“!” Jude said as a bright pattern of Anthea’s summoning circle appeared on the ground. A flash of light later and Anthea was standing before them.

Jude was worried that Anthea would be mad at him. He wondered if it was correct about what Ellie said, that he was the one that had to initiate the communication between them. They had originally planned to be gone a couple of weeks at most, but now it had almost been two months. He hoped she wouldn’t be mad at him.

Anthea bowed, “Master, I come to serve.”

“Anthea, I’m sorry I haven’t communicated with you recently. I hope you were not worried.” Jude said to her.

Anthea had a confused look on her face, “Why would I be worried? I knew you were alive. You killed a , I doubt there is anything south of the beast lands that could threaten you.”

Jude gave Ellie a knowing look, and she rolled her eyes back at him. So much for her advice.

Jude got straight to the point, “Anthea, what does this place look like to you?”

She looked around, from the strange ground she stood on, to the glyphs on the side of the hill. She looked at the dark valley, the mountains, the forest and all that was visible. Jude and the others could no longer see the burnt ruins of the , but before Anthea, all was laid bare. She was an existence more akin to a monster than human and her role as the master of Allur Forest, gave her insight that neither people or monsters had.

“This is a bizarre place you have found. These lands are called the Arkess Aquifers, and this site was intended to be the primary node. However, it is incomplete.” She analyzed.

“Very good,” Jude praised. “Can you spread your territory to here and absorb this node to make it complete?”

Anthea answered respectfully, “Master, you know that I cannot conquer a territory without a significant influx of my spawned monsters in that area. If this site was organic by nature, I might have been able to force something. But I suspect that you have something different in mind, correct?”

Jude chuckled, “You were always good at understanding my intentions. Yes, I plan on us working together to take over this node. After all, if you took over this area by force, it would change this node into an organic one, and I feel that would be a waste.

“I will connect to the node and weaken its resistance for being taken over. When I tell you, initiate your capturing skills. But focus on powering up the node rather than a full takeover. What this node needs is to be connected to the , then it will work like it was intended to do.”

“Yes master,” Anthea complied. She walked to the center of the golden circuitry and began to emit power.

The capture of a new area was initiated as a green light surrounded her entire body. Roots began to grow outside the central part of the node, they were small at first, but quickly grew to a size thicker than a man’s thigh. Smaller roots sprang out of the large roots, and those roots then begat even smaller roots. This process cascaded all the way down to hair size roots that directly connected to the golden lines.

Jude was in full control over the node itself as he connected to it using his various Spell Analyst magic. The deeper he delved into the node, the more he found out about it. Some parts of the node were quite amazing, yet others lacked in certain aspects. The primary thing it lacked was the user interface that Allur Forest node had. But he knew how to fix it.

“Take over these section's,” Jude pointed out three locations.

The roots in those area’s quickly spread out further, and the golden lines embedded into the stone transmuted into roots themselves. This covered only a short distance, and soon there were several patches of roots that strangely angled down and slowly turned golden as they went back into the complicated grid of circuitry.

“Maintain this state; it will take a while for this node to begin operation fully,” Jude said. “I will create something for you to integrate further with it.”

Anthea was of nature and wood as her primary elements. But this node was created with gold and stone. If Anthea indeed took it over, it would transform the gold and stone into roots and possibly wipe away some of the unusual features crafted into this node. If Jude wanted to keep the node as original as possible and have Anthea take it over, he would need to come up with a way to bridge the two.

He walked over to a part of the node that had a starburst glyph. Then he took out the letter opener that Ellie had made and placed it down on top of the glyph. Jude theorized that the starburst glyph was a type of glyph for transference. Since they letter opener already had the same glyph, he would use the two to create a resonance with each other, then write out skill circuitry to Spirit Bind a being to the node through the letter opener.

It was a good thing that Ellie put a lot of strange glyphs on this item for Jude to use. Regular glyphs would not have worked for something this insane, but the ones it had seemed strangely poetic for this use. Jude started with the blood glyph to act as a spirit binder, then used the ideas he had gotten from the dark valley to empower the glyph to allow the circuitry to pass to the next stone blade glyph easily.

After that, the next glyph was the will glyph which then merged into the sentiment glyph, then the cognizance glyph. All of this then looped back to the starburst glyph. Jude arranged memory nodes around the starburst glyph so that he could write runes. But instead of writing the same runes that copied skills he used the five primary elements from lore: wood, earth, metal, fire, and water.

Now the item was complete. Jude hadn’t used all the glyphs in the letter opener. After all, Ellie had put way too many on it. But for now, the letter opener should allow Anthea to successfully merge with this node and possibly other nodes without changing their base element.

Jude stood up to see that everyone else but Anthea was gone.

Anthea still glowed green and was faithfully powering up the node around him. The node had changed, though not visibly. Before the area felt as dead as the stone it was carved into, but now the feeling of life prevailed.

“Where is everyone?” he asked.

Anthea opened her eyes and said, “They got bored and decided to explore the dark valley again.”

“How long as it been since I started working on this?” He asked.

“Two days.”

Jude was stunned, he had gotten so lost in his creating he forgot about everything else. Now that he was back to reality his stomach groaned, and his mouth felt dry. But he had too much to do so that he couldn’t satisfy his body.

He walked over to Anthea with the letter opener, “Take this.”

Anthea accepted the letter opener and did not think it strange. She said, “How do I use it?”

Jude explained, “Unlike other items, this one will make a pseudo soul bind called spirit bind. This will be necessary for you to gain control of the node without changing it. But it does require blood to bind it. Once it is bound, you will find that you have full control over this node and the ownership should instantly transfer to you.”

