scorpion¡¯s strategic mind! HAHAHA!¡±


    As he screamed his laughter, he and his minions all rushed towards the hill in an effort to quickly kill the Controller of the domain then return and clear any threats from their own.


    Clearly, strategy wasn¡¯t the strong suit of the man faced scorpion. The moment his horde of scorpions were mostly out of the smog and in the sinister lands, Curse Spawn started popping out from little burrows all over the place and spraying curses onto the scorpions like rain.


    The most nefarious of the curses wasn¡¯t any of the ones originally designed to be sinister. It was actually the earlier mentioned Flower Bum curse. It was initially created with nature mana, but when it was cast using sinister mana by the Spawns, it became even more unfathomable.


    Scorpions left and right were dropping like flies as their pointy scorpion tails, their signature feature and the part of their body used for pointing and casting, suddenly morphed into a very sinister flower filled with razor sharp teeth.


    The tail eating flower suddenly decimated hundreds of man faced scorpions. The strangest part was when the flower finished eating its host, it seemed to find the sinister lands quite comfortable and would instead take root in the hard black soil.


    Unlike most magics, when it should dissipate, because it was cast in the sinister lands the magical sinister creature became a permanent sinister creature. They would then start eating any scorpions that were stupid enough to try and move past them, which made them suddenly grow in size.


    Some of the flowers went on and absolute rampage and ate enough of the scorpions to grow to nearly 6 feet tall.


    The man faced scorpion controller was at first stunned and confused and then quickly became irate when he realised that he¡¯d just walked into a trap. The curse magic used by the Spawn was made a whole magnitude stronger thanks to the nature of the biome.


    Even though this was a huge setback, the scorpion¡¯s still numbered in the thousands and continued their charge.


    When they started stepping into the lush grassy hill biome, Spawns with all sorts of strange evolutions started popping out of the place with poorly fitted armour they¡¯d looted. There were spawns with endurance evolutions and spawns with shadow arts, or more appropriately, concealment and assassination arts.


    There was also a very strange and troublesome evolution which was comparatively tiny compared to the others. It looked like it was small enough to fit in the palm of a grown man¡¯s hand. Apart from its teeny tiny size, it looked just like other Demon Spawns.


    The reason it was so troublesome was that it was lightning fast and every time they approached an enemy they would use some strange combat skill and strike nearly a hundred times in a second. Once they¡¯d done that, they would retreat then rush in and do it again.


    The troublesome part wasn¡¯t their attack because they were basically as weak as flies. Instead, it was the strange after effects. Weird things would start happening after they struck you with their speedy fists. You would trip on a rock you hadn¡¯t noticed or suddenly get an urge to sneeze for no reason.


    You¡¯d chant a spell and suddenly have a slip of the tongue causing a backfire, and all number of other unexplainable bad luck happened. What the Scorpions didn¡¯t know was that these were Spawns that evolved with a few of Murphy¡¯s luck traits.


    Thanks to that, he trained them very carefully to help them utilise these normally disadvantageous traits in battle. He spent a lot of experience to find a relatively cheap skill that allowed you to strike as fast as possible in a short period of time. Then he learnt it and taught it to his ¡®Luck Demons¡¯.


    Unfortunately, as a result of him teaching them how to utilise their luck talents, they became incredibly mischievous by nature. It wasn¡¯t unusual to see them setting random traps all over the place or continuously touching people just to see what happens.


    It¡¯s usually those poor unsuspecting randoms on a quest planet that would suddenly meet the luck demons and end up losing out. Murphy didn¡¯t discourage the behaviour as long as they didn¡¯t pick on people particularly and spread the bad luck around to everyone fairly.


    This was because every time they stole some luck, he would get a little bit. It helped to keep his luck above the negatives, and it wasn¡¯t rare for him to send them all out on a mission to go and ¡®share¡¯ his misfortunes with people he didn¡¯t share his views with. Generally, bandits got the worst of it.


    With the sudden army of Spawns with all sorts of strange abilities popping out all over the place, the Scorpions were pulled into a battle at Murphy¡¯s pace. They started dying faster and eventually, the man faced Scorpion leader recalled his troops and ordered a retreat.


    It would be better to fall back into the poison where he and his kin would have the advantage.


    Much to his consternation, he discovered that the smog of this domain seemed to be alive and avoided all the spawns. From some of the rumours he heard, that was only possible if it was a self-created biome. Which was as rare as unicorn horns and phoenix feathers.


    If he knew that Murphy had nearly twenty unicorn horns now, he¡¯d probably spit blood. After all, although Murphy seemed to be running into them everywhere, Unicorns were normally very secretive and reclusive. They were also a breed with a low population, so they are seen very rarely.


    Seeing that the poison smog only seemed to be helping the enemies even more, he pulled back again into his own domain¡¯s territory.


    It was at this point in time, that a huge ¡®BOOM!¡¯ rang out from the middle of his Domain. The next thing he heard was the system prompt informing him that his domains central base had just been breached and that he had been successfully raided.


    Chuckles came running back through their poison smoke above the desert with his dozen odd companions all screaming ¡°Yah Yah Yah Yah!¡± at the top of their lungs.


    Murphy, seeing his special operatives returning sooner than he expected, couldn¡¯t help himself from forming a charming grin. He was quite pleased with his first battle. The use of the tail flower spell as a tail-devouring flower curse was probably the most important part along with the idea for his little special agents.


    Having his Curse Spawn target any enemies that showed strange magical prowess greatly limited the scorpion army¡¯s ability to rain down any heavy area of effort fire suppression.


    That said, he¡¯d probably lost hundreds in this battle. He was greatly displeased with that outcome. As such, he wasn¡¯t planning to simply let the scorpion creature off lightly. He waved an arm, and his loyal Spawns all continued to rush in and slaughter their enemies.


    They weren¡¯t as worried about so many deaths as Murphy was. After all, the demon plane was littered with frequent and constant death. It wasn¡¯t unusual for them to lose hundreds if a stronger demon decided one of them looked at him funny.


    More so than that, in their inherited memories their ancestors would lose Demon Spawns from tribes and clans by the tens of thousands back when the demon planes were first forming.


    Now, they had started to evolve again and were laying eggs like nobody¡¯s business. Even back then when their population was magnitudes greater, they probably didn¡¯t lay eggs as frequently as they do now with the assistance of sinister magic arts.


    They just loved battle, and war especially. Thanks to that, they fearlessly charged forth. Now that things had reached this stage, Murphy had originally planned to pull back since the raid was accomplished, but seeing as his forces were as thirsty for battle as he was and they¡¯d done so well, he didn¡¯t hold back.


    He too charged into the fray, and every time his sword of sharpness moved, life was taken. His right hand swung his sword, and his left hand remained gloveless as it reached out and sucked scorpions dry of mana left and right.


    Occasionally he¡¯d throw out a chant he¡¯d been practising or form a spell pattern for some of the spells he was more familiar with. His time in the Witch¡¯s tower hadn¡¯t been wasted, and he¡¯d learnt quite a bit more than he expected.


    Saying that, his magic skills were still sub-par amongst other controllers that specialised in magic. Seelie especially, who had the Scholar class and gobbled up knowledge like a black hole, had magic on a whole other level from Murphy.


    The reason he didn¡¯t let her out onto the battlefield was that most of her magic would basically obliterate everything, him and his spawns included. He would only let her out if it were a last resort. Similarly for Morbid. He was an unstoppable force in battle, and if he went on a rampage, he¡¯d decimate everything.


    Probably the only thing he wouldn¡¯t kill was Murphy.


    That being the case, Murphy preferred to deal with this problem with his loyal Spawns before letting those two cannons loose. After all, you wouldn¡¯t use a nuclear strike while hunting a deer, now would you?


    During the battle, Spawns were consuming poison cure potions like breath mints, and instant recovery potions were treated like water. Most of the time the Spawns only used them if they felt they were on death¡¯s door from the poison or an injury but the consumption was still astronomical.


    They were quite proud creatures in a way. Preferring to only use them as a last resort, which was why so many had died already.


    After about an hour of continuous back and forth battle, Murphy and Chuckles stood facing off against the man faced scorpion controller.


    Murphy was about to reach for his sword when Chuckles stepped forward and started ¡®rar¡¯ing. Murphy seemed to get the gist of what he wanted and somewhat hesitantly removed his hand from his sword. It appeared Chuckles wanted to earn his evolution, and insisted on doing battle with the scorpion boss himself.


    All around them the remnants of the scorpions were being eliminated by Murphy¡¯s Spawns.


    Chuckles stepped forward and took a little dagger from his belt, which was, in fact, the Super Pointy Poison dagger. It was a gift Murphy gave him when he evolved the second time, and something Chuckles apparently treasured.


    In his other hand, he pulled the crude dagger cut from the black stone of the demon plane. He was dressed in loosely fitting leather armour and had a little metal skull cap that seemed to be a size too big. Murphy was enamoured in trying to figure out how they kept all the equipment they¡¯d been looting on their bodies.


    According to physics, that helmet should have fallen off at least a thousand times already but still somehow stayed on.


    Regardless, Chuckles looked very heroic as he stepped forward at his 4-foot height and eyed the man faced scorpion.


    The scorpion wanted to scoff and ridicule but lost the chance. Chuckles wouldn¡¯t even give it the chance to be bitter in its loss or vent itself verbally. He charged forward with completely abnormal speed. The scorpion was shocked and swung a huge armoured claw out to knock Chuckles back.


    Chuckles seemed to defy the laws of inertia as he froze just a few inches before contact with the claw. The swing of the claw seemed to lack Chuckles¡¯ strange defiance of inertia and continued on its path striking nothing but air.


    The scorpion shot its tail forth with an absolutely vicious speed that even Murphy had trouble keeping track of. The venomous spike of the tail connected with Chuckles and pierced through his body, injected its vile venom in as it passed through to the other side.


    Seeing this, the scorpion finally thought it could gloat, only to watch with disbelief as Chuckles smiled a very grim and sinister grin as both his daggers suddenly swished, and the scorpion¡¯s armoured tail was suddenly sliced apart at the segment of the tip.


    Its tail spewed a clearish green blood and wracking the creature¡¯s body with pain. It¡¯s huge claws swung violently, and one of them clipped Chuckles knocking him back a few metres to roll along the sandy ground.


    He got up slowly and wiped some blood from his thin lips. With a little ¡®rar rar yah!¡¯ he raced forward as fast as he could. Although he had Murphy¡¯s endurance traits, he still wasn¡¯t as perverse as Murphy himself in stats. The wound in his chest slowed him down and the man faced scorpion snarled as his claw shot forward to snatch Chuckles.


    With a sly dodge, Chuckles¡¯ little body hit the deck and slid through the sand under the lurching claw of the scorpion. His pointy little dagger stabbed into the armoured carapace of the scorpion¡¯s claw, and he rapidly rolled out to create distance again.


    The scorpion roared as his tail lashed out like a whip at the retreating Chuckles. He raised his daggers to block the strike, but it was still powerful enough to knock him into the ground again. He coughed up a little more blood and slowly climbed up as the scorpion loomed over preparing to lash out its claw again.


    Chuckles lowered his centre and flicked his daggers in preparation. The moment the scorpion lashed out, Chuckles¡¯ body darted to outside. He lunged forward and his little black dagger sliced through a leg of the scorpion.


    As the tail whipped out again, Chuckles jumped back while stabbing both daggers forward. The moment the tail made contact with the daggers, Chuckles flicked a leg and did a strange rotating flip. The daggers spun with the rotation of his body and carved into the exposed flesh of the Scorpion¡¯s tail, digging out a handful more of clear greenish flesh.


    The scorpion was enraged further, and the pain was wracking his body. He was starting to get frustrated with this little demon creature. He raced forward to try and catch Chuckles with another claw snatching motion.


    Taking lessons from Murphy, Chuckles didn¡¯t let this brief moment of initiative switch back again and rushed forward. He nimbly used the swinging claw of the scorpion to leap up high then dive back down and bury both his dagger into the face of the man faced scorpion.


    The scorpions two eyes were pierced through, and it writhed and jerk for a few more seconds before falling to the ground lifeless.


    A huge gush of Exp burst forth from the enemy controllers body and split apart, rushing into Murphy and Chuckles. After this, Chuckles¡¯ body suddenly started to crack, and his bones groaned under a sudden strange pressure.


    He let out a guttural growl as his body started visibly morphing and pushing the scorpion¡¯s stinger out. His purplish skin tone grew darker and closely approached a very dark purple, so close to black you¡¯d only know it was purple under the direct light of the sun.


    His two twisted little horns grew straighter, longer and sharper. His demon tail remained mostly the same, and his black claws grew sharper and stronger looking. Unlike previously, he didn¡¯t seem to grow anymore, but his slightly muscled wiry body bulked up a little bit more, making his little muscles more pronounced.


    Murphy watched on as Chuckles evolved in front of him. His eyes scrutinised closely and he observed the changes in Chuckles¡¯ stats and traits. It seemed this time around, Chuckles had gained all of Murphy¡¯s shadow art related skills.


    It was mostly things like sneak, concealment and assassination techniques. Murphy didn¡¯t practice any of the assassin techniques, but that didn¡¯t mean to say he didn¡¯t have any. In fact, he had quite a few. Now that Chuckles had just become something akin to a perfect assassin, he would have to be sure to teach these skills to him.


    However, perhaps because it was his third evolution, Chuckles didn¡¯t stop here. His two eyes turned a very sinister red colour, and the nails on his two index fingers both turned from pitch black and glassy to white. The last edition to the evolution was a big pair of black leathery wings like a bat.


    Under Murphy¡¯s scrutiny, a special demon trait called ¡®Commander¡¯ appeared in Chuckles¡¯ evolution bonus¡¯. More or less, it granted Chuckles the innate Demon Spawn Summoning spell. Like most the rest of the talents from evolution, it was the same level as Murphy¡¯s skill, but could level up by itself if Chuckles practised it.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Seeing the greatest Spawn of their race evolving once again, the other spawns were all screaming and smacking their helmets and shields as they danced around in joy. It was quite a sight watching the hundreds of Spawns all dancing about in a poisonous field of corpses while joyously singing and cheering.


    As if to let them all know that he appreciated their support, Chuckles let out a great bellow and then quickly ran up to Murphy yelling ¡°Yah yah yah!¡± and flexing his muscles like a show-off.


    Murphy could only smile then glance over at all the youngest progeny of the Spawns. He then chuckled and pet Chuckles head.


    ¡°You better not get cocky Chuckles. You¡¯re already level 12. Your kids were born with your level and evolution. What will you do if some of them step up and overtake you?¡±


    Chuckles didn¡¯t even consider it a problem. From his attitude, Murphy could tell that Chuckles would be ecstatic if his children could step up to the plate and take down their old man. Even though Chuckles inherited Murphy¡¯s trait Will never age, that didn¡¯t mean he didn¡¯t want his children to make him proud.


    After all, before Murphy came along, having descendants already looked like a distant possibility for these creatures. Having descendants that could make a warrior like Chuckles proud would be like ... well, there really is no way to qualify or quantify the gratitude he had that there was even the chance for it to happen.


    With the battle won, Murphy sent his poison spawns into the enemy domain and looted everything. They had quite a bit of interesting loot. The thing of most interest to Murphy though, was all the crafting materials. Strange ores and priceless attribute gems were hoarded away deep in the tunnels of the scorpions.


    After a full game day of looting, Murphy went to his Control Space and disengaged from the enemy Domain. As they slowly broke apart and started floating off, a huge chunk of the enemy domain seemed to disintegrate into dust and flow towards Murphy¡¯s.


    He watched on with some amazement as the land of his Domains slowly increased by a bit more. It was only about another hundred metres of radius, but that hundred metres was actually a lot.


    He wondered how fast his domain would grow if he successfully raided a bigger domain. If he was only taking 10% at a time, then he needed to take 10% of something bigger if he wanted to make a real impact.


    Either that, or take ten percent of lots of smaller Domains, which would probably take forever.


    Now that the raid had been completed and he¡¯d looted his enemies, his Domain once again entered into a protection state. This time it was only for 5 days, half the time he had before, but it was more than enough to reinforce his domain some more.


    After all, 5 game days was equivalent to 20 Earth-length days.


    Thinking of earth, Murphy suddenly realised just how absorbed he¡¯d gotten and that he hadn¡¯t shown his face at home for weeks. His foster father probably thought he¡¯d run away or died. It made him feel slightly guilty for not having bothered to even think of them until now.


    He decided that it was time to make a trip home. He was also curious how that huge asshole Juwan was doing. He was somewhat hoping to meet his domain in his adventures and get an opportunity to introduce Juwan to Morbid.


    <hr>


    I can¡¯t say I was psyched about going home but in the end, Uncle Calligso raised me for 6 years and taught me how to survive after the orphanage. If it weren¡¯t for him, I¡¯d most likely have remained trapped in the orphanage and rotted away to nothing while I wallowed in my self-pity.


    Seelie also didn¡¯t seem too psyched about going home. She hated her father for various reasons I¡¯m slightly familiar with, but at the very least she loved her younger sister and tolerated her mother. That meant she was more intending to go home and drag her sister into the game to escape her below average family situation.


    I¡¯d been quite lucky in that apart from the occasional abuse of Juwan and the loathsome expressions of my foster mother, the rest of the family mostly left me alone. Calligso¡¯s mistress was also somewhat warm to me and the two younger sisters, who were the daughters of Calligso and his mistress, were at least amiable enough to simply act like I didn¡¯t exist.


    As opposed to the two older siblings, one of which directly and out rightly hated my guts and the other who was as sly and covert in his hatred as a viper. Striking while smiling and acting as if he was trying to help! The bastard!


    That was more or less my family situation, and really the only person I was going back for was Uncle Calligso. Even if he really only brought me into the house because he thought I could carry on his martial arts legacy, he was nonetheless mostly a good guardian who was protective and caring of my wellbeing.


    He even seemed to care about other things like school and my social life, which was one of the reasons I was a little worried about coming home now. The last time I missed more than 3 days of school he gave me such a severe ass whooping that even now the thought of it gives me phantom pains.


    Even if the Game System had given me all these cool skills and stats, I couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that the man who was my foster father would be able to defeat me in three moves or less. If he started playing, he would probably come into the game with a skill like Martial Arts Mastery at level 10.


    After saying goodbye to Morbid and the Spawns and leaving them some tasks to do while I was gone, I logged out ahead of Seelie, who assured me she would be through later.


    The moment I reappeared in my room, all sorts of traps started springing. A huge spike suspended from the ceiling lurched forward trying to pierce me, arrows shot out of crossbows set up in every corner of the room, a flame thrower suddenly sprang to life from under my bed, and the entire carpet was filled with mats with nails nearly half a foot long sticking out.


    Not just that, 3 grenades suddenly dropped right on top of me with their pins dangling from a string on the roof. My bedroom had turned into a war zone and was trapped up to the shithouse. I didn¡¯t even have time to react before the pendulum-like spike stabbed into my side.


    Or ... should have stabbed into my side, would be more grammatically correct. Seeing as it just seemed to bounce off me like it had struck a metal wall. The crossbow bolts struck me and ripped my clothes but apart from that simply bounced or deflected off.


    The flame thrower made a pretty good effort, I actually felt quite warm, and all my clothes were burnt to cinders. The grand finale, the three grenades, all exploded simultaneously spreading shrapnel like bullets and releasing a huge explosion completely obliterating my corner room.


    Juwan¡¯s room, directly above mine, had the floor completely blown out and collapsed in while I was blasted through the wall and shot out into the street in a trail of smoke and debris. My room¡¯s floor collapsed as well, and everything for three floors piled down into the bottom floor in a huge shitstorm of debris.


    Nearly a quarter of my foster families villa was obliterated in one go. I too wasn¡¯t impervious to explosions from 3 grenades at point blank range. It was almost like the time I first discovered the volatile concoction. Only this time I was slightly better off, with only a few broken bones, some charred flesh and a handful of bleeding wounds from the shrapnel.


    Also ... unlike last time, my clothes were completely obliterated, so my naked ass shot through the sky like a bright reflective moon. The landing was also a little less severe, and after about 20 minutes, I was able to pick myself up.


    I¡¯d been shot out into the neighbour¡¯s shrubbery by the explosion, and by the time I got up, emergency services were already crowded around my house like flies, as they tried to put out the fires.


    When I reached the front of the house, Calligso and Juwan were both standing on the street as my two younger sisters were rushed into ambulances and most the rest of my family sat nearby a little worse for wear.


    My foster mother and elder sister were both missing though, presumably having been out shopping or something. If I remember correctly, today should be Freeday. One of the days of the week when most people don¡¯t work or have school and stay home.


    I felt my heart wracked with guilt as I saw my two sisters being rushed off in the ambulances. If I¡¯d never come home, then my family wouldn¡¯t have suffered. That, of course, wasn¡¯t a certainty though.


    If I¡¯d ever died in the game, I would have been forced back to the real world and have to suffer 12 hours of not being able to log in. As I approached the burning house, a few Protectors noticed me, covered in ashes and charred in places, so they rushed forth to ensure I was alright.


    They all had rather strange looks when they saw me holding the Dimension Key and my body still rapidly healing wounds right in front of them. That then led to the awkward situation of trying to explain who I was, which I was rescued from by Uncle Calligso.


    The moment he saw me, two things happened. The first was, he rushed up and gave me a great big hug which put some stress even on my durable bones. The second, he put me down from the hug, looked at me hard, then slapped me on the back of the head so hard I was worried my eyeballs were going to pop out.


    ¡°The hell you been you little shit?! Huh? You run off to go playin¡¯ games in some multi-dimension? Don¡¯t even tell ol¡¯ Uncle Calligso and left me here worryin¡¯ ¡®bout you all fuckin¡¯ day? And what about your school you little bastard?


    ¡°Think I send you there to keep you out¡¯a sight or somethin¡¯? I send you there to get educated, so you don¡¯t end up stupid like me you dipshit! You damn well better ¡®ave been studyin¡¯ somethin¡¯ while you was off in your game world cause first thing you¡¯re doin¡¯ now your back is your fuckin¡¯ exit test. I ain¡¯t letting you go back till you done at school!


    ¡°And what the hell is all this ¡®bout aye? You fucking castin¡¯ that weird game magic in your room? Huh? Your little sisters got hurt! Now go put some fuckin¡¯ clothes on. After this mess is sorted, it¡¯s time for some lessons! See if you¡¯ll ignore ol¡¯ Uncle Calligso and fuckin¡¯ go gallivantin¡¯ bout in other dimensions without tellin¡¯ ¡®im again!¡±


    This was a standard conversation between foster father and son. Calligso knew I couldn¡¯t talk well with others around and so he generally did most of the talking and read my facial expressions. Apart from Seelie, the only person capable of understanding much about me was Calligso.


    The Protector¡¯s took statements from everyone which was a painful experience for them when they got to me, and once the house was mostly cleaned up, the family went to a huge fancy hotel and booked out some rooms for a few days. Although Uncle Calligso wasn¡¯t the smartest man in the world, he was quite rich.


    When it came to money the man was a miser. Even the house we lived in had most of the building costs paid for by various clients of his. Mostly rich men paying him to go and tutor their snobbish sons or daughters.


    Once we were settled in at the hotel, I found out the wife and daughter pair had buggered off about 4 days ago on some holiday in another Colony. I wasn¡¯t going to start jumping to conclusions, but that didn¡¯t stop me from automatically concluding that it was Juwan and them leaving was just a coincidence.


    Juwan was clearly displeased with my cool traits in the game and decided to just end my life outside the game and not have to worry about it. Besides, apart from being somewhat snobbish and openly hostile, that duo didn¡¯t have the know-how for something like this, and I didn¡¯t believe they hated me that much they would resort to blowing the whole house to pieces just to try and kill me.


    It¡¯s the ones that are always smiling and pleasant that you need to watch out for. Juwan always puts on that kind hearted act, but I can already tell it was him based on how he keeps asking how injured I was and remarking on how durable I am.


    He even went so far as to solemnly vow he would find out who perpetrated this whole thing and get justice for our younger sisters and me. I almost vomited seeing how incredible his acting skills were. I was so close to falling for his act I had to try and stab myself to wake up.


    Unfortunately, that only led to a very bent hotel knife and some concerned questions from everyone. We hadn¡¯t settled down for long before Uncle Calligso came to collect me and we went half way across town to his dojo.


    His Dojo was quite impressive and very old style. It was modelled after very similar styles of Dojo from before the new order. As soon as we were in the dojo, Uncle Calligso was throwing a live katana at me.


    The thing was made with the toughest alloys and sharpened to a molecular level with lasers and all sorts of other fancy science things that are beyond me. The point is, I wasn¡¯t sure I¡¯d survive if that thing actually cut into me.


    Luckily, Uncle Calligso wasn¡¯t trying to kill me. He was simply testing my reflexes. I still remember when I first came to his dojo and he had me trying to catch throwing knives. I still have a scar on both sides of my hand from that one time I got distracted.


    Although the katana rapidly flying towards me was just a test, the test was a trap! If I try to deflect or catch to the sword, Uncle Calligso will be a half step behind it launching a punch at my face. If a person places too much focus on the sword hurtling towards them, then they¡¯ve failed as a close combat martial artist.


    As such, my focus remained on Uncle Calligso, who was walking towards me slowly. I simply stepped back twice, so I was in position and caught the sword! It was a no-no for me to catch it, so naturally, Uncle Calligso wasn¡¯t going to go easy.


    At almost the same moment as my hand grasped around the hilt of the sword, Uncle Calligso seemed to blur and just as my fingers were tightening onto the sword to stop it¡¯s spinning, a fist that felt like it covered the world appeared in front of my face.


    I had long since been expecting this. My head dropped, and the katana used the force of the throw to swing around my body, using the motion to counterattack in the same breath as dodging.


    Uncle Calligso didn¡¯t even seem to flinch. His rugged old face calmly remained locked on me as he took a simple step back and flicked a leg up causing the sword to deflect up into the air. The force behind that kick was mind boggling.


    I was pretty sure he almost just snapped the sword. I had thought my strength would be enough to keep hold of the sword, but it seemed that the nature of the kick was more devious than I¡¯d thought. As the force caused the katana to fly up, his foot slid down the blade and smacked into my wrist, instantly disarming me.


    He was fencing against a sword with his feet! I could only smile bitterly as in the very next motion, my sky was once again filled with a fist. Although I could probably dodge ... making him have to work harder to teach me a lesson would only eventually make it harder on me.


    Unlike all the times before, the fist stopped. Normally, Uncle always followed through. He didn¡¯t allow weakness in any of his students, most especially his children. He pulled back his fist and the look he gave me ... felt so heavy on my heart.


    It was filled with disappointment. It was filled with ... unhappiness? I¡¯m not sure what he was so upset about. It had been nearly a year since our last direct sparring lesson together, and the last time we sparred, I couldn¡¯t even last his first move.


    Finally, though, he voiced his thoughts, and I somewhat understood in the beginning.


    ¡°You holdin¡¯ back wit your ol¡¯ man boy? Not given me any face and fightin¡¯ like a coward? I know what you¡¯s was like before I took you in. I expected you to learn it all and overtake me in a few years. What the fuck you doin¡¯? Huh? You fuckin takin me for some fuckin soft hearted charity?


    ¡°You my fuckin son now! What the fuck happened aye? You fuckin had potential but you just been getting weaker and softer with every year. I thought sending Juwan to spar wit you every day would give you some fightin¡¯ spirit back, but you just become even more meek!


    ¡°You takin¡¯ your ol¡¯ man for a fuckin fool now too? Huh? Fuckin just givin¡¯ up? That¡¯s it, Murphy, you little shit! This time, your ol¡¯ man¡¯s not holdin¡¯ back at all. If you don¡¯t give it your all, this ol¡¯ man¡¯s gonna kill ya! And then ta spite ya dead ass, I¡¯ma go find that little girl o¡¯ your¡¯s, and she¡¯ll follow ya inta ya grave!


    ¡°I shoulda left your ass back in that shithole! I now understand why your fuckin¡¯ parents left you there. Cause they was fuckin disappointed in ya!¡±


    <hr>


    Murphy¡¯s Uncle Calligso had always been many things. Demanding? Most certainly. Brash? Perhaps. A little arrogant? Sure. But Calligso had never actually been angry. For the very first time, Murphy felt his uncle getting angry. He felt the air around him became strange, as if the pressure from his uncle¡¯s glare was freezing the air and making it became stale.


    All of the hairs on his body suddenly stood up in alarm as what little danger sense he¡¯d cultivated lately suddenly went into overdrive. Warning him that there was something nearby that could definitely kill him.


    However, despite these blaring warning signs, Murphy couldn¡¯t back down. Calligso had touched a nerve this time. Said something he shouldn¡¯t have said, and should never have even thought to say. Murphy¡¯s usually slightly bent back straightened out. His face became placid and calm, as if he¡¯d suddenly just disconnected from reality.


    The aura he gave off changed from his reserved and introverted self to a composed but overbearing nature. As if he was a king or mighty lord who looked down on all life.


    At this moment, even Calligso was slightly surprised as his body suddenly had a similar reaction to what Murphy¡¯s had a moment before. He felt as if death was staring at him. What worried him the most was that when he¡¯d done it to Murphy, he didn¡¯t actually plan on killing him, but he could tell without a doubt that if he slipped up for even a second, Murphy would most definitely kill him.


    He didn¡¯t have time for such considerations though. Murphy¡¯s body leant forwards and just when it seemed like he was about to fall flat on his face, his body moved. It was some bizarre running method Calligso had never seen before.


    That didn¡¯t matter though. What mattered was that it was fast! Murphy was like a bullet as he appeared in front of Calligso. His fist struck out, feinting for the head. His body rotated, and a kick struck against a sneaky counterattack from Calligso.


    A crack was heard, and Murphy fell back slightly. Calligso felt it. Murphy¡¯s foot definitely just broke! However, it seemed somebody should tell Murphy that because he used it as his pivot foot for another strike and didn¡¯t appear to be limited by it in the slightest.


    The next moment, Calligso and Murphy went all out. They traded dozens of blows in a minute. Kicks and punches were like rain. Calligso was actually starting to get a little worried now. Murphy had become absolutely relentless in his attacks, and it was almost like his life was worthless in comparison to avenging whatever slight Calligso had made.


    He flicked out a kick to the hip and unbalanced Murphy only for the boy to use a strange stepping pattern and borrow the force to flick his leg around and bring an axe kick towards Calligso¡¯s head. Calligso, for the first time in battle, backed off a step.


    Just as quickly, he shot back forward and flicked a palm out deflecting a punch downwards and then having to directly block an elbow that came from the deflected punching arm. He felt like his life was definitely being threatened, and his arm flicked out like a bullet as it struck Murphy¡¯s shoulder.


    A sickening ¡®click¡¯ resounded and Murphy¡¯s shoulder was clearly dislocated. It then very unnaturally gave another ¡®click¡¯ as it pulled itself back into place. The same happened every time he tried to disable Murphy with dislocated joints.


    He then tried to break his arm, only for Murphy to whip it about a bit and it set itself while he was still using his other 3 limbs and even his head to continue the battle.


    He felt like he was fighting against some kind of sickening immortal.


    At the same time, he was excited! He¡¯d never fought a battle like this in his entire life! He was only 42, and he¡¯d spent every waking day of his life thinking and practising martial arts. This was the first battle he¡¯d ever had where he felt the pressure.


    It was his first chance to go all out, and he wasn¡¯t going to pass it up. The duo¡¯s battle grew more intense as they started throwing killing strikes as if they were going to take the other person¡¯s life. The most frightening thing was the rate they were improving at.


    It was like they were some kind of martial arts monsters and the longer they battled, the more skilled they became. In the end though, as powerful as Murphy¡¯s endurance was, it wasn¡¯t a match for Calligso¡¯s skill.


    Although Murphy could fight without thought for his own life, Calligso had far more experience and skill and at the end of the day seemed to have an even more frightening stamina than Murphy could have possibly expected. Especially since Calligso hadn¡¯t joined the game system and was supposed to just be a regular human.


    After nearly an hour of constant fighting, Murphy felt himself growing tired beyond his special traits ability to keep up. Calligso finally wore him out enough to finish the fight, and got him into a choke hold before knocking him out.


    Come morning, Murphy would wake up fine, but Calligso would be covered in bruises and sore muscles. He had even broken a few ribs during the battle. That said, he never felt more alive than right now, and his happiness at Murphy¡¯s progress was through the roof.


    He was beyond ecstatic. Although ... he¡¯d have to try and calm Murphy down somewhat in the morning. The killing intent he felt coming off Murphy had been palpable during the fight, and he was sure something like that didn¡¯t just disappear overnight.


    To his shock, the next morning, Murphy kneeled down like a good disciple to his teacher and meekly apologised for his outburst the night before. It was like whoever that was that had fought him the whole night had disappeared and was once again replaced with the young introverted Murphy he¡¯d known for so long.


    Murphy had actually come back to himself half way through the fight. He understood Calligso¡¯s feelings, and he understood that his foster father was just trying to bring some fight out of him. Calligso knew some of Murphy¡¯s past, and it was also the reason he expected so much from him.


    At the same time, Calligso apologised for being so overbearing. He realised that Murphy had some things that he had trouble dealing with. Whatever was going on with him and Seelie was one of those things, and his parents were also a somewhat sore spot.


    Now that he¡¯d seen it though, Calligso wasn¡¯t going to let go. This was the son he¡¯d adopted, and he¡¯d known before this what kind of monster he¡¯d brought into his house. As long as he was strong enough to keep some control over him and help him grow into the right kind of man, it didn¡¯t matter much what his past was.


    That said, Calligso immediately dragged Murphy back to the dojo to pick up his training again. He wouldn¡¯t let this chance slip by. Now that he¡¯d forced Murphy to show his prowess, he wasn¡¯t going to let him continue pretending to be such a meek little kid.


    The most important thing he felt that he needed to teach him was how to harness that part of himself that had come out last night. That little bit of darkness in his heart. All things need balance, and the human heart is no different.


    After a whole day in the dojo, Calligso made Murphy a deal.


    Schooling in the new age is a little different from before the Holocaust. The primary aspect is that they foster self-learning. They¡¯ll give you the help and materials you need, but most of it you¡¯re expected to learn yourself.


    After all, if a child wants to learn they will learn, if they don¡¯t want to learn, who can force them? Therefore they spend more focus at school trying to foster a desire to learn than on trying to push kids through like lemmings.


    Thanks to that sort of set up, time spent in schooling varies. Grades aren¡¯t divided by age groups or year. Grades are determined based on academic merit. Each grade you have to complete a standardised test to move to the next.


    It¡¯s not uncommon for some people to still be doing Grade 12 schooling even after they¡¯ve started working full time. It¡¯s not uncommon to see children only 13 or 14 finishing grade twelve. Thanks to that sort of system, a person¡¯s schooling revolves solely around their own merit and desire to learn.


    Murphy, at this stage, only had a single exam left before he could be considered graduated. Since Calligso felt it was important, he made Murphy promise to finish that final exam before the end of the month.


    While at the same time, he made him promise to take up some form of extracurricular studies after. Something like engineering or robotics, he could even do agriculture or something. It didn¡¯t matter to Calligso, as long as Murphy kept learning something. Even if he was in another dimension most of the time.


    Murphy, in turn, made Calligso promise to join the game. Sighting it as a potential source to train himself fully. In truth though, he wanted his stupidly powerful Uncle to come and join his Domain. It would be like adding another warhead to his current arsenal of two nuclear weapons.


    Before he had the chance to go and track down Seelie and head back into the game, he received a message in the data stream from Seelie saying she¡¯d meet him back there. He then spent a full night memorising all of his study materials, and he¡¯d just mull them over in his head in the game.


    The next day, before he could sneak off to find somewhere to go into the game, Juwan pulled him aside. Murphy wasn¡¯t in a big rush. He figured Juwan was going to make some jibes at him for having taken so long to finish the tutorial while sounding sincere and worried.


    To his surprise though, Juwan wasn¡¯t his usual snake oil salesman self.


    ¡°Murphy ... I think that ... huu ... you know what, it doesn¡¯t matter yet. Rest assured, I will find out who tried to attack you!¡±


    Murphy stared back dumbly for a moment then cocked his head. Juwan sure was acting strange today. Before Murphy could walk off, Juwan brought up something else.


    ¡°Little Brother. How is your domain going? Is it still up?¡±


    Murphy simply nodded his head. He was a little irritated and half tempted to just warp back even though he was in the middle of a hotel.


    Juwan seemed to be considering something for a little bit but finally seemed to resolve himself and ask something that Murphy had most certainly not been expecting.


    ¡°Little Brother. Do you think you could take this pathetic older brother into your Domain as a citizen?¡±


    Murphy didn¡¯t know exactly what to think of that request. For starters, he firmly believed Juwan was planning something devious. If he actually let him into his Domain, how would he reconcile himself after he was assassinated or something by Juwan?


    At the same time, Murphy felt that having your enemy somewhere you could see him would be better than letting him run about doing Sage knows what in the shadows. More importantly though, he was curious why Juwan would give up his domain to Join Murphy¡¯s.


    Juwan seemed to know what Murphy was most probably thinking.


    ¡°You are probably curious. I have lost my Domain. I received 3 consecutive attacks which I lost, and my Domain was reduced to nothing. I am now just an ordinary player. Unfortunately, that means I am more limited now and can¡¯t travel to other Quest Planets. I¡¯m stuck on the one I spawned on until I join a Domain or a random portal spawns.¡±


    When he said this far, his face became somewhat gloomy. Which was a rare sight to see on his normally handsome and smiling face.


    ¡°The main problem is that most other Domains ask you to sign some game system contract which essentially hands over your life to the Domain Controller. I refuse to live in servitude to somebody I don¡¯t know or trust. Please let me join your Domain until I can find a Domain Stone.¡±


    Murphy¡¯s eyebrows jumped. He searched the numerous memories Seelie had left behind in his head of all the game guides she purchased from the store. It seemed as if nearly 30 percent of those memories were rather inappropriate and a slight blush crept onto his cheeks while rapidly skipping those ones.


    Finally, right after a certain memory that was slightly more graphic than the rest, Murphy found what he was looking for.


    <hr>


    Domain Stone.


    Player¡¯s that have lost their domain can gain a chance to restart a domain provided they find one of these mystical stones. Every Quest Planet usually spawns at least one of these stones and provided a player is skilled enough or strong enough, he can get his hands on it.


    Unfortunately, this stone is highly coveted. The Game System forces a player to keep hold of the stone for at least three game days, and they cannot leave the planet of its origin until the stone unlocks. Only then can they create a new domain, and attempt to build a world of their own again.


    While the stone is activating, any domains connected to the planet will turn red, alerting everyone that the Quest Planet¡¯s Domain Stone has been discovered.


    <hr>


    Murphy considered for a short moment whether it was worth it to let that creeper into his home. He believed that even if he let Juwan onto his Domain, he wouldn¡¯t be able to get up to too much mischief. He was confident that Juwan wouldn¡¯t be able to turn his loyal Spawn against him and it was 50/50 odds whether or not Morbid would just eat him on first sight.


    He then considered how Calligso had said that it was him who sent Juwan to beat on him regularly. Although Calligso was a very tough love kind of guardian, he wouldn¡¯t endorse hitting Murphy with a car and he most likely investigated after the incident.


    Murphy only now started questioning his belief that perhaps Juwan wasn¡¯t who he thought he was.


    The only problem with that is, pre-conceived notions and prejudices don¡¯t pass overnight. Even if he¡¯d started to question his last year or two of suspicions, that didn¡¯t mean he could just wake up the next day and not still have those feelings.


    Although, since Murphy was so dense, perhaps he could just wake up and forget about it but simply didn¡¯t want to. In the end, after nearly 15 minutes of Juwan patiently waiting and watching Murphy¡¯s face go through a multitude of indecipherable expressions, Murphy nodded his head.


    ¡° ... how to bring you... ?¡±


    Juwan was exuberant. For as long as he could remember, this little brother had always been so distant and lonely. It was the first time he¡¯d agreed to do something that wasn¡¯t sparring. Juwan actually didn¡¯t expect anything more than a blank staring face for 10 minutes and then Murphy just walking off.


    ¡°It¡¯s easy. We can just form a party, and I will automatically respawn in your domain. You can then grant me citizenry through the Controller Space.¡±


    <hr>


    This was even better than I¡¯d hoped for! I never once expected him to accept my request! He¡¯s always so closed off and guarded it¡¯s impossible to get anything out of him. But now I have my foot in the door. I have to be careful though, or it¡¯ll end up just like 2 years ago when he was just starting to trust me and then suddenly became distant again.


    That threw everything up in the air. All my plans were shot down in a matter of days. Making it harder was dad forcing me to spar with him. I thought I could just go easy and let him win, but he was too strong. I can¡¯t say my pride wasn¡¯t stoked like a little ember in a fireplace when I started losing to Murphy.


    Then he suddenly just became docile and became even more distrusting of me. I couldn¡¯t not beat him if he left himself open while sparring. If I did, dad would kick the shit out of me for failing in my duties as an older brother.


    After the thing I¡¯d planned at the house failed, I didn¡¯t hold much hope of him still willing to let me near him, but now is my chance. I have to find out where he plans to log in.


    ¡°OK, well, let¡¯s decide where we are going to log in. After what happened at the house it would be better if we do it somewhere no one will know about, to protect you and the family.¡±


    Very suave. Smooth. Give a charming older brother smile. Perfect. Murphy may have talents in martial arts, but I¡¯ve always been better at talking.


    ¡° ... No need. Let¡¯s go from here, I¡¯ll set you as citizen ... and come back.¡±


    Damnit! He¡¯s going to go off and find somewhere by himself? Murphy you fool! You think that will stop me? You have to come back out to the real world eventually. When you do, I¡¯ll just log out and follow you! I¡¯m not going to let my fail yesterday happen again.


    This time when I succeed...


    We will be able to do brotherly things together like fishing and going to a theme park and getting drunk while picking up girls. My dreams will become a reality, and I will have a real relationship with Little Brother!


    Most importantly, no matter what! I will protect my little brother!


    <hr>


    Before I left, I had to pay a huge amount of experience to pull something back out of the game world. I¡¯d come to learn that it was possible to purchase something called the ¡®dimensional hook¡¯. Which is more or less a huge pain in my ass.


    It doesn¡¯t simply let you pull something out from your inventory on the other side, but instead, makes you go fishing for it through some portal thing. Juwan seemed particularly enthused about joining me to go fishing in my inventory, making me even more suspicious of his motives.


    Most likely, he wanted to scope out what sorts of things I had stashed away in there. I didn¡¯t decline though. ¡®Fishing¡¯ wasn¡¯t completely unscientific. As long as I envisioned what I wanted there was a high chance of catching it.


    In the end, I took nearly an hour of catch and release pulling out all sorts of things like boots and body parts. Finally, I managed to get my hands on what I needed. A single bottle of Miracle Water. It took me a great deal of effort to find the super rare potion that I¡¯d initially used when I created this for the Bear King.


    The reason I needed this was because Uncle Calligso was having some issues after our sparring the night before. I was honestly surprised that he hadn¡¯t already had his insides turned into mush from the number of times we traded blows.


    I¡¯d forgotten that my touch is quite literally toxic. He¡¯d done remarkably well in keeping up appearances for an entire day and night, so I didn¡¯t really notice until he turned green. That was when I realised that he most likely was suffering from my 5% chance of poisoning on contact.


    The bonus of the miracle water is, since my negative luck is considered a negative status effect by another player to the system, Miracle Water will cure it. Unsurprisingly, it¡¯s not that easy though. This is about the only stuff apart from some bizarrely high level holy cure magic I have found that can remove the negative luck curse.


    Anyway, the point is that I¡¯d nearly killed Uncle Calligso even after I regained my sanity and stopped myself from doing so. Not that it mattered since I couldn¡¯t beat the tough old bastard even when I¡¯d gone all out anyway.


    When his skin turned back from the clammy green colour, I was reassured the Miracle Water had worked and quickly took that back stabbing viper-faced brother to my domain. The citizenry was actually rather easy. I set him to the second lowest citizen status, which was something like a squatter and only better than a slave. Then came back to Earth.


    I carefully found a dark alley out of sight from everyone and after repeatedly checking that Juwan that... ¡®probably¡¯ sinister fuck, hadn¡¯t followed me, I logged back in. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Juwan still standing in the exact same spot he¡¯d been when I logged out.


    Surrounded by hundreds of menacing looking little Spawn and with a huge towering Morbid standing over the top of him growling and...


    ¡®Hold on ... is he petting my dog! Where are the Spawn? Oi! Morbid you bastard traitor! You¡¯re letting that viper-faced scumbag touch you? I thought you were supposed to be a good judge of character?! Where the hell is Chuckles? I told him to keep an eye on Juwan.¡¯


    ¡°Tsk!¡±


    That was about the limit to which I voiced my dissatisfaction. I then travelled around to check out my Domain. I¡¯d been gone a whole day and night, so I needed to inspect my Spawns progress with the tasks I set them.


    As expected, my loyal spawn really were industrious little fellows. Thanks to having our portal in that city for a few days, we managed to get certain resources we normally have a little trouble getting. Iron for example.


    With that and some guides and blueprints we bought, we managed to teach a few spawns how to become metal smiths. Creating tools was important because before now we¡¯d been cutting wood and stone with swords and daggers looted from the corpses of enemies.


    With some real tools, the Spawn¡¯s construction speed sped up. Unfortunately, we¡¯d now used all the resources they¡¯d managed to pull through the mist portal and the portal was currently on a barren planet with nothing but dirt and dust storms, so it was difficult to harvest anything from there.


    The Castle, which I had originally designed to be about a quarter the size it had become, remained only half finished. Unlike my castle, other important buildings such as a few smith workshops, a tailor, carpenter workshop and a few other necessities had been finished.


    Everything was designed by the Spawn. Among the evolutions were spawns which inherited skills and traits relating to my mind stats. Things like design, memorisation, stratagem, wood work and metal work. They generally took charge of construction projects.


    Everything they made was at a pretty high standard and looked structurally sound. They were roomy and built to facilitate expansion and upgrade later down the line. The only problem was ... the spawn seemed to have a pension for somewhat evil looking designs.


    Everything had spikes and flames. It was usually painted in something that I¡¯m pretty sure was the blood of our enemies, and creature heads and bandit skulls were sort of just ... left lying around the place.


    It was as if they felt the skulls of enemies they¡¯d killed were somehow similar to artwork. It seemed there was actually a profession among the Spawn who specialised in putting the perfect sword or axe marks on a shiny white skull to make it look appropriately artistic enough to be left lying in the dirt near the smithy.


    From what I could tell, the castle they had designed wasn¡¯t too different. It was hard to tell for the moment because it was only half finished, but from the huge spikes that filled the foundations of the castle, it gave me that impression of the fortress of some orc warlord or evil king.


    Despite my urging, they were of the opinion that anything less would belittle my image as their master and they refused to build it if it didn¡¯t at the minimum have 400 odd spikes sticking out of it and huge flaming torches everywhere.


    I managed to talk them out of putting something similar to gallows hanging out on a beam from each of the turrets of the castle.


    The last main addition to the Domain was in the sinister land and had everything. Spikes, heads, bodies hanging from nooses, painted in blood. It was like the pinnacle of Spawn ¡®feng shui¡¯.


    Making me a little more uncomfortable was that the thing had a huge statue of me in it.


    It was essentially an open circular stone court with stone seats and huge stone columns sitting around the outskirts for no apparent reason apart from supporting a noose or numerous pointy spikes. The courtyard was about 50 metres in diameter, so it stood out in the only 400 odd meter length of the sinister ring.


    At the front of the courtyard was a big stone altar, which from the looks of it was for sacrifices of some form. Standing behind this altar and looking down with a very serious and stoic looking face, was me. It was a statue in my visage and was actually a remarkably well-made product. I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯d had it done on the last Quest Planet at the city by someone else.


    This was actually an incredibly important place for the spawn. It was their respawn point in the game. Although I didn¡¯t have the experience points yet, there is a scroll I can buy that sets a landmark or place as a respawn point for citizens of my Domain.


    It was incredibly expensive and requires nearly 100,000 experience points, but I let the spawn build this place ahead of time because they are still tribe like, and I¡¯m sick of them having fertility festivals in the castle.


    If you¡¯re wondering, try to imagine hundreds of little spawn all getting together and then having Curse Spawn firing off every curse in their arsenal like throwing confetti. It¡¯s like the scene when I first learnt the Rampage spell ... only 100 times more disturbing.


    I went to the Domain Controller Space and checked the status of the domain. It had all sorts of neat tools for keeping an eye on everything. The population of the Spawn was surging and after the latest batch of eggs had hatched there were nearly 1400 spawn again. By the time we get attacked, they will be approaching adulthood and ready to battle for their new home.


    It seemed we had low food stores because of the current Quest Planet we were connected to. There was basically nothing there but dirt so we were having trouble hunting and scrounging up resources.


    From what I understood, it wasn¡¯t rare for a quest planet to be ravaged by active Domains if the Controller dies. At that point, the planet basically becomes a free for all and because the Controller is dead the ¡®magic¡¯ or something of the planet stops helping it survive the constant depletion of resources.


    This led me to think about what my Domain needed the most right now. We needed a fixed portal destination. This was also a rather expensive purchase, and a fixed portal at the price I could afford soonest was random in its destination.


    That had two major problems. The first being that my luck was truly unscrupulous in its timing. Even with positive luck, Murphy¡¯s Law didn¡¯t always cause lucky accidents. If anything, positive luck only reduced bad luck chances and gave a small chance for lucky accidents.


    Although, if I¡¯m being honest, a lot of bad luck accidents have actually turned out really lucky in hindsight. My Deprive ability, for example, is absolutely monstrous in its power, and the trait I spite the most, Hurts So Good, is actually almost invaluable in critical moments.


    Anyway, the point is, I may just end up with a portal to another ¡®dead¡¯ quest world. Which would more or less be useless to me.


    The second problem was that even if we got lucky, chances are that a single portal wouldn¡¯t be near all the resources we needed.


    It was at this point, when I was considering all the bad luck I¡¯d had before now, that I had an idea. If I was likely to be unlucky, then what I needed to do was rely on someone else¡¯s luck.


    Thus I left for the makeshift observatory atop the wizard tower, where I found Seelie peering off into the distant starry sky.


    ¡°Hey ... I need a place that looks ... developed ... with bad looking...¡±


    I stopped my request at this point and considered what my Domain must look like to other places. After thinking deeply about the perceived view people have of certain things, I changed my request.


    ¡°Is there a way ... to ... find out information about certain domains?¡±


    Seelie stopped looking through her telescope and approached me with a slight blush. Then reached out and touched me to initiate a memory implant. I somewhat hesitantly accepted and worked very hard to ignore the first few bits of the implant.


    Seeing the sly smile on Seelie¡¯s face when she was finished, I could only assume she was still punishing me for something. I¡¯m not sure what I¡¯d done wrong to receive all this mental abuse. It was a good thing my mental fortitude was so solid, or I might have embarrassed myself by actually asking about it.


    Anyway, from what she knew, which I now knew, you could buy information from the Domain Store about battles waged by other domains. Apart from who they target and who they¡¯ve lost to, it¡¯s also possible to find information on resources stockpiled in the domain, number of portals, population, type of inhabitants and other interesting things.


    Thanks to that, I quickly escaped from Seelie before her ire for whatever I¡¯d done grew, and she insisted on giving me another implant. I then spent the last of the experience points I had saved up as I started investigating other domains near my location and scheming some mostly innocent schemes.

 Chapter 9: Damsel in Distress

    The day of our next war came. This was an important day, and we had to win. Our portal had switched to another barren planet, and we had to wait another 2 days for it to switch again. By then, our stores of food would be depleted, and Morbid was most likely going to start eating the Spawns.


    In preparation for this one, we researched all our closest neighbours and found out that some of them were also losing protection today. Unfortunately, none of the ones losing protection were the type of prey I was interested in.


    Although this place is dog eat dog, and everyone is fighting to create their own world, that doesn¡¯t mean that everyone is completely uncivilised about it. Most people are actually quite happy just with their domain and have no ambition to create a bigger world.


    Those kinds of people are numerous, and they are more or less the majority amongst the Domains of every rank. The people with ambition also weren¡¯t completely lawless and usually waged their battles in a mostly fair manner.


    The type of people I was looking for were those backstabbing bastards who simply wanted to gain as much as they could as fast as they could. I was also looking for people that dropped in on other people¡¯s raids right when victory was near so they could claim the win.


    These type of people would race over as soon as they spotted a battle start then create a bridge and rush forward to kill everyone. Because the two forces locked in battle had depleted each other, it wasn¡¯t unusual for scavengers like these to appear.


    They very frequently ghosted domains they knew would be dropping protection soon and then quickly raced in after the war started. This allowed them to force the primary raider away before they could take the victory and gave them close to a free meal. They were despicable.


    The other main type of nefarious Controllers I was looking for were the people who swooped in after a battle to an undefended domain before the protection could restart. That way they could claim a raid bonus and steal some land.


    This was slightly more difficult, but there were certain domains that specialised in it. As long as they ¡®docked¡¯ with the defending domain before the primary raiders left, then they could claim raiders rights and stole a little extra percentage of land as spoils.


    These domains usually had hardly any land to begin with, so they had the huge speed boost. They would then go and ¡®lose¡¯ a raid to sell the land to someone else for experience points.


    This was how Juwan had lost his domain so quickly. All three times he was attacked, he was killed, and his territory was swarmed by vultures before the raiders had left.


    This sort of unfair playing style, although very much not against the rules, was nonetheless dishonest and something I was not a fan of.


    It was one thing if they were weaker Controllers teaming up to try and take down a huge opponent, but if they were just going to be vultures and pick apart the corpse of someone else¡¯s foe, that was unsporting. At least in my opinion, which in the end is the most important.


    Perhaps that may seem arrogant, but I had long since accepted that if I planned to try and be a hero and help people, I couldn¡¯t please everyone. As long as it felt like I¡¯d done the right thing, that was what mattered.


    Heroes of one people are the devils of others.


    In another sense, helping someone is always going to have selfish motives. I admit that my desire to help others is also for the selfish motive of making myself feel better. If I¡¯m going to be selfish in helping others, then I may as well accept it and help people as selfishly as I damn well please.


    It took a while, but with the help of some of my Clever Spawns, we compiled a list of potential targets. Most of them were still in their protection period after finishing a raid, but they would no doubt be eyeing the Domains that had just lost protection.


    The target I had in mind for this raid were a pair of domains that always worked together to gang up on smaller domains. They also often had a group of vultures mulling about them. They would send in a Vulture with speed to lock down the enemy domain till they could close in.


    They would then strike from two sides with greater forces and overwhelm them. After the raid, they let the vultures dock to steal some extra land and then bought it from them after the battle. Usually leaving the target domain in shambles and having lost more than 30 or 40% of their domain.


    For the moment, we were following them as they closed in on a fresh domain that just lost protection. From our information, this domain was actually brand new, and this would be their first battle.


    To not be detected, we had to set the light on our domain to nothing, so everything was engulfed by darkness. Although we could sustain this for a while, after a day, it would start costing experience to remain ghosting. Now that our targets were moving in on a domain though, we wouldn¡¯t have to worry about that.


    Not that we could afford it anyway.


    It happened just as we¡¯d expected. A vulture domain raced forward to freeze the fleeing domain, and the other two moved in to try and dock. Which was about the same time that we decided to reveal ourselves.


    The moment they¡¯d split apart and were about to dock, we flicked the lights on, and a handful of ballista bolts shot through the sky locking one of the raiding domains down under raid status.


    The fresh domain looked like a yellow safari grassland and had some form of humanoid Wear-lions as inhabitants.


    The two raiding domains that we were hunting were both like mirror images of each other. They had biomes similar to a dark and eerie forest. The trees towered above the domain and inside was filled with darkness.


    The inhabitants of these islands was another pet hate of mine. Forrest Goblins. Sinister and evil little bastards at the best of times. Give them a domain and let two of the creatures meet up, they would follow their natural instinct and band together to gang up on weaker creatures.


    The two goblin domains were both larger than the defending domain and even my domain. Their radius was probably close to 4 or 5 kilometres each. They were also swarming with Forest Goblins. The moment chuckles Ballista struck, he and the dozen Shadow Spawn all used concealing arts and blend into the darkness of the forest.


    I controlled the domain to fly in and dock so that we slid into the gap between the raiding domain and the target domain. Unfortunately, we could only directly dock with one enemy domain and defending domain. That said, I wasn¡¯t planning to leave the defenders high and dry.


    I planned to simply send Seelie into the forest mounted on a little saddle I made for Morbid. It was probably going to be somewhat gruesome which is why I heroically led the rest of the spawn into the grassy plains.


    The first thing we met was the Wear-Lions. A huge Wear-lion stood at the front of a pride of about 90 other Wear-lions. They clearly didn¡¯t have the numbers to properly defend themselves. But they did have power. Just from a cursory glance, I could tell they would most likely be able to give my Spawn Army a run for their money based on their stats.


    If my army wasn¡¯t so diverse, I might have had trouble if I had to fight them. Luckily, they had shit resistances so the poison, curse and luck demons would take the advantage in the end. However, this time around we weren¡¯t here to fight them.


    Luckily I¡¯d brought along my diplomat. I may despise his silver tongue, but even I couldn¡¯t deny that it had its uses.


    Juwan stepped forward looking very gallant and heroic in a shiny silver armour that the Spawn all converted and had tried to steal numerous times. His plus 43 charisma stat, which was almost as high as my endurance stat, came to the fore as he described the situation.


    ¡°Lion man, I am Juwan of Murphy¡¯s Domain. We are hunting the nefarious Forest Goblins that have been plaguing the freshly spawned domains and request your assistance. You may not trust us, but I assure you we are here to help.


    ¡°Right now, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you try to fight us off, you will only exhaust yourselves and make it easier for our prey to escape. If you let us assist you, we will let you escort us around the edges of your domain and remain as distant as possible from your Lion den.¡±


    To my surprise, the leading lion talked in a manner I could easily understand and communicate with.


    ¡° ... talk so much ... what do you want?¡±


    I stepped forward to take over these discussions seeing as it was sometimes a bad thing to have too much charisma.


    ¡° ... gonna kill the goblins ... let us through...¡±


    ¡° ... sure...¡±


    Ahh. Things are so much easier when everyone has a shared understanding. Turned out Juwan was completely useless and I should have just left him at home.


    Things rapidly developed from there. The lion leader and I hit it off straight away and had a long conversation as we raced to the other side of the domain to help his kin.


    ¡° ... goblin hunters?...¡±


    ¡° ... sure ... Wanted help ... right?...¡±


    ¡° ... sure ... not gonna? ... you know...¡±


    ¡° ... nah...¡±


    It was very informative for the both of us, and we understood everything, which was great. It was rare to meet someone I found it so easy to talk to. When we reached the other side of the plains, the Spawns didn¡¯t even wait for orders as they just raced forward banging their shields with their little black daggers while screaming war cries.


    Curses were being launched everywhere and a few recent evolutions, Alchemist Spawn, were busily throwing explosive potions all over the place.


    The green-skinned goblins were shocked to discover that they were suddenly being pushed back. The sudden reinforcement was very much against their expectations. Soon the raid status from the goblins was gone, as they were forced back onto the bridge.


    The moment we reached the bridge, I saw a particularly fat and ugly goblin turn and start wobbling back into the woods. I could tell he planned to break the bridge and run. With me here it essentially maintained raid status on the lion domain so they wouldn¡¯t be able to disengage my domain and pursue.


    Seeing him hobbling off. I called a few Curse Spawn over and a couple Shadow Spawn. I then received a number of strength buffs with various negative effects, both from my own spells and also my curse spawn.


    I then started picking up shadow spawn and launching them across the bridge like missiles. The goblins clearly wouldn¡¯t let that happen and started firing arrows into the sky to try and kill them in flight.


    The only problem was, one of my Shadow Arts was missile deflection. It was something that the Spawn trained in daily because they all get some sick sense of enjoyment out of trying to hit each other with arrows.


    The goblins clearly weren¡¯t the most skilled archers, and the few arrows that got near were intercepted by deft dagger slashes and wild body movements. Even I was curious how they were moving around like that in mid-air.


    Some of them even had a skill I didn¡¯t, that let form a mist of shadows which they could dive through and teleport nearly 10 meters. In a few minutes, I had about 10 shadow spawn blending into the shadows of their forest, letting me set raid status so they couldn¡¯t escape.


    Thanks to them desperately trying to hunt down my underlings, the bridge defence lost some focus, and we started pushing even more fiercely. Spawn daggers were flicking about like little black blurs. The Wear-lions, seeing the unexpected reinforcements going absolutely ballistic and ripping into the goblins, refused to be outdone.


    They all started releasing some kind of innate ability. Their bodies grew in size, and all their muscles bulged out like taught springs. Every swing killed numerous goblins. The green little bastards were starting to feel the heat, and after half an hour of bloodshed from both sides, the goblins were finally pushed onto off the bridge completely and fell back into the forest to regroup and defend from the more advantageous terrain.


    Seeing this, I let out a loud whistle and all my Spawns starting running back towards the bridge as if their asses were on fire.


    Seeing this, the lion leader gave me a look but seeing me give him a reassuring thumbs up, also pulled his forces back.


    My little Alchemist Spawn all flicked their hands. Having been given semi-player status because they were citizens of my domain, they naturally received some of the perks. For example, they each had a player inventory.


    With the flick of their clawed little hands, strange little suits started falling onto the ground, and they quickly started equipping them. The suit looked like some kind of miniature hazmat suit and had an odd little container on the back with a spray nozzle.


    These had cost me a bit to get my hands on, and they were actually designed by and for dwarves. But they suited my needs perfectly, and when I discovered the Alchemy Spawn, I purchased them. It was due to expenses like this that I now had no experience points left.


    As soon as my spawn and the wear-lions retreated to the bridge, the Alchemy Spawn stepped forward and started pumping a little handle connected to the container on their backs. After which, a strange green mist poured out.


    As soon as the mist touched the grass, trees or shrubbery, a huge explosive green flame came out of nowhere and started engulfing the forest. As it spread, the Alchemy Spawn followed behind it lighting up more of the forest to keep it going.


    Everyone watched on as the huge forest was slowly enveloped in one of my most devious and cruel potions. The Burning Acid. Those huge green flames let off no smoke or heat, and instead just seemed to slowly disintegrate everything.


    It didn¡¯t last forever of course. The further the flame travelled, the weaker it got. That was why the Alchemy Spawn kept moving along keeping it going in their little hazmat suits.


    The glorious forest became like a huge green torch. Domains far off in the distance were horrified when they saw an entire domain suddenly light up in green flames that spread their eerie, sinister light like some kind of declaration.


    Saying; ¡°come over here ... and die¡±.


    I watched on, quite impressed with how fast the Burning Acid was working. I knew it could dissolve a corpse in less than a second. But I didn¡¯t expect it to dissolve something the size of these trees in such a short time.


    Making it even more vicious than a normal fire, was that unlike climbing the tree and trying to burn it all in one go, it dissolved the truck first making the tree fall into the forests, spreading the fire even faster.


    The little Alchemy Demons had to run just to keep up with it. It was a tough job seeing as there was only about 20 of them.


    After watching this unsettling scene for about half an hour, more than half the domain had been obliterated and become a barren wasteland. The Spawn had run out of juice and returned to let everyone else march in and finish clearing the enemies.


    The rest was very anticlimactic. Half of the remaining population had been eaten by the corrosive flames of the Burning Acid and with our overwhelming firepower and numbers, clearing out the last of the goblins was quick work.


    We had essentially won the raid when more than half of the forest had been burnt away. Long flat landscapes were the hunting ground of lion type beasts, and the Spawn were so adaptable the last bit of forest was easy for them.


    At last, the raid was cleared, and we stood at the centre of the Domain looking at a hole in the ground that was presumably the cave which was home to the Controller Goblin.


    When we entered, it appeared he¡¯d either died in the fires or escaped through a portal to avoid losing time and experience when he died. What he didn¡¯t realise though, was the reason I picked him first as my target.


