A few days went by splitting my time between researching the cure and training. I continued to make progress, but with only about a bit more than five weeks left until our escape I was becoming worried with my progress in my Radiant Redeemer class. The good news is my skills were catching up with my level, the bad news is I wasn’t leveling fast enough. Over the last week I had gained only five levels, with five weeks remaining, that left me about five levels short of one hundred.

Working on the cure was a noble goal, but it was sapping too much of my time. The raw stats from leveling Bioshifter Curist would make up for some of the lost time, but at the end of the day it just wasn’t a combat oriented class, and I needed to be stronger.

It didn’t help that I was feeling lost on my project of curing cancer. I hadn’t been making any progress, each new way I tried to attack the cancer cells was either worse or no better than previous attempts. I was missing something obvious, and I just couldn’t tell what it was.

I was in the training grounds working through my morning routine of blade swings and footwork. I had developed something of a Kata to train each of my sword techniques. It turned boring repetitive motions into more of a graceful dance. Going from one strike to the next all while maintaining constant precise motion. I wasn’t sure if it was better training than just doing the same motion over and over again, but it sure was less tedious.

“What’s the kid doing?” Asked a voice I couldn’t immediately place.

“Damned if I know, I sure didn’t teach her that.” This voice I knew very well despite only spending maybe six total months with him. Garen, my sword instructor and adventurer.

I immediately sheathed my sword then turned to see the gruff half-elven man. He had short-cropped red hair and stubble, bright orange eyes, and a goofy grin on his face. The man had a slim but well-muscled build, what would be called a swimmer’s body on Earth. His Sukeshi was held on his back with an over-the-shoulder sheath.

Accompanying my master was his adventuring group. His team was made of his wife and his two sisters in law. Kira, Garen’s wife was a mostly human woman, she had some elven heritage but it was minor. Kira was a Mage and Healer. Her two sisters were a Warrior and Ranger. All three sisters were brunette with hazel eyes. Jaz was the warrior, she used axes primarily, she was by far the most muscular and tall among her sisters. Finally, Lynn was the Ranger, she used a bow mostly and a short sword for backup.

I frowned at Garen. “I taught myself that, I had to since you are never around.” I said deadpan, a beat of silence went by as everyone was trying to decide if I was actually mad, then my lips curved into a smile. I activated Radiant Step and shot toward Garen to pull him into a lightning quick hug.

He was only able to reel back a few inches before I got to him. I looked up into his shocked expression. “Good to see you master.” I said with my best innocent smile.

Garen failed to form words for a moment before he grinned down at me. “Good to see you too, guess the rumors going around town of a new genius spellblade were true.” He said with a bit of chagrin. “And I used to think training a brat like you was a waste of time.”

I released him then gave him a mock angry glare. I knew fulwell he wasn’t being serious about that last part. He had indeed been annoyed at being called in by Halcroft to train me, but I had long since proved myself worth training. “To think my master is still more of a petulant child than a 12 year old girl.” I quipped back.

Kira snickered and Garen frowned. “Still a smart mouth brat I see.”

“Taking a break from dungeons or did Halcroft pay you more than you could say no to?” I asked. I had requested Garen’s presence since having an instructor even if for a couple weeks should help my growth greatly, but he hadn’t informed me or Alice that it was actually going to happen.

“Bit of both actually…” Garen checks became a bit rosy. That was a bit weird, what was he embarrassed about?

Kira gave him a disgusted look. “We’ll actually be taking about a year off now that my pregnancy is far enough along.” She stepped from behind Garen and she was indeed sporting a small baby bump. I had to guess she was around 5 months along. Interestingly elves had slightly shorter pregnancies; a bit more than 8 months rather than nearly 10 of humans. I wasn’t entirely certain what that meant for half-elven pregnancies, but I had to guess it would probably split the difference. Just the fact that humans and elves could have children was mind-boggling to me, every biological fact from Earth told me it should be particularly impossible. I have decided to just chalk it up to magic and move on.

