1

For the past week, Cloudburn underwent reconstruction, completing the district at the former border’s entrance. The vault was restored to its prior appearance with the clerk lady now head of all operations at the table. The refinery continues its normal business despite the mess from the floors below. The hallway was immediately cleaned after the group departed the scene, and the stairway was not really for public access, leaving the arena, etc, discarded and hidden.

Kilian and Selina stationed themselves at the vault to count the number of safes of the deceased and cleanse the entire section of lockers. Calculating all the deceased valuables added up to near the original amount of 158,720 gold. Thankfully due to the ones that survived or off-duty during the encounter. All took a different approach to the situations unfolding, most easily agreeing to join the Hong An leaving few in trouble. Few within have higher needs to agree to the deal. Bothersome for Fredrich especially as he is still handling the recruits. Kilian handled all the matters behind closed doors, never revealing to the public, but he did them seriously. They were shaken and their stoic toughness went to depression and hopelessness that never have felt before. Selina noted one on her patient report with a couple of lines of mental and psychological impact.

The last few days of the week are all typical, tedious paperwork and reading all the documents to form a permissible intel. Kilian, Selina, and Roland used the Chairman’s office as a temporary meeting and unofficial establishment of The Hong An Communications Branch stationed in Cloudburn. Cloudburn’s government shares partially between the Town Square and the Cloudburn Refinery have all been redirected to the Cloudburn Vault Center. Technically with nothing left to do in terms of now having all the gold funds, the chairman prior to Hong An’s arrival, agreed to continue supporting them. Kilian would appoint him as Governor of Cloudburn with the deal under his protection.

To their delight by the end of the week, they got a notification popped in their OLRS. Dropping the facade and the papers down on their tables, gather on the sofa.

“You’ll guys take care. I finished my shift,” The Governor said, grabbing his coat, and heading up to the elevator leading to his penthouse.

“Get some rest Kelzic, you overworked this past week,” Killian exchanged farewells. “Ok, here we go, time to see what update it provides.” Their interest in level 2 perks hasn’t ever been anticipated due to the one line mentioning dungeon maps.

||+911 XP|| - Kilian

||+760 XP|| - Selina

||+1240 XP|| - Roland

||Level 2 unlocked.

Proceed? <-||

||Clicked||

|| [Updating OLRS V.1 -> V.2][||| ]

Adding Catalog…

Adding Dungeon Map… -> Overlay option included

Virtual interface constructed

Beginning Parietal Implants -> [ ]

Beginning Limbic Implants -> [ ]

Beginning Frontal Implants -> [ ]

Beginning Occipital Implants -> [ ]

Beginning Temporal Implants -> [ ]||

The torment abruptly grips their three, each incapacitated one by one as the feeling of burn runs through their brains. Kilian rams himself through the table, shattering entirely of glass. Rolls over sporadically amongst the carpet and the wooden floor. Wheels rolling the surface of his scalp, needles piercing his entire head. It is so painful that he can’t vocally scream. Roller coaster around the office before returning to the sofa.

The vision was clear as day, witnessing Roland repetitively banging one of his fists to the floor, bruising and darkening his hand. Swelling his hand like a tennis ball, eventually burst blood across the floor like a canvas filled with buckets worth of red paint. He wanted to puke blood from his mouth too. Luckily it didn’t bulge and the proximal side of his right palm is toasted. Thin as paper leaving an opening inside, exposing the bone and tissues. Is that his nerves, my gosh. That’s just creepy and disgusting. Kilian tightens his jaws as he looks at his hand.

By luck his body reacted on time, clotting his veins and arteries in his palms, stopping the dump. Selina’s casting magic saved her big time on the enduring pain, enabling her to regain motion first and stabilize herself more effectively, leaning on the sofa. Her tight grip on the sofa was a feat, unintentionally it ruined the whole sofa, now that the surface is torn off. Her other hand on the left side of her face, isn’t willing to let it go. She did once but the throbbing came back. Attempting to stand up, her legs throttle vibrantly. She summoned a cane, stopping the tremors. Feeling fair and standing in front of the two alarmed, seeing an entire puddle and trails of blood next to Roland. Attempting herself to quickly follow the source of the blood. Now the whole carpet and rug are stained, unsure if it’s cleanable. The whole carpet and rug might be damaged too far gone. She thought of walking to Roland, finding the source of the wound. Her legs felt stiff but she went along anyway, kneeling herself down.

