Chương 85: Chapter 83

"Thank you for saving us!" came the tired gratitude from the guard captain, sitting on an empty crate, his armor removed, and two worried healers tending to his wounds. He was completely drenched in sweat and monster guts. The only clean areas on his body were where the healers cleaned him up for better access to his damaged body. Despite all that, he was in high spirits.

"Your timely intervention prevented my company from being wiped out." He slightly bowed his head, gratitude shining from his eyes.

"We are in your debt!" Sam returned the bow with one of his own.

"There is no debt between friends, Captain," he answered calmly, then smirked.

"Though I wouldn't say no to a round of drinks!" The captain stared at him for a moment, then he threw his head back and began to laugh.

"Hahahaha! It seems I didn't misread you, young Samuel!" The captain looked into Sam's eyes and Sam felt that their relationship had changed.

"Very well! The next round is on me!" Sam bowed once again, while the nearest soldiers cheered hearing their captain's proclamation, while the aforementioned man grimaced, thinking about how much he would have to pay. For a few moments, they stood there silently. Well, Sam stood as the Captain was still being fussed over by the healers. Then, as one of the healers finished a layer of bandage, the Captain spoke up.

"Leave us for now. I must talk to my young friend here…"

"But the…"

"No buts! I won't die in the next hour, and the adventurers are very good at hunting down the remaining monsters." One of the healers simply stood up, cast a spell that cleaned their hand, and walked away, immediately starting on another soldier. However, the clearly older one, with short-cropped black hair with a few silvery splotches on it, simply glowered at the man.

"I'm telling your wife," she stated, then simply poked the Captain, exactly where one of his wounds was.

"Ugh!" The captain grunted in pain as the healer stood up, dusted her pants, picked up her satchel, and sauntered away. Sam waited until the Captain got his pain under control and weakly grinned at him.

"Never anger the healers, my friend. Never ends well…" Sam hummed in agreement but otherwise said nothing. Now that he achieved an increase in his relationship with the Captain he didn't want to jeopardize it. Relationships were rather tricky in the game. There wasn't exactly a slider that showed how friendly you were with any of the NPCs. You had to intuit on your own.

There were actual signs if one paid attention or, as Sam did, had memories of the future, where people spent an inordinate amount of time dissecting every word every important NPC said. Sadly, there were no universal keywords that could raise or lower one's station with select NPCs, nor were key phrases that would indicate that they were favorable to the player. What at one NPC indicated friendliness could be a deadly insult to another, just like in real life.

Thus, if you wanted to form a relationship with an NPC, you had to do it in an old-fashioned way. Effort, kindness, and tenacity, or the threat of physical violence. Bribery also wasn't out of the question. However, the developers weren't merciless. They left clues for those who were smart or had the manpower to throw at the issue. The final result was a simple answer: The eyes are the window to the soul. If you observed the NPCs' eyes, you could roughly discern how good your relationship was with them.

Unfortunately, it wasn't an exact science and when the other Sam died, people were still trying to pin down the exact mechanics of the relationship system. Sam privately thought that the developers and system continuously adjusted it to prevent people from cheesing it. Returning from his thoughts, Sam watched as the Guard Captain leaned forward, hissing slightly as one of his wounds flared up during the movement. The older man bid him to step closer, and Sam did so.

"Now," he began talking, his voice low but not whispering.

"Tell me what happened to the tree, and why the monsters have stopped appearing."

"Yes, sir!" Sam answered with the same volume, then quickly looked around, and with a deft movement, dragged over some debris that he could use as a stool. After getting somewhat comfortable, he also leaned forward and began talking.

"Right, you saw the wyvern. Well, we went around it and then found a portal. Inside…" The Captain listened intently, his eyes closed, focusing on Sam's tale.

"A fascinating tale, my friend!" the older man spoke up, still in a low voice as he turned around a small shard of the crystal Sam broke at the end of the fracture.

"But I'll rest easier, whenever I get to a bed, knowing it was taken care of." He took another pause, once more thinking about something.

