The first meadow came into sight, and Joe stopped well short of the area. The two brownies wandered without purpose as usual. He motioned Diana forward and crossed his arms. If she was going to survive in the world, she would have to learn to fight. There was no being a backline mage without a spell or attack skill. Diana stepped forward with only a slight hesitation. She drew their attention and sidestepped well enough. The reach of her staff and decent strength let her handle the fight quickly, though she did take several strikes to finish each of the monsters.

Diana was breathing heavily as Joe collected the spoils. He looked over at her, and she gave a wan smile and a thumbs up. Joe gave her a minute to collect herself, and then they moved forward again. He let her pick her timing, and she did well versus three monsters. She was winded again, but that wasn't a deal-breaker, at least in this rift. Joe gave her an extra minute but moved her along before she completely recovered. They had a schedule to keep.

"Watch how I handle the next two clearings. These have a new monster that are hard to spot at first."

Joe quickly cleared the next two clearings before returning them until the monsters respawned. There had been time, and Diana was back in peak form, though she seemed to be getting tired faster as the night went on. She nodded and stepped forward once again. Joe moved forward this time as well. He'd never been bitten by one of the snakes, but there was no reason to risk it for either of them.

Diana did well again, though she almost missed the snake when it struck. Joe had taken a step forward instinctively but stopped when he saw she had it under control. The fight drew out longer than it should have, with her arms and legs shaking as she delivered the final blow. She had a series of shallow cuts on her legs, where she hadn't gotten out of the way in time, and the monster started climbing her. Fortunately, Diana hadn't panicked, and the butt of the staff in its eye socket convinced the brownie to let go. She lay back on the ground after the last monster converted and sucked in huge lungfuls of air.

"You're fast and strong enough, but you've got no stamina. I don't know if we'll always be able to count on small engagement fights. The most important thing is to keep some energy in reserve in case you have to run away. In a rift it's better to run than to leave your life up to a roll of the dice."

"Did you learn that after you almost died from multiple kinds of poison?"

Joe smiled as he shook his head at the memory. He supposed he hadn't earned the right to be the sage teacher quite yet. Still, his experience had been hard-won and invaluable.

"Yeah it was about that time. I'm trying to save you some of the trouble I went through. Now, get up and let's get going. We need to clear the next one before we take a longer break. There's a reason."

Joe added the last part after the murder glare he received from Diana. She grumbled to herself but stood up, and they moved forward again. Joe didn't push her straight in at the last clearing but let her take a moment before entering. Her strike on the snake was cleaner, though the brownie fights were sloppier by far. In the end, there were still two brownies crawling toward her on broken legs as she caught her breath. Joe respected that more than getting needlessly injured, but it was wasting time.

"Finish Them!"

Diana jumped at his raised voice but moved forward and killed them both with several blows to the head. Her staff dropped to the ground with a clatter, and she collapsed on her ass. She looked up at Joe, and the glare was back again in full force, though the effect was diminished by her gasping for air. Diana stiffened suddenly, and her eyes unfocused, looking at something only she could see. Her gaze sharpened though it had lost its anger as she looked back at Joe. He spoke before she'd managed to wrangle her thoughts.

"Was it Vigor?"

"How did you know?"

"Your strength and speed aren't bad in a fight, but you wear out too fast. I figured your Vigor is probably almost as bad as my magical Attributes. I found it easier to raise the lower Attributes. Well, relatively easier. It still sucked."

She nodded as he spoke, and Joe let her rest. He didn't want her on wobbly legs when they got to the fox. Diana's brow was furrowed slightly, and Joe let her be. Instead, he went and sat down next to the thornbushes. He put a whiteberry in his right hand and then, with a cringe, pushed his left hand onto an outlying thorn. He held it there momentarily before bringing it back and sitting it on his knee. The pain and burning started a moment later, and Joe had to grit his teeth. Fuck, that hurt. He didn't precisely measure, but it was enough poison to get a reaction.

Joe shoved the berry into his mouth and chewed deliberately before swallowing. He shoved the thoughts of pain and discomfort away and focused on the other sensations he was feeling. The mana from the berries behaved normally. This time Joe focused on herding it towards his poisoned left arm. He tried not to think about what a stupid idea this was and focused on his arm.

The two mana's from the berry met something new in his arm and pushed against it. Joe felt the pain ebb slightly and knew that he was feeling the mana of the poison. That made sense once he thought about it. Everything with the system was mana and essence, so of course, the poison would also be mana. Joe continued to move as much of the berry's mana towards the poison and try to feel them interacting. After ten minutes, the berry stopped working, and the poison had died down to a painful annoyance. A close-by voice surprised Joe and brought him out of his focused state. He opened his eyes and was surprised to see Diana only two feet away.

"Is stupid shit like that why you're so strong. Do you torture yourself until you get more Attributes?"

