I wasn’t expecting to get hit so quickly. No, it wasn’t stupid of me to not expect that, even if I had seen just how easily violent almost everyone in the Adventurer’s Guild could be. I was literally talking with and standing very close to the Guildmaster. The balls to attack me when she could have been hit too was insane.

But it did happen. I was struck hard, my body sent flying backwards as the front of my robes vaporized, along with a good chunk of my skin, searing my flesh and blood underneath. The brief flash of burning pain was replaced immediately by my back colliding against the wall, my shoulder blades feeling like they’d been used as anvils by Gutran.

I crumpled to the floor. Bad as the shock and the pain were—I could already feel blood dripping down me and pooling on the floor—I forced myself up the next moment.

This was what getting battered by Gutran all the time was about. This was what raising my Attributes had been about. To be able to take hits and then fightback.

The people in the way had moved off, grumbling and cursing. I thought I heard most being thrown in my direction, but several were cussing out the Ogre for starting a brawl in the middle of the Guildhall and yelling at him to drag me outside.

Some enterprising guy even threw a bottle at the advancing Ogre. Had that been a familiar voice?

My aggressor didn’t pay attention as a red-black spark shot out of his hand and shattered the bottle before it struck him. “You should have stayed down, you mutt,” he growled at me. “Then I wouldn’t have to put you in your place some more.”

“What’s wrong?” I said, taunting. “Did daddy never beat it into you how to handle temper tantrums? You can’t just go around hitting people who are better than you, you know.”

The Ogre growled. Then he fired again. Black and red fire and lightning mixed into a blitzing, flaming bolt. I was ready for it this time. Or, I thought I was. My arm swung around in front of stomach, the sleeve of my robe flapping at the motion. I had been pushing Gravity threads into it since the moment I had started getting up and now, they flared a deep purple.

Field Manipulation created a circle of gravitational force on my sleeve. Except, instead of an attractive force that drew its target toward it, I used Siphon to create a field that pushed back.

There were a few problems with such a manoeuvre. It was an instinctive reaction, not something properly thought out. The sleeve wasn’t a plain surface by any means, so the cloth rippled and the effectiveness of the field itself distorted.

This led to blitzing bolt coming at me to only veer off course by a handspan at best. I cringed away to my left as the bolt landed way too close to my leg, exploding in a burst of blood-coloured energy. The shockwave sent me tumbling to my knee, the pain on the wound at my lower torso flaring at the sudden motion.

“That’s right,” the Ogre growled. “Stay on your knees. Try begging for a change. You think you’re some kind of hot shit because you killed one lousy snake, but you’re just a gutter rat. Ring Four filth that only deserves to crawl.”

Gravity flared, faster and stronger. Threads of my mana were firing through me. Slow cast times? Who cared when my mana was already where I needed it to be.

I was back on my feet, even if they felt like they were seconds away from collapsing on their own. In my hands was a broken seat.

The Ogre scoffed. “You won’t even get close enough to hit me, you slimy ape. You’re a Pits-cursed Iron! Stay down!”

His hands thrust forward again, but I was actually ready this time. Bastard liked to talk too much. Threads of Gravity were already inside the broken seat, which I raised like a shield, Field Manipulation and Siphon creating another circle of deep amethyst energy.

This time, my aim was perfect and perfectly timed too. The bolt of crackling black-red energy only managed to leave the Ogre’s hands for about a foot in front of him.

Then it felt the full, repulsive force of Field Manipulation going into effect.

The two forces acting on the bolt of energy—the momentum imparted by the Ogre and the push from Field Manipulation—compressed and condensed the energy into one point, turning it volatile. Naturally, it detonated.

I didn’t even flinch. The shockwave hit me, sure, but I had weighed myself down with Infusion and tanked the blow with my higher Vitality, even if my stomach wound complained with spikes of agony.

It wasn’t the same at all for everybody else. Tables and chairs exploded, cutlery and food crashing and burning everywhere. People nearby fell back—some were thrown back—by the force of the blast, and everyone cowered from the sparking black-red energy. I briefly saw one squat Plumefolk crying out as her dark feathers caught fire.

The worst was the Ogre, though. He had caught the full force of his own attack and sent hurling backwards, crashing into the bar and making several bottles crash on top of him.

But that was hardly enough.

Before the smoke could clear, before the bastard could get up, I was rushing forward. Infusion turned into Siphon, lowering my weight until I felt like I was almost flying, bursting through the cloud of dust until I was right before my target. My leg swung in with all the force my Power could grant me, enhanced by all the momentum of my rush.

Just before the kick connected, Siphon reversed again into Infusion around my leg. It turned into a heavyweight pillar an instant before impact.

