After his chat with Chloe and a heartfelt hug, Silas returned with her to lounge, intending to speak with Vivienne about opening the teleporters between Léonois and Riverside. From what he understood, she was cautious of people entering her town from elsewhere, but this wasn’t a point he could budge on. Now that he had found his sister, he needed to ensure that he and Ethan could visit her whenever and that Chloe could come to Riverside at any time. The fact they were living in two different settlements could be entirely overlooked if there were active teleporters between them, which was where Vivienne’s decision put her at odds with him.

However, taking a table with her, he was thankful to find she was far easier convinced than he had anticipated. She appreciated what he and the others had done, not only dealing with her drakkar trouble but also saving all her captured soldiers. Furthermore, he supposed Vivienne saw Riverside as a good first ally to have, a sentiment which Mia later shared with him in private. And so, Léonois opened its teleporter to both Riverside and Hyderabad, allowing Silas and his companions to return home.

Back in Riverside, Ethan was overjoyed to be reunited with his twin, and Chloe was tearful on seeing her twin alive. The days which proceeded were calm and peaceful, even as Silas struggled for a new goal. Until now, he had been fighting so ferociously to find his siblings, and now that he had found them safe and sound, he felt some parts complacent and other parts listless. Was there any reason to risk his life fighting now?

Travelling to Dresden, he spoke to Emmanuel about Transcendence, describing his negative experiences especially. The Alchemist listened with a knowing smile before gifting Silas another of his products, this one named Ambrosia. It wouldn’t do anything to the intense battlelust he felt during Transcendence, nor would it stop the addictive tendrils of pleasure which wrapped around his mind, but if taken right afterwards, it would prevent the stomach melting symptoms. For some reason, Silas felt the Alchemist had deliberately kept it from him earlier, although he was unsure why - perhaps so that he would come crawling back?

Either way, the Alchemist immediately started advertising his other products for Riverside’s use then. While Transcendence was special in its difficulty to manufacture, the others were easy to mass-produce, allowing Emmanuel to wholesale them. Silas dismissively waved his hand at the products, mostly because he could no longer take town-affecting actions heedlessly; considering Riverside’s size now, every action related to the settlement needed to be taken in careful consideration before execution. Despite this, however, Silas did leave by saying he would speak to Elise about it, although he made no promises over the result.

On his return to Riverside, he was surprised by a message Mia had sent him. “Roxanne came over today looking for you. She’s apparently housed in one of the new buildings by Warwick Close. She sounded pretty desperate to see you, so maybe visit her when you have the time. Also Ethan went with Chloe to Léonois. He told me to tell you he’ll be back in a few days.”

“Any idea on what she wants?” Silas sent back.

He had a reply back in seconds. “Not sure, but I think she’s left Brightmoor for good (idk though).”

“Has something happened there? Were they attacked or something?”

“I don’t think so.”

Sighing, Silas figured he might as well chase up on this matter before it blew up any bigger. Chances were it would be a waste of time, but on the other hand he had nothing pressing to attend either. Besides, Roxanne was an Oracle, so no matter how weird he thought she was, it could be she was searching for him for an important reason. Maybe.

She had yet to join Riverside so he messaged Rolf, the Tactician, and got contacts for the people in charge of assigning newly built houses. Through them, he got Roxanne’s address, heading there without delay. This time it was more difficult to identify which house on the street was hers as they all looked normal, none sporting stuffed animals or shining ambient glows from within.

Knocking, he heard grumbling and an exclaimed swear from inside before the door swung open. Roxanne peered down at him, her hair frizzled, her skin lightly wrinkled, her clothing sweeping and full. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, turning around and going back in, leaving the door open for him to follow through.

He came in and saw that the living room was indeed cluttered with random objects, ranging from bones, furs, and other creepy items, although noticeably less than had been in her Brightmoor home. He supposed she had either left in a hurry without the time to pick up everything, or that all of it together had exceeded the teleporter weight limit per person. Roxanne sat down on her couch while he remained standing, looking over the scene with a frown.

“So why did you come looking for me?”

Roxanne tilted her head up and gave a toothy grin. “I realised I had to make some changes in my scenery when I had a look at my own future.”

“You can do that?” he asked.

