Like a Dungeon Crawler (Yakuza/Danmachi, Celestial Grimoire)

Ebiris · Jan 20, 2025

Author's Notes said:
I'm trying to push myself into writing more, and a Celestial X type story gives a good method for getting off the ground. You've got the dopamine hit of spinning the gacha, and the inevitable complications from new powers and items giving directions to write in even if you're struggling to hold a plot together! Also Danmachi has the whole problem of either having to give your viewpoint character the same kind of accelerated growth as Bell has, or else accept that they're going to be basically static in terms of power while staying in the time-frame of the story. So just having an entirely bullshit progression mechanic sidesteps all of that!

I'm using Celestial Grimoire: A Complete Compendium Second Edition with 100 points being banked per 1000 words, rolling every 1000 words. If a perk requires a prerequisite the prerequisite is taken instead/in addition depending on budget. The first perk rolled is acquired regardless of cost (these two points in fact combine as things play out).

edit: From approximately chapter 4 the grimoire changes to the Yggdrasil v2.5 version.

I reserve the right to re-roll perks if I think they're dumb or unsuitable. For two examples, I rolled an item that gave thousands of tags you can stick to clothes to change their appearance, and I rolled for a flute that controls magitech. The first was just stupid and pointless, the second has no value in the Danmachi setting, so both were ignored and re-rolled.

I'm tempted to re-roll if I keep getting stuff from the same setting coming up in quick succession, just because that always bugs me when I see it, but thus far I've held back from that temptation. It's random, that can happen after all.

"I'm sorry Ichi. You have to die for me."

A single gunshot tore through him and he fell. Was it the impact of the bullet, or the sting of betrayal that hurt the most? And yet despite it all, as his vision faded and he stared back at Masumi Arakawa's eyes, Ichiban Kasuga couldn't see hatred in the old man's gaze even as his own went black. There was something he was missing, a mystery that begged to be solved to make sense of receiving this kind of welcome after spending eighteen years imprisoned for the sake of the Arakawa Family.

But the bullet that just ripped through his chest put its own conclusion on the story, before Ichiban could unravel it.

He didn't expect to see anything again. Every yakuza had heard stories of bodies being buried in shallow graves up in the mountains, even if they hadn't been tasked with that grisly job themselves. Surely that's what awaited Ichiban after being gunned down by his own patriarch.

"Ahhh! Tcch- tcch! That stings!" the words came out of his mouth automatically as he felt a hissing pain in his chest, shocking him to wakefulness, causing him to sit up abruptly and slap a hand to his chest, feeling a wetness over it before a hand grabbed his wrist and pulled it back.

"Hold still, you'll mess up the healing," a soft feminine voice spoke as his eyes managed to focus on a woman standing above him. Light brown hair messily framed a cute but inexpressive face, a strand falling between wide purple eyes that regarded him critically.

The burning sensation in his chest was fading, but he felt a tickling sensation in his throat, a cough burbling up that was impossible to resist. He tried pulling his hand up over his mouth but found the woman's grip on his wrist similarly impossible to resist, and so he simply turned to the side and hacked out a fierce cough, a wad of phlegm-stained spit splattering onto the dusty cobblestones below.

"That's not so bad," another voice spoke up, "No lung damage at least. Are you feeling better, Mister…?"

The voice trailed off and Ichiban turned to look at its owner, seeing a man that if anything might've been prettier than the woman he noticed first, with gentle androgynous features and long purplish black hair. Definitely a bishonen type. Still, an introduction was called for, and finally the woman's grip on his arm abated enough for him to pull it back and push himself upwards against the wall he was seemingly reclining against. "Kasuga," he answered, feeling a faint rasp still in his throat that nonetheless faded as he forced more words out. "Ichiban Kasuga." Now no longer being stopped, he pulled at his shirt, poking through the obvious bullet-hole and pressing his finger against the seemingly whole flesh underneath. It felt tender, enough to impress on him the reality that he had in fact been shot and it wasn't a strange dream.

"Did you… heal me?" he asked, looking up at the pair who were leaning over him, pushing himself up to his feet and seeing them straighten up to match. The man was as tall as Ichiban was, both of them towering over the woman who was about a head shorter. From this vantage he could see over the top of her head, her shoulder length hair oddly styled with two flaps coming out the top of her head that kind of looked like dog ears.

His surroundings too were strange as he began to take note, seeing a shop-front that looked like something out of a fantasy video game, rustic wood-framed windows and displaying beakers and flasks that looked like stereotypical healing potions.

"Well, we couldn't just leave you to bleed out when you'd made it right to our doorstep," the man said in an affable tone. "Consider this one on the house, Ichiban."

The woman's expression twisted unhappily in the most emotion he'd seen from him thus far, and it wasn't hard to see the potential landmine there. As if he could simply let it lie anyway, Ichiban Kasuga was a man who paid his debts! "No, no!" he waved his hands towards them both, "You saved my life! I don't have much cash on me right now," in fact pushing a hand into his pocket confirmed his wallet was missing, though he wasn't sure he had enough yen in it to cover life-saving possibly magical health-care anyway.

Assuming yen was worth anything… wherever he was.

He bowed his head apologetically and continued, "But once I get some cash together I'll definitely pay back what I owe, and in the meantime if there's anything I can do to help you out just let me know!"

The woman sighed and looked at him like he was pond scum, clearly not thinking much of his promise, but the man gave a genial laugh and said, "Well a man has to pay his debts, of course. The healing potion we used on you was worth four-"

"Five," the woman interrupted curtly.

"Five hundred valis," the man finished smoothly, an apologetic grimace on his face.

"Right. Valis," Ichiban said, that putting into focus what he'd had percolating in his mind since he first started understanding his surroundings. "About that, could you tell me where we are? And how I got here?"

"Well, you're in front of our store," the man said, bemused as he indicated the shop-front behind him, the three of them all in an alleyway that wasn't big enough to drive a car down, old-fashioned cobblestones underfoot. "We assumed you must have dragged yourself here from the Dungeon… or maybe you got mugged?" his tone turned more sympathetic at that last possibility, "And passed out. That was quite an injury you had, whatever punctured you went right through your chest, but managed to miss anything vital."

The boss was a good shot. For him to have missed anything vital…

100 - Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mind Link)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.

[4] Mind Link - the psychic links their mind to a single animal, allowing them to perceive all the animal does, and utilize any lesser power upon them more easily so long as the link persists, which can be indefinitely if the psychic wishes it. However, should the animal be injured, psychic backlash may also injure the psychic.

(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mass Communication) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)

100 - Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mass Communication)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.

[3] Mass Communication - all animals of a given species within earshot come under the effects of Communication. Additional species can be added, but doing so is more taxing for the psychic.

(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Command) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)

100 - Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Command)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.

[2] Command - the psychic may now command an animal to perform a single act in their name, but not one that endangers the animal. Especially complex commands, or orders that the animal is adverse to follow, are harder to impose.

(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Communication) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)

100 - Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Communication)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.

[1] Communication - the psychic may create a two-way channel of communication between themselves and one animal of choice. At this level, they cannot forcefully control them, but they can turn whatever fast-talking powers they have upon the bird or beast.

The thought trailed off, Ichiban's expression turning slack as something turned itself over in his brain.

"Ugh, you're drooling," the woman's soft but scornful voice broke through the sudden reverie.

"Maybe there was a head injury I missed," the man said, sounding more worried.

"No, it's not that!" Ichiban blurted out, making sure to nonetheless wipe the back of his hand over his chin, indeed feeling moisture there. "I know how to talk to animals now!"

Two stares met him, one incredibly nonplussed, the other radiating gentle concern. "Perhaps another potion might be best, just to be on the safe side…" the man said, glancing at the woman.

"Argh! Nevermind!" Ichiban couldn't help himself from stamping his feet with nervous energy, putting his head in his hands as he tried to focus his thoughts and prioritise what mattered. "You didn't see anyone drop me off here or anything?" he demanded, starting with how he got here. Take things in order that way.

"No, we were opening our shop for the morning and we saw you collapsed out front right here. So you didn't make your way here yourself?" the man asked, at least willing to indulge Ichiban's questions rather than insisting on the head injury theory.

"Okay, and where's here?" he asked, looking around. In one direction the alley stretched off to a blind corner, an old wooden barrel crammed in against the wall underneath a window with wooden shutters rather than glass. In the other it seemed to open out onto a wider street, sunlight more clearly hitting there compared to the shadows they found themselves in.

"Our shop. The Miach familia?" the man answered, looking concerned at Ichiban's clear lack of recognition. "I'm Miach, and this is my dear captain, Naaza."

The now named Naaza retained her inscrutable expression, looking up at Ichiban with barely concealed disdain, but a flash of movement behind her stood out, a swish of brown contrasting the yellow and blue sweater she had on, the same shade as her hair…

It was a tail. She was wagging her tail. Those flaps on her head weren't weird configurations of hair, they were ears. Like a spaniel dog!

Ichiban swallowed. It was clear he was in some kind of fantasy world. He would've expected elves ahead of dog people. He would've even expected cat people first. But his brain was already acclimatising to the possibility, he wasn't going to make an ass of himself by calling her a dog and probably finding out that was a heinous slur in this world.

Also terms like familia and captain were putting him on a more firm footing. His experience as a yakuza would be just as relevant as those long hours staying up playing Dragon Quest.

"Okay, and so where is here more generally? Like the town, or the… world?" he asked, gesturing vaguely around.

The looks the two were giving him suggested head injury was once more under consideration.

"This is the Dungeon city of Orario, the world is Genkai," Miach explained, his tone gentle like one might use with a small child. "You didn't know that?"

"No, uh. Never heard of either," Ichiban shook his head. "I'm from Tokyo." Looks of polite incomprehension. "Japan," zero reaction, "Earth? The solar system? The Milky Way galaxy?" his voice pitched up a bit desperately at the end, Miach and Naaza both sharing worried looks by the end of it.

"We've never heard of any of those places. Could it be a false memory or delusion?" Naaza spoke up for the pair, her expression showing more interest now as she looked at Ichiban like a puzzle to be solved.

"There are lots of fashions all around Genkai," Miach said more thoughtfully, "But your clothes still stand out for Orario…"

Ichiban braced himself for some sort of crack about his hair, but it never came. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed by it.

"That gold necklace would be worth some valis, you can't have been lying out here long without someone grabbing it," Naaza added, her eyes narrowing.

"It's true, many would simply seek what they could acquire rather than concerning themselves with helping someone in need," Miach said, causing Naaza's cheeks to redden and bulge out in a momentary pout. Miach continued undeterred however, asking Ichiban, "What's the last thing you remember before waking up here?"

And wasn't that question a kick in the ass.

"I'm sorry Ichi. You have to die for me."

He replayed the words in his memory, Arakawa's eyes trying to convey something he wasn't smart enough to figure out. A hand went to his chest again, finger catching in the hole in his shirt. "The boss… he shot me," he answered, voice rough and gaze turned to the side, unable to look at his strange benefactors as he tried to make sense of everything. Frustration bubbled up and he kicked at the wall behind him. "Raargh, I've got enough to try and figure out! The boss shooting me after I spent eighteen years in jail for him, betraying the Tojo Clan and signing up with the Omi Alliance, and somehow I've gotten myself lost in another fantasy world! Are there elves and monsters and magic here too?!" he blurted out, rounding back on Miach and Naaza.

"Well yes. Why wouldn't there be?" Naaza asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He couldn't help but laugh at that simple response. Indeed, why wouldn't there be? That stuff was normal for this world, as normal as yakuza and hosts and cars back home.

"Oh I'm so screwed," he concluded, letting out a harsh laugh. If this had happened at any other time in his life he'd have been fine with it. A fun fantasy adventure just like in the video games he loved, he could imagine himself with a sword battling a dragon… it would be great. But right now he kept coming back to Arakawa's face as he fired the gun.

"Lord Miach, Miss Naaza! Good morning!" a fresh sounding cheerful voice interrupted their strange stand-off, all three turning to see someone coming down the alleyway from the street. He looked young, a brown jacket worn over black clothes, white hair on his head that might've made him look like a delinquent pretty-boy if not for the wholesome good-boy energy his earnest smile radiated. "Oh, am I interrupting something?" he asked as he grew near, giving Ichiban a quizzical glance.

"Oh no, nothing like that, young Bell," Miach answered breezily. "Just another patient, are you stocking up for another day in the Dungeon?"

Ichiban simply gave a little nod and a, "Yo," as Bell nodded to the question.

"Lady Hestia and Miss Eina both insisted I never go down there without some potions for emergencies, and I used one yesterday when a goblin managed to knock me over, so I just need one to keep my reserve up," the young man explained.

"You should listen to those women, they know what's best," Miach chuckled fondly, "Naaza, why don't you get Bell sorted out? And Ichiban, would you like to come in as well for some tea? I feel like there's many more mysteries we need to solve here."

"Haha, yeah sure," Ichiban agreed with a ragged chuckle as everyone went into the nearby shop, Naaza leading Bell towards the counter, shelves full of more obvious magical potions behind it. It was hard not to feel cheered up by listening to someone talk about fighting actual goblins like that. "You knock those goblins dead, kid!" he gave Bell a thumbs up.

"I will!" the boy replied with enthusiasm, fiddling with his satchel to pay Naaza for the potion. If that's what they used to heal him at least it meant the five hundred valis he owed probably wasn't an exorbitant sum.

As Bell left the store, Miach and Ichiban got settled in a room behind a beaded curtain, where the fantasy alchemy mood was even stronger with more squiggly looking glasswork and burners, and plenty of herbs both hanging off hooks and filling jars. Miach seemed to be using it for something more mundane however as he heated up a kettle and poured what Ichiban's nose could readily identify as green tea.

"Appreciate it," Ichiban said as the pretty-boy young man served him a cup, pouring one for himself and a third for Naaza who rejoined them with no one else needing her to serve them at the front of the store. A sip sent warmness through his chest and left a sweet grassy flavour on his tongue. "This is nice, thanks," he said approvingly, before pleasantries were put aside and they got to the real questions. "So… goblins, huh?"

"They're weak," Naaza spoke up. "But they still kill their share of beginner adventurers. Numbers can make up for what they lack. You really don't know? About Orario? The Dungeon?" she peered at him intensely, sitting on a stool by the alchemy workbench.

"I mean, I've heard of goblins, but only in stories and games. They're not real where I come from," Ichiban answered, before feeling out the word that described their genre. "They're fantasy."

Fantasy didn't feel right when Naaza had just talked about them killing adventurers though. Fantasy was fun. Fantasy was what scantily clad babes hanging outside of soaplands promised to their potential costumers. Fantasy was an escape from the drab and dreary reality. These two would probably find a ride on the subway to be equally fantastic as he'd find anything here.

"Well, it's quite real here," Miach said, seeming to accept Ichiban's answer without issue, though Naaza's expression twisted in a fashion that suggested she wasn't entirely happy with his answer. "Orario was built on top of the Dungeon from which monsters emerged, goblins being but the least of them. A thousand years ago they threatened to overrun all of Genkai, but with the help of the Gods the people pushed them back here to the Dungeon. A great plug was built on top of it that you can see from anywhere in the city, the Tower of Babel. And to this day adventurers plumb its depths to think the number of monsters and harvest their valuable magic stones and other useful materials."

That sounded important to Ichiban. "This dungeon… what's at the bottom of it?" he asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

But neither of the two had an answer for him. Naaza looked away, while Miach merely shrugged. "No one knows. The deeper one gets, the more difficult the terrain and the more powerful the monsters. My own familia has never made it past the middle floors."

Naaza visibly tensed up at that, one of her hands clutching at the opposite bicep, and Miach reached over to rest his hand atop her gloved one at the bottom of that arm, causing her to relax slightly while Miach continued in a serious tone, "It's incredibly dangerous that deep, no matter how brave and prepared you are."

Definitely felt like there was a story there, but it wasn't his to ask. Not when he'd just met them and already had the impression Naaza didn't think much of him. But still the setup felt obvious. Down at the bottom of that dungeon no one else had made it to, there'd be some kind of portal or wish-granting device or something that could bring him back to Japan. It made the most sense looking at this like it was a fantasy story or game, the dungeon was the obstacle to overcome, and the prize waited at the bottom.

"And you've really never heard of Japan, or heard of anyone appearing like me who doesn't know all this stuff?" he asked, just to make sure he wasn't missing anything in terms of precedent for his arrival here.

"Never," Miach answered firmly. "Your story is… quite unprecedented, young Ichiban."

That drew a chuckle. Being called young by a guy who probably hadn't cracked twenty five. Though it sounded like he was a patriarch so that kind of attitude wasn't unreasonable. Any further comment was derailed however by the sudden appearance of a round metal bottle suddenly appearing on his lap.

200 - Magical Canteen
Danmachi
While people can go on for a few days without food but water is a must to allow your body to operate. This canteen possesses an ability to produce water on its own and the water it produces is some of the tastiest and freshest water out there. The water also has the ability to restore the drinker's stamina and refreshes their tired mind though it won't restore the mind energy that you used for the magic spell but the water can be used to replace food for three days with a diminishing return until you stop substituting real food for it this water.

"What the-" he raised his hands, tea sloshing around the cup he still had in one of them. Miach's eyebrow rose up and Naaza leaned forward intently.

"Where did that come from?" she asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I don't know, it just did!" Ichiban answered, putting his teacup aside on the shelf to his side and picking up the bottle. Liquid sloshed around inside and he unscrewed the cap, holding it under his nose. "Doesn't smell like anything…"

"Let me check," Naaza insisted, standing up and holding her hand out, this one not wearing a glove. "I'm a pharmacist, I can discern if it's poison or something useful."

Seeing no reason not to, Ichiban handed the mysteriously appearing canteen across to the dog-girl who gave it a sniff herself before turning towards the workbench, pouring a few drops into a clear beaker. The liquid that came out was clear and certainly looked and behaved like water.

"I take it you've never had anything like that happen before?" Miach asked as Naaza muttered to herself, igniting a burner under the beaker and crouching slightly to watch as it began to bubble and steam.

"No. Uh, Miss Naaza, is there a label or marker or anything on the bottle?" he asked, distracting her enough to turn it around a few times in her hands, the flat grey metal catching the light off the burner but not reflecting much, its finish a dull matte. The black cap was attached to the neck with a small cord, and it looked like something you'd take camping rather than anything suspicious.

"It's unlabelled. No residue from boiling either," Naaza reported, turning back to the sample she'd poured out which by now had mostly boiled away. She stirred the remainder with a wooden stick which she then took out and examined closely. Seemingly satisfied, she dabbed it with her finger and licked said finger afterwards.

"Water," she announced under the expectant gazes of the two men. Her tail swished behind her and she poured from the canteen a little more into a cup which she then took a proper drink from, holding it in her mouth with her lips closed, clearly swilling it before she swallowed. It made him think of a sommelier testing a wine batch. Thankfully she didn't spit it out, she indeed swallowed it. "It's good," she said, her disaffected tone saying one thing and the happy motion of her tail saying another as she seemed to be categorising her reaction to it. "Very crisp, very clear. I think it would make for a good potion base."

Despite the wagging of her tail, she gave Ichiban a look that he wasn't too dense to pick up on. "Well you're the pharmacist, why don't you pour it out to keep as much as you need yourself? You'd get more out of it than I would, and you've already given me a drink," he offered jovially, retrieving his by now lukewarm tea for a sip.

Naaza gave him a smile for the first time in their brief acquaintance and proceeded to start pouring out the mysterious canteen enough to fill up the beaker she'd been using, then pausing in confusion as she finished, giving the bottle a shake in her hand. The tone of the sloshing they could all hear didn't quite line up with how much water would be expected to still be in it after pouring out that much, and the dog-girl proceeded to lean over a cauldron that was larger than the bottle, pouring it out… and all three of them watched as the water level rose in the cauldron to reach the brim, no slowing from the bottle before Naaza tilted it back upright.

"It's still full," she reported dully.

"Naaza, may I?" Miach asked, standing up now and reaching out, the dumbfounded captain handing the apparently endless bottle to her patriarch who took a sniff from it himself before pouring some into his teacup and drinking that. "It's more than just water," he said after consuming it, "There's a slight restorative effect. Nothing as strong as a healing potion, but in some ways better at what it does. Alleviating fatigue, easing hunger… you're right this would make a tremendous base for a healing potion, but even by itself it's still quite wondrous." Naaza's eyes tracked the bottle like a hawk as Miach stoppered it and handed it back to Ichiban like he was handling something precious. "That's quite a gift you received, Ichiban."

"Yeah, uh, I guess…" he took it back a bit numbly. It wasn't exactly the sword of the legendary hero, but still every adventurer needed something to drink on their quest. It and the ability to talk to animals that he'd put on the back-burner with everything else going on certainly made for an unconventional hero class, but he could hardly say he was being given nothing here.

"I think this is a sign," he said, marshalling his thoughts. "None of us know how I got here, and none of us know what's at the bottom of this dungeon. An arduous journey into the unknown… and I've got something to keep my energy up on that journey. Whether it's a way home or an answer as to how I got here… it's at the bottom of that dungeon, I just know it."

Miach smiled sadly at that, while Naaza openly grimaced. It was the man who spoke first. "I admire your resolve, Ichiban. It's true there are mysteries begging to be solved here, but I've seen too many children go into the Dungeon and never return. I would advise you to prepare carefully, and if you can find allies to help you on this quest."

"Join a familia," Naaza seconded, her eyes darting towards Miach before refocusing on Ichiban. "That's the first step for any adventurer."

"I've already got one," Ichiban answered, jerking a thumb against his chest – and reminding himself once more of the bullet-hole marking his shirt. There was certainly significance there, but despite everything, Arakawa had never actually expelled him. "I'm an Arakawa Family man, to the end."

Naaza sighed softly at that. "Arakawa's not here though, are they? They're on your other world, in the Milky Way galaxy," she almost seemed to be fighting a smile as she said that, and Ichiban chalked it up as a win that she'd steadily gotten more expressive as they spent time together. "I don't think they'd begrudge you seeking help to get home."

"Maybe not," he admitted, ducking his head briefly before meeting Naaza's eyes, "But I want to be able to look him in the eye when I get back and tell him that I never wavered. Not for eighteen years, not for however long I spent here in Genkai."

"That's a man's resolve, Naaza," Miach said in an approvingly fond tone of voice, "No god nor beast can overrule that. But still Ichiban, I hope you'll accept help on this undertaking even if you won't join a familia formally. I'm sure Orario will seem strange to you, there's a lot to take in and understand even before seeing the Dungeon itself."

"I will," Ichiban nodded, glad Miach seemed to get him. "And I'll pay you back properly for saving my life too, that's a man's resolve too!"

Miach laughed at that while Naaza seemed considerably less amused. She still spoke up with her own advice, "Well if you need money before you explore the Dungeon there's a pawn shop down on the other side of the alley we're in. They'd buy that necklace of yours," her gaze sharpened and she leaned forward, "Whatever they'd offer you for that bottle wouldn't be a fair price. A lot of people would kill you for it. Be careful who you show that kind of thing to."

Even the ever genial Miach wore a serious expression as Naaza delivered her warning. He figured with magic and healing potions around it wouldn't be that big a deal, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. He knew a guy in the joint who'd killed someone for his phone.

"I get you. But no one will know from just looking, right?" he asked, receiving nods from the locals as he fastened the bottle to his belt using the loop connecting the cap to the bottle. It was too big to fit in any of his pockets as it was, but didn't feel bad hanging there.

"If you want to learn about the Dungeon, the Pantheon would be a good place to start," Miach spoke up once Ichiban had finished messing with the magical endless water bottle. "That's the head office of the Guild which regulates Orario. They probably won't take you seriously if you're not in a registered familia, but their information is still available to all. They're also the only lawful broker of magic stones, so you'll see a lot of adventurers there cashing out after a day in the Dungeon."

That sounded interesting and obviously suggested a black market in such things, but Ichiban was already struggling a bit with information overload and chose not to press on it. Besides, Miach seemed like an upstanding kind of guy – he ran a store that sold magic healing potions! He probably wasn't the person to talk to about sketchy stuff like that.

"It's not far from here, if you go out onto the main street outside our pharmacy then follow it north, it's the big building with colourful flags outside after you turn right past the cathedral," Naaza spoke up with directions while Ichiban was considering that.

"Right. That all sounds good. Pawn shop, adventurer's guild, and the dungeon's underneath the big tower you can see from anywhere, right?" Ichiban asked, boiling down the local landmarks he knew that could help him get situated. "Honestly I think I need to walk around a bit and just clear my head some anyway, this has been a hell of a way to start the day, but thank you both for all your kindness, I'll come and see you again soon to pay back what I owe."

Miach started to open his mouth before Naaza's elbow subtly pushed against his side and he instead nodded and started over, "We'll look forward to seeing you again, Ichiban. Please don't be a stranger, and remember what we said about help. The Blue Pharmacy's door is always open to you!"

"Hehe, I won't. You two take care of each other," Ichiban returned with a grin, standing up and bowing deeply to his generous benefactors before he made his way out of the shop and out onto the street just down from the alleyway he'd apparently been dumped into as his arrival point into this mysterious fantasy world.

It was bright now, the rising sun shining down from the same direction as an enormous grey tower soaring so far beyond the height of any other structures it was comical. Past that, the street itself was wide enough to admit horse drawn carriages and carts going both ways, while people went about their business. He saw a woman with big white rabbit ears chatting to a man with pointy elf ears. A boy with cat ears and a tail chasing after another boy with ram's horns in some childish game. Plenty of humans too though, or people who if they weren't human had their non-human traits so well hidden he couldn't tell the difference. It seemed peaceful. The air was fresh and clean, the atmosphere was relaxed. Despite the dungeon underneath, life on the surface seemed good at a glance.

Good enough for people like Miach and Naaza to unquestioningly heal a stranger dumped on their door with a gunshot wound.

But also not so good that they didn't assume he'd been mugged and left for dead. Naaza's warning about what people would do for a bottle of endless water also stuck in mind. Still, it couldn't be any worse than Kamurocho on a Friday night. Ichiban wasn't some wide-eyed kid waiting to be made a victim.

"Woah, that's a fat cat!" he blurted out as he spotted an enormous grey feline lounging on a window-sill beside the alley he'd emerged from.

"Hey, who do you-" an irate voice sounded from the street nearby as an older man with black cat ears sticking out above his shaggy hair started turning towards Ichiban, an arm held protectively around his widening paunch before he spotted where Ichiban was looking and chuckled ruefully. "Haha, yeah that's a well-fed fellow. Excuse me, getting a bit sensitive over the middle-aged spread."

"I getcha," Ichiban nodded understandingly, patting his own stomach which was still boasting rock solid abs from all those prison workouts, "You gotta work harder as the years pile up. Still, this guy looks happy where he is."

"We can't all live a life of leisure like that," the cat man said, though he still cast a jealous look at the relaxed feline before squaring his shoulders and heading off down the street, "Speaking of, gotta get moving. Take care buddy."

Giving him a nod back, Ichiban approached the cat that had initially garnered his interest. He had felt it earlier, the sudden realisation that he could talk to animals. It had been sidelined by everything else going on as he took in his situation with Miach and Naaza. But now he had a chance to test it…

"Hey, do you hear this?"

His face screwed up with effort as he stared at the cat without moving his mouth. And with its tail swishing off the side of the window-sill it had perched on, the cat's head turned to look directly at Ichiban with slitted pupil green eyes.

"Sup old man?"

It… no, he. Definitely a male voice. There'd been no cutesy meow, nothing verbal, just a voice beaming into Ichiban's head. It sounded relaxed but cocky. It gave Ichiban the feeling of talking to a delinquent kid hanging out outside a convenience store.

"Nothing much, just testing out this whole talking to animals business. You mind if I try something else?" he beamed more thoughts back, the cat opening its mouth in reply but only to yawn as he stretched his limbs out.

"Okay, but scratch my belly. Just a bit though. Too much and I'll get mad."

"Haha, that's a cat alright," he chuckled out loud, approaching the cat and reaching out to stroke his fingers into the downy fur hanging around the cat's expansive waistline. Focusing on this strange new power, he further linked his mind to the cat's and…

"Woah."

He could feel his own hand scratching 'his' belly, and adjusted where he was dragging his fingers to where felt better. He could hear up and down the street – it was hard to pick out specific conversations but the overall noise was far more than his human ears were able to pick out. Seeing through the cat's eyes he saw himself in its vision, the colours muted so the red suit he wore seemed more washed out, and his facial features were indistinct, merging together with the explosive punch perm around his head. Cat vision wasn't very good, but smell? He could smell the lingering metallic hint of blood on his clothes, the tea lingering on his breath. Other scents from the street were easily picked up too, a girl's strong floral perfume picked up from the other side of the road, the waft of baking bread from a nearby window…

It was a lot to take in, just the senses of one lazy cat basking in the sun. Which felt really good on his dark fur, he could definitely see the appeal in this sort of life. Though he also felt a building irritation which caused him to stop scratching and pull his hand back before the cat got mad as he promised.

"Thanks. That was a big help," he 'thought' to the cat, retracting the mind-link but not before hearing the casual reply.

"Any time, old man. That was a good scratch."

As magical abilities went it wasn't exactly what he would have picked first in this situation, but just being able to benefit from an animal's senses would surely have tons of uses, and they might be good for gathering information or even fighting on his behalf. He hadn't wanted to disturb the cat's rest to test it, but everything else worked as expected and part of this psychic ability included being able to command animals too, and not just one at a time either. He imagined sending a flock of pigeons to barrage a goblin and smiled to himself and started to head down the street.

There was a big building of white stone and pointed steeples ahead, surrounded by parkland, which was probably the cathedral Naaza had mentioned. Circling around it brought him to an even wider street which seemed to run straight towards that huge tower… just looking at the way it overshadowed everything around it reminded him a bit of the Millennium Tower back in Kamurocho. It had been nice seeing that place finally built when he'd gotten out of prison, but he was pretty sure it wasn't as tall as this Tower of Babel, which really put the fantasy architecture into perspective if it could beat out a modern skyscraper. It made it pretty easy to orient yourself wherever you were in this city too, and he followed the road towards it until he saw the building with the colourful flags outside that Naaza had told him to watch out for.

It wasn't hard to spot, if not the flags he probably would have spotted it just from the number of armed and armoured people coming and going outside it. The crowd wasn't so overbearing it stopped him from going inside though, finding it oddly looking like a bank when he got in, the disparate looks of the adventurers clearly contrasting with the neat black office attire of the clerks serving them behind a row of counters at the far end of the foyer.

But then his eyes caught on something that absolutely screamed 'Adventurer's Guild' to his untrained eye. A noticeboard with flyers pinned up all over it. What was clearly a quest board! Seeing people ambling around it more casually than the organised lines up towards the counters, he decided to go give that a look first to get his bearings.

Unfortunately when he got there, a problem became apparent. These people had a completely different alphabet! He could read the numbers – what were probably payout rewards, or numbers of items requested. But the actual words? They looked a bit like English letters if he squinted, which he wound up doing… at least there were pictures on some of them, showing what looked like various monster. A minotaur, some kind of butterfly, a dog or wolf, an… armadillo? That looked like an armadillo.

He'd gotten fairly distracted looking at the pictures that he didn't notice someone sidle up next to him until she spoke. "Hey old man, you look like you've been around the block a few times, got a tip for a newbie?"

Turning, he saw a dark-skinned girl looking up at him, her black hair in a sporty side-ponytail while she wore a crop top and short skirt that left quite a lot of skin exposed. That skin also happened to show a defined musculature, making clear this girl was no stranger to the gym. She gave a beaming pearly-teethed smile up at him and pointed to one of the flyers as she spoke, "Me and my friends want to go hunt purple moths but they're a pain to find. You know any good spots they like to spawn?"

Her smile. Her expectation. They were blinding! Ichiban felt himself shrinking under the weight of her gaze. "Uh, well, y'see…" he started, wanting to just admit his ignorance but also feeling like he was failing to measure up to the expectations put on him, when mercifully someone else interrupted.

"A good spot to hunt purple moths?" they both turned to see a pointy-eared elf with slicked back blond hair adjusting his round glasses over his nose. "Go down to the seventh floor using the southern-most stairs on the sixth floor. Turn left, then go straight past both intersections – keep straight, then turn right at the T-junction, you come out on a crevasse over a pit down to the ninth floor. The moths like to spawn to attack people crossing over the bridge, but most people just run past because you need ranged weapons to fight them there and even if they drop they fall down the pit. But if you lure them back to the passage on either side you'll be able to fight them there!"

He spoke breathlessly but precisely, drawing impressed looks from both Ichiban and the girl. Her smile widened and she shimmied her hips from side to side, "Heyyy, you know your stuff Glasses!" she said playfully, her hand reaching out to push his chest.

At which point he teetered back, arms wind-milling before he tumbled onto his ass with a startled cry. The girl remained frozen with her arm outstretched before her face morphed into a look of pure disgust, eyes narrowed and lips pinched. "Eww. Never mind," she said curtly, turning away even as Ichiban reached down to try and help the poor guy up.

Face red, the elf's voice cracked as he retorted, "You're not supposed to touch elves! It's rude!" only receiving an even more rude gesture from the girl as she walked away to join several other tittering dark-skinned girls. Meanwhile Ichiban suddenly let go of the guy's arm he'd been using to try and help him up, causing him to drop again. "Not you!" he huffed, pulling himself up and dusting himself off. "Sorry. I don't really mind the touching thing, it's just an old tradition I used to try and save face." Letting out a forlorn sigh, he turned fully towards Ichiban and bowed, "My name is Orin Redleaf. Thank you for helping me just now."

"Hey, no problem. My name's Ichiban Kasuga," Ichiban introduced himself in turn, feeling a bit awkward over the whole situation. "That was kinda rough, huh?"

"Yes. I shouldn't be surprised. Muscle-head amazons like her only understand mindless brute strength," Orin complained, taking off his glasses and wiping them with a handkerchief before putting them back on and folding his arms over the yellow tunic he had on. "The Dungeon devours the foolish. Wisdom and knowledge are the greatest weapons of the wise and I have exercised my formidable mental talents towards becoming a true scholar of the Dungeon. Every adventurer inevitably reaches their physical limit, the wall beyond which no amount of effort and will can break. And those are the lucky ones that don't simply end up as bones in a forgotten cave. But I have cast off those shackles, so that my glorious mind can explore its depths without limitation. Every day I consult maps to see how the Dungeon has changed, I read reports of monster activity, I study journals of expeditions. While a foolish muscle-head will struggle to ever see even the Under-Resort, I have already explored beyond the White Palace using the power of my minds eye. Every day I expand my knowledge, coming closer and closer to the Ultimate Theory of the Dungeon!"

His voice picked up quite a bit as he went on there, his arms waving expansively as he gesticulated to make his points, yet few people paid attention other than to shoot pitying looks towards him, while Ichiban simply listened patiently. "So, uh… have you ever actually been in the dungeon?" he asked the inevitable and obvious question.

"Are you crazy?! I'd die!" Orin immediately answered with a complete lack of shame.

"Right. Yeah. That checks out," Ichiban agreed tiredly. "So what's your goal with this? Why are you aiming towards this Ultimate Theory of the Dungeon?" He was starting to get that it was a proper noun thing and not just one of many dungeons like you'd see in a video-game. Made him wonder how they came up with the name.

"What man wouldn't want to solve the greatest mystery of our time?" Orin answered. "My dream is to have my wisdom recognised by a familia, so I can join them and combine my perfect theoretical knowledge with their adventurers' skills to unravel its every last mystery. But no familia wants to take someone who can't fight. My parents say I should just get a job with the Guild, but it's not the same."

"I get it," Ichiban nodded, at least thinking he did. "Safe government job is the kind of thing parents usually push their kids to, but you want to be part of a family actually getting in on the action, huh?"

"Yes!" Orin nodded briskly. "And if I could join the Loki familia, then maybe Nine Hells would notice me…" his cheeks reddened and he pressed his fingers together.

That didn't exactly sound like a nice name, but every other signal he was putting out… "This Nine Hells a girl?" Ichiban asked knowingly, only for Orin to sputter and his eyes to bug out behind his glasses.

"A guh-guh-girl?! Th-that's Riveria Ljos Alf! Leader of the elite Fairy Force! Master of nine magics! More beautiful than any goddess! She's not just a girl! She's… she's… perfect…" he trailed off with a dreamy smile, eyes staring far away and surely conjuring images of this wondrous being with the minds eye he'd earlier bragged about solving the Dungeon with.

