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+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nPath to Ascendence — a LitRPG progression fantasy. After Julian lost his parents and sister several years ago, he didn’t know what to do. As just a young child, he wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with everything that came after. Their deaths hadn’t even been a possibility in his mind. Death was an obscure thing to young Julian. They were killed in a car accident.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Julius | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Edwin, Lukas, Tier\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; skills (e.g. Restoration lvl 3 -> lvl 6, Focus lvl 9 ->Focus lvl 10, Restoration lvl 6 -> lvl 7, Firebolt lvl 5 -> lvl 9, Firebolt lvl 2 -> lvl 3, Thermal Compression lvl 4 -> lvl 7, Mana Consolidation, Restoration lvl 14 -> lvl 15)\nSystem notification style: \"Alert! Rift is reaching the overflow stage. You will not be able \"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (34% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 128: Cake Solicitation\nTarget length: ~2500 words\nKey events: new skill acquired"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Julius reread the message a couple of times before he stopped. He just had to make sure that he was reading it correctly. Apparently, he now had eleven skill slots instead of the normal ten, which he was very excited about.\n\nHe had always suspected that there were ways to increase one’s skill slots. He remembered that he had asked Edwin a while ago, and of course, in typical Edwin fashion, he hadn’t answered Julius’s question.\n\nJulius distinctly recalled that the only answer Julius got was a smack across the back of the head and a stern reminder to not be focused on things that didn’t matter.\n\nHowever, It made sense considering that skills were an integral piece of one’s soul. Still, he hadn’t been expecting to get another one until Tier 3 at least. After all, Tier 3 was the stage when soul strength became more important. But it was also the stage when one’s body and soul started to merge.\n\nJulius pulled up his status to see if anything would be reflected in these changes.\n\nName: Julius Von Hyperius\n\nTier: 2\n\nSkills:\n\n[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 1] (Epic)\n\n\n[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 15] (Rare+)\n\n\n[Empowerment of Will lvl 14] (Rare+)\n\n\n[Barrier of Severance lvl 9] (Rare+)\n\n\n[Spatial Perception lvl 19] (Rare)\n\n\n[Savage Dance lvl 19] (Rare)\n\n\n[Kinetic Augmentation lvl 16] (Rare)\n\n\nCurrent Skill Slots: 7/11\n\nConcepts:\n\n[Concept of Sharpness]\n\n\n[Severing Will]\n\n\nThe first thing he noticed was his new epic skill right on top of his skill list. He was going to be honest, seeing it up there gave him more satisfaction than he had been expecting.\n\nThe next thing he noticed was that there were some additions to his status. It now had how many skill slots he had in total as well as the amount that he was currently using. At the moment it showed that he was using seven out of eleven slots. That meant he had four more to fill in with whatever skills he wanted.\n\nEven without the additional skill slot, being able to combine three separate skills into one singular one had been a huge help. With the extra room and the two extra skill slots to play with, Julius felt less bad about taking another skill.\n\nHe could now get that [Quick Step] skill that he had been looking at for a while. Gabriel had been waiting to teach him until he was ready. However, now that Julius had more space for skills, he felt prepared.\n\nThe final thing that stuck out was the section that showed Julius his Concepts he currently had. At the moment, it only displayed his Concept of Sharpness: Severing Will. He would imagine that in the future it would show the rest of his Concepts. Also, if he were to get another Concept of Sharpness, it seemed logical that it would show up underneath Severing Will.\n\nHowever, that begged the question of the possibility and possible repercussions of learning a second Concept of Sharpness.\n\nHe was very intrigued about what it would mean for his current Concept. Perhaps, it might even combine with Severing Will if there were property synergy between them. He would try to remember to ask Declan or someone else about it. It would be good to know.\n\nAfter a big stretch of his arms, he got back to what he was doing before he was interrupted. His partly eaten cake was still in his lap as he lay down in his chair.\n\nHowever, now that he was done with the skill upgrade and the spontaneous reward selection, he didn’t feel like staying in the training room for much longer. He was thinking that some fresh air would be a nice change of pace.\n\nAs he left the training facilities, he immediately noticed how nice of a night it was. The moon was illuminating the campus just enough to see the general silhouettes of the buildings and trees. The air was crisp and refreshing. Maybe it would have been cold to someone who was untiered, but to Julius, it was the perfect temperature.\n\nJulius walked around campus, looking for a spot where he could enjoy his cake. He came across a good number of students much to his surprise. It was pretty late, but it must not have been late enough for everyone to be in bed. There was also the fact that tomorrow was the weekend, so students didn’t need to get up early in the morning. It was one of the few days they got a chance to sleep in.\n\nJulius thought about heading down to the beach, but he stopped himself. For one, if there were enough people around campus, he was sure that there was a party or get-together of some sort down at the beach like usual.\n\nSecondly, he didn’t enjoy the thought of eating his cake while around the sand. Nothing would ruin such a delicacy faster than it becoming a gritty mess.\n\nTherefore, he headed off in search of an empty garden or area where he could enjoy his cake in peace. He finally found a spot toward the edge of campus, it was much quieter than the rest of the grounds. He could only sense a couple of people around him. Though, they were far enough away that he didn’t worry about it.\n\nHe got himself nice and situated, creating another chair using his new skill, [Armaments of the Arcane]. This time he also included a table for him to eat off of as well. It was completely unnecessary but it was a perfect opportunity to try out his new skill.\n\nThe one thing that he really noticed, was how much of his Concept was present in the skill’s constructs without him really needing to do anything. It didn’t make the chair or table sharp, but they were infused with his Severing Will Concept.\n\nOnce he got settled in, he brought out his cake and glass of milk. However, he felt something tug on his core and Drasil came out on his own as well. The little life spirit appeared to want to enjoy the night with Julius as well.\n\nUnfortunately, the cute little green spirit had no interest in delicious desserts. Hence, Julius had to create a little ball of dense life mana for the spirit to enjoy alongside him. He even created a little plate for the spirit to eat on, just like Julius was.\n\nDrasil seemed to really enjoy the thought and happily whistled at Julius while leaping at the ball of life mana, eagerly absorbing it. Julius smiled at the little guy and went back to shoveling his own cake into his mouth.\n\nHe was on his third piece of cake when he felt two individuals approach his general direction. He could tell that they were both female based on their general shapes. One was practicing with her mana while walking the other was following her from behind.\n\nOnce he checked them out, he ignored them and went back to devouring his cake. He looked over at Drasil who was almost done with his little ball and created another one, placing in on the plate in front of him.\n\nDrasil looked up at Julius and gave a whistle of appreciation, before continuing to enjoy the life mana.\n\nHe felt the girls get pretty close to him, heading almost directly to where he was sitting.\n\nPlease don’t come over, please don’t come over, Julius prayed silently.\n\n“Is that cake?” he heard from behind his back. She sounded incredulous as if the idea of someone eating cake was absurd. Or maybe it was more of the fact that he was eating cake with a small green spirit in the dark that surprised her.\n\nHe turned around to see who had disturbed his night. It was hard to see her exact features, but she had black hair and was cute even in this low lighting. She wasn’t stunning like he had seen many of the girls in his year, but she had a nice face and a warm smile. He turned to look at the other girl he had sensed walking with her, but to his surprise, he didn’t see anything.\n\nHe blinked a few times before taking another look, but it was the same. There was nobody there.\n\nCorrection. There was someone there, he just couldn’t see them with his eyes. However, [Spatial Perception] was quite confident that she was there. It was possible that she using magic to make herself invisible or something.\n\nIt wasn’t his problem either way. As long as she wasn’t doing it for malicious purposes, he would overlook it and pretend that he didn’t know she was there. Who knew, maybe the girl was doing training of her own right now. Who was Julius to judge other people’s training methods? He had to remind himself that he had worn a blindfold for several years as a child for that very same reason.\n\nJulius looked back at the girl who had asked him the question. “Sorry, what was that?”\n\n“I asked if that was a cake you were eating,” she said with an amused glint in her eyes.\n\nJulius nodded his head proudly. “Yep. Chocolate espresso cake from a little shop I found in town.”\n\nShe tilted her head and gave him a curious look in return. “Why are you eating cake all the way out here alone?”\n\n“I’m not alone,” he pointed out. He had seen her already take notice of Drasil, it was too late to hide him and he didn’t feel like it was worth the trouble. Most people surprisingly didn’t pay that much attention to other’s familiars, they were more common than Julius expected.\n\nPlus, Drasil was having a grand old time and he didn’t want to ruin his fun. In fact, Drasil hadn’t even noticed the girls' approach and was still enjoying his meal with joyful ignorance.\n\nShe took another glance at the gluttonous life spirit with a small laugh. “Apologies, not alone. But my question still stands.”\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? Everyone loves cake. Plus, it’s a beautiful night out and it is quite peaceful don’t you think?”\n\nThe girl gave a rueful grin and a conceding nod. “Very true.”\n\nJulius observed the girl intently looking at the half-eaten piece that was on his plate. He had an inclining that she had come over more than just to say hello. In fact, based on how she was staring at his cake so attentively he had a good guess why.\n\n“Do you want a piece?” Julius offered her in a regretful tone as if he was wishing that she would decline.\n\nJulius saw her give the brightest smile yet and furiously nodded her head in confirmation.\n\nHe gave her a small knowing grin and she had the grace to look slightly embarrassed at how obvious and shameless her staring had been. He took out the rest of the cake and gave her a nice generous slice along with a plate of her own and a glass of milk.\n\nShe took it with a happy grin, “Thanks, I love cake.”\n\n“I couldn’t tell,” he said with a grin of his own.\n\nShe sat down beside him on the ground as she took her first bite. Julius knew that he should be offering his chair to her like a good gentleman would. However, he rationalized to himself that he had already given away a precious piece of his cake.\n\nNot to mention he had been out here to avoid people. So it made him feel less bad about not giving up his seat.\n\nWhile he could have created another chair, he didn’t want to show his new epic-ranked skill to them in action. He would rather they believed it was some sort of enchanted item he had.\n\nHowever, it seemed that the invisible girl who was with her didn’t feel the same way. Julius could literally feel the girl staring daggers into his forehead. He didn’t need eyes to feel her judgemental gaze.\n\nHe got distracted when he heard a soft moan of appreciation from the girl who savored her first bite.\n\n“This is a very good cake,” she commented.\n\n“Right? Not bad at all,” Julius agreed enthusiastically.\n\nUnlike her friend, the girl didn’t seem to mind that Julius wasn’t giving up his seat. If anything, she was too distracted with her own dessert to care that much.\n\nThey didn’t talk at all, both of them were content with the silence and their cake. Once she polished off the cake in record time, she took a nice long sip of the milk, before getting to her feet and sweeping the crumbs from her uniform.\n\n“That was fast,” he commented while also a little bit impressed.\n\nHe could see her turn her head down and blush in embarrassment in the low light again. “Sorry about that. I interrupted you, took your cake, then gorged myself on it in front of you like some uncultured barbarian.”\n\n“No, no. Don’t be embarrassed, I was more in awe about how fast you ate it.”\n\nShe still had her head down. “Well, it’s not my fault that is was it so delicious,” she said bitterly.\n\n“...Thank you for sharing with me. I know you didn’t have to,” she thanked him after a momentary pause.\n\n“Are you kidding me? The way you were looking at it, I had a feeling that if I didn’t you would have beaten me up and taken it from me by force.”\n\nShe looked back up at him with an affronted expression. “I would not!” She refuted fervently.\n\n“I would most likely just have asked you repeatedly until you said yes,” she confessed after a brief second of silence.\n\nJulius noticed the invisible girl next to her tap her shoulder once. Then, without looking at the invisible girl, the cake girl bowed at Julius. “I have to get going, but I appreciate you sharing your cake with me. If I ever come across a cake in need of sharing, I will try to return the favor,” she joked.\n\n“Only if it's a good one. If it tastes like dirt, you have my permission to forget about me,” Julius said. He was dead serious too. He loved cake, but that didn’t mean he wanted a shit cake.\n\n“Okay, only the best cake, I promise,” she said with a hint of amusement before turning around and leaving in the other direction without another word.\n\nJulius still felt the other invisible girl's gaze intensely staring at him even as she left alongside her friend.\n\nWhat a weird pair of girls, Julius mused to himself. They just came in and ate my cake. Not to mention that I didn’t even get any of their names.\n\n\nThank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 129: Such Insolence!\nTarget length: ~2000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Amelia POV\n\nThe insolence of that boy! She angrily thought to herself.\n\nAmelia had wanted nothing else than to absolutely brutalize that disrespectful brat. How dare he treat Reinera in that manner.\n\nThe only thing that had prevented her from smashing his face into a pulp was that she was supposed to be hidden and Princess Reinera wouldn’t appreciate her coming out of hiding to beat on the boy.\n\nAmelia had been by Princess Reinera’s side for most of her life and had dutifully protected her from many dangers along the way. The past few years have been exceptionally difficult, there have been no less than a dozen attempts on her life.\n\nThankfully, the Houses and groups that have been after the princess have only sent people under Tier 5 so far. Granted, most Tier 5 and 6 individuals didn’t care about Princess Reinera, they had more important things to care about. Still, that left a lot of greedy individuals looking to take advantage of Princess Reinera for their own ambitions.\n\nThough, Amelia was very wary of the boy for some reason. His aura was only Tier 2 and he had some sort of item that shrouded his aura, which often denoted a lack of practice and control. So he shouldn’t be a threat, especially considering she was a Tier 4 herself. All it would take was a single poke and she could pop him like a mosquito.\n\nSo why did she have such a reaction when she looked at him?\n\nA main thing that caused her suspicion was the fact that he had looked directly at her, even though she had been using [Mist of the Ethereal] to shroud her presence. A skill that other Tier 4s who had an epic-ranked perception skill would find challenging to see through.\n\nIt was only just a second, and could easily be ignored as a coincidence. However, she knew what she saw. Was it a coincidence? Or perhaps was it something that she should be wary of? He hadn’t acted like she was there, but there was always the chance that he had, but had chosen to ignore her instead.\n\nAnother thing that sparked her caution was the conjured furniture that was around the boy. They were made entirely of mana, very high quality, and dense mana at that. Not only that but there was something else infused within them. It was very difficult to sense even with her abilities, but it spoke of something beyond what a Tier 2 could create.\n\nAmelia had seen some amazing and breathtaking items created by masterful craftsmen. Many of them had been contracted to build things for the royal family. And an item that was able to create furniture constructs of that quality was undoubtedly very expensive. Not to mention, the contacts needed to find such a crafter would be just as difficult.\n\nThat wasn’t in itself very surprising. After all, this was Goldencrest at the end of the day. Many influential Houses and Families sent their scions here to study and learn to fight. Amelia was aware that there were the young prodigies of the Abrams and Zenith households here as well.\n\nNo, what bothered her more than all of that, was his treatment of the Imperial Princess. They had disguised her in order to allow her to walk around freely and enjoy some peace and quiet Goldencrest had to offer. Still, it was appalling that anyone would let her sit on the dirt like some average commoner.\n\nHe didn’t even offer her a chair. A chair that she had no doubt was within his item’s capability. Even if he didn’t know Reinera was a princess, he should have the chivalry and offered it to any woman, regardless of status.\n\nYet, Princess Reinera didn’t take any offense. She had taken up the dirt without complaint. Amelia knew that the princess had a weakness for sweets and other food-related delicacies. So she wasn’t that surprised that she had been drawn into the cake. It did look pretty tasty if Amelia was being honest.\n\nShe would have to look into where the boy had found it so that she could get one for the princess to enjoy later. It definitely seemed like the princess had enjoyed it very much.\n\nAmelia hadn’t been worried about the cake being poisoned either. For one, they had gone to him, not the other way around. Maybe if he had invited her over for cake, Amelia would have been more wary of a possible poisoning.\n\nAlso, Princess Reinera had many enchanted items on her person that specifically tested for poisons in her vicinity. It wasn’t a failsafe method, but it helped dramatically when it came to assuring her food was safe. Furthermore, she had many medicines that would have helped her once she showed signs of being affected by a substance.\n\n“You should have tried it, Amelia.”\n\nAmelia broke out of her thoughts and turned to Reinera. “That wouldn’t be possible, I am supposed to be invisible, princess.”\n\n“It would have been worth it. Seriously, I can’t believe I forgot to ask him where he got it,” Reinera said frustrated at her failure.\n\nAmelia removed her invisibility and appeared next to the princess. Unlike the princess’s disguise, she had golden blonde hair and a lithe figure. “He did mention that he had found it in town. Perhaps, I could send someone out to find it if you are interested.”\n\n“No, that would defeat the challenge of finding it on my own,” she argued. “I was thinking we could go and search for it tomorrow if there’s time.”\n\n“I don’t think that would be safe, princess,” Amelia respectfully pointed out.\n\n“Argh, what’s the point of getting sent all the way out here to Heston if I am even more confined than I would have been in the Capital? I also have this disguise thanks to Uncle, so I should be pretty safe,” Reinera said.\n\n“I don’t see why there’s a need to take a chance,” Amelia refuted.\n\n“I agreed to come all the way out here because I thought I would finally have a chance to be a little more free. Not to just be further away from my family while still in chains,” Reinera stated.\n\n“You came out here because it is safer for you,” Amelia corrected her. “Only the most desperate parties will come and try to kill you in a place like Heston. The others will be too worried about the possible consequences of breaking the long-standing peace here.”\n\n“So you are telling me I still need to be locked up like a little bird in a cage?” The princess asked sarcastically.\n\n“Don’t try and play that card. You have more privileges from your so-called ‘cage’ than ninety-nine percent of the people in the Empire,” Amelia chastised the princess. For a member of the royal family, Reinera was quite well-mannered and kind. However, she had the unfortunate problem of not having the proper perspective of her position and took some of her liberties for granted. She had no idea how bad some of the people had it. Or just how many people were oppressed by those who controlled their region.\n\n“Also, this weekend is not the best time to go exploring. Apparently, several high-ranking dignitaries and other influential people are coming to Heston for negotiations. It will already be quite a stressful couple of days,” Amelia added.\n\nReinera grumbled unhappily and tried once more to convince Amelia. “Please? If there is so much attention on the other parties, then would our actions go unnoticed?”\n\nAmelia paused at that. It was difficult to admit, but Reinera made a good point. With all of the noise, they could easily slip around Heston without anybody the wiser. It would most likely be the best time to explore the city.\n\nReinera must have seen the unwilling admittance on her face because she pressed forward. “We can even go disguised like we are now. I don’t mind having escorts and a few other guards around either. But can we please do it? I didn’t get to see the rest of the city because there was such a crowd of people before.”\n\nAmelia watched as Reinera gave her best puppy eyes.\n\nShe sighed defeatedly. “Okay. But there will be strict conditions. And I expect you to follow them without question, understood?”\n\nPrincess Reinera squealed in joy and jumped up in down in excitement, hugging Amelia tightly. “Thank you, thank you!”\n\nAmelia just shook her head. She had a very busy day she had to plan out before tomorrow. She would have to figure out the layout of the city, and which part they would be traveling to. She would have to schedule duties to the other retainers and guards. It would seem that she wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.\n\n“Huh, I just realized it. But I never caught that boy’s name,” the princess said more to herself than anyone else.\n\nAmelia got interrupted as she was already planning the next day’s events. “What was that?”\n\n“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that I never got that nice boy’s name.”\n\n“You mean the boy who didn’t even lend you his chair to sit on and made you eat in the dirt?” Amelia said annoyed.\n\n“We did interrupt him during his dessert. Not to mention that he did share with me and that it was an amazing cake. I can’t expect him to give up his only seat. Maybe if the cake ‘tasted like dirt’ I would have been more upset,” Reinera defended him.\n\n“It doesn’t excuse his rudeness,” Amelia commented.\n\n“I’m not going to hold it against him. Furthermore, he might have not been able to create another chair for me. It was already a pretty impressive work of mana construction, so I wouldn’t blame him if he couldn’t create another.”\n\nAmelia swiftly turned her complete attention to her. “You think he created the chair and table himself?”\n\nPrincess Reinera shrugged her shoulders. “That’s what it felt like to me. You thought differently?”\n\nAmelia nodded her head. “I thought it was an item.”\n\nReinera frowned. “I don’t think it was an item. I felt like he had more of a personal connection with it than something conjured with the help of an item. A connection that is more consistent from a skill in use. That was actually what made me go over in the first place. The cake was just a happy coincidence.”\n\nAmelia went deep into thought. She knew very well that Princess Reinera had generational talent which included incredible mana senses ever since she was a babe. Amelia’s own talents didn’t revolve around mana manipulation and other mana constructs. She was good very good by normal standards, but nothing compared to Reinera.\n\nTherefore, she trusted her opinion more than her own. If Reinera believed that the boy created the constructs through one of his own skills, Amelia was positioned to believe her.\n\n“How did he manage to create something so dense and intricate on his own?” She asked the princess.\n\n“I don’t know. The constructs had multiple complex arrangements. When I was eating I was eagerly trying to figure out how he did it. He somehow was able to condense a bunch of fire mana enough to give it complete physical form and then on top of it, add elements of softened mana to it. There was some other stuff that I couldn’t make out, but it was certainly impressive. Most likely it was the use of several very good mana skills, ” she said appreciatively.\n\nThat changed a lot of how Amelia viewed the boy now. She placed him higher on the list of people she would have to keep an eye on. She hadn’t heard of anyone with his description yet, so he couldn’t be a known scion from a powerful family, but he was someone with at least some level of skill if he impressed Reinera.\n\nThe princess wasn’t easily impressed by anything. Especially anything revolving around mana.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 130: Ate His Family To Poverty\nTarget length: ~2200 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "As a little gift to himself, Julius decided to get some proper sleep in his dorm like a normal student. No more mats or hard stone floors for him. He had moved up in the world and had finally decided to sleep on an actual bed that was soft and plush.\n\nFunnily enough, he didn’t sense his roommate Henry when he arrived. Which was weird considering it was past midnight at this point and from what Julius had observed in these past several weeks, his roommate was always in bed when Julius decided to drop by.\n\nHe didn’t pay it that much mind. He focused on getting himself nice and clean before jumping into the fluffy bed. Within a few moments, he was passed out face first in his pillows.\n\nWhen he awoke, he felt the familiar presence of Drasil lying across his head. His face was still pressed into the pillowcase, but the life spirit had decided that the back of the skull made for a comfortable place to rest.\n\nIt was becoming a bit of a habit for the spirit to come out of his core to join Julius in his naps or when he was sleeping in bed. It was actually a little bit endearing.\n\nHowever, it was time to get up for the day. So he gently removed Drasil from his head and got out of bed. The adorable green spirit gave a precious little whistle of frustration at the loss of his personal mattress. Julius tucked the tiny spirit into the collar of his uniform, keeping him in place through the use of mana.\n\nIt was later than he normally slept, so he wasn’t surprised to see that the rest of the group had arrived at breakfast before him.\n\n“Look who’s the last one here,” Aubrey said the moment she saw him trudge to their table.\n\nJulius placed down his tray at his usual spot next to Lily and Edgar, ignoring her.\n\n“You know you make a good point,” Derek said to Aubrey before turning to look at Julius. “I don’t think you have ever gotten here this late.”\n\n“Yeah, did our resident golem sleep in or something?” Aubrey teased.\n\n“I thought it was my celebration today? Shouldn’t you be treating me nicer?” He responded to her.\n\n“That’s not until later. For now, you are fair game,” Aubrey reasoned.\n\n“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” Julius argued with a frown.\n\nAubrey had a wide smile in comparison. “I wouldn’t know. I just made that up,” she said proudly.\n\nJulius just groaned and ignored the girl by eating his breakfast.\n\n“So what time are we thinking about leaving?” Kyle asked.\n\n“I was thinking pretty soon after breakfast. We have all day, so we might as well use it,” Lily said to everyone.\n\n“Do we even have specific plans? I know we are going to the Golden Wheel for dinner but other than that did we talk about doing anything else?” Edgar asked her.\n\nLily had a small grin on her face. “I do have something in mind before dinner, but anything before that is up to the group. We can just roam around checking out shops and stalls until then.”\n\n“What’s before dinner?” Aubrey asked.\n\nLily wagged her finger at the other girl. “It’s a secret.”\n\n“Screw secrets. What is it?” Aubrey demanded.\n\nLily shook her head firmly. “I’m not telling you.”\n\n“Why not? Is it something we will hate? Like that time you took us to that awful play?” Aubrey asked with a scrunched-up nose as if remembering something very unpleasant.\n\n“It was not that bad!” Lily defended.\n\n“Yeah, no offense Lily, but that play was pretty bad,” Derek agreed with Aubrey.\n\n“You guys just have no taste in the finer aspects of the theatrical arts,” Lily argued.\n\n“If that was the finer aspects of theater then I shiver at what you would consider bad,” Aubrey said while fake trembling.\n\n“Shut up,” Lily said morosely with her head down.\n\nEdgar turned and gave Aubrey a stern look. “See what you did now? You have gone and upset her.”\n\nJulius watched as Lily perk up a little bit as she heard Edgar defend her.\n\n“How are we supposed to get her to tell us what we are doing? For all we know it is another terrible play we have to be subjected to for several hours. I almost tore off my face by the halfway point of that last one she brought us to,” Edgar said while grabbing his face with both hands as if vividly remembering the experience.\n\nJulius watched Lily's face just as quickly go back to being depressed after she heard Edgar’s words.\n\nDerek intervened before Lily dug herself a small hole to bury herself in. “Okay, enough teasing. I for one still want to know what we are doing. What did you have planned Lily?”\n\nShe looked up from she had shoved her head into her arms with an affronted look. “You think I am going to tell you now? I wish that I was taking you to another ‘awful’ play just so you guys can suffer through it.”\n\n“Now that’s just mean,” Aubrey said under her breath.\n\n“What was that?” Lily asked aggressively no longer sad but more angry. And angry Lily is not a Lily you want to mess with.\n\n“Nothing,” Aubrey quickly stated. She also knew what that tone meant and knew better than to say anything else.\n\nAfter a long pause where the rest of the group didn’t say anything and Julius could only hear the sounds of food being chewed, he looked at Lily from the side tentatively.\n\nHe gave her a soft poke on her shoulder. “You okay?” He asked gently.\n\nShe looked over at him the fierce look on her face mellowing out when she noticed it was him. “I’m fine. Sorry about that. As you can tell the others don’t like some of the things I have planned in the past.”\n\n“I’d be happy with anything you had planned, even if it was one of the plays they were talking about. I’m not very picky when it comes to that stuff, I have seen some truly horrifying stuff,” he told her seriously.\n\n“Kiss ass,” Aubrey muttered quietly.\n\nLily went from a smile to a cold stare as she turned to Aubrey. “You have something to say?” She asked irked.\n\nAubrey didn’t say anything and just put her head down, shoving more eggs into her stomach.\n\nJulius wasn’t lying about that either. His old world had some amazing means of entertainment; movies, TV shows, and books, there was more than one could imagine. Compared to this world, where there wasn’t much in the form of entertainment, it was a stark difference.\n\nHowever, just as there were masterpieces like the first seven seasons of Game of Thrones, there were just as many awful creations. Julius had the misfortune of watching a parody film of the Fast and Furious movie, called Superfast.\n\nHe needed bleach to scrub out his eyes and ears after that experience.\n\nIt was his grandfather’s fault in the first place. He was bad with technology and had accidentally rented it, thinking that it was the actual Fast and Furious movie. It was to both of their shock when the first few minutes of the catastrophic movie played.\n\nYet, for unknown reasons, they had decided to sit on the couch and watch the entire film. They spent an hour and a half of their lives, watching a movie about Vin Serento and his family. An hour and a half that they wasted.\n\nAt least that was what Julius had thought of it at the time. Now, looking back. It was one of the more precious ninety minutes of his life.\n\nHe had to stop himself before he could dwell on the past. He had long learned that it wasn’t healthy to think about things like that for too long.\n\nAfter she put Aubrey in check, Lily turned back to look at Julius with a smile. “I didn’t plan for us to see a play today, but maybe next time we can if you want.”\n\nJulius could see Aubrey and Edgar both flinch as they heard Lily’s proposition. Aubrey was even about to say something, but Kyle managed to grab her shoulder and keep her quiet before she could say something to trigger Lily again.\n\n“Sure, that sounds like fun. Let’s do something like that on another weekend,” Julius offered. He could do with some entertainment, books only did so much for him. There was something else about being able to watch a performance live.\n\n“Sure! I will see what events are going on and we can decide!” Lily said joyfully. She seemed very excited to have someone interested to see something with her.\n\n“Perfect! Does that mean you will tell me what the secret thing we are doing later?” Julius asked with a hopeful smile.\n\n“Of course not!” Lily said with a smug grin. “Nice try though.”\n\n“It was worth a shot,” he grumbled.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nThey ended up leaving quite soon after breakfast. It wasn’t like they had anything else to do for the day.\n\nThe first stop they made was at a large shopping district just outside of the school campus. Unlike the one Julius had visited with Declan and his family, this shopping district was very different. This one was definitely more tailored for tourists and interesting items. The one he went to with Declan had been a place for locals and people who needed to get essentials and other products that were more practical in use.\n\nHe was surprised to see that Kyle was the one who was more interested in buying things than anyone else. According to Edgar, Kyle enjoyed buying unique items that were constructed with innovative magic and methods. He would then often take time to experiment with them and use them as inspiration for his own creations.\n\nJulius watched as Kyle was discussing a certain metal water bottle with a vendor who made them animatedly. Julius wasn’t able to hear everything the men were saying, but he was able to catch that Kyle was asking the man how he managed to create the insulation and spatial enchantments within the small inscription.\n\nThe vendor was trying his best to explain to Kyle that he couldn’t share his methods of how he created them. However, Kyle was persistent.\n\nHe managed to pry information from the guy a little at a time. Julius, who was standing next to Edgar was very impressed with Kyle’s passion for magic and enchanting. It was rare to see someone with such devotion to a field of study.\n\nOff to the side was Aubrey, who had taken the exact opposite approach to Kyle’s. It wasn’t that she wasn’t buying anything, no, far from it. In fact she was buying anything that she thought looked “cute” or “cool”. Those were her only parameters.\n\nJulius watched as she spent countless gold before they even made it partly through the shopping district.\n\nThe remaining four of them spent a lot of their time trying out different food stalls. Edgar in particular managed to eat enough for a family of five. He could see why the large fourth-year had gotten so big. Julius was starting to empathize with his parents, it must have practically bankrupted them to keep their beast of a son fed.\n\nJulius gave one last consoling look at Edgar before heading to the next stall. Edgar, who had several items from various shops in both hands saw Julius’s look.\n\n“What? What is it?” He asked through a mouthful of food.\n\nJulius shook his head and gave the much larger student a reassuring pat on the back. “Nothing, don’t worry about it,” he told Edgar before walking off again.\n\nEdgar frowned and pulled Julius back to him with a hand covered in sticky sauce from one of the skewers in his hand. “You just looked at me like I was just diagnosed with the Stygian Rot. What is it?”\n\nJulius sighed and rubbed off the sauce from his black long-sleeved shirt. “I was just thinking that you had a healthy appetite.”\n\nLily giggled from the side, as well as a snicker from Derek. “I know right? We used to make jokes about his parents having to go hungry just to keep him fed.”\n\nJulius's eyes lit up and he laughed joyfully. “I was just thinking to myself the same thing! His parents must have gone dirt-broke just to feed him!”\n\n“You guys are real funny,” Edgar grumbled.\n\nLily, Derek, and Julius all laughed together. The only one who didn’t find it as amusing was Edgar. However, when he turned his back to them, Julius was able to barely catch a small grin on the big man’s face.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 131: Social Gathering\nTarget length: ~2200 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Eventually, the six of them finished up and got everything they needed from the shopping district. It was also perfect timing because whatever Lily had planned was about to start and they had to leave in order to make it.\n\nLily brought them to a very nice part of town. Julius started to notice that everyone around them wore very fancy clothing and expensive jewelry. In comparison, Julius and the others felt out of place.\n\nThat wasn’t to say that the five of them weren’t dressed up nicely. Derek, Lily, Kyle, and Aubrey all wore clothing that anyone with a discerning eye could see was of very high quality. It was only Edgar and Julius who were wearing more simple clothing.\n\n“Why didn’t you say we were going someplace with a dress code?” Julius asked Lily quietly.\n\nLily looked over at Julius and at his choice of outfit. “There isn’t. You can wear whatever you want, they aren’t going to turn us away because you aren’t wearing the newest selection from Alessio.”\n\n“Well, I could have at least worn something more appropriate. I feel like a sitting duck out here,” Julius told her.\n\n“Sitting duck?” Lily asked confused.\n\n“Yeah, you know, like very vulnerable and out of place,” Julius clarified, sometimes his analogies didn’t make sense to the others but they knew better by now.\n\n“You’ll be fine. If anyone makes trouble for you, I will handle them,” Lily laughed lightly while patting her chest.\n\nNot too long after, the group approached a large hall-like structure in the middle of a square. It was Carnegie Hall but on magic steroids. Brilliant gold inlaid stonework decorated the entire exterior of the building. He spotted scores of nobles and other rich folk entering the large imposing doors in front.\n\n“Oh come on. I thought you said we weren’t going to a play,” Aubrey complained.\n\n“It’s not a play,” Lily promised her.\n\n“Looks like one. What else would all these nobles be here for?” Aubrey asked rhetorically.\n\nLily just smiled and continued to the check-in station. “You’ll see in a moment.”\n\nJulius spotted Derek off to the side who had a look of realization on his face. Julius made his way over to the older student. “It seems like you know why we are here. Want to share the secret with me?” Julius asked in a whisper.\n\nDerek looked over to Julius with a grin of his own. “You’ll find out in a couple of minutes. I’d rather not spoil Lily’s surprise and get on her bad side.”\n\nJulius didn’t like that answer, but he understood Derek’s reasoning. There was no need to risk receiving Lily’s ire when he would find out on his own pretty soon. Though, he did start to brainstorm what it could be.\n\nLily promised that it wasn’t a play, but it could still be something music-related. Like some sort of orchestra or performance. It would certainly suit the venue they were entering.\n\nWhen they got in line to check in, Julius noticed that their group was receiving many looks. Not only were they the most underdressed of everyone, but they were also the youngest attendees other than some children who the adults brought with them. They stood out like sore thumbs. Luckily, most of the gazes seemed to be stuck on Derek and Lily.\n\nBased on the whispers that Julius could hear, some of the people had recognized the scions of the Zenith and Violet families. There was even a good number who recognized Kyle, Aubrey, and surprisingly Edgar.\n\nFrom the murmurs that Julius could pick up, they had recognized the large fourth-year from the year’s previous tournament. Edgar must have left an impression on the people who watched if they were able to recognize him like he was a celebrity.\n\nIt actually felt like Julius was surrounded by a bunch of celebrities. And then there was him. While the others got attention and looks of admiration, all he got were looks of confusion and indifference.\n\nThey didn’t seem to care who the hell Julius was. In fact, most of the people who even took the time to look at him, probably thought he was some servant or the group’s mascot. It wasn’t just a feeling either. He heard some of them say it very clearly, they weren’t even hiding it.\n\nIt was a little bit rude in his opinion and he wanted to go punch them, but he held himself back when he saw Aubrey’s amused smile on her face. Like she wanted to see for herself what he would do. Julius wouldn’t give her that satisfaction, not yet at least. He could control himself from this much. After all, he had heard much worse over the years he stayed at the Hyperius Estate.\n\nAt least these nobles didn’t think he was mentally retarded.\n\nEventually, it became their turn and Lily spoke to the lady who was standing there with a list of names. “Lily Violet, and five guests please.”\n\nJulius watched as the lady didn’t even look at the list of names, before bowing at Lily with a graceful nod. She called over a young man from the corner. “Please escort Miss Violet and her guests to room 14,” she instructed the young man.\n\nThe man young man nodded, and the lady turned back to the group. “If you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to ask Gerald. He will be your personal assistant for the night.” She bowed once more. “Please enjoy the auction.”\n\nAfter they left the lady and followed young Gerald. Aubrey spoke up excitedly. “Auction? Really?”\n\n“What? Were you still expecting a play?” Lily teased.\n\n“Yes,” Aubrey said absolutely serious. “It wouldn’t be the first time you tricked us into seeing one.”\n\nEdgar nodded his head from his spot next to Aubrey. Julius looked over at Lily who met Julius’s judgemental gaze with an embarrassed smile.\n\n“It was only once,” she quickly explained to Julius.\n\n“Twice,” Kyle said off-handedly from the back.\n\nLily jerked her head back to give Kyle a stern glare before turning back to Julius with a meek smile. “Okay, maybe twice. But the second time didn’t count. It was technically a musical,” she reasoned.\n\n“I would have rather watched a play instead,” Aubrey murmured.\n\nLily didn’t say anything, but Aubrey flinched and rubbed her head. Julius smiled to himself. Lily most likely just gave Aubrey a little scramble of the brain for her comment.\n\nJulius slowed down so that Derek and him were walking side by side. “So what kind of auction is this?”\n\nDerek smiled. “This particular auction is one that the local branch of the Merchant’s Association and the city put together every so often. It is actually more of an excuse for a social get-together and acts as a fundraiser for many of the city's charities.”\n\n“Oh, so it’s just a function where nobles spend a lot of their money,” Julius said amused.\n\nDerek and Kyle, who was standing behind them chuckled. “Pretty much. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some very nice items auctioned off. I expect for there to be some very good items on the menu, considering this weekend has a lot of visitors coming to Heston,” Derek explained.\n\n“Like what kind of items?” Julius asked very interested in what kind of things might be sold tonight. He knew that he didn’t have that much money compared to most higher-tiered individuals. In fact, he was probably the poorest person here. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be excited to see some cool magical things.\n\nDerek scratched his head in thought. “I would not be surprised to see many Tier 5 items being auctioned off, along with a couple of Tier 6 treasures. Those will most likely be the prized slots for the auction house, but there will be a good number of Tier 3 and 4 items also being sold. The majority of the people here only focus on the Tier 5 and 6 items, so sometimes you can get a Tier 3 or 4 item for a good price.”\n\n“How much would a typical Tier 3 item sell for?” Julius asked. He was wondering if he had enough money to buy something nice for himself.\n\n“I’m not sure. It all depends. Sometimes things sell only for a few gold even things that should sell for more. It’s hard to predict. But if you want something, just let me know and I will get you it,” Derek told Julius.\n\nJulius waved his hand at him. “I don’t plan on getting anything that I can’t afford myself.”\n\nDerek patted his shoulder with a laugh. “No, seriously. If you want something just ask, I have more money than I know what to do with. Consider this a present for your achievement.” He bent down a little to whisper in Julius’s ear. “I already expect Lily is going to get you something. Knowing her, she already knows exactly what it is and is going to get it for you as a gift.”\n\nJulius shook his head. “I don’t need anything. Honestly, I can’t even think of something I would want.”\n\nDerek shrugged his shoulders. “Well, if you do see something, don’t feel shy, okay?”\n\nJulius nodded just as a way to appease Derek. He wasn’t planning to, but he appreciated the thought. Derek saw him nod and didn’t push him any further.\n\nWhen they got to their room, Julius almost gasped in surprise. It wasn’t a mere room, it was an entire suite. The entire suite was furnished with the most extravagant items and had a lavish spread of food on display. The most impressive thing though, was the spatial enchantments placed on the room.\n\nFrom the outside, it looked like it was only a room that was ten by ten feet wide, but whatever spatial enchantments they had installed made the room several times larger on the inside.\n\nKyle, who saw Julius’s expression came up to him. “It was probably made by a Tier 5 craftsman who specializes in spatial enchantments. And whoever it was, did a very good job. I detect zero fluctuations or weak points. I expect it was very expensive to create so many rooms like this.”\n\n“How much do you think it cost?” Julius asked still in awe.\n\n“At this level, it is no longer about money. It is about favors and resources. The auction house must have spared no expense,” Kyle said knowingly.\n\nJulius just nodded his head and found a seat that was reserved for him. It was right next to Lily and Edgar, just like how they ate at the cafeteria. They were placed right in front of the window and he could see the mass of people making their way into their seats below.\n\nThe stage in front already had a few items covered in silk tarps placed on it. Julius watched as one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen walked up to the stage, her curves bouncing tantalizingly through her tight dress. She had soft pink hair, a matching pair of eyes, and a sultry look to her. Julius could see why they would have her presenting the items.\n\nOnce everyone had finally funneled into their seats. The stunning woman spoke. “Welcome to this evening’s auction.” Her voice sounded like honey to ears but also had an alluring rasp to it, bringing everyone who heard it closer in.\n\nJulius had to activate [Savage Dance] to not be affected by it. He suspected that it was some sort of skill set that played on people’s emotions and baser urges. He wouldn’t be surprised if many people were already smitten with her.\n\n“Unlike usual, there will be several very unique items that are being presented today. Most of them will be toward the tail end of the auction, so please be patient…”\n\nJulius drowned out her introduction a little bit. He didn’t like the feeling of whatever skills she was using on the audience. It didn’t feel unpleasant, but once he noticed it, he couldn’t help but get drawn in. So he kept himself distracted with his other thoughts.\n\nDerek was right. It seems that there will be some interesting items being sold, I wonder what they will be and who will buy them. Maybe there will be some interesting powerful individuals in the audience.\n\n“And now for our very first item.” She removed the silk covering of the first pedestal. “A Tier 4 ice core that came from a mutated variant of an ice elemental. While it is technically an ice-attributed core, make no mistake, it is more valuable than a mere normal ice core. The elemental where it came from had some interesting conditions that imbued properties of the metal affinity to this ice core, making the mana inside of it multitudes more resilient than normal.”\n\nShe paused as the audience took it in with interested whispers. “Yes, I can see that many of you already realized what that could mean. The bid starts at a single platinum. Are there any takers?” She asked with a knowing smile.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 132: Auction\nTarget length: ~2300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Julius looked over at Lily and gave her a soft poke to get her attention. “What does she mean? What kind of effects does having metal affinity properties mean for the core?”\n\nLily looked at Julius with an understanding grin. “My best guess, is that ice elemental somehow consumed a natural treasure of the metal-attribute variety. This would make it possible for the elemental to develop certain skills and abilities that would influence its core. Normally ice cores are used for cold enchantments and sometimes even stability or other structural enchantments. However, if what she is saying is true, then one could expect a talented enchanter to be able to use this particular core for stability enchantments to a higher degree than what the Tier should indicate.”\n\n“Why wouldn’t they just use a Tier 5 ice core then? Wouldn’t that just be an easier solution instead of finding such a rare core?” Julius pointed out.\n\nLily nodded. “You are kind of correct, but you also have to consider the fact that if one were to use a Tier 5 core, the energy requirements to fuel the enchantment would be prohibitively more expensive.”\n\n“So if someone were to create something with this core, they could create something that has the strength and resilience of a Tier 5 item without the cost?” Julius asked.\n\n“Not exactly, you won’t be able to perfectly replicate a Tier 5s power, but it does get awfully close,” Lily corrected him.\n\n“Probably some rich noble will get it for their kid or someone they care about,” Aubrey said in disappointment.\n\nKyle shook his head from his spot and made a sound of disgust. “What a waste of a unique core. Imagine the research potential that would be just thrown away.”\n\nLily must have seen Julius’s look of confusion. “Some noble will use the core to create a weapon or life-saving item for someone. And since it is only a Tier 4 core, a Tier 3 should be able to at least activate under the right conditions. However, the power of the item would have enough to injure a Tier 4 and maybe even a Tier 5 if they’re unlucky.”\n\n“That sounds pretty nice,” Julius said more to himself than anyone else.\n\n“Yeah, nice if you are a coward you can’t fight for yourself,” Aubrey muttered.\n\nJulius nodded his head at her. “Yeah, but what if a craftsman who isn’t specialized in combat gets attacked? It might save their life from someone. I don’t expect someone who spends most of their day crafting to be able to handle themselves like us.”\n\nAubrey frowned at that. “I doubt it will go to a craftsman. Most likely, it will go to a spoiled noble’s brat.”\n\nJulius just shrugged his shoulders at her. I can’t deny that. Odds are pretty high that it will go to some rich noble’s son, after all, Julius thought to himself.\n\nHe took a look at the stage where the price of the core had already exceeded several dozen platinum at this point, quickly exceeding the low price of its initial bidding price.\n\nIn the end, it was sold for almost a hundred platinum. Julius laughed to himself. The first item had already sold for more than he had in the entire storage ring that he had gotten from Geoffrey.\n\nHe had at most a few dozen platinum in his ring all put together. He had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t be buying anything from here tonight.\n\nMany items went and passed over the course of the auction. Julius saw some amazing things being sold off for extraordinary prices. One thing that caught his eye was an unhatched egg from a Tier 4 Infernal Drake. A species that is well known for its possibility for evolving into a dragon at Tier 5 if they ever reached that point.\n\nThat one sold for well over three hundred platinum.\n\nLuckily, the auction made the bids completely anonymous, so whoever bought it wouldn’t have to worry about someone stealing it later on. All bids were made from a device that each person was given when they entered the auction.\n\nThe only ones who bought anything were Kyle and Aubrey. Kyle ended up spotting an elegant engraving tool. It looked like a black and gold fountain pen, costing Kyle a pricey fifty-three platinum.\n\nAubrey had her eyes on a rare gemstone. It was a Tier 3 Blood Crystal and according to her, could enhance her physical strength if she used it. Fortunately for her, not many people could use it and she ended up getting such an item for a mere thirty-two platinum, a very good bargain according to her.\n\nThe others didn’t feel interested in buying anything, most of them, specifically Edgar were content snacking on the buffet they were offered and talking about interesting items that popped up.\n\nIt wasn’t until the most recent item came up that Julius paid really close attention. The rest of the audience didn’t seem to pay it that much mind, it was nothing that spectacular by the auction's standards.\n\nBut to Julius, it was something that was very intriguing to him. The item was a Tier 3 life-attributed treasure called a Sylvan Petal. It was grown in some of the most dense life-attributed environments. Many of its uses were alchemy-related and could produce some amazing items for healing as well as many other life affinity products.\n\nThis so far was the only thing that Julius might be buying the entire night. If he could get it for under twenty platinum he would buy it. Who knew, maybe Drasil could find a use for it. He really liked the life-affinity troll core, maybe consuming a potion from this Sylvan Petal would help him.\n\nThe pretty lady with pink hair on stage began the process without delay. “Okay, the starting bid is one platinum is there-” Julius watched as the lady for the first time seems taken out of her rhythm.\n\nShe quickly got herself back together. “Sorry, that was fast. We already have a current bid of a hundred platinum. Are there any takers for one hundred and one platinum?”\n\nA hundred platinum? Right off the bat? He heard the crowd murmur through the glass pane of their room. There hadn’t been such an extreme initial bid all night and it took many people by surprise.\n\nThe hundred platinum must have been too much for anyone else interested or maybe they were scared off by the fast overpriced bid. Whoever it was, clearly wanted it and while the bidding was anonymous, maybe they didn’t want to take the chance of offending someone with such wealth. The person who offered such a large sum won within moments of the item being introduced. It was the fastest-sold item of the entire night by a long shot.\n\nJulius on the other hand was disappointed. He had been excited to enter his bid and participate in the auction. He didn’t think he would win with his low budget but he wanted to experience it and have some fun. He had his own device sitting in his own hands, eagerly awaiting his turn. Now he just felt sad. He didn’t even get to bid a single amount.\n\nHe was so caught up in his self-pity, that he didn’t even notice that the other four were looking at each other with weird looks.\n\nEventually, the auction moved on and they started to present some of the more prestigious items. They started off with a Tier 5 explosion core. A rare variant of a normal fire core that was unsurprisingly used for items that blew things up.\n\nAnother Tier 5 item that caught his eye was a life-attributed healing treasure. It specifically healed injuries caused to the soul and other permanent wounds that were unable to be healed by traditional healing skills. It was supposedly heads and shoulders more effective than anything found at a lower Tier.\n\nMany of the Tier 5 items were highly sought after, and the Tier 6 items that were shown after, even more so.\n\nOne of the Tier 6 items that were being sold was a core from a monster called a Stellar Storm Tiger. Julius watched mesmerized as the core sparkled and radiated a power, unlike anything else that had been on stage.\n\nHe could practically smell the thick scent of burning ozone and felt faint strands of electricity running through his limbs.\n\nIt created quite a craze from the audience when they saw it on display. Bid after bid was made, rocketing the price of the item to over ten thousand platinum.\n\nThe others informed him that platinum was only used to quantify the price for the auction house but many times the person who bought it could negotiate with the seller of the product with other things they might want of similar value. If nothing could be agreed upon then the final price was what the buyer had to pay.\n\nJulius couldn’t believe how much wealth he saw on display. He was starting to see why Declan said not to worry about a couple of dozen platinum, and compared it to a paltry sum. Because it was. These people were throwing hundreds and sometimes even thousands of times more money than that on a singular item.\n\nIt was enlightening and humbling, to say the least.\n\nIt was also safe to say that nobody from their group chose to buy any of the Tier 5 or 6 items. They had no need for them, they were only Tier 2 and 3 after all. It was a little bit anti-climatic but the auction ended without much fanfare or anything of note.\n\nSince Kyle and Aubrey had both bought items, a member of the auction house came to their room. It was a young woman, much like the one from the check-in area, but this one felt different. Julius couldn’t make out the aura of her, but the way she held herself spoke of extreme confidence.\n\nHe had no doubts that this woman was at least Tier 4 and maybe even Tier 5. Which would make sense considering she was delivering such valuable items to influential individuals.\n\nOnce Aubrey and Kyle paid for their items and they stored them away in their own personal storage devices, Julius was surprised that the young woman didn’t leave. Instead, she went over to Lily and took out a box much like the one that held the other’s items.\n\nLily without missing a beat, took out a hundred platinum coins and handed them to the woman, who gave a polite bow and left them alone.\n\nJulius was about to ask about what time their dinner reservation was, considering it was probably around six o’clock, but something stuck out to him.\n\nWait, a hundred platinum coins? Julius asked himself.\n\nHe looked over at Lily, who wouldn’t meet his eyes for some reason. So Julius walked over to her with hurried steps. He was slightly taller, so he had to look down on her, but she still wouldn’t look at him.\n\n“It was you?” He asked confused.\n\nShe just nodded her head softly and held out the box to him. “Congratulations,” she said gently.\n\nJulius didn’t take the box. “I can’t accept such an expensive gift,” he said seriously.\n\nShe looked him in the eyes and gave him the most tragic-looking gaze. “You won’t?” She asked in a depressed tone.\n\nHe felt like someone had just stabbed him in the back of the heart. Now he felt like a piece of shit. Which if he knew her, was exactly her plan. She would try to guilt him into taking it.\n\nInstead of answering her, he turned to the others who were wearing knowing smiles. “I thought you said she was cheap,” he accused them.\n\n“Oh, she is,” Aubrey stated emphatically. “But that usually extends only to herself and not her friends.”\n\nJulius wore a frown. “Wait, did you guys know?”\n\nDerek chuckled. “Not many nobles would throw around a hundred platinum for a mere Tier 3 life-attributed treasure, no matter how rich they were. Plus, we told you how wealthy she was. Did you think we were exaggerating?”\n\n“Yeah, just take it. She could have probably bought all the items at the auction easily. A hundred platinum to her is literally a couple of coppers to someone like you,” Aubrey said casually while simultaneously insulting Julius’s own financial status.\n\nDamn, Julius knew she was wealthy, but being able to spend tens of thousands of platinum like that was on a completely different level.\n\nHe looked back at Lily and carefully took the box from her still-extended arms with a genuine smile. “Thank you, it’s a great gift.”\n\nLily’s previous tragic expression was wiped off like it was never there. “I know right?! I went through their catalogue of what they were selling tonight and I came across that. I thought it would be a perfect fit for you and Drasil.”\n\n“So I can use this for Drasil?” Julius asked curiously.\n\n“Of course, and even better, Drasil can take it without any processing. It will actually work better for him that way. A Sylvan Petal is a great treasure for any blooming life spirit. A hundred platinum is actually not a bad price for one,” Lily said with a smug smile.\n\nJulius just shook his in disbelief as Lily turned into an excited girl over a new shiny object in a matter of seconds. It was a very nice gift though, he would make sure to remember it.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 133: Golden Wheel\nTarget length: ~2600 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Julius tucked away the Sylvan Petal for later use. However, he had to promise to let everyone know when he would be using it so that they could participate or at least observe what happens.\n\nAfter the group left the auction house, the six of them headed toward their dinner reservation at the Golden Wheel. A place that Julius was very excited to see for himself. The others had talked it up so much, that he was expected many great things.\n\nHe’d even prevented himself from stuffing his face at the buffet as Edgar had done. He didn’t have an endless gaping pit of a stomach that Edgar seemed to have. In some ways, Julius was envious of the big muscular man’s appetite.\n\nTo Julius’s surprise, they didn’t walk to the restaurant. Derek had the bright foresight to hire a carriage to take them there. Carriages were very expensive in Heston, especially considering the city didn’t allow any carriages that were drawn by horses or other creatures.\n\nApparently, there was an issue with too much fecal matter from them being left behind on the roads.\n\nAll of the carriages seen on the street were fueled by mana. Perhaps if Julius didn’t have memories from his old world he would have been more taken away by the innovative carriages. Unfortunately, even the carriage, as nice as it was, didn’t have the same allure as some of the nicer cars from his old world. It was one of the few parts of this new world that fell short of his old.\n\nWhen they arrived at the restaurant, Julius looked upon the entrance in awe. The restaurant was practically half the size of the auction house they were just at. It was that massive, and in some ways, much nicer than it. It certainly lived up to its name.\n\nThe entire restaurant revolved around the golden wheel theme. The entrance had a fifty-foot wheel hanging from above, softly spinning in motion. The entire place was covered in gold decorations and art. And surprisingly, was still very tasteful and not over the top. Julius didn’t know how the designers managed that.\n\nThere were colorful mana constructs dancing around the air, dazzling the guests and even bringing them warm enchanted towels for them to wash their hands on until a staff member took them to their seats.\n\nThere were multiple floors of the Golden Wheel. The lower levels were for most of the customers, the upper floors were designated for special occasions and VIPs.\n\nHe leaned over to Lily as they were following the staff member. “I’m surprised you didn’t get us a floor on the upper floors,” he whispered in her ear.\n\nShe looked over her shoulder and shook her head amusingly. “Funnily enough, the bottom level is the most enjoyable to eat at. At least for us. Upstairs can feel a little lonely and stuffy. It's full of people with an inflated opinion of themselves who don’t actually enjoy the food, but enjoy the status of eating here. We think that being surrounded by people who are enjoying the food aspect of the restaurant is more pleasant to be around.”\n\nAh, I can see how that might happen.\n\nThe menu for dinner was a thirteen-course menu, and diners were allowed to choose between a couple of options for each course. It must have been absolute chaos to keep track of everything. Julius had no doubts that most of the staff were Tier 2 or 3 just to keep up.\n\n“Thirteen courses sound like a lot. Are the servings small or something?” he asked Derek who was sitting across from him.\n\nJulius could see no other way someone could eat so much food without falling into a food-induced coma.\n\n“That’s the magic of the restaurant,” Derek replied with a smile. “The chefs in this place have a special set of skills that imbue the food with effects that will always keep you hungry.”\n\n“But surely there would still be a point where it is physically impossible to put any more food in one’s body right?” Julius pointed out.\n\nAubrey jumped in excitedly. “That’s the best part! I don’t know how they do it, but they managed to perfectly balance alchemy practices with their food. The food dissipates much like a potion or other mana-based consumable would.”\n\n“So you never get full?” Julius asked confused. Wasn’t that the whole point of going to a restaurant? To get one’s tummy full?\n\nAubrey chuckled at him. “Nope, by the end of the night, you are in the perfect state of hungry but not comatose.”\n\nJulius still didn’t quite know what she was talking about. He would have to wait and see what she was talking about for himself.\n\nWhile they were waiting for their food and making idle small talk, Julius took the time to look around. Unsurprisingly, he noticed that a lot of the people dining here were nobles if their attire was any indicator. But he was also pleasantly surprised to see many commoners as well.\n\nHe could tell that they were commoners based on their clothing. It wasn’t a dig on them, but it was just an observation. Their outfits were nice, with buttons and everything. But it was also made of more practical and rugged materials. Their attitudes were different too, they were more down to earth than the nobles.\n\nJulius almost laughed when he spotted some a family who were holding the silverware like one would hold two swords. He also noticed that the fare was much more rustic than what he had been expecting from such a fancy place.\n\n“What’s with all the commoners? I heard that this place was really hard to get into, even for nobles.” Julius noted.\n\nLily smiled brightly. “It’s actually a touching reason. The owner and chef of the restaurant are husband and wife. They were both born as commoners and they wanted to create a place where commoners are welcome as well. So at any time half of the restaurant is dedicated to commoners only. It is also the reason why the prices are really reasonable considering how high quality the meal is. They still offer higher tiered food items for nobles and such, but most commoners are only Tier 2 or 3, so normal fare is fine with them.”\n\n“Don’t some of the nobles cause problems because of that?” Julius asked.\n\n“Most know better than to start something here. After all, Headmaster Keiron himself helped the couple open the restaurant,” Lily said.\n\nThe Headmaster? Julius wouldn’t have expected the restaurant to have such influential backers. Just as Julius was about to respond, their waiter brought over their first course.\n\nHe could smell the nutty scent of toasted wheat before it even reached them. Each of them was presented with a small dish of their very own freshly baked bread, along with a healthy serving of butter on the side.\n\nIt wasn’t quite the first course he expected for a restaurant of its reputation, but he wasn’t complaining. The bread looked absolutely divine. It was more akin to a croissant with how flaky it was. Also who didn’t love fresh bread with their dinner?\n\nThe first bite was all he needed to forget about anything else. The taste was even better than the smell and looks. Julius caught himself actually moaning in appreciation at how delicious the bread was. It was by far the best bite of bread that he had ever had in either life. The perfect balance between flaky and soft was impeccable. It was also deeply nutty and had a touch of sweetness.\n\nThen just when Julius didn’t think it could get better, he put a good smear of butter all over his next bit and he thought he died and went to heaven. He had a whole Ratatouille moment in the middle of his meal, remembering the first time he and his mother had made homemade bread when he was younger.\n\nIt tasted just as good, if not better.\n\nHe looked over at the others to see how they were reacting and he laughed loudly at what he saw. Every one of them was shoving their entire loaves down their throat with eagerness. Even the normally refined Derek, Kyle, and Lily were eating as fast as decorum would allow them.\n\nNot a single one of them looked up from their plates. Aubrey and Edgar were shockingly already done with their loaves, polishing them up in record time. However, what shocked Julius more, was that the waiter was already there placing brand-new loaves of bread in front of the two of them.\n\nJulius met eyes with the male waiter and the man smiled at him. “It’s not my first time serving them. They go through multiple loaves every time throughout the night, so I make sure to keep many on hand.”\n\nJulius just shook his head and chuckled. Apparently, the two of them were such gluttons that the staff at the restaurant remembered. No wonder the two of them got along so well with Drasil. They were three peas in a pod.\n\nHowever, Julius quickly realized that he had no moral high ground to make fun of them. Just like them, he had already finished his loaf before he knew it and the waiter was right there in a second placing another loaf in front of him with a knowing smile.\n\nThe best part was that Aubrey wasn’t exaggerating. He didn’t feel the slightest bit full yet. Even though he was well into his second loaf before his second course, he didn’t even feel like he ate anything. Normally he would be upset. But this time it was a blessing. More hungry meant more food he could eat.\n\nThe second and third courses that followed were just as good. Unfortunately, the bread was the only thing that you could get unlimited amounts of. He would have loved to have that deep-fried soft-shelled crab a hundred more times. He didn’t think a crustacean could be so juicy and taste so heavenly. And the sauce, don’t get him started on that spicy, tangy, sweet succulent sauce.\n\nHe was so absorbed in his food that he missed the entrance of someone he knew. Well, not really know, but who he had recently seen.\n\nIt was the cake girl. The cake girl had just sat down next to a tall slim blonde woman at a table a couple dozen paces away. Julius knew right away that the blonde woman was the same woman who had been invisible. Julius noticed that the woman was older than the cake girl. The cake girl was probably around his age. But the woman looked slightly older and had a maturity to her that her appearance didn’t show.\n\nWhile the cake girl was talking animately as she devoured the same bread Julius had gotten four orders of, the blond woman was sitting poised, constantly looking around. It was almost like the woman was keeping an eye on their surroundings at all times.\n\nShe must’ve felt his face on them because soon after he looked over, she jerked her head to look right at him in the eyes. He saw multiple emotions fly across the woman’s face before she decided on a neutral one.\n\nJulius didn’t avert his gaze and instead smiled at her and nodded in her direction.\n\nHowever, he wasn’t the only one to notice where Julius was staring. Aubrey had just finished off her crab, licking her fingers clean, and immediately going for another piece of bread. However, as she did, she also caught him staring at the two girls.\n\n“You know them?” She mumbled to Julius over a mouthful of bread.\n\nHe shook his head slightly. “Not really, the black-haired girl ate my cake.”\n\nAubrey scrunched his nose. “Cake?”\n\n“Yeah, I was enjoying some cake in the gardens at night and she came up and practically demanded some,” Julius explained.\n\n“You want to invite her over?” Aubrey asked him.\n\nJulius laughed at Aubrey’s teasing, but slowly stopped as he realized that she wasn’t joking. She had her serious face on, the same face she had when she had asked him what color of dress she should wear when they left school.\n\nJulius frantically shook his head. “No! I don’t even know her name,” he told her.\n\n“Well, you can ask once I invite her over,” Aubrey said with a grin.\n\nJulius looked at her seriously. “Don’t you dare.”\n\n“What? You need to get to befriend some other kids your own age. Once we are gone next year, you won’t have us around. You need to extend your wings a little bit,” she told him.\n\n“She’s a girl, befriending girls can be complicated,” Julius pointed out.\n\n“Even better! A girlfriend would be good for you,” Aubrey said excited about the idea.\n\n“I don’t need a girlfriend,” Julius said exasperated. This wasn’t the first time the topic came up either.\n\n“Bullshit. A girlfriend would keep you from-.”\n\n“Running myself into the ground,” Julius finished for her. “I know you’ve brought this up multiple times.”\n\n“Only because I am right. Tell him, Lily!” Aubrey pulled Lily in, getting back up.\n\n“What?” Lily asked airily. She had been too focused on finishing her crab to listen to their conversation.\n\n“Tell Julius that he should get a girlfriend,” Aubrey commanded her.\n\nLily to her credit didn’t miss a beat. “You should get a girlfriend,” she told him plainly.\n\nJulius threw up his arms. “Not you too. What do you think I need to get one to slow me down too?”\n\nLily shook her head. “No, I just think it would be cute to see you running around with a girlfriend.”\n\n“I agree,” Aubrey said while pushing back her chair.\n\nJulius immediately absorbed all the kinetic energy from her, preventing her from moving. However, she must have expected him to do that because she already had her aura up and running, fighting against his will and technique.\n\nHowever, to her surprise, she found that his will wasn’t like it was just a week ago.\n\nSomething he realized during his willpower training for his Concept, was that willpower influenced a lot of other things not just his Concept. For example, his kinetic absorption technique didn’t work well on humans because they had naturally strong wills. A golem or troll not so much.\n\nThat was why he had always struggled with using his kinetic affinity to siphon her kinetic energy before. However, it was different now. With his increase in willpower alongside his newly ranked up soul from his Soul Evolution, he was able to influence Aubrey more than he had in the past.\n\nHe saw her eyebrows raise in concern and she had to put a lot more energy into fighting him off. Unfortunately, defending with willpower was much easier than attacking with it and Aubrey wasn’t any slouch in that department. So no matter how hard he tried to stop her, he couldn’t.\n\nThe only way he could was to leap across the table and tackle her, but he didn’t like that option. That would be even more embarrassing and bring too much attention.\n\nAs such he had to watch with defeated eyes as she walked directly to the table where the cake girl was sitting at.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 134: Secret Bakery\nTarget length: ~2400 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Amelia POV\n\nAmelia had to admit, the princess was right about this place. The food so far had been incredible. It was actually hard to maintain vigilance while still trying to blend in and eat like the rest of the customers because she just wanted to eat the entire time.\n\nOf course, she still had her duty. She had made sure to research every location they had visited that day. She didn’t like surprises, boring was best. Boring is what kept her charge alive.\n\nAt the moment, Princess Reinera was disguised as Grace, a first-year enrolled at Goldencrest and Amelia was officially there as a teaching assistant. All at the behest of the headmaster who did it out of respect for the princess’s privacy and protection. At least that was what they told everyone who asked.\n\nThankfully, this restaurant was famously known for being backed by some of the most powerful people in the entire region. It arguably, might have been the safest location to eat at in all of Heston.\n\nOf course, she had to jinx it. Because soon after they arrived at the Golden Wheel and started to eat their first course, Amelia spotted an unexpected surprise.\n\nIt was the same boy from last night. At first, she thought she was seeing things, but then she noticed that the boy had noticed them as well. They locked eyes for a moment, that seemed to stretch longer than it really was. She saw the matching confusion and surprise coming off of his face, and it seemed genuine as well.\n\nProbably not on purpose that he’s here then, she assured herself. Most likely, it was just a coincidence.\n\nShe took a quick look at the people he was eating with. There were five others, all older than the boy, whose name she still hadn’t found out. She normally would have investigated last night after their interaction, but she had to deal with planning this last-minute excursion to the city.\n\nThe five of his friends were all busy stuffing their faces full, much like the princess next to her. She didn’t blame any of them either. The bread was mouthwatering good, it was better than many of the things the palace chefs made.\n\nHowever, just as she was about to return to looking at the black-haired boy, who was now talking to the older girl across from him, she recognized one of the other boys. Tall, blonde hair, and electric blue eyes that almost danced with lightning. There was no doubt, that that was Derek Zenith.\n\nDerek Zenith was the prize jewel of Duke Zenith’s household. A perfect lightning affinity, was intelligent, poised, and according to all rumors, a very nice young man. A rarity from someone with his pedigree and talent.\n\nOnce she recognized Derek she put together who the rest of the table was. Their group was well-known to people who paid attention. Next to the Zenith prodigy, was a pale lean young man. That was most likely Kyle Quincy, a person who was said to become one of the youngest Grand Scholars in the Empire.\n\nOn the other side was the girl who the black-haired younger boy was now arguing with. Aubrey Crysalia, the sole daughter of Fiona Crysalia, better known as the Crystal Tyrant. Very talented in her own right, having the perfect crystal affinity inherited from her mother.\n\nNext to her was someone who was in contention, along with Derek to win the entire Intra-School Tournament. Edgar Crow was born a commoner but quickly proved his worth and power within the first year of his enrollment. He didn’t have a perfect affinity, but he did have something that was more terrifying.\n\nRaw skill and instinct. When it came to hand-to-hand combat, there weren’t many other students his age in the entire Empire that could touch him. She knew that Derek was technically stronger according to rumors, but if she had to choose someone to bring into battle with her, someone like Edgar Crow would be her choice without a doubt.\n\nThen on the other side of the younger boy, sat someone Amelia was very aware of by pure reputation. Lily Violet was the next head of House Violet, there was no doubt to anyone who paid attention. Even her father knew and encouraged it. Just this last summer, Amelia had heard the news of the young psychic negotiating several new deals with many powerful groups, vastly expanding their already large holdings all by herself.\n\nPutting aside that she was the inheritor of one of the most wealthy families on the continent, she was a prodigy in her own right. While not suited for direct combat, Amelia would say that she was potentially the most dangerous out of their entire group. Everyone knew how scary a decent psychic was, but one of the best in her generation? That was downright horrifying.\n\nAnd then there was the insolent cake boy. Who the hell was the cake boy to be hanging around with the group who would grow up to become some of the most influential people in the entire Empire? It didn’t make sense.\n\nIt almost made her angry in some ways. Many people have tried to join their close-knit group, but have all failed. Where did he go right where others went wrong, to be sitting next to them eating and even arguing with them like they were old friends?\n\nShe was lost in her own head when she spotted Aubrey Crysalia get up from her seat and head in their direction. Amelia immediately went on guard, wondering what the girl could want with them.\n\nThe tall brunette walked up to their table with a friendly smile and looked at Reinera who was still eating her bread with great enthusiasm. “Heya! I’m Aubrey and I came over because Julius mentioned that he shared some cake with you the other night.”\n\nReinera ripped her head away from her bread and took in the tall girl who had approached them. She was clearly taken aback and didn’t know what to do. “Pardon?”\n\n“Julius said that he shared some cake with you last night and I was wondering if you wanted to join us at our table,” the girl asked with a smile.\n\nReinera looked around and spotted the same young black-haired boy from last night sitting at a distant table with both hands on his face, clearly embarrassed. However, she could recognize his hair as well as the fact that the girl mentioned cake. There was only one person who she ate cake with last night.\n\nAfter a moment, she finally turned to look at the older girl. “You want me to sit with you guys?” She asked, confused at the offer.\n\n“Yeah, why not? You guys seem to just be getting started, we can wait until you guys catch up. It’s not like we are going to get full anytime soon,” she said with a chuckle.\n\nPrincess Reinera took a few moments to mull it over and then turned to Amelia with a pleading look. “Can we?”\n\nAmelia frowned, she didn’t know why Reinera had wanted to join them so badly. Amelia was pretty sure that she had no idea who the group was and who the person she was talking to was. Reinera made a conscious effort to not pay attention to who the important people were.\n\nIt was a tricky situation. If it was anyone else she would have denied them right out of the gate. However, she was very hesitant to decline this group. Offending the future scions of several great houses was not a smart idea.\n\nIt was also potentially very beneficial for the princess. Becoming friends with this group could garner more political clout than she could hope for. It was a big reason why Amelia had supported her coming to Heston.\n\nFinally, Amelia looked at Reinera and reluctantly nodded her head.\n\nJulius POV\n\nHe couldn’t believe that she really just did that. However, what was more unbelievable was that the two girls said yes. Why would they say yes?\n\nHowever, a more scary factor came to mind. Did she think he had more cake? Was she there to ask for more?\n\nAdmittedly, he did have another cake stored away in his ring, but that was beside the point. He didn’t understand why they were coming over. He wanted nothing more than to have Aubrey all alone in a training room, just so he could give her a much-deserved thrashing. He was furious, but tried to hide it well.\n\n“Hey guys, I invited these two over if that’s okay,” Aubrey said with a smug smile directed at Julius.\n\nHe just glared at her, promising retribution at some point.\n\nThe young girl with black hair gave a very elegant bow. “Hello, my name is Grace,” she introduced herself before turning to her friend. “This here is Amelia. I know that your friend Aubrey said it was okay for us to join you guys, but if it's not, then I completely understand.” She was clearly nervous, fidgeting with both of her hands on the hem of her dress.\n\nLily was the first one from their group to respond. “I don’t mind, I don’t know about the others though.” She looked over at the rest of them and all of them except for Julius nodded or shrugged their shoulders. They didn’t care, they were too focused on their meal. She turned to look at Julius with a sympathetic smile. He knew that she could feel his frustration with her abilities.\n\nGrace had a grateful smile on her face. “Thank you,” said said sincerely.\n\nThe waiter who had been constantly keeping an eye over them for the entirety of the meal, was already taking another two chairs out of his storage device and placed them right next to Aubrey. Julius was realizing that this man was annoyingly good at his job.\n\nThe first few minutes were awkward, to say the least. Julius realized that there was no stopping it now since it had already happened. He would just need to go with the flow.\n\nThat was the reason why he put his full attention back to his fifth serving of delicious bread. Since they were going to eat with the two newcomers, they were going to have to put their next course on hold until the other two caught up with them. Just another reason why Julius hadn’t wanted them to join them.\n\nThankfully, it didn’t bother him too much. He was having a great time just shoving food down his mouth and didn’t feel like socializing with the girls who ate his cake last night.\n\nSo in the meantime, he would just have to be satisfied with his unlimited bread.\n\n“So Grace I heard that you stole Julius’s cake last night,” Aubrey said to the girl next to her in a conspiratory tone.\n\nThe girl, Grace, whipped her head to look at Julius with surprise. “He said that?”\n\n“Yep, he even said you practically threatened to beat him up for it,” Aubrey said accusingly.\n\n“I did not!” Grace denied it wholeheartedly.\n\n“Stop it, Aubrey,” Edgar said disapprovingly from the side. “You already invited her, no need to tease the both of them.”\n\nWhat he left unsaid was that she shouldn’t push it after she had invited them over against Julius’s wishes. However, she knew Edgar enough to know what he was talking about.\n\nJulius made sure to give Edgar a grateful nod, he could always count on the big man. Well, almost all the time. If it involved an angry Lily, Edgar usually was nowhere to be seen.\n\n“Sorry,” Aubrey said with a giggle. “I just wanted to lighten the mood.”\n\nGrace seemed to understand that Aubrey was just lying to rile her up and she got a little red in the face. Julius spotted her invisible friend Amelia's lips turn down in disapproval.\n\n“That is actually a big reason why I accepted your invitation,” Grace said abruptly to Aubrey, before turning to Julius. “We went all around town today, stopping in every bakery we found but we weren’t able to find the place where you got the cake,” she said dissapointedly.\n\nJulius took the time to chew the bread in his mouth before responding. “And you want me to tell you where I got it, yeah?”\n\nShe nodded her head vigorously.\n\n“What do I get in return?” He asked her.\n\n“Pardon?” She questioned.\n\nJulius sensed the Amelia girl gripping her leg hard underneath the table with [Spatial Perception]. He had a feeling that she didn’t like him very much or the way he was talking to Grace. However, the girl herself didn’t seem to mind, so he didn’t care too much about it.\n\n“Well you still owe me for the cake, and now you want me to give up my secret cake supplier?” He asked in mock offense.\n\nShe seemed to contemplate his words seriously for a few moments. “What do you have in mind for exchange?”\n\n“I don’t know, I was thinking about a favor I could cash in at a later time. How does that sound?” Julius asked. He saw her think about his offer with an amused grin on her face.\n\n“A favor of equal exchange?” She asked for clarification.\n\n“Of course. I won’t be asking you to beat up a bunch of annoying nobles or anything like that if that’s what you’re asking.”\n\nShe instantly relaxed. “Oh, that’s fine then. Okay, a favor in exchange for the knowledge of the bakery.” She reached over the table, offering her hand. Julius smiled and stood up, reaching across and giving it a nice firm shake.\n\n“That might be why you couldn’t find it,” he told her once he sat back down.\n\n“What do you mean?” She asked confused.\n\n“It’s not technically a bakery,” Julius chuckled at the face she made when she heard that. He then told her the location of the shop. It was actually a small clothing shop that Julius had gone to with Declan and his family that one weekend. The owner of the shop just so happened to bake some of the best cakes he’s ever had. Julius had made sure to go back there afterward to buy some cakes from her.\n\nHe had to admit, he enjoyed the frustrated look on both of the women’s faces after he told them. It seemed like the two of them had really spent a lot of time searching for the place where he bought the cake.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 135: Unraveling\nTarget length: ~2700 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "After they had negotiated for information about the location of his cake supplier, the dinner was much less awkward. They made small talk, learning that Grace was a fellow first year and that Amelia was a newly hired teaching assistant.\n\nWhile it was going well, Julius did note that Amelia had made several snide comments to him throughout the night, but being the bigger man, he had pretended not to notice. However, he knew that Lily and Derek picked up on it as well.\n\nAt least Grace was pleasant to be around. She didn’t say much, as she was too focused on eating. It was just like how she had devoured his cake. Julius was amused to see that she managed to put away just as much bread as Aubrey did in half the time. It was nice to have a meal with someone who enjoyed their food as much as he did. He knew that the others felt the same way.\n\nIt was something Julius could appreciate from the young girl. A healthy stomach spoke of a healthy soul. The rest of the meal was just as delicious, he was sad when the end of their night came to an end. However, just like Derek and Aubrey had promised, he left the restaurant with a full belly. It was the perfect balance of full but not stuffed.\n\nHowever, as they were leaving they noticed a commotion in the lobby of the restaurant. A large group of people in luxurious clothes were coming down the stairs and two groups were arguing quite loudly.\n\nJulius was just about to ignore them like the others were, but then he saw something attached to the chest of one group. It was an emblem of a wolf with two spears crossing behind it. It was exactly the emblem of Duke Greyson’s House.\n\nIt was like a switch flipped. The moment Julius saw it, he felt an incredible surge of rage bubble to the surface. Rage that he had been keeping tightly sealed away in the depths of his soul.\n\nHe found himself slowly inching toward them menacingly, mana pulsing through his veins without him even noticing he was doing so.\n\nThe only reason he stopped was because he felt Lily grab his shoulder before he could get any closer. She must have felt his swing in emotions and was worried about what he would do.\n\nHe looked down at her and she was looking at him with concerned eyes. She knew better than anyone why he would be feeling this way. He told her about Duke Greyson and what they did at the estate. So she had a good guess that he wasn’t heading over to them with intentions of giving them a hug.\n\nHe was so angry that even a fully empowered [Savage Dance] wasn’t able to control his emotions. The pit of anger just kept getting bigger and bigger, it took everything Julius had to keep the lid on it. He knew that if he let go for even a single second, he wouldn’t be able to wrangle control again.\n\nJust when he thought his anger was about to get out of hand, he felt a soothing sensation flow through him, cooling even the fiery rage that bubbled in his chest. He turned to look at who was responsible. Lily was still holding his shoulder, but he could feel her pushing some type of skill into him.\n\nIt was like a soothing balm for his soul.\n\nIf it was anyone else he wouldn’t have allowed them to mess with his emotions. But this was Lily. Julius allowed her to keep on feeding him the relaxing feeling of whatever technique she was using.\n\nHowever, even with her help, Julius still had to keep [Savage Dance] active. But the worst had passed and he felt like he had enough control to turn and give Lily a grateful squeeze on her shoulder.\n\nHe took another glance at the group that was still arguing with the other one just in front of him. Now that he was looking closer he could see that the group consisted of three main individuals. It was difficult to tell which one of them was the person in charge, but he would guess the person in the middle. Everyone else in his group appeared to be retainers of some type or servants.\n\nAround half a dozen men and women were spread around the group. With just as many on the other group’s side. However, they weren’t doing the arguing. That was done by the three people of the Greyson group as well as the two leaders of the other group.\n\nThere were also two large looming men who were clearly there for protection if their strong auras were any indicator. Their auras were decently well controlled, but the small amount that leaked out screamed Tier 4. They also had Greyson crests but theirs were over a sleek piece of armor that stood out in the restaurant where everyone was dressed normally.\n\nThe three Greyson guys were all young and around Tier 3, maybe even Tier 4 if they were weak. It was hard to tell because they wore multiple devices that hid their aura.\n\nThe one in the middle was tall, handsome, and had long ash-grey hair put up in a ponytail. The other two had dark brown hair but were equally as handsome. However, it was their expressions that made their good looks go to waste. Their faces were screwed with anger and sneers as they yelled at the other party, creating a commotion.\n\nJust looking at their faces made Julius want to launch a fully empowered spike of mana at them with no regard for what might happen as a consequence. This was the same House what had caused the attack at the estate. The attack had taken Lukas and Edwin away from him.\n\nIn his mind, he knew that these men were unlikely to be directly responsible. That was the only reason why they were still alive and that Julius hadn’t wasted them the second he saw them. But that didn’t mean that they weren’t still connected with the House that caused it to happen. No, in Julius’s mind, they were partly guilty just by association. They were even wearing House Greyson’s crests over their chests like like proud badges of honor.\n\nJulius gently removed Lily’s hand from his shoulder and before he could do anything stupid, he immediately stormed out of the restaurant, ignoring his group’s worried looks.\n\nHowever, Julius also spotted something else mixed into their expressions. Distaste, they carefully hid hints of distaste when they looked at the members of House Greyson, even Grace had a similar look on her face.\n\nWhen he stepped out into the cool crisp breeze of the city, he took a deep ragged breath. No matter how much his anger wanted to be let free, he couldn’t allow it to do what it wanted. He was in charge, he wouldn’t allow his rage to ruin everything.\n\nIf he attacked them in the middle of the restaurant, he would be captured and killed by their Tier 4 bodyguards. While the rest of the group had seemed like weak users, who mostly advanced through supplemental means, those two were genuine Tier 4 elites.\n\nThey didn’t give off the same vibe as Gabriel or Declan, but it was close. He wasn’t quite on that level yet. He just needed more time. He was getting stronger by the day and now that he had a Concept and acquired an epic-rank skill, he felt himself reaching the required strength to have a fighting chance. He just needed to be patient.\n\nHe distantly heard the others follow him outside and approach him cautiously.\n\n“Are you alright?” Grace asked concerned.\n\nJulius didn’t say anything or even acknowledge her.\n\nThe others knew better than to talk to him right now. They understood why he had stormed out and gave him some space to calm down.\n\n“What happened? Why did you leave in such a rush?” Grace asked again.\n\nJulius had to take another deep breath to not snap at her for asking too many questions. It’s not like she knows, he reminded himself. She is just being curious, which is natural. But his posture seemed to scare the girl regardless.\n\nHowever, unlike Grace who sounded genuinely concerned. Amelia didn’t have the same approach. Her tone was confrontational. “Aren’t you going to answer her question?” She said offended, as if scolding him like a child.\n\nJulius felt a lance of irritation spear him right through the chest and ever so slowly turned his head to look at Amelia with a furious gaze. His eyes contained all of the restrained rage he had been holding in.\n\nThe entire dinner, Amelia had been nothing but dismissive, if not outright rude to him. Making those exact same type of snide remarks. Not to the others, no, only to him. He had a feeling that she knew who they were and wouldn’t risk offending them.\n\nNormally, he would have ignored it but after he had just gone to such extreme lengths to control his anger, this tipped him right over the edge. It was her tone, the tone as if Julius was an insignificant ant who should be gratefully bowing at her feet for allowing him in her presence.\n\nWith a scoff he let the last threads of his control unravel.\n\nAmelia POV\n\nAmelia had enough of the insolent boy. He showed no respect to her lady or herself. He held himself with so much arrogance and pride. The gall he had to scam a favor out of Reinera. First, he made her sit on the ground, then he talked to her with no respect, and now this?\n\nShe would not take such a slight from an ignorant and weak Tier 2 child. He should be grateful that he could even talk in the presence of anyone at the table. Every single one of them held status far above him, she didn’t even care to mention the power gap between them. Even Reinera was far above the young idiot.\n\nShe excused how he talked with the others somewhat because it seemed like they were somewhat friendly. But there was only so much she could take from a Tier 2. Especially, when he blatantly ignored her lady’s questions.\n\n“Aren’t you going to answer her question?” she said reproachingly.\n\nHowever, to her surprise, she noticed that Derek Zenith, Lily Violet, Aubrey Crysalia, Kyle Quincy, and Edgar Crow all simultaneously winced and shook their heads the moment she opened her mouth.\n\nWhat? What did I do wrong? She was confused. All she did was put an arrogant Tier 2 in his place. She had hoped that if anything, they would appreciate her efforts.\n\nShe was about to ask Aubrey who was closest to her what the look was for, but she didn’t have time.\n\nA looming dread filled the air that filled her with unease. A few seconds of stark silence later she watched as the Tier 2 with an inflated sense of self-importance slowly turned his head around to look right at her.\n\n“What did you say?” He asked very softly. Although his tone was gentle, she couldn’t help but feel goosebumps run up and down her body.\n\nHis eyes were blazing with anger. It was almost scary if not for the fact that he was a Tier 2. It was as terrifying as a kitten baring its fangs at her.\n\nShe finally confronted the young brash child, something she had wanted to do the entire night, but had stopped herself. “You have been a proud and haughty brat for the entire short time that I have known you. You should be grateful that such esteemed people would put up with your arrogant attitude. You must’ve forgotten that you are nothing more than a weak Tier 2. Perhaps being accepted in Goldencrest inflated your ego, but remember that just because you are a little talented, doesn’t mean you are on the same level as us. You better keep your attitude in check,” she reminded him.\n\nHe laughed. “I better keep my attitude in check, huh,” he mocked her with a chuckle, but there was no humor in it. No, it was thinly veiled rage.\n\n“And what will you do if I don’t?” He asked her daringly.\n\nIt seems like he still doesn’t understand, she thought to herself amusingly.\n\n“If you don’t, then I will do it for you,” she promised him.\n\n“Oh, is that so?” He asked. This time she did hear a little bit of humor, almost like he genuinely found that funny.\n\nHe might believe she was just posturing, but she really would. He better not push her.\n\n“Yes, yes I would,” she told him while staring directly into his eyes which had now calmed down but were somehow more unnerving.\n\n“I would like to see you try,” he goaded her with a smug smirk.\n\nOkay, that’s it.\n\nShe didn’t want to be the person who bullied someone two full tiers below her, but he was asking for it. However, she also had to consider her status and the current role she was pretending to be. That meant she couldn’t show her full power. Even the powerful aura-hiding artifact the royal family had given her wouldn’t be able to hide her Tier if she went all out.\n\nNot that it mattered, she wouldn’t need to even use a fraction of her power. He was most likely a recently advanced Tier 2 with a bloated sense of his own power. It would just take a small flick to humble him.\n\nShe slowly wrapped her aura around Julius with a smooth application of mana and squeezed. Imagining that she was constricting him like a snake. Was it perhaps too much, maybe? But he needed someone to teach him a lesson in humility.\n\nHowever, she got increasingly alarmed when her aura got nowhere. It was like her aura was turned to dust the second it got near the boy. He must have a pretty good aura skill, she thought. Okay, so you do have some strength to back up your mouth, she admitted to herself.\n\nShe ramped up her aura and put the entire force of a newly advanced Tier 3’s aura onto him. However, she was shocked when nothing happened either. Just like the previous time, he was completely unaffected and unfazed.\n\nHe just stood there with that same smug smile and there was a challenging glint in his eyes. As if saying, is that all you got?\n\nShe was dumbfounded by the turn of events. How the hell is he holding up to my aura? His aura is unmistakably Tier 2, but the strength of it is not unlike the power of a Tier 3 soul, it doesn’t make sense, she thought to herself.\n\nSo she cranked it up even further, taking it to the level of an established Tier 3 user. It was only then did she gained even a single foothold against him. Still, her aura was torn apart by something.\n\nIt was probably some sort of item he must have had on his person. There was no other way for him to hold out against a full-powered Tier 3 aura.\n\nShe was very tempted to use her Authority on the still smug boy. He was using an item to hold her back and he had the shamelessness to act like it was his own achievement. However, she wouldn’t go that far. While the boy infuriated her to no end, she knew what her priorities were. She couldn’t easily unveil her identity just to bully a Tier 2.\n\nThankfully, it didn’t come to that as the young granddaughter of Count Violet intervened. “That is enough!”\n\n\nThank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed!"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nPath of the Deathless — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Path\n\nNoun\n\nA Path is a System-born metaphysical archetype that represents a fundamental truth of existence. Obtaining a Path unlocks an individual's ability to gain empowerment through Path Skills, wield true Magic, receive Blessings, and achieve recognized Feats of power or renown. Paths are not inherent; they must be either earned by performing a truly great deed or bestowed upon an individual by a powerful entity (such as a deity, an ancient spirit, or a comparable power). Without a Path, one is barred from ascension and apotheosis, and bound to the limits of mortality (See: Pathless). Once a Path is accepted, it cannot be surrendered or rejected.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Shiv | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Georges, Adam, Arrow\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; skills (e.g. Deathless, 1/1, The Pendulum of Burdens, Starhawk Arrow Cuirass, Restricted, Skill Merge Portal Break, 0/0, The Scorn of Umetia)\nSystem notification style: \"System-born metaphysical archetype that represents a fundamental t\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 110 (II) Surface [II]\nTarget length: ~2500 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "High above the Old Santabar mountain ranges, a Dimensional gateway activated at the center of a ring-shaped skyship. The Dimensionalists within directed its magical frequencies, connecting the rift to their front-most forward operating base nested near the top of the chasm. A pool of distorted shadows formed thereafter.\n\nFor a second, nothing happened.\n\nThen, five golden titanic shapes exploded out from the Dimensional mana. The Dimensionalists held the portal gateway open for another second before they closed it immediately. Even then, they had to scramble and reshape the Dimensionality mana before someone captured and recorded their frequency.\n\nAs they did what they could to cover their tracks, ten mind-linked primal dragons of time were directed downward through the clouds. Their bodies were coated in an adamantine barding, and built into the barding was a rider’s capsule on their back. Within, the Psychomancer-Riders of Interceptor Squadron Gold-Primary prepared themselves to intercept and eliminate the enemy.\n\n“Gold-01 to Gold-Primary. Prime Necro-Throwers.” And from above the capsules emerged a modular weapon that resembled a flamethrower, containing a corrosive crystal instead of fuel tanks or a Pyromancy enchantment.\n\n“Primed!”\n\n“Primed!\n\n“Primed and ready!”\n\nA series of nine other telepathic confirmations followed.\n\nOne of the gold-scaled time dragons let out a wild shriek as it nearly triggered its Chronomancy.\n\n“Gold-05, keep that dragon leashed until you receive clearance.”\n\n“Affirmative, Gold-01.”\n\nThey burst through a final layer of clouds just as the sun descended past the curve of the horizon. A last glittering of light danced off their scales, and Gold-01 and his squadron muttered a quick prayer to the Great One.\n\nThrough the Awareness-boosting Enchantments lining the insides of his capsule, Gold-01 saw the massive ball of destruction in the distance. An entire section of Old Santabar had been cracked to the foundations. The earth was shaking.\n\n“Damn the Dawn, but SC-Central wasn’t bullshitting when she said we were dealing with a Hero,” Gold-03 breathed.\n\n“We’ve killed Heroes before,” Gold-08 whispered. And it was true. They had. And they were going to do it again today.\n\nThe squadron fell silent as a cataclysmic avalanche of fire and force crashed over the land. It didn’t look so different from how the tidal waves of the Pacific hammered against the Tidewall. Ahead of the destruction was a mass of crawling darkness. Just looking at it filled Gold-01 with unease.\n\n“Creeping Void,” Gold-01 said, recognizing the skill.\n\n“What?” Gold-02 asked. “Isn’t that a skill common for krakens?”\n\n“Yeah. Krakens. Shadow dragons. And Void-Dwellers.”\n\nJust then, a narrow beam of Psychomancy splashed into Gold-01, and a snapshot of understanding was slotted into his mind. He shared the memory with the others in his squadron, and they recalled seeing a humanoid shape at the heart of the nigh-impenetrable darkness rather than a Kraken.\n\nAn uneasy feeling filled Gold-01. It wasn’t impossible for a human to develop certain skills common for monsters, but…\n\n“Gold-Primary, stick close to each other. Watch each other’s backs. We stride in three.”\n\nA series of confirmations greeted Gold-01. He pushed all doubt aside.\n\nThe first thing a Psychomancer learned was how to control themselves. Now he didn’t have time for fear. He had a Hero to kill.\n\n***\n\n“Godsddammit, Shiv, it’s been less than a minute,” Adam cursed as he climbed higher. He had been launched off his feet by a solid wall of kinetic force just as he emerged from the gate. Shiv’s Creeping Void ensured he couldn’t see anything, but the deafening sounds of distant explosions told the Gate Lord all he needed to know: Shiv had already made contact with the enemy and was in the process of getting to know them better.\n\nAdam came to a stop as he slipped into a layer of clouds. He cast his senses out and winced as he beheld the damage Shiv left in his wake. A massive, five-kilometer-wide scar trailed across the land. Huge fissures parted the earth as well, and dozens of deep craters were imprinted on the ground.\n\nNo bloody wonder Gate Theborn got destroyed. He let out a quiet breath. The sheer destruction was unbelievable. But it was also useful. And where Shiv moved like a natural disaster, Adam spotted things like he was borderline omniscient.\n\nHe immediately zeroed in on a badly crushed bunker half-buried in the soil. The inhabitants were mostly dead, but only just so. One let out a hoarse whimper, and Adam bit back a grimace of pity. Then, his senses crawled further—shooting past Shiv’s current position, as indicated by his Creeping Void.\n\nThere, Adam took in what seemed like open terrain—and started picking out irregularities. He zoomed in on strange, reflective glints and followed them to discover hidden bunkers. No, wait. Observation posts. They were built into the mountains and even the ground. Within were groups of eight to ten Pathbearers. Most of them were armed with bows or some manner of ranged weaponry, and they wore armor that resembled Shiv’s. Yet theirs was sleeker, with narrower helmets that had lenses, while the composition of the armor itself was of a darker, colder metal.\n\nThen, there came a shudder from high up in the air, and Adam turned his senses away—to discover ten golden dragons approaching the fray.\n\n“Broken Moon,” Adam breathed. “Where the hells did they get ten primal dragons?” He pushed his senses past the ten golden dragons just then and found something in the air behind them. A flying vessel of some kind. One that had recently opened a Dimensional gateway, if the motes of darkness leaking from its core were any indication.\n\n“Well, well,” Adam said, forming a Veilpiercer. His senses crashed against the ship but couldn’t get any further. It was warded. Warded a bit too well. His vambrace crackled to life. He would solve that problem in a moment. Take one of the people aboard prisoner if possible. Meanwhile… “Keep moving, Shiv… Keep kicking the hornet's nest. I think things are about to work out for us perfectly.”\n\n***\n\nThe shape of Roland’s soul was his arrows. The length of Roland's reach ended at the length of his arrows. The depth of Roland's awareness was painted by the trajectory of his arrows. Everything he touched with his projectiles, he sensed, he saw, he killed. And Roland's arrow never missed their mark.\n\nBeyond the reach of the atmosphere, Roland’s reserve arrows glistened in the void, far beyond the reach of the enemy. And there they remained, serving more as his eyes and ears than a weapon for him to use.\n\nHe studied the encirclement surrounding his town, watching as Sullain’s forces were driven back another kilometer from the south side as a swarm of three thousand arrows tore into and detonated within a pocket dimension they thought was hidden.\n\nBut there were more enemies to bring down. Many more.\n\nEighty kilometers away at the Santamon Mountains, some Necrotech Deathstalkers were dragging the remnants of their artillery platforms back. They made it three hundred meters before an arrow the size of Blackedge crashed down on the sky and shattered. Over the horizon, a flash of light rose into the sky. The Solar mana contained within the arrow scoured the land clean for fifty kilometers.\n\nA mere two kilometers below Blackedge, another group of enemies attempted a mad rush. There was a Hero among them this time. A Heroic-Tier vampire whose speed grew with every person nearby. They zipped up toward Blackedge, intending on cracking the town’s wards—\n\nAnd promptly burst apart into ashes as Roland redirected a few of his three thousand arrows to fly over the chasm. They fused together before they speared into the vampire’s back, and though getting pierced didn’t kill the vampire, getting incinerated by the power of dawn did.\n\nNight was coming. Parts of the battered ruins of Lost Angeles rose as Sullain’s Geomancers tried to form their bunkers. A hail of arrows crashed down through the clouds and annihilated every piece of stone the Geomancers were trying to manipulate. A good few hundred slipped into the chasm, crashing against Sullain’s wards as well.\n\nSullain. The vicar hadn’t done anything for a while. Roland didn’t like that. You didn’t give mages time to plot or scheme. That was a critical rule in combat. But with Blackedge pressed from all sides, Roland didn’t have a choice but to hold and fight.\n\nHold and fight as he had been doing for weeks.\n\nBy the Starhawk, he was tired…\n\nA warning from Starhawk’s Perch pulsed in Roland’s mind. Someone tried to halt time. Roland directed a special Chronomantic arrow into them from beyond the atmosphere.\n\nAnother time dragon dropped from the clouds in two pieces. And for the first time in years, Roland’s Respecification Unique Skill leveled. And his other Unique Skill leveled right after as he regained a Chronomantic arrow from the soul of the dragon he just killed.\n\nRespecification 411 > 412\n\nQuiver of the Slain 354 > 355\n\nWith each enemy slain, Roland felt new arrows fill his spiritual quiver. New arrows forged by the remains of his enemies—of their greatest skills. It was also the reason he'd remained at Master-Tier for so long—because a little careful redistribution of one’s levels went a long way to hiding just how high they were in total.\n\nAnd that was the entire point of Roland’s existence. He wanted power, not prestige.\n\nBut he was starting to tire again. He needed to find a way to level some of his lesser skills some more so he could draw points over from them into his Physicality. At the thought of that, Roland started doing mental math again, pushing his already exhausted mind to its limit to get another few levels. But he couldn’t do it. Not alone.\n\n“Chris,” Roland said, gritting his teeth. “I need another spike of focus.”\n\n“Yes, Lord Arrow,”\n\nAtop the apex of his castle, within a shroud of Divination and Solar mana, Roland Arrow released another shot. Another shot shaped from starstuff. Another shot fated to strike and kill an enemy. Another shot that turned into ten and then a hundred as it traveled through the air. Within Roland’s ruined nest were Biomancers, working to keep his body functional at all times, and Chris Evetine, his personal Psychomancer that did everything she could to guard his focus and stop his mind from slipping. There were also Diviners, generals, Slayers, and more here, but most of them were dead on their feet from exhaustion.\n\nEveryone was on the brink after weeks of non-stop combat.\n\nBelow, Blackedge was being consumed by desperation, rot, biological plagues, and ones of Psychomantic madness.\n\nSullain was a dreadful adversary. The vicar was no warrior, and Roland had managed to repel the Abyssal Lord in a direct contest at first. But he was a mage. And the worst thing about a Legendary mage—one who possessed practically every Magical Skill known to Integrated Earth—was how they could strike mind, spirit, and body at once.\n\nBefore Roland drove Sullain back to the Abyss, forcing the wretch to retreat, the vicar managed to breach Blackedge's wards once. The spells Sullain left destroyed the agriculture, sickened the people, and withered the metal. It also created monsters that would spawn at night. Monsters that burst free from flesh or even concentrations of darkness.\n\nRoland was his arrows, and his arrows patrolled the streets of Blackedge as well. They strained him to the very limit, and they revealed to him just how many people were dying. Another wail sounded from another house. Another cry was silenced. Another child let out a breath and didn't take another. With every passing second, Roland could feel his town dying.\n\nHe could feel this prison-turned-home crumble away. And Roland understood this was Sullain’s revenge. Roland had sacked Submission, and now Blackedge was to pay for his sins.\n\nBut what could the Town Lord do in the face of despair? What could he do? Kneel? Bend? Break? Beg?\n\nNo. Roland had been a Pathbearer from the moment he picked up the bow, from the moment he knew that fighting was a choice. So he fought on. So he killed. So he worked tirelessly, unleashing powers unheard of upon his adversaries, butchering them day after day, minute after minute, second by second. And through it all, he convened with the Starhawk. He plotted. He schemed. If they just had enough time, perhaps the Starhawk could integrate the other sacred phylacteries. If he managed that, the Starhawk could either find a way to create remembrances from his long-lost companions or even draw their power onto himself to better rally for the coming fight.\n\nAnd despite all the strain Roland was under, this was merely the opening salvo in a coming fight.\n\nI must endure, Roland thought to himself. I must hold. If I do fail... No, I cannot. The Republic... the Republic cannot stand much longer. The lies, deception, twisting of minds, the sapping of faith... The toll has become too great. The Republic won't be able to stand the avarice of the Ascendants any longer, nor survive the ritual they seek to perform…\n\nIt was a horrible, nightmarish thing. Something he refused to accept at first, even with the Starhawk showing him the truth. He knew the Ascendants weren’t perfect, but what they planned was beyond the pale—was something Roland couldn’t accept. And neither could the Starhawk, for that matter.\n\nBut now—\n\nOne of his arrows saw a massive explosion unfolding over Old Santabar. For a moment, Roland’s mind reeled.\n\nOver four hundred kilometers away from Blackedge and Lost Angeles, a trail of building destruction cleaved a line near the coast—and drew the attention of what seemed like one of Sullain’s Interceptor Squadrons.\n\nWhat is this?\n\nA massive war horn sounded. A war cry followed thereafter. Things began to move and crawl within the Chasm. Roland couldn’t split his focus now. Another night was about to begin. But Old Santabar… If this was the Inquisition… His gut clenched. He needed to know. He needed to know to prepare himself. Because he couldn’t hold against them too.\n\nAnd he would need to attempt a fighting retreat with Blackedge. Even if it was likely to end in his death and the town’s demise.\n\n“ARROW! STARHAWK’S CHAMPION! I COME FORTH ONCE MORE!” Sullain sang in the darkness. “I COME BEARING GIFTS FROM THE OUTSIDE! I COME TO DELIVER YOUR END!”\n\nRoland rolled his eyes. “Not the bloody eldritch bullshit again.” He let out a sigh and stared at his comrades. “It’s nightmares again, I’m afraid.”\n\n“That’s alright, Lord Arrow,” Guard Captain Koswin Kranos said. “None of us are going to be doing any sleeping for a while. No nightmares that way.”\n\n“No nightmares,” Roland echoed. He shaped another arrow in response—\n\nBut he directed just one arrow to see what was happening in Old Santabar, and thus, a gleaming needle of starstuff fell from the void above.\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 111 (I) Surface [III]\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Get up, Adam. Get up. You're not done. You're not done until you beat me.\n\nAnd look at me. You can do it. With your team. With the people by your side, you can do it. It doesn't matter that I'm a Master. You're an Adept. Look at me. Don't look away. Never look away from your enemy.\n\nI am proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of everyone in this class.\n\nBut pride doesn't mean fucking shit.\n\nThis is the final exam. This is your final test. I'm not going to fail you if you lose, but I think you understand this isn't about passing or failing. Because when it comes to an actual fight, dying is failing.\n\nBut maybe not. Maybe you'll sell your life dearly. Maybe you'll delay your enemy long enough for someone on your own side to arrive. Someone who's also a Master. But you won't be there to see it. You won't be the one that gets to go home. They might sing your name in a story, but that's just all you'll be. A story for someone else. A lyric in someone else's song. Something to pad the purses of bards and be slapped on a poster for more young boys and girls like you to be recruited and get themselves killed.\n\nGet up. Get up. Be more than a story. Make your own legend. Live to experience it.\n\nYou've got one final attempt left. One last try. Make it count. Make a plan. Make it good.\n\nI've seen it before, on real battlefields. Ten Adepts bringing down one Master. It can be done. So. Show me one Adept and Nine Initiates finding a way to do the same.\n\n-Captain Harry Irons, TacStrat 101, Phoenix Academy\n\n111 (I)\n\nSurface [III]\n\nA crimson serpent emerged from within Shiv, drinking away his final wounds. It was practically half the size of his body now, and its interior glistened with crystallized injuries; ruptured organs, flayed skin, burst vessels, and too many lacerations to count. Such were the contents stored within the Woundeater, and it would be unleashed against the next viable target Shiv could find.\n\nAnd he had a strong feeling he would be running into some viable targets very soon.\n\nThe air combusted around him, crowning him in a veil of force and fire. He sailed just a few meters above the ground, keeping his person concealed using Minor Illusion, Chameleon, and Creeping Void in tandem. He might have destroyed one observation post, but he was sure there were more, many more. And with how much noise he just made, Shiv was expecting trouble very, very soon.\n\nWhen he flew over the ground, the kinetic energy he displaced cleaved deep into the earth, revealing the bones of things that were. Sometimes there were very literal bones, a sea of them, humans from the looks of it. And then there were the husks of old machines, massive automata. Shiv caught just a glimpse, but this place must have been something more than a wilderness a long time ago.\n\nAs he looked over the distant, rolling mountains, a mounting feeling that Shiv was heading into a storm built inside of him. And that feeling only grew as the last light of the sun faded, vanishing behind the towering shape of the distant Tidewall. Night fell immediately, but before the dark came, there was a glint of color from high above.\n\nA glint of color that pierced through weary gray clouds. There were ten shapes approaching Shiv. They were golden, and they were moving fast. Perhaps not as fast as he, but they were closing fast enough that he could see the curving trail of force peeling around their forms.\n\nMore importantly, he thought he could feel them through his Chronomancy.\n\nGreat. Didn’t take long for me to run into the enemy Chronomancers. No easy fights for long, huh, System?\n\nHe saw four wings on each of the shapes. Two arms, two legs, long, sinuous necks, and a tail that ended in a spear-like tip. These were dragons. And for a moment, Shiv thought he was about to face another Lance of Dragon-Knights. But despite the adamantium barding they wore, there was something undisciplined in their movements, an animalistic taint. And somehow, he could instinctively tell he was facing beasts rather than true warriors.\n\nStill, ten golden dragons didn't emerge from nowhere. If he had to guess, they were deployed for him specifically. And why not? Dragons probably didn't have an issue with the Light Curse. Maybe Sullain had them captured, or struck a pact with them somehow, or twisted their minds, or—\n\nBefore he could theorize further, each dragon pulsed with brilliant, gleaming mana.\n\nEach of the dragons flashed. A shudder of power ran through them, and Shiv's Chronomancy trembled in return. His eyes widened. Their mana felt like it was operating on the exact same frequency as his. Then, each of their bodies flared a radiant gold, and they were promptly coated by a shell forged from the lore of time itself.\n\nShiv felt an aching pull in their direction as his Chronomancy rattled inside him, begging to be unleashed.\n\nHe reflexively activated Strider of the Unbending Path. Time stopped. The world ceased its movements; the wave of destruction following him went still. But the dragons were still moving, and they were coming right at him. Shiv clenched his fists and clutched his knife tighter. Not just dragons. Time dragons. The type the Recollector spoke about earlier.\n\nHow do they know I'm a Chronomancer? Shiv wondered. Do they already know? Or is this just—\n\nA flash of color blinked atop one of the dragons. A jet of searing green curved from the approaching beast and came for the Deathless. It was pure instinct that saved Shiv again. He spiked himself downward, and the stream of corrosive energy lashed across the land and cleaved clean through the ground behind him. It left a gap in the world that promptly detonated upward, projecting a blade of Necromantic energy high into the air. Soon, the blade expanded into a sizzling screen of acid that chewed at the very fabric of the world.\n\nNecromancy. Godsdamn it, why does everything they do involve Necro— oh right, I am fighting a rogue Necrotech outfit. Shiv grimaced, and he immediately plunged downward, drilling deep into the soil as he continued underground.\n\nNot only did they have a counter to his Chronomancy, they also apparently could see through his Stealth Skills. That shot landed exactly where he was a moment prior. How did they see through The Creeping Void? How did they tell? And how could they also perceive him with both his Minor Illusion and Chameleon Enchantments active? What the hells?\n\n***\n\n\"Gold-03, remain in position!\" Gold-01 declared as he recalibrated his Necro-Thrower. It would take a few seconds for the crystal to stabilize, but that shot was dead on. The Divination Matrix enchanted into his rider capsule painted the most likely path of his adversary. At the last moment, they dodged. He missed. They were damn fast. In a scant second, they went from sailing forward to drilling through the ground itself, cracking the earth open and vanishing beneath the soil.\n\nWho the hell is this guy? How in the deepest hells does he have Strider of the Unbending Path too? “Are you guys seeing this?”\n\n\"Stay focused, Gold-03,\" Gold-01 said. \"Gold-02, Gold-10. Geomancy. Peel him out of the ground. Ten-kilometer de-solidification.\"\n\n\"Received, Gold-01,\" Gold-10 said. Gold-02 simply gave a grunt. They descended, plunging down toward the earth like falling spears. While the dragons glowed bright with Chronomancy, the rider capsules along their backs burst into animated fractals of twisting spells. Colors of rich soil came into shape as spell patterns were birthed from within the capsules. And then they rippled out, crashing over the land and alchemizing everything for approximately two kilometers.\n\nWhat used to be earth turned into a rapidly evaporating slurry. It wasn't even mud. It was just liquefied dust and ash. Again and again, Gold-02 and Gold-10 channeled the spell, removing more sections from the earth and dissolving more substance. In seconds, vegetation, earth, soil, and stone faded. They continued concentrating on the spell, sweeping across the land as solid turned to gas.\n\nAnd just then, Gold-01 caught sight of him. Immediately, his Divination Matrix pinpointed where he was based on the echolocation imprint they got from SC-Central earlier. Now, they had a trail—they just needed to solidify it.\n\nGold-01 issued another mental command, and Gold-08, their squadron scout, sent out a pulse of her own echolocation. Once more, they pinged the target, and the Divination imprint solidified.\n\nGold-01 had hunted Krakens before. They were creatures that took away their adversary's sight and muffled their hearing. Creeping Void was a treacherous skill to face, but ultimately, it didn't stop tactile movements, and sounds could still travel through it.\n\nAbsolute stealth was impossible. There were limitations to every skill, and understanding how they worked was the first part of overcoming them.\n\n\"Eyes on target,\" Gold-10 declared. But before Gold-10 and Gold-02 could pursue the enemy on their own, Gold-01 sent out another telepathic command. \"Gold-10, Gold-02, rejoin squadron. Pursue in Kingfisher formation. Gold-04, descend. Gold-08, Gold-07, trail.\"\n\nA few more acknowledgements came, and Gold-01 continued watching their adversary. The enemy was painted a bright violet now, the Divination signature glowing so bright that Gold-01 could see them even with his eyes closed. So why couldn't Gold-01 shake the feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong? He watched as members of his squadron shot down across the land.\n\nSpells formed over their capsules, and their dragons let out primal roars. The first cracks spread across their temporal shells. Gold-01 prepared himself. Six seconds of halted time left. Let’s see how long you can keep time still, Pathbearer.\n\n***\n\n\"What kind of Geomancy bullshit is this?\" Shiv growled to himself. For a few moments, he was drilling through the earth. Then, suddenly, it practically dissolved around him, turning fluid one second and then to dust in the next. His temporal shell was cracking. If he had to guess, he only had maybe three seconds of halted time left.\n\nHe cast a quick glance upward and saw the dragons gliding down through the air. They were still slower than him—made even more so by his ever-building speed. Furthermore, he moved through halted time far more easily than they did. They were grinding against the temporal friction caused by their dense shells of Chronomancy, and so he confirmed they were a Tier below him in terms of Reflexes\n\nHowever, their temporal shells weren't as damaged as his. That made them slightly superior Chronomancers.\n\nNot a good matchup, Shiv realized. Even if he was so much faster than they, once his Chronomancy shattered, he would basically be frozen in place, giving them however long they had to attack him. Considering how fast and far their Necromancy could hit, Shiv needed to keep moving.\n\nHe clutched his knife tight as he came up with a desperate plan. With a loud shout, he threw his blade as far as he could. It exploded across the land, spearing through the base of a nearby mountain and punching clean through the stone. A puff of dust burst free but froze in the air. A crack formed but didn't develop any further.\n\nThe damage wouldn't fully progress until time resumed.\n\nIn the same second, Shiv cast himself four seconds back in time. He jolted out of place. His armor broke apart. Only a few pieces clung to his body. But just then, he triggered his spatial anchor. And for the second time, he blinked across the world. The first was done by reverting his position back to a temporal anchor. Now, he projected himself using his knife’s spatial Enchantment and materialized in a cramped space filled with jagged stone, falling soil, and creeping vines.\n\nHe found himself holding the blade again as he finished his spatial teleportation. But to his surprise, he found his Skysplitter embedded in something, halted by a wall of metal. The blade had pierced through, but the mountain had sapped enough kinetic energy from it that it didn't tear into the reinforced hook of metal entirely. And he quickly understood why.\n\nShiv couldn't help but laugh as the final fragments of his temporal armor broke off him. Time resumed. Three seconds passed as Shiv tore at what he believed to be an observation bunker.\n\nHe didn't do anything clever to find this place. He just got lucky. And judging from the muffled sounds thundering outside, the dragons might have lost track of him as well. With a final flex of force, Shiv tore into the observation post just in time to see eight skeletal armored figures turning, trying to get their crossbows, longbows, and blades up to protect themselves.\n\n\"Found you,\" Shiv growled. And then he spiked his Inertial Overdrive twenty times in quick succession before detonating his sheath.\n\nTheir armor crumpled first. Their flesh sprayed between the cracks. The bunker deformed and swelled like a steel balloon. As the observation post fell silent, Shiv observed the crushed bodies of the ones he'd just killed. They, too, wore the visages of death, but the metal of the armor seemed darker. They were definitely still organic, though, judging from the gore seeping out from them. Facing him was a firing port as well, overlooking a stretch of tumbling hills.\n\nThere were more mountains in the distance, but Shiv wasn’t exactly sure where he was anymore. He needed to figure out his position. But more importantly, he needed to shake these dragons—or kill them.\n\nThen, a thought came to him. I am dressed like some of these guys. Maybe there’s something I can do with that. Maybe I can get the dragons to come to me…\n\n***\n\n\"This is Gold-03 to Gold-01. We lost him. The matrix can't find him. We're trying to recalibrate.\"\n\nBut Gold-01 didn't say anything. Gold-01 was focusing, trying to figure out what just happened. The violet imprint of the target pulsed in and out of existence at several points, but they weren't there. And the Divination Matrix wasn't sure where he was either. Just then, their temporal shell came close to shattering, and Gold-01 gave his command. \"Gold Primary, drop shells.\"\n\nTime resumed. The wing regrouped at Gold-01's command. They rose higher into the air, trying to cover more ground, to take in more of the horizon. And Gold-07 spotted something there. Gold-07 pinged the rest of the group. They saw a massive series of cracks spreading along the sides of a nearby mountain just as a wave of displaced force slammed into it.\n\n“One of the... Oh shit, I think that's where observation post 109 is,” Gold-07 called out.\n\nJust as he finished speaking, the mountain exploded from within. In the same instant, they received a telepathic message from SC-Central. \"Gold Primary, I just lost contact with 109.\"\n\nA bitter feeling filled Gold-01’s gut. Was this Heroic adversary toying with them? How did he break contact? And how did he know exactly where 109 was? Through an eruption of stone, dust, and other debris, the mangled remains of 109's observation post sailed high through the air. It looked deformed. Swollen like a bomb had gone off inside. The metal was ballooned outward, and part of it was torn wide open.\n\n\"Great One’s missing cock!\" Gold-04 cried out. \"What the fuck? Target has at least Master-Tier Physicality or Geomancy.\"\n\n\"Physicality,\" Gold-01 replied. He narrowed his eyes. \"If he had Geomancy, he would have tried countering our strategy earlier. Gold-03, approach and conduct Divination pulse. Everyone else, remain at an active distance. 500 meters! L formation. Let's pick up this bastard's trail.\"\n\nGold-03 acknowledged and flew close to the now falling observation post. A Divination spell formed over 03’s capsule, and a pulse of violet light splashed through the deformed bunker. Nine badly crushed bodies were highlighted through the walls of the destroyed observation—\n\nWait… One of them is still resonating with the Divination spell. And that body isn’t crushed, it’s—\n\nGold-01 felt his stomach drop. \"Gold-03, Gold-03, pull back! Gold, pull back! Ambush! He’s still inside!”\n\nBut it was too late. Gold-03 tried to turn and fly away. But she was too slow.\n\nA blur rammed into her, and her dragon went tumbling in circles through the air.\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 111 (II) Surface [III]\nTarget length: ~2900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "111 (II)\n\nSurface [III]\n\nAs Shiv impacted the time dragon from the side, his Biomancy sensed something interesting. He wasn't just facing a dragon. There was also a rider attached to its back. And the rider had Adept-Tier Pyromancy as well. He could sense their mana field washing over him.\n\nBut more importantly, he could feel both the rider and the dragon’s Magical Resistances. To Shiv's surprise, he found the rider to be the one with the higher resistance. And so he brought his fist down against the dragon, slamming a Woundeater-empowered punch into the beast's skull.\n\nA crimson explosion enveloped the 200-meter-long beast. Scales broke free from its exposed head, and Shiv seized it by the neck and suddenly spiked himself downward forty times. He gave himself a hernia at the sudden increase in speed and strain.\n\nParts of his bone armor snapped free, his arms nearly dislocated, but the dragon fared worse. He accelerated so fast that he denuded most of its neck. Its scales tore off in strips. The creature screamed. He felt it try to trigger its Chronomancy, and he saw a cracked temporal shell starting to form. Shiv slammed a knee into its head, stunning it. Its temporal shell vanished.\n\nThen, Shiv drove the dragon head-first down into the earth—and he kept going. He drilled deeper using the dragon’s face as an excavator. At the same time, he formed another Woundeater, fed it, and slammed it into the dragon's body once more. He felt a crack in its Magical Resistance and spiked his gravity field another twenty times as he spun in place.\n\nPreviously, he thought it was a struggle to break a dragon's neck due to how far it could bend backward, how it was far more flexible than a human's neck. But he thought about that for a while and realized there was a different method he could use.\n\nIf one twisted the dragon’s neck more like a handle at extreme speeds, the outcome would be immediately grisly and quite fatal. It couldn’t rotate its head in place three hundred and sixty degrees, after all.\n\nThe dragon's ligaments tore free from the base of its neck, and even its impossibly strong muscles couldn't keep up with Inertial Overdrive. Though Shiv's body was coming apart, the dragon’s head was getting torn clean off.\n\nHe spiked his field five more times as he felt the dragon’s bones shatter and muscles tear. As all resistance vanished, he pulled back hard and ripped the dragon's head off at its base before detonating his inertial sheath.\n\nJust then, he felt the rider die as well—splattering apart inside the capsule from the sheer concussive impact unleashed by Shiv’s detonation.\n\nShit! I wanted to take them alive. To figure out how they operated. Ah. Nothing for it.\n\nGravitic Wrestler 141 > 142\n\nShiv cried out as something in his spine fractured, but the dragon was launched aside. Its body resembled a rat that had been struck by a hammer. Parts of it were flattened. Its adamantine barding had bent but didn't break, and inside the capsule, its rider became as if a puddle of jam inside a tight, collapsing can.\n\nJust then, the soil around him became fluid and dissolved thereafter. Shiv scoffed, and he triggered his spatial anchor. He teleported back inside the mountain, back to where he left his knife, and continued along his way underground now that he got a good look at where the Tidewall was.\n\nI’ll keep moving for now. The rest of the bastards didn’t close in. But let’s see if I can lose them for good…\n\n***\n\n\"Gold-03! Come in! Gold-03! Respond! Respond!\" Gold-01 shouted telepathically, but in his heart, he knew Gold-03 was dead. Dead or mentally comatose. Even someone unconscious had a mind. You didn't just drop off from the world unless you went out of range, or you stopped being accessible.\n\nGold-02 and 10 cast their Geomancy spells again. As the ground turned to dust, Gold-01 saw the mangled remains of Gold-03's dragon. It looked crushed. Its head had been torn clean off, but the enemy was nowhere to be seen. A growl of absolute fury escaped Gold-01's throat. That monster was going to pay for this. They were—\n\nGold-01 received another telepathic missive from SC Central. A chain of images splashed into his head. An observation post noted a series of cracks spreading along the ground, traveling fast in the general direction of the Tidewall. The adversary was underground again and moving fast.\n\n\"Received, SC-Central.\" He shared the memory with the rest of his squadron, and they immediately moved. They soared through the air with hurt spreading between them, with things unsaid and anger building.\n\nGold-03 had been in the squadron for five years. Five years and 600 combat flights. And now, in an instant, she was dead.\n\nYou didn't get to make mistakes with a Heroic-Tier adversary. Especially not a cunning and vicious Pathbearer like the one they were hunting.\n\n***\n\nBroken Moon, I'm a fucking idiot, Shiv thought to himself. I think I’m already lost. I can’t remember which way I’m supposed to be going…\n\nRight now, he was traveling vaguely in the direction of the Tidewall. The thing was, he couldn't really see where the Tidewall was anymore because he was underground. As he continued tearing through the foundations of the earth, causing minor earthquakes and cracking the surface wherever he went, he lost his sense of direction in seconds, and now he was considering what to do.\n\nShiv knew he needed to surface at some point to get his bearings, but if he surfaced, those dragons were likely going to be on him. There had to be observation posts everywhere in this place. There was no avoiding that, and even now, they were probably tracking him somehow. They managed to figure out how to get past his Creeping Void, didn’t they?\n\nGod damn it, if only I had some kind of subtler skill, Shiv thought to himself. And that was another benefit of having more Adept-Tier skills as well. If he had Adept-Tier Geomancy, maybe he could have navigated underground. If he had Adept-Tier Hydromancy, maybe he could have turned himself into water or something.\n\nBeing a powerful, overwhelming brute felt good, but it also made his actions very, very obvious. Shit, nothing for it. Once more, he pinned his blade in the parting soil, and he shot upward. If anything went wrong, he would jump back down to his knife and find a different direction to hit. It worked the last two times, so it might work a third as well. But Shiv didn't expect it to be a trick he could use over and over indefinitely.\n\nHe exploded out of the ground, casting stones everywhere. His Creeping Void was still active; he didn't deactivate just because no one had fired any arrows at him in a while. The dragons might be able to see him, but maybe the observation posts didn't have the same skills. Better to have additional layers of protection anyway.\n\nHe found himself sailing over a rocky meadow that became a series of rolling hills. Dense patches of vegetation became a series of bushes below. There were fewer mountains around him now, but there were more in the distance. He thought he caught a glimpse of something atop the Tidewall. Shiv spiked himself in its direction. He kept low to the ground as he did before and—\n\nNine beams of necromantic energy pierced the surrounding soil.\n\nThe Creeping Void 110 > 111\n\nSHIT! Shiv screamed internally.\n\nHe teleported back to his knife and immediately started moving in a random direction. They missed! They weren't as accurate this time. But they still had his general position, and so he had to keep moving. He had to do as Adam suggested. How did he get a level? Did his Creeping Void fool them this time? Why didn’t it work before?\n\nWait… Do they have some kind of Divination like Adam does? That… that might make sense.\n\nShiv tried to remember which way he was heading, but he bit back a gasp as lacerations began to open across his body. He was going to need to detonate again soon, and once he did, they would definitely notice his position. Judging from where the shots came from, they were right above, high up in the air.\n\nI wouldn't be surprised if they just stayed far away and kept shooting at me from... Wait a minute. What if… what if I can get closer? Can Hu… Can Hu was supposed to be my armor against Necromancy. What I need now is armor… Something that might let me take a few hits and get closer. Those dragons are pretty big. What if I can get inside one? Use it as a literal meat puppet while keeping it alive.\n\nA terrible thought formed in Shiv’s mind. He considered doing something just a bit reckless. He clutched one of his decoy bodies inside his cape using his Biomancy. If Minor Illusion and his other Stealth Enchantments weren't working on their own, maybe he just needed to give them something solid to shoot at.\n\nAnd maybe I need to give them more than one thing to worry about. Shiv continued barreling through the underground. He reached out, and his gravity field expanded around a massive chunk of earth.\n\n\"Alright then,\" Shiv said to himself, \"let's give them a distraction.”\n\n***\n\nGold-01 watched as the spreading cracks marking the path of their target suddenly stopped. A spider web expanded outward, and a fissure began to form in place, but the enemy wasn’t moving anymore.\n\nGold-01 did the same. He wasn't going anywhere near that monster. Whoever could tear the head off a dragon in little more than a second wasn't someone he intended to fight in close-quarters combat. They would grind him down using range, strategy, and Necromancy. That was why there was 500 meters of distance between each of the riders now, and why they remained two kilometers above the ground.\n\nEvery dragon was to cover their own sector, and every dragon was close enough to render the other aid should they come under attack.\n\n\"What is he doing?\" Gold-10 asked. \"It's like he's just...\"\n\nAnd then there came a massive shudder. The earth trembled. The fissures grew and became chasms. Gold-01 primed his Necro-Thrower for another cycle when he realized what the adversary was about to do. An entire parcel of uprooted landmass rose into the air—three hundred meters of stone and dirt shaped into a dense ball.\n\nIt accelerated fast, the soil peeling off, the stone staying together longer. It soared high like a missile the size of a small mountain, but it was still far too slow to hit any of the dragons, and it wouldn't reach the altitude they were at either.\n\n“What is he trying to do?” Gold-06 asked. But just then, they saw the bone armored figure shoot out from below the earthen sphere.\n\n01’s Divination Matrix painted the target into shape. A shroud of violet enveloped them. \"It's him! Fire! Fire!\" Gold-01 roared.\n\nNine streams of Necromantic energy immediately speared through the target's body. Nine streams intermingled, and a concentration of necromantic corrosion built and detonated outward, catching the large mound of soil and stone as well. In seconds, it vanished.\n\nIn the aftermath, all Gold-01 could hear was the fast pumping of his heart as the world fell silent.\n\n\"Did we get him?\" Gold-02 asked. \"Gold-01, do we have confirmation?\"\n\n\"I think we hit him,\" Gold-10 said. \"Wait, something just passed by...\"\n\nGold-10’s thoughts promptly trailed off into a scream.\n\n***\n\nThe hardest part of lifting an entire section of the earth was keeping it together rather than bearing its weight. Shiv was more than strong enough for the latter, but soil… Soil didn't stick together. Even stone broke apart after you accelerated it at a certain speed. It took all his gravitic control to keep it from unraveling right on top of him. As he rose higher and higher into the air, he kept his Chameleon Enchantment active as he prepared to launch his decoy body.\n\nFive seconds passed as Shiv's insides tightened. He watched the skies, waiting for one of the dragons to fire. Then, his patience broke as he threw his decoy body out.\n\nAll the dragons promptly fired their Necromantic beams. Nine different streams came from nine different directions, and Shiv almost let out a miserable sigh. They're spread out. Why the hell did they have to be spread out? The worst thing about not fighting an idiot was that you had to use more strategy and planning every time you engaged them. These dragon riders learned from him just as he adapted to them as well.\n\nBut his plan wasn’t over. He needed to get to Part Two: Dragon Meat Armor as soon as possible.\n\nRearing his arm back, he threw his Skysplitter across the horizon at where one of the corrosive streams came from. In an instant, the sound barrier broke. His Skysplitter shrank and vanished. He doubted the dragon could spot something that small. Shiv hoped so, at least. As the blade traveled, a blast of corrosive energy swept down. Shiv's eyes widened. A muscle in his shoulder came apart as Inertial Overdrive wounded him once more. A wave of Necromancy crashed down on Shiv’s cover. His dirt mound disintegrated.\n\nHe teleported to his blade at the last second. A squeeze of pressure washed over him, and he found himself a mere four hundred-something meters away below a dragon.\n\nLuck smiles on me again, Shiv thought. He detonated his inertial sheath, and a blast wave swept out from him. It broke both of his legs, but he didn't need legs to control his gravity field. Shiv stopped time—and the dragon, unaware of his presence, failed to trigger its own temporal shell in time. It stopped moving. Shiv fed his injuries to a Woundeater and crashed into its chest. A detonation followed as he crawled along its body, but as he came into contact with it, a flare of gold flickered in place as its temporal shell came alive. Shiv was almost taken by surprise, but he was still faster—especially with his Inertial Overdrive running hot.\n\nDidn’t know it could—Wait, we have the same skill. I didn’t know it could just jump back in time and activate its temporal shell. Wait, that means I can do it too if someone tries to ambush me using Chronomancy…\n\nThe primal dragon bit at him. It moved like it was pushing its head through mud. Shiv caught it by the jaw and twisted it to the side. However, instead of killing it immediately, he drove a blade into its right eye and used that to launch himself along its neck to get at the capsule on its back.\n\nA flash of green flared before Shiv. Sticking out behind the capsule was a strange weapon. It had a long barrel that was wide open, and a corrosive crystal was lodged in its backmost section. That must have been how they were firing the Necromantic beams at him.\n\nShiv extended his Skysplitter’s size and cut without thinking. His blade extended thirty meters in a single second. He split the Necromantic weapon on the back of the capsule into two pieces. Then, with the greatest threat eliminated, he studied where the rider resided for the first time.\n\nThe capsule was pod-shaped, with a series of faint glowing windows on all sides. Shiv laid eyes on the rider, and they laid eyes on him. They wore a helmet that had gleaming, purple visors, and their armor consisted of something that was only leather. Shiv snorted and sliced through the glass. The rider tried to get up—but then they froze still. With the capsule compromised, the rider was no longer spared from Chronomancy, and now they were at Shiv’s tender mercies.\n\nJust then, the dragon twisted its head around to bite him once again. Shiv caught the monster’s jaw with his left hand and growled as he pitted his strength against its. With a snarl of effort, he shrugged its head off, and Frictionless Vector activated. It slid off against him violently, and Shiv found a new opening as he cut at the capsule several more times.\n\nMost of its frame was adamantine, which meant Shiv couldn’t just brute-force his way in quickly. Thus, he changed his tactic to cutting at the bolts and seals around the capsule. Here, Deepest Edge proved its worth. It popped open just as the dragon came back around for another bite. Shiv’s temporal shell cracked. Three seconds of Chronomancy left. He ripped the rider out of their seat and prepared to face the dragon once more.\n\nBut then, a thought occurred to him.\n\nI want to be inside this thing, right? I want to use it as a shield against Necromancy. To pilot its body with Biomancy. Well. It’s not easy to overpower this thing without Overdrive, and I can’t exactly just tear my way through the adamantine barding and its scales… The dragon’s jaw opened wide, and Shiv looked at the time-frozen rider before he shrugged. Well. Nothing ventured. No dragon meat shields gained.\n\nAnd with his mind made up, Shiv spiked himself and the rider straight down the dragon’s throat."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 112 (I) Surface [IV]\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Teams and armies have a breaking point, just like individual Pathbearers. That breaking point is variable. It depends on a hell of a lot of things, such as how long a group has known each other, how dire the situation is, if any of them are already dead, and whatnot.\n\nSee, a good team of Pathbearers can keep itself standing and fighting even as things look hopeless.\n\nSome group compositions can even claim to be unbreakable, but that's not a guarantee all the time, and that's not even a guarantee for that specific group when the right pressures are applied. See, with the right kind of damage inflicted, everyone collapses. Everyone. No one is immune to harm. No one is beyond the touch of trauma.\n\nAnd there’s even a specific term for this thing.\n\nUsually, armies collapse before their greatest Masters and Heroes do. This is called the “Adept Collapse Point,” mainly because generally, most of an organized fighting force is made up of Adepts. When they go down, when the core of your army gives, the rest will fall after. It doesn't matter if the Master wants to keep fighting; he's just one guy. He can do quite a bit of damage, but eventually, with the right approach, he’ll be brought down.\n\nIt doesn't even matter if a Hero wants to keep warring. A Hero is a dangerous threat—one that can deal a lot of damage and kill thousands of people. But if you got a good group of Masters with varied skills, you can kill a Hero like a pack of wolves can kill a bear.\n\nUnderstand that you have to take care of your people. After a certain limit, they're not going to be combat-capable. And after a certain amount of trauma, if they start thinking about just dropping their weapons and going home, pull them out of there. They are more of a liability than an asset by that point. People, like equipment, need maintenance. Everyone's maintenance level is different. But it's there.\n\nIgnore this truth at your peril. You might still want to keep brawling, if your guys are done, take them home, if you can.\n\nWar is not something you half-ass.\n\n-Memoirs of a Master-Tier War Mage\n\n112 (I)\n\nSurface [IV]\n\nShiv accelerated down the dragon's throat with his new hostage in tow before the beast could close its jaws. The glistening inner flesh of the dragon proved to be a surprising lubricant. But as he went further, the space grew cramped, things got dark, and Shiv ripped through the dragon’s esophagus.\n\nJust then, a trembling sensation pulsed out from the dragon. It flared with golden mana, and Shiv felt its Chronomancy start to shift.\n\nIt’s jumping back in time, he realized. Fine. Two can play at that. Shiv spiked himself at an angle. He pushed through squirming organs and ruptured countless blood vessels as he slammed a boot into what he guessed was the dragon’s kidney. The beast let out a skull-shattering bellow of pain. Shiv anchored this moment in time, losing another of his expendable seconds.\n\nThe dragon shifted across time thereafter. It vanished around him in a stream of traveling gold, and Shiv found himself hovering in the open air some three hundred meters away from the dragon with the rider still frozen in his grip. It reappeared where it was three seconds ago before he slammed into it. A flash of green slashed at him from the corner of his eyes. The other dragons were firing at him. His temporal shell was a second away from cracking.\n\nShiv snorted. His shell ignited with surging mana as he cast himself back inside the dragon, back to the point where he was stomping on the dragon’s kidney. The beast howled with renewed pain. Shiv’s temporal shell cracked apart.\n\nThen, he lost a patch of time. Or rather, it was like a patch of time happened to him all at once. The dragon thrashed, the dragon tried to move, the dragon roared in pain—and then its Chronomancy broke apart as well. In the end, Shiv found himself still inside the writhing dragon. Rather than jumping back in time again, the beast had been incapacitated by pain.\n\nAnd beside Shiv was a struggling, thrashing rider, who was utterly confused and utterly terrified about his current predicament.\n\nSquirming tendons pressed against Shiv, and blood spilled over him. The bitter copper taste of the dragon's insides seeped into Shiv's armor and painted him with a foul-smelling stench. The rider wasn't doing much better. He was absolutely lost, kicking and struggling, slamming elbows and knees against the dragon’s massive organs. Shiv tightened his grip on the rider, and the latter went still.\n\nWith a flex from his gravitic field, Shiv tore the rider’s armor asunder, splitting it down the middle and exposing bare flesh. The rider let out a ragged cry and struggled to break free. A gleaming piece of metal appeared in the rider’s hand, but Shiv broke the fool’s arm and took the knife from him.\n\nThe rider’s agonized shriek reverberated in the dragon’s depths.\n\nWith the rider incapacitated and stripped of Magical Resistance, Shiv shifted his attention back to the stunned dragon. Time to fashion you into a suit of proper meat armor.\n\nA Woundeater manifested upon the Deathless’s right hand, and its insides gleamed with crystallized lacerations. Shiv drove the spell into the dragon, and mana explosions rocked the beast from the inside. It took seven spells to finally shatter the dragon’s Magical Resistance, and as he did, Shiv immediately began reshaping the beast’s body.\n\nIt had an adamantine barding serving as chest armor, so opening a gap along its torso wouldn’t work. However, its arms were still bare of metal and guarded only by its natural scales. Shiv exploited that fact as he liquefied the dragon’s left arm all the way up to the shoulder and pushed out all the blood and viscera plugging the gap. He then wiggled his way between the dragon’s ribs and repositioned himself right in front of his new viewing port.\n\nDragon blood was flooding his armor and stinging his eyes. Both dragon and rider were caught in the throes of pain and suffering, unable to respond. Shiv positioned his head right where the dragon’s left shoulder used to be and peeked outside. The world was spinning around and around as the dragon plunged from the skies. But then it stopped as something caught it. Shiv saw a set of massive golden claws holding onto the dragon by the tail.\n\nAnd that made him grin.\n\nThe enemy was confused again. They were trying to save their friend. And now they were close. Shiv focused his Biomancy and sensed four other dragons enter the vicinity of his mana field. Four riders came with them. That made a good chunk of the entire group. He killed a dragon and its rider earlier. He had this one down now. That left seven. And if he could handle those four, he would only be fighting three.\n\nShould have been ten originally, and nine still alive now. I counted nine Necromantic streams. Gotta do this fast and strategically. Take them by surprise.\n\n“He—he’s got me…” the rider whimpered. “We’re… we’re inside my dragon. He’s…”\n\n“Who are you talking to there, buddy?” Shiv growled.\n\nThe poor rider promptly pissed himself. Shiv wondered if that had ever happened before—a rider getting kidnapped by someone else and then pulled inside their own mount.\n\nProbably not, Shiv thought, proud of his achievement in a twisted way. I deserve a reward for this, System. This might just be the most unique act of intimidation I’ve ever performed.\n\nThe Challenger is roaring with laughter.\n\nThe Challenger is proud of you.\n\nShiv winced. That was the opposite of a reward. That filled Shiv with shame. Yeah… Maybe all this shit’s making me a bit too sadis—The hells, was that just a pulse of felling Psychomancy mana leaving his mind?\n\nThe translucent mana was so faint and sudden that he missed it, but when another ripple spread out from the rider’s mind, Shiv gritted his teeth.\n\nAwareness 13 > 14\n\nThat was a pulse of Psychomancy. And the rider was communicating with someone. Shiv’s first thoughts were to knock the rider out or kill them if he had to, but he stopped himself. A thought came to him—one that might just allow him to affect all the other dragons and their riders at once.\n\nShiv directed his own Psychomancy into the mind of the rider, and he tasted the rider’s pain and terror. More importantly, Shiv felt how the rider was broadcasting wavelengths of Psychomancy across the world. Shiv wasn’t sure what kind of Skill Evolution this was, but it seemed to be focused on range and telecommunications. The rider’s mana was supple and soft—practically like gas compared to Uva’s solid threads, but it traveled far and fast, and as it came crashing back, Shiv received fragments of memory and flashes of insight from other minds.\n\nAnd the opportunities for havoc just keep coming. Inspiration struck Shiv. He had more than one angle to hit the other riders now. Maybe all at the same time. The rider’s Psychomancy turned against Shiv. The poor bastard was trying to push him out. And he would have been able to do it too if Shiv didn’t snap the rider’s other arm by the elbow just then. Pain consumed the rider thereafter, and while he was busy wailing in pain, Shiv pushed deeper into his mind and prepared to do something unpleasant.\n\nIf the rider thought a few broken bones were bad, he was going to hate just how bad things were about to get.\n\nShiv activated his Icon of the Paindrinker and immediately started tearing himself apart. He bound his mind tighter to the rider’s, and while Shiv grunted in discomfort as his blood mingled with the dragon’s, the rider’s cries reached a fever pitch. Shiv telepathically urged the rider to focus, to push through some of the pain to contact his comrades.\n\n“Only they can save you now,” Shiv told the rider. “Call out to them. Let them know what’s happening. Carry the hurt across for me.”\n\nAnd trapped in the depths of his own anguish, the rider didn’t realize what Shiv was trying to do. So he cast out to his fellow riders, his Psychomantic broadcast lined not only with a plea for help, but an escalating flood of new and exotic suffering born of Shiv’s mind-linked self-mutilation.\n\n***\n\n“Gold-10! Gold-10! Respond!” Gold-01 watched as Gold-10’s dragon fell. It was tumbling tail over head, turning over and over as it failed to regain its bearings. The dragon was wailing, clawing at its own torso while its head whipped about in pain.\n\nGold-01 struggled to contain his own horror. He had never seen a dragon react like that. He’d seen them die in battle. Seen them get ripped apart by other dragons in mana storms, or reduced to bloody paste by Master Dynamancers. But to make a dragon make these kinds of torturous noises…\n\nGold-01 focused. He tried to get his Divination Matrix to zero in on the target. Three seconds ago, the target briefly reappeared as Gold-10’s dragon jumped back in time. But then the target Chrono-Jumped too, and now all Gold-01 had was a pulsing imprint of where the target used to be. In the interim, Gold-07, 08, 02, and 09 all moved in to assist Gold-10.\n\n“Keep it still!” Gold-02 called out to the others. “Gold-07. Biomancy. Now. It’s missing an arm.”\n\nThe other riders commanded their own dragons to hold 10’s dragon in place, to keep it from falling further, so they could figure out what exactly was going on. But as they worked to save the dragon, a telepathic cry crashed over them. The pulse of mana was accompanied by a nightmarish howl—a scream coming from Gold-10.\n\n“Fuck!” Gold-09 flinched. “You guys hearing this?”\n\n“Yeah…” Gold-02 breathed. A building dread flooded the group’s shared Psychomancy field.\n\nBut then came something else. As Gold-10’s message fully sank into them, it came with an explosion of agony unlike anything any of them had ever known.\n\nGold-10’s screams proved contagious. His cries continued as the others in his squadron let out hisses and groans at first, before barking out shouts of pain. Then, a scream erupted from Gold-08. And things all fell apart from there.\n\nGold-01’s eyes rolled as he felt himself getting torn apart from the inside. At the same time, he learned what it was like for someone to peel the flesh off their back and detach every last one of their muscles from their bones. This pain was on another level. Words failed to capture the immense torture that consumed them. And it just kept building with each passing wave.\n\nAnd with the squadron’s riders drowning in trauma, their dragons reacted with confusion and agitation. They flared their shells and skipped back in time, trying to avoid threats. They slowed time and searched for the unseen foe that was hurting their masters. The only good thing was how they went unaffected by Gold-10’s Psychomantic broadcast.\n\nHuman pain wasn’t the same as dragon pain.\n\nGold-01 did everything he could to push through the hurt and refocus. If he could reach 10, stop this at the source—\n\nThen, another presence brushed his mind. Gold-01 shuddered. The new mind that pressed against him was human. Or so 01 thought. Yet, there was something off about its nature, off about its shape. Visions flashed through 01’s eyes. Memories cast by the strange mind into 10 before it was filtered over to the rest of the group.\n\nIn scenes that resembled feverish dreams, 01 saw himself staring down at Gold-10 in a dark place, a cavern of blood, fragmented bone, and shifting tendons. Light spilled in through a narrow gap, and it showed just how badly injured Gold-10 was. Both of his arms were broken, and he was screaming—screaming as he broadcast telepathic messages to the rest of the group, begging them to come save him. But his mind was also being filled with external sources of pain. By traumatic memories that didn’t belong to him.\n\nAnd through the mist of pain and near-madness, 01’s perception skipped, and he found himself staring through Gold 10’s gaze. For the first time, 01 laid eyes on his enemy. He saw a pair of bright, white irises amidst pools of shadow and blood glaring back at him.\n\nThen, the adversary spoke for the first time. “Get ready, riders. Because it’s my turn to be the monster. And your turn to be the prey.”\n\nIce-cold horror flooded Gold-01’s blood. His senses reeled back, and as he found himself inside his own capsule again, his racing mind realized a terrifying truth.\n\nThe enemy was hiding inside Gold-10’s dragon. And he had Gold-10 with him.\n\n“Gold—” Gold-01 bit back a scream. “Gold-Primary! Pull back! Everyone pull—”\n\nBut it was too late. Far too late. A tremor of mana resonance passed through Gold-01’s dragon as a shroud of gold ignited inside Gold-10’s dragon. Gold-01’s dragon reacted, forming its own temporal shell, but without 01 directing specific commands, it rushed in for the kill, moving on bestial instinct rather than a rider’s intellect. And through the windows of his capsule, 01 could see the other dragons in his squadron reacting the same way.\n\nThey were closing in on the enemy—on an enemy that could physically tear a dragon apart.\n\n“No—no!” Gold-01 cried, trying to fight through the building tidal waves of pain. “Stop!” He cast his thoughts at his own dragon. “STOP!” That telepathic message went across. His dragon halted. The other dragons in his squadron didn’t. They just kept closing on where 10 was. Where the Heroic-Tier enemy was.\n\nThen—and for no obvious reason at all—Gold-10’s dragon slammed torso-first into Gold-08.\n\nAnd that was when the slaughter started\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 112 (II) Surface [IV]\nTarget length: ~3000 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "112 (II)\n\nSurface [IV]\n\nSkill Gained: Deception 1 (Common)\n\nPsychomancy 12 > 13\n\nDread Aura 89 > 91\n\nShiv triggered his Song of the Vigilant to focus through the pain. He ripped his Psychomancy out from the rider—Callsign Gold-10. Real name Dignity Huevero. Shiv groaned as he tried to shake off the memory spillover. Uva had warned him about stuff like this. It made him feel like he was himself and not at the same time. Good thing I got to practice believing I was a potato for a while earlier. Re-focusing my mind might have been a bit harder otherwise.\n\nA Woundeater snaked across his body and consumed all his current injuries. At once, the bulk of Shiv’s pain faded, but Gold-10 kept screaming as the Paindrinker continued affecting him. Shiv stopped time. Gold-10’s screeching went silent. Pressing himself against the open chasm of mangled flesh he made of the dragon’s left arm, Shiv stared out from his personal “stabbing port” and tracked where the other enemies were with his Biomancy. Two more dragons got within two hundred meters of him. That left just one dragon outside that distance.\n\nGood. I can work with that.\n\nShiv stopped time. As soon as his temporal shell fused over his body, the dragons triggered their Chronomancy as well. He felt their Strider of the Unbending Path Skills activate in tandem with his. A shuddering vibration passed through Shiv’s time-armor. 10 seconds—no, 9. I still have an anchor back at the Surface Gateway. Let’s see how many dragons and riders I can kill in 9 seconds.\n\nHe seized the dragon he was in and spiked it into its nearest counterpart. A massive collision shook the dragon’s insides, and Shiv let out a shout of exertion as he worked to get his stabbing port in line with the dragon he was trying to stab. The body of another dragon came into sight. It was still twenty meters away from Shiv.\n\nTwenty meters was nothing when you could change the size of your knife.\n\nHe pushed his upper body out from the wound and slashed. The Skysplitter’s Size-Shifting Enchantment activated. It expanded from a thirty-five-centimeter dagger to a hundred-meter-long blade and crashed against the other dragon’s neck.\n\nThe beast’s scales shattered but held together. The softer tissues they were supposed to protect did not.\n\nShiv’s Deepest Edge carried the cut through veins, tendons, tissues, and more. Blood erupted from the dragon’s jaws. He cut it twice more for good measure. The bones in its neck parted then. The dragon’s head slumped over at an awkward angle as it fell from the sky, trailing blood from between its serried fangs.\n\nAnother dragon accelerated toward him. Shiv spiked his gravitic field twenty times. Gold-10 combusted and then turned to bloody mist beside him. Something inside Shiv cringed. Shit. Adept-Tier Toughness. Godsdammit, I wanted to keep him as a prisoner…\n\nShiv twisted the dragon he was in to face the dragon that was coming at him—and cursed as a stream of Necromancy exploded just a few meters under him. The dragon Shiv was inside of turned black inside and out. Its organs withered. Its scales darkened. A piece of its soul broke. Suddenly, its Chronomancy winked out, and it went still. Shiv realized what had happened in an instant. The thing that shattered inside it was a skill—its strongest skill. Chronomancy was lost to this dragon. It would never be able to stop the pace of time again.\n\nA terrible feeling churned in Shiv’s gut as he extended his blade to two hundred meters and drove it into the chest of the dragon that had unleashed the beam. The tip of the Skysplitter sang out as adamantine greeted adamantine. But where he failed to pierce the dragon’s barding, its insides were punctured by his progressing stab. The golden-scaled behemoth reeled back, clutching its chest. But it didn’t die. Not until Shiv dragged his blade across its throat.\n\n***\n\n“GOLD-01! GOLD-01! MY DRAGON—MY DRAGON’S DEAD! I’M FALLING I’M FUCKING FALLING—”\n\n“GOLD-8! NO!”\n\nScreams exploded over and over in Gold-01’s mind as he watched the disaster unfold. A massive, gleaming blade had materialized and had burst free from Gold-10’s dragon—from the wound where its left arm used to be. Gold-02’s dragon fell. And now Gold-08 was going down too. An explosion of force deformed the insides of Gold-10’s dragon as it was unnaturally ripped out of position. The enemy Pathbearer was dragging it around from the inside.\n\nDynamancy, Gold-01 guessed.\n\nAn entire patch of the dragon came apart in spilling chunks of festering flesh. Gold-01’s heart screamed in pain. Gold-01 loved dragons. They were great and terrible creatures, and Gold-10’s dragon was as mortally wounded as any dragon could be. Its Magical Resistance had been broken at some point, and a subsequent beam of Necromancy carved deep into its soul.\n\nGold-01 couldn’t feel Gold-10’s mind either. Gold-01 tried not to think about that.\n\nThe squadron had been drawn out of position trying to save one of their own, and now they were paying the price. Two riders dead. Three dragons slain. They couldn’t afford these losses. Not with the siege of Blackedge still ongoing.\n\nThere will come a time, Henry. There will come a time when you must sever your arm to save your body. It will maim your heart forever. But you must do it. This is the darkest part of being a leader. This is where Pathbearers are broken. Master Irene’s voice surfaced in his mind.\n\nHe hadn’t thought about her in years. He hadn’t thought about her since the Stygia Raid… Since he shot her down over the skies of Vulketh. He tried not to think about her. Gold-01 thought she was his wound, his severed limb.\n\nHe was wrong. This was the moment he cut off his arm and mauled his heart. This was the time he sacrificed one to save the others.\n\n“Gold-10… I’m sorry…” Gold-01 said. He didn’t realize when he started crying, or if Gold-10 could hear him, or if—\n\nIt didn’t matter. He cycled his Necro-Thrower and fired. He struck Gold-10’s dragon in the back. More corrosive foulness consumed the dragon’s golden scales. Gold-01 felt like he just tore out his own heart. “Gold-Primary. Break contact and fire on Gold-10!”\n\nA flood of reluctance and trauma washed through Gold-01 from the other riders, but they listened. They were good riders. Good soldiers. They knew. They just refused to accept until he ordered it. They had fought together for years, starting as little more than wyvern riders. The dragons had been with them for a decade as well. Gold-Primary was a squadron of Master-Tier riders, and now, for the first time in years, they were going to need to train new riders to make up for their casualties.\n\nThe massive blade swaying back and forth through the air shrank until it vanished from sight. A half-second thereafter, a small shape exploded out from inside Gold-10’s dragon and slammed hard into Gold-06’s dragon. 10’s dragon came apart in a blossom of viscera and decaying flesh—but the pieces promptly combusted and dissolved as the small shape accelerated even faster. It tore clean through the neck of Gold-06’s dragon—beheading it before Gold-01 could react.\n\nOnly then did Gold-01’s Divination Matrix respond. It highlighted the target. They glowed a deep violet, and Gold-01 snarled as he tried to turn his Necro-Thrower on the target.\n\nIt’s him! Gold-01’s mind screamed. The enemy Hero—\n\nHe didn’t get to finish that thought, as everything around the target blasted outward in a cataclysmic explosion. A wall of flame and force crashed into Gold-01 just as he fired his Necro-Thrower. His dragon was launched backward. One of its wings dislocated from the sheer whiplash. The beam cut skyward and struck nothing, and that was the last thing Gold-01 saw as another three waves of crushing force smashed into his dragon and drove him headfirst into the ceiling of his capsule.\n\n***\n\n4 seconds ago…\n\nStrider of the Unbending Path 123 > 124\n\nAdamantine Adaption 156 > 157\n\nInertial Overdrive 106 > 107\n\nIt didn’t take long for the dragon to start rotting around Shiv. Necromancy was horrifying in the way that it made you less with each hit it inflicted. Gold tarnished and withered into flaking blackness. Organs shriveled. Blood dissolved. Bones crumbled away into ash. In seconds, Shiv’s meat shield started decomposing around him, coming apart in body and spirit. He'd expected them to hold back a little longer since he was effectively using one of their own as a shield, but once again, the other riders adapted.\n\nAnd that was the biggest difference between these Pathbearers and the ones he'd fought before. They learned. Constantly. This entire exchange wasn’t a clash of force against force or strength on strength, but choice against choice. Shiv had his speed and surprise going for him. They had numbers, Chronomancy, and Necromancy.\n\nNecromancy that was about to punch through the flesh of this dragon and set Shiv off like a mana bomb at any point.\n\nGuess we all have to make ugly choices at some point, Shiv thought. Now. Time for me to make mine.\n\nHe cast his Skysplitter in the distance again. He didn’t care where it went, so long as it was away from here. The glow of Necromancy faded, but the dragon was still falling apart around Shiv. Time for a new plan: Shove myself down another dragon’s throat after stunning them with my inertial detonation. Yeah, this is gonna hurt…\n\nShiv spiked his gravitic field fifty times. He started breaking apart like the dragon he hid within. The air around him exploded with fire and displaced kinetic energy, and he burst out from the dragon’s body in a rush of speed. Blood gushed out from his eyes and ears as he sailed through the air toward the densest concentration of dragons. Darkness and crimson danced around the corners of his vision. Shiv groaned as he fought hard not to black out.\n\nFive dragons reacted to his sudden appearance. He could see the Necromancy crystals on their backs brightening. But that was as far as they got. Shiv burst his inertial sheath. A solid wall of destruction surged out in a rippling wave. The sheer amount of force released also folded Shiv in half at the point of his lower spine.\n\nThe Deathless let out a ragged cry of pain—and then reverted time to a second ago and repeated the same action.\n\nHe detonated his sheath again. His body broke again. His temporal shell reached the breaking point. He cast himself back in time once more. Shiv shot forward and burst his sheath again. His Chronomancy broke, but before it came apart entirely, he activated his Outside Context Problem.\n\nA rush of coldness passed through Shiv as he focused on his senses. Everything around him was on fire. His inertial detonation spread wider and wider, displacing clouds and dragging dragons along in its wake. Shiv himself barely looked human—felt more like a mangled bag of flesh containing shards of displaced bone. He was so badly injured that if his Song of the Vigilant wasn’t active, he wouldn’t have been able to finish the spell.\n\nA Woundeater passed through him, swallowing injury after injury as his body snapped back into shape. Shiv let out a slight groan as he looked around. The time dragons had been ragdolled in different directions. Most of them seemed to have broken wings. A few weren’t responsive at all. It was a testament to just how tough they were that they didn’t die outright. Maybe the same couldn’t be said for the riders.\n\nThe warrior in Shiv called out to him, demanded that he keep pursuing them—that he finish off each and every one now that they were scattered and vulnerable. But he could hear Adam’s voice in the back of his head. Uva’s, too. The Necrotechs had responded fast, and if they could send out one team of dragons this quickly, they could unleash another.\n\nTime to vanish, Shiv decided, triggering his Skysplitter’s Spatial Anchor. He teleported to the blade in a blast of displaced space and promptly smashed through a verdant hill. Grass and dirt exploded over Shiv, and he spiked his gravitic field up to right himself. As he sailed through the air, his helmet broke apart, and Shiv cursed.\n\nTime to replace this suit of armor too. It’s done. The inertial detonations are hell on my Toughness, but damn if they aren’t powerful as all hell.\n\nHe triggered Chameleon and Silhouette as he decelerated to avoid environmental destruction and kept flying low, waiting to see if dragons would catch sight of him again.\n\nSeconds passed. Everything was quiet. Shiv let out a breath and came to a stop. “Well. Guess I finally managed to lose them. Time to keep—”\n\nJust then, he caught something in the corner of his vision. A star glowing brighter than most, just over the Tidewall.\n\nHe turned. The star grew even brighter. Shiv's eyebrows made it halfway up his forehead before what he'd assumed to be a star arrived right in front of his face, and then he found out how it felt for one's body to be reduced to its component atoms.\n\nRevenant 41 > 42\n\nShiv blinked as he respawned.\n\nThe world was burning. A column of blinding fire drilled clean through the land and swelled out, scouring everything between the clouds and the earth to the edge of the horizon and beyond.\n\nEverything in sight faded into the blinding dawn of an exploding sun.\n\nShiv's mind remained blank for a moment. Then the cold started getting to him. He needed to drain vitality, but—\n\nWhat the fuck was that? What in the Broken Moon just killed me?\n\n***\n\n10 seconds ago…\n\nRoland’s eyes narrowed as he watched the figure emerge victorious from their battle against the squadron of dragons. A massive shroud of destruction was birthed from their body every time they released all the kinetic energy they had built up. Roland wasn’t exactly sure what kind of Reflexes Skill that was, but he knew it was Heroic-Tier at the least, and that this Pathbearer wasn’t friendly to Sullain.\n\nThey were fighting the vicar’s patrols, tearing across the land and air like a fast-moving mana bomb. It was like they were deliberately drawing attention, trying to provoke notice.\n\nThey’re a distraction, Roland realized. I knew they couldn’t be operating alone. It wouldn’t make sense. Singleton Pathbearers are usually Shadows or Assassins. This one seems like a Heroic-Tier Vanguard…\n\nThe Pathbearer vanished from the sky just then. Roland thought they used their Chronomancy again, but the Town Lord noticed a pulse of spatial magic about four kilometers away. He sent one of his arrows on approach. Whoever this stranger was, he wanted a better look at them. If this was another one of the Inquisition’s special operatives, he wanted to know why—\n\nThen, as the unknown Pathbearer launched themselves across the land with a pulse of force, their skull-shaped helmet broke apart.\n\nRoland’s heart skipped a beat. His stomach rebelled. For a moment, he thought he was looking at Harlon—but no. Harlon was dead. This was his son. This was the Omenborn born from the ritual that killed Rose, that took from Roland his daughter.\n\nThis was Tanner Lowe. The boy who called himself Shiv.\n\nHe looked different. His irises were a brilliant white now, and he was practically twice as large as he used to be. He had skills. Skills meant a Path. And that meant the reports—his Biomancers claimed to have recovered multiple bodies that belonged to Shiv, but Roland had been occupied every second since the battle had begun—he had constantly—\n\nRoland’s heart plunged into an abyss of cold terror. This couldn’t be happening. He refused to even entertain the idea.\n\nTanner was accelerating toward the Tidewall, clad in the vestiges of death. That meant—that could only mean one thing—\n\nNecrotech. But how? Could he have been in league with the Necrotechs all this time? Another Abyssal Lord trying to undercut Sullain?\n\nRoland gritted his teeth. He couldn’t allow this. He wouldn’t accept this.\n\nThe Starhawk’s light spilled out from Roland as his eyes began to glow. He had been a fool. Too soft. Too weak. Too—he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t just murder a child. And now he was paying for his mercy. Now, the Omenborn was on his way home.\n\n“No,” Roland growled.\n\n“Lord Arrow?” his personal Psychomancer said, taken aback by the sudden spike of terror she sensed in the Town Lord.\n\nRoland’s soul was his arrows. But they also contained the boundless power of the Starhawk. The promise of a dying star’s last glow. And in a fit of dread and fury, Roland primed 244 of these arrows and directed them down to Old Santabar.\n\nAnd so they fell. Like shooting stars, traveling from the upper atmosphere to the earth in an instant. He felt three of the Solar arrows hit Tanner. He felt the Omenborn’s body break, burn—but also endure for a moment. Roland’s eyes widened.\n\nAdamantine Adaption?\n\nThen the other 241 arrows crashed into him.\n\nIn a flare of radiance likely visible all the way from the broken fragments of the moon, half of the Old Santabar region vanished beneath a blinding pillar of purifying flame.\n\nRoland fell to his knees, more emotionally shaken than magically exhausted. As his personal guard and aides rushed to help him back up, he wasn’t focused on them. Rather, he stared down from the other arrows he left in the void, and he watched. Watched and made sure there was nothing left of the Omenborn. He watched.\n\nAnd kept watching…\n\nHe has to be dead… He has to be… He has to be…"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 113 (I) Block\nTarget length: ~3000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Let me tell you something, Sijik. I hate Roland Arrow. I've hated him since the first time I laid eyes on him. I hated him when we were in the same class. I hated him every time he humiliated me during sparring. Every time he humiliated me during small group battles. Every time he humiliated me during the mock war engagements we waged over and over again.\n\nYou cannot conceive of the depths of my loathing. You cannot understand what it is like to hate someone so much that it builds up like sediment in your bones, like particulates in your blood.\n\nYou wake up hating this person. You sleep hating this person. You eat with the weight of this person on your tongue.\n\nHate, hate, hate is what I feel for Roland Arrow. But I also understand him. I respect his skill and the danger he poses as a Pathbearer. So no, we're not just going to walk up to Blackedge and simply demand that he drop the wards and let us in. We are not going to send 100,000 Pathbearers to their deaths against the single most dangerous man I've ever seen pick up a bow.\n\nDo you know how brutally Roland Arrow humiliated our combat instructor? The man was a Master. The man was a legend in his time. A legend in his own mind. And he resigned. He resigned before the semester was over. Roland made a mockery of him.\n\nYou were not there at the Battle of the Eclipse. At the battle above the chasm. But I was. For all my hatred, for all Roland represents, for the one he serves, for his arrogance, his hubris, for leading my wife and my brother into a slaughter in the depths that they never came back from, for a war that should have never taken place, for an Ascendant that seeks to betray us all, I understand what he truly is. I understand the threat he poses. I understand that he is a Pathbearer without peers.\n\nNever bring up this suggestion to me again, Inquisitor. You may not value the lives of these Pathbearers, but I do.\n\nI come intending to inflict righteous retribution on Roland Arrow. And I will give anything to see it done. I will give anything to see my daughter retrieved. I will give anything, anything. I will sacrifice myself, not them. Not meaninglessly. They are good men. Good women. Good bots. And you will not waste their lives this way. We do this strategically. Carefully. Properly.\n\nI will give Roland Arrow nothing for free. Not another second of my time. And not the lives of the lowliest mercenary.\n\n-City Lord Havel Van Stormhalt to Inquisitor Sijik\n\n113 (I)\n\nBlock\n\nGold-01 awoke with a scream. His flesh was frying, his legs felt like they were folded the wrong way, his tailbone felt like someone had been working on it all day with a chisel, and his insides—Great One—his insides felt like they were liquid. Searing pain flowed through his body, and he wished he were unconscious again. As his vision stopped spinning, he realized the inside of his capsule was glowing with heat. No wonder he was in so much pain; he was being cooked alive.\n\nVeins of the Stormdiver 88 > 91\n\n\"Godsdamn it,\" Gold-01 growled. He drew upon his feeble Aeromancy, and he circulated a gust of wind around himself. It was moments like these that he wished he had Cryomancy; moments like these, he wished he'd also devoted more time to improving his Toughness. He tried to unbuckle himself from the capsule, only to let out another bark of pure agony as his broken ribs sank into a ruptured organ.\n\n\"Great One,\" Gold-01 whimpered. His words slurred into incoherence. His mind reeled. How did he end up here? What just... And then his memories returned to him. It was a massive blast that smashed into him and his dragon, that tore him across the world, that drove his head high against the ceiling of his capsule, knocking him out.\n\nHe ripped off his flight mask and felt at his head.\n\nBlood trickled down Gold-01's skull, soaking his hair red. But that was how he knew he was still alive. Gritting his teeth, Gold-01 fought through the pain and reached into the emergency compartment within his capsule. It was badly dented. The capsule was practically curved in on itself. The left side of the entire compartment was folded inward.\n\nGold-01 simply stared in disbelief. He didn't know anything that could have done that to Adamantine. Frankly, he didn't believe it was possible. Adamantine was supposedly unbreakable for most Pathbearers. But he had been fighting a Hero. A Hero at the very least.\n\nAnd then other memories returned to Gold-01. Torturous memories. Memories of his squadron being cut down. Of other dragons taking cuts along their neck, blood gushing out from their eyes and jaws as they fell. He remembered the dragons caught in the immediate vicinity of the blast. He was sure that he saw one vanish altogether, flayed out of existence by the blast. The others were flung across the world, cast like insects caught in the grip of a hurricane. And his comrades, his fellow riders… He didn't know what their condition was. He needed to find them.\n\nBut first… Gold-01 bit back a snarl as he finally managed to open the compartment. He pulled the dented cover off, but the sudden motion made him double over, and he puked all over himself. Blood mingled with half-digested chunks of this morning's breakfast. He was bleeding internally.\n\nHe needed the potion. He needed it now. He picked up the healing potion, and he found his hands were shaking too much. He controlled his movements. He bade his quivering fingers to slow. He remembered drinking potions before while badly injured during a prior mission, spilling half of them down his chin and chest, wasting precious resources. Gold-01 focused. Gold-01 carefully placed it against his lip and tipped it backward.\n\nThe potion was foul-tasting. It was like what one might think a slug would taste like if it had been ground up and laced with bitter acid. The healing potion crawled down his throat, making him choke for a moment just from how thick and viscous it was. But slowly, it worked through his body. It flowed through his veins, and his natural healing accelerated dramatically. That didn't do much for the pain, but he did feel parts of him knit back together inside.\n\nWounds closed, and there was a gradual itch that grew and grew, an itch he knew to be the mending of vessels and the regeneration of his bones. The broken pieces that still remained inside of him would need to be extracted by a Biomancer later, as that was to take place alongside a cancer examination. No matter how badly wounded he was, he gave it good odds that he would probably develop more than a few tumors.\n\nHe leaned back against his seat, then hissed as the heat returned. The moment without the Aeromancy circulating the air returned the temperature within his capsule to an unbearable level. He needed to get out. He wouldn't be able to rest inside here. So, Gold-01 reached down. He found the latch meant to pop the top part of his capsule. He pulled. The latch was stuck. Gold-01 let out a whimper. He didn't know if he had the strength.\n\nBut then he mustered himself. He mustered himself as he remembered what Master Irene said to him. If you don't have the strength, you will die. You will die alone. You will drown inside your capsule. You will be pulled under the water while riding in your harness. You will die, and you will fail your squadron. Remember this. If you do die, die making a difference. Do not let the Great Enemy take you freely. Don't let your death become an avalanche.\n\n\"It won't,\" Gold-01 said. He was replying to a woman long dead. A woman he'd killed. But he still had to tell someone. He still needed to talk to someone. Gods, he wished she were here. He drew in a deep breath. His lungs ached. The hyperheated air burned his lungs and boiled his stomach, but he needed the oxygen for one last burst of strength.\n\nGold-01 reached down with both hands. He pulled hard. The latch clicked, and then something inside it broke. But just as hopelessness threatened to overtake him, the top part of the capsule burst off. The bolts holding it in place shot into the air. But with how deformed it was, it snapped off to the side and clipped Gold-01 along the left temple, opening a gash, and it slammed him face-first against a piece of hyperheated metal. Gold-01 let out a shriek. He pulled his face back. But the damage was done. It seared clean through his flesh, parting skin, muscle, and touching bone. He let out another groan, a groan that almost became a sob until he mastered himself.\n\n\"Can't touch it,\" Gold-01 slurred. He slowly rose on shaking feet, and he clambered upon his seat as he stared out over the blasted horizon. Gold-01's eyes widened. \"This… Am I in hell?\" he whispered to himself, and it was a proper question, for the horizon of Old Santabar had been changed.\n\nWhere there were once rolling fields of green and mountains running across the land like frozen tidal waves, ranging for kilometers beyond, now Old Santabar resembled a desert of glass. Ash rained down from above. A shroud of smog blocked the sky and the fragments of the Great One's egg from Gold-01's gaze. Up to his right, he saw the landscape running downward in a gleaming slope, a slope that curved and rose again. He was in a crater.\n\nA crater.\n\nGold-01's mind spun. The blast the Heroic-Tier Pathbearer unleashed earlier had been massive. But could it have been this massive? Could they have had this much power within them? If they did, then what was the point of the chase? What was the point of any of it? If they were that powerful, why didn’t he just finish them all instantly? Why bother with the chase at all? Just who the fuck was he?\n\nGold-01 felt sick. Did the enemy Hero do all that just to toy with him? Toy with the riders who fought alongside Gold-01? What was this? What kind of monster did the System make Gold-01 face?\n\nGold-01 looked out across the desolate wasteland, and he cast his Psychomancy mana outward, a pulsing ripple that spread far. \"This is Gold-01,\" he stammered mentally. He watched as his translucent mana crawled across the land. It kept going, but he couldn't see anything for miles. He couldn't see.\n\nAnd then he did see something. He saw something he didn't want to see—he didn't want to accept.\n\nHe saw the glistening golden scales of a dragon, but it was half-melted, half-fused to the ground. Its lower body was gone. Just gone. There were no remains. No blood. It just ended. Fused into the glassed ground, the dragon's eye sockets were hollow. There were small embers burning within, and smoke seeped out between its remaining scales as well.\n\nIts ribs were showing, and on its back was a capsule, or what remained of one. It was little more than a melted funnel. Nothing but metal slag. If there had been anyone inside, there wasn't anymore.\n\n\"Hello?\" Gold-01 called out. Psychomancy pulsed out from him. He strained his Master-Tier Psychomancy as hard as he could. \"Hello? Anyone? Gold Primary? Anyone? Gold-02? Gold-7? Gold-03?\"\n\nHe was calling out to dead comrades now. And Gold-01 felt himself on the verge of breaking. He prided himself on his focus and iron will. But the hell before him, the sudden isolation, it was getting to be too much, too much. And then as he turned, he saw something else, a jutting curve, a series of ribs folded over his capsule. And then Gold-01 remembered. He remembered that he had a dragon too.\n\nHis dragon was gone. His dragon was... He found himself staring at three broken ribs, three broken ribs that were burned, scorched clean. Suddenly Gold-01 looked away, sinking fully into shell shock, doing everything he could not to consider his own dragon's death. The dragon he had fought alongside for so long. His dragon’s name… His…\n\nGold-01 crushed that chain of thought with his Psychomancy. A trail of drool dribbled down his chin as he took his first shaky step out of his capsule. As his foot greeted the ground, a series of cracks sounded, traveling from his ankle up through his body. He could feel the broken bones left within him rattling. Gold-01 flinched at the sensation. He cast out another pulse of Psychomancy.\n\n\"Anyone, please, someone respond! Fucking someone, someone, somebody!\" Gold-01 was screaming at the end. He wasn't just calling out with his mind. He was calling out with his voice, his hoarse, burned voice. \"Central! Gold-02! Anyone! Anyone!\"\n\nHe fell to his knees, and the glass was burning hot as well. It seared his flesh even through the enchanted leathers he was wearing. It was supposed to modulate his temperature to suit any environment. This was an environment that no one could survive in. Gold-01 held himself. He hugged himself as he swept his gaze across the land. He hugged himself as he strained his Awareness, trying—hoping that there was another survivor, as he looked, as he searched for any sign of life, any sign of life at all.\n\nBut there was nothing, nothing but him and a half-melted dragon four hundred meters away. Nothing. And it was all because of one Pathbearer, that Hero, that cruel monster that toyed with him and butchered his fellow riders.\n\nGold-01 slowly lifted his head. His sorrow was overwhelming, but deep in the waters of his misery came another emotion, came a dark and building sensation. Gold-01 didn't know hate before this moment. Gold-01 didn't know the urge to commit himself completely to a personal quest, to give everything he had to murder one other man, one other Pathbearer, one that took so much from him—\n\nGold-01 cried out as he felt his life force get ripped out of his body.\n\nThe world around him blurred and went gray, and the remnants of his strength whistled out of him like air from a balloon.\n\n***\n\n\"Godsdamn, I got lucky,\" Shiv thought to himself as he drained the only surviving rider he could find. \"And godsdamn, is this poor bastard unlucky.\" As the rider spasmed, Shiv genuinely felt bad for him.\n\nJudging from the few dragon bones remaining nearby, this guy likely survived because his dragon crashed back-first into the ground, pinning his capsule in place, while the dragon took the brunt of the blast.\n\nAdamantine Adaption 157 > 163\n\nWoundeater 85 > 86\n\nStrider of the Unbending Path 124 > 128\n\nInertial Overdrive 107 > 111\n\nAnd what a hell of a damn blast that was. Shiv barely felt any pain when he died earlier. His Adamantine Adaption responded to the first few hits, but all the ones that followed were immediately too much. He had no chance of surviving that, not a single damn bit.\n\nThat was probably why he gained so much of a massive leap in terms of Adamantine Adaption. But why did he get a leap for Strider as well? For Inertial Overdrive?\n\nShiv's paranoia was at an all-time high as the rider groaned and began to seize. The Deathless kept his gaze high, staring at the skies above, waiting for another salvo to descend to obliterate the land once more.\n\nIf that attack came from Vicar Sullain or his Necrotechs, Shiv didn't know what to say. Their dragons were here, as were their observation posts. If they had that kind of firepower, why didn't they use it on Blackedge? Why were they wasting it on him? Was he that much of a threat? Did they really have that powerful and potent of an arsenal that they could just casually expend?\n\nParts of him wanted to say no, but after what he'd just experienced…\n\nShiv felt a shudder run through his body. The Abyss had been portrayed as a place of deep mystery, of nightmarish danger. Shiv believed that for most of his life, he never doubted the fact that few Pathbearers had managed to venture more than a few kilometers deep than the chasm.\n\nBut after less than ten minutes on the surface, he'd encountered an observation post, was ambushed by ten time-jumping dragons and their riders, and then was immediately killed as a series of arrows infused with what felt like the power of small stars. Arrows that turned his body from a matter of biology into a function of physics.\n\nA shadowy cocoon formed over Shiv as the last trickles of vitality were siphoned out from the unfortunate rider.\n\nYeah, sorry about that, Shiv thought. The rider went limp. He crashed down against the glassed surface of the ground that used to be rolling hills, soil, dirt, nature, and all that. Now, now it was just a blasted wasteland. Shiv had made some decimated wastelands in his own time, but this was on another level.\n\nIf Inertial Overdrive is Heroic, then is this the power of a Legendary Pathbearer? Shiv thought to himself. The revelation was as terrifying as it was inspiring. If this was what lay ahead, well, he couldn't wait to be able to break things on this magnitude.\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 113 (II) Block\nTarget length: ~2900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Shiv paused as he considered what his skills would be like when they became Legendary. Inertial Overdrive came with its own consequences. He became aware of one of those consequences when he overspiked himself right beside the rider he'd wanted to take hostage. Shiv just wanted to move faster, but the poor High Adept dissolved into nothing but bloody mist.\n\nShould have shoved the felling bastard into my cape. Still, Shiv thought, this was an awesome display of destruction. I just hope I don't experience it myself again. I still need to get to the city. How the hell am I going to do that? He looked up at the sky and frowned. Maybe I should just keep traveling underground, just keep going slowly for a long while. Maybe…\n\nAnd just then, a Veilpiercer slammed down on the ground next to him. A dimensional rift opened, and Adam zipped through. He came to a sudden halt immediately beside Shiv to see the Deathless fusing a new set of armor around himself.\n\n\"Adam,\" Shiv breathed. He gestured at the surrounding devastation and winced. \"I didn’t get hit by Necromancy. I was trying to—\"\n\n\"I know,\" Adam said. \"That was Father.\"\n\nShiv's eyes widened. \"What?\"\n\n\"That was my father,\" Adam repeated, his heart pounding fast. \"I saw the same skill recorded in the Educator’s tome. I saw...\" Adam trailed off. “This was done by my father. I'm sure of it. I was—I barely managed to avoid it by dashing back into my rift. But this was—”\n\nHis eyes widened. He looked past Shiv, and then he turned as well. There came a flash of color from the dense blanket of ash and smog above them. There came a blinding pulse. Just then, a brilliant needle tore through the clouds. It was followed by a few hundred other needles. No, not needles, arrows. They zipped across space in a blinding instant. Shiv activated his temporal shell.\n\nTime froze. Most of the arrows stopped. Some of them kept going.\n\nThe arrows that hunted him still were golden, and they tore across frozen time at twice the speed Shiv could move. He only managed ten spikes before they reappeared around him. The arrows collapsed around his person, and they came within a centimeter from striking—when they suddenly stopped.\n\nBecause they lost track of Shiv’s existence.\n\nOutside Context Problem 60 > 61\n\n“Fucking Roland,” Shiv snarled. “I knew he was planning to do this shit.”\n\n“Roland…” Rose breathed. “Oh, my love.”\n\nShiv shot her an annoyed glare, but then noticed how one of the arrows turned and faced Adam.\n\n***\n\nRoland’s trance broke. He took a moment to focus—to truly observe the other Pathbearer and—\n\nRoland gasped and stumbled back. His guard captain caught him before he could fall.\n\nAdam? My son. I almost just killed my own son… Why is he there? How is he here? Why did I fire at him?\n\nAn ill feeling fell over Roland, but just then, a massive shape twisted over the sky, its mouth opening a thousand times over like an impossible fractal as it descended to swallow Blackedge whole. It crashed down against the town’s wards, and some of the spell patterns flickered out.\n\nRoland saw some of the town’s Dynamancers collapse as they struggled against the eldritch beast’s weight. They stood on the borders of Blackedge, and they strained themselves to the limit and beyond. They needed him. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Not now.\n\nRoland hissed and took more levels out of his Toughness, Navigation, and Memory Skills, dedicating them to his Parallel Thinking.\n\nParallel Thinking 81 > 201 (Skill Evolution Imminent)\n\nSkill Evolution: Parallel Thinking (Adept) > Stacked Consciousness (Heroic)\n\nSuddenly, he could focus on multiple things at the same time. And he nearly dropped dead as his organs started failing from overstrain.\n\n“Biomancers,” Roland gasped. “Attend me.”\n\n***\n\nShiv let time resume as the arrows pulled away from him. Adam stared at them for a moment, and he swallowed.\n\n“Father?” Adam said.\n\nOne of the arrows shivered in the air, and then it motioned a nod.\n\nThe Young Lord bit his lip. And Shiv started getting cold again. He immediately positioned himself behind Adam, drew in a steadying breath, and glared at Rose.\n\n“If he shoots me and kills Adam, you'll be my witness.”\n\nRose frowned at him. “Roland would never harm our boy.”\n\n“Yeah, well, I’m here right now, so we can see if he wants Adam alive more than he wants me dead.”\n\nShiv re-emerged into existence. The arrows around him flinched in a surprisingly human way.\n\n“Shiv?” Adam breathed. He did a double-take just as he remembered Shiv’s existence. “What are you—���\n\n***\n\n“What?” Roland spat. He must’ve been going insane. A dying shriek came from the massive eldritch titan as a flood of brilliant arrows tore it apart from the inside. But while he handled the monster, the Omenborn… How did I lose track of the Omenborn?\n\nFor a second, it was like… like he didn’t exist at all…\n\n***\n\nShiv stepped behind Adam with his hands high. “Don’t godsdamned shoot me, Roland. Or you might cook your precious boy too.”\n\nAdam noticed Shiv maneuvering behind, and he scowled at the Deathless. \"Really?\" he breathed.\n\n\"Yeah, really,\" Shiv growled. As he looked at the many arrows, Shiv held up a finger, one in particular.\n\n\"Shiv,\" Adam hissed.\n\n\"What?\" Shiv growled. \"Your dad felling smote me from existence using the power of the sun. I'm allowed to be a little bit pissed off.\" One of the arrows drew a little closer to Shiv, and he immediately ducked behind Adam.\n\n“Shiv, there’s no point to this—”\n\n“If he wants to blow me up again, I'm going to have to rely on your Legendary armor of unbreakable nepotism. I’m not taking that shit to the face again.”\n\n\"I thought you enjoyed dying.\"\n\n\"Yeah, when I have someone to drain. Who was I going to drain if I didn't come upon that unlucky asshole over here?\" Shiv said, gesturing at the dead rider.\n\n\"Me, you idiot,\" Adam breathed. Shiv paused. Adam folded his arms. And he looked slightly embarrassed. “I wouldn't have just let you vanish from existence. That’s the entire reason I came. I rushed over because I thought there weren’t any survivors.”\n\nShiv stared at Adam for a moment. Then he grunted awkwardly. \"Yeah. Uh. Yeah, I guess. I guess that's right. So, uh, what the hells do we do now?\"\n\n\"Now?\" Adam stared at his father's arrows. \"Now we...\" And then the arrows receded. They shot back into the sky, moving so fast that Shiv could barely keep track of them. Barely. But as an experiment, he spiked his field more than a few times. Adam let out a cry as the force swept over him. Shiv went faster, faster. He spiked himself over sixty times.\n\nHis body was on the verge of breaking apart in an instant. His heart burst open, and Shiv cast himself back in time a second. He undid all his spikes of gravity. He returned to an unmoving state. His wounds were gone as well.\n\nThe arrows were still more than a little faster than he was while he was near death.\n\nWhat the hell kind of monster are you, Roland? Shiv thought to himself. As he considered that question, he clenched his fists and his fingers tapped on his blade. Whatever kind of monster you are, though, I'm still coming for your ass.\n\nOne of the arrows slipped back through the clouds as if threatening Shiv, and he ducked behind Adam again. The arrow retreated once more.\n\n“Yeah, that’s right, piss off, asshole,” Shiv growled.\n\n\"My father is not being an asshole,\" Adam snarled. His eyebrows were furrowed, small, patchy arcs of red hair climbing towards his forehead. \"He clearly had a good reason to shoot at you, and… and…”\n\n\"And what kind of reason was that?\" Shiv spat. \"I was trying to get away from the dragon cavalry—I did manage to get away from the dragons. I avoided all those beams of Necromancy just for him to obliterate me and an entire section of the landscape. Actually, if he could do that, no wonder he's been holding off Sullain so long. No wonder he's been able to defend Blackedge for two weeks on his own. He doesn't need us! Let's go back to the gate. Let's close it and just wait for him to win on his own while we kick up our feet!\"\n\nAdam took a step toward Shiv, and his eyes simmered with unbridled rage at even the suggestion. \"We are not doing that,\" the Gate Lord snarled.\n\nShiv frowned at Adam, but then he let out a sigh. \"Godsdamn it, all right, fine. So, what now?\"\n\n\"Now we keep going,\" Adam said. \"The observation posts here are either completely destroyed or buried beneath a tide of glass. We have an opening.\" And Adam held out a hand. \"I managed to capture one of their dimensional ships earlier.”\n\n\"Dimensional ships?\" Shiv blinked. \"Is that a thing?\"\n\n\"I don't know exactly what it is. It's a ship that has a dimensional gate. I boarded it. I managed to capture the people aboard it. And then I piloted it back over to our gateway.\" Adam briefly looked at his current dimensional pathway. It was slowly closing. \"What happened just now between you and my father might have been a misunderstanding. Were you wearing your armor?\"\n\n\"I'm always wearing my armor,\" Shiv said.\n\n\"Were you wearing your helmet?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Shiv paused. \"Well, no, my helmet fell apart in the last fight.\"\n\n\"There we have it,\" Adam said. \"He probably thought you were a Necrotech soldier. Why don't you just change the design of your armor, huh?\"\n\n\"What do you mean, change the design of my armor?\" Shiv folded his arms. \"So I'm going to have to change my design just because they happened to copy my style.\"\n\n\"They looked like that first.\"\n\n\"Well, how was I supposed to know that?\" Shiv replied.\n\n\"It doesn't matter anymore,\" Adam muttered, waving him off. \"He knows now. It won’t happen again. Just get moving. We have an opening, and my father's watching us. And since he hasn't struck you again...\"\n\n\"Yet,\" Shiv said.\n\n\"Yet,\" Adam begrudgingly agreed, \"you can continue on. You can fly. You can reach Blackedge, and you can finish your scouting run. But the fact he can reach us this far is…” Adam narrowed his eyes. “Far beyond Master-Tier.”\n\n“Yeah.” Shiv shook his head. “More like Legend. Your father’s a damned monster. And Adam. I’m still going to kick his ass down the line. For this and everything else. I’m stating it plainly for you. I’m not letting this shit go.”\n\nThe Gate Lord just stared. “Do you think you even can?”\n\n“I’ll just have to keep dying and find out.”\n\nAdam scoffed, but he clearly didn’t like what Shiv just said. “Go. Go, now. Finish the scouting run.”\n\nShiv let out a sigh. \"Fine.\" But he briefly looked around him. \"I'm going to probably take an alternative route instead of going straight over. I expect Sullain’s people to come investigating real soon.”\n\n\"Probably a good expectation,\" Adam said, nodding. \"Alright. Well...\" Adam awkwardly looked down and licked his lips, then his expression softened. He promptly patted Shiv on the shoulder. \"Glad you're not dead for good.\"\n\nShiv chuckled. \"Yeah, me too. Thanks for… coming to get me. I appreciate it.”\n\n\"I'll keep watching you,\" Adam said, smirking. Then he looked up as well. \"More than just me will be watching you now, I think.\" Adam's expression, however, was wistful, hopeful, even joyful. That wasn't anything Shiv felt towards Roland Arrow.\n\nThey parted then. Adam vanished back into his dimensional pathway before it closed entirely, and Shiv launched himself into the air. He pulled his gravitic field, and he flung himself forward, sailing high into the sky.\n\nTrailing particulates of ash washed over his body. But as he accelerated, they burst apart, and as he climbed his Inertial Overdrive, he thundered with energy. Soon, the horizon blurred towards Shiv, and his bones began to fracture. But he needed to get out of here. Anxiety built up inside him like a lump. It grew more and more painful, tighter with every second.\n\nHe waited for Roland to strike him down after all, now that Adam was gone. He waited for another of the arrows to descend from above. He waited, and Shiv prepared to spike himself more than ever. He tried to trigger one of the plagues he had stored in his body, but then he realized that piece was lodged in his old corpse.\n\nShit, Shiv thought to himself, I really need to figure out how to give myself diseases without using the Court Leviathan as a flesh donor..\n\nAnd as he burst through a layer of blackened clouds, a cocoon of searing heat and breaking ash peeled away from him like surface tension. Once more, the naked night sky greeted him. The glistening shards of the moon danced above, and in the distance, brilliant gems flashed and dimmed. Perhaps they were true stars, perhaps they were more of Roland's arrows. With how many scintillating constellations there were blanketing the sky above, pockmarked with clouds, Shiv couldn't be sure.\n\n\"Hey, Roland,\" he cried out, \"if you're listening to me right now, asshole, I'm not here to kill you or anything. The Omenborn Curse died the day I did on Blackedge. You're welcome for me dying to protect the town, by the way. You're also welcome for me helping your son out while you were sitting on your ass here for weeks. I guess you couldn't spare a few arrows for your own boy.\"\n\nA part of Shiv knew he was being petulant, foolish, even, for taunting someone so powerful for no real reason. But he couldn’t let it go. The bastard just blew him to pieces. Shiv didn't even have a chance to defend himself.\n\nMaster Roland Arrow… Shiv sighed. He imagined himself having good odds in a fight against just about any Master-Tier Pathbearer right now. Shiv thought he was going to show Roland the what-for when he got his Momentum Core, but now…\n\nShiv couldn't help but laugh. He had been delusional, and Roland Arrow was bullshit. If he tried fighting Roland Arrow now, he would get killed in an instant.\n\nBut I'm still coming for your ass, Shiv thought to himself. I am going to punch you in the face, Roland. I am going to beat your ass someday. We’re going to have it out.\n\nAnd then Shiv detonated his inertial sheath for the first time as he sped toward the Tidewall, toward Lost Angeles, toward a fast-approaching horizon.\n\n***\n\nBack at Blackedge, atop Starhawk's Perch, Roland Arrow was shaking. The bulk of his minds fought on. The bulk of his minds were still dedicated to defense, to bombarding the literal tide of eldritch entities Vicar Sullain had summoned today. They were new creatures on the field; strange, sinuous nightmares that consumed pockets of space.\n\nAnd from those pockets leaked more of the Outside. More of the Outside that spontaneously died as Chronomancy arrows exploded into existence and lit up the night.\n\nThe System allowed the eldritch in right now for some reason. The System wanted the vicar to have this power. Most mages—even Heroic or Legendary Dimensionalists—couldn't reach the Outside so easily.\n\nSomething was happening. The world was scheming for a grander war. Just like it always was.\n\nBut a part of Roland, that very foundation of who he was, that small bit of him that was utterly human, knelt within his personal chamber, shaking. Knelt as his Psychomancer tried to hopelessly fix whatever was broken inside of him, as his Biomancers gave what little bit of magic they had left to keep his heart from stopping.\n\n\"It's not you,\" Roland whispered, \"it's not you, it's not me, it's not...\"\n\n\"My Lord, my Lord,\" Chris, his personal Psychomancer, breathed. \"What's wrong? What's happened? What have you seen?\"\n\nHe stared at her. His mouth opened and closed several times, but even as he stared at her, he wasn't staring at her. He was staring at another scene. He was staring at his son standing next to the Omenborn…\n\nHarlon’s son… Vera’s son.\n\nTanner. Tanner was beside Adam. And they looked…\n\nThey looked just like Harlon and Roland so many years ago. The thought almost made him throw up. It was like a taunt inflicted across history.\n\nAnd Roland couldn’t take it. He shouldn’t remember their faces. He shouldn’t remember—\n\n\"Chris,\" Roland whispered. “The memory blocks you put in me have broken. I remember his face again. I remember her face again… I remember…”\n\nChris paled. “My Lord, I—Forgive me, this—”\n\nRoland clenched his jaw and let out a breath. \"My son is coming home to aid us, and I think our doom might be coming with him.\" He closed his eyes and looked up. Starhawk, is this the aid you promised me? Why? Why him…\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Primal Hunter — a LitRPG progression fantasy. For her, it had just been another typical and tiring day. She had to get up early, clean her room, and make it all nice and tidy before heading off for breakfast. After that, she would have to do a bit of studying before a nice workout in the yard. Then it was work time, a bit of recreational time in the evening, before her early bedtime. It was a constant routine that she had done now for nearly two years.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Jake | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Jacob, Carmen, Bertram\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Archer – lvl 2, Geology (Inferior), Concoct Poison (Common), True Standout of the 93rd Universe, Boar – lvl 5, Human (G) – lvl 7, Evergreen Grass (Inferior), Basic One-Handed Weapon (Inferior)); stats (Perception, Wisdom, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility)\nSystem notification style: \"System’,” it explained.\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 793 chapter - Nevermore: Super Secret Meeting\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Artemis could admit she had been too hasty in her actions when she decided to head toward Nevermore immediately. She at least had the clarity of mind to go and ask Nature’s Attendant to come along, knowing he had his C-grade granddaughter currently participating in the C-grade portion of the World Wonder. Yet, somehow, she had forgotten that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper and his granddaughter were in a party together in the brief timespan between watching the recording and approaching him.\n\n\nOriginally, she had only planned to go and stick close to Nevermore, so she was around once the Chosen of the Viper was done with the World Wonder, as she doubted she could enter and get any information. Trying to learn more about him would be difficult, considering he was the Chosen of a Primordial, but maybe she could get lucky there if she had Nature’s Attendant with her.\n\n\nWhen she arrived and was told by Nature’s Attendant that the Wyrmgod himself had invited them to enter a special viewing area, she got excited… only to find out it wasn’t just the Wyrmgod there. Not only was the Malefic Viper present, but even the Wargod Valdemar was there for some reason. Three Primordials gathered in one place was an incredibly rare happening and only really ever took place around peak-level system events.\n\n\nHowever, despite this, the “meeting,” if you could even call it that, seemed incredibly casual. Too casual. To the level where it was suspicious. The last time she heard, the Malefic Viper and Valdemar were in conflict due to the rising star Yip of Yore, a god who truly ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ did have the right to claim himself to stand among the other beings at the pinnacle as far as she was concerned.\n\n\nYet Artemis saw Valdemar and the Viper interact casually, though there was some tension. No bloodlust, though, meaning they didn’t give off the sense they wanted to kill one another. She didn’t display her surprise, though, but just kept quiet and tried to not attract too much attention while internally cursing her decision to come. There was no doubt in her mind that if other gods saw this scene, it would cause quite an uproar, so she couldn’t help but wonder if bigger plans were at play. Nature’s Attendant also gave her a subtle warning.\n\n\n“You may see some things that perplex you, but it would be best to keep it to yourself. In due time, all truths will be revealed, but till then, your thoughts are not to be shared, alright?” he asked her in a friendly tone that Artemis knew was very much a warning. One she quite frankly didn’t need.\n\n\nWho the fuck was she to risk messing up some plans or plots that involved several Primordials? She didn’t belong in the room at all, and she knew it. The only one with raw power roughly rivaling her own was Minaga, but comparing the two of them was a laughable endeavor. Minaga had hundreds of clones who were stronger than Artemis, and even if he wasn’t at the level of Primordials, his unique ability made him someone who could stand tall by their side.\n\n\nArtemis wasn’t. She was weak in comparison. She felt small sitting in a room surrounded by titans of the multiverse, with her own strength still a step away from becoming a Godqueen. Meanwhile, all the other gods around had ascended beyond the circles of divinity.\n\n\nShe had honestly expected to be thrown out at some point but was allowed to stay. A decision she slowly began to regret the more time. Shortly after Nature’s Attendant and she arrived, two more Primordials also joined them. What’s more, they were two of the most famous and influential ones in all of the multiverse due to the utterly massive factions they controlled.\n\n\nBoth the Risen and the Holy Church were more powerful than the Pantheon of Life, and not by a little either. Their two leaders, the Blightfather and Holy Mother, were also absolutely unapproachable beings for someone like her.\n\n\nIt wasn’t getting any better when the Blightfather directly questioned why Artemis was here.\n\n\n“Since we are talking about how great this reunion is… why is she here?” the Blightfather asked, staring directly at Artemis, making a shiver run down her spine, as she felt like the god could kill her with a mere thought. Even the life energy within her acted up, meeting a far more powerful polar opposite of itself.\n\n\nDespite how precarious the situation was, she actually saw this as a chance. In all honesty, while she wanted to figure out more about the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, going to Nevermore was probably overkill. She could always find him after he was done and approach him then; she had just been too hasty in her decision-making.\n\n\nSo, if she took this chance to excuse herself, using the justification that she was showing respect to the Primordial, she could-\n\n\n“Someone who was allowed to be here, same as you,” Nature’s Attendant spoke up for her. While Artemis certainly appreciated it, she did scold herself for missing her chance to get the hell out of there.\n\n\nAt least Nature’s Attendant rebuttal did make them stop bothering her… except for Minaga, who suddenly skirted over and was a lot more interested in talking to her than any of the Primordials.\n\n\n“You’re here because of Jake, right?” he asked with a sly smirk. “You know… while there were recordings in that information package of yours, I got several times more in my personal stash from when he did my labyrinth. Interested?”\n\n\nArtemis wanted to reject him and try to attract as little attention as possible… but… she was also curious, and it wasn’t like she could just leave now, as that would make Nature’s Attendant look bad after standing up for her. Also, when a figure like Minaga was offering, you really shouldn’t reject him. Nope, definitely not.\n\n\n“What do you have?” she asked a bit tentatively as Minaga’s smirk turned into a grin.\n\n\n“Whatever your heart desires…” he said as he turned to telepathy. “Or, well, the next best thing, as I can’t bring Jake himself.”\n\n\nArtemis kept her cool and entirely ignored the last part as she gladly began browsing his lengthy catalog of recordings, though she did notice most of the recordings had some odd names. For some reason, they were filled with expletives complaining about Jake’s Bloodline… which only made her all the more interested in seeing them.\n\n\nThings from there calmed down for a little while, even when a steady influx of other gods began arriving, having been attracted by the five Primordials who had gathered. She couldn’t blame them, and it was nice that she wasn’t the only god on the weaker side… though she did remain sitting with the non-representative gods even after others arrived.\n\n\nAs weeks of waiting turned to months, Artemis began to focus most of her efforts on her main body, which was training in her divine realm. Everyone present was just waiting for something to happen as the room filled with gods was eerily silent, most of those who did communicate using telepathy. She also spoke to some people from the other factions, and unsurprisingly, this impromptu gathering turned into a diplomatic meeting of sorts between many large divine factions. Factions that usually wouldn’t meet were suddenly gathered in an entirely neutral setting, with nothing better to do, so they made use of this time.\n\n\nNearly two years after she arrived, the silence was broken by Minaga.\n\n\n“Oh, Jake is done with the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon now!”\n\n\nInstantly, everyone tuned into their avatars. Artemis found it a bit funny when she saw the momentary confusion on the faces of most gods until they realized who Jake was, and she also noticed how the confusion lingered for many, likely because Minaga used Jake’s name and not just his title as the Viper’s Chosen.\n\n\n“Indeed he is,” the Malefic Viper responded, everyone now truly perking up.\n\n\n“His review was pretty harsh, though,” Minaga continued. “Harsh, but fair.”\n\n\nMore confusion spread in the room, but Artemis instantly understood after having seen all of Minaga’s recordings. Recordings that had only made her more curious than ever about Jake. His entire demeanor was odd for a mortal, and he had zero change in behavior after realizing Minaga was a god - the same as with her own image in the Colosseum. For him to give reviews on a Challenge Dungeon was entirely in character, though she did wonder if it was smart to criticize the Wyrmgod. She knew he cared more about the Test of Character than any other Challenge Dungeon, after all.\n\n\nValdemar then also spoke up, asking what they were waiting for… only for the Wyrmgod to respond with “very well.”\n\n\nVery well, what?\n\n\nArtemis wondered what he was up to and what he meant as an odd thought struck her. No… he can’t be serious. That could kill him or cause some sort of permanent damage; surely he wouldn’t-\n\n\nA teleportation circle appeared off to the side of the large room, the heads of every god whipping over there as a recognizable form appeared a few seconds later. This newcomer stood entirely still as sharp eyes reminiscent of a beast that hid behind a wood-like mask quickly scanned the room. Artemis felt his gaze pause on her for a brief moment before it continued to take in everyone present.\n\n\nFor a mortal to appear in a room filled with dozens of gods, including five Primordials and Nature’s Attendant… one would expect him to fall to his knees instantly if he even managed to stay conscious. Even if he did have a Bloodline that made him capable of resisting auras, the sheer accumulated power present should be enough to suppress even that. Also, if he somehow was capable of remaining standing, he should at least kneel out of respect, right?\n\n\nPerhaps the shock of seeing him just stand there for several seconds was why no one spoke up. After nearly five seconds, Jake raised a hand and scratched the back of his head as he looked perplexed.\n\n\n“Did I pick the wrong prompt? Wait, I’m not intruding on some super secret meeting or something, right?”\n\n\nYeah… Jake was genuinely unsure if he had picked the wrong prompt. Did the system bug out or something, allowing him to arrive in a room full of gods? Well, based on the slight smirk on the dragonkin god’s face, who he recognized as the person who had been observing him all throughout his time in Nevermore – meaning he was probably the Wyrmgod – Jake chose to bet on this happening, being entirely purposeful.\n\n\nAs for what purpose? Hell if he knew, he just picked the [redacted] options as it seemed interesting, and he got the feeling that selecting it wouldn’t be a bad thing. What his instincts hadn’t warned him about was how awkward it would be to suddenly have so many people staring at him at once… but hey, he saw some familiar faces in the crowd, too.\n\n\nVilly, Nature’s Attendant, and Minaga were all people he had met before, while he had kind of met Valdemar and Artemis through his vision using Path of the Heretic-Chosen and, of course, during the Colosseum of Mortals. Artemis naturally being the one he had gotten to know the best during their time in the Colosseum, and based on the odd look she gave him, Jake would put his money on her being fully aware of what her image had done and said.\n\n\nAnyway, Jake’s spontaneous question hung in the air for a few seconds as no one quite seemed to know what to answer. After a bit, the silence was finally broken as a huge laugh echoed through the room. A very familiar laugh Jake had heard within the arena many times both before, during, and after their fights.\n\n\nBefore Jake could react, a figure appeared beside him and threw his arm over Jake’s shoulder, though it definitely looked awkward with Valdemar, who was way taller than Jake.\n\n\n“A secret meeting you’re now invited to!” Valdemar yelled as he threw intrigued looks at Jake, almost expecting some kind of response.\n\n\n“Okay?” Jake just asked, looking at the bearded god as he felt the arm resting on his shoulders, entirely unsure what to do or say. It felt like a mountain was slightly touching him, and at any moment, it could fall down and flatten him into a pancake. But he didn’t really feel any fear as he didn’t feel any intent to kill from the Primordial.\n\n\n“You’re really okay, huh?” Valdemar muttered, his voice a mix between surprised and happy. “Good! Good! You really are an interesting one! I would have been very disappointed if the one who managed to beat my image turned into a babbling mess just by meeting the real thing!”\n\n\n“Well, glad to not disappoint, I guess,” Jake muttered, as his mind was preoccupied with considering a lot of other things. He felt the many gods within the room observing him carefully, trying to gauge different things. He felt the barrage of presences wash over him at all times, nobody intentionally trying to suppress him, but all of them nevertheless bearing down on him. It was the natural suppression of grades, and while Jake felt it, he didn’t really “feel” it. He was just aware of it.\n\n\nWhat he also felt from all their auras was the surprise when Valdemar said Jake had beaten his image. Nobody said anything, though. Many seemed to now also realize why Valdemar was there, including Jake himself, of course.\n\n\n“Oh, and thanks for the fight, though I guess it wasn’t actually you,” Jake continued with a heartfelt smile and nod. “It was fun.”\n\n\nValdemar’s eyes opened wide for a second as he smiled even wider and began laughing out loud. He continued for a few seconds before he stopped and leaned down. “You do know I want a rematch, right?”\n\n\nThe words were clearly a joke, but Jake smiled and met Valdemar’s eyes. “Maybe later. I should at least become a god first, or it wouldn’t really be any fun, now would it?”\n\n\n“No, no, it wouldn’t,” Valdemar answered as he nodded, clearly happy with the response. He then turned his gaze toward the Malefic Viper as he raised his voice. “Hey, Vilas. You found yourself quite a nice Chosen, eh?”\n\n\n“I am not one to complain, though I do raise an issue with you being all buddy-buddy with him. How about you let off a bit and show some basic decorum? As you said, that’s my Chosen, not yours,” the Viper answered in a calm tone. Jake felt the slightly insidious undertone and couldn’t help but notice how he sounded slightly different from usual. More… malefic?\n\n\n“You’re right; he is your Chosen,” Valdemar said as he let go of Jake and took a step back before throwing the Viper a slightly taunting smile. “A bit odd, isn’t it? That you have a human as your Chosen?”\n\n\n“I do not remember there being any rules about the races gods can have as Chosen,” the Malefic Viper responded, his tone still calm but with that odd undertone more underlined than before.\n\n\n“It’s still a bit of a shame, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be better if we both stuck to the usual customs?” Valdemar asked loudly.\n\n\nThe Viper’s smile had disappeared by now, and Valdemar continued as he turned to Jake again. “I know you became that damn snake’s Chosen early on your Path, but wouldn’t it be better to stick with a faction that better represents us as humans?”\n\n\nJake was momentarily taken aback, as he assumed Valdemar was doing this invitation as part of some kind of scheme with the Viper and wasn’t seriou-\n\n\n“I’m not really joking... while you are his Chosen, you would also find a home in Valhal if you so desired,”Valdemar casually sent Jake telepathically, throwing him for a loop.\n\n\n… yeah, alight, Jake should probably just reject him publicly right away and-\n\n\n“Don’t reject his proposal immediately, but leave your answer ambiguous. Make it look like you are really considering the offer,” Villy sent telepathically.\n\n\nYeah, alright, things were really a mess already, and Jake was seriously reconsidering his decision to go to [Redacted] without properly considering what that could lead to. He felt the many gazes of the gods upon him, many of them filled with interest as the two Primordials were openly arguing with so many gods as witnesses. Again, it was a bloody mess.\n\n\nWhat’s more, Jake hadn’t even gotten to Eversmile, who was hiding in the back, dressed up as some beastfolk god."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 794 chapter - Nevermore: Shameless Recruiting Tactics\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake had lots of stuff to address for sure and started with the most urgent one. With so many eyes on him, he couldn’t delay answering Valdemar’s bold proposal as he took a deep breath and jumped right into it.\n\n\n“I am not sure this is the time or place or place for such an important discussion,” Jake said, trying to sound neutral to the question.\n\n\n“But it is a discussion,” Valdemar grinned as he patted Jake on the shoulder. “You heard that, Vilas? Do you think this the time and place for such a discussion?”\n\n\nHis tone was very taunting as the Viper scoffed. “Are you seriously blatantly trying to steal my Chosen right under my nose? Kind of pathetic coming for the so-called god of war to fight a battle he should know he can’t win.”\n\n\n“I never take fights that I don’t have a chance of winning,” Valdemar kept grinning as he stayed close to Jake. “My promises won’t be empty either. I think we all know your Chosen isn’t just some common C-grade but someone valuable regardless of his own power due to his unique abilities and Bloodline, so I won’t be cheap. And, honestly, do you think you can support someone like him better than Valhal can? Better than I can?”\n\n\nJake was a bit surprised at how articulate Valdemar seemed. Then again… Villy did say that Valdemar wasn’t stupid, just very simple. He was a bit like Jake himself in that regard… though the level of his own occasional stupidity was very much still up for discussion.\n\n\n“Well, isn’t this something,” the Malefic Viper said with a smile that wasn’t really a smile. “My Chosen is not just some mindless warrior swinging around an axe; he is also a skilled alchemist. It is through his alchemy his Path to manipulate Origins was revealed… so let me counter. Do you think you can guide him to be a better alchemist than I can?”\n\n\n“Odd, the version of your Chosen I saw defeat my image in the Challenge Dungeon didn’t look like some weak alchemist. From my point of view, you are sabotaging his Path by making him follow your Legacy. He should walk a path more aligned with his own Origin. A Path Valhal will gladly show him,” Valdemar said, crossing his arms. “How about this… someone like him is capable of choosing his own Path, right? Also, what was it you said before that big ceremony you did… oh yeah, that he can make his own decisions with his unique powers and that they only belong to him. Then shouldn’t we just let him choose, eh?”\n\n\nJake was far from an expert in political stuff, and he had a strong feeling Valdemar wasn’t either. With that in mind, he got the impression Valdemar had either been coached or at least given some tips. Maybe by Villy himself, but more likely by Gudrun. If she was talking to his real body while Valdemar focused on this avatar, he could ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) easily relay everything happening within the room.\n\n\nIn fact, Jake was pretty damn certain everything happening in the room was being broadcast to many influential forces spread throughout the multiverse due to the representative gods. Which was part of the reason he had to be kinda careful. He couldn’t mess up Villy’s plan too much, right?\n\n\n“I am not some pick-me god, and I find the very notion of having to even try and sell the honor of being my Chosen ridiculous. Being my Chosen is a privilege, not something to be coaxed into. If he is truly so foolish as to reject me as his Patron and give up on my Legacy and the Path he is currently walking with such great success, then maybe he wasn’t worthy of being my Chosen to begin with. Not with such utterly questionable judgment,” the Malefic Viper said, refusing to engage in the “discussion” anymore.\n\n\nValdemar just shook his head while muttering something to himself before looking at Jake, who was just standing there without really saying or doing anything. He was pretty sure that was what he was supposed to do.\n\n\n“He must be exhausting to deal with, huh?” Valdemar questioned Jake.\n\n\nJake was pretty damn sure the question wasn’t actually rhetorical, and he had to stop himself from making some silly comment. Instead of saying anything genuine, he answered noncommittally again. “I don’t believe I should talk about my personal relationship with my Patron in a room filled with outsiders.”\n\n\nThat had to also be considered neutral, right? Damn, where was Miranda when he needed her… actually, it was probably best she wasn’t there, as he doubted she would have managed well with a few dozen gods, including a handful of Primordials, staring her down.\n\n\n“That’s fair, that’s fair. But, you know, I am sure Carmen would be really happy if you joined us, too. She spoke very highly of you when she became a Runemaiden using my blood, and she even said her successful ritual was partly thanks to you!” Valdemar said with a big smile. “Ah, doesn’t that sound nice? Two powerful fellow humans from the same planet under one banner? Could bring you two closer, too.”\n\n\nValdemar saying this once more got the attention of the room. Jake also understood why after he discussed Runemaidens with Carmen. Based on what he knew, Valdemar had not openly announced a Runemaiden who used his blood and Records had been born before now, much less that she was from the same planet as Jake or that they knew each other.\n\n\nThis was pretty much revealing to the multiverse that Valhal already had existing connections to Jake as a person, ones even predating Jake joining the Order, which gave credence to his claim that Jake could potentially end up joining them and renouncing the Malefic Viper.\n\n\nGods weren’t the type to whisper among themselves, but Jake was confident many telepathic messages were being exchanged at that moment. The Viper also looked visibly annoyed, as Valdemar looked pleased with himself, awaiting Jake’s response - a response he took quite a bit to think about as he was trying to remain as noncommital as possible… by just straight-up ignoring the proposal.\n\n\n“Right now, my sole focus is Nevermore and getting a good performance here, including the Challenge Dungeons I have yet to do. I believe it would be best for me to dedicate all my focus and attention to doing this World Wonder over anything else,” Jake answered, not really answering.\n\n\nValdemar nodded as he shrugged. “I guess that’s fine. No need to commit to anything here and now that may distract from what’s in front of you. Just know that Valhal still has its halls open for you.”\n\n\nJake nodded, happy that one had worked. Valdemar did give up way too easily, making Jake more certain than ever this was all – at least partly – some kind of play he and Villy had planned. Jake said only partly because he had strong feelings that should he agree to the invitation, the Primordial would have gladly dragged Jake back to Valhal with him after Nevermore, even if the Viper complained.\n\n\nThat went about as well as it could, Vilastromoz thought, as Jake and Valdemar did surprisingly well in playing their roles. Anything that had to do with scheming and Valdemar often didn’t go according to plan, much less when it involved both Jake and Valdemar, two people who weren’t known as the most politically apt. Yet things had turned out extremely well, with lots of doubt sown in the minds of the gods present.\n\n\nThis tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.\n\n\nIt was a foregone conclusion that even if Yip of Yore himself hadn’t shown up – and definitely wouldn’t – some of the representatives present would be feeding him information on everything that was happening there. In fact, the Viper would bet he had a live view of everything going on.\n\n\nValdemar trying to recruit Jake wasn’t overly surprising to many factions, as Jake was ultimately a human, especially not after it was disclosed he had beaten Valdemar’s image in the Colosseum of Mortals, and to Yip, this would serve as further proof of the rift between the Order of the Malefic Viper and Valdemar.\n\n\nIt had to be noted that not much of this had been part of any of the original plans, but things had to be changed due to Jake.\n\n\nJake had proven himself both an annoyance and an asset to Yip of Yore’s plans, but also the Viper’s. Originally, Yip wanted his Chosen to defeat Jake in a proxy battle of sorts as part of his story, but that was no longer a feasible method, as the backlash would be bigger than the gains.\n\n\nKilling Jake would mean removing his unique abilities to manipulate Origins, which would not be seen kindly by many major factions. It wouldn’t necessarily create enemies, but it would weaken the narrative that Yip was fighting for what was right and that Jake was just some evil follower of the Malefic Viper. So Yip had changed his plans from trying to kill Jake to doing something that would prove even more beneficial to his story:\n\n\nTurning Jake to the side of justice. Turning him to Yip’s side, or at least away from the Viper’s. Having his Chosen renounce his Blessing would be a heavy blow to the Viper, especially in the context of the narrative that was being constructed. For the Viper to be so evil that even his own Chosen turned his back on him… surely Yip of Yore was doing the multiverse a favor by putting him down?\n\n\nHowever, Yip also knew that personally recruiting Jake directly was out of the question. Ell’Hakan was an enemy of Jake, and their encounter in Nevermore City had only cemented this. That’s why Valhal had stepped up to try and snatch Jake away. While it would be better for Yip to get Jake on his side by himself, having Valhal do it was also a good outcome.\n\n\nOf course, Vilastromoz knew this would never happen.\n\n\nThe Viper would not describe himself as the most trusting person, so he could admit that Jake being locked in when it came to being his Chosen was more of a positive than a negative in his mind. If Valdemar’s offer was truly genuine, Vilastromoz couldn’t even blame Jake for considering it seriously, especially not if Valdemar went as far as offering Jake to become his Chosen.\n\n\nWhile he did trust Jake as much as he could, he also knew that Valhal would suit Jake nicely. Jake loved challenges and fighting, and Valhal would offer that in spades. Far more so than the Order of the Malefic Viper ever could. What’s more, Valdemar was a human, so if Jake had his True Blessing over the Viper's, there would be more synergy with their Records.\n\n\nAt least, he thought so… but with Jake, it was genuinely hard to tell. Because there was a genuine chance that the Records of Jake’s Bloodline would overpower any other related to his race, making it a moot point.\n\n\nFeeling like one thing had been dealt with, Jake turned to another. His gaze pierced through the room toward the very back end, where a Beastfolk man was standing inconspicuously among all the other representatives. It was naturally Eversmile whom Jake had picked out instantly upon entering the room. Jake considered if he should do or say anything, but before he could decide, a voice entered his mind.\n\n\n“I do find your ability to recognize me quite troublesome, if very intriguing. However, I would advise against revealing my presence here. Doing so shall bring you no benefits and only serve to hinder me needlessly. It may even impact the plots of your Patron, so reconsider before you make an unwise decision,”Eversmile’s voice echoed in Jake’s head.\n\n\n“Oh? Why are you even hiding in the first place when there are already five other Primordials here?” Jake asked, not really bothering with the fact he was showing zero levels of respect to a god. “Are you doing some experiment or something?”\n\n\n“None of that is of your concern,” Eversmile answered, pretty much confirming to Jake he was definitely up to something. “Nothing I am doing is detrimental to you or your Patron, so let be what should be left alone. That would be very appreciated.”\n\n\nJake was curious but also feeling petty at the same time. He still remembered how much Eversmile had messed with him during the Tutorial, how he had used William to fuck things up and had even made him come after his family…\n\n\n“Well, I appreciate that you wouldn’t appreciate me revealing you. In fact, it makes it quite an appealing choice,” Jake sent mentally. “But I guess if you really want to stay hidden that badly… I can do you this favor. Wait, doesn’t that mean you owe me one now?”\n\n\nHe was fully aware he was just messing with Eversmile now, knowing how the Primordial’s Path worked. Also, if he could somehow make Eversmile owe him a favor, that would totally be worth it. Based on what Villy said, he was very serious about owing favors.\n\n\n“You should be aware that is not how karmic debt is formed. There has to be a sufficient balance between the two parties for any debt to form, and you are not powerful enough to enter any kind of agreement with me,” Eversmile responded calmly.\n\n\n“Yet. Not powerful enough yet,” Jake corrected him.\n\n\n“Even if we say that is so, I would suggest not getting too much ahead of yourself. Remember you are only here due to the curiosity of others and who your Patron is, not truly by your own merit. If you wish to speak of karmic debt, then you are far from in a position to make any demand through threats, much less speak of favors. One could also say I am doing you a favor right now by even conversing with you. Or that I allow you to keep living despite the disrespect. I have plenty of cause to take action already, so how about you let off your petty threats? In return, I shall do you the favor of letting you off,” Eversmile said, his voice still calm but full of warning.\n\n\nJake felt an odd pressure and a slight sense of danger that was not at all unambiguous in its message: back off.\n\n\n“… anyway, I hope all goes well on your end; I shall be minding my own business,” Jake responded.\n\n\nHe had fucked around and would very much like to skip the “found out” part.\n\n\nTheir conversation had been relatively long but had, in reality, only taken a few seconds as everything had been said telepathically. There had always been a natural silence after Valdemar had spoken, and only another full second or so after Jake finished talking with Eversmile did someone else speak up.\n\n\n“Speaking of doing Nevermore, how is little Dina doing? I know my granddaughter isn’t the most experienced quite yet, but I still hope she has proven a valuable party member so far,” Nature’s Attendant asked Jake, changing the topic quite nicely while also advertising he had a close relationship with Jake.\n\n\n“She is doing great; no complaints from here,” Jake answered with a smile, happy no longer having to consider his words super carefully. He also made sure to not even glance Eversmile’s way anymore. “I hope she is also doing well in her Challenge Dungeons.”\n\n\n“I am sure she is,” Nature’s Attendant nodded. “Now, while I have you here… how about you come over here and tell me a bit about how she is doing? The stingy Wyrmgod refuses to share anything.”\n\n\nJake doubted Nature’s Attendant really just wanted to hear about his granddaughter, but he had no reason to reject a conversation. Especially not considering this was an excuse to talk to Artemis, who was sitting with him.\n\n\n“That would be my pleasure,” Jake answered as he looked at Valdemar. “Unless..?”\n\n\n“You go on ahead,” Valdemar waved him off.\n\n\nJake nodded as he walked over to Artemis and Nature’s Attendant, the attention of the many gods still on him. As he got over, he saw Nature’s Attendant casually set up a sound isolation barrier for them to talk in peace, something that seemed to annoy quite a few people present, including the Holy Mother, Blightfather, and even Valdemar.\n\n\nTheir dissatisfaction manifested through their presences that weighed down on Jake, Nature’s Attendant, and Artemis. Jake and Nature’s Attendant were fine, but Jake saw Artemis clench her fists, and without even thinking, Jake flared his own presence to cover her.\n\n\nThe pressure on her instantly lessened significantly as Jake’s aura clashed with that of three Primordials... slightly pushing them back to give Artemis breathing room. All of this was done under the gaze of dozens of gods as Jake felt the entire atmosphere in the room change after seeing what he had done.\n\n\nI shouldn’t have done that… yep, I definitely should not have done that."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 795 chapter - Nevermore: Aura-Measuring Contest\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Sometimes, you just knew you fucked up, and in that moment, Jake knew he had fucked up. Trying to get some petty levels of revenge on Eversmile by getting one over him had already been pushing it, and now Jake had effectively just rebuffed three presences of Primordials, as well as those of dozens of other gods, entirely on accident.\n\n\nInstantly, Nature’s Attendant read the mood of the room and dispelled his soundproofing barrier, giving Jake the chance to apologize as he scratched the back of his head. “Ah, sorry about that; I reacted without really thinking.”\n\n\nYeah, that also wasn’t the best thing to say, as he had just told everyone he had effortlessly rebuffed them entirely accidentally. Jake was entirely expecting some kind of negative response, but then he saw that Villy was just smiling as he shook his head, seemingly not bothered at all. So, it probably wasn’t that bad, right?\n\n\nThe Holy Mother just retracted her own presence without saying anything besides giving Jake an inquisitive look, Valdemar temporarily doing the same as the Blightfather chose to speak up.\n\n\n“I am beginning to get a better understanding of that power of yours after feeling it myself, especially after meeting and Blessing your friend from before the integration of the ninety-third universe. I was intrigued by how he, a mere E-grade at the time, managed to hold up so well before me, but if he was baptized by constant exposure to your presence, that would certainly be an explanation,” the Blightfather nodded with comprehension. “Quite a multi-faceted Bloodline you got there. If you ever feel like visiting the Ghostlands, you would certainly be more than welcome. You could maybe even go with that friend of yours?”\n\n\nHis words were both praise and sharing the fact the Risen also had some level of personal connection to Jake while also deciding to once more reiterate all Jake could do was rooted in his Bloodline. Along with that, he also publicly shared an aspect of Jake’s Bloodline he didn’t really think was that much of a secret, that being his ability to also increase other’s resistances through sheer exposure. Valdemar had kind of hinted at it, but the Blightfather pretty much stated it outright.\n\n\nThe final part – the invitation – was the only thing Jake would answer directly to. “I thank the Blightfather for his words, and I am certain I will visit the heartlands of the Risen one day.”\n\n\nIt wasn’t a lie, either. Jake would probably end up visiting most of the places of note throughout his hopefully eternal life, and the Ghostlands was definitely one such place. He just didn’t give any timeline as to when he would visit. It could be in a few decades or a few million years.\n\n\nSeemingly thinking this answer was good enough, the Blightfather also retracted his aura, having said his piece. Jake thought his mess-up was finally over, only for him to realize it had only truly begun.\n\n\n“You know, ever since seeing that battle in the Challenge Dungeon, ya got me curious about something,” Valdemar said in a loud tone as he stepped slightly toward Jake with a massive grin. “Prepare yourself!”\n\n\nJake barely had any time to react as Valdemar’s presence came back with full force. Instinctively, he once more reacted as his own flared to meet the challenge, the two auras clashing in an invisible battle. Instantly, Valdemar’s was getting pushed back again until he opened his arm wide, and the Primordial’s fighting spirit was triggered.\n\n\nHis eyes began to glow golden as a slightly golden luster appeared around his body. He was not using any energy, but the concepts of his Transcendence still bled into his presence as it pushed back at Jake’s with indomitable strength.\n\n\nIt was like an unstoppable force, capable of crushing anything in its path, and for the first time ever… Jake felt his presence getting pushed back as pressure descended upon him. He felt like a mountain was crushing down on him as his own presence shrank, Jake gritting his teeth as this reminded him of what had happened inside of the Colosseum.\n\n\nAnd like the Colosseum, Jake did not back down as he retaliated in force.\n\n\nThe two auras clashed as an invisible battle took place. Valdemar was slightly pushed back by Jake’s release but stabilized just as fast, stopping Jake’s advance. Their two auras kept battling as an equilibrium was soon established, neither side capable of gaining any ground as each of their auras extended halfway to the other party.\n\n\nJake was both astonished and excited. He was equally matching Valdemar in a pure battle of presences, though if Valdemar decided to pour in just a smidgen of energy, Jake would instantly be crushed. However, the mere fact their two auras were equal was more than enough to prove one thing to everyone in the room:\n\n\nHis Bloodline matched the quality of Valdemar’s Transcendence. A Transcendence many recognized as potentially the most powerful one in the entire multiverse. Some of the gods present even failed to hold their poker faces as they displayed genuine surprise at the impromptu duel of auras.\n\n\nHowever, things weren’t over yet.\n\n\n“Hah!” Valdemar laughed loudly as he took another step forward, his body exploding in golden light, enveloping the entire room. His aura spiked several degrees as it washed over everyone, Jake included. With a grin, Jake took a step toward Valdemar as he met the challenge, his heart beating with excitement.\n\n\nThump!\n\n\nA shockwave erupted from his own body as their two auras clashed one final time before both faded. The only two people standing in the room were Jake and Valdemar, as everyone else was either sitting down… or looked to be in quite a bad situation.\n\n\nThis was when he also understood why the poker faces of some gods had dropped… their clash in auras had put them quite on edge, many of them unable to take it. Even Eversmile was acting like he had been hit by a bus as he was kneeling while breathing heavily.\n\n\nNeedless to say, none of the Primordials, Minaga, or Nature’s Attendant had been affected. This didn’t surprise anyone… but Artemis was also fine, most assuming she had been protected by Nature’s Attendant somehow.\n\n\n“Good! Good!” Valdemar said, looking extremely satisfied. “I like you more and more!”\n\n\n“Likewise,” Jake smiled, having enjoyed the clash of auras more than he thought he would. It wasn’t like an actual fight, but it was a challenge nevertheless. A kind he had never had before, considering there was no one else who could match his presence in pure quality.\n\n\nThe atmosphere in the room calmed down as Valdemar looked approvingly at Jake for a few seconds before speaking.\n\n\n“Eh, you should go talk to that old druid and your fellow hunter; I think you kept them waiting long enough,” Valdemar waved him off as he walked back to the Primordials, yelling behind him. “Oh, and do come visit Valhal at some time! Our beer is better than the Order’s, too!”\n\n\nJake smiled but neglected to answer. He didn’t have to be told twice to go and talk to the two from the Pantheon of Life as he returned to sit down with the Nature’s Attendant and Artemis on a sofa set. The old druid gave Jake a very interested look and an approving smile as he sat down. The isolation barrier was quickly summoned again, making Jake feel like he could talk without as much of a filter or having to consider that everything was being recorded and openly broadcasted.\n\n\nUnauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.\n\n\n“This sure is quite the gathering of gods, huh,” Jake muttered as something had been bothering him for a while. “Why exactly are there even so many here? Valdemar, I could understand, but what’s up with the dozens of gods who are seemingly just here as observers?”\n\n\n“It’s because of you,” Nature’s Attendant answered. “At least partly. You made Valdemar come here, getting the attention of other Primordials, who then followed suit. With five gathered in one place, it is only natural it will attract the attention of most forces. And I am certain many are happy they came, as the show you put on just now with the Viper and the Wargod will have made the trip more than worth it.”\n\n\nJake nodded, considering his words for a bit. Yeah, that probably made sense. If a large group of the top world leaders on Earth before the system decided to have a meeting, you could bet your ass journalists and other interested parties would also show up to see what was up. Even their casual interactions would be gossip at worst and groundbreaking news at best. Plus, something did happen here. At least, it looked like it had. Two top world leaders had just gotten into a scuffle, after all, and were battling over a “resource.” The resource in question being Jake in this case.\n\n\n“Show?” Artemis asked, looking confused, before she quickly gathered herself, seeming a bit out of it in general. She looked at Jake and lowered her head a bit. “No, wait. Before anything else, I should thank you for just now. I apologize if defending me leads to any trouble down the line.”\n\n\n“No worries, no worries,” Jake waved off her concern. “I should be the one thanking you for what happened in the Colosseum of Mortals. Well, thanking /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ your image, I guess, though based on Valdemar just now, there shouldn’t be that massive of a difference. Either way, I enjoyed the time together in there immensely.”\n\n\nArtemis was taken aback at his answer as the tip of her elven ears turned slightly red. “I… I don’t believe there is anything you need to be thanking me for.”\n\n\n“Oh, but there definitely is,” Jake said with a big nod as he smiled at her. “I’m talking about the archery training, of course. Wait, what were you thinking about?”\n\n\nIt took her a few seconds before her eyes narrowed. “You… no, never mind. Disregarding that, my image sure must have looked like an idiot with her whole speech about how you wouldn’t even be able to stand tall in front of the real me.”\n\n\n“Eh, I found it more cute than dumb,” Jake shrugged. “It’s not like that wouldn’t be the case if I was pretty much anyone else. I just happen to deal with presences quite well compared to most everyone else.”\n\n\n“That’s an understatement,” Artemis scoffed. “Also, what was that thing about a show you talked about earlier?”\n\n\nJake had purposefully avoided answering this one as he genuinely wasn’t sure if he should or could give a response without jeopardizing anything. Unsure, he looked at Nature’s Attendant, who seemed to be “in” on what was happening, as the old druid responded promptly.\n\n\n“I will make sure she can’t leak anything even if she wants to. I set up this barrier with the expectation we would be talking about things best left unshared to the masses, so no worries,” Nature’s Attendant sent telepathically, sounding only slightly scary as he did so.\n\n\nArtemis noticed Jake and Nature’s Attendant exchanged glances as she looked confused about what was happening. Jake finally sighed as he leaned back on the couch and looked at Artemis.\n\n\n“This is quite a big secret that has multiversal implications, so keep it under wraps, okay?” he asked in a serious tone.\n\n\n“Not sure I want to know now if it can get me in trouble…” Artemis muttered.\n\n\n“Too late!” Jake grinned. “Anyway, the gist of it is that the entire conflict between the Order of the Malefic Viper and Valhal is mostly fabricated. That entire thing just now was also apparently just part of this bigger plot that I think is ultimately pointed at Yip of Yore. As for what it hopes to accomplish and the entire scope of the thing… I have no bloody idea. Nature’s Attendant probably knows more there.”\n\n\n“And I have been very expressly told to not inform you of more,” Nature’s Attendant continued. “As your lack of knowledge makes you a better catalyst of chaos to introduce more uncertainty into this entire matter.”\n\n\n“So there you have it,” Jake said, giving Artemis a beaming smile. “Just a plot involving a bunch of Primordials and a good segment of the peak existence of the multiverse. Kind of exciting, isn’t it?”\n\n\nArtemis stared at Jake and Nature’s Attendant for a while as she sighed. “And I guess if I share anything with anyone, I will be killed?”\n\n\n“No, of course not, what a silly notion,” Nature’s Attendant said, shaking his head before smiling teasingly. “You will be killed before you are able to share anything.”\n\n\nThe wood elf formerly known as the Lord of the Hunt just held her head and leaned forward. “I’ll just act like I never heard anything. Yeah, that’s probably best.”\n\n\n“If it’s any comfort, I try to do the same, but I keep getting dragged back into things,” Jake shrugged. “This entire scheming thing is definitely way above my pay grade.”\n\n\n“It sure would be easier if they could just fight it out and not make things so complicated,” Artemis sighed. “That’s why the nature’s way is so much better. Predators hunt prey, and prey sometimes kills the predator in return.”\n\n\n“Nature also has natural schemers,” Nature’s Attendant said. “Plants or fungi who lay hidden for long, slowly growing in power. Predators stalk their prey for long periods to discover where the rest of their packs are. Beasts who take the shape of others mix into groups, only to eat them from within. But yes, I do agree that schemes like this are not aligned with the Paths of hunters like you two. You should still be able to take part in schemes when it benefit you, though. It doesn’t mean you have to initiate them; just be capable of performing as part of one.”\n\n\n“Is this you low-key calling me out for being bad at playing my role?” Jake asked.\n\n\n“No, I believe you played it extremely well. No one understands you, so you cannot truly act out of character as you have no established character. Plus, there is a high chance people assume any mistakes you make to be entirely deliberate, considering you are the Chosen of the Malefic Viper,” Nature’s Attendant shook his head.\n\n\n“I definitely didn’t make any mistakes,” Jake nodded.\n\n\n“Bullshit,” Artemis scoffed. “You constantly act without thinking and make needlessly rash decisions too quickly. Just from the recording I saw from the Colosseum, your reliance on instincts in battle bleeds into your way of acting outside of fighting constantly.”\n\n\n“You’re saying that as if it’s a bad thing,” Jake smiled.\n\n\n“I didn’t say it necessarily was. Not most of the time,” Artemis shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with living according to your instincts.”\n\n\n“Glad we agree on that,” Jake said, throwing her a look.\n\n\nArtemis sighed as Nature’s Attendant chuckled slightly.\n\n\nHowever, before any of them could say anything more, the soundproofing barrier around them cracked, and a second later, disappeared entirely, Jake feeling the energy of the Wyrmgod… no, the energy of Nevermore itself tearing it away.\n\n\n“Considering you are a Nevermore Attendee, I will not bend the rules further. I also believe it would be unwise of you to waste more time here than necessary if you wish to continue competing on the Leaderboards,” the Wyrmgod spoke, nicely telling Jake to leave.\n\n\nJake took the hint as he nodded. “Good point. Let me get out of here; I do have a few more Challenge Dungeons waiting, after all.”\n\n\nThe Wyrmgod nodded as a teleportation circle appeared under Jake. However, just before he got whisked away, he heard several voices echo out in his head.\n\n\n“See you when you do my super exciting labyrinth that you surely won’t ruin all the fun of!” Minaga said.\n\n\n“Acceptable performance here, but now that you’ve shown yourself off so much in front of your little girlfriend, you better do well, or I am sure she and everyone else will be very disappointed,” Villy said teasingly.\n\n\nAnd finally, the voice of the “little girlfriend” in question, Artemis.\n\n\n“I will be waiting for when you come out of Nevermore to… discuss more private matters further. Good luck!”\n\n\nAfter Jake had left, Valdemar was back sitting with the other Primordials and Minaga, a big smile still on his lips. The Viper had already set up a sound isolation barrier, making sure none but they could hear the conversation to come.\n\n\n“What brings such a big smile to your face?” the Holy Mother asked after a bit, seeing as Valdemar hadn’t stopped grinning even after Jake was gone.\n\n\n“He is just happy another strong human has emerged,” the Blightfather waved her off. “Not that I would blame him. He is quite an interesting specimen.”\n\n\n“Heh… you really didn’t notice?” Valdemar asked with a raised eyebrow.\n\n\n“Notice what?” the Viper asked, frowning.\n\n\n“That I lost,” Valdemar said, clenching his fists as the other Primordials looked confused at him, making the god of war elaborate.\n\n\n“Our auras may have seemed equal… but he was protecting that gal all throughout, not allowing a single bit of my aura to reach her, no matter how hard I tried.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 796 chapter - Nevermore: Planning a New Approach\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake was teleported out of the godly meeting and appeared in front of the Challenge Dungeons like nothing had happened. He couldn’t help but smile a bit to himself after what had just transpired, finding the entire ordeal quite amusing. It was also really nice to see Artemis again.\n\n\nHe couldn’t lie… there was something about her divine aura that was just fundamentally appealing. Jake hadn’t been able to hold himself back from teasing her a little, and based on her responses, he hadn’t offended her too much. In fact, he was pretty sure he had quite an interesting meet-up planned for after Nevermore.\n\n\nShaking his head, Jake tried to refocus on the task in front of him. He still had to finish Nevermore before anything else could happen, and he got the feeling that while he found Artemis’ divine aura appealing, she would very much like it if he performed extraordinarily well in the World Wonder. At least he was telling himself this because who didn’t want a bit of external motivation along with the internal one? Either way, Jake stopped dallying as he thought about the next dungeon to enter as a notification popped up in front of him.\n\n\n*You have successfully taken part in a meeting between gods standing at the apex of the multiverse without compromising on your Path as a Heretic-Chosen. Instead, you have further proven yourself capable of standing tall even when confronted by the most powerful gods, acting far above your station. All while performing your duties as a Chosen and acting according to your Patron’s will – A new feat has been accomplished. Bonus experience earned*\n\n\nJake stared at the notification for a while, quite frankly having forgotten he could even get these. Sure, he had gotten one when he made William turn away from Eversmile and even when doing other heretic and Chosen stuff, but he pretty much only leveled his profession using alchemy normally, making it easy to forget this was a thing.\n\n\nHe hadn’t really expected anything out of doing this secret god meeting outside of meeting some gods… and looking at the following notifications, he definitely hadn’t expected the level of rewards to be so high.\n\n\n*’DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 252 - Stat points allocated, +35 Free Points*\n\n\n…\n\n\n*’DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 259 - Stat points allocated, +35 Free Points*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 254 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points*\n\n\n…\n\n\n*’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 257 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points*\n\n\n8 fucking levels from just meeting a bunch of gods in some casual get-together? Wasn’t that wholly too much for something so completely non-extraordinary? Jake hadn’t done anything super special in his own mind and had acted just like he had when interacting with others… which was maybe the reason he had gotten this “feat.”\n\n\nThis was Jake’s first time doing it in a public setting and the first time for the system to truly recognize it. For anyone that wasn’t Jake, just being able to exist in that meeting would have been an extraordinary feat in itself, while Jake had even talked to them and gotten into a metaphorical dick-measuring contest with a Primordial. All in all, he had entered the meeting, acting not just as one of the random gods there but as a being standing on par with the Primordials.\n\n\nAs Jake considered the matter more, he also quickly concluded this wasn’t replicable and some secret super-fast leveling exploit. He could go back to the meeting again, and it wouldn’t really reward him as he wouldn’t “accomplish” anything in the eyes of the system. These feats would only give massive rewards the first time he did something. Jake did believe that if he continued to attend meetings and continued to show off, he would be able to get more levels out of it. He would also make a lot of enemies and feel wholly uncomfortable doing it, so it wasn’t going to happen, but as a Heretic-Chosen, this was a legitimate way to level.\n\n\nHe also guessed that one reason why the experience gained was so high was due to how little he did as a Heretic-Chosen and how much he did as a pure alchemist. Jake, doing something he rarely did, was probably rewarded extra by the system, a bit like how he got more experience from working on transmutations after making potions for a long time. At least, that is what he guessed as he shook his head and decided to move on with what truly mattered.\n\n\nGetting 8 random levels was definitely nice, but it didn’t really change anything, and he still had to focus on the Challenge Dungeons to come. The Test of Character Challenge Dungeon had been chosen purely as a way to recover from the Colosseum of Mortals, and it honestly had been the one he wanted to do the least and the one he guessed he would do worst at.\n\n\nThis left three others that he all thought were a lot more interesting. This was despite Jake not truly knowing what they were about, just him relying on his own guesses and assumptions.\n\n\nHouse of the Architect made Jake guess it had something to do with energy control or something like that. Maybe something with imagination and your ability to make up and design new things, or if he got really lucky, a Challenge Dungeon that was similar to his Puzzle Box from the Seeker, where he had to fix and work on mana constructs? Or maybe it was about creating physical structures where he could maybe cheat with his arcane affinity? Doubtful, but hey, maybe. No matter the case, Jake felt pretty good about this one.\n\n\nEndless Journey was a bit of a weird one, but he took a shot in the dark that it wasn’t about riding some weirdly scary dog-looking dragon through the sky as if he was taking part in some neverending story that wasn’t truly endless. There was a good chance it had to do with traveling, though. Maybe some sort of endurance run? A set of traps for one to overcome? Maybe a story where you got chased by something or someone? There were many possibilities, but assuming it had to do with journeying around, Jake felt confident.\n\n\nFinally, there was Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth. Jake didn’t believe many comments had to be made about this one. Minaga’s Labyrinth on the prior floors had been a piece of cake for Jake, and he looked forward to utterly breaking the poor Unique Lifeform’s dungeon while listening to his ever-increasing complaints about how much of a cheat Jake was. Needless to say, Jake definitely felt the most confident about getting a good score in this one.\n\n\nAll of them were valid options, and Jake could do them in any order. All would be a pick-me-up after the horrible Test of Character, too.\n\n\nNow the question just was… which one should he do first?\n\n\nWhile flying to Firebound Peak, the red dragon Albaromoz couldn’t help but sigh at how his life had changed. How he had gone from being a diplomat and teacher at the Order of the Malefic Viper to… this.\n\n\nIf you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.\n\n\nAlbaromoz felt like the latest period of his life had only really revolved around one thing. Or, more accurately, one person. How could he have known that the fateful day he talked to a C-grade who participated in his lesson on Soulflames and made Albaromoz suspect he had a Bloodline would lead to all this?\n\n\nAt first, it had just been a simple mission to try to recruit him into the Emberflight clan. Nothing complicated that he, as an A-grade, hadn’t done many times before. It turned out to be a bit more complicated due to some unknown backer, but it wasn’t any big issue, right? Wrong.\n\n\nThey couldn’t find out who the backer was, and it quickly became clear why as the young Bloodline Patriarch was revealed to the Chosen of the Malefic Viper. A figure even he, as an A-grade, couldn’t casually approach.\n\n\nAnd what’s more, he was far from a passive Chosen who just trained and did alchemy. Instead, he seemed to create chaos and “happenings” wherever he got involved. Ones involving the Dragonflights, too.\n\n\nA great example of this chaos he could create was the entire ordeal with the Azure Dragonflight – also known as the Azureflight. Albaromoz wasn’t sure about the details; he just knew that an Azure Dragonkin blessed by the Venerated Azure Dragon had attempted to get close to a comrade of the Malefic Viper’s Chosen and somehow ended up offending the Malefic Viper himself, making the Primordial personally remove his arm.\n\n\nThis hadn’t led to anything back then, as no one knew the Bloodline Patriarch was the Chosen until after the Chosen ceremony was over. However, after, every faction dug up what they could on the Chosen, and through that, the Emberflight’s name was mentioned. Albaromoz was mentioned. Something that caught the interest of all the other Dragonflights.\n\n\nAlbaromoz had after [N O V E L I G H T] the ceremony swiftly been called into a meeting with the Patriarch of the Azureflight himself present. As the person from the Dragonflights who had made contact with and talked with the Malefic Viper’s Chosen first, Albaramoz had become the go-to person if anyone had questions. As he had interacted with the Chosen before he revealed his identity, many believed that Albaromoz had known him better than pretty much any other person among the nine Dragonflights. Helen had also been called in for many things but had quickly been dismissed as all her meetings had been under the oversight of Albaromoz, making him the go-to. She also still had to focus on her personal growth and had many other jobs, while Albaromoz had far more time as an A-grade.\n\n\nThis pestering to know more hadn’t stopped. In fact, it had only gotten worse as other Dragonflights also wanted to know more about him. The Azureflight was just the beginning as more and more got involved. Especially his ability to manipulate Origins caught the attention of many high-ranking beings, as plans were slowly being formulated behind the scenes to try and get their hands on this ability one way or another. This had made him a busy dragon until, luckily, the Chosen went to Nevermore.\n\n\nAlbaromoz believed this would give him a reprieve, at least for a while. Sure, he would likely perform incredibly well in the World Wonder and gain much renown, but nothing chaotic would happen that required Albaromoz to be called to a meeting, right?\n\n\n…right?\n\n\n“Patron Fireplume,” Albaromoz kneeled deeply as he arrived at Firebound Peak and entered the Dragon Cave of the Grand Elder of the Emberflight who resided there. While kneeling, he also regarded the other figures who had appeared as projections in the cave. “Grand Elders.”\n\n\n“Albaramoz,” Grand Elder Fireplume spoke. “Have you been following recent happenings in Nevermore?”\n\n\nHe got a bad feeling before he answered honestly. “No, I do not believe I have heard anything out of the ordinary.”\n\n\n“Hm, so it hasn’t spread amongst the mortals yet,” another Grand Elder spoke.\n\n\n“Perhaps best it is kept that way,” a third voiced their opinion.\n\n\n“I concur,” a fourth chimed in.\n\n\nAlbaromoz was confused as he quickly pieced together that they discussed something only gods knew about. So why was he there? There were a few options, but considering the mention of Nevermore, there really only be one explanation.\n\n\n“Child,” the second Grand Elder spoke up again. “You were the first to identify the Chosen of the Malefic Viper and his Bloodline, correct?”\n\n\n“Yes,” he answered, getting confirmed what he already knew. Who else could it be but the Chosen.\n\n\n“Before he was revealed as a Chosen, how receptive would you estimate he was to the contact we made?” a fifth Grand Elder asked. “I am referring specifically to his interactions with Helenstromoz.”\n\n\nAlbaromoz was a bit confused, as he felt like he had answered this before, and he quickly shook his head. “He seemed neither positive nor negative, just as if he preferred as little interference with his life and Path as possible. His level of interest in Helenstromoz was also low. Moreover, recently, she has begun to get closer to the Malefic Dragonkin called Draskil, who carries a Divine Blessing of the Malefic One. This Malefic Dragonkin is also on friendly terms with the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, to the level where they may even be considered friends.”\n\n\n“I see,” the Grand Elder responded disappointedly. “Do you deem it plausible he will show interest in any other attempts to form a closer relationship with him?”\n\n\n“Are you asking about deploying honeypots?” Albaromoz asked.\n\n\n“Potentially, yes,” he continued. “Would it be worth it to try and appeal to him through talented women and men?”\n\n\n“I do not believe so, no,” Albaromoz shook his head. “In fact, I fear it may have the opposite effect of what we intend.”\n\n\n“A shame,” the Grand Elder sighed.\n\n\n“If… if I may, could I know what this is all about? The last time, we agreed upon holding back from trying to reel him in and keeping a respectful distance? To try and assure that even if we do not better our relationship with him, we at least keep it neutral until he matures more?”\n\n\nThis was far from his first meeting, which other Grand Elders than his Patron attended, though this one was where most were present. When it came to the question about waiting for him to mature, it was something they had discussed many times prior.\n\n\nAs a C-grade, the Chosen had a long way to go on his Path, and many things could go wrong along the way. He could die to any number of incidents, somehow get stuck in his Path, begin to fall behind his peers, and lose the interest and Blessing of the Malefic One, or a myriad of other things. All of this is to say he was still very young, and his situation was volatile.\n\n\nThis was the primary reason the Dragonflights had all agreed to their neutral and passive approach. It had become clear that obtaining the Bloodline in early grades wasn’t going to happen, and investing heavily in making friends with a C-grade was rarely worth it.\n\n\nIf the Chosen ended up dying, the Dragonflights would lose nothing but an opportunity, while should he manage to step into the realm of the truly powerful, it wouldn’t be too late to approach him then. The Emberflight firmly believed they had a good shot at forming a friendly relationship with him if they worked on their albeit feeble connection through Helenstromoz and Albaromoz, even if they waited a few grades. At least they did before.\n\n\n“Things have changed due to recent happenings in Nevermore,” the Fireplume Grand Elder said with a sigh. “A gathering of powerful beings is currently taking place in Nevermore right at this moment. It includes five Primordials, Nature’s Attendant, and dozens of representatives from factions, including the Draconic Accords.”\n\n\nAlbaromoz nodded, this being the first time he heard of something this monumental taking place. He just had a hard time seeing how that related to the Chosen of the-\n\n\n“And less than an hour ago, the Chosen of the Malefic Viper was also part of this meeting.”\n\n\n“What?” Albaromoz exclaimed before quickly gathering himself and bowing his head even deeper. “I apologize; I was simply taken aback.”\n\n\nNone of the Grand Elders seemed to care as the Fireplume Grand Elder continued to explain what had happened. Albaromoz’s eyes only got bigger and bigger as everything was disclosed to him, including the fact he had directly clashed his aura with that of the God of War.\n\n\nAlbaromoz soon understood… sentiment had changed. Remaining entirely passive was no longer an option, as many other factions would likely try to get in his good graces now.\n\n\n“When the Chosen of the Malefic Viper had the… incident with the Azureflight prodigy, he was with some people, correct?” the Fireplume Grand Elder asked.\n\n\nInstantly, he understood. “Yes, he was. From our investigations, he appeared closest to his fellow humans and was originally invited there by a snakekin named Scarlett, who also carries a Blessing from the Malefic Viper.”\n\n\nIf they couldn’t form a connection directly with the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, they would do the next best thing. They would get close to someone who already had a connection to the Chosen, and Albaromoz already knew who they should approach.\n\n\nThe Alabaster Crimsoneye Snake named Scarlett was a perfect target because few knew she had such a deep relation to the Chosen. At least they hoped it was deep… hoped enough for them to gamble on it as the seventeen Grand Elders present began discussing their approach."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 797 chapter - Nevermore: Minaga's Nightmare Begins\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake considered what Challenge Dungeon he would do for all of five minutes until he decided to just go with the one he felt the most confident about. It was also the one he thought would be the most fun and familiar.\n\n\nUltimately, he had to do all of them, and as he still felt a bit groggy after having his character tested, he wanted to do one he believed would be interesting. Maybe it would not be super challenging, but he firmly believed there would be some level of challenge, especially the further he moved in.\n\n\nDuring the first part, most of the entertainment definitely would have to come from Minaga. Jake genuinely hoped the Unique Lifeform would be commentating again and complaining about Jake. If not, it probably would get a bit dull during the early parts of his labyrinth.\n\n\nHaving only arrived outside of the Challenge Dungeon entrances for five minutes, Jake walked straight to the entrance of Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth and placed his hand on the massive gateway. Without further ado, he accepted the prompt to enter as his vision went dark, Jake ready to conquer and utterly demolish Minaga’s grand creation.\n\n\nIn a certain meeting room filled with gods, Minaga let out a massive groan as he saw Jake enter his dungeon.\n\n\n“Bloody hell, he just had to go for mine right now, didn’t he?” Minaga grumbled. “This is on purpose, right? He is trying to bully me after showing off here, isn’t he? Yep, everything he has done was definitely a personal attack on me to throw me off my mental game.”\n\n\n“I am impressed you think Jake would ever plan that far ahead,” the Viper commented.\n\n\nThe Wyrmgod had already isolated the area with the Primordials, Minaga, Nature’s Attendant, and Artemis, making them the only ones capable of hearing the conversation, likely in preparation for what was to come next.\n\n\n“Well, if he can attack me like that, I should definitely strike back in kind!” Minaga huffed while ignoring the Viper’s comment as he waved his hand. A screen appeared before all of them, not just the Viper and the Wyrmgod, as the Unique Lifeform grinned and threw Artemis a look.\n\n\n“Let’s have this entire Challenge Dungeon be a live performance so you can all see how unfair he is!” he said, hiding a smile as he saw the cute god from the Pantheon of Life lean a bit forward while trying to remain dignified and hide her interest.\n\n\n“You just want to have an audience to vent to during this, don’t you?” the Wyrmgod questioned in a deadpan tone.\n\n\n“Well, duh?” Minaga said. “If I have to suffer, it should at least be entertaining to the rest of you and give me more people to complain to. Now sit back and see injustice and unfairness personified.”\n\n\nJake opened his eyes in a very familiar hall. It was a perfect replica of the one he and his party had entered the first time they arrived at Minaga’s Labyrinth in the regular part of Nevermore. And just like that time, a familiar figure also teleported into the room, appearing on a central platform.\n\n\nLight filled the room as music began playing, but Minaga quickly clapped his hands once, making it all stop. The room darkened as Minaga just sighed. “Oh boy, here we go again…”\n\n\nRight as he said that, a system message was triggered and popped up in front of Jake.\n\n\nNevermore Challenge Dungeon Entered!\n\n\nYou have entered Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth. An endless maze that extends forever until you can no longer keep going lies before you, ready for you to explore, the entire labyrinth split into Labyrinth Sections to conquer one by one.\n\n\nThese Labyrinth Sections will each serve as separate challenges, and passing each will trigger a checkpoint. Some checkpoints will allow you to rest and recover for a while before continuing on your journey.\n\n\nEach Labyrinth Section has a time limit that will begin upon entering a section. Your goal is to navigate your way through each section as quickly and safely as possible while overcoming foes, traps, and other challenges along the way. The further you progress in the Endless Labyrinth, the more challenging it shall become.\n\n\nDuring the Endless Labyrinth, the magnanimous Minaga has taken pity and granted you five attempts in case you should fail any Labyrinth Sections, allowing you to retry them should you run out of time or meet an unfortunate - yet expected - early end. The Labyrinth Section’s layout will not change even after an attempt has been expended, but all traps, creatures, and other such challenges will be reset.\n\n\nMinaga wishes you luck. For if you wish to challenge his Endless Labyrinth, you will sorely need it.\n\n\nObjective: Complete as many Labyrinth Sections as possible.\n\n\nCurrent objective: Complete Labyrinth Section 1.\n\n\nAttempts remaining: 5\n\n\nJake read the lengthy description as he quickly got the gist of it. It was pretty much exactly as he had expected it to be. It was just an endless string of “floors” that Jake had to complete as quickly as possible, hopefully doing as many as humanly possible.\n\n\nNo, better than humanly possible. Jakely possible!\n\n\n“You done reading it all?” Minaga asked before Jake even had time to consider the whole message.\n\n\n“I get it. Not like this is that complicated or different from the prior floors,” Jake shrugged as he threw the Unique Lifeform a teasing smile. “Also, I must thank thee, oh-so magnanimous Minaga. To bless the lowly me with five attempts, your kindness is truly unrivaled.”\n\n\nMinaga looked at him for a bit before crossing his arms. “I am going to broadcast this to everyone live, so you better not be a bully, or everyone will come to learn how rude you are.”\n\n\n“Eh, there’s not that many watching,” Jake said, shaking his head. “I guess you’re only showing it to a select few and not all the representatives present.”\n\n\n“Maybe I’m recording it and will show them later,” Minaga pointed out.\n\n\n“I guess you could do that,” Jake nodded as he smiled. “I must admit, I hadn’t taken you to be that kind of guy. You sure are full of surprises.”\n\n\n“… I’m not going to take that bait, so you may as we-“\n\n\n“Who would have thought Minaga had a humiliation fetish? Truly an astonishing discovery.”\n\n\n“I am beginning to question my decision to broadcast this live,” Minaga muttered to himself as he got a bit more serious. “Anyway, let’s just get this started, alright? While I am not going to disagree that you have a huge advantage in my Challenge Dungeon, you shouldn’t think it will be a complete cakewalk. The difficulty scales infinitely, and you will reach your limit at some point.”\n\n\nThe narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.\n\n\n“I shall keep that in mind,” Jake nodded, pretty much getting told what he already assumed. “I am looking forward to seeing what interesting things you cooked up in your Challenge Dungeon.”\n\n\n“Then let’s get started. I am obligated to say this, so good luck! And more importantly, try and have fun!”\n\n\nWith those words, Minaga teleported away as the massive door behind him began opening. Out came the special fog Jake had seen so many times before. The one that limited Perception and how fast you could move within it while also fucking up divination magic and many other schools and affinities. Of course, what it didn’t fuck up was Jake’s sphere.\n\n\nRight as the system message telling him the Challenge Dungeon had truly begun appeared, Jake closed his eyes and released a Pulse of Perception.\n\n\nYou have entered Labyrinth Section 1 of Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth.\n\n\nTime Remaining: 9 days, 23:59:59\n\n\nJake opened his eyes again with a mental map before him. The first Labyrinth Section was pretty large, extending nearly one hundred kilometers into the distance, with a classic maze-like design. A super classic design, in fact, as one could technically beat it by just continuously following the left or right wall until one reached the end.\n\n\nHeck, based on what Jake saw, the first section could easily be beaten by doing just that and walking at a brisk pace. Of course, Jake wasn’t going to do that as he bent his knees and smiled a bit to himself as he shot forward into the first Labyrinth Section.\n\n\nThere weren’t even any enemies or traps in this first section. It was just a pure maze and, quite frankly, kind of boring. Luckily, there was one thing present to not make it entirely mind-numbing.\n\n\n“Oh great, he just charges right in as if he already knows where to go… oh wait, he probably does… yay…”\n\n\nJake smiled to himself as he navigated through the shortest path toward the end, not slowing down for a single second or even taking his time to respond to Minaga’s very exciting commentary throughout. Though, to be fair, rather than commentary, it was more just Minaga venting in a passive-aggressive tone.\n\n\n“How exciting, will he go down the wrong path!? No, of course, he’s not, how silly of me…. Is it left or right at the next… right, it was right, yeah… yeah, good job. Halfway already, huh? Nearly there… and… congratulations for finishing the first section!”\n\n\nReaching a giant double-sided door, Jake quickly touched it as a notification popped up in front of him, and the door began to open. Through his sphere, he also saw that the next part of the Endless Labyrinth simply manifested behind the door, popping into existence all at once.\n\n\nLabyrinth Section 1 clear time: 1:17:42\n\n\n“Damn, it still took me over an hour, huh?” Jake {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} said. “Longer than expected for sure… then again, the maze was just long, not hard.”\n\n\n“… screw you and keep moving. The timer for section two already started.”\n\n\nGrinning, Jake shrugged as he saw that was indeed the case. He had just been too focused on the clear time to really notice it.\n\n\nYou have entered Labyrinth Section 2 of Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth.\n\n\nTime Remaining: 9 days, 8:59:52\n\n\n“Time allocated is going down fast,” Jake commented, and he released another Pulse of Perception. “But the size of the section is about the same. Say, can you give a scoop on the average number of sections cleared?”\n\n\n“Four million, four-hundred-twenty thousand and sixty-nine, so if you don’t at least do that many, you suck,” Minaga said, clearly being entirely truthful and not at all salty over Jake casually using Pulse to cheese his Challenge Dungeon.\n\n\n“Damn, that’s sure a lot. Better get going, then,” Jake smiled in response as he released another pulse and headed into the second section. This one had a few traps added into the mix, but it was still pretty straightforward. So, the result also didn’t come as a surprise.\n\n\nLabyrinth Section 2 clear time: 1:12:30\n\n\n“Better than last time,” Jake said as he touched the second door.\n\n\n“It will get harder, okay? I promise. Just… it may take a bit, alright?” Minaga said with exasperation. “So keep keeping on and stuff…”\n\n\nJake didn’t need to be told twice as he proceeded to have some more fun in a Challenge Dungeon that felt the exact opposite of the Test of Character one. In the Test of Character, Jake had no idea what to do or where to go at any point. It was just an exercise in confusion and frustration as you figured out what the hell the damn dungeon wanted you to do.\n\n\nMeanwhile, Minaga’s Labyrinth was as straightforward as it could be. Disregarding the fact it was infinitely more straightforward for Jake as he knew the straight path to the end, even for those without a cheat-like Bloodline, Minaga’s Labyrinth was still simple. You just had to make your way through a Labyrinth within a set timer and then keep doing that over and over again until you couldn’t reach the end in time anymore.\n\n\nSoon, Jake completed sections three, four, five, six… ten… twenty… Jake just kept going as Minaga kept commentating. Most of it was just him talking and Jake returning the banter, but there were some things of substance said, too.\n\n\n“Did you notice the wall there? You have seen those before, right?” Minaga asked at one point. “I am giving you an actual hint here.”\n\n\nJake had noticed the odd markings covering many of the walls, and he even felt the magical energy infused into them. It was some complicated magic, and while Jake couldn’t immediately figure out what they were about, he had an idea.\n\n\n“These are hints for solving the labyrinth in time, right?” Jake asked as he rushed through section twenty-seven, jumping over and sliding under traps on the way.\n\n\n“Exactly! See, I know you could figure it out! How about trying, just once, to do one of the sections without relying on your cheats but doing it properly? Just for the experience,” Minaga semi-pleaded.\n\n\n“Hm, I could,” Jake muttered.\n\n\n“Really?” Minaga exclaimed with surprise.\n\n\n“Yeah, I definitely could. I won’t, but I could.”\n\n\n“... bullying behavior is not going to get you far in life, you know that, right?”\n\n\n“Didn't you tell me a bunch of stories about you bullying and annoying larger factions or stronger gods into submissions, making use of the fact that you are a cheat-like existence?” Jake countered.\n\n\n“Well, stories are always exaggerated, and I wouldn’t say I bullied them. I just made very appealing arguments with adequate levels of insistence until I got my will,” Minaga said in a holier-than-thou tone.\n\n\n“Right, right, and I am carefully evaluating your proposition for me to handicap myself for no damn reason and finding your arguments for doing so wholly inadequate.”\n\n\n“It was just a suggestion…” Minaga muttered. “And I put so much effort into those hints, too…”\n\n\nOn the topic of the hints to solve the Labyrinth, Jake got the feeling they were borderline mandatory if one wanted to do the latter sections. Stumbling in the dark or keeping a hand on one wall as you sprinted through could only take you so far, and already by section twenty, that tactic no longer appeared viable as the difficulty began to step up. Not just with the labyrinth getting longer and having more dead-ends but also with the addition of stuff like traps.\n\n\nAnyway, Minaga’s Labyrinth also included some level of puzzle or maybe even riddle-solving, which was kind of fun. Jake wasn’t entirely sure how it worked as he never bothered to study the hints given at the start of every section fully, nor did he take his time with the markings covering the walls at other places. But it was probably fun for others, right?\n\n\nIn the labyrinth in section twenty-seven, he took a sharp turn, avoiding the mech-like beast that barred the way down one of the hallways that wasn’t the fastest path. Jake threw the beast a look as he remembered a prior talk with Minaga about these creatures inhabiting and barring his progress in the labyrinth.\n\n\nJake had sadly confirmed one didn’t earn any experience inside of the Challenge Dungeon, even if you did kill some of the monsters barring the way. Jake naturally had to question the Unique Lifeform about this, and he actually got a straight answer when he did.\n\n\n“Eh, they aren’t real monsters but just summons tied to the energy barrier. Killing them just cuts off power to the barrier and allows you through, nothing more, nothing less. As for why it isn’t designed so you get experience? Well, there is a good reason. I won’t tell you the reason, but there totally is one, trust me on that. Definitely not just some random decision the Wyrmgod and I made when designing these Challenge Dungeons. Definitely not.”\n\n\nAlright, Jake called it a straight answer, but at least it was an answer. Only the first part really mattered, explaining they were just summons that powered the barriers.\n\n\nBut, it probably did make some sense? If the creatures gave experience, it would be an incentive to take the paths where they were and not the fastest route. Of course, Jake wouldn’t bother to hunt the monsters in these earlier labyrinths as they were far too weak and often died in a single arrow, but maybe he would have later if they gave him experience.\n\n\nAfter Jake passed section twenty-nine, he entered number thirty, and finally, something changed. With a Pulse of Perception, Jake saw that this labyrinth had introduced a new element: teleportation circles. Were they shortcuts? Ways to set your progress back? A mix of the two?\n\n\nJake didn’t know if each teleportation circle was good or bad, and while he could try and decipher the hints on the walls around the teleportation circles… he could also just do none of that and leave the decision entirely to his intuition."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 798 chapter - Nevermore: Three Limiters\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The further into the Challenge Dungeon Jake got, the more twists and turns Minaga began to throw at him. Quite literally, at times, as some of the sections outright twisted and turned, the labyrinth itself subtly changing as he moved through it. Walls would pop up, and others would disappear, shuffling themselves about in a set pattern that Jake could quickly figure out when he could take snapshots of everything with his Pulse.\n\n\nThen there were the sections Jake dubbed the Labyrinth Archipelago, a name that Minaga liked so much he considered making it official for the next iteration of his labyrinth in the next era. Jake gracefully handed him the trademark to the name and didn’t even need to be credited if the Unique Lifeform did decide to use it down the line. Not that he would have said no to royalties…\n\n\nAnyway, the reason Jake called it the Labyrinth Archipelago was because it wasn’t just one maze but several that were spread out throughout an area, all connected with teleporters. Each maze was a lot smaller than the others, but when you had to do several, sometimes even having to backtrack, one definitely got pressured on time.\n\n\nNot to mention that many of these islands were fake, only having one teleporter on them, with the entire place just being a waste of time. Of course, you had no way to confirm this before fully exploring it or solving some more odd magical riddles and stuff.\n\n\nJake could definitely see why these were supposed to be a lot harder. Of course, for him, it was just an extra Pulse of Perception or two to check out everything. Sadly, he couldn’t see all the islands at once as they seemed to exist in separate spaces or were at least very far apart if they were floating in the same void. This meant Jake had to actually take a few wrong turns before finding the right path. Sometimes, anyway. More often than not, he intuitively just went the right way on his first attempt, which definitely got a few comments out of Minaga.\n\n\nOh, and then there were the labyrinths Minaga began to throw in around section forty, where illusionary arrays were spread throughout, creating illusions such as fake doors, fake barriers with gatekeeper creatures, and even fake traps that looked impossible to beat. Jake ignored all of these.\n\n\nAside from different layouts, the non-illusion enemies and traps also changed significantly. The traps had become deadly even to Jake – assuming he ever let one hit him – and were no longer made just to slow people down. Lasers that could cut Jake’s limbs off like butter began appearing around section sixty, and in section sixty-five, he encountered the good old lowering ceiling trap. Except it was entire sections of the maze that would begin to lower at once to crush him, forcing you to quickly find a way out as a mini-maze was created. What’s more, with the ceiling lowered, one of the paths you could potentially take got blocked off, forcing you to take detours around the newly blocked-off area.\n\n\nThere were many interesting traps for sure, but what was more were the creatures. At section one, Jake saw only foes around level 210, while at section seventy, they were between 280 and 290. Based on some quick math, the levels of foes scaled up by one every time he progressed a section, making the difficulty rapidly ascend.\n\n\nWhen Jake reached section seventy-five, he did something he hadn’t done before. He took a breather in the “checkpoint hallway,” as he had dubbed it. For a good reason, too, as the last section had been quite arduous and annoying to get through after he decided to fight a level 293 turtle gatekeeper creature that had put up a good fight simply due to how durable it was. This section had definitely taken him far longer than he would have liked.\n\n\nLabyrinth Section 74 clear time: 16:54:39\n\n\n“Damn, nearly seventeen hours for one section,” Jake sighed as he took a breather in the hallway between two Labyrinth Sections. “I really need to step up my pace if I want to do just a thousand, much less several million sections.”\n\n\nWhile it was true the Challenge Dungeon had given him 20 days to complete that section, he still felt like it was a little slow on his part to take the better parts of a day.\n\n\n“… you’re killing me over here. Killing me, I tell you!”\n\n\n“What’s one clone more or less to someone as esteemed as you?” Jake smiled as he closed his eyes to rest and fully restore his resource pools before it was time to move on.\n\n\nThese checkpoint corridors, or whatever he decided to eventually dub them, were pretty rare in the beginning, but by now, they pretty much appeared after every section. They were nothing more than hallways between two doors, but they did represent a place where no timer was constantly going down, putting pressure on you.\n\n\n“Even if you think my clones have little value, are you truly willing to have the death of one on your conscience?” Minaga asked. “To live with the fact that you have killed me for the rest of your life… that you have killed such an inspiring figure?”\n\n\nJake put on a serious face as he spoke in a calm tone. “I have resolved myself to the fact that my Path to godhood will be one littered with corpses. I can… no, I must be able to face myself, even if such a thing happens. Your sacrifice would definitely be remembered eternally.”\n\n\n“You know what? Now I nearly want to die just to keep this hanging over your head.”\n\n\n“That doesn’t sound like something an esteemed figure would do,” Jake said with a smirk. “And why would I bother remembering someone like that?”\n\n\n“Rude.”\n\n\n“I never said anything rude. I just spoke my truth and was brutally honest.”\n\n\n“People who say they are just speaking the truth or being brutally honest are often just saying that as an excuse to be horrible assholes to others without having to face the repercussions of their own actions,” Minaga chimed in.\n\n\n“Wow, that’s a brutally honest take for sure,” Jake nodded along. “And are we back to you being a massive bully again?”\n\n\n“I always face the consequences. Well, the version of me that did something does. It wouldn’t be fair to get all of me involved just because one of me fucks up.”\n\n\n“A great way to truly avoid responsibility indeed,” Jake shrugged as he kept relaxing a bit. “Now, back to this labyrinth in question… you said it would be getting hard, but when exactly does that happen? Still waiting over here.”\n\n\n“Some would argue it has already gotten hard. The traps can now prove lethal even to you, the teleporters aren’t as easily exploited, more features to slow you down has appeared, and the gatekeeper creatures can put up a decent fight… so isn’t it at least harder now than in the beginning?” Minaga tried to argue very flimsily.\n\n\n“Sure, it has gotten more difficult, but something going from easy to slightly less easy still makes it easy. I think the main thing right now is the length of the timers being more than ten times above how long it actually takes. Removes a lot of the pressure of the situation and makes it all feel a bit too relaxed and casual,” Jake argued.\n\n\nThis story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it\n\n\n“You do remember this is a maze, right? A labyrinth? You are just running straight for the end every time, already knowing the way. If I had to balance the timer around everyone already knowing the way, I would have put a damn map at the start of every section and not a magical problem to solve, now wouldn’t I? Or maybe I should just make my next labyrinth a straight path for people to sprint down. Would that be better, huh?” Minaga said, sure winding himself up.\n\n\n“I never said you had to change anything, just that from my very overpowered point of view, it has yet to be hard,” Jake muttered.\n\n\n“Fair, I guess. But there are more things to come, so maybe you will face something that is actually difficult at some point? Heck if I know, though. Your overpowered Bloodline probably has some other secret aspect to overcome anything I throw at you…”\n\n\n“You could always throw in a water level. That would sure slow me down,” Jake said semi-jokingly.\n\n\n“I find the very notion you believe I could ever do that insulting. I have integrity! Integrity, I tell you!” Minaga said, getting himself even more worked up.\n\n\nHe remembered Minaga had already shown disdain for water levels prior and definitely believed he wouldn’t do ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) that in his labyrinth. Also, even if there was a water level, Jake would still be beating it, though it would be a lot more difficult and time-consuming.\n\n\n“Then I guess all there is to do is watch me continue to demolish your labyrinth. Hey, maybe you can use the data for an improved version in the next era? Find countermeasures to someone like me?” Jake said, trying to be a little encouraging.\n\n\n“I think that if I implement countermeasures to actually hinder you, an unfortunate side effect would be to make it utterly unbeatable for nearly everyone else…” Minaga said with a sigh. “Procedurally generating it won’t work as that messes up many other legitimate scouting methods, and even if I did that, who is to say you won’t just know where to go anyway due to some stupid gut feeling or anything? Yeah, trying to make countermeasures is a waste of time. I would rather just hope there aren’t more people like you out there…”\n\n\nJake just smiled and shook his head as their conversation slowly died down. He knew Minaga had a hard time implementing any features to hinder Jake, and in all honestly, he saw himself as only having three true limiters in Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth - three things that could lead to him not completing a section in time.\n\n\nThe first one was his movement speed. Jake was fast, but he could be faster, especially with the mist slowing him down. That is why he worked on trying to speed up slightly by covering his body in a faint layer of destructive arcane affinity that seemed to help a little bit. Outside of that, it was just to keep good form and keep sprinting while conserving stamina and drinking potions whenever necessary.\n\n\nSecondly was his fighting power. Jake had noticed that, at least so far, Minaga would never force him into a fight, but there were cases where not fighting a gatekeeper would require him to take a long detour. So when he began to meet foes he simply couldn’t beat, it would all be down to if he was fast enough to do the detour in time. Jake was still not at this stage, but he knew it would come at some point.\n\n\nThe third and last limiter Jake saw was Minaga introducing a new element he had no way of cheesing. The Labyrinth Archipelago was already pretty good at delaying him. Still, it didn’t impact him more than anyone else, but if Minaga added elements Jake couldn’t do anything about, he could also see himself being fucked. He wasn’t sure what Minaga could add, but it was definitely possible.\n\n\nHowever… if number three didn’t come into play, Jake felt extremely confident he wouldn’t just be going for a high score but perhaps the highest score anyone on the Leaderboards could get. He did believe there were level 349s out there who didn’t compete on the Leaderboards and could do better, but those didn’t matter. As long as he could beat all his peers, Jake would be more than happy.\n\n\nHis confidence was far from unfounded. One would have to be a complete cheat with a Transcendence or a Bloodline to even stand a chance against him, and even if they had one, Jake believed his Bloodline was better. Jake was also a speed-focused built, having even put all the Free Points gained from the levels to his profession after he visited the gods into Agility to move just a little faster through the labyrinth.\n\n\nHe had everything going for him in this Challenge Dungeon, almost as if he was born to utterly dominate it. He truly had no excuse if he ended up with a poor performance. If he couldn’t get the top score, then what the hell kind of living cheat did you have to be in order to do so?\n\n\nAlright, there was one more potential kind of person who could overtake him. While talking with Casper when they met up in Minaga City, the Risen talked about how he had certain advantages as a Dungeon Architect. That he could also “cheat” in the dungeon and find the way easily.\n\n\nCasper himself wasn’t a threat when it came to being number one, as the Risen, quite frankly, didn’t have the speed required to be at the top. Even if he knew the way, Jake could see him get stuck on levels with limited time quite easily, a sentiment he shared with many others with dungeon-making focused Paths. Such Paths tended to focus on mental stats over the physical ones, after all. Plus, while someone like Casper could cheat as a Dungeon Architect, Jake’s level of cheating was still far superior.\n\n\nSo… to summarize, Jake was going for the top spot. He wanted the best Grand Achievement he could get… and he couldn’t lie; Minaga’s constant complaints only served as further motivation.\n\n\nAfter his rest, Jake stood back up and stretched as he looked at the next gate. Let’s see if I can do this faster than the last one.\n\n\n“How long has it been since he entered?” Vilastromoz asked with a big smile. He naturally already knew, but he wanted to ask just to make Minaga vocalize it.\n\n\n“Twenty-five days or so,” Minaga said, not elaborating further.\n\n\n“And, color me curious, how long does it usually take for the average person?” the Viper asked.\n\n\n“… more than that…” the Unique Lifeform said in a small voice.\n\n\n“How much more, I wonder? A week more? Oh, maybe an entire month! Pray tell, pray tell!” Vilastromoz said, completely unable to hold himself back from teasing the Unique Lifeform.\n\n\nMinaga just stared at him for a bit before crossing his arms. “Not saying. Figure it out yourself. And Wyrmgod, you better not say a word either.”\n\n\n“How petty,” the Viper shook his head as he turned to his secret weapon. “How about you two? Aren’t you curious?”\n\n\nHe naturally spoke to Nature’s Attendant, but more importantly, Artemis. The old druid just smiled, while Artemis didn’t even try to hide her interest as she nodded enthusiastically.\n\n\nAs expected, Minaga couldn’t resist as he sighed. “First of all, the Viper’s question is flawed. The usual person never even gets this far. And for those who do, the average time for doing so is just around thirteen months, give or take.”\n\n\n“So, Jake is just fifteen times or so faster than the average person?” the Viper asked with a smile. “Not too bad, I guess.”\n\n\n“Faster than the people who make it this far,” Minaga corrected him. “Considering it’s only the above-average Nevermore Attendees that get above section sixty, with many entirely flunking out within just a few, I guess some would argue his performance is even better than expected.”\n\n\n“If… if I may, how does he compare to the other top contenders? How close is he to being the fastest to get to section seventy-five?” Artemis asked, a bit nervously.\n\n\nMinaga just threw her a deadpan look. “How close? Come on, are you also teasing me now?”\n\n\nArtemis looked genuinely confused as the Wyrmgod spoke up.\n\n\n“He is the top contender.”\n\n\n“Oh,” Artemis muttered with a nod.\n\n\n“Man, he sure is a cheat. That Bloodline of his is totally broken,” Minaga sighed loudly. “Hey, Artemis, can you do me a favor?”\n\n\n“Hm?” she responded. “If it’s within my capabilities, I will do my best.”\n\n\n“Great,” Minaga said as he put on a massive teasing smile. “If you two ever have kids that inherit his Bloodline, can you give me details on it or at least some tips for countermeasures?”\n\n\n“I… what?” Artemis exclaimed as the tips of her ears turned red before she gathered herself. “Please stop joking around like that; I find it highly inappropriate. Also, you know as well as I that sharing the secrets of others, including the details of their Bloodlines, is not something one should do.”\n\n\n“Right, right, how rude of me.” Minaga put up his hands defensively as no one continued the subject. Jake standing up in the recording to continue the labyrinth served as a nice distraction.\n\n\nVilastromoz just shook his head at the interaction between the two gods as he smiled to himself… unable to avoid noticing how she hadn’t denied or shot down the notion of potentially carrying forward Jake's Bloodline."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 799 chapter - Nevermore: An Unmissable Opportunity\nTarget length: ~2600 words\nKey events: dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake narrowly ducked under the flying glaive before jumping right as the floor collapsed under him. Kicking off the wall, Jake managed to launch himself away from the pit that had opened up beneath him right as a piston-like block of labyrinth shot down, nearly pushing Jake into the hole.\n\n\nLanding on solid ground, Jake quickly knelt down and braced himself as he crossed his arms and summoned a stable barrier of arcane energy to defend himself. A barrage of small mana spikes hit him right as the barrier was done manifesting fully, blasting Jake further down the labyrinth hallway but failing to penetrate the barrier.\n\n\nHe knew he couldn’t land on the ground as spikes would just pop up, so Jake ran on the wall for a bit as he made his way down the long trap-filled labyrinth hallway while avoiding all the remaining traps. At least he tried to. A net of lasers shot after him not soon after, followed by an incredibly fast-moving spike that came out of seemingly nowhere, but before Jake could even address these two, he had to consider something else.\n\n\nRunic circles began glowing on the ceiling and walls as energy intensified. Jake instantly understood what was about to happen as he gritted his teeth and blasted arcane mana to launch himself down the hallways as quickly as he could while also dealing with the damn everpresent mist.\n\n\nThis decision did mean a sacrifice had to be made as one of the lasers hit him, taking his left arm clean off. It hurt like hell, but it had to be done. Flying down the hallway quickly, Jake hit the back wall and kicked off it as he got around the corner.\n\n\nRight as he did so, an explosion sounded out as the entire hallway erupted with intense mana, the ceiling even collapsing in a scripted event, blocking off the path. Jake didn’t doubt for a second he would have died if he had stayed there or been just half a second slower.\n\n\n“Maybe I should have taken the non-shortcut route,” Jake muttered to himself as he regarded his missing arm. Taking out a health potion, he quickly chugged it and focused on his Blood of the Malefic Viper skill as the arm began to regrow at a visible pace.\n\n\n“Wow, really? But that would have wasted an entire hour or something horrendous like that!” Minaga chimed in, always ready to add his two cents.\n\n\n“Oh, good point. Yeah, definitely picked the right hallway,” Jake said with a smile.\n\n\nThese trap hallways had begun to get quite dangerous. By now, everything could kill him, and the attacks moved so fast that Jake could only react due to his near pre-cognitive instincts. He had noticed that some attacks could still be blocked even if Jake should logically not be strong enough to. The barrage of small mana spikes being one such example. If it was dungeon-fuckery or some unique properties of these attacks, he didn’t know, but his stable arcane mana did wonders.\n\n\nFor most attacks, blocking was entirely out of the question, though. The lasers would burn through anything Jake could summon, with him only feeling confident in blocking with Eternal Hunger if he absolutely had to. However, even then, the remnant energy that hit him scorched his flesh. Any physical attack was also not gonna happen as the sheer impact would rip both his arms off.\n\n\n“So, is it hard enough for you yet?” Minaga asked.\n\n\n“Considering I managed to do the hallway while only losing an arm, I am sure I can handle it getting a bit harder. But yeah, things are definitely improving with every section,” Jake said with a smile as he continued onward. Walking a bit forward, he saw a hole in the ceiling, and without further ado, he jumped as he went up a floor.\n\n\nA new kind of Labyrinth Section appeared at number one hundred. One that Jake hadn’t even considered before, but honestly, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It was a multi-layered labyrinth with two floors. It was as if the labyrinth had gotten a basement that one had to use to pass certain sections by either passing through on the first or second floor.\n\n\nThis in itself wouldn’t be that difficult… except the walls could move up and down, with some of them being triggered by the person doing the labyrinth. However, you could only trigger a gate on the opposite floor of the one where you needed to move the wall, making it all quite a complicated puzzle. Well, it was complicated for regular people. Jake, on the other hand, could easily piece together which walls he had to move and see all the trigger mechanisms right as he entered the Labyrinth Section.\n\n\nSo section one hundred hadn’t added the feared third limiter obstacle Jake hoped wouldn’t come. When he reached section one-hundred and three, the labyrinth was expanded once more as a third floor was added. At one-hundred and seven, a fourth one came, and at one-hundred and ten, the fifth one arrived.\n\n\nJake realized that Minaga had decided to increase the difficulty of the labyrinth, not simply by making it longer but by adding an entirely new dimension. A usual labyrinth was very much a two-dimensional puzzle, but the further he got after section one hundred, the more it became a cube as it turned into a three-dimensional labyrinth.\n\n\nIt only got more and more complicated the more sections he passed until soon, even Jake had to admit he began to struggle and get challenged. It had to be mentioned that even if Jake had an overpowered Pulse of Perception, the labyrinth could still get so damn complicated Jake still had to take his time and think about how to solve it.\n\n\nHe had to consider which walls to raise and lower, which teleporters could potentially be used, which paths he had to avoid entirely, and finally, to create an entire route that he could complete in time. Okay, the time limitation still wasn’t a real problem quite yet, but he had a feeling it would be soon.\n\n\nBecause right now, Jake was in Labyrinth Section 151, and by now, it was pretty much just a giant cube. He had to climb up and down all the time to get to the exit that was often incredibly far away, with a shitload of near-impassible obstacles in between. These trap hallways were something Jake could still do, but he had reached his limit somewhere.\n\n\nJake, having run for a few hours and with a newly fully regenerated arm, snuck around a corner and took a quick glance in to confirm something. What he saw was a creature that stood in front of a large barrier, with a shimmering wall nearly right in front of him. He knew that if he passed this wall, he would be trapped in there with the gatekeeper until one of them died, so he couldn’t just escape even if he wanted to. The shimmering wall also marked when space would be expanded, as each gatekeeper pretty much had an entire arena to itself. Fighting in a hallway wasn’t going to happen, after all. Especially not when it came to the kind of gatekeepers Jake now found himself facing if he wanted to pass these barriers.\n\n\nThe author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.\n\n\nWhat stood in there was a large mammal-like beast with massive arms, each with long blades growing out of it. Its body looked more metal than flesh. It was about five meters tall, very bulky and bear-like, and looked to be a slower tanky variant. As it stood on two legs reminiscent of a werewolf, and even with the shimmering wall, he could feel its presence subtly come through.\n\n\n[Scytcheborn Gatekeeper – lvl ???]\n\n\nHe had been right… after facing peak C-grades from around section one-forty, he had now truly graduated beyond the grade and found himself before a true-blue B-grade. And, based on what he guessed, it wasn’t necessarily a horrible variant either.\n\n\n“Hey… Minaga…” Jake muttered.\n\n\n“You’re thinking about doing it, aren’t you?”\n\n\n“I was just wondering… are there any rewards from getting to a certain section without dying?” Jake asked. “Like, if I somehow died now, would it screw me over in any way?”\n\n\n“I can’t answer that. Oh, by the way, on an entirely unrelated note, did you know that B-grades aren’t really meant to ever appear in this C-grade version of the Challenge Dungeon? So, if you do ever happen to encounter one, surely it is indicative of you having gone far beyond the norm. Just food for thought,” Minaga super subtly hinted.\n\n\nJake smiled at the response as he kept observing the B-grade for a little while, trying to get a feel for it.\n\n\nHe still had five lives or attempts remaining. Five resets, so to say. While it probably wasn’t necessarily the smartest, Jake believed he couldn’t let go of a chance like this. To face a B-grade in an actual battle without any genuine risk of death was a rare opportunity and would give him invaluable experience for when he would truly hunt one down.\n\n\nYeah, it definitely wasn’t just Jake really wanting to fight it. It was definitely a decision rooted in logic and reason.\n\n\n“Wish me luck,” Jake smiled as he walked toward the shimmering wall, not bothering to make any real preparations. He was just testing the waters, after all.\n\n\n“I hope you die a horrible death that demotivates you so much you become unable to do any more sections. Oh, or maybe the experience makes you dead-set on revenge, making you spend all your other attempts going back here over and over again to exact vengeance upon the gatekeeper,” Minaga said with a hint of hope in his voice.\n\n\n“Both very realistic scenarios for sure,” Jake shook his head as he reached out his hand and touched the shimmering barrier. “Now let’s see what a B-grade can truly do.”\n\n\nMinaga stayed silent as Jake focused. Passing through the wall, the entire world warped as the wall expanded rapidly. Jake soon found himself standing inside a massive chamber with the B-grade gatekeeper at the far end. He thought for a moment it didn’t know he was there until its attention firmly landed on him, making Jake temporarily freeze.\n\n\nFrom several kilometers away, it just stared at him with two large beady eyes. Jake resolved himself as he pulled out his bow, ready to attack. Pulling out his bow apparently registered as an act of aggression, making the B-grade react instantly, making Jake’s danger sense immediately respond, Arcane Awakening even getting triggered at the stable 30% right off the bat.\n\n\nJumping to the side, Jake barely avoided two crescent metal blades stabbing out of two small slits in space, the B-grade at the far end having raised an arm. Surprised at Jake dodging, it let out a low growl that sent a shockwave of sound through the chamber. Jake felt Pride of the Malefic Viper get impacted as the mental attack hit, but he managed to stay unaffected and even dodge the follow-up as space once more warped around him as scythe-like blades pierced out.\n\n\nPulling out an arrow, Jake released a potshot toward the B-grade. It didn’t even move to dodge but simply motioned as a blade appeared to block it. Jake smirked a bit to himself as the arrow flicked itself to the side, dodging the blade and continuing its way toward the B-grade that seemed genuinely surprised.\n\n\nIn the end, it chose to take the blow directly as it swatted at the arrow. Jake wanted to manipulate the arrow to dodge the blow, but he wasn’t fast enough. The metal-covered claw made the arrow explode, dealing no damage at all. All he accomplished instead was to annoy the B-grade as it became even more offensive than before.\n\n\nUsing the same arm that it blocked the arrow with, it swung widely, releasing an odd wave of energy. Mana gathered around the energy of the wave as soon spinning metal scythes manifested in mid-air, with hundreds flying toward Jake less than a second later.\n\n\nJake reacted by flying into them, dodging every single one as he even got off another potshot that was once more easily blocked. His ability to dodge and even launch annoying small attacks only seemed to trigger the gatekeeper as it released another annoyed growl.\n\n\nA silver-like aura appeared around the beast as it bent its legs. Jake instantly dismissed his bow and pulled out his katars just in time as his opponent shot toward him. Air and space were cut in its wake as it soon reached Jake, swinging down its massive glowing claw.\n\n\nMinor cuts began appearing all over Jake just for being in the beast’s presence and looking at the descending blow, he knew he had no leeway to hold back. Arcane Awakening activated at full power as the claw reached him, smashing into his body.\n\n\nAt least a body.\n\n\nCurse energy dispersed as his Eternal Shadow took the hit, Jake having launched himself forward straight for the beast. Stabbing forward with Eternal Hunger, Jake got in a surprise hit as Penetrating Fang struck the beast in its stomach. The metal-like skin and fur offered incredible resistance, but Jake’s stab was designed to penetrate armor, allowing him to get through.\n\n\nA loud roar resounded as the beast clearly hadn’t ever expected to get injured. Jake, with his hand still firmly stabbed into the beast, opened his eyes widely as he let go of his katars and jumped back as fast as he could. The entire body of the gatekeeper began to shimmer as every single one of its hairs seemed to turn into metal scythes, its aura and the white energy surrounding it rapidly growing in power.\n\n\nHowever, even as he dodged back, his sense of danger still went strong. The beast let out a long, drawn-out growl as its body began to glow more and more, Jake making as much distance as he could. The sound of the growl slowly started to sound more… metallic and high-pitched as the gatekeeper’s aura stopped spiking, and the silver light reached a crescendo.\n\n\nIn the very next second, its body exploded. Every single hair-scythe shot out and began to revolve around the B-grade in a tempest of silvery spinning blades. In the center, the light subsided as the B-grade slowly stood up, having entirely changed. Its formerly bulky body had grown from around five meters to more than ten and turned lithe and lanky, with all its limbs now just thin scythes. It looked more like a silver statue or mannequin than a beast at this point, with even its face entirely gone, making Jake doubt if it had ever been a beast, to begin with.\n\n\nJake took a defensive stance as a loud, high-pitched sound echoed in the room. His vision temporarily swayed, and he barely managed to dodge a scythe-like appendage that struck down where he had just been standing. The floor of the labyrinth exploded from the impact, sending stones flying everywhere as Jake scrambled.\n\n\nNot about winning, mind you.\n\n\nYeah… maybe I shouldn't be facing B-grades quite yet."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nPath of the Deathless — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Path\n\nNoun\n\nA Path is a System-born metaphysical archetype that represents a fundamental truth of existence. Obtaining a Path unlocks an individual's ability to gain empowerment through Path Skills, wield true Magic, receive Blessings, and achieve recognized Feats of power or renown. Paths are not inherent; they must be either earned by performing a truly great deed or bestowed upon an individual by a powerful entity (such as a deity, an ancient spirit, or a comparable power). Without a Path, one is barred from ascension and apotheosis, and bound to the limits of mortality (See: Pathless). Once a Path is accepted, it cannot be surrendered or rejected.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Shiv | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Georges, Adam, Arrow\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; skills (e.g. Deathless, 1/1, The Pendulum of Burdens, Starhawk Arrow Cuirass, Restricted, Skill Merge Portal Break, 0/0, The Scorn of Umetia)\nSystem notification style: \"System-born metaphysical archetype that represents a fundamental t\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 152 (II) Undercover\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Join the Discord.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, a Rating, and to write a Review!\n\n\n152 (II)\n\nUndercover\n\nShiv complied. He spread his hands open, and he called back. \"I'm Inquisitor Morgan Hyde!\" he shouted, trying to inject as much anguish and desperation into his voice as possible. \"We... we were attacked! We were with Master-Inquisitor Sijik’s Expeditionary Force to Gate Theborn. We were attacked and ambushed by Necrotechs! It was a slaughter! It was an absolute slaughter!\" He drew in a long, shuddering breath. \"Vicar Sullain! He has the Animancy Core! He used the Animancy Core on us! We barely managed to escape from one of their internments after! City Lord Havel needs to know! He needs to know! Please, before it's too late! Before he takes Blackedge from us, he needs to know!\"\n\nA moment of tense silence followed. A rustling breeze washed through the world, and a whistle rose through the air. Immediately, Shiv caught sight of movement passing in his periphery. Even invisible, Shiv could see the distortions clearly. His new ocular enchantments were excellent at separating moving objects from all that remained still.\n\nIn less than a second, ten invisible Pathbearers landed behind Shiv and the other Inquisitors without making any noise at all. But they still reeked with the scent of humanity. He watched as the seven other mind-broken Inquisitors were restrained from behind. Their arms were bound together by dense manacles of adamantine, and then they had hoods pulled over their heads.\n\nA moment later, Shiv felt someone grabbing his arms as well. He almost resisted, but then went slack and let them cuff him. As a dark rag was pulled over his face, Shiv gagged at the acrid smell. At the same time, all sound was severed from him. He blinked. This wasn't just some dirty rag. It was some kind of sensory deprivation hood meant specifically for prisoners.\n\n\"Don't be too rough with them,\" Shiv called out, though he suspected it was in vain. \"They've experienced vile torture at the hands of the Necrotechs. They need support. They need to see a Biomancer. But don't let the Psychomancers reach into them. The Necrotechs… They touched our minds. They planted something there. Something... I think it's a trap. I think...\" And immediately, he felt something prod into his back, urging him to start moving.\n\nShiv let the inquisitorial scouts drag him along. He didn't know how long he walked. It felt like an hour. But on the way, he felt several clenches of spatial distortion. At some point, he'd been teleported. And not just once. Thanks to his armor's Mycelial Interface, he still had some available senses. He could feel the temperature outside, feel the wind rushing over him, the moisture dancing against his outer carapace. The ground was still soil as well. A bit of grass. Then, sand. Were they walking him closer to the water? He could hear waves crashing…\n\nAwareness 40 > 41\n\nThey teleported again. A pressure squeezed down around Shiv. The wind faded entirely, and the world grew dry. Heat washed over him. Abruptly, he found himself stomping down on concrete flooring rather than dirt or soil.\n\nTwo inquisitors pulled him by his arms and dragged him down. As Shiv sat, he felt his rear land on a seat. It promptly broke beneath him. He crashed down onto the floor with a grunt of surprise. Right. Perfect Semblance hides my identity and skills. But it doesn't really do anything for my weight. And Shiv was considerably heavier than Inquisitor Morgan Hyde, especially with his layered armor on. He was pulled back to his feet and, a moment thereafter, made to sit down again. This time, he found a sturdier chair beneath him. I am not physically built for spy shit at all, Shiv thought with a wince.\n\nHis hood was wrenched off his face, and he found a familiar figure sitting across from him.\n\nThe man was tall and gaunt, and static imperceptibly danced along the edge of his meticulously trimmed black beard. His armor was characterized by slats with slight separations between them, copper wires coiling along the crenulations. Electricity surged through his armor, and slight forks of lightning leapt out from his body in a crackling aura.\n\nShiv had wondered what it would take for him to make contact with the City Lord. But here he was in the flesh. Havel Stormhalt. Looking just like he did in the Jealousy's memory back at Elaboration.\n\n\"Inquisitor Morgan Hyde,\" Stormhalt said. There was a faint rumble of thunder in the back of his throat, and his storm-gray eyes flashed with hints of distant lightning as he stared expressionlessly at Shiv. \"The scouts have reported what you told them. And I find your claims to be disturbing.\" The City Lord leaned back and sneered down at the table between them. He made a gesture thereafter, and one of the nearby inquisitors placed a cup of water on the table. Shiv stared at the cup of water, and he reached out. He wasn't going to be able to drink it with his helmet on, but he could still pretend. He picked the glass up with shaking hands and messily poured it against his face. It splashed down as Shiv made lapping noises, making it seem as if he was dehydrated and nervous.\n\nStormhalt shot him a look of pity and sighed. \"The scouts also said you claimed to have escaped from a Necrotech internment camp.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Shiv rasped. He looked around the room. It was like a metallic box. No decorations. Just him. Stormhalt. Two automaton Pathbearers. A door. Shiv couldn’t tell much else about this place besides that, except that there was also some kind of sterile taste in the air. “Y-yes. They ambushed the expeditionary force. We were just past Margarita Point when they hit us in the air. They overwhelmed us immediately. They—\"\n\nStormhalt held out a large hand and interrupted him. \"You claim that Necrotechs did this. Was it only the Necrotechs?\"\n\nShiv blinked and offered a frown. \"I... I think so. The attack was sudden, overwhelming. We tried to hold against them, but we couldn't. They were just suddenly among us, ripping through us from the inside, even as our magi tried to set up defenses. When our inner shields collapsed, the rest of our forces followed. And then... and then...\" Shiv shook. He tried not to overdo it, but he wanted to sell the look of a traumatized man. Someone who had faced and tasted too much death, and came out broken. Someone who was most assertively not Shiv. \"And then I saw him, Vicar Sullain. He had the Animancy Core. He unleashed it upon us, and that baleful blue... it killed so many. We were betrayed by Oldsmith. The ambush was a set-up. So many died. So many…\"\n\nStormhalt snarled slightly. His nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed with electrical power. \"So the Abyssal Mongrel makes his move.\" The City Lord pressed his lips together as he mused, considering everything Shiv had said thus far. \"And you are certain there were no orcs among the Vicar's forces.\"\n\nThat brought Shiv's mind to a complete halt. He remembered seeing a bolt of lightning leaving the Expeditionary Force. Adam managed to intercept it with his arrow. But maybe another had made it through. Maybe multiple bolts had escaped their notice, carrying multiple messages.\n\nIf that was the case, then perhaps they were trying to catch Shiv in a lie. Or they already knew he was lying, and this was a counterintelligence operation more than anything else.\n\nShiv found himself fighting the urge to cast himself back across time and return to Gate Piety. His last foray into spycraft had gone poorly, and this time, it wasn’t just him here. But just then, he noticed a dense pressure grinding against him. It was faint, heavy, and its weight carried multitudes. He felt it pushing against every single magical field he had, from Chronomancy to Biomancy to even his Hydromancy.\n\nShiv stared at the air, and he focused. He focused as he saw a thin glitter of mana there. It was kaleidoscopic mana, prismatic mana, mana of all colors and varieties, and it was suffusing the very atmosphere around him. He had a feeling that if he tried to jump right now, something terrible might happen. Might be some kind of really subtle mana warding. Or something else entirely. Don’t like how it's bunched around my fields. Still have no idea where they teleported me.\n\n\"Maybe,\" Shiv finally answered. He gave Stormhalt a shaken expression. \"There was a great deal happening, and I—\"\n\nStormhalt held up a hand. \"That's enough, Inquisitor. At ease.\" Shiv nodded slowly. \"I understand that you've experienced quite the ordeal. But even so, you managed to save seven of your fellow inquisitors. It is a commendable action; an honorable one. I salute you, Master Hyde. For caring about your fellows, even in these direst of circumstances.\"\n\n\"It was simply my duty, City Lord.\"\n\nStormhalt nodded along. \"We've also gone through the minds of your fellow inquisitors.\"\n\nShiv pretended to be shocked. He drew in a sharp intake of breath. \"The Necrotechs—They planted things in our minds. They reached into...\"\n\n\"We are aware,\" Stormhalt interrupted him. \"Be calm, Master Inquisitor. Our Heroic Psychomancers have delved into them. Their minds have indeed been altered to some extent. That is what they are certain about. Yours, however, we have not touched yet. For you seem more stable compared to the others.\"\n\nAnd Shiv was glad Adam had him review what to say over and over again. \"That's because the Necrotechs thought I was dead. They… they threw me in a pit along with so many corpses. They were preparing to resurrect me, to twist me into one of their undead abominations. I managed to get free because of that, escape and save the others.\"\n\nActing 12 > 14\n\n\"Remarkable,\" Stormhalt said. \"But even so, we will need to review your mind to discover if you've been affected in any way.\" The way the City Lord said that implied a great many things.\n\nShiv simply nodded along. \"Of course, City Lord Stormhalt. We cannot risk the Inquisition and the Ascendants’ glory. Not even for my own safety and comfort.\"\n\n\"Good man,\" Stormhalt said. \"Good man.\" He patted Shiv on the arm twice, and he rose from his chair. A tremor of electricity danced down Shiv’s arm. \"Do you know what happened to Master-Inquisitor Sijik, for that matter? I know that you must be overwhelmed, but any information pertaining to his status will be helpful.”\n\n\"I think he was taken. I think Sullain took Sijik… The Vicar said he wanted there to be an audience for when he conquers Blackedge. For when he destroys the town and the Perch.\"\n\nBolts of lightning blasted out from Stormhalt, grasping at the air around him but striking none of the people in the room. The man's expression was impassive, but Shiv could feel the anger radiating off of his body.\n\n\"I understand,\" Stormhalt said simply. \"You will be teleported out of holdings and placed under watch. We will have a Biomancer and Psychomancer come look over you shortly. In the meantime, we have food prepared, along with a cot if you desire rest. But understand that we will be making full speed toward Blackedge. And we are moving spatially silent, so we cannot teleport you back to Fortress-City Diego for recovery.\" He reached down and grabbed Shiv by the shoulder before squeezing slightly. \"Are you still in this fight with us, Inquisitor? For that is where we are heading, into a fight. We cannot let the Vicar destroy what is ours, unmake what is ours.\"\n\n\"I'm still with you, City Lord,\" Shiv forced out in a stammer. He rose, meeting the City-Lord's gaze as he tried to express his devotion.\n\n\"Good. Very good.\" Stormhalt nodded, and nodded, and nodded a bit too long. Shiv felt something terribly unpleasant turn inside his stomach. And when the City Lord finally stopped nodding, he gave Shiv a final look, then turned to one of the automaton Pathbearers standing guard.\n\n“Move us to temporary quarters,” Stormhalt ordered.\n\nBefore Shiv could ask what that was, one of the machine Pathbearers channeled a burst of Dimensionality over the Deathless. Dark static swallowed Shiv, and a moment thereafter, he was pulled across a small gulf of space. Three seconds later, Shiv appeared in a new, wider chamber.\n\nA cot on the ground awaited him, while a table was placed against the wall. Atop it, a steaming bowl of porridge called out to his senses, while a painted mural featuring thirteen enshrouded figures decorated the entirety of the left wall. There were no windows in his chamber. Only a small air vent lined the corner of his ceiling. But so far, his cover remained intact. Even with the awkwardness he'd experienced earlier, he hadn't been cut down. It seemed like Stormhalt just had him moved from an interrogation room to a detention chamber.\n\nShiv let out a quiet breath and struggled not to celebrate. Maybe I'm actually getting better at this spy stuff too. He looked around and waited another moment for the System to disappoint him. When it didn't, he walked over toward his cot to examine the amenities offered to him. But as he turned his head, something shimmered in the corner of his vision. Shiv paused, and he turned to stare at the mural of the Ascendants. He narrowed his eyes at the colors. He triggered his Compound Ocular Network. He zoomed in on one of the Ascendants, on one that resembled a winged figure that had two sets of arms and bore a bow.\n\nStarhawk, Shiv thought. But there was something about the painting—about its shape—that drew his attention. As he took a few steps forward, he stared at the Starhawk intently, but he couldn't find anything wrong with it. He shifted again, performing the same action he did earlier when he was preparing to head to the cot. And just then, he saw something in the corner of his vision once more. Something was moving there, something minuscule. He immediately whipped his head back in place, and he tried to remember where the visual disturbance was. After a moment of looking, of zooming in further, he finally found it.\n\nThere was a small crack lining the painted body of the Starhawk. A crack that continued through the wall. And within that small crack, he saw a woman, a very short, very petite woman, biting into an apple and looking right back at him. Her short, strawberry blonde hair was somewhat messy, and her eyes were a piercing green. Most striking was her armor; it was made of tessellating plates, the same kind of vibrating material that made up Shiv's Magebreaker gauntlet. Hovering just behind her back was a sword. It was larger than the woman several times over, and patches of rust marred its form.\n\nShe took a final bite of her apple and tossed it aside. As soon as she threw the apple core out from the crack in the statue, it expanded, materializing into normal size and bouncing off of Shiv's foot. \"Wow!\" she exclaimed. Her voice rang clear and loud, and as she clapped her hands together, the air thundered. The room itself shook slightly, dust raining from the ceiling. Even though she was barely the size of a single hair, Shiv felt that she had enough strength to rip this room asunder. This room, and maybe even him.\n\nAwareness 40 > 42\n\nThe woman ran a hand through her hair and sighed as she looked down. \"Can't believe you noticed me with that Adept-Tier Awareness of yours, Master-Inquisitor.\" Then she giggled. \"This is embarrassing. Puts me in a bit of a bind. Havel wanted me to watch you quietly in case you did anything weird.\"\n\nShe hopped out from the crack, and suddenly she grew far larger as well. Or at least to human size. Her natural height of just barely over one and a half meters reached up to around Shiv's waist. But her blade? That was even taller than he was. And Shiv was glad he didn't take his mask off, because that would have made things very, very ugly.\n\n\"Titansbane, I presume,\" Shiv said, keeping his voice even.\n\nThe Legendary Pathbearer burped into her hand and offered it to Shiv for a shake. \"Don't call me that. I hate that fucking title. Call me Jessica. And you’re pretty sharp for a guy who supposedly got the life tortured out of him.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 153 (I) Unexpected\nTarget length: ~1900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Join the Discord.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, a Rating, and to write a Review!\n\n\n\"Welcome, Legend Hawgrave. I bid you—”\n\n“Cut the shit, Stormhalt. I'm here because Kathereine asked me to be, not because you summoned me. So, what do I need to break this time? Are the Jotun coming down from the north again? Do I need to kill another Chieftain? Or maybe the Feathered Serpent finally got his head out of his ass, and now he's making a run on our southern border. That’ll be a fun fight.”\n\n\"Not quite so. The crisis we face is both a complicated and delicate matter.\"\n\n\"I don't do complicated and delicate, Stormhalt. That's Washington's business. Or Carisi’s. You should probably ask them if you want a gentle touch.\"\n\n\"Oh, but it will be worth it. And I need you specifically. We have the go-ahead. It's finally time.\"\n\n\"Finally time for what?\"\n\n\"We have confirmation that Roland Arrow seeks to invoke the ritual. I know that we have had a great many differences, Jessica. But on this, on this, we will both finally see a blood debt squared.\"\n\n\"Huh, that arrogant shit is finally going for it. Well, I didn't think I would see the day. I also didn't expect the Starhawk to let him. But wait, why hasn't he been declared a traitor by the Council? Why are we meeting so hush-hush? This seems to be a bigger deal than you're presenting it to be.\"\n\n“Because the Ascendants are still divided! And because they are hesitant to stand against the Starhawk. They worry that a forceful approach will provoke him.\"\n\n\"But the Starhawk's already provoked. I'll tell you right now what I told Kathereine years ago. Either pull him back in the fold, redact him, or kill him. There's no other way about it. I know she still thinks he’s family, but there’s no chaining another god. Dammit. Family makes things fucking messy. Speaking of family… Blackedge, we're going to keep that town intact. Minimal casualties.”\n\n“Of course. I only want to see Roland brought down and delivered to justice. And also the Perch secured. The Perch and all the other sacred relics he has been hoarding.\"\n\n\"Right, good. Because I think I got a grandniece there, last I checked. Descended from my late husband's brother. I don't much care for that piece of shit, but you know how it is. The girl should get to live. All for family and the ones we have left, right?\"\n\n\"Yes. On that we are joined. All for family and the ones we have left. But some of us have very little left, Hawgrave. Very, very little left.”\n\n-City Lord Havel Stormhalt and Legend Jessica Hawgrave\n\n153 (I)\n\nUnexpected\n\nShiv accepted Hawgrave's handshake, apprehension filling his chest. Alarm bells were going off in his mind. For the Legend to be here, hidden inside his holding cell, Stormhalt had to still suspect him.\n\nBut of all the people or ways he could have spied on me, I didn't expect her, Shiv thought to himself.\n\nHawgrave's grip was nothing special. She was strong, but aside from that, he couldn't glean anything else so far.\n\nShe stared up at him with a playful gleam in her eye. \"That's a pretty strong shake you got there, Master-Inquisitor. What are you, a High Adept now in terms of Physicality?\"\n\nShiv almost reactively softened his handshake, but that would have been even more suspicious. As if she isn't testing me right now. Shiv grimaced internally. What the hells does she know?\n\n\"Yeah, High Adept,\" he replied. Shiv let out a slight cough, framing embarrassment. \"I leveled a few times, escaping from the Necrotechs. I didn't have any weapons, so I had to make do. I killed a few Deathstalkers using a makeshift club I made from a pipe and a piece of concrete. Got quite a few levels that way.”\n\n\"Oh, nice.\" Hawgrave giggled. \"You know, I miss being encircled or captured and then needing to break out of places. It's one of my guilty pleasures. But once you get to Legend, not many people can capture you so easily anymore. Life gets a lot more boring.” She blew a stray strand of hair out of her eye and smiled slowly. “Or really, really exciting, when you actually find someone that can challenge you.\"\n\nShe licked her lips. Something was very, very wrong.\n\nShiv looked down at her hand and swallowed. \"Can I… Is it appropriate for me to let go now, Legend Hawgrave?\"\n\n\"Didn't I just tell you to call me Jessica?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course, Jessica.\"\n\n\"Well, you can let go of my hand now, Morgan.\"\n\nHe did so and took a step back. He briefly glanced at her blade and noticed how it mirrored his movements. It was hovering just behind her, and Shiv's instincts told him that if he made any sudden movements, that rusted slab of metal would likely be greeting his neck.\n\n\"I—it honors me that you—I—\" Shiv stammered and tried to make it seem as natural as possible. He didn't know Morgan Hyde's personality exactly, but when a Legend showed up in front of you, some nervousness was probably appropriate.\n\nShe waved him off. \"Yeah, knock that shit off too. I'm just a Legend. Aside from that, I'm like every other girl in the world. Well, every other girl who's survived over a century of combat in this nightmarish hell we call Integration. Anyway, I'm really impressed you managed to see me. I know you had High Adept Awareness as well. But still, you wanna know how many Masters just let me slip by under their notice?\"\n\nShe waited for Shiv to ask her, and finally he did. \"How many?\"\n\n\"Too many,\" she answered. \"At least ten in the past few hours.\" She looked back at the crack she'd been hiding in and laughed. \"It's a bit of a hobby of mine, you know? Shrinking down and running through Talsand's ventilation systems.\"\n\n\"Talsand?\" Shiv asked.\n\nAnd then he winced. And he realized, too late, that this was probably something Morgan Hyde would know. He tried to remedy that failure by sputtering, \"I…Talsand… I’m having a hard time remembering some things because...\" He gestured at his head. “They hurt me pretty bad.”\n\nActing 14 > 15\n\nTitansbane pressed her lips together and tutted in pity. \"Ah, Psychomancers. The felling bastards. You know, of all the enemies I've run into, of all the enemies I've killed, I hate Psychomancers the worst. One thing to get stabbed to death. Another thing to be trapped inside your own body because your mind collapsed, right? Like someone forcing you to go demented.”\n\n\"Right,\" Shiv said, letting out a relieved sigh. \"The felling bastards.”\n\n“Still, it's kind of insulting that you forgot Talsand, of all people. I mean, especially since he's been carrying you out for the past week or so. Isn’t that right, Talsand?”\n\nA low rumble sounded from all around them. “It happens sometimes. No hard feelings,” a droning voice spoke.\n\nAnd slowly Shiv began putting details together. Apparently, Talsand was a person. No, not a person, Shiv thought. The way she was describing them, Talsand was likely an automaton. Shiv's eyes widened. Am I inside an automaton right now? Wait, how big can an automaton get? Because this feels larger than a building.\n\nHe directed a mana field against a wall and felt it bounce off. This place was warded. Shiv struggled not to clench his fists. Something was very wrong. Instinct told him he was compromised, but he didn’t know how, and Hawgrave’s behaviour confused him even more if it was actually the case.\n\nThe woman in question nodded slightly. \"Anyhow, now that you've spotted me, I can't really do the job I was originally supposed to. It's hard to be a creepy stalker when your stalkee has noticed you.”\n\nShiv stared at her awkwardly, and she just laughed.\n\n\"Oh, relax, Hyde, I'm not here to perv on you or anything, you're far too young for my tastes. I'm just here to see if you've been compromised in any way. In any non-obvious way.\"\n\n\"I don't understand what you mean, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Oh, the Necrotects have a lot of dirty tricks up their sleeves. And you won't believe the things I've run into before. Shapeshifters. Skinwalkers. You know, I even accidentally killed an invisible New Albion spy once. Totally by accident. Wasn't trying at all.\" She turned around and pointed at her sword. \"Swung old Rusty here without looking and cut him in half. Tell him, Rusty.”\n\n“I still remember the blood, gristle, and bone parting,\" the sword said. Its voice was deep, but it had a refined quality to it. Shiv thought it was the way a scholar might sound. If the scholar was a two and a half meter long greatsword. OK. Sentient weapon. Another potential problem.\n\nHawgrave giggled. \"I totally messed up that time because I didn't see him there, but you know, things have a tendency to work out in life, wouldn't you agree?\"\n\nShiv wasn't sure what she was implying, but he nodded slowly. \"I hope so.\"\n\n\"You hope so…\" Hawgrave sighed. \"Well, fine, since I can't just stare at you from the crack anymore, I'm going to try a more direct method. Are you actually Morgan Hyde? Last chance to come clean if you're not.”\n\nShiv’s stomach turned to lead. “What? Of course I am.”\n\nHe did his best to keep his hammering heart in check as Hawgrave looked him up and down. \"Well, you do look like him.\" Her eyes flashed with mana. \"And you do have his Path. All the right skills too. But why do I still have that funny feeling, old Rusty?\"\n\n\"Because of the orc,\" Rusty intoned.\n\n\"Right, the orc. The orc that curiously surrendered himself to us. The orc that told us all about someone interesting. His Nemesis-Beloved.\"\n\nShiv's blood turned to ice.\n\nNo. No, this is not fucking happening.\n\nHawgrave licked her lips. \"Most people don't much like the orcs. Their response to the grayskins is usually just to kill them. I'm normally one of those people. But it's also not every day that an orc sneaks into your Fortress-City and actively surrenders himself to the Inquisition with special information on a certain Pathbearer in Gate Theborn. A Pathbearer with a mask that lets him pretend to be other people.\"\n\nIt took all of Shiv's willpower to stay still.\n\n“Actually, let’s consult him right now,” Hawgrave said. Her blade moved a meter to her right, and its flat side flashed with the black static mana of Dimensionality. As the darkness cleared, the greatsword became a window into another place, and on the other side was a dark room, with an orc bolted to its far wall. Only his head was exposed, but Shiv would recognize those piss yellow eyes and that sadistic—yet pure—smile anywhere.\n\n812 lifted his head, and his expression grew ever more joyful. “Ah. Deathless. We meet once again. I knew slipping out across Lone Star and getting myself interned by the Republic would raise our odds of a timely reunion. I just did not expect how soon it would be.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 153 (II) Unexpected\nTarget length: ~2500 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Join the Discord.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, a Rating, and to write a Review!\n\n\n153 (II)\n\nUnexpected\n\nShiv’s mind reeled as he considered his response. “I… I don’t know you,” Shiv breathed, still trying to fake it.\n\nThe orc sighed. “You are still not very good at this. They have delved into a few of my memories. Well. I let them. And they know I am not lying. Just as they know I can sense you because of the Curse.” 812 scoffed. “Alas, the City Lord has a loathsome personality, and he refuses to allow me to be of service. But dear Legend Hawgrave was more than accommodating. She even allowed me to stay as a guest within her sword.”\n\nGodsdammit. Challenger, you’re just letting this shit happen?\n\nThe Challenger wants to see what happens next.\n\nShiv sighed. “Fuck me, this was bullshit.”\n\n“Oh,” Hawgrave said, frowning. “Not really fair, was it?”\n\n“Yeah.”\n\nShiv manifested—\n\nHawgrave flicked a finger against his head. Her inertium-forged armor cracked against his outer helmet and split it down the middle. Shiv let out a grunt as the tip of her middle finger cracked his Mask of False Paths right down the middle as well.\n\nMask of False Paths\n\nCondition: Severely Damaged\n\nHusk of the Adamantine Voidmantid\n\nCondition: Wounded\n\n\"Shit!\" Shiv growled as his head snapped backward. Hawgrave’s flick hit as hard as some of Bonk’s heavier swings.\n\nHe tried to stop time once more, but she vanished from sight—only to reappear and drive a sloppy jab into his solar plexus. Her form was horrible, but the blow came so fast Shiv didn't even perceive it, and he felt his bones turn to powder and flesh to paste as his armor shattered.\n\nAdamantine Adaption 171 > 172\n\nShiv impacted the far wall. It rang around him, and then the room shuddered like the insides of a gong. A shockwave smashed into him a second thereafter. Then came more billowing waves of force and heat, crashing over him like ocean waves upon an ant.\n\nDespite all that, the room took no damage. Only the cot and table dissolved into motes of dust. Shiv swallowed back a mouthful of blood and snarled. Legend or not, he was going to hurt her for that.\n\nShiv pulled himself off the wall using his gravitic field—only for Hawgrave to slam into him, pinning him in place with an outstretched hand. He thrust out his Skysplitter, but she grabbed his thumb and twisted backward before he could get anywhere near her neck.\n\n\"I—\" Hawgrave started.\n\nShiv headbutted her. He felt part of his helmet cave in. Her expression didn't even change. She pressed him harder against the wall and threw another light jab into his sternum.\n\nAdamantine Adaption 172 > 174\n\nHis ribs shattered like glass. His sternum dissolved. Sections of his spine snapped apart. An ocean of blood spilled down from his nostrils and mouth. It pooled inside his cracked mask, spurting free from the opening in his helmet. He ignored it. He grabbed her arm and smashed his mana hydras into her.\n\nFor the first time, she gave a response. She moved slightly backward as columns of crimson mana exploded around her. He drove his Biomancy field against her flesh. Her body came alight in outline of spell patterns, but her Inertium armor made his magic bounce off in an instant.\n\nIt did give him a moment to recover. Shiv finally activated his Strider of the Unbending Path. His temporal shell ignited. The world around him stopped.\n\nThen a spike of gold smashed into him. That faint mana concentrated in the atmosphere he'd seen in the cell earlier suddenly collapsed around his body, hardening into a solid structure. It ground against his temporal armor, breaking it, costing him precious seconds.\n\nBut he still had enough to—\n\nHawgrave's eyes narrowed. A smirk slowly spread across her face. Her body came aglow with vaporous, bright-white mana.\n\nShiv looked on in utter disbelief. He was accelerating his own progression of time so fast that anyone without Chronomancy of their own should be utterly still. She had none, so how was she—\n\nShiv's mind ground to a halt. Holy fucking shit. She might just be that godsdamned fast. How high are her Reflexes? Is that even possible?\n\nHer radiant mana detonated outward. It impacted each of Shiv's magical fields and tore through them like a blade would split through Pathless flesh.\n\nA cry of pain forced itself out from Shiv's lungs. His temporal shell shattered into grains of golden dust. Shiv fought through the pain as he attacked her. He threw a knee at her chest, using his badly ruptured mana hydras in tandem with his gravitic field to control his broken body and give force to his blow.\n\nHawgrave vanished again as she dodged. She appeared to his right, and she lightly flicked him again.\n\nHis helmet burst apart completely. Shiv felt his right ear cave in as well. The world spun, and the ground came up to hit him. As he crashed down, he clawed at the floor, fighting against how the room around him spun over and over. He managed to grab Hawgrave by her leg, and he used his gravitic field to twist against her knee. He tried to dislocate the limb, but found himself pressing against an unmoving pillar. He tried to lift her up, to throw her aside after that, but though she briefly left the ground, she slammed down a second later as she got heavier and heavier, exceeding his strength in an instant.\n\n\"Ascendants, you just do not give up,\" she commented with naked glee. “You’re a real brawler, aren’t you?” He spat blood at her face through his cracked helmet and mask. She let the gore splash over her and even ran her tongue over her blood-coated lips. “Fine. Fuck it. Show me what you got, kid.”\n\nHis right ear wasn't working, his soul was lined with searing agony, but the battle lust was on, and he wasn't going to let a few things like shredded mana fields or a crippling wound stop him from putting up a good fight. He jabbed his Skysplitter against her several times. The blade bounced off, but he knew Deepest Edge would send his cuts through her armor.\n\nEven so, the Legendary Pathbearer didn't react.\n\n\"Deepest Edge,\" she said, recognizing the skill. \"Not a bad skill to have at all, but that other stuff, what was that? Gravitic Wrestler? Strider of the Unbending Path, Aegis of Assimilation… Now that's in a pretty eclectic collection, if I do say so myself. What do you think, Rusty?\"\n\n\"I think this one isn't human. Or his true nature has been altered.”\n\nShiv fought through a haze of agony as he directed a surge of basilisk venom into his flesh using his Biomancy. Plaguefueled activated. His body swelled larger. He fed his injuries to his Biomancy mana and swung his hydras against Hawgrave.\n\nA crimson blast of mana consumed the room. Before he could jump to his feet, she reached through the explosion and pulled him up. Shiv borrowed her momentum and threw a rising elbow. She dropped her own elbow in response. Her blow cleaved through his. His limb came apart in a welter of gore. Shiv stared at what remained of the limb for a moment and then hit her in the face with it anyway, ignoring the intense pain.\n\nHawgrave blinked at him, her mouth dropping open slightly. \"How are you not in shock right now?\"\n\n\"I've had worse,\" Shiv growled.\n\nHe hit her three times more with his ruined limb before she finally broke from her stupor. She grabbed his arm by the shoulder and simply ripped it off at the base. A sounding snap shook through his body, and as soon as the arm detached from his shoulder, he rammed his jagged shoulder bone into her face. It didn't do much, but it did make her cough as she accidentally ingested some of his blood.\n\nHer coughing turned into surprise laughter as he slammed into her repeatedly, his Inertial Overdrive building—\n\nShe flicked him just under the chin. Shiv’s jaw exploded. His skull fractured. His sheath discharged. Hawgrave walked through the cataclysmic blast like it was a light breeze and flicked him across the forehead.\n\nA flash of white exploded behind Shiv's eyes. The world was drowned away by a warbling siren and dappled colors. He tried to get his bearings, but his body was spinning. He couldn't tell where he was. Shiv pulled on himself using his field and found himself bouncing off a wall immediately after nausea swept through him.\n\nAs Shiv coated himself using a mana hydra, he realized that part of his chin was sticking out from the back of his neck. A spreading numbness washed through his body. Shiv didn't even feel much pain anymore. Still, as far as injuries went, that one was pretty unique.\n\nAdamantine Adaption 174 > 176\n\nGood godsdamn shit, Shiv thought to himself. She's barely jabbing me. She makes the Recollector feel like a pushover with these hits. Bonk doesn’t have shit on her either.\n\nSuddenly, he felt a heavy weight slam down on his chest. Shiv let out a groan, and he tried to exhale. A wet cough left him instead, along with a splurge of blood. As the bright colors faded out of his eyes and sound returned to his only working ear, he found Hawgrave standing over him, looking down with a thin eyebrow raised.\n\n\"Hells, I might have hit you a little too hard. You still alive?\"\n\nShiv wanted to say, just about, but what came out was a messy slur of gurgled blood and mucus. His mask also parted around his face in halves.\n\nMask of False Paths\n\nCondition: Destroyed\n\nShit. Need to get that reforged.\n\nShe winced. \"Yeah, sorry about that. I held back as much as I could. I was trying to knock you out. Since you survived my first few hits, I assumed you were Heroic-Tier in terms of Toughness, but I guess you might just be a really High Master instead.\" She narrowed her eyes at him. \"I also think I know what you got. That's Adamantine Adaption, isn't it? You felt harder the second time around. Your body was trying to get used to me. Just what exactly are you?\" She let out a surprise giggle. \"Shit, Rusty, the orc was right. There might actually be a crazy human kid getting monster skills.\"\n\nShiv rolled onto his side with a sudden burst of his gravitic field. He launched off the weight pressing down on him for a moment, but then it crashed back down, and he felt part of his torso cave in entirely. It was only then that he noticed that her huge sword was leaning against him. Shiv's senses began to drift as his mind went cold.\n\nDeath was soon approaching. He tried to trigger his Chronomancy again, but the field hadn't recovered enough yet.\n\nShit…\n\n“No, no, I know that look. I know when someone's on the way out. Don't die on me yet, Deathless.\"\n\nShe reached down and pulled the broken Mask of False Paths off his face. And at the same time, a swirl of Dimensionality concentrated around her hand, and from a black static sphere emerged a large, bulbous elixir. Its underside was transparent, and Shiv saw what seemed to be bottled fire swirling within. She popped its cork off, and began pouring it down over his face and into his wounds.\n\nThe flames shot through Shiv, consuming him from within. He felt himself combust, but rather than burning alive, the fire began to reconstruct him, rebuild every part of his body and armor that she'd just broken. She plugged the elixir a moment after, and she dismissed it with another casual spell of Dimensionality. The fire worked through Shiv, and as soon as it extinguished itself, he felt his right arm again, and his chin was back in the right place. More importantly, however, his Perfect Semblance was lost. His true form was exposed for the first time, and Hawgrave held the two pieces of his broken mask in her hand.\n\n\"Mask of False Paths.\" She chuckled to herself. \"Heroic-Tier. That's a pretty nifty thing to have, but you're no spy. No, definitely not. Well, even if you were, we already knew you were coming, especially with our special informant.\"\n\nShiv stared at Hawgrave for a few moments, annoyed that she didn't let him die, but also thinking of how he could exploit her curiosity. This infiltration thing had gone to shit in record time as per usual, but she was trying to keep him alive, and more importantly, she didn't know about his Outside Context Problem Skill. His mistake earlier was not using the skill first, before he triggered his Chronomancy.\n\nWhen his field recovered, he would use Outside Context Problem to shroud himself from Hawgrave's Awareness and whatever that atmospheric counter-mana was, so that he could escape. But before then, he might still be able to confuse them—perhaps even accomplish the goal of his mission all the same.\n\nShiv held up his two hands and sighed. \"Alright, you got me. Really not that good at this whole spying thing.\"\n\nShe nodded at him in sympathy. \"Yeah, judging from your skills, I think you're probably a bit more like me. You like that bone-on-bone fighting, don't you?\"\n\nShiv met her gaze and simply let out a quiet laugh. \"Suppose you could say that. About as much as I like cooking.\"\n\nShe nodded and extended a hand, \"Legend Jessica Hawgrave, Titansbane. And you are? Your real name.\"\n\nShould have considered withholding that information, but there was no point. If 812 had really let them sift through his mind, then they were probably aware of who he was. Or at least suspicious.\n\n\"Hero Shiv. And I don't really have a nickname I prefer to use right now.\"\n\nHe reached up and accepted her hand, though. She pulled him back up with a casual tug, even lifting him off his feet for a moment. And once more, he was surprised by her strength. Surprised and fascinated. There was nothing about her Physicality that told him how she was hitting that hard. She was overwhelmingly powerful. But the nuances of her strength and speed were also staggeringly subtle.\n\n\"So, just Shiv, huh?\" she said, craning her neck to look up at him. With Plaguefueled active, one could have stacked two Jessica Hawgraves on top of one another and still barely reached his shoulders. He guessed her entire body had about as much mass as one of his arms at the moment, which made her strength even more terrifying.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he replied, leaning over slightly to meet her eyes, \"just Shiv.\"\n\nShe regarded him for a moment longer and turned away. \"You know, I'm surprised that Roland let you live. Especially considering what your mommy and daddy did to his wife.\""}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 153 (III) Unexpected\nTarget length: ~2400 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Join the Discord.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, a Rating, and to write a Review!\n\n\n153 (III)\n\nUnexpected\n\nAnd immediately, Hawgrave made her own mistake. She showed the extent of her knowledge. She didn't know Rose was back, and that Rose was right here. She also told Shiv indirectly that she knew his parents.\n\n\"Well, if you know anything about Roland Arrow, it's that he's too kind to be a bastard, but too hurt to let shit go.\"\n\nHis comment made Hawgrave guffaw loudly. She threw her head back and cackled girlishly. \"Oh, oh, that's good. Yeah.\" She pointed a finger at him. \"That is a great description of Roland Arrow. That arrogant, self-deluding piece of shit. I’m gonna look forward to splitting him down the middle.”\n\nShiv noticed how her words ended as a vicious growl, and he suspected that there might be a personal matter between her and Roland as well. Just how many people did you piss off, Town Lord?\n\nA sudden pressure clenched the right side of Shiv's body, and just then, City Lord Stormhalt appeared in the room. He arrived with his helmet on and flanked by seven other Pathbearers. All of them were at least High-Master magi, and they bore weaponry that gleamed bright with Chronomancy mana.\n\nShiv had a feeling they were specifically here to deal with him if Hawgrave needed support.\n\nStormhalt did a double-take at Shiv, and he let out a frustrated snarl. \"Ascendant, the damned orc wasn't lying.”\n\n\"I know, right?\" Hawgrave said, a wide grin on her face that showed her pearly-white teeth. \"I can't believe it myself. But here he is in the flesh, a monster skill-having human.