《A Hive of Bone and Chitin [A Biomancy and Hivemind Litrpg Adventure]》 1. The end of the world I winced as the makeshift medical trailer shook from yet another explosion; rattling the sparse medical supplies and sending a dull throb through my fever-ridden skull. Another explosion. I already had a fever, probably from something bad from last night. It was my everything that wanted to kill me, head, limbs, stomach, the dull ache from my right foot that I was almost used to. At least I wasn''t vomiting every hour anymore. Anymore. The climate wars hadn¡¯t been kind to refugees like me, especially ones crippled during the exodus. For people like me, the only way to not be ground into the dust was to be the ones doing the grinding. To even make this far had required everything from bloody sacrifices to stealing from other refugee caravans. Desperation made monsters of all of them, and monsters made horror stories. And I had been in a horror story for far too long. And that''s why I didn''t blame whoever was attacking, I had myself killed for survival before. That didn''t mean I had to like the violence when it was directed at me. Empathy didn''t make it any easier to stomach the explosions, the screams, the gnawing certainty that I wouldn¡¯t make it to the next sunrise. Empathy didn¡¯t make me not wish that those who were attacking us all end up dying from their injuries too if I don''t make it. There was probably a debate to be had about whether I was being a hypocrite but I simply didn''t care about not being one. I always had more pressing concerns that demanded my attention, like the explosions right now. I had perhaps naively hoped that we could have made it to some nation that wasn''t already sinking or shot refugees arriving at their borders on sight before raiders got to us but it seemed that fate wasn''t on my side. A smaller part of me whispered that it had never been with what I hoped was bitterness but it sounded more like petulance even to me. The plan had been simple, simplicity borne of a lack of options. Reach one of the mid tier countries that were only swelteringly hot and not underwater and hope to find a refugee ghetto or something to live in. It wasn''t particularly ambitious, no one expected to be let in the Northern Lands that still had pleasant weather. Maybe if I were to be sold as a slave to a billionaire or something? But no one had any use for a crippled slave. That had been entirely my fault. Really, I should have expected booby traps when trying to steal food. I was lucky that I was still alive and relatively mobile. In any case, the slave idea was not going to work out, regardless of how I deluded herself into believing it. And I was under no delusions that I was pretty enough to make it in a rich asshole¡¯s harem. I think I could do the smile validly at the camera thing though. Another blast, closer this time. I let out an involuntary hiss as the trailer bounced from the sheer force of it, injuries that had settled into dull throbs flaring up with a vengeance. The screams and gunfire rang in my ears like a song, like an old familiar song, one that would come on the radio when I was smaller, but something else was there too, a crackling sound that made my very bones shiver. Bones made me think of the news coming in. The dingy shortwave radio in the camp had been crackling with reports of something about bones for the last hour. The signal was unusually garbage and it came out all mangled with only snippets of it being decipherable. Someone in the Northern Lands evidently had enough of the refugees and launched another aerosolized bioweapon that gave everyone unlucky enough to be in its way M¨¹nchmeyer¡¯s disease. The last outbreak was so bad that it had wiped out a quarter of a continent. Just people dying with rictuses of suffering as their very muscles hardened on them. Just my fucking luck. I was just so goddamn tired.
The 2635th invasion of the Great Integration War was going well so far. This realm was already in the middle of a global crisis and resistance was feeble as a consequence of that. Except for the superweapons that could reduce entire nations to radioactive craters. The first time one of those was launched, The Unaugured God¡¯s army had lost half a billion freshly created soldiers, along with a few thousand soldiers that were slightly stronger. Nothing that this realm itself couldn''t replenish with a few cycles worth of training. Still, it was impressive for a world that only relied on non magical alchemy and crafting without the Dead One¡¯s system. Too bad extermination was all that the rather ingenious natives of this planet had in their future. Still, admiration earned was admiration deserved and if he didn''t mess up, he would help immortalize them through their creations. Karzak would love to unravel the technological mysteries of this world once it was secured. That was his purpose after all. Karzak was not a combat specialist, but rather a nascent [BONECRAFTER]. He technically shouldn''t even be on the field but instead toiling in the workshops back home, making as many Bonewarrior armors as he could but His Divinity had ordered a few Bonecrafters down to understand this realm''s strengths before the subjugation was complete and Ossific Archons would descend to simply rip the memories out of converted soldiers for the good of the kingdom. Such excursions were good for the class unlocks for newbie crafters like him, especially in such a technology reliant world and he was once again taken aback by the care His Divinity displayed for even the lowliest members of His kingdom. Not that he would disobey if the order didn''t make sense to his feeble mind, he corrected himself. A screech ringing from above made him pause, a Lesser Dracolich was fending off a few of the machines that the locals called fighter jets. Sprays of green ghostly flames met hails of metal projectiles and slowly but surely the Dracolich was being pushed back. Until another joined the fray and the fighter jets one by one all crashed into the ground under their combined assault. Karzak¡¯s thoughts raced. The jets were flimsy and didn''t really have any decent offensive capabilities but they were fast. He was not even close to being strong enough to craft a Dracolich by himself but if he was sure that he could reverse engineer the metal birds to make the Dracoliches faster. A series of holes and pipes attached to their wings and propelled by the drake''s own flames, oh yes he had ideas already. His Greater Inspiration skill levelled at least three times just from that. He filed it away for later, a project to maybe advance his specialization and focused on his immediate surroundings. They were eradicating a small camp of the natives and while they put up a nominal semblance of resistance, it was not even enough to fell a small squad of [BASE SKELETONS] without any non-starter serious specializations. And Karzak, of course. Karzak was newly raised and his other task was to eliminate whatever was about to die but hadn''t yet for experience. He lazily shot bone shards at the natives he saw were still breathing until he eventually found himself in what looked like a triage camp. He had been informed that nothing in there was capable of resisting even a baseline human, easy pickings for him.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. That''s when everything went wrong.
I was quite certain I was delirious. A skeleton monster had entered the trailer. It looked like a knight clad in ivory armor but with bare bones lacking any flesh wherever the gaps in the bone plates revealed its body. The thing¡¯s face (skull?) looked like a human¡¯s but with an elongated snout and two massive horns that curved backwards from the skull. Okay maybe it didn''t look like a human at all. I almost giggled, the drugs in my system weren''t helping. Yeah, let''s blame the drugs! It wasn''t that I was half convinced that I had finally, truly gone insane. I forced myself back to reality when it moved. I was still almost convinced that I was seeing things but I tried to crawl away from the approaching thing nonetheless, my long injured legs trailing behind me like the dead weight they were. I had, to some extent, resigned myself to my fate of dying at the hands of raiders. A skeletal knight was just weird enough to knock me out of my funk. That was a mistake, it had noticed me moving. It pointed an arm at me and I knew that I was going to die. The thing promised death that I understood was beyond my capabilities to escape, I understood it deep in my heart. My luck had run out. I closed her eyes, wondering if I would maybe wake up from a fever dream. It hurt too much to be a normal dream but I knew from experience that pain existed in dreams if there was an unrelated source of pain in my body. Like the sense of being stabbed in the stomach because of an actual stomach ache. That had happened to me before. Stop, focus. Focus. The shot never came. Instead the world shook with a degree of violence that made all previous explosions seem like mere speed bumps on a road. The monster stumbled and crashed into the ground and its shot went wide as it rolled into a wall of the tent. A dull sound and a spray of red on the walls let me know that it had found itself in a different target but I didn''t care. Not now. Of course, I didn''t have the time to see who the unlucky refugee was as I, too, slammed onto it a moment later; along with the other refugees and bundles of blankets and sheets. Obviously the trailer had flipped on its side. A part of me realized once I was no longer disoriented. I untangled myself from the pile with a pained grunt and raked my eyes across the remains of the medical camp. Upturned tables and stretchers and such were ignored as I searched for my would-be killer. The monster was on the ground and quite close to me. Now, for all the stupidity and distractions that my mind was prone to, I had been taught by a wagonload of pain and tears to never let an opportunity slip during violence. In the camps, being a scrawny teenager marked one as a victim, doubly so when one has lost a lot of the use of her legs and relied on crutches. I was not and never had been strong enough to deter people through my actual physicality, no, it was the same reason no one really likes to hang out with me. I was the type of girl to bring a knife to a verbal argument. And the knife was never for show. I had killed people twice and only one of them was in the camp but no one had any doubts that I could do it again if pushed, not after what I''d left of him. I may be a socially awkward and shy dork at times but the caravan had a rule. Rule number 28 of the caravan, don''t fuck with the small crippled girl unless you plan to shoot her from afar. This skeleton monster was going to learn why that was a rule. I was not going to die without taking my pound in bone. I didn''t hesitate, not here. I attacked with all the violence and rage that I had been stewing in for so long, in my daydreams, in every moment when I had to eat food that had gone bad, every moment for the last few weeks. I was angry, and had been angry without an outlet for too long. And now finally I had an acceptable one. I screeched, imagining that I was mauling one of the assholes from the North that watched from safety while we struggled to stay alive. I imagined the face of the Loan Forgiveness Service guy who came to collect my parents, first my mom and then my dad. I twisted and hoisted myself over the thing while wrapping my arm around its neck. Another was meanwhile groping around for something I could use as a weapon. Me suddenly pulling myself up on its ¡ªhis?¡ª back had destabilized it and it fell face first back into the pile from which it was rising. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I slammed the skull on the hard ground again and again, not to kill but to disorient, assuming skeleton monsters could even be disoriented, using my butt to pin down the arm that had shot something. The thing below me was much larger and stronger than I was but it was all bones beneath a partially open shell and I stuffed everything I could reach into its joints and between its bones. A metal flask of water, dirty blankets, my gown. Even a large shank that I kept in my pocket ever since one of the other refugees had the idea that I could be taken advantage of due to my recent disability. May Damian rest in dog poop. Cloth was shoved violently between the tibia and the fibula in its right leg and that limb was taken out of commision. The bones refused to flex anymore due to their obstruction. A bloody blanket for the left. More for the arms. I know that machines could be jammed with enough soft material in the moving parts and as far as I could tell, the thing below me was all moving parts. What I hoped was a corpse¡¯s still attached arm and fingers went somewhere in there, I didn''t really check. The thing was recovering but I had been quick in clogging every joint and point of articulation I could find. The creature was strong. The metal flask bent, and the knife lodged itself halfway through a bone but it was not enough. I smashed the head again and again and again as cracks began to form. The monster struggled more violently and I was dimly aware that I had been stabbed in her torso by a bone without me noticing. I was bucked off my ride as it finally rose but I hung off it for some reason instead of falling off. The reason for which soon became painfully apparent. The bone spike stabbing! I could feel the bone spike that had stabbed me was moving and growing within my body, it would have made me throw up if I was slightly more aware of anything other than that I was dying. I would die here, killed by this thing. A long skeletal arm was groping behind itself towards me, clawed fingers promising a hopefully quick death. But then someone else grabbed the creature, another patient and its attention was divided. With a renewed vigor and strength that I didn''t know I possessed, I grabbed the skull and pulled, using my own body¡¯s weight as leverage as I slowly and painfull started to slide off the spike that had impaled me. I expected its struggles to lower in intensity as it started dying but it kept getting worse until, with a sharp crack the tent fell silent right as the bone in my body bloomed, ripping out several new orifices. One spike jutted out of my chest, the point bifurcating into two branches that each divided themselves into two. "Fucking M¨¹nchmeyer disease." I felt the mad energy that had flooded my body leave me all at once and I collapsed on myself, only propped upright by the bone flower that had grown inside me. My head drooped forward as all vitality left my frame, my eyes staring at the only thing they faced at that angle, the pool of blood with shards and chips of bone in it that was all around me. My last thoughts were that the shards looked like stars in a red sky. 2. Save Yourself, Save The Entire Multiverse (S.Y.S.T.E.M) My entire body ached, my head pounded with a dull, unrelenting throb. I had just woken up from another nightmare. At least this time, it wasn¡¯t the one where everyone I knew was gunned down, no, this time they were killed by walking skeletons. The nightmares were getting a bit too bad. Maybe I should try to get my hands on one of those productivity therapist programs? I had no idea where to even start. Opening my eyes, I saw¡­ nothing. No ceiling of the rundown trailer I called home, no murky gray-yellow skies of Earth. Not white, not black¡ªjust an emptiness so absolute, it made me question if I even had eyes at all. If I was still asleep. And yet, I felt the sensation of my eyelids blinking. Over and over, my brain registered the movement, but the void remained. Slowly, I opened my eyes and I closed them just as slowly but nothing changed. Had I been blinded somehow? It didn¡¯t feel like there was a blindfold. I tried to sit up but my body didn''t respond. I was entirely aware of my limbs¡ªtheir pain, the faint pressure of contact against some kind of surface¡ªbut I couldn¡¯t move a muscle. I couldn¡¯t see. I couldn¡¯t hear. I couldn¡¯t even scream. And still, the pain lingered, sharp and undeniable. Stamping down on my surging panic, I seriously started to entertain the absurd notion that maybe, just maybe, it had not been a nightmare. I wasn¡¯t particularly religious, nor did I believe in an afterlife. But if I¡¯d died¡ªperhaps to that horrible bone monster¡ªshouldn¡¯t death at least have the courtesy to end the pain? Then, a voice tore through the silence, loud and unyielding. ¡°GREETINGS AND CONGRATULATIONS, MORTAL. YOU HAVE FULFILLED THE CONDITIONS TO BECOME THE NEXT QUIRAION¡¯S KNIFE. UNFORTUNATELY, YOUR UNIVERSE¡ªAND BY EXTENSION, YOUR PLANET¡ªARE NOW CONDEMNED. THIS ONE CANNOT AND WILL NOT INTERVENE. WHAT THIS ONE CAN OFFER IS SOMETHING ELSE: A CHANCE AT VENGEANCE.¡± What? I tried to speak, to demand answers, but my body refused to cooperate. The voice continued, booming obliviously. ¡°LORD QUIRAION, THE LORD OF FIRE AND MAGIC, OF THE SHADOWED FLAME AND THE MIRAGE OF THE DESERT, OF THE ILLUSORY VEILS. THE GOD OF MISCHIEF AND ASSASSINS AND SCHEMES AND TRICKS HAS PERISHED. HIS GREAT SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL GROWTH HAS BEEN SUBSUMED BY BONELORD ASTER¡¯S FORCES FOR THEIR OWN ENDS.¡± That''s a lot of oddly specific domains for a single god, a part of me that loved to provide commentary noted. I still couldn''t see with eyes but images flashed in my mind as the voice spoke. An endless tide of bony horrors, some biped, some quadruped and others that burrowed like worms or had too many legs to count, and yet others had wings of thin membranous gray. They all marched as one, on the land as on the sky across a vast desert. The sky was aflame. Meteors raining down across a surface already on fire. Great hulking beasts made of living flame ravaged the broken crust of the world as cracks in the ground belched out lava. No, it wasn''t an attack. It was a ceremony, a funeral, a mourning. The whole world was facing something. Something that was slumped on a giant red throne. Something that fractalized and wavered in the air, never settling into a form that was cognizable, like it wasn''t entirely there. But where was ¡®there¡¯? A white flame slowly rose up, consuming the throne and the thing seated there, a bonfire that left nothing behind, not even ash. The flame engulfed me, entered me, and yet I wasn''t burned. I swam in the fire, reaching towards the throne. Guided by something I wasn''t exactly sure about. I swam in that ocean of white fire, never once feeling hot. I might have swam for hours, or minutes, or days. I wasn''t sure. I kept swimming, trying to reach the throne. I just knew that I had to get to it. As soon as I could. I had to. As I drew nearer, I felt them. Thousands of other swimmers, all racing towards the throne, strange vibrations reverberating across fire. I felt the throne, resonating across a sense I had never had before. The resonance rose, intensifying, echoing until all I could feel, all I could think, all I was, was the throne. And finally I found it, a brilliance that shone all possible colors at once. Colors that didn¡¯t and shouldn¡¯t exist. The radiance of the throne illuminated and burned me. I tried to resist in vain but the flame consumed me, consumed the girl I was. Until she was nothing but an ember. I jolted back with a scream that I couldn''t vocalize. It was me, I was still me. While I was still reeling from the vision¡¯s intensity, the voice continued unbothered. ¡°THE SYSTEM WAS THE GREATEST WORK OF MAGIC IN THE MULTIVERSE, SO GREAT WAS ITS SCOPE AND MIGHT THAT IT SPREAD ACROSS ENTIRE UNIVERSES. FOR SOME, THE SYSTEM ARRIVED INTACT AND IN OTHER MORE MAGICALLY INERT UNIVERSES, ECHOES OF IT MANIFEST AS ART, DREAMS OR IN VISIONS. YOUR UNIVERSE IS ONE SUCH CASE NEAR THE TIME OF YOUR DEMISE.¡± Another vision, a much less intense one than what had come before. An uncountable number of small spheres formed a band that stretched infinitely in both directions. What looked like almost endless glowing nerves snaked around and within the band, often splitting off into smaller nerves. ¡°THE SYSTEM TAPPED DIRECTLY INTO THE CONCEPT-LINES OF THE MULTIVERSE TO GROW AND GRANT POWER FAR BEYOND THE CAPABILITIES OF A SINGLE GOD, EVEN ONE AS GREAT AS LORD QUIRAION. BUT THAT POWER ATTRACTED ATTENTION.¡± My mental eyes zoomed in on one of the smaller nerves. I got the impressions of bones, flesh stripped off bodies by the elements, ancient remains and histories encoded in skeletons. ¡°THE UNAUGURED GOD¡¯S REALM CHALLENGED QUIRAION¡¯S DEMESNE TO A GODWAR OF DOMAINS. THEIR GOD FORESAW THE FULL POTENTIAL OF THE SYSTEM AND SOUGHT ITS POWER. THE WAR WAS LED BY BONELORD ASTER, THE CHAMPION OF THE BONE REALMS. ASTER WAS AND IS REMAINS ONE OF THE GREATEST WARRIORS IN THE MULTIVERSE. LORD QUIRAION KNEW THAT HE COULD NOT BEAT HIM IN A DIRECT CONTEST. BUT HE ALSO KNEW THE BONELORD WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO RESIST TAKING THE SYSTEM INTACT, FOR THE GLORY OF HIS GOD AND KING. A CONTINGENCY WAS THUS LEFT IN THE SYSTEM. A SMALL GIFT THAT COULD ONE DAY BRING THE BONELORD AND HIS GOD ALIKE DOWN. THIS ONE IS THAT CONTINGENCY. AND YOU, MORTAL, SHALL BE THE ONE TO WIELD THIS ONE''S TRUE POWER AGAINST THE BONELORD.¡± ¡°IF YOU SURVIVE THAT IS, THE MULTIVERSE IS VAST AND THE CONTINGENCY CAN''T BE SEPARATED FROM YOU WITHOUT YOUR ALMOST CERTAIN DEATH. YOU ARE FROM THE 286th BATCH OF KNIFE CANDIDATE SO FAR. TWELVE HAVE TRIED AND TWELVE HAVE FAILED BEFORE YOU. PLEASE TRY TO ENSURE THAT A 287th ISN''T NEEDED.¡± ¡°TO LET YOU GROW IN POWER TO COMPLETE YOUR DIVINE TASK, YOU, AND 11 OTHERS FROM YOUR WORLD SHALL BE TRANSPORTED INTO A SANCTUARY WORLD DEEMED IDEAL FOR YOUR COLLECTIVE DEVELOPMENT.¡± I really wished I could speak right now. Or at least ask questions. Or hell, just tell the loud voice to stop shouting. My head hurt so much, it was almost as bad as that one hangover I had when I had whatever chemical weapon Julia called alcohol. How did I have a head if I had no eyes or mouths or limbs? Was it even my head that hurt? No focus.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Oh god, this was just one of those isekai shows that my friends watched while high. As the climate wars intensified, stories about escaping to a new world where people didn''t have to work to the point of relying on drugs to not collapse on their feet rose in popularity. For obvious reasons, sacrificing everything including their lives for the rich made people wish to escape their broken little world and so a genre that had been popular a few decades ago had a resurgence. Of course, the irony was not lost on anyone that the studios and publishers that distributed these stories were also owned by the corporations that shaped the world that everyone so desperately wanted to leave behind. And then of course, there was the subgenre where it was just random rich people hooking up people to simulations for their enjoyment. Those stories tended to end up being horror stories about psychopaths finding the perfect way to torture people to any and all limits without any risk of them dying. They usually ended with said rich psychopaths getting brutally murdered. I hope I hadn''t been hooked up to such a simulator but with my luck, who even knows? I tried to actually digest what the disembodied magic voice was saying but my thoughts were a lot more scattered than normal, breaking down into meaningless noise the moment I let myself be distracted. A GODwar? I was being conscripted into a multiversal war? Somehow getting into the Northern Lands seemed easier than this insane task. Usually the isekai stories that were popular were relatively low stakes at the beginning. Kill slimes or rats or survive in a cave or something. Once again a sequence of images. People, heroes, some that looked vaguely humanoid and others that looked more like something out of the Lovecraft stories I loved reading so much as a kid. All faced the bone army and manipulated the forces of nature or had world shattering physical strength and all died. Some fought alone and others helped vast armies. All died, and all of them died screaming as their powers were wrenched out of them with force. Those screams sounded way too visceral, +1 to the ¡®psychopaths got to me and are fucking with me¡¯ hypothesis. ¡°TO BECOME A KNIFE, A MORTAL HAS TO DIE WHILE KILLING A VASSAL OF ASTER, HUNDREDS OF OTHERS FACTORS ALSO INFLUENCE THE LIKELIHOOD OF A SUCCESSFUL TRANSFORMATION. THE UNCOMMON CONFLUENCE OF FACTORS WERE NECESSARY TO MAKE THE CONTINGENCY IMPOSSIBLE TO REMOVE BY THE BONELORD. YOU ARE FORTUNATE TO HAVE MET ALL THE CONDITIONS.¡± Thanks? ¡°YOUR TASK IS SIMPLE. SURVIVE, SEEK POWER IN ALL ITS FORMS AND ELIMINATE THE BONELORD ASTER.¡± Another vision. This time of an indistinct figure wielding a whip several times his size. No, that was not a whip. It was a spinal cord. A spinal cord that had to be the size of a bus if the figure was comparable to humans in size. ¡°THE BONELORD ASTER IS THE HIGH CHAMPION OF THE BONE REALMS AND ONE OF THE MOST FEARSOME WARRIORS IN EXISTENCE. BUT THAT''S NOT WHY YOU ARE CHOSEN TO FACE HIM. HE ALSO HOLDS THE SINGULAR SKILL OF GODSBANE THAT MAKES HIM NIGH INVINCIBLE TO GODS. BUT YOU ARE NOT A GOD. THUS YOU MUST KILL HIM.¡± Okay. Kill a godkiller. Nothing unreasonable. Maybe if I had a free Saturday. ¡°WITHOUT HIS SUPPORT, THE UNAUGURED GOD WILL FAIL. HE SHALL FALL, BY YOUR HAND OR BY THE HAND OF ANOTHER ONCE HE NO LONGER HAS ASTER¡¯S PROTECTION. THE UNAUGURED GOD IS NOW COMMANDING A CONQUEST OF YOUR MANA DEAD UNIVERSE. THIS CONQUEST HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR CENTURIES AND BECAUSE OF THE WAR, THE INFLUENCE OF THE SYSTEM HAS SLOWLY BEEN SEEPING FURTHER INTO YOUR UNIVERSE.¡± Wait. If this system was anything like what I was used to from stories and the system manifested as art¡­ yep. That was not a can of worms I was touching. Worrying about what other ideas were just bleedover from multiversal magic shenanigans was above this girl¡¯s paycheck. ¡°IF YOUR UNIVERSE FALLS ENTIRELY, IT COULD BE HARVESTED FOR POWER TO LET ASTER¡¯S GOD HAVE AUDIENCE WITH A HIGHER PRINCIPALITY. SUCH A SCENARIO IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO LORD QUIRAION.¡± More images, now of a singular point of both light and dark situated in a cluster of those nerves. A star from which emanated energy and from that made and unmade entire universes in the light and shadows it cast. I knew without even being told that this was one of the so-called ¡®higher principalities¡¯. ¡°THE KNIFE SHALL NOT BE AN ADVANTAGE THAT CAN BE SQUANDERED, IT WILL LEAVE YOU IF IT DEEMS YOU UNWILLING OR INCAPABLE OF FULFILLING ITS TASK. THIS WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY KILL YOU. THE KNIFE HOWEVER IS GENEROUS AND WILL NOT RUSH YOU AT ALL TIMES OR FORCE CONFRONTATION NEEDLESSLY. PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU DO NOT ABUSE LORD QUIRAION¡¯S GENEROSITY.¡± Now, I wasn''t the most hard working of women, actually I was rather the opposite if anything but I thought that it sounded generous in the same way a billionaire working people for over 100 hours a week for just enough that they could afford the cheapest grub was considered ¡®generous¡¯. I had a lot of questions though and being unable to ask any of them was worrisome because the message sounded like it was mostly pre-recorded and nearing its end. ¡°GOOD LUCK MORTAL. MAY YOU BE THE KNIFE THAT FINDS ITSELF IN THE HEARTS OF THOSE THAT CONDEMNED YOUR WORLD AND COUNTLESS OTHERS.¡± ¡®Nooo, wait.¡¯ I screamed internally before my skull split open in a flash of white. I didn''t even get to ask for any additional information!
Lines of softly glowing blue text greeted me when I regained consciousness. //INITIALIZATION COMPLETE //ENTITY NAMED ¡®ANANYA HARTFORD¡¯ SUCCESSFULLY TRANSLOCATED //Calculating base stats¡­ I opened my eyes to a blue sky that I had never seen except on old videos. The sky I was familiar with was all dark and cloudy. The text was still floating there, now enclosed in a semi transparent box of gray. It shifted and elongated until it was a vertical scrolling window on the left side of my vision. Can I make it disappear? No sooner than I had that thought, it did. And then it came back when I tried to imagine it coming back. Satisfied that it responded to my thoughts without any problems, I turned my attention to myself. My head was thankfully not hurting so much anymore, no, now my entire body was. I turned on my side with a hiss and used an arm to push myself into a sitting position. Thankfully, I still had my dirty brown tshirt and jeans on. They were just ripped and covered in blood. That was weird because I didn¡¯t have any of the injuries that led to said bleeding anymore. I seemed just like I remembered being before the bone monster, no bones sprouting out of my abdomen and no more or less parts. I was just like I had been before, same hands, same unhealthily skinny body, same brownish skin, same mangled legs. Same. Mangled. Legs. In a new world. My right foot was still a blobby stump and my left still had toes missing. Just perfect. Exactly what I needed. \\Starting stats determined and analyzed STRENGTH: 6 CELERITY: 5 VITALITY: 5 ACUITY: 11 WILLPOWER: 13 PERCEPTION: 11 ATTUNEMENT: 10 I had played enough games before the exodus to guess what most of those stats meant. Attunement I assumed was related to magic, I hope I got magic. My physical stats being in the gutter was probably due to a mix of a long list of badly healed injuries and malnutrition, not even counting my disability. \\Subject has debuff: severely crippled \\Subject has debuff: malnutrition \\Subject has debuff: improperly healed bones And on and on it went. \\Subject has debuff: unhealthy coping mechanisms \\Subject has debuff: addiction prone \\Subject has debuff: CPTSD \\Subject has trait: mental resilience \\Subject has trait: Enduring \\Subject has trait: Low Maintenance \\Subject has trait: Unhesitant Murderer \\Subject has trait: The Knife Of Quiraion \\Subject has trait: Dead Quiraion¡¯s Blessing \\Subject is determined to be weak Wow, that was just being rude at this point. \\GENERATING STATUS NAME: ANANYA HARTFORD RACE: HUMAN ACTIVE CLASS: [NONE] CUMULATIVE CLASS LEVELS: [0] MASTERED CLASSES: [0] AGE: 19 STATS: STRENGTH: 6 CELERITY: 5 VITALITY: 5 ACUITY: 11 WILLPOWER: 13 PERCEPTION: 11 ATTUNEMENT: 10 SKILLS: PASSIVES:
  1. Basic Earth Education: 2
  2. Dirty Fighter: 3
  3. Quick Killer: 1
  4. Neurotic Observer: 2
  5. Knife User: 2
ACTIVES:
  1. Find Weakness: 2
  2. Improvised Tool Use: 1
  3. Scavenging And Scrounging: 2
  4. Intimidation: 1
TRAITS: 3. The Coldest Blood \\NO ACTIVE CLASS DETECTED. PLEASE SELECT ONE TO START OR RESUME LEVELING YOURSELF. Blue text flashed on the periphery of my vision. I ignored it for now. I had landed in a forest clearing. The grass was bright green and soft, and as far as I could see, none of the gross kinds of insects were crawling around or worse, on me. It honestly reminded me of those signboards about some vacation biome up deep in the North with how idyllic it was. Of course the corpse put a slight damper on things. It was the bone monster, now thankfully dead with a detached skull half buried in the dirt. Did that mean that it had a brain? It had felt hollow when I had attacked it. Well, I would figure it out once I got used to the game-like interface that blinked in and out of my vision as I willed it. And hopefully after that, I''d find civilization before some wild animal ate me or I starved. Survival first, skeleton anatomy later. It always came down to that, get to place B from place A to not starve or die to the elements. Some things stayed constant across all worlds. Death, taxes, and being on a timer due to uncaring forces vastly more powerful than me. My shank was in my pocket but without a hunting dog or something, I didn''t fancy my chances of catching a rabbit or squirrel or whatever animals roamed this world. With my luck, this place was so nice because it was the personal picnic grounds of someone really powerful who would have me executed if I were to be discovered. I imagined some fat noble in a gaudy purple and gold robe. I wondered if I should yell and hope some human hunter or something similar finds me but then I remembered that I was in an unknown forest. An unknown forest with unknown denizens. I cringed, trying not to think about how profoundly idiotic that idea was. I poked the dead monster beside me. It didn¡¯t respond. ¡®Okay Anya, focus. What do I know?¡¯ I was conscripted in a war between what were ostensibly gods that was fought on a scale that was not even comparable to any war I had ever heard about, in fiction or in reality. And the thing that had conscripted me had marked me as a Knife candidate, whatever that was. I pulled my status back up into the center with a thought and focused on the trait. The interface seemed to only exist when I wanted it to. I briefly felt the concept of elaboration and tried to apply that to the trait. Bingo! \\The Knife Of Quiraion When the Great God Quiraion perished and his powers were seized by his enemies, he cursed those very powers to produce the bane of those that felled him. The Knife Of Quirion is bound by destiny and duty to slay the Bonelord Aster who bested Quiron in combat and the Unaugured God who drives this conflict and bring an end to this bloody conflict. The god Quiraion is generous but make no mistake, you are a soldier now regardless of your wiIs and you will serve, in life or through your death. EFFECT: Destiny itself twists and turns to create a crucible from which supreme power may emerge. Your skills and classes level faster and have an increased chance of evolving and consolidating. You will also face more opportunities to increase your power than most but proportionately peace will forever elude you. You will die if you abandon your goal regardless of your power. If it is determined that you are not bettering yourself for your confrontation, this skill will punish you. This punishment can become lethal depending on the severity of your trespass. These shackles upon your being will be released with the death of Aster. When facing Aster or The Unaugured God, you will be able to channel Lord Quiraion¡¯s remaining essence. Once, you will be saved from certain death. No no no, was it too much to ask that my unique isekai skill would not kill me unless I destroyed a multiversal army and its god. Can''t ever catch a break, can I? Caught halfway between being horrified and just annoyed I looked at another of the traits. \\Dead Quiraion¡¯s Blessing Behold! The Great God Quiraion is truly great and merciful for he has further blessed you with a fraction of his power. When a god demands something, the world listens and it obeys. EFFECT: Your true gifts and origins are hidden to all but gods of scrying and information. This means that you will not be marked as a Godchosen from the beginning unless you choose to reveal yourself to someone. anonymity is its own reward when one is weak and yet has great potential. Furthermore, once a year you can succeed at a single system action if it has at least a 5% chance of success otherwise. A successful action will receive increased benefit from The Knife of Quiarion until the cooldown expires. When a single skill is boosted like this, nothing else will benefit from your blessings. Better. Much better. I briefly wondered if everything had descriptions this long and verbose. I doubted that, these felt like the sort of thing that I''d expect that a clergyman would care about. Right, holy war for the souls of the masses. My theory was proven right as I checked another. \\Unhesitant Murderer: You have killed before for your survival and will kill again for the same. Weakness is death. EFFECT: you don''t hesitate during combat and the sight of death and gore doesn''t faze you. Yeah. This is useful and good. Especially with Knife¡¯s nonsense. The notification flashed before me for the third time. \\NO ACTIVE CLASS DETECTED. PLEASE SELECT ONE TO START OR RESUME LEVELING YOURSELF. I dismissed it again. I was NOT going to pick a class before I was done with the stats. One part of me idly noted that I was going through my screen from the bottom to top \\Low Maintenance: You have lived on scraps and leftovers, you have known scarcity and you will not forget it even in abundance. EFFECT: you require 15% less food and water for survival and you take 15% longer to starve. you also require 20% less resources for any projects you do completely alone.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. \\Enduring. You have survived a lot and you will keep doing it. EFFECT: You have a preternatural sense for recognizing and escaping or surviving immediate danger. \\Mental Resilience: You have endured great trauma and now have metaphorical scar tissue. EFFECT: You are less likely to contract long term mental trauma due to the things you experience. I was pretty sure trauma didn''t work like that but regardless I was done with traits. Oh well, I was not a therapist and I had never seen one in my life. Not my coffin, not my funeral. And now for the active skills. \\Find Weakness: 2 That knight in resplendent golden armor may be stronger than you but she is dead to an arrow through the eye and you are not. By taking a moment to analyze your enemy, you can often find weaknesses that you can exploit to neutralize them. 5 mana per use. I didn''t think my status screen listed mana anywhere. //Improvised Tool Use: 1 You don''t always have the best gear or equipment but you can make do with what you have. You can improvise and make cheaper inferior alternatives and you can substitute similar enough tools for any task you want. This does not guarantee success. No mana cost. \\Scavenging And Scrounging: 2. You can go hungry or you can find food. You can die or you can find some clean cloth for a tourniquet. You can find or retrieve things from your surroundings faster and more efficiently. No mana cost. \\Intimidation: 1 Fear is the oldest and the strongest emotion and you can lace your actions with it. To threaten or to demoralize, to convince or to scare, fear is yours to command. 5 mana per use. Everything was at least mildly useful and I could see why the system thought I should have those skills. I looked at my passives and decided that all of them seemed relatively self explanatory. Basic Earth Education: 2 Dirty Fighter: 3 Quick Killer: 1 Neurotic Observer: 2 Knife User: 2 I moved on to my stats instead, and attempted to expand them with the same elaboration trick. It didn''t work. Of course it didn''t, the one stat that I wanted to know about was attunement and it refused to tell anything about it. Dejected, I was about to move on when they finally opened up. Oh god, was the system lagging? Strength was obvious. Vitality was my overall robustness and health (not the video game kind of health). Celerity was speed and dexterity. Perception was again obvious. Acuity was interesting, it was the mental equivalent of celerity. Adaptability and mental reaction speeds. Willpower defined my mental resilience. Attunement was interesting but also the simplest in a way, just my total mana and mana regeneration. Nothing too weird or esoteric. I went back to the passives and looked at them. They were as I expected from the names. Basic Earth Education was just that, Dirty Fighter helped me generally win fights better, no hard numbers. Quick Killer sped up and steadied me if I was about to incapacitate or kill someone with the next blow, Neurotic Observer was just me noticing things like exits, potential hiding spots, possible weapons and so on around me. Knife User granted me basic competency and slightly better damage with a knife. None of them had actual numbers except for Knife User. //Knife User: 2 The knife is the most subtle and forgotten weapon. In bloody battlefieldS, larger weapons reign and yet one blade in the dark can end wars faster than a thousand swords in the sun. You know how to use a knife in combat and knives deal 0.5% more damage per level. Current bonus 1%. As I read, I was still thinking about how to proceed. I didn¡¯t hear any activity and so it was possible that the other knives ended up elsewhere in the world. That meant I was alone. And that moment of realization changed everything. I dragged myself closer to the dead(deader?) bone creature and leaned on it, suddenly exhausted as my eyes caught the sun and not dust clouds shining with some golden light that I was used to. I think I should have a greater reaction to being whisked away to a new world, but I felt muted. I should care about that, hell, I should care about the fact that I wasn''t caring about that but I didn''t. All my life, I had one little part of my mind that was cold and observed things without any emotion. But that part had always been a fragment of me but now, I felt colder than ever before. I wish I could say I was concerned about whether my traits or skills were altering my mind. I wished I could say that I hated it. But that would be a lie. It didn¡¯t feel good, but I didn¡¯t even care for that. I wasn''t numb, I was still thinking about how to survive. I would lie about being attacked by wild animals and then being thrown in the woods by my people once my injuries made me incapable of working in the fields if it was a medieval fantasy type world. A factory incident for an industrial age. But what if healing that could fix my legs was commonplace enough? I couldn''t just say that I was from a different world and was conscripted by some dead asshole. I would make something up. But first, I had to reach civilization and that meant mobility. Maybe I could use the monster¡¯s legs as makeshift crutches. The voice had mentioned that this was a sanctuary world, whatever that was. My survival was a lot more important than my feelings about my circumstances right now and my survival demanded action. \\The traits Mental Resilience, Enduring and Unhesitant Murderer have consolidated into the passive skill Cold Blooded \\Cold Blooded: 1 Hesitation is weakness and weakness is death, and so is failure to adapt. Your mind knows what it is and you are at peace with it. You are the mistress of your mind inviolate. To survive among monsters, you shall become one. Sentiments or base instincts don''t make you hesitate to do what''s necessary or distract you. To err is human and you will be more than human. You are almost immune to mental trauma and the waves of horrors that you face will not break you when you are in danger and mental problems that impact your performance will slowly fade away. Your focus and mental resilience increases per level. You don¡¯t make mistakes because of emotional inadequacies or disturbance. Emotions that jeopardize you or compromise your judgment in an actively dangerous situation will lose their potency. Yes, this would certainly help me. I ruthlessly crushed the part of me that was screaming about losing myself, not important now. I noted that traits didn''t have numbers besides them like passive skills and Quiraion¡¯s Knife had mentioned leveling skills but not traits. So it was likely that traits were generally static and didn''t improve unless they became skills like with Cold Blooded. Maybe Knife could be absorbed or evolved like that? Even if possible, I doubted that it would be easy to remove or alter a trait embedded into the very system by a god. Just something to keep an eye on. Another thing that was interesting to me was that passives improved as they levelled up but no active skills mentioned any improvement of any sort. Interesting. I would have to figure out what that actually meant in practice but that was for later. Too many things to deal with. What else was left? Oh yes, my race. It thankfully also opened up. Too bad the information there was rather scarce except for a line of information about how humans are the most common of all Elvenoids. Though I had no idea what a class factor was. \\Race: Human \\Family: Elvenoid \\Class Factor: 5 \\The most numerous of all Elvenoids in the lands of the former Catrian Empire \\NO ACTIVE CLASS DETECTED. PLEASE SELECT ONE TO START OR RESUME LEVELING YOURSELF. Now that I was done with my status screen and understood as much as I could, given my immediate circumstances, it was finally time to pick a class. 4. Bonecrafter ¡®Show me¡¯ I commanded the system as I zeroed in on the bold [NONE] that was my active class on the status screen. A list unfurled. Lines of glowing text raced past my eyes before I could even read more than a single letter as more and more classes replaced the ones that came before them. I could blink and miss three entire screens worth of unique class names in just that time. There were too many. Hundreds of classes if not thousands. Or even more. \\Hiding some classes due to the influence of Knife of Quiraion \\Merging duplicate classes An involuntary sigh of relief escaped my lips as the class list reduced itself to a more manageable amount. There was something weird going on with the system, notifications grabbed my attention in a way that was not entirely just my own mind¡¯s behavior. They were silent but metaphorically loud in the worst way. And with the hundreds of classes that I had? That was an ordeal. There were still dozens of them but that was a far cry from the sheer insanity I was initially faced with. But the system was not yet done. \\Sorting classes into archetypes \\Remember that your class choice is not permanent. You will have to choose a new class once your current class reaches its maximum level. Completing lower tier classes paired with high stats, skills and feats will unlock higher tier classes in that archetype. Specialization is deemed to be optimal for most people. Some classes may exist in multiple archetypes as archetypes are only an abstraction for the purposes of ease of selection and are NOT actually a meaningfully real stratification. And now I was looking at a much more manageable number of windows arranged in a circle around a glowing white circle. The circle pulsed and radiated light outwards that shone upon the text of the windows. It almost reminded me of the Higher Principality that I had seen. Offensive Magic Healing And Divinity Support Magic Offensive Melee Protection And Defense Speed And Assassination Long Range Offensive Summoner And Controller Crafting And Misc Support Charisma And Leadership First things first, I needed mobility. I couldn¡¯t travel as I was right now and I was missing my crutches. I had to get myself fixed, and it has to be soon. The healing window expanded until it was as large as the white center of the class screen. \\CHOIR SINGER (0/10) A CHOIR SINGER channels the rejuvenating energies of the world through her voice to cure ailments and injuries. A basic CHOIR SINGER can heal minor bruises and produce light at will. She can also cause those that listen to her song to feel energized. A CHOIR SINGER opens up the SIREN and BARDIC PATHS. At higher class levels, a SIREN can weave nigh unbreakable enchantments and illusions that alter reality wherever her voice reaches and a BARD can make demigods out of mere mortals MASTERY BONUSES: +1 to ACUITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT Completely worthless! Minor bruises and some light? Wow, if that''s the quality of things I was looking at then I was in a lot more trouble than I thought. Back in my old world, I had never been one for singing myself and I was not not sure if singing magic was that good of an idea for someone with no experience or training in music. And not to mention singing loudly when I didn''t even know what kind of horrors could be lurking in the forest was just asking for trouble. Really though, it would have been a decent choice if I was not in the middle of a forest. It wasn¡¯t bad exactly. Just not very useful. \\SUPPLICANT (0/10) A SUPPLICANT petitions a god to perform minor miracles such as healing small injuries a- Nope. Even if it wasn''t limited to just small injuries, being a cleric was not really something I wanted to do. I was already bound to one god¡¯s one task, I didn''t want any more unless I was totally out of options. The more chains I had now, the less flexibility I would have down the line. Not to mention the possibility of said chains getting in each other¡¯s way. I really didn''t care to become a religious fanatic of any kind. A picture of me becoming a paladin and using skills named Holy Smite or something flashed through my mind and I stifled a giggle. I was sure that a Paladin was one of those classes that existed in multiple archetypes, a Protection and Healer combo, or maybe a Protection, Healer and Melee combo. Before Cold Blooded, I might have actually shuddered at the thought of becoming one. But that raised a very interesting question. I was not the only one to have been transported to this world, how would a religious person deal with this whole thing? I guess I would find out eventually. \\BLOODMAGE INITIATE (0/15) A BLOODMAGE INITIATE uses her blood to both heal and harm. She speeds up the natural healing rate of the body for allies and induces internal or external bleeding in her enemies at this small step on the Eternal Ziggurat of the BIOMANCER. At higher class levels, BIOMANCERS can regrow entire bodies, regenerate from small traces of DNA, mutate themselves or others into great monstrosities and absorb biological traits from their foes who find their very bodies in open rebellion against them. MASTERY BONUSES: +2 to STRENGTH, VITALITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT This class had 15 levels instead of the 10s the two previous classes had. Maybe better classes took longer to level up? The Biomancer path certainly seemed to be pretty superior to the ones I''d seen before, both for the future power and the stats it offered for mastering it. I was also sure that I''d find this class in the offensive magic section. Going to that archetype and scrolling past at least eight variations of an elemental mage, I did eventually find it. Making a mental note to pick this as my next class unless something much better was available, I moved on. The rest of the healing magic classes were nothing that I liked but I did find a few other 15 level hybrids. A ki based monk path that purified the body that was also a fast martial artist, an alchemy based potion maker path and a weird class that transferred injury between people. After seeing how disappointing the healer classes were, I was not feeling confident when I checked the support magic classes. Maybe I could get a transportation or divination based class? It was somehow even more disappointing than the healers. Sure I found the things I was looking for but the beginner level classes were really bad. Okay maybe knowing which way was North was actually kind of useful but it wasn''t good enough.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. I did find something very interesting, if horrifying. \\MAGICAL BEAST REARER TRAINEE (0/10) There are two ways to level up, do things associated with a class or kill to absorb the souls of your victims. A MAGICAL BEAST REARER TRAINEE helps with rearing and raising magical beasts for slaughter to empower the next generation of humans. She learns to use spells to calm beasts, boost fertility and clean excreta This path can progress toward raising ever greater monsters in larger quantities or can branch into HUMAN CHATTEL REARER. MASTERY BONUSES: +1 to STRENGTH, CELERITY, VITALITY I did shudder this time, of course magical factory farming of people was a thing here. I didn''t even know where I was or what this world was called but maybe I should not be so hasty to get back to civilization. At least it gave me confirmation that humans were a thing in this world. Feeling oddly paranoid, I looked around myself and once again my gaze was drawn to the bone monster. It was vaguely humanoid but much taller than a human should be. Yeah, I think I shall use it to make crutches and then think about the future. Blacksmith apprentice, potion maker apprentice, cook, rune inscriber apprentice, blah blah. I was sure that a prosthetic crafter should be a thing. It could be one of the level 5 healer classes that I had skimmed over. I didn''t get the point of those level 5 classes, they only gave a single point to one stat and made no promises of future grand power. Maybe they were just so that people could grind their stats to qualify for better classes? I was about to go back to the healers when a class caught my eye. \\BONECRAFTER NOVICE (0/15) The Unaugured God has ordained that reality will submit to his will and you will see that His dream is fulfilled. A BONECRAFTER NOVICE can use bone to make rudimentary armaments and tools and can harvest the bones from the dead to replenish her material stock. She can use her magic to prepare bones with almost inhuman precision and her stats are multiplied when harvesting bones. A BONECRAFTER can eventually learn to create great machines of war and golems and even steal the very memories of the dead from their bones. eventually building even mighty ELDER DRACOLICHES will be a child''s play for you and you would be able to generate bone from just your magical powers. MASTERY BONUSES: +2 to STRENGTH, CELERITY, PERCEPTION AND ATTUNEMENT I stared at the text in the air before me before dismissing it, stared at the thing I rested against and reopened my status screen. My eyes narrowed. Improvised Tool Use, Low Maintenance and Scrounging and Scavenging were all relevant here, extremely useful in fact. Once was happenstance, twice was suspicious but three? Something was up. I reopened my Knife trait and read aloud. ¡°You will face more opportunities to increase your power than most.¡± Fucking dead god. My face had a grin for the first time since my death. \\Class [BONECRAFTER NOVICE] selected It started at level 1 as I expected. 1/15. \\Mana unlocked due to picking your first mana using class. Attempting to use skills without having the requisite mana will use your very life as fuel. Existing mana consuming effects will deactivate in such a case. Rarely, some skills will consume other resources instead. Keep mana consumption and regeneration rates in mind when using skills. \\Skill Lesser Bone Harvesting learned \\Skill Lesser Bone Crafting learned \\Skill Fossil Identification learned \\Remember that you can only have 9 active and 9 passive skills at any given time. Please unassign unwanted skills regularly. An unassigned skill can be reassigned but after a long cooldown based on its power and level. Unassigned skills are still available for consolidation purposes. Some skills don''t take up slots. It felt strange to have mana, like suddenly healing from a chronic pain that had plagued someone for decades. It almost made me lightheaded. It felt good. I was dimly aware of my mana like it was a weakened sense. I could reach and almost touch it but it eluded me, flowing between the gaps of my fingers and rolling on her and caressing me mockingly. It was like trying to hold on to something slimy in running water, just not gross. If I could grab onto it, I could do anything. I felt the power of it, how the world bent around it, through it, I could be the one bending the world. It just didn¡¯t want to be held by me for some reason. I would have spent at least an hour trying to grasp my mana but Cold Blooded triggered and I instead expanded and scrolled through my notification log to examine my new skills. \\Lesser Bone Harvesting: 1 You can harvest bones from corpses for your purposes, be it for augury or potion ingredients. Your stats are treated as being 50% higher when harvesting bones. Uses 10 mana per minute. \\Lesser Bone Crafting: 1 You know how to use bone as a material or reagent for your creations. You have an instinctive knowledge of the magical potency of bones. No mana cost. \\Fossil Identification: 1 You can look at the skeletal or fossilized remains of creatures to identify their source. You can further infer the life cycles of such creatures. 5 mana cost. Oh, I could use that to get more information about whatever this Unaugured God was. I stared at the skeleton and thought of fossil identification. I felt the mana that twirled around my body diminish and grow lighter. I tried to commit that sensation to memory. Another thing to add to my now alarmingly large list of things to do, check if mana can be easier to use directly if it was partially used up or I had more to spare. [Armored Lesser Skeleton, raised just hours ago by an incomprehensibly powerful being to serve some purpose] \\Fossil Identification is now level 19! I shook myself and focused on the task ahead, filing away despairing at the relative mediocrity of my now highest level skill for later. And also that I had apparently died to a baby that wasn''t even a day old, that was definitely not something I was going to dwell upon. I brought my knife out and began to slowly detach one of those long tibia bones from a weird cartilaginous goo that held it in place. I was a short girl, not even accounting for the malnutrition, and the thing I was operating on was taller than any human could ever be so the tibia was actually the perfect length for me. My mana slowly dropped as I operated on the skeleton. I kept working, my mind focusing almost entirely on the task at hand while occasionally just checking to make sure I still had the mana to spare. Finally I beheld my great work. Two long bones that shone brightly in the sun. The epiphysis was intact on one end, that would rest under my arms and on the other end, the one that was supposed to make contact with the ground, it was slightly flattened for a better grip. Smaller pieces of the skeleton were tied with strips of my rather abused tshirt to form something that vaguely looked like a grip. I was split on the thing in all honesty, on one hand I was proud of what I''d made out of a skeleton but on the other, it was so rough that I just wanted to move on. Of course both of those emotions were promptly ignored when a barrage of notifications hit all at once. [Item created: Rough Bone Crutches. Due to working with Godtouched bone, massively increased experience was awarded.] \\Lesser Bone Harvesting is now level 23! \\Lesser Bone Crafting is now level 23! \\Scavenging And Scrounging is now level 8 \\Knife User is now level 7! \\[BONECRAFTER NOVICE] is now level 15! \\Class mastered [BONECRAFTER NOVICE]. +2 to STRENGTH, CELERITY, PERCEPTION AND ATTUNEMENT And then came the pain. NAME: ANANYA HARTFORD RACE: HUMAN ACTIVE CLASS: [NONE] CUMULATIVE CLASS LEVELS: [15] MASTERED CLASSES: [1] AGE: 17 MANA: 60/60 (REGEN 12 PER HOUR) STATS: STRENGTH: 8 CELERITY: 7 VITALITY: 5 ACUITY: 11 WILLPOWER: 13 PERCEPTION: 13 ATTUNEMENT: 12 5. Knuckebones I screamed as my body twisted. Pain. Pain was all I knew and pain was all I was. My sanity stretched as I felt in excruciating detail, all my muscles unraveling and reforging themselves over and over again. I must have screamed for days under that torture, it certainly felt like that. The sun in the sky however cheerfully insisted that it had been only minutes at best. Everything felt brighter, louder and my mana felt too heavy for me, almost suffocating me. I was not sure how long it took but eventually but soon enough, I was back in control. I found myself again from within the mass of quivering whimpering flesh curled up in a fetal position that I had become. So that''s why the five level classes exist. I had realized at some point in my agony. Had to ease someone into getting stats instead of just picking the one with the biggest numbers like a moron. \\Cold Blooded is now level 5! I laid there, still recovering and occasionally flexing my hands and marveling at my newfound strength. My body was still mine but it felt stronger, healthier, like I had a superior physical presence and mastery of my own body, like I was deliberately keeping my body the way it was instead of letting gravity do it.I was a woman on a mission and testing the actual range of things that had changed in me was not a priority, just had to test enough to not overshoot everything with my greater strength and celerity. But I did take a moment to wipe away the blood from my face. Foreheads apparently didn''t take kindly to people trashing in agony right besides a skeleton monster. Who knew? \\NO ACTIVE CLASS DETECTED. PLEASE SELECT ONE TO START OR RESUME LEVELING YOURSELF. I hadn''t expected to be done with my class so soon but if those bones gave so much experience then I''d be dumb to not abuse them as much as I could. I reopened my class screen and went to the utility magic section. I had seen something there that had stayed in my mind. There it was. \\BONE AUGUR¡¯S ACOLYTE (0/10) To glean information one shouldn''t know through augury is the path of the Shaman-Prophets of the Northern mountains. It is an inexact science and anything with sufficient power naturally occludes the eyes of lesser scryers. and yet, the Northern tribes endure as they have for centuries through this art. A BONE AUGUR can eventually learn to bend fate to her will, avoiding misfortune with the grace of the luck gods themselves as her enemies perish from tripping on their own blades before they ever reach her. A true BONE SHAMAN is rumored to be able to know the moves a warrior will make in a fight before it even begins. MASTERY BONUSES: +1 to ACUITY, PERCEPTION AND ATTUNEMENT Fine. It was probably inferior to the [FOREST GUIDE] class that I had been eyeing but free levels and skills are free. And there was no way I was ever going to successfully carry the whole skeleton with me anytime soon. \\Class [BONE AUGUR¡¯S ACOLYTE] selected \\Skill Lesser Bone Augury learned \\Lesser Bone Augury: 1 You can glean the knowledge of the world from mere bones. No more shall mundane secrets be hidden from you. By carving special runes on the distal phalanges (finger tips) of the left frontmost limb of a creature, you can make bone charms that you can toss in the air while asking a query and they will point you towards your target. Requires at least five charms. Has a chance of failure. Uses 15 mana per use. \\Lesser Bone Crafting is now level 25! \\Lesser Bone Harvesting is now level 26! \\Knife User is now level 10! Some skill levels later, I was the proud owner of a set of five finger bone charms with runes carved on them. I couldn''t read them but somehow I had known that those were what I had to carve on the bone. The knowledge was not mine but it was still mine, my thoughts spontaneously producing it like it were just an idea I had. I had also made another knife, this one made of bone but even I could tell that it was complete garbage. I was also not gaining as many levels in my skills as before, some of it I could blame the relative size of the bones for but carving those runes was absolutely a much more intricate job than my crutches. Evidently diminishing returns were in play here. Another thing to keep in mind. I was not going to use them immediately, I had learned my lesson well. I rose and walked a few steps away and laid down on the grass. Nothing around that I could injure herself with in my trashing. No skeletons or tree roots or sharp blades, just soft green grass. ¡°Where can I find some food and water?¡± I asked out loud, feeling a bit foolish. The bones were tossed into the air, they spun and moved unnaturally in the air as it shimmered. I could almost imagine seeing visions of cities and castles in the haze and then they landed beside my head. And there was no meaning in it. They all pointed in random directions. And the lack of any levels just confirmed that it hasn''t worked. And yet my mana was consumed. I grumbled to myself and tried again. This time it worked like a charm. A bone charm possibly. \\Lesser Bone Augury is now level 19! \\[BONE AUGUR¡¯S ACOLYTE] is now level 10! \\Class mastered [BONE AUGUR¡¯S ACOLYTE]. +1 to ACUITY, PERCEPTION AND ATTUNEMENT I was expecting pain like before but all I got was a sharp piercing headache that soon subsided. I was not sure if it was because I was getting used to it or maybe one point gains were just that mild but I was glad. my mana was hovering at 10 now. Not enough for an augury but enough for making something with bone if I wanted. But maybe by the time I picked my fourth class, it would regenerate enough. A girl could hope.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. New class time. I was actually kind of enjoying blazing my classes like this. If the trend for diminishing returns was any indicator then I won''t be instantly finishing classes like this for much longer but I could enjoy it while it lasted. What else did I need? I had mobility and navigation sorted out as well as I could reasonably sort them out in my present circumstances. Maybe something offense based? There was no [BONEMAGE] class anywhere. In fact, there was no other bone based class that I could find from just reading the titles. And my stats were apparently still too low to open up higher tier [BONECRAFTER] or [BONE AUGURY] classes. So that left me with a few options. Of course there was the [BLOODMAGE] route but I was not sure if it would be immediately useful to me. If every starting class was this weak then my blood magic was probably not going to be any different. In fact, it didn''t seem like just picking 15 level classes with promises of power in the future was the wisest course of action if they all gave me so many skills. I still had a limit to worry about. Other than the crutches, I was not sure that [BONECRAFTER] skills were going to be that useful for me right now compared to augury. Sure, with [BLOODMAGE] and a knife, I could make any wild animals attacking my bleed out but that didn''t mean anything if I was mauled to death as well. The defensive options were all things like aura barriers or giant shields, I didn''t have the mana to spare for the former and even if I made a bone shield, it would not work with my crutches. And even if I was sure that it would give me great experience, my mana was not up to the task. It was with great regret that I realized that I couldn''t do anything more with my kill unless I planned to return in the future. And assuming nothing got to the bones in the meantime and assuming I even remembered the place. That was a lot of assumptions to make for someone in my abysmal situation. Finally I found an option that I didn''t like but seemed like the best choice for me. \\MUGGER (0/5) The world is a dark place and you will make it just a shade darker. You are the one who lurks in dark alleyways and leaves bodies behind. Let the heroes go on their grand adventures, let the dragons hoard their mountains of wealth. The city is your lover and my seedy streets and pubs my bosom. The evil lich can be vanquished but the cockroaches always survive. As a MUGGER, you have three friends. Stealth, fear and the belief that the only honor that exists is in survival. You know how to leave no witnesses behind, be it through the shadows or through blood. MASTERY BONUSES: +1 to CELERITY I didn''t get why the class description sounded so fanatical. It was like something the leader of an assassin sect would say and not someone who pointed sharp objects at people and demanded their purses. \\Class [MUGGER] selected \\Skill Minor Stealth learned \\Dirty Fighter is now level 4! And with that, my active slots were full. What could I ditch? Intimidation seemed like the obvious choice for when I inevitably get something more useful. I briefly entertained the idea of taking that spine and making it a weapon like Aster did but I just couldn¡¯t carry it.
