Rieren let herself fall back to the ground in an attempt to relax a bit now that the fight was over. Her Domain disappeared, leaving the ground soggy, which made the back of her robes wet. But after the tiring battle, she couldn’t really muster much effort to care. Monkey’s balls, she couldn’t even recall the last time she had washed her robes…

Deciding it was better to focus on the Beast Core in her hand, Rieren waited until Batcat had joined her.

“You stayed back instead of interfering,” she said, eyeing the kitten and the way its tail was swishing from side to side. “For once.”

If the little Spirit Beast noted any bite in Rieren’s words, it gave no sign of it. It was actually a good thing the cat had stayed away. Rieren hadn’t needed to worry about it for a change. By now, she’d had ample proof that Batcat was more than capable of ensuring its own safety—and Rieren’s too, for that matter.

But she couldn’t help it. The kitten was just so… small, and fluffy, and adorable. Just seeing it in potential danger, even if all proof indicated that it was going to come out of said danger fully unscathed, left her heart in tatters.

She wondered if this was how parents felt with their little children. Hmm. Perhaps she could understand some of Atelen’s concern now…

Her wandering thoughts were pulled back to the present when Batcat approached the Beast Core. Rieren finally glanced down. It wasn’t that different from the ones she had obtained from Mountain and Forest. An amorphous solidified amber blob with faint hints of colour deeper within. For this Anachron, the colour looked like sparks of lightning.

Batcat ate it without much ceremony. Rieren was slightly amazed at how it could bite through and swallow the Beast Core so easily. It looked so rocky, she doubted she could have ingested with so little trouble. Her teeth would have broken against it.

She shook her head. Spirit Beasts.

“Do you feel stronger now?” Rieren asked Batcat.

In response, the kitten plopped over to its side and displayed its fluffy belly to her. She blinked. Did it… wish to play with her? Some distant memory alerted her that cats didn’t display their bellies like that unless they felt comfortable and wished to have fun.

But Abyss, this thing was supposed to be a Spirit Beast in the guise of a cat, not an actual feline furball.

Nevertheless, Rieren obliged, scratching its tummy and playing around with its little toes with the tiny beanlike pink pads. “I want to test if the past self you can grant me is stronger now, but then, I do not wish to waste it. What if I need it later? There could very well be more Banishedborn wandering around somewhere.”

There wasn’t that big of a chance for her to come across a Banishedborn out in the middle of nowhere. Rieren hadn’t been followed, and no one knew of her location. By all accounts, she ought to be properly free for the first time since she had entered this timeline.

But still. Maybe it was right to be cautious. Or maybe it was the old paranoia she still couldn’t really shake. Amalyse would certainly not have approved.

Either way, Rieren decided she would find out just how strong she could temporarily grow using Batcat’s memory-granting power when she needed to use it.

For now, Rieren decided to spend her time finishing her latest Aspect pillar. The Anachron’s main Aspect was at least tangentially related to water, which meant she was likely to find a spot where she could attain more of her main Aspect if she scouted around for a while.

She was proven right when she found a wide stream that cascaded down the mountainside in a series of rapids and waterfalls through a dense thicket. It was actually pleasant. The mountain was lusher than most she had travelled across so far. Early in the mornings, Rieren could hear birdsong, and she occasionally spotted wildlife coming to drink at the stream’s bank.

That was excellent because of the last Aspect pillar she needed to construct. That one revolved around all that water could hold. The various minerals dissolved within it, the life it carried with its body, whether stationary or moving, and of course, all the Essence it held.

It would go on to embody a different property Rieren would need to train herself in, properly—her ability to hold all that she could. The knowledge applicable to anything that popped up before her, the breadth of emotions needed to navigate any scenario, and of course, all the Essence to overcome any barrier that might attempt to stop her.

But for this week, she focused mainly on completing the current Aspect Pillar that described the various perceptions of water.

Rieren and Batcat didn’t camp near the stream. Convenient as it would have been to be as close as possible to the location Rieren needed to cultivate in, she was well aware that it would be too dangerous. After all, the Anachron had mentioned Abyssals passing through the area. Rieren didn’t want to risk getting caught unawares by the monsters.

Though, there was a great chance that the Abyssals might no longer take this route. After all, the Anachron had said that it had successfully stopped them. That suggested the Abyssals might have discovered an alternate path to… wherever it was they were heading.

