—— ? ——

  “Alright, hold on. From what you are saying, that means anyone can just essentially print money?” Simon asked. He was back in the lab with Brian and was slowly chewing on a ‘ration’ bar. He waved the brown granola bar like food at Brian. “Also, this is awful. It’s savory, sweet, salty, bitter all in one. You said you ate this crap for almost a week?”

  Brian bit into his bar, the crunching sound echoing through the lab. “You can get used to it,” he garbled through a mouthful. “But, yah, the taste is kinda bad.” Brian swallowed, then continued.

  “Yes, technically anyone can gather Aethra.” He pulled out a small, dull crystal. “Provided you have the crystal to contain it. You can just sit there and slowly power it up.” He held it in his hand and focused for several long moments.

  It was still dull. Simon looked unimpressed.

  Brian held up his hands. “Look, it's not a fast process. That’s why I said technically. From the place we went to, the guide there explained that there are four major pillars within the system.”

  He took another bite and grimaced.

  “You can get used to it,” Simon jeered.

  Brian shook his head and swallowed.

  “I never said it was ideal. Useful though, keeps you fed despite its flavor.” He held up a hand and started counting on them. “So the four pillars: body, mind, soul, and essence.” His other hand went up and counted. “These correspond to stamina, mana, anima, and aethra.”

  Brian gestured around the room.

  “Just like how you can channel mana into tools like these, you can channel aethra as well.”

  Simon frowned.

  “So… I could just sit on my ass and power up money crystals.”

  “You could.” Brian stated.

  “Why shouldn’t I do that?” Simon said, gesturing to the faint remains of bruising on his face. It had been over a day since he had last been in this lab. After the map discussion, he had stumbled back to the inn, Ember Rest, and slept like the dead.

  He had woken to the rays of the setting sun. Sleeping for that long had helped immensely, but Simon had worried he had slept through the expedition to the frozen hills.

  Honestly, wouldn't have been surprised if Kaelalin had just headed out early. He thought to himself. The two were pretty excitable and seemed to focus on one task and never break away.

  Brian set his ration down, giving it a look.

  “Much easier to eat them when I’m focused on something,” he muttered, then looked back at Simon. “Well, Simon. You could do just that. The problem is output.”

  He tapped the dull aethra crystal, which gave off a pleasant ringing sound.

  “From our tests, the amount you can charge is dependent on your essence. The strength of that is dependent on your level, body, mind, skills and basically everything that makes up you.” He gestured at himself. “I can probably charge them at multiple times the speed you can. But there are better ways.”

  “Such as?” Simon’s interest was growing. He would love ways to make money.

  “Growth. In any way that fits you or is possible.” Once again, Brian gestured around the lab. “You will notice that I have some of them around the lab.”

  Simon visually searched the room. Now that Brian had pointed it out, he saw shimmering crystals stashed, mounted, or placed around the lab.

  They glowed with varying intensity. Some dim, some bright.

  “They just passively charge? From the lab?”

  Brian shook his head. “No? Yes? It's because of Kaelalin and I working in the lab that causes them to grow. The basic principle is that they will absorb Aethra from your actions and progression. The more you do, the faster they grow.” He paused as a thought came to him. “Oh, actually, that reminds me. Here.”

  Brian got up and walked over to a shelf, and grabbed a bag. He handed it to Simon.

  Simon opened and looked inside. There were dozens of dull crystals clinking pleasantly in its depths.

  He looked up at Brian. “These are for…?”

  “For you! You can get them from the Hub. Extremely cheap. Also, magical crafters can make the smaller ones fairly easily.” He pulled out a pale blue crystal from a pouch. “Like these. But even if you don’t have them, you can find other ways of storing and collecting Aethra.” Brian crossed the room, opened a case, and pulled out a new type of crystal.

  Simon looked at it and immediately shuddered. They reminded him of horrible hell bunnies in their color.

  Brian saw his reaction and gave an apologetic look, then quickly stored the strange smooth crystal back into the case.

  “Right. Sorry. You probably know that glow pretty well.”

  “Not my favorite memories… I’m going to assume those came from the aurora hoppers?”

  “That's right.” Brian replied, a teaching tone seeping into voice. “Beasts, creatures and other beings can have Aethra crystal-like cores. That is why we were so angry with Marden. I doubt he mentioned anything about them.”

  He moved back to his chair and seemed to remember his ration bar. He gave it a look, then sighed and picked it up and started nibbling again.

  “You should always keep some form of depleted crystals on you. Just like how the ones here grow in my lab as I do my research, the ones on you should also absorb aethra as you know.. You.. Uh..” Brian tried to find the right words.

  “Almost die?” Simon finished for him with a grin.