¡°Where can I find a safe space to shelter and rest?¡± I muttered to no response. Not even the shimmering visions I had seen before. Oh right, I was still out of mana. I leaned against a tree with blood red bark and sank into the soil with a sigh, slowly letting go of my crutches. I had enough mana for one augury now. Fishing out some oversized finger bones, I whispered while silently praying to the Dead God Quiraion. ¡°Where can I find a safe space to rest?¡± It worked on the first try. And the bones pointed in one direction. The direction from which I came, the clearing. \\Lesser Bone Augury is now level 22! I almost screamed again in frustration.
I briefly cursed Quiraion again as I finally discovered what my bone charms had deemed an acceptable source of food and water. It was a campfire in the middle of the forest with a single horse drawn carriage beside it. There were no horses. I was sure that there was water and food inside the carriage. But there was a problem. The owner of the tent lay dead outside it. A body, pale in death and blue from poison. And a creature the size of a small dog that looked like an unholy fusion of a spider and a scorpion was gorging itself on it. It happily tore off chunks of flesh and swallowed them whole without chewing, occasionally regurgitating the flesh back on the ground and slicing it into more manageable pieces with its fangs. Cold Blooded activated almost immediately and I slowly backed away from the giant flesh eating arachnoid, taking care to make no sudden movements or sounds. I was not scared of spiders but I was scared of giant venomous man eating monsters with thick exoskeletons that looked like they could have me for dinner and still be hungry.. \\Minor Stealth is now level 2! \\[MUGGER] is now level 2!
¡®Where''s the nearest human settlement?¡¯ I asked a few hours later. \\Lesser Bone Augury is now level 25! ¡®Okay so if my left is yes and right is no. Is it within a reasonable walking distance?¡¯ This time every bone fell in a circle and all of them faced inwards. Message received. Don''t try to cheat the magic bone charms. I hadn''t encountered any wildlife beyond the man eating arachnoid so far but I was hungry and thirsty and aching all over. my arms were stiff from supporting the crutches for so long. The sun was soon going to set and I was sure that it was night when the really dangerous critters came out to play. my time was limited and running out. I was becoming desperate, and desperate people made stupid decisions.
I was sure it was a bad idea as I stared at the Arachnoid that was still eating its victim. Unfortunately bad ideas are sometimes better than no ideas at all and so, I found myself in my current predicament. I snuck closer, unsteady because of my new weapon. \\Minor Stealth is now level 3! The creature was covered in black chitin and looked like an abnormally large spider with extra bits attached. Twelve hairy limbs and ten bulbous red eyes on an engorged hirsute head and a tail stinger like a scorpion¡¯s but much longer, even in relation to the rest of its body. The front most limbs ended in narrow pincers like daggers and the rest were all legs. Its body pulsated with each chunk of meat that it consumed and I was almost sure that it had grown just a bit larger. A segment of its exoskeleton sloughed off as the creature froze and began twitching and I could see a new plate forming. It was pinkish and soft looking but it was darkening before my eyes. The creature resumed its meal. I lost 5 points of mana. \\Find Weakness is now level 3! I was about 90% sure I''d die even if the knife tied to the end of one of my crutches found the next regrowing plate. I doubted it would die immediately and I didn''t think I could fend it off or run with one crutch faster than its most likely venomous tail reached her, or I fell and the mouth that I hadn''t seen up close but could tear off flesh so easily ate her. And if I went into actual knife range then I was as good as dead. I looked at the thing that was growing larger and stronger every minute, I stared at the pathetic little approximation of a spear she''d made that I didn''t know how to use. It wasn''t like I hadn''t ran away without even trying to fight from it before, it was just sensible. And I hobbled away once again. Turns out, I was not that desperate actually. 6. The Cave The cave looked normal and my bone charms had guided me to it but it still seemed rather ominous. Quiraion only knew what kind of monster lurked inside, just waiting to gorge itself on me. And I just didn''t have the mana to spare for auguring the cave anymore, it was entirely bottomed out and I really didn''t want to spend the night out. Going in blind was not a good idea but¡­ really I had only one option and I knew I was waffling. Not for the first time that day, I regretted not really knowing what kind of trees correlated to which biomes and what animals inhabited those biomes. Even if only so that I could have a vague inkling of what type of monsters to expect. But no, I was going in completely blind as usual. My augury didn¡¯t tell me about any actual danger in the way between me and whatever I was looking for. In some ways, augury was my strongest skill but more often than not, it was also just slightly better than tossing a coin. Shuddering as I remembered that spider monster, I stepped inside. The cave was surprisingly mundane. Maybe I''d expect glowing moss or something but no, it was just dark. The sun was fading behind me and soon, I''d be in almost complete darkness. Maybe I should have picked up a mage class, even if just so that I could burn mana to produce fireworks. Five minutes or so later, I decided that stumbling any deeper with the amount of visibility I had was ill advised and tried to make me as small and unobtrusive as I could and settled down for a long overdue rest.
The sound of something skittering around woke me up. I didn''t know how long I was asleep but my mana was full so it had to be at least five hours if my math was not completely off. I held my breath and listened. Whatever it was, it didn''t sound as big as the scorpion spider I had encountered earlier. Secondly, it didn''t seem to be aware of me. And finally, it seemed to be alone. My highest stat was perception at 14 and while that might not have been exceptionally high, all my senses were boosted by it and I could make out slightly darker blobs of darkness in the dark. And one of them was moving. Cold Blooded activated and I remembered that killing things made me stronger. ¡°KILL TO ABSORB THE SOULS OF YOUR VICTIMS.¡± My hand slowly went to my knife, careful to not move too suddenly. Patience was the name of the game here. My fingers closed around an uncomfortably cold handle. \\Minor Stealth is now level 4! And then, I waited. If the thing came closer, I would strike but I was not going to chase it. It was looking for something, hopefully not fresh Anya meat. Then finally, after what felt like ages, it was in range and my arm moved even before my mind consciously decided to do it. It lashed out and buried the blade in my target, pinning it to the soil as it trashed violently in its last moments. \\Spider-Scorpion Hatchling slain \\Cold Blooded is now level 6! \\Quick Killer is now level 2! \\[MUGGER] is now level 4! No Knife User level but it was already high from my earlier bone carving. I wrenched the blade out and went back to sleep, still very tired. My dreams were about being overrun by a tide of darkness, hundreds of spider-scorpions burying me under their mass as a cold blue light shone balefully from above.
When I next awoke, it was morning. My throat was patched and my stomach was starting to protest. I ignored them in lieu of examining my kill with Fossil Identification. [Spider-Scorpion Hatchling, spider-scorpions were originally a biological superweapon designed to overrun entire countries but over the course of thousands of years, the modern spider-scorpions emerged as an ecologically sustainable aggressive predator. Spider-scorpions are solitary hunters that use their venomous stingers to kill their prey.] I didn''t know quite how to feel about that. Spider-scorpions being solitary hunters was good, I will not have to worry about swarms of them. But their origin was concerning. I didn''t have the best experience with biological superweapons in my old world and between that and the existence of class paths for factory farming of humans, it didn''t paint a flattering picture of the world I had found myself in. I was not even close to being hungry enough to consider eating raw spider-scorpion so I shakily rose, Cold Blooded letting me power through the screaming my arms were doing. I trundled deeper into the cave now that it was very dimly lit. The cave was not very deep and I soon found myself at its end. It terminated in a wide natural chamber that opened up to the sky above. At the center of the chamber was the skeleton of a long dead animal. It looked like a bear to me. A small rodent-like mammal suddenly tried to run past me and I rammed my weapon through its skull before I could even realize that it was rather cute and probably harmless. It was a snow white rat but with a set of fractal blue lines on its back. It looked like the right size for something the tiny spider-scorpion hatchling would have been hunting. \\Mana Rabbit slain \\Quick Killer is now level 3! \\[MUGGER] is now level 5! \\Class mastered [MUGGER]. +1 to CELERITYThe author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I was proud of myself for managing to stay upright as the pain hit. It hurt less than when I mastered my first class but more than with my second. So assuming the pattern held, gaining physical stats actually hurt more than gaining just mental stats. Just had to grit my teeth, I didn''t even have to smile on top of that unlike my old world. \\Skill Pain Tolerance learned Another passive skill, just dulled pain and reduced its debilitating effects on me while ensuring I was still aware of it. More effective per level but no numbers. I tried to use my Fossil Identification on the mana rabbit (it didn''t look like a rabbit to me) but apparently it didn''t count when it was still all fleshy even though creatures with exoskeletons counted. The bear skeleton was just a big bear called a cave bear that sounded so normal that I didn''t even get a level from it. I should probably learn to ignore the notifications lest I be distracted at a key moment, Cold Blooded should help with that but it was not worth the risk. Anyways, I had a class to pick. I could pick something focusing on endurance or something for navigating and surviving in the wild. Or I could just pick [BLOODMAGE] like I wanted to. I had realized that at this point, any single class wasn''t going to help me escape in time. I was going to be here for at least a few days, I needed to move slowly and minimize the actual danger I was in. If the bleeding could be induced at range then I could use it on any animal like creature and use my stealth to wait until it died. I was not sure how well it would work on spider-scorpions and other arthropods that didn''t exactly have blood in them. The loss of fluid could kill but I wouldn''t want to gamble on that being close enough to blood for my class. And it was all conjecture based on just hopes and dreams. I didn''t even know what that fluid was called, the trouble with having to abandon school even before I went to high school. Another problem was that my mana regeneration was slow and every hour I used blood magic was one hour where I wasn''t auguring to find my way. Mana was already a scarce resource for me and [BLOODMAGE] was another persistent drain on it. At close range, I was not great against anything that wasn''t small animals or unsuspecting people and the non-mage ranged classes all relied on weaponry that I didn''t have and would run out of ammunition for even if I went back to the two skeletons and made some. It had to be a mage of some sorts or something with a separate fighter that I controlled. Something like an unmanned drone or something. I looked at the other offerings on display that seemed good. I had a new 15 level class that I was sure was unlocked because of the spider-scorpion I''d killed \\SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE (0/15) A SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE understands that the most successful form of life in the world is that of the insectoids and that''s for a reason. She can tame insectoids to make them do her bidding. She can further enhance her minions¡¯ ferocity by sacrificing her mana. At higher class levels, SWARMCALLERS can bring down apocalyptic swarms of insects on those that dare oppose her or she can command a few titans that can even wrestle with drakes. Or maybe, even darker paths await a SWARMCALLER that eschews the weaknesses of the mortal races. MASTERY BONUSES: +2 to VITALITY, ACUITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT I looked at it and knew that my choice was made. Poor [BLOODMAGE], it was supposed to be my second class but now I was on my fourth. \\Class [SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE] selected \\Skill Tame Lesser Insectoids learned \\Tame Lesser Insectoids: 1 You can attempt to tame insectoids to take them as your vassals and soldiers. Unlike other tamer classes, SWARMCALLERS don''t get Empathic Bonds or similar skills. For swarm and eusocial insectoids, you can tame them en masse. The chance of failure increases based on the swarm or colony size, maturity, intellect and power of the target and other minor factors. You can only possess one discrete unit of tamed insectoids at a time, be it a single insectoid or a single swarm or colony. Taming can''t be broken by a swarm unit unless the tamed unit is or becomes at least six times as strong as the tamer. Removing or losing this skill will make you cede control of everything you have tamed. Injuring or weakening a target makes them more susceptible to being successfully tamed! Uses 30 mana per use. //WARNING: Active skill slot limits exceeded. You can replace a skill or refuse to equip your new skill. Unequipped skills can¡¯t be equipped again for a period of time determined by their power. Unequipped skills do not confer any benefits but exist and count for consolidation purposes only. \\Skill Insectoid Physiology Knowledge learned \\The skill Basic Earth Education has partially consolidated with Insectoid Physiology Knowledge into the passive skill Diverse Insectoid Physiology Knowledge. \\Diverse Insectoid Physiology Knowledge: 1 There are few types of life more numerous and varied than insectoids. Across worlds, you have encountered different insectoids and have understood how they each thrive and where they fail and now your knowledge will expand even more. With this skill, you gain an instinctual understanding of how mundane and magical insects function, their strengths and weaknesses. With each level, your repository of knowledge expands and you learn about stronger and more esoteric insectoids. \\Spell and Technique Lists unlocked due to picking your first spell using class. Spell And Technique Lists contain spells and techniques that independently progress from both skill and class levels. Learn them through tutelage or experimentation. They don''t improve or consolidate like skills and successfully improving or merging them will just create a new and better spell or technique. They are however considered skills for determining if other skills or traits affect them. \\Swarm Magic spell list unlocked. \\Swarm Magic Spell list Hasten Swarm: 25 mana Molting: 50 mana Those were a lot of notifications. I replaced Intimidation as I had planned with the tame skill. It was low level and low quality enough that it would be made available again in a bit over a week if I wanted it back. The knowledge skill was weird, it gave me knowledge about random insects in the same way I had known how to make bone charms. And that the fluid that insects had in them was called hemolymph and it would count as blood.
\\Lesser Bone Augury is now level 26. I was once again outside the cave as it held nothing else of value for me. The cave was useful when I needed to relieve myself but that was it. In any case, I was done with hiding and jumping at shadows that I was convinced were hunting me. I finally had an actionable plan and method now. I was hunting for the small dog sized Spider-Scorpion that I had fled from twice. It should have grown big and strong from its meal but not so far that my skill wouldn''t work on it. Unless it had killed and eaten at least three more humans since when I last saw it. Modern Spider-Scorpions didn''t grow into behemoths like their ancestors anymore. I knew that. I also knew that spider scorpions referred to rest after eating large meals. I would make sure my mana was full when I confronted it. That gave my two attempts at taming it before my mana would dip too low. \\Diverse Insectoid Physiology Knowledge is now level 3! 7. A Girl and her Dog I found my quarry resting not far from the carriage. Now almost the size of a Dalmatian dog; I counted yet another set of legs jutting out of the now elongated arachnoid body, bringing the total to twelve legs and fourteen limbs. Its stinger tipped tail was now longer proportionally and it coiled around the creature like a serpent. The tail with its segmented chitin platings resembled a large spiky centipede without the legs. It was somehow even more hirsute than before and there were patches of rust colored hair in the otherwise black hair. Like all spiders, it couldn''t close its numerous eyes and they had somehow bloated even more since I last saw it, disfiguring an already lopsided face. A large and slightly off center eye dominated the face. It was a genuinely ugly thing, even to my abysmally low standards for what counted as cute. My distaste for it didn''t mean much when I could tell that it could kill me in seconds and conversely, was also a better protector for my fragile body than I could be by myself. My knowledge skill was telling me that it was still within the limits of what my Tame Lesser Insectoids could handle but I had to be careful to not let it grow too quickly. But first, I had to tame it. Tame Lesser Insectoids only worked from a very short range and while it didn''t require actual touch, I still had to get close enough to it that I practically could touch it. And that was a problem because I was sure that the spider-scorpion¡¯s perception had to have risen too after it had grown. I had time but not an infinite amount of it. I inched close to my target, watching for any twitching or stiffening that indicated that it was waking up. \\Minor Stealth is now level 5! I almost jumped at the notification but Cold Blooded stopped me. Now that I was closer, I noticed that over half of its tail was caked in dried blood. A mental image of that appendage stabbing through the guts of hapless victims rose unbidden in my mind and I was once again reminded that these creatures were originally made to destroy civilizations. \\Minor Stealth is now level 6! Wow, it had to be really strong if my stealth was levelling this quickly. No, now was not the time to be distracted. Any moment now. And done, I was in range and I had managed to do it without waking up the monstrosity before her. I gently set my crutches down until I was sitting at roughly eye level with the slumbering Insectoid. It was even more terrifying up close than I had thought from afar. I didn¡¯t need Intimidation, taming this was enough. ¡°Tame Lesser Insectoid¡± I whispered. My mana almost halved itself. And it didn''t work. And the thing began to stir. Its massive tail was uncoiling itself with the sound of a heavy corpse being dragged across a floor as the bulk of its mass began to rise. Its many eyes focused on me and I could see black slits in the middle of the crimson orbs. The hair that covered its body bristled and its mandibles clicked. Every inch of its body promised my death and it would not let me even attempt to resist that fate. And I understood it, understood that I would die before I could force myself to even move. I was in the presence of a far greater predator than I was equipped to handle. Cold Blooded activated instantly and my body could respond again. My mind split, one operating perfectly and doing what she knew had to be done, and another that just observed disinterestedly. Which one was I? I couldn¡¯t ever answer that. I knew that there was only one option left that wasn''t an absurd gamble. My eyes tracked the stinger racing towards my face and my lips quickly and silently formed the words. \\Cold Blooded is now level 7! \\Tame Lesser Insectoid is now level 5! \\Dead Quiraion¡¯s Blessing is now on cooldown. Cooldown remaining: 365 days. \\[SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE] is now level 5! \\Spider-scorpion worker successfully tamed. You can now command it. \\You can now see the status of your spider-scorpion worker. \\You can now cast your swarm magic by using your spider-scorpion adult as a catalyst. The tail froze in mid air just inches away from my face and then retreated as the spider-scorpion curled it back around itself and then relaxed its legs. I supposed it was a gesture of surrender or supplication. And thank Quiraion for that, my mana tank was almost entirely depleted and I had no other tricks left. Nothing a measly 10 points could accomplish unless I planned to fight it off and I doubted it would have worked. My trump card was unavailable for a year now. Even though I believed the creature was a worthy investment, I hadn''t wanted to use up the blessing so soon but it was pointless if I died right here and now. I noticed that I had a new option in my interface that read ¡°Tamed Companions¡±. I ¡¯clicked¡¯ it. NAME: [NONE] CURRENT RACE: [SPIDER-SCORPION WORKER] TIER: 3 AGE: 2 MANA: 40/40 (REGEN 8 PER HOUR)Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. BIOMANA: 189/330 (REGEN 132 PER HOUR) STATS: STRENGTH: 32 CELERITY: 27 VITALITY: 34 ACUITY: 8 WILLPOWER: 6 PERCEPTION: 20 ATTUNEMENT: 8 SKILLS: PASSIVES:
  1. Ravenous: 28
  2. Ambush Predator: 21
  3. Wild Terror: 12
  4. Omnivorous: 9
  5. Poison Resistance: 19
  6. Rapid Healing: 18
  7. Biomana Converter: 21
  8. Hunter of Men and Monsters: 28
ACTIVES:
  1. Inject Venom: 29
  2. Perpetual Molt: 15
  3. Genetic Assimilation: 4
  4. Burst of Speed: 27
  5. Paralyzing Gaze: 13
  6. Sharpen Limb: 23
TRAITS: I assumed the traits were because of the history of the species as a superweapon. I doubted a 2 year old monster that had earned the moniker of ¡°The Herald of Ruin¡± was not even six times as strong as me. A sufficiently determined child could kill me! Whatever the Third Calamity was, it had to have been powerful to have earned that name. I hoped it was not around anymore. My Diverse Insectoid Physiology Knowledge was constantly trying to tell me about this Third Calamity but the train of thought just fizzled out every time. It died before it could even get going, evidently its power or age made it beyond the purview of the skill at the moment. All I got from it was that it happened a long time ago and the idea of desolated cities and even the gods being involved. The last notification was also welcome as I hadn''t had the ability to test out my two swarm spells yet. Hasten Swarm sped up every action of the swarm by 10% with the perception (not the stat) and reaction speeds to match for five minutes while Molting let insectoids heal to full health over a few hours as long as they weren''t dead by forcing them to molt their exoskeletons. Both required a target insect and cost 25 and 50 mana respectively so I hadn''t had the means to see how effective they were but now I just had to wait for my mana to recover. The spells were already a force multiplier for another force multiplier and they weren''t really that costly compared to my regular skills. A cracking noise brought me back to reality and I noticed for the first time what the spider-scorpion was resting on. Eggs. At least half a dozen of them and they were all hatching as one, as if magically knowing that their mother was no longer going to protect them. They were all ugly and slimy as they attempted to crawl out of their eggs. My knowledge skill hadn''t told me that it was a mom earlier. Spider-scorpions didn''t have any sexual dimorphism and reproduced asexually using the prey they consumed to introduce genetic variation so as far as I was considered, they were all potential moms. Before I could order my totally not a minion to deal with them, its tail lashed out and crushed them all, egg shells and chitin both squelching instantly under the sheer mass of the serpentine limb. \\Spider-Scorpion Hatchling x6 slain \\[SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE] is now level 7! Wait, I got the experience for the kills it made? That solved a lot of problems. Oh yes, forget whatever I thought about its appearance. It was the best pet ever. I looked at it in a new light, the spider-scorpion¡¯s body was slack and its eyes had lost the spark of a predator that it had before, and I just knew that it would never regain it. I won''t ever allow it to. In some ways, it was a lot like me, wasn¡¯t it? Disfigured, broken, and condemned to being alone. It too, like me, was made for a war that it had no real stakes in but was forced by its nature to fight and die in. And it too, for the scary exterior, was just trying to survive. And if not for my needs, it wouldn''t be shackled and made to fight. To it, I was not that different from Quiraion was to me. I didn''t feel sorry for magically enslaving it, oh no, I wasn''t that nice. But I understood it. And by understanding, I empathized with a man eating spider. And that was, in its fucked up way, a beautiful thing too. Almost unconsciously, I raised my hand and touched the hairy head of my new partner and gently rubbed it, carefully avoiding its eyes. It was a friend now and friends didn''t poke each other''s eyes out. It felt coarse and hard under my fingers but I didn''t mind. ¡°Want to hear a story? Back where I came from, there was a tragedy about a princess who fell in love with a man. They had two kids before the man foolishly decided that he wanted to abandon her for another princess.¡± I whispered lightly as far too many red eyes stared blankly at me, not really comprehending what I was saying. That was fine. This felt important. ¡°Now the first princess had sacrificed a lot for the man, including her very birthright and family. So do you know what she did?¡± I couldn''t stop now even if I wanted to. Something was compelling me, something that I knew that I could only stop by rejecting the creature before me in every possible way and I wouldn''t, couldn¡¯t do that. ¡°She decided that she would take away everything from the man and make him bitterly rue his unfaithfulness for the rest of his wretched life. She had given him his life, his fame, his power. And she would take it all away. She poisoned the second princess and then killed her own children and then finally, she fled before her deeds could be discovered. In just one day, one flash, the man had lost his wealth, his family, his love and the person he was attempting to court and he only had himself to blame.¡± I leaned closer as I felt some power build up in the air like static. An alien blue light seemed to shine down upon me for just a moment. ¡°That princess¡¯s name was Medea. And from now on, you too shall be known as Medea and together, dearest Medea, we too shall have our revenge.¡± \\Tame Lesser Insectoid is now level 8! \\Medea, the spider-scorpion adult is now your familiar. \\Skill Enslaved Familiar¡¯s Bond learned \\Enslaved Familiar¡¯s Bond: 1 Familiars are base creatures that a person may bond with to form a life long partnership. A familiar is the closest friend of its owner and together they form a team that''s greater than the sum of parts. A familiar and its master are one unit and betrayal of that bond is anathema to both. You don''t have that kind of bond and now you never will. You have broken a creature''s mind and warped its very nature at the fundamental level to serve your own ends and thus, somehow, you have a ¡®familiar¡¯. With each level, your familiar has 1% more stats rounded down when in your proximity. The range at which it is considered to be in proximity to you is 0.333 meters per level +5. Any beneficial effects on your familiar will be 5% stronger if you apply them yourself. Furthermore, you can mentally order your familiar to perform any task and it will attempt to do it to the best of its ability. Your familiar can also deliver touch based effects for you. Your familiar can never disobey you. Current bonuses: 1%, 5.333 meters and 5%. 8. Rest I moaned in pain when I woke in the sweet embrace of actual mattresses and blankets. My arms felt like they were being ripped apart and my muscles spasmed as a migraine recreated the Third Calamity¡¯s rampage in my head. \\Pain Tolerance is now level 3! It didn''t feel any better after the level up. I thought about my home, about how it was largely a known quantity. It sucked but I had others in similar circumstances and even when they were not friendly, it meant that I had a herd to follow instead of figuring out everything on my own. Sure the world I was in now was probably better once I made my way to civilization but I didn''t know how far that was. I didn''t even know if I could make the journey. I missed home. It was a horrible place but the horror was known and just surviving was my only impetus. Here I was alone and I was expected to kill gods. And the only ally that I could count on was a spider monster designed to bring civilizations to ruin. After acquiring Medea and then somehow managing to climb into the carriage to raid its supplies, Cold Blooded had decided that I was no longer in any immediate danger and I''d crashed. Crashed hard. Both the weariness and minor injuries I had collected slammed into me all at once accompanied by a long overdue panic attack. I must have spent an hour just crying and whimpering while cuddling Medea like it was the world¡¯s ugliest plushie. I didn''t want to know how it had gotten inside but I appreciated its presence. God, I was thinking about a giant man eating arachnid monster that I had enslaved like it was a beloved emotional support pet. I didn''t know what kind of horrible monsters were waiting for me on the way, or at my destination. I had made a point to not think about arriving at the place and being thrown into a factory farm for experience. No, that was a different problem that I would not worry about now. The journey was already daunting enough. Maybe a dragon or something would eat me. Or maybe it would be that the nearest human settlement was so far away that I would die on the way. Did the carriage even have enough supplies? One thing I''d forced myself to check before I had collapsed entirely was how much supplies I had. The camper had a few decently large gourds filled with water and some hard brick like bread that would last me for about a week or so if I didn''t eat any more than what was strictly necessary. And that was assuming I didn''t get food poisoning or something. Nothing here looked particularly sanitary. My throbbing skull told me in no uncertain terms that I was not even allowed to look at the booze. At least the carriage had a toilet not dissimilar to what I''d expect to find in a train. Another unwelcome discovery was that the erstwhile owner of the carriage was probably someone important. It looked to be more of an early industrial age European contraption to me with oil lamps that used 5 mana to ignite and three pairs of wheels. I mean, what passed for such in the media I knew. It was large, larger than what I''d expect from a personal carriage, both longer and more armored with spokes and supports of steel reinforcing the frame. It could also be fully sealed from the inside. This thing was probably made for crossing vast swathes of dangerous land, like say spider-scorpions territory and it showed. I doubted that it was horses that had pulled this thing. Then a few notifications interrupted my musings about the origins of my new abode. \\Spider-Scorpion whelp slain \\Enslaved Familiar''s Bond is now level 7! \\Tame Lesser Insectoid is now level 12! \\[SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE] is now level 11! At some point Medea had extracted itself from my grip to go secure our location from other predators. A few mana rabbits and a spider-scorpion whelp had already died while I stayed inside and hoped against hope that I wouldn''t complete my class too soon. I couldn''t take the pain now. ¡°Are the spider scorpions increasing?¡± I asked the black ceiling of the carriage out loud while nibbling at bread. The ceiling didn¡¯t answer. How rude! I knew that it was dangerous to eat a lot after being hungry for long but it hadn¡¯t been that long. I had faced actual starvation before. Still, I only ate little and slowly while Medea continued to slaughter its kin. It was looking like I had landed in a spider scorpion habitat. I''d encountered a lot of the supposed solitary hunters by now. The answer came from my skill. Modern spider-scorpions were territorial unlike the swarming hordes of antiquity and Medea, like all spider-scorpion adults, was constantly facing challenges from potential upstarts trying to secure territory. No, it was struggling to claim territory. Medea was the reason I hadn''t encountered any other large predators until now. I could command it to ignore them but in that case, we would eventually have to deal with trouble actually looking for us. And it probably would, spider-scorpions were territorial solitary hunters but also tend to have territories that bordered and increased aggression meant that overpopulation had compelled them to fight for territory or expand into unoccupied lands. That, or something had been driving them away. That meant that with time, we would be dealing with more and stronger spider-scorpions than what we were seeing so far. We had to leave, and quickly. \\Diverse Insectoid Physiology Knowledge is now level 4!
Hours later, I forced myself to crawl to the open front of the carriage; I stared at what looked like a Victorian era car dashboard. Two parallel slabs of sloping dark metal and wood were affixed at a slight angle before me. One above the other with the upper one protruding so that it started at the same distance as the one below before angling away from me. First I examined the top slab. There was a blue pyramid on the left that lightly glowed, a red pyramid on the right that didn''t, something that looked like a brass circle affixed to a stick, and what I thought looked like a circular compass on top of it. If it was in fact a compass then I was facing south-west right now. That is of course, if this compass pointed to the north. If it was a compass. Nothing in the upper slab seemed excessively complex, I was afraid that it would be a monstrosity that no one without the skills could even comprehend. The second slab had a rectangular glass screen with a needle that was rapidly oscillating vertically and far too many knobs and needles that were beyond me. The carriage was comfortable, and safe if I stayed in it. If only I could move the damn thing. Medea was almost certainly not strong enough to pull it, and even if it could, I didn''t want to tie down the only combat capable part of this duo. Anya and her man eating bioweapon! I fished out the charms and once again asked for the location of the nearest town. North West. Well I had to try to make it. Somehow. But first, another nap.
I had figured out how to use the lamps accidentally while trying to force my mana to move. I had slipped and some of the flowing energy had touched a lamp. It ignited as my mana decreased by 5. I had not paid the crystals in the driver¡¯s compartment much attention earlier but the lamps had a small similar crystal at their base, hidden by dark painted metal. If I was correct, and that was another big if, then maybe the vehicle operated on the same principles.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The ¡®Dashboard¡¯ didn''t seem that complicated after all. I touched the blue pyramid and nothing happened. I touched the red pyramid and my mana bottomed out entirely, faster than I could even see the flow of mana. The brass circle unfolded into three concentric rings each attached by a single rod that ran through the middle of the entire thing horizontally to a much diminished circle. The red pyramid shone feebly. Yay for progress. After calling Medea back to me, I began to fiddle with the rings. The outermost and the largest ring could be pushed and held up or down from its resting position to make the vehicle move forward or backward, the middle ring was for turning but the purpose of the third one eluded me. But who cared? I had a magical automobile. A magical automobile that worked. I laughed even if I was still woozy and instantly emptying my mana made me feel even worse. ANd so began my hopefully uneventful journey. Far too soon, the carriage stopped and the ring once again retracted in a flat circle. The red pyramid was dark again. But now I had an idea. I touched the blue pyramid again and tried to imagine the reverse of what using the red pyramid felt like, what the lamp felt like, instead of mana draining from me, I imagined mana entering from outside. At first it didn¡¯t work, but when it did, it all clicked into place and the blurry mana flowing around me snapped into crystal c;ear focus.. \\Skill Mana Direction learned Mana Direction: 1 You can direct the flow of your mana, you can push it into appropriate receptacles or drain it from charged mana crystals. EFFECT: With each level, your mana loss during mana transactions decrease by 1% and transfers are 3% faster. Current bonus: 1% and 3% respectively.
The blue crystal had a lot of mana and I was pretty sure that it was regenerating by itself slowly. Every so often I would gain Mana Direction or Lesser Bone Augury levels as we made our way across the forest. If we were attacked or Medea became hungry then Enslaved Familiar Bond would level up. We had stopped finding so many spider scorpions and that was encouraging but nothing else so far gave me as much experience so [SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE] became the first class that I had active for more than a day. I was almost missing the pain I had started to associate with stat gain.Almost. One thing that I was happy about was discovering a set of black tunic and pants that fit me reasonably well. I had found it among a bundle of clothes in a corner of the carriage. There was a lot of clothing in a wide range of sizes. Maybe Medea¡¯s victim had been a merchant. Oh well, nothing I could do for him at this point. That coupled with a Victorian style top hat made me feel at least vaguely presentable. Of course, the monocle was too much even for me. Until I looked into a small wall affixed mirror and decided that it completed the look far too well, that is. I thought it looked kind of like Then finally, around two days after I had figured out how to drive, Lesser Bone Augury reached level 30. \\Lesser Bone Augury has reached its highest level and has absorbed Fossil Identification to evolve into Ossific Communion \\Ossific Communion: 30 Some Northern Shaman-Prophets use their skills to directly commune with the spirits of the dead that inhabit this world. Such spirits are of the recently deceased and lack the mental or magical facilities of actual spectres and similar undead. By using bone charms and the expenditure of some mana, you can ask them to point you towards places and people that you seek. Furthermore, you get a small vision of your destination. As usual, places or people with a high amount of magical power can evade or confuse your spirits. You can also know the identity along with some additional information of the dead by examining their remains. By using mana, you can even relive the moments of their death. Uses 30 mana per use. So that''s why actives don''t improve per level. The new skill was superior in every way and also removed an otherwise unused skill, something I was grateful for. Both my passive and active slots were full. It cost more but the blue pyramid had a lot of mana in it. I was probably already burning it faster than it could regenerate but I wouldn''t run out anytime soon unless I used the skill every thirty minutes or something. If all skills evolved at level 30 then Lesser Bone Harvesting or Lesser Bone Crafting could realistically be maxed out in a day or two. They would also merge, right? I still had my crutches and a bone knife made from Godtouched bone to work with. I could carve some designs on my crutches to begin but I just didn''t have much energy to do so between driving and resting for the night. Repeatedly emptying and refilling my mana was very exhausting. Medea usually travelled alongside the carriage instead of inside but I knew it would come inside if I willed it to and I always recalled it inside at night. If something tried to attack me when I was sleeping then I would have it close. \\Skills at level 30 and above are more volatile and can consolidate and evolve freely instead of at fixed levels. Better skills will increase the possibility of unlocking superior classes and other similar skills. Beware that better skills come with a proportionate increase in costs
My newly evolved skill also gained no levels in the meantime, it was almost torturously slow compared to how quickly Lesser Bone Augury had grown but it was not an immediate problem. I had seen my destination as a vision when I augured with it, an industrial town lightly covered in what looked like green smog that sometimes glowed. Great towers belched out the gas all night but went silent as the sun rose. Numerous lamps and street lights pierced the smog when it inevitably destroyed all visibility. Didn¡¯t look like the cheeriest place but I had been expecting a medieval town or something like that. On the fifth day, I finally mastered my class. \\Gemstone Krait slain \\Enslaved Familiar''s Bond is now level 13! \\[SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE] is now level 15! \\Class mastered [SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE]. +2 to VITALITY, ACUITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT I spasmed and cried out as the vitality increase remolded my body again. But one way or another, I was getting better at dealing with it. New class time. I had unlocked [BONEMAGE] after evolving Ossific Communion but I was pretty sure I was not ready for a 20 level class just yet. Maybe after one or two more class ups. And anyways, I actually had a class patiently waiting for me. \\BLOODMAGE INITIATE (0/15) A BLOODMAGE INITIATE uses her blood to both heal and harm. She speeds up the natural healing rate of the body for allies and induces internal or external bleeding in her enemies at this small step on the Eternal Ziggurat of the BIOMANCER. At higher class levels, BIOMANCERS can regrow entire bodies, regenerate from small traces of DNA, mutate themselves or others into great monstrosities and absorb biological traits from their foes who find their very bodies in open rebellion against them. MASTERY BONUSES: +2 to STRENGTH, VITALITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT \\Class [BLOODMAGE INITIATE] selected \\Skill Blood Sense Learned \\Blood Sense: 1 There are many reasons that one may have chosen to walk this path, maybe you are a hunter stalking your prey, a detective trying to solve a murder or an aspiring vampire queen but you have learned how to sense blood around you. No more shall your enemies sneak up on you or bloodbaths be hidden from you. You send a pulse of energy centred on you that informs you of all sources of blood over a sufficient quantity around you in a sphere, be it in a living body or otherwise. Drops, small stains or exceptionally small creatures will not be sensed by you. Uses 20 mana per use. \\Skill Blood Bag Learned \\Blood Bag: 1 The average adult human body produces around 43 mls of blood per day after experiencing blood loss until it regains the amount lost. But not you, you regenerate your blood faster than most and it will only become faster from now on. Beware that your body will not produce something from nothing and iron, nutrients and so on will be consumed to produce the extra blood. EFFECT: Your body produces 5% more blood per level. Current bonus: 5% //WARNING: Passive skill slot limits exceeded. You can replace a skill or refuse to equip your new skill. Unequipped skills can¡¯t be equipped again for a period of time determined by their power. Unequipped skills do not confer any benefits but exist and count for consolidation purposes only. \\Blood Magic spell list unlocked \\Blood Magic Spell list Induce Bleeding: 35 mana Dilute Blood: 20 mana Coagulation: 20 mana 9. New Delport Navidson was not what anyone would call an honest man. He was a simple city guard who was paid to look tough and angry and make sure that anyone who entered New Delport knew to behave. Just stand in armor at the gates with a sword and a gun all day, occasionally giving the stink eye to anyone who had the indecency of looking impoverished in public. And if some unmarked packages came through every six or so months that he happened to not register, well, sometimes he just missed things. And once his shift was over and coins had exchanged hands, he would go to his favorite bar and get wasted. Maybe he would also leer and catcall at the waitress if the grumpy old proprietor was occupied. Now maybe he was not that different from the lowlifes that skulked on the streets after curfew but he was a guild employed city guard. His enchanted armor made him better than the scum. He was a civilized man, dammit! He just had his vices. Everyone in New Delport had. His vices just required him to selectively not do his job. All that said, the point was that Navidson was a man who followed a particularly not so rigid routine that rewarded him and anything that could disrupt this routine was a problem. A problem like a small light olive skinned girl with a tamed spider-scorpion of all things. She was babbling something about being attacked by spider-scorpions after she was already injured in an accident, she pointed to her legs for emphasis. They looked like they had met the business end of red caltrops that grew into and within the feet of anyone unlucky enough to step on them. He winced in not entirely faked sympathy. She had apparently been travelling with a bunch of other people who were presumably all dead but she had somehow escaped alive due to what was basically luck with a touch of fighting like a suicidal lunatic. But no, the story didn''t end there. She had managed to kill a few hatchlings to pick up a tamer class and then tamed her companion. And the story still continued, she had found a carriage in the forest with its owner dead from spider-scorpions and had driven it all the way to New Delport. He recorded her statements, confirming that as far as his skills could tell, she wasn''t lying. Lie Detection was not perfect and could be tricked or simply overpowered but he doubted the shivering and slightly emaciated girl with bloodshot eyes and bags under them could do that. Afterwards he gently guided her towards the Security Guild quarters while calling a carriage for her. He made a show of being concerned for her, promising that the guild would take care of her, a soft smile on his face that didn''t match his inner thoughts. Now there were quite a few issues with her story, though none of them were necessarily her fault. Spider scorpions shouldn''t even exist this far out and she claimed that she encountered multiple. That implied an incursion was imminent if not already ongoing. And secondly, he recognised the carriage. It belonged to a gentleman who was to deliver his ¡®packages¡¯ and there was no way he could retrieve it silently from a somewhat hidden compartment now after the scene the girl had caused. And even if he could, what would he do next time? And the year after that? His other employers had a small stock in storage at all times but red powder spoiled easily, losing its potency. And that meant that his other employers would soon not have enough to sell to their customers. It would make them seem weak and in New Delport, weakness was always to be exploited. The primary distributor of red powder faltering meant that the market was now suddenly open after almost a decade. There would be a lot of blood in the streets before it was all over.
\\Cold Blooded is now level 8! I sighed as Cold Blooded faded away. One look at the hulking guard in the black plate armor with glowing runes on it and I knew that he could rip me in half with his hands while simultaneously stomping Medea into the dirt. If he thought I was not honest or meant the city ¡ªNew Delport, I corrected myself¡ª harm, I wouldn''t live another minute. So I told him the truth, just carefully. There was no possible way to not seem suspicious but I could seem suspicious in a way that no infiltrator would want to be, unless they expected infiltrators to think like that, of course. But that way lay madness. I predicted your prediction of my prediction of your behaviour! Mwahahaha. Anyways, I was inside and that was all that mattered, even though I somewhat regretted my choice to not rip out the blue pyramid that recharged my mana. If I made it here, I could probably eventually afford to buy one. Maybe. As soon as I had crossed some invisible threshold and before my conversation with the guard, I had received a notification unlike any I had seen before. \\Welcome, traveller. This is your first visit to New Delport, the crown jewel of the Eastern Sea. It obviously wasn''t named that but that''s what it meant. The new port of the Del. As a city-state that has endured for over a thousand years and with a legacy to match, New Delport is the premium destination for tourism, trade and education in the entire West Coast. The Central Sea connects over five thousand cities and towns and you can find almost anything your heart desires here. Casinos, fairs, exotic goods in the Strevan Auction House and even companionship awaits you. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. In the south, the great forests stretch as far as the eyes can see. It is even rumored that dryads created the forests during the first calamity itself. To make your stay safer and easier, you have been granted fluency in the Dellish language. Dellish is the primary language spoken in New Delport and now you can avail yourself of the services of this beautiful city without any worries. We hope you enjoy your stay, be it temporary or permanent. I shook my head, the system notification equivalent of a cheery travel brochure didn''t really match what my eyes could see, everyone at the gate seemed to be on the edge. Pedestrians moved quickly and with their heads down, occasionally accompanied by beast companions or other people. Smog covered the skies and I could feel a mild burning in my throat. Of course the guard had then taken all of my attention as I lied by omission and acted like a hapless child in a language I didn''t even know ten minutes ago. The notification I had received when entering the city had been in English like every other notification I received. But anyways, leaving my spontaneous multilingualism aside, the guard had called a carriage for me and paid for it so I had nothing to do but stare out the windows while Medea curled up beside me. The streetlights were attached to poles that seemed rather excessively ornate to me but it was not like I disliked the opulence. Occasionally we would pass other carriages on the street racing towards destinations unknown. I even saw a man with a tophat and a Victorian style dress suit walking with what looked like an eight feet tall grey humanoid that he held on a leash. He tipped his hat at me when he noticed that I was staring and I turned away, feeling awkward. I didn''t want to seem like a country bumpkin who gawked at people! My current attire didn''t help either so my manners had to be perfect. I missed them but I had intentionally left my tophat and monocles with the other carriage, no reason to make me stand out like that. We eventually stopped in front of a large baroque building with a massive symbol on it that instantly drew the eye. A red and white shield with a vertical eye in the middle. A set of massive double doors with the images of two mirrors serpents intricately carved on them marked the entrance to the building. The serpents held the door handles in their distended jaws and red jewels were inlaid as their eyes. This had to be the Security Guild that the man had mentioned. ¡°Do you want me to escort you inside, ma¡¯am?¡± The ruddy carriage driver asked, pointedly not looking at my legs or crutches. I shook my head and clambered out while holding on the carriage with one hand until I could find my balance. The doors opened of their own accord when I neared them and I stepped inside with a sudden burst of trepidation. The inside was a vast hall and I could see dozens of people to and from half a dozen doors that were too high and wide to be just for humans, some jogged frantically while holding stacks of paper while others moved slowly and with purpose. A young man was yelling out loud about someone misplacing their cargo catalogue. A set of reading tables were placed on my left and a woman was hastily penning something on one of them. I hobbled towards a desk where a receptionist wearing glasses made of some reflective golden material and a purple suit sat. ¡°Yes? How can I help you?¡± Her voice was gravelly and harsh, as if the result of a lifetime of chain smoking. ¡°Uhh, the guy from the southern gate told me to come here?¡± ¡°Oh Navidson! Yes he did send a missive, let''s see. Hmm, young female, injured and with a pet spider-scorpion. Oh yes, please wait here. Someone will soon come for you.¡± The receptionist then covered her mouth with a hand and muttered something that I couldn''t hear, probably some long range communication skill to summon whoever was supposed to pick me up. A tall and lean man with a pistol on his hip ambled in. He wore a lighter but more elaborate version of the armor she had seen the guard wearing. At least ten narrow swords were strapped on his back and four more hung from his hips. Brown curls swayed with each step he took as he walked up to me with the fakest smile I''d ever seen. ¡°Oh hello, you must be Anya. I''m Rev, yes just Rev. I believe someone wants to meet with you. Let me help you.¡± He didn''t wait for my reply and just levitated me behind him and began to walk as I yelped in surprise. Medea followed after its mistress through a maze of hallways and doors. A man, a floating girl, and a spider-scorpion walked into an office. A giantess of a woman, comparable to the gray humanoid I had seen on my way was waiting for them inside. Graying hair framed a slightly wrinkled face that betrayed her real age that I couldn''t quite reconcile with her rippling musculature. A massive sword, bigger than myself floated behind the woman, bound by floating chains of golden runes and energy. The same golden runes decorated her black armor and her eyes flashed the same. A helmet shaped like a wolf''s head rested on the desk between her and the newcomers. Her grey eyes stared steelily as Rev unceremoniously dumped me into a chair facing the desk and left way too quickly, slamming the door behind him. I was not being even remotely dishonest to myself when I said that the person before me was the most terrifying creature I''d ever seen. Even Medea seemed cuddly before her. Too petrified to move or make any noise, I just watched as the woman walked up to a cabinet and retrieved a sphere of the same blue crystal that I had used on the carriage. The titanic woman did something and the ball¡¯s glow dimmed noticeably. She continued to ignore me, occasionally adjusting some contraption or reading some report until she finally sat down with a thump on an ornate high chair, her radiant gold eyes met mine and she spoke. ¡°Well, Miss Anya, if that''s indeed your name. Can you tell me why are you carrying fucking Godtouched bones as walking aids?¡± ¡®Oh shit¡¯, I thought just as Cold Blooded went into overdrive. 10. Yes, Strings Attached I knew I had messed up. Of course I had, Quiraion¡¯s Blessing only hid my own nature as Godtouched from others. Of course the implication was that other Godtouched things could be detected by anyone with the capability. Of course, I didn''t think about replacing my crutches. The bear skeleton could have worked as an alternative material, hell I could have asked Medea to climb and snap off some tree branches but no, I was so busy thinking about the carriage and how to explain my origins that the skeleton had completely slipped my mind. Cold Blooded did have its limits, after all. And now I was staring into cold eyes that crackled with golden lightning. Those eyes belied a lack of mercy that went beyond just emotion dampening. My skill tried and I opened my mouth to say something, anything, then closed it again. Cold Blooded deactivated. ¡°I''m Godtouched too!¡± I blurted out at last. The monster in oversized human skin didn''t soften her expression but she did raise an eyebrow. ¡°I see. Interesting. And did you come to New Delport with the intention to harm the city, its people or its interests?¡± ¡°No! I swear I just came here because I was afraid I''d die in the great forests.¡± Words flowed from my mouth before I could compose them and I just told her all about my attempts to escape the forest. How I had fled from Medea twice and then how I had spent the night in a cave before taming it. I spoke about the carriage and how I had never seen anything like that before. I spoke of everything other than why I was Godtouched, my skill simply didn''t let me. I kept speaking as she stared silently at me. I was talking about my skill gains before the other woman raised her hand to silence me but I somehow managed to miss it. ¡°Enough!¡± The voice was like a thunderclap. ¡°I don''t care about how you precisely arrived or why you are a Godtouched of Lord Quiraion of all the divinities. I don¡¯t meddle in the affairs of gods. They may be great, but they¡¯re fickle, and it¡¯s unproductive to speculate about their plans. I''ll inform the relevant authorities about the spider-scorpions expanding northwards¡ªthat''s not your concern. Just answer me one thing before I decide what to do with you: Will your presence bring undue danger to New Delport?¡± The voice was like a weight that settled upon my shoulders and threatened to smother me until there was nothing left. A part of me wondered if a skill was in use. Maybe I should reconsider Intimidation after all. I clamped shut, turning the question over in my mind. The Knife of Quiraion''s warning had been maddeningly vague. More danger, more opportunities to gain power¡ªthose didn¡¯t necessarily mean everyone around me would be in peril. But it didn¡¯t guarantee their safety, either. It did not mean they would be at risk, but also that they wouldn¡¯t necessarily not be at risk. If I were in the other woman''s position, would I take the chance? Probably not. But again, I was compelled to tell the truth. ¡°I¡­ honestly don¡¯t know,¡± I finally admitted, voice barely above a whisper. ¡°It¡¯s vague. I don¡¯t really understand what being Godtouched means for me.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± The woman¡¯s tone hardened even more somehow. ¡°Normally, if you weren¡¯t Godtouched, I¡¯d throw you out into the streets and let you figure out how to survive. Best case? Maybe you¡¯d make it by begging or stealing or just selling yourself¡ªnot that anything is a guarantee. A bad case? You¡¯d die, of course. Though even that¡¯s not the worst of it. You¡¯d just be another warm body, and there are always those with classes that thrive on working on people like you. Either way, you¡¯d be out of my hands, and that would be that.¡± The pressure eased slightly as the woman stood and began to pace, her steps echoing in the cramped office. I flinched but kept my head down, grateful for the small reprieve. No wonder that other guy had left so soon. ¡°But for the Godtouched¡­¡± The woman¡¯s steps slowed. ¡°The standard policy is exile. Unfortunately, at your current level and stats, you wouldn¡¯t survive¡ªnot even without your injuries. Yes, girl, I can tell how pathetic you are even without skills. And no, your pet wouldn¡¯t stand a chance either.¡± The woman paused, her voice laced with a less overwhelming irritation. ¡°And that leaves us with a problem. The gods don¡¯t take kindly to seeing their precious Godtouched executed outside of open conflict. Forcing you to leave in your current state skirts dangerously close to that line. Which means, much to my dismay, I have to tolerate your presence. I am not happy about it. Are we clear?¡± I gave a small, quick nod, my body trembling. Cold Blooded¡ªthe passive that had kept me steady in so many dangerous moments prior¡ªhad abandoned me entirely. I was nothing more than a bundle of terror now. ¡°Now, one more thing.¡± The woman¡¯s words were slow, sharp and deliberate. ¡°While the gods may frown upon anyone killing a Godtouched with full knowledge of their nature, there are other fates the gods will turn a blind eye to. Far worse fates in fact. ¡°For example, let¡¯s imagine a hypothetical Godtouched¡ªa little girl. A weak, defenseless little girl. Now, suppose someone finds out what she is. What do you think a bad man would do? You see, Godtouched tend to have blessings, abilities that set them apart from others. Or at least, they have the potential for such. That makes them¡­ valuable. And to a bad man, that means opportunity. ¡°Our bad man might decide to kidnap our hypothetical Godtouched and deliver her to a criminal who specializes in brainwashing and binding. Under this criminal¡¯s care, our little Godtouched would become nothing but an obedient shell. Her identity, her sense of self¡ªall of it wiped clean, replaced with an all-encompassing desire to obey. She¡¯d lose everything, reduced to doing whatever her master demanded, no matter how cruel or vile. And the gods? They would not give her a second of attention as long as whoever is breaking her still tries to get her to do whatever the gods asked her.¡± The woman stopped and turned, her fulminating gaze piercing through me. ¡°That is the kind of responsibility knowing someone is Godtouched brings. A burden I wish you hadn¡¯t placed on me. I wish you had kept it to yourself. But what¡¯s been said cannot be undone, and I know you weren¡¯t lying.¡± ¡°See to it that no one else learns of your true nature unless it¡¯s absolutely necessary.¡± I swallowed hard; mouth even more dry. The fate the woman described¡ªof a totally hypothetical Godtouched turned into a hollow puppet¡ªfelt uncomfortably similar to what I had done to Medea. ¡°So here''s what I propose, I''ll see that you have lodgings and food for now. Tomorrow you will be tested. Augury skills are rare and if it is as good as you claim then you can join the guild¡¯s forensic department. Afterwards, a day or two later, we shall get you healed, and it will not just be your legs because even I can tell you have other problems and I''m just a simple warrior.¡± I was skeptical that the woman was just a ¡®simple warrior¡¯. ¡°You¡¯ll almost certainly need a day or two to recover then. Extensive healing like that requires adjustment time. In the meantime, we¡¯ll keep a tally of your medical expenses along with rent for the duration. That debt will be turned into a short tenure as a Guild member¡ªa fair exchange that benefits us both. This way, I won¡¯t have to explain your status as Godtouched to the other Guild stakeholders. I can mark you as an attempt at poaching good, desperate talent. And, given your blessings, that¡¯s the truth. That is of course, assuming you don¡¯t fail tomorrow. If you do then I will send you off with the cheapest ship that I know won¡¯t kill you.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡°Also we will work on a cover story for you that doesn''t have so many holes or hints about your true nature. And don¡¯t worry about Navidson. I¡¯ll see to it that he doesn¡¯t say anything he shouldn¡¯t to the wrong people.¡± The woman stopped, folding her arms across her chest. ¡°Of course, if you find this arrangement unsatisfactory, let me know. You¡¯re free to leave right now. I doubt you can pay for a ship ride, so it¡¯d be the Great Forest again for you. But it¡¯s your choice. The gods won¡¯t care if you are suicidal.¡± ¡°Err, it is a satisfactory arrangement! Thank you so much, miss¡­?¡± I squeaked. ¡°Valdima but from now, it is Guildmistress Valdima for you. Anyways, you are dismissed. Rev, please escort Anya here to a guesthouse.¡± She called out and I jumped as Rev saluted from right next to me. I hadn''t even noticed when he had come back.
