We lived. Were living.

Using the bear as a backrest, Ren and I sat next to each other on the ground and relaxed. Some odd nostalgia in the action, despite it only been a few weeks ago that this was commonplace. The warm fur of the bear was comforting - I hadn’t even seen when he had cleaned himself. But as he slept, all our worries washed away.

Tanya exited the cottage and sent Quinn in for his own turn in the bath. She stopped beside us and smiled, crossing her arms over the comfortable black clothes she had changed into. “It amuses me that you still choose to relax in your outfits.”

I glanced down at us to realize she was correct. “Old habits die hard,” I replied with a sheepish grin.

She brought her chair over a little closer and sat, deflating with a long sigh. Rubbing her eyes, she then looked out toward the woods. “Came across this place by accident. I think it was supposed to be the staging area for something, but haven’t seen it used. Monsters and the like stay clear. There’s nothing here for Players other than to be a place to rest.”

“I think it saved our lives,” Ren offered. “After what we’ve been through, this allows us to stay sane. And clean.”

“You’re telling me.” The weaver smiled. “Amenities are few and far between. After a month or two, I’d given up trying to shave or get my hair looking as good as it used to. I’m content feeling like a yeti.”

Ren wrinkled up her nose. “I lucked out there in a way. My ancestry doesn’t grow body hair.”

Tanya raised an eyebrow. “No beards either?”

The elf shook her head. “My aunt used to tell tale of a certain elven ancestry that grew hair all over, but I’m not sure if that was true.”

I nodded my head sagely, not really sure where my place in this conversation belonged.

“Are you sure Max isn’t an elf then, or has he found the secret to shaving here?” The twinkle in Tanya’s eye clued me in to it being a jab, but I took the bait anyway.

“Hey,” I furrowed my brow. “I’m starting to grow in a five o’clock shadow, you know. And the baby-faced look polls better for performances.”

“Baby face?” Ren snorted.

I deflated and allowed myself to be the target of their humor. We needed the levity. Not only to soothe our souls, but this was team bonding. It was also good for my ego to pretend that I was letting them prod fun at me.

“That aside,” Tanya said, a content sigh sinking from her. “Before we embarrass our starlet any further, I have loot to distribute if you’re both ready?”

We nodded eagerly, the results of our time spent in the Dungeon finally coming to fruition. In fact, I hadn’t even asked Ren what her level up had given her. We’d been enjoying the departure from the usual System rubbish.

“Here you are, Max. Everything is twenty-percent share, aside from equipment, which I’m giving to whoever could best use the upgrades.”

“Where were you when we started?” Ren murmured.

[4200 Gold]

[Power Token (12)]

[Health Potion (3)]

[Mana Potion (5)]

[Spellbound Belt] [+5 Int, +10% Mana]

[Boots of Intelligence] [+4 Int]

[Arcanist's Badge] [+3 Int, +10% Cast Speed]

[Ring of Choices] [For every 5 Int, +1 Luck]

I equipped the gear immediately, dropping some Dex and percentage damage for greater Int, as we had discussed. My eyes were wide, however, at the amount of Power Tokens we had accumulated throughout the Dungeon.

She caught the look on my face. “Usually you’d only do one Boss, so the numbers wouldn’t be that high. I also rounded the gold down a little - I hope you don’t mind if I start a shared ‘rainy day’ pool with the extra?”

I shook my head and glanced at Ren, who had no complaints either. So far, gold had seemed to be the most useless commodity we had been accumulating. Until we found a Sweet Cake vendor, anyway.

That aside, I now had more tokens than ever. I could upgrade a dozen of my baseline abilities… or upgrade something already advanced to the next level. That seemed like the smarter option, so I would probably-

“Hey, trickster.” Ren nudged me in the side with her elbow. “Can I give you a couple of my Tokens?”

“What?” I turned my eyes away from my STAR menus to frown at her. “Why? And no.”

She pouted. “You have better System bullshit. It’d be better for you to get those to Expert quicker.”

I shook my head. “I don’t like the pity when everything is shared equally. You deserve to power up from your fair share.”

“It’s not pity, it’s investing in our star attraction.”

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The sharpness in her blue eyes had me struggling to come up with further reasons why I shouldn’t give up and accept her offer. Loot distribution was something I was resolute about, and as keen as I was to be the spectacle and main performer of our troupe - I didn’t want special treatment for it.

“I’m in for that as well,” Tanya said. “I’m sure you’ll earn me back two Tokens in no time, Max.”

I turned to pull a face at her.

“Can't have two of mine,” Wolf murmured, apparently listening in despite his eyes being closed. "Used them all already."

I still had two that I had held back from previously that I had forgotten to tell them about. As much as I itched and squirmed, I felt as though this was a losing battle. “I already have two extra. You all really shouldn’t.”

Ren pressed up against me, unnecessarily close to my ear. “What if we have a say in what you pick?”

Tanya nodded. “Yes, that way it is more of an investment, something less of a gift. I do not know what skills you have, so I will defer to Ren on what… makes you tick.”

The weather hadn’t changed, but I was feeling a lot warmer all of a sudden. Perhaps being pinned between the elf and the bear while the weaver controlled the flow of discussion had me feeling a little out of place. I exhaled through my nose. “Fine, I relent to the democratic vote, I suppose.”