“Sure. What? You didn’t think my class had zero preservation skills, did you? Okay, maybe Oracle lacks your flashy abilities, but it can get me out of a pickle before one even happens,” she answered, nodding gently.

“So I’m guessing Brightmoor is in danger if you’re here then,” he hazarded. “If that’s so, why didn’t you tell Lucian about this?”

“Because Brightmoor isn’t in danger,” she answered. “Things are going to quickly get worse on Idroa, and something’s going to happen that’ll fasten that process by leaps and bounds.” She raised her palm as he opened his mouth to speak. “Don’t ask; I don’t know what it is. I just saw that my future would likely be better living here than in Brightmoor, so I moved. Simple as. There wasn’t much more to that decision.”

“Why were you seeking me out then?”

“Because it appears your future will heavily affect my own,” she said. “To be sure, I looked at your future and saw your corpse being paraded through the streets. I don’t know which streets or which city, but the faceless crowd was cheering at the sight.”

Silas gulped, his throat all of a sudden dry beyond words. Was she bullshitting him, or was that really to be his future? For it to be so soon after he had just reunited with his siblings and achieved the life he had always wanted. “What can I do to prevent that? Surely it’s not set in stone,” he said in a rush, his words jumbling out of his mouth.

“Heed your friends’ advice,” she said without pause, clearly having expected it. “That’s all I have. I don’t know how that is supposed to change things, but it appears one or several of them will have the right idea about something while you cling onto the wrong one.”

“Oh,” he said, moving back a step, his mouth o-shaped. Relief washed over him as he realised it was such a simple solution. He had thought for a second Roxanne would look to take advantage of him, but it appeared she was genuine about her advice.

“I can’t see anything about the distant future, but this should serve you soon - and hopefully change your fate. My life depends on you, as do the lives of many others, so you better not go bullheaded into some risky situation,” Roxanne continued with a harsher tone.

****

Perhaps it was because of what Silas had heard or maybe it really was that striking a change, but in the days that followed, he noticed that the monsters in the area seemed to increase exponentially. The hordes which Riverside had slept on for weeks now suddenly became a prominent threat again, the current horde coming with monsters far stronger and more numerous. It wasn’t just this either as random monsters started to spawn around the town’s borders, requiring the constabulary to be far more active in their defence.

Checking with Léonois and Hyderabad, the two other settlements agreed on these points. It wasn’t to a level that forced them to struggle for their lives, but it did push them to their limits. It was likely no coincidence that the leaderboards, which had been largely stagnant for a while now, suddenly sped up in its gains, everyone attaining levels and class experience at never before seen rates.

Except for that wasn’t the entire truth. There was one other time in recent history when people had levelled so rapidly: the tutorials. That was when the System had been preparing mankind for their new life on Idroa, and it wasn’t lost on some of the smarter and more perceptive humans that perhaps another remarkable event was about to happen. Was this another preparation phase or were they merely over-thinking a general increase in difficulty made by the System?

Even Brightmoor, which had until now cruised past was set with appropriate enemies, interrupting their plans to host another congress. It was instead delayed until the next week along, granted that the situation sufficiently cleared up by then.

Level

1. Dahlia Howe - 90

2. Kuraim Jaffer - 85

3. Lucian Grimes - 83

4. Ajit Ghost - 80

5. Freddie Littlewood - 79

6. Vivienne Durant - 76

7. Katerina Ivanov - 75

8. Zafeera Bazzi - 75

9. Aengus Abercrombie - 73

10. Lavanya Sanghvi - 72

11. Zhang Bao - 72

…

16. Sandip Mand - 71

…

25. Matteo Rivera - 71

26. Silas Wycliffe - 71

…

47. Floyd Godson - 66

…

63. Dominic Wood - 64

64. Sophie Chandler - 64

…

83. Taika Ngata - 60

84. Volkan Burch - 60

…

100. Cao Shunyuan - 60

It wasn’t lost on Silas that Dahlia had reached level 90, just ten away from officially earning her D rank. That had been the whole point of the Test of Merit, for an organism from the three planets to reach D rank and ascend to being a Sovereign of Idroa. Then they could (supposedly) rid themselves of the ratkin, who had, in fact, in recent days considerably quietened down. It was as if they knew what was coming.

