"These post-tort… post-training coituses we keep on having," said Gabriel. "I like them, don't get me wrong, but I could do without the torture part. It would be a change of pace. What do you say?" he finished with a smirk.

They had just finished a post-workout session, though it had come after a five hours underwater training session, not Resilience training.

It was the seventh consecutive day of Gabriel's training, and after the initial burst of passion and the previous night's event, Olive's attitude had changed.

He recalled once again what happened the previous night.

As it seemed, some thorough searching activity had started taking place upstairs.

They were about to start cooking. Fish, once again for Gabriel's joy... When Brill came out of the water with the speed of a hare running for its life.

As it happened, Olive took hold of him, Liz, their things and moved everything at the center of the cave, where the little, still unlit, bonfire stood.

Then pleading for silence, she started casting spells he had never seen before.

They were dark magic spells, she later explained to them.

Her eyes grew an intense green, and after casting the magic, a four-layered magical circle appeared on the ground, runes circling about in concentric circles. She took out something from her bag, a shiny stone gem, it looked like a cluster of salt, but it was much more dense and sturdy looking. It shone of its dim light, the basic color of Mana, azure light. She placed it in the middle of the magic circle, then took out several dark shiny gems and positioned them around it. By the looks of them, Gabriel guessed they were Dark Essences.

The rest of the night they spent in silence, hugging at the center of the cave as she renewed the ritual runes circling on the Magic circle every time they started fading and used what she confirmed were Dark Essences to bolster the effects.

After that, the following day's training had become shorter and silent, and so had she; the tension emanating in the air, coming from her had lessened during the following day, but she was still clearly on edge. The only things making her relax were the hangry work-outs they had, multiple times, during the day.

Back to the present, Olive surprised Gabriel with a shrewd response.

"Who knows? Maybe it'll kill it?" She answered," But we're almost done anyway, so I guess we'll find out."

Gabriel grinned as they both caught their breaths.

"Still thinking about yesterday?" He asked as he understood she only smiled from her mouth.

"Yeah, I am. I'm scared, Gabe. Really." She locked her now brown eyes to his.

"They are actively looking for us now, and they were so close… so close in finding us that I almost crapped my panties if I still wore some," she said. She was clearly stressed.

"I get it. It's dangerous, but we pulled through, didn't we? Whatever you did with that ritual thing helped us, and we are practically done with training so we can even start leaving; I think I could survive one of those tigers if we met one now!" He said, pushing her with his shoulder, "Come on! Wanna try? Wanna go catch one? I promise I'll behave! Not letting myself get caught on fire, again. Cross my heart."

She chuckled at his increasingly amusing tone of voice; he was clearly trying to cheer her up. "Alright… alright. It's a deal. The only thing left you to increase, apart from Affinity is Power, but I don't see any way of doing that here," she gestured for the cave, "so we might as well just get a move."

Marveled that he had actually managed to convince her, they started preparing.

In the meantime, he took a look at his Page.

Gabriel Walker

Race

Human

Level

4 (40.6%)

Class

Striker

Class Level

4 (3%)

Spirit

Spirit of The Lizard

Spirit Level

4 (0.1%)

Pools

Life

Energy

Mana

Spirit

1/10

1/10

5/5

10/10

Attributes

Body

Spirit

Final

Affinity

9

0

9

Alacrity

7

2

9

Power

8

2

10

Recovery

9.1 (7)

2

11.1

Resilience

9

2

11

Stamina

9

1

10

It really was incomparable to before. His Attribute had doubled, even tripled from his original stats. And it wasn't just something written on burning letters in the sky.

Gabriel could feel it coherently.

His strength practically seeped from his skin. If he could weigh himself, he knew he would find out that his weight had increased by a good 20-30 pounds of lean mass. He could feel real strength behind that. It wasn't just bodybuilding, none of that shit, it was real power, he could feel from his sprints, from his burst movements, from the way he carried himself, and how easy everything felt.

Then there was his speed; alacrity joined to Power had made him a beast, he felt he could outrun anyone, maybe not anything, but anyone, and his Stamina pitching in made him tireless, a machine.

Then there were Resilience and Recovery, like Alacrity and Stamina; they seemed to go in tandem. He felt like Iron man. He could clearly determine how much weaker and less effective Olive's attacks had become and how weaker the non-mortal poison affected him, or at least, so he judged from the degree of damage they caused to his body. Yes, without treatment, she could still easily kill him if she merely wished to, but that did not take away the fact that his physical toughness and his regeneration had forever advanced from the realm of a man to that of an inhuman.