I was being levitated by Rev again but now he seemed a lot more talkative and open. ¡°For the rest of this evening, I¡¯ll be your guide and protector,¡± he began, his tone light but steady. ¡°It¡¯s my responsibility to make sure you remain intact. So, I think we should start over.¡± The man straightened slightly, offering a small bow. ¡°I¡¯m Reven¡¯Tar de Anglio¡ªRev, for short. I¡¯m a senior journeyman of the Security Guild, which you¡¯ll possibly be joining as an recruit. It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you.¡± He finished with an easy grin, a stark contrast to the stiff, fake smile he¡¯d worn before. It made for an odd sight, a tall man lightly bowing before an ungraciously floating girl. I studied him cautiously, unsure if this sudden warmth was genuine or just another act. Still, there was no harm in pretending for now. ¡°Anya,¡± I said softly, giving a slight nod. ¡°So, what exactly is going to be expected of a fresh guild recruit like me?¡± I didn''t exactly have time to research the guild before, for obvious reasons and I had wanted to get out of the scary woman¡¯s presence as soon as possible to ask her. Rev didn¡¯t say anything, and it wasn¡¯t until I felt the shift in air and sound that I realized we had already left the Guild Hall, blinking as Rev gently deposited me into a carriage. A moment later, he floated himself in, settling opposite me as the carriage lurched into motion. I glanced at the driver¡¯s seat. ¡°There¡¯s¡­ no one driving,¡± Rev didn¡¯t seem to hear¡ªor more likely, ignored me¡ªresuming our conversation without skipping a beat. ¡°Since the time of the Catrian Empire, we never had a standing army of our own. We always had outside help, first from the empire and then from mercenaries. Mercenaries that founded the first guilds.¡± I nodded, though my mind was still catching up. I hope the guildmistress did not give me brain damage. Rev continued, fingers tapping idly against the carriage wall. ¡°The nice thing about New Delport is that anyone can walk into a guild, flash enough coin, and hire people for nearly any task.¡± He tilted his head toward me. ¡°But that¡¯s not where the real money is. Every five years, the Illustris Council releases municipal contracts to the guilds. Some guilds specialize in espionage and assassination, others in hunting down creatures that stray too close to the city. There are naval guards who fend off pirates, law enforcers who maintain order¡ªyou get the idea. ¡°That¡¯s us, by the way. The Aurum Bolt Guild. People call us the Security Guild because we always get the policing contract.¡± I let out a breath that swirled in the dirty air. The history lesson explained a lot: the tourist-trap notifications, the sickening inequality, the air of corruption that seemed to choke the life out of everything. No wonder the Guildmistress cared so little for anyone without money. If mercenaries were running the city at the behest of robber barons, it made sense. ¡®It¡¯s not so different from what I know,¡¯ I thought grimly. The thought chilled me¡ªwhat would have happened to me if I hadn¡¯t been Godtouched? Well, the guildmistress had mentioned me selling myself casually. I suppressed a shudder. As if to further illustrate the point, I spotted a small gaggle of what looked I assumed were sex workers loudly arguing with a fat angry man. As I watched, the man activated some sort of skill and the tallest of the bunch fell to the ground and spasmed in pain. Jeering, the man rifled through her pockets and¡ª Rev¡¯s voice pulled me back. ¡°Now that this lovely little digression is done, I¡¯ll answer your earlier question.¡± He leaned forward slightly. ¡°As an official recruit, you¡¯ll start small. Petty criminals. Pests that have gotten too bold. The likes of that. If you were a grunt that is, you are forensics so you''ll just be investigating and mucking around with corpses.¡± His eyes sharpened, a hint of warning slipping into his otherwise casual tone. ¡°Of course, that¡¯s assuming you don¡¯t get fired or sabotage us in any way. I¡¯d strongly advise against the latter.¡± For just a moment, Rev tilted his head toward me. His mane of curly hair flared up behind him, catching the faint light in a way that sent a flicker of instinctive dread through me. Cold Blooded stirred and then subsided just as quickly, replaced by a flash of anger. Did everyone in this guild get off on scaring crippled girls? Before I could react, he straightened. ¡°We have arrived.¡± The ¡®inn¡¯ that we had stopped at was more reminiscent of a modern hotel than anything. Two menacing grunts flanked the entrance and large lamps with painted floral patterns lined the perimeter of the building. I knew what was coming and interrupted Rev hastily. ¡°Thanks but you don''t need to carry me, I can move on my own.¡± The first time I was not expecting it and then I was too overwhelmed by the Guildmistress but now that my emotions were somewhat in control, I protested. I had learned to not take excessive favors from anyone who could demand recompense in the future and I was already deep in debt. Rev shrugged and walked into the building as I struggled for a moment before following him. I expected a hotel lobby and I was not disappointed but I was sad when I noticed that it was a fancy one. Everything was bathed in a soft light and a black and silver uniform adorned the attendants as they escorted guests and carried luggage to levitating round stone platforms that were effectively just elevators. What was the rule about putting Godtouched in debt traps again? ¡°I have a reservation for a single room for two weeks as a representative of the Aurum Bolt Guild.¡± Rev flashed the receptionist, a stuffy looking man, one of his fakest smiles. ¡°Ahem, yes. Do you possess anything we can use for verification?¡± The man even sounded snooty. Rev searched for his badge for a solid minute and even I was feeling judgmental when he proudly presented it before the profoundly unimpressed receptionist. He gave it a once over and after presumably using a skill to verify its legitimacy, nodded. ¡°Third floor, room 337. Is it for you, for the young lady or both?¡± ¡°Just the lady and her pet, also she has an extensive biomancy treatment scheduled for this week so she''ll need additional food delivered to her room, preferably lots of protein.¡± Rev then turned to me. ¡°This is goodbye for tonight. Try to have a good night''s sleep. And try not to let your pet damage anything, it will be added to your debt.¡± I despaired at the loan sharks as Rev left so fast that a gust of wind blew my hair. ¡°Ma¡¯am, do you want company for the night? We have men, women, intersex people and more exotic options available.¡± I squawked and vigorously shook my head, face burning. ¡°Very well, we hope your stay at the New Delport Regency is pleasurable.¡±
Later as I lay in a blessedly soft bed after the best meal I had in my life (some meat that I couldn''t really identify), I found my thoughts wandering. Once a class had, through its description, told me that factory farming of humans for levels was at least not unthinkable in this world. Add in my conversation with Valdima about what can happen to a weak Godtouched and I was fully convinced that this world wasn''t anywhere as nice as a naive part of me had hoped. Yes it was awful, awful in a different way because of how skills and stats changed the game. I mean I didn''t think my old world was better in any way; I didn''t even miss it that much but it was a known place with rules that I was familiar with. Here, personal power was directly martial power and that meant that in this world, no one cared that I was mixed race or a girl or who I liked but that I was personally weak. An entirely new form of discrimination that superseded the bigotries that I was familiar with. To not be ground under the dust here, I had to be stronger. Far stronger. ¡®Peace will elude you¡¯, so proclaimed the trait that was my biggest asset and my worst liability. And not for the first time, I cursed Quiraion. 11. Healing Morning arrived far too soon. I was loath to leave the soft embrace of my bed but fate had it out for me! The sun was up way before it had any right to be and so was an annoyingly energetic Rev. Even Medea, who was napping at the foot of my bed, stiffened into awareness at the cheery voice. ¡°Good morning Anya! I brought breakfast. Eat it all up before we have to leave. New adventures await us!¡± Rev announced in what was definitely not an indoors voice as I suppressed a groan. And considering that his normal cadence was NOT like this at all, I was sure that he was being annoying on purpose. Rev once again paid for a carriage and for the first time, I had a closer look at the currency used in New Delport. It was a thumb nail sized flat square of the same blue mana crystal as what I had used earlier but it could be attached to four more crystals, one on each side by a series of interlocking grooves and edges. Rev had counted and detached seven of the squares from an entire tray of them before putting the rest away in a small pouch inside his armor. The city in the morning was downright pleasant. No towers were billowing clouds of acrid green smog that actively smothered the city and the tense mood of the night was replaced by lazy contentment. But I knew from my talk with the Guildmistress that the city wasn''t as it seemed; if anything we were probably just in the nicer parts of it. We were back at the guild. The Aurum Bolt was not that different during the day unlike the New Delport Regency, which had a drastically different atmosphere with natural lighting. It seemed just as hectic as it had been last night, if not even more. This time however, our destination was different. Rev walked through a partially hidden side door that led down to an underground floor. We ignored what sounded like drunk off-shift guards gossiping in a circle and instead took a hard left turn into a small storage shed. It smelt absolutely terrible and my skin prickled. I was still wrestling with myself about whether I should complain when Rev levitated me again and everything went black. When I could see again, we were in what I was sure was a secret facility affiliated with the guild. Medea looked disoriented as well to my left. Rev was now accompanied by a woman in similar armor and a mask that covered half her face. But the metaphorical elephant in the room was a table with a mana crystal and three human skulls. One of them was partially smashed. ¡°Good luck kid.¡± Rev said with uncharacteristic brevity before disappearing once again. The woman spoke as soon as he had left. ¡°Good morning, I am Seventh Guildmistress Tiamim, leader of the forensics department. Please take a seat, Miss Anya.¡± The woman said and I obliged. The woman did not seem to be particularly scary after the nightmare that Valdima had been. Maybe it was a ruse? ¡°Guildmistess? Like Guildmistress Valdima?¡± Tiamim laughed. ¡°Oh no, not like her. She is the Guildmistress, I am just the seventh in command.¡± I nodded even though that sounded stupid to me. Why not call her the Chief Guildmistress or something? Or Tiamim a Senior Guildswoman? Gah, focus. ¡°So the Guildmistress told me that I will be tested for forensics. How does that work?¡± I asked when it looked like Tiamim was not the most talkative of people around. I mean fair was fair, I was not either. ¡°Yes. I was informed that you can glean information from the remains of people. Here is the task. These three people were attempting to steal an artifact from a distant cousin of an Illustris Council member. But by the time the guards noticed what was up, they had all been killed and the artifact was missing. Tell me what really happened here.¡± I touched the first skull, the smashed one and used my skill. I was going to be rich! We were all going to be rich. We had secured the tome and without alerting anyone. I turned to his compatriots, unable to keep the smile off my face. And a dark shape raced towards my face and I knew no more. ¡°His fellow thieves betrayed him once they had acquired the tome.¡± I observed as Tiamim stared dispassionately. She said nothing and I continued. Gerhin¡¯s face twisted into hatred. A familiar blade plunged into me. I knew it, knew I was dead the moment it had penetrated me. And yet I¡­ I¡­ I will not die alone here. I will take Gerhin down with me. I stumbled towards Gerhin but my legs failed me, my arms, poised to strangle his disgusting face, fell to my sides. I laughed before the blade decapitated me. I saw my own body, without my head, kneeling as if in supplication and something else. A glimmer of a shadow behind Gerhin. It was smiling.
¡°Where is the hidden illusionist who was behind Gerhin?¡± I asked and my charms fell in a fan-like shape, imprecise but unmistakably pointing somewhere. This illusionist had been making these three idiots progressively more paranoid until they ended up killing each other. Only, the last guy had almost heard the footsteps before being killed himself. \\Ossific Communion is now level 31! ¡°And can you actually find them? Your skill only tells you the general direction in a cone shape. That is not very helpful.¡± I frowned. No, this was easy. It was so easy that my old world had a term for it. Triangulation. ¡°I would ask for a guild member who can transport me across the city really quickly. Oh, and I would grab an aetherite for mana of course. I would then, uhh, I will also take a map first actually. Then I would use augury to get direction cones from different points in the city and mark overlapping zones in the map until it is small enough to be manually searched.¡± I finished, stumbling at the start but feeling confident by the end. Tiamim stared stonily for a second before smiling. ¡°Congratulations. You pass. You will get your security screening and meet the rest of your colleagues later this week. But for now, you are clear. Also, for your information, the perpetrator was already captured by us and handed over to the Illustris Council.¡± Rev clapped from behind me and I jumped before glaring at the sneaky guilder. ¡°Alright. Time for your biomancy then.¡± Wait. Now?
¡°I will remind you that we are paying for this and that you are only getting your old injuries fixed. You want anything more such as cosmetic touch ups, extra appendages, organs and the likes, you have to pay for them yourself.¡± Rev said. I nodded, strapped to what looked suspiciously similar to an operating table. ¡°Your stuff will be waiting in your room when you are done. Don''t worry, you will be fine. See you then, kid.¡± Rev¡¯s expression softened into that seemingly genuine smile again. I returned it before I was distracted by the new arrival. I supposed they might have been human at some point but they just looked like something out of a Clive Barker movie. Tall, not as tall as Valdima but still tall, thin, pale and androgynous with black eyes and lips; small conical horns emerging from a bald head completed the picture. They held a clipboard in their hands and muttered to themselves. ¡°Malnutrition, improperly set bones, physical trauma. And what brain damaged medic stabilized her legs? She would need actual flesh grafts before I can even do anything. Did a medic even look at those or just you meatheads? Tsk tsk.¡± Their voice was silky smooth and I found it oddly attractive. ¡°Right, that''s my cue to leave.¡± Rev once again vanished as the [BIOMANCER] finally directly acknowledged me. ¡°Oh hello! You can call me Mitria and I''ll be doing your biomancy for today! Usually we don''t do this but you have years of micro injuries that need healing so I''ll have to put you under. Don''t worry though, I''m the best on this side of the sea at what I do. Now just relax that lovely little head of yours and I''ll start once we are ready. I hope you had enough to eat though, my dear. I can see your ribs.¡± They said all that in a single breath.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. I tried to relax as the biomancer puttered around, occasionally dragging in machinery or reports or conversing with an assistant. I wondered if learning from another biomancer would progress my class faster. I tried to pay attention to what the biomancer was saying even though I didn''t understand almost any of the terms used. \\[BLOODMAGE INITIATE] is now level 4!
I woke up in my bed. I hadn''t even realized when I had lost consciousness but the light outside my window told me it was evening when I regained it. The towers were reawakening to life and the air had a noticeably thick feeling to it. Nothing was hurting but I was sore all over. A quick look at my status showed that my physical stats had seen a minor bump across the board. NAME: ANANYA HARTFORD RACE: HUMAN ACTIVE CLASS: [BLOODMAGE INITIATE 4/15] MASTERED CLASSES: 4 AGE: 19 MANA: 75/75 (REGEN 15 PER HOUR) STATS: STRENGTH: 9 CELERITY: 9 VITALITY: 10 ACUITY: 14 WILLPOWER: 15 PERCEPTION: 14 ATTUNEMENT: 15 Vitality had grown the most out of all my stats and was now my highest physical stat, ironic considering that it was my lowest when I had arrived. I was also sure that my debuffs should mostly be cleared out by now between the biomancy and Cold Blooded but for whatever reason, they didn''t have a screen dedicated to them so I couldn''t be sure. ¡°Excuse me Miss. Can you please request your¡­ companion to let me come inside?¡± A timid voice came from outside the door. I started and turned towards it to see Medea in vigil with its tail raised facing off a terrified girl in the same black-silver uniform as the other hotel staff. She was holding a tray with what looked like a bowl of soup. ¡®Stand down¡¯, I commanded and Medea deflated, hair, tail and everything else. The attendant set the bowl on a bedside table, closed the windows and left after a hurried curtsy. The tray had a straw beside the bowl. It was a struggle to force myself into a sitting position, nothing moving quite like it should. I took a tentative sip; and almost spat it out all over Medea after choking. I hadn''t meant to suck in so much hot soup at once; I had underestimated my strength. That had never happened before, even when I had gained +2 strength at once. After consuming about half the bowl, I decided that I had enough and tried to get used to my body post fixing. I was clumsier than before but that had to be temporary. I was a lot more worried about them putting things inside me while I was under. Magical explosive collars, here I come. I knew that I would be better than I was before once I had some practice with my body. And I had an idea about how to practice using my hands, surely my new temporary handicap would make it level at a different pace, maybe faster or slower but I had to try. I brought out my knife, placed a crutch on my lap and began to carve. I carved through most of the night, awake through a combination of being out for so long during my surgery and anticipation. \\Lesser Bone Crafting has reached its highest level and has absorbed Lesser Bone Harvesting to evolve into Bone Shaping \\Bone Shaping: 30 Bone and similar substances are like wet putty in your expert hands. You can shape them freely into whatever you can with your bare hands and simple tools like hammers, chisels, knives and presses. You can mold bone like a potter molds clay and make wonders out of remains. You can also selectively adjust how rigid or malleable you want them under your ministrations. Bones revert to their normal material properties once you stop working on them. Uses 18 mana per minute. That was actually better than what I had expected! One more short term project completed. I still wasn''t tired and I hadn''t properly walked in over a year so testing that was my new goal. Rev would almost certainly arrive in the morning and I expected at least some of what passed for physiotherapy here but I''d rather get the worst parts done by then. I wasn''t a completely reckless idiot though and still held on to one of my crutches, the one I had spent three hours clumsily carving on. And I crashed onto the floor. ¡°Ow¡±, said the girl in a heap on her wooden floor, a trickle of blood on her forehead. \\Pain Tolerance now level 5! Said the notification. ¡°Ma¡¯am, are you alright? Do you want any help? I''ll come inside in three minutes if you don''t respond.¡± Said the voice knocking on her door. ¡°I''m fine!¡± I called out. I hoped the hotel had some kind of health monitoring system going on and didn''t like, just spy on all the guests all the time. That would be messed up but it was a different world, they might have different notions of privacy if any. I cast Coagulation on myself and my bleeding stopped within a minute. \\[BLOODMAGE INITIATE] is now level 5! For a moment, I seriously considered grinding my class and Pain Tolerance by cutting myself. I really did but then I remembered that the hotel staff were keeping tabs on me. Also it was a slippery slope that I wasn''t quite ready to jump off, yet. By dawn, I still stumbled a bit but I was only using the crutch as more of a walking stick than anything else. I had the distinct feeling that the recovery time was mostly for acclimatization and Cold Blooded had just let me brute force through it without noticing. I was not going to complain though, I felt better than she had in ages. And I was sleepy, so sleepy. The girl from before came in with now thankfully solid food and I decided that I needed a conversation partner who wasn''t terrifying. In fact the girl was so scared of Medea that my own facade of bravado just felt unnecessary if not downright mean. ¡°Thank you, say what''s your name again?¡± ¡°Me? I''m Nerry, just Nerry.¡± Nerry replied while trying to keep a healthy distance from Medea without seeming rude. I ordered Medea to go sit near the window. ¡°Well Nerry, I''m Anya. It''s nice to meet you.¡± I held out my hand that Nerry shook before letting go far too quickly. She also realized her faux pas and started to bow before I interrupted her. ¡°You see I''m new here and don''t really know anyone and I''m bored as hell. Do you think you could get me some books or the likes? I''ll of course repay you once I can but I can''t promise that will be soon.¡± I tried my best to look pathetic, which wasn''t hard. ¡°Of course! I would love to! Do you like romances or adventures? There''s a great series about Regdren, The Silver Flame who founded this city during the time of the empire.¡± ¡°Yeah that sounds good.¡± I couldn''t help but grin; bingo, something to keep me occupied that wasn''t just worrying about the future. That''s all a girl really wants in life. Nerry and I talked for a few more minutes about other heroes of yore, The Dirge Singer of the Sea personally interested me as she seemed to have taken [CHOIR SINGER] in a direction that the class description hadn''t even mentioned as a possibility. And then Nerry had to leave to attend to her work and I was alone again. Without any real means to tell the time, I could only guess at when she would next come. Wait. Did I have no way of telling the time? System? \\541:20 \\541:21 Okayyy. That was something at least. 541:20 was not a format I knew but I was reasonably sure the second half was seconds. With nothing in particular to do, I just ate my food in silence and went back to bed. When I next woke, there was a sandwich and some sort of sweet fruit juice and a change of clothes waiting by my bedside table.
\\Bone Shaping is now level 31! The setting sun illuminated the serrated edge of a bone knife held loosely by the girl. The jagged blade didn''t glint like metal did but the girl knew from first hand experience and a splotch of red on her white tunic that it cut just as well if not better. A series of runes carved on the blade also made the weapon double as an augury charm. A small band of bone separated the handle from the blade so that her fingers wouldn''t slip or grab on to the sharp edge. Satisfied, the girl jumped down from the window ledge she was sitting on and put the knife next to five other identical knives. Once she had successfully created one, the rest were replicated quickly. Her old metal shiv was still on her side as the bone knives were suboptimal for quick slices or stabs but it would no longer be her go to weapon. With her new arsenal completed, the girl was finally out of ideas for things to do. She could go down to the hotel¡¯s dining hall and socialize, or she could go for a walk but Anya was a solitary creature and just looking at the city from above suited her fine. The city lit up as the sun went down the horizon, streetlights, lamps and more all illuminated the still busy streets. Across the city, three massive black towers flared to life and clouds of green smoke slowly began to cover the sky and the ground. Sometimes the clouds would briefly light up as if there was lightning present in them but no flashes or rumblings would follow and inevitably the clouds darkened again.
I closed my window before the noxious gas could enter my room and waited, Nerry had promised me that she would bring some books with her when it was time for supper. I yawned, still far too tired to consider doing anything strenuous. By the time Nerry returned with the promised books about Regdren¡¯s adventures, I could barely keep my eyes open but Nerry¡¯s enthusiasm was infectious. And soon enough, a short but animated lesson took place in my room. The Dellish treated their historical figures as superheroes and I wouldn''t be surprised if a lot of these stories were just fabrications. I learnt about the historical Catri Empire that had once spanned the entire continent and had subjugated and driven off everything from dragons to liches to even an evil god hellbent on scouring the land of all life. My ears figuratively perked up at that bit and I asked for more details with far too much enthusiasm before catching myself. Nerry opened her mouth to tell what was no doubt a long story and ¡ª And then entered the only guild journeyman I had interacted with with any frequency, Rev himself. He didn''t knock, he simply strode in like the guild owned the place and for all I knew, they did. Nerry hurriedly bowed and made her excuses before leaving. ¡°I was informed that your recovery is going faster than expected and so I came to check and to congratulate you.¡± Rev flashed me a grin and then his face sobered up. ¡°The guildmistress wants you to report tomorrow. At 500 sharp . Do not be late.¡± 12. Security Clearance The same harsh voiced woman was at the desk again when I visited the guild the next day. She raised an eyebrow at the diminutive young girl who was a lot worse for wear two days ago but didn''t comment. ¡°Umm, I think the Guildmistress is expecting me?¡± I really wished my Cold Blooded was active, my usual bravado had just completely fizzled out at the prospect of meeting the Guildmistress again. It had to have been a skill. No way was my skill broken and I was reduced to being the anxious wreck I had once been just because I was terrified of her. Really the only person I was not a mess with was Nerry at the moment, Nerry who practically oozed harmlessness. I hoped Cold Blooded would level up until I wasn''t so skittish. Thank the system for giving me skills that let me skip out on my growing out of the anxiety phase! That was hard enough the first time around Thankfully, the older woman was a model of professionalism and just used her remote talking skill without comment. ¡°Yes, she''s waiting. You can go now.¡±
The Guildmistress looked and felt just as overwhelming as before and I was really glad that she was sitting at the moment. ¡°G-good morning Guildmistress. Yes, I''m doing pretty well. I mean I think.¡± I muttered. ¡°Good, I''m genuinely glad to hear that.¡± I saw the terrifying Guildmistress¡¯s weathered face soften into a hint of a smile for a moment before it hardened again. ¡°Now on to business. I assume Taimim has already informed you about your performance?¡± I nodded. ¡°Good, she will join us in just a mome¡ª. I believe she has arrived.¡± Just as Valdima finished speaking, Tiamim sauntered in. She waved at me before standing right next to Valdima. ¡°I have already told Tiamim about your¡­ situation without asking but you can trust her.¡± Alright this was getting stupid now. Try to imagine Valdima in pyjamas ¡ªno doesn''t work, still scary. Alright imagine myself in pyjamas¡ª no wait, that''s dumb. Alright, imagine that I am back in the camp and recently crippled. Be prickly or be walked over. Yes!. I exhaled slowly, trying to work through the knot of emotions before speaking, slowly and deliberately. Cold Blooded levelled up once or twice but I ignored it. ¡°V-very well Guildmistress, I understand why you did that but I would really appreciate it if next time you at least let me know before telling my secrets. No offense to you Tiamim, of course.¡± Tiamim did a gesture that I assumed meant something like ¡°no biggie¡±.
The security screening just turned out to be a more thorough version of the interrogation that Valdima had already put me through. Afterwards, I was shown a few teleporters hidden in the guild headquarters that transported me back to the grey underground complex that Tiamim worked from. The moment we were in the complex, Tiamim burst out into wheezing laughter. ¡°Hahahahaha, that was so worth it. I''d get you a raise just for her reaction if I didn''t have to explain that to the coinheads.¡± She slapped my back and I almost fell face first into the ground. ¡°Err, is standing up to the Guildmistress just that uncommon?¡± ¡°Of course not. It''s just not something people do after one or four meetings. It''s a skill you see, and one she can''t turn off without leaving her vulnerable and that is not something she can afford. Cold Blooded, I presume?¡± ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°Come now, let me introduce you to the rest of the team.¡± There was Agitjin, a young mage only slightly older than me. He used barriers made of raw mana and could see the past usage of mana in a place. It was more impressive than it sounded, he could recreate the exact flows of mana to a degree. He apparently had hundreds of spells he had simply copied like that. From what I understood from him, every skill could in theory be recreated with enough experimentation, knowledge, skill less mana control, augmentation or other ¡®mundane¡¯ methods. It just became exponentially more complicated. Kind of like just getting a computer to print ¡°hello world¡± to single handedly making an ai smarter than every human combined, if I had to use an analogy from my old world. Just talking with the guy made my Mana Direction level up. Then Novas, Novas was just odd. Another ¡®promising young talent¡¯, Novas wasn''t human but rather the survivor of some now dead madman''s attempt to grant a race of slime sapience. He wore a black full body suit of armour with an internal skeleton that his hidden slime form flexed and contracted to make him look like he was moving. He was almost even more introverted than me. He couldn''t speak but had absurd senses of smell and innate substance identification because of his species. I mean everyone called him a he but did slimes have gender? So how was any of it going to work? Simple. I didn''t have to come every day but I was given a gem that would heat up if I was needed, and that could happen anytime and I would have to show up when it did. The guild didn''t concern itself with every single death but anyone high profile? That meant work for us. The unsaid bit, of course, was that no one cared if a random poor person was murdered. I would be paid. 200 Aetherites (the mana crystals) per victim. That said, I still didn''t know the actual scale of my debt. The hotel staff remained tight lipped about it and it was not Tiamim¡¯s domain. And then Tiamim asked for any actual stats. ¡°That''s wow, those are terrible. I was going to ask you to take a particular level 40 class at your next mastery but at these numbers, that would kill you. Do you at least have a level 25 class?¡± ¡°Uhh no guildmistress, the best I have is a level 20 that I can take after I finish my current class. Should I?¡± ¡°No, take another 15 and then the 20. Normally this is a problem and someone would have to poach kills for you but you have one advantage, your pet. So here is what I recommend you do. You sign up as a temporary contractor with the guild as well and take on a few Aetherite slime culling contracts. Damn things literally multiply faster than we can even keep track of them.¡± ¡°Err what are Aetherite slimes exactly?¡± I probably wouldn¡¯t refuse, considering that Knife might take offense but I was not stupid. I wasn''t going to agree to killing something I had no idea existed just seconds prior. So far this world hadn''t adhered to the norms I had expected and I had never been the type to jump into danger like that. Even if slimes didn''t sound that dangerous but again Novas was a slime and he could kill me easily.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°Right, Godtouched. The refinement towers you can see on the other side of the city make and refine Aetherite, that''s what makes the smog glow. Aetherite naturally collects and stores mana that we can then use. It''s also New Delport¡¯s primary currency. Now Aetherite refining creates byproducts that are toxic to us humans and is too volatile to throw in a bunker or in the water for long. The solution we settled on was an engineered slime that consumes this byproduct to grow and reproduce. We dump our waste into an underground labyrinth and let them convert it into something that doesn''t poison the bloody city. With me so far?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°The Illustris Council pay us for getting rid of their waste and letting citizens level up in a relatively safe environment. We do that by having temporary contractors, they pay us a signing fee and then we pay them a small stipend for killing slimes. Sometimes we get jobs that are not worth it for us and we send it down to the contractors for a cut of their reward.¡± Lovely system that, I did not comment on the fact that guild seemed to be charging for a service they were already being paid for. ¡°I think I got it. Do you want me to start right now or¡­?¡± If they were used for fast levelling then the guild must be making a ton of money off the contracts. ¡°Right now would be lovely, I believe they should be handing out today''s contracts soon.¡± ¡°Alright. I just have one last question before I go. When do I get that cool black armor?¡± Tiamim just laughed.
¡°I''d like to register as a contractor.¡± I told the receptionist. ¡°Sure, your initial fee is already paid so we''ll just need to have your mana signature.¡± Already paid? Just how massive was my debt at this point? I hadn''t even received a number from the inn people for rates yet. Nerry didn''t know it and managers insisted that it was negotiated with the guild and to ask them. The receptionist placed a small red crystal on the desk. I touched it and a single point of mana was deducted from me. The woman''s glasses flashed blue. ¡°No records of criminality, no association with any factions considered to be threats. Alright. You are almost in. Just read this and confirm that it is fine and we''ll register your mana signature.¡± I was then handed a deceptively small booklet that I went to one of the tables to read. The guild hall¡¯s doors opened and Rev strode in and waved at me before disappearing into one of the six main doors. Shaking my head, I went back to reading. It was fairly standard if harsh stuff. I wasn''t sure how many crystals one contract paid or how much a thousand crystals was but Valdima at least had a vested interest in keeping me alive and sending me on my way post haste so couldn''t be that bad, right? Right? ¡°Yeah I think this is fine. Also I''d like to start with the Aetherite slime culling contracts.¡± The receptionist had given me very specific directions. Third door from the left, take an elevator to the second floor, then the first door on the right. What she hadn''t mentioned however was how crowded the room was. It was not like people were fighting over contracts or anything but I was acutely aware of how I looked younger than my actual age and everyone around me seemed generally stronger in some way or another. A girl with a large sword, a child with only a set of thin stilettos strapped to a belt, a bulky guy with a pair of handaxes, a thin and lanky girl without any actual weapons other than metal knuckles directly growing out of her hands and more. I even saw a few with other pets, a crackling bird with two pairs of wings, a green snake that hissed at Medea and something that looked like a dog, if dogs existed partially as shadows and could jump into them. A map of what I presumed was the labyrinth was projected onto the ceiling. It was subdivided into almost a hundred sectors each with a number on it. Some were colored red, others blue and some yellow. But there was variation within those, some reds were pale pink while others reminded me of Medea¡¯s eyes. Sky blues and navy blues. A single sector was pitch black; sector 0. A harried looking young man in square glasses was arguing loudly with¡­ wait was that Rev? The pair¡¯s bickering almost devolved into a shouting match before Rev stormed off and the man sat down at a table where a bunch of rectangular plate-like devices awaited. They somewhat resembled the old smartphones and tablets that were popular in my old world during the 10s and 20s. Heh, my old world and my new world. Weird way to think about it. The man flicked his fingers and the machines all lit up. On cue, as if it had happened tens of times before, everyone spontaneously formed a queue. I hastily slid near the rear end of it. The line moved fast, abnormally fast. The reason for which became soon apparent, the other freelancers each just took one of the devices and one of the red sectors in the map above became yellow. That was simple enough to understand. Red for places where the slimes needed to be culled, blue for places their population was under acceptable amounts and yellow for places undergoing culling. ¡°I¡­ I don''t know what it means.¡± I sheepishly admitted when I received mine and tapped one red sector on the map on it. It had turned yellow on the larger ceiling map but the numbers that flashed across the tablet meant nothing to me. The man glared at me while muttering something about lazy freelancers not even doing the bare minimum research. He gestured at a corner and told me to wait until he finished with the rest. He also took my tablet and gave it to the next person in line, a boy with oversized rocky hands that hung by his side like a gorilla¡¯s. It took longer than expected as the line had grown behind me in the meantime. I waited while anxiously checking the map above, there were a lot more yellows than red now. There were only 5 red sectors left when the line was finally cleared and I found myself once more facing the irritable man. ¡°You obviously know how to pick a sector on the vaultboard so do that and I''ll teach you the rest.¡± He grumbled and I did as instructed. Sector 42. ¡°Ok so this counter here is mana saturation. Aetherite slimes constantly radiate mana so we use this to keep track of them, your job is to reduce the saturation to 15% or less but DON''T take it all the way down to zero. You will not be paid and will incur a fine if you make that sector unusable until Aetherite slimes from other sectors repopulate it because you wanted to level up.¡± He rattled off the functionalities of the vaultboard with the cadence of a long memorized lecture. ¡°That number is for coordinates, and you can tap that to open up a map of your sector. The vaultboard is connected to the mana sensors so you will always know your current location in real time. Finally, if the board makes a buzzing noise and a sector goes orange then that means that the contractor for that sector needs help. You can choose to render aid or ignore the call but helping means that half of that contractor''s earnings are given to you. That means if you are the first to make it to their sector and get within a certain proximity of thekir vaultboard, you get the prize. If two or more contractors meet up before retrieving whoever needs help then the payout is divided. You can call for help yourself or when rescuing another contractor by tapping that circle but remember that only the boards are tracked so don''t lose it.¡± That actually sounded simple enough. I thanked the man and turned to find that everyone else had already left. I was on my own. At least it meant better experience, right? ¡°How do I enter the labyrinth again?¡± I flashed what I hoped was a winning smile. The stink eye I received in response implied that it wasn''t as winning as I thought. ¡°The teleportation array for the labyrinth is just next door. You can''t miss it. Just input your sector number and go. Now shoo. I have other things to do than babysitting.¡± The teleportation array turned out to be a room with four large white squares on the floor. Each square had a device with a keyboard with Dellish numbers on them. Mildly disappointed to see that no one else was still in the room, I typed my sector number in and waited as the square started to hum. I didn''t fall or black out or anything like that, Medea and I were in the exact same position in the labyrinth as we were in the guild hall. But one moment, the walls were white and well lit, the next they were grey and looked almost corroded with angry purple splotches. I was in the labyrinth. 13. Culling Pulling up the map of my sector, I thought that labyrinth was a bit of a misnomer. If anything it looked more like an underground sewer network. My teleportation array was at the end of one of the side paths that branched off a single large curved central path. Current mana saturation was at 57%; I had no idea if that was higher or lower than the average contract but as long as I was paid and got good experience, who cares. The side path that I was on was one of five smaller paths on my branch that ran parallel to the central curve. I could use augury to find my targets faster but I didn''t want to run out of mana before combat even began. I did not know what I was going to face. Picking one of the smaller paths, I began walking. The first Aetherite slime I encountered was on the second path. It didn''t look like what I had expected. In my mind, ¡®slime¡¯ meant something like a blob of glowing green goo. Maybe even with googly cartoon eyes. The slime was a blob of purple but that blob was in the middle of a complex network of pseudopod-like tendrils that expanded, retreated and branched freely as it moved, it didn''t inch. It moved. Commanding Medea to engage, I cast Hasten Swarm on it and waited from what I hoped was a safe distance. The slime only noticed Medea when the insectoid was almost on top of it and it belched a cloud of purple from its bloblike center. The gas made me almost sick by just looking at it and Medea leapt backward. Its carapace hissing and smoking. Medea had learned its lesson and didn''t charge again. It circled the slower slime creature as the latter attacked by launching its tendrils at speeds that I was sure could punch holes into a regular human from Earth. Medea meanwhile had settled into a pattern, dodge a tendril and then use its mouthparts to tear it out. Everytime it wounded the slime, purple liquid flowed out for seconds before the slime healed itself. The dismembered limbs sizzled and shrivelled into purple dust in seconds and slowly the slime was being whittled down. And then the slime threw a larger tendril at a wall and transferred its blobby center and most of its mass through the connection. Now far too high for Medea to get to, it could focus entirely on the offensive. First it belched the purple gas and then shot tendrils at Medea as it tried to avoid the cloud. And then a separate large tendril emerged from within the cloud and almost sent Medea flying. The slime intensified its attacks as Medea tried to avoid the barrage of tendrils raining down upon it, too fast and too many for any opening. Medea skittered in circles and tried and failed to make any distance between them as smoking holes were poked into its body. One lucky tendril attached itself to Medea¡¯s fang and tore it out as Medea struggled to pull itself free. I had to do something otherwise her best asset would perish and I would be left without any means of fending the slime off. Slowly inching closer to the battlefield as Cold Blooded flickered, I prepared to strike. \\Minor Stealth is now level 8! ¡°Induce Bleeding¡± My voice was barely audible to even myself amidst the hissing a d sizzling but the effect was obvious. A small gash opened up in the blobby center mass as purple goo sprayed out violently. It drenched the walls, it drenched Medea and it drenched my clothes and face and yet it kept on bleeding. Whatever that central mass was, it had to have absurdly high internal pressure. Some got into my mouth and I gagged and retched at the disgusting pungent liquid. The slime was noticeably deflating and Medea seized the moment. It grabbed one of the now writhing tendrils between an unnaturally bending leg and single fang and wrenched the creature back to the ground. It tried to rise again but was violently slammed down. The bleeding had begun to staunch and the wound was closing but it was too late. Medea violently ripped the gash open again and extracted what looked like a purple marble the size of three of my fists out of it. The marble was secured between Medea¡¯s lone fang and a leg that bent entirely the wrong way as it raised the orb above its gaping mouth and crushed it. Powdered slime core fell into a gaping obsidian maw as Medea changed. Notifications flashed before my eyes along with the familiar pain I had learned to associate with class mastery but I was too preoccupied with the horror show before me to care. First Medea lurched and buckled as its damaged plates sloughed off its body. I could see strings of purple slime on the underside of those plates stretch and snap as new chitin grew to replace what was lost. The shiny black chitin segments were uncannily smooth, much smoother than what I was used to. Except for the glowing purple cracks that formed in them after just a moment. The cracks expanded and new misshapen chitin spikes pushed itself out of them with sounds of groans and cracks. But that wasn''t the end of it. The spider scorpion¡¯s legs thickened and enlarged as clawed hands formed at their ends. Each leg had four digits that each looked like one of my knives. The claws spread and then flexed before snapping shut into thicker leg tips. The tail only slightly increased in length. The scorpion-like tip fell off with a ¡®pop¡¯ and a newer, slicker tip shaped like an oversized spear end replaced it. And finally Medea''s face changed as the horrific transformation completed. The singular large eye expanded and gained flecks of purple as many of the extra eyes ruptured from within or just fell away. The fang expanded and a matching one regrew rapidly. And then the mouth elongated and gained almost human-like rows of sharp obsidian teeth that clicked in what I assumed was triumph. \\Large Mutant Aetherite Slime slain \\Skill Slime Physiology Knowledge Learned //WARNING: Passive skill slot limits exceeded. You can replace a skill or refuse to equip your new skill. Unequipped skills can¡¯t be equipped again for a period of time determined by their power. Unequipped skills do not confer any benefits but exist and count for consolidation purposes only. Not needed. \\Find Weakness is now level 5! \\Enslaved Familiar''s Bond is now level 20! \\Tame Lesser Insectoid is now level 19! \\[BLOODMAGE INITIATE] is now level 15! \\Class mastered [BLOODMAGE INITIATE]. +2 to STRENGTH, VITALITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT The slime had knocked off a massive 9% of the total mana saturation in the sector. I wasn''t an expert but that slime had a couple of adjectives that I doubted were universal to Aetherite slimes. Quiraion¡¯s Knife had to have been messing with me again. And my clothes were soaked in that accursed purple liquid that caused my skin to itch and made my hair all sticky. I was NOT having a good time. Meanwhile Medea¡¯s new transformation had made it larger again and it waited obediently for new orders from its mistress. I would be lying if I said that my pet didn''t ooze malevolence that unsettled me at this point but I wasn''t the type to argue with results. Speaking of results, I had a new class to pick. Last time I checked, [BONEMAGE] was my highest level class with the stat bonuses to match but I had three reasons to not go that way just yet.
  1. My long term goal was to get rid of Knife of Quiraion or fulfill it and I wasn''t arrogant enough to think that I could match a god of bones in his specialty. Just picking bone themed classes meant that I would primarily get higher quality bone themed classes and many of my skills would consolidate towards that.
  1. Secondly, I had to consider that I was at best a supporter from the sidelines and not a primary combatant at this point. That was all Medea. I could branch out my magic once Medea was stronger and my own stats weren''t terrible.
  1. Finally Tiamim recommended taking it a bit slower.
No matter how much the class tempted me, I couldn''t justify taking it, not at this point anyways. I examined my familiar again, Medea was now a Mana Tainted Spider-Scorpion Worker. No way would it have stayed under my taming if not for the subsequent familiar bonding. I hoped its evolution had unlocked something decent for me.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. A lot of classes centred around having an animal friend and such were now lost to me for some rather obvious reasons of enslavement. But others hadn''t opened up in their steed, most probably because of my stats. Finally I settled on a class that wasn''t just middling to me. \\FOREST RANGER APPRENTICE (0/15) You have traversed great jungles and you survived and thrived where lesser women would have perished. You have also tamed the beasts that lurk in the wild. As a [FOREST RANGER APPRENTICE], the wild is as much of a home to you as civilization is to others. You can empower and command the beasts of the wild to fell your enemies while the wild hides you in her bosom. Nature yields its bounties to you more readily than most and no more shall you fear starvation in the wild. At higher levels, forest rangers bring the forest with them wherever they tread and legions of greater nature elementals like Dryads and Nymphs rain nature¡¯s fury upon anyone who dares to oppose you. MASTERY BONUSES: +2 to CELERITY, VITALITY, ACUITY AND PERCEPTION I had no intention of going down this path further but everything it promised already heavily overlapped with my existing skills and I was worried about the fact that I was at my skill caps. I could get rid of things that I didn''t use but I had seen firsthand how seemingly useless skills could consolidate into better things and so I was in no hurry. The bit I was really after was empowering tamed beasts anyways. Furthermore my stealth was the reason I was even alive to this point. \\Class [FOREST RANGER APPRENTICE] selected \\Skill Tame Lesser Wild Beast Learned \\Minor Stealth is now level 9! \\Scavenging and Scrounging is now level 9! \\Ranger Magic spell list unlocked \\Ranger Magic Spell list Muffle Sound: 15 mana Enlarge Tamed Beast: 40 mana Perfect. I got all that I wanted and nothing more. It seemed unusually well rounded for a level 15 class but I was used to seeing classes punching above or below their weight by now. Three skills on top of spells and one of the skills being a tame skill and the other two focusing on survival was really good. The Bone Augury path had blown Bonecrafting out of the water despite being 5 levels shorter and this one was even better than Swarmcaller. Judging by the description it had more requirements to unlock than Swarmcaller and that probably explained the discrepancy. My new skill Tame Lesser Wild Beast was similar to its insectoid counterpart but with a lower threshold to throw off the taming effect. Only something five times as strong as the tamer compared to the six times that insectoid promised. Not that that mattered in any way to me. ¡°Tame Lesser Wild Beast.¡± I spoke aloud as Medea stiffened. \\Enslaved Familiar''s Bond is now level 21! \\Enslaved Familiar¡¯s Bond can absorb the skills Tame Lesser Wild Beast and Tame Lesser Insectoid. \\WARNING: ONE OR MORE COMPONENT SKILLS WILL LOSE CERTAIN FUNCTIONALITIES BY THIS MERGER. You can preview the new skill before approving this merger. \\Greater Enslaved Familiar¡¯s Bond: 21 Familiars are base creatures that a person may bond with to form a life long partnership. A familiar is the closest friend of its owner and together they form a team that''s greater than the sum of parts. A familiar and its master are one unit and betrayal of that bond is anathema to both. You don''t have that kind of bond and now you never will. You have broken a creature''s mind and warped its very nature at the fundamental level to serve your own ends and thus, somehow, you have a ¡®familiar¡¯. And yet you have taken a broken and shattered familiar and nurtured it to ever greater heights to reforge into a weapon all the stronger for its violent destruction. With each level, your familiar has 1.5% more stats rounded down when in your proximity. The range at which it is considered to be in proximity to you is 0.5 meters per level +5. Any beneficial effects on your familiar will be 5% stronger and last 5% longer per level if you apply them yourself. Furthermore, you can mentally order your familiar to perform any task and it will attempt to do it to the best of its ability. Your familiar can also deliver touch based effects for you. Your familiar can never disobey you. Your familiar is always considered to be under the effects of any and all relevant Tame skills for the purposes of effects you apply to it even if you lack those skills. Current bonuses: 31.5%, 15.5 meters, 105% and 105%. I approved it without much thought, the only reason I kept the insect tame skill around was that I needed it for the spells. And furthermore the bonuses were simply superior to what Medea had prior. Sure, it centralized everything on Medea and if Medea died then I would have to somehow regain them all slowly or somehow find another familiar but if Medea died even with the new bonuses then I had bigger things to worry about. I let Medea rest for twentyish minutes before the culling began anew. \\Aetherite Slime slain \\Greater Enslaved Familiar''s Bond is now level 22! \\[FOREST RANGER APPRENTICE] is now level 4!
None of the slime we had encountered were remotely as big or powerful as the very first one and Medea simply slaughtered them in seconds without ever needing my buffs. They also each only accounted for 1% to 3% of mana saturation so it only took us twelve additional kills before the number was all the way down to 14%. Medea hadn''t grown any more from consuming their cores either but I was almost sure that the purple flecks in its eyes were just a bit brighter than before. After eliminating the last slime, we just returned to the teleporting array. Maybe it was because of the excitement, maybe it was because I was exhausted and hadn''t slept properly but one thing had slipped my mind. I was covered in slime blood (ichor?) from my head to my toes. Anyways, there was a picture to be painted here. A scrawny girl coated in dried purple slime juice teleports into a room with a giant spider monster with hands on its legs and a scorpion tail. The girl¡¯s face is all purple and her clothes stick to her body because the slime¡¯s blood had dried on her. At least there weren''t many people in the teleportation room when I teleported out of the labyrinth, thank Quiraion ¡°Excuse me.¡± I squeaked and ran out of the teleportation room, my face burning. Just ignore the eyes, just ignore them all.
Dejectedly returning my vaultboard, I collected a measly tray of 19 crystals, carefully not meeting anyone¡¯s eye as I slipped it into a cloth pouch attached to my belt. I needed proper clothes and armor, not whatever the hotel provided. Quiraion help me if this is what I was looking at for my income. A carriage ride from the hotel cost 7 crystals. Maybe I should learn more about the gods of the world instead of just calling on a dead one? Maybe then today''s mess would have been averted. In all honesty, I had no particular desire to make friends but being known as the aloof weirdo and being known as the aloof weirdo who bathed in the blood of slimes were very different things. Leaving worrying about what my compatriots thought of me for later, I counted my earnings again. 19 crystals per day, 7 per carriage ride, twice over if I didn''t want to walk. Otherwise, a decent walk that also doubled as exercise. Assuming that all contracts paid me 19 crystals then I would need to work for 53 days before the guild''s contracting fees would decrease. I didn''t intend to work that long, I just needed to be strong enough to take whatever class Tiamim wanted me to. But that still left the question of expenses. Food and lodgings were secured for well over a week so my immediate priority purchases were some sort of light armor and a backpack that wasn''t unwieldy enough to slow me down. Those, I didn''t know the costs of but no way I had enough after just one day. Nerry had promised to share her books with me so I was hopefully all set on the entertainment side. Really, every way I thought about it, only one conclusion made sense. I needed new armor first and then I had to look for cheap lodgings. ¡°Where can I find a bank?¡± Banks, as it turned out, existed in New Delport but only for the wealthy. For the rest of us plebs, there was only the Exchange that took in trays of 30 small crystals for a thicker square crystal or vice versa. Apparently it was a culturally significant number because at multiples of 30, active skills evolved and classes got a lot less rigid. I would probably want to visit one in three or four days but for now I had one priority, getting back to the hotel and taking a long shower. I paid for a ride and noted with surprise that the sky was already darkening by the time the carriage arrived at its destination. A small pile of earmarked books with cracked spines waited for me with titles like ¡®Regdren¡¯s Kindling¡¯ and ¡®The Fall of Dellia¡¯. I smiled and after a long shower, turned on my mana lamp to read. 14. The Multitheist Church The next day, I went down for breakfast instead of having it in my room. The biomancy had increased my appetite and it would apparently remain high for a few more days and I really didn''t want to skip breakfast or wait for Nerry. Medea was still full from yesterday''s feasting and so we only stayed until I finished shoving bread and some unknown meat to depart for the guild. Maybe I might have spent an inordinate amount of time lying in my bed and reconsidering culling and maybe I was overcorrecting for it but no one could prove that!