\"\n\n\"Hero Shiv, officially listed as Tanner Lowe in the Republic Census. The Omenborn,\" Stormhalt muttered.\n\n\"Yeah, not really that anymore,\" Shiv replied, trying to clamp down on the annoyance he felt when Stormhalt used that slur.\n\n“But how?” Stormhalt asked. “How did you hide from me?”\n\nHawgrave gestured at his broken mask. “He had this. I think that’s an Aviary item, isn’t it? Pretty neat. I might have some use for it when I get it fixed.”\n\n“Nah,” Shiv said. “I intend to keep it.”\n\nThings were dramatically off course, and Shiv considered at that moment to activate Outside Context Problem and cast himself away to his temporal anchor. But he hesitated. If he left now, Stormhalt and the Inquisition might avoid Blackedge altogether or make a direct run for Gate Piety instead. No, Shiv thought, I need to make sure that they go for Blackedge immediately. Doesn't matter how I do it. Doesn't matter that my cover's blown. He eyed the pieces of his broken mask left on the ground as well. Also need to get that back before I cut and run.\n\n\"So, your ruse has failed,\" Stormhalt said, marching up to Shiv. The City Lord was tall, but he was still only human-sized. Plaguefueled-boosted, Shiv stood at almost three and a half meters. He looked down at Stormhalt. \"The inquisitors you brought with you, their broken minds and wounds, were they your handiwork?\"\n\n\"Not mine alone,\" Shiv replied casually. \"I had some friends help me.\" And then a devious idea came together in his mind. \"Frankly, I don't know what to do with a human mind. I don't know what to do with any minds. I'm barely much of a Psychomancer. So I left that to the other Necrotechs.\"\n\nStormhalt glared at him, and the lightning arcing around his person intensified. \"You betrayed the Republic?\"\n\n\"I betrayed the Republic?\" Shiv spat, snorting in faux disbelief. \"Listen, Havel. I don’t give a shit about the Republic—”\n\nStormhalt threw a heavy hook into Shiv's ribs. A loud thud thundered through the room. A blast of lightning and force swept over everyone. Shiv didn't budge. He just stared down at Stormhalt. Slowly, he turned away from the City Lord and looked toward Hawgrave instead.\n\n\"Maybe you should stick to doing the physical violence. This one tickles.”\n\nHawgrave covered her mouth and failed to hide her amusement. Stormhalt slowly pulled his fist back, and Shiv squinted his eyes, noting his bruised knuckles.\n\n\"Listen, my Biomancy field might be a little bit jacked up right now, but do you want me to fix it up?\"\n\nThe City Lord launched a bolt of lightning at Shiv's face in response. That hit considerably harder. Shiv staggered back a step, taking a moment to shake off the light concussion Stormhalt had given him.\n\n\"Yeah, you should have started with that, asshole. Don't have much of a talent for punching,” Shiv sneered, rubbing his head.\n\nHawgrave couldn't take it anymore. Laughter escaped her like chiming bells. Stormhalt turned his glare on her for a moment as Shiv reached down to take his broken mask back. Just then, a blade was pressed against his throat.\n\n\"Touch it and we behead you.\" A towering, elven Pathbearer held a Chronomancy-lined saber against his throat. She pressed it a little bit harder, and it slipped through his armor with some effort. He noted the frown on her face.\n\nShiv just sneered. \"Yeah, I hope your friends can hold me still. Frankly, I don't give a shit about the rest of you.\" He looked at Hawgrave. \"This one here is my only problem. For now.\"\n\n\"For now,\" Hawgrave said, shaking her head. \"God, you are an absolute peach. I think I'm gonna have to keep this one. Stormhalt. It's been a while since I had an apprentice. I’m putting him in Rusty after.”\n\n\"Absolutely not!\" Stormhalt shouted at her. \"He's betrayed the Republic.\"\n\n\"She's teasing you, dipshit,\" Shiv muttered.\n\n“No, I’m serious,” Hawgrave said. “I want you in my sword. Rusty could use someone like you juicing him up.”\n\n“What?” Shiv asked.\n\n“Enough!” Lightning exploded out from Stormhalt's body. A raging storm built around his person, consuming the small room in tides of turbulent wind. Gales strong enough to uproot great trees ground against Shiv's armor. And to his surprise, he was taking damage. Stormhalt was a mage, a High Master Aeromancer, if Shiv were to guess. Stormhalt took a single step through the denseness of the storm. His body was cast alight by flashing forks of electricity. He came for Shiv like a harbinger of destruction.\n\nBut suddenly, Hawgrave casually strode through the wall of wind as well. She placed a hand up on his shoulder and held him still. Suddenly, the thunderstorm died, and Hawgrave simply shook her head. \"If you kill him, we don't get to interrogate anyone. And I don’t get a new mana battery for my sword.”\n\nStormhalt's body shook slightly, but he glared at Shiv a final time. \"Seize him. Take his equipment.\"\n\n\"There's no need for that,\" Shiv said, holding his hands up. \"I'm willing to cooperate right now. I want to live. Besides, it's probably too late for you guys to do anything anyway.\"\n\nSuddenly, any trace of amusement was gone from Hawgrave's face. \"All right, start talking. Why is it too late?\"\n\n\"Because Sullain’s finished his weapon. He's going to use it on Blackedge as soon as he possibly can. He also knows about you guys, thanks to Master-Advisor Oldsmith and the recently captured Master-Inquisitor Sijik. I don't think you guys have the manpower to stop him either.\"\n\nDeception 22 > 23\n\nHawgrave and Stormhalt shared a look.\n\n\"Has he used the weapon yet?\" Stormhalt snarled. \"Speak.\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" Shiv said, \"but soon. He finished it just as I left. My job was to keep you assholes delayed and confused.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" Hawgrave responded. \"But then why'd you tell us that he had the Animancy Core to begin with? Seems like a stupid thing to do, giving that a way.”\n\n\"Because we can't hide that,\" Shiv said, adapting on the fly. The real reason was that he was pulling things out of his ass right now, and couldn’t keep his story straight. \"Pretty soon, the entire world's gonna know about the Animancy Core. He's built quite the weapon with it. And he intends to turn Starhawk's Perch into nothing but a puddle of slag with it. So if you're trying to save that, well, I hope you have a replacement sacred relic somewhere, because the Perch might be lost. However,\" Shiv let the word hang, \"I might be agreeable to a deal. I can help you save the Perch.”\n\n\"A deal?\" Stormhalt spat incredulously. \"You're talking about a deal with us. You're bargaining. You, a traitor to the Republic, a murderer of inquisitors. You are bargaining for—\"\n\n\"I'm bargaining for my life,\" Shiv said gaudily. \"I don't have any love for the Republic. You can thank Roland Arrow for that. In fact, I think there's not a single person in this room that likes Roland Arrow. That being said, I don't much care for the Necrotechs either. The bastards want to have a war with the surface. And me, I just want to be left alone after I settle a score.\"\n\nHesitation gripped Stormhalt. Shiv's play at manipulating his emotions was working. The Deathless still wasn't a very good spy, but with all the time he spent around the orcs, trying to decipher their intentions, learning their habits, and analyzing their behaviors, he was getting good at judging people's psychologies. And fast. Maybe I don't need to be a spy, Shiv thought to himself. Maybe there is another way I could be socially effective. I don't think I've ever considered giving politics a go. Might put more thought into that.\n\n\"Roland,\" Stormhalt rasped. \"You're here for Roland as well.\"\n\n\"As I said before, aren't we all? Anyway, the hells is your problem with Roland? And yours?\" He looked at Hawgrave too. \"Did he keep you borderline illiterate and stop you from having Paths too?\"\n\nThe Legendary Pathbearer ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek, and Shiv got the feeling she was restraining quite a bit of anger. \"He put a hole through my eldest daughter's head. Killed her dead.”\n\n\"Oh,\" Shiv replied, slightly stumped. \"Yeah, uh, that'll do it.\"\n\n\"My grievance is not your concern,\" Stormhalt said. \"But tell me, what could you possibly be of use to us right now? What can you offer us that we cannot take with our Psychomancers? With our—”\n\n\"Do you want the Animancy core back or not?\" Shiv asked. \"Because I can get back there. And since Sullain still trusts me…\" Shiv paused. \"...somewhat, I might be able to delay. I might be able to damage his weapon. Give you bastards an edge in the coming fight. And before you lose your shit and do a bunch of other stuff, I can potentially smuggle some of your inquisitors behind enemy lines as well.\"\n\nShiv was pulling things out of his ass by the arm length by now. But it was working better than the actual plan. He could see Stormhalt considering Shiv's offer. Hawgrave as well.\n\n\"And if I bring your inquisitors with me, they can make sure I don't betray you. Besides, I don't want to deal with the Necrotechs alone anyway. Creepy felling fucks.”\n\nA moment of silence passed. Stormhalt stared at Shiv and let out a breath. \"The same thing can be done once our Psychomancers are done with your mind. This changes nothing.” He gestured at his soldiers. \"Seize him. Have him prepared for psychosurger—”\n\nShiv triggered Outside Context Problem. He sank into his Vitae, and suddenly the City-Lord did a double-take. Hawgrave looked confused as well. She broke from her casual stance and came alert. Her blade swept through the space Shiv once occupied and cleaved nothing. In the same moment, the Deathless picked up both halves of his broken mask, and he cast a final glance at Hawgrave.\n\n\"I'll get you in the rematch,\" he muttered.\n\nHe froze time, but before he cast himself back to his temporal anchor, he walked up to Stormhalt and channeled a spray of basilisk venom into his face.\n\n\"Have fun with the nerve-agent, City Lord.” That should distract them for a bit, he thought.\n\nWith that done, Shiv cast himself across time. He jolted out of place, surging across reality before he snapped back before the Surface Gateway where he'd placed the anchor almost an hour ago. Two Weaveresses on guard within the teleportation anchor jumped away from him, and between them, a dimensional pathway stood open, leading back to the bunker.\n\nShiv let out a long breath as he processed what had just happened to him. He shifted the contents of his cape and brought the Forest of Alloy in position as well.\n\n“You guys all right?” Shiv asked. \"Uva?”\n\n\"I'm fine, I think.\" The Umbral let out a pained rasp. \"Just suffering incredible mana strain. What was that? Something tore through me.”\n\n\"I don't know. It's like Hawgrave projected her Magical Resistance out of herself. But did you guys get the rest of that?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Rose answered. \"Godsdammit. Fuck! I mean, what the fuck is Jesse doing? Why is she with Havel of all people? And what he hells does she mean Roland killed her eldest daughter? We—She was our friend! What even is this?”\n\nShiv sighed. \"Lots has changed since you've been gone, Rose. That’s my guess.”\n\n\"You guess,\" Rose hissed. \"Also, what the hells was all that?\"\n\n\"What was what?\" Shiv asked.\n\n\"You were a spy for around 20 minutes. That's some of the worst Tradecraft I've ever seen.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, it's pretty normal with me,\" Shiv replied. \"Still got it done though in the end. They're going after Sullain. I think. Just didn't get a chance to do anything else.\"\n\n“What a pity,” Whisper replied. “But 812’s appearance was a surprise. Though an amusing one.”\n\n“Not for me, asshole. I’m gonna kill that fucking bastard for good when I get my hands on him.” Shiv prepared himself to pass through the dimensional pathway. But suddenly, the Surface Gateway behind him shuddered.\n\nA fraction of a second later, Adam exploded out from it, covered in blood and ash. He nearly slammed into Shiv but went still thereafter.\n\n“Shiv?” he rasped. \"You're—We need to go! We have a big felling problem.\"\n\n\"Adam,\" Shiv grunted, frowning at his friend's state. \"I made contact with Stormhalt and Titansbane. The spying went to shit, but they're still—\"\n\n\"Sullain finished his weapon!\" Adam shouted, interrupting Shiv. “I need you and the orcs out on the surface NOW!”\n\nThe Deathless was speechless for a beat. \"Wow. Looks like I wasn't a liar after all. I told the Inquisition he was done with the weapon too.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 154 (I) Weapon\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "It is highly inappropriate to think of an Animancy Core as a weapon. It is not a weapon. It does not destroy.\n\nQuite Contrarily, it forces you to be remembered. It splays your narrative upon the System, fusing you with Integration itself. Perhaps the best way to understand it is as a poorly told story, in which the first person bleeds into the third. With you being the first person and the System being the third. This is why most who are caught in the detonation of an Animancy Core are actually immortal. Immortal in the worst possible sense. They cannot die. They will always remain, but pulled apart at their foundations.\n\nSome report faint traces of blue staining reality afterward. It is less a form of mana and more a bruise, painting a new, partially fused entity under the skin of existence.\n\nAnd so, we use Animancy as a weapon. A feared weapon. These cores that my father has created are regarded as instruments of unparalleled destruction. There are treaties binding them from use, and the Faiths refuse to develop them further. But destruction was not what they were made for. They were made to change the System itself, to deliver a universal narrative—to bring an end to strife.\n\nFor if we are capable of deciding a narrative, of leaving wounds upon the System itself, if it is possible to mix third with first, then why can we not use first to usurp the third?\n\nIt is too late to turn away now. We have already stolen fire from the System. All that remains is choosing how we wish to burn.\n\n-Udraal Thann’s Animancy Notes\n\n154 (I)\n\nWeapon\n\nShiv let everyone out of his cape, and Adam caught them up on what was going on.\n\nWhisper responded in an instant. He ordered one of his fellow orcs to head across the dimensional pathway and make for the Tutorial. There, he was to inform their army about what was happening on the surface, and that they were to scramble and push for Blackedge immediately.\n\nUva projected one of her strands and cast a thought into Shiv's mind. \"Shiv, I need to borrow your dragon.\"\n\n\"Choki?\" Shiv asked. \"Sure, but why? What are you planning?\"\n\n\"The sun is coming up. I also have yet to accommodate myself to surface sickness. The dragon suffers no such issues, and if I keep my mana strands tight within the confines of its mind, I should be able to avoid the Light Curse.\"\n\nThe idea of Uva entering the battle during day time made Shiv’s gut clench with instinctive dread, but a time dragon was a better vessel than most. “Alright, take the dragon, but make sure the Curse doesn't affect you. If it shows any effect, head right back into the gate immediately. Don’t burn for nothing.”\n\nHe wanted to say something more, but she sent a pulse of affection through his mind, and he fell silent.\n\n“Just be careful,\" Shiv said.\n\n\"As careful as I can be,\" Uva replied. She let out a quiet chuckle. \"If you didn't want me to be in such grave danger all the time, then you shouldn't have made yourself so favored and contaminated me as well.”\n\n\"Yeah, the System and I are gonna have a word about that sometime.\"\n\nWithout saying anything further, Uva promptly departed as well, leaving only Whisper, a few of his fellow orcs, Valor, Rose, Can Hu, and Adam nearby.\n\n\"Mother,\" Adam said to Rose, \"I need you to stay here.”\n\n\"No. I need to be at Blackedge,\" she said. She cupped his cheek and stared into his eyes. \"You are not telling me to stay here while everything is going to hell. I won’t listen. And you won’t tell me no.”\n\nAdam swallowed. Shiv knew that the wisest thing to do would be to confine her to Gate Piety, but before an onslaught of overwhelming emotions, wisdom had little hope to prevail.\n\n\"If you're going into this, you're sticking with me,\" Shiv said. \"You're going to be with Valor inside my cape. That's about the safest place around.\"\n\nAdam winced at Shiv's statement, but he didn’t dispute it. Shiv was at once the most likely to die in the coming fight, but considering that he wasn’t going to stay dead, her odds of survival were considerably higher with him than without. \"Are you sure about this?\"\n\n\"Fuck no, I'm not sure about this,\" Shiv shot back. He looked at Rose and shook his head, \"You're not even an Initiate right now. If things go wrong—”\n\n“I die,\" Rose cut him off with a scornful scoff. \"I've been a Pathbearer longer than you've been alive. I've been a Pathbearer since I was barely a girl. I know the consequences of defeat. I have lived the consequences.\" Her expression turned sour. “And I would do it again. I will not abandon my love or my people to fate while my child suffers in my place. If there is anything I can do, or any difference I can make, I won't leave. I won't turn away.\"\n\nHer eyes came aglow with a faint, violet energy. Within her expression, Shiv saw the Diviner she used to be, and he knew there was no swaying her. That, and he didn't think it was in his right to force a mother to abandon her son as he went to war.\n\nHe drew in a deep breath. \"Fine. But do not do anything stupid. I didn't shit you out of my soul just so that you could end up dying a pointless death.\"\n\n\"Don't be so cynical, boy.\" She chuckled humorlessly. \"Dying pointless deaths is kind of what we Pathbearers do.\" She cracked her neck and looked him up and down, \"But you know that better than most of us, Shiv. Or at least you should.\"\n\n\"Valor. Can Hu,\" Shiv called out, turning away from Rose.\n\n\"I will make sure Lady Van Erren remains unharmed,\" Valor said. \"Additionally, I would request that you project your Psychomancy down into the Forest of Alloy. That way, I and Can Hu might be able to provide you with active assistance from the inside as well.”\n\n“Sure,” Shiv said. “But things are probably going to turn into a real shitshow pretty quick, so—”\n\n“I just need a bit of context and an opening,” Valor said. “I intend to keep you spared from Necromancy if I can.”\n\nAs Rose, Can Hu, and Valor entered Shiv’s cape again, the Deathless regarded Whisper.\n\n\"Think you can keep us from being noticed by the Vicar once we get up close?\" Shiv asked. “Because I didn’t do so well myself last time.”\n\n\"I dare not promise the sky nor the heavens, but let's see how this goes,\" the orc replied with an excited twinkle in his eyes. If there was one good thing about the orcs, it was the fact that the bastards were unshakable. A sphere of Dimensionality expanded out from Whisper, and it formed a protective veil shielding them from notice. Anyone staring in from the outside wouldn't see Whisper or anyone beside him. “Even so, I would assume that my Dimensionality will buy us at least a few moments against the Legend.”\n\nThe orc drew his Stealth Skill back into his body.\n\n“Alright. Very simple briefing,” Adam said, trying to keep his breath under control. \"The Necrotechs unleashed a massive attack on Blackedge earlier, and while my father was occupied, something shrouded in Dimensionality emerged from the Abyss. Now it’s hovering over Blackedge like a blade set to fall. The Necrotechs are charging it with Necromantic mana, and it's building up fast. We need to get into position. We need to, we need to—\"\n\nShiv grabbed the Gate Lord by the shoulder and squeezed him gently. \"We'll figure this shit out. Like before. Like always.” When Adam's expression was still stiff, the Deathless shrugged. \"Maybe our tentative plan can be you firing an arrow at one of my Vitae Golems if everything goes to shit. That should obliterate all the Necros at least.”\n\n“And us,” Adam replied, rolling his eyes. \"And have you forgotten how Sullain managed to secure your Vitae last time?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but that's just the thing, right? He had to secure it. It might be able to distract him for a few seconds, during which we launch a bunch more golems at him. Maybe we can overwhelm him that way.\"\n\nAdam arched an eyebrow. \"Wouldn't that kill all of us and set fire to a good portion of the continent? And the Pacific?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but it might kill Sullain too,\" Shiv said. \"Which is one of our objectives. And I would come back to life afterward and receive a juicy Legendary Skill, which is the most important thing.”\n\nAgainst all odds, Adam laughed. He slammed a fist against Shiv's chest. \"You're an impossible bastard, you know that?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but who else is going to go on these suicide missions with you?\"\n\n\"No one,\" Adam said. Then he paused for a beat. \"I would have no one else, either.\"\n\nShiv's mouth opened slightly. He cleared his throat as the sentimentality caught him off guard. It didn’t even matter that the orcs were looking at him.\n\nThe two Pathbearers stared at each other, prodigal sons of Blackedge, forced from one bad situation to another. And here they were, faced with another calamity, another mess, another moment of desperate gambles and apocalyptic stakes. Despite everything riding on the line, Shiv felt happier than he ever did before.\n\nBecause this was what it meant to be a Pathbearer. This was what it meant to walk against the world, to fight the storm—and prevail.\n\nAs soon as they departed the gate, colors of faint blue pierced the periphery of Shiv's vision. Everything in the direction of the Lost Angeles ruins was enshrouded by the light of Animancy. Shiv could see pitch-black war clouds drifting above the ruins, their forms composed by smoke and ash. The sky beyond was no longer a canvas of black; rather, a softer light was seeping into the firmament. Even so, falling arrows twinkled constantly in the backdrop, spearing down as an unceasing meteor shower.\n\nAs Roland's latest barrage landed, pillars of flame speared up into the air, painting the world in additional columns of radiance. The ground shook, explosions rumbled in the distance, and the faint glare of Animancy was growing ever brighter.\n\nAdam took aim in the direction of Lost Angeles as he prepared to release a Veilpiercer.\n\nShiv looked at him. \"Aren't you afraid they'll spot us immediately? I thought we were moving under the cover of Whisper’s Dimensionality.\"\n\n\"It's a risk I'm willing to take,\" Adam replied, his eyes shifting between a brilliant dawn and the blue of a midday sky. He was searching for a place to plant his arrows. \"Besides, they're all focused on Blackedge now. Every single Necrotech is surging toward the town. We should have an opening. I hope.”\n\n“Then their backs are exposed,\" Whisper hummed. The other orcs unsheathed their daggers and shortswords excitedly. \"Now is the time to slit and gouge.\"\n\nAdam fired his shot. A dimensional rift opened before them, and the Gate Lord sped across immediately. Shiv accelerated behind him, and finally, Whisper and the other orcs followed along. There was a wild urgency to Adam's movements. All caution was thrown to the wind. As Shiv stared through their dimensional exit, he saw billowing waves of smoke and ash spilling into the pathway.\n\nThe air stank of sulfur, and Shiv’s Vibrosense enchantment shuddered all across his body. He could feel just how much force was being outputted on the other side, just how many explosions were hammering Lost Angeles into dust.\n\nNo matter what else Shiv had to say about Roland Arrow, the man was a true Pathbearer. Weeks upon weeks of nigh-constant combat, and he was still a godsdamned monster—still smashing the Necrotechs and the city they emerged from flat.\n\nMaster my ass, Shiv thought to himself. The Town Lord’s been a Legend in hiding this entire time.\n\nAdam crossed through the gate first, and immediately, he grew six sets of Hydrokinetic arms out from his body. He fired a barrage of arrows all around him, forming a wall of rifts to shroud everyone from harm. At the same time, he swung his rapier. It flashed time and again, and a small army of clones joined the group in record speed, and they began firing their arrows too. As they did, Adam pulled out his Hydromantic wand and used it for the first time.\n\nA massive sphere of water exploded out from him. It splashed through Shiv and the orcs without imparting any force on them. As the water folded over them harmlessly, they exploded through each of the dimensional pathways, like the bottom of an ocean channeled across a dozen narrow tunnels. Before Shiv could understand what Adam was doing, the Gate Lord fired another dimensional pathway right at his feet, and a new exit revealed itself.\n\n\"Across, now,\" Adam said. \"Shiv, you're on point. We keep moving. We never stay in one place.”\n\nShiv didn't ask questions. He'd fought with Adam long enough to trust the Gate Lord's instincts. He accelerated across as his inertial sheath thundered. Adam tipped pace behind him. He had six Veilpiercers nocked already. And with the final water-forged hand, he summoned more and more clones, filling the space behind him.\n\n\"When we get across to the other side,\" Adam called out, \"we need to destroy the Necrotech projectors powering the weapon. You can’t miss it once you’re high enough in the air. Just follow the beams of corrosive mana back to the launch sites. Ignore the artillery. There are already orcs fighting here. They've been silencing outposts and assassinating enemy elites, but we’re going to need more of them to do any actual damage to the Vicar’s army.\"\n\nThe exit was fast approaching, and Adam grimaced. \"And then we need to figure out how to deal with Sullain himself.”\n\n\"Well, if we distract him long enough, maybe the Inquisition will handle him for us,” Shiv replied.\n\nAdam shot a look at Shiv. \"And how long will it take for them to arrive?”\n\n“Not too long. I think.” Shiv was pretty sure they were coming—that they didn’t want to see Blackedge and especially Starhawk’s Perch destroyed or taken.\n\n“You think,” Adam muttered. “Gods help us.”\n\n“Afraid they’re actually the enemy, Adam. We’re on our own.”\n\nThen, they were through the exit, and Shiv found himself blasting up into the air.\n\nAs he climbed high, he took in the ruins of the surrounding megacity. Kilometers of urban architecture were missing on all sides. Sections of Lost Angeles were pockmarked in deep trenches of glass, wounds scarred deep into the land by Roland's arrows.\n\nShiv looked around, trying to find Blackedge, and a flash of searing green led him to what he sought. High up in the air, something immense hung in the sky above Blackedge. It was practically twice the size of the entire town, and Shiv suspected that if it fell when the town’s wards were down, it might just smash Blackedge out of the sky, whatever it was.\n\nAs the first rays of sunlight began spilling over the curve of the horizon, the weapon’s shadow spilled down upon the ruined megacity. It was shaped like an inverted anvil, and beams of Necromancy were being channeled into it from across the city. Eerie, green circles were filling along the construct’s spine. There were ten of these concentric windows in total, and right now, the first window was glowing with a radiant orb of Animancy, while the six after it were already infused with Necromancy. Shiv assumed once the remaining three windows were filled, the weapon would unleash its power on Blackedge, and all would be for naught.\n\nBut that wasn’t the only issue. From all across the city, the Necrotechs were firing beams of corrosive mana up into the air. It wasn’t just to charge their weapon, but also to box Blackedge in. A Necromantic barrier walled the city off from the rest of the world, like a cage holding prisoners. A similar cage was fused over the weapon, and even as Roland’s arrows splashed against it, the explosions were blunted by the withering effect of Necromancy—and what little got through was consumed by the faint blue of Animancy.\n\n“Quite a strange way to use a corrosion screen,” Valor said, studying the scene through Shiv’s eyes. “The amount of mana it must cost to shroud both the town and the weapon is astronomical. It would just be better if they formed a curved dome in the sky for the arrows. Ah. Sullain was never a good strategist.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 154 (II) Weapon\nTarget length: ~2600 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Join the Discord.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, a Rating, and to write a Review!\n\n\n154 (II)\n\nWeapon\n\n“Yeah, well, thank the System for small mercies, because he has a big felling weapon on his side,” Shiv replied. Still. Something about Valor’s apprehension had Shiv feeling a little paranoid as well. Shiv followed one of the beams back to its firing position nearby.\n\nLess than 500 meters away, Shiv caught sight of a still-standing section of a wide road on top of concrete pillars. On top of it was a Necrotech artillery unit. There were sixty figures standing atop the bridge, and most of them were magi—Necromancers, specifically. They channeled their corrosive mana together, forming massive spikes of Necromancy that they loaded into strange, ringed launchers.\n\nTheir artillery platforms resembled four-legged insects with a series of U-shaped arches traveling along their bodies, rather than an actual carapace. Pulsing tunnels of Dimensionality were channeled out from the corrosion screen, and the Necromantic spikes were loaded in. The arches tugged on the corrosive constructs and shaped them into long, narrow beams that surged forward.\n\nJust as Shiv prepared to launch himself at the enemy, something moved in the corner of his eye. His head snapped down at an angle, and he discovered what Adam had been doing earlier with his Hydromancy wand. A few hundred Veilpiercers punctured the flesh of existence and returned to reality from all directions. From the dimensional pathways they left open, followed jets of hyper-pressurized water. They cleaved out as slashing geysers, moving so fast that they split through the bases of already compromised structures. The Necromancer artillerists on the bridge that Shiv was looking at fell along with their crumbling edifice, and all across the city, more jets of water speared out. Buildings were hewed and toppled like a forest of trees greeted with a tide of axes. Fountains of water exploded up into the air, unmaking several buildings from the inside. It was like an ocean was trying to erupt from just beneath Lost Angeles.\n\nAnd then, the signs of return fire greeted Shiv. A fist of flame exploded a hundred meters away from him. He punched through its unfurling blast and spared himself from the swelling heat. Nearby, Adam's clones bust into existence, firing their Veilpiercers before vanishing again. More of Roland’s arrows kissed the ground and shattered the earth. Blinding blasts cleaved the land asunder, but Shiv spiked down to avoid a salvo of corrosive missiles that came seeking his death.\n\nChaos erupted all around him. Shiv tried to find a trace of the original Adam or one of the orcs—\n\nInertial Overdrive 118 > 119\n\nThrough a dense wall of haze came a flicker of light, and pure instinct spared Shiv from harm. He swung his mage breaker right as a beam crashed toward him. A forking bolt of electricity infused with the foul miasma of Necromancy struck his hand, but his Magebreaker rejected it, and his Frictionless Vector sent it spearing into the earth instead.\n\nFrictionless Vector 69 > 70\n\nHe activated Outside Context Problem, froze time, and threw his dagger in the direction of his enemy. He teleported to his blade and tried to track where the attacker was, but he found himself drenched in a veil of smoke. And it was magical smoke at that. It was unnaturally thick and dense, and Shiv couldn’t see shit.\n\nYet, he still felt a feeling of static in the air. More importantly, he had a sense of improved smell. He let his Pheromonic Cipher guide him where his sight failed.\n\nAwareness 42 > 43\n\nHe spiked himself 40 times in quick succession, drawing closer and closer to his target. Holes disintegrated before him. He hammered through magical wards as well. Finally, when he could practically taste the Necrotech upon his tongue, he discharged all the inertia he had been building up, and an explosion ripped out from his body. His Voidmantid armor suffered some damage, but then he reverted time back two seconds. Shiv’s armor returned to a relatively healthy state.\n\nAs Shiv prepared to reorient himself and find Adam or a corrosion screen to attack, a series of clenching pressures gripped his body and stole away his attention. Someone was teleporting near him. Three massive cylinders burst out from billowing clouds of Dimensionality nearby. They rippled with oscillations of golden mana, and their shapes began to fissure apart as the magic contained within began to spear out in curving streams of light.\n\nShiv's eyes widened as he guessed what they were. Are those Chronomancy bombs?\n\nHe got his confirmation when they went off. Three waves of gold came at him. Shiv parried one of the explosions, but his Magebreaker rattled violently from the effort, and there was so much force behind the bomb that Shiv was launched back. The other two blasts ended up smashing into him while he was reeling. The first left a deep slash along his temporal shell. The second broke it open.\n\nGravitic Wrestler 148 > 149\n\nStrider of the Unbending Path 139 > 140\n\nBut even so, his Chronomancy field didn't fully break.\n\nNot until someone struck him in the back of the head.\n\nShiv's golden mana burst apart across his body, and when coherence returned to him, he realized he was dead.\n\nStrider of the Unbending Path 140 > 144\n\nGravitic Wrestler 149 > 152\n\nInertial Overdrive 119 > 121\n\nFrictionless Vector 70 > 76\n\nThe Deathless materialized over his body as a shroud of shifting Vitae. He watched as his corpse dangled in the air, impaled through the back of the head by a crystalline greatsword. Behind him, a Pathbearer clad in golden skeletal armor and sporting twelve mechanical wings from their spine bore the weight of Shiv’s body with one hand. The enemy thrust harder, driving their thin greatsword deeper through Shiv’s left eye. Coldness washed through Shiv as he sobered.\n\nIt had been a while since he experienced such a sudden death.\n\nJust because he was a Hero didn’t mean he was invincible. Not even close. A single moment of distraction cost him everything. Can’t hesitate anymore. All they need is a single mistake to end me.\n\nAnd where his failure was being stunned by their fast response, the enemy betrayed themselves with their inattentiveness, failing to notice the sprawling mass of Vitae hovering in the air nearby. Shiv acted, wrapping his Vitae around the enemy, sapping their vitality from them as he used one of his strands to plunge his still-bound Skysplitter into the base against their neck.\n\nThe enemy cried out, but their voice wasn't human at all. Rather, it came with the crackle of mechanical distortion, and sparks filled the air rather than blood. Shiv wasn't just fighting a Necrotech; he was fighting a Necrotech bot. Their armor exploded with golden mana, and suddenly, Shiv lost track of them again. The feeling of losing an entire section of his own history was uncanny and terrifying. He remembered the first time he faced the Recollector. A coldness swelled through Shiv’s soul as he realized something had cleaved through half of his Vitae retroactively. Broken parts of his red and white mana were bleeding off into the air, evaporating as they had been severed from his body.\n\nAnother hit slammed down upon him. Shiv plunged through the air—barely a sinew left of his sprawling mass of Vitae, and he felt the chill of true death lick at his core. Anger detonated inside him. He tried activating his Strider of the Unbending Path again, but his temporal shell was still broken. There was less than a sliver of his being left. He fed his anger into his Inertial Overdrive.\n\nAnd it was barely enough to spare his life.\n\nThe thin greatsword slashed down a centimeter next to the last string of Shiv’s existence. The enemy Pathbearer hadn’t realized they missed, and they were unprepared when Shiv speared himself right into their neck. A scream of compromised metal filled the air, and the Deathless began to wriggle his way into the automaton’s sparking wound, draining vitality while ripping through wires and critical mechanisms within the bot’s neck.\n\nOnce more, a golden aura surged out from the enemy’s body, and Shiv pushed himself deeper into the enemy in desperation. But suddenly, they were interrupted as Shiv heard a pitched frequency squeal out from somewhere. He remembered hearing that frequency someplace before, and he followed the frequency back to its point of origin. There was a cape attached to the final string of his existence—a cape, a blade, a gauntlet, and the faint shape of his Voidmantid armor. They were all being dragged along by his Vitae, and from within the cape, Can Hu was unleashing its Binaric Sovereign skill against the enemy automaton.\n\nGods, I love you, Penitent, Shiv thought.\n\nThe enemy Chronomancer shrieked as they tried to regain control over themselves, but their body went haywire; they were lost to themselves. Shiv's Vitae swelled as he suckled life force out of the bot like a leech. He felt his enemy writhe, blindly slashing at him with their blade. A few times, they chipped off parts of his reforming personhood. But whatever Can Hu was doing, it was badly affecting their coherence.\n\nThen, both Shiv and the Necrotech automaton crashed down against the ground. The bot went stiff. Shiv shot forward, tearing clean through his enemy’s neck. The automaton stilled as its head rolled off to the side. Shiv rose from their corpse, half-filled with Vitae but nowhere near a true resurrection yet. He was a half-formed mess of red and white, shaped only to resemble his original self in terms of outline. Just then, his old corpse struck the ground nearby, and Shiv seized his body before chucking it elsewhere, hoping to confuse his foes.\n\nThis proved to be a wise maneuver, as a barrage of corrosive spells turned his corpse into a smoldering patch of nothing a half-second later.\n\nDeception 23 > 24\n\nThe dense veil of smoke was only growing thicker. Shiv could hear fighting everywhere, could see faint shapes moving beyond the shroud. He needed to figure out where to go and finish his resurrection.\n\nGood thing I don't constantly lose vitality every passing second anymore, Shiv thought to himself. And then, as he searched for new prey, he noticed that faint sheen of red lining everything. That faint sheen of vitality stabilizing existence as well. He recalled how draining that caused parts of the world to rupture, creating mana instability.\n\nAnd suddenly Shiv had a plan. Well, something that was like the concept of a plan. It was more of a vague idea, frankly. But if he could drain enough, if he could cause a mana storm to take shape, could he use that against the Vicar and the Inquisition when they arrived?\n\nRegardless of that, I can do one thing with it: cause some chaos. And Shiv immediately began sapping from the world itself.\n\nEverything went to hell in an instant. The parts he drained were ripped open, like skin licked away to reveal flesh and bone. Chaotic expressions of mana spilled over into the world. A storm splashed across the ground, contained within an oozing membrane and rimmed with clouds. Fire billowed out from other ruptures, and a rain of heavy crystalline stalagmites descended upon the land like falling hail. Screams and cries of terror sounded all around as the ruptures connected to each other and a chaotic vortex poured through, ripping its way across the world.\n\nShit, I hope this doesn’t bite me in the ass in a minute.\n\nVitaemancy 70 > 71\n\nAs soon as he finished that thought, he resurrected and immediately suffered the consequences of his own action. An explosion of Dynamacy ballooned out from behind him. It smashed him through building after building before it dragged him along the ground. His armor screamed in protest. He could feel parts of it breaking, and he bit back a growl of misery as pain filled his body. One downside of being sensory-bonded to your armor through a network of mycelia: everything that broke in it hurt you.\n\nBut Shiv was fine with pain. Pain was just a feeling.\n\nHe pulled on his gravitic field and shot up into the air once more. He slammed his fist together and discharged his sheath. The fog didn’t clear, but he did catch sight of a corrosion screen nearby. It pulsated with an unceasing glow of green, and Shiv activated his Chameleon, Creeping Void, and Minor Illusion abilities in tandem and as he cast himself at the enemy.\n\nThey weren’t prepared for him. He sent his twelve mana hydras spearing ahead as he tore into the enemy with steel and spell. His Aegis of Assimilation shattered resistances and supped the flesh out of armor. The ones that survived Shiv’s Biomancy were then greeted by a magnified Skysplitter. His blade turned the Necrotechs into puffs of red and spraying pieces of sparking metal. He dragged his dagger across the ground and detonated his sheath as he passed over the corrosion screen artillery platform. It broke apart into pieces as Shiv lobbed himself higher into the air.\n\nOne down. A shit-ton to go.\n\nHe followed his sense of smell again. Spells tore through the air—but they came nowhere near hitting him. His Creeping Void and other stealth supplements were serving their purpose.\n\nThe Creeping Void 113 > 114\n\nJust then, he passed through the dense haze of magical smoke and found himself just a kilometer or so away from Blackedge. He realized he could easily reach the town with his Biomancy field now if he so desired. And that made things simple when he saw twenty or so beams of Necromancy shooting up into the air around the town. They were all spread apart, but Shiv didn’t need to attack them in person. Instead, he struck out with his biokinetic hydras. He attacked with one hydra after another as they all shared the same field, but it extended from his person with ease.\n\nBlasts of red blossomed across the ruins of Lost Angeles. Shiv assimilated every piece of organic architecture he could. What he couldn’t break, he struck and smashed using a newly forged chain of cancer flails. A nightmarish cord of tissue curved and then ripped through buildings and people alike. Entire blocks collapsed as Shiv swung his kilometer long flail left and right, scything across Lost Angeles and silencing Necrotech projection sites one after another.\n\nHe spiked the heavy end of his flail down on the ground over and over as it traveled. Shockwaves spread in increments as blocks crumbled into the soil. A beam of Necromancy tore through the air, trying to sever the leash connecting him to his cancer flail. Shiv simply assimilated the biomass in an instant, converting the flail into a spell rendering. The beam missed. He threw his blade and teleported.\n\nAfter he repositioned himself, he resumed his reign of terror, swinging his flail across the land.\n\nWell, this is pretty fun.\n\nHis magic only got stronger when chains of fear speared through his person from all across the world. They knew he was here now, and the survivors were terrified. Good. It was only going to get worse.\n\nAegis of Assimilation 105 > 106\n\nShape of Monstrosity 107 > 108\n\nA team of Necrotech Pathbearers dove into Shiv’s Creeping Void. They launched a barrage of explosive spells that shook the world, and he passed through the attack with a pulse of Outside Context Problem.\n\nOutside Context Problem 64 > 65\n\nShiv rematerialized as he swung an extended cord of cancerous flesh against their bodies. Arms and legs snapped. Magical Resistances shattered, exposing vulnerable flesh. And the cancer flail only grew.\n\nWhip Proficiency 10 > 12"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 154 (III) Weapon\nTarget length: ~2300 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Join the Discord.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, a Rating, and to write a Review!\n\n\n154 (III)\n\nWeapon\n\nAs the Deathless searched the land for more launch sites, another flash made him look to his left. A single corrosion screen projector remained there. Shiv detonated his sheathe and spiked himself in a new direction. But before he got there, a tide of arrows tore back into reality and utterly annihilated the launch site.\n\n“And I believe we have found Adam again,” Valor commented. “Nicely done so far, Shiv. You have a knack for chaos and creativity.”\n\n“Thanks. Got put down once. Any suggestions?”\n\n“Stay on the offensive. Always. Keep moving. Never stick to the same pattern.”\n\n“Be more chaotic. Got it. Just need to find Adam first and—”\n\nA dimensional rift opened beside Shiv, and Adam blasted out into the Creeping Void, firing arrow after arrow. A small army of clones followed thereafter, unleashing their own barrages. The Gate Lord’s arrows impacted threats Shiv could see, and even more that he couldn't. And when his arrows hit, they became two, before multiplying further as they sought out new targets. Soon, a swarm of arrows was pouring all across the city.\n\nAdam was turning into a downright menace for enemy armies, Shiv realized.\n\nHe cast his Psychomancy into Adam’s mind and called out to him. “Fancy running into you here.”\n\n“Not really,” Adam said. His eyes were aglow with Divination mana, and he continued firing even through Shiv’s dense mess of miasmic darkness. “I waited for you to inflict mass destruction on the city and found you by sound thereafter. Your Gravitic Wrestler thunders through the air every time you use it. Makes your Creeping Void ineffective against Pathbearers who possess echo location or similar abilities.”\n\n“Huh. Good to know. I was hunting some Necrotechs earlier by smell. I think I got all the launch sites nearby here.”\n\n“Good. Because they only need to fill two more circles before the weapon fires.”\n\nShiv’s stomach plunged. “Alright. Let’s go find some more projectors, then.”\n\nThen, Shiv’s Chronomancy shuddered, and he triggered his temporal shell on instinct. It manifested over his body, and just then, a wing of time dragons plunged down from high above. They were already firing their Necromantic projectors into the Creeping Void. With time frozen, none of Adam's clones had faded yet, and several of the beams were on track to hit some of them.\n\nShiv's mind went blank. Killing a single time dragon in around ten seconds was a considerable feat, and there was no way he could cut down an entire wing while trying to keep Adam alive—Wait, I don't need to kill the dragons, I just needed to move Adam and the clones out of—\n\nAnd then all of Adam’s clones fired at the dragons before fading. Shiv's eyes widened, and he noticed how each of the clones vibrated with faint traces of gold in the air. Right, they have Chronomancy too. The rapier had my kukri integrated.\n\nThat made things simpler for Shiv. He grabbed the original Adam and spiked both of them through the nearest dimensional pathway he could get to. At the same time, he swung a mana hydra high up into the air and materialized his cancer flail once again. A mana explosion ballooned out as the head dragon was struck twice. Shiv felt its Magical Resistance crack—along with a section of its ribs—as he whipped the end of his flail into the monster even harder.\n\nBefore the other dragons could respond, Shiv assimilated his flail again and pulled his Biomancy back around himself. Twelve hydras coiled around him and Adam as they shot through a dimensional pathway.\n\nHe had been too passive with his Biomancy before. He treated spellcasting as if it were separate from his physical attacks—but his Aegis of Assimilation was capable of more than just a few tricks. Like letting me aim and strike with my flail kilometers away. “Knife-fighting range” for me isn’t quite the same anymore.\n\nShiv dismissed his Chronomancy to preserve his temporal armor, and he heard Adam gasp and turn. “What just—where are we going?”\n\n\"The way you came. We got jumped by some time dragons. Decided not to stay in place and fight with the projectors gone in the area anyway.”\n\n\"What?\" Adam choked out. \"No, no, go back the other way!\"\n\n\"Other way is time dragons, Adam.\"\n\n\"Well, the way I came from has a group of Invisible Vanguards I can't seem to damage at all.\"\n\nA feral grin spread across Shiv’s face. “Invisible Vanguards, huh? Yeah, sounds fun.”\n\n“You’re stark-raving mad, you bastard,” Adam breathed.\n\nShiv used his Biomancy to channel a dose of basilisk venom into his flesh. His body expanded. His bones grew longer, his muscles became denser. Shiv’s Voidmantid armor grew along with him—a benefit of being an actual piece of bonded equipment rather than just mundane armor, he suspected.\n\nAs they traveled across the pathway, Shiv began shaping a Vitae Golem. He wasn't going to have enough time to give it four Animated Skill Infusions, so it was going to have to do without Vitality Drain.\n\n\"Shiv, listen,\" Valor said. \"The sun will be up soon. You can move in the open. The Necrotechs can't, at least not for long. Destroy the architecture. You do not need to kill every last Necromancer or artillerist. Let the light work for you.”\n\n“Got it, Valor,” Shiv replied. He cast the same details at Adam as he equipped his golem with the infusions.\n\nMulti-Tasking 19 > 20\n\n“Destroy all the architecture,” Adam muttered. “That’s not bad. It makes things easier. I’ll focus on that.” The exit drew closer. The Gate Lord started summoning more clones and lifted his wand high. A thick wall of ocean-blue condensed from the air before them.\n\nShiv’s golem hovered by his side, and they both stared at Adam. \"The hells are you doing now?\"\n\n\"Just watch,\" Adam said. And then, just as they exited the pathway, he unleashed the water building up around them. It exploded outward like a tsunami packed in too tight, and, a moment later, it impacted ten invisible Pathbearers surrounding them.\n\nAs he found himself once again glad to have Adam's ridiculous Awareness on his side, Shiv commanded his golem to accelerate, spike itself, discharge, then revert time and repeat until it had no vitality left.\n\nIt immediately shot past him, following the sphere of crushing water expanding out from them. And it was a good thing too, as the tidal wave Adam cast out was suddenly stopped dead by a titanic field of Hydromancy.\n\nThrough the water, a new Pathbearer emerged. They wore an armored dress that obscured their face and had tentacles in place of arms and legs. In each of their limbs was a whip, and the sheer amount of Hydromancy mana radiating out of them was staggering, rippling out like the waves of a crushing tsunami. Shiv was facing a Heroic-Tier Hydromancer.\n\nUnfortunately for the Heroic-Tier Hydromancer, they were about to be intercepted by a golem. The construct impacted and detonated itself several times in quick succession. The Hydromancer was blasted back—and they tried to stop themselves from being launched back some more by shaping walls of water to slow their movements. That was interrupted as a few hundred Veilpiercers crashed into them right after.\n\nThe Vitae Golem tackled the Hydromancer again, and it drove the enemy through Adam’s oceanic barricade. Once more, the stilled tidal wave started moving, and it cast their other attackers far away.\n\nSuddenly, the way was open. Shiv shot forward first, and Adam followed right after, with his clones trailing just behind. The world was alight with fire, and the scent of burning flesh and melting concrete made Shiv gag. More of Roland’s arrows descended. They impacted places kilometers away, but towers of fire rose high into the air—towers that unleashed shockwaves that battered Shiv and Adam, even from so far away.\n\nYet the flames spilling out of the infernal towers did not spread naturally. The expanding blasts curved unnaturally to avoid Adam and Shiv. The Deathless scoffed in abject disbelief; the sheer amount of control Roland Arrow had was as staggering as his power.\n\nAdam began firing his arrows again, and his clones followed suit. Shiv didn't know what he was shooting at, but a second later, two figures appeared right next to them in a shower of sparks. Adam’s Veilpiercers bounced off their adamantine armor, and they came for the Gate Lord. One bore a gravity-infused axe, while the other had a hammer shaped from crackling lightning.\n\nShiv intercepted the axe-bearer with a dozen spikes of his gravitic field. He seized them by the throat and thrust his blade into their gut. A shockwave burst between them, but aside from making his enemy grunt once, Shiv inflicted little harm, even with Deepest Edge. At the same time, he directed his Biomancy to strike at the hammer-user. His mana hydra coiled through the air, and Shiv’s cancer flail manifested once more.\n\nThe enemy wasn’t prepared for the Aegis of Assimilation. They were even less ready for the massive ball of teratoma and festering flesh that impacted them in mid-air as they got within two meters of Adam. The hammer-user’s Magical Resistance cracked slightly under the first blow, and then it shattered entirely as Adam channeled a stream of crushing Hydromancy from the tip of his wand into their skull.\n\nShiv didn't even give them a chance to fight back. They died with a fading scream on their lips as they were assimilated into his aegis, melting into his flail.\n\nTheir armor fell a moment after, hollow within.\n\nAegis of Assimilation 106 > 107\n\nThe axe-bearer headbutted Shiv. His helmet cracked. The Deathless headbutted them back. Their helmet cracked. Shiv tried to stab them with his Skysplitter again, but the enemy dropped their axe to seize Shiv by the wrist.\n\nThey were equal in terms of Toughness, but Shiv gritted his teeth as he realized his adversary had the edge in Physicality—even with Plagueled boosting him. The axe-bearing Necrotech twisted Shiv's right arm back slightly. This annoyed Shiv enough that he immediately started fighting dirty. He wrapped his Biomancy around the Pathbearer he was wrestling and tightened his flail around their body. He felt his Biomancy bounce off their Magical Resistance, but that didn’t stop him from coating them in a thick ball of cancerous tissue—tissue harvested in part from their friend.\n\nThe axe-bearer cried out in alarm as fetid bursts of flesh were ejected from Shiv’s flail. It coated their body, and they tried to shrug it off. This stunned them long enough for Shiv to knee them in the groin.\n\nThe axe-bearer gagged. Shiv gripped their waist and spiked them downward with a pile-driver. They blasted through the air for a good hundred meters as Shiv discharged against them over and over. At the same time, he battered them with his flail and Biomancy. They were coated in a thick layer of flesh—and partially fused with his flail at that. Shiv shot back up into the air and started swinging his enemy about. He used the axe-bearer as a club to smash through the tops of buildings, extending them further using his Biomancy as he ripped the roofs off of skyscrapers and toppled bridges. They wouldn't be able to put up with this for—\n\nSunlight spilled over the horizon.\n\nSullain’s weapon cast an ominous shadow across the land. Acting quickly, Shiv cast out tendrils of Vitae to drain from the axe-bearer as he continued using them as a club to remodel his surroundings.\n\nWhip Proficiency 12 > 13\n\nMulti-Tasking 20 > 21\n\nJust then, Shiv noticed someone coming up from behind Adam. He cheated the inertia of his flail by assimilating it as he cast his Biomancy in a new direction. The mana hydra impacted the bastard trying to slit Adam’s throat—and Shiv materialized his flail once more. A mana explosion sent the Gate Lord stumbling forward—but he blinked away in a flash of gold, jumping briefly to where one of his clones was.\n\nA second later, the Pathbearer caked against Shiv’s flail was degloved from behind by a rain of dimensional arrows.\n\nSkill Gained: Physics 1 (Common)\n\nAdam blinked back in place—and something hit him in the shoulder. The Gate Lord roared in pain as his left arm was dislocated. Shiv directed his hydra through Adam and consumed his wound. A crystallized injury filled Shiv’s Biomancy field as he swung his flail in the direction of the projectile that had just hit Adam. A group of unseen foes was clipped along the way, ripped out from seeming non-existence, clothlined by Shiv’s extended Biomancy.\n\nAdam gestured with his wand again, and a spell exploded out from its tip. It parted around Shiv and pushed a small army of enemy Pathbearers and projectiles away. However, after it expanded to two hundred meters, it stopped and continued no further. Spells, arrows, and more plunged in from all sides, but most were held at bay by the dense wall of water, protecting Shiv and Adam. At the core, Shiv found himself with a moment to breathe.\n\n\"These assholes are coming from godsdamn everywhere,” Shiv said, assimilating his flail.\n\n“I told you I didn't want to go this way,\" Adam snapped. He fired two more arrows, but then tackled Shiv out of the way as unseen enemies immediately began firing back through his rift.\n\nWhips of Necromancy missed them by the barest of inches.\n\nInertial Overdrive 121 > 122\n\nAdam responded by activating his Vambrace. A ball of swirling Dimensionality danced atop his hand, and it was immediately consumed by corrosion thereafter. He projected the Necromancy into his dimensional pathways, and they lit up with that eerie green glow. From within the pathways came a series of ear-piercing screams.\n\nThe Necrotechs on the other side were receiving a taste of their own preferred magic, but Shiv and Adam were still getting boxed in."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 154 (IV) Weapon\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Join the Discord.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, a Rating, and to write a Review!\n\n\n154 (IV)\n\nWeapon\n\n\"Got any ideas?\" Shiv asked. \"Because I think we can't stay here much longer.\"\n\nAnd as soon as he said that, he felt a wave of Hydromancy spear through Adam’s watery barrier. Through the cleft came the Hydromancer that Shiv's golem had tackled earlier. They lashed out with their whips, and Shiv swung out with his flail, smashing into the blows before they could strike Adam—only to find the tendrils sharp enough to cut clean through the tissues sustaining his flail.\n\nHe assimilated his flail and adapted, shaping it into a dense, cancerous shield before him. This time, the whips were slowed.\n\nBut not stopped.\n\nHoles emerged from the cancer shield. But Shiv parried each of the whips with a swipe of his Skysplitter. They were deflected downward—but new breaches shot out from them, striking him in his throat and left eye respectively. Shiv felt his eyeball burst inside his socket. He snarled with annoyance more than pain—but that turned to a gurgle as the enemy managed to slit his throat open as well. Then, a dryness spread through his body. The enemy Hydromancer was ripping the moisture out of his flesh.\n\nShiv pitted his feeble Hydromancy against his foe, but it wasn’t enough. His field tore in half immediately—but it still gave him just a second to recover. Shiv smashed through the whips with his Magebreaker. His gauntlet sang with a screaming pitch. Shiv fed his new wounds into his aegis and started his Song of the Vigilant.\n\nAegis of Assimilation 107 > 109\n\nAdam responded thereafter. The Gate Lord fired an arrow. It emerged from a rift and crashed against the Hydromancer's head just as they rose above Shiv’s cancer-shield. The Deathless lashed out at them with Vitae, Biomancy, and a growing Skysplitter. The enemy Pathbearer turned into a spray of water and avoided each of his strikes.\n\nTheir presence grew so faint that Shiv lost track of them.\n\nBut Adam didn’t. The Gate Lord drew back on his Spellstring, and a surge of Hydromancy infused his newest Veilpiercer as he let it fly. He struck the Hydromancer again, and they went tumbling back into existence.\n\nShiv activated Outside Context Problem and accelerated forward. They didn't see him coming—they had no chance to see him. Not until he drove both his thumbs through the gaps in their visor where he assumed their eyes to be. The Hydromancer screamed, and Shiv twisted their neck back, ending his enemy's bellow with a sickening snap. Just to be sure, he swung his Skysplitter across their neck, beheading them. He then assimilated the body with his Biomancy.\n\nThe cancer flail must be fed, Shiv joked with himself.\n\nOutside Context Problem 65 > 66\n\nThe victory was short-lived, as he felt his Chronomancy shudder once more.\n\n\"I can't shake these bastard dragons,\" Shiv snarled. “Adam. Chronomancers. Get in my cape.”\n\nThe Gate Lord said nothing as he waved his wand, and he, too, turned into water. He splashed down into Shiv's cape, and the Deathless blinked. Huh. Effective.\n\nShiv manifested his temporal shell. Time stopped. And he felt the turbulence pressing against his Chronomancy field grow stronger. He followed that sensation and looked upward—where he saw six time dragons coming right at him, bathed by the light of the rising dawn.\n\nHe felt another pulse of resonance pass over his field. And then there was a seventh dragon coming in at a higher angle.\n\nGreat. The more the merrier. Shiv triggered Outside Context Problem immediately, and he felt the coldness lick his core again. Not going to be able to sustain this for long. He accelerated through Adam’s fading oceanic barrier and climbed higher. He faced the dragons with Skysplitter in hand and Biomancy lashing out.\n\nShiv eyed his adversaries, trying to come up with a strategy to eliminate them in one fell swoop. Whatever he did, he needed to disable their Necromancy projectors on their backs. He couldn’t risk getting hit by that.\n\nJust then, he saw the seventh dragon dip low. Shiv frowned and used his Compound Ocular Network to zoom in on the stray monster. He saw that it didn’t have a rider, nor any weapons on its back. And then, he noticed how it was looking directly at where he used to be.\n\nWait? Uva? His frown turned to a wide smile. Oh, these poor bastards aren’t going to know what hit them.\n\nUva plunged, aiming at the rear of the time dragon attack wing. Shiv timed his own attack in accordance. He cast his mana hydra out and made a question mark around the dragons. He manifested his flail once more and swept it over the wing. Bursts of crimson mana spilled through the air, enveloping everything. Shiv’s cancer flail tangled wings and caused the time dragons to tumble through the air. As chaos swept through their ranks, Shiv spiked himself blade-first into the head of the first dragon. He stabbed the monster in the eye, but the dragon let out a roar, and his blow bounced off.\n\nAdamantine Adaption, Shiv snarled internally. Son of a bitch.\n\nHe was beginning to realize how annoying it was to fight someone like him.\n\nAs he exploded out from his Outside Context state, the other dragons were too disoriented to respond immediately. Their disorientation only grew when Uva slammed into one of them from the back. She bit down on another dragon's throat and began to tear. At the same time, Shiv extended tendrils of Vitae while swinging his Skysplitter with his other hand. He drained vitality and hammered the dragon from the sky. He continued spearing his Biomancy—and flail—into the other dragons as well.\n\nSeveral were launched out of place, while one took a swipe at him as it passed by. His temporal shell cracked. So did the golden mana lining the dragon. He cast himself back in time and slammed elbow-first against its head. The dragon’s head snapped back. But it was disoriented, not dead. Then came his flail. It struck the back dragon’s back and crushed its rider’s cockpit. Shiv spiraled in the air, turning himself as he held on to its neck. The dragon didn’t respond in time—its rider was slain; the telepathic connection was broken. And soon, so was its neck as Shiv caught it in a death roll.\n\nHe cast the dragon’s limp body aside after a few moments, its neck knotted in tangled cords. He swept through its body as it fell with a mana hydra, and grunted as he felt a magical strain build within himself. His Aegis of Assimilation was potent, but it increased how much weight was levied upon his spirit as well.\n\nI need to keep my mana load light.\n\nAs he prepared to face the other dragons, he found that they all had golden arrows lodged in their skulls and were dropping limply from the sky. An entire wing had been butchered in an instant. Shiv blinked. Fuck me, Roland. And then he looked up to see another arrow coming straight down.\n\nAt Uva.\n\nNo! Shit!\n\nHe spiked himself up into the air to intercept the blow. But it proved unnecessary—the arrow halted before it hit him, and he cast a thought into it. “FRIENDLY! THAT DRAGON’S FRIENDLY!”\n\nIn an instant, the arrow tore off into another direction. Shiv let out a sigh. As he followed its path, he watched it pierce clean through an unseen enemy along the way, and past that point, he saw a few hundred golden threads punching through the weapon hanging over Blackedge. The massive inverted anvil shuddered in the sky, spewing Necromancy and Animacy into the air. Its Necromantic veil had faded. And the cage surrounding Blackedge was gone.\n\nThe Town Lord was free.\n\nAll around Lost Angeles, massive, illusory towers of brightness stood tall, and from them soared an endless stream of burning hawks that bombarded the land even when time was frozen.\n\nRoland Arrow… this is absolute bullshit, Shiv growled internally. All the Town Lord needed to turn things around was an opening. It was impressive, but the prospects of Shiv punching him in the face were moving further and further away in his mind.\n\nUva shot up into the air, and she made eye contact with him as she let out a pitched roar. Choki pumped a fist, and Shiv responded in turn. Both of their temporal shells were cracked, and they were going to return to baseline time at any second. “Nice flying—”\n\nA crushing force slammed into his back. The world blurred past him as he was carried up into the air. Shiv’s Adamantine Adaption struggled against the impact as something twisted against him, drilling through his armor, biting into flesh, and kissing his backbone.\n\nAdamantine Adaption 174 > 175\n\nShiv wrapped a mana hydra around himself and pulled, tearing himself off the projectile, and he saw a strange geometric shape blast past him. It resembled a spike with a series of hooks at the end. Its tip was infused with both Dynamancy and Dimensionality, and Shiv noticed a chunk of his flesh still floating within the projectile.\n\nAnother thing he noticed was just how far he had been displaced across the world in mere moments. He was hovering high up in the air now, so far above the world that he could barely make out even the damaged weapon floating above Blackedge. But he didn't get to fall for long. A concentration of shadowy energy collapsed around him. Shiv grunted as he felt a shapeless but impossibly strong grip collapse around his body. Shiv’s temporal shell shattered first, then his armor began to crack as well.\n\nHusk of the Adamantine Voidmantid\n\nCondition: Wounded\n\nBefore Shiv even had a chance to think, the vast, skeletal visage of Vicar Sullain emerged before his eyes, like an oasis born from a shifting desert mirage.\n\nA blinding downpour of Roland’s arrows instantly shot down from the edge of the atmosphere to strike the Legendary Mage, but Sullain formed a veil of Animancy around himself and Shiv.\n\n\"And so you return to me, Undying One,\" the Vicar said, sounding absolutely jubilant. Despite this, his voice was softer—weaker. His long, serpentine body chittered, and the many hands along its length clasped together. \"Just as I hoped you would when I began this attack.\"\n\nShiv spiked his gravitic field and discharged his inertial sheath. The gravity field holding him at bay parted slightly, but Sullain crushed his efforts with a wave of telekinesis. He brought a skeletal hand up and down like a parent smacking a misbehaving child. Shiv snarled and hissed as Sullain broke his body. His ribs shattered. His kidneys were punctured. One of his lungs collapsed. His skull caved in quickly, and his stomach was ruptured.\n\nWhen Sullain was finished, Shiv vomited another mouthful of blood out through the broken visor of his helmet. He was getting used to coughing up blood; it was practically becoming a daily occurrence. And worse yet, he was starting to get a liking for the coppery taste.\n\nAdamantine Adaption 175 > 176\n\n\"Will you listen now, child, or do I still need to hurt you unnecessarily?\" Sullain asked.\n\nShiv snorted. “I could do with a little more Toughness. Give him a harder—”\n\nSullain made a flicking gesture with one of his many hands. Shiv felt all his limbs snap backward. His feet ended up pressed against the front of his hips, and his arms were folded over his elbows. Pain washed through him, but Shiv just let out a slight growl. \"Oh, you absolute piece of shit.\"\n\n\"You requested, so I obliged,\" Sullain said. “Here. Some more.”\n\nShiv tried to trigger Outside Context Problem—only to howl with agony as Sullain started ripping the vitality out of his person, shattering his focus. “You are not very versed in the art of draining vitality. It is a far more potent power than you realize. A shame. But one that will be corrected soon. I will teach you.”\n\nThe Deathless shook as he felt himself on the precipice of oblivion. “F-fuck—” He couldn’t finish the words. It hurt too much to exist right then. Still, he gritted his teeth in defiance. “The Inquisition is coming for you! This isn't gonna work anymore. They got a Legend with them. You—you’re done here. You’re finished!”\n\n“Oh, do they?” Sullain muttered. He sounded… tired. “Now, that is truly dreadful. I do not think I will be facing them.”\n\nShiv narrowed his eyes. “So, what? You’re leaving? Gonna fuck off now?”\n\n“Leaving? Yes. After my task is done.”\n\n\"Task done, how?\" Shiv asked. \"Your weapon's broken. The sun is up. You're out of time.” Shiv looked down, but he couldn’t see through the veil of Animancy caging him and Sullain.\n\n“Shiv,” Valor said suddenly—that was when Shiv realized he was still connected to the others. “Do not agitate him further.”\n\n“I have a plan,” Adam added. “It might work. You remember my special arrow earlier? Just stall. Try to make an opening somehow. Don’t—don’t let him kill you either.”\n\n\"Oh, that was not the weapon,\" Sullain said dismissively. And there was a smile hidden in his words. \"That was simply the receptacle I used to incubate it.\"\n\n\"Incubate it,\" Shiv whispered. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n“Ah, it is fitting for you to be the first to bear witness. After all, it is your essence that powers it. That essence which fuels your soul, Undying One. And thanks to you,” Sullain paused, “thanks to you, my retribution is assured. But words are cheap and weak. I think I will show you instead.”\n\nSullain held up a single finger with his uppermost hand, and a portal flashed open above him. It was wider than the Vicar was tall, and a sickly, murky miasma spilled out from within.\n\nOn the other side of the portal, in an alien place choked with ash and desolation, a dark shape loomed.\n\nShiv thought it was a mountain that had crumbled in on itself for a moment, but before his eyes could make sense of what they were seeing, Sullain cast him up and through the portal with a gesture. Shiv tumbled across the ground, kicking up shattered bones and debris as he went, before coming to a rest atop a mass grave. Skeletal remains littered the ground upon which he lay, stretching beyond sight.\n\nShiv barely managed to sweep his Biomancy through himself and consume his wounds. Even so, he was drained. Barely any vitality left. Holding himself up was a feat beyond feats, and as he lifted his head, his heart stopped.\n\nBarely visible through the unceasing curtain of ash falling from the sky, a dark, mountainous shadow loomed over him. Then, two orbs of light made themselves known as the creature cracked open its eyes. One was a pure, pale white, and the other blood-red. Both were fixed on Shiv.\n\nHis Vitae pulsed out instinctively in recognition of its kin, and it traced out a jagged, alien form some five kilometers wide and twice again as long.\n\n“No…” Valor whispered in Shiv’s mind. Cold, heart-clenching dread spilled over from the Legendary Pathbearer.\n\n“I was originally saving this one for Marikos. I intended for it to safeguard the original weapon. But I know now that Valor’s work, the Animancy Core, was a crude thing. And your Vitae is life. I thank Udraal for bequeathing me his notes—and giving me insight into what to do with you.” As the Vicar finished his words, he laughed softly. “But this act of creation has left me spent. And so I retreat to enact my work through another. Struggle vainly, Undying One. Struggle, Deathless, and feed my Beast of the Undying Apocalypse…”\n\nThe titanic monster took a step forward. The world trembled. And as its body emerged from the ashes, Valor's terror only grew. “That… How did he…”\n\n“...Feed my Deathless Tarrasque.”\n\nAnd before Shiv could respond, the monster moved, faster than he could perceive, and he was torn out from the portal along with it, carried away from the realm of ash, and down…\n\nDown from the boundary of the world.\n\nDown toward Blackedge."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nPath to Ascendence — a LitRPG progression fantasy. After Julian lost his parents and sister several years ago, he didn’t know what to do. As just a young child, he wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with everything that came after. Their deaths hadn’t even been a possibility in his mind. Death was an obscure thing to young Julian. They were killed in a car accident.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Julius | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Edwin, Lukas, Tier\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; skills (e.g. Restoration lvl 3 -> lvl 6, Focus lvl 9 ->Focus lvl 10, Restoration lvl 6 -> lvl 7, Firebolt lvl 5 -> lvl 9, Firebolt lvl 2 -> lvl 3, Thermal Compression lvl 4 -> lvl 7, Mana Consolidation, Restoration lvl 14 -> lvl 15)\nSystem notification style: \"Alert! Rift is reaching the overflow stage. You will not be able \"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (34% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 163: Get Your Own\nTarget length: ~2100 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "He told Lily everything. From his meeting with Dante a couple of months ago. All the way to his meeting with Alice and what she had told him.\n\nTo say that Lily was upset was an understatement. He didn’t know what she was more angry about. At first, she was worried about the condition of his soul and wanted to know all the details about its circumstances.\n\nHowever, when he began to tell her about his nonstop training at night and recent Concept acquisitions, she got furious.\n\nHe had a feeling that if he wasn’t “injured” at the moment, she would have given him an ass whooping or his mind a good blending. And honestly, he wouldn’t have blamed her. He had been stupid. It was his own fault that his soul was even in this condition in the first place.\n\nHe should just be thankful that Alice said there might be a way to fix it. While he didn’t know how she was going to go about it yet, she seemed confident that it was at least a possibility.\n\n“I told you that it was important for you to get some actual rest,” Lily scolded him for the tenth time within several minutes. She was currently following Julius back to where Alice had dropped him off in front of the gates but was giving him a tongue lashing as she did.\n\n“I can’t believe you weren’t getting any sleep whatsoever! We all know that you trained like a freak, but I didn’t know you were that stupid. You should have told us!” Lily continued to vent at him.\n\nJulius tried to calm her down. “I technically did tell Aubrey about my sleep schedule,” he reasoned.\n\nHowever, that didn’t calm the irate blonde in any capacity. If anything he just made it worse. He saw her purple eyes glow dangerously for a moment and felt her aura go slightly out of control, which was completely out of the norm for her. Lily had some of the best aura control he had seen outside of Declan and Professor Youma.\n\nShe calmly turned to face Julius. “You’re saying that Aubrey knew about your training?”\n\nHe winced. “Not everything,” he backtracked his previous statement.\n\n“But she knew that you were forgoing sleep?” Lily asked very softly.\n\nHe didn’t have the courage to reply with words, so he just slowly nodded his head.\n\nShe saw his answer and nodded her head as well. “I see,” she said vaguely.\n\nI’m sorry Aubrey! Julius apologized to Aubrey, wherever she might be. He had just unleashed an angry Lily and pointed her toward the other girl. It almost made him feel bad, but then he remembered all of Aubrey’s teasing and he felt a little less guilty about it.\n\nEh, could be worse, he told himself.\n\n“Are you sure you’re okay with doing this?” Julius asked her, trying to change to subject slightly.\n\nHe had told Lily what he needed of her already but wasn’t really able to explain the complete reason for it. He himself didn’t know the exact reasons either. He just knew that Alice wanted to him to share all of his skills and that he didn’t feel comfortable unless there was some sort of protection.\n\nShe turned to look at him with a frown. “Of course I am. If you think that I am not going to help you out just because I am mad at you, then you are dumber than I thought.”\n\nJulius looked down and hid the smile that inched to his face.\n\n***\n\nWhen they finally got to the front gates, Alice was there standing at the same place Julius had left her.\n\nHe still couldn’t sense her with [Spatial Perception] much to his frustration. He hated that he had to rely on his eyes.\n\nIs this how normal people have to see the world? I kind of feel bad for them now.\n\nHowever, it was surprising when he saw Lily start walking a little bit faster toward Alice. There was a smile on the young girl’s face. Which was reciprocated by Alice.\n\nThe two women met together in a big friendly hug. When he got to them, he heard them talking animately to each other.\n\nHuh, odd.\n\n“Alice! What are you doing here?” Lily asked enthusiastically.\n\n“Lily!? You’re the person that boy was bringing?” Alice asked at the same time.\n\n“Yeah, he came to my dorm asking me for help setting up a ritual for him. Are you the person he was talking about?” Lily asked Alice.\n\n“You guys know each other?” Julius interrupted the two of them when he got there.\n\nLily turned to him. “Of course! Alice is one of my family’s good friends. I’ve known her for most of my life!” she happily said to Julius. “You should have told me it was her that was helping you.”\n\n“I had no idea that you two knew each other,” Julius commented. It actually made him feel a lot better about sharing his “secrets” even under a vow to Alice. Lily was in his opinion, an excellent judge of character.\n\n“Yep, Alice here is the spatial magic consultant my family relies on for some of our projects. She is one of the foremost experts in her field,” Lily announced proudly.\n\n“Hush, you are going to make this old lady blush. There are many other people who are much more knowledgeable about spatial theory than me. I would hardly call myself an expert,” Alice added with a grin.\n\n“Old?” Julius muttered out loud confused. He was surprised that she would refer to herself as old.\n\nAlice snapped her head to him and gave him a glare that stopped him from saying anything more. He put his hands up in mock surrender.\n\n“Stop it, Alice. My grandfather wouldn’t rely on you if you weren’t the best,” Lily praised the woman.\n\n“Oh, you little minx!” Alice said joyfully while tugging Lily in for another hug. “How’s your mother doing?”\n\n“She doing well, there’s been a few issues popping up lately, so she’s a bit more busy than normal. You should go and see her though, she deserves a break,” Lily told the older woman.\n\nJulius watched as the two of them caught up like two old friends. He had no idea that it would end up like this. He just awkwardly stood there, not knowing what he should do.\n\n***\n\n“It’s that bad?” Lily asked worriedly.\n\n“Yes. It’s one of the more severe cases I have seen in a Tier 2. Luckily, he has a couple of advantages that might make it possible to help him. However, I will need to know his abilities before I move forward. And he didn’t feel comfortable without having a contract in place,” Alice explained a little exasperated, giving him an annoyed side eye.\n\nThe three of them were back at Dante’s. This time they were sitting out on the porch. Dante thoughtfully brought out some refreshments and snacks for them to enjoy as well. The old man went back inside to work on some projects while the three of them discussed the particulars.\n\nAs he had said before, he wasn’t very knowledgeable about soul-related abilities or cared very much about them either. However, he surprisingly did offer to go through with a vow himself. He said that it wouldn’t be a big deal and played it off very cool.\n\nBut Julius had a feeling that the grumpy old man was more interested in knowing some of Julius’s skills than he let on.\n\nThe tea was good, but Alice was giving Julius an expectant look. He sighed and nodded his head at her. He brought out three mugs of hot chocolate, one for each of them.\n\nLily gave an excited cheer as he did so, she had been the recipient of the beverage many times before and loved it. She was also finishing up the final steps of the ritual as well. She had found herself a section of the porch that would work out perfectly for it and quickly got to work on it.\n\nIt actually didn’t take that long for her to complete it either. And when she was done, Dante came out and the four of them all gathered within the circle. However, unlike Julius’s last experience, this ritual had much more power to it.\n\nLarge brilliant lines of pulsing mana funneled into the magic circle with a dangerous surge of mana. He didn’t know how Lily was able to create something that was able to withstand that much energy, but she did, much to his astonishment.\n\nFurthermore, since it involved two Tier 6s, it meant that it also required a higher source of energy to run it.\n\nLuckily, Dante had offered a Tier 5 core that was able to fulfill the conditions easily. It was kind of surreal to see such an expensive item handed over with such casual ease. Then again, Alice had mentioned that the man had given a Tier 5 core away for a bowl of noodles before, so he shouldn’t be that surprised.\n\nFortunately, the ritual itself didn’t put that much pressure on Julius’s soul, otherwise, it would not have been possible to do it. It did, however, attach another strand of his soul to the three of them, just like how it had been the first time he went through this ritual.\n\nOnce, it was over, Alice gave a disgusted grunt. “Gah! I hate those rituals!” She yelled out.\n\n“Stop being such a whiner. It’s not that bad,” Dante told her.\n\n“Says you! You don’t have dozens of vows attached to your soul. Each one makes it a little bit it a bit more uncomfortable,” she pointed out.\n\nDante shrugged in response, not arguing her point.\n\n“It’s that bad?” Julius asked. As far as he knew there weren’t too many downsides of using the ritual.\n\nAlice dropped her shoulders. “No, it’s not that bad. It’s more annoying than anything. The more connections you make the more apparent they become. It's like having sand in your pants. A few grains you won’t notice, but once you start getting dozens of them, you start to feel itchy down there.\n\n“Huh. That does sound annoying,” Julius commented.\n\n“I know right!? It sucks!” Alice said upsettingly.\n\nHe gave her an understanding nod and pulled something out of his pocket. “Here this might make it feel better,” he said to her. He passed the piece of paper to her along with a few jars of dark brown liquid.\n\nAlice looked at him confused but took the piece of paper from him gently. She unfolded the paper and read the contents before smiling very widely. “And this is the exact recipe that you used to make it?” She asked excitedly.\n\nHe nodded confidently. “Yep, I even added the exact place where I bought the chocolate. I don’t know if he’s still there, but you can always check it out. I gave you the rest of my stock just in case he isn’t there,” he said.\n\n“Thank you,” she said softly.\n\nHe just nodded his head at her with a smile of his own. Truthfully, he was a bit shocked to see someone who was one of the most powerful people in the Empire look at a jar of chocolate syrup as if it were some Tier 6 treasure.\n\nThen again, powerful or not, it was just a reminder that these people were still human. They still loved things, regardless of their monetary value. It was a good reminder for him that not everything in the world was about power. Sometimes, a jar of chocolate could be more effective than all the power in the world.\n\n“What was that?” He heard Lily ask shocked at what had just transpired.\n\n“I promised to give the recipe to my hot chocolate in exchange for her doing the ritual,” he explained to the confused girl.\n\nLily turned to Alice with wide eyes. “He really gave it to you? I haven’t been able to get it from him for so long!” Then she turned to look at Julius with betrayal clear in her eyes.\n\nHe gave her an apologetic shrug. “That was her only condition,” he told her.\n\nLily just gave him a frown and turned back to Alice. “You better plan on sharing that recipe,” she said demandingly.\n\n“Huh!? No way! Get your own!” Alice said petulantly.\n\nJulius just laughed at the two women fighting over the chocolate.\n\n\nThank you for reading!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 164: Treated Like a Troublesome Toddler\nTarget length: ~2100 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Lily POV\n\n“First off, I need to know what Concepts you have acquired so far,” Alice said to Julius.\n\nLily watched as Julius paused for a moment, probably thinking about sharing his Concepts. He finally seemed to come to a decision and answered Alice. “I have three. I have a Sharpness Concept, a Will Concept, and a Fire Concept,” he told them.\n\nSay again…? Lily couldn’t have heard that correctly. She distinctly remembered that he had only gotten his first one not that long ago. The fact that he already had two more was equally impressive and alarming.\n\nAlice however, didn’t seem to miss a beat. It was like she had already expected a similar answer.\n\nShe could probably already sense his Concepts with her Domain, Lily reasoned to herself.\n\nLily still couldn’t believe that Alice was here at the moment. The normally recluse and secretive woman was someone Lily had known for most of her life. Alice was a person that Lily had seen at home on occasions for celebrations or when she was doing a job for her grandfather.\n\nSince her family was pretty much a mercantile family, they always had a use for a powerful space mage like Alice. It just so happened that her family liked Alice and were good friends with her.\n\nBut what were the odds that Julius would meet her?\n\nHowever, Lily was just grateful that he did. Without Alice, who knew how long it would have taken Julius to talk with her or the others. He could have gone through so much worse if nobody intervened.\n\nShe was still very angry with the younger boy. She could not believe how badly Alice had described the condition of his soul. She knew that Julius could be single-minded and sometimes stupid, but she never would have thought that he would literally train until his soul couldn’t take it.\n\nShe had heard stories of scions being forced to train since they could walk. It never ended well. The pressure on a soul that young from acquiring many skills would normally kill the child. Not to mention the children who got a Concept before Tier 2 always died. Their souls couldn’t handle the strain.\n\nNoble families quickly stopped this cruel practice and it became common sense to wait until your child became Tier 1 until they could really train.\n\nAnd yet, Julius didn’t seem to fit that same mold. Not only did he have an astonishing three Concepts, but she knew that he had several very high-ranked skills if her and Aubrey’s estimate was correct.\n\nIronically, that was another one of Alice’s questions.\n\n“How many skills do you have and where are they at in terms of rank”\n\nJulius put a hand on his chin in thought. His cute boyish features frowning in concentration. “I have eight skills. Two at Epic and the rest at rare,” he told them.\n\nLily tried not to feel that surprised by that admission. She had already suspected it, but it was still surprising to hear that he didn’t have a single uncommon skill. Even Lily herself had two skills still at uncommon. Granted both of them weren’t staple skills but nonetheless, it was already impressive for Lily to only have two uncommon skills at her age.\n\nAlice continued to question Julius and each time he answered her questions, Lily felt less surprised and more confused. She was starting to see how Julius’s soul was falling apart. How strong was his soul in the first place to handle this level of improvement? There was no way he had made all of this progress after he got to Tier 2, she remembered that he was already strong before he reached it.\n\nIt just seemed like she didn’t really understand how strong Julius was. It was no wonder why he was able to beat Aubrey, even with his advantage over the other girl’s skills. Three Concepts, two epic skills, three superior skills all at the later stage of rare, and three more rare skills that all except for one, were at their final level.\n\nIt was becoming abundantly clear that the boy was holding back against Edgar during their spars. Just like Edgar had told Lily and Aubrey one day after Julius had left their session.\n\nHer large friend seemed to understand Julius’s real ability more than they did. Lily didn’t believe Edgar at the time, she thought he was just excited for Julius, but now she was seriously reconsidering the validity of his opinion.\n\nShe wasn’t going to lie, a part of her was jealous. She was jealous of Julius’s talent. While she didn’t care about combat strength like some of the others did, she understood that she was the cream of the crop when it came to people her age. But hearing Julius explain all of the details of his abilities to Alice, made her feel a little bit envious of him. He was a Tier 2, yet there was no doubt that in a straight-up fight, Julius would win nine times out of ten.\n\nIt kind of stung, to realize that that someone a full tier below her was that much stronger. But her envy was overwhelmed by her concern for the person she had quickly come to treat as one of her closest friends.\n\n***\n\nJulius POV\n\nWhen he was done answering all of Alice’s questions, he had to take a deep breath. The lady was thorough. However, she had been particularly interested in his healing skill and his Concept of Will. When he had mentioned the name of his healing skill, she had gotten a brilliant gleam in her eyes.\n\n“I think I have an idea about how I am going to help you,” Alice finally said.\n\n“Really?” He asked with a smile.\n\n“Yep, but I am still worried about how well your soul is going to hold up,” she said a little uncertain.\n\n“Why? Does it involve me learning another skill or Concept?”\n\n“Yes, it will revolve around you learning another skill. You won’t necessarily need to learn another Concept, but you will have to evolve your Fire Concept as well,” she said tentatively.\n\n“Well let’s do it!” Julius said excitedly.\n\nAlice gave him a disapproving look. “It’s not as simple as that,” she said to him, dowsing his excitement.\n\n“What do you mean?” He asked with sad puppy eyes.\n\n“Do you not understand how precarious of a position your soul is in right now?” Alice asked him slowly.\n\nHe sighed and stopped pretending to be so childish, giving her a calm and serious look. “Of course I do.”\n\nShe chewed on her lip. “And do you understand that the only reason your soul hasn’t imploded is because of your Concept?”\n\nHe paused at that. That he hadn’t realized. However, it weirdly made sense.\n\nAlice nodded her head. “See what I mean? If you aren’t able to hold your soul together with the introduction of additional stress, then even with my assistance, your soul with shatter and you will die.”\n\nHe chuckled with genuine mirth. He saw Alice and Lily give him an odd look like he was insane.\n\nWhen he stopped laughing he looked at Alice with absolutely confident eyes. “So that just means I have to keep it together with pure willpower?”\n\n“Yes…” Alice said slowly, unsure of what he found so amusing.\n\n“Well, that’s simple then. I just can’t fail,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Julius loved this solution. It didn’t revolve around luck or chance, it was a solution that purely relied on his own effort. The only way he would die is if his will wasn’t up to the task and if there was anything he was confident about it was his Inexorable Resolve.\n\nLily looked at him like he had officially lost his mind. But Alice was looking at him with an amused look. She chuckled lightly at him, “You’re right. It’s that simple,” she agreed with him.\n\n“What?!” Lily interrupted, baffled at the two of them. “How is that simple? You will die if you fail Julius. Why can’t you just wait? Considering Drasil’s ability, I do not doubt that in a year or two you will be up and running like new.”\n\nJulius smiled at the young girl, appreciating her concern. However, Alice laid her hand on Lily’s shoulder, preventing her from saying any more.\n\n“You’re sure about this?” She asked Julius.\n\nHe just nodded at her with a grin.\n\nShe gave him a matching grin in return. “Okay. You’re going to need that confidence. I wouldn’t have allowed you to if you didn’t have at least that much confidence,” she admitted to him with a shrug.\n\n“The first step you are going to have to do is to learn a specific skill. The skill is called [Soul Resistance]. Honestly, considering your soul’s condition, you would have learned it in a year or so as your soul naturally healed. However, that just means we have to accelerate the progress.”\n\n“Is that all?” Julius asked, expecting more.\n\nAlice smirked at him. “That’s just the first step, and it will also probably be the most annoying. You are going to have to go through a cycle of lightly damaging your soul and healing it afterward. While this would normally be simple, your soul is quite damaged, so this light damage will be quite painful. If you can’t keep your soul together during this process, you will die,” she said casually as if it wasn’t a big deal.\n\n“Why can’t I just heal the damage that is already there to heal my soul and get the skill that way?”\n\n“Because you have already damaged your soul, scarring a good portion of it. The skill requires you to put your soul under frequent but low-intensity stress. What you have done is similar to ripping a stretchy piece of dough in an instant. What we want is to slowly stretch out the dough, while healing the soul so it can continue to extend without breaking apart,” Alice explained in terms he would understand, impressively already knowing that food examples were the best way to do so.\n\n“Okay, that makes sense. But how will we do that?” He asked curiously.\n\n“Dante is going to make you an item that works similar to a suppression device. The device should put enough stress on your soul that it will stretch out your soul, while your familiar along with a soul nourishing potion I give you, will handle the healing. It is also important for you to get enough sleep, your soul heals faster during sleep,” she explained.\n\nDante who had been pretending to ignore everyone else as he tinkered with a bracelet he was making, looked up when he heard his name mentioned. “Hold up! Who said I agreed to make something for the brat?”\n\nAlice looked at him with a knowing smirk. “You did when you offered to take the vow alongside me. You would only do that if you were interested, don’t play coy, it doesn't suit an old man like you.”\n\n“You make it sound like you are that much younger than me,” Dante grumbled softly.\n\n“Well, I look significantly younger than you,” Alice pointed out haughtily.\n\n“Only because you advanced younger than me!” he argued.\n\n“Which just means you are less talented than me,” she laughed, making the older man glare at her and grumble something about Alice being from a wealthy family, under his breath. But it was loud enough that Julius could hear, which meant that Alice definitely heard it as well.\n\nShe didn’t say anything in response and turned back to Julius. “So as I was saying Dante will create an item for you, and your job is to use it throughout the day for as long as you think you can handle it,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes. Which was an actual twinkle, her magical eyes literally sparkled at him.\n\n“That’s stupid. You already know he is going to use it too much,” Lily said from the side.\n\nHey! That’s hurtful coming from you Lily. I mean, it’s probably true, but still hurtful.\n\n“I know, that’s why you are going to monitor him to make sure he is getting enough sleep,” Alice said to her. “There will be a backup device that can shut off the device at your discretion.”\n\nLily nodded at that, somewhat appeased by that addition.\n\nWhy do I feel like I am being treated like some troublemaking toddler? I have my own nanny and baby monitor now, he thought to himself, a little embarrassed.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 165: How Far Can He Go?\nTarget length: ~2200 words\nKey events: new skill acquired"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Although the old man grumbled the entire time, he did in fact create the device Alice wanted from him. Julius learned from Alice that Dante wanted to know more about his skill in order to create an object that mimicked many of its functions.\n\nThe ability to track spatial movements within a certain area was a very valuable supportive enchantment to have for many purposes and the normal spatial detection skills were too advanced for many applications.\n\nAlice on the other hand wanted to learn his skill for herself. She had plans to incorporate the skill into her existing perception skill, [Spatial Awareness] or rather the evolved version of it. Alice unfortunately didn’t give him the details of her actual skill. She said it was a legendary skill and that [Spatial Awareness] was an epic skill, but that was all about what she shared with him.\n\nHer reason was that he was a long way off from acquiring a legendary skill and if he knew the requirements for one, he would just try to get one as soon as he could.\n\nTo be fair, it was a good reason. Because in all honesty, he would absolutely try to get a legendary skill as soon as he was able to, damaged soul or not. He couldn’t blame the woman for telling the truth.\n\nAm I really that predictable?\n\nEven with half of his time spent griping about being forced to create an item like some servant, Dante made the item in record time.\n\nIt quite literally might have taken Dante about ten minutes to create a device that satisfied Alice’s requirements. The man was an absolute genius. Julius couldn’t even follow along with the intricate enchanting and mana manipulation the older man was showing off so casually.\n\nIt made him appreciate the little piece of black cloth he had even more than he already did. Not that he would tell Dante that.\n\nThe device was supposedly meant to act as a sort of weight or shackles around his soul. Normally, this wasn’t that big of a deal. It would just restrict skills, mana, and aura abilities by a small amount. However, Alice made sure that Dante tinkered with the effects of the device so that it perfectly fit Julius’s needs.\n\nThe woman personally oversaw the delicate adjustments that Dante had to make, much to the annoyance of the crafter.\n\nWhen it came time to try it on, Julius became a little nervous. The device was a small bracelet that was attached to his arm. However, he could feel an ominous aura coming from it.\n\nAlice assured him that it should be safe even for Julius with his unique condition. Still, that didn’t exactly make him feel confident when the woman had an excited and restless expression on her face.\n\nVery slowly he attached the bracelet to himself and tentatively pushed a little bit of his aura through the skill, activating it. Immediately he started to feel its effects. It felt like the device managed to weave into his soul like lead wire and make his entire soul feel like it was being crushed by the pressure of the deep sea.\n\nThe pain was excruciating. It was as if all of the wounds in his soul were being torn apart again but times a hundred. He couldn’t even breathe for the first thirty seconds. He just dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes and smashed his face into the wood floor of Dante’s cabin, drooling all over the wood panels.\n\nIt took another ten minutes for him to get acclimated to the pain and get to the point where he could even crawl to his knees. He subconsciously felt Lily right by his side, prepared to help him whenever he needed, but otherwise left him alone.\n\nHe heard Dante, the grumpy old man, chuckling at Julius’s misfortune. “It’s working perfectly!” He announced proudly, not caring for a moment that his creation was torturing Julius.\n\nThe only thing that saved him was his [Sage of Savagery] skill alongside his Concept of Inexorable Will.\n\nAfter about half an hour, which felt more like half a year under the effects of pain-induced trauma, he was able to get to his two feet. The first thing he noticed was Lily by his side, just barely touching him, making sure he didn’t fall back on his face.\n\nAlice on the other hand had a very impressed look on her face. However, Julius didn’t care about that. All he did was give her the most menacing glare he could muster under his pain.\n\nShe just smiled even more widely despite that.\n\n“I… I don’t t-think that you ex-explained the pain well e-enough,” he stammered out.\n\nAlice just shrugged at him apologetically. “I thought it would be better for you to feel it for yourself. I didn’t want to scare you away from the pain before you even started.”\n\nJulius gritted his teeth at her. “Next t-time, just tell me,” he angrily stated.\n\nShe gave another aggravating shrug. “I’m doing this because you asked me to, remember that. Don’t be mad at me for helping you,” she rebuked him.\n\nShe made a really good point. She didn’t really have any need to help him. Other than his perception skill that she wanted to know how he obtained it, she had no other benefits of helping him. She was a Tier 6, a level of strength Julius couldn’t even begin to understand the full grasp of.\n\nHe swallowed his pride and the irritation he felt from the pain. “You’re right, thank you,” he managed to squeeze out without stuttering.\n\n“You can thank me by telling me how you got your perception skill,” Alice told him with a gentle smile, clearly appreciating his apology.\n\nJulius attempted to reciprocate a smile of his own, but it came out more like a constipated toothy snarl. “I will,” he promised. “As soon as my brain starts to work again, I will tell you all of the details.”\n\nAlice held up another device and pressed a button. Immediately, it felt like Julius could breathe again. His soul was no longer being pressed together by a hydraulic press. He almost cried for joy at the relief.\n\n“This here, is the device that controls the one you are going to wear. Lily will have control over it and she will manage your usage of it,” Alice explained to him while handing over the device to Lily.\n\nThen the woman walked over to Julius where he was now splayed out like a starfish, just appreciating the pain free moment he was experiencing. She dropped to one knee and placed a bottle of something next to his head.\n\n“This is a concoction that a friend of mine made. She originally made it for Tier 5 and Tier 6s, and it is technically a failed product. However, it will suit you perfectly. The healing effects are quite gentle and slow, but unlike many other potions or soul healing, it will fix deeper soul tissue damage,” she described the item to him.\n\n“How is this method not worse than me just trying to evolve my healing skill?” He asked breathlessly. He understood the basics of what Alice explained to him, but considering the pain he was experiencing, he would think that his soul would experience more stress than just learning a new skill or Concept.\n\nShe calmly spoke to him. “The pain is only so bad because of the damage that has already been done to your soul. Damage by the way that has been done by your own reckless actions. I am pretty certain that this method won’t result in you dying, not at this stage of the process at least.”\n\nPretty sure? What does that mean?\n\n“The worst-case scenario is that you are unable to bear the pain and have to stop. If it comes to that point, you can always still heal the natural and much slower way,” Alice told him.\n\nJulius made an ugly face at the thought of him giving up because of a little pain.\n\nAlice just smirked at him. “Yeah… That’s what I thought.”\n\nHe was able to see Lily looking at the two of them with a disgusted expression as if she couldn’t understand why the two of them had so easily accepted that this was the best path forward. Dante was yet again, pretending not to acknowledge them and went back to the project he was working on.\n\nAlice stood up and dusted off the imaginary dirt that got on her hands. “Take one bottle cap dose per night before bed and let your familiar heal you as much as it can. Get at least eight hours of sleep, and please for the love of the Gods, don’t train your skills like before. While you will find that leveling any of your skills to be next to impossible with the device, which will make most training pointless, don’t try, please,” she pleaded with him.\n\nShe sounds like a physical therapist, he thought to himself.\n\n“If you’re lucky, you will be fully healed before the year ends and much better prepared for the next tier. And if you’re not… Well, that probably means you are either dead or have a much weaker will than I gave you credit for,” she said harshly.\n\nHarsh but fair. If he failed, he understood it would be because of his own failure of willpower. He could deal with the pain. While this was a pretty large setback for him, he understood he would come out of this for the better. He remembered the many years he spent training without the fancy level increases or the tier advancements. He had simply gotten used to large and frequent increases. He could bear several months of this.\n\nHe also didn’t miss the hint of a challenge within her words which unsurprisingly lit a little fire under his feet.\n\nHe would get this [Soul Resistance] skill and upgrade his Concept of Fire to whatever Alice had in store for him. He would trust the process and bear with the pain. After all, the pain was only temporary.\n\n***\n\nAlice POV\n\nJulius and Lily had left a little bit ago, leaving her and Dante sitting around together.\n\n“Why didn’t you tell him?” Dante asked her as he stopped pretending to work on his project.\n\n“What good would that have done?” She responded with a sigh.\n\n“Don’t you feel like he has a right to understand what you are putting him through?” He asked.\n\nShe turned to look at the older man. He still looked strong even with wispy silver hair, but he didn’t have the edge that he used to have. He felt like a typical cranky old man.\n\nOne wouldn’t suspect that the man in front of her was once one of the most vicious people on the continent. The blood he spilled during his younger days gave birth to countless Blood Horrors.\n\nThe number of associations, nobles, and various other people who wished to see him dead was numerous.\n\nIt was only after he lost his entire family that he changed. It was like he finally gained a conscience and turned his life around for the better.\n\nHe spent many years desperately trying to make things right and absolve himself of guilt by doing the right things. It was admirable and something that Alice truly respected about the man. Not many people were able to become such a different person within a span of a hundred years.\n\nIronically, it was Dante’s perseverance and ability to find his true self that allowed him to finally cross the vast threshold of Tier 5 and become a Tier 6.\n\nIt was funny to see a person who had been drowning in despair at his failure to reach Tier 6, so much so that he killed countless people, finally reaching it only when he no longer cared about it. Only when it was meaningless to him.\n\n“If he were to know, he would just try to push himself harder. I know that you can see the same thing,” she explained to Dante.\n\n“Yeah, he reminds me a lot of myself when I was younger,” Dante said solemnly.\n\nAlice didn’t say anything, but she nodded her head in agreement. She wasn’t going to say it, but she noticed the same thing. That desperate hunger to get stronger was frightening. It was a trait that would either get him to the pinnacle or would ultimately kill him, or even worse, would turn him into a monster.\n\n“You think he can do it?” Dante asked.\n\n“I don’t know,” she freely admitted. “But I think he has a chance.”\n\n“I do too,” Dante said softly. “Maybe if he does he will be able to tell two failures like us, what’s on the other side,” he said with a soft chuckle.\n\nShe smiled self-deprecating. He wasn’t wrong about that. The two of them in the grand scheme of things were considered failures. Their paths had no future. They would be stuck at Tier 6 for the rest of their lives and they both accepted it.\n\nHowever, she wanted to see how far a person like Julius could go.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 166: Getting Used To It\nTarget length: ~2300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "He was wrong. Again. Admittedly, that should no longer be a surprise to him or anyone anymore.\n\nThe pain was definitely not temporary. The pain was very much so constant and painful. Did he mention painful?\n\nThe first couple of days were the worst. He was coming to dread the mornings whenever he woke up. It also didn’t help that the actual sleep he was getting felt amazing and refreshing.\n\nIt was kind of like taking a shower after an exhausting day, only to quickly find yourself getting a face full of mud right after you get out of the shower.\n\nIt wasn’t only the pain that was the difficult part of his new situation. The most emotionally challenging thing he had to do was to explain his new circumstances to the people he knew. While Lily already knew, he still had to tell the others the bad news.\n\nHe didn’t share with them everything, like he had with Lily but he told them enough that they understood the general gist of his problem. He gave an abridged version about how his soul had been damaged and he would have to go through some treatment for it.\n\nDerek, Edgar, and Kyle were all very sympathetic to his issue. They made sure Julius felt supported by them, Derek even offered to ask his grandfather for help. Julius declined, of course, they didn’t know that he already had the help of two Tier 6s.\n\nAubrey on the other hand, was not as gracious as they were. She made sure she took the opportunity to say “I told you so” multiple times to him whenever she could. But that was expected.\n\nDeclan was a bit more problematic to explain his situation to. Julius had gone over to the guardhouse after he left Dante’s and told him the same version he ended up telling his friends. The issue is that Declan was more angry at himself than he was at Julius.\n\nRae and Orus were there, so it was nice to catch up with him. They also helped keep Declan from overreacting. The vice-captain kept beating himself up about not keeping a better eye on Julius. No matter what Julius said to try and appease the man, Declan wasn’t listening.\n\nHe took the entire responsibility for Julius’s soul damage on himself. It showed that Declan really cared for Julius and made Julius appreciate the man even more than he already did. The problem though, was that the man was back to babysitter duty, but dialed to eleven.\n\nThe first thing Declan did was take back the rift access card. While it didn’t really affect Julius that much considering that he wasn’t even going to use it for the foreseeable future, it still hurt for his privileges to be taken away like a parent taking away a gameboy from the child who wasn’t doing well in school.\n\n***\n\nHe had just woken up, blinking out the sleep from his eyes. He peeled Drasil off of his face, the arm of the spirit had somehow gotten lodged in Julius’s mouth in the middle of the night, and then got out of bed. It was early so Henry was still fast asleep in the bed on the other side of the room.\n\nJulius checked the time and it was only around six in the morning. Which meant that he had gotten almost exactly eight hours of sleep. He had found out pretty quickly that the combination of excruciating pain throughout the entire day and the soul potion Alice gave him worked pretty well to knock him out for some proper sleep.\n\nHe took a calming breath to prepare himself and activated the torture device on his wrists with a soft grunt. The pain was still just as bad, but thankfully, constantly using it got him acclimated to the pain quickly.\n\nThe familiar pressure and crushing force on his soul was becoming part of his routine. It was funny how fast he was adapting to the new pace. If he wasn’t in so much pain, he would have laughed at the irony.\n\nOnce he changed into his uniform he made his bed and left for the library for his daily morning meet-up with Grace. He hadn’t told her about his condition like he had with the others. He told her that he wasn’t doing very well when she noticed his pained expression the first morning back, but that was all. It wasn’t like he had known her for all that long.\n\nHe did enjoy her company though, so if it ever came down to it, he wouldn’t mind sharing with her about some of it. He just didn’t see the need to unload his issues on her yet. He mainly did it for others because it would affect their schedules and what they would do with Julius as a result. Whereas with Grace, the main thing they did was eat and read together, and his condition wouldn’t affect their routine that much.\n\nHe made sure to warm himself up with some fire mana as he entered the library. The mornings had been a little more chilly than normal as it got closer to winter.\n\nThat was another thing he noticed about the suppression device that Dante made for him. Since it restricted his soul, it also meant that using his skills or mana had become much more challenging. That of course meant that even heating himself up took more effort than it should have. Not only that but the amount of mana he had available to him was significantly lower.\n\nIt wasn’t like his mana capacity was permanently lowered, but being able to access it was close to impossible. He could only use a fraction of what he was normally capable of. For a person like him, who was so used to having such a vast amount of mana, having this handicap affected him more than he would have originally thought.\n\nBut on the bright side, it would probably help him appreciate his larger pool once he was done.\n\n***\n\nAfter he met up with Grace he had to go to the rest of his classes. Grace had constantly given him worrying looks the entire time, but she didn’t pry. It was nice, the two of them pretended like nothing was wrong and continued hanging out like normal.\n\nIt was the rest of the day that was difficult. In particular, it was Applied Combat that was the most affected class from his new condition.\n\nPhysical Training was the most normal. Other than the pain from moving around too much, he was able to complete the class without much issue. Intro to Mana and Tier Advancement went surprisingly well also. Neither required much from him, he found himself behaving like many of the students he originally scoffed at. Even caught himself napping on a couple of occasions.\n\nIt was only when he got to Applied Combat that things got hard. They were still fighting against monsters this week, but this time Julius didn’t have to pretend to be weak. This time it took everything he had to just keep up with the monsters.\n\nSpeaking of monsters, he stumbled back from an overhead swipe from this mutant gorilla he was facing. It wasn’t that fast, but neither was he, he was moving like cold molasses. Even with him using [Kinetic Augmentation] as hard as he could, he was only able to pump enough kinetic energy to barely dodge it.\n\nHe had a nasty snarl on his face as he went on the offensive. He didn’t want to prolong the fight for much longer. The longer it went on, the more exhausted he was going to feel and the worse his chances to win would be.\n\nA part of him felt so lame as he had a hard time dealing with this fat monkey. But another part of him was immensely enjoying it. Despite the crippling pain his soul was going through, he never felt more alive as the gorilla with long nails almost took his face off.\n\nIt felt like he was before he had gotten all of his fancy skills and advanced. It actually felt like a fight, a real fight where he was outmatched.\n\nHe had been so used to fighting monsters when he had superior physical strength and mana, that he had forgotten what it felt like to be the underdog again. The spars against the others and Gabriel didn’t count.\n\nSo as much as he was embarrassed to be struggling against a lowly Tier 2 monster, it was overridden by the thrill he was getting as he felt the wind from the monster's claws miss his face by a hair.\n\nHe didn’t even look at his classmates who had judging looks on their faces as he barely held on He also didn’t notice that he had a frenzied smile on his face as he desperately fought off the beast.\n\nIt’s not like he had a lot of time to give it much thought, he was too busy looking for any advantage he could find.\n\nHis heart was racing through his chest, not because of fear, no, [Sage of Savagery] didn’t let fear affect him like that, it was the exhilaration that was coming through. Because at that very moment, he found his opening.\n\nThe dumb gorilla had made another huge sweeping slash, but it had already done the exact same thing twice in the fight. Julius knew what would follow it. He decided that if he couldn’t overpower it, he would outsmart it.\n\nHe neatly slid closer to the gorilla as it launched itself from its feet in the same leap from before, barely avoiding its claws.\n\nThen with all of the kinetic energy he had been saving throughout the fight, he delivered a brutal strike to the side of the monster's head. He felt something crack under his fist, but he didn’t let up just yet. The dazed monster was quickly swarmed by him and he didn’t allow it a second to get back to its feet. He unloaded everything he had.\n\nEvery strike was intended for a vulnerable place. He felt bones cracking and flesh being pummeled by his assault until eventually, he ran out of everything. He fell to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. There was nothing left in the tank.\n\nThe most embarrassing thing was that still wasn’t enough to kill the stupid monkey. It was close to its limits too but it was still able to crawl to its feet and with a hilariously slow and weak fist, it dropped a hammer strike on his back.\n\nLuckily, the bracelet’s automatic defense activated and protected him from any real harm. Quickly after, the monster disappeared into particles of mana and back to the circle.\n\nThe loss was bitter for sure. He didn’t like losing, he hated it. But it was also a fun fight, so he couldn’t be too upset. He would just have to do better next time.\n\nSurprisingly, his soul never hurt that badly after these hard fights. It was as if once the fight ended, it felt almost refreshed to his genuine confusion. He wasn’t leveling up his skills or Concepts, so it kind of made sense. But he would have thought that pushing himself that hard would hurt more.\n\nHe ignored the odd looks he got from his classmates and walked out of the arena before collapsing on the nearby bench. He felt Drasil infuse some of his essence into him. Then he grunted and pushed a little life mana into [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] which was also much harder to use.\n\nOriginally, he had been planning not to use the soul suppression device as much as he had been. Alice had told him that he would have to use it for at least a couple hours a day in order for it to work as expected, but she also mentioned that there shouldn’t be many downsides to using it more as long as he could take it. The only big one was that he had to deal with the pain for longer.\n\nShe specifically said that as long as he didn’t use it when he was sleeping and allowed himself to recover from it, she didn’t have any problems with how he decided to use it. However, in typical Julius fashion, he took that as a challenge.\n\nWhy wouldn’t he use it as much as he could safely handle? The more he used it during the day, the sooner he would get the [Soul Resistance] skill and the less overall time he would have to wear this awful thing. Though, Lily did make sure to deactivate the device every night so he wouldn’t be tempted to use it instead of sleeping.\n\nHe definitely didn’t wear it when he was fighting because he thought the fights with it were more exciting. No, that would be crazy. He wasn’t that insane.\n\nLily kept a close eye on him too. Whenever he looked too worn out she had deactivated it with the device Alice had given her. But after some long arguing with her about how the pain feels worse after reactivating it following a break, Lily had let him use it for longer durations.\n\nFunnily enough, having to explain his recent performance in class to people like Joshua and James was more annoying than the device itself. They were obviously worried about him, but Julius didn’t feel comfortable about sharing the details with them yet. Of course, that just made them more curious and pressed him for more details.\n\nHe tried his best to deflect, but he had a feeling that eventually, he would have to tell them something and he wasn't really looking forward to that.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 167: Yeah, He'll Be Fine\nTarget length: ~2000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Time honestly flew by in the blink of an eye. He honestly expected since he wasn’t training like he had, that time would pass by very slowly.\n\nHe thought he would have been more bored and restless by now. However, in the weeks since he started wearing the suppression device he had enjoyed his little break.\n\nAdditionally, it wasn’t like he had completely forgotten training. While he hadn’t gained any skill levels in this period of time, he did improve on many things unrelated to pure numbers and levels. For one, his control of mana had improved by leaps and bounds.\n\nWho would have thought that handicapping his mana capacity and control would help him this much?\n\nEven his kinetic energy made some nice improvements during this time. His performance in Applied Combat certainly showed his new proficiency with the affinity. He wasn’t at least struggling as much as he had been. Which was simultaneously encouraging and disappointing.\n\nAlice was fine with him training at this level as well. She actually actively supported him when he told her about his activities. She said that it was a good thing as long as he didn’t train like he had been or gain any skill levels. The device would suppress any skill gains within reason, but if he pushed it, he would still gain more levels. She also ensured that he got proper rest.\n\nSpeaking of her. Julius made sure to get frequent check-ups with her. She would monitor his health and he would in return show her how he got his perception skill.\n\nIt was quite amusing to see her reaction when he explained how he got the skill. She was baffled that such a method worked for him. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend why a child who could barely talk would willingly blindfold himself for most of his childhood.\n\nIn the end, she swallowed her pride and asked him to show her the exercises he had done to accomplish it.\n\nThey spent hours as Julius had Alice jam pieces of clay into her orifices and cover her eyes. It was hilarious to see and he did his best not to make fun of the woman considering that he had done the same thing years earlier. He could start to see why people thought he was “special” when he was younger.\n\nEventually, they had to ask Dante to create something with a little more soundproofing. The natural sense of smell and hearing of a Tier 6 wasn’t something to underestimate.\n\nShe could still hear and smell pretty well through the clay, despite her best efforts. She attempted to dampen her own senses with her domain but apparently keeping the domain active ensured that she was always somewhat aware of her surroundings. Julius didn’t know how that quite worked, but instead of that Dante created a helmet that prevented any sensation from reaching the woman.\n\nAfter she had that, everything went a lot smoother. Julius had her start with simple exercises while she wore the helmet and they slowly progressed to him throwing things at her.\n\nDante found it especially amusing when small pebbles smacked into her chest and face. The old man even begged Julius to allow him to try along with him. Alice, unsurprisingly adamantly refused his request. Much to Dante’s disappointment.\n\nShe also gave Julius more of the soul-healing concoction. The first time he drank it, he almost died from shock. What Alice had not told him, was that the concoction quite literally packed a punch. It felt like he hooked up his tongue to a car battery and got electrocuted by it.\n\nThis version she said was a newer version that her friend had made after Alice had gone to her immediately after giving Julius the first bottle. This new one was much better. It still didn’t taste very good, but at least it didn’t almost kill him when he drank it, which was a huge improvement.\n\nHe only looked forward to Drasil’s healing essence. His trusty little healer familiar was working himself to the bone. Drasil spent every possible minute either giving Julius more essence or cultivating more to heal Julius with.\n\nJulius would make sure that the little guy was well rewarded after this. The little glutton deserved it. He just didn’t know what he would get him yet. Perhaps another treasure would be a good idea. Though, he wasn’t sure he would be able to afford something that nice yet.\n\nHe did have some leftover cores from the Tier 3 but he didn’t know how much he would get for him. He would have to do some brainstorming.\n\nOn another note, during these past couple of weeks, Julius also had to find some sort of activity to fill his time.\n\nThat inevitably led him to hang out with the others much more often. Which he had to admit, was very nice. It almost made him feel bad for not hanging out with them more often.\n\nMost of the time it was him, Lily, and Aubrey. The guys were constantly busy with something but would frequently tag along with them, depending on what the activity was.\n\nFor example, Aubrey and Kyle had introduced him to shopping at second-hand stores and he learned that Kyle would always try to come along whenever he could, always on the hunt for something interesting.\n\nThe items sold at these shops were simple items, one of his favorite items he found was a crystal decoration that activated whenever moonlight hit it. He had placed it in the window of his room and loved how it emitted a soft, comforting aura throughout the night.\n\nHe knew that Henry also loved the item as well. The other boy had tried to ignore it, but Julius had caught his smiling at the crystal in the window more than once.\n\nThe best part? It cost less than two silvers.\n\nHe also picked up other hobbies. The most recent one was gardening. Aubrey and Lily didn’t enjoy it, but surprisingly Edgar joined him. The big fourth-year had a green thumb and helped Julius set up a small patch for their own projects.\n\nThe gardens at Goldencrest didn’t have any owners or really any rules, so it should be fine that they were doing it. Edgar didn’t seem worried either.\n\nEdgar had his own selection of plants that he wanted to grow. While Julius chose some unique looking flowers and a couple of various plants that grew berries, the other boy chose to go with tubulars.\n\nHe planted at least a dozen varieties of potatoes and other closely related plants. Julius should have honestly expected something like that. Even though Edgar denied it, he knew that the older boy just wanted to try the various potatoes for himself.\n\n***\n\nReinera POV\n\nShe was worried about Julius. He had been noticeably more sluggish and acted differently. Even his mana control had been disturbingly lacking as of late, which was very odd for a person she admired for his impressive control.\n\nShe had also caught him wincing at times. He gave her some excuses about him not feeling that good and that he must have caught something. But it had been many weeks and he hadn’t gotten any better.\n\nThat was the beginning of her suspicions that something else was up with him. She had asked Amelia if she had noticed something.\n\n“He has some sort of enchanted item activated at all times. I’m not sure what it is supposed to do, but it almost feels like a suppression shackle in some ways. The device is wrapped around his soul like one normally does,” Amelia said with a frown.\n\n“You think he knows what he’s wearing?” She asked the other woman.\n\n“I can’t imagine he doesn’t,” Amelia replied.\n\n“Why not?”\n\n“You have never worn one, so it makes sense you don’t know, but something like that doesn’t work without some permission granted by the wearer,” Amelia explained.\n\nShe paused for a moment to think. Honestly, a suppression device would make sense for his behavior in recent weeks.\n\nShe was honestly a bit disturbed to see him fight during their Applied Combat class. There were moments when he got pretty ruffled. Every fight was a struggle. And it wasn’t like his normal holding back either. It was a genuine struggle that alarmed her the first several times it happened.\n\nShe wasn’t the only one either. Many students were watching the boy fight tooth and nail to beat the monster assigned to him. It wasn’t like he was gaining as much attention as people like herself or other talented students like Helen Cromweld, Polux, Tia Wellence, or Joshua Rollins. But it was still something many students were aware of.\n\nIt wasn’t as if no other student lost to the monster. Many students not specializing in combat lost their fights, but not a single student fought as fiercely as Julius did and still lost. Some classmates laughed at Julius’s struggles, which wasn’t exactly surprising. Children would be children after all.\n\nMost of the nobles didn’t see anything else other than some poor commoner struggling to beat a Tier 2 monster.\n\nHowever, there were some who also thought similarly to Reinera. The Rollins scion in particular seemed worried just like her, she had seen Julius and Joshua talking from time to time after class, so she knew that they were somewhat on friendly terms.\n\nAdditionally, Tia and Polux both had differing reactions. Tia seemed more sympathetic, while Polux had an exasperated smile on his face.\n\nThe beastkin boy was a curious one. Reinera didn’t see Polux interact with Julius, but she always caught his eye focused on the other boy. Not to mention that the beastkin boy was strong in his own right.\n\nShe suspected that other than herself and Helen Cromweld, he was the strongest student in their year. His physical ability was terrifying and his use of aura for attacks was phenomenal.\n\nSpeaking of Helen Cromweld, she didn’t care about Julius. Which wasn’t surprising. She hadn’t noticed anyone other than herself the entire time Reinera had been at the school. It was like the redhead focused solely on herself and didn’t care about anyone else.\n\nShe focused her attention back on Julius who was fighting an Armored Koven. An Armored Koven was a large bulky four legged monster that had three horns on its head that it liked to spear its opponents with.\n\nAt Tier 2 they weren’t that much of a threat. Their armor wasn’t that strong yet and their speed was quite lacking. It was only when they reached Tier 3 that they became threats. Those few that made it to Tier 4 were able to shrug off attacks from Tier 4s and smash through town defenses like they were eggshells.\n\nThey were quite the challenging monsters to deal with whenever a monster flood happened.\n\nFortunately, Julius was facing one at Tier 2 and he was taking advantage of the monster's weaknesses. The black-haired boy always remained off to the side of the monster, making sure he wasn’t in line with its horns. He also made sure to hit the softened plates of armor that resided just behind the back of the Koven’s ears.\n\nIt was still a hard-fought battle, but Julius eventually came out on top. He was breathing slightly heavily and looked a little ragged, but it was a much better showing than several weeks ago. She still remembered him getting pummeled into the dirt.\n\nPerhaps he is getting better, she admitted to herself.\n\nThen she saw the boy hobble off to a nearby bench and practically fall down on it. She winced as he took large gulps of water out of a canteen that he summoned out of his spatial device, spilling some on his face and down to his uniform.\n\nMaybe I spoke too soon, she said internally with a grimace.\n\nHowever, when she saw him take out a cookie and start munching on it with a tired grin, she chuckled to herself.\n\nActually, I think he’ll be fine, she stated to herself confidently.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 168: Soul Tempering\nTarget length: ~2100 words\nKey events: new skill acquired"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Can you stop throwing them so hard?” The woman asked indignantly.\n\n“It won’t work unless you feel pressured to actually dodge them,” he argued calmly.\n\n“Yes, and that would be a justifiable reason if not for one thing.”\n\nHe paused, his arm frozen in mid-air. “And what would that be?” he asked genuinely curious.\n\n“You are enjoying this far… ouch… too much,” Alice complained to him as another pebble knocked into her head.\n\n“Why are you saying ‘ouch’, like it is actually causing you pain?” He asked the much stronger lady while winding up another pebble to chuck at her.\n\n“Habit, I guess,” she replied with a shrug.\n\nThe fact that Julius was using every bit of his power to throw these pebbles as hard as he could wasn’t lost on either of them. He used all of the tricks he learned recently about kinetic energy to help him charge the pebbles with something extra, but still, he didn’t even leave a crease in her skin.\n\nAt the moment, Alice wasn’t wearing the device that Dante had made her. The old man had to make some adjustments today and so the two of them were hanging out on Dante’s patio with Julius throwing rocks at her to pass the time.\n\nJulius was already sweating a bit from the exertion but Alice looked like she had just like she did when they first arrived. It was quite annoying, to be honest. Julius had really tried to at least do something to the woman with his attempts, but no matter how strong he threw it, she acted like it was a gust of wind.\n\nIt wasn’t only that, but the woman had gotten very good at sensing about half the throws with no detection skills other than her spatial senses.\n\nIt had only been around a month since they met and they had developed a weird but nice relationship. It was also of note that Alice had already gotten to a point that took Julius many years to get to. It probably helped that she had familiarity with a similar skill.\n\nHe expected that she would be offered the skill or something very similar pretty soon.\n\nAt first, he had proposed the idea for her to get the same set of skills that he used to combine, but she said that wouldn’t be possible for her. The skills he used were [Sixth Sense], [Detect Life], and [Awareness]. The problem with that was that Alice had already evolved the [Awareness] skill into her other perception skill a long time ago.\n\nHowever, it was also important to mention that combining these three skills wasn’t a guaranteed method to gain his skills. As he had learned, not all skills were the same and just because someone combined the same skills didn’t mean they would get the same result.\n\nThe method and way they used the skills or rather what their intent was, was more vital to the acquisition of the skill. In [Spatial Perception]’s case, they were trying to replicate his training regime from when he was younger, with the intention of getting [Spatial Perception].\n\nApparently, a perception skill with spatial aspects was not heard of at the rare rank, that was why Alice and Dante had been so curious and interested with his skill.\n\n[Spatial Awareness] and its other variants were all epic ranked skills. But if it was possible to gain such a perception skill at Tier 1 as Julius had done, it would provide an immeasurable value to anyone who got the skill.\n\nNot that Alice really had any intentions of sharing the skill with anyone else. It also wouldn’t do much good for many other people. At least according to her opinion. She believed that one of the requisites of the skill was an amazing affinity to space.\n\nThis confused Julius because that would mean he had a good affinity for space. But he didn’t remember getting an affinity for space when he was tested by his uncle and Edwin. And so he had asked her to clear up his bewilderment.\n\n“Space affinities are not like normal elemental affinities. There’s not really space mana to test for it. It’s kind of like how there aren’t any time affinities either. They simply exist and those with a higher affinity for them can interact with these forces much easier than others. People like you and me,” she had explained to him.\n\nHer explanation left him with more questions than before. He had always wondered how he had been able to get such a skill like [Spatial Perception] like he had. He was hoping it was a unique skill to have, but he had expected that at least a few people would have a similar skill.\n\nBut now it was starting to make sense.\n\nHe suddenly felt a tightness in his soul. It came out of nowhere, and it wasn’t from the suppression device. He had been wearing the device for a while by now and he was very familiar with the types of sensations that came from it.\n\nThis was different. The device was a crushing and weighty kind of pain. This pain was like when he ate too much food at a buffet but a hundred times worse. His soul felt like it was about to burst.\n\nHowever, Alice was next to him and immediately took off her blindfold. He felt her domain surround him with a warming and comforting presence. Almost immediately after, the pressure paused.\n\nHe turned to look at the woman who had a confused look on her face. “What the hell was that?”\n\nHe felt her inspecting his soul with her own soul. He had gotten used to her little probes at this point that he recognized her movements within his soul. And this time her inspection of him was more frantic and thorough than normal.\n\nFinally, she let his soul go and gave him a questioning glare. “You’ve really been using it that much?” She asked skeptically.\n\n“Using what?”\n\nShe ignored his avoidance of the question and continued talking. “I had plans for you to be done in a month or so.”\n\n“Is that still not true?” He asked worriedly. He was afraid that he might’ve done something wrong again.\n\n“No, it’s not,” she said simply.\n\nShit! What did I do this time?\n\n“Is there anything I can do to fix it?” He asked nervously.\n\nHis mind started to race in a thousand directions about how he had managed to mess his soul up again. He was already inwardly berating himself for his carelessness. He thought he was doing well, all things considered.\n\n“What do you mean fix it?” Alice asked, bewildered at his panicking.\n\n“You know, my soul. Is there a way to fix whatever I ended up messing up this time?”\n\nShe didn’t say anything for a moment and just stared at him like he wasn’t making any sense. However, she soon must’ve come to a realization because she laughed out loud. Which didn’t make him feel at ease, in fact, it made him feel more worried.\n\n“I think you are misunderstanding something,” she told him after she stopped chuckling.\n\nHe looked at her with wide eyes. “Huh?”\n\n“Your soul is fine. As a matter of fact, your soul is doing quite well, better than I expected it to be at this stage. You must have been using the device religiously, I’m impressed. That feeling you got in your soul is a new skill trying to form,” Alice explained to him with a smirk.\n\n“A new skill? You mean the [Soul Resistance] skill?” Julius asked excitedly.\n\n“Yes, or at least some version of it. That’s what I am hoping at least. You haven’t been trying to learn another skill during this time right?” Alice asked him with a knowing look.\n\n“Of course not,” he promised.\n\n“Good, then you should be able to learn the skill.”\n\n“Right now?!” He asked surprised.\n\n“I don’t see why not. I was hoping I would be around to help you assimilate it into your soul. It would be safer if I can help you hold your soul together while you do,” she told him.\n\nHe just nodded his head rapidly up and down at her. She smiled at him and had him sit down in front of her.\n\n“You are going to feel that same sensation again, but this time I want you to let it happen. It’s not going to feel natural, but you have to let it pop,” Alice explained.\n\nHe gave her a skeptical look. But he listened to her, she hadn’t misguided him yet so she deserved some faith from him.\n\nSlowly he felt Alice release her hold of his soul and the same expanding feeling rolled over him. It was uncomfortable and she was right, he was holding it back subconsciously. His will was working to fight against this foreign feeling.\n\nHowever, he trusted her and tentatively let go. He allowed that expanding feeling to continue unimpeded.\n\nAt first it just hurt more and he was doubting Alice’s advice as it ramped up in increments. Still, he held on and restrained himself from fighting against the sensation.\n\nFinally, with a culminating burst of energy, the bubble burst and all he felt was extreme satisfaction. It was like eventually going to the bathroom after holding it in for way too long.\n\nWould you like to learn the skill [Soul Tempering]?\n\nHe let out a loud laugh and smiled widely at Alice who was giving a similar smirk on her own.\n\n“Did you get it?” She asked him.\n\nIt’s not [Soul Resistance], he realized.\n\n“I didn’t get offered [Soul Resistance],” he said quietly.\n\n“What?” She asked, confused.\n\n“I got offered a different skill,” he admitted.\n\n“What is it?” Alice pressed him impatiently.\n\n“It’s called [Soul Tempering],” he told her.\n\nAlice didn’t say anything to him in response, but she called out to the cabin where Dante was at. “Hey! You owe me a silver!”\n\n“What!? He didn’t get [Soul Resistance]?” Julius heard to gruff voice of Dante ask Alice questioningly.\n\n“Nope, he got a skill called [Soul Tempering].”\n\nDante opened the door and came out to the porch. “You got the [Soul Tempering] skill?” He asked Julius directly.\n\n“I haven’t accepted it yet, but yeah, I got offered it,” he said.\n\n“Well, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and take it,” Dante commanded him sternly.\n\n“What’s the skill?” He asked the both of them.\n\n“[Soul Tempering] is a more advanced version of [Soul Resistance]. It’s hard to say if it’s necessarily better, but I believe it is a much more valuable skill for your current needs. It's the skill I was kind of hoping for,” Alice explained.\n\n“So you weren’t betting that he wouldn’t get a soul resistance skill, you were betting that he wouldn’t get the standard version of it,” Dante accused Alice.\n\n“Yep.”\n\n“That’s a cheap way to make a bet and you know it,” he pointed out.\n\n“Yeah, but you still lost, so pay up,” Alice said uncaringly.\n\nDante grumbled something about scammers but still passed over a shiny platinum coin to her. To which Alice pocketed with a smug smile.\n\nThat’s not a silver coin.\n\n“No point in waiting,” she said to him.\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders and accepted the prompt.\n\nCongratulations, you have learned the skill [Soul Tempering] (Rare+)\n\nIt was even a superior skill. That part surprised him. The other part was the feeling he got the moment he gained the skill.\n\nThe first sensation was more pain, but that was quickly replaced with joy. The skill was already going to work. He could feel his soul getting revitalized by the skill. It was as if a lot of the weight and pressure that had been burying his soul was getting thrown out of his soul.\n\nIt was such a relief that he practically moaned at the relief he felt. It was by no means totally fixed, but a significant amount of the pain was gone.\n\nCompared to how he felt just this morning, the difference was night and day. He felt his eyes start to sparkle with unshed tears as he looked at both of them.\n\n“Thank you,” he said to them. “Thank you so much for your guy’s help.”\n\nHe had been through a lot during these past weeks. He tried to put up as tough of an act, but he could honestly say it was one of the most enduring and painful experiences of his life.\n\nIt was Dante who surprisingly placed a hand on his shoulder.\n\n“You did well boy. You did really well,” Dante said to him with a genuinely proud smile.\n\n\nThank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 169: Questionable Methods\nTarget length: ~2200 words\nKey events: new skill acquired"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“So what now?” Julius asked after wiping the wetness from his face, purposefully ignoring Alice’s and Dante’s smirks.\n\n“Now you should have some room for you to evolve your Fire Concept without your soul collapsing in on itself even with my assistance,” Alice told him.\n\n“Yeah, you never explained that part. I was always a bit confused about that part of the plan.”\n\n“I didn’t want you to be thinking too far ahead. I wanted you to focus on the present. You have the habit of jumping ahead,” Alice reminded him.\n\nHe gave an acknowledging smile. “And now?”\n\n“Remember how Dante mentioned that your Fire Concept was a bit ‘lackluster’?”\n\n“Of course, it was very rude of him,” he said while giving Dante a meaningful glance.\n\n“But true,” Julius heard Dante mutter.\n\nAlice gave both of them reproaching looks. “Anyway, he wasn’t necessarily wrong. Your Concept of Fire probably came from your superior skill. However, since your soul was already overloaded and worn down, you probably could not get the actual Concept you would have under ideal conditions.”\n\nI would have gotten a different Concept? He asked himself.\n\n“What do you mean?” He asked deliberately slow.\n\n“You’re saying that you don’t have any ideas?” Alice asked him knowingly.\n\n“A few,” he admitted.\n\n“And…?”\n\nHe had honestly been thinking about it for a long time at this point. The idea was in the name of his skill [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] was a telling indicator. A Phoenix was a mythical bird representing life, fire, and rebirth.\n\nThe fact that his skill had the word Phoenix in its name had him hoping that the skill would be related to what a Phoenix represented. However, pseudo meant it was an incomplete version of a Phoenix. This made it seem like the evolved version was a completed Phoenix or something closer to the real deal.\n\nStill, he didn’t want to get his hopes up too high. He would rather not be disappointed if he didn’t get the skill he was hoping to acquire at epic.\n\nThat being said, Alice was making it seem like the idea had some merit after all.\n\n“A Phoenix Concept is a real thing?” He asked carefully.\n\n“Oh, it sure is. Very rare and very desirable. I myself do not know anybody personally with that Concept. You on the other hand seem to have a fragmented Concept of Phoenix intertwined with your skill going off of the Fire Concept you acquired as well as the nature of the skill itself. This is also a big reason why it is a superior skill and so potent at its rank. Do you really think someone at Tier 2 should have such a powerful healing skill?” Alice smiled at him with a chuckle.\n\n“If it's so rare, how do you know it’s not just a Fire Concept? Why are you so sure it is a Phoenix Concept?”\n\nDante grunted and got out of his chair. “You want me to tell you why a Phoenix Concept is so rare?” He asked Julius.\n\nJulius looked up at the approaching old man and nodded eagerly at him.\n\nDante sat down in the seat next to him. “It is every healer's dream to gain a life-related Concept like a Phoenix Concept. You won’t find a single healer who wouldn’t be willing to trade both of their arms for a fragment. But it takes a special kind of person to gain a Phoenix Concept. One is that someone needs an appropriate fire and life affinity, which is rarer than you would think. Most fire users are fighters and most life users are healers, two very opposite paths.”\n\nDante itched his beard before continuing. “It’s not just an affinity thing either. An integral part of your soul must have a deep connection with life and death. Yet, a young Tier 2 like you already has such a connection. It is one of the first things I noticed about you. You are familiar with death and have a weirdly personal connection with it. I don’t know how and honestly, I don’t particularly care either. But you fit the mold. If anyone is going to have a Phoenix Concept I’m going to bet it’s the person who fulfills the requirements and has a bloody skill with Phoenix in the name.”\n\nJulius refrained from reacting to Dante’s statement about his connection with death. He was scarily accurate about that. Instead, he scratched his head awkwardly.\n\nFurthermore, when Dante put it like that, it was easy to see their point of view. Still, even if that was true, that leaves one very large question.\n\n“How do I evolve my Fire Concept to a Phoenix Concept?”\n\n“Beats me,” Dante shrugged unknowingly. “If it was up to me, I would just throw you in a fire and have you constantly heal yourself until you get it.”\n\nJulius averted his eyes to the ground and tried not to remember that was exactly what he had done before to learn his Fire Concept.\n\nDante was close enough to Julius to realize something was off. The old man leaned closer and impolitely poked around his aura. Julius wasn’t able to fight off Dante’s aura no matter how hard he pushed back and the old man was able to get a sense of his emotions.\n\nDante leaned back and looked at Julius with a disgusted but also proud grin. “Seriously?”\n\nHe didn’t look up at the man but nodded his head, confirming it.\n\n“You want to try it again?” Dante asked him.\n\n“We’re not throwing him into a fire!” Alice cut Dante off.\n\n“Why not? He already admitted that he’s done it. What’s the harm of doing it again?”\n\n“You’re seriously asking me what the harm is with setting a young boy on fire?” Alice asked questioningly.\n\n“You practically commanded the kid to torture himself for weeks. Don’t tell me you draw the line at this. The soul tempering was probably more painful than the fire was,” Dante argued.\n\n“It was,” Julius instinctively commented before he could stop himself.\n\n“We can try out some other way first,” she said after she gave a sharp look at Julius.\n\n“Like what? Do you have any ideas or know many people who got a Phoenix Concept? I’m sure you can try to find a manual lying around somewhere,” Dante huffed out sarcastically.\n\nAlice gave the older man a dark look, before turning around to look at Julius with assessing eyes. Seeing Alice’s face and no response, Dante raised both palms up at her. “Why don’t we ask the boy what he thinks.”\n\nAlice continued to glare at Julius. “You really set yourself on fire before?”\n\nHe rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Kind of, yeah.”\n\n“Is that how you got your Fire Concept?”\n\nHe gave her a bright smile. “Yeah.” He was admittedly pretty proud of that. Probably more than he should be if he was being honest.\n\nAlice pitched her nose. “I really need to have a conversation with whoever raised you. What kind of child thinks that setting themselves on fire is a smart way to get stronger?”\n\nJulius didn’t know how to answer that. She did have a valid point, it wasn’t like he was a normal kid after all. He himself realized how alarming it was when the first thing he thought of was to light himself in a fiery blaze.\n\nHe gave her a casual shrug, which received a defeated sigh from Alice in return.\n\n“Okay, let’s try the fire,” she said, sounding like it took all of her will to say those words. “But don’t push it too far. We don’t need you to get some sort of [Flaming Boy] skill yet. Your new skill should just about give you enough room to evolve your Concept and if you’re lucky evolve your healing skill to epic. If you get the wrong skill, you might end up being in a worse position than you were before, if that is even possible without dying before it happens.”\n\n“Oh, so we are setting him on fire,” Dante mused.\n\n“Yes, wasn’t that your idea in the first place?” Alice asked rhetorically.\n\n“I mean it was. But it doesn’t mean I was actually going to go through with it.” Dante said.\n\n“However, I do want to note for the record that you are the one who decided to set a little boy on fire,” Dante said with an innocent expression on his old face.\n\n“Holy shit. I am completely surrounded by idiots,” Alice groaned.\n\n“Hey! Drasil is not an idiot!” Julius argued emphatically. The little life spirit was on his shoulder and nodding his head at Julius’s statement. Alice had either not noticed or cared that the adorable green spirit had come out almost immediately after Julius got the [Soul Tempering] skill. The little guy must have felt the difference the skill made to his soul’s condition and came out to check on his patient like the good healer he was.\n\nJulius passed the spirit a little orb of life mana to Drasil to suck on as thanks. To which the small saint cooed a thanks.\n\n“I am not even going to argue with you,” Alice said exasperatedly. “Let’s get this over with. Hurry up and let’s set you ablaze before I kill all of you myself.”\n\nJulius and Dante gave each other a secretive grin, knowing that they had successfully annoyed the other woman. They didn’t have much in common, but getting one over on Alice was something that both of them tried very hard to do.\n\nHowever, before he followed Alice he had a question. He held up the suppression bracelet that was still around his wrist. “What should I do with this? Do I still need it?”\n\n“No, you can do whatever you want with it. You can chuck for all I care,” Alice told him.\n\nDante made a disgruntled noise as he heard that. The man must have not appreciated his work being talked about like it was some common trash that was thrown away when it was no longer useful.\n\nJulius on the other hand was smiling. He already had some ideas for the suppression device when for the future. It could act as a very nice training device for mana control and other skill training. Though he would make sure that he didn’t tell Lily that. He had a feeling that she wouldn’t like that idea as much as he did.\n\nThe three of them got settled in a spot where there wasn’t anything too flammable nearby. Not that there was much of a danger for a wildfire with two Tier 6s nearby. Still, it was a simple task to take some basic precautions.\n\n“Are we just going to start right away?” He asked Alice.\n\n“What did you do last time?” She asked.\n\nJulius blushed a little bit and bit his lip, thinking about whether or not he wanted to share with them that he had been buck-naked the last time. However, considering he had already told both of them his skills, nudity seemed a little less personal.\n\nHe took a deep breath and looked at Alice and Dante with a shy grin. “I took off my clothes,” he stated.\n\nDante choked on his tongue and Alice's eyes widened. She looked at him taken aback. “Say that again?” she asked.\n\n“I got naked,” he repeated, this time with a bit more confidence and amusement.\n\n“Oh.”\n\n“Yep,” he said while looking at her expectantly.\n\n“Well this is weird,” Dante commented. “I wasn’t expecting that issue.”\n\n“I agree. I don’t know how I feel about this,” Alice stated uncertainly.\n\nJulius looked at the two people who were both looking very conflicted. “Hold up. You both were okay with me setting myself on fire, but nudity is where you draw the line?”\n\n“I don’t know about other people. But I don’t make the habit of looking at underaged boys while they are naked and on fire,” Alice pointed out.\n\n“Does that mean you’re alright with looking at underaged naked boys if they aren’t on fire?” Dante teased.\n\nJulius felt an immense pressure emit from Alice. The power wasn’t like anything he had ever seen. Just the pressure of the power made his entire body lock up instinctually. Alice wasn’t even using this power on him, it was being directed at the old man who made the joke.\n\nDante had a face that was creased with exertion. As he fought off something from Alice. Julius didn’t know what it was, but it must be powerful enough that a Tier 6 like Dante had a hard time dealing with it. Alice on the other hand was calmly glaring at Dante.\n\nFinally, the old man seemed to have enough and tapped as a sign of submission. “Okay, okay!” He exclaimed. “I’m sorry.”\n\nAlice pulled back her power with a satisfied grin and Julius was able to move again.\n\nWas that her domain? Or was it some other power she hadn’t shown to me yet? Whatever it is, I want it, he told himself greedily, practically licking his lips at the thought of such a powerful technique.\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 170: Getting Sidetracked\nTarget length: ~2200 words\nKey events: new skill acquired"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "In the end, it wasn’t even a big deal. Dante gave him a pair of clothes that he said would be able to withstand whatever flames he was able to create. They were a few sizes too large for him, but it was better than nothing.\n\nWhile he would have done it either way, he would have much rather not have gone through that kind of experience. He didn’t need the two of them to get a good look at his privates when he burned himself alive.\n\nHe was keenly aware of the interested gazes from both of them. Alice had more concern lining her gaze while Dante had more excitement in his. He didn’t know how he felt about that. Knowing that someone was enjoying themselves as they watched someone go through pain was a little alarming.\n\nHe didn’t waste any more time though. He created a shell of mana around himself. This time, however, it felt much more fluid.\n\nHis control of mana really showed its improvements as he was able to create his construct with much more ease than before.\n\nOnce he had created another hole at the very top for ventilation, he slowly ignited the fire mana. The first several seconds were just him getting comfortable with the warm flames that surrounded him. The fire itself didn’t harm him nor did it affect the clothing Dante had given him.\n\nOkay, let’s slowly increase the heat.\n\nWith a mental command, he slowly increased the intensity of the flames. He didn’t add kinetic energy but he did use the less volatile version that used pure fire manipulation.\n\nIt was then that he started to feel the burn of the flames. The violet flames started to wrap themselves around his limbs and started to turn his skin to ash. He was surprised though.\n\nThe last time he had done this, it was much more painful than this. It had been agonizing to bear even with the help of his Concept of Will. However, this time he was handling the pain much easier than previously.\n\nCompared to the pain that his soul had been going through the last several weeks, this was quite tame. He also wondered if his new skill had anything to do with it. [Soul Tempering] was an interesting skill. Alice had forced him to get the skill because she said it would help stabilize his soul, but he wondered if pain reduction was also another benefit.\n\nHe gently reminded himself that he was currently busy and should try to focus on the important things. For one, his primary goal was to get this Concept of Phoenix that Alice and Dante had mentioned.\n\nHe tried his best to contain his excitement but he was very delighted that such a Concept existed. It had only been a fantasy and a hope, but now that it was confirmed, he really wanted to get it.\n\nThough, he didn’t really have any good ideas about how he would go about doing that. The last time he had been focused on gaining a Fire Concept, not the Phoenix Concept.\n\nHowever, going off of what Dante had said, a Phoenix Concept was a mixture of fire and life affinities. Therefore, following that same reason, it was possible that a Phoenix Concept needed both aspects of a Fire Concept and a Life Concept.\n\nUnfortunately, that was where it got confusing. Alice seemed pretty confident that he could simply evolve his Concept, but it could also be possible that he needed a Life Concept to combine with his Fire Concept much like how his skills combined together.\n\nHonestly, he didn’t really know how he was going to go about learning a Phoenix Concept. Still, the best probable solution was just to get started.\n\nThe last time he set himself on fire, he was focused on how the fire interacted with him. He had concentrated on how the fire burned his skin and tried to understand the connection of the flames to himself. Not only him personally, but to the entirety of his path.\n\nHowever, unlike last time, he wanted to switch to the opposite side of the coin. He wanted to see how life fit into his path. The best way he knew how to do that was to use his [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] skill.\n\nThe healing skill had been one of, if not the best skill he had. It had saved him countless times and was a big reason for his current strength. However, he rarely thought about how the life mana interacted with his body and what it meant to him overall.\n\nConcepts he had learned were a symbol and representation of his path. His Sharpness Concept was a weapon that cut through the shackles that attempted to restrict his freedom and mortality.\n\nHis Concept of Will was a symbol that characterized his unwillingness to cede or to give up. It was a show of his unwavering will and resolve. It was proof that he wouldn’t be bullied into giving up his goals.\n\nHis Fire Concept was a little bit different. It was the burning passion of his soul. It was the light that shimmered in the darkness. It was the light that illuminated his path.\n\nSo what did life mean to him?\n\nThat required more thought than he expected. And even after over an hour of him burning and healing himself, he wasn’t able to gleam any hints.\n\nAlice and Dante both respectfully remained quiet and were doing things of their own while they watched. Dante was tinkering with another one of his projects. This one was a hat he made himself and a hat that Julius had doubt was very comfortable. Julius found it funny that a guy like Dante enjoyed knitting and making cozy things.\n\nAlice was reading a book. She was constantly aware of Julius’s actions though and was prepared to jump in if anything happened. She became much more relaxed once she had seen how well Julius had handled the initial period of the process.\n\n***\n\nHe eventually had to stop. He wasn’t able to evolve his Concept and there was only so much abuse he could or wanted to take. He could definitely have gone for longer, but he understood the importance of pacing himself much better now. There was a time and place for pushing himself.\n\nThat didn’t mean he had to do it at all times. That was the cause of his current situation.\n\nHe wouldn’t be able to continue setting himself on fire while he was at school. Alice made him promise only to continue where he left off when she or Dante was around. She explained to him that it was important that someone was there to assist his acquisition of his new skill and Concept.\n\nWhile his soul had gotten better and got a little more space for him to work around, it was still in a precarious situation. If he were to get impatient again, it was possible that he would cause worse damage to his soul than before.\n\nHe didn’t want that. He was a changed man, he was learning how to be patient. At least that was what he was telling himself. He didn’t think the others would necessarily agree with that.\n\nHe was currently walking back to campus with a happy bop to his step. He was still very excited that his soul no longer felt like it was getting squished by a hydraulic press. The feeling was absolutely liberating.\n\nOf course, fate couldn’t allow him to feel that good for very long.\n\nHe was traveling through a district that had lured in many adventurers. It made sense considering that one of the major Adventurer’s Guild buildings was just up the street. Unfortunately, that meant that there were more frequent incidents in this district than in most others.\n\nStill, it wasn’t a huge problem considering most of the rowdy customers kept things within a limit. Most people understood the unspoken rules. As long you didn’t cause too many problems or hurt any innocents the guards kept a loose grip and let the adventurers have their fun.\n\nJulius himself was only taking this route because he had found a nice food stand that sold some delicious meat skewers that were charred over some magical charcoal the owner bought from a specialty merchant. They were fabulous and he had been planning to buy some to share with the others.\n\nIt was a little late and they most likely already ate dinner, but he knew that they would gladly enjoy a second supper once they smelled the skewers. It was actually Edgar who had shown him the spot when Julius tagged along with the big fellow who was getting a replacement for one of his training armguards that got damaged.\n\nHowever, his attention was caught by a loud commotion at the side of a building. A quick pulse of [Spatial Perception] revealed it to be a group of four guys who were harassing a handsome young man and a beautiful woman.\n\nThe group of men then grabbed the lone young man by the arms and held him to the side. Then the apparent leader of their crew got closer to the woman. The woman had a scared look on her face as she pressed herself against the stone wall behind her.\n\nJulius was about to ignore them. It wasn’t his problem to get involved with and he didn’t know the circumstances of the situation. For all he knew, the woman and the young man deserved it or perhaps there was a good reason for the group of guy’s behavior.\n\nThe mistake he made was locking eyes with the woman. Her eyes were filled with desperation and fear, asking for his help. Julius tore his gaze from her and continued on his way, but just as he was about the round the corner, he stopped.\n\nDon’t intervene, it’s not your business, he reminded himself.\n\nHowever, even as he told himself this, he was already turning around. He probably wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if something happened to the woman because he chose to do nothing.\n\nThe irony wasn’t lost upon him, he wasn’t doing it to help her, he was doing it because he wanted to keep his own conscious clear.\n\nDid that make him selfish? Probably.\n\nWas it still helpful for the woman? Yeah, most likely.\n\nBefore he reached them, he made sure to cover most of his face with the black cloth. The woman had already seen his face, but it didn’t hurt to take precautions with the other group. Who knew what type of backing they had?\n\n“Hey! How’s it going?” Julius asked the group with a bright smile once he approached them.\n\nEverybody simultaneously turned to look at the newcomer. Julius gave them a quick once over. They were younger than he first thought. They probably weren’t much older than eighteen or nineteen years old.\n\nHowever, they were all genuine Tier 3s, he was able to get that much from their auras. There were pretty much no signs of aura control from them.\n\nHowever, I have just been proven by Alice that I shouldn’t judge people based on their “supposed” tier. So maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.\n\nA guy with short black hair and a brutish-looking face was the first person who talked to him. “Mind your own business. This doesn’t involve your concern,” he said dismissively. He probably assessed Julius’s own tier the moment he saw him and determined he was a nonthreat.\n\nJulius was no longer wearing the ring that Professor Youma gave him, he had not really needed it for a while. However, he was still displaying his Tier 2 aura. He had learned that sometimes hiding your tier was a sign of its own. There were two usual explanations for hiding your aura, either you were well-trained in aura control or you had the money to spend on an aura-concealing device.\n\nThis brute in front of him was the perfect example of dismissing someone as a threat because he believed someone was a tier lower than himself. He didn’t even give Julius another glance and turned back to the young man the other two were restraining.\n\nWell, that’s just rude, Julius thought to himself. He walked closer to the guy and gave him a gentle poke on his back with still a big smile on his face.\n\nThe man didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that he was being interrupted again. He mashed his hand right onto Julius’s face and gave it a harsh shove. A reaction that really didn’t fit the circumstances.\n\nJulius didn’t move from his spot, but he looked at the boy with a little less friendly gaze. That one action gave him enough information about what kind of boys these were.\n\nSo that’s how it’s going to be?\n\n\nThank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 171: Dealing With Thugs\nTarget length: ~2200 words\nKey events: level-up occurs"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Hector POV\n\nHector was the third son of Lord Brandish. Unlike his other brothers and sisters, he didn’t have something that made him stand out. This made him pretty bitter at times, but he had found his true calling.\n\nA couple of years ago a powerful group approached him with an offer. He didn’t know the exact name of the group, and he was happy not to. People like that were not very forgiving to people who stuck their noses into their businesses.\n\nThe offer was simple. They would offer him treasures and other valuable items. In return, he would do some favors for them. These favors varied immensely, some were jobs as a messenger and some were like the ones he was currently doing.\n\nHe was told to make some trouble for Wendy Belick. They didn’t specify the exact methods he was supposed to use or expected to. However, the only requirement was that Hector had to harass Wendy and the people around her.\n\nThe group didn’t give him much explanation, but from the little they said, they wanted Wendy’s father to sell his building. They wanted to make Wendy’s experience in Heston difficult and force her to leave the city.\n\nHer father was ridiculously overprotective of her and if she were to leave, he would most likely follow her. That was their plan. They wanted to force Wendy out so that the father would sell the building when he went with her.\n\nAt least that was what Hector was able to determine.\n\nAnd while he didn’t enjoy harassing young women, they paid him very well for this job. The entire case of Tier 3 pills was more than enough to override his moral boundaries.\n\nA chance to advance a couple of my skills? I’d be crazy not to do it.\n\nEvery man has their price and for Hector, that price was in the form of a case of water affinity Skill Strengthening Pills.\n\nWith this, he could potentially push [Rain Step] to its next level. It had been stuck at Level 5 of rare for a while now. Or he could use them on his [Water Strike] skill. It had been capped at level 14 of uncommon and getting to rare would be such a huge improvement. He couldn’t imagine the power boost he would get once he got his second official rare skill.\n\nHe would become even stronger than he already was.\n\nHe and his three friends were currently harassing the young girl. Trevor and Fulton were holding the girl’s boyfriend by the arms. They weren’t hurting him, at least not that bad. A few nudges and a couple of smacks on the top of his head were all they did to the poor loser.\n\n“Hey! How’s it going?” some random person called out to them.\n\nHe turned to look and frowned at what he saw. It was some weird young boy wearing a black cloth around his lower face. You could really only see his black eyes but you could see signs of his young features.\n\nHe could also tell that this dumb little kid was smiling from underneath his mask. Which was honestly a bit more creepy than he wanted to admit.\n\n“Mind your own business,” Cole scoffed at the kid before turning away and ignoring him.\n\nThe boy didn’t go away, in fact, he got closer to Cole and softly touched his back to get his attention. Cole must have decided that his patience had run out and so he reached out to the young boy and shoved him right in the face.\n\nHector expected to see the kid go flying back into the dirt, but instead, he found himself confused when the boy didn’t move an inch.\n\nHe also knew that Cole hadn’t pulled back his strength that much either. He never did, he liked showing off his strength too much to do that. So when the kid literally didn’t move an inch, subconscious alarm bells started to ring in his head.\n\nHowever, he ignored those alarms, reasoning that it was just him trying to give the kid a break.\n\nThe creepy kid still hadn’t moved and was still staring at Cole with that chilling smile that showed through his mask.\n\n“Get lost kid,” Cole said, not sounding as confident as he usually did. The kid still didn’t say or do anything in response.\n\nTrevor seemed to have enough of the kid’s antics. He let go of his hold of the girl’s boyfriend and walked over to the kid. He reached down and grabbed ahold of the boy’s shoulder, trying to drag him away from them.\n\nHowever, the second he touched the boy, Trevor froze like a statue. It was like time had stopped. But he was still able to talk it seemed.\n\n“What the hell,” Trevor said shakily.\n\nWhat happened?\n\n“What are you doing, man?” Cole asked.\n\n“I don’t know. I can’t move!” Trevor exclaimed. Hector could see that Trevor was struggling hard but nothing he did was able to let him move.\n\nCole was the first one of them to react. Unfortunately, his first instinct when reacting was violence, and threw a wide haymaker at the kid’s head.\n\nHowever, that only served for Cole’s body to freeze as well. His body was suspended mid-punch.\n\nThe boy turned to look at Fulton and him with eerily calm eyes. Then he swiveled his gaze to the young couple. “Are you guys okay?” he asked kindly. This time the smile didn’t seem as creepy through the mask. He realized why the boy’s smile felt creepy. It was because when he smiled at Hector and his friends, his eyes were like a dead fish's. However, when he smiled at the couple, they showed actual life.\n\nThe girl who was still shaking stammered out a reply that nobody was able to understand and glanced rapidly between the frozen forms of his friends.\n\nThe boy continued to ignore the four of them. “Would you like for me to stop these boys from harassing you?” he asked his voice steady with confidence, bordering on arrogance that needled Hector’s own pride.\n\nThe girl looked at Hector and back at the boy, nervously nodding her head.\n\nThe boy slowly walked over to the girl and his direction. Hector didn’t know what to do. He was frozen with indecision. However, he did the first thing that popped into his mind when the boy got within distance, he activated [Water Step].\n\nHe reappeared in a flash right to the side of the boy and sent a fist empowered with [Water Strike] at the boy’s chest. It was overkill, he knew that, but he also didn’t know why his friends had been frozen like they had either and he wasn’t taking any chances.\n\nHowever, just before his fist reached the boy, he felt something envelop him like a blanket. It felt like he was moving through thick water, but unlike his friends, he was still able to move a little bit.\n\nStill, it didn’t seem like that mattered too much. It would still take well over a couple of seconds for his fist to reach its destination at this rate. The boy calmly looked at his slowly incoming fist and gave a shrug. He raised a fist up and cocked it back slowly. He took his time, doing two short practice jabs in the air before striking out a lightning-quick punch.\n\nHector tried to activate a defensive skill in time, but something was preventing him from activating his skill.\n\nHe wasn’t even able to catch the full strike. All he remembered was the embrace of darkness.\n\n***\n\nJulius POV\n\nHe looked at the knocked boy he just punched. He tried to hold back within reason so it was unlikely there was any real damage. The boy still seemed to be breathing, so he considered that a success.\n\nJulius turned to look at the last remaining boy from the group. He had let go of the other boy and was just staring fearfully at Julius. He hadn’t moved an inch. Unlike his friends, whom Julius held in place with kinetic energy and aura, he had chosen to stay frozen like a statue on his own.\n\nHe just shrugged uncaringly and went over to the other two boys who were actually frozen in place. Their wills were shockingly awful. There was no way he should have been able to disable and prevent a Tier 3 from moving that easily.\n\nAt least the leader seemed to fare a little bit better. Though, in Julius’s defense he would have been able to immobilize completely if he wasn’t holding the other two in place. Multiple targets he learned were pretty hard to hold at once.\n\nThe two boys stared at him in shock. They hadn’t been able to see what happened, but they probably heard their friend hit the deck.\n\n“What did you do to us? What kind of item are you using to freeze us like this?” The boy who pushed him in the face asked.\n\nWhy do they always think it’s an item that is responsible? I don’t really mind because it helps me out, but it’s still kind of insulting.\n\nHe didn’t choose to answer them. Instead, he walked in front of the boy who tried to drag him away and gave a quick strike similar to what he did to Hector, knocking him out instantly.\n\nHe had a feeling with wills as weak as theirs, he had a pretty good chance of knocking them out with pure aura and will, but he didn’t know what kind of damage that might do. For all he knew it would cause severe damage. And he didn’t want to do that, no matter if they kind of deserved it. He would save that for people who really warranted it.\n\nWhen he saw his friend getting punched in the face, the face-pusher guy seemed to struggle much harder. It was actually a much better attempt than their leader. If it was before, he might have gotten free. However, it didn’t do him much good now. Julius was able to put his entire attention on him and with a simple effort, prevented him from moving.\n\nJulius walked up to the frozen brute and apologetically patted his shoulder.\n\n\"You are making a big mistake, I will fucking kill you!\" The brute yelled out.\n\nJulius ignored him and sent two quick hooks into the guy’s chest. He heard a couple of ribs crack and then sent another one at his face, knocking him out instantly.\n\nIt was the same treatment Julius subjected to his other friends, plus a few additional strikes. Though to be fair, he deserved it. There had been no reason to shove him in the face, he could have simply pushed him in the chest. The face push was just a power play because he felt he could bully Julius and Julius did not appreciate that at all.\n\nThis was the repercussion of his actions and Julius didn’t feel bad about it at all. The last guy tried to run when Julius was busy but was quickly frozen too.\n\n“You two okay?” He asked the young girl and handsome boy while walking over and knocking out the last boy casually. The two of them looked at Julius with fear, but the girl seemed to gain some courage to speak.\n\n“We are, thank you,” she said shakily.\n\n“Of course. It was no big deal,” he told her. It really wasn’t. It’s not like it took him much effort these four thugs were embarrassingly weak. Also, he was walking by, so perhaps it was just meant to be. It wasn’t like he could have really walked away after seeing that.\n\nHowever, that didn’t mean he had to stay around either. Once he made sure he didn’t detect any injuries on them, he started to walk away.\n\n“Hey! Where are you going?” The girl’s friend had finally mustered his courage to speak and was in the process of fixing his hair that was mused about.\n\n“Um, away from here?” He asked like it wasn’t obvious.\n\n“Are you just going to leave them there?” The boy asked while pointing at the other’s prone figures.\n\n“Well… Yeah. I’m certainly not going to waste my time dragging them somewhere,” Julius said a little annoyed at the guy’s attitude. He felt like the boy could have shown a little more gratitude. He did save him from being bullied around after all.\n\n“You should really wait around until the guards come around,” the boy demanded.\n\nJulius just shook the audacious attitude of the boy. He turned to look at the girl to see if she was seeing the same thing. Luckily, the girl seemed to have more sense and was looking at her friend with disappointment. Julius gave her a knowing look once they crossed gazes and turned around to leave.\n\nHe didn’t stop even when the boy yelled after him, though fortunately the boy quickly stopped when the girl rebuked him.\n\nHowever, Julius didn’t really care all that much. He had more important things to do right now.\n\nA stall that sold delicious meat skewers was calling his name and he was hungry.\n\n\nThank you for reading!"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nBecoming the Dark Lord — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Luke jolted awake, his cheek tingling from having fallen asleep with his face on the ground. His mind was a storm, thoughts tangled and scattered. He glanced around, heart pounding. This... wasn’t his house.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Luke | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: He, Points, Luke’s\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Magnetic Return (Rare), Servant of the Dark Lord (Unique), Notice: Approaching First Floor, Basic Blade Handling (Common), Heavy Strike, You have learned a Class Skill, Servant of the Dark Lord, Basic Chameleon Skin (Uncommon)); stats (Perception, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility, Vitality)\nSystem notification style: \"System’s Annual Integration!]\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (5% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 60: Blood Regeneration\nTarget length: ~2400 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke narrowed his eyes at the system notification.\n\n[Mission Orb: Hunt the Iron-Tusk Boars\n\nObjective: Kill 10 Iron-Tusk Boars\n\nProgress: 0/10\n\nReward: Equipment (Unrevealed)]\n\nHe dropped silently from the branch, landing with feline grace.\n\nThe blue orb had already vanished.\n\n“So that’s what Anna meant… hidden missions scattered throughout the Wild Zone.”\n\nIf side quests like this existed out here, they could be a huge edge.\n\nLuke had already made up his mind—power came first. Always.\n\nTo complete the tutorial, he had to find the three ancient mechanisms sealing the castle. But he had a theory. Each one was probably guarded by a Lord. And if he activated all three—the Midnight Wardens would march again. Day and night. Without pause.\n\nLuke clenched his fists.\n\nHe wasn’t the sentimental type. But still—there were children and civilians in the Safe Zone. He couldn’t unleash a bloodbath and walk away like it meant nothing.\n\nHe pushed the thought aside. Right now, he had one goal. Strength.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke moved carefully through the city ruins in the Wild Zone, crouched low, hugging the sides of broken buildings as he kept to the shadows. Whenever footsteps echoed nearby, he dashed across crumbling streets and dove into abandoned houses without hesitation.\n\nA system prompt flickered in the corner of his vision.\n\n[Dead Watchman – Level 10]\n\nSo... zombie soldiers patrol the city too.\n\nThe undead guard shuffled past, slow but steady. Right behind it came two more, moving together in formation. They didn’t roam alone—they moved in groups.\n\nBack in the forest, he’d already managed to evade a pack of velociraptors, using the treetops to bypass them. But getting chased by monsters inside the city? That was a different problem entirely. Open ground, tight alleys—no trees to climb. Worse, any chase here, even in daylight, would draw too much attention.\n\nThis run wasn’t about fighting. It was about learning. Understanding. Mapping the place out. He needed to gather as much information as possible before committing to deeper pushes. That was why he’d refused the Haven’s offer to assign him a guide.\n\nIf I’m gonna survive this place... I need to feel it myself. I need to learn how it moves.\n\nStealth was everything.\n\nThe Wild Zone was massive, but the division between the forest and the city was clear. The forest was dangerous, sure. But it was manageable. The ruins? A whole different ecosystem. One designed to kill you. Especially after sunset—when the Midnight Wardens started their patrols.\n\nBut the deeper you went into the city... the better the loot. Clothes. Supplies. Abandoned chests filled with food, materials, maybe rare gear. The risk was suffocating—but so were the rewards.\n\nThe catch? Time control.\n\nIf you went too deep and didn’t make it back before midnight... you were dead. No negotiation. No mercy. Once the curfew hit, the Midnight Wardens hunted anything that moved.\n\nAnd then there was the light. Daytime exploration was dangerous, but manageable. Night? The Wild Zone turned pitch black. Sure, Luke had Demonic Perception, but even that had limits. You could sense shapes, movement... but not everything. Not perfectly.\n\nAnd yet... even knowing all that... he still wanted to try. To push. To figure it out. To conquer it.\n\nOnce the undead patrol rounded the corner and vanished, Luke slipped out of the building, climbed its side using broken ledges and cracks, and pulled himself onto the rooftop. From there, he scanned the streets below.\n\n“Damn... this place is huge,” he muttered.\n\nHis priority was clear—level up. Himself. Charlie. Both.\n\nBut that led straight into another problem. His skeletal companion was... well, a skeleton. Having her walk around with him was basically announcing his bloodline to anyone watching. That secret was one he couldn’t afford to lose.\n\nLuke sighed, casting a glance toward the forest in the distance. “Time to head back.”\n\nPushing deeper into the ruins without a better plan was reckless. He wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. And besides... he still needed to check out that mission orb he’d picked up earlier.\n\n\n***\n\n\nAs he started moving, the realization fully clicked. Something that had been slowly forming in the back of his mind finally locked into place. He understood now—really understood—why so many survivors refused to leave the Safe Zone.\n\nIt wasn’t just the monsters. Wasn’t just the curfew.\n\nIt was Health.\n\nHP doesn't regenerate. That was a harsh truth he had no choice but to accept.\n\nIf someone with 100 HP took 70 damage, they’d be stuck with only 30. Permanently. No recovery. Unlike mana or stamina, your health bar stayed exactly the same. Even if you treated the wound manually, like stitching it up or something, every point of HP lost brought you one step closer to death.\n\nSure, you could restore HP when leveling up your Race. But that required killing enemies, which came with its own risk of... well, taking even more damage. Same with leveling up your Profession. The loop was brutal. The more you fought to survive... the more likely you were to die trying.\n\nIt was a death spiral.\n\nThat’s why healers were worth their weight in gold. And healing potions? Priceless. Controlled by exactly one person.\n\nBartholomew.\n\nBut Luke... Luke had something else. A loophole. A skill. A way to bypass the entire problem.\n\nAnd he was dying to test it.\n\nLuke moved swiftly through the undergrowth, each step measured, every sense sharpened to a razor’s edge. If game logic applied here—and it usually did—the mission zone shouldn’t be far from where the orb had been.\n\nThen a sound hit him. A low, heavy snort, deep enough to vibrate through the ground.\n\nHe dropped instantly into the brush, body pressed low. His eyes scanned the clearing ahead. And then he saw them.\n\nBoars.\n\nBut not the kind anyone would expect. These weren’t woodland pests. Each one was the size of a full-grown bear, their bodies packed with dense muscle beneath thick bristled hides. Their eyes glowed with a dull, burning aggression—pure, undiluted rage.\n\nBeside him, Princess Charlie stood silent. Her skeletal form motionless, hollow gaze fixed on the beasts. No breath. No sound. Just perfect stillness.\n\nLuke slid one kukri free, grip tightening.\n\nA single motion—clean.\n\nThunk.\n\nThe blade spun through the air and buried itself deep into the side of one of the monsters. The boar shrieked, staggering back, tusks shaking. Then—those tusks began to glow. Bone shifted, reshaping. Metal bloomed across the surface like liquid steel hardening in an instant. Smooth, cold iron.\n\nLuke’s stomach dropped.\n\nThey have skills.\n\nOne of them roared and charged—a bull made of muscle and fury. Luke dove sideways just as the creature slammed into a tree, the impact splitting the trunk in half with a deafening crack. Splinters rained down.\n\nAnother came from his blind spot, slamming into him shoulder-first. The hit knocked the air out of his lungs. Luke hit the dirt hard, sliding through the mud and leaves, coughing, ribs screaming.\n\nHe gritted his teeth and recalled his kukris, the blades snapping back into his grip. This wasn’t a fight he could end quickly. Not cleanly. This was going to be rough.\n\nA third boar lowered its head and charged, tusks gleaming. Luke shifted his stance at the last second. The beast thundered past, momentum sending it crashing straight into one of its own. Flesh and bone collided. Both creatures staggered.\n\nThere.\n\nAn opening.\n\nOne breath. One step. His body moved faster than thought. A clean arc, a sharp twist—kukri slicing straight through muscle and tendon. The blade ripped into the boar’s neck. Blood sprayed, warm and heavy.\n\nThe beast shuddered, took one broken step forward—then collapsed.\n\n[You have slain an Iron-Tusk Boar – Lvl 13]\n\nNo time to breathe. Another boar barreled toward him. Luke leapt, landing square on its back. With a savage twist of both blades, he drove them deep into the creature’s thick neck.\n\nThe boar thrashed, but Luke whispered coldly, “Time to sleep.” He twisted again—its throat tore open.\n\nHe hit the ground running, pouring mana into his legs mid-fall. Shadow wrapped around his body as he surged forward like a living blur.\n\nHe crashed into another boar like a wrecking ball. The creature flew backward, slammed into a tree with enough force to snap the trunk clean in half. Two more down.\n\nThen came a sharp, piercing cry behind him.\n\nLuke barely turned in time. A tusk ripped through his arm—white-hot pain exploding as flesh split open. Blood poured down his sleeve.\n\nBut something shifted. The boar’s wound glowed—a deep, pulsing red. His body reacted before his mind caught up. Instinct flooded in, clear and undeniable.\n\n[Basic Blood Regeneration – Available]\n\nThe skill surged within him, demanding to be used. He raised his hand instinctively. A crimson mist lifted from the wounded beast and flowed into his body. His HP ticked upward. The burning pain vanished. Muscle knitted. Skin sealed.\n\nHe stared, almost stunned, watching the gash on his arm close right in front of him.\n\n“This is…”\n\nHe shut it off—the mana drain was brutal. But it worked. It actually worked.\n\nThe boar roared and charged.\n\nThis time, Luke didn’t move. He stepped straight into the hit. The tusks slammed into his ribs and crushed him against a tree.\n\nHis breath caught sharp in his throat. His teeth clenched. “Tch...”\n\nHis arms moved faster than thought.\n\nThe kukri punched straight into the boar’s skull. The creature convulsed, trembling violently.\n\nLuke released the blade and vaulted upward, catching a branch just as the remaining boars smashed into the trunk below. The entire tree shook under the repeated impacts, bark splintering, leaves raining down.\n\nHe steadied his breathing, scanned the group, and focused on the most injured one. Mana flared again. Blood lifted from the creature’s wounds, dissolving into red vapor before flowing straight into his body.\n\nThe energy drained fast. The boar crumpled instantly, dead before its body even hit the ground.\n\n[You have slain an Iron-Tusk Boar – Lvl 13]\n\nLuke grinned. “This… is insane.”\n\nIf he left enemies at low health, he could finish them instantly and heal in the process.\n\nHe dropped from the branch, landing light. The surviving boars were still furious, stomping and snorting, blood dripping from their hides.\n\nLuke whistled. A silent signal.\n\nPrincess Charlie leapt from the treetops. The skeleton warrior landed like a thunderbolt, her blade plunging into a boar’s hide.\n\nLuke moved right behind her. Cutting between enemies. Striking weak points. Dodging just before impact. Fluid. Precise. Lethal.\n\nCharlie crushed the frontline, holding back the stampede with brute force. Together, they carved through the chaos.\n\nIn less than a minute, four more boars lay gasping, twitching, bloodied.\n\nLuke extended his hand.\n\n“Goodbye.”\n\nSHAAA.\n\nA red wave pulsed through the clearing. The beasts shuddered—and dropped.\n\n[You have slain an Iron-Tusk Boar – Lvl 11]\n\n\n[You have slain an Iron-Tusk Boar – Lvl 12]\n\n\n[You have slain an Iron-Tusk Boar – Lvl 12]\n\n\n[You have slain an Iron-Tusk Boar – Lvl 11]\n\nThe mission prompt flashed:\n\n*Mission: Hunt the Iron-Tusk Boars*\n\nProgress: 10/10\n\n[Mission Complete]\n\n[Reward Granted]\n\nLuke opened his inventory. A new item sparkled in the slot.\n\n[Iron-Tusk Boarhide Pants (Uncommon)\n\nDescription: Durable leather pants crafted from the reinforced hide of an Iron-Tusk Boar. Infused with raw metal from the creature’s own tusks, offering superior defense.\n\nRequirement: Level 5+ in any class or race.]\n\nLuke let out a low whistle.\n\n“Not bad at all.”\n\nHe looked over at Princess Charlie, who stood amid the corpses, her skull tilted curiously.\n\n“We make a damn good team.”\n\nPrincess Charlie puffed out her chest. ‘Obviously. You’ve got me.’\n\nHe chuckled, eyes drifting back to the screen hovering before him. The new gear was solid—much better than the default adventurer’s pants he still wore. But then he looked at her again. And made his choice.\n\n“You should have these.”\n\nCharlie tilted her skull slightly, confused by the offer. In Luke’s mind, her role was clear: she’d be his tank. He was agile, and his Perception stats let him dodge most incoming blows.\n\nBut Charlie? She needed to take hits, tank enemies, and hold the frontline. Putting defense gear on him would just slow him down. But she… she’d need every edge to survive.\n\nStill, she hesitated.\n\nLuke crossed his arms. “Take the gear. It'll be way more useful for you than me. You’re going to be my knight, remember?”\n\nHer green spectral eyes flickered, considering. ‘Are you sure?’\n\n“Absolutely.”\n\nHe sent the item through the system. In an instant, the pants equipped themselves, snapping into place around her skeletal form. Luke blinked. It didn’t just hang loosely on her bones. It was as if the system had filled in the rest of her body—invisible to the eye, but real enough for armor to take shape.\n\nCharlie turned slightly. Luke’s eyes widened. She had a butt.\n\n“What the—?!”\n\nHe stared. Then squinted.\n\nHow is that possible? Did the system actually shape the armor around an invisible body?!\n\nCharlie noticed the stare. And if a skull could blush, she was definitely doing it now.\n\nLuke coughed and quickly turned away.\n\n“S-sorry.”\n\nStill flustered, he couldn’t help but think:\n\nIf I give her a full set of armor, she’d look just like a regular warrior. A walking tank no one would question.\n\nThat was… perfect.\n\n“Charlie,” he said, serious now. “Don’t be shy about asking for gear. We’re a team. If you see something that’ll make you stronger—even if I’m using it—just say it.”\n\nShe paused. Then slowly raised a hand—and pointed to his finger. To the ring. Then to her ring finger.\n\nLuke blinked. “…You want the ring?”\n\nShe nodded rapidly, eyes glowing.\n\nHe couldn’t help but laugh. “You forgot it requires level 8 in class or race to equip.”\n\nCharlie froze, her shoulders sagging in pure disappointment. Before Luke could say anything more, a rustle came from the brush.\n\nLuke tensed immediately. Something was nearby. His instincts screamed—fighting now was a terrible idea. His mana was running dangerously low after repeatedly using Basic Blood Regeneration.\n\n“Let’s move.”\n\nHe slipped through the underbrush, silent and swift, with Charlie gliding close behind. A new target had emerged, an orc. He needed to find it, follow it, track it back to its origins.\n\nIf the ancient mechanisms were hidden within the territories of the Lords, then the center of each domain would likely harbor one.\n\nIt was risky, maybe even suicidal, but it made sense. Too much sense.\n\nStrange that no one else had thought of it or perhaps someone had and didn’t live to tell the tale."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 61: Hunted in the Dark Forest\nTarget length: ~1800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“How was your trip into the Wild Zone?” Anna asked.\n\nLuke sat at a worn wooden table, staring into the bowl of monster stew in front of him. The smell was sharp—feral, earthy—but he’d grown used to it.\n\nThe mess hall buzzed with quiet tension. Survivors crowded around cookfires, boiling scavenged meat or patching gear. Others hunched over their bowls, eating in near silence. Survival left little room for conversation.\n\nLuke stirred the broth with his spoon, not really hungry. “Killed a few boars,” he said, voice flat. “Tried tracking an orc too.”\n\nBeside Anna, Cecilia immediately started signing.\n\nAnna translated without missing a beat. “She says to be careful. Orcs are never alone. If you see one, assume there are more nearby. They use signals—horns, traps, alarms. One mistake, and you're surrounded.”\n\nBefore Luke could reply, Allison dropped into the seat across from him. One look at her face said everything—exhausted, drained.\n\n“How’d your day go?” Luke asked.\n\nAllison let out a long breath. “Went out hunting with the others. Honestly thought everyone would be focused on the mission every day...”\n\nAnna gave a quiet chuckle. “Most people here are just trying to survive. We need food, gear, someone to fix the fences, someone to tend the crops. If we stay out too long, the Haven’s defenses fall apart.”\n\nLuke nodded. It made sense. A constant grind would burn out anyone. Low HP, no rest—even elite hunters would collapse eventually.\n\nHe glanced back at Anna. “How do you even carry what you kill? I took down some boars earlier, but there’s no way I could drag their corpses all the way back.”\n\nAnna smiled, raising her hand to show a silver ring. “Storage items.”\n\nWith a simple snap of her fingers, a folded shirt materialized in her palm.\n\nLuke blinked in surprise.\n\n“I stash everything in here,” Anna said, slipping the shirt back into the ring. “Beats hauling it around in a pack.”\n\nCecilia lifted her own hand, showing an identical ring.\n\nAllison frowned, leaning in. “Are those common?”\n\nAnna shook her head. “Not even close. They’re rare. And the capacity varies. Some hold as much as a backpack. Others... as much as a small room.”\n\nLuke’s eyes narrowed. I need one of those.\n\nStorage meant mobility. Mobility meant survival. Carry gear, loot, emergency supplies—without dead weight slowing him down.\n\nHe opened his mouth to ask more—\n\n“HELP! Where’s Thiara?!”\n\nThe shout cut through the air like a blade.\n\nInstantly, the hall exploded into motion. Chairs scraped. Bowls clattered to the floor.\n\nA group shoved through the crowd, dragging a man soaked in blood. They dropped him to the dirt. The entire room froze.\n\n“That’s Jonathan’s team,” someone muttered.\n\nLuke’s eyes locked onto the man’s body. One arm was gone—ripped clean off. What remained was a shredded stump, pumping blood into the ground. A blur of movement hit his peripheral. A girl sprinted through the chaos. Thiara.\n\nShe dropped to her knees, hands glowing bright green as she pressed them together.\n\nHealing magic.\n\nLight shimmered around her fingers, pouring into the wound. The bleeding slowed—but not enough. The magic fought to close the injury, but the damage was brutal.\n\n“It’s not holding,” someone whispered.\n\n“Get him to the infirmary!” Paul’s voice rang out, slicing through the panic. Calm. Commanding. Unshakeable.\n\nA group of men lifted Jonathan’s bloodied body and rushed him toward the infirmary tent.\n\nLuke’s eyes tracked them until movement beside him caught his attention. Cecilia’s hands flew in frantic, sharp gestures toward Anna—fast, urgent.\n\nEven without translation, Luke caught the key words. Mission. Mechanism.\n\nHis pulse tightened. Whatever had happened out there... it was big.\n\nAnna signed something back, her expression darkening. Her fingers slowed—not frantic like Cecilia’s, but firm. Focused. Controlled.\n\nBefore Luke could speak, the hotel doors slammed open. Angelica strode out, her face grim, pace brisk, eyes locked forward. A mage followed close behind her, staff raised, energy already swirling at the tip.\n\nThe moment they stepped into the infirmary tent, the air shifted.\n\nSilence.\n\nInstant. Total.\n\nNo groans. No whispers. No wind.\n\nLuke’s eyes narrowed. Sound barrier.\n\nQuietly, he stepped back, blending into the edge of the crowd, making sure not to draw attention. Whatever was happening inside that tent... they didn’t want anyone hearing it. And that, in itself, was telling.\n\nEight years...\n\nEight years trapped in this so-called tutorial. The deeper he looked, the clearer it became—the veterans were hiding something.\n\n“What do you think happened?” Allison asked, arms crossed, her gaze locked on the tent.\n\nLuke didn’t answer.\n\nBut Anna did. “If it’s Jonathan’s team... then it’s about the mission.”\n\nLuke turned to her, surprised by how blunt she sounded.\n\nAllison frowned. “Then why the hell is everyone just... accepting this? Why aren’t they fighting harder to get out?”\n\nAnna’s sigh was long. Heavy. “You saw the statue. You read the mission.” Her voice stayed steady, but the fatigue underneath was obvious. “You know what happens if the third mechanism is activated. The Midnight Wardens will march—unstoppable. They’ll wipe out everything in their path.”\n\nLuke stared at her. “And yet... you still try?”\n\nAnna lowered her gaze. Her fingers traced the edge of her spoon. Then she nodded—small, tired, but certain. “Most are afraid. But not all. Some of us still believe.”\n\n“Believe in what?” Luke asked.\n\nShe hesitated, thumb running along the silver ring on her finger. “Bartholomew.”\n\nLuke exchanged a sharp look with Allison.\n\n“What about him?”\n\nAnna exhaled, eyes drifting toward the hotel. “He’s not just a tyrant. People follow him because... he’s the only one with a plan.”\n\nHer voice softened, but the edge never left. “He controls the water. He controls the walls. The food. The safety. He commands the strongest fighters. Even if we hate him... even if everyone curses his name... he’s still the best shot any of us have at surviving this.”\n\nLuke stayed silent, watching her carefully.\n\nAnna’s hand tightened around her spoon. “I came here three years ago. Left a family behind. Everyone did. No one gave up. Not really.” Her voice hardened. “Bartholomew wants to purge the Wild Zone. Push forward. Take ground. Map the three mechanisms. Build a path straight to the castle.”\n\nShe paused, gaze distant. Haunted. “But he won’t activate the final mechanism until every survivor is ready. Until every man, woman, and child can run—all the way to the castle gates.”\n\nAll or nothing.\n\n“Only then,” Anna said quietly, “will we stand a chance against what’s waiting.”\n\nShe picked up her spoon and resumed eating, but her shoulders stayed tense, stiff. She wasn’t calm. Not really. Underneath, she was afraid.\n\n“It’s not simple,” she added, voice lower now. “The Wild Zone is massive. Twisted. The Lords rule their territories like war gods. The Renegades hunt the weak. Bandits own the ruins. And the monsters... they roam everywhere. Hunting anything that breathes.”\n\nLuke’s thoughts lingered on the barricades—the makeshift walls, the armed patrols stationed on every rooftop, the battered gates of the Safe Zone barely holding together with rusted metal and desperation. This place wasn’t built to last. It was patched, repaired, and reinforced with whatever scraps people could find.\n\n\"We protect this place the best we can,\" Anna had said. \"But there are too many mouths to feed. If we send everyone charging toward the castle and the Safe Zone falls behind us... what then?\"\n\nShe’d laughed after that. Not out of amusement—but out of sheer frustration.\n\n\"That’s the dilemma. Do we push forward? Or make sure there’s still something left to come back to?\"\n\nNow, sitting in silence, Luke leaned back in his chair, her words looping through his head like a weight that refused to leave.\n\nSafe Zone. Wild Zone. Castle.\n\nAnd above it all—Bartholomew. Preparing. Waiting. Watching.\n\nBut what waited inside that castle? What was really behind all of this?\n\nLuke glanced down at his arm—the same one that had been slashed open earlier that day. It was fully healed now. Not even a scar. Basic Blood Regeneration worked better than he could’ve hoped.\n\nAnd it only pushed him further.\n\nHe wasn’t going to wait for others. Wouldn’t sit back depending on hope, or faith, or someone else’s plan. Wouldn’t rot in this purgatory pretending this was life.\n\nNo.\n\nHe’d fight his way out. On his own terms.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke moved like a shadow through the Wild Zone, each step precise, every sense sharpened. Anna’s voice still echoed in his mind—so many had already accepted their prison, resigned to wait for a savior that would never come.\n\nNot me.\n\nNo time to waste. Every step forward, every fight, every drop of EXP mattered.\n\nHis eyes caught it—a soft glow against the wreckage. A mission orb floated atop the fractured remains of a stone house, resting there like a relic left on an altar.\n\nNo hesitation. Luke sprinted, scaling the cracked wall with the fluid motion of someone who’d done it a hundred times. His hands and feet found every hold without pause, momentum carrying him to the top in seconds.\n\nFingers reached out. The system window popped into view.\n\n[Mission Orb Acquired]\n\nBut before he could even read the details, a sharp current sliced through the air. His instincts flared. Luke dove sideways just as an arrow shattered against the stone where his head had been a second earlier. Another followed. He twisted, body dropping low, narrowly slipping out of its path as it splintered into the debris behind him.\n\nHis gaze snapped toward the treeline. Shapes emerged from the brush—six men, armed and grinning.\n\n\"Got one,\" one of them said, voice casual, confident.\n\n\"These orb traps never fail. Almost too easy,\" another chuckled as he stepped forward.\n\nLuke’s grip tightened around the handles of his kukris. His eyes swept the group, cataloging threats with brutal efficiency. Three archers positioned in the rear. Two melee fighters taking point. A mage stood behind them, staff already humming with energy, arcs of violet lightning crawling along its surface.\n\nA lightning caster. Bad news.\n\nThen the leader stepped in front, relaxed, wearing a smirk that dripped with arrogance. \"Two choices, rookie. Leave your gear—especially those pretty knives—or die.\"\n\nThe mage’s staff pulsed, the air shimmering as electricity built, heat and static crawling across Luke’s skin.\n\nA shift in the undergrowth pulled his attention left. More figures. Crossbows drawn. Four of them, settling into elevated positions along the brush line, perfectly angled to cut off any escape route.\n\nTen total. Surrounding him. Full ambush formation.\n\nThe leader spread his arms wide like he was delivering a sermon.\n\n\"So?\" he asked, grin widening. \"You want to live... or die?\""}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 62: Blades in the Storm\nTarget length: ~1600 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Ten bandits. Luke counted them in a heartbeat—four crossbowmen, three archers, two warriors... and a mage.\n\nDamn.\n\nThey were prepared.\n\n“You move quiet, kid,” one of the warriors said, spinning his axe lazily. His grin didn’t reach his eyes.\n\nThe mage stepped forward, raising his staff. Orbs of lightning crackled into existence, humming as they floated in lazy, deadly circles.\n\n“Hand over everything,” the second warrior added. “We’re already pissed. Meant to catch you before you touched the orb.”\n\nLuke’s eyes scanned the terrain. Every exit was covered.\n\n“It’s nightfall,” the mage said, voice sharper now. “Midnight Wardens will be out soon. So unless you want to end up tied to a tree as bait...”\n\nLuke didn’t have time for this.\n\nCharlie was still sealed in his soul. Summoning her would take seconds—seconds he didn’t have. Not against this many ranged weapons.\n\n“If I give you my gear...” Luke’s voice stayed level. “You’ll let me walk?”\n\nThe warrior chuckled. “As long as you don’t try anything... yeah. You walk. Now. Empty your inventory.”\n\nCrossbows leveled at him. The tips glowed with mana, primed to fire.\n\nLuke raised his hands. Slow. Controlled.\n\n“The kukris. Drop ’em.”\n\nHe obeyed. Carefully placed both blades on the dirt. His muscles stayed taut. Ready.\n\nThe warrior stepped forward, axe in hand. “If he moves, shoot him,” he ordered.\n\nLuke’s mind raced.\n\nInventory items can’t be stolen. Only traded.\n\nIf he died, everything in the inventory would be locked—lost to everyone. That’s why they needed him alive. He had to willingly transfer it through the system.\n\nThe warrior stooped, scooping up the kukris, testing their weight. “Nice blades.” He grinned, then raised his axe. “Now... touch my arm. Transfer. All of it.”\n\nLuke stepped forward. Hand extended.\n\nAnd in the same motion—snapped a throwing knife from his belt and flung it straight at the mage.\n\nThe mage’s eyes widened. His body twisted, barely dodging as the blade hissed past his cheek.\n\nLuke exploded into motion.\n\nThe warrior’s axe came down—too slow.\n\nLuke vaulted backward just as a storm of arrows and spells tore through the space he’d been standing in a heartbeat earlier.\n\nA bolt of lightning detonated against stone—ripping it apart in a cascade of light and debris.\n\nLuke twisted midair, landed hard on the broken wall of a collapsed building. His fingers flicked up.\n\n[Magnetic Return]\n\nBoth kukris ripped free from the warrior’s hands, flying back into Luke’s grip.\n\n“What the—?!” the warrior gasped.\n\nBut Luke was already gone. A blur of motion diving from the wall into the shadows of the forest.\n\nChaos erupted behind him.\n\n“GET HIM!”\n\nFootsteps hammered the dirt.\n\n“Light him up!”\n\nCrystals soared through the air—glowing shards that burst midflight into searing spheres of white light, flooding the woods with broken, flickering brightness.\n\n“There! Fire!”\n\nBolts sliced through branches. Arrows shattered bark. Lightning ripped holes in the ground, sending showers of dirt and roots flying.\n\nLuke dove over a fallen log, rolled beneath a thornbush, then pivoted hard—slamming into a tangle of vines.\n\n“You’re dead, kid!” the warrior roared behind him. “This is OUR territory!”\n\nLuke didn’t answer. His mind was already three steps ahead.\n\nDetection arrows flew through the trees, trailing green sigils—probing the dark, scanning for movement.\n\nThe glow of tracking crystals bounced through the woods, casting fractured light across slick bark and twisted roots.\n\nEvery breath was a risk. Every footstep a calculation.\n\nHe had seconds. Maybe less.\n\nThen came the low rumble. Not magic. A storm.\n\nThe first drops whispered through the canopy. Gentle. Deceptive. Then a hiss. Then a wall of water— a downpour so dense it drowned sound, blurred sight, and devoured footsteps.\n\nA sharp crack split the dark.\n\n“There!” an archer barked.\n\nArrows tore through the rain—silent streaks of death.\n\nBut they weren’t alone.\n\nKnives erupted from the shadows—sleek, spinning, multiplying midair like reflections in broken glass.\n\n“Shit!” a crossbowman screamed as steel punched through his hand.\n\nThe forest dissolved into chaos—wet leaves, broken branches, scattered light, and the relentless pulse of rain masking everything.\n\nThe lead warrior didn’t flinch. His fingers spun the axe lazily. “Come on out, little kitten,” he called, voice dripping with arrogance. “Let’s see those claws.”\n\nArchers answered with another volley of perception arrows—lines of green sigils fanning out into the trees.\n\n“Nothing,” one muttered. “He’s not running.”\n\nThe warrior grinned. Greed sharpened his gaze. “I want those blades. Both of them. They’re mine.”\n\nAnd then—the line snapped.\n\nA sharp whistle sliced through the storm. One crossbowman staggered back, a black blade buried in his face, blood gushing down as he crumpled into the mud.\n\nThe kukri spun midair—caught a flash of lightning—then vanished.\n\n“Where the hell is he?!” someone shouted, breath hitching on panic.\n\nMore blades burst from the dark. The mage slammed his staff into the dirt—wind exploded outward, scattering the knives mid-flight.\n\nLightning lit the world—just for a breath.\n\nAnd in that breath... they saw him.\n\nA pair of eyes. Faint. Unnatural. Watching from above.\n\nPerched on a branch. A phantom stitched from rain and shadow.\n\nThe warrior’s heart seized. “No—!”\n\nToo late.\n\nThe figure dropped like a guillotine. Pure, merciless velocity.\n\nThe black kukri drove straight into the warrior’s eye.\n\nA scream ripped the air as the man collapsed, clutching his ruined face, blood streaming through his fingers.\n\n“Kill him! KILL THE BASTARD!”\n\nAn archer spun toward footsteps in the mud—loosed an arrow.\n\nBut what lunged from the dark wasn’t Luke.\n\nIt was something worse.\n\nA skeleton.\n\nEyes burning with spectral green fire. Rain glazed its bones, each step snapping with unnatural force. It slammed into the archer, lifted him clean off the ground, and drove him spine-first into a tree.\n\nThe scream barely escaped before steel punched through his chest. Charlie’s blade—clean, brutal, final.\n\nCrossbows whipped around—too slow.\n\nA gasp behind them. A gurgle. Flesh dragged into the roots. Gone.\n\nAnother tried to turn. A flash of black—his wrist split open, hand crashing to the mud.\n\nHe screamed—only for the second blade to punch through his jaw, shearing teeth and shattering bone. The body folded, twitching once, then stilled.\n\nThe shadow vanished again.\n\n“There’s TWO OF THEM!” the crossbowman shrieked, clutching the stump of his hand. His voice garbled, blood gushing from a ruined mouth.\n\nSilence answered.\n\nThen a blade whispered through the storm—punched clean into the man’s skull. His body dropped into the mud, shivered once... then stopped.\n\n“Kill the brat!” the one-eyed warrior bellowed, voice hoarse, dripping rage. Blood sluiced down the ruined side of his face.\n\nThe mage slammed his staff down, conjuring ten orbs of searing light, hurling them outward like vengeful stars.\n\nA flash of blue split the storm. For a heartbeat, the forest glowed like midday—banishing every shadow. Just long enough to catch a glimpse. A blur. Fast. Inhumanly fast. Darting between the trees like something unbound by flesh.\n\n“He’s here!” an archer shouted, voice cracking.\n\nBlades rained from the canopy—obsidian arcs spinning through the storm. One slammed into a crossbowman’s shoulder, punching clean through bone. He folded without a scream. Then came a soft splat—a rock, tossed into the mud.\n\nInstinct ruled. The archers spun. Arrows loosed into empty trees. Nothing. It was bait.\n\nBefore anyone could correct, steel collided with steel. The second warrior turned toward the sound, eyes wide, as a figure stepped from the shadows. Tall. Sword drawn. Silver glinting under the downpour.\n\n“Help me!” the warrior screamed, barely raising his axe in time to meet the first strike. Arrows sliced toward them—frantic support.\n\nBut elsewhere, a crossbowman never even got the chance to fire. A shadow slipped behind him. Two blades flashed—one severed the throat, the other tore through the ribs. The body crumpled, folding into the mud without a sound.\n\nThe mage twisted, staff raised, lightning screaming toward his palm.\n\nToo slow.\n\nA silhouette dropped from the treetops. A streak of motion. A falling star made of flesh and rage. The boy landed—silent. Precise.\n\nThe archers panicked. Arrows shot wildly. Luke swatted two from the air mid-flight, kukris slicing them aside like they were nothing but wind.\n\nOne archer stumbled. His mouth opened. Breath hitched.\n\nToo late.\n\nLuke surged forward. One heartbeat—he was standing. The next—he was on top of him. A panther closing jaws around prey.\n\nSteel bit through flesh. Again. Again. Again. Merciless. Surgical. Efficient. Every stab painted the dirt red. Every movement peeled skin from muscle, muscle from bone, until there was nothing left but a ruined corpse, twitching once—then still.\n\nThe mage screamed. Lightning tore from his staff, ripping through trees in wild arcs. Luke was gone—rolled beneath roots, slipped into the underbrush before the spell detonated. Smoke and ozone filled the air. The archer convulsed once—then didn’t move again.\n\nThe storm thickened.\n\nThe surviving warrior stumbled—mud, blood, and terror dripping from his face. And then... he saw it.\n\nA skeleton.\n\nIts eyes burned green, cutting through the mist. It moved. Fast. Faster than anything undead should be allowed to move.\n\nA fist crashed into his face. The world spun. His feet slipped. The sword came down. Clean. Ruthless. Bone split flesh. The leg tore free, trailing blood in a wide, sickening arc. The warrior collapsed, a raw howl splitting the rain.\n\nThe skeleton stepped forward—silent. Unstoppable. The sword lifted once more. Then dropped. A clean line. A clean end. The body twitched. Then didn’t.\n\nNow there were three survivors. Two monsters. And nowhere left to run."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 63: The Assassin Shows No Mercy\nTarget length: ~1600 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Only three remained. A mage. An archer. And the commander.\n\nAnd the darkness watched them.\n\n“Shit... how the hell did this happen?!” the one-eyed leader roared. His voice cracked under the weight of panic, blood running in thick streams down his jaw.\n\nThe air stank of blood, steel, and rain.\n\nThe archer spun, eyes wide, trembling. “I’m done! Screw this!” He bolted, boots slipping in the mud as he vanished into the trees.\n\n“Coward!” the commander spat, but his voice was strained—rage drowning beneath fear.\n\nThen a scream. Not the scream of someone escaping. The scream of prey. Something dragged him into the dark. Something fast. Something that didn’t miss.\n\nThe mage swallowed, chest heaving. The commander turned on him, wild-eyed. “Burn your mana. Light up the whole damn forest!”\n\nThe mage hesitated. “W-we should run. It’s almost midnight.”\n\n“No.” The commander’s jaw clenched. “We kill the boy.”\n\nThunder shattered the sky. Lightning flashed through the canopy, warping the forest into a landscape of twisted shadows.\n\nThen—footsteps. Soft. Deliberate. Not charging. Not fleeing. Circling.\n\nHunting.\n\nThe boy wasn’t escaping. He was playing.\n\n“You scared, brat?!” the commander shouted, turning in circles. But his hands shook. His voice trembled. He’d seen those eyes. Eyes that didn’t see a man. Only prey.\n\nAnother step. Closer. Measured.\n\nThen—a shadow burst from the trees.\n\n“FIRE!” the commander roared.\n\nThe mage raised his staff and unleashed lightning. The explosion tore through the clearing, shattering mud and root, throwing sparks into the air. A figure was hit—flung back, limp.\n\nThe commander’s mouth twisted into a grin. “Got him.”\n\nBut then—\n\n“No... the system didn’t notify a kill—”\n\nThe mage didn’t finish. A cold hand clamped around the back of his neck. Steel slid clean across his throat. Effortless.\n\nHis breath caught. Blood sprayed. Eyes widened in disbelief. And then—collapse. Limbs folding. Silence.\n\n“Shit!” The commander spun.\n\nToo slow.\n\nThe boy was already there.\n\nA dash. A fist drove into his face. His body lifted, slammed into a tree. He gasped—chest crushed—tried to raise his sword.\n\nPain.\n\nA slice. Clean.\n\nHe blinked. And watched his own hand fall to the dirt—fingers still locked around the sword hilt. His scream tore out, raw, animal, broken. Blood gushed from the severed stump.\n\nAnother impact. A knee crushed into his ribs, pinning him against the tree. One blade pressed to his throat. The other slid between his teeth, metal scraping against his tongue.\n\nThe boy leaned in.\n\nNo rage. No glee. No cruelty.\n\nJust silence. Just judgment.\n\nBehind him, something moved. Bones. A skeleton with a sword in hand. A knight of death, standing guard.\n\nThe commander froze. Chest trembling. Breath shallow. “Please...” he rasped. “I—I’ll give you everything. Just... let me live.”\n\nLuke said nothing.\n\nThe blade at his throat pressed harder. A bead of blood welled—thin, red, trembling against the steel.\n\nTheir faces were inches apart. Locked.\n\nBut Luke’s eyes weren’t human. Not anymore. Cold. Merciless. Hollow.\n\n“How many of you are there?” His voice was quiet. Controlled. Sharp as the knife.\n\nThe commander blinked, stunned. “W-what?”\n\n“How many.” The blade twisted—just a fraction.\n\n“Is this all of you?” Luke asked again. Calm. Steady. “Or is there a camp?”\n\nThe man hesitated. Luke’s expression didn’t change.\n\n“Twenty-three!” he blurted. “We—we were twenty-three total! You killed nine! Th-thirteen more are back at camp!”\n\nLuke’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”\n\nThe punch shattered his thoughts. His skull hit the tree. Before he could breathe—another hit. Harder.\n\n“I swear! I swear to God!”\n\n“Where’s the camp?” Luke’s voice didn’t waver.\n\n“Check... check the mage’s bag,” the man gasped, coughing blood. “It’s all there... map... supplies... everything... just—just let me go! I’ll disappear. I won’t tell anyone...”\n\nLuke didn’t answer.\n\n“Take my gear,” the man sobbed. “All of it. Yours.”\n\nNo response.\n\nThe blade slid in. Clean. Precise.\n\nHis hands shot to his throat—reflex, futile. Blood mixed with rain. His body trembled. Twitched. Then fell.\n\nAnd the last thing he saw... was the dark that ended him.\n\n[You have slain a Human - Lvl 6 (Warrior - Lvl 12)]\n\n\n*Your class [Demonic Assassin] has reached Level 11! (Class Bonus Points Acquired)*\n\n**[You have reached Level 6! Half-Demon (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**\n\n**[Princess Charlie has reached Level 4 – Skeleton (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**\n\n\nThe rain poured harder. Thunder cracked above.\n\n[Soul Fragments Gained: +8]\n\nLuke stood still, water trailing down his face, mixing with the blood on his cheeks.\n\nRight then, the bandit's gear meant nothing to Luke. He wasn’t a thief. All that filled his mind was a truth, heavier than the rain hammering against his skin.\n\n\"My mom’s dead, Charlie...\" His voice broke. Small. Fragile. \"She probably died in a tutorial... to people like them. Over items. Over loot.\"\n\nThe realization carved into him deeper than any wound. Something inside cracked — something he had buried, suffocated, ignored his whole life. It rose now. And it wasn’t going away.\n\nThen—\n\n'DING DONG!'\n\nThe warning bell tolled. Midnight.\n\nThe world shifted. Subtle—but undeniable. Like the air itself had forgotten how to breathe.\n\nLuke yanked the mage’s satchel off the corpse, the leather slick with blood. He didn’t check the contents. Just slung it over his shoulder in a single, practiced motion.\n\nA flash of green. Charlie vanished, retreating into his soul.\n\nThen—he ran.\n\nHis legs tore through mud and tangled roots, pumping like pistons. Standing still now... meant dying.\n\nMidnight in the Wild Zone wasn’t just dangerous. It was death incarnate. And the Safe Zone was still too far.\n\nThen—he heard it.\n\nA footfall. Metallic. Precise. Too heavy, too measured, too clean to belong to anything human. Another. Then another. Rhythmic. Relentless.\n\nCold dread coiled through Luke’s spine. The sound echoed like a war drum made of steel—each step a hammer against the bones of the world.\n\nNot one Warden. Several.\n\nHis instincts screamed. Run.\n\nHe pushed harder, weaving between trunks slick with rain, ducking beneath broken branches. His boots splashed through puddles. Leaves whipped against his face. His breath tore out ragged, raw.\n\nThe trees thinned. Ruins. The forest gave way to the skeletal remains of a dead city. Cracked asphalt stretched into the dark. Buildings, half-swallowed by earth and time, slumped against each other—rotten skeletons of concrete and rust.\n\nThe air reeked. Burned metal. Old smoke. Sour decay.\n\nBut the footsteps didn’t stop. Worse—they split. Two directions. Closing fast.\n\nHis pulse spiked.\n\nThink. MOVE.\n\nHis gaze swept the wreckage. Then—there. A collapsed structure. Steel beams twisted together, forming a jagged arch where the floor had caved. At its base—barely wide enough—a narrow crevice, swallowed by shadow.\n\nNo time to think. No time to check. He dove.\n\nDarkness swallowed him whole.\n\nLuke crawled fast, dragging the mage’s satchel behind. The air thickened—dust, mold, rot. Broken concrete shredded his sleeves. His ribs scraped stone. Shoulder to rebar. His breath shrank to shallow gasps.\n\nThen—movement.\n\nA shadow shifted across the sliver of light near the entrance. A metal boot. Inches from his face.\n\nThe Warden. It stood just above him.\n\nLuke stopped breathing. His heart slammed against his ribs—so loud, so violent, it felt like the creature must hear it.\n\nThe Warden didn’t move. It listened. Silent. Calculating.\n\nThen—impact.\n\nThe creature leapt. The rubble groaned. Dust rained down, choking the air. A steel beam caved, collapsing inches from Luke’s back.\n\nThe weight shifted—crushing. Stone pressed into his ribs. His chest constricted.\n\nHe couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.\n\nPanic clawed at the edges of his mind. His vision swam.\n\nMove.\n\nLuke gritted his teeth and forced himself sideways, grinding deeper into the crawlspace. Ribs scraped against concrete. Steel tore his clothes. His shoulder jammed between rebar and rock. Every breath was agony.\n\nBut forward was the only direction left.\n\nAnd behind him... death waited.\n\nAbove, the world fell silent.\n\nThen the impact hit.\n\nThe tunnel shuddered beneath the weight—a brutal jolt that sent fractures through the stone, dust raining from every crack. Concrete groaned. Steel strained.\n\nAnd then... nothing.\n\nNo footsteps. No breath. Silence returned—absolute.\n\nLuke didn’t move. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Only then did he dare breathe.\n\nCarefully, he shifted into a crouch, wincing as rusted rebar scraped against his shoulder. He dragged the mage’s satchel into his lap and unclasped the buckle. His fingers worked fast but quiet, easing the flap open.\n\nHe tipped it. The contents spilled into the dirt—soft, controlled.\n\nJunk. Mostly. A bent spoon. A cracked canteen. Scraps of twisted metal. A shattered flask.\n\nThen—paper. Fragile. Water-stained. Edges frayed with age.\n\nA map.\n\nLuke unrolled it carefully. The ink had faded, but the lines remained clear enough. Hand-drawn markings crossed the terrain—routes weaving through forest, sigils warning of hazards, circles drawn around key locations.\n\nHis eyes scanned, tracking landmarks. There—the ruined house where he’d found the mission orb. The forest trail. The perimeter of the Safe Zone.\n\nAnd south. Further than he’d gone before.\n\nA camp.\n\nTheir camp.\n\nLuke’s jaw tightened.\n\nThis wasn’t about survival anymore. This wasn’t about clearing a dungeon.\n\nThey’d ambushed people. Slaughtered unarmed survivors. Hunted others for sport. Treated the tutorial like a game where only they were allowed to win.\n\nNow? Now it was personal.\n\nHe slid his fingers across the system interface, opening the mission panel. His eyes narrowed. And then, he saw it.\n\n[Special Mission]\n\nThe orb he’d taken wasn’t for an ordinary quest."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 64: Chasing the Forbidden Treasure\nTarget length: ~1900 words\nKey events: level-up occurs"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "A week had passed since the ambush. Since Luke had bled inside those ruins, hunted by bandits deep in the Wild Zone. It had been a heavy week. A quiet one. Because in that silence, he’d accepted something he’d spent years refusing to face.\n\nThe truth about his mother.\n\nNot a theory. Not a hope waiting to be disproved. Just truth, final, merciless, undeniable. And now, the weight of it sat with him. Heavy as stone.\n\nThe blade sliced through the air, clean, controlled. Princess Charlie pressed forward without hesitation, moving like steel wrapped in bone.\n\nA wet crack echoed through the trees. Flesh split. Muscle tore. The velociraptor shrieked, a raw, piercing note of panic, before folding into a heap of blood, teeth, and scales.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a Cunning Velociraptor - Lvl 10]\n\n\n*The [Death Knight] class of Princess Charlie has reached Level 7!*\n\n\n*[Death Knight Class Bonus: +3 Strength, +3 Endurance, +2 Agility, +2 Vitality, +2 Intelligence, +1 Perception, +2 Free Stat Points]*\n\nLuke blinked, surprised by the sudden notification. It was the first time Charlie’s class had leveled up since she’d evolved into a Death Knight.\n\nA second notification followed:\n\n[Mission Orb: Hunt the Cunning Velociraptors\n\nObjective: Slay 10 Cunning Velociraptors\n\nProgress: 10/10]\n\n[Mission Complete]\n\n[Reward Received]\n\nCharlie casually wiped her blade clean, then lifted her chin like a knight accepting applause after a duel.\n\nLuke smirked. “Nice work, Charlie.”\n\nOver the past week, he’d uncovered a few important facts.\n\nFirst, according to Anna, a person could hold up to three active orb missions at a time. Trying to claim a fourth would simply fail.\n\nSecond, and far more interesting: Charlie could pick up missions too.\n\nAnd then came the final surprise—\n\n[Boots of the Cunning Velociraptor (Uncommon)\n\nDescription: Crafted from the durable hide of a Cunning Velociraptor, these boots offer speed, flexibility, and surprising resilience. Ideal for quick-footed warriors.\n\nBonus: Increases movement speed slightly.\n\nRequirement: Lvl 5+ in any class or race.]\n\nLuke tapped the item in his system. The boots materialized instantly, slipping onto Charlie’s skeletal feet and tightening into place like they’d always belonged there.\n\nThis world might be brutal… but it rewarded the bold.\n\nCharlie now wore the Ironfang Boarhide Pants and the Velociraptor Boots. She was getting closer to looking like a fully armored warrior. Once she hit level 8, he planned to give her a chestplate and gauntlets. Then all she’d need was a helmet to complete the illusion.\n\nAllison had helped confirm something critical: Charlie couldn’t be identified.\n\nJust like with regular humans, the system blocked her data from others. Which meant… unless someone saw her materialize from Luke’s soul, they’d have no idea she was a skeleton.\n\nHe closed the inventory screen and pulled up her status.\n\n\nName: Princess Charlie\n\nLevel: 4\n\nRank: F\n\nClass: Death Knight (Lvl 7)\n\nRace: Skeleton\n\nTitle: [Servant of the Dark Lord]\n\nHealth Points (HP): 201/230\n\nMana Points (MP): 80/80\n\nStamina: 157/180\n\n\nStats:\n\nStrength: 27\n\nAgility: 16\n\nEndurance: 18\n\nVitality: 23\n\nPerception: 9\n\nIntelligence: 8\n\nFree Points: 3\n\n\nPrincess Charlie was getting stronger. But Luke knew there was still plenty of room for improvement.\n\nHer speed was excellent. Her strength, too. But her reflexes… they could still be sharper.\n\nHe opened her stat panel and allocated the remaining points.\n\nStats Updated (Princess Charlie):\n\nVitality: 23 -> 24\n\nPerception: 9 -> 11\n\nFree Points: 3 -> 0\n\nHealth Points (HP): 201/230 -> 211/240\n\nOver the past few days, he had continued running more tests on Charlie's damage recovery.\n\nIf Charlie was injured or running low on stamina, he could simply return her to his soul.\n\nInside, she would begin to regenerate.\n\nThe only drawback was time—depending on how badly she was hurt, full recovery could take up to 24 hours.\n\nStill, it made his summoning skill far more strategic.\n\nCharlie stretched, rotating her shoulders like she was testing her new physicality.\n\nLuke nodded. “Let’s move.”\n\nWithout a word, she retrieved her blade and stepped into formation beside him—silent, watchful, and ready.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke moved through the crumbling ruins with quiet precision, eyes scanning the area for anything remotely useful. His pack was already heavy, but he always found space for more—wooden mugs, broken buttons, lengths of durable rope.\n\nIn this world, even scrap could be worth gold.\n\nThe Haven had split its survivors into two main roles: Hunters and Scavengers.\n\nHunters worked in teams, going head-to-head with monsters to bring back food. Scavengers, on the other hand, worked alone, combing through abandoned homes, shattered buildings, and piles of debris for anything salvageable.\n\nLuke belonged squarely in the second group.\n\nSome buildings still held loot caches. Others had stashes of preserved clothes, basic utensils, or something far more valuable: potions and seeds.\n\nBut the so-called Safe Zone? That name was generous.\n\nIt was free of Midnight Wardens and orc patrols, sure — but that didn’t mean it was safe. Vicious beasts still roamed the outer edges. No one could afford to drop their guard for even a second.\n\nBastion controlled the heart of the Safe Zone, guarded by Bartholomew’s private militia. Around it sprawled makeshift shelters and scavenged homes. And beyond that, on the fringes, lay the Haven.\n\nThe position was dangerous. Always exposed. Always watching.\n\nA single pack of raptors could rip through the outer barricades. Or worse: a raid from one of the roaming bandit clans that haunted the Wild Zone’s edge.\n\nLuke tucked a few gathered herbs and plants into his pack—requested ingredients. Then his gaze fell on something buried at the bottom of the bag.\n\nThe map.\n\nThe one he’d taken off a bandit’s corpse a week ago. He’d been watching their base since then. The disappearance of several of their members had left them anxious, but strangely, they hadn’t moved. They were still holed up in that ruined mansion deep in the Wild Zone.\n\nAt first, he thought they might be Renegades. But the more he watched, the more certain he became—they weren’t part of any faction. They were independent. Dangerous. Isolated.\n\nHe pushed the thought aside for now and focused.\n\nThen, with a quick gesture, he opened the system interface, tapped the mission tab, and saw the special mission orb he’d picked up the other day.\n\n*Special Mission Orb: Find the Treasure*\n\nObjective: Locate the treasure of Samael the Inventor\n\nLocation: Church\n\nReward: Artemis Invention]\n\nHis brow furrowed, thumb tracing the edge of one of his kukris. He’d already spent a week searching—rummaging through ruins, chasing old trails, climbing broken rooftops. Nothing. No sign of a church.\n\nHe’d considered asking a veteran. Maybe someone who’d survived longer in this hell knew where to look. But the moment he had that thought, he dismissed it. It was a Special Mission, which meant nobody else had it. Asking questions would only put a target on his back.\n\nAnd then, one night, while returning from another fruitless search, he realized something painfully obvious. The bell. Every night at exactly midnight, a distant toll rang through the Wild Zone. Soft. Eerie. Carried on the wind like a whisper from the grave. And every morning, at precisely six, it rang again—right as the Midnight Wardens returned to their dens.\n\nThe sound wasn’t random. It came from somewhere. It came from the church. That was the clue. That was the answer. But it also meant something else.\n\nTo find the treasure, he’d have to track the bell. Which meant diving deeper into the Wild Zone while the Midnight Wardens were awake. While they hunted. While the worst monsters in this world were on the move.\n\nThis wasn’t just another quest. This was his kind of mission. And the only way forward... was through the dark.\n\nHe had to get used to moving while the Midnight Wardens were active. If he wanted to survive here, he couldn’t afford to keep running from them forever.\n\nLuke closed his eyes and drew a slow breath. “So that’s it... I’ll follow the sound of that bell.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nHe stepped quietly into the tent. It was just a tent—shared between him and Allison—but a fabric divider split the space into two sections: one for him, and one for her.\n\nAllison was asleep, curled near the fabric wall, breathing steady. The last week had worn both of them down. Back when they were just two survivors trudging through snow, sleeping close was just a survival tactic. Warmth meant life. Nothing more. But ever since he found out Allison was a woman, things had gotten... awkward.\n\nHe set his pack down carefully, trying not to make a sound. But Allison stirred almost immediately. Her hand shot to the hilt of her sword, and the blade was out before she was even fully conscious. Her half-lidded eyes flared with cold, deadly instinct.\n\n“It’s me,” Luke said quickly, voice low.\n\nAllison blinked a few times, registering his face. Then sighed, lowering the blade.\n\n“Sorry…” she muttered.\n\nLuke sat down beside the pack, fatigue weighing on his bones.\n\nHe’d learned a few things about Allison over the past days. One of them explained a lot. The reason she always looked tired? The artifact that masked her gender drained mana constantly. It explained why she rarely used spells in combat—if her mana ever hit zero, her disguise would shatter.\n\nAllison had also explained that she’d acquired a Race Skill that allowed her to meditate and accelerate the recovery of mana and stamina. According to her, it was a standard skill all humans received upon reaching Race Level 5. However, since both of them had unlocked a bloodline, the order of available skills had shifted. That was why Luke hadn’t received the skill yet.\n\n“What about your scouting?” Allison asked, voice raspy from sleep.\n\n“Still nothing,” Luke shook his head. “There’s a stretch of the Wild Zone that runs toward the mountains. Just forest. Might be hiding a mechanism.”\n\nHe paused.\n\n“But… word is, that’s orc territory.”\n\nAllison sighed and sat up, rubbing her face.\n\n“I’ve been volunteering for hunting parties,” she said. “Trying to earn their trust.”\n\nShe looked at him, eyes shadowed with frustration.\n\n“Jonathan’s group hunts and scouts deeper in, but they don’t accept just anyone.”\n\nLuke nodded slowly.\n\nThat made sense. The deeper you went into the Wild Zone, the more even a dropped coin could summon a predator.\n\n“And I think…” Allison glanced at the tent flap, even though they were alone. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think they’re hiding something.”\n\nLuke tilted his head.\n\n“What do you mean?”\n\nShe hesitated.\n\n“You’ve noticed it too, right? There’s only one healer in the entire camp.”\n\n“Thiara,” Luke said quietly.\n\nAllison leaned closer. “Bartholomew monopolizes all the other healers. Every single one of them is under his thumb.”\n\nLuke was silent, but the pieces started clicking into place.\n\n“And yet,” Allison continued, “Thiara is allowed to stay here.”\n\nHe frowned. Why would a man who called himself a king—who ruled Bastion with absolute control—allow another faction to operate inside his territory? Especially one not under his command? It didn’t make sense.\n\n“Why let another ‘kingdom’ exist inside your borders?” she whispered.\n\nLuke’s eyes narrowed.\n\nUnless...\n\n“Angelica knows something,” he said slowly. “Something Bartholomew doesn’t want getting out.”\n\nAllison nodded.\n\n“And maybe…” She bit her lip, brow furrowing. “Maybe it has to do with the location of one of the mechanisms.”\n\n“Something right under everyone’s nose,” Allison whispered. “And no one’s noticed.”\n\nLuke met her gaze.\n\n“Where?” he asked.\n\nHer answer was soft. Certain.\n\n“Bastion.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 65: Secrets of Bastion Revealed\nTarget length: ~1700 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, new skill acquired"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Allison's words echoed in Luke's mind. The idea that Bastion, Bartholomew's fortress, might house one of the mechanisms that could help everyone escape the tutorial felt both logical and unlikely at the same time. Yet, as he thought it over, the notion of one of the three mechanisms being hidden within that fortress no longer seemed out of place. In fact, it made perfect sense.\n\nAllison crossed her arms, gaze sharp as a knife. She watched Luke process it. “If you really think about it... doesn’t it make sense?”\n\nLuke frowned. Something about the equation felt... wrong. “No,” he muttered. “If he already activated one of the mechanisms... why wouldn’t he announce it? He could push everything forward. Speed the process up.”\n\nAllison let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Because you’re thinking like someone who wants to leave the tutorial.”\n\nHis eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”\n\n“You. Me. Everyone else here—we want out. That’s the whole point. Escape. Survival. But...” Her arms tightened across her chest. “What if Bartholomew doesn’t?”\n\nSilence stretched between them. The idea hit harder than it should have. He’d always assumed everyone wanted out. Desperately. Obsessively. But what if someone was... stalling?\n\nAllison’s voice sharpened. “Look at Angelica. Look at Bastion. You think it’s a coincidence she runs a whole faction inside his territory? You think that happens without permission?”\n\nLuke’s jaw tightened. “You think she knows something.”\n\n“I think she knows a lot more than she lets on.”\n\nThe pieces slid into place. If Bastion was hiding one of the mechanisms... then Bartholomew wasn’t a key to escape.\n\nHe was the wall keeping them trapped.\n\n\n***\n\n\nBy the next day, Luke was back at the edge of camp, pack heavy with scavenged supplies. The strap dug deep into his shoulder—a quiet reminder that he was getting stronger. Faster. Sharper.\n\nHe walked straight to Paul, the man in charge of logistics for the Haven. “Here. Think I got everything on that list.”\n\nPaul took the bag and peeked inside. His eyes widened. “Damn... this usually takes our teams weeks. You’re ridiculously fast.”\n\nLuke shrugged, keeping it casual. “Got lucky.” Too much attention was dangerous.\n\nBut Paul was still staring, visibly impressed.\n\nBefore Luke could change the subject, someone stepped quietly beside them—small, familiar. Silent as always.\n\nCecilia.\n\nShe signed rapidly.\n\nPaul squinted, trying to follow. “Uh... something about spices? Oh—she says the herbs you brought are used to season food. She works in the kitchen. I think she’s thanking you.”\n\nCecilia offered a polite nod, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips.\n\nLuke scratched the back of his neck. “R-right... no problem.”\n\nWith the delivery done, he turned to leave—then paused. Someone was sitting quietly away from the crowd, hunched over a collection of glass vials, sorting them with steady hands.\n\nThiara. The healer.\n\nLuke hesitated. His left shoulder ached—a sharp, grinding pain he’d been ignoring. Turns out Basic Blood Regeneration was great for cuts and surface wounds... but less effective for fractured bones. He didn’t want to waste one of his last potions.\n\nSo he walked over. “Thiara.”\n\nShe jolted, nearly knocking over a flask. “M-Mister Luke! You scared me!”\n\nLuke blinked. Not the first time. His footsteps had become... problematic. Another note for the mental checklist: start making deliberate noise around camp.\n\n“Sorry,” he said.\n\nThiara pressed a hand to her chest, trying to steady her breath. “You... really don’t make a sound when you move...”\n\n“I know.” His voice stayed even. “I need a quick heal. Left shoulder’s wrecked. Not sure how the payment works, but I’ll compensate you after my next run.”\n\nThiara shook her head, letting out a soft laugh. “Don’t worry. I heal people for free.”\n\nLuke frowned. “For free?”\n\nShe nodded. “My class gives me experience every time I heal. So technically... the system pays me. I prioritize Hunters and Explorers, though. The ones who keep the Haven running.”\n\nThat made sense. If he wanted to keep pushing deeper into the Wild Zone... having a healer in his corner wasn’t optional. It was survival.\n\nThiara reached out, resting a hand on his shoulder. A faint green glow bloomed beneath her palm, soft but radiant. Warmth flooded the joint. The ache vanished, replaced by a soothing clarity that spread through his ribs, his spine, even the fatigue in his legs.\n\nHis breath escaped in a slow exhale. Relief. Pure and absolute.\n\nThe glow faded. Thiara pulled her hand back. “There. Good as new.”\n\nLuke rolled his shoulder. Smooth. No pain. Not even the dull soreness. “...Incredible.” He checked his status. “Even my HP’s back to full.”\n\nThiara smiled, gentle but steady. “That’s how healing magic works.”\n\nFor a moment, Luke just stood there—genuinely impressed. Having someone like her in a world like this... felt like a luxury.\n\n“You’re valuable,” he said quietly, meeting her eyes.\n\nBut her expression shifted.\n\nSofter now. Hesitant.\n\n“I use a lot of mana to heal,” she admitted quietly. “And I only really level my class through healing. I don’t go into combat. I don’t... have any offensive skills. So... I’m not that amazing.”\n\nLuke caught the tremor beneath her words.\n\n“Couldn’t you awaken combat skills eventually?” he asked. He’d seen it happen. Charlie developed a punching skill just from fighting barehanded.\n\nThiara looked away. “I could... but...” Her voice dropped. “I’m scared.”\n\nHe didn’t answer right away.\n\nYeah. He understood. More than anyone.\n\n“...That makes sense,” he said at last. “It’s dangerous out there. But knowing someone like you’s here—ready to patch us up... honestly, that gives me more courage than you think.”\n\nHer eyes brightened, a small, genuine smile forming.\n\nLuke returned it. “Anyway... I’m glad you’re here. Next time I get smashed into a wall, I know exactly where I’m running.”\n\n“It’s my pleasure, Mister Luke,” she said softly.\n\nHe turned to leave.\n\nBut he felt it. Her gaze. Still lingering.\n\n“...Mister Luke,” Thiara called, quieter now.\n\nHe paused. “Yeah?”\n\nShe glanced around. Subtle. Checking the crowd. Making sure no one was listening.\n\nThen... she leaned in. Close enough for her breath to brush his ear.\n\n“I saw it,” she whispered. “That day... what was inside Mister Allison’s bag.”\n\nLuke froze.\n\nHis brain flatlined.\n\nShe saw it?!\n\nThe... the women’s clothes?!\n\nA cold spike crawled down his spine.\n\nBut then—her hand touched his shoulder. Gentle. Warm.\n\nAnd she smiled.\n\n“It’s okay, Mister Luke.”\n\nA beat.\n\n“I don’t judge gay couples.”\n\nHis soul left his body.\n\nWHAT?!\n\n\n***\n\n\nDays had passed. Luke and Princess Charlie carved their way through the Wild Zone. Relentless. Precise. Ruthless. Each fight fed into the next. Each kill pushed their levels higher.\n\nAnd now... he was here.\n\nPerched in the shadows. Motionless. Eyes sharp. A predator.\n\nThe bandit camp sprawled below, nestled against the ruins of an old mansion. Even after losing several men, they hadn’t moved.\n\nAt first, it didn’t add up. Until Luke caught pieces of their arguments. A fracture. One of them wanted to side with the Renegades. The others... didn’t trust him. That’s why they stayed.\n\nLuke memorized every patrol path, every guard rotation. Every lazy glance, every blind spot. The camp sat perfectly balanced—right at the border between the Safe Zone and the Wild Zone. Neutral ground. A limbo.\n\nAnd the Midnight Wardens... didn’t cross it.\n\nLuke had noticed it days ago. The Wardens steered clear of this place—the ruins, the mansion, the forests around it. At first, he thought it was coincidence. Now he knew better.\n\nEach Lord controlled territory. The Wardens avoided stepping into domains that weren’t theirs.\n\nHis lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. It didn’t change anything.\n\nHe opened his system. Fingers flew across the interface, dragging points into place.\n\nBecause tonight... none of them were walking out of here alive.\n\n\nName: Luke\n\nLevel: 6\n\nRank: F\n\nClass: [Demonic Assassin (Lvl 11)]\n\nRace: Half-Demon\n\nProfession: —\n\nTitles: [Dark Lord]\n\nBloodline: [Bloodline of the Dark Demon]\n\nHealth Points (HP): 510/510\n\nMana Points (MP): 288/330\n\nStamina: 231/250\n\nSoul Fragments: 21/1000\n\n\nStats:\n\nStrength: 47\n\nAgility: 55\n\nEndurance: 25\n\nVitality: 51\n\nPerception: 48\n\nIntelligence: 33\n\nFree Points: 4\n\n\nHe was stronger than he had ever been.\n\nNot just in stats. In mindset.\n\nHe wasn’t the same person who arrived in this nightmare.\n\nHe eyed the floating system window and made his choice without hesitation.\n\nStats Updated:\n\nIntelligence: 33 -> 37\n\nFree Points: 4 -> 0\n\nMana Points (MP): 288/330 -> 328/370\n\nHeat surged beneath his skin as mana pulsed through every nerve. The more mana he carried, the more life he could drain. Someday soon... he’d be able to rip the soul straight out of anything that bled.\n\nHis gaze locked onto the camp. Time to begin the hunt.\n\nThe crossbowman stood watch near the forest’s edge, perched atop the skeletal remains of an old outpost. Farther ahead, the others laughed around the fire, oblivious.\n\nThen—\n\nA whistle. Soft. Precise.\n\nThe sentry turned. Alert. Searching.\n\nToo late.\n\nA hand clamped over his mouth. Fingers dug into his jaw. He was yanked backward, vanishing into the dark behind the outpost—silent, weightless, like prey pulled underwater.\n\nHis back struck the dirt. Breath punched from his lungs. His vision spun—until something blocked the moonlight. A skeleton. Looming. Blade raised.\n\nFor a split second, the edge caught the moon. Then it fell. Fast. Surgical. Final.\n\nDarkness swallowed him whole.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a Human – Lvl 5 (Crossbowman – Lvl 10)]\n\n*The [Death Knight] class of Princess Charlie has reached Level 8! (Class Bonus Points Acquired)*\n\n[Princess Charlie has gained a new Class Skill]\n\nLuke smirked from the shadows.\n\nCharlie had leveled up. More free points. More strength. More speed. More lethality. But what truly mattered... was the new skill.\n\nThen he noticed it. Level 8.\n\nHis eyes narrowed. His breathing slowed. It was almost like feeling something snap into place inside his mind. He looked at her. The smile sharpened.\n\n“Now I can equip you with armor pieces.”\n\nThe system interface popped up in front of him. As he dragged the items into Charlie’s inventory, a thought settled in his mind.\n\nNow I have an armored knight guarding me."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 66: Challenge at the Bandit Camp\nTarget length: ~3700 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke handed her the crocodile chestplate and a pair of reinforced gloves.\n\nThe moment Charlie equipped the pieces, something shifted. This wasn’t just some basic equip animation. The armor... molded. Assembled. It locked into place, closing over the bones like synthetic muscle, filling every gap with unnerving precision. Every plate, every joint, every segment snapped together as if it had always belonged. It didn’t stop there. The metal merged seamlessly with the boar-leather pants and velociraptor boots, reinforcing every fiber, every stitch, forging everything into a single, flawless extension of her body.\n\nNo exposed ribs. No open joints.\n\nWhen it finished, what stood before him wasn’t a skeleton anymore. It was a knight.\n\nTall. Sharp. Fully armored. A silhouette built for war. Plate hugged the frame perfectly—curved hips, armored chest, reinforced limbs. The only thing left untouched... was the skull. White. Smooth. Expressionless. Hollow sockets burned with ghostly green light.\n\nLuke crossed his arms, scanning her. “The armor gave you... hips, chest, a full figure,” he muttered. “Honestly? That’s kinda amazing. You look completely human now. All you need is a helmet.”\n\nCharlie tested the weight. Rolled her shoulders. Swung her blade. Fluid. Perfect.\n\nShe looked... right. A knight forged from bone and steel.\n\nBut Luke didn’t have time to admire the transformation. He needed to move—fast—before the bandits realized one of their own was missing.\n\nHe opened her system menu and navigated to Available Skills. Three options blinked at him.\n\n[Shield Proficiency (Uncommon)]: To protect one’s master and hold the front lines, the knight learns how to wield shields with deadly precision. Increases block efficiency without sacrificing offensive output.\n\nLuke frowned.\n\nUseful… but she didn’t have a shield. At least not yet. Right now? Useless.\n\n[Crescent Slash (Uncommon)]: A slashing technique that strikes in a horizontal arc, cutting through multiple enemies at once. The knight’s blade moves with precise speed, slicing anything in its path.\n\nNow that was interesting.\n\nPerfect for crowd control. Especially in close combat.\n\n[Warrior’s Eye (Uncommon)]: Through countless battles, the knight sharpens their perception. Recognizes attack patterns and exploit weaknesses, improving evasion and opening enemies to devastating counterattacks.\n\nLuke squinted at the screen.\n\nOne skill taught a new fighting style.\n\nAnother offered immediate offense.\n\nAnd the last improved battlefield awareness and long-term advantage.\n\nHis choice was already made.\n\n[Princess Charlie has learned a Class Skill: Crescent Slash]\n\nHe left her two unspent attribute points untouched—for emergencies.\n\nThen his gaze turned back to the bandit camp.\n\nTime to move.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke was watching the camp from the trees, hidden among the shadows.\n\nThe bandits hadn’t noticed that one of them had disappeared yet, but it was only a matter of time.\n\nLuke had waited a few days for one reason: confirm if they were really Wild Zone bandits and if there were others nearby. Attacking and running into reinforcements wasn’t an option.\n\nWhat he confirmed was exactly what he expected. They were bandits. Criminals who specialized in ambushing people near orbs, robbing anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. And of course, they were fully prepared to kill anyone who resisted.\n\nThese were not good people. Not in Luke’s eyes. They didn’t deserve to live.\n\nBecause if someone back then had had the guts to do what he was about to do, maybe his mother would have survived her tutorial.\n\nLuke scanned the camp again. Originally there were thirteen. Now there were twelve. Charlie had just taken one out.\n\nHe counted. Eleven were in the camp. One was inside a tent, sleeping.\n\nIt was time to move.\n\nHis plan was to strike while most of them were asleep, but there was a problem. They didn’t follow fixed shifts. Sometimes one slept. Sometimes three. Sometimes none. Completely random.\n\nThey were too comfortable. Too used to the false sense of peace in their territory.\n\nThey knew no one would dare. At least, not any regular person from the Safe Zone. The soldiers under Bartholomew didn’t really care about bandits as long as they weren’t causing chaos inside the Safe Zone.\n\nAnd honestly, it made sense. Why send troops to deal with bandits when there were bigger problems to worry about?\n\nBesides, the gangs didn’t attack each other. Each one had its own turf. Something to do with Marshall and the Renegades. They had set up some kind of order between the factions. Even if they hated each other, they followed certain rules.\n\nBut Luke didn’t care about any of that.\n\nHe moved carefully, circling around the camp’s perimeter.\n\nMakeshift alarms, vines tied to cans, were strung between the trees. Meant to catch beasts, monsters, or people.\n\nLuke climbed one of the taller trees. Sat on a sturdy branch. Watched. Memorized every position.\n\nOut of the eleven, he could pick out a few classes. At least three were archers. Four were mages. The others were some kind of melee fighters. Could be warriors, knights, mercenaries... or thieves. One of them was carrying a machete.\n\nSo he ranked the threats. The archers and the mages were the real problem. Ranged attacks. Especially magic.\n\n“I’m telling you, man. Focus on becoming a crafter and learn how to brew. That guy Joe opened his own tavern near Bastion,” said one of the archers, getting up from the campfire.\n\n“And how the hell am I supposed to level doing that, genius? I don’t even have the materials to practice. Should’ve picked something else. Screwed myself big time,” the other snapped, clearly frustrated.\n\n“Stop whining.”\n\nThe first one walked toward the forest.\n\n“You’re a damn lumberjack. Just cut trees. How the hell am I supposed to make booze? Pull brewing equipment out of my ass?” the frustrated one grumbled.\n\nThe other ignored him and kept walking, unbuttoning his pants.\n\n“Piss somewhere else!” shouted a third.\n\n“Bunch of crybabies,” the archer muttered as he stepped up to a tree.\n\nThe moment he was about to start pissing, something blew across his face.\n\nHe looked up.\n\nAnd then...\n\nLuke hung upside down from the tree branch like a bat.\n\nHis hands dropped fast. Both kukris crossed horizontally over the archer’s throat. It lasted only a moment. The man’s eyes went wide. Then the blades sliced clean.\n\nA faint, wet gasp escaped as his hands instinctively flew to his neck. His body collapsed backward. But Luke released from the branch, catching him before he hit the ground and made noise.\n\n[You have slain a Human – Lvl 8 (Archer – Lvl 14)]\n\n[You have gained +1 Soul Fragments]\n\nHe dragged the corpse quickly into the bushes and laid it down.\n\nTen left.\n\nThere wouldn’t be another chance like this. They would realize something was wrong soon. He needed to move fast.\n\nLuke circled around the camp, keeping low. Two mages sat off to the side, playing something that looked like cards. On the opposite end, the melee fighters were chatting. One of them was sharpening a weapon.\n\nThe other two mages were sitting by the fire, and the last two archers were posted as sentries. Each one perched on a rock, watching over key angles.\n\nCrouching, Luke grabbed a stone and tossed it. It clattered against a tree.\n\nThe sentry archer snapped his head toward the sound.\n\nIn that instant, Luke hurled a kukri with full force. The black blade spun through the air and buried itself into the archer’s face.\n\n[You have slain a Human – Lvl 4 (Archer – Lvl 9)]\n\n[You have gained +1 Soul Fragments]\n\nLuke dashed forward, leaping in one fluid motion. As the man toppled backward, Luke caught him mid-fall. The body was heavy, but he managed to lower it without noise.\n\nFootsteps.\n\nShit.\n\nNo time to drag the body into the forest.\n\nHe grabbed the corpse and slipped into a nearby tent, dropping it inside. The footsteps grew closer. Someone was coming.\n\nDamn blood on the ground!\n\nLuke peeked out. A clear trail of blood led right to the tent. They were going to notice.\n\nHe rushed back inside, yanked the archer’s jacket off, and threw it on. Grabbed the man’s bow. Then stepped out of the tent and climbed onto the rock where the sentry had been.\n\nThe footsteps approached.\n\n“Cold as hell tonight,” the man muttered.\n\nLuke said nothing. The man’s eyes drifted downward.\n\n“What the fuck is this?” he blurted, staring at the blood trail.\n\nLuke lunged, kukri aimed for the neck. But the man dodged, throwing his hand forward.\n\nA mage. Fireball forming.\n\nLuke dashed. Drove the blade straight into the mage’s chest. Buried it deep into his heart.\n\nThe mage choked. Eyes wide. Blood bubbled from his lips.\n\n[You have slain a Mage – Lvl 6 (Mage – Lvl 13)]\n\n[You have gained +1 Soul Fragments]\n\nThe mage’s hand faltered, but the fireball still flew. It shot wild, slamming into a tent.\n\nExplosion.\n\n“Shit,” Luke cursed as flames burst up.\n\nThe entire camp heard it. Heads turned. Eyes locked onto the fire.\n\n“Attack!” shouted the distant archer, raising the alarm.\n\nLuke let the mage’s body fall and sprinted toward the tree line.\n\n“Sound off! Who’s alive? Confirm your names!” someone yelled.\n\nLuke ducked into the bushes.\n\nCrap!\n\nThey had countermeasures. Calling names. Forming up.\n\nEverything went wrong.\n\nLuke couldn’t let them get organized. If they did, it would only get worse.\n\nTaking a deep breath, he burst from the bushes, hand reaching down to the holster strapped to his leg. Daggers materialized in his grip. He threw three into the air and duplicated them. Six total. The blades scattered, clattering across different spots in the camp.\n\n“I heard something,” one of the fighters shouted.\n\nLuke sprinted toward him. The man had his back turned. A kukri flew.\n\nThe man screamed. Luke threw the second one.\n\n[You have slain a...]\n\n[You have gained +1 Soul Fragments]\n\nHe ignored the notification. Kept running.\n\n“Group up!” someone yelled.\n\nLuke sprinted and tackled an archer holding his bow. Both crashed to the ground, rolling. They scrambled to their feet. Locked eyes.\n\nThe archer fumbled for an arrow. But Luke was faster. In less than a second, dash activated. He was in front of him, driving the blade straight through the man’s skull.\n\n[You have slain a...]\n\n[You have gained +1 Soul Fragments]\n\nThe body crumpled sideways. Luke glanced around.\n\nThey were staring at him. He was surrounded.\n\nThe criminals had already grouped up, forming a circle around him.\n\n“This one’s probably one of Marshall’s little lapdogs,” said a warrior gripping a massive warhammer.\n\n“You’ve got some balls showing up here alone,” a mage added, raising his staff. Three spheres of earth floated around him, crackling with blue electricity.\n\nEverywhere Luke looked, enemies. Six against one.\n\n“Who said I’m alone,” Luke replied.\n\nThe mage fired. The earthen spheres flew toward Luke.\n\nBut then... they hit something.\n\nA figure materialized in front of him. A tall knight. Fully armored head to toe.\n\nExcept... the face.\n\nA skull. A skeleton.\n\nThe bandits flinched in shock.\n\n“Kill those two bastards!” the warrior bellowed at the mages.\n\nPrincess Charlie gripped her sword. Spectral Charge activated. She dashed forward, combining it with [Crescent Slash] in a blistering spin.\n\nA clean arc. A scream tore through the air as a head flew. One of the mages. Decapitated.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a...]\n\nChaos exploded.\n\nThe melee fighters lunged toward her. But Charlie dodged, sprinting past them. Her focus was on the mages in the back, now scrambling as they fired spells.\n\nOne of them unleashed a barrage. Flaming arrows appeared around him and rained down toward her. She deflected several with her blade and kept moving.\n\nA warrior intercepted her. A skill similar to Charge sent him slamming into her, knocking her down and saving the mage. She hit the ground but rolled back up.\n\nA second mage lifted both hands, firing a continuous stream of fire, trying to burn her down. But from the smoke and flame, she surged forward. Both hands grabbed his arms.\n\nThe gloves she wore, looted from the crypt, gave her basic fire resistance. A sharp crack. She shattered his wrists. Her fist crashed into his face, boosted by Iron Fist.\n\nThe remaining warriors regrouped and charged at her.\n\nLuke didn’t waste time. He leaped. Grabbed one mid-run. Slammed him to the ground.\n\nWhen he turned toward Charlie, she was already locked in a brutal fight with the others.\n\nLuke faced two. A warrior and a mage.\n\nHe hurled a kukri. The warrior dodged. Threw the second. Dodged again.\n\n“And here I was thinking it was a Renegade raid. Turns out it’s just some damn kid,” the warrior sneered, lifting his war axe.\n\nHe charged straight at Luke and swung.\n\nLuke’s back hit a tent. He threw both hands up like he was surrendering.\n\n“Giving up?” the warrior laughed. “Where are your little knives now?” He raised the axe high, ready to bring it down.\n\nBut then something sliced through the air.\n\nThe kukris.\n\nThey came flying back at Luke’s call, striking the warrior square in the back.\n\nThe man screamed. The axe slipped from his hands.\n\nLuke pulled a dagger from his leg holster, stepped in, and stabbed it deep into the man’s neck.\n\n“Right here,” he replied.\n\n[You have slain a...]\n\n[You have gained +1 Soul Fragments]\n\nA sudden flash. Something bright and yellow rushed toward him.\n\nFireballs. The mage was firing.\n\nLuke yanked the warrior’s corpse up and used it as a shield. The fireballs slammed into the body.\n\nOut of the corner of his eye, he saw Charlie. Surrounded. One of them a mage hurling lightning.\n\nLuke ripped one of the kukris from the dead warrior’s back and hurled it toward her. Midair, he duplicated it.\n\nBoth blades struck the lightning mage. The mage screamed.\n\nCharlie dashed in and drove her sword through his chest.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a...]\n\nA warrior lunged at her, leaping.\n\nCharlie dismissed her sword, sending it back to her inventory, and activated Iron Fist. Her punch caught him midair and sent him flying.\n\nA warhammer smashed into her back.\n\nBut Charlie didn’t flinch. She charged forward with Spectral Charge and slammed both fists into the warrior.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a...]\n\nNow only one was left facing her.\n\nLuke ducked behind the corpse, still using it to block fireballs.\n\n“You with Marshall? You gotta be, right? I’m on your side! I’m the informant!” the mage shouted in panic as Luke dashed toward him.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a...]\n\nLuke dodged the next fireball, rolling behind a crate.\n\nHe could have lied. Could have played along.\n\nBut he didn’t.\n\nHe burst out from cover, zigzagging. Dash active. A trail of shadows in his wake.\n\nThe mage fired. Missed.\n\nA dagger sliced into his leg. Thrown. The mage stumbled.\n\nLuke slid across the ground, the fireball detonating behind him. He surged up, arms swinging in an arc. The blade scraped across the mage’s face. His other hand shoved him backward.\n\nAnd then...\n\nA skeletal arm wrapped around the mage from behind. Lifted him clean off the ground. Slammed him against a tree.\n\nThe last thing the mage saw was the grinning skull.\n\nAnd then her sword drove through him.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a...]\n\nIt was over.\n\nThey had done it.\n\nLuke scanned the notifications. Counted.\n\n“Eleven,” Luke muttered, scanning the camp. “One left.”\n\nAnd then, a boulder flew straight toward him.\n\nHe dodged—almost. The massive rock clipped his side, slamming into him and sending him crashing to the ground.\n\nPain shot through his ribs. Luke gritted his teeth, rolling over.\n\nCharlie stepped forward, sword raised, blocking the next attack without hesitation.\n\nA heavy voice rumbled through the clearing. “You two... managed to destroy my camp.”\n\nThe last one. The one who had been asleep.\n\nAs he walked, pieces of silver armor materialized over him, locking into place with mechanical precision. Gauntlets snapped into his wrists. Greaves locked around his legs. A helmet slid down, sealing his face behind steel. Not a single gap. Not a single flaw.\n\n“The leader...” Luke muttered under his breath.\n\nThis was the one he’d been hoping to avoid—the one too dangerous to fight head-on. Attacking while he was asleep had been the only chance. That chance was now gone.\n\n“I don’t know who you are,” the man growled. “Maybe relatives of someone we killed. Not Marshall’s men, that’s for sure. He would’ve sent more than... this. One fool... and a skeleton.”\n\nHe shifted his weight forward. No weapons. Just fists.\n\nThen he charged.\n\nCharlie moved to intercept. Her blade sliced the air—but he was already gone, sidestepping with speed that didn’t match his size. His fist hit Luke’s ribs with the precision of a hammer swung by an expert. Bone strained. Air vanished. His body lifted off the ground and crashed against a tree trunk hard enough to shake loose the branches.\n\nHeavy footsteps followed immediately, closing the distance fast.\n\n“Hope you’re worth good experience.”\n\nCharlie swung, forcing him back for a breath, but the man pivoted effortlessly around her. He didn’t even look as he slipped past her blade and countered. His fist drove into her chest with enough force to send her skidding across the mud.\n\nThe fight wasn’t just power. It was absolute dominance in close combat.\n\nThe man shouted as both his fists struck the earth. A tremor ran through the ground like the pulse of an earthquake. Luke and Charlie were thrown off balance, knees buckling, momentum stolen.\n\nBefore either of them could recover, he was on top of them again.\n\nCharlie’s sword flashed. Useless. The man caught it mid-swing, ripped it from her grasp, and tossed it aside like garbage. His next punch hit her square in the chest. Her body folded around the blow before launching backward.\n\nIt didn’t stop.\n\nPunch after punch followed. Bone cracked. Her shoulder joint fractured under the impact. The punch knocked Charlie’s skull clean off, sending it flying. Her body collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.\n\nLuke lunged, but another strike caught him across the jaw, forcing him back. Another hit followed. Then another. His back hit the ground before he even registered the third impact.\n\nThe man grabbed him by the legs and whipped him into the dirt like a rag.\n\nDesperation cut through Luke’s focus. He triggered Basic Dark Dash, vanishing into shadow, reappearing behind the man with a kick aimed at his lower back. The hit forced a stumble—but only that.\n\nLuke struck at the joints, aiming for the fingers, for the wrists—any soft point. The steel skin shimmered. The blades bounced off.\n\n“What’s wrong?” the pugilist asked, voice curling into a sneer. “Lost your nerve?”\n\nLuke spat blood, wiping it from his chin. His expression sharpened into something cold. Focused.\n\n“No,” he replied. “Just buying time.”\n\nThe man’s eyes narrowed. “What—”\n\nA fist collided with the side of his helmet. His head snapped sideways.\n\nHe turned—stopped cold.\n\nCharlie stood. The glow in her hollow sockets burned brighter than before.\n\n“You... you were dead.”\n\nAnother strike drove him backward. Her fist dented the side of his armor.\n\nLuke grinned, breath ragged. “She’s a skeleton, genius. You just have to... put the skull back on.”\n\nCharlie nodded once. Silent. Then advanced.\n\nThe pugilist lunged at Luke—only to meet Charlie’s forearm driving into his ribs, stopping the charge. His arms shot wide to counter, but Luke slipped in, planting his heel against the side of the man’s knee.\n\nThe strike buckled the joint. The man stumbled.\n\nCharlie holstered her sword entirely. She didn’t need it now. Her body blurred forward, propelled by Spectral Charge, shoulder hitting the man square in the chest, driving him backward into a tree.\n\nAnother punch connected with his jaw. His helmet cracked at the seam. A third hit followed. Then a fourth. His head snapped back. His feet left the ground.\n\nTwo devastating punches slammed into the pugilist’s helmet. He was sent flying, crashing into a tree hard enough to shatter it on impact.\n\nBefore he could even register the hit—another fist drove into the side of his head. He staggered, raised his arms for a counterattack— But Luke came soaring in from above. The kukri pierced straight through the visor.\n\n“AAAHHH!” The pugilist screamed, flinging Luke off him in panic.\n\nBut it was already too late.\n\nLuke and Charlie closed in together. Each blow shattered more of the armor. Charlie struck the same point again and again, weakening the plating—and Luke drove his blades precisely into those weak spots, slicing through the gaps.\n\nThe pugilist began to stagger. His movements slowed. He wound up for one last desperate punch— Luke rolled to the side, extending his hand. His health began to drain. One point at a time. A trickle of life flowing into Luke.\n\nCharlie raised a final fist—and brought it down with a brutal crack.\n\nThe pugilist’s helmet flew off, tumbling across the dirt. His face was exposed.\n\nAnd in the next second, another punch smashed straight into it. His body flew backward, crashing through tents and rolling across the ground.\n\nHe groaned. Tried to stand.\n\nBut then—Luke leapt. Like a predator descending on wounded prey.\n\nThe pugilist looked up, panic in his eyes. The kukri came down. And pierced straight through his skull.\n\n[You have slain a Human - Lvl 9 (Pugilist - Lvl 16)]\n\n[You have gained +1 Soul Fragments]\n\n*Your class [Demonic Assassin] has reached Level 12! (Class Bonus Points Acquired)*\n\n[A new Class Skill is now available]\n\n[An item has been added to your inventory]\n\nLuke opened the notifications.\n\nAnd when he saw what item it was, his eyes instinctively drifted toward Charlie. A faint smile touched the edge of his lips.\n\n\nHey everyone! How are you liking the story so far? By the way, this chapter ended up being longer than usual. I preferred keeping it as one instead of splitting it into two. Otherwise, it would've ended on a cliffhanger right when Luke gets discovered, so I decided to keep it together. Also, the image below shows the moment when Charlie equips the armor pieces. The next chapter has a few surprises hehe."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 67: Assassin’s Mark\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The pugilist was dead, just like the rest of the camp. Luke had fought with everything he had, pushed himself to the limit. But deep down, something still felt off. He didn’t enjoy killing people. Not really.\n\nForcing himself to breathe, he steadied his thoughts. These weren’t good people. They wouldn’t have hesitated to hurt someone else. They wouldn’t have thought twice about killing, stealing, or ruining someone’s life just to get what they wanted. So he wouldn’t hesitate to stop them. Simple as that.\n\nLuke opened his system interface and clicked on the new item sitting in his inventory. His eyes widened in surprise, a helmet. Slowly, his gaze shifted back to the pugilist’s corpse.\n\n“The system gives loot when you kill people too?” he muttered.\n\nIt made sense. Monsters dropped items—so why wouldn’t humans?\n\nDriven by curiosity, he opened the system panel and clicked on the item.\n\n[Pugilist Knight’s Helmet (Uncommon)\n\nDescription: A pugilist once trusted in nothing but his fists—until, in a clash against a demon, the demon’s clever servant tore off his helmet. Exposed, the pugilist was finished with a single, fatal blow. All his strength meant nothing in the face of a single careless moment.\n\nEnchantments:\n\n[Iron Shell (Uncommon)]: Reinforced against blunt force trauma. Reduces physical impact damage from punches, strikes, and concussive blows. Offers increased protection in close-quarters combat.\n\nRequirements: Level 8+ in any Fighter-class.]\n\nLuke raised a brow. Not for him.\n\nWithout hesitation, he dragged the helmet into Princess Charlie’s inventory.\n\nA moment later, the item materialized on her.\n\n“Wow… now you actually look like a real knight.”\n\nThe helmet had the classic look of medieval armor—regal, solid, timeless. But what caught Luke off guard wasn’t the style. It was what he didn’t see.\n\nThe skeletal face was gone.\n\nStanding before him was a tall, imposing woman in full armor. Not a trace of bone.\n\nCharlie gave her sword a proud swing, her new form radiating confidence. Then she stepped forward and gently tapped Luke on the shoulder, pointing at the ring on his hand.\n\n“Oh… that’s what you wanted?” Luke said, catching on.\n\nShe extended her ring finger.\n\nLuke slipped the ring onto it.\n\nAnd through their bond—servant and master—he felt it. A soft wave of warmth. Her happiness washing over him like sunlight.\n\n“I don’t really use it much,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “But hey, could be useful in combat. Like, I don’t know… tossing a small flame into someone’s eyes to distract them or something.”\n\nHe laughed softly.\n\n“But if it makes you happy…” His smile deepened. “Then I’m happy too.”\n\nFor some reason, every time Charlie glanced at the ring on her finger, a wave of happiness radiated through the master-servant bond, strong, unfiltered, impossible to ignore.\n\nLuke opened his system interface, but his eyes drifted sideways.\n\nShe was still staring at it. Her posture stiff. The way her fingers fidgeted with the band wasn’t subtle. Pure joy poured off her like heat off stone, tangled with something else, embarrassment and maybe something even more complicated.\n\nHe let out a quiet breath.\n\n“Right, whatever this is.”\n\nShaking his head, Luke forced himself to focus back on the interface. Charlie’s weirdness could wait.\n\nFive skills were waiting.\n\nBut something felt off.\n\nHe recognized them. Old choices—skills he had once passed over.\n\n“So they can come back…” he murmured. “Good. I let go of some decent ones.”\n\n*Choose one of the following Class Skills*\n\n[Sharp Eye (Common)]\n\n[Perfect Throw (Common)]\n\n[Silent Step (Common)]\n\n[Basic Chameleon Skin (Uncommon)]\n\n[Assassin’s Mark (Rare)]\n\nHis eyes stopped on the last one.\n\nHe remembered it clearly.\n\nA damn good skill.\n\nHe tapped it.\n\n[Assassin’s Mark (Rare)]: Mark a target. Lock your perception onto them. No matter where they flee, if they remain within your hunting grounds, you will find them. No prey can hide. The mark lasts until removed or expired.\n\n“This one’s perfect.”\n\nHe didn’t hesitate.\n\nHe selected it.\n\n[You have acquired the Class Skill: Assassin’s Mark]\n\n\n***\n\n\nA week had passed.\n\nLuke sat in silence, eyes locked on the crackling fire. It had been almost a month, or maybe even more, since he agreed to take part in the System Integration. His time inside the Forgotten Temple dungeon had completely thrown off his sense of time. Either way, he had been stuck in this tutorial for close to a month now.\n\nAround him were a few now-familiar faces: Anna, Cecília, Johnny... and Jonathan, along with others he’d gotten to know better thanks to Anna’s quiet persistence—and Allison, who had somehow warmed up to the group faster than he expected.\n\nJohnny, of course, was mid-story, as usual.\n\n“So there I was… alone, absolutely hammered, pissing off the edge of a rooftop when I look down and suddenly…” He paused dramatically, holding the group’s attention. “I saw a Midnight Warden.”\n\n“What happened?” Henry asked, wide-eyed.\n\nJohnny burst into laughter. “Let’s just say… I didn’t just piss myself.”\n\nThe group erupted into laughter.\n\nThen, a shadow approached from the dark. A mug was snatched from Johnny’s hand.\n\n“You’re already so drunk you’ve started talking complete nonsense.”\n\nIt was Angelica. She took a swig from his mug and sat down beside the fire.\n\n“Hey!” Johnny protested, scandalized.\n\nAcross the fire, Cecília was tending to chunks of meat roasting over the flames.\n\nAngelica glanced around the circle, eyes lingering on each face. “So?” she asked. “How’s everyone adjusting to the first few weeks?”\n\nHenry answered first. “I’ve come to terms with it. I think the best move now is to get stronger. As fast as possible.”\n\n“That’s the spirit,” Angelica replied with a faint smile, then turned to Luke and Allison. “And you two?”\n\n“I’m doing the same,” Allison said. “Getting stronger’s the top priority. But I’ve also started mapping the area out, bit by bit.”\n\nAngelica nodded thoughtfully. “It gets easier once you get the lay of the land. The ruined city’s crawling with beasts during the day, and Midnight Guards own the streets after sunset. Farther out in the forests, it’s orc territory. I’ve never gone deep enough to see what it’s like near the castle ruins, but… if I had to guess, it’s probably swarming with Guards. Stronger ones, too.”\n\nA hush settled over the group, broken only by the soft hiss and crackle of burning wood.\n\nAngelica began sharing stories from her first year in the tutorial. Half of them sounded more like urban legends than actual memories—rumors passed from survivor to survivor, twisted by time and trauma.\n\nLater, as the fire dimmed and the others drifted off to their tents, Luke and Allison stood. Angelica, now clearly tipsy, waved at them lazily.\n\n“If you two need anything,” she said with a crooked smile, “don’t hesitate. Me and Paul—we’ve got your backs.”\n\n“We won’t,” Allison replied, smiling. “And… thanks. For watching out for us.”\n\nThey reached the small tent and slipped inside.\n\n“Need more ice?” Allison asked, glancing at him.\n\nLuke pulled a flask from his pack—something he’d managed to trade for using wild boar meat and hide. “Obviously.”\n\nAllison took the flask and began filling it with ice, one shimmering shard at a time, until it was full. That was how they got clean water.\n\nBartholomew allowed people to draw from the river, but only in exchange for tribute—monster meat, bones, hides, anything remotely useful. Luke sometimes fetched water from the Wild Zone’s springs, but it always needed boiling first.\n\nAllison’s ice? Instant. Clean. Reliable.\n\n“I picked up a few items,” she said, materializing a chestplate between them. “What about you?”\n\nLuke gave a small smile. “Everything I get, I pass on to Princess Charlie. So... I’ve got basically nothing.”\n\nThe two wanted to head into the Wild Zone to search for the mechanism, but first, they needed to get stronger. And that also meant getting better gear.\n\n“She’s fully equipped now?” Allison asked.\n\n“Yeah. Honestly, she could walk around camp and no one would even notice.”\n\nAllison raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed.\n\nA few moments later, she lay down and pulled the wolf pelt over herself. Luke did the same.\n\nThey slept back to back, sometimes with the fabric divider left open, no longer splitting the tent into two separate spaces.\n\n“You really think we’ll find this mechanism?” Luke asked, eyes fixed on the ceiling of the tent.\n\n“Find something we don’t even know what it looks like?” She let out a soft laugh. “I hope so.”\n\nLuke couldn’t help but smile faintly. “How’s leveling going for you in the Safe Zone?”\n\n“I’ve been grouping up with Anna and Cecília. They head out from time to time.”\n\n“Any bandits in the Safe Zone?”\n\n“From what I’ve heard, they stick to the Wild Zone. They’re scared of Bartholomew’s men.” She paused. “But if any of them tries to rob me… I’ll kill them. Even if I have to use my ice magic.”\n\nLuke nodded silently in the dark. “I ran into a few already. But... they won’t be robbing anyone else.”\n\nAllison was quiet for a moment. Then she said softly, “It’s dangerous out there… Be careful.”\n\nLuke shifted under the covers. His voice was calm. “I’ve got Princess Charlie. Don’t worry.”\n\nAllison chuckled. “Right. Your girlfriend would terrify anyone.”\n\n“She’s not my girlfriend!” Luke shot back.\n\nAllison muffled a laugh. “Well, well… We’ve got ourselves a tsundere.”\n\nLuke frowned. “What? You know what a tsundere is?”\n\n“Of course I do,” she said, as if it were obvious. “I’m a normal person, you know.”\n\nLuke sighed and rolled over, settling into the blankets.\n\nThen, breaking the quiet:\n\n“By the way… why are you still pretending to be a guy?”\n\nHe didn’t say it accusingly—his tone was thoughtful. Curious.\n\n“It’s hurting you. You can’t use your spells properly because the disguise drains your mana. And I have this feeling it’s messing with your class too… maybe even stopping it from mutating.”\n\nAllison sat up slowly, thoughtful. “You think… that’s what it is?”\n\n“Maybe,” Luke said, still staring at the ceiling. “My mutation only happened when I embraced… whatever the hell my ‘inner nature’ is. So yeah, I think it’s tied to accepting what your class really wants to be.”\n\nHe paused. “You came straight here from Earth, right? No Training Field?”\n\nShe nodded quietly.\n\nLuke turned slightly in bed, voice firmer. “That means even after your System lock got removed, you’ve never really used your powers freely. Not like they’re meant to be used.”\n\nAnother pause.\n\n“Could be that it’s keeping you from fully evolving. Like… putting a wild animal in a cage. It just doesn’t grow right.”\n\nAllison stayed quiet for a few seconds.\n\n“You might be onto something,” she said eventually.\n\nThen she lay back down, rolling onto her side, facing away from him.\n\n“I’ve thought about ditching the disguise before… thinking maybe that was the problem.”\n\nLuke turned toward her slightly, curiosity in his voice.\n\n“Then why not just stop? Go back to your original form. What, are you wanted by the police or something?”\n\n“What? No!” she said—too quickly.\n\nLuke raised an eyebrow, even though she couldn’t see it.\n\n“…Wait. You actually are a fugitive?”\n\n“N-not like that!”\n\nLuke chuckled and rolled back to his side.\n\n“Uh-huh. Sure.”\n\nSilence lingered for a few seconds.\n\nThen Allison’s voice broke it—quiet, hesitant.\n\n“My father…”\n\nShe paused.\n\nThen continued, voice steadier.\n\n“He’s someone important in the World Government.”\n\nLuke slowly turned to face her. “You mean… those guys? The ones with absolute authority because of the System?”\n\nShe nodded, visibly uneasy. “Yeah. My family’s part of one of the major guilds.”\n\nSuddenly, it all clicked. Her talent, the rare bloodline since childhood, the latent strength...\n\nShe wasn’t just anyone.\n\nAllison rolled over to look at him. “What about you?”\n\nLuke furrowed his brow. “What about me?”\n\n“Well, I just told you one of my secrets. Partner rules—you owe me one.”\n\nHe scratched his head, confused. “Didn’t know that was a thing.”\n\n“It is now,” she said, grinning.\n\nHe sighed. “Fine. But one condition: anything… except my bloodline.”\n\n“Fair enough,” Allison replied.\n\nA moment passed as she picked her question carefully.\n\n“What guild is your family from?”\n\nLuke turned to meet her eyes. “None.”\n\nShe blinked. Then blinked again.\n\nHe rolled back over, tugging the wolf pelt over his shoulder. “Well… you used your question.”\n\nHe closed his eyes. “Good night.”\n\n“Oh, come on,” Allison said, pulling the covers off him. “That doesn’t count. What do you mean none? You didn’t get training? They’re not part of anything?”\n\nLuke went quiet for a second.\n\nHe thought of Clara and Martin.\n\nThe woman who loved baking on weekends. The man who read mystery novels and cheered for the Portland Sea Dogs.\n\n“I came from a normal family,” he said.\n\nWell... I was adopted by one, he thought, but didn’t say it aloud.\n\nHe wasn’t the kind of person who shared too much too fast.\n\nAllison studied him for a few seconds, then sighed. “You don’t seem like you’re lying…”\n\nShe stared up at the ceiling. “But I swore you were one of those kids raised for the Integration. Like, trained from birth. What country are you from?”\n\n“United States,” Luke answered. “You?”\n\n“Somewhere in Europe,” she said with a mischievous smile.\n\nLuke narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you speaking English right now, or is the System translating?”\n\nHe knew the System handled translation, but something made him ask.\n\nAllison laughed. “I speak six languages fluently. Without the System.”\n\nShe stretched and rolled onto her side. “I mix things up sometimes when I talk, but the System cleans it up for you.”\n\n“Six languages? What are you, a super genius?”\n\n“Did you forget I’ve had the System since I was born?” she said. “Even with my system’s progression locked, I have a Race Skill that boosts memory. Makes studying easier.”\n\nThey both fell quiet.\n\nThe conversation drifted to Earth. To small things—memories, stories, fragments of normal life.\n\nIt had been so long since Luke had shared a moment like that.\n\nAnd for the first time in weeks…\n\nIt felt like home wasn’t so far away.\n\nThe distance between them had shrunk.\n\n“Good night, tsundere,” Allison said with a grin.\n\nLuke smirked. “Good night, Mulan.”\n\nAllison sat up, frowning. “I don’t get the reference.”\n\nLuke rolled over. “When we’re back on Earth, look it up.”\n\nShe went quiet.\n\nHe smiled faintly.\n\nAnd drifted off to sleep.\n\n\n***\n\n\nA shrill sound tore through the silence of early morning.\n\nLuke and Allison bolted upright, weapons already in hand.\n\nThey burst out of the tent.\n\nThe camp was chaos barely held together—people running in every direction, panic in their eyes, voices shouting orders and warnings over the noise.\n\nSome banged on pots. Others rang makeshift bells.\n\n“Wake up! MOVE!” someone yelled through the crowd.\n\nLuke spotted Angelica and Paul sprinting through the mess.\n\nAllison rushed to meet them.\n\n“What’s going on?!”\n\nPeople with weapons gathered into formation. Those without gear were herded toward the old hotel, guided by others—sent to makeshift shelters.\n\n“Orcs!” Angelica shouted, breath ragged. “A warband crossed the border! They’re coming fast—riding wolves!”\n\nPaul stepped in beside her, expression grim and razor-focused.\n\n“If we don’t act now, they’ll destroy everything. They’ll kill as many as they can.”\n\nAngelica raised a double-headed axe, eyes blazing.\n\n“You want to know why it’s so damn hard to progress the tutorial missions?” she growled. “This is why. The Orc Lord lives for war. For blood. For chaos.”\n\nThey turned and sprinted toward the large command tent. Other senior members rushed to follow.\n\nAllison turned to Luke, urgency in her voice.\n\n“We don’t have a choice. We need to help.”\n\nLuke nodded. “I know.”\n\nHe ran back to the tent without hesitation.\n\n“I called reinforcements.”\n\nA moment later, a tall figure stepped out from the tent behind him.\n\nA knight in full armor.\n\nPrincess Charlie.\n\nAt that exact moment, a system window shimmered into view before his eyes.\n\n**Special Event Triggered**\n\nThe Orc Lord has deployed part of his warband against your camp.\n\n[Main Event Mission]\n\n– Survive until dawn against the Orc Lord’s forces\n\n– Or perish in the attempt\n\n[Bonus Objective]\n\n– Defeat the Orc Captain\n\n[Calculating Special Reward...]\n\nLuke’s eyes widened as the reward details appeared.\n\nIt was better than he expected.\n\nFar better."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 68: The Call of the Orc War\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: class event, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The Special Mission had appeared for everyone.\n\nLuke’s eyes scanned the glowing system prompt still hovering in front of him.\n\n[Special Reward: Orc Captain’s Weapon]\n\nHe glanced to the side.\n\nAllison was staring into the air—no doubt reading the same thing on her interface.\n\n“You got the special mission too?” he asked.\n\n“Yeah,” she replied softly, eyes still locked on the screen.\n\nBefore they could speak further, Paul’s voice rang out as he emerged from the tent.\n\n“Anyone who can fight, gather here! Now!”\n\nLuke, Allison, and Princess Charlie moved toward the command tent. In the rush of people arming themselves and shouting orders, no one even noticed the knight in full armor silently walking beside them.\n\nInside, a crowd had formed around an injured scout, his shoulder soaked in blood. Thiara knelt beside him, casting healing magic with steady focus.\n\n“How many?!” Angelica demanded, her voice sharp with fury.\n\n“A-at least… a hundred orcs,” the man rasped. “Some... mounted on beasts.”\n\n“Shit…” Angelica gritted her teeth.\n\nShe turned to face the room, sweeping her gaze over the assembled fighters.\n\n“For the newcomers—listen up. These events don’t happen often. But when they do, they’re brutal.”\n\nThe room quieted.\n\n“When it starts, orcs—or worse—head straight for the major Safe Zone camps. Maybe it’s the scent of blood. Maybe it’s just numbers. Who knows? But they don’t stop until sunrise.”\n\nShe let the silence settle.\n\n“There’s only one way to survive: delay them until dawn. When the sun rises, they retreat.”\n\nJust then, Paul rushed back in.\n\n“Another scout’s calling for help,” he said, out of breath. “They won’t hold out much longer. We need to move—now.”\n\nThe group stirred.\n\nPeople spilled out of tents, strapping on armor, grabbing weapons. Luke and Allison fell into step beside Angelica, who marched forward with fire in her eyes.\n\n“I don’t get it,” Allison said. “What about Bartholomew’s men? They’re part of the Safe Zone too. Can’t they help?”\n\n“No,” Angelica snapped. “When the orcs attack, they split their forces. One group hits Bastion. Another hits us. It’s designed to divide.”\n\nShe looked back at them.\n\n“And Bartholomew? He doesn’t care. After the orcs finish slaughtering everyone, they vanish into the woods. You think he’ll lift a finger to save a rival faction?”\n\n“Marshall’s probably dealing with the same shit right now,” Paul muttered.\n\nLuke listened closely.\n\nThe pieces were falling into place—the factions, the power plays, the rot beneath the surface of survival.\n\n“But… what about the Special Mission?” he asked.\n\nThis time, another voice answered.\n\nJonathan.\n\nHis tone was calm, but his eyes were sharp.\n\n“It’s a gamble,” he said, stepping in beside them. “During events like this, only one Orc Captain is ever sent. Just one.”\n\nLuke frowned. “But there are three major bases…”\n\n“Exactly,” Jonathan said. “Two in the Safe Zone, one in the Wild Zone. Ours, Bastion, and the Renegades’ camp. We just have to hope the Captain didn’t come here.”\n\nHe paused, voice lowering.\n\n“Because if he did… we’ve got a real problem.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe group moved fast, racing across the rooftops of the ruined city, boots slamming against broken tiles and splintered wood. Some roofs were connected by crude planks and ropes—makeshift bridges built by survivors over the years to move above the danger without touching the streets.\n\nLuke ran with them, heart pounding in rhythm with his steps. He still had unspent stat points—both his and Charlie’s. Part of him wanted to assign them now, but he held off. If things got bad, he’d need flexibility.\n\nVitality in case he started bleeding. Mana if he wants to drain the enemy's HP or cast throwing knives from the holster.\n\nThirty people moved in loose formation. Watching them, seeing the discipline and urgency in their movements, Luke understood something: this tutorial wasn’t just about personal survival. If the strongest kept disappearing into the Wild Zone to chase missions, who stayed to defend the Safe Zone? What would be left when they returned?\n\nMaybe nothing. Maybe the walls would fall. Maybe the weak would already be dead.\n\nThis system forced them to make impossible choices. Missions. Power. Escape. But at what cost?\n\nAnd worse—he finally understood the fear around activating the third mechanism. Because doing so would summon the Midnight Wardens. And they wouldn’t arrive in pairs or patrols. They’d come as an army.\n\nUp ahead, a rope arrow soared into the sky. Archers zipped across to higher rooftops using the lines. Someone pointed across the rooftops, yelling, “There!”\n\nBut Luke had already heard it—steel clashing, voices shouting, the hollow beat of war drums. He leapt to a new rooftop, and froze.\n\nHis stomach dropped.\n\nBelow them, chaos.\n\nOver a hundred orcs were flooding the streets. Some mounted on wolves, others sprinting through the alleys. They carried axes, spears, hammers—roaring with bloodlust. The city below had erupted into war. Civilians ran. Some screamed. Others fought back or tried to help.\n\nArchers on the rooftops loosed volleys of arrows. Mages tried to cast through trembling hands. And down in the streets, the tanks—armored warriors with shields—formed barricades, desperately holding the line.\n\nBut they were exhausted. Many bled from gashes in their arms and sides. Their armor was cracked. Their footing uncertain.\n\nLuke saw it all. This wasn’t a raid. It was a battlefield.\n\nAngelica’s voice rang out like thunder. “ATTACK!”\n\nShe leapt from the rooftop, axe raised, and cleaved through the first orc before it could raise its weapon. The rest of the squad followed. Trained. Focused. Deadly.\n\nAnna and Cecília darted between rooftops, firing mana-infused arrows that exploded on impact. Jonathan dropped straight into a wolf rider, twin sabers flashing as he struck. Paul was already at Angelica’s side, blades spinning in tandem—a perfect rhythm of offense and defense.\n\n“There’s only one way to help,” Allison said. She drew her sword and jumped.\n\nLuke watched her fall, fast and clean, like a streak of silver. She landed in a roll and, with one fluid motion, sliced an orc’s hand off before it could bring down its axe. Its scream echoed through the street — and just like that, the battle had begun.\n\nLuke turned. Charlie stood at his side, armored, silent, sword in hand. Together, they jumped.\n\nThey hit the ground hard, dust exploding around their boots. Luke’s breath caught — a spear hurtled through the smoke, shattering the stone where he’d just stood. He rolled aside as growls rose around them. The orcs had seen them.\n\nLuke gripped his blades tighter and glanced at Charlie.\n\nShe nodded.\n\nAnd they charged.\n\nAn orc lunged — fast and brutal — but Charlie was faster. She activated Basic Spectral Charge, her form blurring into a silver streak across the cracked stone. Her blade tore through the orc’s chest, forcing it back with a roar.\n\nMassive. Green-skinned. Tusks jutting like a boar’s. Muscles carved from corded steel. No armor — just bloodstained fur slung around its waist.\n\n“AAARGH!”\n\nIt charged like a bull.\n\nLuke reacted instantly, kukris spinning in his hands as he darted forward. The orc didn’t slow — it tanked the strikes with bare arms, ignoring the pain, letting flesh tear without flinching.\n\nThen a crimson aura exploded around its body.\n\nIt screamed — and moved faster.\n\nBerserker.\n\nThe punch came like a cannon. Luke dodged — barely — but the orc was gaining on him.\n\nAt the last second, Charlie leapt in. Her sword sliced through the beast’s arm. It caught on bone, but she didn’t stop. She activated Iron Fist and slammed her gauntlet into its face with brutal force.\n\nThe orc reeled. Its arm dropped to the ground, severed.\n\nLuke stepped in to finish the job — but Charlie was already moving. She raised her blade and ended it in one clean strike.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain an Orc – Lvl 15]\n\nLuke blinked, impressed. “Looks like you can handle yourself now.”\n\nHer class evolution had changed everything. Stronger, sharper — and with full armor, tougher too.\n\nWithout wasting time, Luke dashed back into the fray, heading for another cluster of orcs. Behind him, Charlie carved a path like a knight of death.\n\nShe blinked across the field with Basic Spectral Charge, landed with bone-shattering weight, disoriented enemies with Iron Fist, then struck with deadly precision.\n\nAn orc lunged. She blocked with her armored forearm, twisted her blade into a counter, blinked again — and impaled it clean through the chest.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain an Orc – Lvl 15]\n\nShe didn’t stop.\n\nShe leapt. She cut. She crushed.\n\nA phantom executioner clad in steel.\n\nFrom a rooftop, Luke paused — just for a moment — to watch. She fought like a force of nature.\n\nHe turned and sprinted toward another part of the street, where the frontliners — tanks — were barely holding. Charlie could handle her front. And if her HP or stamina dropped too low, he was ready. She still had two unspent stat points. He’d boost whatever she needed.\n\nShe was strong. But her class burned stamina fast. This fight would be a test of endurance and timing.\n\nThen — he saw it.\n\nA mounted orc.\n\nThe rider was massive, armored, gripping a spear in one hand. The black-furred wolf beneath it growled, then charged.\n\nLuke didn’t flinch. He drew ten knives — and threw them.\n\nMid-air, the blades shimmered — duplicated.\n\nTwenty blades screamed through the air.\n\nHe vanished with Basic Dark Dash — a black blur.\n\nHe reappeared mid-dash, between the knives. The wolf howled, steel piercing through it like rain.\n\nThe orc roared, whirled its spear, and drove it straight into Luke’s shoulder — but Luke twisted with the momentum, snapped the spear shaft with his kukri, and launched himself onto the orc, slamming them both into the broken street.\n\nThey rolled. Dust and blood flew. The orc kicked him off and rose with violent speed. It grabbed the broken half of the spear — and hurled it like a javelin.\n\nLuke’s kukri flew from his hand.\n\nCLANG!\n\nThe two weapons collided mid-air — steel against steel. A ringing clash that split the night.\n\nThe moment the kukri returned to his grip, Luke sprang forward again. Two blades. Two slashes. One kukri sliced clean through the orc’s arm. The other took its head.\n\nThe body crumpled. The head rolled, landing at Luke’s feet.\n\nBut there was no time to breathe.\n\nThe wounded wolf lunged at him, jaws snapping open, eyes wild with rage. Luke raised both arms — one kukri inside its mouth, the other braced beneath its jaw. He strained, holding the beast at bay, forcing the jaws apart inch by inch —\n\nTHWACK.\n\nThe wolf’s body flew sideways, crashing into rubble. Dead.\n\nAngelica stood behind it, bloodied axe in hand.\n\n“Come on, rookie!” she shouted, grinning through a cut on her cheek. “There’s still too much liquor left in this world for you to die today!”\n\nShe cackled, then charged into a trio of orcs without hesitation.\n\nLuke stood there for a second, catching his breath. His shoulder still ached from the earlier hit.\n\n“These people are crazy…” he muttered — then took off running again.\n\nAnother orc crossed his path. Luke didn’t stop.\n\nHe activated Basic Blood Regeneration, reaching out with invisible threads of vampiric energy. He began draining the orc’s health — 1 HP per second. But it came at a cost. 2 MP per second.\n\nHe glanced at his stats:\n\nHealth Points (HP): 496/540\n\nMana Points (MP): 287/390\n\nIf I don’t use Dark Dash or duplicate the kukris… I can recover about 140 HP...\n\nBut he knew better.\n\nThat was an illusion.\n\nWithout Basic Dark Dash, he’d lose mobility. Without Blade Duplication, his offensive pressure would tank.\n\nAnd the orcs... there were far too many.\n\nAnd with the wolves? They were practically an army.\n\nCharlie remained close — a silent wraith of armor. She moved like death incarnate, leaping from one enemy to another, each strike explosive and exact.\n\nLuke locked eyes on a new threat — an orc mounted on a wolf, charging toward a mage too slow to react.\n\nBasic Dark Dash.\n\nHe blurred forward, sliding low under the beast — blades slicing deep as he passed. The wolf collapsed with a shriek, the orc tumbling off.\n\nAnd then — above them — a shadow.\n\nDescending like a missile.\n\n'BAM!'\n\nThe sword split the air — then the orc.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain an Orc – Lvl 15]\n\n\n*The [Death Knight] class of Princess Charlie has reached Level 9! (Class Bonus Points Acquired)*\n\nLuke grinned as blood sprayed across Charlie’s armor. She wiped the blade clean with a fluid motion — cold, precise. The mage she’d just saved stared at her, eyes wide.\n\n“Thank you!” he gasped.\n\nCharlie gave a curt nod. No words. Just the job. The mage retreated to regroup, still watching her in disbelief.\n\nWith the new level, she was faster, stronger, deadlier. Luke fell into step beside her, and they charged together. One synchronized strike — the orc didn’t even have time to react. Another kill. Another step forward.\n\nCharlie didn’t stop. Activating Basic Spectral Charge again, she became a streak of silver lightning that shot straight into a pair of axe-wielding orcs. Blades clashed, steel ringing out with brutal force as she fought both at once, trading strikes with lethal precision.\n\nLuke pushed forward, scanning the battlefield — until he saw her. Angelica. Sprinting alone toward the treeline, where orc archers loosed volley after volley, black-feathered arrows raining down like death on the defenders behind them.\n\nWithout hesitation, Luke sprinted after her. They struck together. He arrived like a beast, kukris flashing across an orc’s face, carving it open until the creature collapsed, howling. Angelica spun her axe, severing a limb, then buried the blade deep into the skull of another.\n\nAnother orc lunged. Luke hurled both kukris — the first struck true, gouging out an eye, while the second boomeranged back to his grip. But before he could finish the job, a massive club slammed into him, hurling him through the air.\n\nHe crashed into a tree with a deep grunt but didn’t back down. Charging, he dodged as the club swung again — a whirlwind of meat and bone — moving with smooth, calculated steps, weaving through the gaps.\n\nLuke launched both kukris. They pierced the orc’s chest. The beast staggered. The blades snapped back into his hands. Sliding beneath its legs, he sliced through both ankles. The creature roared, crashing down.\n\nLuke rose and unleashed a flurry of slashes across its back. It dropped to its knees, groaning, barely alive. It tried to swing, but Luke was already airborne, dropping from a branch above, kukris flashing as he drove them into its skull. Dead.\n\nHe barely had time to breathe before the half-blind orc from earlier came lumbering back, roaring in rage. But before it could strike, a spinning axe decapitated it cleanly.\n\nAngelica stepped through the trees, resting her axe on her shoulder. “Not bad, rookie,” she said, grinning through blood and dirt. “Keep this up, I might start drinking earlier today.” She laughed — even now, with blood dripping from her chin.\n\nLuke opened his mouth to respond, but the air shifted. A shadow burst from the forest — fast, violent. Angelica was hit before she could react. Her body flew like a rag doll, slamming into a tree with a sickening crack. She dropped. Unmoving.\n\nLuke shot to his feet, heart racing. He felt it. That aura. Monstrous. He took a step toward her — but a bone spear embedded itself in the dirt, inches from his foot.\n\nFrom the darkness, something emerged. Massive. An orc clad in bone-forged armor rode forward, mounted atop a hulking black bear. Its eyes were sharp. Aware. Cruel. The fanged mouth curled into a sadistic smile.\n\nThe bear growled and charged. Too fast. Too strong. The impact sent Luke flying, his body shattering through another tree, wood splintering around him. He hit the ground hard, gasping.\n\nThen he heard it — a voice. Calm. Cold.\n\n“Looks like I arrived right on time.”\n\nLuke’s eyes widened. The orc had spoken.\n\n“I think I’ll take your head as a toy.”\n\nThe System Window pulsed into view.\n\n[Orbald, Orc Captain – Lvl 20]\n\nThe true leader of the invasion had arrived.\n\nAnd he was smiling."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Primal Hunter — a LitRPG progression fantasy. For her, it had just been another typical and tiring day. She had to get up early, clean her room, and make it all nice and tidy before heading off for breakfast. After that, she would have to do a bit of studying before a nice workout in the yard. Then it was work time, a bit of recreational time in the evening, before her early bedtime. It was a constant routine that she had done now for nearly two years.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Jake | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Jacob, Carmen, Bertram\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Archer – lvl 2, Geology (Inferior), Concoct Poison (Common), True Standout of the 93rd Universe, Boar – lvl 5, Human (G) – lvl 7, Evergreen Grass (Inferior), Basic One-Handed Weapon (Inferior)); stats (Perception, Wisdom, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility)\nSystem notification style: \"System’,” it explained.\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 355 chapter - Visiting Skyggen & Skyggen\nTarget length: ~2900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake, in the end, decided to just be normal and enter as everyone else would. Besides, it wasn’t like that much border control was going on, as the entire gate was more than ten meters wide and without any real defenses while open.\n\n\nWhen ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) he got closer, he saw a simple-looking registration booth with a sign advertising how to get citizenship, with another slightly larger office for the merchants to go and register. There wasn’t really any visitor center or control of who entered or exited, but he did feel like he passed a barrier when he entered the city as well as a few pairs of eyes on him.\n\n\nHe kept walking a bit further into the city, seeing a mull of people even though it was in the middle of the night. People didn’t really need to sleep much anymore, if at all, making the nightlife as buzzing as the daytime most often.\n\n\nIt did vary, as many professions needed to prepare things, and it just came most naturally to fall into old customs. For example, if a blacksmith needed to craft, they would spend most of the night smithing away and then sell during the day. Of course, it could be the other way around, but most others just copied and did the same if the majority began doing something.\n\n\nBesides, it gave rise to other kinds of businesses, as Jake saw a bar district quite close to the entrance. It appeared that most commercial activities were centered around the entrance area of the city, with the residential part further in towards the mountainside.\n\n\nSadly, Jake was not in the mood to check out the local cuisine or watering holes but instead went into a small alley between two bars where he stopped and waited. He looked to the side, straight into a wall, as he felt the person peer at him through it, making it clear he was aware of them.\n\n\nWhile waiting, he took out the compass and saw it pointed to a building nearby. He planned to go check it out in a bit, but first, he would deal with the police force or whoever was keeping an eye on him.\n\n\nTen or so seconds later, three people landed in front of him. The person in the front was a woman at D-grade and regarded him for a moment before she bowed.\n\n\n“Lord Thayne,” she said respectfully. “We were not aware you would visit this soon. May we know your order of business?”\n\n\nSo much for stealth being an option…\n\n\n“I am here to visit my brother and deliver some things from the resident space mage of Haven,” Jake answered.\n\n\n“This…” the woman looked a bit unsure as she hesitated. “Would you mind following us to the city hall so we can discuss? I think that will be easier, and we can avoid unwanted attention.”\n\n\nJake considered her words, and with his suspicion of the area already not being what it seemed… he would mind.\n\n\n“Here is just fine,” Jake answered as he activated Pride of the Malefic Viper as well as summoned an arcane barrier sealed off the entire alley. “Now no one can listen in. Tell me, where is my brother?”\n\n\nThe woman looked hesitant still but finally relented. “This is against protocol… but… sir, the Judge is not in this city.”\n\n\nJake frowned. “Isn’t this Skyggen?”\n\n\n“Yes and no,” she answered. “As a defensive measure, there exist two cities named Skyggen. This one is the publicly known version, and the other one is hidden and holds the true headquarter of the Court of Shadows.”\n\n\n“That is… actually pretty smart?” Jake said as he thought about it. It was a bit like how the Fort acted as a buffer to Haven, then this place also worked as a front of sorts for the Court. Maybe the larger factions did know, but it sure as hell had him fooled, and he was certain Miranda would have mentioned it if she knew.\n\n\nIt also made sense to place a public teleportation circle here.\n\n\n“It is standard protocol to always set up a second Pylon city if possible to mask the headquarter,” the woman explained. “The Court also still needs to operate somewhat publicly to procure resources and recruit, as well as allow us to expand our presence, so it serves several purposes.”\n\n\nJake nodded along as he asked: “So, where is the true city?”\n\n\n“Approximately a thousand kilometers to the northeast, located in a valley,” she said as she took out a small device and handed it to Jake. “This is a locator showing the direction, I have already unlocked it, but it requires a solid understanding and manipulation of dark mana to-“\n\n\n“I got it,” Jake said nonchalantly. The device clicked as a small mark appeared on it. Having unlocked it, Jake also knew it was pointing him towards the real Skyggen, even though the mark didn’t look like an arrow, but more an odd eclipse of sorts.\n\n\nThe woman stared at him a bit as she just nodded. “Very well. You mentioned something for the space mages?”\n\n\n“Yep,” Jake said as he fished out the cube Neil had given him. “I’m sure they can figure out what to do with this.”\n\n\nHe tossed the cube to her, and she caught it, nodding once more. “Final thing… we had an intruder a few days ago, so the security is quite high at the headquarter.”\n\n\n“Duly noted,” Jake said as he didn’t hesitate to take off right away, dispelling the arcane barrier as he summoned his wings and soared upwards and out of the city, following the locator. He was only a tiny bit miffed that he had to travel again, but at least it was only a small journey this time around.\n\n\nCaleb sat in his office, staring at a picture on the wall as he occasionally glanced down at the report in front of him. It was transcribed based on direct communication with the Augur, Jacob, related to the presence of an off-world teleportation method. Or, more accurately, the lack thereof.\n\n\nWhich meant even the Holy Church had no idea who or what was behind William’s trip to Nevermore. And speaking of William…\n\n\nBefore he had the time to process the odd encounter again, it knocked on the door.\n\n\n“Sir… we have another intruder,” his aide said, though with far less urgency than last time.\n\n\n“Who?” Caleb asked as he got up in a hurry, still not taking it lightly.\n\n\n“It appears to be your brother,” the man answered.\n\n\n“Oh.”\n\n\nCaleb went out of his office as he didn’t bother turning to lightning this time. Mainly because he wanted to make his brother wait for breaking in for some fucking reason.\n\n\nJake had a good reason to break in. At least he believed it was a great reason. You see, when he came to the valley with the hidden Skyggen in it, he encountered a barrier meant to camouflage it. Of course, it mattered naught before the power of Jake’s Perception, but he still found it interesting.\n\n\nAs interesting as the detection barrier. Jake really wanted to see if he could sneak past it, and lo-and-behold, he could. All it took was his arcane barrier being used to hide as he used One Step Mile to quickly phase through - Pride of the Malefic Viper active all the meanwhile to stabilize the mana around him and make his barrier more potent.\n\n\nNow, once inside, the real fun began. Jake wanted to see how far he could make it in before being discovered as he activated Expert Stealth and snuck in. He made it to the wall and over it, using his sphere and overpowered eyesight to keep track of the movement of guards, like he was playing a stealth game.\n\n\nIt all went fine and dandy for a while until he suddenly felt a gaze upon him, and he knew the jig was up. He looked up at a tower and saw a woman he recognized from the World Congress look back at him through the scope of what looked like a sniper rifle. Jake waved at her, and she also raised her arm to wave while taking out a small token of sorts.\n\n\nRealizing there was no point hiding, Jake exited stealth and went back the way he had come towards a fancy little pastry shop he had passed on the way. By now, it was early in the morning, and if he was visiting his parents, it would only be polite to bring cake and breakfast.\n\n\nIt didn’t take him long to find some cake and other pastries, and the woman at the counter didn’t even question him wearing a mask or anything. So he just paid and left, finding himself on the main street outside. Looking about with his sphere, it quickly became apparent why no one cared about his mask or even that his level was hidden – more than half of the people on the street wore them and had hidden levels.\n\n\nI guess that’s a city of assassins for ya, Jake thought as he found a bench and took a seat as he waited.\n\n\nThe real Skyggen was quite a bit smaller than the other one, but the overall power level was far different. Just sitting there, Jake had already detected more D-grades than he had seen in the other city, and the overall presence of the place was just on another level.\n\n\nHe also felt that the atmospheric mana was slightly different compared to the outside of the barrier. It was a bit darker everywhere, as the dark mana in the environment was prevalent. If Jake had to guess, then the barrier erected around it helped transform the mana, or maybe it even had something to do with the Pylon? Jake knew it could affect atmospheric mana, so he could see Caleb have a skill to affect it as the city leader.\n\n\nA few gazes upon him threw him out of his thoughts as he turned his head and saw Caleb walk towards him. The observers seemed to be hidden in the area around his brother, Jake deciding to pay them no mind as he got up.\n\n\n“Hello, I come representing the space mage guild of Haven, and on behalf of my client, I have come to serve you a lawsuit for false by having two damn cities named the same thing,” Jake said as his brother got close.\n\n\n“On behalf of the Court of Shadows, I vehemently deny all such accusations as the teleportation coordinates were placed in Skyggen as per the terms of the contract. Having two cities with the same name is just a loophole and not my client’s fault,” Caleb answered as he walked over and gave him a hug. “Good to see you again, Jake. You got here faster than expected.”\n\n\n“You did tell me to come,” Jake answered with a smile, not bothering to continue with the half-joke, half-jab. Okay, he could continue a little. “Smart trick with the two cities, even had me fooled for a moment. You got two Pylons for it?”\n\n\n“Yeah,” Caleb answered. “The proximity means we can link them up quite soon and essentially make it one city, at least when it comes to bonuses and such. It also serves as a nice shield and allows this Skyggen to serve as the main headquarter and living space of the members of the Court and their immediate family.”\n\n\n“As I said, smart,” Jake said as he pulled back a bit and frowned. “Now, what’s the problem?”\n\n\n“Huh?” Caleb exclaimed, confused.\n\n\n“Something is clearly bothering you, and you’re as shit at hiding it now as when you were as a kid. So?”\n\n\nCaleb sighed as he motioned with his hand, and Jake felt several gazes disappear off him. “Let’s go to my office first, then we can go to mom and dad after.”\n\n\nJake raised the bags of pastries. “Can’t be too long, or these get cold.”\n\n\n“The bags are enchanted, so they won’t,” Caleb answered, shaking his head. “This is pretty standard for all shops, even in other cities… Jake, how often do you leave your house?”\n\n\n“So, what way to your office?”\n\n\nJake took a seat in the armchair in Caleb’s office, finding the place overly fancy and very domineering. But then again, he was titled the Judge, so maybe it was good for him to be a bit intimidating when dealing with problems.\n\n\n“So?” Jake said again as Caleb had also taken a seat.\n\n\n“William came by a few days ago,” Caleb said in a grave voice.\n\n\nA few moments passed as Jake frowned. “Oh… him… he was still alive, huh?”\n\n\nReturning his frown, Caleb asked: “Didn’t you have a conflict or a fight with him?”\n\n\n“I wouldn’t call it a fight,” Jake answered, shaking his head. “Honestly, I haven’t thought much about him for quite a while. Last I heard, he was with some therapist or something. Either way, did you kill him?”\n\n\n“No… it isn’t as simple as that,” Caleb sighed. “A few days ago, he managed to break in while everyone was absent going to the Treasure Hunt, and…”\n\n\nCaleb explained what had happened, and the more he said, the more Jake began frowning. After he finished, Jake sat in silence for a while.\n\n\n“172, huh?” Jake commented. “So, he’s trying to get revenge or something?”\n\n\n“That’s the thing...” Caleb begun. “I don’t think this situation is that straightforward. He didn’t kill anyone when he came, and he didn’t even do any real lasting damage. He also possesses some powerful mental skills to the level where I believe he has maxed out his profession or is at least close to it. I can also admit that he is more powerful than me… but despite it all, I never felt any killing intent.”\n\n\n“Then what did he want?”\n\n\n“Just information, it seems. I followed him, fully expecting a battle, but instead, all I got was a questionnaire about you. Who you were growing up, what you did for work, your hobbies, your likes, dislikes… honestly, it was just damn bizarre. But I did manage to pick up some things myself,” Caleb answered.\n\n\n“First of all, he seems to have grown a lot both mentally and power-wise based on prior information, so I estimate he has spent the full five years D-grade can be in Nevermore. This means he must have gone there shortly after the World Congress.”\n\n\n“Villy did tell me it isn’t super hard to leave the universe, but last I heard, no faction was able to yet, so how could he leave already?”\n\n\n“I don’t know, but I have some theories. Anyway, the second thing I learned was just how little William knew of you. Even the current you, meaning I doubt he has many human companions who are in the upper echelons of humanity. Thirdly, and this is a weird one… he didn’t use your name even once,” Caleb said.\n\n\n“Did he forget it?” Jake asked, half-jokingly.\n\n\n“Based on his reaction when I said it? No, no, he did not. He winced back when I mentioned your name directly, swiftly trying to wrest back the flow of conversation. He only referred to you as “your brother” or “that guy” or other generic terms during our talks. He didn’t even use other words used like “hunter” or “Chosen” or anything like that,” Caleb explained.\n\n\n“Okay, that is weird,” Jake agreed.\n\n\n“Maybe… maybe not. I don’t think you are a person in his mind, at least not right now. William is trying to make you into a person again by discovering how ‘human’ you are. I sensed genuine fear just at the mention of your name, so to answer the question if he is coming for revenge? Not right now, I don’t think so. But maybe soon, as he seems to be building up both strength and courage. If it is to kill you or merely face you, I don’t know.”\n\n\n“So?” Jake asked, Caleb instantly getting what he was asking.\n\n\n“I can’t tell… but if I had to guess, I honestly still don’t think he has a chance. He is powerful for sure, stronger than me… and maybe even stronger than you before the Treasure Hunt. Now, though? It is hard to determine without a true fight, and he didn’t really display much, so this is primarily guesswork,” Caleb admitted.\n\n\n“Any idea where he is right now?” Jake asked, the implications clear. If the little fucker wanted to fight, he would gladly come to him, also just to tie up a loose end. If he had just stayed out of Jake’s way for good, he wouldn’t care, but now he dared show up in front of his parents? Yeah, that ain’t gonna fly.\n\n\n“No, but I have an idea who he is with,” Caleb began. “As I said, he teleported off-world months ago, which I would think to be impossible… at least for humans.”\n\n\n“You mean?” Jake asked, getting it.\n\n\n“William isn’t working with another human faction – he is working with monsters.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 356 chapter - Family Reunion\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "It was a possibility Jake hadn’t really considered before. The human factions were often at the forefront of the mind when thinking or talking about the most powerful on Earth, but one had to remember that humanity only existed on a small part of the entire planet.\n\n\nLong ago, Jake had felt the presence of what he believed to be C-grades deep within the forest Haven was placed in the outskirts of, and even during his trip to Skyggen, he felt powerful presences. The large mountain he dodged, as an example, gave off a powerful aura of what could potentially be a C-grade.\n\n\nThe implication? Monsters on Earth were far more powerful than humanity many times over. Yet they were also inherently very territorial, and while Jake had heard of human cities being attacked and monsters wanting Pylons, the more powerful ones had yet to leave their areas. He didn’t know what kept them there, but he was happy they stayed.\n\n\nBecause Jake was pretty damn sure that if a single C-grade decided to go on a rampage, no one could stop it. Not him or the Sword Saint or anyone else. Maybe the Holy Church would have some massive ritual where they sacrificed a million people or some shit, but Jake doubted it.\n\n\nThere was just one question…\n\n\n“Why would monsters work with that little twerp?”\n\n\n“That I don’t know,” Caleb answered. “May have to do with his karmic powers, or it may have to do with some deal they made. Perhaps it is as simple as Eversmile blessing some of them and ordering them to work together. Either way, they must get something out of it.”\n\n\n“It can’t be a coincidence he finds a beast or other type of monsters with powerful space magic allowing him to leave our universe, and to make those formations, you need specific training and guidance from outside forces,” Jake commented.\n\n\n“Indeed,” Caleb agreed.\n\n\nThey both sat in silence for a while before Caleb added. “When we go and see the others, please don’t mention William at all, and if they ask about him, do keep it neutral, please. I think I have shrugged off the effects, but the mental magic may still influence them a bit, making them have an unnaturally favorable view of him. So if you speak about killing him or anything like that, you may get a very negative reaction. Just know they have a skewed view, and it isn’t their fault.”\n\n\nJake frowned. “I fucking hate mental magic like that…”\n\n\n“The worst part is that it isn’t really the normal kind of mental magic, so healers can’t do much about it. At least it is wearing off, and the more they think about what happened, the odder and more ‘wrong’ it will begin to feel in their minds. That is the good thing about karmic magic at least… without constant exposure, the effect lessens or disappears entirely far faster than other kinds of mental fuckery.”\n\n\n“Noted,” Jake agreed. “I won’t bring up curb-stomping the little fucker into the ground repeatedly until he is dead for good. Again.”\n\n\nHe let out a bit of his anger as his aura flared, and Caleb shook his head as he muttered: “Well, at least I can get why the guy is scared.”\n\n\nJake just shrugged. “His fault for being a damn psycho.”\n\n\n“Pretty sure that ain’t how that works…”\n\n\n“Who are you to say? Neither of us are doctors, so who can truly tell.”\n\n\nThe two of them kept bantering a while longer before they left for Caleb’s home.\n\n\nOn the way, a feeling welled up Jake had not expected. He had been looking forward to seeing them, so there was much anticipation, but that anticipation was soon joined by a strong sense of nervousness. He hadn’t met his parents or Maja for half a year or so, and he had changed a lot during that time.\n\n\nThere was also the whole baby-angle he had to consider. A part of him felt shitty for not visiting earlier knowing Maja had given birth, and now he was afraid she would be angry at him. He did have excuses, but were they good enough?\n\n\nCaleb seemed to pick up on his nervousness as he smiled and patted Jake on the back. “Relax, they’ve all been looking forward to seeing you again. Things may have changed for all of us, but the fact that we’re family hasn’t.”\n\n\n“Is there anything I need to know?” Jake asked.\n\n\n“His name is Adam.”\n\n\nJake nodded as he smiled, Caleb having already mentioned it before, but it was a bit hectic back then. “After Maja’s grandfather?”\n\n\n“Yeah, and it also seemed oddly fitting considering the circumstances,” Caleb answered.\n\n\n“Has everything been fine with Maja and Adam? Anything to mind with the system and all?” Jake asked, still feeling nervous.\n\n\n“Babies are a damn lot easier than before, that’s for sure,” Caleb laughed. “Besides that, the growth seems pretty normal, besides him being stronger than a baby has any right to. It isn’t really a problem as everything around him is also more durable, but it is something to watch out for when a baby can crawl across a room in seconds.”\n\n\n“I can imagine,” Jake smiled, remembering Sylphie when she was a newborn chick. Wait, if Sylphie was his niece and Adam his nephew, did that make them cousins of sorts?\n\n\nBefore long, they found themselves at a large residence, far larger than any around. It was several stories tall and was more a small compound with several buildings of varying sizes. The entire thing was walled off with enchantments and a barrier protecting it all.\n\n\n“Fancy,” Jake commented. “A lot bigger than my lodge.”\n\n\nOr at least it was until his massive underground lab and facility were finished. Before he left, he had briefly seen the progress, and it was looking good.\n\n\n“Gotta keep up appearances,” Caleb chuckled, slightly embarrassing. “Also, it allows mom and dad to practically live next door, which is just convenient.”\n\n\n“Oh, you just like flexing on the plebians,” Jake chuckled along, trying to suppress his own nervousness.\n\n\n“Now who is the judgemental one?” Caleb shook his head as he took out a token making the double-sided front gate open. They both went into a small yard with the largest building in front of them and two smaller ones to the side.\n\n\nThe courtyard itself was filled with several plants, and he even saw a few plant boxes placed next to one of the houses. He instantly knew that was where his parents had to live, as mom had always loved gardening. Well, and he saw them inside with his sphere.\n\n\nThey went up the stairs to the central one. Jake couldn’t hold himself back as he observed all of his family in his sphere and smiled. His parents were both sitting in what looked like a shared office of sorts. Once they entered, Jake heard Maja come out of a side room, Adam sleeping within.\n\n\n“You’re back early today, did something else hap-“\n\n\nShe turned a corner as she saw Jake stand there. He had already made his mask invisible before he had even entered the office with Caleb earlier that day.\n\n\n“Hi Maja, long time no see,” Jake greeted as he raised his arm to wave.\n\n\nHe barely had time to raise it before she rushed over and pulled him into a hug. He didn’t resist but just returned it, Caleb standing to the side with a big smile.\n\n\n“You finally made it!” Maja exclaimed as she pulled back, looking him over. “Did you just arrive? You look worn down, and look at those boots; they look like they haven’t been fixed up for decades…”\n\n\n“It’s how they came,” he shrugged as he also looked at her. “Good to see you again.”\n\n\nHe had never been the one for many words, and Maja didn’t hold it against him as she kept smiling, as she turned to Caleb. “Why are you still standing there? Go get mom and dad!”\n\n\n“Aye aye,” Caleb agreed as he made a joking salute, Jake shaking his head.\n\n\n“Now come inside, let me make something to drink. Do you want coffee or tea? Juice? Or something else?” Maja asked as she ushered Jake into another room.\n\n\n“Juice sounds nice,” Jake agreed as he lifted up the bags of pastries. “I brought cake.”\n\n\n“Oh, from Jerry’s? That’s great! Can you help set the table? Everything is in the cabinet over there,” she said as she pointed to one on the left wall.\n\n\n“Sure thing,”\n\n\nJake didn’t even think much as he summoned several mana strings and manipulated them over to open the cabinet and bring out plates, cups, and glasses as he telekinetically set the table – as one does in a post-system world.\n\n\n“Show-off,” Maja commented from the small tea kitchen where she was making some coffee.\n\n\n“Telekinesis would have revolutionized the entire hospitality industry for sure,” Jake joked back. It was funny; he didn’t really think much about how he would set the table… he just jumped straight to using magic. It was the same when he did alchemy. Why use your hands when a mana string is both faster and more versatile?\n\n\n“How did you get here, by the way?” she asked. “I heard they were working on a teleportation circle, and Caleb said you would probably come when that was finished, but I don’t think it was quite done yet?”\n\n\n“I ran,” Jake answered. “And flew a bit too. But it was mainly running, and it was quite the trek too.”\n\n\nMaja just shook her head. “You don’t mean to tell me you spent the last four days since that Treasure Hunt just running?”\n\n\n“And flying,” Jake corrected with a smile.\n\n\nThey kept talking for a bit longer until they heard his parents’ voices, and once he did, the feeling of nervousness from before returned in full. It was the longest period in his life Jake had ever gone without seeing, much less speaking to his parents. He had managed to keep himself busy, and knowing Caleb was with them had put his mind at ease… but he would be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t missed them.\n\n\n“What surprise are you talking about? Did you-“\n\n\nJake heard his mom’s voice as she opened the door to the dining room and stopped the moment she did and saw him.\n\n\n“Jake?” she said with disbelief, standing there frozen as she stared at him.\n\n\n“Hi, mom,” Jake said a bit awkwardly as he pointed towards the table. “I brought cake.”\n\n\nHis mom didn’t really react to the cake but hurried over and gave him a big hug, Jake reciprocating without hesitation. They held each other for a while as Jake made eye contact with his dad, who stood in the doorway, smiling.\n\n\n“What happened to your eyes?” his dad asked first thing, making Jake chuckle a bit internally. Upon hearing the question, his mom pulled back from him and looked at his face discerningly, both of them waiting for an answer.\n\n\n“Just a skill I got,” Jake answered. “How about you two? You’re looking better than ever. Can’t even spot any of those gray hairs, dad.”\n\n\nAnd he truly had. Both his parents looked younger and healthier than ever before, no doubt due to the advent of stats and their evolutions. Maja was the same. None of them were close to D-grade, but Jake hadn’t expected them to be either.\n\n\n“You’ve gotten cheekier,” his dad said as he walked over and gave Jake a light hug. Neither of them had ever been the types for much physical affection, so that suited Jake just fine.\n\n\n“It comes with the territory,” Jake answered. “Though I still can’t measure up to the leader of a massive, literally shadowy, assassin organization.”\n\n\n“Says you, with your-” Caleb began, attempting to throw a jab.\n\n\n“Not now,” his mom interrupted as Caleb promptly shut up. “Come, take a seat!”\n\n\nJake’s mother ushered him over to the table and sat down. Maja had gotten done with making drinks and brought it over as everyone took a seat.\n\n\nA lot had happened since the last time they all sat around a table and ate breakfast. The world had been turned upside down and made practically the size of the sun, and they had all gotten superpowers and been through tutorials and experienced death at close hand.\n\n\nJake had gone from an office worker to one of the most prominent people on Earth; Caleb became the leader of the Court of Shadows, making them both leaders of the new world in some capacity. In addition, Maja and Caleb had become parents, Robert and Debra grandparents, and Jake arguably an uncle twice.\n\n\nYet despite them all not being the same they were the last time they sat down to eat, there was no tension. Instead, Jake felt like it was just like before. The biggest difference was his mother’s worried questions of how he was doing, shifting from his job performance and how he got along with his coworkers to how he was doing fighting ancient vampires and old men who liked to talk about spring inside crumbling worlds.\n\n\nHis dad was the silent type as always but was very interested to hear about Haven and how things were going there. Jake was a bit more sparse with details there but could talk more extensively about the underground complex being made beneath his lodge.\n\n\nSadly, he didn’t get to meet his nephew right away as he was sleeping. Small children were apparently still prone to that sort of thing after the system, which was probably a blessing for the parents.\n\n\nAlso… damn, the cakes were good. Jake really had to eat more food. Also just for the bonuses, as it increased regeneration out of combat quite a lot, which could be useful while crafting. Besides that, it was just tasty, so why not? Jake was pretty sure he didn’t have to watch his weight anymore, and he got plenty of exercises when killing stuff.\n\n\nAfter nearly an hour of pleasantries and sharing stories, the question came that Jake had been waiting for.\n\n\n“So… I heard something about some alchemist Order?” his mom asked. “I don’t know much about it, but I don’t want you getting involved in anything bad.”\n\n\nJake saw Caleb snicker across the table with schadenfreude as he suppressed his desire to go smack his little brother on the head.\n\n\n“I’m not a member or anything; I just know some people from there,” Jake defended himself. “It’s more that I’m good friends with the leader of the Order, so it isn’t really anything to worry about.”\n\n\n“I just also heard and read some bad things about this friend of yours…” she said, looking even more concerned than before.\n\n\nJake glared daggers at him, but Caleb quickly raised his hands in defense: “Hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ say anything. We just have a public library, and the exploits of the Viper aren’t secrets.”\n\n\n“Your mom is right,” his dad also chimed in as he looked serious. “There is a power dynamic far more prominent than any we knew before this system, and not just one based on social constructs and hieratical structures. I don’t think it’s healthy, and you really need to be careful about such things. If not, it could end badly, and not for the one on top of the pyramid. Just be careful, okay?”\n\n\n“Mom, Dad, I got it handled,” Jake said, shaking his head. “My relationship with the Viper is mine to deal with, alright? Putting down a healthy boundary here, so just relax. I got this.”\n\n\n“You’re sure?” Mom asked again.\n\n\n“Yes,” Jake shut it down.\n\n\n“As long as you’re aware and thinking about it,” Dad nodded as he returned to nurturing his cup of coffee.\n\n\nNodding, Jake confirmed again, trying to put their minds at ease.\n\n\nHe understood their concerns, as quite frankly, his and Villy’s relationship was bizarre. Jake had been put into bad situations at prior stages of his life by being too trusting or not skeptical enough of how others treated him – his university days were a great example of this. However, he would say he had gotten better at it in recent months, no doubt also helped by his intuition allowing him to judge people better. Also, just by limiting who he trusted and let in.\n\n\nBelieving the storm was over, Jake began to relax as his mother uttered an even more perilous question:\n\n\n“So, is there anyone special we should know about? A girlfriend, perhaps?”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 357 chapter - Exploring Relationships\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The damp cavern was filled to the brim with life as countless beasts, and other kinds of monsters congregated. There were bears, wolves, insects, birds with even elementals, and plant-based lifeforms present.\n\n\nWilliam made his way through the crowd as the monsters regarded him, but none attacked. Not that they were not threats, for every single one of them was at least at level 150, with a few approaching the peak of D-grade.\n\n\nHe had just returned from his trip, and the three days of travel, as well as the one day of talking with Ms. Kim, had not been pleasant. William had believed understanding his origin would help. But he still didn’t get it.\n\n\nThe Judge had been strong, but he was still just human. Not like him. He saw those damn eyes in his dreams every time he closed his eyes; constant visions haunted him day and night, and nothing he did seemed to help. If he didn’t know better, he would think he was cursed…\n\n\nNevermore had been a good escape. Five whole years just spent practicing his karmic magic in the cities in between the dungeon layers, years just fighting and improving his skills. Yet when he returned and wanted to ask his master if he was finally strong enough… he couldn’t bring himself to do it.\n\n\nThe question would mean he either had to fight or realized he still wasn’t able to win. Neither option was one he wanted, so Ms. Kim had suggested he try to understand what he was afraid of. Apparently, a direct investigation was not what she had meant, but it had worked well, and it wasn’t like he had just randomly decided on doing it as he did.\n\n\nHis master had approved and even recommended his approach.\n\n\nWalking through the cavern, he soon reached its end as he stood before an underground pool of water. They were more than a hundred kilometers beneath the surface of the earth, below one of the independent cities William indirectly controlled.\n\n\nStanding before the pool, he waited a few moments as William felt the approaching aura. All the beasts around him lowered themselves as he also felt the pressure mount as he gritted his teeth. Yet he was less affected than the others, as while what was approaching was a monster… he had felt worse.\n\n\nThe water before him rippled as a form emerged. A translucent being surrounded by wiggling tendrils extended all throughout the cavern the moment it appeared, the air heavy with mana. More accurately, space mana.\n\n\n[Planeshifting Jellyfish – lvl ???]\n\n\nIt was a massive jellyfish with its tendrils hundreds of meters long, even if its own main body was no more than a few meters across. Furthermore, its form looked everchanging as it almost folded in upon itself, seemingly halfway between two dimensions.\n\n\nA voice echoed in William’s mind as the powerful monster spoke to him:\n\n\n“News do you bring, Disciple of Eversmile?”\n\n\nThe voice couldn’t be determined to be male or female, as the pitch changed with every word. The words themselves were telepathically transmitted but oddly made the air vibrate as odd sounds echoed throughout the cavern.\n\n\nWilliam was the only one who still stood unmoved before the form as he answered. “The cities still grow, and the Pylons grow with them. So while a beast horde could topple even some of the more powerful ones, it is not worth it at the current stage. Not before they’ve had more time to grow more. If it ever becomes worth the risk.”\n\n\n“Humans will destroy us if we do not destroy them first,” the jellyfish insisted, space itself vibrating as William felt its anger.\n\n\n“Can they? Do you really have any reason to fear humans? I am one of the most powerful humans on the planet, and am I a threat? Humans are only a threat if you force them to view you as one… in which case they will band together and become far more dangerous,” William explained for what felt like the twentieth time.\n\n\n“Hence we wait. We have to wait. We grow as they grow. We prepare, so we will be ready.”\n\n\n“Exactly,” William agreed. “For now, patience is the best decision. Has your Patron relayed anything new?”\n\n\n“Patience… are also their words. So we wait… what do you need from me, Disciple?” it finally asked, getting to the crux of it.\n\n\nThe jellyfish was an odd creature, William not quite able to determine how intelligent it truly was. Or maybe it just had a thought process too far removed from humans. Either way, one thing was absolutely clear… when it came to space magic, it was a genius.\n\n\nWilliam pulled a small disc of metal out of his hand as he injected some mana into it and threw it into the air. It had barely left his hand as it was teleported away to who-knows-where by the jellyfish.\n\n\n“I need transportation to the city of Sanctdomo, the largest of the human settlements on the planet, home to tens of millions of my kind and some of the most influential leaders,” William explained.\n\n\nWithout any more words, the jellyfish began its magic. The mana density in the cavern spiked even more as William felt the movements of space mana. Then, out of the water, a stone platform more than thirty meters across rose with an incredibly intricate magic circle carved upon it. It was one William had used several times before, most recently to travel to Skyggen, and five years or so ago, to do what no human faction could.\n\n\nTeleported out of the 93rd universe.\n\n\nThe jellyfish was not only a powerful being but it had also been blessed by a god William did not know anything of. All he knew was that it was one of the best space mages on the planet and fully capable of not only teleporting him to nearly anywhere on the planet using the magic circle it had created but also to other universes. Maybe even planets.\n\n\n“Dangerous?”it asked him as William floated towards the platform.\n\n\n“Yes,” he just answered. And it was the truth too. While Sanctdomo didn’t have the most powerful individuals on the planet, it was still the most dangerous city. The Holy Church had truly mastered the turtle strategy, and their rituals and the insane defensive measure could prove lethal to even the jellyfish.\n\n\nTo even a fully-fledged C-rank monster.\n\n\nBut they would still be in deep trouble if the jellyfish could leave the ocean. The cavern he was in currently was linked to the ocean through a deep net of tunnels, allowing the C-rank to get inland somewhat, but it couldn’t go further than the cave they were in. Not yet, at least.\n\n\nWilliam wasn’t certain of all the details, but it had something to do with their pledge to gain power so quickly. They had all gained power through powerful natural treasures, and they also needed to fully defend and consume those treasures to stabilize their own power.\n\n\nThis didn’t mean these beings were without contest, for there was more than one C-grade even in the immediate area. The jellyfish would only come by sparingly and swiftly teleport back if its domain was threatened, meaning it honestly couldn’t go too far.\n\n\nStepping on the platform, William motioned to the jellyfish as he felt the space surrounding him begin to change. The metal disc he had given earlier included the coordinates of a place close to Sanctdomo, given to him by another smaller gathering of beasts also working with them.\n\n\nHis goal in Sanctdomo was to scout the city and talk to the Augur – that Jacob guy. It would be a bit awkward considering their last meeting had resulted in William killing him, but something told him the religious fanatic didn’t care much. He was still going to apologize, though.\n\n\nMost beast and other monster factions and gatherings did not actually desire any conflict with human settlements – at least the smarter ones didn’t. They instead wanted access to what the humans could supply and craft and potentially enter some rudimentary form of diplomacy or at least trade.\n\n\nNow, why was William involved in all this? Truthfully, he had no fucking clue; he was just following what his master Eversmile had guided him to do. Ms. Kim had also supported it as it forced him to converse and have non-violent relations with other creatures.\n\n\nAh, but he did have some personal reasons to go too. Jacob had known him before the system and could be a good source of information. Additionally, he had learned some interesting things from the parents of the yellow-eyed monster. The monster did have enemies of the past, ones who had a high likelihood of still being alive. Ones who had been close to him once upon a time and betrayed him.\n\n\nApparently, during the monster’s younger days, there was a girlfriend named Madeline and a friend named Andrew. William did not know if these two would provide useful information, but their karmic connection had to still exist even if they didn’t. Worst case, their memories, and impressions could be useful.\n\n\nThe only problem was that William had no idea where these people were, and his master had an odd approach to everything involving him. He would offer no actual help or useful advice but only subtle guidance, making William do everything himself. With advice from Ms. Kim, of course.\n\n\nBut if anyone could find them, it would be the Augur and the Holy Church.\n\n\nFinally, he felt the magic around him stabilize as space mana rose to a crescendo. He nodded towards the jellyfish, and in a flash, the mana enveloped him as he was whisked away.\n\n\nMothers often asked their children questions they would prefer not to answer, and Jake’s was no exception. He had tried many different strategies to avoid answering them in the past, and through trial and error, he had identified the most effective one as misdirection.\n\n\nThis was the moment Jake truly regretted not bringing along Sylphie, as she was a master at attracting attention. However, now he would have to get on something else as it was the type of conversation he always felt uncomfortable with and wanted to avoid.\n\n\nStaring at him from across the table, Caleb’s grin was larger than ever as their mother expectedly looked at Jake for an answer. Even his dad looked on with a raised eyebrow with interest, with Maja just smiling.\n\n\n“Nope,” Jake answered as he quickly tried to change the subject. “But I did manage to become great friends with a family of magical hawks and very close to their child who I partly helped raise.”\n\n\nIt was a complete slam dunk.\n\n\n“Hawks?” Maja asked with interest, Jake taking full advantage of her love for animals.\n\n\n“Yeah, the first one I met is a guy called Hawkie, and then, later on, I met his mate Mystie,” Jake began but was promptly cut off.\n\n\n“Was that their actual names?” Maja asked inquisitively.\n\n\nJake took a moment to consider before he answered. “They’ve never had any others, so of course.”\n\n\n“Jake named them,” Caleb, that goddamn traitor, said. “He was also the one who decided to name the city Haven because he has no creativity and wanted the most generic one he could possibly get on.”\n\n\n“Says the one who named his city Skyggen,” Jake shot back. “What does that even mean? You even did it twice!”\n\n\n“Not my sole decision,” Caleb answered. “Also, it’s better.”\n\n\n“Neither was it my sole decision to name it Haven,” Jake defended himself.\n\n\n“But… Hawkie? Really?” Maja came in, shaking her head. “You seriously named a hawk Hawkie… but why did you name the other one Mystie?”\n\n\nDeciding to come clean, Jake muttered. “Because she’s a Mystsong Hawk…”\n\n\nHe heard his dad chuckle from across the table as the judgemental gazes drilled into him.\n\n\n“How about their chick? Did you also have sole discretion on the naming there?”\n\n\n“He named it Sylphie,” Caleb butted in once more.\n\n\n“Oh, that’s a pretty good name and not that weird” Maja nodded in approval.\n\n\n“For sure! Wait, what was Sylphie’s race again?” his damn brother asked as he looked at Jake, that damn smile still on his lips.\n\n\n“It’s a hawk, duh,” Jake answered\n\n\n“A what hawk?”\n\n\n“A Sylphian Hawk…”\n\n\n“Jake…” his mother said, looking at him with disappointment. “Names are important and not just something you give out on a whim.”\n\n\n“Like you named me after a vodka brand?” Jake asked, attempting to wrest back control in the losing battle.\n\n\n“It was whiskey,” his dad commented with a big smile. “And real quality stuff too.”\n\n\n“There were other reasons,” his mom said, giving his dad a stern gaze. “And even if it was true, then two wrongs don’t make a right.”\n\n\n“So, I heard Sylphie was in that system event with the rest of you?” Maja asked, finally changing the topic away from how much his entire side of the family sucked at giving names. He gave her a mental thumbs up. Nice save!\n\n\n“Yeah, Sylphie was there with the rest of us,” Jake nodded.\n\n\n“How did you come to meet those hawks anyway?” his mom asked.\n\n\n“Oh, it was just when I had gotten my wings…”\n\n\nHe narrated how he had met Hawkie and been taught how to fly. How they had gone to the sky island to fight together and explore, and slowly grown more powerful together. He told of the time Hawkie brought him to his mate, getting a few comments from his dad about overprotective mothers.\n\n\nJake narrated how he had helped Mystie and Hawkie with the magical ritual and how he cared for the egg together with her parents for a good while before it hatched. They all laughed when he gave anecdotes of her shenanigans when she was very young and how much of a clutz she was in the early days. She still was, but less so.\n\n\nThe Union Oath he skipped over, only saying that he and Sylphie had a special bond. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell them, but that he believed it would be best not to. In fact, he skimped on a lot of details, and based on {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} how little they knew of many things, Jake was certain Caleb also didn’t share many intricacies.\n\n\nHe also understood why and agreed. It was incredibly risky to let them know any of his secrets, the entire scenario of William proof of it. Even if he trusted his parents, he didn’t trust that no one would try and take advantage of them.\n\n\nSomething like the Minotaur Mindchief was also proof of this. With powerful mental magic, it could warp his perception of reality and even make him think the minotaur was his comrade for a moment. He could imagine what an even more powerful entity could do to even weaker people. Maybe someone could even walk in and impersonate him without them noticing. It was just a risk he wasn’t willing to take.\n\n\n“You need to bring her next time,” Maja said after he finished.\n\n\n“I will next time if possible,” Jake agreed, “and I will for sure after the teleportation circle is done. But she is busy fighting and growing stronger. A real go-getter that one.”\n\n\n“I guess you two get along as you’re also quite a fighter,” his dad said, oddly approving. “It’s also good to see all that archery becoming useful.”\n\n\n“I think many regret not having picked up some martial art or something,” Jake said with a nod.\n\n\n“Just don’t get into too many unnecessary fights,” his mother said with a worried voice. “Especially not with other people…”\n\n\n“It’s fine. Jake only fights people who pick a fight with him first,” Caleb defended Jake, making him believe his little brother was on his side again.\n\n\nBut it was all deceit.\n\n\n“Jake only takes the initiative when beating up old people.”\n\n\nMore judgemental gazes were turned to him, and Jake didn’t even try to defend himself. Instead, he just looked at his dear little brother.\n\n\n“Hey, Caleb… now that I’m here, wouldn’t it be a great time for some healthy sparring?” he said with a big toothy smile. “I promise to go easy on you!”\n\n\nJake wouldn’t go easy on him."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 358 chapter - Umbral Lotus\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake sat on a chair he had just summoned as he ate an ice cream – a delicacy he had ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) not enjoyed for more than half a year. He had to admit, Skyggen had a lot of good stuff, though he also had to admit that it was very likely Haven had all of this too.\n\n\nHe had decided to just take these last three days before the Auction as a holiday to spend with his family. And for his family, he had agreed to go and help Caleb a little with training some of the Court of Shadows recruits.\n\n\nWhich is how he found himself sitting and eating ice cream surrounded by people kneeling or crawling on the ground as they tried to move towards him. When anyone managed to move a bit, Jake just looked at them to use Gaze or amplified his Pride of the Malefic Viper a tiny little bit.\n\n\nCaleb stood at the back, shaking his head as more than half of the E-grade assassins had already passed out, with only two of them able to hold on somewhat.\n\n\n“Make sure you don’t kill any of them,” his little brother commented.\n\n\n“Relax, none of what I do is lethal unless I make it,” Jake said dismissively.\n\n\nWhile this wasn’t the most exciting thing he had done, it was good practice. It was not often he could find living test subjects that were also intelligent, and he didn’t want to go out in the wild and just torture innocent animals for his own practice.\n\n\nIt was important to learn to control your skills, not just at max power, but also at lower volumes – to correctly identify how much intensity you needed to put into neutralizing someone or something. To begin with, Jake was already pretty good at this, but more practice was always welcome.\n\n\nAnd the reason why Caleb had asked him to help? Well, it was Bloodline-related. Caleb knew Jake had a Bloodline simply by his own lived experience, even if he didn’t know what it did in detail. But, staying true to his promise to Villy, Jake had not shared the description of his Bloodline with anyone. Ever.\n\n\nInstead, he had leaned into one part of it, the part which amplified his presence and also had a suppressive effect of sorts. It was one impossible to hide anyway, and if the public perception was that it was all his Bloodline did, that would only be beneficial to him. Keeping that he had one a secret was impossible no matter what, and it wasn’t that overpowered if all it did was the presence-stuff.\n\n\nBut even this effect was incredibly potent, as Caleb had tested and confirmed a theory over these last three days – prolonged exposure gave permanent resistance. Presences of more powerful beings passively exuded pressure on those weaker than themselves, with this effect being especially noticeable between grades. A qualitative difference.\n\n\nWhile the more powerful person could suppress this element, it was still there, and if you found yourself before a far more powerful foe, having resistance to presences would be priceless. Training this resistance was difficult, though. Being around more powerful people did help build resistance, but it was more of an acclimation process. It wasn’t permanent, but more like how Jake had adapted to being deep underwater.\n\n\nThere were ways to train it, skills to give resistance – Jake’s own Big Game Arcane Hunter as an example – and items helping too, but what Jake did was on another level, according to Caleb. It led to qualitative growth.\n\n\nCaleb himself was a prime example as he had become borderline immune to presences. He could stand before Umbra, and while he did feel the pressure, he could handle it. Jake was in many ways just desensitizing others to presences. If one had stood before the Primal Hunter, was a god really that scary?\n\n\n“How long can you keep it up?” Caleb asked as Jake finished his ice cream.\n\n\n“I don’t think that’s the question here,” Jake shrugged as the last guy’s eyes rolled behind his head as he passed out. All of them were only around level 50-60, so it would be a bit too much to expect of them to hold out against the legendary Pride and Jake’s Bloodline.\n\n\n“I guess not,” Caleb agreed as Jake got up and deactivated his skills. He deposited the chair as he went over to his little brother, preparing to leave.\n\n\nA few people came in after Caleb motioned to them and carried the passed-out recruits into a room to rest. Now, while Jake was an awesome brother happily helping family, he wasn’t doing this for free. They had come to an agreement, and as it was the last day before the Auction, it was time to get his payday.\n\n\nThe two of them walked to a heavily protected building and passed through a few barriers with a token.\n\n\nWalking in further, they came to what Jake could only describe as an elevator.\n\n\n“You guys made an elevator?” Jake asked. “Why not just, I dunno, a small teleportation circle?”\n\n\n“Cost and security,” Caleb answered. “Space mages can hone into close-by circles and use those. Also… this is just as fast and just safer in every way. Additionally, it’s easier to lock down and trap someone beneath using this method.”\n\n\n“Oh? Thinking of locking me in the cellar?” Jake asked teasingly.\n\n\n“Not gonna lie, it would probably work quite well and annoy you plenty,” Caleb answered.\n\n\n“Oh, I would definitely be annoyed and then proceed to break out and have a little ‘sparring’ match with my dear little brother. Again,” Jake threatened. And it was a threat.\n\n\nTheir sparring match a few days earlier had not really been a match. Instead, it had been Jake and Caleb going to the outskirts of Skyggen, followed by a fifteen-minute beatdown where Jake countered his brother’s moves one by one until Caleb’s boosting skill ran out.\n\n\nIt turns out that a super-fast assassin focusing on taking down his foe in swift, unexpected blows isn’t the most effective versus someone with near precognition and insane instincts. After their little bout, Caleb had even expressed his condolences for any assassin ever hired to kill Jake.\n\n\n“Then I guess I won’t lock you inside the storage vault,” Caleb answered, clearly not wanting a repeat.\n\n\n“I hope some good stuff is down there,” Jake commented.\n\n\n“Doesn’t mean you get it,” Caleb teased.\n\n\n“I can just take it.”\n\n\n“Then I’ll tell mom and dad and get you in trouble,” Caleb countered flawlessly.\n\n\n“Goddamn snitch,” Jake grumbled with faux anger as the elevator began traveling downwards to somewhere deep underground.\n\n\nThey were silent on the rest of the way down as Jake estimated they went roughly four or five kilometers beneath Skyggen. The elevator finally stopped as they reached the bottom, and even on the way down, Jake felt the intensity of dark mana increasing. By the time they were at the bottom, it was far more intense than even the Forgotten Sewers back during the tutorial.\n\n\nAnyone without the affinity would be utterly blinded for sure, though naturally, it didn’t bother the brothers.\n\n\nThey entered a large cavern with magical scrips and reinforced walls after passing through a few more barriers and physical gates. Inside, Jake saw several storage items locked away behind barriers.\n\n\nBut what instantly caught Jake’s attention was what was in the middle of the cavern. A pool of what looked like completely black water with a diameter of around eight meters. It surrounded a flower only a meter across that gave off a powerful aura, and Jake’s Sense of the Malefic Viper was making him aware of how potent the herb was.\n\n\nHe naturally used Identify.\n\n\n[Umbral Lotus (Legendary)] – A lotus born of eternal darkness in the shadow of a god. This lotus flower releases incredible amounts of dark-affinity energy into its immediate surroundings, creating an Umbral Domain. Anyone deemed an enemy by the Lotus may be consumed by the shadows to become nutrients. It periodically sheds leaves that contain some of the flower’s power. As long as it stands beneath the shadow of Umbra, this flower will forever grow. Limited alchemical uses, but all creations will be incredibly potent with neurotoxin and perception-limiting effects. Consumption will lead to corruption.\n\n\nThe flower was utterly black, and the leaves seemed to almost be swaying in the air. The center of the Lotus was still partly closed, and from deep within, Jake felt more dark-affinity mana than he had ever felt before. It was a natural treasure… or perhaps it wasn’t right to call it natural? It seemed too well-fitting for the Court of Shadows to find a flower directly related to their god like this.\n\n\n“Where did you get it?” Jake asked as he stood there impressed.\n\n\n“Beautiful, isn’t it? As you may guess, it isn’t naturally occurring but something we more or less created. The custom option in the tutorial store allowed us to coordinate and buy the items necessary to summon it, even if it was only at ancient rarity when we first got it,” Caleb answered.\n\n\n“It grows that fast?” Jake asked, surprised. He had read herbs and other natural treasures could grow… but to go from ancient to legendary was not easy and could take countless years.\n\n\nCaleb smiled as he pointed to the center of the flower. “It ate a Pylon. My Pylon.”\n\n\nMomentarily shocked, he looked at his brother in disbelief. “Is… that smart?” Jake asked with genuine concern. He knew from Miranda’s profession that the Pylon was very important, and if they lost it for good, the City Lord would suffer severely.\n\n\n“I don’t think it can be anywhere safer, and once it is fully consumed, the Lotus itself will serve the same function. Pylons are incredible energy sources anyway, and fusing them will only bring benefits. Hopefully, this Lotus will be a source of power for the Court for many years to come. Also… once fully merged, the Lotus can move.”\n\n\nJake nodded, as he was still skeptical. He could see some benefits, but also issues that could arise.\n\n\n“Anyway, payment?” Jake finally said, returning to the topic at hand. “I don’t assume you’re giving me the flower, even if I would be very flattered.”\n\n\n“No, I’m giving you this,” Caleb said as he raised his hands towards the Lotus. It responded as dark mana swirled around it like a whirlwind. It disappeared as fast as it had appeared, and towards them floated three leaves.\n\n\nJake didn’t even wait for them to land before he Identified them.\n\n\n[Umbral Lotus Leaf (Ancient)] – The leaf of a legendary rarity Umbral Lotus. This leaf is incredibly poisonous and releases dark-affinity mana all around it. Consuming it may lead to adverse effects. Many alchemical uses and creations will have neurotoxin and perception-limiting effects.\n\n\nCaleb caught the three leaves as he held them out towards Jake. “This is your payment.”\n\n\nStaring at them a bit, Jake frowned. “This seems like overkill for three days of terrorizing new recruits.”\n\n\n“It may seem like that, but honestly? The Lotus has been shedding them passively for a while, and no one could use them for anything besides a ritual here and there. While I don’t doubt our alchemists can make great use of them in the future… none of them are up to snuff quite yet. So better you use them before they go to waste and wither,” his brother said.\n\n\n“Well, I ain’t gonna say no to great stuff,” Jake relented, not requiring much convincing. He put the leaves in his storage as he began to consider what he could make with them. Well, naturally, he would make some kind of neurotoxin; the thing just was… Jake had never made a neurotoxin before. Guess that’s one thing I’ll have to learn for sure.\n\n\nOn a side note, he and Caleb had considered having Jake teach the alchemists of the Court a bit but decided not to. First of all, Jake had no teaching experience, and trying to speedrun learning it in three days seemed a bit dumb, and secondly… Jake really didn’t want to.\n\n\nHe would rather be with his family and had instead spent these three days just being on holiday. He had relaxed with his parents, gone shopping and eaten out with them, and just seen the city. Both of them. It was a bit sad to say, but Jake was now more familiar with both Skyggen cities than he was with Haven.\n\n\nJake had also met his little nephew, which was a novel experience as the baby began crying hysterically every time he got close. At least for the first two days. Caleb had insisted on Jake still seeing Adam and just had either him or Maja stay with them to calm the kid down. Jake knew what Caleb was doing and wasn’t sure how to feel about his brother using Jake to make a newborn build up resistance to presences, but he also understood why he did it.\n\n\nThese days had been great for Jake to calm down and relax. To ground himself and just focus on more mundane elements of life. He hadn’t crafted a single thing or had a single fight outside of smacking around his little bro for being cheeky.\n\n\nThe two brothers took the elevator up from the underground vault again as they split up, with Caleb having some work and Jake heading home, where a meal was already halfway prepared. Jake was ushered out of the kitchen and sent into another room where he played with his little nephew, making full use of his experience with Sylphie.\n\n\nAll children liked when he made things float around in the air.\n\n\nAlso… while Jake didn’t explicitly practice anything during this time, he couldn’t really help himself. His ability to conjure stable arcane constructs improved day by day as he worked on realizing his dream of making a fully-functional toy firetruck. He had succeeded earlier that day, and it had been a great success.\n\n\nMaja was with him in the room as Jake sat with the kid that was no longer scared of him, rolling a purple firetruck of pure mana back and forth.\n\n\n“Have you ever considered getting kids of your own? I think you would do great,” Maja said with a smile.\n\n\nJake shook his head. “No… not really. And it isn’t something I plan on truly considering for a long time. It isn’t a simple decision. To me, for more reasons than most.”\n\n\nThe thought had appeared, primarily when he talked to Villy about Bloodline-related things. Jake knew it was called a Bloodline because of its hereditary elements… which meant there was a chance Jake’s children would have his Bloodline in some form or another. It was rare a direct copy for the more powerful ones, but just elements of it, and it was even possible he had a child with an improved version. For that reason, and the fact he was still a young bachelor with dreams of killing dragons, he had no plans to settle down anytime soon.\n\n\n“No pressure,” Maja shrugged. “I heard from Caleb you plan on becoming immortal, so you do have literally all the time in the world.”\n\n\n“That’s why I’ll never say never. Well, except just now,” Jake said with a cheeky smile.\n\n\nThey kept chatting a bit longer, Caleb out of the house to prepare for the upcoming event. Jake saw him enter the compound in his sphere just before an announcement appeared.\n\n\nSystem Announcement:\n\n\nThe Auction will begin in one hour. All participants of the Treasure Hunt can also attend the Auction. The Auction will be an opportunity to dispose of unwanted treasure and procure what you desire. A select few items will be provided directly by the system during the Auction based on Earth’s performance in the Treasure Hunt.\n\n\nNote that no fighting will be tolerated during the Auction, and the event will last for one full day. Further details will follow if you choose to participate in the Auction.\n\n\n“One hour for the Auction,” Jake said to Maja, who nodded in acknowledgment.\n\n\nIt was no doubt an important event and one Jake had been looking forward to somewhat. Mainly because he had a lot of Credits and liked new shiny things.\n\n\nBut… before that, he would sit down with his family and have a nice dinner as he knew it would be a while before he would come by again. They all knew, which is why Caleb had gotten things done early to be home.\n\n\nThe meal passed by uneventfully as they chatted and enjoyed each other’s company as time slowly ticked by, and soon it was time for the Auction to begin."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 359 chapter - Sorting Time\nTarget length: ~2900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Miyamoto sat in a chair with a cane at his side as he waited for the Auction to begin. Reika had gone to organize things while he had taken the opportunity to speak to a certain someone.\n\n\n“Embracing the gift will likely lead to an immediate reprieval if not outright healing of your current state of weakness, “ the former Monarch of Blood said as he stood beside him, looking out onto the field of flowers. The Sword Saint identified him as he still found his presence surprising.\n\n\n[Vampire – lvl 135]\n\n\nHe was still bound to the treasure and himself, too, as his level was the same as Miyamoto’s own. If he had regained them, that is. He had ‘gained’ a single level during this time through his Sword Meditation, but he would have to wait till he felt better to truly regain them.\n\n\nAs for becoming a vampire?\n\n\n“I have no desire to stop being human, and even if I did… as long as ambiguity as to ownership of the Legacy persists, I shall do nothing with it,” Miyamoto answered, shaking his head.\n\n\n“That ambiguity can even exist is baffling,” the vampire who Miyamoto had learned was called Iskar commented. “The Viper’s Chosen was not a simple foe, and pardon my judgment, but you were no match.”\n\n\nThe old man just smiled as he shook his head. “The change of seasons can bring about many surprises.”\n\n\nNeither of them spoke more as they just waited for the Auction to begin. The Legacy was currently bound to Miyamoto, but he was fully prepared to share it with Jake. As for handing it over? While the Sword Saint could not say with confidence, he had won…\n\n\nHe knew for a fact he hadn’t lost.\n\n\nThe arrow at the end had scratched the side of his head as he had managed to divert it by cutting the bow while twisting his neck, but he was also fully aware that he was a dead man walking even then. His wounds alone, much less the poison, would have been the death of him. He also knew he had been in a favorable arena… but he did not view that as a factor when determining a victor. He also knew Jake wouldn’t. A battle was a battle, and no matter the outcome, to blame everything on the circumstances surrounding it wasn’t something any fighter with respect for themselves would do.\n\n\nClosing his eyes, the old man smiled to himself as he knew both of them wanted a rematch sometime in the future… he just hoped he would be able to keep up.\n\n\nAnd knew he would do everything in his power to.\n\n\n”You got any idea how this entire event will function?” Jake asked as he stood in the courtyard and waited for the Auction to begin.\n\n\n“Through advanced research and pouring in every ounce of manpower the Court can afford, I believe it will be some kind of Auction where one can possibly buy and sell things,” Caleb answered cheekily. “In all seriousness, I believe a certain number of items can be set up for sale per person, and we will then bid on those afterward. Considering it lasts a day, I reckon there will be a lot of things to go through.”\n\n\n“I guess we’ll find out,” Jake just shrugged as he saw the timer slowly tick down towards zero. None of them said anything as the last ten seconds elapsed, and they both disappeared from Skyggen. His parents and Maja were still inside the house just behind them, the brothers having already said their temporary goodbyes.\n\n\nJake found himself standing in a massive hallway the next moment, with intricate carvings on the walls and ceiling. Soon after, many more figures appeared around him, all of them wearing similar dark clothes as he felt the faint dark affinity energy all around him.\n\n\nSo, I got teleported with all the folks from Skyggen, he chuckled a bit to himself. His brother Caleb appeared beside him, and to his other side, a man wearing a metal mask popped into existence.\n\n\n“Oh hey there, been a while,” Jake greeted the still somewhat disorientated KL he hadn’t seen since that Rubik’s cube during the Treasure Hunt.\n\n\nThe guy looked around and saw Jake stand with Caleb as KL answered, bluntly and surprised. “Oh damn, why are you here?”\n\n\n“Was visiting family; I’m surprised you didn’t know; I wasn’t subtle,” Jake said.\n\n\n“I’ve been holed up in my workshop preparing ever since returning… but good to see you, man!”\n\n\n“Likewise,” Jake answered. “I better head off to get to the folks from Haven. Cya Caleb, KL!”\n\n\nBefore he even gave them time to answer, he began using One Step Mile towards the group from Haven. As for how he knew where they were? Sylphie, of course.\n\n\nJust as he set off, a message appeared in front of him.\n\n\nSystem Announcement:\n\n\nWelcome to the Auction! This event will allow the denizens of Earth to sell and procure items obtained both before and during the Treasure Hunt using Credits.\n\n\nThe first hour will allow all participants to put up a certain number of items for sale based on their performance during the Treasure Hunt. Individuals with trade-related professions may put up additional items and are allowed to put up auction items for others, getting their assigned quota. Only items of rare rarity and above may be put up for auction. Final rewards will be given after the conclusion of the event based on the total value of items sold for all merchants (WARNING: This only pertains to those with trade-related professions).\n\n\nAfter the first hour, there will be a brief intermission. Afterward, phase two will begin with all rare rarity items sold. The subsequent phase will include all epic rarity items, phase three, ancient rarity items, and the final phase will include all legendary items and above. Between each phase, an intermission will be held. During intermissions, items can be put up for sale too.\n\n\nAfter the final phase, a bonus auction will be held with items extraordinarily rewarded due to the performance of Earth during the Treasure Hunt.\n\n\nNote: No fighting or violence will be tolerated during the Auction.\n\n\nJake read it over, and while no fighting was allowed, teleporting on the ceiling luckily still was as Jake zoomed through several halls as he began to get a lay of the land. The Auction area was a circle of halls with rooms on the outside and a large hall in the middle – what he assumed to be the auction hall.\n\n\nCurrently, the huge gates to the middle area were locked, but Jake could still see the other side with his sphere. The entire place was pretty large, but not exactly massive. He did pass a few groups and factions on the way, including Casper and the undead.\n\n\nShortly, he spotted the group from Haven, which he had to admit looked pretty damn poor compared to all the other major factions he had passed. It was just Miranda, Sultan, Sylphie, Arnold, Neil with his party, and a couple of folk Jake didn’t really know.