Hayumi had him hooked after the first night, and in total she let him train in dreams for an entire month. He agreed to work under her on the third day. With no contract or terms, a purely verbal agreement to begin with as Hayumi seemed more interested in seeing the results of his training before she actually assigned him any important tasks. The only thing she asked of him was to make healing and mana potions out of materials she brought to him throughout the month.

Hayumi started off the training with something relatively simple that he could deal with. Something he’d actually fought before even: skeletons. Leo found everything that he knew to be in his storage existed in the dream, though of course nothing that he used ended up going away in the real world. He could even use Combine in the dream, but only to make things he’d already made before. With everything he’d acquired and learned since the tutorial, he actually found the skeletons easy to deal with.

Then, in the daytime, Hayumi worked to teach him the bow-conjuring spell. Despite the spell proving much more complicated and having a few moving parts compared to simply lighting a candle-sized flame, Leo could cast the spell after only a week of working at it. It helped that Hayumi’s teaching took a much more approachable step-by-step format than Rize’s. To Rize’s credit, she apparently learned how to use most of her fire-based magic before she could even walk, so looking back, Leo felt impressed Rize could actually teach him anything.

He could cast the spell in a week, but he couldn’t start using it mid-combat for a couple weeks after, for a couple different reasons. The first being that casting a spell demanded a level of focus he could hardly pull off in the middle of being attacked without getting used to it. The second reason was that as time went on, Hayumi started throwing much more than simple skeletons at him. She had plenty of things to pick from her memories, faithfully reproduced to hound him. She made sure to vary the training as the days passed. He fought things smaller than him, larger than him, stronger, faster, things that cast magic, and people. Other humans and other people with various features. Much as it unnerved him, Hayumi reminded him that his work as a Laborer would have him fighting against all kinds of things. The Outsiders had humans working under them as well, to say nothing of the natives of the worlds uninvolved with the Labors who meant him harm. If there were anywhere he could get ‘used to’ the killing, he supposed he’d rather do it in a dream where none of it actually mattered.

One thing the training really hammered home for him, as the non-human things that he fought seemed to carry most of their properties in the dream, including elemental ones, was that the elements a creature had played a major role in how to fight them, once he actually started using them. It started when he fought panglers, similar to the ones he found that the darklings killed on his first quest, and he couldn’t so much as scratch them with anything that didn’t have the metal or water element. Once he used the bombs he learned to create, the frost and metal bombs specifically, he killed them so fast it almost felt like cheating.

Hayumi didn’t lie about the pain, either. Though Leo had a feeling she did do something to dampen it for the first few days, gradually increasing it just whenever he got used to it so that it didn’t affect him too much. It didn’t help that after the first couple of weeks, she conjured up things she very well knew he wouldn’t be able to fight. One of them being the darkling matriarch, which crushed him into the cobblestones before Hayumi snapped her fingers to heal him up like new. After nights like that where he had a particularly rough time, he’d start waking up with nosebleeds and phantom pains that would last the entire day. That did worry him, but it was probably for the best that Hayumi let him know his limits.

After the first day of the dream, he went back to talk to Rize and Axilya about the training. Layne had no interest, but told him to keep at it as long as there were no adverse side effects. Layne also warned Leo to keep anything he’d want to hide to himself, like his status screen, since Hayumi could likely see it inside the dream. After a week, even Rize and Axilya could tell the difference that some actual combat experience made.

Over the course of the month, Leo took a couple of quests for gathering materials in the nearby woods, going out with Rize, Axilya, or Kazato. Thankfully, he didn’t run into any looming disasters like last time, earning a couple of E-rank Karma for his trouble, which he put into Reflex to bump it up to E+.

During this downtime, he started to look into the gods that run the Labors, with the goal of trying to pin down the one that brought him in to begin with. He didn’t get particularly far, only learning that one could be considered a ‘god’ after they reached rank M, and that there were likely dozens or maybe even hundreds across the myriad worlds accessible to Laborers. He even found speculation that another system of ranks existed past M, but it was only accessible once one reached that rank. All of that made for a rabbit hole that he could afford not to get into for the time being.

