“Did you really bring me all the way out here for that little kid?”

“Old fossil, you like him already. You and both know that you taught him that stealth skill.”

“A talentless brat with neither shadow nor darkness affinity…”

“Those potions might work.”

“Doubt it. The shadows elude him.”

“But you still like him.”

“...aye, that dogged persistence despite his weak resistance is so…sweet.”

“You’ve watched him long enough and he passed your test by completing this crazy mission.”

“A lucky boy.”

“Can you really call that luck? Sure, he fell into a ravine but he found the spell formation and swam to the centre. With ONE arm and leg!”

“Dogged persistence, dogged life.”

“Well…try not to kill him. See ya around.”

Unnamed felt bad for what he brought onto the Mongrel kid but the boy wanted power.

He quickly dragged the dying boy back into Tidal before he bled out on the roads. To think that the kid had difficulty surviving just a random monster from Vermin Paradise felt a bit pathetic.

“Barkeep, have a bed?” He entered through the back door and yelled for the bald man.

Unnamed uncorked a potion and poured it onto Mongrel’s body. He was rich and mana ores weren’t really what he cared about deep down.

He had a drink with the barkeep before Mongrel reflexively jumped into the shadows.

“Come out of that corner, you’re back at the tavern.”

“It-it’s you.”

“Yeah. You succeeded in catching the fossil’s attention. Rest and clean yourself up, he’ll get you soon.”

“...” Mongrel barely nodded but his eyes were full of life.

“We probably won’t be seeing each other anytime soon so, a word of advice.”

“Speak.” Before Unnamed knew it, the boy’s voice had grown into a man’s.

“Think carefully before you accept. I don’t know what he’ll do, but he’s an…extreme person. I also believe he’s insane. Get yourself a large expanded bag or pouch, and carry water ores, food and spare weapons. You might treat potions like water so…in any case, I hope we’ll both be alive to have a drink.”

Unnamed didn’t stay to converse. He had places to be.

‘Fragadal’s Sea…level 500, here I come.’

❅❅❅

“Kid, want to inherit my skills?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“How strong I can get if I inherit your skills.”

Mongrel looked at the man who could be mistaken for a food stall owner who was past their prime. White hair and moustache, skinny frame and bony face. Unname’s warning came but he barely had two days before this old man showed up on the window ledge. The inn’s security was non-existent to begin with.

The old man erupted into uncontrollable laughter before succumbing to fits of coughing.

“Good timing, there’s a job for me so you can come watch.”

“...okay.”

Mongrel was swallowed into his own shadows and reappeared in front of a tall gate.

‘A mansion?’

In the next moment, the mansion was swallowed into the shadows just like he had been.

“All in a days work. How was it? Good enough for you?”

“...what was the job?”

“Evicting the Count’s family. I’ve evicted them.”

Mongrel’s expression darkened under his mask. This old man just killed or teleported an entire mansion in the middle of the streets of Tidal.

Instead of fearing his power, Mongrel couldn’t get over how many people were killed. He didn’t know if the noble family were full of bastards or not but it didn’t matter to him.

“...Getting soft?”

“...”

“This is how the world is. I don’t care what you want power for or what you’re going to use it for. You just have to decide whether you want it or not.”

“I won’t be bound to anything?”

“A dog is bound by chains.”

“A mongrel rips its chains.” Mongrel finished the saying for the old man. He didn’t expect the old man to know the story.

The shadow wielder smiled and added on, “And bite its owner's hand.”

Mongrel did not know why the old man said that and didn’t comment.

“What’s your answer?”

‘Power is just for me…to stay free. I won't kill without reason, but I won't hesitate to kill when necessary."’ Mongrel resolved.

“What do I have to do?”

“I spent a century making things easy for my inheritant. You’ve already experienced learning one of my old skills. It’s very simple…”

Mongrel watched the old man’s face morph into a chilling smile.

“You cannot hide your past.”

“This is your friend? Used to be? Doesn’t matter, you haven’t let go.”

Mongrel’s mask did nothing to hide his shock when Rowent’s body emerged from the ground beside the old man. Why was he here? In the hands of some random old man.

“Climb out of hell.”

“I’m the devil. Slay me for my power.”

Mongrel couldn’t even react before starting to fall and was surrounded by darkness. His forehead was poked on by the old man before he fell but he didn’t care about the splitting headache at the moment.

He dived to catch Rowent's falling body.

‘Why are you caught up in this?’