"Okay, buddy. Um… good luck then!" Ichiban gave a smile and nod before edging away from the now day-dreaming elf. On the plus side, it looked like the crowds had thinned out, giving him a clear shot towards the clerks, so he walked down a rope-cordoned path towards a red-haired woman with cat (or maybe dog? They seemed a bit fuller than cat ears he'd seen, more like a shiba inu than Naaza's spaniel) ears. With her neat black vest and white shirt she gave off a strong office lady energy despite any animal traits and gave Ichiban a polite customer service smile at his approach.

"Hey there," he smiled back at her, "Name's Ichiban Kasuga. I'm kind of new around here and I was looking for some help getting started with the Dungeon, Miach and Naaza said this was the place to start?" He figured since they ran a potion store that was nearby to the Guild office they'd be well known enough that name-dropping them wouldn't hurt.

"Good morning Mr. Kasuga," the woman responded, keeping her eyes on him as she reached for a document with more of that not-quite-English lettering on it, "My name is Rose Fannett, am I to understand you're a new member of the Miach familia?"

"Oh!" he shook his head, realising the misunderstanding he'd caused. "No, no. Not like that, we're just friends. I'm not part of any of the local families, I'm basically a freelancer here," he explained, giving her a grin and jabbing his thumb at his chest.

She didn't look impressed. Her eyes scanned him down and up, and there was a barely perceptible sigh before she brushed a lock of crimson hair back from her brow. "How old are you, Mr. Kasuga?"

"Huh? Forty two," he answered automatically, wondering why she'd ask that.

She nodded to that. "Is this some kind of mid-life crisis? Are you feeling like you haven't achieved all you set out to with your life so you've decided to throw everything aside by diving into a place that will almost certainly get you killed?" she asked, still with the same polite customer service voice even as she leaned over the counter towards him. "Have you thought about your family and the people you'll be leaving behind?"

He leaned back a little himself, intimidated by Rose's intensity. "Don't kids go into this Dungeon?" he asked, recalling the guy who'd come by to buy a potion from Naaza earlier. He couldn't have been older than fifteen.

"Yes," Rose nodded, straightening up again. "I see them go in every day, and then I stop seeing them and hope they've gotten some sense and found a better way to live. Sometimes I find out they died down there, but a lot of the time I don't, they just vanish, another forgotten unrecognisable body in its depths. Children lured by promises of wealth and glory get consumed by the Dungeon, and I've learned there's no arguing with the young." Her eyes narrowed and Ichiban definitely got a predatory intent from them that reaffirmed the whole animal features thing she had going on, "I expect better from a man who should actually have some life experience at his age."

In a way it was kind of heartening that she cared so much, that she wasn't just jaded to it all even as the apparent risks of the Dungeon now felt more substantial in his mind. Still, despite what she said earlier it wasn't like he had a family or anyone to leave behind here. The Dungeon was his only lead for actually getting out of here.

"I understand where you're coming for, but I've got my own reasons that I need to go down there," he answered, not really wanting to get into the whole 'have you ever heard of the Milky Way galaxy' thing again as it was clearly a lost cause. "Now I can just walk on over to that big tower and head down, but I'm looking for what support's available before I start, so I can at least stack things up in my favour."

500- Necromancer Lord
Warhammer Fantasy: Dogs of War
All the secrets of necromancy are available to you know, and creatures bleak and terrible answer to your beck and call. Wraiths, mummies, vampires, wights, even with effort a great, rotting zombie dragon can be commanded, though those who retain the ability to think may not respond well to slavery. As well as commanding greater undead you gain access to the most terrible necromantic spells, able to slay entire towns and cities worth of people.

While those with this perk can wear magical and non-magical metal armour such as chainmail or plate mail, such equipment does make it much more difficult and much more tiring to work spells.

That might've come out better if his voice hadn't wavered halfway through, a feeling coursing through his head like earlier when he'd suddenly developed the ability to talk to animals. That one hadn't really felt like a 'hero' ability, but it was still pretty cool. Ichiban Kasuga: Horse Whisperer! That sounded good, right?

Certainly better than Ichiban Kasuga: Dark Lord of the Damned.

Why did he suddenly know how to raise zombies and ghosts? Was it because Rose was talking all morbid about how deadly the Dungeon was? Okay it wasn't all zombies, he actually suddenly knew a ton of magic, but it was all… screaming skulls, and wicked dark bolts of energy, and causing people to age into dust with a touch.

The hero was supposed to be good with a sword and have some magic towards healing and probably light or holy element! Not this!

It must have shown on his face what he was going through because Rose was looking at him with some concern now. "Are you alright, Mr. Kasuga? You seem a bit… distracted, all of a sudden."

"Ugh," he groaned and tried to shove all this evil magic knowledge into a box in the back of his head. "Sorry, last night's maybe catching up with me," he waved her off, just glad apparently he hadn't been drooling this time. "What do I need to know to get started?"

"Well to begin with, if you have problems with sudden distraction that will certainly get you killed down there," Rose answered primly. "The level of support the Guild can offer to anyone not part of a registered familia is limited. While a fit adult with training can handle the goblins and kobolds on the upper floors in ones or pairs, it gets considerably more deadly from there. The benefits of a god's blessing aren't just advantageous, they're mandatory if you hope to survive anything more than a brief exploration of the first floor. For that reason the Guild does not encourage exploration of the Dungeon by non-adventurers."

"Uh, okay," Ichiban digested that, deciding to ignore her point about distractions even though it was probably a very good one. "So a god's blessing, what kind of thing is that? Is that like… magic? Like suddenly knowing how to talk to animals or… stuff?" he asked, getting a hint that this might actually explain the weird powers he'd been receiving. And the cool water bottle. Nothing bad to say about that!

The look Rose gave him made him feel rather foolish for asking. "Yes, it can include magic sometimes, but the main blessing of falna is the improvement of physical abilities and the growth that comes with it. Though I haven't heard of anyone speaking with animals, I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of skill existed for someone out in the countryside somewhere. The Dungeon doesn't have normal animals. Some members of the Ganesha familia specialise in taming monsters, though they don't actually talk to them."

Despite everything else he had a feeling Rose was an absolute font of useful information. If you could just get her talking she'd go off on whatever you needed!

"Okay, I getcha," he said, deciding to endure whatever weird looks she'd give him for asking foolish questions when she was clearly willing to expound on basic information regardless. That's a civil servant for you! "And the gods just hand out these blessings to people what, randomly?"

Oh damn, the expression is starting to get a bit hurtful, compromising Ichiban's resolve to look like an ignoramus if it alleviated his ignorance.

"Did you just fall out of an apple tree or something?" she asked, voice tinged with disbelief. And yet, miraculously, before Ichiban was forced to answer that question, she chose to start expositing to him anyway. If you don't ask you don't get after all! "The gods exercise their own selection criteria for their familias, but none of them dispense their blessing randomly. The god has to manually update the falna to actualise the gains made by an adventurer, increasing their abilities commensurate with effort The vast majority of adventurers in Orario are level one, with basic abilities that still put them above normal fit adults. The ones who break past level one have considerably greater abilities, and often unique skills or magic like you mentioned before."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Ichiban waved his hands at her, feeling like this was going a bit too fast over something important. Levels and stats and magic he could understand, but, "You're saying the gods are connected to the familias?"

Her eye definitely twitched there.

"Yes," she answered after a pause where she seemed to be physically marshalling herself in the face of Ichiban's complete lack of even basic assumed information. "The gods who have come down from Tenkai lead their familias, offering their blessing to those members who act on their behalf. Many of them are thus adventuring familias, but some have other concerns such as the Demeter familia who run many farms outside of Orario and who's members don't actively delve into the Dungeon."

But that would mean… "So you're saying Miach's a god?"

Rose's composure cracked. She looked to the side where the other clerks not having any customers of their own were shamelessly eavesdropping on the whole thing with the sort of glee that came from seeing a co-worker deal with a weird customer while you didn't have to do anything yourself. The wood creaked as she held onto the edge of the counter and refocused on Ichiban. "Yes. Lord Miach is a god, and therefore head of the Miach familia."

What the hell was he meant to do with that information? The guy was nice, hell kinda saintly what with the whole free medicine thing, but a god? Kind of low key about it then.

"Huh," he said at last. "Doesn't that just beat everything?"

"I'm not sure what reaction I was expecting, but I'm still disappointed," Rose muttered under her breath.

"Haha, sorry, I guess I'm just a bit out of the loop," he laughed it off, though thinking about it he did recognise Loki that Orin had talked about earlier. That was one of the Viking gods, right? And Rose had mentioned Ganesh, the elephant god. Which meant… "So, uh, is Amaterasu hanging around anywhere?" he asked, leaning over the counter towards Rose, figuring it'd be interesting to meet a Japanese god in this place.

"That's not one I recognise," Rose answered, and this time she gave her colleagues a more pointed look, implicitly asking any of them to chime in if they knew.

"I think that's a sun goddess from the far east?" a brown-haired elf said, tapping a gloved finger to her lips as she cast her eyes upwards. "I don't know if she's come down from Tenkai though, at least not to Orario that I've heard."

Sounds like there's some kind of equivalent to Japan here if Amaterasu and the far east go together. Probably wouldn't help him get back to his Japan though so Ichiban filed it away as a curiosity.

"Ah, don't worry about it," Ichiban waved her off with a smile, "Was just curious since she's more of a big deal back home. We got a bit sidetracked there anyway."

"Yes, over your appalling lack of basic knowledge regarding the Dungeon," Rose agreed, nodding briskly.

"That's what I'm here to fix though, right?" he answered by giving her a big grin.

She did not appear particularly moved by it, at least at first. But then she sighed, her shoulders slouching and she nodded. "At the very least you're taking steps to learn instead of simply running headlong into the Dungeon without a plan. I can't stop you from going there, but I can arm you with knowledge to at least improve your chances. Let's start by examining the current map of the first floor," she turned from him and went to a rack of rolled up papers behind the counter, coming back and unrolling it to show Ichiban the layout of the Dungeon's first floor and began indicating points of interest and describing the kinds of monsters that could be found there.

Goblins and kobolds he'd already heard of briefly, though Rose also told him of an extremely fast bird that had a valuable drop but liked to lure people into ambushes so he should be wary of it rather than seeing the valis signs and letting greed guide him.

At least it was just looking at a map rather than having to read anything. He didn't want to reveal his illiteracy just when it seemed her impression of him was starting to pick up.

"I think I've got the gist of it, I should be able to handle it," he said when she seemed to run out of material to talk about for the first floor.

"What about equipment?" Rose asked, "You don't look kitted out right now, do you have weapons and armour? Healing potions?"

"Ah, not exactly…" he admitted, rubbing the back of his head and avoiding her judging gaze.

"The Guild can provide starting equipment, but only to adventurers part of a registered familia," Rose said flatly. "We don't want to encourage people to go in and get themselves killed, nor just hand out weapons to anyone who asks. But… you did listen well," she seemed to be chewing something over and then glanced towards her elven colleague who was shuffling papers around given the lack of other customers right now. "My colleague Eina Tulle does advanced certification for adventurers. If you can pass her test on the first floor, I might be able to bend the rules a little to supply you with some beginner items."

The now named Eina looked over at them with a smile blooming on her lips, her glasses catching the light to obscure her eyes.

"Ahh, you know what, I think I've got a handle on things now, so how about we take a rain check?" Ichiban held up his hands and backed away from the counter, to the visible disappointment of both clerks. He'd had enough bureaucracy for the morning and didn't exactly want to broadcast his lack of literacy. "I'll uh, catch you all later, okay?" And then turned to flee from disapproving civil servants, hurrying out onto the street and then orienting himself towards that big tower. There's only so much theory a man can take before he needs action!

Ebiris · Jan 21, 2025

It wasn't that long a walk to reach the tower. Orario was bigger than Kamurocho sure but it was no Tokyo. The tower itself still stood out as something fantastic. All the other buildings looked familiar – a bit old fashioned maybe, but the kind of thing you'd see in rural parts of Japan or pictures of Europe. But the Tower of Babel just looked straight up otherworldly, being made up of unpainted but even grey stone and marked with carvings that blended together in his vision as he craned his neck upwards to the top soaring so absurdly high overhead.

This was what they built to plug up the Dungeon? It must have some kind of serious magic if it needs to be that big. Thoughts of mystical significance were to be disappointed however as he fell in behind a group of women heading into the tower who were dressed casually rather than in the sort of clothes he'd seen on the adventurers back at the Pantheon. They were talking about shopping for jewellery, and cheerfully got into an elevator manned by a liveried attendant before vanishing upwards.

"Is this place just a big shopping mall?!" he blurted out, getting a weird look from a small boyish looking figure who was holding a spear about three times bigger than he was.

"First time in Orario?" he asked, a world-weary effect in his tone despite the still childishly high pitch of his voice.

150 - Defensive Determinator
Generic MG
Yes, the tank is an important part of party composition. You tank via forcefields, which allows you to tank at a distance and tank even when your enemy is so rudely attacking someone else.

You start with basic forcefields that you and your allies can move and attack through, while those you don't want to have free lines of fire and movement have to break them first. Put in time and practice, get out new forcefields and tricks.

If you want to create defensive barriers to protect an environment, then this is a good start.

"Uhhhh…" Ichiban answered with an embarrassing slur in his voice, momentarily distracted as another set of magical abilities appeared in his head. At least this time it wasn't anything creepy like necromancy, in fact being able to make force-fields was pretty cool no matter how you looked at it!

The small blond-haired figure pushed off the pillar he was leaning against, looking at Ichiban with some measure of concern mixed with suspicion. "You okay, buddy?"

"Yeah, yeah! Sorry, guess I'm a bit surprised is all," Ichiban hurriedly reassured him. "First time, yeah. Was expecting it to be more mystical, you know?"

"Heh, yeah. Living here you quickly learn there's nothing actually sacred. There's all kinds of shops up the tower. Meeting places for the gods and stuff too, but you see enough of them wandering around town on any day you learn not to see it as anything special," he said, seeming to relax with Ichiban's answer. "Name's Rory, I'm Ganesha familia. We keep the peace around here," he thumped a small fist against the metal breastplate he had over his slender chest, which he was pushing out with a bit of pride. "You visiting Orario for long?"

"Well, probably," he answered, given he didn't exactly come here willingly. "I'm Ichiban Kasuga, I was actually heading to the Dungeon. It's under here, right?"

"Like that?" Rory looked Ichiban up and down. Which given the height difference involved a fair bit of neck movement on his part. "No weapon, no armour? What, you just wanted to wrestle a goblin?"

Probably better that than using the spell that made burning blood leap from his hands, but instead Ichiban just flexed and nodded, clapping a hand on his bicep. "I got all the weapons I need right here!"

Rory didn't seem impressed, which given the noodle-like state of his own childish limbs seemed a bit rich, but he shrugged anyway. "Your funeral. I'm heading down myself when my friends get here, if your body's not too far from the stairs we'll bring it back up."

Wow, that was even darker than Rose's lectures. Still, he was starting to think they were laying it on a bit thick. "C'mon, everyone's got to start somewhere, and I've seen kids going in here," he said, getting annoyed by all the constant doom-saying.

Rory did seem to realise that as he nodded. "Well yeah, sure. I was twelve when I fought my first goblin," twelve? How old was he now? "But I had a sword, and friends backing me up. You don't want a goblin coming at you while you're busy grappling another. That's why you want a weapon to kill 'em quick, and someone to watch your back so you don't get blind-sided. It's never just one."

That was actually a pretty good point. He couldn't get a weapon right now, not unless he passed that exam back at the Pantheon or spent ages pawning his necklace and going shopping, but didn't he have a way to get another set of eyes backing him up? Someone with even better senses than his own in fact?

"You know what, that's a good point. Back in a minute," he said, turning around and walking back out of the tower. Getting a whole flock of pigeons to follow him around underground might be a bit much, but he found one pecking crumbs off the ground near the fountain in the plaza surrounding the tower.

"Hey you, can you come with me for a bit? I'll get you some bread or something later."

"Make it nuts and I'll come wherever you want me to, sweet-cheeks!"

He did not expect the pigeon's psychic voice to sound like a flirty old granny, but the white dove actually looked quite nice and cooed happily when settling upon his shoulder. Not quite a colourful parrot, but better than a grey aerial rat.

"I'm going to call you Pearl," he said aloud, the newly named Pearl naturally not understanding but nonetheless being quite happy to assist when he told her he simply needed her to keep a lookout so no one snuck up on him. Thus with a confident stride, Ichiban walked right back into the tower and grinned at Rory as he passed the boy or short man or hobbit, reaching a wide spiral staircase descending around the edges of a circular hole that narrowed in towards the darkness at the bottom. He could see a few people descending ahead of him, though no one seemed to be coming back up. It made him wonder just how crowded the Dungeon would be, but most were probably going to go past the first floor rather than just sticking around.

He never did find out exactly how many floors there were, but he doubted he was going to clear the thing today. This felt like a big quest, not a quick adventure. For today he figured, he could at least see how well he could handle fighting the goblins and kobolds, and get enough magic stones that he could cash in and repay Miach and get a place to sleep tonight.

It was quite a ways down the stairs before they finally emerged out onto a tunnel, unworked stone of a bluish hue… or maybe it just seemed blue because that was the colour of the glowing points intermittently studding the ceiling. Rose had called this Beginner Road, a broad passage that basically ran the length of the first floor, with numerous other branches splitting off and circling around in a maze-like pattern that encompassed an area equivalent to a couple city blocks.

And already he could see violence up ahead. A girl dressed like a Halloween witch right down to the big black conical hat and a boy in a tank top and baggy pants that showed off an unimpressively skinny physique were fighting four little green guys that were even smaller than Rory. Pearl ruffled her feathers at the proximity to violence but for now stayed on his shoulder as Ichiban started jogging closer.

100- Dwarven Centurion
The Elder Scrolls
One of the deadliest Dwemer Animunculi crafted, it is a brass behemoth that stands equal to Giants, and even more deadly. It's metallic hide repels most mundane weapons, it's axe can cleave through steel easily, and when it has to, it can unleash a blast of boiling steam towards an opponent. You also get a rod, allowing you to control it's actions directly as well as force it into standby mode.

Then, rather suddenly, the space between them was filled with an enormous brass robot. Its head, decorated with a plume like you saw on those old Roman helmets, scraped the ceiling, while arms about as thick as Ichiban's torso ended respectively with a giant mallet and a big-ass axe. Dimly he noticed a hefty rod of the same brass-hued material had appeared in his hand, his fingers feeling buttons studding one end of it while Pearl bless her heart broadcast her psychic warning.

"Do you see that?! It just came out of nowhere! I don't like it!"

She wasn't the only one, as the witch girl let out a girly war cry and beaned a goblin on the head with her staff, sending it to the ground before she glanced over her shoulder and her jaw suddenly dropped. "Aaaah! Ken, look out! There's a giant monster!" she actually started retreating towards the other goblins while the one she'd struck was already recovering.

The now named Ken stabbed his sword into the back of the fallen goblin to cease its recovery, the green monster vanishing in a puff of black smoke while the young man also looked back and then started stumbling away. "How did it get here?! That's the entrance!" he yelled.

Ichiban had a sad feeling this was all his fault, or at least that it was connected to him. It's not like he asked for it to happen! However, it wasn't actually moving, so he decided to try and calm things down for the two adventurers. The goblins unfortunately didn't seem to really care about the distraction and were already lunging at the pair.

"I think it's just a statue, it's not moving!" he shouted, running past the robot which indeed did nothing to impede him. The two were still distracted enough for one goblin to barrel into Ken's legs, sending him stumbling to the ground while the girl shrieked at having the other two pull and claw at her robes. Pearl had flown off his shoulder at the sudden motion, flapping around the ceiling and making clear her displeasure, while Ichiban tightened his fist around the reassuringly solid bar of metal in his hand, coming in for a big swing backed up by his momentum.

Crack!

That was the goblin's skull not the metal which indeed held up just fine, twisting an already misshapen head out of alignment before the goblin faded into black smoke, a small purple shard hitting the floor with a tink while Ken recovered himself enough to stab his sword through one of the goblins menacing the witch girl, who was busy trying to pry them both off of herself with her wooden staff. Despite his lack of muscle, Ken clearly had some strength to him as he ripped his blade through the first goblin enough for it to discorporate with a gurgling cry before carrying on to stab the other one, which received a vindictive staff bashing for good measure before it too died and faded away. Not just a magic stone this time but a single tooth remained behind to drop on the floor as the violence ceased and the three of them looked at each other before looking back to the giant brass robot looming in the darkness.

"Well…" Ken began, not taking his eyes off it, "Normally would complain about you butting in, but under the circumstances think that magic stone's yours."

"It's really not moving," the girl said, staring at it and clutching her staff in a white-knuckled grip.

"It's just standing there… but it looks creepy," Ken began to inch closer, holding his sword at the ready while Ichiban took a moment to properly examine the metal rod that had appeared in his hand at the same time as the robot.

It was made of the same brass coloured metal alright. A bit over a foot long, and heavy. Lines were engraved into it, like a wave pattern except all blocky right angles, and two buttons sat in recesses near one end of it. Weirdly enough, those buttons were marked with pretty recognisable symbols. A vertical line through one side of a broken circle. And three steadily larger curves radiating from a square that broadened out on one side into a larger triangle.

Standby and speaker?

While Ichiban puzzled over that mystery, Ken had gotten up close to the unmoving robot, enough to say, "It can't be a monster. It has a human face, and it looks like something that was built." Hesitantly he raised his sword and lightly smacked it against the thing's leg with a clang of metal on metal. That proved to be a mistake as with a sudden explosive release of steam the robot began to move, its expressionless face radiating merciless apathy as its torso rotated towards the one who'd struck it, raising its axe-bladed limb.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Following a hunch, Ichiban pointed the metal rod towards the robot and pressed the standby button, causing it to immediately freeze in position, metal joints and actuators locking up while Ken scrambled backwards.

The witch girl however stared at the metal object in Ichiban's hand, big brown eyes wide as saucers beneath her floppy-brimmed hat. "You can control it?" she whispered.

Well there's no real hiding it. Not like he could've played dumb and left Ken there to be splattered. Or well maybe a force-field could've helped, but the cat was out of the bag either way.

"Yeah. Uh… let me just…" he tried pressing the speaker button and then said, "Come here."

The hiss of steam was less explosive this time, but the robot resumed its motion either way, arm lowered from its impending strike and then walking with thunderous plodding strides towards Ichiban, causing Ken to have to quickly scoot to the side while Pearl flapped over its head and then landed on the ground safely behind the robot's back. It came to a stop, looming over Ichiban, sculpted face not even looking at him as it simply stood there radiating potential violence.

"Yeah. Uh, I guess I've got a robot," Ichiban said numbly. It certainly looked like it could beat up an unlimited number of goblins. "I'm gonna call you Yankimaru," he decided, since that decoration on its head kind of looked like an old fashioned delinquent pompadour. Impulsively he held down the speaker button and said, "Your name is Yankimaru."

There was a slight release of steam from around its neck that Ichiban decided to take as agreement.

The girl was looking at him, and then the rod, and then back at Ken, and it wasn't hard to see the calculation passing behind her eyes. But then she smiled and the moment passed and Ichiban wondered just how close he'd come to being mugged for the control rod of a giant robot.

"My name's Izzy, and that's Ken. We're in the Ogma familia," she introduced them both as Ken came around, carefully circling past Yankimaru.

"I'm Ichiban. I guess that's Yankimaru, and that's Pearl," a mental command had the pigeon flying over and perching on Yankimaru's head.

"Your shoulder's too bony, sweet-cheeks. This kind of perch suits a girl better."

She seemed to have gotten over her fright at the robot's sudden appearance, and to true pigeon form had decided a statue made for a good perch. He really hoped she wasn't going to crap all over his new robot.

"Quite the crew you've got, Ichiban," Ken said. "You heading down to the deeper floors?"

Maybe he should? It already felt like he was well past the goblin weight class, although he didn't know anything about the floors further down it couldn't be that hard to deal with, right? He decided to keep it vague. He didn't think these were bad kids, but they'd clearly been sizing him up too, and getting too specific with his plans might tempt them to rope in some help from their familia and try something.

"Yeah, something like that. Just taking my boy here out for a test drive, see how things go. Heh, even without him can still crack a few heads," he chuckled and thumped the metal rod into his palm. It certainly was heavy enough to use as a bludgeon, as that goblin earlier had demonstrated.

Ken and Izzy both seemed like they wanted to press more questions but were restraining themselves. It was pretty obvious he'd been as surprised as them about everything to do with Yankimaru just now, he wasn't some kooky mad scientist taking his prototype invention out, but the fact was the robot was following his orders either way. Probably made for a lot more intimidating backup than Pearl did.

"Well, good luck Ichiban," Izzy said, scooping up the magic stones and goblin fang off the floor before she got out of the way. "We'll see you around," she winked and tossed one of the tiny purple shards towards him.

He caught it, his first potential currency in this world that he'd actually earned. A few more of these and he might be able to pay for that healing potion. "You two take care," he said, pocketing it before he pressed the speaker button. "Follow me, Yankimaru," he said, and his steps were followed by the lumbering tread of the giant steam-spewing robot behind him.

Another adventurer got passed on the way, thankfully not interrupting a fight so the young guy in barbarian style spiky leather armour just stared slack-jawed at Ichiban and his robot, getting a grin back as he went to explore the branching paths of the Dungeon's first floor. He probably wouldn't have heard it himself over the noise Yankimaru was making, but Pearl at least was doing as he asked and keeping an eye out.

"Look out, sweet-cheeks! Bad things coming out of the walls, I don't like them!"

He turned just in time to see rock flake and crumble away towards the upper edges of the wall on either side, more dead-eyed goblins appearing, baring mouths full of sharp teeth and hissing before they charged recklessly at him.

"Yankimaru, kill the goblins!"

And oh boy did Yankimaru kill the goblins. A single sweep of his axe-bladed arm bisected three of them without stopping, their bodies puffing away into black smoke while the others leapt and tried to pummel the robot's metal legs to utterly no effect. One unfortunately was still attached to that leg when Yankimaru drove his knee against the wall, causing the goblin's pot-bellied torso to bulge out grotesquely before it mercifully just turned into black smoke rather than gore. The last two got pulverised by the hammer arm, striking straight down like the robot was hammering nails.

Pearl took off and flew around the ceiling, broadcasting her displeasure with all the sudden motion and violence, but it only took a couple seconds for it all to be over and the robot to return to standing in wait with nothing left for it to kill.

"Damn. Not bad, big guy!" Ichiban grinned, going to pick up the glittering little purple shards left on the floor in the wake of that display. This was actually pretty cool – he always thought pet classes were neat, and part of his disappointment with all the necromancy stuff was how it was actually pretty close to that. He just didn't want to be dragging around rotting stiffs or tortured wraiths. Maybe some practice, work out better tactics and commands than just 'kill those things' and he and Yankimaru could be a real team!

Deciding such a display earned a brief break, he opened up his water bottle, taking a swig and feeling the refreshing cool water flow down his throat. He really did feel rejuvenated by it, energy coursing through him better than he'd get from a taurine-boosted caffeine-loaded energy drink that they only sold in pharmacies back home. "Ahhh, good stuff!" he grinned, rubbing his hands together and orienting himself to where he remembered Rose marked the stairs further down on her map.

Not before picking up the magic stones left behind by the goblins of course. That was money in the bank! They jingled like loose change in his pocket as he started navigating through the underground tunnels to progress deeper into the Dungeon

The next challenge in his way however was a lot more modest as he rounded a corner and found a kobold shambling around. It took one look at him, disregarded the gigantic brass robot lumbering behind him, and shot forward with a slavering growl, clawed hands scrabbling at him!

"Woah!" raising the metal rod to block, he held the feral dog-like beast by the neck as jaws snapped in the air and claws ripped against his sleeves. Momentum only carried it so far however, as despite its fierce appearance it was less than half Ichiban's size and so he was able to shove it back and send it skidding back on its ass. His first proper strike in return pulverised the kobold's leg under the impressively solid metal of the robot control rod, leaving it easy prey for a follow-up that caved in its chest.

There was a glass shattering sound and the monster faded away into black smoke, no sign of any magic stone left behind this time. "Huh, must've broken the stone in its chest?" he wondered, looking over the sturdy brass rod in his hands and then looking back at Yankimaru who was waiting behind him, having shown no reaction to the attack on his 'master'.

"Guess you won't do anything without being told, huh?" he asked the robot which regarded him impassively with its severe countenance showing not a flicker of expression on that sculpted face.

Still, that was pretty good practice. A single monster here really wasn't any trouble. Might've been harder to kill it with just his fists, but he was confident he'd have won. A group of them might've been more tricky.

Fortunately he didn't just have his fists. Even without Yankimaru's probably excessive assistance, he had his magic now. Force-fields and creepy necromantic spells. Probably want to rely on the first, but if push came to shove he'd break out everything.

Maybe get himself some spiky armour. Put on some white facial make-up like a heavy metal star. If he's gonna use creepy magic like that it'd be better to own it with some style.

Then again at the rate he was going, maybe he'd get more magic soon? He tried to figure out the timing, but it didn't seem consistent. The animal thing had been maybe a minute after he woke up, then the bottle appeared a couple later. Maybe half an hour before the necromancy, an hour for the force-field, and a couple more minutes for the robot?

The time seemed all random but hell, it wasn't even midday yet!

Still, he decided to actually practice some of it right now. With a though, a glassy plane appeared between himself and Yankimaru. Reaching out, he pushed his hand through it and felt no resistance, it might as well have been an optical illusion. Pulling his hand back, he pressed the speaker button on the rod and said, "Yankimaru, hit the force-field!"

With a hiss of steam, Yankimaru raised up his hammer-arm and swung it down against the force-field, which Ichiban stood well away from. It shattered instantly, although the robot's arm rebounded off it, so at least if he'd been standing behind it he would probably have been saved.

Wouldn't have done much good if Yankimaru had been charging though. Still, that was a big strong robot. Would a goblin be able to do the same?

It's not as if it took much out of him to make it, so he created another force-field as Yankimaru settled back into repose. This time he punched it himself, his fist smacking into the vertical plane which shimmered and his knuckles hurt like he'd hit a wall. "Ahh…! Good enough for that," he winced and shook out his hand. He could choose whether the field would block someone or let them through, which meant it'd be easy to attack from behind while staying protected. No more letting some kobold scratch up his only suit!

Squeezing his hand around the metal rod, he proceeded to swing it at the field. It struck off with a hollow reverb noise, a shimmer of light radiating out from the point of impact and fading. Several more strikes followed, Ichiban laying into the force-field like it owed him money, but it held up throughout.

Wherever the limit on its durability was, it was somewhere between Ichiban's 'pretty buff dude' level, and Yankimaru's 'possibly legendary super robot' level.

Satisfied with this testing, he dismissed the force-field and set off again, Yankimaru continuing to obediently follow him with a pigeon perched atop its head.

There were no monsters or other adventurers between him and the stairs deeper into the Dungeon, although when he reached them he looked down that slope into the darkness and then up at the giant robot that had been shadowing his footsteps thus far and decided to command, "Yankimaru, go down those stairs."

He did not fancy the thought of Yankimaru tripping and falling on him on the way down there. Fortunately the robot proved sure-footed as he obediently stomped down, Ichiban following as they descended to the second floor of the dungeon. Which looked basically identical to the first floor. But this time he didn't have the benefit of having seen a map back at the Pantheon.

Shame he didn't have a pen and paper. Memories of drawing dungeon maps from video games bubbled up and put a nostalgic smile on his face as he set off to explore this fresh terrain, getting Yankimaru to follow him once more.

200 - Light in the Darkness
Warhammer Fantasy: Imperial Colleges of Magic
The light you wield is more than just a sword or shield against the darkness. Your battle is for the souls of mankind as much as it is for their lands. For those tempted towards evil by their own fear, pain, or loss, you may be the last hope of their seeing the light. In your immediate presence, the light of Hysh drives out despair in all those you do not see as enemies. This will not protect them from dark magic on its own, but you can at least drive back the darkness threatening their hearts.

And it was with such warm thoughts in his head that his head was abruptly filled with another magic blessing from whatever mysterious god had decided to mess with him outside of the whole falna system Rose had explained earlier.

It was a spell, of the sort he'd thought of earlier when complaining over his lack of hero-like abilities. Light, called forth similarly to how all those necromantic spells worked, with weird mystical words and gestures. Instead of having a whole library of the damned pumped into his head, it was just one spell however. And, lacking any of the troubling implications of necromancy, he decided to try it out.

He raised a hand, tracing a symbol in the air that manifested in bright sparkles where his finger went, resolving into the appearance of a wheel with an arrow sticking out the top. The words he said weren't words, more like the syllables a new age mystic might intone when meditating.

"Munancho!"

And with the conclusion of his spell, a warm illumination like the afternoon sun spread out from Ichiban, overpowering the wan blue lights in the rocky ceiling and banishing the gloom of the dungeon.

Yankimaru seemed unaffected but Pearl cooed happily.

It wouldn't banish demons. It wouldn't immolate the sinful. But it would embolden the hearts of those Ichiban acknowledged, driving out despair and hopelessness.

"Now that's a hero's light!" he grinned, feeling a faint sense of drain from maintaining the light. It was easy to imagine it ticking down a blue mana bar on the screen, but it was far less than he felt when making those force-fields. He could probably maintain this for a while, and he didn't know if using magic would improve his magical abilities so simply keeping it up for practice like stretching a muscle might be worth doing.

It also made it really easy to see the two brown gecko-like lizards creeping around on the ceiling ahead, even before Pearl could give him a warning.

Yankimaru made as short work of them as he did the goblins before, the ceiling easily in reach for his big axe arm and leaving Ichiban two magic stones richer. They looked a little bigger than the goblin stones, but there wasn't much in it, his pockets still had plenty of room for more.

And more was what he found when Pearl warned of the rocks giving way to allow another pack of goblins to burst out of the walls and attack them. This time he hung back, ordering Yankimaru to kill them while he put a force-field in front of the robot. The goblins hadn't so much as scratched him last time but it was good practice, and indeed all they could do was impotently bounce off the shimmering plane of force while Yankimaru's hammer arm struck through it repetitively to pulverise them one by one.

"Yeah, starting to feel a bit over-levelled for here," Ichiban said at the end of that brief violence, picking up his winnings – including one of those goblin fangs this time. He wondered if there were teleporters or shortcuts to get down to the deeper floors, if you were high levelled for the starting zone it'd be a pain to have to go through it and deal with these basic monsters trying to get to the good stuff.

A little more exploring of the second floor found a set of stairs deeper, and after weighing up whether to clear this one or go deeper, he decided to push himself.

He still made Yankimaru go down the stairs first, just in case.

Floor three didn't seem any different than one or two at a glance however, and indeed exploring around only had them fight more goblins and kobolds, which between Yankimaru and Ichiban's force-fields were a complete non-threat. He didn't even need to smack any himself, the robot was plenty efficient for one-shotting these kinds of foes. Hell, one shot from him could sometimes take out two or three if they lined up right!

After maybe an hour of wandering around and fighting off these kinds of monsters, he finally ran into more actual people.

"What the hell is that?!"

Probably the expected reaction when you run into a glowing dude being shadowed by a giant robot.

"Yo," Ichiban raised his hand in a salute to the group coming down the tunnel in the opposite direction from him. One of his pockets was nearly full of magic stones, and the effort of maintaining his heroic light was starting to feel actually tiring like maintaining a position for too long without moving or stretching, but he figured he'd at least keep it up for the moment.

It was an actual adventuring party by the looks of it. Led by a short older guy maybe around Ichiban's age with thick sideburns and stubby animal ears atop his head. Following him were a lanky guy with a bandana on his head that hid whether he perhaps had animal ears of his own there, though Ichiban could plainly see the expected human ears at the sides of his head anyway, and another guy with some badass facial scars. Rounding out the group at the rear was someone that was either a kid or one of those hobbit folks who was carrying a backpack bigger than she was.

All four of them were staring wide-eyed at him.

Maybe at Yankimaru, but Ichiban figured his whole glowing light thing rated at least some level of attention even next to the scary looking giant robot.

Seeing that he wasn't going to answer the initially blurted out question, the tanuki-looking guy – and seriously, he had a stripy club-like tail now that Ichiban looked with his body already twisting to the side, well that guy spoke while bowing his head respectfully. "Don't mind us, sir! We'll get out of your way!"

That got the rest of the group moving as they scooted to the side of the tunnel, clearing enough space for even a giant robot to pass comfortably.

