Since the majority of the votes said to do it from Voice’s POV, or try it, I did it for this chapter. Let me know what you guys think.

Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler :

Voice raised an army of undead, by creating a lich, and used them as a distraction to attack the castle. Voice got a really cool Mana Crystal, but didn’t manage to kill Evan the Slaver. Even though he sacrificed himself.

Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment!

Also 1.2, I updated the map on the cite. Map

This map is subject to change at any time. I’ll let you guys know what I did though. I positioned Rand a bit higher to accommodate the space that would logically be there.

The door to the pod opened. I laid down for a moment, starring at the ceiling. It seems like every time I fight an enemy that has any modicum of power, I end up dying. That’s fine, at least it didn’t say I failed the quest.

…

Come to think of it, it didn’t say I completed it either. “UGH! And what was with that damn red blur anyway? If that bitch stole my mother fucking quest!! I’m going to kill the FUCKER!”

I was venting a little bit, but to be fair a lot of crap has been happening. I got out of the pod, and went to the kitchen. It occurred to me that I had developed a sort of schedule. I would get a quest, train, die, then eat and shower in the real world.

“Eh, whatever. I’m hungry.” After grabbing a bite to eat, I went for a jog. The jog lasted about half an hour. What can I say, I’m that athletic.

When I got home there wasn’t anything to do. I took a shower, and decided to call up one of the girls I used to ‘date’. She went by Cleo, I don’t know why. She wasn’t even that into cultural stuff.

She answered pretty quickly. I asked her if she wanted to have a meal together, to catch up and what not. She was only hesitant for about a quarter of a second. She replied with a booming yes.

I had invited her to a semi-nice restaurant. I was going to pay, but I was not about to spend a lot. I got dressed in a sort of fashionably casual look. A polo and slacks. I saw her as soon as I got there.

She was a girl of medium height, with a fit build and lightly tanned skin. She had beach blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. Most guys would say she was a ten, but I don’t really care about appearances. If you can’t keep me intrigued you are worthless.

She was wearing a long red dress. It was pretty close to a summer dress, with a thinner skirt at the bottom. She was wearing matching heels, and had white crystal studs in her ears. At one point, I may have given her the impression that this was my favorite outfit she owned.

A smile leapt to my face. This was going to be easier than I thought. I took my seat across the table from her.

“Hey, miss me?” I casually said, as I sat down.

She tried to hide the fact that she blushed slightly. “Not as much as I bet you missed me.” She returned my smile. I sent a quick glance to her hands. She would always put her left hand on her left thigh whenever she was nervous. Her hand was in fact below the table.

“You’re right. I wish we could have spent more time as friends after the break up.” I didn’t really remember what I had made up about the break up, but it had something to do with me spending too much time on other things. I convinced her that she would be happier if someone else paid more attention to her.

She looked down. She mumbled something that might have been along the lines of ‘I didn’t want to break up’.

A waiter came and gave me a menu. She had already placed her order. I knew what it was before it even came to the table. During the three weeks we dated, I took her to this place twice. She ordered the same thing both times.

I ordered a steak and salad. I began to ask her how she had been since we separated. I nodded my head, and sort of zoned out. Of course I made it seem like I was paying attention. Pro tip* Regurgitating parts of the info you get from someone makes it seem like you were paying attention. Also make sure to occasionally ask questions. It doesn’t seem like you care if you don’t ask questions.

Anyway, my food arrived at the same time as hers. She had ordered a salad, and grilled chicken breast. It actually was really appetizing, despite the bland aura it gave off. I made sure to talk about her the entire time. Showing just enough interest to make her want to keep letting me back into her life. I made sure to keep the ‘date’ just slightly over the familiarity line of what would be considered as friends.

After the meal was done, she asked if she could text me. She said, “I don’t even really know why we broke up, we fit so well. Whenever I thought about dating other guys, they just never measured up to you.” She gave me a meaningful look, towards my… you know.

Which was weird. I make sure to never have any sort of sexual contact with these girls. I’d hate to be forcibly tied down. Condoms are only 99% effective. I mean, I could do other things, but it was all too much work. I would only do that with someone I could stand to spend more than a couple of months with.

I frowned, “I… uh… I didn’t mean for this to be that sort of date.” I looked bashfully at the ground. “I’m, I’m kind of seeing someone right now.” I glanced up with my most apologetic smile. “I just really wanted to re-connect with you.”