“Oh! Congratulations. I didn’t know you two were trying, I thought you were going to hold off until your team ranked up?” I asked.

Kira rolled her eyes. “We weren’t.” She gave Garen a scathing glare. “He didn’t take his contraception potion.”

Now I understood the cold looks Kira was giving Garen. They were still together, and both had marriage bands on so I had to assume this wasn’t going to mean an end to their relationship. “Ah… I see.” Now it was my turn to give Garen a disappointed look. Both men and women could take contraception potions, they were different potions technically but they cost about the same so it didn’t matter. Usually a couple would have just one of them take the potion to keep costs down. Garen failing to do so was… not great suffice to say.

“Look, it was a mistake, but a happy one, right?” Garen said, clearly rehashing an old argument. “I mean, we are close to A rank anyway, and it’s not as if adventurers never have kids. And Jaz, Lynn, and I can do some easy missions in the meantime to pad our numbers, heck we might even still rank up before the end of next year.”

I rubbed my brow with a bit of disappointment. “Master…” I shook my head. “Nope… you don’t deserve that if you think that’s a good argument.” I sighed. “Garen-” I started again. “-Did it occur to you that is exactly the problem here? Kira is annoyed she won’t be able to be a part of the team while you guys are on the final leg of a major rank up.”

Garen gave me a skeptical look. “That’s just silly, we founded Feyblooded together, we have gone through everything together, been together… every… step…” He trailed off as the blood drained from his face.

Kira slapped the back of his head. “Even a 12 year old can see it.” A spark of anger to her voice.

Garen turned back to face the three sisters. “Oh come on, the brat has always been strangely good at everything, you can’t expect me…” He realized what he was about to imply and stopped again.

“Can’t expect you to have the understanding of a 12 year old?” Kira finished for him. “I am fully aware.” Her voice was like ice.

Jaz scoffed and walked toward me. “Let’s leave them to it for a bit, this has been a long time coming.” She put her hand on my shoulder to turn me back the way I’d come, and Lynn took my other flank.

Jaz and Lynn joined me at the other end of the training yard as we all studiously did our best to ignore the arguing couple. We all had more than enough Vitality to still hear them despite our attempt. “Want to see my skills?” I said innocently trying to divert our attention further.

Jaz shrugged. “A spellblade as your first class, you must have pretty amazing skills. What level are you? 20, 30?” I glanced away at her guesses. Her face scrunched up in confusion. “Lower? Have you not been…” She trailed off as I motioned upward.

“You can’t already be level 40? You’ve had your class for, what, 6 weeks?” Lynn asked, sharing a confused look with her sister.

“Actually… I’m level 68 in my spellblade class and my total level is over 100.” I gave them my best chagrined look.

Their jaws dropped. “What the fuck have you been doing to get those kind of levels?!” Jaz shouted.

Lynn was staring off to the side in disbelief. “I was 16 when I unlocked my second class…” She murmured.

I got up on my tippy toes and waggled back and forth a bit, hoping being cute might help the next bit along. “I helped kill a basilisk with a class. It had a combined level over 450. Then I got a Fire healing class and have been working toward curing aging disease. I’m clearly onto something because the system is rewarding me with a ton of levels just for trying.”

Jaz threw up her hands. “Fuck me! You are a tiny little monster.”

I heard a plop as Lynn slumped down onto a nearby bench holding her head. “6 weeks and she is a third my level…” She was positively shell shocked.

I was already higher level than almost all civilians one or two decades older than me. However getting a third of the way toward a fairly strong adventurer was apparently a step too far for poor Lynn. She, like the rest of her team, was in their early to mid thirties. As B rank adventurers on the cusp of A rank they were among maybe the one thousand most powerful adventurers in all of Haka. S rank was the highest standard rank before one became a named adventurer. Each country only had a few named adventurers, Riza having been one before she retired into Halcroft’s service.

I hadn’t even dropped the dual element bomb on them. Each of my levels in Radiant Redeemer would be equivalent to 2 or 3 levels in a single element medium grade class. That meant that I was probably about as strong as someone double my level even before you add in the benefit of all my achievements. If I were to become an adventurer I would probably be a low B rank.

