Kai stood on the precipice, looking down on a raging inferno.

  When Syl had called out a fire mage and ordered everyone to avoid killing them, he had no idea this was what she intended.

  Then when the fire started and she called the retreat, he thought she was mad.

  But Syl promised she had worked everything out. So despite having nowhere else to go, he backed out of the gap, kobolds eagerly flooding in only to have a load of trees dropped on their heads when Syl plugged the hole in their defences.

  It turned out Syl had at some point during the fighting, using a mix of some particularly tall trees along with barriers to hold them in place and some lengths of rope they had apparently acquired from looting the goblin camp, managed to construct a way they could scale the cliff that had them penned in.

  The result of her efforts had the three of them and the soldiers that had managed to survive looking down at the kobolds as they tried to put out a fire that was out of any and all control.

  “That’s it, I am level five, the same level as you now,” Syl said as she appeared at his side, “Things should be a bit easier for you to catch up to Alicia now. Remind me, what level are you now?”

  “Seven,” Alicia said happily, “but I am not sharing essence the way you two do.”

  Kai watched another kobold try to get past the fire only to expire before it even got to the top of the cordon-turned pyre.

  “Should we be worried about the fire mages putting it out?” Kai asked.

  “I killed the two that got things going as soon as I knew things had taken hold.”

  “What about the possibility of a water mage showing up?” Kai suggested.

  “No, at this level range it is unlikely any water mage you find will be able to output enough water to put that out; that, and there are no water sources nearby for them to take advantage of. I don’t even think another fire mage will be able to do much more than move the flames about… Though I could be wrong, one in the thirties range could eventually show up. That or the dungeon could produce a savant or some stupid artefact to take back control of the scenario.”

  Without much else to do but watch, Kai summoned his longsword; it was his favourite blade, but an hour or two of abuse had chipped and pitted the steel.

  He had completely shattered a bastard sword and two arming swords. His supply of steel, it seemed, just couldn’t keep up with the level difference; they were base-level items from an initiation tutorial. However, the kobolds he was fighting towards the end were around level twelve, and he had to rely on more potent infused strikes just to cut into their thick hide, never mind their increasingly superior armour.

  Apparently carbon steel wasn’t a very good conductor of mana; the natural energy tended to make the material brittle when too much of it was forced through it at once. Which was exactly what Kai had to do just to land a decent attack.

  He had tried switching to conjured blades, but he still needed to work on that skill, the weapons he forged from pure mana typically shattered the moment he tried infusing them with more mana to strike at his attacker.

  In the end he had resorted to using the kobolds own weapons against them, and that was to mixed results. Their weapons were crude and suffered from all the same problems as his own set of weapons had. But he gathered quite the supply of them to use and abuse.

  If he wanted to figure out how he would sustain combat for any reasonable time without draining his resources, he needed time to train, not just experiment against endless enemies that posed no real threat beyond their sheer numbers.

  That, and it couldn’t help to level up.

  Though it was clear his gear was falling behind.

  “How much experience do you think we can farm from up here?” Kai asked, thinking about how he could make the best of their new situation.

  “Experience?” Alicia asked as she let off one of her new scatter shots.

  “He means essence, farms also a gaming term from his world. He is talking about exploiting the situation,” Syl said as she fired off a few mana bolts.

  Bored, Kai constructed a particularly potent mana bolt and tossed it down into the milling kobolds.

  You have killed Kobold Warrior Lv. 8.

  You have killed Kobold Warrior Lv. 7.

  You have killed Kobold Warrior Lv. 11.

  “Yes… This is a first; normally you adventurers turn tail and run the moment things get hairy. Which I don’t blame them for; you can’t do much when you’re dead.”

  Kai turned to the soldier he had spoken to at the beginning of the test and stepped up beside him. “Wait, you’re aware? Not just some per-programmed dungeon spawn running on a script?”

  “Of course, M’lord,” the soldier said, giving him an exaggerated wink.

  “I figured the test wasn’t just about surviving as long as we could,” Syl said, sounding pleased with herself.

  “Aye, I can’t say too much, else I risk effecting the other tests,” the soldier said as he looked down over the edge. “You know, I think that might just keep them back for hours, if not days. Probably be a new record.”

  “Won't the heat from the fire eventually damage the battery, you know, shatter the stone?” Alicia asked as she continued taking out kobolds from the new elevated position.

  “Nah, Lady Syl buried the battery pretty good; it should be quite well insulated. Good strategy that, even if the kobolds got past you, it would take them some time for them to dig it out.”