Her eyes darted to the door, another habit she had. She was embarrassed. If it was fight or flight, she always chose flight. “Oh.” She said that one word. A few heartbeats later, “We should still text though.”

I had just wanted a nice day out, to relieve some of my stress. I didn’t actually think she would still be THAT attached to me. Sheesh.

I promised to text her when I got the time. Why not? It might be entertaining if she tries to pursue something after I told her no.

I walked her home, and gently kissed her on the cheek when I left. Gotta keep up the possibility that I might to keep this up for a while.

By the time I walked home, I noticed she had already texted me twice. I sent her a reply saying ‘Sorry I can’t text right now. I promised a friend to play DIVE with him.’ Since I was my only friend, it wasn’t really a lie. Sigh, I wish someone else was as clever as I am.

I still had a few hours until I could log back in, so I lazily browsed through the internet. DIVE was apparently getting really popular in other countries. One of the biggest things was that someone realized the translation abilities the DIVE pods had. They would translate the language you spoke into a form of data. That data was translated to directly be understood by you mind. As long as you were the same race that is.

I could think of quite a few things that could be done with that. Big businesses could have their CEOs talk to each other, without the need of someone translating. Kelsey had already said they could talk privately, but that was beyond what anyone thought.

A day after that announcement, many big name CEOs bought a pod for each of the executive members of their companies.

There was also a few instances where DI had donated specially designed helmets to hospitals. The helmets worked like the pods, but didn’t have all of the capabilities. You could only get the general sensation of feeling, but it was still really helpful to those in conditions that made them hate life.

People that couldn’t walk, could be given legs in DIVE. Depending on the case, even those that were blind or deaf could get those experiences. Sometimes it didn’t work though. I thought it was because something was wrong with their brains, but I’m not a doctor or anything.

There was even test to bring a coma patient into a full DIVE. With the consent of the family, DI had made a special pod, and tested it out on the coma patient. The tests were ongoing.

I thought it was a waste to send tech to hospitals, but it was really good for publicity. I wouldn’t have given away free products though. Plus since I couldn’t make a multitrillion dollar company, I didn’t have any right to say what they did with their products.

I got bored, after browsing the web for a couple of hours. I decided to turn on the TV. Sometimes there was an interesting show on. I was flipping through channels, when something caught my eye.

On one of the gaming channels was a show called ‘The Affairs of Solun’. It wasn’t rare for shows to have a segment on a popular game, but to have an entire show? That was new to say the least. My money was on the show failing after two weeks.

The thirty minute show had four segments. Each segment was five minutes, leaving ten minutes for commercials. The first segment was centered around whatever was the most outstanding news in DIVE at that moment.

The second segment was called ‘Newbies Network’. It apparently showed newbs how to do basic things. It started like a children’s show. The host had a ‘Today’s Topic’ sign. Incidentally, I learned that fishing in the game, was similar to real life. Only the type of bait, and use of magic, were different.

The third segment was called “Compare and Conquer’. The four people on this part of the show talked about different things, like which types of magic trumped the others, or the best place near big cities to train in swords mastery, or the best items to buy and sale if you were a merchant.

The fourth segment had two people commenting on player videos. The player had to agree to have the video uploaded, but then the commenters took over. It was kind of like watching a sports commentary.

After watching the show, I couldn’t find anything else on. I went to my bedroom, and grabbed a Sudoku book. Sudoku is a great way to strain the mind. It forces you to think both rationally, and intuitively.

After solving a couple of puzzles, I had about six hours before being able to log back in. I looked at my texts, just to see if Mom had sent me anything. Cleo had apparently ordered a Dive pod. It was a little creepy, but I decided to let it go.

Getting stalked a little could be fun. I’d just have to make sure she doesn’t take it too far. I told her that my starting city was Rand. She instantly sent a message back. I ‘forgot’ to mention my username when she asked. I really didn’t remember her being this clingy before.

I also sent Rachel(bit-bee) a text. I asked her how to invite others into my white space, and how you could transfer DI bills. I mean if I have a huge ass mall, I might as well make some money from it.

I could improve the mall with the money, and make a shopping city. With all of the DI bills I’d be raking in, there would be no need for me to upload videos. Unless I just wanted to.

I hopped back into my pod. I had a little over 5 and half hours before I could log into DIVE, so I wanted to beef up my city more.

I had gained quite a bit of money, which was pretty surprising. I decided to send out another video. I edited my video with the slavers. I made sure to hide my face, and name, until after I used disguise. I left out when I used disguise as well. I packaged the rest up, minus the mana crystal.