He could pinch his skin and feel rubber, not skin; he could touch his muscles and feel… well, not iron, but at least not average human muscle density. And his regeneration rate? He could see it even from how his Life points regenerated, now he got 11 back each day. Did it mean he healed close to twice as fast of a pinnacle regular regeneration rate? He would have to try, but who cared? He could only keep getting stronger from there, so what was the point?

Since before his escape, the thought of getting back to his mother had not been overshadowed by anything. Now, however, be it the company or the results of his daily training, he felt eager to go on, eager to accept this new reality of his. Maybe even become the Herald, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

"Are you ready?" She broke him out of his train of thoughts.

"Uh? I mean, yes. Let's go." Grinning to himself like a fool.

Olive chuckled, "Yeah? Didn't you say you removed your clothes so that once we were out of here, you could have something to wear?"

"Yes, why?"

"Then I should think you've become a nudist then, I can understand how in some extremely rare circumstances one might find a lack of clothes to be comfortable; but if that is the attitude you want to maintain… I'm definitely off-board."

"Alright… what was the long-winded speech for?" He asked, confused.

"Really?" She said, unbelieving. "Gabe!" You are still naked!" She said, barging into a laugh.

"Uh? Oh! Hahahaha! You're right, I'll dress, let's go!" He managed to say, embarrassed.

How to make an ass of yourself, volume 1. Now for sale in every cave of the continent! For just ten dollars!

Liz shook her head. He could feel embarrassment even from her.

You know you're always naked, do you? He thought, addressing the lizard directly.

Liz looked at herself, confused then, embarrassed for a second until she turned her head to the resting salamander; then, she calmed down, knowing that he was the same.

Gabriel and his lizard hadn't made much progress Affinity wise after the initial burst, but their new feeling exchange system worked really well.

Then she whipped her long tongue at him, clearly not tasting the air but actually giving him the tongue, or worse.

You little…

***

A little bit later, they climbed out of the cave, slowly and talking softly.

"You know, you never told me what that ritual gem thing is nor how it works," Gabriel said.

"That? Oh, I took it from Com. He just told me it served to obscure us from scrying abilities, the ritual though… that is part of my first set of magic." She ended in a tone that communicated she didn't want to explain further.

The silence returned as they closed in on the old encampment.

"You know," Started Gabriel. "I opened up a little bit to you… I just wanted to get to know you a bit better; we're both adults here, I would not dare judge anything. Hell, I've done things which would make you doubt my qualifications as a Herald… whatever that is, so I really don't get the secrecy and the mysterious act."

Gabriel was edgy.

A week closed in a cave, being even if willingly tortured, just to have some more chances at survival in a world where clearly the rule of the mightiest governed. It wasn't precisely mind-soothing.

Not even if a beautiful girl shared her "bed" with him.

"Gabe…" she said, taken aback. "I-"her eyes flung wide open.

She brought her index finger to her mouth.

He knew then, they were in enemy territory.

Once again, she manifested her dark arts.

"Dark Veil," she whispered.

They were soon clad in a veil of dim darkness. It erupted straight from the girl's core from her solar plexus and moved to where the jungle grew thicker.

The encampment was in front of them. It was populated.

Humans, for the most part, dressed in dark leather clothes, dwelled in it. Though there were only six of them, the encampment looked lively. A translucent dome surrounded it.

Gabriel noticed that they had made changes to the place, not exactly fixing it but tidying it up. Fixing the chaos of skeletons and too old junk littering the place.

"Did you think they managed to track us?" He asked, heart beating faster.

Olive took her time to answer, "I don't know, it doesn't feel like they are waiting for more. They look like they genuinely stopped to rest."

"Then we should go around them and get the fuck out of here."

"Yes, it's useless waiting for them to leave; they might as well leave someone behind to cover the patch of land," she nodded.

"Wait, does that reasoning imply that you think that they, whatever, they are, deployed a vast force to look for us?" Quizzed Gabe.

"That was without doubt… you still don't understand what your existence entails, do you? Hope you will understand before you throw your life to waste, especially with that temper of yours," she got straight at his heart.

"Ouch, woman, that dig hurt my pride."

"Yeah, right? Come now, I count three Bond Spirits out of four humans. One must be patrolling the area. We move slowly. Stay as close as possible."

It took them more than two hours to reach up to the furthest point they had previously reached.

Gabriel recognized the place in which they had battled, well, actually, Liz did, but he knew it retroactively.

