For the next ten days, I fell into a rhythm with the other miners. I let them stay in the miner’s lodge while I slept outside with everyone else. We even managed to get one of the tenement buildings up. After that, the general mood of the camp improved. Even Tenebris and Sanaa were happy about not sleeping in nature. The newly freed people were surprisingly upbeat about the situation. All of them committed to staying here and building a life. The population of Radiance shot up to 15. The city’s happiness was hovering around 50% which was also pretty good. When I sat down for dinner, I reviewed the gains I had made.

Congratulations! Your skill Mining has leveled up. Mining has reached levels 2 through 10. Your mining speed has increased by 18%

Your Mining skill has advanced from Amateur to Student. At the Student rank, you are able to extract rare materials. You have been awarded 1,000 experience points for this achievement.

You have leveled up! You have reached level 10! Hard work, dedication, and luck have guided your steps. Blood, sweat, and tears have forged your path. Grow and strive forward into the horizon. You have taken another step into the future by completing your trials and labors. Your hard work has earned you the following rewards..

Category

Per level Unspent Points Attribute Points Because of your Aetheric nature your per-level rewards have been modified. You have been awarded 7 Attribute Points to distribute however you like. 7 Skill Progression +25% Progress to any skill of your choice. 25%

Congratulations! Your skill Riding has leveled up. Riding has reached levels 5 and 6. Your mining speed has increased by 15%. You have a +15% mounted speed and resistance against being knocked off.

Your familiars Sanaa and Tenebris have leveled. They have reached level 6

I wasn’t able to do a lot of hunting with the two of them, but I was able to reach level 10 all the same. I pulled up both of their sheets, but their attributes were automatically assigned. I had one point for their abilities and I was going to boost one of them, but I decided against it. I wanted to boost their soul bond with me. I loved being able to talk to them. Who knew what boosting it again would be able to do? The question of what to do with my own stats was fairly straightforward. Three points went to Intelligence, the remaining four went into Wisdom and the 25% progression went to my Lumos magic. I was pleased to see that my Strength had gone up after all that work. I needed to figure out how to boost agility without spending the points.

Name:Darterrius Solomon Maximilian

Level:10,0% Age:26 Species:Human(Altazian) Alignment: Neutral(0/0) Languages: All Renown: Curiosity(1000) Characteristics Health:230 Magic:330

Regen/min 14

Stamina:220

Regen/min 12

Attributes Agility:10 Charisma:20 Endurance: 20 Intelligence:30 Luck:20 Perception: 10 Strength:15 Vitality:20 Wisdom:24 Skills

(Level, Experience,Affinity) Crafting Skills Cooking: 2,35%,92% Mining: 10,30%, 85%

Magic Skills Dual Casting: 11,15%,100% Lumos:13,40%,100% Pyro:7,10%,100% Spira Magic: 1,25%,100%

Martial Skills

Riding: 6,20%,70 Tracking: 1,20%,70 Utility Skills Statescraft: 1,10%,100%

Abilities Arcanum Infinitum: You always have 100% affinity with every magic. You are immune to the adverse effects of casting magic. You can teach any magic that you know.

Eidetic Memory: You have an enhanced memory. The effectiveness of this ability increases with the user's Intelligence attribute.

Erudite Mind: Your skill Progression increases 30% faster.

Soul Bond: Represents the connection between you and your soul familiars

True Speak: The user can speak and understand any language. Emblems Mark of the Suzerain Resistances 5% Emotional 5% Mental 15% Radiant 15% Umbra

Part of me was a bit worried about how lopsided I was getting. Perception and Agility were still basic. I smacked myself in the forehead when I realized I had someone I could ask about that. I got up and made my way over to Zakia. I found her running through some sword swings. It looked a bit like a dance, in how each movement swam into the next one. I watched her for a few more minutes before she noticed me.

“Is there something you need?” She wiped the sweat from her face, re-sheathed her swords, and ran up to me. Once she was close enough that everyone nearby wouldn’t be able to hear me, I asked my question.

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“Hey, what level are you?” She raised her eyebrow in a silent question. When I didn’t say anything else, she answered. “Level 11 almost 12.”

“How long have you been at that level? How long did it take you to get there?” She raised a hand to stop further questions. “I have been here for about two years. I had to stop leveling to focus on my sword style. Why do you ask?”

I sighed. “I am trying to estimate my current strength. I just reached level 10.” She nodded. “You are a caster type. Things should be difficult for you. It’s why I was surprised you lasted this long.” I stared at her blankly while the gears turned. I was just about to ask her why she would assume that when it hit me. In video games, magic casters were typically squishy. Especially at low levels. When the realization dawned, she laughed.