    He had 3 portals. Which was rare for such young domains. Presumably, he and his friend had also been selling land for experience to higher rank domains, which was why they had no qualms buying it cheaply from the low-rank vultures.


    Two of the portals were random cycling portals similar to the one I had. The last was a fixed portal and led to a huge quest world called Six Star. It was formed from 6 smaller worlds joining forces to make a coalition and later leaving the Warz together to form a single planet with 6 Controllers.


    The most important part though, was that this world was very rich in raw materials and game. And something that stroked my fancy was that it was covered in all sorts of sinister types. It apparently had all sorts of black markets which dealt in things like land, assassinations and all manner of underworld trade.


    It wasn¡¯t that I wanted to particularly interact with them, but more that ... well ... the spawns had to eat something, right?


    Apart from the portals, it looked like most of the rest of the good stuff had been stuffed into the Controller¡¯s inventory and taken with him to prevent it being looted. That didn¡¯t matter though. I took off my left glove and reached out my hand towards the swirling blue mist.


    The mist then started to coagulate and form into a sparkly light. Slowly, it all started surging forth and soon became a little crystal in my hand. My deprive skill was truly monstrous sometimes. With it already at level 6, I could deprive more than just mana now.


    If I used enough mana myself, my deprive skill could take nearly anything from someone. It was almost like an overpowered ¡®steal¡¯ skill. If I put in the effort and mana, I could take just about anything. Even the special traits and attributes of enchanted weapons and equipment could be stolen and stored into a gem.


    I couldn¡¯t use them myself yet because to use the gem I needed something like the Imbue skill. Luckily I had Seelie, so those few times I¡¯d accidently deprived my gloves of their trait she could re-imbue it. Otherwise, a great many terrible accidents would have happened by now.


    I then reached out and stole another portal. Once I was done, I took a mana potion and then tried to steal the last random portal. Turns out, there are still some things I can¡¯t steal. Even after pouring all my mana into the skill, I couldn¡¯t take the portal that came with the domain.


    I felt it starting to loosen, but I just didn¡¯t have enough mana. Instead, I sent myself into Mana Depletion, and all my special traits kicked in. Even now, after training my endurance so high, pain from the soul was almost unbearable.


    Luckily, as my soul seemed to be tearing apart from complete exhaustion, Please Sir started patching it back together, and my Mana Demon title sped it up to 4 times the normal speed. Fortunately, the process was quicker than it used to be and I was guaranteed not to die from it. Unfortunately, I now had disordered mana, and it would be fluxing all over the place for the rest of the day.


    With the portal stones in hand, and having regained my senses once the withdrawal was over, I turned to the lion leader.


    ¡° ... thanks ... don¡¯t need the rest ... seeya...¡±


    ¡° ... sure ... next time...¡±


    ¡° ... sure ... no problem...¡±


    ¡° ... seeya...¡±


    I then called all my Spawns and quickly returned to make sure my domain hadn¡¯t been invaded. What I saw when I arrived left me slightly stunned. Almost like the other goblin domain, half this domain had been demolished.


    Morbid was still running around chomping heads off panicking goblins, and Seelie was occasionally pointing at stuff only for it to explode into flames or huge vines to grow out of the grounds and squeeze everything to death.


    He repertoire of magic spells was almost endless. I even watched on horrified as a goblin got a lucky shot with his bow only for the arrow to stop motionless in mid-air less than a foot from the back of Seelie¡¯s head. The horrifying part wasn¡¯t her omnipresent sixth sense or ability to freeze an arrow while still casting another spell.


    The horrifying part was when she turned her attention to the goblin, and I witnessed someone casting a Spell Model for the first time. I¡¯m not sure what the original spell was, but the results of the full Spell Model was a huge flaming meteor suddenly forming out of nowhere and falling directly onto that goblin.


    The shockwave proceeded to completely disintegrate his nearby companions, and the entire domain seemed to drop slightly in space from the force. It was like having two floating boards nailed together in water and dropping something heavy on one of them. My domain was also dragged down slightly as if following a wave motion while floating in the sea.


    The whole domain was engulfed in a huge dust storm, and bits and pieces of debris from stones and trees were shot everywhere like bullets. She was absolutely godlike in her casting abilities. It was too abnormal.


    I could also cast a spell model, but it was only the Ain¡¯t No Rest curse which would most likely only send a single person insane forever. I wasn¡¯t sure though because I¡¯d never actually tested it. Just the curse from the chant or spell pattern was already so cruel I wouldn¡¯t wish it on my worst enemies. If I actually used the full spell model, who could say what exactly would happen?


    It wasn¡¯t long before the dust cleared and I saw Seelie sitting atop the huge silhouette of Morbid, like some kind of queen of destruction. She looked valiant and powerful, and for the first time without her giving me an implant, something stirred.


    Which I quickly stamped to death, lit on fire and spread the ashes into the four winds. Those sorts of feelings. I didn¡¯t deserve to have them.


    Juwan stood beside me and gazed off towards the powerful and regal looking Seelie with an odd look in his eyes. He then looked at me with even stranger eyes, after which a shiver went up my spine. Whatever he was thinking about was beyond me.


    If he planned to do anything to Seelie, even if I didn¡¯t have the powers of the system, I would kill him.


    Things on the goblin domain calmed down, and all the spawns excitedly rushed in and started looting everything that wasn¡¯t obliterated by the flaming rock. I also went and looted the spare portal this domain had, which was made increasingly difficult by my fluxing mana.


    With our raids finished, we pulled back to the castle.


    The Spawn all threw a huge blood festival which was quickly followed by a huge fertility festival. Before we broke away, the Wear-Lion came to visit us.


    ¡° ... create party ... for land spoils ... then ... bye...¡±


    ¡° ... sure ... later...¡±


    Our fluent and precise method of communication left Juwan and Seelie both looking at as in a strange manner. We didn¡¯t care though. We understood. I entered my Domain Control Space and looked through all the domain options.


    I wasn¡¯t sure what I was looking for, but the lion man seemed to because I received an alert for a domain alliance. After accepting, we both broke off from the goblin domains. All the vultures nearby seemed to want to come in and steal a piece of the pie, but after the green flames and meteor, they decided against it.


    Even if we couldn¡¯t catch them with our domain. We could just drop a big flaming rock on them from a distance. On top of that, they¡¯d just seen us swoop in and rescue someone from two huge domains twice the size of us. They weren¡¯t willing to piss us off just for some quick gains.


    As we broke away, a huge chunk from both domains disintegrated into dust and swirled through space like a stream before building up along the edges of our domains. We both gained just over a kilometre from the two domains.


    In an instant, my domain had doubled in size. Space seemed to distort weirdly, and the biomes all seemed to grow and shit in a very strange manner. The altar and the buildings all seemed to stay where they were relative to the biome they were in.


    The Green grassy hill became a bit taller and wider covering nearly a kilometre in radius. The sinister land grew wider to about 600 metres, and the smog had the smallest growth in width but the most in actual square meters reaching 400 meters in radius.


    The twisted trees and tail flowers all seemed to rapidly multiply to fill the new space as if by magic, which presumably it was. With all the new dead stuff in the smog, it seemed to grow even more potent and vile.


    After testing it, I discovered that the more the biome grew, the more poisonous it became. Before I could just barely withstand it. Now, it was actually almost painful. I determined that I¡¯d slacked off in my training lately and hadn¡¯t bothered much with my own skills and stats since we moved to the domain.


    A new addition to the domain was a stream. It seemed to be some kind of magical spring that started in a little pond near the castle and flowed through all three biomes down towards space, where it just poured off the edge.


    After some investigating, I determined it poured off the edge and then seemed to become mist that was sucked back into the huge rocky spike that was the base of the island which was our domain.


    Unsurprisingly, it seemed to become more and more corrupt the further it got from the castle. The moment it entered the sinister lands it started to become slightly murky. It was like catnip for the Spawn though. They went swimming the moment they discovered it.


    By the time it reached the Smog Marsh, the water had become very vile looking. After it left the smog biome, it looked like toxic waste. It actually glowed as it floated out into space and evaporated, which I¡¯m pretty sure it shouldn¡¯t normally be doing.


    Just out of curiosity, I tried some at the very edge before it went into space. Turns out, even my endurance can¡¯t handle everything. After spending nearly 7 hours in the castle slowly dying, I was logged out and slapped with my first 12-hour suspension.Stolen novel; please report.


    I¡¯m not sure who got experience if I accidentally killed myself. I half expect it to just go straight into the communal account of the Domain, since technically, the domain killed me. At least, that was the case when the tail flowers all planted themselves everywhere and started eating scorpions.


    More importantly, I¡¯m not certain how exactly I died, seeing as I can¡¯t die from poison and I should have some immunity to sinister mana attacks. That could only mean the mixture of the two things had created something else? It¡¯s probably something like a disease or virus if I had to guess.


    <hr>


    With having died, Murphy was now trapped on earth for 12 hours before he could log back in. That meant that Seelie was now in charge and had to take care of everything while he was gone. Which was probably better since she was a little more level-headed than Murphy and didn¡¯t just stare off into space now and then.


    It had been a while, so she ended up deciding to take Morbid out for a walk. She saddled him up and called chuckles and Juwan over. Unlike Murphy, Seelie didn¡¯t seem to think too badly of Juwan. She knew Murphy was guarded against him though, and definitely wouldn¡¯t want him left here alone in his domain without someone keeping an eye on him.


    Certainly, the Spawn could probably do it, but they had a pension for distraction, and all it would take is one Curse Spawn firing a curse somewhere, and a festival of fertility would suddenly explode on the island.


    That being the case, she didn¡¯t have much other choice than to bring him with her. Chuckles, of course, had long since expressed the need for him to accompany her if she ever left the domain without Murphy. He understood that the two people cared for each other in different ways and Murphy would definitely be displeased if he failed to protect her while she was walking the dog.


    Morbid, being saddled up, immediately knew that he was going to get to go for walkies and so his excitement was unquantifiable. He almost couldn¡¯t stop himself from jumping around madly as Seelie put his saddle on.


    Chuckles pulled together a contingent of 2nd evolutions with Shadow Arts to join him in protecting Seelie. This group of 24 was Murphy¡¯s most frequently used group when he chose to move about and quest for experience. They had a variety of different evolutions, some Curse Spawn, some Clever Spawn and even an Alchemist Spawn and 2 Luck Spawn.


    But each one of them had Shadow Arts as their other evolution, and it made them perfect for hiding away and protecting the Queen from harm. Queen being the title they gave Seelie themselves. After all, Spawn weren¡¯t complete animals and could at least pick out the most obvious of signs.


    Which says a lot about where Murphy¡¯s head space was at in regards to this topic.


    After some preparing, Seelie chose the fixed portal. They now had 3 portals, with one of the plundered portals still in crystal form because it was another fixed portal to Six Stars Planet and they planned to sell it. Of the three they had, two were random, and following Murphy¡¯s luck, 1 was still stuck on barren lands, and one was on a lava planet.


    Just as they prepared to leave, two fat goblins walked out from the fixed blue portal, obviously not expecting to find themselves face to face with a giant Hell Hound on someone else¡¯s domain.


    An awkward silent moment followed in which the two parties stared at each other and then Morbid seemed to realise that these creatures were food and chomped down. Biting one in half.


    Green blood sprayed everywhere, and the other goblin controller was just about to turn back and run when three Spawn suddenly appeared out of Morbid¡¯s huge shadow and their pointy little black daggers stabbed into the goblin.


    The corpse and what was left of the other were left for the others to loot and Seelie urged her party on, acting as if nothing had happened.


    When Morbid¡¯s huge head made contact with the comparatively tiny little mist portal, the mists surged wildly until it completely engulfed Morbid. Quickly following through was Juwan, Chuckles and the Shadow Squad.


    The moment they passed through, the shadow squad split up, some of them jumping onto Morbid¡¯s fur and blending into his shadow while others scurried about into the shadows of nearby trees and landscape.


    They came out into a rather lush dark forest, not unlike the forest goblin¡¯s domains. The terrain was covered in old downed trees and huge boulders here and there. It was a great place to take Morbid for a walk. They eventually planned to tear as many of these trees down as possible anyway.


    Seeing the endless expanse of trees in every direction, Morbid raced off with Seelie on his back and started jumping around and sprinting all over the place. Like any other dog, he would find ubiquitous places to urinate on things, which more often than not had the power behind the stream to cut most plant life in half.


    Only the stronger and older trees managed to suffer the water jet attack from Morbid. He would then race off further into the forest to smell some other things and destroy some more flora.


    Seelie didn¡¯t seem particularly phased by Morbid¡¯s jumping and sprinting. She¡¯d long since activated a spell to allow herself to freely change her inertia in tune with Morbid and didn¡¯t even appear to suffer the slightest of bumps.


    After about an hour of pointless walkies, which Seelie took advantage of to scout around their portal, Seelie sent one of the Spawn back to start setting up some resource points and dragging things back through to the domain for building and construction.


    She then told Juwan to get up, and the rest of the Shadow Squad joined him. Seelie then patted Morbid¡¯s head and he took off in a dead sprint to go exploring even further out.


    The Spawn absolutely loved the experience. An exciting ride on a huge killing machine was something they dreamed about in their sleep, the fact that the huge killing machine was also fluffy was just a bonus to them.


    Juwan, on the other hand, seemed to nearly lose his lunch numerous times and had already lost count of the number of times he was almost thrown off when Morbid suddenly stopped or changed direction on a dime. Which for such a big creature should have been close to impossible.


    After almost 2 hours of travel by Morbid, the group found the ends of the forest and entered onto a huge grassy plain that stretched out for as far as the eye could see.


    All sorts of strange dumb looking beasts were meandering about eating grass, giving credence to Seelie¡¯s postulation that these meadows must belong to someone and were used for grazing livestock.


    The somewhat shabby wooden fence along the edge of the meadow and forest was also more evidence, and she made sure Morbid didn¡¯t crush it under foot as he passed over it.


    Her eye glittered slightly as she considered what this meant. Most likely, there was civilisation nearby. If that was the case, she could abuse these twelve hours Murphy was gone for and complete some quests for experience and loot.


    It would also give her a chance to level up some spells that wouldn¡¯t completely obliterate their domain when she cast them.


    <hr>


    I can say without doubt, that little brother¡¯s taste in women is exquisite. That Seelie girl, although I¡¯ve only met her a few times, she is in a league of her own. I also readily acknowledge my loss to little brother in this regard.


    Unlike all the women I¡¯ve known on earth, she has not once glanced at me or even seemed to acknowledge my existence. Apart from taking me on this journey with her, which I suspect was more to appease the shrewd and suspicious mind of Little Brother, she hasn¡¯t even spoken to me.


    That said, the regal and noble bearing with which she holds herself is almost like she isn¡¯t even actually human but some celestial. No matter what, I will protect Little Brother¡¯s girlfriend! Well ... it is probably wrong to call her his girlfriend.


    For starters, little brother seems completely obtuse to her constant advances. The only time I¡¯ve seen her act like anything less than a goddess is when she is interacting with Murphy. Regardless of her open as a book affections though, Little Brother remains oblivious. If I hadn¡¯t known him for six years, I would think that he deliberately ignores her affections.


    I will help this young couple along! I must find a way for Little Brother to realise future sister-in-law Seelie¡¯s feelings. At least in this, I have a comrade in arms. Although Chuckles is very brash and would normally be a creature I would immediately slay on sight, I have come to learn that he is a huge romantic at heart.


    He, like me, cares greatly for Little Brother, and as two kindred spirits we have already gravitated towards one another and begun devising some kind of method to push Murphy forward, so he¡¯s forced to recognise the feelings he has in his heart!


    Even at the cost of our lives, we two, brother and minion, have sworn by blood pact to ensure this happens.


    On the mention of Chuckles, I have learnt a great deal about Murphy from him. For starters, I was rather worried when I first came into the game to join him and play together. This was thanks to an endless onslaught of rumours I¡¯d heard about him from all sorts of people.


    When I first came to his domain, it only reaffirmed some of those rumours, and worried me even more when I saw what direction his domain was leaning in. I¡¯d thought I would have to put on a solemn big brother act and step in to try and correct him.


    It was only after Chuckles and I first met that I discovered what Little Brother was doing here was completely different from my expectations. I also had to scold myself ruthlessly because I¡¯d let something as petty as appearances cloud my judgement of my wonderful Little Brother.


    It turned out that he actually suffered through all this for the purpose of helping a dying race restart fresh and anew. Giving these creatures on the brink of extinction not only a home, but teaching them important life values and ethics as well.


    The cost of doing this deed was that he would look like a supporter of evil and a sinister overlord that enslaved this race. The truth was so much different from what anyone, even myself, would have expected.


    Unfortunately, even after I explained this to the Spawns, they refuted me in arguing that, how their culture looks to others isn¡¯t their concern, and that was something that even Murphy agreed with. They technically weren¡¯t doing anything wrong.


    Just because another race or society is pedantic about respecting the dead by burying them, the Spawn respect their enemies who died in bloody battle against them by painting walls with their blood and hanging their cracked skull everywhere.


    If anything, their respect for their dead and even the dead of their enemies was on a whole other level beyond just burying them somewhere they would likely forget about them. For as long as their remains survived the ravages of time, the Spawn would show their respect to those they fought in battle by keeping them insight and showing them off like trophies.


    It seemed Murphy had been teaching them a lot of similar things, because every time I wanted to refute the methods with which they did something, they would argue back like skilled theologists and philosophers. It was almost as if every spawn raised by Murphy had the sub-class Philosopher.


    In the end though, the argument that always struck me down the quickest was; As long as we feel what we¡¯re doing is right, what does it matter what everyone else thinks?


    Although it¡¯s a selfish way to live, in the end, I had to agree that every motive is selfish. That is the whole purpose of being a ¡®self¡¯. Otherwise, you are just a thing. Something used for someone else¡¯s self. It is like the underlying law of all sentient life.


    It seems I have become too philosophical as well. I¡¯ve only spent a few day with these creatures, and they¡¯re already starting to rub my Little Brothers ideals off onto me. I don¡¯t mind though. I¡¯ve always thought that little brother was out of his natural habitat on earth. I am certain, Little Brother is really a King in spirit, and has only been waiting for this chance to step into the role he was born for.


    Haa ... alas, if only he would acknowledge his queen. For that to happen, Chuckles and I are most likely going to have to step in.


    When we finally stopped for a break, Chuckles went and had an animated conversation with Morbid. He¡¯s such a good dog, and in my opinion, the perfect mount for Little Brother. His ferocious combat potential is second only to his huge heart ... well third perhaps, seeing as the only thing bigger than Morbid¡¯s heart is his stomach.


    Morbid seemed to mostly understand the gist of our plan, and after a great deal of persuading and assurances by Chuckles and myself, he hesitantly agreed. Now we had everyone in on the plan.


    We naturally couldn¡¯t tell Seelie. If we did, she would most likely decline to participate. She seemed to think the only way to steal Murphy¡¯s affections was through power and patiently wearing him down.


    Although I somewhat agreed with that prospect, and acknowledged that perhaps the only way she would be able to snatch Little Brother was by raping him, I didn¡¯t fully endorse such a method.


    As the day dragged on, we finally reached a huge city. It was about half a day¡¯s journey south of our portal. The moment we got there, the mixed inhabitants all quickly parted like commoners venerating the majesty of a Queen.


    It was either that, or the huge vicious looking demon beast, Morbid, frightened most people out of the way. Due to his size, we were forced to mostly use the larger roads in the city to get around. Shadow Spawns left for missions from Chuckles and returned intermittently only to race off again and collect more information.


    In about an hour, we managed to accumulate a pretty good list of all the Quest¡¯s currently being offered in the city. Seelie chose a few quests to go and investigate after reading through the list.


    Naturally, the quest she chose first had the best rewards but was also the most dangerous. Dragon Slaying.


    I had always thought, from all the old stories, that dragons were so rare you would be more likely to die from breathing air than encounter one. Turns out that they¡¯re actually something akin to a plague in this dimension.


    They turned up a few hundred years ago, and ever since, half the Quest Planets have been overrun by the vermin. They¡¯ve claimed endless amounts of land and lives. Even the 6 Stars, the Controllers of this Quest Planet, had trouble dealing with them.


    At the same time, they were excellent sources of experience, and they tended to gather huge amounts of loot, so other players were often relentless in trying to attack them. The dragons actually didn¡¯t even need to move most of the time.


    They just set up in some dungeon or took over a castle then adventurous, ignorant or foolishly brave players would race over to slay them, only to be devoured instead. The worst part was that Dragons were huge cowards who would fly off the moment they felt danger, and they had an innate talent called ¡®Looting¡¯. If I¡¯m honest, they aren¡¯t ancient and noble creatures as I¡¯d heard in stories, and were just petty thieves.


    They may be one of the most powerful races in the Domain Warz, but their characters were more akin to filthy bandits that robbed and cowered the weak while simultaneously robbing and fearing the strong.


    Usually, the former would result in someone weak being eaten, and the latter would result in the huge scaly winged bastards flying away as fast as they possibly could, while laughing and counting the gold they¡¯d ¡®looted¡¯ from the adventurer¡¯s pockets before fleeing.


    Anyway, we mostly expected her to jump into the most rewarding and dangerous mission first. For our plan to work out, Chuckles, Morbid and I would need to do some ingenious deception so that everything was set up just right.


    Murphy should be logging back in within the next 24 game hours, which hopefully will be enough time for us to set everything up properly.


    <hr>


    I was curious as to why Juwan was so insistent we wait for a short while before going to slay the dragon. I also felt that something was odd when Morbid didn¡¯t race at full speed to get a chance for some huge bones to gnaw on.


    I became incredibly suspicious when we reached the dragon¡¯s lair and Chuckles somehow ended up tied down by weak creatures in the beginning. Then Juwan somehow got tied down by some lizard people that I¡¯m pretty sure he could kill with a sneeze, and finally Morbid somehow couldn¡¯t keep the dragon at bay and was knocked unconscious.


    Just as I was preparing to cast a Spell Model and simply obliterate everything, I felt a little prick in my thigh, and suddenly all my Mana drained out of me in a matter of seconds. Without Mana, I essentially became useless and powerless.


    The oddest part of everything was that my defensive spells were almost flawless and the few weak spots they had where the size of a penny and could be counted on both hands. The only way to pick them out would be if you were to already know they were there.


    Before my suspicions could become full blown paranoia though, I was captured. Chuckles and his Spawns were, ¡®somehow¡¯ fought off and Juwan disappeared in the midst of battle. Morbid was the least convincing of everyone as he silently played dead while constantly looking up just to make sure I was still OK.


    If I didn¡¯t know how protective the Spawn and Morbid were of me, I would most surely have suspected them of having set some kind of trap to deliberately hand me straight to the dragon. Instead, the only other conclusion I could find was that they were setting a trap for Murphy, which made even less sense.


    It seemed I was somewhat doomed now. The huge red dragon was busily gloating and ogling me with perverted eyes while roaring proudly for beating a little human girl like a huge asshole. Things then started happening rather quickly as the Dragon declared it was going to trap me in a tower to use as bait.


    When I first entered the game, and I was asked if I wanted to change my race or image, I somewhat hesitantly agreed. I simply asked to be beautiful enough that Murphy could never resist me. After having met Jasmine, the Game Master, I came to realise that she was quite prideful of herself and so gave me an image very much similar to her own.


    This was more or less claiming that Murphy would never be able to resist her. Although the thought of anyone else making a move on Murphy pissed me off, I couldn¡¯t deny the fact that she, and now I, was a stunning beauty.


    That was also the reason that I was now being used as bait by the Dragon to lure in stupid hotheaded adventurers that thought with their dicks. They were usually the stupidest of the stupid ones, and more often than not, they were loaded with loot. Perfect for the Dragon.


    I wasn¡¯t too pleased my new arrangements. For starters, I could already tell that the moment some oaf in shiny armour with more muscles than brains storms in here, if he somehow gets lucky enough to kill the dragon, he would immediately claim all the loot, which presumably includes me.


    One of two things will generally happen in this situation. He will insist, and will try to abscond with me back to his domain where he¡¯ll hold a huge gallant wedding and then ¡®claim¡¯ me. Or Morbid will stop fooling around and eat said gallant knight.


    With no other choice, I was locked in a tower above a dirty old abandoned castle, and the dragon stalked about looking menacing while pretending not to see Morbid occasionally looking up at the tower now and then just to check on me.


    I was now thoroughly confused by the motives of my adventuring party. I had some inklings of an idea what they might be trying to accomplish, in which case, if I were correct I would be training them all in dodging skills the moment Murphy came and rescued me.


    Haa ... rescued me ... it sounds so romantic, and it would definitely be a lie if I said this wasn¡¯t a little fantasy of mine. At the same time though, I have much stronger fantasies. None of which involve me being some distressed damsel in need of rescue.


    My top fantasy would be an actual real date! Just a simple stroll. A chat. Dinner. Sharing feelings ... kiss ... oh and then...


    Well ... nowhere in that fantasy was there a need for Murphy to rescue me from anything other than the torment of waiting forever for him to stop being so dense. I could just openly admit my feelings to him, but there are so many reasons that held me back.


    While I¡¯m no social butterfly, of the two of us, I am definitely the one that can communicate more easily. In that case, it wouldn¡¯t be unnatural for me to confess my feelings. The only problem is ... he never fucking listens! If I made a fool of myself confessing and he was busy day dreaming, I would die of embarrassment!


    Then there are all these other reasons. Chief amongst them, and the reason everyone is afraid of confessing. Fear! I¡¯m too afraid to say it because what if I say it and he says nothing at all. Or even worse, directly shoots me down!


    If I admit what I feel, especially to a person like Murphy, and he rejects those feelings...


    I would rather wait! I¡¯ll wait for fucking ever if I have to! Slowly, day by day, I¡¯ll wear away at him until he has no choice but to admit his feelings. Or at the very least ... to acknowledge mine!


    Haa ... but then, perhaps I am being too arrogant? Perhaps he truly has no other feelings for me, like what I feel for him...


    Oh ... Is he finally here? Murphy¡¯s always fucking late. He better be ready for a long lecture! I¡¯m gonna lecture him to death! But what if he comes and he finally...


    And then...


    And if...


    Bang!


    <hr>


    A huge battle raged down in the dilapidated castle that was now the dragon¡¯s lair. Magic was flying everywhere and the sounds of swords and shields clashing echoed across the dreary looking landscape around the castle.


    Seelie couldn¡¯t see what was going on, but the dragon appeared to be losing. The strange part was that she could hear shouting, which was something that would only happen if there were multiple people, as opposed to a single Murphy and his Spawn.


    Soon quiet enveloped the castle. It didn¡¯t take long to discover that the dragon had looted half the adventurers and fled into the sky like the cowardly beasts they are.


    Moments after Seelie spotted the huge silhouette of the dragon disappearing into the skyline, the door of the tower was busted open with a vigorous kick.


    ¡°Young lady, you needn¡¯t worry. I¡¯ve come to ... rescue ... Great Heavens ... you¡¯re beautiful.¡±


    ¡°Sighh ... Yes yes. Move aside then, I¡¯ll be on my way.¡±


    Seelie knew it was a long shot, but she decided she would try anyway. As she expected, the gorgeous looking blonde haired prince, who was in every way a clich¨¦ damsel rescuer/dragon slayer, stepped forward into the room of the tower, grasped Seelie by the waist and forced her into his embrace.


    ¡°Princess of the Tower. I have travelled endless days and nights to rescue you at the behest of your loyal entourage. You needn¡¯t worry any longer. I will be your shield for a lifetime. Your sword for an eternity. As long as stars fill the sky, I will protect you.


    ¡°I have heard of the dark prince that locked you away here to force you to marry him, and I will stop at nothing to destroy him.¡±


    Seelie simply stood there limply, making no effort to escape but also making no effort to try and become closer. She knew she didn¡¯t have the strength to resist until the toxin that had emptied her mana wore off, and she could restore it.


    She just looked at the knight in shining armour like an idiot as he professed his love at first sight.


    ¡°I can tell at this single moment¡¯s glance. In fact, before I even came. I knew I was destined to meet my true love. The only one in this world that could possibly captivate my gaze. I am now more certain than ever, that my true love is you!¡±


    ¡°Who the fuck even are you? I don¡¯t want your love. Keep it.¡±


    Seelie made no bones about ruthlessly stomping the shit out his heart. At the same time, she was trying to work out where all this shit about a loyal entourage and dark prince was coming from. Also days? She¡¯d only been locked in here for a few hours.


    It then clicked, and she seemed to realise what sort of terrible plot line Juwan had created to convince some schmuck to rescue her before Murphy and take her away.


    The whole thing would create a sense of urgency and loss for Murphy. If he truly had feelings for her, the thought of some loser in shining armour that looked like he was born with a stick up his ass trying to take her away and marry her would drive him into desperation.


    He wouldn¡¯t be able to stop himself from racing forth to rescue her. At the same time, even if his feelings weren¡¯t so inclined, his code of ethics would force him to come and help Seelie, and Juwan would be hoping that in the following escapade of adventures that Murphy would have to recognise her feelings for him, and likewise eventually develop similar feelings for her.


    She just let out a sigh of exasperation.


    The prince charming gave her a strange look then let go and humbly bowed.


    ¡°I am Prince Charming of the Whitest Teeth. From the domain of Seventh Heaven in the vast Merithal Star Plain. Apologies my Princess for not introducing myself, I was simply mesmerised by your beauty and I couldn¡¯t...¡±


    ¡°Yeah. OK, that¡¯s great. So what do you want exactly?¡±


    The Prince held his head up high with a straight back and flashed his remarkably impressive pearly whites.


    ¡°Naturally, I will rescue you, and take you back to my land to be wed together, where you can bear my young. Those hips will be fine childbearing...¡±


    ¡°Fine. Let¡¯s go get married or whatever and live happily ever after. Here are a few gifts from me that will help you out along the way.¡±


    Among the things she pulled out of her inventory were a broken dagger, a rabbit¡¯s foot and some little wooden carvings of animals. Also, there were all sorts of actually useful things. About three skill books, some instant recovery potions, and some cure potions along with various other equipment or consumables.


    Prince Charming was so happy he was wordless. He collected up all the things and wore them on him like lucky charms. At the same time, he started opening the skill books.


    Seelie reached out a hand to stop him.


    ¡°You should wait. These are for when you need them most.¡±


    With that, the Prince Charming rather aggressively picked her up in the customary princess carry and took her down to the entrance of the castle where his comrades were busily swearing into the sky about how the dragon looted them then ran off.


    He placed her on the back of a magnificent white steed and made no delays in racing back to his kingdom.


    As it goes with all adventures for a Prince Charming and Beautiful Princess, all sorts of sinister forces began to operate in the darkness to try and hinder him. They met another prince who became exceedingly jealous, which resulted in the two princes fighting over Seelie like children.


    After Prince Charming managed to defeat this foe, he accidentally cut himself on the broken old dagger and got an infection, leaving him slightly crippled for the rest of the journey.


    The rabbit¡¯s foot attracted a strange beast that remarkably and very coincidentally happened to enjoy rabbit¡¯s feet. Even if the thing was stuffed.


    Prince charming lost half his retinue in the ensuing battle. They then met with an old witch who took exception to a pair of boots he had. During this battle, he was beaten back severely and was forced to open one of the skill books in hopes it was useful.


    Turned out to be a skill book for doll making. When he opened the next one, it was a skill for gymnastics. The final one was a skill for the dog paddle swimming style. How these kinds of things were even considered skills was beyond him.


    Nonetheless, being a heroic prince, he took advantage of these skills. To level something like dog paddling up to level one is akin to swimming a thousand kilometres with the dog paddle. What kind of masterful dog paddling would that be?


    The prince used his gymnastics to evade spells and lured the witch towards water, where he then became like a dog and started paddling around. His doll making skills remained useless, but after accidentally splashing some water on the witch she just seemed to melt, and the problem was solved.


    By the time they reached the portal to his domain, nearly every creature that was within 20 kilometres of their travel path had attacked them at least once. Not to mention that there was an endless number of innocuous traps that appeared to be like everyday things which coincidentally happened to all target the prince.


    It was almost the next morning when they finally reached the Prince¡¯s portal. The moment they got there, the rest of his party all let out relieved sighs. Just as they started moving through the portal. Seelie stopped and looked back with a very strange expression.


    She¡¯d slightly enjoyed the trip. Apart from the prince constantly leering at her and describing how he planned to put babies in her, the parts where he faced an endless onslaught of danger was quite fun. Everything Seelie gave him was something that Murphy had either accidentally or intentionally cursed with bad luck.


    Seelie kept a hold on some of them now and then just in case she ever found a use for them.


    As enjoyable as it was watching the pompous ass that was Prince Charming fight for his life to bring her to his domain and claim her as his, Murphy never came. She¡¯d thought to just go along for the trip and have a chuckle now and then. If Murphy showed up, which she was pretty sure he would, then she would go home with him.


    It wasn¡¯t that she needed the rescue, her Mana had started to restore just as she was leaving the castle. It was that she wanted to know that he cared. Now that he hadn¡¯t turned up at all, she was somewhat upset.


    Thanks to that, she simply turned around and started to walk home again. Not giving the first thought to the Prince who was expecting her to simply come with him and make some babies like some sow.


    Turned out, the Prince was every bit the man Seelie had known he was. She was quite the good judge in character, and the moment she started to walk off, the prince finally lost his shit!


    ¡°Oi! You little bitch! Where the fuck are you going? Aye?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going home Mister Charming. Your character may project well onto others, but you smelt like hypocrite and lust from the moment I saw you. Good day.¡±


    Although she wasn¡¯t a princess, she¡¯d been acting like one all day for shits and giggles, and had a little trouble not politely telling him to fuck off. Plus, she rather enjoyed the pleasant way these nobles spoke. It was perfect for speaking down to people with. Like it was invented for just that purpose.


    ¡°Like hell! You¡¯ll be coming with me, you little tower whore! I¡¯m going to enjoy pillaging you. Then when I¡¯m done, you¡¯re going into the pen with the other breeders!¡±


    As he said this, his body began to twist and morph slightly. Bit by bit, his muscles bulged out and expanded to the point that his shiny armour started to crack and the chainmail on his arms split apart.


    Slowly, his body grew in size until he looked like a hulking, hairy, pig-faced man.


    ¡°Oink! Oink oink! Get ready ¡®Princess¡¯. This prince charming is gonna oink you into submission. Oink!¡±


    Seelie watched on, completely unsurprised apparently. Which also shouldn¡¯t surprise anyone else, seeing as the girl is like a walking encyclopaedia. If she didn¡¯t have abilities that could see through this sort of concealment spell then what kind of Scholarly Mage would she be?


    She let out another sigh as if this was more trouble than it was worth. She readily admitted now that she was most likely being a hypocrite and fooling herself this whole time. She actually really, really wanted Murphy to come and rescue her. Even if she didn¡¯t need it.


    She went to summon her spell tome to clear this pig man from the face of the planet only for her body to suddenly grow numb. She reached around behind her and flicked her hand, causing a little spider to land in the grass and scurry off towards Prince Charming.


    ¡®Shit, a paralysis familiar of some kind? When did he set that on me? Back at the tower? That was the only time I let him touch me! He was planning to simply abduct me from the beginning? Fuck!¡¯


    Seelie¡¯s body grew numb almost instantly. Her mouth grew numb, and she couldn¡¯t chant. Her hands grew numb, and her spell tome fell to the ground before vanishing into sparkly lights and returning to her status space. She couldn¡¯t even lift her arms, and slowly her entire body became limp and fell like a noodle to the ground.


    The huge pig man stomped forward with grunts and oinks. His big rough hands reached out and grabbed Seelie¡¯s waist as he lifted her up.


    Her muscles were so relaxed that her body simply arched backwards in the grasp of his huge hands, with no power to resist or even straighten her back. She now truly felt helpless.


    While one hand stayed on her waist, circling around her completely with a vice-like grip, the other hand of the pig man started rustling around out of sight. She then heard the ripping of her robes as they were torn from her limp body and some huge, round, hot object started moving along her thigh towards her sacred place.


    Tears fell from her eyes, and her heart was filled with bitterness. She knew that she had been cocky thanks to the power level of her spells and she was resentful that Murphy hadn¡¯t shown up yet, so she enjoyed herself tormenting the sick bastard all the way here.


    Because of that, she now really was a damsel in distress.


    The pig man reached out and grabbed her by the neck, lifting her up to watch as he took that something special from her. When he lifted her up, he was surprised to find that Seelie¡¯s teary face wasn¡¯t filled with the distressed panicking look he loved so much.


    Instead, her eyes were angry and filled with resolve, while a sinister smile arched up the corner of her mouth as if she was secretly laughing at the pig man.


    <hr>


    I was rather upset. Actually, I may be understating my level of ire. Upset perhaps couldn¡¯t cover it. Juwan, I expected nothing less from. The scheming bastard no doubt had a part to play in all this.


    Morbid was a fucking dog, and even at the best of times, I can¡¯t rely on him to make intelligent decisions.


    Chuckles, however, I truly felt betrayed by. He was my most loyal subordinate and like a close friend. I personally raised him up from a little level 1 Spawn to where he is now. A Demon Commander. The epitome of current Spawn Evolution.


    I also instilled in him all my values and expectations. As one of the few endurance evolved spawn that managed to get the ¡®Young Forever¡¯ trait, my expectations for him were high, and the tutelage and trust I placed in him even higher.


    Now though, I returned to my domain only to find out they¡¯d gone off on a raid, and fucking lost Seelie.


    How does one just lose someone? It¡¯s quite simple. They think they¡¯re being clever, and then they make a huge fuck up! From the story I got from them when I returned, after some douchebag raced in and ¡®rescued¡¯ her, he wandered off with her while my loyal minions followed.


    Then, all sorts of strange occurrences started to happen. Witch attacks and beast hordes. I could tell just from the way they described it that Seelie was throwing cursed luck item all around the place.


    Thanks to that, these idiots lost track of them in the middle of some haunted woods and now they were here sobbing and crying because they knew they¡¯d fucked up. They also knew that the moment I find Seelie and bring her back, I was going to spend every experience point I had on a Resurrection spell so that I could kill them all, bring them back then kill them again.


    I would then continue that trend until, and probably after, the next raid. Most likely also the raid after that for good measure.


    I didn¡¯t have time to play house though, and mounted Morbid before racing off to Six Star Planet with great haste.


    Nothing stood in my way. Anything that did, if Morbid couldn¡¯t kill it in a single hit, I promised him that I was going to push him off the edge of the domain and watch him float off into space where he could suffocate to death.


    With every minute that passed in my frantic pursuit, my heart grew tenser. Hurts So Good had collapsed in almost the same instant I heard the news from Juwan and Chuckles. It was like a dam wall under the tide of a tsunami that reached into the stratosphere ... useless.


    Although my mental fortitude was powerful, the thought of anything happening to Seelie was unbearable. So I refused to think it. I begged and pleaded with every deity from every religion even going back to before the new order.


    I urged Morbid on until even his robust body was on the verge of collapse.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has created a happy accident. +2 Luck.¡¯


    With a system prompt that made me happy, the wind changed slightly, and Morbid caught their scent again. Morbid¡¯s big wet nose sniffed furiously, and with a howl, he charged forth once more.


    Perhaps he felt the growing urgency in my heart, but he pushed his body beyond its limits and then some. After crossing the haunted forest, we reached a lush forested area where it was clear someone had been harvesting resources. Trees were cut down in places and piled in high stacks ready for processing. Stumps and roots riddled the ground and dirt was ripped up everywhere from stones being dragged out.


    As we passed through the high stacks of logs, Morbid rounded a bend, and the portal was in sight. His huge paws ripped through the dirt of the forest floor, and his body rocked to stop.


    My heart lurched in my chest, and it ached. As if all the pain I¡¯d felt in my life had been stockpiled here for a single catastrophic release.

 Chapter 10: Everyone Loves Treasure

    Murphy jumped down from Morbid¡¯s back. His heart in his throat and his voice raspy and filled with killing intent.


    ¡°Morbid. Kill him.¡±


    With a single command from Murphy, Morbid let out a ground shaking roar. The pig man¡¯s entire body locked up as the effects of an innate spell, ¡®Fear¡¯, fell onto him and froze his body like a statue. His fingers grew limp and shakenly dropped Seelie from his huge fat hands.


    Only a brief moment from ruining Seelie¡¯s life forever.


    Morbid¡¯s mighty roar echoed through the surroundings and was still sounding out as he lurched forward. His movements for such a huge beast were so fast it almost seemed as if he¡¯d teleported. His rage was corporeal as with a single swipe, pig man was launched into the forest like a huge sack of meat from a catapult.


    Trees snapped in half from the force of his projectile motion. Before he could even touch the ground, Morbid was already a step behind him, swinging his paws as huge sharp claws scratched down and took with them the pig man¡¯s arm.


    Murphy quickly raced up to the lifeless body of Seelie, only to be stunned when he discovered she was already dead. Her mouth was filled with blood. Although he was no coroner, he could guess that she¡¯d bitten the tip of her tongue off to escape her fate.


    He could only let out a long breath when he came back to his senses. You couldn¡¯t log out when you were in the midst of battle or outside of a safe zone, but that didn¡¯t mean you couldn¡¯t kill yourself and force a logout.


    He felt somewhat relieved that Seelie had escaped the fate of suffering this foul creature¡¯s touch. If she¡¯d still been logged in when he arrived, and something had happened. Perhaps Chuckles, Morbid and Juwan truly would come to understand the phrase ¡®wishing for death but cannot die¡¯.


    He eyed the swirling portal nearby and reached a hand towards it. A little zap of lightning sparked out and forced him to retract his hand.


    ¡®So they already have wards on their portals? They must be fairly advanced. No matter. I will seek redress for this situation in time.¡¯


    ¡°Morbid. Come.¡±


    Morbid finished ripping the corpse of the pig man to shreds, then walked over to see Murphy holding the lifeless corpse of Seelie in his arms with a dark expression. Morbid, feeling some guilt for this situation let loose a long mourning wail into the sky.


    His cry was filled with sadness and anguish. As if he was crying over the death of his closest kin. The forests shook, and creatures for kilometres in every direction fled as they felt a huge killing intent suddenly engulf the entire forest.


    Every living thing nearby felt their body¡¯s become cold and it was as if they were on the verge of having their tiny little lives snuffed out by some enraged deity¡¯s wrath.


    Murphy looted Seelie¡¯s corpse then jumped onto Morbid. They raced back to their domain so that Murphy could log out and check on Seelie.


    <hr>


    Shit, shit, shit! I¡¯ve fucked up! I¡¯ve fucking fucked everything up! Murphy is never going to trust this stupid older brother! I¡¯ve delivered his most beloved into the hands of some deviant and then fucking lost them!


    I hadn¡¯t planned for any stranger to show up and rescue her before Murphy did, but I thought at the time it would create more pressure, so we agreed to simply follow after them and make sure nothing untoward happened until Murphy turned up.


    Then we lost track of them in the haunted forests. Murphy would have only just logged back in at that time, so we raced back to get him. With some luck, the direction they were heading in was close to our portal, so it wasn¡¯t far. But every second that passed without Seelie in my sight was like a needle stabbing into my heart.


    I¡¯d created this mess to help Murphy out, but in the end, I had created a catastrophe. When little brother left, I felt how angered he was. Although it wasn¡¯t directed specifically at us, I felt something I¡¯d never felt before when I saw his eyes.


    Since I¡¯d always considered this a game, I never really feared or despaired when I faced death. When I saw his eye¡¯s though. I felt like I was actually seeing something that could kill me. I felt like how those old era earthlings must have felt when they watched all those missiles landing off in the distance and then the resulting cloud of radiation and dust blowing towards them.


    Haa ... brother will surely be upset with me. More importantly, Seelie will be upset with me. Even if Murphy hates me forever, I still had hope that I could hang onto Seelie and be close with brother that way. Now though, she will most definitely consider me to be an idiot and a menace.


    It seems, trying to do something good isn¡¯t as easy as little brother makes it look.


    Chuckles and I both anxiously waited for Murphy to return. By the time he got back, we¡¯d worn a trail in the ground from our back and forth pacing and chewed our nails to the finger in worry.


    Although we were worried about how little brother was going to react. We were more worried about Seelie. We¡¯d met enough players now and been around long enough to hear stories. Just because it was a game, didn¡¯t mean it couldn¡¯t leave scars.


    When Murphy finally returned, he didn¡¯t even acknowledge our existence. He simply dismounted from Morbid and logged out. It appeared that Seelie had been killed, because she didn¡¯t come back with Little Brother.


    We expected to be reprimanded, or punished, or anything. The thing that hurt the most though, was that we weren¡¯t punished, just ignored. Even when Murphy came back, he acted as if we didn¡¯t exist. He simply walked through the Portal to 6 Stars and didn¡¯t come back.


    48 game hours later, Seelie re-spawned in the domain. She was obviously upset about something, but whatever it was it clearly wasn¡¯t us. In fact, she even thanked us for trying so hard. It was difficult to accept such a thing when she described what happened.


    When she found out that we had no idea who the pig man was and explained we never recruited him, she became silent for a short time then let out a long sigh. After that, she did the exact same thing Murphy did. She left Chuckles in charge, and walked through the portal.


    Raid day came and went. We were targeted by another domain on Murphy¡¯s list and regained 5-day protection status after Morbid went on a rampage. Then we geared up and prepared to set out. From what Seelie said, someone else had directed that rescue from the dragon¡¯s tower.


    We didn¡¯t know what the reason was, but even if Murphy and Seelie didn¡¯t blame us for our stuff up, we blamed ourselves. Therefore, we were angry. Someone had taken us for fools and very nearly took advantage of Little Brother¡¯s woman!


    Just before we left, Murphy returned looking like a shadow of himself and covered with dried blood and wear and tear on his coat and clothing that could only have been from endless numbers of near fatal injuries.


    He said nothing, and only went to the half-finished castle where he spent nearly 40,000 experience points and extended our raid protection for another 5 days.


    Murphy still acknowledged nothing and no one. When he walked back through the portal, he looked like a half-dead robot. Simply making the motions, with no true soul or motive behind his actions. While still preparing, about half an hour after Murphy left, Seelie returned and did the same thing. Adding another 3 days.


    With the just completed raid, we now had 13 days of amnesty and could completely throw ourselves into the mission we had set out to accomplish. We would find out everything we could about Seelie¡¯s abduction.


    With wrath and regret mixing together like one of Murphy¡¯s volatile concoctions, we set forth to find the perpetrator and right this wrong.


    When we finally left to 6 Star and reached the nearest city, there wasn¡¯t a single worthy quest. Everything with more than 500 experience as a reward had been consumed. It didn¡¯t matter too much though. We didn¡¯t come here to quest, and instead came to gather information.


    Chuckles used his summoning to call forth his Shadow Squad, and they spread out across the city like clandestine shadows, sucking up information from everywhere they could.


    <hr>


    I wanted to be angry at those three morons. I really did. But when I looked at Morbid¡¯s huge puppy dog eyes, and remembered the heartbreak he expressed when we finally found Seelie, I couldn¡¯t bring myself to hate him for what happened.


    Juwan was a different story. I regularly and very frequently hated on Juwan but the simple truth of the matter is, I didn¡¯t really hate him. I was more afraid of creating a relationship with him than anything, and so in my head, I vilified him. It was about the only way to keep distance between us.


    In the end though, he is nothing if not persistent. He thought he could help me out behind the scenes this time but failed. In a twisted sense, although I could definitely blame him and finally have my reason to actually vilify him, in my mind all the blame came back to only one person. Myself.


    Even Chuckles, who I felt somewhat betrayed by at first, had set out on this misguided endeavour for me. At the end of the day, the only person to blame was myself.


    And so I did. I took all that blame I thought I¡¯d be piling on those three idiots, and took it upon my own shoulders. Even though Seelie had escaped some horrible incident, she still suffered. A little bit of innocence she once had, was now taken away.


    When I went to see Seelie, she seemed calm and unperturbed, but I¡¯d known her long enough to tell it was an act. I may ignore the world around me, but I am not a complete fool. My wisdom stat may be in the negative when it comes to social interaction, but even I could pick up on the clues.


    Thus, I set out onto Planet 6 Star in order to get even stronger. Strong enough, that even if Seelie were taken to the other side of the universe, I could still find her and protect her. Just like I promised to do the first time I met her.


    <hr>


    I took many advantages of Murphy once I started learning magic. Chief amongst them was a tracking spell. Although it has a rather limited range, it helped me inadvertently set up moments when he catches me getting undressed, or I trip into his arms just as he¡¯s turning a corner. Silly things that seem stupid in retrospect of everything else going on in our life now.


    But it¡¯s all part of my plan to subtly increase my presence in his mind until he can¡¯t forget about me. Seems so childish, but at that moment when I was distraught and wishing I could die, it was useful.


    I could sense my tracking magic suddenly light up so close it was almost on top of me. I knew that Murphy had finally come, just in the nick of time! However, I then felt ashamed of myself to an escalating degree. I didn¡¯t want Murphy to see me like that, and no matter what, I didn¡¯t want him to remember me like that.


    Weak, powerless to protect myself. Incapable of taking care of my own issues. Although it warmed my heart that he¡¯d come, I didn¡¯t want him to think that I couldn¡¯t take care of myself. It was the whole point of learning magic and becoming strong!


    I then had a brain fart that I wished I¡¯d had a minute sooner. I pushed out my tongue, and mustered all the force left in my weakened body to bite it off. The pain was excruciating, and I almost stopped myself until the thought of Murphy finding me in this situation, still logged in, made my stomach churn and my ego burn.


    I wasn¡¯t going to let this man pig take anything from me, and I sure as hell wasn¡¯t going to suffer the indignity of this situation when Murphy found me.


    The best part was probably watching the face of the pig man distort as blood overflowed from my mouth and poured down my throat into my lungs. I want to say that killing myself in that situation was easy, but it really wasn¡¯t. Dying like that, it was mostly quite quick, but also incredibly painful and frightening.


    I¡¯d died a few times in the game, but never from something as torturous as drowning in my own blood. Just as my final brief moments of clarity faded, I heard Morbid¡¯s enrage howl, and then it all went dark.


    Murphy was then at the door of my house within the hour. Which lead to a very awkward scene. He was obviously incredibly worried about me but wasn¡¯t sure how to ask about it, so I did what has become mostly habit now and gave him an implant, obviously altering the end a little bit, so he thought I¡¯d killed myself the moment the pig man grabbed me.


    He looked at me sceptically, and worriedly at the same time, which almost seemed cute. I talked for a little bit and for a rare change he didn¡¯t seem to space out once. When he finally left, his face was that stoic, serious gaze I fell in love with.


    I was worried he might be angry at those three morons, but in the end, he didn¡¯t seem to blame them at all. Which led me to ask myself who I blamed for this situation developing like it had, the answer to which was myself.


    My lack of power, preparation and my arrogance nearly cost me that most important thing that I was saving only for Murphy. Well ... mostly. Technically I was only a virgin in that I hadn¡¯t had a dick. I¡¯d popped my cherry quite some time ago on my own terms.


    The point is, I was angry at myself for being powerless, and so to fix that, I planned to get power. The next time something like this happens, it¡¯ll be some pig man wanting to rape Murphy, and me racing to his rescue!


    Then after rescuing him, it¡¯ll be all, ¡®Oh Seelie. Oh Murphy... ¡® Ahem!


    I¡¯m gonna store that one away in my spank back.


    Anyway, in the end, the person I blamed most for this was me, and so I set out to correct that the moment I could log back in. When I returned and discovered Murphy had already left and was most likely doing the same thing as me, I felt that gap widening again.


    So I didn¡¯t hesitate and set forth. Every quest worth doing, I would set out and do. Even the lower end quests I would set out and use them as an opportunity to strengthen my weaknesses. Which in this case were body stats and close combat skills.


    <hr>


    In the end, this huge cluster fuck resulted in proving that all 5 people involved were complete idiots. They all unanimously blamed themselves like a bunch of self-righteous pricks and raced off to become godly strong or find someone behind the plot to abduct Seelie so they could vent themselves.


    It turned into a long 13 days were the lot of them just raced around 6 Star planet stirring up all sorts of trouble and then on the 13th day they all returned, sat down, and silently drank very strong liquor to drown themselves.


    In the end, this 13 days had been a cooling off period which everyone used for some soul searching. Murphy came back and acknowledged that in the end, he was just running away from admitting his feelings.


    That, of course, didn¡¯t stop him from still ignoring them.


    Seelie came back looking like a war maiden, clad in armour and sporting a serious looking sword almost as tall as her body. She¡¯d clearly become quite a bit stronger, but at the end of the day, she didn¡¯t feel like she¡¯d actually accomplished anything.


    It was only after she¡¯d slain countless dangerous beasts and thwarted who knows how many evil plots that she came to acknowledge she was running away from the same thing Murphy was. She was a little different in that she already knew how she felt, but was instead running away from telling Murphy and finally forcing the issue.


    Even after recognising this, she remained too shy or too scared to actually do it.


    Chuckles came back and acknowledged that he had failed his master and even betrayed him. His guilt was like tar that could only be washed off with a lifetime of effort.


    Unlike the two domain controllers, who were both idiots and clearly needed a life coach or some kind of serious help, Chuckles vowed his literally undying loyalty to Murphy and swore to always keep his master¡¯s intentions in heart. Even if they didn¡¯t align with what he actually needed most.


    Which was the case with him and Seelie.


    Morbid was just a big stupid dog, and like he had amnesia, completely forgot about the whole thing. Apart from seeming a little more protective of Seelie than before, he remained innocent and stupid.


    Juwan had always been doing exactly what he felt he should be doing from the start. He had no great insight to his motives during these 13 days and if anything only became more fanatical about getting his little brother¡¯s approval.


    The next day came, and everyone woke up with hangovers as the protection of the system finally finished and their domain was free to be attacked. Because Seelie and Murphy both ran off with the desire to become strong enough to protect each other, the domain had made little to no progress.


    Apart from the castle finally being finished, the spawn didn¡¯t go out of their way to improve anything else.


    While the controllers were away, the Spawn spent their entire time rooting and making babies. Thanks to that, their population had tripled in the 13 days Murphy was gone, and the entire place was teaming with the little bastards running everywhere and causing all sorts of mischief.


    Murphy was stunned to discover that he had almost 5000 spawn living in his domain. Which wasn¡¯t a good thing because they didn¡¯t have the space to support that many Spawn. Plus, every time they had a festival or held some ritual, the place would be flooded with Spawn juices.


    Which he quickly discovered after they used the excuse of him coming home just to hold one.


    Because they¡¯d both done some soul searching and seemed to understand what was really driving them, and because what they discovered was in fact how it had pretty much always been, everything seemed to fall back into normalcy between Murphy and Seelie.


    It was almost like everyone suddenly forgot what happened and seemed to be unanimously blocking it out.


    The only exception being Juwan, who still fully intended to push Murphy and Seelie together. Unfortunately for him, talking to Murphy was like talking to a brick wall. Although he had some more success talking to Seelie, he only felt the weight of his mission growing when she declared that she wasn¡¯t going to play a damsel just to make him come for her.


    After all, even after this whole incident, he just ended up running off and killing things to drown himself in combat instead of actually manning up to his feelings.


    Come the end of the day, no one seemed game enough to attack them directly, so Murphy and Seelie started planning what to do with the domain. Although during the 13 days the domain hadn¡¯t progressed at all, Seelie and Murphy had both finished a boatload of quests while running away from themselves and had so many quest rewards it wasn¡¯t funny.


    They¡¯d even had to sell some of their stuff because their inventories were so full.


    Among the things they¡¯d kept were gems, ores, herbs and other ingredients for crafting and alchemy. Among the most useful and interesting things was something called a Geode. Which was a crystal you could plant that would steadily grow certain resources like iron or stone. Even other precious gems if you were lucky.


    They started planting these things all over the place. Unfortunately, they weren¡¯t a one-day growth kind of thing and needed about a week to properly start creating. Once they reached that point, they would continue to grow to a fixed size, and then they stopped. After that, once you start harvesting them they just keep growing back.


    They were clearly designed for the purpose of creating a renewable resource point on domains, but Murphy wasn¡¯t really surprised by the technology of this game anymore. Whoever created it had a disgustingly godlike level of technology and power.


    Murphy then started designing and building some more things, even going so far as to spend experience on some rather expensive stuff for his construction efforts. For another 4 days, the entire domain lit up as Spawn raced everywhere completing all sorts of tasks.


    In the end though, their most limiting factor was land. As such, everything Murphy had started preparing was to achieve the goal of getting more land. They simply floated around, running form larger domains.


    All the smaller domains were too afraid to try and make a move against them, and the few domains that decided to try and team up against them received a single ballista bolt with a Spawn that raced around everywhere being almost untouchable. This locked their domain down in raid status and allowed Murphy to escape.


    When they thought they¡¯d finally caught the little bastard, Murphy would cast summoning magic and recall him.


    The Spawn were rather special in a way. They maintained a somewhat semi-player status because they were originally summoned by a player. They received all sorts of benefits from the system, but were still bound by certain limitations due to the fact they didn¡¯t actually have a dimension key on their home plane.


    Murphy could create a respawn point for them, but that too was limited in its function. Although it allowed them to respawn in the domain after 12 hours, the Spawn didn¡¯t get sent home and instead sort of just floated around in limbo.


    The respawn point had to be specialised, and it only worked for Spawn. It also became their lifeline. If the Respawn point were destroyed, then the Spawn in limbo would die. At the same time, a price was paid for every spawn that resurrected.


    Based on their stats and skills, the respawn point would consume experience from the domain¡¯s communal Exp. If the Controller ran out of Exp, then the respawn point wouldn¡¯t operate.


    It wasn¡¯t quite the same as an NPC, which had a no freedom, fixed status and couldn¡¯t improve, but it wasn¡¯t quite a player, which had complete freedom and would just respawn elsewhere if they died.


    Turned out that summoned semi-player creatures were the mainstay of domain defences. It was quite cheap for a Controller to purchase a Race Specific Summoning Scroll. This allowed most controllers to summon beings of their own race which then filled a semi-player roll.


    There were only two problems with this. The first being, anything summoned in such a way only had one life unless the controller set up a spawn point. The second was that the summoned beings would generally be as weak as weak could be, and would have to train skills and stats from nothing.


    Although players were more expensive and harder to keep, they were worth far more than summoned units because they already had significant levels and training, making them worth hundreds of summoned units.


    Murphy had been quite lucky in having innate summons such as Morbid and the Spawn. Morbid was a born tank and unstoppable force already, while the Spawn evolved rapidly and took on many traits from the Master in doing so.


    Although it made his minions a somewhat mixed bag, and no two evolved spawn had the same skills, traits or stats, it gave his army and undeniable edge over the competition. Both in the speed they could gain levels, and the diversity of their strengths and weaknesses.


    It just so happened, that today was the day Murphy decided he was ready. He splurged from the huge stores of Exp he and Seelie had pooled together from their mostly pointless soul searching trip, and bought the scroll that would grant the Spawn¡¯s altar the ability of a respawn point.


    He almost felt his heart bleeding from the huge amounts of resources used on this endeavour, but none the less tore the scroll anyway.


    A huge beam of light seemed to generate from nowhere and fall onto the circular courtyard. Spawn from all over the domain were popping out and screaming while banging poorly fitting shields or helmets.


    In almost the same instant that the lights faded, a huge festival was being thrown by the Spawn. They didn¡¯t particularly care about being able to respawn. Death was inevitable for these creatures, and they had readily accepted that before now.


    They were more celebrating that their summoner was such a great man who looked out for their species. Which at the end of the day was worth more to them than having a second chance at life after a glorious battle in which they died.


    That was the mindset of the Spawn, and if someone could actually understand their jabbering and incoherent noises, they would learn the Spawn placed less value on their own lives and more value on killing things. Having life was just a means to go and kill more stuff.


    They¡¯re Demons after all, and no matter how deep Murphy¡¯s philosophical teachings are, these creatures can¡¯t change their innate nature overnight.


    With the respawn point ready, Murphy then rounded up his most powerful spawns and started teaching them about tactics. He had some plans he wanted to try out on this raid, and he needed the spawn to be capable of carrying them out.


    While he was doing that, Seelie was following his instructions already and controlling the domain to float about near other domains they¡¯d targeted. At first, they didn¡¯t seem to react too much. Most of them were in protection status so weren¡¯t worried about being attacked, and they also knew that they probably couldn¡¯t take on Murphy¡¯s domain alone.


    At first, it seemed rather innocuous and innocent. The enemy was just floating around scoping them out. They¡¯d then fly off to another domain hundreds or thousands of kilometres away and do the same thing.


    After a while, they just started ignoring them. Even the domains that weren¡¯t in protection status started to loosen up and ignore them. This was because all the domains they floated near were almost 3 times the size of Murphy¡¯s little island of land.


    Not to mention they were filled to the brim with far more powerful defenders and fortifications.


    Then things changed a little when they floated up to only a few hundred meters from the edge of these domains, and the two gravity wells and atmospheres intersected and formed one. Murphy called this an ¡®air bridge¡¯. Unlike normal bridging, which is the earth forming a single midpoint between two domains, air bridging happens well before that. Often as far as a kilometre of two from the target.


    In this case, the domains were still two small for something like that, so Murphy had to be quite a bit closer to form it. But the best part of this was that he wasn¡¯t actually forming a ¡®real¡¯ bridge and their two domains still remained independent and mobile, just sharing a single gravity well and atmosphere.


    Eventually, at a particular forested domain, things devolved slightly.


    All the Spawn lined up along the edges of the domain and started banging their shields or screaming at the top of their lungs while jumping around. It looked as if they were all getting ready for war.


    Making the inhabitants of this domain even more nervous, was the huge Hell Hound that patrolled the border and glared at them rather menacingly from across the gap. Dodgy catapults were hauled up to the edges of Murphy¡¯s domain, and all pulled back ready to fire.


    The only thing was that each of them was empty. The thing that made the creatures hidden in the domains forest the most nervous, was when Spawn started hauling huge sacks down to the catapults then loading them up.


    Despite much threatening and posturing on the part of the big domains via voice projection, Murphy remained silent as his Spawn prepared for the task ahead.


    Finally, after all this posturing from Murphy¡¯s Spawns, Murphy¡¯s domain just started floating away again. Just as they were starting to get some speed and distance up, and the air bridge was about to break, the Spawn lit all the sacks on fire and launched them into the other domain.


    At first, nothing was thought about this. It was only a dozen odd catapults, so no matter how much Murphy tried, he would be unable to actually hit anything in the massive area of land these domains had.


    Turned out, all he really wanted to hit was the domain in general. The flaming sacks hit the ground and exploded into pieces. Spraying flaming dog shit everywhere.


    The entire domain was raised to the highest level of alert when the putrid stench of flaming shit filled the atmosphere and citizens of the domain either fled from the turbid smell through portals or were immediately paralysed as they vented their lunch.


    The Spawn all cheered and laughed loudly as Murphy¡¯s domain raced off into the starry sky. The beauty of this plan, was that each of the domains he¡¯d targeted were so far apart, that by the time they caught up to Murphy, he will have already shit bombed another one and moved on.


    Morbid¡¯s box had been filled to overflowing precisely to fulfil this purpose.


    By the end of a game day, which was 96 hours, 6 notorious domains had all been bombed with shit, and their rage filled the heavens. The more civilised controllers that were often bullied by these domains lost their civility and started projecting their raucous laughter hundreds of kilometres toward these shit covered domains.


    In a single day, Murphy had successfully enraged and humiliated the 6 biggest and most notorious fish in his little sector of space.


    He then ghosted his domain, disappearing. The next day, he came and did it again. By this point in time, not only had these huge pirate like domains been completely humiliated in the sector they hunted in most, but news of this humiliation was spreading out to other star sectors.


    Coalitions of pirate like domains that these domains were affiliated with were all enraged beyond belief. Not only was Murphy slapping the face of these specific domains, but also their allies.


