Chương 56: Limitless Path Chapter Fifty-Six

She woke before her alarm by a decent margin the next morning. Checking her phone, she saw it was a quarter after six in the morning on Tuesday. After sitting up and stretching for a second, she hopped up with a sigh and started getting ready for the day. After taking care of the necessities in the bathroom and throwing on clothes, she made her way downstairs along with Blood. The two of them found Wiggles sitting on one of the stools at the island, as if waiting for the rest of the household to show up.

The usual breakfast routine proceeded smoothly, Beth noting the total lack of cereal and bread. She knew the stores were having trouble staying supplied and moving goods around already, and she took a quick mental note to speak to her parents about getting supplies from the CRA Hall, if the neighborhood needed it. The girls then armed up and hit both the dungeons, plowing through both in short order and getting a level for their troubles.

It was a quick job to the CRA Hall after that, taking a slightly more direct route through the less sparsely populated areas to arrive near the northwest corner of the building. They made their way up and into the lobby, finding the same young man here this morning as was there the previous day. Beth waved the others through to the back as she stepped to the counter to listen to the conversation.

This immediately brought the young man's attention to her, and he turned to her and said, "How come you get to go back there? This guy here says I'm not allowed! How is that fair?" He had a voice that had started to deepen and would likely hit the lower end of tenor once he was done with puberty, which he was still going through. A point made obvious by the squeak as he asked the second question.

Beth smirked slightly, looking down at the likely older teenager, before replying, "It's fair because we paid the gold to get the Emblems."

"How could you afford it? It's two golds!" he exclaimed angrily.

"There's opportunities out there, if you're willing to take risks. Some are more valuable than others," she replied still smirking, leaning against the counter next to the youth and across from Tazeen.

"So that's how you're gonna explain it? You just got lucky?" he asked with a frown, crossing his arms as he glared at her.

"Not much else to tell. Find a couple dungeons and clear them every day; that'll get you a couple silvers a day. Save up and buy an Emblem, then you're in. Or try to find some rare Trial or something, but those are really dangerous," she replied with a shrug.

"And what about that armor?" the young man continued, eyeing her armor, especially her heavy gauntlets, his brows only scrunching further. Beth tilted her chin up, preening a bit at the desire the youth displayed, saying, "Once you're a Copper, there's a shop inside. Call it a commissary because of how the organization is set up or something, but it buys and sells. Got some pretty nice stuff."

"Well listen, this guy's no help, but I won't give up. I'll show you both," the young man declared, with his jaw clenched as he tilted his chin up with a sharp motion. Beth used Identify on him just to check. James Gordons, level 2 Novice Warrior"Hey, there's an ant dungeon and a wolf dungeon near our house," Beth suddenly said.

"They're too high level for you, but the beasts around them would be enough for you to get some levels."

"You think I can't handle a dungeon even a girl can beat?" he replied more than a little snottily.

"Well, suit yourself," Beth said with a frown, straightening up from her lean and glaring at the young man.

"But let me tell you this, James. The wolves around the wolf dungeon are between level one and level four right now. The first room of the dungeon is six wolves together, the lowest levels being three threes. The boss room has ten wolves, with the leader or 'boss' being a level ten Great Grey Wolf, which is a wolf the size of my wolf companion, even if it's weaker and slower than her."

James' eyes had widened slightly by the end of her description, and he gulped with a nervous motion, the braggadocio of earlier entirely gone.

"Maybe I'll stick to the beasts outside," he said quietly.

"The ants are easier. I live in the Pine Groves neighborhood, if you know where that is?" she said to him.

"Yeah, yeah. Just west and north of here, it's the eastern part of Hillsboro," he replied with a nod.

"Yep. Ant dungeon is north of the development; wolf dungeon is south," she said.

"Thanks!" James replied, his brow having smoothed and jaw unclenched. Without so much as a 'goodbye', he immediately turned and walked right out of the lobby.

"Well done," said Tazeen suddenly, the first he had spoken since Beth's group had entered the lobby.

"Don't know what I did to earn that, but okay," Beth replied as she turned to him. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"That young man's persistence is admirable, but even I do have a limit to my patience," he replied, a slight edge to his voice.

"Right, well, anyway. I was wondering if I could rent a room for at least through tomorrow?" Beth asked, switching to the real reason she had stalled in the lobby.

"Of course. What level are you looking for?" Tazeen asked in turn.

"I don't want anything too crazy, but I can afford something beyond the basic. What are the options, exactly?" she asked him in response.

"We have all manner of rooms that members can rent. If you would like my suggestion, we have fighter orientated suites in the basement area of the arena section. They are four room suites with a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and small kitchenette. They cost either fifty copper, one silver, or five silver a night.

There are other options, of course, but one of these would put you central to all of the fighting focused aspects to include the training and testing rooms, the arenas, and the commissary," Tazeen explained in reply.

"Well," Beth said, a little surprised at the options, considering the suites he listed were just one small subset, "how about we go with one of those suites, at one silver a night?"

"Certainly," Tazeen said.

"Please, place your Emblem on the counter here." He indicated a section of the counter near his left hand that had a dark crystal square set in it. Beth pulled her Emblem out of her stat window and set it on the square, which glowed with a faint blue light briefly before returning to how it was. Tazeen produced a rectangular prism from under the counter, something about the size and shape of a standard lighter, and handed it to her.

Beth, in turn, handed Tazeen a silver she pulled from her stat page, completing the transaction. Beth took the object and looked at it before looking back at Tazeen and saying, "I take it this is my key?"

