You have killed (2) Level 8 - Spiderling of the Cavern

You have gained:

Level + 5.6%

Class Level + 5.6%

Spirit Level + 11.2%

Burst Attack Tier 3 + 2.8%

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

You have reached Class level 4.

You can increase your Pools by 5 points.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

You have reached Spirit level 4.

You have 1 unspent Spirit Attribute point.

Man… I'd like to know how this experience assignment works. I got much, much more exp than the standard from the panther and yesterday's fish. Thought Gabriel as he placed the pool points in Life and the Spirit point into Resilience.

Liz turned toward him, gaping in betrayal.

"Hey, we're rounding up! No need to get all edgy! We're rounding up, starting from Resilience, don't worry. Damn, you're touchy!"

Look at her, she's almost 1 full foot long now.

"She's growing fast," said Olive, "I wonder if it's about Attribute placement or something else… she started minuscule, but I think she'll probably become really big." Olive drew closer to her, crouching on the floor. "Are you gonna become a dragon, Liz, are you!?" She asked all lovey-dovey, scratching under her jaw.

The lizard slamming one of her hind legs on the ground like a dog, closed her eyes in pleasure.

"Traitor…" Gabriel tried to reach Brill, to caress him, but he disappeared on him.

Come on…

"Yeah, that's probably not gonna happen," Olivia said, "He's the elusive type."

The couple and their Bond Spirit had climbed out of the cave and found themselves into an abandoned district of a long untouched encampment of sorts.

Remains of what were once basic dwellings for a sentient race littered the place. Barracks, desks, some clothes, eaten by the weather as much as from animals and moss, and even a couple of rust consumed weapons racks, full to the brim with mostly unusable weapons.

Among which, though, there was something. Something that called for Gabriel, a call for attention, almost.

A spear rested on top of a higher clasp on the weapon rack.

He did not immediately notice where the call came from, but he knew as soon as his eyes landed on it. It was the spear.

The spear, once he threw the rack on the ground to easily pick it up, was covered in moss. Gabriel soon went looking for something to give it a polish, but he used dry soil and some pebbles in the end.

The spear revealed her luster almost right away. It was made of dark silvery metal, long almost five feet and thick enough to be entirely enveloped by his closed grip; it felt supple in the hands, almost as it was made to bend and revert back just as easily, though it definitely had a hard edge head to it.

He knew then it was a javelin other than a spear, meaning it could be thrown, and yet… there was something else; something was missing. The spear's head was complex, shaped somehow like a leaf, while the butt was more edgy, curved on itself; in the middle of it rested what looked like a big gem. It looked like a diamond but not as sharp-edged. It was dark, lacking color, and did not reflect light at all. The first word that came to Gabriel's mind, as he looked at it, was dead.

The spear had a section seemingly made for gripping at its center, that too felt weird for a spear. He was by no means an expert, not even remotely, yet the way it was built gave way for something much more complex than a simple spear. Finally, right below the head and right above the butt, two circling indentations were made for something, but for what? He couldn't guess.

Olive made him drop out of his reverie. "You lucked out with that," she said, as she stopped from her rummaging of the camp. "I think that spear belonged to a Sk'rayr Monk. I don't recall the metal they were made from, but it was the real deal," she got closer to inspect it.

"I'd say Midnight Silver for sure, but there's something else as well in there. Something I can't place. And… I think it's missing something; I remember they had a peculiar mechanism to them, but, really, history wasn't my forte... I wonder how it got here."

"Did you study these things at a school or something?" Asked Gabriel, sincerely interested.

"Yes, where else? And anyway, who wouldn't know of the Sk'rayr Monks, the fairy Kamikaze not stopping even in the face of death?" She answered, a bit confused. "Oh, right. I forgot you studied only on Earth."

The fuck?

"Why do you say it doesn't belong here?" He continued, ignoring the kamikaze part, mostly. His eyes were glued on the spear.

"That's simple. Sk'rayr Monks were natives of The Expanse. They were founded by the flying people before their fall. Now it's really hard to even find a half-blood around," she continued.

"The flying people?" Asked Gabriel.

