My body sinks into a large hot spring bath.

  It’s night already.

  I spent most of the day looking around the base and the quartyard, and it was amazing.

  This whole mountain has been carved out and reinforced to allow everyone in this organization a specific room designated for their cause. Each group had their own goals, but everyone came under Kuroha’s leadership.

  It was surreal to see, since only a few weeks ago I saw her as nothing but an npc, a piece of code, in my mind.

  As I soaked, the door to the hotspring opened. Kuroha and Mika were there, with towels that wrapped around them.

  I didn’t even look away.

  I meant no disrespect however I never thought I’d see the day when I saw my followers' nearly nude body. It was even more proof that this is no longer the game I knew.

  Kuroha made no attempt to cover her hourglass figure after letting her towel drop to wash herself, but Mika was highly embarrassed in the moment.

  I also noticed that Mika's ten tails, actually branch out from a singular base of the tail, like a flower.

  Mika shot me a look of annoyance at me staring.

  “Why is Mika with you?”

  “Oh, cause I thought my daughter spending as much time with you as possible would greatly benefit her. Since she is to be your guide from now on.”

  “Guide?” I questioned.

  “Yes, she will be with you anywhere, so might as well get through any embarrassing moments in the beginning so if you ever need to leave together, you both won't have troubles.”

  I don't exactly know what she's planning, but I'll let future me deal with that.

  They both walked into the water and sat a foot away from me.

  I couldn't help but steal glances towards Kuroha.

  Kuroha looked at me and chuckled. “And here I thought my body would finally lure your eyes, it seems I was right.”

  I rub the back of my head awkwardly, “I’m just surprised you’re not embarrassed like Mika.”

  She crossed her arms in a fit. “Please, I have spent decades gaining the courage to have you witness all of me. I’m not the same little girl you knew.” Her pouting was cute and a complete one eighty from her professional side.

  I looked over to Mika who was just soaking in the water then went back to Kuroha. “So it seemed you got pretty busy after I left.” A mischievous smirk spread across my face.

  She was startled and put her hands up as if to reason with me and correct the implication. “I never did such things.”

  “But isn’t Mika your child?”

  “Yes, she is my child.” Her ears drooped as if cautiously stating the next, “Out of nine.”

  If I had water in my mouth, I’d have spit it out then and there. “NINE?!” I wiped my face from the water I splashed, “Who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Well…” She paused suspiciously, “There were multiple men.” Before I could even get a reaction in, she held up her hands again. “Don’t worry, I never let any man touch me in that way. It was more of a ritual. I held competitions to get the strongest and best warriors together, and the winner would be who’s… energy I would take in.”

  “Mother!?” Mika's face reddened due to the implications.

  〈Kuroha really didn't want to spell it out like that huh? But oddly I feel weirdly disgusted.〉

  “However, it was done via procedure because my virginity is for one man only.” She proclaimed that last part brazenly and looked at me before turning her head away in embarrassment.

  Even with that, I couldn't get rid of this unease in my gut. “How come you wanted children to begin with?”

  She paused before she answered. “Well, It was a necessity for my survival.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Once you died, we were cursed in a way. This curse would allow the person who brought you down to track us, however this wasn't perfect. The biggest issue was that it connected to someone's soul, however ancient races have unique bodies that allow the portioning of souls. This is usually due to a form of immortality or longevity.”

  She leaned away from me, and out from the hot spring water were images appearing in the steam, then she continued, “For me, my soul is tied to the legend of cats having nine lives. Each life is a piece of my soul, I split those up to give to my children. This way, I could dilute the tracker within myself, and live through my children as well.”

  I stared at her confused. “How did you pull off such a feat? I didn't know you could even interact with souls, and how did you live past a hundred if you split your soul?”

  “Well, my soul was fortified in a way. Also to how I pulled it off, I didn't. I received help from a wandering mage.”

  “A mage?”

  “Well yeah, although his magic was greatly unique, said he dealt with soul magic. Which I've never heard of.”

  〈Neither have I.〉

  “And what did he do?”

  “Well, he was able to ‘surgically’ remove my soul and operate on it, like a healer. Most of the time I was unconscious, but I felt like he was stitching my soul together after initially slicing it apart. He took either slices out and left me with the centermost part, a larger portion, in order to keep the majority of myself intact. The rest were used in these ‘capsule’ things that I consumed later to give birth. Ooh, and he sort of looked like you, but was made of crystals, which made me feel slightly more comfortable about the operation.”

