After a brutal, six hour session of training, Aren was face down in the dirt of the courtyard, a part of him wishing he was dead. Every muscle in his body hurt — even muscles he didn’t know he had.

Uncle Elzo’s lessons — the man insisted Aren call him that — were notoriously short, lasting only fifteen minutes. It was enough to teach someone a technique and send them away. But with Aren? Elzo meticulously went over every aspect of Aren’s fighting style, and skill, except the lightning infused ones, of course, and thoroughly pointed out every mistake and possible improvement.

For six hours.

At first Aren thought Elzo was a heretic, and Aurora’s Favor did not work on him, but Aren was wrong. Elzo had something else that not even Aurora could fix — a terrible personality. But in the end, the result was the same. Like Jari, Elzo insisted Aren call him Uncle. Maybe it was a cultural thing, but at this rate, Aren would have more uncles and aunts in this city than he’d have people who were not part of his extended family.

Just spending a day in the city was risky business. His interactions with the armorer and weaponsmith, when he was still with Yen, didn’t manage to draw much suspicion because he was in a hurry. He was still received favorably, but the conversation quickly turned to business. The Army Officer and the Adventurer’s Guild representative were a different story, but he was turning in a bounty, so it was simple to explain away. He received a silver tag to thundering applause from the Guild, and a promotion and heartfelt congratulations from the Army.

But it wasn’t that strange. When he defeated the One-Eyed King, even adventurers — unaffected by Aurora’s Favor — gave him a standing ovation.

This was different, however.

Elzo was notoriously difficult to deal with. The man only cared about himself, profit, and probably half a dozen other things before he cared about his job as a Class Trainer. And yet, come hell or high water, the despicable man went so far out of his way to train Aren that, figuratively speaking, he was not even part of this cosmos anymore.

There was only one silver lining to this entire ordeal. No one liked Elzo enough to come train with him. The entire wing of the Strikers Guild House dedicated to Spellblades was deserted. Not a single soul in sight. But that is not to say that Aren wasn’t seen. Perhaps a few Strikers, walking down the concourse connecting the various wings might have seen Aren in the courtyard, training with Elzo, but it was unlikely. Strikers were just not that popular.

Either way, Aren learned a lesson that was more important than anything else Elzo taught him. Aren could not afford to interact with strangers, in full view of others. Sure, some things could be explained away. Maybe he was just a regular of the blacksmith, or perhaps he was a rising star and thus well-received by the Advie Guild — even denizens could be fans of adventurers, and even watched their exploits and battles in the arena — but Elzo was a wholly different story. Being friends with Elzo meant that one could potentially learn the Nightblade class, and that was something that people would investigate. Every single detail of Aren’s daily life would come under scrutiny in order to recreate the method Aren used to raise his rapport with Elzo so high.

Then, they could likely find out a whole number of things Aren wouldn’t want them to. His Unique Class, his perks, his quest, his calamity status — maybe even about Leviathan. Of course, Aren wasn’t thinking clearly when he started coming up with all the things players could find out about him, as some of those would be nigh impossible to find out, but in his defense, completely out of strength and eating dirt, he was starting to have a panic attack.

Yes, one part of Aren wished he was dead to make the aching of his muscles stop, but the other, more significant part was screaming at him for being such an idiot. He should’ve never come to Leone alone. Well, technically, he came with Estella — but no matter. He should’ve stayed in the Broken Blade Tavern until the others showed up.

There were plenty of excuses though. After his meeting with Yen, he felt really good about himself for once. It is that kind of feeling when one believes they could take on the entire world and win. Nothing would seem that difficult or impossible anymore. The only problem with such a morale boost was that it was short-lived, and during it, one was prone to making a lot of mistakes and enemies.

Another factor was Aren’s warm reception and the fact that he could get away with all of it due to his recent exploits. He simply forgot about the more arcane and unlikely possibilities when interacting with strangers unrelated to his fame and exploits.

Forgot? No, that wasn’t quite right. He came to Elzo, in the first place, counting on Aurora’s Favor to give him the edge he needed to learn how to wield the Lightning Blade class, and how to find a Lightning Blade weapon.

It was a stupid idea, in hindsight. Aren never told Elzo what kind of Spellblade he was, and actually considered killing the man when it seemed like Elzo would figure it out on his own. Just how exactly did Aren think this was going to go? Hey, can you teach me about Lightning Blade but also keep that a secret? Aren cursed himself again. If he could move, he might have also slapped himself. Idiot!

