The System assigns passage rights through Gates in three different ways: Purchasable passage codes available on the System Shop, grants from Territorial governors (or their proxies), or grants from Territory Bosses.

Setting aside the latter two options, many question why the System offers an option that circumvents established authority to those with the means. The System Shop is used by those from all walks of life at least once, when they are allowed to purchase a single basic skill from the Shop at the age of majority, as part of their System Tutorial. During this Tutorial, all sentients are taught about the options to purchase passage codes – otherwise known as passcodes – to Gates leading to other Territories or worlds.

One school of thought says the System desires the people of Cytheria to grow outside of the control of established authorities. This belief is common in System Church believers, who say no authority may be put above that of the System. This is reinforced by the incredible freedom the System allows when it comes to access to the System Shop, since kiosks are available in every settlement and chits are dropped in all dungeons.

Another school of thought is that the System desires social stability. This might sound counter-intuitive, if you have not read the histories. However, history clearly shows that restricting the movement of powerful individuals often backfires – sometimes catastrophically so – on the nation or civilization that tries to maintain those restrictions. More than one civilization has fallen when they turned on an S-rank or earned their spite by trying to restrict their movements.

Even enough A-ranks, gathered together, can easily destroy cities and devastate nations with minimal effort. Very few individuals have the potential to even reach A-rank, and those who would willingly serve a nation or organization on a permanent basis are vastly in the minority.

As a result, most nations sell their Gate passcodes through proxy companies, thus earning a profit and leaving behind a record of who has passed through a Gate and who has not. This has the advantage of also providing for maintenance on public works projects and the bounties that are paid out to adventurers on pest monsters and the like, stimulating the economy as a whole…

~From Commerce, Government, and the System

Elementals are a peculiar type of monster. Similar to golems, they are not living things but rather natural magical constructs that appear in the midst of high concentrations of magical energy. Unlike golems, which are made up solely of minerals of one sort or another (dirt, mud, stone, iron, etc), elementals are essentially a mass of raw elemental energy that is emanated from their core.

Also unlike golems, elementals are capable of thought and do not merely react to the presence of living things with aggression. Elementals can even become capable of semi-rational thought if they reach the greater elemental stage, a process that takes tens of thousands of years undiscovered outside of a dungeon.

Unfortunately, no elemental has ever succeeded in Awakening. This is thought to be because their evolution is not based in part on biology and because their existence if fundamentally unstable.

There are two ways to defeat an elemental. One is to destroy their core, which is the elemental crystal that emanates the energy that forms their ‘bodies’. The other is to disperse the energy emanating from the core utilizing energy of one’s own. Since retrieving the cores is considered desirable (as they are quite valuable), magic (preferably elemental magic of a different element than the elemental in question) is required to make a profit off of fighting elementals.

~From The Oddities of Adventuring

Metallic dragons have a number of odd habits, but perhaps the oddest of them is their taste in food. It is said that a metallic dragon can be honored with a feast of fine meats, treated to hard spirits, and will do anything for sweets (cake especially).

Ancient legends of draconic civilization before their Grand Sin speak of city-sized bakeries devoted solely to fulfilling the needs of greedy metallic dragons, and master bakers whose wealth surpassed that of modern day empires. In the modern day, more than one aggressive bronze dragon has been pacified by an offering of fine chocolate cookies, and the sole known successful ‘dragon-tamer’ was a ‘Warrior Baker’ Class.

It is particularly suspicious that the founder of the Druzilian Empire was a baker who rose to power shortly after the fall of draconic civilization.

It is thought that dragons are responsible for the fact that any Territorial climate that will support it has some kind of sugar-producing crop growing naturally, and most kingdoms and empires make it a part of their ruling tradition to cultivate those crops in case of a ‘visit’ by a wayward dragonling.

Last of all, the fact that cakes are listed under the ‘anti-dragon devices’ in the System Shop speaks for itself.

~From a Tradick Varnet’s Account of Humorous Monster Habits

You wanna to know how to defeat a dragonling? Sorry, that ain’t gonna happen.

~The Words of a Nameless S-rank Adventurer to hopeful D-ranks, AS 76

I told ‘em they couldn’t do it.

~The Words of a Nameless S-rank Adventurer at a Mass Funeral, AS 77

The Mongrel placed the last plate of cakes in front of the dragonling wandering the elemental dungeon and backed away as the young dragon sniffed them curiously. The plates were simple earthware, but the cakes resting atop them were nothing so mundane.

Each cake was a work of art copied from the past efforts of a maxed-out baker and sold through the System Shop. Their texture, their flavor, and the ingredients used were incomparable with the mundane cakes available to those of the Mongrel’s rank.

He would love nothing more than to dig into one of those cakes and devour it whole (despite the inevitable stomachache it would give him to eat a whole cake on his own). However, each of those cakes cost (at the minimum) ten thousand credits, and the forty-two before them had cost just over two million.

The silver-scaled dragonling began to salivate as he sniffed the cakes, and his blue eyes locked the Mongrel in place as his surprisingly high-pitched voice emerged from his mouth, “And you’ll give me these as long as I let you hunt the lower parts of the dungeon until you have enough money to buy your way out of the Territory?”

The dragonling’s voice was curious and interested. He very much wanted to devour the cakes, but stealing an offering before a deal was sealed was below the dignity of a dragon… even if it was a deal with two-legged food.

To the Mongrel, who had come alone (at his insistence) the dragonling was an undeniable abyss of pure power, far outmatching Fliman at his best merely sitting there with his claws folded over one another. It never even occurred to him to challenge the young dragon. This was why the dragonling was even willing to listen to him.

Like all creatures who lived by the fang and claw, the dragonling was highly sensitive to bloodlust and other predatory emotions leaking through individuals’ pheromones. It was only because the two-legged food had displayed no such emotions that he hadn’t killed him outright the moment they met.

Now it was offering him food that smelled just like the sweetness his mother had always hidden from him in the silver band on her right foreclaw. He knew that these cakes were just like the treasures his mother had run out of several centuries before.

While he wished to devour them himself, a part of him desired to make an offering to his mother, in order to gain more training in draconic magic. There were limits to training on one’s own, something he was forced to reluctantly acknowledge after decades delving the local dungeons.

Unlike the two-legged food, who could gain hints from the accursed System at key points to improve their magic, a dragon’s magic could only be learned under the wings of another dragon or by trial and error. Mostly, for him, it had been the latter, due to his tendency to offend his mother in one way or another on a daily basis while he was in the nest.

Eating elementals had allowed him access to more mundane schools of magic, by utilizing draconic magic to read the imprints on the crystals as he swallowed them. However, even compared to the least of his heritage spells, those magics were weak.

His mother had tens of thousands of years of knowledge, and in her prime she had proved herself to be a monster amongst dragons. He needed a peace offering to her more than he wanted to devour the cakes, sadly.

“Very well, two-legged food, I will allow you to hunt my dungeon as you will, three days of seven. In exchange, once every seven days you will bring me a cake as an offering. Know that there will be no better offer,” He said in a manner so pompous that the Mongrel would have fallen down laughing (mostly due to it coming in a childish voice) if he weren’t so terrified.

Thus it was that both sides received what they wanted, and a relieved Mongrel happily concluded his investment hadn’t been wasted… even if he was going to be taxed in cake on his earnings.

Who would have known that the stories about metallic dragons and cake were true? He thought with wonder as he scurried out of the ‘audience chamber’ (boss room of the fifth floor) and headed back to the surface as quickly as he could.

The dragon reluctantly placed all but one of the cakes in the small spatial diadem on his forehead and daintily took bites out of the last one remaining, wondering seriously if he would have the will to present them to his mother without eating the rest.