\n\n\nIt wasn’t as if Haven was the only small faction as he passed a lot of small groups with only a handful in them, with even a few singular individuals walking about. In fact, these smaller groups were the vast majority. One must remember that even if the major factions were the most powerful quality-wise, the same couldn’t be ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ said about quantity, where the independent factions dominated.\n\n\nIt turns out that making yourself effectively subservient to some foreign god didn’t mesh that well with Earth’s culture from before the system, thus resulting in many unwilling to join. Who would have thunk?\n\n\nJake landed in front of Miranda and the others casually. He hadn’t even summoned his wings but just decided to run on the ceiling because, in his mind, that was a normal thing to do.\n\n\n“Lord Thayne,” Sultan greeted as the first person. “As we are pressed for time, should we hurry and go through items you wish to put up for sale?”\n\n\nHe quickly exchanged a look with Miranda, getting a nod. Jake agreed, and they quickly moved into one of the many side rooms.\n\n\nInside the room was a single large altar of sorts with nothing else around. Jake looked at it and instantly knew it was where one deposited items to be sold. Once they were all inside – all, in this case, being Miranda, Jake, Sylphie, and Sultan - they closed the door after them, which activated an enchantment locking it.\n\n\nSultan was there as the merchant, of course, and Jake came to learn that Miranda was there to make sure Jake didn’t put stuff up for sale that would be a lot more helpful for Haven to keep or to at least potentially counter-bid.\n\n\nAs for what he wanted to sell… well, he would just have to go through it one thing at a time. He had a lot of shit he really didn’t need or want, some of it from Vaults and killing Counts, Sylphie’s bounty from the Hunt, and some of it from… well, killing a large group of humans from the independent factions.\n\n\nHaving less than an hour, they got started right away.\n\n\nRare items? Fuck that noise; Jake didn’t want any of it besides the things he thought he could use for alchemy. It was only now he truly realized how much shit he had collected during all this time as he tossed out nearly two hundred rare weapons, armor pieces, and other items.\n\n\nMiranda vetoed some of it to keep for Haven, with Jake not having any complaints. She even promised to pay him for it using funds from Haven once possible, but Jake rejected it as, quite frankly… he didn’t care much for money, especially not what he assumed would only be small sums. A bit weird, considering he worked in finance before.\n\n\nMoving on to epic-rarity items, it got a bit more tricky as there were some things he actually wanted to keep and even more things Miranda wanted for Haven. It still ended up with Sultan getting around forty epic rarity things to put up for auction. He seemed happy with that.\n\n\nNow for the ancient rarity things. This is where it began to get real spicy as every single ancient rarity item was incredibly valuable. The first thing to address was the Altars and Coffins, which Jake chose not to address at all quite yet.\n\n\nHe still had to talk to the Sword Saint about things related to those due to their bet. While Jake did believe he had lost and wouldn’t contest the divine item, he still wanted to make sure and confirm with the old man before he made an executive decision. The same was true with the ancient rarity weapon that came from merging all the Count items.\n\n\nBut even then, he still had quite a lot.\n\n\nJake began going through them, and soon they came to one of the first ancient rarity items he had gained from the Hunt.\n\n\n[Nalkar Crown of the Dominant Mind (Ancient)] – A crown created by a powerful crafter from the Nalkar vampire line. The crown is made of an unknown metal and is extremely durable. A processed heart of a powerful Nalkar Vampire is embedded in it, soaking it with magical powers. The Nalkar Heart enhances all mind, illusion, and phantasmal-based magic. Passively grants resistance to all mind-affecting magic while worn. Enchantments: +200 Willpower, +150 Wisdom, +100 Intelligence. Dominant Mind of the Nalkar.\n\n\nRequirements: lvl 130+ in any humanoid race.\n\n\nMiranda looked at it for a bit before she meekly asked: “I… this may be presumptuous, but-“\n\n\nJake looked at the crown and then at Miranda as a lightbulb lit up in his head. “Sure, just take it.”\n\n\nIt gave exactly the stats Miranda needed for her class, boosted mental magic, which she had quite a bit of, and gave her resistance against mental attacks. She also sorely needed to not get screwed over by other city lords or just in-general manipulative assholes. Like Sultan, who looked a bit miffed at seeing her claim it. She had already taken the epic-rarity wand that kinda fits with the crown, and Jake got the impression that mind-altering items were in high demand.\n\n\nMoving on, he went over some more items, most of which were put up for sale. None of it was anything Jake wanted, and while someone from Haven could probably use them, Jake didn’t really want to just randomly hand them out. Miranda also didn’t want to go overboard and claim anything that didn’t benefit the city directly.\n\n\nHowever, it all got a bit complicated when they reached a certain item. Or, more accurately, a set of items.\n\n\n[Akashic Tome of the Fulgarian Depthcaller (Unique)] – Allows the user to acquire the class Fulgarian Depthcaller if compatible.\n\n\nRequirements: Lvl 99-199 in any class. Compatible user.\n\n\n[Storage Orb of the Fulgarian Depthcaller (Ancient)] – A storage orb containing items to assist a Fulgarian Depthcaller, including equipment and guidance. This orb is near-indestructible by anyone below A-grade, and any item within will be destroyed if the orb is.\n\n\nRequirements: Fulgarian Depthcaller\n\n\nIt was stuff from the water level Vault, and quite frankly, Jake had borderline forgotten about it, primarily because he really had no idea what to use it for. A part of him also wanted to just forget that entire shitty experience.\n\n\n“Do you have any other information on it?” Sultan asked as he inspected the tome and orb with extreme interest.\n\n\nJake searched his inventory and found the book describing it. He handed it to Sultan, who only placed his hand on it for a moment as his eyes seemed to glow and a greedy smile appeared on his lips. “An A-tier Legacy class...”\n\n\nHe turned to Miranda, who looked conflicted as she spoke. “Jake, this is a very valuable item… are you certain you wanna sell it? I am certain we can find someone from Haven who needs it, if not now, then in the future.”\n\n\n“You know what?” Jake said after thinking a bit. “Just sell it. I’m not going to hand out expensive classes to people, and besides… do we really care? Do we truly have people who are loyal to Haven and won’t just leave? No, better put it on the market and at least earn some Credits. Shit, I’m not even sure I want people loyal to Haven, and if they want great classes, they can always get them themselves.”\n\n\nMiranda nodded in acknowledgment. “Very well.”\n\n\n“Speaking of which, I got one more of them,” Jake said as he fished out another massive tome, this one quite a bit older than the Treasure Hunt.\n\n\n[Akashic Tome of the Lucenti Mage (Unique)] – Allows the user to acquire the class Lucenti Mage if compatible.\n\n\nRequirements: Lvl 24-99 in any class. Compatible user.\n\n\nSultan looked at the book in shock when he summoned it as he muttered. “How in the hell did you get two?”\n\n\n“I kill a lot of things,” Jake just answered. “Anyway, how about this one?”\n\n\n“Hm…” Sultan said as he looked at it. “I do not have a compatible appraisal skill, so I cannot tell you the tier of it, and without that… It’s risky. If it’s only a D-tier Legacy item – the lowest tier – it’s not worth much at all, while if it’s S-tier or above S-tier? Then I would be hesitant to even sell it.”\n\n\n“What do those tiers even mean?” Jake asked, genuinely confused.\n\n\n“An S-tier Legacy will have a defined path all the way from the current grade you get it and to S-tier, making every evolution far simpler, and often you have well-defined methods to progress and improve. Meanwhile, a D-tier Legacy will only allow you one well-defined evolution. The higher a tier, the better the class or profession will also be during each step, and the most powerful ones even have many variants per level, with the most powerful having near-infinite. The most numerous evolutionary Legacy-system is the ones created by the Holy Church, and they often hand out many tomes to those they judge worth it. Worth it and compatible. Anyway… as said, selling this tome will be risky,” Sultan just shook his head.\n\n\n“If I may,” Miranda said. “While it may be a risk… Lillian has quite a high affinity for light magic and likely even this Lucenti magic… so we may consider allowing her to use it? She is already a caster, and her current class is not exactly powerful.”\n\n\nJake considered a bit as he asked. “Does she even want to progress her class and fight?”\n\n\nFrom his knowledge, she seemed to only do administrative and city-related work every day, and he couldn’t even remember ever seeing her fight. Heck, back during the whole Minotaur Mindchief debacle, she hadn’t even gotten on the wall and fired any spells.\n\n\n“That is something we should talk to her about if we wish to offer it,” Miranda recognized with a nod.\n\n\n“So, let us shelf it for now,” Sultan came in. “I must remind you, we are pressed for time, so please, let us move on swiftly.”\n\n\nSo pushy,Jake thought jokingly as they moved on, and soon they finished going through all the ancient-rarity items and moved on to the most interesting part:\n\n\nLegendaries."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 360 chapter - To sell or not to sell, that is the question\nTarget length: ~3100 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Ah, legendary items. Everybody loved them, not a lot had them. Jake himself only used a single one actively with it smack on his face, while he knew many didn’t have one at all. For equipment, crafting legendary items was often difficult as the required materials were often not viewed as worth it, especially for those at lower ranks. Why pour a large number of resources into making a weapon for a genius that will only use it for a few years at most, especially considering that weapon may risk becoming a crutch? And if you give it to those weaker, the value of the item will be lost if they die in many cases.\n\n\nThis meant most legendary items were actually auxiliary ones or Soulbound. After all, a good cauldron could be used for many, many years, if not your entire life. The same was true for items for blacksmiths or whatnot to use during their crafting processes. In turn, this also meant these items were often much more expensive.\n\n\nThe second reason an item would be made legendary was for the pure prestige of it and to prove it truly was a valuable item. This is where we got to the first Legendary for Jake, Sultan, and Miranda to consider.\n\n\n[High-tier Alchemy Token of the Malefic Order (Legendary)] – A token created by the Order of the Malefic Viper. This token represents a deal made with the Nalkar vampire line to grant a set number of the Nalkar Clan vampires membership to the Order and includes a set number of benefits. This token has never been turned in, and doing so may lead to certain rewards. Gives off an aura that encourages growth in toxic alchemical products.\n\n\n“I apologize… but I do not think it wise to even attempt to sell that,” Sultan said, shaking his head. “Even if it isn’t you selling it, I doubt anyone will want it considering your status within the Order. Enemies will know you can make the reward meaningless, and allies will see no true value. The neutral would probably prefer to stay off your radar and not risk it big by spending a vast amount of Credits on the token.”\n\n\n“No problem, I didn’t really plan on selling it anyway,” Jake said with a shrug. Which reminded him, he had totally forgotten to ask Villy about it. Would have to do that after the Auction event.\n\n\nAnyway, back to the topic of why an item would be legendary. Before, it was about why someone would make it legendary. The thing is, natural treasures didn’t really decide what they wanted to be; they just were their rarity based on their Records. Natural treasures also included what dropped from rare or powerful creatures. Such as vampires.\n\n\n[Nalkar Vampire Heart (Legendary)] – The heart of a powerful C-grade Nalkar Vampire. This type of vampire is a rare variant with extremely high innate abilities in illusion and mind magic. It often possesses a larger reserve of blood energy than most other vampires. The rarity is higher due to the high innate talent of the Nalkar Vampire that left behind this heart. Has many alchemical uses.\n\n\n“I’m keeping that,” Jake just said, not leaving anything up for discussion. He did not have a shadow of doubt in his mind that he could find uses for the Heart in alchemy at some point. Also, it would feel kinda weird to sell, considering how he got it.\n\n\nWith nothing to discuss, they moved on.\n\n\n[Safebox of Perennial Sustainability (Legendary)] – A cube containing a spatial storage within, specially made to store items of high value safely. The cube can be manipulated and a password set. Due to the construction of the cube, it is near-indestructible by anyone below S-grade, and if the item is destroyed, a space storm will be released. The time of all items will be frozen within, and mana leakage will be severely alleviated. Mana leakage is nullified entirely for lower-value goods. The difficulty of the password is determined by the user.\n\n\n“Haven is keeping that,” Miranda said, getting an annoyed scowl from Sultan and a thumbs-up from Jake.\n\n\nNext!\n\n\n[Paint Brush of Ephemeral Power (Legendary)] – A brush made from the wood of an ancient tree with a powerful time-affinity. The concept of time has been further amplified by using the hair of a C-grade Temporal Fox variant. All paintings or illustrations made by this brush will hold significantly higher effects; however, they will also cease to be within a short amount of time. Allows the user to release a blast of Ephemeral Power, having unpredictable effects based on the last five creations made using this brush. This effect cannot cause direct harm to others.\n\n\nRequirements: lvl 140+ in any humanoid race.\n\n\nSultan looked expectedly at him for a moment before Jake spoke. “Sell.”\n\n\nThe man happily took it to be sold as they went on with their work.\n\n\n[Dewstone of Serenity (Legendary)] – A small stone created by the combined effort of a group of water nymphs to help heal a close friend. A powerful vampire eventually acquired this stone and brought it to Yalsten, where it has been ever since. Will passively transform surrounding water by infusing the power of serenity into it. Effect lessens, and transformation progresses slower the larger the pool of water. Has many alchemical uses.\n\n\n“Gonna be real honest, I just got an idea what to use it for right here and now, which is a nice way of saying I’m keeping it,” Jake said shamelessly, not giving any pause as they went to the next item.\n\n\n[Supreme Carbonic Focusing Catalyst (Legendary)] – This item is made of a rare type of carbon and is known to be able to bond and mix with most other materials in existence, making it incredibly potent as a catalyst in most crafting endeavors. This Carbonic Focusing Catalyst is of extremely high quality and has absorbed affinity-less mana to allow itself to grow for countless years, making it reach legendary rarity. Has a wide variety of uses in alchemical creations and will increase the power of most crafts where this item is used as a catalyst.\n\n\n“Keeping it?” Sultan asked half-rhetorically, knowing it was just a damn good item for pretty much any crafter.\n\n\n“Keeping it.”\n\n\nNext up: something Jake did not keep.\n\n\n[Forgestone of Eternal Embers (Legendary)] – A Forgestone infused with incredible quantities of fire-affinity mana. The concept of embers burns strongly within this stone, never allowing the flame ever truly to die out. Unknown alchemical uses.\n\n\nMiranda looked like she wanted to keep it for Haven but did not say anything as Jake looked at Sultan. “Go ahead.”\n\n\nSultan was happy.\n\n\nNow, the third-to-last legendary item was a bit… complicated.\n\n\n[Orrery of the Godless One (Legendary)] – An orrery made by a man who refused to acknowledge any gods during his life but only viewed the celestial concept as worthy of being recognized as divine. This orrery will passively map out all nearby celestial objects and give insight into their basic properties. This effect is entirely passive and cannot be altered by outside means, and may take a significant amount of time. This effect bypasses all attempts to hide or mask these celestial objects done by anything below divine-level skills.\n\n\nJake was honestly unsure what to do with it, but he also felt like it could be useful. Sultan looked at him with high expectations. Thinking on it a bit further, Jake reached a conclusion.\n\n\n“Sell it.”\n\n\nWhat ultimately made him decide to sell it was the fact it was a scouting tool created to map out a territory. Jake already had something he believed more reliable for that: his eyes. Jake was going the full-perception-build; it would be shameful to embrace auxiliary tools!\n\n\nAlso… if it maps out celestial objects and takes a long time, Jake could always just be a sneaky little boy and break in and look at it anyway. He would probably even be allowed to visit and look at it if someone he knew bought it. Considering how he knew most of the people with a lot of dough, it likely be an aquantance.\n\n\nFinally, they reached the second-to-last legendary item. These last two were not ones obtained by Jake himself, but the little green ball of feathers with him, who proudly puffed herself up as the first one was revealed.\n\n\n[Supreme Escape Token (Legendary)] – A token once given to genius members of the vampiric race of Yalsten to keep them safe when venturing outside of their world. This token allows the user to escape a dangerous situation by merely infusing mana into it and activating the emergency escape feature. The emergency escape immediately teleports the user to a distant place divined to be safe. Additionally, a spatial anchor can be placed at any place and then be teleported back to if within range. All effects besides placing an anchor can only be used a total of three times. Uses remaining: 3/3\n\n\nSultan looked at Jake, but Jake just pointed to Sylphie, who had been standing on top of his head throughout the entire thing. “Ask her; she’s the owner.”\n\n\nLooking even smugger than before, Sylphie looked at Sultan for a bit before she graciously allowed Jake to decide what to do with it. He quickly asked if she wanted it, and she clearly didn’t. As for Jake?\n\n\n“Would it not be wise to keep this item with you in case of danger?” Miranda said with some concern. “It will allow you to explore more risky areas and still have a safe backup to escape. You know, insurance.”\n\n\nThose words convinced him.\n\n\n“Yeah, sell that crap.”\n\n\nHow boring would it be to carry a get-out-of-jail-free card around with you at all times? It was the whole “don’t resurrect me if I die, Villy” situation all over again. Less risk just made life less interesting and fun. Jake didn’t want to have a probably overpowered escape token ready at all times and walk around with that knowledge in the back of his mind. If he picked a fight, he couldn’t escape himself or win… well, good riddance, he would deserve to be screwed.\n\n\nSultan looked extremely delighted at his decision as he gladly took the small token. Next-up was the final legendary item which had also been procured by Sylphie.\n\n\n[Supreme Illusiary Defense Array Disc (Legendary)] – An array disc created by a powerful B-grade Nalkar vampire in Yalsten to hide her personal residence from the outside world and defend it. While it has degraded in power with time, the magic circle itself still persists. Allows the user to make the Array Disc expand and take the form of a large illusionary defensive barrier that can cover a vast area. The barrier will block both magical and physical attacks from the outside, and any living things entering it will find themselves stuck in an illusory world. Requires a power source. WARNING: Due to degradation, the disc will break after placing down the Array.\n\n\nJake really had no comments on this one at all, and neither did Sylphie as they both turned their [N O V E L I G H T] heads to Miranda simultaneously with questioning gazes.\n\n\n“I will admit, this could be very useful for Haven,” Miranda commented. “We do not currently have any defensive barrier in neither the Fort nor at Haven itself. We mostly rely on the deterrence of beasts due to the… nature of the area. Also, while I do have some defensive means with help from the Pylon… we are lacking if any determined invader comes. We are especially in a bad spot versus humans.”\n\n\nNodding, Jake acknowledged that they really didn’t have anything against humans. Heck, Sultan even nodded in agreement as the man had just broken in no problem only noticed due to his big flying merchant ship. Jake also knew most other cities had barriers.\n\n\nSkyggen – both of them – knew he was there pretty damn quickly, and he only managed to sneak into the second Skyggen due to his arcane barrier and Pride masking his presence. But, even then, he had clearly triggered something based on how quickly he was found. Oh, and for some reason, his brother refused to tell him their internal security system details.\n\n\nSultan had been silent on the matter but also added his comment: “I am not going to lie, I have a hard time determining the value of this Array. The item is clearly valuable, but the customer base may not need it. Most major factions, who will also be the primary capital holders, already have barriers or inherited methods from their divine heritages to defend their cities.\n\n\n“To add to that, this barrier may be worse for them. Perhaps not in the short term, but in the long run. As an example, the Holy Church requires barriers with holy energy and sets up an intricate network of magic circles working together. As they grow, they can empower and add on new elements, with the barriers also empowering those with holy power within. Similar situations are present at other factions. The only major faction I could see needing this is the Noboru Clan, but having one major buyer is far from ideal in an auction-based setting.”\n\n\n“I guess that answers it then,” Jake said.\n\n\n“We must remember that items can also be put up during the intermissions, and with this time, I can also try to probe for interest related to some of the items we chose to not put up for sale. Perhaps even make us reconsider some of the things we have chosen to put up for sale,” Sultan explained, Miranda nodding along.\n\n\nWith the final legendary item sold, they began going over some other things. Because Sultan was not only interested in selling things for Jake but also buying them, and if he was being candid, then he was totally fine with that. Not having to sit there and bid yourself? Fuck yeah. Jake still wanted to bid himself on equipment of any kind but rare alchemy ingredients? Sultan could go all-out himself there.\n\n\nJake also considered one item that he believed probably fell into the same category as the Array in that there was perhaps only one potential buyer. The Root of Eternal Resentment.\n\n\n[Root of Yalsten’s Eternal Resentment (Unique)] – A wooden root from an unknown tree that has absorbed the curse energies of the black mist that has hung over Yalsten for unnumerable years. The deep and eternal resentment towards the vampires that permeates the curse has now been absorbed and concentrated. After absorbing nearly all the mist within Yalsten, it has begun to take on properties of the hidden world, allowing it to help other curses grow in power faster. With the destruction of Yalsten, the curse is aimless yet remains more powerful than ever. Unknown alchemical uses.\n\n\nOut of all the items he had yoinked from the Treasure Hunt, this was potentially the most valuable overall. However, for the average joe, what the fuck would they use some old root with an incredibly powerful curse within for?\n\n\nThe description had also changed a bit since the last time, with all references to vampires gone as apparently the energy of the curse was now rather aimless. That didn’t mean he knew what to use it for, and he had already planned on getting in a room with Casper to talk about it during an intermission. What he did know, however, was that he was not giving it away for free. Because oh damn, did it give off an aura.\n\n\n“Do you have more?” Sultan said with some expectations.\n\n\nJake thought for a while as he went over what he had in his storage. One item suddenly popped up, as he remembered the one he had absorbed in his Palate of the Malefic Viper: the ancient rarity Suncore Fragment he had gained after killing his second Prima.\n\n\nYet the moment he remembered it, a flood of knowledge also came as the idea of selling it instantly evaporated. During the time he had it absorbed, Jake had slowly gained knowledge related to it, and one of the things he had learned was a potential use for the Core. A use many alchemists did throughout time:\n\n\nMake an artificial sun.\n\n\nNot a big one, just a small sun. He recalled the Challenge Dungeon and the sun in the garden there, and the knowledge clicked together as he knew that the sun back then had also just been an item with an incredibly high level of sun affinity. Sun affinity was a mix between life, fire, light, and a bunch of other stuff Jake couldn’t fully pinpoint quite yet without spending a while delving into Sagacity, but he did know a sun was more or less mandatory for many herbs.\n\n\nA plan to transform the Core into a small sun and use it down in his alchemist lab was already formulated as he reminded himself to also see if he could buy any items during this Auction to make that possible.\n\n\nReturning his attention to the present, Jake just shook his head. “Nope, that should be it.”\n\n\nThe merchant nodded as he took out a contract. “Now for the trade agreement.”\n\n\nIt was only a single page – primarily due to how it was written with mini-words – and it only took Jake a few seconds to see and understand it all.\n\n\n“Why the hell do you take a one Credit fee per transaction?” Jake asked with confusion.\n\n\n“If not, it would be charity, and I am not running a charity,” Sultan just said with a wry smile. “As for taking a higher fee, that would risk a healthy future partnership, so I keep them as low as possible for the time being. Besides, if I buy anything, it will be with your Credits, but the experience and rewards from the event will be all mine.”\n\n\n“Sounds like I’m being taken advantage of,” Jake answered cheekily.\n\n\n“We are taking advantage of each other,” Sultan answered before quickly realizing the words could be misinterpreted. “Professionally, of course.”\n\n\n“Professionally,” Jake agreed.\n\n\nThey swiftly finished up the contract, did another inspection of some of the items, as Sultan put them up for sale using all of his merchant powers to hopefully make sure Jake wouldn’t get scammed and end up selling a legendary for a dozen credits.\n\n\nSoon, the first hour had passed, and it was time for the first phase of the actual auctioning to begin."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 361 chapter - The Auction (Read: Alchemy) Begins!\nTarget length: ~2700 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "System Announcement:\n\n\nThe initial phase of the Auction has concluded. A brief intermission of fifteen minutes will be held before the true Auction begins, starting with all rare rarity items. The central hall will now unlock, and anyone present during an ongoing auction will be able to participate and bid through a provided interface.\n\n\nBased on performance, certain individuals will have private booths available.\n\n\nTime remaining: 14:59\n\n\nAs Jake, Miranda, Sultan, and Sylphie left the side room, the message appeared. They were soon joined by the others from Haven, who had also split up to enter other rooms, as they all walked straight across the hallway and into the central chamber.\n\n\nMost of them didn’t have any items to put up for sale, as Jake came to learn. Not because they didn’t have anything, but because during the week Jake had spent traveling and with family, Sultan had meticulously sought out every D-grade in Haven he considered worth approaching to act as a middle-man.\n\n\nEntering the central chamber, Jake quickly surveyed it. It was massive as expected, with a small podium in the middle. Around it was countless chairs at increasingly elevated levels, making it look more like a congressional hall.\n\n\nEven higher up than any of the normal seating were the aforementioned booths, with Jake seeing a total of seventeen of them. They were all fairly large and looked like the entire front of them was a glass panel to give a full view of the whole hall. The weird thing was that Jake saw no way to get into them. No doors or openings of any kind.\n\n\nJake wondered which one was his and how to get in as another message appeared before him:\n\n\nCongratulations, you have earned a private booth due to your performance in the Treasure Hunt. Simply will for yourself to enter it any time you are within the central chamber, and you will be teleported. You may also invite others to join you within the private booth and choose to kick them out if you so choose.\n\n\nWell, that seems easy enough, Jake thought. But, before he even went, Sylphie disappeared from atop his head, with Jake becoming completely unable to feel her presence anywhere. Jake swiftly willed himself to go to the booth and appeared within it, having a small hawk land on his head less than a second later.\n\n\nThe booth was incredibly spacious and far larger inside than outside, no doubt due to spatial expansion. There were a few hundred chairs and dozens of comfortable sofas within, with the huge window at the front allowing one to get a panoramic view of the central chamber. If Jake had to guess, then the booth could probably hold a few thousand people without any issues. Not that Jake wanted that many.\n\n\n“Now, who should we invite,” Jake muttered as he naturally sent one to Miranda and Sultan both, considering one was Miranda and the other was his acting merchant.\n\n\nWithin a second, they both appeared, and Jake thought a bit more as he also invited Neil with his entire party, as well as Arnold. All of them accepted near-instantly, with Neil and his party offering thanks and Arnold just giving him a nod as he found a chair to sit in off to the side, pulling out a small weird orb he began tinkering with.\n\n\nJake went to the window and saw people mull into the hall. He saw Casper enter and instantly disappear as he no-doubt also went to a booth. The same was true for others, including Eron, and even people from the Holy Church, despite their not-so-good end to the Treasure Hunt.\n\n\nHis brother also had his own booth, with even a few independents he saw disappear as they had apparently done well enough to earn themselves a booth. Carmen, with the people from Valhal, also naturally had one.\n\n\nThen he spotted a few people making way as the crowd split to reveal two figures. Reika walked along with an old man using a cane as he took small steps. Jake narrowed his eyes as he saw the backlash of the Transcendent skill so clearly. The Saint looked and felt weak, but at the same time, his gaze was as sharp if not sharper than ever before, and even as he walked with a cane, he gave off an aura making no one dare try to start something.\n\n\nHe had barely entered the hall as he also disappeared to his own private booth along with Reika and a slew of other people he assumed were from his clan. Yet before he disappeared, Jake spotted the small mark on the side of his head just above his left ear - a small scar left by Jake’s arrow during the final moments.\n\n\nJake brought his hand up to the scar still on his own neck too. Scars after the system were not as before. They didn’t need to exist but could easily heal… but there were instances where they would remain anyway. If the one with the scar willed for them to stay, evolution and healing could not and would not remove them, but there were also circumstances where a scar held certain meaning or implications. In Jake’s case, it was a reminder, and he had a feeling it was for the old man too. Also, curses could cause them, but this was not one such case.\n\n\nAs he stood there, he noticed two people walk in he instantly recognized.\n\n\nIt was a large man in a robe walking with a familiar staff together with a lithe woman. It was the elemental mage Roman and the dual-wielding rogue from the Rubik’s Cube Vault – or Roman and Felicia if one was more a fan of names.\n\n\nJake was a bit surprised by seeing them together, and without really thinking much, he just sent them both an invitation making them both stop on the spot. They looked at each other and exchanged a few words as they both disappeared only to appear in the booth.\n\n\nThey were briefly disorientated before they both spotted him. Jake had already made his mask invisible by now, and even if he couldn’t remember if they had ever seen his face before, his aura was no doubt recognizable.\n\n\n“Yo, long time no see!” Roman greeted happily as Felicia gave a more subtle greeting.\n\n\n“It’s only been like two weeks,” Jake rightfully correctly him.\n\n\n“Felt like an eternity to ma poor heart,” Roman joked as he went over, finally [N O V E L I G H T] seeing the others in the room. “Oi, hey there, the name’s Roman, and this is my gal Felicia!”\n\n\nFelicia shifted her legs a bit as he also introduced herself. “Pleasure to make your acquaintances.”\n\n\nMiranda tossed Jake a look as he explained. “We met during a puzzle Vault and solved it together, to then get ambushed by those independent factions. Quite the bonding experience and we talked about them coming to Haven after too.”\n\n\n“Ah,” Miranda said as she introduced herself. “Pleasure to meet you two; I am Miranda, the city leader of Haven, and on account of the city, you two would be more than welcome to come. We are always open to more powerful D-grades.”\n\n\nJake decided to identify them while they exchanged pleasantries, and he saw Roman had actually made some damn good progress.\n\n\n[Human – lvl 125]\n\n\nHe then saw the staff the guy carried around as he put two and two together. Roman had just been able to use the staff and now carried it around like it was his child. He knew for a fact the guy had spatial storage. But, being kind, Jake chose to not tease him. At least not about that.\n\n\n“So… you two?” Jake said teasingly to Roman.\n\n\n“Aye!” he instantly agreed with not a single trace of shame or embarrassment. “Me an the lass worked together after that damn cube and been thick as thieves ever since!”\n\n\nHe put his arm around Felicia or at least tried to as a palm to the face held him back. Because while he was utterly shameless, Felicia was a bit more of the reserved type as she answered with her hand still on Roman’s chin: “We work well together…”\n\n\nJake just chuckled as he invited them to stay in the room as they talked a bit about how they spent the rest of the Hunt. Apparently, the two of them had gone on for a few more days, mainly just hunting things, until they finally came to a Vault with no one else around.\n\n\nThat Vault had proven to be a bit too far above their abilities and made them both leave the Hunt. Interestingly enough, they had been in physical contact with each other while leaving the Hunt, making them both end up in the same place once out. Afterward, they concluded this was likely due to them both not joining from any city, as the same didn’t seem true for others. They had also both gotten lucky as fuck and managed to hold on, so they left right at the time the Monarch was triggered, allowing them to keep all their stuff.\n\n\nAs they finished up their conversation, the timer slowly reached zero as the first phase of the Auction officially began.\n\n\nSystem Announcement:\n\n\nThe first phase of the Auction has now begun, where all rare rarity items will be sold off. All items will be listed with a set minimum bidding price by the seller, as well as a potential buyout price, allowing anyone to instantly buy the item.\n\n\nThere are a total of 84,913 listings of rare items for sale during this first phase of the Auction. These items will be posted in batches of five hundred a time at two-minute intervals.\n\n\nOnce all items have been posted, there will be a period of one hour before all bidding ends. Items will be posted in order of minimum bets and buyout price. Any item not bought at the end of this phase will be returned to the original seller.\n\n\nThe first batch will be posted in two minutes.\n\n\nJake skimmed the message as he did some quick maths.\n\n\nWith five hundred items every two minutes, it would take approximately three hundred and forty minutes to post them all, and with the extra hour, it would be a total of around four hundred minutes. In easier terms, six hours and forty minutes or so with a constant barrage of rare items.\n\n\nThank Villy for high stats, Jake thought, with everyone else no doubt thinking something similar. Five hundred items every two minutes, or more than four a second, did seem extreme, but honestly? It was manageable if you put your mind to it and focused only on going through them without any distractions. Jake for sure could do it, and he had a feeling merchants were especially suited for the task.\n\n\nAs for Sultan, he did not hesitate for a moment as he hurried over to a chair and took out his usual small black book as he sat down and closed his eyes to enter meditation. The others around him did the same as they found chairs or just sat on the floor, even the otherwise unserious Roman shifting his mood.\n\n\nJake himself also found a comfortable chair and moved it to the large window panel as he stared down at the massive hall where he saw tens of thousands in total. Even then, Jake was certain many factions had not brought everyone, or not everyone was in the hall. This is without mentioning the many people in the booths too.\n\n\nAs he sat there looking out, the first batch came. An interface appeared before him, looking straight out of a videogame auction system. But an improved VR version. He could even mentally categorize items, and just by thinking about what he wanted to see, they appeared.\n\n\nYet, just as they appeared, a few also began disappearing as they were bought out. The bidding numbers rapidly began climbing on nearly everything. He also pretty much confirmed that the information about an item was based on your ability to Identify them based on the descriptions.\n\n\nBut a few items also had small notes or descriptions left by the seller, and there were even a few bundles of items. Checking everything, he did not find much interesting but did begin to get an idea of the prices. They seemed to mainly be in the tens of thousands to a hundred thousand for rare items, but he did also see some reach over a million. These were primarily those auxiliary tools, and the most expensive of the rare items was going for over one million and two hundred thousand. Coincidentally, it was a cauldron.\n\n\nJake was a bit shocked at the high prices and decided to check his own Credit balance to see how much he actually had, and…\n\n\nCredits Available: 239,777,158\n\n\nWell… it was higher than expected? Jake had to admit he was more than a little surprised at having earned over a hundred million Credits since the last time he checked. Sure, he had sold a lot of stuff through Lillian on the System Store, including a buttload of potions, each one going for sometimes upwards of a hundred thou-\n\n\nOh, now it suddenly made a lot more sense. Sure, he had also spent a bit, but he was still way up since leaving the Tutorial. As he sat there, he even saw the number go up by around four hundred thousand as no doubt one of his many items was sold, with the contract immediately activating and Sultan giving him his funds.\n\n\nA new batch soon appeared, and Jake quickly skimmed it and found nothing of interest there either. Well, besides the alchemy stuff. But most things could not be outright bought out but required one to bid, and quite frankly, Jake had no patience to sit and keep track of potentially thousands of items for over six hours.\n\n\nHe still kept up for two more batches as Jake just shook his head, not bothering anymore. Instead, he took out his cauldron and decided to make some money. No rules had said you can’t directly trade in between the bidding sessions, so why not grind out a mass of potions during this time?\n\n\nHe was joined by Sylphie, who didn’t bid on anything. Probably because she didn’t have any money. Jake sat close to the glass as he summoned his cauldron and got to work. Jake had not been crafting anything ever since before the Treasure Hunt, and even back then, he nearly exclusively made elixirs. Would elixirs potentially make him more money to make? Maybe, but Jake honestly had a feeling potions would sell better simply due to their high demand and consumption. Meanwhile, he doubted a lot of major factions would spend a lot on elixirs, as he was certain they already had other alchemists able to make them.\n\n\nEven if Jake could make better elixirs giving five stats instead of three… it didn’t matter. No, better make potions where the numbers just went up based on how good he had gotten. Besides, there was a final reason he wanted to make potions.\n\n\nEven before, Jake had begun integrating his own arcane mana to faster break down the ingredients in a fast yet quick and stable way, but now his skills had grown even more. Even ignoring his awakened Arcane Awakening, he had just improved his control in every way.\n\n\nWith that in mind, Jake decided to go all out as he began his first crafting session in a while, in the middle of a monumental auction event everyone else was deeply immersed in.\n\n\nWell, besides Sylphie. She instead began doing some weird magic practice of her own, looking damn cute while doing it."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Runesmith — a LitRPG progression fantasy. It was getting late, the street lights flickered around while someone coughed in the distance. The wind howled while people were trying to get to their homes. Little drops of water started appearing on the glass windows, followed by gentle tapping. A certain man was sitting in a lit room, holding what looked to be a soldering iron. His hair was slightly unkempt and you could see a reflection of some kind of schematic coming of the glasses he was wearing.\n\n## Main Character\nName: He | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Roland, Baron, I'm\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Common,  Main ,  Secondary ,  Highest , Temporary, High,  Temporary )\n\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (35% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 441 – Defeating Cerberus.\nTarget length: ~3100 words\nKey events: dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "I would like to officially inform all my readers that I have started writing a new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] You can probably figure out what it's about from the title and hope you give it a try. If you like Runesmith, then I think that you will enjoy it as well. There aren't that many chapters out yet but I hope you all follow it for later and if you are inclined to, give a nice rating :D\n\n\nAs Roland stood there, surveying the aftermath of his devastating attack, the Baskerville brothers faced a grim reality. Their confident demeanor was shattered and replaced by a sense of uncertainty. The balance of power had shifted in favor of the man in the runic armor and they knew it.\n\nWith Ulfine incapacitated and Thunderclaw slain, the brothers were left to confront Roland alone. Despite their prowess as Knight Commanders, they were facing an opponent with a self-restoring golem army. He had also managed to outmaneuver them at every turn and potentially had another ace up his sleeve.\n\nRoman, Elythaes, and Andreas exchanged wary glances, silently communicating their next move. They knew they couldn't afford to underestimate Roland any longer. Despite their numerical disadvantage they had to find a way to overcome this formidable foe. Their lives depended on it and they had to give it all.\n\n“We need to come up with a strategy, this isn’t someone we can defeat without proper tactics…”\n\n“What do you propose?”\n\n“We can't let him dictate the pace of this battle. We need to find a weakness and exploit it.”\n\n“He's a mage but casts spells without any chanting, he doesn’t seem like he lost much mana since the battle started, does that monster even have a weakness?”\n\nThe three were starting to realize that their opponent wasn’t quite normal. He was certainly not a regular rune mage, more than likely he was a special class holder that they had no information on. They had made a blunder by not doing their research and believing in their skills a bit too much.\n\n“He is still at the same tier as we are and we outnumber him, those golems are nothing more than a distraction, we need to aim for him, even if it will cost us…”\n\n“You mean?”\n\nElythaes nodded at Roman who had a disgruntled look on his face. It seemed that he knew what his brother was insinuating. They needed to focus all of their best skills and techniques on a single opponent. Fighting the golems first would be a mistake as they didn’t know how many times they could be restored. Fleeing was also not an option as the man already showcased his recording technology. If word got out of what they did, the ramifications of their actions would be dire.\n\n“Fine, but you better pay for the elixir after this is over, Andreas take the lead, I’ll be right behind you and we’ll do it together.”\n\nThe third brother didn’t even nod and remained silent. It seemed that the three had some sort of plan, one that would put two of them in danger. Andreas, the youngest brother, stepped forward with his halberd held firmly in hand. His eyes locked on his target, an armored man surrounded by a purple haze. Roman followed closely behind, his body vanishing as the charge commenced.\n\nThe two were met with a salvo of energy beams from the reformed golem army. The darkened dungeon that was filled with swamp water and mist was now illuminated. Even if there were a few dungeon monsters there, they were instantly eradicated by the constant rays of concentrated mana. Yet, they were not enough to stop the advance of these two men.\n\nAndreas, who was like a bull, continued to charge while allowing himself to get hit by these projectiles. At first, it seemed that they were hitting his body but instead, a strange phenomenon was taking place. The projectiles bent at the last moment and collided with his shield. It was as if they were being sucked into it through the use of some kind of skill. The shield, which was thick and sturdy, was robust enough to take hundreds of magical collisions.\n\nRoman on the other hand used a different approach. His speed was extraordinary and he continued to evade each attack with graceful movements. He weaved between the beams, relying on his agility and reflexes to dodge the onslaught. His strategy was to get close enough to Roland to unleash his most devastating techniques and keep him busy long enough for their plan to work.\n\nAs the two Baskerville knights charged their leader remained standing in the background. He was also getting some attention from the golems but not as much. It was clear that he was waiting for his two allies to give him an opening and only then would he utilize his strongest technique. While this plan was quite rudimentary and their opponent had mostly seen through what they were up to, it didn’t mean that it would fail.\n\n‘Did they finally start to take me seriously?’\n\nRoland thought to himself while accepting the challenge. At this point, he was mostly aware of their capabilities but he couldn’t relax. He was still going up against three tier 3 class holders who were older and more experienced than him in combat. While it seemed that he had the upper hand, the moment could be fleeting. His golems were a nice distraction but they couldn’t really critically injure any of these people, they were just not strong enough for such a feat.\n\nThere were a few ways he could go about this situation as running was still an option. However, he didn’t want to take up too much time. While he had managed to knock Ulfine out cold, she could wake up at any time. Then there were also the tier 2 knights that he had lost within the swamp. While they would probably not be able to pass through his golem squadron, they could still aid his enemies. It was better to take care of them in a swift fashion and for that, he might have to take a few hits.\n\nThus while in his strongest form, he charged forth with his shield raised. He wasn’t only a mage as his sturdy armor along with his skills would allow him to exchange blows with close-ranged fighters. The world was already filled with particles of blue light as he was looking at his enemy's mana phantoms to predict their next move.\n\nAt first, it seemed that Andreas would try to lock him down with a charge but to his surprise, Roman was the one to appear first. Through some type of hastening skill, he closed a gap of tens of meters in an instant. His blade shimmered with magical energy as it slashed through the air, aiming directly for Roland's exposed flank. Roland reacted swiftly, bringing up his shield to intercept the blow. The impact reverberated through his arm and was dispersed with the help of his runic magic.\n\nHis opponent was quite swift and attempted to slash at him multiple times but before he could a spiky pillar made of rocks erupted from the ground. He gracefully retreated by performing a backflip and simultaneously sliced at the rock to cut it in half. Andreas closed in and his halberd swung with deadly intent. However, just as the weapon was about to strike, Roland sidestepped with surprising agility for someone in heavy armor. He countered with a powerful kick to Andreas' midsection. The knight managed to block the attack with his shield but the force of the impact sent him sliding back.\n\nNow that the two men were forced to retreat slightly Roland unleashed a barrage of magical spells. With the addition of a couple of floating golemic cubes around him, the two were forced to either block or evade. Roman didn’t let up as he continued his relentless assault, his blade dancing with deadly grace as he tried to find an opening in Roland's defenses. Meanwhile, Andreas regrouped and charged at him once more.\n\nA battle of unprecedented proportions between the two Knights and the Runesmith ensued. Both parties' weapons collided with each other and generated shockwaves from each exchange. The ground became riddled with holes from the magical attacks and trees fell by being cut by blades or pierced by a polearm. Neither side was letting up but the man in the middle seemed to push back the duo who was barely holding it together.\n\nThe battle raged on but the third knight Elythaes continued to watch from a distance. He was getting ready and trying to time his grand technique with his two partners. The golems continued to assault him from all directions but didn’t pose a threat to a magical master swordsman, at most they could distract him.\n\n“Now!”\n\nHe shouted while vanishing from sight through unknown means. The golems that were shooting at him were unable to detect him but suddenly collapsed after something cut them into multiple pieces. His form had vanished from sight but it was obvious where he was going.\n\nAndreas and Roman knew that it was time to finish this and continued with their plan. First, the larger of the two abandoned his weapon and performed a strange grasping motion toward their armored opponent. A strange set of semi-transparent chains erupted from his whole body and in the direction of their opponent. Even when blasted with spells or blocked by a mana veil, they continued to move as if they were on a different plane of existence.\n\nRoland found himself being bound by this strange skill and his movements became sluggish. The sudden restraint caught Roland off guard and he found himself ensnared by these strange ethereal chains. Meanwhile, Roman seized the opportunity, his blade glowing with a brilliant light as he lunged forward with unmatched speed. His blade bent at strange angles and looked like a snake going for his side that he was holding his hammer in.\n\nThis seemed to be the crux of their plan, to restrict his movements from both sides for even a split second. Roland already saw what was coming and there was not much time for him to make the correct adjustments, he would not be coming out from this battle unscathed. However, he didn’t panic, pain was not something that he feared at this point he just needed to survive.\n\nHis enemies have gotten quite close to him and they were in range for some punishment. He had two options, one riskier than the other but it would end the fight right then and there. There was no time to contemplate the issue and in that split second, he made up his mind. Instead of turtling up and defending himself from their blows, he would fully go on the offensive instead.\n\nThe two men that were trying to hold him back gave it their all but instead of struggling further, he let go of both his shield and hammer. Instead, he just opened up his palms to point at the two. The runes on his armor began to shift and glow bright purple. Electrical discharges took place as energy gathered towards his palms.\n\nAt the same time, all the golems reacted to his call. They all turned their weapons in his direction and quickly discharged all of their energy. While they were aiming at the two men on both sides, Roland was still in the middle.\n\nThe combined assault from both the golems and Roland himself created a cataclysmic explosion of magical energy. The shockwave rippled outwards, shaking the very foundations of the dungeon and sending debris flying in all directions. Roman and Andreas were engulfed in the blast, their bodies thrown backward like rag dolls, and their forms became obscured by smoke and dust.\n\nHowever, this was within their calculations. Even though both his palms created a swirling magical blast that collided with the two, this was not the end. As Roland was discharging his energy something collided with his helmet, something that he had expected. The force was immense and he could only contort his body backwards to keep himself from losing his neck.\n\nIt was the third Baskerville Knight who was coming for his head. He had used his allies as a distraction to propel himself at perhaps the speed of sound in his direction. If it wasn’t for the mana phantom that this skill produced, Roland would have not even known that it was coming. Luckily, calculating the trajectory and timing with the help of mathematics was a possibility.\n\nRoland's mind raced as he attempted to slip through this deadly attack. However, this was easier said than done as the blades sunk into his armor and were able to cut through it. He felt pain surging through his entire body as something entered his body. His left shoulder took the brunt of this impact along with his face as his helmet was dislodged from his face.\n\nThe collision was fierce and it sent even more ripples and echoes throughout the whole dungeon. But suddenly things went quiet and only the sound of a few crumbling rocks from the dungeon’s high ceiling could be heard by the survivors of this clash.\n\nOn one side lay a large armored man with a gaping hole in his chest, something created by the massive palm blast he received while holding his enemy down. On the other was another, he was not dead but his sword arm was missing as he had tried to deflect this surge of magical energy but had been too late. Then in the middle was the man that they tried to defeat, his forehead bleeding and a sword embedded in the left side of his chest.\n\nOnly one person was standing among the rubble and he belonged to the Baskerville Knights. In his left hand, he was holding a sword that looked quite similar to the one that was now embedded in Roland’s left chest area close to his shoulder. For a moment there was a smile on his face as he assumed that he had been victorious but before he could celebrate he noticed some movement, his enemy was still alive.\n\n“A faint for the head but the true strike aims for the heart not bad… I didn’t actually think that you’d be able to pierce me though…”\n\nRoland’s voice sounded as his body started moving, he was in a lot of pain but he had managed to survive the exchange. His left arm hung limply at his side, the pain throbbing through his body as he grasped the hilt of the sword embedded in his chest. With a grunt of effort, he slowly pulled the blade out and blood started to gush out from his wound. Despite the agony, his expression remained stoic as this was not quite over.\n\n“Hah, I don’t know how you’ve managed to survive that but it matters not, I’ll just end you now.”\n\n“Will you now?”\n\n“You think that you can fight me with one arm and an injury like that? Just give up and save yourself some face!”\n\n“You mean this little flesh wound? Look, it’s already getting smaller…”\n\n“Huh? How is that…what are you?”\n\nThe Baskerville Knight's eyes widened in disbelief as Roland stood before him, seemingly unfazed by the grievous wound. To make things even more disheartening, the large wound he created with his sword was mending itself before his eyes. The man was still glowing purple but there was a tinge of gold radiance there, as if a priest was healing his wounds at a rapid pace. Elythaes was positive that he did not have any time to drink an elixir or healing potion but somehow, he was regenerating like some kind of monster.\n\n“You fought well.”\n\n\nRoland cracked his neck in an intimidating fashion while his armor started to reform itself. The hole that had been created mended itself as if it was also affected by a healing spell and soon no visible damage on the armor could be spotted to the naked eye.\n\n“But without your little helpers… the victory belongs to me!”\n\nThe abandoned hammer along with the shield flew back to him with the only exception being his helmet which had been flung into the distance and out of range of his skills. Elythaes did not believe that his enemy was uninjured by his attack and steeled his resolve. Quickly he plunged himself into the fray, even if he only had one sword he did not want to believe that his opponent was uninjured.\n\nAs Elythaes charged in once more, Roland met his blade with his shield. Despite the injuries he had sustained, Roland's movements were still fluid and calculated. At first, it seemed that he was wavering but as the moments passed it became clear that he was recovering. His opponent on the other hand was now alone to face the army of supporting golems and their master.\n\nThe clash between Roland and Elythaes intensified, the sound of their weapons echoing through the cavernous dungeon. Yet, even though the Magical Swordsman attempted to shift the tides of battle, the longer it took the more obvious the result was. Soon his blade was flying through the air as his side was met with a hit from a magically enhanced hammer. His body flew to the side like a rag doll and he ended up submerged in some swampwater.\n\n“N-no, t-this can’t end like this…w-who are you really?”\n\n“Me? I’m just a simple Runesmith…”\n\nRoland replied while approaching, his large hammer planted over his shoulder as he strode toward his enemy. The battle was over and Elythaes was quite shocked. His face had gone pale and he was clearly fearful of what was about to come. However, before the final blow could land, Roland stopped for a moment as his adversary seemed to recognize something.\n\n“You… that face… are you actually…”\n\n\nI would like to officially inform all my readers that I have started writing a new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] You can probably figure out what it's about from the title and hope you give it a try. If you like Runesmith, then I think that you will enjoy it as well. There aren't that many chapters out yet but I hope you all follow it for later and if you are inclined to, give a nice rating :D"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 442 – Loose Ends.\nTarget length: ~3000 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "I would like to officially inform all my readers that I have started writing a new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] You can probably figure out what it's about from the title and hope you give it a try. If you like Runesmith, then I think that you will enjoy it as well. There aren't that many chapters out yet but I hope you all follow it for later and if you are inclined to, give a nice rating :D\n\n\nRoland paused mid-step, his hammer still ready to strike while Elythaes's words hung in the air. The Baskerville Knight's eyes widened as he came to some sort of realization and his face was a mix of disbelief and anger.\n\n\n\"...are you actually...?\"\n\nA question was thrown and it indicated that his opponent knew something. His face had been revealed and there was an implication that came with it. He had never met this person without wearing his suit of armor nor did anyone know how the missing Arden sibling.\n\nHowever, there was one particular thing about his family that set it apart from the others. It seemed that their father’s genes took over when it came to male offspring but when it came to females, they took the mother's side of the family. This was also the reason why his brother Robert, instantly recognised him a few years back.\n\n“Y-you’re one of them, right? Y-you must be Robert? Now this all makes sense…”\n\nIt seemed that this man had come in contact with his family members and this was not anything out of the ordinary. The Baskerville Knight family in a way took over the responsibilities of the Arden estate that was previously also one of Castellane's guard dogs. Even after Wentworth Arden rose to his position of proper nobility, the Baskerville Knights continued to maintain a close relationship with them due to their shared history of loyalty and service.\n\nWhen he was between the ages of five and ten, he had witnessed them as well and through those exchanges, he came to know of the three Cerberus Knights. It wasn’t strange to assume that this person had seen either his eldest brother Reyner or the second Edwin. He didn’t seem to know Robert at all but the resemblance was there and it seemed that his identity as one of the Arden’s had been exposed.\n\n“No, how could you be Robert… this strength… Not even the firstborn was this capable… could you be…”\n\n“What does it matter who I am?”\n\nRoland stopped for a moment but then resumed his approach. He knew why Elythaes was confused as Roland’s power was just too high. At most, he could assume that he was some bastard who had been born before Reyner. It wouldn’t make sense for Robert to be strong enough to take out the Cerberus trio on his own.\n\n“No wait! If you’re from the Arden family please reconsider! Do you want a war to break out between the families? Do you think you can win against the Castellane house?”\n\nRoland paused once more but his hammer was still clenched tightly. The mention of potential conflict between the Arden and Castellane families made him contemplate the issue. It was true that any action he took here could have negative repercussions, not just for himself but for his family as well. He had raised his hand in opposition to Viola Castellane and already killed some of the Baskerville knights with Andreas being the most prominent one. While the other side started the conflict, some might say that he had overreacted.\n\n“You tried to murder me and Lucienne Arden as well, now that you are defeated, you seek a truce?\n\nElythaes struggled to rise from the swampy ground, but he seemed to be trying to make amends.\n\n“Please my friend, think about it. I had no choice in this matter… I’m sure that you understand, people like us have no choice in these matters, I was just following orders.”\n\nRoland's expression remained unreadable as he listened to Elythaes's plea but his mind was racing. There were potential consequences of continuing with his actions now. He understood the balance between the noble houses and how they would probably not let this issue rest so easily. It would be clear to the Castellane household that he was the man responsible for all of this.\n\n‘But what are the other options here? If I let this bastard go, he will report all of it and they might just come back with more forces or even hire an assassin…’\n\nIf one strategy didn’t work it was useful to use another. While it was true that the Baskerville and Castellane families would probably back off for a moment, they would hold a grudge. The issue could potentially be dropped as it would put the other families in a bad light, the only thing that nobles feared than the higher nobility was bad rumors. There was a possibility that they would halt their advances and even issue a public apology. However, after the overreaction he witnessed today, Roland wasn’t sure if they would honor anything.\n\n“I understand your predicament but it doesn’t sound very genuine when you’re just trying to distract me, did you think I wouldn’t notice?”\n\nFor a moment he did give it a thought, revealing himself could potentially have this whole thing end without any future bloodshed. While he didn’t see the Castellane family apologizing for this issue, it was possible to make amends and form some type of binding contract that would safeguard his sister. Both sides would come to some kind of agreement and let things rest but it wouldn’t be so as the surviving Roman had been lingering in the background.\n\n“Shit…”\n\nRoland had managed to rip off this man’s arm but he was still a tier 3 class holder. With enhanced bones and internal organs, even without an arm it was still possible to move around. People at this tier had advanced from being regular humans and were closer to monsters.\n\n“It seems that you wish to negotiate with your swords raised?”\n\n“...”\n\nRoman didn’t reply as he used his legs to toss himself in Roland’s direction. His body was fast but his movements lacked finesse due to the missing arm. Despite this, he managed to close the distance between them surprisingly quickly. With his remaining hand, he wielded his sword with murderous intent and attempted to aim it at his exposed throat. However, Roland had already seen this movement thanks to the mana phantom and before the strike could connect, it was sidestepped.\n\nHis opponent tried to quickly gather himself but it was too late. His Overlord’s Might skill was still in effect and it gave him a clear advantage over this injured knight. He bashed the man with his shield to knock him off balance, then followed up with a swift strike from the spiky side of his hammer.\n\nWhile the man was wearing some armor, he was still able to puncture through it. Then through this opening, he directly injected a large quantity of magical energy into the man’s body. Even though he was a tier 3 class holder, his insides started to rapture. Roman convulsed in agony as his insides were liquified in an instant. His body flew into the distance and landed in a shallow puddle filled with swamp water. There it started spasming before his life finally came to an end.\n\nElythaes had managed to gather himself off the ground but his legs were shaking. He found himself surrounded by a large group of golems that had managed to restore themselves. All of them were pointing their eyes and cannons in his direction.\n\n“Wait… WAIT! Do you really want to start a war that you can’t hope to win between the families? Think rationally!”\n\n“Oh, I am quite rational. What war? What families? You assume that I’m part of the Arden estate, but am I really? What proof do you have?”\n\n“What?”\n\n“... and if I was, I would be quite justified in defending my sister’s honor, wouldn’t I?”\n\nRoland pointed at the man with his hammer which was already glowing. The large group of golems did the same as they aimed at the injured Knight. Soon a salvo of beams exploded from all directions, all aiming at the lone knight in the middle. While he tried to evade them he found himself unable to due to the sheer volume. Yet, they were nothing more than distractions with the glowing hammer being the true ray of death.\n\n“No please, spare me, I swear to keep silent about everything that happ…”\n\nThe man cried out in pain as multiple energy bolts bounced off his body. Due to his tier 3 prowess, they just created shallow wounds and pain. However, eventually, a bright flash ended him as Roland’s swirling attack connected with the man’s chest cavity and drilled right through it.\n\nThe dungeon fell silent once more, the only sounds echoing through the cavern were the crackling of fading magic and the distant drips of water. Roland stood amidst the aftermath of the battle, his expression quite solemn. The Cerberus Knights that were famous within this region lay defeated and their bodies were without any signs of life.\n\nAfter taking a deep breath, Roland let the tension drain from his muscles. Despite this victory, he couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. The consequences of his actions could be dire as the men here were important figures within the kingdom. Their disappearance would be noticed and many new foes could appear on the horizon.\n\n‘They didn’t really leave me a choice here…’\n\nThere were other knights within the dungeon and he knew that it would probably be impossible for him to get to all of them. It was also probable that another unit was waiting above ground, waiting for the report from their leaders. There was no reason to chase any more people down, nor did he want to shed more blood on this day. Killing didn’t bring him much joy and he knew that everyone was just following orders.\n\nHe also knew he had to tread carefully from here on out. The Baskerville Knights were a powerful and influential family and their demise would not go unnoticed. The Castellane household, too, would likely seek retribution for the loss of their knights. Luckily, they all would think twice about attacking him again after this fiasco and would likely forgo any immediate future attempts at his life.\n\n‘I’m sure I’ll be public enemy number one for them at least. They probably won’t care much about Lucienne past this point nor do they really know who I am…’\n\nWhile his face was similar, there was no real proof that he was part of the Arden estate. Nor was the conversation here revealed to anyone yet. As long as he kept silent about everything, no one would be the wiser. The Baskerville knights would probably also not disclose any information as it made them look bad. They were unable to defeat a lone rune magician after ambushing him in a dungeon, not something they would want to be spread around.\n\nHowever, at the moment his mind was deliberating something else. While the three knights had been vanquished there was a fourth person involved, Professor Ulfine. She had been knocked out by him before he dismantled the trio but was still alive. His instincts were telling him that perhaps killing this woman would be a wise choice as she might have caught the conversation that could expose his true identity.\n\nShe was nothing more than a hired goon in his eyes who tried to murder him and his sister, not someone he would lose much sleep over. While eliminating her might seem like the logical choice to tie up loose ends, he also considered the potential consequences of such an action. Killing her might attract unwanted attention from the Institute or other powerful entities she might be affiliated with.\n\nOn the other hand, letting her live would also pose risks. Would the other teachers from the Institute even believe him? It was possible that once she awoke, Professor Ernas would swoop in to aid her. He did not know who he could really trust and if she was allowed to talk to anyone, then perhaps the whole academy would go after him, even before he could show them any recordings that would absolve him of any crimes.\n\nRoland weighed his options carefully while one of the golems returned his helmet to his side. With the help of the mage hand spell, the helmet seemingly floated up and descended onto his head. It had been broken in a few places but with the help of his skill it was reformed once more and quickly magnetized itself to the rest of his armor. With his arsenal now fully restored, he deliberated this issue further but was unable to come to a decision as some other trouble made itself known.\n\n“Young man, how about you leave that one to me?”\n\nA new voice sounded from the side, something that he didn’t expect. Even though he had lost his helmet with the main monitoring system within, his senses were sharp. Unless it was some type of assassin of tier 3 or up, he would have probably noticed something. His golems had some detection capabilities but this person was right there, just a few meters from the position he now stood.\n\n“Who are you?”\n\nHe quickly turned in the direction of this voice to see a peculiar phenomenon. At first, it looked like a person but something wasn’t right, they weren’t really there, it was some kind of illusion or magical body. The figure before Roland seemed to be a manifestation of mana but it was somewhat different. His Eyes of Mana skill was still active and it was giving him some conflicting information.\n\n‘Wait, is this spiritual energy, not mana? It looks like a mana phantom … could this person be?’\n\nIt finally hit him, this person was not an illusion nor was it a hologram, it was a specter. Roland recalled the description that Arion had given him of the Institute’s Spiritualist and this old lady fit the bill. She wasn’t very tall and hunched forward while holding a cane in her right hand. Her nose was somewhat large and elongated. Her face had several large warts and she was also wearing a large hat which made her look like an evil witch from old fables.\n\n‘It’s just how Arion described, I thought he was exaggerating with the description…’\n\n“How rude, shouldn’t you introduce yourself first, young man?”\n\n“My apologies. I am Assistant Professor Wayland from the Institute…”\n\nHe mentioned his current hidden name but he wasn’t sure how much this person had heard of his conversations with the now-passed Elythaes. Considering that he was talking with a Spiritualist who could talk with the dead, this was troublesome. Was his secret exposed already, or would it be soon after?\n\n“Oh, you’re that new fellow from the Institute? What brings you here?”\n\n“The advancement classes?”\n\n“Oh right, there was that!”\n\nIt seemed the Spiritualist, despite her eerie appearance, was not immediately hostile towards him. However, letting his guard down was not an option. She clearly came out from hiding to keep him from sending Ulfine into the afterlife. It seemed that she wanted to protect this woman who had wronged him.\n\n“I must say, you made quite a mess inside the dungeon.”\n\nThe old woman commented while looking around, the bodies of his three enemies were still there and the blood was quite fresh.\n\n“I was just defending myself, they initiated the attack, and I had no other choice.”\n\n“Oh, don’t worry young man, I’m not judging you but next time try to keep it down, it’s hard to concentrate while the spirits are in such disarray!”\n\n“Sure…”\n\nHe wasn’t sure what to make of this old lady, she seemed unperturbed by the circumstances that led to the deaths of these men.\n\n“What are your intentions… Professor Fortuna, I assume?”\n\n“I guess I don’t need to introduce myself then! My intentions? Well, isn't it obvious? I'm here to ensure that justice is served, young man. But it didn’t look like you needed any help, so I just waited.”\n\n“You waited and justice? If I may ask… what are your intentions with Professor Ulfine…”\n\nProfessor Fortuna let out a cackling laugh, which echoed eerily in the cavernous dungeon.\n\n\"Oh, my intentions with dear Ulfine? Don’t worry young man, she won’t be bothering anyone anytime soon…”\n\nRoland couldn't help but feel suspicious of the old Spiritualist. The lady was giving him goosebumps for some reason and it felt like she was quite dangerous. While they were talking a large quantity of will-o'-the-wisp spectral monsters appeared around the area. Their numbers were quite large but this wasn’t all. This woman’s spectral avatar was quite something too, the magical fluctuations it was giving off were tremendous.\n\nIt wasn’t hard for a mage to measure their opponent's strength through the spells the other party was using. This person he was now up against wasn’t simple and potentially had more mana than even he had. Considering that the Institute let her live in the dungeon and even allowed her to ignore meetings, made her probably into a special existence. She was perhaps someone quite powerful, maybe even someone that he wouldn’t be able to go agains…\n\n\nI would like to officially inform all my readers that I have started writing a new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] You can probably figure out what it's about from the title and hope you give it a try. If you like Runesmith, then I think that you will enjoy it as well. There aren't that many chapters out yet but I hope you all follow it for later and if you are inclined to, give a nice rating :D"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 443 – Witch Hut\nTarget length: ~3000 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "I would like to officially inform all my readers that I have started writing a new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] You can probably figure out what it's about from the title and hope you give it a try. If you like Runesmith, then I think that you will enjoy it as well. There aren't that many chapters out yet but I hope you all follow it for later and if you are inclined to, give a nice rating :D\n\n\nAs Roland stood there, facing the enigmatic Professor Fortuna and more precisely, her strange spectral manifestations, he couldn't shake the feeling of unease. Her presence here was quite unsettling and he couldn’t even measure her strength properly as she was nothing more than a conjured phantom made from spiritual energy.\n\n“Professor Fortuna, if you intend to intervene, may I ask about your stake in this matter?”\n\nHe posed his question while the will-o'-the-wisps around the area increased in numbers. Roland wasn’t sure what to think about this old lady's involvement. If she witnessed the whole fight from a safe distance, it was probable that she saw his face and knew about his true identity. What she would do with this knowledge was unknown but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to stop her if she chose to leak it.\n\n“You wish to know my reasoning, young lad? Hm… how about we change our location, this isn’t really the greatest place to have a chat, would you join me for some tea?”\n\n“Uh, some tea, Professor?”\n\n“That’s right, I’m sure you’ll enjoy my special brew young man.”\n\nIt was quite a surprise that he was invited to go to her abode. Roland knew that the Spiritualist from the Institute lived in the dungeon so this was a chance to get what he came here for. His main goal was to meet this woman and analyze her spells to help him with his phantom rune limb project. Already, as he was looking at the strange energies he was making recordings for future use.\n\nProfessor Fortuna was not an ordinary figure and Arion had already informed him about her. Considering that she was left alone to live in this dungeon made her unique and he wasn’t sure if he could refuse her request. The magical energies around him were starting to gather but luckily their aim was not him but Professor Ulfine whom he knocked out.\n\nThe will-o'-wisps that had been intensifying in the area gathered around her body and began to lift her up. It looked like she was floating on a cloud made from spiritual energy that pulsated from time to time. It was clear that this woman didn’t account for his opinion in this matter and killing Ulfine to tie up this loose end would probably be impossible. Yet, for some reason, he felt like she wouldn’t leak any incriminating information.\n\n“Special brew? I’ll accept the offer then…”\n\n“Wonderful! Please follow me then, it won’t take long.”\n\nWhile Roland didn’t really want to follow this old woman to her lair, he needed to see what she would do with Ulfine. Considering her reputation it was probably safe but if not, then escaping would probably always be an option. Arion would have not lied to him and she wasn’t known for being openly hostile to other institute members. Thus, after considering his options and the possibility of making a breakthrough with his research, he decided to go with her.\n\nWith a nod, Roland followed Professor Fortuna as she led the way deeper into the dungeon. The will-o'-wisps floated around them, casting an eerie light that danced along the swamp water and trees. Roland remained vigilant, his senses on high alert, but the old Spiritualist seemed nonchalant as if they were simply taking a leisurely stroll.\n\nAs they walked, Roland couldn't help but notice the strange fog gathering around them. It had encompassed them fully and made seeing anything past a few meters impossible. Only thanks to his enhanced mapping device was he able to keep track of his position which his golems that were outside were keeping track of. However, in just a second something happened that jumbled up his entire map.\n\n“Dimensional Shift?”\n\n“Oh, you’re quite a perceptive young man, the institute must be glad that such a youngster is one of their professors.”\n\nThe old lady chuckled as he blurted out the sentence out loud. A dimensional shift had occurred which meant that he had gone through something similar to a teleportation gate. After going through the institute that was filled with dimensional magic, he became quite sensitive to the changes. He had also included sensors in his armor to feel out for such magics.\n\n‘That was some high-level magic, I only noticed it once I was passing through it… I should be really careful here.’\n\nAll sorts of red flags were going off in his head but he needed to continue. It was now too late to turn back, even more so now that he found himself without his golems that had been left behind on the first floor of this B-rank dungeon.\n\n‘The signal isn’t coming through, either there is a magical barrier around this place or I’m really deep underground.’\n\nHe was certain that he had been brought to one of the lower levels of the dungeon where Professor Fortuna’s home was. The moment he saw it, he was even more reminded of old fables from his original world. This woman already looked like some type of evil witch but her home also filled the bill. They were still inside of a swampland and before him was something that looked quite interesting.\n\n‘She’s not going to throw me in the oven and try to eat me, is she?’\n\nWhile having some intrusive thoughts he looked at the hut that was perched on a small island in the middle of a murky swamp. It was surrounded by a large quantity of vines and twisting trees. It exuded a strange aura of ancient magic and had various symbols etched into the wooden walls. Many glowing orbs floated around the water and he could see some strange apparitions within the depths.\n\n“Here we are, young man. Welcome to my humble abode”\n\n“Ah yes… it certainly looks… welcoming.”\n\nRoland hesitated for a moment before stepping onto the rickety wooden bridge that led to the entrance. His armor wasn’t the lightest so the wood creaked beneath his weight and added more to the eerie atmosphere. As he approached the hut he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was putting himself in danger but at the same time, it was too late to retreat. He could only steel his nerves and try not to offend this witch-like woman.\n\nProfessor Fortuna seemed entirely at ease as she opened the door and beckoned him inside. Roland followed with his senses on high alert and ready for any sign of danger. The interior of the hut was dimly lit by flickering candles which cast shadows across the wooden walls.\n\n“Please, make yourself comfortable and I’ll have that tea ready in no time!”\n\nProfessor Fortuna said, gesturing to a wooden chair by a small table. Roland nodded warily but before taking the seat he looked at the second guest, Professor Ulfine. She was still being transported by the bunch of glowing orbs and being led to what seemed to be the cellar of this witch-like hut.\n\n“What are you going to do with her?”\n\n“Don’t you worry, young man. She will be dealt with according to the institute's rules and don’t worry, your little secret will be safe with me~”\n\nThe apparition of the old woman chuckled a bit before vanishing from sight. Roland was skeptical of the whole situation but at the moment the woman had not shown any animosity towards him. It was better to remain a good guest and ask about his research, the only problem was bringing it up. He wasn’t really sure why she invited him here in the first place, which made him a little bit nervous.\n\nOnce the spirit version of the witch was gone, he was left to his own devices inside of this strange hut. To not push his luck too much, he decided to just take a seat on the chair that was presented to him and wait. The dimly lit interior of the hut, coupled with the strange atmosphere of the swamp outside made him want to leave.\n\nMinutes passed and he could hear some strange creaking sounds of wood below him, probably where Ulfine had been carried out to. Her fate was something he was interested in but the woman already assured him that she would be dealt with. Finally, the sound of footsteps broke the silence as Professor Fortuna returned now in her true corporal form. She carried a tray with a steaming teapot and a couple of cups that were floating around her.\n\n“My apologies, these old bones don’t move as well as they used to.”\n\nThe woman looked almost identical to the spectral form she presented herself as. Her skin was wrinkled and weathered but her eyes shone with a sharp intelligence, and her smile held a hint of mischief. Roland couldn't help but feel a sense of unease in her presence but he remained composed while trying to think of a way to ask her for some insights into spiritual magics.\n\n“No need to apologize, Professor Fortuna. Thank you for the tea.”\n\nRoland replied politely, trying to maintain a respectful demeanor despite his reservations. The old woman poured the tea into the cups and handed one to Roland before taking a seat across from him. Instantly, he activated his helmet to make a chemical and magical analysis of the brew. While his system wasn’t perfect, it was capable of identifying compounds that could cause harm to his body. Luckily, this brew didn’t seem to be anything more than regular green tea so he chose to take a sip.\n\n“So, young man, you wish for me to help you with your research?”\n\n“I… that is correct but how did you…”\n\nBefore Roland could finish his question, Professor Fortuna chuckled softly, interrupting him.\n\n“My dear boy, I am a Spiritualist of the highest order. I see and understand much more than you may realize… but in this case, I had some help. Do you perhaps remember the book that our Headmistress lent you?”\n\n“That book? Yes?”\n\n“I was the one that wrote it.”\n\nRoland had been given the book by the Institute Headmistress Yavenna Arvandus. The book was quite old but so was this woman, it seemed that she was the author. Sometimes books could have tracking spells placed on them and would inform authors of their location. Perhaps this was the case and when he started his research into spiritual mana, she had been informed about it.\n\n“Ah, I see… So you wrote that book. It was quite insightful, I must say.”\n\nRoland replied, carefully choosing his words but\n\n“Indeed, I am glad you found it helpful. But it seems you have questions beyond what the book could offer… However, before we go down that road, could you answer one of my questions?”\n\nThe old woman’s eyes sparkled with curiosity as she leaned forward and started performing some type of magical skill. He could tell that she was focusing her mana into her eyes and performing some sort of identification incantation. It was different than a regular analyzing skill and filled with that unique spiritual mana he was trying to research.\n\n“A question? Of course, as long as it’s something I can answer.”\n\nRoland responded while trying to keep his tone as polite as possible. He didn’t want to reveal any personal information but it seemed that this old woman had something entirely different in mind. After leaning back into her chair she posed her question.\n\n“Young man, tell me, how did you end up with a soul like that? How is it devoid of this world's blessing? Are you not of this world?”\n\n“...”\n\nThis was not something that he had expected, the question took him by surprise. He had no idea what she meant with the world’s blessing but he could somewhat tell what she was implying.\n\n“The world’s blessing? I’m not sure I understand Professor.”\n\nFor the time being he decided to feign ignorance as he wasn’t sure where this was going. It seemed that something about his soul was indicating that he was not a person from this world. While this was obviously true, he was not expecting anyone to actually be able to see through his origin. He had been transported to this world through strange means and put into the body of a dead Roland Arden. If he was exposed as some type of specter possessing his body, this could very well bode his end.\n\n“You don’t? Well, that’s not surprising, not many mages practice spiritualism nor are even interested in anything besides binding souls to their will. Hm, let me explain then!”\n\nThe old woman sounded quite cheery but he wasn’t sure what her intentions were. The amount of mana permeated the walls in this strange hut and he could feel another shift coming. Before him, space started to vanish and it was replaced by a black void that started to fill out by what seemed to be stars.\n\n“That’s…”\n\n“Yes, this is the emptiness that surrounds our whole world. It’s filled out by many celestial bodies.”\n\nSoon the planet he inhabited had shown itself and it was quite a detailed representation of it. He could even see the continent this Kingdom resided in quite clearly. However, this didn’t seem to be the focal point of the presentation as the planet started shrinking down.\n\n“Not many know this but our world is protected by the gods and spirits, nothing can slip into it without their knowledge!”\n\nSomething akin to a forcefield appeared to surround their globe along with the moon surrounding it and moved even further away to engulf the sun. It encompassed the whole solar system along with several other planets that were part of it. At this point, this was nothing that he didn’t know as these were all facts documented within scripts. However, the strange barrier was the focal point and he was not sure what it was for.\n\n“Our realm isn’t the only one, there are also other ones like the spirit realm or the demonic void but I’m sure you’re aware of this?”\n\n“Yes, every child knows the legends of how the world was created and how the gods separated our realms.”\n\n“How wonderful, but did you know that whenever a new soul is born, it receives the blessing of the spirit tree?”\n\n“A blessing? No, I don’t think that such an event was ever mentioned in the texts or legends.”\n\nIn this world, there were multiple deities like Solaria and even evil gods like the one from the Abyssal cult. After death, it was said that a person would be sent to heaven representing the god that they worshiped. Depending on the god it differed and if a non-believer existed they were said to be reincarnated into another being with their previous memories being erased. Roland wasn’t sure if he fit in either category as he was a person from a different world and it seemed that this woman was trying to imply this.\n\n“Each of our souls receives the blessing of the spirit tree, imbuing each of us with a unique color. Every living person with a soul possesses one, or at least should… it seems that your soul lacks the blessing, quite intriguing…”\n\n“Yes, quite but I don’t really have an answer for that question, this is the first time I’ve heard of such a thing.”\n\nThe old woman paused, her gaze glued to Roland’s form as if she were trying to decipher something. Roland was unwilling to inform her about his true origins and he wasn’t sure if anyone would actually believe him. There was also no way of knowing what would happen if the truth came out, would he be seen as some sort of anomaly and studied in a lab? Or perhaps seen as a demon that needed to be killed?\n\n“That… was a lie, wasn’t it? You do know…”\n\nSuddenly the candlelight flickered across the old woman’s face that became more dastardly. The shadows seemed to accentuate her sudden change in demeanor making her features seem more demonic. Roland felt a chill run down his spine, there was something wrong here and perhaps he had made a mistake by coming here. Suddenly, as he tried to stand up he felt himself unable to, it was as if a few tons were weighing him down.\n\n“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Professor. It might be better if we postpone this conversation…”\n\n“Oh, but my dear boy… I think that we could chat some more. What secrets are you hiding!”\n\nThe woman’s voice became more commanding, it was as if the sweet grandma's personality was just a facade, hiding something much darker beneath. Roland realized he was in a precarious situation, trapped in this strange hut with a powerful Spiritualist who seemed to be a tier above him. Her mana was suppressing his, to such an extent that he couldn’t even budge from this wooden chair. However, just as everything seemed to have gone wrong, something strange occurred. A greenish haze of energy encompassed him and suddenly, he found himself surrounded by a mass of strange vines that were seemingly protecting him…\n\n\nI would like to officially inform all my readers that I have started writing a new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] You can probably figure out what it's about from the title and hope you give it a try. If you like Runesmith, then I think that you will enjoy it as well. There aren't that many chapters out yet but I hope you all follow it for later and if you are inclined to, give a nice rating :D"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 444 – Unexpected Help.\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "I would like to officially inform all my readers that I have started writing a new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] You can probably figure out what it's about from the title and hope you give it a try. If you like Runesmith, then I think that you will enjoy it as well. There aren't that many chapters out yet but I hope you all follow it for later and if you are inclined to, give a nice rating :D\n\n\nThe vines twisted and writhed around Roland, forming a protective barrier between him and Professor Fortuna. They seemed to emanate a soothing energy, countering the oppressive force that had been weighing him down moments before. Roland looked around in astonishment, unsure of where these vines had come from or how they were aiding him. Luckily, soon a small figure formed from within these vines and started speaking out.\n\n“Old hag, what do you think you are trying to do?”\n\n“Of course, it had to be you, ancient fossil.”\n\n‘Old hag? Ancient fossil?’\n\nIt was instantly clear that these people knew each other and had some history. The Spiritualist lady wasn’t pleased with the appearance of the vines and was staring daggers at the small figure that was speaking. The facial features weren’t quite well but he could recognize that this person was the Institute Headmistress, Yavenna Arvandus. He was not sure how and why she decided to aid him but he was grateful nonetheless. Power seemed to be returning to his limbs and he could even use his mana now.\n\n“I was just having a friendly chat with our young professor here, no reason to be rude and interrupt…”\n\nProfessor Fortuna leaned back in her chair while trying to act as if she didn’t just disable Roland’s whole body. It seemed like she was about to perform some strange experiments to see how his soul ended up in the state that it was.\n\n“Friendly chat, you say? It seems to me that you were about to do something rather unpleasant to our young colleague.”\n\nYavenna retorted with her voice being stern while Roland remained silent. He was unsure how to interject in this conversation between two seemingly powerful tier 4 class holders. From his perspective, it was quite hard for a tier 3 to just disable him even if they were close to ascending further. His mana was like a toddler’s compared to these two and the atmosphere was growing increasingly more charged with magical energy.\n\n“Is this how you repay an old friend, Yavenna? By interfering in matters that don’t concern you?”\n\nFortuna spat out her words in anger while the whole hut began to shake. The will-o'-wisps started turning red and shifting chaotically. It seemed that they were reacting to their master’s mood swings. Roland could feel the magical energies crackling around him as the two powerful mages faced off. However, it was clear that the witch-like lady Fortuna had the advantage as this was her lair they were in and not at the Institute.\n\n“I'm not here to argue with you, Fortuna and if you continue, then I’ll be forced to intervene directly…”\n\nYavenna was probably feeling that her power was wavering but she didn’t relent. The vines around Roland started to shift to create a strange structure. They started to form something in the form of an oval with a magical surface within. Roland could feel what type of magic was taking form there and it was identical to the portal gate he had seen in one of the magical towers.\n\nAs the vines continued to weave together to form the portal-like structure, Professor Fortuna started to waver. Her expression which was scrunched up with animosity began to show signs of softening. At first, it seemed like the two were on equal footing but the moment Yavenna expressed her willingness to come here directly, the atmosphere in the room changed. The red soul orbs returned to their previous form and eventually, the hut also stopped shaking.\n\n“Now now, my dear friend, don’t do anything hasty…”\n\nProfessor Fortuna’s tone had shifted from aggression to one of caution, her eyes darted between Roland and the portal forming before them. It was evident that she had weighed her options and concluded that having the headmistress arrive here in person, wouldn’t be wise.\n\n“Have you come to your senses, Fortuna? Or must I pay you a visit to refresh your memory about who enabled you to exist in that humble swamp of yours?”\n\nWhile Roland wasn’t sure about the history of these two powerful mages, it was clear that the Headmistress held more power. Considering Fortuna's status as a tier 4 class holder, it seemed plausible that she enjoyed certain privileges within the institute. It would also explain why she wasn’t reprimanded even when she didn’t attend the faculty meetings nor did she seem to hold any classes either.\n\nHe remained seated and silent as the situation was resolving itself by itself. It would be possible for him to activate his armor now and attempt to escape but he still needed something from this old woman. While he had been constantly scanning this area for spiritual energy, it would be better if he had some samples he could examine for a more prolonged time.\n\nEventually, the portal materialized and sprang to life. Within it, he could see the woman that he had met previously. Though uncertain of the mechanism, it seemed that during his visit to the Headmistress's tower, she had somehow marked him. Perhaps some plant matter the size of mushroom sports had made its way onto his armor and remained dormant. Through them, she was able to control the plants in this hut and created the portal thereafter. It was a magical feat beyond his current comprehension.\n\n“Yes, yes… you have made your point, dear Headmistress… Don’t worry, I will treat your precious faculty member with respect…”\n\nThe portal remained in place while Fortuna scrambled around. She was clearly panicking at this point and fumbling her words around. The woman on the other side of the portal observed with a stern expression, not convinced by Fortuna's sudden change in demeanor.\n\n“I know, this fine young man had come here to research the spirits, how about…”\n\nAfter thinking for a moment, Fortuna conjured up a spell to order one of the spirit orbs to fly over to the table. Along with it was a large flash into which the soul orb squeezed into. This wasn’t all as various other old books and texts about the subject matter Roland was researching flew over.\n\n“How about this my lad, it should be enough right?”\n\nIt was as if the old lady was now pleading with him instead. Roland remained silent for a moment while looking at the items on the table. There was a lot of research material there and along with it a will-o'-wisp in a flash. With all of this, he was certain that he would be able to make a big leap in his research of analyzing the soul and mana relation. There wasn’t really more that she could offer him and it was better to get out of here before these two powerful mages changed their mind.\n\n“Yes, this will suffice, Professor Fortuna.”\n\n“See? The young lad thinks it’s enough? Now can you just leave me alone!”\n\nThe old lady was quite annoyed with this situation but had also resigned herself to her fate. The tension inside this wooden hut was starting to dissipate. The portal through which the Headmistress was peeking in started to tremble and it would probably close soon. Yavenna Arvandus watched the exchange with a scrutinizing gaze but she seemed satisfied with the outcome.\n\n“I’m glad that we could clear this matter up and… I expect you to attend the next meeting at the Institute, we need to speak about a few things, understood?”\n\n“You want me to attend that boring…”\n\nFortuna frowned and returned to her previous self but quickly resumed her docile act the moment she saw the Institute leader frowning through the portal.\n\n“Yes, of course, I’ll be sure to be there! Not a problem at all!”\n\n“... Good, I’m glad that we could resolve this issue. Now, I’ll be taking my leave. But remember, Fortuna, I'll be keeping an eye on you and as for you, Assistant Professor Wayland, please come to my office when you return.”\n\n“Ah yes, of course, Headmistress.”\n\nHe wasn’t that taken aback by this order as he was certain that the Headmistress wanted to know about what happened in the swamp area. It was also something that could perhaps keep him safe again as Fortuna needed to let him be if he ever was to reach Yavenna’s tower.\n\nWith that warning, the Headmistress withdrew from the portal and it dissipated soon after. The wooden plant matter that it was created from wilted away into dried-out husks of its former self. He was now left alone with the woman who tried to use him as a lab rat. After glancing at her he could hear her awkwardly clearing her throat.\n\n“Ahem, well then, young man, it seems we've come to the end of our little adventure… It would probably be better if you left now.”\n\n“I think so too…”\n\nAfter slowly standing up without making any sudden movements, he took the research material that he had come here for. The old woman raised an eyebrow as he slid the items into his armor where he was hiding a spatial compartment in. However, right before he left the woman left him with a few words.\n\n“I don’t know what you are hiding young man but your soul is certainly unordinary and its not only the color, there is something underneath it…”\n\n“Underneath it?”\n\n“Indeed, if you wish, you could stay here and we could get to the bottom of this very interesting issue…”\n\n“No… I think I should go back and make a report to the Headmistress…”\n\nThe old woman had a strange glint in her eyes as she continued to mention his soul. She was probably not willing to prod any further without his consent but he could always stay here and have her do it willingly. Roland knew that he was a denizen from another world and would rather keep that secret. There was a possibility that he would be turned into some sort of lab rat if this truth came out.\n\n“Are you sure? Well, you can come back here if you change your mind~”\n\n“I’ll keep that in mind…”\n\nSo did his strange journey to get more research material for the runic prosthesis finally end. Once he found himself outside the witch hut, everything started to fade away into fog. After walking for a few minutes he recovered the connection to his golems that quickly rallied around him. The bodies of the three knights he defeated had begun to be absorbed by the swamp, which would hinder him in recovering their gear.\n\n‘Well… that happened…’\n\nThe battle was over and he had managed to level up multiple times as his three enemies were many levels above his. While it wasn’t as much as he had received from battling the pseudo-tier 4 horror at his home, it was enough to make him progress fast.\n\n\nName\n\nRoland Arden L 196\n\n\nClasses:\n\nT3 Runesmith Overlord L21 [ Primary ]\n\n\nT2 Runesmith Lord L50 [ Tertiary ]\n\n\nT2 Runic Engineer L50 [Secondary]\n\n\nT1 Mage L25 [ X ]\n\n\nT1 Runic Mana Scribe L 25 [ X ]\n\n\nT1 Runic Blacksmith L 25 [ X ]\n\n\nHP\n\n41278/46278\n\n\nMP\n\n72127/89275\n\n\nSP\n\n62524/63544\n\n\nStrength\n\n308\n\n\nAgility\n\n252\n\n\nDexterity\n\n343\n\n\nVitality\n\n322\n\n\nEndurance\n\n355\n\n\nIntelligence\n\n406\n\n\nWillpower\n\n392\n\n\nCharisma\n\n21\n\n\nLuck\n\n12\n\n\nBesides the few levels and stat increase he had managed to acquire one new passive skill.\n\n\nOverlords Resilience\n\nPassive Skill\n\nHeightens the resistance to almost all forms of mental attacks and lowers the willpower required to resist them.\n\n\nIt was a nice addition to his passives and seemed to help out during stressful situations. It looked to be an all-encompassing skill that boosted his resistance to anything that would attack his mind. This probably included magical attacks as well as ones through other skills or concoctions. Perhaps if he had this skill before entering the hut, he could have resisted the strange paralysis he suffered.\n\n‘Interesting… but what now?’\n\nThe gravity of the situation that he had been through started to set in. He had just destroyed a whole platoon of knights and three Knight Commander-level enemies. Their bodies were sinking into the swamp and would be soon erased. However, he didn’t fool himself into believing that this event wouldn’t reach others. Some knights had escaped during the chase and some others were probably stationed above ground. Once he left the dungeon, they would be there to confirm that he was still alive.\n\n‘There is no way those Baskerville bastards won’t know that I did everything here…’\n\nRoland started thinking, was there a way to spin the outcome in his favor? Perhaps he could claim that the supposed tier 4 spiritualist came to his aid and took care of the trio. However, he had already made his recording technology known and it clearly showcased that he had been the one doing the slaying. If it ever came to a confrontation in the noble court, he would have no way of getting away from the situation\n\nTo make things worse Professor Ulfine was one of them and her fate was unknown to him. He did not know what Fortuna would do to Ulfine and he was in no position to ask the old woman for it. At most, he could go to the Headmistress to inquire about the woman’s fate. If for some reason she was let go, then it wouldn’t be strange if she reported to the Baskervilles who contracted her.\n\nHe was now between a rock and a hard place. One hit on his life had already been carried out and he had no reason to believe that those people would stop. He would probably be thoroughly investigated by his new enemies, which could even end up in Albrook. His identity was in real jeopardy now as he had made his power known. Then to make things even worse, there was his little sister who was in the middle of this whole mess.\n\n‘Things are getting out of hand, what should I do?’\n\nFor the time being he believed that he would be safe for some time. It wasn’t plausible for the Baskerville knights to go directly after him after failing so miserably. The same could be said for his sister. He could use this time to prepare for the worst but what could he do? The only people that he could think of were Arion, Thorne, and perhaps the Headmistress. If he could get more help from them, then perhaps they could take care of Lucienne in his absence.\n\n\nNow that he had all this research material, he could try to make a prototype prosthesis, the true reason that he was here. Once back in Albrook, he would be mostly safe as even the Castellane house wouldn’t dare to send assassins into the Valerian territory. The only loose end would be his sister and what would happen when he was gone.\n\nFirst and foremost, he needed to check on his sister, Lucienne. Despite the chaos surrounding him, her well-being remained his top priority. Professor Ernas left with all the other students to let him analyze the ‘anomaly’. He wondered how he should explain this issue to the man who was probably tasked by Delauder to observe him. For all he knew, they were all in on it.\n\n‘She could be in danger, I need to return.’\n\nHaving remains of the knights in his spatial bags would probably make things only harder to explain so he decided to leave the non-devoured equipment alone. It was nothing that he couldn’t recreate himself so it was not worth the hassle. Their bodies would soon vanish from here without a trace, so it didn’t matter that much.\n\nHe had previously taken his own dimensional shield back from within the swamp area and quickly ordered his golems to return to it. After around five minutes he was ready to leave he could only hope that his sister was indeed safe and that Ernas wasn’t another mercenary for the Castellane’s. Thus with a quickened pace, he made his way through the swamp that was surprisingly devoid of adventurers.\n\nAs he arrived at the stairs going up his mind was abuzz with multiple countermeasures. The encounter was fresh in his mind and he hadn’t fully recovered from the clash with the three Knight Commander class enemies. His armor had also been damaged and the runes on it had slightly deteriorated. If another enemy of the same caliber was waiting above ground, then he would have his work cut out for him.\n\n\nI would like to officially inform all my readers that I have started writing a new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] You can probably figure out what it's about from the title and hope you give it a try. If you like Runesmith, then I think that you will enjoy it as well. There aren't that many chapters out yet but I hope you all follow it for later and if you are inclined to, give a nice rating :D"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 445 – Surf’s Up\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Please check out my new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] I hope you give it a try, it's still just starting so be sure to follow it if you like to wait for the chapters to build up. It might have a slow start for some, but all my stories have :D\n\n\nAfter taking a deep breath, Roland ascended the stairs cautiously, his senses heightened, and his eyes glued to his minimap. Every step was a planned motion and he was readying himself for resistance once he arrived at the next destination. The path leading out of this dungeon was devoid of any signs of life. It was clear that every adventurer had fled due to the ensuing confrontation between him and the knight trio.\n\nRoland was afraid that the confrontation wasn't entirely concluded. Once he arrived outside the dungeon, another assault might be imminent. A large group of knights and adventurers might have been waiting for him, with an order to end the mission that Cerberus had failed. However, as he neared the exit, a wave of relief washed over him. To his surprise, the dots on his map painted a different picture.\n\n“Hm… those don’t look like soldiers, did they flee? or did they hire more adventurers?”\n\nOnce he was close to the exit he noticed a lot of dots on his minimap. It reminded him of the old Lich incident, when the dungeon had been evacuated and left many adventurers lingering outside the entrance. Despite the abundance of dots, they belonged to weaker individuals, many of whom were mere tier 1 class holders, not something he would ever worry about.\n\nHe expected something like a coordinated attack but there were too many prying eyes out there. There was a reason that he had been ambushed inside a swamp dungeon with limited visibility. Even though he was up against knights and nobility, they still couldn’t directly assassinate faculty members from a magical Institute. It seemed that they decided to do the sensible thing to pull their forces back, at least that’s how it looked at this moment.\n\n‘What should I do…’\n\nRoland asked himself while getting ready to make his way outside the dungeon. The individuals outside were mostly tier 1 class holders but there were some stronger groups. They were more than likely platinum adventurers and for those he needed to look out for. Eventually, he steeled his resolve and finally emerged before the large group of people who instantly noticed his arrival.\n\n“Hey look, someone is coming out?”\n\n“That robe, is that person with the mage school or something?”\n\n“Then what’s with that suit of armor underneath… and why is his visor glowing?”\n\nOnce he was outside the people started whispering. His identity was obvious to the others as he had put on the Institute robe again. However, he was stuck scanning the area with his skills which left his helmet visor glowing and prompted some of the onlookers to back away. Yet, some pressed forward, a group of tier 3 class holders, likely platinum adventurers judging by their equipment.\n\nRoland remained calm, his demeanor composed despite the tense atmosphere. He knew that any sudden movements or signs of aggression could escalate the situation further, and he had no desire for unnecessary conflict. His eyes scanned the approaching group that was composed of multiple tier 3 holders who didn’t have any notable strengths. They reminded him of the group involved with Rastix, not anyone who could threaten him.\n\n“A mage from the institute? Could you enlighten us on what kept you there for so long? The dungeon has been sealed due to an unusual monster spawn…”\n\n“...”\n\nRoland didn’t reply as he took in the information of this group of five. It seemed the disturbance in the dungeon was attributed to a rare monster appearance, something similar to what transpired when the Lich appeared in Albrook. They were even in the process of creating a makeshift wall with large logs to keep the dungeon sealed. Perhaps later his death would have been attributed to the rare monster spawn.\n\n‘They must be working with the guild or at least someone that can force a fake report…’\n\nIt was obvious what was happening here, and he had to give it to the Baskerville family who prepared a plausible alibi. A seemingly strong mage like him would not go down without a fight. This dungeon was rated as something that had strong tier 3 creatures on the lower levels and if an anomaly appeared, it would potentially be able to dispose of him.\n\nOne man approached him, he seemed to be the leader of this group of Platinum adventurers and could potentially be in on the whole grift. However, it could be one of the higher-ups like the city’s Guild Master. There was no telling who was his enemy or ally in this situation, so it was better to treat them all as the former.\n\n“Move…”\n\n“What?”\n\n“I said move.”\n\nRunic suppression was activated by him to weigh down on the lesser tier 3 class holders. This skill was quite handy when going with the ‘might makes right’ approach. While he wasn’t a fan of it and had usually found himself on the receiving end of such suppression, he understood its utility in situations like this. The platinum adventurers, now under the effect of his runic suppression, seemed to struggle. While they could resist it to an extent, they were below him in strength and this skill was there to showcase it.\n\n“Wha- What is this? What are you doing, we just w-wanted…”\n\nThe leader of the group stumbled back, clearly caught off guard by Roland's sudden use of such a skill. To make things worse a ball of crackling energy appeared in his hand to make the situation even more dire. It was clear that there was no room for talking here and the five started to quickly spread out.\n\n“Hmph.”\n\nAfter snorting audibly, Roland took advantage of their confusion and swiftly made his way past them. His eyes were stuck to his minimap as he scanned the surroundings for any other threats. The lesser adventurers were already stumbling back, terrified of a potential fight breaking out between tier 3 class holders. It was quite the sight which made him look like the villain but he didn’t care, he needed to get back to the city to check on his sister.\n\nIt was a strange feeling, he had mostly lived his new life here in fear of potential repercussions. Even now pushing these platinum adventurers away without an explanation felt a bit surreal. However, the truth was obvious as the problem had been resolved instantly. Everyone was scared of the strange unknown mage and unwilling to confront him. He was able to easily move through the group that spread out to the sides.\n\n‘... I could get used to this… but, I’m sure they will report this to their Guild Master.’\n\nWhile it was true that this could cause an incident later, there was no time to lose. He needed to get back into Hazelfront. Professor Ernas was with the students and he wasn’t sure if he could be trusted. While he didn’t spot any lesser knights at this location there was a possibility that they were up to no good in the city, so he needed to hurry.\n\n‘Should I try that?’\n\nThe dungeon was near the city but it still took around half an hour to get there. If he buffed himself and started running then he would probably cut the time down to ten minutes but there was another way. Instead of following the winding path back, there was an option to go back in a straight line, if he moved from above.\n\nIt would undoubtedly be faster than navigating through the winding paths of the swamp, but it also came with its own set of dangers. He had been slowly delving into flight technology by examining flying ships and books regarding this issue. There was one tool that he could use to propel himself forward without relying on his armor.\n\nThere were many complications when attempting to use his armor for pure flight. Constantly using the floatation spell and another propulsion spell was quite draining. Then there was also the issue with landing and keeping balance. However, there was one way to do it that seemed plausible and the idea came to him when he observed the floating platforms in the institute. Getting his hands on the design wasn’t that difficult and after going over the runic code, he managed to adapt it.\n\n‘I guess if I fall down then I’ll just run the rest of the way…’\n\nEventually, he concluded that it was probably better to just go for it. The people at the dungeon entrance would probably also try to follow him, so putting as much distance between them as possible was crucial. Thus, it was time to use his shield once more. It was quite thick, large, and something that he could easily stand on even with his armor on.\n\nAfter placing it down on the ground the large mithril shield started glowing and slowly rising into the air. It was a somewhat awkward ascension and at first, he had some balancing issues with the shield tipping almost over to one side. But Roland quickly adjusted his stance, finding his equilibrium as the shield lifted him higher into the air.\n\n‘The balance seems to be in order…’\n\nFrom his back plate emerged exactly three of his floating cubes. They slowly floated under the shield and attached themselves to it through means of magical magnetism. With them in the back, it was ready to attempt his sky surfing attempt. Soon the cubes started glowing red and produced enough propulsion to push him forward.\n\n“Hey, what is he doing?”\n\n“Quick we need to…”\n\nBehind him, the group he strong-armed had finally arrived. They were just in time to see red magical flames appear from behind the shield that jolted him forward. Due to their involvement, he lost a bit of his concentration and almost tipped over. However, after stretching his arms to the sides and using his palms to shoot out bursts of air, he managed to stabilize himself on his flying shield.\n\nAs Roland soared through the sky, he couldn't help but feel a rush of exhilaration mixed with a tinge of anxiety. This was his first time attempting such a feat, and the idea of falling into the depths below was not a comforting thought. However, he pushed those concerns aside and focused on maintaining balance which wasn’t such an easy feat. Only if he concentrated was he able to keep himself steady but eventually his speed began to increase.\n\n‘I should install a speedometer on this next time… how fast am I even going?’\n\nDespite not knowing his exact speed, Roland could tell that he was moving significantly faster than he would have on foot. The wind whipped past him, ruffling his robes while his armor kept him safe from the strong winds. For a moment he forgot why he was speeding towards the city as the world from above looked beautiful. He could see everything zooming beneath him, a long winding river cut through the landscape. The lush greenery of the surrounding forest and the city of Hazelfront that he was quickly approaching.\n\n‘I can’t get distracted by the view, I’m not here to test out new prototypes.’\n\nAs he approached the outskirts of the city, Roland began to slow down, gradually decreasing the propulsion from his floating cubes. He wanted to land safely and if it was possible with some discretion. However, once he approached the city gates he noticed many people looking up at the strange sky surfing armored man.\n\n‘If it’s like this…’\n\nHis previous plan had been to land near some trees where no one could spot him and then approach the city gate without making a fuss. The topography of this place was mostly unknown to him and he was too focused on steering his new creation, which exposed him to some onlookers. The robe that he was wearing over his suit of armor was clearly from the institute, thus under this guise, he decided to just continue flying forward. The institute was highly regarded within this city and he assumed that no one would stop a flying mage.\n\nAs Roland approached the city gates, he could see the guards looking up to see what the commotion was. Their expressions were a mix of confusion but also awe. The unconventional mode of transportation was probably nothing that anyone here had ever seen. With his robe fluttering in the wind and his armor gleaming beneath, he was not stopped or even shouted at, something that he had expected.\n\nInstead, the guards scrambled to make way for his approach, uncertain how to react to his unexpected arrival. Roland had lowered his speed which allowed him to stand up straight. He attempted to seem like an imposing mage who didn’t have a care in the world. As long as he made it seem that he was allowed to do this, then he knew that these people wouldn’t react.\n\nRoland slowly passed through the upper side of the gates while trying not to make eye contact with some archers on the guard towers. Then eventually he started to descend in an attempt to make a proper landing. With a soft thud, he finally landed just outside the gates, his shield gently settling onto the cobblestone street.\n\nFor a moment, the city fell silent as its inhabitants stared in wonder at the mysterious mage who had descended from the sky. Their eyes darted to the strange shield he was standing on and bulged out once strange floating cubes moved into his backplate, seemingly disappearing into nothingness. Roland, without uttering a word, used his mage hand spell to slowly take the shield from the ground and quickly slipped towards the bustling streets of Hazelfront.\n\n‘Well… everyone saw that so I bet it won’t take long for everyone to become aware of my presence… I need to find Lucienne.’\n\nOnce inside the city, he started to blend into the crowd. When his armor wasn’t glowing he didn’t look much different than any other eccentric adventurer. His destination was clear as the small spider drone was still in his sister’s possession. It had not been destroyed which meant that she was probably safe. While he didn’t know this city, maneuvering through it wasn’t that hard, and eventually, he arrived at his next destination,\n\n‘This is? A restaurant?’\n\nTo his surprise, once he was there he found him before an expensive-looking building. seemed to be a high-end restaurant, with polished wooden doors and large glass windows. The sign above the entrance bore the name “The Golden Goblet”. It was a place Roland had heard of before and it was known for its exquisite cuisine and elegant atmosphere.\n\n‘This place… Think Ernas mentioned it before…’\n\nWithout thinking much he stepped forward, his map quickly searching through the database to identify the mana patterns inside. To no surprise, he was picking up all the students along with other faculty members from the Institute. They were all in this singular building but before entering through these polished doors, he needed to handle the bouncer.\n\n“Ah… you must be from the Institute, please come in.”\n\n“...”\n\nHe just nodded as the burly-looking man identified him by his mage robe. Once the doors were opened he stepped through to arrive inside the lavish interior of The Golden Goblet. The atmosphere was sophisticated yet inviting, with dim lighting casting a warm glow over the finely decorated space. The aroma of delicious food wafted through the air as he tried to ignore it to find his sister.\n\nAs he made his way deeper into the restaurant, he noticed several familiar faces among the patrons. Professors and students alike were scattered throughout, engaged in lively conversations or enjoying their meals. Roland's gaze settled on a group of students sitting at a table near the back, their laughter filling the air. It was Lucienne who was together with her two friends Atasuna and Marlein.\n\n‘I guess, I was worried for nothing…’\n\nIt finally dawned on him that there was nothing to worry about. It seemed that Professor Ernas had just brought everyone here and was spending the Institute's funds on lavish food and drink. A sense of relief washed over him as he saw everyone safe and sound. However, this was not the end of everything. There was a lot of explaining left to do and judging by the signals from outside this place, someone more formidable was approaching.\n\n\nPlease check out my new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] I hope you give it a try, it's still just starting so be sure to follow it if you like to wait for the chapters to build up. It might have a slow start for some, but all my stories have :D\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to rate the story and follow!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 446 – Friends In High Places.\nTarget length: ~3000 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Please check out my new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] I hope you give it a try, it's still just starting so be sure to follow it if you like to wait for the chapters to build up. It might have a slow start for some, but all my stories have :D\n\n\nAll seemed well as Roland spotted his sister nestled in a corner with her friends, indulging in some overpriced delicacies. Ernas on the other hand was a level above, sitting in something that resembled a private booth. It was hard to see from Roland’s current vintage point, but the man indulged in some fun with unknown women. Presumably, it was to fill the void left by Ulfine’s departure. While relief washed over him seeing everyone safe and sound, Roland couldn't shake the feeling that the ordeal was far from over.\n\n‘Are they the Baskerville knights, or an entirely different faction?’\n\nOne individual within the group caught Roland's attention, their level was notably higher than his own. While he was not a tier 4 class holder, he surpassed the trio he had faced earlier. To make things worse, he was not alone. There were multiple other tier 3 class holders of lesser levels, which together would pose a threat even to someone like him. His armor had been damaged and restored which lessened its quality already, if another fight broke out, he wasn’t sure of the outcome.\n\n‘I should probably relax, even if they are bought out by the Baskervilles, they will probably not attack a Professor from the Institute.’\n\nWith this thought in mind, Roland took a moment to compose himself before approaching not his sister’s table, but the one where Ernas was. While the man would probably not help him, he had an item that could allow him to get out of this predicament without a fight breaking out. His current goal was to quickly return to the institute as staying in this city for another week was not the best idea.\n\nAfter making his way up the stairs, he was hit in the nose by a sweet scent. It permeated the upper area of this restaurant and laughter echoed through it. The moment he arrived here, he knew that this place was nothing a child should be in. That Ernas decided to come here with his students was questionable, to say the least. There were even red curtains dividing the booths up here, with alluring noises coming from many.\n\n‘I shouldn’t be surprised, they let me go into a dungeon when I was just ten…’\n\nAs Roland approached Ernas's booth, he noticed the man engrossed in conversation with the women accompanying him. They were laughing and chatting, seemingly oblivious to the world around them. Roland hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. He wasn't particularly fond of Ernas, but he needed his help. After clearing his throat, Roland spoke up, trying to catch Ernas's attention amidst the loud chatter.\n\n“Professor Ernas, may I have a word with you?”\n\nErnas turned towards Roland, a look of mild surprise but also annoyance crossed his features. He was together with two human women, both quite charming but more than likely, escorts.\n\n“Ah, Assistant Professor… What brings you here? Have you already resolved that anomaly? If so, would you mind taking the students back to the Inn? It’s probably already too late to continue the advancement classes for today.”\n\nThe ladies laughed as Ernas continued to smile at them and rest his hands on their hips. It was clear that this person didn’t want to continue his conversation with Roland, instead opting to continue his day of entertainment. Which would probably turn into a nightly encounter if he was left to his own devices.\n\nHe was wearing his helmet so his expression of disdain was hidden. Ernas’ dismissive attitude was quite maddening and he wished to do nothing less than to smack that grin off his face. However, he knew he had to maintain his composure as his next plan wouldn’t truly work without this man’s help.\n\n“I’m afraid there’s been a somewhat unfortunate incident within the dungeon, Professor.”\n\n“An unfortunate incident? Can’t you take care of it yourself?”\n\n“That will be hard, we will need to cancel the advancement classes and we need to contact the Institute immediately.”\n\n“You want us to do what? Preposterous!”\n\nThe response was what he expected, Roland was just a new assistant professor with no real power. This man also belonged to Delauder’s department which he had a feud with. Roland took a deep breath, trying to maintain his patience despite Ernas's dismissive attitude\n\n“Professor Ernas, I understand your reluctance, but the situation in the dungeon is more serious than I initially thought. There's a possibility of danger not only to our students but also to the city itself. We need to act quickly and inform the Institute about what transpired…”\n\nErnas scoffed, waving his hand dismissively as if brushing off Roland's concerns like pesky flies.\n\n“Nonsense! You're overreacting, Assistant Professor. What do you exactly want me to do? Call the Headmistress? First off…”\n\nBefore Ernas could berate him and prod for information concerning this incident, Roland interjected.\n\n“Yes, that exactly, let us inform the Headmistress, she probably already knows what has happened!”\n\n“She knows? What happened, exactly?”\n\nThe moment the Headmistress was mentioned, Ernas started to straighten up.\n\n“That doesn’t matter, you need to contact the Institute and for that, we need the transmission tool that you have.”\n\nThis was the crux of the problem. Ernas owned a special communication device that could even contact the Headmistress's office directly. It was given to the leader of this academic expedition. If something out of the ordinary happened, he was given the right to call up forces from the Institute that could aid them if something bad happened. Usually, it was used to contact someone in a higher position to ask for instructions whenever something unique transpired.\n\nIn this case, Roland wanted to contact the Headmistress who would be able to order them to return. During the incident with the Spiritualist, he didn’t have an opportunity to talk things through and it didn’t seem that she had reached out to Ernas. The man would probably contact someone else like Delauder or the Vice-Headmaster, who could turn down his plea to postpone things here.\n\n“Hey, what do you think you are doing?”\n\n“Hm? Was that downstairs?”\n\nBefore this conversation could be concluded, the people from outside the restaurant finally decided to show themselves. A commotion broke out a level below, one of the other faculty members was shouting at someone. Roland could see that the dots that had been standing outside, had moved inside, at least the tier 3 class holders. The rest encircled the whole establishment as if they were trying to apprehend a criminal.\n\nAs Roland peered down from the upper level of the restaurant, he could not see any familiar faces. These men were not part of the Baskerville knights, nor did they seem as part of any particular force, they were clearly adventurers. Their strongest member was a large man with unkempt hair and a bushy beard. It wasn’t hard to identify who he was as he wore the symbol of the adventurers guild on his clothes.\n\n‘That’s probably the Guild Master of this city, he seems to be around the same level as Aurdhan…’\n\nThere was a reason why they were here and it was him. He could only assume that either one of the knights that escaped ratted him out or that they were on the Castellane payroll.\n\nHowever, Roland couldn't afford the risk of falling into the hands of these individuals. The consequences of capture were too unpredictable as he couldn't predict what they might do to him and his sister in his absence.\n\n“Professor Ernas, we need that…”\n\n“It can wait, what is all of this shouting, someone give me an explanation.”\n\nBefore he could wrestle that device out of Ernas, the man charged out of his booth. It was clear that he had identified the voice of the person and he was part of his department. Roland could only give out a sigh and walk after him hoping that this whole thing wouldn’t escalate any further.\n\nAs Roland followed Ernas downstairs, he found chaos unfolding. The faculty member who had been shouting was now in a heated argument with the adventurers who had entered the restaurant. The Guild Master stood at the forefront, his imposing presence commanding attention.\n\n“What's going on here?”\n\nThe man who seemed to be the adventurer guild master moved forward. Around him were other armed men who were probably all Platinum Adventurers. They had their hands near their weaponry and were quite ready to attack. Roland hoped that this wouldn’t escalate into anything as there were many underaged students around them. With powerful magic involved, it was very dangerous for the children that were low leveled.\n\n“We received reports of a disturbance in the dungeon nearby. Witnesses claim to have seen a mage emerging from the dungeon.”\n\nIt was clear that they were here for Roland and all of them were gazing in his direction. Ernas followed their gaze and instantly identified their target which was Roland. However, to his surprise, the words that left his mouth were not what he expected.\n\n“A disturbance? Surely there must be some mistake. My students and I were merely enjoying a meal. I assure you, no one from the Institute has been involved in any such incident, and even if they were, what of it?”\n\nThe Guild Master narrowed his eyes, clearly unsatisfied by the answer he had received. Roland expected Ernas to rat him out instantly but it seemed that this man was similar to nobles. Even if they had issues with each other, they would band against common threats. In this case, it was mages from a prestigious school going against adventurers who were nothing more than ruffians in their eyes.\n\n“I don't buy it, ‘Professor’ “\n\nReplied the adventurer leader in a mocking tone.\n\n“We have credible witnesses who saw him leaving the dungeon. Some people have gone missing, we just want to… ask him some questions, don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”\n\nErnas was not pleased and quickly retorted while trying to keep an authoritative air around him. Roland wasn’t sure why he was so adamant about this but at least he wasn’t budging.\n\n“Who do you think that you are to be ordering me around, Adventurer?”\n\nAs the standoff escalated, Roland realized that it was perhaps better to diffuse this situation before it spiraled out of control. These men were in a sense doing their job and were probably being backed by some nobles. Each side felt that their side had more power and without the leaders of each side intervening directly, no one would probably budge.\n\nThe people that were stuck in here were starting to panic. Whenever tier 3 class holders and above argued, they would increase the pressure, similar to Roland’s suppression skill. All the exits were being blocked as well, so fleeing was not an option either. To resolve this situation, some more drastic measures needed to be taken.\n\n“Hey, what are you?”\n\n“Just let me use this…”\n\nThis city’s guild master had an oversized sword instead of an axe and he quickly went for it. Roland decided to do something more drastic and activated the communication bracelet that Ernas was wearing. It was attuned to the man’s mana pattern but getting through enchantments was something that he had already specialized in.\n\n“Let go of my hand, what are you doing?”\n\n“Just stay still for a moment so we can resolve this…huh?”\n\nWhile Roland intended to go through the magical locks and activate the device, it sprung to life on its own accord. It produced a cone of light that shot up and within it, a figure started to appear. This magical artifact worked similarly to Roland’s holographic devices and could also produce the image of the person on the other side.\n\n“Assistant Professor Wayland and… Profesor Ernas…”\n\n“H-headmistress… I didn’t want to… this hoodlum forced me to…”\n\nThe artifact was meant for emergencies and a person holding it would be punished if they used it without a proper reason. It was for this reason that Ernas was panicking as it was given to him for safekeeping. The magical image of the Headmistress appeared before them, her expression stern but focused not on the man who was panicking but Roland instead.\n\n“Assistant Professor Wayland, I forgot to ask you about a few things but first let us resolve this issue.”\n\nRoland planned to either contact the Headmistress or someone high-ranking enough to have the issue with Ernas resolved. He did not expect the Institute leader to activate it from her end, it was as if she knew the exact right moment to intervene.\n\n“Of course, Headmistress…”\n\nShe talked while the adventures surrounded her holograph-like image. At first, it seemed that they would charge forward but once they saw the person that they were talking to, they were forced to stop. Xandar’s Institute of Wizardry was located quite close to this dungeon city and the visage of their leader was quite known. Yavenna Arvandus or the Lady of Thorns that many called her, was someone that people feared within the whole Kingdom.\n\n“These gentlemen must be…”\n\nShe turned towards the adventurers who seemed like they were ready for some action. Luckily, their leader had some sense and quickly raised his hand to stop them.\n\n“They are adventurers from the guild and are investigating the recent dungeon irregularity.”\n\nReplied Roland while Ernas seemed surprised that his lesser co-worker was managing to speak to the Headmistress in such a relaxed tone.\n\n“Mhm, bring me over to them.”\n\n“...”\n\nRoland along with Yavenna paused for a moment before Ernas realized that this was the cue for him to start moving. The bracelet was still stuck to his arm and the technology wasn’t too perfect. There was a need to bring it closer for her to hear the replies of the adventurers.\n\n“Ah, of course, Headmistress!”\n\nErnas finally complied, albeit reluctantly, and moved closer to the group of adventurers.\n\n“Young man, you seem to be in charge.”\n\n“Young man? I mean, yes?”\n\nReplied the Guild Master in a confused fashion as he looked like a man in his early sixties. However, he was talking with someone who was an elf who could very well be many times their senior.\n\n“There seems to have been an issue inside your dungeon that concerns one of the members from my institute. Worry not, I will personally question the person involved in this matter and inform you of our findings. In the meantime, I ask for your cooperation and patience.”\n\nThe Guild Master exchanged a glance with his companions and was clearly not happy about the statement. Roland wasn’t sure if his plan was the right one but it seemed that the Headmistress was on his side. He expected the proud mages to wish to resolve matters in their own way and behind closed doors. While he would be questioned letter, it was better if it happened at the Institute than here.\n\n“Wait, you can’t expect us to just be fine with this?”\n\n“I can’t? Do I have to remind you of your position, Guild Master?”\n\nThe Guild Master was not pleased by how this situation was turning out but the Headmistress didn’t seem too concerned and instantly shot him down before turning back to the two professors.\n\n“Professor Ernas, Assistant Professor Wayland. Return to the institute, the advancement classes will be continued inside our training grounds and when you return… Assistant Professor Wayland, report to my office, immediately. Do I make myself clear?”\n\n“Yes, Headmistress.”\n\nRoland replied, his voice firm and respectful. Ernas, who had been visibly flustered by the sudden appearance of his boss, was quick to follow up.\n\n“Yes, Headmistress, right away.”\n\nWith that, the holographic image of the Headmistress dissipated, leaving Roland, Ernas, and the group of adventurers standing in the tense atmosphere of the restaurant. The Guild Master grumbled something under his breath, clearly unhappy with the turn of events. However, he knew better than to challenge the authority of the Headmistress of Xandar’s Institute of Wizardry. He could only glare at Roland who just stood there and recorded the man’s mana pattern for further use.\n\n“Let’s go…”\n\nEventually, the adventurers exited the restaurant and the tension started to dissipate. The students began whispering and some of the patrons that had been stuck here started to quickly leave. Roland’s eyes remained on his mini-map as he wasn’t sure if these people would just give up like this.\n\n“Wayland!”\n\n“Hm?”\n\nHowever, his thoughts were interrupted by Ernas who for an obvious reason, was sweating quite profusely.\n\n“What are you waiting for? We need to get back to the Institute!”\n\nThe man wasn’t even interested in hearing about what happened to Professor Ulfine. Instead, he urged everyone in the restaurant to gather up and the other faculty members to count the students before departing. It seemed that he was unwilling to make the Headmistress wait for even a millisecond.\n\n‘Things worked themselves out but… I still need to report to the Headmistress.”\n\nHis sister was safe and they were going to return to the Institute soon. With Yavenna Arvandus’ name protecting them, there wouldn’t be many who dared to stop them. Yet, it was he who was tasked with making the report, not Ernas. It was evident that her assistance wouldn't come without a price tag attached and it was something that he needed to prepare for.\n\n\nPlease check out my new story called Heavy Metal [ A Monster Evolution LitRPG ] I hope you give it a try, it's still just starting so be sure to follow it if you like to wait for the chapters to build up. It might have a slow start for some, but all my stories have :D\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Hundred — a LitRPG progression fantasy. It was three in the morning when Simon learned that his royal father had been murdered, to everyone's relief. Simon had been dreaming of it for a very, very long time now. Most of the time, he saw his father pass away in his sleep with a beer mug in hand. Sometimes, it involved poison, and at others, a fall from a tower. Often, it was Simon himself who pushed his father down, though he could never remember why.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Simon | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Class, Overlord, Lauriane\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system\nSystem notification style: \"System notifications, or else Vouivre would have likely changed her\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 57: The Season of the Minotaur (6)\nTarget length: ~4300 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Elios Magnos?” The Stone Muse’s dark chuckle echoed through the sanctum. “A cursed name indeed, although I may not remember it...”\n\n“There is a carving of him in your treasure room,” Simon replied sternly. The rotten tree was playing coy with him. “You promised me knowledge and answers if I shattered your chains.”\n\n“Rewarded you already, did I not?” she replied with amusement. “Have I not shared my treasure with thee, beloved? One step towards communion you have taken, but three more vows we must renew before answers I give.”\n\nSimon grunted in annoyance. She still didn’t trust him and wouldn’t budge on her leverage so long as he hadn’t completely shattered her seal. The Muse would hoard her knowledge like a dragon until he coaxed it out of her.\n\n“But other secrets I can share with you, beloved,” the Muse said. “Dark spells most wonderful, for you to cradle our foes into an early grave with.”\n\nAn apology bribe? Well, Simon would never spit on new magic. “What kind of spells?”\n\n“Spells that command nature’s very elements.”\n\n“My affinity for miasma makes learning those difficult,” Simon pointed out. After a few failures at learning conventional sorcery with Duchar, he had mostly begun to practice the Mire spell, a poison-focused malediction that inflicted both Corrosion damage and sapped the target’s Vitality.\n\n“But not those I know; Hellfire, Hellwind, Hellthunder, Hellfrost… these are diabolism spells that draw strength from the Abyss itself. Lightning that strikes the spirit, cold that chills the soul, fire that burns hope, wind that carries miasma…”\n\nElemental spells that drew power from the Abyss? Even Duchar hadn’t heard of those, though that might be because of his focus on necromancy.\n\n“Very well, I accept this gift of knowledge,” Simon replied as he left her sanctum. “We shall begin training tomorrow after we complete the inventory.”\n\n“I look forward to us spending time together, my dear Lord of the Dark.”\n\nA sentiment that Simon didn’t return, but he would gladly bear if it meant gaining more strength. He moved down to Duchar’s workshop, where he found the old mage studying the Crestones they had gathered. His son was back in a deep slumber, a staff very similar to Lorimor’s wand lying on the nearby bench.\n\n“So?” Simon asked.\n\n“I have completed a cursory analysis of our newly collected Crestones,” Duchar said. “Seven remain functional, but the rest have been corroded by too much miasma exposure. They can no longer sustain a Class.”\n\nSimon had feared as much. Four hundred years spent soaking in demonic energy had taken its toll. “What about their Perks?”\n\n“I doubt any of them will interest Your Majesty, but I have compiled a list. I suggest assigning them once I finish extracting their schematics. The more a Crestone is used and its wielder strengthened, the better it will stave off miasma corruption.” Duchar stroked his beard. “Otherwise, I have not found any blood relationship between House Magnos and Empress Euphemia’s line preceding her union with Your Majesty’s father.”\n\n“So we aren’t distant cousins?” Simon inquired. “I thought it might have been the case since both Euphemia and my ancestor were three-eyed Visionaries.”\n\n“Visionaries have been known to appear in the most random of places across all Tribes,” Duchar replied. “Though I do wonder if your wise father partly decided to marry Lady Euphemia in the hopes that the fruit of their united bloodlines would yield a Visionary child.”\n\n“He certainly did.” Which was why Thalas had disappointed him since birth. “Is it some form of mutation? I know the Church of the Light considers it a mark of sainthood, but Elios Magnos is anything but holy.”\n\n“I suspect it is a mutation, yes, but I never had the pleasure of studying a Visionary… the things I could learn from a visisection…” Duchar cleared his throat. “I do know that they possess a myriad of gifts, such as the power to see the flow of mana in the air, the power to bind Eidolons without the Summoner Noble Class, even receive visions of the past and future, but the Church of the Light is the only organization to have extensively studied them, and they hoard their knowledge.”\n\nAgain with the Church of the Light… Simon was wondering more and more whether he should spend a reign infiltrating them to access their astrology and Visionary research papers. It might also grant more insight into Euphemia’s plans.\n\nLet us see where this life carries me before I consider the next, Simon thought as he studied Duchar’s new staff. I might survive beyond the ritual’s conclusion with some luck. It would be nice to die of old age for once.\n\n“This is a more advanced design than Lorimor’s wand,” Simon said, his gaze wandering to Hector. “Are you building one for your own son?”\n\n“Only as a safety measure until I can correct his body’s design flaws,” Duchar replied without doubt or hesitation. Most would have hesitated about creating a magical item to control their own child, but not him. “I must thank Your Majesty for it. The insight your soul-stealing Perk provided into our spiritual condition was most enlightening.”\n\n“I don’t want any incidents,” Simon replied before he heard the familiar noise of airships in the distance coming through the Dungeon’s thick walls. It seemed Louis had begun his bombing run. “But I do agree we will need more guardians.”\n\nWar was finally upon them.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nTwo weeks had passed since the Vernal Equinox heralded the beginning of a new imperial year on the 1st of Germinal, and that of the imperial civil war.\n\nTrue to Shabram’s warning, Louis opened the conflict with an all-out bombardment that stretched from Magvolia to the Berwick Islands. Towns and cities burned all across the empire, and though Whispermire was spared, the sight of airships flying across the region had already become a common occurrence. The war machines bombed cities in the Church Party’s territories, returned home to refuel, and then flew back on new assignments. The thick cloud of miasma covering the Darkwood prevented the airships from seeing the Halls of the Minotaur from the air, but Simon could still observe their vague silhouettes when he looked at the sky at night. Odd to imagine that a town burned each time they moved east.\n\nLouis had also bombarded cities deemed disloyal across the region, and while barbaric, it had turned out to be a tactically sound decision. Magvolia had been cowed into obedience by the fear of devastation from the sky and failed to rise in rebellion as it had in the past reign. Even local abbeys kept silent in spite of High Confessor Mastemo’s call for arms on behalf of Euphemia. It seemed people’s fear of fire raining down from the sky outweighed their faith.\n\nThis had a knock-on effect that prevented Norbelle and Cocagne from attacking the Goetia Research Center and thus left Lauriane firmly in charge of the empire’s Crestone production. The current battlelines had moved to the Navarre region and Cocagne’s borders in the south, whereas Dassein and the Tellurian Shifter tribes pressed on from the north.\n\nAnd there was still no word of Vouivre.\n\nAt least Shabram confirmed that Anna and her father had survived the Berwick Islands’ bombardments, though the knowledge that she had officially wed Thalas enraged Simon each time he was reminded of it.\n\nTrue to his objectives for this reign, Simon kept up with the news while working on his spellcasting and crafting. He had quickly mastered the Mire spell and practiced the Hell series spells under the Muse’s tutelage. She had proved to be a surprisingly good teacher so far, clearly explaining the underlying mechanics behind her sorcery and being attuned enough to miasma to effectively guide Simon. He could see why she had taken a liking to mentoring artists in the past.\n\nThe ‘Hell’ series of Tier III spells worked by blending the major elements and miasma to ensure half the damage they inflicted was aligned with the Soul type, which meant they could partly ignore elemental immunities. Training with them also put the issue of affinities to the forefront. Although Simon had an easy time learning the likes of Hellfrost and Hellfire, Hellwind came more slowly to him due to his neutral Wind affinity. It would likely take a month or two before he mastered all of them. He had also experimented with his Lord of the Demon Castle ability and confirmed he could reshape the Hall of the Minotaur at will, with the restriction that he could not move the Muse’s sanctum around due to the seal locking it in place.\n\nOtherwise, he had also distributed the Crestones to his followers after copying their schematics and confirming none of them had Perks worth devouring. A few went to cultists who had proved loyal enough. Simon also experimented by giving a handful of Crestones to monsters. He already knew that demons could use Classes—Mardok came to mind, and the empire employed a few as shock troops—but it seemed that any sentient creature could call upon one. Carrock the treant, gargoyles, imps, toadmen, and even a sentient slime had proved capable of using Crestones.\n\nThere were a few exceptions. The Songstress and Courtesan Classes could only be used by female users due to the archetypes they represented, and trying to give Orator to an animated tree had resulted in a miserable failure. At least the Juggler gargoyle had proved surprisingly amusing.\n\nThe Vassal Class’ Perks didn’t change, no matter the user, but a monster’s biology could synergize with them in surprising ways. For example, Ulmos the slime quickly learned to use its own body to fuel the Pictomancer’s paint requirement, and Carrock’s control of the forest let him mix traps with Illusionist-fueled mirages. Trying to maximize the use of each Crestone was quite the interesting subject.\n\nAnd I suspect they’ll all be put to the test soon, Simon thought as he entered the Midnight Market under the guise of a Fiendmask. It was his first time visiting Whispermire in person after the beginning of the civil war, and the adventurers’ den was already packed with local youths. He also spotted a few guards bearing the Magnos manticore’s seal among them.\n\n“Emperor Louis wants you for his regiments!” the crier called out across the hall. “The usurper Euphemia would keep you poor under a burden of taxes while nobles and the Church of the Light revel in unearned luxury! Can you follow a woman who murdered her own husband for power?! Would you rather fight for a leader who keeps you in chains, or one who offers rewards, toil, and sweat?!”\n\nLauriane isn’t wasting any time going for the throat, Simon thought as he paused to listen for a bit. Both sides were accusing the other of murdering Balzam Magnos to garner support among imperial loyalists.\n\n“Enlist today, and a Class will one day become yours! Poor, commoner, highborn or lowborn, it does not matter! Endymion thirsts on the strength of its people, no matter the tribe and station! Hail Endymion!”\n\n“Hail Endymion!” a horde of would-be adventurers, drunk on alcohol and dreams, shouted back... but many remained silent or half-heartedly raised their hands so as to avoid reproach. Many probably resented the War Party for its bombing run, but it was always dangerous to speak up against those in power.\n\nSoldiers went on to distribute enlistment papers, with Simon grabbing one on his way to the stairs.\n\nTrue to Louis’ meritocratic ideals, the army promised a job to anyone enlisting and a Crestone to anyone making it to the rank of officer. Simon wasn’t sure if even the Goetia Research Center had the output to fulfill that promise, but the promise of a Class would motivate the masses.\n\nWhich would lead to issues when they looked for places where to level up new recruits���\n\nSimon put the enlistment paper in his pocket and ascended the stairs to Cassandra’s apartment. Two guards—both cultists—kept watch over the door with sheathed swords.\n\n“Master,” they greeted Simon upon recognizing him. He nodded back at them and stepped through the door as they opened and closed it behind him.\n\nThe smell of potions and alchemic fluids reached Simon’s nostrils the moment he crossed the threshold. Odette had afforded Cassandra her largest suite, and the witch had transformed its main hall into a witch’s workshop. Bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters next to shelves filled with magical ingredients. Cassandra herself was near the fire pit placed underneath the chimney, using a large spoon to stir green liquid inside a black cauldron.\n\n“Your Majesty,” she greeted him with a faint, kind smile.\n\n“You can call me Simon,” he replied courteously. “We are friends now, not just subordinates.”\n\n“Oh, I didn’t know,” she replied with a curious expression. “Since when?”\n\n“Since… I don’t know? Friendships happen naturally.” He unloaded his bag. “I don’t remember assigning you bodyguards. Did something happen?”\n\n“No, your worshipers took it upon themselves to protect me after some bar patrons bothered me.” Cassandra paused a moment before adding, “I think they hope I will invite them inside to have sex with me one day.”\n\nSimon scowled. Cassandra had the power to easily repel any unwelcome attention, but he would rather avoid an incident. “Do you want me to send them away?”\n\n“It is fine. I do not mind them, and they fear me too much to try anything too overtly.” She let go of her spoon and checked Simon’s bag. “Did you bring the slime oil I asked for?”\n\n“Yes indeed,” Simon confirmed. He had had success breeding various elemental jellies in the Darkwood’s swamp. “What kind of potion are you making?”\n\n“Oil for the skin and salt baths.” Simon’s surprised expression amused Cassandra. “I have a private bath.”\n\n“Oh, alright.” Simon didn’t know she was into those things. “Doesn’t the Brand of Lust make skincare routine redundant though?”\n\n“The Brand of Gluttony makes it pleasurable.”\n\n“I see.” Sometimes Simon forgot it also magnified the bearer’s senses.\n\n“I think I figured out how the Brand of Greed works, too,” she said. “It does not charm people, but it does bring about fortuitous coincidences. I find dropped money more often, and sometimes I feel compelled to meet someone’s gaze and learn he is looking for a particular potion I have in stock. I can even sense which decisions will yield better results at the gambling hall, though I cannot explain why. A small series of little events creates a flow of fortune my way.”\n\n“Interesting. I always wondered how the Luck stat manifested compared to the others.” Simon spotted a sealed scroll of paper on the table near the cauldron. “Is that Shabram’s document?”\n\nCassandra nodded. “A messenger brought it to me and told me to deliver it to you.”\n\nSimon nodded as he went to grab it. Obtaining the Spy and Merchant Classes’ blueprints was half the reason he had returned to Whispermire; the other was that the Cobweb had asked Odette for a meeting.\n\nThe document contained both the Spy and Merchant Classes’ schematics, alongside a description of their stats and known Perks. The Spy, true to its name, mostly focused on infiltration-related abilities like soundless steps, cosmetic and cloth alterations to better disguise the wearer, or even the power to change one’s voice.\n\nAs for the Merchant…\n\nThe Merchant: The noble wandering trader, the fast-talking dealer, and the magnate who turns coins into power and makes dreams into reality.\n\nStrength D, Vitality D, Agility B, Perception A, Magic E, Intelligence A, Charisma A, Luck S.\n\nInnate Perk: Inventory (Active): You can stock up to one item per level that you own in a unique pocket dimension only you have access to, and bring them out at will. Should you die, all items in your inventory are released at the spot of your demise.\n\nInnate Perk: Golden Rule (Passive): Fortune favors you, and the flow of wealth always goes your way. You are supernaturally lucky when it comes to commerce, gambling, or treasure-finding.\n\nInnate Perk: Lootbox (Active): You can sacrifice any amount of money to magically craft an item of equal value. The selected item is created at random.\n\nInnate Perk: Buddyguard (Active): Magically summons an otherworldly bodyguard to protect you for a day. The bodyguard’s level and power depend on the amount paid to summon them.\n\n\nTwo things came to mind when Simon finished reading the document.\n\nFirst of all, the Merchant was indeed the apex of money-making, utility Classes.\n\nAnd second, Noble Classes were absurd.\n\nInventory alone was tremendously useful, but Buddyguard and Lootbox ensured a clever Merchant always had a way out of their predicament; with Golden Rule ensuring they always stayed in the black.\n\nOtherwise, the Merchant’s other Perks were powerful but situational; identifying the value and history of items on sight, spending money instead of mana to power spells, buffing yourself by spending coins, a large Charisma bonus, the ability to speak all languages, and so on. The Overlord could already do a few of those, and most abilities required a sizable war chest to be fully effective.\n\nIt was Inventory that fascinated Simon the most. Besides the fact that it neatly explained how Patriate Malphas could have smuggled in the sword that killed Balzam Magnos into Frightwall, having the ability to stockpile dozens of items—including Crestones—in a private portable treasury would improve his logistics during so many reigns. No more trouble moving the Beleth archive around when he could simply stock them.\n\nMoreover, this power might shed some light on how reigns worked. If Simon could stock items in this Inventory dimension and they traveled back in time with him, it would suggest that previous timelines still existed physically somehow; if not…\n\nOh wait, no, it says I drop everything upon death, Simon thought after rereading the Perk’s description. Although… if I die, would the items appear right next to my body after I wake up in a new reign if I perish instantly?\n\nHe could at least test that theory. The Inventory Perk would be incredibly useful either way.\n\n“Innate Perks can only be used if someone wields the Crestone, right?” Simon asked Cassandra for confirmation. “A wielder does not retain them if they lose it.”\n\n“Yes indeed,” she confirmed. “This is why the army does not have soldiers touch every Crestone they find in the hopes of having them collect a wide variety of Perks. Only passive abilities gained through level-ups can be retained without a Crestone.”\n\nThen I’ve made up my mind, this is too good an opportunity to pass upon, Simon thought as he focused on contacting Shabram. “I would like to have the Merchant Noble Crestone delivered to me somewhere outside Whispermire.”\n\n“I can arrange that, Your Majesty, but be wary that it risks being tracked down,” his spymaster answered quickly. \"Euphemia holds Frightwall so I had to smuggle the Crestone in a more secure location.\"\n\n“It will not be long for this world, trust me. There is no particular urgency, so take your time to arrange a secure delivery.”\n\n“Understood.”\n\nSimon cut the communication and folded the schematics under his coat. “I have a meeting upstairs, Cassandra,” he said. “Perhaps we can have tea or coffee after I am done?”\n\n“Will you leave afterwards?” Cassandra asked, sounding a bit more nervous than normal.\n\n“Maybe.” Simon raised an eyebrow. “Do you need me for something?”\n\nCassandra bit her lip. “I admit I find my current work lonely without my father or brother,” she confessed. “Your followers are kind to me, but they are neither family nor kin.”\n\n“I can stay a bit longer in Whispermire,” Simon reassured her. He could practice his spells anywhere and return to the Halls of the Minotaur in a pinch should there be an emergency. “I would be happy to spend time with you.”\n\n“Thank you, Simon.” She politely nodded at him. “I hope your meeting goes well.”\n\nSimon took his leave and then walked up to Odette Kano’s office. His new retainer was waiting for him alongside Silk, signing a pile of papers. The Cobweb representative had come dressed in casual clothes rather than her assassin ones and didn’t bring along her grimoire, which Simon took as a good sign.\n\n“A spider crawls into your den again, Miss Kano,” Simon said as he took a seat. “I would be wary if I were you. I hear they leave cobwebs everywhere.”\n\n“They also catch flies,” Odette mused. She seemed to be in quite a good mood. “The spider has a proposition I thought we should discuss.”\n\n“I’ll cut straight to the chase,” Silk said, immediately all business. “Demand for Vassal Crestones has exploded with the start of the civil war, and an extremely rich client commissioned us for a stockpile at multiple times the market rate. I want you to increase production.”\n\n“What kind of client?” Simon asked warily. “The White Unicorn? One of the civil war’s sides?”\n\n“That is not for you to know,” Silk replied sternly, as if she were talking to an unruly business partner rather than an archfiend. Simon wasn’t sure if she was genuinely that confident or just careful not to show weakness. “We take client confidentiality seriously.”\n\n“I doubt that,” Simon replied, having been on the receiving end of their treachery in a previous reign.\n\n“Doubt all you want, it is the truth. We would have blown the whistle on you a long time ago, otherwise.” Silk crossed her legs. “We will increase pay rates if you can produce at least three per month.”\n\n“Once again, you take me for a criminal in need of money, when I trade in souls and secrets.” Simon clasped his hands. “I want to know where you found that miasma crystal of yours, and where I can find others.”\n\nSilk held his gaze. “I cannot provide that information.”\n\nEither the Prince is looking to obtain them for himself, or someone contracted the Cobweb to investigate, Simon thought. And Silk won’t spill the beans.\n\n“I can provide other useful intel,” Silk said. “We have spies among the White Unicorn and their allies. Their eyes are turned on Magvolia now that imperial armies are waging war in the east.”\n\n“You tell me nothing I don’t already know,” Simon replied, having already seen similar events unfold in a previous reign. “I have already foreseen that Lore and the League of Valne will attempt a landing in the future when the imperial army least expects it.”\n\n“But do you know that they have already deployed spies and agents on the mainland to lay the groundwork for their arrival, and that Whispermire tops their list of targets?”\n\nSimon suppressed a scowl as he put two and two together. “A town of adventurers is the best place to gather forces without too much notice.”\n\n“I would keep an eye open when you sleep, or else you might find a Paladin knocking on your door when you least expect it.” Silk’s smile had sharp teeth. “Unless we give you an early warning, of course.”\n\nSimon pondered her offer. He had already bested Alphonse in battle once in the past, at the cost of being sealed for years; not to mention that the likes of Frea were unlikely to pull their punches now that Belzemine was dead…\n\n“Very well, I will pay for useful information on the White Unicorn in Crestones… alongside intel on another figure of interest to me.” Simon slouched in his chair to portray confidence. “You have dealings with a dragon warlord called Vouivre.”\n\nSilk’s scowl confirmed Simon’s suspicions. The Cobweb was still in contact with her. “She is a good customer and supplier, so I doubt the Prince will agree to share information on her. We can always arrange a meeting, however.”\n\n“Perhaps in the future,” Simon decided. He wasn’t ready to confront Vouivre unless he had the Minotaur Fiend to throw at her. “But very well. Depending on the value of the information you bring me on the Paladin and other holy fools, I may consent to producing more Crestones.”\n\n“There is another matter we must discuss,” Odette said. “You have seen the army recruiters downstairs, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. I received a decree from Lady Lauriane ordering me to sell monster parts in any quantity required and to host new recruits.”\n\nNow it begins, Simon thought. His fears were now realized. “Louis intends to use the Darkwood to level-up Class users before sending them to the front.”\n\n“Yes. I will try to delay as long as I can, but I’ve already received word that they’re planning large-scale drills in the following months.” Odette joined her hands. “One that will involve dozens of Class users.”\n\nSimon could read between the lines. He would have to prepare for a raid.\n\nThis turn of events saddened Simon, even if he knew it was inevitable that adventurers would come poking near the Halls of the Minotaur at one point or another. Trying to loot an ancient dungeon for wealth was what they did for a living, and the war would only bring more challengers.\n\nBut they knew the risks, Simon thought. It wasn’t like the Darkwood’s creatures were besieging Whispermire or threatening the local communities. Warriors went to the region for sport and profit. There were a hundred safer jobs to be found, and yet they still chose this one. Not to mention that they could disrupt the ritual should they reach the sanctum. Sacrifices must be made. I can’t delay forever.\n\n“Well then,” he said, a half-smile stretching on his lips. “I will be sure to prepare a warm welcome for them.”\n\nThose adventurers wouldn’t be the only ones leveling-up this year.\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 58: The Season of the Minotaur (7)\nTarget length: ~4400 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Simon stared at the crystal ball sitting on Cassandra’s table with wonder.\n\nAlthough he had always believed in the Oracle’s power of foresight, he had never been too interested in divination magic. Every important person in Frightwall carried items protecting them from it on top of all the measures the likes of Shabram took to counter the Oracle; not to mention that only specific Classes could cast the required spells.\n\nThe Witch thankfully counted among them, so the two of them had decided to craft a crystal ball for her personal use after Simon took a room close to her apartment suite to keep her company in Whispermire. Since the crystal ball also had to include a curse due to Simon’s crafting Perk focusing on using on miasma, it would poison anyone touching it; a mere detail for Cassandra, whose Brand of Gluttony protected her from the ailment, and a security measure against anyone else.\n\nThe device allowed her to scry on people or objects from afar with remarkable accuracy. Attempts at tracking down Silk had failed miserably, but they had managed to check on various rooms within the Midnight Market.\n\n“The Darkwood is shrouded in miasma,” Cassandra said. “I cannot pierce through the veil with my current power, though stronger spellcasters might be able to.”\n\n“What about me?” Simon asked. “Can you see me?”\n\nCassandra waved her hand at the ball. Its surface began to reflect a mostly accurate picture of her suite, except she was sitting right next to a horrifying demon with folded wings rather than a man.\n\n“I cannot see Simon Magnos, but I can see Belias the Fiend,” Cassandra said, which confirmed Anathemic Secrecy worked as advertised. She could only observe what he wanted her to see.\n\n“Alright, I will alter my Perk a bit,” Simon said as he shifted his Anathemic Secrecy to blocking all divination attempts rather than sending false positives. He then grabbed a nearby potion off a shelf. “Can you see me?”\n\n“No,” Cassandra confirmed, “but I can observe the potion floating in the air.”\n\nAs Simon feared. Anathemic Secrecy protected him from divination, but not necessarily the objects he carried on his person or things he interacted with. This gave credence to Shabram’s fears that something as precious as the Merchant Crestone could be tracked down in spite of his defenses. This might become another point in favor of claiming the Inventory Perk if it shielded the items within its pocket dimension from divination.\n\n“I believe I could craft a crystal ball capable of piercing through miasma with your assistance,” Cassandra told Simon. “It should at least let you observe events inside the Halls of the Minotaur. Divination becomes more accurate the more familiar the scryer is with the target, and that Dungeon draws its power from you.”\n\n“It would certainly help against unwelcome visitors,” Simon confessed, “and those will become more numerous by the day.”\n\nDemand for monster parts and materials had exploded now that Louis’ army had begun to buy them in vast quantities, so incursions into the Darkwood were growing more and more frequent. Carrock the Treant had already wiped out a party of classless adventurers who had gotten a little too close to the fairy ring yesterday, and another group had reached the elven ruins surrounding the Halls of the Minotaur before being wiped out.\n\nMost intruders were little more than glorified poachers, and none of them wielded any Vassal Classes, but they were growing bolder and more numerous. Every surviving group also helped map out the forest a little further, which in turn increased the chances that one of them might discover the Halls of the Minotaur.\n\nThankfully, Simon had been able to leverage his growing cult in Whispermire to implant one or two agents among the most threatening adventurer parties. His followers were locals familiar with the Darkwood, so they had an easy time posing as recruits and then waylaying intruders by luring them towards dangerous creatures working for Simon.\n\nSimon sensed Lady Shabram’s presence at the edge of his mind and opened himself to her thoughts. “The package will be delivered today at the agreed-upon place, Your Majesty,” she said, “I have also confirmed that a large military drill is being planned for the month of Prairial, though I am not part of it. Prince Louis ordered me to focus my resources on the Church Party rather than in his backyard.”\n\nPrairial… so right before the Summer Solstice and second sacrifice, Simon thought before answering her. “Can you at least tell me who’ll be involved in the operation?”\n\n“I can already tell Your Majesty who is in charge of the program: Leonard Decarabia.”\n\nWhat? Simon flinched in surprise. Leonard? Leonard was coming here as a representative of the War Party? “Why? His house answers to Lord Paimon.”\n\n“It does, but Lord Leonard’s sister married Duke Flauros’ son, and that lineage supports Prince Louis’ claim to the throne. He chose his blood over his liege.”\n\nSimon grumbled to himself. Of course the various power blocs would have accelerated Tiella’s engagement to the Flauros brat in order to snatch another House out from Lord Paimon’s orbit. Euphemia wasn’t the only one who could play the marriage game.\n\nMoreover, Leonard made perfect sense as a training camp’s overseer. He was of a relatively high level, talented, and with a Class designed to protect weaker allies from injuries. As powerful as he would be on the field of battle, he would be ten times more useful to the War Party’s cause by ensuring multiple soldiers could level-up without risk.\n\n“And Duke Flauros married a sister of Patriate Malphas,” Simon recalled with a scowl. Was that a coincidence, or signs of a greater plan?\n\n“I have informed Prince Louis of my suspicions when it comes to House Malphas. He ordered me to put them both under close surveillance, but decided against taking direct action for now. I suppose he doesn’t wish to trouble Duke Flauros and Duke Eligos, both of whom are key to his war effort.”\n\n“Keep me informed, and try to look into the other people involved in the military drill,” Simon ordered before cutting communications and mulling over this new piece of information.\n\nLeonard would be in charge of the raid… was that good or bad news? He was an Overlord loyalist, but they were nearly four months into the current reign and in the middle of a civil war. His allegiance had likely changed a great deal given recent events.\n\nShould Simon try to approach him and recruit him to his cause in the hopes that he could cancel the raid, or at least prevent his trainees from assaulting the Halls of the Minotaur? But if he did reveal himself to Leonard and he ended up revealing the truth to Louis or the rest of his family, then the Seasonal Key ritual would likely go awry. Simon couldn’t risk discovery yet.\n\nAnd what should he do if Leonard ever led a party straight to his doorstep? The idea of fighting his own retainer—especially one who had proved loyal to the death in several reigns—unsettled Simon to his core.\n\nPerhaps a better option will present itself, given time, Simon told himself as he shook his head and focused back on reality. “Sorry, Cassandra, I received an urgent message.”\n\n“It is alright,” Cassandra reassured him. “I can tell when you mentally answer telepathic calls.”\n\n“You can?” Simon chuckled. “I suppose we’ve spent enough time together for that.”\n\n“It is a good thing, no?” Cassandra asked. “I appreciate the fact that you stayed here to keep me company. I enjoy it.”\n\n“So do I.” Speaking of appreciation, Simon looked inside his belongings and brought out a gift he had been working on for some time: a Crestone. “Here, I made this for you.”\n\n“For me?” Cassandra’s eyes lit up with interest as she looked it over. “It’s a Witch Crestone.”\n\n“You told me you needed at least three Witches to form a coven,” Simon said. “We’re working on supplying you with a third Crestone, so you should be able to create one soon enough.”\n\n“This is very kind of you, Simon. I will cherish this gift.” Cassandra took the Crestone and studied it closely. “I could ask Nora. She comes to me often, and she knows her way with herbs.”\n\n“Nora? Isn’t that one of the cultists?” Simon smiled. “Already on a first-name basis with some of them?”\n\n“I hope they can become my friends too,” Cassandra replied while returning his smile. “Shall we continue our divinations?”\n\n“Yes, but not here. There is a package I need to recover outside town and experiments I need to run with it.” He offered her his hand. “Would you kindly accompany me for a promenade on horseback, Cassandra?”\n\n“I would be delighted.”\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nTrue to their arrangements, one of Lady Shabram’s agents had placed the Merchant Crestone in a box beneath a mound half a day’s ride from Whispermire. It didn’t take long for Cassandra and Simon to locate it, hidden under a gnarled tree’s roots, and open it up.\n\nAlmost all Vassal Crestones were translucent, but the Merchant’s was as golden as the precious metal fueling its power, with a coin-like silver heraldry carved on its surface. A terrible heat coursed through Simon’s fingers when he touched it. He had never felt this way with any lesser Crestone before.\n\nIt rejects me, Simon could tell. It loathes the Overlord.\n\n“Merchant,” he said, a flow of golden mana immediately surging from the Crestone.\n\nThe energy flowing out of the device was incomparable to Vassal Crestones. Those pale counterfeits could only mimic a fraction of the Noble Classes’ power, and Simon could feel the difference. A thrill as pleasurable as that of a level-up coursed through his veins, bolstered by strengthened confidence. For a brief second, Simon was convinced he could do anything, fulfill any dream, overcome any obstacle, and bend the world to his will.\n\nThat honeymoon period only lasted a second, as a wave of pure wrongness followed the Class outfit’s apparition. A rich and wealthy outfit, including a top hat, a formal suit with a small cloak, boots, and bowtie materializing over his skin. Such clothes should have felt comfortable, but they itched and burned his skin with a phantom pain. They weighed on his shoulders in a way the Overlord armor never did, pressing down on his chest. Even the Class’ phantom whip weapon seemed far heavier in his hand than it should be.\n\nThe Merchant Crestone didn’t harm him, but it would if it could. The intuitive knowledge it provided Simon was given against its will, and the Perk was coaxed from its archetype.\n\nLevel 1 Merchant Perk: Eye for Treasure I (Passive): You intuitively grasp the average monetary value of anything you see.\n\n\nSimon glanced at Cassandra, with phantom numbers floating next to her belongings: her robe, her veil, her staff, and crystal ball… with the highest value being assigned to Cassandra herself.\n\nThe Merchant Class actually put prices on people. Simon shuddered as he quickly grasped the implications.\n\nA slaver was still a merchant at the end of the day.\n\n“The suit looks good on you, Simon,” Cassandra complimented him.\n\n“You’re too kind,” Simon replied before casting aside the Merchant’s whip—watching it vanish into mana the moment it left his hand—and instead grabbed his morning star. His Class gave him an intuitive understanding of its Perks. “Inventory.”\n\nThe morning star vanished without warning. A system screen popped up in front of Simon, showing his weapon placed amidst a sea of empty boxes. Most had a cross mark placed on them since he only had one level in Merchant.\n\n“Can you see the morning star with your crystal ball?” Simon asked Cassandra.\n\n“No,” she quickly confirmed. “It became untraceable the moment it disappeared.\"\n\nSo Anathemic Secrecy did apply to objects placed in the Merchant's Inventory. This kept getting better and better. Simon only had to focus for the weapon to instantly reappear in his hand. He swiftly confirmed that he could easily switch items in the Inventory by having his ring and weapon move around in and out of the pocket dimension.\n\nTwo reigns ago, when Simon first learned how to craft, Belzemine warned him against wearing more than one or two magical accessories at once because their mana would otherwise interfere with each other. This not only limited the amount of enchanted items he could carry, but also his tactical flexibility.\n\nInventory neatly solved that. He would be able to switch between weapons and accessories on the fly depending on the situation, the same way Louis apparently used his Warrior Class’ armory to alternate between different weapons.\n\nOnce he had finished testing this innate Perk’s limits, Simon decided on a bolder test: placing the Merchant Crestone itself in the inventory. The result was a predictable error message.\n\nYou cannot put the Merchant Crestone in the Inventory.\n\n\nSimon suspected something like that would happen; it would become impossible to recover the Crestone otherwise. Unfortunately, that meant he could never extend Anathemic Secrecy to the Merchant Crestone itself. It would forever remain a security risk. He simply couldn’t afford to keep it close for long.\n\n“Let’s try out the other innate Perks, just in case,” Simon decided. Eye for Treasure held little use for Simon, and the Brand of Greed already provided more income than the Merchant’s Golden Rule, so only its Lootbox and Buddyguard interested him.\n\nThankfully, having branded Odette Kano and gaining access to an ancient elven treasury meant he had inherited a sizable amount of money this month. Simon and Cassandra first tested the Lootbox Perk by paying a hundred golden coins to it. The first time he tried it, the coins vanished and transformed into a healing potion in a bottle; the second attempt provided a set of high-quality lockpicking tools; and the third a small shield.\n\nIn short, Lootbox indeed appeared to be completely random. Even Cassandra’s gambling-enhanced intuition from the Brand of Greed didn’t appear to influence the results.\n\n“Well, this might be the most unreliable Perk I’ve seen yet,” Simon complained.\n\n“I find it funny,” Cassandra admitted. “Maybe we will get a good surprise if we keep trying?”\n\n“We don’t have infinite money to burn on this exercise.” Simon stroked his chin. “Although, I do wonder how the Perk picks objects. Does it have a list of objects with an assigned price it picks from? Where does the gold go? Is it transmuted into the object, or is it teleported somewhere else? This ability has to follow some sort of parameters…”\n\nUnfortunately, figuring it out would likely require time and money he didn’t have, and for dubious benefits on top of that. Simon made a note to maybe explore the ability’s potential applications in a future reign and then moved on to the Merchant’s final Innate Perk.\n\n“Buddyguard,” Simon declared while holding a purse.\n\nHis funds immediately vanished in a flash of light, and a mighty creature appeared in front of him in a puff of smoke.\n\nThe creature resembled a humanoid of stout stature, garbed in orange armor that was gilded at the edges, albeit with skin dark as night, a lipless mouth filled with fangs, and six red eyes glowing in a hexagonal pattern beneath a horned helmet. Six arms each carried a different weapon in their clawed hands: a flail, a sword, a spear, a dagger, an axe, and a staff. It loomed over Simon and Cassandra like an adult over children.\n\nAnd it didn’t look pleased to be here in the slightest.\n\n“Only a hundred golden coins, you jackass?!” the figure sneered in perfect Endymian, his masculine voice thundering with outrage. “What a cheapskate! You should be ashamed to summon the great Xenophon with such meager monetary compensation!”\n\nWell, they were off to a good start already. “My apologies… Xenophon, was it?” Simon replied, squinting as he noticed a floating number above the creature’s head. “Twenty-one?”\n\n“The more you pay, the stronger I become,” the creature explained. “Every zero you add increases my level by ten. You paid a mere hundred golden coins, so you get me at level twenty-one. Pay ten thousand, I’ll be level forty-one and so on. And I only accept valuable currency.”\n\n“I see,” Simon replied. The mechanic surprised him a little. “I thought the Perk would have summoned a different creature based on the price.”\n\n“Nope, you only get me, and now I’m stuck as a weakling until our contract expires.”\n\n“What are you?” Cassandra asked with curiosity. “Are you an Eidolon?”\n\n“Yup, that I am, lass,” Xenophon replied. He sounded awfully casual and down to earth for a summoned spirit. “Don’t think I let just anybody summon me, though. I’ve been in an exclusive summoning contract with the Merchants since the Crestone’s creation.”\n\nSimon struggled to imagine that creature standing up to the likes of the Phoenix in battle, but appearances could be deceiving, and a large enough payment might make him a match for the likes of Louis.\n\n“There’s something wrong with you,” Xenophon told Simon, his six eyes squinting at his employer. “I sense darkness stirring beneath your skin. Did you kill my previous employer? I think I felt his demise through the Crestone.”\n\n“Would it matter?” Simon asked. Wait, if Patriate Malphas had summoned this creature, then he might know something useful.\n\n“Nope,” Xenophon replied with a mercenary shrug. “My only loyalty is to my current employer.”\n\n“Then what does our contract entail?”\n\n“I’m lawfully contracted to protect you for the next day and night. I’ll kill anybody who tries to harm you or die trying. A likely outcome at my current level, I might add.” Xenophon rolled all six of his shoulders. “Thankfully, I’m an Eidolon, so death only temporarily banishes me from this plane of existence. You can also end the contract by simply dismissing me.”\n\n“Wait.” Simon frowned as an idea crossed his mind. “I could dismiss you, then summon you again at a higher level if I increase the payment amount?”\n\n“Now you’re catching on quickly. Pony up if you want to see the good stuff. On the plus side, any experience I earn goes to you, so you’ll be the only one to benefit when I kill somebody.”\n\n“What do you do with the money?” Cassandra asked out of the blue. “Why would an Eidolon need money?”\n\n“Uh…” Xenophon cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed. Simon suspected nobody had asked him that question before. “It's a professional secret of the highest confidentiality.”\n\n“Mmm…” Simon replied with skepticism. Then again, he didn’t really care what a bodyguard used his pay for. He was more interested in other intel. “Is there no way to extend your contract’s length?”\n\n“Yes, if you renew the payment after it expires.”\n\nThen he wasn’t worth wasting a Devour Crestone Perk on. Having an additional bodyguard with a modulable level could come in handy against a powerful foe, but Xenophon required so much money, and for such a short duration, Simon couldn’t see himself summoning him much, even for grinding purposes.\n\nHowever, if Xenophon had indeed served Merchants since the Crestone was created, then he knew their secrets.\n\n“Does your contract prevent you from discussing your previous employers?” Simon asked.\n\n“Uh… no, I don’t think so,” Xenophon replied after some hesitation. “Why’s that?”\n\n“Does the name Elios Magnos ring a bell?”\n\n“No, not really. I don’t remember having contracted with someone called that.”\n\nSimon scowled. “A Librarian with three eyes then?”\n\n“Ah, yes, I recall someone like that,” Xenophon said, which immediately piqued Simon’s interest. “It was the third and final time my first employer contracted me, right in the middle of a battle. He and a few other Class users were fighting some kind of winged goatfish archfiend on a floating island in the sky. That Librarian was trying to seal it or something, but they needed extra muscle to keep the creep down.”\n\nSimon’s eyes widened in utter surprise. “A goatfish?”\n\n“Yeah, a goatfish,” Xenophon replied with a shrug. “Half winged goat, half fish, all mean with a black crystal in the middle of its sorry face. Nasty critter.”\n\nCould he have fought the Zodiac Fiend of the Goatfish sign? And on a flying island?\n\nCould it be…\n\n“Can you describe the island to me?” Simon inquired.\n\n“I was in the middle of a battle, so I didn’t pay much attention, but I recall winged humans fighting on our side,” Xenophon explained, confirming Simon’s suspicions. “Like I was pummelling the Abyss out of that goat before it threw me off the island’s edge, and I fell down for minutes on end. My employer had paid me enough to bring me to level seventy-one, so I survived the fall, but my contract expired before I could find my way back. I think my contractor was slain.”\n\nHe had met the kish people, and Balzam Magnos’ documents mentioned a floating continent as a potential location for a missing demonbarrow.\n\nWhich meant a Zodiac Fiend might be sealed away somewhere in Eole’s Sanctuary in the sky. It didn’t sound that safe all of a sudden.\n\nSimon interrogated Xenophon on the matter further, but the mercenary didn’t have much insight to provide. The first Merchant had apparently been a human male called Waybright, but he had only called upon Xenophon thrice: once to interrogate him about his contract, once to protect him during a business deal with a dragon—which ended without violence—and a final time for that battle in the sky. The Eidolon knew nothing about Elios Magnos beyond that moment, or even how the battle concluded.\n\nIn fact, it seemed like most Merchants only summoned Xenophon once when testing the Buddyguard Perk, and rarely called him again unless they were facing an imminent threat to their lives. This likely explained why none of the texts about past Merchants mentioned him. Calling him was a last resort.\n\n“What about Patriate Malphas?” Simon inquired. “What can you tell me about him?”\n\n“I don’t know any person with that name.”\n\n“He was your last employer,” Simon insisted. “A black-haired slimeball?”\n\n“Yes, yes, I see who you’re talking about now,” the Eidolon replied. “But Patriate Malphas wasn’t his name. He was called Barthandelus.”\n\nSimon’s eyes widened in surprise before his mind put two and two together. “What’s my name?”\n\n“What a stupid question.” Xenophon scoffed. “Simon Magnos.”\n\n“So you instantly learn the true name of anyone who summons you,” Simon guessed. Which meant Patriate had infiltrated the empire under a false name. “Barthandelus… that name sounds strange.”\n\nCassandra, who had mostly listened so far without saying a word, provided the answer. “Barthandelus is an elven name.”\n\nThat brought even more questions than answers. Was Patriate a half-elf like his daughter, raised in Illusea and sent to infiltrate the empire? Or some adopted spawn of an elven couple? Simon had the intuition that this information mattered, but he didn’t see much use in it right now.\n\n“Did he ever summon you, Xenophon?” Simon asked. Any detail could help.\n\n“Yeah, twice; the first time to ask questions about my contract, the second to assess my capabilities,” Xenophon replied. “He showed me a magical sword and asked me how much money it would cost to make me strong enough to slay a level ninety-plus Overlord with it in one strike.”\n\nSimon squinted at the Eidolon. “And what did you answer?”\n\n“That he should summon me with a nine-zero payment, and that I couldn’t guarantee it anyway,” Xenophon replied. “Don’t get me wrong, I can kill anybody for the right price, but the last Overlord I fought crushed me under his stinking dragon foot. They’re a tough lot. Barthandelus thanked me for my honesty, then dismissed me and never called on me again.”\n\nSo Xenophon hadn’t slain Balzam Magnos. Simon briefly wondered what would happen if an Eidolon or summoned creature were to kill an Overlord. Would the Class go to their master? Or would it transfer to someone else?\n\nThis also implied that Malphas and his employers had considered other alternatives before sending the assassin who eventually slew Balzam Magnos. Was their chosen killer so weak the Oracle feared they wouldn’t be able to pull it off?\n\nFurther questioning yielded little results. Patriate Malphas’ interactions with Xenophon had been too short for the mercenary Eidolon to learn much about his personality or goals. Simon had the nagging suspicion that the man intentionally avoided summoning his bodyguard during his tenure to keep him as a trump card.\n\n“Night’s falling,” Xenophon noted upon staring at the sky. “If you want to use me, you should hurry up. You’ve got until sunrise until I take my leave.”\n\n“I think we’ve covered everything I wanted to discuss, except one thing.” Simon clutched the Merchant Crestone. “Will your contract come to an end if I destroy the Merchant Crestone?”\n\n“Uh… probably.” Xenophon scratched the back of his helmet. “I don’t think anybody has ever tried.”\n\n“Let us check then, shall we?” Simon shed the Merchant outfit for the Overlord armor, stunning the Eidolon. “Devour Crestone.”\n\nThe Merchant Crestone burned like the heart of the sun in his palm, and then it shrieked.\n\nA scream rippled across the fabric of reality as the Noble Crestone illuminated the darkness, its radiance causing Xenophon to decompose into nothing. A torrent of miasma swirled between Simon’s fingers and smothered the light to death. The Merchant’s heart drowned in darkness and then disappeared with a final wail, its demise filling Simon’s bones with power and a rush of experience. The Overlord in him rejoiced at the conquest and destruction of an ancient foe, however temporary.\n\nYou have assimilated the Inventory Active Perk. It shall now replace Devour Crestone II.\n\nInventory (Active): You can stock up to one item per Overlord level that you own in a unique pocket dimension only you have access to, and bring them out at will. Should you die, all items in your Inventory are released at the spot of your demise.\n\n\nHe didn't receive any vision this time. He could feel the Merchant Crestone resisting him even in death, refusing to be robbed of its knowledge, denying him its help; and he wasn't strong enough to compel obedience yet.\n\nSimon nonetheless smirked from ear to ear. As he had guessed, the newly assimilated Inventory would scale with his Overlord level.\n\nTime to stock up.\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 59: The Season of the Minotaur (8)\nTarget length: ~3700 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "He dreamed of Elios Magnos that night.\n\nHe was still a living man in his dream, with pale skin and blonde hair framing three grey, red-rimmed eyes. His shaking hands gripped Simon’s clothes with immense dread.\n\n“You must walk away, Waybright!” he pleaded, his voice heavy with despair. “I have foreseen it! If you join us in the upcoming battle, you will die!”\n\n“You cannot take on that creature without my help,” Simon said with a voice that wasn’t his own, followed up by a warm, confident laugh. “Besides, you know me. I’m always up to challenging the odds.”\n\n“This is no joking matter!” Elios Magnos snapped at him with concern. His voice was nothing like the cavernous echo of the lich he had become. “The light of the comet shines upon the Goatfish! However weaker they might be compared to the Maiden or the Minotaur, their powers have now reached their apex!”\n\n“But all the other eleven have been dealt with, and their seals still hold firm. The Goatfish’s the last of them.”\n\n“And so are we!” Elios snapped. “The Oracle and we are all that remains of the first generation! The new recruits are green, untrained!”\n\nSimon remained resolute. “You know what will happen if that monster is allowed to complete its foul ritual. The death toll will be immense.”\n\n“Even so…” Elios seethed, looking down. “Don’t do it, please. I don’t want to see another of our own perish. Not again…”\n\nSimon felt his lips stretch into a smile, one that hid his fear behind its confidence. “Don’t worry, my friend,” he said, his hand reaching for Elios’ shoulder. “I will not die, that I promise you. I’ve stockpiled a fortune just for this moment. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. This war will soon be over.”\n\nAnd they both knew it was a lie.\n\nSimon’s eyes snapped open to find a ceiling of wood above his head. He returned to reality and to his room in the Midnight Market, his head clouded with questions.\n\nWas that a memory of the first Merchant? It sounded too vivid for a mere dream or hallucination.\n\nThe Merchant Crestone had denied him its knowledge, but it seemed an echo still reverberated through Simon’s dreams. He was beginning to wonder if he had some sort of spiritual sensitivity. He was convinced he had seen echoes of his father’s past reigns in his slumber and glimpsed Balzam’s memory of murdering his first wife back on the Berwick Islands.\n\nCould he have inherited some of Elios Magnos’ Visionary gifts, even without a third eye?\n\nAnd what should he make of that memory? It astonished Simon that the cruel lich he had encountered back in Berwick could care for someone else, but Elios Magnos had sounded genuinely concerned for the Merchant’s sake. He seemed to have foreseen his colleague’s demise with his Visionary power, a prophecy that came true in the battle that followed.\n\nAnd then… then there was the timing.\n\nEole told him that the Sanctuary had been torn away from Telluria during the Year of the Doom. The Goatfish came after the Archer in the Parade’s order, so that battle had to have taken place about four hundred years ago, when the comet last graced the planet with its presence. Since Xenophon said Waybright had been his first contractor, this meant the original generation of heroes continued to linger until the Doom at least, and that Elios hadn’t become a lich back then.\n\n‘But all the other eleven have been dealt with…’ that's what Waybright said, but there are thirteen signs, Simon thought. Did Mardok somehow manage to evade their notice until the Doom?\n\nDid traces of that battle remain in the Sanctuary? Whatever the Goatfish had been planning there, it threatened the heroes enough that they chose to risk their lives to stop it. He should have at least asked Eole for a way to contact her. Her homeland would suffer dearly when the comet arrived and freed the monster sealed away there.\n\n“Are you awake, Lord Belias?” Odette called out to him through telepathy. “Would you care to join me for a private breakfast? I have a gift for you.”\n\n“A gift?” Simon asked with curiosity. “How kind of you. I’m on my way.”\n\nAfter dressing up and briefly checking on Cassandra to find her still soundly asleep—he had learned she was something of a night owl—he made his way up to Odette’s apartment. Guards stepped aside and opened the door to a long hallway.\n\nHe found Odette signing documents at a large dining table while an undead Lorimor set the tableware. A middle-aged man bound by ropes to a chair struggled against his bindings, his screams dulled by a gag, his eyes and ears bound by a thick blindfold. A pendant bearing the Church of the Light’s glowing sun glittered around his neck.\n\n“I see we have a guest,” Simon noted. “A priest of the Light having breakfast with a demon?”\n\n“You asked for one alive,” Odette reminded him after setting aside her documents. “This here is Father Rodrigue, priest of the local abbey. Lady Lauriane ordered me to arrest and execute him for secretly corresponding with High Confessor Mastemo. As far as the papertrail goes, he has… disappeared.”\n\n“Good. We have cells to hold him in.” That took care of the sacrifice for the Summer Solstice, at least. “Where is your son? I would have expected to see him in your quarters.\"\n\n“Away,” Odette replied sharply, holding his gaze. “He’s no longer in Whispermire.”\n\n“Truly?” Now that surprised Simon. He thought she would rather have kept her son close. “Did you mistake me for a liar? He has nothing to fear so long as you serve me well.”\n\nOdette held his gaze defiantly. “I trust you to be a demon, Lord Belias, bound by your interests. You may very well end up disposing of me should you begin to think I am no longer of use to you…” She then glanced out of the nearest window. “Not to mention that the mad princeling might decide to bomb my house from on high should he learn of our dealings. I thought it safer to evacuate my son to a safer place.”\n\n“I see…” She wasn’t wrong either. The war could come to Whispermire’s doorstep at any point, whether it took the form of airship bombardments or Norbelle’s Eidolons. “Most wise.”\n\nOdette scowled. “Why him? Why did your vassal want my son?”\n\n“The fortune of his birth,” Simon replied. “He bears the sign of the Minotaur.”\n\n“One person out of twelve is born under that sign, yet no other family in Whispermire was targeted.”\n\n“There are other parameters at play,” Simon replied evasively. He had personally reached that same conclusion. One person out of twelve was born under the Minotaur’s auspices, a fraction which only increased when taking ascendant signs into account, yet the Muse only tried to claim a handful of people as her new host. A compatible birthsign was a key requirement, but there had to be others he didn’t understand yet. “Does it matter? So long as you serve, he shall never come to harm.”\n\n“Yes, I understand that,” Odette replied as she went to put her documents on a nearby shelf between registries. “So far, our alliance has served me well. My fortune grows exponentially in spite of your taxing tribute, even though I can already tell it will eventually become unsustainable.”\n\n“Eventually can be a very long time,” Simon replied as he checked the room. It was his first time visiting Odette Kano’s living space, and she seemed to be quite the art collector. Her living hall was closer to a curio cabinet, with hundreds of items on display behind vitrines or on small cupboards.\n\nThe objects ranged from portraits representing Odette and her family to marble busts of renowned scholars and statuettes, but most objects appeared to come from the southern province of Uyo: sinister wooden masks adorned with reed crowns, a giant dire leopard’s hide, burnished copper bowls etched with runes Simon translated as offerings to forgotten gods, a priestly wooden scepter… his host was clearly in tune with her heritage.\n\nOne painting caught his gaze more than the other. It represented a vivid depiction of an ancient, primeval city half-buried in a dense jungle, with gilded walls and the shadows of giant apes looming between trees. The sketch was rougher than the rest of the gallery, yet strangely detailed too.\n\nOdette returned and walked up to him to stare at the painting. “Have you ever heard of the City of Rhapta, Lord Belias?”\n\n“That name means nothing to me,” Simon replied.\n\n“It is a lost city located somewhere in Uyo’s jungle that was abandoned during the Doom, and my people’s ancestral home. I met my worm of an ex-husband when we were both researching it at the local academy.” A glint of nostalgia lit up Odette’s gaze, though that brief display of emotion didn’t last long. “Many adventurers explore the jungle in the hope of finding it and claiming its treasure.”\n\n“Do any of them find it?”\n\n“I did,” Odette replied, much to Simon’s surprise. “When I was a child, long before I arrived here, I lost my way and saw it past the trees, so eerily silent I could hear my footsteps. I had to run and flee before the local monsters could catch me, but the sight of that place remains forever seared into my memories.”\n\nSimon squinted at her. “Did you paint this yourself?”\n\n“I did.” She sounded quite proud of it, too. “When I was forced to leave my homeland, I swore to myself I would one day return to Rhapta and recapture it.”\n\n“I see. Is that why you created a business dedicated to assisting adventurers? So you could recruit the allies, resources, and contacts required to raise an expedition?” Simon nodded in appreciation. And here he thought she hoarded wealth for its own sake. “Quite the ambitious goal. You will go far.”\n\n“Thank you,” Odette replied warily. “I’m not certain what to make of a demon’s compliment.”\n\n“Take it and keep it.” Come to think of it, didn’t one of his father’s notes mention the possibility of a Demonbarrow in Uyo? A lost city abandoned after the Doom sounded rather similar to the Kish empire’s capital… “Have you marked down this Rhapta’s location?”\n\n“I was a child when I saw it, so I can’t pinpoint its location with complete accuracy,” Odette confessed. “But I have narrowed it down to one region of the jungle.”\n\n“I would be curious to see it,” Simon replied, before moving on to more important matters. “Any news about the upcoming imperial raid?”\n\n“Yes and no. The War Party’s army does not share details of its operation with me. I remain a civilian leader in spite of my shows of loyalty. They do not trust me.” Odette crossed her arms. “However, I know imperial scouts have already been dispatched into the Darkwood for the purpose of reconnaissance. I would suggest wiping them out to discourage more incursions.”\n\n“Yes, that would indeed be wise.” And regrettable. “To never come back is a message in itself.”\n\nKilling a few visitors might dissuade more from coming.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nAfter having breakfast with Odette and ordering his cultists to secretly transport their priest guest to his new ‘permanent residence,’ Simon traveled outside town with Cassandra to further experiment with his Inventory Perk away from prying gazes. Two of their followers, a farming couple, kindly lent them their tools and possessions for experimentation.\n\nFirst of all, Simon tried to check what counted as an object for the Perk’s purpose, a definition which proved both vast and narrow. Trying to store large structures like houses simply resulted in error messages, as did his attempt to store trees or cows. However, he did manage to store large crates—though not their contents—and even an entire carriage.\n\n“It would seem the Perk doesn’t have a size or weight limit,” Simon noted, “or if it does, it must be quite large indeed.”\n\n“It didn’t take the wheat piles that were inside the crates or carriage, though,” Cassandra pointed out. Simon tried to add them to his inventory and succeeded, though they appeared in a separate slot.\n\n“In all likelihood, the object must be whole or part of one,” Simon replied, a theory he confirmed after summoning the carriage back and removing a wheel. His Inventory then proceeded to store them in two separate slots. “Seems I was right, but why can I store wheat and not a tree? They’re both plants, and the crates and carriage are made of wood too…”\n\n“The wheat is dead,” Cassandra replied. “It is no longer a living thing.”\n\n“Yes, I think you must be right.” Simon stroked his chin. “But how does the Perk determine if an object is whole? Physical continuity?”\n\n“Classes are born from the System, and thus the world’s collective will,” Cassandra replied with much wisdom and insight. “The Perk must base itself on common sense and public perception. I wonder if it perceives a corpse as an object too...”\n\n“Well, a pile of wheat is a plant’s corpse, so I would assume so. I should try to store undead too when I return to the Darkwood, just in case.” Simon crossed his arms and stared at the carriage. “A pity we do not have anything bigger on hand. I wonder if I could store something as large as a galley or airship…”\n\nHe was pondering what other tests he could put the Perk through when he sensed Carrock the Treant trying to establish telepathic communication with him. “What is it, Carrock?”\n\n“Pardon me, Lord Belias, but multiple groups have entered the Darkwood’s heart,” the treant replied. “Class users, strong and skilled.”\n\n“The imperial scouts… stay on high alert, and do not let them reach the Halls of the Minotaur. I will teleport back to support you soon.” Simon cut communication and turned to Cassandra. “I’m sorry, but I have to cut this short. I must go wipe out some intruders.”\n\n“I understand.” Cassandra cleared her throat. “If I may ask, could you take my brother and father with you?”\n\n“Hector too?” Simon asked. “Oh, I see. You want to see your family?”\n\n“If it is not a bother,” Cassandra said shyly. “I haven’t seen them for months now, since I cannot enter the Darkwood.”\n\n“I can arrange a meeting, yes. We’ll come visit you after we take care of our uninvited guests.”\n\n“Thank you, Simon.” Cassandra smiled at him. “Besides… I believe my brother will appreciate some exercise.”\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nAnd so, for the first time since they arrived in the Darkwood, Simon decided to take Hector and Duchar Honorius with him out on a patrol. One of the first things he tried to do was to store Hector in his Inventory, just in case.\n\nIt failed miserably. It seemed animated corpses were too alive by half for the Perk’s purpose.\n\nIt didn’t take them long to find their first batch of intruders. They had been following a dry, murky riverbed up to a hollow in the woods when they stumbled upon a campsite by a group of four imperial scouts trying to establish a relay point in the area.\n\nWhat followed was… well, a one-sided massacre. Simon barely had time to raise his hand and prepare a spell to cast when Hector had activated his Crestone and lunged at them in a blink.\n\nThe Executioner’s outfit was as simple as it was intimidating: black clothes covering the entire body alongside a conic cowl with a hangman’s rope dangling from the neck down. Hector looked rather eerie and fearsome with his monstrous headsman’s axe in his hands, doubly so when it tore through two men in the blink of an eye. He slaughtered the entire group before Simon could even finish spellcasting.\n\n“Well… that was quick,” Simon said as he looked over the smeared blood and entrails spilled all over the place. Cassandra hadn’t been exaggerating when she called her brother a peerless warrior.\n\n“I fight to kill…” Hector rasped, wiping someone’s brain off his axe. “Better critical… instadeath… anti-heal… buffs… the more I kill, the stronger I become…”\n\n“The Executioner is a purely offensive Vassal Class that focuses on killing single targets in a single blow,” Duchar summed it up. “While it lacks versatility or a Berserker’s raw might, it is excellent for one-on-one combat.”\n\n“Yes, I can see that,” Simon noted as he checked the bodies for anything useful. He found a Crestone, only for the device to turn grayer than granite at his touch. “What the–”\n\n“These Crestones are locked,” Duchar noted. “I’ve heard that newer generations of mass-produced Vassal Crestones include such security mechanisms. They only respond to specifically identified users to prevent the enemy from reusing them.”\n\n“So they're useless?” Simon grumbled. “Can you break that encryption?”\n\n“Perhaps with time,” Duchar replied hesitantly. “I suspect it would be quicker to craft our own than unlock those, however.”\n\n“Disappointing,” Simon complained as he added the locked Crestone to his Inventory. Thankfully, non-Merchant Crestones could be placed within it without issue. I should check with the other Noble Crestones the moment I get the chance. “Anyway, how are you feeling around me so far, Hector? I recall that the sight of the living can infuriate you, so I wonder if that includes me.”\n\n“No, I… I do not feel hostility towards Your Majesty… I sense we share a…” Hector hesitated. “A kinship.”\n\nUnquestionable Ruler only compelled obedience in lower-level creatures, but the Overlord still radiated the power of the Dark. Undead and demons had recognized him in the past. Hector was probably no different.\n\nA wave of pain echoed through a couple of his Brands of Sloth, startling Simon. He was almost numb to the death of followers rippling through their bonds—one of his bound monsters perished now and then—but more than one had been slain in quick succession. That was cause for alarm.\n\n“Imp five?” Simon telepathically called out to the squad leader in the area. “Treant four?” No answer. “Will-o-wisp three? Do you hear me?”\n\n“Yes, O’Lord of Dark,” the spirit answered.\n\n“Something wiped out all groups south of our location. Do you see intruders near your assigned area?”\n\n“Yes, I do… hounds that hunger for blood… Knight clad in blue steel… an orc with sword o’ steel… mage calling thunder… woman archer, thirsting for battle…”\n\nA knight clad in blue steel, strong enough to cleave through monsters? It couldn’t be…\n\n“Duchar, could you obscure our location and movements?” Simon asked. “And keep Hector under control? An enemy party is approaching our location, but I want to observe them first.”\n\n“As Your Majesty wishes,” Duchar replied as he put on his Class outfit and cast a spell. “Obscuring Mist.”\n\nA fog of ambient miasma swirled around them, creating a cloud of mist that kept the group shrouded from sight. They took cover behind a small mound and watched as a group of imperial soldiers matching the will-o’-wisp’s description perfectly walked by: an orc using a swordsman-type class, a human archer, a mage with a staff and blue robes similar to Belzemine’s Pyromancer outfit, and two mastiffs sniffing around for trouble.\n\nAt their helm was Leonard himself. Simon could recognize that armor anywhere.\n\nWhat is he doing here? Simon cursed. Did he decide to do some recon himself ahead of the raid drill?\n\nUgh, of course he did. It was Leonard, too brave and honorable by half.\n\n“They seem… experienced…” Hector whispered.\n\n“Use the Brand to communicate, Hector,” Simon reminded the Executioner, who wasn’t yet used to his new gifts. The imperial hounds guiding the group hadn’t yet noticed them. Simon quickly broadcasted relevant information to his allies. “The Dreadnought is the one that will be leading the imperial raid next month. He was level forty-three when we last crossed paths, maybe more now.”\n\n“Oh, then this is an excellent opportunity.” Duchar nodded to himself. “We should kill him where he stands.”\n\nA chill traveled down Simon’s spine. “Why?”\n\n“Well, assuredly killing the upcoming raid’s leader will convince the army that sending troops so deep into the Darkwood is not worth the risk when they have a war on their doorstep,” Duchar pointed out. “Losing a level forty-three commander will be a harsh blow to their morale. This will spare us a more determined effort in the future.”\n\nHe’s… not wrong, Simon conceded, though he remained wary on top of not being particularly comfortable with the idea of killing an old friend. His sister will swear revenge, though. I know she will, and Louis might take it as a challenge…\n\nThe idea of killing Leonard truly horrified Simon. The Dreadnought had put his life on the line to save him multiple times, taking a number of lethal blows for him across several reigns. He had been a friend, and his sister served as Simon’s mistress at one point. As much as killing him might be the most expedient solution to the upcoming raid on paper, he just couldn’t kill him like a common soldier. He knew it was irrational, especially considering Hector had slaughtered an imperial scouting party mere minutes ago, but every fiber of his being told him his retainer did not deserve to die a cruel and expected death in a swamp.\n\nBut if they continue this way, they’ll eventually reach the ruins near the Halls of the Minotaur, Simon thought grimly. If they see it, the War Party might try to seize it in case it contains useful elven artifacts or magic. This could jeopardize everything.\n\n“I owe the man a favor, so I would rather avoid killing him if possible,” Simon decided as he put on a Fiendmask to shapeshift into his Old Man of the Woods disguise. “Stay behind, both of you. I will try to talk them out of advancing any further. With luck, they might listen and keep their distances from the Halls of the Minotaur.”\n\nHector leaned forward, his gaze through the executioner’s hood turning absolutely menacing. “And if they… do not?”\n\nDo you really want me to say it?\n\n“Then…” Simon clenched his teeth. “Then I will understand.”\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 60: The Season of the Minotaur (9)\nTarget length: ~4200 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "There were five creatures in the imperial bestiary that troops were allowed to flee from on sight: archfiends, dragons, dryads, liches, and Eidolons.\n\nSimon had used Anathemic Secrecy to present himself as the first of these creatures, but Leonard and his soldiers were no local adventurer or criminal group he could intimidate easily. Standard procedure meant they would immediately report his presence, and that might bring complications.\n\nInstead, he altered his stats to fit his disguise of the Old Man in the Woods, appearing as an ancient fey creature that, while powerful, didn’t represent a potentially existential threat to the War Party’s interests in the region. The hounds sensed his approach as he stepped out of Duchar’s fog, the dogs whining and prostrating themselves at his approach. Leonard’s group instantly tightened their ranks, weapons raised; although Simon noticed that the orc among them lagged behind, his spine struggling against the urge to bend downwards.\n\nHis Unquestionable Ruler Perk had grown powerful enough to affect goblinoids. Interesting.\n\n“You may lay down your weapons,” Simon declared, trying his best to ‘age-up’ his voice behind the Fiendmask disguise. “I come to you as an envoy of the forest, who wishes you no harm.”\n\n“You can speak our language?” Leonard asked, though he didn’t lower his sword. “Now that is a surprise. Are you a fiend?”\n\n“I am no demon, young Leonard, though some call this place their home now.” Leonard hid his surprise well, but Simon had spent enough time around him to recognize that being called out by name had rattled him. “I have been observing your group for a while, and I believe you are a sensible soul. Hence why I have chosen to come to you, bearing peace’s banner.”\n\nLeonard glanced at his mage. “Threat estimation.”\n\n“Level sixty or so,” the mage replied, squinting at Simon. He must have had a stat-reading Perk or spell of some kind. “A fey creature. A dryad’s emissary.”\n\n“A dryad?” Leonard looked up at the manatree’s shadow beyond the veil of miasma. “The local dryad is alive?”\n\n“Our lady is alive, but sick from an ancient curse,” Simon confirmed. That much was true. “The blighted landscape around you is the result.”\n\nLeonard assessed him warily. “What do you want, spirit?”\n\n“I ask that you turn back and return from where you came from.”\n\n“That we cannot do, sir. Our orders are to push into the Darkwood and establish a safari zone for grinding.”\n\n“This is folly,” Simon argued. “There are other horrors deeper in these woods, creatures that would wander far into the local town and ravage the region if disturbed. I have kept them at bay so far, but each new intrusion further pokes the beehive. Thousands of innocent lives will be lost if you continue.”\n\nLeonard was a loyal soldier, but he was also noble and honorable. He didn’t disbelieve the claim at face value. “What kind of monsters?”\n\n“Fiends attracted by the miasma, corrupted fey, the undead… some that would rip you to shreds on sight, however strong a Dreadnought you might be.” Simon leaned forward a little. “Surely a knight like you would understand that robbing a person in their own home is wrong and invites retaliation?”\n\n“Even if you speak the truth, our orders are clear,” Leonard replied sternly. “We must establish a training camp in these woods.”\n\n“You may do that, just not here, so close to the manatree and its most dangerous denizens,” Simon argued. Now that he had shown them the rod, it was time to bring out the carrot. “The other parts of the Darkwood are safe. I could even help you with your goal, if you agree to stay in a specific area.”\n\n“Help how?” Leonard asked tentatively.\n\n“I could send the weakest creatures to be culled by your soldiers. This would lessen my burden and fulfill your orders without endangering the town.” Simon could always summon more imps or brew slimes without jeopardizing his defenses. “Peace through coexistence.”\n\nOn paper, this should be a golden opportunity for Leonard to seize. The imperial army would get its training camp at a reduced risk and win a local intermediary to deal with the Darkwood’s most dangerous creatures, and this would cancel the raid.\n\n“If you need any proof of my goodwill, I can already send troublesome creatures to a designated spot of your choice,” Simon suggested as Leonard considered his offer. “I will gladly assist you in your task here so long as you respect our boundaries.”\n\nLeonard pondered his words in silence, his men exchanging nervous glances behind him, their hands tightening their grip on their weapons. They feared a battle could start at any time. Simon himself was ready to unleash his Dreadful Aura at the first sign of aggression and signal the Honorius family to attack them.\n\nHe didn’t want a battle, but… he would wage one if he had to.\n\nCome on, Leonard, don’t be a gallant fool, Simon thought, praying to the Light and Dark both that his former retainer would see reason. Take the easy win. Take the deal and come back to your sister alive.\n\n“A powerful surge of mana took place to the south of the Darkwood yesterday,” Leonard finally said. “Do you know anything about that?”\n\nSimon was thankful the Fiendmask hid his expression behind an inhuman visage. Did they notice the Merchant Crestone’s destruction? It did release a huge amount of mana when Simon consumed it, but he had been careful to operate miles away from Whispermire.\n\n“I have no knowledge of this,” Simon lied. “You people are at war, if I can trust the metal birds flying over our forest days and nights. What happens beyond this forest is of no concern to us.”\n\n“Is it? Then why do you care about protecting local humans from your kind’s depredation?” Leonard briefly glanced at the woods and the fog shielding the Honorius family from his sight. Had he somehow sensed their presence too? “The creatures living here have grown stronger and more organized lately, according to our reports. What do you have to say to that?”\n\n“All monsters across the world grow stronger,” Simon admitted, before seeing an opportunity. “A great comet is approaching this planet as we speak, as it did long in the past.”\n\n“A comet?” Leonard asked in disbelief.\n\n“Yes. A comet that strengthens the Dark and will bring disaster upon this world.” Simon could see that Leonard struggled to believe his words, but this might be a chance to convince the War Party to take the problem seriously. “Your presence in these woods will only exacerbate the problem. I have the situation well in hand, but your interference may threaten this delicate balance unless we can reach an agreement.”\n\nSimon had no way of seeing Leonard’s face past his Dreadnought armor, but the man had served half a dozen reigns as his subordinate. He could read his body language, the way his knees bent slightly, the slight, almost imperceptible moment when he pivoted to shield his allies with his body…\n\nDon’t do it, Leonard, Simon pleaded mentally, even as the tension in the air grew heavier and heavier. Don’t do it, please, don’t do–\n\nLeonard charged faster than any other Dreadnought should be able to, sword first.\n\nHis agility would have taken most other foes by surprise, but Simon was already aware of that secret trick of his and reacted quickly. He immediately unleashed his Dreadful Aura, bathing the area in otherworldly terror, and then raised his hand at his retainer.\n\n“Hellthunder!”\n\nA mighty bolt of crimson lightning erupted from his fingers and crackled forth.\n\nLeonard swiftly reacted by raising his pavise shield to protect himself, but the energy struck more than just the body; it hurt the very soul, the current coursing through his armor, and briefly causing a view of the skeleton within to flash to life. A brief moment of guilt washed over Simon, only to be quickly drowned by a rush of adrenaline and combat instincts.\n\nA fight was a fight.\n\nHis Dreadful Aura sent the hounds running, but the imperial soldiers readied their weapons. Simon briefly wondered if they were all higher-leveled than him before dismissing the possibility. He had seen the brief flash of fear in their gazes. They had been affected by his aura, but Leonard took their dread and terror upon himself.\n\nHector chose this moment to emerge from his father’s obscuring fog, having craftily moved behind the imperial group to flank them. His dark frame cast a great shadow upon the enemy as he brought down his axe on the archer of the group, the woman barely having time to turn and raise her bow before the blade lopped off her head…\n\nOr rather, that was what would have happened had Leonard not taken the damage upon himself. The archer was instead thrown across the clearing with her head still attached.\n\n“An ambush!” her orc swordsman ally shouted as he engaged Hector in melee, his blade now oozing poison. “It’s a trap!”\n\nLeonard was too strong for Hector’s strike to kill him outright, but blood did leak from beneath his armor. His pain from both the blow and lightning failed to halt his charge, his sword clashing with Simon’s disguised morning star in a blow that sent a brief ripple reverberating through the air, the force of the blow revealing the mace for what it was. Although Leonard was higher-leveled, the Overlord Class’ greater strength modifier more than made up for it.\n\n“A forest spirit, using a forged metal weapon?!” Leonard scoffed as he pressed on with his sword, trying to break past Simon’s guard. “You were deceiving us the moment you opened your mouth!”\n\n“Duchar, Hector, incapacitate him!” Simon shouted as he raised a free hand at Leonard. “Chaos Wave.”\n\nLeonard raised his pavise just in time to avoid a blow to the face, the spell’s shockwave instead throwing him back a bit. However, Simon quickly noticed that the mage of the group had used the opportunity to move to the side and start incantating.\n\n“Megafrost!” the imperial magus said, a rain of hail and icicles materializing from his staff and flying straight at Simon.\n\nInventory, Simon thought as he switched his Ring of Cursed Flame for a Ring of Cursed Winter he had prepared just for the occasion. The hailstorm harmlessly bounced off his newfound immunity to Frost damage.\n\nAlthough Simon could only wear one ring at a time, he had created a few that protected him from the most common elemental damage types, like fire or lightning. So long as he reacted in time to switch them out, such weak spells would always fail to affect him.\n\n“Hellfire,” Simon countered.\n\nA skull-shaped fireball erupted from his snapping fingers and flew at the mage, who hastily stomped the ground and raised a wall of ice to intercept the projectile. Tainted steam and fumes rose at the point of impact.\n\n“Diabolism, Ser Leonard!” the mage shouted as he prepared to cast another spell. “That thing is a demon!”\n\n“Focus on their leader!” Leonard shouted as he lunged at Simon again to keep the assault going, but thick ice chains appeared out of nowhere to bind his feet and arms, causing him to stumble; likely a hidden Duchar’s work. Simon exploited the opportunity to cast a second Hellfire at the mage before he could complete his incantation, forcing him to dive out of the way to avoid the fireball.\n\nOnly Leonard has a high level among this squad, and he weakens himself by taking on their wounds, Simon thought. This will be over soon.\n\nMeanwhile, the orc swordsman was dancing around Hector while struggling to avoid his axe, his poisoned sword darting and inflicting superficial wounds on the executioner. He must have mistaken Hector for a living creature rather than an undead and hoped that an ailment would eventually bring him down. The archer of the group, who had recovered from Hector’s previous blow, supported her allies by firing arrows of mana at all her foes. Simon deflected a hit with his morning star while the projectiles barely needled Hector.\n\nUnfortunately, this infuriated the undead. Hector let out a raging wail, tossed the orc swordsman back with a backhand, and then lunged at the archer in a blur of speed. An unholy crimson aura radiated from his axe.\n\n“Execution!” he snarled with an animalistic grunt as he caught up to the archer, too quickly for her to retreat.\n\n“Wait–” Simon shouted in alarm, far too late, his heart skipping a beat in his chest when the blow connected.\n\nHector brought down his axe and killed two people in one blow.\n\nLeonard absorbed the blow for his ally as he did before, the aura surrounding the axe swirling around him as an invisible force beheaded him and sent his helmet flying into the mud.\n\nAn Instadeath effect.\n\nLeonard’s sudden and brutal demise removed his protection, so Hector’s axe chopped the archer in two like a log, staining the earth with blood and entrails. The Executioner fed on the deaths, his muscles surging with newfound strength and bloodlust. He glanced back at the terrified orc swordsman in utter silence, his eyes piercing through his hood with violent malice.\n\n“Ser Leonard, Astrid!” the mage gasped in horror. “By the Light…”\n\nAt this point, Simon’s Dreadful Aura finally took hold and instilled Terror in the survivors. The mage and the orc swordsman tried to run away, but Hector simply lunged at the latter and struck him in the back. His axe cut his victim from the shoulder to the hip, killing him instantly.\n\nUnwilling to let anyone else live to tell the tale, Simon cast Mire at the mage. Vile green slime materialized over the man’s skin, devouring his flesh and sapping his vitality. He tripped over a branch onto the ground, and Simon quickly moved in for the kill. His morning star smashed the mage’s skull and sealed his soul into a miasma gem.\n\nHector roared in victory and then turned his gaze on Simon. He briefly feared his own ally would turn against him in the throes of his bloodlust, only for Hector to crumble to his knees.\n\n“Calm down, my son,” Duchar said as he walked out of the fog while waving his staff at his berserk child. “Quiet.”\n\nThe enchantment in the staff restrained Hector, his grunts of rage slowing down as the haze of bloodlust faded away. Simon walked away to check on Leonard. Although he knew his old retainer was dead, a small sliver of him hoped his Deathmastery Perk would let him harvest his soul. He only had to touch his friend’s severed head to realize the opportunity was long gone, if it ever existed at all.\n\nLeonard was dead. Dead in a way that had prevented Simon from harvesting his soul.\n\nThey had killed one of the few good, honest men Simon had ever met. A friend who had saved his life more than once, including the last reign.\n\nAnd the Overlord Class transformed that grief and guilt into power and pleasure. It filled his bones with power and a new level’s thrill.\n\nLevel 38 Overlord Perk: Deathmastery IV (Active): You may summon a phantom steed to serve you. This ghostly horse is tied to your lifeforce—disappearing if brought farther than three hundred feet from you—obeys your orders at will, and can be summoned after one hour if it is ever destroyed. The phantom steed ignores terrain effects, and can walk on both water and wind.\n\n\nThe pleasure lasted only an instant, leaving only guilt behind.\n\nWhy? Why hadn’t Leonard taken the deal? Had Simon said something that aroused his suspicions? Had he failed to sound convincing enough? Or did Leonard receive specific orders to investigate the Darkwood or the Merchant Crestone’s destruction, making a conflict unavoidable?\n\nSimon couldn’t fight the nagging suspicion that he could have avoided this somehow. Even the knowledge that Leonard would return to life in the next reign didn’t help him process the situation any better.\n\nIt was such a waste.\n\n“Your Majesty?” Duchar inquired.\n\n“This man saved my life once,” Simon replied, his voice dying in his throat. More than once. “I repaid my life debt with death.”\n\n“Yes, I… I understand how it could bother Your Majesty.”\n\n“My apologies… Your Majesty…” Hector rattled as he held his head with one hand. “The fog of war and the blood of the living… they cloud my mind.”\n\n“I do not blame you,” Simon reassured him. He had followed his orders, and mishaps happened in battle. “The fault is mine alone for not coming up with a better plan.”\n\nDuchar stroked his beard. “It might not be entirely too late for this man, though.”\n\nSimon’s heart swelled with hope. “You can raise him?”\n\n“As a mindless corpse, most certainly.” Duchar cleared his throat when Simon glared at him in response. “When the body perishes, the soul usually departs towards the nearest manatree within one minute of what we call ‘death.’ Their memories, experience, and sense of self then return to the river of mana while their purified spirit awaits reincarnation.”\n\nSimon’s eyes widened in understanding. “The Muse has his soul?”\n\n“She should have it, yes… under normal circumstances. I cannot say how her current predicament affects the local cycle of souls.” Duchar glanced at the slaughter around them. “In any case, what should we do with them? I would suggest raising the corpses as labor, but the imperial army will surely send people to recover their bodies.”\n\nSimon wondered what to do. Bringing the bodies back to the Halls of the Minotaur would lead to disaster, and the theft of their Crestones would be investigated; not to mention that extracting the schematics would take much time. But still, he didn’t want to leave Leonard’s body to rot in the open.\n\nIn the end, Simon decided to follow Duchar’s original suggestion and make it look like Darkwood monsters had torn the scouts apart. This would hopefully teach the War Party that a raid would lead to disaster and outweigh the benefits of leveling-up their soldiers.\n\n“Leave them here,” Simon said before telepathically calling out to one of his followers, a woodsman who had had success infiltrating adventurer parties in the past. “Mockingbird two, come to me with your group. I have corpses for you to move.”\n\nThe least he could do was to give Leonard a proper burial.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nAfter having his followers ‘miraculously’ stumble upon the site of Leonard’s death with orders to bring the bodies back to town and report on their demise, Simon fulfilled his promise to Cassandra and led her family outside the Darkwood for dinner. Since bringing Hector to Whispermire would have led to disaster, they instead settled into the same cultist couple’s farm a fair distance away from the town. Simon also took the opportunity to interrogate the Muse about Leonard’s soul on the way there.\n\n“Closed from the world’s roots I have been, by my sisters most treacherous,” the Muse explained with anger. “The souls of the dead stay trapped in my woods, left to rot in the Dark and denied my guidance.”\n\n“So his soul is still within your grasp?” Simon inquired.\n\n“Trapped as I am, he is doomed to wander my miasma forevermore,” the Muse replied, her next words a gentle whisper full of promises. “Fear not, beloved. Once freed from my stone bindings, his spirit I shall guide back to you to serve.”\n\nWas that an empty oath meant to encourage him to hurry up and free her, or were her words genuine? Simon couldn’t tell until he had done further research.\n\nEven then, what would that change? There was no spell that could truly revive the dead. The best he could do with Leonard’s soul would be to bring him back as an undead like Lorimor. Somehow, he doubted his former retainer would appreciate the gesture.\n\nThe thought wouldn’t leave his mind for the entire evening, even if the dinner was pleasant enough. Cassandra was a surprisingly good cook, perhaps thanks to her potion expertise, and her stew was delicious. Simon tasted it in silence while the Honorius family caught up.\n\n“Your skin complexion has improved, Hector,” Cassandra said, though Simon didn’t notice any difference. “You look healthier.”\n\n“I feel… I belong here,” her brother rasped. “I do not need to sleep… as much as before.”\n\n“His Majesty’s ability to strengthen the undead reinforces your flesh and mind,” Duchar noted. “We must continue to work on your anger management issues, my son, but I am happy with your progress.”\n\n“I have been working on potions to ease the nerves,” Cassandra said. “I could brew some.”\n\n“I cannot taste… anything, anymore,” Hector replied. He hadn’t touched his stew. “It is…”\n\n“Deadening?” Duchar coughed. “My apologies, my son. My jest was in poor taste.”\n\n“I… do not mind.”\n\n“What about you, Cassandra?” Duchar asked his daughter. “How are your necromantic studies going?”\n\n“I gained a new level yesterday,” she replied proudly. “Providing potions to my flock has brought me much experience.”\n\n“Good. Keep it up.”\n\nHow could a family dinner involving a witch, a necromancer, and a flesh golem sound so normal? Then again, he had never been invited to one in all his years in Frightwall, so he didn’t have much experience with those… though he doubted Louis and Euphemia could share a table without throwing cutlery at each other.\n\n“Is something wrong, Simon?” Cassandra asked, drawing him out of his thoughts. “You seem preoccupied.”\n\nSimon set his spoon aside. “Do you think it is wrong to kill someone even when you have the means to eventually revive them?”\n\n“Of course it is right,” Duchar replied as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Death is but an illness to be cured. Temporary sacrifices can be excused in the service of future prosperity.\"\n\n“Wrong…” Hector rasped. “It is wrong… life should never be… taken lightly.”\n\nCassandra was the one who pondered the question the longest, and who provided the wisest answer. “It depends on the situation, but I agree with Hector, life is precious. Nobody can tell how the future will unfold. Even the best necromancy spells can fail.” She glanced at her brother, a look of sorrow briefly gracing her face. “Important things can be lost in the process.”\n\nShe likely referred to how Hector’s revival as an undead had taken its toll on his body and psyche, but her words resonated with Simon. The loss of Eole’s friendship, Anna, and now Leonard… the reigns exacted an unavoidable toll.\n\nPeople changed from one reign to the next. The Anna who had married Thalas was not the same he had shared a bed with in the Berwick Islands, nor was the Leonard he had slain the man who had given his life to save him from Thalas’ murderous hands. Perhaps he needed to accept that, like Louis had advised him to once, yet he struggled to imagine treating the likes of Lauriane like strangers each time he woke up in his bedroom in Frightwall.\n\nDid it matter at all? Only Simon’s final reign would stick as far as he knew. Everything beforehand would be little more than a dream or illusion… at least from his point of view. What if the reigns he had completed continued to linger on, like the branches of a tree, their worlds continuing beyond his death?\n\nI still understand so little about the reigns, and the only people who might be able to provide answers are either plotting my death in Illusea or haunting Castle Carcas’ basement, Simon thought. Could I preserve people’s memories beyond a given reign? I would assume it would trigger the curse and lead to an early grave, or that Father would have done so by now if he could… assuming he cared to try.\n\nPerhaps he should dedicate a reign to investigating the timeloop mechanism. Simon had been focused on gathering knowledge on more pressing matters like the civil war or the Zodiac Parade, and he lacked the arcane background to understand how Mardok and Elios Magnos managed the colossal feat of turning back time, but…one day. One day.\n\n“Thank you for your answers,” Simon said after emptying his plate. “I’m calling it quits for the night. I need to clear my mind, take a breath of fresh air.”\n\n“Do you want me to come with you?” Cassandra asked softly. “I will gladly provide a friendly ear, if you need one.”\n\nSimon pondered her offer. Truth be told, he did enjoy her company and she was quite the fount of wisdom. He wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time with her. Besides, they needed to return to Whispermire together anyway, so…\n\n“Have you ever flown, Cassandra?” he asked.\n\n“I have taken an airship before,” she replied with a slight frown. “Why?”\n\n“Well… how about we ride the wind home?”\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 61: The Season of the Minotaur (10)\nTarget length: ~3400 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Simon’s phantom steed was quite the disturbing creature.\n\nHe had expected a ghostly version of a horse, but while the entity was indeed made of greenish ectoplasm, it took the shape of a frightful equine corpse. A moldy hide stretched over bones exposed through rotten holes, and two unholy flames burned within its skull-face’s eye sockets.\n\nIt was otherwise a normal horse, though, with a saddle and reins, and solid enough to carry him and Cassandra on its back. Simon’s Warmonger Perk intuitively taught him how to ride the creature and guide it as it began to ride across the nightwind.\n\nAnd then they flew.\n\nSimon’s heart skipped a beat when his steed’s hooves stopped touching the ground and began to race across empty air like a mad donkey climbing a mountain. The wind flew upon their faces, and Cassandra clung to him with all of her strength. They rose and rode into pitch black night after waving her father and brother goodbye.\n\nIt was such an exhilarating feeling to ascend upwards. The steed couldn’t fly all that high, no more than four or five hundred feet, but that was enough to watch trees and farmhouses shrink beneath them. Cassandra cast a fog spell to keep them hidden from sight until they reached Whispermire’s outskirts and landed unseen, after which Simon dismissed the horse with a wave of his hand. He had the intuition that it would prove quite useful.\n\n“That was something,” Simon mused once they returned to the Midnight Market.\n\n“I liked it very much. It was a nice outing, and a pleasant evening in general.” Cassandra smiled at him. “Thank you for indulging me, Simon.”\n\n“You are welcome. It was… nice.”\n\n“But something else weighs on your mind,” Cassandra noted. “Is it about what happened with the Dreadnought? Father told me you planned to resurrect him, if possible.”\n\n“Yes.” Simon crossed his arms. “I keep telling myself I can bring him back, that his death was unintentional, and that it was necessary to prevent a worse situation later, but he was still a former comrade at the end of the day. I don’t like killing friends.”\n\nCassandra nodded in understanding. “I never had a living friend before you, so I cannot say whether you were in the right or the wrong, but I think the fact you are asking yourself that at all means you are not a bad person.”\n\nI’m not sure a good person would be conducting a ritual to unleash a demon upon the world, even for the purpose of saving the world, Simon thought, although he did appreciate the compliment. It didn’t take long for them to reach their quarters. “Thank you for your kind words, at the very least. I guess this is it for the night then.”\n\nCassandra reached for her door, only to hesitate an instant. “If you do not mind, can I ask you a question?”\n\n“Yes, of course.”\n\n“Are you courting me, Simon?”\n\nHuh? Where did that come from? “Why that question?”\n\n“Because my other friend, Nora, asked me the question when I said you brought me gifts and liked to spend time with me,” Cassandra replied calmly. “I have never been courted by a living person, so I didn’t know how to answer.”\n\nOh. Simon suddenly realized he must have been sending quite a few mixed signals over the last few weeks or so.\n\nWas he courting Cassandra? He did find her attractive, and he enjoyed her company enough to seek it out. He had even grown somewhat used to her family’s weirder and darker aspects over the last months. They had indeed become friends, and he wouldn’t mind dating her.\n\nHowever, besides the fact that he was technically engaged to the Stone Muse and that she might badly react to her ‘beloved’ courting another woman, the memory of his time with Anna still remained fresh on his mind. The idea of growing close to Cassandra only for her to treat him as a stranger on the next reign pained him.\n\nThen again, this reign might last decades for all he knew, if he managed to survive the Zodiac Parade and whatever else the future held for him. As much as he missed Anna, he couldn’t exactly see himself staying a celibate hermit for over ninety more lifetimes. It would be a nice change of pace to live a full life rather than having it be cut short by assassins or disaster, whether he shared it with someone else or not…\n\nSimon had so many conflicting feelings about all of this.\n\n“I wouldn’t say we’re quite there yet, but perhaps in the future,” Simon replied sincerely. “I have too much on my mind for now.”\n\n“I understand. I was just curious.” Cassandra nodded at him as she bade him goodnight. “I hope slumber will help clear your mind.”\n\nHe hoped so as well.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nSimon spent the next few days in Whispermire keeping watch on the situation.\n\nLeonard’s body and those of other imperial scouts were returned to town and then to the War Party’s forces. True to Duchar’s prediction, the death of so many Class users convinced the army that turning the area into a training camp wasn’t worth the losses, and the imperial raid was swiftly cancelled.\n\nSo Louis decided to bomb the Darkwood instead.\n\nThree days after Leonard’s demise, Simon woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of city bells ringing madly and tremors shaking the ground. He only had to take a look out the window to see two War Party airships raining fire down from the sky upon the Darkwood, with plumes of smoke rising from the miasma. They unleashed their fury for an entire night in a blind orgy of destruction that could be observed all the way from Whispermire.\n\n“What the…” Simon choked in horror as he watched a fireball descend upon the woods and explode on impact, a flash of light illuminating the night in response. His skull buzzed with telepathic attempts to contact him from all across his network of allies. “Duchar?! Hector?! Carrock?!”\n\n“We are being bombarded, Your Majesty!” the old sorcerer replied. “A fire has started on the third level!”\n\n“My brothers burn from the bitter kiss of flame!” Carrock the Treant roared in fear and fury through his own Brand. Although Simon had had the foresight to give him a Ring of Cursed Flame to negate his kind’s vulnerability to fire, he couldn’t say the same for his fellow trees.\n\nSimon briefly thought it was a calculated attempt to destroy the Hall of the Minotaur, but the airships continued to fly over the forest towards areas without anything important in them. This was no calculated attempt to cull the monster population or a preparation for an offensive; it was retaliation, pure and simple.\n\nSimon cursed himself for not seeing this coming. Of course the War Party couldn’t allow a commander’s death to go unavenged. They lacked the resources or need to purge the Darkwood with soldiers, but a bombing run on their own turf was a cheap way to both retaliate for Leonard’s loss and reaffirm their faction’s power to those who may have doubted it.\n\n“Do we retaliate, Your Majesty?” a gargoyle asked, his voice brimming with bloodlust. “We can fly up and cast them down from the sky!”\n\n“No, no, everyone retreat to the Halls of the Minotaur’s Sanctum or to the marshes,” Simon ordered his allies and servants. Attacking the airships would only cause Louis to escalate further by sending more ships to finish the job. “Do not retaliate, I repeat, do not retaliate! They are only passing through, so focus on survival!”\n\nSimon then spent the night guiding his followers from afar to safety towards cult-affiliated locations or safehouses. Dozens of plumes of smoke covered the sky above the Darkwood by the time the airships departed.\n\nThe forest’s muddy, wet atmosphere prevented an all-out fire across the region, but Simon teleported back to the Halls of the Minotaur to find the stonemasonry crumbling in multiple places, with his forces desperately working to put out fires with swampwater or pulling away survivors from beneath piles of debris. He himself spent the better part of the day extinguishing flames with repeated Hellfrost castings.\n\n“Report,” Simon asked Duchar while the two of them used spells to prevent a crumbling wall from collapsing and destroying the workshop.\n\n“We have taken severe damage,” Duchar admitted. His robes had burned at the edges. “I do not think this location has been exposed, and the Sanctum has miraculously avoided any major damage, but we are now at considerably less than full strength.”\n\nThat was quite the understatement.\n\nBy the time the day was over, the entire western wing of the Halls of the Minotaur had collapsed into a pile of rubble, the courtyard was flooded by the fountain’s destruction, multiple rooms were buried under crumbling stonemasonry, and cracked walls had opened new holes in multiple areas, which represented a considerable security risk. Not to mention that the bombardment had disturbed the local fauna and sent it fleeing throughout the region, which would no doubt cause issues. Even some of Simon’s own slime creations and undead servants were unaccounted for.\n\nAt least Father Rodrigue’s cell held firm, so they still had a sacrifice for the ritual.\n\n“Vengeance!” the Stone Muse screeched to anyone who would listen. “A tide of wood and a flood of terror I shall unleash upon these metal birds’ roosts when my bindings are shattered! A hundred heads for every burned root, buried under my temple’s new foundations!”\n\n“In due time,” Simon reassured her.\n\nTrue to his intuition, the War Party didn’t order a bombardment on the next night, or the one after. They had been satisfied with putting the local monsters in their place and now focused their efforts back on their enemies to the east. The danger had passed, for now.\n\nAfterwards, Simon spent the last month leading up to the Summer Solstice focusing on reconstructing the Halls, managing the bombardment’s aftermath, and keeping track of events in the wider world.\n\nThe Darkwood’s bombing had caused a few monsters outside of Simon’s control to flee the forest and ravage the surrounding countryside, which conveniently occupied the local adventurers for the time being. Unfortunately, major parts of the forest had been turned to cinders. The Halls of the Minotaur were thus bereft of a major natural defense, which meant future intruders would have an easier time locating the Dungeon.\n\nReports from his allies indicated that the situation on the front was slowly shifting towards the War Party’s favor. Their Goetia Research Center’s sheer rate of Crestone production was simply too great an advantage to overcome, alongside the use of demonic or modified monster warbeasts. They simply produced Class wielders quicker than Euphemia’s troops could kill them.\n\nEven worse, Scaland once again revolted under Vouivre’s leadership and declared its independence from both imperial factions. Considering it had done so in a previous reign, this implied the dragoness would always travel to that island, whether she was driven off from Telluria or not. Simon noted that information for the future. Scaland was located close to the Berwick Islands and Church Party territory, thus increasing the pressure on them.\n\nSilk, true to her promise, had also begun to provide reports on the situation beyond the Dragonsea. The League of Valne and Lore were planning a crossing with Musan and Illusean support, which Simon already knew from a previous reign.\n\nWhat he didn’t know, however, was that they had opened up secret discussions with the Church Party. According to Silk’s intel, the White Unicorn and Mastemo had opened diplomatic talks for an alliance in return for Euphemia formally renouncing all claims to Magvolia.\n\nIt would be a costly political move, if a shrewd one. Magvolia was firmly under the War Party’s thumb, so Euphemia would surrender territory she didn’t control anyway and open a second front for Louis to fight at the same time. Simon had no doubt the White Unicorn would accept her terms, although whether or not that peace would last beyond the War Party’s toppling remained to be seen.\n\nSimon found himself wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t claimed the Darkwood for himself. Would Leonard have pushed forward until he found the Halls of the Minotaur and reported its existence to Louis? Would it have impacted the war at all? Lauriane at least continued to buy monster parts and even live ones that adventurers occasionally captured, so her faction hadn’t entirely given up on the region.\n\nBut otherwise, Simon faced no other incident all the way up to the Summer Solstice. When that day came, he climbed up the stairs to the Sanctum, had poor Father Rodrigue bound to the altar, and then proceeded with the sacrifice.\n\n“Great trapped fiend, accept this bloody gift, sacrificed on freedom’s altar,” Simon chanted as he brought down the sacrificial spike on the weeping priest’s chest. “A priest who does not believe in you slaughtered in your unholy name, to herald forth the Summer of Destruction upon your enemies!”\n\nUnlike Lorimor, poor Rodrigue let out a wail of pain and fear when Simon ended his life. Red lightning crackled from his open chest and set arcane symbols alight in the air, shaking the temple with a tremor thankfully nowhere near as powerful as the one unleashed by the War Party’s bombardment. A few stones fell from the ceiling, startling Simon’s gargoyle guards, but the edifice held otherwise.\n\nHis vision once again went dark, as it did with the first ritual, followed by the vision of a second chain shattering over the seal. Overwhelming power flooded him with abyssal energies and the thrill of a new level.\n\nLevel 39 Overlord Perk: Unyielding Essence IV (Passive): You are now invulnerable to non-magical weapons.\n\n\nInteresting. Simon recalled some of his father’s ministers saying they had seen blades shatter against his naked skin. It was good to learn the exact reason why.\n\nNonetheless, Simon was starting to feel the toll of fading experience gains. He could tell the rush of experience granted by this sacrifice only gave him just enough to progress. The gap between two new levels kept growing wider and wider.\n\nThen again, he only wielded the Overlord class for a little over a year and a half when factoring in all the consecutive reigns. It had taken over half a decade of continuous warfare for Louis to reach level eighty or so in the Warrior Class. Simon would need to find new experience sources in future reigns to keep the momentum going.\n\n“So sweet, the taste of freedom is close!” the Stone Muse rejoiced. “Two more sacrifices and I shall see these bindings broken!”\n\n“The third sacrifice eludes us still, however,” Simon replied as he clutched the soul-gem he had extracted from Father Rodrigue. He would relinquish it to Duchar for him to deal with it as he saw fit. “What would you consider the ‘descendant of an enemy?’”\n\n“Those who have bound me are my foes!” the mad dryad replied. “The elven thralls of my treacherous sisters have woven wicked spells, and their blood alone may my fetters rust!”\n\n“So we need the descendant of the elven mages that created your seal in the first place?” Simon had a bad feeling about that. “Do you know their names?”\n\n“Shrouded in secrecy, they came to me, but my faith in you I bestow, Beloved. To the bottom of this matter you shall dig to set me free.”\n\nIn short, she had no idea and intended to saddle Simon with all the hard work. Such were the wages of dealing with bound fiends.\n\n“Gifts I have, my dear, to reward you with,” the Stone Muse said with honeyed words. “Spells most foul and devastating.”\n\n“I am still limited to Tier III for now,” Simon replied. “For another level at least, however long it takes.”\n\n“Not all spells require Perks to cast. Geomantic and druidic rituals blending nature and miasma, I can share. How to blight the land and invite nature’s wrath on civilization, how to spawn monsters numerous and twist paths with no return!”\n\nSimon recalled from earlier lessons that geomancy covered magic affecting the very land and terrain rather than individuals. Considering how the current ritual took nearly a year to cast, Simon doubted he would see immediate use for them.\n\nHowever, since completing a dark ritual like the Seasonal Key was providing him much much-needed Overlord experience, Simon assumed other dark sorcery might let him grow in levels in the future. Knowledge always opened new paths to the bold.\n\n“Very well,” Simon decided. “Do you have anything that could help repair our defenses?”\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nAs it turned out, the Stone Muse did know a useful defensive ritual: the Lost Wilds.\n\nThe complex piece of sorcery apparently cursed an entire forest so that anyone taking the wrong turn would end back at the beginning. It would require some preparation, key supplies, and the help of multiple cultists to complete, but he intended to cast it at the first opportunity in order to better shield the Halls of the Minotaur from detection.\n\nOtherwise, Simon also set Shabram and Odette Kano on researching the elven archmages who had sealed away the Muse in the first place; a search that quickly proved difficult. While the region had been inhabited long before the Darkwood’s corruption, Whispermire didn’t exist back then as a settlement, and the binding preceded the town’s registers; moreover, Magvolia was the most recent of the imperial provinces, and many archives had been lost during the conquest. The best Odette could provide was a list of local half-elves and their relatives, whom they had no way to confirm whether they descended from an ancient sorcerer or some unlucky local.\n\nMore worrying news arrived soon after, on top of everything.\n\n“You say a dragon has been sighted in the west, Miss Kano?” Simon inquired.\n\n“I would have dismissed such reports as foolishness if they weren’t corroborated by multiple people,” Odette confirmed. “The creature was sighted flying near the Goetia Research Center before disappearing without causing trouble.”\n\nCould it be Vouivre? No, impossible. She was in Scaland organizing the local scalefolk as part of yet another bid for conquest. She should have killed Casval by now, too. Did she have another sibling to call upon? Or was it merely a large monster local farmers mistook for a dragon?\n\nOr did it have something to do with Lauriane’s constant demand for monster parts? The creature was seen near the Goetia Research Center after all…\n\n“Interesting,” Simon said as he faked being an inscrutable archfiend. “I would not worry too much, Miss Kano. If a dragon dares to cross the Dragonsea to threaten us, I will put it back in its place. Gargauth alone could trade blows with my kind, and he is long departed.”\n\n“I will put my faith in you, Lord Belias,” Odette replied. “I have two more things to report. First of all, I am extending you a formal invitation for the annual ball celebrating Whispermire’s founding at the end of the month. Since important local dignitaries may attend, including our liege lord, Princess Lauriane Magnos, I figured you might be interested in attending it.”\n\nLauriane might attend? Simon was wary of being recognized, but using a Fiendmask and Anathematic Secrecy should let him slip in undetected. Part of him wanted to see how his favorite half-sister was faring in this reign, and Odette had a point, meeting local dignitaries could let him gather important information about the war.\n\n“I will be sure to attend with my finest human skin,” Simon mused. “What else did you want to discuss, Miss Kano?”\n\n“Silk told me that a certain adventurer party secretly affiliated with the White Unicorn will soon arrive in Whispermire, and that its leader may cause you some issues.”\n\nSimon’s jaw clenched. “Who leads these fools?” he asked, though he already suspected the answer before it arrived.\n\n“A certain Alphonse of Lore.”\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Runesmith — a LitRPG progression fantasy. It was getting late, the street lights flickered around while someone coughed in the distance. The wind howled while people were trying to get to their homes. Little drops of water started appearing on the glass windows, followed by gentle tapping. A certain man was sitting in a lit room, holding what looked to be a soldering iron. His hair was slightly unkempt and you could see a reflection of some kind of schematic coming of the glasses he was wearing.\n\n## Main Character\nName: He | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Roland, Baron, I'm\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Common,  Main ,  Secondary ,  Highest , Temporary, High,  Temporary )\n\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (35% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 240 – Time to get to work.\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: class event, dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "‘Should I take more?’\n\n“Are you finished Mr. Wayland?”\n\n“Ah, give me a minute…”\n\nRoland had been going around the auction house storage facility. It reminded him of the last tier 2 class change quest that he had been through not so long ago. There was a lot of useless clutter but some of the items would hasten his research.\n\nAt this very moment, he was looking at a simple orb that looked like a giant pearl. When injecting it with his mana the orb started giving out a radiant glow. For the uneducated eye, this item would look like a low-quality magical lamp but he could recognize what it truly was.\n\n‘An empyrean crystal must be inside of this thing, this isn’t just a yellow light, the mana pattern is similar to a healing spell.’\n\nThere was a certain warmth to this spell that was different from a regular heating spell. It was a phenomenon that was difficult to discern but thanks to his various mana-sensing skills, Roland was able to see through it.\n\nOrb of mending light\n\nLesser Mending Rune, Lesser Light Rune.\n\n\n‘So it had two different runes on in, the craftsmanship isn’t too great… the Runesmith was unable to combine both of the structures into one to lower the mana expenditure. These people really like to stick to their old schematics…’\n\nOn multiple occasions, he had seen magical items be inscribed in this way. He was always reminded of how most magical craftsmen stuck to the old trusted methods. It was quite rare to see something unique being made. The usual reason was either fear of failure or the astronomical costs of doing proper research to improve on an older design.\n\nThen there was also the problem of limited mana reserves. Most craftsmen still had to make a living by creating various artifacts. After a full day of work, it was normal for them to be tired. Thus if they reached a point where they could sustain their lifestyle they would choose to take it easy.\n\nAt least that was Roland’s point of view, there also existed idiots like him that would risk their health just to make a tiny improvement on an existing rune. Even in this case, if a person combined the two runes into a Lesser Mending Light Rune, the improvement would be more than five percent. In the case of a tiny rune like this, the mana expenditure wouldn’t matter that much. Only when the runes became grander and grander, did that five percent become a serious advantage and a worthwhile endeavor.\n\n“I’ll be taking this one if that’s alright with you?”\n\n“I’ll note it down in the book Mr. Wayland.”\n\nMary nodded while writing something into the large ledger that was on the side. Everything that he took out of here would be written down, if he would be later charged for the items if they were destroyed he wasn’t sure.\n\n‘The mending spell is the lowest healing spell that even a tier 1 cleric can perform, will this be enough to cause an adverse reaction from a parasite? It’s best if I get more runic variants for research…’\n\nThere wasn’t really much to work with here, they were still in a developing town. After going through the whole place he ended up with two other items besides the mending orb. This together with some separate empyrean crystals would have to be enough to create his new contraption.\n\n‘There really aren’t that many divine artifacts with actual runes, most of them are just regular enchantments…’\n\nTalisman of Faith\n\nShield of Faith Enchantment\n\n\nMace of Lesser Smite\n\nLesser Smite Evil Rune\n\n\nLuckily he had a skill that could see through other spell languages. With it, he would be able to get the runic versions out of enchanted weapons. Yet considering that it had a massive drawback, he still decided to go with the few runic variants that were here.\n\n‘I should get home and test these out…”\n\n“This will be enough.”\n\n“Are you sure Mr. Wayland? If you require anything else, please look for me at the mansion and I will gladly grant you access to the storage facility.”\n\nMary just smiled at him while continuing to note down the items that he took. Roland still wasn’t sure what he thought about this woman. Each time that he turned his back to her, it was as if something bad could happen. She gave him the vibe of some thieves guild members that he bumped into at the black market.\n\n‘She is being awfully nice but that might be just an act…’\n\nIt was clear that the woman was dangerous and not to be underestimated. He felt that he would have a better chance of taking out the two armored knights that protected Arthur than this one maid. There were rumors of butlers and maids being trained fighters or retired adventurers. They acted as both servants and bodyguards for nobles, sometimes sticking with them from a young age.\n\n“Sorry for making you wait, let's go back…”\n\n“...”\n\nOn the outside, he encountered a rather floppy ruby wolf. Agni was forced to remain chained to a post like a dog waiting for its owner at a supermarket. He was visibly unamused for being forced to remain in one spot for this long.\n\n“I’ll see you in a week then Mr. Wayland, please contact me through the usual means if any problems arise.”\n\nMary covered her mouth while looking at the large tamed monster being overdramatic. Luckily for Roland, the moment he took the doggy leash into his hands Agni was more than willing to move from the spot he was previously in.\n\n“Stop acting like a little kid Agni, after we’ll out of the city I’ll remove that muzzle.”\n\n“Awoo!”\n\nAfter he mentioned the device that was making his muzzle itch being removed, Agni started pulling him towards the exit. Night had already fallen on the city and some guards started patrolling. Armand, Lobelia, and Elodia were both safe from the cult influence and spent the night at the orphanage. Yet, one person from the city had already been infected. Being that it had happened to a person from the thieves guild, it could have happened anywhere.\n\n‘Is this a coincidence or part of their protocol?’\n\nJasper was part of the guild and this made him think of the one in Reeka. There he witnessed a secret passage that probably went to the cult's secret lair. There was a chance that the same thing was happening here, the cult might already be here. If the cult possessed a strategy of creating underground lairs, infecting thieves that created a foothold in developing cities would be part of the course.\n\nAlbrook’s dungeon could have been enough reason to invest in the takeover. Many adventurers wandered through this place and would be perfect hosts for their monsters. Roland was unsure what the cult's true purpose was or what was the deciding feature of the city they took over.\n\nThere was a possibility that they started out whenever a promising area appeared. Albrooks' structure was still growing, nothing was set in stone. It would be much easier to grasp a foothold during this time of development than five years after everything was formed.\n\n‘The underground tunnels and the thieves guild are a good smoke screen for the cult, it wouldn’t be a problem to falsify an identity there and build more tunnels…’\n\nThe guild of thieves would defend their assets. They would bribe the officials or use assassination to protect the underground black market. This would allow any cultists to have a safe haven without the need to spend any resources. Even without a mind-affecting relic, they could probably infect people through more conventional means.\n\n‘Even if that’s true and they are here, they will probably hide in the shadows for a while. They might even retreat to areas that are dominated by them to conserve their forces.’\n\nWith the high concentration of paladins in the area it would be unwise for the cultists to continue with their usual antics. Everyone had become aware of them, this also included the thieves guild that a member was confirmed to be afflicted by an abyssal larvae. He wouldn’t be surprised if the guild master turned the tunnels upside down to search for a potential culprit.\n\n“Woof!”\n\nHis contemplations were interrupted by a maddened Agni. Both of them were now outside of the city gates but the ruby wolf was still muzzled. Roland just gave out a sigh while smiling weakly afterward. Soon Agni was freed of the dreaded contraption that was placed on his snout. This was all signaled by a large sneeze he performed when it came down.\n\n“Hey, stop running around, I’m not going to put it on you again.”\n\nAgni bolted away as if he had spent years in wolf prison. From a distance, he glared at the metal muzzle that was being held in Roland’s hand. It was quickly placed in a spatial bag so that Agni could calm down, only after it was gone did he slowly trot back to his master’s side.\n\n“See it’s gone.”\n\n“Awroof!”\n\nAfter smelling the air for a moment Agni was back to his old self. His tail started swinging around as the two finally headed back to the workshop. Thanks to this distraction Roland’s mind went back to the problem at hand, he needed to create a device that would bathe a small area in divine energy. He had been at the church before and could somewhat ascertain the amount of this divine mana that was floating there.\n\n“It feels like I’ve been gone for months…”\n\nNot even a full month had passed since he had left Albrook. He wanted to do nothing more than to go to sleep for at least a week but thanks to the cult and the city lord, it was impossible. The nap that he took on the ship and at the port town would need to be enough.\n\n“She’s been keeping the place clean.”\n\nA smile appeared on his usually grumpy-looking face. The whole house was spotless, not a speck of dust could be seen and there was even food inside his runic refrigerator. After going through mostly dried meat it didn’t take him long to grab some leftover stew. Thanks to the runic stove it wasn’t hard to warm it up and then feast on it.\n\nIt only took him a few minutes to devour a massive amount of food. Regretfully even if he wanted to toss himself into the bathtub and then sleep everything off, there was more work to be done. After finishing the quick meal and leaving Agni to run rampant in the backyard he descended to his workshop.\n\n“Everything seems to be in order.”\n\nThe large metal door slid open after he was identified. On the inside, he was greeted by the sound of mechanical movement. It was one of his spider golems that was hanging from the ceiling and prepared to blast anyone that was not allowed to get into his workshop.\n\n“That reminds me…”\n\nWhen looking at the golem he started getting mad. He had lost two of such units during the village battle and was only left with scrap metal. This mission was part of his rank-up test so he received no rewards to cover his losses. It was an all-around net loss and most of the money he took along for the trip was now gone. If he wasn’t withholding information about the dungeon mine he would have probably filed a complaint.\n\nSoon he was going around the place to check if Bernir didn’t cause any unwanted explosions. All of his smithing hammers and runic tools were there, nothing eventful seemed to have happened. Everything was in good condition and he could start working whenever he decided to.\n\n“First I need to draw up the schematics of these runes.”\n\nBefore starting his work Roland was sure to give his enhanced radar system a look. A whole kilometer around his house could be mapped thanks to him burying signal extending equipment. All humans, monsters, and magical beings would be detected by this system without him needing to use his own mana.\n\nIf an unannounced guest showed up he would be informed by an alarm. With how the underground workshop was soundproof anyone outside would not be aware of their position being discovered. There were several ways this system could detect any intruders and it included movement.\n\nQuickly his hand started moving the pen around the large piece of parchment. Within a couple of minutes, he had the improved version of the mending rune up on the board. Next to it, he placed the more complex smite rune that would probably be quite effective against evil chaotic beings like the ones the cultists used.\n\n“This Talisman of Faith can wait for later…”\n\nHe didn’t want to risk getting a headache right the moment he started his work. For the time being, he focused on the mace and the orb. Both of these items were in possession of divine runes but both worked differently. When he activated the orb it started to give up a warm glow that was able to slowly mend small wounds like shallow cuts.\n\nThere didn’t seem to be a limit to how much healing this item could output. If it was given mana it just activated and the secondary power source that was on the inside took care of the second part of the equation. Only with the help of the empyrean crystal that was on the inside could this artifact function.\n\nThen there was the larger mace that was made of a deep steel alloy. It wasn’t anything special and it was also able to activate the spell effect when he injected his mana into it. There was one big difference though, there was no empyrean crystal or any other outer source of divine energy. This weapon had a limited amount of charges that would quickly get drained the more he used it.\n\n“It has only twenty charges and I already used up one…”\n\nThis was an ingenious way of retaining clients. The person getting this weapon would be forced to visit the church to supply more charges. It was a constant stream of revenue that would never dry up until the weapon broke down for other reasons.\n\n‘Perhaps I should make a deal with the Sister… would she be fine with a seventy-thirty split?’\n\nWhile thinking about a brand new way of earning money he placed the mace to the side. This rune that was meant for smiting evil creatures was a bit more complex than the mending rune. Now with both of the schematics on his board, he could start analyzing them in more detail.\n\nWithout needing much time he could already spot a lot of similarities to other runes. The spell effect on the mace just surrounded it by a radiant glow of divine energy. After striking something this energy would be dispersed to the surroundings, similar to a small explosion from an explosion rune.\n\n‘The only problematic part is this holy energy that must be directly injected into the runic structure from another source, either a charge or a more direct way.'\n\nEven without performing a test, Roland was convinced that he could create a working rune like this. This could only be achieved by substituting the divine energy with regular mana, the effect would probably be a similar small explosion of blue mana instead of the radiant divine one that this mace was filled with.\n\n‘Is there a way to emulate this type of energy and forgo the empyrean crystals altogether?’\n\nThis was his true purpose for decrypting these runes but he was not that versed in the types of mana or spiritual energies that floated around this world. Thus for the time being he decided to put this thought on hold. There was no time to waste here, the empyrean crystals were provided for him so he could ignore his lack of understanding in that part of the project.\n\n*sigh*\n\n“I guess I should make this before we get overrun by tentacle monsters…”\n\nThe difficult part of this project was not actually combining the runes to form a proper spell. It was to refine it enough to only use up the faintest of divine energy. Even though the crystals could be provided by the church, it was a finite resource. Tweaking the area of effect spell to be enough to have the infected exhibit clear symptoms would be the hard part.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 241 – Back in the workshop.\nTarget length: ~3100 words\nKey events: class event"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Wayland?”\n\nA concerned Elodia looked at the unused bedroom before calling out to Roland. Without knowing if someone was listening in she had to stick to his pseudonym. It was clear to her that he had not used his bedroom to sleep which could mean a few things. Yet before she could investigate further the disembodied voice of the house owner sounded out.\n\n“I’m in the workshop, is it already time for breakfast? … I could probably use a break, I’ll be there in a few minutes, I just need to finish this first.”\n\nElodia looked at the faintly glowing rune that was talking to her. It was inscribed on the wall to something that looked like a small black box. She had actually witnessed Roland connecting wires to this thing previously which was apparently supposed to guide the required energy to make it work.\n\nEven with somewhat knowing how the rune worked she was still not used to all the strange contraptions littering the whole place. This was one of the downsides of being together with a magically inclined craftsman. She never knew if something could appear out of the blue and explode in her face. It was especially dangerous whenever Roland tested new weapons or golems, many times they exploded while causing harm to their creator.\n\nThe woman frowned after hearing the one-sided message go through. It was clear that Roland didn’t go to sleep last night and continued to work through its entirety. She had quickly returned to the orphanage to check up on the young ones. There she remained until dawn as it was already too late to head back to the church.\n\n‘He must be hungry and tired… I should make something to recover his stamina.’\n\nThanks to having a cooking-related profession she was able to inject tiny buffs into the food that she made. It all depended on the correct ingredients and method of cooking, the effects were quite minimal but they were better than nothing. Quickly she put on an apron and got to work in the kitchen while waiting for the man of the house to come back.\n\n…\n\n“Ugh, is it already morning?”\n\nRoland rubbed his eyes while looking at the runic clock that was showing him the time. It was eight in the morning and half an hour before the shop would be opening. He had decided to close it for the time being as he knew that Elodia needed to take care of the kids at the orphanage. He had forgotten to mention yesterday that it had been somewhat hectic.\n\nThere wasn’t much that he had achieved yesterday besides examining the divine runes. After scribbling down the two main schematics he used a metal saw to open the Orb of mending light up. Just as he expected on the inside was a small empyrean crystal of a yellow hue. These always took on the color of the divinity they were charged with.\n\nWith Solaria being the main god in this kingdom it would take a yellow color pallet. This varied depending on the priest that was injecting their mana into the container. The more saturated the colors became the better the quality was. In this case, the empyrean crystal was a pale yellow which placed it on the lesser quality spectrum.\n\nAfter getting to the ‘guts’ of this magical device he noted down all the runic pathways and methods that the craftsman used. The crystal was placed into a tiny frame with a socket and then encased in metal to produce the round outer shell. This socket it was on, had small ethereal pathways which were clearly used to guide the energy from it.\n\nThe inside was mostly filled out but there were some pockets of air here and there. It seemed that the crystal was able to remain intact even after getting treated by heated metal. This item was clearly placed into a mold and then polished before the outer shell was inscribed. Such a process would not be hard to recreate and it was probably created in this way to protect the gem from outside shocks.\n\nThen there was the Talisman of Faith, this required him to use his most uncomfortable skill. Luckily he had already worked on lesser enchantments like this one so he had been successful in his endeavor. This last task took him most of the night and he had just finished when he noticed Elodia entering his home. Now he had all the basics prepared and needed to draw up the main diagram for the device.\n\n‘I guess I’m going to get another low score for style again…’\n\nWhile walking away from his workbench he thought back to the class change test he went through. With not enough time for testing, he would need to prepare something basic. In his head, he was looking at a box with a spot to place the divine crystal in. Then in another side compartment some space for mana fluid.\n\n‘Have to make it easily replaceable so that the guards can’t damage it…’\n\nThe design needed to be simple so that even the guards could take out a used-up empyrean crystal and also fill it back in with mana fluid. It needed to be as close to what the people in this kingdom were used to. For himself, he would make an altered version that used his own runic batteries.\n\n‘I need to eat something…’\n\nWhile standing up he could feel his stomach rumbling in protest. The only meal he had yesterday was the leftovers that he found in the runic fridge. With how Elodia had shown up his hunger had been exasperated. It was one thing to eat a cold meal and another to get something fresh and warm. Thus without even realizing it, he started moving faster towards the exit.\n\n“Hey Boss, a good mornin’ to ya!”\n\n“Oh hey, Bernir.”\n\nHis assistant had his own workshop through which he could get into the underground main lair. He also came to work at the same time with Elodia and his wife. Mostly the three would meet up in the city and just go together for safety reasons. It was always safer in a group with people that carried magical weapons that Roland made. Once he had heard of Bernir having to use the portable runic gun for self-defense.\n\n“What’s with that eye…”\n\n“Oh nothing, the missus likes to get rowdy from time to time…”\n\nRoland recalled Bernir staring at Sister Kassia’s backside and Dyana’s reaction. To this day he wasn’t quite sure how the two ended up with each other. The size difference was quite large and Bernir seemed like a leecher that had not been able to get rid of that part before marriage.\n\n‘I guess this world's sensibilities are different, if a man has a proper well-paying job or standing, it's not hard to attract them…’\n\nIn reality, Roland would also be able to profit from his position. He was not blind to the looks that he was getting from the young women around him. Yet not many of those girls were willing to approach the scary-looking runesmith. His love life was satiated by Elodia who was a great cook and he wasn’t really willing to jeopardize this heartwarming relationship by cheating.\n\n“Well, She probably had a reason for it… try not to get killed over stupid things, but if things get out of hand, I'll talk to her about it.”\n\nHe wasn't one to allow spousal abuse even if the morals in this world were different. Yet it didn't seem that Bernir had any problems in getting hit, for some reason it looked like he actually enjoyed it.\n\n“Aye boss, don’t worry, I’ll be more discrete next time!”\n\nBernir gave Roland a little wink as if the problem was not him going after other women but getting caught.\n\n“That was not… but it’s your life…”\n\nHe just shrugged while going up the stairs, if his assistant wanted to risk it then it was fine. What Roland worried about was that he would be bringing a bad atmosphere into the working place if it continued. Perhaps it was not such a great idea to work with your significant other in the same area.\n\n“Wayland?”\n\n“Yes, it’s me.”\n\n“Wait for a second, I made some stew, this runic pressure cooker is truly something special!”\n\nElodia had complained about some of her recipes taking too long so he had created some modern tools. A pressure cooker had many uses and wasn’t hard to make with the help of runes. Thanks to it she was able to upgrade her cooking skills to a new level and also hasten the process. Most people in this world were stuck using regular stoves using coal or wood, not many had the leisure of having a set of runic utensils along with a fully functioning enchanted stove.\n\nThe moment Roland's nose caught the smell his mouth started watering. His whole lower body trembled as his stomach began growling. If he could he would toss himself at that pressure cooker to devour the hot stew inside.\n\n“You really look famished, sit down and relax for a moment.”\n\n“Sure.”\n\nAfter a moment the two sat down next to each other and while waiting for the food to get colder began to talk.\n\n“I thought you’d be with the kids, it’s fine if we close the shop for the week, I’ve gotten a commission from the city lord, it should be enough to cover our expenses for a while.”\n\nRoland took a sip of warm tea that had the perfect temperature that he always liked. It seemed Elodia had remembered to prepare it before he got here.\n\n“It’s fine, Armand and Lobelia took them to the church to get examined.”\n\n“Did her friend recover yet?”\n\n“I’m not sure, she returned late at night but poor Jasper hadn’t woken up. It doesn’t seem that he is in danger but the priests aren’t sure why he hasn’t woken up yet, they said that his body is healthy.”\n\nHe nodded while putting his cup away. The Abyssal Larva that was in Jasper’s head was close to his brain, it wouldn’t be strange if it affected it in some way. People in this world depended on heating arts and not many had actual medical knowledge. His old world was far more advanced in that field, the brain damage that an afflicted person went through could be devastating.\n\n‘It’s better if I don’t mention the possibility of the man becoming a vegetable…’\n\n“I’m sure the priests will figure it out, perhaps the evil energy hadn’t left his body fully and he just needs to recover.”\n\nElodia nodded while blowing on her spoon before placing it in her mouth. It was time to eat and remaining silent through this part was somewhat of a tradition. Only after they were done did they resume their conversation while also washing dishes.\n\n“What did the Lord want?”\n\n“Nothing much, just a way to get rid of this problem but I kind of gave him the idea.”\n\nRoland smiled while handing his bowl to Elodia who started washing it.\n\n“There is another way?”\n\n“Not exactly, we still need the priests from the church to heal the afflicted but it’s possible to detect the ones that are sick.”\n\n“There is?”\n\nRoland nodded while giving Elodia a short explanation about how the infected people showed various symptoms when around divine energy.\n\n“It’s not a very precise process but other than x-raying a person’s skull I don’t see any other way?”\n\n“X… ray?”\n\nElodia looked at him with a confused look while he just shook his head.\n\n“It’s not important but you should probably go back, I wouldn’t trust that idiot with the kids.”\n\n“Hey, he’s not that unreliable…”\n\nShe was quick to defend her younger brother but both of them knew that unless it came to fighting Armand wasn’t that useful. Roland also knew that his girlfriend would be worried sick if she didn’t take care of this on her own.\n\n“Agni, come here boy.”\n\n“Awoo!”\n\n“I have a mission for you, take Elodia to the city gates and return only after you are sure that she is safe. and don’t worry, you don’t need a muzzle just don’t go through the main street.”\n\n“Woof!”\n\nThe Dire Ruby Wolf gave out a resounding bark while positioning his nose up high. He looked very dependable with that impressive size and level. With not many tier 3 class holders in the city, there was almost no danger with anyone being able to stand up to this powerful beast.\n\n“Are you sure you shouldn’t rest? I’m sure what you are doing is important but you just returned…”\n\n“It’s fine, you know me, I don’t need much sleep, I’ll be fine with a few hours here and there.”\n\nHe smacked his chest while smiling while showing off his strong body that wouldn’t crumble under the workload. With his new class, he would be able to almost work nonstop without his mind giving out.\n\nElodia gave out a sigh after hearing the answer.\n\n“I know that I won’t be able to change your mind but just remember not to overexert yourself.”\n\n“You know me, I always work responsibly.”\n\nRoland found his arm getting pinched by an angry-looking Elodia. She had already bought him passed out a few times from overworking himself or generating dangerous explosions.\n\n“Ouch, that hurts.”\n\n“You deserve it.”\n\n*Thonk*\n\n“Hey, stop it Agni.”\n\nWhile he was getting the stink eye, his tamed beast decided to ram his skull into his stomach.\n\n“Why are you taking her side, you should always be on your master's side!”\n\n“He knows who controls the food in this house.”\n\nIt seemed that he had been betrayed by Agni in this time of need. Food was apparently more important and the person who cooked the most was indeed Elodia. Thus his only retort that he could come up with was to lean over for a tactical kiss on the cheek which caused the reddening of his partner's face.\n\n“Hey, stop that.”\n\nAfter seeing Elodia’s cute flustered face he could finally go back to work. Soon the two parted ways and he was left with the sound of hammering that belonged to Bernir and Dyana. The two would be able to help him with creating parts for his new creation but first, he needed to get the runic structure to work.\n\n“Hey boss, heard that we are closing shop, does that mean…”\n\n“No, you can’t go home, go back to work, I’ll need your help later.”\n\n“Aye, it was worth a try.”\n\nBernir chuckled while grabbing some tools. Most of the time his work consisted of producing parts for Roland’s creations. These would be then inscribed with runes and then finally assembled into the finished product. Thanks to the various power tools that run on mana the process of creation was faster than that of regular smiths.\n\nThere was only one downside when working with these tools. Most of them wouldn’t count towards any skills. A blacksmith could for instance increase their skill with hammers which would allow them to be more precise while also using a lot of force. There was no skill for using a runic drill or saw but luckily they would still gain leveling experience after the item was created.\n\n“So what are you working on, boss?”\n\n“It’s related to the current issue in the city…”\n\nRoland gave Bernir a quick explanation of what happened after they left. This caused the half-dwarf to whistle while pondering something.\n\n“Isn’t this a chance?”\n\n“A chance?”\n\n“Yes, if this magical item works then won’t we be able to earn loads of cash? We’ll be able to show the union’s bastards our superiority!”\n\n“I guess that’s one way of looking at it…”\n\nThe fact that Arthur Valerian commissioned him instead of the dwarven union to prepare the magical contraption showed where his trust was in. Yet Roland wasn’t sure if his new friend wouldn’t go to them if he didn’t finish his work in a week. Perhaps Arthur had already sent someone to the union with a request if he failed.\n\n‘This would probably be the better move, can’t put all of your eggs in one basket.’\n\n“But what if those conniving fiends are already working on it? What if we are too late and they take all the glory?”\n\n“I wouldn’t worry about that, the union will probably prioritize their own larger cities and I’m not sure if their Enchantsmith knows how to work with divine ones.”\n\n“That’s true… but boss, have ya already worked with them yourself?”\n\n“No, but I’m a fast learner.”\n\nWith the schematics already done and corrected with the help of his debugging skill, it was finally time to get to the drawing board. This process was one of the more tedious ones as he had to calculate everything in his head while bringing it to paper. Only after getting through this process could he have his assistants start preparing the framework for his new creation.\n\n“Aye, I’ll leave ya to it then.”\n\nRoland opened up the door to his private workshop where he created most of his runic designs. The three divine runes that he corrected were all hung up on the board where he could see everything clearly. On the wall, there was a rack with all of his tools and that was his current destination.\n\n“I guess I’m back my old friend.”\n\nAfter pulling up a somewhat well-used hammer he gave it a twirl. This had been his go-to runecrafting tool for a year now, even though it was used it just felt right when he held it in his hand. Soon the forge sprung to life as he inserted a square-shaped piece of metal into it. The runic heating spell produced a high enough temperature to turn the whole piece red in a matter of minutes.\n\nIt was then removed with some deep-steel tongs and brought over to his usual anvil. There he raised his hammer up into the air. Blue sparks of mana filled out the tiny gaps to bring the inscribed runic symbols out into the open. Quickly he brought that hammer down to force it into the piece of metal, the familliar process of runecrafting had begun and Roland finally felt like he was truly home again.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 242 – Fiddling with divine runes.\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Ugh…”\n\n“Boss, your eyes, there is blood coming out of them.”\n\n“Don’t worry I’m fine, give me a moment.”\n\nRoland poured a red recovery potion on his face to make his vision recover. This coupled with a mending spell that had been inscribed on a metallic wand quickly nursed him back to health.\n\n“Maybe ye should take a break, I know that the deadline is in a day but ye must watch your health, what if the missus finds out?”\n\n“I’m fine, also I’ve already finished that project.”\n\nAfter taking a breather Roland pointed to a box that was to the side. Just as he had planned it out, the runic device didn’t look eye-catching. The most intricate part about it were the various runes and gems placed on the outside.\n\n“I’ve already prepared the diagram so you can start preparing the parts, it’s a basic design so you won’t have trouble in making them.”\n\n“Eh? So this is it.”\n\nBernir looked at the unsuspecting box and craned his neck back to Roland. He was given a nod which indicated that he could go ahead and examine it. There was a hook latch on the side and small hinges on the other which allowed him to open it up. On the inside, there was a small metal cylinder with what looked to be mana fluid inside of it.\n\n“So you went with the old design boss.”\n\n“Obviously, can't go outside the norm with it yet.”\n\nBernir nodded as there were various reasons to stick to the usual magical fuel. One of them was just for ease of use while the other was for the better design not to be copied by the dwarven union. They would certainly get their hands on this little box sooner or later.\n\nRegretfully there wasn’t anything like patents in this world, so he could not safeguard his designs from being used by others. The only thing would be the inclusion of passwords and blockades in the code. With their inclusion, a specialist would be needed to crack the code. It was similar to the basic pirating prevention methods from his old world.\n\nThere were of course ways of making this prevention software even harder to crack. One of these methods would be a handshake between hardware components, like the batteries that he made. Someone would need to be able to recreate both parts perfectly otherwise the main device would not function and if he wanted, short circuit the runic components.\n\nHe had already implemented a simplified version of this system in his golemic products that utilized his rechargeable batteries. With more time he hoped to make his products too bothersome to copy. The real money didn’t come from making large heavy to construct machines, like golems.\n\nIf he could become the only supplier of runic batteries while other runesmiths bought them from him to use his designs, then he would be swimming in money while doing minimal work. Then there was also the factory approach if he failed with that endeavor. While he probably wouldn’t be able to design automated systems like in the world he came from, he could substitute them with golems that could be programmed to make separate parts.\n\nWhile he was thinking about the future of his enterprise, Bernir pressed the activation button. This caused the box to glow faintly, it was followed by a warm tingling feeling that quickly subsided. To the untrained eye, this would look like a glowy paperweight with no apparent use but to someone that could detect mana, the change would be somewhat noticeable\n\n“Will this really help with those squiggly thingies?”\n\n“It should be enough to force out the symptoms, the concentration of divine mana is slightly above the one in the church.”\n\n“So boss, if you’ve completed your work, shouldn’t we bring it to the lord?”\n\n“Not yet, we need to prepare more and I already asked for more crystals and materials from the auction house…”\n\n“Ah!”\n\nBernir smirked as he realized that his boss was trying to milk his business partner for more resources. This was an opportunity to get free research material from the auction house that he didn’t normally have access to.\n\n“Well, if it’s like that, then I’ll send them in when they arrive.”\n\nAfter grabbing the diagrams from the table, Bernir ventured out to create a few more boxes. They needed enough to cover all the entrance gates of the city along with places where people gathered. It would be up to Arthur to organize everything as his job would be over after he delivered the runic device.\n\nRoland had actually not expected everything to go that fast. With the help of his skills, there was no problem if he worked twenty hours a day. It was just a matter of assembling the runic components in the right places and then playing around with the code inside.\n\nThese divine runes weren’t that different from the ones that used mana, they just required a different power source which was supplied by the empyrean crystals. He had also examined the weapon that used rechargeable charges and applied them to the design as well.\n\nIf for some reason the city lord couldn’t provide the divine energy crystals, he could ask the priests to recharge them instead. This change prolonged the assembly by a few days but he did not want to deliver a faulty product when people's lives were at stake. With one and a half days left until the deadline he had shifted his research to another field, divine mana emulation\n\n‘It should be possible if I can find the correct wavelength…’\n\nHis eyes had stopped hurting from looking at the divine energy that was produced by the magical devices. The runic components were similar and overlapped with the regular ones that used mana as the only source. They had some additional parts that injected this holy energy instead.\n\nOne of these parts utilized the empyrean crystals while the other just absorbed an outside source. Yet there were clues in the design, such parts also existed in regular mana devices. This gave him an idea, what if the mana in this world can be changed, what if it operates on some kind of spectrum or a wavelength. Perhaps if he could alter this wavelength he could produce divine energy by himself or at least mimic it enough to produce a similar effect.\n\nFor this reason, he was using his runic eyes of truth. With their help, he was trying to analyze the divine energies that these items he took from the auction house generated. The biggest problem was that runic magic by design worked in reverse. It took mana from outside and altered it to produce things like elemental spells.\n\nWhat he would need to do was to create a component that altered the mana into the divine mana before being injected into the runic structure. He might have to create a totally separate element that would alter the mana flow before sending it into the runic traces.\n\n‘That will probably be the better solution, it's easier to simulate an empyrean crystal instead of a constant charging feature.’\n\nIt would be great if he could just design a whole rune that did all of the work for him. But simulating a whole new energy source seemed like a massive undertaking. He would need to go through many various patterns bit by bit. His eye skill could only marginalize the area of search. By looking at what energy he was producing he could slowly push it in the right direction.\n\n‘So much work to do and so little time…’\n\nHis Parallel Thinking trait was working in overdrive as he felt that he would need five more brains to get through this field of study. Recreating a bizarre fantasy world energy crystal in mechanical runic form would probably be quite the breakthrough. It could also put him on the hit list of all the orthodox religions. They would probably not look kindly to someone creating blasphemous imitations of their divine spells.\n\nWhile he was aware of this, there would always be ways to hide the use of divine spells. The only reason he was willing to go into the field was the looming threat of evil monsters appearing at his doorstep. Roland did not know if the people from the Solarian church that he met were still alive.\n\nPerhaps Loreena had already been forced to talk about his involvement and assassins were on the way. The only thing keeping him calm was the strength of the church, combined with the cultist's target probably being the destruction of their relic.\n\n‘They shouldn’t have any time to deal with me, Loreena also doesn’t know about the nature of my skill and how I really got out of that illusion.’\n\nHe could only grit his teeth and continue with the research. The faster he learned to emulate an empyrean crystal, the faster he could outfit his home with defenses. For the time being he could always go to Sister Kassia to recharge the field he would create around his house.\n\nAfter getting some rest and drinking some water he returned to his workbench where a stack of papers along with his notebook was waiting for him. There he started going through various theories and old research.\n\nYet even when he tried, time just continued to pass and the crumpled-up papers riddled the whole floor. The task was proving to not be an easy one, thus after the deadline was over he needed to clear his mind and prepare the basic defenses before continuing.\n\n…\n\n“So this is it?”\n\n“Yes Lord Arthur, let me demonstrate. You just need to fill this small canister with Elokin’s Fluid and place the empyrean crystal in this socket, then just press the button on the side.”\n\nMary placed herself in front of Arthur Valerian while Roland did the presentation. It was funny to see the maid not trust him at all but he could understand it. There was always a chance of things going wrong or people using their skills to impersonate him or even mind control. It wouldn’t be strange if the item exploded if a powerful enough person wanted Arthur dead.\n\n“This does feel like a lesser healing spell and the area should be enough to cover the gates.”\n\n“It can go up to five meters in diameter, use the knob on the side if you wish to lower the area of effect, it will lower the mana usage, and the device will last longer.”\n\n“So we can narrow the checkpoint size and save us some money, you have outdone yourself Mr. Wayland. Mary, have these placed at the main gates and start informing the guard captains as we have discussed before.”\n\n“Yes, Lord Arthur.”\n\nThey were out in the courtyard with the usual two knights watching over the city lord. It seemed that they used the week to prepare a proper plan. Roland wouldn't be surprised if Arthur had already contacted the church and gotten them to agree to help out.\n\n“Mr. Wayland, you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts, but I think you should rest now.”\n\nEven though Roland didn’t inform Arthur about his other part of the research, his baggy eyes and melancholic way of talking made him seem like someone that didn’t rest for a week or more.\n\n“Thank you, my Lord, I will excuse myself, please contact me if you need more of the items made, of course, at the agreed-upon price.....”\n\nArthur nodded while Roland quickly wobbled out of the estate to head home. Even though he had arrived here a week ago, only now was he truly free to continue with his life. There was one more small thing that he needed to take care of before returning home and the person helping him with it was already waiting outside.\n\n“Are you done?”\n\n“Yes, here.”\n\nFrom within his spatial bag, he removed one of the boxes that he had created. After handing it over to Lobelia he was done for now.\n\n“So this is it? Doesn’t look like much.”\n\n“I can guarantee that it works, don’t forget to bring me the money later.”\n\n“He he, I bet those old bastards will pay whatever I propose.”\n\n“Don’t go overboard.”\n\n“Are you worrying about me? That’s cute~”\n\n“I’m more worried about Elodia, if she finds you in a ditch with a dagger in the back she will be devastated.”\n\n“Were you always this melodramatic? Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, they will probably want more of these if they work and I’m the only one that can contact the supplier!”\n\nLobelia chuckled at Roland who had become the supplier of magical goods for the thieves guild. He had decided to push the items towards the underground to check for any people that could be afflicted. Apparently, during this week a few more people were discovered and quickly treated thanks to Lobelia that spread the information.\n\nRoland was hoping to eradicate any potential cultist lairs from forming in the city and for that, the Thieves guild was needed. They were used to looking for hidden passages, in theory, they should be able to find any hidden tunnels or at least keep the infected from spreading.\n\nFor that, they first needed to examine all of the members and also place his divine boxes at the secret thieve guild entrances. With time they should be able to identify the source and hopefully take care of it without anyone from the upper citizens being affected.\n\n“Remember, the fewer people know about this the better, you can’t alert the cultists or they might activate the parasites.”\n\n“I know, don’t worry, I’m good at keeping secrets and so are the people in charge.”\n\nLobelia smiled while striking a pose. He couldn’t really do much as he was not part of the underground guilds and he had no interest in meeting their leader.\n\n“Let’s change the topic then, how is your friend?”\n\n“Jasper is doing fine.”\n\n“He is?”\n\nThe half-elf blurred out the news as if it was nothing.\n\n“Were there any side effects? Memory loss? Blindness?”\n\nRoland on the other hand was very interested in this scoop and started throwing questions at the smaller girl.\n\n“Woah, calm down Wayland. He is fine but he couldn’t remember the past few hours.”\n\nAfter a quick back and forth he finally received some good news. It was possible to make a full recovery from the larva if it was discovered before being activated. This confirmed his theory that these creatures remained dormant and waited for some kind of activation sequence. Their only defensive mechanism in this state was making their host uncomfortable whenever close to divine energy.\n\n“There is one more thing, remember the thing you asked me about.”\n\n“Yes?”\n\n“The guild received some news, apparently that forest where the church was fighting with those weirdos has become a desolate wasteland!”\n\n“A wasteland?”\n\n“Yes, some sort of spell was used and everyone had to evacuate but It didn’t reach the city. No one can investigate further, the religious nuts are keeping everyone from going in.”\n\nIt seemed the battle was over and both the cult had left the danger zone. Some kind of spell had been used to probably destroy any leftover evidence. If the old man that he met that knew his father and his granddaughter got out in time was unknown to anyone.\n\n“Can I ask you for one more favor?”\n\n“Hm, what is it?”\n\nLobelia looked a bit pouty as he asked for it but this was quickly remedied by his next sentence.\n\n“Don’t worry, I’ll pay you, I need some information and you probably know someone that can get it.”\n\n“That I do!”\n\n“I need you to get me information about two people…”\n\nRoland didn’t want to remain in the dark, he needed to know if information about him was out there. If the two golden order paladins he ran in were safe and sound, then he could relax. Yet if they were found missing then he might have to consider taking drastic measures.\n\nEven without that knowledge he still needed to get stronger. One part was the new divine runes that he was working on but that seemed to be a long-term investment. Another research topic were the spatial runes that he was still trying to figure out. If he could integrate storage technology into his armor, he could bring along heavy armaments for more dire situations. Then there was the dungeon and his secret training spot that he needed to visit.\n\n“Golden order members? Do you have friends in high places?”\n\n“Can you do it or not?”\n\n“Sure thing but it might cost extra!”\n\nRoland nodded as the two finally parted, even though he had the freedom to do anything he couldn’t waste any time. He needed to get stronger and the fastest way for that was to gain more levels.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 243 – Time for the hammer.\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "I'll be taking a break for a week, so see you next week o/\n\n\n“Level 129, it’s close to 130…”\n\nRoland muttered to himself while looking at his status screen which hasn’t changed much since his last level up. His new tier 2 Runic Engineer class hasn’t seen much use since he got it and it was only level 4 and soon to be 5. Due to all the work, he did prepare the new runic items he was gaining experience but not at a rate that would matter.\n\nThere were a few skills that he acquired that had gone through rapid growth. His Stress Resistance skill that he just acquired after gaining his new class was already level 4, it was the same for his Resilience skill. The two were getting a lot of usage during his latest endeavor, the latter saw a boost each time he activated his eye of true skill. He had also gained a follow-up skill that made things easier.\n\nPain Resistance L2\n\nIncreases resistance to pain.\n\n\nThe Pain Resistance skill was actually something that wasn’t easy to unlock. A person needed to put their body through a lot of continuous pain and suffering. It was mostly acquired by intended means by putting people through torture or found in victims like prisoners.\n\n‘If someone peeked at my skills they might think that I’m some kind of budding masochist…’\n\nThanks to pain resistance he could not force himself to last through the runic eye of truth. Along with Resilience, his recovery was boosted and he could quickly recover to restart the process faster. Thanks to leveling up these skills he was able to go through the divine enchantments without a problem and even attempt to work on the spatial rune.\n\nHis main goal now was to get to level 150 and for that reason, he needed to abuse his body. With the real threat of the abyssal cult peeking over his shoulder, a need to advance further was there. However there was a problem, should he wait to reach the level cap of his current class or attempt a tier 3 change instantly after he reached the minimum requirement?\n\nDue to him using up 75 levels on three tier 1 classes to unlock his Runesmith Lord class he had some wiggle room. Getting the higher tier 3 stat multiplier would make him a lot stronger and he would also be given even more stat points for each level up. Yet he would be giving up the potential rare skill of the Runic Engineer.\n\nThis class was an unknown factor and something probably unique to his situation. It gave him the vibe of being something that he brought over from his original world. In this new one that was filled with fantasy beings and magical contraptions, Engineers didn’t really exist. They were replaced by craftsmen or artisans, the class names were closer to the medieval times.\n\n‘But perhaps I’m just overthinking things…’\n\nThe only true out-of-place term that he had was the debugging skill that was clearly only possible by someone that had access to modern-day computers and programming languages. If he was right then perhaps the special level 50 skill at the end of his new class would be quite worthwhile, the one that he received from the Runesmith Lord was really worth the wait.\n\n‘I guess I should focus on getting to 150 first and then I’ll decide. To level up faster I need to go down to the dungeon, luckily Bernir said that he finished the pathway while I was out.’\n\n“Hey, Bossman here it is!”\n\n“Thank you Dyana.”\n\n“No problem, that’s what you pay me for, I just wonder if Agni will really want to wear this.”\n\nDyana brought over a lot of various pieces of equipment, it was a silver barding made for his Dire Ruby Wolf. After the increase in size, he had enough strength to finally wear some protective gear. It was made from durasteel and would cover all the critical parts like the underbelly that was prone to injuries. It would also be outfitted with some runic spells to augment Agni’s fighting style.\n\n\"Also, here.\"\n\n\"What's this?\"\n\n“It’s from Lobelia, she said to pass it on and to not peek inside. I hope these aren’t love letters from someone…”\n\n“I’m not Bernir.”\n\n“Good, wouldn’t want to beat up my boss for Elodia’s sake!”\n\nDyana laughed which also brought a small twitch to his face. He didn’t know if he should just be glad that people were relaxed enough around him to make jokes like this or cry that he wasn’t taken seriously anymore. This envelope contained information from an underground intelligence guild that existed along with the thieves guild. After paying a lot of money he intended to get all the information about the current events in Reeka and any cult movement that he could. He had received some basic information but he required a detailed report of the whole situation so that he could finally put all of this to rest.\n\n“Then I’ll go make those golem parts, I also have some blades for you to go through boss, I’ll leave them at the usual spot.”\n\nThe large cow-girl made her way out while her oversized chest bounced around with each movement. Even Roland had to make an active effort not to look, with the help of his parallel thinking trait, he was actually able to peek without his eyes moving to give it away. It was the perfect ability for a peeping Tom and probably better suited for the trio degenerates that now roamed Albrook together.\n\n‘Are they getting bigger? Could she be … ‘\n\nRoland shook his head to get the unnecessary thoughts out of his head. The family life of his workers was not something he should concern himself with. He would also support them with proper parental leave. What he needed to focus on now was the new information that he was given, he quickly popped the seal on the thick envelope and started reading. Only after he was finished was the letter thrown into the furnace for disposal.\n\n‘Good… They shouldn’t know about my involvement…’\n\nHis heart was pounding while he was going through the letter. What he wanted it to focus on was the Solarian Inquisitors and the Golden Order. It seemed that both Loreena and her grandfather that was one of the few High Inquisitors had survived. With them not falling into enemy hands, they could not be brainwashed to reveal his secret.\n\nThere was nothing specific in the information about the battle that took place only about the aftermath. Most of the flying ships that the church used had been destroyed after a massive magical explosion. The intelligence guild believed that the cultists somehow blew up the entire area after victory was not possible. Some strange occult magical circle was spotted that produced a pillar that reached the sky.\n\n‘So they really did it… perhaps that monolith had some sort of self-destructing feature?’\n\nRoland wasn’t sure, if the relic could have been destroyed from a distance, why didn’t they just do it? Perhaps there was some kind of limit on the range of the church and figured out a way to block it? The cult could have also attempted to get it back and only went with the atomic option after a defeat.\n\n‘The important thing is that Loreena was spotted later in Reeka, they had managed to get everything under control and are now examining the underground where the thieves guild is… but that’s about it for the report…’\n\nAfter their escape and the massive explosion the golden order apparently pulled out from the forest. They had suffered a lot of casualties and only the strongest members had survived. With the help of the tier 3 paladins, it wasn’t hard to quell the monster uprising in the city but at that point, the damage was already done. It would probably take years to recover losses, and get new workers and merchants on board. Most of them would probably flee to other cities and perhaps even to the mainland.\n\n‘This might even affect the whole Valerian Household… the duke allowed a cult to exist under his nose, the other dukes will see this as a chance. Though Arthurs's brother will take the brunt of this attack, if he was competing for the duke position this will probably exclude him from the competition…’\n\nRoland knew that Duke Alexander Valerian had many offsprings. These young lords would be forced to compete against each other for the duke’s spot in the future. With a blunder like this and all the bad press, whoever was stationed in Reeka would have a hard time bouncing back.\n\n‘His biggest mistake was abandoning the common quarters… even with the nobles and merchants surviving, if there is no labor force to work they can’t do anything.’\n\nWould commoners answer the call to come back to work when they were treated as disposable goods? Even if the merchants tried to entice people with money and good contracts, everyone would think twice before going to a danger zone like that. It would probably take some time before anyone decided to risk it.\n\nRoland shrugged while looking at the smoke coming out from his furnace. After hearing that his acquaintances from the golden order had survived another problem arose. While the cult would probably shift their targets toward Loreena as the person responsible for this debacle. This didn’t put him in the clear just yet. The woman knew that he was able to somehow go around the relic and he had proposed using runic mages to investigate it. It wouldn’t be strange if he was on the church watchlist now.\n\n‘That inquisitor is a problem too…’\n\nHe recalled the person that knew his own father. The old man was strong and apparently related to Loreena as he referred to her as his granddaughter. Roland had no idea of knowing what these two individuals would decide to do. Would they just shrug him off as being lucky or turn to him for help? If they used magic for questioning he would not be able to lie and have to reveal his special skill. He would then be turned into a human detection device to disable cult relics.\n\n‘The problems only keep increasing… ‘\n\nFor the time being, he decided to not worry about the small things. The city he was in was slowly preparing to counter the abyssal cultists. Even a priest of Sister Kassia’s level would be able to tell if any strange rituals were taking place so they couldn’t do anything in the open.\n\nThe thieves guild was already combing the underground tunnels for any potential secret lairs and giving information to their associates. With some luck, this would go away without him needing to involve himself anymore. He only needed to act as a normal craftsman and develop new divine runes that might aid him and others later.\n\n‘This shouldn’t take too long…’\n\nHis mind went back to the wolf armor that Dyana delivered. Before leaving on his rank-up test he had already created a schematic for the doggy armor. While it would not be comparable to his own it would give Agni some spell variety. The material was Aether durasteel, it would lower the usage for fire spells while also ad buffing spells, just like Roland’s armor did.\n\nThus he grabbed his hammer and after organizing the various parts, he turned on the forge. After grabbing large tongs from the side he inserted what would be the chest plate for Agni’s barding. It was angular for the purpose of deflecting blows to the side by making them slide. This piece in particular would be able to generate a mana shield, either a regular one or a fire one.\n\nHe was not sure how his wolf would handle the activation requirements so for now, he decided to inscribe spells to different parts. The only thing Agni would need to do was to send a jolt of mana down a specific part. This would be a true test for his partner's intelligence, would he be smarter than the average wolf or just activate each spell effect at the same time and cause a mess?\n\n‘Hm… I should probably lower the output to the minimum for the test.’\n\nRoland’s hammer swung continuously down on the heated breastplate and the runes started to quickly take shape. With his current skill level, he didn’t really need much time to perform his work. Yet while his runesmithing skills were constantly advancing, his regular blacksmithing techniques were not. Since getting two competent helpers he started to get less and less need to prepare the various parts himself.\n\nYet he had not totally given up on his life as a craftsman. He had actually been getting ready to create his new weapon. After going through his recent adventure, the constant switching between his metallic rod for spell usage and his sword was suboptimal. He decided to combine a weapon with a magician's staff into one. For this he needed the large bulky metal clump that was heating up in his smelter.\n\nThis would be the base for his next multi-purpose tool, a large runic warhammer. The design of this runic weapon would have one side of it being flat while the other would have a spike. This rear spike would be great for penetrating hard armor while the flat one for bludgeoning damage. Both sides would have their own runic effects to augment them.\n\nThe biggest downside of this construction would be the weight but thanks to his armor that was already boosting his stats, he would have no problems with that part. The shaft would be close in length to the magical rod that he used. It would allow him to perform two-handed strikes if he so chose. Then with the help of his enhanced strength, he would also be able to hold a shield in his left hand if the need arose.\n\n‘Hope the retractable shaft won’t compromise the weapon, the Mythril should be enough to keep it from snapping.’\n\nRoland would be finally including more exotic metals into the mix. By going into this new field some of the old smithing knowledge could be ignored. It was possible to go around the constraints of traditional metals. Something made from Mythril could be made paper-thin but it would still protect a person from a bullet shot more than something made from regular steel. Yet even if it wouldn’t break due to the weight, he still needed to balance it out by taking his armor into consideration while holding it.\n\nThe giant slab of metal was quickly getting liquified in the runic smelter. The base would of course be made from aether durasteel but there would be some additives. After a long grueling process of testing, he had finally figured out the correct ratio between the various metals. Etherium would be one of the components along with the red Mythril that he had excavated from the dungeon.\n\nMost of the expensive parts would be gathered in the top part of this war hammer. The shaft would be wedged through the hammerhead as a separate part. While it would be an important component of the weapon it didn’t require Etherium as most of the spell effects would go through the hammer’s head.\n\nAfter the smelting process was done, he would use the usual blacksmithing techniques to hammer the large slab into shape. With his increased stats and techniques he was already miles away from any conventional or modern blacksmith even if they used power tools. This would be the next creation that he hoped would last him all the way until he reached tier 3. Then perhaps with increased knowledge, he would create an improved version worthy of tier 3 magical rune user.\n\n“Well then, this will be very therapeutic… after this is finished I should get to the dungeon and start leveling up.”\n\nWhile the metallic concoction was mixing up he decided to peek towards another corner of his workshop. There he opened a secret door that looked like a part of the wall. He did so by infusing a small five-square-centimeter tile with his mana fingerprint. The moment the password was given the wall started to shift to the side.\n\nWhat he was greeted with was a pitch-black tunnel that slowly started to light up. It had been clearly reinforced by mana but also worked by hand by an experienced miner. The lights continued to flicker up to reveal quite the length that this tunnel had.\n\n“I hope it was worth digging this whole place up, it took years but its mostly finished now…”\n\nAfter a little look, he decided to close the door. First, he needed to get his weapons in order, and then it was time to level up.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 244 – Something for smashing.\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Come in.”\n\n“Lord Arthur.”\n\nA smiling cat maid named Mary went into the city lord’s office. The door was opened by an armored man that she was familiar with as always. On the inside, the usual sight of Arthur Valerian buried under piles of papers greeted her. Mary could only give out a sigh while going for a stack of papers that was blocking her way.\n\n“Mary, please don’t move those documents. I'm not finished with them.”\n\nShe could only give out a sigh while placing the pile back down. Luckily not many people entered this room besides her, if some saw the disorganized room of the city lord they could start spreading rumors. It was already troublesome to shove the ledgers and records to the side when the Runesmith appeared.\n\n“Lord Arthur, perhaps you should take a break, you haven’t left the office for some time now…”\n\n“Mary, you know well that I can’t do that, this is a chance to get some support, luckily my idiot brother estranged a large chunk of his residents. If I am able to get them to migrate here, we’ll be able to increase the budget for the coming year.”\n\nThe maid placed a teacup for her lord and was sure to push in some food as well. He had deemed this whole fiasco with the cult as an opportunity for growth. Arthur’s older brother prioritized the nobles and rich merchant side of the city which had a lot fewer citizens. Due to this blunder, the city of Reeka would have a hard time recovering after its workforce had been diminished.\n\n“I must thank him the next time we meet, but perhaps father will order him back to the estate after what he did… but then one of the others will get that city instead…”\n\nShe gave out a chuckle after Arthur suddenly started getting depressed. It was a possibility that one of the other Valerian brothers could absorb Reeka into their side but the possibility was minor. While the city had suffered greatly, most of the moguls had survived and new workers could probably be enticed with better wages. This didn’t mean that he wouldn’t suffer a decline.\n\n“Lord Arthur, I have come to make my report.”\n\n“Ah yes… Please go on.”\n\nFinally, she could speak up about the reason she had come here. She was trained in espionage and already had multiple ‘faces’ in the city. Thanks to her disguises she could mingle with the people in the city and get the uncensored scoop.\n\n“First, our friend has a knack for getting involved.”\n\n“Wayland did?”\n\n“Yes, after his little story I went to the church to confirm everything. The person that was afflicted with the abyssal larvae came from the thieves guild and is a friend with one of his acquaintances.”\n\n“Oh? Well, we already knew that he dabbled with the underground world but isn’t he only a black market merchant?”\n\n“Yes but I managed to identify one of his associates, she is a member of the underground guild and probably the way he got in.”\n\n“As long as he doesn’t go overboard with the black market it should be fine…”\n\nArthur shrugged a bit as he didn’t really care if the runesmith he was working with was an underground merchant. There was a limit to what he would allow, if the runic items were all sold on the black market he would not be able to make any money with his auction house.\n\n“Ever since he started his work with you my Lord, he hasn’t been frequenting the black market but instead contacted me for any resources.”\n\nMary didn’t have anything specific to go off of, the underground didn’t like it if people asked many questions. Through various ways and rumors, she pieced a few things together to make an educated guess of how Wayland managed to survive through the feud with the union. Now that he had access to their merchant contacts there was no use to sell his items on the black market.\n\n“Have you made sure to not get noticed? I don’t think Mr. Wayland would do anything drastic but those characters from the underground guilds can not be trusted.”\n\nArthur finally placed the piece of paper to the side while looking into Mary’s eyes. It was clear that he was concerned about the snooping that his little spy was performing. Even if she worked under the city lord, the thieves guild wouldn’t care. They would probably send her body parts to the estate if she stuck her nose where she shouldn’t.\n\n“Are you worried about my safety my lord?”\n\nMary chuckled while performing a little bow of appreciation.\n\n“Don’t worry, I won’t risk my life, I’m aware that it wouldn’t be wise to underestimate the underground guild leaders or their enforcers.”\n\n“Good, then let's switch to the main topic, how are our Runesmith’s devices working, have there been any more cases?”\n\n“Yes, they have been surprisingly helpful and quite easy to use even for the guards. Still there have been three more afflicted that have been discovered!”\n\n“Three more? Did they have anything in common?”\n\nArthur furrowed his eyebrows, if it was just one person then it could have just been a coincidence. Now on the other hand, with three more people getting sick it was clear that he had a problem. The news of this affliction couldn’t be contained for long, only thanks to Wayland was he able to react this fast.\n\n“One was a merchant, another one was an adventurer and the third one was an escort. At first glance, it didn’t look like they did but of course, I investigated further!”\n\n“And what did you discover?”\n\nArthur rolled his eyes slightly as Mary started swinging her hands around to pronounce her speech. It was as if she was some kind of game host that was trying to rile up the crowd.\n\n“While the adventurer and the lady escort were clean, the merchant was actually part of the black market!”\n\n“Is that so… is the guild doing anything about it?”\n\nThis was the second person that visited the thieves guild that had been afflicted by the parasite. The escort could have also had dealings with the underground trade as the redlight district was controlled by the underground organizations. This wasn’t a coincidence anymore, a pattern had emerged, and the cultists could be gathering underground.\n\n“Yes, the guild leader is aware and as we speak they are searching through the tunnels.”\n\n“Could they have infiltrated even a small city like this one?”\n\nArthur became solemn instantly. He knew that things weren’t good if a cult like this was spreading through the kingdom this fast. After the outbreak in Reeka nothing seemed safe, even the capital of the dukedom could have already fallen.\n\n“I’m not sure Lord Arthur, but we have been able to stall the threat. We have placed the magical devices Mr. Wayland created in critical locations just as you commanded. No one will be able to enter the city without being examined. This is the same for the underground guilds.”\n\n“So you have been able to deliver it to them?”\n\n“Yes, my lord. Although that worked itself out on its own. ”\n\nMary nodded as she didn't need to smuggle the divine device in herself, Wayland's friend by the name of Lobelia carried this out instead. They were now informed about what the city lord was doing and started checking their own people. The infected would not be able to leave the underground without being treated by the runic devices.\n\nArthur hoped to have the thieves guild take care of their own mess as they certainly didn’t want the cult to control their members. If the underground merchants heard about the potential plague and outbreak like in Reeka they would quickly flee from the city. The guild would do everything to not lose their money and combating the cultists was one of them.\n\n“Good, I think I need to get my speech ready, it won’t be long now…”\n\n…\n\n“So, it’s finally out? I guess it was only a matter of time…”\n\n“Aye, I heard people whispering about strange creatures, the city lord had to make a statement too! I wasn’t there but he gave a heartwarming speech about unity or something, at least that’s what my wifey said.”\n\nBernir took a swig from a mug filled with alcohol while talking with Roland. Both of them were taking a break from work and discussing the current events. The information about the evil cultists was now mainstream, they had become the boogiemen of the dukedom. The outbreak in Reeka had become widespread news. It was spread by various refugees and survivors from that day. He was one of them and the main reason that the city lord could get everything under control this fast.\n\n‘Did he start preparing after I brought the bad news?’\n\n“Hey boss, I’ve seen you’ve been turning the smelter on, you don’t need to bother yourself with that, I can make whatever you want!”\n\n“Hah, thanks but I want to make this one myself but you can go ahead and prepare the shaft.”\n\nIt took quite some time for the large ingot for his new weapon to be produced. This was mostly due to the red mythril that he included in the mix that had an increased melting point. He really needed to crank up the smelter and actually boost it with his own mana. Only after spending many hours together with his concoction was he able to finalize the product.\n\n“Wouldn’t it have been better to use a cast if you’re using mythril? It won’t be that easy to forge that thing into shape…”\n\n“It should be fine, I did all the calculations.”\n\nWhile casting the melted metal into a mold would be an easier process it also could bring some problems. First of all, in most cases forging the weapon would produce a tougher item. There was more wiggle room when shaping it with the hammer and some blacksmith skills could increase the quality of the produced item.\n\n“If you say so, just don’t burn down the place!”\n\n“I’ll try not to.”\n\nAfter the break the two parted ways, he had the rest of the day to finish the hammerhead, and perhaps if he hurried up he wouldn’t get Elodia angry. Ever since returning to the city he had been sleeping for three to four hours and staying up for the rest of the day. Surprisingly he wasn’t feeling tired at all, his body was young and strong. The only problem was his girlfriend who was constantly worried.\n\nLuckily down in his workshop, she would not be able to complain. Due to the heat generated by the smelter and forge, someone without the constitution of a blacksmith would have a tough time lasting five minutes in a room with him. From the side, he grabbed a thick leather smithing apron and placed it over his body for added protection. Together with smithing gloves and his hammer he was ready to tackle that large ingot that would be the base for his Warhammer.\n\nThe slab of metal was now a rectangular shape with some sharp edges on the side. The coloring was a silvery blue. Even though he mixed in the red mythril, together with the other various metals it produced this color. The runes would light up quite nicely to produce a nice effect on this silvery surface and perhaps take his enemy's attention away from the fight.\n\nFinally, with the help of his tongs, he inserted the large piece into the furnace. On the bottom there was a spot for his feet, through them he could guide more mana inside of it to augment the flames. It would be impossible to work without this runic furnace, reaching the temperature needed with wood or coal would be close to impossible.\n\nOn the wall, he had a set of various blacksmithing hammers. Various Forming Hammers with domed faces that were good for producing curved surfaces. Planishing hammers with round and square faces, with curved and flat surfaces. These were more for the finishing touches so he ignored them for now. Instead, he looked to the cross pein hammer section to get himself the best for the job.\n\nHe took a moment to appreciate the variety of tools that he had. Some of these were hand-made by him while others by Bernir or his wife. Some were polished down by the runic tools that were in another section of the smithy. Roland was reminded of his progress and the ladle that was his first test when he joined the blacksmith ranks. Even now he vividly recalled how tiresome it was to make and how barely he made it, mostly due to the lack of training.\n\nThen there was the anvil that had lasted him for years now. Without a proper anvil with a horn, rounded edges, and a sturdy face, it would be impossible to fashion anything. This would be the final test for this tool. However, with a proper heated-up ingot, even this anvil would be able to survive through the shaping process.\n\n‘This is taking a while…’\n\nA lot of time had passed since he inserted the alloy into the furnace. Regular low-carbon or medium-carbon steel would be softened up within minutes. But this chunk was taking forever, it was trouly resisting the heat due to the exotic metal he added. Yet, even it wouldn’t be able to last forever and soon it was ready for some pounding.\n\nWhile to his past self the shaping process might be difficult it wouldn’t be a problem for the current Roland. Even though he left a lot of the busy work up to Bernir and his wife he still continued to train his smithing skills. There was a small workaround when leveling up these skills.\n\nHe would be given a bonus after finishing hard-to-construct creations like the golems, even his regular smithing skills would be pushed forward. After several high-quality products were assembled he found himself leveling up his smithing skills faster than he was accustomed to. Each level added to his skills per usual, it was as if months or years of smithing experience flowed into his body just by leveling up a skill.\n\nThanks to this effect he was feeling great when making this large hammer. The thicker frontside was quickly taking shape. The face started to take on a box-like shape while the rear end was more cylindrical.\n\nTo balance out the front part he needed to make the rear spike a bit lengthy. When fighting larger monsters it needed to have enough penetrating power to pierce through-hardened skin and scales. He deliberated on shaping the rear end to be more similar to an axe but this shape somehow fit a hammer more in his opinion.\n\nSoon minutes turned to hours and the day was coming to an end. He did not even notice Bernir knocking on the door to clock out. Everyone had left while he was busy applying the finishing touches. He could not allow the metal to cool down too much, the more he needed to heat it up the longer it would take.\n\n“There…”\n\nWith one last hit, he looked at his creation which was slowly getting cooler. The front part was larger than his own fist and the rear end could easily pierce through a grown man’s chest. For the finishing touches, the top required some polishing and then the runes could be added. While the red mythril would normally make it hard to inscribe runes, thanks to the added etherium the process could be made manageable even for him.\n\nHis new creation was partially done but this was not the end. While he had decided on the shape he was not quite sure what spells were needed. An impact rune to control the weight was a must but some other ones to augment his new fighting style needed looking into.\n\n‘After I finish this, I need to test it out on something and I already know who.’\n\nRoland continued to add the finishing touches while thinking of the underground dungeon. He hadn’t seen his old friend in a while and it would be the perfect test dummy for his new weapon.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 245 – Hastening the process.\nTarget length: ~3000 words\nKey events: dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“That should do it…”\n\nFinally, after many hours of work, his battle hammer was mostly ready. After wedging the shaft into the hammer-head, it was mostly complete. By utilizing some more advanced techniques the shaft would expand at the top slightly for a tight fit. This weapon was closer in shape to a polearm but it was much bulkier to accommodate its user's enhanced strength.\n\nThe face of the hammer had a more traditional war-hammer shape, while the rear end consisted of a spike. Roland had thought of making a pole-ax but for the time being, he decided to go with this shape for better penetration. A sharp spike required less force to get through armor than a wider axe blade that delivered a wider cut. There were pros and cons to every design and he felt that this would work better on the larger creatures.\n\n‘There aren’t many creatures that are resistant to both blunt physical attacks and piercing attacks, most of the monster hide and armor is good against slashing weapons.’\n\nA heavy weapon like this would do quite well against armored opponents. Together with the added magical runes, he couldn’t see any human below tier 3 resisting a fully swung blow. The only problem would be with large monsters that possessed a thick layer of fat to absorb the shock. Even the spike wouldn't do any good if he couldn’t get to the vital organs even after piercing through a tough hide.\n\n‘Well, that’s when magic comes in…’\n\nRoland smiled while polishing the large rear spike of his new hammer. This item would be a multipurpose magical tool and not only a big dumb weapon swung by brutes. He had the advantage of being able to access the runic operating system. Making changes to suit the environment wouldn’t be a problem, he just needed to insert the most common spells first. Just by executing a previously prepared section of the code, he would be able to quickly generate the desired spell effect.\n\n‘Though making the multi-purpose spell matrix takes a while…’\n\nThe only downside to making weapons like this would be the time spent. Even he wasn’t perfect and going through everything without making any errors was difficult. Then there was also another problem, he didn’t have enough hours in the day to focus.\n\n“Hey Boss, are you finished?”\n\n“Bernir? … Well not really, is there a problem?”\n\nWhile he was examining his new item his assistant walked in. He was carrying a wooden crate with various metallic items.\n\n“Since you had a break, the backlog for runic repairs has been growing and we need to restock some of the usual…”\n\nBernir started getting the various items out, on one side he placed the weapons and armor pieces that needed their runes to be repaired. Then on the other side the ones that he and his wife produced. These were made from either durasteel or deepsteel, both the most commonly used materials in the shop.\n\n“Fine… this shouldn’t take long.”\n\n“Take your time boss but it would be better if you did the repairs first, the recent adventurers have been ill-tempered, must be ‘cuz of all this fuss about the cultists.”\n\nRoland saw Bernir frown when recalling some kind of memory. It wouldn’t be strange for some of the customers to berate the craftsmen. The union still continued to spread bad rumors about him and his shop. Probably if he wasn’t the only runesmith in town, he wouldn’t get any attention at all. Only after Arthur appeared did his name stop being dragged through the mud, at least in the open.\n\nAfter sorting out the weapons from the armor pieces he got to work. Thanks to his new class this part of his work could be done in a blink of an eye. Runic Restructuring was the skill that he would be using. It allowed him to instantly alter the runic structure of his choosing.\n\nThere were also another skill that could do the job, which was Rune Mending. There was one downside to this skill though. While it would repair the runic structure it would not correct the faulty pathways. If the rune was an intermediate one it would not upgrade it to a high or highest rune. Yet this was not the case for Runic Restructuring, he could mold it to any structure that he had previously created.\n\n“Hm… Wish there was a way to automate this process, would a golem be able to repair runes?”\n\nHe was now looking at a regular longsword that had a damaged ice mist rune. It was a common rune that would produce an icy vapor when swung. It would lower the temperature in the designated area dramatically and was adequate for fighting low-level fire monsters like the salamanders. This would be enough to make the creature sluggish and easy to kill.\n\n‘There is a mana stone in the hilt, the rune was intermediate but it degraded to low already.’\n\nNormally craftsmen would not improve the runic structure. Instead, they would usually use the rune mending skill for a quick fix. Most of the time the customer would need to pay extra for a proper runesmithing treatment that didn’t degrade the blade any further. Roland on the other hand needed to try a bit harder as his standing in the city wasn’t that great.\n\nHe had attracted customers by going the extra mile and even improving the runic structures while performing the repairs. This would normally only be possible by restarting the runecrafting process and correcting all of the traces and various components manually. However, with the latest restructuring skill, he could do it almost instantly.\n\n‘Good that I’ve practiced all of these runes before.’\n\nThe only requirement for him to use it was to have previously made the rune himself. The higher the quality of the rune that he previously created, the better the chance of success. Thus he grabbed his blacksmithing hammer while the sword’s blade was quickly heated up in the forge. After a few moments, his hammer was already colliding with the damaged structures that started glowing.\n\n‘It’s kind of a waste to use it on something like this, I could easily upgrade it to something like ice burst instead…’\n\nWhile the runic structures were being molded into a fully functional ice mist spell of the high rating, Roland thought back to some experiments that he performed after getting his new class. This skill was far handier than he originally assumed. It could actually produce higher grade runes from lower grade ones quickly.\n\nFor instance when looking at this ice mist rune that just created a burst of freezing air. The base structure was similar to a higher-tier spell. Ice burst spell could create the same cold haze with an addiction of sharp ice crystals forming to damage the enemy and a much stronger freezing effect. Both of the spells were tier 2 common ones but the latter was among the end of the spectrum.\n\nIt was possible to cheat the system a bit with this skill. After inscribing the easiest lesser or common rune, it was possible to alter it with this skill. The mana usage went up but it was possible to cut the time needed for work when working with single rune structures. Through this method, he could cut his workload by more than half when making simple weapons for his shop. Thanks to his ever-increasing mana reserves, it was not much of a problem.\n\nThere was still a limit on how much he could handle a day. Only with a steady supply of mana potions was he able to finish everything this fast. Yet this was a double-edged sword, there was always a limit of how many of those potions a person could drink without suffering side effects. Only thanks to his willpower stat that was extraordinarily high was he able to counter that effect.\n\n‘Glad the lordling is on my side, those free potions are enough to get the job done.’\n\nAfter gulping the last mana potion he resumed his work. For the items that Bernir and his wife made, the rune duplication skill was enough. By just copying his old runes onto the previously created blades he could finish work in a matter of moments. The large pile of armaments that would have taken him normally a whole day, was finished in less than an hour.\n\n‘I don’t even feel any migraines now.’\n\nRoland glanced at this mana pool that was at around twenty percent. At such a low amount he would be forced to take a rest or some pain medication. Now, on the other hand, he could go down to about fifteen percent without suffering a backlash. His body was getting used to working hard and the pain was not a problem.\n\n‘The discomfort might be gone but this doesn’t mean that it’s healthy.’\n\nRoland didn’t fool himself into believing that he was fine. The mitigating effect of his skills didn’t do anything about the damage. It only allowed him to power through it, his body was still suffering but he couldn’t feel it. While he was young now, he wouldn’t be surprised that there could be long-lasting aftereffects of pushing his body to the limit.\n\nHowever, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing either. It wasn’t surprising to get some skills after going through harsh training. Perhaps like with the pain resistance skill, he would be given something to reward him for the hardships. He could only hope that his body would last without any long-lasting damage before he got those skills.\n\n“That should be enough.”\n\nAfter finishing up his tasks he pushed a button on the wall.\n\n“Hey Bernir, I’m done.”\n\nHe leaned close to an outstretched cord with a hand-sized oval iron plate. A rune was glowing on this sheet of metal that allowed him to talk with his workers from inside his workplace. It was similar to old cord phones that connected to specific parts of his home. There was a corresponding button for each specific room that for now was limited to a couple of them.\n\n“Already? Aye, I’ll be right there.”\n\nThere was a quick reply followed by some static. Using magic to converse with other people wasn’t anything new. His system was just something he stole from the old world that he came from. For others to use this, they would need many years to build up the infrastructure. It would not be a small task but a wise leader would probably see the value in instantaneous information exchange.\n\n‘That is if someone smarter than me comes up with some encrypting technology…’\n\nAs someone that had ‘borrowed’ the idea from one of the research papers from the academy, he knew the downsides. It was easy to intercept the mana signals going through the lines and hear what people were talking about. People in this world were still motivated by wars, unless this technology aided them in their conquest, it would not be worth the risk.\n\n‘I should probably cover the rune up with something or someone will scratch it.’\n\nWhen looking at a cut-out plate of metal welded together to a cord he frowned. His proclivity to make everything with the least amount of effort still continued to this day. Even though plastic didn’t exist in this world, there were some substances that could mimic its properties. It wouldn't be hard to turn this into an old phone handle, making an outer shell from wood could also work.\n\n“Keep up the good work, boss.”\n\nRoland waved to Bernir that came in to pick up the runic items. Now he could focus back on his new hammer, after that came Agni’s armor that would need some testing. With some luck, by the end of the week, he would have enough weapons to make a quick run to the dungeon. There were also other parts that he needed to get in order like the mining golems that were down by two.\n\n‘There should be some parts to assemble more drones, Bernir should be able to get it done…’\n\nIt seemed that his workload was only increasing, while sighing he wondered if there was a possibility of expanding. Now that the dwarven union was taken care of thanks to Arthur, perhaps he could get more help.\n\nRefugees from Reeka were also everywhere, perhaps he could lure someone in with a mild contract. His two workers could take care of the training as the new employees would be there to lessen their workload. Then the two could focus on more important assignments like golems and magical turrets.\n\n“This might take a while, better get to it…”\n\nRoland grabbed the large war hammer that he made. By injecting a tiny bit of his own mana the shorter shaft quickly shot out to double in length. The weapon was better suited for handling with both hands but for someone like him that had enhanced strength, it wasn’t a problem to one-hand it.\n\n“Hm?”\n\nWhile he was playing with the grip and swinging his new toy around to see if it was handled correctly, he heard a sound coming from his speaker.\n\n“Wayland, your adventurer friends are here to see you.”\n\n“My friends?”\n\nIt was Elodia informing him that he had visitors, this was a first as he did not actually remember having that many friends. But he remembered a group of four that followed him here after the fiasco in Reeka. An image of an oversized woman popped into his head. A promise was made and it needed to be kept.\n\n“I’ll be right there… oh and it will be better if you don’t talk to Orson.”\n\n“Which one is that?”\n\n“The one with the stupid look on his face, quite similar to Armand”\n\n“Oh, that one…”\n\n‘I guess this is the downside of having friends?’\n\nWhile this interrupted his work it was also a good moment to get some news. He had secluded himself in his workshop without going outside for days and somewhat forgotten about his four new acquaintances. It seemed that they had become bored of waiting for him and decided to visit on their own accord.\n\nWithin a few minutes, he found himself outside. The sound of large fan blades was quite noticeable and probably peculiar to anyone that was invited inside. His backyard had many wind generators that produced electricity. Their size was a problem, they limited his workspace to the underground workshop. Yet there weren’t that many ways of generating energy otherwise, that is, besides one other that he wished to implement in the future.\n\n“There you are, Wayland!”\n\n“Yes, here I am.”\n\nThe whole team was there, Senna was looking through the store’s dagger section. Grisalde had a large bastard sword in one of her hands and swung it as if it didn’t weigh anything. Dalrak was glancing at some of the large tower shields while his closest friend was doing something that he didn’t appreciate.\n\n“Woof!”\n\n“Hey, calm down! Sheesh, can’t even have some fun.”\n\nThe last member was being growled at by Agni. It seemed that he was shooting some glances at Elodia whose chest was a bit more pronounced in the store uniform than usual. Everything was hidden and it was proper but this didn’t stop the man from ogling her.\n\n“Sorry about that knucklehead, I think he is still a bit drunk.”\n\n“I see…”\n\nSenna was the one to start the conversation while everyone else finally noticed him. The store was sectioned off by classes. Where Senna came from was specifically stocked with items that agility-based jobs would flock to. Short swords, daggers, and even bows were all there and they were outfitted with runes. There was not a single item that was not runic. This of course heightened the price and also kept people with low amounts of coins away.\n\n“Hey Wayland, I hope you didn’t forget about our little talk.”\n\n“No, I remember.”\n\nGrisalde appeared next, she placed the large sword to the side while dragging her mangled axe. Everyone had a strange look in their eyes when looking at all of these weapons and armor. It looked like a bunch of kids stuck in a candy store. They were all noticeably holding themselves back from touching the more expensive runic items.\n\n“They won’t be free though.”\n\n“Don’t be so stingy, a successful runesmith like you must be swimming in money.”\n\n“That would be nice if it was true…”\n\nMost of his earnings went right back into producing more weapons and expanding his knowledge. What he earned he instantly spent with some side cash being placed to the side if any problems arose. He would probably not gain much money by outfitting these four but he would also not lose any. By just using them and spreading the word they could generate interest in his shop which was slowly building more momentum.\n\n“Go ahead, see if you like something but please don’t activate the spell effects here.”\n\n“You’re the best, Wayland!”\n\nSenna for some reason was awfully happy when glancing through the various items but so were the rest. His intent was to just replace their weapons instead of repairing them. Grisalde's axe that was bent, Dalrak's mangled shield, Orson's two-handed blade that was all chipped up. They all needed tending to but with a lack of time, it would be easier to just replace them.\n\n“Just don’t break anything, or you’ll have to pay for it.”\n\nHe shouted while the grown adventures rummaged through his wares. Perhaps by increasing the logos on the weapons that he gave them, he could attract more attention to his store which would lessen the blow of just charging his new friends for the material cost.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 246 – Weapon testing.\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Haaa!”\n\n“Hyaaa!”\n\nAfter a flash of green light, a large log descended down to the ground. It looked like it was sliced apart by something sharp but the person performing the attack was quite a bit away. Next to it, another log was engulfed in flames which caused a large pillar of smoke to emerge.\n\n“Wayland, these weapons are interesting… let me just try this out…”\n\nA halfling woman was standing with a dagger in her hand. It was glowing green for the moment but after a few seconds passed it changed color to blue. When activating the spell effect this time around, instead of the green blade of wind one of ice replaced it. The previously sliced apart log was cut again but this time, it was also covered by a layer of ice.\n\nTo the halfling's side, there was a human holding a large two-handed sword that had previously been engulfed in flames. Yet after a moment, the flames started changing color to switch to deep blue frost instead.\n\n“Hey, this thing really works… and it’s not that hard to use!”\n\n“If the blockhead can use it, then everyone can use it.”\n\n“Hey, I heard that, screw you Senna!”\n\nAn angry Orson fired off a blast of ice energy towards the burning target. After performing this magical attack his head started spinning and he had to catch himself from falling.\n\n“Take it easy, you’re a warrior and your MP pool isn’t that high. It's better if you don’t use that many magical attacks in succession.”\n\nThe voice of the craftsman that inscribed these weapons with runes came from the side. He was watching his four adventurer friends playing around with his simplified products. It was a new line of runic gear that was designed for adventurers without mana-related skills.\n\n“Hah, leave that idiot be Wayland, he learns better this way.”\n\nSenna laughed while he glanced over towards Grisalde and Dalrak. While the dwarf didn’t have trouble exchanging the basic mana shield for one made from the earth element, the big barbarian woman was confused. Her weapon was changing colors from red to different shades of blue before going back to the red one.\n\n“Want me to explain it again, Grisalde?”\n\n“N-no… I can handle this myself…”\n\nShe replied in a meek voice while turning her head to the side. All of them were gathered in a specially made testing area. It was made so that his clients could get used to some of the more innovative weapons. These testing weapons were made of simpler materials but were enough to show off what the costlier ones were capable of.\n\n“Is that so… anyway let me demonstrate again…”\n\nHe decided to grab a large axe from the side that was similar to what the muscle-bound woman was holding. After holding it out with one hand so that she could see what he was doing, he started to talk.\n\n“It’s simple, if you place your thumb into this groove here and start injecting mana, you’ll notice that the color is changing right?���\n\n“Yeah?”\n\nShe nodded while looking at the metal axe blade lighting up faintly.\n\n“It’s hard to see because it’s daylight but when you’re in the dungeon it will be easier. What you want to do is stop letting your mana into the weapon after you get to the elemental color you want, see it stopped at green. There is a second when the color won’t change so make your decision fast and remember to remove your thumb from the grove.”\n\n“I see…”\n\nGrisalde continued to nod while looking at her own weapon that was changing colors. After shifting her hand to a more comfortable position the color solidified into a red one.\n\n“Each of the weapons comes with elemental variations of the same spell and one basic non-elemental spell.”\n\nRoland performed a side swing with the axe and directed it towards a log in the distance. A blade of green energy left the weapon, it was much bigger than the one previously released from Senna’s dagger. When it collided with the log it sliced it diagonally before ramming into the stone wall behind it.\n\n“How about you try it?”\n\n“No problem!”\n\nGrisalde started injecting her mana into the axe and stopped the moment it switched to green. She was an experienced warrior so it wasn’t hard to reproduce Roland’s more sluggish movements. Yet the blade that she created was about half the size and traveled in a wide arc into the sky.\n\n“Shit… Hey, why was that green blade so much smaller? Is this axe worse than yours?”\n\n“No, they are exactly the same.”\n\n“Pff…”\n\nFrom the side, a squeaky voice escaped from a smaller halfling that overheard the conversation. Quickly the giant of a woman turned toward her nemesis with a frown.\n\n“What are you laughing at pipsqueak!”\n\n“Oh, nothing.”\n\nSenna laughed which brought a few veins to appear on Grisalde’s forehead. Before the two started fighting Roland quickly chimed in with another explanation.\n\n“I have a lot more mana than you, magical weapons will always be better in the hands of mages.”\n\nRoland’s high intelligence stat boosted the power of every runic spell. He also had various other buffs which allowed him to raise the power of runic weapons. A regular warrior like Grisalde could not feel mana in her surroundings, she could only use it. This was the same for the other non-mage denizens in the world, they only had an on and off switch when it came to mana.\n\nThere weren’t that many people like Roland that had a mana sense, some even died due to mana sickness as the previous owner of this body. However, there were ways of getting that skill later in life. Some advanced classes could unlock it later, there were also things like magical elixirs that could produce it.\n\nThere were also less virtuous ways of getting them, red-colored crystals that were sometimes sold at the black market auctions were the usual way. They were gotten from fallen mages that had their skills extracted during their deaths. These were quite rare so they didn’t reach the usual black market and were hidden away in the thieves guild that hosted auctions to gain more money.\n\nFrom time to time a tier 3 class holder would attempt to get a mana-related skill after gathering enough money. Raising the mana pool was a clear enhancement of one's skill and capabilities. After reaching a high enough tier, magical equipment became far more affordable and a good quick way of bolstering all-around strength.\n\n“And that’s about it, the base effect for the axe is the impact rune, it uses the least amount of mana.”\n\nAfter the demonstration was over Grisalde began to play around with the new toy. Just as he had explained it went through a set of spells in order. The weapons had one varied elemental spell that could be switched to fit a monster's weakness and then a basic effect like sharpening or impact.\n\nThrough experience, he had discovered that most adventurers weren’t that good at handling runic weapons with multiple uses. At most he could add two different spells before it became too confusing for them to use. They could not change the mana frequency or output at all, only turn it on and off.\n\nThus he decided to try this new system of selecting spells on a timer. By introducing mana into the systems the selection process would start. It was then represented by a faint outside color to make it easier. After the spell was selected it would be the active one and the only one that could be activated.\n\n‘While you can’t switch the effects fast, it should not be needed.’\n\nThese weapons were meant to be multi-purpose and for dungeons. In the Albrook dungeon where the monsters were fire-based, ice was the desired weakness. Before even entering the dungeon a person could switch to this effect and be prepared for the flaming creatures inside.\n\nThen when the adventurer decided to go to another dungeon they could switch the spell effect again without having to get a whole new weapon. While the runic components were altered even other runesmiths could repair it with the help of their automatic skills like Rune Mending.\n\nTo change the spell the person needed to hold the weapon in a specific way. It would be hard to activate the changing effect mid-battle which was intentional. It was still possible to do it during a pause in combat as long as the enemy didn't pursue.\n\nThis was all achieved by changes to the runic operating system. The hardware components of the spells it circled through were very similar. An executable was activated to change into the desired effect to make it all work. Someone like him was able to activate the desired spell without going through all of them. But for people without rune-related skills, this was a simple process to go through.\n\n“These are great but how much will this cost?”\n\nSenna and the others gathered together after testing out the weapons. It was clear to them that the weapons were worth a lot. One of them in particular didn’t have any money.\n\n“I sell them around the market price for common rune weapons, they are all of the highest grade too, so that increases the price slightly…”\n\nAll of them headed back to the shop to discuss the price and Elodia was quick to calculate everything along with the friendly discount. They would need some smaller gold coins to cover the manufacturing and material costs but all in all he didn’t think it was a bad price.\n\n“Hmm… this isn’t bad, I’ll take it. With those cult nuts running around it’s better to have a good weapon, do you have any of those divine artifacts though?”\n\n“Those are still in the testing phase, I would also need to get permission from the church if I wanted to actually sell them.”\n\n“You mean… if you wanted to sell them in the open, that is.”\n\nSenna winked toward Roland as she knew what he was leading on to. While it was possible to buy the divine mana crystals from many locations, it was better to announce getting a proper permit at the church. Everything that involved the holy energy of their gods had to go through the temples.\n\nThis was clearly in place to pad out the church pockets with money. They wanted to control the market when their items were involved. There also wasn’t really a way around it as all of the magical items either required constant recharging from a priest or an empyrean crystal.\n\n“Aye, it’s a good price, give ‘em my share.”\n\nDalrak together with Orson agreed to get themselves some upgrades. After getting his shield damaged during the escape he was in need of a replacement. Dalrak decided to get a sturdy shield of a similar shape. It could produce a magical barrier as well as a repelling effect.\n\nOrson on the other hand found himself a replacement sword. Every item they got was made from aether durasteel but there was one person that didn’t look happy. Grisalde was holding a battle axe that was probably heavier than the war hammer he recently made.\n\n“What can’t afford it? Want me to lend you some money? It’ll cost you though~”\n\nSenna started grinning while shaking around her coin purse. Part of the money inside of it had originally belonged to Grisalde. She had lost it due to a couple lost bets. Roland was still surprised that the woman didn’t realize that her opponent was a professional swindler. While she didn’t cheat outright, Senna would only take bets that were in her favor.\n\n“I don’t need your help, I can pay for it myself!”\n\nGrisalde stormed over towards where Elodia was standing which caused Agni to raise his head. Even though he was a dire wolf, the large woman would probably be able to wrestle him down to the ground. Thus he remained warry while showcasing his sharp teeth.\n\n“P-put it on my tab!”\n\nAfter dropping the axe on the counter Grisalde nodded. It was as simple as that for her.\n\n“Hey you big oaf, this isn’t a tavern…”\n\nSenna started grabbing her sides while trying not to laugh. On the other hand, Roland wasn’t sure if this was such a bad idea.\n\n“How about you work for me instead?”\n\n“Work for you? I don’t know much about blacksmithing though…”\n\n“No, I mean as a guard.”\n\nToday was one of the days that they were without any protection. With Roland being around they didn’t really need anyone else to stand watch besides Agni. Yet a highly skilled thief would be able to grab something and still make a run for it. For that reason, they needed someone to be outside and block the only exit.\n\n“As a guard?”\n\n“Yes, I usually contact someone from the adventurer guild but since the cult incident a lot of them aren’t willing to stay out in the woods.”\n\nIt wasn’t a bad deal for him, the barbarian woman was a high level tier 2 class holder. There weren’t that many other adventurers that compared to her. She was also someone that he somewhat trusted not to make off with the items or attack Elodia.\n\n“The store isn’t open every day, so you could still go to the dungeon to earn more if you want. You’ll also be given two meals per day and something to drink but no alcohol.”\n\n“Hmm….”\n\nGrisalde pondered this proposal for a moment. Roland wasn’t sure if she would take it as it wouldn’t be that hard for someone of her level to just go to the dungeon. Any adventurer team would be fine with taking a combatant like here down there. After a month or two she would probably be able to afford this weapon.\n\n‘I guess she will refuse…’\n\nAt least that is what he was thinking, for some reason when Grisalde looked towards Senna who was just grinning there, she nodded to agree.\n\n“Fine, I’ll be a guard now give me the weapon!”\n\n“Wait, not so fast.”\n\nWhile Grisalde was trying to get to her new weapon she was stopped by the store owner.\n\n“Huh?”\n\n“Here, sign this first.”\n\n“What is this?”\n\nWhat was presented to her was a standard contract that he created himself. It stated the usual terms of the deal and that she needed to work five days a week, for eight hours per day. While they could go through the guild to make this transaction, they could just do it directly like this.\n\n“Um…”\n\n“It’s a standard document, if you fail to meet the terms you’ll be subjected to the usual debuff.”\n\n“Debuff?”\n\nRoland was a bit confused but then remembered that adventurers didn’t really go through the hassle of signing work contracts. They just delivered items to the guild and only got paid for that, they weren’t on the clock so there was no need for them. Only regular people needed to be coerced to sign them as motivation for work.\n\n“Let me explain…”\n\nIn the shortest amount of time, he started explaining. The curse that she would be subjected to would place a debuff that lowered her main stats by a set percentage. For someone that worked as an adventurer, it would be a devastating setback.\n\n“That’s about it, if you do your work nothing will happen and as you can see, this contract is just for one month…”\n\n“I’m not sure she gets it…”\n\nElodia that was behind the counter whispered into his ear while looking at the large woman’s head getting redder. It seemed that the words that Roland was using were sometimes too difficult for her to understand.\n\n‘It’s a miracle that she survived for this long. It’s not surprising that she gets taken advantage of this easily.’\n\nAfter a little back and forth he managed to get the contract signed. Elodia took over by explaining the working hours and her duties. For the coming month, he had managed to organize a competent guard for the store. This would ease his nerves as he was intending to go down to gain some levels.\n\nWhile the cultist situation wasn’t resolved, it was being handled by the City Lord. His own house and shop were already equipped with the same divine boxes to check for any potential corruption. What now remained was for him to finish up his new main weapon and assemble more golems, it was time to start his grind.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nPath to Ascendence — a LitRPG progression fantasy. After Julian lost his parents and sister several years ago, he didn’t know what to do. As just a young child, he wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with everything that came after. Their deaths hadn’t even been a possibility in his mind. Death was an obscure thing to young Julian. They were killed in a car accident.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Julius | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Edwin, Lukas, Tier\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; skills (e.g. Restoration lvl 3 -> lvl 6, Focus lvl 9 ->Focus lvl 10, Restoration lvl 6 -> lvl 7, Firebolt lvl 5 -> lvl 9, Firebolt lvl 2 -> lvl 3, Thermal Compression lvl 4 -> lvl 7, Mana Consolidation, Restoration lvl 14 -> lvl 15)\nSystem notification style: \"Alert! Rift is reaching the overflow stage. You will not be able \"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (34% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 531: infiltration\nTarget length: ~2100 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "As the beast crawled its way through the crack, Julius couldn’t help but notice how intense the creature’s aura was. He could feel the pressure tingling across his skin and weighing down on his own spirit. He knew right away that this creature was powerful.\n\nIt was Tier 4 at the very least, maybe even stronger. He was sure of that. If that wasn’t bad enough, he got an ominous notification.\n\nNotice: Infiltration detected…\n\nProtection protocols have been damaged…\n\nWarning: True death is a possibility.\n\nHis attention snapped to the message he received. He did not like what he read. Not one bit.\n\nHe had a feeling that this damage was caused by whatever field had attacked their souls. Perhaps it wasn’t even a soul attack in the first place, merely a byproduct of it. Whatever it was, Julius didn’t believe it was part of the realm’s trials or plan.\n\nIt was most likely an attack by another party or organization—someone who was playing dangerous games.\n\nHe grabbed his friends by the arms and started retreating farther from this creature. They were becoming more lucid, so it was easier.\n\nJulius stared at where the creature was squeezing its shoulders out of the crack. Its face was jagged and completely black, as if made of pure darkness. Its red eyes were pulsing angrily as it roared.\n\nJust the shockwaves from its roars were enough to stagger some of the nearby people who were only just recovering from the soul damage they received.