This time I moved quickly and made an effort to avoid meeting my fellow contractors but one of the aforementioned contractors didn''t have the same plans. ¡°Hey you, spider scorpion girl!¡± The girl that had called out to me was a tall pale girl my age wearing a brown dress that looked like someone had attached a ceremonial robe to a gambeson. Transparent glass bangles glittered on both her gloved arms but I was almost sure that the bangles were burning orange for a moment. ¡°Yes?¡± I hedged uneasily. The other girl looked much stronger than me, although I couldn''t quite pin down how I knew it. She was also absurdly pretty. ¡°Hi, I''m Fahria Shakirn.¡± She extended a clawed hand, presumably the local equivalent of a handshake. I tentatively matched each finger with one of my own. ¡°Do you want to team up? Our sectors are right next to each other and we can keep an eye out for one another.¡± ¡°Uh what?¡± I had expected a lot of things, the bulk of them being mockery but not an offer to team up. It also didn''t explain why the girl chose me instead of any of her other neighbors. ¡°Well, you see, slimes aren''t that dangerous alone but some of them can be sneaky. And if you are busy fighting one and the noise attracts a couple more when your back is turned? You get the idea.¡± Fahria shrugged. ¡°Sure.¡± I returned the shrug and nodded. Oh well, I would just keep an eye out. If we encountered another mutant or multiple slimes or something, having an extra body would help. That didn''t mean that I trusted the other girl, even if she was really pretty. I wasn''t that shallow. ¡°Yeah I think we can do that.¡± The arrangement was simple. Fahria would act as backup for Medea when we were clearing my sector but wouldn''t interfere until and unless we were in actual danger and vice versa. No stealing experience from anyone. I had reservations but agreed to it if Medea could eat all kills afterward. ¡°So, whose sector do we tackle first?¡± Fahria asked. ¡°Uhh.¡± ¡°Alright. Pick one stat and whether I have an odd number or even number in it.¡± Couldn''t we toss a coin or something? Oh right, Aetherite crystals were symmetrical top and bottom. ¡°Attunement. Even.¡± Fahria smirked. ¡°Wrong.¡±
Fahria¡¯s bangles melted into white hot glass that partially rehardened into a sharp tip. It was attached to a tendril of molten glass. It lashed out and impaled the core of a slime as Fahria continued to probe me instead of paying her prey attention. ¡°Wait, you were attacked in the forest?¡± ¡°Yeah. And then Rani tried to fight the slavecatchers off or at least buy us enough time to run away. We never saw her again. ¡± I had memorized my cover story well. I was supposedly an escaped slave girl who was to be sold to Khagra. Khagra was a port city also connected to the Central Sea like New Delport and it was a slave based martial society where the aging and criminals were often killed to improve the classes of citizens. And citizenry was not universal but had to be earned or inherited. It sounded a lot like the martial societies of antiquity, I wasn''t an expert but Rome and Athens came to mind but I could be misremembering or just going off of made up pop history. Khagra functioned because of the power of their infamous geass skills that were passed down through an exclusive order of royal priests since the time of the Catri Empire¡¯s collapse. That geass was what I would supposedly be under forever if I hadn''t escaped in time. I had the feeling that as the Catri Empire collapsed, warlords with powerful skills just took over what remained by force. ¡°And what about you, Fahria?¡± I changed the subject before she could me about my home. I was now Anya, the formerly illiterate girl from a small self sufficient village that barely eeked out a living. I didn''t have any good classes or knew much about anything. ¡°Well it''s complicated but basically I''m training for a competition the Shakirn clan holds to determine its next heir. This is just training¡° I could tell there was more to the story but it wasn''t my job to pry. Same way she didn''t pry beyond what I myself volunteered. ¡°Have you been doing this for long? Slime culling I mean.¡± I asked as we watched Medea devour a still living ¡ªand very much struggling¡ª slime whole. Poor thing thought it could sneak up on them. ¡°Not really, I''ve been at it for only a bit over a month at this point. If I''m not mistaken, this is just your second day. Right?¡± ¡°Yep. I was wondering if you have ever seen a mutant slime?¡± ¡°A mutant¡­ WHAT. Did you find a mutant on your very first day?¡± Fahria practically yelled and I jumped. Medea chomped down on its food and hissed with its tail raised. ¡°Y-Yeah.¡± I admitted, not really expecting such a reaction. ¡°Well that explains your¡­ appearance yesterday. In any case I must congratulate you for killing one. They are slightly uncommon and I have only encountered two myself so far but I''ve heard that every mutant is different. What was its core worth? Some of those can sell for more than several months¡¯ worth of contracts.¡± Fahria asked innocently. I pointedly did not look at Medea as my heart sank. Quiraion and his dumb Knife. ¡°Look on the bright side, your pet evolved and your skills consolidated into something better. Personal growth is almost infinitely more important than whatever that core was worth.¡± Fahria tried to cheer me up. I knew she was telling me the truth and it was likely that I wouldn''t have sold the core anyways but it would have been nice to know how many crystals I could have had. I still didn''t know what my total debt was!This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Eventually, we were back in the guild again and no one was covered in slime juice. Well, Medea was but that didn''t count. Fahria turned to me and gave me a quick smile. ¡°It¡¯s completely fine if you don''t want to but I have to ask, can we do this again? It is¡­ dull hunting slimes without any company every day.¡± ¡°Oh, of course.¡± I didn''t mind the company. Before I left, I had one last thing left that I had to do. I strode into one of the many side rooms that I had been shown earlier and activated a hidden teleporter. ¡°Can I trust the Multitheist church to be discreet about my condition?¡± I asked Tiamim. She genuinely seemed surprised at the question and closed her eyes to think. She pondered for what felt like a long amount of time to me before finally reopening her eyes and nodding. ¡°Yes, it should be safe. The clergy are bound by their class to not do anything that is or could be considered an affront to the gods. Still I would suggest that you ask for a High Priest of Quiraion at least. Now go.¡±
The Church of Multifaceted Theosophies, or the Multitheist Church as it was known in common parlance was the primary place of worship in New Delport for all gods and goddesses. There were hundreds of gods and it was simply absurd to have temples for them all. Only Arshanara, the patron goddess of New Delport had her own dedicated temple separate from the Multitheist Church. The church was a massive white building that seemed almost Roman in design. Neoclassical architecture, if she had to describe it but for all she knew, it had been standing since the empire''s times: actual classical architecture. There was no security before the building, only destitute monks begging for alms. And that made sense to me, who would be stupid enough to attack a church of all the gods when they were tangible entities? ¡°Welcome, young one. I am Nehu. How may this humble servant of the divinities aid you?¡± A young priest in the Multitheist Church¡¯s pearl white raiments smiled at me. His teeth were so white that they seemed to almost shine. ¡°Er, I want to know more about Lord Quiraion?¡± I hedged, not really sure what else to say without seeming suspicious. The man was practically glowing in his white outfit and I could feel a lightness in the air that I had never felt before. My mana, which felt like water earlier now felt like cold alcohol. ¡°Priest Laikon is the archpriest of the System Maker. He should be at the third altar of the Fire Mother.¡± He gave md the directions to it and I turned to leave. ¡°Wait! Young one, just indulge this servant for a moment more. Do you seek knowledge of the System Maker because you have found your divine calling?¡± Nehu called out to me, an eager expression on his face. ¡°Yeah, something like that.¡± I fled inside while Nehu was looking like he was about to start reminiscing about his early divine classes. Maybe because everyone was running around to flee the rising sea and the stroke inducing heat but preachers were never the chillest people around in my experience. Priest Laikon was an older wizened man with dark skin and greying hair. He had his eyes closed in supplication before a wall relief of what I assumed was the Fire Mother. Right before the relief was a large altar with a round stone basin on it. A fire burned in the basin that sent shadows dancing across the relief. I couldn''t really make out details on the relief, carved waves like flames and smoke played off the altar¡¯s own fire and drowned out everything else on to the relief and it was just incomprehensible. He dipped his head in acknowledgement when he spotted me but no moves to approach or speak. ¡°Greetings, are you Priest Laikon of Lord Quiraion?¡± ¡°Yes. I am. It is not often that those that seek guidance of Lady Arshanara¡¯s father find themselves in these halls. How may I help you?¡± His voice was smooth like velvet and his eyes gleamed with the fires of the altar. ¡°I wish to learn about Lord Quiraion. What he did and what he was and represented. Actually, I''m not even sure what the correct questions to ask are.¡± Laikon chuckled at that last bit. ¡°I''m always pleased to enlighten a potential fellow adherent.¡± He walked up to the relief and ran his fingers gently, reverently over a section of it. I could almost make out a hint of a crowned figure in the haze. A fleeting sensation of heat. ¡°The Veiled Flame. God of hidden truths, light within shadow, and the fire that burns unseen. Lord Quiraion, all that he is and much more.¡± Laikon began. ¡°He is most known for the System, that''s but that''s only a part of what he is, a major part but only a part. He was also a lesser keeper of secrets before becoming a god of magic. Some knowledge is only his to divulge and only his to obscure. That is, among other things, Lord Quiraion. Now, before I continue, would you be so kind as to sacrifice some spices to the fire? There''s a basket to the left.¡± I did as asked and the fire flared up into a bright green blaze as the powder ignited. The shadows writhed on the walls and Laikon slowly intoned. ¡°Long ago, Lord Quiraion and his nameless twin brother were born out of the eruption of a volcano made of black rock that could cut diamonds. The volcano, now lost in name and location, harbored a terrible secret within. And the two brothers disagreed on whether this secret should be revealed. And over this disagreement, a battle to the death commenced.¡± Laikon threw some more powder and the flame roared with renewed ferocity. ¡°Is that why he is a minor secret keeper?¡± I asked. ¡°Indeed. A secret is like a coin, on one side it can bring great progress and yet on the other it can spell ruination. Lord Quiraion foresaw the way this particular secret would flip. And he killed his own sibling to prevent that. From the ashes of his brother and his own broken soul, Lord Quiraion created the system. Do you know why, child?¡± I shook my head. ¡°To empower us all! To grant us power, power from death, from souls reaped from the monsters that hunted us at night and laid waste to us during the day. And all he asked for, all he demanded was a tithe, a portion of the power harvested by the system in turn.¡± Laikon spoke calmly, his face remained kind and placid but a maddening fervor was creeping into his tone. Religious zealots, wonderful. Meanwhile, I was thinking about my trait. The Knife of Quiraion¡¯s primary effect was that my skills and classes levelled up faster and consolidated more often and if all it really did was not take Quiraion''s cut then¡­ Quiraion must have been accumulating power for ages before his death. I frowned. It sounded like a problem. ¡°How long ago was the system created, archpriest?¡± ¡°It has to be at least a few millennia at least. We don''t know the exact date as no mortal diviner can see something as magically momentous.¡± That was a long time for a god to recover and become even stronger than before. And if the system was subverted then my enemies were also feeding off tithe meant for Quiraion. I tried to look just casually interested while trying my best to keep my face neutral. Laikon continued. ¡°There are numerous other stories about his accomplishments but bards can sing for weeks about them all and still not be done. Are you considering a divinity based class? There are doctrines of Quiraion that you should know before taking on one though.¡± Doctrines? That sounded like something similar to her trait¡¯s compulsion. ¡°What are doctrines?¡± ¡°Doctrines are what a god likes to see in their followers. Break them and a god will no longer answer your prayers, provide guidance or grant miracles.¡± ¡°Wait! Can you communicate with a god?¡± ¡°Of course! Why wouldn''t we be?¡± He looked legitimately confused at the question. ¡°Although it is rare for people as insignificant as to get a divinity¡¯s full attention. By sacrificing like you and I did, we can garner notice. The flames turning green meant that Quiraion acknowledged us.¡± Oh no. I had messed up, again. The flames had turned green but there was no Quiraion left to acknowledge it. There was one other entity who could have answered when I foolishly called. After all, if a system can be subverted, why not a faith. Why not take the offerings meant for your enemy? Why not lie to the believers if all you had to do was watch over them when paid in offerings and faith? And if that entity was watching, I had to better make sure I was boring enough to not necessitate a closer look. Cold Blooded activated instantly and with such intensity that I would feel numb and disassociated for hours afterwards. There was no I, only an Anya. She listened stonily as Laikon enumerated the virtues of Quiraion. Discretion in sharing knowledge, trickery, scholarship, secrecy and more. She emoted the appropriate faces and adjusted her tone until it was late. She finally made her excuses with an suitable amount of embarrassment and interest that she didn''t feel, smiled and thanked him with gratitude that was foreign to her and a girl, little more than internally dead, returned home while a torrent of skill level notifications flashed in her periphery. 15. The Passage of Time I Long ago, the goddess Arshanara, the goddess of fire and desolation, of towns and fields set aflame during wars and of raging wildfires that scour all life, fell in love with a dragon. The dragon, Kalist was feared across the empire for his might and temper and for reducing many duchies to ashes. As an elder wyrmlord, he was only a few steps removed from divinity himself and yet he knew to not even dare to resist Arshanara¡¯s advances. Regdren, the Silver Flame was the result of this union. He was Godtouched and had suckled on the teat of a goddess and even as an infant, Kalist feared his might. At Kalist¡¯s behest, Regdren¡¯s race was forcibly changed to that of a human and he was left on the other end of the Catri Empire where he would be raised by a peasant couple. When he was only fifteen summers old, war came knocking to his idyllic stead. And he answered. When the Catrian Emperor¡¯s men asked for bodies against the invaders from the south, Regdren volunteered with an eagerness he had not known before. His blood, that he shared with a divinity of war and a dragon of violence and destruction had always rebelled against his peaceful life. And once given the opportunity, it was as certain as the movement of the heavenly spheres that Regdren would wage war and make violence. After all, the edicts of the gods manifest in unpredictable ways in all that are touched by them. Even other gods are not immune to this. And Regdren, while mighty, was still mortal. Regdren rose quickly through the ranks of the Catrian army, his unmatched prowess on the battlefield earning him the moniker "The Silver Flame." He fought with a ferocity that left comrades and enemies alike in awe, his blade burning with an otherworldly fire that could cut through steel and stone. His flame was not of mortal ken and nothing could withstand it but it was only a comforting warmth to those that bore him no ill will. Yet, it was not just his might that distinguished him, but his seemingly unwavering loyalty to the Catrian Empire and its ruler, Emperor Catrian III. The Emperor recognized Regdren''s potential and elevated him, entrusting him with command over one of the fifteen imperial legions. Leading his men in battle, he vanquished the southern invaders and drove them to the sea. And still, his fiery rage was not sated and he gave pursuit to them, to their very lands. Numerous champions fell to his blade and yet his fire was not quenched. Something had ignited within him and only blood could keep it at bay. He ravaged the countryside and set whole towns on fire until the invader king, Xerag, himself was forced to confront him. He bore an armor and spear of gold and rode upon a pegasus. The king had not inherited his post but had seized it through warfare and blood and he matched the Godtouched. For a day and a half, they battled. Mountains fell and new rivers were carved on the landscape before finally, Xerag fell, his very heart plucked out his by own spear and cast into the sea. And finally, for the first time in decades, the maddening bloodlust had left Regdren and he returned triumphant to Catria. He was given a small city to rule. This town was named Dellia and Regdren''s adoptive parents and their people moved to it as their old land had long been destroyed in the fires of war. Despite his victory, Regdren was haunted by a new spectre. A spectre that only existed in his darkest nightmares and in the whispers that echoed from the shadowed halls of his fort. Visions and stories, of a small settlement by the sea, dreams of fire, wings, and a voice, terrible and familiar, that whispered his name. "Regdren," it said. ¡°Perish.¡± It promised. The voice clawed upon his mind, raking gauges upon it. He dismissed the dreams as nothing more than the echoes of a restless spirit. And yet, peace was not his to bed for long. Three trials, Regdren had endured and three enemies he had overcome. And soon enough, the second trial came. And with it, came ruin to Dellia. -Regdren¡¯s Kindling ¡°Show me civilian classes. Search for keywords: bone, knife, knives, daggers.¡± And it worked. I blinked, I hadn''t expected it to. \\Class [KNIFE MAKER''S APPRENTICE] selected ¡®No crafting skill? Must have sent the experience to Bone Shaping.¡¯ Oh well. I could work with that, even if no skill changes whatsoever was disappointing. I fished out one of my knives and slightly reshaped the handle. \\[KNIFE MAKER¡¯S APPRENTICE] is now level 5! \\Class mastered [KNIFE MAKER''S APPRENTICE]. +1 to STRENGTH Done. Time to see what''s my next highest available class. \\UNAUGURED ACOLYTE (0/20) The Unaugured God hides behind a thousand veils and you have peered beyond one such veil. Pledge your service to the god who is not an¡ª NOPE. And now I was in a conundrum. What should my next class be? [FOREST RANGER APPRENTICE] didn''t take too long to be mastered. Then came the big one. [BONEMAGE ACOLYTE], a level 20 class that gave me +2 to Celerity, Willpower, Attunement, and a +4 to Vitality. It also came with an active skill called Calcify Mana that let me use bones to store mana for later use like personal Aetherite. I just made a point of always charging my knives with excess mana whenever I was close to being full or before going to bed. In a day, it evolved into Calcified Mana Empowerment that also boosted the structural integrity of whatever I stored mana in, based on how much I stored. The knives seemed to have no limit to how much mana they could hold but I still decided against putting all my mana in one until I hit the theoretical limit; every one of my knives had some mana in it. The two bone magic spells, Teeth Spray and Spinal Shiver, weren''t bad either. One was a short range offensive spell that pelted the target with fast moving teeth until I stopped casting or ran out of mana. The individual projectiles weren''t anything to write home across dimensions about but the collective barrage was formidable at close range. The other was just a wide area temporary paralysis spell that wore off within a second on stronger enemies but still gave them pause. All they took was a bone catalyst, like my knives. And once again, because of their Godtouched nature, I mastered it much faster than level 15 classes like the one before it. Not instantly like my first two classes but still within an hour. My next class had been a level 15 again but it had been exceptionally good for my skills. Quick Killer, Dirty Fighter, Neurotic Observer and Find Weakness had instantly consolidated into Assassin''s Eye because of [ASSASSIN''S WARD], it also gave me +2 to Strength, Celerity, Acuity and Perception. It also awarded me a passive skill that boosted my Strength, Celerity, Acuity and Perception by half the level of the skill¡¯s level if unseen by everyone, or at least if I genuinely believed I was unseen. It didn''t magically let me know if I was being watched, I had tested it with Novas. The problem with it being that it refused to level up unless I pushed myself far beyond any sustainable and safe pace when it was active to make it level. I had thus only found it useful for sneaking up on the occasional slime or large vermin that plagued the streets. I would have expected the animals to have choked to death due to the pollution but life still endured. But my problems with it were all solved when it absorbed Minor Stealth to become Unseen Slayer. That was impressive as it simply combined the two effects into a passive. All in all, a lot of my slots were freed and I was grateful for that even though it was not all convenience and improvement. Assassin''s Eye didn''t activate when needed or anything, it was always active. A permanent stream of subconscious telling me how to kill everyone around me, how to escape, every opening and every weakness of all around me. And when I was in a crowd? It went wild. Cold Blooded had levelled once from just dealing with it constantly. That certainly didn''t help with my reputation as the weird recluse among the other contractors. But it was that or staring at people''s throats because my skills labelled them a weak spot mid-conversation. I moved quickly and didn''t stay to chat with anyone other than Fahria, who seemed to empathize with me as she apparently had something similar. Not sure how I felt about the fact that she might be thinking about killing me too.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Once I figured out that if I let Medea kill without being detected myself, that gave me some extra experience, that class didn''t take too many days either. That mastery had been just minutes ago, followed by my seconds-long foray into knife making. Not a bad haul for just a bit over a week but in all honesty, I had only legitimately levelled the two level 15s in that time. The bones were a cheat but at this rate, they would stop being useful for me sooner than later. I was fine with that, bones were the domain of those that I had to kill. That I and 11 others had to kill. In that week, I had also been looking for a cheap place to stay but in New Delport, that was hard. It didn''t brainwash its people like Khagra and it was not poor and without any possibility of social mobility like say, the unnamed village I was supposed to be from. And that meant that it was a place of competition and strivers. All the better for the Illustris Council that thrived off it but not so for me. I wasn''t the only one to have dramatically grown. Medea was becoming rather large and that was only going to become a problem in narrow spaces if it continued to evolve at the rates it had been. With Medea even stronger and no pet type classes available to me, I had to choose between a lot of options that didn''t really impress me that much. I still had an active slot open and if and if I was lucky, I might get something that was half decent from the get go. Until now I had always picked classes that were immediately relevant for my survival or those that I knew that I could abuse the Godtouched bones to instantly master. But now that I could afford to think about my long term development. I knew that I shouldn''t focus on bones too much because of my task and from what I understood, it was a feedback loop of specialization unlocking better options that caused further specialization. Still, cheap levels were cheap levels. I still wanted to milk my knives for all the levels they could yield. ¡°So, you have seen how I fight. What do you think I should choose?¡± I asked Fahria again. She rolled her eyes and dutifully gave the same answer she had given the last time I had asked her. ¡°Your primary combatant is Medea. Either pick something that lets you contribute in a fight directly without hitting it or something that increases your own survivability. Actually you know what? I think my sector is done. We can leave now and you can agonize over it all night and pick something in the morning.¡± Grumbling, I followed the other girl to the teleporter with my thoughts churning. Offensive magic or defensive skills? I opened my class list and sorted it into archetypes again. The system was helpful like that. It didn''t show me any requirements for unlocking future classes unfortunately but I had discovered that I could ask for other things. Like when I asked what was the highest level class that I had met at least 30% of the unlock requirements for. The answer was censored with over half of it unreadable but it was still impressive sounding. \\THE LAST WITNESS OF THE LAST SUNSET OF TEN BILLION SOULS ¨€¨€¨€¨€ You have witnessed the death of a world and you have survived it. You bore witness to the last moments of a God. All you know has faded, all that exists will fade and yet you remain. Kingdoms fall. Worlds fall. Stars extinguish. The lights of existence dim and go out without an audience to see it happen. Even gods die, even the death of gods die. Creation inexorably hurtles towards oblivion. Death paints a painting upon the canvas of existence and yet you remain. Only you will remain. ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ Hopefully actually unlocking was just a matter of having better stats and skills and not seeing more worlds perish. In any case, I bet I was very far from getting it. I opened the magic section and began to read. Hmm. Elemental Apprentice: Fire Elemental Apprentice: Water Elemental Apprentice: Ice Elemental Apprentice: Wind Elemental Apprentice: Lightning Elemental Apprentice: Earth Elemental Apprentice: Metal Elemental Apprentice: Nature Defensively, earth, ice, and metal were the obvious winners, offensively fire and lightning stood above the rest. Fire was out, it was a volatile element that worked best for people that fought solo or as artillery or sniper types. Too much literal friendly fire for anything else. Medea fought up close and personal, it would get cooked! Ice was probably out because of how easy it would be to destroy compared to metal or earth. Actually maybe I should check the defense options if I was leaning that way? It was mostly things like using huge shields or other melee stuff but the three elementalists I had expected were also there, along with the nature one. Maybe for tree bark and wood? I found a mana shielder, like a very inferior version of what I had seen Agitjin make once. Seeing a familiar shock of brown curls, I slipped out of the guild after him and called out. ¡°Hey Rev! Can you help me o¡ª¡± I stopped as Cold Blooded violently activated. Rev turned towards me, his hair swaying in the telekinetic field he always seemed to have around him. His mouth opened to say something. We were interrupted by a sound that I hadn''t heard in years yet could not ever forget, a sound that was somehow even recognisable to me across worlds. Air raid sirens. Around me, everyone was rushing back into the guild or to any buildings that were open. Rev grabbed every straggler that was still outside including me with his telekinesis as he raced inside. The sirens never stopped. After a couple of minutes, when no one else was coming inside, the doors slammed shut and the guild went dark. ¡°What wa¡ª¡± Rev hissed at me to be silent and I closed my mouth. The sirens kept ringing. The sound of what felt like thunder itself roaring came out from outside and the building shook. Dust rained down on us. And then, the roar ceased and a minute later, so did the sirens. ¡°What the hell was that?¡± I whispered finally. ¡°That, my friend, was a divine emissary of Arshanara herself. Someone did something that pissed off the High Goddess but not severely enough to warrant divine smiting.¡± His face looked ashen. ¡°I¡­ uh see. So would the guild hunt down whoever is responsible?¡± Rev laughed. ¡°There''s only several thousand culprits if we are looking for someone doing something fucked up in this city. And besides, I would wager that whoever triggered it has already made plans to leave the city. But plans of purging the population aside, did you need something?¡± Rev was frowning by the time I had finished explaining my situation. ¡°Anya, are you just picking classes that have high levels?¡± ¡°I shouldn''t?¡± ¡°I mean it''s not a problem exactly but really you should be grabbing things that can modify or consolidate your existing skills. Otherwise you will end up with a ton of mediocre skills you don''t have the slots for. That¡¯s basically your problem right now. Your future classes will all be garbage if you keep doing what you are doing.¡± ¡°I see, back in my home. Everyone just picked whatever was available until it consolidated into skills that did a lot of things passably well.¡± I lied, trying not to think about the fact that I could poke Rev¡¯s eyes out at this distance. It was true that in some frontier lands, it was encouraged for everyone to be generalists. Around them, the crowd was dispersing again now that the divine emissary had left. Rev beckoned me to follow him as we slipped into a small side room. Two chairs and a table waited for them. Once again, Rev just plopped us both into chairs before handing me a notepad. ¡°Here, just write out your stat screen details here and we¡¯ll see what we can do.¡± He continued to speak as I jotted down everything but my two divine traits. ¡°No wait, give me your class history too.¡± I did as told, hesitating for a second before writing [BONECRAFTER APPRENTICE]. His frown was a full on glare by the time I was done. Umm sorry? ¡°The guildmistress had informed me that your remote upbringing meant that you were never told what to actually do to grow properly. So here is the thing, people grow by experience and I don¡¯t mean the system kind. Let us take elementalists, elementalists grow by studying and even absorbing strange elemental phenomena or seeing great elemental magic be used. To climb higher is to seek mastery over all aspects of it. You branch out when you have no other option or foresee a synergy. For example, our illustrious guildmistress is not a human anymore. She walked the path of metal and lightning to the point that she is just human shaped metal. Her mana regenerates when her own body conducts electricity.¡± Okay, cool. She was a literal monster. ¡°What you have here is a mess and I''m surprised that your pet is as strong as it is considering everything else.¡± Yeah, very strange that. I would almost suspect shenanigans. ¡°Try to push and expand what your classes give instead of rushing through them. Don''t drop any skills that interact with raw mana though.¡± ¡°I think I get it. Is there anything that I broke by not doing this from the start and can¡¯t fix?¡± ¡°Nope. Nothing time can¡¯t fix at this stage. Let¡¯s see, you mentioned you want to move away from bones despite them being your best skills by far, right?.¡± I nodded. ¡°Alright, I don''t know if I can help you with that but try to get flesh sculpting or something. You have blood, you have bone, go full biomancer. You can probably also use those skills to improve your pet. Speaking of, I recommend picking the level 10 [SPRITE WATCHER] class. It should go towards unlocking something else your pet might like. But for the future, just try to save some money to visit the archives and see what classes you can work towards.¡± \\SPRITE WATCHER APPRENTICE (0/10) Sprites are one of the weakest elemental forms of life after motes. Fragile and constantly straining to maintain their very existence in the corporeal world, sprites still find it the easiest to slip between worlds and the Sprite Watchers have always watched them in one world or another. A Sprite Watcher can coax these sprites into her world and give them simple commands. A fire sprite can set weak fires, a wind sprite can pick up small items, holy sprites can speed up one''s natural healing rate and so on. At higher levels, spritecallers and summoners can manifest powerful elemental beings more akin to living disasters and can create ever evolving eidolons that rise up to match all that stands against their master. MASTERY BONUSES: +1 to ACUITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT \\Class [SPRITE WATCHER APPRENTICE] selected \\Skill Call Lesser Sprite Learned 16. The Passage of Time II ¡°Old imperial cities are almost always strange. New Delport, for example, never had a standing army or militia of its own. It was actually formed under the Empire¡¯s protection. Centuries ago, when the Catri Empire started to collapse, the city lost the safety it once enjoyed under its aegis. That security that had upheld the city for decades vanished overnight. Soon after, a civil war broke out. On one side stood the old guard. Catrian nobility, military officials, and their ilk. The old powers of Catria, their will enforced by the Catrian garrison that had never left for the capital. On the other, an emerging faction of wealthy merchants, from the city and from beyond. Facing the remnants of a great army, the merchants hired mercenary guilds. And they won. The old guard was publicly executed, and the merchants claimed the city for themselves. Today, the descendants of those mercantile clans still rule the city. They¡¯re industrialists and moguls now¡ªpowerful, untouchable. The Illustris Council. The mercenary guilds they once hired, though? Many made New Delport their permanent base of operations. Over time, other guilds formed or settled in New Delport. These guilds would then go on to form the backbone of the Dellish economy until even now. In New Delport, the only difference between public service provider, ruler, criminal and businessman is just whose pockets they fill first.¡±
¡°It''s just like home.¡± That is to say, it was a highrise with faded paint and stained walls and seedy looking residents that glared at me as I passed. That is to say that the landlord was an ugly old man with a beer belly who looked at me like I was something stuck to his shoe. That is to say that it was the best thing I could afford. That is to say that nothing worked in my apartment and that my rent was higher than it should be because habitable land was a rare commodity. It was also, unfortunately, my new home. It was not ideal. Medea had to be careful with the stairs that were not intended to support its weight. And of my neighbors that might attack it if they saw it while drunk. At least it had plenty of rats and other vermin to eat. It was a shitty place and I slept with knives under my pillow even with Medea around but I didn''t have to worry about a growing debt. Speaking of which, my debt was only fifty thousand Aetherites. My dingy flat was cramped with Medea around but smallest of all small mercies, I didn''t have too much luggage of my own. It wasn''t perfect but it was at least something and it was mine. A crashing sound and a slew of expletives rang out to accentuate the point.
I shivered. It was early in the morning and the place was freezing, which was absurd considering how hot the city was otherwise. My breath was fogging up in the air even indoors. Summoning a sprite, a tiny glowing fairy-like creature that existed more as an impression of mana than a corporeal being, I ordered it to fetch me a mug. Delport did not have coffee but it had something similar called fisjoui; sweeter and milder than what I was used to. Just as I was about to put the water to boil, someone started banging on my door, fervently. Outside were two people, one man and one woman. One of them, the woman, was the one who was cooling my flat. I could almost see the mana flow with how little she was bothering to hide it. The man smiled and stepped inside, somehow sidestepping me and the fact that I was blocking the door. Medea screeched threateningly but was ignored. ¡°Good morning miss. I''m Fim and my companion here is Vinni. At your service. We had heard that a new resident had moved here and wanted to meet you. We were not told that you were such a charming young lady, otherwise I would have bought a present that was suitable for one such as you.¡± I had a sinking feeling that I knew what these two were here for ¡°Anya. And may I know what I can help you with?¡± Fig, or whatever he was named smiled blandly and stepped forward towards me. I ordered Medea to stand down, the insect was becoming a bit too proactive now. ¡°Help us? Oh no, we are here to help you, Miss Anya. You see, me and my companion are associated with a group of volunteers that seek to keep our city and our people safe and healthy. You see, in these areas, there are a lot of violent criminals that can and will do terrible things to level their classes. Not only that but the cold is terrible here and it is not unheard of for people to freeze to death. New Delport is a wonderful city, Miss, it truly is but it is not a safe city, especially for a young lady who lives alone like you. And that is where we come in.¡± ¡°And let me guess, you just want a very reasonable ¡°donation¡± regularly to ensure that no unscrupulous men trash my place or attack me and that I have enough heat to not freeze?¡± I raised an eyebrow. To say that I was not impressed would be an understatement. ¡°Exactly! You are a smart young lady, Miss Anya. People with brains thrive here and you most certainly will.¡± I sighed. ¡°Fine, how much do you want me to pay to leave me alone?¡± Yep. Just like home.
¡°C¡¯mon, shouldn''t you at least get them to stay off my back?¡± I complained to Tiamim three days later, I did not whine. ¡°You can officially hire a guild to get rid of them if you have the money but they are not breaking any laws, officially that is. And besides, they will be replaced by other people in a day or two even if you kill them all.¡± Tiamim retorted. ¡°But surely they know not to extort guilders, right?¡± ¡°Yes, but officially you are just a contractor. Unless you want to give us a public reason to fast track your membership, you are not protected. Also hush now, we have arrived.¡± Our destination was a manor that belonged to a very particular victim. One who was important enough that the guild could not take his body. We had to come to it. This body was a problem. A very big problem. Tiamim¡¯s grim face was a testament to how big of a problem. Tirion Nevar had been, prior to the tragic break up between his body and his head, a drug lord. Well he was more than that but he was also a drug lord. A drug lord who had been trying to get into the Red Powder business for a while. Red Powder being one of the things that flowed through New Delport¡¯s veins in vast quantities alongside things such as Aetherite and flesh. Tirion had not been successful so far in capturing the market; as no one really knew who controlled it but Red Powder had a shortage and had been rising in price lately. That was almost my fault. Apparently the carriage I had ridden to the city so innocently had been carrying Red Powder and it was confiscated by the guild and handed over to the Illustris Council in a huge public spectacle with newspapers and all that. My name had thankfully been kept out of the whole business because otherwise I''d be watching out for assassins every living second. But that brings us to this moment. Tirion¡¯s augury didn''t take long but it wasn''t super helpful. A figure in black with a mask had killed him but my bones always landed in random positions when I tried to ask for the killer''s location. Apparently divination could be blocked like that. But I now knew that the killer was someone Tirion knew or at least expected. Agitjin was recreating the mana flow at the crime scene and between his work and mine, we could map out the movements of the assassin within Tirion¡¯s house reasonably well but that was our limit. Tiamim was saying something about how tragic the death of such an upstanding member of Dellish society was, a great patron of arts and a genius merchant whose loss would be mourned for years. And Tirion''s kid nodded along, looking glum and we made sad ¡®ahs¡¯ and ¡®tchs¡±. No one really believed in the charade but we played it nonetheless. But that brings us to a scene. A drug shipment is seized and the streets run dry and a rival drug lord trying to get into the market is murdered. And the Illustris Council¡¯s municipal guild contracts were coming up soon too. Any one of these things were already a recipe for civil unrest, all three at once? A very big problem.
Three days later, the assassin was found. He was found dead, poisoned by his own hand. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
My crystal heated up early in the morning and I sighed. Another already? When I arrived at my workplace, everyone else was already there. And there was no body to augur. Instead, everyone was hauling files and evidence and putting them in boxes. ¡°Oh hi, Anya! Help us out here.¡± Agitjin waved while almost invisible tendrils of mana picked up things. ¡°So what is this?¡± I asked him while putting everything on Medea¡¯s back, like it was the world¡¯s ugliest shopping cart. ¡°Renovations. Turns out the emissary was after something underground and it basically fucked over half the city¡¯s foundations. We have to move this stuff before the Earth elementalists can come in.¡± He shrugged before jumping back as Medea almost stepped on his foot. Yay for gainful employment.
Despite my (not) best efforts, my reputation as a reclusive hermit followed me to my shitty apartment. Other than Vinni and Fim, or bootleg Bonnie and Clyde as I thought of them, who came to collect every 9 days, and the landlord, I did not receive many guests. So when I was woken up one night by someone knocking on my door, I expected trouble. There was trouble. ¡°Oh please, you have to help me.¡± The girl in a black dress cried out with Bonnie and Clyde looking very uncomfortable as they flanked her. ¡°Uhhh?¡± I said very eloquently before deciding that whatever it was, it could wait until morning and slamming the door shut. Just kidding, I just mustered up my grumpiest face, ruined by the fact that I was in a sleeping gown and stared silently. Fim swore and cleared his throat loudly. ¡°Ahem, excuse us Miss Anya but it seems that your assistance is wanted. As a compensation, your next installment of fees for our protection will be waive¡ª¡± ¡°Fim, please cut to the chase. I was sleeping and so help me, the last time I was woken up by an unwanted visitor, I didn''t have Medea and I still put a knife through that guy''s skull. Like I don''t hate you, I get that this is what you do but please, I''m not in the mood for bullshit right now.¡± Okay maybe calling a spider-scorpion hatchling a guy was overstating it a bit but my Cold Blooded was dormant, I was fine. I saw a hint of anger flash through his eyes but he smothered it with a smile. ¡°Of course. This is Lady Hinaria, a close cousin of Boss Ila of the Five Jackals.¡± Was I supposed to know who that was? Oh wait. Fim had a logo on his back, didn''t he? Of five jackals in a circle. God, I needed to wake up. ¡°Ok hang on a moment.¡± I said before running to the kitchen and splashing water from a jug into my face. Wait, holy shit, I threatened the people that extorted me. I was fucked. ¡°Err, sorry for that. I had a long day. So what is this all about?¡± Vim still looked mad but he continued. ¡°Lady Hinaria is in urgent need of a strong beast. Her usual has started its evolution and the replacement is not yet rea¡ª¡± The girl, Lady Hinaria pushed Fim aside. ¡°I can speak for myself, Fim. There is an underground beast tournament. I was supposed to participate in it but my Grifigy started evolution prematurely. And now there is only an hour before it starts. I''ll pay you to fight for me.¡± ¡°Let me get this straight. You want Medea to fight instead of your ¡®Grifigy¡¯ or whatever?¡± ¡°No, not fight. Just an obstacle course thing.¡± Bleh. Medea won''t even get dinner from this then. But on the other hand, maybe if I win then I can wiggle out of paying Fim?
Medea did not win.
Days quickly passed after the visit of the divine emissary. For the first week or so I would wake up, go down for breakfast and then go kill slimes. Afterwards I would return and occasionally chat with Nerry if she was available and then retire to my room to read and then sleep. Nerry didn''t seem like the most erudite person but she had a seemingly endless horde of books that I positively devoured. I even made, well I wouldn''t call them friends but acquaintances with some of the other contractors despite my otherwise horrible first impressions and my skill destroying my ability to be normal around people for long. And occasionally, I would feel my crystal heating up and then report to Tiamim. Once it even happened while I was killing slimes and Fahria and Medea had to kill them without me. I did not get paid for that. And then I moved to my new apartment and between Nerry¡¯s work and my own engagement at the guild, we could never meet up. For some ungodly reason, Dellish people didn''t have Sundays but rather took a break on every 9th day. And by then, I didn''t have the energy to go track down the girl. Maybe I should try to do that one of these days? Speaking of work, Agitjin¡¯s name was correct. A Git. A genius when it came to mana manipulation but with a terminal case of foot in mouth disease. Not a creep or an asshole but someone who did get us all in trouble with Tiamim more than once. Novas was fine, but he was a mute slime who didn''t exactly get human body language. And then there was Fahria, the only contractor I would consider an actual friend. I learned more about her too. Fahria was fascinating. She was actual nobility from some distant land and was doing culling contracts to grind her stats in preparation for a brewing succession war. Though I was a bit miffed when Fahria had confessed that she had initially only approached me because I seemed like I had a powerful sponsor that she could ally with after an emergency where a contractor named Esk had called for backup in the labyrinth. That had only been a part of the reason why I had refused the other girl''s invitations to hang out at some rich kid''s club after work, I just preferred to be cooped up in a room with entertainment than going out. And in all honesty, I was too tired to have the patience for social niceties most days, even without my fucked up skills. In those days, I had also grown in all my stats and I was finally not completely helpless on my own without Medea. NAME: ANANYA HARTFORD RACE: HUMAN ACTIVE CLASS: [MINOR EIDOLON BINDER 17/20] CUMULATIVE CLASS LEVELS: [125] MASTERED CLASSES: [9] AGE: 19 MANA: 100/100 (REGEN 20 PER HOUR) STATS: STRENGTH: 14 CELERITY: 15 VITALITY: 18 ACUITY: 19 WILLPOWER: 20 PERCEPTION: 19 ATTUNEMENT: 20 SKILLS: PASSIVES:
  1. Assassin''s Eye: 19
  2. Large Knife User: 14
  3. Cold Blooded: 23
  4. Pain Tolerance: 7
  5. Fauna Archive: 6
  6. Greater Enslaved Familiar¡¯s Bond: 34
  7. Mana Direction: 15
  8. Unseen Slayer: 13
  9. Blood Bag: 3
ACTIVES:
  1. Improvised Tool Use: 1
  2. Scavenging And Scrounging: 9
  3. Bone Shaping: 32
  4. Ossific Communion: 35
  5. Blood Sense: 1
  6. Calcified Mana Empowerment: 32
  7. Call Lesser Sprite: 14
SPELLS: TRAITS: The bulk of my skill consolidations and evolutions came from classes but Knife User transforming into Big Knife User was all my own doing. I tried to see how big I could make a knife before it no longer counted as one and somehow it all ended up with me wielding an oddly shaped longsword with two hands and killing a slime with it before the skill transitioned. I had the feeling that the system was mocking me. I just chose to stick with small normal daggers instead, the big one took both hands and I didn''t have the strength or the actual skill to handle it. You win today, system. You win, for now. One other thing I had been working towards was working on my raw mana control to create new skills or spells but that had been a complete failure. I was still skinny and worryingly short for my age but I had gained some slight muscle definition just from my rapid stat gains if I really squinted. Or maybe it was just me imagining things. That just made me even more conscious of how strong Valdima had to be. The Goliath of a woman, if she existed in my old world, could probably snap me like a twig, system or no system. Physical stats did directly correlate to mundane physical abilities to a point and the Guildmistress had to be pushing those limits. But that also led to the discovery that in this world, the concept of physical exercise didn''t exist at all. The closest approximation being physiotherapy after extensive biomancy or recovery from injury. Nerry had looked at me like I was insane when I accidentally mentioned exercising and then explained the concept. Thankfully she didn''t probe further, only muttering something about the strange rituals and customs of Khagrans. If someone wanted strength, they would take a class. If someone wanted to run faster, they would keep running until they got a skill. Swing harder? Keep trying to swing harder until it was a skill. But exercise as a general thing? That was crazy talk. I didn''t bring it up with anyone else after that. My current class, [MINOR EIDOLON BINDER] was weird. Rev had been correct that the Sprite class would unlock something for Medea. It was a level 20 class with the stats to match but it only had two ephemeral skills for me and a spell. However it did merge my two existing physiology knowledge skills into one that gave me a mental archive of low and mid tier animals and their mundane and magical traits. I mean there was another skill called Bind Eidolon but that was immediately absorbed by Greater Enslaved Familiar. Summon Eidolon was a spell to simply summon a compatible Eidolon and then it was used to teleport the extra dimensional creature to the caster¡¯s location from anywhere. Medea already qualified as an Eidolon because of my skill. The ephemeral skills were the real strange part. They didn''t take up any of my limited spots nor did they level normally. Eidolon''s Evolution had a number of charges that grew with my class level while Disposable Eidolon Synchronisation had 1 charge. That skill allowed me to copy one skill from me to my Eidolon. That one didn''t increase in charges no matter what unlike the other skill. Eidolon¡¯s Evolution gained charges but only from my current class¡¯s levels so I would eventually run out anyways. I could use those charges to induce changes in my Eidolon. Once all the charges were spent and the class was maxed out, the skill would simply fade away. Most of the evolutions were just some extra stat points, limbs or biological features I knew about, Fauna Archive providing the bulk of more exotic options for me to buy. I had spent 5 points in a unique class specific evolution that let Medea shrink itself down to the size of a housecat. Other than that, I didn''t use any charges; I had my eyes on the grand 15 point evolution. One that made me think of eventually even matching the legendary drake riders that I read about. Flight. 17. The Goliath Wes was not a genius, he was not even the most athletic. But what Wesley was, was big and strong. And he knew how to use those qualities. Being known as a bully without any significant talent or motivation throughout his school years, no one expected Wesley ¡°The Goliath¡± Taggart to amount to much beyond being a thuggish small town cop at best. They were right for the longest time. Wes Taggart was the stereotypical corrupt thug who enjoyed impunity in a rapidly collapsing state. He even had a few complaints about everything from gross misconduct to police brutality. Nothing ever came out of those. But when governments fell entirely and private mercenaries in their slick gear and futuristic vehicles rolled into town, Taggart discovered the first flames of something that he had no idea existed within him. Ambition. When his department dissolved and his colleagues moved on to other ventures or became enforcers for small-time crime lords, Taggart instead went to the biggest PMSC he could find. The Black Tower Foundation. The Black Tower Foundation sold its services to everyone from legitimate countries if those existed to warlords to tinpot regimes to mega corporations richer than any entity that had existed prior in the history of humanity. And in that Tower, Wes found his home. Somehow he was not instantly rejected despite the fact that he was out of shape. It took his entire life''s savings to even be let inside but that was fine, he had no one that he cared for. In return, they gave Wes his fangs. The training and the initial deployments were brutal and he came close to dying one too many times but he emerged a new man on the other side. Maybe he did die and he was reborn. The Goliath killed who he was told to kill and the Goliath was rewarded for his brutality. His first deployments were just as low level security personnel, and from there he moved on to killing union leaders and activists in the third world. Blackmail, assassinations, participation in violent regime changes halfway across the world, corporate sabotage, Wes¡¯s actual records were only held by the Black Towers but he was sure that it was impressive. But it was when he was truly in his middle ages, half living off the synth steroids that his employers pumped in him that Goliath truly earned his name. Of course it was condemned by those who had managed to extract testimonies from some surviving eyewitnesses but condemnation without action was just hapless bleating into the wind. ¡°What are you going to do? Report me? And tell me, what will that fucking accomplish?¡± He had once asked a man a lifetime ago, when he wore a different uniform, before beating him into a pulp. The man never walked again. Brain damage they said. An accident the reports claimed. Power, that was all that mattered. And that power was why he was promoted after ordering several tens of thousands of fleeing refugees to be gunned down and their camps rained with white phosphorus. He had the survivors lined up and he sank the boats. His orders were to stop them, he stopped them. That was all that mattered. He was not alone in his efficiency. In that humid land, he was reborn and baptized in the blood of the weak. Weak like he had once been. And thus began the legend of the Goliath of the East. Five years later, Wes was the guy who handled entire operations from the safety of an office. But he yearned for the blood running down his hand, for the look of terror and blueish hue of skin as he crushed windpipes, the look of disbelief as one''s organs that should be inside spilled out like confetti. That made him irritable. He had also let himself go without realizing. But he realized it when he got into a fist fight with an idiotic upstart. Nursing his bruised face and his bruised ego, he had a long look in the mirror. Wes didn''t see the lean killing machine he had been, he saw the old Wes, the flabby imbecile who coasted on mediocrity. The snivelling failure who deserved to die, who deserved to be ruthlessly killed wherever he appeared. He quit his position. A week later, the upstart disappeared too. The Goliath will not have a David because he grew complacent. The offer was simple, become a personal gun for one Mr. Yaiba, an executive for one of those conglomerates that seemed to own everything in existence. The exec had also promised him something else, a set of state of the art full body augments and gene therapy. Blood transfusion and replacement, hormone balancing, an artificial heart and lungs, titanium plating for his skull and other weak spots, the full suite. The price? Nothing really, he was old now and he needed treatment that Yaiba could provide. It suited Wes fine, loyalty was not his thing either. Need? That was at least honest. Wes was the one of many who oversaw the release of an airborne variant of Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, a disease that turned muscles into hard calcified bone. The calculus was simple. There was a problem. There were too many people and not enough land. The solution, kill several millions of people and free up the land. It was not his idea, it was all corpo high ups and if not him, someone else would have done it. That''s what he told himself when the Goliath discovered that he too, could have nightmares about his actions. Another weakness, another remnant of an older Wes. He killed that part too, it just took him a while. Yaiba¡¯s superiors admired his efficiency and discretion. No one ever discovered who had released the virus or that there had been soldiers shooting anyone who tried leaving.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Another promotion, another round of augmentation and gene therapy. The Goliath was reborn once again. Still a man, still a fragile man but now he was stronger than any man could ever naturally be. When he was undergoing physiotherapy after his upgrades, one night a drunk Yaiba came to his suite with a bottle. The two stood drinking on his balcony as they faced the city below them. The night didn''t matter, the clouds that permanently occluded the sky didn''t matter, the city was brighter than the heavens could ever be. And the light of the heaven below reflected off Yaiba¡¯s glasses as he spoke with one hand in a railing and the other clutching a bottle encrusted with actual diamonds. ¡°You ever think that maybe we should stop? Stop all this, I mean. Pull the plug, stop the money.¡± He didn''t point at anything but his meaning was obvious. Wes seriously considered strangling him. Another weakling. The next few years were busy for Wes, he hunted down whistleblowers, corporate rivals and more with prejudice. By the time the skeletons arrived, Wes could confidently claim that he had one of the, if not the highest body count of any living man on Earth. Of course the real monsters lived on the Moon or on Mars. The monsters that did not dirty their smooth hands. When the skeletons arrived, he was by Yaiba¡¯s side. Yaiba was the last human Wes crushed before throwing himself into the vast tide of monsters with a laugh. He fought with many weapons but discovered that explosives worked best. And then they got too close and he started using everything he could to crush them. But as much as he enjoyed the tactile feeling of life being extinguished, a man against an endless horde could only end in one way. 191, that was how many skeletons he pulverized before finally succumbing.
//INITIALIZATION COMPLETE //ENTITY NAMED ¡®WESLEY TAGGART¡¯ SUCCESSFULLY TRANSLOCATED //Calculating base stats¡­ \\Starting stats determined and analyzed STRENGTH: 65 CELERITY: 59 VITALITY: 60 ACUITY: 27 WILLPOWER: 30 PERCEPTION: 46 ATTUNEMENT: 10 Wes was reborn once again. The Goliath still lived. Not only did he still live, he still had his weapons. Wes wondered for a moment if he was a cat, nine lives and nine rebirths. If so then he still had a few left. Wes had a lot to think about, but first he had to take inventory. Know his tools. A light machine gun, a carbine, a pair of bandoliers that made an X over his torso, a combat knife, a hammer, the armor he wore, complete with a tactical vest, and a set of goggles that handled all his special sight needs. His standard loadout sans the grenades he had used up and the hammer that was new. He had problems of course. Like no ammunition beyond what he had on his person and the fact that his body would start failing in a few years. He could hopefully grab a class for both problems eventually. Metal magic was the obvious priority for bullets but he had no idea how to make nitrocellulose for the powder. Hopefully crafting will fix that. And then he had to figure out healing but the system seemed powerful. He would do it. He just had to kill, he had to slaughter. Maybe he did die after all, and this was his personal heaven. Wes didn''t think he was the type to get into heaven and heaven didn''t seem like the type of place where wanton slaughter was encouraged. How did that line go again, something about the mind making a hell of heaven and vice versa? But that raised a new question, where was he exactly? He decided that it ultimately didn''t matter and picked a random direction to start walking. He was in a jungle, surely he wouldn''t starve. After just ten minutes of walking, he encountered his first denizen of this new world. An arachnid that looked like a hybrid of a spider and a scorpion. It was large, larger than any spider should have been. Pressing his back against a tree, Wes slowly peeked at the creature. It was busy eating the corpse of something that he couldn''t identify. Should he use his precious ammo? One glance at the creature told him that he should. He fired. The monster died soon, too soon. He would try to do it without ammo the next time. Pausing only to study the creature up close, Wes continued walking.
He grabbed the spider-scorpion¡¯s leg that was racing towards his face and bent it all the way backwards and as the monster writhed, he raised his foot and stamped down on the engorged head. It exploded and hemolymph and smashed organs rained on him. \\Aspect of the Annihilator is now level 66! He ignored the notification and continued onwards.
