The sun shone through the thick canopy of Calyx's tree. The leaves left little gaps here and there, and there were small patches of ground where the warm light managed to reach all the way down. It was near noon already, but we weren't hungry thanks to our late breakfast.
I fiddled with my guild token and looked at the map. There was an option to activate a service that would show me where all the other workers were. It was ludicrously expensive, like everything, plus the fact that activating guild token services remotely cost between 20% and 50% more than it would if I did it through Bib.
Obviously. You want convenience? You pay for it.
This world was too similar to my old one in far too many ways to be comfortable. Had it not been for magic and the girls… I don't think I'd like it.
"He's thinking about us again," Vespera said, looking at me and giggling.
She and Elyra were hanging out with Calyx, enjoying the shade and playing with the flowers. With the tide meter so high, we had no plans to head outside, and Elyra was procrastinating her skill selection for some reason. I didn't pressure her.
Refocusing on the map, I scouted the nearby area. The second update of the day had just been downloaded, and I could see the locations of known monsters in the area near Perseverance's End. That's one keyword. Known monsters. You can always get jumped, even with the highest tier of map subscription, which we didn't have.
I checked and there were still five days of map data before our sub ran out. Hopefully the tide meter didn't tip over 50%, or we'd probably have to spend those days cooped up inside the tree instead of hunting. Still, I had no intention of coming back to the city empty-handed.
The reason was simple: the three-letter club Oaths Ceremony. It was the moment new members were truly inducted into the club. Up until then, I was only a provisional member who could participate in the dinners and gatherings—and not even all of them—only when invited. On paper, I should not have any benefits just yet, although it was almost never the case. The provisional membership usually served as an eye-opener to people, to make them realize what the club really was about. Pretty much nobody refused to take the oaths after seeing the benefits of membership.
The ceremony happened four times a year. The next one was a little over a month away. The girls and I talked about what to do about it, and we came up with a very rough outline of a plan. It pretty much summed up as: go to the dinners when invited, accept favors only when they don't put us in debt we cannot repay, and at the same time try to see if we can lend a hand to people using our unique powerset (which had just grown by leaps and bounds) so that THEY would owe us instead of the other way around.
If I thought about it too hard, I realized that this would make me exactly the stereotypical club member, but I chose not to think about it too hard.
"Alright," I said, getting up. "Enough lounging. Elyra, ready to select the Class Skill?"
"Yes!"
The girls both jumped to their feet, with Calyx following moments later. It seems we were going to do this while standing. Fine by me. I summoned the skill window.
1 Class Skill point available.
[Bound to the Fallen] Class Skills available:
→ Rejection of Fate
Anchor of the Mundane
Orbital Strike
Ooh, orbital strike? I was salivating already.
Elyra looked at me. "Really?" she asked.
"Why not?" I asked. "Sounds powerful as heck. Probably a finisher move, or a super heavy hitter opener."
"I think spacer boy's right," Vespera said. "It sounds badass."
Elyra whined. "But, [Rejection of Fate]…"
"What about it?" the demon asked.
"Do I really have to spell it out? Think about it! Rejection of Fate. Even just the name feels ominous and powerful. Imagine what it might do!"
Alright, I was sold. Her excitement was more than enough for me to go along, and besides it was her turn to choose. Vespera was not as convinced, but she had to relent once we reminded her that we were taking turns.
"Well, I'm going to choose the [Orbital Strike] when it's my turn next time," she said, pouting.
"Since when did we agree to…" I paused. Two sets of eyes bore into me like lasers. "Ah, my mistake. Of course we are taking turns."
"Better," the demon said. She leaned closer, her breath tickling my ear. "After all, we agreed to share everything, didn't we? Our bodies, our minds…" She licked it, pushing her nimble tongue inside. "…and our power, of course."
She retreated after giving me a playful bite with her fangs, and I stood there stunned for a moment. Elyra, bless the angel, walked over and helped me dry off all of Vespera's thick saliva.
"Your secretions are really strange," she observed.
The demon shrugged. "So are yours."
"Mine are normal," I said.
"Sure they are," Vespera shot back. "Sure. 'cause everyone can do what you did last ni—"
"Aaaalright. Elyra, you sure you want to go with [Rejection of Fate]?"
She nodded. Very cute, the way she was literally jumping from one foot to the other in anticipation. I confirmed the choice and went to activate the new skill.
"Uh," Vespera said, frowning. "Is something supposed to happen? I don't know about you, but if there's any fate being rejected, I don't feel it."
We linked up to share more of our senses and to speed up our minds. Well, one of the three, but we took turns. Still, no matter how much we poked and prodded, nothing happened. Actually, saying that nothing had happened was surprisingly accurate.
"Girls, the skill did not activate, that's why it's not doing anything," I said as the realization hit me.
"What? Spacer boy, did we get rug-pulled by the System? Is the skill bugged?"
I laughed. "Where did you get those terms from?"
