“So, what do you think, Bun?” Eric quietly asked as they headed back the way they had come, no matter the dozens of household servants and guards gazing their way with newfound respect, even reverence, bowing or curtsying in his wake as his quick walk became a run… and then a ground-eating sprint as he headed back to the passage between realms that Grim had walked twice by his side. It was a path that Eric could now effortlessly find without disturbing the delicate fabric of the five realms at all.

  Bunbun’s ears tilted thoughtfully as the hedge maze they darted through transformed from rosebushes to oak trees with a single twist and turn and then they were loping through the ancient forest still showing a brilliant moon overhead, the air filled with several pairs of mournful howls.

  “I’d say that we have to be careful, fearless leader. From what you saw, that Mord is fast. Damn fast. If Song’s trap actually managed to work, that would be very good for lowering the threat level of this place and increasing our odds of taking New York with our heads intact!” She sighed. “Even if it would also spell the regrettable loss of a sweet, sweet fruit to harvest, because you know he’s just a big bag of juicy attributes you want to take a great big chomp out of!”

  Eric smirked. “Damn right I do. Even if Natasha was graceful enough to remind me that I’d be a damned fool to take a Silver’s powers lightly, even for a second. And since that mad wolf is actually faster than me…”

  “I know, Fearless Leader. 1800 versus 2000 because in real life, that 11% speed boost over you can mean the difference between life and death, unless your very skilled or very sneaky with all sorts of unexpected tricks up your sleeve. And is it just me or do I hear a handful of wolves nearby, working themselves into a frenzy?”

  Eric’s brow lowered with concern, though his pace only picked up.

  “That can’t be a good sign… and we have no time to waste.”

  “Agreed. So let’s get hunting and we’ll clean up whatever’s left. Assuming we um…”

  “Survive?”

  “Win, Eric. I was going to say… win.”

  Eric chuckled softly as they darted past the clearing of their sacrifice that, for all Grim’s reassurance, had no less than three fully transformed werewolves sniffing the area with desperate fervor.

  “Oh shit, that can’t be good.”

  Eric scowled. “I think you’re right. Hold on a second?”

  “Done.”

  Eric changed course in the blink of an eye.

  Now racing toward a trio of giant wolves who turned their massive muzzles as one to glare Eric’s way, eyes widening in furious comprehension.

  “It’s him! The elven prince! His stench is all over this sight! Kill him!” Roared the largest as Eric sprinted toward him at such speed that the creature’s fury turned to sudden alarm. “Bring him Dow—”

  His words were cut off in a spray of blood as an instantly summoned spear plunged through his chest.

  Skill check made! Piercing Strike enhanced by Charge of The Prismatic Light Brigade and all other applicable perks.

  You have effortlessly pierced your target’s chest.

  You have ruptured your target’s heart!

  Experience earned!

  You have achieved maximum White-Tier level. Eve approves of your proficiency (but not enough to earn you another level!) Maximum experience point to skill conversion in effect. Additional core saturation in effect.

  Speed Racer boons in effect! You pivot on a dime!

  The pair of remaining wolves had time only to exchange a single panicked look.

  “He’s as fast as Mord!”

  “We must flee and warn him at—”

  The closest wolf’s words were cut off by the massive spear that struck its jugular with such force that his head was torn completely off as Eric slammed into him and sent his shattered corps flying through the air as the final wolf darted back, deadly claws extended as he roared his defiance.

  “Enough trickery, half-elf mongrel! Come and fight me in the arena of tooth and claw! I, Samuel Brooks, challenge you!”

  The wolf lurched back in surprise when a coldly smiling Eric was suddenly before him, armed with nothing but his fists.

  “Sure,” Eric said. “Show me what you got.”

  The beast’s eyes lit up with fierce satisfaction. “Gladly!” It roared, rushing forward and lashing out for his blond haired opponent’s cocky smile, claws enhanced by perfected technique by six inches of extended cutting fury that tore through through the air.