    They had to put a stop to this nonsense immediately and regain their status as feared pirates. So they placed huge bounties on Murphy and sent out smaller domains to track him. In the end, they discovered that Murphy¡¯s domain must have some treasure that allowed him to remain in darkness for a prolonged period, because even after two days, there wasn¡¯t a trace of him.


    After a few more days, things quietened down again, and everyone assumed Murphy had escaped to another sector to avoid being pursued so heavily. The pirate like domains in question all finished cleaning the shit from their domains and tried to forget about the huge insult they¡¯d suffered.


    Then like a demon of the night, his domain reappeared right in the middle of his original star sector and began launching even more devious attacks. Flaming shit rained from the sky¡¯s, laced with volatile concoctions, making it literally explode on impact.


    To rub salt into the wounds, all sorts of weird curses started being thrown randomly into these domains. Murphy even went so far as to launch his Ain¡¯t No Rest Spell Model, which resulted in thousands being afflicted with insomnia.


    Although it wasn¡¯t permanent, like he¡¯d expected, and its effects weren¡¯t dramatically increased, the spell model caused a huge area of effect curse that covered nearly half the domains he was attacking. It also had negligible Mana channelling cost, making it a perfect long war style weapon.


    After another day of this, with vultures and mini domains tailing him, he fled. When he went into ghost mode, it was followed by meteors hurtling towards the smaller domains that were trying to follow him. The resulting chaos and confusion led to his eventual escape once more.


    Then day¡¯s slowly began to pass, and the insomnia curse started rearing its head. The weaker willed inhabitants started showing signs of madness and even the strong willed were easily losing their tempers.


    Although that wasn¡¯t rare in the type of people that rob and plunder with no ethical compass, the level of their tempers had skyrocketed to the point they were hanging people for the slightest mistakes.


    These huge domains started turning into chaos as civil war almost broke out numerous times. Then, once more, Murphy appeared. This time, the domains believed they were ready for him. Like a bunch of cowards, they¡¯d all moved into very close proximity of one another and were being circled by tens of vultures.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    If Murphy appeared again, they planned for the vultures to lock him down with raid status and then they were going to all dock him and give him his just desserts. After which, with nearly 30 odd vultures and their 6 huge domains, his domain would be reduced to nothing in a single go.


    What they never expected, was for Murphy¡¯s domain to appear out of nowhere right in the middle of all of them.


    The moment it appeared from the darkness of space, iron ballista bolts with huge glowing chains were flying everywhere.


    Of the 6 domains he was attacking, two were forested biomes, two were some kind of red dirt and rock biome, one was a grassy plane with grass that was near head height and the last was filled with flaming gases and magma.


    The most confusing part about this whole scene was how Murphy had managed to get in the middle of them without them ever knowing, and what the hell he was planning to do against the 6 biggest domains in the sector by himself.


    More intriguing was the ballista bolts. Unlike before now, how everything he shot at people was from the surface of his domain, the new ballista were all in hollowed out little alcoves down underneath the domain.


    The huge spike-like base of the domain was massive, and the entire thing looked like a beehive and was filled with tunnels and ballista bristling off the sides like hairs. Hundreds of ballista all fired at once and stabbed into the spike like bases of the other domains. Even the vulture domains circling nearby weren¡¯t able to escape from being struck by a chained ballista bolt.


    Then, slowly, the glowing chains tightened and began to shrink back. Slowly pulling these huge domains directly towards Murphy¡¯s.


    To say the other controllers were confused would be an understatement. Although they had some hesitation regarding the initial poison biome, and weren¡¯t sure what to expect in that strange black biome, they felt they were more than adequately prepared.


    If Murphy pulled all of them into his biome at the same time, then he would be swarmed to death. It was almost as if he was helping them to achieve the goal they¡¯d set for this trap right from the beginning.


    Huge drums on the turrets of Murphy¡¯s castle began to beat loudly and as the 6 Domains ¡®bridged¡¯ with Murphy¡¯s, their speed and depth of sound increased. They seemed to be shaking the very air of the entire domain, and the loud clanging and screaming of demons could be heard from beyond the wall of poison smog on the outskirts.


    As soon as the bridge was fully formed, the six Controllers charged forwards with their residents to slay the vile symbol of fairness and justice which Murphy had unwittingly become in this star sector.


    The fastest to cross the bridge and pass into the smog was from a forest biome, a spider race. There were all sorts of strange spider species, and they ranged from little palm sized babies to huge 8-foot monsters. The most frightening of them all was the Controller, which was covered in armour and stood nearly 12 feet high.


    They were the most confident of everyone, most of them having high resistance to poisons. If anything, they felt this poison smog would make a great home for them. They quickly discovered how wrong they were though as the hordes of spiders skittered into the smog only to be engulfed by its thick pervasive wall like a coin into the ocean.


    The moment they set foot into the smog, raid status was declared for Murphy¡¯s domain, locking its movement down and assuring the other domains they had the time to use their own means to move through the smog unhindered. Mostly being cure potions or protective spells.


    As they started moving into the smog on their own ends, they heard the high pitch screams of the spiders that had charged into the fog before them. The beating of the huge war drums atop Murphy¡¯s castle only seemed to increase with pace the more the spiders screams echoed.


    The leading parties of the other domains felt their hearts tighten as they forged through the thick smog of the poison marsh. The first to break out of the fog was from the magma race. Some type of flaming rock golem which was mostly unaffected by poison, but slow, making them a step behind the spiders.


    When the controller of the golems stepped out of the smog like a towering giant nearly the same height as the spider queen, he was shocked to find nothing. His domain had docked right next to the spider domain and was only a minute behind them in entering the smog.


    It worried him that at the moment he left the smog into the sinister lands, he didn¡¯t spot a single spider corpse. In fact, apart from the strange flowers and trees of this biome, he saw nothing. For hundreds of meters up to the base of the grassy hill, there wasn¡¯t a single thing.


    He wanted to call his men to slow down and advance carefully, but unfortunately, more than half of them were suffering from some strange curse and were completely irrational. They simply charged forth from the smog with big slow lumbering steps and continued towards the castle in the distance.


    The war drum¡¯s beating had slowed in pace once the screaming of the spiders coming from the smog had completely died down. The flaming rock golems moved forward at a rapid pace, unhindered by anything. Hundreds of the huge golem people stomped across the sinister lands and sprayed fire about the place just for kicks.


    That was until they sprayed fire onto a very strange looking giant flower. The moment that flower caught fire, hundreds of flowers all rapidly broke through the ground and started attacking. They were particularly weak to the fire, but their teeth were magical and sinister in nature. With ever whipping flower head, a golem lost a limb.


    With great effort, they broke through the barrage of carnivorous flowers only to discover every single one of them, perhaps by purpose, had lost at least one limb. They hadn¡¯t lost too many lives, but their combat prowess had been cut in half after a single foray.


    More disturbing was that the moment a flower accomplished its goal, it would burrow into the ground and shoot off somewhere else. This was disturbing because the moment it burrowed into the ground the flames that were damaging it would be doused by the earth.


    As they continued to move forward, slightly more cautious than last time, they spotted another of the domains finally breaking through the smog far off to one side. The leading golem was about to warn them to watch out for the flowers, only to watch on horrified as the huge head of a giant dog slowly appeared from out of the top of the smog behind them.


    The first few to step out of the smog from one of the red dirt domains was a group of lizard looking humanoids. However, they quickly regreted moving into the open area of the sinister lands as a huge pour reached out from the smog and squashed them flat.


    The dog head let out a low growl, and the drums of war beat faster and faster as Morbid¡¯s big head suddenly disappeared into the smog and light from spells flashed and screams from the lizard men rang out in chorus to the drums.


    The flame golem leader was stunned, shocked, a little frightened. Before he could wrap his head around the strangeness of this domain, a new set of drums started beating in a different rhythm, and he watched on as another domain made land beyond the smog only for hundreds if not thousands of strange demon creatures to pour out of hidden burrows and engage them.


    The golems face became serious for the first time, and he pushed for the castle even faster. If he could claim the castle, then they would survive this massacre.


    The other lizard domain broke free from the smog and encountered a single woman clad in golden armour with a huge sword almost her own body length and width adorned on her back. She smiled coyly and instead of taking the sword, she flipped her hand, within which appeared a spell tome.


    Moments later rivers of fire raged, and icicles sharp enough to pierce metal rained from the skies. The Smog on the outer edges of the domain surged and seethed as all sorts of battles broke out across Murphy¡¯s domain.


    This was only the beginning though. These huge domains didn¡¯t only have a few hundreds or thousands of residents. They were powerful because they had tens of thousands. Their armies were a far cry ahead of Murphy¡¯s in terms of sheer numbers, and like a tide of locusts, they continued a relentless march through the marsh and then into the sinister lands.


    Slowly, the lands surrounding the castle were filled with war and death and Spawns valiantly surged up from burrows, slaying 5 enemies for everyone one of them that died. Chuckles flittered across the field with his little special forces team targeting the stronger enemies for assassination.


    Spawns lined the walls of the castle firing spells as the war drums grew frantic and great reverberations spread across the chaos in the fields around the castle. Ballista and catapults launched bolts adorned with explosive powder or volatile concoction like a serenade of death in complement to the drums.


    Alchemist Spawn were throwing all sorts of vile concoctions around causing purple poison gases to appear and toxic sludge to cover their enemies.


    Red flashes of light from curses poured across the sinister lands, and the enemies returned fire with powerful spells obliterating groups of spawn in the dozens.


    Juwan, Morbid and Seelie were almost capable of holding back their sections completely by themselves. Although Juwan wasn¡¯t powerful in regards to direct combat, his skills focused on leadership and comrade bonuses. Powerful buffs and auras emanated from him like a celestial glow, and he could turn a group of 100 spawns into the equivalent of 1000.


    The whole time, Murphy stood atop his castle walls and watched on with an anxious expression. He¡¯d originally hoped he could take care of this battle with just ingenuity and a few key powerful teammates. It seemed his thinking was rather wishful.


    At last, he felt that the majority of the enemies had poured into his domain like lemmings, and he launched a crossbow bolt into the sky from the battlements of his castle.


    As it reached the peak of its flight, it ignited and spewed bright flames out like a flaring star. The drums of the castle froze. With that, a domain suddenly appeared from the darkness of space as light flooded forth on its surface, revealing it only a few kilometres from the ongoing chaotic war of 6 versus 1.


    Standing at the edge of this flat grassy domain was a lion man clad in armour and letting loose a mighty roar.


    Moments later, another domain revealed itself in a glorious flash of light. Then another, and soon, dozens. Then more again. Nearly 50 little domains, all fresh spawns and young domains. Their combined inhabitants barely numbered in the thousands, but each and every one of them was a true player and stood at the fore of their domain in preparation to dock.


    Their valiant battle spirits surged as they released resounding war cries. The drums upon the turrets of Murphy¡¯s castle suddenly burst forth with greater vigour than ever, and the collisions of the reinforcing domains shook the huge mass of floating earth that was the 7 warring domains.


    With little to no defending forces remaining on their home turf, the leading groups of invaders felt their hearts suddenly jitter and tighten.


    This had been a trap from the very beginning. It was already suspicious that Murphy had dragged them into a 6 v 1 battle, and centred himself right in their midst. They now realised that they were stuck in a strange predicament.


    They could try and finish the raid on Murphy, in which case the indignation and humiliation he¡¯d caused them would be relieved. But that could cost them their own domain. Even if they killed Murphy, and successfully raided him, if he were already in a party with these domains then his domain would get their raiding spoils and survive the attack.


    Making the situation worse was that these huge domains each represented different uncivil factions that were more akin to pirate groups and bandits than players. That meant that they couldn¡¯t rely on these other factions to stick it out and kill Murphy first instead of running away to save their own skins.


    As if by unanimous agreement, they started trying to fall back to protect their domains. Unfortunately, Murphy wasn¡¯t having any of it. They were going to stay here and enjoy a good brawl first. As the beat of the drums once again rose to a crescendo of madness, the ever battle loving Spawn charged forth.


    This time, they held nothing back. Every spawn in the domain poured out from the burrows and rose up a blade to take the life of their enemies in battle. Because the 6 domains were now all trying to fall back towards their own domains their focus was split.


    They lost some of the huge fighting morale they initially had from their numbers, and were now frantic to return. This subtle shift in mindset caused the battle to have a sudden and drastic change in flow. Invaders lives were reaped like wheat at harvest.


    Every flash of a blade, arrow or bolt took a life with its inertia. The morale of the Spawn never changed. Although they could feel fear, they only felt it towards a loss of a chance to kill as much as they could and then die in battle. Death, and war itself, was their greatest love and desire.


    Among all the races of the many dimensions, secret planes and vast universes, demons were the most frightening for this single reason. Also, their design sense was a little cruel, so that was probably a close second.


    The thousands of spawn that had built their homes under the earth of Murphy¡¯s domain had taken severe losses, but that didn¡¯t stop them from crying out for more. They longed for this type of unreserved chaotic warfare and especially loved Murphy now because he gave it to them. They had no intentions of letting him down.


    The moment the waves of attackers started to pour back over the dividing line between the Sinister Lands and the Poison Smog Marsh, spawn were spewing out of holes in the Marsh and hunting them like animals.


    The huge lumbering golems were an especially favourite target of luck spawn. Slow moving things were the easiest to attack hundreds of times very quickly and bit by bit they accumulated so much bad luck even Murphy probably couldn¡¯t survive it.


    Missed steps and sudden random traps only helped to decrease their speed further, and by the time the first of the leading attackers from the golem race broke through the smog onto the bridge, he was covered from head to toe in chips and gauges from his huge stone body.


    Just as he made it out, a little phial of strange water was slung from a luck demon and shattered on his big rock face. He heard the little devils laughing like mischievous children as they all raced back into the fog to continue their trouble making.


    The leader of the golems didn¡¯t think too much of it at first, and his flames evaporated the murky water almost immediately.


    It was only when he reached the other end of the bridge that his vision began to blur. His steps faltered, and he stumbled, falling onto his knee. The flames on his body slowly started to die down from raging inferno level to camp fire level and then soon to simmering coals.


    He felt his entire body racked with pain. He glanced back to see those evil little bastard scooping up some disgusting looking water from a river at the edge of Murphy¡¯s domain. Whatever was in that water, it was now very slowly killing him.


    Even his abnormal endurance and physique, which awarded him immunity to many things, couldn¡¯t repel whatever was in that heaven defying water. He could faintly hear the drums of the castle beating far off in the distance and slowly, his body lost even more strength as he slowly fell forward onto his hands.


    He looked around himself in a daze and saw Spawn racing across the bridges of his neighbours, pursuing the retreating pirate domains like a swarm of fly¡¯s. Huge bolts that moved kilometres in their flight passed through the sky overhead letting out massive ¡®whoomph!¡¯ sounds as they smashed into the earth of his domain.


    He couldn¡¯t fully understand how it had all turned out this way. They had the numerical superiority by far, and their soldiers were experienced in domain combat through hundreds of battles already.


    Although he had to admit that Murphy¡¯s domain was very strange, and he had rather powerful methods, he felt that it shouldn¡¯t have been so difficult to squash him. They¡¯d eliminated uncountable numbers of fresh domains just like this in their time reigning over this sector.


    Even more confusing to him was how exactly Murphy had managed to lure all these other domains into this war. It was difficult enough just to get along with one or two other domains. Backstabbing and secret plots were as common as greetings in Domain Warz.


    For him to gather this many domains and get them to cooperate with each other, he must have promised them something that no one else could give them. Something it was almost impossible to acquire without him. If that was the case, what could a fledgeling domain like Murphy¡¯s possible give these other smaller domains?


    Unfortunately, the huge flaming golem leader wouldn¡¯t find out for another 12 hours. His body could no longer hold itself together and slowly, the smouldering rocks making him up began to crack and slowly fall apart.


    Murphy had thought about methods to try and weaponize the river water, but it turned out anyone with less than a 30 positive luck stat would get sick the moment they touched it. He concluded that the river must contain some elements of his luck traits and was something like a biome in itself.


    The only creatures that could even get close to it were the luck spawn which generally had pretty high luck stats from stealing it from everyone else.


    With the battle having suddenly shifted focus onto the domains of the enemy domains, Murphy left Seelie to guard the castle and charged into battle atop Morbid so as to quickly eliminate what was left of his opponents.


    Although the domains he¡¯d called in for assistance were strong in their own right, and each of them was mostly made up of players with full player status, they were fewer in overall numbers. As such, he sent his commanders, Juwan and Chuckles to reinforce the problematic red dirt domains.


    He and morbid took on the magma domain, which morbid was apparently very at home in, swimming through lava and barking at fire ... you know, dog things.


    The other 3 domains, the two forest and grass plains, had alchemist spawn starting burning acid fires everywhere. Although they definitely didn¡¯t have enough to clear domains of this size, there was enough of the stuff to cause chaos and havoc, lessening the pressure on the reinforcing domains and increasing the pressure on the pirate domain.


    Battles broke out and raged for almost 24 hours, from the moment Murphy appeared to the moment when the last of the pirate domains leaders was slain, and the remaining populations all submitted themselves as prisoners to save their tiny little lives.


    A huge meeting of Controllers was then held at Murphy¡¯s domain, in the Spawns ritual courtyard. 50 controllers, all standing or sitting together in a single place, for a single purpose. It was a rarely seen sight not just in this star system, but across every star system in the vast space that was the Domain Warz.


    For so many factions, even many that opposed each other, to all band together, it was almost an impossible feat. That said, they were here for something that was normally impossible to get so easily. The land of the domains they¡¯d conquered in this battle were only a bonus.


    Although it was a significant amount of land, in group raids with parties over 5, the domain that did the most work often received the largest rewards. That meant that Murphy¡¯s domain would most likely take 5% of each of the pirate domains and then about 40% of each domain would be divided amongst the other 50 parties involved.


    For a group of domains this size, although the pirate domains were large, in the end they wouldn¡¯t even get as much land as they would have if they¡¯d done a normal raid. This time around, their goals were different.


    At last, after having travelled the 6 domains, the lieutenant or most trusted second of each domain returned to Murphy¡¯s dragging behind them huge carts overloaded with loot and treasure. There were all sorts of things loaded up in these carts, from rare herbs or plants to priceless artefacts and crafting materials. Countless treasures were looted from their enemies, but everyone¡¯s eyes were still locked onto Murphy.


    Murphy was the only Controller that travelled with the lieutenants of these multitude of factions. This was because his task was somewhat different from theirs. Although he was looting as well, he was looting something far more important.


    Amongst countless players for countless years, the players with the deprive ability are far and few between. In Domain Wars, they are considered more a myth or legend. Most of them end up dying too often because of the overbearing nature of the deprive ability causing Mana Overdraw.


    The most worrisome part about that, is that Mana Overdraw rips apart the soul. Even the mighty game creators can only repair the damage so much. Eventually, it causes these players to become unstable, or completely be obliterated.


    Murphy was special in this sense. The Game System can give you amazing powers, but the majority of them are only amplified by the system and are actually something the person in question has developed by themselves innately. Although it¡¯s possible to learn skills you didn¡¯t have and level them up, you will always be innately qualified for certain things others are not.


    In this case, the nature of Murphy¡¯s soul was truly perverse. It was only after a great deal of research on Seelie¡¯s part that they managed to get a slight glimpse at how the Game System actually worked, after which Murphy nearly wanted to cry at the thought of how disgusting his soul must be to generate such disturbing traits and titles like Sinister Undying and The Unbalanced.


    Nevertheless, Deprive is a very rare skill, and its overpowering ability to take almost anything that is in anyway related to Mana makes it beyond powerful in many respects.


    In this case, the rewards from working with someone with such a power would be huge. When Murphy returned, not only had he stolen almost 30 odd portals, he¡¯d also stolen geode stones for resources, entire buildings created from the system¡¯s blueprint building scheme and even spell formations from things like respawning points and all variation of other things.


    Everything he¡¯d looted, was something you normally couldn¡¯t take away. It was all things that usually cost an inordinate amount of experience points to purchase through the game system or required any number of painful and difficult quests to receive as a reward.


    Not to mention that these things were usually a permanent part of a domain once they were installed, they also grew with a domain. Meaning if your domain grew, depending on the class of the treasure in question, it too would grow more powerful as you gained more land.


    These things, if you could loot them normally would be the first target and considered priceless. This was the driving force behind this temporary coalition and was the thing that these domain controllers threw aside their differences to fight for.


    Once the carts were stopped, ordinary loot was organised based on merit and contribution first. Things like this would normally be a very rowdy and chaotic affair, but luckily the system had measures for things like a party raid.


    It tallied contribution points and merit from the beginning till the end and would split any looted resources rather fairly at the end.


    The exception to this was if they agreed on certain things before the raid. For example, they all agreed that in this case, Murphy would get the first pick of 5 things, and everything else would then be split based on the system¡¯s decision.


    The reason they split the normal loot first was so that they could trade it and use it to barter for the more important items later, which was the whole point they came to Murphy¡¯s domain in the first place. To barter.


    After Murphy and everyone had agreed they were ready, everything that had been looted suddenly began to swirl around in the air overhead and slowly, bit by bit, it landed in front of a controller where he would quickly store it in his inventory.


    In a few cases, Murphy¡¯s for example, his inventory simply wasn¡¯t big enough, and Seelie or Juwan had to step forward and store it.


    Then, Murphy took out a sack filled with glimmering gems and scrolls with strange ruins and glowing carvings. He didn¡¯t even need to think as he immediately picked out another respawn point scroll along with a slightly more advanced mage tower. The last three were all resource geodes. Gold, Mithril and something that was similar to a soft plastic.


    Once he was finished, he threw the sack into the air, and the system quickly sorted everything and divided it amongst the others.


    Chaos ensued moments later as the controllers all started to bicker and trade with each other. The few times a fight nearly broke out, Morbid¡¯s huge paw would stomp down into the courtyard, and his house-sized body would loom over everyone with his big car sized head leaning down with a snarling growl.


    This was the second reason they held this here in Murphy¡¯s domain. Before they all partied up, they¡¯d signed a raid contract from the player store that more or less confined them to follow their oaths. It was a rather miraculous system and punished players severely for breaking it.


    Of them all, Murphy was the only one with the absolutely overpowering combat strength, and so they agreed to let him host the exchange because it was certain if anyone stepped out of line here Murphy could enforce the law.


    He was also forced to, because that was part of his agreement in the raid contract.


    After nearly 4 hours of trading, the other domains all started moving to leave. Congratulating Murphy on a successful raid and promising to help out if he planned another one, provided he had the same incentives of course.


    Murphy simply smiled and nodded to everyone. The only person he exchanged words with was the Lion-man.


    ¡° ... good raid...¡±


    ¡° ... thanks...


    ¡° ... next time...¡±


    ¡° ... sure ... good?...¡±


    ¡° ... sure ... seeya...¡±


    ¡° ... seeya...¡±


    The other leaders all had strange expressions on their faces as they watched this exchange. It almost felt like the two people had just shared thousands of thoughts and expressions with these few single bland words. They almost felt like they were watching these people have a conversation in a completely different language.


    While this was going on, the spawn had all raced off and dug the chained iron ballista bolts out of the other domains, where they were slowly pulled back into their little hidey holes under Murphy¡¯s domain.


    Now that they were finished, they all broke apart and started floating off into different direction like a swarm of fly¡¯s being shooed from a corpse. With Murphy¡¯s domain being the last one, the 6 huge domains all started falling to pieces as clouds of dust were pulled from them to float out into space and form upon the leaving domains.


    Each of these huge domains had lost almost 50% of their land and dropped down an entire rank back to tiny level domains. For clarity, the ranks of domain range from desolate, which is a tiny little rock enough for a single house, all the way up universe rank, which currently no one has ever achieved and spanned a distance that was difficult to calculate or measure.


    Murphy had just moved up from Fresh domain to Tiny rank domain. For him, the most important ranks started at desolate, fresh, tiny, island, nation, continent, moon and planet.


    Fresh, Tiny, Island, Nation and Continent were all ¡®flat¡¯ domains and started at 1, 5, 10, 100 and 1000 km in radius respectively.


    At a certain point, the domain can go through the process of becoming planetoid in structure. At which point it is then measured in the radius of it spheroid instead of the radius of the circumference. To reach this stage, he needs more than 1000 km as a continent rank, at which point he could become moon rank with a radius of 500.


    This was a generalisation of how Domains ranked up, some of them, especially weird ones like water biomes, started out spherical. They were particularly troublesome to deal with because they didn¡¯t dock in the normal sense, but instead flooded a domain.


    Rules set by the system for those sorts of battles were very peculiar, but luckily, Murphy had avoided any huge blobs of water he saw floating around the place.


    With the looted land from this battle, he had once again doubled the size of his domain. He¡¯d now stepped beyond the 5km radius limit of a fresh domain and become ¡®Tiny¡¯. When he first learnt about the sizes for domain ranks, he truly felt small. The gap between his domain and those planet domains was astronomical.


    That didn¡¯t stop his ambitions though. The reason he loved playing games, was to strive for the top. It may even take him a lifetime to reach a point he could contest with those overpowered goliaths that were the leading ranked planets.


    That didn¡¯t bother him too much though. He had an unlimited number of lifetimes. Most especially because he had the trait, young forever. Although that was the case, he still seemed to be ageing. He wasn¡¯t sure when young forever would stop it. He assumed it would be at about 20 or 21. When his body had fully developed.


    After that though, it was anyone¡¯s guess.


    Personally, he preferred the idea of growing old and dying. There were two reasons for this. The first, and one of the contributing factors to Murphy now remaining adamantly dense in regards to Seelie, was that Seelie would eventually grow old and die. If he had a closer relationship with her, he was afraid of that happening.


    The other reason was a secret he kept buried deep within his heart and was the main contributing factor to everything. His nervousness around people, his fear of living forever, and most especially his fear of getting too close to Seelie or Juwan.


    Even the fact that he allowed her to remain so close to him at present was due to his own personal weakness of heart. He couldn¡¯t be with her, he couldn¡¯t bear to be without her. It was a very contradictory state of mind, and something that had plagued him in regards to close relationships his whole life.


    <hr>


    The domain was once again under protection status, and we¡¯d made a huge haul of goodies that would have taken us god knows how long to accumulate doing quests and raiding smaller domains. With everything we had now, and the huge expansion of land, we could start some more permanent projects we¡¯d been working towards.


    The first of which was some permanent players. Although the Spawn were a powerful and versatile weapon, they were still limited in many aspects. True Players, on the other hand, had no limitations. Unfortunately, many players that aligned with our goals were greatly opposed to the summons and aesthetics of our domain.


    At the same time, many players we¡¯d be more likely to kill on the spot, and often did, would rush to our domain to join us. It was only now that we¡¯d made a name for ourselves that other players started to take us more seriously and consider joining us despite the nature of over half of our domain.


    Which is also the reason that we decided to start building a player town. The Spawn were rather upset that I was preparing to bring in strangers but were easily placated when Seelie simply described them as meat shields for the Spawn.


    That would just have to do for now. I hoped in my heart that the many different cultures would be able to assimilate and eventually become, if not friendly then at least tolerant.


    To my surprise, instead of drawing in races that one would think were inclined towards fair battle practice and defending the weak, we drew in even more races that looked like they were on the brink of some bloodlust frenzy or ate babies in their free time.


    Most surprising was that all of these people shared similar views. They were people and creatures that the world and other races all looked at as if they were evil. They were weighed down by endless prejudices and pre-formed opinions thanks to the culture or nature of their race.


    In their hearts though, they were individuals that strived for justice and honour. They represented everything bad and evil with how people viewed their origin or culture, but lived their lives to protect those very same people that looked down on them and to uphold a code of ethics.


    They were true heroes at heart, and if they had been born a different race, they would surely have been renowned amongst their people as saints, healers, knights and nobles. People would rain down accolades and noble titles onto them and hoist them on their backs with cheers.


    Instead, they were booed, hated, driven away and feared. They were the creatures and beings of the darkness, that everyone was repulsed by. Even if they did a good deed, they were considered to have been plotting some scheme.


    I had trouble not immediately rejecting them when they travelled to my domain from 6 Star. It was only thanks to the nature of my own experiences and own world view, that I managed to stay my sword hand and welcome them in.


    Although I had no doubts that many of them were plotting against me in secret, I would be remiss in my own moral code of conduct if I were to turn them away.


    Everyone was initially granted the same status as Juwan, who was permanently delegated to squatter class citizen. If they proved themselves, they would be richly rewarded and have the chance for a permanent level of citizenship, in which case they could take advantage of many other useful things such as the respawn point or things usually only sold in the domain store that I could supply them with.


    Not only that, but with the growing player base in the domain, they would have a focal point for trading and partying together. They could work with people of similar ilk and motive and swap resources or commission items and enchantments.


    For these initial joiners, I decided to make some exceptions and to help them properly settle in and get the township started.


    On the first game day after the raid, I had a small area about half way down the growing grassy hill delegated for the construction of the town. With the domain now reaching over 5 km in radius, the hill alone covered nearly 2km.


    As such, my far bigger than I¡¯d planned for castle sat at the highest point of the hill, easily surveying the entire domain. Nearby was a tall Mage Tower which stood out in stark contrast because it¡¯s design was rather foreign in comparison to the sinister design of my castle.


    Nearby was the source pond of the sole river in my domain. About halfway down the hill from there was where I planned to start construction of the township for players joining my domain.


    For these first few players, the idea was that they would trade experience to me in exchange for a build scroll and then build something from the rather generic lists of buildings in the Domain Store. At least, that was how it should have happened. Instead, many of them commissioned the Spawn with meat and loot to build it for them instead.


    In a rather twisted manner, the majority of my new residents had similar tastes and greatly appreciated Spawn Feng Shui. Not only that, they much preferred the sinister land, and after the first 12 player citizens all requested to build their homes alongside the Demon Spawn¡¯s smithies and workshops, I just gave up and let them build where ever the hell they wanted.


    Only a few players preferred the grassy hill, most of them beast races. Still, the ones living in the sinister lands were nowhere near as suspicious as the ones that willingly strove out into the vast Poison Smog Marsh to build a home. Even the normal sinister races were somewhat in awe of those madmen.


    There were two reasons for this. The first was that without an absolute immunity, most beings suffered repercussions from the Smog without me commanding it to avoid them, which they politely declined when I offered. Even I couldn¡¯t freely move through the smog without being in pain. So I was impressed.


    The second was that, the demon spawns that had somehow evolved both Luck and Poison were unquestionably the evilest little bastards you¡¯d ever meet. There were only about 40 of them, and they had their own little tribe, but they were hated by everyone.


    Even the other evolved spawn that had a luck trait hated them.


    This was because, by the very nature of bad luck, as soon as you had a negative luck stat from them touching you, the 5% chance of being poisoned from their touch jumped up to 80% chance. Making it even worse was that their poison was absolutely vile.


    It wasn¡¯t painful, or even particularly noticeable. At least not until about half an hour after when your guts started to feel like you ate a meat grinder and the literally explosive diarrhoea nearly killed you from causing dehydration.


    Adding to that was when you¡¯d completed vacated your digestive track, your skin started glowing blue, as if to tell the whole world what had just happened to you.


    For proud and strong players like these people, that kind of thing was the greatest humiliation they could suffer.


    By the end of the five days, nearly 50 players had moved to into my domain, from all sorts of races. There were even some undead and other demons. We even had a rather renowned player commission a forge be built in the sinister township.


    He was a race that was half dwarf and half dark elf. Making him the most disgusting and vile spawn imaginable to both races that were ancient enemies of each other and far too proud and haughty as far as ancient races go.


    Thanks to that half-breed status, he was hated by both his parent races and they chased after him for a lifetime. He was also what people called a game born player. In other words, his home universe was actually the Domain Warz itself, and he was born from the act of coitus between two players.


    That gave him a somewhat special status seeing as most people returned to their home world for childbearing, or simply used experience in the player store to abort or prevent pregnancy in the first place. He was something akin to an immortal player. He had no home so he could never be logged out, and he always respawned just like any other player.


    The only thing that could actually kill him was old age. Eventually, he would reach a point in his lifetime when his soul could no longer keep his old body running and would just sort of dissipate. Even the system couldn¡¯t prevent that eventuality.


    Anyway, he was renowned for his master forging skills and had created an endless number of rare and powerful enchanted artefacts, weapons and armours.


    However, he was also renowned for being incredibly picky with whom he would craft a weapon for. He didn¡¯t explain why he sought out my domain for a new home, nor did I bother to ask. The black skinned dwarf paid for the forge he wanted up front and then spent an entire day with the Clever Spawn designing it.


    It was actually incredibly impressive and would require days to finish, as opposed to the usually shorter time span required when hundreds of Spawn swarmed over the job to finish it for other player¡¯s buildings.


    There was also a group of races that took advantage of me upgrading Seelie¡¯s mage tower and requested to have the old smaller tower rebuilt in the township for them. They mostly focused on dark magic arts and required a place to act as a repository for their knowledge and a place to practice and develop new spells.


    It looked rather out of place in the township, seeing as it was about the only generic building from the system and had an old gothic style. This was quickly remedied by the Spawn though. They blew the pointy top off it and replaced it with a huge magical flame that burnt constantly and bathed the little township in the constant flickering firelight.


    The last interesting guests amongst my new player residents were those foolish enough to move out into the poison fog. It was rare to not see them rapidly pursuing the lightning fast little luck demons around, screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs while they glowed like Christmas lights in the smog.


    It was lucky for them that I¡¯d recently poured a bottle of miracle water into the stream. It caused a drastic change to the nature of the stream in the grassy hill area, making it capable of curing almost anything if you bathed in it at the source pond.


    Unfortunately, it still didn¡¯t change the waters nature after it reached the edge of the domain and if anything only seemed to make it worse. For a rare change, I was actually a bit afraid of testing it.


    While all of this was happening, a few other players appeared that were somewhat out of the ordinary for the kind of people attracted to my domain.


    The first one, who appeared the day after the huge battle, was a sweet little girl with huge watery eyes. She was perhaps the cutest little girl in the world, and was Seelie¡¯s little sister. I don¡¯t let her cuteness fool me however, she was absolutely merciless and vicious with her words.


    If honest, I was slightly frightened by her. Mostly because her words were very stinging and especially when she brought up topics like Seelie and I being together. She and Juwan hit it off straight away, and both pushed the issue frequently only to be completely ignored by me as I zoned out, or directly used some powerful shadow arts and disappeared.


    The last new addition to the domain was Uncle Calligso. He loved everything about this game. He especially adored the methods with which he could observe growth in his status, and the skills were just like icing on a cake.


    The moment he completed the tutorial, he waited for me to log out to complete my school exit exam, which I did the day after the battle. He then had me form a party so he could respawn in my domain. When he appeared on the domain, he started challenging all the strongest looking players to battle.


    Turned out he was even more of a monster than I was. His battle prowess was absolutely unstoppable, and the only creature in the entire domain that could put him down was Morbid. Even then it was like watching two titans savagely beating each other to death.


    Morbid seemed to take a special liking to Calligso, and it wasn¡¯t rare to see the two of them wrestling around everywhere or playing tug-a-war. Fetch was the most bizarre to watch, as Calligso would pick up a huge dragon bone and launch it across to the other side of the domain like a toy, only for Morbid to excitedly be racing after it a second later.


    This wasn¡¯t the only thing we did in out protection period. We were well aware that we had poked a hornet¡¯s nest and we were likely going to be heavily pursued by the factions which those 6 domains we¡¯d taken down had belonged to.


    For tyrants and bandits like them, what we did was basically a huge slap in the face. They would send out little domains from their faction to track and pursue us, which we actually welcomed if anything. They were too slow to catch us, and as long as they kept sending little ones, we would eventually be big enough to turn around and consume them.


    If they wanted to try and bully us, we would destroy them.


    To prepare for that, I started designing cannons. Although they are an archaic form of combat in my world, most races in this world wouldn¡¯t know what they are. Apart from perhaps other races like dwarves and gnomes who specialised in things exploding, and maybe some human factions, there weren¡¯t too many other races that had more advanced methods of combat that I had seen.


    If I had to guess as to a reason why, then it would probably have something to do with the fact that on their planets they are most likely a species that is the dominant predator and hasn¡¯t evolved to the point that their civilisation is beyond simply killing each other to become boss.


    This was made apparent by the fact that most of the races we¡¯ve faced in battle so far were all led by a creature that was bigger and meaner looking than the rest.


    As opposed to my domain, which is led by me and has people walking around with swords the size of their bodies or bodies the size of a house and didn¡¯t need anything apart from that. Even the race with the most numbers, which could easily overthrow me, was instead loyal to me.


    Many races seemed to lose track of the fact that being the domain controller granted you a great deal more power than simply being bigger or stronger. My status as a controller is what gave me the right to lead these people, not necessarily my combat prowess. Which in my own humble opinion probably now ranked 3rd on the island, after Calligso and Seelie.


    Anyway, the point is I started to take advantage of the ignorance of others. Although methods were available in the domain store for many of the things I¡¯d planned out to protect my domain, it seemed few people actually took advantage of them and instead focused all their resources on manpower and personal strength.


    Cannons were just the beginning. When I went to visit Alton, the half cast dwarf/elf and proposed some of my design ideas, he almost fell out of his chair before declaring them impossible. When I started explaining how I expected them to work, and how I understood how they should work, he started to get a little excited, took my drawings and quickly kicked me out of his workshop.


    After the 5 day protection period finished, Seelie cast the Spell Model she¡¯d developed to hide our domain, and we started to scout out targets for our next raid.

 Chapter 11: The Universe is a small place after all

    It¡¯d been a while since I checked my status properly. Since Newb Planet, I¡¯d only gained a few new titles and my traits remained the same. It appeared that the Newb Planet was as much a method to allow the system to understand us and assign talents to us as it was for us to understand the system and learn to use it.


    From the discussions I¡¯ve had with our new player residents, it¡¯s rather rare for players to still gain new traits or titles after the Newb indoctrination. Which would explain why, even after weeks had passed since we left newb planet, I haven¡¯t earnt many new titles and no traits at all.


    Probably the only way to further develop new ones would be to invest a significant amount of time. I often thought it strange that the system was handing out titles and traits like candy in the beginning, but after we started theorising as to how it assigns traits, it was more understandable.


    That said, I still managed to develop some rather disturbing titles even after leaving Newb Planet. Since we weren¡¯t that busy, and mostly just floating around scoping out targets, I decided now was a good time to re-evaluate my stats and consider some proper training.


    After Newb Planet I¡¯d become rather lacking in my training. My stats when I left the planet hardly even moved until I went on that pointless romp through 6 Star, and even then it was all random and without conscious effort. I was really just absorbed in the game and not focused on my skills at all.


    With that thought in mind, I opened my Status Space and started going through my stats, skills, spells and traits.


    With some better understanding of how stats and skills were assigned and worked, I¡¯d long since altered my Status Space to show me information based on the stat or skill class. Although it wasn¡¯t perfect, it was mostly accurate in its assessment.


    Things like Pain Mastery and Mana Manipulation weren¡¯t specific to their category, being placed in Body and Soul respectively, but were more appropriate to those areas.


    Pain Mastery, for example, was affected by stats in all three categories, and the special traits that used Pain Mastery also weren¡¯t aligned to a single category. It used cement, endurance and wisdom to alter its progression and affected almost every growth rate, even things like mana.


    However, it remained primarily as a body alteration skill, because that¡¯s its most obvious area of effectiveness. As can be attested to by the monstrous level of my endurance stat.


    Since the last time I actually sat down and properly surveyed my stats and skills, which would be back on Newb Planet just after I left the Thorny Tower, I¡¯d now accumulated a few new skills. Assassinate, and Shadow Magic are both skills I didn¡¯t actively try to create and were instead system rewards from quests.


    Which was the only reason I had those, seeing as they both carry with them rather negative connotations.


    In the case of Assassinate, that was earnt from clearing a dungeon. To date, I¡¯d hardly invested much time in levelling this skill. This was because I honestly didn¡¯t consider it to be much use and just the act of sneakily killing someone turns my stomach somewhat.


    Skills like this often have certain ¡®abilities¡¯ attached to them. Which is sort of like the ¡®body¡¯ equivalent of spells. I don¡¯t pay much attention to them because apart from some cool effects and power increase, they often cause the person to enter a channelling state or have some charge up time.


    My Basic Weapon Arts, for example, has abilities like ¡®Long Shot¡¯ or ¡®Cleave¡¯. If I focus my intentions and use the cleave skill in battle, it causes me to lose focus on my surroundings and has almost a full second in which my body is somewhat frozen and has to build up energy.


    I find active abilities like this greatly disconcerting and personally believe them to be a detriment in battle unless I could master them effectively.


    It has nothing to do with the fact that physical abilities require me to be able to operate the Imbue skill, which I can no longer even learn or practice thanks to my Deprive skill. I¡¯m not sour about that at all ... Really.


    That said, many of these skills also grant innate passive effects which don¡¯t require Imbue to operate. Deflect, for example, gives me the passive ability to sense the direction, speed and power of the five closest projectiles strong enough to cause me harm, making it far easier to deflect or dodge them.


    In addition to Assassinate and Shadow Magic, there were two skills I¡¯d purposely spent time practising and learning. Elemental Magic and Deflect. Deflect was a skill focused solely on defence, which with my body and traits was actually somewhat counter-intuitive. That said, there were still many things my body can¡¯t survive from, such as a fireball or arrow to the face.


    In reality, I only learnt this skill to protect my most vulnerable spots, which if I spent some time and effort on, could actually become absurdly more powerful than the rest of my body.


    The only problem with that was, I didn¡¯t have the strength of heart to stab myself in the eye all day in an effort to make my eyes indestructible, even though I knew that I would eventually have to do exactly that if I planned to take full advantage of my sickening traits.


    Elemental Magic was also a skill I invested some time in studying and learning. This was a futile attempt on my part to try and escape the disturbing trend my magic arts were leaning towards.


    I say futile, because even after learning elemental magic arts, for some reason all my spells were disparagingly violent. Seelie was of the opinion that it was because my mana was already severely skewed towards darker elements. Which also explained why I had so much difficulty learning light magic or holy magic to the point that it was nigh impossible.


    This didn¡¯t mean that I couldn¡¯t level elemental magic as quickly as other magic. It only meant that I had trouble levelling certain spells that didn¡¯t seem to align with the nature of my Mana. I had no trouble with completely destructive spells like fireball or water cannon, which were clearly designed for warfare.


    In fact, spells like this were almost too powerful when I used them. Even with their lowest mana cost they somehow ended up as powerful as Seelie¡¯s elemental magic, which was a magnitude higher in skill and spell level than my own.


    The problem lay in the other side of elemental arts. Things like the Raise Earth spell and Gentle Breeze spell. Both normally completely harmless in the hands of other elemental mages, only to become an Earth Spike or Gale Winds spell in my hands.


    This essential meant that unless I focused my efforts in this magic on purely destructive and less neutral spells, then my elemental arts skill would be far slower to increase than other magic skills.


    Seelie and I both came to this conclusion after observing the growth in my summoning magic arts, which like elemental arts, is essentially considered neutral. It was obvious that this skill was growing just as fast as the other two magic arts I had and it was most likely because of the nature of the spells I was using.


    Unfortunately, summoning required one of two things to create a spell. Either an innate talent born from your own nature and abilities and unlocked by the system, or something like a summoning contract.


    Well, that is to say ... creating a safe summoning spell required these things. It was possible to learn other summoning spells by learning them from others, but that would result in the age old tradition of the summoned creature eating the moron that summoned it.


    Amusingly, it was also the only method with which to meet a summoned creature and create a summoning contract with it. Which was more often than not the reason why so many fools still summoned these uncontrollable beings only to discover that it would rather eat them than create a contract.


    After looking through my skills and making some personal observations, I determined what route to take in the training I was planning for myself. For starters, I had a few skills that only needed 1000 odd experience to level up.


    Athletics was easy. I just needed load myself up with the heaviest things I could find and increase my inventory weight while I did my other training. After some running, jumping and throwing of things, it would naturally level up rather quickly.


    The next closest was Sneak and Assassinate. Sneak was simple. I just had to move about like a creeper and try to avoid being seen by anyone. Assassinate was a little less simple to level, but that didn¡¯t bother me because I had no intentions of levelling the skill up anyway.


    In fact, if I hadn¡¯t accidentally assassinated a few people already, I most likely wouldn¡¯t have levelled the skill at all.


    Memorisation and Alchemy were also both close to the next skill level. Memorisation was quite easy, but also very bothersome. To level this skill, I needed to spend an abusive amount of time remembering things.


    Before now I¡¯d never actively tried to raise this skill, and most of its levels and experience were gained from learning all the hateful amounts of scriptures and texts in the thorny tower or herb books for alchemy.


    That said, I thought of a better method to help this skill level quickly. That was through the use of another skill, Mana Cartography. I would go to other worlds through the random portals to train my skills and use that opportunity to build maps of those worlds.


    This required an eye for detail and the ability to remember clearly everything I try to recreate. This way I could quickly level 3 skills. Memorisation, Mana Cartography and also Mana Manipulation.


    It just so happened that Mana Manipulation was also close to levelling up. It was actually the easiest to level because I would also be using it for casting magic and I planned to regularly play with my mana to try and learn better ways of using it, or even creating some personal spells of my own.


    Alchemy was the skill close to levelling that I¡¯d neglected the most since leaving Newb Planet. In order to grow it, it was best to simply concoct a slew of random potions and test them. This would increase my understanding of potion ingredients and also help me learn new recipes.


    I hadn¡¯t done this much since I started my domain and mostly only concocted things I had already learnt. This caused my Alchemy progress to slow down rather quickly, and I decided I would take some time aside and spend some more effort on this during my training.


    The last two skills close to tipping over to the next level were Elemental Magic and Shadow Magic. Both were simple. I just had to practice converting my mana to the type used for these spells and also practice casting spells from these two schools of magic.


    At the thought of spells, I decided to review the spells I had accumulated in my spell tome. By now, thanks to my numerous different types of magic arts, my spell tome had slowly changed into an even more evil looking book than before, when it only had sinister magic.


    It looked like it was bound from various different human skins all stitched together and filled with disgusting pulsing veins. It was surrounded by a very ominous shadowy mist that seemed to seethe about the book in time with the pulsing veins, as if the book was breathing.


    On the front cover bound in skin were four picture like symbols. The first was a dagger stuck into a bleeding heart, which throbbed in time with the book. The next were the four major elements, wind, water, fire and earth. The last two were of a creature standing in a summoning circle and a black moon.


    Each of these showed one of the four types of magic I¡¯d started learning. Sinister, Elemental, Summoning and Shadow.


    I couldn¡¯t help but let out a dejected sigh as I tentatively reached out and flipped the disgusting cover open.


    During my training at the witch¡¯s tower on newb planet, I learnt a great deal about magic that I really wish I hadn¡¯t had to. For starters, it quickly became apparent that many spells had a spell type. Of the spells I had learnt to date, Single Cast and Channelling were the most prolific.


    Even of the spells I¡¯d only read about and never bothered to learn, these two casting types were the most commonly seen.


    Single cast spells were generally a spell that only needed to be cast a single time and had no channelled effects. For example, I could cast fireball and generate hundreds of fireballs or even just a single huge fireball, but I would only need to cast the spell once.


    Channelling was different in that I had to choose a target or target area and then it would cost me mana at set time periods to maintain the effects of the spell. Ain¡¯t No Rest was a perfect example for this.


    Of my spells, the curses in my sinister arts were most prolific. This was a result of the elf witch¡¯s tutoring and the spells that were easiest for her to teach me. I actually didn¡¯t learn anything in other magic groups while I was studying with her and really only learnt about other spells from books I¡¯d gathered since then.


    Both my summoning spells were innate spells, which meant I could cast them with the best effects simply from willing it and didn¡¯t even need the spell patterns or chants from the book. I planned to work on getting some more summoning magic later, but for now was still a little apprehensive about it.


    This was mostly because I was afraid the things I wanted to summon would most likely eat me before forming a contract, as is the age-old story of most summoners.


    In the end, the spells I actually found the most useful were the shadow arts and elemental magic. The shadow arts made it easier to move through the chaos of the battlefield and also had the void prism spell which was perfect for locking down strong enemies for a moment during combat.


    Unfortunately, I still managed to pick up a weird spell for this magic type during my travels. Shadow Tentacles. Why anyone even invented such a perverted and vile magic is beyond me. That said, most of my curses weren¡¯t any better, and these sorts of spells remained mostly unpractised.


    For starters, the embarrassment I would feel if Seelie caught me waving shadow tentacles shaped like cocks all about the place would probably kill me. Not to mention things like the ¡®Ello Poppet¡¯ and ¡®Don¡¯t Mind¡¯ spells, which controlled people against their wills.


    Of these most sinister spells, the most disturbing was the ¡®12 disasters¡¯ which required me to sacrifice a virgin just to cast on someone. I can still remember the face of that sweet, heroic girl that got crushed under the weight of a Gryphon I was doing battle with.


    Luckily she turned out to be a player, and my guilty conscience was slightly more assuaged thereafter.


    Because I have a sinister spell requiring a virgin sacrifice, every time a virgin dies because of me, I get a sacrifice point. The experience was something like keeping her tormented soul trapped within a mana bubble and stored away inside my mind.


    I could ¡®feel¡¯ and ¡®see¡¯ her soul stuck inside me, trapped in a little bubble of sinister mana. We could even easily communicate. In fact, I had trouble blocking her out. I could just imagine the torment a truly evil person who trapped hundreds of virgin souls would have to suffer through from the wailing and crying of so many people.


    Because I couldn¡¯t bear to keep some innocent virgin¡¯s soul locked up inside me, I immediately raced off to the nest of the Gryphon King and told the virgin¡¯s soul that I would avenge her. Then when I cast the 12 Disasters on the Gryphon King and hid back into the shadows, her soul was released and returned to the resurrection cycle.


    She didn¡¯t seem that appreciative that I went out of my way to help her out. Well, if I¡¯m honest, she almost seemed disappointed I was releasing her soul.


    The most disturbing part of the whole experience wasn¡¯t even the fact I¡¯d accidentally killed a sweet virgin girl. Nor was it the fact that we both had to endure her being trapped inside me.


    No, the most disturbing part of the experience and the part that made me so amiable as to immediately release her soul and use it to cast the 12 disasters, was because she was a huge pervert and it was a wonder she¡¯d even managed to remain a virgin.


    The whole time she was trapped inside me, she rolled around moaning and doing dirty things I¡¯ve only ever seen Seelie doing. Except, in a far more shameless manner. I¡¯m not sure if it was something to do with the nature of my mana or the sensation of having her soul trapped, but she was very verbal and explicit in her ... self-comforting?


    Anyway, the whole point is that she was the reason my 12 Disasters spell was level 2 despite it being a rather sinister spell which I greatly disliked the cost of casting.


    However, despite being a spell beyond redemption, it was incredibly powerful. I almost pitied the huge Gryphon King as I watched him be inundated with tornados, falling rocks, plagues ... That was about the limit of what I managed to witness though.


    By that point, I was already rapidly evacuating, because the entire mountain range of the Gryphon¡¯s Nest was being engulfed at the same time as the Gryphon King, including my unwitting self who happened to be hidden in the shadows.


    The least interesting, but the most useful spells were all from the elemental magic. The uses for this magic were uncountable. The only problem was, if I planned to use them for anything other than destruction, I had a great deal of effort in controlling them.


    After going over my spells again, I determinedly started to build a training plan in my head, so that I could fully display the might of all this crappy magic I was forced to go through the effort of learning.


    Although what the Witch said was true, and personal power isn¡¯t as important in the Domain Wars as the power of my overall forces, that didn¡¯t change the fact that I treated this as a game and wanted to play.


    Where¡¯s the fun in a game if I never actually got to participate?


    The last thing I did in my Status space was go through my titles. I had no new traits, which by this point in time I was rather thankful for, but I did have a few new titles.


    Of the new titles I¡¯d acquired, two of them just popped up one day out of nowhere. Blind Optimist, I had no idea what it was supposed to do. Its effects simply remained empty, even after I tried using identify on the title.


    I had no idea what it actually did or if it did anything at all, but it seemed harmless enough for now, so I wasn¡¯t too worried about it.


    Demon Tamer also appeared out of nowhere, similar to the Optimist title. I suspect it had something to do with my demon spawns having reached more than 6,000 in population, but at the time I received it I was on my romp through 6 Stars, so I can¡¯t be sure.


    Its effects seemed mostly positive, and I didn¡¯t mind it too much. From what I could tell, it was the least troublesome of my titles.


    The Unlucky was easily the worst of all my new titles. It appeared one day after a huge accident involving a necromancer and a whore house, and it was something I tried very hard to forget about every day. The worst part about it was that it increased the frequency that bad accidents happened nearby, and more often than not resulted in huge luck penalties.


    The incident involving the Gryphon¡¯s was especially bad and dropped the 60 odd luck I¡¯d accumulated at that point all the way back down to negative 6. This title was also the curse that seemed to hold me back from building up too much good luck, almost like some twisted mechanism of the universe to keep me from ever having too much good luck.


    Iron Stomach came about during my 14 days of romping about on 6 Star. It was a title I earned as a result of my now habitual manner of eating everything I see which I can¡¯t identify on sight.


    Thanks to my taste tester title, it¡¯s rare for me to not be sticking things in my mouth that I have no idea regarding the origin or purpose of. Of all the parts of my body that have high endurance, I¡¯m pretty sure that my stomach may have the highest.


    Especially considering that most of the things I stick in my mouth were rare herbs with normally fatal powers. Flaming Flowers and Poisonous Leaves. Hell, I¡¯d even started sticking items into my mouth.


    It wasn¡¯t unusual to see me sticking a rock in my mouth or chewing on a rare looking weapon. Because it had become so habitual, I almost couldn¡¯t control it.


    Even more worrying was that even if it shattered my teeth or ripped apart my gums, it only felt good and my mouth¡¯s endurance quickly rose to the point I wouldn¡¯t even realise I¡¯d eaten something I shouldn¡¯t have. At least ... not until I was trying to force out a nugget of 10,000 times refined steel from an enchanted sword in the little boy¡¯s room the next day.


    After eating a few flaming swords ... well ... let¡¯s just say that my eating orifice wasn¡¯t the only hole in my body that had recently undergone a shocking rise in durability.


    The last one was fire starter. I was awarded this title when I was first learning elemental magic. Naturally, the first spell I tried to learn was fireball.


    At the time, I was staying in a little village on newb planet and my first few attempts at the spell ... well, let¡¯s just say the village isn¡¯t there anymore. When the raging fires that just seemed to appear in the forest out of nowhere consumed the corrupt Treant that had been terrorising the villagers, I, unfortunately, didn¡¯t get a quest reward.


    Not that it mattered too much, because by that point in time I was already a dozen kilometres away and still running for my life from the angry lizard tribesmen.


    This title wasn¡¯t too bad in theory ... it just meant that my original 6% chance of ruining someone¡¯s life when I touch them increased to 7% ... well, provided they weren¡¯t an orphan, who had an extra 50% chance on top of that.


    <hr>


    Having spent some time reviewing his spells, stats and skills, Murphy started to work out a training schedule. He decided that now was the time to start getting stronger.


    His domain was strong enough at the moment to enjoy some peace and quiet for a few weeks. With the spell model hiding his domain, they were mostly free to travel around unhindered.


    This was only temporary though. Eventually, someone was going to figure out how they were hiding themselves, and those gangs of thugs that he¡¯d just pissed off were going to track him down.


    Although the Domain Space was immeasurable, the laws of the universe were strange. Despite how huge the universe may seem to be, it often turned out to be a small place after everything was said and done. Not to mention, Murphy had a pension for falling into unlucky mishaps, and it was only a matter of time before some accident happened and he was discovered.


    Before then, he was going to train himself and his citizens to the point they could take on just about anyone. He wanted them to become the best and be untouchable.


    With that in mind, he went and found Juwan. Even though he wanted to give a rousing hero speech and bolster his men into a long training montage with some corny background song playing the whole time, he recognised his greatest failing and so called in someone that could do those things for him.


    With Juwan present, he would be able to convey himself to his citizens without any of those long awkward conversations.


    Even though that was what he thought, he still had to spend 4 hours explaining properly to Juwan. Once that trying experience was over, Juwan called a town meeting and pulled in all their player citizens to the spawn¡¯s sacred courtyard.


    50 people of different races, skills, backgrounds and personalities were seated together. Dark races, halflings, monsters, beast men, even demons. The assortment of people that had started moving into Murphy¡¯s domain were all evil looking, but kind hearted.


    Once Juwan had gathered them, Murphy wandered off to find his foster father. As was rather normal now, Calligso was busily wrestling with Morbid. It was hard to pick out the monster between the two of them, especially when he watched Calligso grabbing Morbid by the scruff of the neck and flinging him nearly 20 meters away, only to moments later collide with him again.


    <hr>


    While Murphy was busily getting his domain in order and preparing everyone for some training, things were starting to spin out of control back on Earth.


    People were screaming about the second apocalypse or the second coming of the great sage. All sorts of crimes were now being committed by people with seemingly ¡®supernatural¡¯ powers. However, just as people lurked about in the shadows to commit sin, others rose up in the light to smite them.


    Real life heroes and villains started emerging from the woodwork while the governments in control of the colonies all raced to try and figure out what the hell to do in this situation. The people in power were flustered.


    Seated in a very lush and extravagant house upon a hill, overlooking the central city of Gastalberg, was an aged man dressed in a black suit. He sat on a cushion at the edge of a balcony and peered out towards the city down below.


    His hair was silver white and cut short and neat. He had a bushy moustache which covered his mouth, and his eyes were closed into slits.


    He was the Captain of the Secret Enforcers, Gustov. As he sat and observed the city, he couldn¡¯t help but let out a sigh as he thought back to when he¡¯d been sucked through to some other space after visiting the strange black box in the city centre.


    It wasn¡¯t just him, all the heads of state and leaders of the colony had been pulled through. When they first appeared, the black box was a mystery. After their security had investigated and was abducted by some form of teleportation, they were naturally called forth to discussions with the being that had left the boxes behind.


    To their great consternation, they all realised that it was almost impossible to determine the power of the individual named ¡®James¡¯. He was some kind of monster, or God, or perhaps both.


    It didn¡¯t matter though, because they had no way to oppose him. Whatever he was, he was beyond their ability to fight against.


    He also didn¡¯t seem to have evil or good motives. From the very short conversation, in which he simply stated his boredom, the greatest minds of the planet all agreed he was simply some passing alien creature with unmeasurable power that thought to play a game with them.


    Although the indignation of being played with like toys caused no short number of blood vessels to burst, the fact remained that it was impossible to stop him. And so, they had no choice but to acquiesce and relinquish their security over the boxes and allow the populace to participate.


    Naturally, Gustov didn¡¯t feel the same as his compatriots. First of all, having something like this outside of his control went against his nature and all of his training. Making it worse, was that one of the first to determine how to step into the ¡®game world¡¯ was a target he¡¯d been watching for a long time.


    Gustov was mulling over his thoughts as a man donned in a tight fitting black bodysuit, with a sleek black masked helmet, suddenly appeared out of the shadows.


    ¡°Master, we¡¯ve established a foothold in the Domain Warz. Unfortunately, we appear to be receiving a significant amount of resistance, and just as quickly as our domains are forming, we are losing them. More so, it appears we are very late. There are hundreds of other human players from Earth that have already established themselves.¡±


    Gustov scratched at his moustache and pondered for a while.


    ¡°What of the target?¡±


    ¡°Captain, it would seem that he has already made a name for himself. Some of our agents have heard rumours in our star sector that he has already reached an island rank domain and has no few number of enemies or supporters.¡±


    ¡°Fine then, gather the Lab Masters that have finished the tutorial world. I¡¯ll party with them, and we will consolidate our resources on my domain. We must hunt it down quickly, before it¡¯s too powerful to stop. If we can just get that thing back to the real world, we may have the opportunity to capture or kill it.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Captain.¡±


    ¡°If we can, try and get in touch with other earthlings that have had good success. If we can draw them in, then we may be able to use what they¡¯ve learnt and increase our chances of success. The top 100 players, if we can¡¯t convince them in the game, then find their families out here and coerce them. If that thing turns 18 and goes through the Madness, we may all be doomed.¡±


    ¡°As you wish, Captain.¡±


    After acknowledging his commands, the black solider slowly merged back into the shadows and disappeared. It was clear that either the technology he was using was very powerful, or he¡¯d already started mastering shadow magic from the game world.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    Gustov¡¯s eyes remained squinted and surveyed over the world down below. Moments later, his body seemingly disintegrated and reformed out of bright light on a fresh domain, floating about in space covered with its protective bubble.


    At the same time, as if proof of concept that the universe truly is a small place, a dark shadow was quickly passing through space only a few hundred kilometres away, shrouding within was a huffing Murphy, who was currently taking lessons from Uncle Calligso.


    <hr>


    I¡¯m not sure what it is, but I have this feeling. A strange ... compulsion. It was only recently that it started, a feeling of urgency to get stronger. To become powerful. I can¡¯t be certain where exactly it came from or why it started, but I do know it¡¯s a powerful feeling.


    It¡¯s like staring at death. Knowing that I may die any moment. It¡¯s a terrifying feeling and not something I can stop from pushing me to build up my strength.


    When I was young, many strange things happened around me, many of those things I forced myself to forget and many others, despite my efforts, I will never forget. But in all instances when such a thing was about to happen, I felt this sensation.


    This fear. This need to grow stronger and overcome any obstacle. It told me one thing. Something terrible was going to happen soon. Something that is beyond my control and the only hope I have of surviving it is to become more powerful.


    At the same time though, I will soon be turning 18. I¡¯m not exactly sure when my 18th birthday is, but it will be soon. The fact that I¡¯m having this feeling now, when I¡¯m about to reach that exact age, only frightens me more.


    This only makes me even more uncertain about what I should be doing. For starters, this need to get stronger, to train. It may be a self-defence mechanism from some part of me I don¡¯t even want to acknowledge. If I become powerful enough to overcome anything, then I will only be making the monster inside me stronger.


    But ... then I¡¯ll be walking to my own death if I don¡¯t become strong enough to protect myself and those few people I hold close.


    Only adding to all my uncertainty, is her. I¡¯ve never told her what I¡¯m afraid of. I¡¯ve never told her why I wouldn¡¯t acknowledge her feelings. But she¡¯s smart, and considering how even more withdrawn and focused I¡¯ve become leading up to my 18th birthday, she had most likely figured it out.


    Only making me feel worse is despite me pushing her further away over this time, she has only pulled herself closer. Her unconditional support ... it¡¯s frightening. If she¡¯s here when it happens, if she¡¯s nearby, then I may do something I would regret forever.


    Just at the thought of it, a memory surfaces from my past and an involuntary vomit reflex almost vents my lunch. No matter the cost, I can¡¯t let something like that happen to Seelie!


    <hr>


    For the next few days, the people living on my domain switched between short rests, working on the defences, traps and weaponry of the domain and training with each other.


    The random portals finally switched to new quest planets that were explorable. It just so happened that one of the worlds was a notorious hotspot of sinister intentions. On the surface, this world seemed remarkably peaceful and friendly, but if you kick a board, termites fall out.


    The world in question happened to be inhabited by all manner of ¡®creatures of light¡¯. Fairies, Unicorns, Gryphons and white dragons abounded. Great civilisations towered over the masses and a single unifying religion in worship of the Holy God drew all the various citizens of the world together.


    Although that normally would have sounded great, it was simply evil with a glossy coat of paint covering the decay and corruption. Kings and Emperors extorted their people, and the religion extorted the kings and emperors.


    The ¡®creatures of light¡¯, although seemingly amiable from a distance, where like vicious thugs when you meet them. They held no qualms over using their ¡®righteous¡¯ position to manipulate heroes into doing demeaning or dangerous tasks for them. They were more likely to stab you in the face after completing some impossible quest for them than to actually give you a reward.


    It wasn¡¯t unusual to see these creatures lording it over their subjects and being generally arrogant and insufferable.


    Naturally, the citizens of Murphy¡¯s domain, all of which gathered under his banner to subvert exactly such evils and atrocities, rushed to form parties and march into this new world to quell those that would commit evil under the banner of good.