Aren “heard” Leviathan’s voice echo in his mind. It was more like an avalanche falling down the side of a jagged mountain, with everything that would entail. Aren’s mind was spinning, and his heart was enshrined in ice. It wasn’t just because it was such a foreign thing to Aren’s mind, but because Aren sensed — or imagined — the malice and evil in that entity, every syllable brimming with hateful energy.

But there was one positive thing about the entire arrangement. Aren trusted Leviathan’s words unconditionally. Aren saw the exact opposite in Elzo. Aren believed Elzo would’ve sold Aren out the very moment he figured out his secret — and he might still do so, as the man possibly believed Aren was a different flavor of rare Spellblade.

After all, Elzo was the kind of man who betrayed his original guild to come and teach another class for another Guild. When Aren first saw Elzo, the man was packing and leaving. Likely to join yet another Guild.

How would Leviathan know Elzo’s true character and intention? Aren had no clue. But that was not a reason to not trust Leviathan’s judgement. Leviathan was an AGMI that could predict the future. Reading someone’s mind through their body language was as simple, compared to predicting the future, as turning over one’s palm. Aren did not have a single doubt that Elzo Lunare was as open a book to Leviathan as Aren was — especially considering the fact that Leviathan could also read Aren’s mind and helpfully set his mind at ease.

Well, Leviathan may have solved one problem and set his mind at ease, but that just created another monster: Leviathan. Aren had almost forgotten about the AGMI that was suspiciously quiet recently, and had a fair, but insufficient taste of what it was like to be a normal human being again.

Now that also came to a swift and abrupt end.

Despite the pain, Aren forced himself to his feet, stumbling around as if he was punch-drunk. His knees were wobbly, and it felt like he had just walked off a ship after a multi-month voyage. His center of gravity was shot, and his orientation to the horizon was dubious at best.

The worst part was, in those six hours of practice — and this was the part Aren hated the most — Aren had not learned a single new thing. It was such a monumental waste of time — and a risky one at that — that Aren felt like he might cry again from the bitterness alone. He hated every single detail about the idea to come to Elzo for learning to the point that if he did cry, he would be crying tears of blood.

Aren tilted his head this way and that way, trying to understand exactly what Leviathan was trying to tell him. Maybe it was because of the lack of oxygen in his brain, or the fact that Aren was biased towards believing it was all a waste of time. But eventually, he did get it.

Actually, Aren got it so well that he was no longer even offended at how big of a jerk Elzo was, and in fact, had started to respect the man for it. Elzo took being a jerk to a whole new level — no, he elevated it to an art.

Judging by what Leviathan was saying, the more he trained with Elzo, the greater the rewards would be because of their difference in skill. And Aren would only reap the rewards of that training when he was fully rested.

But Elzo only trained others for fifteen minutes at most. Aren could imagine how small of an effect that would have.

Suddenly, despite technically being so tired he was practically with one foot in his grave, Aren did not feel like those six hours were a huge waste of time after all. In fact, on his way back to the Broken Blade Tavern, the young man was smiling ear to ear.

When Aren realized Elzo had done him a huge favor, he thought Elzo was actually not that bad. Maybe that was a bit of a selfish thing to suddenly decide, but Aren was still human; for the most part.

Aren didn’t remember much of his trip through the city. At one point, on the main city street, a merchant offered him a ride on his wagon — most likely because of Aurora’s Favor — and Aren accepted and before he knew it, he had half fallen asleep.

Actually, he didn’t just half fall asleep. He passed out.

He woke up to a firing squad of messages. Apparently, he had slept through half of the entire day, and before he even realized that he had no idea where he was — it wasn’t the Broken Blade Tavern — he was scrolling through the group chat.

At first, the group wanted to know who Estella was, and why she was in the group. Then, noticing that Aren was online but not responding, they got worried and started looking for him. Aren didn’t realize immediately, but he came to understand that being kidnapped was something that was entirely possible. Aren was simply that valuable.

It was, in fact, Aren’s benefactor and the wagon-driver merchant that went looking for the group, and found them first. He explained the situation to them. Aren had fallen asleep and the merchant, out of the goodness of his heart, took Aren to his home. Of course, this was a huge red flag and a sane human being might immediately jump out the window and run like hell. But the thing was, this merchant was not a stranger. Well, no, that was not quite it. Aren was not a stranger to the merchant. Aren was like a wayward son to him. His rapport to Aren was at the level of Beloved. To the merchant, this was the obvious course of action to save Aren from paying for lodging and meals.

There was a set of new, clean clothes on the nightstand next to the bed and without so much as thinking about why the clothes fit him, he changed into them. He put his old clothes in the bag the new clothes were in, and sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought.