I even had footage from Kretchof’s POV, which was weird. His battle was a lot cooler than mine. I changed my mind, and put the focus on him. Leaving out that I summoned him. I decided to make two separate videos. They sort of looked like a collaboration video.

Kretchof had killed a few slavers after reanimating the ones I left him. He used those sentries to kill others, and bring him the bodies. He was actually quite good at managing his undead legion. He infiltrated the city with a horde of twenty undead. About all of the sentries had been killed, and made into his minions.

After he gained access to the city, he had started indiscriminately killing. A few extra slave citizens’ death wouldn’t bother my plan too much. After a large amount of undead were summoned, I had told him to go to the castle. The rest I saw.

I sent the movies out, although mine was sped up considerably. I cut all of the boring waiting for regen parts.

I ended mine with my sacrifice, and Kretchof’s with his escape from the castle. All in all, I thought it would be entertaining to watch. I even made sure to dim the sound in certain areas to make people listen to that part a few times. Hopefully the trolls on the net will increase the viewer count. Someone will post what was said during the dimmed moment, and a few other people would click on the video just to comment that it wasn’t.

I loved trolls. They never seemed to disappoint.

I had spent over two hours editing the two videos. I was tired, but I had a bit of DI bills to spend. I wanted to make this mall of mine be the coolest place ever, otherwise other people would easily make it better when they saw it.

As I started buying things for the stores, I realized I needed to buy in bulk. Not only did it save me time, as I wouldn’t have to keep accessing the menus. It also saved me a huge amount of money. I bought enough entertainment type things to fill half a floor of the mall. This included toys for children, board games, bubbleheads, even video games.

I spent a total of about a quarter of my bills on that. Which was a substantial amount. I could have built about half of this mall with the money I started off with. The next bit of money went to DIVE related knick-knacks. Shirts, hoodies, all sorts of clothing and accessories. I found it kind of funny how many types of DIVE goodies the menu store sold.

I was left with about a third of my money, so I pimped out the food court. Long tables, short tables, single tables, booths, I bought it all. Since I was buying for three floors, I obviously bought in bulk. I ordered over a thousand chairs alone! Fuck that was a lot of chair money.

Of course the chairs would be put into certain shops as well. I even made the biggest shop on the first floor, into a spa. It had two hot tubs, two mud baths, basically two of everything. Each thing was separated by gender. If people really did come here, I would hate to be sued for ‘forcing’ them to join the spa together.

I have seen some pretty stupid lawsuits succeed with the right lawyers. Although I doubt they’d sue me for real money, in fact I didn’t even know if people could be sued here.

The massive spa resort actually cost the rest of my money. I expanded that section of the mall quite a bit. I had added about two times as much space. It was now three times as big as it had been. It had already been huge though. About a fifth of the room was taken up by the scenic peaceful walking area. I even saw that I could buy some squirrels, so I bought a dozen. I had made sure they couldn’t get out of the scenic area though. I also put a lot of plants that provided food for squirrels in the scenic course.

I was pretty happy with my work, and only had a half hour before I could log back into DIVE. I spent the last bit of time re planning what the shops would be like. I want to create a certain flow in my mall. I needed to place each shop and rest area perfectly for that. The flow of course was the flow of money.

I looked at the mall as if I were a shopper. It was cool, but it lacked something that exuded excitement. I decided to add something to make people feel a rush. Maybe an axe murderer? A theme park next door would also work.

After I finished planning, it was time to log back in. While I was excited to get back into the game, I was still a little sad. After all, I had lost my quest. I even sacrificed levels!

I entered the game again.

You have lost two levels for sacrificing yourself. You are now level 32.

You have lost one level for dying. You are now level 31.

Three levels!? UGGHHHH!

My int had gone down by 15. My total mana decreased by 150. I sighed as I took in the depressing fact that I just lost a lot of stats for nothing.

I was in some sort of bedchamber. I was in a comfortable place, so I assumed the red blur was at least a friendly. I sent a message to Kretchof. “Hey, I need you to leave the area. Don’t kill NPCs or animals, but expand your army. Raising dead bodies for zombies and stuff is ok.” I got conformation, and saw Kretchof start marching away on my map.

I also noted a light green dot nearby. No, it can’t be. I better have gotten that quest success then! A few seconds later I heard running. I sighed as I prepared for a ‘heartfelt’ reunion. Three forms entered the doorway. Two women, and… you guessed it, a blood red rabbit.