____________________________________________________________________________

Fliman was gleeful at the success of the Mongrel’s ploy and immediately reimbursed him for the cost, even purchasing him a pure mithril bastard sword from the Shop, to the mercenary’s joy. Now he had a weapon that could survive his Gift!

“Still, I always thought that was a story, until the Boss asked for a bunch of pastries, cookies, and cakes as tribute,” Fliman said with wonder as he sat down with the Mongrel, Licus, and Risti for a meal inside his cabin.

The cabin was well-made due to the skill of the ship’s carpenter, the inside walls carefully treated with sap from a local tree that prevented rot, and the floor made up of boards smoothed with magic and skills. The table they sat at had been a single block of wood, reformed with Nature Magic to take the shape of a table, and the same could be said for the chairs they sat on and the frame of the bed near the rear of the single room. The bed was massive and thick-legged, made to survive Fliman’s massive frame resting upon it every night, and the roughly-tanned skin of one of the local deer was stretched out to serve in place of a mattress between the planks like a cot. A mass of treated furs lay atop it, serving to keep warmth in at night.

Fliman’s armor sat on a rack near the door, and he was currently wearing a simple brown cotton tunic and trousers kept up with a length of twine, his massive feet with their leathery soles bare against the cool wood. He took a sip of his cup of warmed wine, relaxing in his chair.

“Not needing to worry about the dragonling takes a load off all our minds. Now Risti and I can go back to hunting instead of having to scout for the kids,” Licus remarked, “No offense, Mongrel.”

“None taken,” The Mongrel replied, taking a sip from his own wooden cup, “I know we look like kids to you, and it doesn’t offend me.”

“Thank you, Mongrel. Now there is a chance…” Risti said, unshed tears visible in her cat-like eyes.

“It’s not much of a chance. I’ll have to take risks, both with myself and the girls. The sword will help, since I won’t have to constantly buy new ones from the Shop. Still, are you sure you are ok with letting them out of their contract before we arrive at our destination?” He asked Fliman curiously.

“Yeah. Risti and Licus might be our best scouts, but we’ll be able to hire more at any decent town. The butler and kid agreed to the buyout. It’ll be a pain to make our way through the Wilds without them, but I understand what it’s like to be on a timeline,” He said sympathetically.

The current plan was to purchase passage for Licus and Risti from the dragon and the Shop, thus allowing them to reach Risti’s clan on time. It was doable with the current amount of credits available, and most of the others were fine with settling in the Territory for a few months or years if necessary. The monopoly they had on the dungeons when the dragons weren’t using them just made it more valuable to most of them, both in terms of training and credits.

The kid was being trained in weapons and magic by the mercenaries, which had eased some of the butler’s concerns. Their schedule had been deliberately loose when it came to the time of their arrival, allowing for up to a decade of delay if necessary (typical of an elf). Travel in Cytheria was never a certain thing, and disasters like the one they had ran into were not atypical in general, even if they were in the specifics.

“I’m going to miss you two… especially the meat you always bring back,” Fliman said jokingly.

“Hah! As if you can’t draw a longbow yourself!” Licus said with a snort.

“It does look weird when he is sneaking through the brush, though,” Risti said with a grin, her ears twitching in response to her humorous mood.

“He looks like a barbarian in heavy armor, but he doesn’t make a sound… it’s just eerie,” Licus snickered.

They all laughed at Fliman’s expense, and he flushed a little bit, taking a deep gulp of the warm wine to cover up his embarrassment.

“How long do you think it will take to get enough out of the elemental dungeon to cover Licus and Risti?” Fliman asked the Mongrel.

“Six days of delving, so two weeks. If we use what I have on hand, four days of delving,” He replied after making some calculations. Without the need to replace his weapons, things would be a lot easier. The only downside would be that the sword would eventually be impossible for anyone else to even touch without their skin going necrotic.

Using his own credits would be painful, but Risti and Licus would need their funds if they reached civilization. He would have time to rebuild his credit balance if he remained behind. The same went for his party members, who had assented to his decision beforehand… well, except for Syana. At present, she was building up enough credits to cover her freedom (apparently the System put her in debt to him after he freed her).

In addition, being out in the Wilds was convenient for the Mongrel, since civilization inevitably meant assassins in his case. Oh, he could usually go a few months in a new town or city without an assassination attempt, but his pursuers inevitably managed to find him again. As a result, he was quite tired of being forced to move on over and over.

A few years delving a dungeon doesn’t sound that bad, He thought happily as he planned out how to get enough credits for Risti and Licus in the back of his mind.

Their little party went on well into the night, before Risti and Licus left him alone with a drunk Fliman, who was making stupid jokes and slapping him on the back as he laughed at them.

This was more than annoying, since each slap threatened to fracture bone and left bruises behind, forcing him to use his magic to heal them, Why the hell does an A-rank warrior have so little tolerance for wine?!

It was a serious question. Since the Mongrel’s body stat passed 30, he hadn’t been able to get much more than a buzz from anything besides specialized hard liquors, his body processing the toxins of alcohol too quickly for him to get truly smashed. However, Fliman was most definitely drunk.

His question was answered a moment later, when a surge of energy ran through Fliman’s body and his expression turned dissatisfied, “Dammit, I lost control.”

“Of what?” He asked.

“My Poison Resistance skill. If you have it over 3, it negates alcohol’s negative effects. If you want to get drunk after that, you have to learn to suppress the skill. The body stat also gets in the way, but anyone with a high body stat will have been exposed to toxins often enough to get their Poison Resistance to 3,” He explained.

“You can suppress passive skills?” He wondered.

“Yes. It’s pretty energy-intensive and requires focus, though. It also generally isn’t worth the effort. If I get sloshed, I lose control and sober up in an instant,” Fliman replied glumly.

“The downside of leveling,” The Mongrel nodded in understanding.

“Stuff that can get us drunk even through the skills exists… but it costs over fifty thousand credits a bottle. It isn’t worth it,” Fliman said.

“How does it cost that much? Just concentrating alcohol isn’t that hard…” The Mongrel asked, tilting his head to the side quizzically.

“Skills and Arts… do you have any idea how rare a high-level Brewer is? There are precisely five known S-rank Brewers in Cytheria and less than a hundred A-ranks, all of them with their names and products listed in the Shop. They don’t even sell directly to the public, because it sells out in hours even if they overprice it,” He said sadly.

“Never thought of that… my friend is a Swordsman Brewer, and he is D-rank in the former, C-rank in the latter,” He said thoughtfully.

“Most Brewers get caught at C-rank, just like with Adventurers and Mercenaries. Gaining levels and skill levels past that is just that much harder if you don’t have the inspiration necessary,” Fliman said with a grimace.

“He could get me a buzz, but it never lasted,” The Mongrel reflected.

“Same for me and B-rank brews. I have to at least have an A-rank brew before it can get me smashed without restraining my skills, and A-rank brews start at fifty thousand credits a bottle, five hundred thousand a barrel. The higher A-rank brews cost millions a bottle, and one bottle of low S-rank ale will set you back half a billion credits,” He said grimly, taking up a bottle of wine and drinking it straight from the bottle, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each gulp.

“If you like to drink, that’s got to be hell,” The Mongrel remarked.

When he was done with the bottle, Fliman tossed the empty into the corner of the cabin before replying, “I’m guessing you never picked up a taste for getting wasted due to the assassins?”

“That’s… yeah, I suppose that is the reason, now that I think about it,” The Mongrel admitted.

“Do yourself a favor and build up a nest egg from part of the funds you are getting from the dungeon. An extra month or two of delving won’t eat into our schedule. If you have two million credits, you’ll be able to buy out the local Black Guilds for protection, letting you have a few years without worrying about it,” He advised.

“I suppose that’s one way to do it,” He said in reflection.

