Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler :

Voice got a bunch of skills for upgrading his stats to 50. He also found Susan’s hut, and two mysterious figures approached her hut from different sides. Kretchof convinced a magician to work for Voice, and sign a soul binding contract.

Thanks to Via, the contest winner, for the Soul Musician. I will be taking a few liberties with the character, since I want him to fit perfectly in the story. A lot of out of game description was given, but not a lot of in game personality. So I am going to make it up as I go, within the confines of what the character would actually seem to do.

Also thanks to Dumac for BigBadWolf. It’s going to be very interesting to see two of the participants enter the story at one time.

Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment!

Kretchof’s POV

The girl proved to be a quick learner. The tasks I gave her weren’t simple by any means, but she accomplished them. She reminded me of a lesser version of my master. Anything I threw at her she would go at with full force.

She said the reason she was here was to accomplish a test given to here by the ones that created our realm. She was supposed to conquer something that had never been conquered. Her party thought to break through my master’s dungeon. Foolhardy and stupid. But that would be beaten out of her.

I sent her out to gather more of the otherworlders, and she brought in two more in just the first day. After she helped them conquer a bit of the dungeon, I had my skeletons ‘kidnap’ her. When the party tried a daring rescue, they were all slaughtered mercilessly.

She could at least make good bait for the master. She picked up on the necromantic arts quickly, perhaps because she was a mage before signing the contract. She quickly learned to summon the lowest level of undead zombie. The shuffler wasn’t very powerful, but it was only a start.

If she proved useful enough in gaining exp for my master’s dungeon, I planned on telling my master about her. If she didn’t…, well let’s just say she didn’t sign that contract on my whim. I would make sure she wouldn’t have anyone to turn to.

Over the course of several days, she lured in dozen of otherworlders. They were all very keen to help a pretty young woman. The fact that she would betray them didn’t seem to cross their minds. The exp my master’s dungeon gained was enormous. The amount of loot dropped was decent. Master would be pleased by the high amount of enchanted equipment I had gained for him.

The dungeon gained enough experience to level up to level 3 by the end of the first few days. After increasing several traps and making the overall difficulty of the dungeon higher, I went about introducing the girl to the shrine of Davros. Even the great god Davros was under the control of my master. Every wish Davros granted had to be approved by Master, so I did not allow her to wish for anything.

I planned on making her one of the dungeon’s guardians when she became powerful enough. That still wouldn’t be for a while though. I was teaching her how to steal undead minions from others, a trick one of the necromancers in the demon’s army tried to use several times. That way she would even be able to use the undead I generate to better guard the dungeon. Master’s reign would be soon to start.

Voice’s POV

The minstrel and wolf man glared at each other for a time. They slowly approached Susan’s hut, and started requesting supplies. They took turns, one after the other, as if they were in a trance.

I looked at Susan. “?”

She smiled as she whispered the explanation. “The first day these two found me, they tried to attack each other, but I wasn’t having any of that. I told them they had to be peaceful around here or they wouldn’t get any supplies.

After that they tried to get the things they needed by shouting over one another. I again told them to calm down. Now they take turns asking for things. Each day one of them asks first, the next day the other one will.”

I nodded. It was a good system to think up. I was actually surprised she could do something like that. I’d have thought she would be too focused on making chemical equations to actually use her brain for anything else.

The two men seemed to notice me after they had placed their orders. They almost drew their weapons, but a quick glare from Susan stopped that.

I quickly analyzed the two men, while Ancestor studied them. Since I could see approximate values of different stats, it wasn’t a big leap to tell what kind of general class each had.

The guy with the lute had excessively high charisma, so much so that I couldn’t read it, but his other stats were rather low. The only one of note was wisdom which was at 204. That was pretty impressive for a bard type.

The problem was his items. His clothing was fairly run down. Usually to make money bards would team up with other players. If this guy wasn’t part of groups he couldn’t make money, which would explain the sloppy attire.

I had figured out that not many people wanted to put time into the more magical classes, but a bard should be in high demand. Unless of course there was a better class suited to using buffs and debuffs. Besides mine I mean.

The aura of wind was probably used to either help buff, or applied to the music somehow. His name was just Johnny.

The wolf man, cleverly named BigBadWolf, had strength, agility, dexterity, endurance and vitality. There was no way of knowing what his class was except for some type of physical combatant.

He seemed to carry himself like a veteran warrior though. So he was probably either really into role playing, or had some outside training.

If I could see his stats better I would have been able to come up with a better idea what class suited him best.

After they ordered their supplies, and paid for them, they began to leave. Quickly formulating a plan, I approached Johnny.