I scrunched my eyes as I pretended to be taken aback by Heather’s appearance. “HEATHER!? What happened to you? How did you dye you fur so red!? And how did you get so small!?” Heather …smiled? At least I think it was a smile. It’s pretty hard to differentiate the everyday body language of a rabbit. I saw that she had sharp canines instead of the normal teeth you would associate with rabbits.

Heather’s fur was blood red. From top to bottom, it was like someone dipped her into a vat of blood. Her size had decreased tremendously. She had been growing larger and larger, slowly but surely. She could now almost fit into my hand. It was actually really weird to look at.

The rabbit jumped on me, landing squarely on my stomach. Yup. That’s heather. I didn’t feel any pain, but I groaned slightly to let Heather feel bad. I didn’t want her to jump on me every time I come back from the dead. She seemed to have decreased in mass as well. I was pretty happy about that turn out. Sometimes in anime or video games, if a big creature shrinks it just gets denser.

“OH! I’m sorry!” Heather quickly dropped to the floor. I actually was curious about her fur though. It shouldn’t have been dyed with blood for that long.

“So what actually happened to you?” Heather pawed at the ground once.

“Well… When you got captured by the slavers, EDI and I were thrown into the distance. Because of your magic. We saw which direction they were going, so when we landed, we went back to the camp and followed them. It took about a day to get back to the camp. It was a fun flight though!” Heather beamed.

Just get to the part I asked you about.

“Anyway, after following the slavers for a while, we could finally see them. They were taking you to this city. EDI started to make some plans on how to get in, but we were spotted by some slavers that were patrolling the outside of the city.

We quickly killed them. Um” She pawed the ground again. “I may have sort of… eaten them?” She tried to give me puppy dog eyes. Or is it bunny rabbit eyes? Either way, her eyes are creepy as fuck. They have red pupils, and the whites of her eyes had turned black. No way in hell was that cute!

Seeing her attempt fail she continued. “Well I was drinking the blood since EDI didn’t want any. After I consumed all of the blood in their bodies I got a notice. You should have gotten it as well. It was already nighttime, and we heard fighting happening in the city when I got the notice. We ran in the city to use the confusion to help you…” She trialed off on that.

I checked my notifications. I saw that I really had gotten it. I was just too busy concentrating on drying the entire throne room out to pay attention.

Heather has reached level 50. Heather has unlocked a racial evolution. Heather is evolving! Say B to cancel.

Congratulations! Your Heather has evolved into a Vampire Rabbit!

I felt like I had seen that in some old game, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It seemed that since I didn’t see the notice, I couldn’t stop the evolution anyway.

Heather’s evolution has caused her to turn into a monster class creature. High intimacy with Heather has allowed you to keep Heather as a pet.

You are the first person to obtain a monster as a pet. You have gained 50 fame. You have gained 15 charisma for convincing Heather to remain as your pet.

Your leadership skills have improved by maintaining control over a weak individual, until they started showing power. You have gained 10 leadership.

Your leadership skills are so great, you can draw out potential that no one even knew existed. You have gained 20 leadership.

You are the first person to own an animal that has evolved. You have gained 50 fame. You have gained 15 intelligence for learning of this phenomenon.

Due to your pet killing Evan the Slaver, you have completed Undine’s quest.

You have gained the title ‘Hero of River’s Cross’.

When you have this title equipped, people will recognize you as the person that freed River’s Cross from the slavers’ grasp.

You gain an automatic + 50 intimacy with all citizens of River’s Cross, regardless of if this title is equipped. This does raise the rank of intimacy.

You gain an automatic + 25 intimacy with all people that are on good terms with River’s Cross, if this title is equipped. This does not raise the rank of intimacy.

You gain an automatic + 10 intimacy with all people that are against slavery, if this title is equipped. This does not raise the rank of intimacy.

You gain an automatic + 25 hostility with all people that benefit from slavery, if this title is equipped. This does not lower the rank of intimacy.

You gain an automatic + 50 hostility with slavers, if this title is equipped. This does lower the rank of intimacy.

You are now the most respected individual by the people of River’s Cross.

Undine has granted you 15 water affinity for saving her champion.

Undine has granted you 5 water affinity for saving the people of River’s Cross.

Due to the reclamation of River’s Cross, players will now be able to start in this city.