Of the monster's corpse, only bones had remained; they were deep red, and as he brought his hand close to them, he could still feel the heat they emanated.

This thing could light a bonfire!

That was when something struck his mind.

The laces, he looked at them.

If there was something peculiar about them, was that they were the worst heat conductor he had ever touched. They had managed to remain perpetually cold on his skin, no matter for how long they tied his body.

Gabriel stopped Olive, unceremoniously, getting her to take the laces out. Then he proceeded to wrap them around his left hand. They easily took the shape of his hand, as if they had been intended for that very purpose. At that, Olive gaped.

He continued on his plan to use them as an insulating glove to get a hold of one of the beast's femur.

Taking it out proved to be a challenge even with his natural peek-human power.

"Wait," she said, "You don't need that. I just remembered what those laces really are!"

"Yeah?" He said, popping out the bone and swinging it around, each swing exploding sparks in the air. This seems useful, though does flame hurt flame monsters?

"Gabe. Stop that; it's useless," she continued stopping his arm with difficulty. "Those laces, listen… Those laces are part of the Sk'rayr spear. They wrapped them around it and around the shaft, so they would never lose it, and most probably launch it forward a few meters without having to recover it. If the lance is the real deal, it might even be an injection weapon."

"What is an injection weapon?"

"A weapon which activates some ability when you inject Mana into it," she explained.

"Oh, like my gun? Not bad, do you think it shoots Mana?" He asked.

"Well… you catch me off guard there. I'm not an expert, I remember by chance, thanks to seeing you wrap the laces around your arm, again… I might be wrong. I don't have Analyze, and neither do you, so we can't tell," she admitted.

"Well, then we just need to see for ourselves," he said, taking the weapon in his left end, the one wrapped with laces, then he wished for his Mana to penetrate the Sk'rayr spear.

A flash of light illuminated the site. Blinding them for a moment.

As he opened his eyes, he noticed many magic circles, one on top of the other, wrapping the lance in its entirety.

Warning , you are trying to bind an Epic Rank weapon. The previous owner has died, and his Spirit has left the spear behind.

If you bind the weapon, nobody else will be able to activate its functions; it will only recognize your Mana imprint.

Do you want to proceed?

Yes/No

The voice from the Page was stiff, and the writing slightly different. He felt as if it did not really belong to the Anchor. It felt as if it was a forced process; in some way, it looked genuine but at the same time shoddier than the real thing.

He rolled with it all the same.

There were no further announcements after the light disappeared and an innumerable amount of runes started shining on the weapon's surface. In a few seconds, though, they vanished as if they had never been there.

"Alright, congratulations, but Gabe... we need to get as far away from here as possible. If they saw that, we're screwed," said Oli.

"Yup… let's bail!"

They ran in the jungle, maybe for miles, they ran as long as their Stamina allowed them.

Maybe they were lucky, not encountering any monsters; however, judging by the many monster corpses they found on their way, their pursuers from the Cradle had swept the place thoroughly.

Hand in hand, they ran, not for affection, but because Olive ran ahead of him, leaving the young man to give it his all to keep up, and contiguity was needed to shroud them both with Dark Veil.

It took them a couple of hours to get to a subtle change in the land.

They had to forcefully slow down, breathing heavily as Olive's Mana was running out.

The jungle started giving way to a rock denser path; simultaneously, the sound of nature started filling their ears once again. A slight incline in the land showed that the landscape was definitely giving its way to something else.

They had gotten far enough to reach a portion of the land still untouched by their pursuers; the very presence of monsters and creatures was proof of that.

In front of them, the path started, thus going up, they were reaching the mountains.

In the distance, much subtle and almost imperceptible to their ears, a sound could be heard, no, probably the echoes of one. But they simply couldn't make head or tail of it. Too distant to say, and definitely not the sound of a party of sentients.

"It must be coming from the mountains," suggested the girl. Gabe could only nod; he was breathless.

I wonder what kind of Attribute placement she has. She's level 26, right? She should have 22 more attribute points than me; why this drastic difference? Is it about Skills?

After climbing a good way of the slope placed in front of them, they soon decided to take a break. The reason was the presence of a big grotto on a natural high-relief in which to hide.

"That's surely some monster's burrow," she said, huffing and puffing. "So watch out, if we see it, we need to end it swiftly." Her eyes turned toward Brill, which became invisible.