"And you said that those monsters vanished just like the ones sieging the city but left behind items?"

"Yes, sir. Mostly parts belonging to that particular monster," he fibbed, not wanting to reveal the obscenely impressive loot they got.

"However, they were clean. As if they were removed by some mysterious force, cleaned and prepped."

"Fascinating…" the captain murmured.

"May I see one?"

"Certainly," Sam answered and took out one spider fang from his inventory, then he handed it over. The Captain spent a minute examining it before handing it back to Sam who put it away with a deft movement.

"This will change a lot of things if those rifts stay around," he stated while slightly turning his head toward the giant crack in the sky that was thankfully slowly getting smaller and smaller.

"Fractures…"

"Pardon, my friend?"

"They look more like fractures in the fabric of the universe to me," Sam said with a small smile.

"Fracture…" The Captain spent a few seconds thinking about it then nodded.

"Makes more sense, I suppose. Though, the question is not what to name them but what to do with them…" That was the moment Sam waited, thus while outwardly he kept his face calm, inwardly he was a bundle of nerves. In his inherited memories, after the fractures appeared, the governments of the world of Magic Unbound mostly stayed back, content to observe the situation while the players fell into the dungeons as a ravenous horde, intent on farming them to death.

Only when the fights between the guilds began to affect the nearby cities did they step in. Sam wanted to hasten that. He didn't want to get tangled in several guild fights, thus he would try to borrow the power of the city.

"Exploit them, of course!" he exclaimed.

"What?"

"They seem to provide some manner of very useful items. Do you not think that the enemies of the nation would not make use of them to strengthen themselves?" The older man stared back at him and then nodded slowly.

"You speak sense, my friend. But what do you expect me to do about it? I'm just a guard captain, after all…" he finished bitterly. Sam smiled a little.

"You're going to report to the mayor, are you not?" he waited until the Captain nodded to continue.

"You could emphasize the financial opportunity and the fact that all the new guilds would no doubt immediately start exploiting them." The Captain raised a shaky hand and began to stroke his stubble-covered chin.

"At a minimum, we should set up a taxation system."

"And imagine how much the Mage Tower would pay to be able to examine those fractures…" he suggested with a helpful expression on his face, while inwardly rubbing his hands together. For a long minute, they just sat there before the Captain spoke up.

"Very well, your idea has merit, young Samuel. I shall forward it to my superiors when I make my report." Reading between the lines, Sam heard the dismissal loud and clear. With an exaggerated sigh, he stood up and after stretching a little, he spoke up.

"I think it's time to take my leave, captain. I need to check on my people," he stated, glancing at his team as they huddled at the walls, looking like they were dead tired, except for Clarissa, who had a line of soldiers in front of her that she continuously healed. The captain nodded in understanding.

"Admirable, my friend. Go with my thanks!" Sam bowed one last time and then turned around and began walking toward his team. They saw him coming, and he could see the question in their eyes. He simply nodded his head towards the gate that was slightly opened to allow passage into the city. They were still wary about another monster horde showing up so the soldiers wanted to make sure they could close it as fast as possible.

They had to wait for Clarissa to finish with her current clients, but as soon as that was done, they booked back to the company headquarters. The streets of the city were full of celebrating or mourning people, and he could see that a lot of people used the catastrophic event to either settle disputes or simply cause chaos. Even the street where his own company could find was full of debris, and the walls of the building were scorched in several places, though the workers were already cleaning up the battle damage.

Entering the building, he could see the bustle of people as they went around with either cleaning or construction equipment, or simply holding documents while they hurried to and fro. Sam said a quick hello to Lucy, but seeing the woman was busy taking care of all the issues that cropped up in the wake of the attack, he gave her the items that dropped to be identified and then simply retreated to his room to rest and go over his notifications.

He made sure that his team also got back to their rooms, and that the maids were ready to take care of them. He turned to the maid following him.

"Please make sure my usual order is prepared,""Yes, sir," came the prompt and demure reply.

"May I suggest some alcohol? My father always took it after a battle…" Sam smiled at the girl and shook his head.

