Having reached the town in one piece they seemed to still be in shock as they stared at the massive walls of the city. The guards at the entrance checked their guild cards for a moment before letting them in.

That reminded them, however, of the guild when all she wanted was to go to her bed and sleep for a week.

Melissa didn't have the patience to deal with them as soon as they returned. Unfortunately, with one of their party members missing that was impossible to avoid. Best to rip the bandage off in one go...

Cassandra had even less patience than her and seemed ready to beat someone up. Possibly the clerk if he asked another question regarding their trip to the forest. For both of their sakes she hoped he didn't. Then there was the oath...

"Why do you want me to swear an oath for this? Isn't it enough that you got our testimony!" Cassandra said, heat entering her voice. If she had been the mage, Melissa would have been scared of the place burning down.

She put her arm on Cassandra's shoulder, "He's a simple clerk, I can't imagine us yelling at the poor guy is going to change anything." Thankfully after that she calmed down, though she didn't like that look in her eyes.

"Of course, have to complain to the guild master to get anything done these days..." she murmured before Melissa stopped her again. "It's not the first time an adventurer has died in the forest, and I doubt they will be asking for a permanent soul oath. Heck, I doubt it was the first death this week alone. Let's just get this over with."

She was tired but this was something they had to get over with if they wanted to continue being part of the guild. Getting kicked out would make them lose more than just a stable income. The guild card was a valuable identification, not to mention after silver they could just skip the waiting lines in the front of any city they decided to visit. Aside from that, they would also lose out on guild missions and resources no one else offered at their level.

Seeing the lack of energy in her tone she didn't argue, though she didn't seem pleased about this either. Nevertheless, she could handle an annoyed Cassandra.

After Melissa took over, the process went much faster, though she had a sneaking suspicion that the clerk was putting in some real effort to speed up the process. Cassandra tried to argue a few times during the whole process, but she didn't let her speak.

Finally after about ten minutes of waiting, the clerk handed them two pieces of paper and explained, "This is a temporary oath, and will last until you exit the building or sundown, whichever comes first. This section here," the clerk said, pointing to the bottom of the page, "is where you have to put a drop of blood."

Taking a pause to see how they took it, he continued, "The contents of the oath are very simple and limited in scope, both to reduce the cost of the oath as well as the burden. You swear to say the truth, you swear that what you have said was true, and you swear not to lie by omission. The subject of the questioning is the adventurer Loris, a high Bronze warrior, and nothing else. Should you have some very important secret you want to hide that is pertinent to the subject at hand, you may explicitly state as such, though that will require a more strict soul oath to ensure you are innocent. Do note that you will have to bear half of the cost of the new oath should you choose to go with that."

Cassandra groaned but didn't comment. As for Melissa, she was simply glad to be proven right with the oaths. If they truly demanded a permanent soul oath, there was no way anyone would have agreed to them. For starters, no one liked to have a collar on their neck, let alone one without a key. Soul oaths also never had a good reputation even before the mad rebellion.

Before that incident, permanent soul oaths were commonly used on slaves and criminals, but when someone with enough time and resources on their hands got involved, it turned into one of the worst attacks in recent history. Thousands of slaves were driven insane through the use of soul oaths and then let out into the cities to kill and cause as much destruction as they could before their death.

Trying to reason with one of the slaves was impossible as many had attempted. At first everyone wanted to keep it under wraps, but it didn't take long for the incident to be heard throughout the empire, especially after the second city fell to them.

She remembered reading that by the time the second city fell no more than ten mad slaves remained. Ten slaves that started as normal humans, yet by the end of it no one could estimate their level. That of course caused another flood of problems.

Considering Cassandra's parents were one of the few people that lost everything in that disaster, it was painfully obvious why she disliked soul oaths, even temporary ones. Permanent soul oaths were made illegal and it was one of the main events in abolishing slavery.

They both signed the temporary oath and the clerk let out a sigh of relief, as they felt a small weight settle inside their chest. "I won't bother you for long, three questions and you can leave the building, ending the oath," the man said, though Cassandra's hands were still trembling.

She took her hands into her own, holding them tightly. Cassandra didn't look up but her hands stopped trembling as hard.

For how simple the procedure was, it was painful how easily it could ruin someone's life. The clerk didn't keep them for long. He asked them the relevant questions like he was reading from a manual, which had probably been the case until he learned it by heart.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Three minutes later they were out and the heaviness in their body disappeared like the wind.

"Well that sucked... wanna have a drink?" Cassandra asked her after they were a good way out of the building.

To which Melissa had only one thing to say. "If that isn't the understatement of the century... also you're paying."

Cassandra laughed, too pleased to disagree.

Meanwhile in the forest, Kiel and Edel found their way back to the river after which it was as simple as following one direction. Or at least it should have been. Instead they were being chased by around two dozen goblins, all of which seemed much too eager to see them dead.

