Chapter 206 (Patreon)

Chapter 206

Aster found herself sitting in a room similar to their living room, but there was one subtle difference.

Someone had forgotten to turn off the air conditioner, and everything was covered with a layer of frost.

Frankly, she needed to try that herself, but what really caught her attention were the six perfect scoops of ice cream sitting on the table.

One vanilla, one strawberry, one grape flavored, one mint with chocolate, one that smelled like spring, and finally, a scoop that seemed to change flavor every time she looked at it.

After sniffing each of them once more, she decided to start with the strawberry ice cream. She was pretty sure she knew what this one translated to as her reflection of life, and she wanted to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

***

A young fox hatched from her egg and shook herself on wobbly legs. A nice comforting warmth came out of her and seemed to heat up the air around her nicely.

Through her bond, she felt someone panicking a little and looked up to see her human.

Green eyes and blond hair met her own, and she felt an instant connection between herself and the other person.

It was her human!

In her excitement, her tail wagged, and she felt the area around her heat up even more, which felt really good, so she pushed that metaphorical muscle a little harder, yipping at the flames that came out of her fur.

Her human patted her with something red on his hand, which she curled into before falling over onto the ground, which she only now noticed was soft and springy.

Rolling over, she played a little on the crinkly-but-soft thing for a while, trying to understand it before her tummy rumbled, and she realized something was wrong.

She was hungry.

On instinct, she crawled over to her shell and quickly ate the red pieces of her former home, but it wasn’t enough, and she looked to her human for help.

Somehow, she knew he had an answer, and she whined to him.

Thankfully, she was right, and he had something that smelled really good in a bowl just for her.

With her hunger driving her, she dove in and started munching away at the small balls of crunchiness.

As she crunched away, she hummed in contentment.

It tasted so good! And every time the bowl got empty, her human somehow made more of the food appear.

Her human was the best!

Before she knew it, though, her stomach was full, and her flames were sputtering as she got sleepy.

Thankfully, her human picked her up and set her on his chest, where she curled and was able to hear the sound of his heartbeat thumping a lullaby to her as she fell asleep.

The next morning, everything was a whirlwind as her human brought her to explore her new surroundings between her naps.

It was great!

She got to burn down all sorts of stuff. Leaves, grass, a twig, his shirt, part of his pants, part of his bed that didn’t have the crunchy no-burn stuff on it, and best of all, a bug that tried to eat her. Its wings furiously trying to cut her up, but she put a stop to that with her flames!

She was a fearsome predator, and everyone knew it. That was why they always came and gave her scratches.

Clearly, because she was the bestest of foxes ever.

Things seemed to blur together for a while, as each day passed without much changes. But then, one day, everything changed as they went into a rift with giant bugs.

That was simply the best thing that had ever happened to her, as Aster was able to burn them to her heart's content, and her human once more showed his perfectness with his ability to recharge her mana.

With her new special backpack, she got to ride around and burn all of her enemies for her human.

It was the best!

The next few months were more of the same, and Aster enjoyed herself, but soon, everything changed when they were in the food place.

There was something warm and spicy served that day, and after watching her human eat a few mouthfuls, she waited for him to turn to his other food and lunged.

She got her entire muzzle into it and started lapping away, even as Matt tried to pull her from her prey, but she was in her happy place. She savored the soft mushy bits along with the tingling spice. Once he pulled her away, she pushed that feeling of perfection to her bond, trying to convince him to let her have some more.

Instead, he held her back while tapping away at his glowly pad for a while, but eventually, he proved why he was the best human ever, and let her eat the rest of the ‘chilly.’ An odd name for something so hot and spicy, but that didn’t take away from the food’s delight.

That started her lifelong love of the food, and it was a good thing, too, as the next place they went to fight monsters was full of evil ice wolves. They had far too much ice about them for anyone trying to live a healthy life.

So, she burned their entire forest down!

While it might be a little harder to get a fire started, the trees burn like any other once they got going.

Sadly, shortly after that, they left their home. It was a fun home, but they had to move on to another place that was far too cold for her liking, and someone got blood all over her fur, which was just rude.

Thankfully, she then washed Aster off, which made everything better.

That was how she met her new best friend, Liz!

Things got even better, if that was possible, when they met a bird woman who gave her the best chili in the world, along with some blood.

The bird woman’s blood mixed with the dragon's blood that they had found, and the fire running through it fed into the fire already in her blood, which was very nice of the lady.

Better yet, they went to meet Liz’s brother, who happened to be staying where an ascension would be taking place, which was where Aster was able to refine her own Concept.

Fire was hot, and if she got it hot enough, she could burn everything.

As her Concept settled into place, Aster felt something go weird with the world, so she poked at that feeling.

Like a hole was opened in her head, the real Aster took over and groused, “Come on Minkalla, a life as a fire fox? How unoriginal.”

Still, she wasn’t upset. Despite her reflection life being the antithesis of her real self, she enjoyed getting to watch how life had been when she wasn’t smart yet. That was fun and different enough that she was able to ignore the elephant on fire in the room.

Fire was not her element of choice, but she hoped that when Minkalla translated this life’s Concept to her own, it would be something useful, like being able to directly freeze fire. That could be a really nice surprise to any fire mages she did have to fight.

