I took my time going through Ring Four. The day hadn’t come to an end yet. Not that the end of the day mattered. When it came to rebuilding their homes and reconstructing Ring Four, people were serious and dedicated enough that they weren’t going to stop just because it was nighttime.

  “Hello, Cultist!” one of the men said. He was working with several others to transport building material to the construction site. Since the old buildings had fallen apart, we had decided to try out new architecture to update what Ring Four looked like, and I felt like the new and improved houses were coming along nicely. “Thank you again for everything!”

  “Yes,” echoed another older fellow. “You’re a lifesaver, Cultist Ross!”

  “That’s right!”

  “Thanks again, Cultist!”

  I waved at them. It was nice seeing that the help I had offered them was being used well. The building materials I had secured thanks to gaining more funds after the Nether Vein, Blight Swarm, and House Brasvay issues were coming in very handy. All the funds from selling mountains upon mountains of inedible monstrous bug corpses were playing their part too.

  That was one of the key issues I felt I had navigated to the best of my ability. Sharing battle loot after the chaos of the Blight Swarm invasion was almost impossible. I took a page out of the Adventurers Guild’s playbook and just sold it all.

  The resulting money went to purchasing vital goods for all of Ring Four. Not just building materials for the destroyed houses, but food and clean water, supplies for Ring Four’s Ration House, services from Shikarthola Builders to provide blueprints, and a lot of other odds and ends. Stuff that we would all need, more or less.

  Over the next few days, I helped with the rebuilding efforts when I wasn’t busy with other stuff. Said other stuff included—aside from cult duties like leading prayers and inducting new members—setting up a couple more of the Protostars.

  We were lacking fertilizer and seeds. They wouldn’t arrive for a while yet. Two weeks at least, according to the suppliers Hamsik was in contact with.

  That said, Yerenc had stuck a small flower plant in the field, and it was surprisingly flourishing. My mini-sun’s effect wasn’t strong enough to overcome the seeming barrenness of the soil. But considering it had been used before, there were enough nutrients for a little flower.

  Besides all that, there was training, of course. I sparred a bit with the Scarthrall cultists but mostly focused on gaining my new Flare Affix. Which finally arrived late at night about three days later.

  [ Affix Unlocked!

  You have acquired a new Affix for your Flare Aspect.

  Affix: Absorption ]

  [ Rank Up!

  Your Flare Aspect has risen by one Rank.

  Flare: Silver IV ]

  [ Path Evolution

  Your Path of the Apostle has finished evolving.

  New Path: Path of the Auric Hierophant [Gold I] ]

  The sudden surge of energy at the completion of my Path Evolution left me a little breathless. I felt a bit like I was turning into solid gold. Auric, it had said.

  My eyes slowly went to the new Affix for Flare. Absorption. That was a bit different from what I had been envisioning, but it didn’t sound terrible. In fact, my mind was now busy trying to think of use cases for it.

  Even if I could all of a sudden absorb heat physically somehow, what in the world would that absorbed energy turn into?

  “Congratulations, Cultist,” Vandre said, clapping exuberantly when he heard about my Path Evolution.

  “Congratulations!” echoed Atholaine with a little whoop while also clapping.

  Lujean pumped his fist into the air before moderating it to an applause too. “Congratulations!”

  The rest of the Scarthralls all echoed the same sentiment. It felt a mite surreal to have them act so happy at something that only felt par for the course to me now, but I decided against taking it for granted.

  “Congratulations to you guys too,” I said. “You’ve grown a ton! You were all instrumental in stopping the Blight Swarm from destroying Zairgon. I wouldn’t be here—at least not as easily—without all of you. I hope you know I’m proud of you guys.”

  I was. It was pretty evident on my face too, going by the way the Scarthralls’ expressions changed into a mixture of pride and embarrassment and far too much else for me to track. Sure, most of them hadn’t manifested mage-like Aspects the way Vandre had all that while ago. But that didn’t mean they hadn’t progressed and grown strong.

  “I think we’re just about ready,” I said. The Scarthralls got visibly excited. “For our first dungeon delve together.”

  By ready, I meant that I now considered the Scarthralls strong enough to handle most obstacles any dungeons under Zairgon could present. There were some external matters we still needed to take care of first, of course. So, I got about doing just that.

  “They’re not as hostile as last time,” Lujean murmured as we went into the Adventurer’s Guild the next day.