Undine has fulfilled her promise of rewards. Undine’s blessing has increased.

Many Blessings of Undine (Major)

For greatly pleasing Undine you have been gifted with her blessing.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

When submerged in water you gain gills, and can filter water from the water. You may also request for her aid by giving a suitable offering.

Undine believes all creatures should move with power and grace. Undine has streamlined your body. You now move 50% quicker in all environments you could normally move in. You also use 25% less stamina from water or air resistance.

I spent several minutes looking through my notifications. They were pretty fucking cool! I forgot about the existence of the others in the room until I had finished reading. I looked at my body, it seemed a little bit more ‘gentle’. That’s the only way I could explain it. Many of the harsher lines had been curved and sanded down.

I called up Heather’s stats.

Stats WindowNameHeatherOwnerVoice0fReasonLevel 51Health: 610Mana: 250Stamina: 1250Current Title: N/AHealth Regen: 6.1/sMana Regen: 1.5/sStamina Regen: 20.3/sStrength89Agility25Wisdom15Intelligence25Endurance125Dexterity42Luck10Vitality203Fame0

They were pretty good stats. It was obvious that she was a melee combatant. She had just enough dex and agi to hit the target, but enough str to damage them quite a bit.

I looked up and saw the three individuals still looking at me. “Sorry about that.” I gave them a ‘weak’ smile. “I was just looking at all of the notes I got. So what happened to Evan?” I feigned ignorance. I had already seen the blue box, so I knew what happened.

Elvina stepped forward. She looked a lot healthier than she did when I last saw her. “After you spent your life to damage Evan, your pet… uh Heather, Heather attacked him. At first he knocked her down, but when EDI helped he was quickly overwhelmed. I was surprised to see they were both over level 50.”

I nodded, excitedly. “Yeah, I saw that!” I wonder if that means at level fifty animals evolve. I waited for a few moments for a notification. None came. Does that mean they have to get to level fifty, and fulfill certain requirements?

For discovering the secret of animal evolution, you have gained 5 intelligence.

Elvina got into a quasi-formal pose, and used a more formal tone. “I, Elvina, Mayor of River’s Cross, thank thee, Voice0fReason, for your efforts in the subjugation of the slavers. Furthermore, I hereby request your audience in the throne room, tomorrow at dawn.” With that she seemed to have said everything she wanted to. She left the room, and EDI came forward.

“Hi. I just wanted to thank you for saving me from the slavers.” She looked slightly bashful as she said that. “Here are the items back.” EDI gave me all of the items I had given to her for escape. Heather had apparently given EDI the items I forced on her.

EDI also gave me a large Mana Crystal vein. I looked at it confused. “What’s this? How did you get this?” I looked in my inventory. I didn’t have any veins in it. I decided this bitch had stolen it from me.

“You dropped this when you died. I picked it up for you, so that no one else would think of looting it.” Looking at her earnest face, I could only regret calling her a bitch before. No! She’s probably just trying to get on my good side. Not gonna let that happen again.

I had already sworn off all relationships that didn’t show me immediate bonuses. If you can’t help me, I don’t need you.

I tried to get off the bed, but almost fell over. EDI gently caught me before I hit the ground. She put me back on the bed, and left. I might have seen a blush.

Ancestor, you can help me with my skills right?

“That’s correct.”

I thought for a moment. Ancestor had helped in that battle a bit. He had helped me make short work of three slavers that could have caused me trouble.

I have an idea for you to experience the world again, and not just through my memories. What do you think?

Ancestor seemed to ponder this for a bit. “How would you do that? I gather that is has something to do with your Inspect skill.”

If I gave you full control over my inspect, you could probably be able to at least feel like you are interacting with the world. You would have to let me know the things I want to know, but other than that I’d let you do whatever you wanted. I could feel Ancestor starting to reject the idea, so I hurriedly continued. You would even be able to help me train myself. If you had control over my Inspect, I bet I’d naturally pick up on a few things you watch for.

At the mention of training Ancestor had stopped. “Hm, you would be able to see how to use it more fully. Alright, I’ll take control. I’ll let you know whatever you are looking for. I’ll have to burrow a little deeper into your mind though. That way you can take control back if you need it. If I don’t you won’t get the information fast enough. Are you ok with that?”

Ancestor seemed to be holding back a flow of excitement. Like a child that knows Santa will come tomorrow.

