{DANGER! YOU HAVE INGESTED A TOXIC SUBSTANCE (A4 GRADE : LEVIATHAN SALIVA - REPTILE)}

{Regeneration : Level Decreased. Current Level : 0}

{Your ‘Regeneration’ level cannot go any lower}

{Poison Resistance : Level Up! Current Level: 6}

Combusto-Gunk tastes good.

Leviathan drool does not.

If someone told me later that I didn’t need the 5% movement speed buff to outrun the Leviathan, I might’ve just had a meltdown on the spot. That is how awful it tasted, and how much I wanted validation that I chose the only viable option.

Imagine this — or, for your own health and wellbeing, don’t imagine it — someone else’s booger soup, topped with rotten brussels sprouts and cow dung.

I’m sorry if you committed, and I’m extra sorry if you have the capacity to see that creation using your mind’s eye, but for the time being, I’m going to say that was the only way I was making it out of there alive.

It helps me sleep at night.

I scraped through the glistening portal just as I felt a scaled arm or leg or whatever slap against my back, propelling me forward. Veronica and Adam had left me for dead in the last ten meters, but I didn’t blame them — it wasn’t worth getting themselves nearly killed just to save me.

When I came through the Gate, I kept running. As far as I knew, the monster would come through with us and I’d be sprinting all the way back to Haverbark before someone could take the beast off my hands.

Then I realized two things.

One) The gate was only twelve foot in diameter whilst the monster was damn near forty-foot; and

Two) The sounds of death that pursued us through the dungeon had been replaced by the laughs and joyful shouts of the Ripping Warriors.

At that blissful moment, my legs gave out and I smacked into the ground, sliding on my belly to a complete stop. For a moment I just lay there, wheezing and fighting back tears of joy and relief. The mud seeping into my shirt and face felt so amazing that I would’ve married it on the spot had it grown arms and legs and said, ‘I do.’

Adam yanked me to my feet and checked I wasn’t having a nervous breakdown.

“You right there Marcus? Did you eat the poison?”

“I did. I uhh, I have some kind of immunity to basic poisons — gives me a speed buff when I consume them.”

"That was a Leviathan. There is no way that was a basic poison."

Oh shoot. I hadn't considered that at all. Adam watched my face fall as I scrolled my Navigator. The ability had something else to it, I swear...There.

"Oh! Yeah, I suppose I got lucky — I've also got a small chance to negate intermediate potions."

“You’re a maniac.”

With that praise, he poked his way through the crowd to where Veronica was tying a rope to a shoddily painted cart. She seemed pleased with their haul — if Adam’s previous estimate was to be used as a benchmark, they’d far exceeded it.

“Veronica, what the hell was that? I’ve never seen any boss out here of that size!”

She puffed out her chest and beamed.

“That was a Leviathan, and a big one at that! Methinks things might not be going so well for the humans on the frontlines, and the excess big bad guys are being sent out to the sticks to be dungeon bosses. Should clear up once that new Commander gets to the frontline — what was his nickname? Hell God? Demon Man?”

“Man of Hell.”

“Aye! Heard he was born not too far from here.”

Adam steered the conversation back where he wanted it.

“Veronica, we came out here to ask you some questions. In private. Can you send your members on the way, and hang back with us for a moment?”

Given the stacks of cash they would make on their haul, Veronica was in a good mood, and was a lot more accommodating than usual.

“Oh yes, sure thing. I won’t have Darol try to kill you this time — er, not that I suggested it originally.”

She finished a lap of checking ropes and fixing carts, then rounded up the Ripping Warriors and sent them back to their headquarters. When she was done, she came back and leaned against the Gate, unfazed about the giant beast lurking behind it.

“So, what’s up? What taxes have I evaded today?”

Adam pulled a folded scrap of paper from his pocket and presented it to her.