“Gah!” she yelped, letting her left hand go. She heard a slight sizzling sound reminding the kitchen of heating the oily food through the pain. The pinching feeling lingers on her palm momentarily till it subsides. Placing her cane on the wooden part of the floor, she progressively casts healing as she regains her strength while observing and stitching Roland’s palm.

||Beginning Parietal Implants -> [|||||||||]V

Beginning Limbic Implants -> [|||||||||]V

Beginning Frontal Implants -> [|||||||||]V

Beginning Occipital Implants -> [|||||||||]V

Beginning Temporal Implants -> [|||||||||]V

[Updating OLRS V.1 -> V.2][|||||||||]V

Update completed||

||Party Feature established

Inventory added

Turn on Number Stats for Infobox? Yes No <- ||

Kilian lay for a moment, removing both of his hands away from his face. Worst torture ever. To his unknown, he too heard a sizzling noise. Selina turns to Kilian, both baffled when they give each other a brief look. “What happened to a part of your face?” He asked while lifting himself up slowly from the floor, feeling heavy from the head down.

“Same with you…wait what do I like?”

Kilian finds a large shard, facing the flat surface in front of Selina, visualizing a reflection of her. “No! Ah. What a bummer!” She woefully yelled simultaneously lowering her voice towards the last bit. “Hold that shard,” she added, carefully stopping midway of stitching Roland’s hand. She gently grabbed the shard from Kilian’s grip, showing his reflection.

“My god…burns all over my cheekbones.” He lightly rubs both of his facial cheeks, only to hear a reminiscence of concrete scraping. Mostly quiet but faint enough to hear. Slight goosebumps on his arm while rubbing his face. “It looks like I’ve fallen face flat down onto the pavement and been dragged.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Are you not concerned about it?” Selina asked, dropping the shard to the floor.

“It’s not me that’s the problem. The problem is the reaction from others that stare at my face…I guess I cared too much about it,” Kilian said.

Selina resumed stitching up the last half of Roland’s hand. “I don’t mind now that I have it. At least I’m not the only one, so I’m relieved. We might need to check if we can heal some of it or a little if possible.”

“It can’t. It did warn us of the side effects, mentioning facial scars and burns. This seems to be it,” Kilian said, pointing at the few scars on one side of his face. “It’s been weeks since we got a surprise from the hooded figure. Blowing powdery dust at the three of us, turning to this.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Naming a few, the visuals and the system taking us on a journey, having some predictions of its own, and the measurement using numbers of our surroundings. It makes me curious about what the end result will be. Would my memories be recovered? Can we all be at peace at the end? There are just so many questions about the benefits it provides us. Speaking of the update is finished when we are having an episode.” Kilian sat himself down on the long sofa, next to where Selina sat earlier.

“At the end of the day, we did succeed more and trained ourselves better. It’s just the beginning so don’t doubt anything now if you have any.”

“I’m not doubting, just curious that’s all,” Kilian answered, reviewing the new update.

||Inventory <-||

They never mentioned this before the update. Kilian clicked it, opening a blank popup. Down below the popup in parentheses, reveals the total limit.

||(0/1500)||

“We got our own personal inventory now,” Kilian blurted.

“You know I already have one with my capabilities.”

“Then you are gonna have more. Our OLRS well for me allows up to fifteen hundred items.”

“I’ll be damned,” Selina murmured, putting a droplet of white water into Roland’s hand, then stitching up the last opening. She lifted herself from the floor with Kilian putting her cane straight up, for her to brace on. “I’m fine, thanks. Tremor is gone now.”

“Can’t be so sure, that time of pain felt centuries beyond what I’ve endured this past many weeks.”

“Aren’t we all? What else do we have?” Selina opens her OLRS.

“There’s a party option, basically team making.”

“How about the dungeon map?”

“I was about to get into that,” Kilian said, virtually swiping the visuals to the map. “Ain’t this just the normal map?”

“Top right. Your implants are not activated?”

“Heh, screw you. We're gonna look at the implants when we're done.”

Roland didn’t get up after Selina finished stitching him up. He passed out while sleeping, on the Blood dried rug, and snored loud enough at various points that interrupt the two’s investigation on V.2 OLRS.

