Silas peered at the suitcase of drugs, and Emmanuel reacted by taking a bottle of pellets out. “These are my K-9 pellets - they greatly enhance your physicality for an hour. I’ll admit they do also cause some heated emotions, but honestly, the customers love it. However, since we’re all friends here, I’ll go one step further and show you my latest product.” He selected another bottle from the suitcase. “I call this one Transcendence.”

Nodding, Silas stared intently at the bottle. Its contents appeared to be gummy vitamins, yet he could sense from their mana signature that they were made of more than just earthly chemicals.

Emmanuel raised his hands defensively while a smile tugged at his lips. “I know, I know, modest name. But trust me, once you take it, you’ll truly feel like you’ve risen to the next plane of existence.”

“What does it do?” Silas asked. Seemingly only he was interested as the prophet sat back, and Katerina watched blankly.

“The human body is limiting. We can only see so far, think so fast, hit so hard. Well, let’s imagine I swept away all those limits for a time,” the Alchemist said, sweeping his hand over the table. “Then you would be more than man, no?”

“How does it work?”

“That’s my secret. But you can rest assured that work it does. See, Katerina used it to prepare herself before taking out her E-4 opponents.” Emmanuel paused, one hand resting on the bottle. He then lifted it and stretched it out for Silas. “Here, a gift so you can see I speak truthfully.”

“Really? You’ll just give it over for nothing?” But despite his voiced caution, Silas had already taken the bottle.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be charging for every purchase after this, so you can consider this a taster.” Emmanuel took out another bottle of Transcendence and offered it to the prophet. “Here you go as well.”

“Thank you, good human,” the prophet said, accepting graciously. “Unfortunately, I believe I should be going now. I will search for other members to join our mission, and I would appreciate it if you looked on your end as well.”

“Of course, of course. Contact me if you hear anything that changes the nature of our mission, Mr Prophet.”

Silas and the prophet left with bottles in hand, and it was some parts out of the manor that the prophet stopped and turned to the Duellist. “I will warn you in good faith that this Transcendence has more adverse side effects than Emmanuel bothered to tell.”

“Go on.”

“It might perform brilliantly as a combat stimulant, but from the information I have gathered, that is accompanied by a euphoric feeling which you will be left craving for a long time after its run time. More importantly, I currently have no evidence of this, but I suspect Emmanuel has also created another stimulant which is the polar opposite in nature to Transcendence. Now if these two stimulants were, for any reason, to inhabit your bloodstream at once, you can guess the damage they would do.” Bowing slightly, the prophet then turned around and strode away in the opposite direction. “But either way, the choice is up to you. I expect to next contact you in Riverside. Good day, Silas Wycliffe.”

On his walk back to the manor, Silas was left mulling over the bottle in his hand. He couldn’t know for certain until trying Transcendence, but it seemed it was an addictive drug, probably highly addictive if Emmanuel’s sales pitch had been accurate. No wonder he had said Kuraim would be a bad customer since Emmanuel would have no doubt been helpless under the Necromancer’s wishes. As for the latter half of the prophet’s words, Silas wasn’t too sure on how to feel, but he was grateful for the warning all the same.

Arriving back at the manor, he went straight up to his room. Mia roused from the bed as he entered and hastily wiped at the tears from her face with the back of her sleeve, immediately heading for the bathroom. “Give me a moment. I’ll get ready now.”

He didn’t comment, rather electing to crush a Transcendence gummy over the table and inspecting it. However, its secrets remained barred to him, no matter how hard he looked, so eventually he gave up and went for a lie-down, deciding he would first hand it over to the Alchemists guild in Riverside for testing before putting them to use. The minutes crept by with Mia locked up in the bathroom, but he continued to keep his silence, giving her as much time as she needed.

She was out near half an hour later with a smile on her face, although clearly a strained one. “Should we go then and meet Aengus?”

“Let’s. I asked the staff when I got back, and it turns out Aengus is crashing at another bigwig’s manor,” he replied.

“Oh, who?”

“Ajit Ghost.”

“He’s on the leaderboards right after Lucian and Dahlia, right? So that makes him one of the strongest people on this planet.”

“Yeah, on the levels and notable kills lists. Then again, Aengus is also one of the strongest people here, so I guess it’s not too surprising he’s already made friends with his peers.”

“Then our networking skills are on point. Think about it - we made friends with him well before anyone else here did,” she said, chuckling tensely. “What do you think Ajit will be like?”

He made a thoughtful face as he stroked his chin. “Well, if Aengus is on good enough terms to crash at his place, I suppose they must be quite similar. You know, the gets off to battle type.”