Sure, just be careful not to cause too much pain, ok? Just as I said that, Ancestor went to work. Suddenly a sharp pain pierced my skull. I would have screamed, but I didn’t have enough control over my mind to even do that. It felt as though Ancestor was creating explosions within my mind. Every second stretched on to infinity. The pain seemed to alternate in certain places in my mind. Sometimes it was a sharp piercing pain, other times it was a dull head crushing pain. I was trapped in this mental hell forever.

Ancestor has taken control of your Inspect skill. You can override this control at any time. While Ancestor has control of Inspect, you will not obtain information from it. If Ancestor uses Inspect, you will still gain experience for this skill.

After the pounding in my mind went away, I yelled at Ancestor. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT! I TOLD YOU TO KEEP THE PAIN DOWN! Even at one percent pain, it was debilitating.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t think it would hurt that much.” Ancestor seemed to actually be apologetic. That wasn’t enough for me though.

I’m never allowing you to take control of my skills or abilities, EVER!

Ancestor was quiet. No doubt too much of a bitch to actually say anything after that. Seeing as there was no way I could do anything, other than take away the skill, I decided to let it go. I would make Ancestor regret it later.

I found a set of clothes on a table. Since I was in some ratty bandit uniform, I got changed. The outfit wasn’t really my style.

I was given black leather boots that went up to my knees. The pants were a color that closely resembled fuchsia. They looked as though they were made airy on purpose, seeing as they were very loose on the leg area. I had a white undershirt that went down to my wrists, and a blue vest. The vest had green embroidery near the neck, and had comfortable shoulder padding. It was a vest, but it covered the shoulder area. The trim of the vest was gold, as were the 8 sets of buttons that lined the middle.

I donned the clothes, since it would be better than wearing a slaver outfit. When I left the room Heather followed. I didn’t really pay attention to her as I changed. While I found my way downstairs, I noticed the lack of personal the castle had. The only people I actually met were a few depressed looking guards.

Usually you would see a large amount of people hurrying to and fro, but I didn’t even see one servant. I made it to the stairs after only a few minutes of searching. I decided to check out the surrounding city to see if the people needed any help. Getting an increase in intimacy with them would only increase the chance that I could take this place over. I still planned on doing that.

I helped Elvina because she looked a lot like my mother, but as soon as she was out of the picture I was going to make this place mine. I found that everyone was basically dead on the inside. Even though they had been freed, they showed no will to live. Coupled with the partially, or mostly in some cases, destroyed buildings it gave a sense of extreme poverty.

Shit, I have to fix this. If they all died I would have earned an empty city. I did not do all that work for an empty fucking city!

There was a forest directly south of the city, I decided to do a little hunting. If I could somehow manage to help boost morale in River’s Cross, then I would have an even better chance of taking the city without force.

I sent EDI a message as soon as I thought of the plan. As I did I re-equipped all of my gear. I finally had my staff back! Now all of those annoying monsters were going to get what was coming to them! I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the 100% dissection bonus for any monsters that lived in the forest.

EDI accepted so I sent her a party invite. The party had no doubt been disbanded when the slavers captured me. I spoke to Sol, trying to see when I would get the extra healing power again. Sol was supposedly more powerful now, since I upgraded my class.

“Sol? Are you there? I haven’t heard from you in a while. It’s starting to scare me.” I felt a bursting from my chest. It felt uncomfortable to say the least. Sol flew around me in circles.

“MASTER! I couldn’t come out for so long! When you got captured I was really worried! But you told me to hide! After you left the cave I couldn’t feel you anymore! I’m so happy to be able to talk to you again!” Sol continued on this for a solid minute. Eventually Sol seemed to notice something. “Master! I can see the light mana around you! I feel like I can use it for healing! Wow! This is so cool!” I smiled. I was glad to have my overly energetic healing machine back.

I explained, some of, what happened while Sol was gone. Sol was amazed that I unlocked a special class like Mana Mage. I couldn’t say that I wasn’t freaking awesome, so I let Sol keep singing my praise for a while.

I made Sol quiet down when EDI approached. She had a confident stride.

“Ready EDI?” She nodded.

“So why are we going to hunt monsters though?”

I hung my head hearing this. If I shamed her now she would be less likely to question me in the future. She should just do what I want! “As you can see everyone is starving and depressed. I was thinking that if we hunted some monsters, we could give the food away to them. Maybe something like a minor festival.

The forest to the south was only about a ten-minute walk away. We casually walked there while talking about random stuff. I told EDI about my ability to manipulate the aura of things. I also quizzed Sol about the light aura.