Diana's words were cutting, but her voice had no heat or disdain. Joe figured it was just her way of dealing with stress. He mumbled, and she apparently swore. Joe was willing to give her some slack, given the insanity of their current situation.

"It's usually not torture, but I needed to try and sense different mana. Trying to sense and move mana got me bonuses to Glamour and Connection already. I have one more bonus to get before I level up. Important side note, you can only get three bonus Attributes per level, so plan accordingly."

"Who made all these rules? They seem arbitrary when they aren't actively mean spirited."

Joe nodded before he replied. The same thoughts had taken laps through his head more than once. He doubted something this big was random, though. Most likely, there was some definite purpose, and they didn't have the information to understand it.

"I recommend taking a whiteberry for recovery. You can move the mana a little bit if you focus on it. I will try again, and if I don't get it, we'll move to the boss."

A new berry found its way into his palm as Joe impaled his left arm once again. This time he waited until the pain was at his elbow before eating the berry. The extra time let the poison spread, making it easier to follow. He could sense all three energies at play as he forced them into proximity. His arm ached with the strain, but the pain was nothing compared to his last fight with the fox. The energies started fading, and Joe knew he hadn't crossed the needed threshold. On inspiration, he activated his skill and followed the mana as it reinforced his jaw. Electric shivers hitting Joe let him know he'd succeeded before the message popped up. A savage grin spread across his face at the news.

+1 Glamour

Diana was staring at his face with unnerving intensity, given that her eyes were closed. Joe didn't know how, but he knew she was looking at his jaw and the skill he'd activated. She didn't stop until the skill faded and then just shifted her gaze to his left arm. Joe didn't say anything. He left her be and waited for the poison to run its course. A moment after it did, her eyes opened.

"So many types of mana. Did it work?"

"Yeah, I'm good to go. No leaving Attributes on the table this time."

Joe stood up as soon as he finished talking. Diana levered herself to standing and took a second to dust herself off. He moved towards the boss's clearing and coached Diana as he walked.

"This is the boss for the rift. I don't know if this is it or if there is more afterward. I was a little distracted last time. I do know that it's fast, venomous, and probably poisonous. Oh, and it tastes like shit. Don't give it a clear shot at you, and don't believe it's asleep or the fight is done unless you see the fire. This one is smarter than the monsters before it."

The clearing came into view, and Joe slowed down as they approached. The damn thing pretended to sleep in the middle of the clearing with the System pillar behind it just like before. He felt a thrill of fear at the memory of his almost death. It had an oddly disjointed feeling, most likely due to the poison, that made it seem a lifetime ago instead of a couple of days. Joe let himself feel the fear and accept it. They were facing monsters. Fear was normal.

Anger followed closely behind, and Joe kept it banked and controlled. Anger gave strength, but the lack of focus could quickly get them both killed. Instead, Joe grabbed his newest trusty river rock and assumed his best little league pitcher's stance. He resisted the urge to taunt the monster and launched the stone as hard as possible. Attributes felt like cheating again, as Joe was sure that uneven rock went faster than any baseball he'd even launched in his life.

The stone impacted dead center on the monster's forehead, and it yelped in surprise and pain. The fox shook its head and got to its feet in one motion. It was still fast, but Joe was already on it. His level up had boosted him, and he'd had some time to get used to it. The boss still felt stronger, but it wasn't an overwhelming gap. The sneak attack to start had leveled the playing field even more. An overhead strike crunched into the right side of the fox's head, blinding it on that side and drawing another yelp of pain.

Claws swiped out blindly, and Joe felt three burning lines along his left arm. It hurt like hell, but it wasn't deep enough to slow him down appreciably. Joe stopped and brought his bat up in what felt like a guard position. He'd wanted to keep the aggression up, but the fox wasn't looking at him with its two good eyes. Its weight shifted, and Joe lunged sideways, the bat pushed forward like a short spear.

Sure enough, the monster had moved to lunge past Joe, angling at the woman frozen behind him. His bat caught it in the side, arresting its forward motion slightly and visibly driving the air out of it. The foxes too large mouth opened in a screaming howl, and Joe fought through the pain that awful sound caused. The fox was getting to its feet again, and Joe slammed his bat into one of its rear legs. It bucked and caught him in the chest, pushing him back as well.

A limp was noticeable as it climbed to its feet again. However, Joe couldn't take advantage as he was fighting to draw in some air himself. Both Joe and the fox were surprised when a staff whisted through the air and hit the monster in the forehead. It didn't finish the fight but staggered the monster further. Joe drew a large painful breath and dashed forward while the fox still looked punch drunk. Diana swung again, a glancing blow that did minor damage but did keep the boss focused on her. Joe was there before it could pounce.