“Wait for a moment traveler!”

My commoner’s outfit loosely hung from my body as I ran to him. I faked a gasping breathe when I reached him.

“*Gasps* Hello there Johnny.” He turned around with an angry expression. “I’ve come to battle you. To test your strength. If you are good enough, I may even let you join me.”

“What!? Are you going to kill a one pointer? Go ahead, but I’ll make sure to take you down with me!”

He readied his harp angrily. Really? What are you going to do? Lull me to sleep and cut my throat?

He was a little quick on the draw. Something must have happened while he was playing the game, or maybe he just had a shitty life. Maybe this is good. I can use this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnKhsTXoKCI This is the song he is playing.

As he played his music, Ancestor forced inspect on me. I saw the mana around us distorting. The mana started convulsing into forms, and shot into the ground. The wind around him was taking forms to amplify his music, and seemed to even slightly add in other instruments.

I continued to watch, my interest peaked at seeing someone else use magic. The ground began to crack. A mound of dirt began to from. The mound cracked, and from it, an object emerged.

A boney hand reached towards the sky. The ground fell away revealing a skeletal figure. Mounds started appearing everywhere. Many more skeletons were pulling themselves up from the ground.

My mouth hung open. He can summon fucking skeletons!? Oh man, I am SO about to own this little shit.

Dozens of skeletons were slowly walking towards me. “You know,” I interjected, “I could have stopped you as soon as you started.” I just needed him to know that.

I decided to play with him a bit though. He was too quick to attack, I needed to fix that.

One of the skeletons swung its rigid arm at me. I easily parried it with my staff. I sent a single wisp of fire/wind mana from the tip of my staff. The flames quickly devoured the undead.

The amount of undead I had to kill was raising. More and more were raising up every second. Man It’ll be great when I get this guy on my side.

I continued to slaughter the massive amount of undead he was summoning. Some were crushed by earthen orbs, some were burnt, others were simply purified with divine light.

It was a fun experience to say the least. Slowly the song started to die down. The undead began to get stronger, and faster. I had to keep up a wind barrier to avoid getting hit.

I had four on me at a time by now. I could block them since I had buffed my agility and dexterity, but it was difficult. I had to constantly stall for time so I could regen enough mana.

Suddenly I began to feel sluggish. This old ass song was starting to effect me too. I started getting a headache. A bad one. I felt the urge to follow him. NO!

I would not be controlled against my will! I blasted all of the undead away from me with a tornado of wind. I clogged my ears with a bit of wind mana, and flew towards the bard.

As I flew, I unsheathed the swords held in my staff. I put on up to his throat. In a condescending voice I said, “You did well enough, but you had too many openings. It was boring when you tried to take control of me. You should really choose better music that hurt my ears.”

Ancestor finally spoke up. “Voice! I’ve finally figured it out. Both of the men were ones that fled the battle!”

Oh really?

“You know,” With my sword up to his neck he had no choice but to listen to me. “I saw when you ran from the battle with the hermit the other day. Why was that? You a scared little bard?” I made an overly exaggerated sad face, much like a clown might.

His face twitched in annoyance. Good.

“I have a deal for you. “ He didn’t change his expression. “You seem to be good at playing music. How about you tell me about your past a little bit. Then we can go from there.” If Ancestor and I could think up a way to use him while he told his story, I’d let him live.

Johnny’s POV

Fine, but I know your kind. You’ll just kill me afterwards anyway.

It all started when I was a kid. When I heard my first symphony I was amazed. I took to it instantly. My parents readily agreed to allow me to take lessons. I learned everything from acoustic guitar to piano to flute to tuba.

It was great. At one point I heard other music besides what played in the classical symphonies. I took to those as well. But my parents didn’t want me to learn those instruments, because they were ‘uncouth’. I took to that music with a passion I’d never felt.

So I secretly taught myself how to play. Eventually my parents found out though, and made me quit to ‘focus on my studies’. Well it’s ten years later and I’ve graduated college, got a job, and have very little free time. I am a music professor at a university that I live near.

It’s ok, but I only have a few free hours each day. Since it’s summer I have time off, but once the school year starts I don’t have any. When I heard about DIVE I couldn’t resist, I bought it right away.

My time here wasn’t what I expected though. No one wanted a bard to join their parties. They had NPC healers to help. The music only gave small buffs to stats, so they never thought it was worth it.

Eventually I started to play in inns just to make it by. After a week of non stop playing for tips I got a notice. I had been playing songs that randomly came into my mind when it happened. I unlocked a special class.

It was called the Soul-Musician. Any thing I felt was transferred through my music. It became easier to buff, debuff, and generally cast magic.