    Murphy, of course, was no different. He was particularly weak to this train of thought when he encountered a little village nearby the portal that was inhabited by beast men not dissimilar to the beast men of the very first village he encountered when he appeared on Newb Planet.


    Just remembering the sweet young girl that he¡¯d killed caused him to drop all his defences towards these poor beast folk. When he witnessed the villagers being extorted and bullied by the gallant and noble looking knights of the local Lord, he was especially incensed.


    Unfortunately, it turned out that even these low-class thugs of some backwater baron were powerful enough to fight him off. It just goes to show that the general levels of the creatures on this particular Quest planet were leagues beyond anyone else he¡¯d faced before now.


    As such, he retreated and rallied a small militia from his domain, and set forth to free these villagers from their oppressive overlord.


    He rallied his citizens together and gave a rousing speech to beg their aid in his conquest. Which lead to a quiet response from the few that had the patience and understanding to wait 20 minutes for him to finally voice himself.


    Naturally, those few that were still around were the oddballs and stood out amongst his citizens as strange. It only took him a few hours to assemble an adventuring party that he felt was capable of taking on just about anything.


    Juwan, donned in shining silver armour, was his mouthpiece. When they needed someone to talk, Juwan was the guy. Although he had some significant amount of power behind him, and his battle skills were anything but lacking, Murphy really only invited him for the purpose of talking to other people.


    Seelie and Chuckles didn¡¯t dare miss out on the action, and both roused Morbid from an afternoon nap. Although it may seem like a monumental task to get Morbid ready to head out on an adventure, the truth was it was actually very easy.


    The moment Seelie walked up to him holding his saddle, he knew it was time for ¡®walkies¡¯, and he was going to get to run around and bite some stuff. Which was the only thing that really mattered in his simple dog-like version of how the world worked.


    Calligso, seeing his Biological and Adopted Son getting ready to rush off to save innocents and do those other kinds of brotherly things, opted out on this adventure. He was aware by now how much Juwan longed for a brotherly relationship with Murphy, and he wasn¡¯t going to go along and interrupt that long awaited dream of his.


    Even if they weren¡¯t really doing any of those brotherly activities Juwan had dreamed of, questing together in a game was a close second.


    The rest of Murphy¡¯s party were 4 citizens of his domain.


    Among these 4 citizens was a Grey Dwarf, which was the same race as Alton, the dwarf/dark elf blacksmith. His name was Carson, and he specialised in poisons. Among the inhabitants of Murphy¡¯s domain, he was one of those few daring individuals that lived in the poison smog.


    He had dark grey hair that was only a few shades away from his dark grey skin. He almost looked sickly with his dark glistening grey skin, but that was just how his race was. His beard was wild and unruly, as is common for descendants of dwarven birth, and he had long pointy ears, similar to that of an elf.


    Apart from that, he was very much dwarf-like in height, but maintained a slimmer figure than most dwarves. His weapon of choice was a pair of spiked gloves that were coated in so many different poisons even the surrounding air seemed to tremble around them.


    There was also a couple, who were apparently ¡®mated¡¯, which Murphy simply assumed was their term for married. They were an odd pair, both being afflicted with some kind of bloodline curse which caused a form of lycanthropy. In this case, Lucile was a Were-Panther and Xanzu was a Were-Wolf.


    Lucile obviously wore the pants in the relationship and was a tall black haired, slim women of mid-twenties. She was incredibly attractive in human form and made no bones about flaunting her body. She wore a tight black and purple corset that pushed her ample bosom up to a point it almost looked like they were about to fall out if she just gave a little jiggle.


    She wore a short black, frilly mini-skirt that seemed to be enchanted to always be at just the right spot to prevent anyone from seeing everything, no matter how she moved about. It was hard to say if it was also enchanted to draw people¡¯s eyes towards it, because the hypnotic effects of her skirt could most likely do that all by itself.


    Xanzu, on the other hand, was nowhere near as flamboyant as Lucile. He wore a baggy loose grey robe that he kept tightly tied around his body, hiding his face with a hood.


    He was clearly very introverted and was rather quiet. He mostly only responded to Lucile, his ¡®master¡¯ as it were, and apart from following her instructions to listen to Murphy, the party leader, he remained rather introverted.


    They had a very strange relationship, and being the expert he was in such matters, their polygamous S&M relationship was beyond Murphy¡¯s ability to comprehend. Therefore, he simply tried his best to ignore it. He couldn¡¯t help but feel a shiver running up his spine though, when he overheard Lucile giving Seelie tips on ¡®claiming¡¯ her own mate.


    When Lucile started instructing Seelie to simply abduct the target of her affection and rape them into submission, Murphy rapidly created some distance and made an effort to always keep an eye on Seelie, just to be sure she wasn¡¯t conjuring some weird binding magic.


    While they were preparing their equipment to leave, the strange looks Murphy was receiving from the human form Lucile left him clenching his anus unintentionally and only made him even more wary of the women.


    Lucile¡¯s weapon of choice was her razor sharp panther claws and teeth, which she appeared to be able to extend and retract at will. Xanzu was less conspicuous and used a bow and arrows.


    No one else from this party had ever seen them battle, but stories from the other citizens suggested that when the duo was in a dangerous situation they could bite each other and it would cause them to change into their lycanthrope form.


    The last member of the party was a young man about the same age as Murphy. This fellow¡¯s name was Tuskelly and he was by far the strangest inhabitant of Murphy¡¯s Domain at present.


    This was because he was a creature that would have to be described as alien. He claimed to be from a race that can only be interpreted in the shared language of Domain Warz as ¡®The Strange¡¯, and sported a head with no face.


    It wasn¡¯t just his faceless head that was disconcerting though. Although he was very much humanoid in height and shape, his 4 limbs were instead tentacles, and his body was capable of morphing about fluidly. It wasn¡¯t unusual to see his head slowly being engulfed by his torso, only to moments later sprout from his hip.


    Even more disorienting than that was his skin, which seemed to randomly change between a glowing transparent luminescence to a cracked and dried rock-like layer then eventually end up as a jelly, only to go through the whole cycle all over again. According to him, he had such a high level of control over his body that he could change forms into almost anything.


    It was only after repeated requests and threatening from Lucile and Seelie that he eventually morphed into his present hairless, humanoid form. However, he still very rigidly refused to grow a face, apparently being offended by their very shape.


    This begged the question of how exactly he was generating sound. But the simple fact that no one wanted to spend too long looking directly at this face for fear he may start talking directly to them, the group was left mystified but momentarily content.


    While preparing, Murphy took Morbid off towards Alton¡¯s workshop. Half an hour later, Morbid returned with a big metal structure in tow. The structure appeared to be floating off the ground and had dozens of little crystals lining the sides and bottom, all giving out gentle hums and glowing mellow lights.


    It appeared to be a floating carriage of sorts but was well beyond the standard of any carriage the party had seen before now. It was big enough to house the entire party and their supplies comfortably and followed along behind Morbid on a handful of huge iron chains and separating bars attached to his saddle.


    Its design wasn¡¯t all that elaborate or exquisite, and if anything was very archaic, in that it sported no small number of jagged edges and pointy spikes. The flaming torches lining the sides and dried blood that was used as paint helped it to leave a very chaotic and oppressive sensation in the hearts of anyone that observed it.


    This carriage of chaos being hauled along by a huge Demonic Hell Hound ... the overall feeling it gave off was EVIL!


    Murphy didn¡¯t have much say in the appearance of it and had only fielded the idea to Alton as a potential research project. He¡¯d collected no small number of materials for crafting and had played with quite a few of them, and ate no small number of them, to determine their identity and effects.


    It was with this knowledge that he conjured up the idea of a levitating carriage for Morbid, and Alton held nothing back in realising this dream for Murphy. As such, Murphy couldn¡¯t rightfully complain about how Alton decided to decorate it once it was finished.


    After no short number of impressed ¡®wow¡¯s¡¯ and ¡®amazing¡¯s¡¯ voiced by his comrades, Murphy and his gang mounted up and set out towards the beast man village he¡¯d encountered earlier.


    It was a short trip to the beast man village that ended in disappointment. As Morbid burst through the bushland surrounding the village with his carriage of massacre floating behind, Murphy surveyed the wreckage that remained.


    The little huts were burnt to a crisp and bodies covered with cuts and stab wounds littered the ground. Murphy waved his hand forward with a ¡®Go!¡¯ and moments later his party was scouring the village in search of survivors.


    Tuskelly, being the chattiest of the bunch, couldn¡¯t help but relay his thoughts, his voice filled with some melancholy.


    ¡°It appears we were too late.¡±


    ¡° ... its fine ... players ... respawn...¡±


    Murphy¡¯s jittering response was unexpected, and it was clear that despite his assurances that it was fine, the scene of the massacre in front of him brought back some sour memories.


    It was after some brief searching that Carson¡¯s melodic and hoarse voice rang out from the far side of the burning village.


    ¡°Survivor! I¡¯ve got a survivor here!¡±


    In no time, Murphy appeared before the battered, bleeding body of a young beast girl, not dissimilar at all to the beast girl he first met when he entered the game. In her weakened state, she couldn¡¯t extend her beastly claws, and the only sign of her race was her beastly canines.


    Seeing the barely breathing girl in Carson¡¯s arms, Murphy flicked his hand and produced a simple little potion bottle with milky blue liquid. He didn¡¯t even pause, and as if a practised motion, he popped the top out with his thumb and grabbed the girls chin as he poured it down her throat.


    At first, the reaction seemed to be rather slow, only to speed up until the gaping wounds on the girl¡¯s body closed while releasing faint glittering specks of light. Her dull, empty eyes slowly regained life until moments after the potion¡¯s effects had worn off, they locked onto Murphy.


    At that moment, their eyes met, and they both seemed to simultaneously shiver.


    ¡°It¡¯s you!?¡±


    In a very dexterous manner, the beast girl jumped up and distanced herself from Murphy as quickly as possible.


    ¡°It¡¯s bad enough that fat castle squatter is sending his minions to kill my people, but now you¡¯re here to finish the job huh?¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    ¡°I bet you work for that sack of shit, don¡¯t you? I should have known. Why would that fat fool ever bother to make trouble for some out of the way little beast man tribe, unless he was being led along by a sick backstabbing racist like you!¡±


    ¡° ... Hi ... little beast girl...¡±


    The little beast girl glared angrily at Murphy. It was apparent from the conversation that these two had a history. Indeed, it is true that the universe is a small place after all.


    The moment the little beast girl¡¯s feet touched the ground, one hand rested on her hip, and the other pointed fiercely towards Murphy.


    ¡°So you¡¯re going to torment me for the rest of my life are you? Going to chase me down no matter where I respawn?! How did you even find me?!¡±


    ¡° ... Accident ... it was an accident...¡±


    ¡°You found me by accident?! So you just decided to slaughter my people and only then realised I was here? You¡¯re sick! You¡¯re a sick freak! Did you resurrect me from the brink of death just so that you could take advantage of me again?!¡±


    ¡° ... sigh...¡±


    Naturally, Murphy had some trouble properly communicating in this situation. Adding to this was the fact that by now the rest of his party had joined them and were all giving him strange looks. Seelie had the strangest look on her face, as she looked back and forth between the little beast girl and Murphy a few times.


    She wasn¡¯t certain what was going on here, and from the implications the little girl was making, her dirty mind immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. Her face then rapidly changed to one of disgust, and following this was the sudden spark of understanding lighting up in the eyes of Murphy¡¯s other companions.


    This led to a very awkward moment where everyone was giving Murphy a strange look filled with accusation, and Murphy was silently standing there trying to figure out what to say.


    By this time, his party knew he had a crippling fear of speaking, and for lack of a better description was socially inept. Meaning they would just have to stand here for five minutes until he figured out how to explain.


    The little beast girl was by no means properly acquainted with Murphy and felt like his silence was an admission of his guilt. After all, the first time they met, Murphy thought she was some kind of NPC and not a real person, so his speech at the time was plenty eloquent enough.


    ¡°What?! You trying to figure out how you¡¯re going to do me this time?! No cave walls nearby to force me up against? You¡¯ll just have to do me in on the ground you sick freak! Come on! Hurry it up already!¡±


    Hearing it said like this, everyone¡¯s wild imaginations took the initial thought conjured in their heads and fuelled it with that slightly more revealing accusation. Of course, although that comment from the little beast girl seemed to be painting a somewhat disgusting graphic picture, none of them were aware she was referring to how he was going to kill her, and they all imagined slightly more perverted scenarios.


    As is the case with these things, no one could stop the look of disgust flashing across their faces and taking a step back. Seelie was especially confused, considering she knew Murphy best, and had never flagged him as a weird paedophile before now.


    Seeing the situation only growing even more convoluted, Murphy was getting rather anxious and was having trouble speaking properly. At last, he had no choice but to give in and used one of his spells that he rather disliked using.


    Can¡¯t Stop the Music.


    This curse would normally significantly reduce a person¡¯s social inhibitions and turn them into a complete chatter box. Worse still, it had numerous other side effects, from causing a person to dance at the drop of a hat, party wildly, drink in excess and take silly bets. More or less, it essentially turned them into a first-year college student.


    Unfortunately, although the spell sounded quite powerful, it was greatly limited when being cast on Murphy. It also seemed like cheating to him. If he simply used this to escape every awkward moment in which he was trying to socialise, he felt like he wouldn¡¯t be working towards improving and was instead using this spell as a crutch.


    If he became too reliant on it, he felt that he may never be able to speak without it.


    The situation he was in now was an emergency though. If things continued on in this direction, his new adventuring party would most likely disband before they even officially started their first adventure together.


    Worse still, the look of confusion and hurt on Seelie¡¯s face, like she¡¯d just discovered him cheating on her, made his stomach do back flips and he felt an urgent need to resolve this before it devolved into something far worse than a simple misunderstanding.


    As such, he summoned his spell book, the sight of which was enough to shut the little beast girl up completely and send shivers running up the backs of everyone else. With a wave of his hand the book flipped open, and pages flicked over each other quickly until stopping on a page that had loud rock music playing from it and was shooting confetti, glitter and lasers all over the place.


    With a point of his finger, he cast the spell on himself using almost 200 points of mana for a single cast. Following which, his negative 1 charisma stat shot up to a positive 3.


    ¡°It¡¯s a misunderstanding! A misunderstanding! I didn¡¯t mean to kill you! It was an accident, I swear! I thought your villagers were attacking me and retaliated, then everything ... started to get ... out of control ... and ... well ... sorry...¡±


    Unfortunately, despite the huge amount of Mana he spent on the spell, it fizzled out rather quickly. Perhaps as a result of his already horrible charisma stat, or perhaps because he was starting to build an immunity towards curses. It didn¡¯t really matter though, because it served its purpose and allowed him to articulate long enough to explain.


    Having finished this very brief explanation, the look on everyone¡¯s face seemed to come to an understanding and Murphy was relieved of their furious, disgusted glares.


    The only exception being the little beast girl. Whose face was scrunched up looking very bitter and resentful.


    It was about this time that Juwan finally announced his presence, and the little beast girl¡¯s face only become even more disgusted.


    ¡°Ho! Little girl, we meet again. I wish you wouldn¡¯t make such shameless implications regarding my little brother. You could ruin someone¡¯s reputation saying things like that.¡±


    ¡°You?! You¡¯re even worse than the racist! Don¡¯t dote on me like I¡¯m some little girl! I¡¯ve told you a hundred times I¡¯m old enough to be your grandmother! And your disgusting little brother complex is even more disturbing than his racism! Stay away from me!¡±


    The beast girl¡¯s shrill screams echoed about the burning village as she rapidly back peddled away from Juwan who was moments away from grabbing her cheeks like some old aunt or uncle, coddling a little child.


    ¡°Yes, yes. Whatever you say little beast girl. So, what happened in your village?¡±


    Juwan, being significantly less dense than his brother, stopped teasing the little beast girl now that the situation had been diffused. The last thing he wanted was someone flinging slanderous accusations about his little brother.


    With the little beast girl¡¯s ire redirected at him, everything calmed down a little. The little beast girl looked at Juwan with a somewhat disgusted expression and then turned toward Murphy with her hand out.


    ¡°Where¡¯s my hairpin?¡±


    At the mention of the little girl¡¯s hairpin, Murphy could only scratch his head sheepishly and shrug his shoulders. He¡¯d gathered so much better treasure by now that the little beast girl¡¯s hairpin was basically useless.


    It only gave a plus 2 to maximum mana and was a girly accessory, so Murphy never had a need for it and didn¡¯t pay much attention to it. By now, he¡¯d most likely sold it.


    Seeing Murphy diverting his eyes and busily inspecting the still smouldering walls of a burnt down hut, everyone could tell he was feigning ignorance. It was such a terrible act, that even Morbid looked at him strangely.


    Seeing everyone looking at him somewhat expectantly, Murphy wasn¡¯t sure what to do. That being the case, he simply started walking off out of the village leaving behind a few words.


    ¡° ... let¡¯s go ... to investigate...¡±


    Seeing Murphy strolling away into the bushland and pretending that they never even found the little beast girl, Seelie and Juwan made wry smiles. Everyone else was just confused at these actions though. They knew their leader was odd, but they never realised he was this difficult to interact with.


    They hadn¡¯t even gotten a layout of the situation from the beast girl yet!


    Seeing the illustrious leader marching off, everyone shared a few odd looks and then started mounting up in the carriage to pursue him. Juwan glanced at the little beast girl with a somewhat dissatisfied sneer. He now realised why Murphy killed this girl in the beginning, she¡¯s clearly a bitch.


    With that thought in mind, he simply scooped her up and jumped into the carriage. Morbid gave a roar and raced off after Murphy. When he saw that huge hellhound racing towards him, Murphy simply jumped up and ran along Morbid¡¯s nose and head, before settling in the saddle.


    He then nonchalantly pointed toward the highest mountain he could see through the trees and shrubbery, directing Morbid to climb it.


    With that done, he turned his head slightly to listen in to the conversation that had started in the carriage between Seelie and the Beast girl.


    Seelie had whipped out a strange magic tomb and then very meticulously started asking questions of the little beast girl. If nothing else, she was very industrious when it came to gathering information.


    ¡°Who are you?¡±


    At Seelie¡¯s first question, the beast girl scrunched her brow into a frown and surveyed the people around her. She could tell at a glance that this was the most hodgepodge adventuring party she¡¯d ever seen. It¡¯s like they were all rejected from other parties and were scrapped together off someone¡¯s shoe.


    She was especially horrified by the scene of Tuskelly¡¯s head slowly merging into his neck and then just as slowly and disturbingly appearing out of one of his arm tentacles.


    The only person she was more horrified by was Murphy, who she could see through the front window of the carriage. He had some strange device shaped like a little bell on his ear, and every time he gave it a little tap his eardrum would explode, and blood would pour out of his ear like a fountain. In less than a minute, his eardrum would heal, and he¡¯d do it again.


    The most disturbing part while watching this scene was that he¡¯d be moaning and jutting his hips about as his ears poured blood. The fact that his face was painted with ecstasy when his brain should have long since been turned to mush was the most horrible thing to watch out of all these freaks.


    Even her, as a beast girl who was shunned by others and different in many ways, had no way to contend for the title of freak or weird with any of these people.


    After a short while of being trapped in her own thoughts, the little beast girl came back to herself and decided that it was best to tell Seelie anything she could about everything. This wasn¡¯t because Seelie, despite carrying a huge sword, seemed the most normal out of everyone.


    It was because for Seelie to be in this group of crazed horrifying monsters despite seeming so normal, she must have done some crazy fucked up shit to earn their respect. It just went to show that out of everyone in this group, the most normal one was most likely the craziest and twisted.


    Not wishing to see just what sort of twisted things this Seelie girl could do, the beast girl gave in and answered her questions.


    ¡°My name is BG, my home universe is Morkle, and I¡¯ve been a player for 69 years.¡±


    Seelie¡¯s eyebrow perked up as she looked at the beast girl oddly. She then took out a dagger from her belt and stabbed it towards BG as if she planned to take her life. BG didn¡¯t even have time to react before the blade was pressed against her neck.


    Seelie¡¯s expression only became even stranger when she witnessed this. Finally, she retrieved her dagger to her belt as she asked another question of the now pale and frightened BG.


    ¡°If you¡¯ve been playing for 69 years, how is it that you¡¯re still so weak? Also, if you¡¯re a player, how did you go to newb planet and become a tutor?¡±


    ¡°ahh ... um ... well, it¡¯s not that we don¡¯t try. It¡¯s just that we lose too much to taxes, tariffs and other expenses. Higher level players force us to convert any stat and skill levels into points, then sell them in the player store.


    ¡°And to become a tutor, it¡¯s a part of the system quests so really anyone can do it!¡±


    BG quickly rattled off her explanation as she looked at Seelie with her big watery frightened eyes. Tuskelly, who¡¯s head was currently unseen and was apparently making another trip through his body, turned towards Seelie.


    It was hard to tell if he was making any expressions, firstly because his head was missing and secondly because he had no face. That said, his transparent glowing skin seemed to grow a little murky as he voiced himself.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised you don¡¯t know that. System Quests are very common. Most domains and quest planets have a magic board that updates with quests set by the system for one reason or another. Newb tutoring is most common, but there are other quests as well. Special dungeons, raid defence, randomly generated bounties. They update almost every day, and some of them are quests that are as old as the game itself.


    ¡°The oldest system quest has a reward called ¡®Ascension¡¯. No one knows what it means, but many people believe that it means the creator of the game will bring you out into his world, where you can become as powerful as the creator!¡±


    Seelie sat down with her legs and arms crossed as she seemed to zone out. The moment she did this, her head seemed to start giving off so much heat that sitting in the carriage with her had become uncomfortable. The speed and power of her mind were at such a staggering level that everyone was afraid she about to spontaneously combust.


    Out of nowhere, the shadows of the carriage became suffocatingly dark and a shadowy black mist coagulated in the air. Moments later, Murphy stepped out of the shadows and placed a hand on Seelie¡¯s head. Following that his hand seemed to start cracking as if it was getting baked.


    Slowly, the rising heat in the carriage died down as Murphy¡¯s body seemed to suck it all in. Even Seelie¡¯s head, which had turned red and seemed moments from spontaneous combustion, slowly started to cool down.


    Meanwhile, Murphy¡¯s eyes had a strange glimmer, and it almost seemed like he was going to let out a moan at any moment. His body was greedily sucking up all of the heat in the surroundings with his deprive skill, so that Seelie wouldn¡¯t suddenly explode.


    This wasn¡¯t the first time they¡¯d done this. Normally, Seelie had other methods to cool down her brain when she started thinking at top speed, but when they were out exploring the only thing she had on hand was Murphy.


    Or it was more appropriate to say that she never bothered to find another way because she loved having an excuse to force Murphy to touch her.


    This went on for some time until eventually Seelie let out a long breath of steam and Murphy quickly disappeared again. Seelie smirked slightly as she watched Murphy quickly running away again, but said nothing.


    She then cupped her chin, in much the same fashion that Murphy often did, and seemed to ponder something. No one was certain what she¡¯d come up with from that brief moment when her mind was functioning at high speed, and no one got a chance to ask, because a loud scream echoed out outside and interrupted their conversation.


    ¡°ARGH!! It¡¯s ... It¡¯s ... DEMONS!!¡±


    Outside the carriage, Murphy and Morbid had just stumbled into the outskirts of a small city that surrounded a towering castle. This was clearly the lands of the local baron, and the moment they stepped through the dense bushland, Morbid just happened to accidentally step on a villager and crush him flat.


    Murphy could only smile wryly and scratch his face. At the moment, thanks to the heat from Seelie¡¯s special trait ¡®10,000 Thoughts¡¯, Murphy¡¯s body was covered in dry, red, cracked skin. Some of the cracks were even glowing red with embers, making him look like some kind of flaming demon that just crawled out of a pit of lava.


    The moment he and Morbid burst through the underbrush and trees surrounding the city, warning bells started ringing and the screams of civilians all rushing to escape echoed throughout the area.


    Just from a glance, Murphy could see that this entire town was made up of humans, which was quite rare considering just how minuscule the number of humans in Domain Warz was. Especially considering how many other strange and wonderful creatures lived in this universe as well.


    Strangely, Murphy had an odd feeling of disassociation with these humans. Just from their reactions and the fact that the entire city was crawling with only humans, Murphy could tell that the civilisations of this world were disturbingly close to the blind and racist civilisations in all those old hero stories from before the Holocaust.


    They had all lived very sheltered lives here, and most likely the whole planet was like this. If Murphy had to guess, the Holy Religion that unified this planet was focused on punishing anyone that doesn¡¯t conform to their strict guidelines.


    In other words, anything that isn¡¯t human or approved of by the church is a lesser being and must be enslaved or purged from the universe. It boggles the mind how any domain with such an overbearing nature ever managed to grow to the point that it became a quest planet.


    Murphy could see a group of powerful looking knights racing out of the baron¡¯s castle and charging through the city in his direction. Seeing as he wasn¡¯t sure if his new party could take on a full detachment of gallant knights right in the middle of the city, he tapped Morbid on the head, and they raced back into the bushlands.


    As they ran off, Murphy grabbed Chuckles by his armour and then using his considerable strength and a few buffing spells, he launched Chuckles towards the city. Chuckles cackled a sinister laugh as he flew through the air like a missile.


    The moment Murphy picked him up, he knew what his mission was going to be. Just as he was falling towards the ground, a black mist poured out of the shadows from his body and swallowed him. Moments later, he reappeared in guardhouse within the city.


    Night eventually fell, and the city was still in turmoil from the appearance of the demons. The priests and bishops all quelled the rabble with plenty of brainwashing and promises of being punished with fire and brimstone if they even thought of misbehaving.


    As the moon rose into the sky, a small handful of the 20 odd knights that raced into the forest eventually returned. Unlike the glorious return everyone had been expecting, these 4 Knights came back severely injured and on the brink of getting logged out.


    They shuffled into town on foot, with hide nor hair of their horses to be seen. When the city found out they¡¯d returned, a great turmoil once again rose up, and villagers from all over the city started rushing out from their homes to find out what was going on.


    The moment the city started to become rowdy again, Chuckles let out an evil sounding chuckle. Using the disruption of the returning knights, he raced into the lower level of the guard house like a flickering shadow from candle light.


    In the lower level were several cages filled with various creatures of the evil races along with various humans that were beaten within an inch of their lives. It¡¯s a wonder that most of these people hadn¡¯t simply found a way to commit suicide and respawn.


    Of course, Domain Warz was an absolutely brutal and heartless game, so it goes without saying that there¡¯s always a way if someone wants to prevent you from logging out. Hell, even the system sells things that are specifically tailored to capturing enemies and preventing them from killing themselves to log out.


    As was the case with these poor souls that were trapped down here. Chuckles hid himself in the flickering shadows and passed through dark corridors and under the cracks in wooden doors. Finally, he found what he came here for.


    Seated around a table in a guard room were 4 guards. One of them was a bit of a fatty and clearly of higher rank than the rest. On his belt were a set of jingling keys. The four guards were busy playing a complicated looking game involving dice, cards, a spinning wheel with a pointer and various strange pieces on a board.


    In truth, they actually had no idea what they were doing and were just trying to make up a game using all sorts of other games. The life of a dungeon guard is long and boring after all.


    Unfortunately for these guards, tonight was going to be far less boring than they were used to.


    After Chuckles¡¯ shadow slid under the door and noticed the keys, it slid up along the wall and into a corner. As silent as the deep empty space between domains, Chuckles¡¯ body grew out from the shadow and his claws pierced into the stone ceiling like a needle through sponge cake.


    With a great caution, he slowly crept along the ceiling until he hung directly over the head of the guards. Then, he simply waited. After a while, a moment of opportunity came. All of the guards were distracted by a dropped die.


    In that split seconds when they were all facing away from each other, Chuckles¡¯ tail flashed down. Out of the corner of their eyes, no one saw anything apart from a brief flicker, which wasn¡¯t unusual anyway, since they used flames from candles and torches to light the place.


    Eventually, someone found the die, and they all started climbing back into their seats to play. Except for the guard captain, whose fat body seemed to jiggle oddly on his hands and knees. Then, slowly, he stood up in a shaky manner and turned around to face the other guards.


    The three other guards were stunned. The guard captain¡¯s eyes were rolled back in his skull, and his face was turning green. Even more disturbing than that was a strange cock shaped tentacle was waving about from his mouth.


    On closer inspection, it became apparent that the guard captain¡¯s entire body was being supported by disgustingly shaped shadow tentacles that were inserted into the guard captain through a backdoor hack.


    Before they had a chance to scream, the guard captain¡¯s body exploded into fleshy bits of meat that covered the entire room. Then, those chunks of their guard captain slowly formed into a strange mystical symbol in the air. It then flashed a red light, and suddenly there were 6 little demon spawns standing there gnawing on the bones of the guard captain.


    They then stopped simultaneously, and their dark little evil eyes suddenly focused onto the other three guards. At this point in time, these guards were so shocked and frightened that they¡¯d already released their bowels. The moment those evil little creatures suddenly looked at them, one of them actually died from his heart instantly stopping, and the other two passed out from fear.


    Chuckles dropped off the roof singing ¡°yah yah rah¡± and chuckling to himself. There really wasn¡¯t any need for all of that nonsense, but chuckles did it mostly for fun. He also got the side bonus of gaining experience in his sneak, shadow arts and assassination skills. It was actually quite a bit of experience because the whole thing had been pulled off perfectly.


    After a brief moment of greeting and laughing from the spawns, they used the other guards to summon the rest of Chuckles¡¯ summon limit. Which was 24 spawns. This group of 24 was the second most skilled team of spawns in the entire of Murphy¡¯s domain.


    The first 24 were naturally the group that Murphy personally raised and that always travelled with him. This new group was a group that Chuckles had personally trained ever since he gained the Commander evolution.


    Unlike Murphy¡¯s, who had a wide range of skills for all sorts of different scenarios, this group was specialised in covert ops. Every single one of them had the Shadow Spawn evolution. This group was raised by chuckles to be Murphy¡¯s eyes and ears in every situation.


    Not only that, but they were also trained to have powerful charades skills. Since Murphy remained too dense to learn their language, and they simply didn¡¯t have the ability to create the sounds needed to use normal language, they had to master the art of charades to such a level that they could even communicate with a deaf mute and understand one another.


    The charades skills they practised with Murphy had reached such a level that it could now be considered its own form of sign language ... albeit, a slightly twisted version.


    Such masterful skills were displayed on this eerie night, as Chuckles made a series of hand signals to silently inform the others of their tasks. He grabbed the bloody keys from the ground and threw them out one at a time.


    Then the spawns all made some sinister chuckling and ¡°yah yah rah¡± noises as they seemed to be swallowed by the shadows of the room.

 Chapter 12: Barron Von Boff

    On the questing planet, Holy Eden, Baron Von Boff had just awoken from his slumber and wiped the sleep from his eyes. In a practised and habitual manner, he pulled his fat body out of his most luxurious and unnecessarily huge bed. With heavy steps, he ambled over towards the chamber pot in the corner of the room to relieve himself.


    A bevvy of beauties slowly flowed out of the bed after him while giggling and chattering. As the fat Barron pulled apart his silk gown to do his business, a knock sounded at the door. The Baron paid it no heed and focused his full attention on completing his daily ritual.


    Baron Von Boff was a man very susceptible to superstition, and under no circumstances would he allow his daily ritual to be disturbed. If it was, he believed that his luck would be like a flickering candle flame facing the onslaught of a cyclone. So superstitious was he, that even if his county was being raided and he was on the verge of being hung in the streets like a cur, he would still complete his daily rituals.


    The knock sounded again, just as Von Boff started talking to ¡®the little baron¡¯.


    ¡°Knock knock!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you worry little buddy. Who¡¯s a big guy? Huh? You are! Yeah, you¡¯re a big guy! You¡¯re the biggest guy in all the lands. You¡¯re a humongous towering giant among dwarves!¡±


    ¡°Knock knock!¡±


    For another 10 minutes, Von Boff went through the process of talking to his cock to convince it that it was huge. He then burnt incense, did a shamanic voodoo dance, which would most likely get him hanged if the church ever discovered him doing it, and then finally reading a few passages from the Book of the Holy God.


    Following on, he sent one of his many concubines to open the door, as he very meticulously dressed in the most ostentatious and regal looking clothes in his entire county. Which one would hope they were, considering every decent tailor in the county had been kidnapped by him to work solely on his clothes.


    As he was putting the last touches on his gaudy outfit, the Bishop of the local church was ushered in by the still barely dressed concubines.


    Although the Bishop had many things he wanted to say regarding this, he chose not to. After all, the upper royalty of the kingdoms and the empires were all granted a significant amount of leeway by the church.


    With a flourish, Von Boff spun about with a huge smile on his face to greet the Bishop. Unfortunately, his glowing smile was not reciprocated in the least, and the glowering dark clouds that were metaphorically hanging over the bishop¡¯s head quickly erased all vestiges of a smiling face from the Baron.


    ¡°Baron Von Boff. I know that you are insistent on worshiping the Lord God in pray at the beginning of the day, but sometimes you must understand that the Lord God has many things he needs you to do. It¡¯s best if you pray to him at the church, where we can contact you in times like these!¡±


    Von Boff¡¯s fat face scrunched up slightly and his bloated cheeks turned his eyes into two squinty little lines. He seemed to shake for a brief moment from the indignation of the situation, but quickly regained his senses. In a very plain tone, he questioned the Bishop.


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter that has you so riled up this fine morning Old Greg?¡±


    ¡°The matter is that demons have attacked the city and freed all those sinful, ungodly creatures from the guardhouses!¡±


    Von Boff¡¯s face quivered once more, and the shock of the news forced him to sit down. He then very quickly made some religious motions with his hands and kissed a little sickle on a chain around his neck.


    ¡°What creatures did they take?¡±


    ¡°All of them! During the night they cleaned out every single guardhouse in the city, the only exception being the castle dungeons! Some of those creatures are a plague on all of humanity!¡±


    ¡°Manny! Manny! Get your ass in here!¡±


    With the yells of the red-faced Baron, a disturbingly thin old man that looked like he was skin on bone clambered into the Barons room with a pile of documents.


    ¡°Gather the Knights Manny! Send out the trackers! We must find those demons vermin at once!¡±


    With this order, Von Boff rose up looking far more dignified now that he¡¯d thrown some orders around and moved to head for breakfast. His lackey/squire/castle manager Manny, stared at the Baron with wide eyes before making a gulping noise.


    ¡°My ... my lord ... the um ... we sent out the first detachment yesterday before they appeared, but it seems the Demons are far stronger than we thought and managed to fight off our detachment. From the reports of the few survivors, it was a bloody and fierce one-sided slaughter.¡±


    Von Boff started to turn red, and his fat body jiggled about as if he was barely able to restrain himself. Finally, after it seemed he¡¯d just averted some kind of heart attack, his beady squinted eyes turned on the bishop.


    ¡°Old Greg, send a request to the Cardinal for the support of some Holy Knights. Manny, gather the remainder of our forces in the city. I want the location of those demons and the location of those prisoners within the hour. And find out how the hell they got so many evil creatures out of the city without anyone realising what was going on!¡±


    <hr>


    Murphy and his gang were presently seated at a small camp they¡¯d set up nearby their portal. Around them were dozens of other creatures, humans and beast people that had been rescued from the dungeons of the Baron. Most of them were just innocent bystanders that were unlucky enough to spawn on this planet and be forced into shackles.


    The most degrading part was that the Holy Church seemed to have developed a method to create skill books from them. As if they were trapped here and refined into their base stats until they were a useless level one player again. Only then would they kill them, and allow them to respawn elsewhere.


    Normally, if a person needed some quick cash or experience points for the player store, they could convert the experience of a skill into a skill book. For example, Murphy could technically get rid of all his crappy skills and sell them. Unfortunately, this process carried certain penalties.


    For example, if he converted his masochism into skill books and sold it, he could sell nearly 1.2 million worth of Masochism Exp. The penalty for such an action though was dependant on just how much he sold in one go. One level¡¯s worth technically wouldn¡¯t even effect his Pain Mastery Score. To create a single level 1 skill book only needed 1000 Exp, which in comparison to his 1.2 million was almost negligible.


    If he created a level 10 skill book, then it would eat up 500,000 Exp. The penalty though would be severe. For a level 1 skill book, there would be almost no repercussions. He would simply get a debuff from the system for a day or so that limited how quickly he could raise experience in that skill again.


    On the other hand, if he made 32 level 1 skill books, or an equivalent level 6 skill book, he would be penalised with something huge, like a debuff that prevented him from levelling any other skills until that skill reached the level it had been. Or even worse, he would be afflicted with something that ate through his Exp and dropped the skill another level.


    Regardless of the outcome of such a thing, the point is that converting a skill into a skill book would eventually cost a player a lot more than just skill points.


    That said, there were methods to get around this sort of thing, and many players focused solely on the act of levelling a skill and then selling skill books in the player store to others. How they avoided the huge penalties of the system was a mystery and closely guarded secret of these people.


    In the case of the Holy Church, it was something to do with their religion that allowed them the ability to refine players into skill books. The only upside of this was that using such a method against an unwilling participant granted them a huge buff allowing them to quickly replenish their Exp the next time they respawn.


    Murphy could see that these people Chuckles had lead out of the city were distraught and stressed from their time in the Baron¡¯s dungeons. Many of them had planned to kill themselves and suffer the 48 hours of game time lost, just so they could escape this planet and start levelling again.


    It was only thanks to Murphy kindly agreeing to make them squatters in his domain that they chose not to. If Murphy agreed to them joining his domain, it meant they were guaranteed a safe place to respawn so that they could focus on levelling again without worries.


    As the group rested, Murphy was busily trying to learn a new skill. Apparently, this was a skill Seelie had started with, and it was powerful beyond reason. It was called multitasking. It was quite literally the ability to focus your mind on two separate tasks at the same time.


    To train this skill, he was doing something complex and something simple. The complex thing was his Mana cartography. Thanks to Morbid climbing almost every high-altitude mountain in the area, Murphy now had a pretty good layout of the Baron¡¯s county, and was now mapping it all out in his Status Space.


    At the same time, he was busily sorting through all the loot they pilfered from the dead knights that had chased after them the night before. They were quite highly levelled, and even their warhorses were frighteningly powerful. Turned out, Murphy had greatly underestimated the strength of his companions.


    When he originally encountered the Knights and was fought off, he hadn¡¯t managed to kill any of them, and it was 5 against 1. If they¡¯d only had three knights at the time, he may have been able to kill two and escape from the last one before the damage overwhelmed him.


    He initially suspected that his adventuring party would be strong enough to take on 20 knights, especially with Morbid present. In the end though, he was greatly shocked to discover that the other adventurers in his party were all monsters ... both metaphorically and literally.


    After leading the Knights into the forest, Murphy had planned to charge in with Morbid and attract their aggression while his companions picked them off at the sides. To his shock however, Lucile and Xanzu didn¡¯t even wait for Morbid to turn around and had already jumped out of the carriage to engage them the moment Murphy made it clear he was about to fight.


    Lucile was fast and flexible, and her speciality was close combat. The moment she was within a few meters of a charging Knight, her body disappeared, and moments later the sexy panther lady was wrapped around the Knight¡¯s back with her claws and teeth digging into the soft parts of his armour.


    Xanzu¡¯s traits were well hidden, and Murphy was uncertain what his nominal battle style was. Being a werewolf, Murphy was certain his close combat would be no less powerful than Lucile¡¯s. However, despite that being his suspicion, Xanzu never entered direct combat and simply flittered about launching arrows like some kind of machine gun.


    His accuracy was unnervingly precise, and before anyone else had joined the battle, he¡¯d already blinded the 3 knights that were moving towards Lucile.


    Just as Murphy and Morbid had turned to face the enemy, Tuskelly had already appeared amidst the knights and had turned into a giant blob of jelly, which sucked in a knight and his horse. He then seemed to just pause in the middle of the battlefield as he busily dissolved them.


    It was about this time that Murphy realised Carson had somehow reached the battlefield. For a little dwarfish fellow, he sure was spry. It was like watching rookies trying to catch a leaf in a storm. Even more surprising was whenever Carson struck a blow with his spiked gloves, the armour of his target corroded away into flaky rust.


    Even more disturbing was seeing the corrosion continue until it reached the body underneath the armour and start causing huge lesions and unstoppable decay.


    By the time Seelie, Juwan, Murphy and Morbid joined the fight, 8 knights were already dead or dying, and another 6 were sporting heavy injuries. Seeing the way the battle was turning, the Knights ran as fast as they could. Although Morbid could most definitely catch them, Murphy didn¡¯t want to pursue them into a trap, so let the last few survivors go.


    With this battle, Murphy now had a slightly better understanding of his team¡¯s strength, and it would make it easier to plan in the future. On top of that, these knights had hoarded no small number of interesting things from all the people they¡¯d extorted that were unlucky enough to respawn here.


    Thanks to his deprive skill, if he got to a Knight before their soul was sucked into the reincarnation cycle, he could deprive them of all sorts of things. Depending on what it was, it needed more effort and focus from himself. In this case, he deprived every Knight he touched of a random number of items from their player inventory. The reason he did it randomly and left it up to luck was that it required far less focus and mana then if he was focused on only taking specific things.


    He was sure he could also deprive them of experience and stats, but for now, his skill level and control weren¡¯t strong enough for something like that. It was also factored by many other things like the player¡¯s willpower or wisdom. Seeing as the Knights were this strong, he didn¡¯t even try to steal stats or Exp. He could barely suck the stats and experience points out from a run of the mill cat or dog, let alone a powerful player.


    On top of all this, he also wasn¡¯t stingy with the bad luck and called in a dozen odd luck spawn to steal as much luck as they could from these knights before their soul passed on. This made it far easier for him to equipment steal from them.


    This all led to him accumulating a great deal of random and interesting equipment. Every now and then, the grateful prisoners they¡¯d rescued would glance over towards Murphy, only to witness him taking some powerful looking artefact or equipment from his player inventory and then biting it.


    Watching him simply eating such rare looking and interesting equipment left them all dazed.


    As he explored his loot, Murphy came across something interesting. It was a stone that he couldn¡¯t identify. The interesting part wasn¡¯t that he couldn¡¯t identify it, because he seemed to find a new ordinary looking rock almost every day that he was unable to identify.


    The interesting part was that this rock had something engraved on it. After a while of trying to decipher the scratching, Murphy gave up and went back to exploring his inventory. The moment his focus left the rock in his hands, his body started making the very habitual motion of going to eat something he couldn¡¯t identify.


    Without thought or effort, he popped the rock into his mouth and started chewing. Everyone nearby heard the shiver inducing sound as if some primal beast was chewing the bones of a comrade into dust.


    Everyone glanced over to see blood pouring from Murphy¡¯s mouth, and a disturbing grin spread on his face as his teeth chipped and cracked while that stone was munched into powder.


    The whole time, Murphy remained oblivious. He could feel that he¡¯d eaten something weird again, but it had become so common now that he just ignored it. It felt good anyway, so his focus remained on the inventory and Mana Cartography.


    After a few minutes of everyone breaking out into a cold sweat and slowly backing away from the mad man who was self-mutilating by eating rocks, Murphy finally swallowed the strange rock and in a matter of minutes his teeth had all somehow magically reformed into brand new perfect pearly whites.


    Everything then returned to normal. The only remaining indication that Murphy had just brutally destroyed his mouth and eaten some magic rock was the blood stains on his chin and mouth.


    Everyone decided to simply ignore it. Most of these people were ¡®evil¡¯ races anyway, and many of them had their own strange and unnatural rituals that others frowned upon. Thus, the magic rock was quickly forgotten by everyone.


    After their short break in the camp, Murphy led everyone back to his domain and left them in the care of Uncle Calligso. After stocking some more supplies, they then raced off back to the Quest Planet of Holy Eden.


    Although Chuckles had been a busy body and rescued all the villainous looking captives, his real mission was only to collect information, and so he and his operatives remained spread out through the city gathering information.


    The most useful information gatherers were the 2nd evolution spawn with Luck and Shadow traits. All luck spawn were small in comparison to the others, and the Shadow Luck spawn used their tiny bodies and advanced speed to their advantage. Places that were difficult to get to for the other spawns were a piece of cake for the luck spawn.


    In this case, the church in the city was heavily guarded and seemed to have no few number of enchantments to limit shadows and fill every nook and cranny of the building with light. The scene certainly made the place look like it was blessed, but that wouldn¡¯t stop these daring little bastards from sneaking in.


    The reason it was so fortified was that the church was actually the greatest power in the area, and they kept records of everything for as far back as its establishment in this county.


    Now, one might think it difficult for a spawn to use the shadows to sneak into a place with no shadows, and they would be right. The only exception was the luck spawn, who were fast enough to be nothing more than a tiny blur in the very corner of a person¡¯s vision.


    Those moments when you think you saw something out of the corner of your eye but when you looked over there was nothing. This moment became a disconcerting norm in the church since sunrise today. The guards were starting to freak out just a little bit.


    Making it worse was all sorts of strange things happening. Light gems in the ceiling suddenly cracking, satiny curtains and lush carpets suddenly falling onto someone head or bunching up and tripping them. Being a very backwards place to begin with, the guards of the church were starting to get a little paranoid and thought the church was possessed.


    On his return from the castle, the Bishop cast an endless number of holy protection spells and lift curse spells and everything else in his repertoire that he could think of. The only problem was, they only seemed to make things even worse.


    Things started lighting on fire, a guard tripped over something and stabbed himself in the jaw with his own sword. Stuff falling over, things moving around. Even shadows slowly started filling the church, which technically should have been impossible.


    With the greatest haste, the Bishop closed the church to prevent the citizens getting wind of this situation and creating a panic. The last thing he needed right now was for all the citizens to start panicking and spreading rumours that the church had been cursed.


    Unfortunately, the strange things within the church only grew more common and devilish. The Bishop believed he could contain it until the arrival of the Holy Knights that he requested from the Cardinal arrived, but before the sun had even reached a quarter of the way through the sky, the first death came.


    The guard captain of the church, and the highest in stats and levels, was the primary target of the luck spawn. Naturally, they couldn¡¯t simply reveal themselves and start pouring bad luck into these guards, so they did the next best thing, and started pouring bad luck into the building.


    Although stealing luck was most regularly used by the spawn to give people a terrible day, that didn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t give negative luck to inanimate objects just the same as Murphy did. After all, it was basically the same trait.


    Therefore, the devilish little bastards chose to wait. First, they just flittered about out of sight and touched everything they could. Walls, pillars, chandeliers, benches, carpets, floors. Everything they had a chance to touch they touched.


    Finally, after that guard stepped onto a negative 20 luck carpet and accidentally stabbed himself in the jaw, a moment of distraction came. With that, the 4 Shadow Luck spawn of Chuckle¡¯s special operatives appeared like ghosts at the back of the distracted guard captain.


    In a few short seconds, they¡¯d already lightly touched him thousands of times. His luck plummeted into the negatives and he never even noticed. The whole time, the guard that had just stabbed a sword into his jaw was the only person that could see them sitting on the guard captain back. He wanted to shout and scream, but he was now more or less effectively mute.


    One could say that it was just bad luck that he didn¡¯t stab himself somewhere else. Being the little demons that they are, the spawn naturally capitalised on this and spent half the time mooning that poor guard from the captain¡¯s shoulder and slapping their butts and giving the bird.


    When that guard turned white with fear at seeing those little demons inside the holy church, and everyone finally realised he was looking at the guard captain, the spawn were forced to once again disappear.


    The whole time that they¡¯d been in the church, the spawn had been using the spell ¡®dark domain¡¯. Every now and then when they had the mana stored up for it, they would cast the spell. Although their dark domain spell was only low levelled, with all four of them casting it as often as possible, the effect started adding up.


    At first, it was almost imperceptible. Thanks to the various enchantments that kept the church internally bright, it was like very, very, very slowly lowering the brightness on a monitor. If 100% was normal brightness, then every cast of dark domain only took it down 1%.


    It wasn¡¯t until things started becoming even freakier that everyone finally realised the brightness of the church had already dropped at least a staggering 50% of normal. The only reason none of the guards noticed was that it was so gradual and prolonged, fooling their eyes into thinking it was normal.


    Unluckily for these hapless guard fellows, the guard captain was now cursed with horrendously bad luck, and his every decision led to the death of a comrade. At first, he wanted to immediately send someone to inform the Bishop, who had long since retreated into his inner chambers.


    That poor fellow was squashed flat when one of the huge 20 meter high stone pillars suddenly fractured and fell straight on top of him.


    He then ordered his guard to lock the building down, while at the same time sending another person to inform the Bishop. The second guard heading towards the bishop tripped over a communal plate used for gathering donations and crowned himself so thoroughly on the edge of a metal candle frame that he¡¯d never get back up.


    Following that, the first guard to start moving to lock down the church slipped on communal wine that had somehow leaked out of a wine bottle that shouldn¡¯t have even been nearby. The resulting fall was catastrophic as his sword left his grasp and then stabbed right into the shoulder of the guard captain.


    Moments later, while the guard captain was freaking out and starting to question his beliefs, lighting gems all over the ceiling and walls started cracking and shattering for no reason at all. Without all the lighting gems fuelling the eternal light enchantment, the accumulation of dark domains suddenly enveloped the entire church in an eerie darkness.


    A glass pane high up in the church suddenly exploded as the black shadow of winged demon suddenly burst into the church. With a wave of his hand, chuckles cast his innate spell from his Commander evolution.


    The horrified guardsmen watched on as one of the dead guards suddenly exploded into a gory mess of meat, a red light flashed, and then two dozen evil looking spawn were standing there chewing on the scattered body parts. As if previously rehearsed, they all simultaneous looked towards the guards.


    ¡°Yah...¡±


    ¡°rar Rah!¡±


    ¡°Rah! Rah! Rah!¡±


    They seemed to just share a few confused strange demon words and then suddenly all burst forth while chanting Rah! In unison. The guards were dumbfounded, shocked and frightened. They¡¯d never witnessed anything like this before. If it were a normal day, the 15 odd guards still remaining in the church would actually have no problems slaughtering these 2 dozen spawn.


    The only problem was, Murphy had recently been teaching Chuckles about the importance of manipulating morale on the battlefield. This wasn¡¯t something Murphy was an expert at either and was something that he¡¯d been taught by the Elf Witch.


    Needless to say, Chuckles loved the concept. As a demon and a warrior, manipulating people and then killing them were his two favourite things to do. In this case, he¡¯d long since reduced the morale of the church guards to nearly gone. All it needed was that little push over the edge. In this case, his sudden abrupt entrance and the summoning of 2 dozen evil looking demon spawn.


    Adding on all the strange curse like happenings and the sudden realisation of how dark the church had become, the guards were all frightened out of their wits, making them easy pickings for the spawn. Chuckles took the guard captain by himself, and in a very unclimactic victory, beheaded him right there on the altar of the Holy God.


    It would be a lie to say that it was a hard battle. Mostly because the guard captain had such dramatically poor luck stats that every action he took resulted in self-injury. Chuckles probably wouldn¡¯t even have needed to touch him before he somehow managed to behead himself.


    With the church emptied, barred from entry and more or less cursed by numerous Dark Domain spells all stacked on top of each other, Chuckles and his operatives were now free to ransack the place and take as much information as they could.


    Before that though, he very silently snuck into the Bishop¡¯s chambers. The chambers were very spartan and bare, and the Bishop was hunched over his desk scribbling a letter to the Cardinal regarding the ongoing evil curse invading his church.


    Unfortunately, this letter would never reach the Cardinal. With quick, stealthy steps, Chuckles snuck up so close behind the Bishop that it was a surprise he couldn¡¯t here Chuckles¡¯ breathing. Then like a snake from the bush, Chuckles¡¯ stabbed his pointed poison tail into the neck of the Bishop.


    Before the Bishop could fully register what was going on, he felt dizzy and a great deal of pain from every part of his body. It only took a few moments until his body seemed to become cold and the spark of life in his eyes had dimmed.


    Outside of the city, many citizens had come to a stop in front of the church. Their faces were paled in fright, and unstoppable shiver travelled up their spines at the sight of the church.


    What was once a glorious beacon of Holy transcendent light had now fallen into darkness. In the time of half a day, the church had lost its shining light, and large cracks had split along the once perfect walls. With the light gone, the shadows cast from within the church gave the stained glass windows an ominous and evil looked.


    Where there were pictures of virgin saints and past glorious Pope¡¯s, was now the visage of men bleeding and tormented by spears. A dark mist seemed to flow out from the ground and enshrouded the church in a very evil atmosphere.


    By the time Baron Von Boff got word of the strange happenings at the church, Chuckles and his gang had already cleared out everything and fled into the shadows of the tall city buildings.


    When Von Boff finally arrived with a contingent of guards and bravely sieged the cursed church, he was appalled to find all the guards of the church had been gnawed to death by some kind of beasts and what little remained of their bodies were strung up about the church in very standard Spawn Feng Shui.


    Skulls of the braver and more valiant guards that the spawn respected for their battle prowess were adorned atop spears, and their blood was smeared across the walls depicting demons devouring men and all sorts of other standard Spawn artwork.


    Although the Spawn believed they were helping to increase the culture of this world by leaving behind some decorating tips, the very sheltered and well brainwashed citizens of Holy Eden were appalled. This was something straight out of the book of sinners.


    Von Boff and his companions all found it difficult to contain their lunch, and a few of them couldn¡¯t even hold out long enough to get outside, which only added to the corruption of the already defiled church.


    <hr>


    It seems that in the short absence from Holy Eden, Chuckles had returned to the portal to meet us as we came back through. The first thing he did was to report on his efforts to encourage cultural awareness on this planet. It couldn¡¯t fault the little guy for his efforts, even though I felt they were somewhat counter-intuitive to his goal.


    Regardless, I rewarded him with a huge leg of Cursed Rhino from the player store. It¡¯s hard to say why exactly the spawn loved about this meat. To them, it was something akin to catnip for cats. The moment I took it out of my inventory all of the spawn, even Chuckles, starred at it with menacing glares.


    It wasn¡¯t just this particular meat though. Almost anything with the qualifier ¡®Cursed¡¯ in the name was like drugs for the little fellows. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I don¡¯t need drugs to control the spawn. They all have some disturbing level of worship for me that has grown rather worrying at this point. I just like to reward them for putting in the effort.


    Once the giant Rhino leg had been completely devoured, Chuckles and his operatives started pulling out old ledgers, books and scraps of paper. All the records of everything the Church had were stockpiled here. There was actually quite a bit more than I¡¯d expected. It made a small mountain of scrolls and parchment that nearly reached Morbid¡¯s head height.


    That suggested that these little fellows must have just about filled their inventories to bursting with everything they stole.


    Just at a cursory glance, I was impressed with the Church¡¯s record keeping. Unfortunately, it was a little too meticulous and had information pinpointing nearly every pointless thing to ever happen in the entire county, all the way back to before the church had even been founded.


    I felt a headache coming on just looking at it all.


    Luckily, I had Seelie on hand to teach me another new skill. Speed Reading. With my level 6 memorisation, the speed that my speed reading levelled was quite fast. That being the case, it was still nothing in comparison to Seelie¡¯s level 8 speed reading, which was completely unnatural. All she needed was a single glance, and she¡¯d sucked in everything there was to be read from a page.


    While I managed to read about 8 scrolls and 3 books, and even raised speed reading to level 3, Seelie had already completely read everything else. An entire mountains worth of reading material consumed in a matter of an hour or two.


    When she finally finished the last parchment of paper, she gave me a smile and sat down with her legs crossed. After closing her eyes and breathing for a moment, she activated her 10,000 thoughts special traits and started organising all the information.


    Naturally, I then had to step in and act as a heat sink to prevent her spontaneously combusting as she sorted through everything she¡¯d just read and reorganised it.


    Meanwhile, the other party members were busy scouting some interesting things I¡¯d noticed while surveying the area from atop the mountains in the area. Chief amongst them was a lush forested area that had a permeant aurora floating above it.


    ¡°Ok, I¡¯m finished. You were right. This was definitely the best method.¡±


    Seelie stood up, and I quickly retracted my hand. My body slowly started closing all the huge burning cracks and scars across my skin. Without warning, Seelie reached out and touched my forehead, imparting everything she¡¯d just pulled from those documents in an organised manner.


    Then it ended. This time, Seelie didn¡¯t take any liberties and only sent me the information. I felt that little part of me that had built up expectations quiver slightly and then die. It actually came as somewhat of a shock!


    I opened my eyes with a confused expression on my face, only to see Seelie¡¯s face inches away from me and quickly approaching faster!


    ¡®Devious! Trickster! I¡¯ve been tricked!¡¯


    It became clear now, that she was taking advantage of that moment when my brain was processing everything to attack me with her ... soft ... moist ... inviting ... lips...


    ¡®ESCAPE!¡¯


    ¡°BOOM!¡±


    An echo spread about as I used all my considerable strength and speed to backpedal as quickly as possible, only to collide with the incredibly sturdy hind leg of Morbid, who was sitting there throwing furtive glances at me while trying to pretend to have noticed nothing.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    Juwan and Chuckles were both sitting on Morbid¡¯s saddle and pointing at something far off in the distance while also pretending to be ignoring the situation I¡¯d suddenly found myself in, which was now starting to resemble a trap!


    ¡°What¡¯s that thing over their Chuckles?¡±


    ¡°Ra ra rah yah ra!¡±


    Although Seelie wasn¡¯t as fast as me, she was far from being slow, having spent a significant amount of time hardening her body stats. She was in fast pursuit and nearly on me. The look on her face almost looked crazed.


    <hr>


    I decided! At first, I promised I was never going to make the first move. Perhaps my pride couldn¡¯t handle waiting anymore, or perhaps my heart.


    It¡¯s hard to say when I started to firm my resolve. I think, it was after the incident on 6 Star. Murphy started pulling away from me then. He would disappear when I was nearby, and he often started shutting down like he does around other people, making things even more awkward.


    He never used to have trouble talking to me, but since we came here, he¡¯s gotten progressively worse.


    At first, I thought it was something to do with what had happened, but after spending a few quiet sessions in the ice pool in my wizard tower and using my 10,000 thoughts at maximum, I came to the conclusion that Murphy was avoiding me for another reason.


    Although I couldn¡¯t be sure what it was at first, I quickly realised after overhearing Juwan and my sister discussing his past. That¡¯s when it clicked. Murphy never knew who his parents were, and even the systems on earth couldn¡¯t help him determine who they were.


    Murphy 21.08.31.0.


    He was a Zero, and the greatest fear that anyone had of any Zero, and that they had of themselves, was to grow up and become an Abomination. Soon, he would turn 18. The day that his body reached a point of incubation and the strange powers associated with an abomination would consume him. The Day of Madness.


    Although I don¡¯t for second believe it¡¯s possible for him to be one of those ... things. That didn¡¯t change the fact that he¡¯s had to live with that fear every day of his life, and soon, he would have to face that fear ... and he was obviously planning to do it alone!


    Once I had my suspicions, I became certain. As such, even though it hurt a bit seeing him trying to draw away from me, I decided that I wouldn¡¯t let him go through it alone. I was going to make him acknowledge ¡®us¡¯ so that he knew I would support him no matter what.


    With that in mind, I finally solicited the help of my future brother-in-law, Juwan.


    He quickly rallied Chuckles and Morbid to his cause, and because there was no danger to Murphy or I this time around, they quickly agreed. However, now that the situation was at hand, I felt stupid.


    So stupid!


    It was so childish. Like stealing a kiss would suddenly change everything. If it doesn¡¯t go how I¡¯d stupidly imagined it, which knowing Murphy it probably won¡¯t, then best case scenario is that he simply ignores it, which is only going to hurt us both. Worst case is he simply runs away. How the hell am I going to stay by his side then!


    But, there is no medicine for regret ... or stupid apparently. The plan was already in action. The implant had just finished and now was the moment. I felt my heart beating out of my chest and willed myself forward! My first kiss ... was going to be raping Murphy.


    Maybe I¡¯ve spent too much time around Lucile recently ... having such daring thoughts...


    It doesn¡¯t matter now! GO! Give me those wretched broken lips you bastard!


    <hr>


    Time seemed to slow down around Murphy. He was looking everywhere for an escape! He wasn¡¯t sure why, nor did he have the time to think about it. All he knew in that very short fast moment was that he was trying to avoid drawing Seelie even further into his currently unstable life.


    Being blocked my Morbid had left him stunned for a brief moment, and at that moment, Seelie was upon him. Her slender arms wrapped around his neck and her body seemed to drift down life the wind to snuggle into close contact, locking herself to him.


    The momentarily crazed look on her face faded away and became gentle and calm. Her eyes glistened in the omnipotent light created by the quest planet like some invisible sun hung overhead. Murphy felt his body freeze as she leant in towards him and her eyelashes fluttered as she closed her eyes in anticipation of contact.


    Murphy felt like he couldn¡¯t move. Seelie¡¯s lips grew closer and closer, the moment seemed to stretch out into eternity, and a warm spring breeze blew through the surroundings, fluttering her scholarly dress, except the back which was flattened down by the humungous sword she carried.


    Along with the breeze was the faint aroma of fresh flowers blooming in the spring. Then finally, at long last...


    Murphy got a system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an accident. -5 Luck!¡¯


    ¡°Aaaa--CHOO!!!¡±


    Murphy sneezed. At the most critical moment, just when Seelie was finally about to step forward and take responsibility for this deranged relationship, Murphy¡¯s Law stepped in and made him sneeze.


    Seelie was too close, and the moment he sneezed, his head shot forward as it does when one sneezes violently. His forehead smashed into Seelie¡¯s face, causing her picturesque visage to spray blood from her nose and a busted lip as she reeled back as if struck by a hammer to the face.


    As Murphy slowly raised his head, he saw Seelie standing there with blood pouring down her chin, and her eyes were nearly popping out of her head.


    Time seemed to stop again as a very mystical book covered in ancient looking glyphs and pictures suddenly appeared in her hand. Before Murphy could fully realise what was happening, he felt a massive gravity suddenly oppress him to his knees.


    Even Morbid, the massive magic immune hellhound, let out a little yelp and quickly jumped away like he¡¯d been scolded by a spark from a fire. Juwan and chuckles both watched on stunned as a huge concave depression appeared in the ground with Murphy directly in the centre of it.


    Murphy tried but quickly found that Seelie must have used an exorbitant amount of mana to cast this gravity lock. Not only could he not move a muscle, but he was also having trouble just breathing. Even if he wanted to summon his spell book, he was pretty sure he wouldn¡¯t even be able to hold it up.


    It went to show that Seelie¡¯s prowess with magic, and her overall mana, were far ahead of what Murphy possessed and even beyond what he imagined she possessed.


    With Murphy locked in place, unable to even utter a sound Seelie produced a classic instant recovery potion to heal her bruised bleeding face, and then marched toward Murphy with a determined gaze locked on his somewhat confused and panicky face.


    When she reached him, she knelt down and the moment she wrapped her hands around his neck, the gravity lock dissipated. The pair looked each other in the eye for a long moment, and finally, Seelie let out a long sigh.


    ¡°Murphy. Please stop this. I can¡¯t stand to watch you pushing me away anymore. I know you¡¯re afraid. I¡¯m scared too. But, I know that if this situation were reversed, you would never let me go through this on my own and I...¡±


    Slowly, Seelie¡¯s eyes grew moist, and a glistening tear escaped from the confines of her eye to race down her cheek. Her eyes then suddenly became determined. Her voice was soft but firm as she leant in closer.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care what you are, or about your past. And I don¡¯t care what happens in the future. I know what kind of person you really are inside, and I know that if the madness comes, you¡¯ll overcome it. Like you overcome everything. I know you¡¯re afraid to see me grow old and die, but it doesn¡¯t matter now. Nothing else matters because ... Murphy, I love you!¡±


    Murphy could only smile wryly. The moment this incident started, he had a feeling where it was heading. He really didn¡¯t want it to be like this, but in the end, his running away had only made Seelie force the issue. Furthermore, he¡¯d run away from his feelings for so long, how could he not know what he was running away from.