“It’s the only way to do it… and you are going off world. Sakarka’s Black Guilds don’t have any influence on other worlds, so whoever is hiring the killers won’t be able to reach you for some time, in any case,” Fliman said.

Getting off-world was one of the best solutions for escaping his pursuers, when he thought of it. It hadn’t occurred to him to do so in the past, mostly because he was most comfortable in old Sakarkan lands. However, given the nature of his pursuers, it made a great deal of sense to get off world and stay there.

The Mongrel wasn’t an idiot (except when it came to women), but he’d spent more than a decade hiding and running from his problems. The reality that he was prey had eaten at his mind, keeping him from planning things out as well as he probably could have.

I guess I just needed someone older and wiser to tell me how it is, all these years, He mused as he nursed another cup of hot spiced wine.

For the rest of the night and well into the morning, he stayed with Fliman as the two men drank, conversing in low tones about little things that had no importance.

______________________________________________________________________________

The Mongrel grunted as he parried a heavy blow from Fliman’s great-ax, barely managing to redirect the force of the blow enough to make it go past his shoulder. The dull iron sword in his hand already had numerous cracks in its length, and the dulled edge was chipped and dented from their clashes.

However, he wasn’t about to give up. He kept himself focused on Fliman’s terrifyingly powerful and quick attacks, each of them capable of cratering the earth and shattering boulders. His arms were numb, his body exhausted from almost an hour of sparring. His body was covered in thick padded armor designed to absorb the blunted blows of training weapons, but it was already beginning to look worn from the day’s abuse.

Each time he parried one of Fliman’s blows, his muscles screamed, tendons threatening to rip loose, bones cracking. However, he didn’t hesitate to continue the spar. The pain was nothing compared to the skill growth he could feel from facing an opponent whose own skill levels were far above his own.

In a few days, Risti and Licus would be leaving, having gotten permission from the Boss for departure and a passcode from the Shop. The dragon had even gone so far as to direct them to a series of Territories that were free to pass through due to there being no Boss present.

They would able to arrive back in civilization within a few weeks of their departure, which was a definite relief for everyone involved.

The Mongrel was taking this time to strengthen himself and increase his skill levels as much as possible. His eyes were determined, even if his expression hardly changed at all as he fought.

Blood streaked his hands and the leather of the training sword’s hilt from the times when cracked finger bones had ripped through his skin, though the hands showed no signs of the trauma due to his accelerated healing. He grunted as he used a two handed thrust of the bastard sword to push the head of the ax out of alignment with his body, preventing a bone-breaking blow that would have landed on his left shoulder.

“Ha!” The Mongrel barked, ducking under the ax and driving his elbow toward Fliman’s gut. However, he elbow slammed into the haft of the ax instead, the weapon having been withdrawn with inhuman speed the moment the older mercenary caught onto him.

He didn’t even wince as his elbow shattered, simply repairing the damage as he reversed his grip on the sword in his right hand and drove the pommel toward Fliman’s face. Unfortunately, the other man was ready for that too, and soon he was sent flying, the wooden outer plating of the practice armor broken from the force of Fliman’s palm strike.

“That’s enough!” Licus barked, ending the spar. The Mongrel collapsed to the ground, tearing at the ties of the armor, managing to rip it off, his caved-in ribcage popping back into place after a few seconds. He spat blood and bits of his lungs (and other organs) onto the ground beside him and popped a nutrition pill into his mouth, following it with a chunk of dried meat, which he washed down with a flask of ale.

Using his magic, he quickly broke down the food and drink, forcibly using it to replace the dead flesh of his organs. He barely winced as his liver regained its original shape and his right lung was reinflated. To a Flesh Mage, the levels of pain that came from mortal wounds were just another part of daily life.

“Damn, Flesh Magic is convenient,” Fliman said enviously as he dropped onto his rear next to the Mongrel, materializing a half-dozen bottles of wine from his spatial device.

Licus, Risti, and the girls settled down beside them, baskets of food and drink appearing on the ground around them as they made their own contributions.

“I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for my magic,” The Mongrel admitted. His magic was painful to learn and to use, but in exchange there was no other school – except perhaps Life – that was better at keeping a man alive in battle.

“I can see why people pay Flesh Mages to fix things after a Life Mage is done with them,” Syana observed with some fascination as he idly fiddled with the optimal balance of the muscles in his legs, his skin visibly rippling as he made minor modifications.

“Most high-rank mercenaries go to a Flesh Mage at least once, if only to get nasty stuff flushed out of their organs in preparation for A-rank or S-rank,” Fliman added.

“Why is that?” Kaede asked, her ears twitching curiously as she deliberately brushed her tail along the Mongrel’s bare back, openly flirting with him as usual.

“Purging that stuff makes a huge difference when you go from Level 79 to 80. It is at that point that most of the limits the System places on you are removed, but it is also when your potential for growth is determined. It happens again at level 99, apparently. If you get purged before you transition, the stat gains and efficacy of your stats go through the roof. The difference is visible to anyone who has gone through the process,” Fliman replied, tossing back a cup of wine all at once.

“Did you get purged?” Fururu asked curiously. She was toying with the Mongrel’s cat-like ears, much to his embarrassment and the amusement of Licus and Risti.

“Of course. My father and grandfather both reached A-rank, but they always regretted not getting purged beforehand. They both said they couldn’t get to S because of that,” Fliman said sadly.

Level 99 was the limit for almost all mortals. The reasons were varied, but they all boiled down to realizing one’s path and potential… and one’s body was part of that potential. Reaching S meant an exponential increase in power. It wasn’t like previous levels, where one to three points would go into each stat. Depending on one’s path, it was actually possible to get seven or eight points to a stat for every level beyond 100 and reaching 100 gave huge stat bonuses to each stat.

As a result, it was virtually impossible for even the best of A-ranks to even stand a chance against the worst of S-ranks. Rank-jumping was unheard of between A and S-ranks, though it occasionally happened with high B-ranks and A-ranks.

“Purging is the first thing every Flesh Mage is taught, because the process of learning to purge teaches us what should and should not be inside the body, in a general sense,” The Mongrel explained, “I purge myself every few days, so I don’t generally have any buildup between levels. There are probably two or three points in my body stat now that wouldn’t be there today if I wasn’t purging myself so often.”

“Just two or three?” Kaede asked, not seeming to understand.

“It might not seem like much, but I think Fliman saw the difference when he jumped to A-rank,” The Mongrel remarked.

“Ten points to body, seven points to mind, six points to spirit,” He said simply in response to the prompt.

They were all stunned. That was seven levels worth of points for someone who didn’t train between levels and didn’t push themselves. Even for those with a stat talent, it was four and a half levels of stat points. At higher stat levels, a jump like that would be the difference between a punch going through iron armor or crushing steel; the difference between seven in ten lightning strikes hitting their target and nine out of ten striking true; or surviving a basilisk’s bite as a cripple or surviving with a few scars.

Needless to say, those were the kind of points that mattered, and they could all see how significant the difference was.

“Blood Mages, Earth Mages, Water Mages, Fire Mages, Lightning Mages, and most other types of magic users can manage a purge, though they would have a harder time. However, it requires a much higher mind stat than a Flesh Mage would need to obtain the same results. A level 10 Flesh Mage can manage a full purge without problems, but a Blood Mage would need to hit level thirty before they could manage it on someone else. As for other types… well, most can’t do it until they are late in the B-ranks, if they ever can,” Fliman continued.

“I pay for a purge after every job,” Licus admitted, “It just feels… better. It isn’t that costly, if you do it regularly. If you wait five or six levels to get a purge, the Flesh Mages charge exponentially more, due to the higher difficulty.”

“So that’s why the clans fought that war over that infant fifty years ago,” Risti murmured.