While she let herself fade into the background and let the life live on, she started noticing more and more deviation with the life, and actually started enjoying her other self's life a little. She even learned a few subtle weaknesses of fire mages that she hadn’t known before, and intended to put them to good use. Eventually, the fire version of herself reached Tier 15, and the life faded away and was like a dream she could enter and relive at any time.

But it wasn’t her and she wouldn't miss being a fire fox.

***

Liz looked at the table before her and the six cups of wine it held. She nearly sighed when she saw them.

How original, Minkalla, she thought as she rolled her eyes.

Nobody had ever associated wine with blood before- but at least they weren’t all red wine.

The first cup that caught her eye smelled like a holiday blend. There were hints of cinnamon and spice, and the concoction was heated and bubbling. A fire life if she had ever seen one.

Not a bad life, but as she checked the other cups, she frowned. The leftmost was a dark red wine in an elaborate chalice that she could only associate with blood and bad vampire movies. Not a pleasing choice at all, but maybe not the worst possible life either.

The next was a white wine that smelled like liquid sugar. Not a pleasant wine by smell, but hopefully the taste and life would be more palatable.

Next was a rosé wine that smelled like grass in the spring and had a slight green tinge when the light hit it just right, but she wasn't sure if that was the glass or the wine at first glance.

The purple cup smelled like fresh-picked grapes, and was no more enticing to her senses despite being normal for a wine. It was so normal, it stood out amongst the variety of odd wine choices.

The final cup was a white wine with a buttery scent, which was a mystery to her.

Wanting to get the worst over with, she grabbed the goblet of blood red wine and drank it down without trying to taste it.

A mistake, as it turned out, as a pleasant flavor was the last thing she remembered as she started to fall asleep.

***

The first thing Liz’s parents taught her was to hide.

Hiding was how to stay alive with the roving bands of higher Divinities who came through their little planet, ruthlessly killing anyone and sometimes everyone they encountered.

So, they stuck to the places without monster spawners and rarely, if ever, entered a town or village.

Not that those places lasted long.

Liz remembered half a dozen places that had once been thriving cities with thousands of people, but were now little more than holes in the ground at best, and poisonous remains that corrupted the land around them at worst.

She was nine when she asked why this was happening, and twelve when her parents actually answered her.

They called it Armageddon. The end of times.

The Immortal Ever Generous And Benevolent God King had been killed by the traitors, while the Ministers had revolted and the Great Wars had started.

Her father said that the Glorious Everlasting Kingdom of Prosperity was eating itself alive as factions rose up and fought for power.

The few other small groups they interacted with had a much simpler name for it.

The Shattering.

The shattering of their way of life. The shattering of everything they knew. The shattering of the stability they once had.

Liz felt the name was apt, even if she was too young to remember the few years of life she had lived before the God King's death.

All she knew was fear, hiding, and the threat of death being ever present.

When she was thirteen, her parents brought her to a monster spawner and took her inside.

There, they subdued the first monster and had her drive a blade into its chest.

It was a bloody event, as she missed the heart and the deer with metal antlers struggled furiously.

Liz thought it was her fear at first, but quickly came to realize that she had a connection with the blood seeping from the monster before her. With a thought, it rushed into her, and she felt bloated like the one time she ate an entire rabbit on her own.

Except, this came with a rush of power, rather than sleepiness.

It took some trial and error with her parents' help, but they learned she had the ability to absorb blood to empower herself, sacrificing the lifeblood of her foes for strength.

With that, she was able to kill beasts that were two full Mortal Realms higher than herself.

When she reached the 3rd Mortal Shedding, they learned what her second Blessing was.

Blood sacrificed to her was stronger and lasted longer.

Life seemed to settle down for a period of time, but then they came.

The invaders.

They called themselves the Liberators of the Fallen, but Liz and the other inhabitants of their homeworld knew them for what they really were.

Monsters in human flesh.

They took whatever they wanted, be it people for pleasure, the little food that they managed to gather, or the very clothes off their backs.

They also monopolized the monster spawners, allowing no one who hadn’t submitted to them to enter their depths.

Liz’s parents and a few others had a plan. They decided enough was enough, and intended to enter a monster spawner and never come out. They would set up a new life away from everything else.

It was a decision that they knew would doom them, which is why they hadn’t wanted to do so before. They had held out hope that things would get better, but now, they saw the truth. Nothing would get better. Only worse.

So, as the sentiment grew and spread through the scattered remains of the survivors, they decided to gather what supplies they could and then enter the monster spawner.

The decision of which monster spawner to enter was not something easily decided, and everyone had an opinion, but in the end, one was chosen that they felt could sustain them for at least two hundred years.

A long time for those in the lower Mortal Realm, but nothing for those above the 8th Shedding.

Their next challenge was gathering up what remaining domesticated livestock they had that wasn't under the control of the invaders.

Things seemed to be going well with their planning, and before long, they had five thousand families ready to move.

Liz and everyone else expected disaster to strike, and they were right.

The Liberators of the Fallen had gotten wind of their plans, and ambushed them right as they were going to enter the monster spawner.

Liz and her family were in the rear, as some of the stronger fighters, and they fought with everything they had.

It wouldn't have been enough if the Liberators of the Fallen hadn't been both arrogant and conceited in their abilities.

