It took Mel two days to cross the grassy hills and make it to the border.

On the second night, she received a notification about the Convocation that twisted the knife in her gut.

Convocation Update

Ratings are now unlocked and may be accessed via [Status]. Ratings are the total amount of Battle Points gained, multiplied by various factors unique to each individual and their methods of acquiring said Battle Points.

Placing in the following brackets will gain specific rewards. Rewards are cumulative with lower brackets.

Top 1: (1) [Golden Voucher]

Top 3: (1) [Revival Scroll]

Top 10: (1) [Kindling Branch (Legendary)]

Top 25: (2) [Fallen Realm Seeds (Copper)], (100) [Iron Rune Coins]

Top 50: (10) [Aspect Coins (Epic)], (100) [Copper Rune Coins]

Top 100: (10) [Health Potions], (100) [Copper Rune Coins]

She would never place in those brackets at her current pace.

“What the heck is a kindling branch?” Mel asked aloud. A darting rabbit with antlers looked at her as if she was insane.

Ah, that’s right. I’m alone again.

Technically, she wasn’t entirely alone. There were a group of people fighting with each other nearly a football yard's length away.

Mel glanced at them. For the most part, it was a bunch of Defenders bashing each other with big shields. Sometimes they fell over, sometimes they didn’t.

Unsurprisingly, it seemed to be amounting to one of the multiverse’s slowest, most boring battles ever.

Unfortunately, the system didn’t bother to explain what any of the items were. The potions and coins were things she understood. The branch was anybody’s guess, but for hitting top 10 that had to be something good.

Something directly to do with advancing, maybe?

Obviously a scroll to revive yourself would be a hot ticket item for one of the three people out of who knows how many. Thousands at least, from what Sabrina could tell me. And a [Golden Voucher] brought the mental image of Willy Wonka’s golden ticket to mind, but better.

How was it better? Mel had no idea, but she was keen to find out.

She pulled up her status, curious where she stood.

[Mel Harper]

Race: Human

Rating: [#188] Exile (G-League) [1 st Echelon]

Class: Mystic

Rank: Mundane

Next Rank: Copper (90%)

Mel snorted. Maybe I do have a chance after all?

She could check how far along she was when she got her fifth and final aspect. As far as she understood, there wasn’t any BP awarded for getting an aspect or else she’d have gotten a lot more from the Bloodtide Covenant.

However, the system did say that a person’s BP was multiplied by various personal factors. Getting stronger had to rank somewhere in there as an extra bonus, right?

Mel was glad that it was total BP gained and not something like her current BP, which would mean buying anything from the Emporium would have lowered her standing.

A cloud of unnatural darkness descended upon the distant Defenders. The shouting and general noise they were making cut out.

With more interest than before, Mel looked over. Before long, the darkness dissipated, and a figure clad in unnatural shadow strode away from the group of downed Defenders. Some kind of assassin, she guessed.

Mel clenched her jaw. Out of curiosity, she checked her rating again.

It went down. Just a single spot, but it still moved. She was at #189 now.

Fighting people more than likely earned Battle Points, there didn’t appear to be any rules mentioning that you couldn’t steal a person’s BP by killing them. Mel had noticed that killing the Bloodtide had awarded a lot more BP than she would have gotten from a monster.

Some of those downed Defenders were stirring on the ground, so maybe taking human lives wasn’t necessary.

That’s good, I don’t fancy being a murderhobo to get to the top. Not unless I really want to.

It still would offer more Battle Points though, if Mel’s theory was correct.

In fact, if you could steal all of a person’s BP by killing them, the smartest, most devious people would wait until the very end. Let others kill monsters while they assassinated those who were left.

It would be a risky gambit.

On the one hand, the assassin stood to gain tremendously. On the other…the people still left at the end of the 56 day trial would be pretty damn strong. Assassinating them would not be easy.

That did make her worry for her friends, but nobody in their right mind would backtrack to the start if they were trying to place in the top 100.

As much as Mel wanted to see what sort of darkness or shadow powers that person was using, she couldn’t afford to be distracted. She stood less than 100 yards away from the thunder plateau in front of her, a darkness plateau to her left, and far to her right was a soggy marsh that she could blend right into with her [Hidden Mist].

Unfortunately, the guiding light from her aspect seeker scroll split into three distinct paths. One to each of the plateaus.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Are you kidding me? I have options?” Mel threw her hands up in annoyance. “How am I supposed to pick?”

There would be no answer, but now that she was alone Mel found it easier to slip back into the habit of talking to herself.

I gotta work on that.

If she was a betting woman–and she was–then her bet would be that each plateau had its own aspect or aspects related to its power. Clearly that put the marsh plateau out of the question.

She already had a Mist aspect, and anything a marsh might give her was unappealing. That left Advanced Darkness and the stormy plateau of towering pillars, blustery storms, and lightning strikes aplenty.

“Edgelord or Stormlord,” Mel thought aloud to herself. “Well, that kinda settles it doesn’t it? Nobody wants to be an edgelord.”

With her choice firmly in her mind, the other two lines of light fizzled and faded away, leaving just the one.

Mel marched up to the aurora of light that separated the plateaus. For once she didn’t have to worry about the height difference. She pressed a hand to the light, surprised that it passed through so easily.

The air tingled on this plateau and her blonde hair began to lift slowly into the air before the rain hit her and settled it back down.

Up close, the plateau was like a maze of gray stone pillars covered in moss and lichen. Figures both large and small moved across her path, down adjoining corridors of stone, and beyond.

A flash of purple lightning struck the ground nearby. The boom was deafening. Mel swayed on her feet as the ground heaved, then settled.

This is more like it!