“Infant?” Syana asked quizzically.

“It’s a famous story back home. When my grandmother was young, the tribes went to war to obtain a child born with Flesh Magic, believing it was key to their prosperity. However, things quickly got out of hand, and by the time my grandmother was an adult, the child was assassinated and there were a half-dozen fewer tribes in the area,” Risti explained.

“Flesh Magic is rare in therianthropes… Blood Magic is pretty common though,” Licus said, nodding in understanding.

“Oni, daemons, and Shadow Elves have a lot of Flesh Mages, from what I’ve heard. Oni like to train them as berserkers, and daemon shamans are almost always Flesh Mages,” Fliman offered.

Oni were a race that didn’t exist on the same world as Sakarka. They were a tribal race that primarily existed on Shunaria, a world that required passing through a specialized dungeon to get to from Sakarka’s world. They were only known because of occasional adventurers who returned from the labyrinth with gifts of fine spirits and delicious preserved meats that spoke of a land constantly at war, yet oddly peaceful.

Little was known of them, due to the difficulty of reaching their world in the first place, but it was often speculated that the System deliberately isolated them from the other races for some unknown and unknowable reason.

“Shadow Elves, huh? I guess that’s where you got it, eh?” Licus said, elbowing the Mongrel.

“My mother didn’t have Flesh Magic, she had Lightning and Death Magic,” He replied, shaking his head slightly, “If she hadn’t weakened herself to birth me, there was no way she would have ended up bound to someone like my father.”

They all looked surprised that he had actually said something about himself that wasn’t relevant to his work or combat. His stubborn unwillingness to speak about his childhood was almost as consistent as his unwillingness to speak directly about his past lovers beyond general facts and occasional emotional outbursts when someone pushed him too far.

“What was your mother like?” Kaede asked, her eyes burning with curiosity.

“She was a Shadow Elf, a beautiful woman with violet eyes and purple-tinged black hair. When she was well enough to teach me about magic, she was frightening to behold, releasing an aura that matches what Fliman showed during the battle with the orcs… or worse,” He recalled fondly.

“However, the cost she paid to birth a child not of her own race was apparently too much, and it weakened her greatly… and permanently. She was constantly ill when I was a child, coughing and wheezing in her sleep, but she showed nothing of her suffering during the day,” His expression darkened as he recalled the last days of her life, when the poison had joined her usual illness, and even her powerful Death Magic had been unable to destroy the toxins before they ruined what health she had left.

“My father… I believe he loved her. She certainly loved him, in that peculiar way only an immortal race seems capable of. She willingly chose to remain in an environment that was bound to kill her at some point solely to be with him, so even if I wasn’t love, it was something as strong or stronger,” He said reflectively.

Shadow Elves, like many immortal races, paid an immense price for every child they produced. The price had to be paid, and it was the equivalent of severing hundreds of years worth of accumulated power from themselves to allow a child to come into being. The process was traumatic, painful, and sometimes even fatal. It wasn’t uncommon for females of those races to spend centuries as cripples after birthing a child, gradually recovering from the spiritual wounds they inflicted on themselves in the process.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I’ve met a few Shadow Elves in my life, and that sounds like what I would expect from one of them,” Licus said, nodding, “Normal elves get a bit obsessive when they fall in love with the short-lived races, but immortals… well immortal obsession can either be beautiful or insane depending on how you look at it.”

“I heard stories about what happened when a dragon fell for a human…” Risti murmured, “The one I heard was about a black dragon who turned his human lover into the first undead so they could be together forever.”

“I’m pretty sure that one is a lie. The one I heard, where the black dragon turns his lover to stone, makes a lot more sense given black dragons’ talent for mixing magic, curses, and poisons,” Licus remarked.

“By the way, I’ve seen the way you just pop your ribs back into place after someone breaks them… does that hurt as bad as it looks?” Licus asked curiously.

“Yeah. Turning off the nerve endings is a last resort for a Flesh Mage when they are working on themselves. From what my teacher told me, most Flesh Mages end up with high spirit stats even if they don’t have a stat talent because of the amount of pain we have to endure to master our magic,” He explained.

“Life Mages like me generally don’t feel anything when we are healing ourselves,” Risti remarked.

“Life Magic direct restores you to your ideal state, from what I’ve heard. I’m literally shaping my flesh and bone to ‘heal’, and I need my sense of pain to guide me to how my body is supposed to be,” He said, “I do envy Life Magic users for that ability to just cast and restore everything like that.”

“I wish I could cast my Life Magic outside my body. I wouldn’t have had to learn the bow to get out of slavery then,” She shot back.

Considering the scars she had, her experiences as a slave had to be particularly horrid to have the marks remain despite her Life Magic. Unlike Flesh Magic, if the spirit was as scarred as the body, the template that Life Magic was based off of would be damaged, causing the magic to recognize the scarred state as the ideal one.

Risti’s attitude toward the Mongrel had softened greatly after he freed Syana, which made her feelings about slave ownership rather obvious.

As the conversation jumped from one topic to another until someone pulled out a set of dice and playing cards, the other mercenaries and sailors soon joining them in a crowd on the training grounds. In minutes, everyone was playing and eating there as if it were a banquet hall, and the Mongrel used the opportunity to pull Risti and Licus off to the side.

“Sorry to take you away from the fun, but I’ve been meaning to give you two something as a parting gift,” He said simply as he took two spatial quivers – expensive items from the Shop that neither possessed – each of them full of hundreds of arrows of various types, “Make use of these in the days to come, friends.”

This kind of behavior, of the giving of excessive gifts, was actually a tradition of his father’s family that he had picked up as a child. His father often said that the finest gift should always be given at a time of parting, in hope that you might meet them again in the far future.

The Mongrel made a habit of giving such gifts to his friends when he was forced to part with them, even though he had yet to meet one of them again after doing so. He knew Cytheria was not kind, that his father’s words were wishful thinking, but that didn’t stop him from desiring to see them again.

They both took their gifts reverentially, with Licus speaking first, “How did you even manage to buy one of these? The cheapest ones cost hundreds of thousands on the Shop.”

“I used the negotiation and trade function to speak to a craftsman I know from back in civilization. His prices were better than the ones in the Shop proper, even with the credits it cost me to get access to it,” He answered quietly. The quivers themselves had cost him one hundred thousand each, a large discount that he had gained in exchange for a number of elemental crystals. However, getting access to the trade and negotiation functions while in the Territory had cost him another two hundred thousand, bringing the cost of his gifts up to nearly half a million.

He had quietly delved the dungeon at night, while the girls slept, for the crystals to sell to afford the gifts. He didn’t want them joining in, as this was a gift from him to his friends.

“Thank you, friend,” Licus said quietly.

“Thank you, Mongrel,” Risti said, her eyes wet as she hugged him, her tail briefly curling around his wrist in a fraternal manner.

“Stay alive you two. I want to see you use those in battle and brag about how we journeyed into the Wilds together,” He said, forcing his lips to curl in an awkward smile that made them both chuckle.

The party continued well into the next morning, and a few days later, Risti and Licus quietly left, with the blessing of everyone remaining behind.

_________________________________________________________________________

Risti and Licus passed through the Territory Gate with the dragon’s blessing, gritting their teeth at leaving the others behind. The two cat therianthropes knew their fellows would eventually make it back to civilization, but it still left them feeling guilty for abandoning the contract and leaving with financial aid from the others.

The passcodes they had obtained were good for twenty uses, and the Territories along their path back to civilization didn’t have living Bosses. As such, there was no need to repeat the process of bribing the Territory Boss for passage, and they managed to make their way across the plains to the next Gate inside three days. The local monsters were mostly goblins and lesser gnolls, both of which were easily handled with a few well-placed wooden arrows. Neither of them was willing to waste good arrows on low-level goblinoids, though occasionally wolf-riders made their presence known as they attempted to scout the two in passing.