  He was right. Compared to the last few receptions I had received at the guildhall, the response our arrival got now was basically lukewarm. A few looks here and there, a few shuffling and murmuring, but nothing more than that. I’d have thought that we had shown them that messing with me and the Scarthralls would go pretty poorly for them all.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  But it wasn’t that. There was a sense of… grudging respect about them. The looks we got were anywhere between appraising and reluctantly awed. I couldn’t help my nonplussed expression as I made my way to the bartender.

  “You look a little befuddled, Cultist Moreland,” Adashe said. He was wiping down freshly washed mugs. “Confused why the adventurers aren’t lunging for your throat today?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” I admitted.

  Adashe hissed out soft laughter. “Well, a lot of them were involved in the Blight Swarm invasion, you see.”

  “Oh.”

  Now it was starting to make sense. I hadn’t exactly paid attention to who and who had stood their ground to defend Zairgon. We had all been involved, one way or another. Plus, I had been far too busy actually stopping the Blight Swarm for good to pay attention to things like that. What Adashe said was starting to make sense, though.

  Because if these people had seen what I and the Scarthralls and all of Ring Four had gone through and dealt with in the Blight Swarm, then their estimations of us must have risen.

  Nice change, I supposed.

  “Just glad I don’t have to crack any heads open today,” I said.

  Adashe chuckled. “Ugnash told me you were looking to set up your own dungeon run.” He pointed up with a stiletto-thin finger. “Head over to Dahath. He’s not just the man to take your treasures, you know. He sets up the jobs as well.”

  “Got it. Thanks, Adashe.”

  I left to head upstairs. Lujean followed, though only after swiping up a drink with his hard-earned money. Everybody in the cult had gotten hefty bonuses after the Blight Swarm invasion.

  The Evaluator was in his second-floor office, thankfully. Although, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t imagine seeing the portly, bespectacled Rakshasa anywhere but in his office.

  “Hmm?” He looked up, glasses flashing. “Who—oh, it’s you.”

  There was something strange about his demeanour, a sudden shift that made me blink. He looked like he was caught between a rock and a hard place for some reason. Strange. I hadn’t even said anything yet.

  “Me,” I said. “Hope you’ve been well, Dahath. Adashe said I needed to talk to you if I wanted to set up my own dungeon run.”

  Dahath cleared his throat. “Right, of course. Let’s make one thing clear—you better understand I can’t bypass the standard guild rates for standard dungeon delves.”

  Ah, so that was what worried him. He was all too wary of me “taking advantage” of him just like I had done the last time at our meeting. I did my best to hold back my smile.

  “Standard rates are fine,” I said. “I’m not exactly worried about revenue right now.”

  Dahath stared at me. “Of course you aren’t…” he muttered, then shook his head.

  “But it’ll only remain standard if the dungeon delve remains standard too.”

  The Evaluator scowled. It didn’t help to reduce the apparent size of his eyes behind his glasses. “How do I trust you’re not going to make it non-standard?”

  “Well, the burden of trust lies on you, I’m afraid. You’re just going to have to trust me. All I’m saying is that if I suddenly find another Nether Vein opening in Rackshift Dungeon, I’m not going to be satisfied with just a standard rate.”

  “There won’t be another Nether Vein opening! You have any idea how incredibly rare and powerful they are?”

  Lujean slurped his drink noisily. “Calm down, old man.”

  Dahath frowned up at Lujean. “I—”

  “I was speaking in hypotheticals,” I said, cutting in. “You get what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  After a moment of consideration, the Evaluator begrudgingly sighed. “Yes, yes. I’ll draw up the standard contract. It actually has provisions that standard rates only apply to standard dungeon delve procedures and aren’t valid for extraordinary circumstances. That’s the only reason you’ve been getting away with your outrageous demands the last few times.”

  I smiled. “Sure, whatever you say.”

  Dahath clearly didn’t enjoy it but signed and handed over the job contract. I copied him.

  “All good?” I asked.

  Dahath nodded. “All good… up until you discover a hidden Nether Vein entrance in Rackshift dungeon.”

  I snorted. “You got that right.”

  “Come back in a couple of days,” Dahath said. “Then I’ll have all the formalities done and you can head out.”

  “Alright, I’ll see you around.”

  He didn’t greet me farewell. Ah, well.

  Back at the temple, the Scarthralls were a little too excitable to simply train. I didn’t blame them. They were about to go on their first dungeon exploration. We just had to figure out how to tell Sreketh about it without upsetting her.