Instead of attacking them with their 1st Immortals, they sent their Junior Liberators, conscripts from the few villages and cities which had lasted to this point, and were firmly under their control.

Even as Liz battled with tendrils of blood and with her obsidian horn blade, she saw the Immortals laughing and jeering at their attempts at resistance.

Still, they fought and retreated into the monster spawner, and it must have been the last blessing of The Immortal Ever Generous And Benevolent God King because, against all odds, they made it.

Most of them did, at least.

There was only so much time before a monster spawner changed its world. Everyone knew that, and they had planned around that very scenario and practiced moving quickly through narrow gaps while avoiding clogging the entrance.

But things changed when they were forced into a fighting retreat.

Liz liked to think that they had done well. When the last three dozen of them entered the monster spawner, they were met with emptiness.

The forest was as they expected, but their friends and family were gone. Separated by the rules of the monster spawner and its separate worlds.

Liz and the other Low Mortals fell into depression for a time, but that didn’t last.

It couldn't.

They were still in a monster spawner six Sheddings stronger than themselves, and only seven out of their numbers had their First Understanding.

They wanted to leave the monster spawner, but knew that leaving so soon would only mean their death when they encountered the Liberators of the Fallen troops.

So, they fought the monsters, because what other choice was there?

It was there that for the first time, Liz learned just how useful blood could be, and the many ways her Blessing could be used.

Blood was life.

It was death.

It was healing and decay.

It was the bonds between comrades in arms.

It was the ties between brothers and sisters.

Blood was her.

Her first Understanding was born of the blood of monsters and her companions.

Nine months.

It took them nine months to clear the monster spawner of anything dangerous, nine months filled with blood and danger, but they learned and grew during that span.

Liz wasn’t entirely sure how it happened, but with her First Understanding, she became their group's hub, despite not being their strongest fighter. She wanted to reject it, but she knew they needed her.

So, they gave her blood to empower herself, and with her Understanding, she fed that power back to them. She healed them with their blood and used their blood to take out monsters.

But it wasn't perfect.

Nothing was.

They lost people during their campaign against the monsters.

They lost people to the demons inside them.

Each loss was unacceptable, but eventually, those who remained were hard like iron, and they were angry.

Angry at the Liberators of the Fallen who wouldn't just let them leave. Angry at the The Immortal Ever Generous And Benevolent God King and the ministers of the Glorious Everlasting Kingdom of Prosperity, who decided their own political ambitions were more important than the welfare of the little people.

So they hatched a plan.

At first, Liz was against it, but others showed her the truth.

She had the ability, so she needed to use that ability to take back their world.

So, two years after they entered the monster spawner, they left.

They had prepared for a fight with the Liberators of the Fallen, but no one challenged them.

That allowed the seventeen of them then moved like wraiths through the night and enter a city.

From there, it was easy.

One by one, they joined the Liberators of the Fallen.

At first, they didn’t do anything out of line, but once they were past the initial training and had earned a measure of trust of their leaders, they enacted their plan.

Liz and her sixteen Apostles of Blood.

They made up the core of their new faction, and were the pillars of their tenets.

Liz had refused to test it on her friends, but during their time in the monster spawner, she learned that her empowerment of blood could have more effects, even if they were subtle.

Like the Glyphs of Power, she could use her blood to make her own glyphs, and she used them to control the converts they recruited.

They gave her blood, and she gave them power in return.

What they didn’t know was that the social brainwashing that those recruits received was backed by Glyphs of Power.

It took nearly a decade, but they infected the Liberators of the Fallen from the inside out, until they were finally able to decapitate the local leadership and declare themselves a regional power standing on their own.

Liz led the battle, and as a Mortal in the 13th Shedding along with her Apostles, killed an Immortal at the 2nd Shedding through her believers' empowerment. That, more than any other act, had cemented her rule.

While some people found the sharing of blood distasteful, she and her Apostles spread their influence gently. At least for the civilians.

The former members of the Liberators of the Fallen weren’t given such liberties. They had two options. Become a member and accept a Glyph of Power carved into their skull, or be a sacrifice to empower the Apostles and Blood Queen.

Liz didn’t care about their fate. They were monsters, one and all, and she was determined to see them useful in life or death.

Things were never that easy, though.

Liberators of the Fallen were an operation that spanned seven different worlds, and they hadn't taken the loss of one of their worlds quietly.

They sent warships filled with conscripts and tried to rain down on her world and her people.

Liz used those same ships to rain blood down on their headquarters on the other planets.

One by one, they took over each of the Liberators of the Fallen, and saved all of them from tyranny.

There was always a cost, though. Seven of the Apostles had fallen during those battles with Immortals, but Liz knew them, and knew they gave their lives willingly.

They had learned the most important lesson early.

Change could only be enacted through bloodshed.

As Liz stood on her new capital at the 14th Mortal Shedding, she overlooked her people and watched as they each cut a small line on their forearms.

Their offering to her was absorbed and empowered her body and soul.

A drop of water might not be able to topple a dam, but a million could destroy even the mightiest of barriers.

Power flooded into her, and she looked out to her people. “We do not seek out to recreate the Glorious Everlasting Kingdom of Prosperity. I do not see myself as The Immortal Ever Generous And Benevolent God King reborn. I am your Queen. The Queen of Blood. Of binding! Of life! Of brotherhood! Of shared suffering, and shared loss!”