"The Fairies."

"There are actual fairies?" Gabriel's eyes went sparkly.

"There were, they were driven back and almost exterminated by the Priests, centuries ago."

"Fucking priests! I wanted to see a fairy! Anyway… who are these Priests? I feel like it's not the first time I hear about them."

"Well… let's just say that you would call them 'the Church'." Olive, let that sink in for a while.

"Jesus Christ…" Answered Gabriel, slowly scanning the words.

"Yeah, probably one of them."

"Bullshit!" He exclaimed.

"I wish. No, Gabriel, those are the same guys who invented religion across the ages. They just act very convincingly," continued the girl.

"Come on, that can't be real!? And what does it mean 'they invented religion'? Sounds like bullshit to me." Gabriel was not actively a believer, but he hoped there was something beyond death, more for a piece of mind than for a desire to find a higher meaning for life; his life was too busy as it was, it didn't leave him much more time to think about how to philosophically take its meaning.

"Yeah, exactly that. It started from the sun, then the gods, and so on and so forth; but, who do you think were the gods in the eyes of the regular people? If not, people who had crossed to Alter?" She explained more than asked.

"My head is spinning right now… you really mean to say that life on Earth is being led by the nose from people hiding in the church and coming from this side? I- I just-" Gabriel placed his hands in his hair.

"So you didn't realize? Really?" She asked, continuing, "What the hell were you thinking about when you discovered magic? When you stayed at an inn surrounded by magical people, watching sports on TV, and casually hearing about micro and macroeconomy? That you ended up in another world which was so closely related to your own world, yet without any consequences to it? Are you that much of a fool? Goddess help our Herald…" she finally said, exasperated.

"I thought you were a fool, a sharp fool, but to this point? Man, just what were you thinking?"

"Alright, alright! I might have… had some other things to think about. Mostly my mother, and the restaurant… I admit, but this… I could never expect all this." Gabriel justified himself, though to little to no avail.

"Is she alone? Your mother?" She asked, a flicker of empathy, or maybe pity, flashed on her face.

"No, not entirely not, even though she always refused to let another man get close to her after my father died. But, she has already lost too much, her parents, my father, my sister… I'm the last thing remaining to her. If she were to think I died, she might… do things I could never forgive myself for."

"Then we better get out of here as soon as possible. The Deep has easier ways to move from one world to another and even from one continent to another. It's the only reason I managed to reach it before level 30 clearance," she lowered her voice, "Illegal ways." Then placed a finger on her mouth, hushing him and giving him a wink.

Gabriel snorted, amused.

"I guess we better get a move then. Though we need to get back on that, oh! We do really need to!" He let that overhang almost like some sort of threat.

"As you wish, mighty Herald," she answered, faking a bow.

"Ah, shut up!" He threw her a pebble.

The pebble bounced on her tit.

"Oh, my Herald, was that sexual assault? Or did I do something to get your ire! Oh, if so, please, please forgive me!" She started.

"You wish! But my rage is boundless! It cannot be sated! Exactly like my sexual appetite," he threw in, jokingly, and if he had to be honest, to test the terrain.

"Your ire, my lord, I hope you suppress them! But your carnal desires, those… there's nothing we can do about them! There's a tree over there; go jerk yourself off," she finished, changing tone to that of disdain, then jokingly giving him the tongue.

Gabriel chuckled, "Ah, my poor heart! You've crashed it!"

They continued forward, leaving the encampment behind, but managed to retrieve a few useful things from it during their short stay, excluding the spear; they found a metal lace with a clean and sturdy look. Gabriel took it from the ground, admiring its mesh. It looked to be made by minuscule steel leaves folding into each other. Other than the metal lace, they found a few Fire Essences lying amid a group of bones.

"What are these?" Asked Gabriel.

"Such ignorance… these are common Fire Essences," she replied, faking annoyance, but in reality, enjoying giving her speeches, or at least that was what Gabriel came to think when she saw how detailed she was while explaining.

"And… what should that tell me?" He questioned.