  Brian looked thoughtful. “You know… Not exactly what I would call an efficient method? But hypothetically you would charge them.” He raised an eyebrow. “I think?”

  “At least my corpse would have all kinds of nice goodies for a search party.” Simon said with a laugh. “But just fighting would work too, right?”

  “Most definitely.” Brian nodded.

  “Alright. One question down.” Simon said. “Four hundred and eighteen to go.”

  Brian stared at him, shrugged, then settled down in his chair, taking another nibble.

  Simon looked at the now very comfortable man. “No comment?”

  “I don’t know how many questions I asked the guide when we were in that place. Wouldn’t surprise me.” Brian said, content to just answer.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Well, I don’t have over four hundred questions.” Simon tried to take a bite of his ration bar. Still awful. “But I have a lot, and they keep growing as I learn more. You keep mentioning a guide. Who was that?”

  “It was different for everyone.” Brian replied. “The System does seem to like randomness. Although, I think it also picks slightly based on compatibility. For me and a bunch of others from Earth, we got to talk to that fire spirit deity again.” A soft smile crossed Brian's face. “Glint was his name.”

  “Oh! That guy.” Simon’s face also took on a fond smile. “I liked that little swamp gas guy.” He scoffed as the realization hit him. “So you guys got to talk to the cute flame for long periods of time and I just got to talk with assholes?”

  Simon shook his head. “That’s bullshit.”

  Brian stared at him with both eyebrows raised. “... assholes? As in plural? Who were you talking to?” Then he held up his hands. “Oh, my bad. You don’t know this, but it's considered pretty taboo to talk about who gave you a blessing or boon.” He paused. “Despite my immense curiosity.”

  Shit. probably shouldn’t talk about the curses… uh…

  Simon cleared his throat, stalling for time. After a moment of sitting under Brian's intense, curious gaze, he came up with an idea.

  “Uh… I mean… Plural as in…” He looked at Brian, who was now leaning forward. “Look, what have you heard?”

  Brian stared at him, then slowly replied. “We know you can fight… I am part of the council, and we got different reports on your circumstances. Marden may have mentioned your ability to summon… instruments? So our basic conclusion is that your boon is related to that.”

  I can use that.

  Simon looked back at him, then sighed. “Yeah, I had the god of bards or something. I say assholes because that guy wasn’t ‘satisfied’ with my abilities and made me practice pretty intensely until he was happy.” He laughed bitterly. “Except the jerk didn’t even bother to do it himself… or with his main avatar? All of that shit was just weird. Basically, he had another ‘teacher’ version of him to make me more ‘fit’ to receive his boon.”

  It was partially true. Simon hoped it would explain enough that Brian, and others, would come to their own conclusions.

  Brian’s eyes widened as things seemed to click together for him.

  “Oh damn. Now that makes so much more sense. Wow.” He leaned back into his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Since you told me yours, I’ll tell you mine. Mine was a god of invention and innovation. He gave me a skill that helps me adapt and learn how to use magical devices at an accelerated rate.”

  Simon looked at him, mouth dropping in disbelief. “Really?! The skill I got is kind of useless.”

  Brian gave him a pitying look. “Sorry, Simon. That sucks. Not everyone gained as much as others from those fickle beings.” He shook his head. “I got lucky.”

  “Brian with the cosmic silver platter over here.” Simon scoffed.

  “Hey, I didn’t choose to get it.” Brian grinned. “But, I’m not complaining. Wait, did you stay with that teacher version avatar for a while? The avatar I spoke to cut off so many of my questions and said we didn’t have time. Something about the consequences for me staying and talking.”

  Simon angrily chucked the remaining portion of the ration bar across the room.

  “That asshole!” he exclaimed, then sighed. “No. He did not. I was there for hours.”

  Brian’s gaze hardened. “Hours?...” He muttered, more to himself than Simon. “How many… Wait.. let me guess.. Somewhere around twenty?”

  Simon’s eyebrow raised. “Yeah, around twenty. How did you know?”

  “It’s just a guess.” Brian replied slowly. “But you showed up twenty-three days after everyone else.”

  “Just. Great.” Simon sighed in frustration. “Ughhh… Yeah, it was around twenty-three hours or so if I remember correctly.”

  Brian let out a low whistle. “Man, I can’t even imagine. Twenty-three hours of having to deal with someone who obviously did not have your best interests in mind. That must have been awful. "

  “You have no idea.” Simon said, his mood dark. They sat in silence for several long minutes. Simon half expected a Dravlen-propelled snowball to appear out of the void.

  Brian finally broke the silence.

  “Uh… any other questions?”

  Simon looked at him, his mind still fuming with darkness. He grumbled and didn’t answer for several long moments.

