Victor once again woke up to a foot in the face this time waking up just as the swing came in. “Well, well just barely in time. A few more days of this and you’ll actually be up in time.” Forala walked away gathering Serena and some gear. "Come on we arrive late tonight.”

Cawthorn seemed to be scouting overhead. Victor panted in a dry sweat coming out of a strange dream. He couldn’t remember it but something in outer space with him flying around stuck in his mind. His hands felt like ice and his eyes felt like he’d seen something horrible almost burned into them, but he had no idea what. When he stood up, he wobbled like a newborn. Victor tried hard to recall but as he did his head began hurting. ‘It’s got to be Luzuzal. He did something to me while I was asleep.’ He put his hand on Swordie. “Swordie can you see my dreams?”

“No sir. I can’t. Why would you think I can?” Swordie asked.

“I just thought with your powers it might be possible,” Victor explained.

“Ah, your incompetence attributes magic above your level to omnipotence. Understood.” Swordie noted with a hint of superiority in his voice.

Victor took a deep exasperated breath and decided not to continue the conversation with Swordie and instead wanted to ask Jenora and Emilie a question that had been bugging him but declined instead thinking only of himself. ‘Should we remain at 4 party members or get a fifth?’ That is when Victor put his hand in his pocket and felt something. A small smooth stone he pulled it out. It is a rune on it a golden sun with a silver moon in the center of it, and at the center a four-pointed star. ‘What the hell is this?’ a message popped up on his delusion HUD.

If you want to see me, use this. I can no longer attend to you on Verdan without explicit reason. For a time.

‘Seriously what caused this? Did Gizixil go and stop him? Why would he even care? How do I even use this? Uhg this just raises further questions and there’s no way for me to get answers on it right now.’ Victor sighed and put it back in his pocket before stretching high. He heard his arms pop just a little. “Oh, that felt good.” He kept stretching for a minute before they started walking. “Forala, do you know how long it will take for her to wake up?”

“She’s fully health, probably full stamina as well. She’s probably unconscious from the trauma of that skill ending. It could be a few minutes from now or a few days.” Forala explained.

“That must be my fault.” Victor slumped his shoulders looking at her short, frazzled hair. “She would have been killed but that sucks that it hurt so badly. I ended it by conceding so I’m guessing that is the difference.”

“I still can’t believe he refused to fight me.” Forala looked down angrily shaking her head.

“He would have killed you.” Victor insisted.

“He didn’t kill you and I’m a far better fighter. I’d have killed that arrogant cultist and eaten his head.” Forala gruesomely continued describing. “His blood would have painted the ground for miles and given how poorly I noticed he handled aerial combat he wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

“I think without equipment you’d be dead. If you had Swordie or even just some strong armor, you might be able to, but his sword would have blasted you with red lightning. You aren’t fast enough to dodge it and that would knock you out of the air. If that battle taught me anything skill, level, and gear all of them matter immensely. Missing any one of them makes it far harder or impossible to win.” Victor sighed. “You and Serena are missing the gear required. I’m missing the skill. Without his skill, we’re all missing the levels. I’m weak enough to acknowledge it.”

Forala groaned. “I’m not saying equipment wouldn’t help. I’ve fought my whole life in many almost unwinnable battles and yet here I am. In a fair fight even with his weapon, I’d kill him.”

Emilie broke it up. “Alright, you two there’s no reason to speculate. I doubt we’ll see him again and if we do it will be a long time before we do. We’ll never know if she could have defeated that cultist so it’s not a big deal.”

Both of them agreed and Jenora added. “I envy your confidence Forala. If I had fought against him, I’d be dead now, Emilie too but she’d never be a great duelist, and she knows that.”

Emilie threw up her hands. “Well duh! I’m never going to be good at fighting duels! You’d be pretty good at it though Jenora. Why do you think you wouldn’t be?”

She sighed. “My first reaction in combat is to block anything. If I had blocked a blow from that cultist, I’d be in several pieces today. I can dodge some things but unfortunately, I have to think about it which slows me down. That works often. When it doesn’t work it’s already too late to evade. My arm broke back in the dungeon from successfully blocking a creature with too much strength for my armor and my body. What can I possibly do to know if blocking will work? If it doesn’t the consequence next time could be getting cut in half.”

“Swordie can you help?” Victor asked.

Victor opened Swordie who suddenly displayed hundreds of skills. “There are far too many skills that would help resolve this issue. You’ll have to be significantly more specific.”

Jenora perked up and leaned over Victor’s shoulder. “Well, the two main issues are knowing if a strike or spell can be blocked safely and in time to dodge and being able to do something about it if I knew since I’m slower in armor.”

Strike Strength Rank 1

Rarity: Common

Requirements: Fighter 1, Spend 1 stat point

Passive Skill

Indicates the strength of a strike by showing a color scale from green to red as soon as someone begins it. As rank increases improves the speed at which you identify the attack and the color scale.

Reinforcement Rank 1

Rarity: Common

Requirements: Fighter 1, Spend 3 stat points

Active skill

Stamina cost 2

Duration: 3 Seconds

Cooldown: 60 Seconds

Massively increases resistance to physical, elemental, and magical effects briefly.

