'Dear strange looking Fox person,
Thank you very much for the kind donation of all your gold. Our organisation will make sure to put your hard earned funds to good use furthering our goals. I happened to notice that you share similar qualities to us, so if the opportunity ever surfaces, please feel free to apply to join our organisation.
Yours sincerely,
Bradros Dulnhelas, Junior Member of The Ancient Foundation.'
"Huh? this is weird," Sophie said while she flipped the card around and inspected it. She turned to look at Lone and saw that he was already busy mass-producing golden coins to replace their now missing counterparts.
"It is, isn't it?" Lone sighed as a few hundred coins appeared next to him before they vanished, presumably being placed into the 'GOLD' folder of Lone's dimensional storage. "At least he was polite, I suppose."
"I wonder why he only took your gold? You have more valuable things in your dimension, don't you?" Sophie asked before she carefully recreated her barrier disk and got on top of it again.
"Yeah, that is odd. Maybe the ability he used was limited to only gold or he could only access the gold folder with the limited time he had? Regardless, what a shitty coincidence. Running into someone like that so soon," Lone said with a shrug, seemingly trying to put the event behind him and move on.
"Mmm. I wonder what 'The Ancient Foundation' is?" Sophie said with a mild amount of interest. Currently, she was more focused on her barrier magic training than the conversation since gold held very little meaning to the pair. She and Lone might have had a more serious reaction were it anything other than the gold that was stolen.
"Probably some sort of group run by an Ancient-Level-Being? I dunno. That could be a stretch. Maybe it's just really old. Anyway, it's probably full of people like us who got powers from a strong being," Lone said after thinking for a few seconds.
"Mmm... I wonder how many members they have?" Sophie asked rhetorically with a puzzled look on her face.
'She looks pretty cute floating about like that with such an expression,' Lone smiled. "We'll probably find out sooner or later, so let's forget it for now. If I see that 'Bradros' again though, he's getting a punch to the face," Lone grinned after saying this. Sophie couldn't help but feel sorry for the future Bradros since chances were, his face would eventually be introduced to Lone's very welcoming fist.
After that, Lone trained in the control of his Legendary Skill, Kindling Of Mana, while he used his other hand to rapidly create gold. Splitting his attention was a challenge, but he could manage somehow.
Sophie, on the other hand, was training her Mana Sensing while floating around the room on her barrier disk. The upper limit for her Mana Sensing had expanded to two miles if she tried her best, one mile if she put a little bit of effort in and seven-hundred and fifty-meters passively. Her barriers could now easily withstand any good hit from Breena but they were still instantly destroyed by any one of Lone's punches.
Likewise, Lone had made many improvements during their time in the dungeon. His knowledge of metals had increased to a level where creating one-hundred white-gold coins cost him exactly ten MP. He could also create kindlings of mana in exchange for forty-percent of his total mana as opposed to the prior fifty percent. 'I wish I could meditate while I trained two things at the same time. Kinda sucks that I can't concentrate enough to do three things perfectly,' Lone thought.
Lone extinguished the Kindling in his hand by making it destroy a simple wooden block that he had created. 'It's so annoying how I have to use these flames or else they never disappear,' Lone said to himself with dissatisfaction as he got up and stretched.
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Sophie, having noticed him, hovered her way over to him using her barrier. "Finished training?" she asked with a quiet voice.
"Yeah. Let's go get the others and go downstairs. I wanna enjoy myself and the bar seemed pretty fun. Music and games and all that shit. I'm sure Eolande can put an illusion on you to make you look like an Elf or something if you'd like," Lone said with a relaxed tone.
"Mmm, I think I'll stay in the summoning room to train a bit more," Sophie replied with a lovely smile. 'I can't afford to be lazy now that we're out of the Dungeon... I have to get stronger,' she thought with conviction.
"You sure? I think it might be fun," Lone tried to persuade, not using his Persuasion Skill at all, but simply by using his words.
