The events in Paradise marked the end of Vivi’s resting period. She no longer had the urge to wander around and smile at people. Instead, her drive to get things done returned with full force.

  The first thing she did after waking up was to tell Lucius to send three consecutive signals to Essi to confirm that she hadn’t been killed.

  It took ten long and nervous seconds, but Essi did respond with three signals. She was, at the very least, alive. In trouble with her hunting company, most definitely, and there was a good chance she was lying about everything being alright just to not make Vivi worry, but the three-signals proved there was no life-threatening catastrophe.

  Vivi’s morning routine passed in a flash as she skipped tea and bath, knowing she’d be clouded in sand dust within an hour anyway, and Vivi departed straight to the front lines. With her home so low in the city and close to the wall, she could already hear the shockwaves of snapping stretch ropes.

  The front lines themselves had a lot more firepower now. Bows had been replaced almost entirely with first iteration mass-produced slingshot launchers. There were barrels full of mass-produced missiles. A launcher fired, and the weapon was handed to the organized reloading teams. A stick-like tool had been built to reload safely, reducing the amount of people needed to reload a weapon from three per launcher to just one each.

  Coshi wasn’t present, but plenty of her lights were protecting the operators. Vivi walked up to one of them and said, “I’m clearing the desert today. Tell the Luminary she can join if she wants to.”

  The man blinked at her. “You’re clearing the desert?”

  “I need to test a new skill,” Vivi said. And she was in the mood for killing monsters.

  “Could you… wait for us to prepare the attack force?” the Light asked.

  “I’ll survive alone,” Vivi said. “There are monsters to hunt.”

  Vivi, it seemed, had more than enough authority to do as she wished here. The Light saluted at that and said, “The Luminary will be informed.” He then shouted orders at the operators, telling them that Vivi would be coming through. The line slingshot launchers made space, as if opening up a walkway for Vivi to proceed.

  A week ago, they would have blocked us, Vivi thought. Just a few days ago, I would have been led back to the smithy.

  “That’s the benefit of being strong,” Lucius said. “People will not mess with you. They can’t, really.”

  Vivi summoned Dawnpour and walked past the front lines, onto the desert. The immediate surroundings were clear, as the last scorpion was just ripped into pieces by a missile. Vivi was free to walk deeper into the desert in peace.

  A lone ghost-blade attacked her. She slashed it down and continued. More white auras of monsters burned in the distance, but it would take at least half a minute for the next one to arrive on top of her.

  She continued walking until she was outside the slingshot launchers’ operating range. Her march wasn’t confident. Not because she’d struggle against monsters. The monsters ahead were so weak she’d win with her eyes closed. She was hesitant because of another worry.

  I can’t decide, Lucius… Vivi thought. I feel lost.

  “What, why?” he asked.

  About the surface, Vivi thought. If what Essi said was right, the storm season is rough up there too. The hunters are fumbling. It sounded like cities are falling.

  “So you want to head over and help?”

  Vivi pondered on that while the next monster attacked her. It was another basic critter that died with a flick of her wrist, Dawnpour slashing the mummy in half. She collected two thousand ether.

  A part of me cares about humanity, Vivi thought. Not the hunters, but humanity. The people that can’t shape ether. There must be good people living in cities.

  “So…” Lucius asked, “Do I repeat the question? After all that the hunters have done, do you now want to help them out?”

  I don’t know, Lucius. Shivenar is safe now. I’m not needed here. But elsewhere, I could be of help. I don’t want to help the hunters, of course, but what if Fellwater gets wiped out by monsters?

  “Didn’t every single person in that village bully you?”

  Vivi bit her lip. She had a longing in her heart to head back to the surface. Not to start a life there or anything, but she felt like she needed an excuse to head up again.

  Thinking was starting to get complicated, so Vivi reached into her skill slots and activated Ascension Of Divinity.

  Ten thousand ether. Vivi had ascended beyond that many times. So when she activated the skill, she thought she’d know what to expect. She had her protective layer ready, and was prepared to hold onto it tight. She could still only ascend to around nine thousand ether safely, but if she focused, she thought she could maybe keep the layer active.

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  As the ascension skill burst to life, however, Vivi paused in place, and entirely new sensations flowed through her.

  The ascension skill worked like a machine. The branches of its ethereal structure activated one by one, and with that, their functions took place inside Vivi’s core and her body.

  The first and most obvious feeling was that five thousand ether pushed into her body automatically and involuntarily. The wisps didn’t go through Lucius. They were instead shaped directly by the skill. They appeared white, like Iszul’s when he ascended, and Vivi immediately felt something off.

  These wisps weren’t normal. They didn’t just have a strength or a swiftness branch active. It almost felt like they were something more…

  Before Vivi could study them deeper, the remaining effects kicked in, hitting Vivi with a flurry of sensations. The pull was greatly increased—far more so than when Lucius burned wisps for an ascension. Her core didn’t just have a mild gravitational pull. It seemed like the wisps in her body were all held in place by a firm grip, slowing them down.

  The slowdown allowed her to cling tight to her protective layer. It remained solid and wasn’t blown aside by an avalanche of wisps. Still, the ascension was anything but calm. The ascended wisps pushed constant pressure onto her protective layer, like a blanket of molten magma burning her protective layer alive.