Apparently, all living things give off a light aura. I took Inspect away from Ancestor, and looked at EDI. After concentrating for a second or two, I noticed it. It was very thin layer of white yellow light, with tiny wisps coming off it.

I decided to try this when I next healed someone. We made it to the forest. At the very edge of the trees, we saw a bountiful harvest of demon wolves. “EDI, Heather, Sol, how would you like to help the people of River’s Cross?” I smiled to the group as a said this. I ran towards the wolves.

The total massacre of wolves lasted for four hours. I cut it off there because I needed time to cook the food for the ex-slaves. We killed hundreds of wolves. Ancestor gave me full control over Inspect whenever I was in battle. That way I could still use it to the fullest.

Other than that Ancestor was in charge of finding the wolves, and giving us a report on them. Of course I could have done all of this, but I’d have to spend all of my concentration to do it. Having Ancestor do it for me was almost a cheat.

At first we only killed a few at a time, just to check the actual power of the wolves. Here on the edge of the forest the average level of the wolves was only 5. It quickly grew though. The further we went in, the quicker the average level increased.

We slaughtered everything in our path. Any monster was killed, auto-dissected, and stashed. I completed the dissection of wolves in only those four hours. It was thanks to Heather and EDI being fighting machines. We even got in a few bears.

The fights followed a pattern. Heather would grab agro by biting one of the wolves. Heather would drain the blood of that wolf as quickly as possible. EDI would jump in to incapacitate as many as possible, I was in charge of heavy damage dealing.

Mostly I just impaled the poor bastards with my earth spears. They seemed to want to fully encircle an opponent before attacking. I took advantage of that to form the earth into a weapon. I started to notice a distinct casting time difference, when compared to when I first learned to manipulate the mana in the ground.

It seemed like the more I used it, the quicker it became. It would only take about thirty seconds to form earth spears using the mana in the ground. I could make them in about half a second, but that took a hundred times the mana. All in all it was more efficient to use the mana outside my body.

The plan worked depressingly well. There was just about zero excitement in the hunt. I did get some exp, but I was bored out of my mind the entire time. I even started to experiment with trying to do multiple types of mana when there was only a couple of enemies.

Heather was amazing though. Whenever she drained a wolf, she would temporarily gain all of its stats to augment her own. The buff only lasted for about fifteen seconds, but she could easily drain a body in five. That gave her ten seconds to kill each wolf. Since she could kill them anyway, if she had a minute, the fact that she had the power of one added to her just made it awe inspiring. She was more ferocious, quicker, and had more power after drinking the blood.

I got the feeling that she would devastate an entire pack if I allowed it. The only drawback to her blood sucking power, was that she had 50% reduction in stats if she hadn’t drank any blood in three hours. Once Heather even took down three wolves in only ten seconds. She drained all of their blood quickly. It seemed like she could keep the blood in a sort of storage inside her belly. Either that or she had the metabolism of a maniac.

Heather was as fast as Rabs used to be. She would disappear in a blur of red, and would reappear with her fangs sunk in a wolf’s neck. Her kicks were powerful enough to one shot a wolf below level 20. Her favorite move was jumping on the wolves’ backs. She would sink her teeth in them, and ride them bull rider style, holding on only by her fangs.

After the four hours were over, we were all carrying burdens that exceeded our maximum capacity by several times. We made our way slowly to the city. It took us about 45 minutes to make it there. I went to the dead center of the city.

I pulled out my cooking equipment, and the wood we got from the forest. I began to cook the meat in the pan. I sent Heather out to the north of the city. There was a lot of plains area over there. My intention was for her to gather as many vegetables as possible.

I sent EDI to fetch me some water. With my cutlery and tableware, I was prepared to serve at least a few people at a time. I used the wind to spread the smell out a bit. EDI had brought me the pot of water, and Heather was picking the veges at a good rate.

Since I was just sitting, I didn’t mind the extra weight of all of the vegetables. I chopped them up, and threw them into the pot. While the pot boiled, I poured the wolf meat in. I continued to pour mana into the air. I saw several people coming to see what the smell was. They were still far too afraid to come close though.

“EDI, hey why don’t you give this to the little girl over there?” EDI hurried to do what I asked. The girl recoiled when EDI brought her the food. After talking to her for more than a minute, the girl finally accepted the food.