"Yes. The individual rooms are locked securely, and by holding that key up to the panel you can unlock the door. The door will automatically lock upon closing. You are in Arena Basement Suite two-twenty-one," he replied.

"Thanks, Tazeen," Beth replied with a nod, slipping the key into her pouch before heading further back into the building. She walked down the hall until she reached the lounge where they usually met up, entering the room to find it empty excepting Blood sitting by Baelvyr in his usual seat. Beth walked over and sat at the table, receiving a nod from her instructor as she did so.

"Ready for another long day?" he asked her, Blood looking between them as they spoke.

"Not today, I think. Just rented a room until at least tomorrow, and Blood and I are going to use, uh, that, if you know what I mean," she replied.

"Right, right. Just be careful with that, will ya?" he replied.

"Yeah, I know the limits," Beth answered confidently.

"Yeah sure. Just let me give ya a little advice here. I would recommend ya stop if ya get up to level forty or so. Stuff is gonna get a decent boost at level fifty and beyond, and ya will want to get better gear, including some armor for yer companion before going any higher. I'd also tell ya to get at least one of those two weapons skills yer working on to Journeyman rank before hittin' fifty," he said, taking a big swig from the tankard he was working on today.

"Right, I'll keep that in mind. I would love to get to forty in one night, but I don't know if that's gonna happen," Beth said with a nod.

"Well, it's fine either way. Just make sure not to push too hard. Yer a promisin' student; I don't want to lose someone like ya to somethin' stupid," he said to her with a serious expression on his face.

"Yeah, Yeah. We'll be careful," Beth said with a frown, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Good. See that ya are," he replied sternly. Seeing he was finished with his lectures, she stood up from the table and motioned to Blood, who got up and followed her out of the lounge. She walked down to the elevators in the arena with the wolf in tow, taking the elevator down to the second subbasement floor. It only took her a few minutes to find the room, pressing the key against the lock of the door.

The room wasn't just a room, though she wasn't that surprised as it hadn't been described as such, but instead it was a suite of four rooms. There was a large, plushly appointed central room, a massive bathroom with a huge tub meant for multiple people and a shower that was big enough to be a room itself. There was a bedroom with a huge bed and a massive wardrobe, and a kitchenette that had an oven, range top, kettle, and something that looked very much like a microwave.

The whole thing was beautiful and incredibly well-appointed and had a huge amount of space. Beth was simply flabbergasted. She guessed a silver for twenty-four hours was a steep price, but she made two silvers a day farming the two dungeons right now, making it seem cheap. The suite was just incredible, and Beth was both eager to stay here as well as to see, sometime later when she was rich, what the truly expensive suites were like.

She looked around the room a little more before sitting on one of the couches in the living room. The first thing she needed to do was check her skill as she hadn't in a while, and she wanted to see if anything had changed. Ancient World Gate[0] {A legacy of a Transcendent Ruler from before the Age of Dreaming. This skill allows the wielder to create a gate linked to a temporal space full of battle. The higher the skill level, the more one has control over the temporal space and the gate itself. Current Gates: Ant, Wolf, Lion, Mantis, Vine... Golem. Current Environments: Plains, Forest, Jungle, Tundra… Warehouse. Current Modifier: 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x} Beth noticed several things immediately. The description had remained the same, but there were a bunch of changes to the other sections. She had gained a whole new line listing environments, as well as many enemies she could set in the gates section. She had also gained two new levels of time compression, four and five times.

The lists were long enough now that they truncated, but she could focus on any part of the interface and see all the details. Now she had to make a few decisions and, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like she might be using the gate a few different times. She would really like to fight the golem enemies again, as they were quite easy for her to defeat, even before she had her new heavy gauntlets.

On the other hand, she didn't want Blood to fall behind, and the golems were rather terrible opponents for the wolf presently. She figured she might wind up opening the gate for both, but this left her with a problem; namely that either way she would wind up at a somewhat higher level than Blood.

Deciding there was no point in wasting any time, she selected an enemy that they could both fight and that would give them a challenge before moving into the kitchen grabbing several bottles of water and a nutrient pack, shoving them in her pouch. She then returned to the sitting room and made sure Blood was ready a final time before opening the portal in the middle of the room.

The portal this time grew out of the floor as two trees, the trunks of stately oaks emerging from that mysterious dimension that existed below the carpet. They grew upward with branches spreading out, though contained to a somewhat limited area. The branches were focused around the tops of the trunks, and those branches between the trunks grew together as they reached the ceiling to form the top of the arch.

The arch itself was still filled with a liquid-like substance that shimmered in the soft light of the room, what was on the other side hidden from observation. Beth and Blood walked through the portal together, finding themselves in a forest very similar to what they had found in the Endless Trial. Beth noticed a few differences almost right away, the biggest of which is that there seemed to be a constant, even light throughout the place. The second detail that was different was just how uniform everything was.

There were trees and bushes and some scattered undergrowth, but it all seemed to repeat. It wasn't so even as to be laid out precisely like an orchard, but it was more uniform than felt entirely natural. Beth did notice something that was certainly the same, that being the lack of visible enemies. She didn't remember this being a particularly fun floor in the trial, but then again, she sort of agreed with Blood that a challenge would be a better way to progress than a free farm.

The key was finding something challenging enough to foster improvement through battle, but not to the point where the threat of death loomed in every moment. Blood had already begun pacing around the initial area with her nose to the ground while Beth observed their surroundings. It seemed that it functioned very similarly to when she had made an ant gate, where there was a certain clear area around them before ever expanding rings of enemies.