    Seeing Seelie¡¯s resolve, Murphy felt himself grow weak. His defences dropped like a great wall under the assault of a thousand missiles.


    His hands reached up, and his thumb wiped away the tears at the corner of Seelie¡¯s eye, as he enclosed her face with both hands. Murphy¡¯s smile changed from wry to somewhat stupid and goofy grin.


    ¡°Seelie. I ... I love...¡±


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has created and accident! -10 Luck!¡¯


    A loud yell resonated from the edge of the clearing within which the portal to Murphy¡¯s domain was.


    ¡°Vile Demons, prepare to meet your end! Kill them all!¡±


    Barron Von Boff charged out of the dense trees and underbrush leading a group of 40 knights all clad in shining white armour and radiating magnificent Holy light everywhere. They were all handsome, valiant and charming looking fellows, as if they¡¯d all been cut from the same mould.


    The most handsome and charming looking fellow was in the lead with a captain¡¯s sigil on his armour. When he saw Murphy, who still had some remnants of the burning scars from being Seelie¡¯s heat sink on his body, holding a beautiful women untold leagues beyond anything he¡¯d ever seen, and about to kiss her, his face filled with indignation and jealousy.


    ¡°That demon is trying to rape that beautiful goddess. Charge! Slay that feral creature!¡±


    The moment the fat Barron¡¯s voice ruined the serene and touching moment, Seelie¡¯s eyebrow twitched violently, and wrath engulfed her features.


    She shot to her feet, and her book was suddenly summoned from the status space to float beside her. A slew of strange sounding languages poured from her mouth as she touched her book and 3 pages suddenly lit up simultaneously. A huge amount of mana burst forth from her body, and the ground rumbled and shook.


    The winds in the clearing suddenly picked up to torrential levels, and some of the weaker trees were ripped from the ground. Seelie¡¯s body was enveloped in light as three separate Spell Model all fired simultaneously.


    A giant meteor fell from the sky like a god pressing down his finger to smite evil. Blades of wind started forming everywhere and slicing apart everything in their path. The ground trembled even harder and huge gaping cracks started to form, engulfing anything unlucky enough to fall into them.


    Those valiant holy knights were stunned stupid and their hearts palpitated. As quickly as they¡¯d charged in, they turned and charged away. The gaping cracks, like the mouth of the very planet itself, opened wide and swallowed nearly a dozen Holy Knights. The wind blades then followed up and sliced apart the legs of the knights and their steeds, felling another 20 in an instant.


    Finally, the meteor collided with the ground and a glorious impact that shook the entire county spread out, engulfing 500 meters in flames and dust. Murphy was still on his knees, watching on somewhat horrified by this scene. He¡¯d clearly vastly underestimated Seelie¡¯s battle potential. Or perhaps, he should just never make her angry.


    When the dust finally settled, only a handful of Holy Knights were still standing, albeit barely. Surprisingly, the fat old Baron had managed to survive the whole escapade and was actually the least damaged out of everyone.


    He was slightly ruffled though, and he turned to focus his gaze on the now weak looking Seelie, who was on the verge of collapsing from Mana Overdraft.


    ¡°You fucking little demonic hussy! In the name of the Holy God, I¡¯m going to imprison you in my dungeon for the rest of your pathetic lifetime.¡±


    He slowly pulled out a very fancy and regal looking sword from a scabbard at his waist. He licked his lips, and a sinister smile crept onto his face as he eyed Seelie with somewhat greedy eyes.


    ¡°Then, you¡¯ll become a suppository for my men to satiate their needs. You know what that means you fucking feral demon! You¡¯re gonna get fucked! HAHAHA!¡±


    At the mention of locking Seelie up to be raped, Murphy¡¯s face changed as he thought back to the moment he thought he¡¯d lost Seelie on 6 Star. Juwan and Chuckles, still seated on Morbid¡¯s saddle off to the side both covered their faces with their hands.


    Juwan couldn¡¯t help but be bitter.


    ¡°Why is it that every time we get involved in little brother¡¯s love life, someone tries to rape his woman.¡±


    Chuckles just gave a grunt, and his demonic black wings suddenly sprung open on his back as he took to the sky.


    Morbid let out a low growl as he slowly rose to his feet. His body leant forward, and all the hair on his back stood up as his rumbling growl spread out through the clearing in a clearly threatening manner.


    Murphy slowly stood up, his eyes locked onto Baron Von Boff. With a flick of his wrist, his now considered very average looking Sword of Sharpness appeared in his hand. In the other hand appeared a disturbingly evil looking spell tome.


    ¡°Juwan, take Seelie back. Prepare the Domain in case we fail to hold them back. We haven¡¯t protected the portals yet, so we need to be prepared if we can¡¯t hold them back here.¡±


    Juwan looked at Murphy somewhat surprisingly. For a rare change, the uncertain and perpetually spacey look was gone from Murphy¡¯s face, to be replaced by a stern and serious gaze. It was almost like he was looking at a completely different person.


    Juwan didn¡¯t take too long to take in the sight though. Murphy appeared to not be taking any suggestions and was giving direct orders, and Juwan agreed that he should get Seelie away from this battlefield as quickly as possible.


    He jumped off Morbid and raced towards where the barely standing Seelie was only just supporting her own weight and taking long rasping breaths. As Murphy walked past her to hold off the oncoming Baron and his few remaining Holy Knights, Seelie¡¯s hand shot out to grab his shirt sleeve.


    Unknowing just where she conjured up the strength from, she pulled him around and lurched forward into his embrace. Then, not allowing for any further interference from luck or fate or any other blasted interruption, she pressed her lips against his and stole hers, and his, first kiss.


    Having accomplished what she set out to do, her body lost all its drive, and just as she was becoming limp in his arms, she muttered out under her breath;


    ¡°You¡¯re ... mine ... now...¡±


    Murphy had no desire to contest the ownership of his body with her, and the sudden kiss and forceful declaration still left a goofy grin spread across his face. He had no idea what was supposed to happen now, nor did he have the time to worry about it.


    Juwan pulled the collapsed Seelie from his grasp and quickly escaped through the portal, leaving only Murphy, Chuckles and Morbid to face off against the 6 remaining Holy Knights and the seemingly very powerful Baron.


    With a flick of his wrist and a strange glow in his eyes, he spun his sword in his hand then turned to face the quickly approaching enemies.


    The Baron wasn¡¯t sure what had transpired, or what he¡¯d just stepped into the middle of. All he saw was the presumable demon master looking at him with a very odd grin on his face. More surprising was that Murphy then started laughing!


    ¡°Heh heh heh ... hahahaHAHA! Come forth. Today is a glorious day! Lay down your pathetic lives in honour of this day for me! HAHAHA!¡±


    Chuckles looked down from in the sky and couldn¡¯t help but stare at Murphy with a strange gleam in his eye. If it were possible to read his thoughts, they would be something along the lines of;


    ¡®Master has awoken... ¡®


    Chuckles let out a loud battle roar along with Morbid letting loose a violent howl as they both charged in to push back the knights. Murphy¡¯s face became slightly more manic as the sword in his hand started flashing around, and his body shot towards the oncoming Barron.


    The Barron suddenly had the feeling of being stared at by some ancient demon that wanted to consume him. Just as they were about to meet head on, the Baron smashed his foot into the ground to suddenly halt, and his huge gem encrusted broadsword swung out in a long arc.


    Murphy, who was still a few meters away was just about to use his shadow arts to rapidly close the distance, but it seemed the Baron had felt his intention and blindly swung his sword in anticipation. Clearly, although the Baron was powerful, it was most likely from all the skill books and stat boosts he¡¯d stolen from his captives. His battle sense was terrible.


    Murphy wasn¡¯t deterred though. He slowed slightly as the huge broadsword flashed past and then cast out his dark domain. At the same time, he cast his slowing curse, ¡®Just Wait a Moment, So I Can Scream the Name of My Ultimate Move!¡¯, or more appropriately, ¡®Just Wait¡¯.


    Von Boff felt his body slow down and even though he had level 1 Weapon Arts, which was the step above basic weapon arts, his sword was too slow in coming back. With the dark domain spread out around them, Murphy cast shadow concealment and shadow walking, and he appeared behind the Baron. Instead of stabbing out, Murphy rose his gloved hands and pointed his rude finger towards the rapidly spinning Baron.


    The special effect of his gloves activated and released the 3 charges of poison touch, 2 charges of bad luck and 2 charges of spontaneous combustion.


    The Baron¡¯s fat body was suddenly engulfed in flames, which appeared to do almost nothing. Clearly, he¡¯d consumed no small number of endurance stats from his captives. However, the poison was a different matter, and the luck especially so.


    Murphy didn¡¯t get caught up in the moment and become proud of himself just yet. Instead, he rapidly retreated while casting a 20 mana earth spike directly under him as he retreated. The huge earth spike stabbed up, only to be sliced apart by the Baron¡¯s frantically swinging sword.


    ¡°You pesky fucking ant! I¡¯m going to skewer you on this sword of the Holy God and parade you about for the world to see.¡±


    His fat body jiggled as he used some kind of active skill and blurred towards Murphy. His sword sliced out, and despite Murphy¡¯s quick reactions, it still cut across his arm, leaving an inch deep cut.


    Seeing the little scratch, the Baron was momentarily stunned. He¡¯d seen this sword cut through trolls like slicing vegetables. He clearly felt it make enough contact to slice right through Murphy¡¯s arm, yet all it resulted in was a slightly big scratch.


    Murphy didn¡¯t even look at his arm as he quickly took advantage of that slight pause and rushed in low. His sword of sharpness lashed out, cutting along the Baron¡¯s thigh. Unfortunately, nothing resulted from this. It was now clear that the Baron didn¡¯t have a high endurance like he¡¯d first thought. Instead, his equipment was just such a high level that Murphy¡¯s crappy equipment from Newb Planet wasn¡¯t sufficient to even scratch it.


    Although the Von Boff appeared to simply be wearing very gaudy noble¡¯s clothes, they were apparently enchanted with several powerful buffs that skyrocket his defence.


    Murphy couldn¡¯t help but grimace at the sight of his blade doing nothing. As the Baron once more swung his great big broadsword down, Murphy¡¯s thumb flicked the pages of his book rapidly and then touched on the void prism spell.


    A strange black shadow rose from the ground around the Baron trapping him in the void. Unfortunately, Murphy didn¡¯t have the power or skill to make the spell powerful enough to hold the Baron back.


    It barely gave him enough time to get a few steps away before flashes of sword beams blew the shadow apart and the slightly panting and ruffled Baron raced out with another movement technique in rapid chase of Murphy. The initiative was clearly in Von Boff¡¯s corner, and cuts started to add up on Murphy¡¯s body.


    As they battled, the few direct strikes Murphy managed to land against this freak were all nullified by his equipment. Murphy was starting to feel slightly desperate, and from the corner of his eye, he could see that even Morbid was having trouble with the Holy Knights.


    Chuckles managed to injure a few of them with sneak attacks while Morbid drew all their attention, but the Holy Knights were specialised in fighting demons and ¡®evil¡¯, so they were rather resilient to poisons and curses. Making things worse was that they didn¡¯t seem to have Mana. Instead, they had something called Faith, which fuelled all their magic, making Morbid¡¯s Magic Resistance mute.


    By now, Morbid was in much the same condition as Murphy. Covered in bloody cuts and weeping wounds. Even though he was taking so much damage, his bloodlust only grew stronger.


    Unfortunately, Murphy didn¡¯t have the time to focus on Morbid and Chuckles, as he dodged another broad swing of the Baron¡¯s sword and rolled to the side. He was running low and mana and had tried every trick in the book. Unfortunately, despite his combat experience to date, he¡¯d never had to fight someone with such powerful equipment.


    As such, he wasn¡¯t sure how to deal with it. Even worse was, despite the Baron¡¯s total lack of real battle experience, he had numerous warrior skills that he¡¯d stockpiled from others. Murphy could only count his blessings that the fat Baron had never bothered to learn any magic.


    At the end of his tether, Murphy finally thought of a potential plan. He flipped his hand and put his sword away. He then even went so far as to remove his gloves, instead choosing to move forward and take on the Baron with his bare hands.


    Although the sword was light as a feather in his hands, and almost seemed like a non-existent weight at his current level of strength, he still had to be wary of where it was pointing. On top of that, he had far more experience in close combat martial arts than weapons. Almost twice as much in fact.


    With the weapon put away, he assumed a cat foot stance. The Baron eyed him up, seeing he was putting his sword away and was just planning to fight with bare hands, he wasn¡¯t sure what to think. However, he only made a note of it and didn¡¯t put too much effort into bothering with why.


    Mentally, he already had this battle in the bag. Although he¡¯d received no small number of nimble attacks from Murphy, he¡¯d not even suffered a scratch thanks to his incredibly expensive equipment.


    ¡°Heh! You¡¯re a stupid Demon, aren¡¯t you? You think you¡¯ll have better luck against me with your bare hands? Consider it your bad luck to have met me this day demon. Not even the gods can snatch your little life away from me!¡±


    Murphy had a strange look on his face after hearing Von Boff¡¯s proclamation.


    ¡°Bad luck ... you don¡¯t say?¡±


    He then smiled grimly as his body rocked back and forth before bursting forward with a blurring speed. The Baron felt the killing intent pressing towards him like a waterfront and quickly sliced out with his sword again. Murphy stopped just short of the Baron and threw his bare hands in front to grasp onto the sharp sword.


    The sound of bones cracking rang out as Murphy¡¯s fingers deformed slightly from the force of the sword and the flesh was carved away like tender meat from a roast.


    However, the pain was only slightly more than the glorious pleasure, and his body shook slightly from the massive rush of endorphins. His grip tightened around the sword, and every point of his strength stat was utilised to maintain his hold on the blade.


    Then, he began to devour! His eye¡¯s glazed slightly as he focused his mana into his hands and then through them into the sword.


    Although devouring wasn¡¯t a rapid action, with Murphy¡¯s full concentration and his large reserves of mana, he simply brute forced the process to speed it up. The Baron looked on with shock and confusion as he tried to pry his sword free from the demon¡¯s grasp.


    Then his shock and confusion became stunned and mind boggled, as his incredibly sharp and powerful sword, that looked glamourous and valiant, slowly started to rust and fall to pieces right in front of his eyes. The gems all slowly lost their lustre, and the shine of the sword became dull and then finally deteriorated into a rust scarred old sword.


    ¡°Get off you little feral! Get off my bloody sword you fucking demon freak!¡±


    The Baron screamed out at the top of his lungs as he used his considerable strength stat to lift Murphy, who remained attached to the sword like a dog to a bone. He then smashed Murphy into the ground, making a sickening thud and cracking of bones ring out from the dust cloud created.


    Without reservation, the Baron continued to lift Murphy and slam him into the ground, all the while watching with maddening eyes as his sword was slowly consumed.


    The Holy Knights in the distance were momentarily distracted by the yelling, and their eyes were all drawn to the ghastly scene of the broken and battered body of Murphy, clutching onto the rusty old sword with the last vestiges of life in his body.


    Seeing this moment, Chuckles took immediate action and darted out as a blurry shadow from behind Morbid¡¯s huge bloodied paw. The closest Knight, who¡¯d already suffered some severe damage, suddenly felt a cold piercing pain in his neck.


    Before he could turn to see the devious smile on Chuckles¡¯ bruised and bloody face, his life finally left him. The moment he died, Chuckles cast his innate spell and summoned forth his spawn. The Knight¡¯s body exploded into chunks of meat and blood splashed across the faces of the other knights, waking them from the shock of witnessing Murphy somehow surviving the brutal beating of the Baron.


    By then, it was too late. A red light flashed, and suddenly half a dozen spawn were mobbing another Knight. Morbid raced forward to block the others as the 6 spawns and Chuckles laughed sinisterly while slowly cutting down the lone knight.


    The Baron heard a sudden scream from toward the Holy Knights, but ignored it as he huffed and puffed with great exertion. He lifted his sword again, only to see that Murphy was no longer attached to it. Or more precisely, the sword was no longer attached to the hilt.


    Slowly, a very broken corpse stood up from within the dust cloud, holding in his left hand 3 glimmering crafting gems. These were the gems used to by craftsmen to imbue something with special properties. Technically, most crafted treasures actually got their special powers from the materials used in the process, but crafting stones can be made directly from raw materials instead and didn¡¯t suffer from deterioration or were often purer, making them far more valuable.


    Regardless, the process didn¡¯t matter. What mattered was that this half dead demon had somehow sucked the magical properties out of his sword. Even more disturbing was that despite the massive injuries, bleeding wounds and jagged snapped bones poking out through the skin, the demon didn¡¯t even seem fazed.


    Murphy couldn¡¯t stop himself from chuckling slightly when he looked at the stones in his hands. He had no idea what properties they had exactly, and even his identify wasn¡¯t able to fully assess them, only giving them basic names like ¡®Crafting Stone: Hardness¡¯.


    Although it was almost suicidal to try and devour something like item properties in the middle of battle, he had succeeded. Now the Baron had no weapon to...


    The Baron flipped his wrist and summoned a powerful looking enchanted spear from his inventory, which metaphorically stabbed Murphy¡¯s idea to death. His face was red with anger and indignation. It seemed that he was having trouble from not suddenly exploding, as his fat second chin jiggled in time with the rest of his fat everywhere else on his body.


    ¡°You fucking feral! Do you understand what you¡¯ve done! That sword isn¡¯t something you can just pick up at the corner market! It was a gift from the Cardinal of the West you fucking demonic scumbag! How am I supposed to explain this! I¡¯m going to flay you for a hundred days!¡±


    Murphy could only smile wryly as he steadied his breathing. He sent the gems into his inventory and then quickly got into a combat pose.


    Once again, he quickly darted forward. This time the Baron was slightly hesitant to attack him with his weapon but stabbed out anyway. He couldn¡¯t fight him with his hands even if he wanted to. He felt hand to hand combat was a commoner form of combat and beneath him, so he never bothered to use those skill books.


    Seeing the spear darting out towards him, Murphy decided to take a different approach. This time, he used his arm to deflect, taking another huge gash across his right arm. He then stepped in close to the Baron and punched out as rapidly as possible.


    Taking a page out of the tactics he taught the luck spawn, he accumulated nearly 40 punches in the time it took for the fat Baron Von Boff to swing the spear around his fat body and towards Murphy.


    Murphy quickly ducked down and distanced himself. He summoned his spell book and cast void prison, then shadow concealment and shadow walking.


    He appeared behind the Baron just as he burst out from the void prism again. Murphy then cast Just Wait with the last of his mana to slow the Baron for as long and as much as possible. Then he darted in and quickly jabbed the Baron¡¯s fat body nearly 150 times before darting back.


    He grinned as he watched all the system prompts popping up. He¡¯d been quite lucky and accumulated nearly 40 luck already. Meaning that the fat Baron had already accumulated negative 80 luck, presuming he had 0 luck to begin with. Natural that was never the case, but even with the Baron¡¯s superstitious voodoo dances and praying, he didn¡¯t have enough to counteract the huge amount of bad luck he was quickly accumulating.


    The Baron was enraged by Murphy¡¯s antics and started using the Weapon Arts active skill, Mighty Spear. Seeing the Baron stepping into a charging stance, Murphy didn¡¯t hesitate to quickly rush in as close as possible. The biggest downfall of long weapons like the spear was that they were rather weak in close spaces.


    If the Baron wanted to use a skill like that, it was best to use it against someone that was charging at him, not someone that was close enough to slip into his guard the moment it started charging.


    It seemed the Baron truly did have terrible combat experience. The moment Murphy slipped inside his guard, the Baron¡¯s skill activated and huge force rushed out along with his spear in the direction where Murphy had been standing beforehand.


    Although some currents of the energy stabbed into Murphy, the focus was well past him, making the attack basically useless. Murphy took the advantage to throw in a few more jabs and then quickly retreated again.


    Von Boff was now fuming! He had never been so mad in his life. He simply couldn¡¯t understand how this demon, whose body was so beaten and battered, could still fight at the same efficiency he had in the beginning of the battle. It was only then that he realised, at some point during their fighting, the bones that had been sticking out of the demon¡¯s body had all receded back in.


    Not only that, he watched with incredulity as the wounds very slowly sealed themselves. Seeing the Baron finally notice that he¡¯d been slowly healing throughout the battle, Murphy could only curse in his heart. Now that the cat was out of the bag, the Baron would most definitely beat it to death.


    Having realised that slowly accumulating damage wasn¡¯t going to be enough, Von Boff could only grit his teeth. He really was pissed off. Such an annoying fellow showed up in his county. With another flick of his wrist, he produced a strange glowing pearl. Looking at it with a somewhat pained expression, he snarled at Murphy.


    ¡°It seems you thought to play me for a fool! Well, you¡¯ve only yourself to blame now for not having run away when you had the chance.¡±


    With that, he crushed the pearl in his hand, and it released a glowing golden mist into the surroundings. Slowly the mist formed into a glowing spirit with a huge barrel-like chest, teeny tiny head and waste that slimed into a tail of smoke. If Murphy didn¡¯t know better, he¡¯d have mistaken this thing for a Djinn.


    When the golden mist creature appeared, a dominating pressure fell onto the area as if some ultra-powerful being was looking down on all the ant-like life forms dwelling here.


    ¡°Who dares defile the lands of the Holy God?!¡±


    The Djinn¡¯s voice boomed out like thunder, shaking all the trees about the clearing and scaring off wildlife for miles around.


    Murphy was looking at the Djinn with a very strange expression, while Von Boff looked up with a very reverent and respectful expression.


    ¡°Great Angel! This lowly one begs your assistance.¡±


    He then pointed at Murphy with a quivering finger as his face filled with madness.


    ¡°Great Angel, this demon has come to the lands of the Holy God to cause disaster! He frees the prisoners of the Holy God and slaughters his worshipers indiscriminately!¡±


    The Angel¡¯s glowing golden eyes focused in on Murphy who was taking this opportunity to slowly recover his injuries. Seeing Murphy looking straight back at it without the slightest bit of fear or reverence, the Angel frowned.


    ¡°Pitiful creature. You dare stand before this incarnation of the Holy...¡±


    ¡°What even are you?¡±


    Murphy asked curiously.


    The Angel, having been interrupted almost seemed slightly confused. This had never happened before. Every time it appeared before now, the lesser creatures on these tiny little quest planets were awed simply by its presence, and the crushing power of its divine presence was enough to sink even mighty Devils to their knees in front of it.


    Not fully understanding what was happening, the Angel was momentarily befuddled.


    ¡°Pardon?¡±


    Murphy looked at the Angel sceptically and then started to wander around it as he poked it in places, only for the glowing golden energy mist to act like normal mist and float about the place. Strangely though, this mist had a strange property.


    ¡°Well ... are you like ... an energy being or something?¡±


    The Angel was now thoroughly confused. They didn¡¯t cover these sorts of scenarios in Angel Training. No one had ever heard of someone not cowering at the sight of an Angel.


    ¡°I¡¯m ... wait ... what? I¡¯m an Angel dammit! I¡¯m created from the faith and passion of the Holy God¡¯s believers.¡±


    Murphy simply looked up at the tiny little head and blinked dumbly.


    ¡°I see ... so ... are you like ... a player?¡±


    ¡°What? Yes, of course I¡¯m a player. No one has seen an NPC outside of the training grounds for hundreds of years.¡±


    ¡°Whew. That¡¯s great. I¡¯d feel really bad if you couldn¡¯t respawn after I kill you.¡±


    ¡°You what mate?!¡±


    Murphy ignored the enraged Angel and the stunned Baron as he reached out a hand and put it into the ethereal mist that created the body of the Angel.


    ¡°Hah! Foolish demon! My body is indestructible. Your pathetic attempts to ... oi ... oi ... wait ... wait wait wait! Stop! Stop!¡±


    Only after some posturing did the Angel finally realise that it was slowly being sucked into Murphy¡¯s body like dust into a vacuum cleaner. It quickly found, that despite its grand powers and awesome strength, while Murphy was busily devouring there was nothing it could do. It was like all its strength was locked away.


    ¡°Argh!! Great Lord. Holy Master! Please save this pathetic servant! This servant begs you great Lord to ... oh god ... stop! I beg you mighty Demon Lord. Don¡¯t devour this pitiful creature!¡±


    Seeing no saving grace falling from the heavens from his so-called God, the Angel started begging mercy from Murphy. Seeing such a pitiful scene, and now feeling like this new trait, ¡®Faith¡¯ was going to bust and cause something like Mana Overdraw if he kept devouring, Murphy chose to stop.


    Being a benevolent fellow, he didn¡¯t want to kill this strange creature if he didn¡¯t have to. After all, it just looked so pitiable while begging, sobbing and crying like a little girl.


    The moment the devouring force from Murphy¡¯s hand stopped, the Angel, which was now only half its original size, quickly dissipated and returned to wherever the hell it came from.


    With the Angel suddenly beating a hasty retreat, the Baron was speechless. Not only him, even the Holy Knights who were now down to only 3 and facing off against a heavily injured Morbid and 20 odd spawn were shocked by the Angel¡¯s sudden departure.


    The Angel was supposed to be a mighty creature that lorded it over their tiny world. The Angel¡¯s were born and bred to be servants of the Holy God, and the beads used to summon them were very rarely granted to a questing domain as small as theirs.


    The shock only lasted a short moment though, as Morbid released a violent howl and took advantage of the sudden distraction to viciously bite one of the knights in half.


    The Baron also quickly woke up and started to briskly retreat from the battlefield. He now considered Murphy to be a complete monster out of some kind of horrible dream. Not only did he heal rapidly during battle, but he could also even consume an Angel and suck the life out of his weapons.


    Seeing the Baron who so arrogantly proclaimed he would turn Seelie into a sex slave rapidly escaping, Murphy¡¯s eyes became cold. He pulled out his magic tome. Having no Mana to cast with, he used the faith energy he¡¯d just sucked out of that Djinn/Angel creature.


    To his shock and awe, when he cast the dark domain it used half as much Faith as it did Mana and covered twice the distance. Was this not getting twice the reward for half the work?


    Not allowing himself to fall into complacency, he ignored the results of using Faith to cast magic and kept casting. Just Wait, Thorny Punishment, Shadow Conceal, Shadow Walking and then when he finally reached the now slowed and bound Baron he used every drop of faith energy he had stored up to cast Rampage on himself.


    He appeared directly in front of the panicking Baron, his eyes glowing red and all the muscles on his body bulging out as if filled to the brim with power. He stepped forward and pulled back his fist. With a mighty roar, his fist rocketed forward creating a shockwave through the air.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The collision with the Baron sounded as if a grenade had just gone off. The Baron was shot back like a bullet and rolled quite a few times before slowly crawling up to his feet in a very jiggly unbecoming manner. Much to Murphy¡¯s chagrin, it wasn¡¯t so easy to turn this situation around.


    The fat Baron¡¯s enchanted equipment seemed to easily protect him from damage and even from Murphy throwing out a punch with Rampage using almost 200 points of Faith, the power of which completely shattered every bone in Murphy¡¯s arm and shoulder.


    The Baron, although looking like a hungover drunk and covered in dirt, clearly didn¡¯t suffer even half the damage Murphy inflicted on himself just to deliver that punch.


    With all of its power used for that single punch, Rampage quickly wore off, leaving Murphy in a rather awkward situation. He could tell that he may have underestimated the power of the Baron¡¯s equipment.


    Seeing the state Murphy was left in after that world shattering punch, the fat Baron laughed like a madman.


    ¡°You fool! Hahaha! Truly a frog in a well, not knowing anything apart from the sky! I¡¯m going to crush you like and ant!¡±


    Seeing the Baron still with enough wind in him to posture and threaten, Murphy¡¯s face fell slightly as his brow creased.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has created a happy accident. +10 Luck.¡¯


    The system prompt rang out in his mind, Murphy witnessed an arrow fly out from behind him and stab directly into the Baron Von Boff¡¯s chubby fat face.


    For an instant, it seemed like he wasn¡¯t exactly sure what just happened. He seemed to be frozen solid like a stunned mullet.


    Murphy quickly glanced back to see Xanzu standing at the edge of the forested area with a bow in hand and already quickly drawing his next arrow. Rushing out from the bushlands behind him were Lucile and Carson who both seemed to be covered in a very strange glowing sticky goop.


    ¡°Get off me you fucking freak!¡±


    ¡°But I¡¯m so tired Lucile. Just carry me back to the portal. I can¡¯t go on ... Oh?¡±


    The moment they slipped out of the bushland and saw the clearing around the portal covered in craters and looking like a war zone, they quickly stopped.


    The glowing goop covering the very irate Carson and Lucile quickly glooped off them and formed into the faceless being that is Tuskelly.


    ¡°Hoho! It¡¯s the Boss! Hey there boss! Watch¡¯a doin¡¯?¡±


    The others didn¡¯t even bother with Tuskelly¡¯s banter as they rapidly rushed into combat. Seeing the deteriorating state of Morbid, who¡¯s fur was now completely red and matted with blood, Carson gave a nod to Lucile and raced in the direction where the last few Knights were putting up a valiant effort to take the spawn and the hellhound with them when they died.


    Lucile raced towards Murphy, and at the same time she stood in front of him protectively, with her claws and canines protruded, Von Boff finally reacted to the arrow sticking out of his cheek.


    ¡°GAH!!!! It hurts! It hurts so much! Mumma!!¡±


    Everyone had a strange look on their face as they watched the fat quivering Baron suddenly burst into tears and drop to the ground holding his face.


    Murphy instantly regretted how much of an idiot he¡¯d been. Despite all his combat experience, he¡¯d completely ignored the fat Baron¡¯s face this whole time. If he¡¯d realised earlier, this battle would have been far shorter.


    Seeing the state the Baron had devolved to from a single arrow in his cheek, Murphy felt the man to be far too soft. How he even survived this long in this game was beyond him.


    With the Baron now a sobbing mess rolling around crying for his mummy, Murphy diverted his attention toward Morbid. Seeing the state his trusted companion was in, Murphy felt his heart ache.


    Without regard for the arm that had turned to a thick bloody paste and dusted bones beneath the skin, Murphy raced toward Morbid.


    With Carson, fresh and rested, joining the battle, the spawns quickly overwhelmed the last two knights. This battle had been a very fierce and difficult one for them all, but the rewards were plentiful. With the last two knights dead, huge orbs of experience poured out of what little remained of their bodies into the Spawn, with the greatest amounts pouring into Morbid, who¡¯d dealt and received the most damage.


    Just as Murphy reached his side and was preparing to force every last instant recovery potion he had into his pet dog, Morbid suddenly released a long growl and his body shook violently. He rose to his feet, and a loud howl rang out into the world as his already massive body seemed to bulge slightly and then grow a little bigger.


    Almost a meter taller! Although it may not sound like much regarding an animal that¡¯s already nearly 15 meters tall, a sudden growth spurt of a meter was still far too much to happen in an instant. Most confusing was that Hellhounds didn¡¯t have the ability to evolve, so technically the only reason Morbid would still be growing was that he wasn¡¯t fully grown and needed Exp to grow.


    If that was the case ... didn¡¯t that mean Morbid will still just a cute little puppy? What kind of concept was that? If he¡¯s a god damn puppy, what the hell kind of size is he going to be once he grows up?


    Murphy felt his heart ache once again ... at the thought of having to feed Morbid once he¡¯s fully grown.


    Despite his sudden growth spurt, Morbid remained injured and almost immediately collapsed after his little growing tantrum. The moment his big fluffy head hit the ground, Murphy was pouring in every type of recovery potion he had, which in comparison to a huge beast like Morbid was like a few drops on the tongue.


    Seeing the effect of the potions only slightly healing some of his wounds, Murphy grimaced. With everyone gathered, they did the most important thing for anyone after a huge battle.


    They looted all the corpses.


    Which wasn¡¯t many since most of them were sucked into the ground or incinerated by the Meteor.


    Despite that, they had one thing that was going to provide a huge amount of loot. Most likely, more than anything they¡¯d ever dealt with before. This time, they had a prisoner.


    Being as soft as playdough now that he¡¯d been injured, Baron Von Boff didn¡¯t even resist when he was stripped of all his armour and placed in player chains from the player store.


    Purchasing these chains was quite a pinch for Murphy¡¯s pocket, but in the long run they would hopefully pay off. With any luck, they get far more from all the equipment stored away in this fat Baron¡¯s player inventory. It was just going to take some effort on Murphy¡¯s part to extract it all.


    The whole time, Tuskelly remained on the sidelines looking very confused and uncertain about what exactly was going on. Eventually, Murphy left Lucile in charge and returned to his domain.


    The moment he stepped through the portal he felt a vast number of curses about to be sprayed down on him like rain. Before they completed their casting though, the spawn all recognised their master and quickly started cheering with their almost cute ¡®rar rar rar¡¯ sounds.


    Juwan let out a long breath when he noticed Murphy stepping through. Before he had the chance to ask, Murphy started barking orders to the spawn.


    ¡°Prepare the Alchemy Laboratory. Bring every herb we have stockpiled in the domain. Send the Alchemist Spawn to meet with me there. Gather the Smart Spawn and prepare to set up a warfront on the other side of the portal. Start sending out hunters to the other quest planets. We need to regain as much communal Exp for the domain as quickly as possible.¡±


    All the citizens of the domain seemed to be strangely stunned by this scene. For some unexplainable reason ... Murphy was actually talking.


    To the Spawn, this was rather normal. Murphy talked all the time when he was alone with them. In fact, getting him to shut up was more the issue.


    But to the players, and even Juwan and Calligso, this was a strange thing to see.


    However, the busy little spawn didn¡¯t care about their shocked expression and pushed them out of the way as they all rushed off to do the bidding of their master.

 Chapter 13: Serious Spawn

    Murphy quickly found himself in the alchemy lab. This was a section of the castle that the spawn allocated for the purpose of Murphy¡¯s alchemy. It was actually quite rare for Murphy to visit it since it was built and the few times he had he was only using it to create the few potions he¡¯d already created or discovered beforehand.


    Most of the time, this lab was occupied by hundreds of Alchemy spawn, rushing around and laughing sinisterly while creating any number of questionable substances. For a change, Murphy came himself to create some new potions. Regardless of how powerful his potions were at present, for a beast like Morbid they were almost inconsequential.


    With Morbid¡¯s life hanging in the balance, Murphy now had only a short time to create something that would blow all his past creations out of the water. Thanks to the few raids they¡¯d had, and no small number of questing parties of Spawn, they had a huge stockpile of herbs.


    To the spawn, the concept of ownership was incredibly obscure. They were a tribal race, and everything they collected was for the good of the tribe. It was only very rare or sentimental things which the spawn held onto as personal belongings.


    Even those few rare things would be offered up to Murphy, their master, if he requested them. If anything, they would feel it was an honour for Murphy to take stuff from them. It proved to themselves and their comrades that their taste in things was good enough to attract the master¡¯s interest.


    As such, the moment Murphy gave the order to bring every material in the domain that can be used for alchemy, the spawn rushed to throw their precious treasures at him.


    Deep in the recesses of the castle, Murphy walked into the lab wearing only a pair of shorts. The contrast between his body when he first started the game and now was quite drastic. Where he had once been as thin as a bean pole, he was now far more developed.


    His muscles were toned and sleek, and his body had filled out enough to make him look if not healthy, then at least not anorexic. The reason he only wore shorts while doing alchemy was that his method of alchemy was somewhat different to others.


    Instead of timing his concoctions and developing a fixed routine, Murphy used the reactions of his body to determine the completion of a potion. It had actually developed into somewhat of a sixth sense when it came to alchemy, and Murphy used it to great advantage. Apart from him, no one else was crazed enough to wear anything less than 6 sets of protective coveralls, rubber gloves, boots and apron and at least class three face protection.


    Exposing any skin at all while doing alchemy was an invitation for a gruesome and unnatural death.


    As he walked into the lab, Murphy saw nearly every alchemist spawn that had been born in his domain rushing about the lab. They piled up herbs and materials along the walls and pushed huge empty cauldrons into the middle of the room with a great deal of effort and team work.


    The moment he stepped in, the alchemy spawn were ecstatic. ¡®Rah rah¡¯ cheers rang out around the room, and the spawn all rapidly finished up the preparations. Murphy closed his eyes for a brief moment to remember all of his past experiments and to try and remember the properties of everything he¡¯d ever encountered.


    When he opened his eyes, a strange green light flashed out from them, and in his vision his identify skill went mad as it catalogued every material and herb in the room.


    Then, he strolled into the centre of the room, surrounded by 5 huge cauldrons, and started pointing at materials along the wall.


    ¡°Cockatrice tongue, six clover, shell of the dragon egg. In this cauldron.¡±


    Without delay, he started barking orders for his spawn, and they rushed to start pulling materials off the benches and walls.


    Soon, the five cauldrons were filled with various different bubbling liquids. One of them even had the souls of the dead squirming around inside screaming and wailing. Naturally, although he¡¯d successfully made a potion here, it was a very different effect from the recovery he was hoping for.


    Even just touching the potion made his soul shake in trepidation. He decided that this particular potion, Banshee Blood, would have to be tested only after he had the time and was prepared to return to earth.


    The others were all various concoctions middling from restoratives to corrosives, but nothing was strong enough to help Morbid. Murphy could only grit his teeth and keep trying.


    Meanwhile, outside the castle, thousands of spawn were rushing around as if preparing for a huge battle. Every so often, a hundred odd spawn would walk through a portal and race off to start killing things for the Exp. When the spawn acted independently of Murphy like this, many things about their situation changed.


    For starters, without having been summoned there by Murphy, the spawn were basically treated like a player by the system. Although they couldn¡¯t evolve without the ¡®summoned¡¯ status, they could still accumulate Exp and raise their stats. As such, it wasn¡¯t rare for the spawn to go out hunting and return with 1000 odd Exp, all of which was poured into the communal Exp of the Domain for Seelie or Murphy to spend.


    Under Murphy¡¯s orders, almost every spawn in the domain was either gearing up to hunt for Exp, or preparing to march into Holy Eden and set up a base camp. Even the players felt some duty towards the domain and insisted on helping out in Holy Eden.


    No one was certain what Murphy was planning yet, but they could tell that he was gearing up for something big. As such, being the warlike races they are, and more so detesting the situation on the planet of Holy Eden, especially those that had been rescued from there, all the players of Murphy¡¯s domain rushed through the portal to prepare the war camp.


    Seelie was busy suffering the effects of the rebound from her Mana Overdraw and was currently under the care of her little sister up in her wizard tower. Juwan was leading the effort to prepare the war camp along with Lucile and the Clever Spawn.


    Calligso, after hearing about the status of Morbid, raced to Holy Eden and hadn¡¯t left his side since the moment he spotted him lying there half dead and covered with a multitude of wounds.


    Slowly, things started happening in Murphy¡¯s domain. At the same time, things were rapidly starting to heat up on the planet of Holy Eden. Chief amongst them was the planet¡¯s capital, Eden City.


    In a huge mountain ... wait, that¡¯s a church ... in an unnecessarily massive church that could house an entire metropolis, and did, a dozen very pompous looking clergy were sitting around a polished marble table in a meeting chamber high up within the church structure.


    Just looking down from this height gave a panoramic view for nearly a thousand kilometres off into the distance. Standing at a clear window and looking over this scene was an even more pompously dressed bloke, who couldn¡¯t be mistaken for anyone else but the Pope of Eden.


    The various clergy were all busily arguing about the demon invasion that was happening right now in a dusty little county in one part of a kingdom which was one part of one of many empires. In other words, it was a shit hole that no one on the rest of the planet even knew existed until today.


    A very buff and heroic looking fellow, which contrasted greatly with his soft fluffy clergy robes, slammed his hand onto the table causing it to rumble under the pressure of his not inconsiderable strength.


    ¡°We sthould ride forth and sthquath thisth invasthen postht hasthte!¡±


    Hearing him speak, everyone in the room couldn¡¯t help but cringe as they tried to puzzle out exactly what he was saying with that incredibly irritating listhp ... lisp. Ahem...


    ¡°Barllo ... do you have to try and speak like that? Just use words without any s¡¯s.¡±


    A red hue appeared on the huge man¡¯s face, and he gave an embarrassed cough before repeating himself.


    ¡°Ride forth ... kill them.¡±


    ¡°Why bother? Their just a tiny little domain that doesn¡¯t understand the rules. They clearly don¡¯t know that it¡¯s impossible to siege a quest planet. We have protection from the system!¡±


    A skinny young looking man with the bearing of a noble gentleman voiced what everyone was thinking. For the majority of people here, they couldn¡¯t understand why they were even here discussing this.


    ¡°Foolish!¡±


    With a grunt, one of the older clergy rebuked the young man. The moment he spoke, everyone quietened down. Apart from the Pope, this man was the longest living citizen of Holy Eden and commanded a great deal of respect.


    Being rebuked by the Pope¡¯s righthand man was almost the same as being rebuked by the Pope himself, as such, that young man¡¯s face flushed with embarrassment and he quickly seated himself and shut up.


    With silence suddenly prevailing over the meeting, the Pope, with a gentle smile and calm disposition turned and walked toward the table.


    ¡°You are still young Cardinal Lachaust. Becoming a quest planet does not simply relieve you of all threats. The system¡¯s protection only protects us from being raided and losing mass. Things like this, where a smaller domain raids us for resources through a portal are very common, and the system has never done anything to prevent it.


    ¡°We must use our own power to deter such things from happening, lest all the smaller domains gang up and raid us to death. Even then, it would normally not be too much trouble. Holy Eden is big enough that only another planet sized domain could truly threaten us as a quest planet, but what would be the point?


    ¡°They don¡¯t get any earth for their trouble, and although they can claim resources it wouldn¡¯t be worth the cost of war. No, this situation is different. Although this is just a small domain, which we can crush with the might of our domain as easily as squashing an ant, the players are far more interesting.


    ¡°From the reports, it¡¯s clear to me that the young Domain Lord invading us has a very unique power. One that could threaten our peace here. Do you know why that is?¡±


    At the pope¡¯s question, everyone just stared back blankly at him with confused expressions. The Pope smiled knowingly, and his grouchy old right hand stepped up to explain.


    ¡°It¡¯s because he has the Deprive skill. Normally, at most, if we were sieged by other domains, the only resources they can take from us are what they can mine and carry away with them. But this kid, with his Deprive skill, can take everything. Geodes, monuments, resource nodes. The things that draw in players and creatures to our world to live here and quest here. Without, we are just an empty domain.¡±


    A light of understanding lit up in the eyes of the Cardinals. Cardinal Lachaust dropped his fist into his palm as he came to a sudden realisation.


    ¡°You want to steal his power! If we had the Deprive skill, we could quickly accumulate even more rare resources and draw in more sacrifices for the Holy God!¡±


    The Pope smiled has he touched his finger to his nose.


    ¡°That is why I called you all here. We must capture that young Domain Lord at all costs. I don¡¯t want to scare him off with a huge army, and I especially don¡¯t want him to realise what we are planning for him. We need to send small raids so that he doesn¡¯t become suspicious. Sacrifice a few pawns to draw him in further, until we can pull him into a trap.¡±


    With that, the Cardinals eyes all lit up with greed and desire, and they put their pompous heads together to try and come up with a realistic plan. For a rare change, someone was plotting against Murphy without underestimating him. Not everyone is as easy to capture as the fat Baron, and if Murphy realised they were going to catch him to draw out his Deprive skill he would most likely kill himself first.


    <hr>


    ¡®Finally! This is perfect. The ¡®Cursed Potion of Unreasonably High Health Recovery¡¯. If this can¡¯t heal Morbid, then I¡¯d be hard pressed to find something that could.¡¯


    Having that thought, I quickly left the Alchemy lab, leaving the spawn to clean up everything I¡¯d left behind. I just hoped none of them touched the red cauldron. Even I was dubious about touching it. Just being near the fumes caused my skin to melt off, which is saying quite a bit.


    This potion cost me quite a bit to finally refine, and nearly half of the substantial stockpile of resources we had stashed away had been gobbled up by the cauldrons. On the plus side, I now had half a dozen new potions with interesting effects and my alchemy level was already pushing against the boundary of level 7.


    I was actually quite frightened at just how easily I made poisons with explosive or poisonous effects. My explosives skill jumped several levels after I created a potion that nearly blew my castle off the top of the hill. It was only a lucky happenstance that Seelie had spent a bit of effort to reinforce the protective enchantments in the alchemy lab to prevent such things.


    After that incident though, they would have to be renewed and probably made a little ... a lot stronger. With great haste, I rushed through the portal to Holy Eden. I then froze on the spot and quickly back peddled when I noticed the eyes of all the spawn starting to glow red and very malicious glares being cast at each other.


    I almost forgot that I couldn¡¯t be present on a quest planet with my summons if there are too many of them. Otherwise, they start killing one another. The system was very malicious in its stupid rules. Luckily, I was quick enough to retreat before any limbs started flying off.


    After a few moments, Chuckles then rushed through the portal and snatched the potion before running back through. As he passed back, all the spawn that had been on the other side started filing back through to the Domain. After the last few spawn stepped through and communicated that it was safe for me, I stepped through.


    Without pause, I raced towards Morbid. Chuckles was rubbing Morbid¡¯s big wet nose with a worried expression. The phial of the Cursed Unreasonably High Health Healing potion was empty and lying in the dirt. As I approached, the wounds on Morbid¡¯s huge body slowly started closing up with soft little red firefly like light sprinkling out every so often.


    Morbid let out a comfortable sounding growl as his body shook. His big droopy dog eyes opened up to see Chuckles and I staring at him worriedly. Slowly, as his body recovered, the light in his eyes slowly came back. After blinking a few times, his massive body rolled over slightly and that massive wet tongue of his lapped out and bathed Chuckles and I in slobber.


    ¡°Grrrr.¡±


    A deep growl came from his throat as he closed his eyes in dreamy comfort from the recovery effects of the potion. At last, a deep breath that I¡¯d been holding in for a little too long was released, and my body suddenly felt heavy with fatigue and then just as quickly felt great.


    After about an hour of sitting around rubbing Morbid¡¯s belly and telling him how good a dog he is, he was ready to stop playing dead and jumped up to start leaping about everywhere playfully. It seemed, out of everyone, Uncle Calligso was actually the most excited about Morbid¡¯s recovery.


    ¡°Haha! Come here you great over grown fur ball! HAHAHA!¡±


    With greatly exaggerated leaps, Uncle Calligso then barrelled into the huge mountain that is Morbid and a wrestling match then quickly ensued. With Morbid now quickly healing, I returned my focus to the present. I had a few plans that I had to put into motion.


    Chief amongst them was my plans for this quest planet. I intended to loot it to death. I sent Chuckles to gather information so that I would know where all the nearest resources worth stealing ... err ... I mean reappropriating were. Although it goes against my code of ethics to target a culture like this just because they were so oppressive, my domain needed resources and I¡¯d rather take them from someone I disagreed with strongly.


    Besides, it was a game, and I intended to be a hero. As such, looting this world wouldn¡¯t weigh too heavily on my conscience, and I suspected that my player citizens wouldn¡¯t be against trying to cripple a planet that focused on capturing races they were prejudiced against just because they looked evil.


    On top of that, I¡¯d found something interesting on this planet.


    Faith.


    I had no information on this yet, but I suspected it was a game mechanic for high levelled players later on in the game. Something like super mana or something. As such, I wanted to do some research on this energy and see if I could find a way to generate it myself.


    Next thing on my list was to train my spawn and citizens. The best way to do that was to throw them into constant battle against strong opponents. This was the strongest quest planet I¡¯d encountered so far, and it was perfect for tempering myself and my troops.


    As I pondered over my plans, I meandered back to my domain and sat down in the throne constructed from the bones of enemies, courtesy of the spawn decorators. I was quite surprised by the amount of Exp my spawn had already accumulated in the only half a day that I¡¯d been in the lab.


    With those points, I then bought the two most pertinent things for my plans at present. A permanent portal stone, so that I could turn the random portal to Holy Eden into a permanent portal. The second was a Portal Protection enchantment.


    With this, I¡¯d be able to enchant my portals to only let my domain¡¯s citizens pass through them. The last thing I needed was some scumbag from Eden sneaking into my domain and reporting my location to my enemies.


    Surprisingly, these two items were cheaper than I¡¯d initially expected them to be. It left quite a bit of remaining Exp which I decided to invest into a domain quest board and system quest board.


    I set them both up in the town square down at the sinister lands. The moment I placed the system quest board down, it filled half the square. It was almost a hundred meters long and 5 meters high. Both sides were littered with all sorts of system quests from bounties to tutoring, and even random quests like slay 10 dragons from a Dragon Domain or capture an emperor from the planet of 30 emperors.


    My Domain Quest board was tiny in comparison to it, but over the span of the night, dozens of requests for parties or bounties were posted up by the players in my domain, and every time something was posted, the board automatically grew a little bit more. A good number of the requests were placed by Alton for specific materials. He paid quite highly, but everything he requested was quite rare.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Come morning, I was still looking through all the quests of the system board and trying to familiarise myself with all the system quests and their rewards. Some of the quests were very tempting but required me to be linked to a specific planet. After looking through them for half the night, I discovered that the system quest board actually only had a handful of quests from the system.


    The majority of quests were actually put up by other players and domains. After a quick inspection of my domain space, I determined it was possible for anyone to place a request on the system board. The only problem was that it was incredibly expensive, coming in at almost 1 billion exp just to post a single A4 sized request.


    On top of that, many of the quests were filtered by system administrators, and only certain quests were allowed to be posted. For example, you can only post a bounty if the system determines you have a sufficient grievance with the target. Generalised targets, like the dragon slaying quest, were only able to be posted if you were at war.


    Many other little footnotes were involved in what could be posted on the system board. The number of posts that were actually from the ¡®System¡¯ filled only about 1/10th of the quest board.


    While perusing the board, I suddenly felt a soft bosom pressed against my back and a pair of arms wrapping around my waist. My breathing abruptly stopped, and my body seized like it was held together by rusted bolts.


    ¡° ... Seelie?¡±


    ¡° ... Murphy?¡±


    Following this encounter was perhaps the most prolonged and awkward moment I¡¯d ever suffered through in my life. I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do. After a very long and quiet moment, I decided to just muster up my courage.


    Slowly, I lifted my arm and turned around to face the blinding bright eyes of Seelie, staring directly into my soul. In all the time I¡¯d known her, I don¡¯t think I¡¯d ever seen Seelie looking so happy.


    ¡°Murphy, you never finished what you were saying yesterday...¡±


    With a very expectant gaze, I was stared at. Stared to death by those big beautiful expectant eyes. I could only blush like a child and scratch my cheek as I averted my gaze off into the distance.


    ¡°Ungh!¡±


    Following which, I received a very abrupt punch to the stomach and felt all the wind leave me. Seelie¡¯s face was scrunched up into a cute little pout as she continued to stare at me expectantly.


    With that, it felt like all the awkwardness rushed out of me. A stupid grin covered my face, and my hand slowly encircled Seelie¡¯s waist, pulling her closer into contact until our two bodies were fully pressed against each other.


    ¡°Seelie. I love...¡±


    Half expecting Murphy¡¯s Law to suddenly operate, I glanced around suspiciously looking for any potential hazards. When nothing happened, I let out a long breath and looked back at Seelie.


    ¡°I love you too.¡±


    Suddenly, my vision seemed to turn dark as a blooming smile filled with happiness spread across Seelie¡¯s beautiful face and stole away all my focus. Even if I wanted to remain aware of my surroundings, with that beaming smile I was helpless to divert my attention.


    Her arms wrapped around my neck and she pulled me closer until her soft lips met mine. It was only at this point that I realised I had no idea how the hell kissing was supposed to work. I mean, I¡¯d seen plenty of people do it, but that didn¡¯t mean I knew what the hell to do.


    Luckily, just like earlier, it seemed I worried over nothing. It appeared to come naturally. Although I won¡¯t say I¡¯m a Mozart of kissing just yet, it wasn¡¯t as hard as I expected. The only problem was, the kissing was taking a long time this time, and it seemed the longer it took, the more intense it became.


    Quickly, it devolved even further as I felt my body heating up and my gender specific trait started rising from the excitement. Making it worse was Seelie pushing her body against me and rubbing up and down in a fashion that could only be considered humping.


    ¡°Rah! Rah! YAH! Yah yah!¡±


    Suddenly, cold water doused our rapidly heating moment as Seelie and I were broken out of our own little world to the site of all the spawn rallying around us. I then had a very ominous feeling as the sounds they were making sounded suspiciously familiar.


    Then they came from the sky like hail. Curses everywhere. They fell like confetti, and the spawn all started going mad! Without any pretence, spawn juices were shooting all over the place and loud screaming echoed out through the village. Normally, out of courtesy to their meat shields, the spawn didn¡¯t hold their festival in the village.


    It seemed they were taking ques from me this time around, and they held nothing back as thousands of the little bastards warmed into the village to procreate.


    Seeing what we¡¯d just started, I grabbed Seelie¡¯s hand and fled as quickly as possible. Spawn fertility festivals were even more frightening than facing an army of unicorns.


    <hr>


    Over the next few days, Seelie and Murphy worked through most of the awkwardness. Although they never did more than kiss or hold hands, they were far closer than ever before. They shared things with each other that they¡¯d never told anyone before.


    Slowly though. Neither of them were in a rush to share everything. For starters, Murphy had a few things in his past he might never tell Seelie about, and likewise there were things she was reticent to tell him about. However, the important thing was that they quickly accepted each other as that significant part of themselves they didn¡¯t have before.


    Despite what Seelie had thought, that stupid kiss was all Murphy needed to push him past his own self-ego and stop running from his feelings. In retrospect of everything, now that they were ¡®together¡¯ they both felt they were idiots and that they dragged out a simple thing making it far more agonising and complicated than necessary.


    In the end, although Murphy was still afraid of what was going to happen when he reached 18, he was glad that he had Seelie to support him.


    Juwan, thinking that the dam had burst and Murphy was now going to start accepting people in his life, quickly tried to capitalise on the event and get Murphy to go fishing with him, only to be ruthlessly denied. Thinking that Murphy only needed more time to adjust, and that eventually he would loosen his guard, Juwan continued to persist.


    Even if Murphy wasn¡¯t ready for more than Seelie just yet, Juwan would wait. His determination was as firm as a boulder, and it was agreed on by everyone that he clearly had a little brother complex of some form. Not in a perverse way, but in a fashion that he desperately wanted a little brother to mentor and dote on, which despite Murphy¡¯s neglect, he continued to do so anyway.


    Murphy was now stepping into a self-discovery phase, and for a rare change, he managed to socialise a little more easily with others. That said, apart from his outburst after the battle with the Baron, he climbed back into his shell part way and still had a little trouble socialising with strangers. Nonetheless, progress was progress, and everyone felt a little better now that the person leading the domain they lived in was growing up, even if it was very slowly.


    During the few days since the battle, Murphy spent most of his time levelling his Spawn Summoning spell. Although the spell accumulated Exp from the spawn¡¯s actions while summoned, it still wasn¡¯t as much as he accumulated by actually casting the spell.


    As such, Chuckles, Murphy and the now ever present Seelie would travel to 6 star with all their spare time and practise their summoning magic. Murphy even spent time practising his Hellhound summoning, much to Morbid¡¯s displeasure. Many promises of dragon bones and walkies were made before Morbid agreed to even step anywhere near the de-summoning portal.


    During this time, the church in Holy Eden didn¡¯t sit idle. Every day they would raid the war camp at the portal. Under Murphy¡¯s orders, the spawn and the citizens of his domain set up strong defences in the area and fought them off. The combat experience was priceless, and many of the players found themselves developing skills far more quickly under the constant pressure created by the powerful Holy Knights they had to battle against.


    On the fourth day, Murphy and Chuckles were battling a hoard of orcs on 6 Star. They¡¯d stumbled onto an orc encampment out in the wilderness during their travels and were almost immediately attacked. The encampment clearly had a portal to a domain within it, because the orc horde was endless.


    Murphy¡¯s and Chuckles¡¯ Spawn Summon Spell were both at level 9 and 8 respectively. With the control number doubling every level, they could now control 800 and 400 spawns respectively. Although that was a far cry from the total population that lived in Murphy¡¯s domain, it still wasn¡¯t any small figure.


    As they slaughtered countless weak orcs, they slowly summoned more and more spawn. Normally, depending on the quality and size of the body they can spawn far more, but in order to quickly accumulate more experience for the summoning skill, they limited themselves to only summoning one spawn per body.


    As they marched forward, red flashes of light flashed out behind them as they subconsciously automatically spawned another spawn from anybody that hit the ground. With every kill, his army grew stronger, increasing the speed that he killed.


    So that they could get some battle experience and hopefully evolve, many younger spawn that were freshly spawned would request to be spawned next by Murphy. Unless Murphy used his will to personally call forth a specific spawn, usually the system sorted it out through some method beyond Murphy¡¯s understanding.


    It was especially confusing on this particular day, because a spawn was summoned that had no battle skills what-so-ever. This spawn had only one evolution, but it was the mind based evolution. He was a Clever spawn, gaining most of Murphy¡¯s mind based skills.


    Generally, the spawn treated clever spawn very protectively and wouldn¡¯t let them go into battle unless they had to. Which is why most of the clever spawn only ever had a single evolution, apart from those few that were born from the procreation of clever spawn and another spawn with different evolutions.


    Spawn culture was very complex in many ways, and quite confusing. Seeing the Clever Spawn suddenly appear on the battlefield, Murphy and Chuckles were both stunned. Neither of them had ever seen a Clever spawn summoned to them during battle.


    Murphy flicked his hand and cast a de-summon to send it back, but the spawn ignored it and raced in to do battle along with the rest of his kin. Seeing this, Murphy decided not to intervene with the little guy. This clever spawn clearly wanted to battle, so who was he to stop him.


    When Murphy reached his maximum control limit and was only supplementing his army when a spawn died, he gave a grim smile and looked for a sufficiently sized pile of bodies. Strangely, when he went looking, he found the Clever Spawn leading a group of a dozen or so other spawns to drag lifeless corpses back from the front line into a huge pile behind them.


    The moment he saw Murphy running over, the Clever spawn started jumping up and down screaming wildly. With a wave of his hand, Murphy cast the summon spell. This time, the pile of almost 50 odd bodies all exploded together and reformed into a huge demon gate made of fleshy bits and broken body parts.


    With a great ¡°BOOM!¡± the gate was blown open, and the huge towering figure of Morbid raced out snarling and gnashing his teeth. With an excited howl, he bowled into the Orc army and started shredding them to pieces.


    Murphy gave a curious look at the diligent little Clever Spawn, who was once again dragging bodies back into a huge pile. With his identify skill, he could see this spawn¡¯s stats, which were all quite weak. Apart from his skills like Stratagem and Memorisation, which were both rather high, the only other skills with many levels were design and metal and wood work.


    He was the epitome of weak and harmless, less useful in an actual fight then even most un-evolved spawn were. However, he saved Murphy a great deal of time today, and he clearly had a good grasp of the battlefield that even Chuckles didn¡¯t fully have, despite being a Commander.


    This Spawns name was Serious. Since the beginning of the battle, Chuckles had been looking over at this spawn with a disapproving expression. What Murphy didn¡¯t know, was that this spawn was a descendant of Chuckles. In fact, he was the only descendant of Chuckles that was born as a Clever Spawn.


    Being born a clever spawn into a lineage of battle hardened warriors and more or less equivalent to a royal lineage with Chuckles¡¯ status and position, Serious had lived a tough life. Although he was comparatively young, at only 7 or eight days old, he had been ridiculed and beaten down by his siblings no small number of times.


    This was because Chuckles was especially protective of Serious. He often said that he wished more clever spawn were born in his lineage, and he strongly encouraged Serious to master his skills as a clever spawn in service of the Master. Which is why Chuckles was so disapproving of him wasting time on a battlefield.


    Although Chuckles isn¡¯t the smartest spawn, he was clever enough to know what sorts of things Murphy needed in his spawn underlings. At the moment, what Murphy needed most, was a Spawn that could lead the other clever spawn, which was what Chuckles wanted for Serious the most.


    After watching Murphy patting Serious¡¯s head affectionately, Chuckles¡¯ worries were somewhat alleviated, and he was instead filled with pride. Murphy rarely took special notice of any of the spawns apart from Chuckles. Seeing his progeny gaining recognition from the Master, Chuckles could only give a hearty laugh and race forth once more to exuberantly kill his enemies.


    Eventually, the tide of Orcs started to slow and Murphy pushed forward even harder. By about midday, Serious ran up to Murphy and started tugging on his pant leg while pointing at another huge pile of bodies.


    Murphy was a little hesitant. He glanced over at Morbid and then looked about the battlefield. Seeing that they were still taking so many losses, he grit his teeth and waved his hand. With the 4th level of Hellhound Summoning, Murphy could now summon a second Hellhound.


    He never summoned it before though, because he had no idea what the result would be. Soon, another huge gate made of flesh and blood grew in the battle field.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The gate shook and quivered.


    ¡°BOOM!¡±


    With another loud bang, a shockwave rippled out from the door as it blasted apart and a new Hellhound appeared on the battlefield. This Hellhound was the same size as Morbid when Murphy first took him in. It looked around with a vicious gaze and without a need for Murphy to tell it what to do, it raced forward with excitement to slay some orcs.


    Seeing another big dog playing nearby, Morbid seemed slightly stunned. He glanced at Murphy then back at the dog and then let out a loud howl. It was impossible to not see the excitement radiating off Morbid as he trampled hundreds of Orcs while racing towards his new playmate.


    In a matter of minutes, the two Hellhounds were racing around the enemy encampment nipping at each other and jumping around everywhere. It¡¯s like they¡¯d completely forgotten they were in the middle of a battle. Murphy could only face palm himself for not having foreseen this.


    Everything he read about Hellhounds said that they were huge vicious animals that lived solitary lives and hated one another as much as everything else. Which clearly was not the case right now.


    Seelie, who¡¯d been sitting off to the side most of the time and focused on practising some skill that Murphy had never even heard of, opened her eyes at the ruckus. While the battle continued on, Seelie and Murphy watched the two dogs rampaging through the orcs while playing.


    ¡°I thought Hellhounds were supposed to be lonely and violent creatures.¡±


    ¡°Well, me too. Everything that I¡¯ve read suggests that¡¯s the case.¡±


    Seelie¡¯s eye glistened with a strange light as she observed the two huge dogs interacting.


    ¡°Do you suppose, it¡¯s because of your summoning magic?¡±


    Murphy scratched his head as he watched Morbid roll over the top of one of the Orc Chieftains tents, flattening everyone inside.


    ¡°It¡¯s possible I guess. Probably similar to the spawn fighting each other when I¡¯m nearby if there¡¯s more than my control limit. The system must keep them in check somehow.¡±


    While speaking, Murphy waved his hand and a handful of bodies nearby all exploded, summoning a handful more spawn to reinforce the ones that died recently.


    Seelie and Murphy continued to discuss it for a while until Murphy suddenly got a system prompt.


    ¡®Ping! Summoning: Demon Spawn, has reached level 10. Control limit is now 1600.¡¯


    Satisfied that he¡¯d finally reached level ten, Murphy let out a loud whistle and the two playing hellhounds suddenly perked up their ears.


    Seeing Murphy looking at them a little reproachfully, the two happy looking and playful Hellhound Puppy¡¯s both turned into vicious snarling killing machines and raced off to kill as many Orcs as possible in the hope Murphy wouldn¡¯t be upset with them for getting distracted.


    By the end of the day, the orc encampment had been flattened and everything in the area, including all the still edible bodies, were ransacked and looted. The only thing Murphy couldn¡¯t take was the Portal. It seemed that to steal a portal he would need to be on the side that it originated from.


    After nearly 3000 spawn had died valiantly in battle and more than 10,000 orcs had been slaughtered, Murphy was content enough to head back to his domain.


    <hr>


    This Spawn is Serious Spawn. All this spawn¡¯s life he been bullied by the bigger tougher spawns. Ancestor Chuckles, the great-great grandspawn of this Clever spawn, always tells me to wait for some times and then just strangle them in their nap time. That would give this spawn a break for some days, but eventually those evolved bastards would respawn, after all, the great Master has granted us immortality!


