31

If Vander wanted his peace, it would be with Madison on Gaia after he saved her and carved a place for them to live safely away from the rest of the world with his own two hands. Only then, when no threats would come seeking them for the rest of their days, would he allow himself to enjoy that complacency he’d experienced with the rest of the villagers of Crossroads.

Maybe he’d be a farmer one day, own another ox and name it Stubborn the Second, and settle down, raise a family, and be content with that way of life. But there were too many things left unfinished for him to rest easy. Every day he’d waited, worked the fields, and hoped the bandits would come, he knew. The calm life the two unknown ancients had offered, their realm of nirvana he’d found, he could only accept when he’d shed his blood, sweat, and tears to make it his own.

One way or another, he’d get out of the class assessment. All that stood in his way to clear the second part was some demon or necromancer and a few of its lackeys. They’d be the forge in which he refined his blade, and their blood would solidify his confidence and smooth at the rough edges as he integrated the new abilities into his current skill set.

Resolved, Vander couldn’t help but ponder the irony of the situation with a chuckle. He pushed the thoughts away and stepped inside the cabin and wiped the drying blood off. Once clean, he rested the sword on the bed and pulled the sack the ancients had prepared for him from his waist line and started arraying the contents next to his trusty sword.

Just as the ancient disguised as Madeline said, there were plenty of introductory alchemy books and more ingredients than he knew what to do with. The pile stole any remaining space on the bed. He had to get creative with how he organized them so he had a bit more space.

After he managed to convince the bed to be bigger than it was, moving the sword to the floor and out of the way, the rest of the contents emptied. Three silver crystals full of a strange milky substance were bundled in between the long wire. He stretched it thin and smiled as it became nearly invisible. A little discharge of electricity through the wire didn’t burn it out and fully transmitted with only a little loss when it touched his other hand.

“I see. Efficient.” There were a lot of implications he could think of, but he had no idea how to make use of them just yet. The logistics of having the wire tied to something already seemed possible, but… without more training in the ways of using the wire, he was more likely to end up wrapping himself up in the wire rather than using it to channel his lightning through. The last thing he’d want is to end up garroting himself. “Food for thought, I suppose.”

He set the wire to the side of the bed and looked over the crystals. Unsure of what they were and with no manual detailing what they might be, he set them aside for another time. He already had way more than enough to process with the additional contents of the bag spilling out in a haphazard mess.

Not only did the bag fill him with trepidation, he still had a plethora of notifications to sift through. Who knew gaining free stuff would be so exhausting? Before this experience, he’d never have thought such a thing. Ignoring things was a specialty of his and always had been, but the system seemed to become incessant about his willful ignorance the more time passed. Literally going so far as to forcefully throw the listing of all the notifications in his face multiple times, made them flash red, and sounded an alarm of angelic choruses and tinkling bells.

Shudder.

Even though training with the ancient disguised as Tobias had made the Crucible look easy, the sounds still caused him to squirm. And the system seemed aware enough to use that fact against him, odd enough. He couldn’t even finish unpacking the contents of the spatial pouch, that’s how annoying the system got. Closing his eyes didn’t enable him to escape either, since it just overlaid on the back of his eyelids, making it even more impossible to ignore.

“I give up. Have it your way, then!” he grumbled, tossing everything in the bag. The verbal acknowledgment seemed to appease the system, and it stopped blaring the notifications existence in his face—until he thought about ignoring it again. Then they returned twice as vicious. “It was just a joke! Geez!”

Apparently, he’d used up any good will the system had. No matter what promises he made, it seemed like a child throwing a tantrum. He apologized, pleaded, and even tried singing it a song to get the angry child guiding his prompts to stop wreaking havoc on his auditory and visual senses.

This Core is concerned. You have forgotten its existence.

This Core wants to know that it doesn’t appreciate being forgotten.

This Core thinks it can save itself if it becomes useful to its master, but its new master is an idiot...