He also continued to sell potions, both at Zumra’s and on the Labor’s shop, and they sold incredibly well, to the point where he broke the hundred mark and got an achievement for it. He put the resulting Karma into Will.

You’ve sold 100 items made with Combine! Achievement Reward: D rank Mental Karma.

Some of the items in Zumra’s shop continued to sell quickly in the aftermath of the attack, so Leo helped replenish them with his own abilities as a Mixer. After getting half a dozen or so Mana potions as payment, Leo simply started asking Zumra for more things he could Mix. The elf truly had hundreds of different items in his formula book, and while it seemed like bad manners to ask another Mixer for their formulas - at least according to Zumra, they both knew that Leo had no desire to set up shop in the area or take any of Zumra’s customers.

Since he’d just learned a spell for it, Leo had Zumra teach him different elemental arrows. They were far less volatile than the bombs, with their elemental abilities only spilling out when they were fired at high speeds. He also got oils for his sword and bombs for the other elements. By the end of the month the only element he didn’t have something directly for was Aether. During all of this, he actually found something that appeared in his own formula book without him noticing.

A so-called ‘Blackening Oil’ that added a dark element to any weapon coated in it. As he’d been writing all the other formulas down in a physical blank book that he kept in storage, Leo hadn’t actually checked this list since before the attack on Normouth. Thankfully, he could confirm that Zumra actually had a similar formula, and that more would appear on the list as he ranked up, so Leo should check that list periodically even if it filled up pretty quickly due to him not raising Intellect.

Gradually, life in Normouth returned to normal for the people, Leo fell into a routine he found similar to the two weeks when he first started training under Sir Verakith. Layne was frequently absent, however. Since he’d learned what he needed to from the knight, he actively searched in the area around Normouth for something. Whatever it was, it kept him out of the city for days at a time. He’d occasionally come back, go to Zumra’s or ask Leo directly to make some potions, and leave the next day. Leo at least felt comfort in the fact that Layne had given him a smartphone and his number, but he couldn’t help but wonder exactly what it is Layne searched for.

Fortunately for Leo, a month after he’d started training with Hayumi, he’d finally get a text from Layne in the early morning.

From: Layne Blackburn

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Layne: Hey

Layne: I’m back in Normouth, could you meet me at Zumra’s?

Leo stared at the text for quite a while before gathering his things. Maybe he’d find out what Layne’s goal was one way or another. Heading off to Zumra’s became part of the routine at this point, so neither Hayumi nor Kazato asked where he was headed. He greeted Zumra once he arrived and asked if he needed anything made, but after thirty days, things finally calmed down enough that he wasn’t in need of extra stock. With that settled, Leo made his way to the back room, where he found Layne sitting at a table on the opposite side.

He glanced back toward Leo once he came in, but Leo could see that he was looking down at a map that covered nearly the entire table. “You called?” Leo said, closing the door behind him as he stepped into the room and walking toward Layne.

“Yeah, I just need you to make something. I have the materials here.” With a flick of his wrists, Layne pulled out a large white feather in one hand, and a sliver of bark from some kind of tree in another, likely out of his own Storage space.

“Alright, what’s it going to do?” Leo asked, taking the materials.

“It’s a potion to help hold your breath.” Layne answered. “Should be D-rank, which is what those materials are. It also helps you when you get to high altitudes.”

Leo raised an eyebrow, curious as to why he needed such a specific potion. Rather than ask about it, though, he simply went to Combine the materials.

Deepbreath Draught (D-Rank)

Allows the user to draw in and hold air in their bodies for long periods of time. Increases time to hold breath based on Fortitude. Acclimates the user to environments with high amounts of elemental Air.

Lasts for 1 hour.

“Interesting.” Leo said, handing Layne the potion. “How many of these do you need, and what for?”

