Sultan stood in the old ruins of what had once been Ambermill as he looked at the departing former citizens. Four large barges able to accommodate every person had been brought from the Fort and would help transport them all back to the settlement.
He had been asked by Miranda to go to Ambermill together with a crew of others to handle the situation. She had heard slavery was going on, and people had been forced into contracts, so she wanted someone with knowledge of slave contracts to go and hopefully help annul those already signed as well as track down potential leads. The first one he had gladly done, but the second job was a bit more… complicated.
“I did tell that idiot this was too close to Haven,” Sultan smirked as he shook his head. He had known about the operations going on in Ambermill for quite a while but had naturally kept quiet. It wasn’t anything that affected him, and he had already left the entire slave-trading scene for good. That didn’t mean others had, though.
As he stood there alone, a person slowly became visible as he exited the shadow of a nearby house. “Libra took it too far, attempting to take advantage of the gap in the market left by Haven and Sanctdomo, both cracking down on slavery. I do agree it was wise to take him down a peg.”
The shadowy figure soon became fully visible. He wore a dark cloak and was enveloped by shadow magic Sultan naturally recognized.
“I am surprised the Court of Shadows didn’t try to defend one of their clients,” Sultan said with a teasing smile.
“We are by giving him the advice to not fuck with this area and hiding all evidence of Libra’s involvement in this shithole,” the assassin sneered. “The other constellations have already requested an emergency meeting. Have you been informed?”
Sultan nodded. “Naturally.”
“Great, then my job here is done. Now for my pay,” the assassin turned instigator of town destruction said with a smile.
Returning his smile, Sultan transferred the sum as per the contract for a job well done.If Carmen had been there, she would have recognized the cloaked man as the same police officer that had brought her to the town hall. The same man who had coincidentally chosen a house right outside the motel Carmen was staying in as a great place to round up potential slaves and the person who had “screened” Carmen as being part of the slums.
Sultan had predicted Carmen to raise a ruckus, but it had become a bigger issue than expected, more or less leading to the end of the entire town of Ambermill. It wasn’t really a big deal, though, as with the biggest asset of the town destroyed – the mill – it held no value anymore.
However, more importantly… he managed to toss out a competitor from his very own backyard and, if things went well, possibly get rid of him entirely in the near future.
“Pleasure doing business with you as always,” the assassin said as he slowly faded back into the shadows, his presence disappearing entirely.
Sultan summoned his small black book and circled a name in it as he nodded. With his work done, he summoned his ship to travel back to Haven – after a little detour and a covert meeting, of course.
“Do you seriously just do that every time?” Carmen asked Jake as the two were running leisurely through the plains. They had already returned to Haven, teleported a few times, and were now running from a small-ish Pylon city with a teleporter in it. It was the settlement closest to the port city, and thus they had to run the rest of the way.
The problem was that Carmen kept giving Jake grief over Miranda’s response. When they returned to Haven, Jake, Sylphie, Miranda, and Carmen had met up briefly for them to exchange greetings and for Jake and Carmen to explain the situation in Ambermill more in-depth.
Carmen found it hilarious how little Miranda seemed to actually care or be surprised. Miranda had then made it worse by telling her about all the times Jake had forgotten things, been late or nearly late to events, and how he just kept doing unpredictable stuff. Case-in-point when they went and said hello to Rick because Carmen really wanted to know if they were just pulling her leg when they talked about the “troll gardener.”
What was so weird about a troll gardener?
“Ree?” Sylphie asked with a confused screech, coming in with the clutch assist.
“As Sylphie said, I wasn’t the one who did anything this time. You did,” Jake shot back.
“She did not say that.”
“Ree!” Sylphie huffed.
Carmen looked at the bird. “Touche. How the hell do you even understand Sylphie? Like, I can get general intent and stuff, but not anything even halfway complex.”
“I did hawk language courses when I went to college. Damn those unrelated electives,” Jake teased.
“With how fucking useless college was for all my friends, I could believe that was an actual thing,” Carmen scoffed. “But seriously, how? We both got that language translation skill, but I don’t think it translates anything that isn’t considered an actual language.”
“To be honest, I have no idea myself. It’s mainly guesswork and just intuition as well as reading the intent as you said,” Jake shrugged. “It helps when you spend a lot of time around the other person. Sylphie and I also have a weird contract and a connection of sorts due to said contract.”
Carmen looked sharply at Jake. “What kind of contract?”
Jake instantly knew what she was thinking about. Beast tamers – which Valhal had plenty of – used contracts or forced bonds to pretty much enslave beasts to use them in armies. Not that some beasts didn’t also willingly join these tamers, but the fact that they were bound to a master was still a thing.