  More than sufficient to cleave the head right off any cocky adventurer who thought a single charge feat—

  The lupine beast blinked in surprise when his opponent weaved back just enough to avoid both claw and projection… and suddenly Erc was inside the wolf’s guard. A kidney punch left the werewolf wheezing in shocked surprise when his body seemed to freeze up and spasm with the hideous spike of cold that had just pierced his core.

  Before he could even gasp, the agony multiplied as fresh spikes of shockingly intense cold tore through the wolf’s ribs. Then his liver. Legs stiffened as shin kicks cracked against them, muscles spasming as horrific cold stole all his strength away.

  His massive clawed forelimbs that the lycanthrope had thought would so effortlessly disembowel his prey were instead battered and transformed to numb slabs of frozen flesh in just seconds.

  Panicked lupine eyes gazed frantically for a way out of his peril as the wild-eyed Contender overwhelmed him with a bitter flurry of hooks, hammer fists, and overhand punches that cracked bones, shattered teeth, numbed flesh and left the beast in such hideous agony that he couldn’t even breathe.

  Eyes widened in horrified dismay as the air cracked and he stumbled back, jaw shattered with a final devastating uppercut. The doomed creature was unable even to blink as now frozen eyes could still somehow perfectly see the frozen half of his leg jutting up like a stump from the ground. Not frozen with numbness… frozen to literal ice.

  The wolf wanted to scream. To beg for quarter. To surrender to his better.

  But all he could do was stare as the coldly glaring Contender… for what else could such a nightmare be? Curled his lips in a furious snarl before lashing out one final time, pounding the ribs right over the wolf’s frantically pounding heart… that instantly froze to a block of ice.

  Congratulations! You have successfully bested your Bronze Tier foe!

  You have deliberately pulled your blows, eager to master your newly evolved skill.

  Winter’s Kiss variant successfully drains the Vitality, Quickness, Mana and Qi from your foe and your foe alarm! Lupine Realm suffers no strain! No outside force or seer detects your use of this ability!

  Your target has been frozen to ice!

  Doom Strike is now Rank 11!

  Eric cracked his neck, lips curving in a feral grin as he chuckled coldly and howled his triumph.

  “Looking good, fearless leader!”

  Eric grinned. “Thanks, Bun!”

  “So, just how potent is your new ability?”

  Eric frowned thoughtfully. “Actually it’s pretty damn sweet. I could feel every fist and kick slowing that asshole down… and that’s not even including the original shock of life-steeling cold that I’m betting requires a pretty sweet Vitality check to not leave you breathless and crumpling. But sjnce we’re all Bronze tier or better at this point… that’s probably not an issue for the quality of prey I’m after now.”

  “Fair point. How much do you think each blow was slowing him?”

  Eric smirked. “Honestly, I’m not really sure. I’ll need a lot more data points before I can come up with anything definite. But it’s obvious both that the stronger they are, the longer they’ll last and the slower the drain will be. I mean, that’s probably obvious, right? The other thing is that it really does matter how hard I hit. You could tell I was using my speed to duck and weave under his pathetic blows before waling into him, but it made a huge difference how hard I hit versus how much freezing damage I did and how much Vitality and Quickness I stole. Of course, I’ll need a Power Blow evolution to truly take advantage of my Strength… so much so that I might increase how much I freeze these fuckers by a full order of magnitude. Or more.”

  Bun nodded. “Fair. So how do you feel?”

  Eric chuckled, eyes flashing with excitement. “I stole 80 Quickness and Vitality from that fucker!”

  Bunbun’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? That’s fucking fantastic!”

  Eric shrugged. “It is pretty sweet… even if it’s just a temporary boon. And once I hit that cap after just a few punches… I couldn’t saturate any more. I could drain him so badly he couldn’t even move, but I was topped off. And it’s a boon I can already feeling warming up and getting ready to melt away, like ice cream in the noonday sun, even if it’s mine for now.”

  “Still, that’s awesome! Is it almost tripled by all your disgustingly glorious Contender and Title boons and bonuses?”

  “Not a bit,” Eric chuckled. “It’s just additive to what I have after all modifiers are in play. Not that I’m complaining… 80 points is still freekin’ legendary.