This time his bat came down with a crack on its spine, and the monster's rear legs went limp. Another scream sounded out, full of pain and rage. The monster's head was aimed straight at Diana, and she was much closer than before. She dropped her staff and instinctively put her hands to her ears. Joe noticed a thin trickle of blood dripping down her face from her nose. All that was a side thought as he brought his bat down again on the back of the fox's neck. Another sickening crunch and the monster collapsed onto the ground. It still drew ragged breaths, but the fight had gone out of it.

"Kill it. Don't get close though. I don't know if it has any other tricks."

Joe spoke through ragged breaths and watched as Diana struggled to her feet. Her chin was smeared with dried blood, though it looked like the nosebleed had stopped already. She stayed at max range and pummeled the foxes head until it dissolved into fire.

Two iron coins sat next to a four-inch fang on the meadow's grass. Joe walked over and scooped up the loot. He turned to Diana, leaning against her staff and catching her breath. A moment passed, and her posture stiffened again.

"What was it that time?"

"Strength."

"Nice." Joe was impressed. He didn't know if it was working through exhaustion or what, but she'd managed to get an Attribute raised that he hadn't. More information would be required. At this point, Joe felt like that had the potential for a biography title. He shook his head slightly and looked at the portal that had formed behind the pillar. Then Joe noticed the path that had appeared behind the portal. It was no wonder he'd missed it the first time that he'd cleared the boss. This rift wasn't done yet. A small smile was pulling up on his lips for reasons Joe didn't understand.

That smile went away the second that he touched the pillar. When he tried to level up his class, it stated that the system interface was too low a level. It did add that interfaces could raise classes and skills to the level of their guardian. That meant the spider fox was only level 2. Joe hoped that bosses or guardians were stronger than a normal monster. If they weren't, hope would be even harder to come by in the near future. Still, he had accrued three essence levels, which wasn't nothing.

Joe knew he needed to save some energy to upgrade his class at the first opportunity, but he needed to get to that opportunity first. He looked over his options, and it was a no-brainer. No new skill purchases showed up. He thought about identify, sense mana, and sense essence as perfectly reasonable intelligence-gathering options. He then thought of the burn of poison and lacerations and how incredibly common they had been lately.

Skill Level Up

Minor Regeneration 1 -> 2

Skill Purchase

Tough Skin Lvl. 1

mana cost - minor / passive skill

Adds +1 Fortitude per Skill Level (SL) to the user's skin durability.

There was nothing fancy about the skill. In the wider Hegemon, it was probably looked down upon as a common brawler skill, but that is what Joe needed right now. He might be able to upgrade it later, but even without that, he was sick of getting cut to ribbons by every little thing. Any skill that could help keep his blood and organs on the inside was a welcome addition at the moment. That left him with one essence level in the bank. He figured he would pick up another before he hit the next pillar.

Joe popped a berry into his mouth and felt the healing energy go to work. It seemed that his arm fixed itself a little further than last time, but it was difficult to tell. He felt the slight extra draw of two passive skills working at once and was glad he'd managed to level his magical Attributes. Joe's mana supply wasn't dipping into the negative yet, but it would have been close without those three he'd added. He looked over towards Diana, who stood and looked at him expectantly. Joe stepped aside and motioned her towards the pillar.

"You can purchase skills and levels. You use essence levels which are gained by killing monsters. You should have two right now because your essence levels are capped at double your level. I'm not going to tell you exactly what to do, but I would hold off on the class level right now. You still have one bonus attribute you can gain, and there's no reason to not at least try and get it."

Diana nodded and then placed her hand on the pillar. Her eyes darted at words only she could see. After a minute, she nodded to herself and removed her hand. She walked over to Joe, and he couldn't contain his curiosity.

"Well? What did you take? C'mon, don't leave me hanging."

Diana smiled and gestured towards Joe. "I took Identify and Sense Essence. I want to know what these things are and get some actual information on them. How about you? Let me guess, Headbutt and Scary Face."

"Man, if only those were options. I'll have to work harder. I leveled up Minor Regeneration and took Tough Skin. They're pretty self explanatory if a little underwhelming. "

"Don't sell them short," Diana said, "I'm pretty sure regeneration is what kept you alive long enough for me to find you."

Joe tried to shrug off the memory. He'd tried to make peace with this new reality, but near-death experiences would still be traumatic for now.

"Let's head out. We'll pause before every clearing and then back off to discuss if needed. See what Identify tells you."

They moved around the pillar and portal before stepping on the new path. Almost immediately, the sun shifted in the sky for the first time. If it was perpetual noon before, it was now an early evening. Sundown was still a ways off, but the light was less direct and cast more shadows than before. Both of them paused and looked around. Joe didn't see any other differences and motioned for Diana to move forward. The next clearing came into view, and Joe crept forward to peek at its inhabitants.