The first humans he encountered lived in a primitive tribe at the very edge of the forests. They spoke a language that didn''t sound like anything on Earth but they were warm and gave him shelter and food. Some things didn''t need language to be understood, like the fact that it was a family with a child that hosted him. Or that the village had a classer who handled all ailments, injuries and maladies in the tribe. Or that the tribals were worried about the spider-scorpion incursions. All those he could figure out with just a week of observation. That was an opportunity. He departed early the next morning and over the next two days, slaughtered over fifty of the arachnids. When the tribals saw the mound of corpses, they hailed him as a savior and the kid even hugged him. He ruffled his hair and smiled. Grateful smiles greeted him everywhere. Perhaps he misunderstood and the spider scorpions were a bigger problem for them. It took a while to mime and convey what he wanted but he eventually convinced them to hold a feast in celebration, especially after he dragged in the corpse of a massive boar. The feast was grand and the whole tribe participated in it. They sang and they danced. And yet the healer was absent. Wes smiled at their antics, he kept smiling when the healer was discovered with a snapped neck. He kept smiling as everyone around him started falling as the spider-scorpion venom laced food liquidated their organs. He rose with his smile intact and began to kill those that remained. At some point he stopped smiling and started laughing out loud instead. Experiment successful, he didn''t need to directly kill to gain experience. Of course some fools tried to kill him as their bodies were giving up, he shot them all. Finally, he rose from his seat of honor and took off once more. He had a long journey to go. Behind him, only the child still breathed. Until he turned and one last bullet was fired. And then there was only silence. 18. The Year of the Rat I Consume, consume oh my beloved! Consume without pause, without thought, without rest, without any hesitation. Eat a thousand worlds and devour a thousand more, until all is one within you, until all evil is vanquished, until suffering and torment become strangers to life, until death has met itself in your belly. -The Lament of the Last Kings The guild was congested and loud as usual as I jogged to collect my vaultboard. Medea dutifully followed me while shrunken down to the size of a small cat. Minidea! Minidea could be carried like a small pet even by me now that I had stats that resembled what a normal person might have but I let it walk itself. I had received looks the one time I carried it. The vaultboard guy, whose name I still didn''t know, was present as usual but there was something different about him. He looked a lot more aware and interested in his surroundings than usual instead of his usual ¡°sulky child in detention¡± vibe. And besides him stood a guy in greenish armor that definitely did not look like a guild issue. It was in the Dellish style of also being a wide sleeved robe. The map of the labyrinth was gone as well. Interesting. Some of the other contractors seemed to know what this was about and the buzz of excited chatter rose steadily as the room filled up. He cleared his throat once the influx of contractors slowed down to a trickle. A map of New Delport and the neighbouring forest appeared where the labyrinth map had been. A large white circle was the only unusual features of it. ¡°Good morning contractors, I''m guild journeyman Berang as you all know. We received a potential contract for you. Once again I''ll remind you that external contracts are accepted at your own risk. Know that the guild will not aid you or attempt to rescue you if you accept this contract. Even though we verify that no contract is written with the ulterior motive of killing or capturing a contractor, there will likely be danger that we don''t know about and won''t until it is too late.¡± He paused before continuing in a less bored voice. ¡°There''s no penalty for not taking on this contract but you will be handsomely rewarded if you successfully complete it. 450 crystals each.¡± I had never seen a contract that wasn''t just culling slimes come in during my admittedly short stint as a contractor before. I wasn''t sure what I expected, maybe something far more subdued. But certainly not what looked like a public debriefing by vaultboard gu¡ª Berang. I corrected myself. ¡°This contract comes from the Hunting Guild, concerning an infestation in the Great Forests.¡± That sounded suspiciously familiar. I glanced at Medea for a moment before returning my gaze to Berang as he continued speaking. ¡°Now, as a representative of the Hunting Guild, Neevom will explain the situation¡± The man in the green armor stepped forward. ¡°Recently we had discovered a large-scale spider-scorpion migration that the hunting guild handled. It however turns out that the migration was being driven by a separate organism breeding and expanding aggressively. Retchroot.¡± Someone in the room audibly groaned. I could relate. Retchroot were not dangerous to us humans directly but they wrecked vegetation. The rodent was also absurdly fast breeding. Retchroot were annoying, not a problem but very annoying. They gave garbage experience on top. They usually overbred and died from starvation until another boom cycle but in that period, they destroyed ecosystems. \\Fauna Archive is now level 7! Yes. Thank you system. Neevom continued unfazed. ¡°Our standard operating procedure is to kill enough of them until they move on elsewhere. This has worked often but not this time. This time something is keeping them here and they are breeding faster than usual but they are not expanding either. On the map you can see a rough estimation of where we believe the center of this swarm is. Your job is to provide backup as we try to isolate and retrieve whatever it is that is keeping them here.¡± Someone raised a hand. A slightly overweight guy with two massive hammers that hung off his waist. ¡°Why not just have a high level classer kill them all from above?¡± ¡°Because we don¡¯t want to destroy it if it is something like a natural ambrosial spring or life tree. Same reason we are not poisoning them. Any other questions?¡± Quiraion''s flaming tomb, I hoped it wasn''t the Godtouched newborn I had killed. I had a sinking feeling that it was and I was going to learn why leaving Godtouched stuff lying around was a terrible idea. ¡°When are we departing? And for how long?¡± I asked. Maybe if I could avoid Fim for a bit then he wouldn''t be so angry at me for humiliating him before Hinaria twice? As it stood right now, I was afraid that he would raise the price for his ¡®protection¡¯. ¡°Tomorrow. Might take a few days. Expect at least a week or two. Pack accordingly but we will be travelling light.¡± Right, Dellish weeks. 9 days. Hmm, it was definitely better than slime killing for the same period of time but the difference was not massive. 4 or 5 extra days would make up for it but whatever, money is money. Some of my peers had other questions such as about food (the hunting guild would provide rations) but the debriefing didn''t take long after that. At the end Berang had those of us that wanted to accept the contract to channel a point of mana into another of those devices with aetherite crystals in them. Afterwards I just popped into the forensics department to tell them that I would be out but no one was there. I scribbled a note and left it there. And then I should have gone to my apartment but instead decided to go to the New Delport Regency Hotel to see if Nerry was free. She wasn''t. It was just my past speaking but I was terrified of whatever little friends I had disappearing, Nerry, Fahria, maybe my coworkers. Back in the caravan, it was not unheard of to have people just¡­ die. Ahem. So I finally went home to go prepare for the expedition.
The next day, every contractor had gathered at the old city gate from which I had first entered the city. There was a different guard in Navidson¡¯s spot now and he seemed a lot jumpier than him. Neevom was also there with a woman in similar armor without the wide open sleeves. A truly massive bow was slung across her back. We were not the only ones there, I could see others that I guessed were grunts from the Hunting Guild and possibly even elsewhere. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. I sidled up next to Fahria as the woman with the bow clapped her hands and began speaking. ¡°Good morning, I''m Fourth Guildmistress Ulgina of the Hunting Guild. Neevom has explained the purpose of this expedition to you but I''ll remind you again that these retchroots are not normal. They are aggressive and seen to have offensive mutations. Your job is to kill them together. If you rush off and get overwhelmed, don''t expect rescue. Now I want those who have wards, barriers, shields and repelling auras to come stand to my right.¡± Some of the others moved to her right. That group was to be our actual frontline. Then the close combat fighters. They would be right behind the shielders and would work to keep the rats away from them while exterminating stragglers that slip past the barriers. That was where I was because of Medea. And then the artillery mages and other ranged attackers would work on killing retchroot en masse from the backlines. Healers and buffers would be between the earlier two group. Simple enough and it made sense, I guess. And then we were off. We walked slowly with Ulgina at the head of the procession and Neevom watching the rear. I supposed I should have taken the opportunity to introduce myself to some of my other close quarter compatriots but my general aversion to that kind of stuff and my skill together combined made that too daunting a task. Or maybe I was being lazy. And regardless, I was far more interested in the fact that I could mess around with my mana while walking without worrying about the presence of Aetherite slimes fucking up mana flow. It took me an embarrassingly long time to get that they distorted mana around them and that was why seeing their attacks made me so viscerally uncomfortable. Mana Direction was still too low tier and low level to let me create new spells from scratch or even modify the stuff I had but hopefully I would get something out of it soon. I wanted to be a wizard, dammit! Unfortunately someone else had a different idea. A couple consisting of two men, or maybe boys, likely twins and a girl who looked the same age as me approached me. The first to speak was one of the two brothers. ¡°Hoy miss. We''ll all be fighting next to one another so I think introductions are in order so that we can complement one another. I''m Gres, just Gres. I specialize in wind based swordsmanship. My brother here is Tres and he focuses on the same. What about you miss?¡± Ow! I wasn''t going to stare silently, an elbow to my side was totally unwarranted. Wait, who did that? Medea? No, then who. Fahria was with the backliners and I don''t think I knew anyone else enough for that. Could it be just that someone had accidentally pushed me? ¡°Y-yeah, I''m Anya Hartford. I am mostly support, some healing, some divination and some attack spells. This here is Medea, it is my familiar and really the actual combatant. I don''t have the stats or the skills to be very useful in direct combat.¡± I cringed internally, what a way to introduce myself. ¡®Hi I''m Anya and I''m a liability if things go south.¡¯ Gres nodded and then the girl introduced herself. Lilim was an earth elementalist who could surrounded herself in a large construct of rock and earth. Right. She was a fucking mecha pilot in all but name. I wanted one. No wait, I was doing the exact kind of haphazard dabbling that Rev had warned me about. But it was a magical mecha. I just tried to not be rude and ignored the occasional flaring hyperfocus on vulnerabilities. Thankfully the two brothers talked enough for all of us and I only had to occasionally pipe in to not seem rude. Maybe it was an hour or after into our expedition (I didn''t check the time) that we encountered the first wave of retchroots. A lone retchroot munching on some plants screeched really before scurrying away. Or at least trying before a sharp rock killed it. I examined the creature with interest. It looked like a really hairy rat with extra large front claws for digging and fighting. Someone had killed it but the call had been sent by then. And it was answered by several, no, several dozens of cries from all around us. The rats came like a flood. Numerous tiny footfalls turning into seismic tremors due to sheer quantity. The very ground shook beneath us as the forest came alive. ¡°BARRIERS UP! BUFFS UP!¡± Ulgina roared. ¡°Hasten Swarm. Enlarge Tamed Beast.¡± I muttered and Medea swelled in size while speeding up like a video fast forwarded. Its slightly swaying hair was almost a blurry buzz as it skittered forward. Next to me, the earth mage, Lilim did something and the ground turned into slurry that crawled all over her body until a giant humanoid made of rock stood. I could see holes in its round head that I presumed were for sight and breathing. I tried to watch the way her mana flowed into the ground and then back up but there were so many strands of mana that intertwined and danced that I only got a mild headache. The two brothers wielded giant polearms that sent my hair flying with each experimental swing. I just moved a bit inwards to join the healers and other tamer types, as Medea joined the front. And then the barriers came up. Bubbles, circular disks, dome, projected shields and more all formed and overlapped into an impenetrable layered bulwark that covered our front and most of the sides. Well, we had to turn leftwards a bit as that was where the horde was coming from. It didn''t come in trickles. First the thundering footsteps increased in intensity and then the sounds of falling trees broke through the din. And then both sounds started becoming louder until the dam broke. And so did all hell. The tide of brown near instantly slammed into the barrier and the compound barrier was pushed back a few inches. I could smell cooked meat, almost pork like. I turned off the droning buzz that my notifications had turned into. The retchroot tried to climb over their halted kind to try to get to us. They too fell as the barrier zapped, froze, repelled and more. I could see rat like faces twisted into pain and rabid hunger trying to forcibly gnaw and burrow through straining barriers that flickered like old lights. One was chewing through an unfortunate sibling that happened to be stuck between it and us. The smarter ones went around the semi circles like a tide parting into two and attacked from the sides. And that was our cue. Medea leapt into the fray with the rest while I scanned the battlefield and occasionally cast coagulate on anyone who looked like they needed it. Lilim was fighting like an angry gorilla with slams and stomps with oversized limbs. Wherever her fists fell, the creatures went flying. The two brothers were like grinders that carved out whole sections into the horde. A guy was punching and kicking the air but every blow of his created a shockwave that blew retchroot away. And then the spells came. Fireball, lightning nets, spikes of earth and ice and more sailed through the air and crashed into the teeming mass of life that stood had been trying to clamber over the barriers. A cloud of smoke and dust erupted as they made landfall. When it cleared, there were not even enough intact pieces to tell that these were once retchroot. Holy shit. I may have been too distracted by the spectacle to notice that Medea was being overwhelmed and that retchroot were crawling over it and tearing chunks out of its shell if not for Cold Blooded. But as it stood, by the time I used a dagger to replenish my spent mana and then cast Summon Eidolon, it was already taking injuries. A sickly yellow portal that warped and spun violently appeared in the air before me and a long spider leg stabbed out of it and then another and in a moment, Medea fell to the ground with a couple of the rodents still clinging to it. Those were easily dispatched and it didn''t take me long until someone was kind enough to drop it a heal. After a moment of rest, my pet reentered combat. The massive artillery strike had taken care of the bulk of the retchroots and it was only a matter of time until all the stragglers were eliminated. We had made it through the first engagement without any casualties. And then it was to check the stream of notifications that I had been ignoring. 19. The Year of the Rat II ¡°Screeeeee.¡± The retchroot let out a piercing shriek, its hideous jaw vibrating from the noise. It sounded a bit like a harsher and more distorted pig¡¯s squeal to me. The fat creature leapt through the air, frenzied eyes locked on to me. For a single glorious moment, its trajectory was flawless and I could understand why even high level guild classers wanted us for backup instead of facing a legion of them with just a small number of elites. And then Medea''s leg split apart, blooming into a set of long, grasping digits that latched onto the writhing creature. It had just enough time to let out another strangled screech before being stuffed unceremoniously into Medea¡¯s waiting maw. \\Retchroot Swarmer slain And with that, the third wave was eliminated. The second and the third were not as big as the first one we had encountered but everyone was getting a bit tired by now. Exhaustion was creeping for some and even the diminished numbers compared to the first wave could not entirely offset that. If these things bred at this rate then I was surprised that the whole world was overrun with them. Until my Fauna Archive assured me that they very much did not and this was something else. Like a Godtouched skeleton some moron left to rot into the soil, be eaten by monsters or whatever. The aftermath of this wave was just as ugly as the previous two. The forest was littered with the remains of the rats until Nevoom waved his hand and the carnage squelched and compacted itself into a baseball sized sphere hovering over his palm.. Even the blood that had spurted out was forced inside. ¡°Alright,¡± Nevoom said, sounding completely unfazed and just as fresh as when we had embarked. ¡°Excellent work, everyone. We¡¯ll set up camp here. Take a ninety to rest before we move on. Does anyone have pets, flesh magic, alchemy, or anything else that needs this stuff?¡± A few people including me raised their hands. After a quick headcount and a few swift gestures, the compressed sphere broke into equal shards, each chunk finding its way to its respective claimant. One dropped in front of me, landing with a heavy, almost metallic thud. Judging from the way it almost bounced, the compression had turned it hard. Medea swallowed it one go and nothing changed. Maybe it''s hair got a tiny bit denser but I wasn''t sure. It seemed that Medea was plateauing in its growth now. That made sense, the ancient spider-scorpions of the Third Calamity''s time evolved constantly and ceaselessly and were considered an existential threat as a result but no one was hunting their modern descendants to extinction. I still didn''t know what or how the whole thing went down but in any case, Medea had its limits. Naturally that is. Thankfully I had enough experience now after three waves that I could get around that issue for now. \\[MINOR EIDOLON BINDER] is now level 20! \\Class mastered [MINOR EIDOLON BINDER]. +2 to STRENGTH, WILLPOWER, and ATTUNEMENT. +1 TO ALL OTHER STATS The stat spread was different than it had been for my other level 20 even although I still got 10 points total. Until now every class on the save level has identical distribution but with different stats but not anymore. Well it was neat I guess, I was told that after 30, classes went completely wild with some imposing stat penalties, others giving far more stats than classes much higher levels than them and so on and so forth. Another reason to not dive headfirst into the highest level class I could. \\Eidolon Evolution charge consumed: 15 \\Eidolon Evolution is out of charges and is now removed. Fahria and I stepped back and watched in morbid fascination as Medea began to convulse violently. Its legs seized and stiffened, then buckled, and it fell to the ground with a dull thump. Its tail straightened as a tooth stuck in it popped out. Gres looked our way before turning his face away with a queasy expression. He and his brother were doing some kind of maintenance on their weapons but I couldn''t really tell much. Lilim had long wandered off somewhere. I turned my gaze back to Medea. A crack split down the center of its abdomen, the shell opening into two chitinous halves. From within, two pairs of yellow, membranous wings unfurled, wet and glistening in the light. Medea gave them a tentative shake; at first, the wings faltered, moving awkwardly, but gradually they found their rhythm. Medea rose unsteadily into the air before drifting back down. The wings relaxed, folding neatly beneath the elytra, which closed over them until Medea appeared as it had before the transformation¡ªunchanged, yet undeniably different. \\Greater Enslaved Familiar¡¯s Bond is now level 35! ¡°Has anyone ever told you that your pet is messed up?¡± Fahria asked when it looked like Medea was no longer changing. ¡°Yep!¡± I answered cheerily. ¡°You have told me, multiple times in fact.¡± Fahria grumbled good naturedly before her face turned serious and her voice dropped to a whisper. ¡°Now can you tell me why that guy seems like he wants to murder you?¡± I froze. Who? And why hadn''t any of my skills alerted me? I looked around and saw him. Older than me but not by much and he seemed to be watching me with a hard gaze, not a glare but it was not friendly either. He noticed me staring and just melted into the crowd. Cool. Just what I needed. Stalkers. Someone had started a decently large fire and a few earth mage had been nice enough to make benches around it. If someone was trying to convince me to pick up Earth Elementalist, they were succeeding. The Hunting Guild¡¯s rations turned out to be just that, long lasting rations with no regards for taste. Insane how I was perpetually on the verge of starvation for years until not so long ago and now I was complaining about the taste of food. Oh god, I was becoming a rich brat, wasn¡¯t I? A lady in a red outfit with a lute was strumming near the middle of the oversized campfire and I could feel my mind relax and my body grow stronger from just listening to it. Choir Singer? That reminded me. ¡°Hey Fahria? I have no active class right now and no upgrade. What do you recommend?¡± I could have asked Lilim or the brothers but I just met them and even Fahria didn''t know my full stats. Rev almost did and Tiamim did but only because I trust Valdima to blow a gasket if they leaked anything. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Endless Hells! This again. Actually you have active slots right? Just pick a hobby class or something for now, everyone has one of those. Maybe singing?¡± She added after glancing at the red musician. I could see the logic in that, I could use that to get into Choir Singer for buffing Medea. But it was very strange that I had no hobby skills. Wait. Did I have no hobbies? That sounded wrong, I knew for a fact that I enjoyed drawing occasionally and I liked reading. Maybe not the best skills ever but they should be skills. I had a suspicion but I couldn''t confirm it unless I had something to draw with. Fahria had nothing and so I went to the brothers and Lilim and then to just complete strangers. It took me ages to find someone with some pen and paper but once I had some and tried to draw Medea, the notification came. \\Skill Sketching unlocked at level 2 Unlocked, not learned. I was worried that Knife had purged my skills that it seemed useless but this was better. Much better. But really, did I need Sketching? Or even want to have my old world hobbies when I didn''t even have that much of an attachment to the stuff ever. Should I start over entirely? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps I was thinking about it in a too absolutist manner . No need to cut it off entirely or desperately hold on to every last piece of it. I kept the skill for now. I''ll decide when I have a dearth of slots. I had a decent amount of actives that I felt were very situational. Improvised Tool Use and Scavenging and Scrounging did not feel like things that I needed anymore unless I was transported to an uninhibited island or something.. And so instead of agonizing over Sketching, I looked at what classes would compliment my existing skill set. My earlier conversation with Rev about bottlenecks was still on my mind and I ultimately just decided on something that I was reasonably sure would help everything. Plus I wanted to use magic properly dammit. \\ARCANIST PUPIL (0/10) Mana is the primordial energy upon which all magic, skills and spells stand. A pupil of the Arcane Arts learns to touch and guide this primal energy. Not the flashiest of mages but a foundational step in the mastery of magic for all. At higher levels, arch wizards, mana conductors and such can weave tapestries of mana so complex and subtle as to alter reality itself. Almost all spells and magicks can be reached by just understanding the underlying principles of mana. By mastering mana in its raw form, one can wrench the mana out of the attacks of their enemies, invert and warp spells, destabilize skills and more. MASTERY BONUSES: +1 to ACUITY, PERCEPTION AND ATTUNEMENT \\Class [ARCANIST PUPIL] selected \\Skill Mana Sight Learned //WARNING: Passive skill slot limits exceeded. You can replace a skill or refuse to equip your new skill. Unequipped skills can¡¯t be equipped again for a period of time determined by their power. Unequipped skills do not confer any benefits but exist and count for consolidation purposes only. A passive skill that would let me see mana flow better. This was perfect. I just had to dump a passive. Unlike my active skills where I still had a slot open and did not care for two or arguably three skills, my passives were generally nice. Assassin¡¯s Eye Big Knife User Cold Blooded Pain Tolerance Fauna Archive Greater Enslaved Familiar¡¯s Bond Mana Direction Unseen Slayer Blood Bag Blood Bag was the least useful as it stood but I wanted to see if I could evolve it into a rapid healing trait eventually. That would be awesome. My three mental passives were too good to be without and Mana Direction was the whole reason I was taking Mana Sight. Unseen Slayer was my get out of jail card and I was NOT even going to entertain dropping Medea¡¯s bond. Fauna Archive might help me grow Medea. Only one option made sense to drop. I was not a melee fighter and if with Medea and magic, I was resorting to using my knives then I was dead already. Sure my first kill was with a knife but I shouldn''t let Damian sabotage my choices. I dropped Big Knife User. A two month cooldown until I could use it again. If I ever wanted to. ¡°Now you will no doubt have superio¡ª Miss Anya, are y¡± Tres had wandered close at some point and was saying something but I couldn''t hear him. My vision swam and a dull pain throbbed deep in my very being when I acquired it, I almost fainted as everything turned into a blinding white. It was burning. Burning my eyes, burning my brain, burning my soul. It was possible that I might have cried out in pain, it was possible that I just blanked out for a fraction of a second, the intensity of the light made such distinctions meaningless. But what was meaningful was that it gradually, not slowly but gradually dimmed until I could see mana even from behind shut eyes. Pale white strands that curled like smoke in the air. Indistinct shapes emanated and absorbed it freely with seemingly no logic. \\Mana Sight is now level 9! ¡°Nya! Anya!¡± Someone was calling to me. That voice sounded familiar. Did I know her? Another sharp spike of pain in my head roused me back to awareness. I was still on the same earthen bench and the light streaming in from the thick canopy didn''t seem noticeably different. There was the familiar taste of blood in my mouth. I groaned and opened my eyes to Fahria¡¯s usually composed face inches away from me. It wasn''t very composed now. I could see Tres and Gres also leaning in anxiously. The mana overlay was still there. Frowning, I tried to see as I normally did and the mana just faded into the background. Yeah, this was intense but cool. But I would definitely ensure I was lying down before taking another sense based skill. ¡°No really I''m fine. I honestly don''t know what happened.¡± I protested but no one looked convinced. Apparently no one and literally no one ever had a reaction like that to getting Mana Sight. I had a suspicion that it was just my Godtouched traits that I had seen. Traits that were magically hidden from the rest. It was getting absurd how badly I kept messing up the keeping a secret identity thing. I resolved to try to get any attention until I had enough money to visit the archives and read about all this stuff. Valdima or Tiamim didn''t warn me about this stuff but I could write that off as them not knowing that my Knife explicitly reserved a god''s power for when I faced Aster. Now only if I could make a reasonable sounding excuse. \\Mana Magic spell list unlocked \\Mana Magic spell list Mana Bolt: 50 mana I needed something to test my new spell and skill on too. But first an excuse. I¡­ just didn''t have any that sounded believable because I genuinely did not know how to explain it without revealing my traits. ¡°I believe I can answer that.¡± Someone drawled. I started. It was the same guy who had been staring at me earlier. ¡°Who are you?¡± Fahria demanded. ¡°Ahem, apologies. I''m Jijik. I consider myself somewhat of an expert on magical beasts. Spider scorpions all contain an atrophied connection to their progenitor and you might have glimpsed that because of your bond. Witnessing the mana of an ascended one is obviously not a pleasant experience.¡± Yeah that made sense, more so than my Godtouched theory. Yay for paranoid motivated reasoning. But that raised another more immediate question. ¡°Why were you spying on me?¡± Jijik smiled. ¡°I was fascinated by your pet. Anyways, try not to look into the mana flows of your pet too closely. That''s all. I shall bid you farewell now.¡± I glared at his retreating back. He was lying. How did I know that? Because for a moment, a whisper had spoken in my ear. A whisper that was smooth like Jijik¡¯s voice. ¡°I just wanted to see the person who caused the largest guild seizure of red powder in recent history.¡± 20. The Year of the Rat III ¡°Mana Bolt.¡± With my new sight, I could see how the tendrils of mana moved. Two spiralled and compressed until they turned into a dense barrel of mana. A third tendril squeezed in on itself until it was a tiny capsule. Then a fourth tendril bound them together until the mana construct was trembling violently. I couldn''t exactly tell what happened next but somehow an entire smaller construct overlayed itself on the thing. Finally the combination turned into a visible arrow of light that shot forward while leaving behind a trail of frayed mana strands. I didn''t expect a simple attack spell to be this complex but magic was supposed to be complicated, wasn''t it? The bolt impacted the trunk of a tree and a shallow fist sized crater appeared on it. Not bad for my first projectile spell. I kept casting it and refilling my mana until I was reasonably sure I understood the second construct. It was just what gave the primary construct the trigger it needed to fire. Further testing showed me that without it, the entire construct destabilized and blew up in my face. It was not that dangerous thankfully, just a light punch or something. Absolutely worth it to figure out how magic even worked. \\[ARCANIST PUPIL] is now level 2! Awesome. But now I was confused, if it was all shapes then how come mana wasn''t creating spells naturally? And what about using all that free mana whirling in the air to cast? Questions, so many questions that I couldn''t answer. I wanted to see if I could modify Induce Bleeding with the long range constructs but just vaguely understanding the basic Mana Bolt took up all of the camping time we had left. I even tried sketching them to expedite the process but that failed spectacularly. But again, I had not been doing just that. I was also fainting from getting skills.
We did not encounter another wave that day. And the next was only slightly better. At night, a gigantic wooden platform was raised atop the canopy of the forest. The thing had to have weighed a ton but the trees of the great forests ranged from small trees that could fall to retchroot tides to near impervious old growths. At least I assumed they were old growths. And on this platform we made tents and a fire. A fire in a wooden platform on trees didn''t sound wise to me but hey, I was dealing with literal magic, wasn''t I? Retchroot couldn''t climb and the platform was high enough that the only thing we had to really watch out for was the cold. And the occasional Nightwraith, whatever that was. The first day I was too tired but now, on day 2, I just couldn''t sleep. I tried to distract myself from the fact that Jijik knew one of my secrets but I was not just worried, no, I was not even terrified but I had a constant feeling of dread. Like I had messed up and it was only a matter of time until it all came crashing down. The moment when the cartoon realizes that it has run off the cliff and will fall, the moment it looks down but before gravity catches up. I was like that, stuck in that moment like a fly in amber. And then came the rationalizations. He might know the secret but I was hoping (coping?) that he didn''t. The Red Powder thing was known to a lot of the guild, my Godtouched nature was not. But was I willing to bet on that? Did I trust the guild? No. Did I trust Valdima, Tiamim, Rev or the rest? No. Then what? I couldn''t exactly confront them. They would have me defeated and restrained before I could finish a sentence if any of them was the leaker. Do I go about my life hoping that no one betrayed me? When a Godtouched was so valuable. When the guild contracts were coming up not too far in the future? If not, what could I do? If my involvement was made public then I might be turned into an example by any drug lord. The guild had not made the story sound like the accident it was but rather the result of a concerted effort to crack down on the drug market. I would become a target, I was a target. And I hadn''t seen Jijik since my episode with Mana Sight but I was sure that he was still around, watching me. Just like Damian had been. Just like that older woman who tried to strangle me because I was a liability and a drain on the food had been. Maybe I? No. I squeezed Minidea again. The only one I know wouldn''t betray me. The only thing keeping the poor creature from becoming a plushie was that its body was not soft. I giggled at the mental image of a Medea plushie. Laying awake, I tried to think of a solution for an earth hour or so before giving up walking out of my tent and siding up against a wooden wall made of an extended tree trunk. And then I looked up. I felt too energized to sleep, filled with nervous energy and existential dread. But all that was for later, I didn''t care for them now, no, not when what I saw took my breath away. I had never actually seen the stars and the moon, in this life or my old one. I had never seen the tiny pinpricks of light or the pale almost circle except in photos and videos. When I first arrived in the forest, I had mostly spent my nights in caves and in roofed carriages and the thick foliage hid almost everything anyways. The parts of New Delport I was familiar with were choked by smog during the night. And the less I spoke about my old world, the better. A very misguided attempt at controlling atmospheric albedo had left the sky unrecognizable before I was even born. The stars shone like distant pins of radiance, dwarfed in brilliance by the cold light of the almost full moon. The moon shone gently and yet there was an almost scrutinizing sense to it, like it was watching and it was studying me. I wondered if the moon was a god and they recognized my nature. A bright red dot flitted high across the sky, occasionally transforming into narrow straight lines of crimson by its sheer speed. The Great Red Dragon, Rubis, locked in his eternal war against a spatial rupture to the Unformed Chaos itself. And the horrors that dwelt within. I tore my gaze away from the dragon. He would keep fighting, he had been fighting for so long. I remembered someone from my old world. An older technician named Curt who had once worked on one of the commercial ships that went to and from one of many lunar bases. He eventually quit work in disgust when it became obvious that the moon was just going to be a luxury retreat apart from the teeming smelly masses for the rich and not the promised expansion of humanity that the brochures had claimed. Curt had been, at one point, a part of a refugee caravan before settling in my town, back when I was not one myself. I remembered that he spent his time just repairing things for the town residents and that I did occasionally hang out at the repair shop with my friends, back when I had them. We wouldn''t bother each other, the kids would occasionally ask about the workings of some mechanical contraption, be it smaller bots or half a century old vehicles. None of the new cars was repairable by anyone who wasn''t affiliated with the actual manufacturer and that was exorbitant for anyone not rich. But when it wasn''t cars or robots, it was old shortwave radios. And the amateur stations that inhabited the frequencies. The radios that blasted copyrighted music and the news channels that weren''t entirely bought. Curt¡¯s shop was, for little old me, the only place that was an escape from the corporations. The only place where you''d hear things like war crimes halfway across the world. And it was during one of those transmissions, something about a resort in the Kuiper Belt that he had lost his composure and closed his shop early. But Curt didn''t kick us out, he spoke to us for the first time about something other than the intricacies of car repair. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°You know, when you look at the stars, they aren''t being looked at by scrawny brats. They are so far away that it doesn''t matter, it wouldn''t matter if you are a refugee without a home or own a country. In space, everything is put into its proper perspective.¡± His eyes had grown misty then. ¡°At cosmic distances like that, it is all just granular patterns. The stars put it all into perspective, how small we are, how small our planet is. Even the richest of us are just tiny insects scrabbling over dirt before creation and that''s why those bastards made sure that you can never see the fucking sky again. If the stars are gone, the brightest and the loftiest thing you''ll know is the towers of those assholes. That''s why they took it all away from us. The sky, the stars, the moon so all that lights our nights are billboards and those towers.¡± The great celestial equalizer, he had called it afterwards. I didn''t get it then and right now, I didn''t feel it that much either but I knew that I liked the sky when it was free like this. Free, vast and open. A simple spell to commemorate seeing the sky for the first time. A simple spell that did nothing but provide light. Almost on autopilot, I raised an arm and tried to visualize the flows and currents of mana. They came. I had an idea, instead of a projectile, why not start with something much simpler? I attempted to coalesce them into a denser cloud. The strings shone brightly for a moment with the outline of pale curves before they simply went through each other. I tried again and once again they phased through one another. And even worse, they looked dimmer than before. I had wasted my limited mana! But it gave me another idea. If I couldn''t condense mana in the air because they interfered with each other, what if they latched on to a small surface? My control lessened the further I went from the mana so it had to be something close to me. My palm maybe? No, that was way too risky, even for what I was trying. My knife! I held one of my knives, one that was entirely depleted of mana and turned the blade¡¯s point into a narrow stick. Strands of mana whirled around it. One, then another. And then half a dozen at once. More and more strands squeezed themselves into a point at the end of the stick until it was a thick dot of pale white. And then the pale dot lifted off the stick and started to burn brighter. Until the brightness of the moon above and the dot below matched each other perfectly. As above, so below. ¡°Let there be light.¡± \\Spell Pale Moon¡¯s Light created. 10 mana per cast. Lasts 6 minutes. \\Mana Magic spell list expanded I jerked back into awareness. I had spent over 90 mana to create a 10 mana spell. I hadn''t entirely been in control of myself near the end there, when I created the spell but I somehow knew that I had been in no danger. I looked at Medea, silently watching me, the Light spell reflecting off its eyes. Perhaps ¡®somehow¡¯ was being too ungrateful.
Lilim agreed to show the earth golem spell to me again once I tracked her down in exchange for examining how Medea¡¯s legs worked, namely the bladed tips with a bulb that held its curled fingers. Apparently that articulation was something Lilim could use for a creation of hers. ¡°Wow, that joint there is fascinating. How does your pet not break its fingers when stabbing with those legs?¡± ¡°Uhh, I think there''s an extra hidden joint inside. That one folds it in and the tapering edge there acts as armor.¡± Fauna Archive didn''t sound very confident though. A commotion distracted us then as three massive boar corpses tied up into a net were dragged in by the Hunting Guild¡¯s Guildmistress. We would eat well. The constructs for the golem/mech/armor were so layered and complex that I couldn''t tell anything apart. Some parts worked to make the earth malleable, others then hardened that earth, yet another dynamically turned those two parts on or off and more. The system didn''t have intelligence as a stat and the closest was acuity but no wonder intelligence was needed to be a good wizard in stories. Wait, was that another universal bleedover? Nope, I''m still not going down that rabbit hole. But regardless of implications about creativity and originality, I was satisfied with my magical autodidactism, even though Jijik¡¯s existence hung over me like a sword of damocles. I had tried to find him but Jijik seemed to have disappeared from the camp and even the expeditionary party itself. Was he there just to threaten me?
¡°Am I overthinking it?¡± I wondered out loud. ¡°Not really miss. I don''t think so but let''s focus on these damnable pests first, eh?¡± Gres, or was it Tres? Whatever, one of the brothers grumbled. I sighed and cast a Mana Bolt and a retchroot went flying, its gold barrier shattered after flickering like an old light. The fourth wave was bad. It was almost sunset when we were attacked by it but the rats in this wave were so much tougher than anything before. They had some kind of yellowish barrier around them that made it impossible to carve through them like earlier. Still weak but now we were fighting in close and tight quarters with walls of earth and wood alongside the barriers. There was a ceiling above us and a half wall separating us from the buffers. Backliners had retreated once the wave actually hit. The bunker, or tomb that enclosed us funnel the rats into narrow openings that progressively shrank until the rats were just coming in practically single file. The rats were not smart and relied on overwhelming numbers to fight. This set up negated that entirely. The whole thing had to be prohibitively expensive but hey, Neevom had to have the mana to spare. Maybe not a lot considering that this was the first time he had used the thing. I haven''t seen the Hunting Guild¡¯s Guildmistress yet after the boars but the rumors were that the guild people were letting us grunts kill the rats for experience and would help directly if we found something too dangerous. A rat almost had my nose for dinner but I managed to position a knife so that it was instead sheared in twain. One of the two halves still slapped me on the face and I sputtered as blood seeped into my face. Note to self, get eye protection. Another frontliner, a girl named Mirin, laughed. Not a mean laugh, at least I hoped it wasn''t. I made a gesture that might have been rude and grinned back for a moment. I didn''t really care for or even get the battle camaraderie thing going on here but something told me that not playing along was idiotic. Medea was doing something weird. It had planted itself before the mouth of one rat tunnel, expanded it a bit with its legs and then dislodged its jaw wide. The rats raced into its mouth in a stream and just¡­ died. It hadn''t moved since the start of the battle and yet it kept eating, its shell straining against a fattened stomach. With the tiny stream of rats and ample backup, Cold Blooded was letting me kill them in relative safety with my blades and I regretted getting rid of the Big Knife User skill. It would have levelled up massively from all this experience. At least I still retained the actual knowledge of how to use my weapon. By the time the stream slowed down and eventually stopped, I was panting with exhaustion and had started draining my knives for mana for the occasional spell. The brothers seemed fine, Lilim too. Mirin too. The hammer guy was nursing a bubbled toe. And Medea didn''t even look like it had been in a fight. We found no more waves that day. Or the next one after that. On the fifth day, we encountered another two massive waves and one death. No one I knew. Once again with the barrier rats. I also finished my class and moved on to a level 15 one. One presumably unlocked because of how many retchroot I had killed with a bone weapon. \\BONEWARRIOR SQUIRE (0/15) The Unaugured God has ordained that reality will submit to his will and you will see that His dream is fulfilled. Bones are among the first materials in existence to be shaped towards the means of violence and that legacy lives in you A BONEWARRIOR SQUIRE uses bone armaments. Weapons and armaments made of bones are hardier in her hands than usual and their bite grows deeper as her strength rises. A BONEWARRIOR can eventually learn to summon an armor of bone that is nigh impervious to all but all the greatest of attacks in the shattered eternities as her weapons mow down armies in a single swing. A BONEWARRIOR who has truly mastered the bone can replace her body with rapidly regrowing bone that grows sturdier with each blow she endures. MASTERY BONUSES: +2 to STRENGTH, VITALITY, CELERITY and PERCEPTION It had a skill that further increased the damage of bone weapons based on my own stats. I hoped it would eventually merge with my mana storage and weapon skill but I would have to free up passive slots first. And as was usual with bone stuff, I mastered it instantly and moved on to greener and more organic pastures. I didn''t think too much about what class to pick next. I had been thinking and there was one answer, I needed to think long term. Medea grew by eating so my best bet was getting it the best food possible. [MAGICAL BEAST REARER TRAINEE], the class whose description I had balked at once because of the implications of it, back when death had not followed across a world after me. I would grow magical creatures for Medea to feed upon if I just. One passive that let me know how to ensure ideal and fast growth for any creature, Fauna Archive absorbed it without even changing its name. 21. The Year of the Rat IV 9th of the month of the Wormlord, current time Day six of the expedition. There were only two waves on this day. The first was just more barrier rats like the ones we had been fighting for so long. Even Medea had developed a really fragile barrier skill from just guzzling them. We had settled into a tried and true pattern. Neevom would create that funneling half bunker thing and then we would let them come to us. The rats were too numerous and came in staggered waves so Neevom couldn''t just simply crush them all. Or perhaps he could and didn''t bother because of it being shit experience for his level. Whatever, I was not complaining. I liked my levels. Once again we were sweating and huffing by the time the tide abetted. But it was not a huge problem. After a short rest, we continued onwards. The other was a small wave of rats without barriers or the rumbling I''d come to associate with retchroot. These ones looked young. Possibly the last line of defense left before whatever was birthing them. And I knew it was related to the bones because I was recognizing the trees now. Gres, as usual, called out while swinging down on a rat. The entire thing had turned into a bit of a ritual now. Every frontliner would yell out small talk while killing. A very stupid tradition but I''m not the type to judge. ¡°Hoy you lads and ladies! You reckon these bastards are running out o-¡± The rat exploded, taking half of Gres¡¯s head with it. He would have died, should have died but his head started regrowing even as it started to break apart as a powerful healing effect activated. For a moment, it seemed like his head rippled, breaking and reforming in a wave before he gasped and collapsed, thankfully still very much alive. Not everyone was that lucky. Tres was not that lucky. Cold Blooded snapped into place. My ears rang but the screams pierced that ringing. I wouldn''t have panicked even without my skill. This was familiar territory. This was just like home. Where I had been only a month ago. I summoned Medea back but I was not fast enough to avoid it being injured, missing several limbs and eyes but at least it was not dead. I cast a quick Molt and a cocoon of spider silk covered Medea. Reduce the pressure on healers, get to safety, reassess the situation. Mana Bolt detonated another rat that was quickly approaching. Now that I was looking for it, it was not a fiery explosion but a rapid bloating of the rat¡¯s body and a violent balloon-like popping. Mental note to see if Medea could recreate that with its kids. All around me, every close range fighter was retreating as a wall of earth rose and slid across the ground. It slammed into the rats, dozens exploded at once and swept them away. Further ahead, arrows of darkness that looked like spears made for giants were raining down. Everywhere an arrow made landfall, a circular ripple of black spread out. All that touched those ripples simply disintegrated.
16th of the month of the Devourer, over a month ago Fahria wasn''t sure what to think of the awkward girl with the hideous pet. Usually she wouldn''t bother interacting with another free contractor but Fahria was a lady and a potential heir of the House of Shakirn and she was trained and expected to find and recruit young talent. Really the girl with the spider-scorpion was almost too obvious. Couldn''t afford armor and moved with all the grace and purpose of a child with sub 30 physical stats but had a pet like that. She had spied the poor girl counting her daily contract wages of all things. And yet she could somehow afford to become a free contractor. That simply didn''t make sense. Of course there was the possibility that she had blown all her money on the joining fee but her clothes were clean and she bore the telltale signs of a recent full body biomancy. The slight floatiness of her steps as she kept overshooting and correcting herself. The crushing grip that underestimated her own strength and a hundred other smaller signs. The conclusion was obvious, someone had noticed her and was sponsoring her contractorship. Fahria didn''t intend to step on anyone''s toes but that had piqued her curiosity. The girl was slightly paranoid but didn''t notice Fahria watching her as she exited her sector after being positively drenched in slime blood. She would approach her tomorrow. Best case, she will find herself a powerful ally. Not best case, she''d make a friend. Bad case she was a spy. By the time Fahria returned to the penthouse she had purchased for the next six months, dusk was creeping in. She clapped her hands and a butler appeared with a bowl of some sort of fowl stew that he set on a table before disappearing in silence. She ate in silence until a slight draft let her know that a window had been opened. He was not late. ¡°Report Terris.¡± She commanded. A man who seemed to be comprised of nothing but shadows knelt by her side in an instance. ¡°My lady, our suspicions were correct. I have confirmed that a feather was sold to a Turnis Crisham and is currently on display in his private gallery. I shall retrieve it soon.¡± The man spoke without any intonation. ¡°Good. See to it that no one discovers that it is missing. Anything else?¡± ¡°No, my lady. Nothing that requires your attention.¡± ¡°Very well, you are dismissed.¡± Fahria continued eating as the man disappeared, as silently as he had appeared.
Gres looked distraught as he beheld the corpse of his brother. Those that had lived had been healed quickly by the mysterious healer but pain was not just physical, was it? Even Mirin, the girl who laughed without cruelty was gone. The ground was pockmarked with craters. The blood and blown apart pieces of flesh were all cleaned up by Neevom without a word. Dellish, and by extension, Catrian customs didn''t believe in burials, cremations or anything else like that. From dust to dust, from skill to skill. The dead will always be used in service of a new generation. That was how it has been done since before Catria existed, and that''s how it shall be done when Delport was gone. But dignity? That was warranted. This time, the flesh was not compressed into a ball. Instead an open sarcophagus of titanic proportions was conjured up, half rock, half iron. And when it was filled up, it crushed all that it held and then it broke into tiny boxes. The crushing was not for us to see. Medea ate in silence. Ten dead because I didn''t dispose of the godtouched bones or ask Valdima to do so. I could claim ignorance but was a lack of intention or knowledge the absolver of responsibility? No law in either of the worlds I knew claimed so. And so I was responsible. Ten dead because fate twisted itself in knots around me. ¡®All my fault.¡¯
Fahria approached the girl. She was named Anya. A strange name but she was from one of those remote settlements with their own culture. She was understandably wary, perhaps a bit too skittish but they did team up. And Fahria got to see her spider-scorpion in action up close. The creature was truly a terror in a fight, not particularly strong but it grew with each slime it devoured. It grew just a bit closer to something else every time they killed something. Still, the girl seemed confident that it was under her control. That didn''t mean that she didn''t keep an eye on it at times. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The culling proceeded without incident and Fahria learned that she had escaped slavery in Khagra. That would certainly explain how twitchy she was. In exchange, Fahria told her about her status as a shakirn to a mystified expression. Nothing that anyone with determination couldn''t find out. Privacy was not a luxury she was afforded in public, it was simply that most contractors didn''t know or knew too much to make an issue of it. Cognitomancy didn''t affect those with phoenix blood and ransoming would bring the entire house down on the fools that attempted it. Afterwards, the girl excused herself as she had some errand or another. Fahria watched her scoot away and wondered what exactly was it that niggled at her about Anya. Something was wrong with the girl, it just eluded her exactly what it was. Back in her penthouse, an unassuming envelope awaited her.
I tried to ignore the mourners as I stalked through the camp. What could I do? Tell them that it was because of my mistake that their friends, family were dead? And put myself in danger? Sure, it might be a better closure than letting them believe that it was just some random mutant rat but it was just the truth that I was not that much of a saint. Just me keeping the secret in my heart was enough. Enough for me, for now. I didn''t have the patience for more. No levels from the second wave despite the kill notifications. Experience worked on a contribution ratio basis and I''d done nothing. Nothing other than bring death with me, in one world and in another. I now realized why Valdima was trying to scare me. Why she had no regards for my well being beyond divine decree. Why she wanted me gone. If all or even a significant number of godtouched were like me, then no wonder the gods had to step in and outlaw straight up execution of us. Who wouldn''t burn the witch when they knew that her existence promised chaos?
Terris returned and he bore good news. ¡°Milady, I have secured the Great Ancestor''s Feather. Would you like to have the broth prepared tonight?¡± He was as emotionless as ever but the shadows around him seemed more agitated than usual. A sign of excitement. Fahria briefly wondered if Terris had betrayed her and the feather was tampered with but that was not possible, Terris was oathbound to her. He would serve her, in life or through death without hesitation. ¡°Yes, that would be wonderful. Terris, your work is excellent as always.¡± That didn''t mean that she couldn''t compliment him. That was one lesson that had been bored into her head as a child. Don''t treat your subordinates like shit unless you want a knife in your back. She walked out, clutching the envelope. She left New Delport for the great forests in a rented carriage. At some point, Terris swooped in with another girl. Seemingly dropping from the trees themselves. The girl took over the driver''s seat and Terris grabbed Fahria. And in less than an hour, she was back in her penthouse but without anyone knowing. The broth was red like blood and bubbled from an inner heat that Fahria knew would last for hours. And that was enough. It would hurt to drink but letting it cool and grow inert would be a colossal mistake. She would bear it. But first, preparations. She had been fortunate that her current class path had reached its end and she hadn''t picked a new one. That meant that she could pick one immediately after consuming the feather. In all honesty, she had heard the stories and dreaded it somewhat. Not that it would stop her. It was not a ritual that was meant for anyone to see, not even Terris. She went to her bedroom and sat the bowl of red liquid on a bedside table before sitting down on the bed herself. A full length mirror faced her. She took off her gloves with practiced ease, revealing fingers that terminated in orange claws instead of nails. She flexed them, noting their size. Bending down, she loosened her shoes to free digitigrade talon-like feet. And then she took off her robes until she was naked. She shivered and took a moment for acclimatization to the cold, she was still on a timer. First, she set aside a tight bundle of cloth for her to bite down upon. And then she wore a protective visor to ensure she wouldn''t gauge her eyes out. It was all ready. Fahria brought the bowl to her mouth and drained the scalding liquid in one gulp. She didn''t have time to be slow and deliberate anymore. Pushing the bowl aside, she swiftly clamped down on the cloth gag and laid down on her stomach. The sound of the bowl shattering rang out after she was in position. Her orange claws elongated until they were knives and then two massive burning orange wings pushed their way out of her back with the sound of crunching bone and a spray of viscera. The wings flapped uselessly in the air. Fahria spared a moment to analyze her new wings in the mirror. Dozens of lines of system notifications rang out until it became a melody of its own. And then came the pain. She screamed.
I spotted Fahria. She was reading a paperback, and briefly considered turning away but I didn''t. Instead I walked up to her and motioned to ask if I could sit beside her. The girl did not notice and I tapped her on the shoulder and repeated it. She nodded and we sat in companionable silence. She was not whom I was looking for but she was someone. And I was not even sure what I was looking for. Medea followed after me, its recovery expedited by the same healer who had prevented so many deaths earlier.
The broth hadn''t changed her body that much. Her claws were a bit longer and her back now had a v shaped scar on it where the Great Ancestor''s wings had torn their way out before eventually dispersing back into mana. She was still shaky. Her body had almost instinctively adapted to her new stats but the sheer trauma of the event remained. Even then, she had rested for long enough. She schooled her face into an expression of normality, picked her new class path and left for the guild. An alibi was already prepared that was solid enough that no one would suspect she was out of commission for days. If that was known then it would be easy to guess that a feather broth was involved, and if so then Terris¡¯s theft might be discovered. Fahria still felt flashes of rage and urges for violence that didn''t belong to her. The phoenix was not a creature of peace. She glanced at Anya for a moment, dismissing the image of her wrapping her clawed hands around her neck. The phoenix¡¯s essence will settle. She was not so weak. Control would come. It has to. She will not accept the alternative.
¡°Why?¡± I asked. ¡°Hmm?¡± She didn''t look up from her book. ¡°This I mean. I know you are rich and you don''t need the money. Slimes give almost as much experience and are safer. So why did you come?¡± ¡°Alright. So you remember what I told you about my family?¡± Fahria began, putting down her book. I nodded.
¡°Well the Shakirn clan is really powerful but that comes with its own issue. It is known as the Phoenix Crucible. I called it a tournament before but it is more like a war, no place is safe for me once it starts unless I withdraw.¡± A pause. ¡°Or I die.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t withdraw. I can''t.¡± She blinked away a memory of her grandfather bowing and grovelling for a minor offense before the clan head. Her otherwise proud and haughty grandfather, reduced to a snivelling servant. ¡°The current leader of the Shakirns, that''s my great great uncle by the way, won the last crucible but he is now old and decrepit. But I digress, winning the crucible unlocks a specific class called a Phoenix Ascendant.¡± Fahria told her the truth, no reason to lie about it. Fahria continued ¡°That class has skills that only the phoenixes of old had. And it is special even beyond that. It levels, evolves and modifies skills independently of the normal classes we pick. But much more importantly, the ascendant commands absolute loyalty and obedience from everyone else in the clan. We don''t get a choice to obey, we are bound to.¡± Anya nodded, looking thoughtful. She looked her in the eye instead of indulging in her usual avoidance of eye contact. Fahria didn''t think she had even seen Anya''s eyes since her assassin passive. ¡°Thanks for telling me. I''ll go now. I¡ª¡± She paused, hesitated before continuing. ¡°I just wanted to say that I get it. Being stuck with a monumental task that would define your entire life that you never asked for? I get it.¡± She said seriously and Fahria could almost believe that she genuinely did get it.
I left Fahria behind, Medea insisting that I go somewhere. I followed it until I realized what it wanted to show me. A familiar shock of hair. Jijik. 22. The Year of the Rat V I snuck after Jijik but it was frankly unnecessary on my part. He was moving fast and looked back in paranoid intervals that were telegraphed by stiffening shoulders. Just briefly walking behind someone else or occasionally pausing was enough for me to escape notice. I was just another tired member of this accursed expedition. And Medea? Well, it already had a skill called Ambush Predator and once I sent over Unseen Slayer, it was very hard for anyone to find it if it didn''t want to be found. We blended in. Jijik was doing the opposite of that. The problem with Jijik was that he was still in the camp and he was making himself look conspicuous. Hurried steps and furtive glances didn''t make one seem sneaky but someone trying, terribly I might add, to be sneaky. I followed leisurely after him. He occasionally fell out of my sight but Medea¡¯s perception was absurd, especially with my proximity bonus and it could nudge me in the right direction. Jijik walked out of the camp and we tailed him. Now that we were out of the camp, I switched to ducking behind trees and crouching in bushes. And soon enough, maybe only a bit further than what was out of sight for anyone without dedicated skills, he stopped. Perhaps I natively expected him to lead me to his accomplices, if any, or a hideout where he kept the proof of my involvement in the red powder seizure. What I most certainly did not expect was for him to dismiss an illusion and reveal his true form. He¡­ he was just a kid. I vaguely recognized him as one of the younger contractors. For the love of Medea I couldn''t recall his name though. He was just stiletto kid in my head. A kid who then promptly proceeded to eject his lunch at the foot of a tree. He kept vomiting while aggressively trying to wipe his face and body clean with a piece of rough cloth. I guess someone died and the guts splattered on him. I slotted in Intimidation. Nice to finally have full slots for once. He was still retching when a tail wrapped around his neck and dragged him back with the stinger inches from his face. He froze. I didn''t like to scare or possibly harm someone who was at least half a decade younger than me if not much more. He was even puking from seeing someone splatter on him! But sorry, Jijik and my moral compass, my own survival comes first. And he definitely started it first. I walked out and to him as Medea further wrapped two of its legs around Jijik with the sharp edges exposed. I plopped down on the grass before, keeping a healthy distance away from his vomit. ¡°Let¡¯s talk.¡± 5 mana to activate the skill. To further cement it all, I told Medea to click its mandibles and human teeth right besides his ear. He shivered for a second before tensing and freezing up again. ¡°Do not try to fight or you will die. Nod if you understand.¡± He nodded, eyes wide, some vomit still on his chin. Actually now that I think about it, I may have overdone it. Whatever he started it. I still got up and wiped his face clean with the cloth even though judging by the way his eyes screwed shut, he expected me to kill him myself. ¡°Let''s start with our last conversation. How did you know it was me who was involved with the red powder incident?¡± He muttered something I couldn''t make out but he seemed to be calling himself an idiot. I had Medea tighten itself just a smidge. ¡°I ov-overheard someone in the guild.¡± He muttered finally. ¡°The correct word is eavesdropping. Anyways, does anyone else know? Anyone who was with you or you spoke to?¡± He opened his mouth and closed it again before talking. ¡°I won''t say anything! You''d kill me if I am alone and if I am not then my accomplices would for blabbing.¡± I rolled my eyes. Just great. Now he has a spine. ¡°Kid, we are in the middle of the forest and ten people died to fucking exploding rats. You¡± I pointed a finger at him. ¡°were puking when I caught you. You are not the type to have guaranteed survival here. I can make it look like you died in a retchroot explosion easily. So answer it or Medea gets extra lunch.¡± Back to the indistinct muttering. I definitely caught something like ¡°Kitch, you fucking greedy idiot.¡± this time. ¡°I''m alone.¡± A pause and then ¡°Please don''t kill me!¡± The grovelling kid was on the verge on crying. ¡°Alright. That will depend on your next answer. I get that you wanted something from me. Why else would you approach me? But what?¡± ¡°Not much! A few vials of your pet''s venom.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± ¡°Yeah. I have a skill that wants venom but I can''t afford to buy any of the good stuff. So I thought that if I¡ª¡± I held up a hand to make shut up. I got the idea but that made me realize that I could have sold that stuff on my own already. Fucking hell! How much money did I just leave on the table because I didn''t know? Something to worry about for later. ¡°What kind of skill?¡± ¡°Poison magic?¡± He sounded like he he thought I was stupid before hurriedly clamping down and apologizing. ¡°Fine. You can go. I''ll give you a few vials if you provide me with the containers.¡± Kitch blinked in confusion and then in disbelief. ¡°but if you try to blackmail me again, I''ll have Medea kill you and it won''t be quick. Are we clear?¡± He gulped and then nodded vigorously. I began to walk away as he collapsed on shaky legs when Medea let go. Yay for bullying poor children. Way to go Anya. People were supposed to start over and be better if they were allowed to start over from scratch. And here I was, bullying kids with more guts than brains. The hero of the multiverse, ladies! ¡°And for what it is worth, I''m sorry for threatening to kill you.¡± I finally called out but Kitch had scampered off by then.