The Ogre went flying again, this time with a louder cry, blood sailing through the air in his wake. He thumped against the floor once like a stone bouncing on a lake before crashing into the far wall with a burst of dark, wooden splinters.

“I’m not Iron anymore, you piece of shit,” I said. “I’m Silver-ranked now.”

I breathed in deep, nerves on fire, waiting for him to get back up, to come back for more. His slumped body didn’t move.

[ Rank Up!

Your Power, Vitality, Agility, and Spirit Attributes have risen by one Rank.

Your Gravity Aspect has risen by one Rank.

Your Path of the Newborn Star has risen by one Rank.

Power: Silver III

Vitality: Silver I

Agility: Iron X

Spirit: Iron IX

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Gravity: Silver III

Path of the Newborn Star: Iron X ]

I blinked at the notifications popping up in front of me. It felt like a lot to take in. Vitality had broken through to Silver, which meant I had another Augmentation to figure out. Agility, and more importantly, my Path of the Newborn Star, were both at Iron X. Now they’d need their own breakthroughs. Holy crap.

Then there was the slightly amazing fact that Field Manipulation had worked as I had envisioned. So far, I had just used it to create artificial fields of gravity, an attractive force drawing things in.

Repulsing targets, even with the help of Siphon, seemed extremely odd if I thought it about naturally. I knew I needed to stop thinking about it with the concepts of gravity I was somewhat familiar with from back on Earth, but still. Now it made me think of universal expansion driven by dark energy, which was kind of crazy.

So was Gravity then a misnomer by the Weave due to translation—

Kudva cleared her throat as my blue screen disappeared. “Now, with that unpleasantness settled, you were saying something about a compromise?”

It was so surreal, I could only stare at her for a moment. I had literally kicked someone so hard that they might have died, and the Guildmaster had just popped back in like I had taken a toilet break.

She raised a horned eyebrow.

I took a few breaths for my heart to settle, for my mind to stop paying attention to the murmurs and growls and all the distracting noise around me. “One sec.”

Despite not having weapons, I did have the small storage bag I had gotten for the dungeon delve. Hmm, maybe I ought to stuff my mace in there for emergencies, even though it would take up a decent chunk of space. Although, now that I had more money, I could surely get a better dimensional storage bag.

For now, I pulled out a health potion. Instead of drinking it down, though, I channelled the energy still buzzing within me like an angry beehive, using the power of Sacrifice to drive white threads into the health potion.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Health Potion. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: All wounds healed instantly ]

[ Rank Up!

Your Sacrifice Aspect has rien by one Rank.

Sacrifice: Iron X ]

Huh. That had taken a while. I supposed all the Sacrifices at the academy had almost made me get another rank, and this last small one had tipped it into Iron X.

Nearby people gasped as the potion burned away in white sparks, while my wounds disappeared. The pain was gone like it had never existed. Whispers broke out, mumbles wondering how I had done what I had done.

The Guildmaster just raised her eyebrow higher.

“My compromise is this,” I said. “I want a forty percent profit share but in addition to a ten-percent share of all the harvested meat.”

“Thirty percent,” she haggled.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, thirty percent profit share. But I want ten percent of all the meat and

everything else that’s being harvested. I know you’re going to collect the scales, organs, and bones.” She looked like she was about to argue, but I sweetened the deal a bit. “I’m willing to take them straight, without any purification. That’ll save you a ton of overhead.”

The Guildmaster made a show of considering it, but then finally sighed and offered me her hand. I shook it. “I will have the documents written and sent over to you for official signature.” She smiled at me, flashing her blinding teeth once more. “Good dealing with you, Mage Moreland. And good work on finding out about the Thralls.”

I didn’t hang around at the Adventurer’s Guild for long after my meeting was done. Despite beating the crud out of that Ogre, the mood hadn’t exactly shifted in my favour. The only difference was that no one was willing to directly pick a bone with me, which was fine by me.

Plus, the way the Guildmaster had casually slipped in a mention of the Thralls in there reminded me of my chat with the guard commander. She had methods of gaining intel that were honestly starting to feel creepy.

Before I had left, I had pursued that line of thought. What was the Adventurer’s Guild going to do next, now that Scarthralls were present in the dungeon?

Apparently, it was business as usual. Any adventurers heading into Seethescale or any of the other dungeons under Zairgon would just need to deal with them as an additional source of danger. Unfortunately, the Council hadn’t put any bounties out yet, so targeting the Thralls specifically wasn’t something that was yet being incentivized.

However, she had dropped a hint that she might poke a Councillor about it, which made me even more suspicious that she knew what I had said to the guard commander.

