Persephone sat in her office, thinking about Keynes Kid and his little idea of uniting their efforts. She had to admit that when she’d made her desire to catch the killer of Karim, she hadn’t dreamed of meeting the very person who held the keys to the rifts. And to his credit, he quickly realised how much value lay within her Talent.

But it was never easy to hand over the things she desired. Especially if they held power. But the deal was a deal. She sighed, sensing her second-in-command coming. Her spiritual companion was currently deactivated. The little thing was annoying and useless.

Baruka entered the door without knocking, closing it with an urge to slam but he reined himself in. Like her, he was Level 6 but where all her Levels came from the rift essence, he only recently levelled up for the first time with the rift essence. That gave her a substantial advantage in attributes. She was also in the Superior stage while he was two stages below, in the Medium. If she wished, she could defeat him with her Spirit aura alone.

“Where is he?” Baruka snapped. “Where’s the murderer of my brother?!”

“Gone.”

“Where?”

Persephone stared at him, without blinking or betraying any expression because if she did so, it would reveal what her Talent was whispering to her. If she desired to make peace with Baruka, she’d need to hand over Keynes Kid to him. She didn’t know if there was any other way. She hoped that the major upgrade would alter her Talent so she would be able to tell if there was another way.

“Where is he?” Baruka repeated his question.

“He’s not to be touched, Baruka,” she said and added before her friend could collect himself. “Call off all the missions except those that keep the rifts uncleared.”

Through her aura, she could sense his emotional turmoil. Baruka would never agree to this. Anger blinded him. Persephone didn’t blame him. Karim was like family to her too. But things she desired were now tied to Keynes Kid and their deal. Baruka was a loyal follower of their mission but she couldn’t forget why the mission had been born.

“Go, relay my orders,” she said, giving him a nudge with her aura before he crossed the line and she’d be forced to do something she would hate to do.

***

“Where the hell have you been?” Vivena asked.

“And why do you want to go to some remote island in the Mediterranean sea?” Wagner added his question.

Sylv and Tyr accompanied them. Keynes’s mother also had had a word with Keynes when he’d returned the morning. He’d spent with Persephone an entire night talking about their deal and possibilities.

Keynes raised his hands.

“I need to talk to Wagner.”

“Keynes.” Why was Vivena even here?

Tyr was first to leave, he didn’t want to be here in the first place. Sylv stood beside Wagner until he dismissed her. Vivena was harder to get rid of.

“I know about your business,” she said with a hint of disappointment. “The word already has gotten out.”

Wagner shook his head muttering curses. But what did he expect? He put their names on the paper as the founders of their new company. Esopp Earl, Columbus Curt and Wagner Zimmermann in the same team had to raise many questions and give birth to countless rumours.

“Damned clerks.”

“Doesn’t change anything,” Keynes said, then stepped closer to Wagner, purposefully ignoring Vivena. “We need to talk. Only two of us.”

A shadow of anger crossed her face but unlike Daiyu Fen, she wasn’t a person to outwardly express her negative emotions.

“Vivena, dear, please give us a moment.” Wagner sighed.

“Vivena, dear?” Keynes asked when Vivena had left the office. “What was that, Wagner?”

The other man rolled his eyes then reminded Keynes that he was an opportunist at the core and Vivena’s Talent put her very high in his esteem.

“You don’t think about inviting her to join our company, do you?”

“No,” Wagner replied a little more sharply. “Columbus and Esopp were clear on that. We won’t invite anyone else to our party.”

Keynes frowned. Well, that’s going to be a difficult conversation.

***

Wagner pinched the bridge of his nose. Was he imagining a headache or was he having one? Even though it was impossible. Ascenders didn’t have headaches other than those caused by mana depletion. His Talent was passive and his mana had never run out.

“Keynes, you cannot be serious. You met with the leader of the White Masks and made a deal with her?”

“I had to save myself,” Keynes replied. “They were ready to kill me.”

If Wagner didn’t know any better, he’d think that Keynes was having fun at Wagner’s cost but that wasn’t the case. The boy was taut like asarian twigs. Wagner shuddered at the memory of the twigs that grasped their own ends, building tension, always ready to uncoil; at the slightest touch, they would lash out like whips.