I didn’t have nearly as much practical combat experience as any of them, and that mattered a lot too. I suspected if I were to fight Jaz I would lose soundly but I could probably hold my own for a little while. I might be able to fight her to a standstill with Alice’s help. However she was locked away in her mindstone right now. She wasn’t big on in her words ‘boring ass repetitive training’.

Jaz’s shouts had caught the attention of Kira and Garen and they had come over to find out what was happening. She quickly relayed what I had said to them. Kira just looked impressed. “Wow, you really are a proper genius.”

Garen’s dour expression at being chewed out by Kira changed on a dime to one of happiness. “Well she is my student, did you expect anything else?” I could practically feel the aura of mostly unwarranted pride radiating off him.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Well… I suppose I should just get it out there now, my first class was also a rather high quality, specifically low-grade Radiance Spellblade.” Starting with a dual element class was almost unheard of. I’m sure they were immediately placing me into the fast track to be named adventurer in their minds.

Garen groaned. “Well I can see why the old bastard paid us so much to be here.”

Kira glared at him before glancing around to see if anyone had overheard him. “Maybe don’t talk about our benefactor that way, especially here of all places.” She whispered harshly into his ear. My Vitality allowed me to hear it, but I doubted anyone else further from them would have caught it.

For his part he seemed actually chasten, but it didn’t last long as he broke into a grin. “Yeah, yeah.” The spark in his eyes turned predatory. “I just want to see what the brat can do now.”

Jaz scoffed and Lynn put her face in her hands. “There’s the battle maniac.” Jaz said in a disappointed tone. “What you see in him I still can’t understand…” She continued to Kira.

Kira got a goofy grin. “Battle isn’t the only thing he gets… up for.”

Lynn’s face went even more pink, Jaz got a disgusted look on her face. “Come on overhearing you two was already way more than I ever wanted to know!” Jaz shouted.

A triumphant grin graced Garen’s face as he enjoyed the apparent praise of his sexual proweress. For my part I was more annoyed that Kira was feeding his ego after having just yelled at him. I also didn’t really want to think about Garen that way, he was more of a father figure than anything else for me.

He drew his Sukeshi. “Come on brat, show me what you got.”

I was all too thankful for the distraction. I placed one hand on my scabbard with my thumb on the guard. “Is your sword enchanted?” I asked.

Garen let out a mirthless laugh. “Na, enchantments don’t last long enough without an instiller in the party.”

I drew my blade and activated Radiant Blade. “Then be sure not to parry me head on.”

His brow rose in obvious question. I rolled my eyes and stepped back a few steps slowly swinging my sword over one of the un-enchanted target dummies. As my sword approached the metal skeleton a screeching sound could be heard as I cut through the metal like butter. “My skill can cut through just about anything unless it has an enchantment, then my Magic has to overpower the enchantment first.”

Garen let out a low whistle. “Well, I guess I better stick to dodging then. I might be able to counter it once or twice, but I’d prefer not to ruin my blade.”

I held my blade in front of me in a neutral guard. Garen had a loose stance with his longer Sukeshi held at his side. “Ready brat?” I gave a curt nod, then Garen blurred.

My eyes barely kept up with his raw stats as took lightning quick steps toward me. He had me outmatched a lot by stats. He had two physical focused classes, one pure Air Warrior and the other an Earth Monk class. He acted as the vanguard of his group, using his massive physical stats and the regenerative boosts from his Earth healing magic to hold the line. He moved incredibly fast avoiding any major blows and healing away any minor ones.

This was the first time I was actually truly seeing him in his element. Before I had gained my class I literally couldn’t see his movements at full speed. Now, however, everything was different. I didn’t have nearly as many physical stats as he did, but I made up for it with powerful magic.