  Kai looked around their new position, and seeing plenty of trees to work with, he checked his storage to find he still had just over thirty trees left to work with. “If we set up camp, I could keep dropping trees into the pyre while we continue raining down attacks; there’s plenty of essence down there.”

  The soldier tutted, “I am afraid the dungeon master is not a patient man; he has contingencies.”

  There was a flash of light in the distance.

  “Yup, there goes one of the other batteries. I suggest you use your return stones before the battery below us is triggered.”

  “Wait, the dungeon master is ending the test; we still haven’t found our shards!” Kai cried, feeling cheated for once.

  The soldier tsked, “Gave them to you at the start of the test; all you had to do was use them to get out of here, and they were yours.”

  “But you only gave us two of those return stones; what about Syl?”

  The soldier just raised an eyebrow and gave him a look.

  Kai watched the light in the distance as it grew in intensity, the leading edge of a tidal wave racing their way.

  “Right fine,” Kai said, doing his best to pull back on his frustration from not being allowed to farm the seemingly endless supply of essence below.

  Taking out the pendant he was given at the beginning of the test as he looked over to see Alicia doing the same.

  “What do we do? Kai asked as he watched Alicia crush her pendant just before disappearing in a flash of light. “

  “He’s a practical learner; things don't always sink in when you first tell him something,” Syl informed the soldier.

  Kai was already squeezing his pendant; it crunched, and he found himself standing back in the room with all the archways again.

  The light above the archway to the far left was now glowing a dim green, whilst one of the stones above the arch just to the right now glowed a dim amber.

  Kai looked around to make sure everyone made it out of the dungeon room just fine.

  Alicia was already there by his side, examining a shard in her open palm; it disappeared the moment she looked up at him, stored safely away in his domain, using her access to his looting ability.

  “Did you get yours? I mean, of course you did.”

  Kai opened up the hand he had just crushed the return stone in to see two of the mysterious fragments floating in his open palm.

  “Well, unless I got an additional for being the M.V.P. or something, I'm guessing one of these is for my soulmate.”

  “Oh please, Alicia was the M.V.P. She killed way more kobolds than both of us, and she had the most skill gains using Gift. You know the rain of arrows thing she kept doing? That alone kept the number of kobolds down to a manageable amount. Alicia, how close are you to level eight?”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “I was almost there, was trying to get the kills I needed when the light in the distance went off... What is an M-V-P?” Alicia asked.

  “Most valuable player, just be glad Kai is not going around calling himself the goat.”

  Alicia tilted her head in confusion. “We have goats on Alea; which, if I am not mistaken and they are the same thing you are referring to, begs the question, why would he want to be a goat?”

  “Greatest of all time. I knew that one would confuse you. At least you have enough sense to ask when you are confused. Kai just gets all embarrassed and runs away,” Syl said as she gave him a suggestive wink.

  “I’m not confused,” Kai grumbled as he stored the two mysterious shards and looked over to the archway back to the common area longingly, doing his best not to bolt from Syl's incoming attempt at seduction.

  Syl looked him up and down. “You need a bath; you’re covered in sweat, grime and kobold. You really have to work on your technique; getting your enemies all over you all the time doesn’t exactly instill confidence.”

  Kai looked at himself and realised Syl was vastly understating his condition; Syl, on the other hand, despite fighting at his side for most of the battle, was pristine. A perk of not having a physical form: Alicia at least had the decency to look sweaty and worn.

  “Guess I'll scrub up then. Want me to make dinner when I am done?”

  “No,” Alicia spoke up, “You enjoy the tub. I know a cleaning charm is technically better, but nothing beats a good long soak from time to time.”

  “I haven’t used a cleaning charm once; it’s been sponge baths since I got in here.”

  “Then you will enjoy the tub; take your time,” Syl said as she bit her lip just before she disappeared in a burst of fire, Alicia following her a moment later.

  “So I take it we are going to leave this next test until tomorrow morning?” Kai asked the empty room.

  When no one replied, he moved back into the first room and opened doors until he found the bathroom.

  He didn't know why, but he had been expecting some kind of small tin tub; it was probably the use of chamber pots in the bedrooms setting his standards to their lowest setting. But he was pleasantly surprised to see a nicely sized round pool of steaming hot water sunk into the floor.

  Kai removed his gear, stored it, and sank into the tub, pool? Jacuzzi? He actually found himself wondering if this thing had magical water jets; it obviously kept the water hot like a hot tub, and it was the right size; why wouldn't it also have jets?

  Sadly, he couldn’t find anything, and he would feel stupid asking the girls for assistance at this point.