Wagner couldn’t blame him—well, he could but didn’t. The fruit of insight had given him a good overview of Keynes Kid and pushing him wasn’t the right method to ‘handle’ the boy.

“Okay,” Wagner sat down, sighed, staring at his desk then looked up to find Keynes unmoved. “Tell me everything.”

Pulling a chair closer to Wagner’s desk, Keynes seemed to mull over it. He sat down on the other side of the desk, elbow on the table.

“Where do I start?”

“From the beginning?”

“Nah, that part isn’t important. But I will tell you what I found in their base if I can call it that. Ten rare Level 1 rifts, all variable and set next to each other in perfect intervals.”

Wagner’s lower jaw could only drop so far. He rose slowly, his heart was beating furiously. Wagner’s Mind attribute was quite high and still, he was amazed.

“How?”

“Orbs of Relocation.”

“Tell me these orbs are part of the deal.”

All of sudden, Wagner understood why Keynes had done it. It’d save them so many problems if they could relocate rifts to one location. One that was properly hidden and secured.

“Orbs aren’t the point of the deal.”

Keynes said it with such a straight face that Wagner could only blink. Did Keynes hear himself? Or did he go mad?

“Then what is?”

“Her Talent; whatever she desires, her Talent tells her how to get it.”

That sounded like a Broken Talent. Wagner mulled the revelation over. It made sense that she’d found so many orbs and had relocated ten rare rifts into one location.

Yes. Wagner understood why Keynes didn’t think the orbs weren’t the point of the deal. They could get so much more.

But at the same time, her Talent… was dangerous.

“Keynes, do you realise how perilous her Talent is to us?”

Keynes nodded but then he stopped and offered Wagner a smile. It was a rare sight to see that boy smile like this and one that gave Wagner chills. Keynes was damaged, broken by Windsor Freeman’s sick desire to wield absolute power.

“I have thought about it. About the consequences of her working with us, and I have realised one thing; the vision Shaper had shown us. Persephone’s Talent tells her how to get whatever she desires, never why. If she desires to get stronger, or even betray us or whatever, we know that her Talent would never tell her to put us in harm’s way. We are critical to her survival. This is our fail-safe.”

“You’re GENIUS!” Wagner pointed his finger at Keynes. He didn’t take that into account. “Now, how much is this going to cost us?”

“Forty percent of anything she points us toward.”

Wagner’s hopes immediately sank. Forty percent was a lot. On the other hand, it only applied to the things she would help them find. Technically, they didn’t lose anything because without her they wouldn’t get anything.

Keynes stood up.

“Will you inform Esopp and Columbus? I really need to go to that island.”

“Why?”

“She said there is something she really desires but she’s going to give it to me as a token of good faith, and part of the deal.”

“Keynes… she is using her Talent to win you over.”

“I know.”

“Okay… we still need to go over the details.”

“When I am back.”

Keynes fled his office. Sylv entered, Vivena trailing behind her. Wagner sighed. Women.

Then the door opened and Keynes returned.

“I forgot to ask, can I borrow one of your helicopters? And … I need a favour.”

***

The pilot refused to land. Officially, the island was uninhabited, barely a kilometre wide and with little vegetation, obscuring the bare rock.

Today the island teemed with rift monsters. There, on this hostile strip of land, was a solitary rift. Inside it, Persephone had said, was a skill she desired. On his way here, Keynes debated a trap or a cruel joke. But neither made sense. He stood inside her office, in the heart of her base. She’d had him in her hands and still she let him go.

The deal they’d struck was too profitable to simply throw it away, especially when she was the creature of her Talent, following it even against her instincts. She’d had to fear that Keynes would reveal the location of her base. And in fact, he was tempted to tell it to Wagner but Wagner had said it himself – he was an opportunist. And ten rare rifts sounded like a tempting opportunity.

Keynes dropped into the water. He snorted salty water out of his nostrils. He didn’t know that the Mediterranean sea was this salty.

When the helicopter put enough distance between them, Keynes got out of the water on the rocky beach. He swapped the wet clothes for the Cloak of Shadows and took out his two shortswords. The day was beautiful, sunny and cloudless like in San Antonio.