"Monsters drop them after their first stage, meaning, after level 20. And they are used for magic rituals. Of course, for a fire mage, they would be good only for bolstering his cast or keeping up an effect for longer, but beyond that, they are used to build magic-based machinery. Commodo's hearth is an example of it."

"Oh, damn! Then they are valuable! Oh, you know what? Hey, on a related topic, I really did not manage to understand what currency you use in here," he continued on a related topic.

"Really? You didn't pay for anything? How did you… never mind, I don't wanna know… We pay with these." Olive took something from her back pocket. "This is a ManaCard. It stores… well, Mana. However, the Mana in here cannot be used. To process it, a ManaBank issued ManaCash is what's needed. No other way around it."

"Wow. A lot of… Mana in those words.."

"Yeah…" she said, "I know…"

"Anyway, that's one shiny credit card."

The card was dark, with 10 crystals encased in it. On its back were runes in tiny writing. They had been engraved in the matte black metal. The crystals on top were tiny, like a few carats of diamonds; a few of them shone with blue light.

"Don't look at the crystals. I'm poor as can be. Wasted all my money in the Deep," Olivia added as she let him study the object.

"I have no idea how to even read it? Do the Crystals store Mana? If so, can you inject it directly? Like you did with Life?" He was really curious about the process.

"Oh no, the runes inscribed on it don't allow that; it's a process only doable from the ManaCasher and by it. It breaks if you try to cheat it, and all the Mana becomes tainted and unusable; you could try and absorb it, but you'd get Mana poisoning."

"And that's nasty." Finished Gabriel for her, nodding.

"You know about that?"

"Just something a gentleman- I guess a gentle elf told me."

Their feet took them through increasingly verdant fields, although the veins of fire inside of the flora remained the same, denoting that they had yet to leave the dangerous place.

In the new closer to a jungle environment, they could start to hear the distant sound of nature becoming livelier.

"This place has been abandoned ages ago; nature will be brimming, and monsters here are wild. It's not a contained environment like Yggdrasil Lower Tree. We could find ourselves face to face with a level 40 monster amid a bunch of twenties. So, keep. Yourself. Sharp, clear?" She ordered.

"Yes, ma'am. I wonder, though, what was that encampment, and why was it there? It didn't look that old," he started whispering.

"I sincerely have no idea; nature is not gentle on abandoned things here, so I'd say it could have been there for a couple of dozen years, but even sooner. But I can't really place it," she answered, whispering like him.

Gabriel played with the spear he had decided to bring with him. He really had no idea how to use more than to stab with it, though it was so supple that he even doubted he'd be able to use it coherently with his inexistent skills in it. So he limited in turning it around in his hand, twisting it a little to see how much it could bend and such. Though his shortsword rested close to his hands, in case of need, he was ready to use it.

The tension couldn't, but build up. The sound they made was relative to only the hushing of plants and trampled grass, but Liz's tail beat against his neck, whether for her nervousness or for what he was transmitting to her.

Should we have gone around it? Was this the best strategy? He thought, looking at Olive, which was leading them in front.

I wonder if she knows what-

She raised a hand, a worldwide sign to stop in their tracks.

Brill disappeared.

"Get ready," she whispered.

Bubbly energy started covering her hands, seeping from her arms and back toward them, it looked like water, but it quickly started being tainted by a sickly violet tint. It spread from her skin, quickly engulfing the water with it.

Her hands moved about, small movements, it increased the volume of water and the speed at which it shifted about as if getting ready to shoot itself forward.

A roar filled the air, right in front of them, slightly at their right.

It was huge. The creature, easily 12 feet long, looked like a tiger whose mane had caught on fire, a purely orange and dark red fire; it almost looked like lava, and judging from the abrupt spike in temperature, it might have been.

It plunged at them, a jump slightly too high to take them entirely off guard. So she was ready.

In an almost sensual dance, her hands shot forward, the water followed, gaining speed and mass, investing the creature and pushing on its belly, catapulting it backward before she had the chance to land on them.

Gabriel saw its claws inches from his face, or at least that was what his momentarily terrified mind believed.

"We need to kill it!! Quick!" She ordered, almost in panic or maybe it was adrenalin.

