~Alyssia Sil’Vorken~

Alyssia looked at the humans arrayed before her and saw the telltale signs of terror in the trembling of their feet. She could smell their fear, a sweet, cloying scent that lingered in her nose far longer than it should have. Everyone was frozen in place as if the moment was somehow suspended in motion, only Arthur unaffected by the power of her domineering aura, the fraction of it she was bringing to bear, though she could see that even he was slightly distressed by the pressure she was exerting.

That almost made her calm down, but she stopped herself. She needed to make a statement.

Alyssia was a grateful person who always repaid her debts and she didn't want to hurt the individual who had helped her so much, but her rage was not something that could be quenched so easily. Especially when she looked at Professor Johnson, specifically the shining bracelet hidden under his coat sleeve.

Is he stupid, did he not think this through, at all?

Her vision tinged with the filter of anger and it was only the presence of weaker individuals in the room that stopped her from releasing the spell she wanted to. No one save Arthur would survive its devastation. Alyssia tried to take a calming breath but failed to control her seething emotions. Once again, she sent out a pulse of detecting ether, hoping that her suspicions were all false.

They came back with the same findings they had five minutes ago when she had used the skill to observe Arthur's healing at work. How? Why? Where did he even get that from? Is he getting set up? Her thoughts furiously screamed at her. Trying and failing once again to calm down, she took a deep breath. “Did you think I wouldn't notice ?” she asked, her voice deadly quiet, in contrast to the volume of her rushing thoughts. Her question was directed to Professor Jhonson and she saw the old man's wrinkly skin rapidly pale as he took a single half-step backwards. Arthur just looked confused at the question, as did many of the other researchers in the room.

That eased a little of her tension. At least they weren't all in it, though it isn't much consolation. Alyssia reached over to her brother's sleeping form and grabbed at his wrist where she felt the sister to professor Jhonson’s bracelet resting, all but invisible to everyone else's vision but unable to escape her superior senses.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, before suddenly with a slight cracking sound like breaking glass, a silver bracelet materialized out of thin air. Alyssia ripped it off Artemo's wrist before identifying it as having become her habit since accepting the system and unlocking the useful skill.

Bracelet of casual observation (Uncommon+) - Part of a pair, the wearer of this jewellery will have their actions, emotions and thoughts subtly monitored by the possessor of its other half. Being such crude work, the item is almost entirely useless on even average individuals, though one should still be weary of its powers.

Secondary enchantment: An unstable rune of Exploding (I-Inferior) has been added to this bracelet, its detonator residing on its sister pair.

She hadn't been mistaken when she felt the familiar twinge of disgusting ether after all. One that had become so prevalent in the criminal groups of her homeland. Although slightly different and less insidious, the cruelty of the work was undeniable, and the fact that professor Jhonson had thought to use it on her younger brother, a child who had yet to make it out of boyhood, made her blood boil.

It didn't matter how he had got his hands on it, or who it was that had given it to him. All she could think about was that the vile demon had actually tried to take her younger brother's freedom away from him, irrespective of the fact that the crude tool would do little but annoy the younger Alverin boy and pose little danger to his life. It was the intent behind the deed that mattered. Her inner turmoil was interrupted when Arthur spoke.

“Hey, I don't know what's going on, but maybe there's been some sort of misunderstanding,” he tried to calmly explain to the furious woman.

He was curious as to what had got her into such a state as although he had expected some form of retribution for her imprisonment from the dimensional traveller, the current levels of rage on the woman's face was an order of magnitude above his predictions.

Alyssia just glared at the young healer, before sighing as she felt a little of her anger drain away from her. She thrust the bracelet into Arthur's hands before picking up her younger brother's sleeping form, The negligible weight felt familiar in her hands and the last vestiges of her rage finally left her.

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All that it left in its wake though was a feeling of cold dejection. She saw Arthur's eyes widen in shock as he read the item's description before he quickly looked between professor Jhonson and Artemo.