\n\nEveryone was in full panic. Some were smart and were already running. It would seem that he wasn’t the only one who had received that message. People were talking about it worriedly and for good reason.\n\nThis past week, they had been able to fight with confidence because death wasn’t actually real in this realm. However, from the sounds of it, that no longer applied, and it scared people.\n\nThe bad news was that they couldn’t run. One of the people who had a flying treasure was already far away, but Julius saw them slam into an invisible wall of some kind. There was a barrier around them.\n\nJulius saw other people try to break through this barrier, but to no avail. People attempted to teleport, but either their skills didn’t work, or they would disappear, only to reappear with a cry of agony. It looked like they received some kind of backlash.\n\nHe and the others had already gotten to the barrier. They were all doing their best to try to figure out this barrier. He did his best to inspect the barrier and see if there was a way to break it.\n\nHe threw some powerful spikes of mana at the barrier. He even channeled a bit of fire mana through his crown, using the ruinous flames to enhance his constructs. But that was useless as well.\n\nHe had a feeling that [Void Step] might get through. The only thing that stopped him was the fear of leaving his friends behind. He did not have sufficient control to feel confident carrying all his friends through the barrier alongside him.\n\nHe never forgot how innately dangerous the skill was. There was a reason he had almost died several times trying to learn it. The chaotic void wasn’t a place meant for humans to live.\n\nHis Space Concept helped him survive better than most, but he didn’t have any qualms about his friends being able to survive similarly. He wanted to test out if he could exit in the first place, but he was also worried about it keeping him out the moment he left.\n\nHe had a feeling that this barrier’s primary function wasn’t to keep people in. That was only a single function of it. It was more likely that this barrier was meant to prevent individuals like Vailon, Kaelther, and Terradon from entering.\n\nJulius stayed calm, though, and his mind started to race through the possibilities.\n\nHe was forced to turn his focus away from the barrier and to the monster who was already halfway through the crack. He came to a simple conclusion.\n\nIf push came to shove, he would have to deal with the threat himself.\n\nHe grinned slightly when he saw that he wasn’t the only person to have this idea. Many others were already throwing attacks at the creature with all their strength.\n\nIsaac, the behemoth of a teen, was throwing himself at the monster. Julius watched as the ground completely shattered from the force of Isaac’s jump. A powerful, glowing white light appeared around the guy’s skin.\n\nIt was oppressive, and Julius found himself impressed despite the current chaos all around him. Isaac was fast. Extremely fast.\n\nHe disappeared from the ground and appeared in front of the massive creature in the blink of an eye. His fist was already crashing into the creature’s face with an earthshattering crash.\n\nHowever, this only seemed to annoy the creature rather than injure it, and it roared out, showing its enormous fangs. Then its red eyes flashed once, and Julius watched with concern as Isaac was hit by a crimson beam and thrown aside, smashing into the ground. He produced a crater large enough to fit an elephant.\n\nHe heard Isaac before he saw him. The guy's joyful laughter echoed through the area. He was covered in injuries, but to Julius’s shock, a flash of white light blasted outward from Isaac’s body, and his wounds were healed.\n\n“God damn battle maniac,” Julius heard Riven mutter from behind.\n\n“He can heal?” Julius asked the mage.\n\n“Yep. The crazy bastard not only can heal, but he also absorbs mana to fuel his healing ability. It makes him a pain in the ass to fight,” Riven said with a look of disgust.\n\n“It sounds like you have fought him,” Julius noted, looking at Isaac, who was already heading straight for the monster once more.\n\n“Yeah, he challenged me earlier this year. My master thought it would be a good experience,” Riven said with a shudder.\n\n“Was it not?”\n\n“No, it was stupid. He fights with no real finesse and uses brute force for everything.”\n\n“So you lost?”\n\nRiven scoffed. “Of course not. As I said, he is a simple fighter, and he wasn’t able to even get close to me. With that being said, I wasn’t able to put him down either. His resilience and healing abilities are no joke.”\n\nJulius leaned forward with a grin. Perhaps, Isaac would make for a great sparring partner after all.\n\nAubrey, who was feeling better, slapped him. “Are you seriously thinking about that kind of stuff now?”\n\nHe looked at her with astonishment. “What are you, Lily?”\n\nShe tilted her head upward. “No, but it doesn’t take a mindreader to know what’s going on inside that brain of yours.”\n\nHe didn’t bother to reply to her and instead looked back at the creature who had smashed Isaac into the ground once again.\n\nAt this point, the creature had already crawled out of the crack, and Julius got a good look at what they were facing. It was an ugly and monstrous-looking thing. It was huge as well.\n\nIt was well over fifty feet long and half as tall. It had six legs and was covered in thick scales. Large black spikes ran down its spine to its tail. The tail was enormous, too; it was practically as long as the creature itself.\n\nIts aura was the real concern. From what Julius could tell, it was still Tier 4, thank god for that. But it was a powerful Tier 4. Terrifyingly strong.\n\n“What the hell is that thing?” Aubrey asked with a tinge of nervousness.\n\n“I think it's a chimera,” Riven noted with worry.\n\n“What makes you say that?” Aubrey asked.\n\n“Look at its aura. It’s unnaturally strong and feels like an amalgamation of various aspects,” Riven pointed out.\n\nNow that he had mentioned that, Julius noticed that as well. The creature’s aura was strong, but it felt mismatched. It was almost as if he were observing multiple creatures rather than a single one.\n\n“Is that a good thing?” Edgar asked optimistically.\n\nRiven shut down that optimism right away.\n\n“No, it is very much a bad thing. Chimeras are nightmares, and from the looks of it, this thing is not an exception,” he said to Edgar, and Julius felt an enormous amount of mana begin to flood into Riven.\n\nHowever, Riven wasn’t the only one who was gathering mana. Julius’s eyes widened when he sensed an even larger gathering of mana coming from the chimera.\n\nThe large spikes on its body started to release a dangerous red glow. His danger senses were blaring, and he threw up every protection he could think of around him and his friends.\n\nIt was a good thing that he did too, because a sphere of red beam of concentrated light exploded out from the chimera's mouth. The force of the beam was so strong that it ripped apart the ground as it tore across towards Isaac, who was once again attacking the beast head-on.\n\nThe unfortunate people who were in the way were vaporized. Then the beam slammed into Isaac, who, to Julius’s surprise, didn’t make any effort to dodge it. Perhaps it was the ability to absorb mana that gave him confidence, but the ginormous teen stood resolute and took the beam straight on.\n\nJulius wished he could say he was shocked when Isaac was blasted a hundred feet into the air. His body was mutilated by the beam of concentrated light and was sent flying off into the distance. For the first time since the fight started, Isaac was unmoving and silent.\n\nApparently, Isaac couldn’t absorb all the mana. Or perhaps the attack from the chimera didn’t use just mana. It might have been like Julius’s constructs, which used properties of aura to bolster his attacks.\n\n“He’ll be fine,” Riven said unconvincingly.\n\nJulius wasn’t worried about Isaac. He had a feeling that the boisterous guy would be harder to keep down than that. He was more concerned about his friends, and so when he saw the monster charging for another attack, he was already flooding his body with kinetic energy. He was about to teleport right next to the beast when he spotted something dark covering the sun overhead.\n\nHe squinted upwards and saw dozens of swords of various sizes all hovering over the beast. All of them were shimmering with golden light, and Julius couldn’t help but shiver when he felt multiple powerful Concepts of Sharpness all converge on these swords.\n\nHe didn’t like to admit it, but he had a feeling that these Sharpness Concepts were stronger than his own, or at the very least, rivaled them. More importantly, these Concepts fed off each other with immaculate synergy. It was quite marvelous to watch, and he found himself grinning when he saw these swords descend from the sky with the wrath of a god.\n\nThe golden swords slammed into the shell of the chimera, and to the relief of everyone stuck inside the barrier, they were able to pierce the monster’s scales.\n\nThe monster cried out in pain and used its tail to smash the swords from its back. Then, with another roar and spike of mana, these spikes were shot out from their respective wounds in all directions.\n\nThankfully, they faded into particles of light before they could land on someone.\n\nHowever, Julius wasn’t focused on that. He was more focused on the regenerating tissue he saw from the chimera. The large wounds inflicted by the swords were healing at an alarming rate.\n\n“Ah, we are so fucked,” Julius heard one person mutter softly.\n\nHe heard Riven and many others curse loudly in the background. He didn’t curse out loud, but on the inside, he was a lot more worried.\n\nDefeating a Tier 4 monster was already hard when you were Tier 3.\n\nBut defeating a beast that strong and one that could regenerate its wounds? That was so unfair. What kind of monster should be allowed to do that? He must have said that last part out loud because he got a weird look from his friends. He pointedly ignored them.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 532: Sturdy Little Barrier\nTarget length: ~2200 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Julius had been attempting to break the barrier with his mana and ruinous aura, but sadly, it hadn’t been effective yet. He could see that his ruinous aura was doing something, but the barrier was so tough that it wasn’t enough.\n\nNot only that, but the barrier seemed to gain strength as more time went by. What had been a relatively invisible barrier was slowly changing into a curtain of gray shadows, encapsulating all of them.\n\nWhatever damage he caused was fixed by the barrier's self-repair function. It was annoying, and he was running out of ideas. He banged his head against the edge of the barrier in frustration.\n\nHowever, it would appear that hitting his head was a good idea because he had a sudden thought.\n\nHe looked around at the people around them and noticed they were too occupied watching the chimera stomping around. Furthermore, his suspicion about Isaac was correct. It would seem that getting hit by that beam of light wasn’t enough to keep Isaac down for good. He was already healed and was attacking the chimera once more.\n\nWith the added help from Eren and his falling swords, the chimera was quite pinned down for the moment. It was too busy dealing with the two powerful Tier 3s. Riven hadn’t flown over to join them. The mage was nearby, also trying to break open the barrier just like Julius was.\n\nHe was having the same issue as Julius. The barrier would open momentarily, but would close too quickly for anyone to get through. Teleportation didn’t seem to work while inside the barrier, either; therefore, people couldn’t go through the small hole.\n\nIt was a good thing that he had an idea he wanted to try.\n\nHe looked down at his fist with a grin and started to manipulate his Space Concept into it. [Void Strike] layered over his hand, pulsing with dangerous and volatile waves of energy. He didn’t get many opportunities to use the skill. It was too powerful and dangerous for most applications.\n\nHe saw Riven pause and look over at Julius with surprise evident in his eyes.\n\nJulius focused on his own actions for the time being. He thought he had a good chance of damaging the barrier with [Void Strike]. The barrier clearly had a spatial aspect to it. If he could use [Void Strike] and his ruinous aura in conjunction, he might be able to create a large enough hole to have his friends escape.\n\nWith a grunt of exertion, he let the mana build up, and when it reached a precipice, he unleashed all of it on the barrier. A loud crash rocked the barrier, and to his delight, he saw the barrier crack ever so slightly. He used some of his aura to try to break it open, but the barrier healed itself once again.\n\nHowever, he wasn’t deterred. He kept on trying, charging another one of his fists with mana. This time around, he also created a gauntlet, using the construct to take most of the pressure off [Void Strike]. This enabled him to push even more power through the skill.\n\nHe briefly glanced backward and was interrupted when he sensed some debris from the chimera’s fight heading his way. He was about to create a barrier, but his friends were already there to protect him.\n\nThey must have realized what he was doing and had used all of the attention to create a defensive shield around him. He nodded his thanks to them and continued his work.\n\nHe let some of his fire mana feed into his crown, allowing the ruinous flames to feed into his fist. He could feel the fire eating away at his flesh. The destructive energy was hard to contain, even with the gauntlet taking the brunt of the weight from the skill.\n\nHowever, once he was ready, he unleashed his strike on the barrier. An absolutely massive shockwave exploded out from where he attacked the barrier. His eardrums were blown out from being so close to the impact zone. The accumulated kinetic energy, fire mana, and aura were enough to blow his arm to pieces regardless of his preparations.\n\nIt was one of the strongest attacks he could manage at this time, and it showed. The barrier, which had previously only been cracked, now sported a hole large enough for a human to walk through.\n\nHe could already feel the barrier trying to repair itself. However, thanks to his infusion of ruinous flames and aura, he was able to stall this mending feature. He also made sure to force even more ruinous aura into the barrier, doing his best to hold it back.\n\nThe weight from the barrier was unimaginably intense, and he could feel his soul struggling as he pushed his willpower to the limit. However, the stress it placed on his mind was far greater than the one on his soul.\n\nHe groaned loudly when he felt his mind slowly collapsing. His will could somewhat handle it, but his mind was another story.\n\nBlood was dripping from his nose and eyes as he struggled to keep them open. He tried to yell at his friends to get through, but the words wouldn't come out.\n\nThankfully, they knew what he was asking of them and, without questioning him, heeded his desires. They dashed over to the small opening of the barrier he had forced open, but it was already closing slowly.\n\nHe gasped as he pushed his mind even further. It had only been mere seconds since he opened the crack, but it felt like he had been keeping it open for over minutes.\n\nHe didn’t know if he could keep it open for much longer, but he owed it to his friends to keep trying. He let his healing skill continuously heal his melting brain. Drasil was doing all he could to support Julius as well. But the constant cycle of damage and healing was taking a toll on his thoughts. They were getting muddied.\n\nJust when he thought he was unable to hold it any longer, he felt someone join him. He looked over to the side and saw Riven right next to him. He didn’t know how, but the mage had somewhat piggybacked off his work supporting Julius.\n\nThe strain immediately lessened, and with the two of them, they were able to keep it open long enough for his friends to pass through. Julius was worried that there was another layer of enchantments, but let out a sigh of relief when he saw they were okay.\n\nHe slowly stumbled his way to the barrier. The strain was lessened, but his brain was still a bit muddled and required some time to reset. Burning one’s mind would do that to a person.\n\n“Go on through. I will follow after,” he said to Riven, shaking his head to clear the fogginess.\n\nRiven groaned and shook his head. It was clear that the mage was struggling to hold on as well.\n\n“Seriously, stop being stubborn and get in there. The more time we waste, the more dangerous it will become,” Julius said impatiently.\n\n“Not until everyone else gets through,” Riven said stubbornly, puking out a mouthful of blood.\n\n“Who cares about the rest of them? My friends are safe, so it’s not my problem,” Julius said and looked at Riven like he was an idiot.\n\n“So what? You are just going to leave them at the mercy of that monster?” Riven asked in disbelief.\n\n“Damn right,” he said shamelessly. All he cared about was his friends. That was his only priority.\n\nRiven stared at him and twisted his bloody mouth. Then he looked at where the other participants were panicking.\n\n“Get over here! We created an exit!” Riven suddenly shouted out, using wind magic to enhance his voice.\n\nIt was like a crowd of children hearing someone shout that free candy was being given out. Over a hundred desperate stares latched onto Riven, and before Julius could say anything, they were already sprinting toward them like a pack of wild animals.\n\nRiven then turned to Julius with a victorious smile. However, the smile looked a bit deranged since the mage’s mouth was flooded with blood from the strain of holding the barrier open.\n\n“Okay, so now you can either hold this open with me. Or you can always jump through on your own. I will keep it open so you can do that if you want,” Riven said to him, displaying his bloody teeth.\n\nJulius rolled his eyes but didn’t make a move to go through the hole. “What are you? Some kind of hero or something?”\n\nRiven’s eyes flickered with sadness for the briefest of moments.\n\n“I’m trying to be,” he said with a serious look.\n\nJulius frowned, wondering if there was a story behind that.\n\n“Fine,” he said defeatedly and watched as a horde of people all desperately tried to escape through the hole they created. He believed there would have been far fewer people trying to run away or fight the monster, but Isaac and Eren’s failed attempt must have convinced them they couldn't win.\n\nTo be fair, he agreed with their assessment. The chimera was ridiculously strong, and it showed when Isaac’s continued efforts didn’t do anything. Julius watched as the guy was slammed by the creature’s tail, getting pummeled into the dirt once again.\n\nEren had already given up and was heading over to them on a flying sword. There was a look of reluctance on his face, but he must have realized that there wasn’t a point in fighting with an exit secured.\n\nJulius gave Garrett a dark glare when he saw the guy frantically making his way over. He was one of the first to arrive. The guy was actually really fast and had impressive control over his mana from what Julius could sense.\n\nHowever, the panic in his face convinced Julius that this wasn’t a part of the teen’s plan and that the teen was just trying to run away.\n\nNobody, other than a scant few, even bothered to say thank you to Julius or Riven. They just moved as quickly as possible through the hole, worried it might close suddenly. Which, to be fair, was a real risk.\n\nA few errant attacks from the chimera had already gotten pretty close, and it was only thanks to several proactive people that Julius didn’t have to create any defenses of his own. He and Riven were able to solely focus on keeping the barrier open.\n\nYet, even this wasn’t enough.\n\nIsaac’s distractions were slowly becoming ineffective, and eventually the chimera’s gaze locked onto Julius and Riven.\n\nThe spikes along its spine started to glow with the dangerous red light once more. It was as if all of the mana around the creature was being sucked into its lungs.\n\n“Hurry up,” Julius said urgently to one of the last few people trying to get through while he created several barriers in front of him. These last people were the ones who had stayed behind to help protect him, so he didn’t want to close the hole on them. They were one of the few who deserved to escape after all.\n\nBut the light was growing brighter, and just as the last person stepped through, a piercing beam of red light cut through the air and slammed into his barriers.\n\nThe first few shattered like glass, which somewhat surprised him. He knew that the attack contained a lot of mana, but the ease with which they were able to break his aura-woven barriers was scary.\n\nThe other barriers held up a little bit better, but they still weren’t enough.\n\nThankfully, they gave him enough time to react, and with a shove of aura, he attempted to send Riven through the hole before it closed. The mage tried to fight him for some reason, but since he was already tired from holding the barrier open, Julius overpowered him.\n\nThen, before Riven could do anything, he closed the hole as the beam of light slammed into Julius.\n\nHe had just enough time to make some last-second protections, but even then, it wasn’t enough. The beam of light tore through everything he placed in front of himself, and he could feel his skin burning away.\n\nHe wasn’t able to move because it felt like he was being blasted by a firehose the size of a building. However, he was able to use [Void Step] and get out of the way.\n\nWhen he teleported away, the beam had nowhere else to go, but slammed into the barrier that had been behind him. Surprisingly, it didn’t do as much damage as he expected.\n\nHe didn’t have much time to think about that. He had a feeling that he was about to become extremely busy.\n\nHe let his flesh regenerate and looked at the chimera with an enthusiastic grin.\n\nSome might have thought he would be in trouble because he was stuck in here with the powerful beast. But what they didn’t know was that it was the other way around. The chimera was stuck inside with him.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed!\n\n\nAnd for those who want to discuss the story with each other, there is a Discord server created now."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 533: Chimera\nTarget length: ~2100 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Julius turned to stare at the chimera, which was roaring at the sky, and smiled.\n\nThe moment he saw the creature, he knew he wanted to fight it. His blood sang with excitement, and he only held back because of how people were around. Also, his number one priority had been to keep his friends safe.\n\nHowever, now those issues have been solved. He could have some fun.\n\nHe charged his body with so much mana, kinetic energy, and aura that it felt like it was breaking apart. And it felt absolutely exhilarating.\n\nHe used one quick [Void Step] to appear right in front of the creature’s face, slamming the monster with a [Void Strike] along with all of the kinetic energy he had managed to siphon from its last attack.\n\nThe flesh of the chimera’s face was really tough. It was no wonder that Isaac and Eren had some trouble. However, with all of the power he put into his blow, the monster’s face now sported a large crater in it. Unfortunately, since it was so large, there was only so much damage he could do.\n\nThe injury was relatively small compared to its massive size. But that didn’t deter Julius; he was already charging another attack while he watched the flesh of the beast regenerate at a visible pace.\n\nHe attempted to use some of his ruinous aura to stop whatever skill it was using, but he was unable to. He might have slowed it slightly, but the creature had an enormously powerful willpower.\n\nIt didn’t have any finesse or real level of control, but with its unusual soul, it must have inherited an absurdly strong will or something similar.\n\nHe had already created armor around his body. Azure colored mana flowed from his chest to his hands. Beautiful wings sprouted from his back, flaring dangerously with flames. He could feel his red eyes shining brightly with each movement of his aura.\n\nHis crown, pulsing slowly atop his head, seemed to breathe with life.\n\nIt was funny. For the first time since he got the item, he didn’t feel it fighting against him. If anything, the crown seemed like it was just as excited as he was.\n\n“Ah, so you are a battle maniac too, huh?” He asked the crown quietly.\n\nAll he got in return was an emphatic flare of blue flames from it.\n\nThen, with a wild, wild grin, he disappeared in a flash of blue light. He hadn’t teleported; he used sheer kinetic energy to propel himself forward, using his own speed to cycle even more kinetic energy from his movements.\n\nHe slammed into the creature’s face once more. This time around, he used [Void Strike] alongside his ruinous flames. Now that it was motivated, the crown was much easier to use.\n\nHe was able to feed fire mana into it with an ease he had never experienced. The mana that came out of it was just as easy to control. He fed it into his fists and armor, letting the destructive force vibrate under his willpower.\n\nThe strike was powerful. Really powerful. The fifty-foot monster was knocked off balance for the first time and cried out in pain as it fell to the ground. Its six legs thrashed around as it tried to get back to its feet.\n\nJulius was forced to blast himself upward into the sky when it tried to smack him with its tail. He had learned from watching Isaac fighting earlier that while the chimera wasn’t that swift, considering its size, its tail was another story.\n\nThe ridiculously long limb moved with shocking speed. He was just barely fast enough to ignore it. He flew high up, ready to strike once again.\n\nHowever, he stopped himself when he sensed a glowing white missile slam into the downed creature. Isaac must have stayed inside along with Julius and used his body like a missile, slamming into the creature’s exposed belly.\n\nThe force of the blow was immense and exploded a small chunk of flesh from the chimera. However, it was clear that Isaac didn’t have anything that prevented the monster’s healing factor. Unlike the wounds that Julius had just inflicted, the scars of the belly were almost already healed in a matter of seconds.\n\nThe chimera let out a roar, and Julius widened his eyes in astonishment when an invisible blast smacked him right in the face. He had no idea what kind of attack this was. It might have been some kind of telekinesis attack, but he was sure.\n\nThankfully, he absorbed most of the force. Still, it forced him back and required him to take some time to stabilize his flight.\n\nIsaac, on the other hand, was tossed a hundred feet across the field. Julius watched as the large teen got back to his feet once again, holding back a sigh. It would appear that, for as powerful and fast as Isaac was, fighting strategy wasn’t exactly his strong suit.\n\nIt wasn’t even like Julius himself was particularly skilled in this aspect, but Isaac had been doing the same thing over and over for the past several minutes. Not changing a single thing. He just kept on running in, got a good hit on the monster, and then got blasted into the ground. It was only because of his pretty good healing skill that the man wasn’t dead yet.\n\nEven then, Julius could see the teen's healing slowing. The white light was a little dimmer, and several minor wounds weren’t healed. Julius suspected that part of the issue was that the monster wasn’t using plain mana attacks to hurt Isaac, which meant there wasn’t enough mana to absorb to heal.\n\nYet, Isaac continued to run headfirst into the beast without any regard. Julius had his fair share of headbutting into walls until he succeeded, but that was when he was holding back or when he knew he had some advantage he could use.\n\nIsaac seemed a little... special.\n\nJulius didn’t know why, but it irritated him more than it should have.\n\nStill, Isaac was at least doing something, so he ignored the guy and dashed back to the chimera. This time around, the chimera had targeted him as a threat, and the difference was dramatic.\n\nThe spikes on its back glowed red once again, but it wasn’t like the previous attacks. Instead of a single strong attack, he found himself assaulted by hundreds of small beams of light. They were extremely fast and unbelievably nimble.\n\nHe used his wings to help him dodge the attacks. The wind tore his face as he used kinetic energy to flash across the sky. His flight abilities were so much better than they had been several months ago, but they still weren’t the best. It was expected as well.\n\nHumans weren’t supposed to fly after all. Thankfully, he had a lot of kinetic energy to play with, so even though he wasn’t the most graceful, he was quick.\n\nUnfortunately, it was like the chimera had locked onto his mana signature. Every single attack tracked him with worrying precision. He created several barriers around him, using them to block the few attacks that he wasn’t able to dodge.\n\nSince they weren’t as powerful, they didn’t manage to pierce or crack his barriers easily, as the breath attack had been. However, they were strong enough that he was able to absorb a fair amount of kinetic energy from them. He started deliberately getting hit by these attacks.\n\nWhile he did this, he also tried to see how they were constructed. As Isaac had experienced already, they weren’t just simple blasts of mana. There was something else that made them a little dangerous.\n\nIt was almost like the creature had used a similar technique to Julius. It nearly felt like some of the monster’s aura was woven into the attacks. The only issue was that the creature’s manipulation of aura and mana would contradict this statement.\n\nAt this point, the creature was ignoring Isaac. It would occasionally smash the guy into the ground, but almost the entirety of the monster’s attention was on Julius. It showed.\n\nHe was getting drowned in attacks, and while the chimera wasn’t very skilled in pure mana control, it was still constantly making minor adjustments to its attacks.\n\nIt must have realized that these attacks didn’t threaten Julius, so it reduced the number of attacks. There were still a lot, but now they were a lot more powerful, and he wasn’t able to take them straight on as confidently.\n\nHe used his barriers to deflect most of the impact and absorbed as much kinetic energy as he could. He would use this kinetic energy to fuel his flight, but his body was slowly accumulating damage from the relentless assault.\n\nHe laughed at the hilarity of the situation and would have enjoyed this fight more, but unfortunately, there was a stupid battle maniac constantly interrupting his tempo. Whenever there was an opening he wanted to take advantage of, Isaac was already heading straight for it.\n\nIt would have been impressive that the guy could read the flow of the battle that well and, without hesitation, throw himself into the fray. Sadly, the guy wasn’t causing much damage or making much of an impact.\n\nAt this point, he was just in Julius’s way. That was why he ultimately made a decision.\n\nHe sensed Isaac about to head in to make another move, but before the teen could dash in, Julius teleported in front of Isaac, extending his arm.\n\nHe creased his brow in annoyance when he saw Isaac lash out at him. It was all instinct, though, so Julius tried not to get too upset. However, that proved what Julius had been thinking this entire time. Isaac had no plan; he was just reacting and moving on pure instinct.\n\nIsaac was fast, but Julius was just as fast. He was able to duck underneath the man’s fist and slap it away with some of his accumulated kinetic energy.\n\n“Can you knock it off?” he said irritably, crossing his arms.\n\nIsaac finally seemed to realize that Julius was there and smiled. “Oh! Hey, Julius. I see you wanted to test yourself against this strong monster, too.”\n\n“Yeah, but you are making a real mess out of things,” he said with a glare.\n\nIsaac shrugged uncaringly. “I am trying to figure out how it's able to prevent me from absorbing its mana.”\n\nJulius pinched his nose. “Are you serious? You haven’t figured that out yet?”\n\nIsaac looked confused. “No,” he said without any shame or embarrassment. “Have you?”\n\n“Yeah, it uses some application of mixing mana and aura, which is probably preventing your skill from working,” he explained briefly, using some of his barriers to block some of the incoming attacks.\n\n“Oh. I didn’t even know that was possible,” Isaac said, his eyes shimmering brightly with realization.\n\n“Well, can you stop taking my openings? I can’t make a move because you keep rushing in, and I am more likely to hit you than the monster,” Julius said to him, using his armored fist to smack aside a mighty blow from the chimera.\n\nIsaac rubbed his head. “Oh, sorry about that. I have been told that I make for a terrible teammate.”\n\n“Yeah, so until you find a way to hurt the monster, please just let me handle it, okay?” Julius asked as politely as possible.\n\nIsaac frowned at him. “I’m pretty close to finding the creature’s cores, so no.”\n\n“Cores?” Julius asked interestedly.\n\nIsaac nodded. “Yeah, I have found out that the monster has several—”\n\nIsaac’s words were cut off midsentence when a large blast of red light smashed into them. Julius protected himself well, but Isaac was sent flying away again.\n\nJulius sighed and teleported over to the hole Isaac was already crawling out of.\n\n“You were saying?” Julius asked while he watched Isaac heal very slowly.\n\nIsaac dusted himself off; his clothes were almost entirely gone at this point. “It has several cores. I keep damaging them, but it can heal them as well, so it has been an annoying problem.”\n\nJulius tilted his head curiously and mentally apologized to Isaac. It would appear that the man had some kind of plan after all. He wasn’t just pointlessly wailing on the beast. His opinion of Isaac was raised a bit.\n\n“Where are the cores?”\n\nIsaac shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been guessing.”\n\nJulius pinched his nose and immediately revised his opinion of him. This guy was an idiot. He should have kept Riven here with him. At least he would have been more useful.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 534: Second Stage\nTarget length: ~2100 words\nKey events: boss encounter"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Julius decided to ignore the idiot in front of him. He wanted to beat this monster and couldn’t worry about Isaac. This wasn’t a standard Tier 4 monster like the ones he had taken care of in the past.\n\nThis chimera was something else entirely. The sheer amount of damage it could release was impressive enough. However, its endurance and regeneration were the real issues. If he couldn’t figure out a way to hurt the monster, he was afraid that he would simply be wasting his own energy.\n\nOf course, slowly whittling its mana and other resources away was still a sound strategy, but he didn’t know if he wanted to do all of that. He had a sneaking suspicion that was precisely how this beast was meant to fight.\n\nWith how big it was and its higher tier than his own, he wasn’t confident that he could outlast the monster.\n\nLuckily for him, he had other options at his disposal. Options that he was looking forward to using, and if he “accidentally” hit Isaac because he was in the way, then it was only the big oaf’s fault.\n\nHe heard the guy still trying to talk to Julius, as if to explain his reasoning, but he wasn’t hearing any of it. Julius was too focused on taking control of his mana and aura. He slowly fed the blazing crown on his forehead, feeling the intense heat radiating from the soul-bound item.\n\nTime slowed down to a crawl as his mind and spirit went into overdrive.\n\nThe crown wanted more fire mana; it was a greedy little thing, and despite his usual reservations, he didn’t hold back this time around. He let the crown have what it wanted—feeding the flames with his massive mana pool, letting his ruinous aura meld with the ruinous flames.\n\nThe synergy between the two energies was perfect. It was as if they were meant for each other, and they supported each other in ways his usual mana and aura were never able to. Each covered the other’s weakness and offered their strengths without taking away the other’s own.\n\nThe only problem he had to deal with was the sheer heat the crown was giving off. His flesh was being blasted by some of the most intense flames he had ever created. He used to think that his blue flames were hot, but this was on another level.\n\nThese ruinous flames were melting the stone beneath his feet, and it required him to constantly throw life mana into [Phoenix Renewal] to keep his body intact. Drasil pitched in as well. He had already gotten used to Julius’s antics and only whistled in exasperation when he felt Julius destroying his own body.\n\nWhat was amusing to sense was Seraphyne’s panic while she was hanging out in Julius’s soul space. The turtle spirit wasn’t panicking because she was worried about Julius hurting himself. No, she was frantic because Drasil had grabbed hold of her and was using her as some kind of mana battery.\n\nShe didn’t have a healing skill that could help Julius, but apparently, she made for the perfect battery, allowing Drasil to use more mana.\n\nJulius would have teared up in pride for his little spirit, but his tears would have evaporated by the sheer heat he was experiencing.\n\nFortunately, the heat was just a byproduct of what he was trying to achieve. Once he got a good feel for the mana, he finally started to manipulate the ruinous flames. He used [Armaments of the Arcane] to slowly mold his mana into small spikes.\n\nThe compression of the flames was surprisingly tricky. He wasn’t able to compress them as intensely as usual. He didn’t know if it was because of the nature of the flames or just because they were already so powerful, but he was barely able to compact them.\n\nHe still tried, though. He also made sure to utilize [Spirit Fortification] to weave his ruinous aura into the constructs. He laughed loudly at how easy it was and how seamless the construction became. His ruinous flames and ruinous aura were truly meant to be combined.\n\nSeveral dangerous flares of fire erupted when he finally formed a single spike. The power contained in each one was miles above anything he had felt from one of his constructs. It wasn’t like when he used [Void Strike] on them.\n\nThat was a totally different kind of power and danger. [Void Strike] was an attack that ignored defenses due to its unique and spatial nature. This was different. His ruinous flames and aura were meant to burn down and destroy anything that stood in its way. Plain and simple.\n\nHe tried to add [Void Strike] to the spikes, but to his shock, it didn’t work. Even more shockingly, they didn’t even explode. The combination of the two skills wiped away the skill before it had a chance to latch onto the construct. It almost felt like the constructs wouldn’t allow anything else to touch them.\n\nLike some deep-seated pride.\n\nJulius was okay with that. He was already desperately trying everything in his power to keep it together. The ruinous flames and aura worked well together, but that didn’t mean it was easy to control.\n\nIt required all of his willpower to form them and even more to keep them together.\n\nYet, he still didn’t give up there. He kept on going and pushing far beyond his limits.\n\nHe didn’t stop at one or two spikes. He formed over a dozen of them in quick succession. Typically, this wouldn’t be possible regardless of his control over mana and aura. However, the crown was giving him a helping hand. It wanted this more than he did and lent him its power.\n\nAn array of bright azure colored spikes dazzled as they sat over his shoulders. Each pulse they released threatened to disrupt everything and blow all of this power in his own face.\n\nHowever, he ignored that for the time being. For some reason, he had absolute confidence that wouldn’t happen. The thrill of power violently surged through his blood.\n\nHis body was burning away; he could feel that, despite his and Drasi’s efforts, he was little more than bones. His arms had burned off, as had his legs. Only his chest and head were a priority to keep healed.\n\nThe pain would have been crippling for most, but for Julius, the pain was just irrelevant.\n\nHe slowly took control of the spikes and teleported away when he felt the chimera send another volley of attacks his way. This teleportation had unbalanced the delicate equilibrium he created. The spikes he created with pure willpower were on the verge of collapsing, as was his mind.\n\nHis constructs wanted to destroy and cause chaos. Therefore, he let them do exactly that. He barely had to push them towards their target. The second they were released, they were soaring toward the chimera all on their own with a palpable hunger radiating from their surface.\n\nThey were literally falling apart as they tore through the air. He coughed up a gallon of blood due to the backlash of releasing the technique. But his eyes sparkled when he saw his precious constructs tear through space.\n\nThey moved so quickly, they were little more than flashes of light\n\nThe massive chimera, which had stubbornly soaked up all the damage anyone had thrown at it, finally reacted. Julius spotted the signs of fear in its eyes just before the spikes slammed into its body, causing absolute ruin.\n\nThe entire sky lit up in a symphony of flames and destruction. The chimera’s roar of agony shook the barrier. Julius, on the other hand, floated there limbless and with a broken body, admiring his handiwork with a wild grin on his face.\n\nHe ignored the multiple pings he received, likely some notifications. He also ignored Isaac, who must have gotten in the way of his attack and was blasted into the distance, slamming into a grouping of trees.\n\nThe guy would survive… Probably.\n\nWhen the dust settled, he finally got a look at the damage he had caused. The chimera looked like a mess. It looked like someone had detonated dozens of landmines across the chimera’s flesh.\n\nIts ribcage was exposed, and half of its body was covered in severe burns. As a matter of fact, its body was still on fire. The ruinous flames were devouring its flesh as if it were food, further accelerating the damage they unleashed.\n\nThe chimera glowed red once more and let out a powerful blast of mana. Julius watched with intrigue as the flames were extinguished. He could feel the Tier 4’s Authority ripple outward; he suspected that this was the reason why it was able to swat out the flames as easily as it did.\n\nStill, the damage was impressive. He would have given himself a pat on the back, but he was still growing his limbs back.\n\nHe saw the chimera healing as well. It was definitely delayed compared to Isaac’s attacks, but the creature was still able to regenerate—a big annoyance.\n\nThat was why Julius didn’t let up. While the chimera was still in terrible shape, he didn’t give it any time to breathe.\n\nHe gathered even more mana and aura, flowing them through his crown and into more spikes. Since he had already done it before, the process was slightly more straightforward. That said, it was still a grueling task.\n\nHe quickly fired another salvo, his barely regenerated arms disintegrating once again from the excess heat. It was quite an annoyance, but the spikes' results spoke for themselves. Just as the chimera was recovering, he was already sending a dozen more spikes, concentrating his efforts on an area just under the beast’s neck.\n\nFrom what his mana senses could tell during the brief moment when its scales were destroyed, he sensed a large core just underneath it in that particular region. He was curious how the beast’s scales managed to shield against his perception, but he didn’t have time to worry about that.\n\nThe explosion rocked the beast once again. This time, cutting even deeper into the flesh of the beast. Its ribcage was fully exposed, and he could see what appeared to be its organs. Just underneath one important-looking organ, he spotted the mass of mana he had sensed before.\n\nIt was a red gem-like material with intricate veins running through it. It wasn’t so much a core, but rather something that looked closer to a heart.\n\nHe didn’t hesitate for a single moment. He was already charging even more spikes. The ruinous flames were practically dancing with anticipation as they saw the injured opponent. He had to hold back the crown from going too far; it was trying to pull so much fire mana from him that he was getting sucked dry.\n\nHe gave a single warning slap, and to his shock, it listened to him and retreated slightly. It almost felt like it was respecting him by the tiniest of margins.\n\nIt only took him destroying his own body for that to happen.\n\nThe chimera was recovering faster than he liked to see, and so he quickly sent the next volley at the creature’s core. A protective shield appeared around the core, but he concentrated all of his firepower on this one section.\n\nIts barrier wasn’t enough to stop all of the spikes. The first two were blocked, which was impressive enough, but the next ones tore through it and slammed into the heart-shaped core, driving deep and exploding in a symphony of flames.\n\nThe resulting explosions staggered him as he hovered in the sky.\n\nHe would have been more excited about taking out one of the monster’s cores, but there was another issue. One that actually made him a little bit worried.\n\nWhen he had destroyed the core, instead of getting weaker, a surge of power flowed through the chimera as if the residual energy from the wrecked core spread into the chimera’s body—enhancing it even further.\n\nHe grimaced to himself. It looked like he had unlocked the second stage of the boss fight.\n\nHowever, he realized that it wasn’t such a bad thing. That just meant he had a perfect opportunity to test some of his other ideas against the beast. He felt a big smile appear on his face as he raced back toward the creature.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 535: Dangerous\nTarget length: ~2300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The increase in power he felt coming from the chimera wasn’t the main thing that disturbed him. No, it was the transformation the creature was currently undergoing.\n\nA sphere of crimson red light appeared around the chimera. Julius immediately sent several ruinflame-powered spikes at this barrier. However, to his astonishment, it was much stronger than the one he had broken through just moments ago.\n\nThis one unraveled his technique, and before it could impact the shield. It felt like it was actually using its Authority properly and tearing through his own constructs. It was like the monster was changing before his very eyes, evolving into something different.\n\nSomething dangerous.\n\nHe needed to stop it before it could complete its transformation. He was sure of that.\n\nSo he dashed forward, his limbs already regenerated during the short period. He loaded up his kinetic energy and gathered more destructive flames. Once he got close to the barrier, he used [Void Step]. If he couldn’t break the barrier, then he could just bypass it.\n\nOr rather, that was what he had been planning on. Instead, he found himself inside the chaotic void, and the spatial energies were already trying to tear his body apart. Unlike usual, he wasn’t able to locate the spot he wanted to teleport to, and before he could try to cancel the skill, he felt his body get squeezed by the collapsing space.\n\nHe was spat out of the void and groaned in pain. His body, which had received the backlash of the interrupted skill, was more of a mess than before. His limbs, which had already been destroyed twice, were a mess once again—only this time around they looked like someone had wrung them like an old dishrag.\n\nIt wasn’t just his limbs either. It was his body as well. He was barely able to protect his heart and brain, but the rest of his chest was a broken disaster.\n\nHe lost control of his wings, and they faded as he plummeted from the sky. His healing skill and Drasil were going into overdrive, trying to heal him.\n\nHowever, void damage was always a bit of a pain in the ass. The same aspect that he enjoyed using with [Void Strike] was now preventing him from healing as quickly as usual. He supercharged his Phoenix Concept and his Emblem to make up for this.\n\nThe strain on his soul was intense, but he needed to heal before the chimera finished whatever transformation it was undergoing.\n\nHe choked out one last groan, and to his relief, he felt the impedance from the void damage finally get overwhelmed. His body started to heal, and he took a deep breath when his lungs were regenerated.\n\nAs he healed the rest of his body, he looked at the chimera hiding in its little cocoon.\n\nHe was still befuddled as to why he was unable to teleport through the barrier. From what he could tell, there hadn’t been any anti-spatial aspects to it. However, even if there were, it wouldn’t have mattered. His skill was meant to go through enchantments or similar techniques.\n\nThe only thing he could compare it to was the feeling he got when he had tried to teleport a spike into a living creature. Not too long ago, he had thought about teleporting an explosion-rigged construct into his opponent’s head—a nasty idea with great potential.\n\nHowever, there was an unbreakable barrier that prevented him from doing that. Freya mentioned that there was some natural defense in one’s soul that protected against such techniques.\n\nOf course, if one were powerful enough to ignore these defenses, then it didn’t matter. But since Julius was already a tier lower than the chimera, it clearly didn’t apply to him.\n\nHe started to believe that this cocoon was an extension of the chimera’s soul.\n\nHe didn’t give up, though; he kept on sending more attacks against the barrier. He wanted to see if he could disrupt it somewhat. Unfortunately, it became apparent that his efforts were in vain, so he stopped his attacks and instead focused on building another salvo of spikes to throw at the creature.\n\nHe would wait until whatever it was doing finished, then throw everything he had at it.\n\nThankfully, that time came soon, and when the cocoon shattered into small shards of red light, he sent all of the spikes he created at the creature.\n\nThe chimera didn’t have any time to react. The ruinous enhanced spikes immediately bombarded it. Consecutive explosions rang out in the surrounding area as each of his spikes slammed into the chimera.\n\nHowever, Julius felt something was off. His instincts were screaming at him, and he saw the reason why.\n\nThe chimera, whom the constructs had heavily injured before, was standing there looking no worse for wear. There were no gaping holes or wounds on its body.\n\nNot only that, but the creature’s transformation had been much more dramatic than he expected; instead of getting larger, as he thought. The chimera had shrunk a lot. Instead of being the size of a bus, it was now the size of a large truck and much sleeker.\n\nIts previously black scales now had an ominous crimson glow to them, and the spikes running down its spine now covered most of its body.\n\nHowever, what was more concerning was the amount of heat he felt in the chimera’s body. It wasn’t just the heat, either; it was the source of heat. It was the same heat that came from his ruinous flames.\n\nThis little shit had somehow absorbed his ruinous flames. He knew this because he saw small flickers of the ruinous flames being distributed along the spikes on the chimera’s body. Of course, they were nothing but a weak imitation, but it was still annoying to see.\n\nHe was about to say something in protest, but he was forced to blast himself to the side to avoid the piercing beam heading straight for his face. The stinging heat from his ruinous flames burned his cheeks.\n\nHowever, he wasn’t to focus on that particular aspect because the chimera had moved with a speed he hadn’t seen so far. It disappeared, and he was barely able to sense an incoming object coming right behind him.\n\nHe used a barrier to deflect it, but the chimera shattered right through it, as if it were made of glass. Julius was forced to use [Void Step] to avoid the charging monster. Even then, he was almost too slow and got clipped by one of its claws.\n\nBeforehand, the chimera had been a large and slow target. However, that appeared to have changed, and Julius didn’t like that— not one bit.\n\nHe remade his wings and flew up high into the sky. This seemed to draw the chimera’s attention. It looked up at his position and snarled.\n\nHe didn’t know if he was seeing things, but he could have sworn that the monster had more intelligence in its eyes than before.\n\nJulius stared right back at the monster and started to gather more fire mana into his crown. However, he was forced to fly backward as another concentrated blast of red energy flew at his face.\n\nHe was thinking about how lucky he was that the beast couldn’t fly when he was forced to create several barriers in front of his face. Out of nowhere, the chimera’s jaw was closing around his face.\n\nApparently, the chimera could still reach him all the way up in the sky. It was using some kind of skill around its six legs to propel itself through the air.\n\nHis barriers broke just as easily as they had seconds prior, and he shoved his arm upward, using it to block the monster. Unfortunately, all this was to give the chimera a free meal. His arm was removed with one single bite and disappeared into the chimera’s stomach.\n\nJulius kicked away, using as much kinetic energy as he could.\n\nTo his curiosity, this seemed actually to hurt the beast more than his spikes had done. He felt his kinetic energy penetrate where his spikes hadn’t.\n\nHe continuously blasted himself backward, avoiding the follow-up claws. While he did that, he desperately tried to figure out what had changed. He clearly needed to make some adjustments. The evolution this beast had undergone was definitely more dangerous, but it was clear there were still some weaknesses he could target.\n\nThe only downside was that it appeared his kinetic energy was the way to go. That meant he had to get close to the beast that was suddenly as fast as hell.\n\nHe felt the familiar waves of fear, excitement, and adrenaline rush through his veins. Everything faded into the background as he concentrated all of his energy on enhancing his body.\n\nIf this monster thought it had him just because it changed a little bit, then it was in for a rude awakening. Julius’s whole skill set revolved around being versatile. If you took away his constructs, he would just beat his opponents with his fists.\n\nHe sensed the chimera already closing in, moving so fast that it was practically teleportation. As a matter of fact, he would much rather deal with a teleporting foe. At least their movements were more predictable.\n\nHe dropped to the ground, a place where he felt like he could maneuver better. He stepped to the side when the sharp claws of the chimera tore at his face, barely avoiding them. He siphoned as much kinetic energy from its movements as he could, doing his best to slow it down and gain more energy to use.\n\nHe avoided another three swipes, and when he felt an opening, he made his move. He took all of that gathered kinetic energy and slammed his leg into the beast’s chest. He used as much of his Force Concept as he could, trying to penetrate its defenses. He also used his ruinous aura.\n\nWhile it was able to absorb his flames, it wasn’t able to absorb his aura. The creature roared and spat blood, showing that the attack had damaged it. A wave of regenerative magic washed out from the chimera, but Julius didn’t let this stop him.\n\nHe stayed close, not letting the chimera use its superior size to dictate the battle. He also decided to create a staff. If he was going to beat this thing up, he was going to need something bigger than his fists.\n\nThe staff was strong, unlike his spikes, which were meant to withstand continuous damage.\n\nWhile it was clear he was slower than the chimera, the beast's fighting style was simplistic and lacked skill. It relied purely on speed and sheer strength.\n\nStill, it was a hard battle. He would avoid the relentless assault, only taking a few glancing blows in return for slamming his staff into anything he could reach. The chimera was getting increasingly angry.\n\nThe staff was already breaking down, but Julius made sure he kept it together. Constantly reinforcing it with more mana and aura as the fight went on.\n\nHe was ahead so far, but the real problem was the tiny mistake he inevitably made. They were so small that during a normal fight, nobody would be able to punish him for it. But against a creature this powerful, each mistake was amplified, and soon enough, he found himself mistepping by a couple of inches when his pivot foot slipped out of place.\n\nThis caused him to be right in the way of the monster’s tail, which clobbered him. He could feel his entire chest get crumpled like a tin can and found himself flying across the field. He used his kinetic energy to help slow himself down, but when he slammed into a rock, he still shattered his spine.\n\nHe didn’t even get time to groan in pain. Before he could stagger to his feet, the chimera was already on top of him. It snarled in his face as it tried to tear him apart. It was pretty apparent that the earlier damage he inflicted hadn’t been forgiven.\n\nThe chimera was holding quite a firm grudge and was doing its best to rip Julius into a dozen pieces. He would have teleported away, but the constantly brutal assault didn’t give him the chance. He didn’t have the skill channeled, and the onslaught was so overwhelming that he didn’t have the capacity to weave the complicated skill together.\n\nHis sole focus was on staying alive. He didn’t even care about staying in one piece, either. He was forced to sacrifice an arm and a leg just to gain some distance. He didn’t even bother to heal his limbs.\n\nAt this point, they were just wasting his mana. Instead, he created artificial limbs out of mana for the time being. They were basically what he made for his armor, anyway.\n\nHe kept on struggling to stay alive, though. Now that the momentum was on the chimera’s side, he was in real trouble. He tried everything he knew. However, it was so strong and fast that it barely mattered.\n\nIt was like he was facing a stupider and weaker version of Cain. There was nothing he could do but retreat and keep himself alive.\n\nHe was about to start taking drastic measures when he felt someone appear out of nowhere. They slammed into the chimera; the force of their blows was so intense that the beast was blasted ten feet into the dirt.\n\nThis finally gave Julius a second to breathe and heal.\n\nHe looked over at Isaac and gave the other boy a grateful nod. Isaac didn’t even bother looking at Julius. For the first time, Julius saw that Isaac wasn't laughing and had a somber look on his face.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 536: Nothing But Ash\nTarget length: ~2100 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Julius watched as Isaac disappeared in a flash of white light. There was so much more energy coming off Isaac compared to before.\n\nHad Isaac been holding back? Julius didn’t know, but regardless, he was grateful for the assist. The chimera was quickly becoming an extremely formidable opponent, and despite his pride screaming that he wanted to beat it on his own, he didn’t know if he would be able to.\n\nIsaac slammed his meaty fists into the powerful Tier 4 monster. Each blow seemed to warp the air; that was how hard Isaac was punching the thing.\n\nAnd just like Julius’s kinetic attacks, it would appear the beast didn’t do so great against blunt strikes. Something Isaac seemed to understand and began to pummel the chimera before it could get back onto its legs.\n\nThe chimera, which had been ignoring Isaac up to this point, now placed its full attention on the large teen and used its long tail to smash Isaac in the chest. Isaac was much better prepared and was able to weaken the blow with his arms. But this was enough space for the chimera to get back onto its feet.\n\nWhen it did, Isaac backed away and looked at the beast with a calculating look.\n\n“Do you have any spare mana?” Isaac asked Julius without bothering to turn around.\n\nJulius flexed his newly healed arm. “Yeah, I got a good amount left,” he confirmed to Isaac.\n\n“Do you mind giving me some? I am running kinda low, but I will be able to heal if you attack me with some mana,” Isaac quickly explained what he wanted.\n\nJulius didn’t even question Isaac’s request. Instead, he nodded. “Okay.”\n\nHe didn’t wait for Isaac to give him the go-ahead and sent a concentrated burst of fire mana straight into Isaac’s back. He didn’t use his crown to convert any of it. He didn’t want to take the chance that Isaac wouldn’t be able to use it and instead just be even more injured.\n\nTo most Tier 3s, this burst of fire mana would have turned them to ash, even without his ruinous flames. However, Isaac stood there unmovingly as he absorbed the fire mana into his skin. The leftover injuries scattered across Isaac’s body were slowly healed back to normal.\n\nJulius gave a quick inspection of how the skill worked and realized that it was very similar to how he siphoned kinetic energy. Rather than absorbing and processing it himself internally, Isaac was holding it and using this foreign mana to fuel some kind of healing skill.\n\nIt wasn’t life mana-based; Julius wasn’t able to sense anything like that, but perhaps it was light mana-based. Isaac could be converting the absorbed mana into light mana via a special technique or item that he then used to heal himself.\n\nIt was quite a powerful healing skill. It wasn’t as powerful as Julius’s, but the fact that it could heal as quickly as he did spoke volumes. It was also impressive how often he could use the skill. Julius would have thought that Isaac would be hitting his healing threshold.\n\nOr perhaps it didn’t work like that for certain self-healing skills.\n\nJulius didn’t have time to worry about this. He was much too focused on watching the chimera.\n\nSeveral beams of light swarmed Isaac, and Julius used this opportunity to get in close. He had preemptively created several spikes and sent them flying toward the monster. The ruinous flames were easier to control than ever. The crown was really putting in work, giving him a lot of freedom.\n\nHowever, as before, the chimera seemed to absorb a large portion of the attack. The rest was blocked by the new scales spread over its body. Julius grimaced when he saw his new, powerful attack so easily blocked, but thankfully, he was already prepared for that.\n\nThe spikes were just a distraction that obscured its vision, allowing him to get close. He appeared behind the chimera, and before it could realize where he was, he was already slamming his staff into the back of its head.\n\nHe used every ounce of kinetic energy, aura, and Force Concept he could infuse into one single strike. The force from the attack was so great that it blasted out the other end of the chimera’s throat. A hole the size of a watermelon appeared, and blood went everywhere.\n\nThe chimera reacted swiftly, though. A breath that contained some of the stolen ruinous flames crashed into his face. However, he only smiled and took it straight on. At the back of his mind, he could tell that his Ruinous Crown was getting irritated for some reason. He suspected the item didn’t enjoy seeing its flames absorbed so easily, or even being thrown back at it.\n\nA dangerous sensation rippled from the crown.\n\nThe chimera was already swinging its claws and tail at Julius. However, he had already seen this attack more than enough times. He knew what to expect and let the claws glance off his shoulder, using his left arm to parry the leg, ensuring that he made contact with it so that he was able to absorb the maximum amount of kinetic energy from the monster.\n\nSafe to say, it was a lot.\n\nHe accumulated so much kinetic energy that he had to waste some of it. The excess kinetic energy was blasted outward from him, destroying the ground. However, the energy he gathered condensed into a sphere at the tip of the staff. He then brought both of his hands up, holding his staff high, and cracked it against the chimera’s skull.\n\nThe creature’s head was sturdy, but with how much energy he delivered, it wasn’t enough. The skull shattered and created a mess inside the chimera’s brain. This wasn’t to kill the monster, though. Julius had learned enough about this chimera that he knew that its healing factor was too strong for that.\n\nHowever, he wanted to daze it and damaging its brain seemed like a perfect way to do that. Fortunately, it worked, and the chimera staggered backward as it desperately healed the ruined flesh inside its skull while Julius used as much of his ruinous aura to prevent this process.\n\nThis was when Julius sensed Isaac make his move as well.\n\nIt felt like Isaac was carrying the weight of a mountain. Each step shook the field, and there was this overwhelming pressure coming from his body. It was pure physical power, too, that was the scary part.\n\nNo mana, no aura, just pure physical might. Julius was sure this had to be some kind of bloodline or special ability. There was no other way a Tier 3 could have this much physical strength without relying on mana or aura.\n\nHalf of the chimera’s face disappeared in a puff of red mist when Isaac hit the monster, and Julius was sent flying back from the shockwave that was released. He used some kinetic energy to absorb the force while looking at Isaac with an impressed look on his face.\n\nThat amount of power was on another level. Julius didn’t think he would be able to generate that much sheer force without some help or some time to prepare.\n\nWhile this was happening, he was creating several more spikes over his shoulders. The crown, which seemed to have its pride prickled, was even more aggressive and willing to listen to Julius’s demands. Several spikes pulsing with ruinous flames were already being shot toward the injured chimera.\n\nWith its scales no longer in the way, he was hoping that the spikes would do much more damage. Fortunately, his hopes were answered. Without the scales or spikes in the way, his salvo was able to do some damage.\n\nEven more parts of the chimera’s flesh were blown up. The regenerated flesh was destroyed once again, and this time the ruinous flames stalled its healing, which was probably the most helpful part.\n\nIsaac was obviously worn out from that last attack; the large teen was heaving as he took massive gulps of air. However, he didn’t let up the pressure and was already slamming another fist into the chimera.\n\nEach strike hammered the chimera deeper and deeper into the ground. Almost creating an earthen prison for the monster.\n\nThe chimera was flailing around in desperation. It was absolutely insane that it was still alive despite its head and most of the flesh of its upper body being obliterated. It was even more insane that it was healing as fast as it was under Isaac and Julius's attacks.\n\nJulius chose to switch up his attacks, though. Instead of taking time to gather ruinous flames to create spikes, he just decided to throw the pure flames at the monster like a flamethrower.\n\nTo his shock, it felt as if a valve had been released and a limiter removed from the crown. A tidal wave of azure flames crashed into the chimera. The heat was on a totally different level than before.\n\nIt almost seemed that, without the constructs holding it back, it could express itself freely. The heat became overwhelming even to Julius. His flesh started to melt like candlewax, and he roared out as he pushed through the pain, continuing to dump all of the ruinous flames onto the chimera stuck in the pit.\n\nThey were so strong that Isaac was forced to retreat. The heat had already burned the guy’s arm off. But he didn’t seem upset about that. Instead, he looked at Julius with a wild grin on his face and laughed like a maniac.\n\nJulius ignored the crazy guy and increased his efforts. He wanted to turn this immortal beast into a pile of burnt remains.\n\nThe crown was more than happy to help him. It was practically laughing like Isaac when Julius let go of the restraints he usually had on the crown. Julius let the thing do what it was made for.\n\nTo cause devastation and ruin.\n\nHis body was not only being burnt by the oppressive force, but also by the immense stress he was placing on his own body from the amount of mana he was forcing through his channels. When he felt himself slowing, he dug deep and began carving out pieces of his soul to fuel the technique.\n\nHe felt his soul cracking when he did this, but he didn’t care. At the moment, his mind was focused on one single thing. Destruction.\n\nHe poured every ounce of willpower into the deluge of flames. The chimera, which had been struggling wildly, was now slowing down.\n\nHe didn’t even care, though. He wouldn’t stop until the chimera was nothing but ash.\n\n***\n\nIsaac POV\n\nIsaac gulped for air as he recovered. The last attack had really taken a lot out of him. It was one of his last-ditch techniques that utilized his very own life force. His aunt wouldn’t be happy to hear that he used it.\n\nHowever, he wasn’t worried about that. Despite his missing arms, he stared with wide eyes at the young boy he had been with.\n\nJulius Snow, huh?\n\nThe boy didn’t even look human anymore. His eyes were a scarlet red that glowed with the promise of death and destruction. He floated over the pit the chimera was trapped in, pouring an insane amount of fire mana into it.\n\nThe terrifying crown on the boy’s head was glowing so brightly that it was hard to look at. The heat radiating from the crown was enough to melt everything within its vicinity.\n\nThe chimera was unlucky enough to be the sole focus of this power.\n\nIt became a battle between an immovable object and an unstoppable force. However, no matter how much healing the chimera had, Isaac knew in his gut that it wouldn’t be enough. These flames that Julius was using were of a different quality than anything he had ever seen.\n\nHe always thought that he was the strongest Tier 3 on the continent. He had too many advantages. He had the Mana Siphon Physique and a powerful Bloodline that made use of this physique to the max, making for a powerful combination that was unstoppable for his tier.\n\nHowever, for the first time in a long time, Isaac felt fear ripple through his body. He didn’t have any confidence in beating Julius, not as he watched the boy torch the insanely strong Tier 4 into oblivion.\n\nIf Isaac didn't know any better. It was like he had just watched the birth of the future Incarnation of Ruin.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 537: Cake Time\nTarget length: ~2100 words\nKey events: level-up occurs"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Julius collapsed to the floor in exhaustion. Every single piece of his body felt like it was coming apart. He was covered in so many burns that he more closely resembled a piece of barbequed meat than a human being. Speaking of meat, he was starving.\n\nHe would take out some food from his storage ring or his lunch box, but at the moment, he wasn’t even able to move his fingers. He was forced to lie on the ground for the time being, desperately trying not to throw up.\n\nHe didn’t know for sure that the chimera was dead. But he felt the last core of the monster melt under the wave of flames, so if it was still alive, Julius was more than okay with conceding this battle to it.\n\nHe let out a sound that was a mix between a groan and a sigh as his body slowly healed the damage. Part of the issue of healing himself was the ruinous flames he used. While they were really good at interfering with the chimera’s own healing, it was that very same ability that prevented him from healing like normal.\n\nStill, he was thankful he had been able to stymie the monster's regeneration. If he hadn’t been able to do that, he didn’t know if he would have been able to overcome it.\n\nNow he knew what it felt like to be fighting someone. Opponents who could self-heal were a pain in the ass. He didn’t want to deal with another half-immortal monster for a long time.\n\nSpeaking of self-healing monsters, he glanced to the side as Isaac stumbled over to him. The other teen had an excited grin on his face, one much too bright for the tired Julius.\n\n“That was crazy. Are you sure you killed it?” Isaac asked, looking over at the crater of melted stone and flesh.\n\nJulius shrugged. “I don’t know. If it’s not dead, then it can kill me. I am too tired to fight anymore.”\n\nIsaac tilted his head and laughed. “Don’t worry. If it is still alive, I will grab you and run away.”\n\n“I didn’t really take you for a person who runs away,” Julius commented as he lay on the ground.\n\n“Eh, my aunt always told me that as long as I tried my best, there is no shame in running and trying again,” Isaac said.\n\n“Hmm. Well, I appreciate the offer. Although I don’t know how retreating will work with the barrier still up,” Julius said with a sigh.\n\n“Oh, it’s coming down now. I think the chimera was an integral part of the barrier. Whoever caused all of this probably used it as a connectional nexus that interlinked the barrier to its own existence. And the condition for it to disappear was probably fulfilled with its death,” Isaac explained.\n\nJulius stared blankly at the musclehead who just said a bunch of words that he barely understood.\n\n“Hmm.” That was all he said, and he looked over at the barrier that was indeed coming down.\n\nHis brain was already half melted, so he didn’t think too hard about it and instead pulled out a sandwich from his lunch box, making sure that he dusted off his ashy fingers.\n\nHe missed his mouth a couple of times, but eventually managed to jam a corner into his mouth. The relief from the food was magical. The life mana infusing into his body also soothed his weary soul.\n\nDrasil suddenly appeared on his shoulder, and without a word, Julius handed his little helper the payment. Drasil cooed a quick thank you and proceeded to munch on it right beside Julius as he placed his tiny hand on Julius’s face, still healing him.\n\nHe was finally feeling a little better. The headache that had been jackhammering his skull was slowly dying down, and he was finally able to wiggle his toes as his legs healed.\n\nHowever, his relief couldn’t last forever. Because Isaac plopped down next to him, drinking some kind of potion.\n\n“Hey, do you wanna spar?”\n\nJulius slowly looked at Isaac with a flat look and back at the carnage behind them.\n\n“I mean, like after you eat,” Isaac said with a placating gesture.\n\nJulius didn’t have the energy to explain to Isaac that that wasn’t the issue and instead decided to ignore the musclehead teen.\n\n***\n\nJulius felt another headache while Isaac kept on inviting him to spar. The guy wouldn’t stop talking either, and Julius was forced to shove small constructs into his ear to block out the sound.\n\nWhile he ignored Isaac, he looked at the flood notifications he felt during the battle, as well as at the end.\n\n[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 22 -> lvl 24]\n\n[Sage of Savagery lvl 25 -> lvl 26]\n\n[Phoenix Renewal lvl 17 -> lvl 19]\n\n[Pyrokinetic Embodiment of Ruin lvl 21 -> lvl 22]\n\n[Absolute Spatial Perception lvl 14 -> lvl 15]\n\n[Inexorable Aura of Ruin lvl 20 -> lvl 22]\n\n[Void Step lvl 11 -> lvl 12]\n\n[Void Strike lvl 8 -> lvl 9]\n\n[Spirit Fortification lvl 9 -> lvl 13]\n\n[Kinetic Energy Refinement lvl 19 -> lvl 20]\n\nHe grinned widely at the long list of notifications of level-ups he received. It was insane and by far the most significant increase in levels he had ever received. One would argue that his early days were larger, but with the higher-ranked skills and the larger number of skills, he would say this would take the cake.\n\nSpeaking of cake. He deserved some cake, so he pulled out a box from his storage ring. Thanks to its numerous enchantments, it had reappeared on his finger with a simple thought. He rubbed his hands together with happiness. He had been saving this cake for a long time. It was from that same shop he and Reinera loved, and he needed to remind himself to go back to Heston to stock up on some more. He could also visit Declan and Rae. Maybe even see Dante if he was still around.\n\nIt seemed like all his skills had leveled up. Some of them more than others. The standout ones were [Armaments of the Arcane], [Phoenix Renewal], [Inexorable Aura of Ruin], and [Spirit Fortification]. They each gained two whole levels, which was ludicrous given how far along Epic ranked them.\n\nFor good reason, too, they were probably the four skills that were the reason for his victory. Without them, he would not have survived. That was how strong the chimera had been. It was undoubtedly the strongest Tier 4 he had ever faced.\n\n[Spirit Fortification] even managed to gain four levels. A very welcome improvement. He could already feel the impact the extra skill levels had made at the end of the battle.\n\nHe also finally got the final level of [Kinetic Energy Refinement]. It was a little surprising that it took this long, but then again, he had only just gotten it, and Cain was still working with him on the skill.\n\nHe wouldn’t be allowed to evolve the skill until Cain said he was ready. It was sad, but he would reluctantly trust the man for the time being. It wasn’t like Cain was one of the best kinetic users on the continent or anything.\n\nThese weren’t the only notifications, either. He had another one waiting for him to look at.\n\nWould you like to learn the skill [Flames of Blight]?\n\nJulius frowned when he read the notification. He wasn’t expecting that kind of skill to be offered. He thought that if anything, he would be offered a skill for that last attack. However, the skill sounded a little different from what he had done.\n\nBlight was different from ruin, at least in his mind. So he was confused why such a skill was being offered. He chewed on his lip while he thought to himself for a few minutes.\n\nHe only stopped when Drasil gave him a stiff poke in the face, pointing out that the cake was still uneaten.\n\nJulius gave his familiar a grateful nod and opened the box that held the holy treasure. The cake looked as fantastic as the last time he ate it.\n\nHe was about to cut himself a nice big slice when he felt the world around him warp. He didn’t even think and simply reacted. It was like instinct as he frantically grabbed the cake and held it close, shielding it with five different barriers.\n\nThen, before he could curse at his shit luck, he was teleported away.\n\n***\n\nHe landed on the hard ground and hurriedly made sure that his cake was alright. Once he did, he let out a sigh of relief. With that being said, he found himself standing in the middle of a very white room with all of the other competitors, who must have been safe once they exited the barrier.\n\nHowever, that wasn’t what worried him. No, he was more concerned about the dozens of armed individuals surrounding them. The only thing that put him somewhat at ease was that these people appeared to be wearing uniforms that identified them as part of the Empire.\n\nThey were all Tier 4 at the very least. A few of them were clearly stronger than that. He saw a group of six of them standing at the front of the room. A young man was at the helm of this group. He looked very familiar and had some of the most beautiful white hair he had seen.\n\nJulius did a double-take because a somewhat older man was standing behind this young man, wearing plain clothes. He did a double-take because his spatial skills had almost completely overlooked this man.\n\nJulius had only looked for the briefest of moments, but the man must have sensed something, and his head snapped to Julius’s. There was a sharp, inquisitive glare for a little bit, but then Julius saw a flash of realization dance across his face, and the older man relaxed before ignoring Julius once again.\n\n“What is going on?” A young man who Julius recognized from the realm asked loudly.\n\n“Yeah, what is going on here? What in the nine hells had happened in there? I thought it was supposed to be a safe and secure realm?” Another girl shouted out in protest.\n\nMore voices started to pop up. However, Julius drowned out these voices and did his best to find his friends. Luckily, the room wasn’t that large, and he found them quickly. He maneuvered his way to them and was relieved when he saw that they were okay.\n\nThey spotted him, and he could see similar relief in their eyes as they closed the distance to him. Aubrey was the first to give him a hug, followed by Edgar and Derek.\n\nHe was about to ask Derek questions about what had happened after they had crossed the barrier when the young man with white hair spoke out, his voice booming loudly throughout the room. His powerful Tier 5 aura flooded the area as well. It wasn’t oppressive, but it was authoritative and quickly silenced everyone.\n\n“I know you all have a lot of questions. I assure you that they will be answered in due time. However, before we do that, we need to get some answers of our own and make sure that there are no more threats to you all. To do that, we need your cooperation. We will be having some of our best healers go around to heal those of you who are injured and to make sure there are no hidden injuries. Please bear with it for now. I promise you that we will get everything situated.”\n\nJulius bumped Derek lightly with his shoulder. “Who is that?”\n\nDerek, who had a slight frown on his face, looked over at Julius.\n\n“That’s Jaxson Luminous, the Crown Prince of the Luminous Empire,” Derek informed him.\n\n“Ah,” Julius said and nodded slowly.\n\nSo this was Reinera’s brother. It was no wonder he looked familiar; he should have connected the similar hair colors himself.\n\nJulius was curious about the reason why the Crown Prince was here. He was also much more interested in knowing why they had been transported here instead of the arena from which they had entered the realm.\n\nWhat had happened inside the realm? And how big a deal was it?\n\nJulius sighed to himself—so many questions and not enough answers.\n\nOn the bright side, he could finally have some time to enjoy his cake.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 538: Aftermath\nTarget length: ~2100 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The incident turned out to be a major issue. Not only were there a lot of Empire soldiers around, but there were many other organizations, noble houses, and other groups all aggressively asking what had happened.\n\nFor the time being, the Empire was being relatively quiet about it. Julius suspected they wanted to keep most of the information to themselves before they issued a report on what happened.\n\nHowever, it was bound that people inside the realm would report back to their families or groups.\n\nIn the meantime, Julius and his friends found themselves getting “healed” by the Empire’s healers. Julius didn’t think they were actually too concerned with healing.\n\nWell… perhaps that was a bit unfair.\n\nHowever, it might have been more accurate to say that wasn’t their entire motive. He said this because the healers, along with some others, were doing a rather intrusive delve into his body and soul. Or they tried to.\n\nHe didn’t let them get very far. He had learned enough about that kind of stuff that he could protect himself, or at the very least, limit the information they got. Instead of examining his body, they seemed concerned with his soul, and he wasn’t comfortable with how touchy they were getting.\n\nIt was as if they were interested in whatever they had sensed during their cursory scans. He didn’t know what it was, but he started to think about how he would get out of this and looked at the exits of the room.\n\nHe kept slapping their probes away. He brushed them off, telling them that he was fine and that he had already healed himself. However, they didn’t listen to him and insisted on taking a closer look.\n\nHe spotted the man off to the side, sent some kind of signal to someone, and narrowed his eyes. It would appear that he was beginning to attract some suspicion. He didn’t want that, but he also didn’t want them to take a closer look either.\n\nHe had a lot of secrets in his soul and didn’t want any of them poking around any further than they already had. Unfortunately, it would appear that they wanted some answers, and he spotted one of the Tier 5s walk over to him and his friends.\n\nSpeaking of his friends. They were scanned as he had been, but the people must not have found anything out of the ordinary, and let them be. Now Derek, Aubrey, and Edgar were all looking with furrowed brows when they saw how much attention Julius was getting.\n\nThe Tier 5 woman stopped in front of Julius, and he felt her use her senses to probe him. She appeared young, but there was a mature air about her. Her dark brown hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head, and her uniform was perfectly ironed.\n\nAnd while she looked mature, he saw that there were small creases around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, as if she smiled a lot. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like she was in a smiling mood at the moment. She walked up to him and gave him a flat stare before looking at her personnel.\n\n“What seems to be the problem here?” She asked them.\n\n“He is refusing to allow us to examine him,” one of the healers said to her.\n\n“Refusing? You are a Tier 4, and he is a Tier 3; just ignore his defenses and get it over with. There is a lot of stuff we need to do, and we can’t afford to waste time,” she said with a cold stare at the healer.\n\nThe healer shuffled their feet. “I’m sorry, Lady Anna, but I can’t.”\n\n“Can’t?” She said slowly, but Julius could feel some of her impatience starting to show.\n\nThe healer wilted and glanced at Julius. “His willpower is really strong. He won’t let me in.”\n\nLady Anna, the Tier 5, finally turned her attention to him. “Why are you resisting?”\n\nHe kept a neutral expression on his face and responded as politely as he could. “I don’t feel comfortable with someone rummaging in my soul. I am fine, and I don’t need any healing. If this is for our benefit, like we were told, then it shouldn’t be a problem.”\n\nLady Anna stayed silent for a few brief moments and looked over at his friends for a little bit before turning back to him. “It seems you have already somewhat understood the situation. You are correct. We are not just looking to heal people. We are trying to figure out whether someone amongst you or your fellow competitors has been involved, either intentionally or accidentally, in the sabotage the Empire has just experienced. Since you don’t want to be investigated and have continuously rebuked the probes, that means you are also a suspicious individual.”\n\n“Lady Anna, I can assure you that Julius had nothing to do with what happened inside the realm. If anything, he is the reason why we were able to get out safely. He and Riven Briarwood held open a small hole in the barrier for the rest of us to escape,” Derek said to the woman firmly.\n\nLady Anna slowly turned to Derek. “I understand your loyalty to your friends, Young Zenith, but this is official Empire business as much as I would like to take your word. I need to do my due diligence.”\n\nDerek clearly wanted to argue, but in the face of her fair response, he wasn’t able to. Julius didn’t see much of a problem with her either. He understood where she was coming from. After all, she was just trying to do her job.\n\nShe returned her attention to Julius. “Now, it is evident that you are hesitant to show us your soul and aura, but that is an issue. Would you be willing to come with me so that we can discuss this in private in case anything sensitive comes out?”\n\nHe didn’t find that all unreasonable. The only worry he had was whether or not her intentions were in his best interest. Being out in public gave him a certain level of security.\n\nHis thoughts must have shown on his face because she nodded at him. “If you want to bring your friends with you, I will not have any problems with that. In fact, it would be more efficient to get a better picture of what happened. Plus, you can be more comfortable since Young Zenith will be with you,” she added.\n\n“You’re saying that you won’t try anything because you are scared of offending Derek’s family?” Julius half-joked.\n\nShe didn’t hesitate and nodded. “Everyone is scared of offending House Zenith. Duke Zenith is not a man you want to make enemies of. If the Empire hurts his precious grandson, there will be blood to pay. Nobody wants that.”\n\nHe wasn’t expecting her to answer so straightforwardly. He looked at his friends to see if they had any objections or things to say, but they were looking at him to see what he would decide.\n\nHe sighed and nodded at Lady Anna. “Okay, lead the way. Let’s make sure you know I am not some mind-controlled spy sent from an enemy country.”\n\nShe didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, that would be wonderful. However, if you were an agent sent from an enemy group, then I would have to rip off your limbs and beat you with them. It wouldn’t matter if you were friends with Young Zenith or not,” she said in a way too joyful tone that it was scary.\n\nIt was also clear that she was joking, but the viciousness of it surprised him.\n\n***\n\nShe took them down a hall and past another dozen or so guards surrounding the room. It was chaos, and he saw many representatives from various groups all trying to get past the barrier the Empire had set up.\n\nAnna had already created some kind of field around them. He suspected it was some kind of stealth skill that hid their presence, judging by how it bent the light around them.\n\nEventually, they entered a small private room where a bunch of nice furniture was laid out. It looked like someone’s office or something.\n\nShe removed her jacket, placing it on the back of her chair, and sat down with a tired sag of her shoulders.\n\n“So I have heard you are involved with the conclave. Is that correct?” she asked him accusingly, staring deep into his eyes.\n\nHe looked right back at her, not breaking eye contact. How'd she know that? Not many people knew that sort of information. He walked over and pulled out a seat for Aubrey to sit down before sitting down next to her.\n\n“Yes, I am,” he said simply, deciding it was better to be honest at least for now.\n\n“In what capacity?”\n\n“I had a few run-ins with them.”\n\n“I need more than that.”\n\n“I am not friends with them if that is what you are worried about. In fact, they have tried to kill me in the past. But if you want more information, you are not getting that. At least not for free,” he said with a calm expression.\n\nHe felt something very subtle ping from her side of the table. It was so minor that he would attribute it to some kind of standard mana pulse from various enchantments.\n\nHowever, his mind was still wired to the max since his fight wasn’t too long ago. It was like every one of his senses was in overdrive.\n\n“What was that?” He asked her, not bothering to hide that he felt something. If he was going to be straightforward with her, he wanted her to be straightforward with him.\n\nShe showed a hint of surprise for the first time, but hid it well. “What do you mean?” She asked.\n\n“Is it some kind of device that detects whether or not I am telling the truth?” He guessed blindly.\n\nShe narrowed her eyes at him and slowly nodded. “Yeah. I am surprised you sensed that. Your profile did say you had very acute senses, but it’s made to be very discreet.”\n\nHe shrugged, glad that she was being honest so far, and so he reciprocated that a little bit. “I got lucky, and I am a little paranoid after my recent fight.”\n\nShe nodded. “Yes, that is what I wanted to ask you about. From what I have gathered, you and Isaac Draven were alone inside the barrier, fighting the chimera. Is that accurate?”\n\nHe nodded. “Yeah, that’s about the gist of it.”\n\n“Can you give me a memory shard of the fight?” She asked him.\n\nHe didn’t know what a memory shard was, but he didn’t like the sound of it and shook his head. “No, I would rather not.”\n\n“Did you see who was responsible for it?” She asked him, not surprised by his reluctance, and changed the topic.\n\nHe shook his head. “No, I got a notification about some interference, but that was about it.”\n\n“You don’t have any clues or suspicions on who it might be?”\n\n“Not really,” he said with a slight frown, but noticed that the device she was using to test whether he was being truthful or not gave a different signal than other times he had responded.\n\n“Who do you suspect?” She asked, leaning forward.\n\nHe sighed and leaned his chin on the table. “At first, I suspected Garrett, but from his reaction, he seemed very shocked and scared at the events unfolding. He is either a magnificent actor, or he genuinely didn’t know.”\n\n“You suspect that Garrett Greyson is allied with the Conclave?”\n\n“Suspected, and I’m curious why you don’t think so. If you gathered information about me, you surely would have known that House Greyson has been dabbling with the Conclave,” Julius said, not being fooled by her playing dumb.\n\nThere was a reason why she had mentioned the Conclave so early. It was likely that she already knew about the conflict between him and them, but simply wanted confirmation.\n\nShe smiled but didn’t confirm or deny the connection. “So who do you think it was?”\n\nJulius stared at her with a serious look of his own. “I noticed that I did not see Casey Vale exit the trial with us.”\n\nHe looked at her, trying to see if he got a reaction. And he did.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed it!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 539: Time Together\nTarget length: ~2100 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "He noticed straight away that mentioning her name didn’t seem to shock Anna; if anything, she seemed like she expected something like that to come out of his mouth.\n\n“You think it might be her as well,” he noted and leaned back.\n\nAnna shrugged. “Maybe. We don’t know enough information yet.”\n\nDerek hummed from beside Julius. “It would make sense. Of all the people, she might have a connection to the Conclave and is a relatively new and unknown person.”\n\n“You too?” Julius asked his friend.\n\nDerek shrugged. “I can’t say for certain, but she is definitely suspicious.”\n\nJulius was about to say something to Anna, but the door suddenly opened and one of the other Tier 5s who had been next to Anna previously walked into the room. The man, wearing the same uniform as Anna, looked at his colleague.\n\n“You are needed elsewhere, Anna,” the man said without so much as glancing at Julius or his friends.\n\n“I am busy here, Franklin. Tell them they can either wait or have someone else handle it,” she said, waving at him to leave.\n\n“It wasn’t a request, Anna. It was an order directly from the Royal Family,\" Franklin said calmly.\n\nAnna shifted her jaw and took a slow, deep breath. “Fine,” she said while getting up and grabbing her jacket.\n\n“Please remain here for the time being. I wish to talk with you before I let you go,” she said to him.\n\nJulius shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay around. I need to do some stuff.”\n\nShe laughed at him and smiled, as if amused. “I wasn’t exactly asking. I can’t let you leave until I question you a little more.”\n\n“So I’m a prisoner?” He asked with a frown.\n\n“Hey, don’t forget we are here with you,” Aubrey pointed out.\n\nHe looked at her and nodded. “So we are all prisoners?” He amended.\n\nShe chuckled. “Don’t be so dramatic. There is a lot of room for you to relax and recover. Your mana channels are clearly strained; you could use some rest. Plus, there are nice snacks in that cabinet over there,” she said, pointing at the large wood cabinet off to the side. “You are more than welcome to help yourselves. I promise I won’t be long.”\n\nBefore he could argue again, she was already striding out of the room with the other man following behind her. The door slammed shut, and Julius heard Aubrey grunt unhappily.\n\n“This wasn’t how I was expecting the second stage to go,” she said with a pout.\n\n“Are you surprised? I learned that anything that Julius is a part of usually ends up in shambles,” Edgar noted with a grin.\n\n“That’s not very nice,” Julius said and slouched into his chair.\n\nDerek, on the other hand, was already going over to the cabinet where Anna had said there was some food. He grabbed a selection of snacks and handed them all something. Julius took the food gratefully.\n\nIt wasn’t cake, but it was something at least.\n\nThey all went over to the couch and collapsed into the soft cushions. He moaned at the softness of the sofa, feeling it envelop his body like a warm hug. He looked at the couch greedily. He wondered if they would mind if he stole the couch before he left.\n\nHe was interrupted in his relaxation when Aubrey’s feet whacked him in the chest. He pushed them away. “Get those smelly things out of here.”\n\n“They aren’t smelly,” she said defensively.\n\n“Oh yeah? When’s the last time you took a shower?” He pointed out.\n\n“I took a bath, remember,” she said with a proud smile.\n\nHe lifted a finger and put it down. She was right, she had taken a bath. He didn’t know if that counted, but it was technically accurate.\n\nShe wiggled them in his face, and before he could snap at them like he was Seraphyne, the door opened.\n\n“Oh, that was quick—” Julius said, trailing off as he looked over at the door. His mouth stayed open when he saw who was there.\n\nHer gorgeous white hair was as it had always been. However, just like he had noticed the other time he had seen her, there was something different about her. He couldn’t put his finger on what that exactly was, though.\n\nRegardless, he didn’t know what to do, so he just waved awkwardly at Reinera.\n\n“Hey,” he said lamely and offered the food in his hand to her. “You want to join us for some snacks?”\n\nHer face, which had her usual princess look on it, shook by the smallest of margins. However, that was all it took for it to come crumbling down. The bright smile he had come to know slowly appeared on her face, and she walked over to him. To his surprise, she actually took his food and bit into it.\n\nHe stood there in shock. He hadn’t actually thought she would accept his offer. He also wanted to eat that, and somewhat regretted offering it to her. He had forgotten that she was as much a glutton as Drasil.\n\nWhen she passed it back to him, all that was left was a small nibble, not even enough for him to have one full bite.\n\n“I see your appetite hasn’t changed,” he commented.\n\n“You are the one who offered it to me,” she said with a light smile, and looked over at where the others were looking at their interaction.\n\n“Hey,” she said with a shy wave.\n\nAubrey was the first to come over and wrap Reinera in a tight hug, dragging her over to the couch and having her sit down next to them all.\n\n“I was wondering if we would get to see you. Has your family been keeping you away from us?” Aubrey asked.\n\nReinera folded her hands in her lap and shook her head. “No, they actually support my relationship with you guys. Even my more stubborn family members don’t have many objections. It doesn’t hurt that you all have quite impressive backgrounds.”\n\n“Me?” Julius and Edgar asked at the same time.\n\nReinera laughed. “Yes, even you two. With how close you are with Lily, Aubrey, and Derek, people have already grouped you with them.”\n\n“Oh,” Edgar said with a thoughtful expression on his face.\n\n“Wait a minute, why are you here?” Julius asked, finally realizing that her appearance was odd.\n\n“I heard there was something wrong with the second stage. Then I heard that Anna was questioning you, so I came down here to see what was going on.”\n\n“Were you the one who asked Anna to leave?” Derek asked.\n\nReinera wore a smug smile. “Maybe.”\n\n“So what now?” Julius asked, amused, shaking his head.\n\n“Well, technically, I am supposed to get some answers, but we can catch up a little bit before we get into the serious stuff,” she said with a smile. “So how have you guys been? It feels like forever since I have seen you guys.”\n\n“Oh, you know, the usual. We almost got killed a few times and whatnot, so pretty typical,” Aubrey said with a shrug.\n\n“What?” Reinera asked with raised eyebrows.\n\n“Yeah, but I blame Julius. I think fate wants him dead or something, and we are just along for the ride.”\n\n“That isn’t true,” Julius said with a roll of his eyes.\n\n“Oh yeah? Then what about the Endless Forest?”\n\n“They weren’t even after me,” he pointed out.\n\nShe was about to argue, but realized that it was true and backed down. “Okay, fair. But you have to admit that you are a magnet for trouble.”\n\nHe couldn’t even say anything against that either. It was true.\n\nReinera looked confused but interrupted their little back-and-forth. “Okay, can you guys tell me what happened? I wouldn’t normally rush you guys, but it seems that the monster you guys were attacked by wasn’t the only incident in the realm.”\n\n“What other problems were there?”\n\n“The array that maintains the realm is damaged. This means that we won’t be able to use the realm like normal for at least a couple of years, depending on the extent of the damage. We are still evaluating how bad it is,” she explained.\n\n“What is so bad about that? Doesn’t that just mean you won’t be able to use the realm for the tournament and such?” Julius asked with a frown.\n\n“Not only that, but there are some unique features and benefits we receive from the realm. Without access, we will be hindered for the next couple of years. Whoever did this has been planning this for a long time. They managed to infiltrate our defenses and sneak their way in,” Reinera added.\n\n“And what? You guys think it's the Conclave?” He asked.\n\n“Maybe, but we think some other countries or organizations are involved as well.”\n\n“That sucks,” he said while biting his lower lip. The Conclave was already a big pain. He really didn’t want to deal with even more interested parties.\n\nSpeaking of the Conclave, he still hadn’t heard from Edwin yet. He had been supposed to contact House Violet or House Zenith, but there hasn’t been any word as of yet. Julius was worried something might have happened.\n\n“No offense, but I don’t know how much of a help I will be. I fought the chimera, but honestly, I don’t have much valuable information. And to be honest, I don’t really want to leave your family with a memory of the fight. I really don’t need them having all of that sensitive information,” he said to her.\n\nShe waved his concerns away. “Don’t worry about that. You shouldn’t have to divulge any information about your skills. I will make sure that you don’t have to. But can you tell me about what the monster was like at the very least? Like what kind of skills it used and the overall strength of it?”\n\nHe didn’t see a problem with that. He wasn’t the only person who saw the chimera, but maybe what he knew might help them figure out who was behind all of this, and so he told her mostly everything.\n\nWhen he was finished, she looked at him with a look of disbelief. “You still somehow can surprise me,” she said with a chuckle.\n\n“What?” He asked in confusion.\n\n“A powerful Tier 4 with regenerative capabilities? Sounds like an absolute nightmare to deal with. And you took care of it yourself?”\n\n“Well, Isaac was there,” he added.\n\n“God, I almost forgot how monstrously strong you are,” she said with a grin.\n\n“You’re one to talk. It seems like you have already advanced to Tier 4,” he said to her with a shake of his head.\n\nHer eyes widened. “ You can tell? How did you know?” She asked in surprise.\n\n“I didn’t, but now I do,” he said with a shit eating grin. He hadn’t been a hundred percent certain, but there were too many weird signs from her aura. At first, he was nervous that she was an imposter, but the closer he inspected her aura and body, he realized that something had changed within her.\n\nSomething powerful and dangerous was brimming just underneath the surface.\n\n“You already advanced to Tier 4?” Aubrey asked in astonishment.\n\nReinera turned and nodded at Aubrey. “Yeah, when I arrived back at the Capital, my family sensed that I was ready to awaken my bloodline and forced me to advance. I wear a shroud that hides it, but as you showed, it doesn’t always work.”\n\n“I wonder if this means you can finally beat me,” Julius said with a challenging grin.\n\nHe saw her eyes shimmer with amusement. “Oh, trust me, I got very strong. I don’t know if you and all your broken skills can beat me with all the advantages I have now.”\n\nHe tilted his head. “Advantages?”\n\nShe chuckled. “Yeah, my bloodline gave me quite a powerful boost when I advanced to Tier 4.”\n\nJulius felt his heart race a little bit when he saw how confident she looked. Perhaps, they would have to spar a little bit in the near future. He wanted to know if she could back up her words.\n\nHowever, that was an idea for later. For now, he would just enjoy their time together and worry about that stuff another day.\n\n\nThank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!\n\n\nAlso, just a reminder that there is now a Discord Server available for those who wanted it :)"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nBecoming the Dark Lord — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Luke jolted awake, his cheek tingling from having fallen asleep with his face on the ground. His mind was a storm, thoughts tangled and scattered. He glanced around, heart pounding. This... wasn’t his house.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Luke | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: He, Points, Luke’s\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Magnetic Return (Rare), Servant of the Dark Lord (Unique), Notice: Approaching First Floor, Basic Blade Handling (Common), Heavy Strike, You have learned a Class Skill, Servant of the Dark Lord, Basic Chameleon Skin (Uncommon)); stats (Perception, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility, Vitality)\nSystem notification style: \"System’s Annual Integration!]\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (5% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 253: The Faceless Assassin\nTarget length: ~2500 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke stood inside the second fortress of the mechanism, though not in the central stronghold itself. He had chosen one of the side courtyards, the only part of the compound where the ground wasn’t paved over in solid concrete. After escaping the Safe Zone, he had come straight here. Time was already pressing against him. They were probably still hunting for him back in the Safe Zone, and this was the only window of opportunity he’d get.\n\nHe was digging. Both he and Charlie. A wide, deep hole. The side yard had real soil instead of stone, and Luke figured that in Bastion’s version of this fortress, it was probably where Bartholomew kept his private little farm.\n\n“Hey, Luke. You’re sweating. Maybe take off your shirt?” Artemis teased.\n\n“I’m not falling for that.”\n\n“It’s not a trick, man, I’m actually concerned. Right, Charlie?”\n\nCharlie froze mid-dig, and through their bond Luke felt the faint ripple of embarrassment from her.\n\n“Leave Charlie alone,” Luke muttered. “She’s pure. Don’t contaminate her.”\n\n“Please. It’s always the quiet ones you gotta watch,” Artemis snickered.\n\nLuke ignored her and moved on. Once the digging was done, he began circling the fortress, firing arrows at the magical alarms fixed to the outer walls. Each one shattered under his shots. He knew they would regenerate in twenty-four hours, constructs of pure mana, but for now, the path was clear. By the time he finished, nothing living lingered anywhere near the structure. He returned to the front gate, pulled out his worn notebook, and flipped it open.\n\nActivating the second mechanism meant triggering the fortress’s event mission. Which in turn meant killing the boss: the Midnight Warden Captain. The Captain wouldn’t come alone. He’d bring an entire host of Wardens with him, and while Luke out-leveled them by a wide margin, he knew better than to underestimate sheer numbers.\n\n“A man can swat one bee without thinking,” he murmured to himself. “But a man won’t last long against a swarm.”\n\nThe Warden Captain was level 70 and, on top of that, had the power of invisibility. A dangerous combination. But in a straight-up fight, Luke knew he could handle it. He had racked up profession levels, earned ten Uncommon arrows, and now could even generate Rare ones. The grind of the last two weeks hadn’t been wasted.\n\nBut the truth was, he had no interest in fighting that monster himself. He didn’t care about the experience points it would yield. His true goal was far more important: Charlie needed to land the kill.\n\nShe was lagging badly behind. Barely level 30 in her race, level 34 in her class, and her second class hovering in the low thirties. In short, she was weak compared to him. Pathetically weak. And it was his fault. He had neglected her growth to focus on his own. Worse, the dual-class system she carried split her experience gains, bleeding her progress even thinner. Every time Luke stole the finishing blow, every time he soaked up the lion’s share of the XP, she fell further and further behind.\n\nThe gap between them had grown into a chasm. Right now, he looked like a tank, and she looked like a support that couldn’t keep up. That left him with a dilemma. He could kill the monster himself and maybe squeeze out three more levels, though at his stage, that wasn’t much. Or he could let Princess Charlie land the finishing blow on a level 70 monster and watch her harvest an avalanche of experience.\n\nThat was the real plan. Push her straight to level 50 in both classes. That would turn her into a powerhouse, stacking new skills from Death Knight and Pugilist until she became something terrifying. The arrows, the digging, the damned pit, it was all for this. A gift. He was going to hand Charlie the death of a monster on a silver platter.\n\nHe already knew what it meant to be this strong past level 50. Now imagine Charlie. He was an assassin, not a tank. No heavy armor, no fortress of steel to hide behind. But Charlie? Give her both classes over fifty, pile on that obscene gear she carried, and she wouldn’t just be strong. She’d be a nightmare for anyone foolish enough to stand in her way. Everything had revolved around that possibility from the start. His entire plan had one purpose: turn Princess Charlie into a walking calamity.\n\n“I’m calling it Operation Skyfall,” he told Artemis after laying it all out while the two of them stared into the pit.\n\n“That’s a solid name,” she replied. “Though it feels… I don’t know, suspiciously unoriginal.”\n\n“You’re imagining things.”\n\nHis role was simple: drag the Warden Captain out of the fortress, tilt the odds, and keep it contained. Charlie’s role was simpler still, kill it.\n\nLuke drew a long breath, stepped back into the hole, and kept digging.\n\n\n***\n\n\n“Alright, that’s basically it,” Luke muttered, eyes fixed on the table.\n\nHe had turned one of the abandoned houses facing the fortress into a makeshift base. Spread across the wooden surface were notes and hand-drawn maps, sketches he’d been working on ever since he first scouted the second fortress.\n\nThe plan was simple in theory: separate the Warden Captain from his guards, draw him into a chase, and bleed him out away from support. The problem was that the monster wasn’t some brainless sack of rot, it was a military strategist, a zombie commander. It wouldn’t just wander outside into open ground and walk into Luke’s trap. That was why Luke hadn’t set foot inside the fortress again since his first infiltration. He didn’t want to risk showing his hand, making the creature realize he’d grown stronger, and forcing it to adjust its tactics for the future.\n\nNo, he needed the Warden Captain locked in his same defensive routine. Predictable. Stationary. When the operation began, Luke’s plan wasn’t to lure the boss out, but to pull him deeper inside. He would use the staircase near the mechanism chamber, let the Warden Captain think he had the upper hand, and then turn the whole fortress against him.\n\nThat was why Luke had been mapping Bastion nonstop. In the middle of chaos, there’d be no time to flip through notes. He’d either memorize every path and passage… or lean on Artemis to guide him.\n\n“Your incredible mind, your ability to devour books in seconds, your spectacular genius, think you can actually help me?”\n\n“Flattery doesn’t work on me the way it does on human women,” Artemis replied. “But food? That works fine. For every single minute we survive in there, you owe me one full meal.”\n\n“One meal per minute? That’s robbery.”\n\n“Oh, should I make it per second instead?”\n\n“…Fine. First deal it is.”\n\nHe had no choice but to accept. He needed to reach the marked ‘X’ on his map with the Warden Captain breathing down his neck.\n\n“And don’t think you can just toss me a can,” Artemis added. “I want real food on a plate. Something cooked. I expect to be treated like a little princess.”\n\n“You’re getting demanding.”\n\nLuke leaned back in the chair, sighing, then turned to his dinner. He heated a can of beans, fried up eggs, even bacon, supplies scavenged from weekly chests scattered through the Wild Zone. He plated one serving for himself and another for Artemis.\n\n“Consider this an advance payment,” he said, holding the dish toward her.\n\n“Accepted.” The moment he placed it near the collar, the plate shimmered out of sight, tucked away into her pocket dimension.\n\nLuke pushed his chair to the veranda, eyes locked on the looming silhouette of the second fortress. He bit into a bacon-and-egg sandwich, chewing slowly as he studied the walls.\n\n“No one from Bastion has shown up to look for me yet.”\n\n“They probably think you’re still hiding in the city,” Artemis replied. “Or Bartholomew figures no one, least of all you, could ever finish the fortress event.”\n\n“He’s not wrong,” Luke said. “Why bother stationing guards? To him it’s untouchable. That’s why Marshall never tried to seize it either, not after Angelica’s brother and his whole team were wiped out. Too risky. Too expensive.”\n\nLuke took another bite of his sandwich.\n\n“Getting nervous, human?” Franky’s voice hissed from inside the collar.\n\n“Well, look who decided to speak again,” Artemis drawled. “The little rebel of the group.”\n\n“I’m not a little rebel!” Franky snapped. “And I’m not part of your group!”\n\n“The child’s cranky. Should we put him in time-out?” Artemis teased.\n\n“You gluttonous woman, you’re going to get fat.”\n\n“F-fat?” Her voice sharpened instantly. “You bastard! Who the hell are you to say that to me? You shit-snake!”\n\n“I’m not a shit-snake!” he hissed back.\n\n“Both of you, cut it out,” Luke muttered.\n\n“He started it!”\n\n“She started it!”\n\nThe two voices overlapped, bickering like children. Luke pressed a hand over his face and sighed. “I must be cursed.”\n\nHis eyes drifted to the collar. “Listen, snake, I’m about to do something dangerous in a few hours. Don’t start getting on my nerves now.”\n\n“For someone who bragged about killing me, you sure sound worried,” Franky shot back.\n\n“I didn’t brag about your death,” Luke replied evenly. “And I’m not worried. I’m preparing something to help an ally get stronger.”\n\nHe went back to eating.\n\n“Besides, snake. You saw my fight in the city today, didn’t you? That arrow I crafted? It created an acid cloud.”\n\n“…Yeah. I saw,” Franky muttered.\n\nThe snake fell silent.\n\n“Well? Nothing to say?” Luke asked.\n\n“What do you want me to say?”\n\n“Something like, ‘Human, that was amazing. Can I be your familiar now?’” Luke answered, mimicking the pompous tone of the Beast Lord.\n\nFranky clicked his tongue. “I’ll never be your friend!”\n\nLuke scooped a spoonful of beans into his mouth. “Did you hear that guy scream when I splashed acid in his face? Pretty satisfying, wasn’t it?”\n\nFranky stayed quiet.\n\n“Come on, admit it. You thought it was cool,” Luke pressed. “Or do you not like acid?”\n\n“Of c-course I like acid!” Franky snapped.\n\n“Then was it cool or not?”\n\n“…Maybe it was a little cool,” Franky finally admitted. “But I’m still not your friend.”\n\nLuke smirked. “Guess it is kind of funny throwing acid at enemies. Makes sense now why you once said you’d laugh while I melted alive in your acid.”\n\n“Yes. That would’ve been hilarious,” Franky said without hesitation.\n\n“You’re both sick,” Artemis muttered.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLandon walked toward a quieter stretch along the edge of the Safe Zone. Few people lingered there. The houses here were abandoned, half-collapsed remnants of old invasions. Even with the new walls that had gone up in recent months, nobody in their right mind would live in the first place to get hit during an attack, or in a spot so easy for criminals to reach.\n\nLandon had come for one man. The contractor who wanted James dead. When he arrived, he slipped a folded letter from his pocket. That was how they handled things: a note left behind with the location of the next meeting. Even though they already knew each other, the man was a notorious criminal. If anyone ever saw a Bastion soldier like him speaking face to face with someone like that, it would be the end of him.\n\nHe pushed open the door carefully, stepped inside, and shut it behind him. The place was pitch-black. Landon pulled a lantern from his storage, sparked it to life with fire magic, and crossed the room. At the fireplace, he reached into a hidden hollow in the stone and slid the letter inside.\n\n“Hello, Landon,” a voice said.\n\nHe nearly dropped the lantern, stumbling backward.\n\n“Shit, Scott!” He clutched his chest, heart pounding.\n\n“Seems you were planning to arrange a meeting,” Scott said calmly. “Convenient. I was hoping to talk to you as well.”\n\nLandon set the lantern on a crooked table.\n\n“You screwed me, Scott! You sent me after a dangerous bastard, and I lost my men for it!” His anger cracked through his words. Part of him wanted to kill Scott right there, but the man was a thunder mage, one of the dangerous ones.\n\n“I want the damn items you promised,” Landon growled.\n\n“You turned over James’s real identity. Luke, wasn’t it?” Scott replied, setting a helmet and a gauntlet on the table. Payment.\n\n“You knew that little bastard was Luke?” Landon’s jaw clenched, fury twisting his face.\n\nScott sighed. “You made a mistake, Landon. You should never have raised an alarm about him.”\n\nMistake? This guy’s insane.\n\nLandon decided then. He’d take the gear, then take Scott’s head. Bastion still had a bounty on him.\n\n“Well, in the end you got what you wanted, didn’t you?” Landon’s voice was low, bitter. “James is being hunted by the Safe Zone. Within hours, he’ll be a dead man. There’s nowhere left for him to run.”\n\nHe stood in silence, watching as Scott rummaged through storage. One by one, the man laid out the spoils, a pair of daggers, a battered boot, the gleam of a dented breastplate. The steel caught the faint light, cold and merciless.\n\n“Anything missing from our deal?” Scott finally asked, gesturing toward the grim display.\n\nLandon stepped closer, eyes narrowing as he took stock. His lips pressed into a thin line. “The sword,” he muttered. He turned, and steel kissed his throat.\n\nFor an instant he didn’t comprehend the heat spreading across his neck. Then the blade slid deeper, and his breath caught in a wet gasp.\n\nScott yanked the weapon free. Landon staggered, instinct seizing him. His hand flared with desperate fire, hurling a blazing orb that smashed into Scott’s chest and hurled the man backward.\n\nNo… not here. I can’t die here!\n\nClutching his bleeding throat, he seared the wound shut with a burst of flame. The smell of burning flesh filled the room as he staggered, desperate. From storage he yanked a healing potion, downed it, and started coughing violently.\n\nHe stumbled into another room, hacking blood, when something slammed into his back. Pain flared. He turned, dazed, to see Scott advancing with two swords. With a smooth spin, one pierced Landon’s gut and the other rammed through his mouth.\n\n“Bastard…” Landon choked as he crumpled.\n\nHis thoughts fractured. Scott was supposed to be a mage. Why the hell was he wielding twin blades? Landon fumbled toward his storage bracelet, but Scott’s boot crushed his hand.\n\n“You shouldn’t have exposed Luke,” Scott said coldly. “I needed him distracted, not warned.”\n\nThe blades burned inside him, fire gnawing his insides. The last thing Landon saw was Scott raising a hand to his face, then peeling it away. Skin tore like fabric. The man removed his own face as though it were a mask."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 254: Death Behind the Mask\nTarget length: ~3200 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Night had fallen, but Luke hadn’t stepped into the fortress. No one from Bastion had come after him either, which was strange. Still, it gave him time to do what he always did before facing something new: train.\n\nDelaying the mission meant sharpening himself and, more importantly, preparing Princess Charlie. She needed to master Force Infusion. If she was going to duel the Warden Captain, she had to be ready for it. Luke passed her on the training grounds. Charlie was hacking at rocks, cleaving through trees, her sword cutting with raw power. At her current strength she could already manage that much, but with Force Infusion flowing through her, her destructive potential was terrifying.\n\nShe charged with her blade raised and slammed into a half-collapsed structure. Stone burst apart, chunks flying in every direction. Luke analyzed the display with a cold eye. The Wardens’ ability to hurl their spears with such brutal speed and power was likely tied to a skill similar to Force Infusion. That explained why, back when he was weaker, he’d seen them carve through squads like butchered cattle. They were masters of stamina manipulation. And, ironically enough, it was that very skill he’d used to kill his first Warden.\n\nWhile Charlie trained, Luke hunted. A guttural roar split the air. Charging at him was a pack of enormous crocodiles. He remembered them from his days fleeing the orc general, beasts like these had once guarded the dam he destroyed.\n\n[Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n\n[Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n\n[Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\nEven at level thirty, their sheer size made them dangerous. Luke sprinted across the terrain, the monsters barreling after him, and focused on what he really wanted: testing the limits of his Acid Blood Arrow.\n\nHe conjured one in his hand, drew back, and fired. The arrow hit the ground ahead of the charging crocodiles. A hiss split the air as a green mist erupted, swallowing them whole. The creatures shrieked, thrashing in agony, their armored hides bubbling and splitting open.\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\nThe third one hurled itself into the river, vanishing beneath the surface.\n\n“Smart creatures…” Luke muttered.\n\nThe river boiled with life. It was swarming with crocodiles now, likely left unchecked ever since the orcs abandoned the lowlands for the mountains. No one remained to cull the threat.\n\nLuke conjured another arrow in his palm, studying it carefully. He’d learned his boundaries: three in quick succession. Push for a fourth, and his heart screamed in pain. Worse, he couldn’t store them. They weren’t items; they were mana given form. The arrows rejected storage, dissolved if placed in his storage item, and faded within ten minutes if left unused. He couldn’t even keep them in his quiver. There was another problem he hadn’t ignored, the cost.\n\nEach blood arrow devoured a thousand mana. An absurd, dangerous price to pay in any real fight. For a moment, he realized just how reckless he’d been back in the Safe Zone, firing them off without even tracking his mana reserves. If he had bottomed out, things could have gone very, very badly.\n\nHis mana pool was 4500. Four arrows alone were enough to leave him with little mana left, the bar dipping close to empty. That was the curse of an epic skill: overwhelming power, paid for in blood and spirit. Each shot drained 100 HP from his own body, and his heart could only withstand conjuring three arrows in quick succession. And on top of that, there was the high mana cost.\n\nThey weren’t weapons to be used freely. They were trump cards, meant for moments that demanded a killing blow. He weighed the limitations and found himself almost grateful the price in blood wasn’t worse. A hundred HP per arrow was dangerous, sure, but if it had demanded a thousand instead of mana? He would’ve written the skill off as worthless, an epic skill wasted on something he’d never dare use.\n\nIf only the system displayed mana costs when presenting skill choices. That single detail would make every decision so much easier in the future.\n\nStill, it wasn’t all bad. The cost was steep, yes, but the destruction those arrows unleashed more than justified it. And, as a bonus, being rare-tier meant they could also be amplified through Mana Infusion. He pulled up his system interface.\n\nName: Luke\n\nLevel: 47\n\nRace: Half-Demon\n\nRank: F\n\nClass: [Demonic Predator (Lvl 57)]\n\nProfession: [Guardian Botanist of Mother Freya (Lvl 60)]\n\nTitles: [Dark Lord]\n\nBloodline: [Bloodline of the Dark Demon]\n\nHealth Points (HP): 3913/4130\n\nMana Points (MP): 2128/4450 (4500)\n\nStamina: 2111/2570 (2770)\n\nSoul Fragments: 87/1000\n\nStats:\n\nStrength: 658\n\nAgility: 478 (528)\n\nEndurance: 257 (277)\n\nVitality: 413\n\nPerception: 434 (444)\n\nIntelligence: 445 (450)\n\nFree Points: 12\n\nClass Skills: [Advanced Blade Handling (Uncommon)], [Profane Knife Throwing (Uncommon)], [Twin Blade (Common)], [Basic Dark Dash (Rare)], [Basic Blood Regeneration (Rare)], [Predator’s Mark (Rare)], [Demonic Blade Dance (Rare)], [Wraith Form (Ultra-Rare)], [Force Infusion (Rare)], [Advanced Stealth (Rare)], [Assassin’s Tracking (Rare)], [Mana Infusion (Rare)], [Basic Archery (Common)]\n\nProfession Skills: [Herbology of Mother Freya (Ancient)], [Precise Extraction (Common)], [Basic Potion Crafting (Common)], [Corrupted Plant Growth (Rare)], [Plant Sensor (Uncommon)], [Botanical Bond of Mother Freya (Rare)], [Seed Conversion (Rare)], [Plant Manipulation of Mother Freya (Rare)], [Corrupted Blood of Mother Freya (Ultra-Rare)], [Thorn Mutation (Uncommon)], [Soil Analysis (Uncommon)], [Botanical Purification (Uncommon)], [Acid Blood Arrow (Epic)]\n\nRace Skills: [Identify (Common)], [Demonic Perception (Uncommon)], [Dark Blood (Uncommon)], [Meditation (Common)], [Demonic Endurance (Uncommon)]\n\nBloodline Skill: [Servant of the Dark Lord (Unique)]\n\nServants: [Princess Charlie (Skeleton) - Lvl 27], [Servant Slot Available]\n\nLuke had never cared this much about his mana pool. Not until now. One Acid Blood Arrow cost a full thousand mana, which meant he could only conjure four of them. Four. The skill was far too powerful to be shackled by such a limit. He had wiped out ten assassins with only three arrows. And if he could conjure twenty? The thought made him reevaluate the true worth of mana.\n\nHe had twelve free points left and didn’t hesitate to funnel them all into Intelligence.\n\nStats Updated:\n\nIntelligence: 445 (450) -> 457 (462)\n\nFree Points: 12 -> 0\n\n[Mana Points (MP): 2248/4570 (4620)]\n\nSatisfied with the allocation, he let the menu fade and tightened his grip on the Acid Blood Arrow in his hand. His new goal was simple: become a factory for these devastating arrows.\n\n“Come on, Charlie.”\n\nHe loosed the arrow skyward. It arced and landed among the trees, detonating in a cloud of hissing green. Crocodiles burst from hiding, fleeing the spreading acid fog. Some stumbled, others collapsed mid-run, their hides peeling as the corrosive mist ate through their flesh.\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\n[You have slain a Crocodile Commander – Lvl 30]\n\nA guttural roar snapped his attention to the side. Another crocodile barreled from the brush, tail lashing like a whip. Charlie sprinted straight at it, vaulting high with her blade. She spun midair, cleaving off one of the beast’s legs before it could react. The creature snapped its jaws, lunging to swallow her whole, but Charlie met it with a brutal punch across the snout. The crocodile rolled, belly exposed. She drove her sword deep and pummeled it again and again until the thrashing stopped.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a Crocodile Commander Lvl 30]\n\n\n*The [Pugilist] 2nd Class of Princess Charlie has reached Level 32! (+3 Strength, +2 Endurance, +2 Agility, +2 Vitality, +2 Perception, +2 Intelligence, +2 Free Points.)*\n\n**[Princess Charlie has reached Level 28! Skeleton (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**\n\nThe monster lay dead. Luke pulled a potion from his pocket dimension.\n\n[Healing Potion (Common): Restores 150 HP]\n\nHe drank it down, the bitter liquid spreading warmth as torn flesh stitched itself back together.\n\n[Health Points (HP): 4063/4130]\n\nThat had been his last stockpile potion scavenged from Safe Zone chests. He had drained them all during the siege. Now, he had only three left, ones he’d brewed himself.\n\n[Healing Potion (Common): Restores 503 HP]\n\n“Better than nothing,” he muttered.\n\nThose three would be reserved for emergencies. Once the second fortress was cleared, weekly chest rewards would solve that problem. Charlie strutted over, beaming, pointing at the crocodile’s corpse and then at her fist, raising it like a trophy.\n\n“Yes, you took that thing down cleanly,” he admitted.\n\nShe was glowing with pride, but he could tell she was also remembering the dungeon in the temple, how close they’d come to dying to a crocodile half that size. Luke pulled up her system interface, ready to allocate her new stat points. By nightfall, once he meditated, they would step into the fortress.\n\nName: Princess Charlie\n\nLevel: 28\n\nRace: Skeleton\n\nRank: F\n\nClass: Death Knight (Lvl 35)\n\n2nd Class: Pugilist (Lvl 32)\n\nTitle: [Servant of the Dark Lord]\n\nHealth Points (HP): 2030/2030\n\nMana Points (MP): 1570/1570\n\nStamina: 1920/1920 (2320) Stats:\n\nStrength: 304 (374)\n\nAgility: 159\n\nEndurance: 192 (232)\n\nVitality: 203\n\nPerception: 133\n\nIntelligence: 157\n\nFree Points: 9\n\nClass Skills: [Basic Weapon Handling (Common)], Heavy Strike (Common), [Basic Spectral Charge (Rare)], [Crescent Slash (Uncommon)], [Whirlwind Strike (Uncommon)], [Spectral Chain (Rare)], [Spectral Barrier (Rare)], [Doomblade (Rare)], [Mark of Doom (Rare)], [Force Infusion (Rare)]\n\nSecond Class Skills: [Advanced Hand-to-Hand (Uncommon)], [Steel Fist (Rare)], [Stunning Punch (Uncommon)], [Battle Roar (Uncommon)], [Concentrated Kick (Uncommon)], [Power Punch (Uncommon)], [Pugilist’s Leap (Uncommon)], [Muscle Reading (Uncommon)], [Movement Echo (Uncommon)], [Flame (Common)]\n\nRace Skills: [Demonic Servant Perception (Uncommon)], [Basic Bone Regeneration (Rare)], [Bone Endurance (Rare)], [Iron Bones (Ultra-Rare)]\n\nRune Skill: [Berserker Flames (Rare)]\n\nThat was one of the main reasons he wanted her to land the killing blow on the Warden Captain. The gap in power between them was a canyon.\n\nStats Updated (Princess Charlie):\n\nStrength: 304 (374) -> 313 (383)\n\nFree Points: 9 -> 0\n\nIf they hadn’t already been discovered, he might have waited another day or two. Maybe pushed Charlie to hunt Midnight Wardens in the Wild Zone, grind a few more levels before throwing her against a level 70 monster. But time was gone, the chance wasted. The plan had to move forward now. And he trusted her. More than that—he had a few cards hidden up his sleeve.\n\n“Looks like all our loose ends are tied up,” he said, watching her shadowbox, fists cutting the air with her newfound strength.\n\nShe nodded once. And together, they headed toward their objective.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke stopped at the fortress gate. Charlie remained within his soul space. He had spent the last few hours sitting in meditation, refilling both stamina and mana. Now he drew the bow from his inventory. This would be his tool to dismantle the fortress alarms. He couldn’t risk alerting the Wardens too early. Stealth was everything if his plan was to succeed.\n\n“The bow of Angelica…” he muttered, staring at it.\n\nWith this weapon, he would activate the second mechanism. He would finish what she couldn’t, complete the mission she had left behind. He took his first step inside. A crow’s harsh cry split the night. Something cut through the darkness from his right. A knife.\n\nLuke shifted back, dodging just in time. Behind him stood a woman.\n\nThe ninja!\n\n“Are you actually stupid?” Her voice carried irritation, sharp and clear. “I told you to wait for me before barging into this place.” She lowered her mask with one hand, flicking open a fan with the other.\n\nLuke raised his bow, arrow drawn, his tone cold and threatening. “Tell me who you really are, and how you found me.”\n\nShe smiled faintly, snapping the fan shut.\n\n“My name is Evangeline. Like you, I’m a fugitive from Bartholomew. And I’m also one of the four survivors who activated the first mechanism.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe day before, while Luke was running through the Wild Zone, Eleanor moved briskly through the Safe Zone, playing her part as if on patrol. In truth, it was all for show. Most still believed Luke was hiding somewhere in the district, and soldiers were tearing through houses and shops in their hunt for him. Out of caution, she had switched her outfit through the system, making sure no witness could connect her with the woman who had helped him escape.\n\nShooting Kruger had been a crime. She knew exactly what that meant. But was the story about James being a criminal actually true?\n\nThe fact that Kruger and his assassins had gone after him inside the Safe Zone didn’t fit the narrative being spread around. Rumor had it Luke was in league with the surviving Renegades, trying to activate the mechanisms recklessly, dooming everyone in the process. Most wanted him alive, if only to learn the truth about those mechanisms. No one would kill the man who had actually managed to find them after eight long years of this tutorial. But Kruger? He had tried to kill Luke. That was suspicious as hell.\n\nLuke had done bad things, sure. But he hadn’t killed anyone from Ronan’s camp when he left the fortress, though he had hacked off arms, legs, and fought Ronan head-on. From his perspective, he had crossed the barrier and run into a military squad trying to capture him.\n\nThe only people he killed were Kruger’s soldiers.\n\nThose deaths stood out. And then there was the reckless stunt of sneaking into the Safe Zone, pretending to be a lumberjack. Eleanor couldn’t make sense of it. It was so absurd, so illogical, that no one even thought to look for him working right under Bastion’s nose, hidden in plain sight. It was exactly the kind of idiotic move that had kept him undiscovered for more than two weeks, while everyone else wasted their time combing the Wild Zone.\n\nHer judgment was split. She had known James, the fool, and then discovered he was also Luke, the wanted criminal.\n\nI’ll have to find Jack. He knows something.\n\nThe duality between his two identities was too strange to ignore. But she had seen Luke fight. The first time was near Ronan’s camp, when he clashed with her commander and she had tried to kill him with an arrow. The second was his escape from the Safe Zone. In both cases, the only ones he killed were Kruger’s men.\n\nEleanor hadn’t known their true identities, but their reputation was common knowledge in Bastion. Butchers. They killed for sport. No one dared question it, since Kruger was Bartholomew’s right hand. Fear was his weapon, keeping order in the Safe Zone. As long as they only targeted criminals, people tolerated it. After all, many of those assassins had once protected them from the Renegades. Everyone claimed to share the same goal: going home.\n\nIt had been four years since Eleanor was dragged into this world. Since then, she had climbed slowly through Bastion’s ranks, earning recognition for her precision with a bow. It was the only path available. If she wanted even a chance of returning to Earth, she had to stay on the “right” side. The Haven had grown comfortable in its illusion of survival. The Renegades were seen as nothing but doomed criminals. Which left Bastion, with its iron-fisted politics, as the only real option. If she tried to live as a civilian, she would be swallowed whole by apathy, like so many others.\n\n“Search every house on this street again! Break down the doors if you have to!” a soldier barked as he sprinted past her.\n\nEleanor crossed the empty market. Most of the townsfolk had locked themselves indoors the moment the alarms rang. But a thought gnawed at her. Do Bartholomew and the others really have no intention of activating the mechanisms?\n\nThat question wouldn’t leave her mind, and it made too much sense to ignore. If James truly knew the location of every mechanism, why would they try to kill him outright? She had seen the assassins hunting him, and she knew them well enough to recognize their intent. They hadn’t come to knock him out. They had come to finish him. That was why she’d stepped in. She needed to understand what was really happening.\n\nLooking back now, it all felt staged, like they had been trying from the very beginning to make it look as if James had launched some kind of attack inside the Safe Zone. Word was that Kruger had gone to talk, to negotiate. But before long, he was hurled through the wall of the inn, chaos erupted, and in the confusion the assassins moved in.\n\nIf James died during the pursuit, it would all be easy to explain. He attacked, they defended, and Bastion walked away with the clean story: the lone madman, another Marshall, stopped before he could drag everyone into disaster.\n\nThat would be the tale told. James refused to negotiate, cut down soldiers in cold blood, and had to be contained. But reality hadn’t matched the script. James hadn’t killed any of those trying to capture him. The only ones who fell were Kruger’s assassins, and their bodies had disappeared. Someone in Bastion had made sure of that. Eleanor could guess why. Maybe they didn’t want anyone knowing Kruger’s men had been beaten. Maybe they didn’t want Bastion’s image of untouchable strength to crack. Whatever the reason, the truth had been buried.\n\nAt least she knew one thing: she’d done the right thing. She’d pulled James out of the Safe Zone, kept more people from dying. Whether the story about the mechanisms was true or not, she had chosen to give him the benefit of the doubt.\n\nMore than ever, I need to find Jack Bean. He’ll know something.\n\nShe kept moving along her patrol route when something slammed into her back. The impact threw her against a wall, pain flaring through her ribs. By instinct she spun around, just in time for more bolts to tear into her. Three buried themselves deep in her stomach. She staggered, fighting to pull her bow free, when a shadow loomed in front of her.\n\nA hand clamped around her throat. Cold steel pressed against her neck. Kruger.\n\n“Bitch.” His voice was a growl, dripping venom.\n\nHe slammed her harder against the wall, eyes blazing.\n\n“You think I didn’t notice?” he snarled.\n\n“What are you talking about?” Eleanor forced the words out, her voice steady despite the agony radiating through her body.\n\nKruger raised the knife and drove it into the wall beside her face. His masked features were twisted, and through a tear in the fabric she glimpsed raw flesh, half-rotted, half-burned.\n\n“Before that masked archer hit me, I marked him,” Kruger hissed. “And guess who’s carrying that mark now?”\n\nHis grip on her throat tightened, cutting off her air.\n\n“One way or another, I’ll take a life tonight.”\n\nHe ripped the blade free. The knife arced downward. Eleanor’s eyes went wide. She tried to move, but her body was too slow, too broken. The last thing she saw was the gleam of the blade descending toward her face. Then nothing but darkness."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 255: The Lost Survivor\nTarget length: ~2000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "In the dim glow of the street, the ninja woman stood before him. The dark fabric of her clothes seemed to drink in the light of the distant torches. In one hand, she flicked a fan open and shut with lazy precision, as if bored by the tension weighing down the air.\n\n“Evangeline?” Luke’s voice was low, wary. He had heard that name before, from Angelica herself. The memory struck sharp now, like an echo from the past.\n\nShe stepped forward. Her eyes were half-lidded, playful sparks glinting in them, an odd contrast to the knife-edge atmosphere. Instinct tightened his muscles. Luke pulled the bowstring back farther, the arrow aimed steady at her chest.\n\n“Isn’t it obvious by now, idiot? I’m not with Bartholomew. You lived inside the Safe Zone for almost three weeks, your identity was discovered by me. If I were on his side, you’d have been exposed, or dead, a long time ago.”\n\nHis eyes narrowed.\n\n\n“You still haven’t explained how you tracked me here,” he said flatly. “Not then, not at the market, even after I stripped off the tracker.”\n\nEvangeline’s lips curved in a sly smile, as though she had been waiting for that exact question. A shadow cut across the night sky. A black crow descended with a smooth glide, perching neatly on her shoulder as if it had done so a thousand times.\n\n“This is Jerry. My familiar.”\n\n“Jerry!” the crow croaked, head cocking as its beady eyes fixed curiously on Luke.\n\nA familiar. Of course.\n\n“You didn’t need a tracker. That damned thing can follow me from the air,” he muttered.\n\n“Exactly. I’ve known where you were since the first time we crossed paths. Jerry’s been tailing you ever since.”\n\nLuke lowered the bow slightly, eyes locked on the bird. Jerry tilted its head back at him, unblinking. Then Luke’s grip shifted. He raised the bow again, this time, the arrow pointed straight at the crow.\n\n“In that case, I just have to kill Jerry.”\n\n“K-Kill Jerry?” the bird squawked, wings flaring in alarm before it clumsily fluttered off into the night.\n\nEvangeline let out a long sigh, the sound of someone all too used to this kind of nonsense. “Fine, Jerry’s a coward. But he’ll come back eventually. And if you kill him, it’s a pain bringing him back to life.”\n\nLuke studied her in silence for a long moment before lowering his bow once more, this time for real. Her presence was strange, layered with contradictions, but pieces of the puzzle he had been chasing were beginning to click into place.\n\n“You’re from the first generation of this place?”\n\n“Yes. I was eighteen when I got pulled into this tutorial. That was eight years ago. I was one of Bastion’s founders. When we entered the first fortress, there were fifty of us. We triggered a special event, fought hordes of Dead Watchmen led by a Midnight Warden. It was brutal. A massacre. In the end, only four of us survived. I was one of them, obviously.”\n\nHer gaze hardened slightly, though her tone stayed light. “Noticed the parallel? Back then it was Wardens. Now, in the second fortress, we face another swarm, plus a Warden Captain. The difficulty’s scaled up. Like this world is adapting to us, or maybe to our stubbornness.”\n\nHer eyes slid back to his, a playful spark returning. “So? You going to keep staring at a beautiful woman on your doorstep, or are you going to invite me in?”\n\nLuke raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have a house. And we’re standing in the middle of the street.”\n\n“You still don’t trust me, do you?” she said, folding her arms.\n\n“Can you blame me?” Luke’s voice was sharp. “We barely know each other.”\n\nEvangeline closed her fan with deliberate calm. “Fair enough.”\n\nShe stepped closer. “But I know you well, Luke of Maine.”\n\nIn an instant, the bow was up again, the string tight, the arrow aimed straight at her chest. “How the hell do you know where I’m from?”\n\n“Because a few months ago, Angelica came to me,” Evangeline replied smoothly. “She said someone named Luke from Maine had gone missing, and she asked for my help finding him. You vanished for a month and then showed up claiming you’d gotten lost in the orc forest. Ring any bells?”\n\nThe pieces fell quickly into place in his mind. That had been during the time he had tracked the renegades and ended up stranded deep in orc territory.\n\n“I owed Angelica a huge favor,” Evangeline went on. “One I could never repay in full. She helped me fake my death when I needed to disappear. So when she asked, I did as she wished. I started digging. To do that, I needed to know everything about you. Everything she could tell me. That way, I could trace your way of thinking. Angelica had a knack for reading people. She said you were an idiot, but not a bad one.”\n\nShe moved another step forward. “Then you came back from the dead out of that orc forest. I kept investigating, trying to figure out what had happened there. And somehow, that territory had… quieted. I had traveled through those lands before, and trust me, they were never peaceful.”\n\nThe fan flicked open again in her hand. “So I pushed further. I even went into the Orc Lord’s territory. First time in all these years I dared to do that. And then? I return, and I find out the ants invaded… and Angelica died.”\n\nShe closed the fan and took another slow step toward him. Luke shifted back, refusing to let her get too close.\n\n“And I learn that Angelica’s killer was you. And that Paul had gone missing. Do you know what happened to him?”\n\nLuke didn’t flinch, didn’t bother with excuses or pretty lies. His answer was plain. “He’s dead. I killed him.”\n\nFor a moment, Evangeline just studied him, weighing the words, the way he carried them.\n\n“The story you told back at the Haven,” she said at last, “was that Angelica had been poisoned, betrayed by Paul, working under Bartholomew. I half believe it. After all, I was betrayed by Bartholomew once too.” A faint smirk touched her lips. “He thought I was Marshall’s spy at the time.”\n\nHer story held together. Or at least, it seemed to. But Luke couldn’t ignore the gaps. Small rips in the fabric of her logic, threads she never pulled. Especially her silence about the mechanisms. If she knew so much, why hide it for so long?\n\n“Then why didn’t you ever tell the truth about the mechanisms?” His voice cut sharp, steady. “Why keep up the lie, when you knew Bartholomew never had any intention of activating them? Why didn’t you warn anyone that he doesn’t want us leaving this world?”\n\nEvangeline’s expression twisted into something caught between exasperation and mockery, as if the question were almost insulting.\n\n“It’s painfully simple,” she said. “Simpler than everything else you’ve been breaking your head over.”\n\nShe paused, drifting a few steps to the side as if arranging her thoughts before setting them loose. “I’m not an idiot, Luke. You really think I could go around shouting the truth to everyone? That I’d paint a target on my back for Bartholomew, for Kruger, for every lunatic who’d rather stay chained to this world?”\n\nShe gave a bitter laugh, low and sharp. “Then there was Marshall, and the renegades… they all knew, and they all helped bury the truth. If I had opened my mouth back then, it would’ve been me against all of them. And you know what one person alone can do?”\n\nHer gaze sharpened. “Nothing.”\n\nHer tone softened, though the edge didn’t vanish. “Sorry, but I value survival. After I faked my death, I enjoyed my retirement. I was alive. I was free. And alive, even in hiding, beats dead and noble any day.”\n\nLuke said nothing, his eyes locked on hers, absorbing every word.\n\n“Back then, young padawan,” she went on, lips curling into a half-smile, “it really was just me against the Empire. There were so few people in this tutorial, and most of them were fresh recruits, barely awakened to the system.”\n\nShe spread her hands. “What’s one Jedi supposed to do alone against the whole damn regime? I had to wait, for more people to arrive, for them to grow stronger, or at least to see whether Bartholomew and Marshall would tear each other apart.”\n\nHer jaw tightened. “And don’t think I didn’t try to trigger the second mechanism. I nearly died a dozen times in there. Alone, it was impossible. Especially once I hit the rank limit.”\n\n“Rank limit?” Luke asked, curiosity flashing.\n\nShe smiled slyly. “The free info ends here. From now on, I only talk if Batman agrees to join the Justice League.”\n\nEvangeline stepped back, letting the silence stretch, leaving questions dangling like bait on a hook. Luke weighed her words, trying to fit them into what he already knew, but too many gaps remained. Especially where Bartholomew and the mechanisms were concerned.\n\n“I didn’t know back then that Bartholomew never planned to leave this world,” she admitted. “I thought his inaction was fear, that Marshall would kill him the moment they left the fortress. So I stayed neutral.”\n\nHer voice dropped. “But Marshall’s dead now, and that bastard still sits on his throne, doing nothing. Angelica’s death weighs on me, and here we are, just us, staring down Palpatine.”\n\nA crooked smile touched her lips. “Lucky for us, though, we’ve got a Skywalker.”\n\nLuke ignored the jab.\n\n“Answer me this,” she pressed. “Were you really planning to go in there alone and fight those things? What’s your brilliant plan, and why the hell did you dig that hole?”\n\n“Secret,” Luke muttered.\n\nShe let out a long sigh. “So, allies or not?”\n\n“Tell me something first. When did Bartholomew change? And why?”\n\nOne brow arched. “Free info again? Hate to break it to you, but the trial period’s over.”\n\nLuke exhaled through his nose, irritation flaring but not surprising him. He was already used to her games. He studied her face a moment longer before asking, “Is it really just us two? Or do you have more?”\n\nA mischievous smile curved her lips. With a flourish, the fan vanished from her hand. “Jerry counts. That makes three.”\n\n“I’m being serious.”\n\n“So am I. But fine, jokes aside, like I said, the Justice League already exists. You’re just the missing member, the loner making trouble all over the place. By the way, the chaos you stirred in the Safe Zone? Impressive. The only reason I took so long to find you is because Jerry lost track of you, and we thought you were still hiding there.”\n\n“Who are your allies?” Luke pressed.\n\nShe tilted her head, expression playful. “Oh, you don’t know?”\n\nHer voice dropped a little as she stepped closer. “Your friend Allison is with us. Practically all of Haven is. She sent me a message for you, actually. Said, ‘I haven’t forgotten the promise.’ She told me to repeat it word for word. Thought it might earn your trust, or at least make you think about it.”\n\nEvangeline leaned back, studying his reaction. “So, what’s it going to be? Will you come with me to my hideout and meet them? Or keep playing Han Solo in the Safe Zone?”\n\n\nSome of you were a little confused about who the guy was that attacked Landon. Scott 😄 You probably skipped Jonathan’s POV in chapter 215 (naughty, skipping the story huh? I’m watching you!).\n\nAnd do you know what you missed in this wonderful Jonathan POV, the character I know you all love? An important reveal about the Fallen Stone Angel, Jonathan’s Familiar, and his current goal. Plus it showed that Jonathan has a pretty dangerous weapon or power in the tutorial."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 256: The Cursed Gift\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: level-up occurs"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke followed Evangeline as they left that stretch of forest behind. They climbed back up through the ruins and made their way toward the city. Her hideout was farther than he expected. Instead of heading deeper into the Wild Zone toward the capital, they had to circle back toward the Safe Zone and then skirt its walls, continuing forward without ever stepping inside. Even as he trailed her, he never let his guard down. Every step could still be leading him into a trap.\n\n“You really did make a mess back in the Safe Zone,” she remarked.\n\nThey had stopped for a moment atop the shell of a crumbling building, gazing down at the Safe Zone. From there, Luke could see the glow of torches cutting through the dark, soldiers still combing the streets as if refusing to give up the hunt. Wooden watchtowers loomed, their silhouettes broken by the figures of guards scanning for any trace of him.\n\n“And what was it like?” he asked. “Conquering Bastion.”\n\nThe wind tugged at their clothes as they leapt down from the structure and broke into a run, weaving through shattered stone, collapsed walls, and the occasional beast wandering the ruins.\n\n“It took almost a year,” she said, not even pausing to think. “Maybe a little less, maybe more. I don’t keep track of dates. But it was before the second wave of newcomers arrived. Imagine this place without a Safe Zone, nothing but Wild Zone, wall to wall. A nightmare. Now imagine discovering that once night fell, the Midnight Wardens appeared out of nowhere. Chaos. And on top of that, surviving at level one, alone. That was my reality when I first got here.”\n\nHer voice dipped lower. “And the few humans you might stumble across? The kind who’d rob you, kill you, or worse. So, I had to depend on myself. For a long time.”\n\nShe gave a faint smile. “I only had my shadow to trust.”\n\n“My thief class gave me a head start here,” Evangeline added, with just enough pride to color her tone. “Stealth, tracking, moving without a sound. I could climb a tree, grab fruit, and be gone before a pack of raptors showed up. At night, I was already holed up somewhere safe before the Wardens emerged.”\n\n“Sounds brutal, handling all that on your own. Coming from a normal life and being dropped into this,” Luke said quietly.\n\n“I was used to it,” she replied, her voice casual, though the words carried weight. “I’m an orphan. Since I was twelve, I lived on the streets. Honestly, it wasn’t much different from this place.”\n\nLuke kept his eyes forward, but his fists clenched at his sides.\n\n“Running from predators, kidnappers, abusers, that was my day-to-day. Stealing food, outrunning cops. And orphanages?” She snorted. “Worse than the streets, depending on who ran them. So, I chose the streets.”\n\nLuke thought of his own life. If he hadn’t been taken in by the Baumanns after his mother disappeared in the tutorial, he would have ended up in one of those orphanages too.\n\n“As for surviving here,” she continued, “after a few months in the wild, I ran into a group of survivors led by a soldier. His name was Marshall. He brought order to the chaos.”\n\nShe glanced at him briefly. “He didn’t come here alone. He had fellow veterans, their kids, also military, wives, even elders. They all landed in this tutorial together. So I joined them. And that’s when I met Bartholomew. And Kruger.”\n\nThe Safe Zone was shrinking behind them now, and in the distance ahead Luke could already make out the outline of the towering wall.\n\n“After some time, we discovered a statue that gave us a quest. It stood before a fortress. That’s when we learned there was a way out of this nightmare: activate three mechanisms, then reach the portal inside the castle. The first mechanism was right there, inside that fortress by the statue.”\n\nShe paused for a moment, watching the empty street stretch out before them.\n\n“The rest you already know. Fifty of the strongest walked into that fortress and faced the mission event inside. Only four of us came out alive, me, Bartholomew, Kruger, and Marshall. That’s when the Safe Zone was born, after the first mechanism was activated.”\n\nThey kept running through the ruins. By the time dawn crept in, the bells rang in the distance, and they saw the Midnight Wardens retreating into their dens.\n\n“How much farther?” Luke asked.\n\n“Almost there,” Evangeline replied. “For now, it’s just going to be the two of us at my hideout.”\n\nLuke stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean?”\n\n“Allison and a few others from Haven are on a special mission. Something that’ll help us get out of here. Not many know the details, keeps Bartholomew from sniffing it out.”\n\nHe stared at her in silence, his gaze heavy, unblinking.\n\nShe raised her brows, suddenly uncomfortable. “What? Gonna just keep glaring at me like that?”\n\n“In that case, I’m out.” He turned his back.\n\n“Wait, what? Where are you going?”\n\n“Leaving.”\n\n“Hey!” She rushed after him, frustration sharpening her voice. “You’re really walking away?”\n\nLuke turned, his expression like stone. “Yes. You lied to me. If a partnership starts with lies, I’d rather work alone.”\n\nHer eyes widened, just for a second, before the sarcasm returned like a mask. “I didn’t lie. I said I’d take you to meet them. I just didn’t say when.”\n\n“Oh, right. Not lying, just omitting every important part. And letting me walk into an empty burrow.”\n\n“They’ll all be there once their mission’s done. Meanwhile, I’ve been babysitting the Safe Zone, keeping an eye on you, ready to drag you out if you got yourself caught. Instead of enjoying my hideout, I had to shadow you. You should be grateful.”\n\n“I don’t owe gratitude for something I never agreed to.” He gave her one last look before turning away. “When they actually get back, I’ll swing by.”\n\nEvangeline sighed. “I told you my tragic backstory. You could at least give me some credit.”\n\n“I grew up with a family of lawyers. We’ve seen every kind of con artist there is. It’s always the same trick, spin a sad tale, earn sympathy, then go for the con. I’m not falling for it. Goodbye.” He jogged off without looking back.\n\nShe darted ahead and blocked his path. “The idea wasn’t mine. Take it up with Princess Allison when she comes back. And for the record, it’s your fault things had to be rushed, the order was to kidnap you if necessary.”\n\n“Princess?” Luke frowned.\n\n“Sort of. She’s heir to one of those families that run the world,” Evangeline said with a shrug.\n\n“Right. Forgot about that little detail. The word ‘princess’ just… reminded me of someone,” he muttered, resuming his stride.\n\n“You’re really leaving?” she called after him.\n\n“I am.” He shrugged and kept walking.\n\n“I bet you’re just nervous about seeing them again,” she teased, the sarcasm curling back into her voice.\n\n“You’re wrong.”\n\n“Oh no, I can see it. You’re nervous.”\n\n“Think whatever you want.” He vaulted over the ledge of a crumbling house and dropped into the street below.\n\nShe followed, keeping pace at his side. “Or maybe you’re nervous about seeing Allison again?” she asked, her tone sly, almost sing-song.\n\n“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Luke said flatly, striding forward without slowing.\n\n“Hm… looks like I was right,” she said, examining her nails with exaggerated boredom. “You know, this sort of thing doesn’t happen by accident. You met her out there in the frozen desert, outside the walls, just the two of you stranded for days, any minute one of you could’ve died. Then you ended up here, where trusting anyone is a gamble. Feelings happen. Especially for a virgin boy like you.”\n\nLuke narrowed his eyes. “Did she tell you how we got here, or did you pry around until you figured it out?”\n\nEvangeline met his stare. “You really don’t believe I’m working with Haven?”\n\n“I do believe it. But honestly, I’m not in the mood to be interrogated or forced to prove myself to anyone. I’m not going to beg for friendship or jump through hoops to show I’m trustworthy. I just want to get the mission done and get out of this place. When they come back, then I’ll talk to Allison.”\n\nShe let out a long sigh. “You really are an idiot.” Evangeline pointed toward a well tucked away between the ruins. “That’s the entrance to my hideout. Now stop brooding, Snow White. We need to sit down and plan. They’ll be here in a day or two at most, and we have to decide our moves before we trigger the second mechanism. Because that means facing Bartholomew.”\n\nShe strode to the well, flipped open the hatch covering it, and started down.\n\n“We’ve been walking past your hideout this whole time?” Luke asked.\n\n“Yep.”\n\n“And why?”\n\n“Because I wanted to make sure you knew they weren’t waiting inside like it’s some kind of welcome-home party.” She was already halfway down the steps when she glanced back. “So, are you coming in to talk strategy and swap intel, or do you plan on standing out there sulking all night?”\n\nLuke exhaled, peering down into the dark. Then he followed.\n\n“Lock it from the inside,” her voice called up from below.\n\nHe slid the bolt shut and descended. At the bottom, a narrow tunnel opened in the stone wall.\n\n“Come on already, Snow White,” she teased.\n\nLuke ducked inside. Behind them, Evangeline reached out, extended her ring into the well’s opening, and began pulling chunks of rubble, planks, and broken beams from her storage. She piled the debris until the passage looked sealed again.\n\nTurning back to him, she dusted her hands. “There. Usually I just slip through the gaps with my shadow skill, but since I was dragging you along, I had to clear it first.”\n\nHer hideout opened into a surprisingly spacious chamber, carved out and patched together into something that looked halfway like a home. A battered sofa sat crooked in the corner, opposite a bed piled with mismatched blankets. Rugs of every color covered the stone floor. Tables were cluttered with sketches, half-finished designs, and stacks of books. Weapons of all kinds leaned against the walls, clearly scavenged trophies. Dozens of clothes hung on makeshift racks, some neat, others draped haphazardly, with wigs perched like silent guardians on crude stands. Needles, spools of thread, and bolts of fabric were scattered everywhere.\n\nLuke took it all in. “What is all this?”\n\nShe was already changing, her ninja garb vanishing with a shimmer from the system. With a casual flick, she tugged something from her head. A blonde wig. She hung it neatly beside the others, revealing her true hair: black, and natural. She shook it loose.\n\n“Much better.”\n\nLuke couldn’t help staring as she slipped the wig into place on its rack.\n\n“My profession’s tailoring,” she said with a smirk, sinking into a chair. “I picked up skills to help me build disguises. Every piece here? Made by me. Clothes, wigs, props. Don’t judge me, James Bond, but I still sneak into the Safe Zone sometimes. Disguises make that possible.”\n\nLuke wandered among the mannequins draped with outfits, running a hand across the stitching. “Impressive.”\n\n“Yes, go on, praise my work. It was a pain to pull off,” she said, standing and moving toward a makeshift counter.\n\nEvangeline pulled a lit torch from her inventory and touched it to the firepit until flames caught. “There’s airflow down here. The smoke from the wood and the smell of cooking don’t get trapped,” she explained, pointing to small vents carved into the stone wall.\n\n“This place… it’s part of one of those dungeons where the Dead Watchmen patrol, isn’t it?”\n\nShe nodded. “Yeah. I converted one of the side chambers.”\n\nHe let out a low whistle. “Me and Allison ran into one of these.”\n\n“They’re only near the outer walls, connecting inside to out. I sealed the entrance to this room.” She tugged open a set of curtains, revealing a collapsed passage choked with rubble. “At least the air still finds a way in, wherever it’s coming from.”\n\nThen she let the curtain fall back into place. “The corridors deeper in are completely sealed. No chance one of those undead knights hears us down here.”\n\nLuke’s gaze drifted toward the wigs hanging neatly in rows. “How did you even make those?”\n\n“At first? With real hair. Back when I worked as a hairdresser in Bastion, I started saving what I cut. Later, I picked up a profession skill that lets me transform fabric into hair. After that, I could make my own wigs.”\n\nShe stepped closer, narrowing her eyes at him. “By the way, how did you bleach your hair blonde? It’s naturally black.”\n\n“I made the dye myself, using what I know from my profession.”\n\nHer eyes widened. “Seriously? Can you make some for me? Like… a lot? Can you dye fabric too? Could you do it right now? What colors can you produce? How much at once? Do you know how to make hair relaxers? Shampoo? I could help with the process! Will you teach me?”\n\nThe questions tumbled out so quickly she was almost tripping over herself.\n\n“Whoa, slow down.” He pulled his hands free when she grabbed them in excitement.\n\n“You’re really not going to help your friend with some dyes?” She gave him a pitiful, wide-eyed look.\n\n“Don’t make that face. You look like a stray cat begging for scraps.”\n\n“I have to use every trick I’ve got,” she replied, smirking as her usual expression slid back into place.\n\nShe dropped into a chair, pulling a few cans from her storage. “I’ll make breakfast. In the meantime, you can tell me exactly how you brewed that miracle dye.”\n\nShe hummed while she set the cans in a pot of water and hung it above the fire.\n\n“Let’s stay focused,” Luke cut in. “The goal is finishing the tutorial.”\n\nShe settled into a chair, pulling out needles, scraps of fabric, and a spool of thread.\n\n“What are you doing?” he asked.\n\n“Sewing. Talk while I work.”\n\nHe let out a long breath. “You really don’t take things seriously…”\n\n“I take them very seriously. I’m making a new shirt. Ask whatever you want while I stitch.” Her hands were already moving, the needle flashing as she pulled the thread tight.\n\n“Where’s Allison? This expedition of hers—where is it, and why? What does it have to do with getting out of this tutorial?”\n\nEvangeline glanced up from her work. “It has everything to do with it. What level are you in your class?”\n\nHe hesitated, weighing whether to answer.\n\n“Have you reached level fifty in your race yet?” she pressed.\n\nThe questions hit like a trap. To reveal his race, class, and profession levels would be to reveal far too much. He tried to parse her angle before responding, but she’d asked so directly it left no room for excuses.\n\n“I’ll be blunt,” she continued. “At some point, you won’t be able to level up anymore. Not your class, not your race, not even your profession.”\n\nHis brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”\n\n“You thought leveling was infinite? There’s a ceiling.”\n\nA ceiling. A damn level cap?\n\n“It applies to everything. Race, class, profession. Eventually, no matter how many powerful monsters you kill, the experience just stops sticking. I’ve hit the cap across the board, and even then I don’t trust myself to survive the event tied to the second mechanism. The third one? Or the castle? Forget it.”\n\nThe revelation hit harder than he wanted to admit. His plan had been clear: clear the fortress alone, grow stronger, push toward the capital. But if there really was a limit—and if it was low compared to the monsters ahead—then…\n\nThen I’m stuck in this world. No matter how much I grind, I’ll never be strong enough to break through. Unless…\n\n“Now you see my side of things,” she said quietly. “That’s why I’ve been trapped here eight years. The cap is set too low for one person to face everything alone. On our own, we’re weak.”\n\nHe looked at her sharply. “So what is the cap? At what level do class and profession stop giving skills?”\n\nHer sewing slowed, and she fixed him with a steady look. “It’s not just the cap. There’s also a… gift that comes with reaching it.”\n\n“A gift?”\n\n“A Rank skill.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 257: War in the Shadows\nTarget length: ~3500 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Evangeline explained the concept of limits to Luke. It wasn’t exactly a level cap, but something tied to the rank of his race. Since they were both still at Rank F, the ceiling was clear: Race Level capped at 50, Class Level at 60, and Profession Level at 60. No matter how many monsters he slaughtered or how many acres of farmland he cultivated, he wouldn’t gain a single point of experience beyond that.\n\n“This is bullshit!” He shot to his feet, pacing furiously across the room. “A damned limit!\"\n\nI doubt I would’ve been able to beat the Beast Lord in a duel without that trick, even if I’d maxed everything out.\n\nThen a darker realization struck him. He slumped back down, scowling. Franky’s snake had only been the second Lord. There was still the third one, stronger than the last. And after that, the Witch… and finally, the King.\n\nWith a grimace, Luke pulled up his system interface.\n\nName: Luke\n\nLevel: 47\n\nRace: Half-Demon\n\nRank: F\n\nClass: [Demonic Predator (Lvl 57)]\n\nProfession: [Guardian Botanist of Mother Freya (Lvl 60)]\n\nTitles: [Dark Lord]\n\nBloodline: [Bloodline of the Dark Demon]\n\nHealth Points (HP): 3913/4130\n\nMana Points (MP): 4570/4570 (4620)\n\nStamina: 2547/2570 (2770)\n\nSoul Fragments: 87/1000\n\nStats:\n\nStrength: 658\n\nAgility: 478 (528)\n\nEndurance: 257 (277)\n\nVitality: 413\n\nPerception: 434 (444)\n\nIntelligence: 457 (462)\n\nFree Points: 0\n\nClass Skills: [Advanced Blade Handling (Uncommon)], [Profane Knife Throwing (Uncommon)], [Twin Blade (Common)], [Basic Dark Dash (Rare)], [Basic Blood Regeneration (Rare)], [Predator’s Mark (Rare)], [Demonic Blade Dance (Rare)], [Wraith Form (Ultra-Rare)], [Force Infusion (Rare)], [Advanced Stealth (Rare)], [Assassin’s Tracking (Rare)], [Mana Infusion (Rare)], [Basic Archery (Common)]\n\nProfession Skills: [Herbology of Mother Freya (Ancient)], [Precise Extraction (Common)], [Basic Potion Crafting (Common)], [Corrupted Plant Growth (Rare)], [Plant Sensor (Uncommon)], [Botanical Bond of Mother Freya (Rare)], [Seed Conversion (Rare)], [Plant Manipulation of Mother Freya (Rare)], [Corrupted Blood of Mother Freya (Ultra-Rare)], [Thorn Mutation (Uncommon)], [Soil Analysis (Uncommon)], [Botanical Purification (Uncommon)], [Acid Blood Arrow (Epic)]\n\nRace Skills: [Identify (Common)], [Demonic Perception (Uncommon)], [Dark Blood (Uncommon)], [Meditation (Common)], [Demonic Endurance (Uncommon)]\n\nBloodline Skill: [Servant of the Dark Lord (Unique)]\n\nServants: [Princess Charlie (Skeleton) - Lvl 28], [Servant Slot Available]\n\nLooking over his levels, Luke felt a cold weight settle in his chest. He was practically brushing up against the limit. He was level 47, close to 50. His class already 57, creeping toward 60. His profession, maxed out. No more levels. No more new skills. Grinding further was pointless.\n\n“There’s no way I can take on what’s coming by myself,” he muttered, eyes narrowing.\n\nEspecially not with the Midnight Lord and the Midnight King as mandatory bosses in this so-called tutorial.\n\n“I told you,” Evangeline said softly.\n\n“Then tell me this. Can we evolve our rank? The cap applies per rank, right?” Luke asked.\n\nArtemis remained silent. Evangeline already knew the truth about the talking necklace, but Luke asked mentally anyway. The reply came in her clipped, dry voice: 'At my current knowledge level, I don’t have that information. Remember? They nerfed me intellectually.'\n\nWhich meant Luke was left in the dark.\n\n“It is possible to evolve rank, and keep leveling,” Evangeline finally said.\n\n“You know how?”\n\n“It’s not about knowing how. The rank limit exists so our bodies don’t explode from too much power crammed inside. When you evolve to a higher rank, your body strengthens and adapts. It adjusts to handle the attribute boosts, the mana surge, and everything else.” She hesitated. “At least… that’s how I learned it, back then.”\n\nLuke nodded slowly. It lined up with things he’d read in Samael’s library. “Our human bodies, every time the race level goes up, they get blasted with that wave of mana during instant regeneration. Plants do something similar, absorbing ambient mana and evolving into magical species. We’re just doing it with our flesh instead of roots and leaves. That regeneration bonus is how the body becomes magical.”\n\nAnd then a thought hit him, sharp and dangerous.\n\n“Wait. If we hit the cap, we lose that benefit. No more instant regeneration, because there’s no level-up trigger anymore.”\n\nHe went still.\n\n“If I break bones… lose a limb…” His voice turned low. “That’s it. Game over.”\n\nOr if my body got eaten away by the Beast Lord’s acid…\n\n“Now you understand why I had to wait here all this time? Alone, there was nothing I could do.”\n\nShe exhaled, shaking her head. “I had to wait for new people to show up, and most of them were just civilians. They’re terrified of leaving for the Wild Zone, let alone setting foot in the capital.”\n\nHer eyes narrowed. “So I waited, hoping that once Marshall and Bartholomew killed each other, something could finally be done. Honestly, I was betting on Marshall. After he got his revenge, I figured that bastard and the other renegades would finally focus on getting out of this place.”\n\nLuke weighed the information against what he already knew. “Do you think Marshall and the others hit their cap?”\n\n“They spent years living like lunatics out in the forest.” Her tone hardened. “They could’ve planned to take down the Orc Lord or something, but they chose not to. So the Safe Zone would keep being attacked.”\n\nShe paused, almost grimacing. “I don’t know if they all managed to hit the rank limit, but at the very least they maxed their professions. After that, they tried to invade Bastion… and lost.”\n\nLuke’s thoughts darkened. So Marshall had held back on purpose, just as he suspected. Their hatred was personal. Killing the Orc Lord would’ve weakened his small army, and Luke doubted the other cutthroats he recruited would’ve risked it. Only his core group, the ones who shared his grudge against Bartholomew, would have gone along. But that left Marshall trapped at a crossroads: lose his people in the second fortress, blow the capital’s gate too soon, or kill the Orc Lord and sacrifice his best men. Either way, Bartholomew would come out ahead.\n\nAs insane as it was, the strategy of letting monsters keep hammering the Safe Zone was clever. Marshall kept wearing them down, sabotage after sabotage, slowly cutting down Bartholomew’s soldiers. Then, when the Safe Zone was already weakened and the next great wave of monsters arrived, he struck the fortress. But Bartholomew defeated him. Obsession and short-sighted planning had led Marshall straight into ruin.\n\n“So basically,” Evangeline said, “my plan to hitch a ride when Marshall and his crew decided to finish the tutorial went straight down the drain. Because Bartholomew won that little game instead.”\n\nLuke gave her a hard look. “Then tell me. How do you rank up? From Rank F to Rank E. Do you know?”\n\n“I do. When I hit level fifty with my race, I got a notification saying I’d already fulfilled part of the requirements. There’s a whole list of them for rank evolution. But one of them I’m still missing.”\n\n“And what’s that?”\n\n“Completing the tutorial.”\n\nLuke let out a sharp, sarcastic laugh. “What a joke…”\n\n“I imagine it’s supposed to be the easiest requirement. Back on Earth, everyone finishes the tutorial.”\n\n“Except we drew the short straw and landed in this insane version. Which means we’re all stuck in the same sinking boat.”\n\nSo one requirement was completing the tutorial. But what about someone born from parents who already had the System? That person wouldn’t get sent to a tutorial at all. They’d just be born with their own System. Luke guessed the requirement probably didn’t apply in those cases.\n\nStill, did Earth even have as many monsters, or opportunities to level, as this place? That question had been gnawing at him. This tutorial was special in a hundred ways, but one of the biggest was how fast it let people grow. He’d taken less than a year to reach his current point, right near the peak of Rank F. Sure, it helped that he’d been reckless enough to constantly throw himself into life-or-death situations, but more cautious people had still made it, just slower, safer. People like Bartholomew, or Kruger.\n\nHow many years would it take an ordinary person to reach the same level of strength?\n\nEvangeline cracked open one of the cans of food and slid it across the wooden table to him.\n\n“How long did it take you to hit the rank cap? I mean, aside from the Wardens, most monsters here are pretty low-level. I can’t imagine how long you’d have to keep grinding them just to max out.”\n\n“I’ve been stuck in this place for eight years.” Her voice carried both weariness and defiance. “I hit the limit about two years ago. It was a mix of everything, clearing out dungeon creatures, and, yes, fighting humans who had crossed the line.”\n\nShe tilted her head, watching his reaction. “Did you know killing humans gives far more experience? At least at our stage of power. Race, class, and profession all at once.”\n\nHer lips pressed into something closer to a grimace than a smile. “Honestly, I tried a bit of everything. I fought so much in this dungeon that I even managed to come out of it with a familiar.”\n\nSix years. That’s how long it had taken Evangeline to crawl her way to the peak of Rank F. A painfully slow progression. Luke compared it to his own path. He’d taken mere months to reach the same point. Eight months, counting the time he’d wasted just exploring Haven, and later the capital, where he’d even allowed himself a short vacation.\n\nMonths for him. Years for her. The gap was staggering. The difference between the Luke who arrived in Haven and the one sitting here now was a chasm.\n\nWhich meant Kruger and Bartholomew had to be at least on par with him. That realization was worth more than gold. In terms of raw strength, he’d finally caught up. Sure, class styles varied, and each had their own tricks, but he’d reached what he wanted: equal footing with his enemies.\n\n“Reaching race level fifty is a trap,” Luke said, his tone sharp with analysis. “The instant regeneration stops the moment you stagnate. If I were in your place, I would’ve considered holding back. Keeping a few race levels in reserve, just in case something went wrong.”\n\nEvangeline’s lips curved into the faintest smile. “Hitting the rank limit was my goal. It was the only way I had any chance of progressing in the tutorial. Back then, I thought maybe I could take another shot at the second fortress on my own. And if we really want to escape this hell, we’ll need as many people as possible at that level of power.”\n\n“Even at the cost of losing complete regeneration?”\n\n“The reward in exchange is power.”\n\nLuke’s eyes narrowed. “Attribute points?”\n\nHe knew the truth. Once you pushed past level fifty in both class and profession, attribute bonuses skyrocketed. That surge had been the single biggest reason he’d become so much stronger.\n\n“Or is this where the epic skills you mentioned come in?” he asked.\n\nShe nodded.\n\n“If you max out everything in a rank, you gain three powerful skills: one epic skill from your class, another from your profession, and a special rank skill once your race hits fifty. If each of us can secure those three, then together we’ll have the strength to face the final threats of this tutorial. And after that, we return to Earth.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nJonathan stared at Landon’s corpse sprawled across the ground. In his hand, he held a mask of flesh, Scott’s face, stolen long ago with the help of his familiar’s power.\n\n“You shouldn’t have ratted out Luke,” he muttered to the dead man. “I needed that bastard distracted a little longer.”\n\nHe shoved the body into his storage item, then let out a long, tired sigh. One by one, he swept the equipment off the table and stored that too. He’d been tracking Luke for days now, ever since the man reappeared at the second fortress after leaving the capital.\n\nThe moment Jonathan learned Ronan had crossed paths with Luke again, he rushed straight for the fortress of the second mechanism. He knew Bartholomew would never waste resources posting guards there. From what Jonathan had pieced together, only Kruger and Bartholomew knew the fortress’s location, and both were too paranoid to share it. Not even Bartholomew had told Jonathan, and he had kept pretending he didn’t know.\n\nHe only had that knowledge thanks to Luke and Allison themselves. They’d revealed the location back during Haven, on the night of the ant invasion, the same night Jonathan had lost Angelica. He’d scoured the region countless times since, searching for Luke. But once he learned Luke had returned, Jonathan knew exactly where he’d go. Either looking for Allison Rhiannon… or heading straight to the fortress.\n\nBanking on that, Jonathan took the gamble and waited at the fortress. Bartholomew had no idea Luke understood the truth about the mechanisms. The so-called King of Bastion was too paranoid, too fearful of losing Kruger’s protection. He trusted no one, not even his allies, and his constant dread of death blinded him to certain dangers. That paranoia created the gap Jonathan needed. Bartholomew refused to spread word of the second fortress, refused to let anyone watch over it. He kept Kruger leashed at his side out of fear. And in that mistake, Jonathan found his chance.\n\nWhen Ronan returned claiming he’d fought Luke, Jonathan went straight to the fortress. He spent an entire day hidden in a house nearby, until at last he saw him, his old “friend,” Luke, staring up at the stone walls. The man looked different now, his hair longer, his presence heavier. Jonathan watched him take down two crimson tyrannosaurs with nothing but a kukri throw, as casually as if he were slaughtering sheep. In that moment, he knew the rumors were true. Luke had become terrifyingly strong.\n\nJonathan marked him with a tracking skill and kept watch as he entered the fortress. That was when things grew interesting. Out of nowhere, a knight appeared at his side, Charlie. He could’ve sworn she was dead. Then he realized what had really happened: she hadn’t walked up to Luke, she had emerged from him. A familiar. Another secret, buried deep. Luke was hiding more than Jonathan had imagined.\n\nHe stayed hidden, waiting, observing. Hours passed before a woman in black, dressed like a ninja, appeared at the fortress’s entrance. Jonathan watched as she cursed out loud, eyes locked on the ground, on the tracks leading inside. She knew Luke had gone in.\n\nAnd she wasn’t alone. A raven perched at her side, her familiar. Jonathan leaned forward, curious. Who was she? For a moment, he even wondered if she was one of Bartholomew’s assassins. He knew Kruger’s network well, yet something about her didn’t fit. He studied her all the same, suspicious, until the truth became clear.\n\nWhen Luke finally emerged from the fortress and spoke with her, Jonathan understood. She wasn’t Bartholomew’s pawn at all. She was something else entirely.\n\nHe watched her step partway inside, then retreat into the shadows. Moments later, Luke emerged. And that’s when things got interesting. The ninja woman confronted him, robbed him clean, and he chased her down.\n\nWhen they finally split paths, Jonathan noticed something else: Luke was still being tracked. The woman’s raven circled above, keeping its unblinking watch. Jonathan let them both get ahead, tailing from a safe distance. His mercenary tracking skill left him an edge, no matter how far the target ran, the mark left behind faint, glowing traces only he could see. Hours passed that way. It wasn’t easy. More than once, he thought he’d lost Luke entirely. The man barely left footprints, moved without sound, and sometimes sprinted with unnatural speed.\n\nJonathan’s saving grace was the raven. As long as he kept an eye on it, following became simple.\n\nThe trail led him to a ruined church deep in the Wild Zone. The bird lingered there for hours, staring at the structure, before finally vanishing, likely to alert its mistress. Jonathan never moved. He stayed outside, watching the church, the thought gnawing at him: walk in and kill Luke right then and there. But reason stopped him. Luke’s strength was no longer in question. Charging in meant certain death.\n\nSo he waited. Then something strange happened. The mark he had placed on Luke vanished. For a moment, panic flared. Had Luke died? But then Jonathan remembered. Kruger had pulled a similar trick once. The phantom assassin had stripped the mark away and even mocked him for it.\n\nWhy hadn’t Luke done it sooner? That was what unsettled him. The possibility that he had been lured here on purpose crawled beneath his skin. Hours later, Luke finally emerged from the church, but his hair was blond now, and an eyepatch covered his face.\n\nThe days that followed turned into a game of shadows. Jonathan tailed him relentlessly, keeping his distance but never letting him slip away. More than once, he considered tipping off Bartholomew, but the thought curdled in his chest. He didn’t want the King of Bastion winning every hand. No, he wanted all of his enemies to fall, every last one. So he kept Luke for himself.\n\nClose surveillance turned personal. His familiar’s gift allowed him to swap faces at will. That trick let him shadow Luke up close, sometimes walking the same streets, even renting a room at the very inn Luke stayed in.\n\nAnd one night, he pushed his luck further. He followed Luke into a tavern, only to find him laughing, competing in knife throws with a woman like some charming rogue. The sight made Jonathan’s blood boil. Angelica’s face flashed in his mind. He knew, he knew, that bastard must have used the same tricks on her. That’s how Luke had stolen her away from him.\n\nFury coiled inside him. Jonathan stepped outside, peeled away the disguise he wore, and reentered the tavern as himself. He was ready to confront him right then, to tear the mask away. But something in him hesitated.\n\nMoments later, Luke left the tavern in a rush. Had he seen him?\n\nFor days afterward, Jonathan cursed himself, convinced he’d made a fatal mistake, that he had shown his hand and Luke would vanish beyond his reach again. But nothing happened. The man stayed. He kept his routine. He even picked up work as a lumberjack.\n\nThat was when Jonathan began to move. He watched Luke playing lumberjack, and under the face of Scott, he hired Landon’s services. Months of working with Kruger and leaning on his familiar had taught him plenty about Bastion’s underworld. With the skill to swap faces, Jonathan had infiltrated gangs, smuggling rings, even positions inside Bastion itself, always under their noses. It was through that network he learned that some Bastion soldiers ran their own criminal outfits, Landon being one of them.\n\nHis plan for Luke carried a double edge. He wanted to measure Luke’s strength, and more importantly, test the skills of his familiar, Charlie. That was why he brought Landon into it. On the day of the kidnapping, Jonathan was there, hidden in the forest, watching from a distance as Landon’s men captured Luke. He couldn’t risk getting too close, but he caught glimpses of Charlie in action. And what he saw confirmed it: if he ever intended to kill Luke, he’d first have to deal with her. She was dangerous. More than dangerous. She wore the helm and breastplate of a Midnight Warden. Jonathan had no idea how a familiar could equip something like that, but if she was humanoid enough, maybe it was possible.\n\nJonathan had planned to kill Landon afterward, once he’d gathered all the information he needed. But Landon ruined everything. He went and exposed Luke’s disguise as James. That wasn’t the outcome Jonathan wanted, though deep down he knew Luke would slip away somehow. He always did.\n\nIf time had taught him anything, it was that the bastard had a talent for survival. He’d once left Luke at the mercy of a Midnight Warden with nothing but scraps of power, and the man still crawled back alive.\n\nNow, standing outside that dark house, Jonathan shoved Landon’s body into his storage item. Then his slime familiar spread across his face, molding into new skin. A different face stared back at him in the reflection.\n\n“I’d wager things are about to get interesting,” Jonathan whispered, his voice now identical to Landon’s. This was his new mask.\n\nHe knew Luke would eventually activate the second mechanism. He had tried once before and failed for some reason, but when he succeeded, war between him and Bartholomew would be inevitable. And when that happened, while both sides were locked in their clash, Jonathan would be there. Close. Wearing a new face. Right where Luke least expected him.\n\n“I’ll strip everything from him, right in front of his eyes.”\n\nAllison. Charlie. Anyone Luke cared about, they would die. For now, he would remain in the shadows, waging his silent war. With a smile tugging at his lips, Jonathan walked away, already plotting how to weave his next plan into motion."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 258: The Demon and the Dragon\nTarget length: ~4100 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke understood where she was going with this. “Someone with three epic skills… could go very far in the tutorial. Well, two epic skills, plus that extra rank skill”\n\n“That’s exactly why I want as many people as possible at that level of power. For the challenges ahead, it’s practically mandatory. How do you expect us to get through the third mechanism event, and then the castle, if we’re dragging weaklings along? Epic skills are how we’ll dominate this tutorial.”\n\nFor the first time, things were starting to click for him. The rank limit finally made sense now, especially paired with the reward of epic skills. Out of the three, he had already secured one.\n\nI got Acid Blood Arrow, an absurdly strong power. And there are still two more skills waiting. I’ll need to choose carefully.\n\nHe stared at the glowing system interface, his eyes fixed on his epic profession skill. An offensive force unlike anything else he possessed. The strongest skill in his arsenal, aside from Mana Infusion, but that one depended on having a weapon strong enough to channel it. Acid Blood Arrow, though, was pure destruction. Yet it was tied to his profession, a category never meant for offense in the first place. Which begged the question: what would his class-based epic skill look like? And since it came from his Demonic Predator class, every part of it would exist for one purpose, killing. It had to be something devastating.\n\nHis precious arrow had been born from scraps of weak skills: Plant Growth, Mother Freya’s Blood, Dark Blood, Thorn Mutation. On their own, they had been laughably minor, practically useless for battle. Thorn Mutation was designed to sharpen plants for gardening, and yet now it served as the foundation for a deadly weapon, shaping the arrow’s razor tip. If something so trivial could evolve into Acid Blood Arrow, what kind of nightmare would his class skill become?\n\nThen something clicked. “You said there’s another skill you get at race level fifty, right? I thought the system stopped granting anything after that.”\n\nShe shrugged. “Don’t ask me to explain the system’s logic. That one came when I maxed out everything, race, class, and profession. I didn’t choose it, it just appeared. It felt… personalized, like the system itself tailored it for me. And it wasn’t even the same rarity as the others. Mine is Rank F.”\n\nThat detail was gold. Immediately, his thoughts turned to Bartholomew and the enemies in Bastion. No doubt they had their own epic skills. Kruger almost certainly did.\n\n“Alright then, Snow White. Let’s talk about what you saw past that barrier,” Evangeline said.\n\n“Snow White?” Luke frowned. “Why do you keep calling me that?”\n\n“Because you’re pale as death. With that face, you look like some porcelain doll.”\n\n“I can’t tell if that was supposed to be a compliment…”\n\nShe sat down beside him, smirking. “What you’re missing is grit. Eat more. Put on weight. Build some muscle. Grow a beard, cut that hair. You’ll do better with women.” She gave him a once-over. “And dress better while you’re at it. You look like a homeless nomad.”\n\n“That’s not the point,” he muttered.\n\n“There’s always time to talk fashion.”\n\nHe exhaled through his nose. “And what about your fetish for dressing up like a ninja?”\n\nHer smile widened. “That’s my class. I evolved from Thief into Shadow Kunoichi.”\n\nEvangeline pressed a finger to his chest, trailing upward slowly. With her other hand, she tugged at the collar of her shirt, revealing the curve of her breasts. “What do you think of this? Care to sneak a peek?” she whispered seductively against his ear.\n\nLuke caught her wrist and twisted hard.\n\n“Ah! Ah! Ah!” she cried out, wincing in pain. “Let go of my hand!”\n\nHe released her. “I’m not falling for your tricks.”\n\nShe stood, flicking open a fan with a snap. “Female ninjas are trained in seduction. It’s one of the advantages of my class. I know exactly what to say, how to move, how to make my voice sound more alluring. Body language, tone, presence… I can make any man I want fall in love with me.”\n\n“Who would fall for you? Certainly not me.”\n\nHer eyes lingered on him as she traced her hand along the curve of her own body. “Funny… that’s not what your heart is saying.”\n\nShe leaned closer, fingers sliding under his chin. “From the moment I first saw you, I was drawn to you. That quiet restraint of yours pulls me in. What do you say we continue this conversation…” her voice dipped into a whisper, “…under the sheets?”\n\n“As I already told you, I don’t fall for tricks.”\n\nHer seductive mask slipped. Frustrated, she began pacing. “I swear I used all the magic words that should make a virgin boy like you tremble.”\n\nGrabbing a notebook, she started scribbling. “Maybe it’s the way I say it. Do I need to be less direct? Maybe shy works better in certain scenarios…”\n\n“I’m not your lab rat, you know.”\n\nWith a flick of her hand, she closed the notebook and stored it away.\n\nThen her fingers slid to her shirt, unbuttoning slowly. Her voice softened, timid now, a different shade entirely. “The truth is… I’m nervous. This would be my first time. But if it’s with you… I’d accept it.”\n\n“You do realize I heard you thinking about changing your approach, right?”\n\nShe huffed and dropped back into her chair, scooping a spoonful of beans from the can. “Anyway, that’s how Kunoichis operate. A class that blends espionage, theft, assassination, and seduction.”\n\nLuke dug into his own can of food in silence.\n\n“Still, admit it,” she teased, “not even a little flutter in your chest? Not even a blush?”\n\n“No.”\n\n“Seriously? Why not?”\n\nHe leveled a look at her. “Because you don’t have anything that attracts me.”\n\n“And what is it that attracts you in a woman that I lack?” she asked, notebook and pencil already in hand.\n\n‘Big breasts. Maids. Elves.’ Artemis’s voice chimed dryly in his thoughts.\n\nFor a brief second, Luke wanted to crush the necklace in his hand.\n\n“Remind me why the hell we’re even talking about this?” he asked.\n\nEvangeline set the notebook aside. “You already know I’m a tailor with the Shadow Kunoichi class. I’ve reached the peak of Rank F. Maxed everything. I was courteous enough to lay my cards on the table first. As partners, you should show yours.”\n\n“I’m not saying anything. You should’ve told me your real motive before this. I never agreed to share.”\n\nShe took another spoonful, unbothered. “I already know your class is Assassin. Princess Rhiannon told me as much, trying to convince me you could be trusted. That leaves your profession, if you have one. I need to know whether you’ll actually be useful for the plan. We’re all marching into hell together. The least you can do is tell me what you specialize in.”\n\n“When Allison gets here, I’ll tell you my profession.”\n\nFrom what Luke knew, Allison would return in just a few days, fresh from her mission against the Orc Lord.\n\n“Did they kill the Orc Lord or not?” Luke asked.\n\n“I don’t know,” Evangeline admitted. “Someone from the expedition dropped a note in a spot Jerry could find in the forest. The note itself was blank. That’s how we communicate.”\n\n“That’s a bizarre method,” Luke muttered.\n\n“The point isn’t the message, it’s the act of leaving it.” Her tone firmed. “It means they’re alive, at least, and on their way back. We can’t risk anything leaking to Bartholomew. What if he’s been watching the places we used to pass messages these past few months? Allison being a noble, and Mason working alongside her, it draws too much attention. Especially after vanishing for so long.”\n\nShe shifted in her chair. “There have been too many eyes on Haven lately. Ever since Marshall was taken out, things have been… off. Do you think Angelica was the only one targeted that night? During the ant attack, plenty of merchants and influential people died.”\n\nHer gaze darkened. “Coincidentally, or not, they were the same ones who had their own groups planning to search for the mechanisms. Local leaders, small factions. Even some strong fighters who were actually contributing. All wiped out in one night.”\n\nShe tapped her fingers against the armrest. “Whether that was chance or something deliberate, we still don’t know. But it was strange. Very strange.”\n\nFinally, she rose from her chair. “Once they get closer, out of the forest, Jerry can carry a letter directly to Allison. That’ll make things easier.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke and Evangeline sat by the edge of a river, catching their breath. They’d stirred up quite the mess. Sneaking all the way to the gate that led toward the capital, they had slipped into the guard camp under cover of night. Luke had hurled a kukri charged with mana, blasting apart the barricade again, and then cloaked the chaos in a thick fog, leaving the soldiers stumbling in confusion.\n\nAfter that, they ran.\n\nThe two of them bolted like madmen until their lungs burned, finally stopping only when the river cut across their path.\n\n“We bought ourselves some time,” she said.\n\nTheir insane little plan had worked, or at least, it looked like it would. Either way, they’d pulled it off.\n\n“You really think Bartholomew will believe I went back to the capital? That this will actually convince him?” Luke asked.\n\n“Better than letting him keep his armies focused on the Wild Zone. If we leave him unchecked, he might send his trusted scouts to keep watch near the second mechanism while we’re there. This way, at least he’ll split his pursuit, thinking you returned to the capital.”\n\nIt was the kind of scheme the two of them only could’ve come up with while killing time, waiting for Allison and the others to return.\n\n“And besides,” Evangeline added, “he’ll never believe we’d try something this stupid.”\n\n“That much I’m sure of.”\n\nLuke let out a long sigh. “Now we’ve got to march seven hours just to circle back to where we started. He’d never think we were dumb enough to pull this off, and honestly, I can’t even argue with that.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nEvangeline had just sent her familiar, Jerry, off with a letter for Allison. According to the raven, they’d already made it out of the deeper parts of orc territory.\n\n“I’d say within twelve to twenty-four hours, Allison will be here,” she said.\n\nLuke wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Part of him was grateful she’d been on an expedition far from the Safe Zone, it made him feel a little less guilty for not going after her while he wasted time chopping wood.\n\nEvangeline moved toward the table. It was a disaster zone: spools of thread, wigs, even neatly folded underwear scattered across it. He’d tried tidying the place more than once, though only within the limits of what could actually be called “tidy.”\n\nHe’d also learned she had the habit of sleeping in nothing but bra and panties. When he complained, she told him it was his fault for staying in her house in the first place, so she wasn’t changing her habits. Luke was almost certain she did it just to mess with him.\n\n“Let’s go over the plan again,” she said, pointing to a map.\n\nThe crude sketch showed the second fortress.\n\n“The mechanism is right in the center. Once it’s activated, we have to be ready for the worst: the system might notify everyone, including Bartholomew. And if that happens, you can bet he’ll mobilize part of his army to come here.”\n\nShe tapped the map. “That’s why Allison, Mason, and I agreed on this beforehand. Before we seize the mechanism, a group of trusted people will head out to the Haven to bring the others here. Which is why the activation has to happen at night. That way they can cross the Wild Zone under cover of darkness, without running into Wardens at sunrise.”\n\nHer finger traced the area around the fortress.\n\n“This place will become a Safe Zone. Our hope is to convince anyone Bartholomew sends that this zone really is secure and that we’ve activated a mechanism. That puts him in a corner. What will his army, so desperate to return to Earth, do once they realize the truth?”\n\nShe gave a thin smile. “Either way, that’s our goal.”\n\nShe pointed to the forest next. “Part of the orc territory will fall inside the Safe Zone. And guess what? It’s filled with trees. Do you know why that’s important?”\n\n“Because… it’s a forest,” Luke said flatly.\n\n“Remember that river we saw?” she asked. “After eight years stuck here, I know exactly how to move hundreds of people through the Wild Zone. And believe me, it’s a lot better than digging some tunnel. My solution is simple: boats.”\n\n“Boats?” Luke raised a brow.\n\nShe tossed him a sheet of paper. The sketch was a stick figure standing on a crooked little raft.\n\n“Really? That’s awful. You didn’t need to draw it, I got the point.”\n\nHe slapped the grand ‘boat plan’ back down on the table.\n\n“You worked as a lumberjack, so you already know how this goes,” she said. “We’ll harvest wood from the forest around the fortress to build boats, while another group clears out the crocodiles along the river until its end.”\n\nNow it clicked. Luke finally understood one of the reasons the Orc Lord had been marked as a priority target. The river cut straight through orc territory. Back in Morvat’s time, this plan would’ve been impossible. But now, with the Orc Lord likely dead, using that territory as part of their strategy was finally on the table.\n\nEvangeline tapped a crude drawing of chests on the paper. “At the same time, we’ll be collecting potions and other resources for the second half of the plan. But Allison will explain that part herself.”\n\nHer finger slid toward the sketch of the capital. “The main group’s task was to hunt down the third mechanism. Oh, wait, scratch that. You already did the work for us.”\n\nA faint smirk tugged at her lips.\n\n“All that’s left is preparing to kill the serpent guarding the third fortress, and of course, bracing ourselves for whatever event the fortress triggers.”\n\nShe leaned back, considering. “My bet is that once we take down the Beast Lord, we’ll be strong enough to handle it. Not to mention the rewards we’ll get from its death.”\n\nLuke kept silent. How was he supposed to tell her that part of the problem was already solved? The Beast Lord was dead. That left only the event itself, and it meant the end of the tutorial was closer than ever. Most of the biggest obstacles had already fallen.\n\n“But we won’t advance until we’ve stockpiled enough healing potions,” she continued. “For you, sneaking around the capital is one thing. For a full party, it’s another story entirely.”\n\nLuke paused, considering. “Healing potions don’t work miracles. If the second fortress was tougher than the first, then the third will be far worse.”\n\n“Better than nothing,” she countered.\n\n“What about a healer? Their magic can mend fractures, set bones, sometimes even regenerate organs.”\n\n“I thought of that. Some of Bartholomew’s healers might volunteer. But would you really trust your life to one of his people?”\n\nLuke wouldn’t. Even if a healer wanted desperately to return to Earth, there was always the chance they’d turn out to be another Paul, or a Kruger, or even Bartholomew himself, sabotaging everything just to cling to the tutorial.\n\n“What about Thiara? She’s trustworthy,” Luke suggested.\n\n“Thiara’s terrified of combat. She didn’t even join the expedition. She’s too valuable to risk. We’d need a healer reckless enough to follow us into certain death.”\n\n“Like some zealot obsessed with his goddess, determined to get back to Earth just to spread her word?” Luke asked.\n\nEvangeline frowned, thrown off. “I… suppose that would work.”\n\nA faint smile tugged at his lips. “I think I know the perfect healer.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nAllison walked with the members of Haven as they returned from the expedition that had finally brought down the Orc Lord.\n\n“What do you think happened?” Quinn asked Gilbert as they trudged along the path.\n\n“Evangeline said we needed to get to her hideout immediately. I keep thinking maybe Bartholomew found us out,” Miranda muttered.\n\nWhile they speculated, Allison remained silent. She already knew the truth. Evangeline’s raven familiar had reached her and delivered a letter. Inside was a summary of everything that had happened. Luke had reappeared after all those missing months, and not only that, he had caused absolute chaos in the Safe Zone.\n\nEvangeline’s warning had been clear: they couldn’t go back to Haven, at least not all of them. It would draw too much attention. She and Mason, being recognizable figures, couldn’t afford to be seen. It would be too suspicious for Allison to suddenly return at the exact moment Luke launched an attack on Bartholomew’s soldiers.\n\nIf that happened, if both she and Mason resurfaced now, Bartholomew would piece things together. He would guess their intentions and order the second fortress watched, ruining any chance of surprise. Time was against them. Allison and the others would have to seize the second fortress as quickly as possible.\n\nShe had wanted to wait at least a week, to give the group time to recover. But every minute lost would only make things worse. That night, ready or not, they had to face the fortress event.\n\nWhat made it worse was that Allison hadn’t managed to improve Luke’s image with Haven’s leaders. Her original plan had been simple: conquer the fortress first, then smooth things over once Luke returned. But now everything had collapsed into a handful of hours. Luke’s situation, the fortress event, both had to be dealt with at once.\n\nIn the end, they devised a bold plan, the only plan left to them. Luke would have to surrender himself to Haven’s leaders and tell his side of the story. There was no other way. What use was conquering the fortress if her friend couldn’t even live there?\n\nIt had to be done like plunging into icy water all at once: a single shock, no drawn-out hesitation, no half-truths. They owed that much to her and to Luke. Without the two of them, Haven wouldn’t even know the second fortress existed. They had been the ones to find the mechanism’s location. And without their pressure on Angelica, she never would have revealed the truth.\n\nAllison had protected them from Bartholomew by doing something she had sworn she never would, she revealed herself as Allison Rhiannon. For the people of Haven it had been a revelation, but for her it was agony. To speak that family name aloud had cost her more than they could imagine. But because of it, Haven was safe. Because of it, no one from Bastion dared to march into their settlement and act as if they owned it.\n\nAnd after that, she had nearly died killing the Orc Lord.\n\nAfter everything she had done for them, surely they would do this one thing for her. If she told them to trust Luke, to protect him, then they should. They owed her that much. Without her, most of them wouldn’t even be alive. Beast Captains, Orc Captains, the Ant Queen, the Orc Lord, she had been there for every single one of those battles, fighting at their side. Why, then, couldn’t they stand by her now?\n\nShe froze for a moment, noticing the faint curl of white mist escaping her lips.\n\nDragon’s pride? She drew a steady breath. I need to calm down.\n\nIt was the curse of her dragon’s heart, strengthened even further by the icy draconic skills she carried. At times, her temperament flared too easily. Pride. Impatience. Harshness that cut sharper than she intended.\n\nHer mentor’s words echoed in memory: dragons are proud, impatient, possessive, arrogant, territorial. To balance those instincts is the key. Some learn to temper them so deeply that they’re called wise. But she was still young, still closer to human than dragon, and wisdom felt far away.\n\n“I think we’re here,” Miranda said, breaking her thoughts.\n\n“All the wells look the same in this area. But yes, this is the one,” Quinn replied, rapping his knuckles on the hatch, firm, precise, the exact rhythm of the code.\n\nSoon, Evangeline would emerge. And… Luke.\n\nStrange. It had been months since she’d last seen him. Her own journey, through the wall dungeons, then into orc territory, had been so relentless that time blurred. Was it four months? Five? Long enough that she’d spent more time alongside Haven’s people than with Luke himself.\n\nAnd yet, did she even consider them friends? The people of Haven called her one, but she didn’t feel it. With Luke, it was different. He was the first person she had seen after fleeing home. They had walked through hell together. But to Haven’s people, she wasn’t Allison. She was Allison Rhiannon.\n\nThe hatch creaked open, and Evangeline climbed out. The Haven members greeted her warmly, voices overlapping after so long apart. Allison barely noticed. Her eyes were locked on the dark opening, waiting. For a second, she felt something cold, an absurd thought that no one would climb out. But Evangeline glanced at her, then toward the hatch, and Allison knew. Luke appeared, hauling himself up and out of the well. After all this time… there he was.\n\nAnd he looked different. Not just physically, though she couldn’t quite put it into words. His skin was still pale as snow, clearly he hadn’t seen the sun wherever he’d been hiding. His hair was longer now. His eyes were the same, sharp and unreadable. His face carried that same permanent scowl of disdain.\n\n“What the hell is he doing here?” someone shouted.\n\nThat was her cue. Allison pushed through the crowd before anyone could do something stupid. Memories surged as she walked toward him. Was she nervous? She couldn’t tell. She also didn’t know how deeply Luke had agreed to the plan.\n\n“Hello, Allison,” Luke said, calm. Too calm.\n\nHello, Allison? Really? After all this time? The last time we saw each other you knocked me out and disappeared, and that’s what you open with?\n\nSo she matched him, word for word. Calm. Cold.\n\n“Hello, Luke.”\n\nAnd then… nothing. He just stared at her in that infuriating, familiar way. The same stubborn idiot who vanished for months and left her to clean up the mess he’d made. She didn’t waste another second. In one swift motion, she pressed the blade to his throat and carried out the plan.\n\nOh no. That might’ve come off too cold.\n\nBut it was too late. Evangeline caught his arm.\n\n“He can’t turn into mist if someone’s touching him,” she said quietly. “Same rule applies to me when I use shadows.”\n\n\nFinally, everyone, we’ve reached the time skip! Now Allison’s and Luke’s storylines have finally converged, and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me on this journey.\n\nFrom this point on we’re heading into completely unknown territory. Before, because of the time skip, we already knew a few things that were bound to happen. But now everything is brand new, and I can promise you plenty of exciting surprises along the way.\n\nWe’re moving into the stretch that leads toward the book’s final events. This isn’t the last arc yet, since there are still the two fortresses to activate and of course the castle. But the tutorial itself is drawing closer to its end, since, as we’ve seen, Luke is already reaching the rank’s level cap. There’s no more room for growth in that place.\n\nAnd what can you expect before the book ends? Well, a lot of intense and fun stuff. I know, I sound like Saul Goodman hyping things up haha. But there’s one thing I can tease without spoiling: Luke’s Rank Skill. As we’ve learned, this kind of skill is born from both the strengths and flaws of the individual, and it will definitely be interesting once his is revealed.\n\nThank you so much for reading up to this point!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 259: The Lord Slayer\nTarget length: ~2500 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Allison stayed in one of the houses near Evangeline’s hideout. There was no way that many people could climb down the well and cram into her little room, so they had set up camp here instead. It was close to the wall, snow falling heavily outside, the air sharp with cold. Inside, though, the real chill came from the constant arguments.\n\n“Are we seriously going to protect that bastard?” Gilbert asked, his hand tight around the hatchet he carried.\n\nLuke had been dragged into the house as a prisoner, bound so tightly upstairs he could barely move. Most of Haven had wanted to kill him the second they saw his face. But Allison had given her order: no one laid a hand on Luke. She had unfinished business with him.\n\nNo one dared push back, because she had spoken as Allison Rhiannon. Her voice left no space for debate, clipped and authoritative. After killing the Orc Lord and saving their lives, she had earned that weight. To many, she was already a leader. They obeyed her in public. But here, in the quiet of this cramped house, the defiance bled out.\n\nThrough it all, Mason stayed silent. This wasn’t his fight; he had come too late to carry the same grudges.\n\nAllison laid out her reasons. Why Luke wasn’t just the monster they thought he was. Why he had been as wronged as any of them. Evangeline had helped her sharpen the argument, but it wasn’t easy. Not after Luke himself had all but painted the target on his back, claiming he’d killed Angelica and threatening to cut down anyone in his way before vanishing. Explaining his side of the story was… complicated.\n\n“Why should we listen to him at all?” Miranda asked, arms crossed.\n\n“He killed a Warden when he was still low-level,” Evangeline said. “Then he crossed to the other side of the tutorial and survived there for months. No one else has ever done that.”\n\nGilbert slammed his hatchet onto the table and leaned forward, glaring at them.\n\n“And that’s supposed to impress me? So he killed a Warden, so what? We can do that now. He went to the other side of the tutorial? Big deal. We can go too. Nothing’s stopping us anymore.”\n\nEugene, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, pushed himself to his feet.\n\n“He really killed a Warden back then?” he asked, skeptical. “If he did, it was dumb luck. And even if it wasn’t, he’s nothing compared to us now. We don’t need him. Not as a guide, not for anything. He’s locked upstairs, probably pissing himself right now.”\n\nAllison exhaled, long and tired. The arguments went in circles, no end in sight. She glanced at Evangeline and nodded toward the stairs. Enough was enough. It was time to bring Luke down and settle this before they lost the night entirely.\n\n“From this point on, time is against us,” Allison said, her tone cutting through the noise. “We can’t waste it arguing. Don’t trust him? Fine. Then trust me. Understand this: conquering the fortress is our priority.”\n\nMoments later, Evangeline descended the stairs with Luke in tow. The bickering didn’t stop, but Allison knew she had to put more steel in her voice. The others couldn’t be allowed to spiral.\n\nThe meeting carried on, turning to updates and the one question everyone wanted answered: what lay beyond, on the other side of the tutorial.\n\n“What does the serpent look like? How big is it?” Gilbert asked.\n\nThey were talking about the Beast Lord.\n\nEvangeline hesitated before answering. “In terms of length… about the size of a subway train.”\n\n“And exactly how long is that supposed to be?” Dustin pressed.\n\n“Somewhere between five hundred and a thousand feet,” Mason muttered, grim-faced.\n\n“Shit,” Gilbert wiped the sweat from his brow. “The Orc Lord was bad enough. How the hell do you kill something that size?”\n\nThis Lord wasn’t just a problem, it was a nightmare, far worse than the Orc Lord had ever been. Killing that monster had already pushed them to their limits. Now they were staring at the idea of a colossal serpent. No one in the room looked confident. They all knew what it meant. They had just returned from the expedition; they knew exactly how brutal these fights could be.\n\n“I already killed it,” Luke said.\n\nFor a heartbeat Allison thought she’d misheard him. But then she caught the faint smile on his face, the calm way he said it, too matter-of-fact to be a bluff.\n\nHe killed the Beast Lord? How?\n\n“You really killed it?” Evangeline’s voice was level, but her eyes sharpened with curiosity.\n\n“Yes.” No hesitation, no wavering.\n\n“Bullshit,” Dustin, the bald giant, growled, folding his arms across his chest. “He’s lying.”\n\n“It took all of us to bring down the Orc Lord. There’s no way he took out the Beast Lord on his own,” Gilbert added, suspicion dripping from every word.\n\nBut Allison knew. He wasn’t lying. Luke never would about something like that. He had killed it. Alone.\n\nDuring her trek back through the forest, Allison had told herself she’d gloat to Luke when they finally met again, pretend the Orc Lord had been an easy kill, just to rub it in. But now, knowing he had slain the Beast Lord single-handedly, that petty competition she never voiced was already lost.\n\nThe meeting dragged on, tense and uncertain, until Luke finally stepped out of the house. Shortly after, Allison followed, and the group pressed on toward the fortress of the second mechanism. They moved through the Wild Zone in silence, careful and alert.\n\n“You really believe he killed the Beast Lord?” Eugene asked as he caught up to her, pushing through the undergrowth at her side.\n\n“That fang he carries is proof enough,” Allison replied. “Even if he won’t say what reward he got for it.”\n\n“I’ve been thinking with Quinn,” Eugene said. “The monster’s a serpent. Snakes shed skin. Wouldn’t be hard to grab a piece it left behind near the capital. He could be faking it, just to impress us. Or intimidate us.”\n\nAllison’s pace quickened. “No. He killed it. Only an idiot like him would be reckless enough to try something like that alone.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nThey had finally reached the fortress of the second mechanism. Tonight, they would enter. Inside her tent, Allison sat alone, the faint clanging of steel echoing from outside. Smiths worked tirelessly through the cold, forging new metal shields and repairing the ones battered during the battle with the Orc Lord.\n\nIn front of her rested a massive block of ice. She had conjured it herself, shaping it with mana. Lifting her katana, she began to carve. Each strike was swift, precise, the blade slicing away layer after layer of frozen crystal.\n\nIt was one of the ways she advanced her profession as a Sculptor. She had chosen it herself, one of the few ties she still allowed between her bloodline and her craft. She’d started small, wood, then clay, eventually stone. As a magical profession, Sculpting rewarded not brute force but calm, patience, and delicate control. Skills that doubled as anchors against her volatile draconic emotions. A lumberjack split trees, a miner shattered stone, but her art was different. It demanded vision. To sculpt, she first had to see the form within, then coax it into existence.\n\nHer dedication had granted her a mutation of profession, evolving into an Ice Sculptor. With it came new creations, new powers drawn directly from her bloodline.\n\n[Heart of the Ice Dragon (Ancient)]: A bloodline skill passed down through the Rhiannon clan, one of the oldest among the Ice Dragons. Upon awakening this power, the heir’s heart cools, transforming into a core of eternal winter that fuels every frost-bound spell with the cruel, lethal force of draconic cold. The bearer inherits both the nobility and the ruthless chill of their kind, amplifying their magic and becoming a true heir to the legacy of the Ice Dragons.\n\nThe profession also harmonized with her class, offering techniques that sharpened her use of the katana.\n\nBefore her stood a perfect cube of ice, smoothed and polished from the larger block. Sitting cross-legged in front of it, she closed her eyes, placed both palms against its surface, and drew in a deep breath. Sweat trickled down her brow almost instantly. This was delicate work. She wasn’t cutting now; she was bending the cube to her will with nothing but magic. The cube shuddered under her touch. She clenched her jaw, lungs tight, mind screaming against the order to empty itself. The more she tried to clear her thoughts, the louder they grew.\n\nThen an old memory surfaced. The cube cracked.\n\nIt was the image of someone from her family, a master of ice so skilled they’d developed a kind of telekinesis to control it. The cube splintered further as the memory pressed down. She remembered watching that figure conjure hundreds of blades of ice and, with a single thought, send them tearing into a target.\n\nThe cube shattered completely, scattering into shards across the floor.\n\nThe memory laughed at her. She was nothing compared to that person. At the same age, they had already achieved the extraordinary. A genius. A prodigy. And Allison… she was a shadow. That memory was one of the many reasons she despised her family.\n\nFrustration simmered, and she pushed to her feet. Enough of that exercise. She focused instead on another.\n\n[Ice Katana Creation (Rare)]: The Ice Sculptor can shape the essence of [Ice] into a temporary blade. While ephemeral, the weapon is as real and sharp as steel, though its power is capped at [Common]. Yet, when imbued with the ancient strength of the [Heart of the Ice Dragon], the katana burns with draconic winter, colder, sharper, deadlier than any mere conjured weapon.\n\nShe concentrated on her hand, willing the cold to gather, to solidify. It wasn’t as easy as flicking open a system menu; she had to create it herself. The spell was more like a recipe, ingredients, steps, precision.\n\nSlowly, the shape of a katana formed. She wanted it sharper, faster, more brutal. She wanted a blade that appeared instantly, firm and unyielding. The truth was she had only forged a perfect ice katana once, against the Orc Lord, when death clawed at her throat and her dragon heart had awakened. The battlefield had been littered with grotesque ice sculptures, her rage and desperation strengthening her craft in ways she could never replicate on command.\n\nThat weapon had been born from luck, fury, circumstance. Not from steady skill. Now, she chased that perfection again. Progress by progress. Slow, but real. Sculpt, create, control, command. It was the only way forward.\n\n\n***\n\n\nAfter finishing her training for the day, Allison had to rejoin the meetings. She couldn’t afford to burn through too much mana anyway, the fortress challenge was drawing near.\n\nWhen she approached the main tent, raised voices carried from inside.\n\n“I’m here,” she said as she stepped in.\n\nA small table was cluttered with piles of paper.\n\n“Take one of these. I know you already have a copy, but I wrote out several more and I’m not throwing the work of my beautiful hands into the trash,” Evangeline said, sliding a sheet toward her.\n\nAllison didn’t need to look to know what it was. For months during their expedition, the Haven group had held meeting after meeting about that same document. A transcription of the fortress event:\n\n[Special Event: Midnight Siege]\n\nDescription:\n\nThe Midnight Wardens have sensed your presence. Your intrusion has not gone unnoticed. They remained hidden, lurking within the fortress walls, waiting for you to wander deeper into their domain. Now they march, intent on hunting down and eradicating anyone who dares defile their stronghold. Their forces, led by their commander, have begun their assault to reclaim this territory.\n\nObjective:\n\nEliminate the invasion leader and secure control of the fortress.\n\nStatus:\n\nEvent in progress.\n\n(Warning: Access to the mechanism will remain locked until the territory is fully secured. The door will only open upon completion of the event.)\n\n“Everyone out there is reading one right now,” Evangeline remarked. “Except Luke, of course. He’s got his in the system, same as me.”\n\nThe notification only triggered once someone approached the mechanism’s gate. Anyone who stepped into the fortress without it wouldn’t even realize they’d been pulled into an event until the Wardens came for them.\n\n“The strategy’s going to be the same as with the Orc Lord, right?” Miranda asked.\n\n“Only this time, we add Evangeline’s epic skill into the mix,” Mason replied.\n\n“Which means I’ll be saving your asses from a lot of trouble,” Evangeline said with a smirk as she dropped into a chair.\n\nDustin leaned against the wall in the corner, silent until now. He was technically a newcomer to Haven, having joined not long after Angelica’s death, but most of them already knew him. He’d even shown up a few times at the wall dungeon to lend a hand.\n\n“My ultra-rare seismic skill will carry its weight,” he said. “My only concern is that kukri-throwing guy. He’s not going to kill us, right?” He let out a laugh.\n\nEvangeline tossed a sketch onto the table: the Warden Captain.\n\n“Invisibility. Backup from the other Wardens. And worst of all, he’s smart. That’s our enemy,” she explained. “The good news is you’ve all gotten stronger since the last time I saw you. So, are we going in or what? Because after eight years trapped here, patience is the one thing I don’t have anymore. I’m more eager than ever.”\n\nAll their work over the past months had been leading to this. Training until their bodies ached, growing stronger, obtaining a powerful item by killing the Orc Lord. And now, finally, stepping into the fortress.\n\n“Let’s go,” Allison said.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThey had gathered everyone who would enter, checked over gear, and distributed the handful of healing potions Evangeline had managed to secure. Everything was ready. Night had fallen, the sky heavy with stars, and fittingly, it was close to midnight.\n\nThe camp burned bright with firelight, torches and bonfires throwing long shadows across steel and faces. Allison had been forced to give a speech, something she hated, but there was no way around it. This was no different from the Orc Lord: just as dangerous, and this time their enemy wore armor that could shrug off most blows.\n\nThey all knew it wouldn’t be easy.\n\nWhen the moment came, she shouted, and the others roared back with her. She broke into a run, leading the charge, the Haven fighters thundering after her. Luke was only a few steps behind. And the instant they crossed into the fortress, the truth settled in every heart: they would claim this place, or they would die trying."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nPath of the Deathless — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Path\n\nNoun\n\nA Path is a System-born metaphysical archetype that represents a fundamental truth of existence. Obtaining a Path unlocks an individual's ability to gain empowerment through Path Skills, wield true Magic, receive Blessings, and achieve recognized Feats of power or renown. Paths are not inherent; they must be either earned by performing a truly great deed or bestowed upon an individual by a powerful entity (such as a deity, an ancient spirit, or a comparable power). Without a Path, one is barred from ascension and apotheosis, and bound to the limits of mortality (See: Pathless). Once a Path is accepted, it cannot be surrendered or rejected.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Shiv | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Georges, Adam, Arrow\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; skills (e.g. Deathless, 1/1, The Pendulum of Burdens, Starhawk Arrow Cuirass, Restricted, Skill Merge Portal Break, 0/0, The Scorn of Umetia)\nSystem notification style: \"System-born metaphysical archetype that represents a fundamental t\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 104 (II) Reforge [II]\nTarget length: ~2500 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The Strongest Spellblade\n\n\nHeroes. The stuff of stories. Delving deep within the great dungeon. Rising against adversity to stand at the very peak of their generation.\n\nJustin is fated to become not just a hero, but a legend. Born to the unrelenting Supreme Warlady Elena, his ascension to a paragon of his generation is a mere formality.\n\nWhile his mother scours the world looking for yet more treasures to speed her precious son's ascent, Justin must survive noble drama, assassins, and slave-driving tutors to reach the pinnacle of sword and sorcery.\n\nHis unyielding determination to plumb the depths of the dungeon would see him become a hero, no matter the circumstances of his birth. Yet, Justin has been raised with every conceivable advantage.\n\nAs the dungeon beckons, Justin's meteoric rise promises to draw him deeper than any have ever delved before and crown him as not just the greatest of his generation, but all generations to ever live. So begins the legend of... The Strongest Spellblade.\n\n\n104 (II)\n\nReforge [II]\n\n“Correct. Your Chrono-Anchored Strikes are powerful, but it will be better for me, since it will give me an extra skill for repositioning aside from my spatial magic.”\n\nShiv considered that. It wasn’t a bad idea. Frankly, it was downright essential. The ugliness of Adam’s near deaths came back to haunt Shiv as he recalled how close the entity came to killing Adam each time it got its hands on him. “Hm. Fine. But I want something in return for this.”\n\n“Like what?” Adam asked.\n\n“I’m not sure yet,” Shiv admitted. “I’ll think of something...” He frowned at the Magebreaker on the table next to the broken pieces of his kukri.\n\n\"Can you mix three things at once?\" Shiv asked. “And remove existing Enchantments?”\n\n\"Yes,\" Can Hu said, \"it will take more effort for me to sift through high-level and high-Tier Enchantments. But it can be done. There is also a risk of breaking the items if I am not capable of properly completing the reconstruction effort.”\n\nAnd that made Shiv consider what he wanted to do with his cloak as well. The answer there wasn’t too complicated: More spatial storage. The other Enchantments were good, but the dimensional pocket was the single greatest piece of utility he had. Maybe mix that with some Arcanite. But what about the Magebreaker? I could mix that with a dagger if the spatial magic Enchantment is removed, but that’ll make my weapon doubly-strained as offense and defense. I can see it breaking pretty fast again. No. Magebreaker stays its own thing. Or I get it merged with a shield at some point…\n\nThen, Shiv’s gaze fell on the helmet with a diamond gem socketed into its forehead. He walked over and picked it up. No surges of mana rushed into him. No Magical Skills triggered.\n\nEquipment Obtained: [Helm of the Farsighted Deceiver]\n\nTier: Master\n\nCondition: Severely Damaged\n\nComposition: Trollskin Leather; Diamond\n\nEnchantments > Master Farseeing; Master Self-Mending; Minor Illusion of Self; Chameleon; Binding\n\nAs its Enchantments loaded, Shiv looked inside the helmet and winced. The interior lining was utterly consumed by corrosion, a spread of rot and decay that left the helmet borderline ruined from within. The thing felt more than a little fragile in Shiv's hands, like it was on the verge of falling apart and would fall apart if he exposed it to any strain or damage.\n\nBut the Enchantments—that's what he was interested in. Chameleon, Minor Illusion, Master Farseeing. These were all utility options as well, and more importantly, unattuned utility options. None of them projected a magical field, and none of them should clash with the Magebreaker's functions.\n\n\"Hey, Can Hu,\" Shiv asked, \"can you fuse this helmet into the Mage Breaker?\"\n\nThe Penitent directed its streams of fluid metal, threading them through the helmet and connecting it to the Mage Breaker. A spell flashed between its hands, and another shape quivered in the mercury sphere held between its industrial arms. Can Hu fell silent, and Shiv just watched the automaton for a moment, patiently waiting for a response.\n\n\"It's a good choice,\" Adam said off by the side, nodding at Shiv in compliment. \"Farseeing will help you contend with invisible adversaries or others with high Tiers in Stealth or Deception. Additionally, Chameleon and Minor Illusion will make you an even greater terror on the battlefield. As if your Creeping Void wasn't bad enough already.\"\n\nSlowly, new options for combat took form in Shiv's mind. Casting a minor illusion might be useful for baiting out enemy attacks. Chameleon would be another layer of concealment, allowing him to blend in without ever invoking his Creeping Void. That would also solve the subtlety problem. Right now, his stealth was a very specific kind of stealth—the kind that let his enemies know he was there but rendered them unable to truly pinpoint his exact location. Chameleon was quiet. Chameleon allowed him to blend in without infecting his environment at all.\n\nFinally, the idea of escalating degrees of stealth appealed to Shiv: going from blended into the backdrop, then being detected, breaking contact after casting out a minor illusion, and then finally unleashing his Creeping Void when the situation truly devolved into havoc.\n\nShiv's eyes flipped over to another arcanite fragment—another piece of Absence. \"I'm going to ask a stupid question, but I think I already know the answer. I don't think arcanite and Inertium are going to mix very well, are they?\"\n\n\"Absolutely not,\" Valor said. \"A magical hyperconductor and the single greatest magical nullification material known to the Integration would likely come together like Necromancy and, well, you, Shiv.\"\n\nThe Deathless let out a grunt of displeasure at that. That was all the convincing he needed. Still, this was a good mixture, and more importantly, it would fix up his Magebreaker.\n\n\"Yes,\" Can Hu said finally, \"it can be done. In fact, I am certain I can do this. However, fusing the diamond gem will take a bit more consideration. Do you wish for it to be placed on the outside? It might affect the vibrational frequencies of the Inertium if placed along the way and render the structure vulnerable.”\n\nShiv shook his head. \"I don't care about the aesthetics. I just want functionality. Arrange the composition whatever way you see fit, so long as it works.\"\n\n\"Understood. I will create an extension for the gem then.\"\n\nAnd at once, the synthesization process began. Both items rose off the table as streams of fluid metal poured into them. A layer of gleaming, bubbling mercury swallowed them, and the layers were promptly meshed together, fusing into a singular pool as Can Hu continued the crafting process. Then, there came a flash of light by his side as Adam's Unique Skill triggered. The Azure Dawn hovering above the Gate Lord's head flared bright, and a beam of concentrated radiance poured into Can Hu.\n\nFor a brief moment, Shiv caught a flash. A flash of what Can Hu used to be: a towering, chrome-shelled weapon of war, sporting multiple limbs bearing heavy weapons—guns of every caliber and every variety. But within its unfurling chest was the shape of a faceless pilot, and they held out a hand, reaching toward Shiv.\n\nBut with another pulse of brightness from Adam's Righteous Dawn Prevails, the illusion faded, and Can Hu, in its current form, emerged from the illusion. Even so, the Penitent looked better than before. It worked more efficiently, even as its joints screamed with every articulation and minor movement. It didn't seem as fragile as it once was.\n\nA twisting spiral of spell patterns circulated the mercury pool, and the faintest hints of Geomancy mana ignited in reality. Most times, if you didn't have the right Magical Skills, you couldn't perceive someone else casting the same category of magic. Before Shiv had Biomancy, his death at the hand of the high vampire came as a mystery—a gesture and nothing more.\n\nBut now the world was alive with color, and Can Hu was channeling so much magic, straining its Crafting and Geomancy skill fusion so hard that it bled its wavelengths into the physical spectrum of the world.\n\n\"Godsdamn,\" Shiv muttered. The pool of mercury composing both items lit up like a second sun in the room. It wasn't as vibrant as Adam's azure sun, but it was no less potent, no less impressive. Slowly, Can Hu began to compress the sheen of mercury in on itself. It crushed harder and harder until it began to sink, until a shape emerged: the shape of a vibrating gauntlet.\n\nA smile emerged on Shiv's face. The Magebreaker had been restored, but it was more than the Magebreaker he remembered it being. The gauntlet was larger, and more importantly, it blended with the background as he stared at it for too long, its colors mixing and merging with the cold metal of the teleportation anchor. Connected to the gauntlet were several arm straps, all made of leather. They ran all the way up toward Shiv's shoulder, if judged by the length, and at the end, the gem gleamed, fastened to the intersection of various straps.\n\nCan Hu's Geomancy mana faded from view, but the finished and reforged Mage Breaker hovered in place, held by Can Hu's strings of fluid metal. \"Does the composition please you, Pathbearer? I think I can still make a few adjustments.\"\n\n\"No,\" Shiv said, cutting Can Hu off. \"It's good. In fact, I kinda like the new design. Good job, Penitent.\"\n\nCan Hu raised its shoulders back as a hint of pride exposed itself. \"It is only proper.\"\n\nShiv reached out and ran his hand into the Mage Breaker. Suddenly, he felt a new sensation inside. So that was where the leather went, Shiv mumbled. A soft leather glove clutched him. He would have complained about the temperature being too hot if he were still Pathless, but after all he'd experienced and all his new recent evolutions, a little heat didn't bother him anymore.\n\nEquipment Obtained: [Armguard of the Unseen Magebreaker]\n\nTier: Master\n\nCondition: Perfect\n\nComposition: Inertium; Trollskin Leather; Diamond\n\nEnchantments > Attuned Mana-Nullification; Master Self-Mending; Master Farseeing; Minor Illusion of Self; Chameleon; Binding\n\nOnce he equipped it himself, he began testing out his new capabilities. First, he blended into the backdrop just like the Mage Breaker did. Then, he projected a minor illusion, and that was when the gem along his shoulder flared and channeled out a stream of light that created a copy of Shiv. To his surprise, the minor illusion mimicked his every action, and he could move it further or closer to him as he pleased. Ultimately, however, it was just a mirage, and a keen-sighted adversary could likely see through it.\n\nBut finally, he triggered the Farseeing Enchantment, and suddenly he found himself capable of casting his gaze further and further. It was like his eyesight was magnifying with every thought. Soon, he peered at a specific patch of the wall and saw everything there in vivid detail. The smallest cracks revealed themselves to him, along with chunks of grime lining the edges of said cracks. He enhanced his far-sight even further, and his gaze slipped through the crack until he was staring at a surface of uneven and partially chipped obsidian—the exterior of the tower. A flood of nausea swept through Shiv, however, and he shook his head, trying to dislodge the feeling.\n\n\"Ah, Farseeing, eh?\" Adam asked, smirking. “How do you feel?”\n\n\"Yeah,\" Shiv agreed. \"Is this what it's like to be you all the time?\"\n\nAdam tilted his head. \"No. It's incomparably inferior to what I have.\"\n\nShiv winced in response.\"So your hearing, your taste—\n\n“Even my touch,\" Adam replied. \"All that is of my Awareness has been amplified. My Hypersense was superior to Farseeing in every way. It's an evolution gained when you strain all of your senses in combat, not just your gaze. A hawk relies on more than just its vision. Father prepared me well.”\n\nShiv let out a whistle. And then he thought back to how Adam was uncomfortable when he was surrounded by large crowds, how he often preferred to soar alone to keep moving.\n\nThen Shiv thought back to a certain incident in a certain apartment a few weeks ago, and a posthumous feeling of regret hit him. \"Shit, Adam. I didn't know it was so rough for you. I, uh, I kinda feel like a bastard now for doing some of the stuff that I, uh... you know. So. Sorry.”\n\nAdam studied Shiv for a moment, and then he let out a quiet scoff. \"It's alright. I learned to live with it. Part of having a high Awareness is understanding what to focus on and what to ignore. Actually, this is something I’ll train you to do. Everything you see is important. You need to learn to distinguish between different details and detect the subtle things as well.\"\n\nFor the first time, Shiv was honestly intrigued by the prospects of dramatically improving his Awareness. It was more than just another thing for him to do now. “Sounds good. I’ll show you how to cook, in exchange,” Shiv offered.\n\n“I…” Adam blinked. “You will?”\n\n“Yeah. Why not? It’s a useful skill.”\n\n“I don’t even have Common Cooking,” Adam said.\n\n“The perfect chef wouldn't have a Cooking Skill. Means you haven’t shit the bed enough yet to disgrace yourself with a level.”\n\n“What?” Adam asked, incredulous.\n\n“It’s something Georges always said to me when I messed something up bad early on. You want to fuse something next?\" Shiv asked. \"I've got my go.\"\n\nAdam shook his head. \"No, we do your priority Equipment first. I want you prepared.\"\n\n\"Prepared?\" Shiv asked. \"Prepared for what?\"\n\n\"Someone needs to survey the surface. Well, two people. You and me. I'm not exactly sure where we will emerge once we pass through that gate, but I can tell you this: If Sullain’s army is competent at all, they will have scouts hidden in places nearby. Pocket dimensions, hidden strongholds, scouts, and the like. More importantly, I want to know who else is watching. Lastly, even if I can cast out my Awareness, I want to stay close to the gate. I cannot direct the core once I leave these boundaries. And I have not set up a proper or strong enough teleportation network yet. I might be able to travel quickly using the Veilpiercer, but...\"\n\n\"Yeah, but it's best that I risk myself instead of you,\" Shiv said, finishing the ugly part of the statement with a nod. Adam tried to hide his awkwardness, but Shiv just shrugged. \"Yeah, it's fine. I've got no problem with it. Frankly, I like it this way. You can be the hunter and I can be...\" Shiv thought of the metaphor he was making. \"Well, I wouldn't even call myself bait. Maybe poison bait.\"\n\n\"You're my killer rabbit now,\" Adam declared with a slight smirk. \"I need the wolves to come out of the woods so I can see them. And you need the wolves to come out of the woods so you can tear their heads off.”\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 104 (III) Reforge [II]\nTarget length: ~2200 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Tearing off heads sounds great to me. When are we doing this?\"\n\n\"As soon as I can inform Uva of the situation. She should be prepared too. More importantly, we have to go over a few things related to the Inquisition, Aviary, Compact… Basically all the madness that has happened to us recently. We need to debrief ourselves before anything else. But we don’t have long. We have to be fast. We desperately need to know what Blackedge's situation is. All these resources, all this mithril treasure… I need to know what to buy and prepare first. The town has been besieged for weeks. Gods know how much damage it sustained, how many casualties there are.”\n\n“You’re thinking of evacuating some people over to our gate,” Shiv said.\n\n“If possible. And so, I want you as dangerous and prepared as you can possibly be for our first scouting run. Expect the System to be its usual horrible self and throw something we’re absolutely not prepared to fight, but we can make sure it strains itself doing so.”\n\nAdam looked at Can Hu and studied the Penitent for a moment. \"Penitent Can Hu, are you well enough for another synthesis?”\n\n\"I am,\" Can Hu said. But Shiv noticed a shiver run through the machine, and if even he noticed…\n\nAdam sighed. \"Can Hu, do not lie, and do not over-exert yourself. You have nothing to prove. More importantly, you've already finished two syntheses. We need you in an effective state not only for the synthesis, but also to rebuild the gate. You are not to break yourself. You have obligations to the rest of us too, no matter how you feel. Actually, I am going to go there: You did not fail any of us by being disabled in battle, and you do not need to make up for it now. I understand you might not feel this way, but you must accept this. Whatever lack or regret in your performance, you are more valuable now as a crafter.\"\n\nCan Hu's green optics narrowed and then brightened as he studied Adam.\n\n\"I was Penitent Chassis.\" Can Hu opened and closed a hand. \"Now I do not know if I can even survive for more than a few seconds should Shiv use his Inertial Overdrive. Even with the bone adamantine armor as support, even with additional modifications made, I estimate my chances of surviving one of his inertial detonations to be sub-10 percent. I came to serve as armor once more, and now I'm unable to meet that function a mere day later.\"\n\n\"That's fine,\" Shiv interjected. \"I don't care if you can't be my armor. We'll find another way. We'll figure something out for the Necromancy. But you're here with us now, and Adam's right. We want you functional. We don't want you broken. More importantly, we want you to get better. And maybe the Righteous Dawn Prevails might just do that. You want to be useful? You are. Right now.”\n\nCan Hu fell silent for a moment. \"It has strengthened my existing skills, but it does nothing for those that have been destroyed.\"\n\n\"Then we'll build you from the ground up,\" Adam said. \"We'll see you reforged, despite the damage. Maybe you need armor yourself. An armor for an armor. To aid in your movements.\"\n\nThe Penitent fell silent once more. But when it spoke, it spoke with certainty. \"I can perform one more act of synthesis. One more. I ask you to trust in me. I will not strain myself. I will not damage myself. But I have one more in me.\"\n\nAdam and Shiv looked at each other uneasily, but it was Valor that became the deciding voice of the dilemma. \"Let it try. Let it be. If it does not, it will damage its Path. It will wound Can Hu on a level deeper than a broken skill.\"\n\nThe Legendary Pathbearer looked to the Penitent, and slowly Can Hu turned and offered Valor the slightest of bows. \"It is important that we all chase after shadows. Shadows of who we were, and shadows of whom we can be. Desperate or delusional, it is yearning that makes us what we can become.\"\n\nAnd now, Adam let out a slight, shuddering breath. Finally, his reluctance succumbed. \"Fine. One more. And I'll boost you as much as I can this time. But if you cannot do it, just let it collapse. We'd rather lose a few pieces of Equipment than a good crafter and a good Pathbearer.\"\n\nCan Hu didn't acknowledge Adam’s state as it began shaping streams of liquid metal. Shiv pressed the topic. \"Can Hu,\" Shiv said, without any particular rancor in his voice, \"if I see you about to fall over, I'm going to make you stop. You are not killing yourself on my behalf. Adam letting you do this was his 'yes'. Well, this is mine. Do not break yourself. I’m not going to accept it. I’m still your pilot. Even if you can’t be worn right now.”\n\nCan Hu looked at Shiv for a long, hard moment and said for the final time, \"I am capable of one more synthesis.\"\n\nShiv clenched his jaw. \"All right then, Pathbearer, prove it.\"\n\n\"Your components first,\" Can Hu declared. “I will see the deed done.”\n\nBefore Shiv could respond, Adam leaned in. \"I have two suggestions here. Can Hu mixes a piece of Absence with your new dagger. At the same time, another fragment of Absence’s arcanite can go to your cloak when it is merged with Can Hu's Garden of Bountiful Alloy. It should amplify them as well. I will forgo my shard of the arcanite when your kukri is melded into my rapier.”\n\nAdam’s section suggestion caught Shiv entirely off-guard. “How does that work? Can Can Hu even work with them using its Geomancy?”\n\n“There are material aspects to each item,” Adam said. Can Hu confirmed that with a beep. “And more importantly, I know Dimensionality, so I'll be able to help Can Hu with this.\"\n\nShiv considered that. \"So what, I'll be carrying a Category One dimension on my back?\"\n\n\"Yes! Category One dimension on your back. You'll be able to store a lot more than just a few supplies. More importantly, you'll be able to carry a small garden full of regenerating alloys, and potentially a small group of active combatants on the inside as well.\"\n\nAnd what Adam was proposing slowly took shape in his mind. Shiv imagined Adam or Uva hiding within his cloak while he rampaged forward, waiting for the right moment to disembark. Or Can Hu being inside his cloak and constructing new machines on the way. The thought was so absurd it made Shiv laugh.\n\n\"Do you get what I’m trying to do?\" Adam said, smirking.\n\n“Yeah. You’re making me your personal troop carrier or something.\" Shiv nodded. \"Fine, but I'm gonna need that cloak back. And you understand you're going to be sharing space with a lot of bodies and a lot of flayed skin.\"\n\n\"I think after what I've gone through,\" Adam murmured, \"that's probably not going to be the worst of my nightmares.\"\n\nWith that agreed upon, Can Hu merged the final two pieces of Equipment for today. It melded the Skypiercer with a fragment of Absence. Again, two pools of mercury consumed each item. They slid together across the air, spilling as one, and a new glow filled the room. It was a prismatic glow—the glow of hyperconducted magic.\n\nCan Hu let out a mechanical groan from deep within its being. Shiv took a step forward, but Adam held out a hand. He channeled a strong beam of his personal sun into Can Hu and gritted his teeth. “Wait. It has this. As do I.”\n\nAt the same time, the Young Lord's legs were shaking as well. He was pushing himself as hard as Can Hu was. The beam pouring forth from his azure sun was practically solid by this point. As the spheres of mercury consumed the weapons, so too did the Righteous Dawn Prevails swallow Can Hu, and through it all, Shiv watched, beholding as the bubbling pool of mercury receded, and as the shape of a new blade unveiled itself.\n\nIt gleamed the color of a midnight rainbow—dark at the center, simmering with Dimensionality mana, but radiant along its edges. Its shape had changed as well. No longer was it a straight rondel dagger; instead, the blade developed a slight curve and was needle-thin, resembling Confriga's Absence more than ever before. A spike also protruded from the bottom, sharp enough to stab, with hooks on the side to enhance one's effectiveness in grappling. Its hilt became a series of metal petals rather than a simple round ring of metal.\n\nWith a loud, mechanical shriek, Can Hu unleashed a final burst of effort, and a spell slammed down upon the reforged item.\n\n\"The act is done,\" Can Hu crackled, nearly falling over. But before Shiv could catch him, Can Hu planted a leg. Its body screamed, but it remained upright. It did not fall. Shiv halted mid-step and just watched Can Hu for another few seconds, ignoring the weapon altogether.\n\n\"You're fine?\" he asked.\n\nCan Hu remained standing, even if it quivered, even if its body was making all kinds of strange noises. \"I am. I have delivered on my promise, Pathbearer.\"\n\n\"So you have, Penitent,\" Shiv answered with a smile. \"So you have.\"\n\nSlowly, he walked over and picked up the dagger from where it hovered in the air. As soon as he took it out of Can Hu 's grasp, the bot nearly fell over. But Valor held Can Hu up, and they both retreated closer to Adam, closer to the azure dawn. The Young Lord's face was also bathed in a sheen of sweat. Both he and Can Hu had spent themselves substantially.\n\nEquipment Obtained: [Skysplitter]\n\nTier: Master\n\nCondition: Perfect\n\nComposition: Arcanite; Adamantine\n\nEnchantments > Spatially-Anchored; Size-Shifting; Master Self-Mending; Mass-Stealing; Binding; Master Magic Amplification\n\nAs Shiv clutched the weapon, he felt a flood of Awareness enter him. He suddenly gained an appreciation for how wide the world was, for the relative positioning and distances between objects. Space was a form of magic, and on a subtle level, he could feel brushing against his personal Chronomancy skill as well.\n\nThen he commanded his dagger to grow larger, and it did. Rather than becoming the lance, it extended first, materializing into something that resembled Absence for a moment, if more like a machete than a longsword. And then, as it continued growing, it became a glorious, thin needle, reaching eight meters, then nine. Then it was pressing up against the edges of the teleportation anchor. And he stopped it before it could go any further. But this was only the tip of the iceberg.\n\nThe weapon could grow larger. A lot larger.\n\nHe could also feel how his Biomancy clung to the material. His mana was being pulled into it. Every mana field he had was drawn to its edge. And that was why it was rainbow-bright. That was why its color shifted like an animated prism. It was literally a singularity for magic.\n\n\"I have not managed to breach the Heroic-Tier threshold for this synthesis,\" Can Hu said apologetically.\n\n\"No,\" Shiv replied, \"this is pretty awesome. Besides, you’ll get to try again when it breaks. I can't wait to field-test this. In fact,\" he looked at Adam, \"when do you want to go on this scouting run exactly, because I’m—”\n\n“We have a problem.\" They were interrupted by Uva appearing at the front door. Her face was impassive, but he read the storm clouds behind her eyes.\n\n\"Perhaps it would be more accurate, in fact, to say I and Shiv have a problem,\" Uva continued. \"The Weaveress in charge of the expeditionary detail, Exalted Mother Null Mont, has commanded that I report back to Weave for an in-depth debriefing, along with...\" Uva paused, \"...along with an interrogation session at Elaboration to ensure I am free of undue influences.”\n\n\"What do you mean by 'interrogation session'?\" Shiv said, his voice dropping to a low growl.\n\n\"I informed them of the Dreamtaker,\" Uva explained. \"And the Stranger. Exalted Mother Null Mont has ordered me to depart immediately.” And then she shuffled uncomfortably. “Also, she wishes to take your… Court Leviathan and the rogue vampire back with her as well. She has gone off to secure the packages. Against my recommendation.”\n\n\"Oh, has she?\" Shiv said. A slow, simmering pressure built up inside him. Shiv glared at his new knife, but slowly, his scowl turned to a smile as the radiant edges inspired an idea in him. “Hey, Adam. How big do you think this knife can get?”\n\nThe Gate Lord looked briefly confused, but then a look of amusement blossomed on his face as he understood. “I don’t know. I think we should find out. In fact, I think as many people should find out as possible.”\n\nUva’s head swung between them, and the slightest hint of worry leaked from her mind. “Shiv. What do you mean by that?”\n\nShiv grunted with amusement. “Oh, you’ll see, Uva. You’ll see.”\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 105 (I) Persuasion\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Sometimes, you don’t need to actually kill or hurt someone to get what you want. Sometimes, a few threats, a bit of charm, and some bribery can go a long way…\n\n-Memoirs of a Master-Tier War Mage\n\n105 (I)\n\nPersuasion\n\nExalted Mother Null Mont stared at the Court Leviathan hovering just over the Abyssal Gateway. A crackle of Aeromantic lightning danced along the metallic strips jutting free from her body. It did that when she was focused. It did that when she was excited. And right now, she was extremely excited. A Court Leviathan captured for Weave, as an offering to the Composer. This would be the offering of the decade, and more importantly, it would allow Elaboration a deeper insight into their greatest adversary.\n\nPair that with the unconfirmed turncoat vampire that remained aboard the Court Leviathan, and Null Mont had a bit more than just a significant offering. She might have a way to strike deep into the First Blood itself, if he could be properly adjusted…\n\nOf course, it wasn't just good news. As Cherished Sister Uva Mettabon reported, there had been traitor Weaveresses here as well. Traitors Weaveresses who defected from Elaboration of all places. The Cherished Sister said they were part of an illegal weaver breeding operation and would have delivered them into custody, but the traitor Weaveresses unfortunately perished when the eldritch entity revealed itself.\n\nAnd that led into the lamentable part of things.\n\nDespite all the good work she had done, Sister Uva tragically allowed herself to be compromised in the process. The Sister recounted what happened in the gate, how things became so dire. As Null Mont listened, her disappointment grew. She expected more of a Sister of the Arachnae Order than to turn away from the Composer's song and seek power from a most unholy and unnatural source.\n\nOutsiders, creatures beyond the System's purview or perhaps barely in it, were unworthy divines. And now one such unholy being had struck an accord with Sister Uva. More than an accord, it had infested the Sister's very eyes and imbued in her an Eldritch Skill. And Sister Uva had taken it into herself willingly.\n\nInstead of being rewarded, she would likely need to undergo a lengthy interrogation and observation process at Elaboration. It seemed unjust, but alas, it was absolutely necessary. They couldn't let down their guard against the Outside. Or any unknown adversary for that matter. Weave only endured due to constant vigilance and the actions of Weaveresses like Exalted Mother Null Mont.\n\nAs she leaped across another chasm and landed atop a sloping half-collapsed wall that used to be the outside of a building, she stared at the great Court Leviathan and let out a light laugh. She stood at the very edge and gazed into the distance, as if an explorer standing atop a mountain. A mountain of ruin.\n\n\"Quite the windfall, isn't it?\" she said to Brother Urad, one of the few male Umbrals who had joined the Arachnae Order. He gave the Exalted Mother a bow, yet there was something in it that seemed uneasy, and the unease in his body language was given voice by one Still Water.\n\n“Exalted Mother,” Still Water said, “I'm going to strongly suggest this again, I believe you should talk to Gate Lord Adam or Exalted Guest Shiv before making any decisions.”\n\n\"What is there to speak of?\" Exalted Mother Null Mont asked. \"They are but guests. They have offered great deeds in service to Weave, but guests are all they are. This is a matter of the Composer's honor. This is for the defense of her, Lady Arachnae, for the defense of our city. In fact, they should be honored. Honored that I will mention their name in this service. If you are so concerned that they will be offended, then be off, Operative Still Water. Seek out the Gate Lord and Hero Shiv, and inform them of my decision. I had this conversation with Cherished Sister Uva already. I don't think I need to have it again with you.\"\n\nStill Water held back a twitch of her palp, the closest thing a Weaveress could offer in place of a sigh. But then she adjusted her bandana and slowly turned to walk away instead of saying anything. Midstep, she paused as she noticed something. Still Water looked up into the air and let out a loud hiss of surprise as she almost tripped.\n\nExalted Mother Null Mont shook her head in disapproval. How a Heroic-Tier Trapdoor Weaveress could be so careless was beyond her. In fact, Null Mont was going to mention Still Water's lacking attention during the overall debriefing—\n\nAnd then a shadow passed over Null Mont. A shadow passed over everyone. There came a heavy rush of wind, and Null Mont's Aeromancy sensed what felt like a heavy gale washing over her. Suddenly she turned, and she saw what looked to be a small mountain tumbling in her direction. Her Umbral escorts froze. She froze. Still Water threw her invisible cloak around her body and vanished from sight.\n\nThe colossal shape descended, and Null Mont quickly updated her description of the object. It didn't look like a small mountain. No, it was a tower. A tower the shape of a wickedly curved blade. It was thin and absurdly long at the top, and its edges radiated with a rainbow hue, while the flat sides of the blade pulsated with the darkness and distortion of Dimensionality.\n\nAs it fell, something clicked in Null Mont's head. She summoned a burst of Aeromancy and flung herself out of the way.\n\nJust herself. The members of her escort would know how to handle themselves.\n\nNull Mont landed on something fragile, something that shattered beneath her. It felt like porcelain. But to her surprise, she realized dodging was not necessary. The blade continued tumbling along, sailing far through the air until it crashed hard into the ground in the distance, just beneath the Abyssal Gateway. There, a column of dust and debris rose into the sky from where the massive, tower-sized blade hilted itself.\n\nAnd even still, it grew, swelling larger and grander until it was at least three hundred meters long before it finally stopped.\n\nThrough a haze of dust and a rain of descending shrapnel, Exalted Mother Null Mont stared at the colossal weapon, and it radiated with prismatic brightness. Suddenly, atop the hilt, came a pulse. A pocket of space opened, and a figure emerged. A figure clad in skeletal armor. Null Mont recognized the figure immediately. It was Exalted Guest Shiv, the Deathless Surfacer; the one that Cherished Sister Uva had also unwisely chosen to start an intimate relation with.\n\nExalted Mother Null Mont's mind whirled. Had he just thrown that tower at her? A… knife tower? A knife that he was now standing on, that he was… And there came an ungodly noise. A terrible noise as Shiv hovered across the sky, dragging the knife behind him with his left hand.\n\nThe ground parted. Things broke and split. More dust, more debris, more shrapnel filled the air. But what shook Null Mont the most was how easily he dragged that long blade behind him, as if it weighed nothing at all. As if he wasn't cleaving an entire section of the landscape apart as he got closer and closer to her.\n\nNull Mont was also technically a Heroic-Tier Pathbearer—except her Heroic-Tier Skill was in Physics. Her Toughness and Aeromancy were a fused Master-Tier, but throwing that thing at her like that was…\n\nWhat kind of skill allows one to casually drag something of that weight behind them? Could he truly have Gravitic Wrestler? I saw his profile, but…\n\nThen, faintly, over the clatter of falling detritus, she heard something. She heard him whistling. His head was swinging from side to side, and the actions he performed were dramatic and exaggerated. Then, finally, he paused and then he looked down at Null Mont. He looked down at her Umbrals. He brought a dramatic hand up to his face and let out a very loud and obviously acted gasp. \"Oh, no,\" Shiv cried. He planted a hand on his head. \"Exalted Mother. Sisters. Uhh… Brother? Sorry. Can’t tell with some of you. I did not see you there. I am so terribly sorry. I was just testing out this newly reforged knife I got. It is a very good knife. I was trying to see how far I could throw it once it reached its full size. Unfortunately, I was both stronger than I remember being, and this thing was larger than I expected. Whoops.”\n\nNull Mont's palps reared back in fury. Part of her mind screamed at her to be outraged, to rise into the air and to demand why the surfacer had done this. But another part of her warned her that this might not be the wisest course of action with someone dragging a 300-meter-long building-sized dagger along the ground. That, and the other detail about how he couldn't quite stay dead…\n\nThat… that skill couldn’t possibly work as had been described… Could it?\n\nBeside Null Mont, Still Water suddenly unveiled herself again. \"Well,\" Still Water said, a hint of mirth in the other Weaveress's voice, \"looks like I don't need to go looking for them after all. They came looking for us. How convenient. Well, I'll leave you to it, Exalted Mother. I believe this is your duty now as the highest-ranking Weaveress present.\"\n\nThe Trapdoor Weaveress threw her cloak over herself and vanished once more.\n\n“Wait, Still Water? Still Water!” Null Mont shouted.\n\nAnd again, a shadow rose over Null Mont. Slowly, she turned to face the massive, looming blade…\n\n***\n\n\"Shiv, Shiv, Shiv,\" Uva repeated again and again through her telepathic link. \"Do not hurt her. Do not kill her. Do you understand me? Do not—absolutely do not—even touch her!\"\n\n\"I'm not going to kill her,\" Shiv replied, his mind perfectly calm. \"I'm just going to talk to her. I'm just going to cook some food for her. I just want to talk to her, you know? I like talking to people. I find people interesting. I find everyone interesting. I especially find it interesting when they try to steal my Court Leviathan from me, take a guest I invited into this gate prisoner, and demand that my girlfriend submit herself to some kind of questionable interrogation process after she nearly broke herself for me and the other survivors. So interesting.”\n\nUva was about to issue her complaints again, but then she paused. \"Shiv. Why am I last on your list?\"\n\n\"Because between you, Angelo, and Courtney, only one of you could fry the mind of this poor, mentally challenged Weaveress.\"\n\n\"I cannot fry the mind of an Exalted Mother!\" Uva's voice was filled with absolute revulsion.\n\nRight, the Umbrals had that complex about the Weaveresses. Well, here was the worst outcome.\n\n\"Yes, but that's more of a personal decision rather than you not being able to do it. Angelo's too traumatized to put up much of a fight against anyone. Courtney's about as smart as a snail. So comparatively, you're the one I'm least worried about.\"\n\nThe temperature of Uva’s mind fell by a few degrees.\n\n\"It's a compliment,\" Shiv replied.\n\nHer mind got even colder.\n\nShit, I’m going to have to cook her something really felling nice after this.\n\n\"Listen, I'm not going to hurt her, okay? I just want to talk to her,\" he repeated.\n\n\"Adam,\" Uva spoke across their link. \"Do not let Shiv hurt Exalted Mother Null Mont.\"\n\n\"What are you calling me for?\" Adam replied. \"I want to talk to her too.\" Despite everything, an incredulous snort escaped the Umbral. And she sailed through the air, flying atop her shield as she blasted towards Shiv's current position. She could directly jump into his mind, but Shiv had a feeling that part of her wanted to see this. Part of her wanted to watch what might transpire when he had his little conversation with the Exalted Mother. And Shiv would oblige her.\n\nIn fact, he wasn't lying at all. He wasn't going to kill the Weaveress. Frankly, he wasn't going to hurt her at all. From what he could tell, and from what Uva described, Exalted Mother Null Mont was mostly a narcissistic glory hound. An asshole, in other words.\n\nThat didn’t mean she had to die. But that was a good thing. Because he needed to train his Dread Aura some more.\n\nBut then again, if Shiv had to kill all the assholes in the world just for being assholes, there might not be that many Pathbearers left. Hell, there wouldn’t be that many people left for that matter. \"And I'll absolutely not do that, because it'll end with me stabbing Georges too,” Shiv grumbled to himself. \"No, I'll just be convincing. Real persuasive. Use reason and argumentation and all that, just like I wasn't taught at school.\"\n\nThere came a series of loud shouts from the Exalted Mother. She sounded kinda pissed, but the winds and the noise Shiv made as he continued pulling his new Skysplitter through the ground really made it hard to hear.\n\n\"How's the knife?\" Adam asked telepathically, more curious about the weapon for now.\n\n\"Pretty good,\" Shiv replied. \"Gets up to 300 long, but that's about it. Anymore and it starts shaking uncontrollably. I think I’ll end up breaking after that.”\n\n\"And the mass?\"\n\n\"Mass is stable,\" Shiv replied. \"Right now, it feels… I don't know, maybe a fourth as heavy as the Jealousy. I think it can still draw in more weight, but it’ll make moving it around harder.”\n\n\"A fourth as heavy as a massive Greater Demon. Sounds pretty impressive to me,\" Adam replied. “It will come in useful if you need to weigh someone down or potentially smash a large group of people to death.”\n\n\"Or just one very annoying spider.” As Shiv thought those words, he narrowed his eyes at the Exalted Mother. Again he wasn't going to kill her. He absolutely wasn't. But it was very, very unkind of her to just try taking what was his.\n\n\"Hero Shiv!\" Null Mont shouted. This time, he was close enough to hear her. She was flying through the air, lightning crackling across the many metal extensions jetting out from her body. Shiv wondered again what kind of Skill Evolution that was. Aeromancy and Physicality? Toughness?\n\n\"I guess I can ask her in a minute,\" Shiv muttered to himself.\n\n\"Have you gone completely mad?\" Null Mont asked, her tone clearly extremely pissed. “What is the meaning of this?”\n\nShiv pulled off his helmet and gave the approaching Weaveress a wide grin. \"What? What's wrong?\"\n\n\"You!\" she cried again. She stuck one of her long limbs in his face. And just then, Shiv realized she was a pointer. She liked to point. She pointed the same way at Uva's eyes. He eyed the small humanoid finger sticking out from her forelimb, ignoring the intrusive thought to bite it. “What has possessed you, surfacer? Was this deliberate? Do you have any idea what you have just done?”\n\n\"Oh, I'm terribly sorry,\" Shiv apologized again, putting his hand on his chest. \"I didn't realize you were there. You see, I was testing my knife.\"\n\n\"Testing your knife?\" Null Mont asked, incredulous. \"Your… your knife? This?”\n\n\"Yeah, it's my knife.\" He ripped the enormous Skysplitter out of the ground, casually lifting it over his head. He bit back a slight grunt of exertion as he forced himself to not topple over backwards. Yeah, this wasn’t that practical for most combat scenarios. He needed speed more than mass. Frankly, what might be more useful was injecting doses of mass into an enemy or stealing mass from them, if that was possible. It was something he was going to have to discover in the field.\n\nThe Weaveress's palps flared back. A few strings of lightning went off course, whipping into the wind rather than traveling along the many metal extensions sticking out from her arms. \"You—\" the Weaveress choked. Shiv lifted the blade high, rearing it back. He felt her courage crack down to its foundations. “No! Do not—The Composer will—”\n\nThen, with a casual swing, Shiv slashed out with his knife.\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 105 (II) Persuasion\nTarget length: ~2600 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "105 (II)\n\nPersuasion\n\nA blast of wind washed over both of them, and before Null Mont could be sent flying, he reached out and caught her with his left hand. \"Shit, sorry. Didn’t think I cut that hard\" The tip of his blade severed a small piece from Courtney, the Court Leviathan. A piece of the tentacle fell. The leviathan didn't even notice, for the wound filled a half second later.\n\nShiv shifted his new blade and caught the piece of Leviathan flesh along its flat side.\n\n\"Shiv!\" Uva hissed across their link. “Do not hurt her in creative ways, either! No Bowel-Breakers or—”\n\n\"Relax.\" Shiv grinned at Null Month. \"This is just going to be a conversation about personal property, what constitutes a prisoner, and also respecting a certain Cherished Sister of Weave. I know some of what she wants isn't entirely unreasonable, but she can't just take my stuff without even asking. And more importantly, she can't just take you. Not now and not on a whim. We have extremely pressing issues. These things need to be discussed. And if she’s not going to respect us, I’m going to have to cook for her.”\n\nThe Skysplitter began to shrink. The blade retracted, and in seconds the massive, tower-sized blade drew closer to Shiv’s body, bringing the piece of leviathan flesh with it. But when the blade reached forty meters, Shiv stopped shrinking it. Instead, he descended, and found two nice pieces of rubble to place his Skysplitter upon.\n\nWe’ll be able to start up a nice fire below…\n\n“What are you doing?” Null Mont cried. She pried at her arm, and Shiv released her before this could truly turn into an actual struggle.\n\n“Are you hungry?”\n\nShe froze. “What? What are you—”\n\n\"Let me cook a piece of a Court Leviathan for you. Did you have any earlier?\"\n\n“I… No! No! I refuse! I refuse to eat this… It is a plague-beast of the enemy. How you managed to convince the others to indulge in such a foul act, I will never understand, but—”\n\n\"Come on, I insist,\" Shiv said. \"I really do.\" He gave her his most earnest stare as he started channeling a stream of his own Pyromancy across the blade. Despite his fire magic being relatively underdeveloped, the edge of the blade ignited like a burning rainbow, amplifying the power of the magic substantially. Soon, the first sounds of cooking flesh sizzled upon the blade. “You won't regret it. And, I'll tell you what. If you don't like what I cook for you, I'll let you have the Court Leviathan.”\n\n\"Let me?\" Her voice was somewhere between confusion and absolute fury. “I am the Exalted Mother in charge of this expedition, and I will not be talked down to like some kind of weaverling! You—”\n\nBut just then, Adam appeared beside her, coming to an uncanny halt as his Vectors of the Eternal Ascent stopped their acceleration. \"Shiv,\" the Gate Lord cried out, his voice nasally and high with exaggeration. \"I told you to watch where you are throwing that thing, you silly goose!!\"\n\nAdam zipped beside the Weaveress. \"I am so terribly sorry!\" he said, gripping Null Mont by another one of her arms and pulling her down even faster alongside Shiv. \"Please, let Shiv apologise for this grave transgression to you by cooking you a meal.\"\n\n\"What?\" she said, her anger losing the fight to naked confusion. Across their mental links, Shiv and Adam could feel each other struggling not to crack up.\n\n“Do not make me laugh, you shit,” Shiv said, his right eye twitching.\n\n“Focus on yourself, you bastard. And stop making that expression at me.” Adam shuddered, clenching his teeth as hard as he could.\n\n\"Cooking food,\" Adam said, \"is something surfacers do as an apology to each other all the time. We must insist. If you reject us, Shiv will be required to commit an honor suicide to redeem his shame.”\n\n“A what?” Null Mont gasped.\n\nShiv shook his head. \"It is a thing of honor.\"\n\n“Honor is extremely important to us,” Adam said, staring intently at the Weaveress.\n\n“Honor and respect,” Shiv added, spiking his Dread Aura ever so slightly. “So, please. Take a bite. Just a tiny little bit. Let’s talk about what just happened between us. You know. Start off on a new foot. Turn the page.”\n\nThe Weaveress's head swung between them. “I…”\n\nBut by now they were grounded, standing upon a field of rubble. A field of rubble further displaced by Shiv dragging a massive blade across the ground.\n\nNull Mont was placed before the Skysplitter as Shiv pulled out his chef's knife and cut the leviathan into several smaller pieces. Briefly, he dosed it with a puff of moisture using his Hydromancy and shaped a Biomancy spell as he started kneading them into five dense spheres of meat. Then, he pressed the meatballs back against the blade, and they sizzled before Null Mont very eyes.\n\nHer courage started trembling. But a burst of lightning flashed out from her body. “This… I do not know what trick this is. But you cannot force me to eat flesh rich with viruses and plagues.”\n\n“I think I can,” Shiv said. “I’ll take a bite first if you’re worried.”\n\n“I’ll eat one right after to show that it’s safe,” Adam continued.\n\n“I do not care if you eat the entire Leviathan!” Null Mont snarled. “There is no way you can make me devour a piece of that… that creature. No one but Her Lady Arachnae, the Composer herself, could compel me to… to…”\n\nAnd now Null Mont noticed a certain Legendary Pathbearer hovering beside her. “Young one,” Valor began. “You should cherish every bit of food you get. Every flavor. For you never know when you might lose the opportunity to indulge in the finer things in life.”\n\n“G-Great Valor,” Null Mont squeaked. “I—I thought you were… You are still damaged. I think you should—” She then finally noticed how her Umbrals were getting called away by Can Hu, leaving her here entirely alone.\n\n“Eat,” Valor said. “Taste it. Taste it on my behalf. I insist. I want you to describe how it tastes to me. Every detail. It will be an honor to hear such a thing from you. More importantly, I will offer a good word to the Composer about your bravery and willingness to experiment when I next greet her in person.”\n\n“I…” Null Mont flinched as Shiv held out a small piece of leviathan meatball impaled on the end of his chef’s knife.\n\n“Come on,” Shiv whispered. “It’s just a bit. I gotta make you feel better. I gotta apologize. I have to. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if, say, this was your last meal. If you somehow got ambushed and then torn apart by the First Blood while trying to get back to Weave with my Court Leviathan, I would consider it a great regret of my life.”\n\n“He would be honor-bound to raise your shadow and make your Necromantic remnant eat the food instead,” Adam whispered. He added a shudder at the end.\n\n“I don’t want to,” Shiv said. “But traditions demand it. Honor and respect.”\n\n“Honor and respect,” Adam repeated.\n\n“Take the bite,” Valor said, leaning in. “Do it. Do it now.”\n\nDread Aura 90 > 91\n\nNull Mont’s courage shuddered and cracked as she looked between all three Pathbearer’s pressuring her to take a bite. “I—I… Oh, Composer preserve—”\n\n***\n\n“Oh, Composer…” Null Mont looked between them, and slowly she stared down at the prismatic edge of the Skysplitter. Her body language betrayed just how forlorn she was that there was not more food. But more than that, it betrayed how confused she felt. “How?”\n\nShiv snorted as he shook his head. His arms were folded, and he had watched her squirm throughout. Squirm, until she took her first bite.\n\nThen, the ugly part was all over. Everyone else regarded her with a similar level of amusement.\n\nNow that the Weaveress was appropriately sedated, Shiv intended to deal with the issue properly.\n\nShiv walked off to the side and pulled a piece of rubble over. He sat on it and stared at Null Mont for a moment. \"Look, Exalted Mother, can I be very honest with you for a second?\" She looked away from her food and stared at him. There wasn't so much anger, terror, or annoyance in her anymore. It was mostly just faint astonishment and incredulity.\n\nYou could control a lot about how someone acted if you had something they wanted. If they were happy, if they were influenced, if they wanted something from you. That's what Shiv realized. That was what he learned from watching Georges deal with people over the years.\n\nAnd this was the main reason why he told Uva that he wasn't going to hurt Null Mont, why he knew it was going to be the absolute truth. Because day after day, month after month, year after year, Georges would get into fights with Pathbearers, soldiers who frequented the Swan-Eating Toad.\n\nAnd after the fight, after intense exchanges of curses, and sometimes the involvement of guards, the same Pathbearers would come back to the Swan-Eating Toad and eat there like nothing had ever happened. Because they wanted the food there. Because the fight was a momentary lapse in self-control, usually on their part. Georges just got very mad. But there was nowhere like the Swan-Eating Toad. And feelings were things that changed with proper incentivization.\n\nNull Mont was a glory-seeking narcissist that was about to negatively affect the group’s cohesion. But she ultimately wasn’t a lethal threat, just a social one. And social threats were just another thing Shiv needed more practice in dealing with.\n\n\"What do you mean by honest?\" Null Mont replied, sounding uncertain and dubious.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Shiv said. \"I like being honest. Look, you trying to take the Court Leviathan from me was kind of a shitbag thing to do.\" He looked at Courtney. \"I spent quite some time clearing it out. In fact, I died a good few times taking that. Now, if you wanted to buy it from me, or potentially if you wanted to explain how useful it would be for Weave and why I should give it to you, I would have dealt with you honestly. The answer would have been no, but I would have been straight. And I wouldn't need to do this whole threaten you with a knife then cook food on it shit to get you to speak with me like an actual adult.”\n\nNull Mont’s palps reared back in near-outrage. “I—”\n\n“And Angelo, the vampire you want to take prisoner, you understand that he was going to get his heart cut out by the others, right? He was just trying to set up a village. You don’t even seem to care about why I brought him back. You know how many vampires I’ve killed in the past two days alone? A hell of a lot. Think about that. And think about why I left him alive.”\n\n“It… He is of the First Blood. He has a Lineage Core.”\n\nShiv frowned. “Yeah. I guess he can be useful. Have you tried talking to him? Asking if he can help you? Did you even speak with him once at all? No. He’s still on the Leviathan, last I checked.\n\n“He hasn’t even touched his food yet,” Adam confirmed. “He’s just staring into the bowl.”\n\n“Shit,” Shiv muttered. “I probably should go talk with him myself. But back to you, Null Mont. The fuck’s your problem? What are you trying to do? What? You think bringing back a Court Leviathan is going to get you accolades and glory? Null. How the hells did you get sent here? Because you didn’t think this through. You didn’t think a lot of things through. Why do you think I would have just let that go? Why do you think the Composer would have rewarded you for slighting people she considers heroes just for bringing back… What? A Court Leviathan? Yeah. Nice. Useful. But you think it’s more valuable than the Jealousy?”\n\n“Slightly less,” Null Mont said.\n\n“What?”\n\n“It’s useful because it regenerates.” She let out a sigh. “It’s a partial solution to the population problem. Weaveress eggs… You know how our life cycles work?”\n\nAdam and Shiv shared a look as both of them understood.\n\n“You're using them as breeding material?” Shiv said.\n\n“Yes. And they are good incubators at that. Good stock. But we still need more.”\n\n“And so you just tried to take it from me?” Shiv asked.\n\n“I just…” Null Mont paused. “I assumed you wouldn’t fight me over it.”\n\n“Because you’re a Weaveress?” Shiv asked. “And I’m not?”\n\nA long pause followed. In the end, Null Mont didn’t say anything.\n\nShiv considered several options then. He decided to exercise a bit of charisma for once. To see if he could make use of her instead of just terrifying her into submission. She wanted glory? She wanted to indulge in pride? Fine. He’d give her those opportunities. But she would need to play along and learn about respect.\n\n“Exalted Weaveress, I am not an Umbral. I am not of your culture. Your social advantages don’t mean anything to me. So. You’re going to have to deal with me like I’m a person. You’re worried about Uva being compromised by the Outsiders. Fine. Valid fear. But sending her back to Weave on a whim immediately is stupid. Do you think we can hold the gate without her? What other Heroic-Tier Psychomancers do you have?”\n\n“There is a risk she might be compromised,” Null Mont said.\n\n“Yeah. But did she tell you everything? About the Dreamtaker? Her new skills.”\n\nNull Mont looked away. “Yes.”\n\n“And you think an Outsider would let her do that? Just give all that away? The suspicion I get. The rest of the shit you decided is half-assed. This is not the time to take her out of the field. We can’t afford it. You can’t afford it. And the Abyss can’t afford it.”\n\n“The… Abyss?” Null Mont replied.\n\n“Yeah. We’re here to stop another war between the surface and the Abyss from happening. And you were about to get in the way of that.”\n\nOnce more, her courage fissured. “I… I—”\n\n“She might be more of an arrogant, unthinking idiot than a narcissist,” Adam muttered.\n\n“Yeah. How the hells did she find herself in charge of this expedition anyway?” Shiv asked.\n\n“Well. Weaveresses are overly favored… And with the right connections…”\n\n“You think that’s how it is?” Shiv asked.\n\n“That’s how it is everywhere,” Adam replied.\n\n“Listen, I see that you’re still thinking about Weave, so. I’m going to help you. And you’re going to help me. How does that sound?”\n\n“How?” Null Mont asked.\n\n“Instead of you just walking around and making a bunch of executive decisions, why don’t you come along with us, and we can figure some things out together. Think about it. Would it be more glorious for you to take part in an operation that stops Vicar Sullain from getting a whole lot more people killed than whatever you were planning?”\n\nSilver Tongue 21 > 22\n\nNull Mont considered it. And then she regarded him once more. “Perhaps… Maybe… We can discuss a few more things over a meal? One you make? To further the honor and respect between us.”\n\nShiv smiled. “Yeah. Honor and respect. Sounds like we reached an understanding.”\n\n“Shiv,” Adam said. “I think I might just take you up on some cooking lessons.”\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 106 (I) Peace\nTarget length: ~3200 words\nKey events: new skill acquired"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "You will not become a true Pathbearer if you're afraid of taking risks, if you're afraid of doing new things, if you're afraid of developing yourself. You cannot let yourself go stagnant. But part of that is recovery. Part of that is having new experiences. Part of that is learning new things.\n\nTalk to people. Sink into the world. Immerse yourself. Open your mind to new encounters. Let your understanding of the world be varied and develop more than one skill.\n\nIt is a common thing for Pathbearers to over-focus, to over-commit to a singular aspect of themselves, like a warrior who commits only to be a frontline warrior, prideful of their Physicality, Toughness, and Mace Proficiency, but nothing else. Perhaps they will find themselves accomplished in the use of a shield as well. But what worth is that in times of peace? To live is to war. War does not just mean struggling against an adversary. It means to struggle against progress, against yourself, to build up your communities, and to forge a kingdom worth living in.\n\nIf all you are worth is the weapon in your hand, then what worth will you find of yourself when there are no adversaries to slay? Perhaps you will throw yourself time and time again into the fray until you truly find yourself favored by the System. But that is unlikely. It is more likely that death will find you first instead.\n\nBecome rich. Become broad. Once you establish a foothold with one skill, use it to expand your other choices as well. Breadth is choice, students, and choice is life. Choice is vitality. Choice is hope for the future. And choice is how you advance beyond your bottlenecks.\n\nBecome more. Don't just fight to hold and build up what you have right now. This is not a time of scarcity. This is a time for eternal growth.\n\n-Master-Instructor Hercule Attano, Phoenix Academy GEN-PREP 101\n\n106 (I)\n\nPeace\n\nAfter dealing with their “Idiot Weaveress Commander” problem, Courtney, the Court Leviathan, remained where it was; Angelo was allowed to remain aboard Courtney and stare catatonically into his soup, and Uva was allowed to remain in place at her current post, provided that a few other Umbrals kept an eye on her in case she exhibited any eldritch symptoms.\n\nAll in all, this was the most optimal outcome. Null Mont was annoying, troublesome, and frankly kind of an asshole, but Shiv had dealt with assholes before. She wasn't any more special than a customer demanding special treatment or some noble who thought himself better than everyone else.\n\nAnd I can't exactly kill all of my problems, Shiv thought to himself. Well, I could. I could definitely kill Null Mont. I could probably definitely eventually kill anyone, I think, but it's not that useful. Frankly, it'll make me more enemies than allies. The System is already gunning for my head. I need to be a little bit careful and subtle.\n\nHe snapped his fingers. Finesse was the word he was looking for. Finesse gave him more options and kept things from getting messier. He’d killed enough people to populate a small town recently. A bit of a pause was due. If he kept going like he did before, Shiv worried that he might slip closer to the state he was in when he was affected by the Orcish Skill—not a place he wanted to be.\n\nAs a moment of calm followed, he observed two dozen Umbral Geomancers supported by Can Hu lifting sections of the fallen gate back into place. Massive stone supports sprouted out from the ground, forming rows of pillars that led from the Surface Gateway to the Abyssal Gateway. Between them, the gateway to Vulketh was sealed twice over, once by spell and once again by a layer of dense alloy.\n\nFor now, the Vultegs and Lord Scorn hadn't even done anything, but Shiv was sure the peace wouldn't last. Lord Scorn was quite offended that his gate had been taken and that his Lesser Marshal and forces had been butchered. Shiv expected another fight on that front sooner or later.\n\nPreferably later right now, though. Right now, Shiv and the others could really use a moment to recover. They had to build up their arms and prepare for the ugliness to come. And there was going to be a great deal of ugliness coming down the way. Especially with Lord Scorn’s Quest hanging over their heads.\n\nAnd that's another asshole trying to kill us, he thought to himself. Oh, there's nothing for it. If they're gonna come, I'm gonna have to break them. But if he wanted to break them, he needed to prepare, just like everyone else.\n\nAdam used the opportunity to get some much-needed respite. Right now, he was watching the city from on high. His vector wings sprouted wide, each of the pyramid-like shards glistening in the air. He hovered beside his mana core, and Valor was there with him, gesturing, talking. Shiv found it amusing how Valor and Adam's relationship had developed.\n\nAt first, Valor demanded that Shiv stick him in the Young Lord's eye during the incident at Cradle. Now? Now they were talking about all sorts of things. They're practically spending more time together than I am with either of them, Shiv thought. Then again, he'd had a busy few weeks too.\n\nEvery now and again, Shiv would see one of Uva's mana strands flick across the city, probably scouting down leads or trying to make sure no one was plotting any devious schemes. Her priority assignment right now remained the Owl, figuring out what Aviary was planning, why they were in league with the Educator, and, more importantly, discovering what the Educator exactly was. She also asked for her eldritch book earlier. Shiv was slightly reluctant to give it to her, but then again, he did have the Odes as well, and she needed to understand her new skill. To understand her increasingly Eldritch…\n\nHis mind trailed off.\n\nHe wasn't sure what the Dreamtaker exactly was. The Outsider had come in and assisted Uva when things got desperate. It reached out to her through the Eldritch Insight skill, and attached part of itself to her—or infused its eldritch domain to her eyes somehow—after she connected her mind to the eldritch tome.\n\nThat changed Uva’s Eldritch Insight Skill into something else altogether. The tome they'd taken from Confriga’s vault was aptly named The Colors Beyond. At times, the book murmured, but it spoke with a myriad of dissonant voices calling out still to the dead Gate Lord, not responding when either Shiv or Uva spoke to it in return.\n\nAnd there was another mystery they had to deal with. The second book-based mystery, they had, actually. There was still the Educator's Tome of the Forgotten Artist they had to work through. Shiv had taken a glance at that a few moments ago. It was badly burned throughout, but some pictures were still somewhat intact, mostly depicting people or locations from the past. Most of the pictures were utterly ruined, but Valor had said he might be able to restore some of them and uncover some more details regarding the forgotten Ascendant.\n\nAs for Shiv himself, he retreated to his personal quarters aboard the Court Leviathan. He suspected these quarters once belonged to the captain of this Leviathan, the one who probably died when Shiv's Inertial Overdrive went off time and time again. But with the interior of the beast so badly demolished, and Shiv uninterested in the vampiric aesthetic of blood and torture anyway, some redecorating was in order.\n\nBut that was for later.\n\nHis first focus for now was meal preparation. While everyone else worked on their personal tasks for the gate, Shiv pursued his own art form—his own primary non-combat contribution to his team and the gate. He was thankful that the System allowed him this moment of calmness to further focus on his cooking. At some point, either he or a group of Umbrals and Weaveresses would need to move out to survey the surroundings again.\n\nFrankly, he preferred it to be himself. He suspected that the First Blood would likely launch counterattacks or at least scouting teams, and the difference between Compact and Weave’s defensive powers was substantial. Weave, increasingly, seemed the weakest of the Five Faiths to Shiv. They were careful, they moved in the dark, and they operated using small teams to survey their enemies and strike strategically, doing everything they could to avoid battles of attrition.\n\nShiv had also noticed a distinct lack of high-powered martial Pathbearers among the Weaveresses and Umbrals. Still Water was one of the major Heroes, and her specialty was in Stealth. Her Reflexes were Master-Tier, as was her Physicality, but aside from that, Shiv wasn't sure about her other skills. There was also Dven back at Cradle. However, it, like many of the Heroes or higher at Weave, was more along the lines of utility Pathbearers, people who offered logistical or structural advancements for their society.\n\nI wonder if it's all being held together by the Composer herself.\n\nShiv considered that. He considered how accessible the Composer was, how easy it was for her to interact with her people. Her song was always playing, and she had her own place at the heart of her dimension. Compared to that, the Challenger seemed of a higher nature altogether, a fundamental force of existence, a natural disaster of cosmic scale lurking behind a veil. The System supposedly kept gods at bay, but the Composer seemed to have fewer restrictions than all the other ones. Maybe that's her special nature, he considered. He recalled her saying something like that. Maybe that's because she's more of a demigod than a full one. She was born from the Great One, whatever that means for her.\n\nThese were some of the passing thoughts he experienced as he worked on making more food. An Umbral Cryomancer and several Weaveress engineers dropped by to help him set up a few storage silos, large cylindrical structures made from alloy and infused with Cryomancy that were built beneath the Court Leviathan. Furthermore, not far away, Shiv had a “cooking arena” set up for himself.\n\nHe didn't exactly have a full kitchen set available to him, but after using his Biomancy to clean the meat a bit and using his Skysplitter’s Master Magical Amplification to heat his massive pan via Pyromancy—or to fill cauldrons with boosted Hydromancy, he started preparing meat by the tons.\n\nThe Chef Unwavering 55 > 57\n\nThey still needed a self-sufficient water treatment plant along with a waste plant and functional sewage. So far, the survivors of the gate were out of the most critical circumstances, and a great many of them were weak. Many were young, and some had problems with their bodies from long before. Shiv's regeneration had given them a brief surge of vitality. Their organs were rejuvenated, their lesser diseases were obliterated outright, but more complicated difficulties still remained, some far beyond Shiv’s current capabilities to help.\n\nAnd that made Shiv wonder. When my Biomancy fused with my Cooking earlier, I could see the effects of… Well, if I just cannibalized someone using my Biomancy, if I absorbed them into myself… I think that's what the skill fusion lets me do. But it also listed out the exact benefits, so I don't need to just taste them blindly to find out. This will be good for me to come up with a book of recipes. In fact, I should, yeah, I definitely should start writing something like this. Take down the details and list out what I can do.\n\nThen, he paused as he considered his Plaguefueled skill.\n\nBut not only ingredients, not only dishes. I can absorb plagues now. Hell, I can absorb diseases. Anything that destabilizes my functional organic state should count as a disease. So if I inflict more of those on myself and absorb them, well, that's like another layer of Berserk on top of Berserk. Frankly, it's better than Berserk. It makes me feel a little bit drunk, but I function better with it. They can probably also go together. I should test that out sometime. If I use my Plaguefueled skill on myself and then follow up with Berserk, how powerful will I get?\n\nThe prospects of that made him feel a little giddy, but Shiv centered himself before he got a little too deep into the fantasy. He needed to learn more about diseases, about viruses, about nerve agents, and all the things that could compromise a physical body's structure.\n\nWithin the Court Leviathan, he died many times. He'd had absolutely no answer to the complexity of the viruses flooding into him. Any other Pathbearer—well, any other organic Pathbearer—would have fallen then, slain by the Biomantic plagues and sicknesses of the First Blood. He was a different case. He could learn in a way no one else could. He could experiment in a way no one else could. And with this Court Leviathan, he had more than just a steady supply of meat. He had something of a biological playground: a perfect test subject.\n\nAs long as I can keep it alive. It has a Biomancy Core, but I think it still needs to eat. It looks smaller than it did before. Also feels a little bit sluggish, maybe? And then Shiv recalled the prisoner containment pods on the underside of its body, and how it could assimilate biomass. It consumed a few of his bodies as well, directly through its brain. That would be a useful capability for Shiv to learn, wielding biomass directly and potently like that. But also, that might be the cost of sustaining the Court Leviathan. It might be able to regenerate, but its metabolism still ran off a substantial amount of calories, even magically reduced to a minimum.\n\n\"Maybe I'm gonna need to go out and hunt down some cave biters for you anyway, huh, girl?\" He didn't really know if the Court Leviathan was a girl, but he was already calling it Courtney. So. It was a girl to him. A large, monstrous, plague-infused girl.\n\nAt present, Uva said it was mostly in a docile state because it was passive, bred to be so, biomantically and psychomantically altered to be this way. If they wanted to spur it to violence, they needed to control both its body and its mind. She said she doubted she could do it alone since a lot of its biological structures were complicated, requiring more than a few Biomancers to integrate and direct its bodily functions.\n\nRight now, Shiv was barely tapping into any of its proper capabilities. The regeneration it was capable of was simply a passive thing. The beast was capable of shapeshifting, of modifying its biological architecture within and without. It could grow those large maggots that fired out and detonated themselves in spreads of parasitic acid. Shiv had destroyed all those creatures, but the Court Leviathan was definitely capable of growing more of them as well as more varied bio-organisms. It had those wounds within it as well, places for the vampires to conduct whatever foul blood or flesh rituals they did to shape Blood Horrors and other monsters.\n\nOr maybe even themselves, Shiv thought. Maybe even myself. He remembered how some of the vampires could shapeshift and adjust the nature of their flesh on the fly. Shiv was doing a very rudimentary version of that with his bone armor, but he needed to think further, and if he wanted to get to that point, he needed to advance his Practical Metabiology.\n\nAs he finished preparing the bulk of the meat, he made a few easy-to-eat military rations for his allies as well. He stored some of the Court Leviathan flesh in small packages, ones that could fit in a pouch or slot on someone's armor. With the amount of regeneration the Court Leviathan provided, it would be useful for Adam, Uva, or any of the Umbrals and Weaveresses to bring this on a battlefield.\n\nShiv couldn't always be there with his Woundeaters, and allied Biomancers might be missing as well. If he could cook, if he could continue providing such powerful boosts in combat thanks to The Chef Unwavering, then he was going to do so. Frankly, that was another avenue of advancement for everyone: varied ingredient boosts.\n\nHe wanted to see just how many boosts he could offer someone through a combination of different dishes. Right now, it seemed like it furthered someone's existing skills or amplified their physical and mental condition in some way. He hadn't cooked anything that affected magic, though. That was what he wanted to figure out next. Could he make magic better? Could he make someone learn faster if he just cooked the right meal or used the right ingredients?\n\nYeah, definitely starting that recipe book. He had an easy way of making functional health potions for everyone in the form of well-cooked Court Leviathan meat. Mixing in Mendules and some of the river weeds—what were they called again? Whatever it was called, it dramatically boosted that effect as well.\n\nBut there were many creatures across the Abyss, many creatures Shiv had yet to sample. Why am I just thinking about the Abyss, either? The Surface is also filled with creatures I haven't sampled yet. If I can do this with the Court Leviathan or the Jealousy, what might I be able to get from something like… Shiv considered a hawk, a rat. Do those offer bonuses as well? More than a recipe book, he was likely going to need to open something of an experimental slaughterhouse for himself. And a farm.\n\nAfter a few hours, Shiv finished his preparations and stored a good supply of meat for the coming days in a few of his silos. This would go a long way to maintaining the gate’s stability and keep the weakest people fed and hale. He would need to go out and harvest more things in time, but for once, he felt like he had time.\n\nRight now, the System was suspiciously merciful. There were no problems coming from the mercenaries, no fires started, no bombs triggered, no eldritch beings invaded.\n\nShiv decided he would have time for a moment for himself as he landed upon Courtney, taking a seat on the beast's massive, sloped head.\n\nHe watched as half of a district was being connected to the surface district, offering the survivors more room to expand. Soon, they wouldn’t need to be so cramped anymore. The surface district also no longer had any buildings either. Most of their foundations had been compromised, and with how unstable they were, they had to be knocked down anyway, reused as material.\n\nDistrict Gained: [Unspecified District]\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 106 (II) Peace\nTarget length: ~3200 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Shiv blinked as the notification appeared. Unspecific district. Yeah, the gate could gain skills and grow like a Pathbearer in some ways thanks to its mana core. He guessed this was something everyone in the gate saw when a major development was reached.\n\nRegardless, the best thing happening right now was that the bulldozing of the buildings in the surfacer district allowed for full, temporary encampments to be built up. The first was for the automata. Can Hu had gone there after finishing with today's reconstruction efforts to start building up something of a makeshift power station. He also constructed some maintenance drones that actively worked around the clock to keep the other automata functional.\n\nAside from them, there were the biological slaves and dignitaries. The slaves required more attention from the Umbrals and the Weaveresses. Many of them were weak of body, traumatized of mind, and had other afflictions as well. Shiv's Court Leviathan tentacle soup supercharged their regeneration for a while, rejuvenated their organs, and helped them deal with some of their lesser diseases, like lingering dysentery resulting from the Bowel-Breaker, but they still had many other problems. Some of them had complicated afflictions that went beyond lingering food poisoning or even metabolic dysfunction. Others had Curses that necessitated non-physical treatments, and that was just the thing.\n\nThere was more than one way to hurt someone in this world, and the sickness of a soul ran deeper than the sickness afflicted on the body.\n\nIt was an ugly thing, being Pathless. But having the Path of the Slave? You were just pliable clay for someone else to abuse, clay that couldn't fight back because your Path didn't allow you to have the proper skills. The System was a cold piece of shit. All one needed to do was focus, and they would see so much ugliness even in existence itself.\n\nShiv had known that ugliness his entire life. He'd lived some of it, but now he wasn't going back. He wasn’t backing down. The System could throw whatever it wanted at him. He wasn't going back. He wasn't going to be broken. He would die for good before he let himself break.\n\nBut that was just how he thought.\n\nIncreasingly, he was noticing that he was different, dramatically different from all the other people. Valor wanted to talk to him about his mind earlier, about how it had been altered. Uva just needed to stitch some of his broken cognition back together before he started healing on his own accord, before he could re-enter the fight.\n\nEven now, though he didn't like thinking about it, the scars left over from the torture he endured at the hands of the Recollector were fading fast, and it barely traumatized him at all. He enjoyed that. He enjoyed feeling untouched by the world in some ways, being untouched by damage even after it was inflicted on him. But there was something deeply off about his nature just for being able to do this. Harlon and Vera, he thought to himself, my parents. My parents are the cause behind this. My parents and… Udraal. Did he help them with the ritual? Valor keeps bringing his name up. Was talking about my mind earlier. But the stories just say he was killed by Roland…\n\nUdraal Thann, Rose whispered, responding after a long lull of silence. I remember him. I remember facing him. A treacherous enemy, a dangerous foe. He was capable of so many things. And his expression was the saddest I have ever seen on a man.\n\n\"And you said that you killed him.\"\n\nI'm sure of it, Rose breathed. Roland, he fired an arrow, one blessed by the Starhawk himself. It struck the Abyssal Lord. It ignited his very soul, burned him to cinders at the foundations of his being. But here this Valor is, talking about how his son still seems to be alive.\n\nNo one seems to think this guy is dead except for you, Shiv noted.\n\nI watched as his soul came ablaze. I saw, I… And then Rose's voice trailed off as a whimper entered her breath. I saw so much, and I can't remember. Why can't I remember? Why am I trapped here? Why am I bound to you? Did you…\n\n\"Rose,\" he said. He had no more taste for avoiding this. He'd ignored her long enough, felt uncomfortable about her long enough, but he was going to deal with some of this right now, if he could. \"Listen to me. I told you before I'm going to try to get you out, but I need you to tell me something in return. I need you to tell me about my parents, about why they might have done this ritual, about… Rose. Try to remember. Is it possible that my parents had any contact with Udraal Thann before you and Roland killed him?\"\n\nBefore… At any point… Rose whispered. I think… I think… A long silence dragged on, and Rose let out a sigh. I don't know. I think I'm just a shadow of what I used to be.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Shiv said, letting out a breath of his own. \"I think I see a lot of people who are shadows of what they used to be. I'm beginning to suspect that the System's trying to tell me something. I just can't quite figure out what.\"\n\nNo, no, wait, Rose suddenly said. Shiv's attention shifted back inward.\n\n\"What? What is it?\"\n\nI think… I remember… I remember him… leading us away.\n\n\"Leading you away? Where?”\n\nThere was… There was a moment, a moment of truce or understanding, a parley. He was leading us somewhere. He was… he spoke to us. He spoke to Roland, and Harlon was there, and Vera, and… and they were… I'm sorry.\n\n\"No, it's fine. It's just…\" He gritted his teeth. \"I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry my parents did all this. I'm… I'm not sorry for existing, though. I don't hate myself. I want to live. I want… I want a lot of things. I'm… Despite everything I suffered recently, I… This is a great life. I love being a Pathbearer. I love cooking for people. I love going from place to place, doing what I can, getting more skills. I can't be sorry about that. I won't lie to you.\"\n\nRose just listened. She didn't reply with anger or fury, but she did let out the slightest sob.\n\n\"But I am sorry that this is what it took to make me. I am sorry if…\" He tried to put together the words. The more he talked about this, the more chaotic his mind felt. \"I am sorry that my parents were… Shit. Whatever they did, I don't understand it either. Right? I… I didn't need to be deathless. Maybe. I could have been just… just a normal Pathbearer. And I… I would have been capable of living that way. I would have done great that way anyway. I would have fought. I would have done everything I did now. Maybe… maybe it would have taken longer. Maybe it would have been harder. Maybe I would have died even, but I would have been happy. I would have been happy with just that. But now it's all done, and I can't take any of it back. Do you understand? I can't do anything but try to make things right. To be someone who my parents weren't. And that someone is going to do everything he can to help you. If you do what you can to help me.\"\n\nDo you care about him? Truly? Rose's voice came fragile but filled with yearning.\n\nShiv paused. \"Care about who?\"\n\nAdam. Adam, my son. Do you really care about him?\n\nShiv's mouth fell open. It took a moment for him to reply to that. \"Yeah. He's my… Well, I thought he was an asshole at first. And then I kind of felt like he was my responsibility. And I also felt responsible for Blackhedge, and we're supposed to go back. But after all that, after some of the stuff we've been through, I remembered after bleeding by his side, watching him nearly die, watching him saving my life, me saving his… It's… This isn't just friendship anymore. I think we skipped that part altogether. There are still problems between us. I'm sure that exists, but after everything we've done…\"\n\nAfter everything Roland and Harlon went through, Harlon and Vera still killed me. They still cut my daughter out of me.\n\n\"What?\" he gasped.\n\nWhat? That is the thing I remember most. The blade going in, and her… her… She was about to be born, she was screaming, and…\n\nA screen formed before Shiv. His parents’ faces were blurred, but he watched the scene through Rose’s eyes, and—\n\nShiv's eyes widened as bile rose up in his throat. “Fuck—Stop! STOP IT!”\n\nRose didn’t. It was like she was in a trance.\n\nShiv squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn’t stop the sounds. He could hear Rose’s agonizing screams even as he clamped his hands down on his ears.\n\nThen, finally, Shiv opened his eyes and saw his… The scene played from Rose’s perspective, so Shiv only saw his own mother from her backside. She was shaking. Shuddering as Harlon—Shiv’s father—held a small body and placed it against his wife.\n\nThen, he drove a blade through both of them.\n\nThen came red and a scream from Rose that Shiv would never forget.\n\nThe screen went dark.\n\nRose stopped screaming. But Shiv’s mind was reeling violently. A flood of nausea swept through him. He swallowed hard, drinking down sour spit as he commanded himself, begged himself to stay composed, to not throw up. He always knew his parents were monsters. All of the stories indicated they were monsters, but to do that, to cut a child out of someone was…\n\nI asked her. I asked Vera why, through it all. She was my friend too. Harlon was like my… Was like an older brother. Why? Why? They never told me. Harlon was crying. Vera… There was no expression. They just cut and cut, and she was pregnant too. You were there, in a way…\n\nThen, she started sobbing incoherently again. Shiv shuttered. This was a mistake. He should never have talked to her. He didn't want to know this. But then his crumbling terror met the bedrock of who he was. He couldn't avoid talking to her. He couldn't avoid knowing this. He couldn't avoid his past anymore. If he wanted to face the future, he would need to know what had happened before.\n\nTo better understand what he was, so that he could shape who he would be. To be more than just an atrocity, a mistake, a monster in the making.\n\n\"Rose. Rose. Rose!\" Shiv practically shouted the final word. She finally stopped. \"Listen to me. I… That's… I don't want…\" Shiv let out a growl. \"Godsdamn it. Godsdamn it! Why do they have to be monsters? Why do they have to do this? I can't fix that. But I can… Yes, I do care about Adam. Yes, I'm going to do everything I possibly can to keep him alive. If it takes dying for good to keep him alive, then…\" Shiv winced. \"I don't want to die for good. I don't want to go away, not after everything I got to taste. But I'll do it. I'll do it. But I'll give a hells of a lot more than just my own life, if it means keeping Adam alive.\"\n\nAnd finally, both quieted. Rose listened to him. You are not very much like him.\n\n\"Like who?\" Shiv asked.\n\nHarlon. He complained. He was such a whining bitch all the time; it got on my nerves. You are Vera's son, truly. I can see her in you. Hear her in you. Her more than him. And I hope you don't become her. I hope your words are true. Rose let out a final, shuddering breath. Please don't hurt my boy. Please.\n\nShiv shook his head. \"If anyone tries to hurt Adam, I'll felling kill them. You got more than my word on that.”\n\nAnd she said no more in response, lapsing back to silence, to the coldness of his vitae. Shiv sighed. \"Well, that was a horrifying godsdamn conversation,\" he said, speaking more to himself than anyone else. A gust of wind rushed over him, and in the distance, he noticed Adam was no longer staring at his mana core, but directly at him. Shiv nodded. Adam probably saw that too.\n\n\"Yeah, I did talk to her just now,\" Shiv said. \"I'll tell you about it later, if you want. You’re going to hate this. I hated this. Right now, I think I'm going to read. I'm gonna need a moment. Tell Uva I'll be back over in a few hours. For now, I think I'm gonna do some reading... Long overdue reading, to—to cool off. I need a moment, Adam. Just give me a moment.”\n\nAnd when no Veilpiercers zipped by, when no mana strands arrived to sink through his mind, Shiv knew that he was going to get a moment to himself at last. Shiv gathered his Biomancy books and prepared to continue his education for the first time in a while.\n\nAt least, he thought that was what he was going to get, until a voice came from behind him. \"You were not lying about your ghost.\"\n\nFor a moment, Shiv tensed, and then he turned to see Angelo standing there, staring at him from the bridge. The azure brightness of the mana core painted the vampire's face in a half-shadow, and he stared at Shiv with his eyes of faintest red. Shiv knew better than to let his gaze linger on the vampire's face for long. His Charm Skill was just too potent.\n\n\"So, how do you like the soup?\" Shiv asked, barely holding back a sigh. He really didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.\n\n\"I was surprised,\" the vampire replied. \"It was among the better dishes I've tasted.”\n\n\"Among the better dishes?” Shiv asked, surprised rather than offended.\n\nThe vampire nodded. \"You have skill. But I suspect you are more dedicated to the fundamentals of cooking, to making sure nothing is wrong, rather than creative expression or pushing new thresholds of flavor. There is no mistake in the way you make your food. It's perfectly cooked, perfectly prepared. Except, there is no…\" Angelo made a gesture with his hand, a twirling of the fingers. \"You need more expression. Not everyone will like it, but to truly go to the next stage, you need more expression.\" Angelo pressed his lips together. \"That is what one of my masters once told me.\"\n\nNow, Shiv's attention was entirely on Angelo. \"You can cook?\"\n\n\"I can do many things,\" Angelo replied. \"To be honest, I was not a good cook. My mind drifted to other things. I was easily distracted. And I often lost track of many things. The steps. The ingredients. Myself. But I have known brilliant cooks. I have known brilliant chefs. I have known food the likes of which few will ever taste.\"\n\n\"And that's not mine,\" Shiv said.\n\n\"Not quite,\" Angelo replied. There was almost something of a smile pulling at his face, but it never quite made it on. A stronghold of sadness had taken up residence in Angelo's eyes.\n\n\"Well, I hope I meet some of these brilliant cooks and chefs you talked about someday,\" Shiv replied. \"I think my education still has a long way to go.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I think it might be difficult. You do have a propensity for killing vampires. They will likely sooner die facing you than indulge in small talk.”\n\nShiv bowed his head slightly, acknowledging the point.\n\n\"I must ask,\" Angelo said, gesturing to the book in Shiv's hand. \"You know what that is, right?”\n\n“Yeah. Odes. Damn good book. Why?”\n\n“I have gone through it fully. What chapter are you on? I am curious. Most people are repulsed by it.”\n\n“Sculptor Ekkihurst is a vile sonnabitch,” Shiv grunted. “But he’s also an artist of the flesh. I’m here to learn. I’m here to get better. And someday, I might even use what I discovered here to put an end to him.”\n\nAngelo turned his head slightly, and there was a certain look in his eyes. “Which chapter are you on?” he asked again.\n\n\"I'm going through the section about diseases at the moment. I'm planning on infecting myself. I tried the Bowel-Breaker a few times earlier, but my body's already adapted to that. It's not strong enough—not infectious enough, maybe. I barely feel a buzz anymore when I use it on myself. The damnedest thing about my Plaguefueled skill is that it treats diseases like they're alcohol. And my tolerance is spiking up quickly.\"\n\nRather than responding with surprise or astonishment about the nature of Shiv’s Disease Resistance Skill Evolution, the vampire nodded along. \"Then what you need is a small variety. Small changes every time, just like with your cooking: novelty. Find the most basic of the viruses and just change it. Learn the foundations and change them ever so slightly every time. See how your body reacts to that. That is all I can offer.”\n\nShiv blinked. \"Yeah, I think�� Yeah, I think I'm gonna try that. Thanks.\"\n\nThe quiet between them dragged. Angelo lowered his head. \"I wish to thank you as well. For not letting the Umbrals take me. I heard one of the Weaveresses was talking about using me as a prisoner. Or worse. I have… no desire to be used by anyone anymore. You have done me a kindness twice over now, and I have nothing to offer.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter if you have nothing to offer,\" Shiv replied. \"I help people because it's a sign. A sign of strength, a sign of what I want to do. It's the point of being a Pathbearer. It's not to take from the world. It's to do things in it. I don't want to help you because I was going to get something out of it. I helped you because I wanted to. And because the world can't stop me.”\n\nAngelo's eyes widened a little bit, but then he bowed his head, and slowly he retreated back into the Court Leviathan, away from the light, where he languished alone once more.\n\n\"And there goes another mystery,\" Shiv muttered to himself. But Angelo's recommendation still echoed in his mind. “Novelty, huh? Alright, let's see if I can make some novel viruses that my body can't quite keep up with. Wait. Some of the viruses and stuff are still lodged inside the Court Leviathan. The Biomancer just turned them off earlier.”\n\nShiv looked down at Courtney. “Alright. Let’s see if I can transplant some of your blood into me and trigger some of these diseases. Make it like a… implanted plague dispenser.”\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 107 (I) Open\nTarget length: ~2900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Scouts are the eyes, nose, tongue, ears, mouth, skin—everything that relates to the senses—of an army.\n\nNo scouts means that you're fighting blind, that you're just a mass of firepower stumbling around in the general direction in which you're supposed to march. No scouts means that someone's going to slit your arteries while you sleep, that someone's going to burn and butcher your supply train while you aren't looking. That someone's going to loot your tent and camp clean, is going to poison your food, your water, and is going to start cutting throats while you sleep at night.\n\nScouts are essential. Shadows, Assassins, Thieves—they're essential. They might not be the single most important component of an army, but without them, you're almost certain to lose.\n\nBefore every battle begins, there's the skirmish. There are the knife fights in the dark. There are Pathbearers with Stealth skills, with high levels of Awareness, blinking through shadows, scouring out paths for the rest of their forces to travel, and figuring out where the opposition lies in ambush. You need scouts to counter other scouts. You need scouts to figure out where things are.\n\nAnd you need scouts most of all if you are the inferior army, if you don't have the necessary force projection to match someone else head-on. That's when scouts, infiltrators, and saboteurs shine: when they're crippling the enemy and bringing them down from the inside.\n\nHell, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for our scouts. My wife wouldn't be here. All of us would be sleeping with the worms had their lengths of steel passed through our backs or been dragged across our necks. And because your enemy has scouts, you're gonna need scouts.\n\nBecause if not... Well, you ever wander into the jungle at night alone, without any equipment? You see eyes looking at you from the dark, but you don't know what exactly's staring at you? Yeah, it's kinda like that.\n\nExcept, you likely won't know what kills you. Or worse, what carries you off and takes you as a prisoner.\n\n-Memoirs of a Master-Tier War Mage\n\n\n107 (I)\n\nOpen\n\nA single, hair-thin strand of Psychomancy mana slipped into the Court Leviathan, seeking a certain Deathless. The string of translucent mana scoured the creature, sliding through each of its many brains, trying to pinpoint the exact location of Shiv’s whereabouts.\n\nUva could have asked Adam, but she'd found the Gate Lord slumped over and asleep within the Garden of Bountiful Alloy. Nearby, Valor and Can Hu watched over him while going through the Educator’s burned tome.\n\nHence, Uva sought Shiv out herself. She was done with interrogating the Owl for now, and with the Null Mont situation temporarily resolved, she wanted to see how Shiv was doing.\n\nEven with the battle over, they were constantly pressed with tasks and things to do. There was hardly a moment for all of them to talk and figure things out—or to just exist.\n\nWell, the strands briefly stopped as they examined a certain Angelo. The man's mind was awash with trauma, wailing and weeping. To describe him as something physical, he was a brutally infected wound, leaking pus and foul ichor out every passing second. He was still sane, but just barely. Right now, his mind was pointed inwards, the current of his thoughts cascading inversely. A sign that he was holding to the past, unable to emerge from the shadows lining his memories.\n\nUva considered slipping her Psychomancy thread through the vampire once more, examining him, learning what he was actually thinking about right now. She decided against it. Usually, the only things Uva contemplated regarding the bloodsuckers were how to kill them, how to break their minds, how to destroy their culture and bring down their Faith. But this one… There wasn't much left to break, and frankly, she didn't think there was much she could inflict upon him that his own kind hadn't already, and worse.\n\nShe continued on, a single strand circling through hallways, partially destroyed and reclaimed by spreading masses of flesh. She glanced into rooms, mostly obliterated by Shiv's inertial detonations, with little more than shards and debris embedded within the body of the Court Leviathan remaining. The insides of the creature were about as ruined as the gate. There would need to be a substantial rebuilding effort before it could serve as a troop carrier, or frankly, whatever Shiv wanted it to be, aside from a provider of flesh—a dedicated and ethical supply of meat.\n\nBut that was up to him. And only him. He made sure of that when he “convinced” Exalted Mother Null Mont she'd made a stupid mistake with some help from Adam and Valor.\n\nIt was good that he didn't actually hurt the Weaveress, but still, the way he treated her made Uva uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable. On some level, Uva understood the Exalted Mother was taking advantage of the Honored Guests and was being foolish and impulsive in ordering Uva away from the gate. Even if her suspicions about the Dreamtaker’s eldritch influence, about Uva’s potential subversion, were correct, there was a way of doing things, a way to be efficient and effective while also ensuring a Cherished Sister wasn’t compromised.\n\nNull Mont thought of none of that. Null Mont was short-sighted, and Null Mont was narcissistic. But Null Mont was not suicidal. And ultimately, after some threats and a meal, Null Mont was pacified, at least for now.\n\nIn part, Uva was grateful for that, but the developments also troubled her. She wondered if she could have solved the problem herself, convinced Exalted Mother Null Mont to allow her to remain at the Gate, to have her see the folly in her actions, the blindness in her choices.\n\nThe answer was a culturally-engineered no.\n\nShiv was right. Uva could have done a number of things to Null Mont. The Weaveress had a few Master-Tier skills, but she was no Psychomancer, and she was relatively unblooded in combat. Uva could taste the inexperience on her. But even so, something rooted deep in her psyche screamed at her every time she thought lowly or poorly of the Weaveress. It was sacrilege. Unthinkable. Wrong. Just like doubting the Composer was wrong. Just like how every vampire was supposed to be a slaving monster that indulged in cruelty and bloodlust in equal measure. Yet here was Angelo. Yet, here was Null Mont. Yet here Uva was, lost in her own growing doubts as she searched for Shiv.\n\nTwo months ago, such wrongthink would have been immediately repressed. Yes, there were problems at Weave, but they were inflicted by outside agents, by agitators, by enemies. The surface was the land that harbored her mother's murderer and the ones who inflicted so much damage on the Abyss.\n\nThe Composer was the only reason Weave was protected, the only reason Weave was at all. And it was the Umbrals, and to a lesser extent her Weaveresses, that failed to uphold her glory. But increasingly, whispers of doubt began to surface in Uva's mind. No more were they like sediment at the bottom of her thoughts and memories. They were rising now, like buoyant pieces of driftwood breaking free from wreckages long lost.\n\n\"You cling,\" the Dreamtaker sang out to Uva. \"Clinging hurts you deeply, cripples your development, blinds you.\"\n\n\"I am not blind,\" Uva shot back, a slow, aching feeling turning to reflexive outrage. \"I am… I am merely ruminating. My thoughts are slightly in disarray. This is not blindness, this is just…\"\n\n\"This is you trying to come up with a reason, trying to process the flaws of those you thought were better.\"\n\nUva considered how she was to reply to that. The Dreamtaker, as strange as she was, seemed a relatively benign entity, despite the harm she inflicted upon her mind and the minds of other people around her.\n\n\"I pity you. You fear the colors you cannot see. You do not wish to perceive them. I pity you. And envy you. You have a journey, a journey away from the limitations of consciousness.\"\n\n\"What?\" Uva replied.\n\n\"Consciousness. It is like a cage. There are boundaries to where you end, boundaries where the world begins and you don't reach. You are… like a foreign body drifting through the vastness. No wonder you all feel so alone. No wonder you cling to each other. No wonder your thoughts turn so malformed. You are searching for consciousness. It is a terrible thing. I regret the System infesting me with it. But I adore the fact that I can see it now.\"\n\nSlowly, Uva closed in on the signature of thought hidden deep within the lower middle of the Court Leviathan. Considering that no one else should be aboard the massive creature, she expected that was where she'd find Shiv.\n\n\"You truly think consciousness is a negative thing?\" Uva asked.\n\n\"I think the way you think is broken. You are shaped by belief, for there is a pattern engraved inside of you, patterns from your culture, from your society. Because you cannot be of the world, you are not of the world. You start inside a vessel, your own flesh, but your colors, they don't intermingle. Not like me, not like me at all, not yet. A shame, a pity, a wonder, a journey, a mystery for you to uncover, to seek, to become, if you so choose.\"\n\nIt was hard to decipher what the Dreamtaker was saying sometimes, but Uva thought she got the gist. The Dreamtaker was closer to being a dimension unto itself rather than a singular being. But she might also be a singular being now that the System had infested her with mana.\n\nInfested with mana, Uva thought to herself. The very concept made her shudder. Was the System some kind of infection as well? Some kind of disease that spread across souls? Was it a disease that composed souls? Another unnerving thing that intruded into Uva's mind when she already had so many to face.\n\n\"There. Another flaw. Another misshape in your mind. In your way. You find things horrifying, terrible, because you don't know, because you don't understand. But I don't know what it is like to not know, to not understand. Things are, and they are not. They are expressed, or they do not exist.\"\n\n\"Is there nothing you fear?\" Uva asked. \"Not the Stranger, not another Eldritch?\"\n\nThe Dreamtaker was silent for a while, but then it responded. \"Does the sunrise fear your broken moon? Does the sea fear the land, or the way the wind dances, carrying gravel in its wake?\" There was something strangely alluring in the way the Dreamtaker described things.\n\n\"No,\" the Dreamtaker answered its own question. \"There is no capacity for fear. It does not exist. Not yet. We are infested. We are bearing tumors of self-awareness, but we are not fully self-aware. The System's metastasization is not complete. We are still more Outside, a concept animated, rather than a mind uncovering. A mind like you.\"\n\nUva felt a traitorous desire slip through her, much like the thoughts she had before. The thoughts doubting the Composer, the Weaveresses, doubting even the fundamentals of her own culture. She suppressed it, but the Dreamtaker let out something as close to a sigh as it could possibly make. It was a broken sound, this discordant melody that sawed at Uva's very psychology.\n\n\"Again, again, why? Why do you mutilate yourself? Why do you mutilate the colors that spring from you, Seeker? You have the capacity, so much capacity to reshape your own mind, to face what is. Why turn away?\" The Dreamtaker paused. \"Go further. Even if you blind yourself, it is not protection. Denial is not a defense. Open yourself more. Open yourself to everything, everything there is. Do not fear being infected. You are already infected. Not by me, but your culture. Not by me, but existing patterns, beliefs crawling like viruses. Twisting your mind away from what is, what actually is. The Fundament of the thing.\"\n\n\"The Fundament?\" Uva echoed.\n\n\"You see things, but then you mask them with signs. With an illusion of your perception. But you are a mind-dancer. You are a Psychomancer. Break the illusion you have drunk so deeply. You alone, among many, have limbs of heart and mind. You alone are the shaper of personal meaning. And you alone can dissolve meaning and simply see things for what they are.\"\n\nUva felt something shiver within her, something shift and dance behind her eyes. Colors she couldn’t describe, but colors that painted new possibilities. Colors there if she just reached out for them.\n\n“There is a reason you delved deep inside we of the Outside and returned whole. Changed. But unbroken. Mutated. But not deviant. Not twisted. Think. Open yourself. Open…”\n\nAnd finally, Uva drew near to Shiv. Her Psychomancy thread flipped through a final set of walls, and she found herself in a rank chamber. It was a little bit like one of the chambers in Elaboration, an observation room overlooking an experimental cell of some kind. Or perhaps a containment unit. Through a reinforced window was another chamber. Its walls were furrowed with slick substances and countless glistening pores.\n\nIt seemed like some kind of malformed womb, and a feeling of revulsion went through her immediately. But standing at the center of the room was Shiv. He was stripped down to nothing, and a look of absolute focus painted his expression. He constantly drew in lungfuls of air, and Uva wondered what he was doing. But then she saw it. A bubbling of pustules bursting across his chest and abdomen, only to fade a moment later. Shiv blinked, shaking his head. His thoughts swayed slightly, and Uva recognized the patterns of those movements. The way his focus shook—like that of a drunk.\n\nWait, he wasn’t like a drunk—Shiv was drunk.\n\nAnd then she recalled how his Plaguefueled skill worked. Ah, she thought to herself with a dry exasperation, alloyed with the faintest bits of astonishment. Her dear brute was nothing if not stubborn, and nothing if not enduring. It expressed itself in his skills, and it expressed itself in his every action. She guessed that he was in this chamber because he was infecting himself with plague after plague, malady after malady.\n\nBut was he doing it to improve a skill? Or just for the pleasure of imbibing diseases? Uva didn’t know. And thus, she finally dipped the tip of her Psychomancy thread into his mind, and he responded, looking in the thread's general direction.\n\n\"Oh, hey, Uva,\" he replied. He let out a slight cough, but then that affliction faded as well, burned away by his hypercharged immune system. She regarded him through his own eyes, observing his body, and Uva felt a rush of heat inside of her.\n\n\"Do diseases make you larger?\" Uva asked. “Because you seem… bigger somehow.”\n\nHe let out a low chuckle. \"Yeah, something like that. And not just like alcohol for me, it's like a steroid too. I feel all kinds of drunk, but also, it doesn't just make my muscles bigger, it makes me harder, it makes me faster, and… it feels pretty good.\"\n\n\"It's addicting,\" Uva said, sensing the enjoyment ingrained within Shiv. Absorbing the diseases lined his mind in layers of pleasure, the same kind of pleasure one might feel when gambling or doing substances meant to spike the neurochemistry.\n\nThe same way Uva's neurochemistry was being affected right now, with what she could see. \"So,\" she said, trying to distract herself. \"Have you made some progress regarding your Practical Metabiology? I trust this is more than just an exercise in pseudo-alcoholism.”\n\nPractical Metabiology 36 > 37\n\n\"A bit,\" he replied. \"I think I'm getting some understanding of how a virus and a few other diseases work. I've been reviewing the most common disease types, along with the most infectious. I have to go with infectious because my plague field burns through most things too fast. So far, none of the diseases I managed to inflict on myself lasted that long, but then again, I am making pretty amateurish ones.\"\n\nHe let out a laugh. \"That vampire bastard's all kinds of messed up, but his bio-molecular control is something else. It's like he's some kind of disease chef. Down to the last detail, he's got it all figured out. But it's more than just that. He can put his own spin on things. He sees connections that aren't even there, or at least that I can't grasp. I feel like an alley kid looking at Georges again. I guess that's how things always are when you don't have the experience.\"\n\nUva hummed in agreement. She knew the feeling. As a child, she was a diligent student, but still, she remembered times where she was utterly lost as well, where she marveled at someone else's skill. Frankly, she still marveled at Fel's understanding of how fabrics worked. Uva, comparatively, was just a dabbler. It was one of her unspoken regrets.\n\nHer father, supposedly, had been a tailor before one of the blood-plagues took him, and while a few of her sisters veered closer to him in spirit, Uva merely touched on her father's skills and went no deeper. She didn’t have a true talent there. Only an interest. A dabbler’s touch.\n\nBut it can be more than that, Uva thought. I can be more than just a Psychomancer. A lot more...\n\n\nJoin the Discord here.\n\nIf you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, and to write a Review!"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Primal Hunter — a LitRPG progression fantasy. For her, it had just been another typical and tiring day. She had to get up early, clean her room, and make it all nice and tidy before heading off for breakfast. After that, she would have to do a bit of studying before a nice workout in the yard. Then it was work time, a bit of recreational time in the evening, before her early bedtime. It was a constant routine that she had done now for nearly two years.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Jake | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Jacob, Carmen, Bertram\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Archer – lvl 2, Geology (Inferior), Concoct Poison (Common), True Standout of the 93rd Universe, Boar – lvl 5, Human (G) – lvl 7, Evergreen Grass (Inferior), Basic One-Handed Weapon (Inferior)); stats (Perception, Wisdom, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility)\nSystem notification style: \"System’,” it explained.\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 40 chapter - Defect & Meeting\nTarget length: ~2900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "William looked at the now pitch-black clearing where Casper had disappeared from earlier. He had been standing there for minutes now. William didn’t get it. But more infuriating than that was that he didn’t understand why he didn’t get it.\n\n\nThat power was something William wanted… he needed it. But he couldn’t even begin to understand what it was. No clue remained either, as all of the spikes and the corpses of the beasts they impaled were gone.\n\n\nCasper claimed it was some kind of emotional power… resentment. William understood being mad at someone, but how could that possibly be so tangible? His claim of doing everything and reaching the power he had due to love was also… ridiculous. Illogical.\n\n\nHe had never gotten it. Love was a weird ethereal word not commonly found in his internal dictionary. He knew that his parents had claimed to love him. But if love was such an all-consuming feeling as the trapper claimed, why had the parents who claimed to love him chosen to abandon him?\n\n\nWhy did people think he was broken?\n\n\nWilliam had always thought himself a smart kid. He had been quiet, controlled, and done as he was told. His school-years were straightforward and easy. He never had any friends, and he did recall seeing ‘specialists’ who concluded that he just had a hard time understanding empathy. Putting him on some spectrum, something that allowed him to avoid much suspicion later on in life.\n\n\nAt only 11 years old, he had found an old book and looked up the word ‘love’ and tried to do as it said. Do to others as you want them to do unto you, which meant that the next many years were fine. He was a well-behaved child and never did any wrong. The problems only started arriving when his brother was born.\n\n\nHe remembered his parents being happy, having fulfilled their biological quota of two children to carry on the bloodline. He also remembered them being sad when they discovered that the child was a defect. A product that Darwinism would have claimed if nature was to run its cause without the interference of society.\n\n\nWilliam was 12 when the kid was born, and he would never forget the difficulties it brought. His mother had to quit working, and all semblance of free-time and family outings stopped. William may have had his issues, but he still enjoyed what other children did and sorely missed going to amusement parks and the zoo.\n\n\nAs the years passed, the problems continued, and William tried just to do his own thing. His parents had forgotten their otherwise ‘troubled’ teenager, being far too busy with his little brother who required constant care.\n\n\nThen, and even now, William never understood why they kept the child. They knew even before the birth that it wouldn’t come out whole. It would never amount to anything; it was a failed attempt. In all other areas, you were told that if a product turned out terribly, you just throw it out and start over or move onto more important matters. But his parents had used the ever-ethereal argument of love to bring the child into the world.\n\n\nOnce more, William didn’t care. As long as he did nothing illegal, his parents didn’t care either. Back then, William had big plans. He enjoyed studying, he liked to learn, and he found great pleasure in learning about other humans, most of all. He learned how they worked and how he was supposed to act around them. But more importantly, how to make them act as you wanted.\n\n\nHis plans were grand. He still remembered the day he found out he had gotten into the best university in his area. He remembered the genuine joy he had felt. ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ But he also remembered his parent’s slightly reluctant attitude to his happiness.\n\n\nIt turns out that having a child requiring a person to care for it every hour of the day, combined with a lot of medicine, is expensive. They never told William, but he discovered it himself as he heard his parents whisper in the middle of the night. They were about to go into debt. William would have to move to go to the university… he would need money - money they didn’t have.\n\n\nWilliam did not take the news well that his plans for the future wouldn’t become a reality. The child, his so-called brother, was making that impossible. So, William did as he had read in that book so many years ago. He did unto others what he wished they would do to him. So, he helped them.\n\n\nHe knew the law. He knew that the child, now 5 years old, was still wheelchair-bound, and quite frankly, at risk of dying to any unexpected danger. It wouldn’t be suspicious if it happened.\n\n\nA device was used to allow the child to breathe during the night. The thing they called his brother was so defective it couldn’t even do that without help. The night was also the only time the child was left alone for just a bit of time. Still regular check-ins every hour, but alone in between.\n\n\nWilliam snuck in that night. Having just turned 18, he got to work. He considered bringing it up to his parents, but he knew no legal defense was better than not having done anything illegal. With that in mind, he decided to do it alone.\n\n\nSwitching off the alarm was easy enough. Guides to those devices were on the internet if one looked hard enough. Next, he did the most straightforward thing and simply twisted one of the tubes delivering oxygen, stopping the flow. And with that, he went back to bed and slept like a baby. He had done a good deed, after all.\n\n\nIt was a pure win-win situation. His parents would be freed from a burden, their economic situation would improve, and with that, his plans of higher education made possible. He saw nothing getting in the way but a possible legal investigation, but he had made sure to make the twisted tube look like it happened on accident. So, if anything, it would be some unrelated caretaker getting in trouble, as she had been the last one to operate the machine and was responsible for keeping watch.\n\n\nHe was awoken an hour later by shouting and screaming as the caretaker panicked, and his mother was even worse off. His father had been at work, as he was working nearly every waking moment to make ends meet.\n\n\nWilliam had succeeded. His brother had slept in, never having even woken up. And now he would never wake up ever again. William was proud of himself. After the panic and mourning, an investigation was made, and it was ultimately deemed an accident.\n\n\nThroughout the entire process, he had never once been suspected. He had only been questioned once, and he just claimed that he was sleeping the whole time.\n\n\nBut to William's surprise, things didn’t immediately improve. Despite having removed the burden, his parents didn’t get newfound freedom, and the focus of their family didn’t go to making sure his university plans were fulfilled. Instead, it became endless mourning, and his mother even deliriously wanting to sue both the caretaker and the company that made the machine due to the alarm failing.\n\n\nWilliam didn’t get why they were so reluctant just to move on. Why they had to act as they did. When the movements to sue got closer and William discovered that the legal proceedings would put the family even further in debt, for what even he could see was a pointless legal-battle, he decided to finally come clean- There was a bit of a risk that an investigation would get reopened, but the risk was worth it.\n\n\nTheir response had been far from what he expected. He knew they would be angry; lying and acting deceitful was not okay after all, but the reaction was way out of proportion. He tried to explain; he tried to reason; his logic had been flawless. He had acted entirely rational throughout it all.\n\n\nHis father had yelled more than ever; his mother broke down crying. After that, he had been sent to his grandparent’s place. He was forced to talk to shrinks, therapists, and many other so-called ‘experts’.\n\n\nHe was sent into programs, homes, and in the end, a fucking closed facility. His parents never told anyone what he had done, and yet they locked him up like he had been the one to ruin their lives. Like he had been the burden.\n\n\nHe was pumped full of drugs, his logic dying, and from then, it all turned into a blur with only moments of clearness - one and a half years he spent living like that. Even now, his memories of the time were shrouded, like a cloud of mist was obstructing his mind.\n\n\nHe only had a single one with a clear head of those many months as he managed to fool some new hire that he was getting. That he understood what they wanted. That he understood the emotions that they all found oh so important. But he could only fake it for so long until a more experienced employee caught on, and he had no peace after that.\n\n\nThe system saved him. It freed him. Not just physically. It freed his mind.\n\n\nHere, in the tutorial, he had time to think. He had time to do as he always wanted. He would manipulate, exploit, and do everything possible to win. He had viewed his inability to understand these emotions as a perk for the past month, not a fault.\n\n\nBut today, Casper had made a small crack in that belief. Was he missing something? Was he… broken? No, impossible.\n\n\nThere wasn’t anything to fix. It was a strength, his strength. He had been called ‘mentally ill’ before; it wasn’t new. Casper was just an outlier. William had brilliantly fooled Richard, Caroline, Jacob, everyone! Not a soul suspected him. He was perfect.\n\n\nWilliam only saw the world as consisting of two kinds of people. Those useful to him reaching his goals, and those not. If someone didn’t hold value for him, there was only the value he would get from harvesting their tutorial points and the experience they offered.\n\n\nThe system itself agreed with his reasoning. It only confirmed his thoughts. He was rewarded for every kill. Not punished like the old world. Rules didn’t apply to the strong. And William… William was strong.\n\n\nHe firmly believed that. He was finally untethered. No laws, no parents, no vague moral obligations to anything. The only one he had to please was himself. His only limiter was the extent of his own power. So, he would do anything to obtain more power.\n\n\nWilliam, lost in thought, found that he had wandered quite a distance. A bit closer to the camp, but not in a straight line. He did see some beasts, but all were below 25, so he was still in the outer area for sure.\n\n\nAs he turned to the camp's direction, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye - a single individual walking through the shrubbery. It was a man from the build, and he was wearing an upgraded common-rank archer cloak, but he saw no bow in sight. Nothing else about him was of interest, as the cloak concealed his entire body.\n\n\nWilliam considered attacking, but something made him pause. There was a presence to the man. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but through all the evolutions and levels, a certain innate sense had been unlocked. And that sense was currently making him aware that the man wasn’t simple.\n\n\nWilliam used Identify on the man. He knew he was terrible at remembering to use it, as he hadn't even bothered to use it on Casper before. Or anyone really. Something to improve, he told himself. But when he got the response, his eyes widened.\n\n\n[?]\n\n\nIt was just… nothing. No feedback at all. A single question mark was all William got. After he had gotten the Identify skill to common-rarity, it had told him the race and level of everyone… but now it didn’t work.\n\n\nOne would typically take that as a sign to avoid combat, but William saw it as the exact opposite. This was a perfect opportunity. Casper was an anomaly; he reminded himself. This lone person in front of him appeared strong. He was alone. William would make him the case-study of why he wasn’t wrong.\n\n\n“Hello there!” he said with a huge smile. Completely back in his faux persona. “Haven’t seen anyone else for a while out here. What you up to all alone with how things are?”\n\n\nWilliam tried hard to make the man let down his guard. The man he presumed to be an archer took off his hood too, and William got a good look at the man. Brown hair, forgettable face, utterly dull. The only thing that made him stand out was his eyes. His gaze was sharp, focused.\n\n\nThe teenager had met a lot of people out in the wild. He had seen a wide range of emotions: fear, curiosity, caution, anger, and even happiness and relief at some points. But the eyes of the man was neither of those. He couldn’t quite place his finger on what his gaze held, but William didn’t like it.\n\n\nHe had never tried that before, and it put him slightly off his game. As he was wondering how to proceed, the man answered.\n\n\n“Good question. Just got here myself. Been a bit busy in an oversized cave for a while. Or would calling it an ancient temple be more accurate?” the archer answered, shrugging before he asked. “You heard of any gatherings of survivors around here? A camp or something like that?”\n\n\nWilliam looked a bit bewildered at the man. The first part was nonsense. He had been in a temple? The young caster had been many places, and he hadn’t seen even the shadow of something that one could describe as a temple. The latter part was also confusing. How could he not know of ANY gatherings of survivors? The two bases hadn’t exactly been subtle with their hardcore recruitment.\n\n\n“Eh, yeah, we got some bases. I am a part of one of them myself, actually,” William answered, seeing an opportunity. “I can bring you to it if you like? It is a bit far, and it is easy to get lost in the forest after all.”\n\n\n“Hm… what’s the name of the leader of the camp? Or notable people? And you mentioned bases as in more than one? Just take me as someone absolutely clueless to the situation currently in the tutorial. Because I am,” the man answered, dodging the offer of the escort with his own questions.\n\n\n“Sure thing! We got two bases, one run by a dude named Hayden and another run by another bloke named Richard. Both are a bit bonkers, and a big war is kinda going on. As for notable people… we got a good smith named Mr. Smith? Or well, some call him The Smith. Anyway, he is excellent, and I am sure he could help fix up your stuff,” William answered, trying to really sell his camp.\n\n\nNot that he had any intention of the archer ever making it there in one piece. But if they traveled there together, there was bound to be opportunities.\n\n\nThe archer stood a while contemplating. William’s brain was working at high speed, trying to see every possible scenario. He wanted to avoid a straight-up fight if possible, as a direct confrontation with an enemy of unknown power seemed like a bad idea.\n\n\nFinally, the archer responded. “Sure, I guess you can take me there. Meanwhile, tell me of the other members of your camp. Perhaps I know some of them.”\n\n\nWith delight, William smiled and cheered internally. The sucker seemed oblivious to his intentions, on the surface at least. He hadn’t spotted any openings yet, but the teenager seriously doubted that anyone could stay completely vigilant at all times. The way back to base was far. Especially far, considering William wasn’t going to take him in the direction of the camp at all.\n\n\n“Of course! My name is William, by the way. A caster, as you can likely see by the robe. It’s a bit far, and my physical stats are a bit bad with my class and all, so it may take a while. But! I will have plenty of time to answer any and all questions you may have.”\n\n\nWilliam put on the attitude of a true used-car salesman. He also used the age-old trick of downplaying yourself, inevitably making the other party feel superior, making them more likely to relax.\n\n\n“Well, nice to meet you, William. Now unto the other members of your camp…”\n\n\nA bit annoyed that the other party refused to even give his own name, William simply endured as he happily started yapping away about his base's outstanding members.\n\n\nIt was going to be a long trip back."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 41 chapter - Intermission 4 - Matteo (1/2)\nTarget length: ~2500 words\nKey events: boss encounter, dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "3 years before the Initiation began\n\n\nMatteo got out of the shower after his workout and got something quick to eat. It was just another Sunday night like any other where he had to get up early and get ready for work. But today was a special day as today was the day he would claim his big promotion.\n\n\nHe looked out at the penthouse that he had lived in for the last two months, feeling it was all a bit hollow. His only real possession in the entire apartment was a piano, which he had inherited from his grandfather.\n\n\nAfter he put on his suit, he packed his briefcase with all the necessities he would need for the day’s work and rode the elevator down to the ground floor. His employer had insisted many times for him to get a driver, but Matteo had refused time and time again. He preferred to do things himself.\n\n\nRiding the car that was worth more than the average yearly income of several households, he soon found himself in the industrial zone where the boss had set up their current base of operations. A furniture manufacturer that was more than suitable.\n\n\n“M,” the doorman said with a small greeting. ”Boss is inside.”\n\n\nMatteo just nodded and entered the building, crossing the floor and the running machinery, and into the back room. There, he found his boss and a few other members sitting around a table while watching tennis on the television.\n\n\n“Why do they moan when they hit the ball?”\n\n\n“It is all about controlling your breathing, and if it happens to annoy your opponent, it’s just a bonus,” Matteo answered upon entering.\n\n\n“Ah, my boy, just in time! I heard the last job was finished ahead of schedule. Great work as always,” said one of the older members.\n\n\n“You didn’t disappoint,” said a rough voice as he entered from a side room.\n\n\nThe others instantly turned off the tv and bowed towards the boss.\n\n\n“Yeah,” Matteo confirmed, nodding to the boss.\n\n\n“Let’s move,” the boss said as he motioned for the others to follow. Matteo following along without question. It wasn’t time yet, and everything was planned.\n\n\n“Matteo, you drive.”\n\n\nAs expected.\n\n\nThey got into the armored car and set course for the docks. They had to meet their client there for the handover. Matteo was a natural inclusion in such… volatile situations. Usually, nothing went wrong, but the boss had caught on something was up and wanted him present.\n\n\nHe had been a part of the business and family since he was a kid, and the boss trusted him unconditionally.\n\n\nIn an old warehouse at the docks, dozens of men were already present as they opened up unmarked containers and took out the boxes, stacking them in the corner. A few of the containers were left closed, as they didn’t want issues with the merchandise before the buyers arrived. They had just checked that it was in good condition.\n\n\nThe armored car rode in through the opened gates as it closed behind them. Five men got out, with Matteo the first to do so and the boss next.\n\n\n“Bronco! Good to see you, old friend!” yelled the seller at the five arriving men.\n\n\n“Dakila,” the boss replied with a nod.” No issues with this shipment?”\n\n\n“A few rowdy ones, but they just need to be trained a bit better, and I am sure they will turn into big earners. As for the other goods? No issues there.”\n\n\nThe business had recently expanded quite a bit into the entertainment industry and needed some ’employees’ for that, so they came to this man. He was already their supplier for many other tools of their trade and offered to provide.\n\n\nSadly, the last time a container of merchandise was damaged during transport, and they had to dump the entire cargo container into the ocean, inventory included.\n\n\n48 young women and girls, thrown overboard and drowned due to one person in the container having tuberculosis.\n\n\nMatteo wasn’t the most morally upstanding person, but that had left a sour taste in his mouth. Even worse so when his boss accepted Dakila’s reimbursement and went ahead with another delivery.\n\n\nSo, today would be the day where he took over. Guns and drugs were enough anyway; there was no reason to expand into human trafficking besides the boss’s greed.\n\n\nThe negotiations continued as expected as they stood there. Matteo had already given the signal during the ride, and soon he felt his smartwatch buzz with the return signal. 30 seconds.\n\n\nWalking up to the boss, he asked to inspect the guns. He naturally got the go-ahead as none of them were loaded by default, but that wasn’t why he needed to go over there. He leaned over the table as if looking at the guns as he got the second buzz.\n\n\n“Boss?”\n\n\n“Yeah, wha-”\n\n\nBefore he could speak, he had a round hole in his forehead as blood and brain matter splattered everywhere.\n\n\nThe other side reacted as expected, and Matteo vaulted over the table just in time as several gunshots went past him. The flashbang he had dropped at his feet blew up, blinding all of them who had turned towards him, and at that moment, two cars smashed the gate in.\n\n\nA dozen men got out, guns blazing, as they began lighting up the entire warehouse. Dakila’s men managed to return fire, but Matteo’s initial move had left many of them blinded and confused.\n\n\nMatteo himself stayed behind the table as he prepared himself for the next stage.\n\n\nThe gunfire soon died down as he heard his ’partner’ call him out.\n\n\nTheir main competitor. A man who Matteo had made a deal with, to further his own means.\n\n\nSmiling slightly at what would come next, he looked at the handgun in his hand and counted his bullets. It should be enough.\n\n\nHe yelled out as he stood up, seeing five guns already trained at him. His smile only broadened. Perhaps he had bitten off a bit more than he could chew.\n\n\nYet he moved. The first gunshot took a life before they reacted properly, the second shot took another as they pulled their triggers, and a third shot killed another man before their return fire came.\n\n\nMatteo had already ducked once more as he remembered their positions. He threw another grenade over the table as he felt it be riddled with bullets, glad that Dakila had always insisted on having these large steel tables.\n\n\nAnd then he heard it - screams from within the containers.\n\n\nThe men brought by the competitor, on edge, weren’t as clearheaded or experienced as Matteo himself, so they didn’t notice. They didn’t think. They just fired. It took a full second before their leader yelled for them to stop, but it was too late.\n\n\nMatteo saw red as he got up again.\n\n\nHe fired his gun, taking down four more before he was out of bullets. He drew his knife and stabbed the first one in the throat, and the second went down with a quick stab to the chest. Matteo felt a few bullets hit him from behind, most blocked by his vest, but one took him in the leg.\n\n\nTaking a gurgling soldier as a hostage, he used him as a shield and even used his own gun to return fire.\n\n\nThe police arrived ten minutes later, finding dozens of corpses within the warehouse and two containers with a few more corpses and several women who were crying and screaming for help.\n\n\nThe day of the Integration of the 93rd universe\n\n\nA man in black walked through the foyer as he took the elevator up. Weirdly enough, walking in the blind angles of all the cameras and keeping his head low.\n\n\nFour minutes later, he exited the building, one briefcase lighter.\n\n\nFifteen minutes after that, the building’s top floor went up in flames, a supposedly famous mafia-boss among them.\n\n\nIt was just another killing in a long string of organized crime, all committed by an assailant identified simply as M.\n\n\nMatteo sat in another penthouse that he didn’t feel like was his own, his only possession still the old piano. He mentally checked off another mark as he prepared to begin his preparations for the next target. That is when the Initiation came.\n\n\nHe found himself in the room. He had asked for a gun but found that he could at most get a profession that could lead him to make guns himself later on. Useless. So Matteo picked light warrior as it suited him somewhat as he was more than confident in his knifework.\n\n\nAfter that, he went to a grand hall of sorts, surrounded by thousands of other humans.\n\n\nHe had to specify humans, as he soon realized there were beings in this tutorial that weren't humans. They called themselves servants to the Mistress of Shadows, the sponsor who ran the tutorial - a god known as Umbra.\n\n\nMost of the servants looked elven, but some were creatures of pure shadows. Dark elementals that were there to guide the new initiates.\n\n\nIn the grand hall at the beginning, they were met with an explanation from the Organizer.\n\n\n“Welcome, Forerunners of the 93rd Universe.\n\n\n“Welcome, to the tutorial where you will be given the opportunity to rise to power and discover your own path. The first choice of which will come right after this. There are two other halls like this, each with its own purpose.\n\n\n“The hall we are in currently is called the Hall of Blades and is for those who wish to walk the path of combat. The hall to the right is the Hall of Creation, and to the left is the Hall of Guides. Creation for those who wish to craft and focus on their professions, and the last is for those who wish to guide others.\n\n\n“I would advise you all not solely to focus on one path. If you already possess a profession, get a class, and get a profession within a reasonable time if you have a class. Do not fret if you feel like you have chosen wrong; just be aware of the path you wish to walk when you reach the first evolution at 25.\n\n\n“This tutorial is sponsored and organized by the Dark Mistress, and if you perform well, you may even qualify to receive her favor.”\n\n\nAfter that, the Organizer began explaining more general info before sending them all on their way to different halls and such. There was plenty of panic and people doubting the entire situation, but the appearance of dark elementals and elves was enough to convince most this wasn’t some trick.\n\n\nBesides, it soon appeared that many of the types who had been brought there were not simple. Most of them hardened criminals, killers, soldiers, or assassins like himself. There was also more regular folk that Matteo assumed to be there to make up for numbers. In total, he saw they were 9000 initiates in the tutorial.\n\n\nOf them, he surprisingly enough counted more than a hundred children who were all taken aside to be given some special elixir of some kind. Many of the ones who went to the Hall of Guides were those intending to help care for them.\n\n\nSome others didn’t look very fit for combat either - old people, people who were clearly civilians, pregnant women, the ones who appeared more mentally unstable. These people tended to go towards to Hall of Creation or the Hall of Guides.\n\n\nMatteo looked up at the high ceiling in contemplation. This wasn’t the first time he had been tossed into an entirely different world. When he was nine, he saw a rival gang member kill his brother. That also happened to be the first time he took a life himself.\n\n\nWith resolve, he began his journey to power.\n\n\nThe days quickly began passing as everyone fell into a groove. Matteo practiced a bit but spent most of his first week within the Shadow Trials. The Shadow Trials was where combat took place, a type of dimension that they were told was a dungeon.\n\n\nIn there, there were floors with progressively more formidable enemies. Every 10th level had a ’boss,’ and if they managed to beat all 50 floors, they could fight the final boss. But it was made pretty clear from the beginning that this final boss was more or less impossible to reach, much less beat.\n\n\nMatteo entered the Trial for the first time less than an hour after the whole introduction-sequence. He alone entered the Trials and exited hours later with more than ten levels. This continued as he hunted down creatures one after another, honing his craft.\n\n\nHe also discovered why they had all been taken here, what they all had in common. Every individual in the tutorial had an affinity for dark mana, and most of the training and material provided played into this fact. An assassin like Matteo had already gained several skills related to dark mana.\n\n\nWhen Matteo evolved his class, he was still relatively low on the level ladder. The reason for this was simple; he had yet to pick a profession. He had earned a private chamber due to his high performance, and that was where the servant came to discuss his lack of profession with him.\n\n\n“A profession is highly advised, due to the levels in race an-”\n\n\n“Piano.”\n\n\nSo, he got a piano and a profession that very day - a simple profession called ’Novice Musician’ that offered only four stats total and didn’t appear extraordinary in any way. But it gave race levels, and Matteo enjoyed it. It was his type of meditation before actually gaining the meditation skill.\n\n\nHis leveling speed kept being insane, only increasing further as he also got levels in his profession. A month in, they had their first evaluations - the leaderboard for the top 10 with Matteo solidly winning.\n\n\nLeaderboard: Shadow Trials\n\n\n1st: M – 19th floor\n\n\n2nd: NBS – 17th floor\n\n\n3rd: HJ – 17th floor\n\n\n4th: GAS - 16th floor\n\n\n5th: KIL - 16th floor\n\n\n6th: PJH - 16th floor\n\n\n7th: V - 16th floor\n\n\n8th: YH - 16th floor\n\n\n9th: CT – 15th floor\n\n\n10th: KL – 15th floor\n\n\nThe first boss on floor 10 was only level 25, but it progressed fast after that, with the average enemy on the 19th floor around level 50. Every person in the top 10 did the trials solo as they only got harder if you entered with more people. You also {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} had to share points from the kills, making it even less attractive.\n\n\nAfter the evaluation, Matteo was offered even more power. A blessing from a subordinate god of Umbra, increasing his agility by 5% and giving him access to even better skills. He also officially joined the Court of Shadows and became a follower. Though, that wasn’t the term they used. They called them members instead of followers as the entire structure of the Court was more akin to a business than a religion.\n\n\nMatteo didn’t know if others had also been offered a blessing, and frankly, he didn’t care. He just kept pushing forward."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 41 chapter - Clash\nTarget length: ~3400 words\nKey events: class event, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake walked beside the young caster as the teenager happily chatted away. Jake was taken aback from learning about two massive camps that combined held nearly all the remaining survivors in them. He had come here looking for the source of mana before, but instead, he found a caster, and from his aura, it didn’t feel like it was him. Oh well, this is fine too.\n\n\nThe archer was able to remain relatively relaxed as he walked. He had naturally inspected the young man when they first met.\n\n\n[Human – lvl 24]\n\n\nHe was happy to see that it now worked on humans finally. It only showed race level, making Jake have no idea about the teenager's class or profession's details. He knew he was a caster based solely on his clothes.\n\n\nJake didn’t feel like sharing any personal information either, despite the other party's subtle, and not so subtle, probes. The caster called himself William or Will for short. He had stressed the last part quite a bit. Being friendly was all well and good, but Jake seriously didn’t like the guy. He was far too chippy and animated to appear genuine.\n\n\nAll of that was naturally ignoring the fact that William was likely going to try something. He wasn’t sure what, but he had a feeling. If he had to make a guess, Jake would guess a classic ambush, or maybe he would just try to backstab him at some random point?\n\n\nJake wasn’t afraid, though. He was low-key looking forward to it. With the kid being a well of information, he saw no reason not to travel together for a bit. It would also allow him to better understand the level of power other survivors possessed. Even if Jake couldn’t win, he was confident in escaping with his high vitality and toughness.\n\n\nThey walked a while, the teenager still talking and Jake giving short brief answers. His Sphere of Perception passively making him aware of his surroundings like always. He was still half-expecting an ambush to be somewhere, but no matter how long they walked, he saw nothing.\n\n\nSuddenly William stopped as he knelt, motioning Jake to do the same. Perfectly aware that nothing was in the area, Jake nevertheless played along. This is silly.\n\n\n“Did you spot that? I have a skill that allows me to see hidden concentrations of mana, and there is a big ambush just up ahead. They haven’t spotted us yet, but I am unsure how many there are,” the teenager said as he pointed down the small hill they were approaching.\n\n\n“What do you want me to do?” Jake asked, trying to act as seriously as he could. His sphere still didn’t pick up quack. While he wasn’t going to rule out people being able to hide from it, there sure as hell wasn't anyone close.\n\n\n“You are an archer, right? Can you maybe go up that hill we passed earlier and try and see if you can spot anything from up there? I know you guys got, like, super high perception, right?” William asked, motioning with his hands once more. “Don’t worry, I will keep watch here and help in case they try anything!”\n\n\nJake nodded along as he listened. Cool story. Yet he followed the directions. Was he really going with that?\n\n\nJake started slowly walking up the hill, going backward, trying to act as if he was still actually looking for an ambush. William had turned his back to Jake, as he seemingly focused hard to keep an eye on things.\n\n\nAfter a few meters, Jake turned his back to William, and the moment he did, a barrage of daggers flew soundlessly out from beneath the casters robe. Jake couldn’t help but smirk internally as the expected attack came, but he quickly frowned his brows a bit at the power and number of attacks.\n\n\nFourteen daggers were coming. Without any hesitation, he jumped to the side, all the blades missing their initial attempt to skewer him. As he barely got a footing, the daggers turned in the air and swiftly came his way once more. A bow appeared in Jake's hand with ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) a quick motion, as he dodged once more and returned an arrow towards the caster.\n\n\nWilliam had turned towards Jake at this point, surprised that the archer had dodged his sneak attack. Even as he dodged the second and third blow, the archer seemed to have eyes on his back. The counterattack was quickly blocked by William, as he was once again surprised.\n\n\nWhat surprised him this time was not the power, but the lack of it. The arrow had been weak. He doubted the attack was from someone with even 100 strength. Something pretty much all physical fighters had - especially one an even higher level than himself.\n\n\nThe arrow thus easily got blocked by his iron wall, as he continued to manipulate the daggers. This was by far the most slippery foe William had ever faced. He wasn’t as fast as others he had met, but he seemed to be perfectly aware of all the attacks aimed at him.\n\n\nThe arrows continued as he blocked again and again. It felt like a waste of time, but the archer just kept shooting. Not wanting to lose momentum, William started deploying walls of iron to try and trap the archer, but he kept weaving in and out, never having more than one side blocked at a time.\n\n\nHe wanted to throw a disc, but the arrows made it hard to focus. He couldn’t lessen his control too much on the daggers or the walls, either. It was beginning to annoy William, and he was starting to get impatient.\n\n\nJake was in his own mind relatively relaxed throughout all this. He felt in control, and he felt the kinetic energy of the daggers lower than expected. The walls were a bit of a problem, but he reckoned the other party was draining mana fast.\n\n\nAnother thing he quickly noticed was the control of the daggers worsening as he moved further away. With a plan in mind, Jake kept retreating more and more, as he saw the caster start chasing him. The wall of iron always floated in front of him, making Jake only able to see that. With his eyes, that is.\n\n\nAs he managed to jump a reasonable distance back, he felt the caster somehow slide himself forward, almost as if he was flying. No, he was controlling his own body like he controlled the daggers.\n\n\nJake took this chance to stop retreating, deposited the bow in the necklace, and charged towards the caster. Dagger of Bloodletting in hand, he managed to close half the distance as the daggers caught up to him from behind.\n\n\nTaking a gamble, he chose to betray expectations as he allowed five daggers to hit him in the back, penetrating into his flesh. However, his movements were unaffected as he vaulted over the wall of iron, swiping down with his dagger.\n\n\nWilliam was surprised by Jake's gamble as he scrambled to activate mana barrier, one of his starting skills. The barrier barely did anything as the dagger came down. William did manage to slide himself backward slightly, only taking a minor cut to his forearm.\n\n\nSmirking, he had the daggers resume their assault at full power, forcing the archer on the defensive once more. In William's eyes, Jake had taken far more damage from the daggers in his back than the minor cut he had inflicted. Of course, he didn’t know about Jake’s ridiculous vitality. And he hadn’t noticed the blood already on the dagger before it cut him.\n\n\nHe only noticed as he started getting slightly dizzy, losing control for a moment allowing the archer to close in a bit more. William, in panic, looked to his arm and saw the wound, now black and festering.\n\n\nWhat the fuck? he yelled in his mind, now genuinely panicking. He had experienced poisoning from the evolved badgers before, but this felt way worse. To make matters even more horrifying, the archer was nearly upon him once more.\n\n\nAs the archer was only a couple of meters away, William made his final gambit. No longer aiming to necessarily kill his enemy anymore, all he thought of was to escape. Even if he won, the poison would simply consume him anyway.\n\n\nThe final card William had up his sleeve was called Flashing Steel. The newest skill in his repertoire. His entire body lit up with a bright light reminiscent of a flashbang, as small pieces of scrap metals exploded out of him. The whole area around him exploding as a small crater formed.