“A Union Oath, and it wasn’t even me who initiated it but Sylphie,” Jake answered.
“Ree!” Sylphie confirmed as she happily flapped her wings and circled around the two running humans a few times, being faster than the both of them by quite a bit.
“Good,” Carmen sighed in relief.
They kept running a bit more in silence as Jake considered their merry band. It did come as a bit of a surprise, but Carmen had not surpassed him in level as he had thought. She was level 153, seven levels below himself, and the explanation for this was the same as his: she was consolidating her Path.
She had focused on her profession as her class had gotten too far ahead, and she had pursued improving other aspects of herself, such as forging her fists through weird rituals and magic – something she still did. She said that she had to take a few hours every week and submerge her hands in some golden concoction she had brought with her to forge her hands. Jake was very much looking forward to seeing this process.
This did mean Sylphie was the highest-leveled among them, and damn did she flex it. She flew around them in circles as she made noises to taunt them, and she sometimes sped ahead and then laid down on the ground pretending to be asleep until they caught up. All juvenile things that Jake and Carmen both found absolutely adorable.
Sylphie had only grown faster and was naturally also the fastest of the bunch. Her sprinting speed had always been extreme, but even her normal flying speed now exceeded Jake’s by a large margin, and while he could keep up with her by using One Step Mile, he would be far slower in actual combat.
Not that he could use One Step Mile, as Carmen didn’t have any long-distance movement skills to travel with. Flying up in the air also wouldn’t be faster for either of them as the energy expenditure was far larger doing that. So they were stuck running with Sylphie enjoying herself by flying around them.
The little feather ball did help them a bit as they always ran with a tailwind and a refreshing breeze blessed their way forward, giving them a bit of speed and reducing their energy expenditure.
Jake kept an eye on the tablet given by Arnold and tracked their movement, and about two days after departing from the small town, they came to one of the areas marked with orange and a P. Orange meant there were high-tier D-grades, and the P meant the energy signature of a Prima had been detected.
“I never got to ask, do you have a full key for that Seat of the Exalted Prima thing and the system event?” Jake asked Carmen as they took a small break before heading into the orange zone.
“I had a key…” she said and seemed oddly reluctant to talk about it.
Jake quickly caught on. “Had a key?”
“Well, Sven came out of the dungeon that he had been stuck in for a long time right around when I left… three members of his party died, and he was in shit condition. He would have no chance to get three fragments by himself, and I had easily gotten my key, so I thought I would just hand him mine,” Carmen admitted.
“Wait, then why the hell didn’t you focus on getting another one?” Jake asked, perplexed.
Carmen just shook her head. “It just isn’t that important to me, I guess?”
Jake raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. “Bullshit.”
“Whatever,” she just scoffed. “Why do you even care?”
“Well, I just wanted to know if we are collecting one or four more fragments. It seems we are going for four, so it may get a bit tight on time, but I am sure we can manage. There should be several Primas in and around this Grand Mangrove River,” Jake shrugged.
“I said I don’t care about getting a key,” Carmen insisted.
“And yet you will. Why are you afraid of the system event?” Jake asked pointedly.
“I’m not fucking afraid. I just don’t need it.”
“Neither do I, but I will sure participate anyway for whatever rewards it may give. You should do the same,” Jake insisted.
“We are back to asking why you even give a fuck,” Carmen kept being combative. “I don’t want to get told how much I fucked up my life already and how I could have been way smarter in retrospect or suddenly be forced to choose some other class or something, wasting all the effort I have put in so far.”
Jake looked at her and thought for a bid before he just shrugged. “You like punching stuff, right?”
“Duh,” she said, almost offended.
“Then just keep punching stuff and keep walking a Path where you punch stuff. Heck, I can see myself being shown a Path during the event telling me I am an absolute moron for choosing to use a bow, but I like my bow, so that event can fuck right off. I will instead just use what I learn to improve what I currently do. You should do the same, and fuck what is optimal or considered the best. Just pick what you like the most,” Jake said.
“Sounds like a good way to end up stuck at early C-grade if you even manage to evolve,” Carmen shook her head.
“Quite the opposite. You know Valdemar, right?” Jake asked.
“Alright, now I am just assuming you are purposefully being an asshole,” Carmen said, glaring at Jake.
“Dumb question, sorry. Anyway, Valdemar was, well, just a dude who liked swinging his axe and apparently didn’t think too much about stuff, but he still ended up reaching godhood in a time where it was far harder than now. All he had were balls of steel and a drive to get stronger,” Jake said.