I would use the emotions the songs made me feel to cast spells.

‘Voice thought to himself, Oh, so he’s basically like a force mage but with music as a medium? Interesting. ’

After I obtained the class, I got a message from DI. Here I am. My group basically wanted to use me for bait, but the old hermit and his group didn’t go for it. I decided to run instead of helping them out. They had just been using me anyway.

Voice’s POV

I scoffed. Of course they had been using him. Everyone uses everyone else. The only thing that matters is whether or not you are better at it than the other person.

“Alright. I’ve decided. I’ll let you live, if you team up with me.”

He gave me a disbelieving look. He spoke. “The only reason I talked this long was to get my magic. Now DIE!”

He began playing again, but I severed the strings of his lute with a razor sharp blast of wind. “Ah ah ah. That’s not very nice you know. I have more power than you. I just wanted to give you a chance to follow me of you own volition. Guess I shouldn’t have done that.”

He pulled out another lute. Guess a musician always needs to be prepared.

I decided to let him play a bit, just to show him the futility of it. As the mana started coursing through the air, I absorbed all of it. He was playing a song from the band Dragonforce, a very old band. He seemed to have a thing for bands that had been around a few decades ago.

The mana that shot towards me was obviously meant to debuff me. As it flew towards me, I dismantled it, and absorbed it. I looked at him, bemused. “Well that was anti climactic.”

He began to play another song, but sent a small burst of fire at his fingers. They caught right away, and leapt onto the instrument. The lute turned to ashes in seconds. Johnny’s fingers received dark black scarring from the flames.

“Using emotions and music to control mana is all well and good, but you really shouldn’t under estimate the ability of the logical thinker.”

If he was going to try to best me with an ability similar to my own, I was going to show him how weak he truly was. He began to sing. The mana again started to form according to his whims. “Nope, not having that.”

If wind was aiding his magic, I’d take that away. I summoned SparrowHawk, and with the added support, stopped all wind mana around the man. His music tried to excite the mana around him, but with no medium to go through it was all just random words spoken to the void.

“You see, I’m much better at this kind of thing than you are Johnny boy. And unfortunately for you, I’ve found you useless. Time to go.”

I summoned Drake, and took out all of the fire mana, both in his body and around it. The small orb that lacked heat began to crystalize from the sudden temperature drop. He tried humming, but the cold made it a shivery melody-less noise.

I smirked at him. “Come try to fight me again when you are a bit better prepared. Fucking loser.” With that one last insult I impaled the poor bastard with several earthen spears. After watching his body fade away, I looked and saw I had gotten an extra point.

I might have felt a little bad for the guy, but he had tried to beat me with my own abilities! He deserved it.

I went back to the hut, and began to help Susan collect the herbs my fairies had planted. I made several potions, after I bought the glass vials from Susan. I made enough potions to fill several dozen vials. I talked it over with Susan, and she would let me sell them.

I marketed them for the same price as her potions, but mine were a little bit more powerful. She was using more potent ingredients after all.

I decided to let others where Susan was staying, so that I could make a bit more money. Of course I would have my fairies create enough defenses to allow me to protect the area I was planting.

Susan would obviously be living in that area as well. I had about a day to fully upgrade the defenses. I had my fairies all come out, and start the construction. The first thing on the list was a job for Moro and Eli.

They pushed the trees far enough away to actually start construction on a large estate. I cleared out a small area for another hot spring, and had Drake absorb the fire mana in the forest around the area. Drake put the fire mana deep underground, and began the process of heating the hot spring.

Without Eli to help it would take too long to create a stone home, so I began to help Golem, the metal fairy, create spikes behind where the moat would go. We enchanted the spikes to have extra attack power, and even barbed them.

We worked in a circle, following the path that Eli and Moro were clearing out. The monkey seemed to like riding the trees and jumping around as they moved.

By the time night fell, the trees had been pushed far enough away so as to not hinder the moat or large house I intended to build. After they were done I had Moro search for any camps of people. I gave Moro several bombs, and even some poison I made for the occasion.

Moro seemed overjoyed to be able to sow mischief. It was pretty cute. I bet Moro would do well in my world.

I sent SparrowHawk to scout the area while Eli and Moro moved the trees. When they were finished, I had the bird escort Moro. Two cute things is better than one.

Eli helped me in creating the moat while building the house. I worked throughout the night making it. I made sure to draw the earth mana from the area I wanted the moat to be. I had Sol and Tear go around and sprinkle healing water on all of the plants.

Golem was charged with increasing the potency of my blades using its ability to enhance metal mana. Using Golem like this meant I’d never have to actually work on the upkeep of my weapons.

