“Hm, nifty design,” Rakna commented as they stood at the foot of a large range of ice mountains in which colonies had been carved inside to make a city. The interior couldn’t be made out in detail from where they were but the lights that were emitted from the many holes created quite a warm sight in contrast to the rest of the Plateau.

“Uh, reminds me of those LED ice cubes that the orphanage used for Christmas,” Allan uttered and Marie raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, I mean, they were far smaller obviously…”

“Hey, little guy, before we go in, can you become little again?” Rakna asked Pronos with the fitting nickname, as always. The Hydra nodded his heads and rapidly shrunk his body. His heads did not fuse back into one though. But they did become thinner and less cumbersome. “Well, I guess you can’t hide your species. Get under Sonata and try to only stick out one of your heads.”

Pronos hissed positively, more than happy to return to his spot in the scarf. When he was properly snuggled in the warm fabric’s folds, he closed the eyes of eight of his heads and used the ninth one to peek outside.

“What is that snake?” Natsu asked as he stood on a small slab of ice next to the group. “I have never seen one with nine heads.”

“Really?” Evelyn retorted in surprise and the Celestial Blaze scowled at her. “Ah, uh, sorry, it’s just that it’s a bit odd that you don’t know about Hydras… they’re quite popular as far as legends go.”

“Well, think of me as a…” Natsu paused and grumbled unwillingly, “As a ‘sheltered’ person... The only knowledge I possess is either through my own discoveries, the System’s teachings given to me as a Wilden, or a few conversations I had with visitors that came to my well. Nothing more.”

“That is not surprising if you are a kind of creature that lives in seclusion and awaits their natural evolutions,” Nyx nodded sagely. “You remind me of dragons. I have met many that took the same stance in life.”

“You do seem rather casual mentioning something as outrageous as that…” Marie said wryly.

“Not as much as you think,” the night goddess shook her head. “Perhaps to you, dragons are rare and powerful beings, but in the vast Existence, there are plenty of them. I have visited planets full of them more than once. While indeed dragons deserve the title of one of the strongest species in all Existence, they’re not all absurdly powerful. Perhaps their weakest, fully-matured, members are about as strong as… hm, yes, Tyran makes a good benchmark.”

The mentioned Asura tilted his head and pointed at himself.

“Yes, you,” Nyx said with a small smile. “You do possess quite a few traits draconic in nature. Such as your fire, your scales, and your resistance to magic. Though, you take the latter way farther than your regular dragon. You make a good example of what you can expect from a dragon in its mature stages,” she said.

“But, of course, I refer to the weakest ones. The wise dragons and especially the older ones, called Elder Dragons, are monsters of nature. And the rare breed that lives in this System and grows new wings to get stronger is also quite a menace. Also, I’m sure you would be interested to know that Eternal Night is, in fact, part dragon as well.”

Rakna reacted to that. “Really? How did that come about?”

“From what I know, he fused with his Soul Beast and inherited that part of him,” Nyx said with a reminiscing look. “And if you want to know what a Soul Beast is, well, it would be quite a long story and I do not necessarily want to stay in the cold for hours.”

Allan snorted. “True. Let’s get in already.”

The therian nodded. “We can chat about it at another time,” he said and started walking to the ice city. “Let’s get settled at the Pavilion. I also want to show you something on the Fifth Plateau. But for now, I need to figure out my First Ascent and my Path Quest.”

* * *

“Damn, this is good!” Allan grinned as he sipped his drink, sitting alongside everyone else at one of the many tables of the Pavilion’s commune section. “We never really ate at this place now that I think about it. I wonder if their meals are as good as their drinks…” He muttered as he scrolled through the menu.

Marie pursed her lips at his side, she seemed to be containing her excitement. Ever since she had left her Dungeon, anything she ate felt like heaven to her.

“Do they have duck breast here?” Nyx suddenly asked and they all blinked at her. “What is it? Can’t a goddess have her favorite food?”