They'd found the river just fine without many issues. The problem came when he realized much too late that he'd forgotten about the goblin camp. How late? On their doorstep late.

Neither of them entertained the idea of fighting the small horde of goblins chasing them. Frankly there were a lot more than two dozen, but the rest didn't have the stamina to keep up for more than a few minutes. Which meant that all the ones that were chasing them were strong enough to do so.

He wasn't worried at first, but when they didn't let up even after half an hour of running, that caused him a small amount of concern. While neither of them were running at their top speed, he was getting tired more quickly. He wasn't small for a cat back on Earth, but compared to Edel he needed to take twice as many steps to cover one of hers.

And of course, none of the goblins seemed ready for a break.

Desperate situations required desperate measures. His first issue was finding a quiet zone; his second was wondering what afterlife was like if he failed.

In that regard, he didn't remember where the quiet zone they were previously in was, but he had an idea where the first quiet zone he happened upon was, and they were getting closer to it. He still wasn't great at finding his way, but after living inside the forest for the past few days, he had gotten better.

He was still taken by surprise when they hit the quiet zone, however. Edel seemed ready to turn back and find another path to run from, but he yelled at her to follow him. It was high time he tested his level zero skill, and it didn't seem possible outside these zones where space was actively being torn apart. She hesitated for a second before following behind him.

The goblins in turn didn't hesitate entering the quiet zone. Well this should be fun if nothing else.

The worst case would have been if they camped right outside the zone and waited, though he didn't think they were capable of that in the first place.

He jumped on top of Edel, this next part was going to have to take some concentration and it would be best if he wasn't focused on running at the same time. Also less space to worry about protecting. He heard her whine about it, but considering she didn't throw him off he took it as acquiescence.

On the other hand the goblins didn't realize something was wrong until it was already too late.

One part of his brain was focused on calming the space around them, which was more taxing the stronger the currents were. Thankfully they were still not too far inside the zone, so he was able to accomplish this with relative ease.

And in turn there weren't many cracks in space. Didn't take long for one to pop right in front of the goblins though. Feeling the shattered space with his affinity he put all of his will into tearing it even further and away from them.

He remembered how the previous time he'd done that he took down three entire trees, none of which were exactly next to each other. This time, however, the tear in space wasn't nearly as large.

Not that it mattered too much. The tear took half the heads and bodies of around seven goblins, though it was hard to tell with the body parts mixing together.

In his focus to create the Spatial Rend, however, he'd relaxed his hold on the space around them and a small tear cut Edel's back leg. Thankfully, he managed to close the tear before it caused any permanent damage, but it still pained him to see her hurt, even more so because it was his fault.

That wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back, however. No... that was when one of the goblin warriors threw its wooden spear at him and to protect him, Edel took the blow with her own body, turning so that the spear hit her instead of him.

He wasn't sure what came over him, but he saw RED. This time he didn't bother waiting for a crack near them, he tore space where he saw it was the weakest, and it felt easy. Without realizing it, he drained his ether completely and then some, burning everything he had and expanding that crack to the point where he wasn't sure if that was fixable any more.

The goblins didn't so much get cut by the tear in space as they were erased from existence. The tear in space was jagged, running for the length of dozens of meters after tearing through the goblins.

Before the tear started to close, however, something lazily poked from behind the void. In that instant the ether went crazy, entering the tear in space in vastly greater quantities as it started closing at a greater speed.

The intruding creature didn't seem to mind, however, and the one squid-like tentacle that poked out was cut from whatever eldritch horror it came from as the creature didn't even attempt to retract it.

Looking at the still moving tentacle made his eyes hurt almost as bad as the splitting headache he got himself as a parting gift. As for the tentacle, it was like it didn't follow the same rules of geometry as they did. Looking at it from one side revealed more sides that shouldn't be possible in a three dimensional space.

Eventually he felt like he was standing upside down staring at it when he completed a full circle and it was still changing. Though thankfully it was no longer moving.

The system had been strangely quiet until that moment when two notifications popped up in front of him. One had been about a level up, while the other was...

Warning! You have used converted essence to cast a spell. You have lost two levels.

You have used converted essence to cast a spell! Title gained; Ritualist.

Name - Kiel

Level - 11*

Titles - Traveler, Indomitable, Ritualist

Body - 15

Mind - 18

Spirit - 26

Skills - Body Adaptation (Lvl 10) [Max], Climbing (Lvl 5), Ether Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Affinity Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Manipulation (Lvl 4), Spatial Rend (Lvl 2), Spatial Shift (Lvl 3)

Looking at his status, he could see a warning when he focused on his level, one telling him to avoid gaining any experience for an undetermined period of time. It didn't explain why, it didn't explain how long, it just warned him not to every time he checked his level.

Then there was his new title. True casting would apparently now be ten percent less expensive and less likely to tear his soul apart.

Well, if the warnings didn't do it for him, this certainly did.