“Those two skills are the most effective way to achieve that end for you Jenora. There are other spells which accomplish that as well but given your limited mana pool and lower flow it makes more sense to use those based on your current request.” Swordie informed her with as much precision as possible. “I am not surprised you didn’t know about strike strength; it is commonly taken but rarely discussed in this world. Reinforcement however is something that most shield users discuss taking at some point. Did you not have an instructor? Parents?”

Jenora jumped back from his shoulder. “Um, uh. Well, sort of.”

Emilie used one finger to close Swordie. “Leave her alone she doesn’t want to talk about her past.” She flicked Swordie‘s cover. “So don’t be a jerk.”

“A jerk? It was merely a simple inquiry.” Swordie noted.

Jenora avoiding the topic tried to end the conversation. “Thank you for the help. I’d probably never have figured that out on my own.”

“Anyway, something I had wanted to discuss. Should we recruit a fifth party member?” Victor turned quizzically to Forala.

Emilie immediately crossed her arms. “4 is fine! More loot, plenty of power, lots of skills to overcome problems.”

“Well, I meant we don’t have a fighter and as a mage, I’m anything but a traditional ranged mage,” Victor noted. “It was a big problem when I didn’t have fire spells earlier.”

“Wait so instead of a fighter which is the only thing we are missing you want to recruit another mage? That seems incredibly stupid in a group like ours.” Emilie shook her head. “We’d have to recruit a fighter. I mean think about it, we have 1 defensive holy warrior who can protect me and you who can kind of assist with your barrier, but it isn’t the same. Who’d protect a mage? Serena? That doesn’t seem reasonable.”

“Wait do mages need someone to protect them? I thought their barriers were strong enough to protect themselves.” Victor turned to Forala. “Am I wrong?”

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“Yes. Some mages can protect themselves, but the vast majority set their skills and stats to fire off spells at a distance and are often assigned direct protectors for the more powerful ones. That’s because many have fire bolts or balls capable of killing all targets at their level or below it in a single spell. They are much more effective at fighting lower-level creatures and wiping out massive areas with many targets than they are against enemies above them.” Forala pointed out putting her hand on his back. “Most mages specialize in area spells because governments tend to recruit them for armies. Any mage that does is guaranteed an income.”

Emilie put her arms behind her head stretching. “Yeah, the same is true for priests but almost none of them get past level 30. They just want you to be able to cast wide-area spells. They’ll actively protect you too. It’s why mages and especially priests are uncommon in the adventuring and artifact-hunting professions.”

Victor put his hand to his chin thinking. “I see, so if we wanted a mage, he’d have to be able to protect himself.”

Jenora turned to him with a bit of concern. “Well yes but it’s better to have more protectors than people in need of protection.”

“I guess that’s fair enough. I was just trying to fill our hole since we are bad at exploiting elemental weaknesses.” Victor noted.

“You can take those spells still. They won’t be maximum rank most likely but that doesn’t always matter. Many creatures have something happen when hit by a specific element. Water elementals for example become destabilized when hit by any lightning like your jolt spell. More powerful lightning spells completely dissipate them forcing them to reform much smaller but even the lesser effect is powerful.” Forala turned her head to Victor. “You might be responsible for all the elements. You could learn them at lower ranks through tomes or teachers.”

Victor opened Swordie. “What do I need to learn a new skill without stat points?”

“The rules for that are largely secret even from me. However, once it spreads and people become familiar with the method the secret tag is removed. This is one of the most common skills in existence that had a secret method to learn it and became well known.” Swordie brought up a skill.

Swim Rank 1

Rarity: Common

Requirements: Strength 3, Spend 1 point, or attempt to swim 5 times successfully swimming immediately bestows this skill.

Passive Skill

Stamina Cost: Variable based on speed

Allows you to proficiently swim.

“For the secret condition to be available for almost any skill at least 1,000,000 people need to acquire the skill through that method and for those to be alive in the world today. At least through me, even if an entire school knows how to learn fire bolt through a tome and passes it around that doesn’t matter if they don’t cross the threshold.” Swordie noted.

His eyes lit up. “Oh, wow does every skill and spell have a secret condition?”

“Not all skills but a huge number do. That is part of the reason a large number of mages seclude themselves in mage towers early in life.” Swordie noted. “You’d need to have spent 6 to 10 years there and would likely have learned a ton of spells giving you access to more stat points and utility magic.”

Serena stirred in Forala’s arms. “Not the person who I expected to be carrying me. I’m immeasurably disappointed. My day was ruined, and I just woke up.”

Forala giggled putting her down. “You can’t possibly expect that man to carry you. He’s adorable but not strong.”

Swordie added. “Quick, but definitely not quick-witted.”

Victor walked up to her. “I’m sorry! I thought we could get to town faster if she carried you. She’s the strongest member of the group by far so it wouldn’t slow us down!”

“I carried you to town even though Gargrim was stronger.” She pressed her tan finger into his shirt pouting.

“His arm was broken!” Victor protested trying ineffectively to defend himself. “And you are 3 or 4 times stronger than me.”