“Hahaha, I suppose,” Higure grinned as she nibbled on a fish made out of candy. The group’s looks then turned to her and this time, she was the one who deadpanned, “Okay, give me a break. What’s wrong with me liking sweets?”

“Funnily enough,” Rakna interjected. “My old man loved sweets too. He told me at some point that he switched from cigarettes to lollipops… because it reminded him of his adoptive mother. Since then, you would see him in front of cakes and candies every other day.”

Nyx squinted her eyes in intrigue as she completed her order through the electronic menu. “That man’s mother, is it? If I may ask, have you ever met her?”

The therian shook his head. “She died long before I was even born. All I know about her is from what the old man told me. He said she was the one who taught him Kendo and smithing, and also taught him how to enjoy life. Apparently, she was kind and strong. Aside from that, he kept quiet about her death. The only thing he ever said was that she had been killed.”

“I see… It would have been interesting to meet the parent of a man like him,” Nyx commented and a short moment later, a therian waitress came to their table and served their order from a storage specifically made to preserve food.

“Please enjoy your food, Your Highness,” the bunny-eared girl said with a nervous tone and walked away tensely. But she wasn’t the only one nervous inside the Pavilion. Plenty of customers at the other tables, eating or enjoying the divertissement provided, were eyeing Rakna’s group.

A lot of them were people with blue skin, white hair, and a pair of black horns sticking out their foreheads. They were called Snow Demons, the race that predominantly lived on the 60th Plateau due to its climate.

“Tch, popular as always. Or should I say, infamous?” Allan jested. “What do you smell, Rak?”

“Nothing much,” Rakna uttered calmly. “Their emotions are far more in check than the first day I became an Emperor. Now, it changed to something more along the lines of ‘doubt’. They certainly are aware of my title but none of them think I’m worthy of it. I suppose the information about me being a new Host spread around and then they started to think ‘how come he gets to have all of this when I’m higher level than him?’”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to rain on their parade,” Higure laughed. “Level 100 is already quite respectable for anyone under the 100th Plateau, not even mentioning how you could overpower someone at a far higher level as well.”

“Right, but they don’t know that,” Flavia said with a sigh. “Minds are so complicated and simple at the same time. When the idea of superiority is shoved onto you, it is a basic psychological reaction to determine if it’s true or not.”

“Most people will relent if the superiority of said person is proved through many irrefutable facts but if the person comes out of nowhere, with absolutely no history, they will feel like there’s something unfair going on. And unfairness, for them, translates into lies. They start to believe that this ‘superiority’ is false and that they need to unveil it; gaining recognition from it. It’s a mix of jealousy, envy, and greed, all at once.”

“But Rakna made a point to introduce himself as the pupil of a Nine-Tailed Wolf,” Evelyn said and everyone nodded. “Shouldn’t that have thwarted it?”

“No, it worsened it,” Flavia shook her head. “Granted, it partly protects Rakna with the Nine-Tailed Clan’s reputation but at the same time, for outsiders, it’s easy to attribute any feat he performs to Obsidian. For example, when Rakna fought Fang and the images were caught, the rumor that the final attack was not done by Rakna, but Obsidian, spread like wildfire.”

“Uh, really?” Rakna raised an eyebrow. “Not that I didn’t expect it, but how do you know?”

The Chaos Witch chuckled. “Internet.”

“Ah… of course.”

“You seem fairly adept at this, lass,” Higure remarked. “You said you were a teacher before, right?”

“Correct. I was a psychology and philosophy teacher.”

“I see. That explains it then.”

“By the way, what is the Nine-Tailed Clan?” Natsu suddenly asked from his corner of the table and he frowned when several stares fell on him. “What…?” He shot back as he held the roasted chicken he ordered within his paws.

“Anyway,” Rakna ignored the Celestial Blaze who began sulking. “Ceres, can you tell me if Ascents need to be made in safe places?”

[No, there is no need to. It will not hurt you nor will it be apparent to onlookers.]