  Fifteen thousand wisps in her core had already dimmed from the ascension skill, and she hadn’t killed a single critter yet. But those wisps had only dimmed. They’d recover.

  Within ten seconds, Vivi was losing her hold on the protective layer. Lucius! Vivi thought. A little less!

  Her spirit listened, and began shaping less ether in her body. The five thousand wisps of the ascension skill couldn’t be controlled, but Lucius himself had control of the remaining five thousand within his limits. Instead of also adding five thousand, he lowered the amount, adding only two thousand five hundred.

  With that, the ether within Vivi grew less concentrated, now a total of seven thousand and five hundred wisps powering her up. She reinforced her protective layer. It stood firm.

  After that, she felt strangely calm. The ascension burned within her, clearing her thoughts of distractions. She could sense monsters around her, sixth sense greatly improved, but her eyesight was still vibrant, her depth perception perfect. The next monster would be within slashing range in the next ten seconds.

  The ascension skill was clearly white in her core, inside her sixth realm. Looking down, however, as wisps oozed from her body, she saw that they weren’t white in reality. The moonweaver’s silk of her raincoat took in ether, and the coat’s colors were enhanced. The black became even darker, and the purple glimmered ominously.

  Looking at her hand, the sight was harder to describe. Her skin consisted of a layer of wisps, like a protective wrapping around her skin, thick enough that her skin became one solid surface. The color shifted around different parts of her body, fading from white to a void-like dark, then back to a heavenly white, as if the ascension skill wasn’t certain what kind of appearance it was trying to let out.

  The next monster came. It looked like a reanimated giant hedgehog with spikes longer than Vivi’s sword. Hitting it would be a pain.

  Except, Dawnpour had seven runes. She pushed ether through the shockwave rune, and swept a calm breeze of air in the monster’s direction.

  A projectile burst gracefully into life, and it was ridiculous how easily the hedgehog’s upper body was cut off, crush runes destroying its insides. The monster turned to its host bones, which turned out to be a bunch of cactus spikes poking out from a mound of sand.

  “I told you, ascension skills are different,” Lucius said. “Any exalted skills are bound to be insane.”

  Vivi couldn’t disagree. She slashed at another approaching dread raven. With no effort at all, its beak exploded to bits, and the monster died.

  How strong are we in the hunters’ hierarchy? Vivi asked. If we head to the surface, can anyone defeat us?

  “If we fight safely without breaking your body, we’re around the top twenty strongest hunters right now,” Lucius said. “If you fight like you did against the godslayer… we’re probably within the top three.”

  Only top twenty? Even with Grandpa’s sword?

  “With that sword, you easily have the most pure destructive power,” Lucius said. “You’re probably the only hunter who could ever defeat a behemoth alone. But there are still plenty of hunters who could assassinate you, or beat you in a duel. Simply because, well… your fighting style is not very practiced.”

  Right, Vivi thought. I could probably win against Veronica now. How strong is she?

  “She’s probably amongst the top thirty,” Lucius said. “She has at least one exalted skill, but she’s rich more than strong. She also needs allies to be useful, as her only offensive skill requires her to focus and stand still for maximum efficiency. But Veronica knew about your void core. More hunters must exist with double cores.”

  Vivi kept killing monsters, thinking.

  “I don’t see any reason we should go to the surface, if you’re still thinking about that,” Lucius said. “The lower levels are much more profitable.”

  Vivi killed the last monster in her immediate surroundings. Then she called off her ascension skill. In total, three hundred thousand wisps of ether had dimmed out in that short time. Her body returned to normal.

  She gave it one last thought, and then decided to say what was honestly in her mind. “I want to meet Essi.”

  Lucius showed no surprise at that, as if he’d expected those very words. He continued to speak calmly in her thoughts. “Do we have a reason to head up to the surface just for her? Do you just want to meet her? For hugs?”

  “I do want to give her a hug, yes,” Vivi said.

  He gave her a pout and opened his mouth.

  Vivi cut him off. “Do we need a reason to have friends? Essi is in trouble. I want to help her. I want to go give her a hug. I want to go tell the Sylva Bloods to… Well, I want to nicely inform them about how much they stink. And while we’re at it, we can save a few cities, too.”

  Lucius stayed silent for a short while.

  “We’re strong now, Vivi, but we aren’t quite strong enough to defy the world’s order. Amongst all hunters in all of the world, I’d say there are still five hundred who could have a good chance of assassinating you if they tried. Shivenar is a good place to grow stronger. Going to the surface could be dangerous. At the very least, we should clear these storms first.”

  Shivenar is certainly a good place to grow stronger, Vivi thought. We need to practice swordsmanship and further improve the protective layer, right?

  “Those two will bring us far, but for immediate growth we can gain two more skills,” Lucius said. “Our two other skills are still subpar common skills from Zand. We haven’t used them in ages.”

  A larger aura of what was clearly a boss monster loomed ahead. Not quite a mythical tier monster. Perhaps just a regular calamity, the same level as the twilight shaman.

  Vivi reached back into her skill slots for her ascension skills, prepared her sword, and thought, If you want skills, let’s earn them now.

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