    Well, almost. Apart from Ancestor Chuckles, only a few of the other mighty spawn that have lived for long times, like months of time, have achieved real immortality. But every spawn knows if you work hard enough and evolve fastly enough, anyone could reach the time they also become immortal.


    That¡¯s my dream. To serve the great master forever! The only problem is, I¡¯m too weak! I¡¯m so weak, that I¡¯m the weakest spawn in my entire brood. Even in the other lineages that have just the Clever Spawn, I¡¯m the weakest.


    But amongst all the Clever Spawn, I¡¯m definitely the most Cleverest! I have to be! Ancestor Chuckles always tells me that to serve the Master I must be the cleverest spawn that ever lived, and so, I did all the clever things to be cleverer!


    In my few long days of life, I learnt many things about the world. Using all the knowledge passed down from the ancestors, I strived to gather even more! Amongst all the spawn, this spawn was the first one to learn how to speak. But that¡¯s a secret! Shhh!


    Even the master doesn¡¯t know yet. When the time comes, this spawn will surprise the master. But before that, I have to prove myself. Speaking isn¡¯t anything too clever. It¡¯s just that the other clever¡¯s are too stupid. So to prove myself, I willed myself to be summoned.


    I willed with all my might! Every part of my being desired for the Master to summon me next! And then ... it happened! He tried to send me back, but I couldn¡¯t yet. I had to prove to the Master that I exist.


    I can see Ancestor Chuckles¡¯ reproachful looks, but this clever spawn doesn¡¯t care. He will be cleverest spawn and help the master the most, and what he needs most is more bodies. Soon, he will want to bring the Big Fluffy! I have to do my best to be ready.


    ¡°Rah rah! Yah!!¡±


    ¡®Come on you stupid louts! The master needs more bodies!¡¯


    I hope the master doesn¡¯t get angry. I¡¯m too weak to drag all those big Orcies. I¡¯ll have to get some help from these dumber looking Body Spawn. They get the master¡¯s powerful body stats so they should be able to lift the Orcies.


    ¡®Quickly! Hurry! The Master is nearly ready! ¡®


    ¡°Rah rar rahr!¡±


    ¡®Master, over here! It¡¯s Orcies! This clever spawn gathered these Orcies for the Master!¡¯


    The master summoned the Big Fluffy but this clever spawn knows, the master is definitely strongerer. He can summons another big fluffy. This Clever spawn¡¯s Identify skill definitely isn¡¯t wrong. So this clever spawn will be ready!


    ¡°Rah rah!¡±


    ¡®More bodies you louts. Get more of the Orcies!¡¯


    Another Big Fluffy! The Master truly is powerful! Now, this clever spawn has to quickly start gathering the loots for Master. He won¡¯t want to be waiting here for ever. The battle will finish soon now that the Big Fluffy¡¯s are here. I must get the best loots for the master.


    It looks like the master is ready to go. Now¡¯s the chance! This spawn needs to join the hunting on the way back to get floaty orbs for the master. Also make the body stronger. The only way is to fight!


    While running through the forest I was attacked by a huge fluffy. It was just like the Big Fluffy. But smaller. A Small Fluffy. Oh no! It¡¯s too strong! This spawn can¡¯t fight it alone!


    <hr>


    While travelling back to the portal, I allowed the spawn to run rampant. After all, now that I could summon 1600 in one go, I wanted them all to evolve and level up as quickly as possible.


    Sitting on Morbid¡¯s back, I noticed Chuckles very irritably looking around.


    ¡°Chuckles. What are you looking for?¡±


    Chuckles then went through the long process of trying to tell me something with his incredible charades skills. It was only now that I learnt about the spawn named Serious. I had wondered what the reason he came out to the battlefield was, but seeing how worried Chuckles was it was easy to tell that Chuckles believed he was too weak.


    With that in mind, I took advantage of one of the secondary abilities gained from the Summoning Magic Skill. The ability to link with one of my summons.


    The moment the ability activated I found myself floating around Serious like some kind of ghost. I watched on as he ran through the forest not far from us. Then came a wolf. It was a relatively weak creature, and most of the spawn could kill it in one or two blows.


    Apparently, Serious was not most spawn, as it appeared he could barely hold onto his life after only a few bouts.


    After a brief look around I floated over next to little Serious.


    ¡°Serious, don¡¯t be distracted. Aren¡¯t you a Clever Spawn? In battle, fighting isn¡¯t always about using brute strength to overcome your opponent. Take advantage of your surroundings. Take advantage of the terrain. What do you know about this creature? You have the Identify skill, don¡¯t you? Determine its weaknesses and then assess your surroundings. How can you defeat it without even being close to it?¡±


    Serious¡¯s body shook violently like he¡¯d just been struck by lightning. Even after looking about, he didn¡¯t seem to be able to see me.


    Then something happened that made my body shake like I¡¯d been struck by lightning.


    ¡°Thanks you, Master!¡±


    It spoke! A spawn that can actually speak! Is that even a thing? I was quickly broken out of my shock when Chuckles started shaking me and looking at me very expectantly. It was rare for Chuckles to worry about the lives of anyone, let alone another spawn.


    Seeing him so worried, I reached around Seelie who was leaning back into my chest and tapped Morbid on the head then pointed towards Serious.


    Morbid slowed down and trotted over towards where Serious was. When we arrived, Serious was dodging to the side as the comparatively huge wolf lunged forward. Serious already had cuts and bruises all over his body from brief interactions with the wolf before our arrival.


    I could see his eye¡¯s darting around and assessing everything in the area.


    Seeing that the poor little spawn was about to become dog food, Seelie reached out her hand to fire off a spell and kill it. Seeing this, Chuckles leapt forward and pushed her hand away.


    ¡°Rah yah rah!¡±


    Seelie looked at Chuckles somewhat confused, and then at Murphy who was about the only person that had deep enough of a connection with the spawn to guess what they wanted to convey.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with Chuckles?¡±


    I scratched my head and looked over at Serious who had his little obsidian dagger out and was quickly retreating towards a tree.


    ¡°This little spawn came out here to prove himself. So, let him prove himself. If it really looks like he can¡¯t hold on, then you can intervene.¡±


    Despite Chuckles¡¯ actions, I could tell from how closely he was watching the fight and how tense his body was that he was ready to leap into action to save his favourite descendant at any moment.


    <hr>


    The Master is watching over me! I heard his voice in my head! Thank you, master, for guiding this Clever Spawn.


    Assess the areas. Identify the weaknesses.


    It¡¯s a stupid fluffy. And it¡¯s in a forest. So, the trees! But, how will that help me? I can climb the trees and run away, but this clever spawn didn¡¯t come here to run away!


    Think! What else! I need something that can damage it. A big rock! I can use a big rock! But how do I get it to stay under the big rock! Think!


    That¡¯s it! I¡¯ll use the trees. Climb up and then run across the branches. Good, the stupid fluffy is following this clever spawn. Now how do I hit it with a big rock?


    Over there! That spot is perfect. Come on stupid fluffy.


    ¡°Rah rah yah!¡±


    Just a bit closer! Nearly there! Now! Jump off and hit the rock!

 Chapter 14: Resolution

    Murphy, Seelie and Chuckles all watched on as Serious led the wolf through the forest towards a creek bed. Sitting along the creek beds sides were numerous big rocks that seemed to be balanced perilously and on the verge of falling. Murphy nodded his head subtly as he watched Serious lure the wolf into the creek bed and then suddenly jump down from a branch.


    Although he had hardly any weight to his skinny little demon body, it was enough to move the rock slightly. Just as the wolf was preparing to jump out of the creek bed, the now even more destabilised rock got another push from Serious and rolled down the edge to smash straight into the head of the rapidly approaching wolf.


    A sickening thud and crunching sound was heard along with a high pitched yelp. Although the rock wasn¡¯t enough to kill the wolf, it was enough to daze it slightly.


    Taking advantage of that pause, Serious leapt on its back and started stabbing violently with his jagged little knife. Blood pooled down into the creek, and the stunned wolf eventually collapsed into the sandy creek bed.


    Seeing his victory, Serious let out a resounding roar, which was actually just a cute little shout, and then in time-honoured spawn fashion started biting into the wolf with great gusto. A tiny little experience orb popped up from the body and shot into Serious.


    Although it was a tiny orb, it was actually equal in experience to killing a boss monster on Newb Planet. The general levels of creatures on 6 Star well and truly overshadowed anything from Newb Planet with only a few exceptions like the dragons, elf witch and a few other top monsters.


    Seeing his descendant that was as weak as a sick kitten, actually killing something, Chuckles¡¯ puffed his chest up with pride. His cleverest descendant was most definitely the cleverest. Most spawn had never imagined you could kill something with cleverness. Normally, just rushing in and stabbing it quickly was enough.


    With this short battle played out, Murphy glanced at Serious once more, then tapped Morbid to head off. Serious would be fine for now, and he would keep an eye on him with the summoner link on the way back.


    By the time they reached the portal, a number of spawns had undergone their 3rd evolution. Now that numerous spawns had undergone it, Murphy and Seelie were noticing a trend.


    ¡°Murphy, the 3rd evolution of your spawn seems to be like a job class or something. Chuckles became a Commander, which gave him the power to summon and command his own kind. That one spawn that is always hunting fresh meat for the others has gained the Hunter evolution. One of them even evolved into a Feng Shui Master. If this is only the 3rd evolution, what comes next?¡±


    As they were observing the horde of spawn rushing through the forest to return to the portal, Seelie was using her identify skill and picking out the new 3rd evolutions in the group. Not that it was hard, considering they were surrounded by swaths of other spawn while they flexed their muscles and showed off to each other.


    Murphy leaned his chin onto Seelie¡¯s shoulder as he looked off towards the forest with glazed eyes. He was currently watching Serious make his way over and had somewhat unintentionally leaned onto Seelie creating closer contact, not that Seelie would complain.


    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say. Chuckles is by far the most powerful spawn. He got my base stats from 3 different areas. Poison, Shadow and Body. Although they all get something different with every evolution, Chuckles has most of my body stats and is the perfect warrior.¡±


    ¡°Rah rah!¡±


    ¡°Heh, yes and my most trusted follower. However, until he evolves again, I wouldn¡¯t be willing to guess what exactly comes next. He¡¯s only level 18, and the 4th evolution isn¡¯t until level 24. It¡¯s still too far away to worry about.¡±


    As he spoke, he suddenly pointed out his hand, and his spell tome appeared. He then fired off a fireball far into the distant forest. A few minutes later, Serious came stumbling out of the forest dragging the corpse of a hairless bear with a huge burning wound on its back.


    With a great deal of exertion, Serious pulled the bear¡¯s corpse all the way to the portal, where he finally placed it into his inventory, gave an exuberant wave to Murphy and Chuckles, then raced through to Murphy¡¯s Domain.


    Although one might think that Serious Spawn was an idiot for not having put the bear in his inventory straight away, it would then be apparent those people were the idiots. Serious spawn was a Clever Spawn and many of his inherited memories were about long lectures Murphy had given the spawn over their travels together.


    In this case, Serious remembered that putting something into your inventory actually reduces its weight slightly. He then also remembered that Murphy had told them the best way to increase a stat was to constantly be using it.


    Serious wanted to get stronger, and so that meant that he needed to use his strength as often as possible so that he could build up more strength stat points.


    Murphy figured that Serious probably forgot about how the inventory system gave a much more uniform weight to help with strength training and decided that when they get back, he would take Serious under his wing and teach him as much as he possibly could.


    With his hunting over, and having finally reached level ten in his Spawn summoning, Murphy now had to finish getting everything in order for his invasion of Eden. Having watched the hellhounds playing about earlier, very much contradictory to their normally violent and solitary nature, he chose to de-summon the other hellhound before passing through the portal.


    From his and Seelie¡¯s observations, when under the effects of his summoning, the demons tended to act in a manner that would facilitate the master¡¯s control over them. This was obvious from the actions of his spawn when he first ever summoned them and they killed the extra summons outside of his control, despite how they normally have no aversion to each other, at least not to the point of instantly killing one another.


    However, his domain either had no summoning limit or was considered as a homeworld for the demons. He couldn¡¯t be sure if they were still technically considered as summoned under his command while there. If it was a case of the former, then the demons had nothing controlling them and the hellhounds would probably end up in a death match if they couldn¡¯t separate from eachothers territory.


    Naturally, if it was the latter, this wouldn¡¯t pose a problem at all. Nonetheless, Muprhy decided not to take the risk of having two huge almost uncontrollable beasts going beserk in his domain the moment the walked through the portal.


    With their return, naturally all the spawn madly rushed off to have another sex party ... err ... fertility festival, in honour of their victory over the Orcs. The new 3rd evolution spawn got a great deal of attention and were almost raped to death under the influence of the endless sinister mana pouring from the sky in the form of curses.


    Seeing this seen off in the distance the moment they returned, Seelie pushed back as close as possible to Murphy while squirming about. Having Seelie¡¯s bum pressed up directly against his crotch and purposely massaging him to rise to the occasion, Murphy had no choice other than to blush...


    And then very quickly redirect Morbid to his huge barn-like dog house.


    The first step in his preparations was complete. If he wanted to hunt on Eden, then he needed to be able to summon a significant portion of his troops. His next step, although unnecessary, was to finish up with Baron Von Boff.


    A very solicitous Rock Skin from the church of darkness offered to humanely extract any information the Baron might have. Although the Rock Skins were amongst the more normal of Murphy¡¯s player citizens, being just humans with skin as hard as rock, they all creeped him out a little.


    That was because they all followed the church of darkness, which didn¡¯t actually worship a god or deity but instead worshipped the vast stretches of nothingness between the domains. Murphy was pretty sure they were all nuts and were suffering from something like Space Madness, but they were mostly obedient citizens and didn¡¯t create trouble.


    They also followed the rules of his domain and only sacrificed volunteers. Although Murphy had half a mind to simply outlaw blood sacrifices and the like, he felt that within the game no one was really getting harmed that badly by it. His only stipulation was that they had to be volunteers.


    This led to a rather unique cross belief integration in which different belief systems would volunteer one of their own to another system in return for a volunteer from them ... that they could then sacrifice. Every 3rd day was especially strange, as all the major belief systems met up in the middle of town and debated their beliefs then traded sacrifices with each other.


    In the few cases were a belief system required an unwilling sacrifice, they only needed to visit Murphy and he would pay a player with good acting skills to fill that role for them. It was rather unnerving for new players that happened to witness a very public and vocal abduction of some poor stranger who was then eviscerated on an altar right in the middle of town.


    However, the system worked. Even though the majority of these religions were vastly different and often came to loggerheads, they were still drawn together by the fact that they all believed in openly killing people for their beliefs. Of the two religious groups that didn¡¯t sacrifice living beings, one was a pacifist group, and the other was very out of place in Murphy¡¯s domain, being the Order of the Holy Light.


    This faction actually only had a single person in it. A do-gooder knight that was drawn to Murphy¡¯s domain by the stories that he rescues innocents from oppression and fights against the tyranny of pirate domains. Despite the population distribution in Murphy¡¯s domain being severely skewed towards ¡®evil¡¯ races, Sir Fanny insisted on staying here.


    He actually got along very well with many of the other citizens until he witnessed someone being dragged into the town square to be sacrificed. His attempted rescue led to him joining said sacrifice. Luckily for him, Murphy had the spawn keeping an eye on the situation around his Domain and quickly learnt that they planned to throw Sir Fanny out into the darkness of space as a sacrifice to the big black nothing.


    Although Murphy tripped on his way and failed to arrive in time to rescue Sir Fanny, Sir Fanny wasn¡¯t even mad. He simply respawned 48 hours later and continued on doing whatever it was he did before. Murphy took that chance to talk to him about how religion worked in his domain, which lead to a very awkward chuckle from Sir Fanny.


    The truth of the matter was, he actually did succeed in rescuing the sacrifice from the jaws of death, only for said sacrifice, a Banshee lady, to berate him half to death. Having realised his mistake at the time, he quickly agreed to atone for it and asked to be sacrificed as well.


    Murphy had no words. He simply couldn¡¯t understand the kind of people that were starting to gather around him, and chose to simply ignore it unless he absolutely had to.


    Returning from that digression, Murphy was now in a dungeon located below a very simple shop owned by the Rock Skin¡¯s leader, Skin-Like-Granite. Don¡¯t ask about their naming sense, even they don¡¯t understand it.


    At this moment in time, Baron Von Boff¡¯s hoarse sobbing and moaning could be heard as Skin-Like-Granite handed Murphy a large pile of parchment inscribed with all sorts of information that the Rock Skin¡¯s had extracted from the baron.


    When Murphy saw him, he could tell the Baron had been treated very well, and his imprisonment so far had been extremely pleasant. Seeing him like that, Murphy simply couldn¡¯t understand what they¡¯d done to him. He had steeled his heart and was prepared to walk in and see a complete mess of the man.


    The moment the Baron spotted Murphy, he crawled across the hard stone floor like a dog and grabbed onto Murphy¡¯s pant leg while begging and sobbing.


    ¡°huhuhu ... p-please young master ... huhuhu. Sp-spare this ... sniff ... spare this lowly ... huhu ... lowly scumbag. I ... I can¡¯t take much more. If ... huhuhu ... if they talk about my mother like that ... huhuhu ... I ... huhu ... please young master ... sniff ... huhuhu.¡±


    Murphy could only glance sideways at the ever stony-faced Rock Skin standing nearby. He just smiled back when he saw Murphy¡¯s sceptical glance.


    ¡°As I said, not a scratch. We only deal in the most gentle and honourable methods for breaking a person¡¯s will. This fellow broke on the same day you brought him here. We just spent the last few days buttering him up for you.¡±


    ¡°I see ... um ... thank you?¡±


    ¡°Certainly M¡¯lord. Consider this one, and any future troublemakers on the house. For your assistance in rescuing my clansmen from that forsaken Holy Eden, you have our undying gratitude.¡±


    Murphy scratched his elbow somewhat awkwardly as he looked at the very humble acting Rock Skin.


    ¡°Undying ... isn¡¯t all it¡¯s cracked up to be.¡±


    Murphy then turned his gaze to the very pitiful scene of Von Boff. Whatever the Rock Skins had done to him, it really had messed him up. They didn¡¯t even need the chains on him to prevent him from being able to injure himself and log out. He just grovelled about the place and cried endlessly.


    Despite how pitiful he looked, Murphy remembered how brutally beaten and tortured all those people were that Chuckles had rescued from the Baron¡¯s City. He couldn¡¯t put all the blame on the baron for that, after all most of it was done by the church. But he could certainly blame the Baron for sitting by idly and not only doing nothing but also raking in the rewards from it.


    With that, Murphy reached out and focused his mind. His Deprive skill fired up to maximum as his hand touched onto Von Boff¡¯s head. To his great surprise, he felt absolutely no resistance what so ever. Normally, even a tree would resist when he was trying to Deprive from it.


    The moment his hand came into contact with the Baron, his other hand started glowing with a strange light. One by one, skill books started materialising out of nowhere. Dozens of different skill types started materialising into books and dropping from his hand onto the floor.


    The Baron¡¯s eyes rolled back into his head as a huge pile of skill books started to accumulate around them. There was so little resistance that Murphy felt his mana quickly depleting at a rapid pace while his Deprive skill pulled out almost everything.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an Unhappy Accident. -15 Luck.¡¯


    It was so fast that he failed to stop it from reaching absolutely nothing. Murphy then suffered a crushing pressure as he went into Mana Overdraw and his soul shrivelled up and cracked apart like a brittle and dried up piece of paper. Then, just as all those little pieces of soul were about to scatter apart, a huge force came from every little piece and pulled them all back together.


    It was like the little pieces of his soul refused to be separated. If Murphy had to guess, he would say this is most likely due to his Undying trait and was fuelled on by the Mana Demon title he gained way back when he first reached the thorny tower.


    Thanks to the Undying Mana Demon title, he couldn¡¯t die from backlash or overdraw, and his soul would reform 4 times faster than normal. The only problem with it, was that his mana then went into flux. Normally, that isn¡¯t so bad. Until now he¡¯d never had anything too drastic happen when he went into overdraw.


    On this occasion though, Murphy felt a tiny bit of mana slowly replenish and then almost immediately activated without his will. It simply evaporated out into his body and the surroundings. The issue being that if he didn¡¯t purposely control it, his mana had the default nature of his deprive skill.


    The moment the faint purple mist spread out from his body, the Mana of the surroundings was rapidly sucked towards him. With gritted teeth, Murphy pushed the Rock Skin backwards towards the stairs.


    ¡°Evacuate the town! Right now! Get everyone as far from here as possible!¡±


    With a very worried look on his face, and feeling the huge fluctuations of mana happening nearby, the Rock Skin man raced up to the town screaming for an evacuation.


    The Baron, who was half out of it, suddenly grew pale and then very quickly his body began shuddering violently. At first, it was somewhat slow, but as the mana that was in flux around Murphy rushed into his body and fed the cycle of fluctuating Mana, more and more deprive natured mana flowed into the Baron completely unchecked.


    Murphy had been expecting to see it suck out all of his mana, but instead watched on stunned as the Baron¡¯s body slowly started disintegrating into a fine powder, only to start reforming into shining gemstones. At a single glance, Murphy knew that these stones were Stat Boosters.


    Not only that, random equipment started just popping out of nowhere. Presumably, it was sucking equipment out from the Baron¡¯s player inventory. On top of that, more skill books started to form around them from floating purple lights.


    Murphy didn¡¯t have time to be worried about that for the moment though. All of the Mana being drawn in from the world around him was almost instantly evaporated the moment it was absorbed by his soul. It would then spread out into his body and the nearby area and suck in even more mana.


    With all his might, Murphy focused his attention on his soul and used all of his willpower to slow down and stop the process from continuing.


    With a great deal of effort, slowly, his mana started to settle down and stayed within his soul. Once he gained control of it, and it was no longer feeding back into the cycle, all of the Mana still being sucked towards him from the wayward mana that escaped rushed into his body like a surge.


    Murphy very worriedly watched on as his mana almost instantly reached the maximum he could withstand and his soul popped like an over-inflated balloon. It then just as quickly reformed itself as the oncoming wave of mana continued to pour into it, blowing it apart all over again.


    Hurts So Good was now rather powerful since he¡¯d gone from Masochism to Pain Mastery, but still not powerful enough to dull the pain of having his soul shatter. All the veins on Murphy¡¯s body bulged out as his teeth grit together so hard they started to crack.


    Blood poured from his mouth as the sheer strength he had somehow mustered up while tensed in pain liquified his insides. His muscles were ripping themselves apart, and the forces going out of control inside his body were ripping his skin to shreds.


    His heart was beating so rapidly and furiously there was almost no way to discern between each individual beat and it instead sounded like the purring of an engine spinning at dizzying speeds, which no normal heart should be able to produce, let alone withstand.


    Again, Murphy¡¯s soul shattered apart like a plane of glass being dropped and his eyes bulged out of his head as his knees buckled and forced him onto the ground. This was even worse than the time the Elf Witch blasted him with Soul Fire.


    Strangely, no matter how painful or tormented he felt, he simply couldn¡¯t pass out. After suffering through this continuous barrage for nearly 15 minutes, the surrounding deprive mana that had left his body had finally run its course, and the huge amount of mana that had been streaming into Murphy slowed down and then eventually stopped.


    Seelie was the first to approach when she realised the mana flow had calmed down. She rushed into the underground chamber at full speed to see a weak and barely still breathing Murphy collapsed on the floor. Surrounding him were piles of skill books, stat boosters and enchantment gems. Fine dust particles from the disintegrated equipment and the Baron were floating about in the air and covering everything.


    Without regard for anything else, Seelie raced to Murphy¡¯s side with a tear stricken face as she started pulling out recovery potions by the dozens.


    After the very generous use of recovery potions, Seelie pulled the weakened limp body of Murphy into her embrace.


    ¡°You idiot! What the hell are you doing?! You worried me half to death!¡±


    Suddenly, Murphy rolled to the side and spewed up a huge mouthful of a sickly black tar substance. Then without warning, his stomach rolled again and he continued to vent its contents until only the clear stomach acid was coming up.


    He wasn¡¯t sure how, but Murphy ¡®knew¡¯ this stuff was all the corruption that had sat idle in his body. This sickly black tar was everything in his body that wasn¡¯t ¡®actually¡¯ a part of him. Most of it was preservatives and chemicals that would normally just remain dormant and locked away inside the body until they eventually added up and killed a person.


    For the first time, Murphy felt a strange euphoria overcome him as if a huge burden had just been lifted from his soul. In the black sticky mess that he¡¯d just vomited up was a little black gemstone. Just looking at it, Murphy felt like he recognised something he never wanted to admit even existed.


    His identify skill fired up and a little overlay appeared in his vision.


    <hr>


    The Madness


    Born from the fruit of a forbidden love, a creature, dark and heinous, arises.


    *When consumed, undergo the tribulation of Madness. If you can remain sain afterwards, you will gain your birthright. If you fail, be consumed by madness and lose yourself in a world of torment.


    <hr>


    Murphy fished it out of the sickly goop and held it up to the dim torchlight.


    ¡°Man, that sure is ominous sounding.¡±


    Kneeling beside the crouched and weakened Murphy, Seelie looked at the strange black gem with worry in her eyes.


    ¡°Murphy ... what is that? It feels ... so evil.¡±


    Murphy kept it away into his player inventory with some reluctance. His body was very quickly repairing all the damage he¡¯d done to himself, along with the help of a great many recovery potions. He pushed himself to stand up, only to be caught and have to lean on Seelie when his legs became unstable.


    ¡°It¡¯s ... my Day of Madness ... and my birthright apparently.¡±


    ¡°Birthright? What the hell is that supposed to mean? You don¡¯t actually plan on keeping that thing do you? You¡¯ve just dodged a bullet that you¡¯ve spent your whole life running away from!¡±


    Seelie¡¯s face couldn¡¯t seem to decide if it wanted to be worried and upset or frowning and angry. She felt that little black stone was the cause of everything bad that had ever happened to Murphy and the last thing she wanted was for him to actually use it.


    At the same time though, she knew deep down that Murphy had escaped having to face what was once inevitable and at the same time, a cornerstone of his entire life. If he didn¡¯t undergo the Madness, he would perhaps spend his whole life never knowing what he was and knowing Murphy that would eat him up inside.


    This was especially true considering he was now basically immortal. Although the ramifications of that hadn¡¯t fully sunk in for these two, especially since they were still so young in comparison to forever, they had nonetheless discussed it many times and already sussed out that it wasn¡¯t going to be all rainbows and sunshine.


    If Murphy was going to live forever, then that was a very long time to regret not having explored this more.


    Eventually, she could only sigh and shake her head. It would be an understatement to say that Seelie was a very understanding young woman. In fact, she probably already understood far more than Murphy had bothered to think about yet.


    For him, it was a link to his parents and his real family. Apart from that, he hadn¡¯t fully thought about anything else just yet.


    After waiting a short while, and chatting a little longer, Murphy was finally strong enough to stand on his own. With a wave of his hand, the contents of the chamber were swept up into his inventory. He was a bit sour that all of the expensive equipment the Baron had been using was turned into enchantment gems, but everything else they got from this escapade was still quite valuable.


    Many of the skill books and stat boosters were freely given back to those who Murphy had rescued from the baron¡¯s city. Although it was a far cry from what had been taken from them, the action was very humbly accepted and many of the citizens who only chose to stay in Murphy¡¯s domain to retrain their stats decided to stay behind and apply for permanent citizen status.


    By the end of the day, the permanent citizens of Murphy¡¯s Domain numbered over 300. The diversity of life in his domain rapidly exploded as he now had almost 20 different species living in all sorts of different places about his domain. Although the smog didn¡¯t have many new residents, a town was starting to form on the hillside in the green land and the town already in the sinister lands suddenly started seeing new construction.


    After the incident with the Baron, Murphy and Seelie went to visit the Grey Dwarf Blacksmith, Alton.


    As they stepped into his workshop, which was actually one of the largest buildings in the entire village, they were immediately engulfed by the smell of fire and hot metal. It seemed Alton had agreed to share his forge with a few of the other craftsmen that had moved into town. Not only that, more than a hundred spawn ran about the place chaotically, assisting one craftsmen or another and some of them even practising their own craft.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Murphy was surprised to see Serious very diligently following Alton around the workshop as Alton pointed at this or that or showed Serious a new skill or technique for crafting.


    When Alton spotted Murphy and Seelie walking over, his usually always angry and frowning expression made a rare smile.


    ¡°If it isn¡¯t the young Lord. I heard you selflessly gave up everything you sucked out of the Baron back to those poor individuals that suffered under him. I knew I picked the right place to come!¡±


    As he said that, he waved Murphy towards the back of the workshop. They soon found themselves in a little offshoot building that was more or less Alton¡¯s home. It was probably more accurate to call it an office because it was covered in half scribbled designs and various formulas of every kind. Little test benches were set up about the place with what looked like experiments of various sorts.


    Alton nodded towards Serious to go prepare some tea as he swept all the books and scrolls off a table and sat down with his guests. He then looked somewhat expectantly at Murphy.


    Murphy could only smile wryly when he saw those expectant eyes staring at him without a word. He rolled his hand and a huge sack filled to the brim with enchantment stones materialised onto the table. Alton¡¯s eyes glistened as he reached out and snatched the sack then took out a magnifying glass to start inspecting them.


    ¡°Truly magnificent. That Deprive skill of yours is completely abnormal. Great Gaia! You even have some rare attribute stones, and oh my! A level six durability stone. Oh and they¡¯re all so pure. The things I could do with these. If only ... oh?¡±


    Alton then looked at Murphy with a strange look.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Nothing much, it¡¯s just ... how much time have you spent researching this power of yours? I was wondering if you can ... hmm...¡±


    Alton then reached into the sack and pulled out two small green gems.


    ¡°If you can Deprive both of these enchantment crystals and make a single gem?¡±


    One of Murphy¡¯s eyebrows lifted up quizzically as he thought about it. Honestly, he¡¯d hardly experimented with his Deprive skill at all. Mostly because it was still only level 6. The higher the level of a skill, the more you intrinsically know about it.


    It¡¯s not that you particularly discover it yourself, but simply understand that it can be done. At level 6, Murphy knew he could deprive mana, faith, vitality, enchantments and even skills and stats. That was all he really knew at an intrinsic level. However, he also now knew that he could not only deprive just objects, but even the world itself.


    During his spasmodic flux of mana, he hadn¡¯t been depriving the air or the buildings or the land of mana, although in his very near vicinity there was a little of that, as can be attested by the now dead Baron. Instead, his deprive skill had been sucking Mana out of the universe. Like it was drawing it out from nothing.


    Not only that, when the mana was sucked into him, it seemed to be replenished from the void with a little bit extra, as if the act of taking mana away from the atmosphere led to the universe pouring even more into it. The area in that chamber was now a mana hotspot, with more natural and free mana just floating about the place than even the wizard towers, which were designed to cause that effect.


    Thinking about just how little he truly understood about anything in this strange place, Murphy was tempted to simply ignore it. He¡¯d rather stay ignorant than have to learn more about this crappy magic stuff.


    ¡®Why couldn¡¯t I just have Imbue like all the other poor saps?¡¯


    Murphy wondered to himself as he reached out and scooped up the two shiny crystal rocks from Alton¡¯s palm.


    He then focused himself somewhat and started pouring his mana into his closed fist. A soft purple light shone from his hand and enveloped the room for a few seconds until Murphy opened his hand to reveal a slightly bigger green gem.


    In his identify he could see that the gem had gone from two low-quality level 2 gems to a single low-quality level 3 gem.


    Before Alton, spurred on by his greedy dwarf blood, could lash out and snatch it, Seelie¡¯s hand flicked out and beat him to it.


    ¡°Interesting. Low-quality gem of Sharpness. Alton, what is the difference between gem qualities?¡±


    Alton, being somewhat dumbfounded by Seelie¡¯s speedy hands, only blinked a few times and then opened the sack to pull out a few more gems.


    ¡°First, you have to understand that Enchantment Gems are usually either made by the system or with the assistance of a very powerful mage using spell models. You would probably be powerful enough to refine certain lower class materials into their base components, but it would cost you a great deal of time, mana and mental effort.¡±


    While speaking, he laid out a handful of gems on the table, all of the same type, but of different sizes, shapes and purity.


    He then picked up two little gems about the same size and held them both up to the light as he tried to see through the murky gemstones.


    ¡°Apart from a high level of Identify, the only way to determine a gemstones worth is by purity. The most expensive gemstone I ever seen are only at the High-Quality level. Even then, that was by chance. I¡¯ve always lived my life at the lower realms and domains of Domain Warz and so haven¡¯t had the chance to journey anywhere that might have better.


    ¡°In sayin¡¯ that, I¡¯ve heard plenty of rumours about the quality becoming even more frightening in some of them ancient domains. Things like Celestial Crafting Gems and Gems of Abnormal Greater Quality. Just thinking about working with something on that level gives me shivers.¡±


    Alton then put the two stones down and eyed Seelie with a probing gaze.


    ¡°Why? You thinkin¡¯ of having the boy try and purify a gem? It¡¯s already too ungodly that he can create one from raw materials. I doubt it¡¯s even possible.¡±


    At the same time, Alton was busily pulling out a bunch of stones that all had the same properties. It was as if his body was automatically acting to experiment this possibility even while his mouth was denying it was possible. His eye¡¯s then swivelled around and locked onto Murphy.


    ¡°Well?¡±


    He then looked on half expectantly as he pushed a small pile of stones across the table. He was starting to stare with an almost feverish gaze at the gems stone pile and then looking back at Murphy with an expectant and pleading expression.


    Murphy could only half grin seeing the sight. Although Alton was always an angry old bastard, it turned out there were some things even he could set aside his personality to pursue. Apparently, rare crafting materials was one of those things.


    Murphy stretched out his hand and placed it on the pile of stones. This time everyone could see the purple light pour out of his hand and just seemed to be slowly disintegrating all the stones bit by bit. In his other hand, at a far slower pace than the other pile disintegrated, a gem about the size and shape of a grape slowly took form.


    Alton now had the shakes and almost couldn¡¯t control himself. He watched on as the last of the stones in the pile turned to dust, leaving behind a powdery substance on the bench. The moment Murphy let out a sigh and finished, two hands simultaneously stretched out towards his palm.


    This time, Alton was ready and had already started moving before Murphy was even done. His stubby little grey hand was as swift as a Merlin bird and blurred in everyone¡¯s sight before he had the little grape-sized gem clasped in both hands and staring at it like it was his newborn child.


    ¡°It¡¯s ... it¡¯s beautiful. A level 6 Lower Rare Enchantment Gem. Something like this could buy you an entire continent on any quest planet in the lower realms.¡±


    Murphy wiped the sweat from his brow as he ignored the crazy half breed dwarf. He focused himself again and then sent out just a tiny bit of mana into the air around him. A visible distortion of space seemed to ripple out and slowly mana began to flow into him from the universe.


    He was pleasantly surprised to find that he could control this process. Although, if anything, it was actually far more trying mentally than what he¡¯d gone through to purify that gemstone. Which wasn¡¯t really that much of a problem, since the more trying it was for him, the more his Hurts So Good fired up to make it feel wonderful and the more his Please Sir trait fired up to slowly increase his mental fortitude some more.


    Before he could sink into the calm feeling generated to counteract the stress of controlling the process, he received a palm to the face.


    ¡°What the hell are you doing? I don¡¯t want to be sitting here if you go all holocaust again!¡±


    Murphy awoke from the dreamy mental state to see Seelie glaring at him half ready to throw another palm out. He could only sheepishly rub his head and grin like an idiot.


    ¡° ... Sorry.¡±


    Murphy then looked at Alton, who didn¡¯t seem to have noticed anything and was completely enamoured with the gem in his hands. He then frowned slightly and crossed his arms in thought.


    ¡°Alton, I already know what your next request is going to be, but I can¡¯t do it just yet. I want you to use the gems of lower quality to outfit my spawn. We definitely don¡¯t have enough to outfit them all, but a few hundred shouldn¡¯t be a problem, and I will get you more stones. When we¡¯ve robbed Eden of as much as we can, then I promise to make you a whole bunch of high tier gems to play with.¡±


    Alton gripped the level 6 lower rare gem protectively and seemed about ready to stomp his feet and throw a tantrum. Then after reconsidering, he just let out a long sigh and glared at Murphy.


    ¡°It¡¯s a promise then. I probably only have a few years left in me, so you¡¯d better fulfil it in half that time!¡±


    Murphy chuckled and then glanced over to look at Seelie.


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, but it¡¯s also not the main reason I came to see you today. There¡¯s something else I want your help with.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not?¡±


    Seelie looked at Murphy strangely when he said this. She didn¡¯t remember Murphy saying anything about another reason for visiting Alton. The fact that he kept it hidden from her made her somewhat suspicious.


    ¡°What else can I do for you? I¡¯ve still got a backlog of your ideas, and we¡¯ve barely started full scale production on the cannons. With outfitting those little demons on top of everything, I don¡¯t have enough hands to finish everything you¡¯ve already got me doing.¡±


    Murphy scratched his head and looked off into the distance spacelly, despite there being a wall directly in the way of his vision. He then seemed to make a resolution and nodded to himself.


    ¡°Seelie, I need to discuss something personal with Alton ... I ... hope you don¡¯t mind.¡±


    He looked somewhat apologetically at Seelie. He didn¡¯t intend to keep her at a distance on this, but it was too important to him. He also didn¡¯t want to get Seelie¡¯s hopes up and then douse them when his plan failed.


    Seeing the big puppy dog eyes she was getting from Murphy, Seelie could only frown slightly, then got up in a huff and walked out.


    Alton, the bystander in this exchange, could only watch on somewhat awkwardly until Seelie had left. He then chuckled and gave Murphy a meaningful glance.


    ¡°Heh heh. Boyo, you¡¯ve really stepped in it this time.¡±


    Murphy ignored it and then turned to look very seriously at Alton. He seemed to be considering his words for a long time before he finally said;


    ¡°How would you like to live a little longer?¡±


    Alton shot to his feet and glared at Murphy icily as his hand slammed onto the table.


    ¡°You threatenin¡¯ me boy?¡±


    Murphy quickly shook his head with a wry grin and held his hand up defensively. Clearly, Alton had misunderstood him. Murphy reconsidered his words for a moment before speaking again.


    ¡°Umm ... not quite what I meant. Alton, you said you probably only have a few years left in you. If that¡¯s the case, I want to help you live a little longer. I¡¯ll be honest. The reason for this is purely selfish. It means I get to keep you around for a while longer, but more importantly, it may help me understand a way to keep Seelie around.¡±


    Alton tugged on his ruffled grey beard as he pondered over something for a while. He then looked at Murphy out of the corner of his eye.


    ¡°What¡¯s the catch?¡±


    Murphy let out a long sigh and placed his hands on the table. He looked at them for a while and then glanced up at Alton. He gulped loudly as his body seemed to start sweating as if he was going into shock.


    ¡°I think I¡¯ve ¡®killed¡¯ killed the Baron.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I mean ... I think the Baron is ... permanently dead.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible boyo. I¡¯ve been in this game for a long time and I¡¯ve never seen...¡±


    ¡°When I was trapped in the mana storm from my deprive power, I felt like I could see his soul being ripped apart and turned into energy. I think I deprived him of his soul, and as far as I know, there isn¡¯t any way to come back from something like that.¡±


    Alton¡¯s beard tugging became even more pronounced and he looked like his shaking hands were about to completely rip his beard out of his face.


    ¡°So what¡¯s this got to do with me?¡±


    At Alton¡¯s question, Murphy raised his palm and looked at it as a soft purple light slowly spread out from it, generating rippling space waves that slowly weakened about a foot or two from his palm.


    ¡°You once told me that you¡¯re a permanent player right? You were born in Domain Warz and this is your home. So if that¡¯s the case, you should technically be immortal until either your soul completely dissipates or your body can no longer hold itself together.


    ¡°With the system¡¯s ability to perfectly recreate our bodies, flaws and all, I don¡¯t believe that it will be your body that is the reason you could die. In fact, you probably shouldn¡¯t even be ageing at all. I think it¡¯s perhaps something to do with our sense of self. The system most likely recreates our body based on how you perceive yourself normally. You most likely only aged this much physically because every time you¡¯ve died the system has refreshed your body to your match your soul.


    ¡°So I guess the question is, why does your soul dissipate? What is the reason for a person¡¯s soul eventually breaking apart? Originally I just thought it was the way things were and I never bothered to think about it. But after the Baron I did start wondering. I came to the conclusion that in the game, death is unnatural. There should be no reason for you to ever die in the game unless someone forcefully breaks your soul apart.


    ¡°When you die, your soul is normally sucked from your body by the system just before it dissipates. Whatever the system does with it, I can¡¯t say for sure ... but I guess it just puts it somewhere safe. I also guess that the soul can¡¯t survive without a vessel like the body, and some way to interact with the body, like the mind. That¡¯s why there are three different stat types in the system.


    ¡°More importantly, I think that repeatedly being ejected from the body may be causing the soul more damage than what it would normally suffer during a normal lifetime. It may be causing people to die a soul death faster than normal, but that is only a theory and completely unfounded. After all, I have no basis for that conclusion, it¡¯s just a hunch.¡±


    Alton¡¯s eye¡¯s shot open as his breathing rapidly spread up and his grip on his beard was now well and truly ripping out hairs from his chin.


    ¡°This is naturally the case for you, until eventually you get to the point that your soul can¡¯t hold on any longer. This made me wonder, why do things die from old age. Then, I went through the mana storm with the Baron, and as my deprive skill ripped his soul to pieces to feed my body, I saw all these things it left behind. Like little pieces of the soul that were dark and scared.


    ¡°I also saw these scars on my own soul, and watched the deprive mana fluctuating around me slowly stripping those parts away. I feel better now than I ever have in my life.


    Murphy then clenched his fist as he looked at Alton solemnly.


    ¡°I believe that those little pieces of rot on our soul are what eventually causes a person¡¯s soul to die. I don¡¯t know what they are, or what they represent, but I want to find out. If I can determine the cause, I can treat the illness. Although I wouldn¡¯t be able to permanently prevent your soul from falling to pieces, I may be able to prolong your life by decades, or perhaps even centuries.¡±


    Alton was now sweating like he was trapped in a sauna and his body with shaking violently. His eyes looked like they were about to bulge out of his head. Then with a very deep and long breath, he forced himself to calm down. With a wry smile he looked at the determined face Murphy was giving him and chuckled.


    ¡°No.¡±


    Murphy was stunned for a moment.


    ¡°No?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right boyo. Before you jump to conclusions, I will tell you right now that I desperately want to live a little longer. But you¡¯re young and ignorant, and you¡¯ve just discovered this power. Although your claim to be able to see a soul as you devour it is interesting, I can¡¯t be your guinea pig to experiment on. I still want to live after all.¡±


    Murphy¡¯s eyebrow quirked up and his face showed confusion.


    ¡°What?¡±


    Alton was just about to start speaking again when Murphy slapped his palm against his head and laughed at himself.


    ¡°Idiot!¡±


    He then noticed Alton¡¯s face scrunching up and quickly cleared the air before there was a miscommunication on top of a miscommunication.


    ¡°Alton, that¡¯s not what I meant. I was calling myself an idiot. I haven¡¯t explained properly.¡±


    Now it was Alton¡¯s turn to be stupefied by the situation. He always knew it was difficult talking to Murphy about anything, and even now when Murphy was more talkative than ever, he still had trouble understanding what the hell he was getting at.


    ¡°What I mean is ... arhm ... you should have met a few other players that were born in the game like yourself, right? Some of them will be getting close to the end of their lifespan. I need your help to set up some research and to ask those people if they¡¯re willing to help us out. I¡¯m hardly qualified to lead a research team on something as difficult to comprehend as a soul. Before I joined the game, I wasn¡¯t even sure what a soul was. In fact, I still don¡¯t have a clue what a soul is.¡±


    Alton looked at Murphy with strange eyes.


    ¡°Then why don¡¯t you talk your little missy into leading it? Her job class is scholar for the sake of the Deep Black! She is innately predisposed for researching things no one understands.¡±


    ¡°Yes, why don¡¯t you ask me about it?¡±


    Murphy and Alton both jumped like rabbits under gunfire and spun their heads to a corner of Alton¡¯s dingy little side cottage where Seelie was sitting on a stool like she¡¯d never left and accepting a steaming cup of tea from the industrious Serious.


    Murphy gulped slightly and could only scratch the back of his head and try to look innocent, like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar.


    ¡°Well ... you see ... I actually wanted...¡±


    ¡°Yes ... I¡¯m sure...¡±


    Under the intense pressure of Seelie¡¯s gaze, Murphy could only sweat. He¡¯d seen that burning gaze many times, and new with certainty that he really couldn¡¯t hide anything from her. It was like she was reading his mind.


    ¡°Fine then. I¡¯ll take care of this. Until I¡¯m ready, I don¡¯t want you using your deprive power on anything you¡¯re not 100% sure you can do. I¡¯ll set some things up so we can learn more.¡±


    With a gulp, Murphy just nodded his head and let out a long sigh. Since she had taken the first step in their relationship, she¡¯d gotten some confidence and taken a slightly more dominant role. She wasn¡¯t going to let him do anything stupid without her nearby.


    Alton chuckled as he watched the interplay between this couple. It was clear who actually wore the pants in this relationship just from a glance.


    <hr>


    With Alton now busily training up the spawn blacksmiths and using all those hundreds of enchantment stones to equip my spawn army, I felt slightly more at ease.


    That said, we still lacked too many resources. Trying to operate a domain felt like I was just throwing resources into a big black empty pit. Proper materials for crafting and building were in short supply. On top of that, reports from Holy Eden suggested the Church of the Holy God was now becoming more aggressive in their attacks.


    If I was going to loot them and help all those captured people, then I needed to do so soon, before they realised just how big of a threat I am to them. The smithies would probably need a few days to burn through those crafting stones and equip the spawn, so until then I need to do something to lower the pressure from the church on my troops.


    I sent them there for war so that they could adapt to a real battlefield situation and help them gain experience. If the Church gets too aggressive, my people would simply be wiped out, and the war would be all but pointless.


    As such, I decided it was time to do some sleuthing. Although we received a great deal of information about the religion and the county from the church Chuckles desecrated ... err ... redecorated, it was like a drop in the ocean compared to the other wonders that must be hiding on that corrupt planet.


    After some more thought, I decided that my current method of defending a single portal was not the best way to train my citizens anyway. First of all, the nature of many of the races living in my Domain is to be sneaky about things. Assassination, poisoning, subterfuge. They were far more skilled in these areas than in direct combat.


    On top of that, now that we¡¯d set up a beachhead in the Baron¡¯s county, they know exactly where to find us. I was aware it was a losing war from the start, and only really an excuse to train, but most likely the morale of constantly losing in a situation where they can¡¯t utilise their gifts properly would be more damaging to my citizens.


    As such, I pulled everyone back from the other side, and I used Deprive to close the portal.


    I gave the citizens a day to rest and recuperate, then called a meeting at the castle. The spawn had been very diligently hunting Exp since the portal first opened to Eden and since Chuckles and I went out to level our summon skill, Chuckles small army had been relentless.


    I now had close to 700,000 Exp in the coffers of the domain. With those funds, there are many things I could achieve. But instead, I spent it all on more portals. Buying portals would normally be a very tense moment for many domain lords. That¡¯s because without some exorbitantly expensive scroll that will refund the portal stone, the portals are usually permanent.


    If the portal opened in a place that was too hazardous to survive in, then that portal would have essentially been wasted. I, on the other hand, had no such dramas. I could close and re-open my portals freely ... well mostly freely, as long as I had the mana for it.


    As such, I bought 4 different portals to Eden and 2 new portals that used the majority of my saved Exp. Of the 2 new ones, one led to a planet defined as a beast world. From my understanding, these worlds are something like a natural hunting ground for all sorts of creatures that have little to no consciousness.


    These creatures were more or less NPC enemies. They weren¡¯t as rich in experience as other player creatures, but they breed like rabbits on aphrodisiacs and building on a beast planet was impossible thanks to some clever interference by the system. That said, you could harvest a shitload of resources from these planets because flora and fauna all seemed to grow back overnight.


    It made these planets the perfect place to hunt for resources, strong beasts and if you¡¯re lucky, other players.


    The other portal I got my hands on was something called The Underground. While the beast planet would be a rich source of meat and experience and it had many secret opportunities hidden about on it, the underground world was solely underground. From what I¡¯d heard, this was a world that was like the backwards of normal space.


    Instead of huge expanses of space separating tiny floating rocks we call planets, the underground world was huge expanses of earth separating tiny pockets of empty space. Just the concept of such a place was difficult to grasp. However, the most important thing was that the underground world was rich with resources and materials that are difficult to find anywhere else.


    It¡¯s apparently overflowing with gems, metals and rocks with extraordinary powers, while at the same time filled with huge monsters that would frighten even the strongest of players. The whole place was like a death trap ... but a very wealthy one.


    Alton was actually the one who made the request for this place, insisting that the spawn were going to love it. He was probably referring to the fact that the spawn had completely infested the underground of my domain. Apart from about 30 meters of topsoil that was magically holding itself together, everywhere below that was like an ants nest of tunnels and caves that the spawn lived in.


    Huge caverns were filled to the brim with eggs waiting to hatch out more of the nefarious little bastards, and other caverns were filled to the brim with bones and dark altars. I¡¯d only been down a few times, mostly because the Elder Spawn all insisted I ¡®bless¡¯ their altars. I wasn¡¯t exactly sure who they were praying to, and a subtle feeling in my gut told me not to bother trying to find out, as it would only cause me more distress.


    With all these portals in hand, I recalled everyone in the outside world and set the portals up in a little round courtyard between the sinister village and the hill village. It took a while to recall everyone for the portal change over because it wasn¡¯t rare for various groups to head out on a mission that often took days to complete.


    Once everyone was back, I collected every single portal and moved them to the Portal Courtyard. It was quite a sight seeing nearly a dozen portals all in one place. 3 of them were random portals, 4 of them led to various places on Eden, one was for 6 Star, one for the beast planet and one for The Underground.


    10 portals was a lot. Of them, I only had enough to splurge for basic protection enchantments for the Eden portals and the portal to 6 Star. The other five remained undefended for the most part.


    With this completed, and all of my 300 odd citizens temporarily here at home, I called a Domain Meeting. I only realised, once I was standing in front of all these staring eyes, that I hadn¡¯t gained quite as much confidence from Seelie¡¯s kiss as I¡¯d thought I had.


    Although I seemed to have plenty of charisma after my battle with the Baron, most of that was from my adrenaline. In truth, it was only that little bit of self-confidence I gained from actually being kissed by a girl that helped me break out of my shell a little bit.


    Although that was the case, it was just enough. Along with the considerable weight from my shoulders at the appearance of the strange gem I coughed up, I forced myself into this situation to try and learn how to adapt. That was the only way I could eventually overcome my crippling fear of talking to strangers and in front of groups of people.


    Well ... that, and the great deal of tireless effort my Please Sir and Hurts So Good traits put in behind the scenes to suppress the negative feelings that generally drowned me in these situations.


    As such, I ended up standing in front of all my citizens while nervously scratching my head with a trembling hand and cursing myself for being so stupid as to think just pushing myself into this situation would help me overcome my fear.


    <hr>


    Everyone watched on with slightly downcast expressions as Murphy embarrassedly chuckled at himself but still said nothing. He¡¯d had them all sitting here waiting for him to address them for nearly 5 minutes, and yet just seemed to be muttering to himself and looking at them with a strange face like some kind of madman.


    It was only when Seelie stepped forward and took his hand with a blushing face that Murphy seemed to regain some slight amount of clarity. His muddle headed appearance slightly faded as he looked at Seelie and then towards the portals he¡¯d just finished setting up.


    At long last, he stood up straight, and his entire aura seemed to change. It was as if what had been a shy boy suddenly became a domineering general of war.


    At last, he spoke.


    ¡°Everyoaahhne...¡±


    That domineering aura then quickly collapsed when he finally spoke, and the first word caused his voice to crack in the time-honoured embarrassing manner. His ¡°everyone¡± rose to a higher octave unintentionally, and the oppressive atmosphere that had been brooding in the area was dispersed like a fart in the wind.


    ¡°Aghem!¡±


    Murphy cleared his throat while ignoring everyone¡¯s good-humoured chuckles and then tried again with a little more encouragement from Seelie.


    ¡°Everyone ... errr, I first need to apologise for calling some of you back during important missions or quests. It would be difficult for you all to make your way back hear without dying and respawning otherwise. In addition, I want to directly tell you all that as of today, we are starting a crusade.¡±


    The moment he paused everyone broke into cheers and discussion. This was what they¡¯d been waiting for. A glorious crusade against evil doers. To fight for the little guy that was busily being suppressed and to strike out at those people that took so many benefits from the hard work of others.


    Murphy, feeling his nerves going into overdrive and his stomach doing backflips, had no choice but to secretly summon his spell tome behind his back and cast ¡®Can¡¯t Stop the Music¡¯ with his maximum mana. Although he¡¯d practised his little speech repetitively until it was burned into his mind, he still didn¡¯t have the confidence to stand in front of 300 people without falling to pieces.


    ¡°There will be ... missions posted for ... rescue operations, scouting and investigations. Any of you that wish to make some profit or feel that they can contribute to this operation are free to join in. That said ... I will have to ask anyone that isn¡¯t planning to contribute to avoid drawing attention to our portals on Eden. If you all rush forth and ... um ... start havoc ... the attention of Eden¡¯s protectors will ... be drawn towards us ... err and we will lose any chance to covertly rescue as many people as possible.¡±


    Having spoken for so long, he was having somewhat of an internal panic attack and completely lost his train of thought and had suddenly become confused as if the whole thing was too much for his brain to fully handle.


    His innate fear of socialising may have been suppressed, but it wasn¡¯t something that just disappeared overnight. Luckily, he had Seelie by his side to give him a little nudge and awaken him. Then as if he forgot entirely about that interruption, he continued on with his meticulously practised speech.


    ¡°I know some of you simply wish to vent your frustrations. If you want to blindly go raging about on Eden, one of these portals will be left open permanently, and you can use it to start a warfront and train yourselves. However, that is your own prerogative, and anyone captured can only blame themselves. The other 3 Eden portals will be closed and re-opened regularly to avoid discovery. If you¡¯re taking missions in areas of those portals, please be sure to return by the set times.¡±


    Murphy then let out a tense breath and quickly turned around and walked off leaving everyone slightly befuddled. Chuckles watched Murphy¡¯s show with a strange glint in his eyes. He was the most confused, because his master had clearly shown signs of awakening recently but now seemed to have lost that domineering aura and gotten stuck somewhere in between.


    Not long after, Murphy pulled aside Serious and left him in charge of the main battlefield portal, having simply said; ¡°Train yourself.¡±


    Clever spawn were rushing to post up jobs to escort spawn with the mana cartography skill or to investigate areas nearby the new portals. Serious, threw the not insubstantial spawn workforce into full swing as they picked a portal and started to build up a beachhead on the other side.


    A great many things started whirling into overdrive as the entire domain once again continued gearing up for a massive war. The only difference was that many parties of adventurous players had opted to join the more exciting subterfuge and spying missions. Putting their personal talents to full use.


    While this was going on, Murphy returned to his castle and stood on the battlements overlooking the bustling crowds in the village far off in the distance. His mood seemed strange, and it was clear there was something on his mind. As he observed the spawn industriously rushing through a portal while dragging a huge felled tree, his hand turned, and a little black gem appeared within it.


    Murphy unconsciously started to play with the gem between his fingers as if by habit. Every now and then, the gem would become ominously darker as if it was the reverse of glowing.


    Eventually, after observing his domain for a little longer, he looked down into his hands and stared intensely at that gem.


    ¡° ... My birthright ... What exactly is it? Mum ... dad ... will this give me any clues as to where you are ... who you are?¡±


    While staring at the gem he finally realised a little nuance to the stone¡¯s structure he hadn¡¯t initially spotted. There was a strange pattern that looked like it was shallowly inscribed on the surface.


    This pattern was the same as the pattern inscribed on that odd stone he¡¯d habitually chewed up and swallowed on Holy Eden days earlier. Finally recognising this, Murphy¡¯s body shuddered, and his eye¡¯s widened in shock.


    ¡®What the fuck? Why? How is it that... ¡®


    Slowly his hand gripped into a fist around the black gem and his face twisted strangely as his tight grip caused his arm to tremble.


    ¡®This game ... this game ... does it have something to do with the madness phenomenon? Is this where I¡¯m going to find the answers to all my questions?¡¯


    With his mind spinning into a frenzy, Murphy¡¯s face became firm as he stared out at the stars in the sky. A resolution filled him. A desire unquenched.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to discover all the secrets of this ¡®game¡¯.¡± He declared to himself. He felt his blood boiling with excitement for discovery, and unconsciously his back straightened and his figure looked as though it could hold up the sky.


    The citizens of Murphy¡¯s domain all seemed to sense an oppressive might radiating from the domain lord¡¯s castle and all eyes were drawn to the silhouette of Murphy standing atop the battlements. His figure gave off the magnificent grandeur of an unsurpassable hero.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an unhappy accident. -5 Luck.¡¯


    An unexpected harsh wind blew out of nowhere, and everyone watched on with strange faces as that magnificent silhouette suddenly appeared to be doing the peculiar dance people do when they lose their balance on a ledge. Various expressions observed as that silhouette, comparatively tiny to the enormous stone castle wall, finally lost the fight against gravity and silently fell off. Soon after, a dull thud and groan were heard ... completely ruining the aura of majesty which had pervaded the entire domain just moments ago.

 Chapter 15: Operation ‘Surprise Buttsex’

    With the portals all once again re-opened, Murphy¡¯s domain became like a beehive, with thousands of spawn and hundreds of players all rushing about in preparations for the upcoming crusade. With the closing and re-opening of all the portals, Murphy¡¯s 6 Star portal had re-opened on nearly the other side of the planet from where it initially was, giving the players not interested in the crusade a new and exciting area to explore.


    More importantly though, the portal opened up only a dozen-odd kilometres from one of 6 Stars Capital cities, the city of sin. Aptly named because of the type of people and business it tended to draw in. Thanks to the loose lips of a few of Murphy¡¯s citizens, the rumours of a tiny little Island-sized domain declaring a crusade against a vast quest planet stirred up the entire populace of 6 Star.


    Sin city suddenly exploded with activity in response to this rumour and players started rushing here in an attempt to gain passage to Murphy¡¯s domain. Many were interested in the cause, taking advantage of the battlefield to train or just wishing to take advantage of the enormous amount of resources needed for war and wanting to trade for some profit.


    Murphy had never expected the news of his crusade to be so stimulating that it caused such an uproar from all of the players on 6 Star. He was dubious about merely letting random people start storming into his domain, but decided it didn¡¯t particularly matter in the end.


    His domain wasn¡¯t a quest planet and as such his domain lord status gave him a great deal of freedom in how he manages it. For example, he could set something similar to permissions which allowed him to limit the movements of people inside his domain.


    As such, he set a kilometre radius around the portal altar were un-associated players were free to roam trade and squat. He also moved the mission board for the crusade into this space and had the spawn erect some make-shift lodgings and conveniences in this area for passing travellers.


    It had only been a day since he re-opened the portals, but already an influx of nearly 500 players had rushed into his domain chasing their goals. Many naturally followed the endless stream of spawns into the portal for the battlefield, simply having come to join a substantial chaotic battle, while others started setting up stalls or selling goods all adventurers need.


    Murphy also took advantage of this and allowed his spawns in crafting related jobs to start setting up stalls as well. What surprised him the most was that the poisons and instant recovery potions of the spawn alchemists were selling so fast they ran out of the ingredients to make more in only a matter of hours.


    Of course, there was also plenty of troublemakers, thieves and generally incorrigible people that were creating strife, only to suddenly be surged by a rush of spawn and disappear in a little burrow in the ground nearby. It was almost comical watching dozens of little spawns screaming, huffing and grunting as they tried to force a still kicking and screaming troublemaker into a burrow with an opening only half their width.


    As the day slowly passed, nearly a hundred teams were sent out between the other three portals each protecting a clever spawn with mana cartography skill. Gradually, as the day passed they all started returning and the clever spawn would immediately race off to the castle.


    In a rather wide circular room of the castle, hundreds of other clever spawn were rushing around under the guidance of the elder spawn as they sorted through information from the returning teams. In the centre of the room was a strange pedestal giving off a bright glow and projecting into the air a considerable planet like map of Eden.


    Every time a clever spawn returned to the castle with a mana cartography map, Murphy would use his deprive skill to suck the map from them and update his own. Then with the help of this projection pedestal, he could display it easily in the war room so they could plan out exactly how they were going to run their future operations.


    Thanks to this, Murphy¡¯s mana cartography skill started skyrocketing in experience, and he began to realise that there were dozens of interesting things he could do with the map he¡¯d never noticed before. For example, he could mark areas of the map and add various information that would be helpful.


    In just the first day, Murphy had already mapped out 3 entire regions of Eden without having ever left the comfort of his castle. Not only that, but each of these areas had markings covering them denoting areas rich in resources or other towns and cities.


    At the same time that Murphy was mapping and planning were to rob, spawn under the command of Serious would rush back to keep Murphy updated on the situation of the battlefront. It took nearly the entire day before the Church reacted to Murphy switching the portal location and attacking a city on almost the other side of their planet.


    By the end of the first day, Murphy¡¯s cartography skill had levelled up to level 7, and he already had a pretty good idea of the situation of 3 small regions. The only problem was, these three regions were all comparatively tiny on the huge expanse that was a planet.


    Thus, he could only sigh as he realised the magnitude of the task he had undertaken. Nonetheless, when the artificial light of Holy Eden began to set and night was coming into play, Murphy still gathered a few teams of operatives and set off through one of the portals.


    Naturally, Carson, Lucile, Xanzu and Tuskelly all insisted on joining Murphy¡¯s operation. They were, after all, his primary adventuring team now, though Murphy hadn¡¯t realised exactly when they came to this conclusion or why.


    On the first night of the long war, 12 teams of citizens from Murphy¡¯s domain, each leaning towards stealthy classes, all split off into different directions and scattered amongst the three regions that had been explored that day. The primary goal of each team was rescuing any prisoners that were being held in the larger towns and cities of each region.


    The secondary goal was to capture the Baron or Lord of each region and city or any clergymen of the church they could find. Lastly, the third goal was explicitly for Murphy¡¯s team. Amongst the three regions they¡¯d explored, numerous geodes and a few rare creatures had been discovered during the scouting missions early in the day, and Murphy¡¯s purpose was to capture these strategic resources. Or more aptly ... to steal them.


    <hr>


    It had been almost an entire game week since I¡¯d last come to Holy Eden. All of the preparations for the crusade were tiring and wearisome, certainly not a part of the game I¡¯d expected to have to suffer through. Luckily, apart from some essential elements I was involved with, Seelie and the Clever spawn took care of most of the preparations.


    Much to my liking, I now only had to do the grunt work, which is where most of the joy of the game lied. In my opinion anyway. The moment we stepped through the portal, my team sped off in our Chaos Carriage behind Morbid towards our first target.


    It only took about half an hour before Morbid let out a snort and slowed to halt under the canopy of some ancient looking old trees at the top of a fat hill. Lucile, Carson and Xanzu hastily left the carriage and began to investigate our target while Tuskelly gooped off into the forest as a puddle of sentient mud.


    I followed Seelie as she stepped out of the carriage and moved to the edge of the tree line on the top of the hillside. As we stepped out from the shadows of the trees, we took in the sight of a massive hole in the ground covered with wooden strata and rickety elevators suspended by rope and pulled up by teams of slaves being industriously whipped by generic guardsmen with generic mean faces.


    ¡°Work harder scum!¡± and other familiar catchphrases of unimportant side characters rang out into the night sky along with the cracking of their whips and regular grunts of slaves.