  〈Capsule? Surgery? Those are concepts only found in my prior world, not this one. And looking like me? Well that's weird, but it isn't like my game character was wholly unique. The character creator was extensive, but similar characters weren't rare. Maybe they were a wanderer, which makes a lot of sense actually.〉

  What she described was insanity. The idea there was magic that worked with souls could be possible, but I felt like I never heard of such methods. It was probably that some hermit who studied one type of theory ended in success. Also, the idea of stitching a soul is just ridiculous.

  “With my soul now split, I'm not as powerful as I used to be, however. But that's okay, I just couldn't take the chance of them figuring out where you were if we were ever to meet.”

  “You chose to do that to yourself? For me?”

  “Of course, and I'd do it again.”

  There was no hesitation in her words, nor any sense of regret.

  It clicked in my head immediately.

  She was infatuated with me, or the character I made. It wasn’t a person who was real, just a figment of my imagination in a fantasy world I loved.

  But how could I tell her that?

  As much as I was surprised, some part of me was relieved that she was still a virgin, and the fact she was saving for me.

  I paused, a smirk nearly arose on my face. I covered my mouth.

  〈Why am I relieved?〉

  It is weird for me to feel that way, since I never thought of that prior in the game. It’s like my character's racial tendencies have some control over my emotions and acts.

  “Well I mean, that’s good I guess.” I said, letting it slip out.

  Kuroha gleefully smiled and leaned in to hug my arm. It was a nice feeling, even though I felt a bit of shame in it.

  To her, I was someone completely different. It was a roleplay I did, not the true me.

  When it came to the followers I had, I mostly picked women npc’s since it was much better than staring at guys the whole time. Plus it was also to fill the gap in my heart from prior relationships.

  Anyone would call me sick, hell I’d call myself that too. To me, these women simply by my side allowed me to think I was wanted.

  In the game, there was a romance system in place for everyone. So even a depressed and forgotten guy like me, someone who lost everything, even love, could find great joy in this game.

  Like I said, this game gave you everything.

  However, my past was what crafted my virtual life. Now that my virtual life is now my real life, I have no idea how to solve this. So, I did what I thought was only necessary.

  “You understand that I never thought of you all as real people right? I played a character, someone who I wanted to be, but wasn’t.”

  Kuroha looked up at me curiously, “So?” She snuggled back into my arm. “We all knew you were a wanderer after you left. It became pretty obvious, since we knew you absorbed the phoenix heart. Only someone insane like a wanderer would think of that. Heh!” She giggled towards the end. “Even with that knowledge, you still gave all of us something none of us could give ourselves. Faith, hope … and love.”

  “From what, the flowery words I told you all. That was just to make myself feel better.”

  “If that was the case, it made us feel better too.” She leaned back and turned to me. “Do you remember how we met?”

  It was a hard memory to forget. I met her in a slave auction during a level sixty raid. It was during a special event where a kingdom was found harboring slaves which became illegal years prior. She was a pricey slave, since she was of an ancient race, so when we came charging in as a guild, the fight back was intense.

  I know that I gave her kind words and some hope after that, but even then, knowing that it’s all a lie or I saw it as fake, how could she even think of accepting that.

  “That was the time I didn’t think living was worth it. Then you arrived. Practically swept me off my feet.” She chuckled in the middle of that. “To me, that wasn’t fake. That wasn’t a game. And you said it yourself, ‘I played a character, someone who I wanted to be…’ Well, if you want to be that person, be him.”

  Our eyes locked into place. Her words, simple yet heavy, really put weight onto my shoulders. Here I was, underexaggerating what I did and not even noticing the fact that she didn’t care. Maybe this level of loyalty is just fantasy for me. I can’t even understand the lengths she feels for me, for something I merely thought was an act of roleplaying.

  I leaned back into the rocks of the hotspring. My eyes gazed up upon the night sky. It was as if everything here was meant to be. There is no flaw, no fiction, nor anything fake.

  It’s still difficult to understand, but I can at least act can’t I? Kuroha is right. I acted the way I wanted to be for years, there’s no reason I can’t continue that.