She took a breath and kept going reiterating her doctrines of Blood while her Apostles stood behind her, with seven notably empty spots.

When the event ended, they moved to the treasury. Not for their own wealth, but they needed to fix the economy that the Liberators of the Fallen had ruined with their ruthless exploitation.

Most everything was normal, but one thing caught Liz’s eye.

It was an old book she almost overlooked, but something caught her attention about it, and she flipped through the pages.

It was a book on old magic.

It spoke about the ways to control magic that didn’t necessarily need Glyphs of Power or Abilities from monsters spawners to function.

She almost dismissed it as irrelevant, as it was no secret that old magic was weaker, slower, and more expensive than Abilities or Glyphs of Power. That was until she saw the note about how blood and souls could be used to empower the old magic effects.

That caused her to stop her progression into Immortality, and she and the Apostles started delving into the old magic, or as they started calling it, unstructured magic.

It wasn’t the same as her using blood to boost the Glyphs of Power but instead, it was about harnessing the powers of the world with the soul.

Blood and sacrifice just made it that much stronger.

After they learned the tentative rules of this unstructured magic, the first thing they did was empty their dungeons of the remaining Liberators of the Fallen loyalists to create the strongest armor ever created for her Apostles.

Ten thousand bodies drained. Ten thousand souls captured. Ten million sacrifices of blood willingly given.

Together, they made twelve of the strongest sets of armor ever created.

They hoped to never need to use it.

That hope only lasted two years.

As Liz donned her blood-red helm, she looked up to see the Everte Republic ships in space above their planet.

Hearing she, the Blood Queen, was still a mortal, the other local powers had been circling like wolves, and the Everte Republic was simply the first to move.

She would show them the folly of their choice with the spear in her hand.

That thought caused Liz to pause. She had never wielded a spear before, and wasn’t now. She was a support mage who boosted her allies capabilities, not someone who fought on the front line.

She looked down to check, and for a second, a spear seemed to superimpose over her shield, and then her mind seemed to shatter as information flooded in.

Liz, the real Liz, took a deep breath.

This life had been scarily close to reaching Tier 15, and only hovered at the peak of Tier 14 for reasons she could only explain away by Minkalla ensuring she had more than a century to break out of the illusion.

Now that she knew what it felt like, she hoped it would be easier next time, but she was still shaken.

In only her first Reflection, and she almost lost herself.

The Blood Queen carried on with her war in the midst of the Shattering. An interesting time period, Liz felt, and not one she would have expected. Most interesting was her alternate self. Their Talents and Concepts weren’t that different, but the ways in which they each approached their magic was… interesting.

It bore consideration, if nothing else.

She wasn’t sure if using blood to empower runes would work in the real world, but it wouldn’t hurt her to try. And she knew just the person to help her experiment with runes.

How convenient.

For now, it was just time to see what Blood Queen Elizabeth could accomplish.

***

Susanne looked around at the house and paused for a moment.

It looked more like Matt, Liz, and Aster's reward house than her own, which was disconcerting.

Had she set down such ties with them in the last six months? She hadn’t thought so, but now that she thought about it, they were her closest friends.

Her initial reaction was to say that they were second to only her brother, but while he would always be family, he had never understood her drive and determination to make it on The Path. The reasons why she fought and bled day in and day out just to rush up the Tiers with a self enforced handicap.

Her brother was her only family, but he didn’t understand.

Matt, Liz, and Aster did.

She once heard the saying that ‘friends were the family you choose’ before, but today was the first time she actually realized it was both true, and could sneak up on you without really realizing it.

While she still fully intended to once more strike out on her own when they left Minkalla, she was now thinking that she would at least stay in correspondence with them.

The idea of not talking to them at all once they separated didn’t sit right with her.

Maybe she’d even visit Aster when she was sent off to the beast boarding school thing at Tier 15. The fox had told her how much she was worried about being separated from Matt and Liz, and maybe a visit could help.

Was that even possible?

She honestly had no idea, but intended to ask Carol about that once she left.

Returning to her mission at hand, she looked at the coffees.

They smelled fantastic. Each was a different roast and blend, and she rubbed her hands in anticipation.

The first she immediately recognized, and it made her pause. It was her parents' favorite blend. A simple, local blend from their home planet, but not something widely distributed. She wasn’t surprised that Minkalla had pulled it out of her mind, but was rather intrigued by its implication.

She knew herself well enough to know she wasn’t a puzzle solver and preferred a direct approach, but in her introspective mood, she wondered how that coffee corresponded to the life Minkalla would create for her.

The other coffees were more normal, though not normal.

Two were rare blends she thought she recognized but couldn't be sure, but the third coffee was strange. Something closer to an espresso, but not quite. It was smaller than normal, little more than a thimble, but her spiritual perception said it went on endlessly.

Odd, but what in Minkalla hadn’t been odd so far?

Deciding to keep things simple, she grabbed the first cup she’d seen and took a drink.

***

Susanne lived a happy life.

Everything was perfect.

Her mother was the ever-doting housewife and mother to her and her brother, while her father ran a delver training program.

When he came home, dinner was always on the table, and the kids sat down with them to all eat as a family.

It was the best part of her day.