Aren had learned two new skills of the same category as [Damage Assessment]. They were: [Introspection] and [General Introspection]. Aren immediately knew what they did. [Introspection] allowed Aren to understand the progress of his primary and secondary skills, while the latter allowed Aren to understand his class progress. With deeper understanding of either one Aren would be able to understand what his class abilities did, and potentially, what he had left to learn. Aren understood that [Introspection] was the way towards unlocking new abilities.

As for the effect of the training, Aren found out, with the help of his new skills, that he had doubled his progress towards becoming a Journeyman in [Basic Hand to Hand Combat] and [Basic Swordsmanship]. The way he knew this was that when he checked his profile, there was a progress bar that neatly said 23%, while the abilities that he did not use in training were still at 11% almost across the board, with [Lightning Manipulation] in the clear lead at 13%, alongside its lesser, secondary counterpart [Lightning Generation].

That is what six hours of training had done for Aren, compared to the almost two weeks he spent practicing and using his abilities in real combat. It was absurd.

Unfortunately, Elzo was most likely on his way to Pallas now and Aren would not have the chance to train with him again.

Before telling the group that he was fine, in both body and mind, Aren went downstairs to see the situation for himself. A woman was sitting at a large dining table, knitting a pair of woolen socks, while his benefactor, the merchant Alfonse Aliadri, was jotting notes into a heavy, leather bound tome.

They noticed Aren and immediately greeted him. How are you feeling, are you hungry, do you need medicine, do you need money? The questions kept coming one after another, not giving Aren even the slightest chance to reply. Before he knew it, he was sat down at the table, had a white cloth tied around his neck and on his lap, and a serving of still hot soup was brought out for him and laid on the table. It was as if he was in a restaurant, not a stranger’s house.

Aren did not have a family meal in years. The atmosphere in the room was as if he truly was the pair’s son, and this brought up painful memories of Aren’s childhood. They were great memories, to be specific — all the times he had spent with his parents — came to the surface alongside the cold reality that he could never do that again. More than anything, he missed his mother, and it took everything he had to keep those thoughts from overflowing, and spilling out through his tear ducts.

Before he had a chance to burst into tears, the merchant’s wife — Eliria — started crying first. Then her husband also broke into tears and it quickly became a situation that was extremely shocking and confusing to Aren. Had he done something wrong?

Aren soon learned that he was only half the problem. The main culprit were the clothes he was wearing, and the secondary problem was the fact that they fit Aren so perfectly. Through conversation, Aren had learned that the merchant’s son — whose clothes Aren was wearing — went missing several years ago near the ruins of Rakab. Neither his person nor his remains were ever found, but even to this day, the merchant family had not given up on him — his mother was even knitting a pair of socks for him, even though by now, they would be too small for him.

Even though they were denizens, their actions were so lifelike that Aren forgot that these people were not real. They were simulations, but to Aren, in that moment, they were someone's parents, someone's neighbors or friends. They had lives and ideas and thoughts.

This was a sobering thought for Aren. Not only that, but the first ember of hate towards Aurora came into existence then. Aren felt sick and disgusted. He had no right to take the place of the merchant family’s son, or remind them of their loss. Neither he nor Aurora had the right to interfere with these people and remind them of their loss. It did not even matter that they were not real people. They believed they were real, and their loss was real. Aren knew that he might be a little selfish, perhaps a bit self-centered as well, but opening wounds for the sake of a meal was a bit too much.

Aren knew better than anyone what the pain of loss was like, and he knew that his presence was like poison. He quickly excused himself and made his farewells. Aren thanked them both, of course, and they hugged him in return and made Aren promise he would return one day and visit them from time to time.

It was a promise Aren did not intend to keep. Not while his rapport to them made them think of their lost son, or worse, accepted Aren as if he was their second son. And he did think of making them another promise, to find their son, but he decided against it. He did not want to give them false hope. He had done enough damage.

In the end, the joy he felt initially when he woke up was replaced by bitterness. He had taken Aurora’s Favor for granted without realizing the deeper implications and meaning. The Beloved level of rapport meant that one would break laws and oaths for another, risk their lives and fortunes or in general make large changes to their lifestyle. It wasn’t just vendor discounts and warm welcomes. It twisted the hearts and minds of others and Aren felt that this was an unacceptable thing to do. To Aren, it seemed like something Leviathan might do, not Aurora, patron Lady of the Righteous. To others, her Favor might seem like an incredibly potent tool, but to Aren, it had become a sinister thing.