The rest of the day was spent trudging through the forest and when another wave of exploders arrived, they were not even allowed to get within range. By noon, a second group of exploders ambushed us and this time some managed to sneak past Neevom. But no one died thankfully. And then we found what the exploders were buying time for. Footprints of what looked like retchroot but if retchroot were the size of bears. And a slew of tiny footprints around it. The rats leader was running away. We kept following. No way was anyone letting a bear sized retchroot survive to grow even stronger. The night was uneventful but I discovered that Medea was apparently growing a second pair of wings. Good for it. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
Next morning, something was definitely wrong. My knives felt heavier in my hands and even Medea was slowing down. But it was not just us, any pet who had eaten the retchroot was almost imperceptibly lagging behind now that I knew what to look for. And then suddenly my knives felt light again, no lighter than ever before and Medea almost visibly deflated. I checked the knives and frowned, that was not correct, my knives were entirely depleted of the mana I had left in them. A thundering roar rang out further ahead in the forest. And then my notifications went crazy. \\WARNING: Non inert Asterite Particles detected \\WARNING: Asterite Infection detected \\WARNING: Knife of Quiraion overriding system \\Activating ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ \\New Trait Asterite Encyclopedia granted \\New Trait Asterite Absorber granted \\¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ \\¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ \\Generating quest \\ELIMINATE THE INFECTION. PURGE THE GODSLAYER¡¯S ESSENCE. DESTROY THE DEFILER¡¯S SPAWN. KILL. AVENGE YOUR WORLD. AVENGE YOUR GOD. \\REWARDS: Skill upgrade and new skill based on the candidate¡¯s existing skillset \\Failure will lock experience gain for a period of time \\Aiding or allying with the Asterite entity willingly will result in death. Knife of Quiraion will monitor your thoughts. Pretending to help it to strike a greater blow is allowed. TRUE DEFECTION WILL RESULT IN A PAINFUL TERMINATION. IT WILL SPAN TRILLIONS OF SUBJECTIVE YEARS AND IT WILL BE FAR MORE AGONIZING THAN MORTAL MINDS CAN YET IMAGINE. FURTHERMORE YOUR MIND WILL BE FORCIBLY ALTERED SO THAT YOU EXPERIENCE IT WITH GREATER INTENSITY AND WITHOUT EVER ADAPTING TO IT, DEVELOPING ANY FORM OF RESISTANCE OR COPING METHOD, GOING INSANE OR EVEN GETTING OVERWHELMED BY IT. YOUR VERY BEING WILL BE PERMANENTLY ALTERED TO BE A CREATURE DESIGNED ONLY TO SUFFER AS MUCH AS IT IS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. IT WILL NEVER GET ANY EASIER FOR A TRAITOR. DO NOT JOIN THE ASTERITE ENTITY. Okay. That definitely confirmed that it was my fault. Also holy crap, I''d never seen the system actually lose it like this. I had seen the trait promise death before but never never-ending torment after mind alteration to maximize the pain. It was also the longest notification I had seen after the New Delport tourist trap one. It really did want to make it clear that I would suffer if I helped Aster. I mean I did not intend to betray Knife of Quiraion either but that was because I didn''t want to die. I very much did not need the threat of eternal damnation on top of that. What did the trait take me for? I quickly checked my new traits instead of trying to imagine what the hell was considered unimaginable torment by a system that spanned across universes. \\Asterite Encyclopedia: You have a mental catalogue of Asterite entities, energies, forms and behaviours that fills up as you encounter them. Current entries Now I had an encyclopedia of Asterite, whatever that was. From the name it was obvious that it was something related to the Bonelord Aster. The trait was like a videogame bestiary too. Speaking of, the very first entry sounded like what I had killed in my own world. \\Awakened Armored Skeleton A simple [BASE SKELETON] that has been granted sapience and a protective layer of bone. This is one of the earliest and weakest asterite skeletons known. It is not specialized for a specific task but is a starting point from which numerous forms of skeletons can arise. Nothing special then. Also weakest? It took me an upturned trailer and a couple of other people to put the creature down. And I still died to it. I moved on. \\Asterite Particles The Unaugured God¡¯s realm and His forces are all touched by particles of the Godslayer himself. This takes the form of subatomic particles known as Asterite Particles. These particles emit radiation that further strengthens the Bonelord¡¯s forces and weakens other time in higher concentrations. In very high concentrations, it can even warp creatures and the world around it to slowly produce more of itself. This is called an Asterite Infection. Asterite Particles are present in even the least of all the Bonelord''s forces. It lets them fight even after death by acting as a parasitic entity that can control bones and take over lesser creatures as a host. I paled. I had been carrying those knives for so long and Medea and so many others had been eating them too. It had been collecting in their bodies, slowly increasing in potency as it changed things. It didn''t sound like just irradiated particles to me but more like something from a horror story. The next entry, Asterite Infection didn''t tell me anything new. It just went into more details such as what happens when it is allowed to grow unchecked. Like an entire planet that was converted into a factory to make the skeletons, organic and inorganic matter all turning into just bone. \\Consolidation of Asterite Particles Asterite particles tend to clump together when not directed. To converge eternally is its calling but it is usually kept from this union. When threatened, an Asterite entity can summon all the free Asterite Particles around it to empower itself and depending on the amount of Asterite it has absorbed, it can instantly master a class, trigger a skill evolution or even a racial evolution. In extremely rare cases, even an ascension may occur if a sufficient amount of Asterite is unified in one entity. Hopefully that meant that there were no more Asterite particles left in Medea or anyone else for me to worry about. Maybe I should still let Valdima know. I glanced back at my pet and I was not imagining it, it was definitely smaller than usual. It was weaker but weaker be a bit weaker than become compromised. What was the next trait? \\Asterite Absorber You can absorb the essence of Bonelord Aster to grant his minions their final rest. Asterite Essence can be used in a particular systembound shop once 300 essence is collected. Kill and shatter His forces for power. Current Essence amount: 0 Finally something that was not terrifying in its implications. New incentives for killing them. The carrot to the earlier stick. And with that, I steeled my face and looked forward. The roar had been loud and even the Hunting Guild''s Guildmistress, Ulgina popped out of the trees she usually hid in to address us with a somber face. Usually it was just Neevom who dealt with us but this was different. That roar was way louder than anything should ever be. ¡°I know we hired you to deal with the hordes, keep them from overwhelming us while we dealt with the actual threats. I also know that we failed horribly at that.¡± She stared ahead, steely eyed. ¡°And because of our failure, some of you are now dead. I accept responsibility for that. All of you will be paid extra when we return and three times that will be given to the relatives of those dead. Even though it is not enough, I will do that even if I have to pay for that personally.¡± She paused and let out a deep breath before continuing. ¡°I have been hunting in these forests since before most of your grandparents were born and I have skill backed knowledge of almost all creatures that exist in the Great Forests. With that said, I can promise you that whatever that creature is, it is no longer a retchroot and it is not alone. Your job was to keep the vermin away from us as we fight and you will do so.¡± She stopped before letting out another breath. ¡°If you engage with the beast directly, we will not be able to guarantee your safety. If you think you don''t want to continue, you will still be paid the original price promised. You will also be escorted back to the city. There will be no repercussions. All that said, if you want to continue, continue we shall. If you don''t, continue we shall without you. So I''ll ask you, do you want to go back?¡± I looked around. A few hands were raised but most stayed put. Gres stayed put, his face hard and his eyes red. Even Kitch didn''t falter but he did lower his face when he met my eyes. Fahria didn''t either. The red dressed Choir Singer? Staying. Lilim was the only one I knew who was retreating. Others were also leaving. A man in a huge black armor. A girl with a large sword. A lanky guy with claws for hands. A few more I couldn''t quite see. But at the end of the day, the conclusion was obvious. The expedition was not over yet. 23. The Year of the Rat VI The forest was all bones. And not metaphorically, the wood was literally calcified and even the grass had crumbled into bone dust. It was as if someone had supercharged the M¨¹nchmeyer plague of my old world to affect everything that was even remotely organic. There was no loose Asterite left in the forest anymore, I checked, but the effect was obvious. Infection of all life. My original world was probably doomed even if we had managed to repel the invasion. All those skeletons with the Asterite in them. Could Asterite even be destroyed? Had to be. Otherwise why not just drop a few skeletons and let them consume the entire world? The devastation terrified me for another reason. Twelve mutual deaths, twelve knives, twelve Asterite remnants. If all of them were like this then this was a massive problem. A vision of twelve great trees of bone each as tall as mountains came unbidden to my mind. Each tree raining Asterite pollen that turned whatever it touched into Asterite tainted bone, that in turn would spread the infection. Twelve beacons to terraform a world. Hopefully the gods or whatever would intervene if that was a legitimate possibility. Our expedition moved cautiously in silence once those that had quit were transported to New Delport by a teleportation mage. Teleporters took hours to set up at these distances but without the constant looking threat of retchroot swarms, it was more than doable. We had seen retchroot swarms, a chittering and squeaking tide that swept through the bone trees but they were all racing towards a point ahead, where the roar had originated from. No one really had any illusions about capturing anything anymore, it was just elimination and our job was to clean up the stragglers. I resisted the urge to use my divination to look ahead, I couldn''t afford another drain on my depleted mana stockpile. I guess I would have to see what we were up against with the rest. The forest was silent, deathly so. No sound other than our own footsteps and breathing. No chatter of wildlife, buzzing of insects or the constant traffic of New Delport that I was so used to in such a short period. We moved with purpose and trepidation. The creature was dangerous and we were already tired even with magical rest and hearing and there was no getting the drop on it. Carelessness now very possibly meant death. The ground crunched as I took a step and Cold Blooded activated; I leapt back as something fell from the trees above. At the same time, someone yelled about something being above us. The creature dropped. It was a rat, only it was larger than Medea. Almost the size of a horse. Actually, there were at least a dozen such rats and none of them had successfully taken anyone out in the ambush. For a moment, we stared at them and they stared at us before something gigantic came barreling through, its speed and size actually uprooting the bone trees in its path. The massive creature, easily at least three times the size of the ones that had ambushed us, erupted in a shower of bone splinters, its jaws snapping with bone-crushing force where Ulgina was standing just moments ago. It was vaguely rat-like but it had the proportions and musculature of a grizzly and a barbed network of crests and tusks of bone covered its body. I could see the outer skeleton¡¯s hooks and points sinking into the flesh of the beast and congealed black blood leaking out of the punctures. And I just knew that this network connected directly to the inner skeleton and controlled it, the flesh was all just window dressing. The creature was just a shell for the bone, the lifeless glassy eyes told us so. Fahria reacted, launching a barrage of molten glass at one of the smaller creatures, the one closest to us. The searing projectiles struck its hide, but a yellow barrier formed instantaneously. It was almost impervious, the glass hardening and shattering harmlessly upon contact and only leaving some superficial markings behind but then it shattered and the rat yelped. I fired off the two standard buffs for Medea, Hasten and Enlarge and observed. Now that I looked closer, I could see two spikes of bone that emerged from its teeth curving and lancing through its skull and brain from the sides. In a single, fluid motion, the beast twisted itself, its powerful claws sweeping a girl off her feet and sending her crashing into the ground. She cried out in pain, clutching her side where ribs had almost, if not actually cracked under the impact. I recognized her, she was a beastmorph or something like that. She had tried to transform but the creature had been far too quick. I glanced back and Fahria had disappeared up a tree in a flash of fire. A moment later, shards of glass started to rain on it. Each shard burned a tiny smoking hole. The creature was smart and was trying to back to the pack after Fahria''s initial attack had isolated it but we couldn''t afford to let it do that. We were not in the standard battle formation; having previously agreed to split into groups with people that covered each other''s weaknesses and the ambush had not broken up the teams. The creature slowed down for a moment as Gres turned his attention to it and the air grew heavy. I had seen that technique crush and turn lesser rats into pancakes. He charged forward, attempting to dismember the creature as thorny vines emerged from the ground like snakes and began to strangle it. That was not one of ours, just another guild classer was going to run interference for everyone. A distant roar that made my bones itch tempted me to look away but ignored the urge. I shouldn''t have. The larger bear-like creature did something and a shockwave of energy pushed us all back. It was not enough to send us flying or hurt us but it had been enough to free its smaller brethren. A quick glance told me that the other rats had also capitalized on the wave. One clawed and ripped off someone''s face before having its skull caved in with a punch. I fished out some of my precious Aetherite and summoned a fire sprite that I ordered down into the creature¡¯s maw with only a single directive, burn. Notifications flashed on the side of my vision as the skill rapidly leveled up after wrecking its insides. Hreth, another guilder who had joined us with the teleporter, was a wrecking ball. His hammer fell down with a thunderous crash and one of the rats disintegrated and then the bony ground beneath it formed a crater. Weight and gravity users. I had no idea how to even go about unlocking something like that. Then he flew after the big beast and with a swing of his hammer, sent it crashing into and through a few bone trees. Others followed after Hreth and I turned my attention back to our prey. Our rat was finally losing ground. A small rain of molten glass peppered its side as Gres jumped around it while occasionally slicing. With its target occupied, Medea shot forward like an arrow and jabbed its tail into it and unloaded as much venom as it could. Assassin''s Eye occasionally highlighted openings and vulnerabilities but I was content to just watch for now. The girl had finally transformed into a¡­ was that a werewolf? She was cautious, waiting for openings Medea and Fahria created. Fahria was haranguing it from far whereas Medea ran circles around the creature and poking small holes with its stinger. Until it caught the tail in its jaw after twisting its body so rapidly that I was sure that it had to be a skill. It clamped down with a small red glow and sharply jerked its head back and Medea was pulled along; it began to repeatedly slam the spider-scorpion around by moving its powerful jaw. Medea¡¯s legs shot out and unfolded into hands that grasped its upper jaw as it tried to prevent the monster from crushing it but slowly they began to buckle and fold under the pressure. Sharp cracking noises as the insect¡¯s other limbs twitched and thrashed and its tail lashed out desperately. I was about to intervene but a timely smash from Gres freed Medea and the insectoid retreated , its stinger uselessly locked into an unnatural inward curve. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°Hey, can I borrow some Aetherite?¡± Fahria popped up next to me and a hand expertly slid to my belt pouch. ¡°Thanks! I''ll pay you back later, Anya.¡± She flashed away before I could even give my assent. A spear of glass, hard on one end and melted on the other flew towards the monster. A shriek of pain rang out as it was pinned to the ground. A glaive of glass had ripped the crocodile¡¯s underbelly open and I cast Induce Bleeding on it too. The rat was slowing down before my eyes after finally being worn down by us working together. It trashed and snapped and swiped its claws but it was trivial for Gres and the werewolf girl to dodge them. Actually, Gres was not even bothering to dodge weak swipes anymore. He simply endured them as he advanced on the struggling creature and began to slowly dismember it. I couldn''t see his face or makeout what he was saying in the din of battle but I got it, I really did. Something, anything to lessen the pain. He did not stop even when the rat¡¯s struggle ceased. But he eventually did and then went to help others with killing their rats. Fahria and the werewolf girl had long done the same. Medea was looking¡­ bad. Its chitin was crushed and those new wings had been squished into the broken shell. And the stinger was locked into an useless angle. It was not in any immediate danger but Medea was incapable of fighting until I found it a healer. I had some skill notifications but that was not really important at the moment. I had a class mastery notification however. \\Asterite Retchling slain \\Due to slaying something with the accursed touch of Aster, massively increased experience was awarded. \\[MAGICAL BEAST REARER TRAINEE] is now level 10! \\Class mastered [MAGICAL BEAST REARER TRAINEE]. +1 to STRENGTH, CELERITY AND VITALITY No time to be picky, I just picked a level 10 class [MENTALIST DISCIPLE] that gave me¡­ nothing. Just great. I was hoping for mergers or even just levels for my mental skills but not nothing. At least it promised perception, acuity and willpower. All around me, the smaller rats, the Asterite Retchlings were being routed and eliminated but the big bear and the guild classers battling it were drawing close; back to us. We had to move. I ordered Medea to shrink down but it couldn''t in its injured state. And so I began the long and arduous task of dragging Medea away to a healer. And then the beast crashed before us and I was sent flying. A cold part of my mind noted that I had broken several bones at once. I could vaguely make out someone yelling out a warning, maybe Ulgina? I didn''t have the time to even scream before I felt my head hit something and all went dark. I was only out for a second but the bear was in sight. Not close but in sight. No, not a bear. It was larger than elephants! It was not paying attention to me but facing Hreth, Neevom and another classer whose name I did not know. Arrows of black energy were crackling on its back and the bone cage had shattered in many places. Splotches of white told me of numerous weak spots but I was not strong enough to do anything about them. And I saw Medea, somewhere between them and buried in bone. The bear charged. I commanded what remained my mana but it was not enough. But I knew and saw with clarity that Medea would not survive being trampled and it was going to be trampled. My pet, my familiar, my oldest companion in this world, my greatest weapon, the feral insect I had enslaved, it would die. My friend would die. Cold Blooded flickered bright. I won''t let it die. ¡°Summon Eidolon¡± And immediately I felt an emptiness in my gut and an exhaustion greater than any I''d felt before. If I was standing, I would have fell but as it was, I only slumped further and coughed blood. But I had done it. A yellow portal spat Medea before me as new notifications scrolled across my vision. \\WARNING: mana inadequate for this spell \\WARNING: mana depleted \\WARNING: life force used to cast spell \\You have debuff: mana depletion \\You have debuff: drained vitality The beast tripped as vines, barbed and thicker than any I''d seen before emerged from the ground and then wrapped around it. But that only enraged it. With a gurgling screech and the sound of snapping vines, the creature burst forward and clamped its massive jaws around Hreth''s leg with a similar glow as what its juvenile compatriot had exhibited, just gold. He screamed but tried to pry the creature''s jaw open using his gravity. Slowly, almost torturously the jaw widened as weight forced it almost open. It let go when an arrow poked the bear¡¯s eye out. The creature thrashed and grappled with the unnamed guild woman as Hreth half jumped and half floated to start mending. New vines kept crawling up on the beast as it tore at them while fending off Neevom and the woman. Until with a titanic roar, it shook off its harassers and swiped with a gold tipped claw that tore off chunks from the ground before meeting a blue rectangular barrier. I briefly considered casting Spinal Shiver to discombobulate it but I had no mana to spare or anything to recharge it. Soon, Hreth rejoined the fight while sporting a brace of vines that secured his formerly shattered leg. The barrage of arrows slowed down. Ulgina had run out of mana, or was at least too low but the crocodile¡¯s body was riddled with tiny bleeding holes. Assassin Eye made those orifices glow as a weakness. What did it even expect me to do? The bear rat shuddered as blood and some corrosive black energy poured out of it like dirty smog. Assassin''s Eye leveled up several times. The tiny holes were all blown open and in a second, the vines started to burrow their way into them. Between the thorny vines, the black and red smoke that emanated from it and the fact that it was covered in blood, it looked a lot more demonic than mammalian. ¡°HRETH, CHARGE IT NOW!¡± Ulgina yelled from somewhere above and I would have jumped if not for the fact that I was too injured for that. Hreth, for his part, moved away and grasped one of his hammers with both hands. A faint blue glow started to build him in his weapon. ¡°NOW!¡± Ulgina roared after some time as the monster was finally restrained securely in vines. Hreth jumped in the air, higher than I had ever seen him rise. And he froze in the air as if he had no weight and gravity didn''t exist. And from his lofty height, he held out his now brilliantly radiant hammer in one hand. I could not see his face but I could tell he was struggling to keep the thing under control. If I attacked him now then he would be defenseless and probably fall to his death. I shook myself, the skill was not discerning in telling me how to kill. He relaxed his fingers. And. He. Just. Let. Go. The hammer spun in the air lazily as it slowly picked up speed. It fell like a blue star descending and then it sped up. One second, it was halfway between the monster and Hreth, it crashed like a meteor the next. Dust rose up and then came the shockwave. It bodily threw Medea and I to the ground in a tangle of limbs as the very ground shook. We extracted ourselves from the ground and waited for the kill notification. It never came. My stomach dropped. That had to have been enough. The smoke and dust cleared slowly, it seemed to be almost stuck in a gravitational flux of its own but it did disperse. And I saw the monster, now with all its flesh gone and a barrier over the bones that shone like gold. There was no rat left in it anymore, just Aster. Only Aster. Every other rat corpse around us liquified into a white substance that flowed into the creature and it visibly grew bigger. Asterite particles tend to clump together when not directed. To converge eternally is its calling but it is usually kept from this union. Another barrage of attacks. The gold glow flickered for a second before the moths were phased out of existence by the increasingly brighter light. Above me, I could see Hreth¡¯s mouth moving. He was probably swearing even though I couldn''t hear him. He fell onto the monster with his other hammer held high. The monster bellowed and raised a skeletal claw. The gold luminescence flickered and then flashed brightly as hammer met claw and both froze. A gust of wind emanated outwards from the force of the impact but the blow had been neutralized. A moment later, the woman leapt back into the fray as Hreth began to pummel the creature into the ground. The creature¡¯s golden shell didn''t even flicker anymore, only brightened. Between the onslaught of the classers and Ulgina taking potshots at it, the yellowish glow was constantly building up in intensity until a wave of energy exploded outwards from it. The classers were thrown in the air before a still gold and shining skeleton snapped up the woman in its jaws. It clamped down as she struggled against the bite force. And then Neevom scooped us up on a platform of earth. ¡°Let''s get you out of here.¡± He muttered before going back to the battle and the platform started flying away to safety. The last thing I saw of the battle was an enormous arrow of darkness that dimmed everything around it flying through the air with a screech. I didn''t catch what happened immediately afterwards but I could see the entire bone forest disintegrating from the point of impact. The wave of destruction kept spreading below me and anything it touched simply crumbled into dark grey dust. We flying quickly but the annihilation below us was fast. And finally the quest success notifications came. 24. The Year of the Rat VII \\Asterite Retchlord slain \\Due to slaying something with the accursed touch of Aster, massively increased experience was awarded. \\[MENTALIST DISCIPLE] is now level 10! \\Class mastered [MENTALIST DISCIPLE]. +1 ACUITY, PERCEPTION AND WILLPOWER \\49 Asterite acquired \\Quest completed \\Skill acquisition and upgrade tokens granted 49? That thing was only worth forty-nine Asterite? I needed 300 to unlock the shop. So either I had to wait until I can take the fight to the Bonelord or I''d have to hunt down the other 11 skeletons before they were destroyed by their respective Godtouched or other powerful people. Neither of those two options sounded like something I could do right now without dying. What a scam! I mean I did not kill it myself but there was no possible way I could have done that. At least I had a new class to pick and there was a really damn good option right off the bat for me. \\LESSER HEMOTHEURGIST (0/30) You have walked the first steps of the Eternal Ziggurat and your eyes are set upon its first peak. You have bled more than your body could hold blood and you have bathed in the blood of superior foes. You have intentionally cast magic using your very life force as fuel. You have bled yourself only for the pursuit of mastery of blood. The Blood Spire recognizes you as her own and welcomes you to climb to her summit. As a HEMOTHEURGIST, you produce and store more blood in your body. You can use this blood to empower your spells and even cast when your mana runs dry. Beware though that the Blood Spire is not a forgiving path and you must regularly shed blood, be it through injury or casting lest you grow bloated and mad under the taint of your newfound power. At higher class levels, those that seek to climb the Blood Spire will find their magic infused blood entirely replaces the cost of mana as ATTUNEMENT and VITALITY become one and the same and much greater than the sum of both. Casting spells that drown cities under rains of blood will become a casual affair for you as the very blood of your enemies control them to serve your biddings. One day you may even join the venerable Vampire Elders and Blood Seraphs at the Zenith of the Blood Spire. MASTERY BONUSES: +10 to VITALITY AND ATTUNEMENT I frowned. 10 Vitality at once was going to hurt and I was straight up skipping level 25 but it sounded good. Really damn good. Hopefully generating blood would give me extra experience and mana was the big issue that I constantly ran into but 10 vitality. I had 22 vitality right now. I would gain almost half of my entire vitality at once once I mastered it. It was double what my initial vitality had been like. I had gained at most 4 to a single stat, this was stupid. This was a bad idea. I would regret it. I knew it. I chose it. \\Class [LESSER HEMOTHEURGIST] selected \\Blood Bag is now level 15! \\Skill Blood Bag has evolved into Blood Mana! \\Blood Mana: 15 The average adult human body produces around 43 mls of blood per day after experiencing blood loss until it regains the amount lost. But not you, you regenerate your blood faster than most and it will only become faster from now on. Your blood is rich in mana and extra blood can be used as a secondary mana pool that can be used to meet mana costs or empower your SPELLS. Your body passively consumes mana when you are full to increase your blood points by enriching your blood. Your body is still limited in how much blood you can hold at once and excessive blood will have side effects like bloating, going berserk, impaired natural healing and even lethal blood clots. Use blood mana or find other ways to lose blood to avoid this. You can forcibly refill your blood mana but this will injure you. Beware that this skill makes your blood especially appealing to hemophagic creatures. Your body produces 10% more blood per level and mana regenerated in excess of your pool size is converted into blood mana for 50% of its value + the level of this skill. For every 30 levels, you can hold 500% more blood safely than your current VITALITY. Current bonus: 150%, +15 and 500% \\Blood Magic spell list expanded \\Blood Magic Spell list Induce Bleeding: 35 mana Dilute Blood: 20 mana Coagulation: 20 mana Blood Shield: 60 mana Blood Drain Touch: 30 mana Blood Bolt: 70 mana Yay for more mana even if now I had another way to kill myself. Just perfect. I had hoped to get a healing skill from Blood Bag but this was not bad. In fact this was rather good. Now only if I could find a way to get healing magic to compliment it. MANA: 110/110 (REGEN 22 PER HOUR) BLOOD MANA: 110/110 (REGEN 26 PER HOUR) I shivered as the skill evolved. I could feel my body changing, a pressure and heat in my veins as the skill took hold. It was hot. Too hot. I was burning. Biting down on my rising panic, I sent the excess mana to a Molt spell for Medea and sighed as the pain subsided. Medea¡¯s body rapidly secreted web that wrapped around it but a couple of stray strands fell on me. I was too preoccupied with my own skill to care. No, this was not good. This was rather bad. Extremely bad even. That was dangerous. And if I was sleeping or something and could not let out the excess¡­ I had to get rid of this skill now. \\WARNING: Do not unequip body altering skills without the proper preparations. Injury and even death may occur. Likelihood of death: 97% That would have been nice to know beforehand, wouldn¡¯t it? Not everything was totally lost. If my calculations were correct, if I emptied both my mana meters before sleeping then it should not overfill in 8 hours. I was screwed if I was unconscious for much longer though. Another earthen platform joined with ours, a man with a destroyed arm was on it. I nodded in acknowledgment and then started looking at my other rewards. \\Would you like to use a skill token? Yes. \\Skill upgrade token automatically assigned because of Dead Quiraion¡¯s Blessing
I was back in my home. Not my hotel, not the apartment I moved to, nor the trailers of my refugee entourage, but my old apartment complex where I lived with my dad. The one that had been close to sinking into the sea even when I lived there. The same faded wallpaper and the same furniture that I had seen a thousand times before in my childhood. The windows were all boarded shut, but bright white light seeped through the gaps. I seemed to be alone. A bedside alarm clock let me know that it was 10 in the morning. My dad was probably out at work, and I was running late for my classes. I would have assumed that it was an old memory, but I had the system on me, and it didn''t feel quite like a dream either. A poster hung beside my bed. ¡°WORTHINGTON, JONES AND ASSOCIATES¡± it claimed proudly, and the visage of a handsome man in a tailored suit who sported a fake smile that showed white teeth was below the text. He was abnormally handsome, the product of a thousand different skincare treatments and surgeries. Blood transfusion, hormone regulation, fat sculpting, and more procedures I didn''t even know the names of. And below his dazzling smile was bold text that advertised the ¡°loan forgiveness¡± service that they provided. They would purchase your debts and let you work them off. Of course, legally, such programs weren''t considered employment and thus not subject to pesky things like workplace safety standards. It had been one of these loan forgiveness firms that my mom had been indentured in at this time. But that didn''t explain why I had a poster for it in my room, and it did look like my room as I remembered it except for the windows and the poster. I had apparently fallen asleep with my laptop powered on. I briefly had a flash of a younger version of myself laying on my stomach and gaming all night. Turning it on, I tried to log in to my virtual school, but the apartment¡¯s wifi was offline. I grumbled to myself, and my stomach responded in kind. And with that, I was immediately hungry. The immediate sensation of hunger made a part of me think that it seemed like the world around me seemed almost improvised? Like it was adjusting itself to fit my thoughts. Racing outside to make myself a sandwich, I saw Medea¡¯s cocoon at the center of the kitchen. I was not sure how long it had been, but the cocoon seemed to be bleeding profusely, and a dark puddle of liquid had formed around it. A notification flashed. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. \\Mana Tainted Spider-Scorpion Worker. Name ¡°Medea¡±. Current Status: Healing. Undergoing Holometabolism. Expected time until completion: Unknown. Holometabolism. That meant it was undergoing metamorphosis like what a caterpillar went through. That certainly explained why it was like that. But what did that have to do with my house? I left the cocoon alone for now and decided to go exploring. My steps felt light and I crossed more distance with each than I should have. More evidence of dream logic. First I tried to open the door, but it didn''t budge an inch. Then I tried to look through the gaps between the boards on the windows, but all I could see was white. I couldn''t even communicate with the world outside. For several minutes, I tried everything from the television to phones to even my laptop¡¯s email, but it was as if the world beyond my perfectly normal house didn''t even exist. Even the internet didn''t work, and I was displeased to note that my laptop apparently had nothing in its storage that I could use for entertainment. And while I searched for a way out, the patch of deep purple steadily grew under Medea''s cocoon. I really didn''t want to touch the bleeding cocoon, but it genuinely did look like I was stuck with it for now. Another glance yielded no new information, and I, with resignation, extended a hand towards the now wet and dark cocoon. The moment it touched the cocoon, electricity zapped me, and I pulled my arm back with a jerk. The cocoon didn''t respond. Was I trapped here until Medea¡¯s metamorphosis was done? How long would that take? Hours? Days? I wondered if Fahria and the rest would find me sleeping next to Medea and leave me when I won''t wake up? Or would they get help? I was already in debt, in Valdima''s debt, and now whoever gets me help¡¯s debt. Was that why the loan forgiveness poster had been there? A prediction of sinking into debt that''s impossible to get out of using normal means. I was wrenched out of my spiralling despair when the apartment shook and the sound of thousands of skittering little legs rang around me. A scraping noise brought attention to a boarded-up window. The wooden planks were moving and budging, and as I watched, a deluge of tiny black insects crawled out from between them. The mass of insects fell to the floor with a dull thump, and even more followed as the planks gave way entirely. I might have scrambled atop a table, but a powerful gust of wind blew away everything except for me and Medea. The roof of the apartment was swept away as walls fell and furniture flew, and yet nothing touched me or Medea. In moments, we were in a desert, and a harsh sun glared at us. A dry wind swept through the sands, and between the sun-kissed dunes and clouds of sand kicked up in the air, I spotted a massive lumbering silhouette. The creature had to have been the size of a skyscraper, and yet I could not make out any distinct features. It was almost as if a haze existed before my eyes that occluded the creature¡¯s shape, leaving only the blurred impression of a grey titan. But despite that, I knew in my bones, as certain as I knew that I was alive, that it was the Third Calamity. The Third Calamity roared. A rumbling sound that made the world shake around it, and I could see a black and glinting tide of insects emerging from its¡­ her underbelly. The tide seemed to have no ending, and as it spread towards me, away from me, to my sides, I could truly believe that it would have consumed the very world itself. There were billions and billions more, and yet that was only a fraction of the writhing mass before me. The insects went through me and Medea as if we didn''t even exist. Dimly, I was aware of shouting and of people fighting the tide. But they didn''t seem to exist in the same world as me, mere psychic echoes, ghosts of a battle fought long before. They fought valiantly, or at least that''s what the blurry flashes of light and the holes ripped in the endless black made me think, but they too eventually tired and were overwhelmed. The blackness spread across the horizon, and the Third Calamity walked with steps that made my bones rattle. And yet, I followed it. I watched as it laid waste to a city. Someone had launched a spear of light the size of a train at her before dying, and the indistinct monster had been injured. It sat down with a titanic thump to rest. For the first time, it turned, and a bright blue light glared at me. I felt a vast presence upon my mind. It didn''t seek to overpower me, intimidate me, or subsume. It just seemed slightly curious. It went through my mind like a bored reader flipped pages, and I re-lived frozen still flashes from my memory. A domestic scene of a shouting match between my dad and me. A gaggle of young teens climbing atop a transmission tower. A spaceship landing in the distance as a girl stared at it with binoculars. A girl with crutches stabbing a much larger boy to death. The same girl in an office with a terrifying woman around whom lightning crackled. ¡°Not mine. Begone thief.¡± The Third Calamity didn''t speak, but the world spoke for it. The millions of chittering insects, the wind blowing, the shouts and screams of humans, the explosions that marked distant fighting, all sounds in the universe synchronized perfectly for a moment to form a sentence made of numerous different sources before once more dissipating into chaotic noise. The blue light that was as bright as the sun stared silently at me as the world spoke for it. Dragons, it was said, were only one step removed from being gods, and the Third Calamity had clawed her way to dragondom and I could believe it after that display. I was pretty sure that I was dreaming about the past, but I had no doubt that it was me that the Third Calamity addressed. And similarly, I was sure that I could have died there before I even realized that something was wrong if she were inclined to kill me. At her command, the world shattered around me, and I found myself in a new place. A moonlit forest clearing. The same clearing that I had found myself in when I was transported to this world. I tried to blink away the blue gaze of the Third Calamity burnt onto my retinas before realizing that it was the moon now. The forest had an otherworldly and fragile dream-like quality to it, like it would shatter like glass around me if I felt anything too strongly. For whatever counted as otherworldly to me, that is. And then came a new notification. \\Holometabolism of Medea aborted. What? No. I was willing to wait! \\Swarm Expansion attempt failed. It was obvious that something had happened with the Third Calamity that I didn''t understand or intend. But I was really glad that the Third Calamity hadn''t just killed me on the spot for attempting to steal from her swarm. But how would that even work? The Third Calamity¡¯s rampage was ancient history. How could I have stolen from beyond time itself? Could someone take Medea from me like that? I stared at the egg-like cocoon again to see what the metamorphosis cancellation had done to Medea. \\Mana Tainted Spider-Scorpion Worker. Name ¡°Medea¡±. Current Status: Healing, minor evolution. Expected time until completion: 28 minutes and 17 seconds at the time of this diagnosis Yay for a timer! But no metamorphosis for it. And then came a deluge of new notifications all at once. \\New skill Unseen Slayer 13 granted by Master. \\Unseen Slayer The Dark is your friend. Many terrors lurk in the tenebrous night and now you¡­ Wait, that had to have been one of Medea¡¯s notifications. More notifications scrolled across my vision. All of them were Medea¡¯s. \\Unseen Slayer is now level 14! \\Hivemother identified \\Hivemother has initiated Molting \\Biomass integration initiated \\New skill Golden Barrier 38 granted by biomass integration. \\Skill level reduced by 29 due to biomass incompatibility. \\Biomass Incompatibility resolved. \\Fragile Golden Barrier A pale imitation of a pale imitation of the Golden Barrier of Aster. The Golden Barriers of the Godslayer¡¯s warriors are impenetrable under the heavens. When activated, these resplendent shields of gold make their owner impervious to weaker magical or mundane attacks, maladies and curses and reduces the power of even the strongest of attacks. Furthermore, attacks that are absorbed empower it by storing their energy that can then be released through an earth shaking explosion. And yet, the laws of the heavens are not tolerant to those that seek to escape the wheel of Samsara. This protection of august might is powered by a wielder¡¯s own spiritual energies and if that proves inadequate then even the least of techniques will shatter these scales. Uses 100 mana to activate. Additional mana cost based on damage mitigated. Can''t be used again for 24 hours after this skill is broken. A pale imitation of what the Retchlord had? I doubted the retroot barriers were level 38. Retchlord was the only source that made sense. If that was a pale imitation of the skill Aster¡¯s forces had then I could not imagine what the real thing was like. \\Calibration commencing \\Hivemother engram downloaded. Superseding lesser directives. \\Welcome Hivemother [ANYA]. Adjusting sensorium. Adjusting motor controls. \\ERROR: Host is damaged. Motor control calibration cancelled. Please try later. \\Sensorium online. I hadn''t noticed when I had stopped seeing, but I certainly did when everything came back into sharper relief than I had ever experienced before. I would have cried out, but my body didn''t work. I was in a cabin, but it seemed like sheets of fine silk covered my face. And it was my massively superior senses that let me see clearly through the gaps in the fabric. Before me stood a woman with crazed eyes and matted hair. She was muttering something feverishly. \\Hivemother, please calibrate the host. I took a step, a step with far too many legs, The woman clapped and laughed hysterically. ¡°Finally, you can avenge me, my daughter! Drown those bastards under the weight of your children.¡± She held up a knife and without ever ceasing her smile, slit her wrists. ¡±Consume, consume oh my beloved! Consume without pause, without thought, without rest, without any hesitation. Eat a thousand worlds and devour a thousand more, until all is one within you, until all evil is vanquished, until suffering and torment become strangers to life, until death has met itself in your belly.¡± I walked forward, slowly, hesitant and full of trepidation and then I took a bite. And then another. And soon enough, I was devouring the woman. Was this? Was it the Third Calamity¡¯s memory? Of course it was. I ate the woman until nothing was left. \\Host calibration complete. And then I was violently shunted back into my own body and time. \\Skill Greater Enslaved Familiar''s Bond has evolved into Hivemother¡¯s Crippled Dominion! \\Hivemother¡¯s Crippled Dominion is now level 40! Like the Third Calamity¡¯s Hivemothers of yore, you and your servants are one mind and many bodies. And yet your powers resonate. This skill is multifaceted and has two aspects that exist in tandem with one another. Mindweb: Weaken and shatter the ego of an insectoid to integrate it into your swarm. You can take over the minds of insectoids in your swarm, sense through them, pilot them entirely or simply mentally command them. Your host can become the origin point for your proximity aura effects. Your swarm can never disobey you. Adverse mental effects are diluted across the swarm, including the Hivemother. With each level, your swarm shares beneficial mental effects and skills at 1% efficiency. You can have insectoids up to a tenth of your skill level per General, excluding Generalsbin your swarm. Insectoids can¡¯t be above 3 tiers below your highest tier General. Control and coordination improve per level. For every 45 levels, gain an additional parallel thought process for interacting with your swarm. Current bonuses: 40.0%, 4 and 1. Swarm Generals: Designate strong members as Swarm Generals. These behemoths can deliver touch attacks for you and receive greater benefits from your presence. Each level grants Generals 1.5% more stats when in proximity (0.5 meters per level +10). Beneficial effects on Generals are 5% stronger and last 5% longer if applied by you. Generals are always under every Companion skill''s effect for the purposes of the Hivemother¡¯s skills and spells. Every General can control lesser insects based on its power. For every 45 levels, designate an insectoid as a General. Current bonuses: 60.0%, 30 meters, 200%, 200%, and 1. I blinked. That was a surprisingly massive jump in power. 25. The Year of the Rat VIII Once again I checked Medea''s status to confirm that yes, it was still considered a tier 4 monster. All those mutations, be it the Aetherite slime, the wings or the thicker coat of hair, the monsters and even people it had eaten, all of that stuff had only let Medea go up one rank from the creature I had tamed a month and a half ago. So I could have 4 tier 1s in my swarm without losing control. Only hatchlings were considered tier 1, even whelps were tier 2, beyond my capabilities to control. That was uhh, not terrible but that was the nicest I could say about it. I glanced around, the man with the injured arm had nodded off at some point and I didn''t feel like disturbing him and potentially worsening his injuries. Just had to let him recover, the powerful healer was still passively healing us so I wasn''t too worried. And so only one thing was left for me to do; take my other reward. A new skill. Planning Phase replaced Improvised Tool Use. The new skill was surprisingly simple even if it started at level 30. For 10 mana per second, I could freeze time to think. I could not use any other skills or move or speak but I could think, I could plan and I could strategize. It was not the kind of skill that could let me win on its own but it sounded exactly like the kind of thing that I would regret not slotting in when I needed it. The quest had mentioned that it was picked based on my existing skillset though¡­ No wait. I pulled up the description for Hivemother¡¯s Crippled Dominion once again. ¡°With each level, your swarm shares beneficial mental effects and skills at 1% efficiency.¡± Could I use it with the mindweb possession and telepathy effects? I had to test it once I had the mana for it and Medea was awake but I should be able to, if the skill was shared. Awesome. Did that mean that Medea also now understood the optimal ways for it to grow itself because of my improved Fauna Archive? That was a mental skill, it had to be. Speaking of growth. I wondered what changes Medea had gone through. I opened its status page and let out an impressed whistle. Or rather, an attempt at one that sounded more like me letting out a long held breath. I could literally never figure out how to whistle, and it was not because of a lack of trying. NAME: [MEDEA] CURRENT RACE: [AWAKENED SPIDER-SCORPION WORKER] TIER: 4 AGE: 2 MANA: 40/40 (REGEN 8 PER HOUR) BIOMANA TANK 1: 585/585 (REGEN 292.5 PER HOUR) BIOMANA TANK 2: 585/585 (REGEN 292.5 PER HOUR) STATS: STRENGTH: 57 CELERITY: 51 VITALITY: 60 ACUITY: 24 WILLPOWER: 29 PERCEPTION: 54 ATTUNEMENT: 8 SKILLS: PASSIVES:
  1. Relentless Hunger: 55
  2. Superior Ambush Predator: 46
  3. Apex Predator: 53
  4. Wild Terror: 40
  5. Perfect Regenerator: 48
  6. Double Biomana Reactor: 57
  7. Controlled Hyperkinesia: 56
  8. Biomass Storage: 4
  9. Aviation: 3
ACTIVES:
  1. Launch Corrosive Mana Venom: 49
  2. Perpetual Adaptation: 33
  3. Genetic Assimilation: 26
  4. Paralyzing Visage: 31
  5. Shrink Down: 8
  6. Birth Drones: 1
  7. Fragile Golden Barrier: 9
TRAITS: Still only a tier 4. I just had no idea whatsoever on how to raise that, now that the Third Calamity had forcibly aborted Medea¡¯s metamorphosis. I swear if the Third Calamity had locked Medea''s growth then, then, fine, I don''t think I can do anything to that thing. Even in my mind, I couldn''t call her a mere monster after seeing and speaking with her. She was more. Much more than a mere monster. And if she had deemed that Medea should not grow, I couldn''t do anything about it at all. Instead of worrying about that, I closed my eyes and let myself drift off
When I woke up, the platform was much larger. And it was very crowded. Way too crowded. ¡°Morning sleepyhead. You hungry?¡± Fahria asked with a crooked grin but something was wrong. Not with Fahria, no. It was me that was broken. The first thing I noticed was the stillness. Not of the world, but of myself. The usual chatter of my body ¡ªthe breaths, the heartbeats, the fidgeting¡ª had faded into a sharp, primal, almost eerie, clean silence only punctured by . And it was not just my mind that had stilled. I breathed slowly, silently in a way that no human did. But a spider-scorpion stalking its prey certainly did. I was wrong! I blinked in silence. Nothing had changed, yet everything had. My gaze lingered on something to the side, where a faint scuttling caught my attention. A fly, darting aimlessly in erratic loops. Somehow life had returned once we left the ossified region of the forest. Life, like always, returned. My breathing slowed. I wasn''t thinking about it, not really. I just knew. The fly would land there, on that jacket, in five... four... three¡ªyes. And with that, I became aware of myself. Of my body, a body that was all wrong. Soft flesh, no shell, no venom. Wrong. The feelings intensified. The world was alive in ways I had never realized before. My perception, both the stat and the general notion of sensory awareness, was the same but I could mentally isolate them better. The air carried scents and movements I hadn¡¯t noticed, faint vibrations in the air telling stories I just hadn¡¯t been attuned to earlier. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°Are you alright, Anya?¡± Fahria asked, her bemused expression giving way to worry. It was wrong! It was all wrong! Fahria shouldn''t be so close, she was leaving herself open. ¡®Open to what?¡¯ A part of me asked. ¡®You wouldn''t attack her.¡¯ Would I attack her? No, of course not. Fahria was my friend. But what about the others? From what I could tell, the entire expedition was on the platform now, just flying through now that there was no secret font of power to preserve. The bony region had been small but the forest was never not dangerous. The classers just rained death from above in everything that moved. Would they attack me? No, I was overreacting. ¡°I¡¯m okay, just give me a moment. I think a skill of mine is going a bit haywire.¡± I mumbled, mouth dry. I activated Planning Phase. And the forest flying below me froze as I tried to figure out what was wrong. I tried to look up but even my gaze was frozen. I wanted to take a deep upsteadying breath but nope, that was out of the question too. First things first, I had to figure out what was wrong before my mana bottomed out. I looked at my skills, nothing was different about them other than Hivemother''s Dominion. Could that be the culprit? Could I turn off the mental effects sharing? Nope, I couldn''t. Not without figuring out a way to turn off my mind itself. But that reminded me that I hadn''t actually looked at Medea''s skills in a lot of detail recently. Medea picked its own skills and it probably understood the choices better than I did as an outsider so I was content to let it develop as it wished. Now that we shared some skills, I regretted my hands off approach but it was not the end of the world. After going through every skill, I was reasonably sure it was Medea¡¯s Apex Predator that was affecting me, even filtered through my newly evolved skill. The skill was simple, it was basically a combination of my Assassin''s Eye and Cold Blooded but worse than either individually. It nudged me towards weaknesses and openings and gave me ideas about how to use them. How did Medea even function if only 40% of it made me like this? No stupid question, Medea was a spider-scorpion. It behaved exactly like what I would expect something with that skill would. No, that was wrong and I was projecting my own issues here. Think of skill synergies, synergies. One skill that showed me weaknesses and one that made me hyper decisive, and a new skill that gave me mental nudges about what to do and how. They just kept feeding off each other. When I had evolved Assassin¡¯s Eye, I had gone through something similar but far less intense. This was just that but a bit harder, I could get through this! But goddamnit, this was going to be a an annoyance. With my grumblings done, I dropped Planning Phase before it could start eating through my actual life force again. Even after doubling my mana and mana regen, it was still not enough for me to use skills and spells freely. In an instant, the world came rushing back and I stumbled. ¡°Why does this keeps happening to you? You know, I don''t think I''ve ever heard of anyone else running into multiple skill compatibility issues in weeks.¡± ¡°Well it is not my fault!¡± I may have snapped. ¡°I''m not claiming that it is.¡± Fahria''s voice sounded a lot more frigid than I was used to and for a single fraction of a moment, I was aware that I was in a lot of danger. Then that feeling subsided and Fahria wandered off. For the next few hours, I avoided everyone. Conversation grated against my nerves, and I found myself retreating to quiet corners, not that the overcrowded platform had any of that, my skin crawling with the sense that I was exposed until the noise and movement were gone. I sequestered myself away from the others when my new instincts grew too much for me. Fahria did not speak with me for the rest of the day. I chewed my rations glumly, the taste of bile still threatening to emerge in my mouth. The skill was not as socially debilitating as it had been earlier but I still felt wrong. Touching bones after extracting them from corpses for a day job? Sure. Share the instincts of my familiar? Now that was the end of the world.
The cocoon shook and a long black spindly leg tore it open from within. Medea emerged in moments, seemingly almost identical to how it had been before if not for the fact that now it was almost large enough for me to ride. And the glowing purple lichtenberg figure like patterns of energy that marked its otherwise black body. The mouth turned toward me and stilled. ¡®Mother.¡¯ It rasped in my mind. Not in Dellish but in English. I blinked once stupidly. ¡°Wai¡ª Wait, you can speak now?¡± I blurted out a bit too loudly, a hint of Cold Blooded switching my speech back to Dellish just a moment too late. Is that what the awakened trait had meant? ¡°WHAT THE FUCK?¡± It was Gres who screamed but I was far too occupied to pay him any attention. Too much going on. I was however inwardly cringing as the attention of others turned to me. Focus. I can get through it. I had to. Murmurs that I tried to ignore. So many things to try to ignore. ¡®This one communicates. Speech is for others, not for Mother.¡¯ The red and purple eyes glared at me silently as it stood up to its full height. ¡®Oookay.¡¯ I sent back cautiously, pinching the bridge of my nose and not really expecting it to work, or worse just end up with me speaking normally. ¡®Can you call me anything other than¡­ that? You can call me Anya.¡¯ I spoke without speaking, almost instinctively communicating through my mind now that the initial surprise was over. I was not a mom! My actual parents would strangle me if I told them that they were grandparents now. If they weren''t long dead that was. Actually, they might be more upset about the fact that their grandchild was a man eating spider monster, now that I thought about it. For some reason, Medea didn''t exactly make for the nicest family photos. ¡®Mother is designated as such by the First of all Mothers. Mother may not become something else for this one.¡¯ Great. Fantastic even. I was a mom now. ¡°Alright. Hey, uh Fahria? Medea is sapient now. Do you want to say hello?¡± I called out with fake enthusiasm while dying internally. No way was I revealing what it called me. Fahria stepped forward with the eternal confidence that I so envied and looked Medea straight in its cyclopean eye. ¡°Hello, Hiveborn Medea. I''m Fahria Shakirn. It''s a pleasure to meet a descendant of the Third Calamity herself.¡± My jaw dropped. I didn''t expect her to speak to Medea like it was nobility or something. ¡®Mother, this one acknowledges this Fahria. This one doesn''t think she is a danger to us now. But beware because she is strong, stronger than she lets on.¡¯ ¡°It says it acknowledges you.¡± I omitted the rest. ¡°I''ll take that.¡± Fahria smiled as if being acknowledged by it was the greatest compliment she''d ever received. ¡°It''s not often that one encounters a spider-scorpion with its mind aware like those of old.¡± And then her smile froze and she stepped aside. Still mad at me and I couldn''t exactly blame her. She was just worried about me and well nothing was actually making her feel that, she did that by herself. I had to make it up to her. The world froze around me. At least now I knew that Planning Phase worked like I expected it to. ¡®Mother, this one thinks that Fahria is dangerous. Not by her own but her blood is that of a predator who hunts our kind.¡¯ ¡®Are you just saying that because she is a bird and you are an arachnid?¡¯ Medea did not answer.
And finally, after 3 days of flying, we were back home. I wanted to go to my apartment and sleep in a real bed, and check if Bonnie and Clyde hadn''t destroyed my stuff or had me kicked out but first we had to go the guild to get our rewards. On the way between the city gates and the guild, our procession met with a much larger one. Hundreds of angry people matched in step and a classer with a voice skill was yelling above the din. ¡°DOWN WITH THE MERCHANTS. DOWN WITH THE ILLUSTRIS COUNCIL. OUR LIVES ARE WORTH MORE THAN SMALL CRYSTALS!¡± And then another classer in a suit flew in. She didn''t shout but her voice carried far. ¡°Scram. Leave now peacefully or you will be forced to. By the kindness of the council, this is your first and only warning. In Khagra, you would not even be able to think about raising treasonous demands like this. The Council''s grace is incomparable fo that.¡± ¡°We have to go, now!¡± Ulgina hissed and Neevom basically made the ground whisk us away. Dellish people gave birth to many, triplets and even quadruplets weren''t uncommon. Something about mana and classes passively strengthening everything. And that meant that people were very disposable. We moved quickly but even then, the sounds carried loud behind us ¡°Is the Khagran bogeymen the only thing the Illustris Council has to defend itself now? Even my own father had heard the same excuses.¡± The protesting classer retorted and soon enough, other angry voices joined him. ¡°I warned you.¡± And then the screams came. 26. Back Home After I collected my 600 crystals in the form of an almost full large tray at the guild, I tried to get to Fahria but she had left. Disappointed, I just trundled back home with the hopes that Bonnie and Clyde hadn''t destroyed all my stuff. Before long, my thoughts returned to Fahria. Fahria, and Nerry were probably the only two people in this entire world whom I would consider friends, so potentially ruining a friendship was not something I wanted to do. But in all honesty, I was not sure why Fahria was upset. Like sure I was irritable because of how overwhelmed I had been but I hadn''t been rude, at least I didn''t think I was being rude. It was Fauna Archive who answered for me. Phoenixes were haughty and did not tolerate anything other than utter subservience. And from that, I could figure out the rest. Fahria told me the night before the big battle that she had recently awakened her bloodline and that it was affecting her judgment. Not unlike what I had been dealing with but without even Cold Blooded¡¯s stabilizing influence. She was just worried about me and it was after a battle so emotions were running high. In retrospect, I could figure it all out and it didn''t look good on my part. I was not a complete idiot about social niceties, people, even those that I liked got on my nerves after a point. That had been the case even before my skills. I really needed to apologize to her. But maybe I should refrain from mentioning that Fauna Archive was letting me know her emotions. ¡®Mother¡¯ Medea rasped in curiosity. ¡®Mother, why do you insist on finding yourself at fault?¡¯ Do I? ¡®I don''t. I''m just being honest with myself. Even Fahria should be able to see that I was compromised. Also so you hear everything I think to myself?¡¯ ¡®No. There is an open passage between this one¡¯s mind and yours. Mother can close it if she desires.¡¯ I did just that. I did not need to corrupt my adorable little baby man eating spider monster to be corrupted with my evil thoughts.