    Guard towers only a few stories high and looking as if they would collapse in a stiff breeze were placed about the area generously and had huge flaming torches along with what looked like some kind of lens that focused the torchlight as a spotlight.


    As we watched on, the slaves hauled up another creaky elevator which was slowly unloaded by some more slaves in a very mechanical fashion, only showing the rare burst of energy for a minute or two after a whip reminded them about good work ethics.


    Just seeing the condition and treatment of these people had me clenching my fists. After surveying the area for a while longer, my team started to reassemble on the hill.


    Lucile was the first to return, and I almost didn¡¯t even notice her presence sneaking up on me if not for the great deal of effort I¡¯d been spending training my hearing recently.


    ¡°The patrols on the east side have been cleared out. Xanzu has a good spot nearby and is tracking the location of the guard captain.¡±


    I merely nodded as I watched a strange puddle of mud slowly seeping out from the ground and working its way up Lucile¡¯s slender white legs.


    ¡°Ugh! Get off me you disgusting bastard!¡±


    ¡°Oh! Oh! Don¡¯ fight it baby ... wait ... I mean, I¡¯m just so tired, let me rest a little. You know how tired I get when sleuthing about as a puddle.¡±


    Tuskelly, never a gentleman, slid up along Lucile¡¯s body in such a disgusting manner that I felt embarrassed enough for the both of them. After firmly attaching himself to her chest, groin and thighs like a second skin, he finally reported.


    ¡°No problems on the west side. I set up the thingy just like you said to.¡±


    Hearing him refer to the very technical summoning circle as just a ¡®thingy¡¯ filled my heart with some doubts but I chose to just ignore them for now. We had numerous stops we needed to make tonight, and we couldn¡¯t afford to get bogged down in one place too long.


    After waiting a few more minutes, I detected a faint glinting like a distant reflexion of the sun from the north side of the giant hole. Seeing this, I took out a little silver mirror that seemed to be glowing with moonlight and flashed it back. Once the other side stopped, I grinned.


    ¡°Looks like everything is ready. Let¡¯s go. Try to take out as many as you can before they realise what we¡¯re doing.¡±


    With that, I made a clicking sound with my tongue, and Morbid suddenly launched out of the woods behind me like the shadow of a dark cloud covering the sun. Without hesitation, I reached out and grabbed onto his fur. By the time I¡¯d pulled myself up to his back, he was already halfway to the edge of the encampment around the hole.


    Before we even made contact or were noticed, a pillar of light shot up from where Seelie was standing on the hill, distracting the slaves and guards attention towards it. A continuous stream of arrows took advantage of this bizarre distraction as they flew out from the east side of the encampment and started piercing into the legs and arms of anyone that looked even remotely important.


    I couldn¡¯t help but be impressed with Xanzu¡¯s skills with a bow. He was indeed a monster of long-range combat, despite being a creature renowned for its cruel and vicious close combat potential.


    At the same time, a strange gas began to pour out from the northern forest and billowed into the encampment like a rolling wave. Everyone engulfed by it would collapse to the ground paralysed, and the few strong enough to fight against it quickly found themselves getting a punch in the guts from a grey midget that seemed to be spewing this fog out from various open containers on his body.


    Finally, the mesmerising glow of Seelie¡¯s spell faded, and an uncountable number of light rays pierced through the night overhead like lasers, instantly overloading anyone they touched and sending them into a stunned state. Nearly half of the hundreds of guards were struck by this one attack and just started staring off into space as if they were daydreaming.


    Someone finally realised that something was very wrong and started screaming; ¡°Attack! We¡¯re under attack!¡±, at the top of his lungs. Unfortunately, he was quickly silenced when Morbid very unceremoniously arrived at the encampment and stomped him flat.


    Seeing a giant hellhound towering as high as the guard towers suddenly appear nearby drove the few remaining conscious guardsmen into a panic and they fled for the only direction of the encampment that wasn¡¯t being attacked.


    Seeing them all fleeing in the predetermined direction, I pulled out an old parchment from my inventory and ripped it in half. Just as the scattered remnants of guardsmen were rushing into the woods, an eerie red glow lit up the darkness of the tree line and a resounding roar echoed out.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an Unhappy Accident! -7 luck.¡¯


    ¡°Damnit!¡±


    Although I¡¯d been desperately hoping nothing would go wrong, I should have long since known that Murphy¡¯s law was going to interrupt my plans tonight. I have no idea what ended up being summoned and decided it was better to not find out.


    I gathered my party at the edge of the dark abyss and quickly prepared ropes from my inventory as I charismatically started giving out orders.


    ¡°Hurry...¡±


    With that, our figures disappeared over the edge as we started to slide down the ropes into the darkness. The pit turned out to be a little deeper than expected. It took nearly 10 minutes for me to reach the bottom and that was at an almost complete free fall.


    As I was falling, I suddenly noticed a slight glow of torches and abruptly caught hold of the rope, which immediately dislocated my shoulder from its socket. If not for the quality of the rope, it probably would have snapped. If not for the quality of my body ... it also probably would have snapped.


    While dangling from the rope and pressed against the rocky wall, I observed numerous slave whipping guards diligently whipping slaves and uttering derogatory insults towards them. The slaves appeared incredibly malnourished and sickly. How they¡¯d even survived to the point that their bodies could degenerate to this state was a mystery to me.


    All the slaves were slightly less diligently hauling sacks of a dirty black ore out from a tunnel almost directly below where I was hanging. As I observed the scene, the remainder of my comrades caught up to me. With a simple nod of acknowledgement to each other, we all dropped the last 15 odd meters into the hole.


    The instant I landed, my very much outdated sword of sharpness sung as it was freed from its sheath. I rapidly approached the nearest guard and swung at his fat body.


    ¡®CLANG!¡¯


    My sword was deflected by a skilful counterstrike from the guards dirty leather armour ... which barely had a scratch left on it.


    ¡®What the fuck! I can¡¯t even cut through the scum of this quest planet ... I thought the baron was just an exception.¡¯


    I quickly retreated as his sword thrust towards me, slicing through the fabric of my meagre black t-shirt and scrapped across my skin like a knife across the surface of a boulder. I barely even got scratched enough to bleed, despite that strike being dead centre with my shoulder.


    Seeing the shocked expression of the guard as his sword deflected from my skin, I couldn¡¯t stop myself from grinning. Taking advantage of that shock, I shot forward at my fasted speed only to be parried by his leather arm guard ... which was in no way the panicked guards flailing of his arms and was definitely skilful ... otherwise, all the levels I¡¯ve poured into my weapon mastery would be pointless ... right?


    Once more I raced in, this time anticipating his ... skilful swordsmanship. Using my body¡¯s absurd levels of endurance to my advantage, I allowed him to deflect my strike with his flimsy looking cotton scarf ... wait ... I mean, he skillfully dodged and hysterically ... eloquently struck back at me, only for me to continue forwards relentlessly. During the moment he seemed to believe he would kill me in a single strike, I too swung my sword once more towards his neck.


    To both of our shock, my sword err ... missed again?


    ¡®Stupid fucking cotton scarf ... the thing must be made from dragon silk.¡¯ was definitely not what I was thinking at the time because it would be embarrassing to admit I was thwarted twice by some common fabric worn by a generic low levelled guard.


    As I struck, he stabbed into my stomach only for his sword to act as if meeting a solid wall and barely penetrating a mere few millimetres through my skin. As the force of his strike pushed me back, an arrow shot out from nearby and pierced the man¡¯s chest.


    I could only watch on helplessly as my skilful foe struggled with gasping breaths and collapsed. When I returned my focus to the surroundings, I noticed the dozen-odd guards nearby had already been killed by the others. It was about this time that I finally realised a fatal flaw with the distribution of my stats and skills.


    My offensive ability was absolute shit. Sure, I could take a beating like nobody¡¯s business, but I couldn¡¯t kill anything. Well, not unless I used magic, which despite its convenience I somewhat despised. On top of that my most significant attribute, taking damage, was useless if I kept enough distance to properly use magic from my spell tome.


    I now remembered that even the baron had been felled by a single arrow in an instant while I had mindlessly engaged him in combat for nearly half an hour. The moment of realisation must have shown on my face, as all my compatriots looked at me with eyes of pity or encouragement.


    ¡°Sigh...¡±


    Juwan, the huge jackass, simply patted my shoulder and laughed as he praised and encouraged me.


    ¡°Heheh! I always knew you were a kind spirit little brother. To have spent all your time here training to defend and take damage while everyone else focuses on killing each other. Truly worthy of admiration.¡±


    ¡®Peh! What admiration! I want to do damage too! It¡¯s not my fault, ok? I¡¯m just too afraid to get better equipment in case I ruin it. And my magic is potent ... mostly ... probably...¡±


    I then also came to a disturbing conclusion, during my internal ranting, that most of my magic was utterly useless. The few spells that actually could harm someone were nowhere near high levelled enough to take out soldiers of Eden, which were quite highly levelled in comparison to other domains we¡¯d visited.


    On top of that, many of my other abilities were focused around debuffs and delayed damaged as well. My Luck is entirely fucking unpredictable and even more so when I¡¯m stealing it from other people. My poisons are only useful if they make skin contact or if they breathe them in. If I had no allies with me, I wouldn¡¯t have to worry too much about that, but one slip up and then I¡¯ll be left standing here watching as my teammates dissolved into puddles around me.


    This led me to wonder just how much stronger my party was than me. Well, damage wise anyway. When it came to taking a thrashing, I seemed to be unrivalled.


    As I was cursing at the world for being so unfair, and ignoring Juwan¡¯s entirely misplaced bragging, I stalked off towards the gloomily lit tunnel all the slaves were dragging bags of ore from. It was only a few minutes of travel and calming down the many frightened and curious slaves until I came to the edge of a large ore vein.


    While still slightly upset at having realised just how useless I am in battle, I reached out and began to deprive the ore vein. Slowly but surely, a large black rock with a metallic lustre gradually formed in my hand. This was the geode that this stone was connected to.


    On a domain this size, a geode could sprout out veins of ore for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. Luckily for me, and thanks to some testing on my own domain, it was apparent that I only needed contact with an ore vein connected to the geode to be able to rob it from the planet.


    Once the black geode had fully formed, we quickly started to herd the slaves towards the elevator and rushed them all up to the surface. Using the corpses of the guardsmen, I summoned a group of spawn to lead these hapless chaps back towards the portal.


    As the last few refugees were hurried away by my diligent minions, I finally took notice of our surroundings and realised Morbid wasn¡¯t guarding the entrance like I¡¯d expected and had rushed off somewhere. Straining my ears, I finally heard the sounds of roaring and thumping from off in the distance.


    I could only assume that Morbid was keeping whatever was unexpectedly summoned busy in the forest somewhere. Letting out a loud whistle, the team gathered up near me in preparation to flee the moment Morbid returned. It wasn¡¯t long before we felt the ground shaking and heard the crisp crack¡¯s echoing from the trees as a house-sized dog launched out of the forest with...


    ¡°What in the fuck is that thing?¡±


    <hr>


    Murphy¡¯s party watched on with varying horrified expressions as Morbid raced towards them with a few bleeding gashes and cuts across his snout and body. His left ear had drooped down from a deep laceration, and his teeth were bared in a vicious snarl and covered with black viscous blood.


    Following hot on his trail was a small army of black creatures that looked entirely foreign to anything Murphy had seen before. Dozens of them flittered through the trees like ghosts, occasionally disappearing from sight in a puff of black smog that was summoned from their bodies, only to reappear twenty or thirty meters away still running at full speed.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    They advanced through the forest and subsequent open field on four long gangly legs, each adorned at the tip with four serrated, jagged talons equally distanced on the foot like an X. Their bodies were completely black, thin and looked half decomposed with various wounds still gaping in their flesh and pouring diseased black blood.


    Each and every one of them had an almost unnaturally spherical head armoured with something akin to a chitin carapace, atop a long neck. They sort of looked like a smooth black marble and was completely featureless apart from the ¡®jaw¡¯, which was more akin to someone merely having cut the creatures spherical head halfway through and sewed it back together. The wire somehow keeping their heads together seemed to stretch and deform along with the jaw as they opened mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth.


    The head almost looked like some kind of disfigured evil Packman. The creature had what could only be a thin dexterous tail. Or more precisely, they each had nearly 7 tails, running along the spine of their back like a Mohawk.


    As if this creature wasn¡¯t already disturbing enough, its leathery gaunt skin was covered in pustules that occasionally popped and released a cloud of smog that effectively kept most of the creature hidden from view in the dark of night.


    Murphy¡¯s party, after a short moment, to try and comprehend exactly what the creature they were looking at was, burst into action as Morbid arrived. Xanzu was already silently drawing his bow back as Seelie flipped open her tome of magic and began chanting a spell.


    Murphy was the fastest to react among them, as he raced forward to embrace the giant sniffling nose of Morbid who was giving him soft whines and growls like a bullied kid, as if he¡¯d somehow been wronged by the world and expected Murphy to enact vengeance for him.


    Before Murphy could get adequately enraged at the fact someone had kicked his dog, Xanzu released his bow, and a stream of arrows began to pour forth towards the dozens of shady black monsters. Juwan and Carlson both advanced towards the front of the party to intercept incoming enemies while Lucile and Tuskelly stood close behind them, prepared to start picking off any monsters that left themselves open.


    The monsters spread out as they approached, occasionally disappearing in an almost inaudible ¡®poof¡¯ of smog and reappearing nearby. They began to circle around the group like vultures, all the while pouring haze from their bodies and slowly engulfing the party in the miasma of smoke.


    Xanzu¡¯s arrows, for a rare change, didn¡¯t appear to take any casualties from these creatures, as they passed into the smog and then harmlessly flew out the other side. Presumably, this pollution was some kind of skill innate to these beings, which allowed them to make short distance teleports and sense projectiles.


    Considering these creatures all looked like a form of undead, their surprising dexterity and nimbleness could only be attributed to their multiple tails, each allowing the creature an absurd amount of reflexive balancing in their footwork and running.


    As they circled around the group, they began to let off an eerie low moan, like an old woman who fell over and couldn¡¯t get up. The most disturbing part about this was that as more and more of the creatures joined in, the moans seemed to resonate with each other causing the ears of the party members to reverberate and begin producing some light vertigo effects.


    By this point, Morbid was growling back menacingly. Troublingly, however, he was growling towards the dark forest in the distance and didn¡¯t appear to pay these creatures any mind. This worried Murphy far more than the creepy feeling these monsters gave him. If Morbid the vicious demon dog the size of a house was worried about something in that forest, then, of course, Murphy was doubly concerned.


    ¡°We need to leave, right now.¡± Said Lucile, who amongst them all had the highest danger sense. It was clear from a single glance that something had her hackles raised. If she were in her panther form, she¡¯d most likely have all the hair on her back standing on end right now.


    Murphy looked around them at the creatures and then glanced back at the forested hillside they originated from. In the distance, he spotted a dozen of his Minion¡¯s shepherding the slaves away towards the portal.


    ¡°We can¡¯t yet. The slaves ... If we leave now, those creatures...¡±


    Seeing the determination on Murphy¡¯s face, everyone in the party knew that Murphy would be unable to abandon those slaves. Although this entire war had the benefit of stealing from a rich quest planet, the people that knew Murphy best were aware that his primary focus for this whole operation was explicitly to free as many slaves as possible.


    In addition, being the kind of people that they are, Murphy¡¯s teammates all agreed with his perspective. If they couldn¡¯t even save the first slaves they rescued, what was the point of this war? It would be a total farce.


    Seeing the retreating slaves, everyone made gloomy expressions as they focused back on the creatures around them and the encroaching smog. At last, Seelie, who had been chanting some spell this whole time, finally finished and flourished her hands outwards. A mystical light with no visible origin pierced through the dark sky like the sun parting clouds and rained down on them, engulfing the party in a protective glow that slowly spread outwards towards the creatures.


    The reverberating and disorientating moan of the monsters became screeches and cries as they quickly leapt back from the circle of sunlight pouring in like a godly reprieve.


    Seeing this, Juwan took the initiative and launched himself forwards with a loud battle cry.


    ¡®Ping! War Cry of the Brave has been activated by a party member, all party members receive double damage on first attack against a creature.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Shield of the Chosen has been activated by a party member, all party damage to party members is reduced by 1/4.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Aura of Kindness has been activated by a party member, all party members intuitively sense the condition of their comrades.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Leading the Charge has been activated by a party member, all active skills and spells have mana cost reduced.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Bearer of Sin has been activated by a party member, please select a party member to receive the following effects. Takes half of all damage given to each individual in the party, gives half of all healing back to party members.¡¯


    Before anyone could fully realise what was going on, Juwan slashed his sword towards one of the creatures and cleanly separated one of its legs. He then launched himself backwards with surprisingly nimble steps, considering the bulk of his obnoxiously shiny silver armour, and prepared to start forwards again.


    Before he did, however, he let out a long sigh and seemed to fix his face with a half pained half proud expression.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry little brother, but only you can bear the Sins of this pitiful older brother.¡±


    ¡°I elect Murphy Law as the bearer of sins!¡± He shouted.


    Following which, Murphy felt a strange sensation wash over his body. Moments later he felt the usual guilty pleasure of taking damage as Juwan parried a strike from the angered monster, which had enough power behind it to completely lift Juwan from the ground and throw him back nearly 5 feet.


    Almost as quickly as Murphy took the damage, his unnaturally high endurance and vitality began to patch him up. Juwan stared at the sky with some shock for a moment as he felt the damage he¡¯d taken already repairing itself. Although it was one thing to witness it, it was totally different to actually experience it. He now realised just how monstrous his brother¡¯s regenerative abilities were.


    With Juwan having opened the gates, the other party members didn¡¯t hold back and quickly rushed forth to do battle. It came as a great surprise to them that whatever these creatures were, they were inordinately more powerful than anything they¡¯d battled before. They appeared to be some form of undead and could only be stopped by completely severing their limbs, or striking through the almost impervious chitin armour of their heads.


    To make matters worse, the creature¡¯s speed and strength dwarfed everyone in the party apart from Morbid, whose power is hard to overshadow even for mythos level creatures like dragons. Unfortunately, Although Morbid was capable of squishing them flat or rending them to pieces with his claws and fangs, he was just too big to catch them.


    Murphy, in a somewhat unsatisfied manner, was forced into the centre by his cohorts, each explaining that he had essentially been designated the role of debuffer and healer. They couldn¡¯t afford for him to take more damage than he already received from them, and he only really had time to use his powerful debuffs when he was outside of direct confrontation.


    Unfortunately, Murphy soon came to realise that he was virtually useless against a regular undead creature like this. Of his spells, apart from direct attacking spells, the only debuffs that worked were ¡®Rampage¡¯ and ¡®Just Wait a Moment, So I Can Scream the Name of my Ultimate Move¡¯. ¡®Soul Inferno¡¯ doesn¡¯t affect a creature without a soul, and the Blood Fly¡¯s only really worked on creatures that actually had ¡®Life¡¯ to feed on life force.


    Amongst all his other magic the only other practical spells were ¡®Void Prism¡¯ and ¡®Shadow Tentacle¡¯. Neither of which would be particularly useful considering ¡®Void Prism¡¯ trapped something in another plane of existence, meaning it can¡¯t actually take damage and well ... dick shaped shadow tentacles should be self-explanatory. That would never be a thing Murphy used in any situation ... ever. Even if it could save all of existence ... not ever.


    This left him occasionally throwing elemental magic about the place and slowing the creature just as Xanzu¡¯s arrow was about to enter their weird smog, making it incapable of adequately dodging. Murphy was feeling particularly useless today.


    The only spell this left available to him was ¡®Ello¡¯ Poppet¡¯, which was a spell he generally disliked using out of pure distaste for the act of controlling another being against its will. However, considering these creatures were mindless undead, it may be the only thing he¡¯d ever willingly use this spell on.


    This thought in mind, he flipped his ... unconventional spell book on the right page and began the most protracted chant out of all of his spells.


    As Murphy was distracted, Seelie was doing more actual hands-on combat than him, busily swinging her huge door-sized sword about the place like an oversized guillotine. As the light encompassing them pressed outwards, the smog of the creatures seemed to shrink back in fear of it and Seelie would freely fire off some simple combat spells at any complacent monster that was exposed.


    Carlson intercepted another monster that used its strange teleport ability to try and get the drop on the concentrating Murphy, throwing out a point-blank punch just after the air distorted and it appeared in the middle of their group. With and inhumane screech it was flung back out into the miasma, one of its thin black legs dangling uselessly and being slowly eating away by some kind of poison that apparently even killed already dead things.


    At last, Murphy had completed the abhorrently long chant of the Ello¡¯ Poppet spell and pointed his finger to his forehead while his eyes locked onto a monster currently stuck to Morbid back and digging it¡¯s disgusting claws in trying to rip out his incredibly sturdy flesh.


    For a brief moment, the creature froze entirely and dropped lifelessly to the ground like a statue, its legs twitching unnervingly in the air. It then suddenly sprung back up to its feet and raced into the smog. Seeing this action, everyone briefly glanced at Murphy, who was currently standing in the middle of them all with his eyes closed with a look of complete concentration.


    Moments later they head a strange ¡°Skree!¡± echo out within the fog and witnessed the previous smog monster pushing another creature out of the smog into the light as they both battled fiercely and bit and clawed at each other.


    Being the more experienced adventurers of the group, Xanzu and Lucile didn¡¯t miss the chance to take advantage. 3 Arrows seemed to appear like magic in the neck of the creature being pushed out, and Lucile swept over it with her body spinning like a top as her razor sharp claws rend the flesh from the other side of its neck.


    It was only after many long minutes of fighting these creatures back that they finally slew one completely. The moment this beast died, Murphy focused in on it like a buzzard. With a wave of his hand, the crushed and battered corpse exploded in a gory mess of fragmented remains and a red portal opened, releasing a handful of savage looking minions all outfitted in snazzy new armour.


    Somehow, despite these armours and weapons being custom crafted in the forge for these spawn, they somehow managed to customise them further to make them appear as chaotic and vile as possible. Broken skulls adorned the shoulder pads, and leather parts seemed to have been ... chewed on. The equipment all looked to have been soaked in blood until each of them was dark black with a red sheen.


    Strangely, many of the spawn continued to use their little obsidian daggers that Murphy was now convinced they must be born with, and many others had their weapons crafted from this material instead of opting for standard metals. Murphy wasn¡¯t sure what their obsession with this strange black material was, and nor did he have time to care at the moment.


    As soon as the minions were summoned they shot into battle like arrows from a bow. Many of this group were highly levelled and had, if not three, then two evolutions. These were all body type evolutions, and these spawn carried Murphy¡¯s strength and endurance stats. The moment they moved to the outskirts of the pervasive light, the pressure on the other members of the party reduced significantly.


    These little spawn were most assuredly little demons, each with even more sinister and brutal methods of battle then the last. They were also tenacious to an ungodly level, even persisting on after losing an arm or leg. If they were totally disarmed, they still continued on, going so far as to crawl across the ground with their chin and body and trying to bite the legs of the creatures in the dark smog.


    Having finally summoned reinforcements, the battle drastically came to a close thanks to Murphy continually summoning more spawn with every dead enemy. It was another ten minutes later that the group stood in the field, bathing in the glorious ethereal light surrounded by the corpses of dozens of smog monsters and groups of battered and beaten Spawn.


    <hr>


    True to my many ministrations, the Spawn diligently began the most critical task after any gruelling battle. Looting. As was taught to them either personally by me or to their parents and in some cases grandparents, the spawn industriously began ripping the corpses of these creatures to pieces, taking anything even remotely useful or what looked like it would make an excellent addition to the Spawn Feng Shui of their ... den?


    At least, I assume that¡¯s what they call the places they sleep or ... well, whatever it spawns do down there in the ground. It¡¯s not ominous at all that I occasionally hear them making almost religious sounded chanting down there. Yep, probably shouldn¡¯t focus on those things.


    Instead, I return to focus on the battle that just happened. First of all, what the hell was with all those crazy buffs? Seriously? Juwan you stupid piece of shit! Can¡¯t you be less OP? And what the hell was that Bearer of Sins crap? Isn¡¯t it too coincidental that it aligns so well with my build? Did you create a skill just to personally target me?


    Ahh ... I¡¯m doing it again. Ok, calm down. Let¡¯s not be angry at him over this. But seriously ... I should double check.


    ¡°Did ... was ... you create that skill?¡±


    Ahh just look at the smug expression. Why are you looking so fucking smug you bastard?


    ¡°Sure did. I¡¯m sorry little brother. I wanted to try and make a skill that could help you but creating a skill is really hard, and it turned out nothing like what I wanted.¡±


    Why are you looking so apologetic now? Just stop that you sicko! Bastard! Damnit! So jealous! I mean, Seelie told me about customised skills, but that¡¯s only something you hear about from ancient players that have been in the game for a long time. Even Alton, who¡¯s lived his entire life in this game only has a few self-created skills.


    Huuu ... just calm down. I really need to focus. Hmm. Let¡¯s focus on the other most important part of that battle. Let¡¯s see, what was that message I received...


    ¡®Ping! You have created a contract with the Demon Shadow Race, Cuddly¡¯s.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! New innate spell, Summon Cuddly.¡¯


    Just ... I mean ... well ... what in the fuck is a Cuddly? Surely it can¡¯t be...


    You know what ... no matter how long I stare at this undead smog creature, I will never be able to associate it with something I want to cuddle. In fact, I don¡¯t even what to let one of these things even remotely close enough to make physical contact with me.


    I guess the only way to know is to summon one and find out. It¡¯s not like there¡¯s a short supply of dead bodies nearby.


    <hr>


    As the exhausted party consumed some healing potions and rested for a brief moment, and the numerous Spawn were hacking apart the undead creatures nearby, Murphy continued to stare at the undead ¡®pet¡¯ he had taken control of during the battle. It was standing nearby him as if like a guard, covered in numerous mostly superficial wounds and spewing noxious smog from throbbing pustules every now and again, ensuring its body remained mostly shrouded.


    Despite that, the other party members kept well clear of the creature, the only exception being Seelie who was quizzically probing it with all sorts of strange investigatory spells and Murphy who seemed to be struggling with some kind of inner turmoil, almost as if something about the creature battled against everything he excepted about reality.


    If it weren¡¯t for his facial expressions still changing now and again, everyone would have thought that its very existence may have broken him.


    At last, after an indeterminate amount of what appeared to be constipation, Murphy seemed to resolve himself to the fact that this creature actually existed and then pointed his hand at a nearby corpse. In the usual scene of completely unnecessary gore and floating body parts, a demon gate appeared.


    Unlike usual, instead of being completely red, this gate had a purple outer edge to the swirling light. More unlike usual, nothing seemed to come out from the other side, and the portal just remained floating there, orbited by various rotting body parts.


    It took nearly a minute before a ball of black wool tentatively poked out from the gate and glanced about, which was pointless considering the ball of wool had no visible features and was mainly just a ball of wool, not having eyes in other words.


    The wool ball then locked onto Murphy and as if seeing its own mother rapidly left the portal, followed behind by the rest of its body, which was equally as woolly. It looked entirely like a massive ball of fluffy, soft cotton wool, with another ball half-hardy attached to it to represent its head. The ball of wool seemed to bounce along the ground in a very cheerful manner as it joyfully approached Murphy. It then proceeded to start rubbing itself on him very affectionately.


    Everyone could only watch in on complete mystification as Murphy blankly stared down at the ball of wool that came up to his chest height and was now making a sound that was eerily close the moaning that those earlier creatures were making. He then seemed to glance at the smog monster and scrutinise its thin, gangly body and tough leathery skin and then look back at the huge ball of cotton in front of him.


    ¡°Nope. Nope. Nopenopenope. Can¡¯t even ... not even ... just ... Nope.¡±


    He then proceeded to push the ball of wool back into the portal it came from and rapidly closed it behind it.


    Finally, Lucile couldn¡¯t hold it in anymore and asked the question on everyone¡¯s tongue.


    ¡°What ... the ... fuck ... was that thing?¡±


    ¡°Demon ... sheep?¡± replied Murphy, seemingly also unsure about what the ball of wool was.


    Once again, the only sound that could be heard was the sound of the Spawn fighting over Packman heads as the party stared incredulously at Murphy. Murphy could only count his blessings that the spawn hadn¡¯t witnessed their great and mighty overlord summoning a giant ball of cotton. Not because he was worried about his image, but more because he knew of their penchant to quickly fall in love with fluffy things, as can be attested to by their sheer joy when Morbid is too tired to try and eat them and they all crowd around hugging him.


    If they witnessed this creature, he¡¯d be forced into summoning them by the spawn, which he couldn¡¯t say no to at the best of times. He can only imagine what kind of havoc would be unleashed on his domain if the spawn ever learned of these creatures.


    ¡°Why is that a question? Didn¡¯t you just summon that thing?¡± It seemed Murphy wasn¡¯t the only one having trouble with the absurdity of the situation as Lucile once again broke the silence.


    ¡°Well...¡± Murphy then pointed at the undead creature still oozing foul smog, and then shrugged.


    ¡°Oh no ... Nope. Nopenopenope.¡±


    Apparently, Murphy wasn¡¯t the only one completely broken by this experience as Lucile also started chanting his earlier mantra, quickly followed by everyone else¡¯s eyes going wide in disbelief and similarly breaking.


    ¡°That¡¯s not even...¡±


    ¡°How can something ... that¡¯s...¡±


    ¡°Definitely not.¡±


    The only one that didn¡¯t seem to be muttering to themselves and completely unable to accept the situation was Seelie. Her eyes were quietly boring a hole through the back of Murphy¡¯s head, as if expecting him to reveal that this was all a prank and this farce would quickly be exposed by him if she just stared him to death right here and now.


    Murphy was the first to come back to his senses as he glanced at Morbid who was still wearily watching the distance forests.


    ¡°We ... should go.¡± Murphy said as he summoned another portal and sent all the Spawn back.


    As if this was a lifeline thrown to drowning men, everyone quickly agreed and raced back to the mountain they initially arrived on and saddled up Morbid. Despite what appeared to be somewhat severe wounds, Morbid¡¯s vitality was even more beastly than Murphy¡¯s, and by the time they¡¯d set out to their next destination for tonight¡¯s raids, most of his injuries appeared to have healed up.


    Except his ear, which although it was healed, remained folded and drooping slightly like some kind of permanent scar. Somehow, it only made him even more endearing to Murphy ... despite being a vicious house sized war machine.


    Meanwhile, as the team were rapidly making their way towards another distant resource Murphy was hoping to acquire, an amorphous cloud of smog floated out from the forests and settled in the air overlooking the battlefield.


    It simply hovered there for a few moments before shooting off into the direction Murphy had left with astonishing speed after leaving behind the echo of a quiet deathly and aged whisper.


    ¡°How interesting...¡±


    <hr>


    I alone stand atop the mountain of corpses lain bare at my feet. No, not a mountain, but a church ... an altar. I¡¯ve long since lost track of the years I¡¯ve been serving my lord in this intrepid ¡®game¡¯. Nonetheless, here I stand, in a church so monumental it holds nearly an eighth of the entire planet¡¯s population.


    Foolish and blind mortals as they are, will never realise that everything I have built here, everything that has been raised up with the bodies of our enemies as its foundation, is but a fleeting and inconsequential thing in the eyes of our Lord. This planet is only one of many, of millions of other domains all cultivated with the single purpose of feeding the Holy God ... well, one of the Holy Gods.


    After all, even my Lord can¡¯t fathom the extent of this game, where gods are as common as grass and devil kings like leaves of a tree. In the visions He sends me, I am always humbled. Just when I believe my concept of this ¡®Domain Warz¡¯ can¡¯t be shaken, He shatters it again. I know I am not alone, there are many ¡®Lesser Clergymen¡¯ like myself, trying to rise through the ranks of our Great One¡¯s religious structure, and like me, these other clergies have witnessed the magnitude of our Lord¡¯s vision across the vast expanse of domains.


    Truly one cannot express the feeling of being so ... completely and utterly insignificant. But then again, that is the point I think. The point of this game, is to become something that is without limit. To achieve a level of power that is beyond that of even the God¡¯s. Just as my Lord tries to accomplish as well.


    ¡°Haaaa ... I should focus more on the things at hand.¡±


    Let¡¯s see ... what was I doing before I started staring out this bloody window? Ah, that¡¯s it.


    ¡°What is the situation with the Young Domain Lord?¡±


    <hr>


    The Pope finally snapped out of his thoughts and returned his focus to the gathered Cardinals gathered in the meeting room around him. At his question, all of them suddenly went quiet and stared at something seemingly fascinating on the roof or in their hands.


    At the continued silence, the Pope could only sigh and focus on his most trusted aide and friend. Seeing the Pope looking at him, said Cardinal gave a gruff grunt and stared daggers of promised retribution at his incompetent peers.


    ¡°The Depriver remains unfound. We aren¡¯t sure how he¡¯s doing it, but for the past 4 days he and his cohorts have managed to infiltrate various smaller kingdoms and we¡¯re even receiving reports from the forest of Holy Beasts that he¡¯s been enacting assassinations throughout the forest on Unicorns and Fairies.


    ¡°According to reports, he hasn¡¯t shown his face on the central battlefront in the Hoperfill county since this whole debacle began. More disturbing than this is the willpower of his forces battling on the front lines. Although we could easily crush them with numbers, they seem to have levelled significantly in the past few days, and we require numbers greater than their own to keep them suppressed, even the Holy Knights are starting to have trouble. Also, every attempt to capture one of them has resulted in them smashing some strange potion causing them instant death and evaporating their body.


    ¡°We¡¯ve discovered his filthy hand has been snatching up various important resources, to the point where nearly 3 entire empires on opposite sides of the planet have been cleared out of geodes and spawn points. He¡¯s even taking important structures from the capital cities which have taken generations of followers to build. The little bastard has even started taking our Places of Worship!¡±


    At this, his gruff old companion finally lost the barely concealed rage and smashed his fist into the marble table in front of him, completely obliterating it, along with the floor below, which was filled with various clergymen praying and chanting rituals to their God.


    All the other Cardinals rapidly back peddled from the sudden hole in the floor and looked at the cranky old Enforcer with slightly mixed expressions.


    ¡°Come now Tor, there¡¯s no need to get worked up. The battlefront is inconsequential now. Don¡¯t bother feeding any more soldiers into that endeavour. It is apparent we have failed to properly evaluate the craftiness of this young fellow and have vastly underestimated his economic prowess, either that or the abilities of the deprive skill. After all, the only way for him to strike so many places so quickly is to close and reform portals in these places by chance. This is actually a boon for us.¡±


    Being the youngest of the Cardinals and least experienced, Cardinal Lachaust spoke his confusion plainly.


    ¡°A boon my Lord? Would it not be more difficult to capture such a slippery scumbag using the portals so freely?¡±


    The Pope just smiled meaningfully and turned back to overview his planet from the window of his mounta ... err ... Cathedral. Seeing this, the other Cardinals all lowered their heads in thought until Barllo, the biggest and burliest of the lot suddenly slammed his fist into his palm.


    ¡°Of courthe! He¡¯th trying to uthe the thystem mechanicth to outwit uth. But the thythtem ith dethigned to athitht the domainth. That meanth we can uthe the Domain thythtem to trap him!¡±


    Everyone thimply ... err ... simply cringed slightly, as Barllo tried to explain. Seeing the confusion on the others faces and Barllo about to launch into another explanation, an older Cardinal with thickly rimmed glasses interceded to spare everyone the trauma.


    ¡°If he¡¯s using system based portals to get around, then we can intercept them with the domain authority. Although Holy Eden has dozens of new portals open on it daily, if it¡¯s a direct portal that only connects to Eden then we can simply redirect them all to the dungeon.¡±


    Tor grinned like a savage wolf as he began barking orders to everyone. The Pope continued to stare across the vast expanse spread out below him, and the other cardinals started to prepare their trap. Operation: Surprise Buttsex ... err perhaps not. Let¡¯s go with Operation: Wrong Hole ... err ... Operation: Portal Trap. Let¡¯s go with that.

 Chapter 16: Infiltrators

    Apart from a few ... accidents, all centralised around myself, raids on Eden had been progressing rather smoothly for the past few days. Which has led to a problem I didn¡¯t realise I was going to have. My domain is too small.


    I didn¡¯t fully understand the scope of the task I had laid out before me when I self-righteously launched into this crusade, and more importantly, I didn¡¯t comprehend just what this game is too many of the people who play it.


    As it turns out, Earth is relatively entitled amongst the countless numbers of other planets or realms or alternate realities or whatever the fuck that has been sucked into this game. Among many of these places, the weak and young use the game to escape, primarily having it become their ¡®real¡¯ world while their world is plunged into chaos and madness as players with unimaginable powers wreak havoc.


    Just when some super-powered freak becomes more potent than the rest and takes over, allowing things to start calming down, another monster with more abnormal powers shows up. After 20 years in the game, they then kill the ruling party, because for the ruling party to dominate the world and bring it some measure of peace they murdered a whole bunch of people that the second new guy was partial to. Like their parents, or children, or dog, or whatever it is that person holds dear.


    In fact, as a brief tangent, I heard rumours of a planet that was obliterated entirely because the group taking over the world on that particular day accidentally blew some little kids pet frog to pieces in a massive battle. 32 years later, the kid returns with a vengeance so violent that the entire planet implodes under his power.


    Thus continues the cycle of madness that is no doubt in the festering stages of outbreak on Earth. If not for the fact that my planet has already been through a catastrophic apocalypse while inhabited by my race, perhaps things would be worse. It¡¯s only thanks to our understanding of precisely what it entails to completely obliterate everything to such a stage that everyone is somehow keeping their madness in check.


    Regardless, these idle tangents of thought aren¡¯t helping my situation at all. Thanks to the success of our raiding teams, my domain is now facing a sudden crisis. Thousands of refugees have entirely flooded every available inch of land. Well, almost ... No one is crazy or stupid enough to try and inhabit the Poison Smog. The few individuals that have attempted have taken away my need to worry about them after they turned into a puddle of sludge, indistinguishable from the rest of the slowly decomposing ... wet mass that covers the marshes of the dead forest.


    The few individuals that have attempted to excavate into the ground and take some real estate from the spawn have all ... well ... let¡¯s not speak of such things. Unspeakable things are unspeakable after all.


    Despite my efforts to encourage people to move to 6 Star instead of cluttering my domain, so many have refused that it¡¯s making a significant strain on what little space and resources I have left here. It¡¯s not even that I don¡¯t have the resources available to support them, it¡¯s merely that I can¡¯t use said resources because there¡¯s only so much you can cram into the land available.


    I¡¯ve stolen plenty of exciting things from Eden in the past few days, but regardless of this, I can¡¯t use them without somewhere to put them.


    As if my problems weren¡¯t enough, even more people are pouring in from 6 Star in an attempt to join my war or attain citizenship on a domain crazy enough to crusade against a Quest Planet.


    This all leads us up to this moment 4 days after I first reopened portals to Eden, which was far sooner than I¡¯d expected.


    <hr>


    ¡° ... and so ... I¡¯ll be closing the portals for the short term and delaying our crusade ... err ... until my domain is bigger and I can support all the people that want to live here...¡±


    Following the end of his explanation to the sea of people surrounding him, Murphy turned around and started to use deprive on the portals to Eden. At the same time, many people began to yell or comment out from behind him, and Seelie stood nearby with a slightly irked expression on her face.


    A completely furred creature with backwards feet lumbered above others around him at nearly 8 feet tall and growled the loudest.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t explain anything! You just and said ¡®and so... ¡® then declared you¡¯re closing the portals. What about the crusade?! What about the people still trapped on Eden?!¡±


    Another strange race, looking something like a seal with an elephant¡¯s trunk, let out a few loud trumpets with its elongated snout. Everyone who¡¯d never met such a creature gave it strange looks as subtitles magically popped up around it as if this was somehow always how these animals communicated ... with subtitles...


    ¡°My family are still trapped over there! Please! You can¡¯t do this! What about my children, they¡¯ll become orphans on a world they¡¯re hunted!¡±


    Everyone then watched on as Murphy read this and collapsed to his knees spewing blood out of every orifice at the realisation of how many poor children were trapped on the other side of these portals that he couldn¡¯t immediately save. Despite that, he remained firm and closed another entrance, even as he cried tears of blood while doing it.


    Seelie, with a twitching eyebrow, stepped up a rickety old box that Murphy had been using for his dignified speech and redirected the Death Glare she¡¯d been giving Murphy for his total lack of charisma at the crowds surrounding them and clamouring in an uproar. The moment her cold eyes swept across the group, everyone shut up, and a strange silence hung over the entire domain.


    Some people even clutched at their hearts and dropped dead right there and then, solely from this casual glance around by Seelie.


    With silence reigning supreme, she finally started to explain.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure some of you have come to realise by now that things are starting to get very crowded around here. It was our fault as the Domain Lord¡¯s for not having made proper preparations prior to this.¡± She then gave Murphy another wordless glare as if reprimanding him for his rashness back then and then returned her glare to the crowds, killing a few more people by accidentally making eye contact with them for too long.


    ¡°I was of the opinion that we simply kick all of your sorry asses off our domain right now. Hardly any of you have contributed to our domain at all and are just squatters. Many of you don¡¯t even leave the domain to collect food and just beg and steal from the few that do and our actual citizens. Murphy is insistent that we should be taking responsibility for you until you¡¯re on your feet and can take care of yourselves. It¡¯s the least we can do seeing as we decided to be so nosy as to poke our business into your lives.


    As such, in order to adequately deal with you all, Murphy has been forced to delay his crusade, and we will instead be going through a short development period for the domain. Putting everything we stole from Eden to use, doing some raids to increase our land mass, and building. Again, anyone squatting here is welcome to leave, in fact, I encourage you to fuc...¡±


    ¡°Ahem!¡± Murphy interrupted that tangent with a brief strangled cough and Seelie moved on as if she wasn¡¯t about to insist everyone piss off right now.


    ¡°As I was saying, we need to refocus our attention for a period of time and maintain the Domain. The crusade is postponed until further notice, but we will eventually be returning to continue this war. Even if it¡¯s unlikely we can end it anytime soon.¡±


    At the completion of her announcement, the crowds around them exploded into discussion, many doubtful or confused or entirely apathetic. One thing was for sure, no one was stupid enough to openly question this frightening Co-Domain Lord of Murphy¡¯s. Mostly because anyone that bore the full front of her stare would instantly collapse, some even taking so much damage they simply died on the spot.


    After closing the last portal, Murphy got an eccentric notification from the system.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused a Happy Accident. + 40 Luck!¡¯


    That had been the happiest accident he¡¯d ever caused, but worryingly, he couldn¡¯t figure out what exactly he¡¯d accidentally done. Deciding not to worry about it, he and Seelie retreated back to their castle as everyone else just sort of mulled about and took up space like a herd of cattle, no offence intended for the actual cattle like people within said herd ... who were well ... never mind.


    Everyone then felt the disconcerting sensation of the Domain changing direction and shooting off towards the stars in the bright daylit sky.


    <hr>


    In the war room of the castle, Murphy had started constructing a star map using his Mana Cartography. By this point in time, Murphy¡¯s Mana Cartography had reached level 8 and had a few impressive abilities. Murphy was still amused by this skill because he felt it was something that should have needed the Imbue skill. Perhaps the only reason it didn¡¯t need it was because he was actually constructing something out of his mana instead of merely altering something else.


    Nonetheless, it still worked even with his mana that was filled with a mixed bag of strange properties. Most notably it was now at the point where it was entirely interactive for everyone, not just himself. The spawn were all busy running around the room poking dots of light and watching it expand into a view of a domain.


    The best part about this was the map continually updated itself every time Murphy went out and looked around at the sky. Being able to create an image of another domain was a little harder though, requiring him to go and borrow the telescope in Seelie¡¯s observation tower and actually view said domain.


    More importantly, his Puzzle Solving skill and Mathematics skill both came into use as they allowed him to more or less track the movement patterns of domains which let him mark them in his star map, otherwise they would all just remain as stars, and he wouldn¡¯t know which was which.


    While staring through a telescope out the window and his map updated behind him, Seelie was taking advantage of her scholar skill to correlate all the information she could gather from the system. As she poured it into the star map, Murphy¡¯s skill seemed to just gobble it all up and then automatically allocate it without any assistance.


    Where Murphy had originally had to input information personally, the cartography skill was feeding off all his other skills and constantly updated itself without the need for him to do so personally. In particular, it took advantage of a few skills he¡¯d recently gained while trying to train his senses, something called Mass Computation and Divided Mind.


    Mass Computation came as a result of him trying to focus all his attention onto a single sense and then try and interpret that information. With all the abuse he¡¯d given his eyes and ears lately they had reached abnormal levels of sensitivity and focus. The divided mind then came from this same action except trying to do it with two different senses at once. Amusingly, these were both skills Seelie had since they were still back on Newb Planet going through the tutorial.


    These weren¡¯t his only gains from such training though. Namely, he gained Focused Mind and Heightened Senses both allowing him to do things he¡¯d never thought possible. Focused Mind in specific gave him an unparalleled level of focus on a task.


    After a short time more of updating, a huge map of every star within sight from their domain was uploaded into the map.


    In the war room, sitting atop the pedestal, Murphy¡¯s star map swirled around the duo in every direction with their little island of a domain sitting right in the centre of it. Murphy was looking around him with eye¡¯s sparkling like a child having just discovered a new toy while Seelie was watching Murphy with sparkling eyes because this was the first time she¡¯d been able to spend alone with him since the crusade began.


    Murphy¡¯s eyes then became focused, and he started to flick his hands around oddly like some kind of instructor. Slowly, various stars began to glow an ominous red colour and with another flick of the hand all the other stars disappeared completely. Murphy then focused on the closest red star to themselves and made an action as if gripping it with his fingers and pulled apart, like he was stretching something out.


    It then blew out entirely until the view of a large domain filled their view. The entire domain just looked like an island that was blacked out to appear like a silhouette.


    ¡°Hmm. Still too far away for me to actually see it from here huh?¡±


    Murphy scratched at his chin, which had started to grow some rough but disparate stubble and gazed into the sky for a little longer. Finally, he just shrugged.


    ¡°Guess we¡¯ll just go attack them anyway. What¡¯s the worst that could happen?¡± He very irresponsibly muttered to himself. After some stretching and a few decimals gained in agility, Murphy strode off into the dungeons of the castle, all while ignoring the glare Seelie was trying to burn through his skull for not taking the chance to do more girl/boy things ... of which they¡¯d almost done none.


    After climbing down an unnecessarily long spiral staircase, Murphy stepped into an immaculately clean and tidy open space. Although he called it the dungeon it was looked far from what would be expected in such an evil looking castle. The walls were made of white marble and scattered with torches to ensure it was well lit.


    It wasn¡¯t cramped but appeared to be just a single white marble room almost 100 metres wide and long. The roof was nearly 30 metres high and had various strange stones that poured soft light out to fill every corner of the room. While the room itself didn¡¯t appear dungeon-like, the contents were far more fitting of the misconception the word dungeon inspires.


    Scattered around the perfectly flat marble floor were dozens of strange and murderous-looking contraptions that would give high-level torturer¡¯s wet dreams. Lining the walls were various doors marked with signboards equating to things like ¡®sword chamber¡¯ or ¡®fire pit¡¯ and if all this wasn¡¯t enough, a select few incredibly wild and crazed looking spawn were flitting about the place covered in all manner of handheld torture devices.


    As Murphy walked into the ¡®dungeon¡¯, he split off part of his consciousness to go to the Domain Zone and change the direction of the domain along with handling some other boring administrative tasks. Meanwhile, his body continued to stride past various pieces of blood-stained ¡®furniture¡¯ until he found himself in the centre of the room, where he was met by the crazed looking spawn that had previously been trying to whip or shoot arrows at each other.


    ¡°Rar rah rar yah!?¡±


    Asked one of the spawn curiously, while pointing at some equipment on his person that looked like they¡¯d been ransacked from a butcher¡¯s shop.


    Murphy seemed to think for a moment then shook his head.


    ¡°No, not today Stabby Mc¡¯Stabingkins. Is the new training room ready?¡±


    Stabby Mc¡¯Stabingkins looked slightly down heartened that his master wasn¡¯t planning to let him do various unspeakable things to him today, but nonetheless nodded and pointed at the far end of the dungeon were a large obsidian door covered in cartoonish warnings and promises of death were illustrated.


    Murphy just chuckled, petted Stabby on the head and quickly stalked off towards the door. This door was something Murphy had invested quite a bit of experience points and materials in to, and was a project he¡¯d called all the best craftsmen on his domain to assist in. He only hoped it would be worth it, because not even he knew what was going to be beyond it.


    He felt all the hair on his body standing up on end as he approached the door and goosebumps slowly rising along his skin on every exposed part of his body. It got to the point that it was almost overwhelming as he reached out and pushed on the colossal obsidian doors that were the entrance to some place of unspeakable horrors.


    The moment the door cracked open even slightly, a burst of blue light spilt forth and enveloped him. The obsidian door then quickly slammed shut with a shuddering boom and cut the light off, revealing an empty space where Murphy had been standing beforehand.


    <hr>


    ¡°Greetings, disgusting enslaver.¡±


    So the first thing to greet me after that blinding light was complete blackness and a deep and sonorous voice, calling me names rather petulantly. After a moment a glowing red crystal formed from nothing in front of me. I could feel the menace and killing intent spilling off this strange creature the moment it appeared.


    It definitely wanted to kill me ... which was more or less its job.


    ¡°Stop thinking about pointless things, you stupid brute. Everything is prepared for the first ten floors. I¡¯m still building further, and your domain inhabitants have given me a great deal of help. Unsurprisingly, they seem to want you dead almost as much as me.¡±


    This shining ray of happy sunlight is Gorby. He belongs to an extraordinary species of creature called a Dungeon Core. Most dungeons in Domain Wars are system generated and have no such thing, instead just being a spawn point for less than sentient beasts or inhabited by unscrupulous individuals for some strange reason I¡¯ve yet to fully understand. Perhaps just a natural quirk of all necromancers and dark mages?


    Anyway, I happened to find Gorby just chilling out in a dungeon I was trying to steal from Eden. Turns out, there are some things even I can¡¯t take. Well ... with the deprive skill anyways, it was plenty easy enough to steal Gorby with my hands ... err ... I mean, re-appropriate? Well ... my point is that I now have this strange being, which from my understanding is capable of building and controlling a dungeon entirely by itself.


    With this knowledge at hand, I put Gorby to work building a dungeon on my domain. Unfortunately, all he ever did was sulk and cry about how much less ambient mana and citizens were in my domain, thus building nothing but a single floor with himself on it in the hopes someone would ... re-appropriate him to another domain.


    After some long and hard thought on the subject, I struck a deal with Gorby. I would take him to the largest inhabited domain I could get access to on the condition that he built a dungeon capable of killing me. At the thought of a new home he was greatly encouraged, and it definitely wasn¡¯t the thought of killing me, his captor.


    Unfortunately, he was adamant that he needed the right resources and enough mana to grow that strong so I humbly offered him access to my domain inventory, of which the greedy bastard bled dry of any raw or organic materials. He even gobbled up half the generic dungeon stones from the system.


    After this he created a few levels I found woefully inadequate. Standard flame traps and a couple weak poison arrows didn¡¯t slow me down at all. I then encouraged all of the craftsmen, scholars and even remotely skilled individuals with permanent citizenship in my domain to visit and tutor Gorby in how best to build a dungeon of acceptable strength.


    Seelie spent quite some time analysing how he operates and giving him pointers, which has bred a fear in him I can¡¯t even remotely fathom. Just mentioning her near him causes his crystal body to start forming hairline cracks. If he¡¯s actually in her presence ... it looks like he¡¯s about to explode apart.


    Anyway, the whole thing is that...


    ¡°Thwack!¡±


    And now there¡¯s a poison arrow sticking out of my eyeball.


    ¡°Stop doing that standing around and thinking nonsense. I¡¯m not going to sit here and watch you think about pointless things for an hour again.¡±


    With that grumpy reprimand, another bright light flashed, and I was now standing in a classic first level of a dungeon.


    <hr>


    Dungeons are creatures that could be classified as semi-Godlike in their abilities. If one of them lived long enough and gained enough knowledge, they could even rival god-like beings. Perhaps even something like Domain Wars was built inside of a dungeon.


    The ability to create almost anything from Mana and to absorb knowledge like a sponge was only a few of the powers of a core. The most striking power of a Dungeon Core was building endless levels inside of endless pockets of reality. Like building billions of worlds within billions of worlds, never-ending and growing with the passage of time.


    Gorby was only a young Dungeon Core when Murphy found him, and wasn¡¯t very good at much at all. Killing things was a simple thing for him and he basically just summoned apparent traps and stupid creatures to do his bidding for him. By killing things he could collect their essence. Or more appropriately, their knowledge. Thus murder is a necessity for him to grow stronger.


    However, an extraordinary thing happened after he was brought to Murphy¡¯s domain. All types of people came and gave him knowledge for free. It was very odd and not something Gorby had ever experienced. Thanks to them, Gorby had built ten levels of hell that no normal dungeon could hope to accomplish so young in their lives.


    Not only that, but now he didn¡¯t have to worry about nice things that could lure people into his pocket dimension so he could gobble them up. His goal now was singular, Kill Murphy Law.


    ¡°It¡¯s finally time. Hehhehheh!¡±


    Gorby sinuously chuckled to himself as he watched Murphy appear in the first level of his new dungeon. He projected a tiny pieces of his consciousness out as a floating orb next to Murphy and projected all his spite and confidence. Murphy glanced at the standard cave design around him and then at the floating ball of light.


    ¡°What the fuck...¡±


    Gorby glowed a gloating brightness as he saw the confusion on Murphy¡¯s face. Normal dungeons had two things. An exit and a level that must be navigated. For the first level, Murphy could see neither of these things. Instead, all he could see was a single huge cavern nearly a hundred meters in radius and filled with floating rainbow lights that glowed dimly.


    The cavern had no entrances or exits. No tunnels, no monsters, no traps. It was just a big empty cavern.


    ¡°Err ... Gorby ... this is ... I mean ... what am I supposed to do?¡±


    ¡°Hahahahahaha!! Foolish mortal! Tremble in fear! There is no escape! You can just wait here forever until you eventually die of either boredom or starvation, whichever comes first.¡±


    Murphy scratched the stubble on his chin and looked around again.


    ¡®This doesn¡¯t seem right. I thought Seelie said that every dungeon was bound by certain natural limitations. There must always be a path from the entrance to the Dungeon Core and vice versa. Even if it¡¯s not obvious, it must exist.¡¯


    Murphy then looked back at Gorby with an odd expression.


    ¡°Err ... you do know ... I¡¯m like ... Immortal. Right?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Yeah ... I mean ... like unless my body is cut up or burned in the sun or something ... I can¡¯t die. I won¡¯t starve to death.¡±


    ¡°Looks like you¡¯ll just have to go mad from boredom then.¡±


    Murphy was speechless. He couldn¡¯t help but feel Gorby was breaking the rules somehow.


    ¡®This must be some kind of trick...¡±


    With that in mind, Murphy wandered around the huge cavern inspecting the floor and walls. Everything was blank. No rocks, no stalagmites, even the ground was just roughly cut stone and had not even dirt to draw pictures on or eat if you managed to get trapped he so long you got that hungry.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Finally, after what seemed like an hour of pointless inspection and endless gloating from Gorby, Murphy did the only thing he could think to do. He turned with his back to one wall of the cavern, crouched down into a runners launch position, then shot forward towards the other wall.


    Using his maximum speed and pumping his legs like a madman, his 94 strength and 76 agility propelled him to the edge of the sound barrier. Then with a mighty leap, he jumped towards the furthest wall, twisting his body through the air, and shot forward with his feet crouched up under his body.


    Just before colliding with the wall, he kicked his feet out as hard as he could and smashed into the wall. Much to his shock and surprise, he went straight through with hardly any resistance. Moments later he found himself flying through the air at a startling speed towards a very very distant ground.


    Looking about himself, he could see a giant column reaching up into the sky and sporting a big dome on the very top. Looking around himself, he noticed a massive chasm filled with darkness and almost a speck in the distance was a floating door with a tiny 1-meter floor underneath it.


    Everything else was complete and endless nothingness. All that was here was the door, and nearly 200 kilometres away, the column with a dome on top. Oh, and the rapidly approaching ground that looked like it was filled entirely with razor-sharp spikes made from metal. It almost looked like a forest of metal spikes covered in more metal spikes. It was eerily similar to the tower of thorns ... except made from metal instead of bones.


    ¡°Well ... that doesn¡¯t look good...¡±


    ¡®I can guess what he was doing with all those ¡®Unbreakable Steel¡¯ geodes I stole from Eden.¡¯


    This was Murphy¡¯s thoughts as he finally reached the ground. Like a speck of dust, he disappeared into the sea of jagged spikes to the accompanied mad laughter of Gorby.


    <hr>


    While Murphy was busy testing his limits in Gorby¡¯s dungeon of torture, 10 mysterious travellers passed through the portal from Six Star onto Murphy¡¯s domain. Typically, the moment they stepped through they would have drawn attention from others. First off they all wore bizarre clothes and weapons.


    They were adorned in combat vests and tight body suits that glowed with strange green light, dispersing an odd green mist from their bodies making them appear somewhat ethereal. Instead of standard helmets, they all wore faceless dome-like headgear that was tinted wholly black and reflected all light.


    The next most attention drawing thing was the strange weapons and devices they were carrying on their person. Chief amongst these was a highly advanced rifle that seemed to also be glowing with various enchantments. Just glancing at these things would give anyone that had developed a decent danger sense the willies, if not directly making them vent their bowels.


    The most attention grabbing aspect would be the fact that they didn¡¯t happen to be grabbing any of said attention whatsoever. The only thing was the odd fluctuation of the portal as they passed into this domain, there was no evidence to the senses of other people and creatures that they even existed. Apart from an eerie feeling for those few who¡¯s danger sense was genuinely phenomenal, of which there was very few on Murphy¡¯s domain.


    ¡°Spread out and map everything. Keep your eyes and ears sharp for anything regarding the target. Bravo, you¡¯re on the general populace and the towns. Echo, follow up on the reports of an underground labyrinth under the domain. Be careful, unless you want to end up another example of Captain Gustav¡¯s previous infiltrators.¡±


    The moment he finished speaking, two groups of three spread off into two separate directions. As for the remaining four individuals, the leader apparent glanced towards the spooky looking misty forest in the distance. With what seemed like a somewhat resigned sigh, he took off towards them with his 3 companions in toe. None the wiser as to their sudden appearance on the island domain.


    As the leader and his group approached the forest, their highly attuned danger senses started screaming. Having brought many skills as scouts and spies from their time as enforcers on earth, these highly trained and incredibly determined infiltrators rapidly attuned themselves to the system in the game and made endless breakthroughs to strengthen themselves beyond anything they could have dreamed of.


    Although not the most prominent of the teams amongst the many forces being rallied by Captain Gustav, this team had shown the most promise for infiltration and escape. They were all high agility stat players and had numerous titles and skills that lent themselves to that goal. Just as they had been expected and trained to do.


    In the same manner as many organisations over the course of history since time immemorial, the employees were expected to conform to set standards. As such many ¡®testers¡¯ had been sent first to determine optimum stats and develop standard classes for what the Captain called, Forces Unified in Service of Earth, or easily swallowed, FUSE.


    As such, this particular group were entirely derived of fellows that had selected to use a class predetermined by testers as, Infiltrators. Illusion Magic, Assassin Skills, Scout Skills, Bush Craft, Squad Tactics, Acting, Weapons and Martial arts training and a plethora of other varied skills all tied into one class. Many had specialised into side paths based on their own training or personality. For example one particularly disturbed individual in this group had unlocked something along the lines of Torture Mastery.


    As the groups spread out across the domain for their separate tasks, a set of eyes wearily watched them pass. Unbeknownst to them, many an individual had skills that countered theirs, and even with the assistance of their armour, which used ruins and enchantments from the game to reduce peoples notice on them. This set of eyes had no trouble distinguishing them, although not for an obvious reason such as true sight or some other such nonsense.


    Skin-Like-Granite, the leader of the Rockskins and the Church of the Big Black, followed those curious yet malicious auras floating around like invisible spirits then turned back to an ancient looking Spawn Shaman, who was busily casting some kind of hexing magic. A moment later, the wrinkled old prune of a spawn had his eyes glow red and also began to follow something with his eyes.


    ¡°Rasha rar raka.¡±


    Skin-Like-Granite also returned to observing for a moment and nodded.


    ¡°Very well my friend. Please leave a few for me to have a friendly discussion with once you are done. Unfortunately, we will have to forget about the ones traipsing into the Poison Marsh. They march to their own demise.¡±


    Pendulum Nuts grunted and wandered off towards an odd patch of dirt in the Sinister Wastes and was quickly swallowed up by it. Moments later, the group that had been tasked with finding a way into the underground labyrinth came across a very conspicuous tunnel leading into the ground.


    The leader, Echo, gave a wary glance towards it before shaking her head as if her suspicions of this being too easy was merely her paranoia. Apparently, she wasn¡¯t the only one finding this suspicious, as her second in command said something to her over their coms channel. She just made some hand gestures and onwards they slunk, or sleuthed, or whatever such action it is that spy¡¯s do in their duty.


    Even with the advanced equipment developed by the ¡®Technomancers¡¯ back at the Fuse domain, the tunnels were eerily dark. They could only conclude this place had some form of magic that clouded the vision of even their equipment.


    Even more disturbing was the structure of the labyrinth they¡¯d stepped into. After only 50 odd meters and 3 intersections they already felt lost. Little were they aware, the moment they stepped into the tunnels various curses and hexes were affecting them and making them quickly lose a sense of direction and confusing their senses.


    Even worse was the more disturbing feeling and panic of claustrophobia they now all felt. The more they walked, the more the walls and roof seemed to be closing in on them. Soon, even after trying to backtrack numerous times, they found themselves hunched over and their shoulders scrapping the edges of the dirt walls as they walked.


    Based on the readouts from their magical equipment they knew they were somewhere under the Sinister Wastes, mostly due to the vast amount of Sinister Mana that permeated the walls in here. It was so much that it had started blinding their instruments. Finally, after an incredibly stressful and uneventful 30 minutes and still finding nothing, Echo chose to try and call into Alpha, the team leader, and report.


    This was even more perturbing for the team as they suddenly discovered themselves unable to send or receive transmissions from the leader. Echo suddenly started to panic even more as a disturbing thought struck her.


    ¡°Back up a bit Marco and start counting off as you step.¡±


    ¡°1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,...¡±


    After 6 meters they couldn¡¯t even communicate with each other. She signalled Marco back and released a shaky breath.


    ¡°It seems we¡¯re trapped. Initiate self-destruct on my mark.¡±


    The team of three only nodded at this protocol and prepared to overload their suits. Before Echo could even start the count though, a strange scratching was heard from one of the walls. The three spun on the spot and aimed their rifles at the wall the sound was coming from, holding their breaths.


    Moments later, the walls started to cave in slightly ahead of them and a clawed hand of red skin burst out from the wall.


    ¡°Eye¡¯s sharp, avoid contact. This is one of the creatures of the Target, we may be able to follow it.¡± Echo quickly relayed to her subordinates.


    It wasn¡¯t long before a strange little beast burst out from the rest of the wall from a hole. It looked around for a moment, scratched its head as if confused, then shrugged and started walking down the path opposite of the interlopers.


    They all shared an odd look, shrugged as well, and quickly followed along with the lead member¡¯s rifle aimed at the creatures back.


    It was a mysteriously short amount of time later that they suddenly saw a light in the pitch darkness up ahead. It soon revealed itself to be a doorway out onto a stone platform. As they entered, they were all shocked to discover themselves standing at the top of a huge half pyramid-like structure of black polished stone that seemed to be built down along the wall, the wall they just exited from.


    Surrounding them on the platform were countless skulls of all sorts of creatures and beasts. Dried and even some still somewhat viscous blood was spread liberally everywhere. Literally, everything they could see seemed to be painted in some form of blood, some of it even glowing.


