The look on Moxy’s face when Asher pulled her out of his Personal Rift and had her look out the window of their private room of the palace overlooking the capital was something he’d remember for the rest of his life. He was used to calm certainty or deranged excitement from the warrior, which made the look of shock and disbelief on her face all the more entertaining. Finally, after a solid few seconds of staring out over the vast capital city before them, Moxy managed to close her jaw and nod at him.

  “Alright, I’ve decided. From this point forward, I’m going to assume the rules of this world don’t apply to you for whatever reason. I feel like that will save me a lot of headache rather than trying to wrap my head around how you can do anything you do.”

  “Honestly, that’s probably not a bad way of looking at things,” Samantha admitted, having been pulled out of his rift right alongside her. “I realized pretty early on Asher was something special, and he’s never given me a reason to doubt that so far.”

  “Aw, thank you,” he said, smiling as he reached out and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re just as special, you know.”

  “Gag,” Moxy drawled, rolling her eyes. “Well, consider myself thoroughly onboard with whatever ‘this’ is, I suppose,” she said, lazily gesturing at the three of them. “So what now? Do you actually have an idea as to how we can take the fight to this mysterious lich who wants to carve out a chunk of your soul?”

  “Nope,” Asher said, laughing at Moxy’s exasperated expression. “But I have an idea or two as to how to go about finding it. I figured while I work on that, the three of us can spend some time training together and making sure we know what to expect when a fight breaks out. You and I know each other’s styles pretty well by now, but we’ve each unlocked or evolved entirely new skills since we last fought, and you and Samantha are total unknowns to one another. We also have a giant windfall of shards coming our way in a couple of days from putting a greater demon corpse and some old books up at the Grand Auction, so we should make sure we’re here for that as well.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.” Samantha nodded, offering Moxy a small smile. “I’m still a bit new to fighting actual demons and monsters, so I’m sorry if I make any silly mistakes while we’re training together.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re bringing her into all this just because she’s your girlfriend,” Moxy drawled, crossing her arms with a frown as she glanced at Samantha. “No offense, but it sounds like this is going to be one hell of a task we’re undertaking, and I don’t intend to fight beside anyone I don’t think can hold their own.”

  Rolling his eyes, Asher didn’t even ask for permission this time before poking Moxy in the forehead and shoving a few more select memories at her. Witnessing Samantha fire enchanted arrow after arrow through the heads of lesser demons attacking them. Sniping bandits from afar and showing off her incredible accuracy and willingness to kill when needed. Slicing through a swarm of imps with her new Razor Wings like a living blender as she provided him with covering fire. Blinking, Moxy grunted as she sifted through the memories. As soon as her eyes focused again, she turned toward Samantha, offering her a crooked grin.

  “Alright, I stand corrected. You’ve got some fire in you after all. I can work with what I just saw.”

  “What did you show her?” Samantha asked, frowning at Asher as he merely laughed in response. “You know, I don’t think I like this part of your Incorporate skill as much as I thought I did!”

  “All I did was show her you know how to handle yourself in a fight,” he reassured her, giving her hand another quick squeeze. “With that settled, it’s getting late. We should probably turn in for the night. I’ll check in with Donvath’s staff about getting you a room next to ours, Moxy, and then we can get started figuring out how all ‘this’ is going to work in the morning.”

  With all of them in agreement, Asher did just that. He figured he’d have to have an actual conversation about what he was doing with Donvath soon enough, but it would seem the High Prince had already known something like this was coming, as the servant he spoke with informed him the rooms on either side of their own had already been prepared for his use.

  Goddamn Time element, Asher thought to himself, realizing the absurdity of what Donvath was capable of must be similar to how crazy his own skills seemed to his friends. After Moxy was settled in her new room, Asher quickly found himself lying in bed beside Samantha. He didn’t feel all that tired, however, and it seemed Samantha was the same as she sighed and turned to face him.

  “I know it’s early to say, but I think Moxy is probably going to be a good addition to this new team of ours.”

  “Why does it sound like there’s a ‘but’ hanging on the end of that?” he asked, poking her gently on the nose.

  “But…” Samantha added with a giggle, flicking him softly on the forehead. “…I’m still a bit nervous about just throwing her into the deep end like this. It feels like you spent so long desperately trying to keep your elements a secret, only to decide on a whim to just tell Moxy pretty much everything. You’re not worried that choice is going to come back to bite you?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I know what you mean,” he admitted, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling as he pondered the issue. “Half of it is because she’s all but certain to find out anyway, what with how loose-lipped the demons seem to be about everything. But the other half is because of what Donvath said. About how word has already gotten out about my Spatial element and my name is being spread across the continent as we speak. I’m not going to go around shouting about my Eternity element from the rooftops, but I’m not going to try to pointlessly keep a low profile anymore, either. Donvath had a good point about attempting to spirit away Spatial element users being pointless. Even if it’s revealed that I have a totally unique element, it’s not like people can kidnap me for study. Really the only concern would be them going after you or Brian and using one of you as blackmail, but my Eternal Marks largely counter that as well. All that to say, for the first time since realizing my elements were special, I think I’m done hiding.”