"No, sorry, I don't drink." The girl nodded and, without another word, hurried away to take care of his order. In short order, he was settled into a comfortable armchair in his room, in front of him a spread of delightful foods, with a selection of drinks, all without alcohol. He took a few minutes to fill up his tank, then he casually opened his notification screen and began to read. He finished two quests and killed a raid boss with a party of four people. He expected some really epic rewards.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. [Congratulations! You've leveled up!] [You are now Level 40!] [Gained 4 unassigned attribute points!] [Gained 1 AGI for your speed at coming to aid your comrades!] [Gained 1 WIS for knowing that no man is an island!] He quickly assigned another point to WIS and another to END, and the last two went to PER. Then he continued to read. [Mana Manipulation is now Level 30!] [Mana Channeling is now Level 1!] [Mana Shield is now Level 65!] [Layered Mana Shield is now Level 3!] [Mana Resonance is now Level 3!] [Mana Tempered Body is now Level 30!] [Perception Filter is now Level 3!] [Mana Gaze is now Level 2!] [Double Mana Slash is now Level 10!] [Thanks to your mastery of the skill, you gained the sub-skill Controlled Slash!] [Controlled Slash: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) Thanks to your inhuman control, your mana slashes are super efficient. The cost of your slashes decreases by 10% for every skill level.] [You've learned Triple Mana Slash!] [Triple Mana Slash: Level 0/10 (0%) (Active) Allows you to enhance the damage of your slashes with any weapon capable of slashing while moving so fast it triples the effect. The sub-skills of Mana Slash and Double Slash also affect this skill.] [Mana Body Enhancement is now Level 60!] [Mana Influenced Body is now Level 9!] [Mana Disruption is now Level 12!] [Spell Layering is now Level 13!] [Mana Construct is now Level 11!] Sam smiled a little when he saw the Triple Slash. It was one of the most basic skills, achievable by basically anyone who wielded any kind of bladed weapon. And most people stopped improving the skill after maxing out Triple Slash or took another skill that was similar, just with an elemental addition. However, he knew that there were some positives to the purity of his skill and he had no intention on giving up on the skill. After all, after Triple Slash, there were some insane options for it.