300 - White Lion Cloak
Warhammer Fantasy: Dogs of War
The pelt of one of the Great White Lions of Chrace, this cloak still bears some of the power and majesty it radiated when the beast was alive, and as a result wearers of such a garment find themselves more charismatic and more agile. That the partially magical hide also turns blows as well as a good quality suit of chainmail doesn't hurt either.

Ichiban just nodded like it was his due and walked along with Yankimaru stomping behind him like a huge metal bodyguard. And the whole thing just got more ridiculous when a showy white-furred cape settled on his shoulders and swished out dramatically right as he passed the group.

All four of them stared, postures submissive and awed. It felt like being one of the big shots walking into Tojo Clan headquarters while the rank and file lined the path and bowed, a position Ichiban had only ever been on the rank and file side of before.

He kept a straight face until they rounded a corner and he stopped, tugging at his new accessory. "What the hell was that?!" he blurted out, mimicking the exact tone of the adventurer from moments ago. It was a fur cloak!

In fact as he tugged at it and looked at his shoulder he saw an actual lion's head looking at him, it was a whole god-damn pelt! An enormous paw rested over his other shoulder like he was being embraced by the king of the jungle, it was the most ridiculously over the top piece of clothing he'd ever seen in his life.

It was kind of badass. He decided he liked it.

And hell, there was probably enough lion still in there he could turn it into a powerful necromantic abomination if he ever felt like going that route.

Also he decided it was time to take a break from the magical light show. It was useful, but by now his magical 'muscle' needed a rest. Taking a breather and a drink from his water bottle, he felt refreshed but the mental ache remained, suggesting to him that while this may have restored a green stamina bar, the blue mana bar remained unmoved. He poured enough water on the ground for Pearl to have a drink too, which she seemed appreciative of before they resumed exploring the dungeon.

Whether by luck or chance they soon found a set of stairs down another floor, the fourth one no different than the ones before it, and the number of goblins, kobolds, and lizards slain proved the same terrain meant the same monsters.

When he came down onto the fifth floor things finally did change however. The rocky cave and tunnel aesthetic remained, but the lights in the ceiling turned green, a hue reflected on the rock itself. He felt like his magical energy had mostly returned, and so he recast the light spell. He didn't know anything about the monsters here, as he'd jumped well past what Rose had prepared for him, but then he did remember Orin telling that fit girl about moths on the seventh floor, so keeping a watch for flying monsters seemed a good idea.

The next monsters he saw weren't in the air however. Emerging from a tunnel into a wider cavern with unevenly spaced ledges around it, he saw those ledges populated with giant one-eyed frogs, said eyes swivelling crazily in their skulls to fixate on him and Yankimaru as they stepped forth.

By now he'd gotten a good system for this though, raising his metal rod (it really needed a proper name at some point) into a ready position and thumbing the speaker button, "Yankimaru, kill the frogs on the left!" he yelled, the robot hissing out steam and lumbering that way while Ichiban charged the ones on the right…

And immediately skidded into a diving slide to avoid the three tongues flicking out over a dozen feet to try punching into his torso. They were kind of unbelievably fast, but his reflexes must have been on point just now because he saw them coming just in time, throwing his body into a dodge and then putting up a force-field while he was on the ground.

The frogs were a bit slower recalling their tongues, starting to hop off their ledges, two going to the sides while the other leapt straight to try and crush him under its bulk. Instead it slapped into the force-field which shimmered but held as the frog slid down with a squeaking noise.

It wasn't any barrier for Ichiban to swing his weapon through however, pushing himself to his feet and surging up in an ascending swing that viciously cracked the frog's jaw. It was the kind of hit that had reliably killed goblins and kobolds so far, and while the frog recoiled and tumbled backwards, its mouth probably ruined enough to prohibit any more tongue attacks, it wasn't dead. And then he had to twist his body, avoiding a tongue strike from one of the flanking frogs but taking another hit in the back that left him feeling like he'd been kidney-punched.

"Ooouuh!" a pained groan tore out of his lips, staggering but staying on his feet. "Yankimaru, kill all the frogs!" he managed to wheeze out, realising that splitting the workload evenly one one side is a giant murder robot and the other is just a regular guy who can make force-fields wasn't the best idea. He simply focused on forming a circular force-field around himself as he struggled to catch his breath while his dependable robot ally stomped over, clearly having already dealt with its side of the room, and indeed having zero trouble eviscerating the remaining frogs, particularly as they were distracted trying to fruitlessly break Ichiban's force-field.

"Ohh man, I should rely on you more, huh?" he gave a ragged grin up at Yankimaru's expressionless face, his brass construction glowing warmly in the light radiating off from Ichiban. Sweeping back his cloak and his jacket, he lifted his shirt and twisted to try and see where he'd been hit in the back. It stung like hell but didn't seem to have broken the skin. Would probably leave a nasty bruise though.

It was clear he was now past the point of monsters that a 'normal fit adult' could safely handle. Without Yankimaru or his force-fields, he'd have been a goner, overwhelmed by this number of ferocious monsters. It was a sobering thought.

"Less lolly-gagging sweet-cheeks, monsters coming in now!"

Pearl's warning probably saved him from getting ganked while recovering from the last one. A force-field interposed itself between him and the three creatures silently gliding in from one of the tunnels branching off this chamber. Spiky black figures with a solitary red glowing dot in their heads, they'd probably be hard to spot in the usual gloom of the dungeon, but under his magical light they stood out like shadows in the summer sun.

They'd been approaching slowly as if to sneak up on him, but the moment he looked their way there was an instant's pause before they rushed forward at speed, large clawed hands stabbing at his force-field, ignoring the robot and the pigeon to get at him. Fortunately however strong they were, they were still falling in the range his force-field could endure.

"Yankimaru, kill those shadow monsters!" he commanded, and one of them was promptly flattened under a giant hammer-blow, black shadow turning into black mist and then nothing at all, a magic stone and one of its bladed fingers falling to the ground. The other two followed in the same way, leaving just their magic stones behind.

"Thanks Pearl, good spot."

He took a moment to tuck his shirt back in before he started to gather up his winnings. The magic stones left behind were now noticeably bigger than the ones left by previous monsters. Similar in length and height but thicker, more rounded shapes rather than flecks or shards. A few more groups like this and his pockets would be full… then again, he'd have to fight stuff on the way back anyway and that could fill his pockets. Maybe time to go back, get a bit more info on the threats and layout down here before going onwards?

A twinge in his lower back solidified his decision. He'd had a pretty active morning for someone who woke up shot. He'd be able to pay back Miach and Naaza with this much at least.

Back up to the blue-hued tunnels of the fourth floor, he found it wasn't too hard to retrace his steps on the way back to the surface, the kobolds and goblins and lizards that wanted to fight him feeling like old friends compared to those nasty frog things. Another pair of adventurers were passed on the third floor, the two acting similarly humble and staring slack-jawed at Ichiban and Yankimaru as they passed, until finally he reached the big spiral staircase winding back up to the surface.

The base of the Tower of Babel had people coming and going, no doubt to the shops upstairs, but they all turned to stare at the glowing man and his giant robot emerging from the dungeon. The effort of maintaining that glow was beginning to wear him down again and given it was better lit out here he cut it off while giving everyone a friendly wave.

"Don't worry, the big guy's with me!" he reassured with a big old smile.

"What is it?" "Is that some kind of tamed monster?" "It looks like a moving statue!" comments of that vein rippled through the dozen or so people hanging around and staring. It wasn't an outright panic, but it was definitely raising more of a reaction than he got down in the Dungeon. Adventurers probably saw weirder stuff.

"He's not a monster, he's a robot!" Ichiban explained to try and put everyone's mind at ease, hopping up to balance his feet on one end of Yankimaru's mallet-hand and holding onto the robot's upper arm, both to get a little height and demonstrate that the brass construct could handle such horseplay without freaking out. Of course 'robot' might not mean much to these people so he tried to explain a little further. "He's like a statue that moves with gears and levers, like how those elevators work!" he pointed towards the bank of elevators that rose up the tower, clearly demonstrating some level of mechanical craft existed in this fantasy world.

"Wow, amazing!" "Is it some invention of the Hephaestus familia?" "I don't understand how it works but that sounds cool!" the tenor of comments in the crowd definitely shifted as people seemed to be reassured by Ichiban's explanation.

Grinning, he hopped back onto the floor and pressed on the speaker button of the control rod as he gave an additional order just to be on the safe side. "Careful you don't bump into anyone, Yankimaru. And mind your head on that door." The entrance to the tower was big enough to admit a crowd of people easily but it wasn't particularly tall. Luckily the ceiling in the foyer here was up a ways, adding to the place's grandeur and making it easier for Yankimaru to move around than he'd find it in most buildings. And indeed the robot seemed to move with more slow and deliberate steps now as he followed Ichiban out into the sunshine.

"Now, about those nuts I was promised, sonny?" a flapping of wings from Yankimaru's head as Pearl adjusted her position reminded him what his lookout was owed.

"Yeah, just wait a little longer, I need to cash in these magic stones then I can buy you something nice," he returned, starting to head back up the street towards the Pantheon. People certainly stared and commented, but as they kept moving no one really held them up until they reached the Guild's office, now less busy than it had been in the morning.

"Okay, I'm gonna head inside, so you two wait here," he said, though Pearl wouldn't understand him. But remembering what had happened when Ken gave Yankimaru a little tap, he held down the speaker button and said seriously, "Hold still and don't hit anyone, no matter what."

Content with that, he walked into the bank hall like office of the Guild, the clerks inside stopping to stare at him like the conquering hero he was. Defying their expectations and returning alive from his first dungeon adventure. Or probably they were just staring at the white lion pelt that was draped over his shoulders. It definitely made an impression.

"Yo," he walked up to the desk where Rose was still working, the severe redhead staring at him with muted surprise but managing to find her voice when he reached her.

"Mr. Kasuga, I'm pleased to see you back. Was the Dungeon everything you expected?"

"Oh yeah. Wound up going a little deeper, but decided to come back after running into these nasty frog things, still a bit sore from that one," he answered with a grin to make clear he wasn't that sore, starting to empty his pockets of magic stones and drop items onto the counter between them, the robot control rod placed down there too so he could free up his hands.

"Please don't joke about that," she began in a nonplussed tone before looking down at the collection of magic stones he was pulling out, dark purple gems glittering amidst three white goblin fangs, one yellowing kobold nail, and one black finger-claw. She picked up that last item carefully in her gloved hands, several fellow clerks obviously rubber-necking from their own spots on either side of Rose's station. "This is a war shadow's finger blade… you went down to the fifth floor, and defeated a war shadow? With no falna?"

"Wow, if that's your baseline you could walk into any familia in the city!" the pink-haired girl working next to Rose interrupted, unable to help herself.

"Well, uh, I had a little help," he picked up the hefty rod of brass metal and thumped it into his other hand, not wanting to ignore the contribution of Yankimaru and Pearl. Hell, the pigeon had spotted the war shadows and the robot had killed them, Ichiban hadn't actually lifted a finger on that one!

"Is that some kind of enchanted weapon? You said this morning you didn't have anything like that," Rose asked, her narrowed eyes looking over the ostentatious cloak on his shoulders.

"Yeah, I had a lot of stuff just basically drop in on me, alright?" he admitted, feeling his face heat up. It felt absurd just thinking about all the items and magics that had manifested in his favour. For sure if not for all that he wouldn't have been able to make anywhere near the same progress today.

Professionalism warred with curiosity across Rose's face before she sighed softly, "I'm starting to feel like this is all some kind of joke," she said, nonetheless separating out his magic stones and placing them into a scale, tallying them all up before announcing, "You've brought in thirty three hundred valis worth of magic stones."

"Is that a lot?" he asked. At the very least it would pay for several healing potions from Miach, so his debt was clear!

"For a level one adventurer who's just starting out it's perhaps average for a full day's work. For a half day like you've done it's impressive," Rose admitted, writing on a piece of paper before tearing off a slip. "Your receipt," she handed it to him, the numbers legible but the rest… yeah, it looked almost like English but not quite, and his English wasn't exactly great. He took her word for it as the stressed yet unflappable clerk went and placed the magic stones in a drawer behind the counter, returning with a stack of coins which she placed before Ichiban.

He gladly put them in his pocket, the feel of metal coins clinking in there pleasantly reassuring him that he now had walking around money, though it did leave some other things. "What about this stuff?" he picked up one of the goblin fangs and rolled it between his fingers.

"Monster drop items are valuable but the Guild doesn't directly trade in them. You can check the quests," she nodded towards the noticeboard he'd looked at this morning, "For specific orders willing to pay a premium, or else just try and sell them directly. All of these are valuable to blacksmiths and should easily double your money."

"Okay, day's still young, I can do that!" he said cheerfully, pocketing his other items as well. "Speaking of, any suggestions where I can sell them?" Since he couldn't read those requests anyway, a verbal recommendation was far better!

Rose shuffled some papers around as she considered his question before answering, "The two main smithing familias are the Hephaestus and Goibinu familias, the former have a shop just across the street from the Pantheon, and if you go up the alleyway beside it and across onto Stheno Street you'll find the Goibinu familia workshop. Also there are a great deal of shops on the upper floors of Babel."

The comprehensive answer made Ichiban smile. Whatever troubles Rose may be having with his whole situation, she could always be counted on to deliver info when asked! Speaking of, "That's great, I'll check them out when I leave. But before I go, got any maps and tips for stuff past the fifth floor? Those frogs really caught me by surprise with their tongues, wasn't expecting that kind of thing!"

"Frog shooters, their tongues are the first ranged threat in the Dungeon and catches many new adventurers off guard," she nodded seriously. "I never expected you'd possibly go so deep on your first visit, there didn't seem any point mentioning them." But there was a point now, and whatever her misgivings she went to collect another map which she rolled out for him to see, Ichiban trying to pick out the room where he'd had his one battle of the fifth floor before he focused on Rose's explanation of the abilities and tactics of fifth floor monsters. Indeed those war shadows were like assassins that liked to sneak up on people while they were distracted or recovering from other monsters.

200 - Magical Detection And Ranging
Generic MG
The ability to detect magical phenomena is certainly useful for someone whose job depends on magic. You have a sense for magic, being able to detect heavy usage (like, say, a fight or a bunch of attacks) of magic at long range (across town, roughly) and being able to tell the magical power levels of others at close range.

Ichiban unfortunately was distracted from her explanation as a whole bunch more magic crammed itself into his head. And not just knowledge, a whole damned new sense that was pretty over-tuned! He could sense the stockpiles of magic stones locked away in the Pantheon like a constant thrum of potential, as well as flashes coming from deep under his feet that he was pretty sure were adventurers in the Dungeon casting spells against monsters.

It was pretty distracting, and he didn't even want to think about the kind of stupid faces he must've been pulling for Rose to trail off her lecture and stare at him with a mixture of concern and impatience on her pretty features.

"Sorry, just got another thing dropped on me," he explained with a wince, trying to filter out the feedback, which was getting easier. Like being aware of the noise of living in the city without focusing on any of it. It would definitely be useful to have another sense like this when he could focus on important things rather than getting overwhelmed trying to make sense of it all.

"What kind of things are you getting dropped on you that make you space out like that?" Rose asked.

"Well you know, like magic?" he answered, waving his hand in the air. "Suddenly getting new abilities?"

"Could you be blessed by a spirit, Mr. Kasuga?" Eina asked, not bothering to hide her own eavesdropping.

"Is that different than being blessed by a god?" he asked in turn, trying to recall all the talk about falna from this morning.

Rose shot her co-worker a seemingly territorial look before straightening a stack of papers on her desk and speaking up, "It's less restricted, as the gods have all agreed to abide by certain rules, limiting their abilities and only using the blessing of falna. Spirits have no such compunctions, but they are also incredibly rare. Such stories are more the thing of legend than… well, the strange man who seems to know very little about the world walking up to your desk one day and insisting he wants to go into the Dungeon."

"Hey, every legend's gotta start somewhere, right?" Ichiban sallied back, feeling a bit bashful both at the label and her accurate summation of the mundaneness of it too. The hero in Dragon Quest didn't spend his time chatting up government clerks, but those games abstracted a lot, if it was real maybe he would have to deal with stuff like this?

"Just what kind of magic abilities do you have, Mr. Kasuga? You mentioned something about talking to animals this morning?" Rose asked, writing something that was probably exactly that on a piece of paper.

"Yeah," he nodded. "And just now I started sensing magic. Before that I got force-fields, and a light spell. Plus there's Yankimaru! And this cloak!" which now he was looking at it, appeared to be magical! He kept quiet about the necromancy stuff, there's no way telling people about that is going to sound good.

Rose wrote all of that down without interrupting or asking questions she was clearly burning with, but after her pen stopped moving she looked at the snowy white lion draped over his shoulders. "You were given this cloak?" she asked.

"Yeah, just appeared on my shoulders while I was down in the Dungeon," he nodded. He remembered Naaza's warning about the water bottle, and so hadn't mentioned it, but by now he was feeling secure enough that he figured he could talk about stuff that was mysteriously appearing like that. It might get him some answers.

"Unbelievable," Rose sighed out. "Spirit blessings are usually singular talents, an elemental affinity or unusual skill. Can you demonstrate any of the other things?" By now most of the other clerks were once more rubbernecking, the interest far more pointed than the amusement they'd shown this morning.

At this point he was getting a feeling there wouldn't be any answers coming from this, she was as mystified as him. But she'd been a big help otherwise so there was no reason not to indulge her some. "Okay, so, force-field?" a glassy pane appeared before himself and Rose, and he tapped his knuckles on it with a shimmer spreading out from the impact.

Her eyes widened and the ears on top of her head folded themselves backwards. "No chant?" a whisper as she reached up and did the same, confirming it was in fact a physical barrier.

"Uh, yeah. My light spell's more complicated but that one basically just works as I want it," Ichiban confirmed, dropping the force-field a moment later while the other clerks muttered among themselves. Rose's expression firmed up and she gave him a serious look.

"I apologise for not taking your abilities seriously at first, Mr. Kasuga. This is a unique situation you've found yourself in. My colleague was right earlier that you could walk into any familia in Orario with your skills, but I think that's understating it. Many familias would be so eager to have you they wouldn't take no for an answer."

Well. Shit. Maybe he should've thought of that? He remembered those kids when he first got Yankimaru, it had felt like jingling the keys to a sports car while walking through a slum. And in the yakuza everyone knew of guys who wanted out but were in too deep, knew too much, or just had such valuable skills that it wasn't an option. It sounded like he was gonna be up to his neck in that kind of bullshit as long as he was in this world.

Rose was still talking. "It's my strong recommendation that you join up with a familia before the decision is taken out of your hands. Of course I can't recommend any myself, but I can help facilitate introductions with any you happen to be interested in."

He'd heard a few names but that was it, other than Miach of course who was a stand-up guy. "Yeah, I'm gonna need to think about that, do some leg-work and get to know who's who before I make any kind of decision like that," he said to put off Rose, while really he just didn't want to join up with a familia. It felt too much like turning his back on Arakawa. Stupid, since he was in a whole other world, and the boss had just shot him, which felt like a pretty clear message. But that was also the fact; he wanted to find what was at the bottom of the Dungeon and return home, so anyone he swore up with here would be getting left behind too, and he didn't like the idea of making that kind of commitment to a group he wasn't invested in sticking with.

"Listen, maybe we should talk more about the fifth floor later?" he tapped the map she'd been showing him before this latest distraction. "I gotta go clear my head, spend some money, think about this familia stuff. I'll see you later, okay?"

With Rose's polite farewell and the intrigued gazes of her colleagues following him, he walked out of the Pantheon onto the street… where Yankimaru had not only drawn a crowd of curious onlookers, there were two kids climbing up on his arms and legs while Pearl was perched up on top of his head decoration.

"Hey you kids, get off my robot!" he yelled, glad Yankimaru had indeed stayed perfectly still. But even if he wasn't throwing out attacks or jetting steam (it got pretty hot standing around him down in the Dungeon at times) it would be easy for a kid to get stuck on the mechanisms or cut by the axe-blade on one arm.

The brats jeered at him and called him stingy, but at least they jumped off safely and scampered away, while Yankimaru's subsequent movement at his command drew a ripple of surprise from the onlookers, and a cry of dismay from Ichiban as he spotted the gross white stain spreading down the robot's head below where Pearl was still perching.

Author's Notes said:
You have no idea how tempted I was for Ichiban to look at the goblins in the dungeon and then have them morph into sujimon, but I guess Miach really did heal his brain damage in addition to that gunshot wound at the start of the story.

Also we now have a thread icon, please appreciate the hour and a half I spent messing around in gimp instead of writing. The Dwarven Centurion coming with a control rod that could substitute for the iconic bat really was a stroke of luck. No telling how long until it gets replaced by literally Excalibur, but it certainly fits Ichiban for the moment.

Ebiris · Jan 23, 2025

The sight of a man frustratedly rinsing bird crap off the head of his giant robot seemed to do a lot to dispel the awe and surprise with which Yankimaru naturally garnered. He wondered if the kid from Giant Robo ever had to deal with this kind of thing.

He still bought Pearl her nuts from a helpful street vendor, and the pigeon along with a dozen more that descended from the rooftops enjoyed the feast, much to the dismay of the guy who'd just sold the snack bag.

Which led him to what was apparently the Hephaestus familia shop just down the road from the Pantheon. The sign out front of crossed hammers in front of an erupting volcano definitely won some points for style, but more pressing was the group of people standing outside who'd been watching him approach with his giant robot. They looked mostly human apart from one guy with tiger ears who Ichiban was sure was looking more at his lion cloak than his giant robot, but their apparent leader was a dark-skinned woman with an eyepatch who's baggy red pants and white vest kind of made him think of a miko in her dress.

"Yo. That's quite the contraption you've got there buddy," said woman called out, her fingers twitching at her sides. "Got my smith's senses itching to figure out how it works."

Speaking of senses, Ichiban's new magical sense seemed to work on all of them. He could sense some kind of aura around each person, although the woman's dwarfed that of the others, further clarifying why she appeared to be the leader if their positioning hadn't already made it kind of obvious.

"Well, I don't mind you taking a look, just don't take him apart," Ichiban returned with a grin. "Name's Ichiban Kasuga, I was looking for a smith to sell some stuff to anyway."

"Tsubaki Collbrande, what you looking to sell?" she returned, rubbing her hands together with a grin of her own forming, the name plus her outfit furthering a sense of familiarity with Japan in Ichiban. Come to think of it, wasn't it convenient everyone was speaking Japanese? Shame they didn't write it, but it could've been a lot worse for him!

Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his small collection of monster drops from the day's adventure, causing Tsubaki's sole eye to narrow in confusion. "What's this garbage? You're walking around with that kind of thing and you're selling level one monster drops? Is it not as strong as it looks?"

"Hey, it's my first day!" Ichiban fired back defensively. "Yankimaru was one-shotting everything we ran into, but I had to come back up myself."

"Yankimaru? Pffft!" her cheeks bulged out with repressed laughter, "Oh, I know a guy with the same kind of naming sense. Alright, I'll buy your crap for ten thousand valis if you let me have a proper look at Yankimaru, how's that sound?"

It sounded fine to Ichiban, and one of her hangers-on took the items and ran into the shop to come back with a nice crisp ten thousand valis banknote for him, before Tsubaki led him around the back of the shop using an alley that was a little bit of a squeeze for Yankimaru but they made it, emerging into a yard with straw dummies and archery targets set up, probably for testing out new weapons.

"So you make Yankimaru yourself, or…?" the one-eyed woman asked as they came to a stop, now stepping in closer to examine the robot's axe-blade.

"Uh, no. Not myself," Ichiban admitted, suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed that anyone would think him capable of that kind of craftsmanship. "He just kind of appeared, the girls at the Guild said it's probably a spirit's blessing or something…?" he trailed off, clearly not sure himself.

"For real?" she turned to look at him with her one eye before turning back to the robot. "So this is a genuine one of a kind spirit crafted object? That kind of makes me even more excited to see what it can do!" Other members of the Hephaestus familia were loitering around the edge of the yard to watch and Tsubaki dragged her thumb against the axe-blade, crimson beading out as it easily sliced her flesh. She seemed to be careful enough to keep it shallow and after she sucked on the digit briefly it didn't appear to be bleeding any more. "Good blade alright, it'll cut into a first class adventurer."

Huh. He considered that, knowing the kind of energy that seemed to be radiating from Tsubaki, and he focused on Yankimaru. It too was a font of power, eclipsing that of the other people nearby easily, pulsing waves seeming to emanate from deep in his chest. It felt different in type, but just based on the intensity it seemed to be less than Tsubaki. That meant she was probably stronger than Yankimaru? Considering the kind of violence he'd seen displayed by the robot down in the Dungeon, that was kind of frightening.

"I want to see it fight," Tsubaki said, stepping away and pointing to one of the straw dummies. "Can you tell it to attack something?"

Pressing down the speaker button on his hefty brass rod, Ichiban pointed towards the same dummy and called out, "Yankimaru, destroy that dummy!"

There was a release of steam that seemed to come out most often when Yankimaru was given a new order or moving from a period of inactivity, and he stomped over, a slash of his axe-hand cutting it in half so the top toppled over, and then a downwards smash with the hammer-arm sent straw flying everywhere, the dummy quite conclusively destroyed.

"Strong, but kind of slow and clumsy. Fights like a troll," Tsubaki reflected as she watched. "You control it with that stick?" When Ichiban nodded she grinned, "Better watch out, someone steals it they might have your toy turn on you."

He remembered how Izzy had looked at him back in the Dungeon when Yankimaru first appeared and nodded, tightening his grip on the rod. Even beyond controlling Yankimaru, it was a really good beating stick and he'd be loathe to lose it.

"What actually makes it move though?" she walked closer to resume studying the robot up close, leaning in to look at the steam-gorging vents on his upper chest. "Can you make it bend over so I can see in here?"

"Sure. Yankimaru, bend over," Ichiban called, which elicited a dirty snicker from one of the guys watching in the peanut gallery.

The robot did so at least, and Tsubaki gave the guy a glare with her one good eye, but Ichiban could see her smiling when she turned away and started poking her fingers into the intakes and studying the robot while muttering to herself. She spent about half an hour going over the robot, bemoaning that she could learn so much more if she cut him open, which naturally Ichiban wasn't going for even when she offered to forge him any kind of weapon he wanted as payment. He was a little more tempted when she asked if she could cut off part of him to properly study the metal he was made of, but even then…

"I don't know if that's decorative, what if it's a stabiliser? What if cutting some off gives him brain damage?!" he insisted when she suggested cutting off part of his pompadour fin on top of his head.

"No way, that's totally a decorative flourish, a smith can tell. This thing's full of little touches like that, look at all the engraving on the panels… there's no way he's smelling anything with that nose, and the beard! Come on, I could give him a little shave and you'd never know the difference!" Tsubaki insisted, grinning as she seemed to enjoy the argument.

She was probably right. Although he was worried it might make him look dumb, the beard had to be decorative. Besides, it was inevitable he'd take damage from tougher monsters as he went deeper, so he may as well get something out of it now while he was homeless and near penniless.

The million valis she offered made all his other earnings seem trivial, and apparently even that was 'chicken-feed' compared to the value of a weapon forged by Cyclops as the other guys hanging around to watch muttered among themselves regarding her earlier offer.

Actually shaving Yankimaru proved to be something of an ordeal, as he had to hold himself still while laying on the ground as Tsubaki took a pickaxe to his chin in a manner like a golfer teeing up a shot. There was a loud metallic sproing and a chunk of brassy metal shot off into a sheet being held up by some of her helpers. It left Yankimaru with an ugly gouge through his previously neat rectangular beard, and a deep sense of guilt in Ichiban.

"Sorry buddy, maybe we can buff that out?" he asked with a wince as he got up while Tsubaki cheerfully collected the chunk of metal she'd broken off.

"Tell you what, I can try tidying up the edges for him if you want to leave him here overnight?" she offered. "Give you time to go spend all that money and he'll be right as rain if you want to take him to the Dungeon tomorrow?"

Honestly, it was pretty tiring dealing with all the looks he was getting walking around everywhere with Yankimaru, and he had a good feeling about Tsubaki, not just because her name and look had comfortable associations with home. She just seemed like someone who really cared about making things and refining her craft, there was comfortable lack of pretension with her despite how rich and powerful she clearly was.

So he agreed, and received one million valis as a fat stack of bills, his short-term financial stability assured!

The trip back to the Blue Pharmacy was a pleasant one, the swagger of a rich man in Ichiban's steps as he returned to the alley he'd been dropped into this world only hours ago with nothing but the clothes on his back and a gunshot wound in his chest. It's easy to turn around from rock bottom when you have a mysterious spirit throwing blessing after blessing your way. He still had no clue how this was happening, but with no way to look into it all he could do was work with what he was given. Maybe another blessing would appear in a minute, maybe this was it, maybe they'd all disappear at midnight. There was no point worrying about hypotheticals, and so Ichiban's head was happily worry free as he entered Miach and Naaza's shop once more!

Inside Miach was over behind the counter writing something, and as soon as he looked at him Ichiban understood the whole god business. The amount of power he had massively eclipsed what even Tsubaki had, but it felt tightly contained rather than flowing freely outwards as it had with the blacksmith girl. Yet despite that he still had the same gentle smile and affable demeanour as he looked towards the door and greeted him. "Ichiban, welcome back. You're looking prosperous."

"Haha, yeah this thing just dropped on me like that bottle did earlier," he answered with a grin, pulling at the big lion paw draped over one of his shoulders. From behind the beaded curtain Naaza emerged and stared at what he was wearing too, her jaw slightly slack.

It really was super showy.

"Anyway, had a good day, went down in the dungeon but I took a nasty hit from one of those frog shooter things, so how about I pay you back for this morning and you hook me up with another healing potion?" he came over and took a ten thousand valis bill from his pocket to place on the counter. The bruise wasn't hard to ignore, but if he had magical healing on offer why wouldn't he take advantage of it?

"It sounds like you've had quite a day," Miach smiled, taking a bottle off the shelf behind him and then opening a drawer to start counting out Ichiban's change, which he hurriedly waved at him to stop.

"Hey don't worry about change, I made a lot of money today so you just keep that!"

Miach's face fell. "This is too much, I couldn't possibly-"

Bang!

The drawer slammed shut, Naaza hip-checking it as she rushed over and smiled at Ichiban. "That's very generous, Ichiban. Blue Pharmacy thanks you for your patronage and support."

"Any time!" he gave her a thumbs up and then offered out the water bottle, "Why don't you fill up as much as you need from this while I'm here? So, do I like drink this, or pour it on the wound, or…?" he picked up the healing potion while Naaza accepted the bottle and ran through the back, the sound of pouring water heard immediately.

"It depends on your injuries," Miach explained, deciding to accept the overpayment after his more financially prudent captain's intervention. "If you have several it's better to drink as the effect spreads through your body. For a single severe wound a topical application centres the magic on that spot, which is better if you need to focus the healing on somewhere critical."

His chest was still a bit tender from this morning, so in addition to the bruise on the back he decided to have a drink, and was rewarded with a soothing sensation that eased the aches he was feeling, handing the empty vial back to Miach once he was done with it. "Yeah, that hit the spot!" he cheered, rolling his shoulders and reaching back to poke at his bruise, now feeling entirely intact once more.

"That was one we made earlier with the water you provided actually, so I'm glad it worked well for you. There are different grades of potions, and the lowest grade ones are effectively watered down versions of the stronger ones. Having a better liquid base to start with means a big improvement to our cheapest potions, which should help all of our customers," Miach said, cheered up enough by talking shop that he seemed to have moved quite past the embarrassment of accepting Ichiban's overpayment just now.

Unfortunately it wasn't to last as they were promptly interrupted by the door slamming open, revealing an older man with white hair wearing a gold-trimmed white robe. Ichiban could immediately tell by the magical power simmering inside of him that he was another god like Miach, and he was followed in by a petite silver-haired girl wearing a rather cute striped uniform that made him think of a candy shop employee. Put him in the mind for peppermint.

"Gehehehe, it's my favourite day of the week: Debt collection day!" the man declared, rubbing hands festooned with jewelled rings together as he walked in with a swagger.

Following him, the woman bowed demurely and said, "Please excuse us, Lord Miach, but today is the day of your payment," in a more apologetic tone.

"Tch," a disgusted sounding tut came from Ichiban's side and he realised Naaza had come back out, giving a dour glare at the newcomers. "The Dian Cecht familia. The ones who take medicine to the level of squeezing blood from stones."

The man laughed at that, seeming more amused than offended, even as the woman flushed indignantly. "Your tongue's as sharp as ever, Miyal Hound. That must be why this place always has so many customers whenever I visit."

"They see you coming and they know to run away so they don't get trapped in debt," Naaza fired back, as Ichiban suddenly felt her grabbing his arms and she sidled even closer to him. "Watch out Ichiban, that girl fools everyone with her doll-like appearance, but before you know it she's threatening to take your organs for payment."

300 - Potion Set
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
"You got some Red Potion! You got some Green Potion! You got some Blue Potion!"

A trio of glass bottles, each with a useful potion inside of them. The first, a red potion, restores your health. The second, a green potion, restores your magical energy. The third, a blue potion, restores both. Each bottle will refill at the end of the day if you use it, but you won't get any extra if you haven't used it. If one of the bottles breaks, then you get a new one.

There was a faint clink as something shifted in his pocket, and Ichiban had a feeling he'd just received another magic item but it's arrival was a lot less ostentatious than the lion cloak so no one else noticed, caught up in their own drama as they were. "When have I ever threatened to take your organs, Erisuis?" the woman demanded indignantly.

"Three weeks ago, Teasanare" Naaza replied without skipping a beat, "You came here demanding money and when I said I couldn't pay what I don't have and told you to get out of my shop, you said I had too much guts, how else was I meant to take that but a threat to rip them out of my body if I couldn't pay?"

"That's not what I meant at all!" the other girl insisted, shooting a mortified look towards Miach who mercifully was approaching with an envelope.

"Naaza, you always make such a scene when Airmid visits, it's a wonder people can't hear you out on the street," he said in a weary tone, handing the envelope to Dian Cecht. "Here, we're all paid up for the week."

"Ahhh, and I thought I was going to have stew for dinner tonight," Naaza intoned dully, eyes fixed on the money changing hands. "Instead Lord Miach and I will have to survive on weed soup."

Dian Cecht just chuckled as he took the envelope and opened it up to count the money right there. "If you're that hard up you can always come work for me instead. What are we having for dinner tonight, Airmid?"

"I heard Martha was making bouillabaisse, Lord Dian Cecht," Airmid answered, calming down.

"Tch. Even fancier stew," Naaza muttered spitefully. "I'd rather live on crumbs and sunlight than your familia's cooking."

"Suit yourself," Dian Cecht said, tucking away the envelope now he'd apparently verified the payment. "Come along Airmid, my belly's rumbling!" with a self-satisfied cackle, he turned and walked out of the shop, Airmid bowing apologetically to the rest of them before following him.

Miach let out a sigh only after the door closed, saying, "I'm sorry you had to see all of that, Ichiban. Airmid always bring out the worst in Naaza."

The dog-girl just turned her head to the side and clicked her tongue unapologetically.

"Hey, it's no big deal," he hastily assured them both, now reaching into his pocket to fumble around for what he'd felt shifting earlier. A trio of glass vials, similar in fact to the ones lining the shop's shelves appeared, coloured liquid inside. One red, one green, and one blue. "Huh, these just appeared while we were all talking. Like the bottle from this morning. Health, stamina, magic?" he guessed, based on the colours.

"Or maybe one's an antidote?" Naaza suggested as she and Miach leaned over to look. "Are these bottomless too?"

"I don't know, you want to test them?" he offered them out, Naaza accepting them with a smile and going through the back, her mood seeming to recover with this new intrigue and the absence of her loan shark. "So, uh… everything okay with you two?" he then asked Miach more quietly when it was just the two of them.

"It's not as bad as Naaza makes it sound," Miach answered, similarly quiet. "But we are in a bit of a slump. There used to be more members in the familia, but a bad expedition had us going into debt with the Dian Cecht familia for medical treatment. Everyone except Naaza left, which made it harder to earn money. The pharmacy is all we have now, but it's a struggle with just the two of us."

"Hmm… I wonder if I can help?" Ichiban wondered. Just giving them the money he got from Tsubaki would be one thing, but it felt a bit cheap, ironically enough. Letting Naaza study weird potions and water he received might help their stock, but it wasn't really doing anything himself. "I have a bit of experience doing collections and things for the family back home…"

"Well, another perspective or pair of hands couldn't hurt!" Miach brightened up at that. "Why don't I run you through our stock, and you can see if you have any ideas for things we're missing?"