Eli and I finished the house just as the sun broke over the horizon. It had 8 rooms and an entryway on each floor, and 2 floors. The first floor had been designed to accommodate guests, as well as the storage and preparation of food.

The second floor was to be used for sleeping. Of course it didn’t have any furnishings, but I could always make most of those things with my earth mana.

When dawn came Moro and SparrowHawk returned as instructed. I looked at my points. I had gained 9. I was worth a total of 512 points. There was about 4500 or so points.

That meant I had to at least get 2251 in order to assure victory. I was a long way off of that mark. I only had 124 so far. Going after the small fry wasn’t getting me anywhere. I decided to try and catch a big fish.

If I could defeat a group that only had two members, then I’d gain 512 points. The same amount as someone would get from killing me. With that I’d be about a fifth of the way to my goal.

Of course that assumed that no other groups were smart enough to actually beat groups with less people.

Susan was astounded by the quick turn around the area had done. She seemed most interested in how I got the trees to move out of the way. I explained the process had to do with manipulating natural energies, but didn’t delve too deeply into it.

At noon the wolf man arrived. He seemed lost as he looked for the fellow with the lute. Too bad you’re next fucker.

I ran to the moat to greet the man. He was suspicious, but didn’t draw his weapon. His fear of losing the shop outweighs my threat. Good.

I had been afraid he would still attack me when he noticed the musician was gone, but thankfully he didn’t. I was standing outside of the moat, near the forest not the house.

When he approached I began to talk to him. “Hello again! I’m Susan’s Apprentice! I’ve come to try to sell the potions I made! Want to try one?” I handed him one of the potions I had made. I changed the option in the menu to not say ‘Made by Voice0fReason’.

He looked at me suspiciously. “Identify!” I was hoping he wouldn’t do that. I guess since everyone was given the skill some would use it. Glad I actually gave him the potion and not the poison I had planned.

I patted the poison vial in my pants.

If I had tried that this whole thing would have blown up in my face. He looked at me after examining the potion. “Hm, seems good, but I am fully healed. How do I test it?”

I unsheathe the blades from my staff, and walked towards him. “I can cut you if you want. Or you can just take it back to camp and but some more tomorrow.”

His health was ridiculously high, so there was no way I could kill him in a head on battle. I had to be sneaky about it.

He held out a hand, but put the other on the pommel of his sword. “Fine, but be careful.”

I nodded as I weakly cut his palm. He sighed as he took my blade and made a large gnash on himself. He handed the blade back, and drank the potion.

Shit! He didn’t even grimace. Even if the pain is at 1% it should have hurt like hell with Golem’s metal mana coating this thing! This guy is some sort of freak.

I smiled pleasantly as he drank the potion. I eagerly awaited his response. “Hm, this seems a bit better than the other merchant’s, how did you do it?”

I proudly smiled. “She’s been working on other things most of the time. I’ve had time to perfect just one type of potion. She could still destroy me with the others.” I smiled a downcast smile.

“But you liked it right? How about I give you a discount? I’ll only charge the same price as Ms. Susan does!”

He gave me a shrewd look. “And does Ms. Susan know you’ll be undercutting her prices?”

I looked confused, “Undercutting?” I feigned not understanding the word. “What do you mean?”

“You are putting your prices under what competitive products cost.”

I looked at the ground and scuffed my shoe. “Oh, well actually Ms. Susan told me to put it at that price. She said something about it not selling well since I’m not a ‘known entity’.”

He nodded in understanding. A harmless apprentice was just giving him a sample so he could spread his name. Nothing was strange about that.

“Alright, how many do you have right now?” [i]Good now I just need to reel him in.

“I have a few dozen made now, but I could have up to a hundred made by tomorrow!” I happily ‘overstated’ the amount I could produce. In reality I could make many more times that, but an apprentice would only be able to make a fraction of that.

I had already stayed up for an entire day, so I would need to sleep soon. Technically one could stay up for 80 hours in a row in the game world without bother, but then they would need to sleep to sleep for 40 hours straight.

That was not what I planned to do. I was going to try my best to keep a good schedule, that way my body and mind were in optimum condition at all times.

The wolf man looked as though he had come to a decision about something. “Fine, if you can make at least 100 healing potions by tomorrow I will buy them all, if you can’t then I refuse to buy from Susan again. If her apprentice overstates what he can do, then I can’t trust her either, now can i?”

I looked at the vial that he held, then back at him. I ran across an earthen bridge I created as I went. I threw myself into the stone house, and calmly told Susan the wolf guy wanted to see her.