  “Even if I try to fake who I am, or want to be, you know that my heart would most likely go to-” She pressed her finger on my lips before I continued.

  “I’m aware I won’t be your first pick, but that’s all the more reason to soak up what attention from you I can right now.”

  She was crafty, definitely taking from her racial instincts.

  …

  “In other news,” Mika spoke up abruptly, “What's the deal between you and uncle Rak?”

  〈Uncle Rak?〉

  I looked at her trying to process the situation and the question itself. “Well, not much, other than a major betrayal I guess.”

  “He did mention that he did something regrettable to you.” Kuroha chimed in. “That's why I made him apologize, but it doesn't seem like you accepted it yet.”

  How could I? It was like an employee finding out that the guy he was yelling at was his boss undercover, then just because I'm higher in the hierarchy, he apologized that he did that to me, not that he did it in general.

  “Would you?”

  Kuroha and Mika thought for a bit. Then Mika piped up.

  “Well, it depends. I can't accept an apology without there being a clear showing of reflection. So yeah, an apology because of professionalism isn't something I'd appreciate either.”

  Mika and I looked directly at Kuroha with questioning looks.

  Her ears flickered in fluster as she tried to explain her intent recklessly.

  She was not doing a good job.

  We laughed it off seemingly knowing she is still a klutz even after hundreds of years to mature.

  After we all soaked in the springs together, Mika showed me around the headquarters.

  I’ve always had a unique interest in building bases in games. It wasn’t so much that I was good at it, just that I really loved doing it. It takes a certain level of patience and drive to have all of the pieces go together and fit perfectly the way someone wants it.

  That’s how I saw it. A long marathon with the ending, whether it’s great or not so much, still feeling a sense of pride in what was completed.

  The mountain was a large cylindrical tower. The inside hollowed out with sets of bridges going from one side to the other. This was the main room, the ‘Vent’. It was supposedly the hub where all things lead to another.

  There are multiple hanging platforms, the throne being one of them, that are anchored to the walls with chains and hooks and even some element of gravity magic to keep them afloat. Those platforms form the main meeting places, like a council room and even a platform for drills and headcounts.

  Some platforms have domes around them, seemingly to distort any inspection magic or scrying that could be watching them. Since the mountain itself is hollow with a thick layer of rock between it and outside, that adds another layer of protection as most magic can hardly sense through dense rock, and the hollow inside would just sound like caves with the slight breeze in the place and wet dripping walls.

  There were also runes carved into the inside of the Vent which dampened noise and made viewing inside through magical means come up with complete darkness. These runes were researched thoroughly over the past two hundred years.

  The domes were, however, a last layer of protection from even the most powerful detection magic. Even if they got through all of the protections in place, the domes obscured everything as if you were in a separated miniature world.

  It was a pseudo-pocket reality. It was large on the inside, but on the outside not so much. Inside these domes, multiple secret practices were at play, so hiding them in different spaces was an interesting method.

  Spatial magic was always a weird type of magic I could never get into. It had many applications however the skill it takes to actually utilize it is extraordinary.

  It also could mess with other magic, spatially dissecting it to where it seems to cut it off from the reality where the person came from. Since one's magic is linked to the world they're in. It was something I learned when researching phoenix immortality.

  Other than The Vent, there was a network of pathways and rooms inside the mountain itself. It was mostly barracks and living spaces, but there were also libraries, mission rooms with quest boards and even a mini village.

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  It was quite homey despite being underground.

  Many people greeted me with respect and showered me with joy and excitement. All of them were strangers to me, yet it felt natural when greeting one another.

  Mika played a big role in being the middle man of the greetings. I never had to fully greet myself, so I took that as a natural way to introduce myself at times.

  What was most interesting was meeting the other leaders of this place.

  With Kuroha at the height of leadership, you had five main generals. They were currently out on their own tasks, so I had no ability to see them yet. The generals are in control of entire fleets of people and scattered around the world for various reasons.

  Then you came down to squad leaders, this is where Rak would be. Squads themselves are independently moved by request of any of the leaders however in some rare cases they could individually make calls themselves for certain missions. They were, in essence, glorified adventurer parties but with a larger number of people, like a mini guild.