Her father regaled her and her brother with stories of the delvers he trained. As a Tier 15, he was immortal, and always seemed to have something exciting happen while he was at work, so Susanne was endlessly fascinated.

Her brother, not so much. He would rather read one of the millions of books he always seemed to have or paint something, but Susanne was hooked on her father's words and wanted to be the one in the stories.

That brought them closer together, and while her father always tried to bring her brother into their shared time, he nearly always refused.

Susanne put in endless hours of training with her father's encouragement, but what she didn’t notice was the rift it was creating with her brother and her parents.

Even her mother, prone to her own desire for solitude, worried for her brother. He would retreat into his own quiet activities despite their every attempt to engage him.

They tried therapy. They tried joining in on the activities he enjoyed. They tried signing him up for any of the after school activities he showed even the slightest interest in.

Nothing worked.

Susanne grew tired of it.

She didn’t hate him. Really, she didn’t. He was still her brother, but he was ruining everything. Her parents argued more and more as the days went by, blaming each other for how withdrawn he became, but that just caused him to retreat into himself even further.

Until one day, he snapped at her when she called him down for dinner and demanded to just be left alone.

Susanne was so tired of it that she instantly agreed and slammed the door as she stomped down and out of the house.

If only she didn’t leave.

If only her father didn’t chase after her.

If only her mother was higher than Tier 5, and had stronger spiritual perception.

If only.

If any one of those things hadn’t happened, they might have been able to notice as her brother hung himself in his room.

If only.

That destroyed their family.

Her mother had to be checked into long term care, as she had tried to kill herself three times in as many days after her brother's suicide and was now catatonic.

Her father held it together for all of a week before he just vanished.

No one knew where he went.

There were no records of him entering a rift, no records of him leaving the planet through a teleporter. Not even a record of anyone exiting the planet through flight during the period he could have left.

He just up and vanished one day.

Gone.

Like everyone else.

That started the end of Susanne’s bad days. Not that things became better. No, things went from bad to downright awful.

As she was thirteen, Susanne took the offer of early emancipation, but her Talent turned out to be less than useful.

The ability to write prettily.

Useless.

But she wouldn't be.

Taking the offer of training from one of her father's old friends at his academy, she lived on the training fields for two years, honing her skills living off the family's savings.

Thankfully, as a Tier 15, her father's bank accounts were more than enough for her to live on, as long as she wasn’t buying dozens of skills.

At fifteen, she stepped into her first rift and slaughtered her way through it. It was a brutal fight, and she lost herself to the massacre for a while, but came out a calmer woman.

She couldn't change the past, but she could change the future.

Marcus, her father's friend, gave her two things when she came out of the rift that day.

A not so subtle eviction from the closet she had been living in at the academy, and a multitool.

The first was justified, and a long time coming, but the second stumped her.

She had always intended to follow in her father's footsteps and use a broadsword as her weapon of choice.

Marcus disagreed. “There’s a tool for every occasion, and it's up to you to find it. Your lack of a combat Talent frees you from the constraints of the rest of us. Take that, and never let yourself be limited.”

Those words struck her as profound, even if he probably didn’t mean it that way, and she left the academy and just started walking.

She walked for hours that night, though the city until her feet carried her to the teleportation platform.

It turned out to be good timing, as the teleporter was cycling a set of passengers in little under an hour.

Fortuitous.

With only a stop to use one of the local recharging stations, she sent Marcus a message that she was leaving the planet and just left, not looking back. What did she have to keep her there? A mother who couldn’t recognize her even on the good days, and was so heavily medicated on the bad ones? No, her mother was all but dead in spirit, even if not physically.

She didn’t see Marcus standing in the station as she left, or she would have been able to get one last look at the man who had been watching over her the last two years before he teleported across the planet.

If she had seen that, Susanne could have commiserated with him about wanting to get away from a place with so many memories.

If she had been able to see into the hotel room, she would have been able to see the man’s face slowly shifting into a familiar one.

Her father. Alive and well.

Just a coward, unable to face reality, but in a different way than her mother.

Susanne never spent more than a month in a single place. Sometimes she moved from planet to planet, and sometimes she simply moved from one hotel to another if she found a particular reason to stay, like a good trainer.

Otherwise, she moved.

She learned.

Every weapon she picked up she attempted to master.

It wasn’t a fast process, but by the time she saw the end of her first century, she was competent in nearly every weapon that existed. She was no master, but she was versatile, and good enough to practice on her own.

If she needed to fight a golem, she knew both heavy and light blunt weapon tactics. If she fought a slime, she knew the best way to wield enchanted weapons to maximize her kills per unit of mana spent.

Her proudest accomplishment came when she entered a Tier 10 Concept-less tournament and fought her way to first place.

She wasn’t the best fighter there, not by a wide margin. People had been training for centuries for it, but she would not be denied her prize. She knew the weaknesses of each of her opponents because she had fought like them, and she knew what they would struggle with. Her versatility brought victory, and victory brought her to a room holding a Shard of Reality.

As Susanne sat there in front of the forearm-long sliver of reality, she thought back to her life.

There were a million things she would change.

But that was impossible.

However, she could widen her arsenal.

Some days, she didn’t even know why she fought so hard, but she just refused to stop.

Some part of her refused to stop putting one foot forward.

She felt like she would die if she stopped, so she moved.

She progressed.

She grew.

She became more.

