"So, Arnold, what made you decide to get blessed and enter a pact with some sort of otherworldly being of the void that usually turns people insane merely by laying their eyes upon it?"Jake had barely entered the sphere of metal and made his way to the mad scientist before he popped the question burning in his mind. He hadn’t even taken out the creepy cube yet. Jake had just been invited in by Arnold’s assistant and walked into his workshop, asking about his Void God pal without delay.Arnold, to his credit, didn’t get fazed or even look up from his workbench as he answered, "By all estimates, being blessed by a god is superior to not being blessed by one, and the offered benefits outstripped all other offers at the time."It was the kind of answer Jake had expected, but he still pressed further. "But… have you seen this god?""Naturally." Arnold nodded, still unbothered as his hands kept working."And? No comments on the appearance of a floating thing of infinite eyeballs?""The app

Sultan stood in the old ruins of what had once been Ambermill as he looked at the departing former citizens. Four large barges able to accommodate every person had been brought from the Fort and would help transport them all back to the settlement.He had been asked by Miranda to go to Ambermill together with a crew of others to handle the situation. She had heard slavery was going on, and people had been forced into contracts, so she wanted someone with knowledge of slave contracts to go and hopefully help annul those already signed as well as track down potential leads. The first one he had gladly done, but the second job was a bit more… complicated."I did tell that idiot this was too close to Haven," Sultan said, smirking as he shook his head. He had known about the operations going on in Ambermill for quite a while but had naturally kept quiet. It wasn’t anything that affected him, and he had already left the entire slave-trading scene for good. That didn’t mean others had, thoug

Was it a sign of intelligence to willingly kill yourself to try and take your would-be killers down with you? It was undoubtedly a sign of ego, and proof the Earth Elemental Prima had been no simple-minded creature. Calling it smart would perhaps be a bit too much, but it certainly did have some level of intelligence not found in its regular brethren. They just died when they ran out of mana and fought the same way from the beginning till the end. They simply didn’t have the mental faculties to display desperation.They displayed this as, even with the entire place coming down, they kept attacking Jake, Sylphie, and Carmen, putting extra pressure on them while they tried to reach one of the tunnels leading out of the cavern."Blocked off here!" Carmen yelled."Here too," Jake noted as he quickly surveyed their surroundings. "Fucker managed to direct the force to collapse the entrances first."He also sent out a string of mana as he tracked the mana of the fragment dropped by the Prima

Frogs in all shapes and sizes, birds that ambushed with pecks nearly as fast as Jake’s arrows, and a plethora of other annoying animals hounded Jake, Sylphie, and Carmen as they made their way deeper into the mangroves. The first frogs they encountered were a good indicator of what they would face.They were all specialized creatures adapted to their unique environment. They all made use of the many ambush possibilities offered by the dense branches and leaves above or the river below. Granted, Jake was the worst kind of opponent for them, as the current him would never fall into an actual ambush, but some attacks were difficult to deal with even if you knew they were coming.The mangrove forest was also more than a little annoying fighting in, especially for an archer like Jake. The creatures made full use of the winding roots for cover or hid away underwater to avoid his blows. Sylphie didn’t care much and was able to maneuver well enough to sometimes even take advantage of the envi

Jake stared up at the white snake that, in turn, regarded him, waiting for an answer to its question. It had mentioned something about a Forefather, and the hamster wheel in Jake’s mind spun as he put two and two together… The snake had to be talking about the Malefic Viper. It did confuse him a bit, though.The snake didn’t have a Blessing, as far as Jake could tell, and he couldn’t see any connection between the C-grade and the Viper at all. Well, besides them both being highly venomous snakes. Also, why had the snake come to begin with?One thing that did put his mind at ease was the lack of hostility. The snake had helped them and now seemed friendly and curious. Considering that was the case, Jake decided it would be wisest to be honest about what they were doing there."We are simply passing through and had no plans of getting into any fights, but the frog attacked us," Jake answered truthfully.The snake regarded Jake and then tossed Sylphie a look. "To bring a young one from s