I activated Radiant Steps with a fairly low power arcing around him in three quick magical steps. Because of Radiant Blade I had another significant advantage, in that Garen couldn’t parry my blade. He had to strike me so that I couldn’t interpose my sword, likewise if I struck at him he had to dodge rather than redirect my strike.

As I rounded on him he jumped back obviously surprised I had kept up with him. Instead of using my sword I shot a beam of Radiance at him. The instantaneous nature of light meant I hit him on the shoulder exactly as intended. However the damage was superficial since he blurred to the left a moment later. The beam had only connected for a split second, not nearly enough to even singe his supernaturally tough skin.

Although my ranged attacks weren’t going to affect someone with his speed they did help to even the field. If he stood and took the attack it would eventually penetrate his defenses. That meant I could force him to move in certain directions.

After his dodge to the left he sped toward me, his sword already coming down in a diagonal slash. I raised my sword to parry the blow even as I moved away from him. He pushed the attack, bringing the sword down at my guard. For a moment I thought he was sacrificing his sword just to get close to me. However just before our swords were going to touch he cast it aside!

My eyes grew wide in shock as I thought he was about to ram my Radiant Blade skill with his left arm. If he did that he would cut off his own arm! I desperately tried to deactivate the skill even as I heard the sizzling of flesh. His left arm brushed against my blade as he mostly snaked around my guard simultaneously grabbing my hands on my grip to be sure my sword didn’t cut into him further.

He then rammed into me with his right shoulder sending both of us flying backward. The air in my lungs woshed out as my vision grayed at the edges. I smashed into the ground with Garen on top of me. All the force of our momentum became friction on my back as the ground tore into me.

I would have yelped in pain had Garen’s elbow to my gut not made that impossible. Only my enhanced Vitality made me not just a bloody smear on the ground. I activated Enhanced Metabolism on myself knowing full well my entire back will have most of the skin scraped away.

My back burned as I desperately sucked for breath ineffectually. I felt my Sukeshi pull away from my grip and the pressure on my body disappeared. Garen had gotten off of me and taken my sword to be sure I didn’t drop it on myself while I was gasping for breath.

“You alright there brat?” He asked as he held his bleeding left arm. The cut in his left arm was deep, nearly to the bone. The crazy bastard had nearly lost his arm just so he could tackle me. I couldn’t even begin to imagine doing the same thing he just did.

Kira showed up next to me with concern written all over her face then knelt down next to me. “Alea honey…” She put her hand to my face and began to channel her Light healing. I kept my magic resistance up and shook my head. I knew there was absolutely dirt and stones in my back, and I didn’t want Light magic sealing it all in. Regenerative magic like Fire and Earth will usually push most things out. “You don’t want me to heal you?” She asked.

I was still gasping for air. I tried to say the word rocks, but it just came out as a gasp. “She got shoved into the dirt pretty hard, she probably wants to clean the wound first.” Jaz explained.

I weakly nodded as I finally felt like I could fill my lungs again. “You can heal me honey, she nearly sliced my arm off.” Garen said joyfully.

Kira looked back at him with a death glare. “You can heal yourself.” She turned back to me and whispered. “I’ll just channel some pain suppression then, alright.” Her magic shot through me making the pain fade to nearly nothing in an instant, it was… fantastic.

Garen pouted. “Oh come on! My magic sucks, it will take half an hour to heal completely.”

“You should have thought about that before you used your arm to catch a radiance blade.” Jaz said deadpan.

“Well I sure as fuck wasn’t going to use my sword.”

Kira ignored him as she turned me over and let out a soft gasp. “Oh honey…” I couldn’t see her anymore but I could imagine the look on her face. I had hit the dirt going like 30 miles per hour with Garen’s full weight pressing me into the dirt. “Did you have to hit her so hard?!” Kira yelled.

“I mean I tried to go easy on her, but she moves as fast as I do, and that sword of her’s is no joke.” Garen replied. I heard a bang then a shout of pain from Garen.

Although there was nearly no pain I did feel odd pressure as Enhanced Metabolism did its work. It was pushing the pebbles and dirt out of the wound as it slowly reknit my back together.