“I’ll take five, for now.” Layne replied, and with some movement of his fingers that Leo assumed to be interfacing with his own status screen, Layne sent over a thousand credits. “As for what, I’ll be heading up some mountains soon, so I want to have those ready for me and whatever group I end up going with.”

“Does it have to do with that?” Leo gestured to the map on the table, which he’d been stealing glances at. It looked like a map of the region, with several spaces marked and crossed off.

“Yes.” Layne said simply, and then let out a small sigh at Leo’s expectant look for some kind of further explanation. “I’ve been heading around and unearthing a couple of different dungeons . It’s actually been more like a video game than anything else so far, especially since they were actually dungeons to hold some ancient criminals in Heom’s history.”

That sounded oddly familiar to Leo. “Wait, have you been clearing these yourself?”

“Yes. They’re only around D-rank so they haven’t been that hard. I’ve been to three so far, and I’ve been looking for any signs of the fourth, but I’ve been having a little bit of trouble with it. Haven’t been able to find it for the better part of a week.”

“Okay, have you been going to these for any reason in particular.”

“The bosses of the dungeons I’m looking for all have sigils that I need for another I’ve discovered.” Layne said, looking back to the map. “That’s been my big project for the past month or so.”

Leo took a step over to look down at the map, looking at the spots that were picked and finding a gap right around the area of Normouth. “Hey Layne, what were the Sigils you needed? The ones you get from the dungeons?”

Layne gave him an odd look, before answering. “They’re the Sigils of the Hanged, the Burned, the Carved, and-”

“The Drowned?” Leo finished for him. At Layne’s look of surprise, Leo brought up his hand and brought out the Sigil of the Drowned that he got from the tutorial dungeon.

“You - where did you get that?”

“From Oorden the Drowned, I fought him in my tutorial dungeon.” After Leo answered him, Layne’s eyes locked onto the sigil, and he moved to take it, but Leo put it back in his storage. “Hold on now. I’ll give this to you under one condition.”

A few more seconds of silence, and then another sigh from Layne. “Alright, what’s the condition?”

“You have to bring me along.”

Name:

Leonell Bolden

Stats

Title

Equalizer

Fortitude: D- (2/10)

Class

Mixer

Reflex: E+ (0/10)

Element

-

Intellect: E (0/10)

Total Rank

D

Intuition: C- (0/10)

Status

Health 100% Mana 100%

Will: E (2/10)

Skills

Combine, Auto-Loot, Appraise, Storage, Replicate, Inoculation, Soul Harvest

Luck: D (5/10)

Skill: Combine

Mix different raw materials into a new item. You choose the shape of the form. Final form is affected by rank and element of materials.

Store Combine results into a mental guidebook that grows based on Intellect rank.

Skill: Auto-Loot (Mixer)

Automatically separates mixable materials from slain creatures. If the [Storage] skill is active, automatically places loot into storage space.

Skill: Appraise (Mixer)

Look at a creature or material and gain information on them. Information includes: Rank, Element, Class, Statuses, Titles. May have difficulty appraising creatures of higher rank, or creatures hidden by another skill or effect. Skill effect boosted by Intuition Rank.

Skill: Storage (Mixer)

Creates an inter-dimensional storage space that only you can access. Storage increases with Total Rank

Skill: Replicate

Create an item that you have previously created using materials of a similar element. Final product will be lowered one rank due to Replication.

Skill: Inoculation

Ignore Toxicity gained from items created with the Combine skill.

Skill: Soul Harvest

By using Mana, automatically create Aether materials from slain creatures when you use the Auto-Loot skill.

Arsenal (Highest Rank) Arrows | Fire, Frost, Shock, Metal, Splintering (C) Creature Abilities | Aqua Cannon, Stoneskin (C) Oils | Ashblood, Freezing, Electrifying, Sharpening, Poisonous, Blackening (C) Misc | Witchlight (C) Bombs | Fire, Frost, Lightning, Shrapnel, Poison (C) Spells | Candlewick, Spectral Bow (E) Potions | Healing, Mana, Restoration, Deepbreath (C) -