The next Territory was dominated by the living dead. Draugr, vampires, and ghouls could be seen living in small villages spotting the landscape. However, the miasma surrounding those settlements was toxic to the living, and so they didn’t even consider approaching. Technically, this was civilization, but it was a civilization incompatible with their own.

Five days after they entered the Territory of the living dead, they were approached by a Noble Vampire knight on an undead horse, an excruciatingly beautiful woman with blue-tinged ivory white skin and golden eyes. Her hair was crimson with streaks of raven black, and it was tied in a tail that fell down to her hips.

She wore black steel plate that fit her form perfectly, and a single odachi was strapped over her right shoulder, the hilt placed so it could be drawn one-handed at need. She didn’t wear a helmet, and a white gold diadem with eight black diamonds crossed her forehead before disappearing into her hair.

“If I may ask, why do you pass through our lands, travelers?” Her voice was polite and there was a definite warmth there, but beneath it was the steely will to protect her people. The aura she gave off was at the peak of A-rank, and they both caught the iron-tinged scent of blood weighing down the air around them as she approached.

Living dead Territories had a mixed history with the mortal lands. At times they were allies, at others uneasy neighbors, and at yet others mortal enemies. Moreover, the living dead races were slow to increase in number, and their weaknesses were well-documented. Last of all, their bodies contained parts that were highly-valued by alchemists, smiths, and enchanters for crafting, often making them targets.

As such, it was only natural that they would want to know the intentions of any mortals moving through their Territory.

They quickly explained the circumstances, and after thinking for several minutes, the young Noble Vampire suggested they stop by her mother’s manor, some distance from the nearest village. While they stayed with her family, she would send messengers to the other nobles in the area to explain their presence. This would ease their passage to the Territory Gate, which was four fiefs away, including that of an isolationist lich overlord, who would almost certainly take offense at the living moving through his fief without permission.

Reluctantly, they agreed to the delay, and they ran alongside the vampire’s horse as she headed for her mother’s manor.

The manor’s guards were Ancient Draugr, first-generation draugr who had existed for at least one thousand years. Their armor mirrored that of their mistress, made of black steel tainted with miasma that was woven into unholy patterns within its structure. Their pitch black eyes were devoid of the usual malice one expected of the undead, and they allowed the two cat therianthropes to pass without comment.

The manor itself was made of stone that had once been gray granite, but centuries of exposure to miasma and the necessary enchantments that had reinforced it against the corrosive effects had turned it black with purple veins that pulsed with their own light. Risti and Licus were provided with cloth masks that filtered miasma for living guests before they entered the manor proper.

Once inside, they were surprised at the bright light from the crystal chandelier at the center of the entrance hall. The floors were made of marble that had been transformed in the same manner as the granite outside, the only difference being that it was smooth to the touch and unworn by the passage of time. A massive crimson rug ran from the door to the single stairwell leading to the second floor balcony visible from the entrance, and as they approached it, a woman with near-identical features to their escort, in a blood red dress with gold trim, emerged from the double doors at the top of the stairs, accompanied by a handsome young lesser vampire in butler’s clothing.

“Ah, so they agreed to guest with us for a few days while our messengers spread word, Iuvia?” The mistress of the house asked languidly as her glittering gold eyes ran over the two living guests.

“Yes, Mother. It is as I reported,” Iuvia, the young Noble Vampire murmured without offense. It was tradition for all mental communications to be confirmed verbally upon a face to face meeting between master and servant.

Despite being her mother’s only child, she was just that… a servant. Until she had the will and power to overthrow her mother or strike out on her own, she would continue to be a servant and knight, but this was nothing unusual for Noble Vampires. Mortal ideas of inheritance held little meaning for a race of immortal living dead. If she was strong enough to form her own fief or overthrow her mother, she would deserve the loyalty of those that would follow her.

“It is our pleasure to host peaceful guests in this out of the way place. I understand if you have negative feelings about the Reborn and our descendants. Many of those of the first generation share similar sentiments. As such, I have taken the liberty of arranging passage with the other nobles along your path to the Territory Gate. It will be a few days before we are certain that passage has been secured. I would be delighted to host you until I can, with confidence, send you on your way safely,” The lady of the manor said, her manner gentle, if somewhat distant.

“Our thanks for welcoming us with open arms. I would hope that I would do the same for one of the living dead with peaceful intentions in my own home,” Licus said politely, giving a deep bow, matched a moment later hastily by Risti.

While lesser vampires and Vampire Lords could not be trusted in mortal lands, Noble Vampire society was well-known for its guesting laws. A guest of a Noble Vampire family was under the protection of that family, in exchange for certain social obligations (eating at the table with them in the late evening, taking part in social events, defending the manor when attacked, etc). For the living dead, living guests were a status symbol as well as a way to create lines of communication with mortal civilization, both of which were important in different ways.

As such, the knowledgeable Licus was unconcerned about any potential dangers of accepting guesting rights. Comparing it to the dangers of passing through the lands of the living dead without negotiations in advance, the chance of being caught up in wars or political struggles was negligible.

Of course, it was likely that in the course of their stay they would be offered the ‘chance’ to become vampires, but this was a polite offer made to all who guested with a Noble Vampire family. While the offer would be extended, it was not expected that it would be accepted.

Protection from the negative effects of miasma was also part of the guesting rights when it came to the living. The masks they wore were a common enchantment in the lands of the living dead, usually offered to living family members of living dead who came to visit or diplomatic envoys from mortal civilization.

Licus, as a mercenary, had worked for living dead in the past, as a result he was familiar with their traditions and culture to a limited extent. He also knew refusing hospitality was a death sentence, reducing the one that refused to two-legged food in the eyes of the living dead.

I hope that the others have a smoother return to civilization, He reflected as he prepared for a stressful few days.

__________________________________________________________________________

The Mongrel sat at the foot of the grand silver dragon, chatting with her about sweets, her son, and any number of other subjects. Though he had been absolutely terrified at first, when it became apparent she only wanted to have a conversation, he chose to ignore the fact that she was giving off an aura that would let her kill him with a thought and the reality that she was over two hundred times his size.

“In the old Draconic Empires, we had entire cities devoted to making us sweets… the colored dragons always denied it, but I saw more than one blue dragon emerge with a full spatial ring with the Imperial Bakery’s logo on it,” She said humorously as she popped a massive wedding cake into her mouth like a bon-bon, a low rumble he’d come to recognize as a purr vibrating the mountaintop she rested upon.

“So you employed entire cities of mortals just to make you cakes?!” He asked incredulously. The scale of the waste of the old Draconic Empires was just flat-out ridiculous, to his mind.

“The whole point of the Empires was to gather you mortals in large enough numbers that more bakers jewel-smiths would be born,” She explained casually, “Though some of us took up cooking or crafting as a hobby, they generally only did so for themselves.”

“Then those stories about the Nazcal’s founding Emperor being the best baker from the old Draconic Empires are true?” He asked curiously.

“Yes. He is one of only seven S-rank Bakers from the age of the Empires, men and women who reached the absolute limits of the path of baking, thus earning the right to a single request of our race. In his case, that request was the foundation of Nazcal,” She replied in a matter-of-fact manner.

“… how much of the Empires’ budgets were devoted to baking and the culinary arts?” He had to ask.

“Thirty percent… there were calls from the Gold and Brass Dragons to up it to fifty percent, but the Black and Blue Dragons argued that it would cut too much into the jeweler and goldsmith budgets,” She replied after a moment of thought.

“… and the Silver Dragons?” He asked after a moment.

