In terms of Power Tokens, we had a lot of Power Tokens.

Sixty, before Percius grew sick of the taste of mana potions. There would be more to come, but with the stash of loot still waiting to be sharded and the process not being an exact science, we didn’t know exactly how many we’d even up with in total.

Now that we had found a source of power, the question then became one of how we intended to distribute it.

I had suggested four each—something Ren had scowled at me for. While she wasn’t going to say out loud that we two should get thirty each, I could read that intention from her. We were already powerful, though. After a little bickering back and forth, I grew tired of the discussion and made an executive decision.

Twenty tokens per group to distribute amongst themselves as they saw fit.

Everyone either thought this was a great idea, or could see that I’d be annoyed with any further arguing over the matter. Not that I had been anything but affable… but they had seen me fight, even if only briefly. With plenty of magical items still to unbox, I intended to get Percius alone later and take all the tokens for myself. Well, for my Party, at the least.

Thus, with dusk taking us away from the monster grinding and toward a small town, I walked with our group to decide who would get the curent load of tokens. Four each was my suggestion still.

“We have already decided,” Tanya was quick to inform me. “You and Ren are getting ten each. No complaints or debate to be had.”

I opened my mouth to complain and debate, but she had me there. Sixty had felt like a lot at first, but now distilled down, it only meant one skill upgrade for myself and Ren. Or I could dabble with pumping up ten of my passives… but I knew the real money ticket was improving my core rotation.

Humming to myself, I divided up the tokens as we walked. My mind was already elsewhere, imagining ways in which we could get magical items in bulk to fabricate into further Power Tokens. If only we had met the spellcaster weeks ago, we would have burned the candle to the end to drown in the upgrading stones. Every second was precious now.

“I didn’t even know there was enchanting,” Ren said idly.

Tanya raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look all that shocked. “Really? There was a tutorial back in the first area, but it doesn’t surprise me you missed it.”

“It’s one of the five key gear advancement mechanics,” Quinn informed us. “Enchanting, Gemming, Proficiency, Reinforcement, and Preference.”

I exchanged a glance with Ren, and she picked up the slack to allow me to avoid looking silly. Sillier than normal.

“We’ve seen gems before,” the elf nodded sagely. “Fuck knows about the rest.”

Not quite the save I had been hoping for.

Tanya pulled a face. “You did none of those? Perhaps this is on me for assuming… but you’ve gone his far without at least Proficiency and Preference?”

“Perhaps it would be best,” I said, nodding slowly, “if you told us what they were so that we could pretend we’ve had them all along.”

“Preference is just something that lets you get gear upgrades more often. It tailors your drops—even from boxes—to be more likely to be your stat choice, even if not always an upgrade.” Her face continued to contort into a grimace. “I thought the gear mix we've had was just because of the Party dynamics… but you’ve been on full random loot all this time?”

“What’s Proficiency?” Ren asked, allowing me to ignore the pointed question leveled at me.

“Simply put,” Quinn replied, “you gain benefits based on certain gear designations. For example, my proficiency is in medium armor, and I get a bonus to evasion based defenses and damage using Dexterity based weapons.”

“I can turn into the demon king,” I murmured.

The fateweaver just shook her head and sighed. “It’s no wonder you’re so malady stricken, Max. Even if you’ve gotten decent equipment through brute forcing the drops, you’re missing out on a decent chunk of damage mitigation at the least.”

“Ah.” I grinned. “I just deal with that nowadays by avoiding getting hit at all.”

“How well is that working out?” she asked, a tired expression replacing the disdain.

“I’m still in one piece. So I’d say- ow.” I flinched away as Ren hit me in the side of the head.

“Shit, sorry, trickster.” The elf pulled me in closer to inspect the damage. “I thought you would use Last Act. Oh no. We aren’t on the same page anymore.” She squeezed me tighter. “I’m too young to get divorced. Tell me it’s not over, Max.”

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

Tanya sighed. “I think hell clearly affected your sanity. Keep moving now, children.”

Wolf looked up at her, almost as tired of our shenanigans. “I’m normal,” he stated.

While the fateweaver didn’t deny that, she gave him a silent pet on his shoulder before moving on. Our group had accepted it, but for us humans from contemporary Earth, having a talking bear on our side didn’t really come close to normal. It was just something we couldn’t really question, even after learning that we came from different worlds.

This was home for us now, for better or for worse.

Not that we even knew this world properly. I held Ren’s violent hand as we walked to catch the others up. Woodlands around us, a stone road leading us to the next town. We were in quarantine here. Left to struggle and squirm in a feature-absent sandbox while others hid behind a protective wall waiting for the Lady or whatever bug had infected the System to die off.

Part of me was mad that we hadn’t been contacted. Surely someone would know what we had been getting up to. The cure that they didn’t care to lend a helping hand toward. Nevermind dazzling them once all was said and done, I had a few stern words to pry their heads open with.