All he needed was speed and even more speed. [Light Ball II is now Level 10!] [You've learned Light Ball III!] [Light Ball III: Level 0/10 (0%) (Active) A spell that allows you to conjure a ball of light to illuminate your surroundings. You have greater control over the movement and location of the conjured ball of light. You can greatly increase and decrease its intensity, shape, and color.] [Firespark is now Level 10!] [Clean III is now Level 10!] [You've learned Clean IV!] [Clean IV: Level 0/10 (0%) A spell that allows you to clean a selected area. You can clean physical and magical contaminations. Grants 1% immunity to diseases per skill level. Above a certain level, the spell only weakens contaminants.] [Earth Wall III is now Level 9!] [Electric Spark II is now Level 5!] [Water Bullet II is now Level 8!] Apparently, the system judged that his use of Firespark was rather basic, so he didn't get the next spell, though if he wanted, he could go to any Mage Tower and purchase the next spell. However, Sam was happy with what he got. Clean was an often dismissed spell, but the increasingly larger bonuses it gave to disease resistance would immensely help with several quests, not to mention against the uncountable monsters that used diseases as attacks. Plus, he hated feeling grimy… [Wind Blade III is now Level 9!] [Wind Blade Storm is now Level 4!] [Wind Bullet III is now Level 7!] [Wind Bullet Barrage is now Level 10!] [You've learned Wind Explosion!] [You learned Wind Explosion: Level 0/10 (0%) A spell that allows you to create a singular bullet of wind mana, and then fire it, which will, upon impact, detonate. The strength of the detonation depends on the amount of wind mana channeled into the bullet and your mastery over the Wind Bullet spell!] [Wind Movement is now Level 28!] [Thanks to your control over your movement, you gained the sub-skill Aerodynamic!] [Aerodynamic: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) Thanks to your mastery over wind-natured mana, you become somewhat aerodynamic. Decreases wind resistance when moving at high speed and increases base speed by 5% for each skill level.] [Wind Edge III is now Level 4!] [Wind Affinity is now Level 55!] [Thanks to your mastery over wind you gained the sub-skill Gentle Wind!] [Gentle wind: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) You are a gentle wind, flowing around obstacles. Increased speed when not in battle. Speed increases by 5% for each skill level.] [Windstream is now Level 4!] His wind-related skills were coming along nicely. Maybe he could try a few combinations skills with his affinity over fifty… [Active Meditation is now Level 43!] [Serene Movement is now Level 5!] [Battle Awareness is now Level 4!] [Spirit Link is now Level 33!] [Spirit Connection is now Level 2!] [Advanced Shadow Footwork is now Level 7!] [Shadow Grace is now Level 3!] [You've had a breakthrough with Shadow Burst!] [Shadow Burst Is now Level 10!] [You've learned Shadow Burst II!] [Shadow Burst II: Level 0/10 (0%) (Active) Activating the skill increases the speed by 200% plus 20% for each skill level for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.] [Shadow Mirage is now Level 29!] [Shadow Transformation is now Level 16!] [Shadow Shield is now Level 19!] [Shadow Cloud is now Level 3!] [Shadow Affinity is now Level 18!]"Finally!" he exclaimed happily, throwing his arms in the air. Shadow Burst broke through, probably because he used it so much during the event, 'Though, as it is a very rare spell, it will be extremely hard to reach the next level…' [Advanced Sword Mastery is now Level 13!] [Basic Armor Mastery is now Level 37!] [Advanced Breathing Technique is now Level 9!] [Calm Heart is now Level 45!] [Steady Heartbeat is now Level 3!] [Flow is now Level 40!] [Focused Flow is now Level 4!] [Illusion Resistance is now Level 13!] [Corruption Resistance is now Level 10!] [Earth Resistance is now Level 6!] [Shadow Resistance is now Level 8!] [Multitasking is now Level 76!] [Parallel Processing is now Level 8!] Finally came Lucky's skill. This was punctuated by the silly wolf appearing from his shadow, already gnawing on a giant bone that he found somewhere. Sam smiled at the sight as the giant beast settled at his feet. [Shadow Jump is now Level 19!] [Shadow Claws is now Level 7!] [Thanks to participating in a fearsome battle, Lucky has learned a new skill!] [Lucky learned the Fear Aura!] [Fear Aura: Level 0/25 (0%) Your companion may project its primal spirit in the surrounding area, thus casting fear into the hearts of his enemies. Causes Fear status effect.] Naturally, Sam bent down while taking some choice cooked meat and offered it to the giant shadow wolf.

"Who is the good boy? Who is the good boy?" Lucky immediately forgot the giant bone, and began gobbling down the meat that Sam offered while radiating with his entire body, one thought: 'He was the good boy!' Sam spent a few minutes playing with the happy Lucky, then done with the skill upgrades, he turned towards the quests and their corresponding rewards. [You completed the quest: Monster Parade!] [Your reward is a greatly increased reputation in the city of Ironwood and the areas it controls. For more tangible rewards, please wait for the official commendations.] [You saved the life of the Guard Captain of Ironwood City and helped him hold the gates, preventing the monster horde from rampaging through the city. Increased relationship with the Captain. Security around your company's buildings will be increased by 100% for an in-game year.]'Now that's a good reward!' he mused. Increased guard presence around his buildings would simply negate a lot of plans that his enemies would try.

"Can't wait to see the results!" he murmured, which turned into an evil laugh. After he calmed down, he turned to the other quest. [You completed the quest: Topping the tree!] [Your reward is further increased reputation with the city of Ironwood and areas it controls. For more tangible rewards, please wait for the official commendations.] Sam's eyes grew to the size of an old silver dollar after reading it. Apparently, his reward from the city was going to be ludicrous if the two quests' rewards overlapped.