  Then you had the brunt of the population, the Shinobi. They were vast in number and were individuals who took tasks on the mission board and could team up in smaller squads to complete quests. They didn’t really pertain too much to the grand scheme of things, but sometimes during the quests, they end up happening on information that changes the tides of things.

  Shinobi mostly were used to gain finance for the organization to stabilize themselves elsewhere.

  This is also where I found out how rich Kuroha was.

  The vault itself, located at the depth of the Vent, was a massive horizontal door that opens up to another subspace.

  〈Man, I really need to figure out who made all these spaces possible.〉

  Once opened, looking inside you saw countless treasures neatly situated and accounted for. There were thousands of gold bars and even solidified golden statues of... Me?

  There was a spiral staircase that went to the ground of the vault, which was the size of a soccer field. Mika guided me down where there was a desk and a strangely normal looking assistant looking female.

  She had on business clothes, but it was clear that this woman was abnormal. It was hard to tell, but something smelled funny to me, like magic was at play but whatever it was, I had no idea.

  “Hello there Mikage!” Mika waves over. Her usual cute and energetic attitude became much more enthusiastic.

  The woman bowed to Mika respectfully. She was a stern looking woman with her hair tied back. Glasses adorned her face but it didn’t seem like they weren't for vision. Her shape was sleek, like she was meant to get to places where others couldn’t but her stance and the way she carried herself smelt like death was around the corner.

  In the midst of me taking a sniff of the air, her eyes shot towards me. “As much as mother respects you, I would refrain from smelling the air I live in. Who knows what perverted thoughts are inside your head.”

  I visibly took a step back in confusion. “What?”

  Mika put her hands up. “I doubt that’s what Lord King was thinking, perhaps you might be misunderstanding.”

  “He’s a dog with a keen smell, who knows if smelling my body odor would put him in heat.”

  I couldn’t even get a comment in as I was so taken aback.

  〈Just who does this chick think I am?〉

  “I don’t know what’s up with the accusations, but that’s not my intention.” I start to say defensively, “And I’m fully in control of my ‘instincts’.”

  She adjusted her glasses as the glint in them stared me down menacingly. “Mhmm?” A sound of recognition to my claim comes out, but obviously not trusting my words.

  “Onto other matters,” Mika pleaded, “We are here for the hand of Baa’hrul.”

  〈Huh? Those were my gauntlets from before my death.〉

  “How did you get them?” I asked, looking at Mika.

  “Mother told us that she found them when dismantling the remnants of the cult of Baa’hrul. Their forces vacated Ikoth in search of other lands where they could resurrect their dead lord. However, they were just a bit too weak.” She said with her fingers gesturing ‘small’.

  I rub the back of my head in disbelief.

  Mikage wrote something down in the ledger in front of her and started to guide us to the back of the vault.

  There was another door in the vault specifically for my gauntlets. Once opened, there was a glass case that was adorned with many minerals and gold linings.

  Floating in the center, suspended in zero gravity, my gauntlets were held.

  I never pictured anything of mine to be so neatly packaged, or put on a pedestal of any kind. It was a game world to me prior, with semi-realistic mechanics and personalities, but this still surprises me.

  I walked up and placed my hands on the glass.

  A reaction occurred.

  Streaks of red lightning, the aura from the gauntlets themselves, connected with my fingertips from the other side of the glass.

  In a moment my mind was taken elsewhere, as if I was attuning to the weapons themselves.

  Attuning was a system in the game which allowed one to bring out the full power of an item. It is usually followed up with a trial of some sorts. Since I was previously attuned to them, I didn’t see a need to reattune, but maybe since I reincarnated, I would have to do it again.

  It was like skydiving in a fiery landscape. Magma was seen on the ground as my abstract body fell towards it.

  As if pulled by a leash, I was yanked back and my fall halted abruptly.

  Then a mountainous beast... no, a dragon, materialized before me. It was him, Baa’hrul.

  He stared at me in contempt. His blood shot eyes colored in pure crimson, with pupils that seemingly held the fires of hell itself moving deep in the abyss of them, was intimidating to me to say the least.

  In a dialect I never learned was spoken from him, a deep guttural voice that boomed across this mental landscape, “Vaer thal’kaen, Kynra.”

  “Huh? I can’t unders-” Before I finished my sentence, the translation of the words pierced my mind. A shrieking headache thumped around causing quite the pain.