“I imagine you had to do a lot of running away to get this far. Now that you are at level 10 though things should become a bit easier for you. You should be sitting around twenty in Intelligence and Wisdom. You would need to seek out a caster for a more detailed plan, though.”

I nodded before changing topics. “We should leave for Afrium in the next hour or so.” She nodded her agreement and gestured for me to follow. “I have had Rex and Naki fed and they are ready. I didn’t think you had a stronger saddle, so I got one from the others. We should have enough food for a two-week journey through the desert. We will need to restock on the return, of course.” I nodded with her as we reached the area where the reptiles were being kept. It was a circular area about 100ft across. Thankfully, the mounts weren’t interested in escaping, because I was pretty sure they could just scale the wall.

“We can have them ready to go in twenty minutes. I would recommend you fill up on water and food for the trip. Can that ring hold more things?” She said with a nod to my finger. I let my awareness pass through the ring. The gold bars and gems were taking up a lot of space. “We will get into trouble if we don’t sell most of this when we get to the city. Is there something else you want me to bring?”

“I want to bring some larger water skin so that they can have a bit more to drink. They might be too much of a burden on them to carry, though. If you can fit them, then I would suggest we bring them. If not, we should ration our water. When we reached the makeshift storage shed, I stored the additional water skins. I am not an outdoorsy type, but even I knew that you kept your mode of transportation fueled and well cared for. Once that was finished she went and gave final orders to the staying Ifrit and I went made my way over to Rex. A quick message called my familiars to me.

“Have you both hunted enough? We are leaving soon.” I sent the message to both of them and the resulting hisses told me all I needed to hear.

“More hunting?” Tenebris sent back and I shook my head. “No, we are going to move as quickly as we can. Ideally, we won’t come across any threats.” His displeasure tickled the back of my mind. I chose to ignore as I guided Rex out of the pen. Once he was free, I climbed onto his back.

“We see more people?” Sanaa asked as I grabbed the reins. “Yep. I am not sure how big the city is but it should be exciting.” She let out a low purr-like hiss before laying her head against my shoulder. Feeling her warm breath coming out of both of her mouths was a bit strange, but I decided not to think about it too hard. When Zakia returned, she mounted up.

“Ready?” She gave her answer by snapping Naki’s reins and the pair were off. I chuckled before doing the same thing for Rex. We decided not to push them too hard right away and settled into pace. The wind ripped past us fast enough that talking wasn’t realistic, so I let my mind wander. I had been here nearly a month. Assuming that a month counted the same in this world. I wondered how my family was doing. I hadn’t thought to ask the “World Soul” about them. I said a silent prayer that everything was alright and that they were able to move on. I then turned my attention to my new world.

The ride through the desert took eight days and was uneventful. We ran across a pair of large stegosaurus-like beasts at an oasis. Thankfully, they had no interest in us and we could keep moving. My riding skill shot up as we traveled.

Congratulations! Your skill Riding has leveled up. Riding has reached levels 7,8 and 9. Your mining speed has increased by 24%. You have a +24% mounted speed and resistance against being knocked off.

The journey wasn’t just quick; it was enlightening. Zakia was able to explain several things to me. I learned something new that made my appreciation for the World Souls grow immensely. As a person’s skill level increased, their affinity would decrease. This means that my riding affinity would hit zero. Not only that, once my affinity was below 50% I would no longer be able to increase the skill. This meant that every person had a maximum ability for specific skills. That didn’t completely apply to me. My “Arcanum Infinitum” ability kept my affinity for magic at the maximum, no matter what level I reached. I decided not to explain that to her, though. I liked her, but I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be.

If the affinity system was some sort of cosmic balancing scale, then people might not be happy to know that I can bypass it. The last thing I needed was for people to hunt me down to stop me from growing. Either that or to lock me in some basement to use as a weapon. She mentioned that there were ways to boost your affinity after birth, but those were few and far between. A smaller she was able to explain was that there were sub-skills. Skills that were based on a different one. For example, there was a “Lupine Riding” skill. Which was common to some goblin tribes that used large dire wolves as mounts. This immediately made me ask her about a dragon riding skill. She had no idea if that existed or not. Lastly, she confirmed that each person received five attributes per level and only 10% skill progression per level.