“She’s healing…” Kira said with a bit of confusion.

“Oh! Taking after me even more? Did you get an Earth healing class?” Garen asked, his voice vacillated a little in an odd way, like he was jumping up and down.

“F-” I coughed trying to get the words out, some blood came out my mouth and my throat felt a lot clearer. “Fire healing, this particular spell looks like Earth healing but I’ll have to eat a lot after this.” I informed him.

“Fancy.” Garen said.

“What is your Magic stat?” Lynn asked, obviously entranced by my healing back.

“Uhh… 259…” I allowed notifications to come since I turned them off for the fight.

*Level up. Radiant Redeemer level 69. You gain 2 Free stats, 3 Strength, 3 Agility, 2 Vitality, 2 Animus, 2 Magic, and 2 Manipulation.*

*Radiant Step has leveled up, level 62.*

*Titan Slayer has leveled up, level 17.*

“Actually 261 now.” I corrected myself immediately. Also a Titan Slayer level! That was totally worth all this pain. I hadn’t been able to fight many people that were more than 100 levels above me recently, but having a serious fight with Garen clearly qualifies.

“Oh did you level just from getting your ass kicked?” Garen said triumphantly. Kira carefully got me sitting up, being sure to keep constant contact with me to reduce my pain. That was an extremely nice skill she had, I wanted it!

“You realize you are gloating over beating a 12 year old right?” Jaz chastised him.

Garen actually looked contrite for a moment, then he slowly raised his still lightly bleeding arm. “The kid is a fucking monster, if I had been any slower Kira would be trying to reattach my arm! I mean give me an enchanted weapon and I won’t have to resort to tackling!” His Earth healing magic from his monk class was clearly reducing the bleeding of the still very much open wound. The cut was almost exactly halfway through his forearm, and was regenerating visibly, but at a slow crawl compared to what I could do. He must have really neglated his Magic stat.

“Get over here…” I beckoned him over. He scowled at me as he scrutinized my expression. “Oh come on, I’m not angry, it was a duel with skills, I’m not surprised we both came out hurt.” He looked over at his wife, and I saw her eyes roll about as hard as a person could do.

He slowly walked over. Just as he was about to kneel down a bit I activated Radiant Step on my foot that was now right below his crotch. My left leg went shooting up into his groin. When I hit him I also gave him my Enhanced Metabolism buff at full power.

Garen gave a high pitched yelp as his legs collapsed in automatically. “I’m not angry, but I did hold a bit of a grudge.” I added after.

His concentration on his Earth magic waned as he collapsed to his knees, the bleeding increased for a moment until my magic took over. Unlike his terrible attempt at magical healing small sparkles of red light ignited on his arm quickly regenerating his wound.

Garen recovered and gave me a death glare, pointing at me with his now healed arm. “I’m going…” He lost concentration on his threat when he noticed he was healed. Then his stomach gurgled in the next moment. “What? When did… wait why am I suddenly so hungry!” He went from angry to startled to confused to annoyed in the matter of a couple of seconds.

“I healed you, but I might have used a bit more power than necessary, you’ll need to eat… about three times what you usually do for lunch.” I grinned mischievously at him.

*Enhanced Metabolism has leveled up, level 20.*

“Ah! Gods damn it!” I felt it as his magic resistance cut my magic off suddenly. I’d never had someone resist one of my spells like that before, it was a strange feeling, like someone poked the inside of a tummy. Also good to know I could tell when a person removed one of my buffs. He glanced toward the manor before going back to me. “This isn’t over, I’m going to put you through your paces!” He got up and ran toward where the staff’s dining room was.

Jaz and Kira began laughing at the poor man. Lynn on the other hand seemed more thoughtful. She gave me a look obviously inspecting my now healed back. “Why aren’t you that hungry?”

I grinned. “I used way less Magic to cast my buff so it consumes less energy. Plus I think when I put my spells on myself the negative effects hit me a bit less.”

Lynn gave a little nod before offering me a hand up.