On Sunday morning, Alex strode through the kitchen to the back of the western wing of the house, where Gabby and Edwin had rooms. His footsteps echoed off of the marble floors, filling the silence. He found that it was a bit strange to not see Gabby in the kitchen humming along to a pleasant tune only she could hear.

He found Edwin’s quarters and knocked.

“Come in, Master Moore.”

Alex smiled, excited by the day’s plan. He pushed open the door to find Edwin already dressed in what had to be the most practical yet somehow professional outfit he’d ever seen. Dark slacks made of a canvas-like material that were pressed to hold a crease down the front of the pant leg, and a vest that was dark brown and had many pockets on it.

Alex took in Edwin’s appearance, still getting used to how put-together the man always looked. His silver-gray hair never had a strand out of place, and his light blue eyes seemed to catch every detail and anticipate his need. The trimmed mustache brought together Edwin’s entire look and, in Alex’s mind, really solidified his entire appearance as a butler. The mustache was also one of the few things Alex had started to notice could give away Edwin’s thoughts, as it could move for several reasons, when his posture and sense of decorum wouldn’t let Alex know anything otherwise.

“I see you’re ready,” Alex said. “Did you manage to get everything I asked for?”

Edwin’s mustache twitched slightly. “Yes, though I must admit, the materials you asked for were… quite specific, and there was some difficulty getting my hands on some of it. The supply chains are really being affected by the Safe Zone creation. I have them staged and waiting in the garage.” He paused, reaching for something on his desk. “Also, these two packages arrived for you yesterday evening.”

There were two black Pelican cases with a black and white Adventurer’s Guild sticker on the top. Alex accepted the first box and held it on one forearm while opening it with his other hand. On the soft, ridged foam within, Alex saw a white piece of card stock paper covering a small metallic item.

He started to get excited, realizing what the item was.

The man who sold it to Alex told him that even though his friend had a scanning skill, his friend had a lower Willpower; which meant that when he tried to scan the item, it only told them that it was an Active Skill Token, with no other information.

Unlike when Alex had gotten Valtherion’s bond token, he now had the ability to use his Heavenly Eye to scan the item. What he saw made a smile spread across his face.

D Rank Item - Active Skill Token

Rarity: Uncommon Type: (Consumable) Token

Skill Type - Willpower

It’s D-Rank? How was this in a random chest within an E-Rank Rift? Does that mean higher-ranked items have a chance to come from a lower-rank Rift?

Alex made a mental note to check into that later. It could mean that there was a lot of value in staying safe and farming a lower level Rift, even if the chance was low to get something a Rank above.

Since they couldn’t scan it, it likely means they didn’t realize it was a D-Rank item. So, it’s probably worth even more than I paid for it.

He let out a breath, as he’d worried that he’d overpaid in the end.

It had taken some back-and-forth over the last several days for Alex to convince the Guild Member who had gotten the item to be willing to sell it. They had tried to use it multiple times and ran into an error each time; the System saying that they didn’t meet the Willpower requirement.

Despite not being able to use it, Alex had to almost double his offer of Mana Stones to convince the man to part with the item. Both Alex and the mage, named N0lan on the AG App, figured that if the requirement was high enough, it must be something worth having. At that point, since there was so much money on the line, the man had grown very suspicious of Alex and refused to talk further without a Peacekeeper’s involvement as a mediator.

If the token worked anything like the consumable skill manual that he'd used to learn [Mirage], it would be a quick and painless process to learn the new skill.

He didn’t hesitate. Cracking the token in his hand, he saw purple motes of light form in the air before rushing into his forehead. The system window that greeted him made him giddy with excitement.

New Skill Learned: [Parallel Mind] (Journeyman - Level 1)

Do you accept? Yes/ No?

He accepted the skill and was surprised that it was different than the skill manual that he’d consumed. It was closer to the way he’d gained access to the [Ritual Insight] skill from his class. Where the manual presented him with knowledge about the skill and how the author of the manual had used the skill, the token instead gave him the ability to use it instantly, but no additional knowledge outside of that.

Curious about the System description, he brought up the skill window.

[Parallel Mind] - Splits the Awakened One’s consciousness into separate streams of thought.

Alex felt like his eyes might bug out of his head.