  “Okay, fair.” Bunbun tilted her head, ears flopping thoughtfully. “Say, you don’t suppose it will stack endlessly do you? Like… even if you’re capped at 80 points per wolfie… if you take out a dozen wolfies or bucket-heads and then we’ll see if we’re sprinting as fast as a jackrabbit on meth!”

  Eric snorted. “Wouldn’t that be something? Of course, there’s only one way to find out what the limits truly are.”

  “More killing!” Lilly gave an excited flip on his shoulder.

  Eric grinned. “Indeed.”

  Bunbun then sighed, gently patting his head. “Though I gotta admit, I’m surprised you didn’t go for the Winter Gale variant. I thought you were all for the glorious storm of frigid destruction that would have allowed you to freeze who knows how many assholes with a single punch!”

  Eric chuckled at that. “I’m not going to lie. I was really, really tempted. The thought of charging into the closest power armored asshole and transforming him into an explosion of shattered crystal as an inverse explosion roars through... who knows… an entire city block? Tearing free all my enemy’s heat with a single fucking punch… fucking epic power fantasy. I’m not going to lie.”

  “Exactly!” Bunbun cheered. “But um… I guess you had reasons for choosing a different direction?”

  Eric snorted. “You mean besides the obvious?”

  “Obvious as in…”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Eric sighed, gently stroking his familiar’s ears. “Bunbun… think. You sensed just how shockingly high those multiple got.”

  “I know, Eric. The damage and freezing ability you could do with Burst of Strength in full effect… assuming it scales the way we think it will... would be epic!”

  Eric nodded. “Enough to take out some pretty fearsome beasts.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Like a Silver Tier Greater Wyrm right out of Desert Dune.”

  “Ooh… imagine that sucker frozen to ice! Before you made him an underlord I mean. Or… you know…”

  Eric smirked. “The dean of Mistridge?”

  “Yup! You think he’ll slide us some passing marks, assuming we utterly bomb our courses?”

  “Probably,” Eric conceded with a smile that quickly faded.

  “Bunbun…”

  “Yes?”

  “What happens if we use 30-fold area effect multipliers to our powers when we’re not in a wild territory? When we’re not blessed with a game interface’s ability to make all neutral parties invulnerable?” Eric sighed at he look his familiar was giving him. “What would happen if I charged into New York city at Mach 4, Unleashing a fully souped-up Fire Fist that could obliterate a Half-Step Silver quarter mile long worms long before I got my Greater Reaver and Prismatc Light Brigade boons that together more than double the melee damage I can already do?”

  Lilly slowly blinked. “Oh. Fuck. That’s actually um… a good point. Because sure, you could probably take out Lord Song with that blow, or by extending Bloodfire Strike with Power Blow and Phoenix Reach, just like when you took out those actual multi-mile long air Krackens that had to have been half-step Silver, at least, and had absolutely no business floating around Red Tier regions… but anyway, you’d be pretty much unstoppable if Song isn’t a speedster! But you’d sort of um… obliterate multiple city blocks and kill everyone in the area, assuming you didn’t set the entire city ablaze?”

  Eric nodded. “Exactly. And the beautiful thing about Winter’s Kiss is that not only does it limit the damage and devastation to one target, but it’s now so exquisitely precise and refined that I can unleash a full flurry of punches, kicks, and knee bombs… more than enough to freeze wolf-breath over there entirely solid, without causing a single reverberation in what I now sense is actually a very fragile pocket realm.” He flashed a hard smile. “And you know what else that means, Bun?”

  Bun’s ears perked. “Ooh, I think I do, fearless leader! You can train this skill up to fuck all and back, and no Inquisitorial asshole or Goblin punk Seer, assuming that any are left at all, will even be able to rat on you! Not that it um, matters now, with the Terran Counsel having at least temporarily opened the doors to a floodgate of Bronze and Silver assholes, but you just know that now that they’ve closed those gates again, thanks to you, they’ll start trying to hamper everyone with restrictions or some other bullshit. So it’s nice to know that you can freeze-punch assholes at will, no matter what the Terran Counsel wants, and not have to worry one bit about what they think of you!”