  “We meet again, King.”

  An arrogant smirk seemed to form on Baa’hrul’s face followed quickly by a chuckle.

  The dragon’s language is very ancient and powerful. The use of the words in there carry weight from ancient magic that turns into power once spoken. Most people would never be able to learn it, since there is no one to teach it as dragons rarely converse with humans at all.

  “It’s been ages, my friend.” Baa’hrul starts speaking the common language. “I thought you must have forgotten me after being away for so long.”

  It was weird. The dragon himself never spoke to me except for when my guild and others raided his labyrinth. Exchanging words with him was something I never thought I’d do.

  “So why am I here Baa?”

  His head reared back as if annoyed. “You speak the same as always, King. Filled with no respect for my greatness.”

  〈Is this guy seriously butthurt about me not calling him his full name. I never did even prior.〉

  A dragon’s name carries heavy weight in their culture. To shorten or even call them by nicknames was something only those who were equal or above could do, at least in their own species. Other races were deemed inferior, therefore should show respect.

  Since I defeated him, I didn’t think he’d care, but I am not the same strength as I was before.

  He leaned in again with his large head. It was the size of a semi truck stacked twice. “You are not the same King as before. I sense great familiarity yet ever so distant.”

  “Well, a lot has happened. Anyway, I am taking the gauntlets, hope you don’t mind we partner up again.”

  “Impossible.”

  I flinch a little bit as the wind from his sigh blows like a typhoon around me. “What do you mean impossible?”

  He raised his giant arm towards me. It was thicker than a great oak tree and nearly twice as long. His large claw, doubled the size of me, came three feet from my forehead.

  As if reacting to some type of magic, a red glow was emitted from the tip of his claw.

  “You are far too weak as of yet. If your current form was to attempt the attunement process, your body would burst like an air pocket.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but that means that I was already unattuned from the item after death. Which all of that makes sense to me, but hearing it makes me a bit upset.

  “So how strong do I need to be?” I look up to him, meeting his stare.

  The mental landscape around me rumbles as his low guttural bellow emits massive vibrations. Feels almost like a crocodile rippling the water, but it's affecting the entire mental world.

  “Much stronger. You were quite the mortal when the two of us clashed, about that strength should suffice.”

  He is practically telling me I need to return to my full strength of level one hundred.

  I looked down in defeat almost. Level one hundred took an entire year for me, even as a shut in, to achieve. Long hours and even some restless nights. Now that I’m in the world for real, I couldn’t fathom how long that would take.

  Levels one to thirty were pretty fast paced in the game however once you hit level thirty, the pace slows tremendously.

  The difference is like a sprinting cheetah versus a snail.

  The reason is because at level thirty, most classes would have their skill slots filled out completely and access to other routes and subclasses. This meant that the players would be able to start trying out which path they truly wanted to take, and considering they would already be hooked by that time, it was a guarantee that they could stick with the same character and just try out different builds before locking your character into one direction.

  Then once someone was locked on said route at level fourty, class quests started to pop up which integrated a faction system allowing a player to build trust and take quests through the faction.

  It gets pretty complicated, but that was the basic gist of why those levels were much slower.

  I looked back to him, still so many questions I had in mind. Then something came up.

  Baa’hrul was an ancient being who existed for a millennia in this world.

  〈Perhaps he knows about levels, or maybe even…〉

  “So Baa, would you know about-”

  “Of course I do.” He said cutting me off. “You are referring to the energy that allows your strength to grow, correct?”

  〈Is he referring to the stat points, well he isn’t wrong. I’m more concerned about this “EP” though.〉

  “Ep?” He says, seemingly reading my mind.

  “What? I didn’t-”

  “We’re in your mind, you know. I don’t need to hear you in order to understand you.”

  I was caught off guard, but it does make sense that a being as old as him would be able to, or anyone in this situation.

  Baa’hrul continued, “This ‘EP’ you speak of or ‘stat points’ is merely the energy that all beings gain when they take lives or when they do something the universe deems important enough to grant them such power. Not all creatures can perceive this energy however only a select few. Us dragons are one such race that can visualize and sense the energy and even we find it difficult to use.”

  So in short, EP is an energy that is equal in value to those you kill or the achievements you make which pass a certain threshold.