“Holy. Shit.”

Edwin coughed politely.

“Sorry, Edwin. One second, this is wild,” Alex said as he reread the description.

He couldn’t help himself; he had to try it. Alex calmed down and accepted the second box from Edwin. He checked it quickly, noting that it was the shield training manual that they’d ordered for Mark.

Alex asked Edwin to pack his car with the supplies while he went to find Sam and drop off the second box in Mark’s room.

“Master Moore, are you certain you do not want me to drive?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Yes, I’ll drive. Don’t worry about it.” He was already moving out of the door as he answered, flashing Edwin a reassuring smile before jogging through the kitchen and into the foyer. Still loving the feeling of having such an abnormally high agility, he took the stairs three at a time with ease and turned to the right hallway.

He moved over to Mark’s door and knocked out of habit, though he knew his friend wasn’t home. Since he’d known that Alex would be gone, he wanted to run some errands in the Safe Zone.

Alex set the case on top of Mark’s bed and turned the light off as he walked out of the room and dashed down the hallway to Sam’s room.

“Sam!”

“Yes?” The muffled voice returned.

Alex knocked gently on the door. “Do you mind if I come in?”

Sam opened the door and smiled up at him.

Taking a deep breath, Alex smiled back. “Would you mind watching over me for a second? We’re about to leave, but that skill token finally came in… it looks amazing.”

After receiving a nod in response, they both walked to the next room over, and Alex sat on the mat in the center of the room in front of his desk. There had been the two chairs there originally, but Alex had moved them, finding more use for a spot to sit and practice, rather than try to host meetings with others.

Alex extended a mana tendril. Okay, I’m going to try it. Ready?

“Ready.”

Alex could feel Sam’s trepidation, but there wasn’t really another way around it. To understand the skill's application and limitations, they just needed to try it. There wasn’t a very high likelihood that the skill would harm Alex in any way, but the precaution made them both feel better.

Activating the skill, Alex could immediately feel its effect. It felt like his consciousness was unzipping, splitting down the middle at a seam slowly being pulled apart. It wasn’t painful, but as he monitored the feeling, he almost had the urge to throw up. He knew his mind wasn’t supposed to be doing something like that, especially not in such a pain-free manner.

Suddenly, he was thinking about both the upcoming Rift expedition and analyzing the feeling of the skill’s activation simultaneously. He had two distinct trains of thought running parallel to each other.

“What the…”

“Are you okay?”

Yes. ”Yes.”

Woah, that’s trippy.

His secondary line of thinking observed the mental communication with a magical fascination. He followed that to look at himself from a different perspective. It was still his consciousness, so there wasn’t a physical kind of sight, but he could analyze his feelings and emotions, particularly those that were shared through his bond with Valtherion and the mental link with Sam.

He ended the effect in a slight panic, feeling that the sensation was completely bizarre. As the two halves of his mind seemed to 'rezip,' he felt a slight sense of vertigo before the world snapped back to a perfect, single line of clarity.

Alex held out his hand to the side, feeling a smile creep over his face. The best part of the skill became apparent to him immediately. He could remember both thought processes clearly. He wanted to check his stats during the effect, to see the mana cost, to experiment with-

“Alex?”

Sorry, Sam. I’m good. Wow- that skill is great. I’ll need to test it more later, but… just, wow.

Alex stood and ruffled Sam’s hair before reaching out to Val through their bond. He let the wyrm know that they were leaving.

Thanks for watching out for me. I’ll see you later tonight. Don’t forget the food Gabby left in the fridge for you.

Sam smiled and tried to ruffle Alex’s hair, but he stepped back and easily dodged the attempt. Laughing, he used [Feather Step] to move out of the room and then drift down the hallway at unnatural speeds.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he looked back at Sam, who was only just stepping out of the office, and walked back into his room. Alex shook his head and pushed off the wall while anchoring his movement skill down the stairs and to the other side of the foyer near the front door. With the added momentum, he drifted through the air at an angle, almost like gliding, and picked up a bit more speed as he traveled. While he was moving through the air, Valtherion flew into the foyer at speed and did a lap around him.

“Alex, flying like Soup Can Val!”

Alex landed and laughed. He opened the door and saw Edwin and Gabby waiting for him next to his Nissan Sentra.