  “I’m glad you don’t feel the need to hide who you are anymore,” Samantha said, wrapping her arms around him and giving him a tender kiss. “I for one think you’re pretty great!”

  “Please, do go on,” he said, earning a laugh from Samantha before he cut it off with another kiss. Their kisses quickly traveled from lips to skin, and hands soon followed in their footsteps as night clothes were discarded and they came to an agreement without words that they were done talking for the night.

  The next couple of days were a jarring return to the beginning of Asher’s journey as a fighter. Moxy demanded that if they were all going to be fighting alongside one another, before they went out hunting down any new demons, they needed to know the decisions each of them would make in the heat of combat and how they all acted when having a punch thrown at their face.

  Asher was pretty certain Moxy was just eager to fight him again, but he couldn’t see any fault in her logic, so he agreed to her terms.

  Reclaiming that same empty field a few miles out from the capital where they’d practiced flying, the three of them took turns sparring with one another. Asher was surprised to discover that he was able to hold his own against Moxy far more effectively than he had been before, thanks to a whole host of tiny things that seemed to add up. He had better reflexes when it came to slipping in and out of the astral realm, more control over his uses of Distortion when dodging air blasts and launching his own attacks, and even his ability to slow down time with Comprehend’s second tier effect helped out, removing himself from the rush of adrenaline and allowing him to calmly plan out his next move in the heat of battle.

  Other than her blended skill, which she didn’t bother using during their spars as it would just be a waste of perfectly good pelts, Moxy didn’t seem to have any new tricks up her sleeves when it came to her skills. Asher finally understood just why she’d been so shocked to hear he hadn’t even hit the Stage of Honing yet when they’d first fought. Fighting without all fifteen skills evolved to the second tier, let alone even unlocked yet, was like fighting with an arm tied behind one’s back.

  Thanks to Moxy’s Life element, they only needed to avoid killing blows against one another, as Moxy was capable of healing just about anything else. He was mildly worried to discover that one of the downsides of revealing to Moxy that he’d come back from the dead if killed meant that the warrior was no longer pulling any of her punches in the slightest. In fact, part of him wondered if that wasn’t the real reason why she’d decided to join their little team so quickly. He had no doubt she was excited about the idea of fighting powerful demons, but having a competent sparring partner who would simply come back from death after she was done playing with them was probably everything Moxy had ever wanted.

  His and Moxy’s battles with one another were only a few of the fights that occurred, however, as they had a third member of the team who wasn’t exempt from Moxy’s demands. He’d been a bit worried about how well Samantha would hold her own fighting against either one of them, seeing as he and Moxy had so much more experience and were absolutely the better fighters, but he realized rather quickly that he needn’t have worried. He’d forgotten one simple fact that made Samantha a rather annoying opponent to go up against.

  Samantha could fly.

  Whenever their battles started, Samantha simply took off into the sky, keeping well out of range of Moxy’s air blasts or his own dagger throws as she peppered them from above with unenchanted arrows. There was quite frankly nothing he or Moxy could do to take her down, locked down onto the ground as they were, so these battles quickly turned into practice using their skills and reflexes to dodge Samantha’s arrows. Technically, Asher supposed he could activate Recall and teleport directly beside Samantha whenever he wanted, but he didn’t feel like that was a very fair move to use during a friendly spar. He couldn’t assume he’d manage to get one of his Eternal Marks on any of his opponents, either, which meant relying on that during their practice would be doing his future self a disservice.

  While she was largely satisfied, Moxy still demanded that Samantha would have to practice fighting on the ground with them at some point, seeing as they’d most likely come across situations where they had to fight in enclosed quarters where the hunter couldn’t rely on her Wing element to keep her out of harm's way. Having already experienced that while battling within the lich’s tower, Samantha wholeheartedly agreed.

  They still had a long way to go, but even after only a few days of dedicated training, Asher felt like they were really coming together as a team. There was only so much they could do with their practice bouts, but like Moxy said, getting the chance to both experience what it was like fighting against one another, as well as witnessing from the outside the decisions they made while fighting, was invaluable.

  He’d even managed to gain a skill level or two for all their effort, which never hurt to see.

  Secret Seeker - Lvl 25

  Astral Dip - lvl 31

  It had been some time since Secret Seeker had last leveled up, and he’d forgotten how effective fighting against Moxy was when it came to training the skill. Accurately spotting her air blasts flying toward his face was only possible thanks to the skill, and he’d had no shortage of those being sent his way over the past few days.

  Finally, after honing their team cohesion and skills against one another, they felt ready.

  It was time to see how they fared against an actual opponent.

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