“Well then, might as well,” he said and opened his status. “Here, let’s let you guys enjoy the fun as well. Eye, project my status board on the table,” he commanded and, in a blink, the lenses of his left eye rotated and started projecting words and numbers.

Allan was the first to look at it and he deadpanned, “Seriously? 94, 91, 99, 70, and 100? This must be a practical joke…”

Rakna snorted. “So, how do I do this, Ceres?” He asked; he had long gone drawn a formation to make their table soundproof, so he didn’t need to worry about people listening in. Not unless they were good enough to pass by both his senses and the constant probe Eye of Symphony carried out on the surroundings.

[If you wish to carry out a Quintuple Ascent, you will of course need to cap all your attributes with your free points,] Cerestia said, her words being shared to the rest so they could know what to expect when their attributes reach this stage. [However, you possess 10 unassigned volatile points at the moment. I recommend distributing them before continuing.]

“Oh? What happens if I do?”

[Volatile points are valuable for even high-level hosts because it is essentially a shortcut to cap attributes. For instance; you currently possess 20 volatile points. If you were to place them all in Dexterity and then capped it, after Ascending it, your Dexterity would be locked at more than 100, while the volatile points would be refunded to you to be reused.]

“Wait, that’s broken. That means you can save free points but also have bonus attributes compared to people who don’t have many volatile points or at all,” Allan said.

Nyx nodded. “They are indeed ‘reusable points’, as you say.”

“All right then. Assign ten volatile points and 19.9 free points to dexterity; 5.2 to strength; 0.7 to speed; and 9 to endurance,” Rakna voiced his command and he felt his body getting stronger and his mechanical senses automatically calibrated his body. “What do I do now, Ceres?”

[Do you see the line stating your attributes are capped under your status? Tap it and the rest will be done on its own.]

Rakna glanced at his status and pressed on the Ascent line after double-checking. At first, nothing noticeable happened until a shudder coursed through his entire body. All his muscles contracted reflexively and a few alerts sounded, a system window opening and being projected for the others as he viewed it.

❮ ◈ ❯

Undergoing First Ascent…

Five Attributes Capped – Quintuple Ascent

---

Your Attributes have successfully broken through. Your body has now ascended to the next stage, it is capable of welcoming more mana in itself and stamina will decrease slower. Your reinforcement abilities will take less toll on you along with other abilities of the same nature.

---

Hosts or Locals that have attributes lower than 100 will see the damage of all their attacks against you be halved on impact.

---

Volatile and Free Points will now increase an attribute by only 0.5 and the qualitative difference between digits will be twice as significant. This also applies to Hosts or Locals who use attribute-multiplicative abilities to forcefully break the Ascent Cap.

Note: The 12 points capped over the Intelligence Attribute have been converted.

---

Through ascending, you have gained the following skills: Strength Burst, Endurance Burst, Speed Burst, Dexterity Burst, Intelligence Burst.

Compatible synthesis detected. You have gained the skill, Quintuple Burst!

---

You are a Quintuple Ascent Host; you are rewarded with 5 Random Skill Cards, specialized for each attribute you ascended in, and all your statistics will permanently increase by 50, except your Mana Pool and Mana Regeneration that will respectively increase by 500 and 5.

---

Attributes:

STR: 100 => 101 | END: 100 => 101

SPD: 100 => 101 | DEX: 100 => 101

INT: 100 => 107 | LCK: 9

Available Volatile Points: 0 => 20

Available Attribute Points: 165.8

Available Skill Points: 4

Statistics:

STA: 570.9 => 702 | MP: 2060 => 3200

SWI: 502.32 => 583.20 | AGI: 411.4 => 547.6

SEN: 2292.4 => 2890 | ATC: 463.8 => 520

ATT: 835 => 971 + 20% Hoarfrost | DEF: 564.88 => 668.8

MA: 352 => 430.1 | MR: 24.92 => 43.60/min

❮ ◈ ❯