  Eric snorted. “True. Not that I’ll let those assholes ever cramp my style again, but it’s nice that I have one Transcendent attack backed by 8 full essence ranks that no fucker can detect, let alone censure. And honestly, it’s nice to have an essence attack I can actually use in Delves without worrying about the damn thing collapsing while I’m still in it, because racing against oblivion isn’t exactly a relaxing grind,” he snarked.

  “And even better, you can train it up in the dungeons as well as everywhere else, and who knows what sweet, sweet evolution you might get at Rank 20!”

  Eric’s lips curled in a fierce savage grin. “My thought’s exactly.”

  Bunbun chuckled evilly. “Wouldn’t it be absolutely something if you got another chance at a Power Strike variant so you could truly wale into your foes, maybe even steal the potency from an entire group of assholes, while doing absolutely no damage to the territory or city you’re fighting in?”

  “That’s my hope,” Eric conceded. “So long as I can also avoid freezing normies to ice as well. Though I’m not going to lie. That Winter Gale option came damn close to being my evolution.” He chuckled. “I can so imagine Mother Dearest gazing at me in fond pride when I show her just how far I can push that family affinity, freezing who knows how many fuckers to icicles... before she evolved and awoken to her true self and became a total sweetheart, I mean.”

  “Oh I know. She’s basically a reformed angel now. Good for her! Even if that option isn’t um… exactly available to us.”

  Eric winced at that. “Yeah… considering who my father, well… shit.” He swallowed, furiously rubbing his cheeks. “I guess that’s what makes me human, ultimately. Not necessary my ancestry but just, you know…”

  “Angelic mom, fallen father, it all cancels out to make you a free willed mortal like all of god’s creations?”

  Eric sighed. “I don’t know… maybe? Because I still really, really don’t want to think that Malice has anything to do with me, or that Greed is actually my brother.”

  “Yeah, but one asshole is dead and a certain broken kid got a fresh start. I’ll bet he and his sister are living the perfect heavenly isekai life, and they probably don’t have any access to Exile’s Path at all. So let’s be grateful for what we have and get back to killing!”

  Eric dipped his head and returned to the path he had left, having spent less than thirty seconds doing his best to increase both his spear mastery and his melee prowess, and grateful to have gained a greater understanding of his latest skill evolution, just in time to put it to the ultimate test.

  He breathed deep, heart pounding as thick woodlands abruptly petered out into the smoking ruins of broken warehouses and cracked and broken concrete, the air smelling of ozone, scorched steel, and fried transistors.

  Bunbun scrunched her nose. “Jeez, it stinks!”

  At that very moment the air screamed with the release of a dozen brilliant flashes of light that Eric could both see and sense with Infravision and Mana Sense.

  “Ooh, that doesn’t look good,” Bunbun quietly noted as the entire city seemed to ripple.

  Eric’s gut twisted with dread. “Damn right it doesn’t. Fuck! I think I know what just happened.”

  “What?”

  The air resonated with an awful, ear-splitting howl.

  Eric’s ears rang with the distant hyper-speak frequencies of Song’s mercenary unit.

  “Sound the alarms! The Silver-Tier threat broke free!”

  “Where’s Lord Song? We need him now!”

  “He’s getting reinforcements.”

  “We need him—NO!”

  Bunbun winced. “Ooh. Sounds like Mord’s feeling hungry.”

  Eric’s heart began to pound. He flashed his familiar a manic grin. “It’s that time again, don’t you think?”

  “To go up against a frenzied 2000 Quickness beastie? Sure. Why not? Living was getting boring. Let’s see what happens next!”

  Eric chuckled, slowing his pace. “As much as I hate to say it… maybe a minute spent in preparation wouldn’t be amiss.”

  His familiar dipped his head, their soft whispers and a certain rabbit’s excited squeal filling the dingy alleyway they now occupied.

  Eric flashed a fierce smile, instantly summoning both his mithril armor, Cuirass of the Underlord, and a 25 foot long sarissa covered in lesser runes of Strength and Resilience and greater runes of Impermeability.

