Ten minutes passed, and… nothing. Besides a few drone-like machines checking them out, no movement had been made from the Fort to welcome their arrival. Reika was getting partly worried and partly confused at the lack of a response.She was absolutely certain they had been spotted. Didn’t they know who they were or where they were from? They had to know, right? Had they just caught them at a bad time? During an important meeting, perhaps? Or was something else going on that required their immediate attention, such as an emergency?Finally, after another ten minutes, they saw a man approach. He was running across the plains rather slowly, and upon using Identify, she saw he was only level 71. Reika’s frown intensified as the man made it to their vessel, and with her permission, they lowered a platform for him to get onto the barge.The man who came up was middle-aged and looked quite uncomfortable with everything that was going on. Reika looked at him, and he correctly identified her a

Days passed as Jake entertained Reika, primarily through discussions on alchemy and just seeing the city. He had even given her a tour of his new alchemy laboratory. She was especially impressed with the room with the water basin in it, though she still found the laboratory itself remarkable. She said that the craftsmanship was above anything anyone in the Noboru Clan could do, making Jake wonder how Arnold and Hank had pulled it off.The best part of it all had no doubt been when they went to see the dungeon entrance and the under-construction garden, which had netted them both a big surprise."Why is there level 149 troll just below the city?" Reika had asked as she looked at the large troll digging through some soil with its hands. "And why is it wearing overalls?"Jake didn’t have an answer for that as he looked at the troll wearing oversized, dirty blue overalls to cover its lower half while it worked. When the troll saw Jake and Reika, it waved happily at them, and soon enough,

Jake sat in meditation and sensed his own body. Not just the physical one, but the metaphysical representation of it. He felt his stamina, mana, and health move as he tried to trace it all back to its source: the area around his heart.Villy was standing with him and exerting pressure. Jake felt his physical body slowly start to crumble as his skin flayed off and turned to dust. Every resource was exhausted, and Jake sensed his metaphysical body begin to distort as it turned to nothing. As it did, he faintly felt something.Just as fast as the feeling emerged, it disappeared along with the pressure.Jake wanted to ask why the Viper had stopped, but he then noticed he didn’t have any mouth… or much of anything, really. He was nothing more than a floating heart in the middle of the room, his entire body gone. Due to his sphere, he still saw everything, even when Villy waved his hand and Jake fully healed.He opened his eyes and took a deep breath as he heaved."Anything?" Villy asked."

Villy, you fucking troll, Jake cursed as he finally found the problem. Holy fucking shit, did he feel like beating that snake god up with a tire iron. Jake had no damn clue how long he had been sitting there; all he knew was that the bastard had fooled him.Five types of Identify: race, profession, class, level of Blessing, and general power level. This was what Villy had said the telescopes and mirrors were enchanted to Identify. There was a total of thirty-seven hundred and seventy-two mirrors, and fifteen hundred and ninety-eight telescopes present. Jake had felt them all repeatedly Identify him in waves, about once every second. Not all of one type at the same time, but totally mixed up, and he was pretty sure that the exact same set of mirrors and telescopes had not Identified him twice during the entire training session.How long it had taken till he began to differentiate between them was unknown… but it felt like months. Maybe a year? He didn’t know, and hadn’t spared the bra

Jake was once again pulled through space. This time he focused on not trying to look anywhere or spread out his senses as he passed through that weird void. It went a bit faster than the first time, and Jake promptly found himself back in the middle of the grand monument.In front of him stood Chris, who had clearly been doing some maintenance work. "Lord Thayne, you’re back!"Waving to the guy, Jake suddenly got an idea. "Can you Identify me?""Sure!" the young man agreed without question. "It says human, but I can’t see the level."Jake nodded, confirming it worked as he intended. It would be suspicious if people too low in level to detect his façade would suddenly see a number they otherwise shouldn’t be able to. "Thanks, man, I got some stuff to handle back in Haven. See you around, and good job on the teleporter. Worked as intended.""All according to the will of the Malefic One," Chris said in a tone that gave Jake the creeps.He headed out, flying towards the teleporter and bac