\n\n\nJake was already too close and even with his danger sense he was taken entirely by surprise and only managed to raise his hands as the metal hit him. The metal's momentum shot him backward tens of meters before he finally hit a tree, unfortunately only pushing the daggers in his back further in. It was like he had just been hit by a super-powerful frag grenade at close range.\n\n\nThe final thing he saw before the caster left his sphere was William flying backward himself, as he manipulated his own body once more. Jake quickly lost track as he saw the caster disappear into the trees.\n\n\nPushing himself off the tree, he had smashed into, groaning as he tried to reach for the daggers sticking out of his back. They hurt like hell, but his bodily strength was not comparable to an average human anymore. Ripping the daggers out took a while because some of them were tricky to reach, but he got it done in a few minutes.\n\n\nHis frontside was perhaps even worse than his back. The scrap metal that William blasted him with at the end had quite the power behind them. Luckily his cloak had absorbed a lot of the impact, leaving it in tatters. He really hoped the self-repair enchant still worked despite the extensive damage.\n\n\nSitting on the floor breathing heavily, Jake meditated as he thought back on the fight. He had underestimated the other party. He had seemed carefree and inexperienced during their walk, but the caster had been ruthless and calculating in the battle. The control of his abilities impressive.\n\n\nJake had only met one survivor so far, but his plans of approaching his colleagues just yet were already questionable. He didn’t have any clue as to William's relative power compared to everyone else. He knew that the teenager was a part of Richard’s base, which led Jake to believe that Richard had to at least be stronger.\n\n\nLack of information was a great weakness for him currently. What if William was just an example of a regular member of Richards base? He had confidence in facing one caster of that level, maybe even two if he got the jump, but anything more, and he would surely be on the losing side. Even then… he had only won because of his poison. If the caster had known about it already, Jake wasn’t one hundred percent sure things would have gone as well as they did.\n\n\nWilliam had during their conversation been very careful to reveal nothing about the powers of others. He did, however, mention that both bases combined had numbers in the hundreds. If facing just one other survivor had ended up with him losing nearly a third of his health, facing any random small squad would likely be fatal.\n\n\nWorst of all, while Jake had won, he had likely failed to kill the opponent. He used the word likely as there was still a chance the caster wouldn’t make it. Before his charge, Jake had used Blood of the Malefic Viper to soak his dagger in his toxic blood, effectively poisoning the enemy. He would need a healer for sure, as Jake doubted the kid had high enough defensive stats to battle it himself. That, or he would need a potion.\n\n\nWhich was another thing Jake didn’t know about. Did they have any alchemists? If they did, could they make any detoxification potions? Smiths, tailors, and builders had all been mentioned, so them having professions was indisputable. It was also very believable that they would keep any knowledge of alchemy hidden from outside sources, along with other powerful profession types.\n\n\nAll of this ultimately led to Jake being very hesitant in trying to seek out his former colleagues. He had parted with Richard by killing a bunch of his men, so he had serious doubts that the guy would just welcome him with open arms.\n\n\nNo, for now, he needed power. Power to be able to seek them out with his head held high, and at least the confidence to escape if things went sideways. So, he decided to hunt. His class was only level 13, and he could efficiently kill level 20+ beasts for some quick levels. His colleagues would have to wait for now.\n\n\nAfter meditating a while, he took out a health potion and drank it. It filled his pool back up quite a bit, his body visibly healing. I need to get stronger.\n\n\nTurning towards the depths of the forest once more, he started searching for new prey. It was power-leveling time!\n\n\nCaroline looked at the gloves in her hand as she smiled proudly at her creations. They were only inferior-rarity and didn’t offer any stats or anything. But it did give her plenty of experience to her profession.\n\n\n“Oh, those are nice. Made for a certain someone, eh?”\n\n\nTurning her head, she saw Joanna taking a seat. The premier tailor and the one who had taught her a lot of the techniques she currently used. Caroline jokingly hit Joanna on the shoulder, reprimanding her. “Stop it… I just thought he needed some gloves, you know?”\n\n\n“Hehe, don’t get me wrong, I am supporting you 100%! You and Jacob are so cute together; it reminds me of when I first met Mike…” Joanna said, her bright smile dropping towards the end.\n\n\n“Joanna, we don’t know what happened to everyone else,“ Caroline said, laying a hand on her friend's shoulder. “I am sure he is just in another tutorial, and I am just as sure that he is fine. Mike was always a tough guy; he can take care of himself.”\n\n\nSmiling, Joanna snuggled up to her young former colleague. “You are such a sweetheart. No wonder Jacob couldn’t keep his hands off you. Talking of Jacob, have you guys talked to-”\n\n\nBut before she could answer, an archer stormed over to them, yelling loudly.\n\n\n“Is Caroline here!? Come quickly, we got an emergency! Richard is asking for you asap!”\n\n\nWithout any hesitation, Caroline got up as she ran after the archer. Around the gate to enter their camp, she saw dozens standing around, a few of Richard’s men keeping them away.\n\n\nAs she got to the gate, she saw one of the other healers sweating as he tried to heal the caster on the ground. As she saw that the wounded person was William, she was taken aback. One of his arms was entirely black, and protruding veins were visible, extending from his shoulder onto his chest. Instantly she knew that he had been poisoned by something powerful.\n\n\nRichard stood at the side, throwing her a glance. She looked questioningly back at him. When he nodded, she got to work.\n\n\nFocusing, she started casting a curing spell, as she allowed the other healer to continue trying to keep the young man stable. The poison was strong. Very strong. And to make it worse, it even had magical properties making it only harder to cure.\n\n\nBut Caroline was not the strongest healer in their base, possibly the entire tutorial, for nothing. She flooded the teenager with a pulse of mana, washing away some of the toxins. A couple of powerful pulses later, the black color had started fading slightly. With a final push, she managed to dispel every trace of poison within the teenager.\n\n\nWilliam himself was unconscious as she and the other healer managed to finally fully heal him. Caroline felt that he only had one wound on his body was a small cut on his arm. If they hadn’t healed him, he would have died without a doubt. A significant weakness of casters was not getting any defensive stats from their classes, and from the looks of it, William really had terrible physical stats.\n\n\nFrom her assessment, a warrior like Richard, especially with his class evolution, would be able to fight the poison himself, solely due to his higher toughness and health pool.\n\n\nWilliam, now healed, still hadn’t woken up. From what Caroline felt as she flooded his body, both his health pool and mana pool were pretty much empty. She didn’t know their values, but she could get a rough estimate that he was low.\n\n\nAfter making sure William was fine, the next task was to find out what exactly had happened. She put up the barrier around them with a wave of her hand, only her, the archer, and Richard within.\n\n\n“What happened?” she asked.\n\n\nThe archer, who was, in fact, the Scout who had been following William, shook his head.\n\n\n“I don’t know. I was following the little psycho as always when I failed to notice a trap. I don’t know what the hell it was, but I was stuck there for hours, it didn’t even do anything, I was just stuck… until suddenly I saw him fly over me, and the second he did, the magic binding me was dispelled too… it was fucking weird.”\n\n\n“So, it’s Casper?” Richard said frowning.\n\n\n“No,” Caroline shook her head. “This isn’t the same type of attack as his at all. He is focused on curses, dark mana. This was poison. Moreover, the cut on his arm was made with a weapon for sure. This isn’t a beast, either.”\n\n\n“An accomplice then… or an entirely new player. This isn’t Hayden. Casper would never work with him, and if Hayden had poison this strong, he would have used it before. Shit, this is all getting needlessly complicated,” Richard sighed with annoyance.\n\n\n“What’s the plan?” the Scout asked. “Make the kid wake up, get info, and finish him off?”\n\n\n“We could, but I have a better idea,” the former heavy warrior said. “For now, get him in one of the cabins.”\n\n\nThe entire situation was a shitshow, and everyone was aware of it.\n\n\nSomeone or something had potent poison, and Caroline was the only healer who could cure it. The other healer could heal through it, perhaps giving the person a chance to rely on their own stats to survive before they ran out of mana. But it wasn’t a reliable method at all.\n\n\nThe matter of William nearly dying spread throughout the camp like a wildfire. William was viewed favorably by most in their base, especially the crafters. The Smith, without a doubt, the one favoring him the most of everyone\n\n\nNone of them really knew about the kid from Richard’s understanding. They only knew the persona he had cultivated while within the camp. Which meant a lot of people had gathered around his cabin, asking worried questions. Even if they wanted the teenager dead, it would be incredibly difficult. Plan C then, he thought.\n\n\nJacob had also gathered outside with the others. While he was undoubtedly worried about William, he was more concerned with Casper. It wasn’t a secret that the trapper had called William out, and now the caster was nearly dead… he could only fear the worst. Either he had tried to kill William, or he was a victim himself… damn it.\n\n\nTaking a deep breath, he looked towards the sky, the artificial sun hanging above. Even if everything was bad… he couldn’t be the one to break. He knew others relied on him. Jacob had a responsibility. He refused to let others lose hope, so he would grasp for anything he could. Because at times, he felt like hope was all he had going for him."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 42 chapter - Intermission 4 - Matteo (2/2)\nTarget length: ~4400 words\nKey events: class event"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Around the 1-month mark, Matteo got a weapon he had been waiting for.\n\n\n“It’s ready?” he asked as he went up to KL, one of the other rankers.\n\n\n”Of course, the materials you provided were more than enough. I should have a second one ready by the end of tomorrow. Remember, you owe me one,” KL said, as he handed him the handgun.\n\n\n[Dark Handgun of Umbra (Uncommon)] – A gun made by a talented gunsmith from the 93rd universe during the tutorial. Can fire [Dark Bullet (Uncommon)] when infused with dark mana. Does more damage when striking from the shadows.\n\n\nRequirements: lvl 25+ in any humanoid race\n\n\nKL was the best gunsmith in the tutorial and had even gained a lesser blessing from one of Umbra’s subordinate gods, granting him a skill to infuse his creations with the god’s Records. The gun was frankly better than he had expected and was exactly what he needed.\n\n\nThe next day he indeed got his second gun.\n\n\nAfter that, he only sped up his progress. His killing speed got faster as he also picked up skills related to his new weapons. The god that had blessed him even had skills related to guns, making it all the better.\n\n\nHe kept climbing the floors, fighting day after day. His only reprieve was when he meditated or practiced the piano. Through his profession, he had gained a few skills that helped him in combat too. Through sound, he could warp the perception of his foes and manipulate sound to muffle himself or even create supersonic attacks to throw his enemy off.\n\n\nNever once did he drop below first place in the rankings. He knew there were other training grounds too, but this one was the most important. He even knew there were optional dungeons to do, and while Matteo had done one of them, he didn’t believe it was worth the +1 in all stats title to do it. While the dungeons did have combat, they were more focused on traps or different kinds of trials.\n\n\nAs the days progressed and they approached the tutorial’s end, the Organizer and servants had already recruited the most influential tutorial attendees.\n\n\nIt was apparent to him that this tutorial was partly to prepare them for the new world and partly for the Court of Shadows to recruit members. Many in the Hall of Guides members had gained priest-like classes and prepared to recruit even more members upon their return to Earth.\n\n\nThe Hall of Creation was prone to create tools of the trade for the fighters. Nearly everything revolved around dark mana, which was fine as everyone possessed it. It also explained why many of them carried classes revolving around assassination with great damage, stealth, and mobility over durability.\n\n\nThey were an army that would return to Earth and begin to establish their dominance. Without a doubt, one of many groups nurtured by a religious faction. The Court of Shadows made no secret of this but made them very aware of who they would contend with.\n\n\nMatteo planned on standing at the helm of that group and proving his worth.\n\n\nHe had failed to become the ’boss’ in the old world, but he could do it now. Sure, he wouldn’t be the highest-ranking member of the Court, but he found it more acceptable to have unparalleled power be the dividing line.\n\n\nThis is why he showed up to the final ranking battles with assurance and conviction to win and claim the leader’s title. All who had any interest in becoming the leader got a quest, and deciding who was to be the leader would be done through a tournament. It was the final day of the tutorial, and nearly every single attendee was there.\n\n\nLooking at the top 10, he noted down those who were participating.\n\n\nLeaderboard: Shadow Trials\n\n\n1st: M – 39th floor\n\n\n2nd: NBS – 37th floor\n\n\n3rd: HJ – 36th floor\n\n\n4th: CT – 35th floor\n\n\n6th: UA – 32nd floor\n\n\n9th: KM – 32nd floor\n\n\nKL, the gunsmith that had now claimed the 7th spot, didn’t participate, while the 5th place person didn’t either. Matteo only saw the tournament as having one other real contender. The woman NBS.\n\n\nNadia was her name. A ruthless woman that Matteo knew of even before the system. A corporate spy and sometimes assassin who specialized in social hacking and information gathering. She was also a mean lass with a rifle with more than her share of kills.\n\n\nWhich was precisely the kind of magic she had now. A large black rifle infused with shadow-energy. She had gained the rifle itself as a reward for passing one of the many Challenge Dungeons and acquired the legacy of a dead veteran of the Court of Shadows. Rumors had it the rifle was ancient-rarity if not legendary.\n\n\nMatteo had wanted it, but as with everything bound to a Legacy, it was Soulbound. A shame. His own equipment was also decent, with mainly uncommon and rare gear, but a powerful rifle would be welcome. Well, it wasn’t all bad as they were essentially teammates, and it wasn’t like she was squandering it.\n\n\nThe battle took place in an arena that looked like an old worn-down city in some post-apocalypse Earth. It was the semi-final but was by many viewed as the actual final. The arena itself didn’t particularly favor any of the fighters, and even if it did, who were they to complain? The truly strong could come out on top, even in an unfavorable situation.\n\n\nThey dropped into the arena, and the 30-minute timer began. Both immediately faded into the shadows as they began hunting each other: one, trying to snipe Matteo, with Matteo trying to remain undetected and bring down Nadia.\n\n\nWeaving through the ruined cityscape, Matteo blended in with the environment. Within the shade, he became practically invisible, his movements gave off the faintest of sounds, and even his mana, heat, and other detectable signature were hidden.\n\n\nAt the same time, Nadia had found a position on the 34th floor of a decrepit building. The rooftop was suicide as she would be too easily detected, and there wasn’t enough shade to keep her hidden. The battle took place at dusk, with only sparse rays of sunlight lighting up the city.\n\n\nNadia activated a skill called Eyes of the Specter, an upgraded version of her Archer’s Eye that she got upon her class evolution. Walls and other physical obstacles quickly faded away in her sight as the city lay bare before her.\n\n\nHer left eye, the only one she had used the skill with, began bleeding a few seconds after using it. Her toughness simply wasn’t high enough to sustain the skill for an extended period, but it had been enough.\n\n\nLike a silent wind, a beam of dark mana tore across the battlefield. Matteo felt it coming with his danger sense skill as he barely managed to avoid having his head blown off and losing the match. He still got a nasty wound on his shoulder, but it was nothing he couldn’t deal with.\n\n\nMore importantly, he now had her position. His bait had worked.\n\n\nSprinting faster than before, dark mana swirled around him as he sped up. Getting to the building, he didn’t stop, but began running up the side of it. He dodged another four shots on the way up. Just as he thought he had her, the entire side of the building was suddenly imploded into something akin to a black hole.\n\n\nGrenades. Shit.\n\n\nHe was forced off the building by the unexpected attack, but instead of dropping to the ground, he shot out a tether and swung around the building, rolling into one of the lower floors. Pointed his guns upwards as he released a blast of dark mana up towards Nadia's position.\n\n\nShe returned fire, but it quickly became apparent that she was outgunned. Matteo slowly made his way up to her as she tried to retreat slowly. She threw grenades, used different skills, but it was all in vain.\n\n\nWith a final Shadow Vault, Matteo crossed the distance and landed a cut on her chest with his knife. Her body dissolved into shadows as four copies ran away in different directions. Sadly for her, he had a perception skill of his own to counter these kinds of techniques.\n\n\nHe quickly chased down the real version, where they were thrown into a melee. Well, he wanted to be in melee while Nadia wanted to create some distance.\n\n\nShe released a blast of mana and threw some knives, but Matteo deflected them as he went in for the kill. A few moments later, she fell dead to the floor as the world around them dissolved.\n\n\n”M moves on to the final where he will face CT. The match will begin in 5 minutes.”\n\n\nThe Organizer nodded at him with approval as Matteo looked over at a frowning Nadia.\n\n\n[Human – lvl 51]\n\n\n”Good fight, you’re strong; it will be a pleasure working with you in the future,” Matteo said to the woman.\n\n\n”… just be sure to win the final,” Nadia said with disappointment in her voice.\n\n\nThe matches in the tournament were done through some kind of magical simulation. They technically were fighting themselves, but it was some kind of projection of their souls and not their actual physical bodies. It still tired you out mentally, but it didn’t drain any resources or cause any bodily harm.\n\n\nWhile the Court of Shadows was considered a rather ruthless organization, it would just be utter stupidity to kill off most of their new talents. Death was a very real thing in the tutorial as he saw that 1400 people had died in their tutorial so far - the vast majority of them within the Trial of Shadows.\n\n\nMatteo nodded at Nadia with a reaffirming smile. He understood that she wasn’t content with losing and that she at least wanted to have lost to the champion. They were all prideful people. Or at least he assumed them to be. Because the person he would face in the final was a bit… uncharacteristic compared to the other top rankers.\n\n\nCT was a relatively mild-mannered young man. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and didn’t have any significantly distinguishable features. However, what made him stand out was how he fought and behaved during the tutorial.\n\n\nFirstly, he had chosen the Hall of Guides and not the Hall of Blades like every other ranker participating in the tournament. The other rankers in the top 10 who had chosen not to participate mainly focused on other things than combat.\n\n\nCT appeared to have an affinity for children as he had taken responsibility for them as he helped both them and their parents. In fact, Matteo saw him as a very valuable and caring person. He believed he would be a great help in the new world.\n\n\nSecondly, his fighting method was not like the others. Most rankers used magical versions of pre-system weapons. Guns, rifles, knives, things they were familiar with, to begin with. They were all fighters before the system, after all. CT wasn’t, it appeared. He was a caster who used some kind of lightning magic mixed with dark mana, of course.\n\n\nThird, the man had spent a lot of time on the dungeons Matteo himself avoided. He still climbed the floors in the Trial of Shadows, but he did so far less than the other rankers.\n\n\nLooking over at the man, he saw him surrounded by children who cheered for him as they prepared to watch the match.\n\n\n[Human – lvl 49]\n\n\nHe was a few levels below Nadia and quite a few levels below himself. Matteo had reached level 55 himself, out-leveling everyone else by quite a margin. In fact, many had believed this entire tournament to be unnecessary with Matteo so far ahead.\n\n\nThe seeding of the tournament had also been off. Matteo defeated the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th place on the rankings on his way to the final, with CT only beating the 9th place. The match had been rather one-sided, which was expected with the level difference and noticeable power difference based on how many floors they could each do. CT had just shot a few lightning bolts, and the other side had surrendered.\n\n\nBut Matteo would not underestimate him. He was an outsider who had risen to power with conviction, surrounded by murderers, assassins, and hardened warriors. He had managed to help and be a gathering point for the less combat-orientated survivors - the children and women who needed someone to lean on. He had never seen the man flustered himself.\n\n\nTheir arena would be a lot more straightforward. It would be a giant colosseum with pillars placed around the battlefield. Matteo wasn’t very familiar with the other’s fighting style, but he had been a ranged fighter so far. His spells were fast and deadly, but his attack speed was low, and he hadn’t shown any potent mobility skills yet.\n\n\nThe finals began with the Organizer’s proclamation:\n\n\n”This battle will determine the nominal leader of the Court of Shadows on Earth; in other words, the Judge. Of course, there will be support, but it will be limited due to the restrictions in place. Let the fight begin, and may you forever walk in the shadows.”\n\n\nThey both touched their respective orbs as their projections appeared in the arena, a hundred or so meters between them. The two men stared at each other for a bit before Matteo spoke.\n\n\n”Give up.”\n\n\nHis words were straightforward. Matteo didn’t see the other man winning in any way. CT was out-leveled and frankly outclassed, and there was nothing he had shown that cou-\n\n\n”I was about to say the same,” CT answered in a calm voice while still having his hands in his pockets before asking. ”We each have our reasons for this fight. What is yours?”\n\n\nMatteo stared at the man for a bit. What did he want? Well, of course, that answer was simple.\n\n\n”I want power, same as everyone else. Only strength can bring influence in this world, and I will lead the Court to that. I will lead us to be a true standout force on Earth, to make our members respected, and to make even a whisper of our name be met with shivers.”\n\n\n”Maybe you are more fit to be the leader,” the other man said with a sigh. ”I just want to protect those I care about.”\n\n\n”Do you need to be the leader to do that? Protection of significant others will, of course, be prioritized whenever possible,” Matteo said. He would have just fought usually, but he knew that CT held a lot of influence with the less combat-oriented members of the Court. It was best to stay on the best of terms with him.\n\n\n”I guess I don’t really need to be the leader…” CT said as he looked up with a smirk. ”But at the same time, I would prefer to be in a situation where I can guarantee it. Besides, it’s only fitting for the strongest to be in charge, isn’t that one of the creeds of Umbra?”\n\n\n”I see,” Matteo said, understanding as he smiled back. ”Then may the best man win.”\n\n\nHe didn’t hesitate as he attacked, planning to end it quickly.\n\n\nCT kept smiling as he made his move too. Four orbs of black lightning condensed in mid-air as they began floating around him, crackling with energy. At the same time, he looked towards Matteo, the orb releasing a bolt.\n\n\nMatteo easily side-stepped the attack as he scoffed a bit internally. The attack held power, but the opponent was inexperienced in fighting other humans. The lightning caster kept throwing bolts from the orbs making Matteo slow down but ultimately failed to land a single one.\n\n\nPredictable.\n\n\nMatteo Shadow Vaulted closer as the four # Nоvеlight # orbs circled CT, protecting him. When he got within 50 meters, he pulled out his two guns and returned fire. Dark bullets flew through the air as they encountered a dark barrier of mana protecting the caster. It appeared to slightly crack with every shot, but it was quickly repaired again.\n\n\nFine, Matteo thought as he pointed his gun towards the caster and used one of his skills designed for this exact scenario.\n\n\nDisruptive Bullet (Uncommon)\n\n\nThe bullet flew forth and tore straight through the barrier of mana, but CT still managed to lean to the side and avoid it. He appeared to have quite the reaction-time for a caster.\n\n\nAnother barrage of bullets put the caster on the defensive as he just kept using the orbs and the barrier. Sometimes two orbs moved together to create a whip of lightning, while at other times, all four came together to create magical circles in the air that released different kinds of lightning magic.\n\n\nMatteo was fine with just learning what the man was capable of… but he was disappointed. The power behind the magic was indeed great, but alas… it wasn’t enough.\n\n\nDark Infusion (Rare)\n\n\nHe activated his boosting skill, which increased his agility, strength, and intelligence by 20%,and he charged. Dark mana swirling around him, partly obscuring his figure.\n\n\nBasic Shadow Vault of Umbra (Uncommon)\n\n\nWith another vault, he came within ten meters. A single bolt of lightning hit Matteo, but he was more than capable of taking the blow as long as it allowed him to close in. His two daggers had now replaced the guns as he dove in.\n\n\nThe first slash tore the barrier apart as the next approached the man’s neck, stopping just before he slit it.\n\n\n”What the fuck are you doing?” Matteo asked with a bit of anger in his voice.\n\n\nHe wasn’t blind and had obviously noticed… from start to end, CT hadn’t moved a single step. He hadn’t even taken his damn hands out of his pocket. He had just summoned those four orbs and stood there. That had been enough to win against the 9th place ranker, but Matteo just found it insulting.\n\n\n”I should ask you the same,” CT answered with a chuckle.\n\n\n”Get serious,” Matteo insisted.\n\n\n”M… I am serious,” he said as he leaned forward into the dagger… electrocuting Matteo as he felt the crackling dark lightning around the dagger as it simply phased into the caster.\n\n\nWhat?\n\n\nHe quickly pulled back as he saw CT finally take a hand out of his pocket. He raised it towards the air as he opened his palm.\n\n\nThe sky above the arena darkened as dark clouds appeared out of nowhere. What appeared like a thousand bolts of lightning struck down onto the lifted hand just as the caster summoned a black metal staff out of thin air.\n\n\nMatteo stood wide-eyed at the display of power but soon noticed the clouds above had already calmed down after shooting lightning into his staff and now only hung there threateningly.\n\n\n”I sought power to protect my family,… my wife, my unborn child… my brother, and my parents. I will find them after this, and I want the Court to help me protect them. Besides, I found out… I am quite good at this,” CT said as he pointed the staff towards M.\n\n\nDark Lightning Bolt (Uncommon)\n\n\nMatteo barely managed to dodge as the side of the colosseum wall behind him was blown up from the blast. He knew he had to get serious as he closed in once more, hoping to finish off the man.\n\n\nBased on how the dagger faded into him before and how he had avoided the disruptive bullet, he reckoned mana-based attacks would work as he coated his weapon in dark mana.\n\n\nShadow vaulting forward, he slashed down with the dagger, but CT blocked it, much to the surprise of Matteo.\n\n\nIt felt like his dagger was drawn to the metal staff as electricity wormed its way up the veins in his arm. He felt superior in both skills and strength, yet he kept encountering the staff every time he swung. It was a frustrating experience.\n\n\nCT kept his casual smile, but his eyes were clearly focused as he fought the tutorial’s top ranker. But…\n\n\nHe had yet to take a single step. One hand was still in its pocket.\n\n\nMatteo’s eyes sharpened as he pushed in further, his attacks getting more aggressive. The dark lightning coursing through his body from the staff was annoying but manageable. Still, he knew he couldn’t keep up the status quo.\n\n\nWith one hand, he stabbed down with the blade while he twirled the other around to a backhanded grasp. Dark mana began swirling around both weapons as his entire body sped up.\n\n\nDark Tempest Strike (Rare)\n\n\nA small tornado made up of black daggers appeared around him and began tearing into CT’s mana barrier, and it quickly began cracking.\n\n\nBut Matteo wasn’t done yet.\n\n\nDomain of Shadows (Epic)\n\n\nA suppressive field appeared around him that bathed the entire area in shadows. The mana barrier was whittled down in seconds, and for the first time, CT’s eyes shot open as he took the other hand out of his pocket to grab the staff with both.\n\n\nHe blocked most of the blows but ended up getting kicked by Matteo and flew back and smashed into the wall, coughing up a mouthful of blood. He was, without a doubt, far less durable than Matteo himself or any other melee fighter.\n\n\nMatteo was already charging towards the man, who got up quickly and swung his staff, releasing a storm of lightning, forcing the charging assassin to leap back.\n\n\n”Damn, you’re good,” CT said with a chuckle as he spat out a mouthful of blood before looking up with the same smirk as before.\n\n\n“Finally going to get serious?” Matteo asked, the domain of shadows dominating the surroundings.\n\n\nCT laughed a bit as he breathed in. “My turn.”\n\n\nThe four orbs revolving around him all this time turned far darker than before and began crackling with ever-increasing dark lightning. Without any warning, three of the orbs entered his body while the last one entered his staff.\n\n\nAn aura spread throughout the arena as Matteo felt his domain be suppressed, as CT spoke three simple words.\n\n\n“Ascension of Tenlucis.”\n\n\nAbove, the dark clouds churned with life once more. CT’s body burned with dark lightning as the entire projection seemed to shake, and the onlookers outside observed with terror.\n\n\nEven the Organizer was shocked beyond anything an S-grade entity like her should ever be.\n\n\nTenlucis, a powerful god that died during the third era… said to have only left very scarce legacies that he gave to select powerful friends. He was an arrogant god who had slain hundreds of gods with his dark lightning and had been one of the Court of Shadows’ leaders.\n\n\nThe god's powers were domineering and powerful towards both the opponent and the user. It was said that the Legacy would drive the user insane unless they had the mental resilience to suppress it... but to cultivate that innate resistance was borderline impossible unless done since birth. Even then, it wasn't something you could just do. Yet this E-grade mortal appeared unaffected by it...\n\n\nThey had already confirmed that he didn't possess a bloodline upon first entering the tutorial... so how?\n\n\nWhy would the Dark Mistress make such a decision? To give such power...\n\n\nInside the arena, CT began his counterattack. His entire body was filled with untold power, as he released massive blasts of lightning one after another. Charging towards Matteo, the former top-assassin could barely defend as he got smashed in the side with the staff.\n\n\nMatteo tried to close some distance as it was obvious the power-up skill CT had used was temporary. It indeed was… but CT still had enough time to finish the fight. Matteo didn’t even have time to raise his daggers to form a proper defense before the next strike arrived.\n\n\nThundershadow Vault of Tenlucis (Ancient)\n\n\nCT turned into dark lightning as he soared through the body of Matteo, frying him from the inside. He appeared behind him as he swung his staff, smashing it into Matteo’s head. The blow cracked his skull, and with a follow-up blow coming milliseconds later, shattered it completely, ending the battle.\n\n\nBefore he even fell to the ground completely dead, CT’s power-up skill ended as he also fell to his knees, utterly spent.\n\n\n”The winner of the battle is CT!” the Organizer said, still a bit confused about the entire situation… but she still had a job to do.\n\n\n”As the winner, he has received the Lord title, will be named Judge of the first Court in the 93rd universe, and together you shall claim a Pylon of Civilization to establish our foothold upon your return to Earth.”\n\n\nAll the other fighters looked at CT with awe as he let go of the orb that had projected his soul into the arena. The man just smiled as he let out a tired sigh, walking over to the man he had just fought.\n\n\n”Thanks for the match, mate, it makes me feel a lot better to know there are great people like you around me when we return. Because damn, you’re good,” he said as he raised his hand to shake the man’s hand.\n\n\nMatteo looked at the man that had just beaten him and just smiled. It had been a long time since he lost to someone… and it wasn’t all bad. ”It will be my pleasure; you won because you were stronger today. Just don’t start slacking now, or I will depose you,” he said as he raised his hand to take CT’s hand.\n\n\n”Of course, but for now, you will take the second-in-command spot,” CT said with a laugh. Everyone around them, including the Organizer, looked on with approval. It didn’t appear like internal strife would be an issue… at least not immediately.\n\n\n”For now,” the second-in-command said. ”Name’s Matteo, by the way. No last name, I never had one.”\n\n\n”Pleasure to meet you, Matteo,” CT said, introducing himself. ”I’m Caleb Thayne.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 42 chapter - Twin Fang Style\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake held the bowstring as he felt his stamina slowly drain. When he finally let go, the arrow literally exploded forth from the bow as it smashed into the ostrich. The arrow itself broke into splinters upon impact due to the massive power behind it. Not that the ostrich fared any better.\n\n\nThe arrow had hit it on its neck, effectively blowing its head off. Jake could only smile at the tremendous power of his new Powershot skill. The stamina drain was quite insane when he made shots like he just did, but it was still oh so satisfying to do.\n\n\nThe skill had many drawbacks, though. First of all, you had to stand nearly entirely still while channeling the shot. You could make minor movements by turning your upper body but taking a step would ‘drain’ a bit of the charged up energy and force you to sometimes start over entirely, which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the second big drawback.\n\n\nIt was a very slow skill to use. It took several seconds to charge a shot that did just half-decent damage, while it could easily take close to 10 seconds to fire a shot like Jake just had. The skill’s power increased exponentially as he charged, but so did the stamina drain and the general drain on his body.\n\n\nFunnily enough, his high defensive stats turned out to be very useful with the skill. He could imagine if he tried to use the skill after simply leveled to 10 in his class a month ago. He wouldn’t even be able to charge the shot for 5 seconds without his arm giving out.\n\n\nEarlier in the day, he had tried to do the maximum charge he could. He held it for 12 seconds before his arm simply gave out as it’s veins burst, and half his arm got covered in blood along with a very sore shoulder and upper body. However, this did show the skill’s potential as the arrow hit a tree carving a fist-sized hole into it. The wooden arrow was borderline disintegrated upon impact, completely splintered in all directions.\n\n\nIf he had been able to use that skill against the metal-manipulating caster, he would have been able to pierce straight through that wall of iron, or at least have the kinetic force behind the impact be strong enough to send the wall smashing back into him. Too bad the guy didn’t allow him to stand still and charge a shot for over 10 seconds. Quite rude, actually.\n\n\nChecking his notifications, he noted that he had put another level under his belt.\n\n\n*You have slain [Velocta Ostrich – lvl 24] – Experience Earned. 4000 TP earned*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Class: [Archer] has reached level 19 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*\n\n\nThe leveling was getting quite a bit slower now, and that was disregarding the difficulty in finding beasts. He had yet to see a single one above level 25 so far, but he had also purposefully avoided heading further into the forest.\n\n\nIt had been around two days since he met the caster who called himself William. He knew the caster still had to be alive as he had never gotten any notification for the kill. He wanted to avoid other people for now as he still deemed it too risky to meet others. A squad of Williams would very likely result in certain death.\n\n\nSo, he leveled. His plan currently was to get to at least level 25 before making contact. It all depended on how long his leveling would take, but for now, he had time. Looking at the tutorial panel, he noted that less than a month was remaining.\n\n\nTutorial Panel\n\n\nDuration: 29 days & 23:17:03\n\n\nTotal Survivors Remaining: 389/1200\n\n\nHe said less than a month, but it still was still nearly an entire month - plenty of time for a lot to happen. A month in the dungeon had resulted in him getting a profession, level it 44 times, evolving it once, and even evolve his race twice. Oh yeah, and he met a god.\n\n\nJake was still worried about his colleagues, but if they had lived to now, he saw no reason to rush to their side. If they hadn’t survived… he would process that if that time comes.\n\n\nThe levels had naturally also come with a skill at level 15. Jake had honestly been expecting nothing and had thought of going with the basic tracking skill he passed up at level 5 over a month ago. The logic behind it being to try and use it to locate his colleagues when the time came.\n\n\nHe also considered getting basic dual-wielding briefly. Jake preferred using a weapon in each hand a lot more than just a single dagger. So when he finally leveled and saw the options, he went with a new option that was a welcome addition for sure.\n\n\n[Basic Twin Fang Style (Uncommon)] – The twin fang style is an ancient dual-wielding fighting technique. Fighters of this style prefer shorter weapons and do not shy away from using afflictions to take down their foe. Unlocks basic proficiency in the Twin Fang Style and adds a minuscule bonus to the effect of agility and strength when using a fitting melee weapon. Grants an increased bonus while wielding melee weapons of bone.\n\n\nIt was essentially a kind of dual-wielding specialization. How Jake unlocked it, he didn’t know. Maybe it had something to do with the Dagger of Bloodletting being made of bone, but it also mentioned the use of afflictions, which was very closely aligned with his profession.\n\n\nOf course, there also was the whole Malefic Viper angle to consider, fangs being easily associated with vipers after all. Not that it mattered much in the end, he was just happy with the skill.\n\n\nAs with other skills of its nature, it came with a lot of instinctive knowledge. But compared to an inferior-rarity skill, this one also came with more ‘true’ knowledge. Like he had been thrown a guide-book into his memory, but he still had to learn and practice it himself, which he had spent a while doing whenever he had time. Yet he found that he barely used what it taught. He only used it to improve his existent style, if you can even call it that. Currently, he just acted based on instinct when fighting, relying on making split-second decisions over anything else.\n\n\nSpeaking of other skills he was offered, they were all rather basic. One of them even gave a small passive danger sense, which he found kind of funny considering he already had one through his bloodline. He did consider picking it up to see what would happen but skipped over it.\n\n\nHaving obtained another skill requiring practice did give him more to do while not hunting. He was already practicing his mana techniques whenever possible, so having a physical exercise was actually pretty nice.\n\n\nHis mana manipulation was improving steadily. He had gotten some inspiration from his spatial storage necklace and learned how to use mana better intuitively. Using items, however, wasn’t close to the same as having to manipulate the mana yourself. It was as if the system pretty much did everything for you. You just had to think about what you wanted.\n\n\nOn the topic of items, he had tried hard to locate more lockboxes but had ended up with not even a single common-rarity item or token. The area seemed to have been entirely scoured by other survivors, which was likely also the reason why nearly no beasts remained. He remembered before the dungeon that if one looked for beasts, you found beasts within minutes. Now he was happy if he saw two small groups within an hour.\n\n\nJake knew this meant he would have to move inwards soon. He hoped to get a skill, either increasing his speed or his defenses at 20. Beasts were naturally not his concern; in fact, he hoped to meet stronger beasts than he currently was as those below 25 were a bit boring.\n\n\nWalking through the forest, Jake still enjoyed the atmosphere, something he doubted most did, considering that some war was apparently going on. But he liked it. Perhaps the confinement of the dungeon was still at the forefront of his mind, but he loved how open it was. The weird ‘immortal birds of ambiance’ even appearing endearing now. Yeah, those were still a thing. Somehow dodging every single arrow effortlessly. He couldn’t even use Identify on them.\n\n\nAs an extension of that, then if he had to mention one thing he hated about the new world and the tutorial more than anything, it was the lack of information. Jake liked to know things. While instinct was good most of the time, that didn’t mean knowledge wasn’t just as important.\n\n\nSo not knowing anything was annoying him endlessly. Not knowing how his parents were or if they were even alive, the state of his other family members, how the world was currently looking outside… what would happen to all the animals on earth. All of this was disregarding his general lack of knowledge about the system and the tutorial itself.\n\n\nAll of this, with him being fully aware that he knew far more than most, heck, he was still carrying an entire library-worth of books around with him. He hadn’t really had the time or desire to read since leaving the dungeon, but at least he had the option.\n\n\nEveryone else had to be far more in the dark than himself. Unless Jake had missed another massive happening besides the whole faction war going on, they should all be utterly clueless as to how pretty much everything worked. Which kind of made Jake think that for a tutorial, this place sure sucked at teaching them anything.\n\n\nThough despite that, Jake still thought he was doing pretty well. A bit less well after meeting that William fellow, he thought he was pretty strong on average. Looking at this status, it sure also amplified that thought.\n\n\nStatus\n\n\nName: Jake Thayne\n\n\nRace: [Human (E) – lvl 31]\n\n\nClass: [Archer – lvl 19]\n\n\nProfession: [Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper – lvl 44]\n\n\nHealth Points (HP): 2986/3100\n\n\nMana Points (MP): 3248/3680\n\n\nStamina: 694/1040\n\n\nStats\n\n\nStrength: 105\n\n\nAgility: 126\n\n\nEndurance: 104\n\n\nVitality: 310\n\n\nToughness: 157\n\n\nWisdom: 368\n\n\nIntelligence: 107\n\n\nPerception: 247\n\n\nWillpower: 180\n\n\nFree points: 0\n\n\nTitles: [Forerunner of the New World], [Bloodline Patriarch],[Holder of a Primordial’s True Blessing], [Dungeoneer I], [Dungeon Pioneer I]\n\n\nClass Skills: [Basic One-Handed Weapon (Inferior], [Basic Stealth (Inferior)], [Advanced Archery (Common)], [Archers Eye (Common)], [Powershot (Uncommon)], [Basic Twin Fang Style (Uncommon)]\n\n\nProfession Skills: [Herbology (Common)], [Brew Potion (Common)], [Concoct Poison (Common)], [Alchemist’s Purification (Common)], [Alchemical Flame (Common)], [Toxicology (Uncommon)], [Cultivate Toxin (Uncommon)], [Malefic Viper’s Poison (Rare)], [Palate of the Malefic Viper (Rare)], [Touch of the Malefic Viper (Rare)],[Sense of the Malefic Viper (Rare)], [Blood of the Malefic Viper (Epic)]\n\n\nBlessing: [True Blessing of the Malefic Viper (Blessing - True)]\n\n\nRace Skills: [Endless Tongues of the Myriad Races (Unique)], [Identify (Common)], [Meditate (Common)], [Shroud of the Primordial (Divine)]\n\n\nBloodline: [Bloodline of the Primal Hunter (Bloodline Ability - Unique)]\n\n\nHis stats had experienced significant growth, especially his agility and strength, now both being above 100. He had decided to put all his free points into strength and agility, trying to get them to an acceptable level. It was a bit sad that wisdom, his highest stat by quite a bit, did nothing for him in direct combat. He had his Touch of the Malefic Viper, but he only used that in emergencies as he prioritized using his daggers and bow for now.\n\n\nHe had also collected quite an amount of tutorial points too.\n\n\nTP Collected: 313.920\n\n\nHe called it quite the number but compared to most everyone in the tutorial, it likely sucked. Which, by the way, was another bullet point on his list of information he would really like to have. What the hell are tutorial points even used for? A frustration he very much believed he shared with a lot of others in the tutorial.\n\n\nHe also made a mental note that he had yet to sleep since he left the dungeon. He had made it a habit only to meditate to restore stamina and mana, partly due to the weakness that came from sleeping. It did take him quite a while to mentally filter out the constant feedback from his sphere when he wanted just to rest his head. Yet, at the same time, he didn’t want to completely cut off the outside world, leaving himself vulnerable.\n\n\nInstead, he had somehow managed to relegate the sphere solely to his instinct. It was still active, and he had been woken up from his meditation once when a lone beast came close. His sphere had reached a radius of around 15 or 16 meters by now also. It was far more potent closer to him than further away.\n\n\nWhere most growth was found was his ability to also feel the mana, however. After his first level 10 evolution, he had been able to vaguely feel something, while now it was nearly second nature for him to detect it.\n\n\nAfter sitting down and meditating for a few hours, both his mana and stamina were fully restored, and his health points had also managed to regenerate passively.\n\n\nOne peculiarity Jake had noticed with how health worked was the interaction between toughness, vitality, and to a lesser extent, endurance. While vitality increased health and health regeneration, it didn’t mean that they # Nоvеlight # increased 1 to 1. Someone with 100 vitality and 1000 health would take longer to regenerate from 1% HP than someone who only had 10 vitality.\n\n\nToughness made this process even slower. With higher toughness, health got harder to lose as the body durability increased. But it also got harder to heal the now tougher body. Jake had also discovered that endurance did make the body slightly more durable, but far from as much as toughness. He wasn’t exactly sure how exactly it made him more durable, but it clearly did something.\n\n\nOh, another thing just got on the list of information that I very much hate not having, Jake thought. If the system would be so kind as to just send him a spreadsheet of how stats worked exactly, it would be fantastic.\n\n\nShaking off the frustrating feelings, he got up, fully restored, and started hunting for prey once more. It was dark by now, but that didn’t really affect him at all. He doubted it really affected anyone by now, as most would have gotten significantly higher perception just from race levels.\n\n\nHowever, the beasts were still docile during the night, making the fights more manageable, but finding them harder. At least they sometimes made loud noises during the day.\n\n\nAs he walked, his sphere continuously scanned his surroundings as he practiced levitating a pen above his hand. Levitating it was easy enough; the difficulty lay in keeping it tethered to his hand while he moved.\n\n\nAfter more than two hours, he finally came upon a beast, and as he Identified it, he could only smile.\n\n\n[Steeltusk Boar – lvl 28]\n\n\nThe big piggy had gone from being an Irontusk to a Steeltusk boar. Relatively linear evolution tree it got going on there.\n\n\nThis was naturally the evolved version of the first level 10 beast he had ever fought. He felt a strange excitement when staring it down. This had been his first real challenge in the tutorial, and back then, he had faced it together with his entire group of colleagues. They had won after Jake emptied his full quiver in the beast… but not without taking significant damage to their group. He hoped Joanna had somehow managed to stay alive. Jake realized how much of a dick he had been back then, and not just to her, but pretty much everyone. He felt a lot of regret from how he handled things. Not leaving them and going his own way, but how he left.\n\n\nShaking his head, Jake dispelled the thoughts. He shouldn’t dwell on a past he couldn’t change. He could only move forward and attain more power. Only then could he reunite with them. And it wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with enjoying that process a bit…\n\n\nWith a smile on his lips, he drew the bone dagger in one hand and a starting dagger for archers in the other. Perhaps this beast would finally give him an exciting fight…"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 43 chapter - Big Pig II: Steeltusk Edition\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: new skill acquired, dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake sauntered before the mighty beast. It easily towered over him, reaching the size of a small van. It hadn’t grown massively compared to its prior evolution, but Jake could feel the power hidden within its porky body. The boar was built like a tank, with a hide perhaps comparable to one.\n\n\nAs he got closer, the beast seemed to wake from its stupor as it turned towards him, glaring. Perhaps the system was doing its magic since it was night, but it didn’t immediately attack. It just stared at him. He instinctively felt that if he moved just a couple of steps closer, the beast would charge with abandon.\n\n\nThe logical move would be to take out his bow use Powershot with the maximum charge to do massive damage or even kill it with a single attack, but where was the fun in that? Where was the challenge? He didn’t even use any poison either.\n\n\nInstead, he took a step forward and entered its range, and as predicted, the beast squealed as it made its way towards him. A charge he gladly met with his own. A bit stupid in retrospect, but he trusted in his powerful body.\n\n\nThe result was as he expected as the beast rammed into him, making him fly backward, but not before landing a good stab with the bone dagger on the snout of the big pig. This did little more than anger it further as it tried trampling him along with everything else in the surroundings.\n\n\nThis time he decided to dodge as he rolled to the side and started moving around the pig as if dancing. If he had learned one thing, it was that these things had horrible mobility. However, this was highly made up for by the hide on its side being near-impenetrable to regular attacks.\n\n\nAll of this was true, for the Irontusk boar. But the evolved Steeltusk one had more tricks up its sleeve. As Jake moved to the side, the ground beneath him suddenly shifted, nearly making him lose his balance. Simultaneously, the earth itself seemed to help rotate the mighty boar, making it turn far faster than Jake had first calculated.\n\n\nForced to move back due to the unforeseen circumstances, Jake was not distraught but happy. The stronger the beast, the more interesting the fight. He could kill the creature far faster and easier if he used poisons, giving him a reliable backup if his pure melee approach failed.\n\n\nBut he would be damned if he didn’t even try. Training dual-wielding yourself is all well and good, but it was nothing compared to the experience one would get in live combat.\n\n\nWhich was the ultimate reason why he had chosen to engage in this dance of death. Totally nothing to do with having a bit of fun with the first beast above level 25.\n\n\nThe moving ground made his dance difficult, his steps sometimes not finding the expected foothold, but he nevertheless managed to avoid the tusks time after time. He knew that even with his durable body, it would hurt like hell to get impaled.\n\n\nAn issue that quickly materialized was the weakness of the starting knife he used. Against the formidable defenses of the boar, it couldn’t even leave a mark with his slashes. Only when he stabbed did he manage to barely leave a mark. Even the bone dagger only managed to make light cuts. The enchantment was doing work, though, making each of those small cuts bleed far more and for longer than usual.\n\n\nMinutes passed as Jake dodged and weaved, stabbed, and cut, while the beast furiously tried to pin him down and skewer him. As the damage to the creature increased, so did its fury and bloodlust. With little warning, the beast’s eyes suddenly started to emit a red glow, as the entire boar started to give off a similar red aura.\n\n\nJake felt his danger sense flare up as he raised his arms to block, and with a squeal of fury, the boar turned its head and hit him with one of its tusks, sending him airborne for a few moments. However, the boar was far from done as the very earth seemed to reach up and grab hold of him as the beast began a full-power charge straight at him.\n\n\nWith no way to move, he tossed his two daggers into the air and prepared to meet the beast. Its size was both a strength and a weakness, as Jake managed to slide between the two tusks aiming at him and instead have the snout of the beast crash into him.\n\n\nHe felt all air leave his lungs as he managed to grab hold of the boar, avoiding to get trampled beneath it. The beast with berserk-movements tried to shake him off, but Jake kept hold as he managed to somehow get up on the back of the creature.\n\n\nThrough his sphere, he managed to locate the bone dagger and, with an unprecedented level of skill, weaved a string of mana that nudged the blade to fall towards his hand. He felt like a warrior from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away as he caught the dagger and shanked it down into the back of the beast.\n\n\nThe beast’s response was to throw itself to the side, attempting to squash him beneath it. Jake pulled himself up by the hide of the massive creature and avoided finding himself between the ground and a van-sized pig.\n\n\nHe kept delivering stab after stab until finally he was forced to let go and jump off, as the beast started rolling around while at the same time manipulating the earth itself to try and get him off. The beast’s berserk state was still active, making it promptly stop rolling around and continue its reckless assault.\n\n\nJake could, however, feel that the beast had started getting slower. Blood was everywhere by now, on the creature, the ground, and even himself. Dozens of bloody holes covered its hide, still oozing out blood.\n\n\nWith the beast’s speed reduced, and Jake having adapted to the shifting ground, ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) the fight had gotten significantly more straightforward. He dodged and jumped around the beast, landing cut after cut, as it increasingly grew desperate in its attempts to lock him down.\n\n\nAfter several minutes, the beast had only managed to inflict a couple of minor injuries on Jake, the worst one being a long gash on one of his shoulders. Jake called it a minor injury, though, before the system it would without a doubt have required a trip to the emergency room. But his high vitality kept him in top shape, and he felt that his was health still in good condition.\n\n\nA few minutes later, the beast finally collapsed from its wounds, no longer able to muster any strength to fight back. The ground manipulation kept going even after the creature couldn’t move as it continuedly tried to hit Jake with pitifully weak attacks.\n\n\nJake was starting to feel bad for it, and finally pulled out his bow and fired a Powershot into the head of the unmoving beast, endings its life instantly.\n\n\n*You have slain [Steeltusk Boar – lvl 28] – Experienced earned. 16000 TP earned*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Class: [Archer] has reached level 20 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Race: [Human (E)] has reached level 32 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*\n\n\nDespite the less than satisfying ending, Jake had still very much enjoyed the fight. There was just something about fighting a powerful enemy.\n\n\nLooking at his health points, he found them only having been reduced by a sixth. Far less than he had lost during the short exchange with the metal manipulating caster, which showed that other humans indeed were the real danger of his tutorial.\n\n\nDespite him barely losing any health, his cloak didn’t avoid suffering catastrophic damage once again. Luckily the self-repair enchant remained active even after being utterly ruined by William’s final attack, but now it was once more tattered.\n\n\nHe had also discovered that if he injected mana into the cloak, the repair function would speed up significantly. It still took its time, though. Speaking of injecting mana into items, that was another important thing he had considerably explored over the last few days.\n\n\nMost materials could be made stronger by injecting mana into it. The primary reason why the trees were so strong was their ability to absorb the ambient mana. The same was true for nearly anything, even anything completely non-living. Stones, metals, even the properties of the air itself changed and got amplified by mana.\n\n\nWithout injecting mana into his bow, for example, it would without a doubt break when using Powershot. He was still in the early stages of practice, but he believed that it should be possible to also improve already enchanted items somehow. Currently, he couldn’t inject any mana into his bone dagger. Despite not being enchanted, the normal archer dagger also rejected most of the mana he tried injecting.\n\n\nOf all his items, only the ones with self-repair and his bow accepted mana injection. He could use mana with his other things, like his spatial necklace, but that was not really injection per se. Mana injection is more like how one would directly shoot electricity into a bar of metal to heat it up and eventually make it melt if too much was injected.\n\n\nHowever, for his necklace, it was like you injected that mana into a transformer, which then correctly applied the mana to fulfill the desired function. Such as taking an item in or out of storage. As to how this metaphorical transformer worked… that was way above Jake’s paygrade.\n\n\nHe was learning a lot about mana these days, but he was also very actively studying it. Before he met with the Malefic Viper, he had taken a lot of its properties for granted. He had seen it as just the system doing its thing and saw no further reason to question it. And even if he did question how things worked, he couldn’t do anything with the mana then.\n\n\nBut now he actively questioned everything he could. He experimented happily with mana manipulation at all times, and his control had vastly improved without a doubt. His little trick of pulling the bone dagger to himself during the fight was more than proof of that. Also, it felt really awesome to do. Could he just have deposited it in his necklace and not throw it into the air? Sure, he could, but the other way was way cooler.\n\n\nThe fact that no skill had appeared or been made available regarding mana manipulation was a bit weird to him, though. He could clearly levitate objects and do things akin to telekinesis, and yet no skills had come.\n\n\nThen again, he didn’t have a skill related to manipulating stamina or health points either. He had tried controlling those two sources of energy and found it way harder. He could kind of control his vital energy to focus on specific areas as he had done during the final part of the challenge dungeon, but Jake couldn’t shape it as he could with mana.\n\n\nStamina, on the other hand, was a dead-end so far. He had theorized that he should be able to use it to enhance his own body somehow, as it was known as the inner energy. The fact that nearly all physical skills used stamina to function proved that stamina could significantly affect the body.\n\n\nOf course, it could just be the system doing system things. One energy could exhibit the properties of another, after all. In the end, Stamina, Health, and Mana were all just different forms of energy. Not to say that one could necessarily combine all three to make something more powerful. In before that’s how you make divine energy or something like that, he joked to himself.\n\n\nExiting his thoughts, he entered the system menus.\n\n\n*Archer class skills available*\n\n\nChecking the list, he found the usual suspects he had been offered at level 10. While some of them still appealed to him, especially the Active Camouflage skill, he chose to ignore them all for now. He had been offered two new skills of interest, though - both of them falling into the evasion type. The first skill of which was a bit weird.\n\n\n[Disengaging Shot (Common)] – An arrow may not only be shot to wound or kill but also as a tool of escape. Allows the archer to shoot an arrow that directs and amplifies all kinetic energy into a backward force. Must have a suitable weapon to use. Adds a minor bonus to the effect of agility when dodging using Disengaging Shot.\n\n\nTalking immediate drawbacks was the fact that it required a bow and arrow. This, of course, limited the ability quite a lot. He couldn’t use it in melee with his daggers, and he couldn’t use it in split-second emergency situations as he would have to actually shoot an arrow to activate it.\n\n\nOn the positive side, though, it would be godly when kiting. Depending on the stamina requirements, Jake would be able to use it continuously to quite literally blow himself around the battlefield. He couldn’t help but imagine himself trying to fly through the air by repeatably shooting arrows towards the ground. That would sure as hell be cool… though likely very stupid-looking if even feasible.\n\n\nMoving on to the second skill, the first thing that struck him was the name.\n\n\n[Basic Shadow Vault of Umbra (Uncommon)] – The power of shadows is an often used tool for anyone looking to escape. Tapping into the Records of Umbra, embrace the shadows for a brief moment, becoming ethereal. Allows the archer to momentarily become one with the shadows. Can only be used in straight lines. Adds a small bonus to the effect of agility and wisdom when using Basic Shadow Vault of Umbra.\n\n\nThe skill was somehow related to something or someone called Umbra. Thinking about it, he checked out his bracers.\n\n\n[Leather Bracers of the Novice Rogue (Uncommon)] – A pair of leather bracers made of fine leather, originally designed for new initiates in the Order of Umbra. Enchantments: Self-Repair. +5 agility, +3 strength. Increases the effectiveness of all stealth skills, further amplified while remaining hidden in the shadows.\n\n\nRequirements: Lvl 5+ in any class or humanoid race. Stealth-based skill.\n\n\nHad he somehow managed to acquire Records related to some entity named Umbra solely through using bracers holding the name?\n\n\nHe understood why he got skills related to the Malefic Viper as the profession was quite literally named after him. Could the mere act of having those bracers somehow influence him that much that it would open up entirely new skill options to him? He was honestly a bit taken aback at the prospect. He kind of assumed that Umbra was a god… would it then be considered blasphemy to take the skill when he already had the Malefic Viper ones?\n\n\nWell… at least the Malefic Viper didn’t seem like the sort of person to care much about that, and the skill was looking very juicy. The fact that it made use of his high wisdom was also a huge bonus. He also assumed the skill made use of both mana and stamina… but he couldn’t know before taking it.\n\n\nAs a basic skill, it was also very appetizing. Basic implied plenty of room for improvement, aka skill upgrades. Jake had improved his archery skill through being good at archery, so would he be able to improve that skill too by being good at… Shadow Vaulting?\n\n\nThe description of the effects of the Shadow Vault was also quite honestly very awesome-sounding. To become one with shadows and dodging around sounded very fantasy-like, but more importantly than that, it sounded pretty damn handy.\n\n\nUltimately the choice of skill was a no-brainer. One required a bow and was kind of gimmicky, and the other one literally allowed him to dodge like a shadow without any immediate drawbacks. With that in mind, he picked it.\n\n\n*Gained Skill*: [Basic Shadow Vault of Umbra (Uncommon)] – The power of shadows is an often used tool for anyone looking to escape. Tapping into the Records of Umbra, embrace the shadows for a brief moment, becoming ethereal. Allows the archer to momentarily become one with the shadows. Can only be used in straight lines. Adds a small bonus to the effect of agility and wisdom when using Basic Shadow Vault of Umbra.\n\n\nJake instantly felt the knowledge stream into his mind. Vaguely he also felt like the dark night became several shades darker as he felt the information being implanted.\n\n\nA few seconds passed, and everything returned to normal as Jake now had a vague idea of how the skill worked and how to activate it, but far from enough. Needless to say, it was testing time!"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Hundred — a LitRPG progression fantasy. It was three in the morning when Simon learned that his royal father had been murdered, to everyone's relief. Simon had been dreaming of it for a very, very long time now. Most of the time, he saw his father pass away in his sleep with a beer mug in hand. Sometimes, it involved poison, and at others, a fall from a tower. Often, it was Simon himself who pushed his father down, though he could never remember why.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Simon | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Class, Overlord, Lauriane\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system\nSystem notification style: \"System notifications, or else Vouivre would have likely changed her\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 47: The Stone Muse (7)\nTarget length: ~3300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "After securing the so-called ‘Halls of the Minotaur’—the Ruined Shrine of the Stone Muse would have been a more appropriate moniker—Simon had Belzemine and Duchar study both their host and her seal while Leonard went to scout out the building.\n\nAs he feared, the Minotaur Fiend could not be removed from its host without providing it with a new one. The two were simply too intertwined, something that fascinated Duchar.\n\nSimon himself decided against trying to personally extract the crystal. He was pretty sure that his Indomitable Crown Perk and the Overlord’s power would protect him from possession… but he couldn’t be certain until he tried, and the potential consequences could be disastrous.\n\nMoreover, while he had hope of resisting a possession attempt, he knew that Lorimor’s son or Cassandra would not be so lucky. He had to ensure nobody with a Minotaur birth sign came anywhere near the shrine.\n\nSimon doubted Whispermire would survive the night should the Zodiac Fiend escape.\n\n“Magnificent,” Duchar commented, his voice brimming with almost childlike fascination. By contrast, Belzemine’s haunted look wouldn’t leave her face. “I have never seen a miasma crystal of this purity, nor one possessing a dryad… the archdemon inside must be powerful indeed, even though the merger appears incomplete.”\n\n“What have you found?” Simon inquired before the necromancer could lose himself in his research.\n\n“Lady Firewand and I have confirmed that the seal binding the dryad is of elvish origin,” Duchar explained once they had finished casting analysis spells on the Stone Muse. “Expertly crafted, too. Truly a work of art. It does not inflict the Petrification Ailment, but instead encases the target in a near-indestructible prison of stone in which they spend eternity in stasis.”\n\n“I assume the ‘near’ part is the most important detail,” Simon guessed, having already escaped a similar situation. He had the sneaking suspicion that the seal placed on the Stone Muse was the exact same spell Frea’s allies cast on him in his previous reign.\n\n“A ritual I know, to escape this prison!” the Stone Muse eagerly replied through telepathy. “A follower who has failed me; a priest who does not believe me; a descendant of an enemy; a believer willingly martyred. All slain on my altar on each turn of the season.”\n\n“Sacrifices?” Simon suppressed a shudder so as not to appear weak. “Will their blood alone not suffice?”\n\n“Die they must, so their lives may shatter these granite shackles!” She seemed to sense his reluctance and tried to sweeten the deal. “Reward you I shall for each of them, my love. Many secrets and forbidden truths I can teach you, and great wealth to unveil! All a taste of the bliss I offer once we are wed!”\n\n“And then?” Simon asked out loud. “If I free you and take you as my consort, what shall you do?”\n\n“By your side, I shall rule this forest and beyond!” He could almost taste her mad glee. “Once all sung my praise and clamored for my glory, bestowing gifts upon those I favored! Forgotten I have been, and remembered I shall be! The goddess of these woods I am, now and forever, a queen most worthy of the Lord of Dark!”\n\nIn short, she would become a bane on the region and likely the rest of the world. Hardly an appealing proposition.\n\nNonetheless, he relayed the information to his spellcasters in case they could glean something from it.\n\n“Oh, I know this ritual,” Duchar said. Of course he knew how to unseal an ancient evil. “Grimoires call it the Seasonal Key. The sacrifices must be provided on the equinoxes and solstices, with the targeted seal shattering on the fourth and final one. Any missed victim resets the ritual.”\n\nThe Vernal Equinox was a little less than three months away if he recalled, so completing all four sacrifices would take an entire year. As if the whole human sacrifice part wasn’t already a big repellent on its own.\n\n“What spellcasting Tier is this Seasonal Key?” Simon inquired. For all he knew, none of them could even cast the damn thing.\n\n“It would be the equivalent of a Tier IX spell, but that hardly matters here,” Duchar replied.\n\n“Rituals are spells that do not require Tiers or Classes to cast because the power is in the act itself rather than its participants, Your Majesty,” Belzemine explained, her voice quieter than usual. Seeing the Muse’s horrific state had rattled the elf to her core. “Anybody can use them so long as they understand the procedure.”\n\n“Why doesn’t everyone use them then?” Simon asked, sensing a catch.\n\n“Because rituals are highly complex and require extensive preparation, special circumstances, or rare ingredients,” Duchar replied. “Your Majesty can strengthen themselves with a word and a pulse of mana, but a ritual allowing you to do the same would probably require something like slaughtering an auroch and bathing in its fresh blood. Not very practical, I'm sure you'll agree.”\n\nSimon didn’t like that. If the Stone Muse only needed four sacrifices on specific days rather than a dedicated spellcaster, then all she had to do was contact some fool like Lorimor to act on her behalf. Her orders could already reach beyond the Darkwood.\n\nSimon glanced at the Scholar, who was currently too busy praying to the Stone Muse for forgiveness—which she wouldn’t give—to do anything productive. It might have been a blessing in disguise that he and the other would-be cultists had been too focused on the comparatively easier task of finding a compatible host for the Minotaur Fiend rather than abducting and murdering people to break the seal.\n\nHow long until the Muse found someone willing to try the other approach? Simon had the suspicion the answer would be ‘not long’ with the Cobweb in town.\n\n“Stone Muse, do you hear me?” Simon telepathically asked both Belzemine and Duchar. The two spellcasters frowned, but the Stone Muse failed to answer or react. “She cannot hear us through the brands.”\n\n“Fascinating… this would suggest the brands create a direct connection between our souls rather than simply carry telepathic messages,” Duchar mused. “I assume Your Majesty wishes to discuss things you do not want our prisoner to overhear?”\n\n“Yes.” Though the brands did not allow Belzemine and Duchar to communicate with each other, only with their Overlord master, Simon still asked them the same question. “Can she be cured?”\n\n“I… I am not sure,” Belzemine admitted with a grim look. “She is… twisted, even without the crystal. Death might be mercy. What was done to her… was awful.”\n\n“If by ‘curing’ Your Majesty means turning this unique and wonderful creature back into a common and uninteresting dryad, then this cannot be done without removing the fiend possessing her,” Duchar replied with a rare display of annoyance. “Which would require either finding the demon a new host or breaking the seal. Even then, I am not sure if the former method would even work, considering how intertwined they have become, unless we test it first. Perhaps if we attempted the fusion in a controlled environment–”\n\n“No,” Simon decided immediately. No way he would take that risk. “The dryad seems to be under the delusion that she will possess the new host too.”\n\n“She is mad,” Belzemine replied with deep sorrow. “Only the demon will escape. The scission… the scission might even kill her.”\n\n“She is probably mistaken, but again, this is a unique situation that warrants further investigation,” Duchar replied. He didn’t bother hiding his immense curiosity for the unique creature. “I would suggest Your Majesty should go along with the ritual option for the reward it offers.”\n\nSimon raised an eyebrow behind his helmet. “Surely you do not believe a mad dryad will keep her word?”\n\n“Not at all. Your Majesty will understand that wise wizards do not design rituals to break nefarious demonic entities free for the sake of arcane solidarity. This kind of magic also creates a contract between the fiend and its liberators. Freedom against service.”\n\nSimon’s eyes widened with interest. “What kind of service?”\n\n“In this particular ritual’s case, the freed entity will be magically compelled to fulfill a single wish for whoever completed the ritual to the best of its ability.”\n\n“For whoever completes the ritual?” Simon could immediately see the catch. “So one could complete the first three sacrifices and be robbed by whoever completes the fourth?”\n\n“Your Majesty is perceptive. Yes indeed, only the person who completes the fourth sacrifice may command the beast. Moreover, the fiend will be bound to the wording of the wish, so they are free to interpret it. I would suggest His Majesty ask a talented lawyer to review their wish before they utter it.”\n\n“But she won’t be able to disobey?”\n\n“No. The ritual will permanently banish the fiend back to the Abyss if they refuse or fail to complete the task.”\n\nNow that changed everything. If the Minotaur Fiend was bound to fulfill any command, then Simon could use the ritual to order it to leave this plane of existence and never return, or force it to do good for the rest of its immortal life. This would remove it as a threat to the world.\n\nAll for the price of four sacrifices.\n\nQuite the dangerous way of thinking.\n\n“The other reason why I suggest Your Majesty goes along is that the dryad doesn’t actually need our help,” Duchar added. “The seal is already fraying on its own. Lady Firewand will likely confirm it.”\n\nSimon took a long, deep breath. He had feared as much from the fact she could contact others from a distance—something which had been impossible for him in his previously sealed state in the past reign.\n\n“Why is the seal failing?” Simon asked both his spellcasters at once.\n\n“I cannot say,” Belzemine admitted. “These seals are supposed to last forever, yet I fear this one may not last years.”\n\n“Maybe it is a lack of maintenance or the miasma crystal slowly eroding the bindings,” Duchar replied evasively. “Certainly, our assistance will hasten the process, but its outcome has already been decided. Should we not profit from it while we can?”\n\nSimon sensed the Stone Muse brush against his mind before he could answer. “Why are you all standing in place without a word?”\n\n“I was mentally asking my advisors whether they felt you were worth the hassle,” Simon replied bluntly. Lorimor already knew about the brand’s telepathic abilities, so it was only a matter of time before she found out anyway. “You promise much, but remain vague.”\n\nHis response rattled her, her eyes gleaming red for a second. “How about a secret I already bestowed upon a fool? How to craft a Crestone true, born of the renegade Librarian?”\n\n“Renegade?” Simon asked. What an odd choice of words.\n\n“Your interest I have piqued, and your question I shall answer upon our engagement, sealed with blood. I shall say naught more until then.”\n\nAlright, she indeed had precious knowledge to impart… but would it be worth the cost? Simon knew intellectually that nothing he did in this reign would carry consequences since time would rewind ninety more times anyway, but the idea of sacrificing people to a possessed dryad and unleashing her upon the world was too much. The people around him were real, with thoughts, feelings, and lives. The fact that he could go back in time to change history wouldn’t diminish their suffering.\n\nBut then again, Duchar has a point, she will break out on her own, Simon thought. He couldn’t exactly walk away from this, and that was without considering the worst case scenario where some cultist managed to successfully bring her a compatible host. She might also manage to contact the likes of Silk, who wouldn’t blink twice at dealing with a demon for power. We won’t actually have to kill anyone until the Vernal Equinox, so we can at least string her along until then, study the seal or figure out how to cure her. I could also contact Lauriane.\n\nTime was on his side, now and until his final reign.\n\nLeonard soon returned from his patrol with a newly sketched map of the building. “These halls cover four floors, this sanctum included, and lead into caverns dug into the manatree’s roots and then a swamp,” he explained. “I’ve spotted frogmen and other aberrations lurking there, but nothing too worrisome. The place is easy to defend, and most facilities could be quickly restored with a dedicated workforce.”\n\n“A workforce the native monsters could provide, once sufficiently motivated,” Simon guessed. If the Stone Muse’s closest servants couldn’t resist Unquestionable Ruler or Dreadful Aura, then no creature in this swamp could deny him. He could easily turn these halls into a new base if needed.\n\nFor now, he decided on stringing the Stone Muse along until they learned more. It would take time for his spellcasters to both investigate the seal and fully weigh all the potential outcomes of either allying with her or putting her down.\n\nNot to mention that he had other deadlines to consider.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nSimon and his group left the Halls of the Minotaur with two concessions from the Muse: first of all, her sworn promise to stop harassing Odette Kano and her son; and second, the identity of her cultists in Whispermire.\n\nWell, ‘cultists’ might have been too strong a word. While old families in the village continued to practice some folk traditions that dated back to the Stone Muse’s reign, most had largely forgotten about her until she mysteriously gained the ability to communicate with others a few months back. She had only recently begun to influence two dozen people across town by contacting them in their dreams. One of them, a retired farmer called Grius, had been the source of the blood graffiti and dead animals incidents after growing obsessed with his new patron’s voice.\n\nAll in all, Odette Kano had only been half-right; there was no organized cult in Whispermire, but there would soon be one as the Stone Muse continued to recruit more thralls.\n\nThe first thing Simon did after returning was to organize a private meeting with the mayor in her office. She seemed outright disappointed to learn that Lorimor had survived the trip, although the madman spent the day muttering to himself about how he had ‘disappointed’ his mistress in a fugue state.\n\n“A dryad?” Odette Kano scowled when Simon told her the news. “Now that is a surprise. I thought the manatree’s dryad was dead and that this Muse was a demon.”\n\n“You were wrong,” Simon lied. He had wisely kept the truth of the Minotaur crystal hidden and only revealed that the Stone Muse was a corrupted dryad to ensure nobody would try something foolish. “While she is still set on rebuilding her cult, I have extracted her promise not to bother your son again.”\n\nOdette scoffed. “And you believe her?”\n\n“I can be persuasive.”\n\nOdette studied him for a moment, a suspicious frown forming on her face. “Destroying this Muse, if it’s even possible, would destroy the Darkwood and ruin Whispermire’s livelihood,” she said, “but allowing her to recruit more people like my ex-husband will bring too much negative attention. I will have everyone involved in her faith arrested before the rot spreads.”\n\n“No, you will not,” Simon replied, crossing his legs. “The more visible incidents will end, but you will close your eyes on the Muse’s followers. Maybe even use your influence to help cover up some things that might bother the Church of Light.”\n\nOdette scowled. “And why would I do that?”\n\n“Because otherwise Endymion will learn of your illegal activities, from your association with the Cobweb to your attempts to create illegal Crestones.”\n\nMeredith confirmed that Silk had only stayed a few hours in Whispermire and proved incredibly difficult to track down since she seemed to disappear at will. However, Odette Kano had immediately followed up their meeting by meeting with some of her staff, whom Meredith secretly followed to a mound a half a day’s ride from the town, on the other side of the Darkwood. She couldn’t approach it too closely for fear of being noticed, but the intel she brought back had been enough for Simon to guess what was happening.\n\n“Illegal?” Odette Kano feigned outrage and ignorance. “Everything I do here is tightly regulated. You only need to check my registers, and I will be happy to cooperate with any investigation.”\n\nSimon didn’t believe her. “You see, something has been bothering me. Creating a Crestone does not require just any mana crystal lying around. It needs to be of sufficient purity to support the magical scripts inscribed on its surface. A bookmaker like Lorimor could never have obtained one on his own.”\n\n“I told investigators that he defrauded my suppliers.”\n\n“I struggle to believe someone as meticulous as you would fail to notice,” Simon replied. “I think you knew he was trying to create a Crestone, and while you may not have actively helped him to keep your hands clean, you did close your eyes because you hoped to profit from that knowledge… until he threatened your son, of course.”\n\nTo her credit, Odette Kano had nerves of steel and didn’t budge. “That is ridiculous.”\n\n“Truly? Well, I think you have an unregistered manalith mine somewhere in the region, whose contents you sell off to the Cobweb for a price.” Which neatly explained how the organization supplied Simon in the previous reign. “Mana crystals can fetch a good price on the black market, but Vassal Crestones? Now those would be worth a fortune.”\n\nAlthough Odette Kano kept a stony face, her grim silence was an answer in itself.\n\n“I can read your thoughts.” Simon slouched in the chair. There was nothing more intimidating than casual, dismissive confidence in the face of threats. “You are considering informing your spider friends and asking them to make me disappear. They will fail, and it will cost you. We are House Magnos. The Cobweb can ruin businesses and intimidate dukes, but we bring kingdoms to ruin and paladins to heel. You will not survive the night if you make an enemy of me, and you know that.”\n\n“What do you want?” she asked warily. “How much do you want?”\n\n“Please, you think we need money? The only commodity my family trades in is servitude.” Simon joined his hands and held her gaze. “You’re going to do everything I say, anytime I want… and you will start by telling me what the Cobweb wants with you.”\n\nOdette Kano observed him for a moment before yielding. “Everything,” she confessed. “They are one of my main buyers, especially of elven antiques that adventurers find in the Darkwood. They pay more than the state for these artifacts.”\n\nOf course they would. They likely resold them for much higher prices in Valne or Lore. “How long have you been working with them?”\n\n“Since before the empire conquered Magvolia. The chaos that followed the change in government made it easier for me to hide our activities.” She rested her chin on her clenched fist. “Although I do have a secret mine, I assure you I have no ongoing illegal Crestone creation operation. My husband wouldn’t share his knowledge, and I learned my lesson after the kidnapping attempt.”\n\n“I see.” Between Lorimor’s knowledge and this secret mine, Simon had a way to create bootleg Vassal Crestones even should he break things off with his family. He had the feeling this would serve him well in the future. “Very well. You may continue as you have always have, for now.”\n\n“For now?” Odette glared at him. “And then?”\n\n“And then we shall see, I haven’t decided yet.” Simon grinned at her. “Come on, Madame Kano, smile a little. We’re friends now… whether you like it or not.”\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 48: The Stone Muse (8)\nTarget length: ~4400 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Today was the deadline.\n\nSimon had spent the last week following his meeting with Kano and the Stone Muse focusing on his crafting while his spellcasters and other allies completed their own tasks. Duchar continued to study the seal, while Belzemine completed the astral calculations to guess the upcoming comet’s trajectory.\n\nLorimor had become more or less useless since their return, with him spending his time alternating between flagellating himself and praying to his muse for forgiveness that she refused to grant, likely because she intended to keep him as a sacrifice for her ritual. Simon had hoped time and productive work would have improved his disposition, but the man would rather wallow in self-pity.\n\nMeanwhile, Meredith and Leonard had been sent back to Telluria to keep an eye on a certain Elaine Malphas and Louis. They reported that the crown-prince had crushed the Redhand tribe thanks to intel provided by Shabram, and though Vouivre herself had managed to elude him, Louis and Dassein had utterly crushed the troops she had intended to use to besiege Beleth with. The dragon’s decision to flee rather than confront Simon’s half-brothers had proved a crippling blow to her burgeoning campaign to subjugate the beastmen. Many tribes hostile to her apparently supported the princes in their hunt.\n\nIn short, Vouivre’s ambitions had come to an abrupt end, and her days were numbered. That, at least, was good news.\n\nElaine had apparently asked a lot of questions about Simon’s whereabouts, much like Anna was also doing. Simon had ordered his retainers to stonewall their questions and cooperate with Shabram’s agents to arrest Elaine today, just in case.\n\nAll I have to do is wait and pray for their success, Simon thought as he focused on his current crafting lesson. I should receive a report sometime soon.\n\nAs it turned out, Devil Forgemaster’s ability to craft miasma-powered accessories covered a much larger range than just rings and other jewellery. Cassandra, whose Witch Class granted her access to crafting Perks similar to his own, helped him redefine just how broad that category was. Armlets and bracers, amulets, belts, boots, gloves, scarves, cloaks, earrings, even masks and small dolls counted as accessories as far as the Overlord Class was concerned.\n\n“Fetishes are charms specifically bound to a unique owner or target, depending on whether they are meant to hinder or help,” Cassandra explained as she showed Simon a small cloth poppet. Odette Kano had ‘kindly’ lent them a workshop in the Midnight Market where they could practice their craft without oversight. “Unlike most accessories, they require material like dirt, hair, bones, or clothes… and so many of them degrade in weeks.”\n\n“A cursed object that destroys itself once it has served its purpose and leaves behind little evidence… I can see why witches are so feared,” Simon mused.\n\n“It wasn’t always this way,” Cassandra replied calmly. “The Witch is a Vassal of the Necromancer Noble Class, which evolved with the times as people began to perceive it differently. Necromancy originally started out as the art of consulting ancestral spirits for guidance, divination, or psychometry. The use of miasma to create undead or fuel diabolism curses came much after the Class’ creation.”\n\n“So, Classes can change over time?”\n\n“If the archetype they derive their power from does, yes. Our ancestors perceived necromancers as gravekeepers and keepers of forbidden knowledge. Their image as graverobbers raising the dead came much later.”\n\n“I wonder if the same could be done with the Overlord,” Simon mused. Somehow, he had his doubts.\n\nCassandra smiled demurely. “Such changes take place over centuries, but perhaps Your Majesty’s actions can influence how people will see your Class in time.”\n\nWhich made Simon ponder if he shared the same Perks as his predecessors. Mardok’s rule was characterized by savage brutality, chaotic atrocities, and demonic power. Gargauth and Balzam Magnos had both been more focused on the acquisition of wealth and conquest respectively rather than genocide and mass destruction, so that could have influenced how the Overlord Class expressed itself in modern times.\n\n“Unfortunately, crafting most fetishes requires the Tier III spell Cursebound, which is currently beyond Your Majesty’s grasp,” Cassandra warned him.\n\n“I should unlock it soon if my Miasmic Archmage Perk continues to upgrade every ten levels,” Simon replied. “Are there differences in effects between accessories?”\n\n“Some do lend themselves more to specific types of magic,” Cassandra confirmed. “Masks are very good for conjuration or shapeshifting, since they can channel the persona of the face they emulate. Gauntlets and gloves synergize best with martial-focused abilities, boots and shoes favor mobility, and so on. It does not prevent the crafter from imbuing them with other effects, but each object has its affinities.”\n\n“I see.” All in all, Simon had only begun to scratch the surface of the field of study. “You know more about crafting than I would have thought, Cassandra.”\n\n“Thank you,” she replied with a hint of appreciation. “I was the one providing for our family by selling magical items and potions in Telluria, so that my father could focus on his research. Many mistook me for an apothecary, which pleased me.”\n\n“Would you rather be seen as a necromancer?”\n\nTo Simon’s surprise, Cassandra actually shook her head. “I do not consider myself a necromancer, but a healer or doctor. Death is simply a disease we have yet to find a perfect cure for.”\n\n“I’m not sure everyone would prefer being transformed into a rotting zombie over dying and reincarnating.” Though then again, Simon knew better than most that death was a dreadful and terrible thing, even when it ended up leading to a new life. He did not relish it in the slightest.\n\n“Perhaps… but there are so many taken before their time, to their grief and that of their families. I would like for everyone to have the choice when to depart rather than see it forced upon them.” Cassandra held his gaze. “Surely Your Majesty has lost people they would rather have kept at their side.”\n\nSimon scowled, suddenly uncomfortable. “What makes you think that?”\n\n“Your Majesty’s expression when you returned from the academy in Telluria,” Cassandra replied. “It was grief.”\n\nSimon sank in his seat. He didn’t think she would pay attention to such things. Cassandra always struck him as oblivious, but she seemed to be rather observant.\n\n“I have a friend who has lost her memory after an incident, in a way that no healing magic I know of can solve,” Simon admitted. It was technically true, and since no phantom hands strangled him, he took it as a good sign. “She is alive and breathing, but still dead to me somehow, if that makes sense.”\n\nCassandra listened patiently. “It is not the person Your Majesty grieves for, but their shared memories?”\n\n“I suppose so. She is fine otherwise, but… she’s not the same person I knew anymore. I’m mourning someone who is still alive.” Simon scoffed. “You must find it ridiculous.”\n\n“No, not at all,” she replied kindly. “I believe it is the perspective of leaving things unfinished that people fear more than death. Grief is the absence of closure.”\n\n“An interesting approach.” And not too far from the truth. “You think it’s the lack of closure that weighs down on me?”\n\nCassandra nodded sharply. “I have met many ghosts in my short life. All remain because they have unfinished business, a weight that prevents them from passing on. It is only when they solve it or make peace with it that they can pass on peacefully. Regret is the soil in which grief grows.”\n\nSimon couldn’t help but recall Eleanor’s ghost, haunting Castle Carcass until she was laid to rest and her murder’s mystery solved. “So you are saying I should accept that the person I knew is gone?”\n\n“Or fulfill the dreams you shared with them before they forgot. The burden of grief will grow lighter once His Majesty does so.”\n\nSimon pondered her words. He did have regrets when it came to past reigns: not visiting the Sanctuary in the sky with Eole, not helping Belzemine heal, and not living long enough to wed Anna and raise a family with her. He had spent all of his past ten lives starting things that ended halfway through and gave him an aching sense of incompletion, and he still had ninety more to go.\n\nSimon needed to process this reality, or it would destroy him.\n\nLouis was right; he wouldn’t be able to continue on forever with so many ghosts weighing down on him. Maybe he could exorcize them like he did Eleanor: by completing their unfinished business, whether in this reign or the next.\n\nThen maybe he could make peace with these memories.\n\n“Thank you for your wisdom, Cassandra,” Simon said sincerely. “You’ve given me much to think about.”\n\n“Your Majesty is welcome.” She put a finger on her chin. “Is this how living friends behave?”\n\n“I like to think we are becoming friends, yes.” Simon had mistaken Cassandra for a spooky freak like her father, but she had turned out to be rather wise for her age and more caring than she let on. He was growing fond of her in spite of her… undead-related eccentricities.\n\nSimon heard a knock on the workshop door. “Come in,” he said, with Belzemine and Duchar soon walking inside the room.\n\n“Your Majesty,” Duchar said, the old wizard’s eyes traveling from his daughter to Simon. The Overlord couldn’t tell whether Duchar resented or approved of the two spending time together. “I have finished analyzing the seal, and I think I have identified its key flaw.”\n\n“And I have completed Lorimor’s calculations, since he has yet to recover from his breakdown,” Belzemine said as she presented him with a pile of papers. “Is Your Majesty certain this comet will end its journey with the Serpent-Bearer and the Scorpion beforehand?”\n\n“I’m not sure, but I trust the source I learned it from.” Simon didn’t see why someone as powerful and confident as Elios Magnos would lie about something like this.\n\n“Then if the Serpent-Bearer concludes the cycle, it will logically begin with the Archer constellation.” Belzemine showed him a calendar noting the days when the comet would align with the zodiac. “According to our calculations, the comet will cross it on the 27th of Frimaire 404 After Doom, travel across the sky during the next twelve months, and leave on the 26th of Frimaire 405.”\n\n“This month is Nivose 403, so… that leaves us eleven months,” Simon counted. They had a little less than a year before the Zodiac Parade began. And it would start right after the Winter Solstice, the day on which the fourth and final Seasonal Key sacrifice would be due… “From what I read, the comet will cross the Minotaur constellation from the 24th of Floreal 404 to the 3rd of Messidor 404, sixth in the order.”\n\n“I thought the Minotaur sign only covered the month of Floreal?” Cassandra asked.\n\n“According to modern astrology, which does not include the Serpent-Bearer so as to align twelve signs with twelve months,” Simon replied. The difference hardly mattered since the crystal called out to Cassandra anyway, which suggested that the symbolism mattered more than factuality when it came to sorcery. “The comet is going to follow a slightly different trajectory.”\n\n“I see,” Cassandra muttered back. “Your Majesty believes the Muse will escape during the period when that comet meets the Minotaur?”\n\nSimon nodded. He himself had broken out of the elves’ seal when the comet passed the Serpent-Bearer’s constellation, which seemed to be tied to Mardok and the Overlord’s power. It wouldn’t surprise him if something similar happened with the Minotaur.\n\n“I can’t confirm it yet, but I strongly suspect it,” he said.\n\n“This would align with my own findings,” Duchar said. “I have compared samples from our previous excursion into the forest alongside stored monster carcasses from earlier months and noticed a tiny, if noticeable, increase in miasma potency over time.”\n\nSimon feared he would say that. “The seal isn’t getting weaker,” he guessed, “it’s the demon who grows stronger over time.”\n\n“Yes, it would seem that Minotaur Fiend’s power is tied to the comet somehow,” Duchar concluded. “The closer it gets, the more potent the demon’s miasma.”\n\nBelzemine’s scowl deepened with grief and horror. “Would it cause the Darkwood to expand?”\n\n“Certainly not so long as the seal holds,” Duchar reassured them. “However, the concentration of miasma will slowly strengthen monsters in the area. If I had to make an estimation, it would be the equivalent of the average level of the Darkwood’s inhabitants increasing by one or two each month. More dangerous entities will begin to manifest as the miasma becomes thick enough to support their existence.”\n\nA process that would likely continue until the Minotaur’s power reached its apex once the comet entered its associated constellation. And if all the Zodiac Fiends followed the same pattern… then it didn’t surprise Simon that they managed to throw the western continent into chaos in his previous reign.\n\nThe silver lining was that the more powerful a monster was, the more ambient energy it required to sustain itself. A Dungeon’s inhabitants would quickly weaken like Belzemine did when leaving its confines, and the Darkwood’s inhabitants should be no exception. They might threaten Whispermire, but would remain confined to the area… at least until the Muse and the Minotaur Fiend escaped.\n\nWhich begged the question, what was Simon going to do with this information?\n\nSo far, he didn’t really have a coherent plan when it came to his reigns besides gathering information, staying alive, and growing strong enough to keep surviving. He would have once counted leaving his family’s orbit and enjoying a peaceful life a victory.\n\nThe discovery that powerful archfiends would rise to threaten the world in less than a year’s time had thoroughly killed that plan. Neutralizing all miasma crystals in a year’s time seemed almost impossible, especially since he still didn’t know the location of all the demonbarrows.\n\nA second Doom would strike the world in his lifetime.\n\nCould he stop the civil war and ensure Endymion remained united to face the threat? Probably not until he had grown strong enough to fend off assassins or assert himself to the various imperial factions. Until he could match blows with his siblings, the best Simon could hope for was to delay the inevitable or ensure parts of the empire survived its collapse. He could try to join one of the parties to ensure they won the conflict with minimum bloodshed, or follow Lord Paimon’s plan and ride out the conflict in the Berwick Islands to ensure he had at least fresh troops to call upon.\n\nAlternatively, he could focus on completing his father’s quest to locate the demonbarrows and neutralize them, whether by binding the Zodiac Fiends to his service or finding a way to seal away the crystals. His control over the Darkwood and Kano granted him a powerbase he could develop without involving House Magnos.\n\nHe could also take Eole on her offer to flee to her homeland in the sky and take the few people he cared for there. It had survived the first Doom, so perhaps it could ride out the second untouched?\n\nFinally, he could focus on growing stronger as quickly as possible and perfecting his Overlord Class. Hunting down valuable Crestones whose Perks he could absorb like the Templar or Paladin’s ability to harm demons would give him a crucial edge, if he could obtain them.\n\nThere’s countless paths I could take, but many deadlines to take into account, Simon thought. I’ll need to draw a chart at one point.\n\n“If I may ask Your Majesty, how should we proceed with our demonic dryad?” Duchar inquired, a gleam of interest in his gaze. “Shall we proceed with the ritual? That fool Lorimor spends his days weeping about how he has failed his mistress and will not do anything productive, so his sacrifice would not be a big loss, especially since Your Majesty can preserve his soul. I can simply put it back into an undead receptacle.”\n\nSimon had to admit that transforming Lorimor into a sentient zombie might actually be an improvement over his current behavior, and the man probably deserved his fate, but the idea of resorting to sacrificing one of his retainers still irked him. He crossed his arms and mulled over it.\n\n“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but if I understand correctly, the demon seeks to harmonize itself with individuals bearing the sign of the Minotaur,” Cassandra spoke up. “I could offer myself as a host.”\n\n“You can’t be serious!” Simon was aghast. “You want to let an archfiend take over your body?!”\n\n“No, of course not,” Cassandra replied. “But Your Majesty seems to be under a misconception. To merge with a host while drawing on their full power, a possessing demon must harmonize itself with their vessel, fusing in purpose, body, and mind like a Class user with a Crestone.”\n\n“What my daughter means to say is that demonic possession isn’t as much of a takeover as a merger,” Duchar explained.\n\n“How do you explain the dryad’s behavior then?” Simon countered. “She switches between two personalities regularly.”\n\n“Because that merger is incomplete, Your Majesty. A successful possession either requires a contract of some sort and a compatibility factor, which I assume is why this Minotaur is looking for vessels born under their sign. Frankly, the mere fact that an incomplete fusion happened at all is a miracle. A dryad and a demon are utter opposites and shouldn’t be capable of coexisting. I suspect the First Overlord cast an extremely powerful spell to force the fusion.”\n\nBelzemine looked at her feet again. “Lord Mardok was… very skilled in the dark arts.”\n\n“What I mean to say, Your Majesty, is that the merger will still be me,” Cassandra explained. “I will become one with the demon, but our goals and intentions will align.”\n\n“And what if the demon wants to slaughter us all and the merger causes it to become dominant?” Simon countered.\n\n“Then Your Majesty can use the brand to kill me if I step out of line,” Cassandra replied with disturbing nonchalance. “My soul can be preserved so long as you are the one to give me the fatal blow.”\n\n“My power only activates on lower-level targets, and you’re one level higher than me.”\n\n“Then I only have to surrender or destroy my Crestone and seize Lorimor’s, for example,” Cassandra replied calmly. “In that case, I would become a level 1 Scholar and count as a lower-level target for Your Majesty’s Perk.”\n\nOh.\n\nCould… could that actually work? It sounded feasible on paper, at least…\n\nEven then, the risks were too great. The possessed Eole shrugged off a lesser slave crest, but he hadn’t bestowed any Devil Brand on her back then, so Simon couldn’t tell whether the marks would actually remain behind or if they would be enough to kill the demonic fusion.\n\nNot to mention that while part of Eole’s motivations had survived her fusion with the Fish Fiend, she had also mistaken him for Mardok and been driven to murder him. Simon couldn’t see any way to prevent a fight unless he obtained the Brand of Pride, which his predecessors placed on Belzemine and that compelled utter obedience.\n\n“Why would you even consider this?” Simon asked, dumbfounded.\n\n“Merging with an archfiend is a unique opportunity that would let me command greater power than I could ever achieve on my own,” Cassandra replied calmly. “I do not mind sharing my body with a demon if it means I can help mortals free themselves from death. And I trust Your Majesty’s power can keep me in line.”\n\n“Your resolve does you credit, my daughter,” Duchar praised her with some twisted fatherly pride, the way a normal person would congratulate their child for taking on a difficult exam rather than offering herself to a goddamn demon. “The secrets you would learn and the power you would achieve would be worth the cost.”\n\nBelzemine looked at him in a rare display of disgust. “You know nothing of the price she will pay, wizard,” she said before turning to Simon. “Your Majesty, I…” She gulped. “While it is not my place to question your decisions, I strongly urge you to reconsider.” She looked down again. “This dryad is already suffering. We should not pass on her pain to another.”\n\nThis is personal to her, Simon thought. He recalled how she had reacted when seeing the murals in the Halls of the Minotaur. Was she there when Mardok corrupted the Darkwood? Or did she have anything to do with it? She did say she ‘told him,’ whatever that meant…\n\n“I appreciate your trust in me, Cassandra, but I will not put you at such risk,” Simon decided. “I need to consider our options before–”\n\nSimon froze when he sensed someone calling him through the Brand of Sloth. Shabram.\n\nFinally.\n\n“Excuse me, I am receiving a telepathic call,” Simon told his allies before answering Shabram. “Yes?”\n\n“Your Majesty,” she said when he opened up to telepathic contact, her voice apologetic. “I must inform you that Patriate Malphas could not be taken alive.”\n\nDamn it. “Report.”\n\n“As per your instructions, we attempted to take him by surprise and feed him to Gourmand. We successfully cornered him in his estate, where he hosted unregistered mercenaries for his own protection, but the man blew himself up with an explosive necklace rather than risk capture. We could only recover his Crestone and charred bones, too late for Gourmand to consume his soul.”\n\n“Quite the admission of guilt,” Simon replied. Patriate must have committed some heinous crimes if he preferred death over being taken alive for interrogation.\n\n“There’s more. We have found coded, damning correspondence aimed at insurrectionists associated with the White Unicorn and enemy nations. The letters detail S-ranked state secrets, including His Late Majesty Balzam’s death. I am now convinced the Lord-Treasurer was the Illusean mole on the High Council.”\n\n…\n\nWhat?\n\nPatriate? Patriate Malphas, a rebel supporter?! That slimy, opportunistic social climber, an agent of the White Unicorn and ally of the Paladin?! Impossible!\n\nHow long had he been working with the enemy?! Since he became the Merchant and ascended to the High Council? Even earlier? Was he bought? No way, the empire already let him live in luxury, and killing oneself took guts. Was he a deep cover agent from the start?\n\nIt made no sense!\n\nHe was sitting right next to me, the duplicitous bastard, Simon thought as he recalled his third death, his jaw clenching. He had been wondering who would have benefited from destabilizing the empire this way, but if Patriate had been working for Illusea and the White Unicorn… He’s the one who poisoned me with the goblet.\n\nAnother name to add to the death list.\n\n“Our investigation shows that he used shell companies to purchase warehouses across Marthrone undetected,” Shabram added. “We haven’t found anything special when we raided them, but they must have been used to transport a number of goods without our knowledge.”\n\n“No sign of magical glyphs anywhere on those properties?” Simon asked, which Shabram denied. “Keep looking then. I think we’re in the clear with his death, but better be safe than sorry.”\n\n“As your Majesty wishes.”\n\nSimon sensed another call, coming from Leonard this time. How fortuitous. “Yes, Leonard?”\n\n“Elaine Malphas blew herself up.”\n\nWhat the– “Explain yourself, now.”\n\n“We’ve tried to arrest her at her dorm, as Your Majesty asked. She vainly attempted to flee through a window, and triggered some kind of explosive device when she realized we had cut off her avenues of escape. Two students have been killed in the blast, and Meredith received light injuries.”\n\nSomething was wrong. It wouldn’t surprise Simon that Patriate gave his daughter an express checkout option in case she was captured—the fact she killed herself implied she was involved in her father’s schemes—but the method surprised him.\n\n“Why kill herself in such a dramatic fashion?” Simon wondered. “A poison pill would have brought less attention.”\n\n“To prevent an autopsy, I would wager,” Leonard replied. “Her body is almost entirely gone. If she was hiding identifying marks like tattoos or the like, we’ll never know it now.”\n\n“Too bad taking secrets to the grave doesn’t work on someone with necromancers on his payroll,” Simon replied. “Recover anything you can. We’ll have Duchar study the remains once Meredith recovers.”\n\n“As you command, Your Majesty.”\n\nSimon cut the communication and then faced his other allies. “We’re done for the day,” he decided, “I need to think.”\n\nThe Malphas’ actions pointed to them being involved with the Illuseans, and their deaths should have brought an end to their plans. With the capital saved from destruction, Endymion’s government could keep up the charade of unity for a few more months.\n\nBut why? Why would the Malphas ally with the empire’s enemy when they owed everything to the imperial institutions? What could motivate them enough that they would rather kill themselves than face capture?\n\nSimon had a bad feeling about all of this.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nHe heard Shabram’s scream in his sleep.\n\nSimon woke up in the middle of the night the same way he had in the previous reign at the exact same hour. He immediately knew what had happened when he sent his spymaster a telepathic call and only received silence in return.\n\nShabram was dead, likely alongside almost everyone inside Castle Frightwall. Purged in holy light.\n\nPatriate Malphas was dead, his daughter was dead, their properties had been raided across the empire and cleaned of anything magical, and yet the attack on Frightwall still happened.\n\n“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Simon muttered as he held his skull with both hands. “If Malphas’ death isn’t what cancels out the attack, then what else–”\n\nThe answer struck him in a flash of lightning.\n\nBelzemine.\n\nThe elves only cancelled the attack when she was still in Castle Frightwall on that date. Either she stopped them somehow, or more likely, they didn’t want to risk killing her in the blast somehow.\n\nHer absence was the trigger.\n\n“Agnes, come to my room,” he asked Belzemine through telepathy. “There’s a question I must ask you.”\n\n“Which one, Your Majesty?”\n\n“Something I should have asked the day we met.” Simon clenched his jaw. “Who are you?”\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 49: The Stone Muse (9)\nTarget length: ~4100 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Belzemine wordlessly stared at her tea. The workshop had become silent after Simon explained the situation to her in private. She still seemed to struggle to accept that the castle she had lived in for the last four centuries had been destroyed.\n\nWith the civil war now inevitable, Simon had acted quickly. He telepathically gave leave to Leonard to put Anna and Tiella on the first airship to the Berwick Islands for their safety, then asked Meredith to bring him back Elaine Malphas’ remains alongside some documents from the archive. Having closely followed the civil war through the news in Valne, he gave her a longer return itinerary than usual to ensure she would avoid areas bound to be bombed by the War Party.\n\nHe still had no idea how the conflict would affect Whispermire—he didn’t remember the town being mentioned anywhere in the previous reign’s newspaper—but its proximity to the Goetia Research Center put it at risk.\n\n“Belzemine, do you understand what I just said?” Simon received no answer, his hands clutching his own cup. “The news hasn’t been made public yet, but the elves of Illusea have struck Castle Frightwall with a powerful Tier X spell. I do not know how they managed to pull it off yet, but I have reason to believe they only proceeded with the plan once they had confirmed your departure from the castle. Why?”\n\n“I do not know,” Belzemine admitted. “I am not important to Illusea. We elves do not have nobility like humans do, so our lineages mean nothing. My parents were common healers, and my only sister is dead.”\n\n“Yet you are clearly important enough to Illusea that they would forgo a devastating strike against their sworn enemy for your sake.” Belzemine still seemed to draw a blank. “Perhaps something to do with someone named Frea?”\n\n“Frea?” Belzemine’s head perked up in surprise upon hearing the name. “No, it cannot be. I haven’t met her since…” Her scowl deepened. “Since the Red Forest.”\n\nAnd still Frea tried to keep her alive during their clash in Valne, even to the point of pulling her punches and losing her life for it. Perhaps there was something unique or special about Belzemine that she herself was unaware of.\n\n“Tell me where you came from, and how you know Frea,” Simon said. His gut told him her past was key to answering this mystery. “I want to know the things the history books do not mention. This may be important.”\n\nBelzemine frowned slightly, but dutifully obeyed his request. “I was born in the forest of Jarnvidr, west of Frightwall, which humans once called the Ironwood and now…” Her scowl deepened into one of profound sorrow. “The Red Forest.”\n\nSimon held his tongue. The Red Forest Massacre had been one of Overlord Mardok’s great atrocities alongside the Despoiling of Nabadia and the Walling of the Screaming Saints. His violent, indiscriminate slaughter of the forest’s elven population had forever tainted its leaves and grass red. It was the very first time an Overlord had dared to strike an elven community, and it set the stage for the pogroms that would follow.\n\nTheories abounded as to why Mardok had struck that area in particular: it had housed followers of the prophet Pharis who had survived earlier purges, it was located west of Frightwall and thus in the way of the burgeoning empire's military expansion, it was poorly defended… but Simon was beginning to wonder if it had something to do with Belzemine’s presence there.\n\n“I was born in the decades after the Doom to an apothecary and a healer,” she said. “I lived in Jarnvidr and was trained to become a Caretaker with my sister Aza.”\n\n“A Caretaker?” Simon recalled where he had read the term in the context of elven civilization. “Those are elves who directly serve a dryad and take care of her forest on her behalf.”\n\n“Yes. I was raised to ensure the prosperity of Jarnvidr’s manatree. Taught of its… its secrets.” Belzemine’s voice began to waver. “Frea was… a friend I was raised with, and who traveled to Illusea to train as a mage. She returned home the day before the massacre, with the Oracle herself visiting us to proclaim her among her new apprentices.” She clutched her cup. “This… this was a great honor to Jarnvidr’s community.”\n\nSo she did meet the Oracle. “What is she like? The Oracle?”\n\n“I… I was young back then, but I still remember her smile,” Belzemine confessed. “She bestowed gifts upon each of the Caretakers on behalf of the Mana Goddess. To me, she gave the Healer Crestone and said...” She gulped. “She said I had a bright future ahead of me.”\n\nAnd that was one of the most dangerous things to say in a world where the Overlord could rewrite fate.\n\n“Overlord Mardok came for us the very night the Oracle departed to visit another manatree,” Belzemine said, her voice weaker. “He struck in the dark with an army of demons when we were celebrating Frea’s ascension. We were dancing and laughing, and then we were screaming and fleeing.”\n\n“And no one saw it coming?” Simon asked, his heart overflowing with sympathy. The things she must have witnessed that night… he wouldn’t wish it on anyone.\n\n“No,” Belzemine replied darkly. “Lord Mardok had been the Overlord for a little over forty years, but my kind did not truly fear him back then. Many demons had threatened Illusea and the elves even before the Doom, but each time the Oracle and her chosen heroes saw to their defeat. Everyone thought Overlord Mardok would be no different. Many followers of the Light of Pharis went to us for shelter, which we granted.” She avoided Simon’s gaze. “Overlord Mardok… hanged them from the manatree’s branches before setting it on fire.”\n\nAnd the Oracle failed to see it coming, perhaps because of Anathemic Secrecy. Simon didn’t think it was a coincidence that Mardok attacked the moment she had left Jarnvidr. This reeked of a plan born of foresight granted by a previous reign.\n\n“Only five of us were spared. Me, my parents, my sister Aza… and Frea.” Uttering their names alone seemed to cause Belzemine physical pain. ”Lord Mardok branded my family as his slaves in front of Frea, then let her go free so that she would carry the news of what happened that night to Illusea… so that the Oracle would know that she had failed to save anyone, and that no one was safe from the Overlord’s wrath. I have not seen her since then, though she took the field against Mardok and Gargauth.”\n\nThe pieces started to fall into place for Simon. Belzemine wasn’t taken for who she was, but who she would have become, and to send a grim message to the Oracle. She was a lesson that the elves would never live in peace so long as the Overlords remained, and that no foresight would save them from Mardok’s heirs.\n\nThat could explain why Illusea wanted Belzemine back and alive. She was a national humiliation and a personal shame to the Oracle, a living reminder of the elves’ powerlessness in the Crimson Throne’s shadow. She was a martyr and hostage to their nation.\n\nThat, or the Oracle foresaw that Belzemine would do something extraordinary when she bestowed the Healer Crestone upon her; something so great Mardok personally intervened to put an end to it, and so important that the elves were still trying to recover her three centuries after her abduction.\n\nSimon couldn’t be sure of the Oracle’s reasoning unless he could somehow ask her, and it didn’t matter that much. The elves wanted Belzemine safe and sound enough to forgo their attack on Frightwall, the end.\n\nThe Malphases tried to free her, Simon realized. The two always died in reigns where Belzemine stayed in Frightwall, after which she would mysteriously vanish. They told her to evacuate before the strike, and it went wrong somehow.\n\nConsidering Belzemine’s psychological dependency on the Overlords, Simon considered it likely that she refused to leave Frightwall and lashed out at the Malphases, killing them during the struggle. With no agents left inside Frightwall to confirm Belzemine’s safety, the elves had no choice but to call off the spell.\n\nThis didn’t explain why they didn’t try again after Belzemine disappeared, though. In all likelihood, the spell either lost its anchor or could only be used in specific circumstances, like on a given date. They had missed their one and only chance to decapitate Endymion’s leadership.\n\n“Why did Mardok spare you and your family specifically?” Simon asked. That part remained unclear. “You said you told him something.”\n\nBelzemine didn’t answer him for a very, very long moment. She simply stared at her own reflection in the tea with a look of absolute shame and guilt.\n\n“Caretakers have another duty,” she said, so low he could barely hear her, “Should a manatree perish, we must guide our community to another. To ensure we succeed without losing anyone during the migration and that our new home can welcome us, we… we are taught the location of all manatrees and how many elves they can sustain.”\n\nSimon held his breath, a shiver running down his spine as the true horror of what happened dawned upon him.\n\n“One night, Lord Mardok summoned my family to his throne room.” Now, Belzemine was so pale she began to resemble a corpse. “He… killed my sister Aza where she stood, and then… then he looked at me, his hands still drenched in her blood…” She suppressed a sob. “He wanted the location of every manatree on the continent, and he said… either I would tell him, or he would kill one of my parents like he did my sister… and I would have to choose which one died.”\n\nAnd she told him. She told Mardok, and he used that information to twist the Stone Muse, launch pogroms against elves across the continent, and slaughter thousands of innocents. And considering her own parents were long dead, he might not have held up his end of the bargain anyway.\n\nThe most awful part was that the Brand of Pride compelled its victims to obey an Overlord’s orders. Mardok could have easily forced Belzemine to give up that information. Instead, he chose to make a vicious show of it, to have her forswear herself and willingly betray her own community.\n\nHe had earned his title of the Bloodthirsty, the same way Balzam Magnos lived up to the name of the Cruel.\n\n“How old were you?” Simon asked, his voice breaking.\n\n“I was thirteen,” she confessed. The archmage now sounded as small and frail as a child.\n\nThirteen. She had seen her community massacred and her family savagely murdered at thirteen.\n\n“Agn–” Simon cursed himself as he took the elf’s cold hands into his own and squeezed them shut. “Belzemine, I swear to you that you will never go through something like this again. I promise you that.”\n\nFor a brief instant, Simon saw a brief flash of understanding and the smallest of emotion in Belzemine���s gaze… only for them to leave like shooting stars in the dark night, dashing his hopes.\n\n“Your Majesty need not worry about me,” she said, her slave persona taking over once again. “I am always your faithful servant.”\n\nAnd it would take so long for her to realize she didn’t have to live that way any longer.\n\nSimon opened his mouth to offer words of reassurance, when he sensed an echo of pain ring in the back of his skull, sharp and familiar. It was the familiar sting of a death echoing through his Brand of Sloth, but closer to home than Shabram. Simon bolted out of his seat, fearing Meredith and Leonard had somehow perished in the bombardments, only to quickly confirm another of his retainers no longer answered his telepathic communications.\n\n“Lorimor?”\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nSimon learned another very valuable lesson that night, namely, that unstable cultists did not make for good and reliable employees.\n\nSince Lorimor had spent the last few days moping around and being useless, Simon had more or less left him to his own devices as he focused on more important matters. He had assumed the man would simply continue to beg his demon patron for forgiveness, and that had been a colossal mistake.\n\nAs it turned out, Lorimor had tried to regain his Muse’s ‘affection’ by taking the radical step of attempting to abduct his son once again, having learned absolutely nothing from the experience. Odette Kano, having foreseen her estranged husband would try something like this, had guards posted in her apartments to protect her son. They shot Lorimor with crossbow bolts when he broke in and threatened them with a knife.\n\nThat absolute idiot.\n\n“I told you this would happen,” Odette Kano told Simon when he first laid eyes on his retainer’s hole-riddled corpse. “I will not pay for the tombstone either. You would have been better off gagging him.”\n\n“You are right,” Simon replied angrily. Not only had Lorimor betrayed him by going behind his back and against his orders, he had jeopardized a relationship with a local ally and derailed some of Simon’s plans. “I can’t believe I trusted that fool.”\n\nThe ritual was now out of the question unless they found a suitable replacement before the Vernal Equinox. The Muse still had a few hidden cultists in the Whispermire, but whether any of them would count for the Seasonal Key’s strict requirements remained to be seen. While Simon hadn’t been particularly keen on trying it, the loss of an option annoyed him to no end.\n\n“He wasn’t always like this,” Odette commented with a scowl. “That abomination in the woods turned him into a madman. She even compelled him into going behind your back for all we know.”\n\n“This will not happen again, I promise you,” Simon said, glaring at Lorimor’s remains. “I never make the same mistake twice.”\n\nSince Odette Kano refused to have her ex-husband buried in the town graveyard, Simon allowed Duchar to raise him as an undead servant to keep the workshop clean and confiscated the Scholar Crestone. That was all the man deserved after what he did.\n\nSimon spent the next few days alternating between obsessively checking the newspaper and keeping up with his retainers on their return to Whispermire, expecting news of the bombing campaign that heralded the start of the civil war.\n\nNone arrived.\n\nSomething changed this time. Instead of newspapers describing how the War Party firebombed every strategic command center this side of the continent, most articles discussed the attack on Frightwall, Euphemia’s accusations against Louis, the Overlord’s mysterious absence, and various nobles or towns declaring for one candidate or another for the throne. The port of Amnadiel voiced its support for the empress, even though Simon clearly recalled it being wiped out by airships in the civil war’s opening volley. It didn’t take him long to realize what was going on.\n\nLouis wasn’t in Magvolia to give the order, and Lauriane was either unwilling or unable to initiate the airship bombing campaign. Simon dearly hoped it was the former.\n\nIn any case, Meredith and Leonard returned to Whispermire without trouble with books from the archive and two charred tibias that used to be Elaine Malphas.\n\n“That is all we could recover, Your Majesty,” Meredith apologized upon presenting him with the goods. She had come back with a few burns that Belzemine quickly healed with a spell. “Lady Malphas’ explosive necklace blasted everything above the knees.”\n\n“Let’s hope Duchar will be able to learn something from them,” Simon complained. “Did you see the explosive device?”\n\n“Yes, it was a red pearl necklace,” Meredith confirmed. “I saw Elaine Malphas pull and snap it a second before the detonation.”\n\nSo it wasn’t an automatic failsafe. That meant the two traitors could be taken by surprise and restrained without triggering their suicide devices. Simon would keep that information in mind for his next reign.\n\n“Get ready then,” Simon told his retainers. “My sister is going to send us either a summons or a messenger soon.”\n\nHis instinct proved half-right. A carriage did arrive the next day from the Goetia Research Center, but Lauriane forwarded no message or herald.\n\nInstead, she came to visit her half-brother in person.\n\n“Simon.” Lauriane stepped down from the carriage in full uniform, with two guards at her back, a grim look on her face. “You don’t look surprised to see me.”\n\n“I expected something like this when I read the news about Frightwall,” Simon confessed when he greeted her in front of the Midnight Market. “Is it true that half of Magvolia declared for Euphemia?”\n\n“I’m afraid so,” Lauriane admitted. “Louis conquered the country barely six years ago, so revanchist movements are quite eager to ally with Euphemia against us. I’m sure they would have sung a different tune if he were here, but alas, he and Dassein are still securing Telluria.”\n\nProbably, since he would have firebombed Amnadiel and other towns into submission.\n\n“I’ll be blunt, Simon, I fear Euphemia’s supporters will exploit the opportunity to launch an attack on the Goetia Research Center,” Lauriane said. “Controlling the Crestone production is too much of an advantage to pass on, and while I can defend myself and command many troops… I am not Louis.”\n\nSimon scowled. “Who are they sending?”\n\n“Norbelle.”\n\nDamn it. Not a good start.\n\n“My spies tell me she has left Cocagne on her personal airship and with a new Eidolon, courtesy of her new fiancé. Mastemo has also dispatched a group of Templars to Magvolia, and I suspect both groups will besiege Goetia as soon as they link up.” Lauriane let out a heavy sigh. “I won’t lie to you, Simon. I don’t want to involve you in this feud, but having Agnes Firewand onboard, or even Duchar, would help me tremendously. I will need to conscript them for the military.”\n\nSimon scowled as he considered what to do. While it put some projects on the backburner, he could hardly deny Lauriane’s request after all the help she provided him in this reign and others.\n\nBut on the other hand, this civil war had become more than folly now that he knew about the elf conspiracy and the Zodiac Parade striking the world in less than a year. Endymion’s self-destruction would kill thousands, if not millions, and leave the eastern continent ripe for the likes of Vouivre or demons to despoil.\n\nHe had to try and stop it while he could, to show his evidence to both parties and convince them of the threat ahead of them.\n\n“There’s more you need to know first,” Simon said, “about what’s going on in the Darkwood and this war’s true masterminds.”\n\n“The true masterminds?” Lauriane frowned in skepticism, but kept an open mind. “I’m listening.”\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nSimon invited his sister to his workshop, and then told her everything.\n\nHe kept the truth of his Overlord Class a secret, but otherwise shared what he had learned about the Stone Muse, the Cobweb’s activities, and that he had been secretly collaborating with the now late Lady Shabram to investigate an Illusean conspiracy. Lauriane took the news with disbelief and skepticism.\n\n“Malphas? A secret White Unicorn agent plotting to destroy Frightwall with a powerful spell?” Lauriane struggled to accept the truth as much as Simon did when he first heard it. “Do you have any proof of your wild claims, Simon?”\n\n“Lady Shabram obtained damning correspondence, but it went up in flames with Frightwall alongside everything else. I hope the study of Elaine’s remains will tell us more.” Hopefully, Duchar should be done with that sometime soon. “As for the Minotaur Fiend and the manalith mine, they’re both a day’s ride from Whispermire. Duchar and my other retainers will confirm it.”\n\nLauriane scowled, but took him at his word until she could corroborate it. “I feared something foul lurked in the Darkwood, but I never imagined this region housed a slumbering archfiend and an unregistered manalith mine.”\n\n“You never suspected it?”\n\n“Of course not. This place is a backwater. I wouldn’t have spared it a glance without the Lorimor fiasco.” Which suggested that Simon could hide there easily enough should he decide to disappear. “I need all the troops I can get to defend Goetia, but we’ll seize the mine once we’ve repelled Norbelle. Kano will be lucky to keep her head.” Lauriane pondered her brother’s words. “Is Duchar certain that the seal will hold for at least another year?”\n\nShe apparently trusted the dark mage’s expertise. “Yes, unless it finds a suitable host.”\n\n“I have soldiers born under the sign of the Minotaur. Good soldiers. We could use the demon as a weapon of last resort, but…” Lauriane crossed her arms and shook her head after a moment’s consideration. “No, far too risky. Demons only become assets when properly bound and vetted. Binding an unknown archfiend capable of corrupting a dryad would spell immediate disaster.”\n\n“We could use it another way,” Simon suggested. An idea had been floating in his mind for a while. “The miasma crystal is of extraordinary purity.”\n\n“You think we could turn it into a Dark-aligned Crestone.” Lauriane shook her head. “Analyzing and processing the crystal requires time I do not have, not to mention that we would need to break the seal. The fiend is a long-term problem.”\n\nSimon nodded before the workshop’s door opened, with Duchar and Leonard stepping inside. Both politely bowed to Lauriane, who returned the courtesy with a nod. Simon noted that while Duchar appeared unconcerned, Leonard had a deep scowl on his face.\n\nThe old necromancer must have found something big.\n\n“Have you completed your analysis of the tibias, Duchar?” Simon asked.\n\n“Yes, those belonged to an all too common half-elf woman,” Duchar replied with a shrug of his shoulders, the true magnitude of his statement lost on him. “I have little to report beyond that, I’m afraid.”\n\nSimon found himself speechless for a second, his gaze turning to his other allies. Lauriane blinked as she digested the news, and Leonard nodded sternly.\n\n“Half-elf?” Simon repeated, as a lot of things suddenly started to make sense. “How can you tell?”\n\n“The bone structure is too rich in mana for a human, but too solid for an elf,” Duchar explained. Having never met Elaine Malphas, the significance of his findings eluded him. “This is a telltale sign of a bi-tribal union between an elf and a human. Psychometry spells confirmed it as well.”\n\n“Are you sure those were Elaine Malphas’ remains?” Lauriane pushed.\n\n“I swear it on my honor as a knight that I picked those bones off her burning ashes myself,” Leonard insisted. “Some half-elves can pass for humans, since they do not require as much mana as the elven parent to function and often inherit the other side’s rounded ears.”\n\nWhich meant that Patriate had literally been in bed with the enemy for nearly two decades.\n\n“If this is true, then this must be the Oracle’s work,” Lauriane said, her hands clenching into fists. “Malphas’ sisters are both married to dukes supporting the War Party. Did they know about this? Could those worms have plotted Father’s death behind our backs?”\n\n“Do you see what’s going on now?” Simon asked. “We’re being pitted against each other by an outside force that wants us gone, and a conflict will only weaken us when the likes of the Minotaur rise up to strike in a year’s time. We have to defuse things while we can.”\n\nLauriane remained skeptical. “You have done a great job investigating these forces, Simon, and I think Louis might listen… but I am not sure your evidence will suffice to bring Euphemia to the negotiation table.”\n\n“I know.” Simon was no fool. Their chances were slim, but he was now convinced letting Endymion fall into civil war would probably doom the continent to destruction. “Even so, we should try.”\n\n“Yes… yes, I suppose we must at least give peace a chance.” Lauriane took a long, deep breath. “I pray Norbelle and the others will listen, and if they do not… then you might walk away from all of this with a lot more levels.”\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 50: The Stone Muse (10)\nTarget length: ~3700 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Norbelle’s airship, the Legendary, arrived at dawn.\n\nSimon watched it from the command deck of Lauriane’s own flagship, the Wisdom, with apprehension. Ten of the war machines hovered over the Goetia Research Center, having traveled all the way here from the War Party’s secret base. Between the intimidating escort and the facility’s already considerable defenses, they should have nothing to fear.\n\nA single look at the two giant creatures escorting Norbelle’s airship convinced Simon otherwise.\n\nThe first was Azulbolla, the Azure Dragon, an Eidolon Norbelle had successfully wrestled control away from Fablan after that country’s subjugation. Simon had only seen the creature once from very, very far away when his half-sister summoned it as part of her eighteenth birthday celebration—which he had to observe from the Frightwall’s battlements—and it had somehow grown even bigger since. The creature, which resembled a serpent with blue scales of bark and wood antlers on which flowers bloomed, coiled around its summoner’s airship like a Uyoan boa constrictor around its prey. Though it had no wings, it could still fly all the same thanks to dozens of lightning-crackling orbs carrying it upwards. The monster looked nothing like Vouivre in spite of its title of dragon, but it was no less intimidating.\n\nThe other creature was smaller, though its wingspan could overshadow a small keep. This one resembled some kind of bird of prey with crimson feathers whose tips burned with otherworldly fire. Its black beak breathed out the blackest smoke, and a golden mask covered its forehead. A trail of embers followed each flap of its wings.\n\nSo it was true, Cocagne had lent Norbelle the Phoenix.\n\nLauriane had extensively briefed Simon and his allies on their enemy prior to boarding. “Norbelle is level 68, according to my information. Her Summoner Noble Class lets her bind Eidolons to her will, and since she inherited her mother’s visionary powers on top of that, she can summon more than one at the same time. Not only can she have them fight for her, but she can empower herself or her allies by harnessing the Eidolon’s power. This lets her boost stats and grant multiple beneficial effects.”\n\nLevel 68, and she’s younger than I am, Simon thought grimly. Norbelle had always been a magical genius in spite of her young age, the family’s golden child. “Is it true that a summoned Eidolon’s power is proportional to the Summoner’s level?”\n\n“Yes, so we must assume that every creature she summons is at least the equivalent of a level sixty to seventy monster.” As if the prospect of facing one high-level spellcaster hadn’t been daunting enough. “Finally, the Summoner is a spellcaster class with mana regeneration and access to multiple schools of spellcasting. Considering Norbelle’s level, you can expect spells like the Insteadeath-inflicting Death X spell or the ship-destroying Exaburn.”\n\nA single level 68 monster would be the equivalent of fighting Vouivre, and Norbelle had brought at least two. And neither of them matched the description of the dragon creature she unleashed against the War Party in a previous reign, so either she had yet to acquire it in this timeline or she had another ace up her sleeve.\n\n“Thankfully, the Summoner has two key weaknesses. Not only will Norbelle’s Eidolons disappear if she is knocked unconscious–” Or killed, Lauriane avoided mentioning, “but an Eidolon’s destruction will also inflict immense mental strain on her.”\n\nIn short, knocking out one of the three should incapacitate all the others on paper.\n\nUnfortunately, Norbelle wouldn’t be their only cause for concern. A small company of Templars and soldiers bearing the Church of Light’s banner rode upon the enemy airship. It was only a few thousand troops, but the High Confessor’s elite fighters were nothing to scoff at. This would be a dangerous battle… should it start at all.\n\nSimon glanced around him. Lauriane sat on a throne at the heart of the command deck, facing the large landscape window giving her a full view of the troubles ahead. Although she portrayed a calm and confident facade, he could see the way she gripped her armrests. Her eyes darted to the engineers and mages working on the machinery around them. They had spent the last few minutes sending light signals that Norbelle’s own staff should hopefully see.\n\nWould Norbelle accept their offer of a peaceful meeting and their evidence? She was wiser than Thalas, but that wasn’t saying much, and her mother Euphemia had just survived a spell bombardment she blamed on Louis. She might ignore them and push on with the assault.\n\nSimon prayed she would listen, but the cynical part of his mind couldn’t believe in it.\n\nHe glanced at his remaining retainers. All were also present, save the late Lorimor, but they all reacted differently. While Meredith, Belzemine, and Leonard faced the situation with the stoicism of trained warriors, Duchar looked outright annoyed to have been dragged out of his lab and onto a battlefield. As for Cassandra, she clung to her staff with all of her strength.\n\n“Anxious?” Simon asked her.\n\n“A bit,” she admitted, biting her lip. “I have never fought a Noble Class user before.”\n\n“Hopefully, we won’t fight at all.” Simon could tell Cassandra didn’t believe him, largely because his own words sounded empty even to him. “Even so, it was very brave of you to agree to join us today. I appreciate it.”\n\n“That is what friends are for,” Cassandra replied with a small frown. “Or at least I believe it is. Am I wrong?”\n\n“No, not at all.” Simon’s head perked up as an engineer wrote down a letter. “Did we receive an answer?”\n\nLauriane nodded sharply as the engineer gave her the document. Simon could tell its content the moment the scowl on his sister’s face deepened, and his heart sank in his chest.\n\n“Read for yourself,” she told Simon upon giving him the letter. “These terms are unacceptable.”\n\nSimon checked and steeled himself. Norbelle replied that she would only agree to a peaceful meeting if they agreed to open the Goetia Research Center’s doors to her forces, which was tantamount to surrender. Euphemia had apparently ordered them to secure the site, and they would not walk away without it.\n\nIf Norbelle had even looked over the evidence Lauriane’s airship had sent her about the Malphas conspiracy and the Zodiac Parade, she didn’t mention it.\n\n“I’m sorry, Simon,” Lauriane apologized to him, though it was no fault of her own. “I fear the outcome was decided the moment Frightwall burned.”\n\n“Yeah,” Simon confirmed, resolving himself to fight another pointless battle. “Yeah, you’re right.”\n\nThe civil war was bound to become inevitable, quicker, and bloodier whenever Belzemine was removed from Castle Frightwall. They lived in the Oracle’s world now, where the pieces she set in place had fallen in a way that would bring down House Magnos upon itself.\n\nHe would keep that in mind.\n\n“Send them one last counteroffer to stand down and talk this through, but prepare for battle,” Lauriane ordered her troops before turning to Simon’s group. “Lady Firewand, Duchar, please join the mages on the artillery deck. Your powerful spells may make the difference. Simon, you stay with me and watch.”\n\nBelzemine looked at Simon, who nodded back in confirmation. While he would have preferred to keep the elven archmage close, Lauriane was an experienced commander and he trusted her expertise. Belzemine and Duchar left the command deck to take their battle positions.\n\n“Order the ships to spread out and to flank the Legendary,” Lauriane ordered her soldiers. “Norbelle’s summons will have us beat in speed and maneuverability, but her flagship is vulnerable. Have lookouts keep an eye on the Eidolons, too. There is a possibility Norbelle is riding one of them and using her ship as a decoy. Fire at will as soon as they enter our range.”\n\nLight signals caused the airships to follow through with the order. Lauriane’s fleet spread out like a crescent, the wings ahead of the center. Rather than flee, Norbelle’s group flew forward with the clear intent of taking the fight directly to the Wisdom. The Azulbolla’s orbs charged up with magical lightning while blue fire built up inside the Phoenix’s mouth.\n\nAnd then the Battle of Goetia began.\n\nThere was no particular signal, no call of Lauriane followed by an artillery volley. Both sides simply shot at each other the moment the other came within range. The Azulbolla’s orbs burst with mighty thunderbolts strong enough to pulverize castle towers, the Phoenix unleashed fireballs the size of houses with a screech, and the airships retaliated with spell bombardments. The same power Simon witnessed lay waste to the Berwick Islands was now turned against enemies that could take it and dish it back.\n\nThe horizon beyond the window erupted into a blinding light show. Explosions rocked the heavens and blasted away clouds, the wind carrying embers and ashes across the landscape. Thunderbolts blasted apart airship wings and cast them out of the sky, while spell barrages blasted the Phoenix’s face and shattered half of its metal mask to expose regenerating flesh underneath. From Simon’s point of view, this battle was a dance of hellfire; from the ground, it must have looked like the end of the world.\n\nSuch tremendous power, Simon thought as he and his allies watched the devastation with awe. Norbelle commanded these two forces of nature with the power of a single Noble Class. Their power let her match an entire fleet of airships manned by thousands and capable of ravaging entire nations. Could I bend these Eidolons to my will, too, if I ever devoured her Crestone? Would they crush the Zodiac Fiends and Vouivre, or fall to them?\n\nThat thought wouldn’t leave his mind even as the battle continued to escalate. Norbelle’s Eidolons successfully shot down two of Lauriane’s airships, but the rest had begun to close in on the Legendary. The Azulbolla attempted to break the encirclement by flying straight at the Wisdom, swaying left and right like an eel swamming through the sky with a shroud of lightning crackling along its trail. Its maw opened as it approached the command deck, light building up in its gullet, and Simon steeled himself for impact.\n\nA colossal fireball thrown from the artillery deck—likely Belzemine’s work—struck the Eidolon in the face in a devastating blast, tearing off half its face and causing it to miss its target. Its breath of lightning and cherry petals blew aimlessly across the sky. The Eidolon fell to the side, its head and neck hitting the airship’s left wing and causing it to shake.\n\n“Damage report!” Lauriane ordered as smoke began to rise from the left side of the ship.\n\n“Something broke into the cargo hold!” one of the engineers replied, reading a bottled message forwarded to them through a metal tube. “I’m receiving demands for reinforcements!”\n\n“Stowaways carried by Azulbolla?” Lauriane clenched her jaw and turned to Simon’s allies. “I will need your retainers.”\n\n“I’ll go with them,” Simon decided.\n\n“You are still too low-level,” Lauriane warned him with a hint of concern.\n\n“Don’t worry.” Simon summoned his ‘Templar’ Class outfit—actually the Overlord clothed in Fiendmask—and raised his morningstar. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeves, and great bodyguards.”\n\n“I see…” Lauriane hesitated an instant, but gave him a nod of trust and approval. “Good luck.”\n\nSimon thanked her and then left with his party towards the cargo hold, rushing down corridors and past soldiers traveling from one part of the ship or another, depending on immediate needs. Simon had no idea how Lauriane could even manage so many people without a Commander Vassal Class to organize them.\n\nThe group put on their Class outfits and had sure cast buffs on themselves, from Energumen to Dark Saber to Rampart, on their way into the cargo hold. They only needed to follow the trail of corpses and the noise of clashing steel to do so. Dozens of soldiers and workers had been torn apart, their entrails and blood spilling all over the floor and walls, body parts laying spread in every direction as if they had all been savaged by some wild beast.\n\nHad Norbelle called another creature to destroy the ship from the inside?\n\nThe truth became clear once they entered a metal hangar filled with manalith crates and mechanical parts. The air was choked with smoke from burning contraptions and shattered pipes, while the ground had turned slippery from the blood. An alarm rang overhead to the tune of flickering lights.\n\nHe was there, clad in his Class outfit and driving his axe into a soldier’s skull and tearing him in two.\n\nThere’s no way, Simon thought in shock and disbelief, even as their eyes crossed. Antonine de Shax was with him, clad in a veiled, red and white belly dancer’s outfit. The Dancer outfit, in fact. He should be in Telluria…\n\n“What’s wrong, bastard?” Thalas asked, a ghastly grin stretching on his lips when he spotted them. “Aren’t you happy to see your kin again?”\n\n“Why are you here?” Simon asked, though he already knew the answer and was already prepared to cast a spell. He immediately sent a telepathic message to Belzemine and Duchar to join him at the cargo hold now.\n\n“Isn’t it obvious?” An axe materialized in Thalas’ hand, his eyes shining with glee. He had waited years for this. “I’m working my way up to being the only son!”\n\nAnd then he charged them at inhuman speed.\n\nLeonard immediately moved in front of the group with his pavise raised and his Rampart Perk activated, but Simon and Cassandra proved even quicker. “Blind!” “Swamp Curse!” they cast both at the same time.\n\nThalas closed the gap between them in the blink of an eye, but the two spells struck in the nick of time. His vision went white, and the steel floor beneath his feet turned into mud, throwing off his aim. His war axe struck Leonard’s pavise shield rather than the man himself, and would have likely taken off his whole arm without Rampart active. Even then, the blow shattered the shield and threw Leonard back a few feet.\n\nSimon and Meredith immediately flanked Thalas while he remained off balance, striking with a darkness-shrouded morning star and a lightning-crackling spear, respectively. There was no order to stand down, no attempt at negotiation, and no words were wasted. Everyone on Simon’s side knew that to fight the Berserker was to dance with death.\n\nIt was kill or be killed.\n\nSimon had had the ‘privilege’ of watching Thalas fight when he tricked him into dying against Vouivre. He had dueled a dragon on his own long enough to inflict heavy injuries, and he might have won had he been armed with ranged weapons.\n\nThe Berserker was unmatched in melee, and they were fighting in a closed space. The best they could hope for was to stay alive until Belzemine, Duchar, and reinforcements arrived.\n\nSimon and Meredith both struck Thalas from two sides with all of their might, and while the Valkyrie managed to draw blood by grazing the chest, Simon’s attempt to remove his skull from his shoulders failed to even cause him to budge. He might as well have struck a statue of stone.\n\nIf anything, the energy-draining effect of the morningstar hurt more than the weapon itself.\n\nWorse, Antonine didn’t stay idle. She traced a ring with her foot around herself, and an otherworldly music echoed out of nowhere in response. Thalas’ body glowed with light, his eyes returning to normal, and the ground solidifying again. He let out a roar so mighty it threw Simon and Meredith back, his muscles bursting with power.\n\nThalas swung his axe in an attempt to kill them both, but Meredith tackled Simon out of the way with a quick, Valkyrie-enchanced jump. Leonard threw his now-useless shield aside and fearlessly rushed into melee with his claymore. His surprising speed for a Dreadnought took Thalas aback, the Berserker instinctively raising his war axe to parry the blow.\n\nCassandra slammed the ground with her staff. A cloud of smoke erupted at the spot she struck, and a horrific humanoid figure made of bones and skulls tied together with slick ropes of sinew materialized there. The undead monstrosity tackled Thalas from behind and rammed him against a crate.\n\n“Cassandra, focus on debuffing! Everyone else, keep him busy!” Simon ordered his retainers as he charged at Antonine. Thalas on his own was a nightmare; adding a buffer on top of it spelled certain defeat. “I’ll kill his support!”\n\n“Kill me, you baseborn cur?” Antonine replied with a disdainful smile, two butterfly-shaped daggers appearing in her hands. “I think not. Moonstep.”\n\nAntonine de Shax became a blur, with Simon’s morning star hitting nothing but air. She struck back in a flash of speed, targeting the visor slit in his helmet, and though he managed to deflect the blow with his arm, he still sensed magic infecting his mana-powered outfit through the blade.\n\nPoison negated by Unyielding Essence.\n\n\nThe two swiftly engaged in a deadly tango, with Simon vainly attempting to strike Antonine while she dodged his blows and countered with swift, but largely painless strikes. One hit would have knocked her out of the fight, but she was fast, so blindingly fast.\n\nMeanwhile, Cassandra weakened Thalas with curses, but not enough to stop him from smashing her summoned undead to pieces in a single blow. Meredith and Leonard engaged him in melee, using their surprising speed, agility, and teamwork to briefly pressure him. Meredith used her Class’ infamous jumping ability to constantly bounce off the crates and walls to strike from various unexpected angles, while Leonard simply pushed forward with a relentless offense of sword strikes in order to keep Thalas on the defensive. It was only a matter of time before he found an opening, but they managed to keep him contained for now.\n\nSimon wondered how Antonine had obtained the Dancer Noble Class, but quickly came up with a possible explanation. Euphemia had been in Castle Frightwall when it suffered destruction. Recovering the Dancer Crestone had just been a matter of finding Shabram’s ashes among the rest of the debris. However, the strength and speed behind her blows were too much for a newly obtained Class, even a Noble one.\n\n“How did you level up in Dancer so fast, Antonine?” Simon asked in between strikes. She shouldn’t be capable of keeping up with him at a low level, or at least he didn’t think so.\n\n“Funny thing,” she said with a malicious grin, her dagger flashing in a dash of steel, “When you inherit a Noble Class after leveling up in its Vassal Class, you can transfer some of those levels around.”\n\nSimon memorized that revelation for later, and quickly switched tactics. He cast Shadowchain and caught Antonine’s foot after she dodged one of his blows, causing her to trip. Simon immediately exploited the opportunity to hit her in the chest. She was cast to the ground to the tune of broken ribs.\n\n“Antonine!” Thalas shouted with fear from across the room, but Simon focused on his prey. He put his metal foot on Antonine’s chest to press on her wound and keep her down.\n\n“The Templar can’t cast Shadowchain,” Antonine said, a flash of fear in her eyes.\n\nSimon raised his morningstar to crush her skull, but Thalas’ roar of despair startled him. He glanced sideways just in time to see the Berserker break his encirclement by throwing Meredith at Cassandra and then lunging at him in a burst of speed.\n\n“Magic Eraser!”\n\nThalas’ axe struck Simon in the chest before he could dodge.\n\nThe blow nearly killed Simon. Nay, it would have killed him if not for Cassandra’s debuffs and Leonard’s damage transference ability. Simon was thrown across the cargo hold and crashed into a wall so hard as to bend it, while blood erupted from his Dreadnought retainer’s chest.\n\nAll spells and buffs dispelled!\n\n\nAnd that included Fiendmask. The Templar outfit faded into smoke to reveal the dark steel of the Overlord armor underneath. Thalas froze in place in pure shock, his jaw dropping.\n\n“No way…” Antonine muttered in sheer disbelief as she forced herself back to her feet. Her hand reached into her pocket and drew out a bottled potion.\n\nAs for Thalas, his eyes now burned with pure hatred. “I knew you and Louis were plotting something when you left Telluria, bastard, but to think you dared to kill Father to steal his Class…”\n\n“I didn’t kill him,” Simon taunted him as he shambled back to his feet. While Leonard had absorbed most of the damage, he still felt the pain. “He chose me.”\n\nThat seemed to hurt Thalas more than any attack. His face decomposed into disbelief, then acceptance, and finally, searing jealousy.\n\n“I was there the day we brought you in,” Thalas said, his voice bitter with resentment. “I remember the brief smile on our father's face when he saw you pass through the gates. No one else noticed, but I did, that emotion he never showed me. He was proud of you.” He uttered the word with all the envy in the world. “Ever since that day, I’ve had this rage building up inside me every time I look at you. It burns inside at this very moment, boiling my blood into steam.”\n\n“That is why you want me dead so much?” Simon spat with contempt. What a petty, childish motivation for wishing his own half-sibling murdered. “Not because I’m a bastard or did anything to you personally, but because daddy wouldn’t smile at you?”\n\n“Mock me all you want, bastard,” Thalas replied, raising his axe for the kill. “Once you’re dead… I’ll finally be at peace.”\n\nSimon thought this reign was at an end when a wall surged from the ground and took everyone aback. A black cage of dark bones materialized around Thalas and Antonine, briefly trapping them inside.\n\nSimon glanced at his saviors, busy healing their wounded.\n\nBelzemine and Duchar were finally here.\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 51: The Stone Muse (11)\nTarget length: ~3500 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Doublecast,” Belzemine intoned, “Aegis.”\n\nSimon immediately sensed her magic empowering him, reinforcing him with invisible barriers, sharpening his speed, and healing his wounds. Leonard also received a similar blessing; the bloody gash in his chest he had taken on in his master’s place slowly closed.\n\n“Step away, Your Majesty!” Belzemine shouted at him as another song echoed from inside the summoned cage. Simon followed her advice, allowing her to chain it up with another attack as she switched Class from Healer to Pyromancer. “Contagious Human Combustion!\"\n\n“Death X,” Duchar added while snapping his fingers.\n\nHer magic immolated Thalas and Antonine right as the former shattered the summoned cage with a brutal swing of his axe. Duchar followed that up with a spell of his own, a ghastly, ghostly skull appearing over the two like a dark omen.\n\nWhatever it was supposed to do, it failed. Thalas and Antonine walked out from the flames unharmed, the former slicing his palm and showering his war axe with his own blood to power it up, the second dancing by swaying her hips left to right. Fire halos glowed over their heads, the outline of a vermillion bird briefly flashing in the flames. That had to be Norbelle’s Phoenix shielding them from both fire and instant death spells.\n\nOf course those two came prepared to fight Belzemine. Most of her offensive abilities lay in her Pyromancer Class’ fire spells, which were now shut down tight.\n\n“Once we kill him, we can rule as Overlord,” Antonine said, smiling at Simon as if the Class was something that could somehow be shared.\n\n“We kill them all,” her boyfriend replied with murder on his mind. Thalas went on the offensive again, his already monstrous speed turning nightmarish thanks to whatever buff Antonine provided him with. Simon struggled to follow his movements—since his own buffs didn’t increase his perception—but Belzemine reacted in time to intercept him. She changed outfits again, the Pyromancer robes transforming into a metal chest plate, armored leggings, and a brutish, horned helmet. An axe materialized in her hands.\n\nThe Gladiator Class.\n\nTheir weapons clashed, the resulting shockwave blasting back crates and causing the metal floor to crack beneath their feet. Belzemine was pushed a bit, yet managed to remain on her feet.\n\n“Listen to me,” Simon informed his retainers through telepathy so their foes could not overhear them. “Duchar, Cassandra, constantly debuff Thalas. Leonard, Belzemine, keep Thalas occupied in melee. Meredith, help me take out his support.”\n\n“You think you can beat me with my own Vassal Class, leaf-ears?!” Thalas snapped angrily as he followed through with a wide swing. Belzemine moved back to dodge while Duchar and Cassandra cast various curses to weaken the Berserker, leeching off his strength and causing the floor beneath him to turn to mud again. Leonard used the brief moment of opportunity to strike him in the chest and drew blood.\n\nTrue to her orders, Meredith leaped across the room and aimed for Antonine with her spear. Simon assisted her by casting Shadowchain to keep the Dancer bound by the ankle and prevent her from dodging.\n\n“Blade Dance,” Antonine said, her daggers lengthening into swords. “Dimension Step.”\n\nShe disappeared in a teleportation flash, and Meredith’s spear only struck empty air.\n\nSimon expected an attack, but Antonine instead reappeared behind their front line next to Cassandra and Duchar. Her speed took the spellcasters aback, and she rammed her two swords through their throats. Cassandra’s neck erupted into a fountain of blood, her hands dropping her staff, while Duchar coughed up blackened fluids.\n\nNo, no! Simon ran back to his allies in panic as Cassandra collapsed to the ground and began to bleed out. He attempted to reach them, but Thalas promptly tossed Leonard back at him while his axe danced with Belzemine’s.\n\nAntonine’s gleeful smile faded away the moment a withered hand caught her by the throat.\n\n“Putrefy,” Duchar said coldly, his sliced throat and the sword stuck in his flesh failing to slow him down in the slightest. There was no anger in his voice, not the kind that the Berserker embraced at least; only merciless retribution.\n\nAntonine’s pristine white skin blackened, and then melted off her flesh. She tried to scream, but her vocal cords dissolved far too fast for that. An infernal rot spread across her face and chest, devouring all in its path until naught but bones remained.\n\nAntonine de Shax had rotted to death.\n\n“Antonine!” An unbelievable pressure came off from Thalas like a halo of searing heat, his eyes growing bloodshot with fury. “You’ll pay for this… Primal Regression!”\n\nA wave of power erupted from Thalas as he shed his armor like a snake.\n\nA spectacular transformation followed. His body more than doubled in size while his muscle mass greatly increased to the point it seemed to rupture the skin in some parts, exposing his own muscles. His hands became big enough to crush skulls within their fingers, and his shoulders were wide enough to put a bull to shame. A crimson aura smelling of fresh blood floated around Thalas, and his irises vanished in a sea of white. The curses affecting him were instantly dispelled.\n\nThalas lunged at Simon with a monstrous roar, fist first.\n\nOnly Belzemine’s buff granted Simon the speed to dodge the attack in time, and even then the shockwave that resulted from Thalas’ fist striking the floor sent him flying into a wall. The blow smashed through the metal floor and caused the entire room—maybe the entire airship—to shake.\n\n“Blind!” Simon immediately cast, only for his spell to fizzle out. He sensed an invisible barrier disrupting his magic the moment he attempted to affect Thalas.\n\nSpell negated by Primal Regression!\n\n\n“Magic can no longer affect him in this state, but he takes double damage!” Belzemine warned Simon through telepathy as she slightly crouched. Her slim frame tensed up, her muscles becoming like steel. “No Guard, Sanguine Blow.”\n\nBelzemine lunged forward with immense strength, putting all of her focus in one attack at the exclusion of all defense. She closed the gap with Thalas and then struck with everything she had. Her axe cut through the chiseled, steel-strong muscles of the Berserker and disemboweled him in a single strike that spilled out his entrails all over the floor. It should have been a fatal wound.\n\nIt wasn’t.\n\nThalas neither flinched nor even attempted to defend himself. His belly was wide open, and he showed neither pain nor care. He simply backhanded Belzemine with a roar, the blow so violent it threw her across the room and through the metal wall.\n\nNo wonder Thalas only waited for his ally to die to use this ability. He had cast off reason, sanity, and purpose for pure power. Only bestial, bloodthirsty, volcanic rage remained. He probably couldn’t even use whatever teleportation gem he and Antonine intended to use to escape the airship.\n\nOr maybe he was foolish enough to believe he could survive it all.\n\nIn spite of the Berserker’s fearsome new transformation, both Meredith and Leonard continued their assault without fear. Meredith jumped at the titan’s back, landed on his shoulder, and drove her spear through the back of his skull while Leonard attempted to finish what Belzemine had started by cutting into his chest. Thalas didn’t bother avoiding either attack, but neither did they make him budge.\n\n“Duchar, take Cassandra to Lauriane for healing and call for reinforcements!” Simon mentally ordered as he held his morning star and prepared to join the desperate melee… only to be answered with silence. “Duchar?”\n\nDuchar had grabbed his bleeding daughter with one hand and held a gemstone with the other. Simon immediately recognized the same type of teleporting crystal Lauriane had given him in a previous reign for his own safety.\n\n“Duchar, don’t you dare!” Simon threatened him.\n\n“I am sorry, Your Majesty, but we cannot die yet with so much left to accomplish,” the old warlock apologized, though there was no remorse in his voice. “I suggest you retreat as well.”\n\nHe crushed the gem and disappeared with Cassandra, abandoning the fight.\n\nSimon’s anger at the betrayal was swiftly replaced with horror as the enraged Thalas grabbed Meredith off his shoulders while her spear was still stuck through his skull, then smashed her against the floor like a ragdoll, her body splattered into a puddle of bones and blood. He then roared at Simon and lunged at him like a rabid tiger.\n\n“Impcan–”\n\nThalas rammed Simon before he could even finish the thought.\n\nLeonard once again took the burden of the damage on himself, but Simon barely caught a glimpse of his retainer exploding in a shower of blood and entrails before he and Thalas pulverized the wall, then the next, and the one after.\n\nThe pain of steel hitting his back gave way to the sensation of wind blowing on his face, and the ceiling turned into a burning sky.\n\nSimon blinked as he and Thalas fell into the void, the Wisdom looming over them like a great bird as it traded blasts with the Phoenix. The Legendary was sinking below the clouds and drowning in smoke on the horizon, yet both of Norbelle’s Eidolons continued the fight.\n\nThalas’ arms grabbed Simon in midfall in a vicious bearhug, his berserk state blinding him to the fact that they were both seconds away from death. A rush of pain traveled down Simon’s spine as his half-brother began to crush it.\n\n���Lord of the Demon Castle!” Simon snarled in an attempt to teleport back to his Dungeon, only for his magic to fizzle out alongside all of his buffs.\n\nTeleportation disrupted by Primal Regression!\n\n\nEven touching Thalas interfered with Simon’s magic!\n\nSimon frantically smashed Thalas’ face with his morning star again and again, breaking his nose and destroying an eye. The enraged Berserker responded by biting Simon’s arm, his teeth digging past the Overlord's armor and crushing his bones. Simon snarled in pain as Thalas ripped off his forearm, right as the Overlord’s poisonous blood started melting off his half-brother’s cheeks.\n\nWith no other choice left, Simon struck Thalas’ face with his bloody stump. The poison within proved effective enough at melting the Berserker’s flesh, and Simon kept pressing even as his vision went white with sheer pain. Agonizing pain erupted in his stomach as his entrails burst from within and he stopped feeling his legs.\n\nYet Simon powered through. He pushed and pushed his poisonous, acidic stump through Thalas’ face, his flesh and brains melting off until Simon reached the tip of Meredith’s spear still stuck in his skull. The acid devoured this brutish beast of a man until his inhuman vitality finally gave up. The Berserker breathed his last with a half-melted skull, his death granting Simon a rush greater than anything he had ever felt.\n\nLevel 30 Overlord Perk: Miasmic Archmage III (passive): You can learn and cast spells up to Tier III, but only those fueled by miasma.\n\nLevel 31 Overlord Perk: Warmonger IV (passive): You can wield all weapons with advanced proficiency (x2 damage, +10% crit).\n\nLevel 32 Overlord Perk: Devil Forgemaster II (Passive): You have learned to brew potions and slime creatures, but they must be infus–\n\n\nThe ground kissed him in the face mid-notification, ending his life in a flash of red.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nThe notifications continued to flow into his soul even in the darkness between life and death.\n\nLevel 32 Overlord Perk: Devil Forgemaster II (Passive): You have learned to brew potions and slime creatures, but they must be infused with miasma.\n\nLevel 33 Overlord Perk: Land of Darkness II (Passive): Your power twists plants within your domain. Plants within your Dungeon are corrupted with miasma and will slowly turn into monsters under your control.\n\nLevel 34 Overlord Perk: Dreadful Aura III (Active): Your aura can induce bloodthirst rather than fear. You can change the ailment inflicted by your aura from Terror to Berserk at will.\n\nLevel 35 Overlord Perk: Devil Brand IV (Active): You can mark a willing target with the Brand of Greed, granting them a Luck bonus, supernatural good fortune in matters of gambling and commerce, and the ability to turn lead into gold. In return, part of their wealth teleports to you on the first day of each month; if they cannot pay the tribute, they are cursed to turn everything they touch to gold until they can. This is a curse effect.\n\n\nKilling Thalas and Antonine had been a six-person job that cost over half the party their lives, but even the fractioned exp share had been enough to grant Simon multiple levels at once.\n\nWould his half-brother have been happy with this outcome? Ending one of Simon’s reigns and finally murdering him in exchange for giving him six levels in death? Would Thalas have considered it an even trade?\n\nSimon wasn’t happy in the slightest, however. He had already engineered Thalas’ death once at the hands of Vouivre, and though he had landed the final blow this time, it came at too high a cost and left him feeling hollow. Whatever pride he took in his victory dimmed when considering the pile of corpses it took to get there, his own included.\n\nOnly the Crimson Throne was happy with this outcome. Simon could sense its delight as it bestowed a new title upon him.\n\nThis is the eleventh of your Hundred Reigns.\n\nYou have earned the title of Simon the Embraced.\n\nThe Embraced: You and a sworn enemy fell into death’s embrace together. Isn’t that romantic? Self-destruction spells or abilities leave you on the verge of death rather than killing you outright.\n\n\n“Curse you,” Simon told his father as his spirit glared at the Crimson Throne. “Some rotten piece of you is still in there, isn’t it?”\n\nHe could have sworn the Crimson Throne smiled back at him with all of its rotten dragon fangs.\n\nSimon woke up again in his bed, alone and with an intact skull. The phantom pain of his previously chewed off arm and broken back frayed his nerves for an instant. He stared at the ceiling as he recalled his death and the vast power Noble Class users could bring to bear.\n\nSimon was sick of being killed, sick of watching his retainers getting killed again and again while he had to rely on them to survive, sick of living at the mercy of higher forces, sick of the pointless civil war tearing his homeland apart when it needed unity the most. A sense of rising disgust—towards himself or the world, he wasn’t sure—continued to build up inside his chest the more he replayed that final clash with Thalas in his head.\n\nSomething had to change.\n\nWould anything change even if he put an end to the elven plot? It had fizzled out on its own in the reigns where Belzemine stayed at the castle, yet it didn’t stop Louis from sending his airships to bombard the Berwick Islands when he learned the Overlord was hiding there. Euphemia had also ordered Norbelle to push on with the Goetia Research Center’s attack in spite of Lauriane’s attempts to de-escalate.\n\nThe two imperial parties wanted a conflict, or at least the other’s subjugation. Frightwall’s destruction had only accelerated the inevitable. Only a powerful Overlord’s presence could keep them in check by design.\n\nHow will things unfold if I’m not here to change anything? Simon wondered. Who would win the civil war then? Would it somehow allow the White Unicorn to retake the west, or would one of the sides end it quickly enough to keep the empire in one piece in time to stop the Zodiac Parade? Perhaps letting this war unfold will help me understand how to stop it in the future.\n\nEven then, knowledge without power could only do so much. The elves were a problem, as was Vouivre, but the reign had put into perspective what kind of power each member of House Magnos could bring to bear and how few of them were willing to compromise. The more strength Simon himself could bring to bear, the better he could shape his ideal future.\n\nOne day, he would help Belzemine heal from her wounds, reward Leonard and Meredith for their loyalty, befriend Eole, protect Anna and Lauriane, and keep millions from perishing in an utterly pointless war.\n\nBut that would be in the future.\n\nAt that moment, Simon Magnos decided to disappear from the annals of history. He knew a place beneath everyone’s notice, and where he could level up the Overlord Class the way it was meant to be used. He would swallow his disgust for the cruelty his Class demanded for the sake of gaining the strength to do good in a future reign.\n\nHis family needed an Overlord to keep itself in check?\n\nThey would get it in time.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\n“A trip to Telluria?” Lady Shabram asked with a frown once he finished explaining his plans. “Isn’t Your Majesty planning to go there in a few weeks?”\n\n“Time is of the essence, and most importantly, I do not want anyone to track me down,” Simon replied. “I must meet with people I require there, then travel to Magvolia undetected.”\n\nDuchar’s last-minute betrayal stung. Part of Simon couldn’t entirely hold it against the dark mage to prioritize his daughter’s safety over his employer, and he understood that not everyone could be as loyal as Leonard and Meredith, but bitterness still swelled in his heart. While he couldn’t call Duchar a friend, Simon did somewhat trust him.\n\nDuchar had served him well and Simon still needed him, so he would simply keep in mind how much he could push the mage and adapt accordingly… but he would not forget either. He wouldn’t delude himself into thinking their alliance was little more than a business transaction from now on, the same way he wouldn’t trust Lorimor to be on his own ever again.\n\n“I see,” Lady Shabram said upon sitting on her desk. “I must warn Your Majesty against taking their assigned retainers with them if they intend to stay anonymous, however. They won’t be able to resist the urge to contact friends or family forever.”\n\n“I know.” Simon also feared that someone might try to cast a divination spell on those two. The Overlord was immune to detection, but not his followers. Meredith and Leonard were nobles, but the likes of Duchar or Cassandra wouldn’t register on anybody’s mind. “I’ll only take two slaves with me, and release one before leaving for Telluria anyway.”\n\nLike in the last reign, Simon had declared Casval Ashmodai heir in the testament again to ensure Vouivre would find herself on the backfoot—she was the only side of the conflict Simon wanted dead at all costs—and had given himself slaves as an inheritance.\n\nSimon intended to release Eole and send her on her way, since he knew she would never agree to go along with his plan and would be better off returning home. Lorimor would serve in another capacity. Simon had already grilled him on Crestone creation, and his usefulness would come to an end with the Vernal Equinox.\n\nHe would be sure to bind and gag him this time.\n\n“Good. I do have one last cause for concern.” Lady Shabram crossed her legs. “I admit that my failure to identify the Malphas as agents of the White Unicorn fills me with shame, but is Your Majesty certain I shouldn’t arrest them? Taking Elaine Malphas by surprise will be easier than taking down her father, and feeding her to Gourmand would let us glean useful information.”\n\n“I have taken other measures to ensure that the Malphas problem will solve itself on its own, so you are not to interfere with those two directly in any way.” It frustrated Simon to leave Belzemine behind in Castle Frightwall, but it was the only way to ensure the elf attack failed until they figured out how to neutralize the spell. Moreover, she wouldn’t heal where he intended to go. “Instead, I want you to keep a very close watch on them and all their warehouses. I want to map out their entire network and find out how they can telegraph their castle-destruction spell. We will keep in touch through my Brand of Sloth.”\n\n“If Your Majesty wills it. I will ensure you disappear without a trace until your return. Lady Lauriane will no doubt ask questions, but I can convince her I sent you away for your own safety.” Lady Shabram raised an eyebrow. “If you don’t mind me asking, why leave for Magvolia specifically?”\n\n“There is a great evil slumbering there, and I intend to put it in its proper place,” Simon replied with determination. “Under my heel.”\n\nAnd he would do that without ‘killing’ anyone.\n\n\nWell, here we are; the first long, grinding focused reign ;)\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nFrostbound Apocalypse — a LitRPG progression fantasy. I would like to thank you guys for reading and please leave a comment if you see any mistakes. Enjoy! Callum, The Sovereign of Flames\n\nCallum stood at the edge of his domain staring off into the direction where his entertainment would soon take place. All around him, blue-white fires burned with enough heat that the air warped and distorted. The heat didn't bother him, even as he stood right next to the blistering flames, for the fire was his.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Kyle | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Granddad, Points, He\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Healer's Hands, Splitting Shot, Foraging Sense, Sweeping Slash, Power Shot, Cleanse, Human – Level 10, Crude Iron Knife)\nSystem notification style: \"System protected space to process incoming integrating populations \"\n\n## Writing Style\nfirst-person narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (76% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 122 - Frostbound Hammer\nTarget length: ~2500 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "After choosing the permanent option, there was a further choice that I could make. This one was optional and it was my chance to influence the result in some way. I could have the boost focus more on the Vitality and Endurance enhancement if I wanted to, or the magical enhancement.\n\nI wasn't able to change it much but I decided to leave it as was. The vitality, endurance, and magic boost were all something I needed. One wasn't that important over the other and I didn't want to mess with something I shouldn't.\n\nIt was already hard enough trying to contain the concentrated heart energy coursing through me. I wanted this to be over as soon as possible before I went pop.\n\nMy body was strong enough that it was able to integrate the Frost Giant heart but I didn't have time to muck about choosing my options. It was a higher-tiered energy that I was using and it wasn't playing nice.\n\nI was glad I chose the material I did, though. It was just high enough that I was able to use it without going too far and reaching for too much. It felt like if it was any stronger, unpleasant things would have happened. Like trying to fit 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag.\n\nWith my choices made, the energy flooded into my chest and started revolving around my heart. Pain blossomed and it felt like I was having a heart attack.\n\nAlarm spread over me as the pain intensified because none of the others said anything about pain. They all said after making the options the energy would rush into their core and settle there after some time, not start stabbing pins into my chest.\n\nThere were two things it could be and there was no way for me to know which one it was. It could be the material's tier coming to bite me in the ass or it could be the permanent changes being made to my physiology.\n\nI elected to think it was the physical changes to my heart being made rather than the risky decision of using the heart.\n\nIt made me feel better at least.\n\nAfter the pain I went through refining my body, this was nothing. It was rather unpleasant but it wasn't the sharp, sustained pain of the Wind Chamber.\n\nIt took a few moments to finish the changes before the process was complete. My eyes opened slowly and the only thing I could see was a face millimeters away from mine.\n\n\"AH!\" I screamed.\n\n\"AHH!\" Austin screamed back.\n\n\"What the hell, man! Why were you so close?\" I accused while trying to calm myself from the jump scare.\n\n\"It was taking longer than normal and you were grunting. I wanted to get a closer look.\" He answered like it was totally logical to be that close to someone else's face.\n\n\"Well, what did you see?\"\n\n\"You need a shower,\"\n\nGee thanks, asshole.\n\nI most certainly did but he didn't need to point that out. Time had been fleeting trying to get all of this done and my hygiene took a back seat for a few days while I was rushing to evolve.\n\n\"I'll get right on that, princess,\" I said.\n\nHe nodded, \"See that you do. You're stinking up my cabin.\"\n\nAfter saying that, he just stared at me expectantly. I turned to see that everyone was also staring at me. It was unnerving seeing everyone look at me with such curiosity like I was a zoo exhibit.\n\n\"Well, what did you get?\" Austin was the first to break, unsurprisingly.\n\nIf it was only him with me, I might have played around a bit but the 16 other sets of eyes disabused me of that idea.\n\n\"Legendary,\"\n\nGasps were audible along with Jonathan's rueful smile. He was no doubt thinking about the fact he just caught up to me with his new Rare class only for me to up the ante again.\n\nEveryone knew that my new class was going to be up there but we didn't know if it was enough for Legendary.\n\nThere was still another Path of Power out there that we had no knowledge of which I had yet to do. While the store gave a lot of information, we didn't know everything, and assuming we did was asking for trouble.\n\nHigher rarities were notoriously hard to get information on and we didn't have a single information booklet on classes higher than Epic. We didn't know their requirements or their unlock conditions.\n\nFor all we knew every Path of Power was required.\n\nThere was still a rarity above Legendary so maybe that was the one that required all four.\n\nWe didn't know.\n\nThey stayed huddled around me until they got all of the details out of me. Nothing was spared and they didn't stop until they had me tell them the four classes I didn't choose as well.\n\nStats, distribution, requirements. I held nothing back. While this information could be used against me, I trusted my family more than anything. Now that there wasn't a risk someone was mind-controlled, that trust was absolute.\n\nAfter Christian, we didn't take any chances and bought a trinket from the store to make sure. It wrapped around the head to check if there was any mental magic or compulsions in effect and we all underwent the test. Even me.\n\nThere would not be another incident where family had to kill family.\n\nI almost missed the stat bonus from evolving because of the pain of having my heart altered. It was usually obvious when I evolved as it worked through every cell of my body with every stat getting a boost but the pain took my mind off of it.\n\nI opened the notification to confirm how many stats I received.\n\n\nRacial Evolution: F->E\n\nAll stats +16\n\n\nAlong with the stat boost, there were two new skills that I received. The profession skill was generic and I knew what it was going to be before I evolved. The book about how to get the Runesmith class said which skill it came with.\n\nIt came with [Runesmithing(Rare)]. Similar to [Warding(Un)] and [Formation Mana Flows(Un)] it helped with the runesmithing process. It gave knowledge of how to combine smithing and enchanting to make the best product possible and a boost to the finished product.\n\nWhile the skill would help a lot in my craft, there was another skill I was more excited about. The skill that came with my Legendary class.\n\n\nFrostbound Hammer(Legendary) – A splinter of the weapon once wielded by the Jotnar King Thiassi thousands of years ago. The ice this hammer was forged from still holds some of his spirit and must be awakened to show its true power. Combine with other splinters to bring back its full might. Only given to the mightiest of warriors with a strong ice affinity and bound to them by frost once summoned.\n\n\nReading the skill was eye-opening. The ancient weapon of a King of Old? What did that even mean? It said that power was still inside the weapon and I had to awaken it to show its true might but it didn't come with an instruction manual.\n\nPeople were still around waiting to see it and excitement was building up in me as I read the skill description aloud. All of us wanted to see what a Legendary skill would be like.\n\nWithout further adieu, I went to activate the skill.\n\nI began with just a trickle of mana into the skill but when nothing happened, I upped it to a little more.\n\nNothing continued to happen and I had to use more. And more. And more.\n\nI was pouring my mana into the skill by this point.\n\nThe skill was sucking up all the mana I was giving it and it started taking more. Pulling in mana faster than I could push it. This was the first skill that had done anything like this and it was slightly worrying. None of the other ones were this hard to activate.\n\nJust like [Mighty Blow(R)], it started taking stamina as well and started pulling on my stamina just like it had with my mana.\n\nWhat kind of skill is this?\n\nIce started to coalesce in front of me and frost started to form in the area from the drop in temperature. Snowflakes froze around me as the air couldn't hold the moisture anymore. It was making... something inside the fog but I couldn't see very well and my senses were all messed up.\n\nMy mana pool was rapidly depleting and the amount of mana going into the skill was making it hard to tell what was happening. My vision was blocked by the foggy frost and it was too much to take in with my mana sense. The sheer mana density and concentration made it too blurry to see.\n\nAs it continued to build, I felt a tug on my mental energy where my Law was held as well. I had more control over that than I did mana, but I allowed the skill to take it anyway. I needed to find out what the skill did and I didn't want to cancel the activation now.\n\nIt took over half of my mana pool already, damnit!\n\nThe skill kept taking more and more building in concentration. The ice and fog grew until it extended out into the area around me.\n\nMy head started to hurt from everything that was happening. My Law being poured into the skill didn't help matters creating a headache of its own from the rapidly depleting mental energy.\n\nLastly, it pulled on my spirit. I wasn't as familiar with the energy that my Spirit used since I had only recently formed my Spirit Anchor but it was similar enough to the others I had used before.\n\nWhile thicker and harder to move than mana, it could flow into and around my body in the same manner. I used it to strengthen things most of the time but it had more uses than that, I was sure of it.\n\nLaws were similar. The way I used them, and the way most people used them, was to strengthen the attacks you made. Me with Ice, Jonathan with Stone, and Rachel with Fire.\n\nIt boosted the element that you had a Law in. Pushing it further than what only mana could.\n\nIt was amateur to think that boosting attacks was the only thing you could do with it, we just hadn't found out the rest yet. We had only been living with the System for less than 90 days and weren't that well-versed in it yet.\n\nWe focused on staying alive which meant producing the strongest attacks we could. Playing with Laws and Spirit Energy could come later.\n\nAll of that meant I had no experience with what was happening with the skill. It was taking everything I could give it while asking for more. It took mana, stamina, my Law, and my Spirit.\n\nI didn't know skills could do this.\n\nThe skill continued drawing on everything I was giving it and it was draining me dry. This was the first time I had used a Legendary skill and it was proving difficult. My mana was nearly empty and the rest of me would soon follow if it didn't let up soon.\n\nIt was hard not to wonder why it was so hard to use. What was it taking all this energy for?\n\nThe suction on my power soon evened off before petering out completely. It drained me completely to create what it was doing. It left the frost in the air for a moment before that too was sucked away.\n\nWhat I was left with made everyone speechless.\n\nIn my hand was a hammer. Not the hammer I usually used, but a massive Warhammer that looked infinitely stronger than mine.\n\nThe skill summoned a hammer from nothing.\n\nThis was the first time I had seen a skill summon something. Something that was real. Better than real actually.\n\nMost of the time, skills were just mana conjurations that were lesser than the real thing. While my ice looked and felt like ice, there was a difference between it and the real thing.\n\nNot the mundane ice on Earth from before, but the mana-infused Ice I had seen up in the mountains. My ice was better than normal Ice, but not the Ice in the tutorial. It was close, but there was something about it that was lesser.\n\nI didn't have the senses to tell what it was that was different, but the ice conjured by skills was different than real ice. That was why using the naturally formed ice from the Frost Rune worked better than the stuff conjured from [Hail(C)].\n\nIt wasn't that much better, but in a fight every little bit counted.\n\nThe hammer in my hands looked magnificent. Better than anything I could have made and then some.\n\nThe hammerhead was similar to the one I was using now but it looked even better. With a massive blunt face on one side and a huge spike on the back. The ice itself was a striking Blue that mine didn't have. An inner glow and an ephemeral quality to it that mine was missing.\n\nThe head was mesmerizing to look at. It drew my eye and it was hard to look away. I swore I saw movement inside of the Ice. Like a living blizzard of snow revolved around the inside of the hammer.\n\nThat was just the head of the weapon. I didn't even get to the rest of it yet. The shaft was made of intricately carved wood in Formations and patterns that were different than the ones I knew.\n\nThe wood itself had frost growing off of it up and down the length of the weapon making it look even colder than it was. The weapon was so far above me I couldn't even tell what kind of wood it was, let alone the Runes running along its length. Their meaning was above me and seemed like they would stay that way for a while yet.\n\nWhile I sat dumbstruck gazing at my new weapon, Austin couldn't hold back anymore and reached to touch it. The drawing effect too much for him to leave alone.\n\nI was still stuck gazing at what looked like the insides of a snow globe and didn't notice his encroaching hand.\n\nHis fingers hovered over the ice before reaching down to glide along the surface. I didn't know what he was doing but he pulled his hand back quickly.\n\n\"Ah, fuck!\" He exclaimed while shaking his hand in the air.\n\nHis scream drew me out of my reverie and made me look up from the magnetic effect of my new weapon.\n\nHe stood shaking his hand back and forth while Rachel created some fire to warm his hand up.\n\nThe tips of his fingers were black.\n\n\"Your hammer bit me!\""}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 123 - Pylons\nTarget length: ~2300 words\nKey events: level-up occurs"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The hammer was AMAZING. It was everything I wanted it to be and more.\n\nAfter Austin's frostbite was cured, he was kind enough to spar with me to break the weapon in.\n\nWith his misfortune of touching it known, I refrained from hitting his uncovered skin with it, but the rest of him was fair game. The fact the weapon was so cold that it caused frostbite just by touching it excited me to no end.\n\nThe weapon was that cold. I didn't even have to use mana or skills to get it to such temperatures, the ice it was made of was just that cold.\n\nIt was great.\n\nDuring testing, I used a few skills through the weapon and couldn't help but laugh manically at the result. It was like a mage's staff. It worked as a focus to amplify spells.\n\nIt only worked on Ice based skills but that was most of my arsenal. [Mighty Blow(R)] didn't get the boost but every other skill I had did.\n\nCasting [Ice Arrow(Un)] or [Sweeping Snow(Un)] through the hammer strengthened the skills with less effort.\n\n[Icy Bastions(R)] came out stronger and larger, [Ice Arrow(Un)] came out bigger and flew faster.\n\n[Pervading Cold(R)] got a huge boost to its effect, freezing Austin's armor completely and we had to stop to let it thaw out. I worried that it would break after it frosted over and became brittle.\n\nIt was perfect. Everything about it was perfect.\n\nThe wood felt good in the hand and the Ice was the strongest material I had seen. The knots and intricately carved Runes along the wood brought the whole thing together into a majestic weapon of war.\n\nThe ornamentation was subtle enough that it didn't come off as a showpiece but stood out as better than average.\n\nTo test the effectiveness of my new hammer versus my old one I set up an... experiment. What better way of comparing them than to hit my new hammer with my old one.\n\nThere was little doubt that the new one was better, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway. I had no need of two hammers and would most likely melt my old one down anyway, might as well have it go out with a bang.\n\nI laid my new one up against an elevated rock while I hefted my old one up over my head.\n\nTo give it the best test I could, I layered [Mighty Blow(R)], my Law, and my Spirit into my old one to make it as hard as possible and maybe give it a shot.\n\nThe only thing I didn't do was use my boosting skill or get [Avalanche(R)] built up. The test wasn't worth racing around for two hours building it up.\n\nThe ending surprised no one.\n\nMy old hammer shattered into a thousand pieces. Ice shards exploded out from where the two hammerheads collided and showered me in slivers of Ice along with a few others that were standing close enough to the explosion.\n\nThe only thing left of the weapon was the wooden rod that used to be the shaft of the weapon and even that was vibrating uncomfortably in my hands from the impact.\n\nNow it was reduced to a wooden staff instead of the hammer it used to be. Maybe someone could use it as a Bo staff or quarterstaff? It was a strong wood and I had no further uses for it.\n\nI wasn't upset about the outcome, far from it really. The result meant my new weapon was that much better. There wasn't even a trace of the impact on the new hammerhead and I hit it with everything I had.\n\nIt proved sturdier than my Law and Spirit combined and that was a hard thing to do. Even the E-Ranked beasts with sturdy bodies from previous waves couldn't say the same.\n\nAnother thing that I noticed after using it and testing it out, was that there was a connection between me and the hammer. It didn't feel like anything bad, but there was certainly a link that connected us. Bound us together.\n\nThe skill said that it would be bound after being summoned but I wasn't sure what that meant at the time. I still didn't, but now I knew what it felt like at least.\n\nNo one I mentioned it so I assumed no one was able to see the link and neither did they know anything about bound weapons when asked. It didn't sound bad and it didn't hurt, so I could only dismiss it to look into when I had more information.\n\nWhile I sparred to test it out and get a feel for it, it wouldn't get its real test until later. The last wave was due tomorrow and it would get its christening in blood then.\n\nWhile swinging it around there weren't many things that I didn't like about it. It was an overall upgrade from the weapon I had used before with only one difference.\n\nThe only downside to the weapon was it was heavy, but that wasn't really a downside in the long run.\n\nIt put the heavy in heavy weapon.\n\nNow that I could level again that wouldn't be a big deal after a few rolled in and my strength started to shoot up again like back before I was level capped. Now that I was getting 21 strength a level, heaviness wouldn't be a problem for long.\n\nWith everything regarding my evolution was over, I pulled up my new status to give all the changes a look.\n\n\n~~\n\nName: Christopher Zalenski\n\nRace: (E) Human\n\nClass: (E) Hammer of the Jotnar(Legendary) – Level 50\n\nProfession: (E) Runesmith(Rare) – Level 50\n\nAffinity: Ice\n\nFaction: Zalenski Family (Temporary) (Faction Head)\n\n\nStrength - 478\n\nAgility - 264\n\nPerception - 142\n\nFortitude - 391\n\nEndurance - 200\n\nVitality - 151\n\nIntelligence - 143\n\nWisdom - 244\n\nAcumen - 102\n\n\nFree Points: 0\n\nLaws: Lesser Law of Ice\n\nBody Stage: Body of Wood(Northern Wind Body)\n\nSpirit Stage: Anchor Formation\n\nClass Skills:\n\nFrostbound Hammer(Legendary)\n\nPervading Cold(Rare)\n\nIcy Bastion(Rare)\n\nRighteous Fury(Rare)\n\nFrost Armor(Rare)\n\nMomentum of the Avalanche(Rare)\n\nGlacial Presence(Rare)\n\nFrozen Patchwork(Rare)\n\nHeavy Weapon Proficiency(Journeyman)\n\nMighty Blow(Uncommon)\n\nReinforced Body(Uncommon)\n\nSweeping Snow(Uncommon)\n\nIce Manipulation(Uncommon)\n\nCold Meditation(Uncommon)\n\nIce Arrow(Uncommon)\n\nShatter(Uncommon)\n\nPermafrost(Uncommon)\n\nMental Freeze(Uncommon)\n\nBody of a Barbarian(Uncommon)\n\nFrozen Fortitude(Uncommon)\n\nHeavy Armor Proficiency(Apprentice)\n\nThrowing Weapon Proficiency(Apprentice)\n\nIdentify(Common)\n\nHail(Common)\n\n\nProfession Skills:\n\nRunesmithing(Rare)\n\nMana Engraving(Uncommon)\n\nBasic Runecrafting(Uncommon)\n\nForging Style: Rhythm Forging(Uncommon)\n\nWarding(Uncommon)\n\nFormations Mana Flow(Uncommon)\n\nSense Metal(Common)\n\nCreate Weapon(Common)\n\nCreate Armor(Common)\n\nMetallurgy(Common)\n\nMana Infusion(Common)\n\nForging Proficiency(Novice)\n\n\nCoins: 0\n\nPoints: 1,497,200\n\n~~\n\n\nIt was looking mighty fine. With the stat boost from the Racial evolution, all my stats were now over 100. It didn't come with any achievement or anything like that, but it felt nice to have all of my stats in the triple digits.\n\nMy points took a hit after buying the Heart but I didn't need them anymore anyway. All the points I earned in the last few days of the tutorial would be going to my family for them to buy bloodlines and get them ready for their own evolution.\n\nAbigail evolved not long after Jonathan did which made me the 6th of my family to reach the E-rank. Rachel was level 50 but she was waiting for a few more things until she went through with it. I wasn't sure exactly what she was waiting on but I guessed it was her Law.\n\nShe wanted to push it to Lesser like I had before going through with it.\n\nPlus, she wanted a more expensive bloodline than what we could currently afford. She really wanted a draconic bloodline but I wasn't sure we would be able to afford it.\n\nThere would be a lot of points to be had conquering the fallen pylons but we still had the others to think about. 11 people still needed to get a bloodline and we weren't going to blow all our points on Rachel's.\n\nShe had her own points that she had been saving up and had a few more days to push for more, but we were returning to Earth in under 4 days.\n\nIt felt weird to think that. In just under 4 days we would be back home. After everything we had been through, it didn't seem right somehow. 90 days passed in the blink of an eye and it felt like only yesterday we were getting inducted into this new System.\n\nWithout anything left to do, I decided a change of plans was in order.\n\nInstead of waiting for the wave to come to me tomorrow, I would go have a workout fighting a few of the pylons on my way back north. It wouldn't make it easier to conquer since more would fill back in after I left, but we might just be able to get Rachel a dragon bloodline yet.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nDefend your claim!\n\nWave Start: 0:59\n\n\nI heard the ding for what would be the last time. No more waves would come after this one. No longer would we be forced to fight for our lives every three days.\n\nWe knew that cities had waves like this but they weren't nearly as frequent as the tutorials had been. They would come once a month and sometimes not even that frequent.\n\nIt was a hotly debated topic based on the information we had on city ownership and something I took a keen interest in giving my intentions.\n\nWhile everyone had the ability to buy a Civilization Pylon from the store if they had sufficient coin, that didn't mean everyone was able to found a city.\n\nWhen someone founds a city, the surrounding land gets claimed by the pylon when it is placed. Similar to what happened when we claimed a pylon in the beginning. It was like owning a deed to the land the pylon claims and the leader obtains that deed. No other Pylon would be able to claim the land that another pylon had ownership of unless it was from the same faction.\n\nPylons placed under the ownership of another were called subordinate pylons.\n\nIf one pylon claimed a vast swath of land from being leveled up a few times, another pylon was able to be placed inside that radius if it was owned by the same person, or faction, that held ownership the first one.\n\nCreating a Village or Town that was tied to the original City. Owned by the same people.\n\nIt was how Kingdoms set up their land and what brought about the Noble hierarchy that the System used.\n\nThat was a whole different can of worms that I didn't want to open. I didn't want to be King or start an Empire, just one City was enough for me. A heavily fortified and defensible city, but a City nonetheless.\n\nI could let other people have the fun of starting Kingdoms and fighting each other for land. I would be able to stay isolated up North and maintain neutrality. A don't mess with me stance.\n\nOr that was what I hoped.\n\nThere might come a time later when I had a few subordinate pylons but that would be a long ways off.\n\nThe subordinate pylons would never be able to grow past a certain rank though. They would be capped by the level of the first pylon. If the first rose to City level, then the subordinate pylons would be able to go to Town level.\n\nThere was also a cap on how many subordinate pylons one could have. A City couldn't have countless Towns and Villages under its control and could only have a few of each.\n\nThe only other way to conquer land was fighting for pylons in battle.\n\nThe rules on placing pylons and claiming land kept people from placing them too close together or claiming land that others already held ownership of which caused fights for land to happen more often. If land was already claimed, you could only gain it by fighting for it.\n\nNow, placing a pylon was all well and good, but the System didn't want just anyone to own a city. It sent tests to make sure the owner was of sufficient strength to own it.\n\nThose tests came in a few different forms but they were similar to what we had faced with the waves.\n\nIt was the System's way of making sure millions of Cities didn't pop up by making people earn the right to own one.\n\nSimilar to the reason we had to fight off a wave to upgrade our pylons to the next rank. The System was full of fun little tests like that.\n\nAnd that was all only for Planetary City structure and Planetary Nobles. There was a whole other level above that going as far as Galactic Scale. High-Tiered people weren't satisfied with only holding ownership of a planet, they needed more.\n\nPlanetary bodies and Galactic Sectors of ownership were common in the multiverse with their own set of noble titles. Calling someone a Planetary Duke instead of a Galactic Duke was a grave insult and could be punishable by death in some Duchies.\n\nI didn't get much more time to ruminate on that whole jumble of problematic societal structure as the countdown reached its end.\n\nA wave of monsters spawned in for the last time.\n\n\nWith the arrival of the last wave, the end of the tutorial is near. With all of the achievements that Chris has racked up, what do you guys think he will get as his prize?"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 124 - Zwahelios\nTarget length: ~2300 words\nKey events: level-up occurs"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "It was always fun smashing around the beasts of the wave but this one was going to be different. I could feel it.\n\nThe difficulty level was in for a sharp incline but I didn't think it would be out of my reach. All the different Paths of Power that I had stepped down added up to a substantial differential between the beasts and me. It was a divide between normal E-ranks and ones who had stepped down every avenue. Well, almost every avenue. At least that was what I thought before the wave started.\n\nWhat ended up spawning in created an oppressiveness that closed in from all sides surrounding the camp. A weight that started to close in on me. Even from as far away as I was, the feeling was clear. I was in for a fight, a bloody one.\n\nThe sun was high in the sky casting light down without a cloud intercept it, yet it somehow managed to get brighter than before. The light got so bright I had to squint to make anything out. The monsters were somehow producing it and it was focused on the walls lining the camp creating a nasty glare that I had to shield my eyes from.\n\nWith a bit of maneuvering, I managed to get an [Identify(C)] on one of the leading monsters and I was finally able to see what I was up against.\n\n\n[Zwahelios – Level 50]\n\n\nThey looked like avian velociraptors. Well, more avian than normal velociraptors. The birds reached my chest in height but they were longer than they were tall. Bird-like beaks protruded out of their head with sharp spikes of teeth jutting out of their mouth.\n\nFeathers led down their short arms and ended at their pointy elbows, accentuating the corner. Taloned feet thundered on the ground as the hundreds of Zwahelios closed in. Their tails counter-balanced them letting them run upright on two legs and were thick in both muscles and feathers.\n\nNow that I was in E-Rank myself, the level and name of the monsters were no longer blurred or filled with question marks. The rank difference not being there let me see what was approaching clearly with the skill.\n\nThat was something I had meant to change but never had the time to get around to it. Upgrading the rarity of my [Identify(C)] skill would let me see more information than what I was being given and wouldn't fail when there was a high-level difference.\n\nSome upgrades even gave insight into the stats of the thing being identified. Some went broader and gave more detail about what the thing was while others gave deeper insight into the skills a beast had. There were a bunch of different variations that [Identify] could upgrade into but I hadn't gotten around to doing it yet.\n\nThe same was true for picking up an [Identify Block] skill. While we were still in the tutorial I hadn't thought it was necessary. I knew, roughly, the people that were in here with me and what strength they held and they knew mine.\n\nIt wasn't worth it to buy the [Blocker] when Tracy had already seen what I was capable of. Plus, not being the highest level inside the tutorial worked to my advantage. I didn't know if it worked or not but seeing my level being stuck at 50 might have made people underestimate me.\n\nThey would have had to have been ignorant of who I was, but it was still a possibility.\n\nWith us returning to Earth soon, getting a [Blocker] was something I needed to do. Giving information to people for free wasn't something I wanted to do. Best case scenario, I got one so strong no one would be able to see anything.\n\nI didn't hold my breath for that though. For every strong [Identify Block] skill, there was an equally strong [Identify] to pierce it. It was the nature of skills. If one got stronger, the other would have to get stronger to keep up.\n\nThe monsters didn't care about my [Identify] predicament and closed in regardless. Javelins of ice met them when they got in range and kicked things into motion.\n\nThe [Avalanche(R)] was building.\n\nThe oppressive weight that the monsters carried with them followed them as they neared. It tickled the back of my neck, making my hair stand up. It was a different feeling than what being outmatched felt like but it was close to it.\n\nUsually, when this feeling came about, it was because of a boss or a monster significantly higher level than me. The level difference had a weight to it. The difference in the essence between us.\n\nThat wasn't true this time. These were level 50 beasts the same as I was.\n\nThe reason they had such a weight to them was because the tutorial wasn't done trying to kill us yet. It threw one last thing at us as a final send-off. I picked up on it as the rolling wave of might tried to force me down.\n\nEvery one of the monsters running my way carried a Law with them. All of them had Least Laws of Light.\n\nThe Laws they had added together, rising on top of each other creating a wall of force that built on my shoulders. Pressing me into the ground from their collective weight.\n\nThe tutorial could have been nice and had them capped at level 50 without having a Law but that would be too easy. That wasn't fit for the grand finale. Even with the surprise of all of the monsters having Laws, I didn't think that was the end of it.\n\nThere would probably be a few more surprises headed my way before the wave was over. The death throes of trying to kill us one last time.\n\nSo be it.\n\nMy new hammer twirled in front of me in preparation. A flourish I had come to like while wielding the heavy weapon.\n\nUp and around before smashing into the ground next to my feet.\n\nIt was both showboating and a provocation. Not that the beasts knew that, but it wasn't for them.\n\nIt was for me.\n\nThe tide reached me and I started swinging.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nMy hammer rose and fell as more beasts joined the fray. The monsters were falling but not as fast as more joined in. Their numbers kept rising even as the crushed and deformed dead rose with them.\n\nIt was endless and unstoppable.\n\nThe pressure inside me built and I couldn't help but feel the heat of battle in my soul. The song being sung inside me built into a rising crescendo. The pressure reached new heights as shafts of light pierced through me, searing through my armor.\n\nBlood leaked from the seared holes before freezing over with ice.\n\nMy armor wasn't enough to block them. It was the same reason fighting Austin was so annoying, the beasts were able to get through my armor with their light-based attacks. The Ice only blunted the worst of it before the rest made it through. My Law and Mana couldn't hold up to the onslaught of hundreds of attacks all backed with a Law.\n\nI could handle one or two, maybe even a few, but not the amount that was being leveraged against me.\n\nWhile I focused on swinging my hammer, the Law reinforcement on my Armor was worn through by cascading beams of light before the rest smashed through and into my flesh.\n\n[Frozen Patchwork(R)] worked overtime to freeze the holes that were burned through me.\n\nThrough it all, my hammer rose and fell, sweeping arcs in front of me when more joined in. It was an all-out battle and I didn't even have time to cast magic. I couldn't bear the distraction from the melee I was in to launch any [Ice Arrows(Un)].\n\nSnow revolved around me faster and faster in an attempt to ease the fight but more of it began to shatter from the oppressive Light. [Sweeping Snow(Un)] did what it could but the tide of beasts overwhelmed the newly upgraded skill.\n\nMana flowed through my hammer, building up ice atop the end until it tripled in size. The massive clump whipped through the air like a maul taking numerous beasts with it until the end of its arc.\n\nBefore the momentum of the head could end, [Shatter(Un)] sent the extra ice exploding out, taking yet more foes with it to the grave and returning my hammer to its original state.\n\nMy hammer came back through for another pass with the spike leading this time, stacking bodies atop its length before the force died out. My swings increased in intensity as the [Avalanche(R)] built behind me.\n\nRise and fall. Up and down. The rhythmic swings felled the beasts as fast as I could.\n\n[Icy Bastion(R)] bloomed around me as I felt a strong light beam close in. It had the strength of more than a few of the monsters combined into a concentrated lance. They were adding their skills together, concentrating the light and layering their attacks on top of each other to get through my guard.\n\nYet another unwanted surprise.\n\n[Reinforced Body(Un)] wasn't enough to stop the lance from piercing through me the first time it happened and I threw an [Icy Bastion(R)] when I felt it coming the second time. With [Frozen Patchwork(R)], my body could take a beating, but I burned a bit of mana to save me from the wound. While the skill could patch me up, deflecting the blow with a bit of mana was better.\n\nThe attacks against me built as I did what I could to ward them off. Ice shattered from claw and talon around me before getting launching out into the sea of bodies.\n\nAny of my ice that was broken by enemies turned into a projectile for me to use.\n\nBoth [Ice Manipulation(Un)] and [Throwing Proficiency(App)] applied to the shards of ice before they slunked into their waiting partners\n\n[Righteous Fury(R)] ignited and burned inside me as I couldn't hold off not using the skill any longer. If I tried to save it for the boss I wasn't sure I would make it through the wave.\n\nHundreds of Least Laws added up, worming their way through my guard. Their collective might was enough to stomp down on me. Pushing my domain back, making me either wade through the thick hostile atmosphere or spend more mana to keep my domain secure.\n\nThe Frost Rune tried to fight back but it wasn't enough against the hoard of monsters. The Rune wasn't made to fight against that kind of force.\n\n[Permafrost(Un)] helped keep the space steady but it only worked on the area closest to me. The ice lining the inside of the walls already starting to melt, the heat building from the focused light too much for it to handle.\n\nThroughout it all, the [Avalanche(R)] built.\n\nGrunts of pain were fought through along with the wounds building on my body.\n\nMy body showed its might for the first time and I couldn't help but marvel at what it had turned into. Body of Wood was more than what I gave it credit for. Attacks that would have cleaved flesh from my bones were turned into nicks that barely drew blood.\n\nPiercing beams of light that would have burrowed clean through me only penetrated a few inches deep. Seeing how my body stopped most attacks cold was the reason they began to combine their power.\n\nThe concentrated beams of tens of monsters were enough to pierce through me, even with my Refined body.\n\nMy Spirit began to infuse me and the fight escalated yet again. During the waves, I usually adhered to a continuous escalation of power. Starting with [Avalanche(R)], using my Law and Spirit sparingly, and saving my bloodline and [Fury(R)] for the boss.\n\nThis wave wasn't allowing me to do that.\n\nIt was making me burn hot and fast to last through the throngs of lesser monsters. Everything was coming out as the pressure mounted. My [Fury(R)] was burning inside me, my Law and Spirit infused my attacks and body.\n\nThe only thing that I had held back was my bloodline. If there was one thing I wanted to save for the boss, it was that.\n\nEver since I evolved, my bloodline took on a new life. Having the Heart of a Frost Giant turned the bloodline from a decent power boost, into a devastating jump in power.\n\nMy Heart amplified the powers of my Bloodline by a significant degree and I was able to use more of it than I had before. Like jumping from low to high octane fuel.\n\nThe only problem was the length of time I could call upon it shortened to compensate. It was a tradeoff between a bigger boost in power for a shorter period of time.\n\nAs the last of the Zwahelios clawed and fought their way through the gates, finally letting me see the light at the end of the tunnel, it was time to do so.\n\nI almost felt bad for the little lightblasting shits.\n\nWithout the need to hold my bloodline in reserve any longer, I called on the power buried deep in my core. Ice spread through my veins and my muscles bulged as they tried to contain the boost in strength.\n\nWhile my Heart could output more power, my muscles struggled to contain it. Without having a Body of Wood my muscles would have popped like a grotesque balloon from the strain.\n\nI was sure that the physical manifestations of my bloodline were more pronounced but without anyone else here to tell me, I wasn't sure the form they took.\n\nAll I could hope was that I didn't start glowing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 125 - End\nTarget length: ~2200 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Austin\n\n\nHe could feel the Light Law the beasts had resonating with his own. His attacks were being bent by the monsters as they closed in, going where he hadn't intended for them to land.\n\nIt was frustrating not to have them go where he wanted them to, but the deviation wasn't much. A few inches here and there at most, but that changed a lot when the things he was aiming for required precision. His attacks were aimed with pinpoint accuracy at weak points and the deviation affected that.\n\nIn-between ribs to penetrate deep into the chest cavity, through the eye socket for easy access to the brain without having to punch through the skull. While a nudge here and there wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, it threw off his attacks mightily.\n\nAlso, it came at a time when he needed to be at his best.\n\nThe final wave was proving more difficult than any had anticipated and he wasn't like Chris. He couldn't solo waves and stay on his feet through brutal injuries.\n\nAustin saw what Chris walked away from on a daily basis and still wondered how he managed to keep going. If Austin got even half as damaged as Chris, he would be down for the count needing a healer to put him back together.\n\nWhile his Vitality was higher than the Icy Juggernaut's, his Fortitude wasn't. The point of all of his Agility was to not get hit in the first place. He could afford to have a lower Fortitude if he dodged more attacks than what landed on him.\n\nAustin's eyes sharpened as he pulled on his bloodline. He had been experimenting with its use and he realized that short bursts were best. Whenever he was about to get overwhelmed or he needed to kill the beasts around him quickly.\n\nIt conserved most of the energy and he could use it over a longer period of time.\n\nHis speed soared and his spear shot out, piercing through the monsters around him in quick succession.\n\nThe rest of the family was getting battered by the beasts but nothing too serious had occurred. The gate wasn't able to hold up for long, only rewarding them precious minutes to attack with abandon, the time for full-on battle had come.\n\nAustin's family showed their experience from previous waves and dealt with it in a calm and collected manner. The warriors were veterans by this point and took up their place at the front, placing their full trust in the backline to see them through the battle.\n\nAustin didn't even want to think about how Tracy's sides were doing. They were wholly unprepared for what was about to happen. They placed their full trust in the walls and defenses they had built and now those defenses were crumbling.\n\nFalling apart under the might of nearly a thousand Least Laws the beasts carried.\n\nHe was surprised the gate lasted as long as it did honestly. Even with all of the explosions and elemental attacks launched from the top of the wall, monsters sprouted from nothing to continue the advance. Biting and clawing at the gate to get through.\n\nTaking one down did little to stop the tide. Even with all the traps laid scattered in front of the wall, it wasn't enough. It was never going to be, but Austin couldn't help but imagine the despondent faces of Tracy's members right now.\n\nHe knew they placed too much trust in their defenses. They didn't have the experience of fighting in the thick of it like his family. They weren't ready for the battle that had started inside the walls.\n\nThey were weak.\n\nIt was what he had been trying to push Chris for in the beginning. Austin wanted to push his family just as much as himself but he hadn't gone through with it.\n\nMaybe if he had there would be more of them still here today. Or more of them would have died during the fight with the Mindbreaker.\n\nThere were no absolutes with what ifs but Austin couldn't help but regret his decision. He knew Chris did, even though he didn't like to talk about it.\n\nChris was bottling up everything that had happened and he wasn't in for a good time when that seal finally cracked. He kept trying to put one foot in front of the other and he would eventually falter because of it.\n\nGoing from pressing concern to pressing concern couldn't last forever.\n\nWhen Austin had tried to broach the subject with him all Chris would say was 'I will deal with it when I find the time.'\n\nAustin couldn't help but pity the person that made him finally explode.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nChris\n\n\n\"AHHHH!\"\n\nA primal roar escaped me as more and more blood leaked out of me. My fighting had become more savage as the wave continued and I couldn't help but shout in frustration. It wasn't even because of the beasts anymore.\n\nIt was me yelling at the world.\n\nAs the beams of light kept finding their way through my armor, more of my mana flowed through me to intensify my attacks.\n\n[Sweeping Snow(Un)] revolved around me, nearly turning the sky white as I pumped rivers of mana through it. My Law and Spirit flowed liberally into all the ice and snow in the area. My hammer whizzed through the air trying to keep up with the last of the monsters.\n\nThe end of the wave was coming and I was gearing up to meet it.\n\nThe floodgates were opened and I could feel the mental strain building from using my Law like I was. When I said all the ice in the area, I meant all.\n\nIt flowed into every snowflake and spec of broken ice around me as I flooded the area in its might. My Spirit did the same and I could feel its power reservoir falling at a commensurate rate. Same with my mana keeping all of my skills active.\n\nIf I hadn't seen the end of the tide working its way through the gate this would have been suicide. Draining myself like this would leave me high and dry when the boss showed up.\n\nBut I could last long enough now that the end was in sight.\n\nThe increased brutality added to the drops of blood flying through the air. The beasts were fast and nimble but they were not very durable. A hammer blow was enough to end them if I hit the right spot.\n\nA therapist would probably say that I was projecting but I couldn't give a rat's ass about their opinion right now.\n\nMy increase in brutality was perfectly justified.\n\nThese were the monsters sent to kill us every wave. These were the beasts sent to challenge us and stand in the way of our return to Earth. The tutorial that was supposed to ease us into this whole process.\n\nThe System that uprooted our life and sequestered us into this hell. My life that had turned upside down on a random Saturday in March.\n\nThis wasn't how my life was supposed to go. I didn't plan to wade through the blood of thousands, smashing down monsters and snuffing out lives with my hammer. I wanted to be an engineer.\n\nGet a cushy job somewhere and retire early. Maybe start a family in a few years while watching my niece and nephew grow up. Teach them cuss words and buy them beer after they turned 18.\n\nNot... this.\n\nMy hammer caved in the skull of another monster, showering me in brain matter and blood. Little chunks of skull rained down around me and it was hard not to be frustrated at what I was made to do.\n\nWhat the world had made me do.\n\nThe killing would never end. It wasn't the way the world worked now that there were levels and essence. I would never be free of it, never get the chance to live a peaceful life.\n\nIt made me angry. Angry about the choice that had been taken from me. The option that was removed from my future.\n\nAnd what made me the angriest? What made me seethe with rage?\n\nI liked it.\n\nMaybe some of my frustrations were at myself. At the person that I had become now that I had a hammer in my hands. At the person that had died and been reborn 88 days ago.\n\nAt the person my father would barely recognize.\n\nSo much anger was bottled up inside me there was enough of it to go around. All of my regrets flashed through my mind and it was hard not to be angry at myself. At the stupid choices made along the way.\n\nIf I had started slaughtering beasts at the start, would more of my family still be alive? If I went and massacred every human in the tutorial would my family be intact?\n\nMaybe the Chilling Death of Helheim was who I was. Maybe it was through the blood of thousands that I would rise.\n\nMaybe it was just my grief.\n\n\"GAHHHHH\"\n\nI chose not to contain it anymore. To stop repressing the emotions inside of me. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to deal with what was in there. I wanted it to go away.\n\nIt wasn't the anger at myself that I drew on, it was my fury at the circumstance I was forced into. I couldn't fight the System, or the tutorial grounds I was in.\n\nBut I could kill the beasts.\n\nUnfiltered rage flowed through me and I swung.\n\nAnd swung, and swung, and swung.\n\nAt some point I started screaming as I brought my hammer down, bringing death to another being.\n\nSmashing the thing that blocked our exit out of here.\n\nEven as the last of the lesser monsters were ground into the dirt, I didn't stop swinging.\n\nI charged the four bosses who tried to impose their aura on me. Charged at them with abandon and swung.\n\nThe beast didn't go down with the first blow so I did it again. And again. It finally died making me move on to the next one. There was no grace in my swings, only destruction.\n\nMy body wasn't handling the punishment I was making it go through but that didn't matter to me right now. Maybe it was the tiny part of me that wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. The part that wanted to take them down with me. The part that didn't want to be here anymore.\n\nI wasn't sure of the reason, but I was sure of the outcome. They would meet my hammer and they would die.\n\nMy mind went blank and I let go of everything else. Of everything except for one thing.\n\nMy desire to kill the things that had ruined my life.\n\nWith single-minded purpose, I swung.\n\nAnd I swung.\n\nAnd I swung.\n\nAnd I SWUNG.\n\nThe boss showed up but I didn't change in my approach.\n\nMy hammer came alight with the powers flowing through it and almost matched the preceding beast's luminescence in intensity.\n\nThe boss felt different, like it was stronger than it should have been but that flowed through my head like water on a duck's back. In one ear and out the other. It didn't change anything.\n\nThe only sounds that rang out from inside the camp were my guttural screaming and the squelch of flesh being pounded in.\n\nBooming thuds upon flesh as liquids splattered outward. Of repeated pounding almost incessant in pace.\n\nThud\n\nThud\n\nThud\n\nThud\n\nThe thuds lessened until they became dull, then changed further before finally turning into squelches.\n\nIt wasn't until I couldn't physically lift my hammer that I stopped. The failure to lift it was the only indicator that I shouldn't continue.\n\nMy mind came back to me slowly and I took in the scenery around me.\n\nBodies littered the area in various states with the biggest one lying in front of me. My body was screaming at me in protest to rest and there were more holes in me than Swiss cheese.\n\nThe four mini-bosses were easy to spot because of their size difference, they too were smashed beyond recognition.\n\nBut the one that was by far the worst, was the boss.\n\nIt was little more than a mangled lump of flesh at this point, smashed beyond all recognition.\n\nI couldn't even point out the different parts of the body it was so disfigured.\n\nIt was easy to see that I snapped. The level of destruction was unnecessary even against monsters. The entire boss was unusable after the treatment I put it through.\n\nBlood saturated my armor and the frozen blood upon it looked purposeful in its intensity. The crimson layer evenly distributed throughout my form.\n\nI just stood and stared at what I had done. The realization that the tutorial was over didn't hit until a few moments later.\n\nWith everything that I had been through, of the trial that my family had been put through, it wasn't relief I was feeling at the end of it.\n\nWithout a better way to process, I sat and cried.\n\nCried for the people who weren't here and the things that I had done. Of the people I had killed and the blood that I had reaped. Of the empty feeling inside me.\n\nI cried."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 126 - Closing Hours\nTarget length: ~2200 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Picking myself up took longer than I cared to admit. It was more than just my body I had to put back together. I had prepared for injuries, though, and potions to help with healing, my outburst... not so much.\n\nHealing potions were stashed inside the keep to use and I had a few on me for emergencies. I had to keep a few stashed to make sure not all of them broke if I got pummeled a little too hard. If I kept all of them on me, like I did for the Vine Bears, there was the possibility of them breaking.\n\nThese healing potions were a bit better than normal because I anticipated needing a decently sized pick-me-up. Plus, we had plans starting not long from now that I needed to be fighting fit for.\n\nI bought some of the more expensive materials for Conner to use and he managed to brew a batch of peak grade Common-tier healing potions out of them. They worked significantly better than the generic ones we bought from the store.\n\nThe pylons wouldn't conquer themselves and my body needed stitching back together. Ice wouldn't hold it together forever.\n\nStill, I took a bit of extra time to get myself in order before meeting up with everyone. I wasn't sure how well they would have handled the wave but I didn't fear for their safety.\n\nAfter feeling the wave for myself, I was confident that they would be fine. Jonathan and Austin together would be able to dull a lot of the force and the rest were strong enough to handle the leftovers. Only having to fight one wall worth also helped matters.\n\nTracy and the new group, on the other hand, would probably have casualties depending on how well they did. I suspected Tracy's group lost quite a few.\n\nThey weren't on the same level as us in terms of strength. Both in levels and experience fighting which would hurt them when it came down to it. They weren't prepared for what was going to happen.\n\nLimping back down South gave me the answer I was looking for. 16 faces met me halfway into my journey and I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. Even though I expected to see them, I couldn't help but hold doubts.\n\nIt was hard not to worry, even when I knew they weren't weak.\n\n\"It's good to see you,\" I huffed at them.\n\nAbigail came up to me with glowing hands to start the healing, \"It was as bad as we thought.\"\n\nThe other healers came up to add their skills to the bowl as I turned and we headed back up north.\n\nAbigail and the other healers worked to fix me up and make me a little less holy while everyone else started walking back to our camp. It was a bit of a waste for me to turn around and walk back to where I started, but it saved time in the long run.\n\nGiving the healers time to work through all of the wounds I had endured before we kicked our plan into motion.\n\n\"How did they fare?\" I asked.\n\n\"Tracy's camp lost 22 people. The Eastern wall fared the worst and had the most deaths of the wave. Kurt, the newcomer, lost 5 defending the Southern wall.\"\n\nTracy losing that many was surprising. I knew they wouldn't handle the last wave very well but that number was still higher than I thought it would be.\n\n\"Why so many?\" I questioned.\n\n\"There was some... collateral damage.\" She said cryptically, she looked around to make sure none of the kids were in range before continuing with a quieter voice.\n\n\"Some of the explosions and traps went off when people were still fighting at the gate. I wasn't able to see all of it, but it looked like she went scorched earth when the gates fell even though people were still there fighting.\"\n\nWith everything that had happened, that wasn't all that surprising. The type of person Tracy presented herself as in my head wasn't someone above doing something like that.\n\nShe didn't have an attachment to the people in her camp like I did. She didn't really care if they lived or died. She only cared about living through the tutorial and she got her wish.\n\nIt was a distasteful thing to do but not all that shocking. It made what I was about to do easier at least.\n\n\nTutorial End: 01:19:32:43\n\n\nOne of the first things we needed to do was allocate the next 44 hours. We already had plans set up but now we knew for certain how much time we had left and could draw up a timeline.\n\nThe wave and subsequent healing, along with travel time, took 4 hours giving us just under 2 days to conquer as many pylons as possible. We didn't even plan to get all 50 as that was unfeasible.\n\nWe had estimates we had come up with but those were just guesses at how many we would get.\n\nThe teams were planned out and we had all prepared for the coming hours. Austin and I would go out alone together. Rachel, Jonathan, and Hal would go together. Carrie formed a team with a few other family members and the rest stayed at the camp.\n\nThey needed to watch the kids and keep hold of our camp. Abigail was one of the people who stayed behind as well to coordinate and keep track of the points coming in. We needed to buy a few last-minute things before the timer ran out and she would be able to message me if anything came up. It wouldn't do to have Tracy or Kurt try something while we were out.\n\nI almost wanted it to happen just to have an excuse.\n\n\"You ready, buddy?\" I asked to my partner for the coming days.\n\n\"Woo, can't wait!\" His flatline tone and dripping sarcasm weren't enough to get him out of it. All the fighting was going to be tiring but it was something we needed to do.\n\n\"Let's go then,\"\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nWe fought and fought, well past sundown and late into the night. Austin's skills were nice for being able to see without the sun and his nightlight powers were getting better. Even if he didn't like me calling them that.\n\nWe got 4 pylons before we called it a night, which was a decent haul for the time we spent. Austin was slagging by the end and I wasn't much better. He didn't have the sun to give him strength and my outburst took more out of me than I thought.\n\nThe next day, we managed to get 8 more. Austin was a lot more powerful during the day and we grew more experienced with the monsters we were fighting. We understood their tactics and habits after fighting them for nearly 32 hours straight.\n\nWe didn't sleep that night, fighting throughout as we were leaving the tutorial at noon the following day. We didn't have that much time left and I wanted to squeeze every last drop of effort out of it as I could.\n\nThroughout the night we only got 3 more before the sun came up. Both tiredness and being out of steam played a role in our stalling effort.\n\nThe sun crept along its path in the sky and it was time for me to depart. All told, Austin and I fought and conquered 19 pylons. 19 out of 50 for just the two of us wasn't that bad.\n\n\"You don't have to do this if you don't want to,\" Austin said, knowing I wasn't thrilled with what we had planned.\n\n\"Getting cold feet now? It was your idea.\" Even my half-hearted chuckle managed to sound unenthused about the course I was on.\n\nI had tossed and turned about the idea and no matter how I thought about it, I didn't like it. Even though I didn't like it, I would do it anyway.\n\nTracy doing what she had eased my conscience but not enough to be comfortable with it.\n\n\"Have fun with the rest of them,\" my parting words said, I marched back to camp. There were a few things I needed before heading to my final destination.\n\n\nTutorial end: 00:02:03:34\n\n\nThe timer ticking down added to the suspense and the closing hours were upon us.\n\nAbigail gave me a once-over as I walked into camp making sure I was fighting fit.\n\n\"How many did you get?\" She asked for the number even before any healing flowed through me.\n\n\"Not even a hello? How are you doing Christopher? Oh, I'm fine, how are you?\"\n\nShe gave me a flat look until I gave her the information she wanted, \"We got 19.\"\n\nShe was unfazed by the number which hurt my feelings a little and barreled on without comment, \"Jon managed to get 11 so far and they're out trying to get another before the time's up. Everything is packed and ready to go, all we have left is for you to give me your points.\"\n\nEveryone was using Abigail as a bank for points so that we could get a quick total for how many we had.\n\nOn every trip to camp, Austin and I dropped our points on her and the others were doing the same. I handed over the points from the last few pylons and couldn't help but startle at the total we had managed to accumulate.\n\nThe pylons rewarded nearly a million a pop, making Austin and I rake in nearly 10 million points each from the 19 we conquered.\n\nThe others conquering 11 meant another 11 million would be added to that total.\n\nOverall, with the points we had saved up and the haul we had managed to pull in, Abigail was most likely the richest person in the tutorial right now.\n\n\"What does that bring us to?\" I knew roughly what the number was but it never hurt to hear it out loud.\n\n\"Austin hasn't been back to give me his share and Jon and them still have a pool to give me,\" She said dragging it out, \"But, I have over 40 million right now.\"\n\n\"Is that enough for everyone? We need what, 11 more?\"\n\nHer nod confirmed that 11 people still needed a bloodline, \"We have enough for the bloodline essence, but not enough to buy all the materials people want. Some might have to make do with a less expensive part or a lesser tier.\"\n\nI mulled over that information and nodded. That sounded about right. We would be able to get everyone a bloodline but wouldn't be able to get the parts for everyone.\n\nWe hoped that they would be able to get them as prizes for the tutorial if we didn't make enough for everyone and had plans for the occasion we didn't make enough.\n\n\"Do you think she will be able to do it?\" The she I was talking about was Rachel.\n\nShe had been fighting nonstop trying to get enough points for the bloodline she wanted. She got less sleep than even I did as fires raged through the night.\n\n\"I don't know.\" Abigail shrugged, \"She hasn't been back in a while so I don't know how many she has. Jon tried to get her to slow down but she refused. I wouldn't be surprised if she passes out from exhaustion after the time is up.\"\n\nAt least she was persistent. We went over a few more things until the conversation ground down. The timer was ticking down and I lingered for probably longer than I should have.\n\n\"You know you don't have to do this if you don't want to,\" Abigail said.\n\nI couldn't help but chuckle at that.\n\n\"What? What's funny?\" She asked, confused.\n\n\"Nothing, it's just the second time I've heard that today.\"\n\nWith nothing left to say, I began my march down south for the last time.\n\nEverything was packed up and everything I wanted to take with me was accounted for. I wouldn't be taking anything with me during my trip but the others would make sure everything made it back.\n\nI didn't have a lot of things that I wanted to take but there were a few that stood out. I was wearing my armor and the only other things I wanted to keep were my tools.\n\nThe blacksmithing tools I had made were something I would take with me. I could make them again but why waste them? Plus, some of the trophies I wanted to keep.\n\nThe pelt of the Vine Bear especially.\n\nWe didn't know how our stuff was going to work but we assumed anything being carried would be transported with us. We had Sam and Ashely make up a few backpacks for us to store everything in and to make it easier to carry.\n\nMine was already packed and ready to go.\n\nWith nothing else to delay myself with, it was time to do something less than honorable.\n\nI'm sorry, Dad."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 127 - When Words Fail\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Tracy\n\n\nShe felt it before she saw it.\n\nSince the last wave finished, every bird that Kathy had sent North was killed indiscriminately. Arrows of Ice, spears of light, or balls of fire killed anything that got close to what their camp was doing.\n\nHer eye in the sky was blind and she wasn't warned of his approach.\n\nShe knew what was coming, it was hard not to after she had met the man. The way the northern faction exited her camp left little doubt. The only reason to depart as quickly and as orderly as they had was because of only a few reasons, and all of them were bad. Only minutes after the wave ended they were up and out of here with prepacked luggage.\n\nShe could honestly say she saw this coming. Tracy thought it would be Kurt first rather than Christopher, but knew one of them would probably do it. She was wrong on who it would be.\n\nThe slight chill in the air gave away who it was that approached her camp and the accompanied dread was unmistakeable.\n\nHer control over the camp was already slipping and she was barely holding on by this point. She didn't hold the same power she once did. There weren't enough people that would stand with her this time.\n\nEven if she still had that kind of power, she wasn't certain it would have worked. After the last wave ended, no one wanted to give up their points anymore. They didn't want to live by her rules and they refused to listen to her.\n\nThe threat to their lives was over and they expressed their discontent with the way they had been treated. Some left. Others stayed but they wouldn't cooperate with her. Most refused her outright.\n\nStaying only to use the facilities that Tracy had built during the tutorial before they were whisked away and back to earth.\n\nWithout the influx of points, she had to go out and earn them herself. Kathy stayed with her and she cut a deal with Damien to keep some muscle on her side, but she didn't trust the rest of her camp enough to keep them close.\n\nShe had to offer outrageous rewards for people to go out and conquer pylons under her faction. Most scoffed when she began to ask for their support but some were willing to listen. Unable to ignore what she was offering so quickly.\n\nShe only managed to get 5 other pylons in the last few days which was less than she wanted. None of her camp had the motivation to charge into battle after they had just been freed from the torment which left her with fewer pylons than she predicted.\n\nAdded to her original pylon that still stood, she had 6 total. Without birds to keep track of everything in the North, she didn't know how many the freak of nature was able to take over.\n\nHis family was nearly as strong as he was and they all were starting to become freaks of nature. She saw the looks of distaste at her before they left. The unconcealed faces of disapproval.\n\nIt had started ever since she refused to help them with the Mindbreaker. Tracy had felt the shift inside her camp after that. They came back a few members short and barely spoke with her anymore.\n\nTheir representative, Abigail, would only engage in the bare necessities before ending contact. It was clear where the rift had started.\n\nAll of the signs pointed to this happening but there was nothing Tracy could do to stop it. She had spent all of the points she had acquired on trying to survive the final wave and didn't have the major income that usually came after a wave.\n\nAll she had left was the points she earned from fighting nearby pylons and they weren't enough to stop what was coming.\n\nShe had watched as the man who closed in on her camp demolished waves on his own and was under no delusion that she could contend with that. She could only hope that he wasn't out for blood.\n\nShe had seen the outcome of that movie before and it ended with an exploded head.\n\nWhile Tracy could say that she had seen this coming, she could also say a part of her was surprised. During her conversations with the man, as brief as their contact was, he didn't seem the type to go down this road.\n\nHe seemed more like the stoic type that would abstain from doing something like this.\n\nThe light show with the spear, though, he had something like this written on his face. If it was him coming down here she would understand. She wouldn't be able to defend against him either, but at least it wouldn't be out of character.\n\nStill, she wasn't going to roll over and give up all her hard work. She had traps planted the second the wave was over specifically designed for humans instead of monsters.\n\nShe bought a few materials with what little points she had left that targeted Ice powers specifically. If she was going down, she was going down fighting.\n\nThe rising sense of dread signaled the distance closing. The temperature began dropping faster and everyone inside the camp noticed the change.\n\nNot all of them had seen the man fight and hadn't put the two together yet. They didn't know the force of nature that was coming and were blissfully unaware.\n\nShe didn't have enough points to repair the gates after the wave and had to settle for some of the builders doing less-than-stellar repairs. She lamented her lack of points once more at that thought.\n\nThose repairs weren't going to be enough. They weren't going to hold out long against the kind of force she had seen him deploy.\n\nWhile she had traps armed and a few consumables for such an occasion stashed away, she didn't think she was going to win. The best she could do was delay until the timer was up.\n\n\nTutorial End: 00:00:47:56\n\n\nChristopher was cutting it close. Only 47 minutes until the tutorial ended and the man was only just now arriving. He was either too busy to come sooner or confident he could finish it in the time they had left.\n\nOne of the other mages that she had paid to stay started casting a two-way scrying pool, the same as the first time they had spoken.\n\nIf she was going to delay as long as she could, fighting wasn't going to be her first option. Maybe she could get him to change his mind.\n\nThe portal snapped up without resistance and she saw the hulking form of chiseled ice wading through the jungle. He wasn't in a rush and walked almost leisurely toward her northern wall.\n\nThe portal moved to keep pace, only bobbing slightly from the motion.\n\n\"Christopher,\" Tracy greeted.\n\nThe man's gait didn't falter as he took off his helmet of ice. Well, less taking off and more letting it fade away.\n\n\"Tracy,\" He returned. There was a tightness in his face that was new and she saw the barest hints of hesitation in his motion.\n\nHe stopped for only a brief second before continuing his march when he saw the portal keeping pace.\n\n\"So it has come to this?\" Tracy didn't mince words. Over the short time she had known him, she knew this was the best way to get him to speak.\n\nHis audible sigh told her more than he probably intended. The resignation and unwillingness were clear. All of the signs kept pointing at him not wanting to do this.\n\nEven more questions bloomed in Tracy's mind.\n\n\"I am sorry,\" he said softly, \"I have given this extensive thought and contemplation and have come up with what I think is reasonable. I am not here to kill you or take your points, that's going too far in my opinion. You've earned those and me taking those away would cross a line I am unwilling to cross.\"\n\nHim not being here to kill her eased most of Tracy's worries. She didn't think he would do something like that but it took a weight off her shoulders to hear him say it.\n\n\"I am also not here to take your pylon away from you. You've defended it successfully through 30 waves and it is not my intention to take it from you like that.\"\n\nHearing that made her stiffen. If he wasn't here to kill her and he wasn't here to take her pylon, what was he here for?\n\nRevenge? Tracy hadn't done anything that would call for revenge.\n\n\"But.\" His words jarred her back to attention, \"To get the most out of this tutorial and the prizes that will be given out at the end, I need to do the most I possibly can. All I ask is that you subordinate your faction to mine.\"\n\nHe paused to let her mull over his request.\n\n\"It is what I feel comfortable asking without going too far in my opinion. You get to keep control of your pylons and points while I get a bit better of a reward having a subordinate faction with pylons under their control.\n\n\"In the grand scheme of things, I think what I'm asking for is fair. We helped tremendously during the waves and asking for this doesn't seem like too much.\" He stated.\n\nSubordinate? That was the reason that he came all the way down here? He brought down a mountain of dread on her head only to ask for her to bend the knee.\n\nIt was ridiculous. If she had the power that Christopher wielded, she would be asking for a lot more than just subordination. She had already exploited the southern camp with subordination and he was in a better position than she was when she did it.\n\nThe southern camp was going to fall during the last wave and all of them knew it. Their camp wasn't able to hold up to the monsters of the 27th wave and they were bleeding people trying to hold on.\n\nHer repeated attempts at getting them to merge were initially ignored until people started to die. They lost over 15 people before they eventually said yes.\n\nThe only holdout was their leader who found her terms were too much. Subordination was too far and he wasn't willing to give in. He eventually agreed only because the rest of his camp convinced him. They saw the writing on the wall and managed to sway him into saying yes.\n\nTracy was certain they would have died to the last wave if they stood alone.\n\nThe only reason that she hadn't insisted on the same thing for Christopher's camp was because she needed them more than they needed her. Plus, she was positive they would have said no if she insisted on that point.\n\nTracy wasn't sure that she would have been able to survive without them holding a wall for her for as long as they did.\n\nShe only had to focus on three directions of attack instead of all four and it took a load off of her that was desperately needed. Her traps were more concentrated on the other three gates and her forces were able to deal with the waves easier. It also alowed her to start banking points for later waves rather than spend everything as she earned it.\n\nWithout them defending a wall, things would have ended a lot differently. It was closer than she would have liked already and that was with the two other factions helping, letting her limp over the finish line mostly unscathed.\n\nSubordination wasn't that bad all things considered, but she didn't want to roll over so easily.\n\n\"And if I say no? What will you do then?\" She pushed back.\n\nPoking the bear wasn't what she had in mind when this conversation started but she wasn't going to give in so easily.\n\nThe few minutes of back and forth since the conversation started had taken enough time for Christopher to reach the edge of the jungle. He was standing in clear view of her camp now and finally came to a halt.\n\nHer question was left unanswered for an uncomfortable amount of time while he stood looking over her camp. He no doubt saw the repairs to the gates she had made and was evaluating the state of the defenses.\n\n\"I asked myself the same thing,\" he said slowly, \"How far I was willing to go for this? It wasn't even my idea in the first place.\"\n\nTracy jumped on the weakness she saw. Any way to get out of subordinating her faction she would take, \"You don't have to go through with it if you don't want to.\"\n\nHer hopes were dashed when emitted a short laugh instead of considering her words. She wanted to ask why he laughed but wasn't given the chance.\n\n\"If not now, then when?\" He said, \"I hope to build a city when we get back and the same problems are going to come up then as they are now. There will be times I must be proactive instead of passive, times when I must be the aggressor instead of the defender.\n\n\"Being neutral is my goal but that does not mean I will be passive. There will be things that I have to fight for. Resources people will wish to control and dungeons people will wish to claim.\n\n\"I have read the things that have appeared on Earth. The resources that people will flock to in hopes of leveling up and stepping on the Paths of Power.\"\n\nHe paused before continuing, \"There will not be a place for pacifism. Remaining passive and non-confrontational will get me nothing. What should I do if someone takes control of something I want? When they have something that will make me or my family stronger and they refuse to sell and deny any trade?\"\n\nHe considered for a moment before changing directions.\n\n\"Would you give up your pylon for points?\" He asked.\n\nTracy shook her head.\n\n\"Would you trade it to me for something I could give you or a favor I would owe you?\" He asked again.\n\nTracy shook her head once again.\n\n\"What should I do then?\" He asked, \"When you have denied to sell and refused other options? The only thing left is to use force and we both know how that will end.\"\n\nThe intensity of his stare as he said that made something inside of her shiver. Sweat began to build on her lower back and goosebumps appeared on her arms.\n\nYes, she knew how that would go.\n\n\"Saying that doesn't mean force will be my first option, hopefully not my second either, but I cannot dismiss the possibility that force will be necessary in some cases when words fail. I have given it a lot of thought and I came up with a process that I feel comfortable with doing. The most honorable way I can think of to go about using force.\n\n\"I will challenge you for it.\" He said.\n\nIt took Tracy's brain a second to comprehend what he was saying. When it finally did, she couldn't help but say what instantly came to mind.\n\n\"You'll challenge me for it?\" Tracy said incredulously, \"Like a duel? When people used to throw gloves to declare a challenge.\"\n\nTracy couldn't help it. The thought was absurd. Who challenged people anymore? There were no duels anymore like there were in the past.\n\nWell, except in Texas, but mutual combat was different.\n\n\"Yes, like a duel. It is the most honorable way of going about it that I could come up with and the way my Dad would find least disappointing.\" Christopher said softly.\n\nThere was a moment after he said that when he unstrung the hammer from his back and brought it around in front of him. He gave it a twirl, up and around before smashing it into the ground.\n\n\"You've heard my terms, I require an answer.\" He stated.\n\nTracy looked at the timer and clicked her tongue. There was still too much time on the clock and she wouldn't be able to get out of this.\n\n\nI have seen the comments of the last chapter and have heard what you guys are trying to say. I hope that this chapter clears some of the confusion up regarding the path Christopher will tread in the future.\n\nChris was never going to be the hero, the selfless and caring. He also wasn't going to be the villain who took what he wanted from who he wanted.\n\nI think I laid out his philosophy well in the chapter but if there are any more questions feel free to drop them in the comments and I will try to answer them."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 128 - Curtains Close\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Chris\n\n\nTutorial End: 00:00:25:12\n\n\nI knew that Tracy was stalling but I allowed myself the chance to voice my thoughts. I wasn't required to do so but it felt good to get it off my chest. It was different than discussing it with Austin or Abigail, they were biased to what I had to say.\n\nTracy, though, jumped headfirst into the kind of thinking that was required when back on Earth. Maybe a bit too much for my tastes, but she would see what I was talking about without me having to explain it or justify myself.\n\nAnd if I was reading her expression correctly, she thought I wasn't going far enough with what I was asking for. The initial surprise when I asked for subjugation was hard to miss along with the glint that arose after hearing it was only that. Like she was looking at her future reward for keeping her pylon.\n\nThat didn't bother me though. I was asking for what I felt was right. A fair enough compensation that it didn't feel like extorsion or stealing, but enough to feel rewarded for the work we put in. We helped with the waves, helped her survive, and now we would be getting something out of it.\n\nMy challenge also gave her the opportunity to defend herself. As the challenged, she would be able to dictate the kind of battle that would ensue.\n\nOne-on-one, group, army, it didn't matter much to me, and was left up to what she wanted to do.\n\nRefusal was also an option but at that point, I could say I tried the honorable way first.\n\nWhen Austin first proposed the idea, I wanted nothing to do with it. It was a needless way to make enemies and was ultimately unnecessary. The marginal gain wasn't worth antagonizing her or others in the future.\n\nI wanted to build a city without the fighting or wars that most would endure. A way to isolate myself and my family away from the fighting we had been forced to go through.\n\nMaking enemies was counterproductive to that goal and antagonizing her would turn her into an enemy for later. Killing her would accomplish the same without making enemies but I was unwilling to stoop so low.\n\nIt was only after a lot of thought and consideration that I came around to the idea. The thing that changed my mind, and the reason I proposed what I did, was because of the future.\n\nWhile burying my head in the sand and taking an isolationist policy sounded good, it would eventually lead to problems. If I created my city up North and stood alone without fighting for the things that would make me stronger, others would.\n\nOthers would fight, claw, and strive for every scrap while I took the slower way, without fighting for things and rising in levels at a more sedate pace. The problems wouldn't show themselves immediately, but over time, they would show up.\n\nIn 10 years, 20, years, 100 years, what would the power difference be? I had to consider longer stretches of time now that my lifespan had been extended. I wasn't sure of the exact length I would live naturally but it was close to 200 years now that I was E-rank. Longer if I kept rising in level.\n\nIf I didn't gain strength at the same rate as others, I wouldn't be able to keep up. If I didn't seek out resources and opportunities and left them alone because of an unwillingness to fight, I would fall behind.\n\nMy family would fall behind.\n\nAnd after 50 or so years of not keeping pace, what would I do when someone stronger than me, a rank ahead with better gear, came to conquer my city? Came to subjugate what I had built?\n\nThis new world necessitated conflict and I couldn't shy away from it. Wouldn't shy away from it. If I did, it would lead to paying fealty to someone else down the line or worse, death. While being under someone and paying fealty to others wasn't a bad thing, generally speaking, it depended on who it was you paid fealty to.\n\nIt was subject to change and could become someone who was unworthy of it.\n\nIt was better to not take that chance in the first place and stand on your own two feet. To remain independent of anyone else's influence. To do that, to remain independent, I needed to fight at times that required it. To challenge the people who needed it. To gain the resources and opportunity I required to stand on my own.\n\nWhich was what led me to what I had come up with.\n\nI would try words first, buying what I wanted or trading for it, then, after words failed, I would resort to challenging them. If that didn't work and they refused to entertain that.\n\nWell, I did my best.\n\nI took every step towards a solution that didn't require such lengths and was refused at every turn.\n\nAfter that, what happened wasn't my fault anymore.\n\nWar was bloody and most often needless, but it still had a place in history for a reason. It was my goal not to resort to that, but sometimes doing something I didn't like was an option I couldn't refuse.\n\nIt was better than what others would no doubt do.\n\nComparing myself to others wasn't a good way to judge the morality of my actions but it helped ease my conscience. Made me feel better about the path I had come up with.\n\nI could only hope my father didn't disapprove. I didn't think he would but it was a constant on my mind.\n\nAfter issuing my challenge, Tracy stared at me in contemplation. I had little doubt she was going over everything in her head that she could do but in the end, I expected her to agree without a fight.\n\nAt least that was what I hoped. I didn't desire to fight again. I didn't want to fight. Not for a while really.\n\nThe timer ticked away and she finally gave an answer.\n\n\"Fine,\" It was hard not to hear the disappointment in her voice but she had agreed nonetheless.\n\nWithout being prompted she continued, \"I, Tracy Litterman, Leader of the Hoosier faction, do swear fealty to Christopher Zalenski, Leader of the Zalenski Family. May my pylons and lands be under his and may my vassals become his.\"\n\nThe oath was bare bones but I didn't need it to be anything more than that. The System took her words and made them true, my status sheet had a few more lines on it and the deal was done.\n\nBeing in the tutorial changed a few things and things that would have happened back on Earth didn't. Being subjugated here was only a pylon ownership shift with only a faction hierarchy order change.\n\nWe didn't have noble ranks or cities to think about. If this were later, and back on Earth between two cities or kingdoms, there would be a levy paid to me from Tracy. She would pay me some of the taxes she earned along with a few other things related to city governance.\n\nThere wasn't a tax that the camps were able to collect as we didn't deal in coins and there wasn't a material tax on dungeons as there were none. Both were missing from our agreement.\n\nUsually, a city had a percentage tax that the Lord decided upon along with a few other things that were also up to their discretion. Any dungeon controlled would also have people pay to use or tax some of the materials earned inside of it.\n\nWe had none of those things so it was only pylon ownership that I gained from the oath.\n\nTracy's 6 pylons were now under my control and she even had a vassal of her own. I didn't know that the Southern camp had sworn fealty to her but now they were under me as well along with the 5 pylons they managed to capture.\n\nWith the time that was left, there wasn't a chance of me making it back up North. It wasn't like I had to, as everything was already planned for, but that meant I had nothing to do for the last 20 minutes of the tutorial.\n\nI couldn't conquer a pylon in that time or do anything of significance, only sit and wait for the end.\n\nNot wanting to loom around Tracy's camp, I walked a bit away into the jungle before sitting down on a rock. Hammer to my side and waited for the tutorial to end.\n\nI couldn't help but think over everything that had happened. The changed man that had entered and turned into what I was now.\n\nWonder about the fate of humanity, whether my Mother and brother were still alive.\n\nI didn't like to think about what she and Gabe were doing. It wasn't healthy to constantly think about. There was no way to know what they were going through or confirm whether they were alive.\n\nThey would be my first stop when I returned. Running home as fast as possible to make sure both of them still lived.\n\nIf they weren't... no. Don't think like that.\n\nAs the timer approached zero, Abigail's voice sounded in my head.\n\n\"They managed to get one more. 31 total. Rachel succeeded. Bloodlines secured.\"\n\nAt least there was some good news to end this nightmare. We accomplished what we had set out for and we were ready for the return to Earth.\n\nWith 31 pylons under our faction, along with 6 from Tracy and 5 from the Southern camp, we had 42 out of 50.\n\n84% of the total pylons in the tutorial were ours.\n\n\nTutorial End: 00:00:02:01\n\n\nI couldn't help but think about the prizes we would get for accomplishing such a feat.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nTsurandom\n\n\nSweat pooled on his face as he paced outside the opulent doors. The heat bleeding through even the strongest of formations lining the entry to his patron's domain was higher than normal. Waves of it rolled off of the doors visible to even the lowest Rank eye.\n\nThe worry he felt was almost debilitating and his knees felt like they were about to give out. While keeping track of the integration tutorial he couldn't help the mounting dread that built up.\n\nThere weren't supposed to be any survivors yet there had been many. Under 10% was still wildly outside the average deviation compared to all of the tutorials taking place but that wasn't how his patron did things.\n\nCaring not for the fact that they most likely had the lowest survival rate in all the integration, the fact there were survivors was a problem.\n\nNot a problem for the participants, but for Tsurandom himself. Survivors in the tutorial he supervised did not lead to a healthy and fulfilling life. It led to a short and hot end with his family soon to follow. Probably everyone he knew soon after if his patron was in a particularly bad mood.\n\nStill, it was his duty to report the end and there was no getting out of it. No matter how hard he tried and wished to be anywhere else in the multiverse.\n\nHe steeled himself the best he could before pushing through the heavily decorated plated doors and into the inferno. The doors scalded his scales as he brushed them open.\n\nThe fires raged hotter than normal which did not signal a good start to what would surely be his end. They nipped at him as he passed through, burning and searing his flesh.\n\nEven his body which had been tempered by fire couldn't handle the flames his patron controlled.\n\nSweat traced down his features for more reasons than one as he knelt down at the foot of the Sovereign Flame's throne.\n\nNo acknowledgment came until blackened and burnt scales marred his form. The raging fires were too much for his defenses to handle but he stayed silent as he burned. He would not add to his transgressions by speaking out of turn.\n\nFinally, he was given permission to speak.\n\n\"My Lord, the tutorial draws to a close and I need your approval on matters concerning its end,\" Tsurandum spoke in the clearest tone he could even as his body wanted nothing more than to sprint away from the being he faced.\n\nWith there being survivors, Tsurandom couldn't close the tutorial under his own power. The sponsor of the tutorial, his patron, had a chance to bless any participants that he chose before the other Gods who watched had the chance.\n\nThere was little possibility of that happening but it was still outside of his control. The System itself wouldn't let him bring the tutorial to a conclusion, hence his presence here.\n\nThe fire flared briefly before leveling out at the heightened intensity it had reached.\n\n\"I am aware of what is needed.\" Short and clipped was his patron's response.\n\nTsurandom didn't have the courage to defend himself. 113 survivors out of an initial 1,344. A survival rate of 8.4%, the lowest of the subject's entire world. Lower than even The White Hoard's, even those lunatics had more survivors than his.\n\nOnce the tutorial was planned, it took significant effort to change and how was he supposed to know they would all come together and only defend one camp?\n\nThat rarely happened and if it did, it was too late to do anything. There weren't enough people to defend against the waves to survive. Except this time, that didn't happen.\n\nPlus, the aberration that his tutorial involved was outside of his power to control. Rather than crumbling under the pressure and loss, the being leaned on his warrior's spirit to survive.\n\nThe likelihood of one of his participants forming a Spirit of the Warrior was so minuscule, statistically, that it wasn't even considered. The odds were so low they were effectively zero.\n\nStill, he clamped his mouth and awaited his punishment. Not daring to say anything else less he curse his family line worse than he already had.\n\nExcept, the flame and heat never came. The burning end he anticipated never came.\n\n\"Go, I will take care of it.\" His patron said and dismissed him with a heated wave. The scalding air blackening more of his scales as he knelt.\n\nAt first, he thought it was a trick and stayed kneeling where he was. A test to see if he would leave with haste and run from punishment. It wasn't until his patron's aura bore down on him that he was forced to flee.\n\nHis body refused to endure and made him leave instinctively. Not willing to stay in the same room as the being pressing down on him and fled without his brain being able to do anything about it.\n\nEven as he rushed away, he couldn't help but dread the other shoe dropping.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nFlame Sovereign Callum\n\n\nThe flames rose to the ceiling, turning white hot after the peasant left. He could feel the trembling his assistant was trying and failing to hide. There was nothing that could hide inside his domain.\n\nHis fire saw everything.\n\nThe Dragon-kin was so weak his scales burned from his fire. Callum took a perverse pleasure in burning things that weren't meant to be burnt. A Fire Dragon's scales were almost indestructible against flames yet he had done it anyway.\n\nThat did little to ease his frustration.\n\nWhile abnormalities were possible and had happened before, they ruined his experiments and fouled his mood. They were outliers that were unaccountable for which was a constant bane he had to deal with over the integrations.\n\nWatching the broken one corrupt others and break their minds was thrilling to watch but it was hard to ignore the ending he had lived. His fun had ended and his fascination was no more.\n\nThis wasn't the first time it had happened and it wouldn't be the last but it still frustrated him every time an aberration popped up. The incomplete feeling of a job not finished was hard to get over.\n\nStill, he had to do what was required of him or the System would penalize him and no one wanted that.\n\nHe prepared some of his pre-recorded endings and called it a day, unwilling to spend any more time on the failure. Instead, he thought ahead to what he could do better.\n\nThe ants would die in a few years anyway, what did it matter that they lived for a few more? None of them would make it to godhood.\n\nIncreasing the rewards for conquest should incite more violence. Changing the pylon structure could incentivize it even, by making them closer together. Boosting the rewards for killing others more than stray monsters could be a fun avenue to test.\n\nHis mind forgot the inconsequential ants that lived and began toiling with ideas of his future experiments. Looking ahead to the next chance he would have.\n\nFor he would do to others what was done to him."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nBecoming the Dark Lord — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Luke jolted awake, his cheek tingling from having fallen asleep with his face on the ground. His mind was a storm, thoughts tangled and scattered. He glanced around, heart pounding. This... wasn’t his house.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Luke | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: He, Points, Luke’s\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Magnetic Return (Rare), Servant of the Dark Lord (Unique), Notice: Approaching First Floor, Basic Blade Handling (Common), Heavy Strike, You have learned a Class Skill, Servant of the Dark Lord, Basic Chameleon Skin (Uncommon)); stats (Perception, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility, Vitality)\nSystem notification style: \"System’s Annual Integration!]\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (5% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 277: Infiltrator’s Maid Manual\nTarget length: ~1900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Bastion’s celebration loomed ever closer. Mason had secured entry to the event, along with an invitation that listed Luke as his companion. Jack, meanwhile, had been slipping through alleys to their hideout, leaving bundles of supplies in an abandoned house nearby. Evangeline insisted on the precaution: if anyone trailed him, they wouldn’t trace the goods back to the group.\n\nInside the fortress, the Haven folk who had remained behind worked steadily on repairs. They patched cracks in the stone, reinforced barricades, and shored up inner defenses. Nothing obvious, nothing that would rouse suspicion if a scout wandered too close.\n\nThrough Jack came further news: Bartholomew had sent scouting parties deeper into the other section of the tutorial zone. His eyes were elsewhere. He was convinced Luke had fled in that direction.\n\nSo Luke’s last few days had been reduced to two things. Waiting, and learning how to walk in high heels.\n\n“Why the hell do I have to practice this crap?” Luke muttered, or rather, Lucy muttered, teetering in the heels with murderous irritation.\n\nEvangeline, arms folded, pressed a folding fan into his hand.\n\n“You need to be a charming woman,” she said.\n\n“Charming? I just need to stay at that damned party for a few minutes and then vanish!”\n\nShe sighed, long-suffering. “We need you to draw attention without drawing attention. If someone spots you in a corridor, you’ll have to improvise. You’ll need confidence, mystery, allure, charm.”\n\n“I’ll just say, ‘I got lost, I was looking for the bathroom.’” Luke collapsed into a chair, sulking.\n\n“That’s not how it works, idiot.” Evangeline snapped the fan shut with a crack. “And if the soldier tells you to go back to the party, then what?”\n\nLuke froze mid-thought. “I’ll… improvise?”\n\nThe fan smacked against the table. “You need to be seductive.”\n\n“I’m not seducing anyone!” Luke shot to his feet, glaring at her.\n\n“Lucy, you have to use charm to captivate. Lure a guard somewhere quiet, then knock him out.”\n\n“I’ll just kill the guard and stash him in my storage item,” Luke replied flatly.\n\n“You’d kill an innocent soldier?”\n\nHe clicked his tongue, annoyance biting through the room.\n\n“Being the good guy sucks…” he muttered.\n\nEvangeline stepped closer, her gaze sharp enough to cut. “As a woman, you’ve got the confidence of a monkey.”\n\nShe flicked a folded sheet of paper onto the table.\n\n“What’s this?” Lucy asked, suspicion in his tone.\n\n“Lines I wrote for you, based on my kunoichi seduction techniques. Memorize them. I even noted when to use each one.”\n\nLuke skimmed the paper. With each line his face darkened, veins throbbing at his temple. “I’m not saying any of this. I’d rather die than say this.”\n\n“Your choice, Luke. But your life depends on it,” Evangeline replied without flinching.\n\nThe absurdity of the exchange hung in the air, but the plan itself was no joke. They returned to reviewing it, voices low and serious. Step one: Mason would escort Luke into the banquet. Step two: Luke needed to escape unnoticed. The ballroom had only one exit, guarded and well lit. Whether he tried to walk out boldly or seep through the doors as mist, both options carried risk. Mason’s role was clear: create a diversion strong enough to draw every eye, buying Luke the precious seconds to slip away.\n\nFrom there, the path led to a marked spot on the map, the cleaning supply room. That was where Luke would shed the gown and disguise himself again, this time in a maid’s uniform. Evangeline herself had stitched it together from memory, piecing details Jack and Mason provided. A disguise meant for survival, not vanity.\n\nThe fan still lay on the table between them, its folded ribs like the teeth of a trap.\n\nDisguised as a maid, Luke would make his way through the fortress toward the mechanism at its center. The place had been sealed off long ago, hidden behind freshly raised walls. No one knew of it except Bartholomew and Kruger. His task was simple in theory: carve a hole through the barrier.\n\nAccording to Evangeline, the wall wasn’t particularly thick. Bartholomew had made sure of that, in case he ever needed access himself. Even so, Luke would have to breach it quietly, slip inside as mist, and infiltrate the mechanism room without anyone noticing.\n\nOnce finished, he was supposed to retrace his steps, slip back through the same opening, and return to the supply room. There he would swap back into the dress, rejoin the party as if nothing had happened, and remain until it ended. Only then would he leave Bastion’s fortress with the others. All of it hinged on drawing no attention.\n\nOf course, they had backup plans. If reentering the party became impossible, Luke could abandon the disguise and make for the stairwell, climbing toward the upper levels in a desperate bid to escape. From there, he might even attempt to leap down from the fortress walls. But that was a last resort. He knew the truth: if it came to that, he wouldn’t make it out alive. Erza Grimhart or the soldiers would find him long before he hit the ground.\n\n\n***\n\n\nAllison had just returned from the second fortress. She pulled something out of her storage item and set it on the table.\n\n“We got the tool,” she said.\n\nThey had asked the Haven’s smiths and blacksmiths to put their skills to work, forging something that would give them a fighting chance in the mission. A part of Luke had hoped they’d fail, that the thing wouldn’t even exist. Another part wanted it badly, because it meant he might actually have a way to pull this whole plan off.\n\n“That’s it?” he asked.\n\n“This is a hand auger,” Allison explained. “You press it against the wall and twist. It drills a hole. All you have to do is keep turning and applying pressure, like a manual drill.”\n\nThe purpose was obvious: make a hole wide enough for Luke to slip through in mist form. Normally, boring through the wall with something like that would take close to twenty minutes. But Luke wasn’t normal. With his inhuman strength, stamina reinforcement, and the skill Force Infusion applied to the tool, he figured he could do it in under a minute.\n\n“Practice,” Evangeline said, tossing the auger to him. “And wear the maid uniform while you do it… just to set the mood.”\n\nA vein throbbed at his temple. She was clearly messing with him.\n\n'Wow, this is going to be amazing', the voice in his head chimed. 'A gala dress and then a maid outfit, all in one night. The gods couldn’t have scripted a better punishment. Maybe throw in a sultry voice for your master? Or drop something on the floor like a clumsy maid: “I’m so sorry, master, please punish me however you see fit.”'\n\nYou swore you’d be mature about this, Luke shot back irritably. You even said the gods don’t care about gender. Looks a lot like you’re just enjoying yourself.\n\nHey, can you blame me? You, in a gown and then in a maid uniform? That’s a cosmic-level event, man.\n\nLuke decided the only winning move was to ignore her. He pulled the necklace from around his neck, setting his storage item on the table.\n\n“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said. “This necklace… it’s a talking item.”\n\nHe’d been putting this off, waiting for the right moment. If he was going to finish the tutorial, then Allison deserved to know the truth, that this place was actually a fragment of the first universe, long destroyed. After what he’d seen in the chamber of the second mechanism, it was obvious the main quest was tied to something left behind from that lost world. The more they knew, the better chance they had of surviving whatever awaited inside the castle.\n\n“I’ve been wondering about that all along,” Evangeline said. “I remember when I stole it from you, it wouldn’t shut up the whole way back.”\n\nAllison frowned, staring at Luke. “Wait. What do you mean your necklace talks?”\n\n“That’s right, Allison,” came a voice from the pendant. Artemis. “I’m a fully alive, fully conscious item. I’ve been with you all this time, basically a secret party member. Also, as the president of both fandoms, Luke and Charlie, and Luke and Allison, I have a few things to—”\n\nBefore she could say anything else, Luke clamped his hand around the necklace, silencing her with a death grip.\n\n“It really did speak,” Allison murmured, leaning closer, eyes bright with intrigue. “Seems like a pretty powerful item… like my necklace, a family heirloom.”\n\nShe lifted Luke’s pendant into her hand, turning it carefully between her fingers. The chain gleamed dully in the lamplight, but its weight was heavier than gold. Because it was soulbound, Allison’s Identify skill revealed nothing. To her, it was simply a mystery sealed shut.\n\n“Interesting,” Evangeline remarked, arms folded as she studied it. “How did you even get something like this?”\n\n“A special orb quest,” Luke replied, keeping his tone casual. “Let’s just say it was a gift from a divine order that tried to recruit me.”\n\nAllison set the necklace back on the table with care. “And did you accept?”\n\nLuke’s throat tightened. What was he supposed to say? That it had come courtesy of his adoptive father’s servant, a demon god, dictator, conqueror of universes?\n\n“I haven’t pledged to any order yet,” he said instead, deflecting smoothly. “But I did get this axe.”\n\nHe drew out the minotaur’s weapon and placed it beside the necklace. The blade caught the light with a dull menace, far too heavy for decoration. Supposedly, it was a gift from the Order of the God of the Forge. Yet Luke suspected it hadn’t been meant for him at all, just another relic stumbled upon in the chaos of battle, claimed when he brought down the beast.\n\n“Figures. The gods are just amusing themselves at our expense,” Evangeline said flatly, her voice carrying the sting of certainty.\n\n“To them, our lives don’t matter. Tutorial or not, all they want are followers,” Allison added, the distaste in her tone sharpening every word.\n\n“Did you know Jerry, my raven, was a gift from a Divine Order?” Evangeline said suddenly.\n\n“A gift?” Luke blinked. “That stupid bird?”\n\nHe hadn’t expected that. If the gods could hand out items, then familiars weren’t off the table either.\n\n“I got a special mission orb,” Evangeline explained. “It told me to kill an alpha raven inside the Wall Dungeon. When I did, I received the familiar rune for Jerry.”\n\n“And which order gave it to you?” Luke asked.\n\n“Something tied to scouting. A god called the Black Raven, I think.”\n\nScout? The word tugged at him. Wasn’t that one of the classes a god had offered him too?\n\nLuke’s mind pieced it together as silence stretched between them. Evangeline’s class was all about stealth. So was his. It didn’t take much to see the pattern: this deity favored those who thrived in the shadows. Spies, assassins, thieves. Prime recruits for an order built on secrets."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 278: Lucy, the Dark Lady\nTarget length: ~2600 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke stood outside the well, training again. He had to practice shifting into mist while still in female form. The last thing they needed was for him to materialize as a man in the middle of a dress, or worse, a maid outfit. If that happened during the banquet, Allison wouldn’t be able to bail him out by triggering the necklace’s enchantment.\n\nAnd honestly… he really didn’t want anyone seeing him as a guy dressed like that.\n\n“What is it, human?” Franky’s voice hissed as Luke pulled the familiar rune from his inventory.\n\n“Take a good look, snake,” Luke muttered. “I’m enduring the greatest embarrassment of my life. I’m sharing this moment with you so you’ll understand that we both know suffering.”\n\nThe image of the serpent etched into the black stone glowed faintly. “I don’t understand. What embarrassment? You look… different.”\n\n“I turned into a woman, temporarily. See? Maybe now that you know we’ve both endured a similar kind of ordeal, you’ll finally agree to become my familiar.”\n\nA tongue-clicking sound crackled from the stone. “And why is that embarrassing to you? You only look like a female human rat. What of it?”\n\nLuke rubbed his forehead. “Fair point. To you, humans are rats. So I guess gender doesn’t really matter.”\n\n“I’m not falling for your tricks, human,” the snake said coldly. “Changing your appearance won’t make me your friend. I hate you. I always will.”\n\nBefore the familiar could rant further, Luke shoved the stone back into his inventory.\n\n“Impressive, Luke,” Artemis chimed in dryly. “A snake is more evolved than you, and its society doesn’t even care about gender.”\n\n“Yeah… but honestly, I think the snake is right. It doesn’t really change anything that I look like this. I was just caught off guard.”\n\nHe paused, thinking. “Damn, the snake actually helped me. In the end, these are just bodies of flesh… it doesn’t change a thing. We’re all just rats.”\n\n“Now you’re starting to understand how gods think. Your body is just an expensive shell, your true self is your soul, and souls have no gender.”\n\n“Great. Can’t believe a snake and a perverted soul just gave me good advice.”\n\n“Yes, Luke. It doesn’t matter what you choose to be… as long as, at the end of the day, you let your lovely friend Artemis watch you bathe naked.”\n\nLuke groaned. “Okay, and we’re back to the usual nonsense.”\n\nHe pulled out another item: the angel’s mask. Gray stone, cracked and veined like old marble, carrying the memory of that brutal battle.\n\n[Mask of the Fallen Stone Angel (Unique)\n\nDescription: In the final moments of its forsaken life, the angel, abandoned by its own kind, was offered something it never expected: mercy. And that mercy came from a demon. In her final breaths, moved by unimaginable compassion, she sealed all the power she had left into this relic. Not for redemption, but for hope.\n\n“May my Lord realize, when the moment is right, the value hidden in something as simple and frail as this.”\n\nEnchantments:\n\n[Statue Form (Ancient)]: While wearing the mask, you take on the form of the Fallen Stone Angel, becoming indistinguishable from a statue.\n\n[Angel Soul Fragment (Unique)]: A slumbering fragment of an angel’s soul resides within this mask.\n\nRequirement: Soulbound.]\n\n“I also ended up figuring out something else interesting in the process,” he murmured, turning the mask over in his hands. “It’s possible to activate a soulbound item’s enchantment on someone else.”\n\nHe’d been wearing Allison’s necklace, and she had managed to trigger its effect on him. Not every enchantment worked that way, of course. His kukri’s magnetic return, for example, would only pull the blade back to his own hand. But things like Statue Form or even gender change? Transferable.\n\nThere had to be soulbound weapons out there with raw damage boosts or magical effects. If the target didn’t suffer the penalty from those bonus damages, then the whole concept would be pointless. He should have realized sooner. Still, it was an important discovery.\n\n“Artemis, what if I gave Charlie a bunch of items and had her trigger the effects on me? That way I’d stack power without the system noticing.”\n\n“It depends,” she replied. “The System is a cosmic force. It can’t be tricked, and it enforces limits. You can only equip ten rings, for example. Try to slip on eleven, and one will just deactivate. Same goes for armor pieces. You can’t wear two chestplates. If you did, the second one would be useless. Try twenty rings, same deal.”\n\n“Then how am I wearing Allison’s necklace and yours at the same time?” Luke asked.\n\n“Because I’m not a necklace, idiot,” she snapped. “I’m the jewel itself. I don’t count as equipment. Open my item in the inventory and see for yourself.”\n\n[Artemis Invention (Unique)\n\nDescription: A prototype crafted by Samael, the Inventor.\n\n‘A gift to help you on your journey. Good luck. It was collecting dust in my workshop anyway.’\n\nPS: I am not liable for any discomfort it causes. – Samael\n\nEnchantments:\n\n[Spatial Storage (Ultra-Rare)]: Grants access to a massive pocket dimension. Non-sentient biological organisms can be stored in temporal suspension.\n\n[Artemis (Unique)]: This necklace contains the soul of Artemis.\n\nRequirement: Soulbound]\n\n“The description doesn’t list me as equipment,” she said. “It only mentions the enchantment. That wording came from Samael.”\n\n“I still don’t get it…”\n\nLuke glanced down at the two necklaces around his neck. There was no way he could show up at the banquet wearing both without drawing suspicion.\n\n“I’m not equipment. Samael just added a chain to make me look more personalized. What I really am is a magic gem. Think of it this way: the System only lets you wear one crown at a time, right? But you can embed multiple enchanted jewels into that crown to make it stronger. It’s still a single item, but boosted by accessories.”\n\nHer voice carried a hint of pride. “I fall into that same category. If you ever wanted to pop me out of the necklace and slot me into a ring, I’d still work. Call it a gray area in the System’s rules. Samael’s an item crafter, after all. He knows how to bend the framework.”\n\nLuke studied the gemstone set in the necklace. It was obviously larger than a ring stone, but if Artemis insisted it could fit, then the System probably shrank it down or adjusted things somehow.\n\n“Then why give me a stone instead of a proper necklace?” he asked.\n\n“Because… let’s just say interesting things might happen someday if you learn how to fuse items.” She chuckled softly.\n\nHe let the subject drop, tucking the angel’s mask back into his inventory. The angel woman said nothing; she was asleep.\n\n“Now that it’s just the two of us, and you’re still in the form of a woman, I wouldn’t judge you if, say…” Artemis began.\n\nBefore she could spin her thought into some deranged perverted suggestion, Luke turned on his heel and headed back to the hideout.\n\n\n***\n\n\n“Try the dress on, Luke,” Evangeline said, patient in that pointed way that meant she had already asked three times.\n\n“Not a chance.” He stepped back as if the fabric radiated poison.\n\n“You’re already transformed. I need to see the fit so I can adjust it.”\n\n“I refuse.” He turned sharply on his heel and started for the door.\n\n“Are you really going to jeopardize the mission over a tantrum?” Evangeline narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t you just say in the end your gender doesn’t matter?”\n\n“Yeah, but I wanted something more Natasha Romanoff, not Ada Wong.”\n\n“For this mission, it has to be a dress. Are you done stalling or not?”\n\nLuke turned back around and yanked the gown out of her hands. “Fine. Give me the damn thing.”\n\nStalking toward the makeshift changing area, he shoved the curtain aside with all the grace of a condemned man.\n\n“I’ll help,” Allison offered, moving in.\n\n“Not necessary. I’ll handle it.”\n\n“You’ll be shirtless until you get the dress on. Remember the rule: don’t look at your own chest.”\n\nLuke exhaled a long, exasperated sigh. “We’re infiltrating one of the most dangerous places in this world, and that’s what you’re worried about?”\n\n“Lucy’s privacy,” Allison said, dead serious.\n\n“Great. Now I actually feel embarrassed.”\n\nEvangeline reclaimed the dress, stepping in with brisk efficiency. “Dramatic. Come on, I’ll help.”\n\nHe gave in. He didn’t wear the necklace all the time, only during training, so Luke was still a man most of the time. But when he was a woman, he still kept his loyal war companion. The necklace didn’t completely alter his gender, so he still kept his little friend. In the same way, when Allison used it in the past, her private parts weren’t changed either.\n\nOut of paranoia, he had even run tests in the last few days, quiet, careful experiments to make sure there wouldn’t be any permanent side effects on little Luke Jr. The results had been reassuring. His blade was still sharp, should the day ever call for it. Artemis, thankfully, had been denied the chance to make jokes during the process.\n\nWhen Evangeline finished adjusting the top, she stepped back with a smirk, letting him fumble through the rest. Then Lucy emerged from behind the curtain. The sleek blue gown clung in all the wrong ways. For exactly three seconds, the room was silent.\n\n“This thing has a neckline,” Luke said, his voice straining between indignation and horror.\n\nEvangeline exhaled sharply through her nose, shoulders trembling as she tried to smother a laugh.\n\n“What’s next, a slit up the leg? Fantastic,” he muttered darkly.\n\nThat broke her. Evangeline turned aside, hand pressed to her mouth, a smile breaking free.\n\nLucy stormed forward, glaring. “You did this on purpose.”\n\nShe lifted her brows in mock innocence.\n\nAllison, slipping in beside them, tried to be kind. “Actually… the dress looks great on you.”\n\nLuke collapsed into the nearest chair, burying his face in both hands. “That is officially the worst thing a woman can say to a man.”\n\nThis time Evangeline didn’t bother hiding it, her laughter filled the room, rich and unrestrained. She leaned against the wall, enjoying herself openly, while Allison tried and failed to shush her.\n\n“I’m not wearing this,” Lucy muttered through her hands. “I feel… exposed.”\n\n“It’s just a neckline,” Evangeline teased. “Nobody’s going to attack you over that.”\n\n“My entire back is bare!”\n\n“Trust me. Bare backs are sexy.”\n\nLucy went pale. “Sexy?!”\n\n“You needed something to make up for the lack of natural femininity. Think of it as a modern Cinderella.”\n\nLuke shot her a murderous glare. “You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?”\n\n“I even made the shoes,” she said sweetly, flourishing the heels like a prize.\n\nLucy stared at them, horror hardening into vengeance. “I’ll get revenge for this.”\n\n“You’ll have to do it in heels,” Evangeline replied with a grin.\n\n\n***\n\n\nMason stood at the gates of Bastion’s fortress. He had already spent the night inside, securing his place among the guests, but now he waited outside, tense, watching the crowd flow past. Luke couldn’t enter without him.\n\nDozens of finely dressed guests streamed in, silks and jewels flashing in the torchlight. This wasn’t just Bastion’s inner circle, merchants with influence had been summoned too, men and women who carried Bartholomew’s whispers into the veins of the city. Through them, he shaped public opinion, feeding rumors like seeds, pulling strings without ever showing his hand.\n\nIt was easy to control a Safe Zone when you owned its gossip.\n\n“Waiting for someone, Mason?” a guest asked as he brushed past.\n\n“A woman,” Mason replied simply.\n\nThe man chuckled and gave him a nudge. “Finally found someone, huh? Keep chasing levels and you’ll die single.”\n\nMason forced a polite laugh, though it tasted bitter. He had no watch, but he knew Luke was late. Too late. He lingered near the two guards at the gate, unwilling to leave his post.\n\nThen the murmurs began.\n\n“No way…” someone whispered.\n\n“Who is that?” another breathed, craning for a better view.\n\nMason tried to see, but the line of soldiers blocked his sight. The crowd shifted, parted, and a woman stepped into the open, stealing every gaze.\n\n“Allison?” Mason breathed, his composure cracking.\n\nShe moved toward the gates in a gown that caught the firelight, elegance flowing in every step. Mason swallowed hard. He knew her as a warrior, armored and unflinching. But this, this was a different kind of weapon. Dressed in grace, she was impossible to ignore.\n\nThe guards stared, uncertain. One stepped forward, barring her path. “What’s your business here?”\n\nHer voice was calm, carrying the weight of certainty. “Inform Bartholomew that I’ve come to the party.”\n\n“And who are you?”\n\n“Allison Rhiannon.”\n\nRecognition struck like lightning. The guard’s eyes went wide; his partner stiffened beside him. “C-call a superior. We need confirmation this is really her.” He stumbled over the words, bowing quickly. “Lady Rhiannon, I’ll make sure your entry is approved immediately.”\n\nMason’s thoughts raced. This wasn’t part of the plan.\n\nShe slipped up beside him with practiced ease, her smile serene, as if nothing about this was unusual.\n\n“What the hell are you doing here?” he muttered under his breath.\n\nStill smiling, still staring straight ahead with noble composure, she whispered, “Giving you a distraction.”\n\nFor a heartbeat, he thought her reckless. But then the brilliance struck him. Allison’s sudden appearance, unannounced and impossible to anticipate, was its own weapon. If she had warned Bartholomew, the shock would be gone. Now, every eye in the fortress would be drawn to her.\n\n“And… Lucy?” Mason asked, his stomach tightening.\n\n“She’s coming,” Allison murmured.\n\nThat was when the whispers ignited again, not just the guards, but the entire street. Conversations died mid-word. Heads turned. Nobles strained for a glimpse.\n\nThe sharp click of heels echoed down the avenue.\n\nOut of the crowd emerged a woman in a flowing blue gown, black hair rippling as though it carried the night wind itself, pale skin glowing beneath the torches. Her eyes burned with a wild, untamed spark, a beauty so arresting it silenced the street.\n\nMason’s throat tightened.\n\nShe moved with effortless poise, hair shimmering as she tossed it back, perfume trailing faintly in her wake. Reaching the gate, she paused, fan snapping open in a flourish, and stood there, waiting.\n\nThe avenue held its breath.\n\nMason, still reeling, tore his eyes from her and glanced back at the crowd.\n\n“Where the hell is Luke?” Mason hissed under his breath. If they arrived too late, the delay would draw more attention than anything else.\n\n“What are you talking about? He’s right in front of you…” Allison murmured.\n\nMason looked ahead, and froze.\n\nThe woman in the blue dress was staring straight at him, her presence commanding the entire street.\n\n“Good evening, darling. Sorry I kept you waiting.” She flicked her fan open with a sharp snap, then closed it again with practiced grace.\n\nHer fingers slid through her hair, the dark strands catching the lamplight like silk. “I hope I haven’t made you lose interest in me.”\n\nMason’s throat tightened. So did the guards’. He could feel them staring too.\n\nNo. Impossible. That man had turned into… this? A spectacle that walked, breathed, and smirked at him as if born for it? There was no way.\n\n“Well? Are you going to keep me waiting?” she asked, extending her hand.\n\n“N-no,” Mason stammered, the nerves cracking his voice. “L-let’s go inside, my dear.”\n\nShe smiled, radiant, sharp, lethal. “I hope tonight will be special for the two of us, my love.”\n\nWhy the hell is my heart beating faster?\n\nLinked arm in arm, they advanced toward the fortress gates. Every step carried weight, every glance a risk. The mission was underway, and one wrong move would mean death."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 279: Banquet of Spies\nTarget length: ~1900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Mason walked arm in arm with Lucy toward the fortress gates. His pulse refused to settle, and he couldn’t tell whether the nerves came from the mission itself, or from the stunning woman clinging to his side.\n\nThis woman is really Luke?\n\nEven after being warned, he still had to ask, just to hear it confirmed.\n\n“Lu-Lucy?” Mason ventured.\n\n“Yes, darling, I’m Lucy. Did you forget my name?” she replied with a radiant smile.\n\nHis heart lurched. Mason swallowed hard and jerked his gaze away. It’s a man. Calm down. She’s a man.\n\nThe fortress gates loomed. Two guards raised their hands, signaling them to stop. Mason’s stomach tightened. These weren’t ordinary sentries, they were barrier mages. Elite. They worked in pairs, one fueling the shield while the other recovered mana, swapping seamlessly every few hours. A flawless cycle. There was only one true way inside. Scale the walls, and the watchtowers would spot you instantly. Which meant this barrier was the true test.\n\n“Good evening, Mason, and…” One of the guards turned to her.\n\n“Lucy,” she answered smoothly.\n\nThe man’s gaze slid down her figure, pausing at the slit of her dress, where pale skin gleamed under torchlight. The gown was designed to provoke.\n\n“She’s my girlfriend,” Mason said quickly, his voice sharp. “The one I invited.”\n\nOne guard pulled a stack of parchment from his satchel, flipping through sketches of criminals, fugitives, Renegade faces. Their eyes darted between Lucy and the wanted portraits.\n\n“My sweet Mason has told me so much about this place,” Lucy said, fluttering her fan with delicate grace.\n\nSweet Mason?\n\nShe waved herself again. “It’s a little warm out here… or is it just me?” Her fingers toyed with the neckline of her dress.\n\nOne guard glanced down, caught himself under Mason’s glare, and looked away with a cough.\n\n“It is pretty warm,” he muttered, earning an elbow from his partner.\n\n“You know the rules, Mason, but I’ll repeat them anyway. First: only one person can enter at a time.”\n\n“It’s because of the barrier, darling,” Mason explained quickly. “It detects the exact number of people crossing. Stops anyone from sneaking in with a stealth skill.”\n\n“Oh, how fascinating,” Lucy cooed. “But honestly, who would be crazy enough to invade this place? Especially with two men as strong and muscular as you standing guard.”\n\nOne of the mages straightened unconsciously at the compliment, squaring his shoulders.\n\n“As this is a special event, you must follow the carpeted path only. Do not stray. If you lose your way, there are guards posted throughout the fortress. Ask for assistance.”\n\nAt last, the barrier parted. The guards stepped aside.\n\n“Ladies first,” Mason offered stiffly.\n\n“Thank you, darling. You’re such a gentleman,” Lucy replied sweetly, gliding past him as though she had been born to play this role.\n\nMason watched as Lucy stepped lightly through the shimmering barrier. The mages’ gazes followed her, tracking every movement like hawks.\n\n“One person only,” one guard murmured.\n\n“Confirmed,” the other replied.\n\nMason’s jaw tightened. That was the truth of it—if Evangeline had tried her shadow tricks here, she would have been exposed instantly. No slipping past this ward, no clever escape. No entry into Bastion. Without this path, the mission would have died at the gates.\n\nWhen Lucy cleared the barrier, the guards finally gestured for Mason to proceed. He stepped forward, pulse hammering in his ears. On the other side, she waited. The gown clung to her frame, revealing the elegant line of her shoulders and the pale curve of her back. Mason’s eyes betrayed him for a second—flicking down, then jerking away as his head shook violently.\n\nIt’s a man. It’s a man. It’s a man!\n\nLucy turned gracefully to face him, her fan poised, her smile perfectly sweet.\n\n“Darling, this place is incredible,” she said softly, her tone carrying just enough warmth to sting.\n\n“Y-yeah…” Mason stammered, at a loss for what to say, his voice cracking under the weight of absurdity.\n\nShe drifted closer, stopping just at his side. “Shall we?”\n\nHis hand twitched. Should he take her arm again? Hold her hand? What was he supposed to do? The simple act felt like defusing a trap. Awkwardly, he started to slide his arm around her back.\n\nLucy’s eyes snapped cold, her voice dropping to a blade-thin whisper. “If you put your hand on my waist or back, I’ll cut your fingers off.”\n\n“R-right. Got it,” Mason muttered, recoiling instantly, his face stiff with horror.\n\nThe fan snapped open again, hiding the faintest curve of her smirk.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke had crossed the outer walls and now stepped into the main hall of Bastion’s fortress. More guards lined the doorway, eyes following him with clinical precision. His whole body was tense.\n\nDamn it, I’m burning up.\n\nHe fanned himself with the ornate accessory Evangeline had pressed into his hand, tugging at the dress in irritation.\n\n“D-don’t adjust the neckline like that, darling… it’s, uh, a little distracting,” Mason whispered urgently.\n\n“This damn dress is crushing my chest,” Lucy muttered back, sharp and low.\n\nFor some reason, Mason swallowed hard.\n\nLuke still couldn’t fathom how women moved so naturally with breasts. To him, the body felt like it was perpetually tipping forward, an imbalance that grated at every step.\n\nHe forced his thoughts back to the plan, replaying each step. Getting here had already been an ordeal. He and Allison had ducked into an inn Jack rented in advance, changing clothes in secrecy. Luke had brewed a crude perfume and shampoo to mask his scent, while Jack, traitor that he was, had procured makeup. Lipstick. Luke had sworn vengeance for that particular humiliation. And then came the walk. Heels, every step from the inn to Bastion.\n\n'Luke, believe me, you look gorgeous.' Artemis teased in his mind.\n\nI can’t believe I’m risking my life in a damned dress.\n\n'So what?'\n\nEverything! If I die like this, I’ll revert to my real body, a man in a dress. I refuse to die that way. If it has to happen, I’d rather fall in some epic battle. Not like this.\n\n'Relax. You’re not some Viking who needs to die with a blade to reach Valhalla. Though if it were real… imagine striding into their hall in that gown.' Artemis’s tone dripped smug satisfaction.\n\nLuke clenched his jaw, rage simmering hotter than nerves. Part of him wanted to gouge out the eyes of every man who had dared to stare at his body on the way here.\n\nHe and Mason stood waiting in the corridor, a long red carpet stretching deeper into the fortress. At every branching hall stood a guard, statuesque, unblinking. They waited for Allison.\n\nShe was still at the entrance, speaking with Oswald, Bartholomew’s chief administrator, who lingered to confirm her identity. Her sudden arrival had stirred quiet chaos. She had been invited countless times before, even promised a permanent place within Bastion. Yet she had always refused. Until tonight.\n\n“My apologies for the delay, Lady Rhiannon,” Oswald said at last, leaning in as a subordinate whispered in his ear. “You may enter.”\n\nAnd then she was with them. Luke’s throat tightened. She was dazzling. While his own gown was cut to provoke, designed to make heads turn, hers was understated, elegant, subtle. And somehow, that restraint only heightened her beauty.\n\nHe looked away quickly. Seeing Allison like this was unsettling. He was used to her armor, her plain practicality, her bluntness. But seeing her deliberately feminine, poised, radiant, it stirred something he refused to name.\n\nWhat the hell kind of situation is this? She’s glowing like a goddess, and I’m standing beside her in a damned dress.\n\nThere was no universe where he could even think of complimenting her. The three of them moved forward along the carpeted path. Unlike their battered stronghold, scarred by collapsed walls, dried blood, webs, mold, and rubble, Bastion’s fortress gleamed.\n\nThe corridors were immaculate. Paintings lined the walls, busts stood proudly on polished pedestals, candelabras spilled warm light, and potted plants perfumed the air with subtle sweetness. Every inch was wealth, order, power. At last, they reached the grand hall. Once a refectory, it now shone as a banquet chamber, transformed for spectacle. Two guards stood at either side of the open doors.\n\n“Please, go in. Enjoy your evening,” one said with a bow.\n\nThe three of them entered in silence. Music drifted through the air, soft strings, a gentle flute, the hum of voices, the clink of silverware. But the moment they crossed the threshold of the banquet hall, all of it froze. The music died. Conversations cut off. A hundred heads turned at once. Luke’s stomach twisted, his nerves spiking sharp and suffocating. Then a figure slipped past them, stepping forward with theatrical grace.\n\n“Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Lady Rhiannon, who has honored us with her presence tonight,” Oswald announced.\n\nApplause shattered the stillness. Music swelled again, louder this time, as if to mask the rising chatter. Guests surged forward, drawn like moths to a flame.\n\n“Lady Rhiannon, I’ve long admired your family,” one man said, bowing.\n\n“I’ve worshiped your goddess since childhood,” another declared.\n\n“It’s an honor to finally meet you,” added someone else.\n\nMore and more pressed close, eager for a moment of her gaze, a word, a smile. Allison glided forward through them, every step measured, every nod and smile perfectly noble. And then, as if the crowd itself parted by design, he appeared. Bartholomew.\n\nAllison’s smile stilled into composure. “Bartholomew.”\n\n“Lady Rhiannon,” he said warmly, inclining his head with courtly charm. “It is an honor to welcome you to my fortress, especially tonight.”\n\nLuke froze. There he was. The man he wanted dead more than anyone else. The one who had deceived them all, who had chained this world’s people, who had orchestrated Angelica’s death.\n\nThe man stood close enough to kill with a single strike. Luke’s fingers twitched with phantom weight. Just one clean slash across the throat, a single decisive blow with his kukri, and it would all be over. Too easy. He forced himself to breathe, Evangeline’s warnings crashing back into his mind. Bartholomew wore his crown. Even before a blade could fall, its power would flare.\n\nThe crown’s defense wasn’t subtle. It was merciless. It projected an electrical field that sharpened every nerve, every reflex, feeding him awareness in all directions. It reacted instantly to intent, to hostility itself. Not even an arrow from behind could land. Marshall had tried more than once. The crown had saved him every time.\n\nDistance? Worthless. A slit throat? Futile. Bartholomew was a healer, his flesh would seal faster than death could claim him. Poison? A joke. He had studied toxins, mastered them, carried antidotes in his storage. His body was hardened, perhaps immune outright. Every path of assassination was blocked. Every weakness accounted for.\n\nThe only way to kill him was in direct combat. But Mason had said it himself: Bartholomew had once faced Marshall and the Renegades’ best, alone, and lived. He carried a hidden card, a weapon so devastating only a handful knew of it.\n\nEvery weakness a man could have, Bartholomew had already stripped away. And still, Luke wanted to try. The urge was savage, primal. He saw it in his mind, kukris flashing into existence, piercing skull or heart, crushing brain, ending it before thought or magic could intervene. For a heartbeat, his body almost moved. Luke locked eyes with the man who had stolen everything from him. His stare was cold, sharp, unyielding.\n\n“And you, miss?” Bartholomew asked, turning his attention at last. “What is your name?”\n\n“Lucy,” Luke answered.\n\nAnd in that instant, something shifted."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 280: Flirting with the Demon\nTarget length: ~2300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke stood face to face with Bartholomew. Every nerve screamed at him to strike. End it here, end it now, one clean kill in front of everyone. His hands twitched with the urge to draw steel, to carve through flesh. But reason clamped down hard. Madness. To attack here would unleash chaos, Bastion’s most dangerous fighters descending at once. Allison and Mason would be dragged into the crossfire, and worst of all, the mission would collapse. They wouldn’t even reach the first mechanism.\n\nHe cursed himself silently. Bartholomew was untouchable tonight. Protected. Too much damn luck on his side.\n\n“And you, miss,” Bartholomew asked, eyes resting on him, “what is your name?”\n\n“Lucy,” Luke answered evenly, forcing composure.\n\nAllison exhaled, her tone cool, cutting. “You’re standing too close.”\n\nGasps rippled through the guests nearby.\n\n“Back away!” Bartholomew commanded.\n\nThe crowd recoiled instantly, retreating in a wave. A few lingered at the edges, unwilling to miss the spectacle, but they gave them space.\n\n“My apologies, Lady Rhiannon,” Bartholomew said smoothly, his voice silk over steel. He gestured to the hall. “I wasn’t expecting your visit, but a table has been prepared for you. Please, make yourself comfortable there or anywhere else you wish.”\n\n“Thank you,” Allison replied. “I hope we can speak later about the future of this place. Now that Marshall is no longer… an issue.”\n\n“Of course,” Bartholomew said, lips curving faintly.\n\nLuke forced himself to peel away, each step leaden, carrying him toward the banquet table. He needed distance. He needed to steady the riot inside his chest. He scanned the hall instead. Other doors were shut. He could slip through as mist, but too many eyes. Too much risk.\n\nThe details pressed on him: musicians coaxing elegant notes from instruments finely wrought, a bard plucking a lute with calm precision, weaving a melody that draped the hall in refinement. Guests cloaked in silks and polished fabrics, opulence that mocked the outside world, where people scraped by with secondhand rags and wondered if they could afford soap.\n\nOn a silver tray lay masquerade masks, dainty, held by sticks. Excess paraded as entertainment. Luke turned toward a pitcher of juice and wine, needing the motion, the pretense of calm.\n\n“Excuse me,” a voice said behind him.\n\nHe spun. A man stood there, mid twenties, polished, smiling faintly, holding something in his hand.\n\n“Did you happen to drop this necklace?” the man asked.\n\nLuke’s blood went cold. Instinctively, his hand darted to his hair, where Artemis was hidden, then to his throat, where Allison’s necklace rested. Both still there.\n\nHe studied the item in the man’s palm, forcing control over his face. “No. That necklace isn’t mine.”\n\n“Are you sure?” The man’s smile deepened. “Madam, I think it would look beautiful around your neck.”\n\nA vein pulsed in Luke’s temple.\n\n“What did you just say?” His voice strained, his jaw tight, irritation threatening to crack his disguise.\n\n“I only mean,” the man continued smoothly, “this necklace is in my possession, but it would suit you so much better.”\n\nThat bastard’s hitting on me. He’s using my own trick against me. Son of a… he’s dead. He’s absolutely dead.\n\nLaughter exploded in his skull. Artemis. 'Oh gods, this can’t be happening. I can’t. I’m going to cry from laughing so hard.'\n\nLuke wanted nothing more than to grab that necklace and strangle the bastard with it until he stopped breathing.\n\n“I already have a necklace. I don’t need another one,” Lucy snapped, irritation bleeding through despite himself.\n\nHe turned sharply back to the drinks table, desperate for something, anything, to steady his nerves.\n\n“C-can I pour it for you, madam?” one of the men asked, leaning in with eager eyes.\n\n“No. I’ll do it myself.” He ladled liquid into a wooden mug, used a quick botanical purification, and drained it. Plain water now, nothing that could betray him.\n\n“I’ve never seen you around the fortress before,” said the necklace man, slipping the trinket into his pocket.\n\nLuke clicked his tongue, tugging at the dress where the fabric scraped his skin. “This damn thing itches…” he muttered under his breath, scratching before lifting his gaze. Somehow, five men had gathered around him, watching too closely.\n\nGreat. How the hell am I supposed to disappear with this many eyes on me?\n\n“It’s my first time stepping into Bastion,” Lucy said at last, conjuring a practiced smile.\n\nOne of them cleared his throat eagerly. “You know, I’m a sergeant here. I even live in the fortress.”\n\nLuke rubbed his cheek. And what do you expect me to say? Congratulations?\n\n“How wonderful. I imagine it’s dangerous work,” Lucy replied smoothly. “But having the privilege of living here must make it worthwhile.”\n\n“I-I live here too!” another blurted.\n\n“Same!” a third chimed in.\n\nNow all five were staring at him, flushed and eager.\n\nLucy scratched his head, annoyance gnawing at his patience, but forced himself to stay friendly. “I live in the city, but I’ve always admired this place.”\n\nThat was when someone finally slid in at his side. Mason.\n\n“Darling, is there a problem?”\n\nFinally. About time.\n\nLuke had been signaling for rescue, scratching head and cheek in the little code they’d agreed on.\n\n“Did you know these five all live in Bastion?” Lucy said sweetly.\n\nThe men flicked nervous glances between Mason and Lucy.\n\n“So… you gentlemen want something with my girlfriend?” Mason asked.\n\nTheir eyes widened in panic. “N-no, it’s not like that!” one stammered.\n\nLuke shifted again, the dress irritating him in every possible way. Heat crawled across his skin, yet his bare legs prickled with cold.\n\n“Darling, I told you not to fidget with the dress like that,” Mason muttered, turning his head away.\n\n“It’s uncomfortable!” Lucy snapped back.\n\nThen Luke caught Mason’s expression, the flicker of color in his cheeks, and narrowed his eyes.\n\n“Just so we’re clear, I’m not wearing panties,” Lucy announced flatly.\n\nMason choked on his own breath.\n\nI’m wearing boxers. Obviously. No way in hell I’d go that far.\n\nThe men surrounding them turned crimson, eyes wide, faces burning with awkward fascination.\n\nWhy are they all blushing and staring at me like that?\n\nLuke seized the chance to stride away from the table, leaving them gaping behind him.\n\n“I-I-I need to be elsewhere,” Mason stammered, fleeing in haste, muttering something about calming his heart.\n\n“Perfect,” Lucy grumbled. “He ditched me.”\n\nStill, Mason was playing his part, drawing attention back to Bartholomew, anchoring himself beside Allison. That was where all the nobles’ eyes lingered, where the guards’ focus sharpened, where every whisper of curiosity coiled. Which left Luke with one task. All he needed was the right moment to slip away.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe banquet rolled on, a steady hum of voices and music weaving through the gilded hall. Luke had already chosen his escape route: a side door leading into a service corridor, empty for now. No guards lingered there. Every soldier was either stationed along the main route to the banquet or inside the hall itself.\n\nThere would be men deeper in the fortress. Luke knew that. But it didn’t matter. All he needed was to slip out, change into the maid’s uniform, and he could move through Bastion like a ghost.\n\nThe orchestra shifted into softer melodies, strings floating in the air.\n\nJust as Jack had described, this was more than a feast. It was a marketplace of influence, where alliances were whispered over wine, loyalties bought with laughter and full stomachs. From his seat among the nobles, Luke watched merchants clinking glasses with soldiers, smiles easy under the haze of food and drink.\n\nAcross the hall, Allison stood near Bartholomew, Mason, and Oswald. Guests approached her one at a time, reverent, careful not to crowd her. She accepted each word with grace, smiling faintly, the perfect portrait of noble composure. Luke exhaled slowly. He had to wait for the signal. Just one chance. He rose, weaving through the crowd. A man’s gaze lingered on him far too long, until the man’s wife jabbed him sharply in the ribs.\n\nYou’ve got to be kidding me.\n\nThe stem of Luke’s glass cracked under his grip.\n\n'You look beautiful, Lucy.' Artemis teased, laughter spilling like silk. 'The belle of the ball.'\n\nLuke clicked his tongue, drifting toward the appetizer tables.\n\n'You’re a demon, aren’t you?' she purred.\n\nHalf-demon, he corrected, plucking up a cube of cheese.\n\n'Did you know female demons rank among the most sexually alluring races in the multiverse?'\n\nHe nearly choked, swallowing hard. What the hell does that mean?\n\nHe washed it down with juice.\n\n'It means, Luke, that right now you’re a half demoness. Which makes you dangerously attractive to humans. Half human, half demon, the perfect storm.'\n\nHis jaw tightened as he swept the hall with his eyes. “This is bullshit,” he muttered.\n\nI should’ve thought of this before agreeing to the damn mission. How the hell am I supposed to vanish when every man in here is staring at me?\n\n'You’d make a gorgeous succubus.' Artemis purred again.\n\nLuke ignored her, locking his focus back on Allison and Mason. Any second now, they’d give the signal. Two closed doors loomed just beyond the appetizer table, the exit he needed.\n\nAny moment now. Just breathe.\n\nHe forced a long inhale. Normally, tension didn’t rattle him. But this wasn’t his plan. It was a machine of moving parts, and if one gear slipped, it would all collapse. And this wasn’t just any fortress. This was the enemy’s heart. Killers everywhere, eyes sharp, blades ready. No windows to dive through. No shadows to vanish into. Only walls. Only watchers. Only death waiting to pounce.\n\nAnd then, at last, the signal. Allison scratched her left ear with her pinky.\n\nIt’s time.\n\nLuke shifted, pretending to reach for another appetizer, inching closer to the door. Allison began to count down with her fingers: Three... two... one.\n\n“I’ve had my eyes on you all night,” a voice whispered at his side.\n\nWhat?!\n\nSomeone had slipped in close. Across the hall, Allison froze mid gesture, her signal dying instantly.\n\nShit.\n\n“Your back is gorgeous, you know that?” a man’s voice murmured.\n\nI’m going to kill this bastard.\n\nLuke turned, and froze.\n\n“Kru-kru!” The sound stuck in his throat.\n\nThe face was unmistakable. The voice even more so. Kruger.\n\nA cough, forced and clumsy, covered the slip.\n\n“Did I startle you?” Kruger asked smoothly.\n\n“Y-yes. Your footsteps made no sound at all,” Lucy replied, her composure strained but intact.\n\nA quick glance toward Allison showed Mason pale as death. Of all the people to stumble into, it had to be Kruger. Bastion’s most suspicious wolf sniffing at their door.\n\n“You know, I…” Kruger began.\n\n“You work in Bastion, don’t you?” Lucy cut in sharply. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that tonight?”\n\nShe jabbed a finger hard into his chest, her voice slicing the air.\n\n“You think I don’t see the little game you men play? Flaunting your titles, bragging about living in the fortress. Maybe that works on every other silly girl in the city, but not me.”\n\nKruger faltered. Actually faltered. A step back, eyes flicking to the side as a few guests glanced over. For once, the predator looked off balance.\n\n“M-madame…” he stammered.\n\nLucy seized his collar and yanked him close. “Try anything with me and I’ll rearrange your face.”\n\nSweat beaded across his brow. “I-I think you’ve made a mistake, madame.”\n\nShe plucked the glass from his hand. “This what you were going to offer me?”\n\nHe nodded quickly.\n\nShe downed it in one swallow, slammed the glass back into his chest. “There. Thanks for the drink. Now leave me the hell alone.”\n\nShe turned, striding away, only for his hand to clamp onto her arm.\n\n“You think you can talk to me like that?” Kruger snarled.\n\n“Not only do I think it,” Lucy snapped back, eyes flashing, “I just did.”\n\n“No one’s ever had the guts… especially not a woman,” he muttered, something dark flickering in his gaze. “Are you… single?”\n\nWhat? Luke froze, mind blank. He… liked that? Being insulted?\n\nThen it came. A sharp sound cracked across the hall. Kruger’s head snapped toward Bartholomew. In a blink, he dashed forward, leaving her arm. Luke followed his gaze. Allison stood with a sword drawn, its point leveled at a trembling man. Her voice cut cold through the silence: “Did you just flirt with me?”\n\n“N-no!” the man stammered, hands raised.\n\nThe hall erupted. People gasped, guards surged, all eyes swinging toward the clash. Perfect chaos. Kruger rushed to Bartholomew’s side, soldiers converging to shield their master. The center of the hall became a storm.\n\nLuke moved. He slid toward the door, his body unraveling into mist. Vapor seeped beneath the frame, silent, unseen. On the far side, the corridor yawned empty. He reformed, heart pounding, kicked off the heels, and slipped them into the pendant hidden in his hair. Pace quickening, he reached the janitors’ supply room. Mist again, through the crack, into shadow, and then flesh once more. Breath ragged, he yanked the maid’s uniform from storage, dragging it over the gown. Cap snug over his dark hair. Another deep breath, steadying himself.\n\nMist again. He slipped out the far door, silent and unseen.\n\nArtemis, guide me to the mechanism chamber.\n\nShe had the map.\n\n'With pleasure… Lucy.' she purred, laughter trailing her words.\n\nLuke strode down the corridor, pulse hammering. Time pressed against him now. The assassin was inside Bastion."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 281: The Succubus Spy\nTarget length: ~1500 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Lucy moved through Bastion’s narrow corridors with measured steps, head slightly bowed, eyes fixed just short of the ground. The silence around her wasn’t hers alone. It was the unspoken law of the fortress, a weight pressed into every slab of black stone, into every flickering shadow cast by the torches. Guards stood like living statues, their gazes brushing over her only long enough for a curt nod. Nothing more.\n\nIn the days leading up to this, Luke had wrung every scrap of information out of Jack about how the fortress maids carried themselves. Wearing the uniform wasn’t enough. You had to wear the role. Jack had painted the picture with almost cruel precision: steps too light to echo, voices clipped and restrained, faces never daring a smile. They were disciples of Erza, initiates of the assassin order. Servants in appearance, blades in truth. Silent guardians of Bastion.\n\nNo one dared address them beyond what was absolutely necessary. To flirt, mock, or even joke with one was unthinkable. They carried an aura of untouchable authority, and behind it all was the greater fear of the woman they served, the heiress of the Grimhart clan. For Luke, that fear was his greatest shield.\n\nLucy kept her pace steady, slipping deeper into the fortress when Artemis’s voice slid into his mind, as clear as if she walked at his side.\n\n'Luke, keep straight. Ignore the next three forks. At the fourth, turn right.'\n\nArtemis had the full map of Bastion, and from inside her pocket dimension, she acted as his hidden eyes. The same dimension that fed her books, snacks, and endless distractions had now turned her into something like a living GPS. Luke, though he’d never say it aloud, was grateful. Without her guidance, he’d have been forced to memorize every winding route through this fortress.\n\nNot that she was doing it out of charity. The greedy soul had already demanded to be spoiled with food once this mission ended, and even tried bargaining for one or two peeks while he bathed. He shut that down fast, promising instead to double the amount of food she wanted.\n\nThe metallic clatter of hurried footsteps cut through the corridor. Soldiers stormed toward him, armor clashing and groaning with each stride. In one swift motion, Luke pulled a feather duster from storage and set to cleaning a side table as if dust was the deadliest threat in Bastion.\n\n“Move it, I’m not missing roll call again!” one of the soldiers barked.\n\n“Then stop shoving!” another snapped back.\n\nLuke lowered his head, kept the duster moving, every stroke deliberate, natural. The men thundered past, still bickering as their voices trailed down the hall. He caught the important detail: they were headed to a shift change. Likely just coming off perimeter patrol. Tired. Distracted.\n\nExhaling slowly, Luke stashed the duster and slipped back into motion. Every second mattered. The longer he lingered, the greater the chance of running into the wrong set of eyes.\n\n'Keep moving, succubus girl.' Artemis teased, her voice dripping with amusement.\n\nLuke dipped his head in a show of obedience, though inwardly he rolled his eyes. Artemis loved her little nicknames, and calling him “succubus girl” right now wasn’t helping. Turning the corner, he froze. An entire garrison clogged the hallway ahead. At least fifteen men, a mix of knights, archers, and mages. They chatted casually, relaxed.\n\nI must be the unluckiest bastard alive.\n\nBut luck or not, turning back would draw more suspicion than pressing forward. So Lucy lowered her gaze, drew the feather duster from storage, and set it neatly in her hands. Step by slow step, she drifted past the soldiers like a shadow. Most of them barely looked her way, eyes sliding off as they returned to their conversations. The disguise held.\n\nUntil a voice cut through the air. “Excuse me, could you tell me where Christine is?”\n\nThe name hit like a blade to the ribs. Luke’s eyes snapped up, tension flaring hot beneath his skin. That face. That voice. Ronan. Bartholomew’s second-in-command. The man he had fought before.\n\nOf all the people in this labyrinth, it had to be him.\n\nLuke lifted his eyes just enough to meet the man’s. Ronan didn’t seem suspicious. His stance was calm but commanding, the kind of presence that made others shrink without a word. His restored gaze swept over Lucy as though searching for truths no maid’s uniform could reveal.\n\n“Isn’t she usually in her usual place at this hour?” Lucy’s voice was low, even, carefully measured.\n\nRonan exhaled, stepping closer. “We had an argument. She’s been avoiding me. If you know where she is, I’d appreciate it.”\n\nEvery muscle in Luke’s body screamed to act, to cut all fifteen men down where they stood if it came to that. But outwardly, only the cold mask of a servant remained.\n\n“What happens in private isn’t my concern,” Lucy answered, tone clipped, distant. “And it’s not my place to interfere. If she hasn’t told you, then I shouldn’t either.”\n\nThe silence stretched longer than it should have. Ronan narrowed his eyes, studying her, maybe weighing whether the maid’s words carried truth.\n\nAt last, he sighed. “All right… I understand.”\n\nLuke dipped his chin in a small bow and moved on. His pace didn’t quicken, but his intent to leave was clear. Only when he was several steps away did he let his shoulders loosen. That could have gone very, very wrong.\n\n'That was close. For a second I thought you’d have to seduce him.' Artemis teased in his mind, the words dripping with amusement.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke moved through the corridors until he reached the spot Artemis had pointed out. At first glance, nothing about this section of the fortress looked unusual. The walls were dressed with paintings, bronze ornaments, and decorative armor, all arranged carefully to project normalcy. But Luke knew better. Behind that façade lay the mechanism chamber, a secret Bartholomew had gone to great lengths to keep hidden from curious eyes.\n\nFrom his storage, Luke pulled a hand drill, the tool that would carve his way in.\n\n\n“I need to be fast,” he whispered under his breath.\n\n‘Your time to shine, Natasha Romanoff’ Artemis teased.\n\nHis jaw tightened. He ignored her, forcing his focus into the task.\n\nHe tested the wall with soft taps, hand gliding across the cold stone until he felt the faintest weakness. Once he found it, he slid the frame off its hooks and rested it gently against the floor. Channeling stamina into his arm, he infused the drill, the metal humming faintly as it absorbed the energy. Slowly, deliberately, he pressed into the black stone.\n\nThe work was patient, painstaking. The drill bit turned in steady rhythm, peeling off flecks of stone that dropped soundlessly onto a damp cloth spread beneath him. A broom and bucket sat nearby, completing the illusion of a maid’s cleaning kit. To anyone passing, it would look like nothing more than routine maintenance.\n\nFootsteps echoed. Voices followed.\n\n“Maybe a tower farther east,” one soldier was saying, distracted by the paper in his hands. “But your plan’s good, just not for now.”\n\nLuke stepped back for a moment, setting the painting back in place to cover the future. Then, feather duster in hand, he polished the frame with casual indifference. The men passed, giving him nothing more than a polite nod.\n\n“Evening, miss,” one said.\n\nLucy gave only a shallow dip of the head. She waited until their footsteps faded, then crouched again by the wall. Twenty seconds. Then the drill slid back into the hole, biting deeper. Every turn increased the risk. He couldn’t rush. He had to keep the pressure even, let the drill eat its way forward until…\n\nThere. A sudden give. The resistance vanished. He had broken through. As he withdrew the bit, fine gray dust scattered across the cloth. Luke’s pulse quickened. He was close. Too close to make mistakes. Then his senses screamed. Not footsteps. Presences. Silent, deliberate. Three of them.\n\nHe moved fast. Drill stashed. Frame replaced. Feather duster traded for a mop. By the time the figures came into view, Luke was hunched over the floor, scrubbing like it was the only thing that mattered.\n\n“We already cleaned this area today,” one of the women said.\n\nOh, shit... it’s the maids.\n\nThree maids. Not ordinary servants, but Erza’s apprentices. Assassins. Their eyes were sharp, reading every twitch of his body, every breath. Far deadlier than the armored men who filled these halls.\n\n“I was just… being proactive,” Lucy replied smoothly, pointing to the faint dust scattered across the stone. “Look, dirt.”\n\nTheir gazes followed his gesture. Luke’s face stayed calm, but inside he pressed every ounce of focus into his stealth skill, slowing his breath, muting his presence, forcing his existence to feel small, forgettable.\n\n“I see. Good work. I’ll report this to Lady Erza,” one of them said. Her eyes lingered. “What’s your name?”\n\nLuke’s heart jolted. His face betrayed nothing.\n\nName?\n\nName?\n\nName?\n\nThey might know every servant in the fortress. One wrong word, and the game was over."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 282: The Four Assassin Maids\nTarget length: ~1900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The three assassin maids stared at him after asking for his name. Luke froze. For a fleeting second, he considered saying his name was Christine. But the thought died as quickly as it came. If even one of them knew the real Christine, he’d be finished. Worse, what if one of these women was Christine herself?\n\nHis chest tightened, the air ripped from his lungs like he had been struck by an invisible fist.\n\n“There’s no need,” Lucy replied, voice wrapped in a calm she didn’t feel. “My duty is only to serve.”\n\nThe maids exchanged brief glances, then seemed to understand.\n\n\n“Thank you for your work,” one of them said.\n\nAnother stepped closer, resting a hand lightly on Lucy’s shoulder. The touch was soft, but carried a weight that unsettled more than a blade at her throat.\n\n\n“May the empire of Master Lakarion be eternal,” she whispered with reverence, her eyes fixed directly on Lucy’s.\n\nLuke’s muscles locked. Sweat prickled along his nape.\n\n\n“May the empire of Master Lakarion be eternal!” he repeated, trying to mimic the same conviction he had heard.\n\nThe women nodded, satisfied, and walked away. Their steps echoed down the corridor until they were swallowed by silence. Only then did Luke let himself breathe. But relief brought no comfort. The weight they left behind was worse than the tension in the main hall. He crouched again, scrubbing the floor with exaggerated focus. Every motion said: this is all I am, just a maid doing her work. If one of them turned back, they would see only that. He couldn’t risk a crack in the mask.\n\nMinutes crawled by like hours. At last, convinced the danger had passed, Luke made a small gesture. The mop, bucket, and rag vanished into his storage. In the same instant, his body dissolved into mist. Darkness folded around him like an old cloak. The fog slid across the floor, then drifted up the wall toward the hidden opening behind the painting. His vaporous form seeped into the drilled gap, tendrils of shadow slipping through stone until he emerged on the other side.\n\nThe passage was choked with rubble. Broken stone, splintered beams, and scattered debris filled the corridor as though a collapse had buried it long ago. It wasn’t natural. Someone had piled this mess here to block intruders. Luke pressed forward, his mist weaving through cracks and narrow gaps, pushing patiently through the wreckage until…\n\nThere. A faint glow, barely visible, flickered in the dark. Drawn to it, he slid past the final heap of stone and emerged into a concealed chamber. The sight stole his breath. His heart thundered.\n\n\n“I made it,” he whispered, reshaping into flesh and bone.\n\nThe room was eerily familiar, almost a mirror of the second fortress’s chamber. Torches mounted on the walls painted everything in trembling light. At the center rested the mechanism itself, a wheel of glowing runes that seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat. Luke stepped closer, cautious, every sense sharp. The smell of damp stone mixed with a tang of charred wood, clinging to the air.\n\nThe torches threw restless shadows across the walls, making the carved designs writhe and shift like living things. For an instant, Luke swore they were watching him. In the second fortress, the murals had shown twisted, deformed beings bowing to a figure with six eyes. That alone had been disturbing enough. But here, the scene was different. The six eyed figure appeared again, this time seated on a towering throne, a sovereign gazing down in silence. The lines were sharper, the presence more regal, almost divine. Beneath the throne, streams of runes spread outward like roots, burrowing into the stone itself.\n\nLuke narrowed his eyes. Among the countless runes, one glowed brighter than the rest. His system flared, translating only a single word.\n\n“The Architect…” he whispered.\n\nBut before he could draw closer, the glow began to fade, smothered like a candle in the wind. When he glanced back at the throne, the rune’s translation was gone, erased as if it had never existed. He drew a slow breath. There was no time to chase every mystery. He had a mission, and getting lost in riddles would only kill him. Luke stepped up to the mechanism, the great wheel etched with runes. Raising his hand, he recited the enigma with a steady voice:\n\n“When the night hides its first glimmer, the cycle begins in the absence of light. Return to the first sanctuary, where darkness is the key to uncover the secret.”\n\nThe words echoed, heavy and strange, and for a heartbeat he thought the runes pulsed in reply. His gaze slid to the side wall, to the sequence of moons carved in perfect order. Exactly as Evangeline had described. Beneath each moon, the phases repeated, a code hidden in lunar cycles. He stopped before the crescent moon mural, remembering the first mechanism. That had been the starting point, the key to unraveling the puzzle. The logic was merciless in its simplicity. Each riddle tied to the moon’s rhythm.\n\nThis time, the answer was obvious. “When the night hides its first glimmer... the cycle begins in the absence of light.”\n\nOnly one moon was born in perfect shadow. No glow, no reflection, no witness in the sky.\n\n“New Moon,” he muttered, certain.\n\nHe leaned in, tracing the sequence with his eyes. The order revealed itself: New Moon, Full Moon, Waxing Crescent, Waning Moon.\n\nA memory of his mother slipped in uninvited. She had loved the stars, the moon, the endless night sky. Even her last name had something to do with it. Luke shook it off. He couldn’t afford nostalgia now. Pulling paper from his storage, he scribbled furiously, capturing every symbol and line.\n\n\n“I’m not stupid enough to rely on memory here,” he growled under his breath.\n\nStill, before moving on, his gaze strayed back to the throne. The six eyed figure sat there, silent and absolute.\n\n“I’m never coming back here. Not dressed as a woman, not as a man. Never again,” he muttered, trying to smother his own tension with humor.\n\nArtemis chuckled inside his mind, a soft, mocking laugh.\n\n\n“You’re breaking the game itself…”\n\n“The world belongs to the clever,” Luke shot back, never lifting his eyes from the paper.\n\nWithout wasting another second, his body unraveled into mist. Darkness claimed him, his form scattering into shadowed particles that slid between stone and wood. The return path felt narrower now, more suffocating, as though the fortress itself was trying to hold him captive. Every crack in the wall, every narrow gap the mist seeped through left him with the unsettling sense that he was abandoning secrets better left buried. At last, he reached the wall. The small hole was exactly where he remembered. Luke let only a sliver of his mist drift through first, curling past the edge of the framed painting to scout the other side.\n\nSilence. No footsteps, no voices.\n\nRelieved, he let the rest of the cloud slip through. Darkness spilled into the corridor until he reformed beside the painting, solid flesh returning with the thrum of a racing heartbeat. His feet touched stone again. He had done it.\n\n'Well done, Ethan Hunt.' Artemis teased, her voice ringing with amusement inside his skull. 'Now head down the corridor and turn left.'\n\nA faint smile tugged at his mouth. But instead of following her directions, his feet carried him right.\n\n'What the hell are you doing?' Artemis snapped.\n\nImprovising, he thought back, not slowing his pace.\n\nThe corridor ahead was busy, full of servants hurrying with arms full of linens, dishes, and supplies. Their distracted movements worked in his favor. To them, Lucy was just another maid lost in the shuffle. Luke matched their rhythm, brisk enough to look purposeful, not so quick that anyone would look twice.\n\nArtemis’ voice sharpened, practically hissing in his mind. 'You’ve lost it. That way leads straight into the territory of the most dangerous woman here!'\n\nHe ignored her. Step after step, until the passage opened onto a wide staircase.\n\nThe stone groaned faintly underfoot as he climbed. At the top, he froze. A small army of cooks surged past, arms laden with trays and steaming bowls. The hallway had been converted into a makeshift kitchen, chaos thick with the scent of roasted meat, sharp spices, and bread still warm from the oven. Trays vanished into storage bracelets, only to reappear in the hands of butlers sprinting toward the banquet hall.\n\nLuke edged back, trying to melt into the flow of movement. He had barely taken two steps when a voice barked at him.\n\n“You! Are you on shift?”\n\nHis blood iced. Slowly, he turned. A man stood there, clipboard in hand, the unmistakable air of a head chef radiating authority.\n\n“Yes,” Luke replied at once, face calm, tone flat.\n\nNo hesitation from the chef. He pulled a stack of trays from his bracelet and shoved them into Lucy’s arms.\n\n\n“Table five. Move. I need the next run ready now.”\n\nWithout another glance, the man disappeared back into the chaos. Luke let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He looked down at the trays balanced against his arms and nearly smirked. Fortune, it seemed, hadn’t abandoned him just yet.\n\nNo one questions a maid carrying food.\n\nHe moved through the fortress with measured steps, posture humble, eyes lowered, every detail of the role precise. Guards, servants, courtiers, none of them spared him more than a passing glance. Until he turned a corner. There, planted in front of a reinforced door, stood a soldier in full armor. His stance was rigid, his gaze unyielding. Luke drew a steady breath and stepped forward with practiced confidence.\n\n“I was ordered to deliver this tray to the one inside,” he said, voice cool and detached, as if it were nothing more than routine.\n\nThe soldier’s eyes narrowed. He crossed his arms over his chest.\n\n\n“I’m not opening this door again.”\n\nLuke let his brow tighten, allowing just enough irritation to seep into his tone.\n\n\n“Then ask my superior, if you’ve got the guts. Better yet, head straight to the party and interrupt Kruger himself. See how much he enjoys being bothered.”\n\nThe name landed like a blade. The soldier stiffened, breathing heavier, but he didn’t argue. With a muttered curse, he pulled a key from his storage bracelet and slid it into the lock. Luke seized the moment. The tray vanished into his pocket dimension with a subtle flick of his hand. The lock clicked, metal grinding.\n\n\n“Food…” the guard muttered as he pushed the door open.\n\n“Again?” a woman’s voice echoed from within, weary and tinged with annoyance.\n\nThe soldier took one step inside. That was all Luke needed. His arm snaked around the man’s throat, a flawless chokehold snapping into place. The guard thrashed, but Luke’s grip crushed the fight out of him. One sharp blow to the skull, and the man’s body sagged limp.\n\nHe dragged the unconscious soldier into the room, kicked the door shut behind him.\n\n“Wh-what are you doing?!” the woman’s voice cracked, fear cutting through her fatigue.\n\nLuke didn’t waste a second. Rope and gag appeared in his hands, summoned from storage. Binding and silencing the guard took only moments, muscle memory guiding each knot with ruthless efficiency.\n\nOnly then did he lift his gaze.\n\nThe woman stood before him, hair disheveled, her face drawn with exhaustion yet her eyes burned with defiance. She stepped back, incredulous.\n\n\n“Who… who are you?”\n\nLuke inhaled, lowered his voice, and answered with steady resolve.\n\n“It’s me, Luke… and I’ve come to rescue you, Eleanor.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 283: Night of the Forbidden Escape\nTarget length: ~2000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke had broken into the room where Eleanor was locked inside Bastion’s fortress. The guard from the door lay unconscious and bound on the floor.\n\n“It’s me, Luke… and I’ve come to rescue you, Eleanor.”\n\nEleanor stared at the woman before her, confusion flickering across her face. “What?” she breathed, lost.\n\n“I’m Luke. The guy you knew as James,” Lucy pressed.\n\nHer brows shot up. All she saw was a stranger in a maid’s outfit.\n\n\n“I don’t know what’s going on here. I already told Ronan and Kruger everything from my side.”\n\nHer gaze darted from the unconscious man to Luke, suspicion tightening her jaw. And now? How the hell do I convince her I’m really Luke?\n\n“You helped me escape. I’m James. I came back for you,” Luke insisted, almost pleading.\n\n“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never helped anyone escape. And I’d never help James. I want to kill him myself,” she snapped.\n\nDamn it. She’s cautious. She thinks this is a setup.\n\n“It’s going to sound insane, but I’m Luke. I’m… in a woman’s body. Temporarily,” he said, heat rising to his cheeks. Saying it out loud felt ridiculous.\n\nHe could feel time slipping away. Eleanor’s skepticism was a problem, but he couldn’t blame her. Dressed like one of Bastion’s maids, he looked like the perfect trap.\n\n“Eleanor, we don’t have time. I have to get you out now. Remember what I told you about the mechanism? I activated it. There’s another fortress like this hidden in the orc territories.”\n\nHer eyes narrowed further. Luke pulled his twin kukris from his inventory and tossed them to her.\n\n\n“See? These are the kukris you saw me using. If you use Identify, it won’t work. They’re soulbound. They’re mine,” he said, even though part of him knew how absurd it sounded from her perspective.\n\n“Even if that might be true… you have to see how hard this is for me to believe,” she replied.\n\nThere was only one way to convince her, and part of him hated doing it here.\n\n“I don’t have a choice,” he muttered, making the kukris vanish again. From his storage, he retrieved one of the necklaces he’d taken from the chests in the Wild Zone. In a blur, he moved behind her.\n\n“What are you—?” Eleanor began, startled.\n\nLuke slipped the necklace around her neck.\n\n“In my defense, of all the necks I’ve ever placed a necklace on, yours was the most beautiful.” he said, repeating the exact line he’d used before their parting.\n\n“James? Is it really you?” she whispered, still unsure.\n\n“It’s me.” Lucy let the necklace fade back into storage and faced her. His cheeks burned. Doing this in this body felt surreal.\n\nEleanor stared at the woman before her, stunned. “It really is you?”\n\n“Of course,” he replied simply.\n\nLuke cracked the door open, peeking into the corridor, then shut it softly. “Listen to me. When Bartholomew and Kruger find out I activated the second mechanism because you ‘accidentally’ hit Kruger and let me escape… you know what’s going to happen to you, don’t you?”\n\n“I’ll be killed…” she murmured, the realization settling like ice in her voice.\n\n“That Kruger is definitely going to come after you. And the calm version of Bartholomew you’ve seen so far? It won’t exist once he realizes the second mechanism’s been triggered.” Lucy’s voice was low. “That’s why I’m here. I have to get you out. I owe you that much.”\n\nEleanor moved straight to the unconscious guard, tightening the gag and rope with practiced fingers. “I’m sorry for this…” she murmured to the bound man.\n\nLuke peeked into the corridor.\n\n“You even lied about your gender?” she asked, stunned. “Some things make sense now…”\n\n“What? I didn’t lie! I’m a man! And what do you mean ‘some things make sense’?”\n\nHe decided he didn’t want to know. “Listen, I used an item that temporarily turned me into a woman. That’s all.”\n\nHer eyes flicked up and down his body, lingering at his waist.\n\n“I’m still a man down there, okay? The disguise didn’t rewrite me completely,” he added, flustered.\n\n“Did you put that maid outfit on before or after you turned?” she asked.\n\n“You’re messing with me,” he muttered.\n\nShe stared at him a beat longer. “Your makeup’s beautiful, by the way.”\n\nHeat crawled up his neck.\n\n“We don’t have time for this,” Lucy snapped.\n\n“So what’s the plan?”\n\nLuke froze. “Actually… I improvised. I don’t really have a way out for you yet.”\n\nHe took a long breath, forcing himself to think. “I could give you the maid outfit. Problem is, I’ve got my party clothes underneath. Maybe it would draw attention for a strange guest from the party to be so far out in the fortress, but at least it’s the outline of a plan.”\n\nEleanor scanned the room. “No maid leaves the fortress at this hour. It would draw too much attention. And they never leave alone. I’d be caught the moment I crossed the barrier.”\n\nLuke exhaled, shoulders tight. “And sneaking you into the party is suicide…”\n\nKruger and Bartholomew were still out there. If Eleanor, supposedly locked in her room, appeared at the banquet, everything would blow up. He couldn’t risk it.\n\n“I’ve got a cape that can slow a fall,” Lucy offered. “If I get you up to the higher floors, maybe you could jump from a balcony.”\n\nThe cape required an Assassin class to activate, but maybe he could trigger the effect beforehand the way Allison had with her gear.\n\nEleanor tilted her head. “It could work… maybe. But the watchtowers would see me. The second I hit the ground, alarms would sound, my position exposed, and an army on my heels.” She hesitated. “Still, it’s better than sitting here waiting to die.”\n\nLuke clenched his fist. It was a terrible idea.\n\n“And I’d still have to get to the upper floors. Someone could spot me, recognize me…” she added, thinking aloud.\n\nThere was no turning back. The guard would eventually report this intrusion. Eleanor was marked for death either way. If he didn’t act now, she’d be dead by morning.\n\nHe paced the room, heart hammering.\n\nThen Eleanor stepped closer. “If we get to the armory, I can steal one of the spare Bastion uniforms. It’s shift change right now. A soldier leaving the fortress in full armor? No one will question it. I could walk out that way.”\n\nLuke nodded slowly. It was a plan. An actual plan.\n\nThe unconscious guard wore light armor that barely covered anything. What she needed was a full suit of armor that would completely hide her and still fit her properly.\n\nHe pulled a map from the pocket dimension. “Where’s the armory?” Lucy asked, spreading the parchment across the bed.\n\n“Same floor,” Eleanor murmured, tracing a finger along the lines. “Other side of the fortress.”\n\nLuke studied the corridors. “Here’s the makeshift kitchen. Too many people moving through.”\n\n“My face is known in Bastion. If someone recognizes me, it’s over,” she said.\n\n“Which route is the quietest? You used to work here, right?”\n\nShe dragged her finger along the edges of the map. “The far wings. Patrols don’t hit them as often.”\n\nLuke tucked the map back into the pendant.\n\nArtemis, you know what to do.\n\n'I’ll guide you. If it goes south, we improvise.' She replied inside his head.\n\nHe opened the door, peeking into the hall. “I’ll go first. Stay behind me.”\n\nThey slipped out. Luke locked the door, hiding the key away. The soldier would stay gagged and unconscious for a long while. His awareness stretched outward as he moved, reading the space ahead like a second skin. They walked in silence, Luke scouting every bend before signaling Eleanor forward.\n\nThen, turning a corner, he froze. Two soldiers were heading their way. Eleanor heard the boots even from behind and went rigid. Luke backed up fast, pulling a mop, a broom, and a bucket from the pendant. He splashed water onto the stone and started scrubbing like he belonged there.\n\nAs the soldiers approached, he glanced up with cool irritation. “Floor’s wet. Use another hall.”\n\nOne sighed. “Right, sorry… good night.”\n\nThey turned away without a fight. Even the soldiers, Luke realized, had a quiet fear of the maids.\n\nWhen they were gone, Eleanor whispered, “What was with the mop?”\n\n“I don’t know. Panic,” he muttered, shoving everything back into storage. They moved on.\n\nEvery hallway felt like a new gamble, but somehow they made it. At last they reached the armory. A vast military storeroom lined with chests and cubicles. After checking it was empty, Luke ushered Eleanor inside and closed the door.\n\n“I just need to find a set of armor that actually fits,” she said, already rifling through gear.\n\nLuke stood guard at the crack of the door. “How did you even get into Bastion?” she asked.\n\n“I… came to the party.”\n\nShe kept sorting pieces of armor, strapping them on one by one. “Came how? Only outsiders with invitations get in.”\n\n“I, uh… I was accompanying my… fake… boyfriend,” Luke admitted, realizing how ridiculous it sounded out loud.\n\n“You seduced a man just to crash the party?”\n\nHe shut the door all the way. “Of course not!”\n\nA low laugh slipped from her. “Relax. I’m teasing.”\n\nHe exhaled, shoulders easing.\n\n“Just so we’re clear, I’m not exactly thrilled about dressing up as a woman. I swear it makes sense when you hear the full story, I just don’t have time to explain right now,” Lucy muttered.\n\n“Later you’ll have to give me your makeup artist’s contact.” Eleanor chuckled, slipping on a gauntlet.\n\n“Very funny…” he grumbled under his breath.\n\nShe was fitting the helmet over her head when she added, “For someone who used to trick women, it’s pretty ironic seeing you turned into one.”\n\n‘Exactly what I told you! Gods, I live for this kind of poetic justice.’ Artemis whispered in his mind.\n\n“I wasn’t a scumbag, okay? That also has an explanation.” He turned, only to find Eleanor staring at him with a deadpan look.\n\n“Alright, maybe I was a bit of a scumbag. But it was for a good cause.”\n\nWhen she was finally suited up, he pulled the map from the pendant. The helmet hid her face completely. Nobody would recognize her now. He even had his own “guard” to escort him back toward the party.\n\n“We’re here,” he said, tracing a path with his finger.\n\nWith Eleanor dressed like that, the risk dropped. They could take more direct routes without hiding every step. The plan was simple. Reach the first floor, split up at the main corridor, he would slip back into the party while she made her way out of the fortress.\n\nThey started walking again, no longer worrying about every eye in the hall. They passed a small group without drawing a single suspicious glance. Each turn made Luke’s heart beat faster, yet steadier at the same time. For safety, they avoided the grand staircase, heading for one less used. He could feel Eleanor’s tension even in her silence.\n\n“We’re almost there,” he murmured as they neared the stairwell.\n\nThen he stopped cold. His perception flared. Someone was coming up the stairs. A woman. No footsteps, no sound at all.\n\nDamn it. Please don’t let it be one of the assassin maids.\n\nHe signaled for Eleanor to step back. The figure on the stairs suddenly quickened her pace.\n\n“What are you two doing here?” the woman’s voice snapped.\n\nLuke turned, bracing himself for another deadly maid.\n\n“We…” he began, but the words died in his throat the moment he saw her face.\n\nNot one of the assassin maids. Something far worse.\n\nIt was Erza Grimhart."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 284: Luke and Erza Grimhart\nTarget length: ~2000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke stayed perfectly still, every muscle drawn tight like a bowstring ready to snap. The air felt too heavy to breathe, and each heartbeat thudded in his ears like a war drum. His mind sketched a dozen escape routes. Jump through a window, spark a distraction, fight, run. But each scenario ended the same way, with him dead.\n\nIn front of him stood the embodiment of Bastion’s danger. Erza Grimhart. Behind him, Eleanor was frozen, eyes wide, her body locked by terror. Erza stepped closer, wrapped in an aura that felt almost tangible. Her black hair fell across her shoulders like strips of shadow, and in her eyes glimmered a surgical coldness.\n\n“I asked what you two are doing here.” Her voice was low, deliberate, the sound of a blade sliding across ice.\n\nThe instant the words left her mouth, Luke’s perception field collapsed. The sense that usually mapped every movement around him simply broke. Even standing right there, Erza became unreadable, her presence a swirling storm, attacking from all sides at once, front and back, above and below. His instincts screamed danger.\n\nShe advanced another step, slow and assessing, and the corridor seemed to shrink. The air grew thicker with each click of her heels against the stone floor.\n\n“Especially you…” Her finger extended, slow and predatory, pointing straight at Lucy. “What is one of my maids doing here at this hour? You’re supposed to be at night training, aren’t you?”\n\nLuke’s heart iced over. Air turned to glass in his lungs. He scrambled for an excuse but knew it would be useless. Erza was too sharp, too intuitive, a predator who sniffed out lies before they formed.\n\nBehind him, Eleanor drew in a steadying breath.\n\n“I was…” Lucy began, voice measured. Erza’s gaze sharpened, feline impatience radiating from her eyes, waiting for the rest. “Lady Erza, I was on my way to see someone… on a private matter.”\n\nErza raised a brow. That single motion doubled the pressure in the corridor. Eleanor swallowed hard, and the sound echoed like a gunshot.\n\n“What matter?” Erza stepped even closer until she was right beside Lucy.\n\nLucy kept her eyes down. “Ronan.”\n\nThe name hung in the air. Inside, Luke’s thoughts spun like a tornado. In every version of this scenario, he ended up exposed, dead, or worse.\n\n“Ronan?” Erza echoed, studying her nails as if the detail were trivial. “Why would you want to see him?”\n\nLucy held the lie as though it were a well rehearsed truth. “It’s about Christine. He asked me about her. I think their relationship is strained. I thought I’d use the training hour to talk to him privately.”\n\nOutwardly Lucy seemed calm, almost solemn; inwardly Luke could feel the tension crackling like lightning before a storm. Yet her voice didn’t waver. No tremor, no stammer, each word landed exactly where it needed to.\n\nErza tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing. “Ah, yes. I heard something about that. An idiot tangling himself up with one of my precious girls,” she said, contempt lacing every syllable.\n\nShe exhaled, the sound like distant thunder. “Go on.”\n\nWithout another word, she moved past them, her footsteps ringing like hammers striking an anvil until the sound faded into the dark.\n\nLucy and Eleanor didn’t move at first. The tension was so thick it clung to their skin like a second layer of cloth. At last, they began to descend the stairs in silence. But the sense of danger refused to fade. Every step sounded like a brittle snap. Luke felt his perception field slowly knitting itself back together but still off kilter.\n\nThen it came. A sharp metallic sound, high and thin, like a blade whispering across stone. Luke’s instincts detonated in his chest.\n\n“Stop!” Lucy’s voice cracked louder than intended as she yanked Eleanor back.\n\nA thin metallic thread shimmered across Eleanor’s torso, almost invisible in the gloom. Then another. And another. One by one, the wires appeared, crisscrossing the air like a lethal web. Everywhere Luke looked, more of them materialized, razor fine, poised to slice flesh and bone with a single wrong move. He knew a trap when he saw one. This wasn’t a simple deterrent. It was an execution waiting for the smallest mistake.\n\nAnd there she was at the bottom of the stairwell, leaning casually against the wall as if she had been there all along. Erza Grimhart.\n\nLuke’s heart stopped for a beat. How?! He had seen her leave through the corridor above.\n\nThe narrow stairway closed in on them, the imagined scent of blood curling in the air.\n\nErza pushed off from the wall with a lazy, deliberate grace. The wires quivered as if alive, catching the torchlight like veins of liquid silver. Each line moved with a will of its own, a deadly ballet trapping Lucy and Eleanor in an invisible cocoon.\n\n“You know… I don’t recall your face among my maids.” Her voice was soft, almost musical, but the threat underneath coiled like a snake ready to strike.\n\nCold sweat crept down Luke’s neck. Every nerve in his body screamed run, but his face stayed neutral, eyes lowered. One wrong twitch and those wires would cut everything apart. Erza took a few steps closer. Each movement made the wires vibrate like the strings of some dark instrument.\n\n“Lady Erza,” Lucy said, her tone low, respectful, but steady. “My face isn’t worthy of your memory.”\n\nLuke caught the faint motion at the corner of Erza’s lips, not a smile, but recognition of a dangerous game.\n\nFor an endless heartbeat Erza tilted her head, weighing Lucy’s words. The tension pressed down until the air burned in their lungs. Luke felt his world narrow to pinpoints of sensation: the metallic tang of the wires, Eleanor trembling behind him, the drip drip of water somewhere far away.\n\n“I should personally train you all more often,” Erza murmured at last, touching her chin with one elegant finger. “I’ve left too much to the First Sisters. Perhaps it’s time I visited the practice grounds again.”\n\n“It would be an honor, Lady Erza,” Lucy replied, keeping the mask of deference perfectly in place.\n\nLuke’s heart lurched in erratic rhythms, pounding, pausing, then pounding again. Every micro expression on Erza’s face triggered a different internal alarm. The wires began to slacken, one by one, sliding back into the walls like serpents retreating to their burrows. The sound was faint, but to Luke it was the fanfare of survival. Erza leaned in close, seizing Lucy’s chin with fingers that were cool and unyielding. Her eyes were honed blades tracing every detail of the maid’s face.\n\n“This time,” she whispered, so near Lucy could feel her breath, “I will never forget your face.”\n\n“What’s your name?” Erza’s eyes locked directly onto Lucy’s.\n\n“Lucy.” The answer slipped out without hesitation, the first name that came to mind—and in that instant Luke knew he was walking a tightrope. One misstep and she would know.\n\nErza’s finger trailed slowly from Lucy’s chin to her lips, the touch too light to be innocent.\n\n“Lipstick?” Her brow arched. “You know the rule. None of my maids are allowed makeup. And yet…”\n\nLuke’s mind spasmed. This woman is a machine. She notices everything.\n\n“Sometimes… a woman just wants… to impress someone special,” Lucy whispered. “Forgive me, Lady Erza.”\n\nErza’s eyes narrowed to slits. She held Lucy’s chin, leaning in close enough that her voice became a blade against the ear.\n\n“I smell something on you… ‘Lucy’…”\n\nLuke froze. He didn’t know why, but his whole body reacted, a shiver slicing down his spine.\n\n“S-smell?” Lucy stammered.\n\nErza drew back slightly, her eyes glinting with predatory light. “The scent of Assassination.”\n\nThe wires dissolved around them, retreating like burned webs.\n\n“As any of my maids should have,” she added with a faint smile—though the expression wasn’t human. It was the smile of a predator who knows it can crush its prey at will.\n\n“Good night,” Erza said at last, her tone like silk tearing. “You may go.”\n\nLucy and Eleanor moved with hesitant, deliberate steps, each motion calculated. The corridor ahead stretched out forever, but every inch gained felt like a silent victory. Luke could feel Erza’s gaze fixed on them even as they turned their backs. His instincts screamed that at any moment something could still happen.\n\nThe bend in the hallway loomed ahead. He clung to it the way a drowning man clings to the promise of air. If we reach the corner, we can run.\n\nThey were only a few steps from it. Luke’s leg muscles were stone, cold sweat slipping down his back. The bend was freedom, distance, relief. One turn and he could vanish.\n\nThen Erza’s voice sliced through the corridor like a blade. “Wait.”\n\nThe sound cracked the fragile thread of hope. Both of them froze. Luke felt a cold knife twist in his gut. His heart was hammering so fast it sounded like muffled explosions in his chest.\n\n“Your face is a little familiar to me, Lucy.”\n\nThe words hit like a dropped weight. Luke knew exactly what that meant: his face was plastered all over the Safe Zone on wanted posters. He went still. Beside him, Eleanor barely breathed.\n\nLucy turned slowly, keeping her head bowed and hands clasped in perfect submission. “It must be your imagination, Lady Erza. I’m not worthy of such notice.”\n\nErza, a few meters back, touched her chin with thoughtful fingers. Her eyes narrowed, studying Lucy. “Perhaps… maybe that’s all it is.”\n\nFor a heartbeat Luke thought she would advance. But with that same lethal calm, Erza turned, climbed the stairs, and disappeared up the stairs, leaving only silence behind. Lucy and Eleanor stayed frozen, the oppressive silence wrapping around them. Only when the last trace of her presence vanished did Lucy dare to breathe. Without exchanging a word, they moved down the corridor. Every step was measured, slow, as if the walls themselves might close in at any moment.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThey moved through the fortress in silence. The air hung heavy, each step sending muted echoes down distant corridors. Neither Lucy nor Eleanor had relaxed since the encounter, their bodies still thrummed with adrenaline.\n\nWhen they finally reached their destination, the pressure eased a fraction. The place was empty. No guards, no traps. Just the rendezvous point.\n\n“That woman…” Eleanor leaned against the wall, still breathless. “She’s terrifying.”\n\nLuke scanned the hallways, every sense on alert. The quiet here was different, not Erza’s suffocating silence, but the kind that felt like shelter.\n\n“Looks like this is where we split,” Lucy said, her voice sounding normal again for the first time.\n\nEleanor stepped closer, her eyes still wide. “So all I have to do is meet you at the agreed spot?”\n\n“That’s right.” Lucy’s tone was steady. “I’ll get you safely to the second mechanism. From there, you’ll see the truth for yourself.”\n\nShe extended her hand. “Whatever happens, thank you for coming to rescue me, Luke.”\n\nHe clasped it, feeling the warmth of another human being after so much tension. “You’re only in this mess because you helped me.”\n\nEleanor glanced down the corridor. “Good luck, Lucy.” Then she turned and slipped away.\n\nIt was time for her to make her own way out. Luke knew that as a maid or a party guest, he would have to go back the way he came, risking being spotted. There was no other choice. When Eleanor disappeared into the corridor, he was alone again. The fortress seemed larger now, emptier, more dangerous.\n\nHe moved on, finally stopping at the janitor’s storage door. Low, unremarkable, yet at that moment it was his passage to another life. He dissolved into mist, slid under the door, and solidified on the other side. Inside, he stripped off the maid’s uniform, the fabric still carrying the scent of the hallways. Underneath was the party dress. A simple change, but one loaded with risk.\n\nLuke exhaled, letting out some of the tension that had built up in his chest. Now came the hardest part: returning to the party unnoticed and hoping Eleanor made it out alive. Time was their enemy. One mistake, an unconscious guard discovered, someone checking Eleanor’s room, would unravel everything."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 285: Allison Declares War\nTarget length: ~2000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The crystalline chime of glass rang softly through the hall. Mason swirled the amber drink in his glass, watching it catch and fracture the chandelier light above. Around him, the city’s power players clustered in small groups, trading rehearsed smiles and empty chatter. The clash between the room’s luxury and the silent weight of his mission almost made him forget where he really was.\n\nPeople had adapted to this new reality as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They spoke about the future without a shred of urgency, their hopes and fears dulled by the routine of this crumbling world. It was a banquet of false comforts, each laugh another layer of disguise over a society one step from collapse.\n\nAcross from him, a young woman was in the middle of a story, her hands sketching the scene with exaggerated gestures.\n\n\n“So there’s this guy,” she said, “an idiot who walks into the inn and claims he’s not talking to me but to the plant on the counter.”\n\nMason lifted an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth quirking. “Your name’s Layla, right?”\n\n“That’s right.” She gave him a graceful nod.\n\nFrom the far side of the hall, Mason caught sight of a cluster around Bartholomew, Allison, and Oswald. The trio drew whispers and glances like magnets, radiating authority. Even the soldiers who had been invited stood as background actors in this political stage play. Among them, Mason spotted Kruger’s assassins, dressed as distinguished guests, laughing and drinking like anyone else. The sight sent a chill down his spine. Evangeline flickered in his thoughts.\n\nIf she were here, one slip into shadow could get her caught instantly.\n\nBut the real problem was getting Luke back into the hall. For the hundredth time Mason wished he had a tracking skill.\n\nIf only I could tag that guy and see him coming through the walls. But skills like that belonged to rare, privileged classes, and he wasn’t one of them.\n\nThe risk was huge. At any moment Bartholomew might ask after Lucy, Mason’s supposed girlfriend, and suspicion would bloom. Luckily Allison was a black hole of attention, every smile from her bending the room’s focus like tides drawn by the moon.\n\nThere were only two ways Lucy could return to the party. Stroll through the main corridor, feigning drunkenness to get past the guards, far too risky. Or wait for Mason and Allison to engineer a distraction, giving her a chance to slip under the sealed door in mist form. Either way was dangerous.\n\nLayla’s voice broke through his thoughts with a revelation. “Can you believe I found out that guy was a criminal?”\n\n“That must’ve been tough,” Mason said, raising his glass. He barely processed her words.\n\n“It was that Luke.”\n\nMason choked and coughed into his drink, recovering with a tight, awkward smile. “Small world, huh?”\n\n“Yes. That scumbag ruined us,” Layla said, bitterness dripping from every word. “Because of him my father and I were arrested. We almost lost our inn.”\n\nMason tilted his head, trying to mask his tension. “That’s… awful.”\n\n“I hate scumbags!” she snapped. The women around her nodded in fervent agreement.\n\n“He complimented my hair and gave me a necklace,” one of them said.\n\n“Me too. Total scumbag,” another chimed in.\n\nMason widened his eyes, feigning surprise. “You all know Luke?”\n\n“Yes!” they chorused.\n\n“I got demoted because of him!” a third complained. “I was this close to getting clearance for internal patrol duty!”\n\nMason drew a steady breath, letting the moment stretch. “Truly a terrible man. Ladies, if you ever need someone to teach him a lesson, you know where to find me.”\n\nAs their glasses clinked together, something shifted at the edge of his vision. A slip of white paper slid soundlessly under the sealed double doors and into the hall. Luke. The signal.\n\nKeeping his expression perfectly neutral, Mason shifted his foot over the paper. The women kept chatting, oblivious. With a discreet flick of his system menu, he removed his shoe, touched the paper with his toe, and sent a flicker of heat into it, just enough to burn one edge. Then the shoe reappeared as though nothing had happened. The paper drifted back under the door. Two minutes. That was the plan.\n\n“Ladies,” Mason said with a polite smile, “I need to speak with Lady Rhiannon for a moment. I’ll be right back.”\n\nHe slipped away from the little circle, inhaling the heavy scent of flowers and the faint metallic tang of wine that clung to the hall. Each step toward the center felt rehearsed, calculated, every movement practiced so no one would suspect anything, at least not yet. He would only get one chance.\n\nAs he crossed the floor, his gaze scanned the room with precision. Soldiers pretending to be at ease, Kruger’s assassins scattered like chess pieces, eyes following every gesture. Bartholomew sat with Allison and Oswald, ringed by protectors. That was the focal point. That was where the break had to happen.\n\nMason raised his hand slowly. Mana flared under his skin like molten copper until a small sphere of fire coalesced above his palm, casting his features in an otherworldly glow. He arced it upward. The orb burst just beneath the main chandelier, not lethal but bright enough to blind, a miniature sun blooming overhead.\n\nA stunned silence fell. Steel hissed from sheaths. Hands tightened on weapons.\n\n“What do you think you’re doing?” a soldier barked.\n\n“Explain yourself!” snapped another.\n\nMason held his ground, arm raised, hand still wrapped in fire like a herald of war.\n\n\n“I want everyone’s attention,” he said, his voice cutting through the hall.\n\nHis heart hammered against his ribs, a silent drumbeat of panic. Outside, he looked like carved stone, but inside he was on the verge of breaking. It had to be now. Before he could say more, Allison stepped out of the crowd. Her presence sliced through the tension like a blade through silk. She touched Mason’s shoulder, a calm yet unyielding gesture.\n\n\n“I’ve thought of something better,” she murmured.