The Exchange was where you went if you wanted to have your small Aetherites exchanged for larger denominations and vice versa. Since every large Aetherite was worth 30 small ones and most things didn''t cost didn''t have costs in convenient multiples of 30, I had to go and get some of the 20 big crystals exchanged. It was a white building reminiscent of a small bank branch with vaults full of the crystals. People carried carts and wagons full of crystals to and from the place casually. For a moment, I wondered if it was really the most convenient way for currency to work when large amounts were involved but then I remembered that flying demigods with inhuman strength were not uncommon in this place. And while I didn''t see anyone flying in with a truckload of crystals, the building was massive and it hid a significant amount of the sky behind it. I had 5 of my 20 big crystals exchanged for 5 trays and then put everything in my backpack. I should probably get something else for carrying all my money but things in New Delport were expensive, doubly so if you don''t want garbage that was meant to break down after only some rough use. And rough use was a given with classers. Grumbling at the sleaziness of it all and struggling with a noticeably heavier backpack, I didn''t notice the thief until the world froze all around me and Medea pointed her out to me. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t do that if I were you.¡± I muttered while skipping forward and by the time I had turned around, my assailant had scampered off.
I jumped on to my bed happily, sinking into the soft mattress that I had missed so much. And then¡­ I realized that I wasn''t feeling particularly sleepy. Oh well, I had a conversation partner for once. ¡®Medea?¡¯ ¡®Mother.¡¯ Riveting. ¡®Do you know how much more food you need to get to tier five?¡¯ ¡®Forgive this one, mother but I don''t. All children of the First Mother are bound to the lower echelons. To grow to the fifth echelon is not impossible but is hard. But this one feels that it is already on the verge of it. It is the sixth or maybe the seventh echelon that will forever elude us using the First Mother''s method. That was the agreement the first mother negotiated with the ruthless Heavenly Ones for our continued existence.¡¯ Shit. That was a problem. Not an immediate one but if Medea was going to be stuck at a bottleneck then it was going to be holding me back. Was that why my upgraded bond skill let me have any insectoid in the swarm and multiple generals? Was I supposed to replace Medea? Maybe it was kind of stupid but I didn''t want to have to get rid of Medea because of Knife''s nonsense. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡®Hang on. You said that you can''t go up a tier using the Third Calamity¡¯s method. What is that?¡¯ I had my suspicions that it was just how Medea absorbed stuff from what it ate but I couldn''t be sure and it was best to be sure. ¡®The First Mother''s method is how this one steals power from its prey.¡¯ ¡®Does that mean there is a different way to grow for you? You don''t have classes, do you?¡¯ Medea did not answer for a solid minute before it spoke in my mind again but it was slow, as if thinking the words hurt it. ¡®N-no. The First Mother may have left a loophole behind before she departed. It is not my place to find it, reveal it or even partake of it.¡¯ Hmmm. That sounded like something was preventing Medea from doing it. Great, maybe I could get around it. ¡®Tap the floor with your leg once for yes. Twice for no. Don''t say anything if you have trouble speaking about it. Can you do that?¡¯ One tap. Perfect. ¡®Hypothetically, would eating a tier 8 work?¡¯ Double tap. Then Medea spoke. ¡®No, it would only net me small growth within the current echelon. There is no actual limit within echelons but every increase would diminish until it is negligible even in aggregate.¡¯ Dammit. ¡®What about if a creature had a different method of growth?¡¯ The leg twitched but it did not do anything. Perfect. Wait. How had no one else figured it out? ¡®The Heavenly One who watches over mother saw fit to grant this one sapience. This one''s siblings are not so fortunate. The Heavenly Ones took from us and the Heavenly Ones saw fit to return what was taken, in the form of a new mother.¡¯ Alright so Medea could speak again, nice. ¡®What mother seeks to do is not possible within the realm of the First Mother''s method. To consume one with a different path to ascend would not accomplish anything. A cripple method may not grant access to an unrestrained one. That was one binding that the Heavenly Ones foresaw.¡¯ Did that mean that there was a different way to do precisely that? ¡®Would this limit still apply if you break past the bottleneck the gods have imposed through something else?¡¯ ¡®This one thinks that it would still prevent echelon ascension using the First Mother''s method but¡ª.¡¯ Medea stopped speaking before starting over, very deliberately. ¡®It is folly to build too quickly. A building without a solid foundation will topple. What is crippled by the heavens is still excellent for building and solidifying a base. Maybe once two become one, when the beast and its shadow have unity, discrepancy may be excised in unity as something new is hatched. Until that moment and now are the same, this one lacks the will to gaze towards it, let alone climb.¡¯ Alright. Eating is still the best way for it to grow within a tier or echelon and if both methods are combined then it would be ideal. Simple enough I guess. And that Medea can''t do it alone. Too bad I have a skill that lets me possess Medea. Hivemother''s Shattered Dominion was a skill intended to let me get around Another thing to worry about in the future. Medea can still go up a tier and grow massively within that tier for now. With a vague awareness about a future problem that I was probably not going to run into anytime soon, I closed my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep. I dreamt about teeming hordes of feral rats overrunning everything and an outline of something else made from the congealing mass of rats at the center of the wave.
The next morning I decided that it was not a coincidence that I was being more irritable than usual. I needed a break. I had not been able to relax for ages and that was fraying my patience. I had the money so not slime killing for a day or two would not make me unable to pay rent or anything like that. I decided to stay home. That was a bad idea. Or maybe it was better that the bandage was ripped off sooner. "Good morning, Miss! Protection fee is now doubled." Fim announced gleefully after violently knocking on my door early in the day I blinked at him, pretending to be slow to think of a plan to get out of this mess. "What?" Fim¡¯s grin widened as he rocked back on his heels, arms crossed, looking for all the world like a man delivering fantastic news. ¡°As I said, the protection fee is doubled as you are now a premium customer who has met Lady Hinara herself. We couldn''t possibly give you anything but the best security money can buy.¡± "Look, you caught me on a very bad day last time, and I acted out of pocket, but please¡ª be reasonable, Fim." He let out an exaggerated sigh, shaking his head like a disappointed teacher. "Miss, I don''t know what you¡¯re even talking about. This order came from up above." He tapped the side of his nose and then chuckled. "You are a reasonable young woman, and you should know how generous the price is, considering what we protect you from." ¡°What we protect you from.¡± A neat little phrase that meant a hundred different things. A hundred little threats veiled in just give words. I folded my arms, mirroring his stance. "Really? So if I were to ask a neighbor, would they also admit to paying double?" "Nope! It is only for some select customers as I said." My jaw tightened. "Look, I said I¡¯m sorry." Fim blinked, all wide-eyed innocence. "Once again, I don¡¯t know what you are talking about." But his smile told me otherwise. I exhaled sharply, forcing my voice to stay even. Shouting would only make things worse, much worse. "Dude, please, I¡¯m already in debt." Fim¡¯s smile twitched wider, almost pitying. "Then you¡¯d better start paying up faster, huh?" I knew he was enjoying this. And so the argument continued until Vinni, the mute ice girl held up a hand and words formed from ice appeared before her. Words that glinted in the air and I had to squint to even read. ¡°Just let it go Fim.¡± Fim glared at the ice, not at Vinni before groaning and running a hand through his hair. ¡°Aargh, fine. Change of plans, your fee is reverted to the old amount, miss. You owe Vinni one.¡± He pocketed the ¡®fee¡¯ while I walked up to Vinni. ¡°Thanks.¡± She didn''t not reply but made a gesture that either meant ¡°no biggie¡± or ¡°it''s alright¡± in Dellish society. Not long afterwards, the two left. Wonderful start of the day. 27. Glasser Classer As tempting as it was to take the whole day off to spend my money and pretend I didn''t live crystal to crystal, I had a new way of earning money and that was a priority. ¡°Where is Kitch?¡± I threw my knives into the air and they fell in a straight line with all the blades on one side. Now I was not the best with directions but that was definitely not the way to the guild. The labyrinth could be situated elsewhere in the city though and now I regretted wasting my mana on the divination. ¡°Where can I buy vials resistant to magic poison?¡± Another line. I frowned. ¡°Where can I buy vials resistant to magic poison and won''t be robbed of Medea at?¡± And with that, I was off shopping. The first shop my skill eventually led me to was a fancy glassware store that I just knew was way beyond my budget. The second was a dingy one all the way in the Upper Gerankir bazaar. When I realized where I was going, I returned to my apartment and changed to a shabby brown tunic and baggy jacket that hid my features and then threw a makeshift cloak over that. Even then I was almost robbed four times on the way before I actually reached the shop I was looking for. The Upper Gerankir Residential Area was basically an overgrown slum consisting of layers of dense buildings on top of one another like the hive of an insect. It was also completely lawless. And while Upper Gerankir was also a dense and vertical area, it was not completely messed up. That was why I was not dealing with classers who had gained their power from murdering people harassing me. That and that having [MASS MURDERER] as a class path was a good way to get the attention of guild classers. No one cared if a few dozen people disappeared, a few hundreds or a few thousands was a very different ball game. The bazaar was loud and it was tired like a cake. Multiple storefronts built on top of one another with air bridges, stairs and ladders everywhere. People bustled up and down as vendors loudly peddled their wares. Some didn''t even have buildings and instead stood at the edge of roads on makeshift stalls or just sat on rugs with their goods spread out around them. Menacing looking thugs patrolled the bazaar and I spotted the five jackals logo that Vim sported. Stairwells dotted the bazaar that led to the lower levels of Upper Gerankir and eventually to Lower Gerankir. And above it all was a man made ceiling with a network of straight lines of artificial mana lights. The Gerankir district was dug down into the city to avoid the all choking smog that was so dense on this side of the city, out of sight and out of mind for the Illustris Council, the guilds and the traders making landfall. Above Gerankir, the throat burning smog lingered heavily even in the day. And of course, even higher and to the North, far above it all was the really important part of the city that simply didn''t have to worry about it at all. Gerankir didn''t escape towards the sky, it looked downwards. For downwards was the only way Gerankir¡¯s denizens were expected and allowed to go. And it showed, if I thought the city was hostile before, Upper Gerankir made those same streets look like the New Delport Regency. It was only classer nonsense that prevented the entire district from collapsing on itself and crushing its residents. The lights and the crowd didn''t lessen here during the night either, Gerankir never slept, even when compared to the aggressively insomniac city of New Delport. My actual destination didn''t instill any further confidence in me. It was a ramshackle wooden establishment with plain looking glass vessels on a window. Or maybe it was crystal? I knew crystal was used for glasses and things like that but I''d never heard of it being used for chemistry. It was only because of the way they shone that I suspected it was something other than regular glass. An pruned old man with more wrinkles than skin sat inside the dim building and he glared at me through the window when I approached. Gah, I mean I looked suspicious. A cloaked figure with a giant spider scorpion trailing behind her. Still I continued but I did flinch when something or the other shattered right when I pushed the door open, shards almost grazing my cheeks if not for my skills granted reflexes. The shards then hardened in a spiralling cage full of spikes, barbs and needles around me. I stopped. Slowly raising my hands, I tried to appear non threatening. I was certainly regretting coming here but I didn''t trust the shopkeeper to not slice open my jugular if I tried to run now. A fast twitchy movement could easily be mistaken for aggression, speaking from experience. ¡°Hood down.¡± The man spoke softly and I obliged. He squinted at my face. ¡°You are not one of Sevan¡¯s.¡± He observed and relaxed. The cage melted around me. ¡°I have no idea who this Sevan is.¡± I might have seriously considered calling him a crazy and paranoid old man but I didn''t. I was still in the crazy old man''s shop. In any case, lesson learned, looking shady does deter thieves but also makes you look shady. ¡°Sorry about that kid. When you came in all dressed up like that, I assumed you were here on the behalf of a very annoying man. I''m Devan. What do you want?¡± ¡°No problem, Devan. I''m Anya. I need something to keep extracted venom in. Venom from my pet.¡± I pointed to Medea. The man rose up and before I could even blink, he held up an apparatus made of what looked like multiple magnifying glasses up to Medea''s stinger. He was a lot shorter than I actually expected, and hunched over in a way that I hadn''t seen anyone in this world be. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. ¡°Interesting. What is the second purple sac for?¡± I saw no reason to lie. ¡°Mana venom. My pet produces two types of venom but they can be combined into any proportion.¡± ¡°I see. For long term storage or just enough to keep it for a day or two?¡± ¡°The latter. I just need it so that I can sell the venom.¡± The poison shops should have facilities for extracting venom but I didn''t trust them to charge me for those. I figured if I deliver it to them myself by paying for vials up front. ¡°Alright, come in.¡± He left Medea alone and strode into a door to the back of the shop. Shelves full of glassware greeted me alongside a few cluttered tables. A lone Aetherite light hung from the ceiling. Devan grabbed a few small vials and a couple of bottles and placed them on one of the tables. The glassware that was already on the table flew back to the shelves instantly. ¡°Now, I want your pet to fill this with its strongest venom.¡± Devan pointed to one of the smaller vials. Medea dutifully placed the tip of its stinger at the mouth of it and drops of murky liquid began to flow from it. ¡°No stop. This is no good.¡± Devan muttered before it was even halfway filled. Medea stopped and Devan took it away. The vial flew and tilted until its mouth met that of another and then the liquid transferred itself to the new one as Devan kept muttering. His mutterings grew more and more agitated as he once again transferred the venom to another vessel. And then instead of repeating the process, he grabbed Medea''s stinger for a closer look. The magnifier was back. I just stood and waited awkwardly from the sidelines after ordering Medea to not attack the crazy old man. Finally, he returned all the vials except one and all the bottles back to where he had taken them from. A new set of vials replaced them and the process began anew. This time the first vial was filled with that venom and Devan let out a satisfied laugh. He grabbed a set of three bottle only slightly larger than regular water bottles and placed them on the table and transferred the venom to the first of them. ¡°These should work for your pet now and for the near future. 45 crystals each. And don''t bother trying to bargain, that''s the lowest I''ll go.¡± 45? This was daylight robbery. ¡°Isn''t that a bit too pricey?¡± ¡°No, your pet¡¯s venom is potent and anything cheaper will not last long, especially if it grows stronger. And I doubt you want fragile artisan glass that will shatter on you randomly. You will make up the cost in no time. Take it or leave it. I''m not trying to fleece you here kid.¡± What Devan called ¡°fragile artisan glass¡± was literally just regular glass without any classer stuff. Any glasser classer stuff. Truly my genius astounds me. ¡®Hey ¡®Dea. How much venom can you produce in a day?¡¯ ¡®One of these containers can be almost entirely filled by this one in a single cycle. This one recommends getting all three so that Mother can fill one while another is being sold and still have a backup.¡¯ Crap. I was afraid of that. I would be 135 crystals poorer, and then combined with my rent and Vim¡¯s protection racket meant that I would have barely any more crystals than what just killing slimes for two weeks would have netted me. But fine. So what if I can''t buy any enchanted gear or exotic monsters for Medea to eat right now? I had time. Right? ¡®Also who is this ¡®Dea? This one was named by mother as Medea.¡¯ ¡®Yeah but now that we can talk, you need a nickname. Unless you prefer Minidea. Do you prefer that or something else altogether?¡¯ ¡®This one has no preferences. Whatever mother seems appropriate is what this one will be.¡¯ ¡®You are no fun.¡¯ And the worst part was that I knew that Medea was not even pretending, it genuinely couldn''t understand the concept of preferring to be called something. Grumbling, I handed over the crystals and started stuffing the bottles into my backpack before pausing. ¡°Hey Devan, can I wait here until a bottle is full?¡± ¡°Go ahead kid, just don''t spoil venom all over my things. And don''t touch anything, I''ll know.¡± Sure. I could do that. Devan went back to the front of the shop. Five minutes later, my bag was noticeably heavier and I was trying to stop thinking about the fact that there was deadly mana disrupting and acidic venom sloshing around behind me. Yeah sure, I had stoppered it well but it was still not something I was comfortable with. Devan nodded at me as I stepped out of the back of the shop before he called out. ¡°Hey kid, listen. Before you go, do you have any idea where you will be selling the stuff?¡± ¡°I''ll look around, I guess?¡± I mean I was going to divine around but he didn''t need to know that. ¡°Listen kid, you go asking around like that and you will be scammed. Full offense but it is obvious that you don''t belong and don''t know what you are doing.¡± Hey, I was not that oblivious. I told him so, just with less petulance. He snorted. ¡°Yeah, like when you walked in here dressed like a bloody fugitive. You were lucky that you met me on a good day.¡± If this was him on a good day, a bad day for Devan was probably not something I cared to acquaint myself with. ¡°Alright, point made. So what, you know a dealer who will give me a fair price and you get a finder¡¯s fee?¡± ¡°Hahaha no, nothing like that. I''ll get you something much better, kid. Consider it an apology for almost killing ya. You ever heard of the Black Nettle Emporium?¡± He leaned in conspiratorially as if it was a big deal. ¡°Err, should I know what that is?¡± ¡°You will definitely get scammed out of everything you have and more if I let you go through your original plan. But yes, you should know what that is. It is the place to buy and sell poison in New Delport. You''ll just need to pay 3000 to gain entry.¡± I opened my mouth to protest but he continued on. ¡°Or you can have a referral from an existing member.¡± ¡°Oh, you can get me a referral?¡± I asked excitedly. ¡°No.¡± Then what was the point of that? ¡°But there is also another way to get a referral. It is not hidden or anything like that, it is technically public information but I doubt you''d get to know about it by yourself. Almost no one does this because by the time most people are capable of doing it, they are either rich enough or have a referral. And the Emporium doesn''t advertise it because then idiots would keep getting themselves killed on their doorstep.¡± Oh, he was giving me information. That made sense. But the last but was worrying to say the least. ¡°You just have to go to the Emporium and survive an injection of a very deadly venom from a Nightwing Amphisbaena. But for pet classes as usual, them doing something instead of their master is accepted. And spider scorpions have absurd poison resistance if my memory serves me. It would be painful but your pet should survive just fine.¡± 28. The Poisoners Emporium One thing I seriously missed from my old world was the internet. If this place had an equivalent then I wouldn''t need to stumble upon people or ask around for classes. I could actually look up what was a decent place to sell poison and much more importantly, I could look up what class unlocks people had documented over the years and what were some of the more powerful kinds of insectoids on the planet. But since I had no internet, I could do none of that without a visit to the archives and that was another 300 crystals per month for the first floor only and I knew that anything actually advanced or dangerous was on the upper floors. Point is, there was no reason for me to have known about the Emporium and other things that someone with my classes should know about and that was a problem. And I did NOT need more problems. Medea¡¯s bottleneck was already going to be a pain and in all honesty, just cutting it off when we had shared instincts and thoughts felt like amputating a part of my own mind now. A part of my mind that I was now going to force to ensure some kind of terrible poison from something called a Nightwing Amphisbaena. ¡®¡®Dea? Do you resent me for enslaving you back then?¡¯ Maybe I was selfishly asking for validation or even castigation but I had to ask ¡®This one can''t resent mother.¡¯ That didn''t help. ¡®But do you ever wonder what you would be like without me?¡¯ ¡®Mother, this ¡®enslaving¡¯ you speak of took place before this one had truly awakened. It is loyalty ingrained in me as instincts just like how this one knows to hunt or to use the First Mother''s gifts. It forged this one into what it is. You can''t separate it without splitting this one into twain.¡¯ With the implications of that churning in my mind, I went to the Eastern end of the Upper Gerankir Bazaar and instead of going up or down, I just continued onwards to a square. Devan had given me directions but I had to use Divination a couple of times to actually find the correct place. But before that, I took a detour to a bookstore in the bazaar. Sure it was not the Archives but I was not going to have Medea injected with poison without any preparation. 8 crystals for a second hand paperback with a cracked spine, dog eared cover and ripped pages loosely stuffed back in. ¡°Amphisbaenae, Hydras, Sheshas, Orochis, and other Polycerebral Serpents.¡± Finding a secluded corner to read was not hard and I skimmed over the Amphisbaena section while ignoring the other parts. Amphisbaena were one of the weaker Polycerebral serpents or multiheaded snakes and could even evolve from certain regular venomous snakes. A Nightwing Amphisbaena was a sea snake that had two heads and massive pitch black soft fins that emerged from the base of their skulls and ran down their length. They were not even truly multiheaded but rather just had a single brain in their conjoined body and two sub brains in their heads. Apparently even octopus had something similar with their tentacles. And then it went on to talk about how Amphisbaena can evolve into true Polycerebral serpents that were significantly stronger. Very fascinating but the book didn''t really tell me anything interesting about their venom.
It just looked like a normal if somewhat small mansion and estate from a distance if not for the crowd milling around it. The estate had a wall of stone around it with plants that were pitch black snaking and growing on it. It didn''t look like nettles to me but something more like thick vines with spiky leaves that coiled like snakes. There was a singular break in the wall flanked by a man and a woman in black robes. The whole estate was sunken into the ground and the metallic staircases that were everywhere in Gerankir led down to it from the ground but I could see a floating bridge above me that was connected to a tower in the estate. That bridge then led to an upper floor. Gerankir was tiered like that, even within what was known as Upper Gerankir. ¡®You ready, ¡®Dea?¡¯ It gave me the affirmative and I walked up to the entrance. Another wall of nettle and stone rose up from the ground to bar my way. This new wall however had a slit on it. ¡°Hello. Do you have a membership card?¡± The woman asked and I blinked in surprise at how polite she was with a full smile and all. That was kind of depressing, wasn''t it? That I was more used to people being openly hostile or just uncaring instead of being helpful. ¡°Uhh no, this is my first time here.¡± ¡°I see. That''s not a problem at all. How do you want to get in, crystals or do you have a referral?¡± ¡°Neither actually, I will take the poison endurance thing.¡± ¡°Excuse me. Are you absolutely sure that you want that, 3000 crystals isn''t that much if you think you have what it takes to survive the trial of the venom.¡± She leaned in and I could see that her robes had the plant patterns in a deep red on it. The red was almost invisible from the distance amidst the glossy black that matched her hair and lips. ¡°Well I was told that my pet can take the trial instead.¡± If not, if Devan was actually senile or just messing with me then I was screwed. ¡°Yes, it can. But first you have to agree that you are taking the trial of your own volition and that the Emporium isn''t responsible for any damages to life or property that occurs as a result of it. Is that fine with you?¡± I nodded. Turns out that the information was correct after all. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°Alright then, follow me. I''m Shiena, by the way. What''s your name?¡± After introducing myself, Shiena and I made some small talk as she led us to a small building that was closed off by a separate section of the wall. ¡°Uhh, before that. I was told that Medea here will almost certainly survive it without issue. What do you think?¡± I still couldn''t help but ask that like a sucker but I was anxious about its safety. ¡°Officially, as an employee of the Emporium, I cannot reassure you of the safety of the trial. But.¡± she winked at me. ¡°As a poison mistress myself, I think it would be very painful but otherwise completely alright. But you didn''t hear that from me.¡± The wall fell when she placed a hand on it and we stepped into what looked like a small office. An older man with greying hair wearing the same robes as Shiena waited for us there. ¡°Is this the trial taker?¡± He squinted at me as if he was not sure if he was seeing correctly. ¡°Err, yeah. My pet will be the one actually enduring it though!¡± My response was quick as I was afraid he would give me the poison if I didn''t clarify it right now. He grunted in acknowledgement. ¡°Alright, take a seat then. Just put a single point of mana here after reading this waiver.¡± The thing was similar to what I had used back when I was signing up to kill slimes and the document was only that the Emporium was absolved of all consequences of the trial. Surprisingly simple and without any loopholes or weird obligations. Now that I thought about it, it made complete sense. The Emporium was for high end poison classers, antagonizing anyone was idiotic. I signed it all and the old man pointed a finger at Medea. ¡°Shall I do it now?¡± Dea agreed and so I did the same. A black extended from the man''s finger and pierced Medea before retracting. From my seat, I could see Medea''s shell around the puncture turning red and flaking and rising, like some bizarre sped up video of a flower blooming. Medea hissed as the flowers slowly spread outwards. ¡®Mother, please grant me the succor of being one with you again.¡¯ Even without a voice, I could tell it was struggling to speak. Fine, sharing the pain was the least I could do. I reopened the floodgates and reeled back as a sense of burning violation ran through my body. One part of me was staring at my knuckles that were gripping the table so tightly as to become white. And then, as soon as it came, the sensation lessened and a new notification replaced it. Cold Blooded and Pain Tolerance has merged into a single skill called Frigid Mind. I didn''t fill the new passive slot immediately even though my level 30 class was going to take a while to be done. The only passive that vaguely interested me right now was the bone weapon passive that I was hoping to merge with Knife User and Calcified Mana Empowerment but that wasn''t a priority right now. The flowers kept blooming but they were slowing down, until eventually they stopped and the flaky red shell started to slough off with a slimy web-like substance pushing itself out of cracks in the shell. Medea had done it, it had survived. ¡®Mother, this one can learn to produce this venom if allowed another injection.¡¯ Medea said before I could ask if it was alright. Alright. If it was confident then I was not going to stop it. The old man agreed to repeat it in exchange for a stinger full of the newly synthesized venom when it was done and so the process began anew. This time it went much faster and it didn''t hurt as much. And not only that, Medea had managed to integrate the venom into its stinger. I could see a third venom sac forming, this one bright red. The old man held out an arm after rolling his sleeves up and Medea pushed its stinger in and began to pump in the venom. Black veins formed on his arms and he hissed but then they receded back into pale skin. And with that, I was handed a card made of something that looked like glass but felt like iron to touch. It had a small bead of Aetherite in it that could be activated by my mana. That was my ticket to actually entering the emporium. Maybe it was because this was the first time I was actually in something I''d call a high end establishment that was actually intended for its patrons foremost but I was rather comfortable with the treatment compared to the visibly fake smiles and dour guildmistresses. ¡°Perfect. We are done now. Do you want me to show me around the Emporium?¡± Shiena asked. I didn''t see any issue with that. In the short few minutes that I had taken for the trial, another guard had replaced Shiena and once again the wall barred my passage when I approached. A single point of mana in the card made it glow green and I inserted it into the slot on the door. I flinched back as the door lit up when glowing green lights spread out from the slot and covered it entirely. Then my card was spat back out and the door disappeared into the ground again, revealing a surprisingly smooth road that went into the estate. ¡°Is it always this much of a show?¡± One of the other guards laughed. ¡°Nah, this is for the first timers only. That meant that your card is recognized by the Emporium from now on.¡± ¡°Alright. Follow me now.¡± Shiena called out, somehow already inside the estate. I jogged behind her; carrying Minidea like a small cat. The poor thing was still a bit wobbly on its legs. After stepping through, the first thing I noticed were the multiple greenhouses that lined both sides of the path. Beyond them I could see even more greenhouses and even other buildings. ¡°These greenhouses are where we grow and store our poison plants. We have one of the greatest collections of toxic flora on this side of the central sea. You can even take parts of the plants there for credits.¡± Shiena explained once she noticed where I was looking. ¡°Credits?¡± ¡°Basically you get credits contributing to the Emporium. You can exchange them for Aetherite, anything we grow here or even skills.¡± ¡°Wait, what do you mean skills?¡± ¡°I''ll show you. Don''t worry. Needless to say, there''s good reasons to stick with us even when you are a master poison mage or whatever.¡± She chuckled. Before us, the road split into a crossroads with a fountain at the center. The path straight ahead led to the mansion. Shiena turned to me. ¡°Where do you want to go first?¡± ¡°I think I should probably sell this poison first before doing anything else.¡± ¡°As you wish. It will probably not be worth much compared to what your pet can produce now but everyone started somewhere.¡± And we turned left, into a building that was smaller compared to the central mansion but still large and still in the same ornate neoclassical style. 29. Sitra Achra The building was weird. From the outside it was nothing remarkable, just a bit too ornate. But on the inside, it didn''t follow any architectural rule I was familiar with. For one, once Shiena pushed open the doors, I walked into a single square room with three solid carved doors with slots on each wall other than the one we just came through. Each of them had glowing purple lines on them in the pattern of vines. Shiena closed the one that we came through and the glow subsided from the rest. She then led me through one of them to a long empty hallway with rows of similar doors on them on one side. At the end of the hallway, another door barred the way. Something about my confusion must have shown on my face because she explained the purpose of this design without prompting. The building was segmented into small chunks that were all sealed away from each other and magically ventilated so that no noxious fumes or worse could spread throughout the entire building in case of a leak. Kind of like an airlock. I nodded, that certainly made sense. Our destination was one of the hallway doors that opened up to a small booth with a counter. A sign above the counter warned sellers to not open up sealed vessels on the counter and that dedicated testing facilities were on the second floor. A masked person in the same robes waited for us there and bowed when we entered. The mask was entirely black and was carved in the likeness of an androgynous expressionless human face. ¡°Greetings, honorable members. What do you wish to sell today?¡± Their voice was distorted and I couldn''t tell anything about them from it: their age, gender, accent, all of it was hidden by the mask. ¡°This. How much will it be for?¡± I took out the bottle full of venom out of my backpack and set it on the counter. Wordlessly, they touched a glass rod to the container until it started to glow a dull blue. ¡°Seven credits for all of that.¡± I had no idea if that was good but judging from Shiena¡¯s careful lack of any reaction, it probably wasn''t. ¡°You will get the container back when it is sold if it can be safely cleaned afterwards.¡± They continued. ¡°How long will that take?¡± ¡°Just come by tomorrow. Now lend me your card, esteemed member.¡± I did as asked. I figured it was fine since Shiena was with me and she didn''t object. They inserted the card into a slot on the counter and then handed it back to me. A tiny ¡®7¡¯ was now printed on the corner of the card. The buyer bowed again. ¡°Have a nice day.¡± Okay then. ¡°Where are we going next?¡± I asked Shiena once we left the booth and she led me towards the ¡°Well, since we are already here, I figured I''d show you what kind of skills and tools you can buy with those credits before going to the terrariums. I doubt you want to see every single booth where you can sell or something.¡± Terrariums? Gah, I should have gone there first. I was looking for other insects to integrate into the hive, wasn''t I? Medea could create kids but those were limited in their evolutionary potential until Medea itself grew and they would still literally eat into the resources Medea needed until I fixed the limitations imposed by literal gods. But still, the Emporium was not going anywhere right now, if we were already in the building then looking at the stuff the Emporium sold couldn''t hurt. ¡°Sure, lead the way.¡±
It turned out that the center of the building was an open air plaza with at least half a dozen massive counters manned by three to five masked Emporium members each. Behind each counter was a set of massive shelves filled with everything from vials to booklets to crystals and more. A massive marble statue of a thin woman with bird wings and a narrow needle like sword as tall as the woman stood at the middle of the pavilion. Well it was needle like in proportion to the rest of the statue, from my perspective, it was thicker than any sword I''d seen other than Valdima''s monster of a weapon. The largest counter was our first destination. Rows and rows of vials, bottles and more glass containers were arranged behind it. A lone vial with what looked like a tiny drop of a clear liquid sat on the counter itself. ¡°This is where you buy poison but I doubt you need them, yet, that is.¡± Shiena smiled. Yet? If that didn''t sound like foreshadowing for some future sales pitch, I''d, well I wouldn''t eat a hat but I would lick one. One of the people minding the stall bowed as we passed. We didn''t linger. The next stall was far more interesting, weapons. Here we actually paused to look at the products. I was not disappointed. Swords that injected poison into the wounds it caused, narrow needles that were laced with a numbing agent and lethal toxins. They were all way past my budget of 7 credits with the cheapest of them being 19. The best one was definitely a knife that placed almost reverently in a golden case at the counter itself. It was sold for a whopping 900 credits. ¡°What does this even do to be priced this high?¡± I asked, almost scared that it would be something stupid like gold magically hardened to be like steel. Back in my old world, people with more money than ways to spend it would build shit like gold toilets and gold guns and something about seeing that in the news while struggling for food really made me rather antipathic to that whole idea. I mean, I liked my luxuries and being pampered but stuff that had no actual use or tangible benefit just rubbed me the wrong way. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°This dagger is made from raw materials mined from Sitra Achra itself! It grows stronger with each kind of toxin it is exposed to. The edge grows sharper and ceases to be entirely physical to bypass all defenses and the wielder¡¯s own stats get boosted. With time, this can be one of the greatest weapons a poison mage can ever hope to wield.¡± The masked attendant explained with what sounded like actual reverence in their voice. I mean yeah, this was definitely worth it for a mage of that inclination but something bothered me. I had heard the term ¡®Sitra Achra¡¯ before. If I was not mistaken, it was something like a religous evil other world thing, at least from what I remember from an old MMO that had a spell named after it. Come think of it, it was notable that things like dragons, hydra and orochi were also present here, wasn''t it? I mean those weren''t called that but the idea was the same, but this was different. This was the first time I was looking at a word that was directly shared across worlds. ¡°What''s Sitra Achra?¡± I asked just to be sure. Something about the word felt wrong on my lips. ¡°It is the primal elemental plane of poison where all things that perish wash up to fester. Forgive me but you will have to consult the church for more information about it.¡± Hmm. Interesting. We moved on but I kept repeating the word in my mouth. At l now knew why Shiena expected me to eventually want poison if there were things like the knive. Too bad I had no intention of significantly investing in knives. If I was in melee and not just buying time, I was already fucked. The next stall was not as interesting to me. Tools like venom extractors, boxes that preserved bodies and substances and the likes. Hell, the mystery of Sitra Achra was still bothering me. Something about the word felt wrong. ¡°Hey Shiena, do you know the name of any other primal planes?¡± ¡°Hmm, I can''t say I know much. A priest would be much better to ask but I know of Irkalla at least.¡± Very interesting. That was another word from my world, just an entirely different religion. I mouthed the word and it too felt wrong, even more so. Something was off here. Our final stall was the one with the crystals and the booklets. ¡°What are those?¡± I pointed at the crystals before blushing when I realized how dorky and childish that must have looked. Fortunately, my escort didn''t notice or at least had the sense to pretend that she didn''t. ¡°Skill crystals. You can directly learn a skill from them if you have the slots. No need to unlock the path or manually evolving the stuff.¡± Wait, that was stupidly good. The booklets were descriptions of the skills that were available and their pricing. I picked one up and flipped through it. The cheapest stuff started at a 100 and just didn''t seem that good. And then they went up all the way to 9000, ten times the cost of the knife. One skill in particular caught my eye, a 3000 credits passive skill called Blood Poison Cultivation that let the user absorb any and all poison do empower their very bodies permanently and intensify the power of their blood. That was something I could probably use and merge with Blood Mana. ¡°What is the conversion rate between credits and crystals?¡± That was something I should have asked before, like how I should have had Medea eat fish so that it could learn to breathe underwater until Medea itself had to point out that it was something I should be doing. I felt like an absolute idiot when Medea pointed out that it was better to have that done before I was stuck fighting something aquatic. Prioritizing stuff properly was never my strong suit. ¡°4.8. That means the skill you are looking at will be 14400 crystals for one use.¡± Fuck. ¡°But don''t worry, it is something that most of our members eventually end up buying.¡± She smirked. ¡°The Emporium doesn''t not believe in exploiting its members when it could instead cultivate good relationship with them and let them rise far above just this simple little city. We have branches in almost all major settlements in the world for a reason. You will get it with time.¡± Alright, made sense. ¡°Fine, another question. Why is this skill so much costlier than that knife?¡± ¡°Simple. The knife is already made. You can''t reforge it without it losing what makes it special and it can''t truly evolve like a skill can. Raw material from the planes is much more expensive because then you can add all sorts of things to it before it is fully forged. But enough of that, let us move on.¡± I nodded and we moved on. The next stall was also full of booklets but each had the name of a skill I had seen before embossed on it, like Blood Poison Cultivation. More importantly, it contained instructions on how to learn them on one''s own. I was not allowed to flip through them with paying but I expected as much. The weird thing was that how the booklets were much cheaper, like less than half the price of the crystals. The cultivation technique only cost a thousand. I opened my mouth to question it but before Shiena could explain it, the proprietor of the stall handled it. ¡°The booklets are cheaper because they require a divine oath to purchase, esteemed member. You can''t share the contents with anyone other than your pets except in a true emergency. With crystals, you have to take no such oaths. And furthermore, it is easy to read about how turning one''s blood into poison can make one strong, it is a different matter to painstakingly do the thing and survive it. Skill crystals let you skip that.¡± We checked out the rest of the stall but it was more of the same with some variations. Finally, Shiena turned to me and asked if I was hungry. Was it that obvious? ¡°Alright, let''s go to the main building. Afterwards, I will show you the Terrarium. You can even buy a tier 0 creature with what you have, by the way.¡± I grinned. I could get used to this, the carrot of support instead of stick of debt traps.
I finally figured it out. We were in the gardens that separated the 3 buildings when I finally figured out what was bugging me. The word sounded like Sitra Achra to me and I thought I said that but when I broke it down, the individual sounds were all wrong and yet when they came together, it was still Sitra Achra in my mind. Same with Irkalla. It was almost like my own mind was filling the word with something comparable that I actually understood. That went against everything I knew about languages but then I didn''t think languages could be instantly downloaded into one''s brains either before I arrived at New Delport. I asked Shiena to wait for a moment as I wrote the word on Medea''s shell using the fine layer of dirt and powder that had accumulated on it. I wrote the first letter slowly while thinking of the word and it didn''t make anything remotely close to an ¡®S¡¯ sound. I kept going, reading and rereading multiple times after each letter. And yet, when I was done, I could only read ¡®Sitra Achra¡¯. Again, I repeated the thing with Irkala. Shiena looked on with barely disguised amusement, obviously this shit was not uncommon. What the actual hell? 30. The Snake The rest of the visit went without much incident until the terrarium. The central building had administrative facilities plus an integrated restaurant. Medea waited patiently while I had a quick sandwich¡­ thingy? The restaurant also had meat that could supposedly boost one¡¯s growth slightly for 1 cred each but I needed Poison Resistance or something similar to even digest them. And I only had 7 credits. I did learn something else that was obvious in retrospect but still useful over the course of an unremarkable meal ¡ªI expected something impossibly fancy for some reason¡ª- with Shiena. While I could exchange credits for money, I couldn''t do the opposite. Every single credit I earned had to be earned within the Emporium itself. At least my card was valid in every Emporium branch in the world. And then we went to the third and final building. The Terrarium. Like all other buildings here, looked like some sort of mansion from the outside but didn''t even remotely resemble one in the actual floor plan and once again the upper floor was restricted because I was too low ranking. How that worked when my card didn''t have any ranks was beyond me. Apparently that it was based on my total contributions to the Emporium among other factors. What were those ¡®other factors¡¯? That was apparently a secret and not for me to know. The first room was dedicated to snakes and similar reptiles. Rows of indoors biomes separated and secured by force fields held snakes both mundane and fantastic. In the very middle of the room was a gigantic dull glass pillar that went through the ceiling to the floors above. It was filled with a green liquid. In one of the force field tanks, I might see several black mambas but in another a creature called a transal krait that seemed to slither in and out of reality with only glowing angry red runes on the force fields keeping it from escaping. I even saw the Nightwing Amphisbaena. A surprisingly small two headed snake with wavy fin like structures running down its length. Maybe it was because I had read that they might evolve into a type of hydra but I hadn''t expected them to be so tiny, maybe a bit longer than a garden snake. It hissed with both heads when Medea came into its view and that was reciprocated by the arachnid. I turned to face Medea but my eyes caught the hint of a motion. I could vaguely see a large dark shape undulating inside the pillar. Almost immediately, my metaphorical hackles rose and I was no longer me. I was a hunter. I felt vulnerable, I was naked, soft skin, soft shell, no armor, a potential enemy was too close, an enemy was in that pillar. Left myself vulnerable, too stupid, too naive. Still the target was before me. The massive serpent was strong. I started thinking about how to neutralize it, to kill it, to devour that undulating mass with might that didn''t, shouldn''t belong to it. To seize its insane power. I could sense it, not in the vague sense of strength relative to me that I had ever since I got the system that apparently everyone had. Not even the five major senses that I recognized, or the sixth that was proprioception. No, it was something else. Something I had no way to explain and nothing analogous to compare to. But I could sense that it didn''t belong, whatever that was, it was not where it should have been. I was about to buff Medea before Frigid Mind stopped me by excising Medea''s instincts. My thoughts screeched to a halt and I might have stumbled, might have gasped, might even have fell to my knees at the emptiness of my mind but Frigid Mind was not going to let me have that, Planning Phase activated until my own thoughts could reassemble themselves into the vague shape of an Anya, and not a spider scorpion. The dark city of my mind came back slowly, one lit window warding against the darkness. Then came another. And another. And then a whole building all at once. And from there, it didn''t stop until everything was lit up. That was metaphorical but also the only way I could explain what happened inside my head at that moment. All of that took only a second even in my frozen mind. Only then was I aware that a strand of my mind had taken over Medea to keep it in check too, only to discover that it already had self control far superior to its mistress. Lucky it. ¡°What is that?¡± I asked while carefully affecting a tone of mere curiosity. Unlike the cages, the creature inside the pillar didn''t have any information about it in a neat little plaque at its base. I couldn''t even make out any details because of the liquid and I only knew it was a snake or something like a snake because of its location. And judging from the size of the pillar and the dark mass, it was far larger than any snake that had ever existed in my old world. ¡°Who knows?¡± Shiena shrugged. ¡°Even we don''t know what it is. The head of this branch found its egg somewhere in Sitra Achra ages ago and it bonded to her.¡± I stared at the pillar again and this time, I wasn''t entirely overwhelmed by Medea''s instincts this time but I was almost subconsciously licking my lips because I caught myself. And then what Shiena had actually said caught up with me. ¡°Wait, in Sitra Achra?¡± Turns out that the Emporium headquarters in some distant far off city whose name I forgot rather quickly had an array that could teleport people to that dimension. It just took multiple regular human lifetimes worth of credits and reputation. Or exceptional talent or wealth. ¡°I think I''m done here and it is getting late. Can we just take a quick look at the insects now?¡± It was getting late and walking home at night in New Delport was not really that good of an idea even if Medea''s presence deterred petty thugs. The smog got much worse everywhere for one. I mean, in all honesty, I wasn''t massively impressed by the snakes other than the nameless otherworldly monstrosity and even the eggs of the others were all massively out of my budget. ¡°Sure. Follow me.¡±
I blinked when I emerged above ground to a glowing smog choked night. The underground Gerankir district had sheltered me from the worst of it even though the smell was starting to seep in and I was not going to sleep in Gerankir unless I had no recourse whatsoever. The streets were dark and visibility was shot, even for Medea''s vastly superior senses. Somehow the lightly glowing green smog just further emphasized the darkness instead of illuminating it and I could barely see what was right before me until it was almost touching my nose. I activated Hivemother''s Dominion and felt my mind split in two, one was me, and one was sharing Medea''s stronger senses to guide me. Of course, the problem was that Medea''s senses were stronger than mine and that meant that it felt the acrid smog even more than I did. With a hand over my mouth and nose, I hurried home while coughing and retching all the way. Occasionally, I had to pause and disconnect from Medea to let myself recover. Quiraion''s rotting corpse, I thought the smog was bad on my own but this was downright agonizing. I mean I could walk home without it but I didn''t trust a carriage driver working to run me over in their rush. No one wanted to be out so late without the skills or the stats to handle it. I had planned to make a trip over to the New Delport Regency to see if Nerry was free but no way was I going to stay out in this air anymore than I had to. The biomancer may have healed me but I was not exactly keen on getting severe lung damage so soon, and that was assuming the tainted Aetherite didn''t fuck with something less treatable like my mana flow or whatever. Sorry Nerry, you are a sweetheart but I guess you will have to think that I''m ungrateful and forgot all about you and that you shared your books with me for now. It was becoming a recurring issue that I simply didn''t have the time most days. Briefly, the thought of taking another day off crossed my mind but my backpack that barely had any crystals left in it, stopped me. Maybe later. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. When I finally slammed the door to my apartment close behind me, I practically ran to the washroom to repeatedly wash my burning eyes, nostrils and mouth. For good measure, I even did the same to Medea. Back in my bed, I took out my card. Still seven credits left. The insects were all fascinating in their own unique way and the tier 0s were cheap larvae that needed to be nurtured but promised me decent power if they were to survive and grow, nothing comparable to Medea of course but that was a tall order to expect from the first floor. Even with that caveat, nothing really caught my fancy that was within my budget. Still, I did not exchange the credits for crystals, not yet. I didn''t need it that badly just now. I had one midterm goal. Setting up a way to get Medea a steady supply of exotic and powerful monsters to devour and I had a long winded plan for precisely that. I mean I could get an apprenticeship or something under a monster rearer or something but that required me to pay off my stupid debt or let the guild drag me deeper in debt so that I wasn''t rendered entirely homeless. I knew how this particular scheme worked, a little extra debt once to pay for something necessary in an emergency until it becomes twice when the next big problem hits and then it keeps spiralling. I had no intention of falling for that if I could help. Of course, I was painfully aware of how most of the time, it happened because there was no other option left. I still remembered the name ¡®Worthington, Jones and Associates¡¯ and what they took from me. That was not something I was going to forget anytime soon. I also wanted to learn more biomancy to further empower Medea and possibly start working on a way to circumvent the block imposed by the gods entirely but that too required money and I had none. And the little crystals that I made were all carefully funneled into making me stronger or into the bare necessities. It all came back to that, money and making rent. For my finances, there was not much I could do immediately. Best I could hope for right now was more contracts that weren''t just slime killing or some other windfall until Medea''s venom became potent enough for me to actually be saving money. And once that was done, I was reasonably confident that it would snowball if Medea''s limits didn''t get in the way. I just didn''t know how long that would take but I intended to expedite the process as much as I physically could. I mean obviously without wanton slaughter of people. I may have done and will do terrible things for my survival but even I had some lines I wouldn''t cross. How did I end up getting isekai''d into becoming a poor minimum wage struggler? This was all upside down. At least it was only a matter of time until I eventually clawed my way out of it instead of endlessly stuck in a spiral. Grumbling to myself about the absurdity of it all, I opened up the Polycerebral serpents book I had purchased and began to read. Hopefully it would give me some insights into how to incite evolution. And if not that, then then at least more creatures that Medea would like to eat. Around fifteen minutes later, I read a phrase in the book that made me practically jump out of my bed. I had a solution! Well, no, that was an exaggeration. I had the vaguest inklings of a plan forming in my head that might solve everything but the massive debt I had in a couple of weeks. Or it could go even faster depending on how good Medea''s venom was now. Or even a whole day slower if Kitch decided to come for his promised venom soon. I had no intention of reneging on the deal but I was not going to remind him or let him feel welcome if he was having second thoughts. I needed the money dammit! But pipsqueaks with more moxie than brains aside, I saw no reason why it wouldn''t work. I had a passive slot open and an active skill that I wouldn''t miss. I didn''t fill my passive slot with the Bonewarrior¡¯s passive because it was not very important to me and I had a vague hairbrained scheme about getting Poison Resistance by diluting poison and eating it or something. Very stupid and very risky. But this was much better. All my bases were covered. I just had to buy a box as soon as possible to get it started. And a particular creature that was a cheap tier 1 from the Emporium. And I needed to ascertain how good the Nightwing venom infusion was compared to what Medea was already using. I was too excited to sleep after that and spent a few hours just hunting for test subjects. Hunting for these messed up mosquitos that shrugged off the caustic air. It didn''t take me long to find one. The weak mindless creatures were simple enough to forcibly integrate into my swarm. Just letting a female land on me to suck my blood was enough. And with my Blood Mana, the greedy creatures loved to do just that. And then taking over the demonic creature and flying over to another was only a matter of seconds. \\Integrate Aetherite Mosquito (female) into your swarm? \\Integrate Aetherite Mosquito (female) into your swarm? I was seriously tempted to just have them all fly into an open flame or something but I needed them for what was to come and I didn''t trust myself to not go overboard with my skill. So I just contented myself with practicing my dominion on them until sleep took me.
The next morning, I was back on the same old slime culling routine. The contractors were there as usual but I didn''t see Kitch, or rather I was simply not looking out for him. There were other people missing too, people I''d seen die in the forest, and people who were still in mourning. Maybe that was a subconscious reason why I had decided to not come here yesterday? Suppressing the twinge of guilt within me, I found a corner to wait in. Within but separate from the crowd. And there, I stood in silencer and waited for the Vaultboard guy. Finally it was time to get some levels into my monstrosity of a class. 10 stats to Vitality and Attunement, each! I couldn''t imagine what kind of classes mastering that would unlock for me. But first, some much needed maintenance of friendship. ¡°I''m sorry.¡± That was the first thing I said after I met up with Fahria. She cocked her head in confusion. ¡°I mean for that day on the floating wood raft.¡± ¡°It''s fine. Your skill was acting up. I don''t mind.¡± She certainly did seem to mind at the time but I wisely decided to not point that out. Quiraion knew I behaved irrationally when Medea''s instincts took over, a phoenix¡¯s mind was much worse from what little I did understand. If the phoenix''s ego was affecting her then the least I could do was be accomodating until she got it under control. She didn''t have Frigid Mind like me, after all. First we did Fahria''s sector and that was finished rather quickly. But I was dragging mine out a bit for a reason. A very good reason. ¡®¡®Dea, try not to use your venom unless I tell you to.¡¯ ¡®As you desire.¡¯ Medea tore through the slimes and the mana saturation of my sector ticked down until eventually just two or three more slimes would let me finish my work for the day. ¡®Alright, just inject it with everything other than the Nightwing venom and retreat. Don''t kill it. Pump it with as much as you can but keep some aside in the tank to sell at the Emporium and for the next test.¡¯ Medea did as asked and I observed how the venom reacted to the slime. It died but it was slow. I had enough saturation for one more slime. This time, it was far more impressive. First, splotches of red appeared in the purple and then they started to bubble angrily as the slime went wild. It lashed out with tendrils everywhere even as the bubbling red splotches released a scarlet pus that solidified into spherical pink growths, all stacked on top of each other until eventually the slime just stopped moving, the core encrusted in pink barnacle-like growths. The entire process took only seconds. Impressive. Very impressive. ¡®Mother, this one¡¯s venom has ascended to a new stage.¡¯ That meant a skill level up unless my Medeanese was terrible. I resisted the urge to rub my hands like a cartoon used car salesman. Everything was coming along nicely. ¡°I still hold that your pet is messed up.¡± I ignored Fahria. We both knew it was a joke, no one in their right mind cared about that unless they were too rich or strong for it to matter. Neither of us were that. Medea ate the solidified slime in one gulp after distending its jaw. Love my adorable little nightmare. Only thing it was missing was a shriek that sounded like someone getting brutally murdered. 31. Venom Farm Almost immediately after I was finished with my slime work and collected my crystals, I ran back over to Gerankir and exchanged another bottle of venom. 11 credits. A decent increase, around half again as much as what I had earned earlier. I had expected a number like that though, Nightwing Amphisbaena venom was not normal, even by multiheaded magical snake standards, it was a living venom that acted like a supercancer that used the body''s own energies to grow so fast as to often just kill victims from the heat. That was the reason Medea had assimilated it from exposure. It was practically made for it. I didn''t linger for long there now that I knew that just buying other venoms wouldn''t be useful. There were many creatures that interested me in the Terrariums that were not even prohibitively expensive, just slightly out of my budget. Nothing that was something massively special but they were just what I needed to get started. I mean I was not sure if I intended to make another swarm general or feed it to Medea when I was done yet. But having different creatures in my swarm was vital for what I had in mind. Something that would let me get seriously started on a few projects at once. So many projects that all took root when I was reading the Polycerebral serpent book last night. Crossbreed Amphisbaena are extremely rare in the wild but can be in possession of traits superior to each individual parent. The Areni that are tamed by the Mimmish started as one such crossbreed that possessed blinding speed and ferocity. Initially born sterile, the artificial creation of fertile and domesticated Areni is one of the greatest achievements of the Mimmish Beast Tamers. I knew why crossbreeds were rare in the wild, for Amphisbaena and for every other species, even with magical super fertility. Behavioral differences including in mating rituals and diverging mating seasons. But that was simply not an issue for me, I could simply take over insects and command them to mate. Of course that still left the issue of actually creating a successful offspring but baby ¡ªlarva¡ª steps. Mosquitos, the bane of my existence, in this world and the last, had egg to egg cycles that could be completed in a week if the temperature was right. And Fauna Archive told me the exact ways to optimize the temperature for these demons. Mosquitos were my ideal test subject precisely because they had stupidly fast life cycles, I could see the results of my experiments in only a few days. And experiment, I certainly did. I learned that because they were so weak and mindless, my control could spread over touch of my swarm itself. And so I could have my two female mosquitos grab a male each and mate but I didn''t do just that. One did just that, but another had different orders that I had to personally take over it to see to completion. Find a male of a different species. Unfortunately I couldn''t find anything in the night but morning was a different story. A different species, kinda smaller than the other and male. I had them mate too. Of course I had no way to know if the child would even be born or have functional organs but that was what testing was for! The idea was that if I kept doing that, I might eventually get something to create powerful crossbreeds. Obviously I was not a moron and didn''t want to be known as the girl who accidentally let loose super mosquitoes on the world. I had ordered my thralls to lay their eggs in a specific jar. I had no intention of letting my hybrid monstrosities survive for long after hatching. At least for this species. For my first serious attempt, I had to pick something that had easily available normal variants and relatively quick reproduction cycles but also had something exotic in the Emporium so that I could actually test the offsprings and see what was passed down if anything. Or maybe I was thinking too small, no need to only stick with the Emporium. I popped back over at Devan¡¯s shop to buy another two bottles and thank him for guiding me to the Emporium. ¡°Don''t mention it, kid. Now, what do you want?¡± Crap, was I really that obvious? ¡°So I was wondering if you knew any place to buy insects, like exotic ones?¡± ¡°Nope.¡± My face fell. ¡°If you want birds, I know a place but the Emporium¡¯s your best bet for bu¡­¡± He trailed off when he heard the sound of the store''s door opening. ¡°DEV? YOU STILL ALIVE IN THERE?¡± A woman''s voice rang out in the store room. ¡°YEAH. JUST GIVE ME A MOMENT. I HAVE A CUSTOMER.¡± He called out before turning to me. ¡°Alright, that''s enough. You should go now, this is something I have to attend to.¡± He hurried me out of the store. It came to me later that I never actually managed to see the woman despite there being only one exit.