And it was that simple wasn’t it?

She was trying to outgrow her past.

If her father had been better, smarter, faster, none of the bad things would have happened.

The same went for her mother.

If her brother had just opened up…

If she hadn’t thought her irritation was more important than the obvious stress her brother was going through.

She was the real reason things had gone bad.

The linchpin of the entire situation.

The world didn’t revolve around her, but if she just had the right tool, she might have been able to solve the problem.

Susanne was versatile because, if she wasn’t, she couldn't keep herself together.

I am what the world made me.

As she felt around with that Concept, she disregarded it.

It was close but not right.

I am what I made me.

That clicked into place, and she felt something wash over her.

Except, even as that clicked into place, she felt something was wrong, and probed it like a sore tooth.

Susanne, the ascender, woke up and cursed the life Minkalla had just made her live.

It was like the last bitter dregs of her coffee, but without the enjoyment of the rest of the cup.

Her fist closed around… nothing. No sword appeared, and she tensed. She didn’t have her sword, and she had to fight against the panic that accompanied it. But no, there was no reason to panic, and she needed to relax.

This was just a dream. A figment of Minkalla’s imagination of what her life could have been like.

Even repeating it like a mantra unnerved her, and she wanted this life to end.

How much worse could the other lives get, when she had caused the death of her entire family?

***

Once Matt was sufficiently recovered from his emotional first life, he picked up the cup with blue filigree and caffeinated tea, and sipped it.

For a tea he knew he wasn't a fan of, it seemed better than he remembered, but he wasn’t able to appreciate it for more than a moment as he felt the world fading.

***

Matt looked at the result blinking on the screen in front of him. It was unbelievable, unacceptable.

Unchangeable.

He had done everything right. Followed every instruction. Pushed himself until the instructors forced him to rest. When his group of orphans turned nine, and the physical conditioning and rift training tests began, he never slacked off or skipped lessons.

The world seemed hollow and empty as he stumbled over to Miles, the head recruiter of Gavle’s Good Guilders, who stared at him with alarm.

“Ascender’s balls, Matt! What’s going on? I just got a notification saying your Talent isn’t up to recruitment standards.” Miles’ head swiveled around, and he whispered, “Get over here.” He reached out and snagged Matt’s arm and pulled him into a vacant conference room behind the recruiting stands.

“What happened? I can't see the exact details, but your application was just booted back by our AI with…”

Miles held up the pad currently displaying Matt's conditional contract into GGG. He scrolled all the way down to show a flashing red box with the words ‘applicant does not meet minimum requirements.’

“Is it really that bad?”

Matt looked at the contract while he debated what to tell Miles. Currently everything felt like a bad dream he was living again and again.

Swallowing Matt squeaked out, “Can’t cultivate mana at all.”

Without looking, he somehow knew Miles had frozen even before he said.

“Fuck.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck.”

Miles pressed his hands together in front of his face and started pacing again. Clearly deep in thought, he said, “There's not much I can do without getting both of us into trouble. If I show too much favoritism, other guilds might think I'm trying to create a spy to infiltrate another guild for us.”

Matt saw his world crumbling and tried one more time. “Is there nothing anyone can do?”

Saying that, he almost stopped listening, as he seemed to know the script of how this would play out. Miles would say no, and he would be out on the street.

Miles paced and seemed in deep thought before he finally threw out a lifeline to Matt. “There isn't much I can do. But there is still a chance!”

Walking over to the still shell shocked Matt, he shook him. When Matt didn’t respond he shook him harder.

“Get your shit together Matt.” Seeing he wasn’t paying attention, he said Matt’s name a few more times until Matt focused on him with a burning ember of hope reignited in his chest.

“The vice guild leader came over with us for a business meeting with the Junipers about getting rights to some of the inland rifts. If you can impress him, there is a chance you can still join the guild. He’s a melee fighter himself, and has brought in a few kids who had shown nothing more than skill with a blade before. It was a last minute decision for Connor to come over and I almost forgot. This is your shot Matt.”

As Matt brimmed with eagerness, Miles patted his shoulder. “Stay here and get yourself together. He’ll be back in a few hours, and I’ll get you in front of him. That's your chance, and I think it's a good one. I’ve seen you fight, and you're good with a blade.”

Miles then led Matt to a small sparring room in the awakening facility and told Matt to prepare.

It felt like years later when Connor Daniels walked through the door and Matt jumped to his feet.

Miles followed the large man into the room and widened his eyes at Matt, who jumped forward and stuck out his hand.

“I’m Matt, sir. I, um, uh, got a bad Talent, but I think I’d still be useful to the guild. I’m good with my blade, and even without spells, I can be useful.”

Feeling like he fumbled the introduction, Matt swallowed and hoped things wouldn’t go badly because of it.

Connor didn’t seem to mind, as he silently took Matt’s hand and shook it before, in his left hand, a longsword appeared from nowhere.

He gently tossed it to Matt, who quickly disengaged from their handshake to catch the blade and step back.

It was a good thing, as it turned out, because it gave him enough time to block the blade coming at him from his offside.

Connor swung the blade slowly, like someone swinging a willow branch, but the impact jarred Matt’s hands.

That broke Matt out of his funk, and he blocked the next two strikes and lashed out after countering the third strike, landing a blow on the man's left hand.