She tilted her head to the side quizzically, blinking her massive sapphire blue eyes slowly before answering, “Seventy percent, of course! I never understood why the others didn’t understand that the true joy of collecting shinies comes from plundering them!”

She sounded inordinately proud of her race’s proposal, and if she weren’t an immeasurably powerful S-rank being, he might have argued with the obvious insanity of her words. Unfortunately, when faced with a being of absolute power, common sense tended to bend its head to its little brother, madness.

____________________________________________________________________________

Five weeks later, the Mongrel and his party made their way down to the bottom floor of the elemental dungeon, confident after becoming accustomed to defeating the greater elementals on the previous floors. The bottom floor was the tenth, and it was only with special permission from the dragonling that they were allowed to challenge it, as it took a month to restore the Boss after it was defeated.

They were wary but confident, knowing that the boss was a single Primal Elemental of fire, believing that with the Mongrel serving as a tank and Syana unleashing her ice magic on it that they could defeat it well before they were in real danger.

Unfortunately, this abundance of confidence was unfounded.

The moment they stepped into the room, a five meter tall giant of multicolored flames appeared in the center of the open cavern. The cavern had small but thick and dense barriers of granite placed at seemingly random points, giving the Mongrel a better idea of how they should maneuver than he’d had before arrival.

The Mongrel was wearing his brigandine over chainmail and a gambeson as usual, with plated leather pants protecting his legs. The mithril sword, shimmering with Twilight, was held in one hand, a kite shield of wood plated with thin sheets of adamantine in his left. His usual open-face helmet was atop his head, his eyes grimmer than usual.

Unfortunately for them, any thoughts of a quick resolution were undone the second the creature unleashed a wave of blue flames that swept across the entirety of the cavern, forcing them to shelter behind the nearest stone barrier, while Syana put up a shield of ice behind it, curving slightly over their heads.

When the flames passed, Syana unleashed a wave of ice javelins, that plunged into the Primal Elemental to little effect, causing her face to turn grimmer than usual, an ice-enchanted rapier appearing in her left hand. The entrance to the cavern was closed behind them, so they had no chance to fight.

Firming their resolve, they settled in for a long fight.

____________________________________________________________________________

The Mongrel’s shoulders heaved as he sucked in deep breaths on his hands and knees, the girls in a similar state around them as the gigantic primal fire elemental at the bottom of the elemental dungeon dissolved before their eyes. It had taken them three hours of fighting to shave away at the gigantic elemental’s life force, and the ferocity of the battle showed in their appearance.

The Mongrel’s hair was burned away, along with the right half of his face, revealing a charred skull with an empty eye socket. His breathing came in wheezes as he slowly rebuilt and replaced his damaged internal organs. Two empty bottles of mashed protein (mixed bits and ends of meat) lay emptied by his side, as well as the paper packaging for his nutrient pills.

His brigandine had burned away entirely during the battle, leaving the metal plates sunken into the surface of his chest and arms. His chainmail was in a similar state, embedded in his bare flesh, causing him immense pain with every movement.

His mithril sword was intact. If anything, the bastard sword seemed to be gleaming with more light than before the fight, the colors of Twilight running across its surface and the ground slowly turning to sand where it touched. However, his right hand was so badly burned that it had turned into a twisted claw that was stuck to the now bare metal of the grip, the leather straps binding it having burned away during the battle. It was best if one didn’t look at his lower body, if they wanted to retain their sanity.

The girls all had burns, with parts of their clothing and armor missing from stray sparks and cinders the Mongrel didn’t manage to take with his body. Kaede and Fururu had used foxfire, while Syana used Ice Magic to channel the worst of the flames away from them, but there were several times when they came close to dying when their protections failed or they ran low on energy at the wrong time of the fight.

Syana was missing her left hand, having lost it along with her new ice rapier. While the Mongrel could regrow it later, she was showing definite signs of grief for the loss of the limb. It seemed that she wasn’t yet accustomed to the convenience of having a Flesh Mage in the party.

This was a horrible idea, The Mongrel thought calmly as he regenerated his right hand so he could remove it from the hilt of the sword, wincing as it tore off strips of dead skin as it dropped to the floor with a clang.

He then used his newly-reformed hands to pick the melted rings of his chainmail out of his flesh, wincing with each one. The plates came off easily, though they had bits of charred flesh still attached to them when they fell to the ground at his feet. It took him nearly an hour to get the last bits of his armor out of his skin, and it was another hour before his appearance returned to normal (other than his nudity).

He covered himself in a gray silk robe, not wanting to bother with armor until he had time to properly rewire and rebuild his nervous system. There were several parts of his body that had yet to regain feeling due to the loss of body mass hurriedly rebuilt in such a short time.

He rose to his feet and went over to Syana, forcing a pill and some protein down her throat before she could stop him. He downed yet another energy potion, ignoring the sloshing sensation in his stomach and the toxins running through his body from the overdose.

He gently deadened the nerves in her damaged arm, reforming the bone of her lost hand and forearm before forcing flesh to rise and reform around it, replicating the nerves in her other hand and adjusting them as he went for the differences between arms, however slight. Once her hand was whole again, he moved to the Fururu and Kaede, restoring the charred skin that would have otherwise left horrid scars and discoloration, as well as regrowing the fur on their tails.

Unfortunately, once that was done, he really needed to turn his attention back to his own body, forcing toxins out of his bloodstream and organs and into his stomach so he could vomit them out in a mass of multi-colored dead flesh and sputum. The overdose of energy potions and nutrition pills had done a number on his circulatory and digestive systems, and he could sense that it would be a few hours before he could begin to repair them again.

He looked at the gigantic platinum chest sitting behind the torso-sized fire crystal from the primal elemental and sighed wistfully before gesturing for the girls to open it. The dungeon would only wait so long for them to take their spoils before it reabsorbed them, after all.

“… Master, I’m never doing that again,” Syana said firmly a half-hour later as she toyed with the rapier with the blade made of primal white flames in her left hand.

“I have to agree. That was not fun,” Kaede said firmly as she admired the emerald Greater Ring of Spirit on her left ring finger.

“I dunno, I thought it was kind of awesome how he kept going even after he took a fireblast to the face and finished that thing off,” Fururu said as she happily polished the crimson longbow she’d received from the chest.

The Mongrel gave them a wry smile, “I’m not willing to try that again anytime soon. We definitely challenged something way over our level. We were just lucky to finish it off before it took us down.”

In his own hands was a mithril cuirass, open-faced helmet, and boots. They didn’t have any enchantments, but in exchange, they would absorb his Gift’s aura as well as the sword already had. He wouldn’t need new armor for a while, though they would attract the wrong sort of attention in civilization, given that a near-full set of mithril armor was normally only seen on B-rank mercenaries and above. The set lacked protection for the shoulders and arms, but the soft black leather gambeson and trousers that came with them would keep his body properly covered and protected against chafing.

… is it just me, or did the dungeon only replace what its boss destroyed? He wondered humorously. The armor was much better than the simple brigandine, chainmail and armored leather trousers he was wearing before. The cuirass was also of much, much higher quality and purity than the blackened mithril cuirass he looted off the battlefield a few years before. He’d tested it, and the iron mixed in with the mithril made it less than receptive to his Gift’s energies.

Still, he regretted the decision to challenge the Dungeon Boss, especially now that he knew it was approximately in the middle of B-rank, which was why fighting it had been such a nightmare. Since the enemies on the last floor had mostly been low B-rank, he should have expected it, but they’d had such a relatively easy time of handling them that he’d gotten overconfident.

In the next room was the dungeon core, a beautiful prismatic crystal floating in mid-air. During the fight, it had been protected by a translucent barrier, but now it was available to approach.