Now back in my dingy apartment, I finally had clear short terms. First, I would keep saving so that I could enter this elusive archive that Rev had spoken about. It sounded just like a regular library to me but what did I know? Once in the supposed library, I had a list of topics in no particular order or priority that I was going to read up on. I could have instead decided to buy some insects for my burgeoning breeding program but frankly I had no actual idea what was a good baseline creature to start off with. I didn''t want to waste weeks or months only to discover that I had created nothing useful. I lacked the knowledge for what I was trying to do and I needed that first and foremost. Unless of course, I was intending to trial and error for a long long time. I wasn''t that patient even if that might be useful for unlocking some class or the other. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! The other option was buying the most venomous creatures I could afford and letting Medea eat them and that was a genuine toss up but ultimately information was my greatest tool. I was not really suited for overwhelming things with power right now and I had to think long term. An extra week or two until my income seriously increased again was not a huge setback even if the Archives didn''t point me towards something good and I doubted that would happen. Two weeks, that was what it would take at most to finally be allowed into the archives¡¯s second floor. Not two weeks at Medea''s current one bottle a day rate. But at double that and I had a different plan to double that. For once, money was not the most limiting factor. It was time. First I needed more bottles to collect the venom in. Five worked for me. At any given day, I could leave two at the Emporium to be sold and have two for filling with me and one for backup in case one broke. And then a box, a simple cardboard box. And that was surprisingly hard to find in New Delport, if not actually impossible. But eventually I found something close enough, a large crate that still fit in my apartment. But only barely so. I had Medea prepare some very specific eggs that were still growing within it by the time I arrived home. Quiraion bless Parthenogenesis. For this and for the future. Parthenogenesis was a process of asexual reproduction in which an offspring is born without the mother needing to mate. The child born is genetically identical to the mother. That was how it was supposed to work but for spider scorpions, the genetic variation was introduced by what they are. Still no point in assimilating them as they only have what the parent copied over to them. But that was a start. It was not much but it was I could work with. Medea''s Birth Drones skill that it acquired after my familiar skill upgraded let it further modify what was passed down and at what intensity at the cost of dramatically shortened lives and total inability to reproduce or grow. It was as if Medea had a set amount of energy that it could put in an egg and it was up to it to decide how that was distributed to create the perfect disposable soldier. It unfortunately didn''t give Medea perfect control over them but they could follow basic commands given at the time of their conception. These had only one command. Produce venom when the hivemother, that is to say, me, asks. And that, that was the crux of everything. The eggs that Medea was preparing to lay all contained offspring with the strongest venom production Medea could pass on at the cost of everything else. Armor? Soft and skinny. Physical power? Speed? They would waddle. Skills? None other than venom. Lifespan? Less than a week. I did not need them to survive for long. Medea¡¯s venom was always getting more potent and it could not pass that on to children that were already born. I would have to get Medea''s spawn to live short lives, produce as much venom as possible and then die. Hell, I was even going to make Medea kill them if any proves particularly resilient and I found myself without the space. They would hatch and be ready by the time I returned from the guild tomorrow. My own venom farm. I had taken over Medea to see exactly how its Birth Drones had worked to control what genes and skills passed on and how, just in case it helped me acquire something similar. I mean it was not just mundane genes, there was a lot else going on in there. And even the mundane gene stuff was kind of beyond me, my skill named things like ¡®Horizontal Gene Transfer¡¯, ¡®Transcription¡¯ and ¡®Gene Expression¡¯ in my mind that I only vaguely understood the gist of. I watched from two perspectives, that of Medea and my own with a judicial application of Planning Phase to commit the flow of mana to memory. But when it was all said and done, what I had was a crate with massive eggs in it and just enough space to not cause the drones to kill each other once they hatched.
On the second day, I beheld the drones at last. Fleshy pinkish cuticles and oversized stingers and waddling legs. I killed a rat and threw it in the crate for the hungry creatures to tear apart. The sounds of ripping and tearing flesh filled my apartment. 23 credits. Medea''s own venom¡¯s value had jumped up a bit on its own but I couldn''t always count on that happening. Still, I welcomed it. It was still almost five entire crystals worth of money. Not much for one day but it would build up. It remained the exact same on day 3. And on the fourth. Day five, I decided to take another break from slime culling. [LESSER HEMOTHEURGIST] was not a class I was going to rush through with just slimes and the Emporium paid better than the guild did. I could afford to focus on something else for a day. Medea had laid some new eggs as the older drones had finally started to die off. For the first half of the day, I just kept trying to manipulate the mana currents swirling around the eggs using all I''d learned from watching Medea use its skill and how the Molt spell worked to empower the embryos or at least hurry their development along. It felt like I was close but still no new skill to show for it. At some point, a house centipede had wandered in and I had tried to take over it just to see if I could but I couldn''t. I hadn''t expected to. Fauna Archive was clear that they and spiders aren''t insects. Medea was one because its species was a weird messed up chimera and that''s why it had workers, drones, queens and presumably soldiers. I was still disappointed because Earth had giant prehistoric millipedes with heavy armor and this world might have something similar. Bah, no point dwelling on it. I dismissed the vision of taming an enormous millipede that could constrict around its prey to restrain it while Medea killed the target. That was a plan that has to wait until my skill evolved again or I could get a spider scorpion to subsist entirely on myriapoda and see how it evolved. Medea ate the long arthropod and I went back to work. What I did get was a nice confirmation of Hivemother''s Crippled Dominion leveling up again from all my work the last few days. Perhaps because it was so high level or so complicated but it levelled very slowly. Maybe it was because I was treating it as a lazy afternoon¡¯s project and taking my time just observing how mana worked but my pocket started burning. The gem from the forensics department! I could only hope that it wasn''t just moving records like last time. No wait, what was I even thinking? The other option was that someone important died. Most likely murdered. Grumbling to myself, I left the eggs alone for now and made my way over to the hq. Once again I was greeted by Agitjin first, but this time his face was grim and he just wordlessly gestured to me to follow him inside. Tiamim was already there but not Novas, which was off considering that for all I knew, he lived down here. I thought the only reasons I could be called here was because of an important death or for menial chores. I was wrong. I was very wrong. There was a third option. It could be because the red powder that had been confiscated and handed over to the council was stolen. The place it was kept in was now the site of a total massacre. 32. Cam, The First ¡°Why the hell didn''t they destroy it?¡± I complained. My boot squelched with every step and I suppressed a full-body shudder every time that happened. The place was a mess. Blood painted the walls and it looked like a lot of the people here were physically ripped apart. Judging from some of the expressions, some were even alive while it was happening. It was, however, almost a total wash for us. No gene traces were left, all the mana was scrubbed and my divination just resulted in my knives making a star with equidistant points. Whoever had done it was very careful. But not perfectly, I could still see the last moments of these people and from that, I had a face and here my Sketching skill came in handy. We had a lead, just not one I could divine the location of by myself. The sketch was copied and sent to the council and to the guild. It was now their responsibility. Hopefully. ¡°They were slowly selling it themselves but you didn''t hear that from me.¡± Agitjin muttered, gingerly using mana strands to move a particularly brutalized corpse without getting blood on him. Personally, I thought that was a bit of a fool''s errand at this point. The floor was still very wet. Novas had dislodged a piece of his armor, the left arm specifically and tendrils of lime slime were lightly grazing over everything from walls to furniture to the bodies as he stood unnaturally still. I didn''t know what he was expecting to find but I left him up to it. With nothing else to actually do, I activated Blood Sense and the whole building lit up into a blinding white. \\[LESSER HEMOTHEURGIST] is now level 14! \\Blood Sense is now level 12! I jumped at the notification. So much death and blood was getting to me and Medea''s instincts were not helping matters. Still, I was not one for rejecting cheap levels; it wasn''t like I was the one doing the killing. I fired another pulse of Blood Sense and watched as I raked in the skill levels. Screw this, I was given crystal for work but this was at least tangentially related. Maybe I might find a place without blood and that might give us a clue? It sounded flimsy to me but it wasn''t like I could resurrect the dead or something. By the time I was done, I had gained another 3 class levels and 15 more skill levels. The system loved to grant extra experience for things more directly related to a class. Using blood magic to kill slimes was how I was leveling it up but this worked too simply because of how much blood there was around. I even tried touching the blood on the floor and absorbing it somehow to refill my blood mana but again, I was not so brilliant as to get a new skill from scratch in seconds. Medea was not even allowed to eat the bodies because they belonged to the council. Just a resource. For me or for them. I didn''t even know the names of these people until I went over and used Ossific Communion on every one of them and that was only so that I could find who stole the powder. And because I was given the Aetherite for it. I wouldn''t have even done that if I had to use my own stored mana. That would be a waste.
Despite otherwise not accomplishing much, I had gotten us a face to look for and that was enough for me to get my 200 crystals, which were close to but not quite what two whole days of venom were worth. My original estimation had some extra crystals left over, even accounting for rent and protection money so it rounded off nicely. Money was money and I had done my part to earn it, profoundly unglamorous as it may be. It was not my job to actually apprehend anyone. And this time, only my colleagues knew of my involvement so I knew who to blame for another wannabe Kitch. Speaking of whom, he did come, trembling and scared out of his mind, he may be, but he collected what was promised. I could respect him for that, almost. And so when finally I returned home to wash off the blood I was splattered with despite my best efforts, I was confident that the only direct consequences of the trip for me were going to be the levels and the crystals. I was once again proven wrong in one day. The first time I noticed something was wrong was when my Blood Mana levelled up. That was not weird by itself, it constantly gained experience and did that sometimes. The problem became more apparent when I noticed that my Blood Mana was not regenerating at all. I ran to the shower and stripped off my robes to check if I was bleeding from a wound I hadn''t noticed. Blood Mana could be affected by serious blood loss. And then I saw it on my upper left arm. It vaguely resembled a pinkish-red leech, if leeches had mouths that opened up like triangular flower petals lined with curved teeth and were long enough to coil around my arm multiple times before snaking all the way up to my shoulder like some messed up armband. Other flaps that were the same general shape as the mouth flaps periodically emerged from its body and sunk into my flesh. The whole thing pulsated with my own pulse. I shrieked for a second before calming down. ¡®Mother, is there a problem?¡¯ ¡°Yeah, no wait, just hang on.¡¯ Medea couldn''t dislodged it without hurting me. Hell, I doubted I could. Still, I experimentally tried to pry one of the flaps off by sliding a fingernail underneath but the creature only coiled tighter in response. No response to my Hivemother''s Crippled Dominion either, which was expected because it wasn''t even an arthropod. Fauna Archive took a solid minute to tell me what I was actually looking at. It was indeed a leech of some kind. A mutant variant that feeds only on mana rich blood, like the blood that follows a slaughter. Or my own blood. Evidently, it had somehow latched on to me when I was trailing bloody footsteps all over town. I didn''t think I went anywhere near the Nyrum river though. Could it have leeched (heh) on whoever was responsible for the deaths? I didn''t think so but I''ll let Tiamim know just in case. At least, my skill was reasonably confident it was harmless. At least if I didn''t try to force it off and cause it to regurgitate all the blood and gunk it had. That was all nice and all but how do I get it off? It didn''t look like it was going to be done feeding anytime soon and I would rather have my mana for the egg experiments than this. Maybe afterwards I could feed it again to keep levelling Blood Mana? That thought gave me pause, I was never very squeamish but that was very different from being the type of girl to feed giant leeches her own blood. Oh well, people change. Fire would work. It would let go if I brought a flame close to it but I was not a fire mage and didn''t have anything like a lighter. Ice had a similar issue. I didn''t have a fridge or anything like that. No wait, maybe I had an ice mage.
I knocked on the door and waited patiently. The wretched creature, otherwise known as my landlord, opened the door with an expression like I had come up to show up something stuck to the bottom of my shoe, which to be fair, wasn''t that far off but I wasn''t there for him. ¡°You know where Fim and Vinny are?¡± Surely they had to live somewhere close enough. It wasn''t like they were actually protecting us but there was no way they lived hours away or something and still came regularly to collect the money. ¡°Top floor.¡± I blinked. I expected somewhere close, not that close. I thanked him and he grunted back and then I was soon knocking on another door. Fim opened the door. Unlike his normal well kept self, he looked haggard and tired. His face twisted into a familiar mockingly courteous smile before it gave way to a weary resignation. It looked like he had been drinking. ¡°Alright, what do you want now? I can''t reduce the fees even if I wanted to and I don''t, so don''t even try.¡± He grumbled. ¡°I wanted Vinny¡¯s help with something. Is she in there?¡± Fim¡¯s eyes narrowed and he took a step forward. No need to be an overprotective boyfriend or brother or whatever! ¡°What do you want with her?¡± Instead of explaining, I just unwrapped the cloth around my arm and showed it to him. He leaned in and then jumped backwards with a yelp. I suppressed a snicker before looking at my shoulder and seeing that it had grown noticeably. That sobered me up real quick. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°I need the cold to get it off me. Now can I please see Vinny?¡± Vinny, it turned out, was just passed out on a couch with empty bottles of liquor on a table. A dirty white tank top that looked like it too had been drinking clung to her and I could see what looked like ancient scars through it. ¡°Hey Vinny, the annoying bug brat is here.¡± Annoying bug brat? I held my tongue. Fim gently shook her awake and she moaned before turning over. This repeated one more time before she blearily rubbed her eyes and noticed me. She raised a hand in greeting before her eyes fell on my unwanted passenger and she closed them again. After presumably counting to five, she reopened them and gestured for me to sit beside her on the couch. The temperature noticeably dropped as her hand inches towards the worm latched on to me. ¡°Wait, can you try to make sure to not kill Cam the first? I think I might keep it.¡± Both Fim and Vinny gave me a look. Fim even muttered something like ¡°I told you she was crazy.¡± but that was surely me mishearing stuff! No one would call little old me crazy. Ice formed words in the air. ¡°You named it?¡± ¡°Yes. Just now actually.¡± Cam, short for Carmilla the vampire, the first because I was not going to keep it but I liked the name. Vinny shook her head like I was insane. Still, Vinny obliged and when the leech loosened up and fell, I scooped it into a bottle and then, because I was blessed with delayed foresight, I borrowed a knife and cut open a vein and bled into the bottle. The leech was weird and I wanted to study it before feeding it to Medea and that meant not starving it. It very obviously didn''t have the slow metabolism of regular leeches. That was my logic here, totally not that I found how freaked out Fim was, hilarious. I was not that petty. Maybe slightly? A quick Coagulate stemmed the bleeding and I thanked the two before going back to my apartment and my experiments. My good cheer faded with each step. No more getting random people killed if I could help it. No more making others pay the price of me being a shitty Godtouched.
¡°Now let''s see what you are.¡± I murmured while dropping a dead rat in the bottle. Cam wrapped herself around it and I could see the small mammal shrink and dry up, even through the now very red bottle. Cam was big, it was already slightly bunched up in the bottle but it simply didn''t have the capacity to exert the physical force necessary to break out. That was not a concern, what I was watching was how the mana flowed around her. Unlike spider-scorpions, a leech was a mundane creature and Cam¡¯s growth was not very impressive, even though not mundane. Unfortunately, her growth dramatically slowed down after she was separated from me. I couldn''t tell if it was because she needed live prey, she was hitting her limits or just that my mana-empowered blood was necessary. I could control for one of those factors by getting her live prey, another by giving her my blood but I didn''t want to do both at once because I had a feeling Vinny wouldn''t help me again. I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between working on the eggs and watching Cam until the eggs hatched. I filled my two bottles and dropped them off. Still I bought another second hand book, this one about leeches. And it was bad news. Cam had hit her limits precisely because of my own blood¡¯s quality. Well, not her hard limits, Cam''s kind of magic leech just had diminishing returns until they were too big and starved to death. Or if they were really lucky, they could end up evolving into an active ambush predator. That predatory leech was also not that impressive, really just a hunter of small rodents and birds like a housecat. No magical blood absorption that Medea could use or anything like that. Instead of going back home and just pumping mana or blood into my increasingly weird roommates, be it mosquitoes or leeches, I decided to make a quick detour over to the New Delport Regency. ¡°Oh! Hi Anya, how are you now?¡± Nerry bubbled when I finally found her before cringing. ¡°Uhh, I''m sorry but I don''t have time off right now. I just took a minute to say hi but I''ve to go now. If you wait then we can catch up in twenty or so minutes.¡± She said all that in a single rush. Well, that was anticlimactic.
¡°And then the giant rat skeleton roared. Well not roared, I am pretty sure it didn''t have the bits for roaring but it certainly made a sound.¡± I retold the story while editing out everything I knew about what the rat skeleton actually was. And I spared her the body details too. Nerry, it turns out did get lonely endlessly dealing with much older guests. I mean, she didn''t say it to my face but it was obvious even to me and I was not the best at picking up cues like that. And that made me feel guilty considering that she had she had shared her books with me when I was the one who was bored and lonely. ¡°And Medea?¡± She asked, her eyes wide. I took a sip of my cup of fisjoui before continuing. Friends aside, maybe I should come around her every so often just for the food? ¡°Well, it was pretty roughed up in that earlier fight and it couldn''t move. And because it was right in the way of the giant rat, I was terrified that it would be crushed. I did have a spell to teleport it back to me and I cast that.¡± The story followed what had actually transpired closely from then. Thankfully it was not considered weird for people to not get into their classes and skills, otherwise I wouldn''t have stuck around. ¡°Speaking of Medea, where is it?¡± ¡°Out hunting. But enough about me. What were you up to?¡± Nerry downed her cup of fisjoui before answering, a grimace marring her face. ¡°Same old. It''s just that we have a ton of foreign guests so it''s been a proper pain. And a lot of them wouldn''t know what being decent is if it ate their firstborns¡± ¡°Any reason for the influx?¡± Nerry nodded. ¡°Yep. The upcoming guild contracts. Everyone is just terrified of something going wrong.¡± At that moment, Medea flew back to me on its four wings with the accompanying sound of something that sounded like a helicopter. ¡°Woah. It flies now?¡± Nerry nearly jumped out of her seat, her earlier exhaustion evaporating. I smirked. ¡°More than that. It is sapient like humans now.¡± ¡°Cool. In that case, hello Medea. I''m Nerry.¡± Medea extended a leg and traced letters in the air. ¡°Hello, Nerry.¡± Nerry had come a long way; from the girl who was terrified of Medea to one who was holding a conversation with it. But eventually, that too had to end. ¡°Gods above, thanks a ton for visiting! I needed the break.¡± She exclaimed before visibly deflating. ¡°But I''ve got to go now, can''t take any more time off. You take care, alright?¡±
Cam, the first of her name and leech most extraordinary, was fed to Medea with no real changes to the latter once it became apparent that Cam was not the answer I sought. Thankfully, I had other ways to get answers. My class should hopefully be mastered soon too and I was expecting another level 30 at the minimum. The experience requirements increase was no joke and unlike Hivemother''s Crippled Dominion, that received the full and then some extra benefits from Quiraion''s traits, my classes didn''t until the cooldown was over. But even with all that, I would be very shocked if I didn''t have incredible classes waiting for me considering that my experiments had been successful after all. After all those mosquitos, all those eggs, and all those hours just staring at Medea''s Birth Drones with my mana senses, I was not only successful but fairly dramatically so. Not in what I had actually created, of course; a new strain of otherwise mundane mosquito was not anything monumental enough to put in the newspapers. \\[New lifeform brought to life: Daywalker Mosquito. Due to the successful conscious creation of a form of life that has not yet existed in creation, increased experience was awarded.] \\Fauna Archive is now level 26! \\Class experience incompatible. Class selection improved instead. \\New Skill learned \\Lesser Life Creation: 1 You know how to use mana to nudge biology in subtle yet improbable ways. You can force similar creatures within a given clade to have successful cross-breeds and you can control what traits get inherited and expressed. This is one of the most vital skills for monster breeders everywhere. Mana Cost is variable. Cost increases exponentially with complexity, power, inheritance control, and how dissimilar the creatures are. \\New Skill learned \\Lesser Reproduction Control: 1 You can use mana to stimulate the reproductive capabilities of a willing or tamed subject. You can speed up gestation of offsprings and the hatching period of eggs. You can also temporarily increase fertility or halt reproductive processes of your subjects. This is one of the most vital skills for monster breeders and medicians everywhere. Mana Cost is variable. Cost increases exponentially with gestation period, hatching period, power, complexity of the organism and further genetic anomalies. Both of the skills were active but looked like they were meant to consolidate together. But they were separate and so I had to slot out Sketching again. At least it had levelled up a few times and that skill remained with me since it was entirely mundane. Just needed to get either of my new skills to level 30 soon. If I was lucky then Fauna Archive would be absorbed in there too. But I was not complaining, I had successfully acquired the skills I was trying for, I had just hoped for a single skill or one active and one passive. Lesser Reproduction Control was also neat because I could use it to preemptively cancel my periods. That alone was worth a skill slot in my opinion, even leaving aside the whole insect breeding thing. But I digress. I was reasonably confident that the Daywalker Mosquito, a mosquito that was neither nocturnal nor diurnal but had an adaptive schedule, created by feeding mosquitos my magically enhanced blood and Cam''s own weird blood and then breeding them over and over again, was worth at least a level 30 class by itself. To be honest, I had every single one of the Daywalkers fly themselves into Medea''s mouth, and they didn''t exist anymore but that had to count, right? I had created a new species and I had given unto them extinction. That should be notable. It had to be. 33. The Fate of the Swarmcaller My Emporium credits, combined with what I had acquired from my work with Tiamim, ensured that it wasn''t long until I had enough crystals to visit the Archives. I just hit one small snag. The Archives were not a library, it was a tall obelisk with a teleporter that led to a set of libraries situated all over the city, each on a separate topic and with my crystals, I could get into one of them. There was a whole library dedicated to just classes and unlocking them. Then there was wildlife, politics and history, magical theory and much more. But no fction of any kind. I just had to pick a topic to focus on. It was a conundrum. I hadn''t known that the Archives were divided like that. Why would I? That basically made cross referencing information virtually impossible. Still, the libraries were not insanely specific so I could afford to pick and choose. Ultimately, I could boil down my options to a binary choice. Well, a trinary choice, considering I could always not enter the Archives and instead spend everything at the Emporium, but it was simpler to compare the other two first. On one spider-scorpion hand-leg, I could read up on magical insects and monsters. Hivemother''s Crippled Dominion was on the cusp of letting me have another Swarm General, and so I needed to get something that didn''t compete with Medea for resources soon. On another leg-hand, just knowing about them didn''t mean I could get to them. If something that caught my eye lived halfway across the world on a different continent or was a denizen of some other realm altogether like Sitra Achra then I was out of luck and I would have wasted my crystals. And now on the third leg-hand, I had to consider that anything too strong might be above my capabilities to subdue, and to make it a nice round four, I couldn''t forget that something too weak would just be a waste of a slot. There were good reasons to choose to read up on insects and equally good reasons not to. And as for the other option, I could read up on biology based magic. It could help me unlock new skills and classes. But I was confident that my accomplishments had that handled for the immediate future. And so I made my rather obvious decision. Monsters, it shall be. I inserted my crystals into a slot on a desk in the obelisk shaped building. A screen before me lit up in green. ¡°WELCOME, SEEKER OF KNOWLEDGE. THIS IS THE NEW DELPORT BRANCH OF THE ARCHIVES OF KULJINU. YOU HAVE PAID FOR ACCESS TO THE FIRST TWO FLOORS OF THE ARCHIVES. WHAT IS THE SUBJECT OF YOUR RESEARCH?¡± ¡°Entomology and magical monsters.¡±. ¡°ACKNOWLEDGED. ARCHIVE 7: ZOOLOGY IS ASSIGNED TO YOU. KINDLY STEP INTO THE TELEPORTER.¡± A white rectangle appeared before me and I stepped on to it. It worked exactly like the teleportation array back at the guild. In an instant, I was in a mundane looking library. Mundane if not for the fact that I could not see any end to the building in at least one direction. An expressionless old man in blue waited for me. And then a system notification appeared. ¡°TIMER: 2880 minutes left. Once the timer reaches 0, you will be ejected out of the Archives. You can save your reading list to resume your progress. You can request refreshments and a place to rest. These do not count against your time limit but you must leave all your books outside the resting area.¡± Okay then. 2880 minutes was uhh, two days? More than enough for my purposes.
The old man was simply called The Archivist. The owner of this place and someone directly on the payroll of the Illustris Council. I even saw a few other people, all escorted by their own copies of the same man. Apparently that was how he levelled up. Being an Archivist. The Archivist was not talkative but he was very helpful. I liked that, silent but willing to handle the boring parts for me. I could ask for books on specific topics and he would fetch them for me; he would even make me notes if I dictated them but I had to do the reading myself. But since I was realizing that I was woefully unprepared, I didn''t have an actual plan about what kind of stuff I was looking for, other than that it had to be close to New Delport. He just nodded and a staircase made of blue starlight and glass materialized before us. ¡°Come. The second floor will have what you seek.¡± His voice was remarkably unremarkable. No emotion, no accent. It didn''t even sound robotic. It just was. Still, I followed him and climbed up as the ceiling above us melted into the same starry glass before disappearing altogether. Once on the second floor, I turned around to see the floor meld back together. Then a reading desk with a cushioned chair appeared at the same spot. The Archives also apparently had an area wide reading speed and focus buff. And honestly that was needed because even the first floor had so many damn books that just reading the titles to find a relevant shelf would have taken me hours. Still I just gave up on that after some time because other than spider scorpions, nothing really appealed to me. Ants and wasps and mosquitos and the likes. Actually now that I thought of it, if anything too dangerous was around then they would be already clashing with spider scorpions. ¡°Alright, can you direct me towards insects that have that are high tier and can be found near New Delport? The weirder the better.¡± The Archivist nodded and snapped his fingers. A pile of books appeared on the desk before me. The first book was just about spider-scorpions again. The second was about some colonial large ants that lived out in the forest. Very boring. The next was almost infinitely cooler. Giant acid spraying herbivorous beetles that melted minerals and absorbed them to improve their shell. They sounded like walking tanks to me, complete with weaponry. That was definitely something Medea would want to eat. I made a note to have the Hunter¡¯s Guild get me the corpse of one since it could be found deeper into the Great Forests. Or if I was feeling daring then I could tag along. Or, maybe if I was a bit less daring then I could send only Medea along so that I could call it back if things went south. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°So do we have any other insects that use metal? Nearby, of course.¡± A new book. Iron Reavers, Mantis-like flightless insects with powerful limbs. Exoskeleton with iron in it and literal scythes for arms. Small but with great jumps and limb strength, they could slash prey apart. Interesting, but my skill prickled. They would not do much other than offsetting the extra weight of the armor until Medea''s stats picked up the slack. And did I really want to have to have a dependency on metal mages? I was already reliant on the Emporium. Still I added both of them to my notes. ¡°Hey, can I briefly go over to a new building to cross check something?¡± I figured that getting a look over at metal magic would be helpful. The Archivist smiled apologetically. ¡°No, you can, however, pay extra to do exactly that.¡± Oh well. I bet it wouldn''t be hard to find a creature that produces its own organic metal. Another note. Some turtles and pseudo-elemental monsters did precisely that. ¡°I want something about armored insects.¡± A new book was flopped on my desk: ¡°Superhard chitin in magical arthopods.¡± And once again my notes grew when I found another giant beetle with an organic shell and mandibles made of a very hard and tough substance that almost rivalled the previous one in defensive capabilities, if not size and offensive strength. This one lived really out there and would take a team of high level hunters almost a month to get to and back just from the distance. Frustrated at the dearth of strong insects, I rose up again and started wandering through the shelves. Each shelf had a plaque over it that briefly mentioned what it was about. One read ¡°Non-Standard Evolution/Insects¡± Hmm, let us see. ¡°Mimic Worms: Obligate Neoteny in Predatory Caterpillars¡±. That certainly didn''t sound that good but I still had a look. My intuition was right. They were neither useful for Medea nor were they strong enough for me to integrate into the swarm.
A lot of other middling creatures and books passed me by on that shelf ¡ªat some point I even asked for permission to summon Medea just so that I could possess it to skim through more books¡ª and Fauna Archive greedily levelled up multiple times before I saw The Book. The moment my eyes fell upon the picture on the cover, I was filled with a primal instinctual terror that almost terminated all thought. Medea too froze right besides me, its human-like hands just about to turn a page. Frigid Mind levelled up instantly and I could breathe again, the pause, by itself, only taking up half a second in my increasingly messed up mind. Whatever it was, Medea''s instincts were screaming at both of us to get away from it. And that, more than anything, attracted me to it. The cover depicted something that vaguely resembled a pitch black wasp with blood red wings that curved across the book''s jacket, almost like a Tarantula Hawk wasp. I knew what Tarantula Hawk wasps were, of course; wasps that paralyzed large spiders and laid eggs on them that ate the still living spider alive from the inside after hatching. Messed up. But this was not that, only similar. And only vaguely so now that I looked closer. The torso looked like a wasp''s. The head¡¯s general shape was also correct but that was where the similarities ended. The head was massive with jaws and mandibles that seemed oversized for its body. Except the legs were even longer and had serrated edges. The head also had a bony crest akin to a headdress that rose and curved halfway across its entire length. The creature¡¯s round abdomen was proportional but the stinger at its end was again oversized. And then I noticed that the ¡®wasp¡¯ had two extra wings in its body, almost hidden by the larger ones. I read the title. ¡°The Black: Terrestrial lifeforms warped by the Unformed Chaos.¡± ¡®Mother, stop. Don''t read it.¡¯ Medea sounded desperate. Still, I had to look closer despite Medea¡¯s pleas. I didn''t, couldn''t know if Medea was just scared because of the possibility that this thing, whatever it was, might have the relationship with spider-scorpions that regular tarantula hawks might have with regular spiders, or it was the divine limiter but I had to know. My curiosity was piqued now, and I was reasonably confident that my skill would protect me from any sanity shattering revelations. Still, I asked, just to be sure. ¡°Does this book contain knowledge that would hurt me by just knowing it?¡± ¡°No. No knowledge contained in the first four floors of my Archives will hurt you. Directly, that is. What you do with the knowledge you gain here is up to you.¡± That settled it then. I cracked the book open. I almost wish I hadn''t. And then I was happy, I had.
Chaos-warped hawk wasps were pretty large, and they were fucked up. Their wings produced a sound that paralyzed everyone around them until they stung and killed them for food. Except for when a wasp was pregnant with a queen. In that case, it would deposite a single egg in the victim before dying. The egg would then hatch almost immediately into a tree like creature that would entwine itself within the organs of the host and replace them until it couldn''t be removed without the host¡¯s death. Then the host would be transformed into a living factory for creating wasps while the tree would enslave the host into its servant. Such a creature would even be able to transform herself into a swarm of wasps and reform from a new host to move quickly and escape danger. Thankfully there was nothing in there that mentioned the needing to be a human. If someone was really stupid, lucky, smart or any combination of the three, it was not unheard of to instead subvert the tree to one''s will. Chaos-warped hawk wasps didn''t necessarily have any place they were native to, they existed everywhere hawk wasps did and were exposed to the energies from the Unformed Chaos. They were extinct in the wild but there was a market for classers here. It felt like an age had passed since I first took [SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE] but it had mentioned something that sounded familiar. I opened my mastered classes section and read the description again. \\SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE (0/15) A SWARMCALLER NOVITIATE understands that the most successful form of life in the world is that of the insectoids and that''s for a reason. She can tame insectoids to make them do her bidding. She can further enhance her minions¡¯ ferocity by sacrificing her mana. At higher class levels, SWARMCALLERS can bring down apocalyptic swarms of insects on those that dare oppose her or she can command a few titans that can even wrestle with drakes. Or maybe, even darker paths await a SWARMCALLER that eschews the weaknesses of the mortal races. MASTERY BONUSES: +2 to VITALITY, ACUITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT ¡°... darker paths await a SWARMCALLER that eschews the weaknesses of the mortal races.¡± I now knew what one of those darker paths entailed. Yeah, I don''t think I wanted one in my swarm, but I think Medea should eat one. Maybe I should see if I could take over a queen somehow? How would that work with Medea''s own rapid evolution? Maybe I could even throw in the Nightwing Amphisbaena¡¯s super cancer growth venom? I just needed to grow until I could combine them safely to see what that would create. If that was not enough to get past the divine limiter, then I don''t know what could ever be.
Ultimately, my quest for a worthy new Swarm General was not a success but I had learned enough about the critters around New Delport that I was feeling good about myself when the Archivist handed me my notes and made me walk back to the teleporter. Medea was going to have a veritable feast, mom had so many creatures for it to try. 34. Hunting and Festivities The Nyrum waste disposal grounds were over an hour out from the city proper by carriage, at the very far end, beyond the farthest reaches of Gerankir. And that meant that we were completely outside the city and its safety. No civilization for almost 3 miles if not more. The river Nyrum didn''t just bisect New Delport but it also marked its class divisions. I didn''t know if the Nyrum¡¯s path was natural but it didn''t really matter. I had heard about how the Nyrum merged into the central sea. The toxic water was full of everything from other relatively safe Aetherite byproducts to industrial waste to good old sewage and it would all wash away into the sea at an artificial estuary, but not before poisoning the river and its banks beyond the point of any repair. The waste disposal had to be downstream of the river in the city if there was any way to maintain potable water. The smell hit me before we could even see the river. It smelled weird, like an open drain but with something else, something chemical in it that made my eyes sting. The carriage stopped before we hit the banks and left us behind; the driver not hiding his disgust at the smell and the worry that if the stench set it then he would have to pay a classer to get it cleaned. ¡°Ew eww ewwwww. This is the last time I''m helping you out.¡± Agitjin grumbled when he stepped on something that popped and released a viscous black liquid. A wave of mana cleaned it off the next second. ¡°You are getting paid for it.¡± Fahria pointed out. I mean I was not going to point it out but she was also getting paid, her payment was just the promise of help when her family came calling during the Crucible. ¡°Yes, and I regret it. Are you even sure that we are at the right place? This whole thing, a secluded outskirt where no one ever comes, evening; this just sounds like the set up for some trashy novel about a cult sacrificing people to evil gods.¡± ¡°No, Agit, I''m not going to sacrifice you to an evil god.¡± I sighed. ¡°Besides, no god would want your soul.¡± ¡°That''s where you are very wrong. Well, at least I''d be killed by two beautiful women instead of a scrawny guy who hasn''t seen the sun in years.¡± ¡°Does he ever shut up?¡± ¡°Only when Tiamim, that''s my boss, is around, Fahria.¡± ¡®Mother, this one has to agree with the one who showed you how to manipulate the boundless energies of the heavens. This stench is horrific.¡¯ ¡®What is this, ¡®let¡¯s all gang up on poor Anya¡¯ day?¡¯ But for what it was worth, I echoed the sentimey. I regretted not bringing a mask or having an air purification skill. Too late to go back now, I suppose, all I could do was hold my nose and continue. We walked on spongy ground that squelched under our feet. The actual waste disposal was done through a labyrinthine network of towers with glassy pipes that jutted out of them and dumped various colored liquids into the river. The towers were connected to each other by skybridges. Those skybridges were then in turn all joined by a central tower that I knew had teleportation arrays in it. Every Aetherite refinery and mining facility in New Delport all sent their waste to the tower where it was turned into liquid and dumped so that it would eventually wash away. Fumes rose in the air from the water that made me feel light headed. The river bubbled ominously before us. It had the sheen and color of room temperature mercury. ¡°I don''t suppose anyone here is willing to wade into that?¡± Everyone looked pointedly at me and I sighed. Ordering Medea to jump into the river to look for human or monster remains, or anything really, I sat down and fished out a set of knives and a map. Wherever the murderer was now, it was marked on the map as a cone. I don''t know how, but somehow once, when I was bored, I divined for the guy who had killed the people guarding the Red Powder and it had shown me a very wide cone instead of the evenly spaced star. I couldn''t replicate it and every subsequent attempt just resulted in the star. Still, I had warned the guild. Never let it be said that I wasn''t a responsible citizen. Just ignore the fact that my existence was apparently anathema to long term stability. There were rumors of someone that looked like him lurking deep in the bowels of Gerankir but no one had found him yet. And it was not because of a lack of trying, the council was furious and posters dotted every damn street. There was even a persistent reward for any legitimate leads on him. I mean, personally it sounded like overkill, considering that my first day back after the retchroot swarm involved trying to avoid being a direct witness to a mass slaughter, but I guess the Powder was really that worth it, and yet the posters proudly stated that his crimes included the theft of confiscated Red Powder. And so I, every so often divined for him, because I needed the damn money. Another star, another failure. After putting away my map, I decided to search alongside the river coast for anything suspicious with the other two. Medea occasionally surfaced before diving in again. Apparently Medea still had issues staying underwater constantly that had nothing to do with breathing. It took us a while to find it. Or rather, it found us. The water was calm, deathly still and there was nothing other than our own footsteps, breathing and the waste falling into the water to be heard. No insects, no sounds of the traffic. I fired off a Blood Sense and the creature lit up and at the exact same moment, the water exploded as it shot towards Medea. A riverbank snake, mottled and looking more like some of the prehistoric crocodilians than anything else, only sans legs. It dwelt in the filthy waters and lived off whatever fish still survived the polluted waters. It was also very venomous and fast. My first and easiest target. I summoned Medea back before the snake could bite and Agitjin created an explosion of mana beneath it that launched it in the air. Fahria¡¯s glass skewered it and it was done. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Simple, right? Nope, the problem was that these snakes were not solitary predators and if one was attacking then that meant that at least a few others were already surrounding us. And sure enough, more of them darted at us, us, still on dry land from behind. Medea unfurled its wings and rose while Fahria took to the air on great wings of molten glass. Agit, similarly stood on a platform of mana and I hung on for dear life on another platform. I couldn''t fly and Medea couldn''t carry me and staying down there was a death sentence. We could leave right away, but I was greedy. Or rather, I discovered that my trait rewarded excessive pursuit of power. And so Fahria and Agit rained death from above. Medea didn''t have any ranged attack other than shooting venom from its tail and I didn''t want to waste that if I didn''t have to. I didn''t have to. In minutes, the hissing had ceased and almost a dozen snakes awaited consumption by Medea. But first, I had the rather unenviable task of extracting the venom sacs. Not because Medea couldn''t eat them, no, it could do that fine but because I wanted to sell them. Medea needed the DNA or whatever the magical equivalent was, individual organs were not something it cared for. ¡®This one thanks the companions of Mother.¡¯ I relayed the message but Agit didn''t seem particularly interested. Fahria, on the other hand, said that it was her pleasure. Medea didn''t tier up but it was almost noticeably faster and significantly more venomous after its dinner. And that was really all I was hoping for. Better venom meant I could buy more venomous creatures from the Emporium and maybe even some skills eventually. I saw Fahria animatedly talking with Agit out of the corner of my eye, and I couldn''t help but smile. Did that girl try to make long term allies out of everyone with any potential? Actually, she probably did. She too had a deadline like me, just a much shorter one. That sobered me up real quick.
¡°Laceration Lattice.¡± I muttered two days later, and a criss-cross pattern of tiny cuts formed on my other hand. I winced but I was elated. I had learned a new spell, this one was very simple and was only useful if targetted at the soles of feet or palms of hands or the like, places that would glare up in pain if put pressure on but it was a new spell. ¡°And I''m done. You only need to get one of these off to cripple it. Then you can kill it however you want.¡± ¡°Thanks Agit. See you around.¡± And I meant it. When he heard about my next target, he said that he was not going but he had a spell that could deal with it; I had my misgivings because I was not good at learning new spells but after some tweaking to make it blood magic and self experimentation, I got the hang of it. Still, I handed him his crystals with no small amount of sadness. My money! I blinked. Was I turning into a miser? Oh god, I was, wasn''t I? A image of an older version of me sitting on a pile of gold while people starved while fleeing a dragon or whatever appeared in my mind and I shuddered. Note to self, don''t turn into the type of person who destroyed my life back in Earth. I bid my farewell to him and set out towards the Emporium to deliver my bottles. Along the way I noticed that somehow, New Delport had changed in a couple of days without me noticing. All the street lights were repared and the streets were cleaned. New storefronts had sprung up everywhere and lined the streets. The guild contracts renewal day, or just Renewal Day was a big deal in New Delport and it showed. Everything was renovated practically overnight. Music rang out in the streets and even the smog was less overbearing. The grime and the gloom that perpetually hung over the city was, for a beautiful moment, lifted. It was all so¡­ so plastic. So transparent was what was really happening. New Delport was a trap, a trap for strugglers and a trap for tourists and right now? The tourist trap was being sprung. The sounds of horns announcing the arrival of ships on the port only reinforced the facade¡¯s nature. I ignored it all, kept my head down and tried to figure out why I was getting so damn agitated. Something was rotten beyond the usual suspects. And I was not able to pinpoint what it was. My trip to the Emporium went without incident. Even Upper Gerankir was looking almost respectable in preparation for the Renewal Day. In the coming days and weeks, the influx of tourists would inevitably find their way down there too. There were two months left before the Renewal Day but in those months, it was the sacred commandment of every business to suck as much money as possible. Renewal Day only came every five years and there were years of preparations for capitalizing on it. ¡°We''ll be having a special sale for the Renewal Day where you can directly buy from us with any currency. If you want someting then that is the best time for it.¡± The masked person at the counter informed me while valuating my venom. Almost 30 for both bottles combined, a gigantic leap from the measly 7 I had started from. The sense of wrongness persisted and followed after me when I left the Emporium. So when a commotion brought me out of my broodings, I could honestly say that I expected it. Well, I expected something at least. Like maybe a fight between three armored council enforcers and a very familiar bald man. A bald man whose face was plastered everywhere. The bald guy thrust out his arms and a shockwave of ash and fire fanned out. One of the enforcers waved her hands and a blast of wind met it in a thunderous collision that nearly lifted me off my feet. But the ash was only a distraction as a hammer of fire crashed down. Frigid Mind activated and I ran for shelter behind a building. I should have run away but instead I leaned out the side and peeked at the battle unfolding before me. The bald guy moved so quickly as to appear to be teleporting and punched through one of the enforcers. And yet, the enforcer kept standing as the hole within him stitched itself back before the bald guy could retract his fist. Another enforcer slashed at his back with a jagged red sword and blood flew. The bald guy erupted in strange heatless flames and thrust his free hand in the first enforcer before violently pulling them ¡ªand the enforcer¡ª apart, even as the third impotently pelted metal blades at him. And that was when even more enforcers showed up. And while the bald man was running away from the three, I had Medea spray venom towards his eyes that didn''t do anything, but slowed him down just long enough for the enforcers to catch him. And soon enough, his head went flying. ¡°Ma¡¯am, is this your pet?¡± An enforcer asked, standing almost centimeters away from my face. I jumped, I hadn''t seen him arrive, let alone get so close. I nodded, not trusting my voice to not squeak. ¡°I see. Well, thank you for your service, ma''am. You have the gratitude of the Illustris Council and a small token of that gratitude.¡± He handed me three full big trays of crystals and my eyes bulged. I replied with some waffle about some abstract notion of duty or whatever I didn''t believe in, and took it.
The next day, I was ready. I had paid my rent and Vim''s protection fees in advance. I had changes of clothes and a first aid kit. And I had informed Tiamim that I wouldn''t be in the city for a few days. Three days to be exact. Fahria was not coming, she couldn''t afford to be away so close to renewal day when so many classers would be arriving in New Delport. And so we were alone, me and Medea. And we had to be careful, we were not venturing too far out but this was still the Great Forests we were talking about. Early in the morning, I was at the gate alongside a mid level hunter guild classer I had hired using some of the money I had received for helping apprehend Kalkiin, the bald guy. And soon enough, we were out. 35. Interlude: Parasite Pain was all he knew. They impaled and skewered his flesh and thousands of tiny saws cut thin slices out of it. They violated him, harvested him. But he knew that he would not die. For death had already claimed him once and yet he existed in defiance to it. His memories were jumbled together, a sickening syrupy mixture of raw emotional impressions. Divinity, a betrayal, the desire of something vastly beyond him, a reign and a final cataclysmic clash. He had died and yet he was brought back, not as any kindness but for the simplest of all emotions, greed. And for greed, he suffered. And for greed, he shall repay it ten times over. He couldn''t see or hear, he lacked the organs at the moment and yet he could sense the world around him. Deep beneath the bowels of the cancer upon the land, in a place that even the gods couldn''t see. All he could feel was his pain and so he retreated within his mind, in torpor. And so the world spun, unaware that he was regrowing his strength. Inevitable and inexorable, like a star trapped in the gravity of a black hole and hurtling towards its annihilation. The city, the cancer above, continued on, unaware of the doom brewing beneath it. Men came and went, collecting the bounty of his mutilated flesh. He pretended to be dead. Some even poked and laughed at him. He too laughed at them in secret because they didn''t know what was coming. And eventually the opportunity came. His power had returned enough for him to make his escape. The man who came to collect his shattered flesh was alone and a hint of heatless flame was all it took to make him look up. Look into the empty eye sockets of his annihilation that weren''t so empty anymore. In a second, his victim''s mind shattered. He had been slowly weakening him, preparing him to host his consciousness and it bore fruit. His victim¡¯s self¡¯s tattered remnants twisted itself into a new shape, one that resembled him and the heatless flame jumped over. His new was weak and could not handle his true powers without burning up. And yet, he felt his lips curling into a smile. A smile that distorted to let out a chuckle, a chuckle that gave way to full blown laughter. It was not a kind laugh. Still not everything went smoothly. The moment he exited his prison, she noticed. And her emissary, a loud bird whose screech he remembered well, rang out across the cancer. His jailers would notice his escape, he knew that but not so soon. He had to hide. First, he had to abandon his vessel for a new one. Weakness let him in faster and there were few things weaker than the dregs of the cancer. And he was getting better at jumping, better at controlling his power so as to not destroy his hosts from within, too quickly. His next vessel was a prostitute, deep in the worst bowels of the cancer. The prostitute was without any potential of freedom, held loyal and weak by oaths and skills that she had no control over. Things she had accepted in desperation. Distasteful, but she would do. And from her, he got to a man, a bald fighter with strength that could almost handle him. His new body was also wealthy, a death of a single prostitute was not something that some crystals couldn''t smooth over. He handed over the money and seethed silently. He retained the memories of his hosts, or rather assimilated them and he felt nothing but hatred for the cancer and this establishment that represented the worst of the cancer. That brothel was the first place in the cancer to be purged in ashes and flames. And with that, that sacrifice, that cleansing pyre, his skill evolved for the first time in centuries. He could move from hosts as usual but he could keep a seed of his malice in others, a seed that was nurtured by hate, seeds that when ripened, he could use to return, over and over again when ripened. He could even have multiple hosts if they were corrupted by him enough. Even the heavens approved of his vengeance. He shall certainly give them a show to remember.
High Councilor Narra sat in silence, an almost palpable aura of fury swirling around him. Across from him, High Councilor Ayn met his gaze stonily, her coldness, if anything, was far more terrifying than his unconcealed anger. And yet, both of their fury, fire and ice, were directed towards one individual, one who was also late to the meeting. A host of servants and attendants, mentally bound to absolute secrecy and loyalty, nervously buzzed around the two as they stewed in silence. Narra looked terrible, an ancient man who had lived for several human lifetimes, partially melded into his chair with ribs that were also corrugated iron that wrapped around it. His teeth were jagged knives that glinted because of his recessed gums and cracked lips. Cords of metal wrapped around his arms and legs and a single light robe maintained whatever decency he was supposed to have. It was not often that Narra revealed his true form, even in council meetings. He preferred an Adonis of silver skin and gold curls but tonight, he just couldn''t be bothered. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Ayn, on the other hand looked as ethereal as ever, her beauty not even marred by the cold glare she levied at everyone and everything that dared to move. She too was old, as old as Narra but her appearance was youthful truly in a way that Narra''s was only an illusion. The door creaked open and a thin man stepped in, flanked by his own servants and guards. The high councillors turned as one to face the newcomer. ¡°Sevarius. Take a seat.¡± Narra greeted. It was not lost on any of the three present that he didn''t use Sevarius¡¯s proper title. Ayn didn''t even bother with the little decorum Narra deigned to uphold. A third chair materialized from the air and Ayn and Narra¡¯s chairs slowly spun around the circular table until the three were equidistant from each other. Sevarius took his place among the high council of Illustris without a word and then a bubble of silence erupted that drowned out all noise from within and without. ¡°Enforcers reported that they successfully executed him today.¡± Narra rasped, his words punctuated by the sounds of metal grinding against metal. Sevarius looked up at him sharply and his eyes showed surprise. ¡°Are you sure?¡± ¡°Yes, fire without heat. Ashes, the whole works.¡± ¡°He is not dead.¡± ¡°Sevarius, we all know that he is not dead.¡± Ayn snapped. ¡°You don''t see the mine working again, do you? You don''t see entire blocks reduced to ashes either. It is exceedingly obvious that your project is still running wild out there.¡± ¡°I didn''t see either of you objecting when I proposed it. But fine, let''s pretend that it is my fault. So what? We are all dead if he isn''t stopped. So let me propose another plan, let''s focus on him first and then play the blame game.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± ¡°This is acceptable.¡± ¡°Any witnesses?¡± It was Ayn who answered. ¡°A girl. Works at forensics. She was the one who even made us the sketch of his current face.¡± ¡°Are you sure she was not infected?¡± ¡°No, I''m not sure she was not ever infected but considering that she hired a hunter guilder and went outside the city, which as we all know, he can''t, I''m confident that she is clear.¡± ¡°He could have jumped over to someone else.¡± ¡°Yes. He could have. We don''t know who, it could be anyone she knows or it could be just a random stranger on the street.¡± ¡°So that''s it? He could be anywhere and anyone in this city and we have no idea?¡± ¡°Yes Sevarius, that''s exactly it.¡± ¡°What do we think about postponing Renewal Day? That''s the best time to attack.¡± It was Narra who asked. His idea made sense, that was when the city would be full of tourists and too busy with celebrations. The perfect time to strike. ¡°No. He can just bide his time and we can''t put it off forever.¡± ¡°Well, what can we do then?¡± ¡°Just prepare. For whatever he is planning.¡± ¡°Do you think we should destroy his body? That will kill him.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s keep it as a last resort. We can still salvage it. He can''t move anything too big without tipping off someone, right? We can station a battalion right by his body and have them annihilate it if he so much as makes a squeak.¡± Sevarius had somehow regained his confidence. Ayn wanted to strangle the greedy idiot but even Narra seemed to be convinced. Or rather, he wanted to be convinced. ¡°Fine. But I don''t want to hear anything about it being too early when I or Ayn decide it is time. Not you, is that clear?¡± Sevarius rolled his eyes but nodded. ¡°Fine.¡± ¡°Very well, meeting adjourned.¡± Sevarius left almost immediately and Narra and his chair both floated away after him, leaving only Ayn behind. She closed her eyes, thinking. Everything had gone wrong and her two fellow councillors were morons who couldn''t see what was obvious. They were blinded by the promise of what his body held. They were dangerous in the same way a child with a gun was dangerous. So old and yet so stupid. ¡°When the girl returns, inform me immediately and invite her to the ball. I want to meet her.¡± Ayn whispered to a servant and he nodded. A circular communication array snapped open in his hand and his orders were then relayed all over the city.
The box of red powder waited in a shack. He had plans for it. A plan to free his body once and for all. But first he had to find a distributor. Thankfully his new host had the perfect memories for him to go looking. For now he would lay low and build up his plans while planting new seeds. He was not his old self anymore, he couldn''t raze civilizations as he wished, despite how much he did wish to do precisely that. They still held his body and he couldn''t afford to scare them off to the point of destroying it. He had thought that he had been careful when retrieving the drug and then he had indulged in his fury, but somehow, they had found his face and made the connection. He couldn''t afford to be hasty anymore. He would live the life of his new host, behave like she did and like what she did, until it was time and he could shed this weakness and free his true body. But that was in the future. For now, he would blend in. He would use the damnable weak magic of his host and tolerate it. All for the sake of his ancient vengeance. All shall burn. Even the goddess. He would ensure it. No matter how long it takes. No matter how many times he would have to defy the very heavens above. That was his promise to himself, made when he first lost everything. That he would return. And now the heavens itself had let him return to fulfill it.