Nevertheless, Rieren didn’t wish to take any chances. As such, she and Batcat camped at the best vantage point Rieren could find on short notice. This allowed them a greater view over much of the mountainside. The thick presence of trees prevented their line of sight from going too far, but that was all right. Both Batcat’s and Rieren’s senses were strong enough.

After about another week and a half of cultivating, when Rieren had broken through to Late-Awakened realm finally, they found their first prey.

It would seem the Abyssals had returned to check whether the Anachron was going to continue being a thorn in their side. They found it gone. Rieren wasn’t sure if they were able to deduce that it had been killed, but whatever the case, their route had been cleared up. This meant they could now pursue their original intention of passing by the mountain.

This also meant that Rieren could follow them to see where exactly they led her.

She considered using her steam to enhance her stealthing, but that would likely make the monsters too wary. No, Rieren was going to have to depend on old-fashioned stalking.

Strangely, the very first Abyssal she found was alone. A single Armistice Enforcer was making its way through the forest. Rieren waited for a while to see if more of its companions would appear, but no such thing occurred. The Abyssal was well and truly by itself.

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There was something weird about it, however. It was dragging what appeared to be a large stake along the ground. The length of wood was filthy and mired with vines and other grime she couldn’t easily recognize. But then it struck her. Ants. There was always one ant at the head of a procession that marked the way for the rest of its cohorts to follow in single file.

This Abyssal had to be doing the same thing. Leaving a trail for the other Abyssals to use when they needed to pass through this area.

It insinuated that while Rieren was following the first monster, she could very well be caught from behind by the ones farther back. Thankfully, Batcat was alert about it. While Rieren focused on their forward path behind the leading Abyssal, the winged kitten kept an eye out on their back to ensure they weren’t sneaked upon.

The journey unsurprisingly took them to the mouth of another dungeon. Through several passes and past increasingly shorter edifices, they reached one of the last mountains in the western end of the range. Halfway up the mountainside, a dungeon’s opening had been carved out, and into this passage, the Abyssal hopped in with no compunction.

Rieren recognized this one too. In fact, she was rather excited at having found it again, and somewhat thankful to the Enforcer for guiding her here. This dungeon held one of the old relics she would need to reach her true potential.

She declined from heading in just then, though. There were still some things she had to take care of first. Rieren wasn’t certain what the dungeon might hold, especially since she was getting closer to populated lands once more.

Things had to be timed carefully. After all, once she reached Peak-Awakened, she would once again have to manipulate a heavenly tribulation in order to hit the Enlightened Realm.

That was going to be a headache to achieve. After all, heavenly tribulations came directly from the gods. Asking for one plainly would be tantamount to revealing her location prematurely, and she couldn’t have that.

As such, Rieren returned to her original location. The journey to the dungeon had taken over half a day, and she was a little fatigued by the time she had reached her camping grounds.

“You can keep an eye out, yes?” Rieren asked Batcat.

In response, the cat flapped its little wings and took off, likely headed towards some distant location here it could perch and observe. Rieren trusted it to inform her if something came up. Meanwhile, she turned all her focus onto cultivating for the moment, constructing her next Aspect pillar.

By the end of that week, after continuing to cultivate without any surcease, she had finished. One more Aspect pillar, and she could finally lay claim to Peak-Awakened.

Meanwhile, Batcat did provide reports about what was going on nearby. Rieren took some time to observe the memories it had summoned up. All of them revolved around the Abyssals and their goings-on with the dungeon.

Rieren saw that the monsters were trying to lay claim to the dungeon much as they had done to the one under Lionshard mountain. Except, this one was providing a great deal of resistance. It would seem this Dungeon Core wasn’t as enthusiastic about allying with a bunch of monsters as the last one had been.

Strange. Was the Gravemark Puppeteer not involved with whatever negotiations went on between Abyssals and Dungeon Cores? Rieren suspected that it had been instrumental in crafting the deal between the Lionshard Dungeon Core and the Abyssals. Its absence here was intriguing.

While Rieren focused on crafting her final Aspect Pillar, she tried to think up how exactly she was going to get a heavenly tribulation.

At the same time, she had to worry about her secondary class too. The one indicated as a Profession in her [status]. In her last life, Rieren had chosen to be an Enchanter, and had gone on to build her fighting style around enchanting her sword.