In truth, the hope was just that there would be a place for us all when this had settled. No need to bounce between high-stakes violent events. Just Ren and I and a cottage in the woods. Probably Wolf too, for as long as he could. Time to relax or pick up hobbies that weren’t about turning people into corpses.

I blinked away these thoughts and concentrated on our surroundings. Now, with the sun lowering in the sky, a lot of this path was shaded. Open fields would appear, dotted with farms or similar housing, or groups of monsters. It reminded me of a theme park ride I had gone on once. Thankfully, there was no singing.

“Getting closer to ambush o’clock, trickster.” She gave my hand a squeeze before letting go.

“I’m not so sure.” We had a knack for this by now, and I trusted her intuition completely, but it was too soon. “If they are near, then they’ll be waiting for when we are weaker to pounce.”

There had been plenty of people who had thought they could just run up and sucker punch us with only the element of surprise on their side. We’d even come close to losing such engagements. With our current standing, that wouldn’t be enough to best us. Some of the other Parties, sure, but ours was nigh unflappable.

My eyes went across the canopy. Of course, that didn’t stop people from trying to flap us.

“Dungeon tomorrow,” Tanya interrupted, unable to sense our foresight at work. “The lockout time works via unique Party compositions, so we’ll send in all three at once, then swap a person for the second go through. Rinse and repeat.”

“There will be enough combinations?”

“Yeah. I doubt we’ll be doing it hundreds of times, so it’ll be fine. To try to stabilize the time to complete, we’ll probably have you three as the leaders and people will rotate between you.”

Splitting up. I raised an eyebrow at the elf, who was doing the same already at me. I wondered which of the three groups our imagined stalker would deem the weakest. Then, could I fake a weaker Party and be a part of it to reverse the jump on them?

In fact, the process was so clear and rote in my mind it went past premonition and landed in the murky pool of fiction. I had erased it from possibility by living it out too realistically in my mind, and the System didn’t like repeating punchlines.

That, or my short return had mushed my brains up just that little more.

“Sounds good,” I eventually decided, realizing I had just been silently thinking for a while. “Chances of decent loot?”

“Middling,” she replied. “But with a disenchanter, everything works towards new Tokens now. Have you spent yours yet?”

I shook my head, as that seemed better than telling her I was distracted with fighting imaginary ambushers in my mind. They’d avoid my group, surely. Perhaps a quick area of effect nuke or assassination of one of the softer targets from afar. Nothing so overt as… oh, I was doing it again.

My eyes flicked through my screens, and I spent all ten tokens on my demonic ace. Now it could hold five items and even loot items into itself. It wasn’t the most dangerous or destructive power up, but it made the possibilities that more endless.

“Did you pick, Ren?” I asked her.

“Of course. Tell me yours first.”

I raised an eyebrow and shook my head slightly. “No, you first.”

Her bright blue eyes rolled. “I’m pretty sure you believe that our choices will be aligned in some manner, further proving we are soulmates or some other sap. Correct?”

“That’s right. But that’s what you think as well.”

The elf shot me a grin. “Naturally. My chained shot can also be certain debuffs now instead of just elemental damage.”

“And let me guess…” I grinned. “One of those effects is an attempted disarming shot?”

“That means you have something that can pluck the weapons out of the air?”

“My demonic ace can now.” I beamed at her, and she beamed right back at me.

The familiar gruff tone of Fiona grunted from a little way back. “You two are truly insufferable.”

“Insurmountable,” I corrected.

“Irreplaceable,” Ren cooed.

“Irritating,” Wolf grunted, shaking his head.

All of that and more. We were still riding the high of… everything, really. Living. Flourishing. It was only natural for us to be a little too much before we became grounded again.

Her skill really was useful, though. The System once again smoothing the process of us becoming the multi-tool required to dismantle every facet of the Crimson Shadow. I opened up my hand, and the ace was there in it, hovering over my palm.

I swung it out, watching it curve in a wide arc through the field beside us. Energy flowed down my arm as I manipulated my mana, empowering the demon. Our Guild watched as the dark rectangle burst through the bodies of five of the monsters in the field—bipedal creatures with fur and long beaks.

As they dropped over dead, my card spun back over to my hand, and I caught it.

Holding it out at arm’s length, the rest of the groups watched in awe as four clumps of bloody meat dropped out of the held card onto the road in a series of splats.

“Monster hearts,” I announced.

I received a single, pensive round of applause from someone at the back.

Some days, that was enough.

“Only four, trickster?” Ren tilted her head. “Did you forget how to count?”

“Oh.” I made the faux show of patting around my suit as if I had mislaid the last organ. “Ah, here it is. The first heart that I stole.”

I pointed right at her with my finger.

“Dickbag,” she said, but was unable to hide her smile. “I hope our ambushers target you first.”

Oops. She might not have realized she had just cursed me.

No... I cracked a wide smile. It was a blessing.