“Rowent! Wake up!”

The fire mage didn’t change much in appearance. He even looked better than before. The opposite of what happened to Mongrel. Mongrel was certain that this man was real and not just a fake body or an illusion.

No matter how much he yelled, the fire mage didn’t wake up.

They had been falling into darkness for at least ten minutes but Mongrel’s sense of time seemed warped and he didn’t know how much time passed before they landed. They landed so safely, that he felt like all the time falling did nothing.

With the splitting headache he had, images of an unknown young man danced amongst the shadows surfaced in his head.

However, all the images halted and showed him something else. The same young man jumped into a pitch-black pool.

Before he could ponder on what to do, something fell on his head. He didn’t have eyes above his head and almost reacted violently.

‘...elemental sensitivity potions.’ Mongrel thought, though he couldn't fathom why. He was currently in total darkness, with not a single glimmer of light in sight.

‘I can feel the ground, I can breathe normally. Rowent’s heart is beating. What are the dangers surrounding us?’

His situational awareness came a little slow as his head continued to pound him with images of an unknown young man. It got more and more annoying as the same images of standing up, walking seven steps to the left jumping forward, diving into a pool.

Even a dullard would start to understand that the images wanted him to follow or copy the same motions.

‘This is the inheritance?’ Mongrel still couldn’t get why he was thrown in here with someone else.

Since he already gathered his resolve, he started acting on it and followed the young man’s motion.

The only difference was chugging a potion down before he jumped into the pool of darkness.

The images failed to convey the excruciating pain he would soon experience.

‘Grhh!’ He growled mentally.

‘Ri-right, I have to start manipulating whatever this is…’ Mongrel snapped out of the cycle of fainting and regaining his consciousness after an unknown period.

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

‘I…I still don’t sense any foreign particles in the air like they said one would…’ His feet couldn’t touch the ground but he managed to rip out another two potions to chug in one go.

His attempt to sense the foreign mana finally worked. His abysmal efforts failed to grab the purplish mana but he was glad it was no longer pure darkness in his senses.

The pool of…liquid? Began to crawl under his skin and molest all his orifices.

Mongrel panicked.

Only then, did the images in his head show the young man drowning in pain.

However, the images sped up and showed that the young man survived.

If so, Mongrel thought he would survive too.

And he did.

Mongrel learned about what happened to his body afterwards. It was called Physique refinement.

The world of darkness was no longer so dark.

Mongrel could control the shadows.

His physique granted him sight within the shadows.

Umbra’s Embrace Physique.

It supposedly made him capable of travelling through shadows and melding into them with his physical body but when he tried to do so, he only had enough mana to dip his hand in and out for a second.

His personal shadow can split apart from him and it had 30% of his Perception.

Mongrel couldn’t deal with multiple mental images and sights but that would get better with practice. He had to invest more in Intelligence in future.

His happiness at the new power and ability to wield the shadow element didn’t last long.

The images of the young man in his head showed him what was to come.

‘That pool…is some treasured saliva. And now, I’m bathed in it…’

With his senses for shadows being fresh and new, he was disorientated but he could finally make out his surroundings. His sight worked better than his mana sense at the moment.

‘Hell. What is hell? Is this, the Netherrealm?’ Mongrel seemed to recall some stories his parents told him as a child. He didn’t know what ‘hell’ was but children were told that people go to the Netherrealm when they die.

Thousands upon thousands of weird amalgamations of shadows surrounded them.

Mongrel inched towards Rowent’s body. Unravelling the axe from his waist and back, he slung Rowent’s arm over his shoulders. The same rope wrapped the unconscious man onto him before standing alert like a scorpion tail.

‘So this is his game…why? Just why?’

Instead of calling the mental pictures as images, it felt like memories were overlapping over his own.

The young man in his mind showed off his skills, Mongrel didn’t have time to digest the memories of the young man.

‘They’re not attacking yet…this pool is off limits. So a safe spot for us? For how long?’

Mongrel immediately found out as some phantom force threw his body away from the pool.

He tumbled without any chance to protect Rowent. At least his axe was out of the way.

Memories alone did not give him skills, no matter how fast they were flashing through his mind. They were just a distraction at the moment.

Mongrel couldn’t be distracted as shadowy creatures ripped at them the moment they were tossed out of an imaginary line.

There were times when a berserker’s ability to blind one’s mind was helpful. Right now would’ve been great.