Val, stop calling yourself that. It’s not a title! Mark was comparing how big you’ve gotten to a soup can. We were only laughing because of how weird it was.

He felt momentary disappointment drift through their bond before he got distracted and flew off to the car. The contrast between his butler’s practical yet professional attire and Gabby’s bright yellow t-shirt and cargo pants couldn’t have been more stark. She was practically bouncing on her feet while Edwin stood perfectly still, hands clasped behind his back.

"Ready for an adventure?" Gabby called out, waving enthusiastically.

Alex couldn't help but grin. "Adventure might be stretching it. This is a pretty controlled environment we're heading to." He pulled his keys from his pocket, catching Edwin's slight frown as he moved toward the driver's side.

"Master Moore, are you certain you wouldn't prefer me to—"

"Nope," Alex cut him off, still smiling. He felt abnormally happy. "My car, my rules. Besides, I picked this Rift location specifically. I have a grudge to settle. It's better if I drive us there."

He unlocked the doors, and Gabby immediately climbed in the back seat, sliding across to sit behind the driver's side. Edwin hesitated for just a moment before joining her in the back, maintaining his perfect posture despite the car's modest interior.

As Alex adjusted his mirrors, he caught Gabby's reflection as she started humming what sounded like the theme from Indiana Jones. Edwin's mustache twitched, and he shifted slightly away from her enthusiasm.

"It's about an hour's drive," Alex said, starting the engine. "We should go over what to expect when we get there." He backed up and then pulled out of the circular drive, acutely aware of the irony of his old Nissan pulling away from his mansion. "Edwin, I know you’ve been reading up on this stuff, but Gabby hasn’t. So, I’m going to start with some basics. There’s been a lot more information to come out in the last month, thanks to Rylan posting concrete information on the System in the forums. The Rift we're heading to is what's called a Common rarity, E-Rank. That means it's perfect for first-time Awakening."

"And we're absolutely certain about the safety protocols?" Edwin asked, his tone carefully measured, though Alex suppressed a smile. While Edwin was always professional, he wasn’t normally as rigid as he was at that moment.

“Yep. Thanks to the Guild’s posting, we know exactly what’s in the Rift. We know what monsters there are, what their levels are, and what the Quests will be. We’re plenty prepared, and neither of you are in any real danger.”

Edwin nodded in response.

“Now, Gabby. You won’t be going into many Rifts, but you should know a bit about this so the System makes more sense, and you can understand what certain things mean as you purchase magical materials later.”

“Okay, boss. Lay it on me.”

Alex chuckled. “Alright. Well, there are two main factors in Rifts. The first and most simple to understand are the Ranks. The one we’re going to is E Rank, which means it’s the lowest. As the Rank increases to D, C, B, A, and S, the level of monsters in the Rift goes up; make sense?”

He looked in the mirror and watched as she nodded, and he was happy to see Edwin nodding along beside her.

“Rarity is more important and affects more within the Rift. There are three things it affects: Time, Scale, and Complexity. That’s just how they write it in the articles, but each of those things has more meaning. Time refers to the time-stretching effect that happens in higher rarity Rifts. You don’t need to worry about today. We’re just going into a Common Rift.”

“So there isn’t an effect in Common Rifts?”

“Not to time, no. But Scale and Complexity are affected by every rarity. Scale refers to the internal dimensions of the Rift. A Common Rift is usually the size of a small state in the US or something. But an Epic or Legendary Rift might be the size of a large continent or even larger. Complexity refers to the quests that are assigned by the System. The higher the rarity, the more complex or challenging the quests will be to complete. The articles say that it scales this way with the time dilation to allow us to have more time within the harder Rifts to actually complete the quests.”

“Okay, so we’re going into the lowest Rank and Rarity Rift?”

Alex nodded, “Yes. Since your goal isn’t to fight to get stronger, all we need to do is get you to kill a monster to gain your first bit of experience to awaken. After that, you guys can decide if you want to keep fighting or just call it quits for the day.”

Gabby stopped humming long enough to add, "Yeah, what exactly are we going to be fighting? Please tell me it's not something gross."

Alex caught their eyes in the rearview mirror and tried not to smile too wide. "Well, about that..."