As it turned out, they didn't just make healing potions for adventurers. There were cures for illnesses, treatments for sore joints and dry skin, all sorts of remedies and cosmetics that turned out to be not dissimilar to what a pharmacy back home would sell.

"E-excuse me!" a timid voice sounded as the door opened, revealing a girl with dark hair covering one of her eyes, a lavender yukata-like garment worn that left her legs exposed. After Tsubaki earlier he was starting to think there might be a surprising number of people around here with Japanese fashion sensibilities. And names it turned out as Miach recognised her.

"Chigusa, welcome! What can I do for you today?" he asked with a smile, going over to stand behind the counter as the girl approached, carrying a sack which she placed in front of the god and opened up, revealing several dusty purple sheets or handkerchiefs or…

"W-we managed to collect a lot of purple moth wings today, Lord Miach! Like you put up a quest for?" Chigusa explained breathlessly.

"Oh, these are good, yes," Miach agreed, carefully counting them up. "I can pay you fifteen thousand valis as agreed."

"Thank goodness!" Chigusa sighed in relief, putting a hand over her chest. "We all got poisoned a lot fighting them, and then Mikoto got hurt when a swarm of killer ants appeared in the middle of it."

"Oh dear! Miach frowned, handing over money to Chigusa and then taking a pair of bottles off the shelf and pressing them into the girl's hands as well, "Here, have a spare antidote for next time. And this potion should help Mikoto feel better."

"Ahhh, Lord Miach is so kind! Thank you! Thank you!" Chigusa bowed gratefully, taking her money and free potions before she skipped out of the shop.

"And that's basically how the customer service part of the job goes. Pretty straightforward, right?" Miach turned towards Ichiban with a big guileless smile on his handsome face.

Ichiban stared back at him, jaw slack before he waved his arms and blurted out his reflexive opinion. "What the hell? If your business model is giving away free stuff all the time no wonder you're in the red!" Sure he'd benefitted from it this morning, can't begrudge a guy for healing a penniless bum on the street, but that girl literally just got a ton of money, she could clearly afford those potions if she wanted to buy them!

"Well, it's taking care of my customers, and… did you see her smile? A happy customer is a repeat customer!" Miach rallied after momentarily being thrown by Ichiban's criticism.

"You could've just given her a lollipop! Get a jar of candy you can hand out, that'll make them smile too and you'll save a ton. Instead of just giving her an antidote, you should've tried to sell her a bundle, it sounded like her familia would've needed them," Ichiban listed off as Naaza came back out to join them.

"That candy idea's good, we should do that. Lord Miach will be happy so long as he gets to give away something for free, and it won't cost us much," she said approvingly, prompting her god to give her a betrayed look.

"See. Naaza gets it!" Ichiban nodded, glad at least someone here had business sense. Although he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was stepping into captain Sawashiro's role, the old man who'd always come down hard on Ichiban when he let someone off on their debt payments. But it's not like he was a completely soft touch, he still collected when he knew the guy could pay, he just wasn't an ass about it.

"You're a lot smarter than you look, Ichiban," she took the compliment with an unnecessarily backhanded one in return, holding up the potions she'd borrowed. "You were partially right. One's a healing potion, a good quality one too. The other's a mind potion – or magic potion as you called it. But the last one," she tapped a finger on the blue one, not the green one which must then be magic even though that wasn't the usual colour coding, "Recovers both. It's amazing – you can't just combine two potions like that and expect them to work, it's actually something I'd been researching, so seeing this proves it can be done."

"That is amazing," Miach agreed, seemingly grateful for the distraction away from his customer service technique, "It's a shame we only get the finished product so you can't see how it's made, but there's still something to be learned there. I wonder though – you received them just now in our shop? And the water bottle here too. And you were outside when you gained the ability to speak with animals? Is there some kind of pattern to the blessings you're receiving?" he turned back to the mystery of Ichiban's abilities and items.

"I don't know," he admitted, having been thinking on it himself. "The girls at the Guild thought it might be a blessing from a spirit, since they don't follow the same rules as gods. I picked up, um, some really dark death magic when Rose at the Guild was talking all about how deadly the dungeon is," Naaza and Miach both raised eyebrows at that one, "Then right before I went into the dungeon I picked up an ability to make force-fields. Then just after I went in this giant metal robot appeared," he picked up the ornate brass control rod off the counter where he'd left it earlier, "Along with this which lets me control it." And bash heads with. "Then when I went down to the second floor I got a spell that's like this soothing magical light. This cloak," he tapped the white lion's head with the rod, "Just dropped on my shoulders while I was walking past some other adventurers on the third floor. Then when I got back to the Guild and was talking to Rose again I suddenly started being able to sense magic, and then these potions appeared when I was here with you guys."

Man, listing it all out like that, it was a lot! And each thing kind of overshadowed the last so it was hard to even know where to start.

"I think we'd have noticed if a spirit snuck something into your pocket just now," Miach said, frowning in thought. "And a robot, you said? Where is it?"

"I left it with this girl Tsubaki, she wanted to study it. Paid me a million valis so she could chip off a bit of metal to examine." Naaza made a choking noise at that and looked away, while Miach looked pained himself.

"I suppose we have rather been taking your items for granted ourselves, though I'm not sure what would be a good price for studying mystery potions like that," the god mused, though Ichiban was quick to dissuade him.

"Don't worry about it, seriously! You guys saved me this morning, and you've been nothing but great. I only took that much because Tsubaki had to actually damage Yankimaru to get the metal off him. Seriously don't try and push any free potions on me right now, I can afford them!"

"Very well," Miach accepted that, looking thoughtful. "If we break things down by location, the Pantheon gave you death magic and magic sensing, the Dungeon gave you force-fields, light magic, a lion cloak, and a giant robot, while our store gave you animal speech, the water canteen, and recovery potions?"

100 - Mana Conversion Affinity (Lightning)
Lyrical Nanoha
Mana channeled by a Linker Core is normally something of a 'one size fits all' kind of energy that can be used for most spells. But maybe you had something a little more specific in mind? With this, you may convert this mana into a specific reaction or energy type - changing it to lightning, fire, ice, sound, or light with an intensity proportionate to how much mana you put into it. You choose which energy type this is when you buy this perk. This can be bought multiple times, but only the first purchase is free. Future purchases are 100 each, with 50 each for Belkan.

Ichiban twitched. "And lightning."

"What?" Miach asked.

"Just now," he sighed, "Lightning. I can convert magical energy into lightning. Literally just came into my head while we were talking." To demonstrate he held out the robot control rod, focused, and a crackle of yellow-tinged electricity coursed over it. Wasn't lightning supposed to be white or blue-white? But it was yellow a lot in video games… also looked really badass playing over the gleaming brass metal. This was starting to feel like a hero's weapon.

"You didn't even do a chant…" Naaza muttered, staring as Ichiban cut off the light show.

"Yeah, Rose was surprised by that too. Some of my other stuff needs a chant though. I'll show you," he then proceeded to cast his light spell, one hand gesturing and drawing out the symbol in the air with his finger, while he rattled off meaningless arrangements of syllables. And when he finished, a warm sunny glow spread out from him, filling the shop.

"Oh, I should really sweep over there," Miach said, frowning as the light illuminated some previously hidden dust bunnies.

Naaza however stared, awe-struck by the light. "It feels… warm. And safe…" she sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, basking in it. "Even thinking about that wicked fake saint doesn't get me down now…"

"Yeah, it's pretty great, huh?" Ichiban agreed with a smile. This probably explained why he didn't get bothered much by other adventurers he saw down in the Dungeon with his light going. A hero's light that radiated good vibes! Probably Miach was already so pleasantly disposed and unflappable he didn't need it to banish any despair, but whatever baggage Naaza was carrying it helped her out.

"Ichiban, you're going back to the Dungeon tomorrow, aren't you?" she asked, still staring at him but firming up her stance as he nodded. "I'll come with you."

"Naaza!" Miach stopped where he'd gone to grab a broom, staring at her in shock.

She nodded to him and said, "I know, Lord Miach. But thinking about going into the Dungeon… it doesn't make me tremble, when I look at this light," she held out her bare hand as if to prove her sincerity, fingers splayed out and poise rock solid. "And Ichiban needs someone who can protect him and knows what it's like down there. Even with his blessings he could get tricked or in over his head. Tomorrow you can run the shop, while I go on an adventure." She smiled slyly and added, "I'll make sure to buy some lollipops for you to hand out to customers."

It might have been unilaterally imposed, but Ichiban wasn't about to complain. He could just imagine a triumphant little jingle playing to declare that Naaza has joined the party! "Alright Naaza, welcome to the team!" he cheered. "We'll meet up here tomorrow morning to get started?"

She nodded seriously, clenching her fists. "It's been a while, but I still remember what the upper floors are like. And if I'm with you I might get more ideas for potions. Whatever's going on with your items and abilities, you need to be kept safe so we can see where it's going. Make sure you're prepared."

"You bet," he nodded, ending his light spell and watching carefully as Naaza's face fell a little, but then she gave him a firm nod as if to make clear her resolve hadn't changed despite no longer having the heroic light actively dispelling her doubts. Whatever history she had with the Dungeon, tomorrow they were going to face it together! "Lemme get out of your hair, I'm gonna have a walk around to get to know the town while it's still light out, then find somewhere to bed down. Until tomorrow, yeah?"

She nodded, he gave Miach a smile and turned to head out, only to be stopped by a call of, "Ichiban!" which made him turn, seeing Naaza holding his water bottle. She tossed it over and he caught it with a rueful chuckle and a wave as he headed back out into Orario, feeling good about the day's progress, and it wasn't exactly done.

So far he'd kinda just been going from point to point, but now with free reign to explore Orario for the rest of the afternoon he just wandered aimlessly, always having that huge tower in the middle of town to orient himself by. A walk up onto the walls surrounding the city afforded a nice view of the surrounding plains and hills. Very green and verdant looking, with the sea and a smaller town being visible off to the south. He wondered how long it would take to run all the way around the city on top of these walls, but decided to put off that idea for another time.

Instead he crossed a bridge over a river cutting through this part of town, following that river to a big white boat moored up there which going by the tables he could see on the deck was doing good business as a restaurant. With a million valis burning a hole in his pocket, he climbed aboard where a cute tanuki girl waitress cheerfully seated him and proceeded to serve up a big plate of grilled fish and steamed vegetables for him to enjoy his first proper meal since waking up in a strange new fantasy world.

Maybe some big chunk of meat with a bone sticking out of it would've been more appropriate for how much like a video-game this place was, but after eighteen years on the government's shitty food this kind of fine dining was exactly what he needed! He hoped Naaza and Miach weren't actually eating weed soup while he was living it up, but he enjoyed his meal, and particularly the fruit sorbet he splashed out on for dessert. Something sweet once in a while wasn't so bad! Certainly seemed like the level of cuisine in this world wasn't anything to sniff at.

200 - Hidden Intuition
Cultist Simulator
It's easy to get the title, but it's quite hard to keep the job. To grow old as a detective of the Suppression Bureau one requires more than just everyday skills. Through this ability you may identify hidden knowledge about a clue, an object, a situation, or a person in ways that are easy for you to understand. From your perspective, cursed items shrill ominously, poisons fume with a toxic green color, important items glow visibly, and bad situations make your skin crawl.

What's better is that these experiences are always trustworthy as they cannot be imitated, suppressed or countered, and they always adapt to cover new situations that you experience or new senses that you unlock.

And as he dined and people-watched, he found more about this world just… fitting together. The giant tower he saw in the distance radiated a sense of stability and security, its ancient monolithic construction seeming even more imposing to Ichiban's eyes. The brown-haired tanuki girl coming by his table to ask if everything was okay kept looking at his lion cloak like she wanted to ask about it, because it was familiar to her somehow. The blond elf guy sipping tea a few tables away wasn't just more powerful than even Tsubaki, but he radiated an electrical feeling to his magic, a feeling Ichiban hadn't been able to pick up on a moment ago.

Lot to pick up on here, and it seemed like there'd be more wherever he looked. A newfound intuition sharpening his senses and causing things to fit together more easily. It was probably the most subtle ability he'd picked up today, but perhaps the most far-reaching as well.

"You ever seen a guy like this?" he asked his waitress, lifting up the lion's head off his shoulder, both taking pity on her evident curiosity and seeing if he could verify what he'd intuited from her.

"Oh! Yes!" she said brightly, cheeks reddening. "My favourite book as a child was actually about a white lion, but I didn't think they were real," she explained, reaching over as if to touch it. When Ichiban nodded permissively she drove her fingers into its mane and let out a, "Kyaah! It's so soft! Just like I imagined!"

"Hah, yeah, real warm too," Ichiban grinned, taking more of a look at it himself now he could seemingly tease out more information from his magical sense. It wasn't like a video-game where you'd just have it dropped into your inventory saying something like 'Snow Lion Cloak, fifty percent cold resist, armour twelve'. But what he was picking up was like… well, it was the king of the jungle, even in this form. Majestic and commanding, with the speed and grace of a natural hunter, and tough enough to tangle with anything. Like it bestowed those properties onto him by wearing it.

Yeah it wasn't cut and dry, but he was feeling confident in his intuition, that this magical cloak made him more badass and nimble and tough so long as he wore it. Hadn't he earlier thought his reflexes were on point when he'd dodged that first frog shooter attack? And it must've deadened some of the blow when he actually did take a hit. What a cool piece of gear for a hero to have!

Meanwhile the waitress had reluctantly pulled her hands out of the lion's mane, and her smile had a nostalgic quality to it. "Still, I hope the lion from those books didn't end up like this. I'd like to think he's still having adventures out in the jungle."

"Yeah, I'm sure this guy lived a full life at least," Ichiban said, because really it was kind of morbid if you thought about it like that. He thought of the fish now in his belly and wondered if he'd have been able to talk to that fish like he did Pearl and that cat earlier.

"Don't eat me, Ichiban. I thought we were friends!"

The doleful voice of a sad sea bass sounded in his mind and he imagined seeing the fish on his plate looking up at him and crying.

Oh man, way to bring a downer on what had been a fantastic meal. "Uh, hey, think I'm ready for my check," he said, suddenly looking a bit queasy.

Seeming a little bit surprised, the waitress nonetheless nodded and hurried off, coming back with his bill which he couldn't read apart from the numbers, but really that was all you needed. He overpaid, not waiting for his change and getting off the boat, his meal now guiltily digesting in his belly. "Sorry buddy," he patted his stomach as he went down the ramp off the boat and back to the street, "I promise I'll put your vitamins and nutrients to good use!"

For now that meant more exploring and getting the lay of the land. He did some shopping, picking up a nice leather satchel he could use to carry stuff around, as well as a harness he could secure his robot control rod into, freeing up the hand that was otherwise having to constantly lug the thing around. It was cool alright, but he felt like a thug carrying a steel pipe everywhere. Having it rest in a sheathe on his hip was more dignified, almost like having a sword at the ready. And he saw plenty people with those as the afternoon wore onto evening, probably adventures leaving the Dungeon at the end of their day. Most had a thin aura of magic around them, considerably weaker than Naaza's, which meant she was probably really strong, even if not in Tsubaki's league.

Although the guy coming towards him now actually was comparable to Naaza. He had a thuggish looking scarred face, with fur-lined armour worn over his brawny frame. He wasn't as brawny as the guy on his right who was really showing off the guns with little more than a bunch of leather straps worn, while his other side was flanked by a lanky sunken-faced guy in a poncho. All three of them felt about as strong, though the group was rounded out by two far weaker and familiar figures, Izzy and Ken who he'd seen this morning.

"Yo!" the scarred guy in the lead greeted as he came close, giving Ichiban an appraising look. He smiled but there was a calculation to it, the kind of smile that said 'yeah I might cut you, but I won't feel bad about it'. You saw a lot of that in the yakuza. "Ichiban, right? Heard you helped out my cute juniors this morning, put it there!"

He thrust his gloved hand out and for a moment it looked like a bear trap waiting to snap shut. He could already see how this was going, but what choice did he have?

Two hands met, and macho posturing as old as time commenced. Muscles flexed and Ichiban felt his bones creak as he dimly remembered the way Naaza's casual grip on his arm this morning had been like iron. Still, he kept a grin on his own face as he squeezed back and leaned in, the two eye to eye and staring each other down without flinching until at last the agony ended.

"Heh, not bad!" the other guy pronounced, letting go while Ichiban resisted the urge to shake out his mangled feeling hand. "Name's Mord Latro. Could hardly believe the stories Izzy and Ken were coming out with about you and your giant, whatchamacalit?" he glanced back at the youngest two of the group.

"Yankimaru!" Izzy supplied with a grin.

"Yeah, Yankimaru. So where is the big lug? They weren't just telling stories, were they?" he made a show of looking around, but his eyes definitely lingered on the shiny brass rod hanging off Ichiban's hip.

"Left him overnight with Tsubaki," Ichiban answered, subtly hiding his hand under his cloak so he could flex out his pained fingers. He was half tempted to drink his healing potion just from that! "She was real keen to have a look at him."

"Cyclops? No shit," Mord's interest subsided to a less predatory level. Clearly she was a big deal around town, and tangling with whatever she brought to bear was more trouble than these guys were looking to borrow. "Well hey, me and my crew were gonna get some drinks, you wanna join us? I know a place with some real pretty waitresses, they'd treat a bunch of hard-working adventurers just right."

It was definitely possible they'd get him drunk and then leave him penniless in a ditch somewhere, in fact Ichiban had been reasonably sure an alleyway beating wasn't off the table when they first started talking, but name-dropping Tsubaki seemed to have changed the calculation enough that they were seeing him as someone to get in good with rather than just squeeze dry immediately. Besides, Izzy and Ken hadn't seemed like entirely bad kids this morning, and as for the rest of them? Yeah they were thugs, but who was he to judge? Besides, he was feeling pretty rootless here, making some friends and connections was good for all sorts of reasons.

"Pretty waitresses and drinks? I'm with you," he answered with a grin, prompting a cheer from the members of the Ogma familia.

The other two guys were introduced as Scott and Guile. Weirdly Guile was the half-naked barbarian looking guy and not the skinny rat-like guy, but neither of them talked half as much as Mord, it wasn't hard to see the dynamic at play here. The loud-mouthed lieutenant, his muscle, and the errand boys (or boy and girl in this case) working their way up the ranks.

He hadn't seen anyone smoking around here, but if Mord were to raise a cigarette to his lips, the others would surely be quick to offer a light.

The pretty waitresses at least weren't a lie as they came onto a pretty big three storey building which seemed to attract the adventurer crowd going by the look of the patrons, a cute black-haired cat-girl seating them, which would have been fine enough if not for the fact Ichiban could tell she was way stronger than Mord, in fact she was one of the strongest people in the whole tavern. A distinction she appeared to share with the other waitresses wearing the same green uniform, aside from the one who was clearly a god like Miach. And having seen Miach run his store, somehow it made seeing a goddess waiting tables seem pretty normal, clearly they kept things low-key around here.

Then there was the stocky brunette mama running things behind the bar. She was stronger than Tsubaki!

"Okay, this is definitely a bar for adventurers, huh?" he asked as everyone crowded around a table.

"Haha, you bet!" Mord laughed, seeming pleased at Ichiban's reaction. "The Hostess of Fertility's one of Orario's greatest treasures. Good food, good drink, and great girls!" he leered up at their waitress who rolled her eyes.

"If only we stopped attracting the decrepit middle-aged male clientele," she sassed back. "Where are my cute boys?"

"Hey, what about me?" the indeed boyish but kind of plain-faced Ken spoke up valiantly, causing the waitress to regard him with a critical eye before she turned her nose up.

"Maybe if you'd come here five years ago," she sighed. "What can I get you gentlemen and lady?"

The group all ordered, Ichiban copying Ken's request for fried noodles, and the apparently famous fruit liquor all around. And predictably Mord started fishing for info as they all settled in. "So, this Yankiwhatsit thing, it some kind of Hephaestus familia project? Make metal monsters to fight real monsters?"

"Not exactly, I'm not part of their familia, I was just letting Tsubaki study it. It's some kind of spirit blessing thing, near as we can tell." Not really, Miach at least didn't seem convinced by the idea, and he'd seen more and probably knew more than Rose did, but it was as good an explanation as anyone could come up with for now.

"Huh. Heard there's some other kid in the Hephaestus familia that's got a spirit blessing, except he's hoarding it to himself. Tch, stingy guys like that, they don't understand we're all in it together against the Dungeon," Mord opined with a scowl, earning agreeing murmurs of disapproval from the rest of his group.

That at least was a topic Ichiban was keen to get into, and he leaned forward over the table towards Mord to speak up, "Yeah, that's what I'm aiming for. To get to the bottom of the Dungeon. No one even knows how deep it is, right?"

Free - Auto-Repair
Lyrical Nanoha
Devices are of a strange make. Other than the crystalline components that make up the very core of the Device, all of it's parts – the blade, shaft and handles – are made of very simple, replaceable materials that can be regenerated through magic. In fact, a common combat tactic is burning large amounts of power to quickly regenerate damage in what's called a 'Recovery'. If a Device were to be damaged, it can enter an automated repair state once returned to Standby Mode, regenerating any damage to more superficial parts and light damage to the main body. Heavier damage would require taking the Device to a specialized technician – a Device Meister. (CG Note: Requires Device - Lyrical Nanoha first.)

Free- Device (Merged with control rod from Dwarven Centurion)
Lyrical Nanoha
A Device could be seen as a high-tech magic wand. It aids with the complex math involved in manipulating Mana into spells. There are many different levels of power, intelligence and complexity. This grants you a base Device which you can customize with other perks. (CG Note: This is a Celestial Grimoire original perk. The Lyrical Nanoha jumpchain gives you a free Device, though it's not listed as a perk, so I had to make one so the rest of Device related perks made sense.)

"That's right!" it wasn't Mord who answered but the goddess waitress, a girl with light grey hair framing her entirely youthful face, her voice bright and fresh as she started setting out drinks from the tray she was carrying.

"Eh? Syr? What happened to Chloe?" Mord blinked at the change in wait-staff, which prompted an adorable pout from Syr as she held her now empty tray protectively over her chest and batted doe-like lashes at the older man.

"Are you saying I'm not good enough, Mr. Mord?"

For all his tough seeming bluster, that was enough to have him sputtering. "What? No! No! Of course not, happy to be served by you! I was just worried about Chloe is all!"

Syr laughed and pointed across the tavern where Chloe was seen taking an order from a trio of bashful looking young teens that based on how she'd reacted to Ken earlier were considerably more in line with her tastes. "She wanted to trade tables with me," she explained, before shamelessly pulling up a chair to sit next to Ichiban. "You were talking about getting to the bottom of the Dungeon, right? In a thousand years no one's made it that deep, but still there are adventurers who dream of being the one to finally reveal its deepest secrets."

Her smile was pure and innocent, but all the same Ichiban could sense some severely pointed interest directed his way, this wasn't a casual conversation at all!

He took a drink of his fruit liquor to steady his nerves. And hey it was actually pretty good! "That's right. Whatever's down at the bottom, I'm sure it's going to give me a way home," he said, deciding to be straight with them. Explaining it was pretty dispiriting when he'd been met with Miach and Naaza's incomprehension, but all the same he wasn't going to lie and try to pretend like he'd lived here all his life.

"What do you mean a way home?" Mord gave him a weird look. "You some kinda caveman?"

That made him chuckle. It wasn't the first time he'd been called one, but Mord's meaning was clearly different.

"No. See, I'm from a place called Tokyo, Japan. It's kinda like the far east here, except it's a whole different world. Like, people have been all around the world, one side to the next, and no place like Orario exists back there. So last night, I went to confront my boss, he shot me," he tugged at the hole in his shirt, which he should really look into getting fixed or replaced, "And then I woke up in an alley here in Orario, not knowing up from down. Talked to Miach, he didn't know anything about where I come from, and if a god doesn't? The way back's gotta be something even the gods don't know about, and all that matches up with the bottom of the Dungeon."

The members of the Ogma familia clearly looked like they didn't know what to do with his outlandish story, but Syr's eyes were shining as she stared at him. "What an incredible story! You have to tell us more. What's this Tokyo like? What happened between you and your boss? You have to tell us all the details, Ichiban!"

And so he did. With his suspicious new friends and an attentive goddess waitress (Chloe wound up serving their food orders and giving Syr a dirty look while doing so, which was cheerfully ignored), Ichiban got talking about back home. About playing a game called Dragon Quest which was his closest experience to this world. About a punk kid who fell afoul of some yakuza only to be rescued by throwing out a name he'd heard, Masumi Arakawa. A man who didn't know him from a piece of garbage on the sidewalk, but still chopped off his own finger to save face in front of a bunch of thugs and save a dumb kid in over his head. How Ichiban had resolved to follow that man, and worked for months just to get noticed, to be allowed into the Arakawa family. Then having to take the fall for a murder committed by the Arakawa captain. Going to prison for eighteen years with a smile, just to be useful. But then when he got out finding everything had changed. That Arakawa had betrayed the Tojo Clan he was part of, joining up with their long-time rivals the Omi Alliance and helping them take over the Tokyo underworld. And when Ichiban fought to face him, to hear an explanation… he got told he had to die and took a bullet to the chest.

By the end of it Mord had tears in his eyes, although he punched out Scott for saying so. "Shaddap! I'm just so moved! Our friend Ichiban here's showing what loyalty to a familia's all about! I'd do eighteen years hard time for Lord Ogma too, but you can't just toss a guy aside like that! A man deserves an explanation!"

"That's all I want," Ichiban agreed. "If the boss thinks that was the right call, if he did what he had to do… I just want to hear it from his lips. I want him to trust me with at least that much. That's why I need to make it back to Japan, even if it means conquering the Dungeon to do it."

"What a wonderful story!" Syr clapped her hands together in delight. "I'll be rooting for you, Ichiban! Just remember, no one conquers the Dungeon in a day. There are skilled adventurers that have been pushing deeper and deeper with every day for years, and still no one's found the bottom. So make sure you take lots of breaks and come back here to tell us your stories, alright?"

"Speaking of breaks, how long are you going to take on yours, missy?" the mama appeared behind Syr, brawny arms folded over her chest and a deeply unimpressed look on her face.

Free - Weapon Materialisation
Genshin Impact
One ability that is not talked about much, yet is worth taking note of, is the ability for those with Visions to store their weapons away in a flash of light. With a simple flick of their wrist, they are able to materialise and dematerialise their chosen weapon away in the blink of an eye. This is not something that all Vision users are proficient in though, a certain red ranger occasionally leaving her bow at home. As a wielder of a Vision yourself, this is an ability that you too share. You can summon and de-summon your 'main' weapon away at your leisure. Should you wish, you can change which weapon that you are able to summon.

"Tehe!" Syr stuck out her tongue and donked the side of her head in an adorable gesture that the mama clearly wasn't buying. Ichiban felt himself briefly distracted with a new ability entering his head, one that made buying that harness for the control rod earlier a bit of a waste as he could now dematerialise a weapon to summon on command. It was neat, but simple and not nearly as distracting as other abilities had been when he received them – it was that or he was getting used to it.

Either way he smiled at both women, "Don't worry about it, drinking and eating with a pretty lady hearing about your troubles, it's like being at a hostess club back home."

"Hostess club?" the mama asked, pausing from dragging Syr away by the back of her dress, to the goddess's evident relief.

"Yeah, it's basically like a bar but you're paying for company and conversation as well. Something for lonely men after a hard day's work," Ichiban explained the basic concept, which seemed to be easily understood.

"Well, this girl would probably be a lot better as a hostess than a waitress, but right now I've got a lot more tables that need waiting. Get to it, Syr," the mama said, giving the goddess a little shove that sent her scurrying away with a pout.

"Of course you know what this means," Mord looked grandly around his little gang after Syr and the mama left, receiving expectant looks for his wisdom. "Our boy Ichiban here doesn't know about Orario's real jewels. We gotta show him the sights, hehehe," he rubbed his hands together gleefully, "If you think the Hostess of Fertility's a treat, just wait. Tonight we're hitting the Entertainment District!" he raised his voice and his mug to cheers from everyone except Izzy, the lone girl rolling her eyes disgustedly.

Yeah, wasn't hard to figure out what kind of place that was. Which was exactly the kind of place Kamurocho was to Tokyo, wasn't it? He had a feeling he'd feel right at home in this Entertainment District.

Author's Note said:
The Nanoha device is kind of finicky, I was tempted to just give Ichiban all the free aspects of it, but I decided to just stick with Auto-Repair and the base item, which I merged with the control rod just to avoid item bloat. Which also helped the conversation with Mord and Syr to flow more naturally without being interrupted. Ichiban might notice the rod's increased functionality when he uses/studies it later, but for the moment that one passed without notice.

Ebiris · Jan 24, 2025

How do perks work?

Very well, thank you.

Joking aside, whenever Ichiban receives a perk that provides him with knowledge or actively used skills, he gains an appropriate understanding of how they work. More passive perks he does not and must figure out through trial and error. As an example, a perk that lets him shoot lasers from his eyes will come with the knowledge that he can do so, and how to turn the lasers on and off. A perk that makes him bullet-proof does not give him any special knowledge and so he may not realise until someone shoots him.

Items do not come with any special knowledge or instruction unless directly specified, although their function tends to be intuitive to Ichiban's knowledge and skills. As an example, the control rod for the Dwarven Centurion has its buttons labelled with modern icons he can puzzle out. Items can be destroyed or lost, unless the item specifies it replaces itself or returns to the owner.

When an item is rolled for, it always appears either on Ichiban's person in an appropriate fashion, like magic jewellery already being worn, in his hands or pockets if it can fit, or adjacent to him otherwise.

Similar items are merged together, and in doing so the proximity rule is relaxed – if one of Ichiban's friends is wearing the base item the merge will apply so long as they're in the same general area. If they're completely out of sight a new item will be generated rather than merged into the existing one.

Spells

500- Necromancer Lord
Warhammer Fantasy: Dogs of War
All the secrets of necromancy are available to you know, and creatures bleak and terrible answer to your beck and call. Wraiths, mummies, vampires, wights, even with effort a great, rotting zombie dragon can be commanded, though those who retain the ability to think may not respond well to slavery. As well as commanding greater undead you gain access to the most terrible necromantic spells, able to slay entire towns and cities worth of people.

While those with this perk can wear magical and non-magical metal armour such as chainmail or plate mail, such equipment does make it much more difficult and much more tiring to work spells.

This is knowledge of basically every necromancy spell that exists in Warhammer Fantasy. I'm using the list here for reference. There's no backlash of turning evil or looking ghoulish just from using these spells, though some do explicitly have appearance modifying aspects. The issue with wearing metal armour only applies to these spells and doesn't impact any other form of magic. Casting them requires chanting and gesturing, the mana cost of these spells is variable depending on the effect.

200 - Ma Fu Ba
Dragon Ball Super
An old technique originating on the dinky little planet called Earth, yet somehow still scarily effective even at the heady heights of power this place reaches. The Mafuba that you have learned is a mystical technique created to seal away other beings, originally demons but it works on any being. With the incantation, proper movements and expenditure of a great deal of personal energy, you are able to activate the Mafuba and suck away a target being in front of you to seal them inside a prepared container. Any container that can be sealed tightly with a special seal tag, which you are aware of how to make, can work even if you use something like a rice cooker. It can be difficult to aim the technique, especially when using a small container and you are vulnerable to being interrupted or having a different being jump in front of your target, so careful planning can be required to have the technique work. Once sealed, they can only be released by opening or breaking the container the target was placed in.

Listing this under spells because it's basically treated as one rather than a more open-ended ability. It's pretty self-explanatory, once something's in it's not getting out except via external action no matter how powerful the being sealed inside may be. The perk says nothing about it being potentially fatal to use so there's no risk of death from it, although the amount of mana/energy it costs scales based on the power of the target. Worth noting that it's more of a drain on stamina as representing ki-use rather than mana like other spells.

Abilities

100 - Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mind Link)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.

[4] Mind Link - the psychic links their mind to a single animal, allowing them to perceive all the animal does, and utilize any lesser power upon them more easily so long as the link persists, which can be indefinitely if the psychic wishes it. However, should the animal be injured, psychic backlash may also injure the psychic.

(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mass Communication) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)

100 - Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mass Communication)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.

[3] Mass Communication - all animals of a given species within earshot come under the effects of Communication. Additional species can be added, but doing so is more taxing for the psychic.

(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Command) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)

100 - Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Command)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.

[2] Command - the psychic may now command an animal to perform a single act in their name, but not one that endangers the animal. Especially complex commands, or orders that the animal is adverse to follow, are harder to impose.

(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Communication) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)

100 - Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Communication)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.

[1] Communication - the psychic may create a two-way channel of communication between themselves and one animal of choice. At this level, they cannot forcefully control them, but they can turn whatever fast-talking powers they have upon the bird or beast.

This one allows Ichiban to telepathically speak to any animals that he would be able to speak to verbally with a raised voice basically, the range is a little vague. It's basically effortless just to talk, and plenty of animals are happy to do things just by being asked, though the Command function guarantees it.

150 - Defensive Determinator
Generic MG
Yes, the tank is an important part of party composition. You tank via forcefields, which allows you to tank at a distance and tank even when your enemy is so rudely attacking someone else.

You start with basic forcefields that you and your allies can move and attack through, while those you don't want to have free lines of fire and movement have to break them first. Put in time and practice, get out new forcefields and tricks.

If you want to create defensive barriers to protect an environment, then this is a good start.

This allows the creation of force-fields at range, I'm not too fussy on the exact range but the other side of the street is something like the ballpark there. They can appear as flat planes or cylinders or hemispheres and are static once placed. Practice may allow other configurations like form-fitting mobile ones. They're strong enough to take a single hit from a level 3 adventurer, and don't take much mana to generate, though fade on their own within a minute at most, but can be actively maintained and regenerated.

200 - Light in the Darkness
Warhammer Fantasy: Imperial Colleges of Magic
The light you wield is more than just a sword or shield against the darkness. Your battle is for the souls of mankind as much as it is for their lands. For those tempted towards evil by their own fear, pain, or loss, you may be the last hope of their seeing the light. In your immediate presence, the light of Hysh drives out despair in all those you do not see as enemies. This will not protect them from dark magic on its own, but you can at least drive back the darkness threatening their hearts.

This is technically an ability that affects all light themed spells, but since Ichiban didn't start with any of those I gave him a simple spell that generates light and does nothing else before the influence of this perk. It's functionally the Light of Battle spell listed here. The effect is a simple morale boost, preventing things like fear or trauma or sadness from inhibiting those exposed to the light.

200 - Magical Detection And Ranging
Generic MG
The ability to detect magical phenomena is certainly useful for someone whose job depends on magic. You have a sense for magic, being able to detect heavy usage (like, say, a fight or a bunch of attacks) of magic at long range (across town, roughly) and being able to tell the magical power levels of others at close range.

The power level sensing works on anyone Ichiban can see basically, and the magic detection covers all of Orario and an unspecified but deep level of the Dungeon. Since at any given time there are going to be bunches of adventurers down there casting spells, these will be noticed but basically ignored – Orario just generates too much random magic for stuff to stand out the way a magical girl might notice a monster attack in Tokyo with this kind of thing.

100 - Mana Conversion Affinity (Lightning)
Lyrical Nanoha
Mana channeled by a Linker Core is normally something of a 'one size fits all' kind of energy that can be used for most spells. But maybe you had something a little more specific in mind? With this, you may convert this mana into a specific reaction or energy type - changing it to lightning, fire, ice, sound, or light with an intensity proportionate to how much mana you put into it. You choose which energy type this is when you buy this perk. This can be bought multiple times, but only the first purchase is free. Future purchases are 100 each, with 50 each for Belkan.

Lightning was specifically chosen since it's Ichiban's most canonical element. This allows him to simply generate lightning by expending mana, but also allows him to infuse lightning into any other spell he knows at no extra cost.

200 - Hidden Intuition
Cultist Simulator
It's easy to get the title, but it's quite hard to keep the job. To grow old as a detective of the Suppression Bureau one requires more than just everyday skills. Through this ability you may identify hidden knowledge about a clue, an object, a situation, or a person in ways that are easy for you to understand. From your perspective, cursed items shrill ominously, poisons fume with a toxic green color, important items glow visibly, and bad situations make your skin crawl.

What's better is that these experiences are always trustworthy as they cannot be imitated, suppressed or countered, and they always adapt to cover new situations that you experience or new senses that you unlock.