Matt jerked back in surprise and horror as he stammered, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

Connor didn’t pause in his next attack, but showed Matt his palm even as he attacked.

Matt ducked, but nearly stumbled as he saw the uninjured palm and realized his mistake.

Connor was obviously a high Tier, as he was the vice guild leader of GGG. That was a Tier 10 guild, and he knew Glave was Tier 15, so the vice guild leader had to be at least Tier 10. He shouldn’t have been surprised that he couldn't hurt the man so casually.

With that dilemma settled, Matt was able to focus entirely on fighting the other man, and felt like he gave a good showing of his abilities.

Connor spent five minutes allowing Matt to attack and then pushing him back on the defensive to test both of his abilities. They had fought around the small training room several times before Connor stepped back and his sword vanished.

“You're pretty good with that blade, kid. Consider your contract accepted with the old conditions. No new restrictions or reduction in recruitment bonuses. Don’t let your Talent define you.”

With that, he gestured to Miles and then vanished out of the nearby door.

Matt was about to ask what he should do with the blade that the other man had handed him, when Connors voice came through the still closing door like it was carried on the breeze. “Consider the blade an appreciation gift for your skill with it.”

Miles seemed as relieved as Matt was, and the older man smiled and reached out to shake Matt’s hand, but he pulled the recruiter into a hug as all the stress and worry fled from him.

Matt felt an odd sensation and probed it like a sore tooth, and the real Matt woke up.

He was joining a guild.

That was so odd, he couldn't really adjust to the idea, but he was excited to see how this life played out, and let the life continue with him watching as things sped by.

Holding back tears, Matt got out, “Thanks, Miles. You saved my life.”

Miles patted his back twice before they pulled back at the same time, and Miles slapped his arm. “I knew you could do it. It was all your skill and a bit of luck that Vice Leader Connor was here. I couldn’t make the same decision even if I wanted to.”

“Still, you could have just sent me on my way and not asked Vice Leader Connor to test me at all.”

Miles waved that off and brought out his pad with the contract on it. “Alright, Matt, let's go over your contract now.” Miles looked up and around to the training room before adding. “Actually, let's go back to the meeting room where we can sit down like civilized people.”

It took them close to two hours to go over all of the documentation and signing everything, and what felt like an eternity later, Matt had signed the next ten years of his life away to the guild.

It wasn't that he couldn’t leave before that, but if he did, he would need to pay back all the guild’s bonuses and a small penalty, depending on how much they had spent versus how much he took from them over the time he was with him.

As he had no intention to leave them, Matt wasn’t worried.

He knew how lucky he had been in the guild accepting him, and wasn’t going to be an ingrate for that.

Breakfast the next morning got a little weird, and vice guild leader Connor gave everyone an offer to join the guild in establishing a new base deeper inside the continent. Anyone who didn’t wish to go with the set up group was given the opportunity to head to the headquarters, but only three people chose to go back to Nardak, where the guilds main base was, while everyone else decided to stay.

Three days later, they were joined by a dozen new faces who all felt strong, who Vice Leader Connor introduced as their new trainers and guards.

With them, they boarded a bus that, to everyone's shock, took off from the ground and flew.

The flight took them hours, but they eventually arrived in a forest that looked like any other, but higher in elevation.

Matt and all of the other newly awakened were shocked by the sight of magic building being their new housing, but it also served to drive them to help furnish their new buildings with excitement instead of drudgery.

As the sun was setting, they gathered around the open area in the middle of the houses and started a fire, where they ate dinner and listened to the higher Tiers talk about the rifts they had delved.

It felt homey and comfortable.

Being a part of a larger group of friends and comrades felt… natural.

It took another two days, but the Tier 10s started splitting them into teams and training them based on the rifts that were around them, and they would be delving.

It was real, tangible progress, and everyone worked hard. When they were finished with their duties, they played hard too.

A month later, they started delving, and even though the supervision of one of the Tier 10s meant they got little to no essence, that was ok. All of them made mistakes in the first delve that would have cost them injuries from the kobolds they faced.

Matt leaned into his role as a frontliner, and despite not loving having to use a shield and smaller sword, knew it was his best choice, so he didn’t complain.

He was walking away from the food line when he overheard vice guild leader Connor saying they needed the next shipment of mana stones sooner rather than later, when an idea came to Matt.

While he had disregarded his Talent after reading the can’t cultivate mana, he had been able to rethink things as he calmed and was surrounded by his new friends.

Even 1 mana a second wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t much compared to a normal mage in a single instant, but no Tier 1 mage could keep that output going for even two minutes.

And Matt could do it forever.

At least in theory.

He had never tried it beyond charging his pad.

Shuffling his feet, he felt awkward interrupting the vice guild leader, but didn’t need to, as Connor looked up almost instantly and asked. “Is there something I can help you with, Matt?”

Matt felt like he really shouldn't be telling anything this for some odd reason, but ignored that feeling to say, “I, um... Can I talk to you privately, please?”

Connor shoved the pad he was typing at and stood up, and led Matt to the guild officer's rooms, where he gestured for Matt to sit down at one of the tables in the common room.

“Is someone bullying you or something, Matt?”

That question took Matt aback, and wondered where that came from, but then understood Connor thought this was Matt trying to complain.