Maybe they met up for weekly dinners or something.

I took a deep breath when I got out. It was nice to inhale air that wasn’t stained with the stench of way too many people in way too small a space, which was odd. The Adventurer’s Guildhall wasn’t exactly small. There were just too damn many adventurers at any given time.

“That’s two adventurers’ asses you’ve kicked,” familiar hissing voice said. “Great work, mageling.”

I glared at Khagnio sauntering over. “Had fun watching?”

“Hey now, I threw that bottle! You heard me. I know you did.”

“Our hands were tied, Ross.” Ugnash came in from the other side, at least possessing the grace to look apologetic, unlike good old Khagnio. “The Guildmaster didn’t want any interference.”

I sighed. “I didn’t want to think the whole thing was some sort of set up…”

“I doubt she intended for things to devolve that badly. Come on.” Ugnash began walking away. “I know a nice place where we can relax. My treat.”

“It’s always your treat,” Khagnio said. “Not that I’m complaining.”

I followed, of the opinion that I was owed a treat after being more or less tricked. We arrived at a fancy little place that sold sweetened drinks of different flavours. I had never expected to find a restaurant like this in Zairgon, but I reminded myself that this was Ring Two. People held self-driving carriage races somewhere here, I was pretty sure.

Ugnash kindly handed me an extra cloak to cover up my ruined robes. The restaurant wouldn’t be allowing in anyone with an unkempt appearance. Fair enough. Once we were seated, I ordered something that was as close to black tea as I was getting in this world.

“Ever since we returned from the dungeon delve and word about our exploits started spreading,” Ugnash explained, taking surprisingly dainty sips of his tomato-red drink. The ice in it clinked as he moved the glass. “There was an immediate reaction from the other adventurers.”

“Basically jealousy,” Khagnio said, slurping up his drink that looked more like liquid ice cream.

The sheer opulence was honestly mind-numbing compared to the things I saw in Ring Four. So I just drank my not-tea and listened.

“They can’t handle the fact that we got a bunch of amazing treasure,” Khagnio continued. “And they especially can’t handle the fact that it was some newbie human who took down and bagged the main prize in the dungeon. Acting like a bunch of snakelets going through their first shedding. No one would have been able to tell these were seasoned adventurers.”

The sheer disgust in his voice went some way to make up for the fact that he hadn’t stepped in at the Guildhall.

“The disgruntlement was directionless,” Ugnash said. “Not specifically aimed at anyone or anything because there was nobody to aim it at. You didn’t show up, and no one was going to mess with us.”

Khagnio shook his glass admonishingly. “Hey now, we got our share of nasty looks!”

“I think you get those all the time, Khagnio.”

I laughed. Khagnio cursed.

“The Guildmaster eventually figured out it was you making them mad, Ross,” Ugnash said. “Biggest haul by an adventurer in probably the last few years, and it’s by some unknown, Ring Four human who wasn’t even Silver?” He paused. “No offence, by the way.”

“Yeah,” Khagnio hissed. “Or else he’ll kick you into a wall too.”

I gave Khagnio a short glare. “None taken.”

Ugnash nodded and continued. “They started getting suspicious. Things got more tense over the last few days. More fights, more arguments, quite a few more parties heading out into the dungeon. That last one was possibly about to make things more complicated, what with the guards moving and needing to coordinate with adventurers.”

“So, the Guildmaster had the brilliant idea of calling you in personally,” Khagnio said. The scales around his mouth were now flecked with melted cream. “I don’t think she was expecting it to escalate to an actual brawl. No doubt, that brute Ugor isn’t going to be getting any favours from the Guildmaster any time soon.”

“But she couldn’t step in, of course, for the same reason we had been barred from interfering.”

“You had to handle it, mageling, or the whole thing would be pointless.”

Ugnash looked at me squarely. “The bastards needed to see it had taken someone pretty special to take down a Greater Brillwyrm. Not a fluke. Not a cheat.”

Someone special, was it? I could see what the Guildmaster had been going for. It would have been much better if she had informed me about all this before plunging me into it, which still pissed me off, but I could see her intent now that my head was clearer.

We sipped our drinks for a while, chatting lightly every now and then and wondering how Cerea was wasting her money in Claderov. That was, until the server was starting to hover around our table a little too much and I got the hint that we were taking up a table for far too long to enjoy only a few artisanal drinks.

“You know how you guys can make it up?” I said as we finally left.

“I don’t see what we’ve got to make up for,” Khagnio muttered.

I ignored him until my pointed look finally made Ugnash say, “How?”

“By telling me all about the Augmentations you’ve got for your Vitality.”