This is primarily a danger sense kind of perk, but helps with figuring out anything that's hidden. The way it manifests is with Ichiban imagining something thematic to what's been hidden, which plays out a lot like his canonical brain damage. It has an incredible synergy with Magical Detection and Ranging because it applies that intuition to that sense and guarantees that what it picks up can't be spoofed. This generally appends to the power level sensing with more clues on elemental affinities.

Free - Weapon Materialisation
Genshin Impact
One ability that is not talked about much, yet is worth taking note of, is the ability for those with Visions to store their weapons away in a flash of light. With a simple flick of their wrist, they are able to materialise and dematerialise their chosen weapon away in the blink of an eye. This is not something that all Vision users are proficient in though, a certain red ranger occasionally leaving her bow at home. As a wielder of a Vision yourself, this is an ability that you too share. You can summon and de-summon your 'main' weapon away at your leisure. Should you wish, you can change which weapon that you are able to summon.

Pick one weapon, it can be de-materialised and materialised at will. A de-materialised weapon is effectively removed from existence and impossible for anyone else to detect or interact with. It can be done really quickly, and takes no real effort.

400 - Spell recollection
Libriomancer
Somehow you have expanded the bounds of magic beyond what should be possible. You are able to perfectly memorize a spell to such a degree that you can reproduce it simply by taking the same actions as the initial caster. While this effect is significantly decreased in power from the original, you may recreate literally any spell you see cast before you with only moderate effort. As this is a reproduction of the prior spell, you do not need to understand the principles behind it, only reproduce it. You will still need to learn the principles behind if you wish to truly cast it or bring it up to its original efficaciousness. Furthermore, you may still purchase and utilize this ability even if you chose the inhuman background.

It's basically free spell copying. If Ichiban sees someone cast a spell, he can do it himself. It needs to be a proper ritualised spell – a dragon's magical fire breath or a goddess's innate charm don't count. The copied spells are cast at half effectiveness compared to the original caster, but practice or tuition can overcome this.

100 - Psychic Abilities - Psychic Invisibility (Hide)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

The ability to broadcast a telepathic command not to notice the psychic. This power is not true invisibility, and will merely case the psychic to be ignored. Unless the psychic also possesses the Animal Psychic talent, animals are unaffected by this power.

[1] Hide - the psychic will go ignored by anyone who is not actively searching the area they are in, so long as they do not move, speak, or otherwise betray their position.

It's a psychic somebody else's problem field, basically. It doesn't work if someone's already paying attention to Ichiban, and if someone is actively looking for him it doesn't work either. Considering the limitation on movement and speech, it's pretty weak.

600 - The Traditional Way
World of Darkness: Sorcerer
Unlike true mages, sorcerers cannot use their powers effortlessly, or without foci. As a jumper, however, you will - or have - likely acquire means of sidestepping the requirements of sorcery, and other powers as well. With this perk, you may not want to. For every requirement that you can forgo but don't, the power is 10% more effective. This applies to other powers as well.

This one's real self explanatory. I'm ruling that automating spell casting via the Nanoha device counts as sidestepping requirements of chanting/gesturing, so doing those along with the device can pull in a 20% boost.

100 - Play Dead!
Magi: The Adventure of Sinbad
Sometimes, when faced with an insurmountable foe with no avenues of escape, it can seem like there's nothing you can do but calmly accepting your own impending demise. Strangely enough, though, there's another option open to you – merely pretending to be dead. Indeed, you've developed a technique almost unique to this world where, by opening a tiny hole in your chest, you can drastically weaken your heartbeat to but your body in a death-like state. Though you'll only remain in this state for a few minutes, you'll appear to be dead to all but the most thorough of examinations, perhaps allowing you to deceive your foes and live another day. Unfortunately, you'll be rather helpless while in this state, so it's probably best to only use it as a last resort.

How is the hole in the chest meant to be opened canonically? Do you stick a pin in yourself? It doesn't say and I care so little about this ability I'll just assume Ichiban can reshape his flesh to create the hole when he feels like.

400 - Paid In Blood And Agony
MtG - Shandalar
Many of the most powerful Black magics carry a price beyond mere mana. Contracts with demonic entities or drawing upon the power of undeath can often cost a mage a portion of their life force, and even the mana-fuelled echoes of such acts carry similar prices. Likewise, a Lord Of The Pit will not stay loyal for long if not fed... and if you can't sacrifice other creatures under your command, it's quite happy to take a Wurm-sized bite out of you. But though everything has a price, that doesn't mean you have to pay the toll in such a way. Though you cannot simply ignore such debts, you have the unique ability to pay costs with anything else of equivalent 'value'. Where before you might have been forced to bleed yourself dry for an edge in battle, now you could instead sacrifice a portion of your knowledge, another creature's life, or perhaps even pay the toll through a vast expenditure of mana instead. The 'price' will be based on what your debtor considers valuable or not, but they will not try to cheat you out of more than they are due.

This allows for the payment of any tangible spell costs outside of mana/stamina to be paid via other means. Life drain, backlash, reagents, sacrificial victims… they can be freely interchanged for other components of equivalent value. Sure is a good thing the Dungeon's swimming in those magical stones, huh? It's pretty much the perfect place for this perk.

100 - Work-Life Balance - Mid Tier
Generic MG
Most magical girls have no ability to mix their transformed and untransformed modes. Once they lose the frilly outfit, they are nothing more than ordinary girls.

You are different.

For 100 CP, you can use your active powers even while not transformed, but they are harder to control and weaker. This also applies to powers that would otherwise be locked to other alt-forms.

If Ichiban ever gets any transformations or alternate modes, this allows their powers to be partially available even when not transformed. Passive abilities don't carry over, so a theoretical vampire Ichiban would be able to use his hypnotic vampire gaze or creepy blood powers, but wouldn't have undead toughness (or the usual vampire weaknesses) when not transformed.

100 - Animal Rider
Marvel Primal
The people called him the Rider, because they had never seen a man astride a beast before. You are naturally highly skilled in befriending, training and riding animals of all sorts.

Skills with training animals. It synergises with animal communication as they'll be more friendly and willing to help out, and understand his commands more easily. Unlike animal communication this can theoretically carry over to Dungeon Monsters to a limited degree, if he ever tried to tame them the way the Ganesha familia does.

200 - Staying Power
Final Fantasy I
You're the muscle of this party, and that means you need to be able to take hits while the spellcasters do their job - unlocking the secrets of the arcane doesn't leave the much time for jogging, after all. Lazy wizards. Your stamina is much more plentiful, able to run for miles in heavy armor and only breaking a bit of a sweat, and your ability to take physical damage is likewise increased, your pain tolerance being something to be envied. This won't let you survive being vaporized by the strongest magic in this world or being reduced to paste under a giant's foot, but against blade, bow, and even destructive spells, you can keep fighting even under some of the worst of wounds just as effectively as you could before.

It's functionally the stamina/toughness of a level 4 adventurer, along with incredible pain tolerance and the ability to ignore any kind of penalties for being injured.

Free - Chakra
Naruto
The basic Chakra system perk, you start with reserves equal to the average jonin. In future jumps, by channelling Chakra into others you can cause a Chakra system to grow inside them. In future Jumps, abilities that function using the target's chakra, such as by disrupting, amplifying, or sensing it, will continue to function as normal, either using the setting's equivalent energy types, or using life force as appropriate.

100 - Chakra (Kage)
Naruto
Upgrade your reserves by an amount equivalent to the likes of Sarutobi Hiruzen at his peak, whose spiritual and physical energies blended to create an exquisuite amount of chakra surpassed only by true monsters. This is an additive upgrade, meaning the chakra will add to your existing pool, even if your existing pool is near infinite.

Requires Chakra to purchase.

200 – Chakra (Bijuu)
Naruto
Upgrade your reserves by an amount equivalent to the likes of Hoshigaki Kisame, whose chakra pool was comparable to that of weaker Tailed Beasts. There are few in history capable of matching your sheer quantity of chakra. This is an additive upgrade, meaning the chakra will add to your existing pool, even if your existing pool is near infinite.

300 – Chakra (Legends)
Naruto
Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Naruto: shinobi with chakra reserves surpassing even the Tailed Beasts. Like these ninja, you're now peerless when it comes to the quantity of your chakra, capable of boosting even the weakest of jutsu to incredible heights. The amount of chakra you mold in each jutsu dwarves even the Gokage, weaving country-shattering power into every one of your techniques. Only with days-long protracted battles against equal or superior foes while spamming high-level jutsu will you exhaust yourself, and, even then, you might just find that final bit of chakra hidden in that seemingly bottomless pool for that pivotal moment. Unfortunately, you're still no match for the Shinju or Otsutsuki. This is an additive upgrade, meaning the chakra will add to your existing pool, even if your existing pool is near infinite.

This gives access to the Naruto chakra system, and with the Legends upgrade gives Ichiban a personal reserve equivalent to Naturo at his peak. Chakra is effectively a mixture of stamina and mana, and so functionally gives him a huge reserve of both.

Importantly, this doesn't give any form of knowledge or skill with using chakra. To start with all he can really do is inefficiently push chakra into limbs to augment movement/strikes. It'll take a lot of practice or further perks to improve that.

Giving a chakra system to others is done as easily as touching them for a couple seconds. For adventurers it integrates with falna, and gives them reserves commensurate with their endurance and magic statistics.

400 -Landscapist
Endless Legend
There are many anomalies that cover this world, their magic gleaned but not understood. You, you understand it. You have listened to the voices of the Rumbling Stones. You have won a staring contest with a Wizard's Eye. You have eaten the fruit of the Life Tree, and you understand. Whenever you are within an anomaly, your magic is more powerful, growing with the strength of anomaly. Inside a chroma land, your spells would be rainbow hued and blinding. While standing within the whispering confines of the Ice Sculptures your spells would deafen your foes and sound as music to your allies. If you stood upon the Dust Tree, maybe, just maybe, you'd be on par with an Endless. You also have a better understanding of all anomalies, and how to best benefit from them.

Basically it makes magic stronger when in weird magical areas. Guess what the Dungeon is? There may be some 'flavouring' to his magic depending on particular Dungeon biomes, and the effect directly correlates with how potent the weird magical area is – ie. going deeper in the Dungeon makes Ichiban's magic stronger. It also provides some intuitive understanding of the Dungeon, enough to aid in navigation to stairs up or down or points of interest like pantries or magic springs.

100 – Model Student
Tsukihime
If you find yourself regularly skipping class to go on nighttime hunts for vampires or just general adventure, then it pays to be a good student on paper if nothing else. You're a model student, soaking up what teachers say like a dry sponge and speed reading your required studies in but an hour. You learn about twice as quickly as other top students, absorbing academic and mundane skills with very little trouble, even on a time crunch. Supernatural teachings or things like complicated science take more time, but you're still an excellent learner as long as you have a good teacher – whether an actual mentor or a very informative book.

This makes you learn twice as fast as top students. Guess what Ichiban is not? So in practice this works out quite a bit better than merely doubling his learning rate. Perhaps he'd actually be able to overcome his tragic illiteracy with this.

100 – Regeneration
Final Fantasy V
Unlike those mortals that deal with the normal elements, your connection with the Void supplies you with a virtually unlimited regeneration. As long as your head is not destroyed (and even then, as long as it is mostly intact) you can regenerate from your wounds, restoring yourself to whole. The more damaged you are, the longer it will take, but it will never take more than a day to restore yourself to full health.

It's pretty close to Wolverine-tier regeneration. A day to come back from a chunk of skull is really impressive!

400 – Hide and Seek
Marvel Zombies
Maybe it'd be possible to beat out the zombified superhuman community if you were some godlike voyager traveling through realities, but what are the chances of that? For everybody else, you're better off keeping your head down and trying to keep a low profile. Even then, the odds are against you. After all, the monsters you're hiding have all sorts of ways to find you outside the mundane - freaky sixth senses, telepathy, divination, and all the fancy toys they've got access to. They'll have a real hard time with you, though. Firstly, you're immune to any supernatural means of gaining information on you - for example, the zombies can use that reconfigured version of Cerebro as many times as they want, but they won't be picking up on you. Any way to scry on you just doesn't work, unless you want it to. Secondly, you're just really, really sneaky. Were you part of the Hand or something? You can move while making nary a sound, are capable of all sorts of acrobatics, and everything you'd expect those red-clad ninja to be capable of sans the fighting skills. Or maybe you're one of those rotten robbies and think that being really sneaky is befitting of a monster.

Elite ninja stealth/parkour/acrobatics skills which are great for traversal and hiding, not so much for fighting. Notably this does provide immunity to a God's ability to tell if he's lying, and he can be invisible to stuff like the mirror they use in war games.

Free – Remorseless
Final Fantasy IX
You are the star and for whom the spotlight shines. Your confidence in your role is absolute, and your resolution to put yourself forward is an undeniable force. Concepts of morality are for those who have to consider the feelings and stance of others, insignificant to you. Concepts of morale, even more laughable when nothing can faze you save for your own choices.

Those insignificant masses should pray they do not attempt to subject you to silly mind control spells as they are want to do – or they'll see the attempt bounce right back at them, mentally wounding them.

The fluff here is kinda sociopathic sounding, but I'm just taking it at the base level of being immune to unnatural morale influencing effects and a painful bounce-back for more overt mind control. He can still get scared if he sees Godzilla, but a minotaur's roar won't unnerve him. He can still think Freya's hot, but her full-on charm won't affect him.

100- Shaped Like a Fortress: Unreadable
Avesta of Black and White
There is something about your thought pattern that makes it really hard for others to get a read on you, and even those who could peer into your thoughts cannot get a good grasp of you. It may be how well-ordered your mind is, not allowing any unwanted thought to pass through, or how used you are to lies that you can even lie in your own thoughts to conceal your true intentions deep within yourself.

I'm not sure if mind-reading exists in Danmachi, but hey it's a good immunity to have. Actually it would cover the lie-detecting ability of deities, so there's that.

200 – This is My Power
Rapturous Rhapsody Jump
When Mikael was sent to each new world, his power was stripped away, forcing him to grow and regain his strength repeatedly. Such a situation is unacceptable to you, and you've taken decisive steps to prevent it from happening to you. As a result, your power cannot be stripped away, stolen, or otherwise taken from you. Regardless of the circumstances, your strength remains intact. If you were put through a situation similar to Mikael's, where you are sent to a new world, you would retain all the power you had previously gained. This effect ensures that you remain at your peak no matter where you go, and works on inherently temporary powers, but only if a power has remained active/available for more than one month.

Any 'permanent' power can't be suppressed by environmental conditions, and any temporary power becomes permanent if he manages to maintain it for a month. If he had a falna this would ensure it functions even if the providing deity went back to heaven.

400 – Auto Reflexes
Bleach
Battle is in your bones, your blood, your very soul. Where others plan out their moves or train themselves to react automatically, it was always instinctual for you. These automatic reflexes for battle allow you to instinctively react with offense or defense to an attack, with no delay needed to judge or begin trained movements. Even when it's something you're not actually aware is an enemy or can't even see, your spirit still guides you to fight as an instant response. If you continue to rely on the auto-reflexes during a fight instead of planning things out in advance, you'll find your speed will steadily increase, as does your ability to counter or dodge things you're reacting to. The gains will fade after the battle is over.

It's discount Ultra Instinct. Basically ensures he automatically attacks/defends at a high but not perfect level – in D&D terms think of it like rolling 15 for every check. It doesn't really use anything complicated like spells, but basic punches/dodges/etc are all done at near peak ability taking full advantage of perks and powers even if Ichiban doesn't have full conscious understanding of them.

200 – A Farther Horizon
Godbound
Whether you were once a baker or a beggar, the consequences of a Word of Creation burning in your veins will take you far beyond the life you once knew. With this you can at least be assured you'll be a natural learner for all kinds of new experiences, and always be able to keep an open mind for new vistas and ways of being. Within days of arriving in a new culture you can learn the customs, figure out how to fit in and sniff out who's in charge. This lends itself well to picking up new skills too. You may not be the greatest swordsman or painter ever to live, but you'll find yourself picking up the trade a lot quicker than most.

It's a learning perk. Not much to say, he already had a decent handle on Orario when it dropped, but it'll help smooth out any further issues and provide a boost to learning anything else. I'm interpreting it as allowing very fast progression to competency, but after that it doesn't do as much so it doesn't help with achieving mastery.

400 – Path of the Dragon
Dark Souls: War of the Ancients
Though they were defeated in that most ancient of battles, people of all stripes have dreamed of transforming into a dragon themselves, to wield the power of those stone scaled entities that predated even the gods. But these would typically be just that, dreams. Under you, though, such dreams can be made a reality. You know how to initiate a process in others that will transform them into true dragons, though their strength, as well as the speed of the transformation itself depends entirely on how much power you use to kick start this process.

Touch someone, pour in mana, and they become a Dark Souls dragon. With a full tank Ichiban can turn anyone into a 'named boss' tier dragon, which I'm treating as somewhere around the level 6 adventurer range.

100 - Unforgotten Nemesis
HighSchool DxD
Monster tamers are those that know how to bend the will of lesser monsters and even sentient ones, to make their bidding. Naturally, a powerful being telling a lesser one what to do is not what I'm talking about, but rather being a good hand at training less intelligent ones, such as Lamias, Yuki-onnas, and various other creatures, even when they are stronger than you in a direct fight. Perhaps with enough time and practice you will achieve the level of skill needed to bind powerful and intelligent creatures, such as Dragons, to you, but it will certainly require a lot of practice.

It's a monster taming perk. Synergises with the Rider one from before, so taming anything unintelligent is now pretty easy. Intelligent stuff is gonna be harder, but if there's already a personal connection that can help. Dragons he makes with Path of the Dragon are going to be a lot easier to train than One Eyed Black Dragon or Nidhogg for instance.

100 – Combo
Worm CYOA v17
Your melee attacks get stronger in a geometric progression the longer you attack the same target without stopping. You have to continue hitting your opponent with pauses no longer than 5 seconds between the strikes or your combo will be broken.

Geometric progression could mean a lot of things, and I'm not gonna put a hard number on it, but basically each successive blow is increased by a multiplier so it can get out of hand very quickly. Ever hear that story of doubling a grain of rice over every square of a chessboard?

200 – Knight's Bravery
Magic The Gathering - Iconics
Paragons of honor and justice, knights are those soldiers who keep the law in check. Their martial skills are nothing to scoff at either, and neither are your own martial skills. You have been trained as a knight and have excelled under the tutelage. This has made you one of the best knights across the planes, through martial skill alone you could hold your own against entire bands of lesser knights and it would take a knight of legendary status to best you just in martial combat alone, your skill is sufficient to easily be knighted in four of the five courts of Eldraine with a good chance at the fifth. In addition to this skill at arms, you also find it effortless to weave spells in the middle of fighting with a weapon, not needing to pause as beat back enemies.

Heroic level skill with knight-coded weapons, which gives carry-over skill to all forms of combat. Though Ichiban's already a really good fighter so this won't truly shine unless he uses a sword. On the other hand, instant mastery of concurrent chanting greatly improves his spellcasting abilities.

50 – Ultimate Ninja Style
Naruto
No, this isn't some overpowered fighting style. What this does is provide a boost in cosmetic flexibility to your techniques. Simply stated, your techniques are much more stylish and cooler-looking than normal, though no more or less powerful than normal. Even if you make it look as though you're punching your opponent into space with five thousand Shadow Clones, they won't actually be launched into space unless your attack would've done that anyways. This effect can be spread to teammates, allowing team attacks to benefit from the same aesthetic boost. This can be toggled on and off freely.

Contagious brain damage! Use of this will be limited in order to make battles actually legible, but any big dramatic attacks will get the 'Essence of' treatment to be jazzed up like you'd see for the Kiwami moves in the games.

100 – Elemental Proficiency
Final Fantasy XI
All blackmages are specialists in elemental damage from afar and you are no exception to this. You find magic based on the elements is easier to cast, taking slightly less magic to achieve the same result as other mages would need to achieve the same effect.

Spells of the classic Final Fantasy elements are slightly cheaper to cast. Ichiban has a lot of mana now so I'm not sweating the details, but the covered elements are: fire, ice, lightning, air, water.

200 – Kinetic Learner
Honkai Impact 3rd
You learn faster physically and through experiencing stuff than from classroom environments. This does not mean that you learn slower from classroom environments than you did before – it simply means that you're more of a kinesthetic learner than before, and you learn things about ten times faster when you learn it kinesthetically. And, when it comes to combat, you can learn it ten times faster kinesthetically than you can learn normal things kinesthetically, meaning that you can learn combat one hundred times faster than normal.

It's not only a learning booster, it's one specifically fitting for Ichiban's type of learning. To give a concrete example, one casting of a spell in combat now masters it enough to eliminate the reduction he got from copying it with Spell Recollection.

200 – Elemental Resistance (Fire)
Generic Dungeon Crawler
You are 50% resistant to a common source of damage like fire, acid or electricity. This only mitigates damage, not environmental effects, so having resistance to gravity does not allow you to jump higher. This trait can be purchased multiple times, but only one purchase may apply per source of damage.

May be Purchased Multiple Times

Totally self-explanatory. I didn't roll for this one, I picked fire since it came up right after Pearl showed off her absurd fire storm spell so it felt right.

400 – The Brave and The Bodolf (knowledge only)
Marvel Magic
For those who seek power beyond their kin, there are methods of achieving their goals. Some strive long and hard, pushing their forms to and beyond their limit. Some turn to study, mastering science or sorcery to bend the world to their wills. And others yet still find other methods, making pacts with dark beings or taking extreme risks to gain power now. You now know of one such method, though whether you choose to utilize it is your own choice to make. This method takes the form of a ritual in which the one seeking power speaks ancient words of power and drinks the still-burning blood of a dragon.

At first, they will notice no change. But then, when adrenaline flows, they undergo a transformation. Gaining several hundred pounds of muscle mass and several feet of height, their skin turns as black as night and their eyes glow red like burning coals. In this form, their strength and durability are massively increased, making them one of the strongest and toughest beings in this world. But they also lose themselves to rage, consumed as a berserker until eventually the rage subsides or they are knocked unconscious, returning them to their original form. they may be able to learn control over these transformations, but it will take time and great effort. If you wish, you may choose to have already undergone this ritual and gained this power.

Ichiban does not have this power, but he knows the ritual to give the power to himself or anyone else. It does not make anyone as strong as the Incredible Hulk – justify it as being based on the wording 'strongest and toughest beings in this world' applying to this world, or the lesser quality of dragon blood than you'd find in Marvel.

Either way, it still pushes someone up to the level 8 range of raw physical ability when they get an adrenaline rush, at the cost of making them a giant insane berserker who can't differentiate friend from foe. The Hulk pants effect will apply, because no one wants to see that.

600 – RADIANCE
MtG - Ravnica
Unity can be a double edged sword, and you know this only too well. Whenever you either share a common aim with your allies, or attack a group with a strong centre of unity, both strength buffs and damage dealt is shared. When one of your enemies is hurt, the whole group feels their pain. When one of your allies receives a surge of strength, their allies are strengthened too. The ties that bind you and your group together will grow ever stronger because of this.

Magical buffs get shared between allies when they share a strong common purpose – just fighting alongside each other isn't quite enough, it needs to be more of a shared commitment to a goal or something like that.

By the same token, damage being shared among enemies requires them to be working actively in concert. You can't punch a goblin on floor 1 and have a dragon on floor 50 feel it even if all Dungeon monsters are on the same 'side'. It'd apply more to a pack of them attacking together. With more intelligent foes this can impact wider groups that have a similar level of shared commitment even if they're not all in the same place. The shared damage can't ever be lethal to the ones not struck, but can be debilitating.

Free – Blossoming Sun
Fate/Legends – The land of The Rising Sun
You had a fortunate birth, whatever you end up being, and find yourself above average for these lands. Japan is not particularly a bastion of mystical heroes in the way of Greece or Britain. Indeed, many of the legends to be found following are made from incredible skill or the command of many soldiers instead of personal feats of might and magic. But even these skillful heroes do tend to stand above the other poppies.

Your body is naturally on the higher end for human fitness, ably competing in modern athletics without any training required. Magically, you possess a number of high quality circuits, equal to the much later coming Tohsaka heir. A prodigy in those times but still notable even a thousand years prior. You lack training for now but magic is not so hidden as it becomes in the modern day, with the presence of spiritual temples and Onmyouji practitioners.

As a quirk of this land, you also have the ability to summon a wide range of aesthetic effects, even when they make no sense. A flurry of cherry blossoms on the wind as you make an entrance, the sun shining down the red rays of a sunset even mid-morning to dramatise your battles. One might claim you're in some sort of samurai movie, with how many dramatic effects tend to occur around you. As part of this national style, you also have the unique trait of never struggling to draw or sheathe your weapons, no matter how impractically sized they are. The katana and sheath longer than your entire body won't take anymore time to draw than a reasonably sized weapon. Not that you're any better at using the weapons, you just won't look like a tool taking them out.

At this point the physical/magical gains are kind of minor. There's definitely a noticeable boost to strength/agility before chakra comes in though. The aesthetic effects will be used sparingly because it'd just be annoying otherwise, but they're there.

200 – One Source
Trinity Wonder
Ki, magic. Ultimately, they are just energy. They come from the same source, and can be used to supplement each other. You can use one source to recharge or fuel the other. This won't necessarily be an even 1:1 conversion. Some energies may need a disproportionate amount of less potent energy to be substituted in to create an equal 'volume' due to the difference of energy contained within. Similarly, the techniques of different systems and techniques from other worlds may tax your reserves differently. The techniques of Wuxia world are often much more energy intensive than that of their fantasy world analogs, such that what one mage might consider overflowing amounts of magic, the murim warrior would simply consider adequate enough to recharge.

I've been treating chakra as one half stamina and one half mana, for how it can fuel other stuff. So this basically doubles Ichiban's already enormous mana pool. I'm not even sure what kind of Dark Souls dragon he could make now. Probably one of the ones that's more landscape than monster.

Items

200 - Magical Canteen
Danmachi
While people can go on for a few days without food but water is a must to allow your body to operate. This canteen possesses an ability to produce water on its own and the water it produces is some of the tastiest and freshest water out there. The water also has the ability to restore the drinker's stamina and refreshes their tired mind though it won't restore the mind energy that you used for the magic spell but the water can be used to replace food for three days with a diminishing return until you stop substituting real food for it this water.

This one's incredibly self-explanatory, nothing much to add.

100- Dwarven Centurion
The Elder Scrolls
One of the deadliest Dwemer Animunculi crafted, it is a brass behemoth that stands equal to Giants, and even more deadly. It's metallic hide repels most mundane weapons, it's axe can cleave through steel easily, and when it has to, it can unleash a blast of boiling steam towards an opponent. You also get a rod, allowing you to control it's actions directly as well as force it into standby mode.

It looks like the one from Skyrim for reference, and is functionally equivalent to a level 4 monster. Very strong and tough, able to basically ignore attacks from level 1 adventurers or monsters, but it's kind of slow.

300 - White Lion Cloak
Warhammer Fantasy: Dogs of War
The pelt of one of the Great White Lions of Chrace, this cloak still bears some of the power and majesty it radiated when the beast was alive, and as a result wearers of such a garment find themselves more charismatic and more agile. That the partially magical hide also turns blows as well as a good quality suit of chainmail doesn't hurt either.

Pretty straight-forward, the agility and charisma buffs are on the similar scale as the sort of protective benefit chainmail gives, if that makes any sense. It's not exceptionally powerful, but absolutely noticeable for a normal person. Ichiban's agility is about the same as a mid-range level one adventurer with it.

300 - Potion Set
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
"You got some Red Potion! You got some Green Potion! You got some Blue Potion!"

A trio of glass bottles, each with a useful potion inside of them. The first, a red potion, restores your health. The second, a green potion, restores your magical energy. The third, a blue potion, restores both. Each bottle will refill at the end of the day if you use it, but you won't get any extra if you haven't used it. If one of the bottles breaks, then you get a new one.

These potions are all effectively 'full restores' for health, magic, and both. Splitting the dose reduces the effectiveness by far more than just division – you need a proper dose for it to work at its actual effectiveness, but there is at least some benefit. It's pure 'hit point' recovery in video-game terms, so doesn't help as much for things like illnesses and status conditions. They refill/replace themselves at midnight.

Free - Auto-Repair
Lyrical Nanoha
Devices are of a strange make. Other than the crystalline components that make up the very core of the Device, all of it's parts – the blade, shaft and handles – are made of very simple, replaceable materials that can be regenerated through magic. In fact, a common combat tactic is burning large amounts of power to quickly regenerate damage in what's called a 'Recovery'. If a Device were to be damaged, it can enter an automated repair state once returned to Standby Mode, regenerating any damage to more superficial parts and light damage to the main body. Heavier damage would require taking the Device to a specialized technician – a Device Meister. (CG Note: Requires Device - Lyrical Nanoha first.)

Free- Device (Merged with control rod from Dwarven Centurion)
Lyrical Nanoha
A Device could be seen as a high-tech magic wand. It aids with the complex math involved in manipulating Mana into spells. There are many different levels of power, intelligence and complexity. This grants you a base Device which you can customize with other perks. (CG Note: This is a Celestial Grimoire original perk. The Lyrical Nanoha jumpchain gives you a free Device, though it's not listed as a perk, so I had to make one so the rest of Device related perks made sense.)

The dwemer metal control rod provided by Dwarven Centurion gets these upgrades. Any surface level damage can now be repaired by infusing it with mana, though it requires a large amount and thus is quite draining. The actual device aspect turns it into an automatic spell-casting device – using it, Ichiban can effectively offload most aspects of casting a spell, such as chants and gestures, as the device follows his intent and casts it for him, though it still uses his mana.

100 – Snap
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Leave only footprints, take only the sights that you see. It's a natural maxim used to ensure that historical sights are preserved, but memory is a fickle thing...a picture can say it a lot better. This simple camera is capable of printing out vivid photographs with no need or film or development, working on a set of simple runes taken from the Sheikah Slate. These photos can be hung up later as well! If you were to connect this to a Sheikah Slate, you could also easily use it as a 'range booster' for its camera function, allowing you to zoom in from far off onto wherever you wish.

It's a magical polaroid camera that never runs out of film/paper.

400 - Ghoul Stone Velvet Bag
Kamen Rider Neo-Heisei Part 2
The strange shop you've gotten all your toys from appeared to have this in a hidden section, but, it looks like you finally got it. This small bag, like one used to hold marbles, has a magical seal on the front. When you look inside, you can see a series of ashy stones...By throwing and shattering one against the ground, a loyal Gargoyle-like beast is created! These are "Ghouls", creatures of despair that serve powerful Phantoms...however this bag gives you ownership of the Ghouls created from the stones inside the bag. The Bag itself can convert valuable gems into Ghoul Stones, at the very least they must be a precious stone to be turned. These ghouls are hardy warriors, resistant to small arms fire and explosions with only magic and supernatural energy guaranteeing easy defeat. You start with 30 Ghoul stones in the bag, which should let you repel many threats in this world!

I know nothing about Kamen Rider, but I looked up the wiki here. They're basic sentai mooks, while their strength and speed isn't noteworthy they're about as tough as sturdy level 2 monsters like minotaurs. The magic stone of a level 2 monster similarly counts as a valuable gem for the bag's conversion ability.

100 - Glassteel Magic Foci (Merged with control rod from Dwarven Centurion)
Endless Legend
This featherweight staff allows the caster to channel rapidly without losing focus, and serves as an effective blocking tool. Three spells in the time of two, and parry any incoming attack without being distracted.

Merged into the control rod which is also a Nanoha device, this improves it both as a melee weapon and a casting implement. Spells are cast one third faster, and it can be swung around more quickly by the same margin for quicker attacks and more effective parries.

50 - Tier One Talisman (Iron)
Endless Legend
A magical necklace that provides bonus depending on the material used.

Iron: Increases the speed the wearer covers ground at roughly double the speed. This does not increase overall agility or reflexes, just how quickly they can chew through distance.

Dust: Grants the wearer regeneration. Bruises vanish in hours, not days, broken bones heal in days, not weeks.

Titanium: Fortifies the mind and resolve, helping to resist morale shaking effects and mind control.

Glassteel: Helps the wearer predict flight paths and improves over all accuracy. Go from a fifty cent piece to a quarter.

Iron was rolled randomly. It doubles maximum running speed, regardless of what the base speed is – friction, air resistance, none of those things matter. While overall agility and reflexes aren't boosted, they are boosted specifically in the case of running so Ichiban is no more likely to collide with something than he would do normally.

200 - Orange Charred Ring
Dark Souls: War of the Ancients
A ring that was enchanted by a witch, meant for the only son of the Witch of Izalith. Since his birth, he was afflicted with sores that were inflamed by lava, leading to his sisters giving him this ring. While wearing it, you will find yourself more resistant to fire and lava, handling their heat as well as any stone in a campfire naturally would.

I don't think the various elemental resist items you see in Souls games are really that good when you compare them to other games where getting elemental immunity is fairly trivial. But going by the wording, this is some really strong resistance to heat. A stone eventually cracks so I'd put it at something like eighty percent.

300 – Talon Bow
God Of War (2018)
A yew bow, created with the purpose of harming even the gods if the need arises. Something that is interesting about the bow is that it scales with the level of Divine Physiology that you choose earlier in the Jump. Someone with an Unnatural physiology would find their bow being as strong as the one Atreus uses when it is upgraded to the max, with it being able to cause flesh wounds even on a god. Whilst someone with a God physiology would find that they would find their arrows going deep into the hides of dragons and gods alike. So long as the quiver of arrows is never spilled you will find an unlimited number of arrows, and once every 10 minutes you will find ten arrows which will deal lightning damage along with the damage they would normally do. These special arrows restock once they are depleted. Once-per-Jump you will find an arrow which will dissolve the magical defenses of whoever you declare the target, this would work even on divine spells such as the one which grants Baldur his immortality.

I'm interpreting this a bit more loosely, rather than needing to ping off of a Divine Physiology perk from the same jump, it'll just adapt its strength to the wielder by default. It's basically the Hestia Knife but a bow. The special once-per-jump arrow is just once, flat out now. If Naaza still has it in her quiver after they kill the One Eyed Black Dragon she ought to feel very foolish.

200 – Bag of Tomes (reusable)
Final Fantasy II
All the standard magical tomes. Once read, it will commit to your memory and the pages will become blank. For another 50CP, the text will remain, allowing multiple people to read them. Contains all the spells aside from Ultima, Revive and Destroy.

It's the full list of spells from Final Fantasy II. Not written in the item description but taken from the game is the limitation that only 16 can be learned at any time, I just think that makes it a bit more interesting. They level up with use, but I'm keeping it vague, these are more for other people to use since Ichiban already has tons of spells to keep track of. Refer to the list here if you want to dig into them.

50 – Chillbite Ring (merged with Orange Charred Ring)
Dark Souls 3
"One of the bite rings native to Carim. This ring would never grace Friede's hand, for the painting and its frost became her home." Like the other rings produced by the Earl of Carim the Chillbite Ring increases one's resistance to elemental frost when worn, making the biting chill of winter a bit easier to bear. A necessity, for those not used to the painted world's frigid temperatures.

Lets say it's 80% protection against cold to match how the orange charred ring was done, merged into one handy package.

200 – Millwood Battle Axe
Dark Souls 3
"Battle axe wielded by Millwood Knights. Its blade is blessed by the symbol of the Ethereal Oak. A hefty axe normally wielded by the mightiest of warriors. " Much lighter than its description would have you believe, this axe is a fantastic weapon for warriors due to its light-weight and easy heft enabling it to be swung quickly. When properly infused and buffed the deadliness of the weapon increases greatly, particularly if its wielder utilizes the running slash used by Millwood Knights.

Not getting into the +X woods of Dark Souls weapon enchants, just assume it's 'good' for what it is. Apparently this one's well regarded in the meta for having high damage, so it's just that, a solid powerful axe, but nothing remarkable.

100 – Megingjörð
Germanic/Norse Mythology Jump
A simple belt or other garment or accessory which doubles your strength and durability when worn.

Incredibly self-explanatory.

200 – Crystallization Of Power (Anemo)
Genshin Impact
These are the crystallised teardrops of a great elemental being, one that in days past might very well have fought toe-to-toe with the gods. Contained within these tears are an incredible amount of pure elemental energy, of a type matching that of the spirit it came from. What exactly that type is, is up to you. This would be a rare and incredibly valuable prize for any able to handle the energy within, enough to power an instrument of the Archons.