Gabriel nodded, too short of breath to talk, though he twirled his spear in his hand, he so wanted to test it, but at the same time, the previous encounter with the monster which had melted his face reverberated in his psyche, affecting his sureness.

As much as he could say to himself that he was ready, that he was prepared, he really wasn't, or he just needed to find out.

They ventured inside.

Darkness lit only by red streaks of fire, their pulsing probably related to the tree's roots visible from its walls.

"These trees really drink fire...." he thought, regulating his breath.

"Fascinating, isn't it? You should see The Deep… it's beauty itself, indescribable..." said Olive with a look in her eyes that went far in the distance.

"Did you like it there? What was it like?"

"It was-" she started before stopping mid-sentence.

Liz as well stopped, whipping her tongue some.

"Watch out!" Olive shouted.

Then chaos unfolded.

After a dark form tackled them head-on, Gabe lost his senses.

He woke up to sounds and shouts. His head swayed mightily, his vision blurry but quickly refocusing.

As he forced himself up, he noticed that he had fallen all the way down a few levels of the slope they had climbed. The sound of battle came from above.

What had saved him had been a tree; his fall had been stopped only by that. Otherwise, he would have kept tumbling down the ascending path.

Gabriel got up, noticing a branch going through his calf.

Fuck… He turned around for the lizard, but she was nowhere to be seen; a quick gauge at the state of his Page told him that the lizard was alive and well because his Spirit pool had diminished. She was probably fighting the monster with Oli and Brill.

He had lost seven out of ten of his Life Points, which meant that the hit had been intense. However, he knew he could get up and fight once he removed the branch, perforating his leg.

He did so, gritting his teeth and failing to gulp down a scream.

The climb back up was a bitch, but it was necessary; Liz and the others were still there, fighting the monster.

The sound of the battle getting higher and higher; when it finally got into view, the spectacle gave him nausea.

Olive and Brill were heavily wounded, the girl had lost an arm, and her thorax was torn and burned up, Brill had no tail, and a copious amount of purple water leaked from his wounds; while Liz was thankfully still intact, maybe too small for the creature to easily target.

At that sight, Gabriel shook. He had never seen someone that badly hurt, especially not someone who he cared for, or at least was starting to.

He was torn on what to do, his focus going from getting her and bringing her as far away as possible from the place or standing his ground like she was doing and helping her kill the beast.

There was really no easy solution.

The beast in front of them was a sort of bear.

Its mantle was partially on fire, its saliva dripping down from its half-melted jaw, dropped on the ground sizzling; gigantic claws adorned its paws, they were glowing red.

Olive was a dwarf compared to the monster; it could have easily been twelve feet at the withers.

Gabriel gripped his lance tightly; there was nothing he could really do to change the situation if not supporting her.

Olive's intense expression said she was probably at her wit's end while facing the monster.

And still… he couldn't act.

The Sk'rayr spear, maybe he could distract it with that.

He looked at it intensely, raising it up, then got on with an improvised plan.

Gabriel wrapped the laces tightly around the lance's tail and left enough chord for him to tie the other hand around his left wrist. Then he got closer.

Even with the use of Burst Attack, he knew he was no javelin-thrower; he had to get closer to hit the beast.

Oli saw him; she shook her head at him, madness in her eyes. She was freaking out. But he would not listen to her.

When he was ready, he injected Mana in the spear; in response, it became unbending. Runes appeared on its body, but he activated his still only Skill and threw without letting himself stop by the sudden reaction.

Burst Attack!

It was the first time he used it on a target since he had increased his Attributes with the hell-training.

And launching the Sk'rayr lance, he finally managed to see the mind-blowing difference in the power he could successfully unleash.

Tier 3 of Burst Attack doubled his Power and Alacrity on use; however since he had last hit an enemy with it, the effect increased his Attributes to 6 Power and 8 Alacrity, now they reached 16 and 14 respectively. It was effectively launched with a power that was twice as much as that of the strongest and fastest human could manage to achieve without the presence of the Anchor.

He could feel the power permeating his body and transferring itself to the lance, and yet, with its impact, it just barely managed to pierce the monster's skin.

Fortunately, it was enough to get its attention.

With his heart pumping like crazy, Gabriel pulled on the laces, detaching the spear which flew back at him, then prepared for another attack as the monster switched its attention toward him.

But before it could launch itself at him, Oli, sensing the game, attacked the monster with a blade of water, it didn't do much, but it was something nonetheless.

"You have to go bigger. I'll manage to hold it off; poison him or something!" Gabriel screamed at her.