For some reason, Liz shot forward, jumping from Gabriel's shoulder, and following her, with his eyes, he soon did the same. Hands at the ready.

The creature thrashed on the ground, terrain bubbling with lava under it, though some of her flames had been killed, and violet spots were staining her skin, but the thing was still alive and kicking.

"The poison has burned away faster than I thought; it might be slightly higher in level than me." Said Olive, "Stab it!" She ordered.

"I have yet to recover a single point of Energy. I can't use any Skills!" He said.

She looked befuddled for a moment before remembering that he could still walk because he was the Herald. "Then just stab it, no Skills involved!"

"Stay here, Liz!" He ordered before stepping up. Uselessly.

As he drew the spear forward, even putting his back into it, all he was capable of doing was barely managing to puncture the thick skin of the beast, unnaturally thick.

A roar bringing a fiery wind came forth, it ignited him on fire, and he dropped to his knees, hands on his burned face, screaming.

"Fuck!" The girl said. And it was the last thing Gabriel heard before he blacked out, thanks to a massive paw crashing his shoulder and sending him blasting on a tree trunk.

When he woke up, Gabriel was back in the cave.

His face stung, but he could see.

He had thought his eyes had boiled out, but even if with a serious case of tender skin, he could feel the regular state of his face, facial hair the only thing he was missing… all of them.

Gulping down his panic, he turned around to look for Olive. She was in the water resting, playing dead, even from where he sat, and taking into consideration the darkness of the cave, she was considerably tired.

"Olive, I'm sorry."

"Gabriel! You're awake!" She said, shooting up and swimming to him, even though, more than swimming, she practically skimmed through the water.

"It's I, the one which should be sorry for what happened. I didn't take into consideration your level… it's just way too low for this place. You don't even regenerate ten Energy points a day… there's only so much a Herald can break the rules of."

She turned the other way to dress up. The fire was unlit, so he had not gotten a proper chance to look at her.

As she got closer, though, he could see her face, an apologizing mess of worry, sorrow, delusion, and failed expectations.

It hit him right in the heart.

"I-… did you manage to kill the monster?" He asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yes, although it took a lot out of Brill, literally, he's still regenerating there, under the water. I don't have enough Life points to feed him with right now," she admitted.

"Poor little thing…" Gabriel said, looking at his Liz, which was still sleeping by his feet.

"Anyway… Will… Will my hair grow back? Or are they gone forever?" A hint of fear in his voice.

"Hahaha! No, we've got magic in here? Remember? I got to admit you were in a really... really terrible shape; alive only thanks to your Herald disposition. But I've healed you back up to full. However, growing hair back is not part of my Skill collection. My water magic works only on living tissue, so the bulbs are alive, but it'll take its natural time to grow back. Recovery does speed that up, though," she said with a smile.

"Thank God… I was about to have a heart attack, literally.

She chuckled.

"Listen, Gabe, may I call you Gabe?" said Olive, after a while.

He smiled, "Yes, but not anybody can, mind."

"Well, thank you then." She took a big breath, preparing for some big topic. "I've been giving it some thought… I think we might have to stop for a while and take the chance to increase your Attributes in the old, nasty way… yes, it's gonna be hell, and it will only work until you hit your- well, the human's standard cap. But at least it'll increase your chance at survival out there. If we don't do this, we'll be stuck here, taking slow steps in fear of getting you killed, which is going to take much more time."

She looked worried.

"I don't get your hesitation then! If there's a way to increase my Attributes to their natural cap, it's just going to be free points, no? We should celebrate! I should probably throw a party or something," he said.

"I think that by the time we're finished, a party is the last thing you'll think about… Anyway, if you're ok with it, we'll start as soon as I come back from hunting. There you'll find the fire and the Fire Essences we've found there, ignite it. We're going to need a lot of food for what we need to do."

"See? It was a party, after all."

Olive shook her head and left. Gabriel instead, got near the dry wood. Looking at the Essence.

"Alright… alright; how do I do this?" Then proceeded to waste a couple of hours figuring out how the Fire Essence worked.