He couldn't wait… [Your team was the first to kill the area's Fracture Boss. Your reward is one random high-tier skill!]'What, random?' Sam was a little happy and a little angry. Angry because it was a random reward, but also happy because random meant he could get something really great. For luck, he placed his hand on Lucky's head and prayed to every luck deity he could remember.

The only solace he had was that the game would make sure that the skill would at least somehow fit into his skill repertoire and not wreck his build with an always-on passive skill. [Searching….] [Skill found!] [You've learned Illusionary Runes!] [Illusionary Runes: Level 0/100 (0%) (Active) You can project runes and activate them in the air without them being carved into a solid medium. Their strength is 1% of their full strength, which increases by 1% for every skill level.] Sam read the skill several times and shook his head. He really had the shittiest luck. He got an overpowered skill that would need weeks of dedication to get up to speed. Which he currently didn't have…

'Oh well, it would surely come in handy…' After taking a well-deserved rest, he sought out the rest of the team. Following a little search, he found them in one of the meeting rooms, that has been repurposed as a dining room for them, with one of the maids standing around, ready to serve them. Nodding and smiling at the maid, he joined them at the table. Katie simply raised a drumstick belonging to some kind of fowl as a salute, then continued to savagely consume it.

Dan simply grunted and continued to eat his meal. Clarissa sent an annoyed glance at the smaller girl and the giant musclebound pyromaniac, then greeted Sam.

"Hello. Everything alright?"

"Yeah, we are in the clear! Now we just have to wait for the city to reward us…" he answered simply.

"Anyway, what did you get for the dungeon reward?" Clarissa sent him a long look, but before she could answer Katie spoke up, mouth still holding a little food.

"Got a really awesome skill! It's Flying Slash!" Then, with a simple movement, she shared the skill with Sam. He blinked at the girl's abruptness, then began reading the notification screen that popped up in front of him. [Flying Slash: Level 0/100 (0%) (Active) Slash with your weapon and send whatever energies you control forward shaped like a crescent. Damage depends on the original skill that provides the energy. The skill increases the energy's damage by 1% per skill level.] Sam blinked and cursed in his mind.

'Why couldn't I get this…' However, on the outside, he simply smiled.

"Good skill, indeed. Congrats!"

"Thanks!" came the reply with a blinding smile from the berserker girl. He then turned to Dan, who finished the last bite, swallowed and then simply sent his own to Sam.

"It's not the best, but I can see the potential." Sam just stared. [Flame Freeze: Level 0/100 (0%) (Active) Allows you to freeze flames around you, turning them into solid ice. The ice's strength depends on the transformed fire. After 5 seconds, the frozen flames explode, dealing damage.]"Not the best? You are a fire mage!"

"Yeah, but the damage of the skill is not supported by my passives. I need to study ice magic to do impressive damage with the skill…" came the explanation.

"Isn't freezing the opposite of burning? Taking the energy out of a system?" he asked a little hesitantly. It was a long time ago he studied anything to do with physics.

"Huh…" came the absentminded reply from Dan as he pulled out a notebook and began scribbling into it. Finally, Sam turned to Clarissa with a questioning look.

"And you? If you don't mind sharing, of course…" Clarissa looked thoughtful for a long second, then shrugged and sent the screen to Sam. [Hexagon is the Bestagon: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) Instead of circular globes, all of your spells that use that kind of shape will instead use hexagons, increasing their defensive properties and their efficiency. Increases defensive properties by 2% per skill level and decreases mana cost by 0, 5% per skill level. Also looks cool!] Sam looked at the description and then back at the healer, who could only shrug in exasperation. He then spent a few minutes mulling over the skills, while the others continued their meal. Eventually, he made a few decisions and spoke up.

"Good showing. For now, take your time to rest and we will go and hunt down a few more dungeons." He stood up and bowed a little.

"I'll leave you to it…" There was a moment of silence before Katie called out.

"What did you get, boss?" Seeing the curious gazes on the rest of his teammates, Sam smiled and after messing around a few seconds with his own system screen shared his new skill.