She nodded, biting her lips, then once again, the spear hit the side of the bear, too big to move away, especially now that it was turned once again toward the girl.

The pull was successful, again.

This time though, Oli started some sort of chant, purple Mana emanating from the pores of her skin and accumulating on her hand.

Yet, the thing seemed to take time.

Gabriel had to dodge. The beast dashed his way.

It was fast, too fast, probably a Skill; it rocketed at him, Gabe's reaction speed saving him just thanks to the vast space among them, but mostly thanks to his perfect timed activation of Burst Attack, kicking the ground with double the power and speed.

Yet, now the creature was closer, he rolled to the side, managing to dash away once again.

The creature did not launch at him this time, probably saving its Energy, or at least that he hoped.

It was fast nonetheless, and he had barely the time to throw another Mana injected, and Burst Attack endowed lance-throw at it.

The creature easily evaded.

Cursing, Gabriel retracted the Sk'rayr spear and was again on the run.

How long is she gonna take!?

The thing repeated once more, the creature still not running at him, and he had to yet evade twice while endowing his steps with Burst Attack; his pools were growing thinner and thinner.

"OLIVE! Are you ready?" He shouted.

"Bring it over here!" She said with the same tone.

Finally!

Gabriel turned toward him, no more Mana to inject in the spear and only two Burst Attack at the ready.

One. The beast suddenly dashed at him, the sound displacement enough to let Gabriel know that he had to dodge one way or another.

Rolling forward after the unkind burst, he found himself near Olive's feet; the monster was almost upon them.

It was then. Olive placed her palm forward, and a cloud of dense purple-tainted liquid shot forth, right in the monster's muzzled.

The beast took it head-on, without dodging it; its preys were right in front of him to taste, after all. But the cloud was immediately effective. The monster slowed down, stumbling, then falling forward, right on top of Gabriel.

It was asleep.

"You did not-!" Shouted Gabriel, before reining in his high-pitched voice, "-kill it!?"

"I couldn't…" she said, exhausted. "But it's all yours now. Cut it up as much as you want. It won't wake up for hours."

After saying that, she fell on her knees, her eyes half-closed. She then slowly got up, heading for an arm waiting on the ground. She looked at it with rage.

"Olive… I'm sorry. It- it was my fault, I'm useless," he said. "You, you were amazing, is there… is there anything I can do for you? Can we magically put it back?"

"No, it's burned, and I'm Mana empty," she said, massaging her the bridge of her nose, "but it'll regrow. Our Bond Spirit are lizards, you know? Our Recovery is top-notch… I'm just gonna lie down, in the burrow… don't wake me up if I fall asleep, I'm… tired."

"Alright, don't worry." Poor little thing… he thought. She said the arm will regrow, though… magic, what a clusterfuck.

Both Olive and a slow walking Brill moved toward the burrow. Liz instead ran at him, weirdly excited.

"Liz. You did wonderfully surviving all that. I bet I would have died if I had remained there."

She did not care for words of encouragement. She went toward the monster, biting it.

"Yeah, we're gonna get to level 5; I can feel it."

And so he looked for his shortsword, it was by the burrow. Then he got on top of the monster and started hitting it, slamming the end of his shortsword on the back of its neck, as if he was using an icepick. It was hard as a rock, after all.

When he was satisfied with the damage, and the monster's spine was showing, he raised his sword high up, endowing it with Burst Attack.

The monster's spine severed; Gabriel got his long-awaited messages from the Anchor Page.

You have killed (1) Level 36 - Guardian of the Firewoods (Rare)

Rare Monster Kill, Experience is doubled.

You have gained:

Level + 588.8%

Class Level + 256%

Spirit Level + 256%

Burst Attack Tier 3 + 256%

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

You have reached Level 10.

You have 6 unspent Body Attribute points.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

You have reached Class level 6.

You can increase your Pools by 10 points.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

You have reached Spirit level 6.

You have 2 unspent Spirit Attribute points.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

Burst Attack reaches Tier 4.

New effect: Increase your Power and Alacrity by up to 125% for 1 Energy point. Permanently increases Recovery by 40%.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

Burst Attack reaches Tier 5.

New effect: Increase your Power and Alacrity by up to 150% for 1 Energy point. Permanently increases Recovery by 50%.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

Burst Attack reaches Tier 6.

New effect: Increase your Power and Alacrity by up to 175% for 1 Energy point. Permanently increases Recovery by 60%.

His vision was engulfed entirely in text burning in mid-air.

“What the…”