“Nothing so far, aside from misrepresenting the quality of the Gunk. We’re more curious about your connection to Granton Roolever — as you can see, you’re paying him about eighty thousand dura a month, but I don’t see why. He certainly wasn’t fighting for you in there,” Adam said, pointing through the Gate.

Veronica skimmed the document then handed it back.

“Well, Adam, Granton is a private citizen, so I don’t believe I’m required to give you that information. I will though, as a gesture of goodwill towards the GTA. And for the sake of transparency. But remember I don’t have to. And now you owe me. And I will collect my debts in the near future.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

She spoke these small sentences in a jolted, abrupt way like a lizard scampering over hot pavement. Too much time in the dungeons.

“Granton Roolever is an interesting bloke. I’m sure you know how rich he is, but he is also very, very powerful. We pay him that money to go into dungeons after us and defeat the boss, otherwise new Gates won’t spawn anywhere near us. His services are quite necessary, you see, and therefore tax-deductible.”

“But why is he listed as an employee? If he is providing you with a service, he should just be a contractor, or operate under a separate company at least,” Adam replied.

Veronica threw up her hands and posed with an ‘I dunno’ face.

“That’s not my business. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s your business, so I’ve no clue why you’re asking me.”

Adam was getting a little huffy.

“Yeah, no, I get it. Just thinking aloud.” He turned to me now. “Marcus, time to hop on your donkey — we’re heading back.”

The journey was a quiet one. I was given the privilege of riding next to Adam’s methane powerplant this time, but he didn’t seem eager to chat. I took the time to do some thinking of my own, particularly about Granton and the man at the church.

Gotta ask his name. ‘Church Man’ feels a bit reductive.

I would be back there tonight after finishing up any work that today’s events created. From the scruffy beard and the general lack of hygiene he exhibited, I got the sense that Church Man was die-hard for the whole prayer thing. I couldn’t imagine him being particularly interested in Talthen, the Combat Goddess, but who knows, he might surprise me.

I got an Intuition vibe from him. He’d said that he didn’t ‘rememba’ the name of the Intuition God, but for a man that committed, that just didn’t sit right. It was like he was trying to deter me from praying to his chosen Deity, as though I would steal away his spotlight.

Touché, Church Man, touché.

As far as I knew, that may well have been how prayer worked. Offer up the right food, then reap the rewards in accordance with how many other devout people were doing the same thing, at the same time.

Wasn’t too ludicrous.

We made it to Haverbark in the midafternoon, and once we’d trudged our way into Adam’s office, he shut the door and finally let me in on the scheme he’d cooked up during the ride home.

“Alright. I don’t believe for a second that Granton is doing things by the book. Taking him down would mean a big pay raise for both of us, so I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.”

I hadn’t seen Adam act this intense before, not even when we faced down the Leviathan. He really took this job seriously.

“I need you to study up on Rendar until you know enough to be his own personal chef. We’re going to insert you into Granton’s little prayer circle thing and get you high up — you’re gunna pray there morning and night, maybe even skip work a bit so he doesn’t suspect you’re a 9-5er here. Once you gain his trust, we just need something — anything that ties him to sketchy shit. You deliver that to the GTA, and we’ll have reasonable cause to rip up his whole operation.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little intense? We really don’t have much to go on other than Veronica’s word and a scrap of paper from the Ripping Warriors’ workpapers.”

It felt like there was something hidden under the surface. Something Adam knew that I didn’t. The face he made when he talked about Granton made this feel personal, like he wasn’t just in this for the recognition and pay raise associated with exposing someone like Granton.

“I’ll make the decisions, thank you. Don’t forget you’ve been here less than a week.”

Ergh. The typical corporate manager shit always comes back.

It was a pretty good gig, though. My day job had suddenly turned into studying for my side-hustle at the church — what a phrase — so I retreated to my cubicle and pulled out my Rendar-tree-chart.