"Your mind presumably," she said simply.
Meanwhile, Elyra nodded in sudden understanding. "It must be a passive skill!"
"What a scam!" Vespera said. "Little cat-angel, you can admit the orbital strike would have been better. I won't mind."
The angel walked over to her. Vespera tensed up, eyeing the angel's serene face with suspicion. "W-what are you going to do?"
Elyra simply kissed the demon on the lips. "I like your teasing," she said.
Vespera blushed. I repeat. Vespera blushed! "Y-you…"
"I think I also like teasing you," the angel said.
"Crazy…" the demon muttered. I had to agree. What a turn of events!
"Well," I said. "I guess we will have to wait and see when the skill triggers and what it does. It's a bummer that the System gives no descriptions, and none of our skills are common enough to be in the guild token's database."
"Nah," the demon said. "Means we are awesome! And we don't have to waste money to buy ANOTHER subscription service."
"Speaking of money," I said. "How about we test our new arsenal and the power up from the last level against the wolves around the tree?"
They all agreed. With the tide still teetering in the forties, it wouldn't be wise to stray far from the safety of the dryad's place. But the wolves? They spawned from bushes right around the tree, no problem!
"I must warn you," the dryad said. "The tree has gathered more energy than usual. The encounters might be a little bit harder."
"Thanks," I said. "We'll be careful."
Elyra gave me the biggest side-eye I have ever witnessed. I tried my best to project reassurance through the bond, that we were going to take things easy, slowly, in a controlled environment, and making sure we didn't overextend. That seemed to placate her a bit.
There were twelve bushes. Twelve total encounters, three wolves each, and we planned to run them all before nightfall.
For the first one, we stood in formation with me at the front, Vespera to my left, and Elyra behind us. I wanted to test the shield of light summoned using [Triumvirate's Armory], to see what kinds of hits it could take, but only against a single enemy.
"Don't worry, spacer boy," the demon said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "I feel pretty strong after the last level up."
There was no need for more words. The bond allowed us to coordinate perfectly, the only bottleneck being our combined experience, or rather inexperience. But we knew wolves well enough. We approached the bush, careful in case there were surprises from the increased power of the monsters, and crossed the threshold.
Three wolves appeared in a swirl of magic. They immediately charged us, wasting no time. Likewise, we didn't waste time either. A thick beam of light shot from behind me, targeting the rightmost wolf and stunning it in place. The wolf was bigger and meaner than it had been the previous time, its fur streaked with silver-white patches that caught the light like they were made of metal.
But Elyra too had grown, and more so than the wolf. The power behind the beam was actually enough to deal real damage, stunlocking the monster while the girl slowly advanced forward. Her mana ticked down steadily, her only true limitation.
While she handled the wolf, Vespera had already dispatched hers. The moment the monster had appeared, she had shot forward in a mad dash, wicked claws that looked like clouds of darkness boiling with red lightning turning the monster into mincemeat.
Elyra, not wanting to feel inferior, increased the power of her beam. It burned hotter and fiercer, although with a bit more loss, moving away from any thoughts of lasers. It looked like plasma. Well, I couldn't complain with the result. Her mana ticked down, but the beam sliced clean through the wolf.
That left only me.
My opponent leaped at me. I lifted the weightless wing shield, the many feathers made of light letting me see through it. When the wolf was about to reach me, I slammed forward with all my Strength.
I felt the impact, but it was strange. Like when I tested the demonic scale sword, there was some heft and feedback from the weapon, but it was nothing like what it should be according to normal physics. The best way I could describe what I felt was hitting a very light tennis ball with a well-balanced racket.
That was also indestructible.
The hit drew a tiny sliver of mana from my mana pool, a small percentage of the initial summoning cost, and the feathers took no damage whatsoever.
The wolf crumpled against the impassable surface of the shield. To it, it was like hitting a brick wall at full speed. A wall that also moved to intercept its charge.
I obliterated its muzzle, shattering its bones and snapping its spine as its momentum was arrested, reversed, and then its now-dead body was launched away from me back from where it came.
We all stopped to look at what I had just done.
"Heavens, spacer boy," Vespera said. "I mean, Elyra and I grew stronger. Look at what we did. But you? Shit."
It was true. I must have launched the wolf a dozen meters back, all the way beyond the bush from where it had spawned, with a simple shield bash. Imagine what I could have done had I actually used the shield like a racket?
"No using my feathers as a racket, please," Elyra said.
We laughed. "Why not?" I asked.
"Besides, they are not really your feathers," Vespera added.
Instead of answering, the angel ordered us to go gather the three bodies and dig out the cores. The bodies went into a pile near the tree, so that we could use [Matter Reclamation] in bulk on them later, while the cores went into my backpack. It was smaller than the one we lost in the last tide, but the money had been tighter this time.
"Let's try again, Sol guy," Vespera said. "Same strategy, but this time you use the sword."