“Hey Ethan.” Alia smiled as they met up right after class. “I’m thinking of going for a rift today-”
“Miss Redwood, why, we have the same idea too! Why not join us instead?” Two noble guys eavesdropped on their conversation and butted in. Ethan didn’t recognise them, but Alia’s immediate look of horror told him enough. One she quickly hid.
“Lord Ennes, Lord Horiam.” Alia put on an act, she curtseyed to the nobles, and bowed politely. She didn’t need to, but Ethan felt something was up. “This is Lord Rick Ennes and Lord Aver Horiam, they are the nobles of my hometown.”
“Miss Redwood, why do you waste your time with them? Join us in our rift instead, and assist us, like you were meant to. I insist.”
Alia looked troubled, and Ethan wasn't sure whether he should step in.
She looked at him, and sighed. “We'll rift together the next time.”
He nodded. "Yeah.
She nodded reluctantly. “...if you insist, Lord Ennes.”
As Alia joined the two nobles on their rift, Ethan looked around and saw David Vivan alone. He sensed an opportunity, and so offered himself.
“Hey David. I’m out of a rift partner, could I join you?”
“No. I can handle the rift myself.”
“Sure? I’m willing to take a big cut.”
“I don’t need the help.” David answered, and walked away. Still out of a partner, he decided to walk to a corner, and summoned Kaname. Kaname looked at David and quickly disagreed with his decision.
“Master, as the Grandmaster has already singled me out and identified me as someone suspicious, it would be best if you don’t use me for the rifts. They could trace it to you, and that would be trouble. You could summon me inside the rift, though.”
“...shit that’s a good point.” Kaname vanished, but Ethan sat on a chair and tried to figure out a better plan. He could try the rifts alone, but it would be so suspicious if the others found out he completed a rift alone. Alia especially,since they fought together. He needed his cover to be foolproof, and he couldn't have his cover blown.
He needed to hack the records again.
[Administrative Control (School-office) & Academic Pass - Level 1]
He added one more name to the student list, and made sure to give him a commoner surname. Zaram Blacksword. With his admin hack, a student pass appeared, and he summoned Zaram.
Zaram was a tall, muscular soldier, comparable to the tallest of the other students. He had a stern, battle-weary face, and looked much older than he looked.
[Summon : Gold-rank Soldier Zaram - Level 7/10]
[Skills : Power Slash, Multi-Strike, Defense Up, Charge]
“Your orders, commander?” Zaram said, as he checked his own new uniform.
“Pretend to be a student, and take the rift with me.”
“As you command.” Zaram nodded and walked with Ethan to the tower’s attendant counter. The attendant stared at Zaram briefly, but smiled once he validated the student card.
“Two to the rift?”
“Yes. Mining gear too.”
“Got it. GP will be split 5:5.”
***
They were at another level 1 rift, and this time, it was a large chamber, shaped like an arena. Two green goblins with axes stood on the other side, their bright red eyes screamed murder when they appeared.
“Oh goblins.”
Zaram had two large black scimitar, one on each hand. “Let me handle this, commander.”
He rushed ahead, and in a single [Power Slash], the goblins were cut in half.
Zaram was strong!
Two more goblins appeared. Zaram didn’t even let him do anything, as he rushed ahead, kicked one of the goblins in the groin, and then chopped the goblin's arms off. His movement was brutal, focused, and designed to kill.
“You have to teach me how to fight, Zaram.” Ethan wondered whether he could pick up some skills.
“A commander’s battlefield is different from a soldier’s.” Zaram answered.
“There are times when a commander must fight too.”
“If you wish.”
A larger goblin appeared, and it had two axes. It was taller, the size of a regular human. Without missing a beat, Zaram closed in. Ethan sensed Zaram’s abilities activate, as Zaram rammed into the larger goblin before it was able to react, and knocked it to the ground.
Zaram leapt, and then, his two scimitars slashed through the hobgoblin’s head. It died there and then. “You’re making this look way too easy, Zaram.”