This Core…

“Okay, you can stop with that now,” he grumbled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the Core inside. He admired the prismatic coloration before unceremoniously shoving it into the bag.

This Core does not think this is a good id—

“See if I care.” He tied the bag closed so the contents didn’t spill out, marveling at the hoard of treasure stashed within. Rubbing an oncoming headache away, he grumbled, “Free stuff with strings attached. That’s what’s so stressful about all of this. All the responsibility of not squandering what I’ve been given and having their hopes riding on me—ugh! Whatever. No use wasting time worrying about it now.”

Now that he’d silenced the core, a massive swath of the notifications seemed to disappear as well. The damned thing was a monstrous chatterbox that seemed capable of hijacking his system. Storing it calmed the rapid angry blinking notifications, silenced the angels and bells, and even allowed him to put the rest of the notifications aside if he so chose.

Seeing as he’d be heading out for what was likely the last time, he didn’t see a much better time in the future in which he’d be able to go over all the prompts or have the peace and quiet to process what information awaited. So without further adieu, he pulled up what had waited far too long and started sifting through the mess.

Though, after the first few, things started to make more sense.

Title: Grandmaster Armsman

Requirements: 38/25 weapon skills learned

+100 Strength

+100 Endurance

+100 Agility

+10 to Strength, Endurance, and Agility for each after the minimum requirement

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+130 Strength

+130 Endurance

+130 Agility

One Of Many Talents

Through strenuous hardship and effort, you have prevailed where so many before you have failed.

Expired Temporary Effects:

Buffs:

Low Quality Elixir

???’s Training Fervor

???’s Soul Essence

Soul Calling Elixir

Debuffs:

Arcana Strain

Magic Depletion

Crippling Soul Strain

Reanimation

Extensive Soul Fatigue

“That’s a lot of effects,” he muttered. He could guess a few of them, but only a few. When he tried to view what each did, he got nothing back from the system. If it cataloged the time, place, and duration of the effects, he would’ve been far more appreciative. Seeing as he had no clue what any of it meant, when it wore off, how long it’d been active for—simple details like that—he didn’t pay much attention and moved on. “Onward and upward, Vander. Onward and upward.”

Title: Carrier of the Duality Seed

???

???

“That’s just great. More mysteries to solve, and the only people who can tell me what’s going on more than likely won’t.” Seeing as he couldn’t get any more details, he kept going. “Ahh, here we go!”

A Stranger’s Request

An unknown entity has found you worthy of imparting a great quest.

A location tracker will be provided for both objectives.

When completed, a reward may be granted by the requestor.

An existence worse than death awaits the failure of this quest.

With the information given:

Completion Objective One: find and save the boy in the provided vision.

Completion Objective Two: Acquire the mysterious artifact.

Vander found the request quite interesting for one very specific reason. Even the system didn’t know how to identify Azazel’s form. He knew what it was, but the system didn’t, which clued him into the fact that the system wasn’t as omniscient as he’d initially expected.

Though, he had several clues of that already. Amany had pulled up his system logs and showed the lapse in relevant data herself for the time he’d been in nirvana with the two ancients disguised as village elders. What that meant for him, how they were related to Archmage Findelson, and why it was important?

All questions too complicated for his teensy-tiny brain. If he were meant to know, he’d learn in due time. As he was, just looking over the swaths of notifications was enough to make him dizzy. But wait, there’s more!

Title: The One That Got Away

Requirements: Escape the embrace of the Night Mistress enough times to draw her ire.

+10 to each attribute

Skill Gained: Defy Death!

Always Watching!

First, the soul met the Night Mistress in another world, but before she could embrace that pitiful soul, another snatched it away from her. Second and third, fleeting things gone before she could even smile with warmth and bestow peace. Fourth, once again, the soul was snatched away. So close, yet so far, she awaits your inevitable descent into her clutches.