Anthea didn’t hesitate at all as she stabbed her palm with the letter opener. The blade sucked up the blood into the glyphs on its side and absorbed every bit of it, leaving it dry. A flash of light crossed her eyes, and a rumbling could be heard from under the hill. The rumbling spread across the entire area with the node being the center. In the distance five lights shot up, they were too far away for Jude to make out where they came from, but they lit up the stone sky as white beams of light.

The rumbling continued as each light changed from white to green, signifying that Anthea was taking ownership. Once all the lights turned green, the process was complete.

Now the began to shine bright, and soon the dark territory shone like day-time outside. Then the wind picked up for the first time and the humidity began to rise. In the distance, Jude could see clouds forming and rain falling. Tree’s and grass began to sprout and grow. Not the sickly green from before, but with new life and vigor.

The blackness from the valley below spread across the hill and then fade away. Seen from the outside the valley the hill would have seemed to disappear. But inside everything was clear, only the valley remained shrouded in darkness.

Title Gained: Unconventional Conqueror

You are a conqueror by seizing lands. But due to your unusual ways, people will not be sure to fear you or praise you.

This title allows you to befuddle political opponents.

Jude didn’t have time to contemplate the new title as summoning circles began to appear all around the node. Out of the circles came the notorious monsters from across Arkess Aquifers.

There was the covered in bone armor and stinger raised high, the who was so big that he seemed to overshadow the hill, the abdomen swelled so big he wondered if the thing could still fly, the was also twice the size of a normal grizly with gray fur, and eight others that Jude didn’t recognize. These were all the leaders of their respective areas; each one was a level 30 elite monster. But Anthea looked down at all of them like she was the queen.

She spoke with a cold confidence, “I am the new ruler of the Arkess Aquifers. Submit to me or die.”

Jude felt cold sweat drip down his back. But he stood beside Anthea showing only confidence. He had no way of defeating this group of beasts if they all decided to attack him and Anthea together. But when he looked over at her, he noticed that her level had risen as well. She was now level 30, which made sense since she was the boss of a level 30 area.

Her powerful race combined with the number of territories she controld already made her powerful, but adding on this new level probably made her stronger than all of these creatures combined. Jude guessed that she was the equivalent of a raid level boss and these figures here were at the level of mini-boss to a boss.

The twelve summoned beasts all hesitated at first, but then came to the same realization that Jude did. Anthea wasn’t someone they could beat. All but one knelt down to her, only the didn’t take a knee.

“I not submit to wood creature,” the said in his language.

Then he leaped forward and struck out with his stinger with blinding speed. Jude had seen this move before where a would shoot out their tail for multiple hits. But the king’s strike made the others he had seen look like child's play. The tail moved so fast that it looked like hundreds of tail strikes happened at the same time.

Anthea merely glanced at the incoming attack and didn’t defend at all. The hundreds of attacks hit her at once, but she barely moved and it effected her as much as a gentle breeze. Her HP barely even dropped and the poison was completely ineffective.

Seeing this the trembled and was prepared to take another action when Anthea made her move. It happened almost instantanious, but it felt like time slowed down. The flowers in her hair all bloomed launching bright lights that were the fairies. Her arm was stretched out, and the dots of light gathered in her palm. The fairies flew in a circle around the extended palm as a glyph embedded with runes took form inside the light. Then a beam of pure energy shot out like a ray slamming into the .

The beam of light burned through his chest and exited out the other side. The beam of light faded as the fell to his knees. But the attack didn’t end there. Light-like liquid clung to the wound and burst the flesh into flames. It took several minutes before the entire body was engulfed in flames and turned to ash.

Jude knew that this was a skill that had a long cool down, but the monsters gather around didn’t. They were still on their knees and became very grateful that they had done so. In their minds, this Anthea was worthy of being their queen.

“Those who submitted will be rewarded, those who don’t die,” Anthea stated. “Since you all have submitted; you will be granted a status in my new realm.”

Then she gestured towards Jude, “I am the queen of these lands, but even I serve another. This is Jude. His word will be treated as if it came from my mouth. And his orders are even more absolute than my own.”

Then the summoning circles appeared once again under the notorious monsters of Arkess Aquifers. Anthea told them, “When I have need of you again, I will summon you.”

Her words ended and they all disappeared. She turned to Jude once again and bowed, “I hope I have not overstepped my bounds with this, for I only wish to serve you.”

“No, that was quite good,” Jude assured her. “Tell me about the lands we just acquired and if there is a way out of the aquifers.”

“There is a total of six nodes here, so you could divide it into six areas. However, the groups of monsters are not distributed so evenly. I will need to redistribute them across the different areas. Otherwise, the nodes will not be properly balanced, and the ecosystem will fail. Right now the ecosystem is currently being restored to its predetermined state, and in about a month or two, the Arkess Aquifers should be back to normal.

“As far as leaving, there is a pillar nearby that has a staircase that leads up to the surface. I can’t tell you what is up there as it is outside of my domain. But I can teleport you there whenever you wish.”

Jude nodded and asked, “When did you get the ability to teleport?”

Anthea replied, “I now have a total of ten nodes under my command. This unlocked a new skill for me to teleport between my nodes. But the reason why I can teleport you and the others is because of this node here. If I hadn’t just gained access to my own teleportation skill, I wouldn’t have recognized it for what it was, but now I see it is a device that allows me to teleport anyone or thing within the Arkess Aquifers.”

Now Jude was happy he worked to keep the original node. Not only would this teleportation be convenient, but he could also study it and perhaps apply it to other things as well.

He couldn’t help but wonder if there was more, “Can you show me anything else that is strange about this node or that you don’t understand?”

“Yes, there are a few things, but I haven’t had time to adequately adjust to the node, so there might be more.” She replied.