  It sounds too close to game logic, where discovery or quelling a war seems to gain you experience. This doesn’t necessarily convert linearly to EP however, since a player only gets 2 ep stats each level up.

  〈Or was it? What if EP and EXP converted equally but through different methods. When it comes to stat points, one can gain them naturally, but even then creatures with abnormally high stat points considering their level, makes no sense if EP converted to stat points with a set amount given per level. Surely other beings would be subjected to the same logic however if they weren’t, then maybe another way to gain EP, is to use EXP?〉

  I looked up to Baa’hrul as I noticed a grin on his face.

  “You are quite close to the truth.”

  “How did you become so powerful then?” I asked.

  “Hibernation.”

  〈Sleep? Just sleep?〉

  “Sleeping is but one part of the puzzle.” Baa’hrul answered my mental question. “In simple terms, meditation. The dragons themselves however have a different way to meditate. We go to sleep for hundreds of years, and using the stockpiled energy, our bodies naturally convert that into strength through hibernation. That’s why many of my kind are angered when they are rudely awakened, such as when you did so nearing the end of my hibernation.”

  Dragons were always creatures to hole themselves up in their lairs and with their hoard. Which now that I think of it…

  “There’s little time right now to converse further.” Baa’hrul states abruptly.

  “Why?”

  “Your mind can only process so much at a time during attunement. The world created using this connection between us will destabilize if one cannot process further. Simply staying here longer than you can, will result in your mind exploding, in a non-physical sense.”

  Time waits for no one, and it seems I have to get stronger, both physically and mentally to come back here.

  “It was fun talking with you again, friend.” He looked into my eyes. “Next time, it would be best if you were at least strong enough to fully attune to the gauntlets. Until next time.”

  “I don’t know why you call me friend, but sure, until next time.”

  An odd sense of kinship was formed in that moment. I wasn’t fully understanding why he took so fondly to me, especially since I was the main part of his downfall.

  Maybe it’s just dragon nonsense of pride.

  Just as quick as I arrived, I was fished out of this mental landscape, pulled with incredible speed up and away.

  Then, the room of the vault filled out my vision finally.

  “Are you okay Lord King?” Mika asks gently as she holds onto my bicep.

  “Um… yeah. Sorry for worrying you.”

  “You stood still like you were focusing on something for nearly a minute straight. Was that the attunement process I heard so much about?”

  “Sort of, yeah.”

  “And?”

  I looked at her face. It was brimming with expectations.

  “I’m not strong enough at this moment in time. I need to get back to my former strength before coming back here. Some more damn grinding I have to do huh?” I muttered that last statement so they didn't hear me.

  “So it would be best if these were left inside the vault for now.” Mikage spoke up.

  I pondered for a second, and she was right. I didn’t have the ability to wield nor defend the item yet.

  “Well, it’s not like I can’t come back here once I’m ready.” I then stopped to look up to Mika. “Say, how did my gauntlets get to this land? I’m positive this isn’t Ikoth, and you’ve made that clear earlier with the cult. Where are we?”

  Mikage and Mika both looked at each other with questioning looks.

  I was brought to the library after parting ways with Mikage, whose task is dealing with the vault.

  “So does Mikage stay in the vault at all times?” I asked Mika on our way to the library.

  “Well, ‘SHE’ isn’t always in the vault, but that Mikage is.”

  A look of pure confusion was plastered on my face.

  “Well, she has multiple clones of herself all throughout the world. They can only operate independently like that in areas designated for them. If that Mikage clone was to exit the vault, she’d turn into a puddle of slime.” Mika makes gestures in the air trying to visualize it for me.

  Another question popped into my head. “What about all of your siblings then?”

  “Well, most of my siblings are out scouring the planet, looking for you actually.” She points my direction.

  〈I guess that makes sense.〉

  “Well, now that you are here, only those that are looking for your gear would need to stay out.”

  “Well, most of my items would be in my inventory.” Then it hit me. I grabbed my head in grief. “OH my god, MY LOOT!?”

  Amidst my teary eyes, Mika grabbed my shoulder. “It’s fine Lord King. Everything in this ‘inventory’ is within your castle.”

  I looked up to her, sniffling going down as I wiped my face. “Oh thank god.”

  I grabbed her by the shoulders and started to shake her cartoonishly. “Do you know how many days I had to farm materials and resources to craft those pieces? Days of grinding just nearly gone like that, I would kill myself if anything happened to that.”