"No, I'm fine. Please unsummon me if you're going downstairs. It's too risky to leave me here alone," Sophie responded while the barrier supporting her evaporated, making her fall to the bed softly. 'If I stay here alone... something might happen to me without Lone and he'll probably go into a rage and get himself hurt... ' Sophie's paranoia told her.
"Okay, if you say so," Lone said with a slightly concerned tone. He then kissed Sophie lightly before he unsummoned her and the sleeping Kyuubi.
"Sophie's been acting really weird recently... I wonder why? Is it because of me? She started acting up after the Swind incident, but it suddenly got worse after Clicker crippled two of my powers... I wonder what she's thinking," Lone mumbled with a slightly sour and unhappy expression on his face. He soon shook those feelings off and left the room before going down to the main hall of the tavern with Breena, Swind and Eolande.
Both Breena and Swind, upon being asked, had done roughly the same as Lone and Sophie, just some light training while Eolande had been forging happily in her Glade.
Elsewhere on Altros, a pair of figures stepped through a yellow vortex of some sort into a small office. One was a Grey Elf whose beauty would make most mistake him for a woman were it not for his slightly muscular physique. The other figure was a short man with an ugly face and a pair of fluffy bear ears which sat atop his head, standing out rather vividly due to his lack of hair.
"Really, Bradros, I can't believe you fucked up so badly," the Bearkin said with a disappointed tone in his voice.
Bradros, in response, kicked the Bearkin's magical staff that he was holding, forcing him to lose his balance since it was propped up against the floor supporting him. "I didn't 'fuck up'. The mission was to make contact with the new chosen. I told him who I was on a card, so what's the big issue? Pulling us out of the mission early like that," Bradros said with a pout before he walked to a pair of sliding doors that led to a balcony.
"Asshole," the Bearkin said while he got back up and followed after the man into the open air of the outdoor decking. "It's not my fault you've got sticky fingers. The higher ups saw what you did, you know that, right? You're lucky your skills are so rare. That newbie is pretty special, so I thought for sure you'd get killed for stealing his entire fortune," the Bearkin said with a sneer.
Bradros leaned his arms onto the bannister as he looked at the city rife with magic that was sprawled out beneath him. He slowly turned his gaze up to the ceiling of the humungous cavern that the city was housed within as he sighed. "And I just got to see the sunlight again. Why the hell did the Founders build this stupid place underground?"
The Grey Elf sighed once more before he spun around and rest his back on the bannister before he replied to the Bearkin. "What was I suppose to do? You know my best ability is seeing and being able to take all of the gold that a single person has. You really expected me to not take six billion gold?" he said with a grin.
"W-WHAT?! HOW MUCH?!" the Bearkin shouted in a rare moment of shock.
"Right? The bastard was loaded. Blame the higher-ups for letting me be the envoy for once. Everyone knows how I take donations pretty openly, besides, wasn't one of the abilities he had creation or something? I still can't believe he has so many skills and actually chooses not to hide them. It's been a while since someone with that many has shown up, right?" Bradros replied with an exaggerated movement of his hands.
"Mmm, not since Snow appeared," the Bearkin said. He then walked up to the edge of the balcony, next to Brad and looked down at the bustling city with a complicated expression on his face.
"That should be a fun interaction when the two meet, heh," Bradros chuckled as he spun around to face the city once more.
The two stood in silence for a few moments. "You're still gonna get in shit for this by the way," the Bearkin commented out of nowhere.
"Ah, I know. I shouldn't have let you teleport me home. Hey, Craz, mind teleporting me back? There were some really pretty Wood Elves performing a dance back at that Tavern," Bradros asked with a pleading tone.
"No. And don't give me a nickname, I'm not your friend," Craz responded curtly before he walked back into the building.
"Atcha..." Bradros said, acting like he'd been hurt emotionally. "As cold as ever. Why are Bearkin so stoic most of the time? Stupid beastkin emotional traits," he continued in a low grumble and followed after Craz.