  Speaking of which, I needed to visit her at the academy one of these days. While she wasn’t an official student there yet, she had applied to remain there while studying for the entrance exam happening soon.

  After having a look through the cult’s funds with Aqrea, I decided to spend some time thinking about everything else I needed to pay attention to. Everything else about me, that was.

  I needed new Augmentations for Vitality, Agility, and Fervour. Since I was Gold-ranked now, I could focus on stronger Augmentations. My mind kept going back to my new Flare Affix and what it said. Absorption. When I tested it, I found I was absorbing heat to turn it into mana. I still retained the ability to keep it as energy, though. Neat.

  With a heat source nearby, I now had another easy way of using Augmentations like Mana Heal and Mana Injection that needed those external strands of magic to work.

  But, what if there was a different way I could use that external energy? What was Vitality? Anything that had to do with my health and constitution. It wasn’t exactly like a health pool or hit points, but raising it was very obviously raising the amount of damage I could resist and sustain.

  I already had a means of using external mana to heal myself if I got injured, which had proven invaluable. Now, could I use the same thing to not get injured in the first place?

  Gutran’s suggestion, when I went sparring with him, was that I needed to form a tighter bridge between myself and my mana.

  “Your connection needs to be stronger,” he said, grunting as he withstood my mace blow with his shield. It was fun seeing that I finally had the kind of Power I needed to push him back. “And then, you can make your mana do all kinds of things.”

  “I wonder what the Mage Guild will think of me getting mana lessons from a blacksmith,” I said.

  Gutran snorted as we took a break. “Sinthesar is famous for their magesmiths, though there are none in Zairgon.”

  The end of the training session brought up some new ranks, finally.

  [ Rank Up!

  Your Power and Agility Attributes have risen by one Rank.

  Power: Gold V

  Agility: Gold III ]

  Yeesh. It had been well over a week since I had last gained a rank in any of my Gold-ranked Attributes. Maybe ten days if I was being specific. I obviously hadn’t trained every single day, but it was concerning all the same how much effort it took to rank up when Gold.

  Not that I let it show. I remembered how much Gutran counselled for patience, so I did my best to adhere to that.

  Breakthroughs. That was what I’d need to rely on.

  When I went over to the Adventurer’s Guild the next day, the official job was finally ready. I thought it’d be an easy come-and-go trip, but I was accosted by a few new folks I hadn’t met personally before, though I’d seen some of them here and there.

  “Cultist Moreland!” hailed a wiry Rakshasa with overly sharp horns. “Great to finally meet you. Don’t suppose you could spare a few moments?”

  “Depends on what for,” I said. “And hello, nice to meet you too, uh…”

  “This is Amiratha.” Ugnash came in lumbering behind the shorter, wirier Rakshasa. He wasn’t alone. There were a handful of other adventurers coming up behind him. “They uh…”

  Amiratha grinned, before elbowing Ugnash. “This big lug was saying how you’re the person who’s gone deeper into the Nether Vein than anyone else. Since the Councillors are about to open it back up, we thought we’d ask the person who’s got the most first-hand knowledge save the Councillors themselves.”

  “Why me?” I asked. “Khagnio went in as deep as I did.”

  “Yes, well.” Amiratha made an exaggerated showing of checking for Khagnio around them. “That slimy snake is harder to catch than sand. And he’ll probably tell us to screw off too. Pits-cursed bastard.” She forcefully brightened her expression as she turned back to me. “So, what do you say, Cultist Moreland?”

  This was the first time I was learning the Councillors were ready to delve back into the Nether Vein, which meant my Ignition Charge contraption with Entropy wouldn’t be necessary for much longer.

  I rubbed my chin. “I’ll be happy to provide some intel about what I’ve gone through.” Honestly, my biggest advice would have been to tell them all to stay well away from the Nether Vein unless they were absolutely convinced they could handle it. “But the question is—what do I get in return?”

  The adventurers looked at each other.

  “The… feeling of exquisite relief when you learn we didn’t die in the Nether Vein?” Amiratha said hopefully.

  I stared at her, trying not to laugh. Problem was, I hadn’t set out to perform any deals today. There wasn’t anything I needed from the adventurers.

  But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have any needs going forward.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” I said. With my growing influence, with the way Dahath and the rest of the adventurers were treating me, I was fairly certain they wouldn’t dare double-cross me or renege on their side of any bargain. “And in return, you’ll be in my debt until I come and collect a favour. Deal?”

  They looked at each other again before Amiratha faced me once more.

  “Deal.”