I’m not sure if an affinity for ‘everything’ meant that my learning ability was also increased, but for whatever reason, Rendar’s diet was sticking in my head no problemo. I wanted to be a bit more specific with my prayers this evening, so I flicked through the Knowledge section of the Navigator for inspiration.

Most of my options seemed kind of useful — it’s hard for Knowledge to be a bad thing — but I almost had too many options. I scrolled through pages of skills until I ended up back where I began the night before.

[Domain Thinking]

Looking at it the second time round, it should have been a no-brainer.

Domain Thinking:

{Proficiency in Domain Thinking will increase the user’s perceptiveness over large areas, particularly relating to inanimate objects.}

With fresh eyes, this skill was phenomenal.

Managing troops on the battlefield?

Check.

Analyzing tax data from piles of documents?

No problem.

Scouting out a dungeon?

Chump change.

Tonight, I would pray until Rendar could eat no more, and I would become a Domain Thinker.

I intended on being at my desk for the long-haul, so I started by raiding the kitchen. I wasn’t impressed by my winnings, so I snaked into Adam’s office when he wasn’t there and rummaged some loose change from a drawer. I was sure he wouldn’t mind — the GTA was getting my labor for free, after all.

A quick trip to the stalls near the GTA was a bit more fruitful, though most were shutting up for the day. Some shortbread, a couple carrots, and a meat which I did not want to know the origin of.

I set up at my desk in a peculiar position — arms crossed on the table cradling my head, feet crossed in my chair with my shoes off. This would've spelled death to my spine back on Earth —hell, I hadn’t been able to do this since I turned twenty — but here, in this younger body, I could experiment. After all, it sounded like making it to old age would be a feat — if I got too powerful, I might be shipped off to the frontlines to fight monsters that made the Leviathan look like child’s play.

Today had been pleasant weather. Sun shining almost all day, low humidity, no rainfall. Along with a few other variables, I was confident in offering Rendar baby capsicums stuffed with cream cheese and dill. In many respects, he was a man of simplicity, and really loved classic pretend it’s good for you since it has a vegetable foods.

Throughout the next few hours, my prayers were answered. I’d gotten used to the vibrations in my arm and had been keeping track of the level ups while praying. Once everyone had left besides Adam and a couple more senior looking folk, I took a break to check in on my new skill.

Domain Thinking (3):

{Bird’s Eye View: For 30 seconds, produce an accurate bird’s eye view image in your mind’s eye of any 50 square meter space within three hundred meters of you. 2-hour cooldown}

I was expecting to be higher than level three, but I hadn’t exactly worked for it, so the slower level up rate made sense. And the ability I’d gained was handy — not so much for gleaning information from documents, but for gaining a serious head start on the Leviathan earlier? If only.

I’d have to try the skill later — when it said ‘fifty square meters’, did that mean it had to be a square image? Or could I see, for example, a space half a meter in width, and one hundred meters in length? It would still technically be fifty square meters.

My conniving was interrupted by Adam poking his head over my shoulder like a plastic bird in a cuckoo clock.

“Spending your time praying for yourself rather than studying?”

I flinched harder than a cat on tin foil.

“GaaHH! Don’t frickin creep up on me like that, damn!”

“They’ll be gathering now down at the church. I was gunna tell you to get some dirty clothes so you blend in with the paupers a bit better, but to be honest you’re fine as you are. Get going?”

“Yeah, all good. I was just practicing a quick prayer so I knew how to do it. You can test me if you’d like?”

“Nope, I’m outta here. A vice-president is taking me to dinner to celebrate my promotion. Seeyah!”

“Sounds like a hoot. Have fun.”

Adam followed a middle-aged gentleman out of the office, presumably the VP he mentioned. He wore a grey pinstripe suit and a rotund hat, like a combination of George Clooney and Bowler Hat Guy from Meet the Robinsons. Kinda walked like him, too.

Satisfied with my people-watching for the day, I stretched my back — not a single crack — and laced up my shoes.

Time to go to competitive praying.