“I NEED MORE WATER!” I could have filled the pot with water mana, but I’d have to stop using my wind to spread the smell. Someone behind me took the pot and disappeared. I turned around to grab it, only to see that a guard had run to fill it up.

A few seconds later it was back on the fire. I again filled it with vegetables, and meat. I noticed that more bowls where in my meager stack. I looked to my left, the direction I heard noise coming from. Elvina was giving instructions to several guards.

I used the bowls to fill more stew. The bowls were quickly passed out to the ex-slaves. The food was eaten as quickly as I could make it. The starving people seemed to have some sense of unity, seeing as no one asked for seconds until every had their first portion. I cooked this food for three entire hours. Honestly I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

I had exhausted all of my reserves of wolf meat. The only thing left was the vegetables. These included the iconic carrots and turnips. When I ran out of meat, I just made vegetable stew.

After I ran out of meat I called Heather back. By the time she returned I still had an entire stack of carrots and turnips. I finished those off then addressed the crowd.

“Hello! I’m the HERO of River’s Cross!” The people realized who I was once I equipped my title. “I have freed and fed you all!” Some of the more energetic ones tried to cheer. “I have a task for you! We will revive this city to its former glory! The first step is arming the citizens! If you know how to work the forge, come to me! I also need all tanners!” I repeated this spiel a couple of times, making sure all parts of the city could hear me.

A strong looking man came up to me. Well I assumed he was strong before. His muscles were still large, but they looked like they had already started to destroy themselves for the nutrients. Two more people came up as well. One was a scarily skinny man, and the other was a very fragile looking woman.

The strong man had a gruff voice. “Yeah? I’m a blacksmith, and these two are tanners. What do you need?” His tone wasn’t really pleasant, but I let it pass. I doubt I’d be able to be pleasant to be around if I was a slave for so long.

I turned to the tanners. “I need you to tan all of this leather.” I started to pile the animal pelts out. I only pulled about half of them. It was still a lot though. There was two and a half stacks after all. “I can’t pay you for it, but I’ll be giving it all to the citizens for protection. I will pay you back whatever you deem acceptable. I just don’t have any coin on me right now.”

Ancestor told me the tanners were in shock. No doubt it was because I just told them they’d have to work for free. Next I turned to the blacksmith.

“Do you know how to work this leather?” I indicated the pelts that the two tanners were trying to grab. He nodded. “Good. I’ll need you to make it all into full sets of armor. I want these men and women to be completely defended. After I finish here tomorrow, I’m going to look for something that would make good weapons. You up for it?” The blacksmith nodded.

“Yeah, but I’ll need to restart my forge. Those damn slavers took joy out of my reaction when I saw them killing my shop. Do you think you could help me with that?”

I nodded to him.

You have accepted this quest.

Success: Help rebuild the forge in River’s Cross.

Difficulty: Low

Failure: Not managing to help fix the forge.

Reward: ???

Failure leads to decrease intimacy with the blacksmith in River’s Cross.

Sorry for ending it kind of abruptly. I’m really sleepy, and I have work tomorrow. But here’s the chapter!

Spoiler :

Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassMana MageLevel 31Health: 100Mana: 1250Stamina: 350Current Title: Hero of River’s CrossHealth Regen: 1/sMana Regen: 16.9 (11.9)/sStamina Regen: 4.9/sStrength41Agility34Wisdom169Intelligence125Endurance49Dexterity34Luck0Vitality35Charisma35Compassion75Leadership66Logic22Piety59Unused Stat Points0Fame800

Skills WindowAutomated Novice Level 9 Exp 25.00%

Speed Reading Novice Level 9 Exp 00.00%

Auto Read Novice Level 20 Exp 50.00%

Dissection Novice Level 7 Exp 10.00%

Automatic Dissection Novice Level 7 Exp 10.00%Group Skill: Key to Self-Sustained Alchemy Novice Level 17 Exp 50.00%

Group Skill: Inspect Apprentice Level 39 Exp 56.54%

Group Skill: Automatic Nursing Novice Level 9 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Con Artist Novice Level 15 Exp 46.67%

Group Skill: Magical Mastery Apprentice Level 28 Exp 19.30%

Group Skill: Skill Mastery Apprentice Level 27 Exp 4.44%

Group Skill: Survival Novice Level 21 Exp 10.00%

Group Skill: Combat Learning Novice Level 17 Exp 24.56%

Affinities WindowLight70Water55Wind25Nature50Metal25Earth30Fire25Darkness100