“If I can’t handle this much, this one would not be worthy to serve, Commander. We are gold-ranked summons, not copper-ranked.” Then, the last one appeared, another hobgoblin, an almost identical copy. Zaram cut his head off too easily.
This time, there was a crystal core in the hobgoblin’s body.
[Rift completed]
“Wow that was extremely fast! Congratulations! 5GP each!”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Zaram immediately asked the attendant. “Transfer the 5GP to my comm- to Ethan.”
“Sorry, GP earned from rifts have a two week lock-in period. You may transfer your GP to Ethan after two weeks.”
Ethan shrugged. “It’s okay Zaram. Thanks! It’s a pity there’s no gold from that.”
Next destination? The cultivation chamber!
[Common-grade Core of the Shadow Swords advanced to 8th stage of the 1st realm].
[Common-grade Body Enhancement - Level 5] (+1)
***
“Shit dude, I heard you already completed two rifts?!” Andrew was amazed when they met for dinner. This time they just ate at the canteen.
“Yeah. I got lucky. Alia carried me through the first one, then Zaram carried me through the next.” Alia came to the canteen afterwards, and she looked... not well. Her face was fine, but she looked like she was in pain.
“...hey Alia. You alright?” Ethan asked.
She shook her head, and sat next to him. She then buried her face in his shoulder. “Those assholes- they bullied me again. They intentionally let the monsters attack me, so that they could get the kill. I had to be the bait, because the two of them couldn’t fight properly. And they took most of the GP. I only have 2 GP for all of that work.”
“...fuck. I thought there are some rules around GP allocation?” Ethan cursed.
Andrew sympathized. “The rules have a range. 2GP is probably the minimum they had to give you. Have they done this before?”
“Not here... but... back home, yes. I’m just so tired of running into them. I should just hide in my room.”
“Shit.” Andrew cursed. “It’s a good thing House Mirrorsong doesn’t do that to me.”
Alia sulked for the rest of the evening, and Ethan felt horrible. He should’ve said no, then. He remembered that exchange in the morning, and felt like he should've stepped in. But would that make things worse?
It’s a pity he ran out of summon-quota for the day, since he used it up for Zaram. He’d ask Kaname to check on these two.
Back in his room, he wanted to find out about these two nobles, and Alia herself.
He summoned Alia Redwood’s personal file, and discovered that her admission to the Garden was supported by Rick Ennes’s father. There was a letter of recommendation, signed by the Viscount Edward Ennes of Malkney.
Rick Ennes’s file was empty. Just a simple admission form. Aver Horiam’s file was also clean, just a simple admission form.
“Ugh.” Ethan sat. He’s here to protect the hero group from the dark goddesses, but it sucked that there seemed to be a lot more to protect than them. He had a mission, but it didn’t feel right to let his new friends suffer too.
In fact, he actually found the heroines to be very well prepared, and didn’t need his protection, not at his current level. Both Sara Argos and Camelia were stronger than his summons, and David Vivan was clearly hiding some kind of trump card. At the same time, he also wanted Kaname to spy on Celeste Mirrorsong. If the hounds of darkness were seen around her, she was a suspect.
***
Week 1 Day 7
“You’re at the 8th stage already? That’s not bad.” Andrew admitted over breakfast, when Ethan spoke of his advancement. “But you do know that common-grade cores require less energy to advance up the ranks, and at the same rank, a common grade is 10-20% weaker than a rare grade? The power gap between the quality of cores gets bigger too. A dragon grade is about 30-50% stronger than a titan grade, that’s why Lady Sara Argos’s dragon-grade 2nd realm is so much stronger than a common-grade 2nd realm.”
“Oh.” Ethan felt his heart deflate, at first a little excited at how quickly he moved up the stages.
“If you’re doing well, you should start accumulating the GP to get a rare-grade core.”
Andrew raised a good point, and Ethan mulled over his strategy over his cup of really bland coffee from the canteen. Ethan realized the best way to advance was to get Zaram and attempt some of the level 2 rifts solo. Level 2 rifts have a reward of about 50-70GP, and use Zaram’s points to exchange for a rare-grade shadow-element core. 50-70GP meant it'll take 10 full days of rifting. Entirely plausible for a battle-focused summon.