\n\nHe frowned but obeyed, stepping back.\n\nAllison moved to the center of the hall, every eye following her. Her aura shifted, shedding the mask of the charming noblewoman and revealing the blade underneath. With a smooth motion, she summoned her katana, the violet blade veined with glowing cracks like molten amethyst.\n\nBartholomew’s guards closed in by instinct, forming a wall around him. Kruger’s assassins flowed forward too, silent, coiled like springs.\n\n“What is the meaning of this?” Oswald demanded.\n\nBartholomew’s eyes narrowed, but he stayed seated, ringed by steel.\n\nAllison lifted a hand, palm outward. The hall went still. Mason retreated further, leaving her in the center of an invisible circle.\n\n“I came here to deliver a message,” she said, her voice as clear and hard as breaking glass. “To every power broker in this hall: the merchants, the soldiers, the so-called leaders of this people. And yes, to the ‘king’ Bartholomew and the pack that feeds at his table. I want my words to travel beyond these walls.”\n\nThe purple blade burned with an inner light, heat rippling off it like a phantom mirage. “I, Allison of Clan Rhiannon, heir to one of the families of the World Government… killed the Orc Lord.”\n\nFor a heartbeat the world froze. The words crashed over the crowd like thunder. Murmurs swelled into a low roar. Soldiers, servants, assassins, every pair of eyes darted between her and the king. Even Bartholomew’s expression hardened, struggling to mask the blow.\n\n“What a charming joke, Lady Rhiannon,” Oswald said with a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes.\n\n“This is the bounty for the Orc Lord,” Allison replied, lifting the sword so they could all see.\n\nSeveral stepped forward at once, eyes gleaming as they cast identification magic. Their expressions shifted, surprise, fear, awe, one after another like ripples in a pond. The murmuring rose into a wasp nest hum, the hall vibrating with barely contained chaos.\n\nFrom his corner, Mason kept his gaze locked on Bartholomew and Kruger. Both were rigid, jaws tight. This wasn’t a random boast. This was a surgical strike. Allison twirled the katana slowly, violet light running down the blade like molten amethyst. Every word she spoke felt honed to an edge. The entire hall held its breath, knowing something bigger was about to drop.\n\n“But that’s not all I came here to say.” Her voice cracked across the room like a whip. “There’s another achievement.”\n\nBartholomew tilted his head, a false smile curling his lips.\n\n\n“Another?” His laugh was brittle, like glass under pressure. “And what could possibly outshine killing the Orc Lord, Lady Rhiannon?”\n\nShe didn’t answer right away. Instead she walked the length of the hall, eyes flicking from face to face as if surveying pawns on a board she already owned. The silence stretched, deliberate, each second pulling the room tighter.\n\n“I activated one of the mechanisms.”\n\nThe line detonated in the air. Gasps, shouts, and whispers rolled over each other. Bartholomew had gone pale.\n\n“Silence!” the king thundered, his voice cracking like a whip across stone walls.\n\nAllison raised her chin, untouched by the command.\n\n\n“I didn’t just activate the first mechanism,” she said, her voice ringing with conviction. “I activated the second.”\n\nThe words struck like a fissure opening in the marble floor. Screams and questions poured from the crowd. For years it had been rumor, myth. Now it stood in the center of the room wearing a blade of violet steel.\n\n“What do you mean the second mechanism?!” someone shouted, too desperate to heed the king’s warning glare.\n\nThe hall was beyond control now. Hunger for truth burned hotter than fear of the throne, a wildfire no one could stamp out. Allison lifted the blade again, eyes gleaming with fever bright purpose.\n\n\n“The truth is simple. When a mechanism is activated, a Safe Zone emerges. It’s always been that way. That’s how Bastion was born. Did none of you ever wonder?”\n\nThe shock rippled outward in waves. Mason saw Kruger step forward instinctively, but Bartholomew stopped him with a single harsh gesture, his arm like a steel bar. Nothing rash now.\n\n“It means,” Allison continued, “that eight years ago one of the mechanisms was already triggered. It’s here, buried inside Bastion. And Bartholomew has known all along.”\n\nDozens of faces turned on the king like knives seeking a target. They wanted denial, defense, some explanation. Bartholomew stayed frozen, teeth clenched, sweat glinting on his brow under the chandeliers.\n\n“I don’t know why he kept quiet,” Allison said evenly. “But after killing the Orc Lord, I activated the second mechanism. I created a second Safe Zone, a working, breathing section of the city. Houses. Reward chests. New hunting grounds. A forest thick with resources, a river of our own. A place of safety. And I’m inviting all of you to come see it with your own eyes.”\n\nThe hall erupted. Questions tripped over each other, voices climbing over voices. Mason caught only fragments: “is it true?”, “where is it?”, “when do we go?”, while Allison moved through the uproar with a calm that bordered on predatory.\n\n“I’ll tell you one more thing,” she proclaimed, raising the katana like a banner. “We have a new Safe Zone, we know the location of the third mechanism, and I have one request. Spread the word: we’re going back to Earth… and no one is going to stop us.”\n\nHer final words hung in the air, vibrating like plucked steel. She lowered the blade and, without waiting for applause or protest, began to walk through the crowd. People parted for her as if she were a wave moving through sand. Mason followed her with his eyes, heart hammering. Bartholomew stayed still, pale and rigid, teeth grinding. The unshakable mask of a king had begun to crack in front of everyone."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nBecoming the Dark Lord — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Luke jolted awake, his cheek tingling from having fallen asleep with his face on the ground. His mind was a storm, thoughts tangled and scattered. He glanced around, heart pounding. This... wasn’t his house.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Luke | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: He, Points, Luke’s\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Magnetic Return (Rare), Servant of the Dark Lord (Unique), Notice: Approaching First Floor, Basic Blade Handling (Common), Heavy Strike, You have learned a Class Skill, Servant of the Dark Lord, Basic Chameleon Skin (Uncommon)); stats (Perception, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility, Vitality)\nSystem notification style: \"System’s Annual Integration!]\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (5% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 293: Blood Siege\nTarget length: ~3500 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, class event, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke had just finished telling Ronan what everyone else had known for weeks: the Beast Lord was dead. The commander stared at him, pale and rigid, fingers digging into the edge of the table. Disbelief still clung to his face when Luke produced the trophy, a massive fang from the monster, and set it down in front of him.\n\n“So you all knew… and I was the only one who marched all this way terrified out of my mind?” Ronan’s voice wavered between astonishment and disbelief.\n\n“Come on. It’s not like you’re exactly trustworthy. You were Bartholomew’s man,” Evangeline shot back, eyes steady.\n\n“But Eleanor was too…” he countered.\n\nEleanor gave a slight shrug and let out a controlled sigh. “I told them to tell you, but everyone has their reasons. Things aren’t always that simple.”\n\nMason cut through the tension by sliding a map across the table. His fingers traced the scribbled routes. “Now you know the plan, Ronan. We don’t want to return to our Safe Zone carrying news that we’re about to send people to their possible deaths trying to capture the third fortress. We need motivation. We need hope. If we go back with proof the Beast Lord is already dead…”\n\nRonan drew in a slow breath and leaned back. “I get it. It’ll be a bigger spark for them. Even if I don’t agree, it’s the best way to keep the fire burning.”\n\n“Motivation also drives them to push their professions, to level up. We’re just trying to nudge the ones still frozen in fear,” Allison added, her voice calm.\n\nRonan rubbed his face, exhausted. “Fine. But from now on, keep me in the loop. I said goodbye to my fiancée, you know. Told her there was a real chance I wouldn’t make it back.”\n\nHis eyes flicked toward Jack, leaning silently against the wall. “Wait… even he knew and I didn’t?”\n\nEveryone nodded without a word.\n\nMason unfolded another map, this one a clean copy of Luke’s rough sketches, redrawn by a skilled cartographer. The markings were sharper now, almost professional. “Alright. Next priority is leveling up. Luke, any recommendations nearby?”\n\nLuke’s mind flashed to the statues hidden in the city, but he pushed the thought aside. Best to focus on the beasts first. “We stick to the forest. Follow the river all the way to the city. Either way, we’re going to have to clear it out.”\n\n“What’s your race level?” Evangeline asked, curiosity flickering in her eyes.\n\n“Forty-eight,” Luke replied without hesitation.\n\n“He’s almost there,” Mason murmured to her.\n\nThen Mason looked around at the group, his expression turning firm. “Right now our focus is hitting level 60 in class so we can unlock a powerful epic skill. For some of you, that’s also going to mean reaching at least race level 50, like Luke.”\n\nLuke was already at 58 in class. It would practically line up, two new skills waiting on the other side.\n\n“I’m going to give you all a piece of advice about rank skills,” Mason went on, straightening his posture.\n\nThis was the part Luke had found most intriguing over the last few days.\n\n“A rank skill is born from your greatest flaw and your greatest strength. It’s a two-edged blade, addictive to some once it awakens. That’s why you need to master your flaw. Think of something you know, deep down, is a problem inside you, then overcome it or at least keep it under control. That’s how you handle a rank skill.”\n\n“Flaw?” Jack frowned. “Like being bad at something?”\n\n“No,” Mason said with patience. “A flaw in your personality. Ask yourself one question: what’s my greatest flaw?”\n\nThe conversation drifted back to progression and mapping new zones, but Luke’s mind had already slipped elsewhere.\n\nSomething born of my flaw… what flaw do I even have? Nothing obvious came to mind. It couldn’t be something trivial like hating to wake up early. It had to be something big, a fracture deep in his personality or in the way he lived. A flaw by his own measure, or by everyone else’s?\n\nEither way, Mason had said the system would reveal it when the time came.\n\n\n***\n\n\nAn entire week had passed since the group had settled into this new stretch of the tutorial. Time moved differently here, the dense silence of the ruins, the constant whisper of wind through hollow structures, all of it gave the sense of a place suspended between worlds. They had divided their responsibilities with military precision: one team dedicated to leveling, another to mapping and exploration.\n\nLuke had taken the lead on exploration. He was simply the best suited for it, with his stealth abilities and the angel mask that let him roam the city without triggering the statues. Most days it was just him and Princess Charlie, while the rest focused on training and hunting.\n\nLately, Luke had been stepping back, deliberately letting Charlie handle the undead. She needed the experience. Luke could have climbed faster, unlocking new skills at a steady pace, but he’d chosen to slow down for the sake of the group. That was the price and the strength of working as a team: everyone rose together, even if the individual climb took longer.\n\nStill, Luke hadn’t stagnated. He’d gained levels of his own, edging toward the moment when two new skills would unlock at once. His stats now were almost unrecognizable compared to just a few weeks ago.\n\nName: Luke\n\nLevel: 49\n\nRace: Half-Demon\n\nRank: F\n\nClass: [Demonic Predator (Lvl 59)]\n\nProfession: [Guardian Botanist of Mother Freya (Lvl 60)]\n\nTitles: [Dark Lord]\n\nBloodline: [Bloodline of the Dark Demon]\n\nHealth Points (HP): 4263/4270\n\nMana Points (MP): 4423/(4940)\n\nStamina: 2373/(2890)\n\nSoul Fragments: 104/1000\n\nStats:\n\nStrength: 680\n\nAgility: 492 (542)\n\nEndurance: 269 (289)\n\nVitality: 427\n\nPerception: 450 (460)\n\nIntelligence: 489 (494)\n\nFree Points: 0\n\nClass Skills: [Advanced Blade Handling (Uncommon)], [Profane Knife Throwing (Uncommon)], [Twin Blade (Common)], [Basic Dark Dash (Rare)], [Basic Blood Regeneration (Rare)], [Predator’s Mark (Rare)], [Demonic Blade Dance (Rare)], [Wraith Form (Ultra-Rare)], [Force Infusion (Rare)], [Advanced Stealth (Rare)], [Assassin’s Tracking (Rare)], [Mana Infusion (Rare)], [Basic Archery (Common)]\n\nProfession Skills: [Herbology of Mother Freya (Ancient)], [Precise Extraction (Common)], [Basic Potion Crafting (Common)], [Corrupted Plant Growth (Rare)], [Plant Sensor (Uncommon)], [Botanical Bond of Mother Freya (Rare)], [Seed Conversion (Rare)], [Plant Manipulation of Mother Freya (Rare)], [Corrupted Blood of Mother Freya (Ultra-Rare)], [Thorn Mutation (Uncommon)], [Soil Analysis (Uncommon)], [Botanical Purification (Uncommon)], [Acid Blood Arrow (Epic)]\n\nRace Skills: [Identify (Common)], [Demonic Perception (Uncommon)], [Dark Blood (Uncommon)], [Meditation (Common)], [Demonic Endurance (Uncommon)]\n\nBloodline Skill: [Servant of the Dark Lord (Unique)]\n\nServants: [Princess Charlie (Skeleton) - Lvl 40], [Servant Slot Available]\n\nLuke dumped every free point from his level 59 class upgrade, plus the spare point from his level 49 race milestone, straight into Intelligence. His mana pool swelled like a reservoir after a storm. He was inches from cracking the 5,000 mark now—enough to launch five Acid Arrows back-to-back without blinking. Just thinking about it gave him a thrill. With that kind of firepower, he could tear through crowds on his own.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a …]\n\n\n**The [Pugilist] 2nd Class of Princess Charlie has reached Level 41! (+3 Strength, +2 Endurance, +2 Agility, +2 Vitality, +2 Perception, +2 Intelligence, +2 Free Points.)**\n\nLuke vaulted off a crumbling rooftop. Below, Princess Charlie and Eleanor were cutting through the last of the monsters. Charlie had made massive strides. At level 40 her pugilist build had bloomed into something dangerous, unlocking a skill born from a simple choice she had made months earlier.\n\n[Flame Aura (Rare)]: Harnessing the power of [Flame], the brawler’s body is wrapped in a shimmering layer of fire that boosts their strength and agility, making their movements faster and their strikes far more powerful. The released energy leaves a blazing trail in the air with every motion, which can disorient enemies.\n\nCharlie was already moving like a storm. He watched her explode into a sprint, triggering Flame Fist, her hands igniting in a fierce, rippling blaze. She drove a punch into a statue, shattering it into jagged shards that clattered across the ground. Undead crowded in and she tore through them bare-handed, each strike trailing fire, each hit leaving burning marks in its wake.\n\nWhen she finally slowed, her stance stayed high, fists raised like a fighter in the ring. The flames around her hands went out first, then the shimmering aura across her body faded away. The synergy of her skills was terrifying. She also loved pairing Fire Aura with Steel Fist, the raw power stacking into something almost unfair. Hard to believe she’d once been a fragile skeleton. Now she was a walking weapon. She spotted more enemies ahead and charged toward them without hesitation, one blazing fist cocked back for the next hit.\n\nOff in the distance, Luke muttered, “I’ve basically turned into support at this point.”\n\n“She’s having fun,” Eleanor replied, a quiet smile playing at her lips as she drew an arrow.\n\nLuke kept scanning the area, senses sharp. They were near the edge of the forest, still inside the ruined capital.\n\n“So your name, does it come from that old movie?” Eleanor asked, easing the tension.\n\n“Yeah. Star Wars,” Luke said, a quick grin flickering across his face.\n\nThey walked side by side through the hushed streets.\n\n“In a way, I’m basically a Jedi,” he joked, pulling a kukri from his inventory and tossing it down the street. The blade clanged against the stone. “Watch this.” He extended his hand; the kukri whipped back to him like a boomerang, drawn by magnetism. “See? I’ve got the Force.”\n\n“Cute,” Eleanor murmured, arching a brow.\n\nPrincess Charlie came back, approaching them. For some reason, she didn’t seem to like leaving Luke alone with Eleanor. Charlie opened the system interface and, pretending it was nothing, showed Luke the free points.\n\nName: Princess Charlie\n\nLevel: 40\n\nRace: Skeleton\n\nRank: F\n\nClass: Death Knight (Lvl 48)\n\n2nd Class: Pugilist (Lvl 41)\n\nTitle: [Servant of the Dark Lord]\n\nHealth Points (HP): 2603/2690\n\nMana Points (MP): 1837/2130\n\nStamina: 2509/(3010)\n\nStats:\n\nStrength: 416 (486)\n\nAgility: 215\n\nEndurance: 261 (301)\n\nVitality: 269\n\nPerception: 176\n\nIntelligence: 213\n\nFree Points: 21\n\nClass Skills: [Basic Weapon Handling (Common)], [Heavy Strike (Common)], [Basic Spectral Charge (Rare)], [Crescent Slash (Uncommon)], [Whirlwind Strike (Uncommon)], [Spectral Chain (Rare)], [Spectral Barrier (Rare)], [Doomblade (Rare)], [Mark of Doom (Rare)], [Force Infusion (Rare)], [Doom Explosion (Rare)], [Spectral Soldier (Ultra-Rare)]\n\nSecond Class Skills: [Advanced Hand-to-Hand (Uncommon)], [Steel Fist (Rare)], [Stunning Punch (Uncommon)], [Battle Roar (Uncommon)], [Concentrated Kick (Uncommon)], [Power Punch (Uncommon)], [Pugilist’s Leap (Uncommon)], [Muscle Reading (Uncommon)], [Movement Echo (Uncommon)], [Flame (Common)], [Flame Fist (Rare)], [Flame Aura (Rare)]\n\nRace Skills: [Demonic Servant Perception (Uncommon)], [Basic Bone Regeneration (Rare)], [Bone Endurance (Rare)], [Iron Bones (Ultra-Rare)]\n\nRune Skill: [Berserker Flames (Rare)]\n\nHe handled the point allocation for Charlie. She still preferred to let him do it, choosing skills and distributing stats. Rarely did she ever show real interest in those details herself.\n\nStats Updated (Princess Charlie):\n\nStrength: 416 (486) -> 426 (496)\n\nVitality: 269 -> 280\n\nFree Points: 21 -> 0\n\nHealth Points (HP): 2603/2690 -> 2713/2800\n\nLuke couldn’t ignore the big drawback of Charlie running two classes. Death XP had to be split between them. If it weren’t for that, she would have already maxed out her class or at least be standing shoulder to shoulder with him at nearly level sixty.\n\nHe wanted her to reach her epic skill as soon as possible. In terms of pure attribute gains, leveling her pugilist class had been worth it, low XP cost and generous stat rewards. But once it hit the higher tiers, the experience curve spiked, slowing down her Death Knight progress.\n\nNow that she had finally pushed the second class to level forty, he had decided it was time to shift gears. From here on out, he would tell her to focus exclusively on using the sword. That way, all the XP would funnel into the Death Knight class and level it faster. If she could hit level fifty, the class would evolve, her stat gains would skyrocket, and she would finally unlock her epic skill, a massive leap forward in power.\n\n\n***\n\n\nAfter several more hours they finally made it back to Luke’s hideout in the cave. It was rough but secure, cold stone walls, torches wedged into iron brackets, and a makeshift table buried under maps, notes, and supplies. The air smelled of damp earth, but there was a strange comfort to it, the feel of a refuge carved out of the dark.\n\nEveryone gathered inside. Allison broke the silence first.\n\n\n“Any word from Jerry?”\n\n“Everything’s fine in the Safe Zone. Bartholomew hasn’t moved,” Evangeline replied, arms folded.\n\n“See?” Ronan tried to sound casual.\n\n“Just being careful,” Evangeline shot back.\n\nThey spent the next few minutes running through assignments, progress updates, and the most dangerous points on the map. Yet underneath it all, one subject kept pulling at them like a tide: the third fortress. It had become the fixed point in every conversation, a distant beacon daring them to test their limits.\n\nIn the end they agreed, at the very least, to scout it. Luke didn’t bother hiding his eagerness to go back. At the same time, they wanted to try a new route, the river that cut through the city like a vein of dark water.\n\n\n***\n\n\nTwo sturdy wooden boats waited at the riverbank, each able to hold about ten people. Even so, they split the group to keep the weight balanced.\n\n“Maybe she should take off the armor?” Ronan suggested, glancing at Charlie.\n\n“She prefers it this way. Right, Charlie?” Luke asked.\n\nCharlie gave a small, impassive nod.\n\nLuke’s boat carried himself, Charlie, Jack, and Allison. In the other were Ronan, Evangeline, Eleanor, and Mason. It worked out neatly: each boat had an archer and a semi-mage, with Allison in Luke’s boat and Mason in the other, ready to throw spells if needed.\n\n“The current flows straight through the city,” Jack noted, eyeing the slow churn of the dark water.\n\nThey pushed off side by side, letting the current pull them forward. This was just a test run, to see if the river really was a safe passage.\n\n“If you spot a crocodile, call it out,” Evangeline joked to Eleanor, who was firing perception arrows into the water. The magic didn’t reach far beneath the surface, but it helped.\n\nLuke noticed Jack gripping the boat with one hand, his wand clutched tight in the other, leg bouncing like a drumstick.\n\n“Afraid of crocodiles?” Luke asked.\n\n“I, I’m afraid of open water. Rivers, oceans, not my thing. I do not want to fall in, I definitely do not want some giant kraken from the depths to drag us under into the darkness,” Jack blurted, panic edging his voice.\n\n“Hey, hey,” Evangeline cut in. “Don’t jinx us. Breathe.”\n\n“It’s still true,” he muttered, trying not to hyperventilate.\n\n“The biggest monster was the Beast Lord, and it’s dead. If anything else shows up, we’ll handle it,” Luke said evenly.\n\nJack drew a shaky breath. “But I can’t swim if we go overboard.”\n\nLuke stared at the dark water. He had no idea how deep it went but decided not to push the conversation.\n\n“It took me about eight hours to walk from the forest to the fortress. At this speed, by boat, maybe half that, four hours. Quick,” he calculated aloud.\n\n“I don’t know about quick,” Jack murmured, squeezing his eyes shut and inching away from the edge. “This river’s dark. Doesn’t feel safe at all.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nUndead dotted the forest’s edge, easily dropped by Eleanor’s arrows. Once they slipped into the urban stretch, darkness swallowed everything. Only the cold gleam of the moon skated across the water. They lit lanterns and set them in the center of the boats, casting trembling pools of yellow over wet planks.\n\n“Every now and then you can hear it… footsteps, guttural noises,” Mason muttered, eyes scanning the shadows.\n\nThe current slowed, forcing them to row.\n\n“Looks like the river cuts through a lot of trouble,” Allison said, peering at the streets drifting past.\n\nIt did. No statues, no undead drifting in the water.\n\n“Feels almost like a road someone built on purpose,” Eleanor murmured. “Two Safe Zones linked by a river ending at the Capital’s gate… and beyond the barrier, it keeps running straight toward the third fortress.”\n\nLuke stayed quiet, eyes sweeping each alley and ruin, every sense tuned tight.\n\n“This isn’t coincidence,” Allison went on. “A tutorial’s meant to be beaten. There’s always a hidden route, some logic to the maze. Follow it long enough and you start seeing the end.”\n\n“For five years… maybe I wasted my time,” Ronan said with a bitter laugh.\n\n“Try eight,” Evangeline replied dryly.\n\n“At least I met my fiancée,” Ronan offered.\n\nLuke shot him a look across the boats. “You actually had the guts to date one of those assassin maids?”\n\n“Finally, someone said it,” Mason muttered.\n\n“I was thinking the same thing. That’s bold,” Jack added.\n\nLuke’s mind flicked with Artemis’s voice: ‘Interested in maids, are we? Back on your scumbag phase or just indulging a fetish?’\n\nQuiet. Just curious.\n\nRonan cleared his throat, embarrassed. “When I met her, she was just a normal woman… later she joined Erza’s organization.”\n\n“That woman freaks me out,” Jack said. “Every time we talk about her, I feel like she’s right behind us listening. Gives me chills.”\n\nBefore the conversation could spiral, Allison stood, unfolding a map.\n\n“This is it,” she announced.\n\nBoth boats glided to the silent bank. One by one, they climbed the moss-slick stones and stored the boats in their storage item.\n\n“It’s right there at the end of the street… I don’t believe it,” Evangeline breathed.\n\nThey stared at the looming walls of the third fortress. The air felt sharper, colder. None of them could quite hide the edge of anticipation crawling over their skin.\n\n\n***\n\n\nBartholomew sat in his Bastion office. The room was large but unnervingly quiet. The only steady sounds were the wind slipping through the narrow windows and the soft clink of liquid hitting glass as he poured another drink. Heavy piles of sealed reports and letters littered the oak desk, a half-empty bottle standing among them.\n\nHe sat hunched, not like a triumphant ruler but a man drained of victories, eyes fixed on the surface of his glass. He knew he had already lost, not in open battle, but in something far deeper: morale.\n\nFor years, Bartholomew had lived off his own cleverness. Always two steps ahead of Marshall, predicting every move, spinning contingencies within contingencies. He had spent years in fear, hiding in shadows without ever surrendering the plan. He had been the symbol of progress, the one chance at going home, and for that the majority had followed him.\n\nBut when the Haven claimed the second fortress, reality had finally broken through. He had seen every outcome, played every scenario. There was no real way to stop them. Even if he fought, unleashed force, fear, mercenaries, at best he could stall a month, maybe three. And in doing so he would turn everyone against him. It was the curse of being too smart: seeing the future moves and knowing, sooner or later, the board would swallow you whole.\n\n“At least I tried, cousin,” he muttered to Kruger, who stood silent in the corner like a statue. “At least I stalled them for eight years.”\n\nHe took another drink. The burn in his throat gave no relief.\n\n“How’s the second Safe Zone? Jonathan still watching?” His voice barely lifted.\n\n“Jonathan’s inside. From what I see, everything’s moving as planned. Supplies arrived, no disruptions,” Kruger replied, deep voice almost mechanical.\n\nBartholomew rose slowly and drifted to the window. Outside, the Safe Zone looked smaller than ever. A few figures moved through the main square, but most had already migrated to the second Safe Zone.\n\n“They’ve been gone a week now, holed up in that new section of the tutorial, leaving this place guarded only by Haven members,” he said with a mix of contempt and fatigue.\n\nHe took two steps back. “And we have no interest in that second Safe Zone.”\n\nThe late light cut long shadows across the stone floor. He exhaled. “Everything ready?”\n\n“Just waiting on your word,” Kruger said, straightening.\n\nBartholomew turned. The cold gleam in his eyes left no doubt. “Then go. Gather your assassins. Kill every last one of them. No one from that expedition comes back alive.”\n\nKruger gave a small nod and slipped from the room. Bartholomew turned back to the window, speaking almost to himself.\n\n“King Bartholomew publicly backed and invested everything to bring people back to Earth. But, sadly, Allison Rhiannon, Commander Ronan, and the rest perished on their mission…” He paused, tasting the bitterness in the words. “That’s how I make sure everyone else is too afraid to try.”\n\nThe wind filled the silence once again. Bartholomew raised his glass and drained the last of it in a single pull."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 294: Deadly Fortress Mission\nTarget length: ~2300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The group moved down the wide avenue toward the fortress. The sky above hung heavy and gray, and the stretched shadows of ancient buildings gave the path a cemetery feel. On either side, endless rows of petrified statues formed a silent corridor. Stone warriors, frozen mid-snarl, towered over them with weapons poised as if ready to strike the next intruder.\n\nLuke led the way, recounting in a low, steady voice how he had survived the last challenge. His words came like a distant narrator, calm on the surface but carrying the weight of memories. Images of the capital flashed through his mind like lightning: nighttime ambushes, the chill of empty alleys, fear pressing just beneath the mask of control.\n\n“So you crossed the city through a sea of patrolling statues, killing everything stealth-style… and then fought a stone angel?” Ronan asked, still trying to piece together everything Luke had revealed.\n\n“In short… something like that,” Luke replied, offering no more than necessary.\n\nRonan watched him from behind, intrigued despite himself. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t hide his shock.\n\n“I’ve got to admit,” Mason said, arms crossed as they walked, “I don’t think an average person could survive what you went through.” He lifted his gaze to Luke. “But the Beast Lord—how did you kill that giant serpent?”\n\nLuke looked at the necklace and saw, inside its pocket dimension, the Familiar Rune glowing.\n\n“That’s a secret I’ll take to the grave.”\n\nHe and Franky might not get along very well, but both silently agreed never to talk about how the fight had really ended. Making the enemy get diarrhea mid-battle to land a killing blow didn’t exactly sound like a legendary tale to tell.\n\nFor a heartbeat the serpent’s engraving on the pendant flickered with light, then went dark. The whole group looked at Luke, hoping for a hint.\n\n“The Beast Lord part,” Luke said firmly, “like I told you, is a secret. All that matters is it’s dead.”\n\nThey moved on in silence, careful not to brush against the statues. The air itself seemed to press down on them, a weight you could almost feel in your bones.\n\n“Luke,” Allison called, breaking the hush. “What are the odds you’ve already done the conquest challenge for the third fortress without realizing it?”\n\nEveryone stopped for a beat, glancing at one another. Luke looked back at her. “What do you mean?”\n\n“To take each fortress you had to finish an event by killing whoever ruled it,” Allison explained, ticking off points on her fingers. “First fortress, Evangeline and the others—new to the system—took down the Midnight Warden and his undead army. Second, we killed a Warden Captain and his garrison. wouldn’t be surprised if the challenge of the third one was to kill the Beast Lord and the angel statue that guarded the place while fighting through her army.”\n\nLuke frowned. He’d never thought of it that way. The logic felt absurd, yet it clicked. All eyes were on him now, waiting.\n\n“Makes sense,” he said at last, voice low as if to himself.\n\nIt was like a puzzle piece sliding into place. He remembered every step, every fight, every retreat. Could it be that, without realizing it, he’d already completed the third fortress event?\n\n“Makes sense?” Evangeline echoed, quickening her pace, eyes flashing with sudden realization. “I knew it! Only an idiot would head straight for the hardest spot in the low-level tutorial.”\n\nShe broke into a run, hair streaming behind her.\n\n“Luke, if you really did this… I don’t know whether to hug you or laugh,” she called, both amused and nervous.\n\n“Why is she running?” Jack asked, bewildered.\n\nThere was no time for an answer. One by one the others broke into a run, swept up in the sudden realization. The thud of boots echoed through the statue-lined corridor like war drums.\n\nIf Allison was right, the third mechanism had been within reach all along, hiding in plain sight through every grim day they had spent in this city.\n\n“If this turns out to be true, I can’t believe I wasted another week here!” Eleanor shouted, sprinting just behind.\n\nLuke hesitated for a heartbeat, but instinct won. He took off as well, racing past the silent ranks of stone warriors along the same route he had described to the group. They passed the warhorn, the one Luke had explained, the one the angel could have used to wake the sleeping army.\n\nThe fortress loomed ahead like a stone giant.\n\nThey slowed when the main building came into view. The walls were so high they seemed to scrape the heavy sky, each block etched with the memory of sieges long past. Huge wooden doors with iron fittings stood slightly ajar, unlike the last time Luke had tried to enter. Back then, a magical barrier had demanded the second mechanism’s activation. Now the path lay open, silent and unnervingly inviting.\n\n“This is it. Our shot at going home,” Evangeline said, stopping at the doors.\n\nRonan stepped forward, looking over the group with a serious expression. “Swear to me you’re not going to trigger that thing inside. I came to help and to make sure you don’t get anyone killed doing it.\n\nAllison glanced at him with a faint, dry smile. “Do you think we’re insane enough to try? Even if we were, you think we’d survive everything in the way with just us?”\n\nRonan exhaled hard. “I just needed to hear it.”\n\nLuke approached the doorway. Mason’s voice was low, cautious. “You’re really going in like this?”\n\n“What, you’re going to tell me there’s a giant snake in there or a four-armed angel?” Luke shot back over his shoulder. “They’re all dead already.”\n\nEvangeline came to stand beside him. “We know the plan,” she murmured, eyes fixed on the dark interior of the fortress.\n\nFrom the start they had planned for Luke and Evangeline to enter first. Their skills gave them the edge: shifting bodies, slipping through sealed doors, weaving into places others couldn’t. If something powerful was inside, at least they had a chance to get out alive, the rest of the group didn’t.\n\nLuke and Evangeline drew in deep breaths and darted through. The air inside was colder, thicker, carrying the scent of wet stone and rusted iron. The fortress felt like a warped reflection of Bastion and the Haven fortress, its hallways almost identical yet dimmed, silent, filled with invisible echoes.\n\n“Any sign of danger, we pull out,” Evangeline whispered, her senses stretched to the limit.\n\n“You’d really run from just a Warden?” Luke asked with a raised brow.\n\nShe let out a short, nervous laugh, and they pushed on. As the corridors narrowed and the light dwindled, their pace slowed, each step more deliberate.\n\nThe hall leading to their target lay ahead. They both drew a deep breath, trading a brief, wordless glance. Find the mechanism door, grab the quest, and get out.\n\nWhen they reached it, an immense double door towered before them. Luke stepped up and at that instant, a notification flared across his vision.\n\n**The Third Fortress Quest**\n\nCongratulations, brave explorer of this world. You have reached this weak and desolate place. You survived the perils of the Wild Zone, claimed your own Safe Zone by taking the first fortress for yourself and uncovered the threat of the Three Lords yet you did not falter.\n\nThis fortress was once watched over by a massive serpent and guarded by a Stone Angel, both of which you have successfully defeated. It was once the main base of the King’s forces before they withdrew to the castle to prepare for the final battle.\n\nHowever, it seems three soldiers have remained behind to protect the third mechanism at all costs.\n\nObjective: Eliminate the three Warden Captains stationed in the fortress.\n\nProgress: 0/3.\n\n\n***\n\n\nLuke and Evangeline came back to the group, their eyes carrying the confirmation everyone had been waiting for. The moment they crossed back over the fortress threshold, the tension rippled through the rest of the team like a cold draft.\n\n“There are still three of those things?” Mason asked, his tone slow and deliberate, as if he needed to hear it again to believe it.\n\nJack, Eleanor, and Ronan didn’t know much about the enemy, only what had been told to them in the account of the second fortress invasion.\n\n“So that’s it,” Ronan muttered, running a hand through his hair. “We head back to the second Safe Zone, pick a team of the strongest volunteers, then come back here prepared. What do you think, Eleanor?”\n\nShe pressed her lips together, weighing it.\n\nBut Luke kept his eyes on the fortress. “Go back, lose days just to return here later?” His voice held a hard edge. “You can go if you want. I’m finishing this challenge.”\n\nJack’s eyes went wide.\n\n“Just three, right?” Allison asked. “No one supporting them?”\n\nThat was exactly Luke’s thinking. Level-seventy monsters, yes, but only three of them, no Warden army. He and Charlie were far stronger than before. If they had taken down the Stone Angel as a two-man strike, they could plan around these three as well.\n\n“But why three monsters like that?” Evangeline narrowed her eyes. “It doesn’t add up.”\n\n“One for each fortress?” Eleanor suggested.\n\n“Or maybe it’s a hint,” Allison murmured, almost to herself.\n\nEveryone turned toward her.\n\n“It’s the tutorial’s way of warning us,” she said, voice low but certain. “Showing we’ll face more Warden Captains at the final event. It’s prepping us to understand the threat level and the numbers we’ll be dealing with.”\n\nMason nodded slowly. “That… actually makes sense.”\n\nJack glanced at each face, trying to gauge if they were truly ready to risk this much. “You really want to take on three of them with just us?”\n\n“And you think the final event will be easy?” Mason shot back.\n\nJack shook his head. “At least then we’ll have an army, a real siege plan, long-range attacks. Don’t forget, I’m a healer, not a fighter. I’m nowhere near as efficient as you in combat, and I don’t have a weapon like yours.”\n\nSomething heavy flew toward Jack before he could finish. He caught it on instinct. It was a massive axe, its weight vibrating up his arms.\n\n“Got this when I killed a minotaur,” Luke said. “With strength infusion and your lumberjack skills, you’re a warrior now. Congrats, you’re as useful as the rest of us. Just don’t break my axe.”\n\nHe clapped Jack on the shoulder, transferring the item through the system.\n\n[An item has been removed from your inventory]\n\n“If you drop it midfight, you can pull it back through the system,” Luke added.\n\nJack blinked, stunned. “T-thanks.”\n\nRonan, who had been quiet, finally spoke. “So we’re really doing this?”\n\n“Come on, Bartholomew’s enforcer,” Evangeline teased, giving his shoulder a playful smack. “You thought you’d kill the Beast Lord on this mission. Three tin soldiers should be nothing.”\n\nHe nodded, still grave. “I just thought we were here to study the Beast Lord and reach the third mechanism. But you’re right, fighting a giant snake would’ve been harder.”\n\nEleanor stepped forward. “Good. I’ve got experience running teams to eliminate high-value targets. How do we want to do this? I’m guessing we’ll have to split up.”\n\nSilence fell for a moment, each of them conjuring a mental picture of what lay ahead. Slowly, strategies began to surface, voices trading ideas in a measured rhythm, each detail sketching the shape of the coming battle.\n\n\n***\n\n\nAllison’s gaze locked on Luke. “So that’s it? You’re sure? No room for regrets after this.”\n\n\n“It’s a good split,” Luke said, steady and unflinching.\n\n\nEveryone turned toward him.\n\n\n“That was me hinting at you,” Allison added. “You’ve fought one of these things before, but it was only one, and only after we’d cracked its armor with our trap. You’re really planning to go in with just the two of you?”\n\n\n“We make a good team,” Luke answered, and Charlie raised a thumb in silent agreement.\n\nThey drew a collective breath, then sprinted into the third fortress, each of them already owning their assigned roles. The teams split up with one frontline fighter to engage the Warden Captain directly and the others providing support.\n\nTeam One was Ronan, Evangeline, and Jack. The plan was brutal but clear. Ronan was their tank, wielding a blacksmith’s epic profession skill that turned his skin to living iron. It made him monstrously powerful, especially combined with his mastery of stamina, but at a cost, his health bled away every second, the iron skin eating at him like a curse. He’d burn through mana and life alike in berserker mode.\n\nHis job was to lock horns with the Warden Captain, while Evangeline focused on pure damage, using her epic-class skill to bind the monster with shadow hands so Ronan could strike. Jack would heal him during the onslaught, not enough to keep the berserker state forever, but enough to buy the precious extra minutes they needed to bring the monster down.\n\nTeam Two was Allison, Mason, and Eleanor. Their tactics echoed the second fortress. Allison would slash deep with her katana, piercing armor and freezing joints, while Mason unleashed his lineage trump card, combining his profession’s epic skill with fireball magic to create something like a fireball machine gun. Eleanor stayed at range, bow in hand, sniping weak points and lining up a killing shot through the Warden’s helm.\n\nTeam Three was Luke and Charlie. Their strategy was stripped to the bone: Charlie tanked, Luke dealt the damage. Only two of them, yes, but Luke knew that if it came down to it he could take on all three Wardens himself. His drive to get back to Earth was that fierce.\n\nAnd they weren’t completely alone. There was, after all, one more member who would emerge in the battle… the spectral orc Morvat."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 295: Demonic Predator’s Dominion\nTarget length: ~1600 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The group moved in silence through the fortress’s new corridors. Every footstep echoed faintly against smooth stone, each of them acutely aware of the sound they were making. Unlike the old fortress, there were no alarms or mechanical triggers, just a dense hush and the electric weight of an ambush waiting to happen. Torches flickered on the walls, their flames casting restless shadows that warped the depth of the passageways.\n\n“You’re sure this plan will work?” Ronan’s voice carried a taut edge.\n\nThey stopped at a crossroad. The air here felt colder, tinged with rust and damp, as if the walls themselves were swallowing every word. Evangeline studied each hall and archway before answering.\n\n“I’m sure. Even without alarms, these things like to slaughter anything that gets near the mechanism. That makes Luke and me the most obvious targets.” She allowed a thin smile. “So we’ll use that against them.”\n\n“But you said these bastards turn invisible. We won’t even know if they’re right next to us,” Ronan muttered, tightening his grip on his weapon.\n\nThe seven of them formed a tight ring, backs together, covering every angle. It was the most defensible spot they’d found in the fortress’s labyrinthine layout, but still a choke point. Eyes swept each corridor. Muscles stayed wired, waiting for the first flash of movement.\n\nCharlie drew her blade from the inventory. The black metal seemed to drink in the surrounding light as she activated its enchantment.\n\n[Midnight Sword (Ultra-Rare)\n\nDescription: A blade as black as the night itself, forged from the same shadowed steel used by the Midnight Wardens. It once belonged to a Captain, whose strength and discipline still echo within the blade. The steel is hard and unyielding, making it not only a deadly weapon but also a symbol of authority and fear.\n\n[Shield Form (Ultra-Rare): The blade can transform into a round shield of black steel, equally resilient, providing unshakable defense in critical moments.\n\nRequirement: Level 35+ in any Fighter class.]\n\n“Don’t forget about the spear. They could throw it at us,” Jack said, eyes darting between passageways.\n\n“The Warden Captain we’ve seen only carries a sword. But even if it does have a spear, the instant it throws, it loses invisibility. That’s our window,” Luke replied, voice steady.\n\nJack swallowed hard. “I just don’t know if I can dodge in time. I’m not agile, I’m not built to take a hit. I’m wearing a robe, not armor.”\n\n“Then hope it sticks to the sword,” Luke said, half serious, half teasing.\n\n“That’s not exactly reassuring,” Jack muttered, clenching his wand.\n\nThe formation stayed tight. The silence thickened, broken only by the faint clink of steel when someone shifted their stance. The cold stone walls turned every sound into an echo, like whispers from unseen mouths. Even breathing felt too loud.\n\nThen came the sound of heavy metal footsteps, slow, measured, coming from more than one direction.\n\n“It’s in front of me!” Mason raised his shield.\n\nAnother sound snapped from the left corridor.\n\n“Got one on my side!” Allison crouched slightly, ready to strike.\n\nEleanor held her bowstring tight but didn’t fire. Too early and she’d give up her shot. The seven of them traded quick glances, no one sure where the first strike would land. The creatures were there, invisible, stalking them like predators in their own den.\n\nMore footsteps now, fast and sure, heading straight toward Luke’s position.\n\n“Third one’s on me!” he called out.\n\nAnd then, just as suddenly as it began, the noise stopped. Silence reclaimed the hall. The Wardens were in position, waiting to spring. The moment they had anticipated and dreaded had arrived.\n\nCharlie raised her shield and the spectral barrier shimmered into existence in front of Luke, a translucent veil quivering like liquid glass. The air grew heavy, vibrating with energy. Eleanor used the moment to draw stamina into her arrow, while Ronan lifted his massive shield, bracing for impact.\n\nThe hush lasted only a heartbeat. A sharp crack snapped to the right and the first Warden appeared out of nowhere, a ripple in the air, like heat above stone, before slamming into the barrier. Eleanor released her arrow, the shaft roaring through the distortion. Ronan intercepted a strike with his shield, sparks skidding off the stone where an invisible blade had missed him by inches.\n\nThe rest of the group reacted without hesitation. Charlie swung the shield in a tight arc, releasing a surge of force from its edge that drove the enemy back. In the same instant, she transformed her shield into a sword and struck forward. The blade bit into something unseen, the hard metallic crunch of armor proving it was there.\n\nLuke fixed his eyes on the target and loosed a mana-infused arrow. The projectile burst in a flare of white light, tearing a seam through the distortion. In one fluid motion, he hurled a kukri spinning like a black star until it struck home with a dull, wet thud.\n\nThe three Wardens staggered back, slamming into the walls with echoing crashes. Invisible, but no longer untouchable, each carried a mark betraying its position: one with Luke’s kukri buried in its shoulder, another glowing where Allison’s katana burned against its armor, and the third skewered by Evangeline’s spear through its flank. Even hidden, they were shadows pinned by steel.\n\n“This one’s going for me!” Evangeline shouted, leaping back as the weapon floated toward her.\n\n“And this one’s on me!” Luke twisted aside, already moving to flank.\n\nThey split without thinking, instincts snapping into place. The team had to figure out which Warden would focus on which fighter before they could divide and crush them. The third Warden lunged after Luke but was intercepted by a combined strike from Allison and Mason, followed by Eleanor’s pin-sharp arrows. The corridor erupted into steel on steel, muted grunts, and the crackle of magic.\n\nLuke didn’t wait to see the fight end. His boots slapped against stone as he bolted down a side passage into the inner garden. Columns lined the space, the ground a patchwork of beaten earth and low shrubs, a strange oasis inside the fortress. Light streamed from high skylights, falling in dusty golden beams.\n\nCharlie was right behind him, her flaming aura flickering across the plates of her armor. She struck from behind, hammering the Warden Captain with brutal precision. The enemy, invisible but betrayed by the kukri still lodged in its flesh, followed close, heavy steps marking its pursuit across the dirt.\n\nThe kukri trembled, then snapped back to Luke’s hand under magnetic pull. He drew a steady breath, lifting his bow as Charlie lunged again.\n\nA notification blinked across his vision:\n\n[Mark of Doom Activated]\n\nThe creature would now take 10% more damage.\n\nCharlie stretched out her hand and summoned her spectral soldier. A dense cloud swirled over the ground before hardening into the cracked form of an orc, green fissures pulsing between plates of ghostly armor. Morvat had arrived. The Warden Captain’s roar thundered across the garden, invisible but close, each step denting the earth and betraying its position.\n\n“Looks like it’s just us,” Luke muttered, glancing at Charlie.\n\nThe monster lunged with a guttural snarl, its unseen sword slicing an arc through the air. Luke reacted instantly, pointing his hand toward the ground. Barbed roots burst upward, snaring the creature’s legs. Charlie activated Spectral Charge and drove her sword where she guessed its torso was. A muffled metallic howl reverberated. The roots snapped as the sword gouged the dirt and vanished again.\n\nAt the last second, Charlie shifted the blade into its round shield form and caught the strike from nowhere. The impact rattled her arm but held. Morvat vaulted in, Battle Frenzy igniting as he clambered onto the enemy’s back and hammered the invisible helmet, each blow ringing like a smith’s hammer against iron.\n\nLuke watched the orc get hurled into a wall, fragments of spectral energy scattering in the air. He moved before hesitation could set in, capitalizing on the distraction.\n\nHe pulled his bow from the inventory, the other hand already shaping an Acid Blood Arrow while tracking the Warden Captain’s faint silhouette. A green glow began condensing as the arrow formed from his plant-based skills. This was the strongest version he could craft.\n\nNotifications flashed in rapid sequence:\n\n[Health Points (HP): 4270/4270]\n\n[Health Points (HP): -100]\n\n[Health Points (HP): 4170/4270]\n\n\n[Mana Points (MP): 4873/(4940)]\n\n[Mana Points (MP): -1500]\n\n[Mana Points (MP): 3373/(4940)]\n\nLuke steadied his aim at where he knew the target had to be. The arrow’s power transformed its acidic core into something far deadlier. He wasn’t done yet. Layer by layer, he wove Mana Infusion into the arrow’s frame, then Force Infusion on top of that.\n\n[Mana Points (MP): 3373/(4940)]\n\n[Mana Points (MP): -800]\n\n\n[Stamina: 2863/(2890)]\n\n[Stamina: -1000]\n\nThe bow trembled under his grip, fissures creeping along the limbs as the energy climbed to its peak, right to the edge of what the weapon could bear. Across the clearing, Charlie held her round shield high, keeping the enemy’s focus locked on her.\n\nToo late, the creature sensed the danger. The earth beneath its boots sagged under the roots, marking the exact spot. Luke inhaled, holding the arrow until it became a line of pure light, then let the string snap free.\n\nThis new combination of the Acid Blood Arrow at its most powerful version, reinforced with Mana Infusion and Force Infusion, he named Acid Burst Arrow."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 296: Acid Burst Arrow\nTarget length: ~1900 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The arrow on Luke’s bow pulsed with such intense energy it seemed to vibrate in the air, white-blue light coursing along the shaft like veins of living fire. The drawn string gave off a low, almost musical hum as the magic built.\n\nHe drew in a deep breath, feeling the mana burn through his fingers and up his arm, focusing every fragment of strength into that single shot. Then he released. The arrow snapped forward with a sharp crack. A white streak lit the space for an instant. The impact wasn’t just a sound, it was a sensation, a flash that blinded for a moment as if the very air had been split apart.\n\nThe explosion followed, a white wave expanding in every direction and ricocheting off the massive stone walls. The projectile struck the Warden Captain at the heart of the detonation, a metallic crash reverberating with the heavy thud of armored mass slamming against stone. The floor shook. A sharp report echoed through the ceiling and arches. Heat gathered in the air, knocking dust from the corners of the chamber.\n\nThe smoke shifted color. A viscous green haze spread through the room as if it had a will of its own. The acid cloud crawled up the walls, flowers, moss, and ornaments dissolved like melting wax, dripping dark residue. A metallic, corrosive stench filled the air.\n\nLuke, Charlie, and Morvat fell back to the edge of the garden.\n\nHe glanced down at Angélica’s bow in his hand. It was cracked, the string snapped. A little more mana and it would have been destroyed for good. He dismissed it back into his inventory to start repairs.\n\nThe three of them waited in the corner as the acid cloud devoured the space. Even Luke knew how lethal it was to breathe that stuff or get caught in it at all. It would corrode skin, eyes, lungs, everything. This new version even ate through clothes and metal.\n\nA roar echoed inside the green fog. No death notification had appeared. The monster had survived.\n\nLuke had already learned something new about this upgraded acid cloud: it dissipated faster than the standard version. After a few moments, the haze thinned and vanished. The creature stood there in full view now, sword in hand, no longer invisible. Its armor was almost completely gone, one arm missing, body pocked with holes from the blast and acid. The helmet hung in fragments, revealing twisted pieces of its face.\n\nIt reminded Luke of Nemesis, a villain from an old zombie game. Mutilated but not finished, the thing limped forward, sword gripped tight, eyes locked on him. Charlie raised her shield, the surface shifting back into a sword. The fight wasn’t over.\n\nLuke spun the twin black kukris in his hands, activating the Demonic Blade Dance. The air around him rippled, as though his own shadow had torn loose. Ahead, the maimed Warden Captain roared and broke into a run, sword trembling with rage. Even crippled, its charge had weight and precision, each step like a hammer striking earth.\n\nCharlie slid forward to intercept, her weapon shifting back into a shield. She braced for impact, deflecting the blade with a flawless block. Morvat darted in from the side and slammed into the creature, trying to throw it off balance. Brittle armor groaned under the collision. The Warden Captain spun, stabbing short and fast, the thrust grazing Charlie’s shoulder.\n\nLuke moved in on the opening. Dark Dash carried him to the monster’s flank, his blades carving precise arcs. One strike slipped through an exposed gap, black blood spraying into the air. He hurled one kukri at its skull, but the Warden blocked with its sword and countered in a heavy lunge.\n\nCharlie was there first, shield raised, absorbing the blow in a shower of sparks. The impact rattled her arm, but she didn’t budge. Morvat shoved the creature sideways, buying a sliver of space.\n\nLuke stepped back, letting his two tanks handle it.\n\n“At long last, you’ve grown up,” Artemis murmured.\n\nLuke didn’t answer. He already had a plan. Charlie snapped her spectral chain forward, wrapping it around the creature’s arm and yanking hard. The Warden staggered, fighting to tear free. That was the opening they had been waiting for. Charlie charged with her blade held like a spear and drove it into the Captain’s skull. The impact rang out metallic, the blade sinking a few inches before grinding to a stop.\n\nThe monster lurched. The spectral orc leapt again but this time the enemy’s sword punched through its chest, shattering it into shards of green glass that dissolved into nothing. The creature raised its mutilated face, eyes burning with hate as it fixed on Luke and Charlie. Both of them fell back in perfect sync, sprinting out of the garden.\n\n“Come get me!” Luke shouted, pulling it toward the corridor.\n\nThe Warden Captain roared and gave chase, limping, half its face gone and one arm missing, yet still fast, driven purely by rage. Charlie sent the sword embedded in the monster’s face to her inventory and pulled it back out. Metal scraped stone behind them, sparks flashing as wild swings slammed into the walls, always just missing.\n\nAhead, the corridor opened into the library, where another battle was already in full swing. Mason, Allison, and Eleanor were locked against their own Warden Captain. They turned, startled, as Luke and Charlie burst into the room with the mutilated one on their heels. There was no time to explain.\n\nLuke rolled across the dark wood floor, narrowly dodging the strike following him in. The library loomed vast, lined with towering shelves stuffed with ancient books. The smell of scorched paper mingled with iron and sweat. Mason, Allison, and Eleanor fought hard, blades and arrows carving streaks of light as energy burst from each clash.\n\nBehind him, the mutilated Warden staggered into the room with a guttural roar. Charlie was right behind, her shield already materialized. She didn’t need Luke to explain, she understood instantly.\n\n“Charlie!” he shouted.\n\nShe lashed her spectral chain at the exact moment the Warden tried to strike. The pull wrenched the creature forward, off balance. Charlie was already moving, flowing into a sprint, sword ready to strike.\n\nThe enemy dropped to its knees. All Luke saw was Charlie’s blade cutting a perfect horizontal arc, a Force Infusion flaring along the edge. Half the Warden Captain’s skull split under the blow. She didn’t stop. Spectral Charge erupted around her, transforming her momentum into a mass of crushing energy that slammed the creature backward, straight into the other Warden Captain.\n\n“Clear out!” Luke yelled.\n\nThe two Wardens crashed together in the center of the library with a thunderous impact. Charlie raised her hand, and for a heartbeat it burned red.\n\n[Doomexplosion Activated]\n\nWhen the monster’s HP hit zero, the Mark of Doom did its work. It flared across the mutilated Warden’s body like a pulsing rune. First a contraction. Then a black and red flash detonated outward, sweeping the room in a wave of hot, heavy air. Shelves shuddered, papers burst into flame under the surge of shadow energy. The creature’s roar broke into a strangled scream as its body unraveled into spectral fragments that rose and drifted down like glowing ash.\n\nThe shockwave tore through the library, slamming into the second Warden Captain. It stumbled back, armor twisting and peeling away, fissures spiderwebbing across its helm. Yet it didn’t fall. Two points of light, its eyes, blazed hotter in the dark. It staggered, tried to stand again, still upright out of sheer stubbornness.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a Warden Captain – Lvl 70]\n\n\n**[Princess Charlie has reached Level 41! Skeleton (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**\n\n*The [Death Knight] class of Princess Charlie has reached Level 49! (+3 Str, +3 End, +2 Agi, +2 Vit, +2 Int, +1 Per, +2 Free Points)*\n\n**[Princess Charlie has reached Level 42! Skeleton (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**\n\n*The [Death Knight] class of Princess Charlie has reached Level 50! (+3 Str, +3 End, +2 Agi, +2 Vit, +2 Int, +1 Per, +2 Free Points)*\n\n[WARNING: Princess Charlie’s class has entered Mandatory Evolution!]\n\nThe second Warden staggered in the center of the library, legs trembling, dark blood leaking through the fissures of its ruined armor. The afterglow of the Doomexplosion still burned against the walls, lighting the monster like an actor on a stage of shadow and embers.\n\nAllison tightened her grip on the katana, the heat of the blade pulsing against her palms. She inhaled slowly, searching for balance. Around her, the library reeked of scorched paper; charred books slid from shelves, pages fluttering like dry leaves. She tilted forward, muscles coiled, eyes locked on the jagged gaps in the creature’s helm.\n\nThe Warden tried to take a step but almost crumpled. Through the cracked visor, a sliver of rotten flesh showed, teeth clenched in silence. Yet it still raised its sword, shaking, desperate for one last strike.\n\nAllison dashed. The movement was so sharp and clean the air snapped like a whip. Her glowing katana carved a streak of light through the dim. A heartbeat later, the blade cleaved straight through the monster’s skull with almost no resistance, slicing down from crown to chin. The heat of the strike widened the fissures, glowing red as they spread.\n\nFor a moment, the creature stood frozen, as if it hadn’t realized what had happened. Its sword slipped from its hand with a dull clang. Knees buckled. A deep metallic crack rolled through the armor, spreading from the inside out.\n\nA final muffled roar escaped as its armor shattered like glass. Then the Warden fell forward with a crash that rattled the nearest shelves. The plating disintegrated, fragment by fragment, collapsing into gray powder that dissolved into the air until nothing remained but burn marks on the floor and the echo of the fight.\n\nSilence dropped over the library. Mason straightened, leaning on his blade. Eleanor lowered her bow, fingers trembling. Luke rose from where he’d taken cover from the blast.\n\n“What was that explosion?” someone asked him.\n\n“Just me improvising… and it worked,” he muttered, brushing ash from his shoulder.\n\n“We need to check on the others,” Mason said, already moving for the corridor.\n\n“Nice work,” Allison called over to him and Charlie.\n\nEleanor stared at the slick remnants on the floor. Luke gave a small nod, reading her expression. “I know. That skill’s disgusting.”\n\nThey moved quickly down the corridor, still on alert. The sound of battle had gone silent; only the stink of blood and scorched metal lingered. When they reached the hall where Evangeline, Ronan, and Jack had been fighting, the scene was over: their Warden Captain lay dead. The trio was alive.\n\nAt that moment, a bright panel flared before Luke’s eyes:\n\n[Special Event “Third Fortress Mission” Completed]\n\n[You have successfully defeated the three major threats! The Great Serpent, the Fallen Stone Angel, and the Three Warden Captains!]\n\nThey had done it. The third fortress was theirs.\n\nLuke opened Charlie’s system interface, curious. The mandatory evolution alert pulsed at the top—her class had finally hit Level 50. He closed it quickly, bringing up his own screen. More notifications waited for him:\n\n**Your class [Demonic Predator] has reached Level 60! (+10 Strength, +7 Perception, +6 Agility, +6 Vitality, +6 Intelligence, +5 Endurance, +8 Free Points)**\n\n[You have unlocked a new Class Skill]\n\n**[You have reached Level 50! Half-Demon (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**\n\n[ALERT: Rank Evaluation Requirements Completed!]"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 297: Midnight War\nTarget length: ~1900 words\nKey events: class event"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "They had finally brought down all three Warden Captains. The hall still vibrated with the echo of spent magic, the metallic tang of blood, and the drifting haze of shattered stone. That victory was the result of sheer effort and willpower. Luke knew full well that not long ago it would have been hard for them to face even a single Warden Captain, but now they had defeated three.\n\nEvangeline sat slumped against the cold stone wall, breath coming shallow and quick. Her fingers trembled against the blood-stained fabric of her kimono while Jack knelt beside her, wand pressed close, a ribbon of green light crawling over her skin to seal cuts. Across the hall, Ronan remained standing before the fallen Warden Captain, eyes locked on the corpse, lost somewhere between shock and the flickering notifications lighting the air.\n\n[Special Event “Third Fortress Mission” Completed]\n\n\n[You have successfully defeated the three major threats! The Great Serpent, the Fallen Stone Angel, and the Three Warden Captains!]\n\nLuke flipped open his interface. More notifications scrolled past his eyes. One flagged Princess Charlie’s mandatory class evolution. It would take a careful decision later, not now. Choosing a new class required strategy and a cool head.\n\nAnother message popped up:\n\n\n[Your Rank Skill is currently being forged. It will soon be ready…]\n\nHe blinked, reading it twice. This was real. At last he had unlocked his epic class skill and, soon, a Rank Skill would follow. For a heartbeat he felt the weight of every risk they had taken click into place and become worth it.\n\n“Looks like we all survived,” Eleanor said, voice raw but steady, glancing from face to face.\n\nRonan kept staring at the dead Warden Captain. “That thing fought hard,” he muttered.\n\nThe hall resembled the other fortresses: mirrored corridors, high columns, shredded tapestries, scorch marks everywhere. Each detail stood as a silent record of the war they had just waged. Allison stepped closer, boots whispering over the stone.\n\n“Nothing’s stopping us from going back to Earth now,” she said, eyes fixed on the corridor’s gate.\n\n“Except, of course, for the damn castle and whatever’s inside it,” Evangeline answered as she rose carefully, bracing against the wall. Her kimono was soaked in red; she wiped her fingers clean before cinching the sash tighter.\n\n“She’s healing up,” Jack murmured, still watching the faint glow on her skin.\n\n“Dying now, this close to home, would be darkly funny,” Evangeline said, gaze sharp but weary.\n\nLuke drew a deep breath. The biggest walls had finally fallen, Bartholomew, the fights with rival survivors, the hunt for three mechanisms. All of it behind him. He was closer to home than ever.\n\nEvangeline scanned the group. “So… anyone here hit Rank cap?”\n\n“I did,” Luke answered without hesitation.\n\n“I’m almost there,” Mason added from where he leaned against a column.\n\nFor a heartbeat, silence thickened, everyone feeling the same thing: destiny lining itself up before them.\n\n“Shall we head for the third mechanism?” Luke asked.\n\n“Absolutely,” came the reply, all at once.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThey left the hall without looking back. None of them wanted to stay another second. Interfaces flicked shut, weapons vanished into inventories, and the sound of boots striking stone echoed down the corridors as they moved toward their goal.\n\nAt the main door, Luke pressed both palms against it and pushed. The hinges groaned with a metallic shriek, opening into the chamber beyond.\n\n“So this is the mechanism room? Looks the same as yours?” Ronan’s eyes swept the space, sharp and searching. He’d never seen the inner chamber of either of the other two fortresses.\n\n“Exactly the same,” Evangeline answered.\n\nRonan let out a low breath. “Five years I lived in a place with one of these mechanisms right under my nose…”\n\n“Two years for me,” Eleanor added quietly. “At least now we know the truth.”\n\nThey stepped toward the center. The mechanism itself was stone and steel, like a ship’s wheel laid flat, gears humming with a faint blue glow.\n\nWhile the others approached, Luke lingered near the wall beside Charlie. Carved into the stone were ancient, cracked reliefs telling some long-forgotten story. Flakes of rock littered the floor, but one section remained intact: two angels kneeling before a throne. Whoever sat on it had been deliberately erased, leaving only a void where the figure should be.\n\nMidnight King… or the Architect? Or were they the same thing? The thought cut through Luke’s mind as he stared at the carving.\n\nBeside him, Charlie radiated happiness. Through the mental link, he felt her happiness like a warm current.\n\n“We made it, Charlie,” he murmured. “We started out falling through the ice, and now we’re here.”\n\nShe lifted her hand. He met it, sealing the moment with a quick slap of palms.\n\n“Don’t forget I’m still here,” Artemis whispered in his mind. “We’re all in this together.”\n\nLuke drew in a steadying breath. True enough. Alongside Charlie there was the chatty, ravenous soul and the Beast Lord bound within the stone—echoes of every step they’d taken to reach this point.\n\n“Let’s join the others,” he said, and the two of them walked toward the mechanism.\n\nEvangeline was pressing the moons on the wall in the correct order.\n\n“Hard to believe you infiltrated that place just to get this password,” Eleanor remarked, one brow arched.\n\n“By the way, who was the woman that slipped into Bastion?” Ronan asked, suspicion creeping into his tone. “It’s not any of you… is it Charlie?”\n\nFor a moment all eyes flicked to Luke, then away again. Allison cleared her throat.\n\n“Someone who isn’t here,” she said, cutting the subject off.\n\nA new notification flared into the air, silencing any further questions.\n\n**Final Tutorial Mission: Midnight War**\n\nYou’ve reached the final stage of the tutorial and now have access to the third and last mechanism. From your very first steps on this journey, much has happened, but don’t think the end is near. The true challenge begins now.\n\nThe Midnight War is the ultimate event of this tutorial world. In the Capital, the heart of the Kingdom, lies the last fortress. But nothing comes without a price. Activating the third mechanism will shatter the castle’s final barrier and put the exit within your reach. On the other side, however, waits the final army of the Midnight King, led by his most loyal and relentless guardian, the Midnight Lord.\n\nYour objective is to survive the march of this army and reach the King for the final judgment. This event cannot be paused or reversed and will last exactly 6 hours.\n\nWhen the War ends, no living creature may remain. Each mechanism you activated broke a seal of the castle and also a seal of the wall that kept the Kingdom safe. When the third mechanism is activated, the magic that kept the winter at bay will vanish. Eternal cold will sweep across everything. No warmth, no light, no life. Frozen death will consume every corner of this world.\n\nYou will have 6 hours to fight your way through the Midnight Lord’s army, reach the castle, and return to your world. If you fail, you will perish along with everything around you.\n\nObjective: Survive the Midnight War and return to your world.\n\n\nRequirement: At least 51% of tutorial participants must be present in the third fortress for the event to start at midnight. Once the third mechanism is activated, it cannot be stopped and the countdown to this world’s death begins.\n\nDuration: 6 hours.\n\nGood luck!\n\n\nWhen the last trace faded in the air, silence fell over the room. It was a tense, almost physical silence, forcing everyone to confront the reality written before them.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe group had gathered in the fortress mess hall, now an improvised camp. Tables had been dragged into barricades, and worn rugs doubled as beds.\n\nRonan broke the silence. “Bartholomew was right,” he murmured, not looking at anyone.\n\nAllison’s head snapped up, disbelief flashing across her face. “Right? Locking everyone inside the tutorial out of cowardice? Abandoning Earth and dying in this dying world? That’s what you think?”\n\n“It’s not that simple.” Ronan finally turned to face them. “We have to march an army, kill a Lord, drag nearly two thousand people to the castle, fight a King and a witch who are probably stronger than the Lord, and then push through a portal. All of that in six hours. Do you even grasp the scale of that?”\n\nLuke didn’t answer right away. He watched the flickering flame of a lamp, lost in the numbers. The truth was everything had always been a gamble. Since the beginning, every step had meant lives at stake. He’d never fooled himself into thinking they’d all make it out, but there had always been a plan: hold the line, eliminate enemies gradually, use time as a weapon. Now there was no time. Six hours. Far too little for a world this big.\n\nAnd yet his mind spun with the possibilities. An army in motion meant thousands earning experience, epic skills awakening one after another, professions maxing out, strategies taking shape. If organized right, it could work. But this wasn’t a siege anymore. It was a sprint against the clock.\n\n“I get the danger, I get the stakes,” Evangeline said at last, breaking the heavy quiet. She leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, her tone calm but unyielding. “But nothing has changed except the deadline. Come on. Months ago, could any of you have imagined taking down a Warden Captain? And we did it. nd some of you haven’t even reached peak rank yet.”\n\nEleanor nodded slowly. “She’s got a point.”\n\nJack sat hunched on a bench, rubbing the back of his neck. “Still… six hours to do everything. I’m not saying I’m quitting. I have to get back home. But we’re going to have to tear up half our plan and start over.”\n\nMason leaned forward, elbows on the table. “It’s still doable. We just need tighter prep. Gather the best, push everyone’s levels as high as they’ll go. At least their professions.”\n\n“Not most. All of them,” Allison cut in. “That’s the only way this works.”\n\nLuke raised his eyes. “We can still bring everyone here, can’t we? The Capital’s huge, crawling with threats, undead, and the Wild Zone. Two thousand people working together, grinding levels… we could build an army worth fearing.”\n\nRonan exhaled and finally sat back, shoulders loosening as if the numbers themselves calmed him. “Two thousand at peak profession, all with epic skills… yeah. That’s the baseline,” he said, voice steadier now.\n\n“The classes we can work around,” Mason added. “Not everyone will hit the top, but professions? That’s doable. Then we arm them, drill them, map strategies. We teach each person exactly how to spend their free points during the war. No one’s going to have time to stop and think in the middle of it; they’ll need to know it cold.”\n\nTheir conversation began to settle the room. Ideas started to flow, strategies and counter-strategies spilling out as each person voiced their approach. For the first time since the notification, they sounded like a team again.\n\n“The distance,” Luke said, pushing himself up from the table. “I need to know how far it is from here to the castle now that the second mechanism’s barrier might be gone.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 298: Kill the Midnight Lord\nTarget length: ~2900 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Cold wind swept across the top of the fortress tower, carrying the damp scent of ancient stone and the forests beyond the wall. Luke leaned on the parapet, eyes fixed on the horizon, with Evangeline and Eleanor at his side. From up here, the world looked smaller, yet the weight pressing down on them grew with every heartbeat.\n\n“You were actually thinking of going all the way over there?” Eleanor asked, a faint laugh slipping out even as her narrowed eyes measured the distance.\n\nLuke didn’t answer right away. Ever since the second barrier mechanism had been triggered, something had been gnawing at him. The first time he’d approached the magical limit, only one device had been active. Now he needed to know if the structure had shifted.\n\nHe took the bow from Eleanor’s hands. It wasn’t just a weapon; its enchanted sight worked like a precision scope, letting him see farther than naked eyes ever could. He drew the string without an arrow, aligning the magical visor.\n\n“The barrier’s cracked… looks like shattered glass,” he murmured. Jagged fractures ran through the blue light, sparks fading into the air.\n\nHe handed the bow back to Mason, who was watching him closely. “How long did it take you to walk from here to the barrier last time?” Mason asked, eyes still fixed on the horizon.\n\n“About twenty minutes in a straight line,” Luke replied.\n\n“But when we trigger the barrier,” Eleanor said, her tone turning serious as she adjusted her cloak against the wind, “what if the castle we’re seeing is just a mirage? The path could be much longer than it looks.”\n\nMason lowered the bow and carefully returned it to Eleanor. “We have to factor in every possibility.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe dining hall lay in silence, lit only by the trembling glow of torches fixed to the stone walls. On the central table, a map sprawled open, covered in hastily drawn lines, symbols for enemy positions, and notes scrawled in dark ink. The smell of leather, iron, and fresh ink mingled with the scent of cold food forgotten in the corners.\n\nThey gathered around the map, each carrying their own shade of apprehension. More than ever, they knew the entire plan had to be reworked.\n\n“Forget the siege strategy,” Ronan said, breaking the silence with a steady voice.\n\nHe was the first to speak after the latest information had dropped. Luke caught the trace of unease behind it, but couldn’t help admiring the man’s realism. Military blood ran in his veins, cold strategy came naturally to him.\n\n“I have to agree,” Mason added, leaning over the map. “Waiting for the Midnight Lord’s army to reach this fortress before we react is wasting precious time. And who’s to say the enemy will even come right away? We’ll have to go full offensive. Station part of the army closer to the fortress for immediate support.”\n\nAllison stood with one hand tracing a line across the map. “For the event to trigger, 51% of the tutorial’s population has to be inside this fortress. That leaves 49% at the front line, with reinforcements taking 20 minutes on foot, and that’s assuming everyone moves fast. We’re talking over 1,000 people. Every second counts.”\n\nLuke felt the weight of her words. Every minute of marching, every delay had to be accounted for. The six-hour deadline hung over them like a blade.\n\n“You think people will go along with this?” Eleanor asked. She sat on the floor against the wall, staring at the ceiling as if it might give her answers.\n\n“What do you mean?” Jack frowned.\n\n“She means,” Allison said with a sigh, “will they still accept the final mission after hearing about the 6-hour window?”\n\n“They already knew they’d risk dying in the invasion. What’s changed?” Mason shook his head. “Death’s still guaranteed either way.”\n\n“But not everyone agreed with our plan in the first place,” Allison countered. “And now, with this news, Bartholomew’s got plenty of ammo to convince people not to go.”\n\nEvangeline drummed her fingers against the table, eyes narrowing. “As long as 51% agree, it doesn’t matter. Majority wins.”\n\nRonan stepped forward, fists tight. “That’s just as bad as Bartholomew tricking everyone.”\n\nAllison met his stare. “Haven’t we been counting on the majority all along? Or did you think we’d give up on going home just because a handful of people refused? You forget we were ready to go to war with Bartholomew.”\n\nRonan drew a deep breath and turned back to the map. \"Even so, everything’s changed. I’ll still do my best, offer strategy, help however I can, but before, I believed we could win the long game. Fortify this place, store food, grow crops. Two weeks under siege, maybe more, and we could hold.\"\n\nHe pressed his fingers against the map. \"Mages and archers raining fire, enchanted quivers, infinite arrows as long as mana lasted. Teach people to shoot, manage stamina, a strategy that, if flawless, wouldn’t cost a single life. But with only six hours? All of that collapses.\"\n\nRonan lifted his gaze, sweeping over the faces around him. “What happens when five hours have passed and we’re still neck-deep in the war? Did no one think of that? Chaos. The formation breaks, people rush toward the castle, scattering everywhere. That’s it. I’m counting on five hours of fighting, but honestly, the panic will probably start in the first hour, when they realize we haven’t even broken through yet and monsters are still clogging the path. We can’t just think in terms of logic; we have to factor in human behavior, or we lose.”\n\nHis words hit like a stone tossed into still water, ripples of silence spreading across the hall.\n\n“The war doesn’t have to last that long,” Luke said finally, breaking through the hush. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was enough to pull every eye to him.\n\nHe stepped closer to the map. Torchlight cast long shadows over the paper and across their faces. For a heartbeat, he didn’t see lines and symbols but a living battlefield, a chessboard with pieces waiting to be moved.\n\n“Not everyone in the tutorial is a fighter,” he began. “Out of nearly 2,000, maybe we’ll be lucky to get 1,200 willing to fight. The rest are civilians. You’ve seen it yourselves, some in the tutorial haven’t even reached level 2 in their class. They killed a creature or two and never touched a weapon again.”\n\nHe paused, measuring their reactions. “But we don’t need the war to last 6 hours. We only need to eliminate the main threats before the clock runs out.”\n\nThey exchanged puzzled looks.\n\n“What do you mean?” Mason leaned over the table.\n\n“The same way I killed the Beast Lord and drove his beasts from the city. The same way you killed the Orc Lord and shattered his army. It’s possible to end the war during the event itself, fast.” Luke straightened, eyes locked on the map.\n\nThey all sensed what he meant, but he said it anyway: “We only have to kill the Midnight Lord.”\n\nThe silence returned, heavier than before. Luke turned to Ronan. “It’s a solid plan, right? We strike down the Midnight Lord in the middle of the war, while his army is busy fighting ours. When that monster falls, his army breaks. Same logic we’ve seen with Captains and Generals, always.”\n\nA few exchanged tense glances. Jack was the first to voice it. “You said yourself the Beast Lord didn’t have an army. He was the army. What if killing the Midnight Lord doesn’t stop his soldiers?”\n\n“Even so, an army without a leader tends to crumble. Especially undead, they don’t talk to each other,” Mason said carefully. “The Wardens at the second fortress operated in coordinated strategy, seeming to obey mental commands from the Warden Captain. If the same holds true for the Midnight Lord, killing him would leave the army vulnerable.”\n\nLuke leaned over the map, a small smile curling at his lips. “The final challenge… it’s starting to look more like an assassination.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe next few hours were a whirlwind of debates, scribbled notes, and worn-out voices leaning over the map. Everyone was exhausted, but little by little, the noise settled into a rhythm. The news of the final challenge had blindsided them, yet Luke’s new perspective lit a spark. Instead of draining their resolve, the idea of a direct strike reignited their will to fight.\n\nThey knew it was possible with the right planning, preparation, and levels. They had crawled through battles with orcs barely alive, but up to this point they had already brought down two Lords. The reasoning was simple: they had done it before, they could do it again.\n\nBut killing the Midnight Lord would take more than courage. As the group sketched their risky plan, Allison traced a line on the map. “When we fought the Orc Lord, it wasn’t a frontal charge. Every time a big group got close, he used his orcs as a living wall. We had to split the army to get our strike team through. It’ll have to be the same now.”\n\nHeads nodded. The goal was clear: build an elite team capable of cutting through the chaos and reaching the Lord, while the rest kept his army distracted and bled it dry. Like the Warden Captain in the second fortress, it would have to be done with absolute precision. Every one of them needed to reach the peak of their rank, their epic abilities sharpened to perfection. And if the plan was assassination, there was one name no one could avoid thinking about: Erza Grimhart.\n\nThe group was going to ask her for help. After all, when it came to this, she was the best, and they would need every bit of help they could get. There was no other choice, and with the news that everyone would die, they hoped she would decide to help along with her attendants. They would also count on Ronan to handle this part, to make sure they could talk with Erza.\n\nBy then they had moved out of the refectory, camping in the fortress’s inner courtyard around a crackling fire. The sky was heavy with clouds and a cold wind whispered through the walls. Evangeline and Ronan kept watch near the warhorn, eyes scanning the dark for movement.\n\nEveryone else lay wrapped in thick quilts on makeshift bedding. The firelight flickered across faces that were worn but still determined. Shadows danced across the stone walls, the scent of burning wood mixing with the damp earth beneath them. Between moments of silence, only the crackle of flames and the sigh of wind filled the courtyard.\n\nEleanor, bundled up in her blanket, lifted her gaze and fixed it on a still figure in the corner. “She really never takes that armor off?” she asked, tilting her chin toward Princess Charlie.\n\nLuke’s throat tightened. Since he had begun this journey with the group, he had kept Charlie away from the others during scouting runs, hoping no one would notice. But now it was impossible to hide. Even superhumans needed to sleep, eat, bathe, but Charlie didn’t. And it was getting obvious.\n\nHe gave a small cough to cover his unease. “You know how it is, she’s just really shy.”\n\n“Come on,” Eleanor said bluntly. “It’s way too obvious Charlie isn’t like everyone else.”\n\nOne by one, the others stirred from their makeshift beds, eyes shifting between Luke and the armored woman. Charlie looked away, as if whistling to herself, clearly uncomfortable under the scrutiny.\n\nLuke had no idea how to explain. The story about her being mute had worked so far, but now things were slipping out of his control.\n\n“Charlie’s a familiar,” Allison blurted out, cutting through the tension. “She’s a familiar, right, Luke?”\n\nEvery gaze snapped to him. It was the perfect cover.\n\n“Exactly,” Luke said, seizing the lifeline. “Princess Charlie is my familiar.”\n\nThey turned back to her, waiting for some sign. For a moment, Charlie raised her left hand to show the ring on her finger, then lowered it again, nodding silently.\n\n“A familiar wearing armor that’s also an item? That’s new to me,” Jack muttered, eyebrow arched.\n\nLuke felt every stare shift to him again. Internally, he cursed. Really, Jack? Did you have to say that?\n\n“Depending on the familiar, it’s possible,” Mason cut in before the silence could stretch too far.\n\nLuke lifted an eyebrow. Seriously?\n\n“If the familiar’s strong enough and its abilities accept gear, it’s doable. Not uncommon either,” Mason explained. “You people from the modern world just haven’t seen it. In the New World, it’s normal. If someone bonds with a warhorse, for example, they can outfit it with saddles, armor, the works.”\n\nThe explanation seemed to settle the room.\n\n“So why’d you hide it from us?” Jack asked.\n\nLuke swore at his friend in his head but kept his tone steady. “Because nobody shows all their cards. She’s my trump card. I can keep her at my side as a bodyguard or dismiss her entirely and summon her at the right moment.”\n\nHe rolled over, pulling the blanket up. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sleeping. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”\n\nHe pretended to drift off while his senses mapped everyone’s positions, making sure they were all lying back down. Damn, that was easier to sell than I expected.\n\n“What are you all planning to do when you get back to Earth?” Jack asked after a long silence, his voice low enough to blend with the crackle of the fire.\n\nNo one answered right away. Only the wind and the hiss of burning wood filled the courtyard.\n\n“In the beginning, that’s all I thought about,” Jack went on. “Every day. Then I buried it along with the memories of home. Sometimes it feels like Earth was just a dream, and my real life is here.” He breathed out slowly, his face flickering in the firelight.\n\nLuke stared at the sky, clouds blotting out the stars. For a heartbeat, he remembered the family he’d left behind, the faces worn thin by distance and time. Sometimes he wondered if he’d imagined it all.\n\n“I’m going to retire,” he said at last.\n\n“Retire?” Allison tilted a brow.\n\n“Yeah. Retire from the system life,” Luke murmured. “When I get back to Earth, I’m done with the interface. No more levels, quests, chests, or classes. I’ll just be old Luke again and live a normal life.”\n\nThe life he had rejected, the family he had walked away from.\n\n“For me, I don’t think there’s such a thing as full retirement,” Eleanor said, pulling her blanket tighter. “My family’s indirectly tied to the system’s operations on Earth.”\n\n“Seriously?” Mason asked, curiosity flickering. “Your family works for some noble house?”\n\n“No. My father works for the government. Specifically in the military division dealing with system-related affairs. He’s in the SIA, the organization that grew out of the old CIA.”\n\nLuke turned his head, startled. Jack gave a low whistle.\n\n“Poor bastard who tries something with you,” Mason said, half-joking.\n\n“Yeah. My father always said he’d kill the idiot in the worst way possible,” Eleanor added with a small laugh.\n\nLuke coughed, took a sip from his canteen, and let the water hide his expression.\n\n“I won’t have that kind of luxury,” Mason said, leaning back against his makeshift pillow. “My family lives on the other side, so I’ll be working with them.”\n\n“That new continent? The New World?” Jack asked.\n\n“Yeah,” Mason replied.\n\nEveryone’s eyes inevitably shifted to Allison. She gave a small, restrained smile. “I’ll follow whatever path my family tells me to.”\n\nShe rolled onto her side, a clear signal the topic was off-limits. Luke caught the flicker in her expression. The smile didn’t reach her eyes. It was false, sad.\n\n“If we ever get out of this tutorial…” Jack exhaled softly. “We’ll meet up again and laugh about all this.”\n\n“I hope you’re not planning to convert anyone to your religion,” Luke shot back, trying to break the tension.\n\nA ripple of low laughter moved through the group. One by one, they adjusted on their makeshift beds. The weight of choices and the days ahead hung over them like a storm cloud. The tutorial was hell, but for a few heartbeats, they let themselves imagine a future beyond it.\n\nSilence returned to the courtyard. One by one, they drifted off, breathing deep under the slicing cold. Only the fire kept going, crackling softly, tossing sparks into the night wind.\n\nLuke lay still, eyes open, fixed on the flames. If he had to face the Midnight Lord alone, he would. Doubt had no place anymore. The plan had been etched into his mind since the first step he took in this nightmare.\n\nDeep in his storage item, the Beast Lord’s fang still waited, a weapon infused with mana, his hidden trump card built for a moment like this. If they could just pin the monster down long enough, he would draw and release an arrow packed with everything he had, powerful enough to obliterate the target outright. It had worked once against the Beast Lord. It would work again.\n\nHe drew a slow breath, feeling the weight of what was coming. Kill the damn Midnight Lord, then lead an army of survivors straight into the castle. Simple and deadly.\n\nWhile the others slipped deeper into sleep, Luke quietly opened his system interface. A soft blue glow lit his face. In the top corner, a notification pulsed: an epic skill available for his class."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 299: Final Epic Skill\nTarget length: ~2000 words\nKey events: new skill acquired, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The list of epic skills from his class flickered to life in front of Luke. He’d saved this moment on purpose, wanting a clear head when he finally looked at it. The arguments about the Midnight War and the endless planning had left no room to process new information. He hadn’t even checked what new classes were available for Charlie yet.\n\nI’ll have to do it soon, he thought. Otherwise, even if she kills something with that sword, she won’t gain any more class experience.\n\nThis would be his very first skill from the Demonic Predator class, and it was already epic. He hoped it would be as strong as his profession’s epic skill had been. When the menu finished loading, Luke emptied his mind and stared at the choices. This wasn’t just another power-up. It would be the last class skill he earned inside the tutorial, the one skill meant to carry him through the final battles to come.\n\nOnly three options appeared, but each one looked more devastating than the last.\n\n[Dark Blood Arrow (Epic)]: The Demonic Predator creates a black arrow born from the power of [Dark Blood] and [Corrupted Blood of Mother Freya]. Upon hitting the target, the arrow explodes into black thorns imbued with the power of [Basic Dark Dash], piercing everything around it. The thorns also carry the power of [Profane Knife Throwing], dealing additional Bleed damage. If an enemy dies from this skill, their corpse transforms into a nest of living thorns, triggering a second thorn explosion that spreads death and chaos across the battlefield.\n\n[Demonic Predator Hands (Epic)]: Upon activating the skill, his hands transform into monstrous forms, absorbing the power of [Dark Blood], [Corrupted Blood of Mother Freya], and [Wraith Form]. While wielding his weapons with the predator hands, his physical strength and the lethality of his strikes increase drastically. The skill emits a constant black mist. Enemies touched by it suffer continuous Acid damage. The blades wielded by these hands deal additional Acid damage with every strike. The demonic claws also allow you to scale any solid structure. A true assassin and predator can use this power both to kill silently or to unleash destruction openly.\n\n[Darkness Tentacles (Epic)]: Using the power of [Wraith Form], the Demonic Predator can launch a fragment of dense, dark mist from his hands. Upon hitting the ground or a target, it explodes into a cloud of living shadows, from which darkness tentacles emerge, moving intelligently and dangerously while absorbing the power of [Demonic Blade Dance]. These shadow tentacles rapidly spread across the area, enveloping and temporarily immobilizing enemies while draining their Health Points via [Basic Blood Regeneration]. Trapped by the suffocating grasp of the tentacles, the targets become vulnerable, unable to escape the cruel embrace of the hungry darkness that feeds the predator with the blood of its prey.\n\nAll three skills lived up to the “epic” tag. They weren’t just powerful, they were absurdly good. If he could, Luke would have picked all of them.\n\nEach one had a different purpose in battle. He studied them again, weighing the styles they complemented. Dark Blood Arrow screamed battlefield annihilation. The Hands were personal, brutal, a weapon for duels and climbing into impossible places. The Tentacles were pure control and sustain. Every option matched a part of his fighting style, which only made the choice harder.\n\nLuke forced himself to think beyond his own instincts. He had to consider the war ahead, the final fights with the Midnight Lord, the Witch, and if it came to that, the Midnight King. Pushing away the spiral of what-ifs, he started categorizing the skills by utility, breaking them down by how he’d actually use them on the battlefield.\n\n[Dark Blood Arrow] synced perfectly with his new bow style.\n\n[Demonic Predator Hands] boosted his close-quarters fighting with the kukris.\n\n[Darkness Tentacles] gave him crowd control, locking down enemies so he could finish them off with either blades or arrows.\n\nOnce he had sorted them by utility, he shifted focus to raw power, breaking each skill apart to study strengths and weaknesses. He had learned long ago not to be dazzled by flashy descriptions. Everything came with a cost. His Acid Blood Arrow was a monster of a skill, but its mana drain left him with only five shots. Devastating, yes, but limited. If he wanted to use one of these epic skills in the coming war, he would have to budget his mana carefully. Burn it all too soon and there would be nothing left for the “mana missile” aimed at the Midnight Lord or for whatever waited inside the castle.\n\nSure, there would be mana potions scavenged from chests along the way, but Luke could not count on that.\n\nFor the final battle, I can’t handle everything alone, he thought. We will have to fight as one or we will burn out before it is over.\n\nAs he examined the skills again, something clicked. Two of them were directly tied to Dark Blood, a simple choice he had made long ago, but one that had now blossomed into real power. Every skill you pick plants a seed, he realized, one that grows into something stronger later. Even Wraith Form had worked its way into the mix.\n\nNaturally, his attention went first to Dark Blood Arrow. It was a new arrow skill, but it did not seem as sturdy as Acid Blood Arrow. If it were, the description would have said so. His profession’s epic arrow skill had two advantages built in, the corrosive cloud and a rare-tier wooden shaft tough enough to pour more mana into, amplifying its impact. Even if he skipped the acid effect, he could still Mana Infuse the arrow and hit harder.\n\nDark Blood Arrow did not mention any special durability. That meant no overcharging it like Acid Burst Arrow. But that did not make it weak. Its utility was obvious.\n\nHit a target and the arrow erupted into a storm of spikes. Luke tried to picture it. Did the spikes sprout from the victim and leap to nearby enemies? However it worked, the secondary effect was vicious. If someone died from the spikes, their corpse turned into another living nest and exploded again. Probably the chain would stop at the second kill, no third-wave detonations, but even so, it was a brutal way to tear through clusters of enemies or soften up a massive threat.\n\nLuke weighed the possibilities. He could hit a powerful enemy with the arrow for the main strike, then watch nearby targets take collateral damage, triggering more spike bursts, maybe even hitting the primary target again. It reminded him of Charlie’s Doom Explosion. The utility against the Midnight Lord was obvious.\n\nBut his mind drifted to the Warden Captain. A weak arrow couldn’t pierce that kind of armor, and if the Midnight Lord wore something even tougher, things would get ugly fast. There was a lot to balance here. Still, it was an epic skill with insane stats, and he wouldn’t be fighting alone.\n\nThe one sticking point was cost. How much mana per shot? If each arrow burned a thousand mana, he would be in real trouble. If only the system showed the exact cost of activating a skill, he could plan better.\n\nNext on the list: Demonic Predator Hands. Out of all three, he saw this one as the most versatile. Unlike the arrow, it wasn’t built for wiping out hordes. It was for single-target destruction. It fused Corrupted Mother Freya’s Blood with Dark Blood to give him another acidic skill, but this time infused with Wraith Form. He couldn’t even picture it yet, monstrous hands cloaked in black fumes that dealt corrosive damage just by existing.\n\nHe wondered if the acidic mist would harm him too. After all, his Acid Blood Arrow’s cloud had collateral effects. But three things stood out about the skill. First, it amplified his physical strength and the lethality of any weapon he wielded while active. Like a berserker buff, but darker. That meant both his kukris and his bow would hit harder under the effect of this epic skill.\n\nHe even pictured it layered with the mana missile. If the Midnight Lord really was stronger than the Beast Lord, the missile alone might not finish him, but combine it with Demonic Predator Hands and the shot could become monstrous. Luke had seen how stacking skills turned good skills into devastating ones. This might be the edge he needed. There was no “later” to plan for; after this fight, there might not be a future. He didn’t care about utility after the war. He cared about now.\n\nThe second benefit was just as tempting: any blade he held would inherit acid damage. That meant his kukris wouldn’t just get the buff to strength and lethality, they would also corrode whatever they struck. Two powerful buffs rolled into one skill. That alone made it worth thinking about.\n\nThe third perk seemed minor but could be situational: climbing walls with his new claws. It wasn’t exactly a combat mechanic, but he wondered if he could also rake enemies with those claws. If I touch someone, do I burn them too? This power feels a little wicked.\n\nThe final skill on the list waited for his attention: Darkness Tentacles.\n\nIt was a skill reminiscent of Evangeline’s, the way she summoned shadow arms from the ground to snare her enemies. Luke didn’t dismiss it. Just because it didn’t deal absurd amounts of damage didn’t mean it lacked purpose. Immobilizing a target could be priceless, and he knew it.\n\nAnd of course, the skill siphoned HP from anything caught in its grasp thanks to Basic Blood Regeneration, a power he had practically stopped using. In combat it was more of a hindrance than a help, draining a pitiful single hit point per second and locking him out of other spells while active. Most of the time it was faster and deadlier to charge in with his kukris than to stand still bleeding enemies dry. He only ever used it after a fight, as a slow way to heal without wasting potions.\n\nBut this new skill would spawn a whole mass of tentacles, each one leeching health from multiple enemies at once. A tempting advantage, even if it couldn’t match the raw damage output of his other options.\n\nThe problem was obvious. Basic Blood Regeneration didn’t work on the undead. Its effect relied on bleeding, and the dead didn’t bleed. The Midnight Lord and his army were almost certainly undead. In that case, the HP drain would be useless. His theory came from experience: the Midnight Warden and Midnight Watcher had been undead or constructs, and neither suffered bleed damage. Picking a skill purely for its synergy with Basic Blood Regeneration was a risk.\n\nStill, he had to think about more than just the army. There was the Midnight Lord himself, the Witch, and then the Midnight King, three bosses waiting at the end, each probably stronger than the last. Maybe the real answer was coordination. He had considered proposing that everyone discuss their epic skill choices to build a full-team strategy. But the truth was they would never reach a perfect answer. No one knew the fighting style of those bosses. And at this point, no one could afford to take a skill they didn’t resonate with just for the sake of a theoretical combo.\n\nSkill choices were personal, tied to mindset and synergy. A new arrow attack, a new kukri technique, or a way to pin enemies down? He could see the possibilities:\n\n[Darkness Tentacles] plus [Acid Blood Arrow].\n\n[Demonic Predator Hands] plus [Mana Infusion], fired through his bow or slashing with his kukris.\n\nOr simply the [Dark Blood Arrow ]alone, with its devastating effect.\n\nHe exhaled slowly, the decision forming like a blade in his mind.\n\n[You have acquired the Class Skill: …]"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 300: Last Refuge Before War\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: level-up occurs"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Lunch was served in the makeshift mess hall of the third fortress. The smell of hot food drifted through the cold air seeping from the stone walls. Luke set his tray down and paused to reflect. The system notification still burned in his mind, insistent. As he ladled food onto plates, his thoughts kept returning to the same point:\"At least 51% of tutorial participants must be present in the third fortress for the event to start at midnight...\"\n\n“Fifty-one percent…” he muttered under his breath. Was that the same number Angelica had mentioned? The one Bartholomew feared?\n\nHe shook his head. If Bartholomew had known about the final challenge, he would have used it, either to rally people or to manipulate them. No, this had to be something else.\n\nA soft sound cut through his focus. Eleanor pulled up a chair beside him.\n\n\n“So you really can cook, huh?” she asked, eyeing the steaming lasagna.\n\n\n“Cook is a stretch. I can handle the basics,” Luke replied without looking up.\n\nThey had their meals kept in storage items, already packed for travel, hot dishes frozen in time and ready to be summoned. The lasagna he was sharing now was the same dish he had made for Evangeline on the day he reunited with Allison.\n\nThose bastards at the Haven chained me up before I could even finish that dinner, he thought.\n\n“Want another slice?” he offered. The tray was nearly empty.\n\n\n“I’ve eaten plenty,” Eleanor said with a faint smile. “Just surprised to see you cooking, that’s all.”\n\n\n“It’s nothing special. Not much competition. Evangeline lives on canned food.”\n\nEleanor laughed softly. For a heartbeat, the tension eased. They traded quick glances at the other tables, noting what everyone else ate. Then Charlie appeared and settled into the seat between them, her armor catching the dim light.\n\n“There’s more space over there, Charlie,” Luke said, gesturing to an empty chair.\n\nShe stared back, then glanced at Eleanor and shook her head. She didn’t move. Luke rubbed the back of his neck, puzzled.\n\n“I think I’ll… go start breaking down the camp in the courtyard,” she murmured, rising.\n\n\n“Fine,” Luke said, turning back to his plate.\n\nBetter tell her not to touch my bed, he thought, but he didn’t get the chance. Charlie’s gauntleted hand landed on his shoulder, pinning him to the seat.\n\nHe tried to rise, but her grip pressed him back down. She pointed at his plate, then at his own stomach. Eat.\n\nLuke shook his head. The twin red glints inside her helm flared brighter, a silent warning. She repeated the gesture: food, then him. She was clearly annoyed. Then she lifted her left hand, showing the ring on her finger.\n\nLuke frowned. What is she trying to say? Maybe she’s anxious to pick the new class… and I’m stalling. Could be that.\n\nHe exhaled and shoveled down the rest of the food while Charlie stayed close, silent and watchful as ever.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe inner courtyard of the third fortress lay quiet, broken only by the metallic clatter of armor being adjusted and gear stowed away. The afternoon chill felt heavier than usual, signaling the end of a chapter. They had decided to abandon the fortress once every last task was finished and every resource stripped from it.\n\n“The fortress will still function even without the mechanism active,” Ronan said, tightening the belt of weapons slung across his hips as he walked with Mason.\n\n“Yeah,” Mason replied with a curt nod.\n\nThe women were taking the last few minutes to wash up in one of the fortress’s side chambers.\n\n\n“They’re actually getting cleaned up for the trip?” Jack asked, half amused.\n\n\nRonan gave a short laugh. “They’re women. My fiancée does the same thing, even when we’re heading out to hunt in the Wild Zone.”\n\n\nMason only shrugged, agreeing without comment.\n\nThey sat near the main gate, where the ramparts cast long shadows across the stone floor. Luke stayed quiet, adjusting the sheath of his kukri while the others exchanged glances.\n\n\n“Now it all makes sense,” Ronan said after studying him for a moment. “Why the knight never leaves your side or takes off her armor. She’s a familiar.”\n\nLuke lifted his eyes slowly.\n\n\n“Charlie is my bodyguard,” he said flatly.\n\nWith that, the oddity of it all felt easier to accept. The fact that Luke could store the knight inside his soul and summon her at will no longer sounded so far-fetched. At the moment, though, Princess Charlie stood guard over the bathing area, making sure no one came near, especially Luke.\n\n“You really snuck all the way here just so the angel statue wouldn’t trigger that thing?” Ronan asked, folding his arms. “Not sure I’d have managed it.”\n\nLuke rolled a shoulder. “It was a pain, but it worked.”\n\nBeside them loomed the massive warhorn. In the evenings Luke would share pieces of his journey through the capital, stories that sounded almost too wild to be true but had become a ritual before sleep.\n\n“Be honest,” Jack said, turning to Mason. “You’ve got the most military experience. Do you actually think we can pull off the final mission?”\n\nMason took his time before answering. “With the right prep, it’s not impossible. But don’t fool yourselves. Just because I come from a noble family doesn’t make me invincible or some master strategist. Ronan’s better at this than I am. He’s been facing Marshall and his strategies for five year.”\n\n\n“I wasn’t alone,” Ronan replied with a brief smile. “And when you showed up, it helped more than you think.”\n\nWhile they spoke, Luke kept his eyes fixed ahead. The army of dormant statues filled the cityscape around the fortress, row after row of frozen sentinels. Wherever he looked, there were statues, some shattered, others draped in moss, figures monstrous and humanoid alike, locked in eternal stillness.\n\n“My knowledge is more about the system,” Mason went on. “It’s personal. My family serves a more powerful house, the one with the hawk sigil. Those are the true strategists. I wouldn’t even dream of comparing myself to them.”\n\nLuke listened quietly. Since the moment he’d met Mason, the nobleman had spoken of places and histories that seemed more like fantasy than memory. Even now, inside the tutorial, it still felt unreal.\n\n“You lived on an island, right?” Luke asked at last.\n\n\n“An archipelago of islands… or more like floating mountains off the main continent of the New World,” Mason said, nostalgia flickering in his eyes. “If we make it out of here alive and back to our world, maybe I’ll invite you to visit.”\n\nLuke hesitated but couldn’t hold back his curiosity. “And the Rhiannon family? How did you even meet Allison?”\n\n\nMason gave a faint smile. “Who in the New World hasn’t heard of her family? They’re practically stars.”\n\n\nJack nodded. “Even though I grew up in modern society, when I joined my Divine Order I learned about the World Government families.”\n\n“They never talked much about that in school…” Luke murmured.\n\n\n“Information was always restricted,” Ronan replied. “The two societies stay separate for a reason.”\n\nMason stretched his arms above his head as he stood. “It’s part of the agreement. No Divine Order outranks another, and the government keeps its distance. Publicly they only say ‘World Government’ or ‘the Nobility,’ never naming individual houses. It keeps any one family from gaining too much attention or being accused of favoritism. Rules of the game. So don’t feel ignorant. You were raised as part of the common society.”\n\nA gust of wind swept through the courtyard then, scattering dust across the stones, a sharp reminder to everyone that it was time to move.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe river stretched like a dark ribbon between the dead trees, mirroring the gray sky above. Its current whispered in a low, steady growl while the group readied their boats. Damp air carried the smell of moss and rust. No birds, no wind, just the prickling sense of unseen eyes watching from the banks.\n\nLuke paused, his boots sinking slightly into the cold mud.\n\n\nThis is it. This is the way to the hideout.\n\nInside his head, Artemis’s voice drifted in, soft and almost curious. 'Luke, your precious friend here has been having some interesting thoughts about the final challenge of this tutorial.'\n\nHe didn’t answer right away. He helped Ronan shove the boat into the water, watching the warped reflections of their silhouettes ripple across the current.\n\n\nWhat kind of thoughts?\n\nRonan pulled another wooden boat from storage and dropped it into the river. The boards creaked but held. The women tightened their packs and checked their gear before boarding.\n\n'Hmm…' Artemis hesitated. 'I’ve been thinking. The final challenge is basically a war, right? The enemy trying to stop you from reaching the portal?'\n\n\nThat’s right. Luke replied in thought.\n\n\n'If you realize things aren’t going to end well for your side…' She gave a little mental cough. 'I wouldn’t judge you for using your skills to slip through the enemy, get to the castle, find the portal, and escape back to your world. Honestly, I’d be all for it, as long as you survived and saved us in the process.'\n\nLuke’s gaze drifted to the distant castle, a jagged shadow against the gray sky.\n\n\nNo. That’s not possible.\n\n'Hey, hey…' Artemis pressed. 'I saw you kill a giant serpent. Don’t tell me you couldn’t do it.'\n\nHe sat down in the boat beside Jack and Charlie. The armored knight took the oars, rowing in silence as always. Luke kept his eyes on the horizon, though the thought had already taken root.\n\nI’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind.\n\n'Use the others as a screen. While the enemy focuses on them, slip through, reach the castle, step through the portal. You’d protect your kind friend Artemis and still return to your family.'\n\nHe stared at his hands, fingers interlaced on his knee. The boat rocked gently. Could I live with myself if I did it at the cost of everyone here?\n\n'A nice night of sleep next to your family would probably help.' Artemis teased.\n\nI wouldn’t forgive myself. I’ve done bad things, sure, out of defense or to prevent something worse. But leaving everyone behind to save myself… that would cross a line. My mother died in a tutorial because no one was there to help her. I’d be repeating history.\n\nArtemis said nothing.\n\nLuke drew a long breath and fixed his eyes ahead. And in the process, I’d be leaving behind everyone who’s followed me this far, including Allison. No. That’s not happening.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe current tightened as the river narrowed, forcing the two boats to drift closer together. Dead trees and twisted roots lined the banks, forming a natural corridor. The gray sky bled into the dark water, turning the surface into a mirror that swallowed depth.\n\nJack fidgeted with his oar. “Okay, so there’s no way to channel stamina into this boat?” he asked, glancing around.\n\nA short laugh drifted from the other boat.\n\n\n“No,” Ronan replied. “The system won’t let you. It has to be something small that syncs with you.”\n\nLuke stayed quiet, eyes tracking the current and the mental map hovering in his mind. Any moment now, they’d slip into the area near the hideout.\n\nThe boat shuddered once. Then again, harder. The boards groaned.\n\n\n“I saw something!” Jack yelped, backing from the prow and yanking his wand from his belt.\n\n“Calm down. Probably just a rock,” Luke said.\n\nEleanor rose with her bow drawn, scanning the water’s surface.\n\nA low, dragging sound drifted from beneath the river, like something pulling itself through the depths.\n\n\n“Could be a crocodile?” Allison asked, weapon at the ready.\n\nLuke drew his kukri. “Either way, we’re strong enough. If we go overboard, we can handle it.”\n\nJack went pale. “Go overboard? I can’t swim, man! I’m not dying dragged down by some monster from the abyss!”\n\n“There’s no monster from the abyss here,” Eleanor said without looking away from the water.\n\n“How do you know? This river could be a portal to an endless abyss!” Jack shot back, eyes wide.\n\n“Dude… you’re exaggerating,” Evangeline muttered, trying to steady the mood.\n\nThen, without warning, two massive tentacles erupted from the water, black and glistening.\n\n“I knew it! We’re dead!” Jack screamed. “It’s the abyss!”\n\nLuke moved instantly. He channeled stamina, raised his kukri, and hurled it with precision while Eleanor loosed an arrow. The air cracked with the force of their strikes.\n\nText flashed across Luke’s interface:\n\n\n[Great River Octopus – Level 55]\n\nThe creature let out a high-pitched roar and sank back into the depths, leaving violent waves slapping at both boats.\n\n“We’re going to die!” Jack repeated, hugging his knees.\n\n“We’ve killed a level 70 monster and you’re scared of a 55?” Evangeline shot back, sarcasm sharp.\n\nLuke sat again, eyes on the surface as it slowly calmed. “I marked it with an ability. It’s retreating.”\n\nThrough the Predator’s Mark, he saw the outline of the monster drifting deeper, moving away.\n\n“This is going to be a problem,” Allison said grimly. “We can’t leave it here. When the others cross, it could strike again.”\n\nJack trembled.\n\n“You volunteered to kill the Midnight Lord with us and you’re afraid of this thing?” Luke asked.\n\n“As long as the final battle isn’t in the water, I’m fine,” Jack said, breathing hard.\n\nLuke studied him. Some fears ran deeper than levels or skills could reach.\n\n“Ever told you about the time I fought a crocodile underwater?” Luke asked, trying to distract him.\n\nJack only shook his head, still too pale to hear stories.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe river stretched wide and dark, its steady current pushing the boats forward. When they reached the point marked on the map, Luke signaled for them to pull over. Charlie rowed with precision toward a bank where thick roots and jagged stones made it easier to climb out. Cold spray leapt from the rocks as the water struck.\n\nOnce everyone was on solid ground, Luke and Ronan hauled the boats ashore. One by one, the crafts vanished into storage items, pocket dimensions where they would stay safe and untouched by time. Then the march began.\n\nThe trail cut through a forest of dead trees, twisted branches scraping against armor and snagging on cloaks. The ground was a carpet of ashen leaves that crumbled underfoot, releasing a fine dust with each step. In places they skirted massive roots or slid down soft earthen slopes. The climb was slow and silent, each person lost in their own thoughts.\n\nAfter a while the dark mouth of the cave appeared ahead, tall and uneven, like a split in the hillside. Luke drew a deep breath. This was his hideout, one of the few places where he felt in control.\n\nCrossing the rocky threshold left the daylight behind and the air turned colder. Lanterns and torches revealed slick stone walls, old markings, and tables cobbled together from planks balanced on blocks.\n\n“Finally,” Evangeline muttered, sinking down and stretching her legs.\n\n“You didn’t do anything but walk behind us. You didn’t even row,” Mason teased.\n\n“Doing nothing still drains you,” she shot back, smoothing her hair. “Don’t tell me you’re heading out again. Rest a little.”\n\nThe group began setting up camp in the cavern’s main hall. The reason for returning was simple: most of them still needed to hit the peak of their rank, and hunting in the surrounding forest was safer and more predictable than provoking insane living statues or undead in the city. At the same time, they could clear the river route for future crossings, whether for themselves or other survivors.\n\nInside the cave, the conversation continued. Eleanor sat on a wooden chair, listening to water drip somewhere deep within. “Every second here is a second farther from Earth. Are you sure about this?”\n\nEvangeline clicked her tongue, impatient.\n\n“So, what’s the plan?” Ronan asked, spreading maps across the table.\n\nAllison laid her notes on top, lining up routes and markings. “Before we dump cold water on everyone at the Safe Zone, we need something good to bring back. Let’s start with what’s missing.”\n\nTheir message had to be simple and strong: they’d killed the Beast Lord, reached the third fortress, claimed it, and hit peak rank. If they wanted to convince everyone the final mission was possible, they needed to return with hard facts and the bearing of victory.\n\n“Then it’s time to finish leveling and hit the peak,” Mason said, closing his fist over the table.\n\nGroups began to split off, each heading in a different direction. Luke and Evangeline, however, had no reason to take part; they were already at the apex and could afford to rest.\n\nAs everyone organized their tasks, Luke opened Princess Charlie’s interface. It was time to choose her new class."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Runesmith — a LitRPG progression fantasy. It was getting late, the street lights flickered around while someone coughed in the distance. The wind howled while people were trying to get to their homes. Little drops of water started appearing on the glass windows, followed by gentle tapping. A certain man was sitting in a lit room, holding what looked to be a soldering iron. His hair was slightly unkempt and you could see a reflection of some kind of schematic coming of the glasses he was wearing.\n\n## Main Character\nName: He | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Roland, Baron, I'm\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Common,  Main ,  Secondary ,  Highest , Temporary, High,  Temporary )\n\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (35% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 261 – Helpless Adventurers\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Where the hell did these bastards come from? Why are there so many of them?”\n\nArmand shouted while punting one of the blazing skeletal monsters away. To his dismay even though his opponent's body shattered from the powerful kick it just collided with a wall made of bones. This barrier of walking skeletons slowly closed in on them in this confined space.\n\n“Just shut up and keep them away from the middle!”\n\nLobelia shouted while she and Jasmine continued firing arrows toward the monster’s weak points. This was not as easy as with the Flaming Skeleton variants that roamed the upper levels. The lesser versions of these skeletons were quickly dispatched by just shattering their flaming heads. These blazing ones on the other hand were more varied.\n\nThe weak point was still indicated by the flames but these spread out from their rib cages and spread throughout their whole body. With Lobelia’s keen eyesight she could see where these flames were focusing from. This was the weak spot that needed to be struck to defeat them. If the weak point wasn’t hit then the monsters could still move even if their bodies were shattered.\n\nThis was happening to the ones Korgak the half-orc was contending with. The large green man was just swinging a large two-handed battle axe around. Some of the monsters that were cleaved in half continued with their assault by crawling on the ground. He had to continuously crush their heads and chests with his feet to finally defeat them.\n\n“We can’t just stay here, we need to push through, can you do it?”\n\nEven though some of the skeletons could be tossed down into the chasm it was also somewhere they would end up if this continued. Lobelia could only think of one possibility and that was to use Armands and Wedamir’s strength to push the blazing skeletons aside while making a run for it.\n\nBoth of them had skills that could temporarily enhance their power and speed. In theory, it could work as their enemies were still only lower tier 2 monsters that were made up of bones. They weren’t all that heavy so pushing them aside through a combined effort wasn’t that outlandish.\n\n“Need me to make some space?”\n\nArmand looked at Wedamir who just nodded and pushed the tower shield he was holding towards the monsters. The tactic was easy, the dwarf would go first, and then Armand would burst through the middle right after. His martial artists-like skills required a bit of a charge-up but they were quite powerful. While he was gathering the required energy resource that his class specialized in, the dwarf was slowly pushing the monsters away with the help of his defensive skill.\n\nWedamir’s body gave off a faint blue glow as his skill was activated. His steps became slower but each time he took it the ground started to crack. The monsters that tried pushing toward him found themselves unable to, it was as if he had become a moving wall that they couldn’t get through.\n\nThe skill that Wedamir was using was called ‘Moving Fortress’ and allowed the tank from the party to increase their weight while also producing an area of impenetrable force around them. The increase in mass and density allowed the user to shrug off a lot of attacks and also go against larger beasts without getting knocked away. In this case, it was enough to push the mass of skeletons away while also managing to make them fall into the chasm.\n\nYet it had a downside of using up a lot of the skill user’s stamina in the process. The longer Wedamir kept it up the more out of breath he became. But his aim was not to push these monsters away but to force more of them into one concentrated area. Then it would be up to Armand who had a more penetrative skill at his disposal.\n\nSoon it was time, Armand’s whole body began to expand and his skin became dark crimson. More veins than usual appeared as he had to initiate one of the berserker skills that he had grown slowly accustomed to. A red aura of swirling energy surrounded him and condensed around his shoulder area which would be used to focus most of the power too.\n\n“Korgak, get ready, we are going to make a run for it!”\n\nKorgak that had to contend with the backline alone, was already bleeding. Only thanks to his vitality and stamina was he able to last this long while going against a swarm of skeletons with almost no help from the others. After the signal was given he was quick to deliver a ferocious side cleave to the charging skeletons before turning around and running.\n\nAt the same time, he could see Armand taking off towards the condensed group of skeletons that were forced together by their dwarven ally. Armand’s enlarged body was giving of steam along with a strange reddish aura. This aura had formed into a face of a tiger that formed around the shoulder area that would be the initial point of impact.\n\nArmand bolted forward while leaving the imprints of his feet on the hard rocky floor. Wedamir on cue stepped to the side to not get hit as he knew that his human friend would not be able to change his trajectory after activating this skill of his. A roar that sounded like a tiger flew by him and collided with the wall of skeletons.\n\nIt was working, the monsters were too feeble to block the ferocious tackle. It seemed that the group would be getting out of this alive. If they managed to get through the boney roadblock it was smooth sailing from there. Yet this wouldn’t be happening, about half way through the charge Armand noticed something, there was a spike in mana that even people without a proper mana sense skill could feel.\n\n“What the!?”\n\nHe shouted as he collided with a wall made of bones. This barrier wasn’t that simple, it was composed of not only bones but some kind of green swirling flames. When Armand connected with it he could feel as if he collided with something made from magical metal. Instead of getting through, he could feel his own body breaking.\n\nWith all his might he tried giving it all but his momentum was stopped and instead of getting through he got injured himself. The rebound from this collision tossed him back into the arms of his dwarven companion that wasn’t far behind.\n\n“Oh no, Armand!”\n\nLobelia screamed out as she could see her brother’s right shoulder and whole arm getting limp. Blood sprouted from it and was followed by a small fountain from his mouth. Their escape attempt had failed but the wall of flaming bones wasn’t the only surprise. Normally they expected the blazing skeletons to attack them immediately when they now had the chance.\n\n“Wait… why did they stop?”\n\nInstead of going right after them, the monsters halted their attack. Soon the group released why, the reason for them to halt, and for the wall of bones appeared before them. The monster that was probably responsible for the disappearances of the adventurers was there and it was not something that they were expecting.\n\n“Is… is that a Lich?”\n\nJasmine stuttered as she was the first one to spot the monster that was floating above the whole scene. After the blocking spell was cast it made itself known to the adventurer party and it was clearly stopping its minions from attacking them.\n\n“Why would a tier 3 monster be in this dungeon? Did the guild lie to us?”\n\nLobelia looked toward the floating necromancer that was just there staring at them. Even though she couldn’t identify the creature through an identification skill it was an obvious tier 3 monster. It was possible for a skeletal mage-type monster to exist but this one was certainly not acting like one.\n\nThose variants were not able to control other skeletons, the ones that could were Liches and they only existed from tier 3 and onwards. The strategy was always to get rid of the Lich that was controlling the swarm of minions. They could multiply their ranks without an end and were considered more dangerous than most tier 3 monsters of the same level.\n\n“Fuck, this doesn’t look good…”\n\nArmand gritted his teeth while slowly getting of the ground. While the enemies stopped moving a different spectacle was taking place. Their master radiated a strange green flame that seeped into the destroyed minions. Soon the cracks that formed in their white bodies started mending themselves and the small army was quickly restored. All the ground that they managed to take back had been taken away.\n\n“Should we try going the other way?”\n\nAsked Jasmine while looking towards Korgak that was looking to the others for aid.\n\n“I don’t think that thing will let us escape you saw that wall of bones… we might be royally fucked here…”\n\nLobelia commented while glaring at the monster. Both sides were blocked and running away was probably not an option. She expected the monster to put up another barrier if they went the other way. The small amount of space they had to move was the main problem here. The chasm was wide and also very deep, it was certain death if they fell down there.\n\nHowever, Lobelia remembered something from the past. There was a person that managed to get back alive from a fall here and she knew him. Perhaps it was worth taking the plunge instead of contending with all of these monsters. Both options were really bad, either die from falling down or be devoured by undead creatures.\n\n“If Wayland did it then perhaps…”\n\nShe looked towards the darkness that was below. All of her instincts were telling her that it was a bad idea. Perhaps it was better to toss themselves against these monsters, even with the tier 3 monster there one person might still make it out alive.\n\nTo her surprise when she was glancing down another option presented itself to her. Her eyesight was one of the best here and without it, Lobelia wouldn’t be able to see it. Yet there it was, a light at the end of the tunnel. The monster they were against was also acting strange as it stopped in its tracks and was actually looking down into the chasm instead.\n\n“Everyone, you’ll have to trust me on this one… we need to jump down and do it right now!”\n\n…\n\n“Hm…”\n\n“Awoo?”\n\nRoland along with Agni stepped into the underground chamber. He had come here for the usual grinding session while his spider drones mined for more minerals. After being here multiple times he had an idea of the respawn times of some of the rarer metals. The red mythril ore for instance took over a month to appear again.\n\nThis was not the problem though, as he was going through the dungeon this time around there was a decrease in monster numbers. This did not affect the sword dinosaur boss and the lesser monsters in the tunnels. However, it was affecting this place as there was not even a single salamander or a slug creature to be seen anywhere.\n\n‘The radar isn’t picking up anything either…’\n\nThis entire area had been equipped with his map-enhancing equipment. The sensors were dug deep into the walls and even people with enhanced mana senses wouldn’t be able to tell that they were there. Roland was concerned that if this place was discovered people could also find his runic equipment.\n\nIt wouldn’t be strange if they came to him to ask why there were runic contraptions in a secret mining area. If they dug in deeper and brought some specialists the runes would be attributed to him as there always existed a pattern. This pattern could be easily recognized by higher-level rune mages or runesmiths.\n\nThanks to these creations of his he could extend the range of his map. There he could see a clear lack of any monster in the vicinity. This was strange as there was always at least one salamander to greet them in the main chamber and then several other monsters in the tunnel leading to the chasm. Now on the other hand there was none here and only one in the tunnel.\n\n‘Why is that monster at the edge of the tunnel… did it go for the camouflage I made?’\n\nThat was the original entrance to the mining area that he discovered during the expedition with his brother. To prevent people from getting here from the outside he had concealed it. There, it would mostly just look like a regular rocky wall but in reality, it was fake. Now a monster was standing in the spot it was not.\n\nRoland gave out a sigh while ordering the golems to start mining. The number of the spider golems had also increased to ten and some of them were also working on the wall leading to the other dungeon. While they got things ready here he needed to see what that monster was up to there. If he had destroyed his camouflage then it just increased the workload.\n\n“Let’s go Agni.”\n\n“Woof!”\n\nTo Agni, it wasn’t a problem as he never really had much to do after getting here. The monster respawned after a day and fell to his fangs quite easily. Now that the usual salamander was gone he was itching for some action.\n\nThe two went towards the corridor and Roland kept an eye on his map for any potential problems. Even before getting in he felt that something was off, the mine looked the same as always but for some reason, he wasn’t feeling it. His hunch was a bullseye as when he got to the end of the tunnel the monster was not the type he expected it to be.\n\n“Why is that thing here…”\n\nBlazing Skeleton Warrior L53 [ Reanimated ]\n\n\nThere it was, a skeletal warrior with a flaming upper body and head. It was not something that should be able to spawn here and there was also another problem. Thanks to his high analyzing skill he could pierce through the truth, this monster was not an actual dungeon monster.\n\nThe reanimated part in the name implied that this monster was raised from a corpse. This body probably belonged to one of the monsters in the dungeon. A summon skeleton spell was part of the necromancer repertoire. It could create a skeleton even from a monster's body, it did not require the skeleton inside to be from a humanoid, the magic would bend it into the required shape. This one’s weapon was also made from bone which implied even further that it had been created here.\n\n“AWooo!”\n\nAgni was quick on the uptake and more than this monster could ever hope to defeat. It took a moment for the skeleton to have its skull chopped into pieces and its rib cage smashed. The coast was clear but what could have made this creature and why was his hole cover gone?\n\nHe took a step towards it, and the opening that he tried to hide from the outside was clearly revealed. The map-enhancing devices didn’t show any more monsters but this didn’t mean that he could just relax. It was possible for the person who conjured this skeleton to be here. Perhaps some kind of necromancer was trying to make his mining spot his new lair?\n\n‘Did they come from outside and left the skeleton here to guard it? But a reanimated skeleton can’t survive too long without the caster being near it… wait what if…’\n\nRoland quickly looked in the direction of the mining chamber. There his spider drones were already working on the opening to his grind spot. In it, there was a Lich monster that would in theory be able to create these types of tier 2 skeletons from the monster scattered here. Was it able to cast its spell from within its dungeon or was it able to make it out here?\n\nBefore he could examine the issue any further he noticed that some smaller rocks and dust were falling. The source of the debris was from within the chasm and when he looked up there was quite an interesting thing falling.\n\n“Huh?”\n\nWith a quick step back he watched the upper body part of a blazing skeleton falling down. It barely missed the opening he was in and continued to fall down along with more rocks. There was something happening up there as some more skeletal remains continued to tumble down into the abyss.\n\nThus the only thing left to do was to activate all the magical spells that could clear away the foggy surroundings and enhance his view. For a better vantage point, he even decided to create a temporary platform with the help of earth magic that he could stand on while looking.\n\n“... What is happening up there… are those adventurers?”\n\nWhile he couldn’t totally make out who it was, there was a fight up there and the skeletons that were falling down had to belong to whoever left this one here…\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 262 – Leap of faith\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Before him, a strange scene that he wasn’t expecting was playing out. Normally Roland wouldn’t be able to see anything when looking up. The only reason now was a strange clearing up of the fog that mostly barred anyone from peeking through. Together with the latest enhancements to his eyesight-boosting spells, there was a tiny bit that he noticed.\n\nThere were people getting pushed against the edge of the chasm. He could not really tell who they were with his eyes but his mapping device was different. Previously he had done some experiments with some of his weapons. He wanted to see if he could include them in his map display to know whenever a person with this weapon was near.\n\nThere were two of his better runic creations up there, one he made for Armand and the other for Lobelia. The main reason was at first a joke, he wanted to just avoid the musclebound idiot whenever in the dungeons or outside. Yet now he was sure that it was him and his sister that were close to falling down.\n\n‘These skeletons aren’t that strong… could that thing be up there with them?’\n\nRoland wasn’t sure if the Lich that he saw within the other dungeon was the true perpetrator just yet. It was still possible that some kind of necromancer was behind it all. There was a possibility that this person discovered his secret mining area and decided to take it over.\n\nPerhaps Armand and the adventurers up to had been unlucky and ran into him as he was going out from the chasm. To his knowledge tier 3 magical classes were able to produce a levitation spell. While it was nowhere near a flight spell it was enough to move the caster up and down in places and would be perfect to enter the mine from this side.\n\n‘Either way, If I don’t help them they will die…’\n\nA Lich or a powerful Necromancer didn’t change much, they both had to be strong enough to push back Armand and Lobelia along with three other people back. It looked like they were going to fall which indicated that they were surrounded by those blazing skeletons. Quite a bit of them had fallen down here and there were probably more.\n\nHowever this was troublesome, the area where he was was more than a kilometer away from them. The bumpy terrain also didn’t leave space for maneuvering, if they didn’t fall directly towards his location they would just go down and probably die somewhere below.\n\n‘Will they even jump down or get pushed?’\n\nHe wasn’t sure about anything but he used his large mana pool to try to enhance his detection devices even further. To get a better signal he took out a small disk from a spatial satchel and threw it up towards the direction of the fight. As the disk rose in height it started giving off a brownish glow. When close to the end of its flight this glow caused it to stick to the wall like a magnet.\n\nThis runic implement was a signal amplification device, with it he could get a better grasp of the situation that was happening up there. With its help, he could clearly see a group of five adventurers that were all above level one hundred. It was a party made up of gold ranks and they were surrounded by reanimated skeletons.\n\nYet the more interesting circle was slightly behind the large group of blazing skeletons. With this Roland had his answer, the one responsible for all of this wasn’t a Necromancer, it was a high-level monster instead. The color of the dot and its size indicated that a tier 3 monster was standing a bit away from the swarm of its minions that were pushing into Armand’s group.\n\n‘Could it really be that strange Lich? How did it get out? Is this all my fault?’\n\nThere were a myriad of questions going through his head but they mostly went towards one point, how was this thing able to get out of the dungeon? Roland was almost positive that it probably had something to do with his involvement with the other dungeon. It would be too much of a coincidence if it wasn’t due to his excessive grinding habits.\n\nThis was an unprecedented situation that he had no knowledge of ever happening before. Only one situation was somewhat similar but it didn’t really involve two different dungeons interacting with each other.\n\nA dungeon break was the closest thing he could come up with. It was a situation in which monsters could go outside and no one had a proper explanation for why this happened to this day. This Lich had been able to escape to this dungeon so it wouldn’t be strange if it could go outside of it as well.\n\n‘What will happen to Albrook if that thing gets out?’\n\nRoland tried recalling the level of the Lich, it was close to level hundred sixty but now it had become free of the dungeon. Monsters just like humans could raise their levels by killing other beings in this world. It was clear by the many skeletons that it was summoning that it had been clearing out the creatures from this dungeon.\n\nThere was one difference between necromancers that were still alive and Liches. The summoned creatures would weigh hard on the caster's soul. This limited the necromancer’s creature pool but it wasn’t the same for the Lich. That monster didn’t have a soul or was never a person, to begin with. Its minion count was mostly unlimited, until it was alive it could just produce more and more monsters.\n\nVarious scenes went through his head in just a fraction of a second before he decided to act. Even though the monster was out there he could not do anything about it now. The people up there probably needed his help and the only way for that to happen is if they noticed him or fell down.\n\nFirst, with the help of his earth runes, he started to produce a sturdy platform on which he would be able to support more than just himself. The shape of it was also quite unique as it began to take the shape of a large bowl.\n\nThis would only work if he managed to get Armand and Lobelia safely towards the tunnel. The foundation was created, with somewhere for them to fall towards but he also needed to make the party aware of his presence.\n\nFor this he had two options, make himself visible through bright light or through loud sounds. The latter would be harder as to the nature of the walls here. They were from a strange rock that liked to absorb sound, even if he produced a loud bang the sound would probably not find its way into Lobelia’s ears.\n\nThe first option of making it bright was the next best thing. Probably the Lich had done something to the fog that was usually blocking the view. Thanks to his mana sense he could feel that some kind of spell had been cast, perhaps during the Lich’s ascend up he had somehow removed it.\n\nThis spell wouldn’t last forever as he could already see some dark mist coming back from the sides. Thus he threw a few more disks up towards a few locations. These were not as intricate as the previous one that magnified the signal instead, they just produced a bright blinking light.\n\nTo top it all off he fiddled with his runic programming to produce a bright spell which he shot up over his head, if this light show didn’t produce the effect then he wasn’t sure what would. There was also a code inserted into the light. This word had its own morse code analog that he set up with a hidden message. People like Lobelia or any tracker should be able to figure out what the blinking meant.\n\n“They really jumped down…”\n\nIn all honesty, Roland wasn’t sure that even if Lobelia saw him down there she would just jump. Some adventurers would see a more favorable outcome to just toss themselves against the Lich and hope that at least some of them got away. Yet there they were, trusting in the light show that he was producing.\n\nTo not be a disappointment to the people that put their faith in him he went to the second phase of his plan. It would have been nice if he had any gravity runes that he could use. They would be perfect to cushion their descent but he would need to go with the next best thing, wind, and water.\n\nWhile he was producing the light show he had already used his feet to produce a simple water creation spell. The shape of the bowl was to hold it in place and the wind spell he was about to shoot up would dampen the fall enough for them not to die before hitting the water. The biggest issue here was the limited space and then the hasty process of this entire construct.\n\n“Ahhhhh….”\n\n“I’m going to haunt you forever if I dieeeeeee!”\n\n“Uooohhhh…”\n\nRoland could finally hear some voices as the party of five descended from above. most of them were shouting but one voice that probably belonged to Armand was constantly yelling at someone. Soon they would be hit by a giant twister made up of green energy due to the mana that produced it. This torrent of winds would try to push them up while soon after suddenly pulling them towards the basin of water.\n\nThis was not an easy feat to achieve even for an experienced mage. Roland really had to strain his multiple pseudo brains that his Parallel Thinking trait gave him. When straining all three that he had access to at the moment he was somewhat able to guide the falling people down into the pool of water he created.\n\n‘Shit it won’t hold…’\n\nYet after the initial splash, the hastily produced platform couldn’t hold and the group of five went through it. Roland had somewhat expected this to happen and so he shifted to plan B which he had also prepared. This one was a lot less refined as it involved just two sturdy magical ropes that he wrapped around his arms.\n\nThese ropes were made from special materials that would allow the infusion of mana. After injecting mana into them the caster could make them move like extensions of their body. It took a few tries to get the hang of it but Roland had already gone through the training. At the moment of impact and destruction of his pool, he executed his rescue plan.\n\nBoth of the magical ropes shot out to entangle the closest people there. Instantly after the entanglement, he could feel a large amount of force pulling him down. He had to quickly activate all of his strength buffing spells as well as some that would make his footing stable. Along with these he also felt a ruby tail wrapping itself around his waist as Agni attempted to aid him in this rescue endeavor.\n\n“Shit… we are alive! Haha, I’m alive!”\n\n“Will you shut up already, we aren’t safe yet!”\n\nThe first one to call out was Armand and he was quickly shot down by Lobelia. On one side he entangled Armand, Lobelia, and some dwarf that he had never seen before. On the other side, there was a large Half-Orc that he was familiar with together with another woman adventurer that he somewhat recalled seeing at the guild once or twice.\n\n“... Stop moving around so much…”\n\nRoland called out to the people dangling on the ropes. It was already a miracle that his half-assed plan had worked, he actually expected some of them to tumble down. Luckily the increase in strength thanks to his leveling spree allowed him to be able to support even five people with part of their gear intact. Some of their weapons had been tossed into the dark abyss below but that wasn’t that important.\n\n“Wayland, is that you? What the hell are you doing here?”\n\n“We'll talk later, I’ll pull you up now…”\n\nInstead of chatting, he started pulling everyone into the tunnel opening. Armand was quick to quiet down as he finally realized what kind of situation he was in. Slowly the first person that was Lobelia managed to grab the ledge and pull herself up. Then it was Armand and the other woman that he recognized from the guild. Soon all of them were safe and hugging the ground under them.\n\n“Let’s never do that again…”\n\nLobelia gave out a sigh while panting, beads of sweat dripping from her forehead. The decision she made was luckily the right one. During the scuffled up top, she had noticed the blinking lights and the hidden message behind them. It was just one word, jump. Normally she wouldn’t have taken this gamble but the image of Wayland popped into her head which pushed her into going with her instincts and jumping.\n\n“Aye.”\n\nWedamir slowly dusted himself off while glancing down towards the rest of the chasm. Even before the jump, he was forced to let go of his tower shield which a large number of monsters was clinging to. Now he was only left with his halberd while Korgak on the other hand was missing his axe.\n\n“Korgak glad.”\n\nThe half-orc nodded towards Roland that was standing there and also sweating. The whole rescue mission was over but now he had some explaining to do. He was sure that the group would ask about the reason for him being here. While perhaps Armand and Lobelia would keep their mouths shut, the other three were different. Before they could work this out, however, they needed to make sure that they were truly safe.\n\n“Are you just going to be quiet or will you explain yourself, Wayland? What are you doing here?”\n\nThe one prying wasn’t actually Armand, instead, Lobelia quickly jumped off the ground and started shouting at him. She was clearly shaken by the near-death experience so he decided not to get into a shouting match and first to calm things down.\n\n“I… this is a secret area that I discovered.”\n\n“A secret area?”\n\nThere was no use lying about it now. For them to get out of here he needed to guide them through the secret passages anyway. It was better to just come clean but he still just could keep the other dungeon secret for the time being. Even if it was revealed his connection to the Lich could probably not be proven.\n\n\nNothing like this had happened before so he was not actually sure if this wouldn’t have happened eventually even if he didn’t come here. At least that was what he was trying to tell himself. If this was all his fault then he was probably responsible for the deaths the Lich had caused. While he wasn’t directly responsible for the Lich coming here, probably some fault was on his side.\n\n“Yes you’ll see it soon but could you explain one thing to me, what happened up there? What’s with all those skeletons?”\n\nRoland also wanted some answers, what was the Lich doing up there? There was still time to get out of the dungeon and seal it. After evacuating all the lower ranked adventurers they could procure platinum rank adventurers. Together with gold and silver ranks, they would probably be able to kill the lich that could only create lower-level tier 2 monsters. Their numbers could be dwindled by their gold and silver ranks while the platinum went for the kill.\n\n“The skeletons? Sure…”\n\nLobelia started explaining everything while the group of five started moving away from the tunnel entrance. Roland on the other hand peeked his head out towards the runic items that were left behind in the walls. With the signal enhancer there he was still able to see the group of skeletons roaming the area before the chasm.\n\n“What is it doing…? Fuck… we need to move!”\n\n“Huh? What’s wrong? You were the one that wanted me to explain eve…”\n\n“That’s not important, that thing, I mean the Lich… it jumped down, it will be here soon…”\n\n“Huh? It jumped down?”\n\n“Yes, Liches have levitation spells, it will be able to get in here, now go!”\n\nThe whole party glanced at each other before quickly bolting towards the unlit tunnel. They were unwilling to fight a tier 3 monster even if it was six against one. The only realistic way out of this was to escape…\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 263 – The chase begins.\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“Hey wait up… Hey! Is that thing really following us? and if it is, where are you taking us, what is this place?”\n\n“I’ll explain later, you’ll have to trust me.”\n\n“Trust you?”\n\nLobelia wanted to roll her eyes as she sprinted after the man dressed in full-body armor. To the side, she could see a ruby dire wolf running behind him and behind her were the other four party members she came with. All of them were in a daze after almost dying from the fall into the chasm. For a moment they thought they were safe but Wayland who they discovered here wasn’t of the same mind.\n\n“Hey, are you sure that we can trust him?”\n\nJasmine appeared next to Lobelia and quickly used a hidden skill for forwarding information. It was called project sound, thanks to it the user could project sounds to any desired location. It was mostly used by thieves or scout classes to sneak around and confuse sentries.\n\nHowever, it could also be used differently, by targeting someone's ear and turning down the sound volume a person could communicate from a distance. Attacking it by shattering someone's eardrums was also possible but only with a high enough skill level. Usually, there was not enough sound output for that, and pinpointing the right spot to his wasn’t easy either.\n\n“My sister trusts him, so I’ll trust him too, do you think he would have saved us if he meant us harm?”\n\nThe archer nodded but Lobelia wasn’t sure if that was enough to drop the suspicion. In reality, she already had a theory of what had happened there and it was only confirmed after they arrived at a clearing. What they saw there was truly astonishing, all of them opened up their eyes to take in the view.\n\n“What is this? Precious gems and metals? Hah, I knew you were hiding something!”\n\nArmand shouted out while looking at the spider golems that were moving. The group was filled with adventurers so they somewhat knew that this place was akin to a goldmine. Dungeons always restored their mineral pockets with time. To them, it wasn’t that strange that Wayland had decided to keep this place to himself to keep the riches. If they were capable of doing the same they would probably do the same.\n\n“By Felmjir’s beard, is that crimson mythril? And that’s… but this is…”\n\nThe only dwarf from the party stopped in his tracks while forgetting that they were being chased. To him, that was brought up around miners and blacksmiths, something like this was a true treasure trove. While he did not specialize in it as a dwarf he knew the true worth of a place like this.\n\n“... Brother Dunan was right, ye wur hiding something!”\n\n“Brother?”\n\nRoland gave out an order to the spider golems to stop mining the moment he ran into the range of his skill. As he was planning he implemented a relay system into his bots that would forward the order to all of them automatically. Thanks to this he didn’t have to go through all ten of the golems one by one.\n\nSome of the golems retreated towards the hidden exit while four others moved in the direction of the tunnel they ran out. Thanks to the signal enhancer he left in the chasm he could somewhat measure where the Lich was. At its current speed, it wouldn’t take it long to arrive here so he needed to have his golems block it from approaching them.\n\nWhile his plan was in motion he could see all of the adventurers being astonished by this mining area. Probably all of them with perhaps the half-orc excluded knew about its worth. This area was already exposed so it would probably be impossible to keep it a secret, this was even less likely after he heard the dwarven adventurer shout at him.\n\n“Aye, he told me about ye, greedy bastard, what do ye think ye wur doin' 'ere?”\n\n“This is not the time for arguing, we need to leave but if you want to stay here and contend with that lich by yourself, then be my guest.”\n\nWedamir wasn’t amused and Roland had a suspicion as to why. First of all, he did mention one of the union leaders by name. Dwarven adventurers treated their craftsmen a lot differently than their human counterparts. To them, the creation of weapons and armor that kept them safe was something to be praised.\n\nThe dwarves in this world also had a delusion that for some reason all mining areas should belong to them. They would buy out each and everyone that they could get their hands on. The union in particular had contracts in place that would force nobles to prioritize them over others if they so desired. Thus from Wedamir’s standpoint, Roland’s attempt at hiding this mining area could have been akin to denying the dwarves their birthright.\n\nThis was certainly problematic, the dwarf would probably go running to the union bastards that disliked him. They on the other hand would see this as a chance of getting back at him. They would probably try to spin it as withholding information from the guild or the nobles that the mine really belonged to by law. Luckily they didn’t really have proof of him being here for long so he could always deny that he was mining the place for many months.\n\n“Wedamir is thick headed but I don’t think even he wants to contend with a tier 3 Lich but isn’t this a dead end? I don’t see any exit, Wayland?”\n\n“Give me a moment.”\n\nWithout giving an explanation he quickly ran up to the wall with the hidden runic symbols. While the way they operated wasn’t difficult, the way they were hidden was peculiar. Without his debugging skill guiding him through the process, it would take a higher-tier runesmith to even notice that there was a locking mechanism there.\n\n“There really was an exit…”\n\nLobelia cheered out as she saw a bunch of runes lighting up when Roland touched the space above the door. Following the activation a large door that was big enough to fit his large mule golem appeared. With it now being open he ordered it to walk right back in through it. Luckily he had not even begun unpacking so it wasn’t hard to just retreat.\n\n“So that’s how you’ve been able to do it…”\n\nNot everyone here connected the dots when it came to this place. Lobelia on the other hand had realized that this had been discovered during the time the nobles visited this dungeon. This did bring up some questions though, was this actually discovered later by Roland or did he have some kind of deal with the nobles?\n\nDuring that time no reports were made by them and the safe zone was supposed to have been destroyed when they were evacuating. This was not the time to ask about such things, they were still being chased by the monstrous Lich. Roland confirmed this fact as he had been constantly monitoring the pathway leading to the chasm.\n\n“It’s here… move now!”\n\nHe pointed to the opening while taking out a few more items from his satchel. Even though he had gone down here without expecting any problems there was still a contingency plan for if anything went wrong. First of all, four of the ten drones that he had moved inside of the tunnel.\n\nThese four specific ones had the best equipment suited for this job. It was a new model that integrated the new turret technology that he had been experimenting with. They had a technical name that Roland gave to each new iteration but in short, he called them, Sentry Golems.\n\nTheir bodies were slightly larger and their mechanical limbs were also bulkier. On top, they had a large turret that could move in a wide area. It was not omnidirectional due to the bulkier form but while aiming down limited spaces like that tunnel it was the perfect monster killer.\n\nThe robotic golems dug their spider-like limbs into the hard rocks as they waited. Two were down on the ground while the other duo was above them on the ceiling. Thanks to Roland’s map they could see the enemy getting into range and when the Lich ducked out of the corner they would activate.\n\nTo supplement their escape Roland had also laid out a few traps. While they were running away he had been attaching explosives to the walls, almost all of the ones that he had were now stuck to them and would detonate the moment someone passed by them. At least that was the plan but his map was telling him otherwise.\n\nThe view was quite limited but he could see the dot that represented the Lich start to move through the pathway. The mines that were placed there and that were supposed to react to his presence didn’t activate for some reason. Perhaps the Lich had some kind of skill to detect or disable the runic bombs that he placed there?\n\nThey were still only simple runic devices that would activate when someone moved in range or stepped on them. If the monster was able to evade his traps he would need to place more elaborate ones instead. His new improved bombs could be thrown from a distance just like the signal magnifying device before.\n\nThe disk shape allowed for a better throw and the flat surface could easily stick to rocks. One of these bombs made its way towards the entrance to this mining area. As it connected with the wall it started to glow, this glow caused more rocks to appear around it for camouflage purposes. It was in short a self-hiding bomb, the earth magic runes that were there could imitate almost any terrain.\n\nWhile he was preparing the second line of defense and the adventurers were going through the exit his golems finally picked up the enemy. Their golemic eyes could see the skeleton surrounded by some kind of flame barrier. Through them Roland could tell that this was indeed a Lich from that dungeon. It was also probably the one that jumped into his cannon beam.\n\nA barrage of blue energy blasts shot out from the sentry golems. They were all enhanced mana arrows that used a similar spiral motion to drill themselves through armored opponents. Before they collided with the Lich they started to decrease in size. With the decreased magical output they were then unable to contend with the magical barrier the monster surrounded itself.\n\n‘What is that? a mana canceling barrier? No… it should have something like that.’\n\nInstead of canceling mana, it was doing something else. The monster was a tier 3 being and someone that had high control of magic. It was probably exerting its control over the mana being shot towards it and weakening it in the process. It was a similar effect but not as strong and had more weaknesses than outright canceling the mana particles.\n\nThe golems that he created would be great against non-magically inclined opponents. When two spell casters contended with each other most of the time the one with more mana or control over it came out victorious. The toughest part was getting through their shields that protected them from harm. Even Roland would be able to an extend disperse enemy mana with his own abilities and also had some runic contingencies in place for such an ocassion.\n\n“It’s here, get in!”\n\n“Shit are you sure about this? Can’t we just make our stand here, there are six of us and that thing is alone!”\n\n“It won’t be alone for long, now get in.”\n\nArmand was the last one in line of getting in. While they had the number advantage it wouldn’t be for long. Roland wasn’t sure how the blazing skeletons were getting down from that cliff but he was picking it up on the radar, they were making their way down here. Even if they could take out this monster together if the swarm of tier 2 skeletons arrived they would be done for.\n\nThere were too many variables and he could see that his magic attacks weren’t as effective. Roland didn’t have much experience against other spell casters. Usually, the spells overpowered his opponents as they weren’t very experienced with them either. He had never faced off against a mage on his own level and this Lich outranked him by a tier and also level.\n\nThe better way would be to make a tactical retreat for now and bring some tier 3 backup later. No adventurer guild would let such a strange monster roam the dungeon. They just needed to evacuate to the higher levels and wait for help. The monster would probably remain to roam this level, for the time being, at least that was what he was hoping for.\n\nThis monster was quite impatient, after the barrage coming from the golems, it charged forward as if it was maddened by something. The turrets continued to fire but they could not pierce through that magical barrier. Soon the monster was upon them and without even bothering to properly attack the mechanical beings they just began to melt.\n\nThe monster’s dark flames filled the entire area quickly corroding through the golem’s system and disabling them in the process. This monster didn’t stop and continued to speed up as if he was after something. That something was just around the corner and already shoving Armand into the tunnel that everyone was escaping into.\n\nRight as the angry glowing skeleton was charging through the entrance Roland detonated the charges there. The explosion rocked the entire area and caused the rock from the ceiling to fall down. This measure was supposed to at least stall this angry-looking monster but this Lich had other plans.\n\n“What the…”\n\nRoland backed away as he saw a massive surge of green energy wash all over the place. It was as if some fluorescent water was being churned out from within this monster. Instead of water, it was just really thick magical energy that was used to stop the mine entrance from caving in. The blasts that he detonated didn’t even manage to halt the monster's approach and now it was time for his trump card.\n\nA beam of condensed energy traveled from a gem inside of his chest almost instantly. This was the weapon that served him well during his gold rank exam and his current stats had been enhanced further. Yet to his dismay when the beam collided with that green barrier it just couldn’t go through. This creature was well equipped in defending itself against magical attacks and with everything that he threw at it, the monster swatted it back.\n\n“Shit…”\n\nRoland quickly ducked into the secret passage as it was closing. His last line of defense were the mining golems that tossed themselves on the monster. They had a self-detonating option and while some started shooting mana bolts the others attempted to grapple the monster’s skeletal limbs.\n\nAfter getting a good grip they would overload their runic battery and produce a large explosion. At least that was what they were supposed to do but instead, they found themselves being pushed back by more green energy that took on a more flame-like consistency.\n\nLuckily even though all of his creations were shoved to the side, they still bought him enough time. The monster’s empty eye sockets burst forth with angry flames as it charged at him. This was the last he saw of it as the wall slammed shut before the being could make it inside.\n\nThere he started backing away while frantically opening up the mule golem. Inside he found the improved mana cannon. Realistically speaking this was the only thing that could save him now, if the monster made it inside he would need to shoot it.\n\nHowever, as he was trying to connect the cables to his own armor he noticed something. The monster had stopped in its tracks and the thumping on the wall began to decrease. This whole area was surrounded by thick rock that was somewhat resistant to magic. Even Rolland needed many hours of drilling to get anywhere within this dungeon.\n\nThis wasn’t all, he felt that the moment the Lich started attacking this wall some kind of safety spell was initiated. It seemed that he wouldn’t need to use this cannon, the monster couldn’t get towards this side, or at least, not before they were long gone. Thus after quickly getting up from the ground, he turned to the party of five.\n\n“We need to go.”\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 264 – Time to evacuate.\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "It has been many days since it stepped foot in this strange location. The beings around it were weak but it still wanted to spend some time examining them. It was a stroke of luck but it found a hidden passage containing strange worm-like creatures. Their nesting ground was transformed into its lair and the bodies that continuously respawned were turned into flaming skeletal minions.\n\nYet what interested it more were the other beings that rarely came to this place. In contrast to the worms and other dungeon monsters the Lich encountered they varied vastly. Some were large and some were small. Their skeletal structure was different and some of the organs were also rarer than the others which made the monster divide them into groups.\n\nA strange thing happened not soon after it left. Before it wasn’t aware of it but after killing some of the dungeon creatures it had become stronger. There was no prompt or system relaying the information but the Lich certainly knew that it had leveled up. Slowly as its forces grew it was getting stronger, the feeling of making progress was intoxicating, so much that it even forgot about leaving this place for a moment.\n\nIts strengthening drive was interrupted on this faithful day. The strange bags of flesh began to appear less and less until a group of slightly stronger ones came close to its lair. Previously it didn’t even need to come out itself as its large number of minions was enough. Yet this small group proved itself somewhat stronger but not strong enough to escape.\n\nThen a peculiar thing happened, it could feel it. The minion that it left behind in the area it first appeared had been defeated. The link to its minions became weaker but after it died the last thing it saw flashed before its eyes. It was some strange wolf-like creature that it had never seen before and behind it stood a strange armored being.\n\nAt first, it only thought it was just a new variant for it to study but it turned out to be much more. This armored being began giving out a unique mana signature that the Lich grew accustomed to, it was the same one as the beam of mana that collided with it. Could this be the source of it all? Could that armored thing be the one that gave it freedom?\n\nIt was momentarily stunned as it just continued to focus its mana sense down into the chasm. A light show ensued soon after and the five creatures its minions were contending with did something strange, they jumped down. Did they give up on their lives, it didn’t seem so as they had managed to survive.\n\nThis was a chance for the Lich, it needed to find who that person was. It descended down the hole it had previously come out of with the help of the lesser levitation spell. Slowly but surely it arrived at the tunnel and there it could feel the mana pattern it had grown accustomed to.\n\nA strange feeling went through its empty head, the answers that it was looking for could be around the corner. There was a problem, the armored being that was using the strange mana pattern was moving away. Was it aware of its presence and decided to flee?\n\nThe Lich grew angry, how could the thing that awoke it deny it? Why would it be unwilling to give it the answers it desired? It wanted to know what this world was and no one would stand in its way of discovering the truth. Without hesitating anymore it stepped forward, quickly it would capture the one that set it free to examine it thoroughly.\n\nIts approach was met by the blue arachnids from before. Their form was slightly different but the spells they produced were similar to the ones it knew. With how much it had studied the mana pattern it was quite easy to disperse the particles before they collided with its own shield made of corrupt energy.\n\nThe Lich wanted to stop and examine these spider golems but there was a bigger prize before him. Why should he settle for these empty shells if their creator wasn’t far away from them? It continued to charge while absorbing all the magical explosions that didn’t cause a single point of health to drop.\n\nFinally, it arrived at the mining area to only be confronted by a large energy blast. This one was more similar to the beam that continuously invaded its previous home. It troubled it a bit more but as with all the previous attacks, it was unable to get through its magical defenses. To the Lich’s dismay, a problem arose as the answers it was looking for disappeared behind a secret wall that it was unaware of.\n\nHow could it have known that there was another way out of this place? Did the being with the unique mana pattern plan all of this? Was it watching from outside just to mock it? The Lich exploded in anger and charged at the closed passage. Before getting to it, the passage was closed.\n\nThis reminded it of the past when it was unable to leave through the hidden opening. Even when it continued to slam its fists and spells on this wall, the damage wasn’t enough to get it through. Some kind of defensive mechanism had been triggered to imbue the rocks with the dungeon’s mana. It was getting through it but the time it would require would be tremendous.\n\nThe unique mana pattern and the being that had it vanished from its mana sense. It could not peer through this wall but it couldn’t just give up. What if the armored thing inside was just waiting for it to leave? It needed to continue and get through it but this was not enough. The Lich now knew that there was a possibility of hidden entrances and exits. It was possible for his target to flee while it was spending all of its time here.\n\nFor the time being it needed to leave this place but the armored being could appear again. Luckily one of its skills that it had learned after leveling up had just gone off cooldown. Without waiting for another second it pointed out with its staff at an empty area in this mine. There strange green occult symbols started appearing followed by a skeletal shape.\n\nThis skill drained a lot of mana reserves but it was something worthwhile. After a minute a skeletal monster appeared without needing a body like the lesser ones. This one was much taller than the rest and its bones were black as obsidian. The horns and animalistic mouth with sharp teeth clearly distinguished it from the others. This superior undead would guard this place while it tended to other things.\n\nWith this out of the way the Lich quickly made its way back up the chasm. It had burned through a lot of mana by summoning the superior undead monster but still managed to get back to the original lair.\n\nAs it stepped down onto the ledge it was greeted by the mostly mindless minions. The skeletal soldiers spread apart as their master walked toward the hidden lair opening. With a wave of its bone staff, it canceled the illusory spell that no one was able to detect.\n\nThis opening had been smaller at the beginning, normally only a large worm could get through. Now on the other hand it was spacious enough for several skeletal warriors to squeeze in without a problem. The Lich’s eyes glowed green once more as it started into the huge open space. There as if waiting for his call a swarm of red glowing eyes followed suit.\n\n…\n\n“How long have you been hiding this place? Hey, does the city Lord know about this… wait, was it his Idea?”\n\n“You’re asking a lot of questions, now isn’t really the time…”\n\n“Well, sorry for asking so many questions, I’ve just almost died to a tier 3 Lich with a small battalion of skeleton warriors, then I find you sneaking around here…”\n\n“Aye, Ah bet he hud something to do wi' it!”\n\n“Wedamir, I know that you dislike Wayland but I don’t think that he would be wandering around here if he knew that there was a Lich roaming around.”\n\nLobelia replied to the angry dwarf that was following behind her. Some time had passed since they escaped into these tunnels. At the moment they were in a large empty chamber that looked like a place fit for a boss. Roland that was guiding them here didn’t say much and only continued to say that they needed to get out first.\n\nHe was trying to wrap his head around the thing he had done. The Lich out there was running loose and was clearly not acting like a monster from a dungeon. It was more in line with the free monsters that roamed outside of dungeons. Roland didn’t have enough time to use his analyzing skill but he wouldn't be surprised if the Lich’s level was higher than before.\n\nWhile the other continued to ask him questions about this place his mind was elsewhere. Somehow he had to come to terms with his blunder and that he was probably responsible for releasing that monster. Perhaps he couldn’t be totally sure if he was the only reason but all hints pointed his way. If it was true and all of it was his fault then the lives of the people that died to the Lich would be on his conscience.\n\n‘Was I being too greedy?’\n\n“Hey, Wayland, what's wrong with you?”\n\n“Huh?”\n\nFinally, he turned back toward the five other people that were with him. Lobelia was the one that shouted at him and was about to open the boss's chamber door and go outside. All of them were looking at him with varied expressions. Armand as always looked ticked off and the dwarf continuously was on his case.\n\n‘I guess this isn’t the time for self-pity.’\n\nAfter giving out a sigh he had to rethink this whole scenario. He could not change the past and needed to live with the actions that he took. While people had died due to the Lich, it was still possible to save others. The monster was stuck before the secret entrance and perhaps this was enough time to evacuate.\n\nRoland had been spending some time in this Dungeon and even more down in these secret tunnels. It was easy for him to right the entire place with his detection devices. When the monster finally broke down the wall he would know. Its area of operations also connected to the lava lake that he had outfitted with the same map enhancers.\n\n“Ah sorry, I spaced out for a moment. We need to leave and inform the other adventurers about the Lich.”\n\n“I agree, only a team of platinum adventurers can handle it, we need to evacuate as soon as we can.”\n\nJasmine the archer adventurer that was with them nodded at Roland. Lobelia and Armand as well as Korgak were people that he already knew, the only person that needed convincing was the dwarf. Luckily he just gave out a grunt before trekking behind the group that was moving towards the exit.\n\n“Don’t think this is th' end o' this, ye will have to explan yersel' tae th' guild later.”\n\nRoland had thought of the possibility of bribing everyone here to downplay his involvement but the dwarf was the most problematic. It probably wouldn’t be possible to change his mind even if he dangled coin or even superior magical equipment in front of him. Wedamir apparently had ties to the union and those guys hated him. This would really be a troublesome situation that he might not be able to weasel out of.\n\n“So what, he was mining a bit in the dungeon? Give it a rest and move on.”\n\nAt least Lobelia was on his side as she delivered a small nudge with her foot to Wedamir’s behind. The way towards the lava lake area was already cleared up as he had not even been here for a day. Within a few hours, the monsters would not respawn so they could quickly get through the winding corridors to the space under the lake.\n\n“So that’s how you did it…”\n\n“Let’s go, we don’t have much time before the lava floods the lake again.”\n\nSoon the party of now six adventurers and a ruby wolf popped their heads out the exit. There they saw the middle of the lava lake that had just subsided to the sides. They had enough time to get out and found themselves on the side closer to the exit.\n\n“Okay shit, what do we do now?”\n\n“I’m the fastest here, I’ll go ahead and inform the guild, we might have to lock down the dungeon.”\n\n“Lock down the dungeon?”\n\nArmand asked Lobelia that was about to sprint towards the exit. To them, this all looked like a unique rare monster spawn that was on the level of a floor boss. It was unknown to them if this Lich could leave the lower level but there were cases where it happened. Only Roland was somewhat aware of the whole picture. Yet even he didn’t know how this Lich operated, if it came from another dungeon it might also be stuck in this one, there was no real way of him knowing until the monster took a step outside of it.\n\n“If it’s a tier 3 monster that can roam this place freely then it will kill everyone, there are also non-combatants here.”\n\n“Damn, th' miners!”\n\nWedamir was the one to shout out now as he remembered that the union had placed some mining camps here. The hidden area that Roland found was not the only reusable mining spot in this dungeon. All the other ones that had been found were being used by the union or people affiliated with them. This sent Wedamir into somewhat of a panic as one encampment was on the other side of the lake that was closing itself.\n\n“Hey, what are you doing? Get back here, hey Armand give me a hand.”\n\nLobelia along with Armand had to pull the dwarf away as he was about to attempt a run through the molten lake that was going to close itself. The next cycle of opening would be in fifteen minutes which Roland already knew. While he had no love for the union and would actually love to see their mines being destroyed the people working there didn’t deserve this.\n\n“The lava will open up again in fifteen minutes but I’m not sure that going over there is such a good idea.”\n\n“He is right, that path around the chasm will bring those skeletons there, what if that Lich is with them?”\n\n“Ah dun care, ah will hulp mah brothers!”\n\nWhile the others were fighting he decided to do something about this problem that probably arose due to him. Even though the Lich could be anywhere he felt that in this wide open area he would have enough time to retreat. The monster wasn’t actually that fast as most of its physical attributes weren’t that high. It was a being that was poised in mana and not running.\n\nThere was no use running around and trying to inform the adventurers about the danger. Most of them would probably not believe it unless they saw the monster before them. Instead, he decided to go with a different method that would alert everyone to it at once. This method would make a big ruckus but that would just prove its validity to people.\n\nThe large mule golem was still there and within it was all of Roland’s equipment. He had already developed a sound system within his workshop and could create runes that worked like speakers. It wouldn’t be hard to produce a sound system here with the help of his rune duplication skill that would instantly place what he wanted on a piece of metal.\n\nNot all of his spider golems were destroyed during his escape. These two and a stationary device that he would place here would have to be enough. While everything was happening the other adventurers did seem confused.\n\n“Wayland, what are you doing, there is no time for this…”\n\n“I know, but before we go we have to inform the adventurers about the danger, I will stay here you all should evacuate.”\n\nThe others looked at Roland who continued to fiddle around with magical equipment. He pulled out metal parts that somehow connected to each other and even the golems that they saw before started to be modified. What he was doing was a mystery to them as they thought that the best thing to do was to get out of here. The other adventures that roamed this dungeon had to take care of themselves, this was their life and they had to be ready for everything.\n\n“How will you do that? Come on, let’s go!”\n\nLobelia shouted but instead of Roland replaying he took out another strange-looking device that he moved towards his mouth.\n\n“Testing… one two three…”\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 265 – Evacuating the miners.\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“This is a message from the adventurers guild, please evacuate the dungeon, a high-level tier 3 Lich has been spotted in the lava region, if you see it do not engage and move to the higher levels in an orderly fashion… I repeat a tier 3 Lich has been …”\n\n“Huh, what is that?”\n\n“Is that some kind of golem?”\n\nA group of five adventurers spotted a blue spider creature quickly moving around the area. It was quite a bit away from them but the loud message that was running on repeat could be easily heard by them. This quintet of adventurers had just arrived in the lower region and was now unsure of what to do. If they believed in the words that were being played, then the best way of surviving was to go to the higher levels or even inside.\n\n“Hey, did that thing say that it's unknown if the monster can go to the upper levels?”\n\n“Is something like that even possible?”\n\n“I think there was something like this a few years back, a high-level orc monster appeared in a low-level dungeon and went on a killing spree… maybe we should go?”\n\nThe party looked at each other, they were not in any danger of starving anytime soon. There was no reason for them to put themselves in any danger. There was a possibility of this being some kind of ruse. Perhaps a rare monster did appear and whoever sent out this golem was trying to keep people away while they killed it.\n\nHowever, this was a far-fetched theory as quite a few adventurers knew to who these spider drones belonged. Wayland the runesmith was close to being a household name in the city and this mechanical contraption even had his logo on it. If this was some kind of scheme to get people out of the dungeon then it was very sloppy. A punishment from the guild would be in order for attempting to evacuate people under false pretenses.\n\n“Should we just wait for now? It could be some kind of prank?”\n\n“It could be a costly prank… but hey, someone is coming!”\n\nThe tracker from the group pointed toward a woman that was running their way. She was quite fast and also someone they recognized. Gold rank adventurers were on the rarer side and ones that had cute faces were even rarer. It was Lobelia that was charging forward and right before passing the party of five she shouted out.\n\n“What are you idiots doing, didn’t you hear the announcement? Get out of here now and when you see other adventurers tell them to leave the dungeon!”\n\nShe zoomed past the stupefied group that instantly started backing away. It was one thing to listen to a disembodied voice and another if a gold rank adventurer said the same thing. A tier 3 Lich was loose in this dungeon and everyone knew what that could mean. An unlimited army of undead skeletons could be swarming this way soon. Thus all of them quickly turned back to the boss room they came from and booked it after the half-elven girl.\n\n…\n\n“... please evacuate the dungeon … “\n\n“Are you finished, Wayland?”\n\n“Yeah, but you could have left with Lobelia already.”\n\n“Hah, I’d get an earful from Elodia if she found out that I left you here all to yourself.”\n\n“I see… thanks.”\n\nRoland wasn’t sure how to react to the smiling Armand that had remained with him. To alleviate some of the damage he did by releasing the Lich into the dungeon he remained by the lava pool. There he quickly jerry-rigged a speaker system that would send out an evacuation notice on a loop. It was quite loud so it drew in the close-by monsters that his self-proclaimed brother-in-law dispatched for him.\n\nOnly the two men and Agni were left here. Lobelia had taken it upon herself to run towards the guild to inform it. The guild master was the only tier 3 class holder that they could count on to defeat the Lich. If they were lucky then perhaps there was a platinum party passing by to lend a hand but that was probably unlikely to happen. Those types of people spent their time around areas that were more beneficial to them and this lower-level dungeon was not one of them.\n\n“No problem, you can repay me later, I do need a new pair of boots and I’ve heard those too can be enchanted.”\n\n“I guess if they are made from the right materials that would be a possibility… but we should talk about that after we get out of here, alive.”\n\n“So are you done?”\n\n“Yes but…”\n\nRoland looked at his small monitor that was blinking inside of his helmet. There he was able to see a somewhat large force of people approaching the other side of the lava lake. Wedamir had gone back through it to reach one of the dwarven mine encampments. One of his golems had also gone to that spot to inform anyone that was in that section about the problems they were facing.\n\nJasmine and Korgak went towards another area entirely. Everyone was trying to do their best in helping to evacuate the unsuspecting men and women that were here. It seemed that at least some adventurers were willing to risk their lives for others. None of them actually tried to escape to the top without having a proper reason. In reality, he could do the same but due to the fact that this was somewhat his fault, he felt that he needed to stay here.\n\n“You should probably go where Korgak and that girl went, they might need your help.”\n\n“What about you?”\n\nArmand answered while seeming a bit confused. There wasn’t really much left to do here and the skeletons might soon arrive. There was also a possibility of the Lich appearing on either side of the lava lake. Roland’s plan was to remain here and help with the evacuation effort. He was on the stronger side with his level probably being the highest down in these dungeons.\n\n“I’m going to stay here, I can at least stop some of those reanimated skeletons from killing people.”\n\n“That’s surprising, I didn't think that you were the heroic type.”\n\nArmand laughed while shrugging but it didn’t seem that he was about to leave. Roland wasn’t sure why Elodia’s adopted brother was willing to help him but he wouldn’t refuse it. The help from a higher level tier 2 berserker was always appreciated.\n\n“Heroic type…”\n\nRoland wanted to laugh as he was anything but a hero. First off this all happened due to his fear of the abyssal cult. The only reason that he was remaining here was to soothe his bad conscience. It wouldn’t be hard to just run and leave everything in the hands of the adventurers guild.\n\nIt wouldn’t be hard to deny that he was involved with the Lich and there was also no solid proof of how long he was using the secret mining area. If he just ran to the city lord that he found it a few days ago before the Lich appeared he could be in the clear. Perhaps he could even spin it in his favor. He could play it off that discovering the mine could have triggered the Lich as a defensive mechanism that no one could have predicted.\n\n“You probably couldn’t be more wrong with that one…”\n\n“Huh, what did you say?”\n\nRoland mumbled to himself while Armand was trying to look to the other side of the lake. People were quickly gathering on the other side. There were actually many dwarves there as it seemed that Wedamir was successful in informing their side. It was probably better that the dwarf went there as he wouldn’t be surprised if the union members ignored his golems thinking that it was some kind of bad prank.\n\n“Nothing, you should get ready, they are coming and there are a lot of them…”\n\nHis brutish brother-in-law nodded while following Roland’s gaze. Dots on his scanner started to appear and soon enough the strange cluttering of bones could be heard. A swarm of blazing skeletons appeared from the chasm area.\n\n“Damn, where did all of those bastards come from, there weren’t that many of them before.”\n\nArmand shouted as he was taken aback by the sheer number of the tier 2 skeletal warriors. Some of them were carrying spears while others had swords or shields made of bones. Some of them actually had metallic weapons that were probably stolen from the adventures they had killed.\n\n‘There is a lot more than I expected…’\n\nHis mapping device was of no use to him now as there were just too many red dots to see anything. The first line of defense was already being initiated as the monsters started blowing up. Inside of his mule golem, he had a vast array of explosives that he used to set up mines. These skeletons were not very intelligent and just continued to run towards their doom.\n\nA reanimated being had limited intelligence. They could carry out simple tasks like going in directions their master pointed out or attacking. The master would need to direct them directly to be able to evade such obvious traps. This Lich probably gave them a vague order that they would carry out, something in the line of killing all people they saw. Thus they would just follow it without paying any mind to their own life.\n\n“Haha, that’s quite the show, look at them explode.”\n\n“Be careful, they'll break through soon…”\n\n“Huh?”\n\nWhile his bombs were taking out a large chunk from this skeletal army the assault continued. The bones piled up and soon acted as a bridge to get to the other side. If there were more skeletons than bombs then they would surely get here and if the Lich appeared from behind then he would be able to reassemble the fallen monsters. This was the danger that his creature brought with itself, a relentless army of reusable pawns that knew no fear and never tired.\n\nThis didn’t mean that they would get here. They were coming here in a predictable pattern without using the terrain to their advantage. The lake of lava was spreading to allow passage to the miners on the other side. At least until it closed again Roland would attempt to stop the swarm of angry skeletons. The mines were slowly running out so instead, it was time to use some of his own ranged magic.\n\nHoly magic would have been the best to contend with these creatures that were resistant to the second-best element, fire. In his possession, he had access to all the four main elements from which probably the one that produced the most physical attacking power was the best.\n\nIn this instance that would be earth and it was also favored by the topography here.\n\nThe large hammer he created started glowing in a brownish hue. Through it, he could activate a stronger spell than the usual spikes that he used. The runic tremor spell was triggered, the large spike at the end of his hammer shot out a beam of light that after colliding with the ground produced a large magical circle.\n\nThis circle appeared just for a moment before the spell effect was triggered. The ground under the skeletons opened up to reveal blistering hot magma. The monsters tumbled right in and even though they were resistant to flames their bones could not take prolonged exposure to lava.\n\nThis dungeon was like Roland’s backyard and this was true for this area especially. He had examined everything that he could for a potential tunneling attempt. It wasn’t hard to find the weak spots that were close to lava. Only thanks to this knowledge could he actually move the rocks away as in an instance where the ground was excessively hard, even his spells would be unsuccessful.\n\nYet not the whole region could be exposed to more puddles with magma. Some of the monsters sprinted through after the shaking stopped and continued with their maddened charge. This he answered with a swarm of magical arrows that his hammer was able to produce as well. After locking on with his runic system the skeletons were pelted by the mass of blue lights. Thanks to the lock-on system he could choose to go for the weak spots that had a certain mana pattern to them.\n\n“Hey leave some for me!”\n\nArmand smacked his fists together which made the gauntlets that Roland made glow. The runic patterns became visible as several buffing spells washed over his body. Instead of straight-up attack spells, Armand preferred enhancing his body and through these gauntlets, he would be able to.\n\nEven he began to see action as some of the skeletal fiends managed to get through the barrage of spells. With just a few smacks they exploded into chunks of bone or flew into the exposed lava puddles that Armand tossed them into. While the battle raged the people on the other side started reaching this side of the lake. They could see what was happening and without looking made their way towards the exit to the upper levels.\n\n“Hah, not even one thank you?”\n\nRoland looked towards Armand who had smacked away two skeletal soldiers. He was purposely taking the fight to another location. Slowly they were guiding the monsters away from the lake while the miners and lower-level adventurers escaped. It wasn’t hard as these mindless drones had only eyes for the closest living beings to them. After a few smacks, they were tossing themselves at him and Armand without any regard for their life.\n\n“You can charge them for your services after we get out…”\n\n“Hey, that’s a good idea! The guild should reward us handsomely for this overtime.”\n\nIn a sense, Armand was still on a mission. This wasn’t really in the contract but could be used as an excuse to get more money out of the guild. It seemed that everything was going well, while the swarm of skeletons continued to funnel out Roland purposely created more lava pits to force them through paths he wanted them to take. Their number was concerning but they were managing to hold out while the others evacuated.\n\n“W-what’s that?”\n\n“Skeletons, they are coming! Run!”\n\nTo his dismay, another small army appeared. They came from the other side and reached the lake before it started to close. The miners and workers were still carrying a lot of their equipment which made them slower. Without the ability to bring animals down into this dungeon or large carts they were left carrying everything in large spatial bags. Those could fit a lot of items inside themselves but still didn’t fully cancel out the weight.\n\nAs it stood the skeletal beings would meet up with the fleeing dwarves closer to this end of the lake. This would all occur before the lake could fully close to bury the pursuing army and probably some lives would be lost. There was a way of helping them but he was hoping to use this trap on another pursuer.\n\n‘It might have not even gone through the tunnels and be back at the chasm…’\n\nHis backup plan was not meant to stop these creatures but if he didn’t do something then lives would be lost. Thus when the skeletal battalion reached the middle of the lake he relayed the information through the signal enhancers to the secret entrance. There a large number of runic bombs had been placed beforehand and would be used to burry those monsters in lava.\n\nA huge explosion erupted as the skeletal creatures reached the middle of the lake. It produced a large pillar of magical energy that brought earth and lava with it. The secret area under the lava lake was connected to another basin of this fiery liquid. By triggering a massive explosion the connection was made and it was bursting with molten rock.\n\nThe ground gave up under the monsters that were tossed aside due to the initial explosion. Following it, some of them were splashed with molten rocks that halted their advance. When combined with the lava lake closing up from the other side the maneuver was successful. Given this time the fleeing dwarves would make it to safety while the undead creatures would be buried under lava.\n\nIt did seem like this was over, even though the assault continued from this side Roland was already preparing to retreat. Some guards from the dwarven camp even started to help, Wedamir was among them and after spotting Roland in the distance he seemed troubled.\n\nYet this was far from over as even after everyone had gone through the lake that had closed a strange occurrence was sighted. The middle of the lake started rising up as if a large round object was trying to pierce through the heavy magma. Roland instantly knew what was happening and was quick to retreat. The only hope of stalling this further was inside of his mule golem…\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 266 – Blasting away again.\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "“We made it laddies!”\n\nEveryone cheered as they watched the lava swallow up the swarm of skeletons. This group of people had come from the mining camp in the mine. Everyone had somewhat expected this line of work to be dangerous but they never envisioned themselves fleeing from a small army of skeletons. Luckily a massive eruption of some sort that exploded in the middle of the lake saved them all and now their pursuers were gone.\n\nThey naturally questioned the strange explosion but they couldn’t really stop. While the enemies from the rear were gone another large group of them was coming from another side. This area had also become flooded with magma which was proving to be a stopgap for the monsters.\n\nThere they also noticed two humans that were keeping the monsters at bay, one was swinging a large hammer around to produce various spells and the other just crushed the skeletal heads with his fists. Wedamir, who reported the monster attack had gone over to offer some help and it seemed that everything was going well. However, just when everything was going well a strange phenomenon started.\n\n“Shit, get these people out of here, make them toss all of their equipment away and run if you want to live.”\n\n“Ye can’t expect us tae juist…”\n\n“Just do it!”\n\nRoland grabbed Wedamir by the collar while shouting. There was no time left as the Lich was here, and while the others couldn’t see it yet, it was there. The multiple explosives were supposed to stop it or at least keep it from progressing as the underground would flood with lava. His plan was to set off the explosion while the Lich was inside the secret chamber below the lake but he had to detonate it prematurely to save the miners.\n\nNow the creature was slowly lifting itself up from the underground. This was presented to everyone through a strange red sphere rising out from the ground. Roland knew that inside of it was the Lich and the circular shape was just the mana shield it was producing. It was coupled with the levitating spell to make it look like some kind of large bubble.\n\nThere was no time to lose, Roland only had one weapon capable of contending with a tier 3 monster of this caliber. This was the large cannon that produced the mana-drill spells he used for farming experience. At this moment it was inside of his mule golem that he quickly sprinted towards.\n\n‘Common, open up…’\n\nHe already sent the order to his golem to turn around and open the large latch but this model wasn’t really built for speed. In his hurry, he had to actually tear it open to get to the equipment he needed. There was no time to actually attach this cannon to a stable base or to the battery unit that used the mining area Elokin’s crystals.\n\nLuckily he had updated this cannon to be used with other attachments. It was still an experimental model that could go together with this slightly upgraded runic suit of armor. The cannon already came with thick cables that would carry the required energy. What he needed to do was connect them to his armor.\n\nThere wasn’t really much to it, there weren’t any latches, just a flat surface at the end of the cable that would stick to his metallic armor through magic. It was quite similar to magnetism which didn’t suck up that much mp. Thanks to this solution the cables almost guided themselves towards the entry point that he included on this improved armor.\n\nSmall blue sparks flew as he attached the last one to his neck. The other ones were tightly connected to his back and chest without getting in the way of him holding it up on his shoulder. The small turret that he had on the other shoulder that previously continued to shoot at the skeletons had to be turned off. The mana it required needed to be moved towards the large cannon.\n\n“What are ye…”\n\n“I told you to go, that thing is here already, if you want to save your people you should run.”\n\nWedamir that was somewhat away, continued to ask questions while batting some skeletons away. Finally, as he noticed the lava bubble rising up warning signals started going off in his head.\n\n“A' body, listen the th' human, yer lives are more important than th' equipment yer carrying.”\n\n“Ye can’t be serious! If anyone listen to him, everything that ye lose wull come out o` yer salary.”\n\nThe dwarven adventurer wasn’t the man in charge, this title belonged to a foreman that was overseeing the entire mining operation. He was an old dwarf that clearly saw that the company that he was working for was above the simple miners. Probably the punishment for him would be severe if all of this equipment was lost here. It seemed that for him the miners were more replaceable than the pickaxes that they were carrying.\n\nIt was understandable that the foreman didn’t want to get in trouble but he was underestimating the threat here. Without seeing the Lich that could devastate them with a few spells he would probably be unwilling to give out an order to abandon everything. To Roland’s surprise, Wedamir was the one to step up.\n\n“Whit do ye want, ye'r not part o' th' miners guild.”\n\nWithout giving an explanation Wedamir’s fist made its way towards the supervisor's jaw. The man did not have a proper battle class so a punch from a high-level tier 2 warrior wasn’t something he could take. It was an instant knockout that made the hired guards and other dwarven adventurers that were here stunned.\n\n“Someone grab this idiot, ah will explain everything to th' union chief after.”\n\nRoland had no idea who this dwarf was that was hanging around Armand and Lobelia. He had mentioned one of the union member's names and called them his uncle. Perhaps this was not an honorary title and instead, Wedamir was actually related to one of them. This would make sense if he felt comfortable in knocking out a foreman of a mining expedition.\n\nIf that wasn’t the case, then perhaps he could see the bigger picture here and he just prioritized the lives of others over monetary gains. Roland didn’t really have the time to worry about the union’s dealings as his current situation was also dire. At least now that the miners were dropping their heavy tools and bags they had a better chance of escaping.\n\nAs if right on cue the smoldering hot bubble of lava rose high enough to reveal the monster inside. The green flames that accompanied this lich became visible to everyone. Roland had remained vigilant even while the dwarves were having their little argument. The cannon that he was holding over his shoulder was already ramping up.\n\n???????? Lich L 171\n\n\nHis analyzing skill couldn’t fully identify the monster, the question marks represented the type of the monster before him. Liches were already tier 3 monsters and were an evolution of a mage skeleton. This one was in possession of some kind of special class that he could not identify. The only thing that gave him some information was the creature's level.\n\n‘Its level is lower than that of the abomination at the village but its defenses against mana are vastly superior to that monster’s.’\n\nThe biggest problem wasn’t the monster's level but how it was able to shrug off every magical attack that he produced. In theory, his chest cannon should be able to at least deal a good amount of damage if it connected but the mana was being affected by something. At first he believed that it was just some type of skill or spell but the longer he thought about it the stranger it became.\n\nNormally a battle between mages was decided by their mana. The person with more always had the advantage both in defense and offense. While it was possible to interfere with other people's mana it wasn’t something easily achieved. Mana disrupting existed but it usually occurred with one party having a vastly higher stat pool along with amount of mana.\n\nThe Lich here was strong but Roland also had a prestige class that boosted his stat multiplier. In his opinion, the monster shouldn’t be able to disperse his magical energies this easily. There was one way of this being probably though, if the mage grew accustomed to an enemy's mana pattern they would be able to affect it to a greater degree.\n\n‘I can only hope that this works…’\n\nThere wasn’t much time here as his cannon was already glowing blue with energy. His aim was to catch the monster off guard, now that it rose out of the magma lake it was time. The Lich didn’t show much respect for his magic, it didn’t seem to see it as much of a threat. To some degree, it even looked as if it wanted to get hit by it.\n\nThis of course brought back the memory of seeing it jump into the mana beam on one of his grinding expeditions. At that time the monster was hit but didn’t die then afterward it had never shown its face again as if it was hiding. If this Lich was intelligent then perhaps it decided to hide away to understand the mana beam that hurt it. It wouldn’t be strange if it cracked his mana pattern during the farming spree and was now able to affect his spells.\n\nSomething like this was usually not an easy endeavor. An experienced mage would need to spend weeks or months analyzing such a pattern actually to be able to affect the spells during battle. Even then a person's mind was a fickle thing, during a direct confrontation it would be practically impossible to affect another set of mana patterns without fumbling the technique.\n\nHis opponent wasn’t quite human though, perhaps it operated on a different set of rules and could perform this deed as easily as people breathed. This little theory of his could be tested out now as if the monster could just bounce this magical cannon ray away, then running was the only option left. With how the monster was already coming closer that would become quite difficult even for Roland.\n\nFor this to work, he would need to change his mana pattern. Something like this was easier said than done, a magic user could not just change his natural mana signature that easily. Luckily Roland was not a mage, he was a Runesmith. Runes were able to change everything within a spell if the crafter knew the components.\n\nAfter so many years of testing, Roland had become quite the expert. Recently he had started tapping into holy runes and was also attempting to change the mana wavelengths. This research brought in a few new discoveries through which he was now able to scramble his own mana fingerprint.\n\nEverything was ready and he injected all that he had into the weapon that he was holding over his shoulder. The runic machine that looked like a tank cannon started releasing sparks of mana. His whole silvery armor was doing the same, arcs of blue light flew everywhere as he dumped copious amounts of his mp into this attack.\n\nWhile he did not have time to connect this weapon to any batteries he could still use them. A handful of fresh Elokin’s crystals made their way into his palm and were used to boost the power of this cannon to its maximum. These crystals liked to heat up when used, his first golemic creation had blown up due to this fact. Yet now even when the crystals were starting to glow red in his gauntlet he continued to use them.\n\nFinally, the Lich was out and its gaze was instantly drawn to the sparkling runesmith. The empty eye sockets exploded with green energy as it started approaching. The monster was like a moth being drawn to a flame. It was probably sure that the energy blast could not damage it as all the previous ones had failed before it. A staff made of bones floated before it as the counter-attack was already being prepared.\n\nRoland was not sure why the Lich was acting this way. For some reason it was attracted to his mana and wasn’t acting as the Lich variants he read in books. Those undead monsters would usually avoid any direct confrontation and use their minions instead. If the caster died then all of the undead around it would instantly stop working. If this monster acted as it was supposed to it would have created a lair where it surrounded itself with its skeletal minions.\n\nThis one on the other hand was truly broken or crazy. Even after the beam of drilling blue mana flew forward it continued to float towards it. It was as if it wanted something from it, was it actually trying to absorb this blast of energy? This thought made Roland sweat, if his enemy had absorbing properties then after the beam was taken in he would be open to a counterattack.\n\nLuckily this wasn’t the case, after inserting a mana pattern disruptor into the runic system, the shot actually connected. A light show of sapphire energy against emerald green set the entire underground dungeon ablaze. This intensive clash of magical energies made a lot of heads turn and everyone could see it, the Lich’s shield was breaking apart.\n\nIt was quite a strange sight to behold even for them. The Lich that was surrounding itself with green flames flew directly into the path of the spinning beam of mana. It was as if it was not even seeing it as an obstacle that it needed to worry about. To the simple miners on the other hand the high concentration of mana made their beards tingle. They knew in their very being that if they were anywhere near that blasting zone they would be turned to ash.\n\nFor a moment it actually looked like the being made of bones would break through. The beam collided with the shield of green flames but the monster continued to fly forward. Only after moving several meters did it stop. It finally realized that something was wrong but at that point, it was too late.\n\nRoland’s sweaty face could not be seen nor could his shouting be heard as he gave it all. The spinning drill finally penetrated through the shield and collided with the monster inside. It was practically cleaved in two as it impacted the monster’s chest area where presumably the core should be. This amount of damage could not be ignored even by this creature and it lost control of its mana shield and levitation spell, it was falling down into the lava below.\n\n“Hah, he got it!”\n\nArmand shouted out while holding his fist high up. Everyone that was fleeing halted in their tracks as they saw the light show coming to an end. It looked like the Lich was going to fall into the lava and even it without the protection of its shield would suffer a devastating blow if it was directly submerged under lava.\n\n‘Did that do it?’\n\nWhile the monster was falling down his armor was on fire. Various skills like rune overload and empower rune were used to boost the spell past its limits. The smoke that was produced from his machinery was due to the runes burning through the metal. Even though his equipment had been damaged if the monster fell into the lake of lava now it would have all been worth it.\n\n‘I didn’t get its core which is a shame but that doesn't matter, please just fall in.’\n\nHis reserves were drained so he didn’t have anything left for a follow-up attack. If only the monster fell into the lake then this all could be over. Yet it wouldn’t be so, suddenly something burst forth from the middle of the lake. It was a skeletal monster just like the rest but it was much bigger and of coal black coloring.\n\nBefore the Lich fell into the pool the monster produced a set of wings that propelled it towards its master. Within a few moments, the skeletal mage was being carried to the other side of this lake to safety. Everyone looked in horror as the one responsible for this predicament had not been killed. Instead, it would be safe on the other side to recover and return to haunting this dungeon again.\n\nRoland was stunned and shocked just like the others. The arrival of this creature was something that he didn’t factor into. After a quick scan with his analyzing skill, he was even more perturbed. This creature was one of the Lich’s minions and it was also a tier 3 being.\n\nObsidian Skeleton Gargoyle [ Summoned ] L 150\n\n\n‘Shit, could there be more of those around…’\n\nThis was no time to take a rest, while he had gone through most of his mana they still needed to evacuate. The skeletal soldiers continued to arrive and they were not alone. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the appearance of another one, another large skeletal monster made from black bones.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 267 – Obsidian soldiers.\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Summoning existed in this world, it was a separate field from elemental magic that was considered extremely strong in the right hands. Like any other school of magic, there were variations in the techniques used. One subsection utilized ritualistic ceremonies with offerings to the being it wanted to procure. Other ones were dedicated by simple class skills, contracts, and occult sacrifices.\n\nOne thing united all of those types of summoning practices: the creature that appeared always required something for their services. It could be something simple as the magic caster’s mana or something darker like a part of their soul. This was one of the reasons why demonic magicians were so feared as they could offer up other people as sacrifices to gain a fast boost to their power.\n\nDemons weren’t very particular about who they were getting their part of the deal from. If a demon summoner rounded up a village of people and performed the desired ritual the monster would oblige. A contract between the summoned creature and the summoner would be formed. After the contractor just needed their mana to jolt their contracted being over to this world.\n\nA lot of things depended on the type of contract. The summoned creature could constantly siphon mana from its user while it was on this side or just take a bulk cut at the beginning. The first type could potentially put the contracted being into an almost permanent summoning. The caster just needed to have enough mana regeneration to offset the amount being used. It was somewhat similar to the buffing runes that Roland used in his armor which took a fixed amount of mana.\n\nThus he asked himself this question, what was the type of summoning that the Lich was using? Did it offer up the flesh of the monsters and people it killed to get it here or was it just offering it mana? Did the black-boned skeletons have a time limit or did the Lich need to spend his own magic to prolong the stay here?\n\n‘There are always rare summoning skills that don’t cost anything and are on a timer…’\n\nThat one was the worst-case scenario. A person could just use a timed skill to summon monsters with almost no penalties. Most of the time such skills had a limit on the creatures that were summoned. The high-tier undead summon had flown away with its master but it wasn’t the only one there. Just as those two vanished into the horizon another one appeared before them.\n\n“Hey Wayland, stop spacing out, think we might need some of that magic over here…”\n\nRoland had to turn his head towards Armand that was shouting. While the injured Lich made his escape another problem arose. The army of lower level tier 2 skeletons continued to attack but they were getting dispatched by the adventurers and guards that made it safely from the other side. Normally this would be a great chance to set up a barrier while the miners fled.\n\nTo everyone's surprise, not one but two strange-looking undead appeared before them. The one in the front was a lot larger than the rest. Just like the obsidian gargoyle that escaped with the Lich the two had charred black bones.\n\nObsidian Skeleton Beast Soldier [ Summoned ] L 150\n\n\nObsidian Skeleton High-Mage [ Summoned ] L 150\n\n\nHe could see their names and levels, it seemed that their levels were all uniform. This was probably the limit of the skill their master was using. The Beast Soldier’s body was around four meters tall. It had long limbs and claw-like hands with a skeletal structure similar to that of a gorilla. The head looked similar to that of a stag with sharper teeth than usual.\n\nThe other one wasn’t much bigger than the other regular blazing skeletons. Its face was similar to the other one as the antlers were poking out of the pitch black robe it was wearing. In its right hand, it was holding a staff that radiated green flames just like the ones its master flung around.\n\nIt was clear that the larger one was the close-quarters combatant while the mage would be delivering support spells from the back. With the addition of so many foot soldiers, it would be quite a hard nut to crack. Without giving anyone any time to prepare a strange wail escaped from the larger skeleton.\n\n“Shit…”\n\nHis ears were on fire as he was hit with the sound attack. It was a wide-range disabling attack that caught all the adventurers off guard. Even Armand and Wedamir that were high-level tier 2 warriors, could not resist it. They went down to their knees while clutching their ears. Luckily for them, they had a member in their party that had prepared for this type of occasion.\n\nRoland’s armor initiated an automated defense spell that canceled out the sound from reaching his ears. He needed to work fast as the Skeleton Beast Soldier continued to howl while his ally pointed his staff made of bones up. The skull at the end of it started to give up a green glow through its empty eye sockets. This concluded with a large sphere of green fire forming above the spot it was pointing at.\n\nThis forced Roland to quickly abandon the smoking cannon that he used to injure the Lich. Instead, he grabbed his own elongated kite shield. It had the length of a regular tower shield but was narrower at the bottom. With it in his hand, he jumped towards his allies that were holding their heads together. Even when trying they were not able to shake off the stunning effect.\n\nWhen he arrived before them there was not much time. The only reason he was able to activate the shield's defensive spells was due to it being a runic item. The skeletal mage was still forced to chant out the spell that looked like a giant ball of green flames. Without help from others, mages like these could not utilize grand spells to their full potential. Yet during times of war, there was no greater weapon than a battalion of mages flinging powerful destructive spells.\n\nFinally, the ball of green flames was flung forward by the monster. It collided with multiple layers of shields that Roland set up in a hurry. The first one shattered almost instantly and the second one took only half a second to burst as well. Only when the spell arrived at the last one did it stop in its tracks before exploding.\n\nEven when his spells managed to block most of the damage he could feel his health dropping. Armand and Wedamir that were behind him tumbled away but were mostly fine but this was not the end. The skeletal mage raised his staff up again and was already preparing to cast another spell. His ally on the other hand was luckily out of breath and the stunning effect of his shout wore off.\n\n“We need to retreat!”\n\n“You don’t have to tell me twice!”\n\n“Aye…”\n\nThe three men were of the same mind. There was no way of them winning this and the miners had been evacuating for a while. After dropping their tools earlier they had made some space between the main skeletal forces. Only a few adventurers had stayed behind as they thought that handling the lower tier 2 skeleton soldiers wouldn’t be that hard. No one expected two tier 3 monsters to quickly appear out of the blue.\n\n‘The monster is clearly a tier 3 but the spell it used was somewhat on the weaker side…’\n\nRoland came to this conclusion after standing up. Normally he shouldn’t be able to take something like that with this little prep. He expected the last magical spell to burst before activating his armor's defensive mechanism to ride the shockwave. Instead, his shield was able to last through it by just burning copious amounts of mana instead.\n\nThis was probably a limit of the High-Mage class that this monster had. The spells weren’t quite at the tier 3 level. Perhaps the initial level of hundred fifty and his own raised stats put him somewhat around these two creatures' level. Yet he was just one man and didn’t think he could handle both of them alone, not even if Agni or the adventurers helped out it wouldn't change much. Escaping was still the most sensible conclusion and for that, he at least needed to shake these two off.\n\n“Hey, keep them back from me for a second.”\n\n“Huh?”\n\nWedamir was startled as Roland threw the shield at him. Even though the two obsidian undead were the main problem there was still a swarm of the blazing skeletons to tackle. After a quick glance towards Armand that nodded to the dwarf, the two put themselves between the charging monsters while Roland looked up.\n\nThis area was vast but they were still underground. The ceiling above them was filled with stalactites formed from hard rock. Normally no one would be stupid enough to attempt blowing up the ceiling but all of them were in a life and death situation. There was a nice row of pointy rocks right above the black skeletal mage.\n\nThe other larger monster was keeping a close watch on the caster. It seemed as if these two were ordered to stick together. The large one would perhaps stun and bat away any people trying to get close to the mage while it used the wide-area spells to kill everyone around them.\n\nThus while Armand and his new dwarven friend were distracting the skeletons that got through the puddles he grabbed the rest of his throwable discs. These were quickly flung up into the air. With the help of his throwing skill and their self-sticking properties, they made their way up to the ceiling.\n\nTo top it all off he also grabbed his hammer staff with both hands. His aim was to deliver as much force and have the whole place cave in on the monsters. The mage could see what he was doing and so did the larger skeleton. It didn’t seem that these two were intelligent enough to see through the tactic as they remained at their spot. The ball of flame continued to expand but it would not be thrown again.\n\nRight before the mage could point the spell towards the group of adventurers a huge explosion rocked the entire place. As the bombs exploded a burst of mana escaped from Roland’s own weapon. It was a chaotic orb of energy that after colliding with the ceiling continued to drill itself in further while sending off smaller shockwaves. These caused quite a mess and produced a smokescreen.\n\n“Retreat!”\n\nShouted Roland as the spell connected with the desired spot.\n\n“Woah!”\n\nArmand shouted back while glancing up towards the destruction. No one really needed to hear the retreat order as they booked it for the hills. The whole upper area of the dungeon quickly came crashing down. This was coupled with lava, ash, and debris that made their way toward the skeletal forces and their two commanding officers.\n\nRoland was running as well but his gaze was pointed in another direction. There he locked eyes with the mule golem that started moving in the opposite direction of the fleeing people. It pained him to do this but he wanted to have a secondary plan that would guarantee their escape. For this reason, he needed to sacrifice one of his creations.\n\nThe only thing that he rushed in for was the cannon that he discarded after the blast. This thing could still be used so after grabbing it he started running. Agni was right next to his master, when one of the weaker skeletons approached he was quickly dispatched by an angry dire wolf. The bones that these monsters were made of could not handle even one bite.\n\n“Hey, move it if you don’t want to die.”\n\nTo Roland’s surprise, Armand did not abandon him. Instead, he remained close by and just waited, perhaps the man was not as bad as he previously thought. While he had a drinking problem and was focused on carnal pleasures he did keep him company during this crisis. Soon the two were both running while the obsidian skeletons were covered in rubble.\n\nYet while the white skeletal minions started getting crushed under all the falling rock the two troublesome ones weren’t. The mage produced a shield of green flames that was similar to its masters. It didn’t have quite the same output but was enough to protect it from the falling rocks. The soldier type with the head of a stag didn’t even move, the rocks that collided with its thick bones just bounced back as if it was just a minor inconvenience.\n\nThe whole area became flooded with dust and rock. From within this cloud of ash, the larger black skeleton burst forth. Its jump was tremendous as it almost fully avoided the blasting zone with just two strides. After giving out another loud howl it started picking up speed and running after the escaping adventurers.\n\nLeaving the mage to its own devices was something that Roland calculated into his secondary plan which was slowly moving towards the monster. This was the mule golem’s last hoorah, its whole outer shell was producing glowing runes that were digging into the bulky chassis. This magical phenomenon pulled the monster in as it charged at the golem with the intention of killing it.\n\nThe last Obsidian Skeleton Beast Soldier jumped up while stretching out its long limbs over its head. Its intent was to slam those large fists of it on the slow-moving golem before chasing after the others. This was of course a trap, the moment those hands collided with the mule’s glowing shell another explosion rocked the entire area.\n\nThis one was on the same level as the one in the middle of the lake but much brighter. The black figure of the monster was fully swallowed up by the bright light. The adventurers that felt the surge of mana taking over could not help but look back. There they could see an armored man sprinting towards them who was not looking back at the explosion he produced.\n\nOver his shoulder, he was carrying a huge cannon but it didn’t seem to be weighing him down at all. Without saying anything Roland caught up to Armand that instantly followed suit. Everyone was in full evacuation mode and quickly they caught up to the miners that weren’t boosted as much as the combat class holders.\n\n‘This should give us some time…’\n\nRoland started slowing down as his group reached the miners. Other people started crowding in from the sides. It was clear that the message had gone through and everyone was on board with the evacuation effort. Some adventurers had even formed a defensive line to block any potential monsters. Others were moving forward to battle the creatures on the upper levels which were also a potential risk.\n\nYou have gained 1000 experience points.\n\n\nThe system message rang in his head indicating that he had defeated a weak monster. Normally he wouldn’t be interested in it as similar ones had ringed in his head but each one had given him ten experience points. Reanimated skeleton soldiers gave considerably fewer points for killing them.\n\nPerhaps this thousand came from one of the black summoned creatures that would also give a diminished amount of experience. It seemed that something had put in place a barrier for grinding. It would not allow people to farm summoned creatures that could be easily replaced by mana or resources.\n\nWhile the explosion proved that the summoned monsters could be killed by his creations it didn’t fix the problem. The Lich could probably create more of those soldiers and they could even work with each other. Even though their tactics were crude they would still make things harder for anyone facing them. With a lack of a proper platinum rank party, this dungeon was a lost cause, and perhaps the swarm of skeletal soldiers that they faced was only the tip of the iceberg.\n\nWhere the Lich took off was a mystery to everyone but with the flight capabilities of that gargoyle, it could have made its way to ledges people would not be able to reach. It would not be that simple to find the injured monster and he was not in a state to hunt something like it down alone. His only option was to return home and prepare for the worst but as he was evaluating his choices he heard a characteristic rattling of bones coming from the area they just fled from.\n\n\nThank you for reading!\n\nDon't forget to follow, favorite, rate.\n\nDonate | Discord |"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nFrostbound Apocalypse — a LitRPG progression fantasy. I would like to thank you guys for reading and please leave a comment if you see any mistakes. Enjoy! Callum, The Sovereign of Flames\n\nCallum stood at the edge of his domain staring off into the direction where his entertainment would soon take place. All around him, blue-white fires burned with enough heat that the air warped and distorted. The heat didn't bother him, even as he stood right next to the blistering flames, for the fire was his.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Kyle | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Granddad, Points, He\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Healer's Hands, Splitting Shot, Foraging Sense, Sweeping Slash, Power Shot, Cleanse, Human – Level 10, Crude Iron Knife)\nSystem notification style: \"System protected space to process incoming integrating populations \"\n\n## Writing Style\nfirst-person narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (76% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 75 - Possibilities\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Chris\n\n\n\"This is how humans are able to assimilate bloodlines when others cannot.\"\n\nWhat now?\n\nI was just told that humans could turn into anything we wanted. What the actual fuck? There had to be something I was missing here.\n\n\"Now, there are limits. Full transformation isn't something that you can do normally, but it is still possible with extreme circumstances and only for a limited time.\" The alien added.\n\nThat worked to pour water on some of the more enthusiastic of us. I knew that there were going to be restrictions, it sounded too good to be true.\n\n\"Why don't we backtrack so I can explain it a bit better.\"\n\nWith no complaints, Cypteris continued.\n\n\"Beginning at the evolution to E-Rank, Humans can take on the traits of certain other creatures. How it works is during racial evolutions, genetic material is introduced to your body and the system aids in making your body adapt and incorporate said genetic material.\n\n\"This means you can only take on the traits of something you have available. Say the claws of a lion are present, you might grow claws. The hide of a Rhinoceros, your skin will thicken and harden.\n\n\"It all depends on the materials you have available and what is around you when you evolve. You can push it with your intent, but generally, the adaptation is based on the material. That also means you have to be careful where you evolve. Evolving in the middle of a battlefield can lead to unintended consequences.\n\n\"Also, it starts small. For the first evolution at the E-rank, the most you can do is small adjustments or augmentations. There is only so much change your body can handle and going over that doesn't end well. It's the building on top of previous evolutions that makes this power really shine.\n\n\"Typically, humans stick to one type of animal or a group of animals. You can use other sentient races but that is frowned upon and can get you killed if people find out. Mixing and matching from a bit of everything is possible, but most often doesn't lead to the best results. Sticking with the same animal throughout will let more and more adjustments be made since the body is already conditioned to it.\"\n\nWhat the fuck? This was turning out to be a wild and somewhat gross ability. I knew that we had all sorts of mythologies about half-human hybrids and almost every mythology had a human variant of some sort but this was absurd.\n\nWas that where this power came from? Or were our mythologies modeled after it? Centaurs, satyrs, and demi-gods. Werewolves, vampires, and gorgons. All of them were human with a mix of something else.\n\nDid that mean that we could become actual werewolves?\n\nThe rest of my family had the same reservations and started to ask clarifying questions to the alien.\n\nThings like how does it change us? Does this affect mentality? Is it permanent? And others regarding everything else. Cypteris answered what he could but he said it mostly depends.\n\nIf the genes of the animal were too strong then it could have detrimental effects, including mental changes. Or if the material itself had a certain disposition, it would be hard to get rid of. An example he used was demonic material. It would be hard to get rid of the side effects that it brought and he cautioned against any use of it.\n\nIt seemed he wanted to say more about it but something made him stop and redirect to something else.\n\n\"This leads to two main paths that Humans take this power. Temporary, explosive power, or permanent sustained power.\n\n\"Some humans don't want to change and that is perfectly fine, so instead, they go a different way than permanent physical changes. There are also the purists who abstain from any change but that is a different matter.\n\n\"By far the most common is a mix of the two but that's up to personal preference. Permanent sustained power was what I explained before, every evolution making small changes staying within the same animal family.\n\n\"Building on top of what is already there with the same genetic family pushing your body further and further toward being that animal or creature. E-rank is a small change, D-rank a little more, C-rank, a little more. Finally, reaching S-rank where the body is near a perfect mesh of both.\"\n\nHearing that made me think of how expensive beast parts would get. Like the really important bits people used for evolving.\n\n\"This permanent change is also the hardest to reverse. It can still be done but is extremely costly and will permanently weaken you. Temporary power is different. It works with the current bloodline that you have and draws out more power from it. Even full transformation is available in later ranks for a limited time and will only last for as long as the person can hold it. It differs from person to person, but usually, not longer than an hour and that's at S rank.\n\n\"Every evolution works to purify, evolve, or somehow add to your current bloodline. Similar to what an actual beast goes through for evolutions. With the required materials of course, most commonly blood or life-blood. These changes don't outwardly affect the body and will not show up cosmetically unless called upon.\n\n\"This process also makes removing the bloodline exceptionally hard and dangerous because not only are you removing the bloodline, but everything added on top of it during evolutions.\n\n\"Our time is coming to a close so I'll end it with this. All of this is typically done with the system's assistance during evolutions. I do not advise trying to do this manually as it will lead to quite gruesome results and cancerous growths without proper guidance.\" Cypteris ended his lecture and fizzled out soon after. It reminded me of the end of commercials when the warnings were sped through in the last second.\n\nInstead of 'may cause nausea and vomiting', it was 'can be gruesome and cause cancerous growths.'\n\nAll of us in the room sat in silence for a while mulling over what was said. It was a shock to find out what humanity had for a racial trait.\n\nUsually, in fantasy stories, humanity wasn't given a strong racial trait and was left to the wayside for others. Our only saving grace was that we reproduced fast.\n\nIt seemed reality was different. I didn't know a lot of other traits that other races had but ours didn't sound that bad. Taking on the aspects of other beings sounded powerful.\n\nThe only thing was if I wanted to give up being human to do it.\n\nPermanent changes sounded like it would change who I was and alter my mentality to be more in line with whatever I picked and I didn't know if I wanted that.\n\nSure, augmenting my body to become more powerful sounded good but I wasn't sure the cost was worth it.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" Austin came up next to me and asked.\n\nThe silence in the room made it so everyone would hear our conversation.\n\n\"I don't know what to think. It sounds like a powerful ability but I don't know if it is worth it.\" I said to some agreement of some based on their nods.\n\n\"But that option sounds powerful,\" Austin answered.\n\n\"At what cost though?\" I said. \"If the changes fundamentally alter who you are? When do you stop being who you were and become something else?\"\n\nHe didn't answer and let the silence come back. We all chewed on what we heard.\n\nI was sure many on earth would take that option. People would jump at the chance to gain wings of a bird, or cat-like features for fighting. Defensive options that were tied to a turtle shell or rhino hide.\n\nAll of it sounded too good to be true to me and I wasn't certain I liked it. Bloodlines were one thing, physically altering my body was another. Would the instincts of the beast carry over?\n\nWould draconic changes make people want to hoard things? Would canine changes instill a pack mentality? Feline hunting instincts?\n\nHow would it affect reproduction? I wasn't a parent but I wanted kids at some point in the future. Would this make that impossible? Or would I only be able to have kids with people who had similar changes?\n\nThere was too much risk involved in the process and that scared me. Maybe I wouldn't change who I was the first time, but what about the second? Or the third?\n\nThen again, ignoring the option was an equally bad idea. Losing out on the power from the trait wasn't something I wanted to do either. Ignoring a potential path of power wasn't something I could afford to do.\n\nIt seemed like the temporary option was designed with that in mind and was my answer, but I knew too little about it to say for certain. It was something I would have to look into extensively before my evolution.\n\nI didn't even have a bloodline yet and that was something I had been looking forward to. I eventually wanted to make my own, but for now I would use one I could assimilate. I could always change it later. From what we learned, it was possible but extremely painful. I could deal with a little pain.\n\nWe could buy bloodlines from the store but the cost was something I still couldn't afford. I would have to find a way to make more than I had been currently if I wanted to get one in a timely manner. And a good one at that. The powerful ones looked like they cost more.\n\nI knew Austin wanted to go explore the next-door pylon that we had found, killing all of the monsters there would give me a lot of points. It would also make my decision about the evolution come faster than I would want.\n\nBeing level 39, I only had 11 levels to make up my mind. The evolution to E-rank happened at level 50 and it was coming fast. Especially with the monsters coming every wave being higher level than me giving me more experience. There was also the option to defer my decision till the D-rank and keep being 100% human, but I would miss out on the first change.\n\n\"Did he say that demons were real?\" Abigail pointed out.\n\nShe had been reading over the notes she took and pointed out something that all of us had glossed over.\n\nThe alien mentioned how using demonic material led to bad results and that meant that there were demons to get material from. That sent us on an entirely different tangent, and with most of my family being religious, not one I wanted to go on.\n\nThe confirmation that demons existed gave credence to the possibility of angels and I didn't want to open that can of worms right now. A multiversal war of angels vs. demons was a distraction I didn't need if it was real.\n\nWhile they babbled on about it, I left the room to get some air. It was a lot of information to dump on someone and it was difficult to work my way through it.\n\nI pulled up how many points I had to see how close I was to a bloodline.\n\n\nPoints: 165,332\n\n\nSince the 11th wave when I blew all of my points on upgrading the wall, I had been saving everything I got. I had earned well over 200,000 by this point but my expenditures brought it down.\n\nThe rune I bought was 25,000, metal and tools for the forge were expensive. I blew nearly 50k on the metal slab I just bought. Another skill was available for 25,000 but I decided against it. One skill wasn't worth it and there were other things I was saving for.\n\nThe latest wave, Wave 23, netted me nearly 50,000 by itself.\n\nA bloodline was expensive though, and if I was going to keep it I needed to choose wisely. Bloodlines could be evolved and changed, in the worst case removed, but I wanted to make the right choice the first go-round so I didn't have to deal with that.\n\nDecent bloodlines were expensive. Bloodlines tied to an affinity more so.\n\nI knew I wanted something with my affinity but I wasn't sure what. Obviously, dragons sounded cool and powerful but that wasn't something I could buy. Ice Phoenix sounded equally as good but again, not something I could buy. Cost wasn't the issue, the store didn't even have it. I couldn't even imagine what level of pylon was needed for the store to have those.\n\nSeeing as I could barely afford the ones available, anything better would be entirely out of my budget. It was frustrating to be limited to something that I could afford. There were devices I could buy that could be used on anything I killed to gain its bloodline, but those were up there in cost too.\n\nPlus, I wasn't sure what kind of beasts were out there and if the time spent looking would be worth it. The devices didn't have a 100% success rate as well so I could fail and be a waste of time.\n\nAll of this was so much to think about and it was making me want to go and hit something!\n\nAustin must have sensed my mood for he walked up decked out in his gear holding my armor and hammer.\n\n\"Want to go on an adventure?\" He said with a smile.\n\nI knew he was thinking along the same lines I had been and felt the urge to get more points. We had a wave tomorrow and doing what he had planned could get us injured.\n\nI thought about it for a bit-\n\n\"Come on, it'll be fun!\" He added.\n\nFuck it! What's the worst that could happen?\n\n\"Let's go,\" I said.\n\nAustin cheered and we made our way toward the overrun pylon Austin had found. At least I was going to get to hit something.\n\n\nI know this chapter was a bit exposition heavy, but I wanted to clearly explain the trait for humans. We're nearing the end of book 1 and soon will have a lot more action.\n\n\nRegarding the trait, I wanted something different than what most books do for humans. Most of the time they get a shitty trait that pales in comparison to what others get and I felt that was stupid. Humans are one of the most adaptable species on the planet and they should get something regarding that. It was somewhat modeled on the sheer amount of half-human things mythology has and the propensity humans, in fantasy land, have to fuck nearly everything. (I mean things in fantasy like, half-elves, half-orcs, half-literally anything.)\n\n\nIf there are questions about it I can clarify in the comments below like I have done before! Don't hesitate to ask because if you have a question, someone else probably is thinking the same thing.\n\n\nWill bloodlines affect class choices?\n\n-It depends on use. For certain people, a bloodline will affect them a lot more than for others. A rogue with a shadow panther type bloodline would use it every time they fight. A smith with a fire giant bloodline would use it a lot for smithing. Someone who doesn't use their bloodline often will have it color their evolutions less. Also, it will only be one of the options. It wouldn't take over all 5 evolution choices if it does affect class choices.\n\nCypteris said the most common is a mix of the two paths, Chris will go purely temporary or he might dip a little into permanent but go mostly temporary?\n\n-It depends but most likely not. I have no plans for him going permanent but may change. As a reader, I'm not a huge fan of when an MC changes race so if it ever does happen, it will be minimal. I hesitate to say no definitively because I don't want to completely veto the idea. Plus, what I consider minor changes aren't that big of a deal, but others might think they are.\n\n\nAlso, if it wasn't clear from Chris' thoughts, he will not be going the permanent change route. I feel like I should preface this now before anyone feels put off. He will stay human throughout the entire series. Going that route is fine, though, I don't want to hate on it but that isn't the direction I want to take the MC. Other characters will and some will take it too far, but Chris will abstain from changing his race."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 76 - Vunderbar\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: level-up occurs"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Getting to the pylon wasn't that hard. With the stat points we were working with a solid 2 hour jog was enough to get there and it didn't even wind us.\n\nWe were used to it by now and we got into it with gusto. The monsters were roaming about the pylon in different groups and started quite weak compared to what we were used to.\n\nThe waves spawned level 38 monsters for us to fight now and the ones in the outer ring were only level 30.\n\nAustin and I both decided to ignore the math and leave the strength near the pylon a surprise. This was supposed to be a fun battle/adventure, using our heads too much was against the point.\n\nWe began fighting the small groups, trying to be as quiet as possible, but our efforts were ignored. It was like they had a sixth sense and knew we were there. We might as well have been holding up a sign saying 'Here we are!'.\n\nStealth wasn't my strong suit anyway so after it was broken, loud and heavy was the way to go. I got to start slinging around ice bolts and Austin got to use more flashy skills, literally.\n\nHe had consigned himself to skills without an outward effect as some form of training or keeping stealth, or a mixture of the two. I didn't care enough to ask. I had done the same to get one of my early skills upgraded once before.\n\n\nYou have upgraded a skill:\n\nThrowing Weapon Proficiency(Beginner) -> Throwing Weapon Proficiency(Novice)\n\n\nA while ago, I fought groups of monsters with only a conjured javelin of ice. Throwing it at any that came close. I practice both physically throwing it and launching it with [Ice Manipulation].\n\nI still regretted the skill choice but I would make the most of it.\n\nWe both went through stints where we didn't use certain skills to train and it wasn't something that abnormal for us. I occasionally didn't use my hammer and brawled with my fists to practice if I ever got disarmed.\n\nWith [Ice Manipulation] I could form ice gauntlets to have little spikes on the knuckles for added effect.\n\nI wasn't worried about my hammer being removed, since I could call it back to me with [Ice Manipulation], but it breaking worried me. I needed to be ready to fight without it.\n\nMy Law made breaking it hard, but my Least Law wasn't meant to hold up against 600 stat points of strength. My full power boost from Avalanche wasn't something I had anticipated when I made the hammer.\n\nTrying to upgrade my Law into a Lesser Law was proving difficult. I knew it wasn't something that people started worrying about until the evolution to D-rank, but I wanted it now.\n\nI got my Least Law a rank early, I could also get my Lesser Law early. Something about it was different though. To get my Least Law I connected with my element and 'meditated' on making my ice stronger and colder.\n\nOut of the many aspects that Ice was, I focused on those two. To go further down the road and increase my 'enlightenment', I needed to focus on other aspects of ice.\n\nI wanted a wind chill type of effect that would make anything in my range have to fight off the cold, but that had aspects of Wind that I didn't have. I thought about branching out to comprehend a Wind Law, like Hal, but decided against it.\n\nI could focus on that after the tutorial was over and I had time to settle down. I needed to stick with what I knew.\n\nWith the wind chill option out, I thought about the slow effect that ice usually had in games. Usually, ice was a debuff that slowed enemies or froze them.\n\nIt was like my aspect of 'Strength and Cold' needed something to prop it up to reach further heights. Information on it still wasn't available and it was driving me crazy. It felt like another aspect was needed to further my Law down the road.\n\nAfter we were out, I would buy every scrap of information just out of spite. Even if the 'System' wasn't sentient, I was going to spite it anyway.\n\n[Momentum of the Avalanche(R)] had long since activated and we were wading through the bodies thrown at us. I was in front with Austin behind, marching toward the center of the lollipop.\n\n\"You think about which bloodline you want?\" Austin shouted over the sounds of battle behind me. The beasts still weren't that strong and keeping a conversation wasn't that hard. We had fought together enough to know what the other was going to do.\n\nIt was a valid question and I was still debating which I wanted. There were options that all gave different effects. Arctic Dire Wolf was an option, one of the cheapest, that was decent. It would increase my cold powers and give me a slight leadership boost.\n\nLeadership wasn't something I cared overly much about though. Dire Polar Bear was another option. It would greatly increase my strength when called upon and give a slight boost of ice powers.\n\n\"I don't know. I'm not thrilled about the permanent option so I need to be careful which bloodline I pick. Did you buy anything to clarify what he meant?\" I yelled back after slamming my hammer down onto a monster with a squelch.\n\n\"Yeah, I bought some about it. It said that one of the main things that the temporary option does is burn their bloodline for great strength. A bloodline is mainly dormant and only gives a slight boost to whatever aspect it is. So a Bear bloodline will give a little strength, bird bloodline gives better eyesight and so on.\n\n\"The dormant state is what bloodlines are in most of the time and gives the smallest boost. In a fight, you can call upon the bloodline to give a bigger boost for a short period of time, kind of like a boosting skill. Think about it like a borrowed power consumable and can't last forever. This is something most races can do. Even animals can do it with their own bloodline.\n\n\"This is where humanity's trait comes into play. We can go a step further and burn the bloodline we have for a greater boost. It takes what we build on it with our evolutions and makes it an order of magnitude stronger. Where another race would only get 20 strength stat points, a human would get 40.\"\n\nHe took a break to concentrate on one of his skills before shooting out a beam of light piercing through three beasts, leaving behind a scorching hole in all three. [Solar Ray] was quite the skill if he took the time to charge it up.\n\n\"The stronger the bloodline, the greater the effect. It only works with the temporary option though. If you choose the permanent changes you can only call upon your bloodline like everyone else. It said something about only so much power can be harnessed or whatnot. I didn't read too far into that.\" He finished.\n\nThis decision seemed more important the more I heard about it. I wanted something strong but didn't have the points to buy one.\n\n\"What about you? Do you know which one you want?\" I asked.\n\nWe had finished off the last of the monsters around us and were in a lull before more came.\n\n\"A phoenix one would be cool! I found information that said Solar Phoenixes were real. Think about having one of those!\" Austin got excited as he explained.\n\n\"My light would take on a radiation effect, increased regeneration, and the possibility of flight! What more could I want!\"\n\nAll the information we bought said that full transformation was possible only at the high ranks, but partial transformation wasn't out of the picture. If he could manifest only wings, then flight wasn't off the table. I didn't know what tier made that possible but I went along with his fantasy.\n\nI had seen the Ice Phoenix bloodline mentioned in information but we wouldn't be able to afford it even if it was in the store. Even if we went pylon to pylon, slaughtering every monster in our way, we wouldn't be able to afford it.\n\nIts cost was astronomical, matching the power it held. Dragons also weren't available but their lesser forms were. Wyverns were up there and drakes were the closest to our budget. Wyrms were more likely.\n\nA Frost Wyrm could evolve into a Dragon bloodline given enough material and energy, but it was highly unlikely.\n\nAfter ingesting a bloodline, we could evolve it the same ways a beast could, so devolved versions could work just as fine if given the time and energy needed to evolve it.\n\nA Frost Wyrm didn't sound very great, but with a little care and nurturing Frost Dragon certainly did.\n\n\"We can't afford that and you know it.\" I popped his bubble.\n\nThere was some grumbling about it and he was a little more violent than necessary with the monster group that came at us next. We both had to give our options more thought.\n\nEvery monster was over level 30 and we were both getting over 450 per kill.\n\nThere were hundreds for us to kill.\n\nAs the distance between us and the center closed, the beasts got stronger and gave more points. It wasn't all one type which made it harder for us to get through. The non-uniform groups threw us off.\n\nLightning Tigers paired with Blaze Lions. Acid Spiders with Stone Salamanders. It was a mixture of all of the waves and all of them had grown. They didn't stay the same level as when they spawned in and increased in level just the same as we had.\n\nIt took us almost two hours to get to the center which was perfect timing for me, not so for Austin. My boost from [Avalanche(R)] built up to make me stronger, Austin was huffing a bit from exertion.\n\nHe wasn't out of breath entirely, but he wasn't the 100% he started at. Neither of our mana pools were full either. Mine had more than his since I could rely on my strength while he used skills more often.\n\nAt the center, where the strongest monster sat, was a dire wolf. The dead bodies of other waves were strewn around and I could see teeth marks on their bodies. It looked like the wolf had eaten them.\n\nUsing identity left me stunned.\n\n\n[Prime Alpha Direwolf – Level 45]\n\n\nIt was a massive beast of over 10 feet with a mixture of white and grey fur. Its muzzle was covered in the blood of a carcass it was eating and marred in scars. Some fur was missing from previous fights but that only added to its threatening atmosphere.\n\nThe temperature was frigid around it and something about it resonated with me. It had an Ice Law. Or something close to it.\n\nIt was the highest-level monster I had seen and it was a boss. It shouldn't have been here.\n\n\"When did this pylon go dark?\" I asked.\n\nWe hadn't heard from the people who claimed this pylon in quite a while. I didn't concern myself with it because it wasn't important at the time. I was focused on keeping my family alive.\n\n\"Around wave 10, when Kyle died,\" Austin answered. That answered why we didn't know. We shut ourselves off after that happened and didn't pay attention to what happened to the others around us.\n\nThat meant this wolf had survived for 13 waves and fed on all of the bosses that came after it.\n\nWhen a pylon fell, the beasts of the wave that conquered it took over, turning it into a pseudo den or home. Consecutive waves still spawned in but instead of fighting the participants, they fought each other for dominance.\n\nWhoever won, stayed. Some of the losing wave left and went into the wilderness but most stayed and became part of the inhabitants. With every pylon that fell the woods became increasingly inhospitable due to the rising number of monsters. It was why we saw the various beasts from all of the waves.\n\nIt was also why there were so many. Some died in the fight for dominance and some died fighting each other afterward, they were beasts after all, but there was a lot compared to a normal wave.\n\nThis Direwolf Alpha had beaten every boss that came after it and had the experience and levels that came with it. I looked at Austin and he had a blazing smile on his face.\n\n\"This is gonna be fun.\" He said.\n\nI had to admit, a part of me was going rearing to go, but I didn't think this was the best decision. We had a wave tomorrow and this was a fight we didn't need.\n\nBefore I could convey that, Austin shot out a beam of light at the wolf, getting its attention.\n\nI was so taken aback, that I just sputtered not knowing which to say first. 'What the fuck are you doing?' or 'Are you insane?' Austin knew what I was trying to say and responded.\n\n\"Oh, come on. Live a little. This'll be fun!\" He said while dancing around the wolf's retaliatory strike.\n\n\"We're speaking when this is over!\" I yelled at him as he got further away.\n\n\"Don't be a killjoy and have some fun. You're always so worried all the time.\" He quipped back.\n\nBeing forced into a battle I didn't want was annoying but I couldn't do anything about it now.\n\nAt first, the wolf only sent some wind blades at Austin in response. It seemed it had a mixture of wind and ice for affinities. It was the first time I saw a mix of two. The wind blades were powerful and would kill any of the monsters outside, but Austin just danced around them.\n\nWhile we were talking, the boss got up from its interrupted meal and got ready. It lifted its head in the air before letting out a massive howl.\n\n\"AWWWOOOOOOO!\"\n\nWith that howl, monsters poured into the area from the side we didn't come from.\n\n\"You get the cannon fodder, I'll play with the puppy!\" Austin shouted.\n\n\"Mememe(mocking sounds), fight all the monsters Christopher, I'll do nothing while dancing around,\" I said under my breath in a mocking tone.\n\nDecision made for me, I got to work.\n\nMy hammer was still dripping blood from the previous fights and more got caked on.\n\nI carried the ice I had been using with me and started slinging it around. Slicing off limbs, stabbing in eyes, crushing skulls.\n\nMy skill with [Ice Manipulation] was downright scary. My range had increased to over 30 feet and my control was great.\n\nUsing [Ice Arrow(Un)] I could curve it to hit multiple monsters after it went through the first. It had enough power to skewer 3 or 4 beasts if I controlled it right. It was tricky to get the hang of since it went so fast, but practice was abundant with the waves.\n\nIt lost power with every monster it went through and got stuck in the third victim, a lightning tiger. A [Shatter(Un)] on the arrow was enough to kill it. After lightly penetrating the monster, what would usually be a superficial wound, [Shatter(Un)] blasted ice chunks into the beast and killed it.\n\nIf I was close enough, I could direct [Shatter(Un)] to only explode in one direction. It worked great with [Ice Wall(Un)]s exploding out away from me or directing the ice to deal more damage to monsters.\n\nBeing as far away as I was, I couldn't direct the ice shards but it was still enough.\n\nClaws and teeth tried to slow me down but it all scattered off my ice armor. Any that got through were denied drawing blood from my high fortitude.\n\nI used the time getting here to have a relaxing fight where I didn't need to worry which resulted in gains I didn't expect. Gains that made this fight easier.\n\n\nYou have upgraded a skill:\n\nHeavy Weapon Proficiency(Novice) -> Heavy Weapon Proficiency(Apprentice)\n\n\nIt seemed letting go and not worrying about what was behind me pushed the skill over the edge. I was fighting how I wanted to, without regard for anything around me.\n\nAustin could hold his own and I could do whatever I wanted.\n\nMy armor skill was once again behind, but that was fine. It would go up in time.\n\nWith the upgrade, my hammer was more fluid and it bashed in heads at an increased pace. It was wonderful.\n\nI felt like shouting, \"Vunderbar!\"\n\nEven though I didn't want this fight, I was smiling behind the blood. I didn't cover my face with ice to be able to breathe which usually resulted in my face getting covered in it.\n\nIt was nice to be able to let loose like this. Fight without the constant worry, just my hammer and brawn against the world.\n\n\nDon't forget to rate and follow if you're liking the story"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 77 - Defense\nTarget length: ~3200 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Craig (Mindbreaker)\n\n\nCraig had been watching the camp for a couple of days now and he finally got a decent chance to take it. It was one of the strongest camps he had come across with thick stone walls and catapults fastened to the walls. There was only one that he saw that was stronger.\n\nThe camp itself looked like a medieval castle.\n\nAll of the other camps were barely holding on when he conquered them and this was a stark difference. Well, except for that stubborn lightning mage but Craig didn't like to think about him.\n\nThat fight made him lose a good portion of his army and frustrated him to no end. Lightning was a weakness that Craig hadn't anticipated. After his minions got electrocuted, his mental compulsions were wiped out, turning his army into mindless husks.\n\nHis orders wouldn't work and he had to recapture them to reinstate his control. The jolt to their system flushed out the claws he dug into them.\n\nHe was glad that he pushed the mage out of his camp but disappointed he hadn't killed him. Craig had been there personally to finish him off but he fled faster than Craig thought he would.\n\nHe left a few behind to stall and Craig was too late to stop him. The stone walls they held took too long to get through and the mage ran into the territory of the accursed trapper before Craig could get to him. Craig wasn't going to follow into that death trap.\n\nHe had made a few forays into her territory before and they never ended well. His believers weren't mindful enough to look out for traps. There could even be obvious tripwires and his army would walk right into them.\n\nCraig had to rework how he gave orders to get over that issue. If he told a minion to go 'that way' it would override their impulse to watch out for traps. This turned his orders into convoluted messes like 'Watch out for traps while going that way' and every failure made him up the complexity. It was immensely frustrating.\n\nIt didn't always work but it ended better than the previous way.\n\nIt was the main reason he was saving that camp for last. Craig had taken most of the eastern border and worked his way north from there. After reaching the northeast corner, he turned west to sweep along the northern border.\n\nTraveling, personally and with his army, took up most of his time. The tutorial area wasn't small and it took days to reach all of the camps. His skills were high enough that he could convert a camp in 2 days but he had to spend the time to get there. He could be in and out before a wave came if he timed it right.\n\nIt made his army have fewer casualties, but he was lower level for it. He was a few levels shy of the next evolution and he couldn't wait to see what he would evolve into.\n\nLevel 50 seemed like a big milestone and he was excited.\n\nHe turned his attention back to the camp he was watching. It had some strong people and he could already see how useful they would be under his control. He hadn't seen them fight a wave but they looked like veterans.\n\nEvery one of them was in the F-rank and most were up there in levels as well. They were on average stronger than those in his army. They had less than a tenth of the number though.\n\nAfter the lightning mage, Craig's army had dwindled, but it was enough for this camp at least. There were only 20 or so people in it.\n\nUsually, Craig would wait until right after a wave to attack when the camp was at their weakest but something happened to make him move the attack up. As he was watching, the two strongest people in camp left. It left him in shock at first that such an opportunity presented itself but he quickly worked to speed up his planned attack. If he could conquer this place early he could move on to more camps sooner.\n\nHe had a minion follow the two as they left for a while and saw that they were preoccupied. They wouldn't be able to get back in time before he took the camp. Once they arrived, Craig could use the camp's defenses against them.\n\nPlus, what could two people do? He had an army.\n\nWith his plan made, he signaled for it to begin.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nAbigail\n\n\nAbigail checked in on the project Scott and Brayden were working on. The two of them had been working almost nonstop building defenses. As the waves grew in strength, simple spike traps didn't work anymore.\n\nBoth men pushed their professions to make things that could harm the beasts coming to kill us. Scott strengthened and sharpened wood to an unnatural degree and Brayden put it all together into a contraption to kill.\n\nAll it needed was for Allison to place it to receive the boosts from her class and skill to increase lethality.\n\nThey had learned that splitting the process up worked best. Scott made all of the wooden parts, Vinny made all of the metal, and Brayden put it together. All to have Allison place it.\n\nEvery person added to the project with their skills and boosted it from either their class or profession to make something greater than the sum of its parts.\n\nThe traps could be placed as soon as they were built, but Connor's part was done the morning before the wave. His poison lost effectiveness if it sat out for too long so he had to wait to apply it to the traps.\n\nHe spent most of his time brewing up new and improved poisons to use. Now that he had finished his body refining poison, he was free to make up new nasties to coat the traps with.\n\nMitchell's procedure had worked perfectly with only a few hitches. Abigail and the other healers were enough to make up for it and Mitchell would soon wake up with a Body of Wood.\n\nConner's direct input wasn't required for his poison to work, but he was the only one immune to his creations. If anyone else touched it, the poison would infect them.\n\nThey had antidotes, obviously, but not an infinite supply.\n\nConner's new Law left him immune and marked him as the seventh person in camp to have one. Abigail herself didn't even have one yet. She spent too much of her time keeping the camp running.\n\nShe knew from the lectures she needed to get one before the evolution to E-rank and now that there was a time limit, she would add some time to her schedule for it.\n\nHer profession was nearing the cap and she didn't want to waste any experience sitting at level 50.\n\nRunning the town gave a surprising amount of experience. The constant need to defend it added to successfully defending it made her level rise the fastest out of everyone's.\n\nEven faster than Chris.\n\nThinking about her brother made her frustrated to no end. The two idiots ran off to go somewhere without so much as a goodbye. Chris needed to learn that the two strongest people in camp couldn't just up and leave.\n\nWhat if they were needed and they couldn't reach them? Chris didn't even bring a way for them to contact him. He was lucky Abigail prepared so well.\n\nBeing a Town Mayor had its perks. She could message the owner of the pylon with one of her skills so she could contact the idiot even though he wasn't here.\n\nAbigail wished he would think through what he did more so she wouldn't have to do it for the both of them.\n\n\"Honey, you need to take a break,\" Jonathan said from behind her.\n\nHe moved to massage her shoulders after coming up behind her. She leaned into his touch and sighed deeply.\n\n\"I know Jon, but I can't. Everything needs to be perfect for the wave tomorrow.\" Abigail's constant worries were always on her mind.\n\nJonathan had been trying to get her to take time to destress and cope with what she was feeling but she couldn't find the time. She barely fit in the therapy sessions she did have.\n\nNot everyone in the camp went, but it was a resource Abigail felt they all needed. It was points well spent in her mind, even if she didn't go as much as she wanted.\n\nThe losses and grief all of them were no doubt feeling needed a constructive outlet, unlike how Chris dealt with it.\n\nAny time he got stressed, overwhelmed, or thought about the people not here anymore, he picked up his hammer and left. He would come back a few hours later covered in blood.\n\nIt wasn't healthy.\n\nEvery time Abigail brought it up he waved her off. Chris spent more time trying to help Austin through his Dad's death than dealing with his own feelings. She still remembered one particular heated argument with him about it.\n\nIt was after the Blaze Lion wave where they lost Dawson and Dennis. She had found Chris after the battle still in his worn armor stained with blood sitting in front of the gate he had defended. It seemed he was covered in blood more often than not these days.\n\n\n\"Chris, why don't you go to the session tomorrow? Everyone could use the chance to grieve and do what little they can to cope.\" She pleaded.\n\nEven with her busy schedule, she still fit in some time for it, but Chris refused. He always said he had better things to do.\n\n\"Look out there,\" Chris said, pointing to the bodies strewn about, \"What do you see?\"\n\nAbigail wasn't much in the mood for riddles but she played along. Chris wouldn't be doing this for no reason.\n\n\"Dead monsters,\" She answered.\n\n\"Yes,\" He nodded, \"How far do they reach?\"\n\nShe hadn't expected that follow up but surveyed the area before answering, \"Just inside the gate.\"\n\nMost of the bodies were stacked right outside the gate but some had managed to get through and died on the inside. Not a lot, but enough to be noticeable. The amount paled in comparison to the ones outside the gate thought.\n\n\"Every wave gets harder to defend. Just look at the number that got by me.\" He pointed at the small fraction of the bodies inside the gate, \"I do not have time to focus on anything else. My attention needs to be here.\"\n\nHe thumped the spot covered in the most blood. His spot in the gateway where he did battle.\n\nAbigail wasn't sure how to respond, but she tried anyway.\n\n\"Chris, what you're doing isn't healthy.\" She said quietly. What her brother was doing worried her. He wasn't the same as he used to be.\n\n\"You think I don't know that?! That I can't see what's happening?! I'm not so blind I don't notice how what happened affects people. Two more because of what? A stray shot!\" The way he said it with such heat in his voice, such anger, slightly scared her.\n\n\"I do not have time to focus on what we lost. I can't afford to pull my attention away from what needs to be done. My job is to stand in this gateway and stop as many monsters as I can.\" He slammed his hammer down, \"Any stray worry, errant thought, about the people behind me hinders that. My job is here and that's the only thing I can worry about right now.\"\n\nHe seemed to deflate after his outburst before finishing quietly.\n\n\"If I open that bottle, Pandoras Box in a way, there is no closing it. There will be time to do that later. I will do what I must to be the one left standing after this is over.\"\n\nAs he finished talking, he had the same look on his face as he did after dealing with the thieves. While it pained her to admit, she didn't push anymore. She would hold him to that later though.\n\n\nThe memory played again in her mind before she pushed it away. It was painful to see her family hurt and Chris wasn't the only one she had to deal with.\n\n\"Where are the kids?\" One of them was usually watching them and with Jon here, they were unaccounted for.\n\n\"Your Grandmother is with them,\" He answered.\n\nUgh. That was another thing she didn't know how to deal with. Grandma wasn't the same anymore and Abigail doubted she ever would be. After Granddad died, she spent most of her time watching the kids.\n\nIt was like she was spending as much time with them as possible when she could. It was sad to think about.\n\n\"That's good. Spend-\" Her response was cut off by the alarm bell.\n\nHearing the bell, Abigail went into high gear trying to find out what was happening.\n\nRushing to where the lookout was she found Carrie ringing the bell with frantic enthusiasm.\n\n\"Carrie, what's wrong!\" Abigail shouted.\n\n\"We're under attack!\" Her shout got everyone in motion.\n\n\"From the East!\"\n\nWith a direction, her family all raced up the walls and to where we usually stood for the waves.\n\nConnor and Allison took up the catapults and the rest of them took out their weapons.\n\nAbigail shrugged on her armor as quickly as possible while running toward the eastern wall. She debated sending the message to Chris now but decided against it. She needed to see what they were facing before she called him back.\n\nHer armor was easy enough to get on with all of the practice and she saw everyone else gear up with the same practiced ease. Armor and swords replaced cloth and tools in record time.\n\nCarrie started shooting off arrows from the tower and Abigail saw them spilt into more as they flew. One turned into two before turning into four. The arrows kept splitting as the flew until 16 flew toward whatever threat they were facing. Hal rushed up the tower, bow on his back, to join her.\n\nRachel reached the wall first and Abigail felt the heat start to rise from her direction.\n\nHer husband rushed to the gate where he usually stood and Earth moved up his form to cover him. He had a similar armor skill as Chris, except instead of ice, it was earth. He broke off from where she was heading and rushed toward the gate with the rest of the melee warriors.\n\nReaching the top of the wall let her see what was happening.\n\nA mass of different monsters were attacking and skills rained down from the wall on top of them. Abigail was confused, the wave wasn't supposed to start until tomorrow? And they were only under attack from one direction. It was odd.\n\nEveryone was slightly confused, but no one questioned it now. They had enough sense of mind to fight now and ask questions later.\n\nThe monsters ran at them from the forest a few miles to the east, farther back than where waves usually spawned.\n\nThey were also a mixture of beasts they had faced before already along with a few new ones they hadn't seen. The forest had a lot of animals and Abigail guessed the new beasts were from there.\n\nStill, this was something they had done with ruthless efficiency over 20 times by now. A surprise wave wasn't going to catch them lacking.\n\nHal had the best [Identify] skill in camp and once he surveyed the battlefield he gave his report.\n\n\"Wide range of levels averaging at the low 30's. No boss in sight!\" He shouted.\n\nThat was new. This wave was weaker than Abigail expected. The wave tomorrow was supposed to bring level 38s. Not level 30s\n\nThe number of beasts was another difference. Usually during the wave, they were more unified and charged as a group, but these didn't.\n\nThey all charged at different speeds and acted like a conglomerate of individuals rather than a cohesive wave.\n\nThe strength of the wave put Abigail off, or rather, the lack thereof.\n\nSomething about it didn't sit right with her. This was a break in the pattern that hadn't happened and it was out of character for the tutorial to change so suddenly.\n\nHer family was busy fighting while she tried to work through what was happening. There weren't any injuries for her to heal yet which left her free to direct their defense.\n\nArrows flited into flesh along with magic raining down destruction. Their supply of throwables wasn't touched by the few who needed them.\n\nThere weren't enough enemies to justify using them.\n\nOnce the beasts reached the wall, the warriors got to work. With all of them on the same side, they cut through the monsters with ease. Even without Chris and Austin, they were stronger than the rabble thrown at them.\n\nJust when she thought this would get cleared up easily, the bodies of the fallen monsters started to swell.\n\nThe corpses grew before exploding out with astounding force.\n\nThe explosion blew all of the warriors back and some had noticeable injuries.\n\nThe force even knocked some of the people on the wall back and Abigail saw Sam and Ashely going around with healing.\n\nNo one was badly hurt but the gate was blown in from the force. It was where most of the bodies were concentrated and worked to increase the blast in that area. The gate leaned on the ground, torn from its hinges.\n\nHer breath hitched initially since that was where her husband was, but his earth-clad form wasn't damaged from the blow.\n\nBefore Abigail had a chance to wonder what was going on, she saw more movement coming at them from the east.\n\n\"It's people!\" Hal and Carrie both shouted.\n\nPeople? Was it more Raiders?\n\nNow that so much was unknown and out of her control, she fired off her message to Chris.\n\n'Under attack, people and beasts combined. Unknown threat level.'\n\nHopefully, he would get here in time to deal with everything.\n\nThey were strong and could hold out for a while, but this group was proving clever. They tricked them with the beasts to blow open the gate. Did they force the monsters to swallow explosives? Who would think of that.\n\nWere the beasts from before tamed? They certainly didn't look like it. They had the same ferocity and mannerisms as the beasts of the wave.\n\nExcept there were explosives hidden in their bodies.\n\nShe trusted in their defenses. Abigail knew how much work went into them and getting into the wall was only the beginning.\n\nThe people attacking would soon find out the folly of thinking just because the gate was open, they were weak.\n\nAbigail almost pitied them. Chris's mercy was soon running out and she didn't think that these people would be let off with only a missing hand.\n\n\nDon't forget to rate and follow if you're liking the story."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 78 - Spirit Anchor\nTarget length: ~3100 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, boss encounter, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jonathan\n\n\nThe explosion rocked him back and some of his stone armor fell off from the force. Standing right next to the source of the blast wasn't the best position to be in.\n\nJonathan was doing his best to not let any of the monsters through and he hadn't expected them to blow up in his face.\n\nSome of the other warriors were injured and bleeding which left him down some men. Thomas, Abigail's Dad, was on the ground bleeding from somewhere along with Vincent next to him.\n\nVincent spent most of his time in the forge but that didn't mean he didn't know how to fight. Everyone in camp knew how to fight out of necessity. Vincent spent the waves manning a catapult now, but he was still a warrior through his class and utilized his blacksmith's hammer well.\n\nScott and Brayden also took up arms and were fighting down here with him. With Austin and Chris gone, and Mitchell still recovering, that left 18 people to defend.\n\nWith the two strongest gone, it fell on Jonathan's shoulders to lead. This was a position that he hadn't wanted to find himself in. If it happened, that meant their two strongest were gone.\n\nRachel was strong and so was Hal, but they weren't the ones spearheading the defense. He was the one down here making sure to hold the line. Both of them got to stay up on the wall behind protection.\n\n\"People Incoming!\"\n\nWas all the warning Jonathan got before spells started to land around him. Enemy mages were shooting at him and arrows planked off his armor and shield.\n\nMagic shields went up from the wall that stopped most of the projectiles but it wasn't big enough to reach Jonathan down below in the gate.\n\nHe had to raise a [Stone Aegis] to help keep the attacks at bay.\n\nHe was in charge of the defense here and he couldn't let the attacks land freely. People were still getting back on their feet from the explosion and Ashley and Sam were still running around healing people.\n\nWhile people were recovering, he weaved [Earth Manipulation] to build up a wall of rock to use for cover against the attacks.\n\nHe heard the catapults launch and their subsequent explosions. It was the first time they had fired and it meant they were in trouble. As a rule, they tried to keep the catapult's use to a minimum.\n\nThey were expensive to fire and were most effective against tightly clumped enemies. If they were being used now, it meant there were a lot more enemies coming.\n\nGritting his teeth, he pulled more earth upward to aid in his defense. If they could explode the gate, they would be able to get through his powers but it would slow them down.\n\n[Stone Wall]s went up as fast as he could make them to help defend for as long as possible.\n\nHe may not be Chris with his ungodly stamina and mana pool, but he had a decent-sized one. His profession as a Merchant didn't give the best stats but it was high level.\n\nMerchant stats could be customized to whatever Jonathan wanted, within reason. There was enough leeway with the profession that he could lean one way or the other with the stat points it gave. Merchant was a broad category and it helped him make up for weaknesses.\n\nHis class Stone Bulwark was made for this type of fighting. He was a defense specialist and his class was heavily tilted toward it with stat distribution. 4 Fortitude, 4 Endurance, 3 Vitality, 2 Strength, 1 Agility, 1 Perception, and 5 Free Points per level didn't leave much room for magical prowess.\n\nTilting his profession toward the magical side gave him enough mana to use his skills more freely. He still couldn't spam them like Chris seemed to do, but he could do enough.\n\nHis job during the waves was mostly to hem them in. Concentrate the bodies in one area for Carrie to take out with a rain of arrows or Rachel to obliterate with a fireball.\n\nFocusing on defense, he didn't have a ton of offensive skills to use. He had [Earth Spike] mostly because Chris wouldn't shut up about it.\n\nHis main skill for offensive purposes was the first one he got, [Power Strike]. He had since upgraded it into [Sturdy Blow] and it was the main thing he used to kill monsters.\n\nHis body was hard enough, and his skill with the sword pitiful enough, that he focused entirely on the shield. He had Vincent make two shields to use on both arms.\n\nThey were designed in such a way that their leading edge could be used as a weapon and Jonathan used them to devastating effect.\n\nHis [Shield Mastery] skill had reached apprentice rank long ago proving his affinity with the weapon. Protecting people was something he was good at and rising through the mastery ranks for the shield proved that.\n\nThe spell fire calmed slightly which notified him that the frontal assault would soon begin. It wasn't a moment later that he felt the melee attacks start to build on his makeshift wall.\n\nBy now, Ashely and Sam had either healed or removed anyone that was down and the melee brawl would soon begin. Jonathan wasn't a big talker but he felt like he needed to say something to the 5 or so people behind him.\n\nHe was left with Abigail's Dad(Thomas), Vincent, Allison, Brayden, and Scott to help him. The rest were up above slinging magic or arrows. Connor was technically a warrior but he focused mostly on Alchemy now but Ashley had to take him away to get healed.\n\nJonathan didn't see the wound, but it shouldn't have been too bad if Ashley elected to move him and he hadn't felt any of her more powerful healing skills go off.\n\nBeing married to a Healer left him privy to what their skills felt like and which ones were used in dire straights.\n\nAllison wasn't a warrior but she was close enough. She knew how to use a short sword and that was good enough.\n\n\"Get ready! They're almost through!\" He yelled for everyone's benefit.\n\nThey could see the earthen wall crumbling but he added it for himself mostly. The earth blocked his vision and he didn't know how many they were going to face when the earth finally crumbled.\n\nWhen it did, he saw a mass of people rushing toward him. There were at least 30 of them in the leading charge and that was after the ranged attackers had a go at them.\n\nInstantly, he noticed something off. Jonathan had been feeling off since the start of this 'wave' but now he really felt off. At first, he thought it was a surprise wave, like the others.\n\nBut there was no countdown for this wave. No timer either.\n\nThat was his first clue.\n\nThen the variety of the monsters was weird along with how weak they were.\n\nThat was his second clue.\n\nThe corpses exploded was the third and final clue, they were being attacked by people.\n\nThe raiders charged soon after and that was when he threw up the wall, cutting off his vision of what happened further. Now that he could see again, and assess the threat coming at him, his feeling of unease came back.\n\nThe people looked insane. Their armor was in tatters and their weapons were in disrepair. They charged mindlessly into the attacks coming at them and Allison's throwing knives reaped lives without issue.\n\nThey neither dodged nor used skills to defend. It seemed like the only thing they were programmed to do was attack. It almost seemed like they were walking into the knives flying their way.\n\nJonathan knew that they had some kind of [Identify Blocker] as Hal had said as much, but he tried anyway.\n\n\n[??? - Level ?]\n\n\nWithout much time to think, he got into fighting form. He bashed both shields together and used [Taunting Roar]. Initially, the skill required an actual roar. Something that Jonathan had vehemently tried to find a way around.\n\nHe still remembered the mocking that Chris and Austin gave him when he accidentally shouted the name of his skill one time. He was fighting a giant stone lizard for crying out loud, but they were merciless in their ribbing.\n\nGetting the skill to use the sound of his shields clanging was a challenge, but he did it. To both the two idiots' disappointment. They liked to make fun of and rate his 'roars' and were sad about the change.\n\nThere was one wave where he was placed with Austin at the same gate where after using the skill, Austin sang a Katy Perry song for the whole wave. The entire wave.\n\nA feat that Jonathan would have said was insane before he witnessed it.\n\nHis taunt worked and all of the rushing raiders focused on him. Seeing its effectiveness, his taunt worked a little too well. Usually, a few monsters ignored it and went for something else but that didn't happen here.\n\nEvery raider was caught up in it.\n\nHe didn't even get time to say Hi, Boo, or Shit before he started getting pummeled. Both his shields worked to defend but there were too many attacks.\n\nHis armor cracked and fell away under the onslaught and he was given little time to retaliate.\n\nThe other warriors had free reign to attack and used that time to great effect. The raiders were cut down with ruthless efficiency, but more were taking their place.\n\nArrows and magic from his own side landed near him to give Jonathan some breathing room.\n\nBodies built up and it made him slightly sick. He was used to the monsters and seeing human corpses build up at his feet was sickening. He had to push down the nausea that was building.\n\nAs the fight continued, injuries started to appear. Allison ran out of knives and joined in the melee receiving a few cuts. Scott got a stray blow to the leg that started to bleed profusely. He dropped to a knee momentarily and swung his sword wildly to fend off attacks.\n\nVincent lost his shield at some point and only had his blacksmithing hammer to defend himself.\n\nThey were losing.\n\nEven with the strength advantage, the numbers were too much. For every raider they cut down, two more took their place. It made him wonder where all these people came from.\n\nThere had to be over a hundred of them attacking. It wasn't only humans either, beasts and monsters were intermixed in their ranks adding to the chaos.\n\nFighting against humans was a new experience for most of them and that inexperience was costing them. Monsters didn't have skills they had to worry about. At most, monsters had an elemental attack that they used, not the skills that were flying at them now.\n\nArrows from opposing rangers pinged off armor and Allison went down with an arrow to the leg and abdomen, her short sword forgotten.\n\nVincent worked a fighting retreat carrying her behind the wall. His blacksmith's hammer danced between foes until he was safely behind the wall with the wounded girl.\n\nJonathan held the gate to the best of his ability. It was 6 feet of ground that he refused to give up. [Shield Bash] worked on repeat to fend off all he could. He didn't have the skill, nor ability, to use [Earth Manipulation] like Chris used [Ice Manipulation].\n\nChris wasn't far away and Jonathan only had to hold out until he came back. As much as the man liked to downplay his strength, Chris could handle this singlehandedly.\n\nAs much as it pained him to admit, Jonathan couldn't do that.\n\nSure, Jonathan tried, but he wasn't the same warrior that Chris was. He tried to be, for his kids' sake, but he couldn't.\n\nHe wasn't the force of nature that Chris was. Jonathan was a defender, a protector. He wasn't made for slaughtering armies.\n\nAs more of his side got injured and were taken away, the pressure mounted. He slammed his shields into the enemy with abandon but it wasn't enough.\n\nScott went down next but had enough left in him to retreat under his own power. Brayden joined him soon after.\n\nThe number of blades pointed against them made some find their mark eventually. Gaps in armor were found and blades caught weak points. Vincent was a damn good smith, but armor wasn't infallible.\n\nJoints needed to be able to move, and the body needed to bend.\n\nMagic rained down from the wall but it did little to deter the raiders. It was like they didn't care about the losses they were taking. The demoralizing effect wasn't there or didn't register.\n\nSoon, it was only Jonathan and Abigail's father, Thomas, left.\n\nThomas was on the stronger side but wasn't strong enough for the numbers they faced. Jonathan knew Chris was trying to prop his father up into a decent warrior, but Thomas wasn't there yet.\n\nHe fought valiantly but he was slowing down. They had been under attack for over 30 minutes and Thomas was dragging.\n\nHis axe swings were slower and the skills he used came sporadically.\n\n\"Retreat Thomas!\" Jonathan shouted.\n\nHe usually didn't refer to his father-in-law by his first name but calling him Mr. Zalenski was unnecessary.\n\n\"No! I can take it!\" Was his response. A blow to the leg staggered him during his response.\n\nA retaliatory axe strike took the offender's head but the damage was done. Blood seeped down his leg and dyed his armor red.\n\n\"It's fine. I've got this!\" Jonathan shouted back. His tone made him sound more confident than he was.\n\nSomething was rising in him. It reminded him of the time he tanked the boss of the 15th wave while Chris couldn't.\n\nThe stone lizard boss had launched him repeatedly off into the air but something was different at the time he was needed. Chris had been scrambling around with a broken arm and no weapon, his axe being lost at some point in the fight.\n\nSomething deep inside of him awoke at the thought they were going to lose. Chris was barely standing at the time and Austin couldn't damage it. His kids were here and he couldn't do anything to protect them.\n\nThe thought rankled him. He was a father, it was his job to protect his kids.\n\nBeing unable to lit a fire in him like nothing had before.\n\nSomething must have been noticeable on his face because when he went to aggro the boss, Chris let him.\n\nThe same feeling as then was coming back now. He was failing as a father if he let the raiders through and that was something he couldn't abide by.\n\nHis baby girl was behind him and he could not falter. Would not. His son was probably babbling on about dinosaurs in the bunker and Jonathan was his bulwark against the world.\n\nSomething inside of him resonated through his body, growing from deep within him. It wanted to know who he was.\n\nHe was a bulwark. The shield protecting his kids- his family.\n\nThe question of who he was wasn't enough. It was a part of the answer but the growing power in him wanted something else. It wanted something to latch onto. The growing power was a representation of who he was, it needed something else.\n\nSomething to anchor it.\n\nHe explored all he could about the feeling but it gave no hint. Jonathan was left clueless, it could be anything.\n\nHe dove deep, trying to find out what was required of him. He already expressed who he was. What else did it need?\n\nThomas finally heeded his command and Jonathan was left alone to hold the gate. He was the only thing standing in the way of people who would bring his family harm.\n\nHis shields started to shine with an unnatural glow. It wasn't mana coursing through them, but something else.\n\nWhile defending against a sword attack aimed at his hip, it finally clicked.\n\nThe power needed an anchor and he found one that worked. It could have been anything. An object, an idea, a place, anything.\n\nWhat Jonathan chose was a phrase. Something that connected to him so deeply that it was the anchor of who he was.\n\nAfter realizing it, and bringing it to bear, his power exploded. He wielded his shields with a grace and ability he never had before. The defender in him resonated with the weapons and boosted his ability with them.\n\nHis spirit poured into the two shields on his arm and they became more. They weren't just metal and wood any longer, they were a piece of his spirit that would sooner see his spirit destroyed than the shields break.\n\nThe phrase he picked rang out in his head and he took on a second wind. Chris had to be close and Jonathan only needed to hold out a little longer.\n\nHis anchor was a part of who he was and it would not fail him.\n\nFor his enemies had to do something before they made it inside.\n\nYou have to go through me first.\n\n\nWe finally see the first step along the path of the spirit. A spirit anchor is similar to the concepts of Path of Ascension and you will find out more soon, but think of it as a power representing who you are. For Jonathan, he was a protector, so any power associated with that gets a boost. It works kind of like a Law in that it isn't infinite. His spirit is only so strong and it can be worn down. Hopefully, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Jonathan was first. It was mentioned a few times that he was close to forming one. The feeling I referenced from the 15th wave is quoted below if you don't feel like going back to find it.\n\n\nFrom Chris's POV\n\n\"Jonathan made it back at some point and attempted to take its attention from me. I still had enough in me to keep going and was about to brush him off. The thing that changed my mind was the look in his eye. Jonathan looked resolute and like a man ready to fight to the death. Something in me resonated with it and I knew he would be able to do it. I let him take the boss from me and searched for my axe.\" - Chapter 47 Explosive.\n\n\nDon't forget to rate and follow if you're liking the story."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 79 - Field of Flames\nTarget length: ~3400 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Rachel\n\n\nThe warriors were getting pushed back. Jonathan was the only one still holding the gate against the raiders and he wouldn't last forever. Rachel did the best she could to eliminate as many as possible.\n\nShe cast [Fire Lance] and multiple [Fire Arrow]s on repeat. Every once in a while she would have to cast one of her more costly skills. [Fire Wall] and [Flame Pillar] were both great area denial skills but they came with the cost of increased mana.\n\nBoth area skills took more mana than over 5 [Fire Arrows]. Fighting the waves was always a balancing act for her, juggling mana cost for spells versus effect.\n\nA well-placed [Flame Pillar] could do more damage than 5 [Fire Arrows] but it all came down to timing and positioning. When the tutorial started, she would go overboard and blaze through her mana pool too fast with more powerful skills.\n\nThe waves beat that habit out of her. She was of no help to anybody if she was out of mana. She hadn't even taken up training with a weapon, putting all her time into practicing the arcane.\n\nAs a result, she was the best at it. She could weave the strongest spells and [Ritual Cast] with the most people. She could cast a spell using up to 5 people's mana pools and they didn't even have to be mages.\n\nNo other mage here could claim the same. It was an achievement she was proud of and one that worked to kill the boss on multiple occasions. If only she could have used it to save her son. Thinking of Kyle still hurt.\n\nShe was powerful, sure, but she alone couldn't take down the bosses. If it weren't for Jonathan and Chris keeping it at bay, she would be a sitting duck squashed as easily as an ant.\n\nAs the warriors holding the gate dwindled, she resorted to more powerful spells. She knew from experience that Jonathan could handle a little flame. She still tried to shield him from the brunt of her spells using [Fire Manipulation] but he could take a hit.\n\nThe man was a walking tank. Even more so than Chris in some aspects. Chris could take a fireball to the face and walk away unscathed just because of his stats, Jonathan had skills that produced the same effect.\n\nHis earth armor was notoriously hard to get through using fire. The flames just weren't able to pierce the armor and the force was the only thing that did damage.\n\nWith friendly fire out of the way, she threw down an [Immolate]. [Field of Flames] wasn't worth it and the less powerful skill was more than enough. The area around Jonathan started to heat up and the air began to warp and distort.\n\nThe raiders attacking showed no outward expression but their bodies started to burn. None of them were protected from the heat like Jonathan was. Burning flesh was never a pleasant smell but when one had fire abilities, it became endurable.\n\n[Immolate] was an area of effect skill that raised the temperature in said area to boiling. If left active for long enough, water would boil and fluids would evaporate. The skill wasn't powerful enough yet to melt metal. Her Law made it close, depending on the metal.\n\nIt also had the added effect of flooding the area with Heat and Fire mana. Heat mana was a lesser version of Fire mana but it worked to make her skills come easier.\n\nAfter the Blaze Lions, Rachel noticed how important changing the area to your affinity was. With her affinity readily available, mana cost went down, her regeneration increased, and the power of her spells went up.\n\nEverything became easier.\n\nThat was why she couldn't fight on the same side as Chris anymore. They would cancel each other out and spend most of the time fighting one another over control of the environment.\n\nShe would work to heat it and spread fire mana, he would work to cool it down and spread ice mana. The two couldn't occupy the same space. Like Earth and Wind, or Lighting and Water.\n\nThe mana types were anathema to one another and canceled each other out.\n\nWith the fire mana in the area, she gathered it up with [Fire Manipulation] and cast an overpowered and cost-reduced [Flame Thrower].\n\nThe skill was normally cast from the hand or body part, but it was easy enough to move the point of origin down in front of Jonathan. The range Rachel could launch spells from wasn't restricted to her body and hadn't been since the first week of the tutorial.\n\nRanged casting was one of the best techniques for training mana manipulation. It stressed the abilities in all the right ways to increase the effectiveness of nearly all skills.\n\nCasting a spell at range increased the mental strain, mana cost, and decreased the control she had over the spell which was perfect for training purposes.\n\nIf she used a too-powerful spell or went too far away, the spell would fail and the backlash would injure her but she was practiced enough to mitigate that.\n\nPractice and experience aided her in casting the [Flamethrower] and it wasn't even close to the maximum she could go.\n\nFlames poured out of where she anchored the spell and the raiders charging into it melted. The raiders behind them rushed into the flames without reservations following their brethren in death.\n\nThat was one of the first things that she noticed, they had no self-preservation skills and she had to adjust her skill use accordingly. Where monsters would dodge and go around a [Flame Pillar], the raiders would kill themselves charging through it.\n\nAs focused as she was on attacking, and being the most effective on the wall, ranged attacks started to rain down on her. Enemy spells and arrows started to target the biggest threat, which was her.\n\nThe magic was easy to defend. Their spells were almost childish in efficiency and the control of the spells the raiders launched was laughable. If she could spare the attention, she could rip them apart with just her mana manipulation skills.\n\nThe arrows were different. They injured her slightly but they weren't enough to really do any damage. [Mending Hearth] was enough to recover from the minuscule damage. Her self-healing skill saved the healers the trouble of coming to heal her.\n\nForced to defend, more raiders started to pressure Jonathan. Rachel thought he was about to falter, but to her surprise, he didn't.\n\nSomething poured out of him and his... presence skyrocketed. Rachel had seen some information about 'auras' but she didn't know enough to say with any degree of certainty what it was that changed.\n\nOne moment he went from near failure to turning the tides with brutal retaliation. His shields lit up and sent bodies flying with every hit. It reminded her of Chris and the blows from his hammer, the body couldn't help but get launched.\n\nWith Jonathan's second wind, the fight turned into a stalemate. They still weren't winning, but they would be able to hold off the attack until reinforcements arrived.\n\nThinking about what Chris would do sent shivers down her spine. She had known him since he was a baby and ever since the apocalypse, he became someone else.\n\nWhen Rachel married Brayden and joined the Zalenski Family, Chris hadn't been born yet. It was a few years after that Chris came into the world. She had Hal at the same time that Abigail was born which was 5 years before Chris was.\n\nChris was always a happy-go-lucky kid, quick to laugh and she couldn't remember a time he wasn't smiling or laughing. As he got older, sarcasm and jokes were his go-to.\n\nRachel watched him go through high school and most of college before the system came and with the frequency the Zalenski family gathered, she wasn't a stranger.\n\nThat was why it was such a shock to her of how he changed. Never once would she think that he would kill a person, or cut off someone's hand. When she heard about that she was appalled.\n\nThe boy she knew turned into some medieval justiciar, cutting off someone's hand for stealing. It wasn't something she had expected and rocked her worldview.\n\nThey spent a good deal of time practicing their Manipulation skills against each other which gave her a chance to ask him about it. She remembered the conversation vividly.\n\n\n\"How could you be so... so... barbaric,\" Rachel said struggling to find words to describe how she felt.\n\nChris sat there, the tug of war over temperature forgotten for the moment. He looked up at her and sighed.\n\n\"I don't know. I never wanted to nor did I ask for it. I didn't want to lead -I never did- but since I found myself in this position I'm going to do the best I can. It took me a long time to come to terms with what happened... the changes we now face.\" He stopped and took a deep breath forming the thoughts into words.\n\n\"The only thing I can do is try my best. I don't think I would have done what I did if my Dad hadn't gone along with it. He has always been my rock, morally, and he didn't raise complaints when it was discussed. To this day I wonder why he didn't.\" Chris saying that made Rachel question why Thomas hadn't.\n\nHe was always a strict and narrow man, for as long as she had known him. Brayden had the same qualities. The punishment wasn't something that Rachel had thought Thomas would go along with.\n\n\"I think it's time we, I, realize I need to change. I can't hold onto the morals of the past, the laws that used to protect us. For a while now my Dad has impressed on me the importance of honor, of justice, and I think I understand what he was getting at now that I had to go through that.\n\n\"I never wanted to cut off hands, I never wanted to kill people either, yet I have done both. The power I hold over people wasn't something I asked for. The world is a cruel place and I need to find my place in it. I need to find where I draw the line between right and wrong and what punishments should come from crossing it. Physical might meant little before, but it means everything now and people will abuse that.\" He looked almost sad as he said that. Like it wasn't something that he wanted.\n\n\"Warlords and tyrants will come and go, rise and fall. People who try to bring order to the chaos will rise and fall just the same. Other people's morals mean little if I can smash them with my hammer to get what I want. The ease of exercising power of others will bring about a society I don't think I will like and I need to think about what I will do about it.\"\n\n\"If I am to lead, I will do it right. I need to find the rules and morals to live by and stick to them. People will easily let their power get to their heads and inflate their egos. I need to come up with a code of honor to live by and it needs to be something I can keep.\" He looked thoughtful before adding in a quieter tone. \"For I fear what I may become without it.\"\n\n\nThe conversation wasn't something Rachel had expected. She had kept her head buried in the sand and hadn't thought about what would happen when they returned. Returned to a lawless world where whoever was strongest ruled and right now, the strongest was Chris.\n\nMight wasn't a quantifier indicative of being a good ruler yet it would determine who would lead and who wouldn't. No one would follow someone who couldn't protect them. To hold absolute power over someone was a scary fact to consider. Rachel herself was more powerful than most of the people she knew.\n\nIf she wanted, she could go found a city and be named empress if she liked. Punishing all those who disagreed. The weight of leadership wasn't something that she considered and she was glad that Chris did. Not many would.\n\nAfter that talk, she came to terms with what needed to be done. Harsh but fair punishments were necessary and death was inevitable. She used to think that capital punishment was wrong and immoral but those beliefs left when she gained the ability to throw fire from her hand.\n\nTaking a hand for theft was a harsh but fair punishment. Which made her know what Chris would consider harsh but fair for the people who threatened his family.\n\nDeath.\n\nDeath was both harsh and fair for the people she now faced and she pitied them for it. Chris was still feeling out his code of honor and what it would be, but it was easy enough to decide in this case. He would do it even if he didn't want to, but Rachel didn't think that would be a problem.\n\nThe easiest way to piss Chris off was through his family and the raiders sped past that warning sign long ago. Nothing would save them from the retribution he would bring and Rachel wouldn't even put up a token defense against it. For she believed they deserved death as well.\n\nIf someone were looking in from the outside with the beliefs of the world before, both she and Chris would be considered evil and tyrants but those opinions died when the world ended. It was time to embrace change.\n\nThe stalemate continued as Jonathan held the gate and Rachel burned any who came near. The raider's numbers, both human and monster, started to dwindle after the first hundred and dwindled further after the second.\n\nIt had been almost an hour by now and they hadn't breached the gate. Jonathan held it viciously.\n\nSome of the other mages on the wall next to her had to retreat and enter [Meditation] to refill on mana, but Rachel stayed. She could hold out for a while yet and something told her it wouldn't be long.\n\n[Fire Arrow] was her cheapest spell and she used it frequently. Evolved from [Fire Bolt] and made more powerful by her Law. Her Law focused on the power Fire had and the destruction it was capable of.\n\nIt boosted all of her skills and made them increasingly deadly. The sight of burnt bodies was one she would live with forever but she had come to terms with that.\n\nIt seemed like the Raiders were getting desperate and committed to one final push. The bodies coming at them increased in intensity and she had to reach deep to continue.\n\nHer more powerful skills came out to play and [Field of Flames] burned the area in front of the wall as she poured more mana into it creating a vast swath of flame. Her Law empowered it further and raiders dropped as they entered her skill.\n\n[Blazing Spear] pierced through 3 or 4 bodies before its energy was spent. She was scraping the bottom of the barrel mana-wise when she felt it. An oppressive atmosphere that could only come from one person.\n\nAs amateur as Rachel was in sensing auras, she could tell who it belonged to. It brought the chill of winter and a sharpness of ice. Promising the chill after death and the cold of oblivion.\n\nChris was back and he wasn't happy.\n\nHis hammer would bring destruction on a scale Rachel shuddered to imagine.\n\nA small part of her wanted to pray for her enemies but it died out instantly.\n\nFor what they had done deserved what was coming.\n\n\nI had a lot of fun writing this three-chapter defense and hopefully it lands well with you guys. The skills used should be intuitive but if anyone wants I can put a list with descriptions in the comments.\n\nEdit: Skills used in the spoiler tag below!\n\nEarth Manipulation(Common) – Channeling skill that uses mana and mental power to manipulate the earth. Range and fine detail determined by mastery of skill and rarity.\n\nStone Wall(Common) – Creates a barrier of earth at the designated area. Hight and width is determined at the time of activation. Maximum area and thickness is determined by mastery of the skill along with skill rarity.\n\nStone Aegis(Uncommon) - Create a shield made out of stone that can be channeled through an already existing shield or make a shield out of stone at the designated location. Strength dependent on mana cost and fortitude. Duration dependent on endurance. Upgrade of [Stone Wall]\n\nEarth Spike(Common) – Form and launch a spike of earth at an intended target. Speed and duration determined by mastery of skill and mana cost. Damage based on Intelligence.\n\nSturdy Blow(Uncommon) – When both feet are set and connected to the earth, increases the strength and power of blows.\n\nShield Mastery(Apprentice) – Using basic proficiency with melee weapons adds a minuscule bonus to the effect of agility and strength when using a fitting melee weapon.\n\nTaunting Roar(Uncommon) – Create a taunting soundwave that radiates out from your position. Enemies have an increased likelihood of turning their aggression on you. Strength of taunt based on Endurance and willpower. Taunt can be negated with sufficient mental power or skills.\n\nShield Bash(Common) – Charge your shield with mana to increase the power of the next strike made with it.\n\n\nFire Bolt – Form and launch a bolt of fire at an intended target. Speed and duration determined by mastery of skill and mana cost. Damage based on Intelligence.\n\nFire Arrow(Uncommon) – Form and launch an arrow of fire at an intended target. Speed and duration determined by mastery of skill and mana cost. Damage based on Intelligence. Upgrade of [Fire Bolt]\n\nFire Lance(Rare) – Form and launch a lance of fire at an intended target. Speed and duration determined by mastery of skill and mana cost. Damage based on Intelligence. Upgrade of [Fire Arrow]\n\nFire Wall(Common) – Creates a barrier of fire at the designated area. Width is determined at the time of activation and height by intensity of the flames. Maximum area and heat is determined by mastery of the skill along with skill rarity.\n\nFlame Pillar(Uncommon) – Creates a pillar of fire at the designated area. Diameter is determined at the time of activation and height by intensity of the flames. Maximum area and heat is determined by mastery of the skill along with skill rarity. Upgrade of [Fire Wall]\n\nRitual Cast(Uncommon) – Weave the mana of more sources than one into a spell for increased effectiveness. Maximum number of sources determined by mastery of skill and rarity. Effectiveness determined by uniformity and steadiness of the weave.\n\nFire Manipulation(Uncommon) – Channeling skill that uses mana and mental power to manipulate fire. Range and fine detail determined by mastery of skill and rarity.\n\nImmolate(Uncommon) – Raise the temperature around you or a targeted location. Duration of channel determines temperature increase with an ever increasing mana cost. Maximum diameter and intensity is determined by skill mastery and skill rarity.\n\nField of Flames(Rare) – Flood a designated area with flames. Size of area determined by mana cost and mastery of skill. Maximum diameter and intensity is determined by skill mastery and skill rarity. Upgrade of [Immolate]\n\nFlamethrower – Create a torrent of flames in the targeted direction. Size and duration determined by mana cost. Intensity of flames determined by skill mastery and skill rarity.\n\nMending Hearth(Uncommon) – Harness the mending powers of a hearth flame to heal small injuries. Healing capability determined by mana cost and duration of skill channel.\n\nBlazing Spear(Uncommon) – Harnessing the fire mana in an area, create a spear of blazing flames. Strength and intensity determined by amount of fire mana harnessed and mastery of skill. Can be used without environmental mana for an increased cost and decreased effectiveness.\n\n\nDon't forget to rate and follow if you're liking the story."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 80 - Hornet's Nest\nTarget length: ~2400 words\nKey events: new skill acquired, dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Cultivation is a Game [Xianxia LitRPG Isekai]\n\n\nKill. Die. Respawn.\n\nKai woke up in a Xianxia world...with a LitRPG system.\n\nBut hey, at least cultivation works like a game.\n\nToo bad the world itself is brutally real.\n\nNow, it's up to him to leverage his gaming skills, conquer deadly quests, and survive the ruthless environment to become the ultimate cultivator.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nWhat you can expect:\n\n• Progression\n\n• Character Development\n\n• Comedy\n\n• No Harem/Romance\n\n\nChris\n\n\n\"The fight was completely unnecessary! We should have left after seeing the boss. There's a wave tomorrow or did you forget?\" My tone signaled how unhappy I was about the situation.\n\nKilling all of the monsters the Wolf called with its howl was an annoyance at best, killing the boss was not.\n\nIt used its power expertly and out-leveled the two of us by over 6 levels. The experience it had gained from killing its fellow bosses made it a nightmare to fight.\n\nIt was given time to both accumulate power and get used to said power. We were lucky it ended in relatively light injuries. My fortitude staved off most of the damage that landed on me and a full boost from [Avalanche(R)] was hard to get through, even for bosses.\n\nAfter teaming up on it, the ending was decided. I had better control over the ice than it did which negated most of its arsenal. With magic removed, it relied on its strong body to attack.\n\nA strong body that couldn't stand up to mine. My strength of both arms and body added together was superior to its. A fact that decided the outcome.\n\nAustin and I were both sitting in the aftermath cooling down. Both of us had cuts and scrapes but it wasn't enough for me to use a potion. Austin already had and his wounds closed faster as a result.\n\nWhile I killed the riff-raff the boss summoned, he took some good licks from the boss. A hole the size of a golf ball was still working its way closed from when the boss skewered him with an icicle.\n\nHe hadn't been fast enough to get out of the way in time and it went straight through his gut, piercing both armor and flesh. If this was before he would be dead.\n\nNow, all it needed was a potion and some rest. [Meditation(C)] would have him right as rain in a few hours. His natural vitality would even heal the wound if given enough time.\n\n\"Oh come off it. It was fun and we gained a lot. Stop complaining.\" Austin said while waving his hand dismissively.\n\nWhile what he said was true, it didn't take away from the fact that the fight was reckless, a trait of mine I had been trying to tame.\n\n\"I -\" The sentence died in my throat as something unexpected happened.\n\n'Under attack, people and beasts combined. Unknown threat level.'\n\nAbigail's voice bloomed in his head. It took a second to recognize it was her and deduce it was one of her profession skills. Contacting the owner of the pylon seemed like something a Town Mayor should be able to do.\n\nAfter parsing the message, anger exploded in me. [Barbarian's Fury(Un)] threatened to activate on its own and I had to clamp down on the skill to avoid that.\n\nAustin, sensing my mood, asked. \"What? What's wrong?\"\n\n\"Someone is attacking our camp!\" I snarled.\n\nAs soon as the message arrived I picked up my discarded armor and rushed to put it on. If someone was attacking I would need it soon. Leaving it behind was faster but I was running into an unknown fight and it would be stupid to not be as prepared as I could be.\n\nAustin followed my lead and redonned his armor as well. There was still the hole piercing through it but it would protect everywhere else.\n\nThe body of the wolf was left behind and we both sprinted toward home.\n\nThe ground disappeared below us and my anger rose. Someone was attacking my family. From the message it didn't sound like it was just a pack of bandits, it sounded like a full-blown assault.\n\nI trusted in my family and their strength, but I couldn't help but worry. Austin and I were the strongest we had and we weren't there.\n\nMy expression continually darkened as we got closer. My thoughts spiraled about what was happening and plans of retaliation came to mind.\n\nIf they wanted a fight, they would get one.\n\nThe reservations from before were thoroughly gone. There would be no mercy like with the bandits and thieves. These people attacked with the expressed purpose of destruction and killing.\n\nSomething told me they wouldn't like my response. Mercy wasn't something I could afford to have anymore and I would show people the consequences of attacking my FAMILY.\n\nI had lost my boost from [Momentum of the Avalanche(R)] after the fight and I worked to get it back. The skill was a mystery when I first got it but I had teased out its activation requirements and what was needed to keep it from going away.\n\nIt activated when I either attacked or defended when containing the intent to kill. I had to attack with the purpose of harm or defend an attack carrying the intent of harm for it to activate.\n\nIt wouldn't activate from spars or training. Finding a monster to bludgeon was hard at first since we had killed all of them in the area, but finding one wasn't difficult once we left the area.\n\nRunning by and braining a monster with my hammer was enough to start the timer. I still hadn't found the limits of how long of not fighting would keep the skill going so I made slight detours from the direct path back to camp.\n\nI conjured javelins of ice while I ran and put my newly upgraded [Throwing Proficiency(N)] skill to good use. Any beast near got a javelin present courtesy of being in my way.\n\nAustin was faster than me and he took off at full speed, leaving me in the dust. He would be able to hold any attack off until I got there and I would be getting there with as much boost as I could.\n\nThe slight detours added to the time needed to get back but my rising stats made me faster. In the end, I wasn't sure which way would have been quicker.\n\nEven so, by the time I finally reached the camp, both my anger and boost had reached new heights. The trip back was barely an hour at full tilt which made the boost half as strong as the maximum. Which was unfortunate but not all that important.\n\nMy strength stat was still over 450 and was probably the highest of anything attacking.\n\nAs the camp came into view I was thoroughly displeased. Craters from the catapults marred the land and most of the eastern field was on fire. Rachel wasn't holding back and her skills engulfed the area.\n\nDeep yellow fire raged with small hints of blue at their base. I saw a massively empowered [Flamethrower] blossom out 15 feet in front of the gate, spewing flames everywhere. My perception wasn't the highest but I could see the gate was unbreeched.\n\nJonathan held it valiantly. There was something about him that was different and it put my instincts on edge. It was like facing a law for the first time but something else. It didn't matter now what it was but it was strong and gave him enough to hold the gate.\n\nContinuing to assess the situation, my eyes drifted to the bodies. None of the dead were my family which let me sigh in relief. Even thinking about the possibility made my blood boil.\n\nIt was a mixture of monsters and humans that compiled the dead and it looked like a large number of them at that. I didn't stop to count but there were easily over 100 bodies lying before our walls.\n\nThe ground shuddered under my stride and I bounded toward the fighting. Austin was already there helping Jonathan against the attackers while Rachel burned those who came close.\n\nThis close to the fighting, I let out a roar and jumped into the thick of it.\n\nThree [Ice Arrows(Un)] froze in front of me before being launched out. It wasn't Rachel's five or six, but it was still powerful.\n\nAt the end of their flight [Shatter(Un)] added to the damage done.\n\nMy hammer followed soon behind my opening attack and the first consequence of my retribution showered over me. The humans were pitifully weak compared to my near-peak state, my hammer vaporized them. Covering me in the aftermath.\n\nMost of the blood beaded and rolled off but [Frost Armor(R)] was dyed red and would only get worse.\n\nMy hammer swings took two or three at a time before leaving them a disfigured mess of both dead and soon-to-be-dead bodies in my wake.\n\nWith Austin defending the gate, I was free to slaughter anything that came near.\n\nAfter our arrival, the tide of battle swung violently in our direction. Bodies accumulated quicker than ever before as I crushed all who raised a hand against my kin.\n\nAny thoughts of sparing them were long gone. I knew what needed to be done and I would do it. Granting mercy was just asking for them to come back and try again.\n\nThe oddness that I felt from them was swiftly ignored. How they acted mattered little when they were corpses.\n\nMy path led me toward their origin of attack as I left the wall behind. Rachel's fire was annoying and I didn't want to deal with it. Plus, I wanted to get to the heart of the attack.\n\nThat was where their leaders should be.\n\nFrom the size and number of people involved, it had to be a joint attack from multiple factions. Or one giant faction formed from multiple smaller factions. It didn't matter to me which, they would die all the same.\n\nI hadn't kept up with what others were doing and I would have to fix that. I had assumed that everyone was focusing on surviving the waves, not plotting to attack one another.\n\nAssuming that was a mistake I wouldn't make again. It seemed the prize of conquering other pylons was too great for some and they reached their hand too far trying to claim mine.\n\nI would show them the folly of that decision.\n\nFar enough away from the fiery tempest, my true fighting form was unleashed.\n\n[Hail(C)] produced asinine amounts of material for [Ice Manipulation(C)] to work with. Without the Blaze Lions to fight against, my claim over the environment was swift and left no room for contention.\n\nMy new skill made my attempt nearly effortless.\n\nAfter fighting the pseudo-dungeon reaching level 40 was assured. Passing the threshold gave me another skill. One that I used to boost my power further.\n\n\nPermafrost(Uncommon) – Freeze the ground around you or a targeted location, slowly damaging and slowing all enemies in range. Size and depth of Permafrost determined at the time of activation. Maximum diameter and depth are determined by mastery of the skill along with skill rarity. Temperature and effect are determined based on mana and Law.\n\n\n[Permafrost(Un)] turned the very land I walked on into the tundra. Ice and frost rose from the ground and the grass around my feet froze. The circle of the Arctic extended out around me as more of the field turned white. The Earth froze under me and the area around me took a polar plunge.\n\nBoth [Permafrost(Un)] and a massive [Hail(C)] worked together to turn the area around me into a winter wonderland. The air dropped below freezing and the ground sapped any foe of energy.\n\nThe frozen dirt both slowed and damaged any who stood upon it that wasn't who I considered an ally. It was taxing on both my mana and Law but well worth it.\n\nI couldn't keep it up forever but I would pay the cost of that later.\n\nThe attacker's environment turned against them and the ground worked to freeze their feet in place. The skill itself wasn't powerful enough to freeze anyone of true strength, but the addition of my Law and the fact they weren't that strong made it enough for my purposes.\n\nWith my authority over the battlefield thoroughly established, the slaughter rose to new heights.\n\nWhen facing off against the Blaze Lions before, I could only handle 10 of my auxiliary snowflakes. Now, without the hindrance and boost from my skills, more than 20 froze into place.\n\nMy range hindered me the most now instead of my manipulation skills. There simply weren't enough enemies in range to justify conjuring more.\n\nBodies fell quickly and froze soon after.\n\nA slew of massacred ice sculptures followed behind my path.\n\nAs I ran toward the forest the attack originated from, the raiders made to retreat. Any headed toward the wall turned around and tried to hinder me instead.\n\nIt was like they were throwing their lives away to stop me from going further.\n\nWhile both annoying and frustrating, it wouldn't save them from the retaliation they were due. My hammer would come for them and being delayed by a few bodies wouldn't save them.\n\nMy slaughter continued and the bodies thinned.\n\nAfter fighting through their defenses I reached where the leaders should have been.\n\nThe keyword there being should.\n\nThere was no one here. An empty forest clearing was my only prize for reaching the origin.\n\nMy anger spiked and [Barbarian's Fury(Un)] activated.\n\n\"You COWARDS! COME OUT AND FIGHT ME!\" My roars went unanswered.\n\nThe leaders I imagined deigned not to respond.\n\nThe cowards had fled. The spineless leaders behind the attack weren't here and they abandoned their army to die while they slinked away in the trees.\n\nI was no tracker and chasing after them would have me guessing at where they went. A rational mind would have realized this.\n\nI was not in a rational state of mind.\n\nWith my prize stolen from me, I took off in the direction I thought they went.\n\nMy anger made me not think about anything other than revenge. The rebuke at Austin about needless fights before the wave tomorrow long forgotten.\n\nThey kicked the hornet's nest and retribution was due.\n\nThey wouldn't escape my hammer.\n\n\nDon't forget to rate and follow if you're liking the story."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 81 - Warpath\nTarget length: ~2400 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Chris\n\n\nI journeyed east at a breakneck pace. My boost from [Momentum of the Avalanche(R)] had finally peaked and I was moving the fastest I could. I left the terrain-altering effects behind and focused on traversing as much ground as possible.\n\nI leaped my way east faster than I could truly keep up with the surroundings. I blew through trees and plants like a bull in a china shop. My boosted stats made running through trees only a slight deterrence rather than the obstacles most people considered them.\n\nSplinters and half-broken trees followed me as I rampaged east.\n\nFor all my power and skills, I had nothing to help me track my foe. It left me zig-zagging from pylon to pylon for hours without any luck. Most pylons I ran into were turned into the dungeon-esque monster-infested lands but some held people.\n\nThe monsters I ignored and I couldn't determine if the people I encountered were at fault. Even in my rage-fueled state, I wouldn't just slaughter innocent people.\n\nIf I were to take a second to think things through, I would have noticed the oddities in the pylons that I had passed but my focus was narrowed so completely that I hadn't.\n\nAs my search extended into dusk, my frustrations grew. They were either good hiders, or I missed something.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nTracy\n\n\n\"Ma'am, you need to see this!\" Kathy came running into her office without even stopping to knock first. She was finishing up the checks on the defenses for the wave tomorrow while trying to recover her mana.\n\nUsing her trapping skills all day had drained her and her office was designed to help her recover faster. One of the enchanters put a mana-gathering formation down that she had bought from the store. Making the mana density in her office higher which raised her mana regeneration.\n\nThey had just gotten the next level of walls at the monumental price tag of over a million points. The upgrade increased the number of catapults from 2 to 4 a side.\n\nThe trebuchets that some of the carpenters had built would be left unmanned but the magic store-bought siege weapons were more effective.\n\nThey also cost more to use but it was worth it. Especially on the bosses.\n\nThey couldn't kill the bosses in the conventional way, they hadn't been able to in a while, so she turned to restraining traps rather than lethal ones. Her traps were made to restrain the boss and keep it in place while the siege weapons concentrated fire to kill it.\n\nNo one was strong enough to face the boss in open battle and doing so was suicide.\n\n\"What?\" Tracy ground out. She was still fighting off the mana deprivation headache and Kathy's enthusiasm added to her already pounding head.\n\nKathy either didn't notice her plight or didn't care for she continued in her loud and excited tone.\n\n\"My birds caught something brilliant! They were patrolling the north where the Mindbreaker was last seen and they caught a fight breaking out. I had expected it to happen tomorrow after the wave, like all the others, but it happened now!\" Kathy rambled out with more words than were strictly necessary.\n\nIt took Tracy's tired mind a second to catch up with what was said. Tracy didn't see what Kathy had to be so excited about. The independent group she had tried to warn most likely fell and would be turned into things she didn't like to think about.\n\nWith their group defeated, nothing was stopping the crazy lunatic from taking over the north. After finishing his conquest up there, there wasn't much between her settlement and his armies.\n\nRather than be excited, Tracy wanted to pull her hair out. She would need to work overtime and late into the night to make sure that there were as many traps as possible in the way.\n\nHer new... 'ally', Damien, would be a great addition to her side but she didn't trust the man completely yet. He disbanded his faction and joined hers, which was a good first step, but she would be a fool to trust the man completely.\n\nSeeing the despair in her expression, Kathy rushed to explain.\n\n\"No, they didn't lose! I'm not sure how, but they fought off the minions that were sent at them and they even made them retreat!\" Kathy exclaimed.\n\nThat woke Tracy up. Not even Damien had gotten them to retreat. The most he was able to do was stall their advance until more of the mindless bodies showed up.\n\nWhere the Mindbreaker was getting them all was still a mystery. His skills shouldn't have advanced so quickly and he shouldn't have been able to control so many at his rank.\n\nHim being at E-rank was plausible but it still didn't explain everything.\n\n\"How? I know that they were stronger than us personally but their camp isn't as strong as ours. They just got the siege weapons last wave and haven't made any of the other upgrades we have.\" Tracy questioned.\n\nIt was something she had wondered about for a while. Tracy spent a mountainous amount of points every wave upgrading her camp and their strong settlement was one of the main reasons they were still alive.\n\nThe upgrades they bought with the points they earned were what carried them but the camp up north didn't have them. Their walls were the first upgrade of stone and they only recently bought the catapults.\n\nBased on their reluctance to buy the camp upgrades, she assumed they didn't buy the store-offered traps either. Every time Kathy tried to get close to find out how they were doing it, their scout birds were shot down.\n\nIt wasn't even the powerful archer who did it anymore, multiple people in the camp took down the birds. They killed anything that got close. A reasonable approach but annoying nonetheless.\n\n\"I'm not sure. I only caught the aftermath and the fight was already over. It does seem that they have a powerful Elementalist, though, for the land was ravaged by both fire and ice.\" Kathy explained.\n\nKathy's birds were a tremendous boon but they could be spotty at times. They didn't have the skills a normal scout did and you could only see what they could physically take in.\n\nThey didn't have an [Identify] skill or anything else to gauge power level so it was difficult to truly grasp the nuance of a battle. All you saw was the events as they transpired, or in this case the aftermath.\n\nLevels and strength could only be determined through action and seeing only the aftermath left them guessing at what happened.\n\n\"Show me,\" Tracy said while holding out her hand to the woman.\n\nKathy could see through her birds easily enough but it took some practice for her to be able to share her vision with another. It took another skill for it to be possible and Tracy used it to her advantage.\n\nShe trusted Kathy but some things she liked to see for herself.\n\nKathy took her hand before closing her eyes to channel her skill. It was disorienting at first, but Tracy was used to the change.\n\nSeeing through a bird's eyes was difficult to get used to but this wasn't the first time she had done this.\n\nWhat she saw left her breathless. The camp looked like it was on fire at first glance but she soon noticed it was only the land in front of the wall that was ablaze.\n\nThe gate was blown in and bodies burnt and broken scattered the land. She could see people milling about cleaning up the battlefield with practiced ease.\n\nShe wished to get closer but the bird would only get shot down. The only reason she could see clearly was the great vision the animal had.\n\nAround the wall were stone ramparts that looked like they were pulled up from the ground. Stone chunks littered the area in front of the gate and various earth walls and shields were smashed in and left broken.\n\nKathy's Elementalist theory was proving likely. Stone, fire, and ice were all spread around the battlefield. It was plausible that they were funneling all the experience into one powerful Elementalist.\n\nThe fire was mostly out but Tracy could see the burnt scorch marks and blackened areas that marred the land from intense heat. There were ashes of who knew how many blowing in the wind as a result.\n\nFor some reason, the ice was still around. The stone was in chunks, the fire mostly put out, but the ice was showing no signs of melting.\n\nAbout 50 yards away from the wall there was a massive circle of frost that covered the ground and upon it were countless bodies.\n\nAll of them were frozen in various states of dismemberment and mutilation. Heads were frozen a distance away from bodies like they were torn off. Chests were flattened from what looked like blunt force trauma. One headless body even died standing up and froze before it could fall over. Like a cannonball took off its head and the body froze upright.\n\nWhat she saw was gruesome and it caused her to fight off the nausea rising from her gut. It was a scene from a massacre. The fact someone had the power to do this scared her deeply. It was unsettling to see the carnage that was left behind in the battle's wake.\n\nThe ice led away from the camp and into the forest. The path of bodies followed the frozen land before ending in a clearing. The clearing was where the trail of ice and bodies ended.\n\nAll told, it looked like the Mindbreaker lost a good portion of his army in the north. He had more thralls scattered around the land he owned but most of his people in the north were gone. Only their corpses remained and for some, not even that.\n\n\"Where is he?\" Tracy asked. Kathy knew who it was she was talking about.\n\n\"I haven't been able to find him. He was traveling toward that camp when I last saw him but I haven't found any traces of him since. None of my birds have seen him either. Usually, he is easy to find since he travels with an army but I've had no luck. It's like he's hiding.\" Kathy said.\n\n\"Is he dead?\" Tracy couldn't help but hope for that outcome.\n\n\"No. His thralls continue working in other areas so he must still be alive.\" Kathy dashed that thought with her answer.\n\nThey didn't know what would happen to the people under his control when he died but them continuing as normal was a good enough sign he was still alive.\n\nWhile unfortunate, there was nothing she could do about it. She hoped that this would weaken him significantly enough so she could get out of this tutorial without having to deal with him.\n\nJust when Tracy was about to ask to leave the vision, she saw something peculiar. A trail of broken trees led further east. Something told her that the path of destruction wasn't from a wild beast.\n\nThe clearing was wide and most of her attention was on the marks of fighting, which led her to only see the beginning of the destruction and write it off as unimportant. The tree line wasn't what she was focused on at first but what she saw drew her attention and she motioned for Kathy to move the bird over there.\n\nAfter getting closer, she saw that the path carved a line through the forest headed directly east.\n\nSomething had rampaged through the forest without regard for damaging the surroundings. Every 5 to 6 feet, small craters dotted a line leading east.\n\nTrees were destroyed and plants were left in pieces. Some were ripped from the ground completely.\n\n\"What is this?\" Tracy asked.\n\n\"I don't know. I didn't see this at first, I was focused on the battle.\" Kathy responded curiously.\n\nWithout needing to be asked, Kathy followed the line of destruction further east. It went on for miles and it seemed to never end.\n\nKathy had to mobilize a few more of her scouts to speed the search up.\n\nIt took almost 30 minutes before they found anything and Kathy inhaled sharply when they did. Kathy could only share one bird's vision with Tracy so she was left clueless as to why the woman was startled.\n\nTracy wasn't left in the dark long as the bird she was seeing through changed. The new bird was higher in the air and viewed the trail from a different angle.\n\nThat new angle revealed the reason behind Kathy's surprise.\n\nA man was at the end of the path creating the trail they had followed.\n\nHe was sprinting through the forest at a speed the birds could hardly keep up with. His legs exploded the ground under him, launching him forward. It was how the craters they followed were made.\n\nHe punched through trees and stomped on anything in his way. The metal armor he wore was covered in dried blood and reflected the setting sun's rays which made him easy to spot.\n\nWhat she thought was the path of a great monster, was the result of a man. One human made the path she had been following for half an hour. In his hand was a massive Warhammer over 5 feet long and bobbed as the man pumped his arms. It seemed to have a slight glow to it but Tracy was too far away to see it in greater detail.\n\nWithout even knowing the man, Tracy knew he was on a warpath.\n\n\"Who is that.\" She couldn't help but ask. She wasn't even witnessing the man's battle prowess and she was scared of him. If he could do that by just running, what else could he do?\n\n\"I think he's the leader of the camp that was attacked,\" Kathy answered with uncertainty.\n\n\"What's he doing?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure,\"\n\nAs they were watching, the man suddenly turned. He had continued his path east, spanning the length of nearly the entire tutorial area. There were only a few pylons further east from where he was and all of them were uninhabited.\n\nThe setting sun made it easy to discern his new direction. Even seeing through a bird, Tracy could tell which way his new path led.\n\nSouth.\n\nHe was pointed toward her camp.\n\n\nDon't forget to rate and follow if you're liking the story."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nFrostbound Apocalypse — a LitRPG progression fantasy. I would like to thank you guys for reading and please leave a comment if you see any mistakes. Enjoy! Callum, The Sovereign of Flames\n\nCallum stood at the edge of his domain staring off into the direction where his entertainment would soon take place. All around him, blue-white fires burned with enough heat that the air warped and distorted. The heat didn't bother him, even as he stood right next to the blistering flames, for the fire was his.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Kyle | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Granddad, Points, He\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Healer's Hands, Splitting Shot, Foraging Sense, Sweeping Slash, Power Shot, Cleanse, Human – Level 10, Crude Iron Knife)\nSystem notification style: \"System protected space to process incoming integrating populations \"\n\n## Writing Style\nfirst-person narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (76% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 191 - Summer Snow\nTarget length: ~2000 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "First Chapter of the New Year!\n\n\nWith a ferocious roar, I slammed into the charging Demons with all I had. With the boost from [Fury] and [Avalanche], even as small as it was at the start, I swung my hammer with over a thousand points of strength behind it.\n\nThat didn't even include the boost from burning my bloodline. My bloodline didn't show up on my status sheet in the form of additional points, it was a more foundational boost, pushing every point of those thousand further than before.\n\nHonestly, my Bloodline was the largest boost I had even if it wouldn't last as long.\n\nWith all the strength I could muster behind my leading swing, I didn't even use any attacking skill. Only sheer force.\n\nThe leading Hellhound that had the honor of receiving my opening blow vaporized. Not even its bones could withstand the force of my swing, turning into a bonemeal mist rather than white projectile shards. The poor thing wasn't even in E-rank, and now never would be.\n\nEven with all my dungeon running and training, I had never leveraged my entire strength for such a weak monster, and seeing the resulting death was... something. My swing didn't even slow down from the impact, carrying on to gift the same treatment to three more beasts.\n\nMy charge didn't slow, it couldn't slow, and I wouldn't allow it to slow.\n\nMy legs pumped just as hard and fast as before and I rocketed into their front lines. The warriors behind me would land in a softened line or I couldn't call myself a leader.\n\nWhile I knew not every leader was the same, I had had a lot of time to think about the kind I wanted to be. Spending nearly a year being in charge of people had made me ponder about it a lot.\n\nWhile I might not have solidified every aspect of the kind of leader I wanted to be, I knew one thing at least.\n\nI was the kind to lead from the front.\n\nCharging through their ranks left broken and devastated corpses in my wake and I didn't stop. Their density of bodies and sheer number of enemies made it nearly impossible to miss with my wide swings.\n\nEven when my hammer was in motion somewhere else, just my body was enough to run through beasts. Using myself as a human missile to kill even more as I charged deeper in.\n\nWhile the front lines of both sides collided with each other with vigorous explosions of skills, I torpedoed through it all. The other designated 'champions' tried to follow my lead but most were left stalled out only a few ranks in.\n\nSome made it farther than others, but it wasn't long before I left them all in the dust. Extending my breakthrough deep into the army of Demons.\n\nThen, only when I was right and truly surrounded, did I finally shine. I went so far into their lines I could see the flashes of light the other half of the army was flinging on the opposing side.\n\nFaint and distant as they were, I could still see them over the sea of Demon bodies.\n\nStanding alone, in a sea of bodies. I wasn't sure if it was the rush of power, the feeling of my bloodline coursing through me, or it if was something else entirely, but something was different.\n\nI could feel a part deep inside of myself that was coming alive. Reveling in what I was doing.\n\nKnowing I could go a step further, I pushed everything I had.\n\nMy Spirit flowed out into my budding domain and it exploded in size. Where once [Permafrost] and [Blizzard] only went tens of feet, it reached nearly a hundred in every direction around me and size wasn't the only increase.\n\nWhile my Spirit rushed through the skills, my bloodline pumped through them as well, strengthening and empowering it further. And not only my bloodline but both my Law of Ice and my Law of Wind pushed into it.\n\nFor the first time, everything I had was pushed into the skills with no reservations and it was marvelous. The temperature drop was enough for [Glacial Presence] to fill me with strength, pushing all of my stats even further.\n\nIt still wasn't the largest boost I had ever received from the skill as the dark days of Winter eclipsed what I could do alone, but it was close.\n\nThe numbers on my status sheet wouldn't represent how strong I felt at the moment, but if I had to guess, it felt like my strength was north of fifteen hundred, maybe even two thousand.\n\nWith both skills billowing out at full power, they started to mix. Swirling around each other and combining, becoming more than their standalone parts. Stronger than when they were separated.\n\nThe skills were using my Spirit and my Law as conduits to combine and mix in interesting ways. I had never merged a skill before, but this felt like one of the first steps to doing so.\n\nAs the frost built up on the ground and the foliage froze and popped, as snow fell from the sky, the Demons weren't spared either.\n\nThe lowest-leveled Demonlings froze over and died just from my domain of skills alone. The other weak Demons fared little better. Ice built up on their skin and even with the bestial vitality pulsing through them, they couldn't combat the Ice ripping away their body heat.\n\nThey slowed as they lost more and more of their heat until they couldn't move any longer. After that, it wasn't long until they fell into a sleep they would never wake from.\n\nWhile the weakest froze and died instantly, they had a better death than those who died slowly. At least in my opinion. The ones who died to the swings of my hammer at least had the honor of dying to a weapon instead of the weather.\n\nThe Hellhounds fared the best out of the Demon races, as they had flames rolling off them to combat to cold, but even so, they were visibly affected.\n\nThe lowest leveled of the hounds could only watch pitifully as their prized flames extinguished completely, leaving their skin bare to the elements. Holding on purely based on the inner fire their species carried.\n\nThe higher-level hounds didn't have their flames extinguished, but they still greatly reduced in size. Not even E-ranked hounds were spared from the suppression because it wasn't just a power disparity, but a Law disparity.\n\nThey didn't have a sufficient Law to back themselves up and shrug off the cold I was forcing on them.\n\nThe least affected were the Lesser Demons and the hulking Giants of combined Demonlings. They were able to power through my skills the best, but even they showed hints of weakness from the cold.\n\nAll of this happened within the first few minutes of combat they got to witness firsthand as my swings only got more powerful.\n\nThey would soon realize the [Avalanche] building inside me.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nElliot\n\nOh shit, oh shit, oh shit.\n\nHe was dead. He was so going to die. Only if he hadn't deluded himself into getting stronger, he might not have been given the job he was.\n\nAfter seeing their leader silence the pack of wolves like it was nothing a few months ago, Elliot had rededicated himself to getting stronger.\n\nHe no longer wanted to be average and he pushed himself to go further. He even finished comprehending a Law and could step into E-rank. His Least Law of Metal was helping him stay alive now, even if he knew for sure he was going to die.\n\nThey had all known the risks, City Lord Christopher didn't shy away from telling them. Everyone knew it was going to be a hard battle but Elliot hadn't known it then, but he did now.\n\nHe wanted to go back and beat up his past self for getting stronger. Now, with his elevated strength compared to his peers, he was given the job of 'champion.'\n\nSure, it sounded cool, but in reality, it was a one-way ticket to the Underworld. An express ticket at that. Charging into their lines and being a disrupting force would only make him be targeted by attacks he couldn't handle.\n\nHis Law of Metal could only protect him from so much, and opening himself up to thousands of attacks was a quick way to die.\n\nThat realization of his pending death didn't really hit until they were charging headlong into the thousands of Demons but by then it was too late. His body was carrying him forward even if his mind wished to be anywhere else in the world.\n\nThe charge started fine, they weren't given an inspiring speech but were told of the honor of their actions. It worked on some and even he conjured the courage to run knowing he was protecting those he loved, but that all fled him when faced with what they were up against.\n\nTheir magic barrage was a sight to behold, but when the smoke cleared, the Demon's numbers didn't even look affected! They had just as many charging toward them as before, even if he knew they lost hundreds.\n\nWhat didn't help his confidence was the structured line the Warriors charged in started to break up. Their City lord encased himself in Ice and seemed to be unaffected by the Demon's return attack charging ahead of the rest while others broke apart depending on their defensive abilities.\n\nChristopher charged through it all unflinchingly. No, he even increased in speed somehow. Watching him mist the first few Demons helped even Elliot's heart, but that didn't last long when it fell to his turn to do the same.\n\nAs best he could, he steeled himself and dove in.\n\nLuckily, he was one of the ones close to the center where his City Lord plunged ever deeper in, making his job a bit easier. His entry wasn't as smooth or dominating as pulverizing four Demons with a hammer, but he still ran in.\n\nHis sword grew and extended under his skills and sliced through a score of bodies in his first swing and before he knew it, he was in the thick of it.\n\nLeveraging his new Law for all it was worth let him cut through the first few ranks of demons but he couldn't go further than that. The Demons only got stronger the further in he got and his skills weren't powerful enough to keep going.\n\nHis job now was to survive as long as possible.\n\nHis mind didn't even have time to lament volunteering as he couldn't afford any distractions. His sword and shield were his only focus. Blocking claws with his left and taking limbs with his right.\n\nThe metal in both glowed under his control, sometimes even shifting unnaturally to take an arm or defend an attack he didn't see coming.\n\nThat all changed when he felt the explosion of power from ahead of him. Not many were further in than he was but it wasn't hard to know who was responsible.\n\nHe had felt this bone-deep chill before, only it was multitudes stronger now than it was then.\n\nSnow began to fall from the sky, even as the sweat beaded up on his face from the near summer heat. Even when his underclothes were soaked through with sweat, his metal armor feeling like a sauna, snow fell from the sky.\n\nThe flakes cascaded down on everyone in the area and they could only look up in wonder at the oddity.\n\nThey were a week away from the heart of summer and it was snowing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 192 - Warning Intuition\nTarget length: ~2200 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Rachel\n\n\"There he goes,\" Rachel muttered to herself.\n\nShe would have to be blind, deaf, and incapacitated to miss the veritable blizzard of power taking place inside the valley. Even before her magical abilities were enhanced with her bloodline she would have sensed it. A part of her believed even a normal person could have.\n\nChris was anything but subtle, but that didn't really matter anymore. The fact that his current display of power nearly matched the collective strength of all the mages here was irksome, though.\n\nRachel wasn't arrogant and wasn't envious, but she at least felt they were in similar leagues, but she knew she wouldn't be able to do what he was currently doing.\n\nSure, she could match the power output and area size, but her mana would run out eventually and she would be surrounded with nowhere to go. Chris, on the other hand, had asinine amounts of stamina.\n\nShe scoffed at his display and turned back to what she was doing. Being in charge of the [Ritual Cast] made her not able to split her focus too much. It was already hard enough to link seven people together, no need to add daydreaming on top of it.\n\nMost of her skills weren't useful from how far away she was, but there were ways of getting around that. Sure, [Flamethrower] cast from her hand would do nothing, but if she moved the point of origin, it would be fine.\n\nManipulating spells to do something against what their Skill matrix indicated was difficult, but not impossible. Over a year of training had gone into making it easier and she prided herself on doing just that.\n\nWith Chris ruining the area closest to him with Ice mana, she started targeting the flanks of the formation. It was just in time too, because with the numerical advantage the Demons had, they were starting to wrap around the edges of the lines.\n\nGiant pillars of fire exploded on either end, incinerating any of the creatures trying to get around. She took it a few steps further with a creative touch of [Fire Manipulation], feeding and expanding what was already there.\n\nShe knew this was a marathon, not a sprint, and conserving her mana pool was more important than flashy spells. Using [Fire Manipulation] on already casted skills used way less mana than activating new ones.\n\nFrom her vantage point, she could see that the number of Warriors dropped. Areas where skills flashed for the last time and Demons rolled over the line.\n\nWhile the number of Demons fell at an astonishing rate, they weren't without casualties themselves.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nAshton\n\n\"[Call of the Light]\" He shouted as another beam of light descended. He had been fighting what seemed the endless tide of Demons for nearly an hour.\n\nHis sword was covered in Demon blood and so was his shield. His armor had dents and cuts all over it, yet he soldiered on. His people were dying and he had to do his best to stop it.\n\n[Call of the Light] didn't only work as an offensive beam of light, but it buffed all of his allies in the area as well as himself. While he didn't have the most damage-aligned skills, he did his best.\n\nStill, only about half the people fighting on either side of him were in range. They were spread too far apart for him to buff everyone, much to his dismay. He had already seen people fall, even with his light there to help.\n\nHis sword lit up and he unleashed large crescents of light out in front of him but that did little to slow the Demons down. It was like they didn't care about their fellow comrade's death and some would even stomp over them to advance. Pushing their bodies into the dirt to walk over them.\n\nNo matter how many he killed, it was like they were unaffected. Ashton wasn't sure if they were mindless, or just that selfish and uncaring. He wasn't sure he wanted to know either.\n\n\"Giant Demonling approaching!\" Carson shouted which got his attention.\n\nThose monstrosities were difficult to take down, and he would have to do it himself.\n\nAfter being notified, he saw the amalgamation stomping up to their lines without a care in the world about the Demonlings it was crushing as it walked.\n\nAshton sprinted out ahead of it before it could attack the other Warriors, even launching one of his [Light Crescents] to get its attention.\n\nThe damage the skill did was minuscule, but his affinity worked wonders on the Demons. He wouldn't go so far as to call Light their weakness, but he could see the lingering Light Mana in the wound eating away at the Demon's flesh.\n\nHaving dealt with one of the monsters before, his sword and shield lit up and were encased in a blinding light. [Sword of Light] and [Shield of Light] overlayed an ethereal sword and shield overtop his own made of light.\n\nThe skills were the hallmark of his class, Paladin of Light, and boosted his offensive and defensive abilities. Ashton was lucky they attacked during the day as the drain on his mana wasn't as much under the light of the sun.\n\nHe had another, more powerful skill, that could be used in addition to the two he used but it wasn't time to bring that out yet. It wrecked his mana pool and would only wear him out faster.\n\nAs he battled the combination Demonling, his sword flashed out as he tried to cut along the seams he could see. He knew from experience if he cut it just right, it would cause the monster to fall apart.\n\nIt took him a few tries, but he managed to land a slash just right and the giant fell, deconstructed back into its base form, and the Demonlings comprising it tried to scramble to their feet. It was only a few more sword slashes until those too were dead.\n\nWith his foe dead at his feet, he looked back over his army. So many of them were already dead and his heart ached at seeing their lifeless bodies. Even seeing the mountains of Demon bodies didn't help his mood.\n\nHe was no stranger to loss, but he had never experienced it on this scale before. He had never had to look over a field and see the expressionless faces of those he knew in such quantity.\n\nHis eyes turned grim and he turned to look at the center of the Demon army. He couldn't see much with all the things going on, but his intuition was telling him to hurry.\n\nHe didn't know why, but he felt like there was a clock counting down and he wouldn't like the outcome when it hit zero.\n\nAs he pondered on what to do, he couldn't help but notice a flake of white drift past his eye. It wasn't an arrow or the flash of a skill, but something smaller. He held out his hand and watched as the snowflake landed on his armored palm before it melted.\n\nLooking up, he didn't see any clouds or anything and even if he did, it would be rain, not snow.\n\nHis gaze shifted from the center of the Demon army over to where he knew the other half of their forces were fighting. It didn't take long to see the disturbance.\n\nA hurricane-like blizzard was currently taking place on the other side of the valley and it was quickly making its way deeper, toward where Ashton was once looking.\n\nAshton could only marvel at the sheer spectacle that was taking place. Nothing in his arsenal of skills would be able to do anything close to what he was witnessing, even if his level was higher than the other man's.\n\nHis mind warred on whether to leave his line behind and charge in like his counterpart was doing, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. His buffs and skills were the reason that many on his side were still standing.\n\nIf he left, the Lesser Demons and Giant Demonlings would be left free to slaughter whoever stood before them. If he left, people would die. Even if what his intuition was telling him was true, and they were on the clock, he couldn't bring himself to leave.\n\nShaking his head bitterly, he could only hope the other City Lord had what it took to do it alone. Even though the plan was for the two to meet in the middle and take out the leader, he couldn't go through with it.\n\nWith his mind made up, he deviated from the plan and stayed put. His people needed him.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nChris\n\nFaster. Faster!\n\nSomething was wrong but I couldn't pinpoint what it was. Over the many fights I had experienced, a sort of sixth sense had built up. Nothing supernatural or anything like that, but a scarily accurate intuition.\n\nJonathan once mentioned something similar happening to him so I didn't think it was anything odd, but the fact it was acting up now made my nerves flare.\n\nSomething in my gut was telling me to hurry. Even if my mind didn't know the reason, I went with the feeling I had. It hadn't done me wrong before.\n\nI poured more mana into my skills and the Winds around me sped up and the air turned even colder. My hammer whipped around as fast as I could swing it and I marched into where I assumed the leader to be.\n\n[Desolate Blizzard] and [Permafrost] did wonders to kill off the rabble, but that left the stronger Demons behind to bar my way. Strong Lesser Demons took chunks out of my armor with their spear-like limbs and Greater Imps blasted me with sickening balls of black rot.\n\nMy way toward the center caused me to run into higher and higher leveled resistance and the Demons before me already out-leveled me. [Identify] put them in the 80s and 90s.\n\n[Frozen Patchwork] cooled through me and left any cuts frosted over in ice and I powered through the wounds. One leveled 89 Lesser Demon had a skill that penetrated through both my armor of Ice and what lay under it, punching a hole through my gut before I could bring my hammer around to crush its head.\n\nIt flopped to the floor dead with a flattened skull, but I still had a bleeding hole in my gut.\n\nSomething else was inside the wound, causing it to fester and get worse as well. Ice ran through the area to counteract whatever was causing it, but that only caused the bleeding to continue.\n\nIf that continued to happen, fainting from blood loss would be a very real threat.\n\nI felt some of my Spirit well up inside me and it helped me push on, but at the rate I was using the mystical energy, it wouldn't last forever.\n\nIt was already being used to infuse the two Domain skills and empower my armor, I didn't have limitless amounts of the stuff either. The pool available to me had grown from using it to saturate the castle, but that didn't make it endless.\n\nMy mana was also being used at an astonishing rate. The only thing that I didn't have to worry about yet was straining my mind, as not even any hints of mental fatigue had arisen yet.\n\nMy mind was still sharp, even after using my Laws as much as I had. A chilling sensation overtook my brain any time I felt like I was edging toward fatigue. It was something I didn't know [Frozen Patchwork] was capable of.\n\nIt wouldn't last, I knew that already, but I had to push on.\n\nMy stats were well and truly the highest they'd ever been, but even with the mountain of power I had behind me, I still couldn't help but feel like it wasn't enough.\n\nI felt a Greater Imp start powering up another of its skills and there was nothing I could do to stop it. They had already dodged any [Ice Arrows] I sent at them before and I didn't want to waste the mana to keep using them.\n\nI knew my ranged capabilities were lacking but there was nothing I could do about it now. [Frost Armor] had already re-froze over the previous hole but my armor was left weakened for it.\n\nThe dungeons weren't like this. They didn't have hundreds of monsters at a time laying waste to my defenses.\n\nImps and the magical Lesser Demons launched spells while Hellhounds and melee Lesser Demons attacked relentlessly. There was nothing I could do to stop it except take them down one at a time with my hammer.\n\nEven so, I didn't let despair build inside me. I couldn't afford the mental attention of letting helplessness build.\n\nEven when I felt I might actually die."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 193 - Unwinnable Battle\nTarget length: ~2200 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "My hammer came swinging down followed by a sickening crunch. The earth shattered from the blow, causing cracks to spiderweb out from the impact.\n\nI didn't pay any attention to the blood that rained down, seeping into the shattered earth and picked the hammer up to swing yet again. The notification chime in the background signaling the creature's death didn't even register in my head.\n\nThe chime had happened so many times my brain filtered it out.\n\n[Momentum of the Avalanche] had reached its peak and I would get no stronger than I was currently. [Righteous Fury] was already activated and my bloodline had long been burning in my veins.\n\nI had over 2000 points of strength behind my swings now and that didn't even account for my bloodline strengthening the base rather than adding more stat points.\n\nMy swings shattered the very earth with its power. Let alone the level 80 and 90 Demons standing in my way.\n\n[Mighty Blow] and [Pervading Cold] weren't even necessary to fell most, as a precise swing to the skull ended them all the same.\n\nDark red mixed with streaks of black Demon blood coated me in thick, sticky layers. The Ice my armor was made of was long dyed the corrupted reddish-black. The lifeblood of my foes stained upon it.\n\nIt was times like these that the class choice Chilling Death of Helheim made sense. Even if my rational mind didn't like it, and my emotional mind found it disgusting, that all went out the window in the face of a threat.\n\nI didn't care if the blood of hundreds, let alone thousands, had fallen at my hand. The only thing that mattered to me now was ending it, one Demon at a time.\n\nIt was with a grim resolution that I marched ever forward. One step in front of the other, dragging Winter with me.\n\nIt wasn't easy, and the environment didn't welcome it like it used to, but I wrangled it into line all the same. My Spirit, Law, and Mana would not be denied my little slice of Winter.\n\nSnow fell from the sky from the natural moisture in the air as it cooled, unable to hold onto it anymore. My Winds picked it up and sent it careening through the space I had claimed.\n\nThe circle of death that was mine and no one else's. Oh, they tried to assert what they could but it faltered and crashed in the face of overwhelming power.\n\nTheir piddly domains of Blood and Death couldn't defeat mine. Some tried to impose what I assumed was the environment of their home planet but even that failed in front of my chilling winds.\n\nMy form was battered and bruised, wounds caked in ice and frozen blood. At this point, my body was half wounds. My pristine armor and Ice were nowhere to be seen, but snow continued to fall.\n\nLesser Demons crashed down on me, natural weapons bared taking chunks of Ice with their attacks. One chunk, two chunks, the third Demon's attack ripped away my icy protection completely.\n\nIn sight of their foe weakened, it was like their eyes lit up and redoubled their attack. My hammer was swift, but numbers had a quality of their own. Even as my weapon came whistling around to take out three of those who surrounded me, a fourth plunged its dagger-like hand into my leg.\n\nIts limb was awash with its Demonic Mana and empowered with a skill of some kind as it met no resistance from my tempered body. If my flesh hadn't been enhanced from refining it, my leg would be at risk of being lopped off.\n\n[Identify] lashed out at the one who did it seeing level 99.\n\nA step away from D-rank, and a strong Law to back it up. It was a Law I was unfamiliar with, an ugly aura that tried to scrape and penetrate my own. Demonic Blood, perhaps, maybe Demonic Perversion because that was what it felt like in my leg.\n\n[Frozen Patchwork] sallied my Arctic mana coursing through my body from [Reinforced Body] to attack the intruding mana but it met its match. Even having the advantage of being within my body didn't help.\n\nMy left hand shot out from its spot on my hammer and grasped the arm of the Demon. The limb crushed in my grip, shattering the Demon's bones as I ripped its arm out of my leg. Not to let an attack go without reparations, I pulled the arm so hard it ripped off.\n\nA red waterfall spewed out of the newly made cavity and where the humanoid Lesser Demon once had two arms, it now only had one.\n\nTaking my Hammer in one hand and new weapon in the other, I redoubled my efforts and called on what my body could give me. My doubling of strength was the only reason I could swing such a heavy weapon in one hand.\n\nJust as I was about to dive into the next Demon that stood against me, a spear of black shot up from the ground reentering the wound [Frozen Patchwork] was trying to close.\n\nThe fresh Ice wasn't enough to bear the strength of the attack even with my Law empowering it, shattering to pieces and allowing yet another wound upon my body.\n\n\"Ahh,\" A pained scream escaped me as I whipped my head around in search of the Demon responsible.\n\nNo matter where I looked, I couldn't find the one responsible, but with the pain came a touch of clarity.\n\nNot much, but enough of my mind cleared to realize that I was still alone. My gut feeling of something being wrong led me to the other edge of the Valley, where the Demons were thickest and where I was supposed to meet Ashton.\n\nWe planned to pincer from both sides and meet in the middle to stand against the Demon's Leader, but he wasn't here.\n\nI didn't have time to go in search of the man, hell, I didn't even know if he was still alive. The attacks launched at me weren't soft and if he didn't have the strength his level indicated, he could very well already be dead.\n\nIt was a miracle I was still standing, let alone someone else.\n\nThat knowledge only drove me harder. If he was off dead somewhere else on the battlefield, it fell to me to stop whatever the Demons were trying to do. And they were trying to do something, I knew that much at least. Call it a budding hunch.\n\nThe books and information packets were long forgotten in my head. They were nothing compared to the experience I was undergoing now. They talked of such things, but they didn't portray the details of experiencing it myself.\n\nThe books didn't portray the pain I felt, the weakening of my body as my blood leaked out of me.\n\nThey didn't say anything about glimpsing around and seeing Demons in every direction. They didn't write about the fear of Death that seeing such a scene caused instigated.\n\nI was no stranger to the feeling, I had felt it before, but never had it been so strong.\n\nNot even facing the waves alone in the tutorial prepared me to face such a feeling. Like staring up at a mountain you had no hope of climbing. One of gazing upon an unwinnable battle. Something I couldn't hope to overcome-\n\nI threw mana into [Mental Freeze]. It was subtle, but I felt something pressing upon my mind. My feelings of hopelessness were being exaggerated by something.\n\nEven with the skill activated, the feeling didn't go away. It was too subtle for my skill to defeat. The manipulation was deft and it wasn't trying to control my mind, only influencing what I was seeing.\n\nIt was a nasty piece of work.\n\nOn instinct, my eyes turned to where I felt the influence was originating and I saw it. Even acknowledging the reason behind the manipulation didn't make the feeling go away, if anything, it made it worse.\n\nIt made me realize I was out-ranked, out-leveled, and out-numbered.\n\n\n[Goranth - Evolved Demon - Level 105]\n\n\nIt was a Named Demon. A D-ranked Named Demon.\n\nIt weaved between the various bodies charging at me, never exposing itself more then necessary. It was hard to get a solid look at its features but I managed enough glimpses to see enough.\n\nTraces of the Lesser Demon it used to be shined through. The black and misshapen limbs that were only recently changed to look like hands. The fingers were still spiked and the wrist was too narrow, but the hints of what it was trying to accomplish with its evolution was there. It stood on two legs, trying its best to imitate a bipedal form.\n\nMost of its body was covered in shadow. The fog distorting what little I could see of it, but the dry, grey skin of its face was left uncovered.\n\nIt wanted me to see its cruel smile.\n\nFinally, it felt like I was shocked awake. I went over how I had gotten here to make sure I hadn't been influenced and found nothing that stood out.\n\nThere were no traces of manipulation in my mind that I could find and unless the Demon outclassed me, which was possible, I hadn't been controlled. After the 'Mindbreaker,' we went to great lengths to combat any form of mind control.\n\nNot everyone had the points to buy protective measures, but I certainly did. The amulet I wore wasn't much, but it was said to detect any form of intrusion upon the mind.\n\nIt would light up if it did while also defending against it, yet the amulet stayed dull.\n\nIf it wasn't trying to mind control me, what was it trying to do?\n\nEven as Demons came at me and I felled them with my Hammer, I searched for any clue I had missed. Something was wrong here and I couldn't figure out what.\n\nThe gut feeling I had hadn't gone away and only got worse. It didn't give off a definitive direction, but with the Named Demon revealed, it was clear it was involved somehow.\n\nMy brain whirled trying to come up with the reason yet it couldn't. My amulet didn't go off and [Mental Freeze] didn't do anything. Both would have at least noticed mental manipulation of some sort.\n\nIf it wasn't mental, it had to be something else.\n\nEvaluating the scene as best I could mid-fight, I noticed that no matter where I moved while fighting, the Demon swayed with me. It was like it was trying to keep itself between me and whatever was behind it.\n\nLooking deeper, it felt like it was trying to hide something. I wasn't sure how I knew, but once I thought it was hiding something, realization exploded in my head.