The most intuitive motions he had were his reflexes. The only additional help he had was his shadow which moved without his mental help. Casting a spell or using mana without any sort of mental focus was unfamiliar to him. It felt more like moving his own body rather than his mind.

The unexpected boost in speed and power was manageable thanks to his familiarity with his berserk enhancement. It felt like a 10% boost overall and wasn’t too overpowering. A comprehensive boost of 10% was like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy cave.

His first instincts were to defend himself but the memories of the unknown young man insisted that running away was the top priority.

Mongrel relented.

He couldn’t move faster than the shadows and was forced to learn how to use an odd shadow movement skill. Perhaps the threat of death to both him and his old…acquaintance pushed his learning speed or the inheritance was supposed to pass down that easily but Mongrel shifted the shadows to his feet with ease.

There was another safe spot not too far away. It was a weirdly bright cave. Rather than a cave, it was just a large rock that was carved. The light came from a gem or crystal embedded within the rock. Despite working for the biggest company in the Empire, Mongrel didn’t study enough materials to be able to Identify the gem. All he knew was that it wasn’t a light elemental mana ore.

Mongrel couldn’t even make it there without a large gash on his one good foot and abdomen.

Rowent finally gave him some response and woke up.

The man screamed and attacked him with a blast of fire.

The fire mage’s casting speed was a far cry from how Mongrel remembered it to be. The flames that pulled out from the man’s staff smashed into his body and almost sent him out of the carved rock. A sign that the man still couldn’t conjure fire mana and his hasty attack didn’t have much power.

For Mongrel who ran about the heated battlefields of the Imperial mages' bombardment, the heat was bearable. Many armours come with some degree of resistance to heat.

“Stop! Rowent! It’s me -” His ghoulish stone mask, lack of a complete humanoid form and bloody smell didn’t help his case.

However, a few moments outside the rock was enough to wake Rowent up. Protecting a fumbling mage was difficult. Fire magic seemed very effective at giving the shadow creatures a panic attack. Air magic did nothing to the shadow creatures but it almost suffocated Mongrel out.

Rowent’s ability to remove air was extremely troublesome for most creatures. It seemed like his ability with air magic had improved by leaps and bounds.

Ten minutes of fighting for the fire mage seemed like a long time for a smart mage to figure out the menacing two-limbed shadow was on his side. It was probably just unbelievable and too sudden of a situation for the mage.

Back within the small cave, Mongrel was more injured than before.

Rowent kept his distance and he gave the mage time to digest the situation.

“Who’re you? Why am I here? Where is this? Why do you know my name?”

“...Mongrel. Some old man threw us here. I don’t know where this is. You carry a Z&Z member card.” Mongrel easily made up believable answers. Rowent completely forgot about his attempt of saying 'it's me.'

“How much time has passed?”

“I don’t know. But only a few hours since I woke up.” Mongrel wasn’t sure how long he spent refining his physique. He didn’t lie about the situation and told Rowent what he knew about the shadow creatures.

From their speed and power, they felt like Grandmasters and Identify didn’t give him any information. However, his gut told him they were Masters just like he and Rowent were. Was it his new Physique? Was it the overflowing essence and aura? Or was it just plain obvious whether a creature was a Master, Grandmaster or anything else?

Mongrel continued to watch the internal memories of an unknown youth. However, the memories suddenly overlapped with another youth. Then a middle-aged man.

“Do you remember anything? Before you got sent here?” Mongrel asked to check if Rowent knew how he got kidnapped.

“The last thing I could remember was that I was studying a new magic book I exchanged for contribution points.”

Mongrel took the opportunity to Identify Rowent but his attempts were futile. It appeared that Rowent had become important enough to be given obfuscation jewels.

“Were you based in Tidal?”

“What? No, I was part of the elite escort party in Pastures.”

“Pastures? One of the Three Great Farms?”

“Yeah, I was just back from another trip transporting expeditions to the Tides. War efforts and all. We were unlucky enough to face leftover Trolls on the trip in the early days before the war started for real. What’s your story?”

“...I was part of the militia in Fourth Tide.”

“Hooh, you must be really strong. Is that how you-” Rowent pointed and eyed his missing arm and leg.

“No, Mongrel has had this since birth.” He managed to sound unawkward despite the third-person speech.

“And you still chose to be a warrior? That’s…impressive.”

“Not quite. I only picked off weakened opponents unlike many of the real warriors.”

“It’s still an impressive feat to go onto the battlefield and make it out.”