Kilian and Selina clicked on the top right button of the map, triggering the map theme to change into a more mythological approach. The waters all waved up if anything beneath it caused currents, mainly at the gulf shores of Jinsu. Returning back to the Cloudburn area, there’s a highlighted number of ones nearby where they are currently at. True to the CEO’s words it hovers above the refinery. Unlike the other numbers on the map, the one is highlighted in blue, leaving others in gray. Blue as if completed. The general infobox pops up when directly hovering over the number long enough.

||The Suited Man and The Veschwarz

Location: Cloudburn Refinery.

Status: Completed

Mob count: 100+

Rewards: None

Dungeon Number: 1 ||

Ok fair enough. Selina's thought followed from reading the infobox. She then tried to hover over other numbers, only to her knowledge’s disappointment.

||[Dungeon ?? must be discovered to reveal the overall information box]||

“Well that makes the journey worth it, I guess,” Kilian noted. He took a glance at the whole Longhun continent map and then clicked on the legend key. Canceling all the icons and counting up the undiscovered dungeons. Revealing to be fifty.

“Now that we know the CEO is honest. Shall we move on?”

Moving on towards the Implants section, revealing a diagram of a color coded transparent brain.

||||Parietal Implants Level 1:

* Permanent Reaction time increase

* Multitasking

* Spiritual Sensitivity

Limbic Implants Level 1:

* Foundational Level of Photographic Memory

* Long Term Memory recollection

Frontal Implants Level 1:

* Short-Term Memory Processing Improvement

* Classifying Languages

* Dopamine Access

Occipital Implants Level 1:

* Visual Comprehension

* Rapid Environmental comprehension

* Enhanced Occipital Cortex

Temporal Implants Level 1:

* Auditory Fluency Level 1

* Vocal Recognition

* Language Auditory and Speech Maintenance.

||

“That’s a lot of perks. However, that could possibly mean multiple uncertainties can come our way.” Selina leans back on the sofa. “I’m tired from all of that. What a damn upgrade experience.”

Kilian stood from the sofa, stretching his arms and legs before heading to the mini-fridge located in the bar, a few footsteps from Kelzic’s desk. “Do you feel anything different after that?”

“How did you feel about it?”

“I can’t describe but the ecstasy I’ve gained instantly after the pain went away. Makes me wonder if I’m emotionally affected due to anything, would the same feeling be still there? That sounds bizarre putting it that way,” Kilian said one by one, squeezing a lime wedge into the highball glass and pouring an unbranded Tequila. “You want one?”

“What do you have?”

“Tequila Soda.”

“I’ll have one thanks.”

He grabbed another spare highball glass. After filling up both, he added Cola the following letting it blend in. Upon realizing the table is all shattered, he brings the drinks to the meeting table. Selina, now too lazy to get off the couch, prompts Kilian to bring it to the couch. As they took a sip, Roland coincidentally woke up.

Roland’s eyes opened and upon seeing the glass shards still lying on the floor, he summoned his grimoire, incinerating them all. Rolling himself away from the rug, he leaped up on his feet, only to witness his blood stains. “Was that all mine?” He worrisomely asked. Selina and Kilian nodded in response.

“On the proximal side of your hand, it’s now stitched. Your body reacts very quickly to clot the hemorrhage, effectively closing your veins and arteries. I didn’t do anything much other than give you a droplet into the site to reduce the healing time while closing the last part of your proximal.”

“That’s a relief, but what is Kelzic gonna say when he sees this?” Roland grew concerned over a white rug. Not minding about the table he slammed himself on.

“Getting it replaced,” She replied, drinking the Tequila Cola. “Get some break on the sofa. You want a drink?”

“No thanks, I’ll just get water,” Roland said, walking to the bar. “Did you guys see the update?”

“We already did. You are the only one absent.”

Darn it. Roland silently reacted. Only to miss out on the fun of reading the updates that he was anticipating to do with them. Kilian offered dinner at some place in Town Square to lighten up the mood. They all can’t get drunk, so one highball glass is nothing other than ingesting water. The ecstasy kicking in his mind, he wants to get food now as the sun sets on the horizon. “I’m tired of sitting in here for a week. Let’s get some high-end food around here and hopefully back on the field soon.” He gave one shallow yawn, putting away the highball glass in the bar sink. All three exited the office through the elevator, starving.