“No, nothing like that, sir. I heard you saying you needed the next set of mana stones sooner than later, and I thought I could help.”

Vice guild leader Connor looked at him strangely and asked, “I thought you couldn't cultivate mana at all? 100 mana isn't nothing, but it's useful for you as well.”

Matt shook his head. “I only have 1 mana, but my mana regeneration is different from others. When my mana is nearly empty, I regenerate my maximum mana per second. So, I, um… regenerate 1 mana a second now.”

Connor went from looking dismissive to leaning forward, and he brought out a rechargeable mana stone and charging device before asking, “Can you fill this then?”

Matt took them and sent his mana into it over the course of three minutes, the stone filled up, where Matt handed it back to the man who looked like a kobold who had been run through.

He looked from the stone and then to Matt and back down a few times before asking. “You’ve had this Talent the whole time? And you only said you couldn't cultivate mana?”

Matt shrugged awkwardly. “That seemed more important, as it was why it was a detrimental rating.”

Connor closed his eyes before he reached out and slapped Matt on the back of his head. It didn’t hurt, but it surprised Matt, and he looked at Connor, who had his eyes still closed.

“Matt, you might be the dumbest smart person I have ever heard of.” Taking a deep breath, he continued, “Would you let me see the actual readout your Talent had? I think that will be easier than us talking around it.”

Matt sent the vice guild leader the information while the real Matt watched and waited to see his reaction as an observer.

Connor sighed. “Kid, if you had said the second portion of your Talent at the recruitment center, you would have been recruited by every guild with an incredible bonus. That, or you would have been kidnapped and stuffed into a box.”

Matt felt a jolt of fear, but seeing Connors relaxed attitude while he was explaining things, Matt felt the fear pass quickly.

“I wish you had said something earlier, as it's now our top priority to get you to Tier 3 as quickly as possible. You might not know about detrimental Talents, but I do. Most, or at least a good portion, are ‘fixed’ at Tier 3, or possibly Tier 25. If your Tier 3 allows you to expand your mana pool, think about how much mana you could make a day? If you wanted to just sit on your ass, you could be richer than the guild leader in a few months. If you wanted to delve, you could be one of the strongest mages ever.”

Matt felt excitement at the idea even as Connor continued, “Though, without armor skills, it will be hard to keep you safe. If you want my two cents, I think you would make an incredibly strong support mage. Your melee skills would keep you safe from anything attacking you, but you would be able to cast spells and buff the other fighters around you. It would make you the leader of your team. At least, that’s my idea. How does that sound to you?”

The vice guild leader let that offer sink in, and Matt thought it over.

He liked the idea.

He had never thought he could be both a mage and a leader, but it sounded really nice.

Power to help others and himself.

And if his Talent fixed itself, he might be able to become a mage properly.

“I'll do it.”

Things seemed to move quickly after that.

Matt was changed to another team who carried him through Tier 3 rifts twice a day until he was Tier 3 just months later.

When his Tier 3 Talent did, in fact, fix his cultivation issue, Matt decided to lean into the fact he was a perfect backline mage.

Instead of returning to his former team, he joined other Tier 3 teams as a floater and temporary leader, both boosting their damage and increasing the speed in which they could delve as he kept everyone full of mana.

Before long, more and more resources were being poured into him as they started using him to refill the rifts they used to delve, allowing even the higher Tiers to advance faster.

When he reached Tier 10 himself, he was promoted to third in command as a vice guild leader, after he stated his intentions to stick with Glaves Good Guilders instead of jumping to a higher Tier guild, or striking off on his own.

GGG was his family, and he wanted to see them become the strongest guild in the Empire. And with his Talent, it was possible.

First, they Tiered up their own rifts on Nardak and delved to advance their Tier 10s, before striking it out to a newly settled Tier 17 planet to establish a new guild headquarters, after converting the old ones to independent feeder guilds.

There, they advanced as a whole, powered by Matt’s endless mana.

At Tier 12, he completed his Concept, which gave him some ability to pass off both his physical cultivation to others, along with a small portion of his mana regeneration.

That further boosted their delving capabilities, and soon, they were delving up two Tiers once a week, not having to wait for their mana stores to recharge. They could have delved faster, but they still had to manage the guild and see to its smooth growth.

They were currently discussing their ideas on their plans on expanding the guild after Matt reached Tier 15, and were looking at possible planets they could move to while at his Tiering up dinner, where he would reach Tier 15.

While they were excited for the future that another doubling of mana would bring them, Matt— the real Matt— knew it meant the end of this life.

The entire idea seemed almost anathema to his current self, and he was surprised that he hadn’t been captured or forced into leaving the guild for a stronger power. They weren't subtle at all about his Talent in this life, and he strongly suspected that Minkalla had been pulling the strings to ensure things came out this way.

That, or the Emperor was taking a hands off but protective approach to him.

It was also a nice glimpse into what was possible with his mana once he created his own guild, and some of the pitfalls to avoid that the growing guild had run into.

The Concept was useful, and he could only hope that it transferred over to his real self in a similar way. The transferring of mana wasn’t anything new, but the ability to share his strength would be useful to boost Liz, Susanne, and even Aster in basically every fight. Even more so when he had more mana than he could reasonably use in a fight.

Even as the life ended with him Tiering up, he was still surprised things had gone so smoothly.