“Any idea where we are?” Mongrel tried to change the topic.

“Not a clue. You said an old man threw us here?”

“I saw him briefly, he tossed both of us down a pool of these…shadows and he we are. I think it’s safe to assume we’re not quite on the mainland. It doesn’t seem like we’re inside a spell either.”

“Of course, who could cast such a large spell with creatures within?”

“What do you have on you?”

Instead of answering, Rowent started fumbling about. He wasn’t carrying a bag so all he had on him were the ores on his bracelet and everything on his robe. Fortunately, one was a water mana and he had most of his equipment.

“I have food and nutrition potions.” Mongrel carried more nutrition potions compared to food. At Mark’s advice, it was a fantastic potion.

There were different qualities and the best he had could regulate its energy output. He just had to drink one and he didn’t have to eat or drink for a week. If his physical energy output increases in battle, the potion would adjust the amount it supplied his body with. For a berserker, it was a miracle drug. Although the potion effect would run out faster, he didn’t have to worry about extended battles as much.

Sadly, he didn’t make enough mana ores to fill his energy pack with them. Most of it was normal food substitutes that lasted a day or two of normal energy expenditure at best. They also couldn’t regulate the amount of energy they supplied him with.

“You-You’re okay with sharing?”

“...Your fire magic seems helpful.”

“Alright. Now what?”

“If you trust my gut, I think I saw a hut over there.” Mongrel mentally saw a middle-aged man getting lost but two youths made it to a hut a couple of gors (1gor=5 km) away. His hunch told him that this inheritance had been passed down to these people.

The youth he first saw was probably the old man who threw them in here. The other youth and middle-aged man might be the previous generations. They all faced the same situation. With little to no difference in location or creatures surrounding them.

“I can’t see what or where you’re pointing at but…sure. Can you see?”

“Yes, like a summer night. But my sight doesn’t exceed a gor.” Summer nights were one of the brightest amongst the seasons with moonlight being white in hue.

“That’s amazing.” Rowent couldn’t even see an arm's length away once he stepped out of the small cave unless he lit a flame.

They rested as the fire mage complained about how heavy his body felt. The gravity here was at least six times stronger than Plainston and over twice that of Tidals.

It didn’t really impede Mongrel much after he got used to it. Gravity was a weak force for many warriors and all it took was getting accustomed to the strain and change in motions to deal with it. Unless it was greatly augmented by a spell formation or mage.

Mongrel failed to dislodge the gem of light from the rock. Rowent couldn’t identify it and they couldn’t exactly carry a cave-sized rock on their backs on the run. The three separate, additional memories he had showed their failures as well. Mongrel didn’t think he was better or stronger than any of them.

The next step seemed to be fighting through the horde of shadows towards the hut. It should have the same gem that warded off the shadow beings.

Something felt odd about the three individual’s movements. They fought while dodging or tumbling about for no reason. Attacks that shouldn’t have hit, hit because they rolled into them.

Mongrel found out that he couldn’t skip or glance through the memories, they were shown to him in a deliberate manner. Hence, he didn’t know what was to come after reaching the hut. However, the memories constantly replayed training. The three figures overlapped and danced over each other’s ethereal forms. Each one is faster and smoother than the last.

Mongrel led Rowent out once they were rested. He also settled and digested the memories that he had access to.

Although Rowent had a fire movement skill, it attracted too much attention and Mongrel had to carry the slower man. As harrowing or close some of the encounters had been, Rowent’s fire magic helped a lot. His own weird shadow buff couldn’t surface but all the creatures were hesitant and appeared weaker as well.

Making it to the hut wasn’t all that hard when he had three sets of memories about these shadow creatures and their movements. However, he was only faster and stronger than the middle-aged man in his memories. The other two youths had power and speed beyond his own.

Mongrel downed a muscular regeneration potion once they got into the small hut. There were a pair of beds and it was a fully furnished hut. It had a kitchen and toilet. All well lit.

“Why would there be a safe hut, untouched by time and dust in the middle of nowhere?” Rowent questioned.

Mongrel internally agreed because the hut looked exactly the same in the three sets of memories he had. Excluding the changes and mess they made. The hut returned to how it was when the three people first entered.

“Maybe that light gem is more than meets the eye.”

“I’ll look around.”

Mongrel let the fire mage do what he wanted to.

If his new memories served him right, Rowent would find a map and they would come to the same conclusion.

There was only one way out.