  The small round shield that shimmered into existence secured to his left forearm, however, took long moments of focused intensity before shimmering to being, actual sweat breaking out on his brow as he did so, the smile on his features showing just how significant an achievement it was.

  “Mollet roboro sanguis herbam unus impermeabilis dies!”

  Congratulations! You have successfully summoned a Blood Shield enhanced by the greater rune of Impermeability!

  Triple standard potency paid! You have SUCCESSFULLY infused this summons with the essence of Impermeability!

  You have 10 or more Ranks in essences! You possess a legendary class that specializes in Essence attacks and Unified Higher Order Transformations!

  You have unlocked the Legendary Runic Lore perk: Essence Infusion! A successful skill check (at – 20!) Will allow you to infuse your runic chants with the power and potency of one of your essences! This will triple baseline Mana & Qi costs (recovered normally) and sequester a portion of your Soul Reserves for the duration of your runic spell!

  Runic Lore is now Rank 34!

  Lilly whistled. “Eric! Did you actually manage to infuse a runic summons with an essence?”

  Eric flashed a fierce grin. “Yes, Bun. Yes I did. Even if it’s just a single rank… and I just drained 56 Temporary Soul Reserve Points to do so.” For long moments he just stared in awe at his own creation. “I have an absolutely absurd -20 to my skill check. Because it’s a Legendary Perk, Bunbun.”

  “Good thing Runic Lore is now an absolutely absurd Rank 34! So, yeah! Rank 14 is so far above mundane elites that you’re still all but guaranteed to cast it successfully… unless being pressure tested in hot combat with Silvers, I guess.”

  Her master swallowed, in a state of awe. “I earned a legendary skill enhancement for free, Bunbun. Even crazier, I get the sense that I can deliberately double up on that perk at level 40. Then I’ll be under no penalty at all, the amount of essence I can infuse into a Runic spell will double, and the Soul Reserves I have to sequester will be cut in half.”

  This earned an impressed whistle. “No shit! That’s absolutely epic! Will it work for your actual fast-cast spells under Runic Spell Forger?”

  Eric furrowed his brow. “My 9th level skill which I really need to rank up with a lot more playing Merlin as opposed to Sword Saint. I don’t know, Bunbun. Considering that Infusing any of my learned spells with an Essence under that overarching skill requires a standard skill evolution point that I only earn every ten levels… that would be one incredible kickass hack, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well you did evolve Psionic Rupture into a Transcendent attack that now always channels the Essence of Wrath for free.” She smirked. “Whether you like it or not. Good thing you got Dense Neurons now. So who knows? Maybe we can evolve Runic Spell Forger itself to give you free Higher Order Transcendent variants of all your spells?”

  Eric shared a laugh with his familiar. “Somehow, I don’t think it will work that way… but fuck it. Who knows? If nothing else, If I practice belting out the long form version of multiple chants boosted by Essence Infusion, maybe I’ll be able to tighten the thirty second or longer casting time to a split-second hyperspeak fast-cast spell that will automatically be learned as the essence infused version. Maybe.” He shrugged. “Even if I’ll have to wait until Bronze to be able to invest points into actually learning those spells… if I can buy a handful of elite boosted variants of fresh new spells at Bronze Level 1, thanks to all my Runic Lore perks maybe… hopefully? transferring over... that would be a sweet start to blasting through Bronze Ranks while playing at being a wizard.”

  Lilith nodded. “Sure as fuck we’re going to see if we can do just that… or, you know, see if we can actually learn those spells by using our noggins and studying, without paying any points at all, at the Legendary Arcane Academy you formed out of wonder and dream… just as soon as we put down a mangy dog, a psychotic wanna be dictator, and all their wolves and goons!”

  Eric chuckled. “Sounds like a plan. Did I ever tell you how much I hate cramming and studying in general?”

  “Plenty of times! Now let’s do this!”

  Eric nodded in agreement, but not before showing his familiar just how effectively he could weave and strike with his 25 foot long pike, and just how effective his round shield would be for parrying blaster fire, enemy blades, or, hopefully, the swipe of a Silver Tier werewolf’s essence infused claws.