Class

1. Elisha Luna - Primal Healer level 31

2. Kuraim Jaffer - Necromancer level 27

3. Hou Yu - Artificer level 25

4. Emmanuel Baasch - Alchemist level 25

5. Dahlia Howe - Abomination level 25

6. Sophie Chandler - Demolitionist level 24

7. Katerina Ivanova - Hidden Blade level 24

8. Conan Hughes - Druid level 24

9. Laila Samra - Mirage level 23

10. Stefan Sommer - Chronicler level 23

…

67. Reynard Holden - Runesmith level 21

…

84. Roxanne Martin - Oracle level 21

…

100. Aiyasha Okilo - Shaman level 20

There wasn’t much to say about the classes leaderboards: the competition was still fierce; the top rankers were still largely the same; and Elisha was still light years ahead of everyone else.

Notable kills

1. Dahlia Howe - 1 E-1

2. Lucian Grimes - 3 E-2

5. Freddie Littlewood - 1 E-2

3. Ajit Ghost - 1 E-2

4. Katerina Ivanova - 4 E-3

6. Zafeera Bazzi - 3 E-3

7. Aengus Abercrombie - 3 E-3

8. Lavanya Sanghvi - 3 E-3

9. Silas Wycliffe - 2 E-3

10. Vivienne Durant - 2 E-3

11. Zhang Bao - 1 E-3

12. Sandip Mand - 1 E-3

…

23. Matteo Rivera - 4 E-4

…

100. Volkan Burch - 3 E-5

In the notable kills leaderboards, Silas had finally risen to the top ten. Unfortunately, his duel with drakkar titan hadn’t counted - likely because it hadn’t ended with a death, he supposed - but he had since then killed two monsters above level 70 anyway, earning him his grand spot. Strangely enough, they had been random monsters which had spawned in the area, and not particularly difficult ones for him to beat at his level. Not to say they were pushovers but rather he was completely overwhelming at his level. The only reason he hadn’t attempted an E-2 like Ajit, Freddie, and Lucian was because none had spawned in the area, which he figured had to be the same circumstances for other people as well.

It wasn’t that he was abusing Transcendence either since after hearing Roxanne’s warning he had consulted all his friends for anything they thought he was risking too much on. The number one answer from his closest friends, particularly the ones who had seen him high on it, had been Transcendence, so although he had secured Ambrosia to go with it, he had lowered his use of Transcendence. He hadn’t been able to quit it outright, so instead he had gone down to taking only quarter a gummy vitamin when the moment called for it.

From all his recent killing and levelling, he had invested nearly all his new attribute points into arcana to increase his electric powers. The results had been glorious as it had been a large part of the reason he had easily taken down E-3 ranked monsters.

Silas Wycliffe

Level 71

Level 17 Duellist

Mana: 298/298(recovery rate: 2.5 per minute)

Strength: 34 (+9)

Agility: 50 (+9)

Constitution: 30 (+9)

Arcana: 25 (+9)

Perception: 55 (+9)

Abilities: Weakness Vision, Harrying Blows, Luminous Land, Rupture

Moreover, from his high levelled kills, he had also increased his class level from 14 to 17, earning him his fourth ability. Its effects were… ridiculous, to say the least. He had had the opportunity to use it on the second E-3 monster, and the result had shocked him senseless, even though he had read its description beforehand.

Rupture - if Luminous Land is active and the target has sufficient instances of Harrying Blows stacked, you can release the stacks with a critical blow. Sufficient stacks of Harrying Blows depends on target defence, base constitution, and current vitality. Rupture’s mana cost is half of your maximum mana pool.

****

With so much time having passed, Silas had almost forgotten about his old promise when the prophet appeared on his doorstep. Mia peeked over his shoulders while he attended the fungal satyr.

“It is time. I have found the last member for our strike team, and it is best if you come with me to meet them.”

Silas glanced back and considered his partner’s inflamed expression before answering. “Okay, but she’s coming too.”

“So be it,” the prophet said, beckoning at them both. “Just come quickly. She has temporarily opened her teleporter to Riverside, and I do not imagine she will be too pleased if we are tardy.”