“Anyway, let’s go have some fun today? It’s been a strangely long first week and I could use some entertainment.”
“Uh... actually, maybe not. I’m going to check on Alia.”
“Ah. Okay. Yeah, you know what, you probably should do that. She didn’t look that well yesterday.” Andrew said. Basil and Jovan shrugged. “We’ll go have fun.”
Alia’s room was located in the female quarters of District 4, the mens and the ladies were separate blocks, but there were no actual rules against visiting, especially during the day. At night, the female blocks had guards and magical protection, but ultimately, it was each girls’ responsibility to protect themselves.
“Hey, Alia, are you in there?” Ethan knocked, and eventually, he was let in. A part of him questioned himself whether it was right to get sucked into this ‘side-quest’, but he couldn’t help it. Alia was his friend.
She sat on her bed sulking.
“Are you... alright?” Ethan asked, not sure how to make her feel better.
She shook her head. “No. I’m feeling sad. In the first week I’m here they’ve already started to harass me. I thought they would leave me alone with all the other girls in the Garden.”
Ethan sat on the only chair in the room. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be this way.”
“It’s not your fault.” Alia sulked, and Ethan thought about using his summons to teach the nobles a lesson. But he wasn’t sure what leverage the nobles had on her family.
“What... what do they have on you?”
“My family works for Viscount Ennes.” Alia sighed. “I hoped to graduate as a professional member of the army, the pay would be more than sufficient to buy my parents out of their servitude. For now, they’ve only bullied me, but I fear one day they will get... bold.”
“...shit.” Ethan cursed, and realized using his summons could make it worse. They’d take out their frustration on her, or her parents, even more.
“It’s been like this since I was small. They’ve always bullied me, I was their servant, just like how my parents are still his father’s servant. It’s... not a great life. I tried to be strong, and I hoped that the Garden would protect me from this... but I guess I thought wrong.”
Ethan sat a little closer, and touched her hand. “But you must persevere. Your family needs you to get there, and you need a rare-grade core to get there. It seems you are your family's hope to get out of the servant life.”
She sulked. “Yeah. But some days, I just freeze at the enormity of my challenge.”
Ethan sighed, and decided to just use his own memories. He couldn’t give advice, but he could share what he went through. “I remember when I used to just give up, whenever something is too hard. I just couldn’t cope.”
Alia smiled. “Ooh?”
“When I was young, my father used to tell me to do homework, and I always found them so hard. So every time homework came up, I just refuse to do them, and protested by sitting on the floor.”
“How old were you, then?”
“I think 13? 14? So yeah. I’m... I’m not exactly a good person to advise on this. If I were in your shoes, I’d probably shut down too. I still didn’t do well in the end. I think... I think sometimes, when we are meant to fail, we will fail. No matter how hard we struggle against it. We could do everything perfectly and still fail.”
The brunette just hugged her leg, smiled, and nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes we just fail, no matter how hard we try.”
Ethan just smiled back at the girl. “They’re bullies. We’ll have to work harder, so that we can get you that rare-grade core.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I’ve not used our first 5GP.”
“Eh, I already used it on the cultivation chambers. It’s very helpful, I gained 1 stage!”
“Oh, really? So fast!”
“I... uh. I got a friend. His name is Zaram. He’s very strong and he could help us with the rifts, if you felt a little beaten up. He’s a nice person, and he could uh... see us through the rifts easily.”
“That strong?” Alia asked, and she sat up.
“Yeah. He really carried me through the rift yesterday. I think with his support, we got a good chance to even take on a level 2 rift and earn more GP.”
“Wow. I’d like to meet him, then.”
“Okay. Let’s try a rift? A level 2 rift? I'm not sure if the GP could be used to somehow... I don't know, buy your parents out?”
"...it could." Alia's eyes regained her sparkle, as if she just connected some thoughts together. "Let's go get that GP."