  Bunbun did not look pleased. “Eric… if Mord slips past your spear… he’s a giant ten foot tall were beast! Like a fucking polar bear! Those long limbs, pounding down on you with vorpal claws… You’ll be lucky if your small shield keeps a single swipe from ripping you wide open!”

  Eric winced. “Yeah… that is that. Even with my mithril, essence infused breast and back plate and 616 Physical Resistance…”

  “Which doesn’t necessarily mean shit against a Silver’s essence-infused claw swipe, Eric! We already know you’re cannon proof. But this fucker’s deadlier than any cannon!”

  “Yeah, but if my bones managed to absorb any of that Impermeable Essence…”

  Bunbun gave him a look. “That’s high level body cultivator talk. Last I checked, neither of us have been isekaid into a cultivation-centric universe filled with gods of mischief, cute fox girls, and all sorts of cultivation tomes, heritage libraries, and colleges filled with arrogant young face-slapping masters eager to claim for themselves all that delicious, forbidden lore.”

  Eric winced. His familiar leaned over his head, floppy ears dangling, to peer down into his eyes with her own. “Tell me I’m wrong, Eric, but all you have is the favor of an empress who blessed you with the ability to instantly evolve 15 attribute points worth with every successful fight against an opponent that poses at least some risk to you. And we’re actually calling that a school of cultivation. And not, say, a super hot deadly Gold-tier chick you banged zapping you with her favor every time you entertain her on whatever Eric-channel she tunes in to when watching your fights.”

  Eric’s cheeks were blazing. “Fuck, Bunbun, when you put it that way…”

  His rabbit winked. “I’m not knocking it, Fearless Leader! You charmed an empress and free points are free points, so we are LIVING LIFE LARGE!” She did a graceful flip before leaning back down once more. “All I’m saying, Eric, is that we’re living the charmed wildcard lifestyle that could blow up in our faces at any moment. We’re not actually walking any sort of cultivation path. We’re walking a path of forced evolutionary acceleration under the pretext of cultivation. And who knows? If nothing else, your future babies probably won’t be starting off at level one!”

  His familiar sighed sadly. “But as far as actually forging ourselves into kickass body cultivators, soul cultivators, or deadly wujen… no, Eric. Not really. So, my guess is that when Mord tears open your spleen, your ribs will shatter the same as any other 614 Resistance boosted alloy will. But to be fair, your ribs probably are equivalent to Imperial-Grade Starship armor. Which, fuck it, might actually stop a rank of Sharpness essence from immediately gutting you. But I seriously doubt it will stop 2 Ranks. You know what I’m saying?”

  Eric, feeling oddly humbled, nodded his head. He flashed a rueful grin. “Wow, talk about unexpected twists, Bunbun!”

  “What?”

  “Now I’m actually starting to feel a tiny bit… well… afraid?”

  Lilly snorted. “You damn well better. We’ll be pitting our lives against what we know to be a Half-step Silver whose a Contender with the strength of at least a dozen Silver Ranks. And he has 2000 Quickness. So you’d be an idiot not to fear him. So long as you know how to channel that fear.”

  Eric dipped his head. “Turn fear into laser sharp focus, absolute awareness of my surroundings as I fight with everything I have, holding nothing back.”

  His familiar patted his shoulder. “Damn right, Eric. And that last part is important. You know that, right?” His familiar paused, emphasizing the words. “If things get ugly, you hold nothing back. You strike with everything you have. Because if you hesitate, if you fall… whatever tragedy would have hit New York City with you losing control will be nothing compared to what will happen to the entire state if you fall here and now.”

  Eric took a shuddering breath. He clenched the hilt of the sheathed mithril blade that was now just an extension of himself and his deadliest gift, his resolve firming. “You’re right, Bunbun. If things get hairy… we go all out. Better I be alive to feel awful regret than a headless corpse powering up some psychopathic Contender in my place.”

  “Damn right, Eric. There can only be one. So let’s do this!”