She intended to do the same here, when she finally had access to her secondary class. All the knowledge from the previous timeline wouldn’t go to waste.

But to carry out the real enchantments that empowered her, she would need to find some important ingredients. Most of those could be bought from the System Store, which meant she would need a great deal of Credits, but there was one resource that couldn’t simply be purchased.

The swords.

One of Rieren’s key Enchantments was her ability to change her blade depending on the circumstance and the use case. Each sword was imbued with its own, specific ability. Changing her weapon to different swords meant that she could essentially have a wide range of techniques and skills at hand at any given moment, far more than what the system typically allowed.

That versatility in her repertoire had been one of Rieren’s greatest assets. A way to bypass the system’s restrictions via the use of Enchantments.

Professions in general were less restricted than one’s primary class. This was because secondary classes weren’t meant to simply be something that could be used for fighting.

For instance, there were Forgers who could craft a wide variety of tools, armaments, various implements, and the like from a great selection of materials to imbue them with many different properties. Herbalists could grow nearly anything they desired, and Potioneers could cook up all sorts of concoctions.

There were some strange ones Rieren had encountered as well. Sages who could commune with the natural world to call it to their aid, Seekers who hounded the lands in search of treasure, and Orators who could convince nearly anything to do their bidding.

Even a Puppeteer class that specialized in controlling anything in the right conditions.

That made Rieren ponder for a moment how Gravemark Puppeteers would feel about humans having access to a Profession that could do the same things they could. She amused herself by thinking of the Abyssal variety meeting the human variety and trying to kill each other via the same method.

It took just over another week before Rieren was finally done with her cultivation for the time being. As she focused on water’s ability to bear almost anything that it took upon itself, Rieren considered how it applied to her.

After all, hadn’t she taken the whole world on her shoulders when she had decided to confront the gods and restart the apocalypse? In hindsight, it almost felt like something altruistic. A purpose greater than herself. In the moment, though, Rieren had simply been frothing over with the need for revenge, with a desperate urgency to sate her rage.

There was nothing of that now. Instead, all she had was a doomed sense of survival. Not hopelessness or despair—far from it, in fact—but a sort of regret that she was spending her life in much the same way she had done the previous one.

Wasn’t she supposed to be spending her days tending a garden in some distant corner of the Elderlands, perhaps with a bunch of little cats to keep her company? Couldn’t she take up a new hobby, like basket-weaving or pearl-diving? Shouldn’t she have—shock and horror—found someone she could spend the rest of her life with and—gods forbid—started her own family?

Cursing her fate, and herself for dwelling on it, Rieren finally broke through to Peak-Awakened. It was a testament to her ability to hold on to her inner harmony despite the distorting feelings that tried to rise.

As always, the world faded around her as she advanced. Rieren was in a transcendent intermediary realm as her spirit ascended through the ranks and established itself in a higher plane of existence. A restless ocean stormed around her. Lightning barraged down from the heavens, while far beneath, angry vents gave rise to overheated steam.

All the Aspects that she could possess. This was what creating the Aspect pillars was about. She had to reach closer to her chosen element and let her spirit claim all the potential that lay before her.

Lashing rain, tumultuous wind, a depthless, lightless sea…

Jagged lightning, scorching steam, a blanket of dark clouds that threatened to crash down upon the mortal lands…

And in the centre, Rieren standing amidst the chaos…

New Achievement!

You have reached Peak-Awakened. Now that you have woken, the time for enlightenment is nearly upon us…

Rewards

* 1 Level

* 1 Skill point

* 1 Credit

* 1 Technique Slot

Rieren didn’t mind levelling up once more. She had seen this one coming. And now that she advanced through the Awakened realm a good degree, she didn’t have to worry about her stats exceeding her cultivation to a deleterious degree.

For now, she also added more to Spirit, and the remainder to Body and Mind. With her Domain and the various use of Aspects shaping up to become a greater part of her recent fight, she needed a greater Spirit stat to channel Essence more effectively and improve the potency of all her non-physical abilities.

When she opened her eyes and found herself back on the mountainside, she found Batcat sitting placidly before her. It didn’t seem to be minding the nearby spray of water.

“Yes, perhaps you are right, cat,” she said. “Let us visit the dungeon and see what we can claim.”

For all else that Rieren might find, she was certain of one thing. The dungeon would be key to getting her the heavenly tribulation she required.