Mia turned with a scandalised look, before laughing freely. Her cheeks flushed up, and she even rubbed a tear from her eyes when she regained control of herself. “Imagine if you said that in front of him.”

Silas was pleased to see that he had blown away the overcast cloud from above her. “Actually, I’d rather keep my head, so I’d be grateful if you kept that comment to yourself.”

She snorted. “We’ll see how you behave. If you get too big for your boots, then I’ll know exactly how to cut you back to size.”

They continued in idle conversation as they walked to Ajit’s manor, purposely treading around any serious topics in favour of light-hearted jokes and comments. Arriving in good time, they rang the doorbell and had to wait no time at all before they got a response. Silas instinctively backstepped as he felt the mighty aura approach, lightly pushing back on Mia. She appeared bemused at this action until she sensed the aura too, at which time she turned to him with widened eyes as if to confirm they were feeling the same thing.

He knew there was no way this was Aengus as the person’s footsteps loudly clapped against the floor with the weight of ten elephants. At once, the person’s voice added vocals to the beat of their feet. “Now don’t run away, my friends. I swear I won’t eat you.” What followed was a roar of laughter as he opened the door and revealed himself to Silas and Mia.

At 6’7 and perhaps 300 or 400 kilos, the Falstaffian Indian man who belly-laughed in their faces was more a man-giant than even Aengus. Topped off with a buzzcut, his face was equally dominated by a bushy imperial moustache and the gleam of gold from his hoop earrings and the grillz on his teeth. He wore a robe made of red velour, its top open to reveal his thick chest hair. There were dozens of golden bracelets on his arms, which all clattered together to add to his laughter. The noise from his footsteps had been made by sandals, which squeezed under his weight.

There was no doubt that this was Ajit, and there was no doubt that Ajit was the strongest sorcerer Silas had ever seen, even stronger than the Order’s Karaes. His aura was so terrible and ravenous, snapping at Silas’s senses like a hundred rabid hounds. Ajit paused a moment from his humour to catch his breath. He looked between Mia and Silas and licked his lips. “Well, I guess a small nibble wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?”

On seeing their faces pale and feet backpedal, Ajit howled so loud with joy that it undoubtedly woke the dead. However, as expected, this laughter soon turned to wheezing, leaving the two from Riverside to wonder whether they should help him or run away while they had the chance. Sensing their hesitation, Ajit straightened up using the door frame and bobbed his head. “I kid, I kid. Please don’t leave, my friends. You’re my first true visitors, so allow me to show you some true Telugu hospitality.”

Before they had a chance to answer, another powerful aura brushed against Silas’s senses, this time one he recognised. The hallway behind Ajit had become congested with staff who were peering out from the rooms to see what had caused Ajit to shatter their eardrums, and one of these faces turned out to be a 6’6 muscular man-giant with wild ginger hair tied in a rough ponytail, and a thick, striking beard. Rushing to the door with a loping gait, Aengus shoved Ajit out of the way and launched himself at the two visitors before they could run. He wrapped them in his iron-thewed arms and lifted them with a roar.

“SILAS! MIA!” No matter how excited their responses could have been, it would have still paled to his grin of unbridled joy. “YER ALIVE!”

“Pfft, they’re here for you?” Ajit said, suddenly rolling his eyes. “Lame.”

“Aye, ye numpty. This wee laddie’s Silas, and this lassie’s Mia,” Aengus said, rotating them around still in his hands as if to showcase his new life-sized squirming toys. He put them back down after a moment.

“Lame,” Ajit repeated, heading back in with a shake of his head. He was soon out of sight when he shouted, “You two are welcome to join me once he tries to force you to fight him for fun.”

Meanwhile, Aengus snorted and brought them into the lounge where he ordered a butler to serve dinner. “Ye two haven’t eaten, no? Good. We have a limited time slot before Ajit comes barreling back in here, and once he does, he’s going to camp here till the sun rises from the west. Trust me - all the staff here will vouch for my word. But forget that, tell me what ye two been up to.”

By the time they finished, he was nodding his head with clear pride. “Glad to hear my training stuck to yer heads. Now what was I up to, I hear you asking so eagerly? Well, for a time I just drifted from place to place, simply exploring and having a boogie. Didn’t stick to anywhere for long like ye two, until I came to Hyderabad, what, a week or two ago. Hit it straight off the bat with Ajit, and the rest is history.”

“History in its making,” Ajit said, finally joining them. “Here I thought I would go into the congress friendless, but finally you do a good thing for me, Aengus.”