She immediately picked up. “Yup, and you weigh more than me.” She put him down. “Prove to me you can’t even pick me up.”

Emilie leaned on Jenora. “Oh, this is going to be good.”

Victor started turning red and leaned down to pick her up easily lifting her but definitely straining. She instructed. “Now walk.”

The group resumed walking while Emilie tried to contain her laughter but couldn’t stop snickering. “Jenora over or under on an hour before he has to put her down?”

“Oh, definitely under, I’ll bet you 5 gold on it.” Jenora reached out her hand to shake.

“Ooo I’ll absolutely take that. I think he’ll collapse before he ever sets her down.” Emilie shook her hand.

Victor cast Rigor's boost silently as he noticed his stamina slowly declining. “Sorry, you’re right it should have been me carrying you.”

“Oh no, you’re not wrong to have her do it. I’m just disappointed. I just wanted you to carry me.” She wrapped her arms around his chest.

Victor tried to contain a chuckle. “Well, if you ask for it I can.”

“That’s why I asked.” She climbed down.

“Aw! Bet is off she got down on her own.” Jenora looked at Emilie.

“Yeah, that’s fair.” Emilie sighed.

“What happened after I passed out? The last thing I remember was a blast of lightning hit his head.” She noted.

Victor took a breath ready to explain. “After I attacked him, he was enraged, and I dueled him. Our duel shook the country with massive blasts visible for miles. I couldn’t tell if I was about to win or die but Void Lord Gizixil showed up ending our duel. Zolvorn decided not to kill us and Gizixil told him to get back to work killing Lightbringer Luke. We then ran into Lightbringer Luke he was on a griffin. That’s probably why they didn’t catch him on the road. He gave me this token and he learned I have the angelic knight title from Swordie.”

“Swordie is an angel? You didn’t win either?” Serena seemed a bit overwhelmed tilting her head back and widening her eyes.

Swordie noted. “For mortal purposes yes I am an angel.”

“He also said you got closer to killing him than I did. If you had better gear you’d probably have won.” Victor noted.

“I had him dead in front of me. He was beaten. If I was just a tiny bit cleaner in my movement he’d be dead. My arms locked up as soon as double dash ended and I couldn’t finish the job.” He held up her hands and gripped tightly forming furious fists. “I need more skill, just a little more.”

Victor put his hand on her shoulder. “No, you don’t. If you had a weapon like Swordie he’d have died faster than he could blink.”

“I have to focus on what I can change. I can’t just stumble upon a legendary or divine rank item like you can.” Serena nodded focused on the road ahead.

“That’s why I wanted to start an Artifact Hunter guild.” Victor held out his hands sure of his plan.

Serena groaned. “That again? I agree Forala would make a good guild leader but the premise for doing it doesn’t make sense. How can you justify keeping the artifacts since only one person gets the artifact?”

“I had a great idea. We charge minimal dues of 5% or 10% whatever the minimum amount is needed to start out, the premise is you do an adventurers guild quest then we buy information using that gold. Every second mission is an artifact hunting mission and the artifacts we find get vaulted.” Victor smiled.

“Well that seems pointless why not sell them, everyone makes gold then.” Emilie rolled her eyes at him.

“When you deposit an artifact your group gains Artifact Points equal to the equivalent stat points of that rank. Those points get divided amongst the group. The Artifact costs exactly the number of points that it paid out when it was put in.” Victor lit up happily explaining how it would work.

“Ok but what if two people want the same item?” Serena seemed skeptical.

“We make the points a starting point at an auction.” Victor smiled with his hands on his hips.

Emilie shrugged. “Yeah but there are a bunch of artifacts that are definitely not worth that much, they would give points out but never be resold.”

“Every year at the end of the year we halve the cost of items that have been there a year or more.” Victor quickly spat out.

“Ok but where do you store that? It’s not like Forala could stop a squad of high-level individuals from robbing us stealthily or otherwise.” Serena seemed skeptical.

Forala in her adult form gripped the tiny Serena’s shoulder. “I could stop them, or I’d die trying.”

Serena clearly intimidated looked up at her. “I want to be as confident as you. Please teach me.”

“It’s simple. Do it or die. If you decide the outcome before you start, there is no alternative either confidence or death will follow. I’m still here, you will be too.” Forala patted her shoulder with a beaming smile. “Be confident Victor may be inexperienced and somewhat foolish, but you aren’t. You’re right you can refine your movements slightly, but your main weakness is that you lack the levels and equipment to accomplish what you know needs to be done. Be confident and never back down.” Forala gave her a reassuring nod.

“Aren’t you petrified? Like absolutely terrified by what could happen?” Serena pressed.

“No, because only one thing will ever happen. I don’t always know what it is but only one reality exists at a time. We live in it. In action, we sculpt the world we live in. Inaction lets others sculpt the world we live in. I know which of the two I’d rather live in.” Forala gave her a knowing smile.

Victor sighed knowing he had to return to the point. “I have confidence in you Serena. Alright, I will concede I don’t know where to store it.”

Forala smiled as the town came into view and the sun started to dip lower. “I’m starting to like the basic rules you’ve set up. Be confident. Find a way.”