Attributes and skill progression were connected to your species, with some creatures receiving more or less power. Zakia’s innate fire resistance would eventually make her immune to fire. There were other people with similar bonuses. There were also snake people who were especially good at hypnotism, which was both cool and frightening. I asked her if she had ever heard of an “Altazian” before, but she had not. That was both good and bad. Good, because other people wouldn’t know about my benefits. Bad because it meant I wasn’t going to find anyone else like me for quite a while. All in all the journey was straightforward and pleasant. On the morning of the eighth day, we finally saw something new. We crested a large dune, and I got my first sight of the city. It was massive. Three separate walls surrounded the city. I could only see the outermost wall from our position. It looked every bit equal to the Great Wall of china. The stone was an ashen grey color and there was a single set of stone doors. Based on the small dots moving along the top, there were plenty of guards protecting the place.

When I turned my attention from the walls, I noticed all the other people. There was a line of people drifting through the gate. The line was at least a mile long. “Is it normally this busy?” I asked as the thought of standing in the heat for hours began to wear down my resolve.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been here in years, but it could be. Lots of adventurers travel here for obvious reasons.” I looked over at her and nodded my head. We guided our mounts to head to the back of the line. I sent a message to Sanaa and Tenebris, who settled in on my shoulders. Their excitement and curiosity warred with their desire to listen to me. I stroked their scales to calm them down. “There will be time for you two to explore, but for now, we had better be safe. I don’t want anyone shooting at you. I would hate to get into a fight before I have the chance to make friends.” I chuckled at that as we settled in behind a group of seven people. They were the only ones using a mount. Unlike us, they had a large camel pulling a wooden cart. Two of the people sat in the cart and were speaking loudly to one another.

“Yes, yes, we will be in the city soon. I know—” There was a break in the conversation as one of the five guards gently tapped on the wood. A head poked out a moment later, looked us up and down, and laughed. A glance at Zakia told me she had no idea who this person was. I instinctively ran a thumb over my ring. I didn’t think anyone could steal it off my finger without me noticing, but it made me feel better. One guard, a bald, dark-skinned woman with a nasty-looking spear, jogged over to us. She looked over at Zakia and then at me as if to ask which of us was in charge. I took the initiative.

“Hello,” I engaged my ability to speak the same language as the man from earlier. The guard visibly relaxed. “My patron wanted to know if you are here to conduct business or for other matters. If so, he is prepared to offer you some of his merchandise.”

“What does he sell? My friend here is searching for blades. Do you know if he has something that would interest her? Does he have magic spells?” I gave a nod to Zakia, who relaxed the grip on her blade. The guard shook her head.

“No, on both accounts. I would recommend taking a look at yourself. He has several unique and interesting items.” I couldn’t come up with a reason to refuse him. Even if he didn’t have spells, he might have clothes, which was something I needed. Wearing the same robes was starting to become a problem, especially since I had to rely on the soap the Ifrit could give me.“Is there anyway I could meet your patron later? We are rather tired and I would not want to disrupt the line while I take my time.” I flashed the woman a pleasant smile. She hesitated for a moment before nodding her head.

Once she had returned to her post, Zakia spoke up. “I thought you had never been here before?” I raised an eyebrow and then replayed the conversation. I hadn’t said anything about being here. When I didn’t respond, she continued. “You spoke in perfect Aantano. You spoke it as if you had been born speaking it.” She folded her arms and glared at me as if presenting irrefutable evidence of my crime. I laughed in response.

“I have an ability that lets me speak, understand, and be understood by anyone I am talking to. It even works on unspoken languages. How were you planning on getting things done if you don’t speak the language?”

“It’s a city filled with foreigners. I typically go to locations that have people who can understand me. I can speak well enough to find my way around. I suppose with you around, though, things will be even easier.” She smiled at that before guiding Naki forward. I shook my head and followed behind her. We continued like that for another two hours before we arrived at the gate. The massive gate was at least fifteen feet tall. The center of the double doors held a symbol of two crossed swords. When it was our turn to pass through the gate, a pair of guards walked up to us. They had long swords on their hips and dark leather armor. They waved a hand to halt us and the taller of the two spoke.

“Are you here as a merchant, adventurer, or traveler?” The man impatiently tapped his foot while Zakia offered an answer. “We are traveling.” He looked between the two of us and then gestured us through. Before I moved, I asked a question. “I am looking for people who want to settle in a small village. Do you know where I could find someone like that?”

The man answered without looking back at us. “Check in with the adventurer’s guild” I wasn’t sure if the man was giving useful information or if he wanted me out of his hair. Regardless, it didn’t change anything for us. Once we were past the wall, the rest of the city opened up in an explosion of noise. It was like walking through Times Square with how close together people were. Before I could get too distracted, Zakia called out and pointed me toward a stable. I nodded, and we prepared to leave our mounts.