Anemo is Wind in Genshin-speak, I rolled randomly for it. It's basically a powerful wind magic maguffin with no set abilities but could do all kinds of things if appropriately processed or ritualistically utilised.

100 - "Carthus Milkring" (merged with Orange Charred Ring)
Dark Souls 3
"Ring worn by the warriors of the sand kingdom, Carthus. The sword technique of Carthus allows for fluid movement with a curved sword. Masters of the technique are said to dazzle their opponents by moving as weightlessly as a grain of sand. They live for their High Lord Wolnir, conqueror of most kingdoms known to their people." Simply putting it on makers the wearer feel more nimble. Additionally, when dodging or rolling out of the way of an attack, the wearer's movement becomes hazy, clouded, making it harder to predict your path.

Gives a small bonus to agility/dexterity, and makes dodges look all ethereal like you're turning into smoke.

300 – Mirror Polish (applied to Millwood Battle Axe)
Legend of Zelda: Hero of Worlds
Upgrade for one of your weapons or a shield, making them capable of reflecting projectile spells back upon the caster.

Does what it says. Requires a bit of timing to do so isn't automatic.

Ebiris · Jan 26, 2025

Mord was looking at him like being left for dead in an alley was becoming an option once more. The only good news was at least his ire was shared, as across from him several scantily-clad and dark-skinned girls were fawning all over Guile to go with the set cuddled up to Ichiban.

"I'm used to it with this guy, but I thought Ichiban would at least be on my level!" Mord complained bitterly as he sat with Scott and Ken being mostly ignored by the ladies. And Izzy who was determinedly sticking it out with the men of her familia and getting increasingly drunk with little else to cater to her tastes around here.

"Haha, women love a man who takes care of his body," Guile bragged, flexing with a squeal of delight from the buxom girl measuring her palm against his bicep.

"Not to mention a man with style," said one of the girls hanging off Ichiban, nuzzling his side and burying her face into the furry mane of his lion cloak with a sensually contented noise.

Yeah, they might not have used the name, but it's clear the concept of a hostess club as he'd explained back at the Hostess of Fertility wasn't unknown to Orario.

The hilarious thing was that as far as he could tell going by the magical falna power he was reading, the girl so impressed with Guile's bicep was actually stronger than him. But when your strength comes from a magical godly blessing, doesn't that make cool sculpted muscles even more of a flex? The girls around the Entertainment District certainly seemed to think so. Almost invariably dark-skinned and dark-haired, what he'd taken for a simple human demographic like Indian people back home was apparently a specific fantasy race called amazons who were exclusively female.

They seemed to like guys just fine though.

"Yeah, this thing's badass as hell, ain't it?" he grinned, holding out his cup as another girl refreshed it and he had a drink. Wasn't as sweet as what he had back at the Hostess of Fertility, but had a nice kick and burned good going down.

"I'll say, it's commanding and powerful, yet cute and huggable. Just like you Ichiban!" she cooed, snuggling up against him while Mord, Scott, and Ken all tried to kill him with the power of their eyes.

"Hey, he's not the only one who needs a refill here," Mord scowled, downing his own cup before holding it out expectantly.

"Of course Mord dear," detaching from Ichiban and his cloak, the young amazon picked up the golden decanter they'd been serving drinks from only to have just a drop trickle out. "Ahh, we have been partying pretty hard, huh? I'll get us a fresh jug!" she stood up and sauntered out, at least giving Mord an eyeful in her skimpy harem-girl style outfit. They were all sitting around on cushions around a low table, silk curtains surrounding their booth slash room, giving the whole place the ambience of a sheikh's palace or something like that.

It was a fun style, and even with Mord's belly-aching Ichiban was enjoying himself. This kind of night out with drinking and good food and cute girls was the kind of thing he could only dream of when he was in prison. He'd rather have been celebrating his release with the Arakawa family, but this was a good way to spend his evening on his first night in a whole new world.

Coming back, the amazon – Shazah was her name, bent over to refill Mord's cup and giving him a view he no doubt appreciated. The view wasn't half bad from the backside either, though Ichiban wasn't planning to do more than look. Indeed he made sure to avert his gaze enough to not seem like a leering old man, though the girl still cuddled on his other side seemed to find his discretion amusing.

400 - Spell recollection
Libriomancer
Somehow you have expanded the bounds of magic beyond what should be possible. You are able to perfectly memorize a spell to such a degree that you can reproduce it simply by taking the same actions as the initial caster. While this effect is significantly decreased in power from the original, you may recreate literally any spell you see cast before you with only moderate effort. As this is a reproduction of the prior spell, you do not need to understand the principles behind it, only reproduce it. You will still need to learn the principles behind if you wish to truly cast it or bring it up to its original efficaciousness. Furthermore, you may still purchase and utilize this ability even if you chose the inhuman background.

"She's doing it deliberately anyway, you know. It's an insult to an amazon not to look when she shows off her body," she teased, trailing a finger up his chest until her finger caught on the bullet-hole in his shirt, that seeming to catch her attention. "Oh, something went right through here. What got you, Ichiban?" she asked as Shazah returned to his other flank after making sure everyone had a drink.

She probably could've skipped Izzy, the girl was really swaying in place now.

"Oh, that's a great story! You should hear him tell it!" Mord butted in, gesturing over towards Guile and his fangirls, "Reduced Guile to tears, it did!"

"Woah, strong and sensitive? You're just my type!" a girl cooed, throwing herself at Guile even harder before he could get indignant over Mord throwing him under the bus.

"Ahh man, I'm gonna be telling this story a lot, aren't I?" Ichiban griped good-naturedly. He didn't really mind, it felt good to get it off his chest, and these guys had all been good listeners back at the Hostess of Fertility. As for the amazons they were basically paid to be good listeners for this kind of thing, so why not?

So he told his story again. Being taken in by Arakawa. Spending eighteen years in the joint for him. And coming back out only to be met with a bullet, before waking up outside the Blue Pharmacy.

"Oh, I love the Blue Pharmacy! Lord Miach's so handsome, and he always gives you free potions!" one of the girls hanging off Guile said at the end of his tale which everyone had listened to with varying levels of interest and skepticism.

"But wait, if you think there's a portal between worlds at the bottom of the Dungeon, wouldn't you have arrived here in the Dungeon instead of at the Blue Pharmacy?" Shazah struck at the entire logical premise he was using to aim himself towards a way home.

There was a round of thoughtful nods from everyone else as they considered that hey, that actually made sense. He did not like that feeling.

"Ahhh!" he pitched himself forward in frustration, "It can't be like that, if it was I could've just turned around and went back the way I came right at the start. There's got to be a quest, an adventure, the hero's journey!"

Amazingly that poorly thought out but passionate response seemed to sway everyone back to seeing things his way.

"That's right, Ichiban! You've got to earn your happy ending! Overcome the trials of legend and get your answers!" Mord slammed his cup down on the table, getting more excited nods from everyone else.

"Still though, won't it take you years to level up enough to reach the deeper parts of the Dungeon?" the most powerful person in the room, an amazon called Rina asked from where she was clinging to Guile's chiselled bicep.

"There were heroes in the past that didn't level up with falna – like Argonaut!" Shazah pointed out, patting Ichiban's shoulder. Or at least the fluffy mane of his lion cloak on top of it.

"Yeah, and he's got his giant… ro- ro… golden statue man thing!" Izzy interjected, gesticulating wildly. "It was huge and it nearly flattened Ken!"

"No it didn't!" Ken quickly insisted, giving her a betrayed look.

"Did too," Izzy turned her chin up petulantly, "Ichiban stopped it with his magic wand he got from the spirits!"

"Giant robot," Ichiban provided her with the technical term as the amazon hostesses all looked at him with curious expectation. "I left him with Tsubaki overnight 'cause she wanted to study him and it's tiring to lug a giant robot all the way around town."

Izzy's lips turned upwards in a sloppy grin of vindication, and clearly on a roll she kept going. "And! And! He can make the magic wand vanish and reappear, so that means no one can steal it to control the giant robot for herself!"

Yeah that definitely made it sound like she'd been thinking of doing exactly that. He'd been showing off his ability to de-materialise and summon the rod back when they'd left the Hostess of Fertility earlier. Better to just have it out of hand than risk someone trying to grab it after all. He'd also noticed something had changed about it when he wasn't paying attention, there hadn't been time to really study it but best he could figure out it linked up with his magic in some way that would aid in casting spells. Something he'd have to test out when not enjoying a night of drinks and fun with his new friends.

Reaching over, Mord grabbed at Izzy's robes behind her neck, lifting her like a cat as he said, "Alright, I think this little missy's out past her bedtime, we ought to call it a night."

But then Rina was suddenly draping her curvaceous figure against Mord and blowing in his ear as she purred, "So early? When will we ever have a chance to drink with a spirit-blessed hero? Please stay, the drinks are free tonight… and maybe other things too," her tongue flicked against his ear, drawing a pleased shiver from Mord as he let go of Izzy and started to lower back into his seat with a goofy grin spreading on his face.

"Well, I mean… can't argue with that price!" he wrapped an arm around the girl who'd just moved with such startling speed without dropping any of her seductive manner, while another of Guile's fangirls detached herself from him so she could drop in Scott's lap and cuddle up with him.

"We should get more girls in here too, we're going to party all night with you boys!" Shazah cheered, refilling Ichiban's drink.

And Ichiban felt his skin crawl. Despite the cheerfully seductive attitudes on display, the vibe had completely changed thanks to Izzy's words, and he couldn't help but recall Rose's earlier warning back at the Guild.

"Many familias would be so eager to have you they wouldn't take no for an answer."

"So, uh… you girls part of a familia or anything?" he asked, wondering how he was going to extricate himself from this situation with any grace.

"Huh, you didn't know? Well of course you wouldn't. Every girl here's a member of the Ishtar familia, we run the Entertainment District," Shazah answered, still smiling and friendly, but where before it had been professional courtesy with perhaps a bit of actually being charmed by Ichiban's rugged good looks and affable demeanour, there was now a desperate edge to it. "Of course Lady Ishtar welcomes men into her familia too if they impress her, and we all have lots of fun together. Would you be interested in that, Ichiban?" she pressed herself more tightly against him. "There's no stronger familia in Orario, no one who could better help you reach the bottom of the Dungeon."

"Hell with that," the blatant recruitment pitch seemed to at least rouse Mord, "He should join the – mmmnh!" the irate words got muffled by a pleased groan as Rina pressed her lips against his. They were really giving up on subtlety, huh?

"You know there's nothing sexier than the strong silent type," she said breathily after that kiss, clinging onto Mord in a way that was yes sensual but also probably about as rigid as a set of iron bars.

"Listen, that's all real nice, but I'm not looking to join a familia, so can we like, take things back a bit?" Ichiban asked, the other members of the Ogma familia all starting to look a bit uncomfortable and nervous as the mood shifted.

"No, no, no!" Shazah clutched his arm. She didn't feel incredibly strong or anything, based on what he felt of her magic she and the other amazons were closer to Izzy and Ken than Mord's level, though Rina handily dwarfed him. "You're not thinking about it properly, we're all having fun, right? And you'll get to have even more fun if you join up – we can take you to meet Lady Ishtar tonight even, and she can explain everything!"

She was increasingly frantic. And when she mentioned meeting Lady Ishtar, alarm bells rang in Ichiban's head. However low-key the gods might play it here, he didn't doubt they could get serious. And meeting Ishtar right now would be like facing the final boss early.

"Ugh, I'm sorry, I should've kept my mouth shut…" Izzy moaned apologetically, her body swaying woozily and her cheeks bulging. This was turning into a disaster on every front.

"Look, it's been a trip, but we gotta call it a night here," Ichiban managed to pull away from Shazah and the other girl clinging to him, standing up and reaching into his jacket. He didn't want to be accused of dining and dashing, and besides it might make a good distraction. "You girls deserve a tip for excellent service though."

He'd never really been rich enough to do it himself, but tonight Ichiban made it rain. All the money he got from Tsubaki earlier fanned out, flexed, and scattered to rain over the table, catching the eyes of the less attentive amazons who excitedly scrambled for it with cries of, "Money!" on their lips.

"No, you bimbos! He's worth more than that!" Rina yelled, moving to lunge his way before she fell, Mord's arms latched around her waist and the two of them tumbling onto the table with a crash, drinks and their mostly untouched fruit platter going everywhere.

"Run Ichiban! We'll hold them off!" he yelled as things descended into mayhem. Accepting his friend's sacrifice, he pushed free of his pair of amazons to force his way towards the silk curtains separating them from the rest of the establishment.

"Ichiban, I'm sorry!" surging upwards to her feet, Izzy stumbled towards him just as Shazah and another girl reached out to grab him, calling out for reinforcements.

"Stop that-"

"Hwork!"

"Yeeeargh!"

"It's everywhere!"

Two scantily clad amazon harem girls were now wearing most of the pasta that Izzy had eaten earlier, the girl giving him a sloppy grin and a thumbs up from under her floppy witch hat as she tumbled in seeming slow motion into a mess of flailing limbs and steaming vomit.

"Apology accepted, Izzy!" he whispered, almost moved to tears by the act as he rushed onto the foyer of the red light business they'd all entered with such a good mood earlier.

From the silhouettes seen through the curtains into other sections it was clear more than just drinks and conversation were on the menu here, but Ichiban didn't have time for that as a few heads were starting to poke out and look around, drawn by the ruckus.

"Hey!" a shout ahead of him heralded trouble, the sweet looking girl who'd greeted them at the door earlier now spinning around a segmented staff as she glared at him.

"No dining and dashing!" her colleague leapt off the balcony above with an impressive acrobatic flip as she landed to block the doorway herself, unarmed but raising her fists like she knew how to use them.

"Ah hell, I overpaid if anything!" Ichiban didn't see an easy way past them, so resigned himself to having to fight a couple of pretty girls. They certainly looked up for a fight at least, and their magical auras seemed to put them at beginner adventurer level. Charging forward with fist raised, he weaved to the side as that segmented staff snapped out just past his shoulder, an opening for him to deliver a hard right hook to the stomach, his weight driving her down under him in a tackle, a couple of cheap shots that she took like a champ, grinning through her teeth and pulling back her leg to kick him off.

"I love a man who plays rough," she sneered, getting to her feet as a spinning kick arced at Ichiban's head from her friend, fast enough to sound like a whip-crack in the air.

100 – Snap
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Leave only footprints, take only the sights that you see. It's a natural maxim used to ensure that historical sights are preserved, but memory is a fickle thing...a picture can say it a lot better. This simple camera is capable of printing out vivid photographs with no need or film or development, working on a set of simple runes taken from the Sheikah Slate. These photos can be hung up later as well! If you were to connect this to a Sheikah Slate, you could also easily use it as a 'range booster' for its camera function, allowing you to zoom in from far off onto wherever you wish.

It collided off his force-field, a sound like a gong being struck as it endured. Defensively he was fine with that, though he couldn't stick around. Once Rina got done with Mord's crew he knew her hits were going to be in a whole other league, and these two seemed built to stand up to what his fists could dish out. He felt his hand filled with what appeared to be one of those old polaroid cameras, and he tossed it aside without a second thought. He needed his hands free to fight, and his instincts told him it wasn't going to be any help getting out of his current situation.

It did seem to distract the girls briefly, their eyes tracking the object skidding across the floor while Ichiban flicked his wrist and summoned forth a reliable length of magical bronze. It fit comfortably in his hand, and he felt it synchronising with his magic, eager to respond. He barely even needed to focus for his lightning-charged mana to crackle down its length.

"Take this!" he yelled, raising it high overhead and leaping between the girls, swinging down between them. He wasn't out to bash someone's skull in with this thing, instead the lightning detonated outwards in a crackling wave that surged up both amazon's bodies from their bare feet to their now puffing up hair.

Twitching and stunned, they couldn't stop him racing out the door, heedless of the spreading chaos in his wake as the beautiful workers of the Entertainment District were roused to battle, few even understanding what was going on but simply following their own bloodthirsty instincts and attraction to trouble.

A voluptuous older woman in an abbreviated kimono hanging off a flabby old man. A tight-bodied girl in a corset gyrating by the entrance of another sinful establishment. A classic bunny-girl that had to have gotten inspiration from the Playboy look holding a signboard. They all turned to see the guy scrambling out of a place with sparks of lightning still flickering and sounds of chaos and indignation behind him, their sultry expressions morphing into ones of violent leering intent that guys in the yakuza spent hours practising in front of mirrors even if they didn't admit to it.

They just looked at him and knew his was a face that needed punching.

A thrown stiletto bounced off his force-field, kimono girl shaking her long hair free and holding a set of narrow blades between her fingers that had previously been maintaining her classy updo.

"Get him!" that corset clearly didn't inhibit movement as the short-haired girl wearing it leapt high in the air and came down in a thunderous overhead kick.

Not so thunderous as the lightning-infused upwards swing that knocked her off course and sent her rolling across the street in a twitching electricity-crackling heap. He couldn't stick around though. Not when bunny-girl was revealing that her signboard advertising a nearby casino also concealed a wicked looking naginata.

He turned and ran, weaving instinctively as more thrown stilettos bounced off his cloak, the protectiveness of it better handling light thrown objects than it had the punch of a frog shooter's tongue this morning.

An alley offered cover, getting off the main street where he might be able to lose some of the heat. Feet pounding he ran, only to realise his mistake as the wall ahead of him exploded outwards, a body hurtling through it to impact the other side of the alley and collapse in the rubble. He'd went around the same establishment he'd been fleeing from, and Rina had finally had enough as Mord struggled to get up from the crater he'd landed in, only to collapse bonelessly with even his impressive physique giving out from the beating he'd sustained.

"Ichiban… why are you still here?" he grimaced, blood pouring down his brow and covering one eye, the other looking his way. Through the shattered wall the rest of the Ogma familia could be seen laying about just as bad if not worse, although at least Rina was the only amazon still standing.

And she looked pissed.

"Good," she cracked her bloody knuckles. "Now I don't have to hunt you down. You should have just stayed and enjoyed the party like a good boy, Ichiban. Now though? I'm going to hurt you before I drag you to Lady Ishtar."

His shoes scuffed back and he braced himself as Rina stepped fully over the broken wall and faced him, Mord and the rest of his familia already beaten and beneath the amazon's notice. Even the girls who'd followed him to the alley backed off in the face of the higher levelled warrior's aura of violence. She'd handle this, and their contribution would be as pointless as that of the other groaning amazons scattered around with Guile and the rest, that was the kind of gulf that existed between differently levelled adventurers.

But Ichiban Kasuga wasn't an adventurer. He didn't have a level. There was no number that defined a hero.

"Guys. I could really use some help right now."

"Bring it!" he yelled back, psyching himself up and readying his mysterious nameless weapon.

The force-field spider-webbed with cracks as Rina's fist impacted it, moving with the same speed he'd seen when she'd transitioned from Guile to Mord back inside, but there was none of the sensual grace to her movements now, just pure brutal efficiency. He'd raised the force-field as soon as her eyes narrowed, but even then it was a close thing. And her hit may not have been on Yankimaru's level, but nothing else he'd seen today had otherwise even marked his force-field.

And dimly he realised she might have been holding back. She didn't want to kill him after all.

The cracks were beginning to fill in, but it didn't matter, as Rina struck out again with a palm strike that saw his force-field shatter inwards and break apart into nothingness.

400 - Ghoul Stone Velvet Bag
Kamen Rider Neo-Heisei Part 2
The strange shop you've gotten all your toys from appeared to have this in a hidden section, but, it looks like you finally got it. This small bag, like one used to hold marbles, has a magical seal on the front. When you look inside, you can see a series of ashy stones...By throwing and shattering one against the ground, a loyal Gargoyle-like beast is created! These are "Ghouls", creatures of despair that serve powerful Phantoms...however this bag gives you ownership of the Ghouls created from the stones inside the bag. The Bag itself can convert valuable gems into Ghoul Stones, at the very least they must be a precious stone to be turned. These ghouls are hardy warriors, resistant to small arms fire and explosions with only magic and supernatural energy guaranteeing easy defeat. You start with 30 Ghoul stones in the bag, which should let you repel many threats in this world!

A bag appeared in his free hand. He really didn't want to deal with another bullshit item right now, there was no time to make sense of it even if it had infinite snacks or something cool like the water bottle, because Rina had gotten past his force-field and she was rearing back for another punch. He just threw it, reflexively flicking it forward only for the amazon's fist to crash through it, a meaningless distraction and insubstantial barrier between Ichiban and her wrath.

It exploded. Fabric bursting apart to release a buckshot-like spray of pebbles which went flying to strike off the walls and ground of the alley, scattering past Ichiban out onto the street. Some hit him too, which stung, but hardly rated compared to what ensued as every stone that struck a hard surface exploded out into a rock-skinned figure with what looked like veins of glowing yellow magma seeping through from underneath. Their heads were mostly featureless, sort of bug-like with lines more suggestive than factual of eyes and mouths, with horns or antennae looking things sticking out from their foreheads.

Rina was staring, her murderous rage stalled by sheer confusion at the couple dozen new creatures appearing in the alley and street and making weird chittering noises.

Ichiban decided to take advantage of it, yelling, "Get her!" and pointing at Rina, trusting that these things would be loyal to him since they appeared from one of his weird spirit blessing items.

"Oh hell no," Rina said before she found herself dog-piled by enthusiastic rock-men. The way they moved and the noises they made kind of made him think of the disposable hench-mooks you'd see in a sentai show, which didn't exactly bode well for their capability. And indeed despite them basically burying her in bodies, he saw her fist burst clear through one of them, which shrivelled away into white dust not entirely dissimilar to the monsters he'd fought in the Dungeon earlier.

The other amazons who'd been content to watch Rina beat down Ichiban leapt into action themselves, but their blows seemed less immediately effective on the rock-men and sheer numbers seemed to be buying a little time which Ichiban spent skirting around the melee and rushing towards Mord while letting his weapon discorporate into thin air, freeing his hands. "Quick, drink this!" he took out the red potion he'd received earlier, uncapping it and holding it to Mord's lips, which he drank down without complaint.

Vitality surged back through him and he rose to his feet, but looked wide-eyed at the brawl encompassing the rest of the alley. "What the hell are those?!"

"No time!" indeed based on the crunching noises and furious feminine growls, Rina was tearing through his distraction with aplomb. "We gotta get your guys up and out of here!"

The blue potion was health and magic right? It wouldn't be a full dose, but Scott and Guile at least seemed to be picking themselves up a bit, so Ichiban went and poured some down Ken and Izzy's mouths, the two groggily recovering as well. "C'mon we gotta get out of here, move, move, move!" he did his best to chivvy them into action while one of the lovely amazon girls he'd earlier had a nice conversation and drink with feebly tried to claw at his ankle.

What a shitty end to the night.

"He's right, we gotta run!" Mord smacked Scott's head when he tried to grab some of the money Ichiban had scattered earlier, the group fleeing out the broken wall in disarray as Rina furiously grabbed at the horns of one of the rock-men and pulled, splitting him apart like a wishbone.

"We could've done this nice Ichiban! We could've had fun!" she roared as Ichiban's face went pale and he started running. The sound of war horns split the air in the distance, echoing and spreading as if to raise an alarm while Rina's voice drifted through the alley after them with the crunching sound of rock being shattered. "Who am I kidding? This is fun!"

They just ran. Six of them, badass adventurers, self-proclaimed heroes, and they ran from the girl who'd earlier been sweetly admiring Guile's muscles and was now showing how little actual muscles mattered next to magical godly blessings.

Oh sure, Ichiban could say they were running from the whole Entertainment District, as if running from hundreds of girls was better for his ego, but no. He knew in his heart he was running away from Rina specifically.

"Holy shit that chick's scary!"

"Yeah, and Ishtar's got a hundred more just like her, so we're dead if we don't get out of here!" Mord grunted as he ran, kicking down some boxes stacked in the alley that were blocking their way, the rest of his bedraggled crew struggling to keep up.

It took them into a junction between alleyways, clothes-lines strung up overhead, this not really being a customer-facing part of the district. There were three paths to follow, one of them gave Ichiban a feeling like falling down a bottomless pit, while the other briefly gave him a flash of something like a fly struggling in a spider-web. "This way!" he pointed to the one path that wasn't giving him bad vibes, glancing upwards and talking to the birds he'd called on earlier, who thankfully he hadn't needed to throw at Rina because those rock guys volunteered instead.

"Knock down stuff along that alley!"

Hopefully it would throw off the trail for when Rina caught up, and as a flurry of flapping wings sounded, the rest of them followed Ichiban's advice on where to flee, navigating the alleys until at last they reached the wall surrounding the district. Ichiban had thought it kitschy when they arrived earlier in the evening, it gave the vibe of being like a cool pleasure fort or something. Now it was a formidable barrier between them and freedom, but also a goal. Get past this and you're home free, right?

"Can we just… go down to the gate? Act casual and walk out?" Ken asked breathlessly.

"No chance, once they started blowing those horns they're gonna lock the place down," Mord shot the idea down, looking up at the wall like it had personally offended him.

"I can blast it down with my spell!" Izzy spoke up, sounding excited at the idea. So was Ichiban actually, he wanted to see some magic!

"The noise'll draw them right to us! Maybe I can boost…" Mord looked to be thinking, but Ichiban interrupted with an idea of his own.

"I got it! Follow me!" he created a force-field in the air, laid out horizontally like a platform. It had supported one of those frog shooters earlier, he was pretty sure it could bear their weight. He pulled himself up onto it and stood up, before creating another force-field higher up and clambering onto that.

"Shit, nice thinking Ichiban! Lets go!" Mord climbed after him, and the rest all followed, the field shimmering with their weight but holding as Ichiban made more, climbing up them in series. Shame he couldn't jump like Mario because this might've made for a cool platforming experience, but mostly it was climbing rather than jumping, the experience drawn-out and nerve wracking because of it.

Still, they made it onto the top of the stone wall, the rest of Orario and its assumed safety waiting beyond. Before they could start descending the other side however, Ken called out in a panicky voice, "She's here!"

"You fuckers aren't going anywhere!" Rina's voice shouted up as she charged out of the alleyway they'd come from themselves. Her black hair and brown skin were both now a chalky grey, the dusty remnants of whatever those monsters had been clinging to her, and she didn't seem at all slowed down by it.

"Stall her!" Izzy hissed out, raising up her hands and beginning to chant. "Behold the shining wisdom of a learned sage…"

Whatever she was doing, Rina wasn't just going to wait for it. Ichiban had already dismissed the force-field platforms, but the height of the wall didn't deter Rina who leapt up, kicking off and vaulting onto a window-ledge one of the adjacent buildings, before soaring up to join them on the precipice.

Or at least that's what she would have done if she hadn't face-planted into a force-field Ichiban placed in her path. Her look of fury was quite something to behold as she slid downwards, whatever friction the barrier had holding her up for just a second before gravity dragged her the rest of the way to the ground.

"My arguments are threefold: Wisdom. Experience. Strength. Let those who fail to recognise be consigned to the darkness of ignorance," Izzy was still chanting, a look of intense focus on her flushed face while Rina landed below with cat-like agility, a ferocious growl ripping out of her before she slammed her fist into the wall.

Ichiban felt it shudder under his feet, but Rina wasn't trying to take it down. No, she buried her hand into the brickwork like it was soft clay and levered herself up, another shuddering impact as her other fist punched a hole in solid stone, dragging herself higher as she began to climb up the sheer surface with her own impromptu handholds.

"When the learned sage speaks, the wise shall bow their heads, for benightedness breeds calamity of which I shall make clear with my multitudinous arguments..."

She was making fast progress, and Mord positioned himself ready to meet her at the top with Scott and Guile flanking him, the three perhaps hoping to do better than they had on round one. But just as Rina's beautiful but enraged face crested the lip, Ken shouted, "Now!" and the three of them scattered.

"Tuiteam an Amadain!" Izzy yelled breathlessly, and an array of glowing golden spheres manifested all around Rina, suddenly slamming inwards with her at the centre and exploding with black sooty clouds. Rina shrieked and fell, plummeting back to the ground, as despite standing up to everything Mord's crew could dish out previously, the magic of their weakest member proved able to bridge the gulf between levels. Looking down Ichiban could see her laying there, one eye still open, glaring hatefully as a quivering hand reached up before she slumped, her inhuman endurance finally giving out.

Dimly he also realised, he could totally copy that spell Izzy had just done. Was it that easy, or was it one of his blessings?

"Nice fucking going Izzy, that's our wonder kid!" Mord cheered, slapping the girl's back. "Now come on, lets get the hell out of here before that draws the rest of the Berbera!"

Ichiban couldn't agree more, and it only took a couple force-field platforms to far more quickly hop down to ground level on the other side before they started running through Orario's night-time streets and alleys, soon putting the Entertainment District behind them.

They were somewhere north of the big tower when they finally came to a stop in a quiet street, no sign of any pursuit by now. Still Ken looked back and asked, "So are we totally dead now?"

"What? Nah," Mord puffed his chest out and waved off the idea, though it wasn't hard to tell it was mostly bluster. "That's a pretty tame night for the Entertainment District! We just… might want to not go back there for a little bit is all. But the Ganesha familia will have our backs if they start shit in the rest of the city."

"It's all my fault. Things were fine until I started talking about Ichiban's robot," Izzy burbled, her face scrunching up. "I should've known that kind of thing would make them freak out."

"Hey, none of that!" Ichiban reached over and patted her shoulder, "Can't exactly keep a big guy like Yankimaru secret, and you totally pulled your weight tonight!"

"Haha, I did, didn't I? I can't believe my spell knocked out a level three! Lord Ogma's going to be so proud!" she recovered, smiling and jutting out her chin with her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, plus when you puked on those girls, that really bought us some time!" Scott gave her a thumbs up, the rest of her familia smiling proudly even as Izzy herself cringed.

"You jerks, we won't tell anyone about that part!" she complained, but she was still smiling. Ichiban would take that as a win.

"But hey, what's your actual plan though? I dunno if the Ishtar familia's gonna give up on you after that, and there are plenty other scummy familias out there that'd try dirty tricks to force you into joining up," Mord spoke up to break the celebratory mood, giving Ichiban a serious look. "I'm not gonna give you the hard sell, but Lord Ogma's a solid guy, and we made a pretty good team tonight."

Ichiban met that look with a serious one of his own and nodded, "We did, and I appreciate it," he stuck out his hand and Mord clasped it, this time without the crushing grip from their first meeting as Ichiban looked into his eyes, "But you heard what I said about Arakawa, right? What he did for me when we first met, what that meant? That's a hard act to follow, and I'm not about to swear up with anyone else just on a whim, especially when I don't know how long I'm even gonna be here."

"You're a stubborn guy, Ichiban. Maybe that's why I like ya," Mord barked out a short laugh as he let go. "But even leaving aside familias, you even got anywhere to stay tonight?"

"I've still got some cash, I'll find an inn I can sleep at, doesn't need to be fancy," Ichiban waved the matter aside, he'd seen a few when exploring town in the afternoon. "Gotta meet up with Naaza in the morning, we're going into the Dungeon together."

"Huh, thought she was retired," Mord said in a surprised tone. "Well, maybe we'll see you down there. Figure you've had a hell of a first day in Orario, huh? We're gonna head off too."

And so they went their separate ways with good wishes, Ichiban finding himself a cosy looking inn to sleep in, the bearded dwarf sleepily hanging out downstairs taking his money and giving him a room with no questions. It was a very cosy and cute room alright, a bed with stuffed sheets and a rustic wooden frame… only problem is it was clearly built for someone shorter than Ichiban, and his feet stuck right out the bottom of the bed. At least the mattress was comfy, and he slept well.

A surprise came the following morning as he got up and prepared for his day, going through his pockets saw that the potions he'd fed to Mord, Ken, and Izzy last night had replenished themselves. Not endless like the water bottle, but refilling once a day? Just another handy little bonus he figured as he made his way to the Blue Pharmacy, seeing he wasn't the first person there.

"These new potions are even better than my usual ones, so you should buy some extra, I don't know how long I'll have access to these high quality ingredients so it's a limited supply that other adventurers are going to snap up," Naaza pushily tried to sell her merch to that white-haired kid he'd seen yesterday, the boy crumbling under her technique and leaving with an armful of potions and a lollipop sticking out of his mouth.

"Yo," Ichiban greeted them both, getting a mumbled greeting from the kid as he left and headed off for his own day of adventuring, while Naaza picked up bow of twisted black wood from behind the counter.

"Ichiban," she smiled, securing a quiver of arrows to her hip and stepping around to join him while Miach poked his head out and gave his own greeting. "I'm all set if you are, Lord Miach should be able to run the shop for today."

"Stay safe out there, both of you. Even if it's only the upper floors, anything can happen in the Dungeon," Miach said seriously, before he smiled and held out a lollipop to Ichiban. "Let me at least give you something to send you on your way?"

Ichiban took the berry tasting hard candy with a smile and the two of them set out, Naaza asking, "So any changes from yesterday?"

"Oh yeah, watch this?" with a grin, Ichiban flicked his wrist and the rod of mysterious brassy metal appeared in his grasp with a flourish. "No one's disarming me. And it helps me with my magic now too. I've decided I'm going to call it the Hero Mage's Staff."

Naaza looked at it, then back at Ichiban with a smirk tugging at her lips. "That's pretty small for a heroic staff, Ichiban."

"Yeah, but rod just makes it sound even dirtier," he laughed off her innuendo, dismissing the weapon with a shower of sparkles, "And it's too classy for me to call it a pipe."

"I still think you should think it over. What about wand? Or sceptre?" she suggested, the two emerging onto the more brightly lit street and following the same path Ichiban had taken yesterday morning.

"Wand might work… I wonder if I should just call it a bat, that's what it feels like when I'm swinging it around," he admitted, the two heading past that church and Ichiban noticing as Naaza abruptly shifted to stand on his other side as if she were shielding something with her body. Naturally he looked over her head at the white marbled building on the other side of the street.

"Don't look!" she hissed, grabbing his arm and hurrying him along. "That's the Dian Cecht familia pharmacy. There's no need to ever go there!"

Naturally that just made him look, it seemed pretty innocuous. Definitely screamed 'high class' compared to the shadowed alleyway front of the Blue Pharmacy. "You've really got it out for that Airmid girl, huh?"

"Don't tell me she's fooled you too?" Naaza asked disgustedly. "She'd swindle you in a heartbeat. A naive single man who doesn't know how the world works, you'd be easy prey to her tricks!"

"Oi, did you have to throw in single like that?" he asked, aggrieved as they nonetheless kept walking down the main street towards the Hephaestus familia workshop. "I was beating girls off with a stick last night!"

"The only way that happened was if you got in a fight with some amazons," Naaza scoffed, loosening her grip on his arm, and then double-taking at his caught-out expression. "Ichiban, what did you do?"

"Hahaha, well lets just say we should probably be careful around anyone from the Ishtar familia?" he laughed awkwardly, causing her to sigh.

"I shouldn't have let you leave the shop alone yesterday, should I?"

"Hey, it's fine!" he waved her off, "I made some friends. And today we'll have Yankimaru with us."

"I still don't understand what Yankimaru actually is," Naaza said, that mystery at least distracting her from the complete disaster of Ichiban's night out in the Entertainment District.

The mystery was solved when they went around the back of the shop to the yard he'd been with Tsubaki yesterday. In fact she was still there, using a forge under an awning up against the workshop wall, though she was joined by a red-haired woman wearing an eyepatch of her own, who was attentively following Tsubaki's work. And going by the intense fiery magic inside of her (compared with Miach who seemed kind of like herbal smelling without it actually being a smell when he'd seen him earlier) was surely another god.

Yankimaru was still flat on the ground where he'd been left, his ragged beard having indeed been tidied up into a kind of triangular cut-out that honestly kind of fit his aesthetic enough one could imagine it had been originally built that way.

"Yo, Ichiban!" Tsubaki looked over her shoulder with a grin. Her hair looked kind of lank and greasy, and he had a feeling she hadn't slept, though she still put plenty of energy into her greeting without actually getting up as she held a piece of glowing metal over an anvil with a set of tongs. "Got your boy Yankimaru looking good as new, don't you think?"

He grinned back at her, summoning the Hero Mage's Wand to his hand and pushing the command button, "Yankimaru, stand up." Naaza jerked back as the huge robot smoothly pushed itself to its feet while Ichiban continued unperturbed, "If blacksmithing doesn't work out you could be a barber, Tsubaki!"

She laughed boisterously at that, joined more demurely by the goddess who walked over towards them. "I had to come out myself to see what had my captain skipping off her other projects," she said, looking up at the now standing robot. "I must say I'm not disappointed, it's a fascinating device."