“I’ll be going outside now,” Alyssia curtly stated, interrupting Arthur's racing thoughts. “It's been far too long since I’ve last felt the sun's warmth on my skin. I’ll expect this unpleasant situation to have been dealt with by the next time we meet.” She finished boldly, before walking out of the deathly silent room, younger brother in tow.

Arthur seemed to want to say something to her before he stopped himself, wisely choosing to remain silent.

Why did the government have to fuck everything up, he thought in exasperation, gazing at her retreating back.

~Arthur Ward~

It had been one hour since Alyssia had left the underground bunker and the government had lost track of her in a tenth of that time when she fled into the dense forests surrounding the area. Professor Jhonson was currently in one of the few holding cells within the facility being questioned by the personnel the government had dispatched when they heard of the disastrous situation.

The talks had been going on for over twenty minutes now, and from the whispered gossip he’d heard from the staff stationed here, things didn't look good for the old professor. Apparently, he had obtained the bracelet from some sort of black market a week back and the old man had allowed his greed for knowledge and dominance to persuade him to use the evil piece of jewellery on Artemo.

Arthur had no idea what sort of outcome the old man had expected when he tried to do this and he highly doubted the story he'd been told was even remotely close to the truth, but frankly, he didn't really care. It didn't have anything to do with him and he wouldn't lose any sleep worrying about what would become of the old professor.

As long as Alyssia was happy with him, then everything would be okay. He’d already done what was asked of him by healing the young Alverin boy and the shit show that occurred afterwards had absolutely nothing to do with him. The payment for rendering such a service had already been delivered to him, a monster core as he had very specifically requested when asked what exactly he wanted.

This was one of the things Alyssia had strongly advised him on. During their lengthy conversation, he'd been informed about one of the great flaws of the human constitution. It was the primary reason why they didn't tend to make the greatest physical fighters in the wider multiverse and also why his focus on speed was a dead end.

Humans lacked perception.

The attribute that improved the primary senses, allowed one to unlock the more esoteric ones, and even observe the different forms of ether unaided at the higher levels. It was a quintessential attribute that all speedy fighters required too.

Sure, speccing into agility did allow you a measure of control over said agility, but there did come a point where a person's perception of reality simply couldn't keep up with their own speed. Intelligence would help you compute the changes in reality, but perception would allow you to see them.

There were, of course, a number of ways one could get around this issue, and a myriad of methods of unlocking this stat, but Alyssia had come up with a pretty novel way of unlocking the attribute after finding out his ability to absorb stats from monster cores.

Her mastery over aura and her insane sensory skills had allowed her to document nearly every useful object in this facility. This was naturally why she knew of the so-called superior core she suspected would be offered to him for helping deal with the Shade issue. It was how she'd been able to tell him of the more mundane monster core that came from a beast specialising in the Perception attribute.

He'd naturally requested it as his promised reward for healing Artemo.

If the government seemed suspicious that he was coveting such a seemingly useless item, they didn't ask any questions. No one would complain that Arthur wanted the most impractical commodity offered from the stores they had available and Bryan seemed almost relieved that it was only a monster core that they had lost in the exchange.

After all, it seemed very unlikely they’d be able to get into contact with Alyssia soon enough to enlist her assistance in the fight against Shade. The scheduled battle was less than 20 hours away and things weren't looking too good for the government attack squad. The ever-elusive Shade had made his presence known just a few minutes ago when a string of random murders had suddenly all been reported to the police. No perpetrator had been found, but the investigators dispatched could see the clear, tell-tale signs of a shadow mage's handiwork. Why the man had decided to do such a thing was anyone's guess, though most suspected that the man's mental stability was starting to fail slightly ahead of time.

It made the upcoming fight more real, instead of it only being the enigmatic event that Arthur had simply heard about. ‘Heck, I should have probably already started using my regeneration skill to store ether in everyone already.

The only reason why he hadn’t was due to the fact that it looked like he spent so much of it healing Artemo, despite him having more than ⅔ of his ether remaining after the procedure. The government weren't privy to the absurd reserves he had at his disposal and he wasn't too keen on telling them. They believed he was running on fumes after the procedure and hadn't pushed for his help yet.

Ether: 2910/3230.

It was time to get this show on the road.