This was one of the potential rewards of defeating the Dungeon Boss… the right to take the core. In civilized regions, taking the core without permission was a crime, punishable by death or criminal slavery. The reason was that dungeons were endless pools of resources that could be harvested regularly, even if it cost lives along the way.

However, in unclaimed Territories like this one, claiming the core was possible, and most would have done so without a second thought. However, none of them even considered it. Instead, they considered the other potential reward one could gain by touching the core.

This reward could only be gained once per conquest of the dungeon, and it could only be obtained once by any individual and only if that individual was at the appropriate level or lower for the dungeon in question. The reward differed from dungeon to dungeon, with some cores offering stat points, others offering a period of accelerated skill growth, and yet others offering knowledge of one’s Magic that could not otherwise be gained through conventional means.

All of these had the potential to accelerate the growth of an individual beyond their normal limits, if in different ways. Accelerated skill growth meant it was also easier to gain other skills, as well as awaken potential that would otherwise remained unrealized (some found a third magic skill or a passive skill they otherwise couldn’t have obtained).

The stat points generally went automatically into one’s lowest stat, and it was said that that was the dungeon trying to cover for an individual’s inherent weaknesses. Given how difficult it was to raise some stats for given individuals, this was often a life-saving gift.

Knowledge of one’s Magic could both increase skill levels and enable skill evolution, something that normally took decades of use and mastery to achieve. It was the most prized the gifts in question, as evolving magic skills was seen as a major barrier to reaching the end of A-rank.

Of course, even after gaining magic knowledge, one had to study the implanted knowledge and make it one’s own before it could be used to accelerate skill evolution. However, for those who devoted themselves to mastering their magic, it was a gift of incomparable value.

“So, which one of us gets the dungeon reward?” The Mongrel asked lightly. While he wanted it as much as anyone else, they were a party, so this required discussion between them beforehand.

“I think we all want it, am I correct?” Syana asked. The others nodded in affirmation, “Then the first thing we need to decide is how to decide which of us gets it. We know now that this is a B-rank dungeon, so the reward is going to be better than it would have been if we had conquered one at our own rank. The only question is just how much better it will be. Conquering it a second time… would be difficult and not really worth the effort.”

They all agreed. It was only luck and the Mongrel’s ability to survive wounds that would kill any normal adventurer or mercenary that made their victory possible. Moreover, it had taken several hours of extremely careful fighting to even get to the point where they could deliver a final blow. None of them thought they could manage it a second time with any decent guarantee of success.

In the end, they decided to roll a pair of bone dice for the chance to touch the core. The one who got the highest score would get to touch it.

The first to roll was Kaede, her ears twitching eagerly, wagging her tail as she shook the dice in her hand before tossing them to the floor underhanded. However, a moment later her tail sagged and her ears flattened against her head.

“Two…” She said sadly when she saw that both the dice had come up on a single pip each. Her sister snickered at her, resulting in Kaede clawing Fururu across the face, causing the careless girl to bleed from scratches running across her cheek.

“Kaede, why’d you do that?!” She wailed.

“You know very well why!” Kaede snapped.

Fururu came over to the Mongrel and embraced him, crying as she smeared blood from her cheek across the front of his new cuirass. With a resigned look in his eye, he healed the damage before picking up the dice and placing them in her small hands.

She rolled the dice, tears still in her big eyes, and those tears flowed more freely as Kaede howled laughter at the two pips sitting upward on the ground.

Somehow, Fururu managed to get snake-eyes too.

Syana picked up the dice and rolled them around in her hands suspiciously, trying to feel if they were weighted, but she could find no sign of such. A moment later, she rolled the dice, and they came up with a two and a four, giving her six points. It wasn’t a great score, but it wasn’t bad either.

The Mongrel picked up the dice and rolled them… and they came up with a five and a two, giving him one more point than Syana, who gave him a flat, suspicious stare. Since he honestly hadn’t messed with the dice (his bad luck with people didn’t generally apply to gambling), he just shook his head in exasperation and walked over to the core.

He placed his right hand on the core, and a moment later a direct message from the System (something that was unusual in Cytheria outside of extreme situations) appeared in front of his eyes.

Examining dungeon conqueror… does dungeon conqueror desire to claim the core? Y/N

He quickly pressed no, not wanting to accidentally destroy the dungeon.

Dungeon conqueror has refused to claim the core, reward will be given in place of right to claim the core. Analyzing conqueror’s status and actions within the dungeon for appropriate reward……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Subject has multiple evolved skills. Subject has successfully reached the max level for their rank. Subject’s status are all above fifty. Subject has multiple resistance skills. Subject has two or more evolved skills. Subject has a fused Gift skill. Subject has a fused Gift Art.

Proper reward has been determined.

Removing all redactions. All transactions related to redactions will be refunded.

Conqueror will be advanced to next rank with a perfect evolution.

A moment later, the Mongrel stiffened, his hand still on the core as the System began the process of forcefully evolving him to the next level, a process that normally would have occurred over weeks or months of slow progress in training and conflict, due to the bottleneck between level 39 and 40.

He wanted to scream at the agony, so much worse than the merely physical pain he had felt only an hour before, ripped through his mind, body, and spirit as the System emotionlessly, ruthlessly made the necessary alterations to accelerate his growth. There were good reasons why the System normally enforced gradual growth at the bottlenecks. The changes one needed to go through to reach the next rank were incredibly stressful and the step up was far steeper than one’s status might indicate.

It wasn’t uncommon for someone to be permanently stuck at the C or B ranks simply because they didn’t have the will to push through the barriers the System put before them. Minor efforts were insufficient to advance through a bottleneck. It required… fuel, which usually meant numerous kills (preferably of higher or equal level opponents), heavy training, and a bit of inspiration.

The main reason the exception was made for the Mongrel was his skills… most people never evolved a skill before B-rank. The amount of effort to max out a skill, then evolve it to the next level was ridiculous. Combining Gifts with one’s skills and Arts was even more difficult. However, he had done so at a relatively young age, due to being exposed to levels of stress and danger that would have startled even Fliman if he knew the full story. When the pain faded, his new status lay before him.

Name: Shivarte Delusia

Level: 40

Class: Fallen Noble Mercenary(due to removal of all redactions)

Race: Mongrel

Body: 58

Mind: 57

Spirit: 101

Skills: Soulsword (Odachi), Short Bow 5, Martial Arts 6, Bastard Sword 8, Round Shield 8, Flesh Magic 9, Twilight Magic 6, Advanced Assessment 7, Danger Sense, Medium Armor 6, Sewing 2, Leatherwork 3, Smithing 5, Advanced Repair 2, Basic Enchanting 10, Campfire Cooking 10, Iron Stomach, Disease Resistance 5, Poison Resistance 3, Fire Resistance 2, Ruin Immunity, Charm Resistance 6, Madness Resistance 3, Curse Resistance 5, Damnation Resistance 1, Soul Recovery

Gift: Twilight

Arts: Domain of Inevitability, End Strike

The sight of his old name was… nostalgic. He also felt the bonuses from his class shift massively, his mind clearing, his energy reserves rising as his physical strength fell slightly and his dexterity rose. The costs of his redactions were now gone. He no longer suffered from the constant mind-fog he had existed under, that prevented him from recognizing his own name or remembering precisely who was pursuing him.

He held out his hand, and a simple curved blade, with a razor-edge that no sane man would want on a battlefield full of hard armor, appeared in his hand. It was roughly two meters long, and sparks of Twilight swirled around the edge, giving it an eerily deadly appearance that disturbed the minds of the unprepared.

He hadn’t used his Soulsword skill in almost a decade. He hadn’t been able to pick the weapon when he tore out a piece of his soul and used his father’s families methods to create a physical tool from it. No one could choose the weapon their soul desired. His father had possessed a stiletto, his grandfather a gigantic pike, and his great-grandfather had had a club with metal spikes.