Undaunted, Mel decided that her best bet would be to get a higher vantage point. It didn’t hurt that the line of light pointed straight up the nearest pillar.

Really wish I had an aspect for strength, Mel thought as she leapt up to the first handhold and pulled herself up. By her own reckoning, she was at least as strong as a bodybuilder would be, but she was still firmly in “human grade” territory.

The only reason she was at the upper end was because of the other aspects pushing her toward Copper as a whole.

With her greater sense, Mel could find holds that she might have otherwise missed. Her agility allowed her to twist and make previously impossible maneuvers to reach them, no matter how far or awkwardly placed.

The higher she climbed, the more she saw of the plateau, and the more she realized this was the only plausible way she would ever navigate the maze down below.

She had seen more people here than at any other time in her life. None of them paid her much attention. Most were too busy running to or away from a monster. The others were climbing like she was.

Mel picked up the pace. She had a bad feeling that she wasn’t the only person who had used a seeker scroll to get here.

Halfway up, a lightning strike blasted the pillar on her left. The poor soul that had been climbing with startling speed lost his grip and fell to a messy end.

Mel winced. “RIP buddy.” She kept going though. If whatever gods existed here hadn’t already smited her for the shit she thought and said, they weren’t going to now.

More than likely, they were arguing over who had the right to kill her. The good ol’ Constantine Defense was surprisingly effective when pissing off demons and deities alike.

Pulling herself up to the top of her pillar, Mel saw dozens of people already on their own pillars. The distance between them was surprisingly small, most were only a few yards apart.

Some people were launching themselves across the pillars one at a time, others were using tools to fasten ropes across.

Others yet had…altogether more interesting methods of traversal.

The most notable was a hooded necromancer riding a wave of skeletons from one pillar to another. She seemed so casual and relaxed about it until lightning cracked into the skeletons, knocking them to the ground below.

Unlike the other poor soul, the necromancer did get back up again. This time with significantly fewer undead minions.

“Surfs up, indeed,” Mel said. For some reason, she was unable to keep her eyes off her. She felt a strange magnetism to the woman, and then she was gone.

It was odd being around so many people, but they weren’t fighting each other. A few groups were duking it out, but it didn’t seem like it was the main event.

Mel took a moment to find the aspect seeking line, then followed it up into the lightning charged air. Purple streaks of energy grounded themselves in the many pillars–and the people unfortunate enough to be standing on top–causing the entire plateau to rumble.

Shading her eyes against the rain, Mel’s gaze climbed higher and higher to the taller pillars and the main event.

A dragon.

Well, not precisely a dragon. Technically a “long” so-called for their sinuous serpentine-like bodies that they used to fly through the air with the aid of magic. They had no wings, though they did have two pairs of legs and long barbel-like whiskers.

This creature had horns the size of great redwoods, each branch sparkled with unimaginable power. Mel didn’t miss that her guiding light was pointing right at its horns.

Because of course I’d have to fight a long dragon. Why not? Mel grumbled to herself.

Its long, sinuous body twisted gracefully through the air like a shimmering ribbon. Metallic scales gleamed on its underbelly as it lazily passed by with all the urgency of a turtle.

At least, from this distance it seemed slow and cumbersome. Mel knew firsthand how vast distance could distort perception.

Unlike most monsters, it didn’t seem to notice the crowd of people on the thunder plateau. That, or it didn’t care.

It literally radiated immeasurable power. Lightning struck one horn and was transmuted into a different element altogether.

A bolt of lightning became a twisting spout of water the size of a subway train, knocking down several pillars as if they were bowling pins.

Another bolt crashed into its horn and became a fusillade of boulders the size of cars, raining down on the pillars all around Mel, forcing her to run and leap for her life.

The pillar she had just been standing on crumbled like a pile of wooden blocks, throwing up a plume of dust and debris.

Better get moving, Mel thought to herself, eyeing the next pillar and taking a running leap. She nearly collided with another person who had just made their own jump, but she didn’t stop or slow down.

They went to the left while Mel went right, taking the larger leap that would get her to a taller pillar in three impossibly long jumps instead of five easy ones.

Bigger men and women tried to knock her down while she crossed their paths. It was hard to tell whether it was intentional or not, but Mel was looking for something to vent her frustrations on.

She tucked and rolled the first time a foot purposefully tripped her. Sticking out her leg, she smashed her foot into their ankle, forcing their feet out from under them entirely.

Mel was up on her feet, leaping to the next pillar before they got up.

As she leapt to the next pillar, Mel noticed the big bulky man from the pillar over. He was making no attempt at diverting his course away from her. With all the grace of an NFL lineman, he plowed several people out of his way and jumped with strength that was clearly enhanced.

Still sailing through the air, Mel used [Hidden Mist]. The cold fog spread, creating dangerously icy patches.

Seeing the threat ahead, the man tried to put on the brakes but had overcommitted by plowing through the previous group. When he made it to Mel’s pillar, his foot hit an icy patch and he went down hard.

Even though it had been her doing, Mel still winced in sympathy. That boy didn’t just eat shit, he ate the whole buffet.

Grinning to herself, Mel made the last leap and climbed the final pillar. When she pulled herself up to the top, the view was astounding, but she didn’t have any time to gawk.

Several groups were shoving and drawing weapons, while others were watching the dragon slip between the taller pillars. It reminded Mel of the otters at the zoo, gliding effortlessly underwater as they played.

The only difference was that people were leaping onto the long dragon’s back in a bid to reach its impossibly valuable horns.

Horns that Mel could now see were not magical themselves. Like barnacles on the side of a ship, the dragon’s horns were covered in aspect gems.

Mel grinned and readied herself as the dragon swooped by.