  Mika's eyes lit up emotionally. “Please don’t think of killing yourself, you are the pride of mother and all of our purpose for existing. I don’t know what this ‘grinding’ process consists of, but even if your cache was gone, we would stop at nothing to build it back up.”

  Another bit of unwavering loyalty for seemingly no reason is thrusted at me.

  “Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better.” She seemed to not get my earthly hyperbole.

  We made our way into the library. I wasted no time in trying to find texts about the region I was in.

  The continent we were currently in was called Primora, the land of the beginning. It seems that humanity and mostly all races derived from species from this land, which then spread outwards towards neighboring continents.

  The country of Calyndra is the one we are currently situated in. We are on the edge of their lands bordering another country called Thrysskara, the land of many bloodlines.

  Thrysskara is a place where monsters take humanoid forms. Every demi-human to exist in this world has ancestry there.

  Up even further north, is the land of Vyr’Kael Drathoryn, the birthplace of the first dragons.

  〈Perhaps Baa originates from there?〉

  I started to look through all the text I could in a timely manner to familiarize myself with the surrounding lands.

  Calyndra was a theocratic type nation, holding themselves closest to the beginning of the world as pride of their relationship with the gods themselves.

  The nation that I needed most information on was Drasselune, the city on the sea.

  If I am going to try to go to Ikoth, I need to get through them first, since it seems they are the only place capable of even sending ships towards my mainland.

  “My lord, I understand your impatience in returning to your castle, but maybe you should take things slow. You aren’t really near your prime power, crossing the Great Sea is even daunting for high level beings to do themselves.” Mika suggests.

  “Well, I just need to find monsters and slay them. Shouldn’t be an issue.”

  “I don’t wish to disrespect you, but you also need far more training as well.”

  She seemed to say this with concern rather than a sense of condescension. Taking that into account is definitely something I should do.

  Last time I checked, my level was twenty-one, which isn’t low but is still a far cry from my prime.

  “You are right Mika, I should consider-”

  “Power leveling?” She said excitedly, cutting me off. Her eyes gleamed with excitement.

  Although power leveling is probably the best choice, it would leave me defenseless and in constant threat of being found out by the cult.

  “Well, I would enjoy that, but I think it’ll be easier to do things slowly. As much as I need stats and levels, it would be better to figure out how to handle this ‘Ki’ that Kuroha was talking about.” I turned to Mika, “Would you possibly know a place?”

  Mika pondered for a second, then she looked at me with a victorious look. “Yeah, the Draveth Hold would probably be what you want right now. They are a fortress type monastery that would help with defense and hiding your presence. Which now that I think of it…”

  She looked around my body trying to smell me again.

  “We gotta work on your presence, it’s too strong. Probably half the reason the cult found you to begin with.” She stands proudly and points at herself with her thumb. “Which actually happens to be my specialty.”

  “Wait,” I start to realize, “Wouldn’t you all be able to teach me Ki based moves? Or were you all not able to be gifted it.”

  “From what I know, Ki only is given to those who practice martial arts and can start to feel for the spirit realm. As much as we practice martial arts, we have yet to tap into a specific spirit realm which complements our style.”

  〈If they are ninja-type characters, wouldn’t a dark type spirit realm work?

  “Well, Spirit magic also exists. Maybe that would help you all figure things out.”

  Well this should be fun.

  With training ahead, it means I have a lot of work to do. Well… I already knew that once I found myself here.

  Before leaving, another thought crossed my mind.

  I hurried over to the magic section where they had looked for a few books. I grabbed four books in total, all of which had something to do with spirits and spirit magic to be precise.

  Mika looked at me curiously, then realizing what I was doing started to grab a couple more. “Here, these were good reads for me, but I couldn’t understand the concepts well enough.”

  “Since I’ll be training, you won’t mind if I keep these right?”

  “Well, you got about a month here before you can even think of stepping out of this mountain. We gotta make sure you can hide your presence and aura correctly first.”

  With that, a daunting future of training lies ahead of me.

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  King; level 21

  EP: 0 (122)

  Strength - 32

  Dexterity - 32

  Constitution - 16

  Intelligence - 11

  Charisma - 10

  Luck - 21

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