The weapon would never break, never bend, never be lost to him. It was also a symbol of the worst days of his childhood, as well as everything he had lost when he fled his home after his mother’s death.

He shook his hand, and the weapon resheathed itself inside his soul, waiting to be drawn forth once more. It pulsed its anger at his neglect to him, reminding him that there would never be a weapon that could serve him better, that it was his equal, a vital part of his soul that he ignored at his peril. However, even with the mind-fog gone, he was still a fool. He ignored the blade’s warnings, having no intention of drawing it again if he could avoid it.

I hate that sword… He thought, old anger and horrific memories of his distant past rising now that the System wasn’t sealing them away. The Mongrel’s life as Shivarte Delusia had been less than gentle even in the best of times, his mother being a Shadow Elf with a Shadow Elf’s belief that children should become independent as early as possible, his father being a distant figure who only really looked at his mother.

Just holding the sword for a few seconds had caused the scent of old blood and rotting things to fill his nostrils, causing his gorge to rise and old hatred to try to burst forth and consume his spirit. The redaction of his name had been a balm to his spirit, putting the events of his escape into exile behind a wall created by the System, that blurred his identity and sense of self just enough to let him forget.

The girls had approached him and were trying to get his attention, but he couldn’t hear their words over the beating of his heart. He wanted to go back to his homeland and unleash his Gift upon those that remained there. He wanted to see them scream as their flesh melted from their bones, their bodies withering into caricatures of people before they turned to white dust.

However, before the visions of revenge could go further, he suppressed them with his iron will, his high spirit stat finally letting him get the maelstrom of emotion under control. It took him the better part of an hour to fully come back to himself, and when he did, his head was lying atop Kaede and Fururu’s tails while the fox maidens toyed with his hair and ears.

He recalled how he fell in love the first time, with the wild and free fox maiden who first took him in after his exile. He recalled her passion and mischievous nature, her constant care for him, and the wonderful nights they had together.

He also recalled how, as he pursued the life of a mercenary, she grew increasingly distant, unable to understand why he didn’t want the same things she did. The little differences, the little bits of friction between them built into a gap that could never be filled again. Pushed by her instincts, he left him, driving him into a fit of drinking and whoring that lasted for a solid three months before he came back to himself.

Now that his name was his own once more, he recognized what had happened. He had had a chance with her, to become something other than who he was. However, with his name lost to him, his spirit couldn’t answer hers in full. Since he could never engage fully with her, their connection wore away, his existence vague yet unchanging due to the side-effects of his redactions.

He felt a deep sorrow and regret, as well as a deep sense of loss, once again living through the grief of the day she left.

He still couldn’t remember her name. When she departed, she used a curse to cut the ties between them forever. Even if he wanted to, he would never be able to find her again.

… I had luck with a woman, once. I can’t believe I cursed that encounter for so long… He cursed himself for his foolishness.

The System hadn’t twisted him deliberately, but there was a cost for everything. One’s status was linked to one’s very being, and every alteration made to it altered who one was. By redacting his name, he’d impaired himself on so many levels that he was literally incapable of fully comprehending it, even now.

Removing the redaction on his Gift had freed a part of him that was sealed away. However, that part of him was so minor compared to the part lost with his name it was almost insignificant.

His belief that his first love was one of misfortune had tainted his other relationships, causing him to latch onto women who could only bring him harm. Instinctively, he had been trying to recover what he had lost, but the twisted nature of what he had done to himself made him unable to see how wrong he was until it was too late.

He still wasn’t about to get together with the sisters, though. He now saw them in a new light, one untainted by his fogged mind. He knew them for the children they were beneath their mature features. Their levels were high for their ages, most likely due to having an excellent mentor who drove them hard. However, they couldn’t be older than their mid-teens at most. It was impossible to tell with fox maidens, as they reached physical maturity in a matter of years, their mental and spiritual maturity following slowly over the years that followed.

Regardless, any lust he might have felt for them fell away entirely. He knew that they would force his hand if they could, but it was the impulses of a body that was ready far before the mind that drove that. He would have to rethink their relationship at some point, but it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

Syana was another issue. He saw the lust in her eyes when she looked at him, but he also saw that what she felt for him was, at best, mild affection. Drow females were more free with their bodies than most races, if only because they were the ones who had the right of choice in their society. Drow lusted for capable males, for males who struggled, males who suffered and strove.

This kind of insight came from – ironically – that three months of whoring after his first breakup. He’d ended up in bed with more than one woman of her type during that time, and his once-fuzzy memories were now clear.

He knew that Syana’s emotions would never engage with his romantically. She wasn’t capable of true romantic attraction. It was alien to her as it was to any drow female. A drow female might become obsessed with a male, but it was a possessive obsession, not a loving one.

No, there was no reason to try to pursue that dead end, especially with his newly-sensitive spirit with its revived memories of loss.

I need time to get my emotions under control, He concluded.

________________________________________________________________________________

Old Sakarka

A middle-aged human man with brown hair and green eyes looked up from the papers on the mahogany desk in front of him and narrowed his eyes as a quartz crystal at the opposite side of the desk began to glow green.

The man was dressed richly, with a white silk shirt, fine black wyvern leather trousers, and a black velvet vest embroidered with a crest made up of three swords and a roaring panther in silver embroidered across the front. His brown hair was fine and well taken care of, pulled back in a complex braid that fell to just below his shoulders, bound with gold and silver wire. A platinum signet ring with a crest identical to that which graced his vest was on his right ring finger, and a black diamond amulet of protection was visible against his collarbone.

Every aspect of his person and the room he was in spoke of wealth and its casual use. The lines on his face gave it a gentle cast that belied the cold, cruel light in his eyes as he touched the glowing quartz. A graceful yet somehow malicious smile curved his lips as he rang a silver bell on the wall behind his desk.

A moment later, a human maid in a floor-length black dress with a white apron across the front entered, bowing to him from the waist, “You called, Master?”

Her tone was devoid of life or enthusiasm, but the noble behind the desk was unconcerned with this. Like all his servants, breaking her in had taken some time, but now she was a perfectly obedient tool in his hands, useful for its allegiance as much as any skills she might have had.

“My dear brother’s name has been restored. Please do me the favor of having one of our hounds retrieve him,” He said as he handed her a crystal chip loaded with credits sufficient to hire a skilled legal bounty hunter to retrieve his wayward half-sibling. The details of the job also lay within the crystal, frozen at the moment he’d first imprinted it almost a decade before, when he was forced to rely on the Black Guild to take care of matters instead of more conventional means of pursuit.

Rastet Delusia’s smile only deepened as he saw the maid shudder, remnants of her lost former self feeling a deep horror at his words that she was no longer capable of recognizing. Like all of the servants of the ‘young master’ left behind when he fled into exile, she had been quite thoroughly broken of any loyalties to him, but faded memories of a shared childhood remained, even if she was no longer capable of accessing them.

Rastet took a deep pleasure in the servants’ involuntary reactions to his words and manner. It showed that he had broken them properly, for if he had gone too far, they would be incapable of even that much. Few knew of Rastet’s… hobbies. Even his lost half-sibling never had the opportunity to witness it before his abrupt… departure ten years before.

It was just unfortunate for the servants of the Delusia Family that any who might have restrained Rastet’s bad habits and hobbies were years dead, and those that had failed to escape before he took the reins of the family had doomed themselves to a fate worse than death. Black mist curled around his hands as he gestured for the maid to leave, not in the mood to play with her as he might have at another time. She was no longer interesting to him, in any case. The new servant girls recruited in the villages were of far more interest, as they were as of yet untouched and innocent.

He wondered idly how long it would be before he had an opportunity once again get to know his half-sibling.

He couldn’t wait.