"Yeah, he's pretty badass, huh?" Ichiban agreed, glad his robot was getting the respect it deserved.

Naaza just bowed in greeting with a respectfully uttered, "Lady Hephaestus."

She was more polite with her than she was with her own god. Which made perfect sense if you thought about it for even a second.

There was a hiss of steam as Tsubaki quenched what she was working on before she got up and came over. She'd swapped her vest she had on yesterday for a set of breast bindings, and between her curvy figure and dark skin it was hard not to be uncomfortably reminded of the girls he'd had such an eventful evening with yesterday. She at least was utterly casual and focused on her particular passion as she said, "Yeah, when you get down to it it's not actually any more complex than that arm of yours, Miyal," she nodded to Naaza, reminding Ichiban of how Dian Cecht had called her Miyal Hound yesterday. It didn't seem to be an insult? Maybe it was a nickname, like Cyclops? Tsubaki kept going while he reflected on that, "It's just over-built to hell and back, and made of this really neat alloy. I haven't quite cracked it," and she shot a one-eyed glare at Hephaestus who was wearing a faintly smug smile, "But I'm gonna, without Lady Hephaestus's help! All the components are there to make a metal that comes close to adamantite out of just common ores."

"It's an ingenious technique, I'd like to meet whoever came up with it," Hephaestus put in, her own single eye looking at Ichiban curiously.

"Hey, me too," he answered with a shrug, "He just appeared. Stuff seems to keep doing that around me now." He wondered if any of the rocks that turned into rock-guys were still around from last night. Or that camera, what the hell had been up with that?

"A mysterious alloy, design pointing to an entirely foreign culture…" Hephaestus mused, looking up at Yankimaru again. "Are you drawing things from other worlds, or other times, Ichiban?"

"Wish I knew," he admitted. "I mean, I'm from another world, but this thing ain't from where I'm from."

Tsubaki and Hepheastus both gave him fresh looks of surprise at that, and oh yeah, it just hadn't come up with them, had it?

Naaza helped him out. "He just appeared in front of our shop yesterday, he tried to tell us about Tokyo and the Milky Way galaxy, but it didn't mean anything to Lord Miach and myself."

"Even the gods only know of Genkai and Tenkai, and there are even things here on Genkai that are mysteries to us," Hephaestus mused, seeming to take it in stride. "Like the Dungeon for instance."

"Yeah!" he nodded, seizing on that as more confirmation of his instincts being right, "And that's what I'm thinking, if there's a way back home for me it's gotta be down the bottom of the Dungeon, and I'm gonna find it!"

"And someone has to keep him out of trouble, so I'm going with him," Naaza put in with a weary smile.

Tsubaki seemed to like hearing that as she grinned and clapped them both on the shoulders, clearly knowing to moderate her strength because she didn't slam him to the ground like she'd absolutely be capable of. "Good for you! Get back on that horse, Miyal! And Ichiban, if you come up with any more neat things like Yankimaru, bring 'em my way. I'll pay good money to check 'em out, maybe even make you something new with what I learn!"

"I'm sure someone else can keep up with our commissions while Tsubaki follows her muse," Hephaestus added wryly.

Bidding a farewell to the legendary and divine smith duo, Ichiban and Naaza headed out onto the street with Yankimaru stomping away behind them. "They were really chill, huh?" he commented to Naaza, ignoring the looks Yankimaru was getting, and Naaza seemed inclined to do the same.

"What do you mean?"

"Well like, like you and Miach, y'know?" he elaborated. "Like I can just deal with you the same as anyone else. When I was out at the Entertainment District yesterday, things were fine at first, but then people started talking about my abilities and items, the tension went way the hell up, like they were desperate to force me into swearing up."

She nodded her understanding to that, "I get it. Lord Miach and Lady Hephaestus are focused on their businesses. Making medicine, or weapons and armour. Obviously the Hephaestus familia is far more prosperous than ours, but it's a comfortable niche either way. But the Ishtar familia is one of the top familias in town, and as famous for her warriors as she is for running the Entertainment District. Except the Loki and Freya familias stand well above her. There's more pressure to catch up and compete, so your blessings could be a short-cut to that."

"That makes sense," he nodded. "The top dogs have to fight hardest for their position. Back in the Tojo Clan the Arakawa family was always down like the, lower-middle. The boss had a rep that no one would mess with, but he kept things humble, didn't get involved with the politics up at the top…" he trailed off, expression twisting as he reconsidered, "Except now he's up at the top of the Omi Alliance. I don't get it."

"All the more reason to make it home and get some answers?" Naaza asked, getting a grin and a nod from Ichiban as they came onto the big plaza surrounding Babel. Again it seemed he was at the tail end of the 'Dungeon day' with most of the adventurers having already gone in ahead of them and the crowd thinning out.

Which made it all the more easy to see the curvaceous dark-haired vixen standing near the entrance to Babel, still wearing the same skimpy harem girl type outfit he'd last seen her in, except nicely cleaned up from all the grey rock dust of fallen soldiers… and a big-ass hammer now resting across her shoulders as she made eye contact with him.

Author's Notes said:
Izzy would make a great poundmate. 50% chance to either inflict stun or cast a big damage spell.

Lot of items being treated as disposable in this chapter, I'm not too mad about it. I almost re-rolled the ghoul bag due to my deep unfamiliarity with Kamen Rider – I couldn't even find any youtube videos showing how these guys emote/fight. But you know, they're basically putties from Power Rangers. I know putties, and they were perfect for a distraction in that situation.

Ebiris · Jan 30, 2025

Ichiban stopped short, Yankimaru halting behind him and Naaza taking a couple steps before she too stopped and looked back at Ichiban and then at the amazon now sauntering towards them. And she was sauntering. This wasn't a furious lightning fast charge nor the implacable stride of a killer robot from the future, this was a sexy hip-rolling strut that wasn't slowed down at all by the big hammer she was carrying.

"Ichiban," her voice came out in the same sort of playful purr she'd used when serving drinks, but he wasn't fooled as he nervously met her dark glittering eyes. "Did you forget what you were told last night?"

"Uhhh…" he let out a slow brainless noise as he replayed some of the dire threats she'd let out during that madly panicked dash for freedom.

Something smacked against his chest and he reflexively caught it, finding a bundled up stack of banknotes in his hand.

"We told you your night was free, remember? You flashy big spender, overpaying like that!" she giggled after having tossed the wad of money at him.

"Right," he coughed, "I remember that. Uh, what about the other stuff?"

"Hmm?" Rina tilted her head to the side and wiggled her hips playfully.

"You know, the stuff about… hurting me," he went on bashfully, feeling Naaza's expressionless yet undoubtedly disgusted gaze on him.

Rina did not help with her answer. "Oh Ichiban, that was just pillow talk! Lots of men come to the Entertainment District for that kind of thing, but we can take it slow if you prefer," she giggled coquettishly.

He was not going to retract his statement from last night. This chick was terrifying!

"What are you playing at, Harmothoe?" Naaza cut herself into the conversation rather than standing on the sidelines any longer.

"Miyal Hound," Rina greeted her curtly, leaving Ichiban wondering if Harmothoe was a nickname or a family name. "Not that it's any of your business, but I needed to clear up some misunderstandings with my dear Ichiban here. Last night he didn't quite get the level of hospitality the Ishtar familia prides itself on, and so I'm here to make amends."

"You started a fight and Lady Ishtar's mad you made her look bad," Naaza summed it up smugly, smiling at the way Rina twitched guiltily.

"Lady Ishtar felt I was overly eager in trying to express our hospitality to Ichiban. She explained it… comprehensively to me, last night," Rina bit out, her eyes gaining a far-away and haunted look which only reaffirmed to Ichiban that a personal meeting with this particular goddess would have gone badly for him. Still, she recovered after a moment, eyes clearing up and smile back in place to declare, "And that's why to make amends, I'm offering myself to you, Ichiban!"

Naaza made a choking noise and Ichiban wasn't far behind, his eyes dipping down over Rina's well formed body before he could help himself. "Uh, I don't think…"

"I meant as an adventurer of course," Rina said, her smug look making clear she'd seen where he was looking, "But even so, anything else is on the table. You're all paid up as far as I'm concerned."

"I don't think he needs a prostitute," well he thought that was really nice of Naaza to say, big step up from the 'single man' cracks earlier! "And as for an adventurer, I was going to take him into the Dungeon today."

"Huh, thought you'd retired," Rina gave Naaza an unimpressed look before shrugging apathetically, "Well, that's fine. We'd need a supporter anyway. Come on Ichiban, what do you say?" she turned her now smiling visage back to him, "I know you were impressed with what you saw last night."

Well. It was certainly true that he'd rather have her fighting with him than against him. And considering what Mord said about Ishtar having a hundred just like her? That wasn't something he could realistically fight if they just decided to spread out in the Dungeon and capture him down there. Gotta keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?

Besides, he felt bad himself about how things had gotten all twisted. They had been having fun before that, and Rina had been perfectly nice up until she decided to enact a forceful recruitment pitch. Maybe there was potential there, if they could move past that?

"Alright, but no funny business. Yankimaru gets real protective," he said, gesturing to the impassive brass robot looming behind him.

"Yeah, he looks tougher than those other guys from last night, although the level ones had a hard time cleaning all of them up," Rina admitted, looking up past Ichiban herself. "Also that bird looks like it's about to crap on his head."

He quickly turned around and saw that indeed, a familiar white pigeon had perched atop Yankimaru's head crest while they were talking.

"Pearl! You better not crap on him again!"

"No promises, sweet-cheeks, when a girl's gotta go a girl's gotta go!"

Grumbling, he stuffed the banknotes into his pocket and pulled out a smaller denomination coin. "First job for you Rina, go buy some nuts from one of the stalls down that way," he handed the coin to the nonplussed amazon, who looked at Naaza.

"That's a supporter's job."

Naaza frowned and looked at Ichiban, "Traditionally the supporter role is filled by the lowest levelled one in the group."

"Yeah well I'm the one you all want to follow and keep safe here, so at least do what I say," Ichiban huffed out as everyone tried to shirk responsibility. "You were happy enough serving drinks last night, Rina."

"That's totally different," she said in a sulky voice, but nonetheless she wandered off on her job, leaving him alone with Naaza. And Pearl and Yankimaru.

"Are you sure about this, Ichiban?" Naaza asked bluntly after waiting for Rina to get far enough away.

"Way I see it, I'm just going to keep attracting trouble and attention. If Rina's with us we can at least see what she's doing, and if we're a group that makes it harder for anyone else to try something," he explained. "There's no way I can fly under the radar with this guy around," he gestured at Yankimaru.

"I don't know what a radar is, but I take your point," Naaza conceded. "Just don't let her walk all over you."

He shook his head in amusement at that. "You're always warning me about women trying to take advantage of me!"

"Obviously," she nodded seriously. "Women are wonderful, but so dangerous."

"Even you?" he took the obvious opening there, and was rewarded with Naaza showing him the most warm and gentle smile he'd ever seen on her.

"Of course not Ichiban. I'm the only one you can trust completely."

He laughed, and after a moment so did Naaza. Yeah at least she was self aware. And it was to that happy mood that Rina returned with Pearl's future payment, which he tucked away for later and they started heading towards Babel.

"So what's the plan? When you go into the Dungeon you've always got to have a target in mind," the amazon asked.

"Well, yesterday I made it to the fifth floor, so today we can try for the tenth?" Ichiban suggested, figuring that'd represent a pretty solid pace of advancement.

"Taking a level three and a level two only as far as the tenth floor… I guess it's your second day so it's still impressive in a way, but the two of us aren't exactly going to get a workout," Rina blew out a gusty sigh and gestured at Naaza.

"It is his second day," Naaza agreed. "Although his progression isn't the same as someone advancing their falna, it's still good to take it slow and get to know each floor – you never know when you might have to struggle back up through them after something bad catches you at your deepest."

"You'd know all about that, huh?" Rina commented carelessly, causing Naaza's lips to purse up, but she didn't reply.

"Hey, you wanna see something cool?" Ichiban spoke up to defuse the tension that was starting to simmer after such a comment, summoning up the Hero Mage's Wand and focusing his intentions towards it, feeling something latch on in turn as a crude telepathic contact. He didn't have to chant or wave his hand, instead glyphs and sigils formed and rotated around the brass rod for a moment before his Hero's light bloomed forth, illuminating the spiral stairs leading down into the Dungeon with a heartening radiance.

100 - Glassteel Magic Foci (Merged with control rod from Dwarven Centurion)
Endless Legend
This featherweight staff allows the caster to channel rapidly without losing focus, and serves as an effective blocking tool. Three spells in the time of two, and parry any incoming attack without being distracted.

Also it felt a bit lighter in his hand, as if something had changed inside of it. Still seemed to have a good heft, but it'd be easier to lug around. Didn't stop him dismissing it however as both Naaza and Rina looked at the light. Them and the other adventurers further down the stairs who'd stopped to look back up.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Ichiban bragged, enjoying their reactions.

Rina nodded slowly. "Yeah, that's… it feels nice," she smirked and rolled her shoulders, "Like I could fight all day under this kind of light."

"Like you might actually be some kind of hero after all, Ichiban," Naaza said, but she was smiling and her steps were more confident now as they descended into the Dungeon proper. He was content to follow the same route as yesterday, and no one with him seemed of a mind to choose a direction otherwise, so they walked with other adventurers giving way to them.

They didn't even meet any goblins or kobolds before descending the stairs down to the next floor, where as tradition Ichhiban had Yankimaru walk ahead rather than behind. A twang of a bowstring was heard shortly into the second floor and he looked up and ahead to see a ceiling-crawling lizard ahead of them discorporate, a second arrow catching its friend before it could react and leaving two magic stones tinkling to the floor along with the arrows themselves.

"That light of yours really is useful," Naaza said approvingly. "Some parts of the Dungeon are naturally bright, but most of it's gloomy. Seeing it lit up properly makes for a welcome change."

"Yeah, most people don't bother with torches since it's enough to see by, but you can really tell the difference with this. How long can you keep that up, Ichiban?" Rina asked as they kept on, Naaza scooping up both stones and arrows.

"I'm not sure," he admitted, "Like it gets a little bit tiring after a while, and if I have to make force-fields and stuff that'll wear me out faster, but I had it going for a couple hours yesterday before it started to feel like a struggle."

"Let me know if you need a break, I've brought mind potions as well as healing potions," Naaza offered, making Rina smirk.

"Aren't you a natural supporter? You'd be in demand for any expedition if you left your shop more."

"Maybe I will," Naaza said, loftily rising above the bait, "Someone needs to actually be prepared for an expedition."

Yeah, Rina didn't exactly have a lot of room for pockets on her getup. At best there was a little leather pouch strapped to her thigh, although it looked more like the kind of thing he'd seen waitresses keep their notepads in more than a store for potions or monster drops.

Naturally while he was thinking that she caught him looking at her and smiled wider. "You a leg man, Ichiban?"

"No comment," he coughed awkwardly.

Which of course meant that when a couple of goblins burst out of the wall ahead of them, Rina made a point of kicking them to death. "One time, I popped a minotaur's head between my thighs," she trailed her fingers along the luscious brown leg still extended out from where she'd kicked a goblin's head off. It had managed to loudly splat the wall before fading into black smoke along with the rest of its body. It still left a stain.

Naaza looked disgusted and Ichiban had to work to keep his poker face on. Still scary, but… c'mon!

When they next ran into a group of kobolds, both women looked at Ichiban as if to say it was his turn now, and he obliged. "Yankimaru, kill those kobolds."

He certainly did the job, pulverising them one by one, completely ignoring their ineffectual attacks on him. But they were actually able to attack him, in contrast to how neatly Naaza and Rina had handled their monster sets. Powerful and tough as Yankimaru was, he was definitely slow compared to elite adventurers.

"Definitely stronger than the rock monsters," Rina said when he was done. "What was up with them anyway?"

"I dunno, they just appeared at the right time though, huh?" he returned, not really sure himself. He wondered if any of the rocks that didn't transform were still floating around and if anyone might trigger one at some point in the future.

"Mmmn," Rina hummed at that. "And what about the other thing? The, uh, picture taker?"

So someone found that and figured out how it worked? He hoped it was just a camera and didn't steal people's souls or something weird like that. "The camera? I don't really know, it just appeared and I didn't have time to deal with it, was focused on getting past your buddies, y'know?"

"Everyone was going crazy for it. Lady Ishtar had to step in when Phryne tried to claim it for herself, it sounded like there was going to be a riot, but I only really caught the end of it," Rina admitted, shaking her head.

"Excuse me, but what picture taker? Camera?" Naaza interrupted, looking annoyed at only understanding half of the conversation.

"It's this little box, you hold in your hand and push a button, and it spits out a picture of whatever you're pointing it at. Like, a perfect picture, exactly as you'd see with your own eyes. And it doesn't run out of paper, girls were running wild taking pictures of themselves with it before Phryne tried to steal it," the amazon explained, growing more animated and gesturing with her free hand, "Lady Ishtar declared it to be a treasure of the Entertainment District, she says it'll revolutionise how we promote ourselves… kind of calmed her down over what kind of a disaster the night was otherwise," the look she shot Ichiban was at least chagrined enough to show there was some guilt in there.

Maybe something good came of it after all? "Being able to show off pictures of your girls is a good way of pulling people into the club. That's how they did it back in Kamurocho, you'd see signs and billboards advertising their talent," he said, not begrudging the camera finding a home with people who'd appreciate it. It's not like he'd have a great use for it if he'd kept it.

"Yeah!" Rina nodded brightly. "Some girls get paintings done, but they're a pain to sit for, and there's something so real about those pictures this thing makes, even if they're small it just grabs your attention like nothing else!"

"So that's why you're latching onto Ichiban, to get more treasures like that?" Naaza interrupted with a scoffing noise.

"Well yeah, you're doing the same though, aren't you? What else would pull you back into the Dungeon but a once-in-a-lifetime kind of score like this?" Rina fired back shamelessly.

Once again he had to try and play peacemaker between them, lest Naaza end up battered like Mord was last night. "Hey, I don't really mind. Tsubaki's doing the same, even if she's not coming along she's paying for stuff I bring her. It's all just appearing without any real reason, so I'm fine with sharing. I just don't want to get tied down or taken advantage of, y'know?"

Once again he could see a calculation shift behind someone's eyes when he mentioned Tsubaki. She was a real good person to have backing you up, it seemed like everyone in town considered her a big deal. But Rina just smiled and waved it off, "That's fine, but the offer's always open. Just having a falna will make you fitter and stronger even if it takes a long time to level up anywhere meaningful."

"I think I'm doing okay with the magic. In fact let me handle the next monster too, I want to try something," he said, feeling compelled to show off, as well as try something out.

The next monster turned out to be a trio of dungeon lizards, clinging to the ceiling and seeming unaware that their ambush had been spoiled by Ichiban's light. He summoned his wand – he was starting to get used to calling it that, and if he was doing a lot of magic there was no reason not to lean into it.

He thought of Izzy's spell he'd seen last night, and the device latched onto his intentions. He didn't need to spout off the grandiose chant she'd done, it all got automated by the wand which spun up more magical glyphs around it, spinning a bit like hands on a clock, or tumblers in a lock clicking into place. When the last one formed, it quivered in his hand, making clear it was ready and waiting for release.

A swing forward and a cry of, "Give 'em hell!" caused several glowing orbs to manifest amidst the lizards, hovering for an instant before they lanced into the nearest targets and detonated with sooty black clouds, a tinkle of magic stones tumbling to the floor in the aftermath.

"That's that Ogma brat's spell!" Rina blurted out, eyes wide. Of course she'd gotten a very up close and personal view of it last night.

"Hehe, yeah," he grinned proudly, resting the brass rod over his lion-draped shoulder, "I can copy any spell if I've seen it."

Those were definitely impressed looks he was getting from Naaza and Rina!

"That's even more insane than Thousand Elf!" Rina said, staring dumbfounded at him. "Do you know any healing spells? I know some girls that-"

"Dea Saint," Naaza interrupted, causing Rina to jerk in place and nod.

"Yeah, if you're talking healing spells it's gotta be her or Vana Mardoll," the amazon agreed.

"Dea Saint," Naaza repeated firmly, looking up at Ichiban past the stray lock of hair which continually kept falling over her eyes. "You can't trust the woman but you can trust her spell. For this I'll give my permission to visit the Dian Cecht pharmacy."

"Gee thanks," Ichiban muttered, not really liking that she feels it's something he needs permission for, but still having a good healing spell in his arsenal would definitely be a step forward on the path to being a hero.

Naaza just nodded as if his thanks were sincere. "I'll show you my spell later. It's not very good, but you might get some use from it."

Rina shrugged herself after that, "Don't look at me, I never picked up any spells."

"It's not always good when you do. You'll understand when I show you mine," Naaza said in an unhappy tone as the group descended further.

There were more goblins and kobolds and lizards, but Naaza refrained from using her spell on any of them, insisting it wouldn't be worthwhile. It wasn't until they were back on the fifth floor when they spotted some war shadows lurking down a tunnel, Ichiban's light making them stand out rather easily when Naaza told him to watch.

"Broken thing, falter and accept ruin. Darbh daol!" she gestured forward, her chant considerably shorter than Izzy's, and at the conclusion of it a mass of black dots descended over the shadows, clinging to them and causing their loping rush towards the group to slow, their movements turning sluggish and uncoordinated.

Naaza herself slumped, coughing and looking haggard. Still, she drew her bow and nocked an arrow, letting it fly through one of the shadows before two more followed, cleanly killing the monsters. "It weakens what it strikes, but it causes a backlash on me as well," she coughed again, "Be careful how you use it."

"Yeah, I'll just stick with hitting stuff," Rina shook her head. "Although I guess I'm starting to get a little nervous taking Ichiban down here, war shadows kill a lot of level ones. Make sure you don't get snuck up on, okay?"

They waited a moment anyway, Ichiban fretting over Naaza before she insisted she was fine. It was also marked by Ichiban learning another… spell? Mystic technique? It seemed like it'd be pretty good for sealing away demons, but isn't that usually the thing done by people in the past before the hero has to solve things properly when they inevitably break free?

200 - Ma Fu Ba
Dragon Ball Super
An old technique originating on the dinky little planet called Earth, yet somehow still scarily effective even at the heady heights of power this place reaches. The Mafuba that you have learned is a mystical technique created to seal away other beings, originally demons but it works on any being. With the incantation, proper movements and expenditure of a great deal of personal energy, you are able to activate the Mafuba and suck away a target being in front of you to seal them inside a prepared container. Any container that can be sealed tightly with a special seal tag, which you are aware of how to make, can work even if you use something like a rice cooker. It can be difficult to aim the technique, especially when using a small container and you are vulnerable to being interrupted or having a different being jump in front of your target, so careful planning can be required to have the technique work. Once sealed, they can only be released by opening or breaking the container the target was placed in.

Either way he'd need to actually draw up physical seals for it, it wasn't something he could cast on the fly even with the Hero Mage's Wand to help. Actually, could he seal Yankimaru into a bottle, then just crack it open when he needs him? That's an idea worth considering!

He filed that away as the group proceeded further into the Dungeon. Between his magic light and all the extra sets of eyes, he didn't even need Pearl to act as a scout. Rina and Naaza were plenty enough by themselves to spot any approaching monsters, and either Naaza would snipe them, or Yankimaru would be sent forward to crush them. Nothing down here seemed capable of doing any damage to the robot, and they made good time to another set of stairs descending deeper.

"Feels weird," Rina commented as Ichiban picked up the magic stones from some frog shooters, "Usually you'd want to let the weakest one here do all the fighting and just step in if it's an emergency, make sure they actually gain experience for their falna. But Ichiban doesn't work that way… how does it work, is it a timer? Response to stress?"

"I don't know, I talked to Miach about it yesterday, trying to figure out a pattern, but we couldn't find one," he admitted. "Still though, I don't mind fighting. I need practice even if I'm not levelling up on the same system you use."

The ladies agreed with that, though it still felt a bit embarrassing when they ran into a group of four war shadows and Naaza shot three with arrows before pointedly lowering her bow and allowing Ichiban to have at the last monster still heedlessly charging forward without any care for the deaths of its allies.

Its claws struck the force-field right in front of Ichiban's face, as if it had been attempting to gouge out his eyes. The field rippled but held as the monster pressed down with single-minded focus, not even trying to get around. He didn't want to be stuck beating on it for a while and feeling inadequate next to the one-shot-one-kill efficiency Naaza had displayed, so he twirled his chunky metal wand around to wind it up while charging it with electricity, before his own strike went clean through the force-field and struck the shadow's head with a lightning-charged detonation that saw it topple without a head and fade away into mist.

Naaza nodded approvingly, Rina grinned, Yankimaru radiated his usual impassivity, and Pearl cooed softly.

He'd take it. Although that magical effort had tipped him past the point of comfort, an ache building in his temples from the strain that had slowly been building while keeping up his light spell. He groaned and rubbed at his head, the light fading to return the Dungeon to its usual gloom. "Ahh, sorry, that was actually kind of a strain," he admitted. "Naaza, you got one of-"

He was cut off by a cracking sound from all around them. He felt magic flaring from their surroundings as a veritable swarm of giant red bugs tumbled out of the walls on every side, a tidal wave of chitin and pincers descending on them.

"Shit! Monster party!" Rina yelled, unlimbering her hammer from her shoulder for the first time today and crushing the head of one before she kicked another back with enough force it practically exploded. It hardly made a difference against the swarm, he couldn't even count how many there were, it was no comparison to the groups of at most half a dozen he'd encountered thus far.

Pearl was flapping her wings and staying up near the ceiling, while Naaza's face had turned ashen and she cringed backwards.

"Yankimaru, kill the bugs!" he yelled, pressing down the speaker button on his rod before he swung it forcefully down on the head of an ant coming his way. The shell cracked, but that was all. At best he'd stunned it, and three more were practically crawling over it to get at him.

There was an explosive release of steam. Not like the usual ones Yankimaru puffed out when moving around, but something directed, like the breath of a dragon surging down the tunnel. It passed over ants that shrivelled, flipped on their backs, and puffed away into mist. One of their flanks cleared in a single move from the mighty giant robot, but still three sides of hell bearing down on them.

"Stop fucking spacing out, Miyal!" Rina's voice sounded out furiously as she hammered down on ants, and Ichiban had a mental disconnect of imagining a cute girl like her in the arcade playing one of those whack a mole games, bopping plush heads with a foam hammer.

Yankimaru had turned, sweeping his axe through the ant-swarm, cleaving open more space as nothing was able to stand up to his power. Naaza meanwhile jerked at Rina's rebuke, her expression firming up and she leapt back into the space cleared by Yankimaru's steam blast, landing amidst a field of glittering purple stones and loosing a volley of arrows, each one sinking deep into an ant's carapace and causing it to burst an instant later.

Ichiban was hard pressed just trying to beat them back, each one struck was only slowed, passed by two more before he could get any kind of finishing blow off. Mandibles sunk around his calf and he jerked his leg free, a rip in his pants and a burning sensation of pain that told him blood had definitely been drawn.

The pain at least clarified things. The ache he was feeling from stressing his magic was something he could work through. Something he'd have to work through or he'd be feeling a hell of a lot worse.

50 - Tier One Talisman (Iron)
Endless Legend
A magical necklace that provides bonus depending on the material used.

Iron: Increases the speed the wearer covers ground at roughly double the speed. This does not increase overall agility or reflexes, just how quickly they can chew through distance.

Dust: Grants the wearer regeneration. Bruises vanish in hours, not days, broken bones heal in days, not weeks.

Titanium: Fortifies the mind and resolve, helping to resist morale shaking effects and mind control.

Glassteel: Helps the wearer predict flight paths and improves over all accuracy. Go from a fifty cent piece to a quarter.

He felt something around his neck, a brief coolness of something metal on his skin, but he didn't give it any more attention. A force-field formed between him and the swarming ants. He tried something new with it though, pushing the feeling of his lightning-charged mana into the field.

His vision blurred, but the field crackled and discharged shocks into the ants when they tried to push through it, sending them reeling backwards.

It bought him a little time, pulling his potion bottles out of his pocket, he dropped two back in and kept the blue one, popping off the lid and emptying it down his throat. Instantly he felt refreshed, his vision clearing, the pain in his leg vanishing.

"Alright, lets go!" he yelled, leaving the ones penned in by his force-field alone for now and moving towards Rina with speed that almost had him stumbling in surprise, but he kept his pace and wound up an overhead swing that dropped onto one ant with a thunderous discharge of electricity, annihilating the one he struck and sent the ones around it flying.

"You've got to kill them!" Rina shouted, stomping her foot on a reeling ant and going right through it just as easily as she had those rock-men last night. That sounded pretty obvious to Ichiban, and she probably realised that as she added, "The wounded ones summon more!"

Though as if summoned by her words, he could see now the glowing red eyes of more ants, emerging out of the gloom down the tunnel past where Naaza was still firing.

That lightning field might be doing more harm than good, but he kept it up as he ran back that way, finding that the crackling electricity interfered with him no more than the force-field did as he swung through the barrier, caving in the skull of a twitching ant. That still didn't kill it and he had to strike again to finish the job. Those reinforcement ants were getting close fast.

Naaza was efficiently killing one with every shot. Yankimaru was cutting a swathe through several at a time with his axe and ignoring the ones that vainly tried to nibble on his nigh indestructible heels. Rina was just as much an avatar of carnage now as she'd been last night. And he was struggling to properly exterminate bugs. If there was a weak link in the team, it was definitely him.

It pissed him off.

"Raaagh! Come on, just die you stupid bugs!" he yelled, winding up another lightning-charged overhead swing. The ant he struck exploded, and he felt affirmed as a man. He repeated the technique. Again, and again, disposing of ants stuck behind a shocking force-field they couldn't hope to push past and threaten him.

"Ichiban!" a shout from Naaza and then she was there, a dagger in her hand as she plunged it into the skull of the lead ant skittering towards him. The reinforcements had caught up while he was distracted killing bugs that couldn't even fight back. More were behind that one, the reinforcement swarm not as thick as the initial assault but it seemed just as endless, stretching out into the darkness of the tunnel beyond. He wondered if the other side was similarly beset, but Rina and Yankimaru could surely hold down that flank. In fact the hissing release of another jet of explosive steam seemed like it would probably settle things decisively there, while Ichiban turned to help Naaza hold this front. Her quiver was empty, but she wielded her dagger like a pro, and even put down the odd ant with sharp bare-knuckled jabs, her mouth set in a firm line and her eyes focused.

He felt like an amateur next to her, swinging around a hunk of metal that clearly hadn't been built as a weapon. But still he did his best, infusing lightning into his swings to kill the ants clearly, blocking them with force-fields to limit their movements and make it easier for the two of them, just hitting and hitting and hitting until he heard Yankimaru's stomping footsteps approach, the giant robot lending his deadly hammer-arm to the process and then Rina joined them, her own hammer putting a conclusion on it by crunching the last of the ants.

Ichiban was breathing heavily, sweat plastering his clothes to his skin. It felt like he'd been fighting for hours. The Dungeon floor was littered with glittering purple crystals, a testament to the sheer number of monsters they'd slain here.

A sharp slap rang out and he looked to see Naaza's face turned aside, a red mark blossoming on her cheek. It was the only mark she had on her from the whole thing. Rina appeared similarly untouched as she stood over the dog-girl. "Don't let me ever catch you freezing up like that again down here, Naaza!" she barked like a drill sergeant.

Naaza hung her head and didn't try to defend herself. "I know," she said meekly. "I let my guard down."

"Hey, we all did!" Ichiban spoke up to try and defuse things, getting between them. "I don't think any of us were expecting that, not after how straightforward everything else had been."

"That's how the Dungeon gets you," Naaza said. "It strikes when you're vulnerable, when you've extended yourself too far. If Rina hadn't been here…"

"Yeah, well I was," Rina said, looking around. "Good haul of magic stones for the upper floors though. A monster party's convenient if you're strong enough to handle it. The Dungeon must have forgotten I was here, Ichiban's magic running out was too tempting for it to resist."

"It does that?" Ichiban looked around the rugged stone walls, imagining the malice that must be behind them.

"Oh yeah. The Dungeon's not smart like a person is, but it has a will. And it's an evil one," Rina nodded firmly.

100 - Psychic Abilities - Psychic Invisibility (Hide)
World of Darkness: Sorcery
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.

The ability to broadcast a telepathic command not to notice the psychic. This power is not true invisibility, and will merely case the psychic to be ignored. Unless the psychic also possesses the Animal Psychic talent, animals are unaffected by this power.

[1] Hide - the psychic will go ignored by anyone who is not actively searching the area they are in, so long as they do not move, speak, or otherwise betray their position.

Corresponding with that, Ichiban felt another power form in his mind, an ability to stay hidden which he's not sure would work on the mysterious intelligence behind the Dungeon. Considering he had to stay still while using it it wasn't of huge use anyway, at least right now. Would've been handy for ducking into an alley and then just waiting when things went south last night.

"Well, I guess we're glad to have you with us," Ichiban gave the amazon who at least probably wasn't actively evil a smile which she returned before he set towards picking up all the magic stones that had fallen.

By the time the floor was swept clean his and Naaza's bags were both pretty full, and she'd retrieved her arrows. Rina, for all the good she was in a fight, didn't help at all with the clean-up. Not that she had anything to really carry stuff with.

"That's what you bring a supporter for," she'd waved it off when Ichiban asked. "If Naaza wasn't here I'd have hired one of the ones that hang around Babel looking for work, although most of the cheap freelance ones probably would've died in this fight if we'd brought one along." She said it so matter of factly, and even Naaza nodded her agreement.

"What about food and water?" Ichiban asked, uncapping his water bottle on that note and taking a long drink from it before offering it to the others. It was damn good, re-hydrating him and chasing away the fatigue in his arms from all that swinging.

"It's just a day in the upper floors, I'll have a big meal when we get out," Rina seemed unbothered, though she still took the water when offered, not making any comment on it as Naaza had a drink after her and returned it to Ichiban.

"I made some sandwiches this morning, there's enough to share but it won't be filling," Naaza said, getting a knowing smile from Rina. The amazon was then sidetracked when Ichiban threw out some nuts for Pearl, pouring some water into a depression in the tunnel to give her a puddle to drink from as well.

"Okay, I never said anything before, but what is up with the pigeon?" she asked, Naaza backing her up with her inquisitive gaze.

"That's Pearl!" he grinned, "She was my lookout when I went down here yesterday, and she must've liked it so much she volunteered again today."

"You did say you can talk to animals…" Naaza admitted, watching the pigeon peck around and enjoy her meal.

"What does a pigeon even say?" Rina asked, similarly staring.

"Not much, she kind of sounds like an old granny, so I guess she's getting on in pigeon years?" Ichiban admitted, "But she's a good lookout. Saved me from some war shadows yesterday."

It seemed neither of his companions were that invested in hearing the secret wisdom of the birds as there were no further questions and the group continued on, though their rest break while picking up all those stones had him feeling comfortable enough to reinstate his magical light, to Naaza's barely disguised relief.

Yeah, she was going through a lot. He wouldn't complain about how she handled herself in the fight earlier even if she'd taken a moment to get started.

They found their rhythm fighting monsters again from there, Ichiban allowing Yankimaru and the girls to take most of the lead so he could preserve his magic. He did test his new psychic ability when they ran into some cute little bunnies with razor sharp horns on their heads. It unfortunately did not work at all and the bunnies came right at him with lethal intent, requiring a force-field to block them at the last second before Naaza shot them.

"I don't know how that was supposed to work, but I don't think it did anything, Ichiban," she commented as she retrieved her arrows and the magic stones.

"Yeah, I think I need to already be out of sight for it to work. Kind of like a boost to hiding rather than a proper disappearing act," he said, glad at least the testing had shown that vulnerability now rather than in a situation where there were actual consequences. He wouldn't complain about another free ability either way!

The big change came when they dropped down to the eighth floor. Previously Yankimaru was just shy of scraping the ceiling with his head, but now it stretched high enough that even if he raised his arms up the robot wouldn't touch the ceiling. Gone too were the gloomy rocks lit by odd luminescent stones, instead the glow of phosphorescent moss clinging to the ceiling mimicked the sun, even washing out Ichiban's light. The walls were covered with more moss that wasn't so radiant, and grass covered the ground.