Though, seeing your will to live, she grants her blessing upon you for the simple price of your soul. With her blessing, she watches you closely, fondly envisioning the moments you both will rest eternally together. But for the remainder of your time roaming existence as a being of life, she wishes you to not meet your end so easily as so many sweet delicacies before you have. With the granted skill, she guarantees a day she will see you ripen so she may selfishly reap the rewards of your ever-fleeting warmth.

“That’s a whole basket of crazy. Yikes.”

Defy Death (Level X)

A unique blessing given to the few foolish enough to fight against the sweet embrace of a painless peace and solemn slumber.

If you would die, you’re instead restored to full health after a brief period of stasis.

Occurance rate: One time per month.

He wanted to hate it. Really. He did. He couldn’t. The stalker vibe the Night Mistress gave him didn’t matter in comparison to a full restoration trump card he could use once a month. The two just weren’t comparable. Even if it had been a one time use ability or reset once a year, he couldn’t see the skill as being anything less than the insanity that it was.

In comparison, what he worked so hard to get with the ancient Tobias in the way of Fighting Spirit almost seemed inconsequential in hindsight. But without trying to train to receive it, Tobias wouldn’t have pushed so hard and ended up sending him into the Night Mistress’ embrace. And as the notification so helpfully provided, he’d become somewhat of a bittersweet temptation to the scion of Death.

But the skill…

All worth. Water under the bridge. If he ever saw Tobias, Vander would only punch him one… in the face… with a hammer. Just once. Maybe… twice. From how the two of them acted, he doubted he’d think about them for a long time once he left out of the class assessment. And good riddance too.

Tobias, at least. If the Spirit Calling Elixir hadn’t shown up on his list of removed debuffs, he’d probably curse Madeline’s ancient doppelganger too. But he couldn’t remember consuming any such thing, and the only one he’d ever known to handle alchemy in ways he couldn’t understand pointed to only one person. So she got a pass. Plus, the stuff she’d packed in the spatial bag said a lot in comparison to Tobias. Just wire from the battle junkie.

Speaking of the battle junkie…

Fighting Spirit (Level 3)

The fundamental building block for training one’s Aura.

You wanna fight. If it’s in your way, fight! With quill or sword, the method of combat need not matter. If something stands in your way, crush its defiance into submission and blow away the dust. Fight! Even if the world stands against you, deny it. Fight! May it be mortal man, all-mighty deities, primordials, or other, fight! Let nothing bar your path forward. Fight! Stop at nothing to accomplish what you seek, fight! Negative thoughts and destructive feelings, fight! Be controlled by nothing but your own will, and manifest your will as your absolute path. Stop for nothing, don’t slow down, and become the juggernaut of inevitable change, a herald standing atop endless conflict.

In the face of overwhelming force, your blood Sings. The power of your Spirit manifests into reality. Let Nothingness consume all who stand in your way.

Killing Intent (Level 2)

The effects of this skill changed based on the target.

Weaponize your Aura and Speak.

“Is it just me, or are these things getting less helpful the more of them I collect?” Both abilities seemed esoteric. Neither clicked to him or made sense in the way that magic did. It didn’t quite make sense, and he didn’t know what to do with them or why they would be so important to Tobias. “Don’t need to know today. I’m sure I’ll figure it out one day.”

He already had enough things to figure out to use on his plate. Those two didn’t need to clog up more of his mental energy. Now that he’d gone through most, if not all, of what he’d been ignoring, he just sat on the edge of the bed. Remembering the magic circle Archmage Findelson had used his spell parchment for, Vander flipped his mattress and grabbed the scroll tied to the bottom of the bed with a piece of spare thread.

In the spatial bag it went. He flipped the bed back over and looked over his temporary home with crossed arms. He couldn’t lie, he’d miss the place, but he sure was happy to be getting out of there as fast as he could. Nothing out of place, he grabbed his sword from where he’d moved it, turned to the door, and pushed—thwack!