Carmen now looked at Jake with quite a glare. “Valdemar was a warlord who managed to lead countless battles and dictated the rise and fall of entire intergalactic empires. He was a hero who managed to unite the enlightened races and brought them recognition in a time where humans and most other enlightened races were struggling to gain a foothold.”
“Being that and a hardheaded dude who likes to swing an axe isn’t mutually exclusive,” Jake pointed out.
“Are you trying to start a fight or-“
Carmen suddenly just stopped talking as she stood with a blank stare for a few moments. Jake wondered what was going on, but Carmen quickly snapped out of it. “Well fuck me.”
“What happened?” Jake asked.
“Valdemar’s fucking wife just laughed and said you were right on the money,” Carmen said with disbelief.
“See?” Jake just said triumphantly. “So just do whatever feels right.”
It looked like the god who had blessed Carmen – Gudrun – spoke to her again as she stood there with a blank stare. Jake saw a faint hint of gold in Carmen’s eyes and noticed how she was pretty much in a trance. Like she wasn’t really there.
A few seconds passed before she “woke up” again and shook her head as she groaned a bit. “Fucking hell…”
“What?” Jake asked.
“Just… nothing,” Carmen said, having clearly been told something by the god she didn’t want to share. “Fine, let’s collect those damn fragments already. Let’s go.”
“Ree!” Sylphie agreed, obviously bored of their, in her mind, boring conversation.
Jake was the slowest to react as he suddenly got a few system notifications he had not in any way expected.
*’DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 169 - Stat points allocated, +10 Free Points*
*’DING!’ Race: [Human (D)] has reached level 161 - Stat points allocated, +15 Free Points*
At first, he had no idea why the hell he had just gotten a level out of nowhere, but he quickly connected the dots: Legacy Teachings of the Heretic-Chosen Alchemist.
Jake hadn’t really used the skill for anything before but had clearly just done something related to it during his talk with Carmen. Which had to mean Jake had taught her something. On accident. Something related to his unique Path of being blessed and, at the same time, a bit of a heretic.
Shaking his head, Jake followed after Sylphie and Carmen, who had already run into the tunnel in front of them. As he ran, he focused on his tracking skill together with Sense of the Malefic Viper as he fished out one of the key fragments to get a feel for the energy signature.
Shortly after, he caught up to the woman and bird.
“I can definitely sense a Prima somewhere,” Jake said, a bit surprised at being able to actually detect anything.
“So you do know how to track stuff,” Carmen nodded, a bit of relief in her voice.
“Kind of. And I have a feeling tracking down a few Primas will help make me better than just kind of being able to track stuff. For the record, I sense the energy in the center of this very tunnel, right in our path if we keep going straight,” Jake explained.
The tunnel was carved into a mountain chain and was the fastest way to their destination. Arnold had marked that they could take another path through a smaller passage, but they decided to go straight through considering they needed to hunt some Primas anyway.
It was a huge tunnel that was several hundred meters in diameter and had a rather winding path and several tunnels leading in all directions. Jake managed to really put his tracking skills to the test as he followed the energy down certain paths, slowly closing in on their target.
Five minutes into the incredibly long tunnel, they both noticed the lack of any other life present in the tunnel. Not even plants. It was just blank stone walls on all sides. At the same time, the level of earth affinity mana in the air also spiked with every passing step, making the conclusion obvious.
“Earth elementals,” Jake said.
Carmen nodded, with Sylphie trying to mimic her nod, just looking a bit silly.
Jake soon felt some subtle movement down beneath. It was not an attack but instead felt like something traveled through the earth to get behind them. With deeper probing, he noticed presences, in other words, living beings, in the simplest words, earth elementals.
“I feel them below,” Jake said. Carmen once more nodded in acknowledgment as they both put together the plan of these elementals.
Taking advantage of the terrain, they planned on attacking from both sides while at the same time using the tunnel walls themselves as weapons against Jake, Carmen, and Sylphie.
The three of them soon stopped as the earth in front of them rumbled. Behind them, the tunnel was cut off as a large wall of earth sprung up, and vaguely humanoid forms began emerging from the ground, walls, and ceiling. Jake identified a few of them quickly as he got a feel for what they were facing,
[Earth Elemental – lvl 179]
[Earth Elemental – lvl 178]
[Earth Elemental – lvl 181]
Carmen had clearly done the same, and the two of them exchanged a look. Sylphie also joined in, looking between them excited.
“Most kills win?” Jake asked, getting a smirk and a “ree!” in response before all three of them made it absolutely clear that these earth elementals had just seriously fucked up.