    ¡°Great Saint...¡± Gasped one of the Infiltrators as his gaze left their immediate surroundings. They were inside a massive cavern with endless smaller caves and tunnels littered across it all over the place. The floor of the cave was filled with countless of Spawn which all seemed to be chanting strangely and bowing in their direction. Surrounding them were endless bones covering up every inch of dirt on the floor and strange structures all about the place, even protruding from the walls and roof, all also made from bones and scales and even giant feathers.


    The trio quickly discovered something seemed to be very wrong with this whole situation as the little spawn they¡¯d followed walked to the edge of the platform and gave a mighty and savage yell. Even more spawn, as if that was even possible, started streaming out from the caves and tunnels filling the entire cavern.


    Echo turned to get her team to start running only to see the tunnel they emerged from had already somehow filled in completely. Standing directly behind them was an ancient looking old spawn, staring directly into her eyes as he leaned onto a crude staff made from some of the odd decrepit trees from the surfaces of the Sinister Waste.


    Standing beside him was another Spawn wearing a completely black robe tailored to fit him. In his hands was a book filled with a strange language and odd pictures, all drawn with blood.


    This spawn looked at her as well, except with a very evil looking smile, revealing all of his savage little razor sharp teeth.


    ¡°Welcome, spies. We appreciate your delivering yourselves directly to us, it¡¯s somewhat troubling dragging others here. Be happy in the knowledge that...¡±


    Before Serious Spawn could finish the death writes of the Infiltrator¡¯s, they¡¯d already awoken from their shock and levelled their guns in preparation to fire. Just as their fingers began to squeeze the triggers of their rifles, strange magic burst out from the platform they were on, and they all found themselves being locked down by curses, hexes and even slithering tentacles made of shadow and shaped liked cocks.


    Echo immediately disliked the direction this was going as those tentacles started touching weird places that they definitely shouldn¡¯t be, trying to get under her armour and do unspeakable things.


    Serious scowled slightly then grunted.


    ¡°Fine ... stinking creatures.¡± He then pulled out a wicked looking obsidian dagger from his robes and stalked forward.


    ¡°Know peace in the abyss of the Master¡¯s Madness.¡±


    With that, he stabbed them once each, their powerful armour and various other enchanted artefacts all simply being sliced into as if pushing the knife into butter. The moment the blade touched their blood, an unspeakable pain overtook their minds. Not just pain as they had experienced in their lifetimes, but true pain in every sense. Loss, Discomfort, Sadness, Envy, Hatred and an endless flood of other negative emotions flooded their souls and was amplified to beyond the limits of a rational mind to withstand.


    Time stretched out for them into infinity, but in reality, almost as quickly as it had happened, it ended. They each collapsed to their knees and a gaseous miasma of darkness poured from their bodies. Everything they¡¯d experienced since they arrived on Murphy¡¯s domain and even somewhat before then was pulled from their bodies by the chanting of the Spawn and all floated up into the air above. Most especially was everything they just experienced in that brief moment of complete madness.


    As the last vestiges of consciousness left Echo, she watched a dark ghost of her own self being ripped from her body as it clawed with a face of complete insanity to try and get back into her soul. Slowly, she fell backwards. As her blurry vision passed, she noticed for the first time the wall they¡¯d stepped from had a huge statue of a young looking man carved into the wall. Falling back further, she saw her dark ghost get sucked into a huge floating ball in the middle of the cavern.


    It had an uncountable number of other shadowy, ghostly souls all trying to escape from it. Clawing and fighting and snarling like animals. More disturbing were the souls that floated through it all laughing or just staring with strange eyes out into the world around their amassed ball of derangement.


    At last, the slight connection between her and the dark ghost snapped like a piece of bubble gum being stretched beyond its limit.


    The very next moment, her body materialised on a bed in a secret training camp on earth, and she stared up at the white ceiling feeling completely lost.


    She slowly sat up and saw two others in a huge room of thousands of bed being mobbed by various service personnel. Almost as quickly as she awoke another group marched towards her from out of the room, and a very stern looking man with ginger hair and mutton chops left her comrade and walked over to her.


    ¡°Report.¡±


    Echo just looked at him strangely for a moment as she tried to get her bearings.


    ¡°We arrived at Sin City and found our way to the reported portal of the Targets Domain. We then ... um ... I mean ... we ... Sir?¡±


    The man with mutton chops, here forth referred to as Captain Chops, just sighed.


    ¡°Another bust. At least none of you came back like that other one, all clawy and bitey.¡±


    <hr>


    Murphy was quickly coming to love and hate the forest of metal spikes. Every direction he looked was filled with spikes. Even just standing on the ground as he was had left his boots completely shredded, as the ¡®grass¡¯ of this metal forest was in fact just billions of tiny metal shards all stabbing up and down from the ground like a tattooists needle gun, and attempting to grind him into dust.


    When he first landed, or more appropriately was swatted from the sky by a huge metal spiked tree limb shaped like a club, the grass had almost actually killed him. It was sharp enough to just pierce his skin, and with that happening repeatedly and with rapid speed, it had eventually overwhelmed his skin¡¯s absurd defence and begun shredding his body.


    It was only the fact that Gorby got a little too excited too quickly and tried to have the spike trees continue to clobber and slice him to death that he survived.


    One of the club¡¯s spikes pierced into his body, and he got stuck on it, lifting him off the ground. Despite Gorby having the tree try and shake him back onto the grass, Murphy clung on shamelessly and let his body start healing up. Of course, Gorby was displeased with this and directly slammed the spike tree limb club back into the ground in the hope it could just keep him pinned.


    Murphy didn¡¯t have the strength to push it off, so he pulled out a highly explosive mixture from his storage and set it off under his back. This proceeded to blow him back into the sky along with half the tree. It had also wholly obliterated his back, and he was left with a huge gaping hole that had nearly separated his spine.


    Luckily, this brief flight was long enough to stuff a health potion into his gob, and his already monstrous regeneration was assisted enough to completely repair him, before he was once again was struck from the sky like a fly being splattered by a fly swatter ... only without much splatter.


    This repeated in various fashions for more than an hour but eventually, Murphy¡¯s body had caught up to the environment, and he was once again essentially indestructible. He even went so far as to angle himself towards a huge open area filled with the grass that reached up to knee height by using a couple exploding potions in mid-air.


    Gorby was especially disgruntled when Murphy used the area to roll around everywhere like a dog and let every inch of his body adapt to the point that the grass started to push him into the air. The forces behind the grass was enough to launch him into the sky every time he landed.


    After the internal haemorrhaging from the strikes had been annulled as well, Murphy began to try and make his way towards the floating door about 300 meters in the air at the other end of the spike forest. This was what led to his current hate for the forest. Every time he tried to move forward, the metal trees struck him into the sky and sent him flying back towards the giant earthen pillar with the dome that he had started from.


    Unfortunately, Murphy had discovered that he was too weak to contend with the power of the metal trees.


    ¡°How the fuck am I supposed to get to that door?¡± Murphy pondered to himself aloud. Gorby¡¯s laughed echoed everywhere at Murphy¡¯s apparent distress.


    Hearing the mocking laughter, Murphy scowled at the empty white void that was the sky. At last, he had an idea. He turned back and started to go towards the earthen column. Once he reached it, he started climbing back to the top. This alone nearly took him half an hour and even levelled Climbing up to level 3.


    Once at the top, he took a few different potions from his pack and started dissolving the dome wall until it was enough to walk through.


    ¡°I hope this works...¡±


    He walked in and headed to the furthest wall. Then started sprinting as fast as possible towards the exit he¡¯d created. The moment his bare foot touched the edge of the column, he poured his strength into and launched himself through the sky towards the door. At first, it looked like he was going to make it. It was quite the distance to traverse, but he had enough strength to launch his body that far.


    Unfortunately, Gorby was very dissatisfied with this, and his spike forest began to rip smaller spikes out of the ground with grating and screaming of steel so as to launch them at Murphy as giant metal projectiles. Murphy was utterly blindsided as one of the giant spikes stabbed into the side of his face, spraying blood through the air and launched him hundreds of meters off course and into the distant forest.


    ¡°Oomph!¡± Murphy grunted as he smashed into another spiked metal tree and was stabbed through the side, bending the spike back. The force required to pierce his skin at this point was ridiculous and even a substantial metal spike the size and length of a man¡¯s leg didn¡¯t have the structural integrity to completely withstand it.


    The tree limb quickly smashed him into the ground while he was stuck on the spike and began trying to grind him to death once more, followed with all the other metal spike trees thrashing about and smashing into him to try and help out. Murphy just lay there motionlessly for a short time as his body repaired all the damage, reconnected his loosely hanging lower jaw and began to force the deformed spike out of his body, even as the spike trees tried to help hammer it back in.


    A little while more of this and Murphy was starting to get very annoyed.


    ¡°So it¡¯s like that, huh?¡±


    He then took out almost half the explosive reagents in his inventory and let them fall all around him. A momentous amount of light that had no reason to be so blindingly bright sprung forth, followed by an incredible force, heat and cacophonous sound.


    A considerable shockwave erupted and completely obliterated the spike forest for nearly 30 meters in diameter around Murphy. Gorby was watching very intently as the blinding light seemed to linger for a frustrating amount of time. He knew better now, that you can¡¯t count on Murphy being dead until you saw the lifeless ... pieces of whatever was left. In fact, the only thing he¡¯d been able to count in regards to Murphy is the number of potions he¡¯d used and the now rapidly climbing number of times he¡¯d tried to kill him and failed.


    Soon, the light faded away revealing a molten crater in the metal ground, at the bottom of which was a very mangled and half destroyed corpse. Every visible inch was charred black, the entire lower body was completely gone up to the waist, and both arms were in various states of missing. The head looked as if it was half caved in, the lower jaw completely gone and the neck missing quite a good portion from the side.


    Gorby was most definitely not satisfied enough to call this a victory yet. For starters, there was still something left. As such, he quickly started ripping up spike trees and launching them into the pit in the hopes to bury this insufferable and apparently immortal bastard.


    Just as the first spike tree landed, Gorby heard a raspy breath and the chest of the being known as Murphy once more shuddered to life, drawing air to breathe. Gorby was now convinced that was most likely entirely pointless seeing as Murphy most probably didn¡¯t even need to do something so mundane as breathing if he¡¯s capable of surviving something like that!


    The charred wreck was then quickly drowned in still thrashing spike trees until the entire pit was full. Gorby then decided that still wasn¡¯t enough and just had every tree in the endless spike forest start uprooting itself and marching towards him to begin building a monumental metal tomb. He¡¯d come to the realisation that Murphy may quite literally be un-killable at the first level of his dungeon, unless he can take advantage of his seemingly childlike strength to trap him.


    Hopefully, he would then die after a few hundred or thousand years. Gorby was patient, after all, dungeon cores were actually immortal, and he would only know for sure in regards to Murphy¡¯s immortality when he could survive in a sealed mountain of metal for a couple thousand years.


    <hr>


    As Murphy was being buried under a literal forest of metal trees, Bravo¡¯s Squad of three were scoping out the Sinister town. They¡¯d already done a round through the thousands of tents scattered everywhere and filled with every sort of sentient creature imaginable. A brief flit through the town up the hill showed it to be a somewhat sleepy and quiet place of only a few beast-kin and humans all enjoying a comfortable and calm little township.


    Using various forms of strange movement techniques, they flittered about the town listening in on conversations here and there and trying to pick up some information from the residents. Their skill set afforded them a useful ability to bypass the basic protection of the Domain that was provided to the town to keep all the refugee squatters out, but it was still now bustling with more life than ever.


    The only place with more action was directly around the portal area between the two towns, where a makeshift marketplace, adventurer guild and very pricey inn were located. Although this area afforded the squatters the right to pass through or visit, many chose to avoid it as lingering tended to follow with mysteriously disappearing and then respawning 2 days later with no memories from before they entered the area.


    It was very odd and had birthed no small number of rumours. That said, it still was rather low on the interesting things to dwell upon when within Murphy¡¯s realm. Bravo and his team had heard stories that vary wildly from daily sacrifices to dark gods, spirits and even the vast emptiness of space itself. That wasn¡¯t even among the stranger rumours though. Things frequently went missing for no apparent reason, people were often plagued by inordinate amounts of bad luck and every now and then the pet dog of the Target would leave the monstrous barn house it slept in to eat a few random people then go back to sleep.


    Speaking of the creature referred to as Morbid, although far more affectionately then Bravo would have thought considering its penchant to randomly eat people, he¡¯d witnessed it having a battle. Or at least that¡¯s what he thought initially. He and some strange old man were almost literally tearing each other to pieces in an area that had quickly been vacated by the many squatters in the area.


    The only thing that clued him into realising it wasn¡¯t some battle to the death was when the old man started laughing, used a level of strength Bravo was certain no one in Fuse currently possessed yet, and launched the creature nearly 100 meters away. Only for them to clash again and devolve into petting and brushing the creature¡¯s fur as it panted loudly in a sitting position.


    When the hundreds of Spawn had come out of nowhere and rushed over to help with the brushing but mostly the patting, Bravo had quickly escaped the area before he suffered more mental damage. He was sure his superiors would not be pleased to learn of such a monster living here, and probably not too happy about his estimation of the dog¡¯s strength either.


    Monstrous old man and demon dog aside, Bravo was now more interested in something unusual he¡¯d just seen in Sinister Town. A man wearing the robes of a priest and with skin made of stone had been quietly whispering to someone nearby about the ¡°Super Duper Secret Thing That No One Can Ever Find Out About...¡±.


    It almost sounded like some kind of setup for a trap, except that Bravo was extremely confident with his skills and technology, so simply brushed it off as the way these strange humanoid creatures with rough gravely skin talked.


    Following said priest to a strange cellar, he observed various secret knocks and passwords and every other assortment of verification before the man was let in. Using the advantage to check it out, Bravo slipped in behind the man and then suddenly...


    He woke up in the Training Camp on earth with no memories after stepping through the portal to Murphy¡¯s Domain. Although he had no memories, he suddenly felt a very profound sense of guilt, loss and hopelessness.


    Almost 10 minutes later, one of his compatriots awoke, muttering and scratching at his skin relentlessly, as if he felt trapped in his own body. Another ten minutes and his final teammate came back. Unlike the first two, she just lay there, pale as fresh snow, staring into nothingness and completely unresponsive.


    Captain Chops could only sigh forlornly and grimace as the second to return started screaming about returning to the big black and demanding he be allowed to go back into the game.


    <hr>


    Murphy was now laying down slightly stuck in the metal floor of the forest where the molten metal had cooled around his body. On top of him lay a significantly prodigious weight that was slowly trying to crush the life out of him. His bones had all been crushed to powder initially, but after almost an hour of them slowly reforming and being crushed again and again, his body was finally in one piece again.


    That¡¯s not to say he was in any way comfortable. For one thing, he¡¯d run out of breathable air and his body was very much opposed to the situation, forcing his lungs to try and draw something in completely by instinct. He then spent another hour simply hyperventilating and slightly panicked, which for Murphy actually felt amazing.


    The panic flowed away into a steady calm before he even fully realised his body was trying to respond by initiating standard flight or fight reactions for suffocation. What for most people would have been some of the worst torture they¡¯d ever experienced, Murphy found himself falling into a strange state of clear-headed meditation.


    When his body finally finished adapting to the situation and his brain had remade the necessary connections to prevent him from feeling the need to breathe, he awoke from his transcendental introspection completely calm.


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s knew ... Didn¡¯t think my skills class would afford me something like this. Total adaption to any situation ... almost like, some kind of rapid personal evolution or perhaps even ... mumble ... mumble mumble mumble...¡±


    He then spent a little while talking to himself and completely off in his own little world as he often does. Finally, he got bored of just lying about under his metal tomb and tried to move.


    ¡°Hnngg!!¡±


    ¡°HNNGGGHH!!!¡±


    And discovered that he could in fact not move a single muscle. No matter how hard he tried to move, nothing changed.


    ¡®How in the fuck am I even ... fucking Gorby ... I¡¯m going to be stuck in here forever ... I can¡¯t even lift one of these trees myself, let alone an entire forest... ¡®


    At that thought, Murphy had a plan. He tapped on the tree laying over the top of him and willed it into his personal inventory. With a strange ¡®Pop!¡¯ sound, said spike tree disappeared, and Murphy felt his body being compressed to the floor by the peculiar gravity of his personal storage.


    Slowly and ponderously, Murphy forced himself into a sitting position and got up. He now had a small space he could move around in, and so he began to train something he desperately lacked. Strength. Although his body had developed to the point it was nigh indestructible, this did not suddenly grant him super strength. Granted, some strength had been gained simply by the fact his body had been putting on a considerable if not invisible amount of mass, but in the grand scheme of things it was not much.


    His endurance was completely illogical in comparison to his other stats and could only be described as magical in nature. Not only that, it was also completely and utterly insane. Before entering the dungeon, Murphy already had an endurance of 168 points. The next highest endurance on his domain was owned by Uncle Calligso at only 70 odd points. The next highest after him was almost half that.


    This made it apparent to Murphy and everyone else that endurance is usually an incredibly difficult stat to level at all.


    However, by the same token, because he¡¯d been so focused on his endurance, Murphy had neglected his strength and agility. His strength of 94 points was actually one of the weakest on his entire domain. Even some of the refugees that had stats and skill stolen from them had higher strength values.


    His agility was very middle of the pack, if the pack was struck by a meteor, burnt to ashes and spread on the wind. Even Seelie had 4 times his agility, and she was a fucking mage!


    Thus, Murphy decided that now was a good time to try and rectify that.


    In the metal cavern, deep below a mountain of iron trees, Murphy started doing his martial arts forms. Ponderously slow at first, but soon a little faster, and then a little bit faster again until eventually, he was moving slightly faster than a hermit crab along the beach.


    Then, overestimating himself, he reached out and added another tree to his inventory. Leading him to immediately face plant into the ground, barely able to twitch a finger.


    As if this wasn¡¯t enough...


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an unhappy accident. -15 Luck.¡¯


    The entire mountain of spiked trees rumbled for a moment and suddenly collapsed further in on itself, preventing Murphy from moving a muscle.

 Chapter 17: The Forge

    It goes without saying that, I don¡¯t fully understand the limits of my ¡®Undying¡¯ trait. Naturally, not being able to die is quite the boon. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s the single most wanted superpower in all of existence. I often feel like I cheated creation or something. I mean, I hardly earnt my immortality. However, lying in this dark, claustrophobic hole in the ground, I have come to realise that I would rather die in some situations.


    One would think, ¡®oh, that Murphy guy, yeah I heard of him, totally got an awesome deal on life. He only feels a portion of the pain he should and even when he does it get converted into pleasure.¡¯ Well, I hate to say that there comes a point when your body is trying to die due to asphyxiation and your being crushed under the weight of Sage knows how many tonnes of metal trees that you realise, even those magical traits can only go so far.


    I¡¯ve come to discover that I didn¡¯t just adapt to the lack of oxygen as I¡¯d previously predicted. I mean, my traits allowed me to alleviate the natural panic and mental responses to the act of dying from asphyxiation, but it¡¯s actually more accurate to only say that they¡¯ve reduced the symptoms. Even my abnormal ability to recover can¡¯t quite keep up when all the cells in my body start decomposing.


    On top of that, the pain I feel from my lungs burning and muscles falling to pieces ... well, even my class traits can¡¯t hold something like that at bay. Mind you, my Pain Mastery is steadily climbing so at the moment it¡¯s more a race between my Pain Mastery and the rapid deterioration of every cell in my body as my internal organs start shutting down.


    I¡¯m actually quite surprised I¡¯ve maintained clear thought for as long as I have considering I¡¯m pretty sure my grey matter is busily turning into a nasty slurry and is moments from breaching its cosy little membrane and escaping out my ear. I¡¯ve probably been trapped down here for a few hours now, and I¡¯m starting to lose focus from the pain that has well and truly overwhelmed my Hurts So Goods ability to convert it into pleasure.


    With nothing much to do at the moment apart from suffering silently, I let my mind fall into my status space and began to review my status.


    Well, it¡¯s been a while since I just looked at all my totals like this. Usually, I only focus on the particulars. In fact, I can¡¯t remember properly viewing my whole status since way back before I started my crusade on Eden. Feels like forever ago.


    Well, my endurance remains up through the roof. That¡¯s always good. I imagine I may even level it again at this rate, though I have a feeling I¡¯ll have to try and escape first, or I might actually die. That would certainly be embarrassing. Hmm, well I¡¯ve certainly made some progress during my time in Eden. Unfortunately, I focused quite a bit of my time and energy on stats instead of skills.


    I should probably focus my time in the dungeon this time on levelling my skills, though some of them hopefully will remain stagnant and I¡¯ll have no reason to want to use them here. Specifically, certain magic types. It¡¯s taken me a great deal of fortitude to avoid abusing sinister magic in particular.


    Hmm, my luck has dropped a bit again. I had my Luck Spawn go on an absolute rampage through Six Star earlier just so I¡¯d be prepared to come in here. Keeping my luck in the positive is honestly the most aggravating battle. Stupid fucking class and it¡¯s stupid fucking luck penalties. This is why we can¡¯t have nice things, or more specifically, why ¡®I¡® can¡¯t have nice things.


    Let¡¯s see. Oh, my mana has gone up quite a bit. It¡¯s certainly nothing to scoff at, but in comparison to some of the spellcaster specialities in my domain they spend that much mana just getting up in the morning. Apparently, they spend hours at a time levelling things like meditation and inner peace and other crap like that. All their mystic mumbo jumbo is lost on me. Mostly because I blindly suck up mana, now and then resulting in my soul completely ripping itself apart and then putting itself back together just a little bit more robust and able to hold just a bit more mana.


    On the note of things that the mage class people have that I lack a great deal of. Intelligence. It¡¯s one of the most difficult stats to level, taking an unhealthy amount of reading, memorisation and procrastination ... err I mean brooding ... nope, Seelie would hit me for both of those. What does she call it again ... brainstorming.


    Well, whatever. Again, not something I¡¯ve invested much time in, especially considering I don¡¯t have the time or patience to sit in a musty old tower all day and try to learn obscure ancient languages or build my own spell models. Though if I could build a spell model that could completely obliterate certain suspect spells from my spellbook without adverse ramifications, I¡¯d be more than happy to create it.


    In fact, I¡¯ve decided that will be my focus of study when Seelie eventually manages to force me to sit at a desk behind a mountain of books and study magic again.


    Speaking of magic...


    I¡¯m sure it¡¯s no shock that my spell casting has somewhat fallen by the wayside recently. Even during the rescue and looting on Eden, I avoided using too much magic. Somehow, Can¡¯t Stop the Music has become one of my most highly levelled spells, despite only having used it a handful of times.


    Seelie is of the belief it has something to do with the spell always having to overcome some kind of insurmountable defect in my personality. I yet to see any obvious signs of this, so I¡¯m sure she¡¯s just making things up, and I¡¯m definitely not ignoring anything obvious that it could be.


    Additionally, the sheep. I mean ... the description makes them seem completely harmless, but I¡¯ve seen what those things look like shaved. There is no way in hell I¡¯ll believe those things are ¡®just¡¯ sheep. I¡¯ve been too afraid to investigate them more though. I¡¯m afraid if one of my spawn catch sight of them there¡¯ll be an uprising until I summon more.


    My traits and titles haven¡¯t changed at all for a while. This most likely corresponds with Seelie¡¯s theory about traits and that sort of thing piling up while you¡¯re a rookie and levelling out. Although she also said some nonsense about it reflecting a person¡¯s history and nature, which is obviously wrong, otherwise I¡¯d have traits like detect evil or heroic aura or some other such thing...


    Whew ... whelp, definitely time to leave. My bodies now at the point it¡¯s convinced I¡¯m entirely dead and venting the plumbing.


    <hr>


    Gorby watched on with glee as the life slowly ebbed out of Murphy¡¯s body. Even still, he was steadily piling on more trees to ensure the growing metal mountain would sufficiently keep him contained until that inevitable final rush of experience points when he dies.


    Unfortunately, no such thing happened. He instead watched on horrified as a grotesque book of surely evil magic appeared in a crevice near his body. Shortly after, his entire body melted into the shadows and moments later reappeared at the very edge of his iron tombstone.


    The moment he reappeared, Murphy collapsed face first into the serrated metal grass and dropped two trees from his inventory. Gorby didn¡¯t even wait to see what happened next as he immediately began piling trees on the somehow still living corpse of Murphy. Not quickly enough though, as the corpse managed enough motor control to gasp in a lungful of oxygen, after which it rapidly started regaining life.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    It was then a matter of seconds, as the area directly around Murphy began to darken in response to his shadow domain and he began flitting away through the forest like a dark wraith in the night. When he was only a few hundred meters from the floating platform with the portal, Gorby managed an intercepting tackle with a metal tree that would leave anyone else half crippled.


    More lumbering trees then showed the sprite footwork of Olympic sprinters as they began another pile on. Like trying to hold jelly in your fist, Murphy squeezed back out. He then spent a few minutes running around in circle dodging tackles from spiked trees until another small mountain of them had grown under the platform.


    With quick steps, he pushed his agility and strength to the maximum as he raced up the piled trees and jumping over their flailing branches until he reached the top. A well timed jump later, and he was flying through the air towards the platform, only 40 odd meters from reaching the portal to the next level.


    He spun his body in mid-air and pulled out a set of common looking daggers, just in time to put his deflect skill into use and bounce off a huge spike launched from the trees below. Taking advantage of the oncoming assault, Murphy fired up his deflect and mass computation skill in concert. With this oppressive duo of skills, he was able to reposition his body in mid-air using the force of the spikes, just in time to receive a spike in the chest. Although it didn¡¯t manage to dig very deep, it had enough force behind it to launch his body through the portal and into the second level of Gorby¡¯s dungeon.


    <hr>


    Well, I certainly wasn¡¯t expecting this. I mean, I know that I let everyone in here to help Gorby out, but I wasn¡¯t expecting them making this place their home ... or in this case, super magic forge.


    Instead of a level filled with crazed monsters and traps, I instead found myself standing on a stone bridge leading through a series of huge smelters that look as if they were operated by giants. The heat in this place was so stifling that I could feel my already punished lungs burning up again.


    A single breath left me with a parched throat and forced me to inhale any number of toxic fumes from the smelting process.


    Scattered along the distant walls were various clockwork apparatus operating everything, from feeding ore into the fires and pouring magma ore into huge plates filled with grooves so they can set into workable bars. In the distance, I could see the bridge ended at a huge circular platform with a huge forge so filled to the brim with magic it was causing small mana storms to erupt around it.


    Banging away on a crystal anvil was a madly laughing Alton, every swing of the hammer spraying mana and sparks around like fireworks.


    As I strolled forwards, the banging suddenly stopped and Alton¡¯s head cocked to the side. He then spun around and locked his bloodshot eyes on me while his hammer remained raised mid swing. The entire forge began to tremor and spark in the background, and the light seemed to be sucked out from the rest of the level, causing Alton¡¯s crazed face to be cast in shadow as flames and magical energy poured out behind him. His eye¡¯s glowed with madness, and his grip on the hammer tightened.


    I almost wanted to take a step back at the level of crazy this scene was giving off.


    ¡°¡®Bout time, boy! Now get over here. I need you to start sucking up all the loose mana.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I was confused. I¡¯d thought he was about to attack me. I actually had no idea what the hell was going on right now.


    ¡°You deaf boy? Get over here and start depriving the space of this excess mana. It¡¯s fucking up my forging!¡±


    ¡°Err, I...¡±


    ¡®CLANG!¡¯


    Alton then completely ignored me and turned back to his forge. His anvil ringing out in protest as the hammer in his hand struck down like lightning. Not sure what else I was meant to be doing here, I just shrugged and wandered over near the glowing forge. I let some of my deprive mana flow out of my body. Instantly, a huge influx of mana rushed in.


    This was very dangerous. I¡¯d barely even let out a tiny bit, and already I¡¯d pushed my soul to the limits of its endurance. Deciding it probably wasn¡¯t a good idea to blow my soul apart and go into mana flux right next to the forge, I stopped. This led to the mana in the surroundings quickly building up again and me getting a hammer strike to the face.


    ¡°What the hell ya¡¯ doin¡¯ boy?! Don¡¯t stop!¡±


    ¡°But my mana is...¡±


    ¡°Then fuckin use it for somethin¡¯, you moron!¡±


    Well ... I guess I can probably do that. I¡¯d need something that used a shit tonne of mana to be able to burn away all this excess quickly enough to keep up with the amount the forge was spewing out. My highest cost spell was actually the completely useless, Enchanted Sleep of Forever: Troll Version. Even just the standard casting cost me 300 Mana. If I poured more into it, I could probably empty my soul of mana in a single cast.


    Actually, it¡¯s got quite a long cast time. I can just pour every bit of mana I suck up into the spell while I¡¯m casting it, that way the mana will be stockpiled in the spell model instead. Genius.


    I looked through my inventory for a nice harmless benign fruit. Then, after some more thought, decided instead to use an instant recovery potion. These were apparently quite rare according to the Domain Store, so some idiot might actually be stupid enough to drink it if I put the curse on it.


    With that, I then opened my spell tomb and began the casting. The spell model flickered to life as I started pouring all of my mana into it. Considering that the standard cost of casting was 300 mana, my soul was emptied out in barely a second. The chant would still take at least 15 minutes to finish though, so I started to release a tiny bit of depriving mana into the air around me.


    This then started a continuous flow of mana into the spell model as I chanted. Just at a cursory inspection with mana manipulation, I suspected that the ambient mana around the forge was somewhere in the 100,000 range. I wasn¡¯t sure why it was acting so wildly though, causing little mana storms and what not. If I had to guess, it was probably because it¡¯s mostly residue mana from Alton¡¯s forging process.


    Since it¡¯s residue, it was filled with all sorts of conflicting properties. Once I¡¯ve drained it all away and polluted it with my sinister mana signature, the universe will then refill the lost mana with neutral mana like it usually does. I¡¯m basically being used to clean the mana in Alton¡¯s forge so it doesn¡¯t keep interrupting his forging.


    The moment I came to this realisation, the system pinged.


    ¡®Ping! You have received the recurring quest, ¡®Clean my fuckin¡¯ forge!¡¯, from Alton.¡¯


    Speaking of the grey dwarf, his hammering speed had shot up to an alarming rate now that the mana fluctuations had calmed down and the ¡®dirty¡¯ mana was being sucked into me and processed for the curse. His arm looked like a blur, and the ¡®Clang!¡¯ of his hammer had fused into a single endless high pitch hum.


    It was perhaps the most boring fifteen minutes of my life. I¡¯d pumped in every bit of mana I could suck in with my deprive mana and the spell model in the tome was now just a blinding light. It almost seemed like it was about to explode.


    Alton had finished his hammering at about 13 minutes and was busy inspecting a long thin sword he¡¯d just quenched in what I¡¯m assuming is blood.


    ¡°¡®  ... and let that stupid hussy sleep forever.¡¯¡° I ended the incantation, and all the mana in the tome poured into the vial of instant recovery potion. The usually semi clear green liquid then underwent a fundamental change, becoming crystal clear and filled with shiny flecks of what appeared to be solidified mana.


    It looked stunning. Like some kind of super powerful potion that gods would hand out to their champion hero or some other such nonsense. Just looking at it made my already parched throat feel even drier.


    ¡®Ping! Congratulations, you have created a new potion. Cursed Nectar of the Gods.¡¯


    ¡°Well ... that¡¯s not ominous at all.¡±


    Storing my new potion away, I returned my focus to Alton. He appeared to be far calmer now, and his appearance wasn¡¯t setting off any alarms. If anything, he looked fresher and younger than ever.


    ¡°Good job lad. You may have to stop by every so often to cycle the mana in here again. Even my ruins weren¡¯t able to keep all those mana collisions suppressed while I was working. Anyway, here you go.¡±


    He then handed me the sword he was admiring. I immediately used my identify skill.


    ¡®Ping! Failed to identify.¡¯


    By habit, I then unconsciously lifted the sword to my mouth and took a bite out of the edge as I wondered about what sort of properties it had. Alton stared on in horror as I swallowed the bite I took from his past few days of hard work, effort and rare resources.


    Sword of the Consumer (Sword Spirit)


    This sword was crafted and imbued with the express purpose of being compatible with depriving mana. The level of skill and ingenuity required to develop and craft such a thing is astronomical. Some asshole has taken a bite out of it.


    Cannot break.


    Cannot be deprived of its properties.


    Eats things it touches when filled with depriving mana.


    Please stop eating me!


    Interesting.


    ¡°What in the bloody hell are you doin¡¯!¡±


    Alton appeared to be upset with me, and apparently, my new sword was also somewhat dissatisfied. I wasn¡¯t really sure what I am supposed to say in a situation like this.


    ¡°Erm ... the next level?¡±


    Alton stared at me for a few very long seconds, as his face clouded over and his eyebrow started doing that twitching thing Seelie¡¯s often did. Maybe that¡¯s contagious? Well, it doesn¡¯t really matter. Alton simply pointed in at the edge of the platform his magic forge was sitting on and grunted.


    After walking over and peering over the edge, I noticed a tiny speck of light deep down at the bottom of the endless black abyss that made up the floor below the platform. Before I had the chance to ask, a foot connected with my back and I was launched into the empty void.

 Chapter 18: The Fog

    <h2></h2>


    After falling through the empty black void towards the distant light for well over five minutes, Murphy came to the conclusion that he was, in fact, not getting that much closer to it.


    He also came to the conclusion that the void he was falling through wasn¡¯t quite as empty as he¡¯d previously thought. It wasn¡¯t anything specific that gave him that impression. More an amalgamation of clues. For starters, the odd sound now and then, which somehow managed to only barely be on the very edge of his hearing, even with his impressive senses.


    Then there was the odd sensation of seeing something out of the corner of his eye that he couldn¡¯t quite catch. The shadow in his vision, naturally, fled back into the darkness the moment he tried to turn and spot it. Even after throwing some fireballs about the place, he still couldn¡¯t see anything.


    The fireballs didn¡¯t illuminate anything at all, regardless of how far away from him he through them. That said, it did allow him to be certain he was still falling. After throwing them about the place, he managed to surround himself with a cluster of a hundred odd fireballs that were all falling at the same speed as him except at varying distances around him.


    Silently thanking Galileo, the long-dead pre-apocalypse polymath scholar, Murphy tried to focus his senses in an attempt to find whatever it was that was disturbing him. This was unnecessary though, because just as he was closing his eyes to focus his hearing, a glint not dissimilar to metal catching light flashed out from the darkness of the void.


    Then, almost as soon as he¡¯d noticed it, a flying sword blew through a handful of his fireballs and stabbed him in the thigh. The most disturbing part of this was that his high endurance didn¡¯t seem to be capable of defending him at all. Even more disconcerting was the manner in which the sword then dislodged itself from his thigh and retreated back into the darkness.


    Murphy didn¡¯t even have time to react. He just silently stared at his rapidly repairing leg with wide eyes. Only for a brief moment though, as his ears picked up the cry of hundreds of swords being unsheathed in the darkness, beyond the light of his makeshift flaming lanterns.


    ¡°It¡¯s fresh meat! Fresh meat!¡± A voice echoed from the void, sounding like an echo of a child and sword being unsheathed at the same time.


    ¡°Hahaha! I, Shiniest of shining swords, shall claim this being as my sword puppet!¡±


    ¡°Nay! This sword puppet shall be miinneeee.¡±


    Voices of all different backgrounds began to ring out around Murphy. ¡®What the fuck is a sword puppet?¡¯ he wondered to himself.


    Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t get the opportunity to ponder on it long as thousands of swords began surging out from the void towards him. His fire lanterns exploding in a conflagration of red light before the void collapsed in around him in the wake of a tide of flying swords.


    ¡°What the fuck?¡±


    Murphy hardly had the time to react before the fastest of the swords had already blown past him, cutting tiny slices from his flesh. The first wave of swords was so fast that his Deflect skill didn¡¯t even seem to register them as projectiles until they were gone, making him look like a jerky stop-motion that was jumbled up and clipped together haphazardly.


    His sword would swing to deflect a sword only half a second after it already passed.


    ¡®Fuck! I¡¯m going to be diced to pieces.¡¯ Murphy thought to himself as he watched the next wave of swords rapidly approaching him, consisting of thousands of larger and slower swords. The problem was, while he couldn¡¯t deflect those fast swords, they only numbered in the hundreds, and his body was able to easily keep up.


    With a wave of thousands of huge 2-metre long bastard swords and thick great swords however, he suspected that even if his deflect could help him, the sheer number of projectiles would drown him in rusty iron before he¡¯d even diverted a dozen swords.


    Murphy looked down at his own sword with a furrowed brow. Although he didn¡¯t manage to deflect any of those earlier swords, he did clip a few. Imagine his shock and surprise when he discovered chips had been gauged out of his supposedly invincible sword.


    <hr>


    Obviously, I can account for the big bite impression in the side as my deprive mana, but why the fuck are all these other random swords chipping away at this piece of shit.


    What invincible sword? This is a wooden tooth pick!


    ¡°Wheewww.¡±


    With a long exhale, I calm myself down slightly and focus on the incoming sword tide. I may have no choice but to completely unleash my deprive skill again, but I¡¯m slightly afraid. If I lose control again, what¡¯s to say I won¡¯t completely deprive myself of a body and soul?


    I slowly start releasing deprive mana form my body, expecting it to start spreading out in waves like previous times. To my surprise, no deprive mana leaves my body at all. With a furrowed brow I look at my hands and realise that mana is leaving my body, just nothing like it normally does.


    Instead, it¡¯s all pouring out through my hand, seemingly getting sucked up by my sword which is now glowing an ominous dark purple.


    ¡°Shwinngggg¡±


    It almost sounds like the sword is crying out as it starts vibrating rapidly.


    ¡°Ah shit.¡± I got distracted with my crappy sword, and now I¡¯m about to be engulfed by the...


    <hr>


    As the sword wave approached within half a metre of Murphy, it looked from his view like a curving wall of sharp metal completely surrounding him from every direction.


    Just as he half expected to die, his sword hand jerked back into a guard position then flicked his sword out, making it start spinning rapidly. Murphy felt a burst of expectations and hope fill him, only to seconds latter lose sight of the sword as he was completely engulfed by the wave of metal.


    A loud screeching of metal sounded out and a shockwave of air blasted out from the giant ball of flying swords attempting to skewer the new visitor to their domain. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, there were so many swords crowding into a single space that they somehow managed to all get into each other¡¯s way at the critical moment.


    This created a rather awkward scene as Murphy tentatively opened his eyes to see thousands of swords stuck only a few centimetres from his body. All of them buzzing angrily and trying to be the first one to dash forward and skewer Murphy, but being compressed together into a solid wall due to so many of them fighting for the same chance.


    ¡°Fuck! Get out of my way Glorious Roaving Sword!¡±


    ¡°Stop pushing! Argh!! Stop pushing! I¡¯m made of softer metals! You all are compressing my soft body!¡±


    ¡°Get out of the way up front! That there is my sword puppet! Move aside!¡±


    ¡°Who just touched my hilt?! Get off me you pervert! Stop! No! Do you believe this lady sword here won¡¯t self-explode if you keep vibrating against me like-OH! Mmm ... never mind. Just ... ooohh ... go a bit to the right!¡±


    ¡°PILE ON! IT¡¯S A PILE ON! EVERYONE GET IN HERE!¡±


    Murphy¡¯s eyebrows raised slightly as all the swords started saying strange things to each other. He wasn¡¯t quite sure what to make of this situation. Especially the idea that swords could do ¡®that¡¯ with each other. Then he started wondering just where the hell his sword was.


    After a brief inspection, he found it directly above his head stuck halfway into the sword wall. It must have been trying to protect his head or something?


    ¡°Heh heh! You won¡¯t be getting out this way little sword brother. Trying to make your escape under the eyes of yours truly! Humph!¡±


    ¡°Shwiinggg!¡± His sword violently vibrated as it kept trying to move. It could neither move forward or retreat backwards.


    Murphy was quite glad about that, especially considering if his sword moved from the wall it would probably collapse in on top of him. He then reached a hand out and pushed it against a sword, watching with horrified amazement as he discovered the sword was so sharp he didn¡¯t even feel as it sliced three of his fingers off.


    ¡°Haha! Take that you stupid puppet! I may be the bluntest sword in this sword domain but I can still take three of your fingers without even moving! HAHAHA! Fear not! Once you have been eviscerated, I shall claim you as my puppet and put your bits back together!¡±


    Murphy looked at his hand, then glanced around himself at the wall of swords. After a few seconds, his fingers grew back and his eyes lit up as they focused back on the sword which claimed to be the dullest blade here.


    With glee written on his face, he willingly reached out both hands and started vigorously touching it¡¯s blade.


    ¡°Eh? Wait! What are you ... oh god! Stop! You¡¯re going to rust my blade with all this blood! Stop! Oh god! How can that be possible!¡±


    ¡°What is that puppet doing over there?¡±


    ¡°He looks to be ... self-mutilating?¡±


    ¡°Oh god! That¡¯s disgusting! He¡¯s not even trying to cut himself properly! This is an affront to us sharper swords!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right! You have to hit that other part of your arm with a sword to cut it completely!¡±


    ¡°Hey guys? Why is their so much blood pooling up down here on us bottom swords? Is there something going on up there?¡±


    ¡°Argh! I¡¯m blind! The blood is completely covering my blade!¡±


    Murphy¡¯s eye¡¯s looked like lanterns as the excited gleam within became a roaring fire! Once his fingers were gone, he started with his hands. When they had been sliced to bits he started with the wrists, then arms.


    Once he had completely carved off his shoulders, Murphy went to scratch his back and then sighed. He¡¯d lost a lot of blood and was probably going to pass out if he kept going without giving his body a chance to heal.


    He looked down and realised the circular room made of swords he was in must be falling at the same speed as him, because he was still floating right in the middle of it, about half a foot above an ankle-high pool of blood.


    This made Murphy slightly nervous.


    ¡°If we reach the bottom and I¡¯m still as soft as right now, won¡¯t the sword sphere explode and kill me?¡±


    Gritting his teeth, Murphy angled his body slightly and used a foot to very gently push himself towards the wall behind himself. Almost immediately his back became heaven as his body was filled with pleasure. Hundreds of pointy blades very slowly started to sink into his body from behind like dropping a block of butter on heated skewers.


    There was literally zero resistance from his body. Murphy became completely oblivious to the world around him as the swords pierced right through and his eyes rolled back into his head. Now and again his hips would jerk about making the swords slice him up a bit more.


    ¡°What in the fuck is going on? Hey you guys over there, what did you do to my sword puppet?! He¡¯s gone all weird!¡±


    ¡°We didn¡¯t do shit! Oi, move over so I can go have a look!¡±


    ¡°Oh sure, I¡¯ll just push these other 40 thousand swords piled onto of me to the side so I can give you some space, you stupid piece of shit!¡±


    ¡°Ohhh yesssssss!¡±


    ¡°God damnit! Who told lusty sword about this gathering! This was warrior swords only!¡±


    ¡°Fuck off with your warrior swords only! Every sword in the fucking domain is here right now!¡±


    Time passed slowly as blood dribbled out of the jerking body of Murphy. The swords continued to bicker and argue with each other, but none agreed to back off. Instead, the thousands of sword all continued to pile on and started pushing harder.


    This resulted in the giant ball of swords slowly compressing, hundreds of weaker swords being completely shattered, their sword spirit¡¯s being gobbled up to strengthen their competitive brothers. The problem was, the majority of swords that grew stronger were at the front, so while they encroached slightly closer to Murphy, the pushing sword from behind couldn¡¯t continue to pressure them, resulting in another stalemate of sorts.


    By now, Murphy was skewered on the tips of swords from all sides. Even if he were in a situation where he could move, it would only be to move onto the edge of another sword. The various swords impaling him hummed and vibrated now and again as they tried to slice his body apart.


    This stalemate continued on for half a day and the blood draining from Murphy¡¯s body had already filled the space he was in up to his waist. Then something finally changed.


    ¡°Hey! What are you doing? Stop pushing back!¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s pushing back?! Cut that out! You¡¯re going to help out those bastards on the other side!¡±


    ¡°I-I¡¯m not! It¡¯s ... the puppet is pushing me back!¡±


    ¡°What!¡±


    ¡°Impossible!¡±


    ¡°Nonsense!¡±


    ¡°Oh! Not the grip! Ooooo...¡±


    While the swords started breaking out in a cacophony of nonsense once more and the Lust Swords were taking advantage, Murphy¡¯s body was rapidly trying to patch itself up and slowly rejecting the foreign bits of steel sticking into it.


    It has to be said that had the swords not been continuously vibrating and trying to sashimi Murphy, he most likely would have eventually died from the fatigue caused by his body regenerating all the lost blood. They just would have been forced to wait slightly longer.


    Unfortunately, the swords were unaware of Murphy¡¯s disturbing penchant for adapting to various life-threatening damages, so had unintentionally been exacerbating his body¡¯s strange talents the whole time. Now it was too late for them to cry, as Murphy¡¯s body had reached the state in which it was sturdy enough to take the punishments of the unmoving swords. Even the vibrating swords could only be slowly forced back.


    It was at this time that Murphy finally awoke from his disturbing pleasure coma. The satisfied feeling of starving to death struck him almost as quickly as he opened his eyes. He felt like he was about to fall into a food coma, which was quite the opposite of how his body should have been screaming for sustenance.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Knowing by this point the intricacies of his own suffering, Murphy forced his arm through a series of blades until he could reach his mouth and started stuffing as much food and water as he possibly could from his inventory into his mouth. At the same time, he pondered where exactly his body was getting the resources to produce so much blood.


    Ignoring the inconsistency of his body, Murphy then turned his attention to his supposedly legendary sword that was currently stuck between other swords just above his head. While forcing a glowing mushroom into his mouth that seemed to be dripping caustic acid, Murphy squinted at the sword.


    Finally, after half an hour he had emptied his inventory of nearly everything he deemed edible and his body¡¯s repair had sped up considerably, even causing a few of the weaker swords stuck in him to shatter or bend from the pressure of his body forcing them out.


    After some finicking with his arm again, and having sliced various bits of meat from himself as he tried to navigate the hundreds of swords skewering his body, his hand finally got in a good position to reach out for his sword.


    <hr>


    As I reached out for my sword, I let the deprive mana within me flow from ... well, where ever the hell it comes from. My soul, or my body fat, or maybe from indigestion. Who can say? Probably Seelie, and it¡¯s likely she¡¯s told me before, but I¡¯m not ... remembering of stuff. Anyway, who really cares apart from people who love the science of magic? Not me, obviously.


    Argh! Fuck these fucking swords. They don¡¯t seem to appreciate my deprive mana, so now they¡¯re all just vibrating as hard as they can and it feels so good! I really think I need to find a curse that turns pleasure into pain. Surely such a thing exists. It sounds like something those whack job sinister magic user¡¯s would come up with.


    Oh? What¡¯s that you say? I¡¯m a sinister magic user? Shut up conscience! Magic is a tool. Just because it was created by bad people to do bad things doesn¡¯t make me bad if I¡¯m using it to help people!


    No! Obviously, I¡¯d never use those really horrendous curses! Just because a tool is mindless doesn¡¯t mean it isn¡¯t destructive. A plasma bomb is completely indiscriminate for example. In almost no situation is wiping out thousands of square kilometres of land going to be an acceptable loss/gain scenario. Although, perhaps things could be considered a little different in this world. After all...


    No! I can¡¯t think like that. Next thing you know I¡¯ll just be unleashing blood fly plagues in unsuspecting cities for the experience points. Or worse, using the puppet curse to create an army of unwilling servants.


    Whew. Need to focus! The pleasure of my body being slowly eviscerated is making me dizzy. I don¡¯t normally have my deprive energy active, mostly because it¡¯s fucking frightening. Now and again when I¡¯m practising with it, it will flare up violently for no discernible reason. While I may appear to be mostly immune to it, I am in fact not at all immune to it.


    Namely being that it deprives me of the use of all others skills and mana types, and if it¡¯s feeling particularly excitable, I might even start having stats be gobbled up into my deprive energy.


    That¡¯s not too much of a problem when I¡¯m alone, because the energy all comes back to me eventually and everything I¡¯m deprived of once more becomes mine. In a dangerous situation though, for example when surrounded by countless violent psycho flying swords, I may end up dying and bleeding out from a simple cut because my stats have been so dramatically weakened.


    It was only recently I¡¯ve been having this issue though. Specifically ever since that kiss. That one, amazing, life-changing kiss.


    Well, I may be exaggerating it a little bit, but who can honestly say they weren¡¯t changed by their first real kiss with a girl. Ok, that may be over exaggerating again. I understand nothing about these things. I honestly expected to die alone, quietly bleeding out on the roadside after being hit by another car.


    Which now makes me wonder about how things are going on earth. Half my adoptive family has followed me in here and now I can¡¯t get rid of them, while the other half probably haven¡¯t even realised I¡¯m gone. I should definitely go back and see how things are going on good old Earth.


    But then I¡¯d lose something like ... great sage! I¡¯d lose days of game time! So much time wasted in reality? Like hell! Although I really need to go back to finish my higher level studies enrolment and choose something to learn, otherwise Uncle Calligso may start practising those wrestling moves he¡¯s been trying out on Morbid. I¡¯m sure I could take it well enough, but I really don¡¯t want to pop a boner while wrestling with my adoptive father. I have enough social scars as it is.


    NNGHH! Sigh. There I go again. I think I¡¯m starting to build up an unimaginable tolerance for pleasure, which is one of the reasons I¡¯ve been avoiding anything more with Seelie.


    Ok, that¡¯s a bold-faced lie. Although now that I¡¯ve had that thought, I really am starting to worry about that. Sure, the whole evil sociopathic monster lurking in your soul thing was my initial reason, after all, if we go further and get any more attached, she might end up doing something stupid if I don¡¯t make it past my 18th. While that¡¯s not as much an issue now that I sucked that bit of me out, I am strangely opposed to not eventually going through with the Tribulation.


    It contains my birthright after all. Even now, with every passing day the Tribulation rests on a wristband around my arm, I feel the desire to undergo it rising. I often find myself just sitting and staring at it when I have free time.


    Regardless, that is the main reason I have been running away from Seelie whenever things get heavier than our tongues touching. Now, however, I am very afraid that my numbing sense in regards to pleasure will result in Seelie feeling like she can¡¯t please me ... which she may not be able to without a large array of sharp weapons and violent spells. Already I¡¯m at a stage where only sentient level magical artefacts can harm me, which alternatively gives me pleasure. I¡¯m not even sure if I can feel normal pleasure anymore.


    Maybe I should run off to the Predator Universe and rub one out in the forest like a savage? Just to be sure that it still works that way. Also to release some of the building pressure from Seelie¡¯s constant advances. I often can¡¯t even think about her without immediately getting hard anymore. Especially after she started pouring in memories of what she¡¯s doing by herself every time she touches me! I¡¯ve never even taken her clothes off in person, and I could probably trigger her orgasm in less than a minute.


    Oh no! I just realised that this may have all been a cleverly disguised ploy to train me up like some common dog! She knows exactly what to do to get herself off, and she¡¯s made sure I know what to do ... Even a simple creature will learn after seeing various repeated scenes thousands of times.


    Great Sage help me! Sigh. I sure have been saying that a lot lately. I didn¡¯t even really know anything about the great sage before Seelie mentioned it. Now I seem to be praying to this intangible myth frequently.


    Maybe I should pray to something else? No. That is probably a bad idea. Given the nature of this world, praying to anything is probably a bad idea. Last thing I need is to be giving away power to some nut job ruling dozens of worlds in slavery and despotism like that Holy Light God fellow from Eden.


    Nearly there! Just a few more millimetres!


    Gotchya!


    <hr>


    With a gentle hum, the faint purple energy flowed from Murphy into his sword. Almost immediately, the half dozen swords it was stuck between began screaming as they were disintegrated by the deprive energy flowing through the plain looking blade, all the raw materials being almost simultaneously sucked into the blade of the sword like pebbles falling into a pond.


    Then everything suddenly started moving again. The hundreds of swords in direct contact with Murphy¡¯s body were already slowly being turned into their constituent materials by virtue of his depriving mana, each and every one of them fighting to try and either eviscerate him with just the bit he was touching or back away as quickly as possible.


    With a gap being created in the giant ball of swords, the sheer pressure of the swords behind started to collapse the sword ball like a deflating balloon. Murphy¡¯s deprive energy ticked again and a huge gush of it started filling the pool of his blood he¡¯d been floating in, along with every sword touching it by proxy.


    Swords started screaming and yelling in pain all around him as more of the flying bastards poured in like rain through the gap.


    Murphy started whipping his swords around over his head and watched on with shock as it sliced through everything it touched, leaving the remains too slowly deteriorate into various precious materials behind it, which it inevitably gobbled up on the next swing back.


    The more it ate, the heavier, sharper and more balanced it became.


    It never actually changed shape or design, apart from the bite mark Murphy guiltily tried to ignore, which seemed to have filled itself in after just the first sword it gobbled up. It was now obvious why this sword was advertised as an indestructible sword.


    Most likely, as long as even a speck of it remained, it would be capable of absorbing more materials with the help of Murphy¡¯s deprive skill. Murphy found himself wondering just what sort of miraculous material this sword was made from, and how in the hell that crazy old Smith got his hands on it.


    As far as he was aware, the only thing that wasn¡¯t deprived by his skill was his own body, though even that defensive mechanism had been on the fritz lately. Which brought him to start wondering what happened to the various limbs he¡¯d been losing when sparing with his adoptive father as of late.


    Being momentarily distracted by this quandary, Murphy missed it when he received a notification from the system.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused a tremendous accident. -233 Luck.¡¯


    It was only when he started hearing strange voices coming from outside the giant sword ball he refocused on the moment and noticed the message.


    ¡°Oi guys! Check i¡¯ out! Looks like a big ol¡¯ sword orgy over ¡®ere!¡±


    ¡°Oh? Quick, send a pulse. Can¡¯t believe them swords left us all out o¡¯ this!¡±


    ¡°Wait! You sure you wanna to do dat? I mean, what if them polearms or war hammers come over ¡®ere. You know what they¡¯s like. Total freaks!¡±


    ¡°Too late now. I awready sent out da pulse. At least if we ge¡¯ in now, we can enjoy ourself¡¯s ¡®fore they rock up!¡±


    These voices were all significantly different in comparison to the voices of the swords. The swords all spoke with an airy noble atmosphere and seemed to use proper speech. The new voices all sounded rather brutish and savage. Murphy didn¡¯t get the chance to figure out what was going on though, because following a whistling noise a huge serious of clanks rang out and the entire sword sphere rumbled.


    ¡°Hey der sword bro¡¯s. We axe boyz want some of dis action aye.¡±


    ¡°Fuck! Get out of here you dirty axe plebians! This is a sword gathering! Go and find your own weapon puppet!¡±


    ¡°What you say? Weapon puppet? Uh oh...¡±


    ¡°What do you mean uh-oh?¡±


    ¡°Oh hey! Did I hear something about a weapon puppet over here?¡±


    ¡°Fuck! It¡¯s the war hammers! Quick everyone scatter!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s too late! I can¡¯t get out! Hey, get off me you fat wood chopping piece of shit!¡±


    ¡°Hahaha! Oh this looks great! Let us dagger fellows joins in!¡±


    ¡°Fuck, what are the daggers doing here?¡±


    ¡°Move away you bastards! Let me out! I don¡¯t want the sword puppet anymore!¡±


    ¡°Oh? What¡¯s all this then aye? We siege weapon crew wouldn¡¯t mind a weapon puppet.¡±


    ¡°Fuck off you huge bastards! You¡¯re not even real weapons! Get out of here!¡±


    ¡°Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!¡±


    Weapons from all walks of life and military disciplines started pouring in from all directions. Despite the number of swords in the centre of weapon sphere all trying to escape from Murphy¡¯s deprive energy, their combined strength simply wasn¡¯t enough to prevent the crushing weight of all the new weapons from pressing in on them.


    The sheer weight of a few war towers, ballista and siege rams colliding with the group started crushing the weaker swords into shattered remnants.


    All of a sudden, the swords were once again being pushed inwards, causing the previous stalemate from the swords pushing against each other to collapse. Everything started compressing in around Murphy. Slowly but surely, even with his deprive skill steadily devouring things around him, sharps bits of metal started stabbing into him again.


    About the only place that wasn¡¯t affected was his sword, which simply ate anything that even touched it.


    Murphy took a deep breath and tried to refocus himself. He was well aware he had to somehow get out of this situation before he was crushed by the sheer weight of all these weapons.


    Unfortunately, his only good escaping skill was shadow walking. The prerequisite of shadow walking being in shadows. In this completely dark void, there wasn¡¯t even light, so how could there be shadows?


    He couldn¡¯t cast fireballs everywhere because he was basically trapped in a huge container of vicious weapons. The light would only illuminate and create shadows in the centre. He wouldn¡¯t be able to move outside with it unless he could get shadows to connect through the maze of weapons to the void beyond.


    He literally had nothing to help him escape this situation. With that in mind, he decided to just completely let loose. He started ramping up his mana output until deprive mana was simply pouring out from him like a purple aura. Unfortunately, despite his deprive already being level 7, it simply wasn¡¯t enough to quickly dissolve these absurdly high ends weapons fast enough to save him.


    Instead, the area around him simply started filling up with raw materials and compressing against his body as sword after sword was dissolved.


    Murphy then started trying to fill his inventory with the materials, but then all the pointy bits of the weapons started pressing in around him once again.


    He felt like he was going mad in his desperation. At last, on the brink of madness, he simply emptied his inventory of the various dubious substances he kept within. Mostly various explosive and caustic chemicals along with the potions and powders he made from them.


    ¡°Oh hey? Is this lubricant? Who let that stuff out?¡±


    ¡°Oh gross. You siege guys need to calm down a bit. Leaking your lubricants all over the place like a leaky faucet.¡±


    ¡°Wait, guys. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s lubricant. Weird powders are sifting through over here as well.¡±


    Murphy ignored their inane chatter and gritted his teeth. His eyes were bloodshot and wide open, which would have made him look like a madman on the very brink of world destruction had there been any light to see by in the area.


    He closed his eyes and prayed to ... well, no one at all actually. He decided to just go with it and have faith that his body could withstand the forces involved in the amount of stuff he¡¯d just released around himself. Finally, letting out a long breath, his middle finger rose on his hand and he focused on releasing the sole charge of flame stored up in his gloves from his fire starter perk in the recent days.


    ¡°Oh guys. Does that look like the ground down...¡±


    Before this comment could come to fruition, there was a great conflagration of flames spread out from the centre of the weapon ball. What had been thousands upon thousands of weapons in a huge cluster in the void suddenly became a brightly shining sun pouring huge spurts of flame out in every direction like massive solar flares.


    Countless shooting stars seemed to be shot out from the sphere of fire, leaving long trails of flames tailing along behind them as they poured down on the fog covered ground down below.


    From the very bottom of the sun, an especially bright star seemed to fall out like a drop of liquid squeezed from a fruit. Bits and pieces fell off from it occasionally burning into ashes. It rapidly descended to the ground under the guidance of gravities impetus. In a matter of minutes, with a dull thud, the star crashed into the dense fog, stirring it into a billowing wave that rippled out from the impact point.


    On the ground, a barely conscious Murphy grinned as he read his most pertinent status updates.


    ¡®Ping! Murphy¡¯s Law has caused an unprecedented happy accident. +67 Luck.¡¯


    ¡®Ping! Congratulations, you have activated the hidden effect of Blind Optimist. 6 minute boost to experience gained in Endurance sub-stat: Heat Resistance, Explosion Resistance, Plasma Resistance.¡¯


    <hr>


    Title: Blind Optimist


    Even when dealt a crappy hand at life, you remain optimistic in everything. You somehow manage to find some good even in the greatest of catastrophes.


    Gain random bonus dependant on situation.


    Power of bonus determined by Luck stat.


    <hr>


    Murphy was now very glad that he¡¯d managed to save up so much luck recently. Despite being flogged for 233 earlier, he was still more than 40 luck in the positive. It may not seem like much in comparison, but it was actually rare for anyone to have more than a few points in luck at any one point in time.


    Usually the universe treats it like some form of karma and cashes in extra luck or negative luck quickly. Murphy had spent a great deal of time thinking about and researching the topic. Especially because of his The Unlucky title, which gave him 10% more likely hood of accidents nearby him being negative even if his luck was positive.


    Even worse was the Sinister Undying trait from his Class, which doubled all negative luck and halved all positive luck. With those two things hanging over him like the reaper¡¯s scythe, he was forced to have his luck spawn steal luck for him as frequently as possible. It was probably the only thing keeping the population on his domain under control and encouraging people to leave.


    Though he felt slightly guilty about it, he¡¯d made sure they only stole luck from people with a positive luck stat. About the only people they wouldn¡¯t target though was the stone skins. Even Murphy got chills thinking about those strange monkish fellows.


    After Murphy read through his messages, he simply laid there, a charred mess. His body very slowly recovering. Taking it¡¯s time thanks to having to regrow every limb apart from his head. How anything inside him wasn¡¯t cooked to a well-done state was beyond him.


    He was pretty sure he had significant brain damage though, because his thinking was especially slow for some reason, even with his mass computation ability which indirectly sped up his thoughts slightly. At least he thought that was the case until his lungs, which were very slowly sucking in tiny wisps of mist, started to warm up. Then the slowly repairing musculature and skin also started slowing down in its repairs as his body lit up with pleasure all over.


    Even with his monstrous abilities, it was only a matter of minutes before the pleasure tipped over the breaking point into pain and torment, causing him to simply pass out.


    As his crusty burnt eyelids closed slightly and his eye¡¯s glazed over, someone strolled out from the fog, covered in a glowing suit that seemed to push away the fog. Even then, he was fully suited up in some kind of steampunk hazmat suit with various tanks on his back and a convoluted mess of tubes leading to various sprayers and a gas mask. Not an inch of skin was visible and there short stature mad them look like a little block of metal walking around.


    Without wasting a second, the hazmat suit dwarf quickly rushed up to Murphy. Without even showing the slightest sign of helping him, the suited person stood over the crispy body that was very slowly healing. Then, they aimed both spray attachments on the arms of the suit at the charred mess and began spraying a concentrated rainbow of gas over Murphy.


    His slowly repairing muscles and skin came to a halt as they began forming into pustules and blisters. Anything that came in contact with the rainbow fog began rotting away. The eyes peering through the glass of the gas mask seemed shocked to see that the Murphy hadn¡¯t already been reduced into a pile of goop and started pouring even more rainbow gas onto the body, even going as far as to start kicking and stomping on it in a vain attempt to cause some form of injury.


    This continued for almost half an hour until the gas stopped spraying out and only released a few weak spurts and completely stopped. Still, Murphy seemed to be very, very slowly drawing breath.


    ¡°Fuck! You fuckin¡¯ monster! Just die already!¡± A distorted voice rasped out from the suit. They then flung two cylinders off their back along with the sprayers and began taking out a pouch filled with glowing needles and stabbing them into Murphy indiscriminately.


    Murphy¡¯s body began to glow strangely and insects made of mana began climbing out from the stranger¡¯s suit, ravaging his body as huge scars and pulsing boils started forming near the needles.


    Even with all this, Murphy¡¯s body continued trying to outpace the damage by growing back. Worse still, it seemed the effect of the poison just kept getting weaker and weaker until another three hours passed and charred messy flakes began falling away revealing clear tanned skin.


    ¡°Fuckin¡¯ freak! That¡¯s me best stuff!¡± The suit wearer started huffing indignantly then finally just threw up their arms before storming back into the fog.


    A red glowing orb sat in the air high above observing this all, glowing ominously.


    ¡°Tsk! Even that fellow Carson couldn¡¯t kill him faster than he adapts. I was sure he¡¯d die on this level. No matter. He¡¯ll never pass the last level. Hahahaha!¡± With maniacal laughter, the glow winked out of existence, leaving the slowly recovering Murphy lying in the poison fog.