\n\nLike glass, the curated scene shattered apart with it. The Demon wasn't trying to mind control me. My amulet wasn't broken and [Mental Freeze] wasn't defunct.\n\nIt was an illusion.\n\nTechnically, illusions were a form of mental manipulation but the way they worked was entirely different. It didn't penetrate the mind in order to influence from within, tricking you internally. It worked externally, tricking the senses into telling your mind faulty information.\n\nSimilar, but different.\n\nSince there was no intrusion upon my mind, nothing my skills did could stop it. The thing that broke the illusion was realizing there was one in the first place. That was the hardest part of breaking out of one. My intuition saved me.\n\nAs the illusion broke, the feelings that pressed on me faded. The hopelessness didn't go away completely, but it diminished from before. The illusion amplified what I had already felt, meaning the base feeling was something already there. Breaking the illusion wouldn't make it go away.\n\n\"Ah, so you broke out of it. Surprising, but it doesn't matter. You're too late anyway.\" A guttural voice claimed and its wide smile grew. It felt like a mental attack just to listen to the Demon speak.\n\nOther than the feelings fading, I noticed what the Demon was hiding from me.\n\nThere, in the center of a blood drawn formation, was a portal. It wasn't yet complete and was still in the forming process, but the fact it was even there caused me fear. Stray bodies of humans were strewn about the newly revealed section of the battlefield, their corpses mummified from exsanguination.\n\nA mass of mana and essence swirled in the center of the Ritual. Rivers of blood swirled with it, Demon and Human alike, painting the growing power a mix of red and black. The blood from the nearby Demons I killed was drawn in, adding to the gallons that were already there.\n\nOur war council spoke about what the Demons could possibly be doing and while this possibility was brought up, no one thought it was possible. Our tutorials said that our planet was still protected from outside influence.\n\nWhat I was seeing shouldn't be possible.\n\nIf I let that portal finish forming, our entire planet was doomed."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 194 - Grim Resolution\nTarget length: ~2600 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "I wasn't absolutely certain what I was looking at was what I feared, but even with the slightest off chance it was, I needed to stop it now.\n\nWhen enough Demons got together and had sufficient power, they could force a convergence. Doing so would link our planet, where the Ritual took place, to a Demonic planet through a permanent portal, like I saw now.\n\nIt would let endless hordes of Demons through with virtually no way to stop them. It was like trying to swim upriver while also building a dam. To have any chance of closing the portal, you would need to fight through an endless tide of Demons to get there.\n\nWhich was virtually impossible without severely out-leveling them or out-numbering them.\n\nWhich we didn't on both accounts.\n\nIf we failed, the only recourse would be abandoning the continent. Demons could swim, but they wouldn't be taking over the world anytime soon with the amount of water we had. Still, everyone in North and South America were screwed.\n\nThe South Americans could maybe hold them off at Panama if they were warned and had sufficient time to prepare, but even then, with endless bodies of Demons to throw at the problem?\n\nNone of that mattered to me, though, as everyone I cared about was a month's travel away. They would be the first to fall if I let the portal finish. Who cared if it took the Demons years to take over the continent, everyone I cared for would already be dead.\n\nThere was no running from this fight.\n\nNot that I could, either. With the wounds adding up and the blood leaking out of me, I wouldn't get very far if I turned tail and ran. Not that I would do that. Even thinking of doing that caused my body displeasure.\n\nLike my Anchor would crack if I went through with running away.\n\nAs soon as my mind comprehended what was at stake, I threw everything I had at the Evolved Demon in charge of the Formation. I wasn't sure killing it would destabilize the portal but it was a good start.\n\n[Ice Arrow] after [Ice Arrow] flew at the wretched thing but all they did was phase through its body in a puff of smoke. Somehow, the Demon was turning insubstantial and my Ice was flying straight through without doing any damage.\n\nImmediately, I looked for any other signs of another illusion but I couldn't find any. Everything my senses were telling me was that the Evolved Demon was where my eyes saw him to be.\n\nI had no wish to begin discourse with something like that and immediately switched to a new avenue of attack.\n\nSince [Ice Arrows] didn't do anything, I dumped mana into [Sweeping Snow] and a deluge of white crashed down on where the Demon stood. A mixture of naturally made snow from the area along with conjured snow from the skill impacted the ground with a dull thud.\n\nIt was more snow than I had ever sent at one monster and it packed quite a bit of force. The collective weight could have staggered even Jonathan, let alone the Demon.\n\nStill, when the white cleared and I stopped sending mana into the skill, the Demon remained unharmed in the same spot as before. Like the mountain of sharp snow I dropped on him did nothing.\n\nDuring this time, the surrounding Demons weren't idle either, so as I was assaulting who the System claimed was Goranth, my hammer was used to fend them off.\n\nSeeing that the Demon was again unharmed, I began to get desperate. None of my ranged magics were working and the Demons weren't letting me get any closer to the nascent portal, I was running out of options.\n\nWith nothing better, I began to throw anything I could think of. A giant [Icy Bastion] froze around the Demon followed by a massive [Shatter].\n\nForming a javelin of Ice and using [Throwing Proficiency]. Directing [Desolate Blizzard] and leaning on the hail portion to bombard the demon with falling slabs of ice.\n\nI even used unstructured magic, leaning on my pure manipulation skills to sling Freezing Winds and chunks of Ice at the Demon.\n\nNothing I did worked.\n\nThe Demon flitted around, dodging the worst of my barrage and letting some of it phase through its body. As it moved around the platform the Formation was carved on, a black fog leaked out of its body that made it hard to see if I was actually doing anything.\n\nIts speed far surpassed anything I could throw at it and it didn't even seem pressured under the weight of all I did.\n\nAgain, nothing I did worked.\n\nEven with both my Laws saturating all my skills along with the meager energy I had left in my Spirit Anchor, all of it was ineffective.\n\nSeeing that Plan A wasn't working, I turned to Plan B.\n\nIf I couldn't kill the Demon to destabilize the portal, I would destabilize the Portal and deal with the Demon after. A flash of indecision passed on my face but I buried it under resolution.\n\nI knew destabilizing a portal holding that much power would have dire consequences. The amount of mana that was flowing into its creation had to go somewhere and it didn't just disappear.\n\nIf I was successful, it would most likely explode.\n\nEven with [Momentum of the Avalanche] doubling my Fortitude and [Righteous Fury] pushing it further, I wasn't confident I would survive it. Sure, my Bloodline also boosted my Fortitude, but even so, the amount of mana glowed to the naked eye, let alone any kind of mana sense.\n\nAs soon as I thought it, my course was set. It didn't matter if it exploded, I couldn't let it form no matter what. Even if the worst were to occur, it would be worth it.\n\nChanging targets, I took all the Wind and Ice I was throwing at the Demon and shifted it toward the budding portal.\n\nThe change in the Demon was instantaneous and visible. It stopped its flighty dodging and any sense of sinister pleasure at my helplessness was gone. It teleported in a flash of black fog in front of the portal before casting a massive inky-black shield in front of my target.\n\nWhere my skills phased through before, they clattered off now. The wall of black stopped everything I could throw at it. [Ice Arrows] crumpled and shattered on impact and nothing else could get through.\n\nEven as everything failed, I kept up with my barrage for the Demon did one thing that gave me the advantage.\n\nTo block the portal from being hit, it stood still in one spot. It anchored itself in front of the portal and stood as its sturdy shield.\n\nTaking advantage of the stationary demon, [Shatter] rippled through and exploded [Frost Armor] off my body, killing and incapacitating all the nearby Demons. With everything I was doing to empower [Frost Armor], its subsequent [Shatter] was equally empowered.\n\nEven Demons over level 90 had shards of the durable Ice armor rip through them incapacitating them. The Demons close enough were were all cut down in one move, leaving my way toward the black wall blocking my path free.\n\nWithout hesitation, energy began to build up in my hammer.\n\nRunes along its length began to light up and all my past worries were forgotten. My mana pool was bordering on empty as I shoved all the mana the skill could take into it.\n\nI knew I would only have two shots at this and my mana wouldn't support any more. I wasn't sure my body could, either.\n\nAs the skill began activating, its groans and cracks were drowned out by the howling winds I was sending at the Demon. [Desolate Blizzard] was being true to its namesake, even as the skill ate up my dwindling mana.\n\nThe Winds it was sending forth were howling as they carried chunks of Ice, battering the Demon's shield.\n\nUnder the cover of Wind, [Shattering Hammer] was free to drink in all I could give it. Any sounds originating from my hammer were nothing.\n\nI only spared a glance down to watch the cascade of energy reach the hammerhead. The skills effects were hard to turn away from, as there was something in the way it worked that called to me.\n\nWhile going full offensive, [Frozen Patchwork] had enough time to work its way through my riddled body, patching me up. I wasn't in top shape, but enough of me was left to do what was required.\n\nOne harrowing step in front of the other, I ran toward the wall of black. My feet left deep impressions on the layer of snow that had built up around me as over two thousand points of strength propelled me forward. The blood-stained white was the perfect footing for what I required.\n\nThe lights and sounds of those fighting elsewhere were similarly forgotten and I was left alone.\n\nOne hand dragged my hammer behind me, the other out in front casting all I could. I couldn't afford the added distraction to cast the spells from elsewhere, using my left hand as an anchor.\n\nI wasn't sure if the Demon noticed what I was doing, but by the time I neared the wall, it was too late. The Winds cut off as I reached back and both hands gripped frosty wood. Wood that I had come to love for its unyielding nature would soon be tested in that regard.\n\nThe time between cutting off the spells and my hammer coming down was a flash. It took less than a second to reach back and grab on. The fractured hammer face came screaming down with my full strength behind it.\n\n\nCRACK\n\n\nThe sound resounded out like a thunderclap, bouncing off the Valley wall and echoing back. It exploded down the Valley's gulley and could be heard from miles away turning the environment into a natural amphitheater.\n\nEveryone fighting heard the sound of the Demon's skill shattering to pieces. The once stalwart dreadful black wall crumbled in on itself. The shield unable to hold up against the force and shattering energy pushed into it. The energies contained in my hammer shot out and into the Demon's skill with nowhere else to go. I didn't partially miss it like I had with the Wolf before. My hammer hit square.\n\nLike glass falling to pieces, the shield did the same.\n\nAfter the mana used to power the shield was thoroughly destroyed, [Shattering Hammer] still had more left in the tank. It sought out something else to shatter and grind into pieces.\n\nMy eyes took everything in and saw the Demon's body get launched back from the impact. The force of my skill traveled through his and reached the source.\n\nEither the Demons was physically touching its shield for reinforcement, or my skill somehow followed the mana back to its body.\n\nI wasn't in a position to ruminate on it as I wasn't one to waste an open opportunity.\n\nWith the cover broken, the growing portal was revealed once more causing me to suck in a breath. The foulness in the air was pushed aside for a much more important problem. The moments it took me to come to a decision and charge the Demon let the portal power up that much more, growing from the mana the Formation was feeding it.\n\nInjured or not, the Demon was displaced from its place guarding the portal, leaving me an open lane to do what I must.\n\nThe backlash of using the skill nearly staggered me as blood gushed from reopened wounds, but I pushed through and started the process a second time.\n\nThe last time.\n\nMana built, my stamina drained, and my Spirit and Law were infused into the skill. Everything I had into one last attack. I wouldn't be staggering away after the backlash of this one. I would have no more energy to stand.\n\nOut of the corner of my eye, I could see the Demon trying to put up a resistance but before it could, its skills failed. The structure collapsing in on itself.\n\n\"How?! What did you do to me!\" It screamed in rage but I dismissed it like I had the rest of its words.\n\nI paid no attention to the screaming Demon and marched forth toward the Portal. I knew my odds of survival were even worse with every step closer and statistically impossible within arm's length, but that didn't deter me.\n\nThe Demon's eyes went wide as it watched what I was doing. It saw my hammer change for the second time and it knew what was coming.\n\n\"No! Are you insane!\" It clambered.\n\n\"Stop!\"\n\nI didn't. I only grunted.\n\nMy hammer went up, and for the briefest of seconds, glistened in the afternoon sun, before it came slamming down with resounding force.\n\nMy weapon descended like it was going through molasses to my eyes, even though I knew it was coming down at the same speed as before.\n\nLines of black shot out of the Demon's body and hit all the surrounding Demons, and as one, they turned to stop me. All the Demons hit by the black leash lost all reason and charged at me with reckless abandon but it was too late.\n\nThey wouldn't be able to stop my hammer from falling.\n\nNothing could.\n\nThe Demon, seeing that it could use skills again, shot spike after spike of shadowy black at me but it didn't deter me, nor could it stop me.\n\n\"STOP!!\" It screamed again.\n\nIts spikes broke through what was left of my metal plate, penetrating through my body but even the pain of being skewered didn't stop me. The Runes were already broken and the metal provided no more protection than normal.\n\nIts first pierced through my leading leg, coming up from my shadow on the floor and clean through my thigh. Its second re-entered the wound in my gut from before, taking advantage of the missing armor.\n\nThe last was aimed at my head but it never got a chance to land. A wave of energy rippled out from the portal and blew it off course, cutting through my cheek instead.\n\nHalf my vision disappeared to black, but even with only seeing through one eye, I knew I had done it.\n\nThe initial wave was only my hammer impacting the mass of mana. Just the impact force was enough to send the Demon's skill off course.\n\nSeeing that it failed, the Demon didn't even try to send any more spikes to kill me. Once it saw the waves of force rolling off the portal, it did something that had my newly narrowed field of vision had to do a double take.\n\nIt turned and ran.\n\nIt didn't get far.\n\nThe shattering energies coursing through the portal did its job.\n\nThe Formation feeding it mana went first, the stone that it was carved into shattered into pieces. The altar the portal was built upon went next, exploding similarly in a shower of shrapnel.\n\nI wasn't able to perceive what came next.\n\nAll I saw was white and my body felt weightless. My grip on my hammer was lost and I flew through the air unfettered.\n\nAt least it was glorious."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 195 - Stream of Essence\nTarget length: ~3000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Rachel\n\n[Field of Flames] sucked mana out of her at an astonishing rate but there was nothing she could do about it. As the Warriors died or fell, the pressure on the ones who remained constantly increased.\n\nShe couldn't afford to play the long game anymore with her mana. If the rest got overwhelmed the Demons would be free to charge the backline. Not that the mages were helpless, but they were not suited for front-line fighting.\n\nUsing fire against Demons wasn't the most effective but she found ways to lay waste to as many as possible. The Hellhounds were the hardest to kill as their resistance to fire was mighty.\n\nThe Demonlings were nearly trivial to burn to death, just some extra oomph and they would soon be ashes. The Lesser Demons were the next hardest behind Hellhounds but for a different reason.\n\nWhere Hellhounds were straight-up resistant to her skills, the Lesser Demons were smart enough and had the magical abilities to fight back. They would rip and tear at her spells and some could even shield against her.\n\nHer ability was greater in this regard, but the distance made it difficult to leverage it. She stood over a hundred feet back, making everything she did or tried to manipulate harder. Plus, with the battle of manipulation taking place closer to the Demons than it was to her, everything was that much harder.\n\nWhile the Lesser Demons had less skill and finesse, they didn't have to work nearly as hard to defend themselves as she did to attack them.\n\nShe watched how the other mages around her dealt with the problem she was facing but none seemed to make any better headway than she did.\n\nMost relied on brute force and increased the strength of the spells they threw.\n\nThe ones who did that were chugging down mana potions like there was no tomorrow to compensate for the increased costs. Conner and the other Alchemists were great, but they weren't able to make an infinite amount of the potions to be as liberal with mana as some were acting like. Not even mentioning the fact the number of potions a person could use was finite.\n\nRachel herself had already used a few. Not that she was close to running out, but to supplement her diminishing mana pool. One of the potions was a new creation that Connor said would boost her Acumen and increase the rate her mana would regenerate. Taking that at the beginning of the battle was likely the reason she could still launch spells.\n\nWhile it wasn't a doubling of regeneration, or anywhere near it, any extra mana coming in was good.\n\nThe resource she had to monitor much closer was her Bloodline energy. It had dwindled much faster than her mana pool. The reason for it was obvious.\n\nAfter Chris charged in without stopping, she was the next strongest on the battlefield.\n\nBefore, it might have been a argument between her, Austin, or Jonathan, but without either of them here, it was undisputedly her. Not even the other City's warriors or mages on their side came close.\n\nBeing the strongest meant she had to deal with the biggest threats. The combined Demonlings in their Giant amalgamations and the higher-leveled Lesser Demons were her biggest issue. The Giant constructs were easy enough to spot and prepare for, but high leveled Lesser Demons would just pop up anywhere along the front line. The Warriors were having a hard time dealing with the surprise difficulty.\n\nEven using her stronger and more mana-intensive spells wasn't enough to take them down quickly. She could have burnt them to ash eventually, but she needed to kill them before they impacted the Warriors on the front line.\n\nTo do so, she had to lean on her Bloodline powers to boost her power. While the Bloodline Essence of the Fire Wyrm didn't sound all that powerful compared to its eventual evolution of Fire Dragon, it was more than the Demons could handle.\n\nThe 'Dragon Essence', as she was calling it, turned her fire into something even the Hellhounds, with their dark flames rolling off their bodies, recoiled away from.\n\nRachel wasn't sure what change her Bloodline caused her fires to undertake, but whatever it did made them insanely destructive.\n\nShe had heard a Dragon's Fire was different than regular fire and now she witnessed it first hand. Her Fire wasn't anywhere near as powerful as an actual Dragon's fire, or even a Fire Wyrm's her Bloodline was from, but they were more powerful than before she imbibed the Bloodline.\n\nEven when she upgraded her Fire law to Lesser it didn't compare to what her bloodline did.\n\nShe spotted another powerful Lesser Demon coming into range and she had to pull on her Bloodline yet again. She felt the power rushing through her, like searing magma coursing through her veins.\n\nShe threw another [Field of Flames] into the fray and everyone could tell this one was different. While the area combusted like it had numerous times before, the flames were tinted blue at their base this time. The heat rolling off it was orders of magnitude hotter than before.\n\nThe Lesser Demon fought to protect itself but how could she let her precious mana and Bloodline energy go to waste? [Fire Manipulation] reached out and the field turned even deadlier. She even threw in a [Fire Lance] to take it down that much quicker.\n\nShe concentrated the flames all around the Lesser Demon leaving it no room to escape. With her Bloodline still active, it was nearly trivial to change the flames into whatever she desired.\n\nThe chime of the kill notification sounded in her head and she cut the mana feeding the flames and revealed what was left behind.\n\nAshes.\n\nFlesh, muscle, and even the Demon's bones were burnt to ashes and dispersed in the wind.\n\nShe watched the essence transfer from where the Demon once stood and make its way toward her. Her skills related to sensing and manipulating mana were her pride, but it opened up her mind to something else.\n\nEssence.\n\nShe wasn't nearly as well versed in sensing essence, let alone seeing it, compared to mana but she was able to pick up the stream coming toward her. Following the transfer from her kills back to her was much easier than sensing unclaimed essence.\n\nHer focus was distracted for the brief second it took the essence to get to her and enter her body and before she could look up from watching the spectacle, a resounding shattering sound echoed through the entire valley.\n\n\nCRACK\n\n\nThe wave of sound hit her multiple times as the initial soundwave washed over her followed by what echoed back from the Valley walls. It replicated the sound of a massive pickaxe hitting metal perfectly. A sharp and short clang that carried into the distance.\n\nThe way the Valley was shaped made it so everyone heard it. Even the Rogues stationed at either end or up on the opposing Valley wall heard the sound.\n\nAfter the startling sound carried past her, Rachel's head shot up and pointed toward the Winter Storm. It wasn't hard to guess who was responsible but as she peered into the distance, something stood out.\n\nHer mana sensing at the distance she was looking was minimal, at best, but no matter how hard she looked, she only saw one mana type.\n\nThere were supposed to be two.\n\nA familiar Ice mana dominated the landscape, well, Arctic now but she still mistook it occasionally based on the fact she had spent months in its vicinity.\n\nThe Arctic mana was the only thing she could see, sense, or otherwise detect without a hint of the other leader's Light mana. And she was decent at sensing that, too, as Austin's Solar mana felt similar.\n\nSomehow, Christopher was fighting in there alone.\n\nHer worry shot up and she couldn't help but sneak a glance at Christopher's mother. She was close by where Rachel stood sending gales of sharp Winds down on the Demons. Giant cutting blades of Razor Wind shot down into the crowd as she spent what had to be the last of her mana.\n\nWind and Fire mixed well and weren't at risk of conflict, which put the Wind Mage close to where she stood. Christopher's brother, on the other hand, was on the complete other side of the battle line.\n\nRachel's worry only got worse as she recalled the last thing Christopher said to her.\n\n\"If something happens,\" Chris said deadly serious, \"I want you to take them and run.\"\n\nShe fought being told to run but ultimately agreed under pressure. Anything that could kill the walking tank would be something she couldn't contend with.\n\nRachel shifted most of her focus to finding out what was happening at the center of the Valley but she still absentmindedly launched spells of her own.\n\nShe let out a breath when she noticed more Arctic mana being used.\n\nThat thought immediately died when she saw what happened next. Her eyes already trained on the area was the only warning she had.\n\nFirst was the flash of light. Like a bomb going off, white light shot out and covered everything in a split-second flash.\n\nThen came the Wind.\n\nAir vacated the space closest to where the flash of light originated in tremendous force. It nearly blew her off her feet before she braced herself better. Some of the Warriors closer to the source weren't as lucky and did get pushed off their feet.\n\nLuckily for them, the Demons didn't fare much better.\n\nWorse, following the wave of forceful Wind, the tide of Demons tried to follow behind it. They all pushed and shoved, trying to get away from whatever was taking place at the center.\n\nWhile the flash of light was instant and the Wind was quick, the Demons weren't.\n\nBefore they could so much as run 10 feet, it happened.\n\nRachel knew, instinctually, what was happening, but her mind denied coming to conclusions. If she did... then... then... no! He could've survived! Somehow...\n\nThe explosion she refused to label as an explosion rocked the ground. Tremors spread through the area and loose dirt rattled free and tumbled down the Valley walls.\n\nThe roaring sound of everything that happened came next. She couldn't pick up what it sounded like because not a moment after the sound came, her eardrums ruptured.\n\nAll she heard was ringing.\n\nFollowing the Wind and tremors, a wall of force sent everybody off their feet. Some were sent flying back, having not prepared for the sudden wall of force, while others crumpled where they stood.\n\nThe copper taste of blood filled her mouth and the ringing in her ears continued to drown out the noise of everything else. Screams or cries of pain went unheard.\n\nAs she lay on the ground trying to get her spinning vision under control, clumps of dirt began to rain from the air. Little specs of earth or clumps of sod thumped into the ground around her and showered her in brown.\n\nAs soon as her mind cleared enough to function, a comforting warmth spread through her body courtesy of [Mending Hearth]. Her only self-healing skill tried its best to get her wounds under control. The warming fire of the skill worked its way through her pleasantly as the skill did what it could.\n\nBlood flowed from her ears and nose with those only being the most visible injuries. After [Mending Hearth] started to right what was wrong, her mind flashed to where, or who, was at the center of the explosion.\n\nNo matter how much denial she could conjure up, there was no surviving that at literal ground zero. As much as she equated Christopher's resistance and fortitude to that of a walking tank, even tanks wouldn't survive that explosion.\n\nRachel and the rest of the Mages and Rangers took a second to pick themselves back up with groans and grunts. Those best off afterward restarted what they had been doing before.\n\nThe explosion impacted everyone equally and while they got back on their feet, so did the Demons.\n\nThe Demons, and the Warriors, were noticeably slower to their feet than those farther away, but they did stir.\n\nBeing in better shape than their opponents, arrows and spells rained down and killed any of the Demons that moved or attempted to rise. There were still plenty that were still alive but they either couldn't get up or were unconscious.\n\nEven as Rachel observed the field of staggered humans and Demons alike, she couldn't help but keep picturing the moment of the explosion. The Arctic mana that flared right before it was overcome by what happened.\n\nFor some reason, her mind remembered a chill among the Winds before the explosion hit but she couldn't recall feeling it the first time.\n\n\"Healer!\"\n\n\"I need a Healer!\"\n\n\"Does anyone have a Health Potion?!\"\n\nCries for Healing or potions rang out as [Mending Hearth] fixed her burst ear drums but that didn't shock her. Her eyes had picked up on the frantic way they moved their mouths and guessed the reason behind it.\n\nOverlooking the swath of destruction, she was shell-shocked.\n\nIt was hard to function, let alone move, yet people ran this way and that carrying people away. Healers, with their red cross armbands, ran throughout the field using their various skills on the fallen.\n\nRachel stood and did nothing.\n\nShe had no Healing capabilities. She had no potions either. As one of the few with a self-healing skill, their limited supply was given to others. She only had Mana potions adorning her belt.\n\nAlmost unconsciously, she turned to where she last saw Elizabeth, Christopher's mother. She had already lost a husband, and now she had just lost a son. Rachel knew the pain that came with that.\n\nKyle had been her love and joy. Her youngest and her baby.\n\nSeeing his lifeless body had nearly broken her and now she was about to watch it happen to another. Her heart ached at the idea.\n\nElizabeth was standing much the same as Rachel was. Completely still, she looked deeper into the Valley, where there once was snow falling from the sky like a vengeful Winter Storm, but now all she saw was a field of brown.\n\nThe white wall from before the battle was gone. The only thing left was the dull brown of dirt with specks of black.\n\nRachel was about to turn away and help how she could with recovery when her skills picked up on... something.\n\nThe field of black and brown, while nearly desolate, was full of what used to be Demons. The force mangled their bodies, but that didn't mean they disappeared.\n\nAnd from those bodies, Rachel saw a river of essence arise.\n\nRachel usually couldn't detect the essence of other people's kills as she wasn't skilled enough to sense it, but with an entire Valley of dead bodies, it was nearly impossible to miss.\n\nOthers less skilled than her even turned to see what was happening.\n\nAs more and more essence rose into the air, it all began to concentrate. The essence from all the dead Demons was all going in the same direction.\n\nUp.\n\nThe stream of essence from one Demon combined with the one next to it, which combined with more and all rushed high into the air.\n\nEven without her practiced sensing skills, it was impossible to miss the spectacle of what was happening. Hell, the concentration was so high it was nearly visible to the naked eye!\n\n\"What's happening?\"\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\nPeople questioned what they were seeing. But no one had the answers.\n\nAs the rush of essence went up, it began to change course. From nearly straight up, it started to come toward where they stood. Its angle still carried the river of power over their heads put everyone's heads tracked its arc.\n\nIt was when the deluge of essence began to come down that those with the best eyesight saw it.\n\nHal was with the rest of the Wind affinities bunch, which made her son's sudden sprint noticeable to her. His form blurred as he rushed to follow the line of essence, even though she still didn't have a clue what was going on. Seeing her son sprint off into the distance spurred her mind into action.\n\nAll she knew said that essence only transferred upon death to those responsible for killing whatever it was. That was what she was told, that was what she had witnessed.\n\nYet now, it was streaming through the air for some reason.\n\nThe only logical reason she could come up with was the essence was transferring to something, but that didn't make any sense.\n\nWhy would it arc through the air?\n\nNot unless...\n\nNo.\n\nThat was impossible.\n\nHe was at the center of the explosion. There was no way he survived it!\n\nSimilar to Hal, she took off in a run. She kicked herself for taking so long to figure it out. Behind her, Elizabeth followed. She wasn't sure if she knew what was going on or just following her and Hal, but she was a step behind Rachel.\n\nShe wasn't sure Elizabeth would want to see what laid at the end of where they were going, but she wasn't going to stop the woman.\n\nFrom the other side of the line, Rachel saw Gabriel break into a sprint as well. His new legs carrying him in the same direction as she.\n\nMitchell, Alice, Allison, and all of the Zalenski family followed behind her. The only Healer of the family who came was on their heels as well, thankfully.\n\nIf what her mind came up with was true, they would need a healer soon.\n\nDuring their sprint, it wasn't long until even those without high perception noticed.\n\nThe stream of essence rushing through the air was following something and it didn't take a genius to figure out what.\n\nEssence only went to the ones responsible for the kill.\n\nAnd she could only think of one person the essence would be streaming toward."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 196 - Heart of Magic\nTarget length: ~2500 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Gabriel\n\nHe's alive. He had to be. There's no way that he died.\n\nGabriel's mind spun. Seeing the explosion nearly made his working thoughts crash. Like a short appeared causing all rational thought to shut down.\n\nWatching Hal sprint off alerted him to something going on and watching Rachel and his mother follow behind, he couldn't stand there and be left behind.\n\nAs he ran the same things kept playing in his head. He even pulled up their faction on his status sheet to make sure leadership hadn't changed. Seeing Christopher's name still listed was his only rejoice, but even so, who was to say it would remain?\n\nThe time they were in the dungeon together. The time they had spent enchanting the castle. The hours spent designing defensive formations. The long talks about how they would set up the defensive Wards for the City. The memory that stuck out was the gruff and disheveled version that met them at their family home.\n\nGabe still remembered the rush of joy at seeing his brother again after returning.\n\nAll of the memories since played on repeat as his feet pounded the earth in the direction of everyone else. He noticed the wave of something flowing through the air, but he couldn't put his finger on what.\n\nHis best guess was that it was essence.\n\nHe wasn't familiar with the energy, not as much as mana, but that was the only thing his mind could come up with. Not that he had ever seen it before. Rachel talked about it once but he couldn't remember what she had said about it.\n\nHis focus was on the matrix behind skills rather than the ephemeral substance.\n\nHal had long run out of view with his insane speed, but he caught up soon enough.\n\nWhat his vision picked up made his breath hitch.\n\nHal kneeled next to a smoldering form of what looked vaguely human. There wasn't any black blood or Demonic mana coming off the form so Gabriel's mind ruled out it being a Demon but worked to temper his rising hope.\n\nSure, the form had the right size to be who he suspected it to be, but there were also not a lot of identifiable features to confirm right away. And he certainly didn't want to proclaim it to be his brother only to find out it wasn't.\n\nThe fall afterward only hurt more than it already did.\n\nRachel and his mother reached where Hal knelt first, as they had taken off before he had. Rachel had the levels on him to be faster and his mother's affinity made it nearly impossible for him to catch up.\n\nGabriel skidded to a stop next to the previous two and he felt the rest of those running toward them nearing.\n\nEverything heightened as he tried to process everything his senses were taking in as quickly as possible.\n\nHis gut clenched as he took in what was now in front of him. Who he hoped was his brother was splayed on his back, motionless as Hal, Rachel, and his mother did their best to treat the injuries.\n\nThere were just too many of them.\n\nThe largest, and most glaringly eye-catching, was the missing arm. The stump was cut off just after the shoulder and blood flowed freely from the missing appendage.\n\nHis face was black and blue from the fight while also having a massive gash adorning his left cheek reaching from just after his nose to the side of his head. All of his hair was missing, burnt off both his head and his beard.\n\nBoth legs were oddly angled, most likely from the fall, but even the remaining arm was proportioned wrong compared to Gabriel's memory. The last one he had of his brother whole where he watched the same body he was observing now charging off.\n\nAlong both legs and torso there were numerous lacerations of various sizes and depths along with puncture wounds abound. One such wound pierced clean through his leg and came out the other side. The only good thing was Gabriel confirmed it was his brother he was looking at but he wasn't sure that was a good thing.\n\nWhat confirmed it was the lingering Ice in some of the wounds. While he didn't doubt most had blown off in the explosion, Gabe could feel the frozen water covering some of the wounds.\n\nTaking in the... extensive injuries, he just stood there, his mouth agape. He didn't know what to do in the face of such a scene and froze.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nRachel\n\n\"You couldn't have caught him!\" Rachel admonished while pressing her hands into the missing arm's stump.\n\n\"He was shooting down like a meteor, how exactly was I supposed to catch him?! I did my best to cushion the fall with my Wind!\" Hal said frustratedly, as he worked over the body.\n\nHal was the first to get to the impact sight, but even with him here there was a sizable indent where the body landed.\n\nRachel wasn't exactly sure on what she was doing but did her best anyway. She had done generic first aid before during the waves and tried to do the same now. She wasn't even sure if there was still a pulse but the blood was still flowing and that was as good a sign as any.\n\nIf it had stopped...\n\nLuckily, Ashley came running up next and immediately dove into action.\n\nMana flared and skills activated in quick succession. One after another was used and the amount of mana pouring in was enough for Rachel to be surprised. She couldn't help but watch the woman's mana work.\n\n\"Is he going to be alright?\" Elizabeth asked breathlessly.\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" Ashley answered right away.\n\nEven without a medical degree, Rachel didn't put much hope in what they were doing. It was just... too much. Even for who everyone in their family knew was the strongest.\n\nThere were some things you just couldn't come back from.\n\nAfter Ashley's skills flared, she reached down to start doing what she could manually.\n\nWhile holding on to the bleeding stump, Rachel felt the healing mana wash through the body and felt something thump. Not to get her hopes up, she waited for it to happen again.\n\nThump.\n\nHis heart was still beating! He was still alive!\n\n\"There's a pulse!\" Rachel couldn't help but utter the words after she felt the thump.\n\nHow is he even alive?\n\nShe instantly began to question how. She had witnessed the explosion taking place and knew he was at the center of it. He was very likely the cause of it. Yet he was still alive somehow.\n\nWas he in front of the shockwave of force and instead of being crushed got sent sky high instead? That still wouldn't explain how he was still alive but she couldn't focus on that right now.\n\nShe could feel the beating getting weaker.\n\nThe Healer chugged another mana potion as the mana continued to pour out of her but it was like pouring water into a rickety bucket. There were too many injuries to fix and not enough time or mana to fix them.\n\nThe crowd around them continued to build as they worked but the bystanders were forgotten.\n\nRachel tried to think of anything she could that would help. She knew Chris had a skill that worked better in the cold but she wasn't sure if that would boost his Vitality enough.\n\nShe also knew he had a [Meditation] skill that would do the same but he wasn't conscious to activate it.\n\nShe had to stop herself from setting her hands ablaze with fire to cauterize the wounds. That was how she usually applied first aid. To stop the bleeding, she normally just seared the wound shut but that wouldn't work on Chris.\n\nSome of his wounds were still frozen over with ice and if she went in blazing, it would cause more harm than good.\n\nA bell went off when she thought that.\n\nIf she couldn't cauterize the wounds, then they needed to freeze them shut.\n\n\"Gabriel, encase him in Ice!\" She shouted.\n\nIt was a longshot, and completely untested, but it wouldn't hurt to get him into a colder environment. It was the only idea she could come up with to both stop the blood and help the overall situation.\n\nNoticing that no mana flared or ice growing, she turned to see the man standing stock still with his mouth open motionless. It took everything in her to not smack him over the head but she couldn't pull her hands away from the stump.\n\n\"Gabriel!\" She yelled.\n\nThat got his attention.\n\n\"Encase him in ice!\"\n\nKicked into motion, he began to follow her orders and ice began to build over Chris's body.\n\nIt started frosting over the bleeding stump, allowing her to pull her hands away and it wasn't long until the entire thing was covered in a thick layer of the stuff. The only thing left uncovered was his face.\n\n\"Keep going!\" She said, \"Drop the temperature as much as possible!\"\n\nFrosty crystals continued building and Healing mana continued to cascade through his body before it suddenly cut off.\n\nEveryone turned to Ashley accusingly and under the deadly glare of so many, the woman rushed to defend herself. \"I've done all I can. His body can't take any more Healing.\"\n\n\"What about potions? Does anybody have any potions?!\" Elizabeth shouted.\n\n\"Those won't help either.\" Ashley shot down, \"His body physically can't take any more healing. If we push any harder he will reject it.\"\n\nThat poured cold water on everyone present.\n\nTo learn that they were all hopeless to do anything but watch. With Ashley sitting back on her knees with all she could accomplish finished, Gabriel was left as the only one doing anything.\n\nHis frosty mana continued to pour out of him and into the growing encasement. Rachel even picked up on the use of his Law.\n\n\"What about enchantments?\" Gabriel broke the silence that had built, \"If I can carve a Healing Rune into the ice, will that help?\"\n\nAshley sputtered for a moment, \"I... think so? I'm not sure how the Runes work exactly, but from what we've seen, they boost the natural healing of the body. Using them should be fine... I think.\"\n\nBetter than nothing.\n\nThe uncertainty didn't sound comforting but at this point, they would take anything they could get.\n\nAfter her answer, the ice around the body began to shift. She could see Gabriel visibly struggling, but he pushed on nonetheless.\n\nIt shifted into loops and curves of what she knew to be a Rune. The growing sigil gradually turning into something she had seen before. What the exact Rune meant was beyond her and without being told, she wouldn't have known what it did.\n\nWithout anything to do, Rachel could only sit and watch as the changes took place. What started as normal ice shifted into artistic grooves and aesthetic curves.\n\nIt wasn't a quick process, but the ice shifted noticeably until the process was completed. The finished Rune flashed as it concluded taking form and she could feel the mana shift and take effect.\n\n\"Rachel, I need help powering it,\" Gabriel said as mana continued to pour out of him.\n\nWordlessly, she started doing the same.\n\nEnchanting was still beyond her knowledge, but her senses could pick up what was happening to the mana. The Rune siphoned the provided mana through the carved grooves, changing it along the way into something she couldn't sense, before injecting it into the... encasement.\n\nHer mind wanted to call it a coffin but she refused to do so. He wasn't dead yet, and she wasn't going to call it a coffin until she was forced to.\n\nRachel closed her eyes to watch the process and focused all her attention on the flowing mana.\n\nChris's body absorbed it naturally, as it was surrounded by it, and it coursed through his mana channels. This was usually where the body would filter it through the central mana pool they had to get rid of any unwanted affinities.\n\nInstead, some of it was lost as it traveled through the body, seeping into various places. The Healing taking effect.\n\nIt didn't noticeably change anything, but it made her breaths come easier knowing there was at least some kind of healing taking place.\n\nOther than noticing the mana break off and suffuse into his body, she saw the magic doing something else. Something she wasn't sure how to describe.\n\nIt was like his heart was taking in the Ice mana around it and using that for some reason. Why would his heart be sucking in Ice mana?\n\n\"He doesn't have a human heart!\" She exclaimed aloud unintentionally.\n\nShe remembered watching him evolve but it was easy to forget the change he had made. It wasn't like she could see his changed heart for the continued reminder.\n\nRachel knew that certain creatures evolved in various ways and it was impossible to have knowledge of them all, but some were widely known facts and even their tutorial had information about them.\n\nIt was mostly the strong and powerful creatures that they used as examples. Mainly, Dragons. Dragons were known to be one of the fiercest creatures in the Universe and they were commonly used as examples in the information packets they had access to.\n\nOne of the main things they talked about was the value of a Dragon's Heart. The Heart of a Dragon was where all their magic originated and where most of it was stored. It was where they drew their strength from and where their famed Dragon Breath started.\n\nThe magic it contained was immense and the value of such an organ was astronomical. Rachel had to do a double take when she saw the prices of lesser Draconic species Hearts, let alone an actual Dragon's.\n\nStill, Dragons weren't the only creatures whose magic resided in their Heart, other notable ones were Titans, Fire Titans along with all the other types, and most relevant, Giants.\n\nWhile Chris didn't have the Heart of an actual Frost Giant, he had one with traces of the Frost Giant bloodline, which was enough to have at least some of that effect.\n\nHis Heart drew in the Ice mana and used it as fuel to pump out blood full of vitality. Honestly, Rachel was surprised his blood wasn't glowing blue from the effect but instead only tinted deep purple.\n\nWith his Heart's Vitality in addition to the Healing Rune, there was nothing more they could do but watch.\n\n\"Will he live?\" Elizabeth asked again.\n\nEveryone turned an ear to hear the answer.\n\n\"I'm not sure,\""}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 197 - Why this Valley?\nTarget length: ~2400 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Rachel\n\nEveryone stood and observed the icy encasement for a while longer but no one said anything. There was nothing they could do and it somehow felt wrong to speak.\n\nTo break the tentative silence.\n\nSome had tears welling up and falling, others looked downcast at who they thought would lead them for years to come. Rachel herself was upset.\n\nBefore the System, she and Christopher weren't the closest but they had spent a decent amount of time together since practicing their various skills. Other than watching him grow up, she got to watch him grow in a different way.\n\nIt was odd to have that pillar removed from her life. She hadn't even known the pillar had been there in the first place. The sturdy...strength he had that made nothing seem to be out of hand. Hell, he fought the waves alone! Having someone who did that just took the edge off as they explored their new circumstances. A fallback parachute she hadn't realized was there until it was gone.\n\nBesides the silent but steady support being gone, she became that support for everybody else. Rachel wasn't sure if it was an unconscious thing, but it was like they looked toward the next powerful person to lean on.\n\nShe didn't hate doing so, but after the day she had, and standing over the near-dead body of her nephew, she wasn't prepared for this.\n\nThe people from their City arriving to ask for directions only made it worse.\n\nShe had to tear herself away and take care of matters, as Elizabeth and Gabriel were never going to be able to do it. Gabriel because his powers were needed to keep the ice frozen and Elizabeth because the world would sooner stop spinning than her leaving her son's side.\n\nOh, how she wished Abigail was here to take care of all this. Scratch that, she would honestly be worse with Chris in that condition.\n\n\"I need a count of how many healing potions we have left. Run triage on the most wounded and separate those who can't be healed anymore.\" She commanded to those of her City that were still standing.\n\nHesitating, she called one aside to talk privately, \"I need to know how many survived.\"\n\nThe Rogue she called over looked surprised for a second before nodding grimly. Rogues were the Class that made it out of the fight the most unscathed. Well, the group of Rogues who weren't given the task of charging in.\n\nThe ones in the charge suffered losses equal to, if not greater, than the Warriors and Spellblades. The reason the other Rogues made it out better was their job was clean-up duty.\n\nThe Rogues more centered around stealth or assassination weren't told to charge in and waste their skills, instead, they were arranged in formation surrounding the Valley. They, along with the lower leveled participants, were tasked with not letting any of the Demons escape encirclement.\n\nThe... lowest level of their number weren't particularly... useful. Not that she said that aloud, but it was the truth. A few volunteers weren't even in the F-rank, let alone E-rank!\n\nRachel thought they were insane for even coming along but Chris wouldn't disparage their resolve. They were grouped up in teams to do the same as the Rogues in the hope that they would be able to pick off the Demons as they ran away.\n\nShe ended up being so busy directing everyone during the clean-up that the sun raced across the sky and reached the horizon before she even knew it.\n\nShe took care of everyone on their side of the Valley, regardless of whether they were from Frostheim or not. Before the battle, there were nearly 800 people to organize and plan around.\n\nHalf that remained standing. More were lying in beds, waiting for Healing to come.\n\nWhen the Rogue she tasked with counting the casualties came back, she got the hard numbers. Of the 321 people who followed Christopher's charge, 187 were still alive.\n\nThe Rogues stationed along the perimeter lost some as well, nearly 20 of the hundred. Some of the lower leveled teams were decimated completely, but most of them still stood, not having to fight.\n\nWith their frontline being so small compared to the number of Demons, some had gotten through or around and reached the Mages and Rangers in the backline, causing their numbers to take a hit as well.\n\nNot as many as the Warriors, but still enough to sting.\n\nNearly 100 Rangers and Mages fell. Not all of that was from Demons that got through and was instead because of a Demonic spells launched at them they couldn't defend.\n\nEven the Healers weren't spared from the casualties. Most Healers had stayed behind to be of use after the fighting was over but some had joined the battle.\n\nNot every healer was as passive as the others. Some had classes specific to being a Battle Medic while others had buffs they could use. Their losses were similar to the Rogues.\n\nEven more than that were the wounded. Healers were scrambling this way and that trying to treat the people they could. Those with egregious injuries like Christopher had to be isolated so as to not be confused with the waiting.\n\nThe human body could only take so much healing at one time. It wasn't possible to drown the person in it and for them to be fine. They knew that from experience.\n\nAs soon as the body's limit was reached, instead of healing the body, it would be treated as a foreign object and rejected. Similar to how some patients would reject donated organs. Too much new tissue being seen as foreign or something. Rachel wasn't exact on the why.\n\nTo deal with those, Healers with medical knowledge from before were required. Not every healer was a previous doctor or nurse, meaning they didn't have the background knowledge on how to treat people other than letting their skills do the legwork.\n\nThose who could, used mundane methods to do what they could and let their Spells go that much further before the limit was reached.\n\nThe... previous medical methods had changed, obviously, but they were still rooted in how things were done Before, only they were a touch more... barbaric.\n\nIf the Doctors were worried your body couldn't take the healing required, it was better to chop off the limb instead and grow it back later. Healing over a missing stump taxed the body a lot less than reconstituting a completely smashed leg. Letting them focus on life support rather than superfluous limbs.\n\nA body didn't need an arm to survive but it did need a liver.\n\nIn some cases, multiple limbs were removed to focus the healing on the major organs. The process was extremely gruesome and bloody, leaving rivers of the stuff flowing long after the battle was over.\n\nAfter the initial crazy of the aftermath, Rachel abruptly found herself without anything to do. She had been so busy that when the rush that demanded her attention stopped, it did so completely.\n\nShe went from rushing fire to fire, to standing there without anything to do.\n\nShe knew someone should reach out to the other side to see how they were doing but that could wait for later. It was already dark and everyone was drained.\n\nIf it was something important, they would come to her.\n\nIt stayed that way as those healthy enough to function hauled everyone back to their camp. Luckily, they had set it up before the battle started so all they had to do was haul everybody back.\n\nThey had to walk a bit, as they couldn't set up too close, but it was close enough that people could slump into bedroll at night rather than left on the ground.\n\nWhen she walked in with the rest of their group, she found that Christopher had already been moved. His body placed in his tent while her family stood guard outside.\n\nShe didn't have the energy to deal with that, nor the ability to do anything helpful.\n\nInstead, she found her bedroll and passed out.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nThe work began in the morning again. Not that Rachel hadn't expected it to, but to not even get to eat breakfast in peace was aggravating.\n\nWhat she did get to look at were the numerous notifications that were blinking for her attention. There was so much work to do that she had delayed looking at them but waking up gave her the perfect chance to look them over.\n\nAnd by god were there a lot.\n\nShe doubted that she singlehandedly killed the most out of everyone, a certain explosion could claim that, but she would wager she at least had a hand in the most deaths.\n\nHer spells and Fire were used liberally and in extremely wide ranges, giving her a piece of nearly every Demon that was killed. Most of the time it was only a small piece, but even singeing a Demon's skin gave her a notification for participating in its death.\n\nThe number of partial kills was astronomical, the most she had ever received and she had the essence to back it up. Her level leaped up from the battle.\n\nShe was now level 87.\n\n87! That was a massive jump, nearly 15 levels in one day! She had overtaken Chris in level a few months ago and this jump would take her way above him. Probably not. Her mind flashed and the river of essence she saw stream popped up.\n\nThe rarity of his Class made it take more essence to level but even so, there was a veritable river that gushed into him. Even with his legendary soaking it up, he would wake up with a lot more levels.\n\nIf he woke up.\n\nNo! She couldn't think like that.\n\nAfter checking her status, she was taken into the throng of work. People still needed healing and other various things but that wasn't her focus. She tried to organize the mass of people and calm the chaos. To tame it the best she could.\n\nThis was usually Abigail's job, but without her here, it fell to Rachel.\n\nThat didn't take nearly as long as she expected and she was once again without anything to do. Chris still hadn't woken up and it wasn't like they were in any condition to leave. They didn't have the facilities to haul everyone back that couldn't walk.\n\nShe did receive a runner with the status of the other half of their army and it was much the same as theirs was. Recovering as best they could.\n\nA thought poked at her that something went wrong with the plan on their side but she didn't know enough to come to any conclusions. The fact she only sensed one mana type stood out.\n\nOther than that, another thought kept reappearing in her mind.\n\nWhy did the Demons stop here? Why this Valley of all places?\n\nTo find the Demons and get to the Valley, they followed the trail of taint for days. The Demons had trekked through plenty of areas just like this one but they decided to stop here for some reason and she didn't know why.\n\nIt bugged her.\n\nThe Valley at least used to be lush with plant life and the mana was still thick, but there wasn't anything that instantly stood out. The mana was a bit thicker here than in other areas but it wasn't outstandingly so.\n\nWait, is the mana thicker now than it was yesterday?\n\nPeople generated mana, every living thing did, but there weren't that many of them to contribute to such an increase. Plus, while people did generate mana, they also used it at a commensurate rate most of the time.\n\nTurning the ambient mana into healing mana through their Class Skills and then using that mana to stitch people back together was only just one of the ways it was being used. If anything, there should have been a drain on the surrounding mana yet it had increased instead.\n\nIt could be attributed to the Demons being gone but even that didn't account for the increase. While they did consume the mana, they usually emitted enough Demonic Mana to even it out.\n\nThis was something else.\n\nTo find out, she closed her eyes and searched out where the flow was coming from. If there was more mana, it had to come from somewhere. It was surprisingly easy to pick up on the mana flows in the area.\n\nBecause they were all emanating from one place. Usually it was similar to wind or water. It ebbed in flowed, swirling in some places while flowing in others. It was a hard skill to understand but when all the mana originated from one place, it was easy enough to follow it back to where it was coming from.\n\nMana was wafting out of the Valley, which meant the source was somewhere in the Valley. Rachel wasn't sure what the reason was, but the feeling was the opposite of a Dungeon. Where Dungeons pulled in mana from wide ranges, this seemed to supply massive amounts of mana that diffused into the surroundings instead.\n\nIt was small now, but she could tell it was growing.\n\nSomething they did during the battle caused it if she had to guess.\n\nShe followed her senses and they drew her deeper into the Valley. The terrain was still destroyed but at least the bodies were cleaned up. The Human ones. Demons still littered the area but she stepped over those.\n\nShe walked past where the front line used to be and continued further in. The ground got worse as she closed in on where the explosion originated. The withered grass and plants were torn out and only bare dirt was left to walk on.\n\nAs she got closer, the mana only rose.\n\nIt continued to thicken as she reached the heart of the Valley and what she saw took her breath away. Greed wasn't a strong emotion she usually felt but even she noticed it creeping up inside her.\n\nThe explosion had created a massive divot into the earth, leaving a massive area of underground exposed. This exposed ground was lined with glittering crystals and the mana was thicker than syrup inside the crater.\n\nThe blue gems were easy to identify as she had seen them before in the tutorial. Knowing what they were only made the feeling of greed worse because she knew how valuable they were.\n\nThey had stumbled onto a vein of Mana Crystals."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 198 - Crescendo\nTarget length: ~2400 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Gabriel\n\n\"Is he getting better?\" His mother asked.\n\nHis cousin, Ashley, could only shake her head, \"I honestly don't know. This is so far beyond regular medicine that I would be guessing. What I can say is it does seem to be doing something.\"\n\nGabriel once again cursed his inadequacies. If he had a stronger Law, then maybe his brother would wake up faster. If he knew better Healing enchantments. If he had stronger Ice mana.\n\nEverything that he could have that would make this situation better popped into his mind and he cursed himself for not having it. He didn't even have a single healing skill.\n\nSure, he would still be limited by how much healing the body could take but maybe his would be more effective. If he had one that mixed healing and ice perhaps it would work that much better.\n\nThere was nothing he could do to change it. Even the new assortment of Class Skills to choose from didn't have anything that would help, and he had looked. His level, much like everyone else's, had shot up after the battle and he was able to pick up a new Class Skill.\n\nNone of those offered would help and he had shunted the notification to the side angrily. He didn't have time to deal with that.\n\nHe also didn't wish to make an important decision about his skills while running on so little sleep and filled with tension either.\n\nThe enchantment he had formed into the Ice couldn't power itself and required him to pour mana into it continuously to continue working. The Rune naturally absorbed any mana that came into contact with its lines, but that small amount was far from enough to power it.\n\nIn addition, he continued to supply his Ice mana and Law to keep it as cold as he could.\n\nNo one was sure how much of an effect it was having, but even if it was minuscule, he would pour everything he had for days if it meant the difference between life and death.\n\nChristopher's condition had changed little since when they first found him. Wounds and injuries still covered his body, his arm was still missing, and many of his bones were still broken.\n\nThat wasn't where Ashley had directed most of her healing.\n\nWith so many wounds, she had done her best to become essentially Life Support. Whenever Chris's body recovered even a little bit and could take more Healing, she would come in and do so.\n\nEven throughout the night, she didn't stop.\n\nNo one in the tent had gotten much sleep, which meant when shouting inside the camp started to come through the tent, it was most unwelcome.\n\nThe shouting and raised voices only got more intense and Gabe was starting to wonder where the rest of his family had gotten off to.\n\nRachel had taken charge of their remnant forces, but she wasn't out there to quell the shouting. Neither was Hal, as he would have gotten things to settle before letting it get this far.\n\nEven some of his more quiet-spoken family members would have at least done something!\n\n\"Quiet down!\" Hal's voice carried over everyone else's but it didn't seem to do anything.\n\nSo Hal is out there but it isn't enough to settle the commotion? Just what's going on out there?\n\nHe was loathe to do it, but he needed to make sure nothing was wrong. They couldn't very well travel fast with the state of things. Dumping a bit more mana than necessary into the Ice and the Rune, he turned to find out what was going on.\n\nIt must have been his hopeful imagination because after he did so, he swore he felt a shift inside the ice. When he turned to look, nothing was different though.\n\nOdd.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nChris\n\nThe Demon. The battle. The Portal. The Explosion.\n\nThe moment my hammer filled with energy slamming down onto the mass of mana.\n\nThe Pain.\n\nIt kept replaying. Over and over. My last thoughts before what I assumed would be my death. Foolish thoughts of grim resolve. To face my death head on. Oh how fast that had crumbled. I had thought I would be fine when my death came and my time was up, but I was wrong.\n\nI thought after the tutorial, and watching my family cut down one member at a time, I would be more accustomed when it happened to me. But I wasn't. I still wanted to live. I wanted to fight for as long as possible. It felt like my time wasn't up yet and it was wrong to go so soon.\n\nThroughout the swing, up until my hammer impacted the portal and my world turned white, I was fine with the tradeoff. My family would live, and the Demon's plans would be crushed.\n\nAll until it was too late to do anything otherwise. It wasn't enough to feel regret, just a deep wish. A dear wish to be able to get back up and march on. I fought to do just that. Only nothing happened. I thrashed and bucked, strained and urged my body to get up, but it was for naught.\n\nI was just too broken this time. Even my Anchor wasn't enough to power me through.\n\nWhat I was left with instead was the pain. That and complete darkness. I wasn't even sure where I was. I didn't feel dead. I wasn't whisked off to Valhalla like the stories.\n\nI had died in battle with my weapon in hand, by all the folklore I knew that qualified me, yet I saw no Valkyrie coming to get me. Only black. And the feeling of pain.\n\nI had never truly believed in Valhalla before the System. I didn't believe in anything, really. I joked about it, using it in my arguments against my father whenever we had our religious talks, but I never believed it deep down.\n\nThat changed after the System came.\n\nNot so much as I would go off preaching about it, just a silent hope. A hope that had unknowingly grown and blossomed.\n\nIt started with my Class. Champion of Niflheim had implications. It was drawn straight out of mythology. It was the first time I had looked at it and actually thought it might be real.\n\nMy Bloodline added another brick to the pile. Frost Giants and Jotuns. One more indication of it possibly being real. My next Class came next. Hammer of the Jotnar. Even the unchosen Classes held hints, like Chilling Death of Helheim\n\nAt every step, there was a reference, a clue, a small nugget of evidence. If that was real, why not more? It was a question I had asked myself many times. One I had even spoken with my father about before he passed.\n\nBefore the tutorial got hectic, and back when we were all in the same camp, the stars had always called to me and gazing up into the twinkling darkness was where I turned when feelings became... elevated. Or when the bottle I stuffed them in threatened to blow.\n\nI had done it a lot in the tutorial. I wasn't sure what I saw up there that calmed me, but after the craziness imposed on me and my family by the System, it was a nice thing to fall back on.\n\nIt was also where my best thinking got done, and my dad knew that.\n\nHe would often find me on the wall staring up at the night sky and drop down next to me. Sometimes without saying a word, other times he would spark discussions.\n\nIt didn't matter what the discussions were about, just the act of talking helped. Somehow, we always came back to the philosophical questions the most. If God was real, if aliens were real, what we believed about the Universe.\n\nLet me tell you, that discussion had a major change after the System.\n\nIt was in one of those times that I had voiced my nascent idea that Valhalla was real. I hadn't spoken about it to anyone else. Partially because I felt Austin would laugh at me, and partially because I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about it. Talking about it made it real.\n\nWhat he said surprised me.\n\n\"I don't see why not. It isn't like if one is right, the other is wrong. Both can be true or neither could be true, but it isn't really about that. It's about if you believe it to be true.\"\n\nThe shock on my face was evident because he laughed when he looked at me. He hadn't tried to convert me with our discussions, but this was the first time I had taken a different stance than before. Usually, it was him trying to convince me at least something was real.\n\nThe last part of me that believed, was less based on any evidence, but on hope.\n\nI hoped it was real.\n\nMy father had died fighting with weapon in hand. If, on even the smallest chance, that I got to see him again, that I got to fight with him again, I wanted it to be real. More than anything else, I hoped it to be real.\n\nThat, more than anything, was what crushed me the most.\n\nBeing left in nothingness, with no grand halls of warriors and my father, hurt more than any physical pain. Even when it felt like my body was actively trying to rip itself apart.\n\nI wasn't sure how long I was left in this... void, but things started to change at one point. I felt cold, colder than before. I imagined my breath coming out in big clouds, even if I knew it wasn't real.\n\nFor some reason, the cold felt familiar, but I wasn't sure why.\n\nAfter the cold, I started to feel... something. Well, I had felt overwhelming pain the entire time, but this was a different feeling. A nipping at my toes and fingertips. A brush against my arm as the breeze sucked away my body heat.\n\nA slight chill pumping throughout my body.\n\nI tried to shift, to see what was happening but I couldn't. It was similar to when I tried to get up, no matter what I did, nothing happened. I continued nonetheless. It wasn't like there was anything better to do. Even if it caused the pain to flare, I continued to try.\n\nSomething inside me wasn't done fighting. A deep feeling, a feeling of an unbreakable will to keep going, one that wouldn't be dismayed by anything.\n\nIt felt similar to my Anchor but it was different. I had used my Anchor many times since forming it and knew what it felt like. The feeling it had when coursing through me. This was different. Similar, but different.\n\nWith that fighting spirit, I did all I could to claw my way back to the living.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nElizabeth\n\n\"What's happening!\" She shouted in alarm.\n\nThe first time she saw it, she thought it was her imagination. She had stared at her son's body for hours, if not a day by this point. Delirious and sleep-deprived, she swore she saw movement.\n\nAshley jumped up to look but she wasn't sure what was going on. She was checking him over when it happened again. A shift. A subtle movement of a finger.\n\nWhen Ashley jumped in fright, Elizabeth knew it wasn't her imagination and a splitting grin formed.\n\nShe watched with bated breath as her son's shifting continued. Starting with a finger, then a clench of the hand. There wasn't much room to move inside the ice, but what little was available was being used.\n\nAfter having what felt like her heart was ripped out, she nearly shouted for joy.\n\nHer boy was waking up. All the other problems, the shouting and yelling fell away.\n\nHer boy was waking up.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nRachel\n\nA fire was building inside her but it wasn't one of magic. The flames weren't created from mana and they weren't fueled by her skills.\n\nIt was one of rage.\n\nShe wasn't the only one to notice the rising mana levels. While she was the first, she wasn't the only. Even she knew that keeping it a secret was impossible. There were too many people around and the feeling was too obvious.\n\nThe only reason no one had found it sooner was because they were still recovering or distracted with something else.\n\nNow, a day later, people picked up on the mana thickening and there was nothing Rachel could have done to stop it. She couldn't keep the mana from gushing out from the vein just like she couldn't stop a river from flowing.\n\nAny effort to do so was pointless.\n\nShe had just wished she had more time to come up with a plan. Maybe even enough for Chris to wake up, but that was just fantasy.\n\nPeople came looking. They saw the pile of wealth. Their eyes lit up with greed and it didn't take long for the news to spread.\n\nHer feeling of rage continued to be stoked as people argued. Asinine claims were thrown out that made her want to start slinging fire at people.\n\nHow they 'deserved' something. How it was 'rightfully theirs'.\n\nSure, she wasn't saying that the people here didn't deserve a piece of the pie for risking their lives, but some of them did next to nothing yet claimed they were the sole reason for their victory.\n\nIt made the fire inside her rage at the thought.\n\nAs more people from both sides gathered and the crescendo of yelling rose, the possibility of a fight rose with it.\n\nOne they were severely outnumbered in. They had only made up less than a third of the forces fighting the Demons and that portion hadn't changed after the fight.\n\nIf anything it seemed to be worse.\n\nHow the other city managed to have fewer casualties than Frostheim was a mystery and one she didn't have time to figure out.\n\nThere was only one way this was going to go and without Chris, it was up to her to make sure it didn't go poorly."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nJust Add Mana — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Cale Cadwell Cobbs did not, as a general rule, enjoy being tied up. \"Not that you guys are ugly or anything.\" He added the words like it was an afterthought. \"But I'd kind of prefer it if you let me go. You can tie me up later. Y'know, with consent?\"\n\nNeither of his captors seemed particularly amused.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Cale | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Akkau, Damien, Leo\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; skills (e.g. Starlight Font, Level 1, Incinerate, 1.0e25 Mana, First Tier, Active, Spell Intuitionist, Level MAX, Minor Wind, 100 Mana, Lesser Reflection)\nSystem notification style: \"System to exploit, past gaming years as a min/maxing fanatic, and a\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (40% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 43 — Fire Resonance, Pt 5\nTarget length: ~5300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Observer #27 was pretty sure that he hadn't heard that Brightscale professor correctly. It sounded like he'd said his student could destroy the Firestorm Scale, and that was patently ridiculous.\n\nOf course, the idea that he'd misheard something was equally absurd. His scrying spells had a dozen redundancies to avoid interference and magical tampering, and his memory had been reinforced with spellwork designed to prevent exactly this sort of error. He couldn't mishear his targets even if he wanted to.\n\nOn the other hand, the idea that anyone might be able to destroy the Firestorm Scale was more ludicrous by far. The Scale was a divine artifact. It couldn't just be destroyed. It had layers upon layers of protections cast upon them by the gods themselves.\n\nEven disregarding that, that professor had heavily implied Cale would be able to break it just by offering it his mana! The Scale was built to handle up to a quintillion points of fire mana, which was more than any one mage on Utelia even had. Not only that, but its creator had been so paranoid about this exact problem that it could even handle mana in excess of that amount.\n\nIt would strain the artifact, sure, but it wouldn't destroy it. At most, it would leech a few centuries off the Scale's effective lifespan.\n\nMaybe there was something he was missing? Perhaps this Cale had a mana type that could overwhelm the divine protections on the Scale and destroy it. He'd never heard of such an aspect, but then he'd learned over the past eight years that there were many things about magic he didn't understand. Some unheard of mana aspect wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility.\n\nAlternatively, the Brightscale professor was simply lying. Observer #27 had no idea what would motivate him to do so. If the professors knew what was happening with the Scale—and they very clearly did—then their best course of action was to evacuate all the students as quickly as they could. Even if they couldn't teleport everyone away, they could hide in the tunnels, away from the disaster that was about to take place.\n\nNot that it was any of his business what they did or didn't do. They were doing nothing, and it was foolish.\n\nBut then again, so was he.\n\nFive years ago, he would have cared. Eight years ago, he would have been horrified by the atrocity that was about to take place and done everything in his power to prevent it.\n\nNow all he had left was a vague sense of unease. Everything else had been carved out of him long ago by an insistent, relentless buzzing that drowned out any voice that wasn't that of the Broodmother, including his own. He knew his duty: he was to watch and document everything that happened, and to interfere if necessary.\n\nAll he needed to do here was determine if interfering was, in fact, necessary.\n\nHe had an array of spellslates in front of him. They were expensive things, trigger mechanisms for a variety of pre-cast ritual spells designed to give him all the versatility and flexibility he needed to ensure the plans of the Red Hunters came to fruition. Among them included an evacuation slate, intended just in case any of his Hunters happened to be caught in the field. The Commander wouldn't want to lose any of his valuable agents to a rampaging elemental god, after all.\n\nIn theory, Observer #27 could activate that to save the students. It wouldn't interfere with their plans, really. The point was to corrupt the elemental god of flame. The deaths of the students and their professors was simply a bonus, something that would cause the news to spread faster and spark more outrage. It wasn't necessary.\n\nAnd even three short years ago, that might have been enough. Three years ago, a small part of him still cried out against the Broodmother's voice, and he might have acted, even if he didn't understand why. Three years ago, he still remembered his name.\n\nBut that was long gone now. All he knew was that he'd had a name, once, and even that would soon be gone. Then there would be nothing left but Observer #27.\n\nSuch was the cost of using one of the Red Relics.\n\nThey were corrupt, arcane things, the Red Relics. Observer #27 didn't really understand what they were or how they had come about. They seemed different from every other artifact he had observed. All artifacts potentially had drawbacks, of course, but the Red Relics—they took something essential out of their users, like they were stealing pieces of a mage's soul.\n\nFor eight years, Observer #27 had been bound to the Red Relic known as the Watchful Hive. It was far from the most powerful relic the Red Hunters used, but it was the most essential to their operations. What it lacked in raw power it made up for in sheer influence and range. Without it, the Red Hunters would not have been nearly as successful enacting their schemes. They would lose their ability to nudge events in the right direction, to hold a mage in place for just a moment too long.\n\nThe Watchful Hive was crucial.\n\nAnd so, by extension, was Observer #27.\n\nThe thought made the buzzing in his head throb. A sick sort of pride lurched in his gut. Observer #27 doubled over, hands gripping on to the edges of the scrying pedestal, his breathing growing ragged as the Watchful Hive attempted to reward him for the thought. He fought it, but by now it was more instinct than deliberate—he no longer remembered why, and soon he slackened, letting the bliss wash over him.\n\nIt was always like this. Stronger each time, punishment and reward. The buzzing told him what he was allowed to think, when he was allowed to think it. It led the way when he helped set all this up to begin with. The Grand Mage had been the one to invert Kessi Lyrwin's mana core, but it was his efforts and those of the Hunters stationed at Haelforge Academy that put her in this position.\n\nAll because that damn Firestorm Scale was near impossible to corrupt through conventional means. It had taken them work, and he was proud of that work.\n\nThe shrine was warded against anyone that wasn't affiliated with one of Utelia's academies. It had taken them months to come up with a plan that would work, and longer still to implement it. They needed to place just the right person in place at just the right time. He had personally needed to infiltrate their dreams, to whisper into just the right ears to convince those Haelforge professors that Kessi could be trusted near the Scale.\n\nApparently, they'd somehow still had it easier than the Brightscale team. Observer #27 snorted. He remembered his Hunters laughing at the naïve idealism of the Haelforge professors—they didn't realize how much he'd been doing behind the scenes, making them confident and foolhardy.\n\nThey weren't technically wrong, he supposed. That was the primary difference between the Haelforge and Brightscale academies, outside of Haelforge's focus on battle magic: the Haelforge professors desperately wanted their Astral Wing students to succeed. Many of them had graduated from that wing themselves, long before the Red Hunters had risen to power.\n\nThe Brightscale Academy, on the other hand, had taken years to corrupt. They couldn't get at any of the professors directly, and half of them were paranoid and antisocial, with all sorts of countermeasures built into or around their person. It had taken the Brightscale team decades to sow division amongst generation after generation of mages, to figure out how to pressure the professors into not interfering.\n\nThey'd succeeded, in the end. They managed to make things look like a natural development, a cultural shift. But even then, things hadn't been easy.\n\nThe Brightscale Astral Wing's wards had gotten an upgrade a few months back that were so sensitive that the Grand Mage had to rework their obfuscation spells just to avoid setting off a dozen alarms, and even then it was risky for their Hunters to get anywhere near the demon that anchored them. And just a few days ago, Observer #16 was complaining about some golem that apparently made it impossible to scry anywhere in its vicinity.\n\nWorse, the Commander had a special interest in Headmaster Akkau, for some reason. Observer #27 shuddered at the thought.\n\nInterest from the Commander was never a good thing.\n\nIn that vein, at least, Observer #27's job had been far easier. The Haelforge Academy was overconfident and willing to use its reputation as its primary form of defense. Their wards hadn't been updated in years and were comparatively simple to bypass. None of their professors even specialized in warding magic. His Hunters told him they hadn't even run into any trouble slipping the shimmerdust into their food.\n\nWhich meant he'd done well, hadn't he?\n\nObserver #27 noticed, perhaps a little distantly, that the buzzing in his skull hadn't grown again. It hadn't reacted to his thoughts. It would have by now, but instead, it almost seemed a little quieter.\n\nHe forced his attention back to the scrying spell. Neither school had evacuated yet. All the students had woken from their resonance trances by this point, staring at the corrupted Firestorm Scale in a mixture of horror and alarm, which was the appropriate reaction to a corrupted divine artifact. The human, meanwhile, was just eyeing it critically, like he was judging it. Or evaluating it.\n\nWhat was he doing? Why weren't they evacuating? The professors had been smart enough to notice the problem and to cage the errant corrupt mana. They'd delayed the Scale's corruption and almost forced him to step in. Now all they needed to do was evacuate, and they were just standing there, watching the human.\n\nAnd so were all the students. They were giving the Scale a wide berth, but it wasn't like that would save them from a rampaging elemental god.\n\nObserver #27 reminded himself that this was a good thing, that it would advance their plans all the more.\n\nFor once, however, the buzzing in his skull didn't respond.\n\nAnd Observer #27 finally noticed the absence of his ichorworm bond. The small, larval creature that occasionally took the form of a golden fly and represented his connection with the Watchful Hive—it was gone.\n\nAnd his heart was suddenly hammering.\n\nThe death of his ichorworm didn't mean he was no longer connected to the Watchful Hive. It was nothing more than a representation. The bugs that acted as their eyes and conduits did occasionally expire in the field, and normally, all that happened was that the Observer it had been bonded to would have to report to the Broodmother. They would be fed a new spoonful of the Watchful Hive's ichor-honey, and nine hours later, a new one would be birthed from their optic nerves.\n\nBut there was a gap, of sorts, created by the death of their bound ichorworm. Those things amplified the Broodmother's passive voice.\n\nWithout it, he could hear his own voice again. Not loudly. It was more of a faint echo of his voice, still drowned out by the Broodmother's passive droning, but there was just enough that he knew he didn't want this.\n\nThe emergency spellslate. He could activate the teleportation effect. He needed to be careful not to think about helping anyone, lest he draw the Broodmother's attention.\n\nHis finger twitched. He inched his hand toward the spellslate. Observer #27 was doing nothing. He was activating a failsafe. He was making sure there would be no unnecessary casualties—\n\n—the Broodmother's presence in his mind surged. Observer #27 fell forward, his mouth opening in a silent scream as the buzzing in his mind multiplied, and multiplied, and multiplied.\n\nThe Hive detected intent, and with every stray thought, it carved a new piece out of him.\n\nObserver #27 was lesser now than he had ever been.\n\nHe was his duty. Bound to observe and report. To interfere when necessary. Even without his ichorworm, there were ways he could step in to prevent the destruction of the Scale until its corruption was complete.\n\nHe turned to look at a different spellslate.\n\nThat one would summon one of their Templars to the site if he deemed it necessary. A Templar would be clad in a dozen lesser Red Relics. It would open with a spell salvo designed to kill any mage that could interfere, activate any bloodrot links that might be tied to any of the mages present, and ensure their plans cover up the evidence.\n\nIf there was any chance this human could stop the Scale, he needed to activate it.\n\nObserver #27 stared at the Templar spellslate.\n\n(A Templar was a one-time summon. Using it would drain several of their relics dry. It would take months to recreate them, and more to train a new Templar. The odds that the human would destroy the Scale were too low to waste this on.)\n\nBut this particular scheme was important. The Red Hunters had plenty of other measures in place, other plans they could launch, but corrupting the Firestorm Scale was one of the highest priority. It was one of the few things that could truly sway the beastfolk tribes of the Illwyld.\n\n(A small part of him ached in remembrance at the thought.)\n\nIt did seem unlikely that a human would be able to destroy the Scale. Observer #27 considered this for a moment. Destroying it through mana quantity alone was not worth consideration, no matter what the professor said; it would be a waste to call a Templar to stop something that was impossible.\n\nA destructive spell, perhaps. Something only the human knew.\n\n(But he was a student. A student wouldn't have a destructive spell that powerful. Wasting a Templar on that would anger Broodmother.)\n\nThen perhaps—Observer #27 knew that the Brightscale Academy was home to a particular mage known as the Devil Artificer. She was a nightmare of a mousefolk mage, apparently capable of constructing and rebuilding even divine artifacts like they were toys. The Red Hunters had judged that a majority of the rumors about her were nothing more than rumors, but nevertheless, she was marked as one of the more dangerous mages they knew of.\n\nShe could have provided this Cale with an artifact capable of destroying the Scale. It would have been within her capabilities.\n\n(It would be foolish to give such an artifact to a human and not to the professor, however. Far more likely that the Brightscale professor had misunderstood the nature of the Firestorm Scale. Was this not the disgraced Mage Killer of the Brightgrove Elves?)\n\nObserver #27's sense of duty was satisfied. He drew his hand back. Calling a Templar would not be necessary.\n\nInstead, he would watch, as was his duty.\n\nHe breathed new life into his scrying spells, feeling them resonate with his mind, recording everything just as the Watchful Hive dictated. The Firestorm Scale would be completely corrupted soon, and Observer #27 knew that the Commander would want to pry these memories out of him later, so he could watch his victory.\n\nIn his vision, the human stepped up to the Scale and waved a hand—\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nObserver #27 blinked.\n\nNo. Not... not Observer #27. His name was—it was Serof Ontiladus. He was a light mage from the Lightladen Fields in the northwest corner of the Illwyld, and it had been eight years since he had seen any light other than that mimicked by his own scrying spells.\n\nHis mind scrambled to try to piece together what just happened. He could... think for himself? Why could he think for himself? He hadn't been able to think for himself for five of those last eight years. It had been getting harder year over year, the buzzing in his head louder and louder.\n\nHe remembered... his ichorworm getting destroyed. That had cleared his head a little. But then the Watchful Hive had reacted, and the Broodmother had reached into his head.\n\nSerof winced at the memory. Just the memory of the buzzing made him nauseous.\n\nWhat else had happened? He'd been... he'd been watching that human with the Firestorm Scale. He wanted to save them, but that was what had caused the Broodmother to react. There was so little of him left after that all he remembered was determining there was no risk, no need to call a Templar to take action. Then he refreshed his scrying spells, and the human stepped up to the Scale, and then—\n\nThe memory flashed back into his skull. Serof fell back against the wall, wings curling protectively around himself, gasping and trembling as just the memory of it burned through him a second time, brighter and louder than any of the Broodmother's buzzing thoughts.\n\nA bright orb of prismatic light manifesting over one end of the Scale, almost twice the size of the entire tempest of fire mana that weighed down the other. Serof caught a glimpse of it only because he was a light mage scrying the scene. No one else would have had the time, because the instant that happened, the Scale rang out with a keening, desperate gong as it swung all the way to the other end—\n\n—a massive cloud of dust and soil and broken earth kicked into the sky from the force of the Scale striking the pedestal that held it like an enormous, impossible hammer—\n\n—the sheer weight of Cale's mana tearing the divinely-reinforced lever from the golden base, warping the metal enough to cause it to crack; the entire Scale bouncing from the rebound force, flung into the air before being caught by a ridiculous barrier, and a glimpse of that human's eyes—\n\nBacklash.\n\nSerof trembled in realization. He'd just experienced scryer's backlash. That—that should have been a myth! The idea that a scrying spell could see something it wasn't supposed to and hurt the caster through the spell was absurd; scrying spells were designed not to hurt their casters.\n\nAnd yet... he remembered it all now. He'd been watching too closely, horrified by what he was seeing, and he hadn't paid attention to where he was looking. He caught a glimpse of Cale's eyes in the exact moment the human channeled the force of his mana, and his scrying magic—designed to pick apart, designed to understand, designed to measure—had been torn open.\n\nWhatever he'd witnessed wasn't supposed to be measured. Couldn't be measured. And he'd witnessed it and tried, and the magic had burrowed straight back into him through his spell and into his mind, where it was linked.\n\nAnd then, where it should have blasted apart his mind, it had instead blasted apart the Broodmother's voice.\n\nThat damnable buzzing was gone.\n\nSerof's breathing steadied, his wings slowly uncurling as he forced himself to his feet and stumbled back to his scrying pedestal.\n\nThe artifact was out of his head. He was free! The Watchful Hive and its Broodmother were no longer connected to him, not even through the ichor they had forced him to swallow and the worm that had crawled out of his eye.\n\nThe only thing Serof didn't understand was how this had happened from just attempting to scry one mage. What was he? There was no way he was just a student.\n\nBut he couldn't afford to think about that. Not now, when he was still very much in range of the Broodmother's wrath. Serof stared at his scrying chamber, taking it in. It was more of a glorified cage, really, though he hadn't been able to notice while he was Observer #27.\n\nThere were no windows. The door had been locked in his earliest days here, though after he had been sufficiently indoctrinated they hadn't bothered to keep it that way. He could open it, and he knew what he would find outside: dozens of identical cells, each one holding another Observer.\n\nAll kept in the depths of the Watchful Hive, underneath the slumbering Broodmother.\n\n\"I need to find a way out,\" Serof whispered.\n\nHis gaze sharpened slightly. Years of captivity had taken away some of his edge, but it was there, lurking beneath the conditioning. Escape wasn't impossible. The Hunters wouldn't be expecting him to just walk out. The problem was that the catacombs of the Watchful Hive were a bit of a maze. He'd have to scry his way through first, memorize the route...\n\nAnd then he needed to find that mage. That human that had somehow broken his cage just by looking.\n\nIf he wanted any of his friends to be free, if he wanted any of his years of captured servitude to mean anything more than the destruction he had inadvertently helped bring about, he had to find one Cale Cadwell Cobbs.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nCale stared at the smoking remains of the Firestorm Scale and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. \"Did I overdo it?\" he asked.\n\nIt was mostly a rhetorical question. He was grinning. Graystalk gave him a flat look, probably because the professor knew full well he was just playing off what he'd done. Professor Delia was too busy staring with her jaw wide open to pay him much attention.\n\nOr so he thought. Her gaze suddenly snapped to him. \"What in the eight infernal realms—\"\n\n\"Seven,\" Cale cut in politely. Delia fell silent.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, her voice suddenly hollow and maybe a little bit frightened. \"You weren't... you weren't kidding.\"\n\n\"About blowing up an infernal realm?\" Cale asked. \"Of course not. Why would I joke about something like that?\"\n\nBehind Delia, Graystalk coughed politely, and Cale sighed. \"Okay, I would joke about accidentally blowing up a realm,\" he amended. \"But not about the eighth infernal realm! That would just be in poor taste. Why does no one know about this? Has no one checked on the infernal realms?\"\n\n\"The last mage that attempted to scry the eighth infernal realm had his own entrails fed to him for the trouble,\" Professor Graystalk said dryly. \"And he was a particularly powerful mage, so most people have been... reluctant.\"\n\nCale stared. \"Well, now I'm glad I blew it up,\" he said. And then, after a moment, he added: \"Accidentally.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Professor Graystalk said, his tone somehow even more flat than before.\n\nCale responded by beaming at him. \"I'm glad you understand! Can't have people coming to me to commission realm destructions, you know?\"\n\n\"A common, everyday problem, I am sure. It must be quite troublesome for you.\"\n\n\"The troublesome part is mostly the cleanup.\"\n\nGraystalk raised an eyebrow. \"Of the realm?\"\n\n\"Of the mage that asked.\" Cale shot his professor a look of feigned offense. \"I don't just go around destroying realms for every slight, you know.\"\n\n\"Of course. I should have known.\" Graystalk hid his smirk, instead climbing to his feet and dusting off his robes. \"Well, I would say that our class has been rather thoroughly disrupted. We will need to report the destruction of the Firestorm Scale. I don't suppose you have a means of restoring it? It would save us a lot of trouble.\"\n\nCale double-checked the Gift. \"Not for another sixty hours!\" he announced cheerfully.\n\nGraystalk paused. \"...Am I to understand,\" he said slowly, \"that you do, in fact, have a means of restoring the Scale?\"\n\n\"I dunno, probably?\" Cale shrugged. \"I'm assuming [Awaken Artifact] can do that. It's a twelfth tier spell.\"\n\n\"[Awaken Artifact]?!\" Delia repeated with a yelp, sounding faint. Both Cale and Graystalk turned a surprised look toward her, like they'd forgotten she was there.\n\nIn Cale's case, because he had. Whoops.\n\n\"Can you pretend you didn't hear that?\" he asked politely. \"I feel like if too many people know about that before Imrys she might actually try to kill me.\"\n\nDelia nodded, probably a few too many times. \"I won't tell anyone,\" she said rapidly. \"You have my word.\"\n\nGraystalk glanced at his colleague, amused. \"He doesn't bite, you know.\"\n\n\"It's true!\" Cale agreed, then paused. \"Unless you want me to. I bet I could bite through stone with the right spell. I did just get [Basic Physical Enhancement]—\"\n\n\"Cale,\" Graystalk said, exasperated, and Cale shot him an unrepentant grin.\n\n\"Well, I don't need a spell to bite you, do I?\"\n\nGraystalk narrowed his eyes, although his ears, once again, flushed pink. \"Do not make me challenge you to a duel,\" he muttered. \"Enough. We still have some time in the Elemental Shrine. We should make the most of it. We will not have another opportunity to attune for a fire resonance rank for at least another three days, it seems. Perhaps sooner, if Professor Imrys could be convinced to help us, but—\"\n\nProfessor Delia winced. Cale blinked. \"She can do that?\" he asked. \"Does she have some kind of reputation?\"\n\n\"Does the Devil Artificer herself have a reputation, he asks,\" Professor Delia muttered exasperatedly.\n\nGraystalk ignored them both. \"Fortunately for us, it seems your little stunt has done this place much good,\" he said, gesturing out grandly toward the rest of the shrine. \"The shrine should survive a mere three days, considering all the fire mana you just added to it.\"\n\nCale turned to look at what Graystalk was pointing at, and then finally actually noticed what he'd done.\n\nThe entire storm of fire mana that had been sitting on the Scale was gone, for one thing. But everything the Scale had been able to process beforehand had been donated to the Elemental Shrine of Fire, raising its ambient mana level to the point that—\n\n—well, to the point that firesprites had begun to form.\n\nThat was a something that could happen when ambient mana was raised to a high enough level, Cale knew, although it was rare. The mana would gather into semi-sentient sprites, fluttering and dancing through the air. There were only ever a few of them at a time, except now?\n\nThe sky was full of them. They were twirling around the students, which was probably the main reason Cale hadn't been accosted by more of them for what he'd done. The few that just sat back down to try to meditate for their resonance rank had even more sprites flying around them, while a small cloud of them were beginning to gather around Graystalk and Delia each, giggling happily.\n\n\"Whoa,\" one of the students said. \"I just—I just got my first rank! Isn't this supposed to take weeks?\"\n\n\"I got two,\" Caea said, opening her eyes and studying Cale intently.\n\n\"Orguk also get two!\" the orc bragged, making the serpentine lady glance at him briefly. Orguk took the opportunity to wave at her.\n\nCale just blinked. \"Huh,\" he said. \"Is that supposed to happen?\"\n\n\"Absolutely not,\" Graystalk said, but he was already sitting in a meditative position. \"But far be it from me to take advantage of your generosity. You should, too—the shrine's blessing will only last for a short time, and it is needed to acquire the first rank of fire resonance.\"\n\n\"Wha—hey, don't you get ahead of me!\" Delia glared at him. She did not, however, immediately sit down to compete, as much as she seemed tempted to. Instead, she sighed and slowly gathered her barely-conscious student into her arms. \"I'm going to take her somewhere safe and make sure she recovers,\" she said quietly. \"Meet me there when you're done, Graystalk.\"\n\nGraystalk inclined his head slightly as Delia left. Cale blinked. Were neither of them going to explain anything to their students? Come to think of it, after Caea and Orguk's declarations pretty much all the students had gone straight to meditating.\n\nAlmost as if he could sense his thoughts, Graystalk cracked an eye open and spoke, surprisingly gentle. \"What you have triggered is colloquially known as a resonant blessing,\" he said, indicating the firesprites flitting through the air. \"It is a rare event. One that does not happen more than once a decade. A mage present during it masters an element exponentially faster than their peers, and the window of time we have to take advantage of it is... limited.\n\n\"Delia will ensure Kessi's safety, and I intend to move as quickly as I can so she can attempt to benefit herself. Rest assured, we will be discussing what happened here afterward. You should attempt to gain your rank while you can, as well.\" He hesitated. \"I assume you were able to find what was affecting Ms. Lyrwin?\"\n\n\"I did,\" Cale said, his expression flickering slightly before he nodded. \"Yeah, that makes sense. We'll talk about this after.\"\n\nHe was still excited about fire resonance, after all, and Kessi was woozy but fine. Cale let out a breath, sat on the ground, and closed his eyes. He could hear a faint sound of crackling as firesprites began to converge on him, one after another. At the veil of fire mana around him made it just a little easier to peer into the elemental plane of fire.\n\nAnd that was what resonance ranks were about, weren't they? Connecting to the essence of an aspect.\n\nCale allowed his mind to settle. First on the warmth of a fireplace in the middle of winter, on the comforting heat that fire could provide. Then on the raging, all-consuming flames he'd seen once tearing through entire armies. Finally he thought of how fire was the cornerstone of civilization, how its discovery helped the development of all kinds of food.\n\nLike the steady, dry heat of an oven allowing bread to rise.\n\nHe reached out to the concept of fire itself, holding that in his mind, and something within his core resonated. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in the landscape of his mind, fire burning all around him like he'd linked his sight directly to the elemental plane of fire.\n\nThat fire soon responded to his call, resolving into an image of an elemental god that embodied the purity of flame. His presence felt like a manifestation of the plane itself, towering over all else, and he tilted his head down toward Cale in a slow, almost imperious movement.\n\nThen the fire flickered, like he was blinking.\n\n\"...Really? You were thinking about bread?\" the elemental god asked, scratching the back of his head. \"I'm supposed to grant you a vision, but uh... I'm not sure what to do with that, to be honest.\"\n\n\nIn which Cale continues to be incorrigible.\n\nAnyway! Unrelated to the chapter, but I am now playing Silksong. Great game! I feel like we're meant to think of the fall of Hallownest as a kind of tragedy; for all its faults, it is ultimately a place you look at and wonder what it was like at its prime.\n\nThe experience of Pharloom, on the other hand, is kind of along the lines of \"You're telling me they did what?\"\n\nMagical Fun Fact: Incredible, massive-scale artifacts do exist, although they're vanishingly rare. They often become cornerstones of that realm's culture and beliefs. Some scholars think they were left behind by giants, but in Cale's many lives, the only time he has borne witness to such a thing being created was when a god and an archmage both got incredibly drunk. Neither remembered how to do it again afterward.\n\nCale therefore generally refuses to comment on how these artifacts are created. Besides, what he witnessed could still be an exception!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 44 — Fire Resonance, Pt 6\nTarget length: ~3200 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Cale learned mostly a single thing over the next few minutes, which was that the elemental god of fire was named Vesuvius.\n\nThe name felt vaguely familiar to Cale. Not enough for him to figure out what was familiar about it, but enough for him to realize he'd probably seen it before. He considered trying to figure that out for a moment before eventually deciding it didn't really matter; a name was just a name, and he was far more interested in this vision thing.\n\nMostly because Vesuvius made it sound like he could give Cale a baking vision, and Cale had decided that was what he wanted most out of all this. He'd been in Utelia for more than a day and he hadn't even had the chance to bake yet! Granted, he didn't really get the chance to bake in most of his lives, but it was sort of insulting to finally have magic at his fingertips and still not be able to cast a simple [Baker's Domain]. That was half the reason he was even studying at this school.\n\nThough he was making good progress, at least. He didn't really blame anyone for the sheer density of events around him. It was just kind of a thing.\n\n\"Do you think I'll be able to make some kind of oven spell with fire resonance, by the way?\" Cale asked absently. \"I'm hoping to be able to make a really big oven. You know, instead of a fireball. Maybe I'll be able to break records for the realm's biggest loaf of bread or something.\"\n\nVesuvius stared at him, apparently at a loss for words. The poor elemental god seemed like he didn't quite know what to do with him, which was actually a surprisingly common reaction as far as Cale meeting with gods went. If anything, Vesuvius was reacting rather well.\n\nHe still wanted a response, though.\n\nThankfully, Vesuvius did gather himself enough to reply, even if he still sounded confused. \"You want me to give you a spell that conjures... an oven?\" he asked. \"Not [Grand Fireball]? Or even [Tower of Fire]?\"\n\n\"You can give me spells?\" Cale brightened immediately. \"Then yes, I absolutely want an oven spell. Do people actually ask for that stuff? Why would anyone want to live in a tower made out of fire?\"\n\n\"You would be surprised,\" Vesuvius responded, more automatically than anything else. \"It's a rather common request among young fire elementals.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Cale frowned, making a face. \"That sounds uncomfortable. Even if you're a fire elemental. Actually, especially if you're a fire elemental. That would be like if I wanted to make a tower out of human flesh.\"\n\nVesuvius fell silent as he processed this, then slowly glanced around at the realm of pure fire he was bound to.\n\n\"Well,\" he said eventually. \"That's a rather disturbing thought.\"\n\n[Blabbermouth] has reached level 12!\n\nCale blinked at the sudden message from the Gift. Was he supposed to be able to level spells while having a vision? That seemed like an oversight... although he supposed [Blabbermouth] was more of a passive. Come to think of it, it had been a while since he'd gained a level in that spell.\n\nMaybe the Gift just wanted to be especially sure he got the message that time, given he was talking to a god and all. Giving a god an existential crisis would be awkward.\n\nIt also wouldn't even be the first time.\n\n\"I feel like I might need to reconsider offering that spell quite so freely,\" Vesuvius muttered, half to himself.\n\n\"Oh, don't feel like you have to change how you do things on my account!\" Cale said hastily, trying to wave it off. That was definitely the sort of thing that would get complaints. And also possibly make Akkau mad at him. \"I'd have to explain it to Akkau and it would be a whole thing. Besides, it's different for elementals! Their relationship with their element isn't the same as the relationship organic species have with their flesh...\"\n\nCale trailed off, narrowing his eyes at Vesuvius suspiciously. The elemental god towered over him, even with only half a body present—he was representing himself as just the upper half of a humanoid body rising out of a floor of flames. His head was pure, glowing fire, with what was admittedly a pretty nice jawline.\n\nMore importantly, he didn't even have a face, and Cale still felt like he was smirking.\n\n\"You're teasing me,\" he accused.\n\nVesuvius laughed. The sound boomed through the flames around him, causing them to dance and crackle with merry amusement. Really, the whole realm seemed to respond to that laughter; the fire around them blazed bright, and even through the vision, Cale felt a trickle of heat.\n\n\"My apologies,\" Vesuvius said, his smirk turning into something of a more faintly amused smile. \"I suppose it's a little immature to tease the man I should be calling my savior, but I'm a little off my game, as you may have noticed. Normally I'm unquestionably superior to the mages attempting to resonate with my element. I give them a vision that grants them a bit more insight on the true nature of fire, and then I wait a few decades until they're back.\"\n\nThe flames around Vesuvius seemed to glow brighter, and the fire god drifted toward Cale, the entire plane morphing around him as he did. \"And then there's you,\" he said. \"I'm not sure what to do with you. You already understand the nature of the flame remarkably well. If you had been born on Utelia, you would likely be a master fire mage, almost fully resonant with the element.\"\n\n\"I assume there's some reason you can't just give me those ten ranks?\" Cale asked, sighing. Vesuvius chuckled.\n\n\"Very astute,\" he said. \"Yes. There are bottlenecks—built-in limiters, if you will, to prevent a mage acquiring too much power before they're ready.\"\n\n\"Too many village fires?\" Cale asked dryly. Vesuvius shot him a look, then reluctantly nodded.\n\n\"The best I could do is get you to the fifth rank,\" he said. \"Which I'm more than happy to do, to be clear. It comes with a gift of a single fire spell and the vision I mentioned before, but in your case...\"\n\nVesuvius shrugged helplessly. \"I don't know what kind of vision to give you,\" he said. \"Or spell, for that matter.\"\n\n\"I want a baking spell,\" Cale said immediately. \"Also a baking vision.\"\n\nVesuvius paused. \"You weren't just joking about the baking thing?\"\n\n\"I would never joke about the baking thing!\" Cale huffed, almost offended at the thought. \"I take baking very seriously.\"\n\nThe fire god seemed amused, now. \"Very well. Before we begin, though, we should discuss the events at my shrine. The presence of the Red Hunters and their attempt to corrupt me is concerning... and I am grateful for your intervention, I should add.\" He hesitated. \"I've never had to thank a mortal before. Nor deal with a mage that has quite as much mana as you appear to have.\"\n\n\"Not really a mortal,\" Cale said absently. \"Or, well, I guess technically I am? It depends on how you look at it. Also, can we do all that after the baking vision? And the baking spell.\"\n\nVesuvius tilted his head, but something about the flames seemed to relax slightly, like he'd been wary about Cale's reserves of mana and what he might do. Actually, that would explain a lot of the fire god's hesitation, now that Cale thought about it.\n\n\"You're very single-minded about baking,\" Vesuvius said, chuckling lightly. \"You know less than a hundred mages have asked for a fire spell that does not focus on the element's offensive capabilities?\"\n\n\"And that,\" Cale said, \"is why magical progress gets held back in so many realms! Too many mages give up creativity for more firepower. Just fire alone could be so much more interesting, but all anyone wants to cast is [Fireball]. Or [Greater Fireball]. Or [Grand Fireball]. Or [Fireball Fireball].\"\n\n\"...What was that last one?\" Vesuvius seemed curious, but Cale just waved a hand irritably and sighed.\n\n\"It's a spell some mage invented a few centuries back in a different realm,\" he said. \"Guy fancied himself the second coming of fire, but he was terrible at coming up with spell names and also everything he made was some kind of fireball variant. That one wasn't even that interesting! It was a fireball made up of smaller fireballs, which is basically just the same thing as a regular fireball to anything you're trying to set on fire.\"\n\nCale scowled. \"You could get so much more creative with fire,\" he grumbled. \"Honestly. Even with offensive spells. Why is everyone making their fire ball-shaped? Where are the geometrically incoherent fire triangles?\"\n\n\"And what... purpose... would that spell serve? It wouldn't be very efficient, you know,\" Vesuvius said, but despite his words he was leaning forward slightly, looking for all the world like he was deeply invested in what Cale was saying. Probably in spite of himself.\n\nDefinitely in spite of himself. Cale had no idea how he could tell, but Vesuvius's blank expression seemed like the definition of \"reluctantly interested,\" emphasis on reluctant.\n\n\"Discombobulation,\" Cale answered promptly, as if that answered the question. \"You have to discombobulate your enemies.\" Then, before the fire god could ask anything else: \"Also, more spells should be inefficient. That way, I can cast them.\"\n\nThat remark made Vesuvius snort in a way that was probably a bit undignified for an elemental god. \"I suppose that would explain your predisposition toward such spells... Ah! In any case. Before I forget—and you are a remarkably distracting mortal, by the way—\"\n\n\"Not a mortal!\" Cale interrupted cheerfully. \"And thank you. I'm very good at distracting people. Including myself.\"\n\nVesuvius gave him a look. \"Yes, well, I'm afraid I'm not very well-versed in the art of baking,\" he said, trying to hold back another laugh. \"If you want a baking spell, we may have to use your baking vision to teach me how, exactly, this 'baking' is supposed to work. I will use that information to grant you that spell.\"\n\n\"You don't have it already?\" Now that he thought about it, Cale didn't quite know what the relationship between the elemental gods and the spells granted by the Gift were. Something to look into. \"Well, I'd be happy to. Honestly, I was kind of hoping you'd say that. We'll need somewhere more comfortable than just endless fire, though. Do you happen to know how to make a kitchen?\"\n\nHe paused. \"Also, fair warning, I haven't baked a good loaf of bread in centuries. So we're probably going to be figuring this out together.\"\n\nVesuvius seemed to smile. \"I look forward to it, then,\" he said.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nCale ended that resonance vision more satisfied than he had been in decades. Possibly a century or two. For one thing, he'd just spent a few hours teaching an elemental god how to bake, which was one of the more delightful tasks he'd taken on in recent memory. Even if Vesuvius had kept burning things.\n\nBy the end of it, though, Cale was pretty sure Vesuvius was disappointed to see him go. They had a quick discussion during which the god thanked him for interfering with the Red Hunters, but unfortunately, Vesuvius had little in the way of information about why he was a target. The only thing they were able to determine was that it was unlikely he was the only one: if they wanted to corrupt him, then it was likely they were targeting at least a few of the other elemental gods, as well.\n\nSomething to keep a lookout for.\n\nThat vision ended with one new spell, five acquired ranks of fire resonance, and a fire god insisting Cale get to the next milestone \"as soon as possible\" so they could try baking \"croissants\". Cale hadn't had the heart to tell the fire god that a lot of that prepwork could not, in fact, be done in a kitchen made of fire. Probably. He was glad Vesuvius was interested, though! It meant he'd convinced yet another mage about the importance of baking magic.\n\nOr god. Whatever. Same difference.\n\nHe was mildly disappointed when Graystalk told him that five ranks of fire resonance translated only to being able to acquire third-tier fire spells. What was the point of numbering the ranks if they didn't match? He couldn't complain too much, though; the whole point of that was so he could get a baking spell, and that didn't matter, because he finally had a baking spell.\n\nVesuvius had come through for him and then some. It was a third tier spell and would undoubtedly evolve once he tried to cast it, but with five ranks in fire resonance, he was basically almost assured a more evolved version of the baking spell instead of some other random fire-based effect.\n\nHe'd been waiting centuries to be able to do this kind of thing. Cale reached out to the Gift and read the new spell description, beaming.\n\n[Baker's Oven, Level 1] [Third Tier, Active] [120,000 Mana]\n\nCreate a small space that automatically bakes any dough or batter at the perfect temperature until done. Includes decorative fire sigils to mark the affected space.\n\nJust looking at the Gift's description made his heart sing. Plus, Vesuvius had been kind enough to construct a slightly more inefficient variation of the spell, specifically so Cale might have a chance of casting the base version of it within his lifetime. That also meant that although the spell would evolve when he tried to cast it, it wouldn't evolve that much.\n\nProbably, anyway. What would an evolved version of [Baker's Oven] even look like?\n\nCale itched to test it out as soon as possible, but there was the rather pressing issue of talking to the professors about everything that just happened here. Also figuring out what to do with the Firestorm Scale, probably, considering its remains were still lying in a warped, smoking crater along with the remnants of its pedestal.\n\n...Also getting Damien up to date on things. He would've been speaking to his apprentice already if not for the fact that Vesuvius had informed him the dreadshade was \"in the middle of something unprecedented.\" Cale wasn't exactly sure what to make of that, and would have insisted on details if Vesuvius hadn't been so certain that Damien would want to tell him himself.\n\nTo be fair, it did look like the type of thing Damien might want to tell him about. There was a tiny storm of tightly-controlled decay mana swirling around the firesprites converging on Damien. Thankfully, with those firesprites all over the field, the errant mana wasn't terribly noticeable; more importantly, none of it was leaking.\n\nInteresting. Cale was starting to get some idea of what this might be.\n\nWhen the storm finally looked like it had begun to abate and Damien stirred from within, Cale walked straight through it to grab hold of a startled dreadshade, then started dragging him along, ignoring the firesprites trying to condense into a tiny cloak on his back. \"Come on,\" he said cheerfully. \"We gotta find Graystalk and talk about all this. Where did he go, anyway?\"\n\nCale scanned the shrine briefly, but the professors were nowhere to be seen. He frowned, then tapped into his mana sense to look more carefully—\n\n—Ah. There they were. Sitting behind some isolation wards at the entrance to one of the tunnels that led beneath the shrine, apparently. That made sense; the professors had probably decided they needed to get Kessi away from the rest of the students once she'd woken up. Cale wondered if she'd gained her own rank in fire resonance or if the whole incident had made her miss out.\n\nHopefully not.\n\n\"This way,\" he said, pulling a still-confused Damien along with him. \"We need to tell the professors what's going on.\"\n\nThe wards the professors had set up were pretty impressive, now that Cale took a closer look at them. Or... were they just Graystalk's wards? They were all anchored into place with the same talismans he'd used to construct the trap earlier. The design was immaculate, considering his limitations—an obfuscation ward layered with wards against scrying, mana manipulation, even something that looked design to divert the attention of divinities...\n\nNo wonder Graystalk was called Mage Killer. This was impressive to the point of almost being overkill, though Cale supposed one couldn't be too careful. He wrapped Damien in a barrier bubble and strode straight through, causing Kessi to yelp out a little scream and very nearly fling a spell at him before Graystalk casually reached over to disrupt it.\n\nThe elven professor sighed. \"I suppose it was too much to expect that you would knock,\" he said.\n\n\"You added a knocking function to the wards?\" Cale blinked, then looked them over again. There appeared to be a ward specifically tuned for him to knock on. \"Whoops. I missed it, sorry.\"\n\n\"I will be sure to leave a note in the future,\" Graystalk said dryly. \"Now. What exactly did you discover?\"\n\nDelia sat up at this question, her expression intent. It was clear to see she felt she'd failed her student—there was guilt in her eyes, and she clutched Kessi protectively, though the younger mage protested and pushed at her professor.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Kessi said. She hesitated. \"But... I want to know too. What did you discover?\"\n\nCale sighed. \"Nothing you didn't already know,\" he said, nodding at Graystalk. \"I'm pretty sure the Red Hunters are behind this. Our academy probably isn't the only academy they're targeting.\"\n\nHe held out a hand, revealing the golden bead, then quickly explained everything he understood about what had happened—the likelihood of shimmerdust poisoning, the way the Red Hunters had needed to set this up, and the golden fly positioned to interfere at exactly the wrong moment.\n\nAs he did, Delia's jaw tightened, her hands slowly clenching into fists. And judging by the bloodlust coming from her...\n\nWell, Cale did not envy the Red Hunters that were installed at Haelforge. They were going to be in for a rough time.\n\n\nHe finally got a baking spell!\n\nMagical Fun Fact: \"Always include a way to keep track of the world around you\" is one of the first lessons taught in most academies when it comes to ward construction. One of the most common mistakes made by novices is that, in focusing all their attempts on keeping things out, they accidentally lock themselves in. Alternatively, without a means of keeping track of the world around them, they fail to notice when their fellows come under attack.\n\nThe latter is surprisingly common and happens about 12% of the time. It's known as the Warder's Curse, though some people think that their masters made it up to make sure they follow the rules..."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 45 — Escape\nTarget length: ~3500 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Serof Ontiladus was running out of time, and he knew it.\n\nThe Watchful Hive ran on a strict schedule, in large part because of its position off the eastern coast of Aersheld. Inconvenient as it was, the waters of the Endless Deep did a remarkable job shielding the enormous, tower-sized relic from would-be spies and scryers. The ocean around them created a strong magical interference field that was all but impossible for most spells to penetrate.\n\nUnfortunately, the same thing applied to travel. It was virtually impossible to reach or leave the Watchful Hive unless the tides were low, which—thanks to both the natural movement of the oceans and some very powerful spells cast by the Grand Mage—happened only about once every two months. For about six hours, the otherwise impenetrable magics of Utelia's oceans would be diminished just enough to sail across, albeit not without a great deal of protective magic.\n\nThat meant Serof's escape plan hinged entirely on being able to navigate the Watchful Hive without being spotted, steal a boat, power its enchantments, and sail across a stretch of the Endless Deep within a six-hour window.\n\nOh, and he had to do that while avoiding the Red Hunters that would also be making their way to the Watchful Hive.\n\nIf nothing else, the tight schedule made things more predictable. There were no Red Hunters here to catch him unawares, for example, and there would be none until the waters had lowered enough for them to sail across.\n\nThat was... pretty much where the good news ended.\n\nThe interference around the Watchful Hive made it just as difficult for spells to reach out as it was for spells to reach in. The only reason Serof and the other Observers had been able to scry into Utelia was because of their ichorworm connections. The larvae acted as a sort of spell anchor on the opposite side of the field, allowing simple scrying spells to make their way across.\n\nWith his own ichorworm dead, however, Serof was rapidly losing his ability to see outside the Hive.\n\nAnd that was a problem.\n\nThe Watchful Hive didn't have much in the way of timekeeping devices—none of the Observers needed it, in large part because they were constantly monitoring what was happening to their targets anyway. And while it was just a suspicion on Serof's part, he believed part of it was also to make sure the Observers were as detached from their own reality as possible.\n\nWith no real sense of how much time was passing, it was far easier to default to the Broodmother's constant buzzing, and far easier to fall into the task of scrying constantly. They stopped only for breaks. For food and water, essentially, as well as for any other physical needs that might need tending to, though calling the slop they were given \"food\" was... well, it was generous.\n\nSerof grimaced a bit as a few more of his memories came flooding back. Cale's mana might have broken the Broodmother's control over him, but there were still cobwebs over most of his mind. Every so often, a memory would strike him, making him relive one of the many indignities he'd endured over the last eight years.\n\nThe food felt like it was one of the worst, but not because he hadn't seen and endured worse over the years. It was just that cooking had been one of his joys, prior to all this. Serof had loved it. He'd loved learning about different cultures and styles of food, exploring new ways to combine flavors and coming up with new dishes.\n\nMore than that, he'd loved seeing the way people lit up in response to his food. Unlike most other mages, he didn't delve dungeons to see what artifacts they held or what secrets they contained. He just wanted to see what sort of food was being made in other realms. He wanted to study their recipes, see if there was a way to incorporate what they did into his own work.\n\nNot only had he not cooked a single meal for eight years, he hadn't even eaten real food for eight years. Serof remembered day after day of mechanically shoveling goop into his mouth while the buzzing told him it was the best thing he'd ever had.\n\nIt was decidedly not. Especially not now that he had the clarity of mind to think back on it.\n\nThe Red Hunters valued efficiency, after all. They would have used teleportation to get into and out of the Watchful Hive if it were possible, and there were some spells that could reach across when properly anchored. The spellslates, for example, worked because they were linked to a similar network of spellslates buried all across Utelia.\n\nBut even with the help of the spellslate network, teleporting in and out of the Hive was impossible. Anything they tried to teleport, spell anchors or not, was mangled beyond recognition. That was the reason spellslates needed to be manually transported via boat, though Serof suspected they wouldn't have wasted the precious things on just getting in and out even if it had been possible.\n\nRegardless, there was one thing they could teleport that reduced the necessity of making large supply runs: food and water. It didn't matter if the food got mangled as long as all its nutritional content was still there, and so Observers were kept fed with what their Hunter teams fondly nicknamed \"teleportation sludge.\"\n\nNow that Serof thought about it, that name had definitely been mocking. He scowled at the thought, then scowled again at the fact that he'd been eating nothing but teleportation sludge for years. As if that weren't bad enough, he was pretty sure that sludge was \"supplemented\" with the lesser honey that the Broodmother regurgitated after each feeding.\n\nNo doubt because it helped keep them all pliant. Serof was struck by a sudden thought—food production was a process that was mostly automated, with most of the incoming food teleported into a tank that preserved the resulting sludge. If he could sabotage the process to somehow make sure the lesser honey was wasted rather than mixed in...\n\nSerof winced. It all came back down to the fact that he didn't know if he had time. If teleportation wasn't so much of a problem, he might have been able to teleport himself to Aersheld and get in contact with the kingdom of Thyrahl. They might have tolerated the Red Hunters, but if they caught wind of what was happening in the Watchful Hive, that tolerance would almost certainly end.\n\nSerof wouldn't have been surprised if they declared outright war, in fact.\n\nThough now that he thought about it... would they even believe him? That buzzing had carved out so many of his memories. So much of his life before the Hive was a blur, and even his time as an Observer was rapidly starting to feel like there were cobwebs plastered over his memories. He knew he'd enabled atrocities, but now he was barely remembering which ones.\n\nThe most important things remained, at least. He was still himself. He knew what he'd loved doing, once, and he hoped he'd be able to get to that again one day.\n\nThough that day, he knew, was unlikely to come anytime soon.\n\nSerof sighed. He'd been carefully scrying the catacombs of the Watchful Hive for the past hour or three; he was pretty sure he now knew the route out, and even if he got lost, his scrying wasn't disabled within the Hive. It would probably take him about the same amount of time to identify where the boats were kept and where the food production facilities were, if he decided he wanted to mess with those.\n\nThe trouble was that he was pretty sure low tide would be arriving soon. Before his ability to scry outside had begun to fail, he'd managed to locate both the boathouse on the Aersheld coast and a glimpse of the schedule; it looked like they were preparing for a shipment. Whatever else happened, he needed to be on a boat and on the way back before low tide was over.\n\nSerof sat back against the wall, sighed, and began to scry. This time, he searched for the boats that would allow him to sail back to Aersheld.\n\nAs well as the food supply tanks. Just in case he had time.\n\nAt the same time, he went over his plan once more. He needed to leave the Hive without being spotted by any of the other Observers. It wouldn't be the end of the world if he was spotted, at least. Serof was now well aware of and familiar with the downsides of indoctrination, which was that none of them were very good at thinking for themselves. If he was spotted and just gave an excuse, he was pretty sure it would be accepted without question.\n\nHe just didn't really want to deal with it. Knowing that his friends and family were under the control of the Broodmother was one thing, but actually meeting them? Serof didn't trust himself not to try to shake them out of it, and that he knew wouldn't go down well.\n\nHe'd prioritize making his way to the boats for two reasons. One, the boats were at the entrance to the Hive, and from there, he'd be able to see what time of the day it was. Serof may have been unsure about exactly when low tide would happen, but he did know it always happened at night; if the sun began to set, then he'd know to watch the water level.\n\nSecond, he needed to get help first and foremost. Sabotaging the sludge might reduce the Broodmother's influence, but it wouldn't do much with their ichorworms still in place. If food production happened to be somewhat near the boats and there was time, then he could spare a moment to mess with it. Otherwise...\n\nWell, he would be back with help. Serof told himself that a few times, trying to ignore the shaking in his limbs.\n\nAfter he found the boats, he'd need to spend some time familiarizing himself with the enchantments on them, too. He'd never sailed before, and while he knew it was typically done by supplying mana to a set of enchantments on the boats, he had no idea how to manage them. If he wanted to have any hope of avoiding the Red Hunter patrol that would be coming in the opposite direction, he needed to know how to sail intimately.\n\nOr at all. He would also settle for \"at all.\" Escaping the Watchful Hive was ambitious enough, and the truth of it was that he had no real idea if he could pull any of this off.\n\nBut he had to try. All his friends and family were here. Practically his entire clan, each one specializing in light and scrying. Even now, Serof could barely remember how or why they'd all ended up here, but he knew he needed to get them all out.\n\nHe was the only chance they had left now. Just this morning, they didn't even have a chance left. If he could find Cale, if he could get him to help... it would all be alright.\n\nIt had to be.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nSerof managed step one with relatively little fanfare.\n\nThe biggest problem he'd run into was that the boats were warded, but those wards had been surprisingly easy to break through. They were minimal things, more to prevent them from being whipped out to sea by an errant wind-current from one of the Endless Deep's constant magical storms than secure them against a potential thief. Clearly, the idea that one of their Observers might break free from an eight-year-long control spell had been outside the Red Hunters' considerations.\n\nThat relieved some of his concerns, but not all of them. The sailing enchantments may as well have been a complex arcane lock, for all Serof understood them. He was beginning to realize he would need to practice within the rather limited confines of the port, which was probably more accurately described as a cavern with some water in it.\n\nOn the other hand, there were two boats moored here, so he could afford to mess up with one of them. As far as he was concerned, it was probably better if he did; the more he did to ruin things for the Red Hunters, the better. The whole reason they needed backups like these was because sailing across the Endless Deep was so dangerous. If he destroyed one and stole the other, and the Hunters wrecked their ship getting across, they'd be trapped here.\n\nThe thought of that gave Serof a grim sort of satisfaction.\n\nPossibly too much satisfaction. He accidentally crashed the first boat within minutes, feeding just a little too much mana into the wind enchantment and causing it to slam straight into the wall of the cave.\n\nOn the other hand, that was enough for him to figure out how the enchantments worked. They looked complicated, but were surprisingly simple: the largest rune created winds that blew the ship forward, and the two slightly smaller ones on each side steered it. Serof spent a few more minutes experimenting with the smaller runes beneath, noting that each of them were associated with a series of defensive spells, most likely to help the boat withstand the storms of the Endless Deep.\n\nGood enough. Serof considered sailing the boat he'd wrecked into the Hive's walls a few more times, but decided it was better to steer it back into place and leave it as it was, with only a minor patch to prevent water from leaking in.\n\nThe sun was still high enough that he had time to go sabotage the food tanks, too.\n\nEven better.\n\n—\n\nScrying hadn't prepared Serof for how bad everything would smell.\n\nThe teleportation sludge itself was effectively sterile, partly due to the teleportation spell that had created it in the first place and partly due to the preservation wards etched into the food tanks. It wasn't the source of the smell.\n\nNo, the source of the smell was the pipes. The Broodmother's regurgitated lesser honey was piped through the walls and down into the food tanks, and it smelled nothing like how he remembered. Serof shuddered. In his memories, his food had both smelled and tasted pleasant... which meant that almost everything about it was probably artificially induced by the buzzing.\n\nAny hunger he'd been feeling evaporated at the smell, at least, so there was that.\n\nThankfully, the production line wasn't too hard to sabotage. The pipes were relatively fragile things, made out of a thin metal that had clearly been hastily shaped for this purpose. He climbed to the top of the tanks, shoved as hard as he could, and they broke loose and dribbled their honey all over the tank lid.\n\nAnd also his hands and knees. Serof winced with disgust. He'd need to wash himself thoroughly before eating anything after this. Thankfully, that was all he really needed to do—pushing the pipe into place behind the tank made the so-called honey drip into the drainage system behind, and with how dim the whole place was, his sabotage was barely even noticeable.\n\nPhew. That had been remarkably easy, actually. Serof glanced around, half-expecting one of the other Observers to suddenly appear in the dark; when no one did, he made his way back to the \"port\" to wait for low tide. While he was there, he gingerly dipped his limbs into the water to scrub off as much of the honey as he could.\n\nIt was when he was done that he realized that something was wrong.\n\nOr not... wrong, perhaps. Strange. The sun was still high, which meant that it wasn't even noon yet; his estimation of time had been way off. It looked like not even half the day had passed.\n\nAnd yet the water level was going down.\n\nLow tide wasn't supposed to happen until night. This was one of the few things Serof remembered very clearly, mostly because the Hunters that came to resupply their spellslates never stopped complaining about it. Something about the waters of the Endless Deep being much more intimidating beneath the light of the Dread Moon.\n\nExcept right now it was clearly still the middle of the day. It shouldn't have been time for low tide yet. The tides happened like clockwork, and as far as Serof knew, it had never been off for the last eight years.\n\nEvery two months, the Red Hunters arrived in the middle of the night, complaining about having to do so. This was a fact ingrained into him so deeply at this point that it felt wrong to consider that anything else might be true.\n\nSo what did it mean that it was off now?\n\nSerof stared at the boats. He had no idea what to think of this. Did that mean he needed to leave now? Was there a reason the Red Hunters waited until night? Low tide was supposed to last six hours, but his sense of time was so off by this point that he barely knew what that meant.\n\nHe was pretty sure six hours wasn't enough time for it to be the middle of the night. This just seemed like the tide was a few hours off.\n\nBut why would the tide be a few hours off?\n\nThere had been no communication from the Red Hunters about this, so it was unlikely they were anticipating it. When Serof was scrying earlier, he hadn't noticed the usual team anywhere close by, and if they had been preparing to sail off they would at least have been in the vicinity. That would almost certainly screw with their plans—the tides being low now meant it would be rising again by the time the Red Hunters were in position.\n\nIt also meant he wouldn't need to worry about running into them while sailing back across, if he was quick about it. He might be able to escape into the mountains of Aersheld and find a way to a teleporter that could get him to the Brightscale Academy.\n\nWhichever god did this... thank you, Serof said, bowing his head in a small prayer, feathery antennae dipping with him. Because who else could have done this? The tides shifting to help him couldn't be anything less than an omen from the gods. A sign of their favor.\n\nAfter all, the only other thing that might shift the tides themselves was if someone had moved one of the moons, and the idea of that was ridiculous.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nSternkessel cocked his head. If he had eyes to narrow, he would have narrowed them; as it stood, he simply paused mid-sentence to stare into space, the rings of his head spinning silently for a moment.\n\n\"Sterny?\" Cale poked him in the shoulder. \"You were about to tell us about something you noticed.\"\n\n\"Sterny?\" Sternkessel repeated, turning to stare at the human.\n\n\"I'm trying out nicknames! Not sure I like that one, though. Might have to try something else.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Sternkessel replied evenly, careful to avoid changing his expression. Mostly because keeping Cale guessing was developing into a remarkably interesting past-time. \"Yes, well. What I was about to say was that I was aware of a third party presence disrupting my domain, but could not trace it. That, it appears, has changed.\"\n\nCale squinted at him. \"Are you about to teleport away with no further explanation?\"\n\nSternkessel chuckled. \"I will be back in an hour or two,\" he said.\n\nThen he reached up to spin one of the rings on his head and vanished.\n\nCale stared at the spot where he'd left.\n\n\"Well,\" he said eventually, shrugging. \"I've got about an hour before the next class, so this is a perfect chance to test my new baking spell.\"\n\nHe beamed, then paused.\n\n\"Technically, I have to see what it evolves into first,\" he amended. \"It might not be a baking spell. But it probably will be. Anyone coming? We should go fast, because Imrys is headed this way and I'm pretty sure she's looking for me.\"\n\n\nI mean, the moon thing was definitely going to come back into play at some point.\n\nCale Fact: Cale has been to a couple of realms that are mostly covered in water! While sailing magic is typically very sophisticated in those realms, he mostly refers to get around by floating inside a barrier and propelling himself at ludicrous speeds. Once, after an arrogant captain stole the only piece of bread on board the ship from him, he proclaimed he could \"swim faster than your funny boat anyway.\" He then extracted a rather humiliating promise from the captain should he prove he could, then proceeded to rocket off twice as fast as the ship's fastest speeds in a way only Cale would (which is to say, lying face down and ramrod straight in the water like a plank.)"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 46 — Yeast\nTarget length: ~3400 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "\"Yeast,\" Cale said, very patiently.\n\nDamien stared at him. The poor dreadshade looked like he was getting increasingly confused rather than enlightened, which, frankly, was a little insulting. This explanation had worked perfectly well with Vesuvius!\n\nAlthough Cale supposed that Vesuvius hadn't actually had to worry about how yeast worked. It wasn't really necessary for the vision, and it was technically a vision. It operated on how they both understood the world. All Cale had needed to do was procure the ingredients, mix them in front of an increasingly fascinated elemental god, and then stick them in an oven.\n\nVesuvius had been both surprised and fascinated the fifth time he went through the process, when the dough rose and baked into a reasonably bread-looking loaf. He was familiar with his element burning things, charring things, and even with the general idea of cooking. What he apparently hadn't encountered yet—or hadn't paid much attention to—was baking, where the application of heat transformed raw dough into a different product entirely.\n\nThat was when he'd really gotten invested. Cale sighed wistfully; that had been a good few hours of baking. He'd have to find a way to repair the artifact quickly and get another one of those visions... although that meant he'd have to confront Imrys, and he did technically run away from her earlier.\n\nDamien, who had no real way of realizing that Cale was in the middle of a nostalgic reverie, cut through his thoughts. \"Yeast?\" he asked helplessly.\n\n\"What? Oh. Yes. Yeast.\" Cale nodded distractedly.\n\n\"I don't... um... I don't know what you want me to do with that,\" Damien said.\n\nThere was a small jar sitting on the table between them. As far as Cale was concerned, the jar was just the starting point. It had been a long time since he'd had a good loaf of sourdough bread, and while he could technically get Alina to bake one for him the normal way, it just wasn't the same for him if it wasn't made from start to end with magic.\n\nAnd now he had that magic. Sort of. He still needed to actually evolve the spell, but first he needed to get all the ingredients together, and he had to make his own starter. Cale had ended up running all over the academy grounds just to collect everything he needed.\n\nWhich was the following: a jar from Syphus (who had a jar collection, for some reason); several types of flour from Alina (who was very interested, but unfortunately busy trying to tame her mandrake root); water from Flia (who chased him back out of her room immediately after, muttering something about almost having it); and space from Imrys (which he had only acquired after promising to cast the next [Awaken Artifact] with her present.)\n\nNow all he needed to do was to get Damien to accelerate the process of making the starter. Decay mana was closely related to fungal mana! All Damien needed to do was use his magic to accelerate the growth of the yeast in the air while he fed it various types of flour...\n\n...Hm. Now that he thought about it, Damien would probably be a lot less confused if he'd said all of this out loud. He sort of assumed he had, but thinking back, he was pretty sure he'd actually just stared intently at his apprentice and then said the word \"yeast.\"\n\n\"Damien,\" Cale said. \"Did I ask you to make some yeast, or did I just stare at you and then say the word yeast?\"\n\n\"The, um... definitely the second one,\" Damien said awkwardly. \"You wanted me to make yeast? How do I even... shouldn't we talk about, you know, everything that just happened?\"\n\n\"What?\" Cale asked blankly. \"Oh, you mean with our fire resonance class? I mean, we can't just run off to Haelforge to solve their problems. Professor Delia seems like she has it handled, and they have an alchemist that knows how to alleviate the symptoms of shimmerdust poisoning. Imrys already said she'd help fix the Firestorm Scale. I feel like everything resolved pretty neatly.\"\n\nDamien stared at him. \"First of all, they didn't,\" he said. \"We have those... those fly things all over the academy! We have to do something about them!\"\n\n\"If we did, they'd know we're on to them,\" Cale said reasonably. \"What we should do is find out where they're coming from and destroy the source artifact before they can hide it. Which Sternkessel is doing, so I think we get to focus on baking.\"\n\nDamien sighed. \"And second, I was talking about our History of the Great Realms class,\" he said. \"You know, the class we just had, where you took over the professor and started lecturing the class instead? Three students fainted, one of them somehow discovered a new spell, and I'm pretty sure you gave the professor nosebleeds for several different reasons.\"\n\nCale paused, frowning. That had been... a pretty normal class, it felt like. Certainly less eventful than most of his other classes had been. \"What's there to talk about?\"\n\n\"Everything!\" Damien gestured wildly, then groaned at Cale's blank expression. \"You can't just completely overturn centuries of...\"\n\nThe dreadshade trailed off and sighed. \"Nevermind. You're going to do it no matter what I say, aren't you?\"\n\nCale shot Damien an offended look. \"The textbook was wrong. And rude! I wasn't just going to let my friends be slandered. K'xoarcl might have a mouth in its exposed brains, but it also has feelings.\"\n\nHe paused. \"Twice as much feeling per feeling, actually,\" he added. \"We checked. Mathematically sound. It really messed up the utilitarians in that realm for a bit.\"\n\n\"I think if I question that I'm going to end up the same way our professor did,\" Damien muttered to himself. \"Okay, um... just nevermind all that, then. I do have something I need to talk to you about, but that can wait until Syphus gets here again. I don't think I should let people overhear me. Especially if those fly things are around.\"\n\nCale shot him a curious look at that, but shrugged, choosing not to question it. \"So, you'll help me?\" he asked brightly.\n\nDamien hesitated. \"What did you want me to do? You wanted me to make yeast?\"\n\n\"Fungal magic is closely related to decay magic,\" Cale explained. \"All you need to do is figure out some sort of decay spell that accelerates the growth of yeast in this jar while I feed it.\"\n\nDamien stared doubtfully at the various packs of flour Cale had brought with him. \"Are you sure that's how you're supposed to make... whatever this is?\" he asked. \"Decay isn't usually something I would want to mix with food...\"\n\nCale shrugged. \"Mostly!\" he said, beaming. \"Technically you're just supposed to feed the starter with one type of flour, but I figure we can mix it up. Give the yeast a nice, varied diet. Enrichment, you know?\"\n\n\"I don't think that's how that works,\" Damien said hesitantly.\n\n\"It'll be fine.\" Cale waved off his concerns. \"Just hit the jar with a [Decay Bolt] or something. It should kickstart the whole process.\"\n\n\"We're not starting with [Decay Bolt],\" Damien protested immediately. \"That's just a full decay effect! It would make it rot!\"\n\nCale paused. \"Good point. What about [Yeast Bolt]?\"\n\n\"I would have suggested that already if I had it,\" Damien mumbled. \"I don't know how to make one.\"\n\n\"Would be a great time to try!\" Cale gave him a friendly grin. \"You never know what you're capable of. Besides, think about it—you'd be proving that you can use decay mana for much more than just death and rot. You'd be able to use it for baking. Which is kind of like healing, if you think about it.\"\n\n\"You lost me at that last part,\" Damien said, though he couldn't help but smile slightly. \"But yeah, I guess... I guess that would be nice.\"\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nDamien stared at the jar and hesitated, feeling slightly ridiculous. There was no reason to feel nervous about his ability to follow through on Cale's absurd plan—especially since he was pretty sure Cale wouldn't blame him if he failed—but the guy was so sincerely excited about it that Damien just didn't want to disappoint him.\n\nThat and he was liable to come up with something even more worrying if this whole thing with decay mana didn't work out. Damien wasn't sure which one was worse. After everything Cale had helped him with, though, this seemed like a minor favor to return in comparison.\n\nHe just had to figure out how exactly he was supposed to do this. Safely. As powerful as Cale was, he wasn't invulnerable, and one of the few secrets he had been concerningly open about was the fact that he was still vulnerable to most non-magical kinds of poison.\n\nDamien really didn't want his only effective mentor-slash-friend to die of food poisoning before they got to understanding his new mana aspect. Or after, for that matter.\n\nOr ever, preferably, but from what Cale had said...\n\nDamien studiously avoided thinking about that by engaging the one defense mechanism he'd practiced thoroughly with: changing the subject he was dwelling on. He still hadn't gotten the chance to talk to Cale about his new [Legacy of the Verdant Flame]; Syphus had been in a bit of a rush when they were meeting with it earlier, but had promised to meet them \"soon.\" Damien was only willing to talk about this with Syphus in the room, especially now that he knew that the Red Hunters were apparently constantly watching them.\n\nHe could still think about it, though. He might even be able to cast Verdant Flame spells—if the Red Hunters hadn't already detected its emergence when he placed his mana on the Firestorm Scale, then they weren't likely to be watching closely enough to notice when he cast a second time. The only question was whether the Verdant Flame would help him with this whole yeast thing.\n\nCale wasn't wrong. Decay magic was closely tied to fungal magic. The few times his decay mana had grown out of control, he'd seen all sorts of strange types of fungi growing on everything it touched.\n\nMostly mushrooms. Really, really weird mushrooms.\n\nNow that he thought about it, Damien realized he'd developed a bit of a fear of mushrooms. No wonder he felt so uncomfortable in the cafeteria... not to mention that one enormous myconid he shared Magical History lessons with.\n\n\"And here I thought it was because of the whole psychic link thing,\" Damien mumbled to himself.\n\nCale gave him a strange look. \"What?\"\n\nDamien jumped. \"Oh! N-nothing. Um, I was just realizing I kind of have a fear of mushrooms?\"\n\n\"You do?\" Cale blinked, and then a look of understanding dawned in his eyes. \"Oh. Yeah, no, that makes sense, actually. Are you sure you want to do this?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Damien said quickly, because the only thing worse than the idea of failing to do this was the idea of not even trying. \"Just give me a minute, I need to decide if... um, I need to decide on something.\"\n\nHe needed to decide if the Verdant Flame would help him with this.\n\nAs far as he understood—and he didn't understand much—the Verdant Flame embodied the relationship between fire and decay. More specifically, however, Damien was pretty sure embodied the cycle of decay. In the same way that decay was an abstract representation of entropy and death, the Verdant Flame was an abstract representation of the movement of life. Of one living thing making way for another.\n\nYeast was kind of like that, wasn't it? Damien wasn't all that familiar with what it did, but the basic idea of it had been covered in Magical Plagues: yeast was present basically everywhere, and the vast majority of subspecies weren't magical in the slightest. The few that were rarely affected any living species. Instead, they evolved to feed on specific magical plants when they died, eating away at the defensive mana to allow the natural process of decomposition to take place.\n\nDamien was pretty sure he could work with that.\n\nHe drew on his mana, hesitated for a moment, then began trying to attune it to the aspect of the Verdant Flame. His eyes widened—the process felt almost easy. Most of the time, trying to attune his mana made him feel like he was pushing up against a massive wall of stone; even when Cale had helped him make the process easier, it felt like... trying to roll Syphus up a hill or something.\n\nBut attuning to the Verdant Flame was different. There was still resistance, far less, like he was opening a door rather than trying to force something impossible. His Manamorphic Cloak fluttered beneath his shoulders as he focused, attempting to draw on his mana, but he quieted it with a small effort of will. He didn't need it to separate his mana for now.\n\nStrangely enough, Damien thought he felt a hint of... reluctance? Annoyance? He wasn't sure, but it felt like the cloak had responded with something. Still, it obeyed, releasing its grasp on the mana he was trying to attune.\n\nAnd soon after that, Damien finally had a fistful of Verdant Flame mana in his core.\n\nAttuning to the Verdant Flame was costly, he noted distantly. It was easier for him to attune by far, but it took a lot of decay mana to produce even a single unit of Verdant Flame mana. Why that was he couldn't be sure, but Damien suspected it had something to do with it being a Legacy.\n\nIt didn't matter for now. Once he had the Verdant Flame mana, he could...\n\nDamien paused. He didn't actually know how to make a spell.\n\n\"Um,\" he said. \"How do mages normally... make spells?\"\n\nCale raised an eyebrow. \"If you want to know how spell constructs are made we're going to be here a while,\" he said. \"And frankly I don't know all the details myself. Construct creation is quite literally an art that takes centuries to master.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Damien said.\n\n\"But!\" Cale continued cheerfully. \"Spell constructs are technically just a way to make sure a spell effect is repeatable. Normally a mage manages a spell effect and then spends years studying it to break it down into a construct; the Gift is a shortcut for that part of the process. So all you really need to do is figure out a way to make the mana do what you want.\"\n\n\"But... how do I do that?\" Damien asked helplessly. Cale grinned at him.\n\n\"You just gotta try,\" he said, and then when Damien gave him a despairing look, he laughed. \"It's a lot easier than it sounds, I promise,\" he said. \"Magic wants to be cast. Do you know what the earliest forms of magic were? They weren't spells cast through wands—that's a recent development, for a relative value of 'recent.' It happened because mages needed ways to cast spells immediately.\n\n\"In a lot of ways, that modern version of magic is better, but if it solved everything then rituals and all that would be obsolete. And I'm sure you've noticed this already, but it very much isn't.\" Cale smiled, extending a thin barrier from his hand as though it were a wand. \"Rituals are needed for some of the strongest magics out there. You've seen what domains can do. Now, what's one form of magic we haven't dealt with yet?\"\n\nDamien hesitated. \"Incantations?\" he guessed.\n\n\"Exactly!\" Cale beamed proudly at him, clapping a hand on his shoulder, and Damien did his best to suppress the glow of pride from within. Mostly because he wasn't really sure what to do with anyone being proud of him. Or him being proud of himself, for that matter. \"Magic wants to be cast. Incantations are one of the best ways to persuade it to do that. Just like praying to the Gift, for example.\"\n\n\"So... I should try an incantation,\" Damien said slowly, and Cale nodded at him.\n\n\"Try to shape your mana in a way that feels right for what you want it to do,\" he said encouragingly. He took Damien's wrist and guided it to the edge of the jar, just over the water-flour mixture inside. \"Then whisper your incantation. It might take a few tries, but don't worry if it fails.\"\n\n\"A-alright,\" Damien said. He felt a little foolish, but he did it anyway, extending his new Verdant Flame mana into a thin little rod that extended into the mixture.\n\nCale's eyes widened slightly at the pale, flickering green flame that extended from Damien's fingers, but he said nothing. Instead, his gaze somehow became intent. Damien looked up for just a moment, caught the conflict in his eyes, a flicker of something old and heavy he couldn't understand.\n\nAnd along with that, something seemed to change. The rest of the room faded away, leaving only Damien, the jar, and Cale Cadwell Cobbs. He could feel the mana in the room gathering around them, almost like it was holding its breath and waiting for him. Waiting for...\n\nWaiting for the creation of a spell.\n\nDamien thought it would be difficult to find the words, but instead, the words came to him naturally and seemed almost to reverberate into the mana itself:\n\nO driver of cycles within the air: you who seeds civilizations, the ever-present, the spore-eternal\n\nFeast now upon your gods-given fare: an offering given for a harvest yet to be, now-ethereal\n\nSomething seemed to flood through Damien, a pattern that was familiar and then suddenly different. The Gift curled around him in reaction—no, in anticipation. Excitement? His cloak fluttered behind him, seeming to sense the change in energy.\n\n[Decay Bolt] has evolved into [Yeast Bolt]!\n\nDamien stared. He'd almost forgotten that all of this was about encouraging yeast to grow in the jar.\n\n[Yeast Bolt, Level 1] [Second Tier (Unique), Active] [500 Mana]\n\nAn application of the Verdant Flame, this spell encourages the growth of yeast and other microorganisms that contribute to the taste profile of sourdough bread. This spell will forever be known as the first of the Legacy of the Verdant Flame.\n\n\"Um,\" Damien said. \"I think the Gift might be making fun of me.\"\n\n\"We definitely need to talk about that,\" Cale said, sounding distracted. Damien glanced over to find his mentor busy dumping pinches of flour into a now-frothing mixture of flour and water. \"And about how you know about incantation rules. After we deal with this, though! We need to make sure we don't ruin the starter. Quick, help me dump more flour into this—\"\n\nSyphus's dry voice echoed into the room, making them both jump. \"I would ask if I arrived at a bad time, but I'm not sure any timing would explain this,\" the golem said. \"Lucky for you both, I don't care as long as Cale turns my arm into a cannon later. What was it you wanted to tell us, Damien?\"\n\n\"Um,\" Damien said. \"It's about... I think it's about a new mana aspect? Kind of? The Gift said it was something called a Legacy—\"\n\n\"Oh?\" Syphus seemed suddenly very interested. It rolled all the way up to him and peered at him closely. \"You've discovered a new mana aspect, have you? How interesting.\"\n\n\"Sisyphus, stop taking over Syphus without asking,\" Cale said without looking up. \"Also, come help me dump flour into this jar! The yeast is hungry!\"\n\nSyphus—or Sisyphus? Damien was deeply confused about this—sighed and straightened. \"You know, I did think you would be as difficult to locate as the legends say... but I did not think you would be difficult to predict as well.\"\n\n\"Less talking, more flour-bending, or I'm going to make sure the next time Syphus conjures sand it's going to show up on top of you.\"\n\n\"...The fact that I believe you troubles me greatly.\" Syphus's golem body shuddered before moving to help.\n\nDamien just stared at them both.\n\nThen he mechanically grabbed some flour and started helping with the flour thing. It seemed easier than questioning whatever this was.\n\n\nNo, I regret nothing about the chapter title and how this chapter starts, why do you ask?\n\nMagical Fun Fact: Normally making up incantations like that with no supervision is a terrible idea! But Damien had supervision. Technically. Cale counts as supervision. He even did a babysitting gig once! No, he was not asked to return."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 47 — Baking Bread, Pt 1\nTarget length: ~4200 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Cale, Damien, and the golem that was definitely still Sisyphus inhabiting Syphus's body all stared at what was now seven jars of sourdough starter sitting in front of them.\n\n\"Um... do we really need this much of it?\" Damien asked awkwardly. \"Also, I feel like you shouldn't put this into food? Not to downplay our efforts down or anything. I just also don't want you to die.\"\n\nCale scoffed. \"I'm not going to die.\"\n\nThen he paused, staring critically at the jars sitting in front of him. \"...but just in case, what did the Gift say again?\" he asked. \"It specified that the spell encourages the growth of sourdough-specific microorganisms, right? Nothing about, I don't know, magic yeast?\"\n\n\"Definitely nothing about magic yeast,\" Damien said, sounding slightly worried. \"...Is magic yeast something I need to start worrying about?\"\n\n\"Probably not!\" Cale said cheerfully. \"What about the rest?\"\n\n\"It does technically specify sourdough,\" Damien agreed, although he seemed reluctant to do so. Honestly, it was like he was expecting him to use that agreement as an excuse to dismiss his concerns about the starter. Cale would have been offended if he hadn't been planning on doing exactly that.\n\n\"Then we'll be fine!\" he said cheerfully. \"Worst case, we get Nala to taste it. I'm sure she still wants whatever it is she wanted you guys for yesterday. We can just trade that for some help with the taste testing. And since the end result will be great, it's really just a win for her.\"\n\n\"I feel like there are a lot of assumptions in what you just said, and also—\" Damien waved a hand helplessly toward the jars. \"I'm pretty sure the fact that the starter is glowing and trying to talk is a bad sign!\"\n\n\"It's not trying to talk,\" Cale said, wrinkling his nose and giving the jars another once-over. The liquid in one of them responded with an encouraging burble, making him blink. \"Er, probably. They're probably not trying to talk. I'm assuming the burbling is just a side effect of all the magic flour I dumped in there.\"\n\n\"Magic—\" Damien cut himself off with a groan. \"Why did you feel it magic flour? Where did you even get magic flour? No, don't answer that, I know where you got it. Better question: Why did Auntie Alina give you magic flour?\"\n\n\"Because she wanted to know what would happen!\" Cale said with a grin. \"I promised to tell her. She would've joined us but she was busy with the mandrake stuff. You were there, remember?\"\n\n\"I sort of tuned it out after you started talking about how she gets her ingredients,\" Damien mumbled, his face turning a little red. He rubbed at his temples, staring at the jars again with concern. \"Shouldn't our first attempt at this be to make... I don't know, normal bread?\"\n\n\"What would be the point in that?\" Cale gave Damien a blank, puzzled stare. \"I've had normal bread. Don't get me wrong, the point of this is the baking magic and not the bread, but I mean, so much of baking magic is an unexplored frontier. Magic bread could be a whole new class of magic, you know.\"\n\nHe paused thoughtfully. \"Even if all it does is glow,\" he added. \"I'd call glowing bread a success, really. We could use it as a nightlamp.\"\n\n\"Please do not use a loaf of bread as a nightlamp.\" Damien muttered something to himself about throwing it out before Cale noticed, to which Cale put on an expression of mock offense. \"I'm just saying, doing so many things different for our first loaf seems risky. We don't even know what's going to happen with your spell.\"\n\n\"You have a point there,\" Cale admitted. \"Don't worry, the glowing is secondary. I mostly just want to see what happens first. If there's going to be a bad reaction, I'd rather it happen to an experimental loaf than a real one, you know?\"\n\n\"That... makes a weird amount of sense.\" Damien didn't quite seem to know what to do with that fact. He sighed. \"Alright. Um, what's next?\"\n\n\"Well, it's time to get the dough ready, of course.\" Cale grinned. \"Syphus, did you get the stuff?\"\n\n\"It did indeed,\" Sisyphus answered dryly for his golem. He reached into Syphus's storage space to withdraw some oil, salt, a bag of flour, and a jar of water, ready to be mixed into dough. Then he glanced at Cale curiously. \"I confess I have encountered few mages with such a proclivity for magical baking, of all things. What exactly are you expecting this magic to do?\"\n\n\"You've never met a bread mage?\" Cale asked, raising an eyebrow. \"I find it hard to believe that one of the Named hasn't met a bread mage... although come to think of it, I guess you wouldn't have had much of a chance.\"\n\nSisyphus shot Cale a withering look. \"Enlighten me,\" he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.\n\nCale eyed him for a moment. \"Wow that expression looks out of place on Syphus,\" he muttered. \"Bread mages specialize in baking magic. They technically do all baked goods, not just bread, but apparently 'bread mage' sounded better than most of their other options.\"\n\n\"And you admire them because...\" Sisyphus trailed off, somehow managing to give Cale an impression of a raised eyebrow.\n\n\"Because baking is the pinnacle of magic, obviously,\" Cale said. He glanced up to find both Sisyphus and Damien staring at him, one skeptical and the other mostly confused, and sighed. \"You don't believe me, do you?\"\n\n\"It's, um...\" Damien hesitated. \"It's a bit hard to believe?\"\n\nCale clicked his tongue. \"Mages these days,\" he muttered, shaking his head. Then he eyed the two of them again, wondering if he should take the time to explain. In his experience, explaining rarely helped, but then he was intending to spend the foreseeable future around them.\n\nHe dumped the ingredients together in a bowl and began to mix it all together, feeling the dough take shape beneath his fingers. He'd missed this. There was something relaxing about the process of baking, even without magic behind it. It was the magic he found special, but it was hard to love the magic without developing some fondness for the act itself.\n\n\"Alright,\" he said. Hopefully he wasn't going to regret this—explaining involved some memories he really would have preferred not to touch. \"Like I said, baking is the pinnacle of magic, and I'm not just saying that. Mana aspects embody different concepts, right? And through those aspects, all things are possible. Magic is like a map to reality, and mana aspects are the roads.\n\n\"Now think of baking magic like a blindspot,\" he said. \"A hole in the map. You know where the hole is, and if you're very clever, you can figure out the shape of the hole... but you can't get around the fact that the hole is there. That's kind of what baking magic is. Spells that poke at the shape of that hole, trying to identify its borders.\"\n\nCale made a face. \"Though it's a lot more complicated than that, obviously,\" he said. \"For one thing, it's not a two-dimensional hole, it's a gap in magic encompassing the platonic ideal of bread. The closer you get to bread, the more complex magic gets. Fun fact, actually: did you know there's no [Conjure Bread] spell? They're supposed to be impossible.\n\n\"Related fun fact: it's way harder to conjure, say, an illusion of bread than it is literally anything else. It's a great way to figure out if you're trapped in an illusion.\" Cale grinned. \"You have no idea how many illusion spells my love for baking magic has gotten me out of. Or how angry dark lords get when they find out you broke out of their trap because their illusion specialist couldn't conjure bread.\"\n\nDamien stared at him. \"That's... really weird?\"\n\n\"It's really cool, is what it is!\" Cale grinned at the dreadshade, entirely unrepentant. \"Believe it or not, that same property is what makes baking magic exceptionally dangerous. If you aren't careful, it can and will override a lot of standard magical defenses. The only reason more people don't use it is because it sounds ridiculous at first glance, and also because it's very hard to learn compared to most magics. Most realms don't ever get to realizing it can be used offensively.\"\n\nOver to the side, Sisyphus made a noise of understanding. \"Hence your interest,\" he said. \"You wish for the power that this baking magic could grant you.\"\n\nCale blinked. \"Uh, no,\" he said. \"It's just cool. It's the frontier of magic! No matter what realm you go to, no matter how advanced they are, baking magic is always the one thing they haven't completely figured out. There's always new spells, and they're always increasingly complex.\" He sniffed. \"It's beautiful.\"\n\nSisyphus stared at him like he was at a loss for words. Damien, on the other hand, looked contemplative.\n\n\"So there are holes in what magic can do?\" he asked timidly. \"Like, um, aspects that stopped existing or something?\"\n\n\"I mean, that's not exactly what baking magic is,\" Cale said. \"As far as I know, a bread aspect has never existed. I think. But yes, technically magic can have holes in it. Why?\"\n\n\"It's related to the thing I got,\" Damien mumbled. Cale's brows furrowed slightly at how reticent the dreadshade was suddenly being—was the poor guy nervous about Sisyphus's presence or something? \"Is it... good? If your magic is like that?\"\n\n\"It can be,\" Cale said. He eyed Damien for a long moment. Was Damien's new aspect something like that? That would be worrying for a number of different reasons. Come to think of it, he'd called it a Legacy, and Cale hadn't heard that term in connection with an aspect before.\n\nHe considered things for a moment, then sighed. He really hadn't wanted to go into this, but if Damien was having doubts...\n\n\"There is a special property of magic like this,\" Cale said after a moment. \"How much do you know about how directly opposing magical effects behave? We've seen a bit of this already, if you remember—like when an artifact capable of attuning all mana aspects encounters an aspect that can't be attuned.\"\n\nDamien looked briefly confused, but answered anyway. \"The mana doesn't get attuned,\" he said. \"Some effects are stronger?\"\n\n\"Some effects override others,\" Cale corrected. \"Technically it's a pretty complex interaction—it depends on the type of magic being used, the mana aspects involved, the strength of the spells, all sorts of things. But there is one deciding factor that matters more than the rest. Some realms call it the Tyranny of Divinity.\"\n\n\"It has to do with the gods?\" Damien asked, the poor dreadshade looking more confused than ever.\n\nAt the side, leaning against a wall, Sisyphus shook his head. \"No,\" he said, looking at Cale with interest. \"The Tyranny of Divinity refers to the fact that at certain stages of core development, your spells become more real than everyone else's. A minor or major divinity can cast a [Fireball] that burns even a [Shield of Water], for example.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Cale said. \"And at the pinnacle of that hierarchy stands the Monoliths... although I guess you don't really know what those are yet.\" Cale frowned for a moment, then shrugged. \"Eh, you'll be an archmage soon enough.\"\n\nDamien made a strangled noise. Cale ignored it.\n\n\"Monoliths are each an embodiment of a crucial function of the Great Realms and of magic itself,\" Cale said. \"No magic, mortal or divine, surpasses them. In some realms, they're known as Pillars or Laws; if you find any old texts regarding those, they're talking about the Monoliths. If a Monolith casts a [Fireball] at you, it doesn't matter how good your [Perfect Reflection] is or if you're a fire elemental with perfect immunity to fire. You will be incinerated. Their spell effect is so 'real,' so to speak, that it overrides anything else. With me so far?\"\n\n\"I wish I wasn't,\" Damien said, his eyes wide. \"T-that sounds terrifying. How are we supposed to fight something like that?\"\n\n\"You don't,\" Cale said dryly. \"Never fight a Monolith. If you somehow piss one of them off, I recommend you run away as fast as possible. Preferably in my general direction. But I doubt you'll anger them; they are, by nature, pretty fixated on whatever Law they embody.\"\n\nHe smiled at Damien. \"You know one of them, even,\" he added helpfully. \"I mean, sort of. The Leviathan is a Monolith, and she's never hurt any of you, even though you've been near Flia's puddles constantly.\"\n\nIf anything, that just made Damien turn even more pale. The dreadshade made a distressed sort of noise, swallowed, and tried his best to look like he wasn't in the middle of a panic attack. \"Okay,\" he said. \"Um, what does this have to do with... the holes in magic?\"\n\n\"It's context,\" Cale said, drumming his fingers on the table. The dough he was mixing was mostly done and just needed to rest now; he'd forgotten how much waiting was involved in the whole baking process. \"You need to understand: the Tyranny is supposed to be absolute. But nothing is ever perfectly absolute, and where there are holes in magic, the rules can bend.\"\n\nHe glanced at Damien, something in his expression dimming slightly. \"Once,\" he said. \"there was a brave little mage that wanted to save her realm in the middle of a war. A Monolith sought to destroy her and her realm, you see, but she couldn't bear to see a single other soul die. The only problem? She didn't know any defensive magic. Or offensive magic. She was a simple bread mage, and her followers came to her for food, not shelter.\n\n\"Yet when the gaze of the Monolith fell on her realm, she did her best to defend it.\" Cale sighed, looking off into the distance. \"The Tyranny was in full effect: a Monolith's spell tore at her realm, and though she was strong, she wasn't strong enough. She was a major divinity, nowhere close to a Monolith. It shouldn't have worked.\"\n\nDamien stared at him. \"But—but it did?\" he asked quietly, his voice soft and hopeful.\n\n\"But it did,\" Cale said. He gave his apprentice a small, tired smile. \"She took out a fresh tray, cast [Enlarge Bread], [Fortify Bread], [Refreshing Loaf], [Baker's Heart]... You should have seen the look on that Monolith's face. A stubborn little bread god standing up against a pillar of the Realms, and she stopped him, just for a second, with a giant brioche bun.\"\n\nCale snickered a bit, though even now it felt a touch forced. He sighed. \"That woman and her spell is the only reason her realm still stands,\" he said. \"She slowed him down by stopping his first spell. It should have been impossible, but she did it. And that kept him there just long enough for me to catch up.\"\n\nDamien stared at him. \"You were there,\" he said. \"You say that like—you say that like you fought—\"\n\nCale winced. \"I don't suppose you can pretend you never heard that bit?\" he asked hopefully, and when Damien just kept staring, he let out a long breath. \"Yeah, I figured as much.\"\n\nA moment of hesitation.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered. \"There was... a war. A long time ago. A war that most of the Great Realms no longer remember. I prefer not to think about it or talk about it, but it's hard to talk about this without getting into it at least a little.\" Cale let out a rueful chuckle. \"Long story short, everyone took sides. The Monoliths, the Named—everyone. It was the single greatest war that ever struck the Great Realms, and far too many people died for its cause.\"\n\n\"And you were there,\" Damien said softly. His eyes widened as realization struck him. \"You... you said you're just reborn in a different realm every time you die. Were you... were you trapped?\"\n\n\"I would really rather not talk about it,\" Cale said, glancing away. \"I'll tell you this much. The Monolith's name was Kismet. He was the Second Monolith, the Law of What Must Be, and it was his duty to bring all worlds together when the time came. Something went wrong. We still don't know what, but for the first time, ever, one of his prophecies failed, and the Realms began to end.\n\n\"Until that day, we didn't know what would happen if a Monolith broke their own Law. We didn't even know it was possible. Turns out it is, and when it happens, the Monolith goes berserk and does everything they can to enforce their Law. In Kismet's case, he had to bring the realms together, no matter what it took or who he sacrificed.\n\n\"We couldn't keep up with him.\" Cale clenched his fists. \"He was the Monolith of Fate. He knew where we would be and everything we were going to try to do, so we were always one step behind. Until the realm of Telvass, where a brave little god did something that should never have worked, and lost her life in the process.\"\n\nCale fell silent, and for a moment, no one spoke.\n\n\"What was her name?\" Damien asked quietly.\n\n\"Pumpernickel.\" Cale gave his apprentice a slight smile. \"Not many remember her, but I do. It's a good name for a god of baking.\"\n\n\"It is,\" Damien agreed soflty. \"I'll, um. I'll try to remember her too.\"\n\n\"You don't have to do that,\" Cale said, this time with a smile that was a little more real. He dragged Damien closer so he could ruffle his not-quite-hair, ignoring the yelp of protest and the way the cloak he wore fluttered dramatically. \"But I appreciate it. I'm sure she would have, too.\n\n\"Anyway!\" Cale straightened. \"Does that answer your question?\"\n\n\"I think it does,\" Damien said. \"Thank you. Um... I guess I should tell you why I was asking.\"\n\nHe took a deep breath. \"When I put my mana on that scale, the Gift gave me a new spell. [Legacy of the Verdant Flame].\"\n\nCale's breath caught.\n\n\"It said it was a reforged aspect, so I thought maybe...\" Damien trailed off as he noticed the way Cale was gripping the table. \"U-um, did I do something wrong? Do you know something about this?\"\n\n\"No, you didn't, and yes, I do.\" Cale took a deep breath, forcing himself to unclench his fingers and doing his best to give Damien an encouraging smile. \"Keep going. I'll explain what I can once you're done.\"\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nSerof made it across the Endless Deep and to the shores of the Aersheld continent without incident, which was starting to worry him. One thing going his way was... well, it was one thing. But multiple things in a row, repeatedly, without any complications?\n\nThat felt like either the hand of fate or a trap.\n\nPossibly both.\n\nEverything around him was remarkably silent, which only served to make him more nervous. He'd been living with a buzzing in his skull for the past eight years. That the shores here didn't have the sounds of even the bugs or animals around was bizarre.\n\nSerof frowned.\n\nToo bizarre. He should at least have been able to hear the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, but even the sound of that had faded away. That shouldn't have been possible. He turned to glance at the waves—\n\n—or, well, he tried. Serof found himself frozen in place, and realized almost immediately what had happened.\n\nOne of the other Observers had spotted him.\n\nHe cursed. Of course there would be an Observer surveying the site before the Red Hunter team was meant to make their way across the shore—just because the Hunters themselves weren't there yet didn't mean their Observer wasn't keeping an eye on things, and if they were keeping an eye on things, then their ichorworm could freeze him in place until the Hunters came to investigate. Whichever Observer it was had no doubt already alerted their team, which meant—\n\n—it meant he'd failed. He'd been caught. Serof's heart hammered in his chest, and he stared at the open skies with a sort of desperate longing. How long had it been since he'd seen the sky through anything except a vision? To be caught right on the verge of freedom felt like a mockery of his efforts.\n\nBut he couldn't just do nothing. The Observer would be able to see and hear him. Maybe he could try to convince them he belonged?\n\n\"I'm supposed to be here,\" Serof lied. \"I'm Observer #27, remember? I was given leave to investigate a disturbance with my ichorworm.\"\n\nHe winced almost as soon as he said it, though the spell that bound him kept the wince from being noticeable. No Observer would ever be given leave to investigate things themselves—that was the whole point of the Hunter teams they were assigned.\n\n\"Let me go,\" he said, feigning impatience. \"There's only a six hour window until I can return. If you waste my time, I'll be stuck outside the Hive.\"\n\nSerof had no way of knowing what the Observer watching him thought of all this, obviously, but he thought he could feel hesitation. That, or he was imagining things.\n\nHe was probably imagining things. He didn't have any magic that could reach through to people that were scrying on him.\n\nStill... no, it did feel like his feet were a little looser. He wasn't being held so firmly in the ichorworm's grip. Serof pushed against it, trying to free himself, and saw himself slowly inching one step forward—\n\n—only to suddenly freeze in place again. Serof grimaced. The Observer had changed their minds, then. Or they'd managed to contact someone that had commanded he be kept in place. Serof's mind raced, trying to think of any way out of this, but there was nothing he could do. He specialized in scrying magic, for crying out loud! It was the least defensive magic there was.\n\n\"Ah, there it is,\" a smooth voice spoke from behind him, and Serof suddenly found himself stumbling forward, free from the ichorworm's grasp. He turned around, his eyes widening, and then tried to process what he was looking at.\n\nAn... immaculately dressed gentleman with rings for a head? And a very pretty light glowing within those rings.\n\nSerof immediately smacked down his moth instincts. Bad. That's not a lamp.\n\n\"Thank you,\" he said cautiously. He kept himself tense and ready to run, just in case this man was with the Red Hunters, though he couldn't imagine one of the Hunters would destroy an ichorworm. \"Um—Who are you?\"\n\n\"Ah, I am Professor Sternkessel of the Kazix Brightscale Academy of the Attuned Arts.\" The strange man dipped his sort-of-head toward him in a bow. Serof got the strange, impossible sense that he was being smiled at. \"I was investigating the mage that was scrying on the Elemental Shrine of Fire. You wouldn't happen to know who that is, would you?\"\n\n\"That—it was me,\" Serof blurted. \"But I wasn't doing it by choice! You have to believe me. Please, we need to get out of here before—\"\n\nSternkessel sighed. \"Unfortunately, it does appear that more of these things are converging on this location,\" he said, flicking the dead ichorworm to Serof, who caught it with a yelp. \"And it appears a secondary spatial spell has activated. How... inconvenient. You wouldn't happen to know a way out of this, would you?\"\n\nSerof stared at him, his heart hammering again, but did his best not to panic. The Brightscale professors were all monsters, weren't they? He had help now. He wasn't alone. He wracked his head, trying to figure out what that \"secondary spatial spell\" might be.\n\n\"One of the spellslates activates a spatial cube trap,\" Serof said suddenly, and now he was terrified all over again. Their surroundings were beginning to fade, replaced by what appeared to be a labyrinth made out of dark, glimmering crystal. \"That might be it. But there isn't—there isn't a way out of those.\"\n\n\"Fascinating,\" Professor Sternkessel said, and now he sounded amused, for some reason. \"Perhaps I can convince Cale to allow me to perform a study on that Thread of Fate of his. I would call it a convenient tool, but from what he has said... well, it appears to have a history of causing innumerable tragedy, as well.\"\n\n\"That's ominous,\" Serof said. \"Is that ominous? You said that like it was supposed to be reassuring, but it was definitely ominous.\"\n\nSternkessel chuckled. \"We simply have to ensure this is not one of the occasions that lead to tragedy,\" he said simply. He whipped out a hand, and a long cane extended out of it, tapping against the ground. \"Shall we? We only have so much time before your Red Hunters arrive, and I would hate to disappoint Cale by necessitating a rescue.\"\n\n\nAnd we finally get to the baking magic!\n\nCale Fact: Cale has, in fact, absolutely died from eating bread that was not for human consumption at least once. He did technically survive the first round, but stole a second loaf. To this day he maintains that it was worth it."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Hundred — a LitRPG progression fantasy. It was three in the morning when Simon learned that his royal father had been murdered, to everyone's relief. Simon had been dreaming of it for a very, very long time now. Most of the time, he saw his father pass away in his sleep with a beer mug in hand. Sometimes, it involved poison, and at others, a fall from a tower. Often, it was Simon himself who pushed his father down, though he could never remember why.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Simon | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Class, Overlord, Lauriane\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system\nSystem notification style: \"System notifications, or else Vouivre would have likely changed her\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 72: The Season of the Minotaur (21)\nTarget length: ~3900 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Heya, I'm taking a plane abroad for a while, so posting the chapter early. Enjoy.\n\n\nFive airships had begun to rain fire down on the Darkwood’s western edge.\n\nSimon could see the smoke in the sky all the way from the Halls of the Minotaur’s rooftop. The war machines had burned down the outer edge of the Darkwood and created a vast no man’s land of ashes and cinders to prevent its growth from reaching the Goetia Research Center. They then began to advance towards the corrupt manatree. They incinerated everything in their path without care or concern for any civilians trapped below with fire spell bombardments. Telepathic backlashes from dead cultists had continued to buzz in Simon’s mind since their arrival, and his gargoyle messengers sent to discuss terms had been killed on sight. Even light messages using imperial communication methods had been ignored.\n\nThey had come to destroy him and his realm, and they would not relent in their quest.\n\n“They will reach us in less than an hour at this rate, Your Majesty,” Duchar pointed out.\n\nAnd there’s still no sign of that dragon creature, Simon thought. Shabram had no information on the creature, much to her unease, though she confirmed that Lauriane had been working on creating special warbeasts at the Goetia Research Center to help turn the civil war’s tide. Even the spymistress had been kept away from that project and never managed to infiltrate it.\n\nThis was a rather big issue. Simon’s plan had been to establish communications with the War Party and share the intel he had obtained from Asterion with Lauriane so they could focus on the greater threat of the Zodiac Parade. He had hoped to turn the Muse’s power into an asset for House Magnos, perhaps optimally using her to secure a settlement with the Church Party.\n\nAlas, this possibility was steadily growing more and more remote. Simon’s best bet for now would be to repel the War Party’s initial foray and capture the crews to use as intermediaries or hostages to open secure communications with Lauriane.\n\nFailing that… failing that, he would take Asterion’s crystal and the Muse’s fruit, then bolt out of the region with Duchar, Cassandra, Hector, and any others he could bring along with him to another location. He didn’t really need to defend this area in particular now that the ritual was complete. As suboptimal as it would be, he could always rebuild his organization elsewhere.\n\nSimon turned to his coven of witches. Cassandra and her fellows had been incantating for ten minutes around a crystal ball to cast a weather-altering spell that should hopefully delay the airships, but it had a long preparation time and required all their focus.\n\n“Muse, it is time for you to show your might,” Simon informed the dryad. Asterion the Minotaur had returned back to the depths of her subconscious after informing them he couldn’t unleash his true power within his current host, but the Muse should remain a powerful being nonetheless. He had taken care to brand her as well to tighten his hold on her soul, which neatly confirmed even dryads weren’t immune to his abilities. “Stop their advance.”\n\nThe Muse grunted at the order, but followed through. She waved her hand in the airships’ direction, and the entire Darkwood acted in response.\n\nThe earth shook across the entire region as the manatree’s roots squirmed beneath the earth under the will of a singular, malevolent intelligence. The land split open beneath the ashen wasteland and a great tower of wood surged out of it.\n\nRoots thicker than castle walls rose as high as mountains and reached out to the sky, catching one of the airships by surprise. They caught it in midair, seizing its engines and shattering its wings, before pulling it down to its doom. The machine crashed into the earth in a cataclysmic explosion that likely slew everyone onboard.\n\nWhat power, Simon noted. The airships immediately spread out or ascended upwards as more roots surged out of the earth to try and catch them. Flaming bombardments only burned out the roots’ outer layers without truly halting them, and they soon caught a second airship.\n\nSuch displays of strength reminded him why the imperial army was trained to flee dryads on sight. Their control over their manatrees granted them the power of entire armies so long as they were within their forest’s borders; and since the Darkwood’s growth threatened to engulf all of Magvolia, the Muse could turn the entire country into an extension of herself.\n\nNonetheless, her roots could only extend so far and the rest of the airships had begun to gain altitude beyond her grasp. Flying closer to the Darkwood would have likely enhanced the strength and precision of their fire spells, but less power beat being violently dragged down to earth.\n\nTheir ascent soon met darkening skies and blowing winds. Pulses of magic erupted from Cassandra and her coven, reverberating through the Darkwood before spreading out for miles.\n\n“Hailstorm,” the witches sang out as one.\n\nThe weather itself answered their command, with mighty winds blowing above the Darkwood all of a sudden. Dark clouds began to pelt the airships with heavy hail that battered their steel hull and wings. The higher their ascent, the harsher the experience.\n\nThat should slow them down for a bit, Simon thought. The War Party’s airships were now trapped between the roots below and terrible weather above. Simon telepathically deployed gargoyles, wraiths, and other flying monsters under Grimm and Gregory’s leadership to harass them on top of it. Still no sign of the dragon though. Is it flying too high for us to see, or moving undetected through the clouds? I don’t like this.\n\nNot to mention that there was another source of concern they had to deal with on top of the attack.\n\n“Hector, protect your sister and ensure her coven isn’t disturbed,” Simon ordered. Cassandra’s weather spell would apparently remain in effect so long as she and the others could focus on it. “Duchar, Muse, come with me.”\n\nThe group walked up to the point where the Halls of the Minotaur’s roof met the manatree’s thick black bark. The lowest-hanging branch was within arm’s reach, alongside its prize.\n\nSimon had never seen a manatree’s fruit before, and this one was quite the horrible sight. It reminded him of a beating heart of red flesh and blackened purple veins the size of a cart. It sucked life from its parent tree with each pulse, and its outer layer was so thick Simon could hardly see the strange, unborn shadow dwelling in its core.\n\n“My beloved child…” the Muse said with longing, her hand caressing the fruit with what could pass for maternal love. “How long I have waited for your honored birth…”\n\n“It would appear that Mardok’s guess was correct,” Duchar noted upon observing the fruit more closely. “This may be the first miasma tree’s seed in all of creation. A truly unique creature.”\n\n“And one whose birth does not factor into my plans,” Simon decided. Besides the danger the fruit posed, the newborn dryad inside wasn’t bound by the Seasonal Key ritual. Having a second Muse potentially loyal to her bound mother was too much to deal with right now.\n\nSimon opened his Inventory and summoned the Paladin Crestone. The wily item immediately slipped out of his hand and began to roll along on the ground, its radiance startling the Muse, but Simon quickly brought out an empty glass and trapped the runaway Noble Crestone underneath it.\n\n“I know you hate me, Paladin spirit. That’s fine, I don’t like where my power comes from either.” The fact that he had to go through this ritual and vile acts to even level-up properly or get answers had only solidified Simon’s distaste for his own Class. “But I ask you to put that aside for now and help me do some good for once.”\n\nHe could have sworn the Paladin Crestone’s glow dimmed for a second. It was listening.\n\n“There is an innocent soul in that fruit that the First Overlord wanted to twist into a monster,” Simon said, pointing at the fruit. “She’s not born yet, but she soon will be… unless you save her. If you have the power to purify her, then do so.”\n\n“What?!” The Muse choked in impotent outrage. “You would deprive my daughter of the Dark’s embrace?!”\n\n“I must say I believe this would be a waste of a unique creature,” Duchar said, though unlike the Muse he quickly rolled with the program. “However, confirming whether or not a Noble Crestone can counter the influence of a miasma crystal ought to prove interesting. The newborn dryad is unlikely to be a threat in her infant state either.”\n\n“Quiet,” Simon said as he removed the glass and picked up the now cooperative Paladin Crestone. Its light had dimmed, and it didn’t burn Simon’s hand like it usually did. The Class indeed had a will of its own; one advanced enough to hear and consider even a non-wielder’s words.\n\nSimon proceeded to press the Paladin Crestone against the corrupted manatree’s fruit. The Muse let out a wail of outrage and horror, only for the contract to silence her. She could only watch on as the Paladin Crestone slowly melded into the fruit. Its mere contacts caused the veins feeding it with miasma to ripple like oil pushed away by water. The Crestone entered the fruit and began to glow within it, purple smoke rising from the fruit in response.\n\n“Is it working?” Simon asked Duchar.\n\n“I think so,” Duchar replied after casting a handful of analysis spells. “The Crestone has started to purify the miasma back into mana, though whether or not that will be sufficient to eventually purify the unborn dryad remains to be seen.”\n\nSo far so good, Simon thought. He was cautiously optimistic about this whole venture. The fruit and Crestone should have shown a more violent reaction to the fusion if purification was truly hopeless. I wonder what Frea and Alphonse would have done had I not interfered in this reign… would they have tried to save this child too?\n\n“Why free me only to deny my daughter the Dark’s blessing?” the Muse rasped in incomprehension. “Which side are you on, Simon Magnos?”\n\n“My own.” Simon met her gaze. “Speaking of sides, why did my ancestor betray you to Mardok?”\n\n“My treacherous sisters said he had grown jealous of the elves’ immortality,” the Muse replied. “That he had foreseen his own death through his third eye, and that the Oracle could not change his fate. I think otherwise. He had finally seen the beauty of the Dark and how the Light blinded us.”\n\n“So he went to Mardok and became a lich instead,” Simon guessed.\n\nThe Muse looked at him with contempt. “Who do you think taught your ancestor how to become an undead, beloved?”\n\n“And the Oracle failed to foresee this?” Duchar asked with curiosity. “Quite strange.”\n\n“The Light lightens the way to the future, but the almighty Dark blinds her,” the Muse replied with reverence. “It shrouds all in darkness everlasting.”\n\n“She couldn’t see Mardok coming, even before he became the Overlord,” Simon said. Which raised many more questions. Could Anathemic Secrecy have been one of the demon’s abilities before it became an Overlord one?\n\nDeath drew him out of his thoughts.\n\nThe sudden murder of a dozen of his bound creatures all at once startled Simon, their pain echoing through their Brands; a demise so brutal they didn’t even send him a warning. It only took him seconds to pinpoint which minions had been wiped out.\n\n“Gargoyle squad seven?” Simon called out to the survivors. “Gargoyle squad seven, what’s going on?”\n\n“Something is approaching us from above the clouds!” his minion replied with a voice laced with fear. “A drago–”\n\nSimon felt the echo of the speaker’s sudden death in a final scream, then clenched his teeth and contacted his next line of defense. “Gregory, Grimm, the dragon wiped out gargoyle squad seven! Abandon the airships and intercept!”\n\n“On it, Lord Overlord,” Gregory replied, only for his confidence to swiftly crumble into unease within a minute of catching up to the target. “What… what is that thing?!”\n\n“It’s not a dragon at all!” Simon heard Grimm all but screech in the back of his mind. “It’s a circus frea–”\n\nLight pierced through the hailstorm clouds, a droning noise melding with the demons’ final screams.\n\nThis time, Simon could see exactly what had slain his minions: a mighty, fractal yellow beam of searing radiance that reduced everything in its wake to ashes. It set the sky alight and then the Darkwood below on fire.\n\n“What the…” Simon nearly stumbled as a second beam hit one of the manatree’s outer branches, pulverizing its bark and exposing its purple, slimy, toxic sap. He briefly caught a glimpse of a colossal form flying past the clouds far above them. “Stop this!”\n\nThe Muse oozed with miasma and pointed her palm to the sky. “Terabolt!”\n\nA massive lightning storm worthy of a Tier VII spell erupted from her fingers in seven massive bolts. They surged to the heavens, crossing the clouds… and failed to hit their target due to a lack of visibility.\n\n“It is too high for my branches to reach, and I cannot see it,” the Muse complained, right as another beam hit her tree’s trunk. The attack only inflicted light burns when taking into account its size, but the fact that it managed to wound a manatree at all was a cause for concern.\n\nSimon grunted in annoyance and summoned his phantom steed. “Then I’ll force the creature down,” he said upon climbing on his horse. “Muse, Duchar, stay and defend the manatree. Strike at this creature as soon as I bring it into range.”\n\nSimon didn’t wait for his allies to respond and immediately had his steed take flight. The winds Cassandra summoned offered an excellent path for his mount to ride upon, the spectral beast racing through the heavens. Simon continued to cast buffing spells on himself during his ascent.\n\n“Energumen. Shadowshield. Dark Saber.”\n\nSimon found himself in a vast and tranquil expanse past the storm, in a sea of clouds only the highest of the manatree’s branches could reach.\n\nThe monster was flying less than three hundred feet from him in all of its horrible, mismatched glory.\n\nThe reports were wrong. It wasn’t a dragon; only half of one.\n\nSimon immediately realized why the Goetia Research Center purchased so many monster parts from Whispermire during the past few months. The Alchemist Noble Class was known to be able to create obedient creatures and homunculi, but Lauriane had taken a novel approach when it came to flesh golems.\n\nThe monster flying towards them had four wings, two of them belonging to a red dragon and two others draped in feathers. Most of the torso was dragon-like too, as was the jaw, but the upper part of the skull was some kind of mechanical, horned helmet bolted into the monster’s bones. Its two arms ended in the living faces of two other creatures, some kind of giant white wolf and an elongated undead’s skull. The two legs and a scorpion-stinger tail belonged to a leonine manticore. Simon recognized those parts since Odette had shipped them on his behalf. The War Party’s symbol was tattooed on its neck alongside a series number, ‘066’, identifying it as the artificial warbeast it was.\n\nIt was huge too, roughly the size of Vouivre. Perhaps this abomination had been created for the express purpose of killing her.\n\n“Destroy… tree…” it rattled from its enormous mouth, light building up in its belly and gullet. “Wipe out… enemy… destroy…”\n\nThat voice… Simon’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Casval?”\n\n“Cas… val…” The name drew a brief reaction out of the creature, its head snapping in Simon’s direction. “Cas… val…”\n\nTheir gazes met for a brief instant, with Simon noticing two reptilian eyes staring at him through slits in the mechanical helmet. He sensed no intelligence within them; only a vague echo of something long gone, but he had died often enough at that reptile’s hands to recognize him. Dassein must have found Vouivre’s post-meal leftovers and shipped them to Lauriane, who had then filled in the holes with monster parts to create a new weapon.\n\n“Casval…” The creature’s eyes lit up with pain and berserk rage. “Casval!”\n\nThe creature fired at him with a mighty roar.\n\nLight poured out of the beast’s gullet in the form of a mighty beam which Simon’s steed barely managed to dodge at the last second. The beam surged across the horizon without hitting anything, but Simon could feel the sheer heat radiating from it dozens of meters away.\n\n“Destroy…” the thing which had been Casval roared as it gave up its assault on the manatree and began to chase after Simon with all of its inhuman fury. Being reminded of what it had once been must have infuriated it to the point it completely shrugged off Dreadful Aura. “Destroy!”\n\n“Fine,” Simon replied as he prepared to cast a spell. “Killing you again will be a pleasure.”\n\nAnd for once, it would be by his own hands.\n\nCasval began to pursue him across the sky, his phantom steed running as fast as a warhorse pursued by an elephant. Realizing that fighting a chimera-dragon in melee was suicide even with his buffs on, Simon opened hostilities by casting Mire to debuff his enemy’s vitality. Vile slimes materialized on Casval’s chest and eroded his scales, with Simon quickly following them up with a Megatox aiming at that exact spot. Poison seeped into the monster’s flesh and began to eat away at it.\n\n“Elemental Shift,” Casval rasped with a monotone, emotionless voice, like a parrot repeating words he didn’t understand anymore. A purple aura briefly surrounded him without doing much otherwise, after which it lunged at Simon with all three of its heads.\n\nSimon had his phantom steed dive down towards the clouds below to both dodge and lure the monster closer to the ground. They deftly avoided the creature’s multiple jaws and then descended through hail-battered clouds. Simon switched his Ring of Cursed Flame for a Ring of Cursed Winter to shield himself from the weather, whereas Casval appeared to completely shrug it off.\n\nApparently sensing the change, Casval’s two-faced arms glowed and then each fired a crimson stream of focused fire. Simon’s horse dodged one, but the other struck at him in the shoulder with such intensity that it would have melted through his armor without Shadowshield.\n\nSupereffective damage!\n\n\nSimon hastily drained both lifeforce and mana from his thrall monsters across the Darkwood through the Brands, healing his wounds and replenishing his magic reserves. He retaliated with a Megatox spell, except this time the poison failed to wound Casval.\n\nDid it become immune to Corrosion? That Elemental Shift ability had to be some sort of self-inflicted Elemental Imbalance, gaining immunity to an element at the cost of suffering a weakness in another. “In that case, Elemental Imbalance: Fire.”\n\nThe curse successfully struck Casval, granting him immunity to fire at the cost of suddenly becoming vulnerable to ice. The surrounding hail began to hit him harder, and Simon visited more pain upon him with a Hellfrost spell. His ice struck Casval’s skull with enough force to dent his helmet, only for the projectiles to bounce off the creature with its next Elemental Shift.\n\nIt seemed Casval automatically switched his defenses to protect himself from the last element that hurt him. Efficient, but predictable.\n\n“Duchar, Muse, I am bringing the creature down low,” Simon informed his followers. “The two of you should follow with a lightning spell.”\n\n“As Your Majesty wishes,” Duchar replied. “But I must also warn you that a sixth airship is coming at us from the southeast.”\n\nWar Party reinforcements? Well, that could wait until after they dealt with the monster Casval had become.\n\nSimon quickly cast Elemental Imbalance: Water on Casval right as he and his pursuer emerged from the hailstorm clouds, then followed through with a Night Raid spell. A swarm of abyssal bats materialized from his fingertips and flew into Casval’s face. They did little more than bite and harass the much bigger creature, but they at least diminished his visibility.\n\nHis enemy, now newly weak to lightning, opened his maw to charge and fire a beam at Simon, only for a mighty thunderstorm to strike Casval before he could finish his attack. The Muse and Duchar both hit the monster head-on, with the former’s bolts dwarfing the latter’s. They tore off one of his wings, destroyed half his chest’s scales, exposed a few ribs, and melted off his flesh. The blowback caused Casval’s beam-breath to miss and instead hit overgrown farmland across the horizon.\n\n“Hellthunder!” Simon cast from his fingertips in an attempt to finish off Casval. His lightning incinerated whatever bats his enemy hadn’t already swept away and stuck him in the chest. He had hoped so many supereffective spells in quick succession would slay him, but Casval’s transformation hadn’t stripped him of his draconic resilience.\n\n“Elemental Shift, Defensive Protocol,” Casval rasped immediately after being struck, his words sounding as if he were reading from a script. “Barrier, Rampart, Regen.”\n\nSimon’s optimism turned to horror as a green glow washed over Casval, buffing him with two defensive buffs and causing his wounds to slowly close on their own. Worse, he began to fly away from Simon rather than continue assaulting him, likely to keep his distance until he fully recovered.\n\nCursebound could negate his regeneration with the right wording, but the spell required physical contact. Simon’s best bet was to leap onto the creature’s back, curse and debuff him, then resummon his steed and switch back to long-distance spells.\n\n“Duchar, switch to deb–” A light in the east caught Simon’s gaze. “What the?”\n\nSimon instinctively turned his head to glance across the horizon. The Muse had crashed two airships out of the initial fleet and was pulling a third down to its doom, but another vessel was coming straight at them from the east. One the sight of which filled Simon with dread. Duchar lacked the context and knowledge to identify the imperial fleet’s ships, but he immediately recognized this one as the Conqueror.\n\nLouis’ newest flagship.\n\nLouis had come to Magvolia.\n\nThe light surging from the east came from the airship’s bow and spread to its right like a long grey beam… or at least Simon thought so, until he recognized that radiance for moonlight reflecting on stainless steel stretching out for miles.\n\nThat’s not a beam. Simon’s eyes widened in horror. It’s a sword.\n\nLouis swung his giant blade across the horizon in one swift stroke that whipped up the winds and chopped the manatree in half.\n\n\nHeya, my friend Blaise Corvin has just launched their fourth entry in their reverse isekai/litrpg series Past Life Hero ;) I'm posting a link here in case anyone is interested.\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 73: The Season of the Minotaur (22)\nTarget length: ~3400 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Louis sliced the manatree in two from over a mile away.\n\nThe swiftness of the attack was only matched by its absurdity. A paper-thin sword of unfathomable length sliced across the horizon in the blink of an eye, whipping up powerful winds in its wake and cutting through anything unlucky enough to be in its path: clouds, hail, the Halls of the Minotaur, and the manatree’s trunk.\n\nSimon had seen Casval’s beam barely leave a scorch mark on the ancient bark, yet Louis’ sword cut through it like butter, ignoring all hardness and resistance. It appeared as if space itself split apart to let his blade pass by and slice everything in its path. The blade disappeared once it finished its crescent motion with a faint noise that preceded the chaos to come. Simon could have sworn that time froze for a second as the world held its breath, only for it to resume with a loud creaking noise.\n\nThe manatree tilted to the side as its upper half slid off from its bottom.\n\nLouis had aimed slightly diagonally rather than purely horizontally, so a huge chunk of the manatree began to collapse due to the lack of support. Its enormous shape began to collapse to the Halls of the Minotaur’s left in a terrible rumble. Branches the length of Whispermire’s streets crashed onto the forest floor and swamps below in violent crashes\n\nThis is… Is that what Noble Crestones can do at a high enough level?! Simon wondered, torn between awe and disbelief. Even the buzzing calls of his followers in the back of his mind or the sight of Casval circling the halved manatree failed to draw him back to reality. Norbelle and Thalas were just a preview…\n\nHe spotted a flash of steel at the edge of his gaze, flying straight at him.\n\nSimon hastily summoned his spiked shield just in time to intercept the projectile, which saved his life. A golden spear smashed through his protection and sent spines flying in all directions. A flying sword aiming straight for Simon’s head followed afterwards and was thankfully deflected.\n\nThen came another, and another, and another!\n\nA veritable bombardment of various bladed weapons—from swords to polearms—flew from Louis’ airship at Simon with immense speed. He would have likely been immediately unhorsed without his Warmonger Perk preventing forced dismounts, and though he immediately ordered his phantom steed to flee, the attacks continued to strike at him with lethal precision. Louis—this had to be Louis’ doing—could somehow still see him from a great distance.\n\nOne of the spears eventually struck Simon’s phantom steed directly, tearing off its head and dispelling it. Simon found himself plummeting to his doom for a second before he quickly used Lord of the Demon Castle to teleport back inside the Halls of the Minotaur���s sanctum. He nearly slipped on pieces of debris on arrival, since part of the ceiling had collapsed from Louis’ attack.\n\nThankfully, most of his remaining followers had survived. Duchar had retreated here alongside the fruit, Hector, and Cassandra’s coven. The real surprise was the Muse, who appeared alive in spite of a large gash across her chest. She looked more annoyed than hurt, too.\n\n“You live,” Simon said, dumbfounded.\n\nThe Muse glared at him. “I am not so easily felled.”\n\n“Most manatrees can recover from a stump, and Asterion’s power likely enhances our host,” Duchar suggested, a deep scowl on his face. “Nonetheless, may I ask what struck us? Some new kind of weapon?”\n\n“Louis struck us.” Merely uttering his name caused Duchar to pale and Hector’s head to perk up in alarm. The rest of the group weren’t familiar enough with the crown prince’s reputation to fully understand the danger they were in, but those two did. “There’s no time to waste. He’ll be here very soon, so we need to evacuate now.”\n\n“Evacuate?” The Muse hissed in contempt. “I cannot go anywhere, coward! I will not abandon my forest to a woodsman!”\n\n“While I do not believe we are a match for the Marshal, our captive archfiend might be another story,” Duchar pointed out. “Evacuation may not be our only option.”\n\n“Asterion is not at full power in his current host. The Muse will be no match for–” Simon froze upon noticing that Cassandra and her coven had stopped incantating, his lover now staring at him with a knowing gaze. “No.”\n\n“I am willing to try,” Cassandra said calmly. “The contract should still apply after the merger.”\n\n“And if it does not?” Hector rasped, being about as opposed to the idea as Simon himself. “What if it begins to wear you like a coat?”\n\nCassandra scowled for a second, but her resolve remained firm. “I do not wish to abandon the Darkwood, brother,” she said, staring at the Muse with sympathy. “I do not want to leave her to her death. Not after all that she went through.”\n\n“I have no need for your pity,” the Muse replied venomously.\n\n“But you do need my help.”\n\nThe Muse had no answer to that. And neither did Simon.\n\nFighting Louis sounded like assisted suicide, especially after seeing him cut an entire manatree in half from over a mile away before nearly killing Simon. Every instinct in his body told him their gathered forces would only slow down the slaughter at best; doubly so since Casval remained afoot.\n\nBut Duchar had a point. Asterion had been a match for the first generation of Noble Class users, and possession by a Zodiac Fiend had strengthened the likes of Eole into an actual threat. The union might give Cassandra the power to fight off Louis, or at least force him into listening to them.\n\nCould they even run away? Simon had been careful to build an escape tunnel below the Halls of the Minotaur to escape the region in a pinch, but they were on foot and Louis had airships. A last-minute flight might be beyond them.\n\nHe could teleport a group to Frightwall as a last resort too. Euphemia still held the castle and the War Party was besieging it, but dealing with the dowager empress and trying to negotiate with her might beat facing Louis in the open.\n\nThere… There’s still another way to escape this. I knew this reign was unsustainable from the start, and little can be done to salvage this situation. I could simply… take the easy way out. Simon immediately banished that thought and refocused. No. You can never know where the future leads. I can’t take the easy way out. That would be a waste of a reign and pure cowardice.\n\nSimon looked at his lover, who had already made her decision. Cassandra’s misplaced sympathy for the Stone Muse would not allow her to leave, and it might open up a path to new possibilities.\n\nHe guessed he could at least see if he could control a Zodiac Fiend with the right Brands and rituals… see what kind of power they wielded when fully unleashed. He could confirm whether or not they could hold their own against the strongest members of House Magnos.\n\n“Very well,” Simon reluctantly agreed. “But beware, please. If the fiend proves too strong and the contract cannot control him…”\n\n“You may simply drain away my mana through my Brand,” Cassandra reassured him.\n\nIf it remains after the fusion, Simon thought grimly. He turned to the Muse and hardened his resolve. Let us hope this will work. “Asterion, Minotaur of the Zodiac. Leave your current vessel and–”\n\nA flash of pain coursed through his chest and silenced him.\n\nHaving already been backstabbed by Vouivre in a previous reign, Simon immediately recognized the feeling of a sword entering his chest through the back and slipping its way past the ribs. The blade cut through his armor and heart with casual ease, then emerged out the other side. Only the blood covering its invisible edge revealed its shape.\n\nSimon felt sacred power not unlike the Paladin Crestone course through him, dispelling the Dark that granted him his strength, weakening his Perks, targeting all of his Class’ weaknesses with a carefully selected weapon meant to exploit each of them.\n\nThis was the sword that had killed his father.\n\n“That was for my son,” Simon heard a familiar voice whisper behind him, which he instantly recognized as that of Ser Richard of Lore. “Your plans will die here with you, Overlord.”\n\nSupereffective damage. Anti-Heal, Sap, Slow–\n\n\nThe blow would have likely killed him instantly… had he not suffered through it before.\n\nSupereffective damage reduced by the Betrayed Title. Ailments transferred by the Lovestruck Title.\n\n\nThe first title reduced the damage he suffered, and the second transferred the ailments to the Muse as part of their ‘betrothal’ agreement. Simon immediately drew from the lifeforce of his remaining monster minions to keep himself alive, switched his Ring of Cursed Winter for a Ring of Cursed Thunderstorm to grant himself Lightning immunity, and then grabbed the sword tightly with his hand.\n\n“Hellthunder!”\n\nHe shocked both himself and his attacker, leaving him open to a counter-attack.\n\nHector was the first to react, his axe surging at the enemy behind Simon’s back with lethal precision. Ser Richard swiftly withdrew his sword from Simon in spite of the shock he suffered and parried Hector’s attack with it, the blow dispelling his invisibility.\n\nHow did he sneak in here undetected? Simon cursed. Did the Cobweb help him infiltrate the sanctum as a back-up plan? Did they tip him off and Louis?\n\n“Simon!” Cassandra and her fellow witches immediately rushed to his side and began to cast spells on him to restore him. “Infernal Healing.”\n\n“I’m fine!” Simon reassured her, clenching his teeth and pointing at Richard of Lore. “Kill him and summon Asterion!”\n\nCompelled by her contract, the Muse immediately cast a spell that caused massive roots to surge up from the ground in an attempt to entrap and crush him. Ser Richard moved with speed even superior to his son and cut through anything that got too close to him. Duchar, Cassandra, and the other spellcasters prepared to zap him where he stood.\n\nCasval crashed into the sanctum before they could.\n\nHis immense head smashed through the wall opposing Simon’s throne with a roar, sending stone flying in all directions. Simon grabbed Cassandra and pulled her to safety while the Muse summoned a wall of thorns to shield herself and Duchar, who was the closest to her. Everyone else was pelted by debris, with one of Cassandra’s witches taking one to the head and falling unconscious while Richard raised a shield to protect himself.\n\nHowever, the monstrous dragon was somehow the least of their problems.\n\nStanding atop Casval’s head was a man clad in armor composed of a crimson breastplate, steely shoulder pads, greaves, a gorget, leather gloves, and boots. It was such a simple attire for a Class so powerful as the Warrior, but its user managed to make it look fearsome.\n\n“Simon, how good to see you again. I was starting to wonder if you had perished or left the continent altogether.” Louis smiled at his brother with a hint of amusement, as if sharing a private joke no one else could understand. “From the look on your face, I assume Shabram failed to inform you of my coming.”\n\nSimon blinked. “How did–”\n\n“Your reaction just now.” Louis swiftly snapped his fingers. “Infinite Armory, Storm of Blades.”\n\nA hundred, if not a thousand flying swords materialized over Louis and then threw themselves at everyone present like a rain of arrows.\n\nThere was no time to recover or react to such a barrage at close range. Simon didn’t raise his shield fast enough and took the brunt of the bombardment head on. The blades dispelled his buffs on contact and punctured through his armor in dozens of places, skewering him in all vital spots. A few non-magical ones bounced off him thanks to Unyielding Essence, but most hit harder than Thalas’ fists. Only his frantic draining of his dwindling number of followers kept him alive for a few more seconds.\n\nHis allies had no such luck.\n\nSwords impaled Cassandra through the skull, tearing her head off her shoulders before she could even register what had happened. Pieces of her skull and brain splattered on Simon’s armor and filled his heart with anguish. Her weaker coven members were simply torn to shreds mid-spellcasting. Duchar attempted to create a shield of energy around himself, but the swords pierced through the magic barrier as if it were made of paper and slew him in an instant.\n\nSer Richard of Lore managed to deflect a few of the projectiles with his sword and shield, but Louis simply intensified the bombardment in his direction. One of the blades slipped through the old knight’s guard and struck him in the shoulder, at which point his defense collapsed and his armor turned into a pincushion. Unlike Simon, he had no way to regenerate from such terrible wounds.\n\nOnly Hector and the Muse survived, the former because his undead anatomy let him continue to charge forwards in spite of having dozens of swords stuck in his flesh, and the latter thanks to her thick wall of summoned thorns. They both retaliated, too. Hector leaped at Louis in a snarl of undying rage and anguish, axe raised, while the Muse cast a Terabolt of immense power.\n\n“Shieldwall.” Louis lazily waved his hand, conjuring floating magical shields in the way of the attacks. They intercepted them all, and though Hector’s axe left cracks where it stuck, it failed to get past the defense. A new curved sword in the oriental Fablan style appeared in Louis’ left hand. “Spaceslash.”\n\nLouis swung his sword and cut through reality itself.\n\nSpace carved open along the line his blade followed, the very fabric of matter and existence splitting apart. The Muse, Hector, the walls, and the very air were all cleanly sliced apart, their pieces falling to the ground in a loud thump.\n\nSimon struggled to even understand what had just happened. Cassandra was dead, everyone was dead, and soon, the swords stuck in his flesh would have him join them.\n\nThey never stood a chance without Asterion. The gulf in power was as vast as it had been when Simon visited Elios Magnos’ lair.\n\n“I always found it strange that Shabram could never find you, no matter how often Lauriane asked,” Louis mused upon leaping off Casval’s head. He didn’t even spare a glance at all the people he had slain and stepped over their body parts. “That double-crosser kept you informed of all our moves and stymied investigations away from this place, am I wrong? She always put too much faith in the Overlord’s foresight.”\n\nSimon scowled beneath his helmet, invisible fingers pressing on his throat. His body was cold and was only kept alive due to a quickly depleting well of stolen lifeforce. He would run out of minions to drain within a minute.\n\n“What are you… talking about?” Simon asked with bloodied lips.\n\n“You truly take me for an imbecile. Having always respected your intelligence, I thought you would return the sentiment.” Louis shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever Overlord ability lets you see the future clearly has cracks in its omniscience, or else you would have predicted this moment. It is such a shame you betrayed Lauriane. She truly cares about you, you know?”\n\n“I didn’t betray… Endymion…” Simon coughed up blood and collapsed to his feet. His life… fading away. “All of this… greater good…”\n\n“If you cared about the greater good, Simon, you would have joined forces with us the moment you gained the Overlord’s power. We could have cowed Euphemia into behaving and flown Endymion’s flag atop the Worldtree by now.” Louis glanced at the Muse’s corpse. Simon knew she would recover from this so long as the manatree remained alive, but he doubted Louis would give her the time to do so. “Was that your plan? To become some old hag’s gardener and breed an army of monsters to defeat us once we had exhausted ourselves?”\n\n“There’s more… other archfiends…” Simon’s vision blurred. “Must listen… Uyo’s destruction… just the beginning…”\n\nThe last thing he saw was a thin, sinister smile of anticipation stretching across Louis’ lips.\n\n“Good,” he said.\n\nHis sword sliced through Simon’s neck in a painless stroke and sent his head rolling off his shoulders.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nThe Crimson Throne welcomed him again like an old friend.\n\nThe Dark welcomed him with praise and encouragement, for he had finally taken his first steps onto the path of the Overlord. He had spent a year ruining the lives of thousands, conquering a whole region, and binding an archfiend to answer his queries. The sorrow and guilt he felt didn’t bother the Crimson Throne, nor the fact that he had lost yet another woman he loved, in-laws he appreciated, and so much more.\n\nAll that mattered to it was that darkness had triumphed.\n\nThis is the twelfth of your Hundred Reigns.\n\nYou have earned the title of Simon the Gardener.\n\n\nThe Gardener: You have spent a year cultivating a fading flower and put her in her place. Your Wood affinity has improved from Weak to Strong.\n\n\nI have achieved so much in a year, and lost it all in a day. What grim irony. The knowledge Simon had lost Cassandra the same way he had lost Anna once weighed on him, but… perhaps not as much as he would have thought. He had prepared himself mentally for that eventuality, and Cassandra’s words of wisdom remained fresh in his mind.\n\nHe felt guilt and anguish, but he would have to learn to live with them. The very fate of the world depended on it.\n\nHe had seen the destruction that Abraxas would bring, and learned of the threat that awaited the world should he do nothing. A single person could only do so much, even the Overlord. There was so much left to achieve. He had to locate the Zodiac Fiends, find a way to permanently deal with them, and ensure both his loved ones and most of civilization survived the incoming apocalypse.\n\nSimon considered what to do next. He could try to learn more about the comet by infiltrating the Church, or join one of the parties at court. The only way for the greater good to prevail would be to keep Endymion in one piece, and he needed allies for that.\n\nHowever… However, the way Ser Richard had nearly killed him by targeting all of Simon’s weaknesses gave him pause. Either the White Unicorn had recovered the blade they used to kill Balzam Magnos, or they could produce more than one. The idea that he could infiltrate a party in Endymion only for an elven assassin to cut his reign short bothered Simon.\n\nHow did Ser Richard even enter the Halls of the Minotaur undetected? He would have needed either a lantern or help to access the place at all. Had he benefited from the Cobweb’s help, getting in like Silk likely did? Or did surviving agents of the failed Magvolian rebellion supply him with the required intel?\n\nSer Richard was reported to have likely perished in the failed White Unicorn landing, although his body was never recovered. Had that been false information? The prelude to another Oracle plot?\n\nAnd how did Louis even learn about the attack on Magvolia when he was supposed to besiege Frightwall? Had he been tipped off? It just seemed so unlikely that both he and Ser Richard attacked at the same time at the worst possible moment. This all reeked of a higher force moving them forward, doubly so since the Oracle’s allies had focused on infiltrating the War Party’s followers.\n\nThe more he thought about the elf conspiracy and the White Unicorn, the more they bothered Simon. Those groups had somehow managed to infiltrate Endymion in depth and were determined to destabilize the empire.\n\nTheir conspiracy would continue to cause Simon issues until he figured out their reach, depth, and resources. Infiltrating the imperial parties or using their resources would become much easier once he had fully learned how to handle them and prevent them from cutting his reigns short.\n\nIt was time to get to the bottom of the elf conspiracy, and pull it out by the root.\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 74: The Elf Conspiracy (1)\nTarget length: ~4300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The first thing Simon did upon waking up was to open his Inventory.\n\nFor a very brief second, his heart lit up with hope upon seeing the stored item icons on his System screen. Princess Satine’s soul gem, his stored rings, even his morning star was there, and Simon hoped he had found a loophole in the reigns… until he tried to access the items themselves. Trying to summon his morning star only resulted in an error message.\n\nThat’s very strange, Simon thought. Inventory should drop all items inside it upon my death, so I shouldn’t have any of them stored within; yet it seems under the impression that they’re still there, just unavailable. Is this a System malfunction?\n\nAnother surprise came when Simon added one of the books in his room to his Inventory. The item appeared in an empty space rather than overwriting a useless one. Simon easily summoned it back without issue and then added it again. It once more appeared in an empty space, as if the other stored items still remained.\n\nSimon was quite disturbed by the implications. Did the items still exist somewhere and were beyond his reach? Did the previous reign endure beyond his death? Or was his Perk simply malfunctioning due to being a Merchant ability never designed to interact with the Overlord Class? He couldn’t tell, and that bothered him.\n\nNonetheless, the mere fact that some information remained from a previous reign, even a mere icon on a screen, was something utterly new and fascinating to Simon. Was it a hint at how the time-loop functioned, or the natural result of his stats traveling back to the past with him? Could it be used to transfer immaterial information from one reign to the next? Could it transfer minds? Simon still had Satine’s soul gem stored in his Inventory when Louis slew him, but it was just as unavailable as the rest of his other items. Perhaps he should try to contact the current reign’s version of the princess at some point and check if she had been affected by this anomaly too.\n\nWith little more to do on that front and more work to do on others, Simon decided to regularly check the Inventory screen for any changes and focus on the current issue at hand: infiltrating the elf conspiracy.\n\nThe trap was sprung within the first hours of the new reign.\n\n“It is my will as emperor that my bastard son, Simon Magnos, be cared for,” the Keeper of the Throne said, reading the Overlord’s altered final testament to the imperial court. “Although his lesser birth bars him from princely offices, he shall be entrusted with five slaves of his picking alongside ownership of my personal attendant, Agnes Firewand. He shall be granted the rank of baron and ownership of a tract of land covering Magvolia’s Darkwood and surrounding villages.”\n\nThe audience erupted in murmurs and whispers, with Simon scowling and feigning shock. “The Darkwood?” he asked Lauriane. “What is that?”\n\n“It is an…” His sister hesitated about how to break the news. “An underdeveloped region of Magvolia.”\n\n“Oh… it’s a dump, isn’t it?” Simon asked, with Lauriane now looking embarrassed. “I should have known.”\n\n“A baron title is nothing to scoff at,” Lauriane tried to reassure him, though she didn’t deny the dump accusations, “and the proof that our father loved you.”\n\n“Or an insult,” Simon replied with a grimace. He glanced at a scowling Euphemia, fearing she would call out the testament as a forgery as she did when he dared to use it to arrange a betrothal to Anna. The dowager empress instead exchanged words with High Confessor Mastemo. What she heard seemed to reassure her.\n\nShe didn’t contest Simon’s claim, and the Keeper moved on to naming Casval Ashmodai as the Overlord’s heir.\n\nSo far so good, Simon thought. He avoided Patriate Malphas’ gaze, though he knew for a fact the Merchant was likely already appraising him. Legitimization seems to be her red line, but being gifted slaves and a minor title does not raise too much suspicion.\n\nAs for Louis, he didn’t seem to care all that much either way. Standing in the same room as him so soon after he slaughtered Simon and his entire cult made his skin crawl.\n\nThat smile Louis sported at the end of the reign, and the way he outright rejoiced at the thought of more archfiends rising, chilled Simon to the bone. Was he such a warmonger that he relished the idea of challenging powerful monsters for more levels? Or did his vision of fighting overpopulation include wholesale massacre?\n\nAll in all, Simon was convinced Louis would make a terrible emperor. Perhaps he should try to approach Euphemia in a future reign. As much as Simon disliked his stepmother, she at least seemed to favor diplomacy over wanton violence.\n\nEither way, baron titles were non-inheritable, so Simon wouldn’t be able to threaten the princes of the blood, and the Darkwood’s area was such an unenviable fiefdom that most nobles likely believed Balzam granted it to his bastard son as a joke. Belzemine was a rather precious gift, but it reassured all the major factions to see her shipped away from Frightwall rather than risk her joining their enemies.\n\nMoreover, he now looked like a prime target for recruitment for the White Unicorn.\n\nSimon had hesitated about outright arranging a betrothal with Elaine Malphas in the testament, but the ploy would have been too obvious. He had instead simply set the stage for Patriate to approach him on his own. A disgraced bastard denied princehood, with Firewand as a retainer and who had been granted lands in Magvolia—which they planned to rouse into revolt—was simply too good of a catch.\n\nIt was all a question of dispelling suspicions now.\n\n“Why did my father assign you to me, Lady Firewand?” Simon asked Belzemine.\n\n“I do not know, but it is my duty to obey the Overlord’s orders,” Belzemine replied without any emotion. It hurt Simon to see her like this at the beginning of each reign. “I will serve you as I served your father.”\n\n“I… I appreciate the sentiment, but I admit I don’t know what to do with you,” Simon replied, scratching the back of his head and whispering into his sister’s ear. “What do you think, Lauriane?”\n\n“I won’t lie, having her as a slave will bring many eyes on you,” her sister replied honestly. “No harm will come to you under her care, but if you remain set on living in peace and anonymity, I would suggest handing her over to me.”\n\n“Yeah,” Simon muttered, knowing Patriate was likely eavesdropping on them. “I guess I’ll have some time to think about it before the Academy.”\n\nNow this all but guaranteed that the traitor Patriate would establish contact with him rather than risk Belzemine slipping through his grasp. He had only sent Elaine to the Academy when Louis attended it, which meant they felt threatened by the possibility that Simon might hand her over to someone they considered a threat to Illusea. He should be wise enough to try and kill that possibility in the crib.\n\nThe fish would bite soon enough.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\n“Uyo?” Shabram asked with a frown. “The city of Rhapta?”\n\n“A great disaster will come from that region,” Simon warned her. Meeting with her in her office to discuss incoming threats had become something of a habit. “An archfiend will rise from the lost city at the end of the next year’s Frimaire month. It will kill everyone in the whole region upon waking.”\n\n“And Your Majesty wants me to locate it?”\n\n“Yes. There is a woman in Whispermire, Odette Kano, who has spent most of her life planning an expedition to reach the lost city. She has fallen under the sway of a criminal organization, but could be easily convinced to sever ties and work for us in exchange for assistance and funding.” Especially if they were to hold her illegal manalith mine over her head. “Secure her loyalty and have agents keep an eye on the Darkwood. A sealed fiend lurks there too, and the White Unicorn will likely use the town of Whispermire as a staging ground for a revolt in the following months.”\n\nShabram once again took him at his word. “Very well. I shall send people to recruit this Odette Kano, and keep an eye on the region.”\n\n“So it’s true,” Simon said, a frown on his face. “You think the Overlord Class grants me prophetic abilities.”\n\nShe smiled slyly at him. “Does it not?”\n\nSimon felt icy fingers pressing on his throat, warning him not to confirm her assumptions or even give her a hint. “I simply wonder where this assumption came from.”\n\n“What other explanation is there for our empire’s success?” Shabram sat on her desk. “The Overlords have defied the Oracle’s predictions for centuries, in spite of her constant attempts to grind us down. Immunity to divination and old Commander passive Perks cannot explain all of their successes. Your father predicted events years in advance and made moves whose brilliance only made sense in hindsight.”\n\nYou are right, Simon wanted to reply before the pressure on his neck convinced him otherwise. He had hoped to perhaps obliquely hint at the time-loop by suggesting his Class could observe the future, but the Crimson Throne’s curse wouldn’t give him that much leeway. It didn’t trigger when I pretended to have prophetic dreams as Simon Magnos… it will only react to information pointing to the Overlord Class.\n\n“Who else believes this?” Simon replied evasively. “Louis?”\n\n“Him, Euphemia, probably Lord Paimon too. The truth wasn’t hard to glimpse for those working closely enough with Your Majesty’s father.” Shabram crossed her legs. “I suspect this power has limits, especially when forced to constantly duel with the Oracle and your father’s recent demise, but I know better than to bet against the Overlord.”\n\n“I see…” That would also explain Louis' reaction in the previous reign too. “You would be wise to do as I say, yes. Believe me when I say terrible things will happen to our world otherwise.”\n\n“Of that, I have no doubt.” Shabram raised an eyebrow. “Does Your Majesty intend to claim Whispermire as their tract of land?”\n\n“Yes.” Considering how integral it had been to the White Unicorn’s plans in the previous reign, this should ease his infiltration of their movement. “The disasters that will strike Uyo and Magvolia will only be the prelude to a global catastrophe. Did my father take any measures to protect the empire from sudden destruction?”\n\n“He did.” Shabram offered him a thick file. “Operation Deepground is a decade-long project to build a network of highly fortified army bases and secret bunkers across the empire, each full of stockpiles of weapons, supplies, and manaliths to last for years. The goal was to ensure the military could survive localized natural disasters or Illusea’s magical retaliations once the airship fleet began to bombard it. The Goetia Research Center is one such facility.”\n\nSo Balzam Magnos did take precautions to keep his empire afloat should he fail to stop the Zodiac Parade; a likely possibility since he had failed to locate all the demonbarrows. The fact that he prioritized the military over the common population was as pragmatic as it was loathsome. Duchar’s archives were probably also built as part of this initiative.\n\nHowever, Simon immediately saw the flaws with the plans the moment he began to browse through the file. First of all, only generals loyal to the Overlord were even informed of the plan, with their knowledge being limited to facilities within their governorships; and second, many facilities were magically sealed and required special codes to unlock.\n\n“Do you have those codes?” Simon inquired.\n\nShabram shook her head. “His Late Majesty took that information to the grave.”\n\nBalzam Magnos didn’t want his empire to survive its emperor. Typical. Simon hoped he had at least recorded the codes in his secret archives.\n\nCould he put the plan into operation himself? It would require forming alliances with the generals and earning their trust, which would involve revealing himself as Overlord. Moreover, most facilities were located in regions loyal to one party or the other.\n\nThe entire system was set up so that only the ruling Overlord could preserve Endymion, by design.\n\n“I’ll look into this,” Simon said after closing the file. “Do you have information on Duke Eligos’ family otherwise?”\n\n“I have files on them, yes. Why?”\n\n“The Malphas and the Flauros families are all traitors loyal to the White Unicorn, but their Eligos kin’s loyalties are uncertain.” Patriate’s sister had married the duke but remained loyal to the War Party when it came to blows with the monarchists. “I intend to infiltrate their organization and wipe it out from the inside. With your help, of course.”\n\nShabram scowled in annoyance at missing such a large conspiracy, then searched her files. She handed Simon the documents, including Pictomancer-drawn portraits of two graceful women. They looked enough alike that Simon identified them as sisters, and they shared the Malphas family’s nose.\n\nHe also vaguely recalled their faces from Balzam Magnos’ book of conquests, which he wasn’t sure what to make of.\n\n“Anselma Flauros and Justine Eligos, born Malphas both,” Shabram explained. “Wives to dukes, both highly accomplished spellcasters and combatants. Anselma is a talented level 57 Arcanist with two weaker Healer and Artificer Classes, and Justine is an accomplished level 66 Dirge.”\n\n“Dirge… isn’t that a Bard Vassal Class specialized in Diabolism and Necromancy?”\n\n“It is. Justine is one of the most accomplished sanctioned diabolism users in the empire. She has bound many demons to her house’s service.”\n\nSimon checked the sisters' files. He could immediately see the difference between the two from the portraits alone. Anselma was a woman with long auburn hair framing a regal, ladylike face with pale blue eyes. She looked poised and confident, almost wise.\n\nHer sister Justine was a wholly different beast. Although the sisters shared a similar face and eyes besides her bleached-blue hair—likely the result of dye or diabolism experiments—the devilish smile that one sported reminded Simon of Silk. Justine was dangerous and devious.\n\n“The history of the two is relatively muddy until their brother’s ascension to high office,” Shabram explained as Simon browsed their files. “There are records of Justine marrying twice to wealthy merchants prior to Duke Eligos, both of whom died early and whose wealth ended up funding the family’s ascent.”\n\n“Charming,” Simon deadpanned. He read that both sisters married their current husbands eight years ago, soon after their brother’s promotion to Lord-Treasurer. This caused a small scandal in Justine’s case, since Duke Eligos was fifty years her senior and with children.\n\n“According to my information, the Flauros marriage is as happy as it can be,” Shabram said. “Lady Anselma and Duke Flauros get along fantastically, and she earned the people’s trust by shrewdly investing in public infrastructures and putting her magical skills to use to solve a sanitary crisis a few years back. The Duke’s heir, Robert Flauros, holds her in high esteem and considers her a close confidant.”\n\nEnough that she likely recruited him for the White Unicorn, Simon thought. “I assume the Eligos couple is another matter?”\n\n“Duke Gerald Eligos is pushing eighty years old and requires his wife’s anti-aging spells to keep his wits most of the time. His son and his wife perished in a boat ‘accident’–,” Shabram scoffed at the word, “that left their eight-year-old heir Henry in his step-grandmother’s care.”\n\nSimon met her gaze. “You believe Justine murdered them?”\n\nHis spymaster nodded sharply. “My investigation showed hints of foul play, though nothing that could be tracked back to her. Many suspect Justine’s anti-aging spells have actually put her husband under her mental control, and young Henry is firmly under her thumb. She leads House Eligos in all but name.”\n\n“She’s been living a lavish existence since at the expense of the family’s considerable coffers. The Eligos castle hosts festivities almost every week, her wardrobe would bankrupt smaller houses, and the lady of the house regularly cheats on her husband with young men or artists that catch her fancy.”\n\nInteresting. Justine had more control over the Eligos House than her sister over the Flauros family, yet she outright helped suppress her kin during their failed rebellion. Had she turned coat at some point? Or did she decide to play the long game by sacrificing her sister for the sake of preserving her cover?\n\n“Something’s odd. Both marriages are childless after eight years.” Simon would have expected them to have had at least one child by now, considering the Flauros’ apparent happy marriage and Justine’s licentious lifestyle. “And there are no solid records of any Malphas’ birth…”\n\n“I can dig further, if Your Majesty wants.”\n\n“Follow the money trail, too,” Simon ordered as he opened up his Inventory to store the files. “Every investment is potentially suspect, from Anselma’s Flauros public works to her sister’s lavish expenditur–”\n\nHe froze in shock the moment the Inventory screen appeared.\n\nNearly all icons had turned black.\n\nNot empty, not devoid of content, but pitch black. The items’ names had turned into garbled abyssal runes oozing miasma that flashed in and out of existence. Only the spot holding his book from this reign was unaffected.\n\nWhat the… Simon touched one of the black icons, only to receive an error message written in a demonic script. What caused this change?\n\n“Is something wrong, Your Majesty?” Shabram inquired.\n\n“Nothing,” Simon lied as he stored the files, with Shabram raising an eyebrow at the action without commenting on it. They only filled empty spaces rather than overwriting any of the black ones. Were the items still there somehow? “Stick to observation for now, and keep Gourmand on hold. Acting too soon will tip the Malphas to our infiltration, but we will feed Patriate’s soul to our jester for information once I have what we need. I also want you to keep a close eye on the exiled Princess Satine and provide me with constant reports on her activities. And don’t forget to evacuate Frightwall on the day of the bombardment. I hope to put an end to it, but I cannot guarantee it.”\n\n“Will Your Majesty stay in Frightwall until then?” Shabram sounded almost hopeful. “What about afterwards?”\n\n“I will reveal myself once we have wiped out the White Unicorn’s conspiracy within our walls,” Simon decided. “I will approach one of the factions to secure their cooperation against the other and keep the peace inside our borders.”\n\n“The Overlord officially joining one side would tip the scales, but both groups will require concessions,” Shabram replied. “Prince Louis will not relent on the imperial expansion campaign, and your stepmother will likely demand an insurance of some sort.”\n\n“I can be very persuasive, do not worry.” Running a cult for a year had helped sharpen his public speaking skills quite a bit. “Once we have purged the enemy inside our midst, it will be time to turn against the real threat.”\n\nSimon had learned his lesson. He could ignore imperial politics, but imperial politics wouldn’t ignore him.\n\nSo he would play the game, and win it.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nTrue to Simon’s plan, Patriate Malphas deviated from the usual script by inviting Simon to a private dinner with his daughter in his solar.\n\nHis Inventory’s contents had changed again by then. All the blackened icons had disappeared and transformed into empty spots. Unlike last time, storing his book caused it to occupy one of them as if the items were gone. The Inventory Perk now worked like normal, as far as Simon could tell.\n\nHad the System purged itself of the malfunction over the last few hours? Or did the previous timeline… linger for a while? Simon couldn’t exactly check either hypothesis now, but he would now keep a close eye on how his Inventory behaved at each reign’s beginning.\n\nHis gut told him this phenomenon was a critical hint to how the entire time loop worked.\n\nSimon put those thoughts aside for now and focused on the matter at hand. Lord Patriate’s sleeping quarters in Frightwall were relatively humble compared to those of House Magnos, but his table boasted among the finest meals Simon had ever supped on. Buttered cockatrice, krakenspawn soup, Uyo fruits, exotic sliced fish dishes from Fablan… and wine. Lots of wine to loosen the tongue.\n\n“Is the food to your liking, Lord Simon?” Elaine asked him with a courteous smile. She had been seated next to him all dinner-long and did her best to entertain him by sharing the exact same tales about Thalas’ humiliations that she recounted to him in a previous reign.\n\nDo I look like such an easy target? Simon wondered as he nodded. “I’m not sure what to think of the Fablan fish, but it was very good.”\n\n“We lack the saltwater fish popular in Fablan, so our cooks have to adapt their recipes with substitutes the best they can,” Patriate said. “I was planning a trip there in a few months to discuss customs with its vicequeen. Would you like to join me then, Lord Simon?”\n\nTo encourage them into rebellion? “Maybe after my academy year,” Simon replied before cutting to the chase. “I thank you for the lovely dinner, but… why invite me at all, Lord Patriate? I never warranted your attention in the past.”\n\n“Actually, you did.” Patriate raised an eyebrow. “I thought His Late Majesty would have informed you.”\n\n“Informed me of what?”\n\n“Your father and I were in discussions to arrange your betrothal to my daughter, Elaine.” The lie was uttered with such aplomb that Simon would have likely believed it without the benefit of foresight. “His savage murder cut our negotiations short, but I take his decision to grant you a baron title as a sign he wanted us to proceed with it.”\n\n“What, seriously?” Simon feigned confusion and glanced at Elaine. “Surely you have better born suitors than me.”\n\n“You are kind, but mistaken,” Elaine replied with contrition before trying to build an emotional rapport. “Although my father is Lord-Treasurer, I shall forever remain a bastard in noble eyes. Our kind will never belong in their world.”\n\n“I’m afraid you will face similar sentiment at the Academy, Lord Simon,” Patriate said with false sympathy. “They see blood, not talent. I’m sure your father had that in mind when he wrote down his testament. Being betrothed to my daughter would help ease that burden.”\n\nSo that’s the angle he’s going for; that we’re all commoners who need to stick together to survive. Simon had half-expected the traitor to try buying Belzemine outright, considering he was the Merchant and all, but the risk of starting a bidding war with the likes of Louis must have been too big.\n\nLord Patriate took his silence for a good sign and pushed on. “Besides, your father’s choice was wise in many ways. My sisters and in-laws oversee regions close to your own. I’m sure he picked the area and Lady Firewand to help ensure your safety.”\n\n“You’re wrong. The bastard gave me Firewand and these lands as a taunt.” Simon scowled and stared at his plate. “He knew I wanted to live in peace away from court, so he painted a target on my back instead.”\n\nElaine put a hand on her mouth. “Lord Simon, you shouldn’t speak like that of your father–”\n\n“Would you say the same if it was your mother he had murdered?”\n\nHe had the pleasure of seeing a look of genuine shock in Elaine’s and Patriate’s eyes. It seemed this information was only known to Shabram and a select few.\n\n“Your mother?” Elaine asked, aghast.\n\n“He boasted about it one day. Showed me her skull.” Simon clenched his fork with genuine anger. Just thinking about what Balzam did infuriated him to his core. “Why do you think I spent my time in the library, keeping my head down?” He shook his head. “That monster is dead, I don’t have to hold my tongue or pretend to respect him anymore.”\n\n“I… I see,” Patriate Malphas replied, taken aback. He probably hadn’t expected the conversation to take such a sharp turn, but he took the story at face value too… which said a lot about Balzam Magnos’ reputation.\n\n“Anyway, I appreciate your kindness, Lord Patriate, but you would be better off looking for another suitor for your daughter,” Simon told him. “I’m still not sure if I’ll even keep that damn plot of land, let alone Firewand. They are likely more trouble than they’re worth, and my sister Lauriane would have more use for them both.”\n\nSimon had to give it to his host, he was a trained spy. This must have been a terrible stress test to learn the woman he had literally died to free in a previous reign might end up in the War Party’s clutches if he didn’t act now, yet he nodded with the calm and poise of a true diplomat.\n\n“I understand, Lord Simon,” he lied easily, slightly insisting on the Lord part to better tempt him with respect that came with the noble lifestyle. “Nonetheless, I fear you are being a bit hasty. Wouldn’t you like to visit your fiefdom and my family first? I could arrange a trip to Magvolia for all of you.”\n\n“That would be a wonderful idea,” Elaine said with enthusiasm. She boldly took Simon’s hands into her own. “My aunts are so very kind and wise, nothing like the likes of Lord Thalas. I’m certain beyond doubt you would love them, Lord Simon.”\n\nSimon pretended to be flustered and taken aback, and hesitated a moment before answering.\n\n“I…” Simon cleared his throat to better suppress a smirk. “Alright… I will give it a try.”\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 75: The Elf Conspiracy (2)\nTarget length: ~4300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Eole’s eyes lit up in horror. “An archfiend?”\n\n“Yes,” Simon confirmed. “A terrible monster drawing its power from the Goatfish constellation dwells in your people’s Sanctuary, as far as I can tell. It should wake up on the first day of the Pluviose month of 404 After Doom, a little over a year from now.”\n\nEole scowled. He had managed to convince her of his prophetic abilities like in previous reigns, enough that she took his ominous doomsday warning at face value.\n\n“I don’t know of any sealed away monster in my home,” she admitted, “but our native elves and dryad are old, older than the Doom itself. If a demon was captured four hundred years in the past, as you say, then they should be aware of the danger.”\n\n“Awareness and understanding are two very different things.” Simon crossed his arms. “Are they still in contact with Illusea and the Oracle?”\n\n“No. Our manatree has been uprooted since the Doom, and our people do not keep much contact with the surface.”\n\nWait, did that mean they had little to no knowledge of the Overlord? Eole only learned of the political situation by visiting Telluria, but elves that split off from their kindred since the Doom probably never learned about Mardok’s creation of the Class.\n\nA hidden nation that knew nothing about the Overlord might be one of the few places where Simon could live in peace one day…\n\n“You should go there and warn your people of the danger,” Simon told her. “The great comet Abraxas’ power will grant the archfiend both the strength to break its seal and regain its true body. A year of preparation might make all the difference.”\n\n“I will bring your word to them, Lord Simon.” Eole bit her lower lip. “But it would be easier if you were to join me.”\n\n“I have too much to do here.” Simon scoffed. “Like toppling an empire.”\n\nEole’s eyes widened with realization, then interest. “Oh, I see. I was wondering why a kind prophet like yourself would stay a prince of a rotten nation, but now I understand. You intend to bring down this cursed land from the inside.”\n\n“Yes, you could say that.” As much as Simon hoped to dismantle the elf conspiracy before it ran its course, gathering information on them would likely involve assisting them in tearing Endymion apart. “It may take a while, but I hope to reform it… and if I can’t, I would like to save some people I know.”\n\nEole stared at him for a moment with a thoughtful expression. Simon thought she would offer him a feather or simply take flight from the window as she did in the past, yet her next words took him by utter surprise. “If you don’t mind, Lord Simon, I would like to accompany you on your quest.”\n\n“What?” Simon blinked in surprise. Eole always refused to accompany him when he remained a prince of the empire, and even then he usually had to ask her first. “I told you, your Sanctuary risks destruction a year from now. You should go warn them.”\n\n“I do not need to physically travel to our Sanctuary to send them a message,” she replied. “I must simply find an elevated point.”\n\nSimon recalled that Magvolia had a few such places. He’d be lying if he said the idea of Eole joining him for this reign didn’t appeal to him. He knew how loyal she could be to her friends, and he was about to enter a den of vipers with fewer allies than usual, since bringing Duchar, Hector, and Cassandra aboard would raise suspicions—not to mention he didn’t feel ready to meet them so soon after how his previous reign ended.\n\n“I would gladly take you along, Eole, but the risks will be great,” Simon warned her. “First of all, I ask that you never reveal my intentions to anyone, for discovery will mean death for us both. Neither will you be able to step into Telluria so long as Vouivre remains alive. The risk that she captures you and unleashes another archfiend is too great.”\n\nEole nodded reluctantly. “I have faith in your visions, Lord Simon,” she said. “My kind can only achieve freedom once this empire falls. If its weakness lies in another land altogether, then I shall travel there.”\n\n“That is very brave of you, Eole.” Simon genuinely smiled for the first time since this reign began. “I am happy to have you with me.”\n\n“I will assist you in any way I can.” Eole folded her wings slightly. “What is your plan, Lord Simon?”\n\n“It’s a bit too early to tell you everything, but… there is something you could help me with.” Eole was a talented minstrel and actress, on top of being rather charming. He had seen her at work in Valne. “I suspect a family called the Malphas to be working with the empire’s enemies. Their daughter, Elaine, might become my fiancée soon, but neither she nor her father trusts me.”\n\n“You want to earn their trust so that you will be trusted in turn,” Eole guessed. “Surely freeing me would do the trick.”\n\n“I think it may help, but they have stayed undercover for years if I am right. They might mistake us for spies if we look ‘too good to be true,’ so to say, and they’re willing to kill to keep their secrets.”\n\n“I understand,” Eole replied with a scowl. “I may have an easier time winning their trust than you, Lord Simon. I was imprisoned for trying to rouse my kind in rebellion, and I was a slave. My struggle was genuine and documented.”\n\n“That’s… true.” Eole had a point. A bastard prince of House Magnos would always remain suspicious in the Malphas’ eyes, but she was the ideal White Unicorn recruit. “You should have no trouble winning them over by being earnest.”\n\n“And once I do, I shall put a good word in for you. It is the least I can do to pay you back for your kindness.”\n\nSimon thanked her for her gratitude, then sent Eole away to collect her belongings for their departure. He had to admit he wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Using someone he considered a friend to hoodwink a rival conspiracy without her knowledge didn’t entirely sit well with him, but… well, it beat running a murderous cult and summoning an archfiend at least.\n\nAnd that act of deceit paled compared to what was next on the list…\n\nSimon heard a knock on the door. “Come in.”\n\nBelzemine walked inside and closed the door behind her. “Your Highness.”\n\n“Yes.” At least this trickery will be for your own salvation, Belzemine. “Are you done?”\n\n“Yes. I have finished warding this room. No outsider will be able to see us or listen to our conversations, and the spells will cancel out any invisibility effect.”\n\nExcellent. Simon had Shabram report on the Malphas’ movements through her Brand, but Elaine was a Spy with access to unknown resources. He didn’t want to take any chances.\n\n“Then, Belzemine…” Simon said as he unveiled his Overlord armor, much to her shock. “There’s something I need to ask of you…”\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nTrue to his word, Patriate Malphas arranged a journey to his sister’s dukedom on his private airship. Simon boarded it with a retinue composed of a newly emancipated Eole, Belzemine, Meredith, and Leonard. He had considered bringing Lorimor with him, but the man was both a security risk and more or less useless for this reign.\n\nSeeing Leonard after Simon murdered him and his sister in the previous reign filled his heart with guilt and anguish, which Leonard quickly picked up on. “Is something the matter, Your Highness?”\n\n“Nothing,” Simon lied. The fact that his loyal retainer had completely forgotten his employer’s crimes against him and his family didn’t assuage his conscience in the slightest. “I just mistook you for someone else.”\n\nLeonard squinted at him in skepticism, perhaps having noticed the half-lie, but he didn’t argue any further. Lord Patriate and his daughter warmly welcomed them in the airship’s salon, with the Lord-Treasurer paying close attention to Eole.\n\n“Could your retainer be a kish, Lord Simon?” Patriate inquired with genuine curiosity.\n\n“She is,” Simon confirmed, the question slightly taking him aback. “Do you know of them?”\n\n“I’ve heard of them, but I believed the tribe to be extinct.” Lord Patriate explained as he studied Eole closely, much to her discomfort. “Can you understand us?”\n\n“Eole only speaks a little elvish and her native tongue,” Simon replied. “I managed to establish contact with her using what little I knew of the former tongue.”\n\nElaine smiled at him. “You can speak Elvish, Lord Simon?”\n\n“A bit,” Simon lied, since his Perks let him speak and translate all tongues. “I learned the basics from the imperial library. I had hoped to travel to Illusea and see the Worldtree when I was younger and foolish.”\n\n“There is nothing foolish about wishing to explore the world, Lord Simon,” Patriate said. He took Eole’s hand and kissed it while switching from Endymian to Elvish. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Eole.”\n\n“You are very kind, but I am no noble,” Eole replied in Elvish. “It has been a while since anyone could understand me since I’ve met Lord Simon.”\n\n“As it happens, my work demanded that I learn the Elvish language to discuss with elven diplomats and merchants; a skill I taught my daughter in turn.” Lord Patriate stroked his goatee. “I cannot help but notice your lack of slave brands.”\n\n“Lord Simon kindly emancipated me without asking for anything in return,” Eole replied. “Since I cannot return to Telluria on account of being imprisoned for encouraging my kind to rebel against your empire’s slavery practices, I decided to stay in his service.”\n\n“Yes, I recall hearing about the troubles in Telluria.” Patriate raised an eyebrow at Simon. “Forgive me for being so forward, but why forgive a known rebel?”\n\n“My brother Dassein sent Eole to the capital to serve as an imperial slave concubine for my father, to be raped and abused.” Simon scowled in genuine disgust. “I just couldn’t keep her bound after learning that.”\n\n“That was very noble and selfless of you, Lord Simon.” For once, Lord Patriate sounded genuine. His eyes moved from him to Eole for a moment before changing the subject. “Would you mind teaching me and my daughter about your people’s ways, Lady Eole? Learning about other cultures is the wellspring of an open mind, I always say.”\n\nHow forward-thinking. Simon had no idea of what he could trust when it came to Patriate Malphas’ words. The man played the role of a mild-mannered fence-sitter and bureaucrat eager to go along with everyone to perfection, but that was all a lie. A man willing to blow himself up for the sake of keeping his conspiracy secret had to possess an iron will and wells of bravery. Nonetheless, Simon had the feeling that granting Eole’s freedom had won him some points with the Malphas family.\n\nElaine invited him to a private table near a porthole during the flight, so they could learn more about each other away from their chaperones, which Simon recognized as something of a hidden interview. He would bet his right hand his retainers and Eole were being grilled to determine whether they would threaten their plans or if they would have to be slain. She served him tea and cakes, then went straight for the throat.\n\n“My father questioned Lady Shabram about your mother.” Elaine gave him a pointed look. “It was all true. She was indeed executed when trying to elope with a Lore merchant and take you away.”\n\nSimon snorted. “I’m surprised that my father’s pet told him anything at all.”\n\n“She said there was no point in keeping it a secret with His Majesty’s assassination, but asked my father to keep that to himself.\" Elaine smiled. \"But he never keeps anything from me.”\n\n“Neither did mine… usually for the worst,” Simon replied. The truth was that Simon had allowed Shabram to leak the story as part of his plan.\n\n“Oh?” Elaine raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”\n\n“Do you really want to know?” Simon wondered what to reveal, before settling on something unrelated to the war effort so as not to appear too informed. “He… rated them.”\n\nElaine’s face darkened. “Rated what?”\n\n“His ‘conquests’. All the women he had slept with, he kept a journal where he drew and commented on them.” Simon looked away through the porthole. “That bastard rated my mother five out of ten, and said he felt fleeced for my conception ever since.”\n\n“Yes, yes I… I imagine that would hurt to hear.” Elaine changed the subject. “Do you have any memory of her? Your mother?”\n\n“Just vague memories from my childhood. It’s been so long.” Simon sipped the tea, which he found extremely sugary. Did they add substances to it to make him loosen up? “Why ask?”\n\n“I never knew my own mother,” Elaine admitted with a hint of longing. “She died when I was young.”\n\n“Did my father kill her too?” Simon asked honestly. It wouldn’t even surprise him at this point.\n\n“No, not at all. She was caught in a Tribe-related pogrom and slain.” Simon made a mental note to ask Shabram to investigate that in case there was any kernel of truth to the tale, given her elven heritage. “Aunt Anselma all but raised me.”\n\nNot the other one? Interesting. “I’m sorry for your loss, but now that we are alone, I have to ask you something,” Simon said. “Do you actually want this betrothal? Or is your father forcing you into this?”\n\n“Isn’t that what we’re deciding now?” Elaine smiled slyly at him. “My father is not forcing me into anything, though I admit I do find you fascinating. You’re a lot more well-adjusted than I would have expected, considering your family. One just has to look at Prince Louis or Thalas to tell the apples didn’t fall far from the tree.”\n\nWas this the moment when they revealed their mutual disdain for House Magnos? “I was only ever close to Lauriane,” Simon admitted bluntly. “I hope she survives when Louis and Euphemia tear the empire apart.”\n\n“I hear she tells you everything.” Elaine chuckled before sipping her tea. “Will you gallantly fight for her once they come to blows?“\n\nHere came the loaded question, whose answer Simon had the gut feeling would influence the rest of this reign going forward. Simon pondered how to reply in a way that would ingratiate himself with the White Unicorn without being too obvious, but his answer came up the moment he conjured the image of Louis’ smirk in his mind.\n\n“No,” Simon finally admitted. “No, I wouldn’t.”\n\n“The braver answer would have been yes,” Elaine teased him.\n\n“I would have supported her if she was putting forward her own claim,” Simon replied earnestly, “but she wants to put Louis on the throne, and he’s insane.”\n\n“We agree on that. His obsession with invading the western continent will bankrupt the realm, or so my father says.” Elaine finally drank from her cup, her gaze hidden. “Truth be told, my father intended to ship me away from court with this marriage and keep me out of trouble. Frightwall is no longer safe for any of us.”\n\n“No, it’s not,” Simon replied, before fishing for information himself. “Is your father going to take a side?”\n\n“Hopefully not. My father aligns more with the Church Party when it comes to internal policies, but my aunts are married to War Party supporters and close to Lady Lauriane’s fiefdom.” Elaine winked at him. “It would be madness to defy Prince Louis in his own backyard.”\n\nShe meant it as a quip and misdirection, especially since her conspiracy was very much planning to stab the War Party in its own heartland, but all the pieces fell in place at this moment for Simon. The reason why the Oracle had invested so much effort in establishing a foothold in Magvolia, from placing agents like the Malphas to supporting Satine’s burgeoning independence movement, became obvious to him.\n\nThe elf conspiracy wanted access to the Goetia Research Center, probably to sabotage it from the inside and cripple the War Party’s logistics. The Oracle had foreseen that Louis would bring destruction to the world somehow, and he was more or less guaranteed to win the conflict so long as that particular facility remained in his control. The elves had methodically begun to encircle it with loyalists in anticipation of the siege.\n\nIt wasn’t just fear of Belzemine falling into Louis’ clutches that caused Patriate to follow us to Telluria back then, Simon thought as he recalled a previous reign. He hoped to keep Louis away from Magvolia to ease the attack on the Goetia Research Center.\n\nHalf of the conquered country had risen up in rebellion back then without Louis around to order a bombardment, which allowed Norbelle’s army to besiege the Goetia Research Center before the War Party could organize a defense. That was likely the Oracle’s optimal scenario for the conflict.\n\nThat plan would be for naught since Louis hadn’t left for Telluria this time as far as Simon could tell, which guaranteed a longer war the crown-prince had a strong chance of winning.\n\nUnless… unless they found a way in.\n\n“Yes, you would be right,” Simon replied as he sipped from his cup. “If half of what my sister told me about her Crestone research is true, Louis is going to win the struggle for the throne handily.”\n\n“Is it true they’re creating new Classes there?” Elaine asked not so innocently.\n\n“Well… yes, they are.” Simon scratched his cheek in fake embarrassment. “I don’t know the exact details, but I can ask her. Lauriane tells me everything.”\n\nElaine was a talented spy, but he caught the glint of interest in her eyes all the same.\n\nThey wouldn’t let him go now.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nThe rest of the trip was about as boring as it was uneventful. Elaine entertained Simon with idle chatter, except for the occasional pointed question here and there. He had the strong suspicion she now considered him someone who could be either manipulated or flipped to the conspiracy’s side given time, though it would take a bit before the Malphas truly trusted him.\n\nSimon otherwise had the intuition he wouldn’t be able to gain many levels from this reign, if any. Having the Malphas looking over his shoulders outside Frightwall meant he couldn’t really practice either his crafting or spellcasting for the time being. Win some, lose some.\n\nThe airship eventually arrived near twilight in the Eligos Dukedom and its capital city of Surgat. The Eligos castle—or rather palace—dominated fertile plains and its own private canals like the sun with the planets. Unlike most noble fortresses, this one had a tall iron fence covered in roses and ivy for an outer wall. A dense briar labyrinth, gardens, groves, private parks, courtyards, fountains, and even an artificial lake formed the bulk of the property.\n\nThe U-shaped palace at the center was rather small in comparison, but it more than made up for it in splendor. It looked a lot more modern than any other noble estate Simon had seen, a three-floored mansion of marble, polished stones, columns, and stained windows.\n\n“Duke Eligos tore down the ancestral keep and rebuilt it to please my aunt,” Elaine said once the airship landed at a private dock inside the property. “The western wing is still unfinished, though she says it’ll be completed by the year’s end.”\n\nSimon would have doubted that claim without the flying gargoyles and creatures hovering over the palace.\n\nAlthough the imperial army had no qualms about enlisting fiends, often sending the more disciplined ones to the Academy for training, demonbinding and diabolism were heavily restricted in the empire. All members of their kind were dangerous, and the more powerful ones simply required so much miasma to linger on the material plane that they usually started causing trouble in order to spread it further.\n\nCastle Eligos was the first time Simon saw a truly industrial-scale use of infernal creatures. Hundreds of bound imps, gargoyles, and other horned and clawed creatures toiled on the property alongside stone golems and enslaved trolls. Not even Frightwall housed so many monsters in one place, and most sane souls would consider it a tremendous security risk. The mere fact that Justine Eligos could control so many of them spoke volumes about her power.\n\nSpeaking of their host, she welcomed them at the airship dock when they climbed down from it. Justine Eligos was quite possibly a living illustration of Endymion’s nobility; a refined woman wearing a black and white silk and a fur dress worth more money than an entire village earned in a year, with golden jewels adorning her bleached blue hair and a fan of precious feathers in hand. Either she was a better actress than her brother, or she had taken quite a liking to the imperial noble lifestyle.\n\nA small army of courtiers and guards followed in her footsteps, almost all of them being handsome young men and singers welcoming their guests with song. There were a handful of major exceptions, though: some of her bodyguards were horned, scaly fiends wielding flaming swords, and a thick, stumpy lumbering hulk of an ogre followed in Justine’s footsteps. This one was muscled and bald, with a stretched leathery orange face beneath a butcher’s garb and black eyes above a puffy, toothy grin. Simon didn’t miss the look of distaste Patriate Malphas sent them, nor the way Lady Justine observed Belzemine and Eole when they stepped down.\n\n“Greetings, brother,” Lady Justine said upon exchanging hasty kisses on the cheek with Patriate and then Elaine. “I didn’t expect you so soon either, my dear niece. You’re among my first guests to arrive.”\n\n“Things have changed a great deal in the capital, and the winds have brought good tidings,” Patriate replied before introducing Simon. “Here is my daughter’s new fiancé, Simon Magnos, baron of Whispermire, alongside Lady Agnes Firewand.”\n\n“Whispermire?” Justine smiled slyly at Simon. “You find me most jealous, milord. I’ve had my eyes on acquiring that land for quite some time.”\n\n“That monster-infested dump?” Simon asked in honest disbelief, before spotting the woman’s ogre sniffing the air at his approach. It was said their kind had a better sense of smell than a hellhound.\n\n“It houses a fascinating ecosystem,” Justine replied. “Whispermire’s Darkwood is an entire forest covered in miasma and inhabited by various monsters. How such a den of darkness sustains itself raises some…” She put her fan beneath her nose. “Interesting questions.”\n\nThis one is more dangerous than her siblings. Her gaze reminded Simon of a mix of Duchar and Silk; slyness merged with dangerous obsessions. I also sense some coldness between the siblings…\n\n“It is a pleasure to have you as my guest too, Lady Firewand. Your reputation precedes you.” Justine waited for an answer from Belzemine, then shrugged when she received a frown in response. “I see you are as taciturn as they say.”\n\n“You stink of the Dark, witch,” Belzemine replied with barely concealed disdain.\n\n“As does your home,” Justine mused, before noticing her pet ogre’s grunt of distaste. “What is it, Tomoro? Are our guests’ scents not to your liking?”\n\n“The boy’s a Darkblood, so thick his flesh is poisonous,” the ogre grumbled. “Sleeping Visionary, too. Wasted flavor.”\n\nDarkblood? Simon wondered, having never heard the term before.\n\nJustine immediately stared at Simon with immense interest. “A third eye blinded by the Dark… what a rare combination,” she said, flapping her fan. “Do you happen to have prophetic dreams, my dear?”\n\nSimon blinked in surprise. “Prophetic dreams?”\n\n“Dreams of the future, or flashes of the past. Usually involving violence.”\n\nHow did she… Did that ogre smell Elios Magnos’ blood in his descendant’s veins? Some invisible trace of sensitivity to the Dark and foresight? Simon had used his Perk to hide Overlord's darkness behind false light, so it had to be something else. He had already guessed he had inherited some of his ancestor’s Visionary gifts since he had dreamed of what he assumed to be his father’s past deaths, but he had otherwise never actually seen the actual future outside of living out the reigns.\n\nDid she suggest Simon could have genuine and latent foresight?\n\n“Yes,” Simon reluctantly confirmed, knowing the Malphas could easily learn of them by questioning Lauriane or Louis. “They don’t always happen, but… they often do.”\n\nJustine’s eyes gleamed with a dreadful mix of greed and curiosity. “Which ones?”\n\n“Dreams about someone’s death.” She didn’t seem surprised in the slightest, which only aroused Simon’s curiosity. “You suggest I could be a Visionary, even if I lack the third eye?”\n\n“Of course you cannot be a true Visionary without the eye,” Justine replied with a smirk. “But that doesn’t mean you lack gifts of your own.”\n\n“Sister,” Patriate interrupted them with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Surely you won’t bore Lord Simon with your occult talks, will you?”\n\n“You’re wrong, brother. I have piqued his curiosity.” Their host let out a small sigh. “But you are right, I do forget my manners. Welcome to my halls, make yourself at home.”\n\nSimon had the feeling this would be a very interesting stay...\n\n\nHeya, big news, the author of Jake's Magical Market (which has been on my reading list for a while) has apparently decided to take out their popular Portal to Nova Roma series off KU and post it on Royal Road of all places! I'm posting a link here in case anybody is interested in checking it out!\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 76: The Elf Conspiracy (3)\nTarget length: ~3800 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "True to their standing, Simon’s retinue and the Malphas were introduced to the decrepit ruin they called Duke Eligos in his private quarters.\n\nThe palace’s pomp and splendor contrasted terribly with the ruinous state of the master of the house. Already pushing eighty, the man was a bedridden, wrinkled living corpse unable to string two words together. Simon almost mistook him for a reanimated zombie when he first saw him.\n\nMeanwhile, his grandson Henry was a pale, scrawny little boy with curly blond hair and big blue eyes. He was dressed in mourning black and clutched a stuffed bear toy as if his life depended on it. Simon could feel an eeriness radiating from the toy, which Belzemine and Meredith seemed to pick up on as well.\n\n“Henry dear, please greet our guests,” Justine said with a tone that could almost pass for motherly, if not for its slightly sinister edge.\n\n“Hello,” the boy said shyly, his smile reserved for Elaine alone. “Hello, Elaine.”\n\n“Greetings, my lovely little cousin,” Elaine replied by kissing him on the forehead. “How fast you grow. You’ll be taller than me at this rate.”\n\n“Only if he eats well,” Justine replied before taking her husband’s hand into her own without eliciting any reaction. “As you can see, my poor husband has been bedridden for some time. I have been doing my best to alleviate his burden.”\n\nI doubt that, Simon thought before answering outloud, “Mayhaps Lady Firewand can help? She is the world’s foremost healer and used anti-aging spells to keep my father vigorous.”\n\nJustine gave him a sly smile that sent chills down his spine. “She is welcome to try.”\n\nBelzemine quickly cast a few analysis and healing spells on Duke Eligos, frowning in disgust as she did. Whatever she gleaned didn’t please her in the slightest.\n\n“This is an empty shell,” she commented, “The man’s soul has departed, leaving only a breathing corpse and vessel.”\n\nPatriate shifted uncomfortably at her words. “Forgive me for doubting you, Lady Firewand, but I was told no life could survive without a soul.”\n\n“This puppet does,” Belzemine replied bluntly. “He would be better off buried.”\n\n“It is not for you to decide whether my husband lives or dies, Lady Firewand,” Justine said, her smile unblemished. “The thought of being separated from him is unbearable, and I would rather keep him at my side for as long as possible.”\n\nSimon studied Patriate and Elaine’s expressions. Although Patriate kept his disgust and unease carefully under wraps, his less experienced daughter scowled in true distaste. Neither of them seemed to get along with Justine.\n\nWere there cracks in the elf conspiracy? Simon would assume so. He had learned with his cult that any sufficiently large secret organization had leaks, traitors, and weak-points… and he had the sneaking suspicion Justine Eligos might be the key to unraveling this one.\n\n“My guards will see to your accommodations,” Justine declared. “I am organizing a masquerade ball at the stroke of midnight tomorrow, preceded by an opera three hours earlier. Attendance is mandatory, of course.” She gazed at Simon, her fan coyly hiding her mouth. “Preparations will take up much of my time beforehand, but I can make some room to finish our earlier conversation in private, Lord Simon.”\n\nElaine scoffed. “Are you trying to lure away my fiancée, dear aunt?”\n\n“I would never dare steal one of yours, my dear niece,” Justine teased her back. “Though I do admit he is a handsome and well-bred young man.”\n\n“It is fine, Elaine,” Simon replied, knowing how the game was played. “Your aunt is right, she did pique my curiosity earlier. Lady Firewand and Meredith can be my chaperones.”\n\n“I would rather have the handsome young Decarabia behind you,” Justine quipped, licking her lips at Leonard. The Dreadnought flatly ignored her, which only seemed to amuse the duchess. The mere fact that she dared to flirt with him in front of her catatonic husband spoke volumes about her utter lack of concern for him. “Very well. If he prefers the company of luggage to my own, I shall indulge him.”\n\nSimon noticed a brief flash of annoyance in Patriate’s eyes. The man clearly wanted to invite himself to the conversation, but doing so would have been both inelegant and suspicious. He simply excused himself while Justine invited them to a private yet opulent study. A roaring fireplace kept ablaze by a small fire elemental lit up high-backed leather chairs and a wooden desk nearby. A cadre of winged demonesses with red, bloody wings and crimson bows kept watch over the area. Simon might have mistaken them for kish if not for the two black holes weeping blood they had in place of eyes.\n\n“Make yourself at home, Lord Simon,” Justine said upon slouching in her seat, her towering ogre bodyguard looming behind her. “Would you like a refreshment?”\n\n“No, thank you,” Simon replied after taking a seat, his own retainers eying the guards. He didn’t trust anything this woman had to offer him.\n\n“Your loss,” she said upon snapping her fingers, one of her eyeless creatures quickly serving her a cup of wine. “What a strange boy you are.”\n\n“How so?” Simon inquired.\n\n“Both your retainers are sensible enough to be wary in a room full of demons, yet you seem neither concerned nor bothered. The thought that they could harm you at all never crossed your mind.”\n\nA sharp one, like her brother, Simon thought as he smiled innocently. “I’ve grown up in a castle full of fiends, including a skull-juggling demon, and I can tell a diabolist of your renown must keep a tight leash on them.”\n\n“Vile flatterer, but you would be right. A wise diabolist does not call what they cannot put down.”\n\nBelzemine squinted at her in disdain. “There is no such thing as a wise diabolist.”\n\nSimon had rarely seen Belzemine speak up so much without invitation. She had voiced some disdain for Duchar’s studies of the Dark in past reigns, but Justine Eligos truly seemed to annoy her.\n\nShe had a point, though. Simon had learned from experience that while powerful spells could bring mighty creatures under control, magically-compelled loyalty was only a single spell away from turning into treachery. Justine Eligos would better sleep with her door locked at night.\n\n“I would have thought living with demons for so long would have taught you otherwise, Lady Firewand, but it seems your current master is more open-minded,” Justine said, her eyes staring at Belzemine coldly before moving on to Simon. “Were you aware of your status as a Darkblood?”\n\n“I don’t even know what that term even means,” Simon admitted.\n\n“Darkblood is an archaic elven term for people with demon blood in their ancestry,” Belzemine informed him. “Either through direct lineage or a blood pact.”\n\nSimon raised an eyebrow. “A blood pact?”\n\n“Powerful demons ritually seal pacts with mortals by sharing their blood, infusing their contractors with otherworldly abilities,” Justine explained. “Descendants of people with blood pacts often manifest demonic features.”\n\n“I’ve heard rumors that my ancestor Elios Magnos once served Overlord Mardok,” Simon noted, which surprised Meredith. The news that Elios Magnos had been working for Mardok wasn’t common knowledge. “You think those two formed a blood pact?”\n\n“Possibly.” Lady Justine sipped from her cup. “That or a succubus frolicked with him.”\n\nSimon knew from his father’s genealogical research that no demon had found its way into the family tree, so he learned towards the blood pact possibility. One of his Perks also caused Simon to be treated as a demon for the purpose of magical effects, and his ‘The Delicious’ Title turned his blood poisonous, so the ogre might simply have been smelling that…\n\nNo, I had strange dreams long before inheriting the Overlord Class, Simon thought. Lauriane was convinced I had minor foresight for years, too. There’s something more to it. This also fits Asterion’s claim that his kind can only merge with individuals marked by the Dark.\n\n“Darkblooded families often manifest latent powers down the line, usually in the form of minor demonic traits like forked tongues or horns, or an aptitude for diabolism,” Justine Eligos explained. “Darkblooded people are not uncommon in the empire, but Visionary descendants are rare, and unions between the two are almost unheard of. I believed only Prince Thalas and Princess Norbelle could boast such a unique lineage, and only the latter became a true Visionary in spite of her paternal handicap.”\n\n“Handicap?” Simon noted. What an odd choice of words. “Is being a Darkblood and a Visionary mutually exclusive?”\n\n“They are,” Belzemine confirmed. “Visionaries draw their power from the Light, which reveals the future, whereas Darkblooded people bear traces of the Dark, which shrouds it. That is why the most powerful demons possess innate resistance to divination magic.”\n\n“The two do not mix well.” Justine Eligos flapped her fan. “If I had to compare it, it would be like putting on a blindfold.”\n\nHer ogre smirked at Simon. “You would have sprouted a pretty little eye without your demon blood.”\n\nSimon’s heart skipped a beat. Was that the reason for his dreams? That he would have been born a Visionary if not for the demon blood in his veins suppressing his third eye’s growth and leaving him with diminished prophetic abilities?\n\nThat would explain why he saw what he assumed were echoes of his father’s past reigns. The Overlord’s power was born of the Dark, not to mention that Elios Magnos helped create the Class, and Simon’s foresight gifts had been tainted by it since birth. It could have let him glimpse events related to his father.\n\n“How do you explain Norbelle then?” Simon asked Belzemine. “The Magnos Darkblood should have inhibited her Visionary gifts.”\n\n“When Prince Thalas failed to come into the world with a third eye, His Majesty had me cast spells on Empress Euphemia while Princess Norbelle was still in the womb,” Belzemine admitted. “This allowed her Visionary gifts to express themselves, granting her both a third eye and enhanced magical aptitude. Even so, I don’t think she would have grown a third eye if her mother didn’t have one already.”\n\nSimon scowled. On one hand, it horrified him to learn his father hadn’t been above experimenting on his own children in the womb; on the other, it also amused him that Balzam’s lineage was to blame for his difficulties in siring Visionary heirs.\n\n“Spells in the womb, you said?” Justine licked her lips. “You intrigue me, Lady Firewand. Would you kindly share those with me? For academic purposes, of course.”\n\nIt was a blatant lie which Belzemine didn’t dignify with a response, though the whole matter piqued Simon’s interest. If spells could allow Norbelle to grow a third eye in spite of her Darkblood’s inhibitions, could it be possible for Simon to unlock or strengthen some of his latent Visionary abilities?\n\n“The same thought crossed both of our minds, Lord Simon,” Justine said with some amusement. “There’s power in your blood, my dear. Latent power. I always theorized that a child of Darkblood and Visionary descent would inherit a diminished, subconscious version of the latter’s gifts, either in the form of dreams or uncontrollable visions.”\n\n“I have dreamed of someone’s violent death since as long as I can remember, until they actually perished,” Simon admitted. “Do you think I could refine that gift?”\n\n“Of course. Maybe you could form pacts with Eidolons, or access enhanced magical abilities, or unique mutations. You are quite the rare creature.” Lady Justine chuckled. “I could help.”\n\n“But not for free,” Simon guessed.\n\n“I am the Merchant’s sister.” Lady Justine covered her mouth with her fan. “The spells Firewand used on your sister will be a start, alongside a pint of your blood. It should serve as a powerful magical reagent for demonbinding rituals. Exclusive access to Whispermire’s Darkwood and any elven artifacts you find there will also smooth things over, I won’t lie.”\n\nSuch naked, unabashed greed. Simon had to admit he found honest avarice somewhat refreshing when compared to her family’s constant lies. “What’s in it for you? Forgive me, but you don’t sound like the academic type.”\n\n“And you don’t seem like the dangerous type, Lord Simon, but appearances can be deceiving.” She met his gaze, her eyes cold and piercing. “A normal boy your age wouldn’t so readily join someone like me for a private chat in a room filled with demon guards. It is not that you think I cannot harm you; you know it. You are nowhere near as harmless as you pretend to be.”\n\nSimon smiled thinly. “You would have learned to hide your strengths too, if you had a family like mine.”\n\n“Probably,” Lady Justine conceded. “What of my generous proposition?”\n\n“I’ll think about it.” Besides the fact that Simon didn’t trust her in the slightest, working to unlock demonic powers would clash too much with the image he wished to send for this reign. “All of this is very new to me, you understand.”\n\n“Of course. My door is always open… if you dare to step through the threshold.” She waved at herself with her fan, squinting. “What are your intentions with my niece?”\n\n“None so far,” Simon replied. “I have just learned about this engagement.”\n\n“I suspect she will bore you out of your mind before long. Her father fumbled her education and turned her into a mockingbird. Good for singing and little else.” Lady Justine waved her fan at him. “Now shoo, shoo. Off you go. One of my guards will see you to your quarters.”\n\nIt took a rather inflated sense of one’s self-importance to send off a Magnos with an elven archmage at his beck and call away, but Simon simply thanked her and departed. He also noticed that Lady Eligos had never actually answered his question about what she would gain from gaining access to Magnos blood and other spells. She could have wanted it as a reagent to summon more demons, or more likely as a tool to strike at the Magnos family or at least influence them. Cassandra’s fetishes required body parts like hair, nails, or skin to sympathetically affect their targets, and blood formed the strongest connection of all.\n\nIt can’t be all acting, Simon thought when his group walked through gilded corridors adorned with mirrors on their way to their destination. Either this Justine is a better comedian than her brother, or she has genuinely taken a liking to imperial intrigue.\n\n“What do you think of her, Meredith?” Simon asked his retainer. She had spotted Vouivre flying from a very long distance, picked up on the fact that Elaine’s footsteps didn’t produce any noise, and other details which had come in handy over his previous reigns. If anyone could notice something Simon had overlooked, it would be her.\n\nMeredith scowled and hesitated for a moment before answering, “There is something wrong with House Malphas, Your Highness. I would tread carefully in their company.”\n\n“Was it the naked greed and demons everywhere that tipped you off?” Simon quipped.\n\n“There is more to them than meets the eye,” Meredith replied with a frown. “Have you noticed that Lady Eligos keeps calling Your Highness and Ser Leonard young, when she is not that much older than either of you?”\n\nNo, Simon hadn’t noticed that detail. It was indeed strange now that he thought of it. It could simply be an expression without any substance, but his gut told him there was more to it.\n\nMeredith was right; something about the Malphas’ had rubbed him the wrong way the moment Simon met them. Their duplicitous nature, the lack of records on their origins, the fact they played such a long game his time-traveling father had failed to pick up on them…\n\nElaine could be older than she looks, since half-elves lived longer than humans from what Simon had gathered, but… no, Patriate would have had to sire her while young, if they were even related at all.\n\nCome to think of it, each Malphas took care to incinerate their own corpses in previous reigns, not just Elaine, Simon thought. Why would Patriate be so thorough? It would make sense if he was a half-elf like his daughter, but many end up sterile like mules, and I've heard those who aren't can only reproduce with pureblooded humans or elves anyway. Could it be to hide the fact he’s not related to Elaine, or not human at–\n\nSimon stopped in the middle of the corridor, as the truth hit him like a military train. Meredith nearly bumped into him.\n\n“Your Highness?” she asked with concern.\n\n“I, uh… I felt something foul in the air,” Simon said, which wasn’t entirely a lie. A dark and novel idea had crossed his mind.\n\nNo… No, that would be insane, Simon told himself once they resumed their walk. A spell ought to have revealed their true nature if that were the case… but it would explain their patience, their willingness to risk everything to save Belzemine, Patriate’s secret elf name, and the Oracle’s belief they could infiltrate the empire for a very long period of time. They would just need a steady supply of manaliths a Lord-Treasurer and two spellcasting duchesses could easily afford.\n\nSimon had seen two goddamn dragons walk among humans undetected, so it was entirely possible. So much would make sense if the Malphas family were like Casval or Vouivre. The how they achieved it and avoided detection for so long remained a big question mark, but one of Simon’s own passive Perks caused him to be treated as a Demon for the purpose of magical effects.\n\nWhy couldn’t there be one that treated its wearers as human?\n\nSimon put those thoughts aside when they reached his luxurious private quarters on the second floor, with the Malphas and his other retainers already present. Elaine was showcasing noble robes to Eole in an attempt to find one that fit her, whereas Lord Patriate was putting on various masks.\n\n“Tell me, Lord Simon,” he said, switching from a pearly domino mask to one that covered his entire visage. “Which of these suit me best?”\n\nYou mean the mask on your face, or the one that is your face? Simon wondered before answering, “Both fit you well, Lord Malphas, but you are easily recognizable with the former.”\n\n“Yes, I thought as much,” the man replied with a small, genial sigh.\n\n“I hope my aunt didn’t frighten you, Lord Simon,” Elaine teased him. “She is quite the eccentric personality, I’m sure you’ll agree.”\n\n“She was as charming as she was frightening,” Simon replied, “She welcomed us in a room filled with demon guards.”\n\n“My sister does that often. It amuses her to frighten newcomers.” Patriate gave him a smile of feigned sympathy. “I hope it did not unsettle you too much.”\n\n“Not at all,” Simon replied with a shrug. “It’s just demons. I’ve watched Gourmand’s spectacles since I was eight. His kind does not frighten me.”\n\n“You were braver than me then, Lord Simon,” Elaine flattered him. Her father nodded in confirmation, though Simon caught a glimpse of wariness in his eyes.\n\nFor now, Simon had decided on the image of ambivalence. Trying to look harmless would both fail because he would give himself away and appear deceitful at worst, or just be dismissed outright otherwise. No one brought a craven weathervane into a conspiracy. Simon had instead settled on appearing just a bit more confident and braver than he appeared at first glance, but not too much as to arouse suspicion. He would have to be very careful so as not to arouse Patriate’s suspicions while still giving off the feel of someone who could become an asset if properly motivated.\n\nSimon’s gaze lingered on Eole’s current dress. She had to settle on a lovely gown that left the shoulders exposed to let her unfold her wings.\n\n“I don’t think Eole’s identity will remain a secret for long,” he pointed out.\n\n“I’m planning to wear fake wings, to help with the mystery,” Elaine mused with a thin smile. “Lady Firewand and Lady Meredith should join in on the fun. I could commission wings of different colors.”\n\n“That might start a fad,” her father said. “My sister plans to invite over a thousand guests, Lord Simon.”\n\n“Any particular guest I should look forward to seeing this night?” Simon inquired, although he already had a pretty good idea of the kind of people who would attend it. “Thalas isn’t on the invite list, I hope?”\n\nElaine let out a laugh too high-pitched for it to be genuine. “He and Lady Shax are in Telluria right now, but we will have other honorable figures,” she said, “Duke and Lady Flauros, the Lord-Mayor Amenadiel, half the Magvolian old aristocracy…”\n\nAll of whom either rose in rebellion against the War Party or planned to in support of the monarchy, Simon recalled. Lady Eligos should have called it the Traitor’s Ball.\n\nSimon could see the writing on the walls thanks to his foresight. Malphas planned to gather the entire conspiracy in one place in order to relay the all-important information that Balzam Magnos had been slain and their plans for a war would proceed apace. That was something he simply couldn’t afford to trust to messengers, lest he start a leak.\n\nNeither was Simon’s invitation an accident. Masquerades were a golden opportunity to hold secret gatherings while incognito, or isolate specific individuals. If everything unfolded as Simon suspected, Patriate Malphas would try to approach Belzemine, lure her away from the rest of the group, and then either break her slave brands or try to exfiltrate her. Giving her a set of wings of a specific color ensured the Malphas could keep track of her in the crowd and easily provide an excuse for her ‘disappearance.’\n\nIt was a clever plot, and one that Simon would happily subvert.\n\n“Shabram,” Simon telepathically contacted his spymistress. “Have you placed spies in the Flauros entourage, as I have asked of you?”\n\n“Yes and no, Your Majesty. Infiltrating their inner circles has proven extraordinarily difficult, but some members of their staff answer to me.”\n\n“That will suffice. I just need to know about the Flauros family’s costumes so I can identify them.” If everything went according to plan, Simon should uncover all the major figures involved in the elf conspiracy at the ball and infiltrate its higher echelons. “I will keep you informed.”\n\n“What of you, Lord Simon?” Patriate asked him with a honeyed smile. “Do you already have a disguise in mind?”\n\n“All I can say is that you won’t see it coming,” Simon replied with a wicked grin on his lips. I can promise you that, you treacherous, shapeshifting elf bastard.\n\n\nMy Amazon if you wanna check my other books\n\nMy Discord Server"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Primal Hunter — a LitRPG progression fantasy. For her, it had just been another typical and tiring day. She had to get up early, clean her room, and make it all nice and tidy before heading off for breakfast. After that, she would have to do a bit of studying before a nice workout in the yard. Then it was work time, a bit of recreational time in the evening, before her early bedtime. It was a constant routine that she had done now for nearly two years.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Jake | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Jacob, Carmen, Bertram\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Archer – lvl 2, Geology (Inferior), Concoct Poison (Common), True Standout of the 93rd Universe, Boar – lvl 5, Human (G) – lvl 7, Evergreen Grass (Inferior), Basic One-Handed Weapon (Inferior)); stats (Perception, Wisdom, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility)\nSystem notification style: \"System’,” it explained.\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 117 chapter - Danger Bath\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The days passed by quickly as the two gods and one mortal immersed themselves in the laboratory. At first, Duskleaf had been less than excited, to say the least. Jake had already guessed that the Viper had forced him into it, and he was entirely correct. What he didn't know was that Duskleaf didn't like Jake himself either.\n\n\nWhy do I have to waste my time on this, was what the god thought in the beginning.\n\n\nDuskleaf was an alchemist. Period. He had always been an alchemist and never cared much for anything else. He had mostly ignored his class, only leveling it sparingly whenever necessary. It was due to his extreme talent and dedication that he managed to ascend to godhood. A commitment he had believed Jake to lack.\n\n\nThe old alchemist had believed Jake just to be yet another of the young talented fighters that had picked up alchemy as a side-profession. A sentiment he well and truly hated. The Alchemist of the Malefic Viper profession and its related evolution were among the most combat-focused of all alchemy professions. This had led many to simply pick it up for those reasons, and that they didn't care for alchemy itself.\n\n\nAfter the first day, however, he began to change his mind. He had seen Jake fight the King together with the Viper, and from that had indeed formed the image of a talented fighter who was far more brawn than brain.\n\n\nYet the young mortal dove into alchemy with the same zeal as he did a fight with a formidable opponent. His eyes burned with passion whenever he met a challenge, and his happiness genuine whenever he overcame his own limitations. It was as if every brewing or concoction was a fight to the death. And that… that Duskleaf liked.\n\n\nOf course, all of it would be for naught if the kid was untalented. Another doubt that quickly got dispelled. While Duskleaf found it hard to evaluate him properly, he did see endless potential. The issue was just how raw it all was. Despite his passion, it was clear that Jake had never had proper training in alchemy or mana control in general. But at the same time, his skills made it hard for Duskleaf to believe that he had only been in the system for a couple of months.\n\n\nWhen he learned that Jake had spent two of his five chances in the tutorial store to buy cauldrons, he truly got his seal of approval.\n\n\nJake himself didn't have the faintest clue about the old man's thoughts; he had only noticed that he now appeared at least marginally less bored. The Malefic Viper was full of energy as always, and he had to say… he was having a damn good time. It was hard but fun.\n\n\nThe only downside was how little experience he got. After a week, he had only gained a single level in his profession, taking him to level 56. The leveling was incredibly slow, without a doubt, due to the time distortion going on. He had been warned about it, but it still stung.\n\n\nThis isn't to say he didn't improve. Because oh boy, did he improve. It turns out that having two gods giving pointers helped a lot. Their advice was minimal as they mostly just told Jake to try something and then observed, only giving general advice here and there.\n\n\nFrom what he had gathered, the Viper didn't want to limit him in any way by giving him too clear directions. He was very much a hands-off teacher. However, he did have many fun tests and challenges, his favorite by far being a particular cauldron.\n\n\n[Practice Cauldron of the Malefic Viper (?)] – A cauldron with imprinted challenges and trials.\n\n\nHis Identify didn't give much, but he didn't really care either. The thing was awesome. It was like he was doing actual alchemy when using it, except it didn't use any ingredients but focused solely on the crafting process itself. It was like simulating a brewing or concoction, and he loved it with all of his heart.\n\n\nSadly he learned that he couldn't bring it with him due to restrictions on new multiverses. A sad day indeed, but that only motivated him more to spend his time efficiently with it.\n\n\nRestrictions on him were actually quite far and wide. He couldn't get any items, and he couldn't use any consumables items that weren't his either. Which meant he couldn't just get handed a bunch of elixirs and free stats. He had, however, learned that the Viper was onto something in one of the side-rooms. What looked like a jacuzzi was being filled with all types of herbs and poisons, with the god himself carrying a quite malicious smile.\n\n\nEight days after he entered the chamber, Jake collapsed. Initially, he startled Duskleaf until he scanned the human and found him merely asleep. Even with all his stats, Jake was, in the end, still only E-grade. What was surprising, however, was Jake being so immersed in his practice that he simply collapsed. Second seal of approval earned. Duskleaf remembered how he had once burnt off half his hair and melted off the right side of his face because he fell asleep during a concoction. Good times.\n\n\nFifteen days in the chamber, and Jake earned his second level taking him to 57. He had also learned that apparently, 4-D chess was a thing. Or maybe they were just fucking with him. Most likely, the last one.\n\n\nEighteen days in and Jake collapsed for the second time while grinding out the trials in the cauldron. This time the old alchemist didn't even react as he just nodded proudly at the young man lying face-first, bent over the cauldron.\n\n\nOn the twentieth day, the Viper came out of his secret room with a larger than usual malefic smile.\n\n\n\"It is done! The Trial of Myriad Poisons has been prepared!\"\n\n\n\"Master…\" the old alchemist said with a sigh. \"We are teaching him, not killing him. Even then, with the restriction in place, you know it won't work…\"\n\n\n\"Ah, but I am only giving out an already promised reward. Remember what I offered you, Jake?\" the Malefic Viper asked, still grinning.\n\n\n\"Alchemy training and alcohol,\" he answered.\n\n\n\"Exactly. So follow me.\"\n\n\nNone of them bothered to question the god as they both just followed him into the room. Within there was a massive barrel of sorts - more than big enough to hold a human within. It was filled with a liquid that set his Sense of the Malefic Viper off like never before. He could sense so many herbs and toxins it felt overwhelming.\n\n\nThousands… no, more. Millions? What the hell is this? Jake thought.\n\n\n\"Now, what I offered was a bottle of vodka, to be more precise,\" the creator of the barrel said, as he pulled a bottle out of thin air. Not a bad brand, Jake barely managed to think before the Viper opened it and began pouring it into the barrel.\n\n\n\"Oh no, I accidentally dropped it into this suspicious barrel. Well, it appears you will have to consume the entire thing to get your vodka!\" the Viper said, his grin not able to get any larger.\n\n\n\"… While I am into experimental cocktails, I do have my limits,\" Jake managed to answer after looking dumbstruck at the silly actions of the scaled god.\n\n\n\"Ah, but it will be good for you, I promise!\" the Viper laughed for a bit before turning serious. \"Cutting the bullshit, this thing is called a Trial of Myriad Poisons. It is something that is sometimes offered to talented alchemists of the Malefic Order. Jake, do you know why my class is considered one of the best for alchemists?\"\n\n\n\"Membership discounts? Dude, this is the first and only profession I have ever really seen.\"\n\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, the reason is of course because of the skills. The most sought-after being my Palate skill. A skill that is extremely strong even when first gotten and only gets better. However, the main issue is how difficult it is to upgrade and evolve due to its nature. One needs to consume and become familiar with a lot of toxins. Which is where the Trial comes in,\" he said, slapping the big barrel with his scaled hand.\n\n\n\"This bad boy can fit so many fucking toxins in it. The alchemist can, through this, enhance the skill, even possibly its rarity. Of course, while also vastly increasing their innate knowledge of many different toxins and herbs, which is undoubtedly a huge help on their path. Of course, actually absorbing all of that isn't easy. Hence why it is considered a Trial.\"\n\n\nJake looked between the barrel and the Viper for a bit as he considered his words. It all seemed too good to be true. \"Isn't this just a straight-up cheat? Also, Palate only works with toxins last time I checked, and this thing has plenty of herbs within.\"\n\n\n\"Due to how the concoction is made, the herbs have become mixed with toxins and will be recognized as such by the system, so in that regard, it is a bit of a cheat. For the first part, even by ignoring how ridiculously expensive and hard it is to make the Trial, most alchemists fail to get anything worthwhile out of it. Most just die, actually. Also, it is often done with far more experienced alchemists. You have to actively absorb and digest the poison during the Trial while also managing to stay clear-headed,\" Duskleaf muttered, clearly not a massive fan of /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ the entire ordeal.\n\n\n\"Meh, stop worrying, it'll be fine!\" the Viper said dismissively while gazing towards Jake. \"Besides, it's up to Jake. So, you up for it?\"\n\n\nJake looked at the barrel a bit as he considered what both of the two gods had said. Apparently, this Trial was both a great opportunity as well as risk. High-risk, high reward if you may. Just the way he liked it. \"Fuck it, let's go.\"\n\n\n\"Knew it! Take off ya garbs and get ready. A fair warning, it will hurt like hell, and you will feel like your entire body is burning from the inside out the entire time while simultaneously being eaten by maggots and on a pain-amplifying stimulant. But just focus on absorbing the toxins. The more you absorb, the larger your gains.\"\n\n\n\"How long will it take?\" Jake asked. He had no idea how long he had left within here. After entering, he had lost the timer and had no real concept of how much time had passed out in the real world.\n\n\n\"Once more, that depends on how long you can hold out for and how much you can absorb. But if you can't even hold out for a few hours, you suck,\" the Viper half-jokingly said while Jake disrobed. Disrobing, meaning just to put all of his clothes into his spatial storage. The only things he kept on were his rings and necklace as well as the mask. The rings and necklace because they were embedded in his body anyway, and the mask because he had completely forgotten he was even wearing it.\n\n\n\"I just jump in?\" he asked out loud to the room, getting an answer from Duskleaf.\n\n\n\"I would suggest steeling yourself first. It will take every shred of willpower you have to succeed.\"\n\n\n\"Got some free points. Would it help to increase the stat?\" Jake asked.\n\n\nShaking his head, the Viper answered. \"I think I already told you this once. Willpower doesn't work that way. What my disciple means is to stay headstrong and determined. No number of stats can truly affect your mental state. Willpower helps defend against outside influences that can shatter or weaken that mental state, but it can never form it, to begin with. No skills or stats would help a thing against a Trial like this.\"\n\n\n\"Alright then, let's just jump right into it,\" Jake said as he leaped up to stand at the edge of the barrel. He stared down at the black sludge below him. Didn't look particularly appetizing or healthy. But he had already decided to do it, and he wasn't a quitter.\n\n\n\"Here we go.\"\n\n\nTaking a step forward, he sunk into the sludge, slowly getting immersed into it. The first thing he felt was his feet, feeling like they were on fire. Then next was his legs, and then his entire body as his head slowly sunk beneath the surface. It honestly wasn't that bad. A thought he quickly came to regret.\n\n\nIt took only a few moments before he saw the Viper do something outside, making faint runes glow on the barrel. Around him, he felt the toxins and herbs become active. Like they had all been sleeping before, they now all awakened. The Trial had now begun.\n\n\nJake felt the toxins around him slowly seek out his pores and every other opening in his body. Resistance was futile as it slowly entered him. As if he had been hit with thousands of needles at once, it entered his body. Then the real pain came.\n\n\nHis teeth clenched shut first thing as he suppressed a scream. Blood began flowing from his mouth as his teeth pressed down. A few teeth even ending up being cracked, but he couldn't even feel it. The pain from that was trivial compared to what he experienced from the poison.\n\n\nNow that he wanted to scream, he failed as his entire body was paralyzed from the poison. He couldn't move and felt like he was locked within his own body. Like a worse kind of sleep paralysis, he couldn't do anything at all.\n\n\nMentally gritting his teeth, he began focusing on his body and felt the many different poisons and herbs. He needed to not focus on the pain, no matter how hard it was. He needed to focus on all the energies in him. Feel them and absorb them.\n\n\nHis senses slowly faded away until there was only his internal realm. The pain a constant buzzing, knocking to try and shatter his feeble focus. He tried to concentrate on only his mana and internal energy. He distinctly felt a part of him grab unto the poison and absorb it. That part being the skill Palate of the Malefic Viper. It did so at a disappointingly slow pace, however.\n\n\nFor every unit absorbed, ten entered his body. He could feel his health dropping as his body began breaking down, yet he didn't feel any fear, only more focused. He slowly observed the process in which his skill made the toxins a part of him. Observed and emulated. He focused on how it felt over some advanced analysis of the skill.\n\n\nIt didn't take long for the process to get faster when he actively focused on it. Using his internal energy as a guide, he gathered the poison up to more easily absorb it. With every bit absorbed, he felt his understanding of what he consumed increase second by second.\n\n\nOne would think that his use of mana and inner energy would decrease those resources, but it was quite the opposite. He felt over-saturated as with every consumed bit of energy, he was replenished. Some of the poison would restore his mana, some his stamina, and some his health. He had reached equilibrium as he focused on the process, trying to push the pain to the back of his mind.\n\n\nAll went well for a while until it didn't. Jake had a huge misunderstanding of the Trial. Before, when the toxins were activated, it was only a tiny part of it - a mere fraction of a fraction. With a glow of the barrel's runes, the second wave came, harder than the first.\n\n\nNearly falling into delirium, he felt his mind waver for but a second until he steeled himself once more. It was a race, with the ever-increasing influx of energy competing against his capability to absorb it. It was a challenge that Jake didn't have the faintest intention of losing.\n\n\nTime passed, and outside the barrel, the two gods stood observing the entire process - the Viper, a stoic neutral look on his face as his glowing green eyes seemed to peer directly into the young mortal's body - the old alchemist with a slightly worried look. Both could only choose to believe in the young man.\n\n\nWithout Jake noticing, the first day of the Trial quickly passed."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 118 chapter - Second part?\nTarget length: ~2800 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Many different organizations exist in the multiverse. Even if one took only the ones spanning across multiple universes, there were many. These organizations’ structures and goals all varied widely - their ideology and vision were all their own.\n\n\nThose with gods at the helm often had the beliefs of their god placed front and center. Some were more akin to churches and religions, while others were closer to companies. Yet even in those, the members held a deep respect and even faith for their godly leader. It all came down to respecting the powerful, and none were more powerful than the gods.\n\n\nFor anyone to join these organizations, they had to offer something - the most basic, of course, being a place to belong, comrades to rely on, and protection from the myriad dangers of the multiverse. On top of that, they also provided status and social standing, making the high-ranking members respected, even if it wasn’t for their own personal power. In other words, it allowed the weak to become strong through association.\n\n\nOther than that, it gave those less suited to combat a place to pursue their passions and talents. It gave those who fought a backdrop of support for all their needs, allowing them to focus on fighting and improving their own personal strength - a purely symbiotic relationship, allowing strong synergy between the two.\n\n\nOne such organization that mainly had craftsmen was the Order of the Malefic Viper. Primarily an organization comprised of alchemists, one would generally believe it to be weaker on the combat side of things. But to the contrary, it was quite the opposite.\n\n\nDespite its derelict condition upon initiation of the 93rd universe, none would dare look down on it. Even ignoring the possibility of the Viper himself appearing to defend it, it had a lot of power in itself. Even to the day before the Primordial's reappearance, it still easily recruited powerful experts.\n\n\nBecause what the order offered was one of the other significant benefits of an organization. Classes, and especially with the order, professions. Alchemist of the Malefic Viper was, without a doubt, one of the most sought-after professions in the entirety of the multiverse due to the potent and influential skills it possessed, as well as its endless potential.\n\n\nOf course, being a member of an order with some of the most talented alchemists to help you also didn’t hurt. The association with a Primordial even less so.\n\n\nOf the desired skills, Palate of the Malefic Viper was front and center. A skill that was rare by default and only grew from there. Its growth path was also well-documented and, once gained, presented a clear way to progress it.\n\n\nSome skills came with clear paths of progression. Most didn’t, but a minority did. For those with a clear path, it is often enough just to reach some kind of threshold of improvement or to familiarize yourself enough with the skill for its rarity to improve.\n\n\nThose without a clear path require some kind of qualitative change. Needless to say, this was far harder. This isn’t to say you cannot change a skill with a clear path, making it diverge, but it is far rarer due to the difficulty.\n\n\nThe skills with a clear path also naturally had an end to that clear path. A point when reached would require a fundamental, qualitative change to upgrade it further. This is where the exact endpoint of the skills’ natural progression comes into play.\n\n\nGods powerful enough to have skills named after them were precisely that: Powerful. In turn, so were their skills, making them carry strong potential inherently. But even then, it varies a lot. So, few aren’t tempted when represented with a vast array of skills associated with the Malefic Viper.\n\n\nJake, in his well-justified ignorance, of course, didn’t know any of this. He didn’t understand many things, and in some ways, that lack of understanding had strength in itself. He wasn’t aware of what he could do. Nor what he couldn’t or shouldn’t be able to.\n\n\nThis leads back to the current Trial of Myriad Poisons.\n\n\nThe first hour was deemed the most crucial for all those who attempted the trial. Except for a few hiccups right at the beginning, Jake passed that stage with flying colors.\n\n\nAt the same time, however, Duskleaf noticed something that shouldn’t be.\n\n\n“Master… what did you do to the concoction?”\n\n\n“Oh, I just added a little something extra,” the Viper answered, a deep smile on his lips. His eyes were fixated on the internal movements of the energies within Jake, and with every passing moment, his smile only got deeper.\n\n\nDuskleaf looked between the Viper and the barrel for a bit before he realized. “You didn’t…”\n\n\n“I sure did.”\n\n\nWhen the concoction was made, he had only made one minor change. A single small ingredient was added on top of everything else - a single drop of blood. His own.\n\n\n“Master, we have to stop this. There is no way he can handle it. I am well aware he is a Progenitor, but the Soulstrain alone will kill him. Even in the best-case scenario, it will do irreparable damage to his soul,” Duskleaf said with an anxious look on his face. He had no idea what the hell his Master was thinking.\n\n\n“Normally, I would agree with you. But I have a feeling it won’t be so. Jake’s soul is more powerful than you believe. He can handle it.”\n\n\n“If even the tiniest mistake is made…”\n\n\n“It will be fine. I haven’t known Jake for that long, but if there is one thing I have come to learn, it’s that he isn’t one to back down from a challenge.”\n\n\n“I hope you are right,” Duskleaf sighed as he returned to being a silent observer. Either way, it wouldn’t matter yet. It was far too early for him to reach the stage of the trial where the blood would be activated. He could only hope that the young human would fail before it reached that stage.\n\n\nThe system was fair yet tough. Like with earning experience and levels, one couldn’t simply get a free ride. If one tried to go above their means and forcefully increase their strength, one would more often than not suffer from Soulstrain.\n\n\nSoulstrain was when one’s soul wasn’t large enough to hold power put into it. If one used the metaphor Jacob had read, it was like pouring in insane amounts of contaminated water into the pond, hoping for it not to completely ruin the existing water but be absorbed by the pond itself, making it into one’s own. In other words, the Records had to be strong enough.\n\n\nThe most normal consequence of this going wrong was death. It was to have one’s soul shatter, leaving only the indestructible Truesoul behind for the system to reclaim.\n\n\nAnother consequence was for the soul to simply crack, resulting in lost stats, resources, skills, or even levels. Repairing a damaged soul was insanely demanding and often resulted in irreparable damage anyway.\n\n\nDuskleaf had thought that the plan was to increase the rarity of Jake’s skill all the way to epic-rarity or maybe even ancient-rarity if all went well. To pour in a decent amount of water, but not too much. This wouldn’t be a problem at all. It would barely matter compared to the titles the human possessed. But what the Viper attempted meant way more. He was forcefully injecting Records into his soul through his own blood. Records of a Primordial into a weak E-grade mortal.\n\n\nWhich meant he wasn’t just pouring a lot of water into the pond but also tossing in a dirty bomb. If his pond weren’t currently large and stable enough to absorb the impact, he would be… changed. The structure of the soul altered.\n\n\nEven if he somehow managed to absorb it into his body, Duskleaf couldn’t see it ending well. Yet his Master didn’t appear to have the faintest doubt in his mind that the mortal could handle it. What had he missed?\n\n\nHe knew that the mortal carried some secret. The mere fact that his Master had blessed him with a Divine skill to obscure him was enough to prove that. But could that secret really be enough for him to survive? What secret could a mortal that was newly initiated even hold?\n\n\nDuskleaf had his theories, but it was a fruitless endeavor with the multiverse and endless possibilities. Bloodlines, variant race, special class, or profession, just to mention the more common ones. The fact that the human already had a skill related to time made the old man believe it was maybe related to that concept. Had he somehow managed to attain a deep comprehension of the concept of time already? No, even that didn’t make sense, considering his ignorance of the time dilation.\n\n\nAs the old alchemist thought, time marched onward. Soon, an entire day had ticked by. Jake within the barrel hadn’t noticed any of this as he simply focused internally. Every shred of focus was on consuming the energy, to the point where he didn’t even register anything from his passive sphere.\n\n\nA day quickly became two, and then three. Every few hours, the runes on the barrel would shine, and more of the poison in the concoction would become active. Every time it did so, Jake would temporarily be attacked from all sides until he managed to stabilize once more. At the same time, he felt both his knowledge and general resistance to all the toxicity grow. He was slowly adapting.\n\n\nAfter three and a half days, he heard a small notification but didn’t have time to check it. Yet he instantly felt that his Palate of the Malefic Viper had undergone an evolution becoming Epic-rarity. With it also came a big leap in the skills capabilities, and he felt many of the poisons in the barrel now no longer able to hurt but only nourish him.\n\n\nIt was a slight reprieve that was quickly outdone by a wave of assault stronger than any before. Jake’s growth didn’t mean it would get easier, just that the trial’s speed increased to match it. It was a nearly unwinnable trial by design - a fact Jake didn’t know, as he only saw it as a difficulty spike for him to yet again overcome.\n\n\nFour days soon passed. Then five. Six. Until an entire week had gone by with Jake still immersed. Duskleaf was astonished by the young man’s fast adaptability and nodded in approval every time he quickly managed to overcome a new wave. His speed was impressive, to say the least - his ability to remain focused even more so. The ability to hold such singular focus was rare…\n\n\nOn the eighth day, something happened that surprised both the Viper and Duskleaf. The unmoving mortal appeared to smirk slightly as his closed lips parted somewhat, inhaling some of the concoction.\n\n\nDuskleaf opened his eyes in fright while the Viper just began laughing hysterically. It appeared that Jake found the speed of the trial too slow. Something he indeed did.\n\n\nAfter the sixth day, he was already assimilating the toxins faster than the difficulty increased. It was starting to get boring. Less challenging. He was ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) a maestro in his internal realm, guiding the energies effortlessly. Every toxic shred of energy that entered him was surrounded and consumed from all sides before it even had time to begin attacking his vital energy.\n\n\nWhich is when he began eliminating what had paralyzed him. Enough to open his mouth slightly, at least. He wanted more. Even if he had to take it by force.\n\n\nAfter he directly inhaled the concoction, he felt like his entire stomach was invaded by millions of small worms, all trying to eat him from the inside out. Throughout it all, the pain had never stopped. It wasn’t the kind of pain one could simply zone out, but the type of pain that was all-consuming and impossible to ignore.\n\n\nYet Jake handled it. Despite his brief grimace when the poison entered his stomach, he didn’t lose focus as he began consuming that too. His mana moved in on it, carrying with it a powerful intent to break down and destroy the poison.\n\n\nWhat he hadn’t noticed yet at this point was minuscule purple sparks appearing on his otherwise colorless mana. It was so unnoticeable that perhaps only the Malefic Viper noticed it. Yet the intent embedded in these sparks was evident, as his mana broke down the poison faster and faster.\n\n\nHis first mouthful was consumed within two hours. The second mouthful an hour and fifty-five minutes. The third an hour and forty-seven minutes. The fourth an hour and thirty-six minutes. He was exhausted from not sleeping, but he kept going, the energy nurturing him constantly and the pain enough to always keep him fully awake.\n\n\nNine days passed, ten, eleven, twelve. Barely an hour after the two-week mark, Jake heard the second notification. The growth was instantly apparent, and he felt himself fill with inner energy. Most of the poisons in his body now no longer appeared to affect him, and he even felt much of his mobility return as the paralysis was mostly gone.\n\n\nHe directed a sliver of his attention to the sphere and observed the smiling Viper and the, for some reason, worried Duskleaf. Not long after, Jake heard a voice in his head as the Viper spoke to him telepathically.\n\n\n“Congratulation for passing the first part of the Trial of Myriad Poisons. Ready for part two?”\n\n\nJake opened both his eyes, ignoring the burning sensation in them as he did so. He only managed to see the two for a few moments before his vision turned blurry due to the still-potent toxins digging into his eyes. Yet he clearly saw the shining green eyes of the Viper looking straight at him. The look in his eyes clear. It was a challenge.\n\n\nHe nodded his head as he prepared himself for whatever was to come. His intuition told him this part wouldn’t be as easy. Because he frankly did think the first part was easy. Everything outside of the first hour was just too easy as he had managed to familiarize himself with the process.\n\n\nAt his approval, the Viper’s smile faded slightly as he turned a bit more serious. Duskleaf looked even more worried. He had heard the telepathic exchange too. He knew there was no part two to the trial. It was already over. No, what was to come was entirely new territory.\n\n\nThe Malefic Viper raised his hand as he pointed towards the barrel. From his finger came a green light that, upon hitting the runes, made them all turn green. At the same time, they twisted and turned, creating a script that Duskleaf had never seen before. One of a far higher level than what was there before.\n\n\nRight after the runes changed, the liquid in the bowl changed from pure black to a dark green color. Mana in the entire chamber surged as an aura was released from the barrel. The aura of the Malefic Viper.\n\n\nWithin the concoction was a small drop of dark green blood. It hadn’t dispersed as a liquid normally would but was still whole. No other toxic substance even dared come near it, as if a divine law kept them away.\n\n\nThe drop stirred with the runes. Activated, it began releasing its aura, affecting the poison around it. Simultaneously, Jake was hit with another assault of toxins, one more powerful than ever before. One he managed to somehow withstand through sheer willpower and by channeling everything he had learned throughout the last two weeks.\n\n\nIt didn’t even take an hour before the assault ended. Jake felt a few seconds of solace as he consumed every last bit of poison, his Sense of the Malefic Viper informing him that there were no more toxic substances in the entire concoction around him. He had won. Or so he thought.\n\n\nWhile his Sense of the Malefic Viper didn’t pick it up, his danger sense sure did. A single drop of blood was still in the mixture. Before he could react, it flew like a bullet straight towards his chest and, without any resistance, penetrated his skin, sinking deep into his very soul.\n\n\nThat was when the actual second part of the Trial began as Jake felt his consciousness shift."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 119 chapter - Embracing power\nTarget length: ~2600 words\nKey events: dungeon content, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake couldn't quite comprehend what had just happened to him as he suddenly felt himself being transported somewhere else. What made it hard to understand was that he could clearly still feel his physical body - the sensation of the now toxic-free liquid on his skin, and the feedback from his Sphere of Perception was somehow… doubled. He could feel both the outside and the inside of where he was now.\n\n\nHe found himself standing on a vast dark field, with only black stone everywhere in sight. A place he would likely never forget. It was the Malefic Viper's realm and where he had first encountered the god that would turn out to be his new buddy.\n\n\nTrying to focus, he felt his senses of the outside world be suppressed. Intuitively he also managed to move his sphere entirely into this new realm, making him now feel as if he was indeed there, and the disconnected feeling lessened. And just in time.\n\n\nOn the horizon, he saw a figure rise, one also familiar to him. He had seen it only for a brief moment, but one didn't simply forget the sight of the dark green dragon that was coming towards him. Its wings spread wide; they had to be several miles across as it took flight.\n\n\nSmaller than the Malefic Viper, he thought as it flew towards him. With his sight, he also noticed more differences. The color was slightly off, the spikes on its back not present. Taking a second look, outside of the dark color and overall dragon-shape, there was actually quite a few differences. He didn't have time to feel shame for his inability to distinguish dragons before it was just in front of him.\n\n\nLanding on the ground, it caused a small earthquake. Jake just stayed there unmoving, weirdly enough, not feeling any sense of alarm or danger despite the massive, powerful form before him.\n\n\n\"At least I didn't lack confidence back then either,\" the dragon spoke, with a voice Jake always cringed at in recordings. Simultaneously it was enveloped by dark smoke that dispersed just as quickly, leaving a humanoid form behind.\n\n\nJake used humanoid rather broadly. The figure was covered in the all too familiar dark green scales, and on his back were two jet-black wings. His feet and hands were a weird mixture between humans and dragons, making them appear suitable for melee combat and using tools alike.\n\n\nWhat was most noticeable of it all, however, was his face and eyes. Two green reptilian eyes stared back at him, with a face identical to his own. Even having the same smirk he himself made all the time.\n\n\n\"So, what do you think?\" the scaled version of Jake said, spreading out his wings and showing off his body. \"Quite the upgrade, eh?\"\n\n\nMore than a little confused about the entire scene playing out in front of him, he answered with the first thought that came to mind. \"Isn't it hard to hold a bow with those claws?\"\n\n\nIn retrospect, perhaps not the most relevant thing to know at the current time. Nevertheless, the clone entertained the question with full seriousness.\n\n\n\"Quite the opposite, actually,\" scale-Jake answered, pulling out a black bow from some kind of spatial storage. \"You see, unlike hands, these can be modified slightly. On top of that, the scales and resilience of the claws actually make them more suitable for archery.\"\n\n\nA fact he demonstrated as he took out an arrow from thin air too and nocked it. His claws appeared to slightly warp as he did so, making them better fit around the string and arrowhead. After a brief channel of dark green energy, he fired the arrow into the horizon.\n\n\n\"Not bad, eh?\" he said as he turned to the real Jake. Less than a second later, the realm shook once more. In the distance was a large green explosion. Power akin to thousands of nuclear explosions going off at once.\n\n\nJake could only stand there, staring in awe at the might on display. Exactly what rank was the scaled Jake in front of him? A casual arrow released held enough power to blow up a damn planet…. It made the King of the Forest appear like a weakling. And yet…\n\n\n\"Why am I here?\" he asked himself.\n\n\n\"Always wanting everything explained. Well, I guess that part of me is still the same,\" scale-Jake laughed. \"You are here to catch a glimpse of what we can become. A mere fragment of the power we can obtain through fully embracing the legacy of the Malefic One.\"\n\n\nJake quickly caught something off. He had never referred to the Viper as the Malefic One before. On top of that, the way he said it made his stomach churn. Like watching yourself do something cringeworthy in an old school play.\n\n\n\"Coming off a bit fanatical there, mate. Me. Whatever,\" human Jake answered, shaking his head.\n\n\n\"Nothing wrong with that, man,\" his other version answered. \"This a Primordial we are talking about. A top-of-the-line badass. Not embracing that kind of power just seems stupid.\"\n\n\n\"Yeah, but nothing comes for free and all that. So, what's the cost?\"\n\n\n\"Define cost. We know enough of the system to know that picking one path cuts others off. I just made a choice. Realized that some existences are above us and that sometimes accepting defeat can be a victory in itself. Besides, you see the results before you,\" fake Jake said, spreading out his long wings as the air hummed with power around him. His mana was carrying a vivid dark green tinge.\n\n\n\"Class, profession, and even race far more powerful than that of a simple human. Skills more powerful than anything I could have ever imagined. To be honest, I don't see myself NOT becoming a god with this path. To cut off a few other paths is not a high price to pay for that at all.\"\n\n\n\"Making it sound like I can't become strong without relying on him,\" Jake answered, sighing at the version of himself in front of him.\n\n\n\"Powerful? From a mortal's standpoint, sure. But a god? Doubtful. We are talented, yes, but we shouldn't waste that talent by scrambling in the dark trying to reinvent the wheel. The path of the Malefic One is tried and tested. It works. With it, perhaps we can even one day be able to stand beside him, having enough strength not to be a worthless bug anymore. Maybe… even his equal.\"\n\n\nJake looked at his dragon version a bit, thinking. He saw the logic; heck, it was his own logic. It made sense. It would be like learning programming and design to create a new complicated accountant system when you can just learn excel to get the job done. Yet…\n\n\n\"Yeah, no thanks.\"\n\n\n\"Seriously? Are you going to give up on this kind of pow-\"\n\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\n\"What the hell is wrong with you? When did I get that stupid?\" his scaled version said, a genuinely confused look on his face.\n\n\n\"Oh, we have always been this stupid. We just never had the balls to pursue it before the system. Balls you clearly lack as you pussied out,\" Jake said with a smirk.\n\n\n\"Do you honestly believe that you can make it on your own? That you can even come close to godhood on your lonesome?\" other-Jake said, an exasperated look on his face.\n\n\n\"Who knows? But I will sure as hell try. Besides, I am still not alone. I recognize that I am already well on Malefic Viper's path, and I am not giving that up. But it won't become all I am.\"\n\n\n\"Seems there is no arguing with you… oh well, if soft methods don't work,\" dragon-Jake said, pulling out his bow. \"We can try it the hard way.\"\n\n\nJake stared at himself as his other version, with a flap of his wings, took to the air. Jake, still standing there, looking up at him.\n\n\nHis scaled version drew his bow as he nocked an arrow. The air cracked as reality itself seemed to shatter and reform around the channeling half-dragon. The mana was on another level. Yet Jake recognized the skill clearly. Infused Powershot. Or, well, a vastly upgraded version of it.\n\n\n\"Final chance. An obvious choice. Choose to walk this path, or be consumed unwillingly.\"\n\n\nThe voice echoed throughout the realm, yet Jake didn't move or respond. He just looked up at the other version of himself with… pity.\n\n\nSeeing the look, the other Jake had enough as he released the pent up energy. An arrow filled with unbridled power was fired straight for the weak-looking human below. Its speed too fast to even register, its inherent power enough to destroy everything.\n\n\nA moment before impact, just before the measly human was annihilated, he raised his hand. Faster than scale-Jake could see, the real Jake… caught the arrow. The pent up energy exploded out in the area around him, leveling an area the size of a smaller country. Yet Jake was unscathed.\n\n\n\"You know… I thought something was off from the beginning,\" Jake said, as he snapped the arrow between his fingers. \"We may have the same roots, but we have diverged already. Do you remember the thought we had when we first saw the Malefic Viper on the mural in the challenge dungeon?\"\n\n\nHe didn't get an answer from his clone, who just looked gob-smacked. But he could see that he didn't know. Or perhaps had forgotten.\n\n\n\"Only a single thought permeated my mind at that moment. I wanted to one day be able to fight that dragon. To have the power to. That goal hasn't changed. How do you expect me to in any way surpass that dragon if all I do is follow in its footsteps? Chasing its shadow like some fanatical sheep?\n\n\n\"Nah, man, that ain't me. Besides, I can see on you that you don't feel it. You are, in the end, just a cheap imitation.\"\n\n\nWith that, he took a step forward, appearing mid-air right behind his dragon version. He didn't hesitate as he lightly smacked him in the back of the head, making his other version turn around in fright as he flew backward at supersonic speed.\n\n\n\"I would have seen that one coming.\"\n\n\nStepping forward once more, he instantly appeared before the still retreating other-Jake. Raising his ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) fist, he smashed into his back, sending him tumbling towards the ground where he left a vast crater. \"That one too.\"\n\n\nJake had enjoyed the philosophical discussion with himself. It was an interesting and valuable learning experience for him - an excellent chance to reaffirm his own goals and convictions. The other version had good arguments, but his mind was already set.\n\n\nThe nail in the coffin, however, was what he felt standing before his clone. He didn't feel a shred of fear or weakness. In front of the Malefic Viper and Duskleaf, he always had a small voice in the back of his head telling him that fighting them would mean certain death. That voice had been silent in front of his other version.\n\n\nIn the end, this entire world wasn't real. It was inside Jake's mind or soul or whatever. Within such a mindscape, the normal rules didn't apply. Jake had felt that too. He didn't use any of his skills, and yet his body was full of energy. He felt like he was in control of everything.\n\n\nAnother step later, and he was in front of his scaled version who was trying to get up.\n\n\n\"You don't have it,\" he said, staring down at his struggling clone. \"You are just a shell of one possible path - one that is pretty damn incomplete. You didn't even replicate our bloodline.\"\n\n\n\"… Did I choose wrong?\" his other version looked up at him with a hollow look in his eyes.\n\n\n\"I wouldn't say that. You just didn't choose what I would. If you had to choose a higher power to swear yourself to, the Malefic Viper does seem like a good choice. Just not my choice. I want to see how long I can go on my own path,\" Jake said with a comforting smile.\n\n\n\"Are you going to just give up the path of the Malefic Viper just like that? Be content in your gains so far.\"\n\n\n\"What? Of course not. I am gonna double-dip. Take everything and run with it. As you know, we have always been a bit of a greedy sort. Why should I accept something when I can take everything?\"\n\n\n\"You are insane.\"\n\n\n\"Yep, but my insanity is my own,\" Jake said with a small laugh. \"Now it's goodbye.\"\n\n\nHe didn't even have to do anything but will it as the body of the scaled version of Jake dispersed into dust. Yet, not everything disappeared.\n\n\nLeft behind, floating in mid-air, was a single droplet of dark green blood. It didn't take long for Jake to recognize its aura. The Malefic Viper. A droplet containing a fragment of his Records, of what he is. It held power beyond anything Jake currently was.\n\n\nBut not what he could be.\n\n\nThe blood simply floated there in the air, radiating power. Jake bathed in its power… and he wanted it. Reaching out his hand, he tried to touch it but found himself unable to. It was like a forcefield surrounded the blood, denying him access.\n\n\nHe wasn't having that. It was just a damn drop of blood. No way he was going to let it get away.\n\n\nStrings of mana sprung up around his hand. All of them reached for the blood, only to be eroded when they got close. Jake didn't let up, however, but kept up his assault. Ten strings became a hundred, as they surrounded the blood from all sides. Until a single string of mana managed to creep close enough to nearly touch it.\n\n\nAt the same time as this happened, the world around him began to shake. The cold desolate stone began to crack. The sky was slowly swirling into itself as if space itself began to collapse above. The world was breaking down.\n\n\nHe felt that it wasn't actually the blood itself resisting him. It was just its passive aura keeping him away. If it actively had tried to fight him off, he doubted he would be able to do anything. But as it was, he was winning.\n\n\nThe aura around the blood finally gave in as Jake managed to grasp it in his hands. The moment his hand closed, so did the world collapse, and the final thing he saw was a notification.\n\n\n[True Blood of the Malefic Viper (?)] has been successfully absorbed, strengthening your [True Blessing of the Malefic Viper (Blessing - True)]\n\n\n[True Blessing of the Malefic Viper (Blessing - True)] – An Alchemist recognized by the Malefic Viper himself. Few throughout the ages have found themselves blessed by the Primordial, despite their desire to be so. You are his Chosen. Now even the true blood of the Malefic Viper himself is found within your very being, only strengthening your bond further. Through your direct karmic and bodily connection, the wisdom, willpower, and vitality of the Malefic Viper empower you. +10% Willpower, +10% Wisdom, +10% Vitality. Grants access to many new paths. Only one blessing can be held at a time"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 120 chapter - Defiance & Gains\nTarget length: ~2700 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Duskleaf nervously observed the young human as he appeared to sleep within the barrel. He knew that he was not in slumber, however. He was deep within his own soul. His Truesoul even. A domain where no outside force could interfere or peer into.\n\n\n“Relax. Jake is stronger than you know,” the Malefic Viper said to comfort his worried disciple. However, he had to admit that even he had some small doubts. The god believed that he had a good understanding of Jake, but one can never be entirely sure. The fact that he couldn’t provide any guidance or help was also infuriating. He couldn’t even see what was happening in detail.\n\n\nWhat Jake was currently experiencing only he and the system would ever know. But whatever it was, it was something that would inevitably lead to change - a choice. What would emerge when he awakened would still be Jake, but the Viper could only hope it was his friend that returned. If he even woke up.\n\n\nRecords carry power. They carry history. To reach above your station and try to grasp power beyond yourself would always lead to issues. It would become a fight between your own Records and the Records of whatever you tried to absorb. It could change your soul, affecting all layers.\n\n\nAfter Jake had been immersed for nearly an hour, the Viper felt a slight change. One through his karmic connection with Jake through his blessing. Jake had made a choice; it appeared. However, what the Viper wasn’t aware of was that it wasn’t quite as he had imagined. Something he soon became aware of.\n\n\nWhat the Viper had hoped for was for Jake to take inspiration and possibly even absorb a fraction of the Records in the drop of blood, for him to make the choice that would lead him the furthest. He didn’t want Jake to be his follower, but to be his equal. Yet, he didn’t know that Jake’s intent was different.\n\n\nDefiance would be the only word to describe it honestly. Jake’s intention had never been to stand beside him. It was to surpass him. To stand at the pinnacle of wherever the system could take you. Stand at that pinnacle, and then go beyond even that. The Viper could only feel a faint sense of that dream through his karmic connection. It was audacious, arrogant, naïve, and completely nonsensical.\n\n\nI like it.\n\n\nHe saw that Jake had once more managed to go above and beyond his expectations. He hadn’t just absorbed the Records in the drop of blood. He had claimed it. All along, it had been the plan to reabsorb the blood back into himself after the trial, but Jake had now managed to ‘steal it.’ Partly.\n\n\nIt was within him now. Dormant. In the end, Jake was still only E-grade. For him to absorb the power within the blood was impossible with his current strength. Yet, it was still suppressed, and it would only strengthen their bond for the future.\n\n\nTwo hours after Jake had entered his Truesoul, his eyes opened again. There were no brilliant colors or fanfare; he simply opened his eyes to see the two gods stand before him - one relieved and one grinning.\n\n\nAll mobility had returned to his body after his little adventure of literal soul-searching. Raising his hands, he lifted himself out of the barrel and unto the floor. Without even thinking, he used mana to dry his body in only a few seconds. Truly his mana control had undergone a noticeable change.\n\n\n“That was quite something,” he said jokingly to the two.\n\n\n“Sure was. So, all good? You don't suddenly feel compelled to fall to your knees and swear yourself to be my eternal servant?” the Malefic Viper said. He was only half-joking. He felt the power of the blessing had increased. The bond had undergone a qualitative growth. He was afraid of what kind of consequences that would have on his mortal friends’ frame of mind.\n\n\n“Good question. Depends on if I can get an actual bottle of vodka any time soon. Mixing it in with the bathwater kind of ruined the taste,” Jake answered, with an admonishing tone.\n\n\n“I guess I do owe ya one,” the Viper said with a laugh, as he went forward and gave Jake a slap on his shoulder. “Now get on some damn clothes.”\n\n\nJake noticed only now that he was still in his birthday suit. Feeling a bit embarrassed, he quickly summoned his armor and put it on. It didn’t take long before he was back in his nearly all-black leather armor. He didn’t bother to put on the cloak as it was overdoing it a bit. He also noticed at that moment that he had completely forgotten about the mask. Not that it appeared to matter as it was utterly unblemished.\n\n\n“So, what’s the plan now?” Jake asked the two of them.\n\n\n“First of all, check your system messages. If all went well, your Palate skill should have reached Ancient-rarity,” the Viper said, Duskleaf nodding along.\n\n\nHaving already wanted to do so, he opened the menu. He had already seen his blessing being improved as the newest message, but that didn’t mean it was the only one, far from it. First of all, on the list were several levels - more than he had expected.\n\n\n*’DING!’ Profession: [Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 58 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*\n\n\n…\n\n\n*’DING!’ Profession: [Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 63 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Race: [Human (E)] has reached level 71 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*\n\n\n…\n\n\n*’DING!’ Race: [Human (E)] has reached level 73 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*\n\n\nSix levels in his profession were gained throughout the trial. He had been told that time dilation had effects on experience, so he quickly asked if perhaps it wasn’t a waste to do it here.\n\n\n“Nah, it doesn’t really matter. Time and experience are weird like that. You do time dilation mainly to train skills or meditate on concepts. Experience is never the main goal, to begin with. Also, even if you lose out on a few levels now, it shouldn’t matter. You are E-grade man; you got a long way to go.”\n\n\nAccepting the answer – not like he had much cause not to – he moved on down the list. The next few ones were Palate skill upgrading. A few times, actually, not all of them increasing the rarity. The final skill, however, did reach the desired Ancient-rarity.\n\n\n[Palate of the Malefic Viper (Rare --> Ancient)] – The Malefic Viper has honed its venom by devouring myriad toxins found throughout the multiverse. In the same vein, the Alchemist of the Malefic Viper can consume toxins to learn their effects and properties. Further evolved, you can now also learn properties of herbs, while at the same time enjoying a greater benefit from all potions consumed. Grants immunity or resistance to most poisons. Passively provides 1 Endurance per level in Alchemist of the Malefic Viper. Through consumption, may your power grow; through gluttony, may your Records expand.\n\n\nThe description had gotten longer, and the effects had increased by quite a bit. Immunity and resistance from weak poisons had the ‘weak’ part removed. Potions were apparently better for Jake now, and he could now also learn about herbs by eating - all-around good stuff.\n\n\nBut the last part was by far the best when it came to immediate gains - bonus stats. Like Scales of the Malefic Viper, this one also provided stats for every level he had in his profession, effectively just making every level even more valuable. He was a bit surprised it gave endurance, but thinking about it, it was strongly related to internal energy. Or perhaps endurance helped with resistance to poisons in ways toughness didn’t?\n\n\n“Does endurance help with resistance to poison?” He couldn’t help himself from asking.\n\n\n“Yes, endurance helps a bit with internal resistance, and internal energy automatically helps fight off harmful energies, though not as well as vital energy. It mainly serves to suppress the effects of the poison,” Duskleaf said.\n\n\nNodding, he returned his attention to the notifications. Palate had been upgraded as predicted, and it was better than he expected. But it didn’t end there. After his little journey in his mindscape, he had unexpectedly gotten another skill upgraded.\n\n\n[Blood of the Malefic Viper (Epic --> Ancient)] – The blood of the Malefic Viper is a toxin more deadly than most poisons. Allows the Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper to turn their blood poisonous, imitating their Patron. It has been further improved, even carrying traces of the True Blood of the Malefic One within. The blood can be used as an ingredient in alchemy and as a deadly weapon against your foes. The nature of the poison is determined based on the Records of the Alchemist. The blood’s toxicity level is based primarily on vitality and wisdom but receives an increase from all physical stats. Passively provides 1 Vitality per level in Alchemist of the Malefic Viper. May your blood be forever the bane of all that wishes you harm.\n\n\nMan, those descriptions are just getting longer, was his first thought. His second thought was how the skill hadn’t really changed, except for providing even more stats. He was beginning to see a trend with these Malefic Viper skills providing stats upon reaching Ancient-rarity. By design, no doubt. If he didn’t have his One Step Mile, he would maybe even suspect that providing stats was a hallmark of all ancient skills.\n\n\nThe extra vitality was, of course, more than welcome. With Jake’s upgraded blessing now granting him an additional 10% vitality, the value was just even better. He was now getting a +65% bonus on vitality, even higher than his 60% in perception. The first title he obtained himself, Bloodline Patriarch, giving 10% added with all his others, was now making a difference.\n\n\nHe had actually surpassed 1000 vitality, making it the second stat to do that after perception. Which also meant 10.000 health. It didn’t appear to do anything special, but it still felt like he had passed some kind of threshold. Either way, more health couldn’t be bad.\n\n\nIt was also interesting how the description recognized the drop of blood he had absorbed. He could still feel that drop. It was inside of him somewhere, not quite physically, but more in a metaphysical way. Maybe a part of his soul? He wasn’t sure. But it appeared to grant quite the benefits. He felt it, and he also felt how it was suppressed.\n\n\nAll in all, the trial had been a significant success in every way. Two skills upgraded, several levels, and all only in a few days. Counting the whole time-warp-thing.\n\n\n“So, did you get it upgraded?” the Viper asked, interrupting Jake before he could go further down the list.\n\n\n“Yeah, got it to ancient-rarity. Also managed to upgrade the Blood skill from epic to ancient,” Jake answered, closing the menu to focus on the conversation. “That blessing you gave me also upgraded. Gives vitality also now.”\n\n\n“Nice, you got more than I expected. I can feel the blessing has strengthened too,” the Viper said, making a faux lecherous smile. “So, how does it feel to have a part of me inside you? Very intimate, eh?”\n\n\n“… moving on, I have been meaning to ask, why even do the blessings? I get what I benefit from it, but what’s in it for you?” Jake said, ignoring the last part of what the god said.\n\n\n“Well, we gods can progress in other ways than just earning experience. Faith is one of those paths. A blessing is more or less an investment in someone to act as a conduit of your faith. Follow your doctrines and such. At least normally. I blessed you just for the heck of it, and honestly, it has worked out way better than I expected.”\n\n\n“Does that mean I have been hoodwinked into being your preacher when I return to Earth?” Jake asked, fully aware there was no fucking way he was doing that.\n\n\n“If you want to? I don’t really care. I am benefitting enough just from you getting stronger and not dying. But if you want to establish an official order on earth and begin recruiting, it wou-“\n\n\n“Not gonna happen,” Jake interrupted. Again, fuck that.\n\n\n“Master, I think you have chosen a poor prophet,” Duskleaf interjected. His deadpan manner made it incredibly hard for both the Viper and Jake to discern if he was serious or joking.\n\n\nChoosing to take it as a joke, the Viper agreed. “I must confess I could have done better. Hasn’t even done a single mass sacrifice or committed his firstborn yet.”\n\n\n“I am a bit scared to ask, but are you actually interested in both of those?”\n\n\n“The firstborn? Nah, I would suck as a babysitter, and kids taste funny. As for the sacrifice? Sure, why not.”\n\n\n“This may be a bit late to ask, but what exactly is the doctrine of your church or order or whatever?” Jake asked. A question he should likely have asked way earlier.\n\n\nSmiling, the Viper answered concretely. “Greed, power, and freedom. You know, all the good stuff. A god’s creed is more often than not just a symbol of their personality and personal path to power. My path is one littered with corpses and killing anything in my way; my doctrine is a lot like that. In other words, do whatever the fuck you want, and it is likely according to my doctrine.”\n\n\n“Seems easy enough. What about you, Duskleaf?” Jake asked, turning to the other god.\n\n\n“Alchemy.”\n\n\n“And?”\n\n\n“Just alchemy. No reason to place importance on unimportant things. Anything that can further my progress towards the pinnacle in alchemy is good. I don’t have any followers, though, so it doesn’t matter,” the old alchemist explained.\n\n\n“A god without faith? Is that fine? No danger of you suddenly disappearing by being forgotten or something like that?” Jake asked with genuine concern.\n\n\n“What? No, why would I? Where have you gotten such a silly idea from?” Duskleaf asked with apparent puzzlement.\n\n\n“Eh, I just remember some fiction where gods were a bit like that…” Jake answered, /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ a bit embarrassed. Damn you, inaccurate fictional portrayals of gods.\n\n\n“Faith isn’t actually that big a part of many gods. I am not particularly into that path either. It isn’t even rare that gods exist without any followers or believers at all. A lot of gods don’t do anything and prefer to be holed up in a secluded alchemy lab or something like that for unspeakable amounts of time,” the Viper said, throwing shade at Duskleaf.\n\n\n“I don’t see what having a bunch of nosy followers does to help me get better at alchemy.”\n\n\nThe two of them continued bickering for a bit back and forth. It was clear that despite them being master and disciple, they were also old friends. The type of friendship forged over… how long actually?\n\n\n“Hey, been thinking, how old are you two?”\n\n\n“Well, that came out of nowhere,” the Viper said after being interrupted. “I have been around since before the first era, so 92 full eras and change. Duskleaf is from the 4th era.”\n\n\n“And how many years is that?”\n\n\n“Well, each era varies. The 92nd era was around 15 billion years. In other words, the amount of time it took for your universe to go from a seed to what it was just before the initiation. Each era varies in length, the longest being 228 billion years and the shortest being only 7 billion. Do the math.”\n\n\nComputing for a few moments, making full use of his high intelligence stat, he quickly concluded.\n\n\n“Both a bunch of old farts. Coercing a young man no older than 28 into some weird religion.”\n\n\n“More like: two old studs, disrobing and putting their liquids inside young man.”\n\n\n“Two old men, bathing with young stud.”\n\n\n“Or-“\n\n\nOne of these old studs/men stood with a hand on his face in the background, looking in exasperation at his master and the young mortal. Cursing himself for having gotten himself involved in this entire debacle."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 121 chapter - You know, I'm something of a sage myself\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: new skill acquired, class event, dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "After a long and very fruitful conversation, he was finally reminded by the old alchemist that he still had notifications pending. One notification to be more accurate. This one due to unlocking another available skill upon reaching level 60 in his profession.\n\n\n*Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper profession skills available*\n\n\nJake was honestly quite excited. The last few skills gained from his profession had all been excellent, the most recent being Scales of the Malefic Viper. It was surprisingly long ago he got it, all the way back before he even fought the Great White Stag.\n\n\nNow he had finally managed to unlock another. With great vigor, he jumped in, and with fervor, saw the first skill.\n\n\n[Offering (Common)] – Offer an item to your chosen god, allowing them to better hear your pleas for a short period.\n\n\nAnd it was shit. Seriously? For all his trials and tribulation, he got a shitty prayer skill? He was pretty sure the Viper could already hear whenever he did something akin to a prayer, so why the hell would he need a skill for it? The rarity alone was enough to put him off - the description was the bare minimum, telling nothing of value.\n\n\nHe knew that only five new skills were added at a maximum every time he unlocked the possibility of getting a new skill. Perhaps he had spent a bit too much time around gods recently. He could only imagine that it had pushed out better and more useable skills.\n\n\nMoving on with great speed, he got to the next one, which was at least a rare skill.\n\n\n[Ritualism of the Malefic Viper (Rare)] – To do a ritual is to pay tribute. To give your life for the Malefic One, an honor. Grants the Alchemist knowledge of different rituals pertaining to the Malefic Viper. The ritual’s effect is based on the nature of the ritual performed and the materials used during the ritual. Stat bonuses are applied according to the nature of the ritual performed.\n\n\n… Had the system finally gotten a sense of humor and begun joking with him? The talk of ritual sacrifices was a joke. Ajoke. Yet Jake was a bit suspicious at the mere existence of the skill. Maybe it was just something all gods had?\n\n\nYeah, he assumed all gods would have fanatical followers that went overboard. It was the damn Viper's fault for speaking about sacrifices and such, to begin with. A horrible joke turned into a horrible skill that Jake, of course, had no intention of taking at all.\n\n\nEverything about it was just ominous. No way he was actually going to return to earth and begin some insane cult with human sacrifices to a god named Villy, with whom he drinks beers with on weekends. As he said during the talk of sacrificial rituals earlier: fuck that.\n\n\nMoving on down the list, the next one was epic-rarity, and… well, this one was good. Real good.\n\n\n[Methodology of Duskleaf (Epic)] – Taught by a god who stands at the pinnacle of alchemy, you have begun to understand his methodology. Grants the alchemist a fragment of the knowledge of the god Duskleaf, increases your understanding of alchemy and mana, as well as overall control-techniques during all concoctions or brewings. Allows the Alchemist to make creations he does not have the associated crafting skill for. (does not receive stat effectiveness bonuses without associated skill).\n\n\n“Hey Duskleaf, guess what?” he said to the god who looked to be daydreaming. Probably about alchemy.\n\n\n“Hm?”\n\n\n“I got a skill from you. Methodology of Duskleaf. It’s even Epic and has quite the descri-“\n\n\n“I forbid you from taking it!” Duskleaf exclaimed loudly, the air slightly trembling at his voice. “No way! Choose something else! Anything but that!”\n\n\n“I don’t know; it looks pretty good…” Jake teased. However, there was quite a bit of truth in what he said. The skill was good. Really good. It seemed like a skill that would just improve nearly everything during a concoction and brewing, and it would even allow him to make things he didn’t have the crafting skill for, such as flasks.\n\n\nHe had been told that he could anyway; it was just harder. In fact, anyone could still do anything. Jake, if he so wished, could pick up a hammer and make a sword. Of course, the sword would suck, but the system would recognize his creation if it met the bare minimum requirements. He would also not receive any of the bonuses associated with having a profession linked to crafting swords, nor any experience of any kind.\n\n\nThis skill would allow him to make flasks far easier without the associated crafting skill as it would allow him to get the system-assistance and instinctive knowledge. He would very likely still want the actual crafting skill at some point, but it was a good temporary solution. Besides, Jake knew he wouldn’t have enough skill and time soon to get all the crafting skills.\n\n\nTransmutation, pill-making, flasks, powder, elixirs, and so on were just a few of the things he could learn to craft as an alchemist. And those were just the ones he already knew about. He knew there was far more out there. He wasn’t sure when he would ever get the skill selections for the skills at the current pace.\n\n\nCurrently, he only got a skill every 10 levels. It was every 5 levels before the first class evolution, so he had a strong suspicion it would be even less than every 10 levels after his next evolution. And on top of that, his biggest issue was that he often just had better skills - this very skill-picking-session being one such situation.\n\n\n“… therefore you should refrain from picking it as it would have implications that-“\n\n\n“Fine, I won’t. Sheesh,” Jake said as he exited his inner thoughts, noticing that Duskleaf had kept talking throughout his entire inner monologue.\n\n\n“Too bad, you just missed the perfect chance to get your first faithful,” the Malefic Viper laughed in the background.\n\n\nJake just shook his head as he moved on to the fourth skill available. Another one of epic-rarity and this one also related to the Malefic Viper. Though perhaps not precisely what he was looking for.\n\n\n[Dark Beacon of the Malefic Viper (Epic)] – As the holder of a True Blessing of the Malefic Viper, you’re his champion among the mortals. Allows the Alchemist to channel the aura of the Malefic Viper to more easily subdue others. Allows the Alchemist to guide others towards the path of the Malefic Viper. Forcefully or otherwise. Skill effect is based on wisdom and willpower. The larger disparity between your power and your targets, the larger the effect.\n\n\nIs the system set on my becoming a cult leader or what? Jake thought to himself after reading the description. Also, what the hell did the skill even have to do with alchemy, to begin with? Maybe related to teaching others alchemy? It would take some serious mental gymnastics for it to make sense. Then again, it wasn’t like the prior skills were necessarily alchemy-related.\n\n\nThe only slightly positive thing that he could see was its possible combat applications, like an AOE aura to suppress weaker enemies or crowds. But thinking on it further, didn’t his new Gaze of the Apex Hunter do something similar to that? Just by sight instead of a constant aura.\n\n\nAlso, the wording on it was just too creepy. Talking about subduing others, forcing them into following °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° the Malefic Viper and such. It was giving off clear ‘nope’-vibes all around. Jake did not, in any way, shape, or form, have the desire to become any kind of leader. Despite him having a ‘Lord’ title now.\n\n\nHe considered asking the Viper about the skill but ultimately decided not to. He hadn’t asked or shown any interest in the skills Jake had been offered. It was Jake’s choice to make, be they suboptimal or not. Though in many cases, the outright best skill was just clear from the beginning. It turns out this time was no different, with the final skill being a clear standout.\n\n\n[Sagacity of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)] – To hold just a fragment of the wisdom of a Primordial is more than most ever achieve. Much less to be personally taught that knowledge directly by the god himself. Allows the Alchemist to peek into a fragment of the Malefic Viper’s Records to seek his knowledge. Grants the Alchemist of the Malefic Viper far better understanding of mana and of most affinities. Allows the Alchemist to make creations he does not have the associated crafting skill for (does not receive stat effectiveness bonuses without associated skill). Passively provides 1 Wisdom per level in Alchemist of the Malefic Viper. May your search for knowledge be as inexhaustible as the Malefic One.\n\n\nOnce again, a long-ass description. A tendency Jake was beginning to see with the ancient-rarity skills granted by the Malefic Viper. Like with the Scales, Palate, and Blood, this one provided wisdom. The pattern was clear, and Jake was also beginning to suspect that some of his other skills would be similar when upgraded to ancient.\n\n\nBut to focus on the actual skill in question… there was a lot to say, and yet not that much. It was awesome. Wisdom was an excellent stat when it came to alchemy, and the skill overall appeared to in many ways to just be a better version of the Methodology of Duskleaf skill. There were some minor differences, but the crafting without associated skills-part was there. It actually made him feel a bit sad for Duskleaf, but on the other hand, he had been forbidden from taking his skill.\n\n\nDuskleaf’s skill provided a bonus while doing alchemy to mana control, while this one just granted a better understanding of mana and affinities without directly having to do with the alchemy. He was also interested in the ‘peer into a fragment to see Records of the Malefic Viper’ part. If he had to guess, then that fragment would be the drop of blood he now carried within him.\n\n\nIn the end, there was no contest as to which skill he would choose. The 63 bonus wisdom alone made the Sagacity of the Malefic Viper just too tempting to pass up. He found it interesting that he would now effectively get 4 more stats per level in his profession than otherwise stated with the skill. He had quite honestly lucked out hardcore when it came to stumbling across that challenge dungeon.\n\n\nOr maybe it was the subtle guiding hand of the system, fate, destiny, or whatever else mumbo-jumbo people believed in post-system. He didn’t care about things he couldn’t influence or control, so he just decided to be grateful for what he had gotten.\n\n\nHe didn’t even consult the two gods before he picked the skill. Something he should maybe have done as they were both surprised when he knelt down to the floor holding his head. He had gotten many skills over the brief period he had been in the system, but this one was by far the worst when it came to knowledge imprinted in his mind.\n\n\nIt felt like hours as he was assaulted by a constant stream of information downloaded directly into him. There was so much he quite frankly couldn’t contain it all. The entire process took nearly an hour before the influx and pain subsided.\n\n\nMy fucking head, he cursed as he tried to go through whatever knowledge was just forced upon him. To his absolute bewilderment, he found barely anything. It was just a few wisps of knowledge about mana control and the nature of different affinities, most of which he already knew through prior testing or educated guesses.\n\n\nInstead, it appeared that the knowledge was somehow locked away. Locked away within him. More accurately, inside that drop of blood he had absorbed. It seems that absorbing that drop of blood is the only reason I could get that overpowered skill to begin with.