  It might have been his imagination, but the pool was suspiciously large enough for three people at once. He couldn't repress the sudden mental image of his two companions suddenly joining him.

  When he gave it some rational thought and came to the realisation that not all teams would be against sharing a good soak, especially if they were the same gender… or gender wasn’t really a concern.

  Cultures were different after all, and he shouldn’t take this as the dungeon's attempt to get him and the girls to have a good soak together. There were, after all, three different bedrooms; despite Syl not needing one, the dungeon was obviously set up to provide accommodation just large enough for the party deemed worthy of Atheos testing.

  Relaxing, he checked himself over. He had a few scars from the fighting, but no actual wounds anymore. Over each place he had taken a hit, there was the faint glow of pulsing blue runes, the scar tissue visibly lessening with each different rune that worked on the injury.

  His regeneration rings were working together to remove any trace he had been foolish enough to let one of the kobolds land their attack. He watched for a while, mesmerised by the magic healing him. Kai actually wondered if he could learn something by causing an injury and studying the runes that put him back together.

  When he realised that plan was a little too close to self-harm, despite the immediate self-healing, it snapped him from his thoughts, and he vowed to explore other methods of improving his regeneration before resorting to anything like that.

  Not at all worried about being watched, Kai relaxed and let himself float freely in the pool; they had all just spent hours fighting off massive numbers of dungeon spawns; even the mental strain would have Syl taking a break. Or so he thought until a bar of soap plopped, unrequested, into his murky bathwater.

  “Love that you’re actually relaxing, but you smell like one of those wretched loincloths,” Syl’s voice came in from nowhere, shattering his sense of solitude.

  He shivered; the thought of him smelling like one of those goblins around either of the girls worried him. Heck, who was he kidding? Smelling bad around anyone was something that he actively worried about. Depression had a way of making things slip, you not noticing until it was too late; how you smelt was one of those things.

  Kai prayed Syl was exaggerating when he dived for the soap; surely she was jesting, oh please be jesting.

  He ended up giving himself a good, thorough scrub just to be safe.

  If Kai was being honest with himself, he didn’t actually care too much if they were peeping; the water was thick with grime, and there was no way they could actually see anything. It's not like they would want to peek on him for that reason. This wasn’t some weird eighties TV show, and they weren't teen boys, and he wasn’t the busty girl next door. Syl was probably just checking in on him…

  Although, strangely, he didn’t actually mind if he was wrong…

  Kai soaked in the tub for a good three hours; he dozed off at one point only to awaken later to find the water still pleasantly hot but also now completely clear of the muck that had seemed to slough off him in layers, revealing clear, smooth, pale skin.

  Looking at his fresh, scarless skin in the clear water, he realised everyone in the multiverse must have such perfect skin because the body rejuvenated itself as his condition changed when he gained stats and levelled. Getting a decent tan must be difficult, but that wasn’t something he was really concerned with; he just thought it was an interesting observation.

  He pulled himself out of the water and got dressed with the clean clothes he found waiting for him off to the side.

  Once he had picked a room to sleep in for the night, he decided he would actually go in the domain and check on the girls.

  He appeared in the room to find Syl and Alicia on the couch in what he now thought of as their T-shirts. There was a flash of something off to the side, but he was still getting his bearings, and when he turned to see what it was, there was nothing there.

  Turning back slowly, he eyed the two of them carefully for their reaction before asking, “Did you enjoy the show? Because if I am not mistaken, you lost all access to Earth's media, and we only have live TV now.”

  Alicia said nothing; only her pale skin turning a pinker shade betrayed her, that and her attempt to hide behind the large pillow she was cuddling.

  “Entertainments were limited, and we got bored waiting. We were taking bets on whether or not Alicia would need to come rescue you. She looks great in a bikini; I mean, we both do. Want to see?” Syl said in her all-too-familiar tease.

  Kai was actually fine with it; he even decided to push back more thoroughly this time and said, “You know what, I don’t actually mind; I think I’m getting used to this new me, and I’m definitely getting more and more used to this teasing of yours.“

  “She is not actually teasing you,” Alicia said softly from behind her pillow as she uncurled slightly.

  Seeing an ample leg attached to an ample thigh, Kai lost all track of his push back on Syl.

  Syl sighed as she too relaxed on the couch, “Kai, you fail to realise that this isn’t a new you; this is the you you’ve always been. Sure, you are a little taller, and now you have those piercing blue eyes that literally glow with intensity. But the race change just quickened the changes you went through every time you started using the system in the… in the time loop.”