Back behind us, the cottage door opened.

“Quinn,” Tanya said immediately. “I have your dungeon rewards ready now. We are giving two Tokens to Max to-”

“Of course,” he paused his journey over to us to give a deep bow. “Max may have all of my-”

“Just two.” The weaver sighed and shook her head.

Seeing as the fixer had pledged to give his life up for me since I saved him - giving up all the worldly possessions he had just earned was not a big deal at all. I begrudgingly accepted the trades offered from each of them, and now sat twenty of the things. Able to advance two skills to the next level.

“What do you ask of me, then?” I raised an eyebrow at the elf.

She leaned closer and whispered in my ear.

“That’s…” I sighed. “That’s not one of my skills.”

With a brief grin, she moved away. “Well, I'm not sure I'd say that. How about your Inventory management bullshit? That and your magic cards are most important, and I assume you’ve already decided on that.”

Read me like a book as usual. “It was under consideration. I’m not sure how much faster I could even-”

“Do it. It is my choice.”

I held her gaze for a moment, wondering if there was an ulterior motive for wanting me to upgrade . Perhaps it was just the simple fact that it was one of my key features. Although not specifically what the System envisioned a Demonic Magician should be, it made sense that my Class was apparently Unique. It wasn’t even part of the skill as written, but an unintended bonus.

“Alright, a compelling enough argument. But I will repay you all in kind as soon as possible.”

[ is now Expert: Your Deception success chance increases greatly with both INT and DEX.]

Other than the addition of the word ‘greatly’ the description hadn’t changed from previous versions. Now it was called and the grayed out upgrade required something called a Power Sphere to get to this next level. I looked away from the screens to see that everyone had their eyes on me.

“Expecting a show? Don’t you have your own skills to pick?” I narrowed my eyes. It would be nice to have a little space to fully get into the new changes before being expected to put on a performance.

I repeated the same process, waving goodbye to the stack of Tokens as I upgraded my main card attack. now let me summon three active cards, with 10% more damage and 10% less mana cost per card. With the Legendary headband I had not replaced that turned mana spent into damage, and allowing me to empower my cards, this was just stacks of extra damage upon extra damage.

“It is done,” I announced. “Sixty tokens from that one dungeon, though?”

Tanya sighed and rolled her eyes. “Can never let sleeping dogs lie, can you? Fine, I put some of my own stash in the pile. Happy now?”

“No.” I grinned. “But thank you, you don’t have to explain why. I’m very perceptive.” My eyes turned to the elf, who was busy making her own skill choice. For example, I still remembered how Ren told me she had a demon-killing arrow, but didn’t use it against Rolo.

Part of me almost blurted that out - but I realized how much of an asshole that would make me sound, especially in front of everyone. If she had just frozen or didn’t get the chance, then it’d make her sound weak. It wasn’t that, though, I could tell. The truth would come out eventually. I was sure of it. When she was ready.

I was hungry for something more important, anyway. Power. Two Expert skills were nice, but I wanted to get my cannon and everything else to Advanced. I stood from my place of safety and comfort and stretched out.

“If we’re successful tonight, then I would like to farm out another Level and more Tokens tomorrow.”

Tanya nodded. “There are several decent spots locally with repeatable Quests. It would be smart to be as prepared as possible for cutting the core out of the Shadows in defeating Tyler and his ilk.”

“Being Level Fifteen before taking on the Lady would be nice too, although I’m not sure either of us has the patience for that.”

She gave me a shrug, knowing that these sorts of things couldn’t be planned to fine detail without more time and information.

Into my hand, an orange. I held it up in front of me and then lowered my hand, leaving the fruit to hang in the air, perfectly still. There was still a soft ache in my eyes from the process, but it was very almost a flawless act of my mind alone - the System menus barely illuminating my vision as I repeatedly pocketed and replaced the orange in the exact same position at an unnoticeable speed.

“Name a fruit,” I asked the weaver, as the others started to pay attention to the new bullshit I had been allowed.

“Apple.”

As soon as the word was uttered, the orange was replaced by an apple.

“Pear.”

Again, a near instantaneous switch.

“Tomato.”

My eyes narrowed and went up to her, the motionless pear wavering in the air slightly. I was all out of tomatoes, so instead, my cards burst out of my holster. A spray that condensed into a stream that enveloped the hanging fruit, spiraling around it constantly. I illuminated three of them purple, activating my skill, before switching which cards held the charge. Repeated the process, causing it to look like a spinning disco ball.

Faster. The lights flickered wildly. I was half dazzled myself, lost within the colors. Lightning arced around the ball of circling cards until my fingers snapped. All of them vanished, washed away in a brief bursts of ash to reveal the pear once more. Unceremoniously, it dropped down onto the grass.

“Oh,” Tanya said. “I was actually expecting a tomato. Way to subvert expectations.”

I grinned, and gestured the group to look to the side. “You’re just not looking hard enough.”

To my right, a good two dozen feet away, shorn branches and leaves lay strewn across the ground, as a formerly rough and wild bush was now carefully trimmed into a smooth rounded shape.