Howls sounded a few moments later. The monsters knew he was here.

It was time for some killing.

***

The boss was the size of a horse, its canines ten centimetres long and sharp as razors. It was the largest hound Keynes had laid his eyes on. It was of a rare rarity like the rift albeit Level 3; every boss was one Level higher than the rift itself.

It possessed two spells; one passive – deep cuts – each time the hound struck the same wound, the damage it inflicted increased. The active spell was called speed burst and boosted the hound’s speed by 30% for 3 seconds. That active spell was an actual issue when facing hundreds of hounds. Keynes’s health was at 57% and he didn’t even clear the island, only cut through the packs of hounds. Most damage came from inside the rift. Even with his increased Dexterity, Keynes wasn’t quick enough to dodge every strike. It reminded him that an average ascender wasn’t strong enough to deal with the rift on their own.

Master, you are close to improving your Cultivation technique.

I can sense that too.

Karim’s notes were very useful. Knowing the assassin’s name made it awkward now. It gave some masked killer an identity. In the end, it didn’t really matter. Keynes had defended himself. He hadn’t intended to kill the man.

The hound sprung, lashing out its paws the size of Keynes’s head. Keynes ducked with ease, keeping his footing prepared for an emergency evade when the boss’ speed burst would come.

It came as Keynes slashed the tendons of the boss’ foreleg. The damage was enough to stagger the monster, making the speed burst ungainly. It still brought sharp claws a hair’s breadth from Keynes’s face. But at the same time, the beast’s attack exposed its vulnerable area. Keynes thrust the shortsword, aiming at its heart and hoping it had the heart in the same spot as Earth’s animal of its type.

The shortsword went only halfway, reminding Keynes that, while his Dexterity was boosted to 31 points, his Strength remained at 26.

Nonetheless, the wound did its job. The hound howled in pain and tried to bite off Keynes’s head but Keynes was already in a roll beneath the hound. As he regained his footing next to the right hind leg, he cut muscles and tendons, crippling the monster further. It roared and tried to spin around but it made the mistake of placing its weight on the damaged foreleg.

The boss collapsed, offering Keynes a chance to kill it. He did it without hesitation.

The rift’s boss has been killed.

The Overcharge effect is removed.

The monster will no longer spawn.

You gain a single instance of the Explorer buff.

The Explore buff grants +30% to find a higher rarity item or skill from the reward chest.

Keynes exhaled, his muscles painfully weary, his body in cuts and dried blood. Before he went to check on the reward, he did the final push, finally improving his Cultivation technique.

Congratulations!

Your Lesser Cultivation Technique has improved.

-

You have learned Cultivation Technique.

So it lost the prefix ‘Lesser’ the same way the aura control had had. There clearly was a hierarchy.

Keynes closed his eyes, reaching the newly acquired technique with his mind. It gave him an impression of a more complex structure. He also realised that it still didn’t give him anything close to what Karim’s notes talked about but another realisation crystalised in his mind; everything he’d been doing so far in terms of cultivation was flawed. He saw it now and could tell because of his perfect memory.

Interesting. Each version of the cultivation technique polished his skill of cultivation. His initial attempts in the rift in Jamaica were as crude as doing an operation with stone-age tools.

“Finally.” Keynes smiled.

He walked around the boss’ corpse and approached the reward chest.

He checked for the hidden compartment, which wasn’t there. Then he reached inside and took out a roughly cut stone.

Skill Shard

???

(???)

She didn’t lie… Damn it. She told the truth. The only question was what kind of skill she desired.

Keynes almost hesitated, taking out the Scroll of Identification from his dimensional pouch. His heart was beating hard. He was excited but also afraid that the skill wouldn’t meet his expectations. Who could say what kind of odd desires the leader of the White Masks harboured?

Keynes did it with his eyes closed and when he opened it, he blinked several times before he started maniacally laughing. He couldn’t stop even when his abdomen began to hurt.

Oh, but Wagner had been so freaking right. She got Keynes good. Her Talent was insane.

Skill Shard

Flight

(Level 2)