\n\n\nIt also made the description make more sense - the thing about peeking into a fragment of his knowledge. Just picking it up didn’t give him the full view but was more akin to downloading Wikipedia. Just because it was downloaded didn’t mean he wouldn’t actually have to study and understand it.\n\n\n“That was a doozy,” Jake muttered, inadvisably opening up himself to question from the two gods.\n\n\n“Got a nice skill, I reckon?” the Viper asked.\n\n\n“Sagacity of the Malefic Viper. I would explain what it does, but I guess you already know,” Jake answered.\n\n\n“Well, as the skill says, I am something of a sage myself. Surprised you unlocked that skill so early, though. The first one to get it for many eras, and I think the first one ever to get it at E-grade. I think you’ll come to learn it is quite the skill.”\n\n\n“Glad to see that I can even surprise a sage with my humble actions,” he said, before turning to Duskleaf, a faux look of grief on his face. “I am so sorry I didn’t pick your skill. I promise to get one with your name in it next time if possible.”\n\n\n“Just… don’t,” Duskleaf said, heaving a sigh of relief when he realized it was just a joke.\n\n\nAfter talking a bit with the two, Jake decided to finally look at his status menu. However, before doing so, he dumped all his points into perception to truly see how far he had come.\n\n\nStatus\n\n\nName: Jake Thayne\n\n\nRace: [Human (E) – lvl 73]\n\n\nClass: [Ambitious Hunter – lvl 83]\n\n\nProfession: [Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper – lvl 63]\n\n\nHealth Points (HP): 10030/10030\n\n\nMana Points (MP): 11350/11350\n\n\nStamina: 8024/8030\n\n\nStats\n\n\nStrength: 629\n\n\nAgility: 877\n\n\nEndurance: 803\n\n\nVitality: 1003\n\n\nToughness: 650\n\n\nWisdom: 908\n\n\nIntelligence: 442\n\n\nPerception: 1689\n\n\nWillpower: 550\n\n\nFree points: 0\n\n\nTitles:[Forerunner of the New World], [Bloodline Patriarch],[Holder of a Primordial’s True Blessing], [Dungeoneer V], [Dungeon Pioneer V], [Legendary Prodigy],[Prodigious Slayer of the Mighty], [Kingslayer], [Nobility: Lord], [Progenitor of the 93rd Universe]\n\n\nClass Skills:[Basic One-Handed Weapons (Inferior)], [Advanced Stealth (Common)], [Advanced Archery (Common)], [Basic Twin Fang Style (Uncommon)], [Basic Shadow Vault of Umbra (Uncommon)], [Splitting Arrow (Uncommon)], [Hunter's Tracking (Uncommon)], [Big Game Hunter (Rare)], [Infused Powershot (Rare)], [Mark of the Ambitious Hunter (Rare)], [Descending Dark Fang (Rare)], [Limit Break (Rare)], [One Step Mile (Ancient)], [Moment of the Primal Hunter (Legendary)], [Gaze of the Apex Hunter (Legendary)]\n\n\nProfession Skills: [Herbology (Common)], [Brew Potion (Common)], [Concoct Poison (Common)], [Alchemist’s Purification (Common)], [Alchemical Flame (Common)], [Toxicology (Uncommon)], [Cultivate Toxin (Uncommon)], [Malefic Viper’s Poison (Rare)], [Sense of the Malefic Viper (Rare)], [Touch of the Malefic Viper (Epic)], [Scales of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)], [Palate of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)], [Blood of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)], [Sagacity of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)]\n\n\nBlessing: [True Blessing of the Malefic Viper (Blessing - True)]\n\n\nRace Skills:[Endless Tongues of the Myriad Races (Unique)], [Identify (Common)], [Thoughtful Meditation (Uncommon)], [Shroud of the Primordial (Divine)]\n\n\nBloodline:[Bloodline of the Primal Hunter (Bloodline Ability - Unique)]\n\n\nLooking over his entire status menu, his progress was impressive. He had gotten so many titles and levels since last. Thinking back, he hadn’t actually gone through his status since back before he fought the Horde Leader. After that, he had killed that boss, killed the King of the Forest, and now even gotten way stronger from his, to quote: ‘cool-ass time-warped training session in alchemy.’\n\n\nHe was stronger than ever before by quite a lot. He hadn’t had the chance to fight anything and test himself, but perhaps he could win against the King if it was the current him.\n\n\n“Hey, if I fought the King of the Forest now, do you think I cou-“\n\n\n“Fuck no.”\n\n\n“Absolutely not.”\n\n\nThe two gods answered simultaneously.\n\n\n“Are yo-“\n\n\n“Yeah, you would get your head ripped off in a moment. Seriously Jake, I still don’t think you understand the disparity. That was a true-blue D-grade unique lifeform. If he hadn’t been so far up his own ass, he would have killed you instantly. Perhaps if you had your current strength, all it would change is that he wouldn’t have bothered to play around but just killed you outright.”\n\n\n“In other words, I just got extremely lucky?” Jake asked, a bit disappointed.\n\n\n“Partly. You were offered a situation to exploit and the tools to possibly exploit it. If you had been any weaker, you would have failed; if you had been less deceitful and smart about it, you would have died. Don’t take anything away from your own victory. Besides, the King wasn’t a normal D-grade being. Far from it. So don’t belittle yourself.\n\n\n\"The tutorials are made to be theoretically beatable. They are balanced based on who attends them. The system naturally knew how much divine interference there would be, so it upped the overall difficulty. In fact, I reckon your tutorial was among the hardest of your universe and certainly the hardest for Earth. You beating it is fucking monstrous, so keep it up, you goddamn freak.\"\n\n\n“Thanks, I guess. Anyway, what’s the plan now? More alchemy?” he asked, ready to try and practice his new skills.\n\n\n“We got only a few hours before it is time for you to get whisked back to Earth, and that is counting the time-warping,” the Viper said. “I think it’s time we sit down and have a talk about what’s to come.”"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 122 chapter - Homecoming\nTarget length: ~3100 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Sitting down around the table, the Viper finally brought out the owed bottle of booze. Duskleaf didn’t appear particularly interested but nevertheless joined them with a glass.\n\n\n“I promised to answer a few questions, so here we are. Just know that there are things I cannot or will not tell you. Some because the system isn’t a fan, and some because the knowledge will do you more harm than good,” the Viper said, opening the conversation.\n\n\n“I guess first of all… how the hell do you even know things? Things about Earth and such. I at first thought it was just a god-thing, but Duskleaf looks like a big question mark whenever you make a reference or a joke?” Jake asked. It wasn’t really valuable information, just something that had been irking him.\n\n\n“Didn’t see that question being the first. See, I don’t know everything!” the scaled god joked before continuing. “There are a lot of skills out there. As you no doubt know, the system can give you access to knowledge and Records and I happen to have a skill that allows me to know things. Think of it as me having access to a limited form of Google or Wikipedia that provides me with widely known information.”\n\n\n“That sounds overpowered as fuck. How to get it?” Jake asked, gaping slightly. Holy shit he wanted that skill.\n\n\n“Yeah, good luck getting it before being well into godhood. And it isn’t actually as good as it sounds and has many limits. But yeah, it is called Partial Omniscience. Quite a few other gods have similar skills, but I doubt anyone has one better than mine. I got it a couple of eras ago, so it is a bit of a new addition. The amount of useless info it provides is staggeringly stupid,” the Viper joked.\n\n\n“Doesn’t it take its toll to have that much crammed into your head?” Jake asked with genuine concern. A mere fragment of knowledge had brought him to his knees; he could only imagine the weight from all of it.\n\n\n“Jake, I have more in wisdom than your entire planet collectively. I am good,” the Malefic Viper answered dismissively. “But we both know that my awesomeness isn’t what matters right now.”\n\n\n“True,” Jake said, before leaning back in the chair a bit. “What can I expect when I return to Earth?”\n\n\n“When the system comes, it changes a lot of things. Life planets, such as your Earth, is one such thing. As you can likely already guess, your planet was actually quite small and fragile before the system with what its inhabitants can and will be able to do in the future. It has thus been terraformed to be more fitting for the new world,” the Viper answered.\n\n\n“What exactly does that mean?”\n\n\n“First of all, size. It is a lot bigger than before. A lot of it will still feel familiar, but a lot will be different. The general layout of the planet remains; it is all just… bigger. Oceans are deeper, landmasses expand further, mountains now extend toward the sky, taller than ever, forests become endless metropolises of trees that extend into the horizon,” the god began.\n\n\n“Secondly, the creatures that lived there will have changed. While the enlightened races – aka humans – spend their time in a tutorial, the animals that remained lived through this baptism. Now joined by others made by the system, they have changed. Don’t underestimate them.”\n\n\n“D-grades?” Jake asked, concerned.\n\n\n“From the original inhabitants? Yes. Many. The energy to terraform the planet has also gone into these animals, allowing them to grow far more than usual. But I doubt you will be able to find any, and they will be few and far between. Grouped around natural treasures or special areas. I would be more concerned about the third thing. Tell me, what do you think would have happened to the King of the Forest if you hadn’t killed him?” he asked.\n\n\n“Don’t tell me…”\n\n\n“Yeah, he would have joined you back on Earth. And he is far from the only one. Many creatures have been placed in tutorials, and now they will come to Earth. The same would have been true for the four Beast Lords you killed. Of course, now they are dead, which will leave a gap. One for you to exploit,” the Viper smiled mischievously.\n\n\n“Hold your horses; what do you mean they would have come to Earth? Doesn’t that mean a bunch of extremely powerful, possibly sapient beings with their own agendas will come to Earth? What the hell?” Jake asked, slightly panicking.\n\n\n“It isn’t that bad. These D-grades won’t be able to walk about as they please but instead be placed in certain areas. Remember the bubble from the tutorial with the inner area? That bubble would have been what moved. Only the original inhabitants can enter, while someone like the King of the Forest can’t leave. Of course, after a while, the bubble will disperse, and they will be free to roam about,” the Viper clarified, dispelling much of Jake’s concern.\n\n\nHe went back to the last part of what the god said before with a sigh of relief. “So, what am I meant to exploit?”\n\n\nSmiling, the god explained. “A gap has been made with the death of the King of the Forest. More accurately, his forest has been left behind. It will, without a doubt, be close to where you will be upon returning to Earth. Find it and establish yourself there. Locate the Pylon of Civilization. Ought to give you quite the head-start and a nice base of operation. Trust me on this… it will prove very fruitful down the line.”\n\n\n“Not sure I am interested in settling down and getting a base. My current plan is to search for my parents along with my brother and his wife,” Jake answered.\n\n\n“I got the feeling that you were like me when it comes to leadership, so just find someone to dump it on while reaping all the rewards from being in charge on paper. As for the family situation…,” the Viper sighed. “I have some bad news on that front.”\n\n\nJake felt a creeping sensation as he hesitated to ask. “What?”\n\n\nWith a look more serious than before, not carrying a hint of joking around. “Don’t even think about it.”\n\n\nEverything in his head stopped turning for a moment as he just sat there in silence, letting the word ring out in the room. It took him a while for the words to sink in. Why? was the only thing he could ask himself.\n\n\nDidn’t they make it? His father, Robert, had always been a resourceful man, his mother kind yet strong-willed. Caleb and Maja too… why?\n\n\n“Is… is there a way to bring them back?” Jake asked, trying to grasp unto hope.\n\n\n“I am sorry. I have tried, more than anyone else, to try and bring someone back to life… if it is possible, I still don’t know how. If there were a body and certain items and skills, it had been done only for those who died just moments earlier. If the Truesoul is gone, however… it isn’t possible,\" the Viper answered. “Not like it matters currently… they still live.”\n\n\n“What the hell!?” Jake said, a bit angry. “Then why the hell should I not go look for them?”\n\n\nHe was the kind of person who planned and followed that plan as far as he could go. One who set himself a ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) goal to accomplish. He would do everything to succeed and would struggle until he won. He had done so when he set his goal as killing the King.\n\n\n“Because it’s a waste of time. Do you know where your family is? How far away they are? Are you even certain you are strong enough to help them? And have you considered the consequences of focusing on finding them over your own progress?”\n\n\n“I had kind of hoped for you to give me a clue as to a general direction…” Jake said.\n\n\n“I won’t do that. The system wouldn’t have given that information either. It is naïve to think that you can find a handful of people in a short time on a planet that has changed so significantly with your limited power. It’s far more important for you to get stronger. Also… for once, believe a bit in them. Maybe they can take care of themselves, and your babying will only do more harm than good?”\n\n\nJake thought a bit, and as much as he hated it, he didn’t really feel like he could dispute any of the points. But at the same time… he felt a bit regretful. He had chosen Hunter’s Tracking to better find them. One Step Mile to hopefully travel faster to them. Was that all for naught?\n\n\n“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?” he asked as he stared at the ceiling.\n\n\n“Grow stronger. Make it fuel to move forward faster because you want to find and protect them. The path ahead of you is long; you will meet other people you want to protect too, no doubt,” the Viper said, consolingly.\n\n\n“Besides… no matter what, at least you have two buddies here who will more than likely stick around through it all,” he finished with a light smile while motioning to himself and the silent Duskleaf.\n\n\nJake looked at the two of them while contemplating his future. He had not come to terms with it, but… he had to recognize that he was going to Earth alone. It's just that he still felt a bit… lonely.\n\n\nHis colleagues and friends were now either dead or had a relationship with him that he was far from comfortable with. Jacob had somehow survived, but he was incredibly unsure precisely what their meeting would be like. Casper was apparently an undead, so that was a whole thing he wasn’t sure how to handle. Jake himself felt regret towards not helping either of them, while Jacob likely also harbored resentment towards Jake.\n\n\nHe never really had any friends outside of work and his family. They had all been pushed away through time, or he had distanced himself after his less than positive experience during university. The only other ones he had were friends online… and those relationships were even more ambiguous.\n\n\nPerhaps he should just follow the advice of Villy. Find a base and plop himself down there and do alchemy or something. Get his head straight. But what then?\n\n\nWould he become a leader of humanity and lead them in the new world? Yeah, fat chance of that happening. Would he become a hermit living alone in the woods? That didn’t appear tempting either. For the first time in a long time, Jake was unsure of what to do.\n\n\nHe didn’t have a plan. Not a long-term one anyway.\n\n\n“I guess whatever comes, comes,” he muttered to himself. “How long till I leave?”\n\n\n“Around an hour in here. Minutes outside where time moves normally,” the Viper answered.\n\n\n“Let’s head out then,” Jake said, getting up.\n\n\nWithout arguing, the Viper complied as he began opening the door. Jake felt time slowly return to normal as the world returned to what it was before he entered. Except he now felt a bit more hollow inside. Hollow, but still determined.\n\n\nThey kept talking outside for a bit about other things he could expect back on Earth until he was reminded it was very soon time.\n\n\n“I guess we will see each other later,” he said, addressing the two gods. “And thanks for everything.”\n\n\n“No problem, that’s what friends are for, right? It would get monotonous if you thanked me every time I helped you. Just take care of yourself. Don’t die on me quite yet,” The Viper said, smiling.\n\n\n“Stay safe,” Duskleaf added, opening his mouth for the first time in quite a while. “And remember not to slack off on your alchemy practice.”\n\n\n“I don’t plan on dying any time soon. If ever. And don’t worry, I won’t slack. Gonna blow you away the next time we meet.”\n\n\nWith those words, they just stood there a while, taking in the atmosphere. It was likely the last time the three would meet in quite a while.\n\n\nJake had grown stronger once more. Titles, skills, and levels. After his last battle with the King, he had grown to entirely new levels. He was ready to unleash himself on the unsuspecting planet that is Earth.\n\n\nJacob stood beside his old friend and bodyguard as they prepared to return. The brief time spent in the temple had felt like far longer than it actually was. Well, for Bertram, it had been far longer. He had spent most of his time in a time chamber with the Grand Master after all.\n\n\nWhile neither of them had grown overly-much in levels, both had grown in their own way. Bertram had skill-upgrades, his swordsmanship now a rare skill in itself. When he entered the chamber, he was a competent fighter by Earth’s standards. Now he was capable even by the standards of the multiverse, for an E-grade at least. He felt confident.\n\n\nJacob had instead spent his time learning. Due to his class, even this minor act had gained him two levels. Neither had done anything for their professions. Bertram because he didn’t have the time, and Jacob because he already knew which profession to get in the future… and it wasn’t quite time yet to get it.\n\n\nA lot had been explained to them of what they would come to meet upon their return. And now the Grand Master, with his daughter by his side, gave them a final speech.\n\n\n“Remember that safety is your number one concern. Avoid the danger zones to begin with while you build up your conclave of followers. Follow the Holy One’s word, and you are sure to succeed in your path to enlighten your planet, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to be vigilant.\n\n\n“You need to be especially wary of followers of other gods. Enemy gods of the Holy Church may have blessed individuals who will target you due to your position and purpose. We cannot offer you any material assistance for the foreseeable future, so you will sadly be on your own.\n\n\n“But even more so than those who wish to kill you, you must be wary of deceivers. Those who wish to use you or mislead you. Liars and the ones you thought of as friends. Do not trust easily those your skills cannot read properly,” the bearded man said in his usual serious tone, finishing by turning to the guardian besides Jacob. “Bertram, your job is to protect the Augur. Your life and his are one and the same. Do not disappoint us.”\n\n\nBertram only nodded, returning the seriousness of his temporary teacher. Jacob was deep in thought at the man’s words as he was also still fine-tuning his plan upon returning to Earth. There were many things to address, and he needed to make sure he did things right the first time.\n\n\nHis resolve to spread the word of the Holy Church was genuine. His conviction true. He just needed to convince others. Religion had always been a tricky subject, one where more often than not, you were simply born into one.\n\n\nWith the system, it was very different. Gods no longer intangible things, no longer only representations of an ideology. They were now that and so much more. They were actual beings with the true power to influence the world.\n\n\n“Has there been word on my inquiry related to the result of the tutorial I was part of?”\n\n\n“Yes.”\n\n\nA voice echoed out in the hall, startling everyone. The voice was overpowering yet gentle. A figure of light manifested before them, and upon seeing the visage of who had come, they all kneeled. The Grand Master had a mixed look of shock and pure reverence. The Mother…\n\n\nKneeling, none of them dared look up as the figure spoke. Even Jacob kneeled out of respect. “Your friend won. Defeated the destined King and became a Progenitor. Do not fight him, my son, but do not ally with him either. Avoid your friend for now. May you forever bask in the holy light, my children.”\n\n\nWith those words, the figure dispersed as fast as it came. Inera, Jacob, and Bertram all looked confused at words like ‘destined king’ and ‘progenitor.’ Only the Grand Master understood those terms. But he was too beside himself to explain as he was still awestruck by what had just happened.\n\n\nHe barely managed to break out of the spell and throw out a brief half-coherent explanation before the two young humans were gone, taken by the system back to whence they came.\n\n\nCasper stood surrounded by floating runes as he finished up his final preparations. His skin was white as ash, and his body didn’t give off the faintest hint of life-energy, yet he appeared more lively than he had ever done since the tutorial went to shit.\n\n\nAll the runes around him spun around as they slowly came together and formed a single magic circle. Taking out a stake from his spatial storage, he moved the circle towards it as they embedded themselves on the weapon. Another trap prepared.\n\n\nExiting the tower, he gave a final nod towards the mighty Archlich that had served as his teacher for the last few weeks. He had progressed more than he thought possible, and he felt genuinely grateful.\n\n\nThe Archlich bowed back in recognition not of Casper but of the one who had granted him a blessing. That blessing was more than enough for Casper to be named the leader of the Undead forces that would return to Earth, but he had refused adamantly. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t respected or feared by the others.\n\n\nThe meeting in the courtyard below was also just about concluded when Casper made his entrance. They all stopped and stared at him for a while before turning back to their leader - a woman named Priscilla who had once been human like himself.\n\n\n[Risen Human – lvl 58]\n\n\nShe gave him a sweet smile before returning her attention to the crowd.\n\n\nCasper just sneered a bit, and it wasn’t helped by the locket around his neck heating up slightly due to the annoyance of the ghost within. I told you, Lyra, I don’t care about her…\n\n\nWith a sigh, he closed his eyes as he just waited for the end of the tutorial.\n\n\n63 days and a bit over 22 hours ago, all humans disappeared from Earth. Now it was time for those who remained to come home."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 123 chapter - The Blue Marble\nTarget length: ~3500 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The sun hung above as it shone upon the serene lake. The sky was blue, inviting everyone to bask in the warmth outside and enjoy the weather. Everything appeared utterly ordinary at first glance. Until it wasn’t.\n\n\nThe surface of the lake erupted as a giant maw emerged. In the mouth of the enormous fish was a several meters long insect that had been invisibly surfing along the surface of the water only moments earlier.\n\n\nThe fish looked like a giant bass. Its teeth were far more prolonged and sharper than expected, and the sheen from their sharpness only amplified by the glittering droplets of water. Despite its size and jaw-strength, it failed to shut its maw tight.\n\n\nFour powerful legs of what had been a small water strider before the system held it open. At ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) the same time it opened its tiny mouth and let out a blast of water straight down into the mouth of the beast that had tried to eat it. In a turn of events where the hunter became the hunted, the fish was bisected into two pieces by a water cutter.\n\n\nBlood flew everywhere as the beast died from the powerful attack, unable even to comprehend its demise. The victory of the strider was short-lived, however.\n\n\nFrom above dove the figure of a giant bird, and before the strider could reconnect with the water and make its escape, it was caught in two powerful talons that crushed its feeble head.\n\n\nThe giant hawk beat its wings as it flew off with its dead prey still clenched below it. The serene lake that was now filled with blood reflected in its eyes - the sun above uncaring.\n\n\nEarth had become a battlefield. A battlefield the humans would now rejoin. Rejoin, and once more, strive to be at the top of the food chain.\n\n\nWhat had once been a great city was now but a shell of its former self. The massive monoliths of glass that had marked the prowess of human engineering now lay shattered on the ground. The structures toppled to the ground or ripped apart from the inside out.\n\n\nNature had not been kind to human civilization. It had reclaimed most of what had formerly been taken from it by urban development. Grass now grew in the streets, moss covered the buildings that still stood, and one could even see trees that had grown to full size in mere weeks.\n\n\nThis day there was a significant change. Scattered around the city, humans appeared. All at once, the city that had been populated by nearly a million people was now inhabited once more.\n\n\nOf the million people, around 800.000 – 900.000 returned - a phenomenon that was not just in this city, but the entire world. The survival rate of tutorials coming at 86% would surprise most, some for how low it was and some for how high.\n\n\nInside what had once been the lobby of a big office building, a cluster of humans appeared. The many-storied juggernaut was now reduced to only its ground floor. Among those who appeared stood a man with long blonde hair in a white robe, together with a stoic armored man by his side.\n\n\nJacob looked around to get a feeling for his surroundings. He instantly noticed many familiar faces in the crowd. Familiar, yet foreign. Only a bit over two months had passed, but he could see the changes on everyone’s faces.\n\n\nHis Lighthouse of the Holy Mother allowed him to soak in the emotions of all those around him. He felt mainly trepidation mixed in with a bit of relief. It was no surprise that many were happy the nightmare that was a tutorial was over.\n\n\nThe emotions were many and varied. But one stood out more than any of the others. Stood out in that Jacob couldn’t feel anything at all.\n\n\nSolitarily stood a figure covered in the brown cloak given to archers. Beneath it, one could see the black leather armor and beneath him two shoddy-looking boots. Jacob couldn’t even look at his face as a mask now covered it. Yet, he didn’t fail to recognize his old employee. Jake.\n\n\nSoon the silence was broken as people began talking. Some were simply looking for comfort, others asking about their loved ones. Not everyone had entered the tutorial with those closest to them, far from it. A few even saw Jacob and turned to him for direction. And direction he would give them.\n\n\n“Everyone, please calm down!” he yelled out, amplified by one of two remnant skills from his time as a warrior: Amplify Voice. A weak common-rarity skill, but it was more than enough to have the focus of the room switch to him. He even felt two powerful eyes from behind a mask pierce into him. He shuddered slightly inwardly but appeared unfazed outwardly.\n\n\n“Jacob, is that you?” someone asked. Looking at him, Jacob saw it was Mike. Joanna’s husband.\n\n\n“It is good to see you made it, Mike. I- “\n\n\n“Were you in the tutorial with my wife? What about everyone else in the elevator with us back then?” Mike quickly interrupted frantically. The anxiousness clear on his face.\n\n\n“I am sorry. Our tutorial was… a mess,” Jacob answered, loud enough for everyone around to hear. The focus now solely on him. “We had bad actors. They moved to conquer or simply kill everyone. In the end, they succeeded. Even I lost my life and only managed to save myself and Bertram with the help of a benevolent god. By the time I died, only two others remained.”\n\n\n“Joanna… is…” Mike stammered out as tears began gathering in his eyes.\n\n\n“I truly am sorry. It was a true nightmare,” Jacob tried to console him. “But I managed to help her in the end. She died with only the regret that she couldn’t rejoin you and her children here on Earth. Just know that she truly is in a better place now… not in a figurative way either. In the future, I swear you will be able to speak with her again.”\n\n\n“Who or what killed her?” Mike asked, not caring much about the last part of what Jacob said.\n\n\n“Her death was caused by a maniac called William. He sought to slaughter everyone for his own gains,” he answered, glancing at Jake. “An endeavor he failed. I reckon you ended him, Jake?”\n\n\nEveryone turned their gazes to the masked figure; many only truly noticing him now. Even with everyone wearing widely differing outfits of questionable taste, Jake still stood out. His mask was making him more than a little conspicuous.\n\n\nJake looked up at Jacob. He tried to search his eyes for any emotions… but found that his gaze was the same as before the tutorial. If with a bit more wariness. He was relieved that he didn’t appear to blame him for what happened. “Yeah, but another god interfered and ended up saving him in the end.”\n\n\n“So he still lives…” Jacob muttered. Turning his gaze away from Jake, he redirected his attention away from the archer as he spoke once more. “Everyone, please listen to me when I say we aren’t safe even here. Earth has changed and is, in many ways, even more dangerous than the tutorials. We must stick together if we wish to make it.”\n\n\n“What the fuck are you on about?” someone yelled at the back. Someone who didn’t know Jacob before the tutorials.\n\n\nJacob wasn’t offended but answered honestly. “While we struggled in the tutorials, all that was not human struggled on Earth. To underestimate any being after the system is foolish. Additionally, the trials of the tutorials are not over. We will…”\n\n\nJacob went on to explain much of what Jake had been told about by the Viper earlier. A few details differed, but nothing of consequence. At the same time, the archer was still considering his own plans. He felt a few uncomfortable gazes on him, no doubt trying to feel him out. Mike being one of them.\n\n\nSlowly Jacob began to win people over. His class and skills were surely not hurting his cause either. It affected everyone in the broken-down lobby except for Jake.\n\n\nTheir willingness to follow him was naturally only strengthened from the harsh circumstances. Many felt lost and without purpose. They were afraid of the future, not sure what to do. For someone to stand up and give them direction was exactly what many needed.\n\n\nWinning over a few, the group-thinking quickly took over. In the end, everyone simply followed when Jacob began leading them out of the broken building and onto the street. Jake had decided to stick around a bit at the back alone, as he had gotten a prompt upon his return, making him aware he wasn’t that pressed for time. Soon, he was joined by Mike.\n\n\n“Why are you wearing that stupid mask?” he asked first thing. He had wanted to ask about his wife. Wanted to learn more about her killer. But instead, he threw a quick jab at the young man’s appearance. He found it disrespectful and stupid for him to hide beneath a mask.\n\n\nThe question annoyed Jake more than it should have. That mask was the proof of his victory over the King of the Forest. Evidence of him beating the tutorial. Instead of giving a proper answer, he snapped back at him.\n\n\n“Why are you so pathetically weak?”\n\n\nJake had done a quick round of Identify while half-listening to Jacob’s speech. Trying to get a feeling for the average levels. And it was… disappointing. Incredibly so.\n\n\nWhile the levels varied, the average was only around 14 or 15. Everyone had reached level 10, but many had only just done so. Jake could barely comprehend how that was even possible. Jacob had naturally been the second-highest person except for himself. A fact that clearly gave him a lot of credibility for those able to Identify him.\n\n\n“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Mike said, puffing up. He was a tall man, more than half a head taller than Jake. His muscles were far more prominent than Jake’s. But he was truly weak - only level 16. Jake wasn’t even sure if he had upgraded his class yet.\n\n\n“I said you're weak. Your equipment is shit; your level is shit. What the fuck did you expect to accomplish after lazing about in the tutorial for two months?” Jake snapped back. He was annoyed. Not just at Mike but everyone.\n\n\nWhat the fuck had they been doing? He understood that not everyone is fit for fighting, but what about professions? And even if they weren’t fighters, they should at least learn to protect themselves.\n\n\nHis comment had clearly gotten the attention of more than just Mike as many turned towards him. Their gazes were less than gentle as he felt several people try and Identify him. Useless attempts as there was no way a bunch of F and the rare E-grade humans could pierce through the Shroud of the Primordial.\n\n\n“What the fuck do you know, you little whelp?” Mike yelled, his face red. “I went to hell and back, you cocksucker. Watch your goddamn mouth, or I’ll shut it for you.”\n\n\n“You are free to try,” Jake said, staring into the eyes of the man.\n\n\nMike felt a shiver run down his spine as he saw those eyes. But instead of listening to his instincts, he exacerbated the situation. His own fear made him only angrier - his sorrow of his learning the death of his wife redirected into anger at Jake.\n\n\nSo he threw a punch.\n\n\nIt never landed.\n\n\nJake caught it easily. Its speed pathetic in his eyes. The strength behind it was negligible. He caught it and pressed down on the fist in his hand. He felt it squash like a rotten apple as Mike screamed out in pain.\n\n\nIf their conflict didn’t have everyone’s attention before, they sure had all eyes on them now. Jacob had been watching it from the beginning without interfering. A decision he now regretted as the situation had resulted in blood being spilled.\n\n\nSeveral yells sounded out as people reacted. Some drew their weapons; others prepared themselves to cast magic. In a split-second, the situation had turned from just an interesting squabble to a possible fight.\n\n\n“Please, everyone!” Jacob yelled out, all his skills on full display as he tried to calm the agitated crowd. It had some effect as everyone just seemed to have frozen. The only ones still moving being Mike, who held his bloody hand, and Jake, who stood indifferently staring down at the now kneeling man.\n\n\n“This is a waste of time,” Jake said after a bit. Taking out a healing potion from his spatial storage, he put it down on the floor in front of Mike as he turned to leave. He just wanted to get out of the situation he had found himself in.\n\n\n“Jake, can I have just two seconds of your time?” Jacob quickly asked as he read the archer’s intent to leave.\n\n\nHe really didn’t want to, but Jake nevertheless agreed. “Fine.”\n\n\nWalking towards Jacob, people just moved out of the way. Jake could feel the looks of fear in the eyes of his former colleagues. The wariness and unwillingness to engage him. Many of the eyes belonging to people who had looked down on him or felt utterly indifferent towards him only a few months ago. In a way, it was oddly satisfying.\n\n\nJacob took Jake a bit away from the others to talk. It likely didn’t help as everyone had amplified hearing with increased stats, making it more of a gesture more than anything else. Nevertheless, Jake appreciated having more space around them.\n\n\n“You have grown strong,” was the first thing he said, a slight smile on his lips. He didn’t appear to care much for the still crying man in the background who had yet to drink the potion.\n\n\nIn actuality, Jacob was just happy Jake hadn’t killed Mike. He had been afraid of that happening. His skills for reading people didn’t work on Jake, and the last time he saw him, he had led him into an ambush. Both men had feared the other blamed them for all the shit that had happened.\n\n\n“Yeah,” Jake simply said.\n\n\n“You are leaving, right?” Jacob asked.\n\n\n“Yeah… I don’t really fit here,” Jake sighed. A statement Jacob couldn’t really dispute.\n\n\n“Just… take care, man. That tutorial was a shithole and… I’m sorry about everything I did. I am happy to hear that you managed to beat it in the end. We all need to create our own place in this new world - our new homes. I don’t know what your plans are, but I hope you find what you are looking for,” Jacob said, smiling at his friend. “I fucked up in the tutorial big-time… I nearly got you killed because of how much of an idiot I was… I hope that you forgive me, but I understand if you won’t. Just know that I will always consider you a friend, even if you don’t consider me one.”\n\n\nJacob knew the Holy Mother and Grand Master had both made it pretty clear that he should be cautious and distance himself from Jake, but that didn’t mean Jacob was going to. Jake was his friend, and not even the mightiest god could change that. Their friendship was between him and Jake, and no one else.\n\n\n“I…” Jake began but wasn’t sure what to say. Jacob really hadn’t changed much at all despite everything. He had always had a hard time with words, so instead, he decided just to act. “Here, take these. Healers are still a rarity, I assume, so these should come in handy.”\n\n\nHe took out nearly a hundred healing, stamina, and mana potions. Most of them being his older creations, but a few newer ones were also mixed in. Jake didn’t need them, and it felt good to offload them. His only regret was losing the bottles as those could be reused. But such a complaint was too petty even to consider.\n\n\nWhile Jake felt it was just a nice gesture, it was something entirely else for Jacob and those with sharper eyes who observed them. They saw Jake hand him a huge satchel filled with potions. They all remembered those bottles and the miraculous benefits they carried. All remember how they had saved their lives.\n\n\nAnd now Jake gifted them so many. Nobody knew where he got them from and frankly didn’t care. Jacob and Bertram were the only ones who knew that Jake had likely created them himself. Both of them had become privy to information not many others had, including knowledge of different professions. Alchemy naturally being one of them.\n\n\n“I am sure these will come in handy,” Jacob replied as he took the satchel. He also couldn’t ignore the fact that Jake had summoned it all out of thin air, meaning he either had a pocket storage skill or perhaps even a spatial storage item. He is truly different from the rest of us, he thought.\n\n\n“Here, take this in return,” Jacob said, as he handed Jake a small book. “I spent the last few weeks reading… I took down some notes that I hope may come in handy. It isn’t much, but I truly don’t have anything else of value to offer.”\n\n\n“Thanks,” Jake said, depositing the small book in his spatial storage. “I’m off.”\n\n\nJake began walking towards the exit as a roar shook the building. Everyone looked around, terrified, until the source became apparent.\n\n\nWith a crash, one of the walls in the far back end was smashed through. Jake looked back and saw a huge lizard the size of a minivan. He didn’t feel any sense of danger from it, and a quick identification only confirmed its weakness.\n\n\n[Rockeater Saurolisk – lvl 51]\n\n\nOf course, the reactions from the others in the room were vastly different. The only other person who could Identify its level was Jacob, meaning all people saw was two question marks. The type of enemy that in tutorials always meant casualties. But none of them died this day.\n\n\nThe lizard looked the room over, ignoring all the weak humans completely until its eyes finally landed on the only one with a level high enough to make him worth hunting – Jacob. Before the beast even did anything, it froze in place. Its eyes widened with fear as it found itself unable to move. A gaze had locked unto it – that of an Apex Predator, or more accurately, an Apex Hunter.\n\n\nLess than a second later, its head exploded as an arrow pierced through the room. The poor lizard was dead before it could even recognize how much it had fucked up by barging into that particular building and that the human it couldn’t even recognize the strength of was indeed far above its own.\n\n\n“Stupid lizard,” Jake muttered as he walked out of the building. Everyone was just staring after him as he disappeared from sight.\n\n\nJacob, finding himself left to pick up the pieces of the situation that just happened, made the gawking populace focus on himself once more.\n\n\n“We must leave this place. Find somewhere safe. Or at least safer. Find others to make a group big and strong enough to defend ourselves. Then- “\n\n\n“Why did you let that guy go? Shouldn’t he just protect us?” someone yelled out.\n\n\nJacob looked at the person, trying to hide his genuine annoyance. “His path is not ours, and none of you have any right to judge him. He has his own challenges and issues to deal with. Rather than just expecting someone to, you should instead think about how you can make someone want to protect you. We have nothing to offer someone on his level. Not yet, at least.\n\n\n“Now, let us set out. Set out and create our new haven in this new world.”\n\n\nA bit away from the office building, a single man stood, having retreated the moment he appeared and before anyone had even noticed him. He stood on top of the building, as he looked down at them all exiting the old lobby, and he saw the lizard get killed instantly.\n\n\nHe smiled as he noticed the one who did it. Jake had been the first to teach him anything about combat in this new world and was a friend long before the tutorial.\n\n\nCasper saw the masked figure that was walking off, turn his eyes towards him. They locked eyes, one with hollow black eyes and the other a piercing yellow gaze.\n\n\nThey didn’t need any words as the two men nodded at each other. Jake, smiling beneath his mask and Casper chuckling a bit to himself. Both hated social interactions, and everything that needed to be said was communicated through that nod.\n\n\nCasper looked towards the horizon as he set off, the emblem he had been given already making him aware of the closest meeting spot.\n\n\nTake care, mate, and let’s meet again."}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nThe Primal Hunter — a LitRPG progression fantasy. For her, it had just been another typical and tiring day. She had to get up early, clean her room, and make it all nice and tidy before heading off for breakfast. After that, she would have to do a bit of studying before a nice workout in the yard. Then it was work time, a bit of recreational time in the evening, before her early bedtime. It was a constant routine that she had done now for nearly two years.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Jake | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Jacob, Carmen, Bertram\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Archer – lvl 2, Geology (Inferior), Concoct Poison (Common), True Standout of the 93rd Universe, Boar – lvl 5, Human (G) – lvl 7, Evergreen Grass (Inferior), Basic One-Handed Weapon (Inferior)); stats (Perception, Wisdom, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility)\nSystem notification style: \"System’,” it explained.\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 334 chapter - Treasure Hunt: One Down\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Strong.\n\n\nCarmen saw the old man from the Noboru clan obliterate the blood clone within a few dozen seconds, his blade moving incredibly fast and seeming like it could cut anything. She really didn’t want to block that sword directly, that was for sure.\n\n\nYet the other person Sven had warned her about was even worse. She had just finished off the last of the blood clones with help from Sylphie, the Judge, and the undead called Casper taking care of the third one. This still meant they had only destroyed # Nоvеlight # three clones, while that Chosen guy had been faced with not only two clones alone but the far more powerful true body of the Monarch.\n\n\nShe was worried as he had quite the firepower and was an archer that this would be problematic. Archers were ranged fighters, and while their agility and perception both tended to be high, their durability often wasn’t up there.\n\n\nBut what she saw when she looked at him again as he had landed in the distance wasn’t what she expected. Two clones attacked him with the Monarch, blood magic flying everywhere, yet he kept dodging and weaving better than any fighter she had ever seen before. It was uncanny to the level of being straight-up ridiculous.\n\n\nIf there was the slightest gap, he was in it the moment it formed; the tiniest opening to escape a pincer attack was chosen, and it didn’t matter what angle the attack came from. He was aware of it and reacted, clearly possessing some skill to give him vision all around him.\n\n\nIs he specialized in avoidance? she wondered as he somehow ducked and jumped at the same time to avoid two strikes and blasted a mana attack out of his hand to send himself flying back slightly to avoid a red beam from the Monarch.\n\n\nCarmen wasn’t delusional. She knew she was strong but not the strongest. Yet, she still felt like there was a gap wider than expected. Sure, she could see herself put up a good fight, and with all of her boosting skills, she could deal great damage… but could she even hit him?\n\n\nMoreover, his constant focus was just too ridiculous. One would think that there was a chance to get distracted or that a wayward thought could sneak in and toss you off for a brief moment, yet such a thing had yet to happen. She herself had many times taken a hit because of a moment of inattentiveness, but that didn’t look to be a concept the Chosen even had to deal with.\n\n\nHe was just a monster.\n\n\nThe Sword Saint drifted through the air as he used a skill to move faster and struck at the Monarch from behind. A clone moved to block his blow, and the old man reacted by simply empowering his blow further. His blade seemed to be surrounded by water for a fraction of a moment as it fell. It warped around the weapon the clone wanted to block with and cut off its arm, and before it could reform its body, the Sword Saint used another skill as his blade flashed, and the clone was cut into six parts.\n\n\nAnother damn monster, Carmen thought, just shaking her head. Yet, she didn’t want to see herself too beaten as she also used a movement skill. Golden wings of light condensed behind her as she sped up and charged straight for the Monarch.\n\n\nEnergy whirled around her as she struck forward, releasing blasts of pure kinetic force. The vampire naturally noticed her and summoned a circular barrier to block her blows, as the Chosen guy also moved to attack – with his blow clearly being prioritized and viewed as the most dangerous.\n\n\nShe didn’t blame him. Poison was nasty.\n\n\nShattering the barrier in a few blows, she got in closer. The Monarch was now forced to address her. And address her he did.\n\n\nHe moved his hand as a magic circle appeared beneath him, and before she could react, one appeared beneath her too. Carmen tried to get out of it, but before she knew it, her vision turned entirely black for a moment before she found herself in new surroundings.\n\n\nCarmen instantly recognized that they had been teleported back in the direction of the Mistless Plains. More than a thousand kilometers passed in a moment. That the Monarch also knew some kind of space magic was something she nor anyone else had expected, and Carmen cursed herself for not having any proper resistance against such attacks.\n\n\nThis was one of her weaknesses… she couldn’t do jackshit against most magical effects due to the way her class and profession worked. Not having any mana did have some downsides.\n\n\nThe Monarch looked her way as she saw him flash a creepy smile. He wants to make me leave before the rest get here?\n\n\nHe didn’t talk or taunt her. He simply attacked, more or less proving her theory. Mist suddenly appeared behind her, as she was too slow to react as she was cut across her back. The Monarch she had just been looking at dissolved into nothingness. Mental magic?\n\n\nShe twisted around to block and found herself faced with three identical Monarchs. All of them gave off power, and when they attacked, she had to block all of them. That is when she noticed they were all “real” to some extent. More clones.\n\n\nThe clones were usually just red… but these weren’t, and without spending a long time, she couldn’t tell the difference.\n\n\nIt would take the others several minutes to arrive at a minimum, and it didn’t look like the Monarch wanted to give her that long. All of the clones began burning with energy as they charged her. Carmen blocked what she could, but it was a losing battle as she was pushed back and took several severe wounds that would be lethal to a pre-system human.\n\n\nFuck.\n\n\nOriginally, the fight did seem to extend into more of a marathon than a sprint… but she couldn’t afford to keep a steady pace as things were.\n\n\nCarmen smashed her fists together and released a shockwave as she at the same time jumped back. When she landed, she pressed both her fists to the ground as she spoke.\n\n\n“Sacred Battlefield.”\n\n\nA faint pulse went through the terrain as the battlefield was established, and she felt herself grow stronger. But this was far from enough… so she went all out.\n\n\n“Regalia of the Fallen.”\n\n\n“Runes of the Valkyrie.”\n\n\n“Exaltation of Valhal.”\n\n\n“Blessed Echo.”\n\n\n“Ruinous Drive.”\n\n\nGolden armor covered her body as she began burning from the inside. Runes covered her skin, as she was blessed with power far above what she could usually handle. Skills from both her profession and class working in tandem, making her far more powerful for a short amount of time. The entire summoning process of all the skills didn’t even take a second, and by the time the Monarch reached her, the clash was far more even.\n\n\nOn her battlefield, the masking of the clones faltered as she saw the real Monarch. Her fist clashed with the blade of the Monarch, and this time she didn’t lose out. An explosion rocked the area as the two separated, but Carmen charged again as she pressed the assault.\n\n\nUsually, it would seem smarter to be defensive, but when Carmen was in this state, she had to fight. Her entire power burned with stamina, and her health depleted by the second, and her only way to remain stable was to both release the energy and lifesteal through dealing damage to her foe.\n\n\nCarmen attacked the Monarch, who met her blow for blow. She gritted her teeth as her hits were blocked every time, but at least she managed to release her pent-up stamina. She pushed more and got in closer as she began trading hits. Her fist connected with the flesh of the vampire, and she felt her energy intrude and pulse through his body as she herself got some health back.\n\n\n“Truly a warrior of Valhal… Impressive,” the Monarch said, as he jumped back and pointed towards her to release beams of blood energy. Her golden armor blocked the blows as she stormed forth again. The clones attacked her still, but they had trouble breaking through her armor and outmatching her self-healing, meaning she could keep it up for now.\n\n\nBut not for long.\n\n\nThe Monarch was clearly aware of her powers, yet he kept fighting her in melee. For now, she actually had the upper hand, but she felt herself slowly begin to run out of fumes. She had to do something and quickly. The others were coming. She just had to hold on.\n\n\nCarmen pulled out as much power as she could as she charged for the umpteen time. Her fist glowed with energy as she smashed it forward. The Monarch smiled and turned to mist at that very moment, but Carmen had expected it.\n\n\n“Honor’s Call.”\n\n\nInstead of teleporting away, the Monarch appeared right in front of her, compelled by some unknown concept Carmen didn’t understand herself. It appeared that the Monarch did, but understanding and being able to counter something wasn’t the same.\n\n\n“Fist of Ragnarok.”\n\n\nSpace imploded as her fist struck the blocking blade of the Monarch. The crystal sword shattered into thousands of pieces as the energy from her fist penetrated through the stomach of the vampire and released a massive shockwave as her energy invaded the body of her foe. Her physical fist failed to penetrate, however.\n\n\nRight as she had finished her blow, her entire arm up to the shoulder exploded in a mix of golden energy and blood. Golden veins spread from her shoulder and down her body as she watched the Monarch be blasted back several kilometers and into a hill that now found itself with a newly-made cave.\n\n\nCarmen quickly used her other hand and took out a special potion she had one of the alchemists of Valhal prepare. It had a golden liquid within that made the energy that ravaged her insides subside. She would be able to regenerate her arm again in only a-\n\n\n“You know, this reminds me of a fight I once had.”\n\n\nShe hadn’t seen him. The Monarch suddenly stood right behind her, the wound still on his body with her energy also pulsing through his body. Yet he smiled.\n\n\nCarmen tried to get away, but her skills were weakening. She only managed to get a few meters away before the Monarch attacked, not giving her any time. Raising her remaining arm, she tried to block, but the vampire didn’t let up. Claws tore into her flesh, it not healing as it should.\n\n\n“I would recommend leaving this system event,” the Monarch said as he blasted her with blood energy. She summoned whatever energy she could muster to block it, but all that did was create another opening. The claw of the vampire flew forward and closed around her neck, Carmen focusing all her energy on strengthening it.\n\n\nDark energy spread in her body as she felt her limbs become limp. She knew it was a curse and that she had no way to fight it. Carmen cursed both the curse and herself as she resigned herself and activated the Hunter’s Insig-\n\n\nAnd then she was free. The claw on her neck suddenly let go, and she opened her eyes to see the Monarch gone from where he had been as he was flying into the distance - an arrow stuck in the side of his head.\n\n\nA millisecond later, she saw a figure pass by surrounded by a mix of green energy she recognized as Sylphie’s mixing with pure burned stamina. A crude and wholly inefficient method of boosting the body… but clearly enough. The archer had only appeared before her in a brief flash before he stepped down again and appeared right in front of the vampire, which he proceeded to kick in the head, embedding the arrow further.\n\n\nShe had to admit… that was very satisfying.\n\n\nJake had to admit that he was kind of miffed. He had baited the vampire so far away, wanting to fight him. Yet the fucker had just teleported himself and Carmen away like an absolute asshole, leaving him and everyone else hanging. A serious dickmove, in his opinion.\n\n\nHis Mark of the Avaricious Hunter at least told him where they had gone, and he noticed it was quite the distance. To make it worse, four wayward globes of blood from earlier suddenly transformed into blood clones to get in their way. Jake knew he couldn’t stay behind and exchanged a look with the Sword Saint, who nodded.\n\n\nHe also sent the message to Sylphie. While Sylphie was faster than him in a sprint, then there was simply too far to Carmen, and he let her know this. She seemed worried, so she did what she could. She used some magic as she flapped her wings, and Jake felt a green aura envelop him as the wind around him seemed to give away and even support him. It was like his old bow enchant, except way more potent.\n\n\n“I’m off!” Jake yelled as he sprinted – only a few seconds having passed since she was teleported away.\n\n\nJake used One Step Mile faster than ever before as he pushed Limit Break to 20%. He flashed across the rather flat ground of Yalsten, and he even felt how it was easier to travel here than anywhere else. Space was more fragile and bent more than before.\n\n\nThe wind carried him forward, too, making it all easier and faster. The terrain passed him by in flashes, and within only a handful of minutes, he was close. It didn’t take much longer before he felt like he was close enough. He took a step that sent him slightly airborne as he drew his bow. While still in the air, he drew his bow, nocked a stable arcane arrow, and as time slowed down, he charged the Arcane Powershot, his vision amplified just enough to see the head of the Monarch far in the distance.\n\n\nAn explosion ravaged the area around him, but he had barely released the string till he took another step – the just-fired arrow passing over his head just as he landed. He kept running and squinted as he saw the Monarch far in the distance. He was holding Carmen by the neck, and Jake reacted.\n\n\nGaze of the Apex Hunter activated as the Monarch froze. The boss vampire was frozen just long enough for his arrow to pierce into the side of the vampire’s head and blast the vampire away. With another five steps, he appeared right beside Carmen, who was falling limp to the ground, and two steps more placed him right in front of the Monarch, which he proceeded to kick in the head, making the arrow pierce through and out the other side – straight through the brain.\n\n\nNo way he thought it would be lethal… but it had to hurt like hell, didn’t it? Besides, poison on the brain was never fun.\n\n\nJake wasn’t done yet either. He drew his scimitar and cut at the Monarch a few times, it having been soaked in his own blood to poison the boss.\n\n\nTo his credit, the Monarch reacted fast. He used one hand to blast at Jake and the other to pull out the arrow in a pained groan. Jake dodged the blast by using another One Step Mile and appeared right behind the vampire and tried to cut his head off. His scimitar was sadly blocked as he failed to sever the spine, it having been magically reinforced.\n\n\nFinally, the Monarch managed to get him off as he grasped the blade and used it to make Jake choose against losing the weapon or be thrown off – he chose the latter. Jake flew in the direction of Carmen and used one Step Mile as he went over to her, as he didn’t want to give the vampire any chance to finish her off.\n\n\nHe looked at her form as she kneeled and breathed heavily, her entire body weak. She tried to stand back up, but her legs wobbled, and she fell to the ground, her eyes barely open as she tried to stay conscious.\n\n\n“I believe that is one opponent down,” the Monarch said as Carmen lay unmoving due to the curse, now truly forcing Jake to relocate her to relative safety."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 335 chapter - Treasure Hunt: Paths\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jake stood defensively in front of Carmen as the Monarch looked at him. The others would be arriving, but it would still take a bit. Carmen had closed her eyes, and Jake felt like her energy had become calmer, making him think she had passed out.\n\n\n“You have no need for concern. I possess no desire to slay her or you for that matter; I merely need to win and make you leave,” the Monarch said casually.\n\n\n“Yeah… don’t fault me for not trusting you,” Jake answered, totally fine with talking for now. “Also… you said earlier you sealed off the entrances to this realm. Does that mean no vampires escaped Yalsten?”\n\n\nThe Monarch gladly answered, for some reason not in a rush either, or maybe he genuinely wanted Jake to know the answer. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the gaping hole in his stomach with wriggling flesh trying to heal. “Some did make it out beforehand. Quite a lot, actually. Yalsten also was only one of many places where we vampires lived, just one more sealed off than most others, hence a great refuge and easier to defend from outsiders.”\n\n\n“To be honest, I would find it odd if an entire race just died off like that. I have a feeling the system or at least interested parties wouldn’t want that.”\n\n\n“I would agree under normal circumstances… but the vampiric race is not a naturally-occurring one. It is difficult to say to begin with if the system cares for the survival of any race, and as for allies and interested parties… the Malefic Order was one of them,” the vampire said as he shook his head.\n\n\n“Yeah… again, the Order could be filled with vampires, and I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been there or met any members of the Order, for that matter. At least not any normal members,” Jake explained.\n\n\n“…How has the Chosen of the Malefic Viper never been in the Order or met anyone from it?”\n\n\n“Eh, it’s complicated, but as the universe is newly integrated and all that, I haven’t had a chance to go anywhere and have only met him a few times. We do speak quite often, though,” Jake kept explaining, not really caring that much about giving information out.\n\n\nJake wasn’t leaving the Hunt, so either he would kill the Monarch or the Monarch would kill him. Either scenario would end in whatever he said not mattering. Also… he didn’t really care.\n\n\n“You speak directly with the Malefic One?” the vampire asked after trying to figure out who ‘him’ was, being more and more confused.\n\n\n“On a regular basis, yeah. The last time we met in person, it was to do some alchemy and chill together with him and Duskleaf. We had a good time. The time before that, we had beers and talked about life and all that,” Jake kept saying, dealing mental damage with every sentence.\n\n\n“…”\n\n\nThe Monarch just kept staring at him, Jake staring back. Carmen lying on the ground was apparently still conscious, and her pained face had changed to one very visibly saying: “what the fuck?”\n\n\nYeah, he had actually assumed she had passed out. Turned out she hadn’t. Well then… Nah, it should be fine.\n\n\nIt wasn’t like him, and the Viper being buddies was a secret anyway, and he didn’t see it causing any problems. Even if it did, he would deal with those problems whenever they arose. There was no reason to make things more difficult than they were. He would just keep things simple and take the complications as they come. Same as always.\n\n\nLuckily he didn’t have to keep narrating about himself as reinforcements arrived.\n\n\nBlack lightning stuck down beside him as Caleb appeared, electricity running across his body. The Monarch regarded him as Caleb asked Jake: “What happened?”\n\n\n“Curse.”\n\n\nJake didn’t need to explain anything more as Caleb threw him a glance. Jake nodded in response as they moved simultaneously. The brothers went in opposite directions, with Caleb picking up Carmen and Jake engaging the vampire. Not fighting was what Jake would have preferred… but they had both felt it.\n\n\nWhile the Monarch may speak the truth about not caring about killing Carmen, he sure as hell did want to kill Caleb. At least his killing intent flared as he looked at the younger of the two brothers.\n\n\n“Just a shot in the dark, but let me guess that the Court of the Shadows were on the anti-vampire side?” Jake asked as he appeared in front of the vampire. He only had his scimitar after the destruction of the Nanoblade, so that would have to do for now.\n\n\nThe Monarch responded by blocking his weapon and paused as he simply held Jake in a standstill. “The Holy Tyrant and her slaves, together with the undead, were our true enemies, but the Court of Shadows sure happily took payment from both to speed up the genocide.”\n\n\nJake was pushed back as the Monarch got free and tried to turn into mist again, but Jake quickly used Gaze as he froze the vampire for a brief moment. He engaged again, noticing that the Monarch took it relatively slow at the moment. Maybe because of that entire gaping hole-situation in his stomach.\n\n\nYeah, that was probably it. Carmen’s ultimate attack had left quite the injury, and Jake had to admit it was powerful. Likely as strong as a fully charged Arcane Powershot with an Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter, if not stronger. Which made sense, considering it was a skill that had clearly left her severely drained afterward, while for Jake, it was just a bit of mana and stamina gone.\n\n\nThe wound left by Jake firing an arrow through the guy’s head had already healed like it was never there. Probably still did some good damage, but the vampiric race’s durability and natural regeneration skills were honestly quite insane.\n\n\n“It has been a long time, not sure it makes sense to judge the current factions for crimes of the past,” Jake argued, mainly just trying to waste time. He had left a Mark on Caleb and Carmen both to keep track of them.\n\n\nThe Monarch held out his hand as blasts of blood magic was released, Jake dancing in between them while the boss answered: “Perhaps, but just as the Will of the True Ancestor echoes true so many eras later, so does the will of Umbra, the Holy Tyrant or the Blightfather. While the mortals may have changed, perhaps even the Pantheons underwent a transformation… those ancient gods are still in command. Their power is unshakeable because their will is unchanging in principle. Their paths are set in stone, so to not blame someone for choices made in accordance with their path only shows your inexperience.”\n\n\nJake frowned as he dodged the final beam as Jake stopped up. “People do change, no matter how ancient. The gods you know of are now more than tens of times older or something like that. That should be plenty of time for at least minor character developments.”\n\n\n“Hah, truly words of naivety. It surprises me you know so little of how the world works. They became gods because they followed their paths. They remain the most powerful because they keep following their path. Their path is the deepest creed they follow, their very fundamental principle of life. Their meaning. If your dedication to your path was so weak that something such as time could change, they would have never become gods or stayed powerful, to begin with,” the Monarch explained.\n\n\n“Even if a basic principle does not change, so can many other things. There is nuance to everything,” Jake countered, more just to argue than anything else. He was out of his depth, and he knew it. He had never understood that entire paths thing entirely… he was just argumentative.\n\n\n“The Malefic Viper is a god that believes in freedom through power, that the pursuit of progression and improvement is the only true path of the multiverse. He is uncaring towards most, sees little value in nearly all mortal life, and views those who he deems unworthy as less than insects, not even worth acknowledging the existence of. He will stop at nothing to achieve his goals, and while he may show kindness towards those he has shown interest in, that kindness only extends to them and not anyone else he does not view as valuable. I would bet that even as his Chosen, the Malefic Viper has no interest or sympathy towards your family, friends, or anyone else. To him, they are insects that will become dust in the blink of an eye, forgotten by both of you. You say he is a friend… if that is so, the only reason is that he genuinely believes you will become a god, hence worthy of being seen as someone of value. Anyone that does not at least strive with all of their heart to attain immortality is but blips on the canvas of time. Beings that only exist to °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° be forgotten. That is the Patron you serve. You said a long time has passed… but you also know that every one of my words was as true then as they are now,” the Monarch said as he went on a lengthy speech.\n\n\nJake stood there, taking it all in… and he couldn’t really outright dispute anything. He didn’t know if what the vampire said was true or not, especially the second half… but the first half sure was spot-on. The Malefic Viper did seem to care little about mortal life, he viewed killing as natural, and he did treat Jake as equal to him in some ways, and Jake had no delusion to think that wasn’t in large part due to his bloodline and potential.\n\n\nBut this did make Jake think… what exactly was his path? What was something so fundamental to him it wouldn’t change? For the Viper, it was apparently all about getting stronger all the time or something like that, and while Jake was on board for that, that wasn’t really something he would call his path. In fact, just thinking about his path felt like a waste of time. Because while he did like having some conversation once a while… well…\n\n\nCaleb was far enough now.\n\n\nAnd another person had just arrived.\n\n\nThe old man’s hair whistled in the wind as he seemed to almost skate across the landscape. His stance was strong, and some faint energy from the slain clones still remained on his sword. Jake felt Sylphie was also not that far behind… but the Sword Saint was faster.\n\n\nWhat was even more surprising was that clearly, the old man had heard their talk. Either his perception was stronger than expected or… well, actually, the Monarch did kind of project his voice all-over. The Sword Saint addressed the vampire’s words as he stopped right beside Jake.\n\n\n“I cannot argue with your view of a path, but to make meaning so static shows a rigid mind. Freedom has many forms, and while I do not know this Viper myself, far less what impact of having walked a path for time immemorial can have, then I do know a bit of having walked through life with a single path from start to end. While the fundamental drive and motivation may not change… the person walking it can. His perspective may shift… and his dream be realized through achieving other goals than originally intended,” the old man said as he smiled.\n\n\nJake looked at the old man and vampire, who stared at each other. One, a vampire with age at least in the thousands, and on the other side, an old human who, even if he was the oldest on Earth, couldn’t be more than a hundred and some change.\n\n\nYet the Sword Saint gave off the aura of a wise old man far more so than the Monarch. Guess his looks as an old man ain’t all for show, Jake joked a bit with himself.\n\n\n“The goal is always immortality and godhood. It is power. That is the root of all progress. Protecting your clan or the survival of your race, trying to better the world or bring it to ruin, attempting to become known as a saint or a calamity… in the end, it all returns to power. Without power, nothing can be achieved. All else is merely a justification. Power is the ultimate goal, always. At least it is for gods or those who reach the truly high grades, for if you do not pursue power for power’s sake… what happens when you achieve your goal? When you do save your clan and ensure its safety? What if it dies out due to something you failed to stop? Does that mean you perish with them? Or do you wish to protect your race forever? An impossible path is a way to ruin just as much as a too unambitious one is. No, in the end, the only true path is the pure pursuit of power for power’s sake. In your mind, you may view this as false… but my words will only ring true to you when you fail your breakthrough and hit the wall that is your limit,” the Monarch argued with the Sword Saint.\n\n\n“Perhaps a path you do not view as worthy is merely one not properly explored. Power comes in many forms… do you merely quantify it as levels? Skill rarities? Is there no power in the growth of a group? In the prosperity in your family? In what you build and the legacy that is made to further empower the new generation after you? Perhaps this may not be the path to godhood for the individual… but it may make you a god in spirit when your child, grandchild, or many generations later achieve it, and you will be the one whose shoulder they stood on to reach there,” the old man said with a grandfatherly smile.\n\n\n“I myself have walked this path… for to me, death was merely a fact. In the end, we all die in body, but our souls can attain immortality through history. To become a name that would never be forgotten as long as humanity existed… was the closest to immortality a human could ever come. Some achieved this through good or bad, but all had an impact on the world. They were not remembered for their own power but for what they built, for what they shared, or what they destroyed. Some were monsters, some heroes… but in the end, is godhood not the same? A god has many faces, for, ultimately, they are people. A god that has not left an impact on the world to be remembered by is far less worthy of being viewed as immortalized than a mortal man who will be eternally remembered.”\n\n\nThe Monarch looked at the Sword Saint, as Jake also just listened. Through it, he kind of understood the old man’s philosophy.. or perhaps his path. At least somewhat.\n\n\n“Words of someone who will forever stay a pathetic mortal.”\n\n\n“Spoken by he who died as one.”\n\n\nThe Monarch’s smile instantly faded as Jake just smiled under his breath. That was a damn good burn. One the Monarch really didn’t appreciate.\n\n\n“I think it is time to stop wasting any more time.”\n\n\nWith those words, the wound left by Carmen healed nearly instantly. The vampire had clearly focused on getting himself fixed up during the conversation. Sylphie, Casper, and even Eron had also arrived during this time, with Caleb still a good ways away, towards the direction of the Mistless Plains to place Carmen somewhere safe.\n\n\nThe Monarch spread out his arms as the dark red celestial object hanging above began glowing more than before. The light descended towards the many towers spread throughout Yalsten as something was pulled to them. Soon enough, he felt a large blob of blood begin condensing far up in the sky, making Jake guess the Monarch had another trick up his sleeve.\n\n\nJake cracked his neck as the old man wryly smiled as he chuckled and readied his sword.\n\n\nWhile the Sword Saint may have won in the battle of words, it was now time to begin the battle of killing, Jake thought, instantly regretting what his own mind made up.\n\n\nAlright… that was bad, and I should feel bad… I suck at this…\n\n\nFor some reason, Jake was fairly certain being a wise old master filled with sage words wasn’t ever going to be part of his path."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 336 chapter - Treasure Hunt: Countermeasures\nTarget length: ~3000 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Sven and Jacob stood side by side as healers from both camps surrounded Carmen, who now lay unconscious to preserve her resources and heal faster. She had chosen to pass out, and Jacob had to admit that her perseverance was admirable.\n\n\n“So?” Sven asked as he stared at the two healers who inspected her.\n\n\n“The curse is embedded in her veins and throughout her body, both physically and spiritually. It isn’t harming her, but…”\n\n\n“She won’t be able to join anymore fighting?” Jacob asked pointedly.\n\n\n“Right,” the healer responded with a nod. The other one also concurred while adding. “Trying to heal it as an outsider might do more harm than good, and it looks like it will disappear in its own time within half a day or so.”\n\n\nJacob sighed. The Monarch of Blood had been a master of curses before his death, so for him to have such means was only to be expected. These kinds of curses were of an incredibly high level, and Earth simply didn’t have anyone who could deal with them yet. Moreover, Carmen was an ideal target after she used all her temporary boosting skills and was in a weakened state. All the curse effectively did was to extend that weakened state while amplifying it slightly.\n\n\n“Do you think they will win?” Sven asked Jacob, a worried look on his face. Jacob understood… Carmen was the most powerful person from their faction on the planet and top five overall on Earth. She was powerful, but so were others.\n\n\nBesides… he knew both he and the undead had more cards up their sleeves.\n\n\n“I do. Especially if they bring the Monarch back here,” Jacob answered – the magic circle they had hidden now finally ready to be fully activated. He had mentioned the circle to Caleb, and Jake’s brother had promised to pass it on or lead the Monarch back himself.\n\n\nLooking out over the Mistless Plains, it was just a slaughter of Vampiric Blood Elementals. A near-endless struggle that seemed to just keep going as the creatures reanimated again and again due to the Blood Moon hanging above. Luckily, they also got weaker every time.\n\n\nSven looked out over the area with him as he muttered. “If anyone can, it’s those two monsters.”\n\n\nJacob had to agree with that one.\n\n\nThe Sword Saint swept his blade across the ground as it cut upwards, making the Monarch block. An arrow flew right past the old man and hit the Monarch in the stomach, injecting poison and doing plenty of damage.\n\n\nBlood magic condensed around the vampire, but the old man responded as curtains of water surrounded him. Each of them reflected the imagines of the blood orbs, and before they had a chance to attack him, the old man cut all of the reflected images, also making the real orbs disperse.\n\n\nHe smiled as he lunged forward, but the Monarch was ready as his weapon suddenly transformed. The Sword Saint was forced to retreat as a long spear suddenly stabbed towards him. The Monarch waved his other hand as a blood-red crystal shield appeared, and he took up a more defensive position.\n\n\nJake, who stood behind the two fighting old geezers, and took aim once more as he fired. The vampire blocked with the shield, as he also kept the Sword Saint at bay with the spear.\n\n\nHe shifted things up… Jake thought. He wasn’t the most talented when it came to fighting, but he did know that spears tended to be good against swords due to the longer range, especially if one could make sure the other person never got close. If the Sword Saint managed to enter his range, he would have an advantage, but the Monarch didn’t let him do that.\n\n\nWell, normally, he wouldn’t, but that is where Jake came in.\n\n\nJake took a step as he appeared off to the side, and two more put him at a ninety-degree angle. He began running as he fired arrows, circling the Monarch who was dealing with the Sword Saint. The cocky vampire wanted to block his arrows with a shield? Well, that seemed hard to do from behind.\n\n\nSomething the Monarch clearly also noticed as he was hit with an arrow in the shoulder that held the spear. Another arrow came for the back of his head, but the Monarch summoned a helmet of crystal that was heavily nicked when hit and still made him rattled from the impact.\n\n\nAt the same time, the Sword Saint managed to close in and force the Monarch even more on the defensive. The spear transformed again into a sword as he blocked, but Jake also attacked him at the same time, making him take a few injuries here and there.\n\n\nIt seemed to be going well until suddenly the Monarch grinned. The Sword Saint cut down, and Jake fired an arrow, and both were surprised when they hit. The Monarch was struck in the back of the head with the arrow, the helmet pierced, and the sword nearly bisected the vampire from the shoulder to the groin.\n\n\nYet, just at that moment, Jake’s danger sense reacted. “GET BA-“\n\n\n*BOOM!*\n\n\nA shockwave rocked the terrain as an explosion sent the Sword Saint flying back and made Jake summon a barrier of arcane energy in front of him as he was also pushed away. However, the Sword Saint was hit the hardest, and the old man barely managed to stabilize himself as he landed, several wounds now covering his body. All of them pulsing with some odd energy.\n\n\nNow it was pertinent to mention why Eron, Sylphie, and Casper weren’t helping. Well, they were busy. Three new blood clones were now fighting them, but another figure had also suddenly appeared from above. A monstrosity of blood and magic, wriggling and evershifting flesh marred its form. It was an absolute monster.\n\n\n[Blood Abomination – lvl 160]\n\n\nIt was what had been resurrected by the Sanguine’s Blood Legacy item from the nine dead Counts of Blood and the thing that had dropped down from above earlier. It was another unexpected newcomer to mess up their plans and one the Monarch had clearly been waiting on during their whole speech and path discussion.\n\n\nSpeaking of the Monarch of Blood…\n\n\nWhen the Monarch had exploded earlier, he had simply switched places with and detonated a blood clone – him now standing right in front of Casper, who had been dealing with three clones.\n\n\nCasper reacted fast but was still taken by surprise as the blade dug into his body. He gritted his teeth as the curse-energy revolved around him, but the Monarch just smiled as he held out his hand and sent out a faint pulse that dispelled whatever Casper was trying to do.\n\n\nJust before the Monarch managed to land another hit, his body froze as an arrow arrived. While the Monarch’s disappearance was a surprise for sure, it hadn’t fooled his Mark and allowed Jake to adapt instantly.\n\n\nHowever, this entire interruption had let the clones run wild. The only positive thing was the obvious lack of intelligence in the Blood Abomination, allowing Eron to handle it alone for now. Perhaps the Monarch had some control over it, but clearly, he couldn’t spare the mental focus to do so even if it was possible… until he could, as suddenly the Abomination charged for Jake.\n\n\nWith Carmen out of the picture and Caleb still returning, they were rather short-staffed. Sylphie was helping out Eron to keep the damn Abomination busy too before. To call the entire situation frustrating was an understatement, as the Monarch clearly didn’t want to just fight Jake… he wanted to kill a select few people - Casper and Caleb clearly among them.\n\n\nJake supported Casper as much as he could, but soon the blood clones who were fighting his undead pal before came for him along with the Abomination that luckily Sylphie and Eron held back for now. All of the clones were just getting in the way of his arrows after the first one, giving the hulking monstrosity time to arrive. This seriously isn’t good.\n\n\nThe Monarch had wanted to isolate Casper… and he was doing a pretty good job at it. Repeated blasts sent the undead flying further and further away, as Jake could only try and kill the blood clones as fast as possible.\n\n\nLuckily, he was soon joined by the Sword Saint, who was back on his feet and engaged the clones. He threw Jake a glance, and with a nod, ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) the Saint engaged the Abomination as Jake fought the clones before he took off to follow the Monarch and Casper. All he could do for now was hope Casper could hold on until he arrived.\n\n\nCasper concurred… this situation wasn’t good. His curse magic was repeatedly dispelled, the Monarch having hidden that ability. He repeatedly summoned his pre-prepared wooden shields, but seeing them breaking one by one made it clear he couldn’t hold on for long.\n\n\nUltimately, Casper was not a fighter but a trapper. He created pre-prepared tools and traps to battle his foes and take them down, but to do that, it required research. Casper had used these ten days primarily to do the Vaults and spent all time in between preparing for this exact fight.\n\n\nSeveral modified Stakes, weapons created from the research of the Pure Ones, traps, devices, shields made specifically to battle the blood energy of vampires… all of it ultimately faltered before superior power. Without Lyra lending him her power, he would have been downed already.\n\n\n“We need to use it,” Lyra stated in his head. Casper groaned as he blocked, sending him flying even further away from everyone.\n\n\n“If we-“ Casper tried to argue but was interrupted both by Lyra and a beam of blood that penetrated his chest and sent him tumbling even further back. A follow-up beam nearly severed his arm as he registered Lyra’s voice.\n\n\n“NOW!”\n\n\nCasper was blasted back one more time and only had time to react because Jake fired an arrow at the Monarch from far off in the distance, forcing the vampire to redirect his attention momentarily. Focusing his energy, Casper activated a seal as his locket began glowing.\n\n\n“Blightform.”\n\n\nHis flesh began melting as the white bones were revealed beneath, and at the same time, Lyra came out of the locket as her body superimposed upon his. Power surged through Casper as he felt himself transform. This was their ultimate weapon and their most potent temporary boosting skill.\n\n\nSoon, all of the flesh on his body was gone, and Casper had transformed into a lich-like creature with ghastly eyes and the blight energy revolving around him as his entire body glowed. The Monarch looked his way as Casper held out his hand and released a beam of pure blight energy.\n\n\nThe Monarch turned to mist to avoid it as Casper prepared another attack with the intent to-\n\n\n“Ah, blight,” the vampire suddenly said with a huge smile as he appeared off to the side. “A potent affinity that is difficult to grasp even to me… much less you... one used to kill countless vampires.”\n\n\nThe Monarch made four clones all around him as they spread out in a circle. Casper tried to release another blast to get them away, but he found an odd barrier covering each of them.\n\n\n“Is it not only to be expected we made countermeasures?”\n\n\nAll of the clones exploded at once as a giant spherical magic circle was created all around him. Casper’s eyes opened wide as he tried to release an attack but found his blight magic completely ineffective. Soon after, his vision began blurring as the magic circle truly powered up until he was entirely blinded.\n\n\n“Casper… what’s happening? I can’t see anything…”\n\n\nCasper was truly panicking now. He still felt his body, but nothing else. Blightform made him rely entirely on magical senses as he lost all the usual biological ones, but now it didn’t work. Instead, he felt the burning blight on his body suddenly dim as he weakened.\n\n\nHe needed to escape. He tried moving to the side, but he didn’t know if it worked. He couldn’t feel anything. There was no way of knowing if he had moved or just stayed where he was. There was no way to know anything besides his own dimming strength as the blight energy began burning out.\n\n\nBlightform was supposed to be their ultimate attack. A skill that allowed him and Lyra to perfectly fuse and temporarily grant Casper powers far above usual and even allowed him to use the blight-affinity far more liberally than the few skills he was experimenting with.\n\n\nYet all this form had done was to make him fall into a trap. The undead had hunted down the vampires in a pro-longed war… perhaps it was foolish to think they had not made up ways to fight it - barriers and spells explicitly made to counter their magic.\n\n\n“I’m sorry, Lyra… I didn’t see this coming,” Casper told her through their connection. She was no longer able to respond as she was weakened at an even faster pace than he. He innately felt that she couldn’t hold on for much longer, and with her demise, so would he most likely die. Perhaps he would have a faint chance of surviving… but that wasn’t a life he would want to live.\n\n\nOnly a bit more time passed before Casper cursed loudly to himself before he activated his Hunter Insignia and left the Treasure Hunt. His only recompense was that at least the treasures he had acquired were brought back to Earth safely. He, along with most others, had given their treasures to someone else from their faction before this final battle began to have it be teleported out during the grace period, as they all knew it was a risk to stay.\n\n\nHe had just never expected to be forced to leave like this.\n\n\nAn arcane explosion consumed the terrain as the Monarch was pushed back. He summoned orbs of blood to impede Jake, but he merely stepped down twice as he appeared off to the side with the first and right behind the Monarch with the second.\n\n\nHis entire body burned with stamina as he pushed himself even harder than before, his eyes filled with anger and annoyance. The vampire reacted to Jake’s attack as he summoned a barrier, but Jake’s scimitar descended surrounded by dark and arcane mana as he stabbed through it and into the Monarch.\n\n\nThat is when he felt his Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter he had left on Casper disappear. Momentarily Jake was afraid that his old office pal had died, but he quickly noticed that wasn’t it. Instead, he had just teleported out… which in itself was also enough to piss him off.\n\n\nThe Monarch had managed to get some distance as the damn Abomination and blood clones had impeded him when he tried to help Casper, allowing the vampire to cast his magic. Jake had only just reached the Monarch again when Casper was encapsulated by the sphere, and the moment he was, the entire sphere disappeared – teleported back to where he had fucking teleported away with Carmen last time. In other words, it was a way too long distance away that Jake had no way of reaching.\n\n\nIf he did so, then Sylphie, the Sword Saint, and the recently returned Caleb would be screwed. The entire situation was so fucking frustrating as Jake felt like the Monarch actively tried to avoid fighting him as the vampire instead picked off the others.\n\n\n“Just fucking fight me,” Jake growled as he pushed his blade into the chest of the vampire.\n\n\nThe Monarch looked up at him as he smiled. “That wouldn’t be in my best interest. I have a mission, same as you.”\n\n\nAn explosion of blood meant to send Jake flying back came out of the Monarch. Jake, however, was done. Scales of the Malefic Viper covered his body as the blood energy washed over him, and instead of blowing him off, he just leaned in closer.\n\n\n“It wasn’t a request,” Jake said as he infused even more mana into his presence as mana bolts condensed all around him and the Monarch.\n\n\n“Truly the Chosen of the Malefic One,” the Monarch answered with an impressed tone. “I admit, I legitimately have no confidence in defeating you. But-”\n\n\nThe vampire suddenly ripped himself free, allowing Jake’s scimitar to rip through his flesh. Quickly, Jake released his stable arcane bolts as they flew forward, penetrating the body of the Monarch. The vampire took the blows, and his body began glowing red as he sped away far more swiftly than Jake expected.\n\n\n“-you cannot contain me either.”\n\n\nJake cursed under his breath as he chased after the vampire who had changed his target yet again, this time going for Caleb, who was helping the others deal with the Abomination. After the Monarch had given the monster new instructions, it no longer bothered only fighting Eron and Sylphie but had forced the Sword Saint to join in and fight it, with Caleb also coming. Primarily he had done so due to how Jake was dealing with the Monarch quite well at the time.\n\n\nCaleb, to his credit, noticed he was the next target and reacted instantly.\n\n\n“Ascension of Tenlucis.”\n\n\nFor a moment, the red sky darkened as lightning stuck down, and an all-encompassing pressure covered the area – perhaps the entirety of Yalsten – for a brief moment before all returned to normal.\n\n\nThe only target of the lightning strike was Caleb himself as his form emerged shrouded in it. Yet, he did not engage the Monarch directly but began flying back in the direction towards the Mistless Plains. Jake followed close behind while the others stayed to finish off the Abomination.\n\n\nI fucking hate team battles."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 337 chapter - Treasure Hunt: Holy Blade\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jacob opened his eyes as he exited his brief meditation. He felt the currents of fate, and he knew that the Monarch of Blood was coming towards the plains. Of course, detecting anything was hard with all of the people present in the Treasure Hunt, but he at least could read something that simple.\n\n\nHe used a skill to swiftly contact Bertram and his team, telling them to retreat from fighting the Vampiric Blood Elementals while also tossing a quick message to the undead through tokens they had exchanged. The parties out fighting had a rotation of sorts in place for people to retreat and regenerate, and with Sven and the people from Valhal recently rejoining the battle, Bertram and the others had more space.\n\n\nIt didn’t take long for Bertram to make it back, joined by the healer of his party. The swordsman, Maria the archer, and their caster had stayed behind to finish off some more elementals before returning themselves. But that was fine, for Jacob only really needed Bertram.\n\n\n“They are returning?” Bertram asked, some concern in his voice.\n\n\n“Yes, they are. It is time to use the Holy Sword,” Jacob stated. His guardian gravely nodded as he knew what it meant. They went over to the ritual grounds as Jacob saw the people who stood around ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) the ritual circle.\n\n\n“My friends, our time has come,” the Augur said as he went into the middle of the ritual and, out of his spatial storage, took a weapon. It was a gilded sword that seemed to be made of pure gold. He didn’t hesitate to stab it into the ground at the center of the circle as holy energy breathed to life. He hurried out of the circle as he motioned for the ritualists to begin the infusion.\n\n\nThere were fourteen people in total. All of them had barely reached D-grade and, under normal circumstances, would have little reason to remain when they were given a chance to leave the Hunt. They were individuals who had only just reached D-grade through a final push of resources, and many of them would likely never even reach mid-tier of D-grade.\n\n\nSo… this was for the best.\n\n\nThe ritual began as they all kneeled, and Jacob closed his eyes as he summoned his lantern and held it out.\n\n\n“Thank you.”\n\n\nOne by one, the fourteen ritualists collapsed as the holy energy in the ritual circle intensified. Bertram stood solemnly beside him, Jacob knowing the man disapproved. However, Jacob stayed determined that this was for the best.\n\n\nWisps of light came from each of the bodies as they entered his lantern – at least their souls saved to be given entrance to the Holy Realm where their lives would continue in some form. It was the least they could do for those who sacrificed their lives for the Holy Church.\n\n\nWhen the final ritualist lay dead on the ground, the ritual circle collapsed in-upon itself as the sword was fully infused and ready. Jacob Identified it as he sighed, glad that at least it was a significant success.\n\n\n[Holy Sword (Ancient)] – A blade infused with intense holy energy, forged by a talented blacksmith with unquestionable faith in the Holy Church. The sword has been further elevated through a sacrifice of faithful believers to infuse the blade with further power and Records. Using the blade will grant the user incredible holy power for a limited time at the cost of their own life. Due to the intense holy energy in the blade, it can only be used once. Enchantments: Holy Ascension.\n\n\nRequirements: Soulbound\n\n\n“I don’t like this,” Bertram said, vocalizing his distaste of what they were doing. Jacob understood. It seemed unsightly from the moral perspective of the pre-system world. But… things had changed. Life had less value than before, and sometimes the best destiny was to at least die for the greater good of others.\n\n\n“Do not speak ill words of those privileged to ascend before others,” Noor, the priestess and healer of Bertram’s party said.\n\n\n“It is fine,” Jacob soothed her, continuing. “The choice was ultimately theirs, the same as the choice is yours if you want to wield the blade or not.”\n\n\n“Not much of a choice when I am the only one who can be resurrected,” Bertram countered but walked forward nevertheless till he stood before the Holy Sword, ready to claim it.\n\n\nJacob conceded that one, as Bertram truly was the only one who could use it, outside of maybe the swordsman Lucian. However, Bertram would undoubtedly be the best, as his toughness allowed him to wield the Holy Sword longer than anyone else.\n\n\nTruly, for anyone else to wield it would be a waste and potentially make the sacrifices of all those involved in its creation in vain.\n\n\nNow, Jacob had considered many times if this was even worth it, much less required to defeat the Monarch of Blood.\n\n\nTo answer the question, if it was required, then the answer would likely be no. Jake, the Sword Saint, and all of the others could likely defeat the vampire without the Holy Church even doing anything. However, ultimately this didn’t matter due to the answer to the second question.\n\n\nWas it worth it? Most definitely.\n\n\nThere were few chances to so directly contribute to the community more than in an event like this in the multiverse. Jacob was fully aware that a single talented person being uplifted was worth more than ten ordinary people getting benefits. In this way, their deaths would directly contribute to Bertram gaining a higher level of contribution against the Monarch of Blood, netting him a better reward, and through that, ultimately making the Holy Church on Earth even stronger as a whole.\n\n\nReality was simply cruel like that. Jacob – or Bertram, for that matter – didn’t have to like it, but they did have to adapt to it. A fact that at least Bertram accepted. It did help that the Holy Church had ways to still keep people alive in some form by allowing them to pass on to the Holy Realm.\n\n\nHis thought process was interrupted as he saw the dark sky in the distance and the approaching aura of the Judge, AKA Jake’s brother. Swiftly, he took out a small token and sent a message to the undead faction, communicating for them to be ready as he tossed Bertram a look.\n\n\n“The time has arrived.”\n\n\nA high perception stat was great. Jake loved being able to see far away usually, but sometimes it just led to more frustration.\n\n\nHe was flying and using One Step Mile as he chased Caleb and the Monarch, who were both flying at incredible speeds back towards the Mistless Plains. The Monarch was slightly faster and intermittently clashed with his brother, but luckily Caleb could handle himself in his current boosted form.\n\n\nIt also helped that whenever the Monarch did manage to touch Caleb, his claws just seemed to phase through the dark lightning mage, not truly injuring him. Jake was aware this situation was only momentary, and after only a few minutes, Caleb was beginning to get a little bit slower, showing his boosting skill was beginning to weaken.\n\n\nThis did allow Jake to get slightly closer and even fire off a quickly-charged Arcane Powershot here and there. His eyes were also hurting from using Gaze of the Apex Hunter, every use of it allowing either one of his arrows to hit or for Caleb to smash the Monarch back a bit with his staff.\n\n\nLuckily, they soon got close to the Mistless Plains. The Monarch did try to summon a clone or two and send them after Jake, but he just ignored them as he flew past or used One Step Mile, showing that the Monarch wasn’t the only one who could act like a little bi…\n\n\nAnyway, when they got close, Jake saw the fighting in the distance between the humans and the Vampiric Blood Elementals. He saw far fewer on both sides, making it clear a lot of humans had either died or been forced to leave due to the prolonged battle.\n\n\nHe also noticed that some Ekilmares had joined in on the fun at some point but had been swiftly slain. No doubt they had still contributed to the chaos of it all. Honestly, this entire final phase of the Treasure Hunt had just been a fucking mess, and Jake would have preferred if he could just have fought the Monarch alone. But, sadly, things hadn’t worked out like that.\n\n\nJake kept following and firing potshots and saw that Caleb had slightly changed his direction with a clear target in mind. Frowning, Jake wondered what the plan was… an answer that came just a moment later.\n\n\nA large figure of pure ghastly light raised itself towards the sky right behind Caleb as he flew by, separating him and the vampire, surprising both Jake and the Monarch. Countless chains suddenly shot out of the hooded phantasmal figure, with the Monarch trying to turn to mist and get away, but at that moment, Jake felt like something had changed in the environment. His one One Step Mile failed, and so did the vampire’s escape as the chains connected to his body and pierced into his body.\n\n\nThey didn’t appear to actually interact with his flesh but simply phased through it and held him in place. The Monarch tried to release a blast of energy, but it failed. Before he could do anything more, a pillar of light shot up, this one of pure, holy light.\n\n\nJake felt a familiar aura from the light, and a moment later, it subsided and merged with a person who flew upwards. Glowing wings of holy light were on his back as his entire body was covered in similarly golden heavy armor. In his hand, the person wielded a shining blade that made Jake’s danger sense react as he became clear that the weapon wasn’t simple at all.\n\n\nBertram was behind the armor and wielded the blade as he attacked. The Monarch reacted with clear concern at the approaching figure. Armor of red crystals covered him, and he also summoned a multi-layered barrier as quickly as he could.\n\n\nHowever, it all quickly proved in vain. The holy blade tore through the barriers and impacted the vampire’s armor, sending large parts flying off together with blood and gore. The first slash broke the armor on his chest, the second cut off a blocking forearm, and the third one tore through the shoulder and down to just where the heart was supposed to be.\n\n\nEvery attack released shockwaves of light and burning holy power that ravaged the terrain around Bertram and the Monarch, and even the ground below looked scorched. Every attack was more powerful than Jake’s fully charged Arcane Powershots. Jake didn’t idle during this time but split his attention. Trying to attack would prove meaningless, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t prepare as he held out his hand and began channeling Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter, never taking his eyes off the two fighting figures.\n\n\nNot even five seconds had passed since Jake became aware of Bertram before he noticed something that didn’t seem right. The armor on Bertram was already beginning to fade, and when it did so, Jake saw the glowing veins spreading all over his face as the skin around it flayed.\n\n\nHe is overloading his body…\n\n\nIt was like when Jake pushed Limit Break far further than ever intended during the fight with the King of the Forest, except with even more potent energy. The holy energy clearly came from the sword, and Jake was absolutely clear that whatever was happening couldn’t be stopped. Whoever chose to use that weapon would die doing so.\n\n\nBertram didn’t seem to let it bother him as he kept attacking, likely due to the bullshit powers of Jacob allowing him to resurrect him. A bullshit combo, actually. The Monarch was lined with golden cuts, his entire body filled with holy energy. For the first time, Jake saw the Monarch truly be stressed and filled with anger as he visibly barred his sharp teeth and appeared to almost hiss at the golden warrior.\n\n\nBlood energy exploded out as his hair was raised, and his eyes began glowing an even deeper color than before. The forearm and hand that had been cut off regenerated as the vampire attacked back, tearing off a large part of Bertram’s armor. Bertram countered by cutting a leg off the vampire, with the Monarch going for even more. The Monarch released a massive beam of energy that cut Bertram apart at the stomach – his legs falling to the ground below, not even able to hit it before the holy energy turned them to nothing.\n\n\nThe man seemed entirely careless as he raised the holy sword above his head. The Monarch attacked again and stabbed a large spear through Bertram’s chest just before the already-dying man released the final attack.\n\n\n“Judgement's Fall.”\n\n\nFor but a moment, it felt like the entire Treasure Hunt was enveloped in light, as the faint mirage of a six-winged angel appeared behind Bertram. The blade extended as it grew, and the man cut down. Jake didn’t see exactly what happened next as everything flashed, and an explosion of holy light pushed him and everyone else back.\n\n\nIt was like a new sun had appeared, and without his high perception, Jake would have been blinded. The aura of Bertram disappeared with the appearance of the explosion as his body was unable to handle the power he had just deployed.\n\n\nBut…\n\n\nLight subsided as the sky returned to normal, and in the air, the spectral chains from the undead, as well as all traces of Bertram, were gone. All that remained was a tattered robe with what looked like wriggling flesh within.\n\n\nFor a moment, Jake wondered if the Holy Church had actually managed to do it, but his senses told him otherwise. His intuition once more proved correct as the vampire’s form was revealed beneath the robe. He lived but was far from fine.\n\n\nA long golden scar now went him the top of his head and down to his one thigh, crossing over the already present mark left by Carmen’s fist. His entire body was a mess, and he was even weaker than before. Both legs were gone, only one arm remaining that just dangled uselessly. It was the perfect time to strike.\n\n\n“Thunderfall of Tenlucis.”\n\n\nAt that very moment, a figure dropped from far above. The Monarch barely had time to look up as Caleb descended and passed right through him like a living thunderbolt. A shockwave of dark electricity was released as Jake once more found himself slightly pushed back.\n\n\nHowever, he didn’t miss the opportunity as he raised his bow and channeled Arcane Powershot while flying back. Then, before the blast from Caleb’s blow had even subsided, he released his own attack as the Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter was released.\n\n\nIt flew true as the Monarch once more failed to respond, and the arrow sunk into his body, sending him tumbling back. Jake had nearly expected a notification from that… but the vampire still lived. He quickly followed up as he activated his Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter charge, making the vampire flash up one more time.\n\n\nNo mercy was shown by anyone else as attacks began arriving from all over the plains. Sultan fired from his ship, arrows, bolts, beams, and all manners of ranged attacks bombarded the already battered form of the Monarch. Although individually, most of these were too weak to truly do anything, combined, they still had to add up. Under usual circumstances, the Monarch would have dodged them easily, but he was in no condition to currently.\n\n\nJake nocked an arrow to keep attacking but stopped at the final moment. On the tip of his arrow, he saw a reflection of the moon above. He looked up in shock and saw the moon looked different.\n\n\nAn eye stared down upon Yalsten from above.\n\n\nThe eye of the Monarch.\n\n\nJake stared back as the red glow of the eye intensified, and the voice of the Monarch of Blood echoed all around him.\n\n\n“Color of Night.”\n\n\nAnd the world turned the palette of blood:\n\n\nSanguine."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 338 chapter - Treasure Hunt: A Final Fight\nTarget length: ~2800 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "”Iskar, I pass on the responsibility to you,” the leader of Yalsten said as the vampire handed him the necklace in his cupped hands. “Know that even if Yalsten is to fall, the Legacy cannot enter the hands of the Church or the undead. No matter what.”\n\n\nIskar nodded as he accepted it. He stared at the beautiful item with the Legacy Blood of the True Ancestor within. An item more valuable than his entire world and the lives of all of them combined. Iskar closed his eyes in reverence, storing the Legacy as he prepared to send it somewhere safe. Even back then, he felt its influence on him, but he accepted it. No, he welcomed it.\n\n\nThe leader never returned after that, slain by the Holy Church in battle. All of the other Kings fell one by one, too, leaving only Iskar left as he /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ desperately tried to save his world. They starved. The Bloodless Night left them all starving as they were now forced to feed to survive. He tried to fix it… but the ritual failed. In the end, he was forced to seal off his own world and kill his own kin to keep them hidden.\n\n\nAll to protect the necklace.\n\n\nHe was brought back to the present, the memories flashing through his mind. Reminding him of why he was there.\n\n\nIskar, the Monarch of Blood, stood in what had once been Yalsten, a massive world filled with billions of proud and powerful vampires, now crumbling to nothingness all around him. He stared up at the bloody moon. He felt his own weak body breaking like the world around him. Iskar wasn’t sure if there was much sense in struggling… but he had a task. A final mission entrusted to him by the True Ancestor. Or was it simply the system that made him think so?\n\n\nHe didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. The Monarch smiled as pain ravaged his body, and he spoke. Not a single trace of regret in his mind.\n\n\n“Color of Night.”\n\n\nJake had felt it before. For a brief moment, an aura dominated the entire Treasure Hunt, one so powerful none of them could resist. Below, the Earthlings fell to their knees against their will, the pressure not allowing them to fight back in any way.\n\n\nHe saw Jacob fall down, all of the members of the Noboru clan, the surviving fighters. Only two humans stood standing from the pressure – the Thayne brothers. Jake felt the aura was similar because he had felt it many times before.\n\n\nIt was the aura of a god.\n\n\nYet as soon as it appeared, it was gone again. But the echoes of what had been remained. Also, while the aura had disappeared… the true effect of the skill had not. A dark red color hung over everything as they bathed in the sanguine light of the moon.\n\n\nThen, Jake felt something was off. His scales absorbed mana, despite him not feeling like anything attacked him. He wondered what was happening until he heard screams from below. Looking down, he saw several of the weaker people in the larger camps fall to the ground as blood seeped out of their skin.\n\n\nWithin a few seconds, it multiplied as the humans began bleeding from every orifice and even out of their skin, sending tens of thousands of tiny droplets flow upwards. Even the undead began letting out black blood.\n\n\nIt wasn’t only the humans and Risen who were affected. The remaining Vampiric Blood Elementals also began dissolving as they floated upwards, all of them heading partly towards the moon and another part towards the Monarch of Blood.\n\n\nAs if hundreds of rivers of blood formed, it all funneled into him and the moon. Humans below began making barriers, and the Holy Church activated some magic to try and defend themselves, but it was far from enough.\n\n\nIn less than a minute, hundreds of D-grade humans died or fled the Treasure Hunt – more than 80% of those who remained. Jake looked down and saw Neil and his party together with Sultan, and he hurried over to them as he saw Silas struggle.\n\n\nHe had a strong feeling attacking the Monarch or the moon would be completely useless right now, so he chose to help those from Haven instead. Jake touched down as he spread out his hands and infused a bit of mana into his presence as he erected an arcane barrier in the area. It was a bubble more than ten meters across, and in not that long, it was entirely filled with people who took refuge under it – courtesy of Neil teleporting them in to save them.\n\n\nCaleb had flown down to the rest of the Court and protected them, but soon enough, Neil also teleported them over. Reika also activated a powerful barrier as she defended herself and others. People everywhere around the Mistless Plains did what they could to survive, but the death toll was still high.\n\n\nJake sent a message to Sylphie and got confirmation that she and everyone else at the Abomination were fine. The Abomination had apparently gone into some berserker rage as the red light hit it, and the Sword Saint, she and Eron, were handling it. Honestly, it was expected as all of them were powerful enough to fight the magic currently deployed by the Blood Moon. Especially Sylphie and her overpowered Green Shield thing.\n\n\nSeconds passed by as the Treasure Hunters on Earth simply tried to survive. On the other hand, the Monarch was having the blood channeled into him as his broken body began regenerating at a rapid pace. If Jake’s guess was correct, then the moon absorbed the blood to keep the spell going, and with the supply cut off, it would be forced to end in not that long.\n\n\nThe only problem with this was the many blood elementals still being absorbed even after all the affected humans were either protected, dead, or teleported out. A few humans here and there still failed to keep up their defenses and found themselves exposed, but it was few and far between, and they often just teleported out right away using the Hunter Insignia.\n\n\nJake just looked on as he maintained the barrier. He didn’t need it himself, but he was fine keeping others safe. Could he have perhaps interrupted the regeneration or something like that? Potentially… but he didn’t want to. He wanted to see what this final skill or ritual or whatever it was called was all about.\n\n\nFinally, after the entire thing had been going on for over five minutes, the Blood Moon began dimming slightly, and the constant funnel of blood from the elemental finished as there was nothing more to feast on. The forces of Earth were in shambles, and just when Jake thought it was over, the eye on the Blood Moon opened as wide as it could and the iris became a narrow slit.\n\n\nA new kind of pressure appeared, pressing down on everyone within Yalsten. A mix of magic and the same god-like presence before.\n\n\nJake dispelled his arcane barrier, and those around him looked sluggish and barely able to move, many even falling to their knees once again. He exchanged a glance with Caleb, who stood beside him, his brother breathing heavily as his boosting skill had long expired.\n\n\n“I’m spent,” he said with a smile.\n\n\nNodding, Jake stepped forward and summoned his wings. The pressure didn’t affect him, and even if it could, his scales would have kept it out. He felt the blood magic inherent in the pressure and how it was almost physical. It was almost as if people’s own blood made everyone heavier, making only a handful of humans able to move. Even Jacob was completely downed.\n\n\nJake jumped and flew upwards. He stopped in the air not far from the Monarch. The vampire stared up at the Blood Moon and didn’t even look his way as he spoke to Jake.\n\n\n“I made a lot of mistakes, you know?” he said, and for the first time, his voice was not infused with willpower. Instead, he just spoke normally, and his voice sounded far less imposing than before.\n\n\nHe finally turned to Jake, continuing. “Some parts of me think that the True Ancestor knew a day like this would come. Everything I have done, I did to fulfill the mission I had been given. It took far longer than anyone could expect back then… but I believe that today I will finally complete that mission.”\n\n\nAt the same time, Jake got the message that the Sword Saint was coming back towards the Mistless Plains together with Sylphie. The Abomination had collapsed along with Eron the moment the pressure appeared, with only Sylphie and the old man able to keep moving.\n\n\nIt was odd. Jake was completely unaffected, and below he saw Carmen sitting up unbothered with a sweat-covered Sven right beside her, unable to do anything. Reika also managed to stay upright, but everyone around her couldn’t. It wasn’t a scale of suppression… it was either-or. Jake felt absolutely nothing.\n\n\n“What is this pressure?” Jake asked the Monarch, genuinely curious.\n\n\nThe Monarch smiled as he gladly explained. “Judgement. Only those deemed worthy can stand and are allowed to keep participating.”\n\n\nJake looked up at the moon. “A test of some sort related to the Legacy of Sanguine?”\n\n\n“Exactly,” the vampire confirmed. The two of them stood there a bit longer, just staring up the moon, neither in a rush to begin what would no doubt be the final battle.\n\n\n“All those unaffected are worthy, and I must say I am surprised there are so many. You being worthy is obviously no surprise, but for three more to be too? Truly a surprise. Ah, with two more coming, it seems.”\n\n\nJake had obviously already felt them. The Sword Saint and Sylphie reached his side not long after, the Monarch not making any moves. He looked wholly healed, with not a single wound left from their fight… but Jake felt he was weaker. Everything had taken a toll. Jake and the Sword Saint weren’t at full power either, but they weren’t that weakened, just a bit tired and potentially low on resources. However…\n\n\n“Sylphie,” Jake said to the bird.\n\n\nShe looked at him and understood. At this point, she was only posturing, and Jake knew she was barely running on fumes. Sure, she had a few good attacks left in her, but he would rather not risk it. Sylphie, a bit reluctantly, jumped off his shoulder as she flew down to where Carmen was. Caleb had also joined her, as pretty much all the surviving humans had sought to the same area. None of them could fight, and even those who could stand knew they couldn’t truly interfere.\n\n\nJake saw the Sword Saint throw a glance down to Reika. Jake agreed. While she was strong, this wasn’t a fight she could join.\n\n\nThe Monarch approved of their decision as he summoned his blade and took a defensive position. “Come. Let us finish this.”\n\n\nBoth humans took a step at that moment. One of them flew forward, his sword brandished and ready, with the other drawing a bow as he teleported backward and nocked an arrow. Jake took aim and fired, the Monarch ready as blood magic condensed in front of him to block it, as he also moved his blade.\n\n\nThe Sword Saint and vampire exchanged several blows, seemingly even. Jake broke the balance as his arrows flew in, hitting the Monarch or forcing him to divert his attention and block. Black curse magic began revolving around the Monarch as he summoned the otherwise mostly unfused school of magic.\n\n\nBlack tendrils spread all around him, aiming to infect both Jake and the Sword Saint. The old man spun his blade as planes of water appeared and functioned like shields. When the tendrils touched the water, they simply sunk into it like the thickness of the water was far more than it was.\n\n\nJake, on the other hand, just teleported away from them, and those he didn’t view as worth dodging, he tanked with Scales of the Malefic Viper. He had feared for a moment the scales wouldn’t block curses, but that didn’t appear to be a problem with the legendary version.\n\n\nBlood clones then appeared, followed by a lot of the other usual tricks. Some of them flew for Jake while some stayed at the Sword Saint. Shooting them down one by one, Jake also assisted the old man as he bombarded the clones around him.\n\n\nTheir teamwork didn’t rely on them knowing how to work together but on trusting the strength of the other one. Jake felt like he understood the Sword Saint well enough despite them having interacted so little. Because even if the old man talked about responsibility and how he did everything for his clan… Jake knew.\n\n\nThe old man enjoyed it. Perhaps not as much as Jake, but the Sword Saint just loved fighting.\n\n\nThat gleam in his eye whenever he clashed with the Monarch, the faint smile that he failed to suppress when the vampire managed to block his blow and counterattack… it was unmistakable. He could swear up and down how everything was for others, but Jake would call bullshit on that any day of the week. The old geezer was a battle junkie, pure and simple.\n\n\nJake also grinned as the two clones made it to him, both wielding their weapons. Jake’s danger sense activated as one of the clones exploded, while the other one dove through the explosion to attack Jake. In the distance, another clone exploded too. This time it included a teleport as the Monarch appeared right in front of Jake, his blade gone and claws at the ready.\n\n\nBack at the Sword Saint, the old man had been ready and, unlike last time, managed to cover his body in a faint layer of water, taking the brunt of the impact. Another clone came for him, making him unable to keep up his assault on the true Monarch right away.\n\n\nNot that Jake needed it. The claw of the Monarch tried to pierce Jake’s chest, but he blocked it with his scimitar as he quickly deposited his bow. With the other hand, the Monarch grasped Jake by the shoulder, with Jake also grasping the vampire in kind.\n\n\nLeaning in, the Monarch tried to bite Jake, and he blocked as he raised his arm, allowing the vampire to bite down on it. Jake, without thinking, did the same as bit into the arm holding him. He felt pure vital energy be drained out of him along with his blood, but he swiftly responded as he channeled mana into Blood of the Malefic Viper.\n\n\nAt the same time, he pumped in venom with his own canines, courtesy of Fangs of the Malefic Viper. Jake had to admit, at that very moment, it would be hard to say who was the vampire and who was the human. However, one thing was clear… the Monarch was the first one to stop. Not because Jake was winning out, but because an old man with a sword tried to cut off his head from behind.\n\n\nJake tried to keep him still, even using Gaze of the Apex Hunter, but the Monarch still managed to wrest himself free through a combination of pure physical power and blood magic. Jake was sent tumbling back as the Monarch barely managed to duck as a sword flew overhead, cutting a bit of his hair off.\n\n\nUsing the given space, Jake reequipped his bow and continued his ranged assault. The Sword Saint was now pushing the Monarch again as their melee brawl continued. Jake and the old man exchanged a quick glance, as it was clear they were both enjoying themselves, and amazingly enough, even the losing Monarch didn’t seem the least bothered.\n\n\nBelow, everyone just stared on as the two most powerful people on Earth battled the Monarch with a clear advantage. Jake was tired, so was the Sword Saint, but the Monarch was far from healthy either. The humans had spent a long-ass time with boosting skills active, and the Monarch had taken enough blows to kill someone like Jake tens of times over.\n\n\nIn the end, the three monsters battled as Yalsten crumbled around them, all of them having the times of their lives.\n\n\nTwenty minutes after the final phase began, deciding the winning side couldn’t be more straightforward as Jake and the Sword Saint truly proved themselves the two most powerful humans on Earth."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 339 chapter - Treasure Hunt: Vanity & Patience\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The Monarch stumbled back, four arrows in his chest and a newly made deep cut that nearly severed one of his arms. He reacted by pulling the arrows out and tossing his sword to the other hand as he barely managed to block a blow from the Sword Saint.\n\n\nHis movements were slower, and he didn’t heal as fast anymore. Every action looked draining, and Jake felt how tired the vampire was. However, that didn’t mean he stopped as he and the Sword Saint kept pushing the Monarch repeatedly, making the wounds accumulate.\n\n\nEverything had been pulled out at this point, and the Monarch was clearly out of tricks. At least it seemed so. Jake and the Sword Saint also weren’t at their full either, far from it, but they had already won several minutes ago. All three of them knew it.\n\n\nAn understanding had been reached, and the Monarch got the final fight he had wanted.\n\n\nA final clash sent them flying away from each other, and the Monarch stopped in mid-air. His stance made his exhaustion evident, and anyone could see he was on his last legs. Yet, a smile remained on his lips as he chuckled.\n\n\n“I genuinely thank you… I never thought I would ever get a chance to experience something like this ever again when I entered slumber,” the vampire said as he made a slight bow towards Jake and the Sword Saint.\n\n\nHis body began flaking as his skin peeled off, revealing glowing red energy beneath. At first, Jake thought it was his body had run out of energy to sustain itself, but that was overturned as he felt the Monarch’s aura spike.\n\n\n“Now, if you will allow me a final moment of vanity.”\n\n\nBefore Jake or the old man could react, the vampire turned into a blood-red mist and appeared down below in the midst of all of the remaining humans. Jake had a very bad feeling and was about to use Gaze as suddenly the Monarch teleported again – taking every single remaining member of the Holy Church with him, including Jacob and the party members of Bertram. In the final moment, before he disappeared, Jake had placed a Mark on Jacob.\n\n\nJake felt his Mark reappear several hundred kilometers away, only to disappear a second later. Jacob’s disappeared just a moment before that as he no-doubt left the Hunt. As for the Monarch’s Mark, it disappeared not because the Monarch had dispelled it… but because he died.\n\n\n*You have slain [Monarch of Blood– lvl 170] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 141 - Stat points allocated, +10 Free Points*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Race: [Human (D)] has reached level 136 - Stat points allocated, +15 Free Points*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 142 - Stat points allocated, +10 Free Points*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 143 - Stat points allocated, +10 Free Points*\n\n\n*’DING!’ Race: [Human (D)] has reached level 137 - Stat points allocated, +15 Free Points*\n\n\nThe levels came in as confusion struck him for a brief moment. At least that is until he saw the red light in the distance.\n\n\nAn earthquake hit the entire Treasure Hunt as space shattered, and a massive shockwave of pure energy washed over him and everyone else present. It was by far the most powerful display of power Jake had ever seen by anything since back during the-\n\n\nAt that moment, it felt like so many things happened at once. The notifications from the kill, the shockwave of power, the realization of what the Monarch had done in his final moments, and the feeling he suddenly got from within himself… or perhaps more accurately, what was connected to his inner-self through the mask on his face.\n\n\nThe first thing he addressed was the thing on his face. Jake ripped his mask off as he stared down at it. The only lucky thing was that no one was looking with the Monarch’s final moment of vanity taking away all of the attention. He stared down at the mask as he got heard a faint murmur in his mind. A familiar voice he had heard many times before whenever he was too deep in meditation or distracted as he remembered the most hectic fight he had ever been in.\n\n\n“Patience.”\n\n\nIt was a single word, but enough for Jake to go on full alert. Eron had dropped not-so-subtle hints. The description described the King slumbering… but now it was confirmed. The King of the Forest still lived, at least in some form. He identified the mask and instantly spotted the change.\n\n\n[Mask of the Fallen King (Legendary)] - A mask born from the Records of the one once known as the King of the Forest; a mighty Unique Lifeform that died just as its path began. The mask is made of a wood-like material unique to the lifeform it comes from and does not obstruct vision when worn and regenerates itself from any damage taken. The Fallen King remains within. Enchantments: Living Wood. Passively absorbs mana in the atmosphere, increasing mana recovery rate by a large amount. Increases maximum mana by 25%.\n\n\nRequirements: Soulbound\n\n\n“The Fallen King remains within.”\n\n\nThat was all the changes to it, and when Jake probed it further, he felt nothing different compared to before. If not for the changed description, he would have been inclined to think that voice earlier was simply his imagination… but something had changed for sure.\n\n\nJake wondered why something had happened now, but as he looked back at his level-ups, he understood. The King of the Forest had been level 136. Now, Jake had finally surpassed the level of the first D-grade he had ever killed. He believed that was it, and his intuition was rarely incorrect about such things. His intuition and danger sense didn’t give him any negative responses towards the mask either… so he decided to just do what the Unique Lifeform dwelling within his headwear suggested.\n\n\nHe would have patience. Also, there were just too many different things to deal with for now. Hence he just tossed on the mask again and decided to deal with it later after the Hunt. For now, he turned his attention to more urgent matters at hand.\n\n\nIn his final moments, the Monarch had struck back at his hated enemy. With every last shred of his power, he had teleported them away, leaving everyone else unharmed, and detonated himself. It was only a few dozen people, but it was all their elites.\n\n\nHe didn’t even bother flying over there as he knew that they had either teleported out or died. That is until he saw a single figure in the distance speed towards the plains surrounded by flames. Jake recognized her as the archer that had been with Bertram, and she flew like a meteor as she crashed down onto the ground. He was impressed she had survived and gotten out and looked down where she had landed. There, he saw her body… which was barely a head and a bit of the upper body. Her entire body was also still on fire.\n\n\nJust as he considered if he should go help, he noticed that the flames on her didn’t seem to injure her. Quite the opposite. They spread as flesh visibly healed, and Jake recognized that she wasn’t in need of any help. She had no doubt deployed some very powerful life-saving skill to get her out because even Jake wasn’t confident in coming out of that final suicide explosion from the Monarch without heavy injuries. It would likely even trigger his Moment of the Primal Hunter.\n\n\nAlso… for some reason, Jake couldn’t help but chuckle a bit under his breath as he thought about the antics of the Monarch.\n\n\n“Do share?” the Sword Saint asked with an amused tone.\n\n\n“Just pretty funny the Holy Church did so much bullshit to get good rewards only to get shafted in the end by a miffed old vampire,” Jake said with a shrug.\n\n\n“I guess fate wasn’t on their side,” the old man answered in a playful tone.\n\n\nClearly, the Sword Saint wasn’t a huge fan of the Holy Church in principle either. Additionally, the old man had clearly also gotten quite a few levels, so it made sense he was in a good mood. Now, Jake just wondered what would happen next.\n\n\nJust as the thought appeared, the world flashed again. Jake and the Sword Saint both looked up as they saw the Blood Moon still hang above. Within a few moments, it shrank to nothing but a small blip, and a beam fired down and stopped right in front of them as a system notification appeared.\n\n\nQuest completed: Fallen Monarch\n\n\nThe Fallen Monarch, given back his true form as a Monarch of Blood, has been slain as the Treasure Hunters stand victorious. Not only was the ancient vampire defeated, but the Treasure Hunters even passed the test of the True Ancestor. His Legacy is now theirs to claim.\n\n\nRewards will be given upon leaving the Treasure Hunt.\n\n\nDue to the destruction of the world, the Treasure Hunt will end in: 9:41:41\n\n\nBoth of them had skimmed the message as the item appeared before them. A simple-looking necklace with a single marble of blood attached. Yet as the two humans stood there, they both felt the pressure from it, making it obvious it was no simple item. Jake naturally Identified it.\n\n\n[Sanguine’s Blood Legacy (Divine)] – A Legacy item left behind by the first-ever vampire and the creator of the vampiric race, Sanguine.\n\n\nAnd it told him nearly nothing.\n\n\n“Does your Identification yield any useful information?” the Sword Saint asked.\n\n\n“Just that it is a Legacy item left behind by that Sanguine guy,” Jake answered truthfully.\n\n\n“Same as mine then,” the old man said.\n\n\nThe two of them stayed there for a while, just looking at it. An obvious question was before them… who should get it?\n\n\nBelow them, the tomb the Monarch had slept in was utterly destroyed. There was nothing else to be gained from the Monarch, and with the Monarch’s self-explosion, there wasn’t even any loot from his body to claim. Not that Jake thought there would be anything to begin with. A divine item wasn’t a bad reward by itself, was it?\n\n\nCutting it in half didn’t seem possible either. It looked pretty durable.\n\n\n“So…” Jake tried to break the ice.\n\n\n“Quite the conundrum indeed,” the old man agreed.\n\n\nNeither of them made a move to just snatch it up. Jake trusted that the Sword Saint wouldn’t do it, and the man extended him the same trust. The problem was… someone needed to. With how the Treasure Hunt worked, anyone could potentially steal it if they delayed.\n\n\n“I do believe we had a duel planned?” the Sword Saint said as he turned to Jake with his eyebrows raised. “This looks like a good piece to wager.”\n\n\n“Deal,” Jake instantly agreed. “Ah, but you can take it for now. Just to temporarily hold onto it.”\n\n\nThe old man looked at him and nodded, and at the same time, also waved his hand as items appeared. To his surprise, Jake saw three ancient-rarity coffins and altars, as well as the three weapons from Counts, and even two legendary-rarity items. Clearly gained from Vaults.\n\n\n“Then you can hold onto my bounty meanwhile. We shall simply reverse the exchange in the event of your victory,” the Patriarch of the Noboru clan agreed.\n\n\nJake didn’t look at all the items as he scooped them up, and at the same time, the old man put the necklace inside his Hunter Insignia. Or at least he tried to, but instead, the necklace reacted as it gave off a faint red light, and a figure appeared in front of it. A very familiar one.\n\n\n“We meet again,” the projected figure said.\n\n\n“I thought we just killed you,” Jake pointedly stated as he stared at the clear visage of the Monarch of Blood.\n\n\n“Technically, I killed myself. But, I shall admit, I did not predict this even if I perhaps should have. It seems like I was only revived due to the Legacy and my existence is inherently tied to it,” the Monarch explained. “The will of the True Ancestor remains even after his demise. By his will, I am to serve as a steward of this Legacy and as a guide for its uses, as well as a teacher for any vampires created from it. Ah, yes, one of the abilities of this Legacy is to allow individuals of the enlightened races to become vampires.”\n\n\n“Oh. Cool, I guess,” Jake shrugged, not voicing his thoughts of how much a demotion it was to go from Monarch to steward. Ah, he should totally call him the Steward of Blood now. Also… vampire transformation? Jake had to admit, his interest level in that was nearly in the negative. He gave up becoming a half-dragon thing, so becoming a human with sharper canines didn’t seem that attractive. He already had Fangs of the Malefic Viper anyway.\n\n\n“What causes me to be unable to store the Legacy?” the Sword Saint asked, just taking it all in strides.\n\n\n“My acceptance. I believe it to be a better outcome if the Chosen of the Malefic One obtains it,” the newly named Steward of Blood said.\n\n\n“Nah, [N O V E L I G H T] we agreed on betting it on a duel,” Jake just explained. “I’ll get it if I win.”\n\n\n“I did hear your conversation; I merely disagree with such an approach. The Legacy of the True Ancestor isn’t something to be wagered so carelessly and is worth more than-\n\n\n“As I said, we already made a bet. Besides, would it be that bad if the Legacy goes to someone who beat a Chosen?” Jake cut him off.\n\n\n“No, but if he chooses to renege on the-“\n\n\n“He won’t,” Jake just stated.\n\n\n“I also find the insinuation insulting,” the Sword Saint chimed in.\n\n\n“See, all in agreement.”\n\n\nWith a sigh, the Monarch disappeared, not even bothering to argue with the two unreasonable humans. When the Sword Saint tried to deposit the Legacy this time, it went into his Insignia smoothly.\n\n\n“We got over nine and a half hours until the Hunt ends,” Jake said. “I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to not fight while tired as fuck.”\n\n\nHaving had Limit Break active at 20% for long over an hour was quite draining. Amazingly enough, he didn’t really feel that strained, though. Probably because his body had just gotten a lot stronger, and in general, the strain from Limit Break after reading D-grade was just far less.\n\n\n“I concur. Let us take this time to recuperate and fight at our best,” the old man agreed.\n\n\nWith that in mind, Jake and the Sword flew down to the ground with all of the others waiting. Caleb, Sylphie, Reika, and Carmen were all sitting on the ground, with the rest also sitting down on the bare soil that had once been covered by the blue grass.\n\n\nAll of them looked at the two of them, and Caleb gave him an approving nod. Jake nodded back and scooped Sylphie as she flew over to him. He placed her on his shoulder, and she didn’t hesitate for even a moment to rub her head against his cheek.\n\n\nJake scratched her little head as he sat down on the ground too. There were only a few hundred people left in the entire Hunt, with most having left earlier during the “Color of Night” spell. Surprisingly enough, many of those had now gotten up and made their intentions clear. They said they would try and go explore a bit more of Yalsten before it totally collapsed.\n\n\nHe himself had no interest as he closed his eyes and began his recuperation process, already looking forward to a nice duel with the old man. Nothing better than celebrating a good fight with another fight."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write 340 chapter - Treasure Hunt: Limit Shatter\nTarget length: ~3100 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "No set time for the duel had been decided, so for now, they all just sat and relaxed as they healed. Jake shared his potions liberally, and no one tried to start anything. Silas and two other healers even joined in to help set up a ritual to help everyone regenerate faster.\n\n\nMaria, as Jake learned she was named, also came over after her body was done being healed by her flames. That is also when Jake became fully aware she was the maker of his current bow and seemed very interested in how he had quote-unquote “fucked it up” with his transmutation.\n\n\nAll-in-all it was all a very good time, with many of the strongest people on Earth just sitting together and chilling. Jake learned that everyone was pretty cool, and it helped a lot that he had his brother sitting beside him to make him feel more comfortable with the entire situation.\n\n\nHe had always been a good brother when it came to social situations with Jake. The kind of guy to deflect topics Jake wanted to not talk about and keep a conversation going, so it didn’t get awkward. Heck, Jake had a long-standing theory that his brother became so good at dealing with people and a teacher from learning to deal with having Jake as a brother.\n\n\nThe humans talked about a wide variety of topics, most prominently the battle with the Monarch and the general state of Earth. It was a bit odd with the Holy Church not present, but perhaps it was for the best. Because a lot of them had some doubts about the large religion’s intentions.\n\n\nThe undead were also all gone besides two random Risen hanging around for a bit before they left to try and find a few more treasures. Even Priscilla had left at some point without Jake even noticing. The same was true for the guy called Sven and all of those people. Honestly, for many factions, this final phase of the Treasure Hunt had just been a complete disaster, and they likely praised themselves for at least getting all their treasures out beforehand.\n\n\nThey also began sharing some things the nominal leaders would perhaps not be happy to see shared during this time. Well, some were just sharing stuff without a care, like Eron, who was excitedly talking with Silas and two other healers about how to better heal people and how everyone should focus more on pure healing and less on all that supportive magic stuff.\n\n\nJake didn’t have much to share himself besides some tips on alchemy, but it wasn’t something that could really be taught effectively with their limited time. The Sword Saint didn’t have much either besides a few words of wisdom. Again, one couldn’t really teach others swordsmanship in a few hours. At least not without sparring, and sparring would make the entire restoration process wasted. All of them were dealing with backlash from boosting skills, after all. Well, they were. Jake, right now, was just focusing on restoring his resources.\n\n\nSpeaking of boosting skills. Carmen, who had been blessed by the presence of Sylphie in her lap, turned to Jake as she was allowed to scratch the small hawk.\n\n\n“You got Limit Break, right? What rarity?” she asked curtly. She, Jake, and the Sword Saint had ended up being left alone as other people spread out and went away from them. Some had left to get more treasure themselves or were just sitting a good distance away.\n\n\nJake looked at her, wondering what she was getting it. He had a feeling she already had a good idea as he answered truthfully. “It is, and It’s at rare rarity.”\n\n\n“I figured,” Carmen said with a smile. “Honestly, that a skill like Limit Break even has a rare rarity is a damn tragedy. It’s basic as fuck. When’d you get it?”\n\n\n“During the tutorial, so quite a while ago,” Jake once more answered truthfully.\n\n\nCarmen turned her attention to the Sword Saint. “Hey, your boosting skill is an upgraded version of Limit Break, right? It seems quite a lot better and far more controlled. Really playing into that entire water theme, you got going.”\n\n\nThe Sword Saint simply nodded in acknowledgment.\n\n\n“What I am trying to say is that you should seriously consider getting that shit upgraded,” Carmen said, turning back to Jake. “I am sure you’ve noticed by now how you can easily handle it even at the “unsafe” level. That unsafe level is where your body is not taking any damage, but with a high enough Toughness, you can push it even beyond the twenty percent. Of course, it would be better to improve and not use stamina so crudely.”\n\n\nJake looked at her for a bit, having not expected the unsolicited advice… but he appreciated it anyway.\n\n\n“What would you recommend I do? I honestly haven’t experimented as much with stamina as I should,” he asked while explaining himself. However, it did feel a bit embarrassing to be called out like that.\n\n\n“Well, first of all, do you have any other boosting skills interacting within the same archetype?” she asked.\n\n\nYeah, he didn’t really get exactly what she meant by that but made a guess. “No, my only real boosting skill is Limit Break. Outside of weapon skills, of course.”\n\n\nHe considered if he should mention his Big Game Arcane Hunter but decided not to as he didn’t think it was the same as Limit Break in any way. Sure, both gave stats, but he still found them very different. Primarily that the Big Game skill didn’t use stamina or any resources for that matter.\n\n\n“Then you really need it upgraded,” Carmen said with a nod. “Boosting skills like Limit Break are the most fundamental kind there is, which means you can’t get something to fit in the same place. Like… you can’t have two skills that summon wings at the same time, or at least you need some special stuff to make that happen, and stuff like Limit Break is the same. So yeah, if you don’t upgrade it yourself, you need to either waste a skill selection on it to get it upgraded or be stuck with shit.”\n\n\nJake nodded along. He got that part. Getting two skills that did the same thing rarely worked. It was like wearing two hats at once or, as Carmen said, trying to summon two wings out of the same place on the body. It just didn’t work, and the system wouldn’t offer a skill to do that by default.\n\n\nHe brought up his current version of the skill and read it over.\n\n\n[Limit Break (Rare)] - Sometimes, one needs to go above and beyond. Break your limits, temporarily increasing the effect of all stats at the cost of increased stamina consumption. Increase by up to 10% for double stamina consumption. Increase by up to 20% for quadruple stamina consumption, with the hunter afterward entering a state of weakness based on Limit Break duration and magnitude. Increasing by more than 20% will lead to severe consequences.\n\n\nJake hadn’t thought much about the skill as it was still good. A 20% boost in all stats was just awesome, and it naturally scaled with him. It was super tiring to use when he first got it, and he sometimes took a bit of damage from overstraining himself. That strain was completely gone by the end of E-grade, and after D-grade, he could use it at both 10% and 20% without any issues. Even the period of weakness was often a short one. This time he had used for well over an hour, and here less than an hour later, all the weakness had left his body.\n\n\n“Tips for upgrading it or just general tips for stamina usage overall?” Jake asked her. He had seen her fight, and she was clearly quite good at it.\n\n\n“I am interested too. Also, young lady, if I may ask, you do not possess any mana anymore, do you?” the Sword Saint asked.\n\n\n“No, I don’t. I made it all into stamina after I reached D-grade,” she shared openly. “Does have some drawbacks, but it also makes all of my stamina more potent and gives me a way bigger pool in return, so totally worth it as I didn’t really do anything with my mana anyway.”\n\n\nJake nodded along. That actually made sense in retrospect. He hadn’t detected any mana from her, but he guessed that could just be because she didn’t really use it during combat. That she didn’t have the resource at all hadn’t crossed his mind. He did wonder if it didn’t lead to a lot of problems, but he assumed there were ways around everything. Maybe her stamina worked a bit like mana now when infusing it into items to bind it? Or did she transform it into mana? He knew one could do that.\n\n\n“Anyway, for stamina use,” Carmen began, as she regarded Jake and the Sword Saint, “have you two done any proper martial arts before the system? Well, you have old man, but how about you?”\n\n\n“I did archery,” he answered.\n\n\n“Alright, then those Powershots of yours make way more sense. You know how to properly use your upper-body muscles for shooting a bow, but you are utterly useless how to use your entire body,” she stated. “Limit Break just circulates stamina at a faster pace where it is already going anyway. So it is just brute-forcing a boost, and it is damn ineffective and wasteful.”\n\n\nJake once more felt attacked but didn’t really disagree with anything. The way he controlled his stamina during both Infused Powershot and Arcane Powershot was far more effective and controlled than during Limit Break. Limit Break was just him speeding it up and having it go real fast without giving it a second thought. It was a switch he flipped.\n\n\n“On the other hand, the old man has infused clear intent into his stamina. It is more gentle, probably with some form of water affinity merged into it or at least something mimicking the effects, making it not cause the same toll as it passes and making it flow faster and more naturally. Been told about such an approach before, and it’s a real good one,” Carmen kept explaining.\n\n\n“Your body is stronger than his, so I would advise you to first refine the basics. Optimize the flow, direct it more, compress it, avoid unnecessary flow, and maybe speed it up a bit; you can then work on more complicated improvements afterward. Find a balance where maybe you lose a bit of health and be fine with it. Just push it to the limits of what you can handle for now. Should get you the Limit Shatter skill, which is just a better version.”\n\n\nNodding along, Jake took her words in. The Sword Saint also seemed to be in agreement with what she said as he added: “Recall how your body moves as you battle. The places where the stamina passes are the most important parts and should be focused on. Control the ebb and flow as you master your inner self.”\n\n\nMentally taking notes, Jake took it all in. He tried to focus a bit on his internal energy and moved it around his body. He hadn’t really done it much himself outside of using Limit Break, as he quite frankly had some bad memories with doing it still. The first time he tried to freestyle it, he ended up blowing off an arm after all, and full-body stamina control seemed like a good way to make himself pop like a blood balloon. Perhaps that fear was unneeded and mattered more back when his body was far more fragile.\n\n\nA few hours had passed since the Monarch had ‘died,’ and Jake was more or less fine now besides his still low resources. Hence he was fine doing a bit of experimenting. He activated Limit Break, and the energy began moving. He entered a half-meditative state as Carmen spoke:\n\n\n“Now focus less on speed and more on control. Make it denser and lead it where you need it most. Focusing on where your muscles and bones are located tends to be the most effective. It may take a while, and moving around while doing it tend to be-\n\n\n*Skill Upgraded*: [Limit Break (Rare)] --> [Limit Shatter (Epic)]\n\n\nJake’s entire body exploded with stamina as the dust around him parted. It felt like his body was faintly tingling, and he noticed how he lost a health point after a few seconds, proving he had struck a balance of sorts.\n\n\nThe people around him just looked at him. Carmen looked weird, the Sword Saint began chuckling, and Sylphie looked like it was the most natural thing in the world.\n\n\n“That was easier than expected,” Jake commented as he got used to the feeling. It really had been easy. He just activated Limit Break, directed it a bit himself, and then pushed it over 20%. It quickly climbed to 25% and then around 30% before his danger sense tossed him the slightest warnings, making him instantly stop the increase and search for a new equilibrium. He compressed it a bit here and there and took some inspiration from Powershot, and then it just clicked in place. Then again, reaching an equilibrium was something he had gotten quite good at, considering his entire arcane-affinity was created by combining destruction and stability and balancing that.\n\n\nWith that done, he had gotten the notification, and he quickly checked it and saw the expected.\n\n\n[Limit Shatter (Epic)] – Go above and beyond as you shatter your limits. Elevate yourself, temporarily increasing the effect of all stats at the cost of increased stamina consumption and straining your body. Increase by up to 15% for triple stamina consumption. Increase by up to 30% for six times stamina consumption, with the hunter beginning to take damage that worsens with prolonged use and makes you enter a state of weakness based on Limit Shatter duration and magnitude afterward. Increasing by more than 30% will lead to severe consequences.\n\n\nCarmen kept looking at him for a moment. “Honestly? Fuck you.”\n\n\n“What?” Jake asked, confused.\n\n\n“Just…” Carmen looked more grumpy than usual. “It normally takes just a tiny bit longer, but fine, I guess it’s to be expected of the oh-my-god-he-is-so-cool Chosen one.”\n\n\n“Sorry?” Jake awkwardly apologized.\n\n\n“No need to apologize, the vice of others is no fault of yours,” the Sword Saint said, getting a glare from Carmen. “I do not doubt your body had already acclimated to the state of Limit Break long ago, making you prime for an upgrade. Often merely bringing attention to a blind spot is all it takes to get the final push when one is already at the precipice of enlightenment - only a slight nudge all that is needed for a major breakthrough. It is like this everywhere.”\n\n\nThat last one saved it a bit, as Carmen nodded as she agreed. “Yeah, I guess you were pretty much on the crux of the upgrade anyway.”\n\n\n“Still, I owe you one,” Jake promised.\n\n\n“I may just hold you to that. I do have a certain something I could use a hunter for,” Carmen said, not willing to share more there and then.\n\n\nThey kept talking a bit more, sharing things that could potentially help the others. Jake even came with a few pieces of advice on things like mana control and even the application of Willpower through most of one’s actions. Sadly, he really didn’t have much to teach about his combat-related skills as all of it was just «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» a bit too unique and suited to him specifically. It was all so heavily rooted in his bloodline, and it was hard to tell someone that the best way to dodge an incoming weapon was to just not think about dodging it and just let your body react instinctively.\n\n\nEspecially Carmen wanted some tips, as while she was happy tanking blows from most opponents, then in cases like when she was fighting against Monarch, she really had to dodge them. Jake just said that it wasn’t something he could really share as it was an ability he couldn’t teach anyone. Both she and the Sword Saint took his word for it.\n\n\nAs they got talking, the Sword Saint asked Jake about his weapon that had broken during the fight. Jake took out the remaining pieces of the Nanoblade, the handle and most of it still intact, but the blade itself broken. It sucked for sure, and he hoped Arnold could help him fix it. He really liked it.\n\n\n“Do you not need a second weapon?” the Sword Saint asked. “You could simply use one of the Count weapons, could you not?”\n\n\n“I guess I could,” Jake agreed. It didn’t feel as good as the Nanoblade, and it wasn’t like Jake needed to dual-wield as having a hand free for magic and other uses was quite handy, but he did also like two weapons.\n\n\nHe took out the Count weapon he had fused from three of the rare weapons to get a feeling for it in his hand. The Sword Saint and Carmen both looked at it before Carmen commented:\n\n\n“Why haven’t you fused all nine of them yet?”\n\n\nJake was about to answer that he could always do that later until he Identified it out of habit and saw that last clause.\n\n\n[Count’s Vampiric Transforming Blade (Epic)] – A weapon created fusing three weapons wielded by Counts of Blood, all of which have been soaked in the blood of countless enemies throughout the ages. Crafted using a special type of steel, the blade can absorb the lifeforce of vitality-based lifeforms to repair itself. The combined Records of the three weapons have allowed the blade to evolve and transform even further, allowing it to steal a portion of the lifeforce of anyone injured as well as change form between a sword, a dagger, and a rapier. This blade was originally crafted in a set of nine using the unique environment of the hidden world and can absorb the weapons of other Counts of Blood to enhance itself. Three have now been fused, and six remain. Note this functionality is only available within the Treasure Hunt area and will disappear once the event concludes. Enchantments: Hemoabsorbant Self-Repair. Vampiric Weapon. Transformation.\n\n\nRequirements: lvl 130+ in any humanoid race.\n\n\nIt could only be done within the Treasure Hunt area.\n\n\nJake looked at the Sword Saint and saw the old man look away, showing the faintest level of embarrassment.\n\n\n“Well, because we wanted to fuse it after regenerating a bit, and-“\n\n\n“You forgot?” she asked, looking between Jake and the old man who still stayed silent.\n\n\n“Yeah…”\n\n\n“…”\n\n\nAnyway, weapon fusion time!"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nBecoming the Dark Lord — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Luke jolted awake, his cheek tingling from having fallen asleep with his face on the ground. His mind was a storm, thoughts tangled and scattered. He glanced around, heart pounding. This... wasn’t his house.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Luke | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: He, Points, Luke’s\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Magnetic Return (Rare), Servant of the Dark Lord (Unique), Notice: Approaching First Floor, Basic Blade Handling (Common), Heavy Strike, You have learned a Class Skill, Servant of the Dark Lord, Basic Chameleon Skin (Uncommon)); stats (Perception, Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility, Vitality)\nSystem notification style: \"System’s Annual Integration!]\"\n\n## Writing Style\nthird-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (5% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 239: Draconic Exhalation\nTarget length: ~3500 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "A wanted poster had just been raised. The “photo” was nothing more than a hand-drawn sketch, but this one hit closer to the mark. Sharper details, a clearer resemblance, even his kukris had been sketched in.\n\nThey had artists this good all along and only decided to use them now?\n\nHis mind spiraled through possibilities. It was deliberate. While he had been gone, they had circulated a crude drawing, vague enough to make him harder to track. But now that he had resurfaced, they had waited, patient and calculated, for him to edge close to the Safe Zone again before unveiling a more accurate portrait.\n\n“This criminal is the one who murdered Angelica,” the man addressing the crowd declared. “He’s extremely dangerous and works with the renegades, or what’s left of them. If you spot him, don’t try to capture him. Just notify our soldiers and you’ll earn the bounty all the same.”\n\nAnother stepped forward. “Burn that face into your memory. The new posters will be up across the city square soon.”\n\nLuke lingered in the shadow of a tree, careful not to let the light betray him. If this updated identity spread, he would lose access to the Safe Zone. And with it, his entire plan to keep mapping the fortress and eventually return to the second mechanism would collapse.\n\n“You can go back to work,” Cardon dismissed the gathering.\n\nOne by one, people shuffled back to their routines: carpenters hammering away, laborers hauling timber, gatherers plucking fruit, apprentices being drilled in their trades.\n\nA low whistle sounded at Luke’s side.\n\n“One year of easy living in Bastion, no work, no worries. Would you take it, James?” Rhett asked.\n\n“And miss out on your charming commentary? Not a chance,” James muttered, quickening his pace toward another tree.\n\nLuke pressed his palm against the rough bark of one he had bonded with, sending a thought into it. If anything suspicious happens nearby, let me know. Pass the word to your sisters too.\n\nEver since learning to handle his mana with more precision, he had deepened his grasp of [Botanical Bond of Mother Freya], enough to communicate through thought as long as he maintained contact. His hand became the root, a living bridge. Of course, the only way to hear the tree’s response was by touching it, so he resolved to circle back every twenty minutes.\n\nHe returned to chopping wood. The more intelligent trees were the ones that bore fruit, and those were spared. Even when one fell beneath his axe, it wasn’t death. A tree’s life was in its roots, deep beneath the soil, always ready to sprout again. Still, for every trunk he felled, he let a drop of his blood seep into the earth beside it.\n\n[You have befriended a Douglas Fir Tree (Common)]\n\n\n*Your profession [Guardian Botanist of Mother Freya] has reached Level 55! (+5 Strength, +3 Agility, +4 Vitality, +4 Intelligence, +12 Free Points)*\n\nThe tree responded in kind, weaving a bond of friendship through the offering of blood. Luke thanked it quietly, then heaved the log onto his shoulder, feigning struggle as he dragged it across the ground.\n\n“Hey Jack, how do you chop down so many trees so fast?”\n\nJack looked up with a grin. “Because I’m a lumberjack. My profession helps.”\n\nBy lunchtime, Eddie was handing out food to his crew. Luke sat with his back against a tree, letting its presence settle him. If anything hostile stirred nearby, the tree would warn him with a pulse of thought.\n\nJack sat close by, spooning food into his mouth when a soldier passing through shouted, “Hey, Jack Bean!”\n\n“I’m eating,” Jack muttered without even looking up.\n\n“But are you eating beans?” The soldier nearly cracked, his face straining to contain the laugh.\n\nJack sighed heavily. “Yes. I’m eating beans.”\n\nThe soldier exploded, wheezing laughter, slapping his own legs as he staggered off.\n\nLuke waited until the idiot vanished into the market crowd before asking, “What the hell was that?”\n\nJack murmured, barely moving his lips, “I’m Jack Bean.”\n\nLuke blinked. “Okay, but… what does that even mean?”\n\nJack set his spoon down and stared into the void. “When I was a kid, I was the co-host of a children’s show. There were jingles. About beans.”\n\nLuke frowned. “And they recognized you? Just like that? Grown up?”\n\nJack shrugged. “When I was sixteen, I got arrested for drunk driving. During the interview, some reporter asked if I was ‘Jack Bean.’ I snapped. Told him to shove beans where beans don’t belong.”\n\nLuke blinked slowly. “…You became a meme.”\n\n“Yeah.” Jack’s voice was equal parts sad and resigned. “My parents were splitting up, I was in a spiral… but I took responsibility. Did community service. Volunteered. I changed. I converted.”\n\nLuke narrowed his eyes. “Converted… like, religiously?”\n\nJack nodded. “I’m a follower of the Goddess of Kindness.”\n\n“So that’s why you ended up stuck in this tutorial?”\n\n“I wanted to formalize my devotion. So I turned myself in to the system to enter her church properly.” He lifted the necklace around his neck, showing the pendant. “I carved the symbol of the Church of Kindness. It’s our Goddess.”\n\nLuke studied the wooden carving: a woman with pointed ears.\n\n“Dude, that’s Princess Zelda.”\n\n“No, it’s not Princess Zelda. It’s Caelina, Goddess of Kindness.”\n\nLuke squinted again. “Still looks like Princess Zelda to me.”\n\n“You’re wrong,” Jack insisted, staring at the pendant. He hesitated, then exhaled. “Okay, maybe a little. But it’s the Goddess of Kindness.”\n\n“Pretty sure whoever carved that was a Zelda fan,” Luke muttered.\n\n“I carved it myself. And no, I wasn’t inspired by Zelda.”\n\nLuke paused, deadpan. “So you’re telling me there’s actually a goddess out there who looks like Princess Zelda? Makes sense she’s got so many followers.”\n\nJack ignored the jab, his expression softening. “Coincidences aside, Caelina is pure and radiant. Her followers’ words were enough to change me.”\n\n“You’re not about to preach that salvation stuff to me, right? Good deeds, eternal light, all that crap?”\n\nJack smiled. “I believe everyone can be saved, James. Even killers.”\n\nLuke nearly choked on his food, staring at him. He couldn’t tell if Jack had just stumbled onto the truth or if it was simply the blind faith of a zealot who thought salvation was universal.\n\nRhett dropped down between them, pointing his spoon toward a cluster of workers. “Those damn haulers. They make more coin than us, and all they do is walk crap back and forth to the Safe Zone. Half the time they drag their feet just to stretch it out.”\n\nJack shook his head. “A transporter has a storage item bound only to them. That makes their service incredibly valuable.”\n\nHe watched the group at work. They pressed their rings against the logs, and one by one the heavy trunks vanished into the pocket dimension of their storage items. Without horses, this was how everything moved, timber, water barrels, even supplies. Paying a transporter with a bound item was far easier than wasting an entire day dragging loads across the zone. James, the identity he wore, had no storage item. Which meant he was stuck carrying a plain backpack everywhere, pretending it was the only way he could haul things.\n\nBefore sunset he was already back in the city square of the Safe Zone, sitting alone at a tavern table with his journal open. The pages were filled with rough sketches and notes, a record of everything he had done these past days. Each page mapped a different route through Bastion’s fortress, hallways, branching passages, floors carefully separated.\n\nHe could have drawn maps inside the second fortress itself, but that would have been reckless. Too much risk of tipping off the Warden Captain about what he was really planning.\n\n“I need a damn shovel,” he muttered, eyes still on the journal.\n\nThe plan wasn’t perfect, but it was still a plan. Assassins couldn’t afford impulse; they had to stalk their prey with patience, like a predator in tall grass. That was what he was doing now: waiting, plotting, sharpening the edges of an idea that might just work. His reckless schemes had saved him before. He could only hope this one would too.\n\n\n***\n\n\nHe stopped at a stall, the one that sold arrows. He had timed it carefully so Oswald would not be around.\n\n“Hello,” he said as he stepped closer.\n\n“Hello. Looking for something?” The man behind the counter did not bother to stand, busy carving a strip of wood with steady hands. A different attendant than last time.\n\nLuke laid a stack of Bastion bills on the counter. The currency worked like dollars. Ten days of labor had earned him five hundred of them.\n\n“How much for uncommon arrows?” he asked, keeping it direct.\n\n“That depends. Are we talking piercing, tearing, barbed? Or maybe something special? I have one with fletching designed for speed, another with a weighted tip to stagger targets.” The man launched into his sales pitch.\n\nLuke exhaled. “I want a good, durable arrow. Simple. Something that can punch through thick leather.”\n\nThe vendor pulled a few from his storage item. “Fifteen each.”\n\n“Fifteen?” His chest tightened.\n\nI thought I’d be able to buy a hundred…\n\n“What did you expect?” the man asked flatly. “Every piece here costs labor. A blacksmith forged the tips, someone cut the shafts, and some lunatic risked his life killing a Wild Zone beast just to bring back feathers.”\n\nLuke slid bills across the counter. “I’m not complaining about the price. Just give me everything this covers.”\n\nThe vendor counted and placed five arrows on the counter.\n\n“That’s it?”\n\n“Anything above rare is restricted. Only Bastion’s army can purchase it, and even then under supervision. As for arrows, bolts, and throwables, uncommon is the limit, and you are capped at five per week.”\n\nPer week? Bartholomew, you bastard…\n\n“If you want, I can sell you twenty commons.” The man chuckled.\n\n“Who even buys common arrows?”\n\n“Plenty. Not everyone’s lucky enough to have an enchanted quiver. Some poor fool gets robbed out there, or panics and drops theirs running from monsters. And then there are idiots who rolled melee classes and suddenly decide they want to try archery. They do not get starter gear from the system. So yes, commons sell.”\n\nLuke understood now. Losing his quiver would be a nightmare.\n\n“Got your work slip? You do have one, right?” the vendor asked. “We only sell to registered workers.”\n\n“Yeah.” He pulled it from his pack.\n\nIt was a stamped sheet from Eddie’s company, listing Luke’s appearance. Older employees even had little hand-drawn portraits added.\n\n“Looks fine.” The man nodded.\n\nBartholomew’s brand of control. Frightening, but efficient. The Safe Zone’s economy ran on rails because of it. The vendor wrote down the details from Luke’s slip, what he bought, how many, the date, and scrawled his signature on a clipboard.\n\n“Use them well, and hopefully you make it back from the Wild Zone to buy more.”\n\nIf you’d just sell me more, I could guarantee I’d come back alive.\n\nFive arrows a week. That limit alone threatened to wreck his plans. He had aimed to stockpile a hundred, not crawl toward the goal over twenty weeks. He would have to make do with less.\n\nMaybe I could get someone else to buy arrows for me… or would that raise suspicion?\n\nAs he walked away, the sheer precision of Bartholomew’s system sank in. Limiting powerful weapons kept people too weak to stage a rebellion. And the enchanted quiver? Even spitting out nothing but common arrows, it was priceless.\n\nHow the hell did Legolas always have so many?\n\n\n***\n\n\n“Is that all?” the vendor asked.\n\nLuke stood at another street stall in the city square. He had expected to blow through his small fortune on arrows, but that plan had already gone down in flames. At least he could work through the rest of his list.\n\n“That’s all.”\n\n“You want the gardening shovel for heavier jobs, or what?”\n\n“The iron one will do,” he said, pointing at it.\n\n“What else you got in that pack?”\n\nHe reached toward his bag, then stopped, pulling something from his pocket instead: folded bills marked with the crown sigil.\n\n“Do you take Bastion notes?”\n\n“Of course!” the vendor’s face brightened. “That’ll be twenty-five. I’ll take those over junk any day.”\n\nWhich left him with four hundred still tucked away. As he walked down the street, someone called out.\n\n“Hey, James! You sticking around for dinner tonight, or chasing after another woman?” Jack grinned.\n\n“You make me sound like some kind of scoundrel.”\n\n'Wait, you’re not a scoundrel? Wow, plot twist.' Artemis muttered dryly in his head.\n\nJack smirked. “One or two drinks, and all you’ve got to endure is an hour-long sermon about the Goddess of Kindness.”\n\nHe was ready to brush it off, until he glanced to the side and froze. Thiara. The healer from Haven, walking with a large group. His blood went cold. He had always kept his distance from anyone tied to Haven.\n\n“I’ll take you up on that offer,” he said quickly, stepping closer to Jack.\n\nThe two of them moved through the bustling street until they stopped at the entrance of a tavern.\n\n“Wait, this is where you’re actually taking me?”\n\n“What, don’t like it? Great service here. Heard some fool even bought the whole place a round the other night.” Jack chuckled.\n\n“I know,” Luke muttered. “I was that fool.”\n\n\n***\n\n\nAllison stood inside the command tent with the core members of the Haven, the map spread across the table between them. They were discussing how to deal with the Orc Lord, the creature enthroned at the heart of the village, surrounded by his army.\n\n“There must be at least five hundred of them,” Miriam said grimly.\n\nThe rough sketch of the orc settlement lay covered in notes and markings.\n\n“He’s in there, ringed by troops,” Mason pointed out, “but you all know that’s not the real problem, don’t you?”\n\n“The ballistae,” Quinn answered.\n\nFour troublesome structures had been circled on the map, each topped with a massive siege weapon. Medieval military crossbows, fixed in place and deadly accurate.\n\n“Even if we break through the outer guard, we’ll still have to deal with those,” Mason said.\n\nFor now they were safe in the forest. The thick line of trees shielded them from the machines’ line of fire. The orc village itself was surrounded by a reinforced palisade. Last time they had scaled it with ropes and ladders, only to abandon most of their equipment when the orc army countered.\n\n“There’s a ballista tower here,” Mason said, tapping the map. “Built directly into the wall. It’s the farthest from the village center, and it faces us head-on.”\n\n“Then we should attack another section,” Quinn suggested.\n\nAllison studied the map carefully. “Archers are the bigger issue. They’re fast, persistent, and once the alarms go off, reinforcements will flood whatever side we hit.”\n\nThey had set out seventy strong. Three were already dead from their first strike against the orc village. In all their time surviving together in the dungeon, no one had fallen. And now, in their very first fight outside, three lives were gone.\n\n“Five hundred orcs on average…” Eugene muttered.\n\n“Count higher. Always expect worse,” Gilbert warned.\n\n“A thousand,” Mason said flatly. “Plan for a thousand.”\n\n“They’re weak, though. Most are only level twenty to twenty-five,” Miriam countered. “A few months ago, one of us facing three level twenty-fives would’ve been suicide. But things are different now.”\n\nDifferent indeed. Most of them were sitting at class level twenty-five to thirty, and profession level twenty to thirty-five. Allison herself was level forty. And she had undergone a class mutation: Draconic Swordsman. That made her far stronger than any average forty, her lineage powers amplifying her ice abilities into something lethal.\n\n“That still averages out to about fifteen orcs each,” Quinn calculated. “Plus the Lord himself.”\n\n“For the plan to work, the core group can’t waste time cutting through grunts,” Mason said. “We’ll need to reach the Orc Lord directly, or at least pull him away before he slaughters more of our people.”\n\nOf everyone in camp, Mason was the strongest. His profession had already broken past level fifty, granting him immense attributes, and his epic skill only widened the gap. As a blacksmith, he had forged his own gear to near perfection. In a clash with the Orc Lord, he was the only one who could withstand several blows without dying outright.\n\nAfter him came Allison. She had fought beside the Haven’s elites to bring down the three Midnight Wardens inside the Wall dungeon. Her balance of profession level thirty-six, ice dragon lineage, and advanced skills gave her just enough resilience to endure a few strikes from the Orc Lord. But she knew the truth: depending on the hit, it could still mean instant death.\n\n“If only we had someone with a thief or assassin class, they could handle the ballista crews,” Quinn muttered.\n\nHe wasn’t wrong. Stealth classes were tailor-made for this sort of job, their infiltration skills perfect for slipping past lines and silencing threats before they could turn a battle. The four ballistae looming over the village were more than a nuisance, they were a death sentence if left unchecked.\n\n“Should we call for Evangeline’s help?” Gilbert asked. “She’s stronger than any of us.”\n\n“If we leave this spot, there’s a good chance the Orc Lord will send his troops into the forest,” Mason warned.\n\nThat was the risk. A massive, game-changing risk.\n\n“The only reason we even made it here is because the path was clear after the Orc General’s death,” Allison said. “If we pull back now, the Orc Lord might relocate or scatter his forces through the woods. Then we’ll never get this close again.”\n\nAnd sending someone after Evangeline was no better. They were deep inside the forest, far from the Safe Zone. It would take days, and whoever went risked being tracked and cut down before even reaching her. Worse, splitting the group could cripple their defense if the orcs attacked. They were caught in a brutal stalemate: withdraw and lose their shot at the Orc Lord, or face him now, exposed and underprepared.\n\n“We haven’t lost anyone on the way here,” Quinn argued. “The few orcs we did run into, we handled. Pulling back might be the smarter call.”\n\n“That’s only because of what Luke did,” Allison replied. “There’s no guarantee it’ll be easy next time.”\n\n“Still talking about him?” Eugene scoffed.\n\n“The bastard’s a traitor. He killed Angelica just to level up. Not even worth mentioning his name,” Malik snapped.\n\n“And I’d bet he just got lucky taking down the Orc General,” Eugene added. “Then bragged about it to you.”\n\nAllison clicked her tongue. The air around her dropped a few degrees. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Part of it wasn’t even her fault. It was the class skill she had unlocked at level 40, a power that stirred too easily, feeding on her emotions whether she willed it or not.\n\n[Draconic Exhalation (Ultra-Rare)]: The Draconic Swordsman does not need to strike. The very breath of a dragon is enough to declare sovereignty. Empowered by the [Heart of the Ice Dragon], you can exhale a frost-laden mist that rolls outward like a silent curse. The air chills, creeping and merciless. Frost crawls across stone, armor groans as it cracks, lungs seize in the bitter cold. No rage, only inevitability, patient, constant, absolute. Beware: this power is bound to your emotions, for a dragon’s fury is its greatest weapon.\n\nLike a dragon’s snort of vapor, sometimes the frost escaped her without intent, a thin mist curling from her lips when her temper slipped. It wasn’t the full skill, not unless she fed mana into it, but the passive pulse of the [Heart of the Ice Dragon] had left its mark. Her very breath was touched with winter now.\n\nShe calmed herself. Luke had his share of guilt, he had fled after confessing to Angelica’s death. But still, hearing them spit venom about him twisted something inside her. He was her friend. One day, she hoped she’d see him again, drag him back by the ear if she had to. But right now, the Orc Lord was the only thing that mattered. His death meant power, gear, and the path to conquering the second fortress.\n\n“I have a plan,” Allison said at last. “Actually… I have a few ideas. But to explain them, I need to go over some of my skills first.”\n\nStrategy wasn’t her strong suit. She wasn’t the kind of leader who lived for war tables and flawless tactics. But with the group’s input, and Mason’s mind for both battle and strategy, they could shape something workable.\n\n“I’ll start with the simplest one: ice.”\n\nAnd so she began, laying out the combinations and synergies that turned her powers into something far more dangerous than anyone outside their circle would ever expect."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 240: Orc Lord’s Invasion\nTarget length: ~3000 words\nKey events: dungeon content"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke sat inside Doug’s tavern, sharing a table with his lumberjack partner, Jack. A plate of fried potatoes had just been dropped in front of them.\n\n“This place is crawling with Bastion soldiers,” Jack remarked.\n\n“I know…”\n\nLuke’s gaze drifted around the room. If even one of them recognized him as Luke, things could turn ugly fast. The blond hair and eyepatch disguise helped, but now that his new wanted poster, with an actual decent likeness, was making the rounds, he couldn’t afford to be careless. The door creaked open. Another group of Bastion soldiers strode in. And among them… Eleanor.\n\nLuke nearly choked on his water.\n\n“You good?” Jack asked.\n\n“Perfectly fine,” Luke managed, forcing composure. “Think we’ve got time to, uh, head somewhere else?”\n\nJack chuckled, assuming it was a joke.\n\n“There’s a woman I… know, here,” Luke murmured.\n\nJack’s grin faded. “Wait. Don’t tell me you… mess around with married women?”\n\n“What? No!” Luke blurted. “I don’t mess around with anyone.”\n\n“Really? Funny, I’ve seen you chatting up plenty of women.”\n\n“I only ever get that far…”\n\nJack squinted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”\n\n“You wouldn’t understand.”\n\n'Because the spy movies you studied jumped straight from flirting to the bedroom, and now you don’t know how to handle the middle part?' Artemis teased inside his head.\n\nSomething like that, Luke thought back.\n\n'Or maybe it’s because you’re still a painfully shy virgin. I lean toward that theory.'\n\nOkay. Let’s stick with the first one…\n\n'Both are true.' said Artemis.\n\nThanks for rubbing it in.\n\nSuddenly, a knife clattered onto the table in front of him. Instinct kicked in, his hand went straight to his holster, ready for a fight, until a familiar voice cut through.\n\n“So, you came back to finish our match?” Eleanor asked, stepping closer with the faintest smile tugging at her lips.\n\nLuke exhaled sharply, relieved but still uneasy under her gaze.\n\n“A… friend dragged me here,” he said.\n\nShe glanced sideways. “Oh, Jack Bean? Haven’t seen you in ages. Still hanging around Bastion?”\n\n“No. Quit that job,” Jack replied flatly.\n\n“You two know each other?” Luke asked.\n\n“Everyone in Bastion knows Jack Bean,” Eleanor said, sliding into a chair at their table. “We always figured he’d smash something, curse us out, or pull some wild stunt. But he turned out… surprisingly normal.”\n\n“Internet blew things out of proportion,” Jack muttered.\n\nThen he turned back toward Luke. “And you two?”\n\nLuke rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah… we know each other,” he admitted with an awkward laugh.\n\n“Nice necklace,” Jack said, eyeing the chain around Eleanor’s throat.\n\n“Thanks,” she replied.\n\n“Hey, James, looks a lot like the ones you give other wom—”\n\nHis words cut off with a sharp grunt as Luke’s boot connected with his shin under the table. Luke cleared his throat with a forced cough.\n\n“So, how are things around here? Any new challengers for knife throwing?” Luke asked quickly, trying to steer the conversation.\n\n“No,” Eleanor said. “No one else can hit six in a row.”\n\nJack raised his hand toward the counter. “Doug! Drinks for the table. This is gonna be a long conversation.”\n\nWhen the drinks arrived, Luke’s attention drifted toward the notice board. A soldier was tacking something up. As soon as the man stepped aside, Luke’s stomach clenched, his new wanted poster stared back at him from the wooden frame. He choked on his drink, covering it with a cough. His eyes swept the tavern. Soldiers everywhere. Too many.\n\n“What’s on your mind?” Jack asked, catching the faraway look in his eyes.\n\nLuke forced a smile. “What do you miss most from Earth?”\n\nEleanor tilted her head, considering. “The movies, definitely. And, of course, my phone. Shampoo, makeup… Honestly, the list is longer than I’d like to admit.”\n\n“I miss… a person,” Jack said after a pause.\n\n“A lover?” Eleanor teased, nudging him lightly with her elbow.\n\n“Yeah.” He took a long pull from his mug. “She’s the reason I changed. The reason I became a better man.”\n\nTheir eyes shifted to Luke. He was the one who’d asked the question, but now he was trapped in it. Should he answer as James, or as Luke?\n\n“I… miss my little sister,” he said finally. “The whole family, of course, but especially her. I think I hurt her before I came here. She probably thinks I’m dead.”\n\nSilence settled over the table as they drank. The weight of it hung in the air, and Luke realized some memories weren’t meant to be spilled in the middle of a tavern.\n\n“How old is she?” Eleanor asked gently.\n\n“Six.”\n\nJack reached across and set a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll see her again someday, partner. I swear it on the Goddess of Kindness.” His voice trembled with emotion.\n\nLuke blinked. Was this guy seriously tearing up? What the hell did Doug put in his drink?\n\n“One day, maybe,” Luke muttered. “If Eleanor and the others find the mechanism, she could pull me out of this place.”\n\nEleanor sipped from her mug, a small smile on her lips. “My job’s to guard the Safe Zone and patrol against invasions. Mechanisms aren’t really my department.”\n\n“Well, the only reason explorers have a Safe Zone to return to is because you’re guarding it,” Luke countered. “Sounds like everyone’s doing their part.”\n\n“That’s… a good way to look at it, James,” Eleanor said.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe conversation dragged on for another hour. Luke had been tense at first, but the more the drinks flowed, the easier it became. For once, he silently thanked whoever invented alcohol. In a tavern like this, no one wasted time staring at the notice board.\n\nLuke, I think the real secret is the eyepatch.\n\n'It hides some of that dumb look on your face.'\n\nHe stopped glancing at the wall and leaned back into the game.\n\n“I’ve never… been arrested,” Eleanor said.\n\n“Alright, you got me there.” Jack tipped his mug back and drank.\n\nThey were playing Never Have I Ever.\n\nJack scratched his chin, thinking. “I’ve never… walked in on my parents doing that.” He froze mid-thought. “Wait. Actually, I think I did. Damn, that just unlocked a few memories.”\n\nEleanor grimaced and drank. “Thanks for reminding me of my trauma.”\n\nBoth of them turned toward Luke.\n\n“Looks like James never went through that rite of childhood,” Eleanor said. “That moment you realize the world isn’t all black and white.”\n\n“Hold on,” Luke asked, frowning. “You two actually saw your parents…?”\n\n“I came home early from school once,” she replied. “Learned the hard way never to break routine again.”\n\n“One of the reasons my parents got divorced,” Jack muttered, eyes going distant, “was because I caught my dad… but the woman wasn’t my mom.”\n\nLuke and Eleanor exchanged an awkward glance, turning away from him.\n\nThis guy’s got a lot of skeletons in the closet.\n\n“For me, parents don’t… do that,” Luke said. “They’re supposed to be sacred figures.”\n\n“And how do you think your little sister exists?” Eleanor teased.\n\n“Storks?” he shot back. “Or maybe when two people love each other, the woman’s belly just magically grows and a baby appears. I prefer to think of it that way.”\n\nShe laughed out loud.\n\n“Come on, we live in a world with gods, multiverses, and powers. My theory should be possible somewhere out there.”\n\n“In some corner of reality, sure,” Jack admitted.\n\nNot long after, Luke wrapped things up, saying he had to leave. Jack followed him to the counter as they paid their tab.\n\n“Why’d you want to leave early, man?” Jack asked. “I was already thinking about ways to help you. Only a woman can change a man’s heart. Marriage is the path to happiness, or so says the Goddess of Kindness.”\n\nLuke stopped in the middle of the street and raised a brow. “That sounds like some creepy small-town cult.”\n\n“Doesn’t make it any less true.”\n\n“Yeah, but the way you said it made it sound more like, ‘Bear children and sacrifice them to me.’”\n\nThey kept walking.\n\n“The Goddess of Kindness teaches that everyone should marry, have families, and raise many children.”\n\n“Does the Goddess of Kindness have kids?”\n\n“Caelina is pure. A virgin.”\n\n“Then how the hell is she recommending something she’s never even tried?”\n\nJack hesitated, then replied, “Because it’s the natural step of love.”\n\nLuke smirked. “I bet she just wants her followers to pump out kids so she’ll have a steady supply of souls from birth. The bigger the families, the bigger her fanbase after the originals die off.”\n\n“That’s not it. The Goddess of Kindness wants to spread love, and children are the living proof of that love.”\n\nThey walked on in silence for a while.\n\n“I’ll drive the promiscuity out of your heart with kindness, James,” Jack said solemnly.\n\n'Tell your friend you’re probably even more of a virgin than his goddess.' Artemis whispered in his head.\n\nLuke almost said it out loud, but thought better of it. As they turned the corner, Luke froze. There she was again, Thyara, standing in the middle of the market, scanning the crowd as if searching for someone. He stopped and doubled back, keeping to the shadows.\n\n\nShe’s way too close to the inn entrance.\n\n“Something wrong, James?” Jack asked.\n\nLuke kept his eyes on her. “Nothing… just avoiding a woman.”\n\nBetter to let him think it was some fling. That would sit easier with Jack than the truth.\n\nJack leaned forward, peering down the street until he spotted Thyara. “She’s beautiful. Gentle-looking, too. Why not calm your restless heart with her, marry, and raise children?”\n\n“And then I start praying to the Goddess of Kindness and spread her word to my whole family, right?”\n\n“Exactly, James. You understand love well.”\n\nLuke kept his sarcasm to himself. No point explaining.\n\nA man walked up to Thyara, and the two of them set off side by side. Relief washed over Luke. She wasn’t searching for him after all. Maybe she hadn’t seen him earlier.\n\n“I guess we can go,” he said, but when he turned, Jack was staring at him in shock.\n\n“You said you never go after married women!”\n\n“I don’t,” Luke shot back. “And I don’t know if that guy’s her husband or just a boyfriend. That’s not the point. I just didn’t want to be seen.”\n\nJack exhaled, looking relieved.\n\n\nYeah, betrayal and divorce are probably unforgivable sins in his religion.\n\nThen Jack’s face drained of color. “That man… I hope he isn’t her lover. And I really hope you’re not having an affair with her.”\n\n“I’m not. Who is he?”\n\nJack lowered his voice. “If he is who I think he is, his name’s Mason. He’s… a noble.”\n\n“A noble?”\n\n“Yes. His family serves one of the great houses of the World Government. Back when I worked in Bastion, he lived there.”\n\nLuke glanced toward where Thyara and the man had gone, trailing them at a distance.\n\n“But he’s with someone from the Haven,” Luke pointed out.\n\n“A few months ago, he left Bastion after learning the Haven’s new leader was an heiress from one of those same families. He pledged himself to her. Mason’s the second-in-command of the Haven now. Crossing a noble is dangerous.”\n\nSecond-in-command of the Haven? Which meant he was working under Allison…\n\n“So that makes three nobles in this tutorial?” Luke asked.\n\n“I believe so,” Jack said as they walked on. “Though Mason is still technically a servant of nobility, he’s a noble all the same.”\n\nLuke kept following at a measured pace, memorizing the man’s face. Another noble inside the tutorial, he needed to remember every detail.\n\n“I don’t think it’s him…” Jack muttered, squinting. “They’re a bit far away.”\n\nThyara and her companion stopped.\n\n“No… I know that face. That’s not Mason,” Luke said, pulling back.\n\nIt was someone he recognized, one of the old Haven faces. He turned toward the inn, resuming his walk. But before stepping inside, he cast one last look at Bastion’s looming fortress in the distance.\n\nI can’t wait to be done with this damned tutorial.\n\n\n***\n\n\n*Your profession [Guardian Botanist of Mother Freya] has reached Level 56! (+5 Strength, +3 Agility, +4 Vitality, +4 Intelligence, +12 Free Points)*\n\nThe notification popped up, and Luke nearly burst with joy. Over the past few days he had spoken with countless plants, studied them, cared for them, and of course, tended his daily rounds to his crops, which would soon yield results.\n\nJust four more levels until I hit Race Level 50 and Profession Level 60.\n\nHe didn’t really have a choice, though. For now, he kept working as a woodcutter. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was where the dumbest soldiers were stationed, and that made it perfect. He could quietly tag them with his skill, then use their movements to map out Bastion. By listening in, he picked up shift schedules, places they frequented, even details of the odd jobs they ran inside the fortress. Knowing their routes made choosing his targets far easier.\n\nThe risk of being recognized was always there, but the disguise, and the sheer banality of the job, seemed to keep suspicion away. Luke forced a grin as he dragged another heavy log across the yard.\n\n\nThere’s no way any of them would imagine the most wanted man here is cutting wood right alongside them.\n\nThat was when a sharp whistle cut through the air, snapping everyone’s attention in the same direction. Luke dropped the log and moved with the others, but what he saw made him stop cold. A new batch of soldiers had just arrived, and among them stood Kruger, the Phantom Assassin. And right beside him were the other killers, the ones who wielded the power of shadows.\n\n\n***\n\n\nIt was the dead of night. Allison’s group was hidden deep in the forest, watching the orc village from the shadows. The strategy, at least the beginning of it, she had learned from Luke.\n\nThe first alarms rang out. Orc horns blared from one side of the settlement. Perched high in a tree, Allison scanned the scene. In the distance, a tree was burning, collapsing against the wooden wall of the village and spreading fire across the barricade. Fireballs arced through the air as the soldiers launched their assault. The strike came all at once, hammering that single point.\n\nThe orc army roared in response, rushing to meet the attackers. From the rooftops, orcs manned their ballistae, loosing one massive bolt at a time. Deadly. Precise. But the soldiers on the ground held formation, their heavy metal shields absorbing the impact, shields forged through grueling days inside the dungeon.\n\nAnd hidden in the treeline, waiting for their chance, crouched Allison, Mason, Eugene, Miriam, Gilbert, Quinn, and Malik. They faced the towering ballista nest built into the wall. Between them and that tower stretched nothing but open ground. No trees. No cover.\n\n“It’s now or never,” Quinn muttered.\n\nIf they didn’t make their move, the soldiers on the far side would be slaughtered.\n\n“Not yet,” Mason hissed, signaling with his hand.\n\n“You’re insane! They’re going to die out there!”\n\n“Wait for the signal,” Allison ordered, her own nerves taut as wire.\n\nShe hated the delay, but they needed the orc focus. Every eye, every arrow, every bolt had to stay locked on the diversion. The orcs couldn’t suspect a trap. They needed to believe this was a reckless, suicidal charge. Only then would every last one of them commit.\n\n“Hold…” Mason’s voice was a growl.\n\nAllison drew in a breath, centering herself. Her focus sank into the steady beat of her heart, into the bloodline power that never slept. It was always there, passive, flowing. But when she let her mana flood her heart, it surged to its peak, sharpening everything.\n\n“If I die tonight…” Eugene whispered beside her, “at least… I’ll be at your side.”\n\nHer brow furrowed. “I don’t plan on dying tonight.”\n\nThe signal came.\n\nThe seven of them broke from the trees, sprinting across the open field. Allison dashed with her sword in hand, chaining swordsman dashes one after another. The tower was still too far for her iceball spell, but she could already hear the chaos around them, the guttural cries of orcs, the thunder of ballista bolts slamming into the soldiers’ shields across the village.\n\nThen one of the ballista crews spotted them. The massive weapon groaned as it swung toward their group.\n\n“Now!” Miriam shouted, yanking up a heavy metal shield. Eugene mirrored her, bracing beside her.\n\nLike Mason and Allison, the two of them could channel stamina into objects, reinforcing their shields beyond normal limits. One by one, the others fell in line behind them, a wall of iron and grit. The ballista fired. The bolt screamed through the air, slamming against the shield with brutal force. Metal shrieked, their advance slowed, but it didn’t stop. They pushed forward.\n\nOrc archers crowded the tower, bows rising, arrows nocked. But Allison was already in motion. She surged ahead, her speed unmatched. The ballista realigned, aiming for her, but she didn’t give it the chance.\n\nShe leapt. Not just once. Midair, she triggered her double jump, launching higher. At the peak, level with the ballista tower, she thrust out her hand. Dozens of iceballs burst from her palm, each one layered with the frozen power of her [Heart of the Ice Dragon].\n\nThey struck all at once. Frost detonated across the tower, blasting the orcs from their posts. Shards of ice and snow cascaded down as the structure cracked and groaned. Below, the rest of the group rammed the wall with everything they had, splintering it apart and tearing a breach wide open. They were in. And now, it was time to kill the Orc Lord."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 241: Time to Kill the Orc Lord\nTarget length: ~3400 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke studied the situation carefully. He was in his work area as a woodcutter, the forest where his group usually labored. Normally, a few Bastion soldiers patrolled the grounds to protect the workers, but something was off. There were far more soldiers here than there should have been. And worse, Kruger had arrived, flanked by his assassins with shadow powers.\n\n“We’re here for an identity inspection,” one of the soldiers announced.\n\nThe chance of it being a trap is high, but if it really were a trap, would they let themselves be seen by me like this?\n\nLuke’s gaze lingered on the assassins. A part of him burned to cut Kruger down right then and there, to slaughter all of them. They were the worst kind of threat in Bastion. His infiltration skills, his stealth, it wasn’t Luke who feared them, but the chaos Kruger could unleash. If he seized the second fortress and pushed toward Haven, assassins like those would become a serious problem.\n\nFor days now, while spying on Bastion, Luke had prayed for a chance encounter with Kruger, just to follow him beyond the Safe Zone and finish him. But the Assassin Phantom had never appeared. If he was in Bastion, he hadn’t left once. Luke couldn’t confirm it with absolute certainty, but he’d overheard enough in the tavern to track Bastion’s movements. Someone as conspicuous as Kruger stepping outside would have been noticed.\n\nThen again… there was the other possibility. Kruger might have left in disguise. It would be almost too easy. He always wore a mask; no one outside Bastion knew his face. Stripped of his gear, dressed like anyone else, he could come and go unnoticed. That was what made the assassins so dangerous: their mindset, their caution, their endless patience.\n\n“You know the procedure,” Conrad said firmly. “Confirm the information. Recruits, stick to ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ The faster you answer, the faster we’re done here.”\n\nLuke glanced around. No one seemed alarmed. To them, this was routine.\n\n“Hey, Jack,” he asked casually, “what’s going on?”\n\n“Monthly inspection,” Jack muttered. “Bartholomew sends these guys to every work sector.”\n\nLuke’s eyes shifted to the soldiers carrying ledgers.\n\n“The last thing they want,” Jack added, “is giving work to someone who owes tribute… or to a criminal.”\n\nLuke forced a thin smile. “Those files they’re carrying, they’ve got sketches, don’t they? Debtors… and criminals?”\n\n“Of course.”\n\nLuke’s stare lingered on the soldiers closing in. And the assassins… no doubt they’d be the ones to handle the criminals. He exhaled slowly, sinking into stillness. Readying himself for whatever came next. But deep down, the thought gnawed at him: trap or coincidence?\n\nShame I didn’t grab more arrows.\n\nIf Kruger got close, would he recognize him?\n\n“Name, occupation, class, and time working here,” one soldier demanded.\n\n“Rhett. Woodcutter. Ranger class. I’ve been here for a week,” the man answered.\n\nLuke watched more soldiers spread out across the camp. Even Kruger and his shadows moved among them, grabbing clipboards and speaking with workers.\n\nThey’re interviewing too? If they see my picture as Luke… will they recognize me as James?\n\nAfter the capital. After fighting Ronan. After killing six assassins. His face was etched into their memory by now. If they got anywhere near him, they’d recognize him instantly, and then all hell would break loose.\n\n“Alright, Rhett. Everything checks out,” the soldier said. “Back to work.”\n\nLuke’s eyes narrowed.\n\nI can pretend I’ve already been interviewed, then turn into mist and hide inside a tree.\n\nThat was the plan. All he needed was an opening, a single move. Soldiers drifted closer to the workers, and unease coiled in his chest. He wasn’t ready to face Kruger. Not yet. Not without at least five more arrows in his quiver. The Warden Captain came first. Killing him mattered more than anything else. Once the second mechanism was triggered and the fortress handed over to Haven, then he could breathe easier and turn his full attention to Bartholomew.\n\n“Name, job, class, and how long you’ve been here,” one soldier demanded.\n\nJack stiffened.\n\n“Jack. Woodcutter. My class is… healer. Been working here a month.”\n\n“Healer? What the hell are you doing in a place like this? If I were you, I’d rather be in Bastion.”\n\n“Keep your voice down about my class,” Jack muttered, nervous. “You know that causes trouble…”\n\nThe soldier scratched notes on his ledger. “Information checks out. Get back to work.”\n\nFrom a distance, he spotted Kruger. No clipboard. Just prowling between groups, scanning faces like a wolf among sheep. I must be the unluckiest bastard in this whole camp.\n\nHe watched Jack slip into the trees and lowered his head, slipping into stealth to follow, hoping to dodge his own interview. That’s when he felt a hand brush close.\n\n“Name, job, class, and time working here,” a voice said.\n\nHe turned, already preparing to strike if the soldier recognized him for what he truly was. But when he saw who it was...\n\n“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Eleanor said.\n\nHis mind faltered for a moment. Right. Soldier.\n\n“I’m guessing you already know everything about me,” he said lightly, masking the tension.\n\nShe gave a soft laugh while flipping open his file. He glanced around. The assassins and Kruger were still moving through the crowd, questioning workers.\n\n“Small world, James,” she murmured.\n\n“Smaller than I’d like,” he replied with a faint smile, keeping one eye on the shadows closing in.\n\n“I already know your name. I still need your job, class, and how long you’ve been here,” she teased.\n\n“Isn’t it all in the file?”\n\n“Procedure says I have to ask,” she said, clearly toying with him.\n\n“Fine. Woodcutter. Archer class. Two weeks on the job.”\n\nShe scribbled a few marks, then shut the file. “Looks like everything checks out. You’re free to return to work.”\n\nBut behind him, one of the shadow assassins was still conducting interviews. If it came to that, he would be recognized instantly. He needed a diversion.\n\nHe improvised.\n\n“Well then, madam,” he said with a grin, “you know everything about me, and I barely know a thing about you. What are you doing out here? I’m the type to believe coincidences are just destiny in disguise.” He willed himself into the mindset of a spy, every word a deliberate mask.\n\nEleanor smiled faintly. “You already know my name. My class is archer.”\n\n“That explains your aim,” he replied.\n\nShe shrugged. “Everyone has their strengths.”\n\nThe assassin still lingered behind him. He forced another smile. “I thought you just patrolled the Safe Zone. Didn’t realize you had other duties.”\n\n“Why do you want to know more?” she asked slyly. “Trying to set something up?”\n\n“Maybe. Depends on when you’re free…” He fought to keep his voice steady.\n\n“I told you,” she said, eyes glinting. “My job is keeping the Safe Zone safe. That means I also work with Bastion’s special patrols. Like the ones with me right now.”\n\nWith those lunatic assassins?\n\n“You seem like the most normal one,” he said.\n\n“I’m not sure if I should be offended by that,” she replied with a small laugh.\n\nShe hesitated, her expression shifting. “But honestly, I barely interact with them. My role in the team is more… solitary.”\n\n“And what role is that?” he asked.\n\n“I’m more of a… sniper,” she said.\n\nHis throat tightened, forcing out a cough. “Sniper?” He struggled to keep his composure.\n\n“Yes. I’m the best. They always call me for high-risk missions. Though lately, things have been quiet. Aside from that little incident at the barrier.”\n\n“I-Incident at the barrier?”\n\n“Yeah. With that maniac terrorist,” she said casually. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t in real danger… probably. Let’s just say, when I fire an arrow, I always shoot to kill.”\n\nShoot to kill?!\n\n“Like… right in the heart?” he asked with a shaky laugh.\n\n“Bingo.” Her smile sharpened. “I always prefer a clean shot straight through the heart.”\n\nHe scanned the surroundings, and something clicked in his mind.\n\nNo way…\n\n'Luke, there’s a good chance she’s the one who almost killed you.' Artemis whispered, then burst into laughter. 'Man, this world is way too small.'\n\nHe forced a calm tone. “I imagine your job gets pretty dangerous.”\n\n“Sometimes. Why the sudden interest? Worried about me?” she asked, nudging him playfully.\n\n“Yes… very worried.”\n\n'He’s worried about himself, hahahaha.' Artemis howled inside his head.\n\n“Relax,” she said with a grin. “I can take care of myself.”\n\nBehind them, the assassin finished his interview.\n\n“I’d better get going,” he muttered. “Wouldn’t want to interfere with your work.”\n\nShe nodded. “Just be careful not to end up in my sights, James.” She raised her hand, finger cocked like a bowstring, and mimed a shot.\n\n“I hope that day never comes,” he replied.\n\nWith that, he slipped away, heading back to his work as if nothing had happened.\n\n\n***\n\n\nEvening had finally settled in, and Luke had spent the entire day lost in thought. The coincidence of Eleanor being the same archer who’d once aimed for his heart kept gnawing at him. The possibility that she might also be one of those trying to prevent the mechanisms from being activated made his chest feel heavier. If that were true, then sooner or later, he’d have to kill her.\n\n“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath.\n\n“What’s wrong, James? You usually leave earlier. Never seen you hang around this late,” Jack asked.\n\n“I think I’m done flirting with women,” Luke replied flatly.\n\nJack clapped him on the back. “I knew it. The words of the Goddess of Kindness are finally getting through to you.”\n\nLuke just stared at him, exhaling a long sigh. The truth was, he stayed until dusk because he suspected someone might try to set a trap if they’d recognized him. Better to let it all play out at night, in the forest trails, where he could use the cover of darkness to his advantage. If blood was going to be spilled, he wanted the shadows on his side.\n\nSo he veered away from the usual route, choosing the longer trail no one bothered with. He wasn’t about to risk walking into an ambush waiting on the main path. No. Tonight he’d set the bait himself.\n\n“You’re not heading back with the others?” Jack asked, catching up.\n\n“Not today,” Luke said.\n\nHe glanced toward the city, ignoring the common trail.\n\nI’ve got enough from the map to finish the rest of the plan. Shame it’ll be with just five damn arrows.\n\nNot that arrows mattered much anymore. The old reliable, potions as weapons, would be his real trump card. He still needed a few more levels, but by now his crops had to be fully grown. With luck, that harvest would give him all the experience points he needed. It would be him against the Warden Captain and the other Wardens. Princess Charlie had her own mission. The stronger he was, the better the odds. Luke started down the trail, only for Jack to appear at his side again.\n\n“You really shouldn’t walk with me, Jack,” Luke muttered.\n\n“You know, I’ve been where you are,” Jack began. “I used to live recklessly. No long-term ties, no marriage, nothing but anger weighing me down. Then the words of kindness reached me, and everything changed.”\n\nLuke frowned. “You’re not getting it. This isn’t about that.”\n\nJack placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine, man. I’m here for you. The first step is admitting you need to change, and you’ve already done that. Leave the rest to me.”\n\nLuke shook his head, walking faster. “Jack, I’m a bad person. If you stick with me, you’ll end up hurt.”\n\n“James, believe me, I’ve been where you are. I know exactly how you feel.”\n\nLuke pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, idiot. I’m headed down a dangerous trail that might be a trap. You could actually get hurt. I don’t know what’s waiting out there, and if you’re caught in the middle of it, you won’t survive. I’m trying to protect you.”\n\nJack only smiled and pointed to Luke’s chest. “I can see it. A war raging inside your heart. But don’t walk into that abyss alone. I’ll be there for you.”\n\n“Shit…” Luke muttered. “Listen, idiot, I might be walk—”\n\nThat’s when he heard it. Branches snapping, footsteps rushing through the brush.\n\n“I knew it,” he whispered.\n\nA bolt cut through the air. Luke shoved Jack aside just in time.\n\n“I told you, you idiot!”\n\nFigures burst from the treeline, armed with swords, axes, and bows already drawn. Luke reached for his kukris, summoning them from his inventory, then froze when he saw a familiar face.\n\n“Rhett?” he breathed.\n\nRhett grinned. “Hello, idiots.”\n\nLuke’s eyes swept over the group. These weren’t Bartholomew’s soldiers.\n\n“Oh no. Not again,” Jack groaned.\n\n“What do you mean, again?” Luke snapped.\n\n“I’m about to get kidnapped,” Jack said, raising his hands in surrender.\n\nRhett smirked. “Exactly. A healer wandering around unprotected? You’re coming with us. You’ll serve us now.”\n\nNot soldiers of Bastion. Bandits.\n\n\n***\n\n\nAllison stood in the middle of the battlefield at the orc village, steel clashing all around her. The noise was relentless, deafening. Even though the orcs were weaker than her, their sheer numbers were overwhelming. She and the others from the Haven had formed a defensive circle, but it was like fighting against the earth itself, every time one fell, more seemed to crawl out of the ground.\n\nTwo of the ballistae had already been silenced, but the other two kept firing. The orc crews didn’t even hesitate to fire into their own ranks if it meant hitting their enemies. A thunderous explosion shook the air nearby, a fireball, courtesy of Mason. An orc roared, axe swinging toward her with brutal speed. Allison slipped past the blow and spun. Her katana carved clean through its neck.\n\n[You have slain an Orc Villager Lvl 24]\n\nThe body froze in place, the skin glowing blue before locking solid into jagged ice. That was the power of her profession skill, further enhanced by her bloodline skill, [Heart of the Ice Dragon]. Every corpse she struck down, she could turn into ice with a thought.\n\nHer eyes flicked to the blade in her hand, the reward from the day she’d slain the Ant Queen.\n\n[General Ant’s Katana (Rare)\n\nDescription: Forged from one of the Ant Queen’s limbs, this blade carries the essence of her untamed fury. The creature fell in battle against a princess who bore the same grief of loss. The weapon became the reflection of a shared tragedy, the wrath of two sovereigns, mother and daughter, bound by the same path of vengeance.\n\n[Noble Blood Recognized (Rare)]: The blade sharpens when wielded by one of royal blood.\n\n[Chitinous Carapace (Rare)]: While wielding this katana, the user can temporarily harden their skin like chitin, gaining extra defense in battle.\n\nRequirement: Level 20+ in Swordsman class.]\n\nAnother roar tore through the chaos. More orcs surged forward, their bodies piling into the frozen corpses now standing like grotesque statues around her. At least the icy graveyard slowed their advance, turning the dead into makeshift barricades.\n\n“We need to reach the Orc Lord!” Quinn shouted.\n\nThey were cut off from the main invasion force. Miriam charged ahead, axe spinning, unleashing a skill that tore a bloody path through the mob. Eugene, Malik, Gilbert, and Mason pressed forward in her wake.\n\nAllison darted after them, weaving through the icebound corpses. She dashed, double-jumped, and landed beside the others. From her vantage in the air, she caught sight of the main Haven force. They’d formed a wider circle, their ranged fighters, archers, mages, crossbowmen, safely at the core. The outer ring bristled with melee classes, each one backed by a shieldbearer, their interlocked walls of iron keeping the horde at bay.\n\nSpells lit the night sky, lightning crackled, barriers flared, spectral arms of mana clawed at the orcs, and enchanted debris hurtled through the air.\n\n“He’s coming!” Miriam’s voice rang out.\n\nAllison saw him. The massive figure rising from his throne, purple skin gleaming like bruised iron. He wasn’t like the others. Not an orc. A High Orc. A breed stronger, faster, more vicious than the rest. His roar rolled over the battlefield as he thundered toward them.\n\nMiriam planted her feet, pouring stamina into her axe. The weapon grew impossibly heavy, dense with the weight of her blacksmith’s skill. With a shout, she hurled it. The axe slammed into the Orc Lord’s chest with a resounding crack.\n\nAnd still, he kept running. Allison unleashed a barrage of iceballs, each one striking the monster and bursting into shards of snow. Beside her, Gilbert hurled his hand-axes, the enchanted belt around his waist conjuring more with every throw. With a roar of fury, the Orc Lord leapt. They all recognized that move, the same devastating power that had killed one of their own before.\n\n“Scatter!” someone shouted.\n\nThe ground shook as the beast landed, flames erupting from his body in a violent shockwave that scorched everything within reach.\n\nMalik raised his wand, chains of mana lashing out to bind the Orc Lord in place. Quinn darted forward, rapier flashing as razor-sharp birds of wind slammed into the creature. Eugene hefted his spear, channeling lightning until the weapon crackled with raw energy, then hurled it with all his strength. The spear hurtled toward the Orc Lord’s face, only for the monster to snatch it from the air, snap Malik’s bindings, and let the electricity dance across his flesh as though it were nothing more than an irritation.\n\nAllison kept firing, iceballs slamming into the beast one after another. Malik wasn’t done. He thrust his wand again, and from the corpses littering the battlefield more chains of mana burst forth, wrapping around the Orc Lord’s limbs and torso. Then Mason moved. He vaulted high, his body glowing faintly with a golden light, bloodline power igniting within him. Both arms blackened, cracked with streaks of burning yellow, transforming into charred stone limbs, his epic blacksmith skill.\n\nHe landed hard at the monster’s flank. The others fell back instantly, giving him space. Mason raised his arms and invoked a spell: Fireball.\n\nBut it wasn’t one. It was dozens.\n\nLike a living artillery cannon, Mason’s arms spewed fireball after fireball, each exploding in blinding succession. His lineage amplified their destructive power, his epic blacksmithing skill twisting them into something even more devastating. The blasts consumed the battlefield, thunderclaps of fire and smoke tearing the air apart, wave after wave hammering into the Orc Lord.\n\nThe sight froze everyone in place. Even his allies, hardened fighters all, could only watch in awe. Mason was the strongest among them, and in that moment, no one could doubt it. Caught completely off guard, the Orc Lord was swallowed by the inferno. The monster’s massive form disappeared in the storm of fire, drowned beneath endless detonations. The final fireball left Mason’s hands, and he collapsed to one knee, mana utterly drained.\n\n“Did we get him?” Malik gasped.\n\nThe answer came in the form of a roar. The Orc Lord emerged from the smoke, mangled but very much alive. His flesh was torn open, raw muscle and charred sinew visible beneath the burns. Half his face was blackened, one tusk shattered. Blood poured freely across his body, but his eyes burned hotter than ever. He wore no armor, only crude pants fashioned from bone and iron scraps.\n\nHe glared at them all, lips curling into something that might have been a grin.\n\n“Was that it?” the creature growled.\n\nFear gripped the group. The Orc Lord spread his arms wide, flames licking from his skin. Metal clinked. Chains rattled. As the smoke cleared, they saw him holding a massive iron chain in each hand, spiked balls the size of boulders dangling from their ends.\n\nWith a savage roar, he spun them. The whirling weapons tore through the battlefield, smashing debris, wood, structures, and even orcs that stood in his path, reducing everything to rubble without distinction. Allison dodged at the last second, leaping back with a double jump. But when she landed and looked over her shoulder, her heart froze. Malik was there one instant. The next, he was nothing but gore.\n\nWhen Allison hit the ground again, the Orc Lord stood grinning at them through the carnage. Then, without hesitation, he charged."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 242: Dragon Blood\nTarget length: ~3200 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke and Jack had been walking through the forest for two hours, a pack of bandits trailing behind them as escorts.\n\n“Caw!” A crow screeched overhead, wings cutting through the night sky. Darkness had fully settled in.\n\n“I just hope wherever you’re dragging us, we get there before midnight,” Luke muttered. “We’re a long way from the Safe Zone. Walking the Wild Zone at night, even in the gray areas, is always a gamble.”\n\n“Shut your mouth!” One of them kicked him in the back.\n\nJack walked a little stiff, tension in every step. “I knew it…”\n\n“This has happened before?” Luke asked, eyebrows raised.\n\n“Yes,” Jack admitted with a curt nod. “It’s common if you’re a healer. You think most of us go to Bastion just for the perks? Out here in the Wild Zone, there’s always the risk of getting snatched by criminals.”\n\n“Got it. You���re too valuable to pass up,” Luke said dryly.\n\n“Quiet down, you two princesses,” Rhett snapped.\n\nLuke didn’t resist, just kept moving as ordered. “So, Rhett, are you the one running this little parade?”\n\nRhett stayed silent.\n\n“Or maybe your boss is that woman with a fetish for dressing like a ninja?”\n\n“I said shut up!” Rhett snarled, pressing a blade against Luke’s neck.\n\n“Alright, alright…”\n\nTheir wrists were bound tightly with rope. Luke didn’t know much about knots, but this one was solid. Eventually, they reached a ruin tucked away in the forest, a rough camp sprawled around it with several tents set up.\n\n“I’d almost prefer a blindfold,” Luke said casually. “People who memorize the route don’t usually get to test their memory twice.”\n\nOne of the bandits stiffened. “You memorized the way here?”\n\nLuke blinked innocently. “Memorized? Who said anything about memorizing? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”\n\nAround a fire sat eight more people, waiting.\n\n“Did you bring the healer?” someone asked.\n\n“Yeah,” Rhett answered. “And we’ve got another one for Landon.”\n\n“Don’t say his name, you idiot!” another snapped.\n\n“What’s the big deal? They’re already caught.”\n\nThe flap of the largest tent opened, and a man stepped out. Tall, clad in full armor, beard neatly trimmed, clipboard in hand.\n\n“Conrad?” Jack blurted out.\n\n“Hello, Jack.” Conrad’s voice was calm, almost amused. “Who would’ve thought you were a healer all along? Funny, that little detail wasn’t in the files I had access to. If you’d been one of Bastion’s honored soldiers instead of some camp rat, the moment I learned you abandoned your role, you’d already be gone.”\n\nThe realization hit. This wasn’t just any bandit. Their leader had been the administrator of the lumber camps.\n\n“Nothing personal,” Conrad continued smoothly. “But you know how it works. A healer out here is worth his weight in gold, especially with Bartholomew hoarding nearly all of them.”\n\nHe strode closer, eyes flicking between Luke and Jack.\n\n“Why would you become a bandit?” Jack demanded. “Didn’t you already have a job?”\n\nConrad’s smile sharpened. “And who said I care about that damned Bastion job? I only enlisted for power. I’m still part of a gang. With the Renegades gone, the board’s been flipped.”\n\nLuke finally broke his silence. “So you’re aiming to take Marshall’s place?”\n\n“Waste my time waging war against Bastion? Hardly. But we’re not fools either. A new tutorial area just opened, and that’s the real gold rush. With a healer in our ranks, patching us up while we carve our way through and grind levels, we’ll be unstoppable.” Conrad’s eyes gleamed. “That’s the key to power.”\n\nHe drew a sword and leveled it at Jack. “Why am I wasting time explaining this to you two? It’s simple. You heal us when we need it, and you won’t be harmed. You’ll have food, safety… or, we start cutting off your fingers. One a day. Until you comply. What do you say?”\n\n“F-fine. No one needs to get hurt here,” Jack stammered.\n\nConrad gestured toward one of the men by the fire. The man’s foot was wrapped in a filthy bandage, clearly wounded. “Start with him. And don’t try anything clever.”\n\nJack hurried over and knelt, already channeling his healing.\n\n“And what about me?” Luke asked. “I take it things aren’t going to end as neatly in my case.”\n\n“Are you a healer?” Conrad’s eyes narrowed.\n\n“No.”\n\n“Then you’ll be useful in another way. Our leader will be here in a few days. Even weaklings like you serve a purpose. You’ll make a fine sacrifice for him, worth a chunk of experience.” Conrad pressed the tip of his blade closer.\n\n“Hand over everything in your inventory… or…”\n\n“Or you’ll kill me?” Luke said evenly. “You already said you would.”\n\nConrad paused, then pulled the blade back with a sigh. “There are two kinds of death. The good ones, and the bad ones. The quick, and the long.” He turned to the others. “Make the little bird sing.”\n\n“Wait!” Jack pleaded. “No one needs to get hurt. I can keep healing everyone, and he can stay here. Once you’re strong enough, you won’t need us anymore. Just let us go then.”\n\nNo one bothered to answer him.\n\nLuke was dragged to a tent set apart from the rest. Inside, a stone column, remnant of the ruin, rose from the ground. Shackled to it was a wooden chair stained dark with old blood. The dirt floor was no cleaner, spotted with dried patches of red. On a crude wooden counter sat a box filled with tools, each one more ominous than the last.\n\n“Leave him to me,” said a bald man.\n\n“You sure, Beckett?” one of the others asked.\n\n“Just chain the idiot and get out. You know what comes next.”\n\nHeavy chains wrapped around Luke’s chest and wrists, securing him against the column.\n\n“Out!” Beckett barked, and the others obeyed.\n\nThe man inhaled deeply, then let it out slow. A smile crept across his face. “If there’s one thing I truly enjoy… it’s this.” His tone was calm, almost indulgent, as he strolled toward the counter.\n\nHe gave a sharp whistle and snapped his fingers. Something shifted in the air. Luke felt a pressure, a shimmer of power as a barrier sealed the tent.\n\n“That’s why I chose to be a mage,” Beckett murmured, slapping his palms together. Sparks flared, crackling with raw electricity, like a living defibrillator. “Torture is an art. One reserved for the patient few.”\n\nHe stepped closer, looming. “Don’t bother screaming. The barrier keeps your pain all to myself.” His grin widened.\n\nA laugh cut through the tension.\n\nBeckett froze. “What was that?”\n\n“No idea,” Luke replied calmly.\n\nBeckett frowned, rifling through the tools before turning his attention back to Luke. He checked his wrists, tugged at his hands, even pulled off his boots. Then he yanked away the eyepatch. “Huh. So that eye of yours works.”\n\n“I wear it for style,” Luke said flatly.\n\nBeckett rolled his eyes and kept searching.\n\n“You’ve got nothing worth taking,” he muttered. Then he unclasped a necklace from Luke’s neck and held it up. “Except this little trinket.”\n\nHe focused, trying to identify it. Nothing. His eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t work. Soulbound, is it?” He glanced at Luke, who remained silent. Beckett chuckled darkly. “Not talking, huh? Doesn’t matter. I’ve seen enough of these. Odds are it’s a storage item.”\n\nHe set the necklace down on the counter.\n\n“Not going to tell me to empty the item?” Luke asked.\n\n“No,” Beckett replied. “I’ll confess something. If you handed over all your items right now, it wouldn’t be any fun. So relax, and enjoy the moment with me.”\n\nHe grabbed a wooden plank and tapped it against his palm. “Before you cook the meat, you have to tenderize it.”\n\nThe plank cracked across Luke’s face. A burst of laughter exploded through the tent.\n\n“What the hell was that?” Beckett snapped.\n\nThe laugh didn’t come from Luke—it came from the necklace on the table. A man’s voice, roaring with amusement.\n\nLuke blew a strand of hair out of his eyes. “Yeah… my item’s a little weird.”\n\nBeckett scowled, snatching the necklace to examine it. His brow furrowed, then he tossed it back onto the counter. “Never seen anything like this.”\n\nHe whistled a tune, humming as he pulled tools from the box. He held up a serrated blade, frowned. “This saw’s a little dull, but it’ll do later.” Then he picked up a hammer, hefting it with one hand. “Imagine you’re at a doctor’s appointment.”\n\nThe hammer slammed down against Luke’s leg with a sickening crack.\n\n“Hahahaha!” Franky’s voice howled with laughter through the necklace.\n\n“What kind of insane item is this?” Beckett growled.\n\n“He told me to keep quiet, but I can’t help it. This is too funny!” Franky cackled.\n\nBeckett lifted the hammer and saw the head bent, warped by the impact. He turned, glaring at Luke. “Why didn’t you scream when I hit you?”\n\n“Because it didn’t hurt,” Luke said flatly.\n\nA vein bulged on Beckett’s forehead. He rummaged through the box, snatched a nail, and pressed it against Luke’s hand. “You’ll start singing soon, little bird. Sweet music for my ears.”\n\nHe raised the hammer. “On three. One… two!” And he brought it down hard.\n\nFranky lost it, laughing so hard it shook the air. Beckett stared, expecting agony. Instead, Luke just tilted his head.\n\n“I thought we agreed on three.”\n\nBeckett glanced at the nail driven clean through Luke’s hand, then back to his face. “That had to hurt. Why the hell aren’t you screaming?”\n\n“Pretty sure the problem’s you, not the weapon.”\n\nThe smile slid from Beckett’s face.\n\nHe exhaled slowly, and in his hands appeared a pair of metal knuckle-dusters, crackling with electricity as he clashed them together. “I’m gonna smash that unbearable face of yours,”\n\n“Hahahaha! He said you’ve got an unbearable face!” Franky burst out laughing. “Man, that’s exactly your face! Hahaha, I’m dying here!”\n\nBeckett swung, the charged fist smashing into Luke’s cheek. Then another. And another. Blow after blow, electricity sparking with each hit while Franky’s laughter filled the tent. But when Beckett finally stopped to look, Luke’s face was unmarked. Intact.\n\n“What the hell are you?” Beckett muttered, panic cutting through his bravado.\n\nLuke sighed, raised one hand, and pointed at the ground. Roots erupted from the soil, coiling like serpents around Beckett’s legs, climbing, twisting, crushing until they locked around his throat. Luke pulled an axe from his inventory. The blade flared, glowing with heat. With a single brutal swing, he brought it down on Beckett’s skull. Flesh sizzled, the man convulsed for a few seconds before collapsing, lifeless.\n\n[You have slain a Human – Lvl 13 (Mage – Lvl 24 / Cook – Lvl 32)]\n\n\n[You have acquired +1 Soul Fragment]\n\n“Luke, I thought you were going to torture him,” Artemis said, her voice low, almost reproachful.\n\n“He was a mage,” Luke replied coldly. “If I hadn’t killed him quickly, he would’ve warned the others.”\n\nThe axe dissolved back into his inventory with a faint shimmer, as though the weapon itself had never existed. Luke flexed his fingers, shaking off the phantom heat of the blade, and turned toward the cluttered table.\n\n“And honestly,” he muttered, sweeping his belongings into a neat pile, “he wasn’t even worth burning the kukri on.” His tone carried no anger, just the blunt practicality of someone weighing the cost of effort against the value of a life.\n\nHe lowered his voice, almost conversational, as if speaking to an old acquaintance. “So, little snake… you had your laugh. How about making a familiar pact with me now?”\n\nFranky’s reply came sharp and flat. “No.”\n\nLuke arched a brow. “I thought we were becoming friends.”\n\n“Friends? With you?” Franky barked a bitter laugh. “Not a chance.”\n\nLuke slid the necklace back around his neck, the metal catching what little lantern light filtered through the tent, then adjusted the eyepatch into place with the precision of a ritual.\n\n“It’s been almost three months,” he said quietly. “Every single day. You still won’t admit this is at least some kind of friendship?”\n\n“There’s not a shred of friendship between us,” Franky snapped, his words dripping venom.\n\nLuke ignored the bite in his tone. He pushed aside the flap of the tent and peeked outside. Fourteen men, maybe more, spread across the camp. Lanterns swung in the night breeze, casting long, jagged shadows that shifted like restless specters.\n\nA grin tugged at his mouth, feral, anticipatory. “Better than I expected,” he whispered to himself.\n\nWasting that much experience wasn’t an option. He hadn’t allowed himself to be captured out of weakness. He had walked into this camp with one purpose: to erase the entire gang in a single, devastating strike.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe Orc Lord roared with laughter as he swung at Allison and her party, a guttural, animalistic sound that echoed through the burning village. They had barely managed to land a handful of strikes on him. Malik had fallen almost instantly, crushed by one of the monster’s iron balls. Mason was the only one who could trade blows without being torn apart, but even he was bleeding and exhausted. The massive spiked spheres, chained to the creature’s arms, spun with terrifying speed, smashing through anything in their path. Getting close to him was nearly impossible.\n\n“Keep them contained!” someone shouted over the chaos.\n\nThe village had become a storm of violence after the Orc Lord’s first roar, a sound that had driven the lesser orcs into a frenzy. Haven soldiers had pushed forward to reinforce Allison’s group, holding back the horde, but it was far from enough.\n\nAllison narrowly avoided one of the iron balls as it smashed into the ground. The frozen corpses of orcs shattered nearby, exploding into shards of ice that sprayed in every direction. She seized the opening, dashing forward in a blur and slashing at the Orc Lord with her Freezing Slash. Arrows rained down from archers overhead, sinking into the beast’s hide, but he barely noticed them.\n\nWith a roar, the Orc Lord charged, swinging both chains down at once. The twin iron balls slammed into a wooden house, blasting a squad of archers into the air like broken dolls.\n\nMason hurled a fireball, the explosion lighting the battlefield in orange fury. Allison followed the blast with volleys of ice, launching orb after orb to blind and slow the monster. Even scorched and frostbitten, the Orc Lord fought on, his fury unbroken.\n\n“Fall back!” Allison shouted to the Haven soldiers.\n\nMiriam staggered, her arm bleeding heavily, her body covered in bruises. Eugene darted in and out with his spear, lightning sparking across his legs, stabbing at the monster before retreating out of reach.\n\nAllison sprinted straight for the Orc Lord, weaving between the deadly iron balls. She leapt, a double jump carrying her higher, blade ready. The beast raised his arms to block and swung a massive fist at her, but she exhaled a freezing gust, blinding him with sudden fog. Dropping through the mist, she slashed again and again, driving her blade into him relentlessly.\n\nShe had seen it now. His fighting style had a weakness: the iron balls only dominated mid-range. Up close, the monster’s movements were slower, more desperate. The air around him seared with blistering heat, steam rolling from his body in suffocating waves. Staying close was torture. But Allison’s own aura of cold kept her skin numb, her breath steady.\n\nThe Orc Lord swung wildly. She dodged, firing an iceball point-blank. The blast of snow burst across his face just as Mason rushed in with his sword, Eugene striking from behind, and Gilbert hurling axes from a distance.\n\nFor a moment, they had him staggering.\n\nThen the monster snarled and yanked the chains back. The iron balls snapped into his grip, and he spun like a tornado, the storm of steel blasting everything away. Allison sprinted for a wooden archer’s tower, but the spinning mass ripped through it, collapsing the structure in a crash of splinters. The Orc Lord ended the spin with a final strike, slamming both balls into the ground. The impact cratered the earth, sending shards of stone, wood, and dirt flying in all directions.\n\nThe shockwave hurled Allison through the air. She hit the ground hard, blood spraying from her lips, her ribs screaming in pain. The village burned around her, fire swallowing the homes, the sky choked with smoke.\n\nShe pushed herself up on trembling arms, leaning on her sword.\n\nAnd then she saw him, standing across from her, his burning gaze fixed on her with something between fury and fascination.\n\n“A dragon woman?” the Orc Lord growled.\n\nAllison darted aside, barely avoiding the swing of the chains. The monster barreled after her as she ran at full speed, refusing to slow for even a breath. She hurled herself into the shell of a ruined stone house, the creature crashing in after her, shattering what remained of the walls.\n\nIceballs burst from her hands as she sprinted deeper inside, ducking behind a cracked column. The air was suffocating, heat radiating from the Orc Lord like a furnace. Unlike Morvat, who cloaked himself in flames, this thing burned with an invisible aura, just as deadly, just as relentless.\n\n“I met a dragon once,” the monster’s guttural voice echoed through the ruins. “You’re one too, aren’t you? Trapped in that humanoid shell, a mongrel mix of bloodlines. How pitiful. Why would a species so proud ever stoop to such filth as breeding a half-human, half-dragon?”\n\nWith a sudden roar, he lunged, smashing the stone columns apart, the chains demolishing everything in reach.\n\nAllison threw herself out through a broken window, rolling across the dirt slicked with mud as the building collapsed behind her.\n\n“Run!” the Orc Lord bellowed, tearing the ruins to rubble, debris flying in every direction.\n\nShe bolted, only to see more orcs charging straight toward her. Too far from the other Haven fighters. Too far from help. Glancing back, she saw him again, charging, unstoppable. No retreat left.\n\nAllison gritted her teeth and pushed forward, weaving between the whirling metal spheres. Orcs leapt at her, clawing and slashing, trying to pin her down. She focused her will, channeling power into her blade until the steel glittered with frost, a lethal edge of ice. Spinning as she ran, she cut them down one by one.\n\n[You have slain…]\n\n\n[You have slain…]\n\n\n[You have slain…]\n\n\n[You have slain…]\n\n[You have slain…]\n\n\n[You have slain…]\n\n\n[You have slain…]\n\nOrc after orc froze solid where they fell, grotesque statues locked forever in the final moment of their charge. But there were too many. They came from every direction, surrounding her, pressing her back toward the monster itself.The world blurred as one of the iron balls slammed into her side. The impact ripped her from the ground, hurling her through the air until her body crashed against the trees with bone-rattling force.\n\nThe Orc Lord loomed above her, chains dripping with blood and mud, eyes blazing with savage triumph.\n\n“I’ll take your head as my trophy, little dragon,” he snarled."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 243: Allison vs Orc Lord\nTarget length: ~2900 words\nKey events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Luke peeked out from the flap of the tent, scanning Conrad’s bandit camp. It sat deep in the forest, inside what people called the “gray zone.” Technically neutral ground, but not really. The Safe Zone lay on one side, the Midnight Wardens stalked the other, and in between prowled beasts and other nightmares. The bandits were used to it.\n\nHe slipped back into the tent. And here I was, worried about Bastion setting up an ambush, only to get grabbed by a bunch of random thugs.\n\nNot that he minded. Free experience points didn’t exactly fall from the sky. He didn’t see himself as a psychopath; he’d never harm someone decent. But these men were criminals. Killing them wasn’t just justified, it was practically charity. And on top of that, he’d get stronger.\n\nWas it psychotic of me to let myself get captured just so I could slaughter the whole camp?\n\n“This is giving off some serious Dexter Morgan vibes,” Artemis whispered. “But yeah, there’s a touch of psychopath in you. Who else would plan around getting their arm chewed off by a giant snake?”\n\nMaybe all the crap I’ve gone through is warping my sense of humanity. But hey, who hasn’t had a bad day, right?\n\nLuke did something he hadn’t done in a long time, he brought out his throwing knives. A faint shimmer, and a holster materialized strapped to his thigh.\n\n[Throwing Knife Holster (Common)\n\nDescription: A specialized holster designed to store throwing knives. It can conjure common-rarity blades when infused with mana.\n\nEnchantments:\n\n[Mana Knives (Common)]: By channeling mana, the holster can generate up to 6 throwing knives, instantly materialized and ready for deadly precision.]\n\nHe poured mana into it, and six blades blinked into existence. Jack had been marked with Predator’s Mark, his outline glowing faint red through the rock wall. He was inside a shallow cave, sitting on the ground. Luke summoned Princess Charlie. She appeared at his side and immediately understood the situation when she saw Becket’s body on the ground.\n\nHe stepped out of the tent. Seven men lounged around the main fire.\n\nI’m going to kill every last one of these idiots.\n\n“Okay, new vibe,” Artemis teased. “Less Dexter, more Jason Voorhees. Creepy woods, knives in hand, it fits.”\n\nLuke glanced at Princess Charlie. “If anyone runs, you know what to do.” She nodded without hesitation. He palmed two knives and moved forward, each step silent, his mind sharpening into Advanced Stealth. The air itself seemed to bend around him. He raised his hand and let the first blade fly. It whistled through the dark, buried itself in a bandit’s throat. The man dropped his bowl, eyes wide, clutching at the wound as blood sprayed between his fingers.\n\n“The hell was that?!” one of them barked.\n\nThe dying man’s gaze locked on Luke. Too late. He flicked his wrists and more blades cut the air, each one straight, clean, merciless. One buried itself in a skull, another tore into a chest, another blinded a man screaming in shock. Luke walked calmly, fast hands pulling fresh knives from the holster and sending them out with machine precision. One thug scrambled up, thick leather armor creaking. Luke didn’t slow. He drew six knives at once, three in each hand, and triggered a skill.\n\n[Twin Blade (Common): A skilled assassin never wastes an attack. When throwing a knife, it splits midair, creating a duplicate that follows the same path, doubling your chance to hit.]\n\nWith every step, more blades slipped from his holster, splitting midair before finding their marks. One bandit’s chest turned into a pincushion of steel. He stumbled forward and collapsed into the campfire, sparks leaping skyward as his body smoldered.\n\nNotifications lit up across Luke’s vision.\n\n[You have slain a human…]\n\n[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]\n\n\n[You have slain a human…]\n\n[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]\n\n\n[You have slain a human…]\n\n[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]\n\n\n[You have slain a human…]\n\n[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]\n\n\n[You have slain a human…]\n\n[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]\n\n\n[You have slain a human…]\n\n[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]\n\n\n[You have slain a human…]\n\n[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]\n\n**Your class [Demonic Predator] has reached Level 57! (+10 Strength, +7 Perception, +6 Agility, +6 Vitality, +6 Intelligence, +5 Endurance, +8 Free Points)**\n\n**[You have reached Level 46! Half-Demon (Rank F)] (+1 bonus point to all attributes, +1 free point)**\n\nEven weak enemies add up. Between class bonuses and profession scaling, he’d gathered exactly enough to push through another level. Maybe letting himself get “captured” hadn’t been such a bad idea after all. Shouts echoed as more bandits burst from their tents, weapons half-drawn, faces pale. Princess Charlie met them head-on, her sword already swinging.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a human…]\n\nOne screamed, then was cut short by her blade. Another bolted, panic twisting his voice as he shouted into the night. For an instant, Luke understood—anyone seeing a black knight with blazing red eyes would mistake her for a Midnight Warden.\n\nThe runner didn’t get far. Charlie raised her hand, and a spectral chain shot out, coiling around his chest. She yanked, whirling him through the air before slamming him against a tree hard enough to crack wood.\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain a human…]\n\nLuke strolled toward the largest tent. Conrad emerged, face blanching at the sight of seven corpses riddled with knives.\n\n“You said something earlier,” Luke murmured. “About a long death or a short one?”\n\nUnlike the others, Conrad didn’t break immediately. He clenched his jaw and drew his sword, arcs of lightning dancing along the blade. Then he charged.\n\nA knife punched into his eye before he made it halfway. Another sank into his leg. A third pinned his hand uselessly. Conrad crumpled, screaming, and Luke crushed his shin underfoot. His shriek tore across the camp.\n\n“I-I-Impossible…” Conrad stammered, dragging himself backward, eyes wild with terror. “H-how? What level are you?”\n\nLuke didn’t bother answering. He turned toward the cave entrance. Rhett stood there, gripping two hand axes, sweat shining on his face.\n\n“If you take another step, I’ll kill the healer!” Rhett barked.\n\n“There’s no need for that,” Jack said quietly.\n\n“Shut up, healer!” Rhett snapped.\n\nLuke sighed, taking a single step forward. “If you kill him, I’ll kill you. In the end, what will your threat have gained you?”\n\nRhett froze, voice trembling. “L-let me go!”\n\n“No,” Luke replied flatly.\n\nDesperation broke him. Rhett hurled one axe toward Luke, the other aimed at Jack. A knife blurred through the air, snapping his wrist and pinning it to the wall before he could follow through. Another blade tore across his throat. A final one buried itself in his skull.\n\nHe slumped against the stone, sliding down until he sat lifeless at the mouth of the cave.\n\n[You have slain a human…]\n\n[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]\n\n“Don’t worry, Jack,” Luke said evenly. “I’ll come back for you.”\n\nTurning, he walked back into the night. Through Predator’s Mark, he saw Conrad’s faint red outline crawling desperately across the forest floor, dragging himself away like a dying animal.\n\nLuke followed the trail until the bandit leader came into view.\n\n“N-no… please,” Conrad rasped, blood dripping from his ruined eye. “Take everything here. I don’t care. Just let me go. I swear I’ll vanish from the Safe Zone forever.”\n\nLuke sighed and crouched down, locking eyes with the man. Charlie stepped up beside him and stopped.\n\n“Princess Charlie,” Luke said evenly. “This guy swore he’d kill me slowly, painfully. Should I let him walk away?”\n\nHer gaze dropped toward Conrad. The crimson glow within her helm flared, and she shook her head once, no.\n\nShe tightened her grip on her sword and invoked the Doomblade.\n\n[Doomblade (Rare)]: The Death Knight’s sword becomes shrouded in a cursed aura. Each strike with Doomblade corrupts the target’s flesh, dealing necrotic damage. Wounds caused by this blade resist healing, leaving behind searing pain and lingering decay. The more cuts inflicted, the heavier the toll of agony upon the enemy.\n\nCharlie drove the blade into Conrad’s gut. His scream tore through the camp. Her free hand clamped down on his face, and fire roared to life, flames chewing through his skin. Yeah… she was definitely pissed.\n\nLuke turned his back on the scene and walked toward the cave, letting the princess enjoy her moment of cruelty without interruption. Inside, Jack was still where he’d been, shackled near Rhett’s corpse.\n\n“It’s me again,” Luke said as he approached.\n\nJack’s chains rattled. His voice cracked with relief. “Praise be to the Goddess of Kindness.”\n\nMetal snapped as Luke tore the bindings apart. “No goddess saved you. Just me.”\n\n“But you showed kindness, didn’t you?”\n\nLuke didn’t bother answering.\n\n“Th-thank you, James.” Jack reached out, his hand glowing faintly green with healing magic.\n\n“I’m fine. I don’t need healing,” Luke muttered.\n\nBut Jack’s gaze lingered on his head, wide-eyed. “J-James… your hair. It’s black…”\n\nAnd then Luke realized. Damn it.\n\nWhen his race level-up granted enhanced regeneration, it hadn’t just mended wounds. It had stripped the blond from his hair, leaving it pitch black. Normally, he managed that risk, waiting to raise his race level in his hideout while tending to the plantation. Here, he’d been careless.\n\n“I… dye it,” Luke said flatly.\n\nJack glanced around at the carnage, the man burning in the campfire, others sprawled in the dirt, bristling with knives.\n\nLuke drew a deep breath and met his eyes. “So. I think you’ve figured out…”\n\n“Your name is Luke,” Jack blurted, not a question, but a statement.\n\n“You already knew?”\n\nJack nodded slowly. “…Yeah.”\n\n“Then why didn’t you report me to Bastion?”\n\nJack touched the pendant hanging at his throat. “The voice of the Goddess of Kindness spoke to me the day we met. She said, ‘Help the fool, for I owe Samael a favor.’ I don’t know what it means, but she said you would.”\n\nThat caught Luke off guard.\n\n“…Right,” he muttered, turning the revelation over in his mind. If Jack had said the same thing without mentioning Samael, he wouldn’t have believed a word of it. But that name changed everything.\n\n“Alright, Jack. So you know who I am. But there’s a problem.” Luke’s tone hardened. “I killed Conrad, the administrator of this whole operation. His disappearance is going to draw way too much attention from Bartholomew’s men. And I can’t exactly testify that I was kidnapped without blowing my cover.”\n\nLuke walked over to the bodies.\n\n“What are you going to do?” Jack asked.\n\n“I’m getting out of here. I’ve got everything I need, and I won’t be heading back to the Safe Zone anytime soon.”\n\n“And me?”\n\n“Go back to your job. Act normal. Haven’t you ever watched a movie? If you vanish the day after your boss disappears, people start asking questions.”\n\nJack’s eyes swept over the carnage. “I hope I get to see you again, Luke.”\n\n“I just hope you don’t think less of me for killing these people. It was them or us.”\n\nJack gave a crooked smile. “Don’t worry about it. The Goddess of Kindness teaches that we should wipe out our enemies in the worst way possible.” With that, he started walking away.\n\n“I like that goddess,” Franky muttered.\n\nLuke moved closer. “Hey. You were planning to take the trail back to the worksite?”\n\n“Yeah, it’s the fastest way.”\n\nHe exhaled, shaking his head. “Man, what do you think happens if someone spots you sneaking around the same night one of those guys turns up missing? You really need to watch a few cop movies. I’ll take you back myself. We’ll use the long route.”\n\n[Princess Charlie has slain…]\n\n**The [Death Knight] class of Princess Charlie has reached Level 35! (Class Bonus Points Acquired: +3 Str, +3 End, +2 Agi, +2 Vit, +2 Int, +1 Per, +2 Free Points)**\n\n[Princess Charlie has unlocked a new Class Skill]\n\nOnce Jack was safely back on the trail, nothing would hold him back anymore. He finally had everything he needed to claim the fortress.\n\n\n***\n\n\nThe battle against the Orc Lord raged on, the field littered with the frozen corpses of his kin. Allison bled from half a dozen wounds, yet still stood her ground, surrounded by broken ice sculptures that only hours ago had been living, snarling orcs. They were her handiwork, silent witnesses to the slaughter.\n\nOnly Mason had managed to break through to her side. The rest of the party was locked down, trapped by the relentless fury of the horde. The Orc Lord swung his chained iron sphere again. Allison slipped out of the way by a hair’s breadth, countering with sharp, surgical strikes aimed at tendons and muscle, anything that might slow the beast down. The impact of the weapon shattered the earth at her feet.\n\nIn that brief opening, Mason emerged from the shadows. His blade sank into the monster’s back. But his mana was spent, no spells left, only steel against flesh. The Orc Lord’s roar shook the air, the heat rolling off his body like a furnace. He moved faster, more feral.\n\nAllison staggered, her body on the verge of collapse. She glanced at her sword and froze. The first cracks were spreading across the ice-forged blade. Her chest tightened. She knew what that meant: the next shatter would be the last. No more reforging, no replacements. That was the price of channeling her ice techniques into steel. Her weapons never endured for long. This katana had already been reforged multiple times. The next break was permanent. And still, she had no choice but to force it past its limits. There was no retreat here.\n\nWhile Mason fought desperately to dodge the monster’s strikes, Allison tightened her grip. Frost crawled up her arm as she poured more energy into the katana. With a double leap she came down hard, carving a deep gash across the Orc Lord’s back. Ice erupted from the wound, spreading through the torn flesh.\n\nThe beast spun in fury. One chained sphere crushed Mason, the other slammed into Allison. Both were thrown in opposite directions.Allison crashed into a mound of frozen corpses, rolling across the snow, dirt, and blood. The blow would have killed her outright if not for the katana’s enchantment, hardening her skin like an ant’s carapace. Gasping, she raised a trembling hand and fired an iceball toward the enemy.\n\n“You’re the most troublesome of all!” the Orc Lord bellowed.\n\nThe chained sphere swung back toward her in a wide arc. Allison tried to dodge, but the second iron ball slammed into the ground beside her, the shockwave knocking her off balance. She knew this move. He was going to crush her between the two spheres, like a fly caught between clapping hands.\n\nShe tried to run, but the strike came too fast. Frost surged down her blade as she turned, betting everything on one desperate block. The iron ball collided mid-swing. A sharp crack split the battlefield. Her katana broke in two, the shards spinning away into the snow.\n\n[Warning: Your item ‘General Ant’s Katana’ has been permanently destroyed]\n\nThe ground seemed to give way beneath her feet. Allison hit the frozen corpses flat on her back. Her weapon was gone. Without a katana, half her skills as a swordswoman were useless. The Orc Lord advanced, dragging his chains, the screech of metal echoing like thunder. She forced herself to her knees. The first sphere whistled past, nearly crushing her skull. She rolled aside, only to be driven back again by the second.\n\n“What a pathetic little dragon… Your kind should be ashamed of you.” The monster’s eyes burned with scorn as it mocked her.\n\nAllison clenched her teeth. She tried to rise, but her body refused to obey. Pain, cold, the crushing weight of defeat, everything pressed down at once. And yet, her eyes still burned with a fire that refused to die.\n\nShe stretched out her hand. Her fingertips trembled. There was no steel, no weapon at all, only the raw essence of ice answering her call. The air thickened, brittle and sharp, as tiny flakes of snow began to swirl around her palm. At first fragile, almost delicate, then denser, harder, glittering like shards of glass. The wind howled, drawn into her grasp by something unseen.\n\nThe ice stretched, twisted, lengthened. It was slow, painfully slow. Every second the monster drew closer. But her focus never wavered. Cold sweat slid down her face, her breath faltered, but she held on. The chill burst outward in a dazzling wave, white and blinding. And then the shape was there. Complete.\n\n[Ice Katana Creation (Rare)]: The Ice Sculptor can shape the essence of [Ice] into a temporary blade. While ephemeral, the weapon is as real and sharp as steel, though its power is capped at [Common]. Yet, when imbued with the ancient strength of the [Heart of the Ice Dragon], the katana burns with draconic winter, colder, sharper, deadlier than any mere conjured weapon.\n\nIt was a skill of her Ice Sculptor profession, a mutation of her original Sculptor profession. Allison leveled the katana at the orc. No retreat. No hesitation. She would face him head-on."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 244: Awakened Dragon\nTarget length: ~2400 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Allison could barely stay upright. Her body was in tatters, blood dripping steadily from her wounds. The Ant Queen’s katana was gone, shattered, and with it, the carapace enchantment that had been her shield. Now, if even a single blow landed cleanly, it would mean death. Not even her draconic resilience could save her.\n\nAll she had left was the new weapon: a katana of ice, born from her own craft. Its cold bit into her flesh, but she raised it without hesitation, pointing the blade at the towering orc before her.\n\nThe Orc Lord stared down at her with open contempt. His chest heaved, but his eyes held nothing but the arrogance of a monster that had never known defeat. A low, rasping laugh rumbled from deep in his throat.\n\n“Your courage is nothing but desperation,” he said, his voice booming across the battlefield. “You’re the last one left. And you’ll die here, among the corpses you froze. Alone. Forgotten. A little dragon with no wings.”\n\nAllison’s grip tightened on the ice blade. Her eyes burned with a cold fire that refused to die.\n\n“That look…” The Orc Lord smirked, tilting his head. “Did I strike a nerve? Is that it? Maybe you were abandoned by the other dragons?”\n\nHis laughter erupted like a war drum, guttural and cruel. His wounds meant nothing to him, he believed himself untouchable.\n\n“You’re in my domain,” he growled, his voice turning dark. “Here, I am king. Here, even dragons kneel and die.”\n\nThen he charged. The earth quaked under each massive step, snow cracking and scattering beneath his weight. The chains at his sides clattered, the twin iron spheres dragging deep grooves through the ground. But he wouldn’t use them. Not this time. He wanted to crush her with his bare hands.\n\nAllison didn’t move. Her body trembled with exhaustion, but her gaze stayed locked, unyielding, sharp as a predator’s. And then, like a true dragon, her breath came alive. White clouds of freezing vapor poured from her nostrils and lips, thick and relentless, far too much for a human frame to contain.\n\nThe Orc Lord raised his arms high, ready to slam her into the ground like a raging gorilla. At the final instant, Allison twisted her body and slid across the ice, slipping past the strike with perfect precision. The impact shook the battlefield. Cracks spiderwebbed through the ground, snow and shards of ice exploding skyward.\n\n“Keep running!” the monster roared.\n\nBut when the snow settled, she was already standing in front of him again. Steady. Unbroken. Her eyes hard as steel.\n\n“This is not your domain,” she said, her voice as cold as the blade she held. “This is mine.”\n\nShe closed her eyes for a heartbeat, sinking into the depths of her own essence. Then she drew it forth, the deepest power of her craft, sharpened by her bloodline. Her chest rose sharply, and the ice blade in her hand pulsed with life. The frost in her veins resonated with the ancient force slumbering in her soul. She channeled it.\n\n[Funerary Ice Sculpture (Ultra-Rare)]: When the Ice Sculptor slays an enemy, they can instantly freeze the corpse, preserving it exactly in the position it fell and transforming it into a macabre ice sculpture. These sculptures remain standing for several hours, radiating an intense cold that gradually lowers the surrounding temperature. This effect creates a frozen terrain that strengthens all ice-based skills cast within its area of influence.\n\nBy channeling the power of [Heart of the Ice Dragon], the Sculptor can intensify the effect, causing the sculptures to drain even more heat from the surrounding space, making the environment severely cold and further amplifying the potency of ice arts. However, this additional strength comes at a cost: while sustaining this effect, the sculptures begin to melt, vanishing more quickly.\n\nAll around them, the frozen orc corpses began to glow faint blue. The ice that bound them shimmered like crystal in the phantom light. A biting wind swept through the field, carrying snow, until the battlefield itself was swallowed by a supernatural cold.\n\nWith each passing second, the air thickened, the ice grew denser, and the temperature plummeted further. A domain of white death took shape around them. And within that glacial storm, Allison rose, more imposing than ever.\n\nThe Orc Lord narrowed his eyes. For the first time, his laughter fell silent. She spread the invisible wings of her draconic heritage, not of flesh, but of spirit. The cold was no longer just the battlefield. It was her. It was the extension of her breath. Allison tilted her head back and let the fury of the dragon pour from her lungs.\n\n[Draconic Exhalation (Ultra-Rare)]: The Draconic Swordsman does not need to strike. The very breath of a dragon is enough to declare sovereignty. Empowered by the [Heart of the Ice Dragon], you can exhale a frost-laden mist that rolls outward like a silent curse. The air chills, creeping and merciless. Frost crawls across stone, armor groans as it cracks, lungs seize in the bitter cold. No rage, only inevitability, patient, constant, absolute. Beware: this power is bound to your emotions, for a dragon’s fury is its greatest weapon.\n\nWhite mist rolled outward, smothering the air like a living fog. The cold was so deep it seemed to slice skin open with every brush. Enveloped in the storm, the Orc Lord let out a furious growl.\n\nHe didn’t know it yet, but the battlefield no longer belonged to him. The frost thickened, swallowing the world in a deathly silence. The air was so frigid it felt brittle, ready to shatter with each breath. Allison slid across the ice, her movements as light as the storm itself. In her hand, a translucent sphere took shape, pulsing with the power of the [Heart of the Ice Dragon].\n\n[Iceball (Uncommon)]: The caster forms a compact sphere of solid ice in their hand using [Ice], further amplified by [Heart of the Ice Dragon]. When hurled at a target, the sphere detonates on impact, releasing explosive damage and a cloud of frost-laden snow that reduces visibility and hampers movement. In naturally cold environments, or areas already affected by frost skills, the spell’s power and explosion radius increase, making it significantly more devastating.\n\nShe fired it with force. The impact against the Orc Lord’s torso detonated in a burst of snow and piercing blue light. The creature roared as the freezing energy seeped into its thick hide, slowing its movements. He tried to charge, but Allison was already in motion, circling him. More iceballs flared into being and were fired in rapid succession, each one exploding into shards of frost that clung to his body, layering him in thin sheets of ice.\n\nThe Orc Lord bellowed, his breath erupting in scalding steam. He tried to raise his body’s heat to resist, but Allison’s storm overwhelmed him, the synergy of her power pressing in from every side. She seized the opening, gliding across the frozen ground. Her katana gleamed with an icy light, and she struck.\n\n[Freezing Slash (Uncommon)]: The Swordsman delivers a strike that inflicts a wound coated with frost, freezing the area around it for a short duration through the power of [Ice]. If the cut lands on vital parts of the body, the chilling effect can gradually slow muscles, weaken attacks, and reduce the target’s speed. This skill is empowered by [Heart of the Ice Dragon].\n\nThe blade carved through flesh, and ice spread instantly across the wound. The Orc Lord roared in fury, lashing out with his chains. The iron spheres slammed into the ground, tearing the earth apart. But Allison had already slid out of reach, another Iceball flying into his exposed flank. Now the battlefield was hers. Every breath she took deepened the storm. Every strike spread the winter further, the cold seeping into the Orc Lord’s body, corroding him from within.\n\nThe creature spun wildly, swinging its chains in a desperate arc. The metallic whine split through the mist, but the visibility now belonged entirely to her storm. The Orc Lord roared, whirling his chains with reckless fury. Each iron sphere slammed into the ground with earth-shattering force, throwing up waves of snow and ice. Allison slipped between them, loosing iceballs, striking whenever an opening appeared. But even weakened, the monster was still massive, still a king among orcs.\n\nThen, in one sudden swing, he twisted his body and lashed out. The chain cut through the air like thunder. Allison tried to leap clear, but the mist distorted her timing. The impact smashed into her.\n\nMetal rang across the battlefield. Her body was hurled back, ripped through the white curtain of her own storm. Ice cracked beneath her as she skidded and rolled across the snow, a groan of pain tearing from her throat. The Orc Lord charged, slower now but burning hot, his skin steaming like living coals fighting against winter.\n\n“I’ll tear off your head!” he bellowed.\n\nAllison staggered to rise, only for a sharp sound to rip through the air. A thunderous impact. The orc staggered back, his roar of pain shaking the ground. He looked down in disbelief. A ballista bolt, thick as a spear, jutted from his abdomen. With a snarl, he wrenched it free, blood spilling over his torso. His eyes darted, hunting for the source.\n\nAllison wiped blood from her lips and smiled.\n\n“You thought I was running scared this whole time?” Her voice rang out steady, defiant. “I told you already… this is my territory now!”\n\nAnother crack. Another massive bolt slammed into his chest, tearing through his thick flesh. The Orc Lord howled, his breath rasping heavier.\n\n“The ballistas!” he roared, eyes widening.\n\nAcross the orc village, three wooden towers still stood. From each, strained but relentless, Mason, Eugene, and Miriam forced the massive weapons into action, their arms trembling with exhaustion but refusing to stop.\n\n“We forged the bolts from your own damned forest and the armor of your soldiers!” Allison shouted as she sprinted back into the fray. “You cornered us, but the whole time we were planning your death!”\n\nThe Orc Lord let out a roar of rage and despair. The cold of the storm dragged his strength down. The bolts ripped through his body. And Allison came for him, sliding across the ice like a dragon given flesh, rushing in to finish it.\n\nThe beast bellowed, bleeding from a dozen wounds, but still surged forward like a living fortress. Allison fired iceballs in rapid succession, each one detonating in bursts of frost that cracked against his hide. She slid, cut, struck, but the monster endured. Then, with a sudden lunge, his massive arm wrapped around her. The chains clattered to the ground as he crushed her against his chest.\n\n“Now you can’t escape!” he roared, squeezing with bone-snapping force.\n\nA scream tore from her lips. Pain surged through her body, each breath a desperate fight against suffocation. Blood spilled from her mouth as her ribs threatened to give way. But alongside the pain came something fiercer. The fury of a dragon.\n\nFrom deep in her chest, the draconic Exhalation erupted with doubled intensity. White mist burst from her mouth and nose in violent streams, freezing the very air. The katana of ice blazed like a star in the storm. She poured every shred of power into one final strike, her Freezing Slash unleashed in a single, piercing thrust.\n\nThe blade drove through his chest plate as though it were glass, plunging straight into his heart. Frost exploded outward, racing through his veins, branching like frozen roots. The colossus roared, his voice thunderous, trying to rip her apart, but the ice had already claimed his arms. He howled as more ballista bolts tore into his back.\n\nAllison roared too, not in fear, but in fury, in agony, in defiance. The freezing breath poured from her like a river without end, every exhale making the battlefield even more lethal. The Orc Lord, in one final act of defiance, lifted her high, trying to tear her apart. Allison felt her bones creak under the crushing force, but she never let go of the katana. With a final, primal scream, she drove the blade deeper.\n\nThe Orc Lord’s heart froze. Silence fell. Only the wind remained, carrying drifting snow across the battlefield. The giant released her.\n\nAllison collapsed to her knees in the blood-soaked snow, coughing scarlet mist into the frozen air. Her body shook, every muscle screaming in pain, but still she forced herself upright. The katana of ice remained in her grip, raised in defiance.\n\nThe Orc Lord’s gaze locked on her, and a torn smile spread across his lips. “At last…” His voice was raw, little more than a rasp. “Now you are a true dragon.”\n\nThen his body toppled, crashing into the snow with an earth-shaking thud that sent shards of ice scattering like glass. As life drained from him, Allison’s skill triggered. The Orc Lord’s corpse began to crystallize, ice crawling over his flesh until his hulking form rose into a grotesque sculpture of frost and death.\n\nAllison stood firm, though her body trembled and her breaths came ragged. Blood ran from the corner of her mouth, dripping onto the snow in crimson drops. She did not look away from the monster she had slain. The frozen body of the Orc Lord shuddered one last time. Cracks spread across his skin, the sculpted death sealing him in place. Yet somehow, with the last of his strength, his lips moved.\n\n“You…” His voice was weak, torn with pain and venom. “You have no idea… what waits inside that castle.”\n\nAllison narrowed her eyes, her katana still poised.\n\n“There is no defeating… what lies within…” He spat blood that froze the moment it touched the air. “It is too old… from a place… that no longer exists.”\n\nHis final breath rattled out, eyes glazing over. “Only the witch… is the weakness… of the King…”\n\nThe words broke into silence. His stare dulled, and the last vestige of life left him as the frost claimed his body entirely. Now he was nothing but an icebound monument to his own death, forever locked in that final expression. Allison’s chest heaved, her strength nearly spent, yet she did not falter. She remained standing before her defeated foe.\n\nThen the system notification appeared before her eyes:\n\n[You have slain Gravthar, Son of Onix (Orc Lord) – Lvl 70]\n\n\n[An item has been added to your inventory]"}]}
+{"messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.\n\n## Premise\nFrostbound Apocalypse — a LitRPG progression fantasy. I would like to thank you guys for reading and please leave a comment if you see any mistakes. Enjoy! Callum, The Sovereign of Flames\n\nCallum stood at the edge of his domain staring off into the direction where his entertainment would soon take place. All around him, blue-white fires burned with enough heat that the air warped and distorted. The heat didn't bother him, even as he stood right next to the blistering flames, for the fire was his.\n\n## Main Character\nName: Kyle | Gender: male (he/him)\nKey supporting characters: Granddad, Points, He\n\n## World & Power System\nlevel-based progression; class system; skills (e.g. Healer's Hands, Splitting Shot, Foraging Sense, Sweeping Slash, Power Shot, Cleanse, Human – Level 10, Crude Iron Knife)\nSystem notification style: \"System protected space to process incoming integrating populations \"\n\n## Writing Style\nfirst-person narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (76% dialogue). Balanced pacing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 275 - Stand Tall\nTarget length: ~2500 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "00:00:21:01\n\nI stood atop our Wall and watched as thousands of people fell into ranks. Over 800 people stood at the ready at my back and Marcus had even more standing behind him to our South.\n\nThe area between the ringed Wall and the Obelisk was filled with all manner of death traps and poisons. Pitfalls, spikes, arcane traps, all covered in thick layers of poison where it was applicable.\n\nCarpenters to shape the wood used, smiths to shape the metal, Trappers to set it all up, and Alchemists to make it even more deadly.\n\nIt was the union of five or six different people all to ensure it was at maximum lethality.\n\nAnd there were thousands of them primed and ready.\n\nThe wall itself was devoid of any towers or gates, as there wasn't enough time for the former, and there was no need for the latter. One didn't need gates to keep something out.\n\nThe weather only worsened as the timer ticked down, but I paid it no mind. With the amount of magic about to be used, the weather was the least of our worries.\n\nA heavy rainstorm or thunderstorm might actually be useful, rather than harmful.\n\nThousands of gallons of water were diverted from the river in a hastily built canal. Both Marcus and Abigail worked together to create the reservoir for them and the other Water Mages to use.\n\nWith it at our back, all the Water mages would be a lot more powerful. And ice would be readily available for all those who used it.\n\nWhen the sun did come out, it shined brightly upon the thousands covered in plate. Reflections lit up the area because of the glistening metal and the solar mana continued to gather. Austin would have his own boost.\n\nThousands upon thousands stood awaiting the arrival of our challenge. It only took a turn of the head and more of the sea of men and women would be revealed.\n\n00:00:12:25\n\nSiege weapons created a second ring behind the Wall. Dozens were built and assembled by nearly every Faction adding up to hundreds creating a second ring. Catapults and trebuchets creaked under the tension they were under.\n\nAll of them were ready to unload at a moments notice.\n\n00:00:08:42\n\nMen and women with bows stood multiple ranks deep. Hundreds of thousands of arrows were created just for this moment. Every person had a stack set aside next to them so they had enough for what was to come.\n\n00:00:05:01\n\nLeaders began to inspire who they could. Speeches about fighting for humanity, or stepping up. Every leader was different. Every Faction drew inspiration from however they could.\n\n\"It's time to nut up or shut up,\" Austin joked and gave me a thumbs up, \"Knock 'em dead.\"\n\nHe and Jonathan both stood at my side like normal. Elliot was up here with us as well along with a few other Warriors.\n\nI sighed deeply before quickly regaining my confidence. To get everyone's attention, a sent a burst of cold through the area. A light application of [Desolate Blizzard] was enough to draw everyone's eyes.\n\nOr maybe it was unleashing my aura.\n\n\"Members of Frostheim. We stand at the ready to face our challenge. Thousands of miles were covered so that we could stand here right now and face what's thrown at us! Whatever comes through that obelisk, it will break upon our walls! It will break upon our swords and shields! It will break because we will stand here and make it break!\n\n\"There are two things every man, woman, and child should hope to accomplish in life. Two things that set us apart from everyone else. It isn't our power or strength. It isn't our pride or ego!\n\n\"It is our hearts!\n\n\"It takes heart to stand tall while others cower! It takes heart to fight while others flee! But most of all, it takes heart to Live with Honor and fight for those who cannot!\n\n\"In addition to heart, it takes a determined will!\n\n\"Having heart may lead you to where you stand today, but having a determined will is why you remain! Everyone saw those slinking off in the night. Those who left when the time for battle came near.\n\n\"Yet here you stand! I can see the determination burning in your eyes. Determination that even the threat of death can't extinguish!\n\n\"Not only determination, but the Willpower to charge into battle knowing death is possible. Knowing that this may be your end, yet here you stand!\n\n\"The determination to Die with Glory!\n\n\"Those two things are what set you apart from everyone else. Those two things are why you and I are here today. When the sun sets on this day, those are the only two things that will matter!\n\n\"And if Death comes for you today, and this fight is to be your last, those that remain will remember you. They will carry you with them for as long as they live. The memory and legacy that you forge today will be something no one here will forget.\n\n\"Because it will be Glorious!\n\n\"An End that people can only dream of. An End fit for those who go out and grasp with their bare hands! An End fit for KINGS!\"\n\nA grand cheer broke out from everyone listening. Weapons were raised in the air and shaken in response to my own. After it died down, I wrapped it up.\n\n\"We stand here today and we will not be found WANTING!\"\n\n\"AHHH!!!!\" Everyone added their voice to the cheer and the noise was near deafening. The fervor was enough to put a smile on my face.\n\n00:00:00:49\n\nI hadn't timed it but it ended up perfect. Just enough time for everyone to close ranks but not too long the vim and vigor died off. The energy in the air was palpable. I stood proud, my blood chilling in excitement. Excitement and anticipation.\n\nAs every leader whipped their people into motion, as the thousands here readied themselves, a weight settled on everyone here. A weight that comforted instead of stifled.\n\nIt was the collective weight of everyone here. As everyone let it out, their auras mixed and collided, but instead of fighting for dominance or smothering each other, it was all pointed in one direction. It was the first time I had ever seen such a phenomenon and it was... beautiful. All of our efforts pointed in the same direction.\n\nThe weather took a turn and I swore I felt a drizzle begin to fall, but no rain came.\n\nWith my speech finished, I leaped off the wall and landed in the dead zone and a thud. Austin, Jonathan, and Elliot followed after along with those who were willing.\n\nAustin just had to have the last laugh and landed next to me with a smile, \"It was no King Théoden but it still was good. I liked how you weaved Live with Honor, Die with Glory in there.\"\n\n\"It's easy to inspire what I already believe in,\" I said and slammed my helmet down and made sure it was snug. Austin did the same next to me, his eyes sparkling through the eye holes.\n\nNext came the Ice. My Mana, Spirit, and Law infused into [Frost Armor] and it settled over my armor perfectly. Thick sheets of hard pressed Ice settled and froze into place and I wasn't the only one applying an extra layer of armor.\n\nJonathan had earth flowing up from the ground and hardening onto his form. Elliot shifted the layers of metal around him into a suit of armor that encased him in inches of the stuff. He looked more like a walking tank than a person in a suit of armor. He was going full defensive for this battle and I couldn't blame him.\n\nOnly Austin was left out and he could only tisk in shame as everyone else pulled their elements around them.\n\nI swung my hammer around lightly to make sure everything fit into place. The Ice melded with the Polar Steel creating a flowing set better than both sets apart. Those who jumped down with me did the same. Even Austin did some practice stabs to make sure he was ready.\n\n00:00:00:05\n\n\"Archers, NOCK!\" I called.\n\nI couldn't see them but I could hear their synchronized movement. The sound of bowstrings tightening and wood creaking.\n\n00:00:00:00\n\n'Defend your Obelisk!'\n\nThe timer hit zero and doors no one knew were there opened. All four sides of the obelisk ground open and things started to pour out. Thousands began rushing out of the tower as every side was dozens of feet wide.\n\nBefore I could even recognize what we were up against, traps began exploding left and right. Those placed closest to the Obelisk were set off first but more and more began blowing up to add to the noise.\n\n\"Austin, what are we up against!\" I called. I couldn't make anything out, but he could.\n\nA flash of light came from him before he responded, \"It says [Blight Touched Orc]!\"\n\n\"What level?!\"\n\n\"All of them are level 100!\"\n\nExplosions continued to rattle the battlefield as three days worth of traps tried to slow down the tide. It was a losing cause. For every orc that fell to a trap, dozens more came pouring out of the Obelisk and only one of them were finite. Hundreds died in the first few seconds from our preparations alone.\n\nIn the times in between clouds of dust and smoke, I could make out the monsters pouring out dozens at a time.\n\nThe Orcs themselves were disfigured. The tall, muscled green skin that Orcs usually were thought of was long gone. They were still tall and extremely well-muscled, but their skin was different.\n\nInstead of rich green, they had streaks of black running through them or splotches covering sections of their body. The vibrant green I expected to see from orcs, was instead sickly and dull.\n\nThe Orc's ran through row after row of traps and the area around the obelisk became drowned in bodies. The circle of death only expanded as more traps were expended or arrows from other sections were launched.\n\n\"LOOSE!\" I called.\n\nA wave of arrows rained down and even more Orcs fell. Thousands of arrows came flying down in the volley which was unreliant on our numbers. Skills like [Splitting Arrow] or [Arrow Rain] turned what would've been a volley of hundreds, into a volley of thousands.\n\nThe carpet of arrows only gave a small reprieve. It wasn't long before the wave of Orcs made it back to where they had left off. Without traps to slow them down, it was only moments before they were pushed forward again.\n\n\"Trebuchets, FIRE!\"\n\nLarge chunks of rock came raining down next as our dozens of siege weapons fired. Row after row of charging Orc's were flattened or crushed as the projectiles were designed to hit and roll through rank after rank of them.\n\nThe angle was meticulously measured to make sure the weapons were most effective.\n\nStill, like the arrows, the effect was minimal.\n\n\"Mages, FIRE!\"\n\nA sea of spells rained down next containing so much mana it was hard to look at. It felt like staring at the sun but for my mana sense. Fire exploded, lightning boomed, earth and ice came raining down in droves.\n\nSome of the spells persisted, turning into a field of fire or thick rows of roots and thorns pulled whipping back and forth.\n\nIt still wasn't enough to stop the Orcs' advance.\n\n\"Fire at Will!\" As the orcs closed in, I wouldn't be able to command the ranged units for much longer. I'd have my hands full with something else.\n\n\"Time to put in the work.\" Austin flashed even brighter as light started escaping him.\n\nThe test began right at noon which couldn't have come at a more perfect time for him. He was at his most powerful right now and he was aiming to make the best use of it.\n\nHis spear came alight and he started stabbing out in quick succession launching skills of his own. The warriors with long-ranged skills followed suit along with the Rogues with throwing weapons.\n\nRow after row of Orcs went down but more and more came spilling out. It was impossible to miss there were so many.\n\nFinally, when the Orcs came into my range, I began. [Permafrost] and [Desolate Blizzard] drank in my mana and momentarily, Summer was banished and Winter reigned.\n\nI flared my Bloodline for an initial boost but quickly let off to save it for later.\n\nWe had no way of knowing what would come next. It could be an endless row of Orcs, or there could be champions mixed in. We wouldn't know until they arrived.\n\nStill, with Summer turned to Winter and my skills turning the area around me Arctic, it was finally my turn to face the charging orcs.\n\nNow that they were close enough, I could make out more of what I faced. Hal was right in that they were carrying weapons. Most had axes of some kind while others had clubs.\n\nThe rare Orc held a sword but those were few and far between. Some even had hammers, but by far axes were most popular.\n\nThey were primitive in make. Some were even hewed from bone instead of forged from metal. Rust was common on the rare metallic weapon as were chips and slight fractures. The weapons could use a reservicing but they were deadly enough.\n\nThe muscled arms that held them aloft made it so. Their skin may be sickly, but it seemed they still retained their strength.\n\nAs the front of the wave neared enough to our defensive line, the fight began in earnest.\n\nMy hammer met the first of their number and its face crushed in from the blow. [Mighty Blow] turned its skull to fragments and it fell listlessly forward as its momentum forced it to go in a direction its head didn't follow.\n\nThe next was embedded upon the spike before it too joined its brethren in death. [Momentum of the Avalanche] started to build to match the bodies at my feet.\n\nJonathan and Elliot stood at my side while Austin danced around the battlefield stabbing out when the opportunity arose.\n\nWith command delegated, Hal and Abigail both took charge of the Archers and Mages respectively. Vinny and Brayden remained in Frostheim so command of the siege weapons was left to Phillip.\n\nHe stayed to fight even though his fighting capability was poor. \"It doesn't take skill with a sword to launch some boulders.\" The Builder claimed.\n\nAn axe landed upon my armor of Ice and barely left a scratch. It was filled with everything I could give it and not even a level 100 orc could cause it to shatter.\n\nBut for some reason, that didn't make me feel good. This was our test. It determined if we kept our protections or not. It shouldn't be so easy that my armor was impenetrable.\n\nIt took a second for me to realize the problem.\n\nNone of the Orcs were using skills."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 276 - Chaos of Nature\nTarget length: ~2700 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Why aren't they using skills?\n\nI'd never fought Orcs before but I'd fought something close. Both Goblins and Hobgoblins were sent against us occasionally during the monthly waves. Or, bi-monthly now that we upgraded our pylon. The distance of time lengthened for some reason we still weren't sure about.\n\nGoblins used skills. Hobgoblins used skills, but for some reason, these Orcs weren't.\n\nIs it the Blight? Did getting infected take away the ability to use skills?\n\nBut that didn't make any sense. I could feel the mana moving in their bodies. It was disgusting, horrendous, distasteful mana that had been corrupted by the Blight, but it was still mana.\n\nIt moved through their bodies like any other kind of mana, but it just wasn't being used for skills.\n\nI didn't get long to think about it before I was entrenched in battle. Our usual strategy of facing hordes was employed. Those willing stood in front of the wall to blunt the impact while everyone else held it.\n\nI was in my usual position at the Vanguard and that meant I was the first person the wave broke against, which always made my job the hardest. But there was nowhere else I wanted to be.\n\nThe Orcs were at the peak of E-grade, only one level away from D-grade. Their fighting strength was significantly lower than that due to not using skills, but their numbers more than made up for it.\n\nIt didn't take long until I was drenched in brackish blood. The dark red, nearly black blood certainly didn't look healthy. It gave off a feeling of dread as well. The feeling reminded me of the unnaturalness that the Demons gave off but on an entirely new level.\n\nThis wasn't just unnaturalness, this was anathema.\n\nAfter the first few went down to my hammer, their blood coated my weapon and my armor. It stuck to it and coagulated quickly from the cold, but not before eating away at it.\n\nIt burrowed in like acid. Wherever it landed on the ground began to sizzle as well, destroying anything living. Plants withered and died within seconds.\n\n\"Don't get the Blood on you!\"\n\n\"The Blood is Acid!\"\n\nThe call of alarm was from everyone currently facing the Orcs in battle. Some were already screaming from the splatter that coated bare skin. I was lucky my Ice kept it from my skin.\n\nInstead, it was a constant drain on my mana to keep [Frost Armor] intact. The blood ate away at not only the Ice, but the mana used to make it.\n\nI did not want to feel what it was like on bare skin if the screams were anything to go off of. Some were already retreating back to the wall seeking help from Healers.\n\nI had to push the sounds of screaming away and focus on what was in front of me.\n\nWith the Orcs not using skills, it meant I could keep things in reserve for when the challenge increased. There was no way that this would be all that was thrown at us. No way.\n\n[Righteous Fury] would be kept sheathed and so would my Bloodline. I had to use my Spirit to reinforce [Frost Armor], but other than that, I saved it.\n\nWe had no idea how long the obelisk would continue to disgorge the Blight.\n\nRelying solely on strength of arm and the least amount of mana I could, I slaughtered as many as possible.\n\nI trusted my weapon but the growing thickness of taint on the hammerhead was worrying. It was my Legendary skill, and it was powerful, but I had no way of knowing if the Blight was more powerful in the long run.\n\nThe ice the head was made of was fine, but I couldn't be sure it would continue to be.\n\nStop getting in your own head. Focus!\n\n[Avalanche] was slowly building and I needed less and less strength to rend the Orcs limb from limb. It wasn't my intention to create such a gory sight, but my hammer swinging around as fast as it was made it impossible to hold back.\n\nThere was no slowing this train once it got in motion, and it was well and truly in motion.\n\nTo ration my mana, I stopped using skills other than [Frost Amor]. [Mighty Blow] wasn't necessary after my strength rose to over 2000. [Avalanche] and [Glacial Presence] pushed it above that rather quickly.\n\nWith my current stats, it would eventually rise to over 3000, but that wouldn't be for a while. Plus, I wouldn't be able to hold it for long. That kind of boost wrecked my body to maintain.\n\nIt was the reason that no boosts or blessings fell on me. Austin, Jonathan, Elliot, and every other warrior fighting were given a blessing. Either a large boost to one stat or a small boost to all of them depending on the Support.\n\nShields were also flickering in and out around them blocking damage that I didn't have. I didn't need it. Others did. Every Support or Healer with a blessing or Boost was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to be targeted.\n\nSettling in, I noticed how different the fight was. How often I was getting hit. How often I was having to change my approach.\n\nThese aren't beasts.\n\nIt wasn't claws and teeth reaching out to me. I didn't have to defend against sudden lunges from creatures with powerful hind legs. I didn't have to dance around beasts with thousands of pounds behind them.\n\nI had to watch axe heads and sword edges. I had to judge the distance of how far they could reach. It wasn't something I was used to and I was suffering for it.\n\nCracks spread and chunks of Ice fell off. My Ice wasn't breached and my skin remained unmarred, but that didn't mean it would stay that way.\n\nThe habits I had formed were working against me. I had sparred and trained against other humans but it had been years since I'd fought seriously against one. Years since and it was against mindless thralls, not weapon masters or skilled combatants.\n\nWhich these Orcs were not, but they still had enough skill to press me. One on one, it would be a slaughter but that wasn't because I out-skilled them. It was because I was stronger and had more stat points.\n\nA certain amount of strength made skill meaningless.\n\nBut that didn't mean they couldn't wear me down.\n\nI needed to be more efficient. Less wasted movement. I didn't need to exert 2000 points of strength to completely pulverize one Orc when a light tap would cave in its chest and kill it anyway.\n\nAxe strikes didn't need to be avoided, but they needed to be spread out. One hit was fine and draining a minuscule amount of mana. Multiple hits were not.\n\nFaster.\n\nMy swings became wider, more arcing. I didn't need short swings so I was ready to defend. I didn't need defense at all.\n\nI would do what I had taught, trust my armor.\n\nI felt myself become smoother. Felt as the changes brought by humanoid enemies were made nearly subconsciously. The death toll at my feet climbed. The piles of dead turned into mountains. Every once in a while, a spell or powerful arrow slammed down next to me and blew them apart, but it wasn't long until the pile started to build again.\n\nOrcs died, lost their fight against my skills, and froze solid.\n\nMy feet trampled what was left into the ground or when the occasion arose, [Shattered] them. The bodies of the fallen turned into shrapnel to kill even more.\n\nIt was gruesome. Grotesque even, but I did it all the same.\n\nI spoke the words earlier because I meant them. They would break upon our walls and they would break upon us.\n\nI was so involved with making sure I killed as many as possible I didn't see the attack coming in. I'd been lulled into normalcy and maybe that was the point. The horde hadn't been charging at us for long, but it had been long enough.\n\nAn arrow. One I didn't see coming. One I didn't expect to see coming, shattered the ice around my leg. The bone tip didn't make it farther than that and the shaft exploded into splinters of wood, but it was enough to stagger me slightly.\n\nI whipped my head up and saw an Orc much taller than the rest standing with a ruinous-looking bow. It looked like it was hewed from a full tree rather than a branch.\n\nThe Orc pulled out an identical arrow before nocking it. Its muscles bulged and strained to pull the massive string back, but its efforts were worth it as the arrow was launched.\n\nIt sped through the air faster than I could track before impacting the same spot. The Ice that had just begun growing back was shattered for the second time and the metal armor under it was dented.\n\n\"Austin! What is that!?\"\n\nI shouted the words and they intertwined with my aura. It was wild and flaring now that the battle was heated and they merged together seamlessly. I knew he heard me because I knew everyone in range heard me.\n\n\"[Orc Hunter]! Can't see its level!\" His answer came swiftly, \"I'll take care of it!\"\n\nHe left out Blight-Touched because that much was obvious. Being unable to see its level almost certainly meant D-rank. The power packed into its arrow made that a certainty.\n\nWith his reassurance, I trusted him to take care of it. I couldn't spare to watch but the light show was hard to miss.\n\n\"Warriors! Be ready for Ranged attacks!\" I called out in warning. If I was surprised, others would be too.\n\nThe light died down but exploded out again in another attack. \"There's more! Some are [Orc Champions] instead!\" Austin's voice shouted.\n\nThe mountains of dead Orcs were shock troops. They were sent to soften up our lines before the real threats came through. It made me wonder if this was the usual strategy for Orcs or if this was something the Blight did.\n\nSend in the weak before the strong.\n\nThat strategy made something inside me angry. It went against being a Warrior, but I wasn't sure why I felt that way. These were monsters, it didn't matter what they did.\n\nStill, if that was their strategy, and what we faced already were the weak, who were the strong? How high into D-rank would we face?\n\n\"Archers! Focus the Champions and Hunters!\" My order resounded out to make sure it was heard.\n\nMages were told to fire for effect. Wide skills were better than single-target skills. Archers were more for precision and told to take down the elite targets, which the Hunters and Champions undoubtedly were.\n\nSpells and arrows had continued to rain down since the start. It wasn't just our section either. Every section had mages launching spells deep into enemy ranks taking out Orcs by the dozens.\n\nThe way the Ringed Wall was set up made it so the deeper a spell was launched, the more overlap there was, but that worked in everyone's favor. It was like an unspoken agreement was reached and each section cycled through launching powerful spells and a rhythm was reached.\n\nBoulders rained endlessly from siege weapons. The people who manned them scrambled to reload and fire as quickly as possible. The few Earth mages stationed nearby worked overtime to pull up and compact ammo as fast as it could be fired.\n\nThose who stood upon the wall fired whatever they could into the chaos. Whether that be an arrow, javelin, or conjured weapon of a different origin.\n\nSpells had been planned out in advance. Affinities accounted for to not interfere but those plans were beginning to break down.\n\nSo much magic had been used that it was all beginning to swirl together. Ice and Water reigned supreme where I stood and everything opposing that was weakened.\n\nWater dominated to our south and Nature to our North. The Faction that was assigned the section was run by a Druid. A powerful one if the mana they were throwing around was anything to go off of.\n\nLightning rained down in such frequency that the rumbling thunder was endless. It was only accentuated by loud cracks by powerful bolts. The sound was loud enough to carry throughout the battlefield and I had a feeling I knew who was responsible for those that were loudest.\n\nThe weather that had already been worsening turned into something completely different. The clouds darkened and unleashed thick sheets of rain in some spots but the sun poked through in others.\n\nWind howled through as pressure changes were altered by the second. Temperature was blistering hot in some parts and devastatingly cold in others. Snow fell in one place while fire raged in others.\n\nIf my eyes were better, they would have picked up on one section in particular. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. The energy of Death that permeated from far away.\n\nOf the Dead that got up to fight again. Orcs reanimated to fight off more of their kind.\n\nThe skies above were fighting just as much as the people were down below. Nature itself wasn't sure how to respond and that only made the chaos build.\n\nIt got harder and harder to institute my sliver of Winter. It wasn't just the normal pushback from the ground and air. It was the pushback from everyone else.\n\nLaws were thick in the air. I could feel them pressing against me and had to use my own to ward them off. Ice and Wind battled against everything else. It was impossible to pick out what I was fighting off and instead felt like I was fighting the tide.\n\nA battle that had my domain shrinking by the minute. I gave ground instead of holding it to preserve my energy. My Wind law helped. The newly realized concept of Domination did its best, but it was up against a foe it couldn't beat. The weight of thousands against one.\n\nIt asserted dominance and created a bastion of winter, but I knew it wouldn't last. Not if I aimed to conserve it.\n\nMy heart pounded like a drum inside my chest. Each beat sent mana coursing through my veins urging to be used. It bled from my feet into the land under them. Feeding [Permafrost] to freeze and grow.\n\nIt escaped from my body into the air. [Desolate Blizzard] drank it in to impose itself upon the world.\n\nEach beat invigorated my body and each beat brought power like nothing else.\n\nPower to assert my will on the world. Power to stand tall and have the Orcs break against me.\n\nThere was something there. Something about the sensation that called to me but there wasn't enough to realize. It almost felt like a whisper. It's too soon. The feeling lingered, but I didn't gain anything else from it. I wasn't even sure what it was.\n\nThe Archers did what they could to stall the Champions but they advanced on my position and I couldn't afford any more distractions.\n\nA primal roar resounded out of me as I looked upon my challengers. Challengers that aimed to assert their will over my own. To knock me down and stand victorious over me.\n\nIce ran through my veins as I had the thought. It brought clarity and rage in equal measure. Rage at the thought of losing and the clarity needed to keep a cool head.\n\nBlood-soaked, weapon-charged, snow and frozen bodies coating the ground. It was something I couldn't hold in.\n\nAny and all thoughts of those around me dulled as I stood at the Vanguard and gave those behind me the best chance I could."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 277 - Threat Level\nTarget length: ~2100 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Austin\n\nThe small fry were slow enough that he didn't even have to pull on his anchor to kill them. They had strong muscles and their swings were powerful, but they meant nothing if they couldn't hit him.\n\nA thrust of his spear with only a few skills was enough to drop them. Plus, none of the blood came back on him. A Win-Win way to slaughter!\n\nThe beginning of the wave was rather easy. Dance around and stab as many as he could. It reminded him of the early days of the mantis infestation at The Twins. Before it became a drag and he had to fight progressively harder bugs.\n\nThe Orcs were slower, dumber, and couldn't fly so he had an easy enough time.\n\nAt first.\n\nThe Hunters had arrows that bested even his speed and the Champions were much tougher to take down. The Archers at the Wall did their best, but the Champions were hardy. Austin felt every time one of Hal's arrows came screaming in and it usually ended up with a dead Champion in its wake.\n\nThe Champions were a miniature Chris, if Austin had to describe it.\n\nThey forced him to bring his eyes away from the surroundings, and boy was that hard to do. There was just so much happening. Nearly everything that caught his eye was new in some way. New and exciting!\n\nThere was an honest to god Necromancer for god's sake!\n\nEven after gaining the ability to shoot beams of light from his hands, an actual Necromancer was something else. He watched as an Orc took an arrow to the chest, fell down dead, death magic flare -for what else could it be-, and the same Orc got back up and fought on for the other side. Austin nearly took an arrow because of the distraction.\n\nIt was fascinating!\n\nThe weather was another drag on his attention. If the fighting got any worse, he'd have to lock in and disregard his... sightseeing, but his abilities were enough to sneak a peek every once in a while.\n\nBut it was sooo hard to ignore.\n\nThe sun would poke through in a rare gap in the clouds for a brief moment before they shifted, covering the hole up while also opening a different one somewhere else. It felt like a spotlight getting turned off and on while pointing in random directions.\n\nIt would start to drizzle like it was the onset of a rainstorm, then it would freeze and turn to hail or snow, then suddenly stop altogether. Only to return in buckets so forceful they hurt his skin.\n\nThe Wind blew the horrid stench of the blood leaking out of the Orcs one second and then the next the only thing he could smell was the ozone of lightning.\n\nThere was even the beginning of a funnel cloud!\n\nAustin had seen some monstrous storms since the Change. Storms that caused mana to go wonky and have the force of what used to be classified as a tropical storm or weak hurricane.\n\nHe'd also witnessed a few Law Storms, but those were exceedingly rare. The two he had the pleasure of viewing, a Blizzard and Tornado, were sights to behold, and whatever was happening above was on the verge of becoming his third.\n\nLast, but not least, of the fascinating sights was everyone else fighting. He'd seen Marcus in action before along with the few other powerhouses in his City. Clarissa was the next most noticeable but she lost some of her flare because of Rachel.\n\nIt wasn't as novel.\n\nBut here, with everything going on, there was too much to see! He didn't have enough eyes to take it all in. he may have the eyes of a bird, but they were good at seeing far and clearly, not wide and panoramic.\n\nStill, he could pick out a few key areas. They also coincided with the areas Chris pointed out where other suspected Barons fought. Those areas flared to his sight like pillars in the sky. It was like being in the vicinity of over a dozen Chris's.\n\nMaybe I shouldn't use Chris's as a unit of measurement.\n\nHe saw one woman clad in Earth so thick and dense that it put Jonathan to shame. Her section of the wall was still untouched as she held it nearly single-handedly.\n\nShe wasn't killing as fast, but she held it firmly.\n\nHer name was Jayla if Austin remembered correctly, and fighting next to her were two more that were fun to watch. On her left, a man with honest to god lava dripping off him weaved through the Orcs like a bull in a China shop and burned, crushed, or pulverized anything that came his way with his bare fists.\n\nGauntlets wrought from hardened lava coated his hands which still had glowing veins of cherry red underneath.\n\nThe man on her left was a one-man tornado with gusts that not only blew everything off their feet but simultaneously ripped them apart. He wasn't as notable as the two next to him, but he stood out.\n\nThose three were the tip of the iceberg. It felt like every other second his eyes were pulled in a different direction. Lightning bolts thicker than he was rained down. Water Scythes spanning tens of feet wide that bisected dozens of Orcs.\n\nFires that burned so hot that it hurt to look at from even as far away as he was. Even standing next to Chris and his Winter Wonderland, his body imagined sweltering when he gazed upon it.\n\nThere was too much for him to take in and as the fight got rougher, he had to pour more and more of his attention into not dying. Not dying was his preferable state and no amount of fascination was going to cause his death.\n\nThat would just be stupid.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nThe Admiral\n\nHe stood and watched. The section of wall he gazed out from rattled slightly from the impact, but it stood none worse for wear after the Orc Champion died. It shouldn't have gotten through the line in the first place.\n\n[Inspire Troops], [Tactical Command], [Empowering Command], [Division Leader], all of his army boosting skills were in play and it still wasn't enough. He had yet to take the field personally but the time was coming for him to have to.\n\nIf anything stronger than the Champions and Hunters came, his hand would be forced. His skills would weaken from not being able to see the full picture and so, so many people would die.\n\nSome days, he hated his Class. Hated the fact he had to sit and watch as his men died, but it was the best choice of shitty choices. His late wife would curse his foul language but there was no other way to put it.\n\nIt was torture.\n\nHe rose up from a position not unsimilar to the men out laying their lives on the line now. From Seaman to Captain, and eventually, after years of service, Admiral. Yet the best he could do right now was stand and watch his men die.\n\nHis personal strength wasn't enough to outweigh the good he was doing. As sad as it was.\n\nNot yet at least.\n\n\"Sir, section 4 is getting pushed back and needs reinforcements.\" A runner informed.\n\n\"Send the Eight and the Ninth.\" The Admiral responded after looking at the section with [Insightful Battlefield View]. The skill wasn't working at its best, but it was all he had.\n\nHe was running out of reserve troops. The few he'd kept back for occasions such as this were quickly getting deployed. The teams he'd spent the better part of two years piecing together were doing the best they could, and it wasn't enough.\n\nIf this was as bad a 'test' as they faced, they'd win. Being an Admiral, he didn't have extensive experience with land-based combat, but he had enough. He also had officers of the Army folded into his command that could make up the difference.\n\nAll of them were predicting a Close Victory. They'd lose many, but they wouldn't be defeated. That was all based on the enemies they knew about. The regular Orcs that came first and the Hunters and Campions that came next.\n\nIt didn't account for the unknown. Their Skills could do much, but they weren't omnipotent. Sure, there were plans drawn up for what could be anticipated, but those couldn't account for everything. It was impossible.\n\nHe also didn't know the capability of those around him. It wasn't like he could go up to the other Faction Leaders and demand to know their combat abilities. Planning for this test was like going into it with one eye blind.\n\nOh, he sure wanted to wring from them everything they could do and get the full picture, but he couldn't. He barely made it through the squabbling mess his previous meeting was without hitting anyone. He wanted to strangle some of them, let alone work with them.\n\nWithout knowledge of what they might face and incomplete knowledge of the abilities of their own side, planning was meaningless. Too many unknown variables made even the most generic of plans untenable.\n\nThat wasn't even taking into account the more esoteric powers. Some literally got stronger when faced with a disadvantaged position. A Class dedicated to being the Underdog or skills that got stronger when faced with a mounting challenge.\n\nWith only two years to discover, categorize, and research their new reality, there just wasn't enough time. Tactical Classes covered for that weakness, but they could only mend it so much.\n\nHis own Class did most of the heavy lifting, but it still wasn't enough.\n\n\"Sir, report on The Stormbringer.\" A runner handed him a sheet of paper.\n\nThey weren't wasteful enough to have messengers and runners transporting paper supplies around the battlefield. The sheet was conjured from a skill. The feel was different enough from real paper to tell but it looked identical. They'd even discovered that some conjured materials this way had anti-espionage qualities, somehow making it harder to read if you weren't the intended recipient.\n\n~~\n\nNick Castillo. Designation: The Stormbringer\n\nLarge lightning bolts that can kill Champions and Hunters in one shot. Mana Levels: Unknown. Laws: Lightning - Tier 2. Water - Tier 2. Wind - Tier 1. Mana Cultivation at Stage 1. Body: Unknown. Spirit: Unknown. Skills can also chain to surrounding targets. Men behind him are above average with few standouts.\n\nLevel: 97 Profession: Unknown\n\nCategorization: High-Damage Mage.\n\nThreat level - High\n\n~~\n\nIt wasn't the first of such messages to come in. Those close to where he stood were the first to be scouted. It took longer and longer for the information to come in as they had to travel further and further through the chaos the area had become.\n\nIt was surface-level information at best with more unknowns than he cared for, but it was better than nothing. An extensive skill list, pinpoint accuracy on stats, every Step they had taken whether it be Mind, Body, or Spirit. That was the kind of information he would kill for but no one would give up. Not willingly, at least.\n\nHe wasn't only gathering this for future use. Yes, this kind of information was essential to making any future plans, but it had a very real use now that outweighed anything it could be used for later.\n\nAny Skill related to Tactics or Planning depended on knowing what those you commanded could do. The Stormbringer wasn't under his Command and didn't benefit from his Skills, but that didn't mean the information was worthless.\n\nAny Battle Plan that was drawn up relied on accurate information and the closer it was to the truth, the more accurate it would become.\n\nIt helped decide where they would send troops. Where they would support or give ground. If other Factions showed the ability to withstand the Orcs, they could shift forces away and bring them to where they were needed.\n\nAnother runner came up and dropped off another paper.\n\n~~\n\nChristopher Zalenski. Designation: Iceman\n\nHeavily armored warrior using a large Warhammer. Layer of Ice as well as plate underneath. Estimated strength well over 1000. Creates a domain of ice around him that debilitates anything close. Laws: Ice - Tier 2. Wind - Tier 2. Mana Cultivation at Stage 1. Body: Wood, at minimum. Spirit: Anchor Formation\n\nNotables in Faction: Water Mage of high level. Fire Mage of High level. Stone Warrior of high level. Light or Solar Warrior of High level.\n\nLevel: 95 Profession: Unknown.\n\nCategorization: High strength and High defense Warrior.\n\nThreat Level - High.\n\n~~"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 278 - I Couldn't\nTarget length: ~2500 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Chris\n\nI wasn't quite sure when it all went to shit. It seemed like every fight or Wave that extended past a few hours and caused [Avalanche] to max out eventually ended like shit.\n\nWith a fight taking that long, mistakes were inevitable. Fatigue and exhaustion both put their hands on the scale after that and Skill and perseverance could only do so much to balance it.\n\nIt was only a matter of time before it came crashing down.\n\nMy hammer was chipped. I felt it clearly as it happened. The blood-soaked Ice hammerhead had been worn down. The inherent magic did what it could to protect it, and I felt my own mana being used, but it wasn't enough.\n\nNot when it was so saturated in corrosive energies that got continually renewed.\n\nOne or two enemies would have been fine. My hammer would have smashed them to smithereens and been no worse off. Sure, it would have had to fight off the accumulated blood, but there was enough power dwelling inside the hammer it would've been fine.\n\nEven ten to twenty foes would've been fine.\n\nMaybe even a hundred.\n\nNot the amount I was facing. That... that was too much for the weapon.\n\nMy muscles strained as it pulled the heavy hammer through the air but it filled me with righteous satisfaction to watch as the Orcs deformed so greatly that if it wasn't an instant death, they wished for it.\n\n[Avalanche] pushed my strength to new heights and even though I was trying to hold back, a mere tap tore bloody holes through their flesh. Which only caused the blood problem to get worse.\n\nWhen chest cavities busted upon my hammer like a grotesque balloon, there was only so much I could do to keep my weapon free from the corrosive liquid.\n\nWhich was not much.\n\nMy armor was wearing down as well. [Frost Armor] pulled more and more mana to maintain and it started to break off and crack more easily. The structure not as firm. In the back of my head, there had been a chime different than a kill notification and my armor resisted better. I hadn't even noticed, my focus so intent on the slaughter.\n\nI fought on for there was nothing else I could do. Giving up wasn't in my nature and I sure as shit wasn't going to let myself be overrun.\n\nNot now, not ever.\n\nThe crack came suddenly. Both hands propelled the hammer through the air and smashed it down onto a Champion in my sight when the vile blood weakened it enough.\n\nThe rent was comparatively small when in proportion to the rest of the hammer. Tiny even, but it used my own tactics against me. The same plan we used to deal with the Boss monster of the Baron Wave.\n\nWhere we used a small cut to continually dig deeper using fire and ice. Instead, it was blood seeking to destroy my hammer one small crack at a time.\n\nThe rent opened up a new area for the blood to go and it wasn't long until more of the small cracks were made. More yet after they were filled with the corruptive energies.\n\nI did what I could, but it was a losing battle from the start. As long as there was more blood to flow, it would continue to eat away at my weapon. And there was more blood to flow.\n\nI wasn't sure what the extent of [Frostbound Hammer] was.\n\nFrostbound Hammer(Legendary) – A splinter of the weapon once wielded by the Jotnar King Thiassi thousands of years ago. The ice this hammer was forged from still holds some of his spirit and must be awakened to show its true power. Combine with other splinters to bring back its full might. Only given to the mightiest of warriors with a strong ice affinity and bound to you in frost once summoned.\n\nI'd used it for years. It had been by my side for countless battles, and I still hadn't discovered all its secrets. I knew I could feel where it was. The link between us allowed for that much, but I wasn't sure how far that went.\n\nThe other part about it being a weapon wielded by someone else had no bearing on me. I didn't know who Thiassi was. I wasn't even sure what a Jotnar King was exactly, but I could make an educated guess.\n\nIf the System was giving out a fragment of his hammer as a Legendary skill, it had to be someone powerful, but how powerful?\n\nIt held some of his spirit, what did that mean exactly?\n\nRight now, as it cracked and splintered, it felt like a part of me was cracking and splintering. Like my arm was slowly being ground apart.\n\nBound to me in frost.\n\nIt seemed that the connection was more than just being able to locate it. This was the first time I'd been conscious when my weapon was damaged. The only other time was when the explosion destroyed it but I wasn't awake to feel it.\n\nI was awake now and it hurt.\n\nI'd poured everything I had into the weapon when I summoned it. All I could. My mana, my spirit, and my Laws. All of it. And it was slowly getting pulled apart at the seams.\n\nIf this was happening to my beloved hammer, it was happening everywhere. The metal of swords were breaking down. Axes and maces were deteriorating. If this fight continued, everyone would be without a weapon to fight with.\n\nIt didn't spell well for what was to come, but that wasn't something I could change and it wasn't something I could do anything about.\n\nI had to push the thought out of my head.\n\nMy hammer, my foes, and the battlefield in front of me were all that mattered. Not even the chimes in my head.\n\nSinking to intuition over trying and failing to fight off the corrosive blood, I did the only thing that came to mind. I flooded the area with [Desolate Blizzard]. I leaned and pushed on my Ice Law to drive temperatures as low as I could go.\n\nThe Blood fought what I was trying to do. It didn't like being altered, even if the temperature around it demanded that it freeze. It laughed in the face of science. It didn't care that I was blasting it with temperatures so low that it should have frozen three times over.\n\nIt fought the Ice Mana trying to freeze it. Fought the Law behind the mana empowering such concepts. How it did that was a mystery I couldn't think about right now.\n\nI could only push harder.\n\nUsing considerably more power than it should have, the blood around me started to freeze solid. Layer upon layer on my hammer was the first to freeze. My mana coursing through it amplified by its inherent properties.\n\nAs I saw that my plan worked, I yanked with [Ice Manipulation]. It wasn't gentle and it wasn't delicate. With the might of my full abilities and mind, I wrenched the blood off my weapon. Another chime.\n\nIt cracked apart, some sections trying to stay stuck but I was relentless. I yanked the corrupted ice off in sheets and as new blood froze, I did the same.\n\nThe ice fought my influence. The only other time I'd had someone fight for influence over my ice was when sparring with Gabriel.\n\nThis was worse.\n\nStill, I couldn't allow it to continue. I wouldn't be powerless without my hammer but I would take a hit. Not least of which because of the pain involved.\n\nI'd been beaten up before. Crushed and speared through. Sliced and cut. Lost a finger, an arm, and an eye. Broken damn near every bone in my body.\n\nPain wasn't new to me. It was an old friend.\n\nBut that didn't mean it didn't hurt.\n\nI used it to fuel my anger. My rage. [Righteous Fury] wanted to activate. It was rearing back and ready to go. It wished to be let out, and I let it.\n\nIts boost washed over me and I started slaughtering all the faster. My legs pumped that much more strength into my swings. My arms dragged my cracked hammer that much faster through the air.\n\nI'd long gotten used to the side effect of the skill, but it was times like this that I let it cloud my head. It dulled the pain, but I let it do just enough to not hinder me.\n\nA mindless brute was the last thing I wanted to become.\n\nI noticed the Orcs getting stronger. The Champions became more and more frequent and arrows from Hunters were flying regularly now. Our side fought back. Arrows and spells were endless in their destruction.\n\nI couldn't see where the front line had gone. The Warriors who had stood at my side either retreated or died. Only a few still stood but I couldn't spare a glance to look back and count.\n\nAustin still lived as his light shone brightly. Jonathan as well as the earth rumbled under my feet. I could feel the steadfast fountain of power he was pulling on. His Anchor was undeniable.\n\nI only feared that it would be literal.\n\nI couldn't even spare thoughts for my family.\n\nWind howled as I had to pull on it. Arrows that would have landed started to soar by instead. My Wind just enough to blow them off course. The Champions were strong enough that the Wind did basically nothing, but it worked to cut down on arrows impacting me.\n\nI had a few arrow shafts sticking out of me from precise shots and I didn't care to add any more. The shafts were broken to nubs as the fight continued but I could still feel the arrowhead inside me.\n\nIt tore skin and muscles as I moved. If I hadn't refined my Body to Stone, it would have been a lot worse but they could only go so deep. My organs were safe and it was a mild nuisance at best, but the pain added up.\n\nChampions approached me in pairs, then trios, then groups. The ratio was now entirely elite that poured out of the Obelisk. The alien construction invisible through the chaos.\n\nEven in the middle of the day, it was impossible to see.\n\nMy hammer killed them all.\n\nMy Ice couldn't do it. It couldn't stand the onslaught of so many. Not unless I poured more mana than I was willing to in the skills.\n\nMy Bloodline burned through my veins as I tapped into more power. [Avalanche] reached its peak and it wasn't enough to keep up with the gradual increase in difficulty.\n\nI was at my peak.\n\nIt was as far as I could go.\n\nMy Bloodline, [Avalanche], [Fury], all burning as bright as they could go.\n\nThe only thing that could any further was [Glacial Presence] and I couldn't waste the mana to get it there. [Avalanche] doubled my physical stats. [Righteous Fury] pushed them 22.5% higher. [Glacial Presence] currently teetered around a 20% boost.\n\nIt felt like I was tearing apart at the seams. If my body had been Wood, I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle it.\n\nA body wasn't meant to be pushed as far as I was pushing. It was why boosting skills weren't stacked to infinity. Why someone couldn't stand in front of 100 Supports and be invincible.\n\nThe only reason I hadn't already pulled myself apart was because of my Body of Stone and my high Fortitude. My Bloodline also worked double duty, strengthening and fortifying my body.\n\nStill, it felt like I was on fire even though my entire body was ice cold. Slowly burning out.\n\nMy hammer splintered again. My body strained. My mind pushed harder to freeze everything around me.\n\nAll sensory details were lost as I had too much to focus on.\n\nI smashed and I smashed and I smashed.\n\nMy hammer reaped lives at a speed the Grim Reaper would weep at. It howled as the air struggled to get out of its way. My muscles ripped, tore, and burned to keep its flight steady and destructive.\n\nFrost built around me for no other reason than it had to. My Bloodline plunged my body into sub-zero temperatures and instead of working up heat as I exerted myself, I cooled even further.\n\nAs I pulled and pulled on my Bloodline. As my Mana Heart pumped Arctic Mana through my veins. As I pulled on my Law to cool the area around me. It was inevitable.\n\nIt was destined.\n\nThe corruption couldn't stop it. It could only delay it.\n\nI smashed.\n\nThe frost built.\n\nThe shouting and cries from others fell away. I didn't even have the reassuring flashes of light that Austin was still alive. I couldn't feel the rumble under my feet caused by Jonathan ripping up the earth.\n\nI couldn't feel the Water drilling down from behind me that my Sister provided.\n\nI couldn't...\n\nI couldn't...\n\nI smashed. I stood my ground and smashed. Crushed. Killed so swiftly and utterly my eyes barely registered the object in front of me before my hammer tore through it.\n\nA cry of primal pain ripped through me. My hammer shattered. The shaft splintering in my hands and the head shooting off in pieces.\n\nThe head of ice so cold that it caused frostbite from a touch shattered and went flying through the air in directions unknown. Bodies dropped further away but I couldn't...\n\nMy hands bled from the muck covering them. It had pooled and saturated through my ice and gauntlets and the blood now contacted my skin.\n\nMy Spirit wavered after my hammer broke. It felt like a piece of me was ripped out and stomped on. The pain was great, but I couldn't...\n\nMy hands formed bloody fists and my savagery continued. I didn't need a hammer to leverage my strength. Over 4000 points of it now.\n\nMy hands blew holes through chests. They vaporized heads. They wrought the same destruction my hammer would have.\n\nIce coalesced and formed into a club. I couldn't form it into something better and could only resort to a club. It soared through the are and shattered upon an Orc Champion.\n\nThe shards drove deep into its flesh and it fell convulsing to the ground next to the thousands of others.\n\nAnother club formed and the same result.\n\nI smashed.\n\nI destroyed.\n\nI stood and broke everything that came near.\n\nThe frost around me turned a murky black.\n\nThe blood under me froze into disgusting shards of ice.\n\nI yelled and screamed. I roared my defiance to no one and everyone. To the one person that mattered.\n\nMyself.\n\nI pulled on my Anchor. I pulled on my Bloodline. I pulled on everything I could to remain standing.\n\nTo remain in front of the tide that would harm those behind me.\n\nBut even that wasn't the biggest reason.\n\nI pulled and pulled to stand Victorious when this was all over.\n\nMy body destroyed itself slowly because I still stood."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 279 - Fury of the Naiad\nTarget length: ~2300 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Abigail\n\nLightning flashed and thunder boomed with the force of a thousand cannons. The rain danced around her and leapt to her touch. It whipped down, shot out in jets, and cut through the earth in large scythes. She cut down every Orc in sight but it still wasn't enough. [Water Manipulation] was pushed to the limit.\n\nHer brain strained to keep up with what she was ordering of it. It had to keep up.\n\nThe wall shook and parts of stone rained down. It shook again before the Orc Chieftain was defeated. After the Hunters and Champions came the Chieftains. They were larger, stronger, and all around more deadly than before. It took longer for her Water to cut through them.\n\nThey towered over the normal Orcs that were sent to soften them up at the beginning. Those Orcs were already slaughtered and driven into the muddy ground where thousands fought upon their dead bodies.\n\nThousands of dead. Human dead. Hours of people dying.\n\nThe field was filled with the bodies of the fallen but the rest fought on through the hours regardless. The rain had long since turned the ground harrowing. If it hadn't, the ocean of blood would have.\n\nInstead, it was a murky red sea that was half water, half blood, and half whatever else dragged into the mess.\n\nHer hair glowed in an array of spirited blues and fluttered out behind her. The one good thing about calling on her bloodline, getting her hair out of her face. It defied both gravity and physics, as it should be sticking to her skin and matted down by the rain, but it flowed through the air in streams.\n\nShe didn't like using it too often as she wasn't accustomed to the side effects yet. She'd reached too far. She'd thought herself stronger and it was still difficult to not be affected by emotions and thoughts that weren't hers, but she needed it now.\n\n\"Rachel! Focus on the right flank!\" Abigail called out. Two Chieftains were heading in that direction. \"Hal, focus on the left!\"\n\nHer Core strained at the amount of mana she was pulling from the air and using. She split attention to both gather it and use it at the same time. The Water Mana was abundant from both the River at her back the rain falling from the sky.\n\nIt pleased her Bloodline to have ready access to such lively sources of Water. Freshwater as well. An emotion she didn't mind having, but it still wasn't hers.\n\nArrows packed with force outdoing even the Orc Hunters rifled through the air splitting the rain around it slammed home on their left flank and fires raged on their right.\n\nJust as she was strained, Rachel and Hal were both strained and they didn't have the option to rip the mana from the air. Fire Mana wasn't abundant. Not on their side at least. The thick columns of smoke were raging across the battlefield, but not here. Water snuffed any flame out.\n\nAs it should.\n\nThe Orcs had spilled out of the obelisk for hours and there was only so much longer they could fight. There had already been those who fell after running out of mana or stamina.\n\nWarriors driven long past where their bodies could handle. Mages passing out from depleting too much mana. All to last that much longer.\n\nIt was endless.\n\nHow Jon was still out there fighting was a constant worry and it was one she couldn't focus on for long. Chris was an even bigger problem.\n\nThey hadn't seen him in over an hour. The last sighting had him holding his ground out in front but the smoke, haze, darkness, and worsening conditions made visibility impossible.\n\nThe regular and consistent blasts of Cold and Arctic Mana were comforting, but even that had disappeared. Either drowned out by everything else, or something much worse, but she couldn't focus on that.\n\nEven the bodies had stopped. His hammer had the side effect of launching whatever he hit flying when his full strength was behind it. Which was always when he fought for long enough.\n\nWith all his boosts, bodies rained down broken and disfigured when he hit them just right. Although it was gruesome, it was reassuring to know he was still alive.\n\nBut that had stopped and no more bodies rained.\n\n\"Mayor! Marcus is being driven back! His Southern flank is wavering!\" Those who were out of mana fought through the exhaustion and headaches to act as runners.\n\nThey ran all over to bring her information and all of it was bad. Not one good thing came out of this test. Not one.\n\n\"I'll go. Stay here,\" A gust of Wind tore through the wall and before Abigail could raise abjections, her Mother was off. She'd been a literal whirlwind. Helping wherever she was needed.\n\nHer Mother was skilled and had the levels and power to back her up, but she didn't have the upfront stopping power of other members of her family. Instead of staying in one spot and holding it against all odds, she traveled around and helped where she was needed.\n\nHer Winds helped facilitate that.\n\nIt also made Abigail's job just that much easier, but it was still a big enough job that her mind was on fire.\n\nA flash of light Heralded another family member she hadn't seen in too long.\n\n\"Austin, what's the situation!\" She yelled.\n\nHe huffed and bent over, trying to catch his breath and speak at the same time, \"I can't... I- I can't any longer.\" Water and blood poured off him and if it hadn't been raining, he'd be soaked in sweat instead.\n\nHis body held a simmering glow from extensive power use or from his Bloodline. Probably both. Steam wafted up from the residual heat from his head. His helmet long lost to the fight.\n\nHis face was scarred and blood trickled down a few newer wounds but she couldn't waste her mana on healing right now.\n\n\"Austin!\" she screamed, \"What's going on!\"\n\nShe couldn't allow time for him to recover. She needed to know what he knew now.\n\n\"They're still coming -huff- with no end in sight. I saw them still pouring out -huff- but nothing bigger than the Chieftains.\" Austin used to be out front picking off the elites but he'd long ago run out of steam.\n\nHis Anchor was dry and his mana was petering. His skin was an angry red and flaking off. Almost peeling, in an extreme sunburn kind of way. He drew too long on his boosting skills.\n\n\"I need you with Rachel on the right!\" Hopefully, their synergy would help them conserve what little they had left in the tank.\n\n\"Abigail... I can't.\" He faltered and nearly fell, \"I've got nothing left.\"\n\nShe knew that. She saw that with her eyes, her mana, and her healing experience. She knew what state he was in but asked it of him anyway.\n\nEven his equipment spoke of the state he was in. His armor was torn, punctured, and chipping apart from the vile blood. Hastily healed wounds visible through the holes. His spear, the spear Vinny and Chris were so proud of, chipped and cracked.\n\nIt was a miracle it wasn't broken completely. It was also why his mana was sucked dry. Extending every attack to preserve his spear would make every kill take that much more.\n\n\"Austin!\" She grabbed his chest straps and lifted him up, \"I don't care if you have to use a stick from the ground, we need you out there!\"\n\nIf the Wall fell...\n\n\"We need to push!\" A call rang out.\n\nShe shot out another jet of pressurized water at a charging Chieftain and looked down at the Wall. Every Warrior down below had either died or retreated. Every one but Chris and Jon.\n\nChris because he wouldn't and Jon because he couldn't. Jon was the only thing keeping the Wall from being overrun.\n\nWithout anyone to drive the fight away from the Wall, the bodies built up at the base. Enough of them created a ramp of sorts. A way for the Orcs to easily climb up and over their only fortification. The only thing saving them.\n\nWhich made clearing the bodies a priority.\n\n\"Water!\" Her order rang and nearly every Water Mage stopped what they were doing.\n\nShe reached at the River behind them, the murky brown water from the muddy banks, and pulled. Her and every other Water mage pulled together.\n\nA tidal wave rose up and over where they stood before crashing down on the other side of the Wall. The force of thousands of gallons of water violently pushed everything away.\n\nThe piles of dead, the ramp of bodies, even the charging Orcs. Everything was swept away by the weight of so much rushing water. The Wall was cleared for the moment.\n\nUntil it built up again and another tidal wave would be required.\n\nA few mages dropped. The strain of pulling so much water their last straw. Healers ran up and down the wall pulling those away. The medical centers and tents were already overrun. The nature of the Blight made healing wounds that much harder.\n\nThe first who had fallen had made their way back into the fight already but those who returned became fewer and fewer. Healers were running out of... everything.\n\nMana for skills, healing herbs, bandages, potions, and salves. Everything they had packed or their Alchemists had made for the fight had been used. No one had anticipated fighting for so long. No one had anticipated the injuries to be so many.\n\nNearly every person had sustained a wound of some kind or had gotten blood on them. A cut, scrape, stab, anything. Healers ran triage as best they could but there were too many people hurt and not enough people to heal them.\n\nAbigail wished for it to end. Prayed for it to end.\n\n\"The Great Druid Fell!\" A runner shouted, \"The North Wall is breached!\"\n\nShe'd known the Faction to their North was in a rough shape but this threw a wrench into everything they had planned. A runner an hour ago came with news of them being pushed back, but this was so, so much worse.\n\nThe Roots from the Druid were the only thing keeping their Wall from falling and after he died...\n\n\"Change of plans, Austin,\" She yelled at the man who still hadn't moved, \"Hold the North. The Trench will help but if they get behind us...\"\n\n\"Abigail...\" She expected him to say he couldn't. She expected- \"I won't be able to do it alone.\" His hunched form straightened for a second. He pulled together the dregs he had left.\n\nHe was right. He wouldn't be able to do it alone. \"Gabriel! Alice! Go with him!\"\n\nHer brother looked at her with concern. Their family was spread along the line with a few in each spot, but most were located far from the center. Chris was single-handedly lessening the impact for the middle of their line.\n\nIt allowed them to send people elsewhere to where they were needed. The flanks were getting hit the hardest, so the strong went there. Elliot, Hal, Jon, and Rachel held the flanks.\n\nAlthough the Center was thinner than elsewhere, they had fewer Defenders to compensate. Gabriel and Alice were her only backup now that her Mother had left. Both Ice Mages were her only support near her level, and she was sending them away.\n\n\"Abigail, no,\" Gabriel started. He'd been slinging ice for as long as she had, his phantom tails waving behind him, \"You won't be able to hold this alone.\"\n\n\"It won't matter if we get surrounded!\" She yelled harshly, \"Hold the North Gabe! I'll be fine!\"\n\nAll three knew that probably wasn't true. Yet they left all the same. The threat of getting surrounded was too great.\n\nWith no end in sight, and thousands of Orcs still charging at them, she would have to hold the center for as long as she could. Her Bloodline and Mana against endless foes.\n\nIt was a good thing she still had a little left in the tank. Her dread at drawing too deeply on her Bloodline left just enough for her use now.\n\nShe threw her reservations to the wind and drew deeply on the energy deep inside her. The Well of Power that she had left as unperturbed as possible. A glowing orb of vibrant blue. It was thicker than Water, but its essence teemed with the feeling of rushing streams and raging rivers.\n\nIt was the essence of Flowing Water in an orb. Both the life-bringing qualities of moving water and the destructive qualities it could so easily turn into.\n\nHer hair deepened in color and flowed more harshly as she leaned into the destruction. The rage. The rising waters of a river tearing everything away. The destruction from flash floods.\n\nThe death that something so lively could bring.\n\nNaiads were usually depicted as childlike and joyful. Full of vibrant energy, but they could also be the bringers of destruction. Wroth with hate and anger that could so easily turn a once lovely stream into something so much worse.\n\nThat Essence, the Essence of the Naiad flowed through her and she pulled on the Water around her. The Water saturating the ground, the water falling from the air, the water at her back, and she wove it into something so terribly destructive.\n\nWith the Fury of a Naiad, Abigail drowned all that she could and prayed for it to end."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 280 - War Leaders\nTarget length: ~2000 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Jayla\n\n\"Ma'am, we need to retreat!\"\n\n\"The Wall is lost!\"\n\nStone reached out and crushed another Orc as she vented her anger. Her command structure was new and without Walter, it wasn't up to her standard. It didn't help that so many had died and new people had to slide in to replace them.\n\n\"The Wall will not fall!\" She ground out in frustration. \"We will not retreat!\"\n\nShe'd spent days going over the Wall, fortifying the stone, joining the blocks together. It wasn't going to fall. Not when her two feet were still anchored to the ground.\n\nMana poured out of her at an alarming rate to keep the stone sturdy. The blood upon its surface was eating away at its integrity. Her Professional skills from creating the Wall were slowly getting washed away one stray drop of blood at a time.\n\nShe wasn't alone in her efforts to keep the Wall intact, and there were dozens of others fighting off the corruption, but if this didn't end soon, they were going to lose.\n\nIt didn't much matter if the Wall was lost at that point. They would all be dead anyway.\n\n\"Where's Travis!\" She hadn't seen him in a while and he was supposed to be helping her. The last she'd felt the taint of fire was nearly an hour ago.\n\n\"Fighting deeper in, his skills wreck the area and he started to damage his own people!\" She didn't know who answered.\n\n\"What about Devin!\" She asked.\n\nShe hadn't known Devin long, but they'd come together with Travis. The three of them had an alliance of sorts to face this threat together. It helped they were all close enough together that traveling together was easier than separately.\n\nHis Winds were annoying, but they were powerful.\n\n\"Devin's Dead!\"\n\nHe died?\n\nHe may not be as sturdy as her, but he was a Baron. There was a strength required to receive that title yet he had already fallen.\n\n\"What of his Faction?!\" He was supposed to be defending the section to the south. Travis held the North and she was in the middle. If Devin had fallen, they didn't have anyone strong enough to defend their portion of the Wall.\n\n\"Getting pushed back. They'll lose the Wall in less than an hour without him!\"\n\nJayla could change that. She had skills and abilities she hadn't taken out yet, but she had to weigh the worth. If she held his Wall, his Faction would have something to fight behind. They wouldn't continually lose ground.\n\nBut it would weaken hers. If she had to spread her protection further, her own Wall would suffer. It would drain her faster and it would cost her.\n\nIf she did, and the fight continued, she'd fall the same as Devin had.\n\nI can't.\n\nShe wanted to. She desperately wanted to, but she couldn't. As much as the thought of leaving his Faction to their fates angered and saddened her, there was nothing she could do.\n\nIf Travis fell too, they would be screwed.\n\nInstead, she started planning for the inevitable fall of Devin's Faction. Either through retreat or death, she had to be ready. The Earth rushed up through her feet and the ground started to shift.\n\nEvery other time she'd grasped its power, it had been reluctant. Hard to change and harder still to alter, but not this time. It was relatively eager compared to her efforts before.\n\nShe wove it through the Wall under her feet and spread it throughout its length. The Wall strengthened and spikes shot out from its bottom, skewering the Orcs trying to climb it or break it down. Jayla used the very Wall she stood upon to fight for her. It was both to push the bodies away and to kill anything too close.\n\nWhen was the last time I had to do that?\n\nThe battle had gone on for hours at this point and her mind wasn't as sharp. Details started to mix together and exhaustion was rearing its head.\n\nIt feels like it's been longer than before.\n\n\"Garrett!\" Without Walter, Garrett was the person she trusted most. Him being a Healer meant he was probably still alive. They weren't on the front lines holding the top of the Wall where the most casualties were.\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"Is it just me, or are the Orcs slowing!\"\n\nThe prattle in the beginning were easy enough to smash or crush. That got harder when the Champions started pounding on her Wall, but it was still easy enough for her power to deny them.\n\nThe Chieftains were when the difficulties arose. They hit like meteors upon the Wall. Heavy and quick with their weapons. Not even the beast she'd fought to get her Baroness title was as hard as defending against the Chieftains together.\n\nGarrett ran up the Wall and looked out over the battlefield in front of them. Jayla had gazed out to confirm her theory, but she didn't want to be wrong. She didn't want to give herself hope.\n\nHer words were heard by more than just Garrett and she saw more and more people came to the same realization as she had.\n\n\"The Orcs are breaking!\"\n\n\"They're slowing!\"\n\nAny attempts to prevent false hope were thoroughly thrashed. Everyone picked up on what was said and it spread quicker than wildfire. It was the second Wind that some people needed. The small reassurance that the battle wasn't a lost cause.\n\nJayla knew better. This wasn't the end. She'd thought that during the Baron Wave and nearly died. This wasn't the end. The test wasn't over.\n\nA massive wave of baleful aura crashed out from the obelisk. It washed over everything like a tsunami, smothering everything nearby and everything felt it.\n\n\"ROARRRRRRR\" What followed was a bone-rattling roar. It put the rumbling thunder overhead to shame. It caused it to cower, as it seized the air and forced it to tremble.\n\n\"ROARR\" It was mirrored a moment later by a roar matching its own.\n\n\"ROARR\" Then another.\n\n\"ROARR\" Then another.\n\nJayla should have seen that coming. There were four sides.\n\nThere were four of whatever was coming.\n\n\n* * *\n\n\nThe Admiral\n\nHis halberd bit into the Chieftain and cleaved through its chest sheering it near in two. He leapt back and attacked the next Chieftain before its blood could rain down. He'd been caught too many times by it to make the error again.\n\nThe next Chieftain fell and he ripped his weapon free and did it again. And again.\n\nHis men were dying and that was all he had to think of to keep moving forward. So many had perished. So many that he felt breathe their last. It fueled him. Gave his muscles strength when all they wanted to do was falter. Sharpened his mind when all it wanted to do was turn to mush.\n\nOf the teams he'd painstakingly hand-picked and trained, over most were shattered apart. Totaled together, nearly half were dead. There wasn't time to shuffle and accommodate. They fought with what they had.\n\nHendricks fought not far away eyes ablaze and sword deteriorating. Gonzalez at his side, muscles rippling and teeth bared. Leaning into the animalistic instincts of his Bloodline. The bear of a man was riddled with blackened wounds, but he stayed fighting.\n\nPricilla, a once dignified and decorated Staff Sergeant, stood covered in blood and gore over her fallen team. Her spear danced and brought death to those who had felled them.\n\nHis heart tore but that wasn't for the here and now. No, what would be grieved would be grieved later. They were at War and the battle had to be won. No matter the cost.\n\n\"Sir,\" A fighter shouted from the Wall behind him. \"Reports state the Obelisk is slowing down!\"\n\nWhat?!\n\n\"Report Now!\" He faced down two more Chieftains while listening to the information.\n\n\"Scouts say the rate disgorged is slowing! It's now a trickle compared to before.\"\n\n\"You have visual confirmation?!\" He hoped they did. They wouldn't be bringing this to him if they didn't, but he had to ask.\n\n\"Yes, sir, but there's a problem!\" The fighter shouted. \"Reports say the Obelisk is building in strength!\"\n\nWhat? Why would it build in strength if the number of Orcs was decreasing?\n\nHis Tactical Skills quickly spit out a few reasons. The strength of the Obelisk had increased in sharp spikes twice already. When the Champions and Hunters started coming through and when the Chieftains started coming through.\n\nThe only difference those times was the number of Orcs wasn't affected. The strength of the Obelisk increased and the strength of the Orcs increased.\n\nHis Skill warned him. They shouted at him, but even they weren't prepared for the earth-shaking roar followed by three others.\n\nThe sky-splitting sound rattled through his body and brought a fear he'd long thought dead.\n\nA second runner came flying in as fast as his feet could carry him. \"Sir, four Orc War Leaders spotted!\"\n\nThe Admiral didn't even ask for a level. Every single Orc spat out of the accursed Obelisk was exactly level 100. Even though the power between the regular Orcs and the Orc Chieftains was enormous, they were both the same level\n\nIf these War Leaders were any different, that would have been the first thing mentioned. The fact it hadn't meant they were similarly level 100. How something could be that powerful and still be in the same rank as them was mind-boggling, but it was fact.\n\nHe could feel them from here. The pressure was palpable and the fear was very real. He didn't need a report to know where they were, they broadcasted that like giant neon pillars.\n\nThe four War Leaders were all headed in different directions. One was headed South, right toward where he stood. It was closing in at a remarkable pace that could only mean it was actively seeking him out. Zuri and Liam were close by, but it felt like he was the one being targeted rather than them.\n\nAnother shot West, the third went North, and the last went East.\n\nThe War Leaders sprang out of all four sides of the Obelisk and rushed toward the strongest defenders they could locate.\n\nHe stuttered to remember who was all stationed in the line of the War Leaders. The entire sectioned map was out of reach as it was far too much to remember, but he dedicated time to know where the notables were.\n\nHe'd met Zuri and Liam before when they were liberating the coast so they'd chosen Sections close to him and he hoped they would be of aid.\n\nWho defended the West were unknowns. They'd come from far away and they had no knowledge of them beforehand. They came as a trio and had all chosen sections next to each other in the West. Mountainside, Yellowstone, and Mile High.\n\nThe North was a mix of knowns and unknowns. They'd heard tale of The Stormbringer before, but the other two were mysteries. Especially the one they suspected, now confirmed, to be a Necromancer.\n\nThe East were two more unknowns. They were suspected to be from the Far North. One in Minnesota and the other even further than that. The Great Lakes Alliance was also in the East, but those two stood out more.\n\nOther Factions were spread thoroughly around but those were the first to come to mind and the only ones he suspected had the strength to stand up to the War Leaders.\n\nHe couldn't think about the other directions, he had to focus on his own first.\n\n\"Hendricks, Gonzalez, Pricilla, we have incoming!\" He ordered and turned back to the runners bringing him news, \"Go get Zuri and Liam!\"\n\n\"Liam's dead, sir!\"\n\nFuck! \"Get Zuri then!\"\n\nThe aura thickened and he knew the fates were readying his thread."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 281 - By the Grace of God\nTarget length: ~2600 words"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Marcus\n\nThe insects had nothing on the blight-touched Orcs. Oh, they were deadly, quick, persistent, and all around not a fun time, but they weren't endless like the Orcs were. They also had the option to retreat when facing the bugs that they didn't have now.\n\nThey'd either win or lose a battle relatively quickly versus the swarm. Not this drawn-out battle ticking up there in hours. It had been at least 4 by now! That was insane!\n\nMana dried up. Anchors ran dry. Stamina bottomed out, yet the Orcs were still coming.\n\nMarcus had thought at first the test wouldn't be so bad. Sure, the Orcs were level 100 but they weren't that hard to kill. The Champions had some extra oomph, but they weren't that hard. The Chieftains took a regular team working together to take down, but it wasn't...\n\nThat all went out the window in the face of the tide. The tide of battle had started at their back. High and mighty they were, but slowly, ever so slowly, the tide had shifted.\n\nMarcus had felt it.\n\nWith every death, with every spell draining the last of a mage's mana, with every warrior collapsing having swung his last. It was a battle of attrition and they were losing.\n\nMarcus himself nearly lost.\n\nHis glaive was visibly rusted from the mistake of leaving blood on its surface and the waters raging around him were tainted black from Orc blood. He did his best to but he could only do so much.\n\nHe nearly collapsed in euphoria when he felt the tides shifting. Instead of slowly being lost to the other side, they started to come back. A few drops of water at first, nearly imperceptible to his senses.\n\nThen the flow intensified. Then it grew even more.\n\nThe feeling caught him so off guard that Marcus nearly lost an arm trying to find out the reason. It wasn't until the Chieftains around him thinned that he realized.\n\nThe Orcs were slowing down.\n\nThe wave was ending. The horde had run dry.\n\nThen they came. All the momentum they had built up. The tide that had finally started to swing back in their direction was lost. Ripped away just as all sound was ripped away by the earth-shaking roars.\n\nMarcus felt the War Leader coming for him. It was impossible not to. The vicious aura blanketed the area, causing some to back away in fear. All four directions had an enemy to deal with. There would be no help coming.\n\nIt was up to him and Chris, who he hadn't seen hide nor tail of in hours.\n\nMarcus solemnly wished the man wasn't dead. He wasn't sure he could beat the War Leader alone. Scratch that, he was sure he couldn't beat the War Leader alone.\n\nNot as tired and drained as he was. If he was in prime condition, maybe, but he was far from being in prime condition. Everyone was. Unless they sat back and did nothing for hours, everyone was running dry.\n\nHis Mana Pool, severely enhanced by his new Mana Cultivation, was running on empty, let alone the people who didn't even make that Step yet.\n\nAs the Chieftains thinned and their reckoning came ever closer, he finally had the mental capacity to weigh his options. He could run. Nothing said he had to die in an unwinnable battle.\n\nHe turned back and gazed over his people behind him. The little that were left. He prayed that the makeshift first-aid tents were so overrun, that seven more were hastily constructed and that was where everyone was, but he couldn't delude himself.\n\nThere were enough lifeless eyes peering back at him to know where most of his people were and it wasn't in hospitals.\n\nNo.\n\nIt wasn't vengeance that rushed through him. The sight of so many of his people dead angered him, sure, but he didn't turn back to the War Leader with vengeance in his heart.\n\nIt was resolve.\n\nEveryone was tired. The hospitals had to be overflowing, with less than he hoped, but enough that moving them would be impossible.\n\nIf he didn't step up and face the powerful Orc, it would kill everyone here. He had to do his duty whether he wanted to or not.\n\nThe only good thing was he had time to catch his breath. No man's land, as Marcus called it, was awash with craters, pock-marks of various sizes, raging fires, and man-made ponds.\n\nThe environment was so thoroughly destroyed that getting through it was a challenge in its own right. The rain and blood-soaked ground stuck and slowed down those charging through it, the rents from battle forced detours. The siege weapon craters turned murky swimming pools had to be avoided.\n\nHe had time to lean on his glaive and gather what he could.\n\nThe din of battle had rushed by him and left his ears struggling to recover. They only picked up the rumbling thunder overhead or the sharp crack of distant lightning.\n\nHe hadn't realized there was a gap but he was grateful for it.\n\nThe walking disaster closed in which forced his tired, aching legs to move. Against all self-preservation instincts, he walked toward the domineering aura.\n\nFar to his left, he felt another following in his footsteps. Last he heard, the Great Lakes Alliance was stationed over there, but he didn't much care about that at this point.\n\nNot now.\n\nMarcus noticed that his path was taking him toward where Chris once stood. He'd felt the frigid Arctic earlier in the battle from the area but it had been drowned out as the fight intensified.\n\nSlush coated the land. Blackened and dirty shards of ice half melted crunched underfoot as he walked. Lakes turned half frozen and a light dusting of snow coated the land. It was far from the pristine white that a fresh snowfall created. Instead, a grey and black that made it look closer to ash than fresh snow.\n\nThe snow was the least interesting. It was the bodies. Thousands of bodies. Some were only parts of bodies, the rest lost somewhere or crushed into nothingness.\n\nBody after body blanketed the land and he began to walk on them instead of the ground itself. If there was an idea in his mind of being able to win against Chris, it was crushed now. Thoroughly the supremely.\n\n\"Marcus,\" a voice surprised him and he turned to see someone he hadn't expected. Not out here in no man's land at least. Her hair floated limply in the air and was more mud than hair at this point. She limped forward on her staff at nearly the same pace as himself.\n\n\"Abigail,\" He responded. \"It's good to see you aren't dead.\"\n\nHe hadn't felt her approach and it wasn't because she was being stealthy. The overabundance of Water Mana in the air naturally hid her own, but there was barely enough of it left to be noticeable. Her Core was petering on fumes trying its best to replenish itself with the mana in the air.\n\n\"Have you seen Chris?\" She asked laced with dread. It wasn't hard to hear the worry in her voice.\n\nMarcus shook his head, \"No, only his handiwork.\" He motioned at all the bodies and ice. \"Is anyone else coming?\"\n\nThe War Leader, while slowed by the terrain, was still closing in. He didn't know all of their family, but he knew they were powerful. He'd fought with Austin before and was surprised to not see him swaggering up to help.\n\nHe saw and felt only Abigail.\n\n\"No,\" she breathed sadly, \"Austin collapsed when the Orcs stopped. Healers are looking at him but he won't be here for that.\" Her hand listlessly waved in the direction of what was coming. \"Everyone else is either dead or collapsed.\"\n\nHer voice was emotionless. Too far gone to care and that was saying something. The woman who had talked his ear off about those she cared about couldn't muster up the words.\n\nShe spoke of dead family members like it was the weather.\n\n\"Your husband?\" Marcus questioned and hoped... He'd met the man before and had grown to like him.\n\n\"Alive,\" she answered firmly. \"I made sure of it.\"\n\nThey'd stopped to talk and recover which allowed the presence he felt trailing him to catch up. Both turned to take in the newcomer. Or newcomers, he should say.\n\n\"Is this it?\" The newcomer voiced tiredly, \"The five of us against that.\"\n\nThe speaker was a man Marcus barely recognized. The older gentleman from the meeting looked war-torn and covered in muck, blood, and other viscera. Patrick Staffords, if he remembered correctly, Leader of the Great Lakes Alliance.\n\nAt his back were two others both with wild flaring auras that were nearly a match for Marcus's own. Patrick carried an axe in either hand while the two behind him, a man and a woman, both carried staves.\n\nThe thin covering of Water was the only thing keeping the axes free of the corrosive blood, the same trick Marcus used with his glaive. He'd learned quickly his weapon would be lost if he didn't cover it.\n\nA group of five from all over the land stood together. It was poetic in a way Marcus dismissed as irrelevant.\n\n\"Six,\" the woman interrupted, \"There's another further ahead.\"\n\n\"Further ahead?\" Patrick asked incredulously, \"What madman would be that deep?\"\n\nChris still lives. A weight slightly lifted hearing that and he wasn't the only one to feel it. Abigail's relief was audible at hearing there was another person further ahead.\n\nA hammer clanged in his mind and he gathered his wits. Now wasn't the time for this. \"You and I are the front line. The man up ahead is also a warrior so he will be the third.\" He gestured to Patrick and himself, \"You three will be the backline. I'm assuming you two are mages.\" He pointed at the two behind Patrick.\n\nThe aura was nearing and all of them felt it. They knew there wasn't time to discuss anything more than that and grimly nodded.\n\nIt wasn't until the woman spoke again that his plans started falling apart, \"The man isn't retreating.\" There wasn't any worry or fear in her voice. Only a statement of fact. Apathy after seeing so many die.\n\nChris, you fool! Does he think he can face it alone?! After all this?!\n\nIf Abigail had more strength in her legs, Marcus would've said she shot off toward the fight but it was more of a languished sprint.\n\nSeeing her break off, Marcus ran off after her and the three they left behind were left to wonder what was going on. \"What the he-\"\n\nHis words petered out as Marcus ran but he called back, \"Six is better than five, come on.\"\n\nHe didn't have the time to explain the nuance. That Abigail was going to her brother no matter what and he was forced to follow. He could only hope they were pragmatic enough to see that following was in their best interest.\n\nThankfully, they were and he felt them rush after them.\n\nMarcus followed Abigail through the bodies. The piles and piles of bodies. The ice and snow. The frosty fog. The frozen craters of water. And the bodies. So many bodies.\n\nThe air chilled as they neared and the water he had brought with him threatened to freeze.\n\nThe force wasn't strong and trivial to fight off, but the fact it was there was surprising.\n\nThe scene he came running up to made him stop dead. Abigail had run ahead without hesitation but he had to stop. It was too much to take in.\n\nThe trio caught up to him quickly and had the same reaction. Pausing next to him and looking on with a mix of emotions.\n\n\"By the grace of...\" He heard one of them mutter and it wasn't far off from how he felt.\n\nIt was pure, unaltered carnage. The bodies had built and put the sea they had run through to shame. There were mountains of them. It felt like there were more lying dead or dying in this one area than his entire section combined.\n\nIn the center of the carnage stood a man. The Ice Marcus had seen him start the battle with was gone. The hammer he had once held missing. The glistening plate armor he once wore that made Marcus's own feel inadequate, hung from his battered form from fraying straps and torn leather.\n\nThe metal was bent, punctured, torn, or sheered off completely. His upper half was bare. The once thick plate lost in the battle. His helmet was gone. The only evidence that he had worn the once-resplendent suit of armor in the first place was one of the pauldrons hanging by his feet and a few plates on his legs.\n\nEverything else was lost.\n\nHis body was riddled with black wounds. Angry and festering from the vileness the Orcs once had. The bleeding was constrained by thin flakes of ice but not completely. The infection barred the ice from closing them. Deep purple blood leaked from him and dripped to the ground.\n\nHis hands were frosted over and steaming. The thick layers of blood on both his arms extended to his elbows.\n\nOut in front of where the man stood, was the most powerful Orc Marcus had ever laid eyes on. It towered over Chris and was nearly double the man's height. Its muscles were flared and bulging.\n\nIn one hand was a club wrought from what looked like the trunk of a tree ripped from the ground and the other held a mighty axe nearly as tall as Marcus. Its bearded blade gleamed in the rare ray of sunlight. It was the most metal he had seen an Orc carry.\n\nThe War Leader struck fear into his heart. Even from a distance and without being the focus of its attention, Marcus felt the crippling fangs of Fear build in his head.\n\nThe two mages on his side instinctively took a step back. Only he and Patrick faced the raw power and fury without faltering but he sure wanted to.\n\nThe Orc stood a distance away and stopped, taking in those who stood against it. It eyed them all and when the yellowing eyes landed on him, the urge to back away intensified tenfold.\n\nMarcus was struck silent.\n\n\"RROAARRRR!\" The ear-splitting roar was so much worse in person. It drilled into his brain and threatened to overwhelm him. Fear was an emotion that couldn't even convey the magnitude anymore. It was more Primal than that.\n\nPrimal Fear, if such a thing was enough.\n\nHis chest caught and his breath froze. His brain struggled to shake off the effect and he could only stand there frozen.\n\nThe sheer shock of what happened next jolted him awake. Like someone had taken a defibrillator to his chest.\n\n\"ROAARRR!\"\n\nIt was nonsensical. It was bewildering. Incredulous.\n\nChris roared back. Words weren't enough to convey the raw emotion contained in the roar. One so much weaker than the Orc's but held something deeper.\n\nIt had challenged and Chris answered back. Somehow, even though he hadn't used words, Marcus understood. The deeper meaning was clear to all who heard it.\n\nCome at me!"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Write Chapter 282 - Lunatic\nTarget length: ~3400 words\nKey events: combat-heavy"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Marcus\n\nThe fear fell away and he fought to keep it that way. He was no coward and he was better than that. He'd fought tides of insects and killed hundreds of Orcs, he wasn't about to be paralyzed in fear just because of one, extremely strong Orc.\n\nAn Orc that could most likely kill him in one or two blows. An Orc that looked like he could...\n\nNo! He admonished himself and fought to keep the fear at bay.\n\nHis feet were freed and he hesitantly took his first step forward. Toward the danger. Toward the Orc. That step shook off some of the paralyzing fear and the next diminished it further.\n\nBut while he had taken a paltry few steps, Chris had charged forward like it was just another enemy to face. Like this War Leader was no different than the Orcs that attacked at the start.\n\nThe lack of fear, no, more than lack, devoid of the idea, startled Marcus. Every living thing had a fear response and while Marcus' was screaming at him to get as far away from the threat as possible, it was like Christopher's was broken.\n\nShattered to pieces like the mountains of bodies at his feet.\n\nChristopher didn't even know they were there! He hadn't turned and Marcus doubted he was in a state to see anything further than his eyes took in. He saw the enemy and he charged the enemy, not even realizing he had allies that had come to help him.\n\nMarcus could tell he wasn't thinking. His eyes were wild and unfocused. His aura was the same. He'd felt Chris unleash it a few times on the boats and it was always steady as a rock. Or a glacier in his case.\n\nIt was heavy and unmoving while also bringing a nipping chill along with it. If Marcus were weaker, that chill would have bit into his skin and sought to freeze him from within, but he could fight that off.\n\nNow, that image of a giant, unmoving glacier was replaced. In its place was a wild, fluctuating area of pure desolation. The warmth, the small piece there used to be if it could be called that, was long gone. It used to be like the cold nip of a dark winter night.\n\nNow it was like what came after Winter had reigned unchallenged for eons. It held no warmth. No qualities that could be considered life-giving. Only destruction.\n\nAnd the Cold and desolation were its instruments to achieve that.\n\nMarcus watched as the man charged toward the Orc and cursed himself. He had a debt to repay and he was too scared to move!\n\nHis eyes flicked over to the three additions from the Great Lakes Alliance and was assured to see them in a worse state than he was in. Patrick's hands shook and the axes he held waivered only slightly while the other two mages were frozen stiff.\n\nHe looked over and expected to see Abigail in much the same state but she was nowhere to be seen. Or, she wasn't in the position Marcus last saw her, she was hundreds of feet ahead of that.\n\nShe had charged forward without stopping.\n\nHow?\n\nShe already had Water rising around her readying an attack to help her brother while Marcus was still trying to break free from the fear.\n\nWhat is wrong with this family?!\n\nSeeing his ally charge in, he marshaled his will and used it as a sledgehammer on the chains wrapping around him. He smashed it to pieces and could finally feel himself moving at a normal pace.\n\nFinally freed, he turned and slapped Patrick next to him. It probably wasn't the most diplomatic decision to hit a fellow Faction leader, a suspected Baron at that, but those thoughts didn't matter now.\n\nNot in the face of...\n\n\"Wha- Oh. Thank you.\" Patrick was startled from the hit but recovered himself well. He turned and administered the same medicine to the two mages behind him.\n\nThe man took a little more to jar free but it was only a moment of delay.\n\nAt that moment, Marcus turned back to see the first blows rain down. Chris, devoid of his hammer, used his fists to meet the Orcs club. A club the size of an ancient tree trunk, against a single man's fist.\n\nThe tree won.\n\nChris was driven back and his body tore a line through the piles of bodies. Marcus feared injury but that thought died as he saw the man launch himself back at the Orc like he'd just been hit with a strong Wind. Not with the weight of an entire tree swinging at insane speeds.\n\nHis skin bore a new wound that tried to ice over the bleeding but couldn't fight off the Blight to do so. Christopher's form flashed and an icy blue radiated outward. Frost built up but not in the way Marcus expected.\n\nHe'd seen the man's [Frost Armor] before, and this wasn't it. It was the natural build-up of frost on something cold. The build-up one would see on an item in a deep freezer. The skill he was using wasn't [Frost Armor], but for some reason, it felt even more powerful. Under the frost, his skin turned a shade of blue, instead of the pale white he'd seen the man as before.\n\nA defensive skill of some kind?\n\nBefore the second strike could land, a whip made of water smashed down over the Orc's head. It barely had enough force to break the skin and any damage other than that was superficial at best. It worked to get the Orc's attention but only for a second.\n\nChris came flying in at a level of Strength Marcus would have said impossible if he hadn't been seeing it for himself. The Orc looking at Abigail allowed his fist to land and the meaty thud boomed over the battlefield.\n\nWhere Chris had been launched back by the club, the Orc slid back a few feet.\n\nA disparaging level of force between the two if Marcus had ever seen one but it seemed like that fact didn't even register in Chris's mind.\n\n\"Fucking lunatic,\" one of the mages muttered.\n\nThat comment caused him to tear his eyes away from the non-sensical battle.\n\n\"Patrick, right?\" Marcus didn't stop for him to answer, \"Do you have a spare axe? Chris seems to have lost his weapon.\"\n\n\"You know that madman?\" The older man gaffed but answered his question, \"No. I usually carry a spare set but I lost them in the fight before I got the technique down.\"\n\n\"You mean he doesn't normally use his fists?\" The woman mage muttered. From what she could see, the man was fighting comfortably without a weapon of any kind yet Marcus was saying he was down a weapon.\n\nMarcus ignored her and plowed ahead, \"The Orc seems focused on Chris so he'll tank. You and I will take the Right and Left flank.\" Patrick nodded, \"Mages stay back and do what you can.\" The mages nodded more hesitantly.\n\n\"Good.\"\n\nBoth Abigail and Chris were in the fight and now it was time to prove his worth.\n\nHis feet were freed and he dug into the ground- bodies under him to propel himself forward. They were frozen together and didn't slip under his heavy steps which was a positive.\n\nPatrick charged in behind him while the mages followed.\n\nMarcus tried to get a feel for the Orc and how he would go about fighting it. His [Glaive Mastery] was high, but he doubted it was enough to face the Orc in single combat.\n\nHis [Water Scythes] were powerful, but if a [Water Whip] from Abigail barely damaged it, his [Scythes] wouldn't either. [Flash Flood] would hurt his allies more than the Orc and he was quickly running out of Skills to use. Still, he charged in anyway. Worst case he would only use his glaive and do what he could.\n\nAs he closed in, he noticed that the Orc's skin was an odd color. It wasn't green like what he imagined it would be. It also wasn't the sickly muddled color the rest had been either. It was blue, similar in hue to what Christopher's now was. Not everywhere, as the Black stripes and spots still adorned the War Leader, but everywhere with visible skin was a faded blue color instead of green.\n\nThe change was unimportant and he instead went back to planning how not to die. [Sweeping Strike] and [Water Blade] were probably his best bet. He was too low on mana for his bigger skills and while those were on the weaker side, they both worked to enhance his strikes.\n\nThey gave him an extra bit of power with his glaive and that was his best bet right now. He wasn't sure how many times he could activate them with his dwindling mana, but those were better than nothing.\n\nChristopher and the Orc exchanged a few more blows and it was clear that Chris was losing. He had to jump away from the axe completely as he had no way to block and the club sent him tumbling back. Any ice he managed to form got shattered in the path of the massive axe.\n\nYet every time, he got up and charged back in like nothing had happened.\n\nAbigail launched more spells and drills of water at the Orc but it only resulted in a small amount of black liquid seeping out. Marcus had tried to use [Water Manipulation] on the liquid earlier and it hadn't worked.\n\nAs he neared, he prayed silently. It wasn't even directed at anyone or anything, just for himself. He didn't scream or announce his presence, just set his feet and swung his glaive as powerfully as he could.\n\n[Sweeping Strike] activated and the arc of his swing sped up and empowered it. [Water Blade] coated the edge of the blade and made the metal that much sharper.\n\nHis strike landed effortlessly as the Orc was focused completely on Chris leaving him a free strike. He saw Patrick doing the same as him, launching both his axes at the Orc's other leg.\n\nThe blade of his glaive landed and it stopped cold. The force of the sudden stop rattled up his arms and his bones ached from the vibration. Fearing retaliation, Marcus jumped back and inspected the damage.\n\nWhich was pitiful.\n\nA wound barely a few inches long and it didn't even penetrate the skin! How the hell were they supposed to kill the thing if they couldn't damage it?!\n\nTwo more spells started raining down on the Orc. A thick lightning bolt slammed into its chest while a weaker jet of water slammed home.\n\nA Water and Lightning Mage. A good combination.\n\nHe could tell the Lightning did increased damage as it was already soaked from the rain and Abigail's attacks, but even then, it wasn't enough to stun it for long. The patchwork hide it wore was blown away and burned, but it was only left with a black mark for the mage's trouble.\n\nThe Orc was surrounded but it didn't alter from its incessant charge at Chris. It treated Marcus and Patrick as flies. Worse than flies, as you usually waved them away. They were just ignored.\n\nHis glaive opened up a few more wounds but nothing that could change the course of the fight. He couldn't see how Patrick was faring, but he doubted it was better.\n\nSupercharged Lightning bolts continued to rain down timed exactly after the two Water Mages doused the Orc. Marcus could see its muscles seize but only for the briefest of moments and only in a small area where the lightning hit.\n\nSickening black blood continued to leak out of it and the ground sizzled around them. Frozen from the cold and hardened, it began to dissolve. The water steamed and evaporated on its body and his glaive deteriorated even faster.\n\nThe War Leader's blood was even more corrosive.\n\nThroughout it all, Chris landed punch after punch. Marcus feared his fists would break before the Orc did, but he showed no pain or indication that his hands were breaking. His body frosted over every new wound it could, but Chris was bleeding more than the Orc was.\n\nMarcus was about to go in for another attack when Patrick called out. Delaying his attack, Marcus looked over to see the man only holding one of his two axes.\n\nThe other poked out from the Orc's knee. Slammed home and left in the wound. The shallow wound, but Patrick had opened it up wide enough to draw blood and plant his weapon inside.\n\n\"Mary! Hit it!\" Patrick yelled desperately.\n\nMarcus wasn't sure who Mary was, but he found out soon enough. The static energy bloomed and his arm hair, what was left of it, stood on end for what was about to happen.\n\nThe build-up time was well worth it as the flash and crack of lightning blinded and deafened him for a second. It was larger than anything they'd thrown yet and as his vision returned, he saw the Orc kneeling.\n\nThe Axe used as the lightning rod was melted to slag and he saw Patrick wince, but it was a worthy trade-off.\n\nBlood poured from the newly opened wound and everyone capitalized on it. The Water Mages dug into everywhere that bled with blades, whips, and drills of water seeking to drive the wounds wider and deeper.\n\nWith a new prime target, their efforts started to bear fruit. Marcus returned to hammering his own leg and Chris... Chris did what only he could do.\n\nWith the Orc kneeling, its height was halved and brought Chris within striking range. Like a shark smelling blood, Chris shot at the Orc and before it could gather itself, punched it in the face.\n\nThe thud rocked the Orc's head back and Marcus could tell it was visibly stunned, but it lasted no longer than the Lightning bolts from before. The only difference this time was Chris didn't need time to build up another spell.\n\nIt was only a moment before his other fist landed rocking its head back once more.\n\nThan another.\n\nHow high is his Strength?\n\nAnother Lightning blast slammed into its other leg and Marcus noticed what they were trying to do. Two streams of Water slammed into the leg right after and Marcus swung away.\n\nThey were trying to topple it on its back.\n\nThe Orc tried to right itself and stand but it couldn't. Patrick slammed his remaining axe into the back of its injured knee every time it tried and even if he hadn't, the meteor punches slamming into its face left it dazed enough.\n\nIt was then that Marcus noticed something else. The Orc was oddly sluggish. It was injured, its knee blown open, and it was currently getting beat to shit by a man turned feral, but for some reason, it was more sluggish than it should have been.\n\nThe mana in the air stirred and Marcus leapt out of the way. If he could feel the mana from here, the mages were drawing on final attacks.\n\nHe was proven right a moment later as a torrent of water slammed into the Orc while lightning hit its other leg at the same time. The force of the Water was enough to teeter it and the lightning numbed its other leg just enough.\n\nBefore the advantage wore off, Chris was there. Slamming his bloody fists home one right after the other. It was too much for the Orc. Too much for anything Marcus had seen, and it was sent careening over.\n\nThe shockwave of the Orc falling over upon its back staggered him but it didn't for someone else. Chris leapt into the air and landed on the Orc's chest.\n\nEyes wild and fists bloody, he pummeled the Orc with everything he had. The frost around his body left him. His skin turned back to a pale white and blood began spurting from where he was landing his punches.\n\nMarcus couldn't tell if it was from Chris or the Orc. All of it was mixing together into a sick amalgamation of purple and black.\n\nThud after thud. Punch after punch. Fist after Fist.\n\nChris stood upon the Orc's chest and rained down blow after blow, but the Orc wasn't dying. He and Patrick weren't standing around and tried to cut open what they could, but they were ineffective.\n\nThe mages were spent, the last of their mana used to topple the War Leader.\n\nIt was up to Chris to end it.\n\nWithout a better idea, Marcus prayed Chris was there enough to hear his words. \"Christopher! Take this!\"\n\nMarcus noticed the training he'd done on the boats. The ability to empower words with one's aura and hoped he'd done it right. To force the words deep enough into his brain for him to hear.\n\nAfter shouting, he threw his prized weapon. The glaive he'd carried with him for nearly a year.\n\nWhether Chris thought it was a projectile to deflect or if he heard the words Marcus shouted, his hand shot out and caught the weapon faster than his eyes could register.\n\nHis left fist continued to rain down on the Orc while his right held Marcus's weapon like it was a toothpick. As if the man was disinterested in something so light, Ice formed and built up on the weapon.\n\nThe shaft enlarged as Ice built upon it and the blade was soon encased. His once prized weapon became the core for a spike of ice.\n\nChris paused his punches and grabbed the spike with both of his hands. Before the Orc could raise a hand to defend, Chris raised it over his head and with a mighty shout, brought it down square on its face.\n\n\"AHHHHHHHH!\"\n\nOnce wasn't enough so he did it again. And again. The ice at the tip broke off but he kept smashing the weapon down. It continued to break and shatter until the metal of the blade at its core slammed home and drove into the brain.\n\nThe Orc's body spasmed but that didn't stop Chris. He raised the blade and did it again causing another spasm. And another spasm.\n\nThe Orc stopped spasming after the fifth blow.\n\nEssence rushed into Marcus in higher quantities than ever before. It was so much that he felt the improvements from the levels. He didn't have to check his notifications to know he sat at level 100.\n\nThe gasps from the others said they were also receiving the deluge of essence.\n\nOnly one man didn't gasp or react.\n\nHe continued to beat the Orc's face into the ground. One smash after the other.\n\nMarcus watched as the ice around his weapon broke and shattered. Then the blade of his weapon shatter. Then the shaft of his weapon shatter.\n\nThe wooden spray of splinters should have been enough to stop the man but he continued his onslaught long after the Orc was dead.\n\nAll five of them stood and watched as the man dragged out the last of his energy pounding the Orc into paste without saying a word. They could only watch in disbelief as the thuds turned to squelches and even those turned into something more grotesque.\n\nEither after finally realizing the Orc was dead or noticing the rush of essence and notifications signaling the end of the fight, Chris stopped. Or he was finally out of energy.\n\nHe stood up and straightened his back. His feet were firmly planted on top of the dead Orc's chest and there was even a blanket of other dead Orcs under that.\n\nHe stood, fists dripping with his own blood and the Orcs.\n\nWounds numerous and bleeding all over his body, chest heaving with great effort, breath pluming out in frosty fog.\n\nStood and screamed his victory.\n\n\"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!\"\n\nScreamed it into the liquidized face of the Orc. Into the face of the mountains of dead around him. Into the face of everyone present. Into the air and surrounding battlefield.\n\nHe stood and proclaimed victory."}]}