  Kai coughed as he looked between the both of them; feeling put on the spot, he settled on Alicia and asked, “Is that true, about the changes I would go through?”

  “Syl, she showed me what you were like before the system. You are… you’re handsome now, but you were handsome back then too. Just sad and worn down…”

  Handsome, he had been called it before, something he had grown used to dismissing, unsure of himself. But when he thought about it now, Syl and Alicia had no reason to lie to him, nothing to gain from padding his ego like this.

  Realising he actually kind of believed what they were saying, he felt a tightening in his chest; it felt good, better than good.

  But what was he supposed to do with the information, the feeling? He stood there feeling awkward, two beautiful women studying him like he was a nervous animal, whilst he didn’t know what to do with himself. Was he standing weird now?

  He couldn’t help but smile despite the awkwardness; Syl smiled back as Alicia also popped her head above the rim of the cushion and gave him a cute grin.

  It was then His stomach chose to growl, informing him and everyone else present that despite feeling good about himself for once, he also felt incredibly hungry.

  Embarrassed, Kai immediately looked about for a way to excuse himself; sitting on the hob was a pot of something simmering away, which was perfect. “Ah, erm, I’m starving. I’ll pop back out if you wouldn’t mind sending me something to eat. And yeah, thanks for the soap… whoever that was.”

  With that, Kai left.

  “Did you see that smile?” Syl practically squealed, “I think the idiot let it sink in; nice work flashing your leg, by the way.”

  “Flashing my what?” Alicia looked down to see her outstretched leg and immediately pulled it back in, tucking it in under her t-shirt. “That wasn’t- I mean, I did not-”

  “Sure, sure. Let's go take him what you cooked up; there is a table out there in the kitchen area, and we can talk about how things went while he fills his belly.

  “In this night dress, this t-shirt thing?!”

  “Well, we can’t exactly show him the bikinis out there, though if you want to try, I’m sure Kai won’t mind…”

  Kai ate as Syl went on and on about what they could do better; it was mostly minor things related to how they could better use the party system to stay in sync or how best to use some of Alicia's big attacks.

  Kai tried to pay attention, but he was tired and distracted, the two of them appearing in the same bright white T-shirts they were in while in the domain. Not wanting to draw any attention, he didn’t dare ask how Alicia’s was also white and not deferring back to the black it had been last time this happened.

  Thankfully, things didn’t drag on too long when he suggested an early night and an early rise.

  Syl, of course, gave him an inviting look, which, admittedly, he had a hard time refusing. Shaking his head, she pouted and vanished for the night.

  Their morning routine went off without any hitches, and they found themselves stepping through the next archway together.

  Once again there was no short corridor; he just stepped into the next dungeon room.

  Looking around, he found himself standing in the centre of a coliseum, the stands empty, a lone man in leather armour just ahead of him.

  He was short, probably only about halfway through five feet. His hair was grey, long enough to be tied back. His skin is tan and leathery, a thick pointed moustache accentuating a prominent nose. And he stared at Kai with an intense, assessing look.

  Kai recognised something wasn’t quite right; he felt strange, like a part of him was missing. Looking about, he couldn’t see Syl or Alicia anywhere. With a start, he realised their status wasn’t even showing on his party display; it just said [out of range] for both of them. Which should be impossible for Syl.

  “Relax, boy, don’t get your knickers all twisted. Your lady friends are being tested separately. The people that have been charged with the task will take good care of them. I promise you they will come to no harm.”

  A sword appeared in the man's hand, and he lifted the tip to point it at Kai. “You, however, I am afraid, won’t be so lucky. Now, we have much to do, much to discuss, and I'm afraid the mistress has asked us not to waste our time. She is waiting for you, you know. Must have made quite the impression. We shall see if you are worthy of such attention.”

  The man slashed the air in front of him, the seemingly innocuous act sending a blast of air to wash over Kai, the pressure of the blast just enough to cause Kai to fall back a step.

  Planting his feet, Kai tried to examine the man whilst still pushing through the wind the man had unleashed on him.

  Inego Monteyo ( ??? )

  The Ghostblade, Grandmaster of the Arcane Blade.

  “Hmm, that was rude... but still if you Impress me, I will let you call me master, for if you survive my blade, you will learn much. Now, ready one of your swords, and we shall see what you are made of. Prepare to die,” the man, Inego, said as he took one step forward. Twirling the point of his thick moustache with his free hand, he appeared just a meter away from Kai, his sword already coming down on him in a vicious arc.

  Anyway, i was going to play monster hunter wilds, but it seems my new secondhand PC isn't up to the task.