  “Skills? Did your cute little guide tell you about them? Like how to get them?” He finally muttered.

  “It did actually!” Brian said, face brightening. “You can learn them through practice, achievements, classes or some rare situations. For instance, one of the quests for Varnholt will unlock a skill called ‘Identify’ that will be freely available at the Hub for anyone registered with the town.” He gestured at Simon. “You said you got one from an achievement. That’s happened to a few people. Others seem to just ‘condense’ after you do something long enough.”

  “So, I’m not completely screwed?” Simon asked.

  Brian gave a painful smile. “Uh… no?”

  Simon stared at him

  “Look,” Brian said, scratching his head. “I won’t sugarcoat this. We all got a lot of skills and other things from the various events in the last month.” Simon slumped further into his chair, but Brian continued. “Your ‘teacher’ messed things up. Not to speak ill of the deity that gave you a boon, but I just can’t understand why he would do that.”

  “No, Brian. Shit-talk him.”

  A small grin crept onto Brian’s face. “Alright then. Your whole situation sucks. But!” he held up his hand. “Kaelalin and I have a plan. For me, I want to help a fellow earth-born. For her?” Brian gave a big grin. “Anyone who gives her the opportunity to scream at Marden is worth helping.”

  He paused.

  “Oh, and you know, potentially finding the location of magical hidden treasures.”

  “Or a den of horrifying, murderous monsters.” Simon replied dryly.

  Brian laughed. “You say that like it's a bad thing. You do not know how bored we have been just working on this stupid barrier day in and day out. A whole new world of magic and wonder, and we have been stuck working on a civil engineering project.” He shook his head. “Also, horrifying monsters may have fantastic, wonderful magical components that make up their bodies.”

  Brian got a far off look and practically salivated.

  Oh man, is he nuts… But, in a good way… I guess.

  Simon straightened up in his chair.

  “So, the plan?” he asked.

  “It's a simple three-step plan. Step one: You and Kaelalin find out what's in those frozen mounds,” Brian said. He waved his hand in the air, mimicking checking off a list. “Step two: no one dies, and you find amazing things. ”

  Simon waited for him to continue. Brian looked at him.

  “What’s step three, Brian?”

  The man got a huge grin.

  “Step three: we use the amazing things you find. Between Kaelalin, myself, and dozens of others, we have an army of people waiting to craft items. Every speck of stone, ore and splinter of wood that comes out of the north gets processed within the day. Now imagine you gave all of those bored artisans shiny new things to play with? They would do it for free.”

  Brian winked at Simon.

  “And make whatever the person providing the material wanted. What better use could there be besides outfitting Varnholt’s one and only explorer?”

  Simon leaned forward with interest.

  “You know, I think I like this plan.”

  Brian gave a smug smile.

  “We thought you might.”

  —— ? ——

  A day went by. Simon ate, healed, and slept.

  In the early hours of the morning, he walked down the stairs of the Resting Ember. A bowl of stew waited on the counter, next to a tall, blue-skinned frost-kin who was in the midst of devouring her own. Two large packs lay on the ground next to her, stuffed full.

  She looked up at him as he came down the stairs in his recently repaired system supplied outfit.

  “Seems Emrick did a decent job on the clothing.” She called out to him.

  “For free too.” Simon said as he approached the bar-top. He nodded at the man of mug magic and sat down at the offered bowl. “Well, almost free. Apparently, any cloth we find we don’t want, he gets to look at first.”

  Kaelalin shrugged. “As if anyone else would try to steal something like that away from him. Can you imagine how long he would complain if you did?” She laughed. “Let's eat quickly.”

  “No complaints here,” Simon replied, digging into the stew.

  They ate quickly and silently, each deep in their own thoughts.

  Kaelalin finished first, then got up and shouldered her pack. She nodded at Cyrus.

  The man nodded back. “Make sure you bring back my one and only guest.”

  Kaelalin scoffed. “As if you don’t make enough from the food and booze.”

  Cyrus held up his hands. “Hey, it's the variety that counts alright?” he paused then added with a serious tone. “Be safe.”

  Kaelalin nodded.

  Simon finished his stew and pulled on the other pack.

  “Psh, when haven’t I?” Simon replied as he strolled towards the door. Cyrus and Kaelalin both stared at him.

  “What?” Simon asked.

  Kaelalin just shook her head. “At least no one will ever accuse you of not being brave.”

  “What's the saying? The difference between bravery and…” Simon’s face scrunched up. “Eh, I forgot the rest. Off to go find mysterious things in the snow!”

  As they left the inn, Cyrus’s voice echoed from within.

  “Good luck!”

  God damnit Cyrus.

  Why!

  —— ? ——