"You'll see goblins and kobolds again here, but they're a lot stronger than the ones you fought before. Not really much smarter at least," Rina warned as Ichiban looked around. He decided to stop maintaining his magical light – it was plenty bright here. Naaza bit her lip when she noticed it, but she gave him a nod as if to wordlessly communicate that she was okay.

"Still, it's a big change from how it looked up above. Does it do that every few floors?" Ichiban asked, setting off into the large chamber they'd descended into, currently appearing free of any monsters. It was deceptive, he could sense something ahead...

"Yeah. New environments, new monsters. It always keeps things interesting," Rina agreed with a smile, before she suddenly leapt high into the air and well ahead, landing hammer first to crush a needle-rabbit that had been hiding in the grass. "Like using the grass for ambushes!" she called as several more burst out of the foliage, charging the amazon from all directions.

Two fell to Naaza's arrows, and the other two were kicked and hammered into oblivion before they could find out if those horns would even pierce Rina's level three skin.

600 - The Traditional Way
World of Darkness: Sorcerer
Unlike true mages, sorcerers cannot use their powers effortlessly, or without foci. As a jumper, however, you will - or have - likely acquire means of sidestepping the requirements of sorcery, and other powers as well. With this perk, you may not want to. For every requirement that you can forgo but don't, the power is 10% more effective. This applies to other powers as well.

"Levelling up doesn't just make you stronger, it sharpens your senses too. Every advantage is necessary in the Dungeon," Rina said, what was surely meant to be a lesson to the inattentive.

He felt it would've been a bit pathetic to say he'd sensed them and had been about to say something. Even if he hadn't spotted them with his eyes, he knew something was there! The magic stones that powered monsters were easy for him to sense, even if the Dungeon could apparently cheat by generating them out of the walls when it felt like making some kind of point.

Ichiban felt like making a point of his own, which saw him start calling out potential monsters ahead whenever he thought he could sense them. Rina quickly caught on and started trying to outdo him by doing the same.

Considering she still managed to call some out before he could, it left Pearl's position in the team looking increasingly dubious.

He also tried his hand at fighting the 'improved' goblins when they showed up. They looked exactly the same, and had no more luck taking down his force-fields. But they definitely moved faster, and took several good hits to actually kill.

Or one hit if he used lightning. That was still proving a solid force-multiplier on his attacks that nothing they'd faced so far was able to endure.

It was easy enough for them to pass all of this through the similarly themed ninth floor before they descended onto the goal he'd impulsively set earlier. The tenth floor of however many this place had – he was betting ninety nine.

He was really hoping it wasn't two hundred and fifty five.

As for the tenth floor however, it was foggy. A mist diffusing the light from above and hazing out vision in the middle distance. The rooms were even bigger, a trend of further spacing out from the predominantly tunnel-based environment of the first few floors, and now the pale grass was further studded with unhealthy looking white leafless trees that poked out of the ground in places.

"Any new monsters to watch out for here?" he asked, looking around and getting his bearings.

"Lots," Naaza answered. "Bad bats fly, and can let out an awful distracting noise. Imps are small but sneaky, they like to do feints and ambushes. If one runs away don't chase it, I'll just shoot it. Then there's orcs, they can be as big as Yankimaru, and like him they're slow but really strong. Even I wouldn't want to be hit by one."

"Yeah, the Dungeon's starting to get serious now, but it's still easing us in. The next two floors look the same, but much stronger monsters appear on eleven, and the mist gets near blinding on twelve," Rina added. "Usually it takes adventurers months of fighting and gaining experience on the upper floors before they come down this far, so explaining this to someone new when we're actually here feels a bit weird."

"I getcha," Ichiban said, "I don't really want to spend years grinding on the early floors though, so… we just gotta keep pushing and hope I pick up enough new magic and stuff to handle what's down here."

"You'd definitely be dead if you didn't have a level two and a level three looking after you," Naaza unfortunately had to step on his admittedly half-assed reasoning.

"Ahh, come on! I think I sense some monsters that way, lets go see how we can handle them!" he gestured ahead and started walking, Yankimaru stomping after him before the ladies followed a moment later.

Imps as it turned out looked really creepy. Between their uniform black skin, spindly elongated arms, glowing red eyes, and habit of shifting between moving upright and skittering erratically on all fours, they triggered instinctive revulsion in a way that even those killer ants hadn't.

They were also the first monsters to actually try getting around his force-fields instead of bashing themselves fruitlessly against them. Not that it helped given who he had backing him up. Towards the end of the fight one turned tail and fled, though just as she promised Naaza put it down with a single arrow through the spine. As for the ones Ichiban tried whacking himself, he found them to be about as tough as the goblins from the more recent floors.

"Okay, yeah. Can see how those guys would be a problem," Ichiban agreed after their first fight on the tenth floor was over.

"Having an archer's handy at times like these," Rina nodded, cocking her head and glancing off into the mist. "Speaking of, good for bad bats too. There's a bunch over that way, but they're already fighting."

He remembered Ken's words about butting in and asked, "Should we check it out?" but regardless his feet were already carrying him that way. Even if they didn't interfere, it'd give him a chance to see those bats while they were distracted.

"Not unless they're in way over their heads," Rina said, but she jogged along with him, Yankimaru and Naaza following.

The noise was subtle at first. His head throbbed like when he was over-using his magic, that pain hitting him even before he started to hear the whining high-pitched shrieks. Naaza grimaced at it and Pearl cooed her displeasure, but Rina and Yankimaru seemed unaffected. It gave them plenty of warning as the mist thinned out enough to see the other adventurers being harried by the bats.

They flew around tauntingly out of reach, one or two diving in to try biting at their victims who were distracted by the noise and trying to keep track of the others flying around. Blood flew from the brow of a bearded dwarf guy who accepted the hit but closed his fist around the bat in turn, dashing it to the ground as he stomped and his human friend stabbed down with a sword to kill it.

"Hey, you need a hand?" Ichiban called over, wondering if it could even be heard over that awful subsonic screeching. It was just on the edge of hearing but still felt loud and deeply unpleasant.

"Piss off, we've got this!" the human guy shouted back, bracing up his shield as the third member of their group, one of those little halfling guys, jumped on and was given a boost to rocket him into the air, twin daggers flashing…

It would've been impressive if he hadn't simply sailed through empty space, missing all of the bats before he tumbled to the ground with an admittedly solid roll into recovery.

Well, if they could do fancy tricks like that they obviously weren't too hard pressed, so Ichiban shrugged at his companions who shrugged back and they picked a different direction into the mist, leaving the frustrating looking battle behind, and thankfully soon leaving the awful bat noises behind too.

"Most adventurers aren't down here to challenge the Dungeon and uncover its mysteries, they're here to make a living from bringing back magic stones," Naaza said as they moved on. "It's a very greedy and selfish profession."

He didn't like the sound of that. Shouldn't everyone be working together, helping out and learning from each other? Besides, he had two exceptions right here. "Well what about you two?" he countered.

"I'm a pharmacist," Naaza retorted proudly.

"I'm a prostitute!" Rina added with equal pride.

The look Naaza gave the amazon suggested she didn't see it as quite so praise-worthy a profession, but Rina was undaunted and Ichiban was forced to bow to their logic himself.

Regardless, they soon came across the last new monster of this floor. Even though Naaza had said they matched Yankimaru in size, Ichiban still couldn't help but imagine orcs as basically just being bigger goblins. Seeing the huge flabby pig-faced monster lumbering out of the mist was actually intimidating. But also it seemed a ripe opportunity to see Yankimaru cut loose against something his own size.

"Go Yankimaru! Cut him in two!" he called out dramatically, holding down the speaker button and gesturing ahead with a flourish. The orc bellowed a war cry of its own as the giant robot stomped forward, raising its axe-arm and bringing it down in a deadly slice that cut right through the orc's blubbery form before it even had a chance to strike.

Of course its two friends weren't so impaired, one rushing Yankimaru headlong while the other actually grabbed one of the trees studded around the ground here and uprooted it with a crunch of breaking rock, using it like a club. Knowing of course that Yankimaru wouldn't do shit unless directly told to, Ichiban had to hurriedly order him, "Kill the other orcs too!"

There was a hiss of steam as Yankimaru re-oriented and caved in another orc's big piggish face with a hammer-arm strike, before the tree club crashed against his arm, actually seeming to make the robot rock in place with the impact. It was the first time Ichiban had seen any hit draw a reaction, though it wasn't enough to stop the robot from retaliating, an axe cut from hip to shoulder ripping the last orc apart until all that was left were a trio of magic stones.

He rushed over and looked up at his robot's shoulder. It wasn't really damaged exactly, but… "That looks scuffed, doesn't it? Aww, they scuffed up my boy!" he moaned, seeing a scratched line defacing the blocky pattern decorating Yankimaru's shoulder-guard.

"I told you orcs were strong," Naaza pointed out as she followed and peered up as well.

"Yeah, and it's just a little scratch, that high up you can barely notice it," Rina reassured him. "If Yankimaru can handle that he should be able to endure most stuff down as far as Rivira. Generally you want to dodge orc hits because they're so slow."

He still didn't like it. Sure that hit probably would've killed him outright, but anything that didn't kill him he could fix up with healing potions. Yankimaru taking damage was permanent, unless Tsubaki could fix him. He resolved to start using his force-fields more to protect Yankimaru in battle as well. There was no reason to let little dings and dents pile up like that if he could avoid it.

"Sorry big guy, we'll be more careful with you," he promised, patting the robot's arm and looking up at its impassive face with its two-pronged beard testifying to a previous chunk he'd lost.

Guiltily, they proceeded onwards, finding more monsters to fight and defeating them without risk to Yankimaru. Ultimately nothing here was really a threat to the group, though Ichiban did figure out a further use for his lightning magic when he was able to project actual lightning bolts from his wand to strike bad bats at range. It was very satisfying to shut them up, and Naaza and Rina both seemed impressed with the new trick. It was certainly a lot easier and faster than copying Izzy's spell, although a single lightning bolt only stunned an orc while Izzy's spell one-shot it when he tried that.

They took a break to eat. Naaza's sandwiches thankfully not made with weeds despite what she'd said yesterday when Dian Cecht and Airmid came by. Though it felt exposed standing in the middle of a misty cavern like that, it was actually safer since their senses could still hear or magically detect stuff from a distance, while they were far off from any walls that monsters might suddenly burst out of as they did in the upper floor tunnels.

"So this floor's a lot bigger than the other floors, isn't it?" Ichiban asked as they wound down their meal and prepared to get moving again.

"Every floor's bigger than the last," Naaza said. "Supposedly the White Palace is bigger than Orario, and it keeps going from there."

"Seriously? How deep's that one?" he asked, remembering Orin name-dropping the place back at the Guild.

"Thirty seven," Rina chimed in. "I've been there as part of a proper expedition. It takes a lot of people to get that deep. The journey alone takes several days, so you need to bring supplies, and the monsters are a completely different class from what's up here."

"Geez, several days just to get down there?" Ichiban asked in disbelief. He remembered wondering about that yesterday too, "Can't you unlock like short-cuts or teleporters to get back down to the lower levels and pick up where you left off?"

They looked at him like he was an idiot. At least Yankimaru had his back!

"If there was something like that the monsters could use it too, it would cause chaos," Naaza pointed out.

Rina nodded and added, "Remember what I said about the Dungeon being evil? It hates us, it wants to kill everyone. There's no way it would put in something convenient like that."

"Ahh man, this is going to take forever!" he moaned and clutched his head, the reality of the journey ahead settling in for him in a way that a long night staring at the TV and clutching a super famicom controller couldn't prepare him for.

Naaza and Rina exchanged looks before the latter asked, "You're just now getting it?"

"This is all new for me!" he tried to defend himself, knowing he probably sounded like a dumbass thinking he could just waltz down the Dungeon that swallowed up everyone else, "Stuff that's common sense for you I'm just figuring out!"

A quiet sigh came from Naaza and she shook her head. "I suppose since it's only your second day it's not so bad. But this is why I suggested joining a familia at the start, it's not the kind of thing you can do alone or just over a couple of days."

"And even if you're thinking you can rely on the two of us, that only goes so far," Rina added to twist the knife. "I couldn't make it to the White Palace by myself. You've seen how much worse the Dungeon's gotten from the first floor down to here? It keeps on going like that."

The bad news kept piling up. He could really use that hero's light pick-me-up himself right about now! "I'll figure something out," he said, though he knew it sounded like vain stubbornness. "There's no telling what other kind of items or abilities I'm going to get that might help me break some of those limits," he'd gotten that amulet earlier that let him run faster, that'd make it quicker to cover ground at least? It felt like a small thing, but he kept going, looking for reasons not to become part of some other familia, "Besides, if I joined a familia they'd want me doing work for them, right? I'd just get tangled up in all their bullshit."

"This is work!" Rina stepped closer, her expression twisting, her voice sounding actually pissed. "You think any familia would complain about you going down into the Dungeon every day trying to get deeper and bringing back tons of magic stones? That's what we're all doing anyway, you idiot!"

It was hard not to cringe back from her, knowing what she was physically capable of, but still he held his ground. "Alright! I get it, those are just excuses. The truth is I don't want to join any other group before I settle things with the boss!"

"Your boss on a completely different world, who sent you to prison for eighteen years, betrayed his clan, and then shot you and left you for dead? That boss?" Rina asked disgustedly.

"The man cut off a finger for me," Ichiban insisted, unmoved by Rina's accurate summation of events. She didn't know the whole context. He didn't know the whole context. That was the whole point of getting home and getting answers. "I know there's more to it, and I'm not giving up on him until I hear the full story."

Rina made a face and stepped back. "Great. No arguing with fools. You got any material, Naaza?" she appealed to the other member of their group.

She only shook her head. "I think it's foolish, but… if I was separated from Lord Miach, I wouldn't want to join another familia even if it was convenient. I understand where he's coming from."

"That sounds great, but I bet Lord Miach would want you to do whatever it took to keep yourself safe, right?" the amazon countered, which caused Naaza to look away without mustering an answer. "Idiots," she scoffed after a moment. "Well fine Ichiban, you hit your goal for today, you made it to the tenth floor. What now?"

That was a good question. And one he'd rather be considering when things weren't so tense between the three of them. Physically they were all in good shape. He felt like his magic was a bit depleted, but he still had a potion to refill it if needed plus Naaza's ones. Going further was definitely a possibility, but doing so when there was this kind of tension in the group made him worry how they might handle an actual crisis.

"Lets go back up. It'll take as long as it did for us to get down here, and our bags are about full anyway. We've done what we set out for, and tomorrow we can try going deeper?" assuming either of them were willing to do this again tomorrow.

Rina nodded and voiced her approval, though. "It's a campaign, not a battle. If you'd insisted on pushing deeper just to rush it I'd know you hadn't paid attention to anything I'd said. Lets go."

"Lord Miach would be worried if I was gone too long today," Naaza added her own support for calling it a day, and so the group started working their way through the fog to find a staircase back up to the ninth floor.

100 - Play Dead!
Magi: The Adventure of Sinbad
Sometimes, when faced with an insurmountable foe with no avenues of escape, it can seem like there's nothing you can do but calmly accepting your own impending demise. Strangely enough, though, there's another option open to you – merely pretending to be dead. Indeed, you've developed a technique almost unique to this world where, by opening a tiny hole in your chest, you can drastically weaken your heartbeat to but your body in a death-like state. Though you'll only remain in this state for a few minutes, you'll appear to be dead to all but the most thorough of examinations, perhaps allowing you to deceive your foes and live another day. Unfortunately, you'll be rather helpless while in this state, so it's probably best to only use it as a last resort.

As they made that decision, Ichiban felt another ability dropped on him. Playing dead? Was it making fun of him? Sometimes it felt like there was some meaning to the abilities he got based on what he was doing or thinking at the time, and he wondered if this was some kind of commentary on the recent conversation.

They were walking through the mist towards where Rina said the nearest stairs back up were when the amazon suddenly paused and looked back, Ichiban and Naaza following. He couldn't hear anything, but Naaza stiffened after a second.

"Are those…?" she trailed off and readied her bow, which Rina prepared her hammer. He could make them out now, the magic of monsters approaching. Stronger than anything he'd seen so far from this floor. Then he could hear, the pounding of heavy footsteps, and deep bestial grunting and panting noises.

It emerged out of the mist, a furry bull-headed monster, what anyone would instantly recognise as a minotaur. Unbidden a memory of one of Rina's earlier boasts rose up in his mind even as an arrow punched into its chest.

It faltered, the impact enough to stall its headlong rush momentarily, but then it roared a loud bellowing noise of rage… and took another arrow through the roof of its mouth. Even that wasn't enough to put it down though as it resumed charging, two more minotaurs coming out of the fog on its heels.

"Yankimaru, kill the one on the left!" Ichiban ordered, seeing Rina was better positioned to cover the other side. More arrows kept coming from Naaza, perforating the one in the middle as it charged right into an electrified force-field Ichiban threw up to block it. That sent it reeling back before it lowered its head and kicked at the ground, preparing to charge.

That preparation was long enough for one of Naaza's arrows to land square through an eye, the beast seizing up and dropping dead, fading away into mist while Yankimaru met his target, a single stunning hammer-blow making it crumple, skull caved in and the corpse fading away.

The last minotaur was left to tangle with Rina, who knocked it back, stunned and reeling from a blow to the chin before she spun around and kicked into the air, her own descending hammer strike imitating Yankimaru's and splitting its head like a melon.

"Whew, nice going Harmathoe!" it wasn't one of them that spoke, but a stranger. A black-haired cat person emerged out of the mist at a run, sword in hand. She didn't have any armour, though that put her in good company with Naaza and Rina. Was armour just something you wore as a level one? Going by the magic he could feel on her, she was stronger than Rina, but not as much as Tsubaki. "Glad it was you and not some… okay what the hell is that?" whatever she had to say trailed off as she stopped and stared at Yankimaru.

"His name's Yankimaru, Alchat," Rina answered smugly. "I take it you have something to do with these minotaurs showing up on the tenth floor?"

"Ugh, it was Bete and those idiot twins, they played around and let them run off," Alchat growled, her annoyance over that eclipsing her surprise at Yankimaru's appearance. "We're all running around trying to catch them before they cause a bloodbath on the upper floors. You seen any others?"

Rina shook her head. "Just these three, but I'll keep an eye out. We can handle any minotaurs just fine," she said, hoisting her hammer back up over her shoulder.

That was good enough for the newcomer who nodded and said, "Okay, well I'm going to keep hunting. Later!" and then she took off, vanishing into the mist with impressive speed rather than sticking around to satisfy her Yankimaru-related curiosity.

"So monsters can move to unexpected floors, huh?" Ichiban asked, taking in this new development and going to pick up the magic stones dropped by the minotaurs. They were a lot bigger than the ones they'd picked up so far, maybe half the size of his fist. If they kept progressing like that it'd definitely be a pain to bring them back up in numbers.

"Sometimes, it's rare though. And minotaurs are usually too aggressive and dumb to run away, but I guess those three could do it," Rina said. "Definitely a bad look for the Loki familia, most people hanging out here aren't ready to handle monsters like that."

"Well, we can at least. Lets stay here a little longer, do some hunting of our own?" he suggested, cramming the last of the stones into his bag and clasping it shut, casting his eyes around and trying to sense for more powerful monsters like that through the fog.

They were fine with that, though Naaza complained one of her arrows had snapped. He was honestly impressed they'd lasted so well, he'd figured they were a one-use kind of thing, like bullets.

He couldn't sense any minotaurs immediately, though they set off at a brisk pace to cover ground quickly. Yankimaru was the one slowing them down, not Ichiban at least. But he wasn't going to leave the robot behind, especially considering its demonstrated minotaur-slaying prowess.

They wound up fighting a bunch more of the familiar monsters for this floor, but the closest they got to a minotaur was finding a chunky magic stone left on the floor, which Naaza dutifully collected. "The Loki familia must be in too big a rush to collect them, but it's bad practice to leave them around. Sometimes monsters eat stray magic stones like that, it makes them stronger and can create irregulars that far exceed the strength expected for their floor," she explained the rationale for her good deed as if there weren't valis signs behind her eyes.

An hour more of this passed before they called it a day and began their trek back to the surface. It definitely felt underwhelming taking the reverse of their earlier journey, being bothered by progressively weaker monsters as they ascended. That he could describe it as 'being bothered by' rather than fighting said it all.

At last however, they emerged back into the fading sunlight of Orario, his second day in the Dungeon completed, something of a party forming, yet still the true scope of the task he'd set for himself was becoming intimidatingly clear. The only thing he knew for sure was that he couldn't just poke at the Dungeon the same way everyone else had been doing for a thousand years. Not if he hoped to do this before becoming an old man himself.

Author's Notes said:
The tier one talisman was rolled randomly for its result of iron. When a perk offers varying options like that I'll either take the one most thematically appropriate to Ichiban (this was done with the Nanoha mana conversion perk) or roll it randomly. The titanium one to resist mind control would certainly have been more useful in this setting, but at least now he can run at a decent pace.

Ebiris · Feb 1, 2025

Pearl was given the rest of her nuts when they left Babel, joined by a dozen or so other pigeons that descended for the feast. She didn't seem to mind sharing, but Ichiban hoped she'd make the most of it. He didn't think he'd take her into the Dungeon again, she hadn't provided any useful warning and had been really upset by the noises those bad bats made. It just wasn't a place for an ordinary pigeon, though he still felt grateful for her help on his first trip. Those war shadows probably would've gotten a free shot against him if not for her, and he resolved to feed the pigeons before his subsequent Dungeon dives to show his appreciation even if she wouldn't be a part of the journey below any longer.

"So, we doing a three-way split?" Rina asked casually as the three of them walked up the street to the Pantheon, Yankimaru stomping behind them and attracting plenty of looks as usual.

"That's fair, we all worked hard," Ichiban didn't see any reason not to do it that way, nor did Naaza argue. Even splitting it, it was definitely going to be a ton more than he made yesterday. Once more Yankimaru was ordered to hold very still outside the building while they went inside, finding it a bit busier now as they'd ended their day around the same time as plenty of other adventurers, but things moved briskly enough and they soon found themselves in front of Rose, who was surely pleased to see him behind her professional demeanour.

"Mr. Kasuga, welcome back," she greeted, eyes turning towards Naaza and then Rina, "Have you found yourself a familia?"

Both women clicked their tongues at that, before looking at each other in amused surprise. Ichiban decided to ignore it. "Not really, but we've made a party anyway," he answered, lifting up his satchel and opening it as Naaza put her own bag on the counter, both bulging with magic stones.

Honestly he thought the amount was seriously impressive, but Rose took it in stride better than she had his modest haul yesterday. Maybe it was just normal for adventurers like those two? She weighed up their magic stones, the total haul coming to eighty four thousand valis, over half of which apparently was due to the three minotaur stones. Really put that killer ant swarm in perspective.

"Was Mr. Kasuga a help today?" Rose directed that question at his two companions, clearly trying to figure out if he'd just roped some higher level adventurers into baby-sitting him on a Dungeon trip for his own vanity.

Luckily they both nodded. "Sure, a lot of it was Yankimaru, but he was taking down bad bats with lightning bolts no sweat," Rina said with a shrug.

"I couldn't have gone back into the Dungeon without him, he was a big help," Naaza answered more seriously.

He just grinned in vindication as Rose accepted their word. "I see. Well, regardless of your mysterious circumstances, the Guild is ever ready to assist any who seek to battle the Dungeon. Good work today, Mr. Kasuga."

That felt kind of nice. Like getting a rare bit of praise from a teacher when he was a kid in school. He felt his cheeks heating up and he smiled wider while taking their money to divvy up between the three of them. "Thanks Rose. I'll see you next time," he said, handing over stacks of bills to Naaza and Rina as they walked out of the Pantheon.

At which point Rina leaned towards him with a shit-eating grin to ask, "So you're into the office lady type, huh?" as they passed the door.

"Rose Fannett has many admirers," Naaza added with a knowing nod, her expression bland but clearly hiding her own amusement.

"What? No!" he blurted out in embarrassment, stopping by where Yankimaru was waiting. "It just, you know, it felt really nice to be thanked so seriously."

"Aww, is little Ichiban feeling unappreciated?" Rina cooed mockingly. "You were a very brave boy today!" her hand reached out to pat his head and he swatted it away, uncomfortably aware she was only letting herself be swatted away. When a level three amazon wants you petted, you stay petted.

"Aaargh, gimme a break!" he grumbled in frustration, ordering Yankimaru to follow them across the road to the Hephaestus familia shop so they could offload their other drop items, a collection of goblin fangs and killer ant carapace fragments mostly.

The money they made suggested Tsubaki had overpaid for the drops he sold yesterday, but it still gave a nice bit of extra cash. The captain was nowhere in sight, but the tiger cat-person who bought the items was happy enough to take Ichiban's order for some custom metal-work.

"It needs to be something hinged that'll open up easily with space inside and hold shut when closed, and small enough to easily fit in my hand," he explained, knowing that he was basically asking for a pokeball to be made. "Thick enough it won't dent from being tossed around too."

It was seemingly a simple enough job for them to take on and wouldn't cost him much, and he paid extra to ensure it'd be ready for him tomorrow.

400 - Paid In Blood And Agony
MtG - Shandalar
Many of the most powerful Black magics carry a price beyond mere mana. Contracts with demonic entities or drawing upon the power of undeath can often cost a mage a portion of their life force, and even the mana-fuelled echoes of such acts carry similar prices. Likewise, a Lord Of The Pit will not stay loyal for long if not fed... and if you can't sacrifice other creatures under your command, it's quite happy to take a Wurm-sized bite out of you. But though everything has a price, that doesn't mean you have to pay the toll in such a way. Though you cannot simply ignore such debts, you have the unique ability to pay costs with anything else of equivalent 'value'. Where before you might have been forced to bleed yourself dry for an edge in battle, now you could instead sacrifice a portion of your knowledge, another creature's life, or perhaps even pay the toll through a vast expenditure of mana instead. The 'price' will be based on what your debtor considers valuable or not, but they will not try to cheat you out of more than they are due.

Weirdly while engaging in this transaction, he felt another ability come to him based on a different form of exchange. The ability to pay the costs of some of his spells with variant means. It meant he wouldn't need to find the hearts of five worshippers, a griffon's feather, and a calf born in spring if he wanted to summon forth a rain of blood for miles around. Instead he could pay with his own life force, or the life force of some other unlucky sap he could sacrifice, or even just a huge amount of magical energy.

Okay he didn't think he was ever going to use that spell regardless, but at least it meant if he picked up more weird magic with out there ingredients he could work around it by using up magic stones or something easy like that. Just… please some form of magic that doesn't make him feel like a bad guy?

"So what were those for?" Naaza asked as they left the shop, and Ichiban pushed aside ruminating over his newest ability.

"Way to transport Yankimaru around more conveniently, wait and see," he grinned, patting the robot's knee. "Speaking of, lets take tomorrow off from the Dungeon? I'll want time for that stuff to be made, and there's more shopping I'll want to do – need new clothes for one," he raised his leg, the bottom of his pants barely hanging on from where that killer ant had gone through them earlier, "Plus a place to stay, stuff like that."

"That's fine, we keep telling you, it's not something you can rush," Rina took that in stride.

"It'll give me time to work on our shop's stock," Naaza agreed, similarly at ease with the idea.

He'd suggested they go eat after that, but the girls had an idea they felt was more important, and that brought the group along to the same pleasant white-walled building Naaza had been so suspicious of this morning.

The door opened with a jingle and they walked into a place similar in theme to Naaza and Miach's shop but much brighter and better lit, basically a step up in every way. And there was Airmid behind the counter in her neat striped uniform, greeting them with, "Welcome to- Erisuis!" the shock of seeing Naaza in her shop clearly threw her off her stock greeting. "Is… is there a problem with your arm?" she asked hesitantly.

"No. The arm's fine," Naaza answered sullenly, having trouble looking at her rival slash loan shark slash doctor. Yeah, there was a really complicated relationship between these two.

"We do need you to do some healing though," Rina spoke up with a smile over Naaza's discomfort, drawing Airmid's attention over the rest of them as she stepped around the counter.

"Of course. Who's hurt, and what kind of injury is it?" she asked, demeanour turning brisk and professional.

"Does it matter? Can't the famous Dea Saint cure anything with her miracle spell?" Rina pressed, causing Airmid to look a little flustered in the face of the amazon's pressure.

It made Ichiban feel a bit bad for her and he spoke up, "It's not that anyone's injured," he said, Airmid turning to look at him, "But I've got a skill that lets me copy other spells I've seen, and so everyone was saying I should copy the best healing spell around which belongs to you."

Her mouth formed a neat little 'o' of surprise at that kind of revelation, but before she could process it another figure emerged from the back room, Dian Cecht in his white robes coming around and grabbing hold of Airmid's slender shoulders protectively. "What's this? Copying Airmid's spell? That's intellectual property!" he blustered, glaring at the three of them.

Rina and Naaza both shot him dirty looks as if to say he'd blown their scheme.

"I don't really mind," Airmid spoke up, recovering from her shock. "If more people can use healing magic that's good for everyone."

"No head for business, this girl," Dian Cecht groused. "Think of your image!" The woman everyone kept calling a saint wore a conflicted expression at that appeal to her seeming grandiose reputation while her god continued, "Having some scruffy looking guy going around casting your famous magic, what will people think?" He waved a jewelled finger accusingly at Ichiban, "You should be ashamed of yourself boy, trying to take advantage of a sweet innocent girl like Airmid!"

"Hey, I'm not trying to take advantage!" he insisted defensively. He'd been up-front and honest, he was the good guy here, just trying to get some magic that could help everyone else!

"A likely story. Didn't I see you at the Blue Pharmacy yesterday? Tch, of course they'd put you up to this," Dian Cecht scoffed. "Haven't seen you around before though, and that kind of skill draws notice. What familia are you in?" his gimlet eyes looked between Naaza and Rina as the two representatives of potential familias he'd be scheming with.

"None, I'm a freelancer. I just woke up in town yesterday and Miach helped me out, and Naaza and Rina have been helping me out in the Dungeon," he answered, drawing a quiet gasp from Airmid and a surprised look towards the dog-girl from Dian Cecht.

"You're adventuring again, Miyal Hound?" he asked, staring at Naaza who held her ground and looked back at him.

"Yes. Ichiban had a spell that… helped, made it easier to go back there," she answered.

"Show me," Dian Cecht demanded imperiously, turning his full focus back on Ichiban. "If this spell of yours impresses me, I'll consider your request."

With all the pressure on him to perform, Ichiban refrained from using the Hero Mage's Wand and cast it the old fashioned way so they could see the whole thing, even if he felt a little bit silly with the weird chanting noises he had to make. Izzy's spell had actual words!

Still, the light of a hero filled the shop, and Naaza let out a quiet noise of relief, everyone staring at him.

100 - Work-Life Balance - Mid Tier
Generic MG
Most magical girls have no ability to mix their transformed and untransformed modes. Once they lose the frilly outfit, they are nothing more than ordinary girls.

You are different.

For 100 CP, you can use your active powers even while not transformed, but they are harder to control and weaker. This also applies to powers that would otherwise be locked to other alt-forms.

Whatever Dian Cecht saw in it, it seemed to be enough for him and he nodded gruffly. "You can show him, Airmid."

"Ah, of course Lord Dian Cecht," Airmid nodded herself after a moment, stepping back and closing her eyes. A glowing white diamond appeared around her feet and she began to speak with a melodious cadence. "Healing droplets, tears of light, eternal sanctuary. Compose a medicinal hymn-three hundred, sixty, and five. The melody of the healer's almanac saves all things. Come, destruction of evil. The burial of wounds, interment of disease. Curses be gone in the light of vitality. In the name of all that is holy – I heal you."

At the conclusion of her chant, which was every bit as grandiose as Izzy's one, a glowing wave of light spread out from her to fill the shopfront, drawing a pleased sigh from Rina. Ichiban could feel it too – he wasn't wounded or anything, but the ache in his feet from a day walking around the Dungeon evaporated, vitality surging through him like when he drank from his magic water bottle.

Airmid opened her eyes and looked at him expectantly now, while sparkles of light continued to wink in and out all around, testifying to the lingering effect of her magic. "That's my spell, it's name is Dia Fratel. You can really copy it?"

"He'd better after all this fuss," Dian Cecht growled. "Come on boy, lets see it. You better not embarrass my Airmid."

Well that was some pressure to perform alright. He cleared his throat and started to recite the same words he'd heard from Airmid. It felt like the kind of thing he'd forget and fumble through, like needing your notes to give a speech at a family event. But it seemed like so long as it had to do with magic, his memory was on point.

The same white diamond appeared around his feet, and when he said the last words of the spell, healing light burst forth from him. It overlapped with his own light spell and Airmid's Dia Fratel, but you could tell where it was thicker and then where his spell ended and Airmid's covered the rest of the shop. Given her casting had given everyone as clean a bill of health as could be it was hard to tell precisely how effective it was, but comparing his copy of Izzy's spell with what he'd seen her do he figured it was probably about half as good. Seemed to match the radius it was extending out anyway.

"Hmph. Airmid's was better the very first time she cast it," Dian Cecht said with a frown. "But it's still the real deal. Alright Ichiban, you pass for now, but you use that spell for good. That's not just a trivial piece of magic, that's my Airmid's hopes and dreams."

"Lord Dian Cecht…!" Airmid's cheeks reddened and she huffed out his name with her cheeks childishly puffed out.

That just made him laugh. "Hahaha, you don't make that kind of face often, Airmid, let me enjoy it!" the old god cackled.

She turned away from everyone else in further mortification while Ichiban laughed a little himself. "Well hey, that's gonna be a big help for everyone I meet, but I can't just take it for free. How much would we owe you if you'd cast it normally?" It felt wrong to take something like that for nothing, and he made a mental note to somehow pay back Izzy as well.

"I wouldn't charge for something like this," Airmid turned back around, seemingly having managed to compose herself. "All I ask is that you heal anyone else in need whenever you see them. Knowing that my magic can help others even when I'm not there…" she smiled gently, seeming perfectly at ease, "That feels like I've been given a gift more than anything else."

This girl was so pure! He felt himself being blinded by her smile! "Ahh… no, I can't just leave it like that," he wracked his brain, just throwing money at them when they said no payment was needed felt crass, but then what did Miach and Naaza like? "Here, there's nothing in this cauldron, right?" he went towards a big metal bowl sitting on the counter that indeed had nothing in it. "Miach and Naaza said this water was really good for healing potions, so you can use it too, right?" Uncapping his magic water bottle he poured it in, everyone except Naaza watching in awed surprise at the amount of water coming out clearly not matching the size of the bottle. Naaza just looked like she'd bitten into a lemon.

"Well, aren't you full of surprises," Dian Cecht dipped a finger in the cauldron and stuck it in his mouth afterwards. "Tch! This is as good as Cadmus spring water! Where'd you get that, boy?" he peered avariciously at the bottle while Airmid leaned over to look at the water herself.

"Just appeared when I was talking to Miach yesterday," he admitted. "Stuff keeps doing that around me, same as picking up skills like copying spells," he patted the lion cloak on his shoulders to demonstrate one of those other objects.

"Well… I'd say we're square, but you ever want to offload more like that, we can pay what they're worth unlike that poverty-stricken loser Miach," Dian Cecht said in a way that was equal parts generous and offensive.

Airmid looked painfully embarrassed by it and gave him an apologetic shrug, but despite the help they'd been here Ichiban had to stick up for his guy. "Miach might not have much, but he healed a down and out bum like me that was lying on the street with nothing," he said firmly. Grabbing a startled Naaza and pulling her against his side he finished, "And that's why I'll always go to them first!"

Naaza looked annoyed, but he could tell she appreciated his support deep down! "C'mon, lets get out of here. Thanks for showing me your spell, Airmid!" he gave the still embarrassed girl an appreciative nod before he walked out with Naaza on his arm and an amused Rina trailing behind.

"Ugh, this is why I hate them so much," Naaza grumbled once they were back on the street. "And you!" her fist thumped into his chest hard enough that he felt winded, undoing whatever healing he'd just gotten as the dog-girl rounded on him to glare up into his eyes. "You let her swindle you! Even after all my warnings!"

He didn't feel particularly swindled by any of that but his attempt to say so came out as more of a wheeze.

"Ahhh, that could've been easier but I guess it worked out," Rina said more apathetically. "Why weren't you such a soft touch last night?"

Because the thought of meeting Rina's goddess freaked him out on some unknowable but absolutely certain level.

"Ishtar's scarier than those two," he answered, gesturing back at the pharmacy.

Naaza looked disgruntled but Rina just shrugged and said, "That's a fair point."

Wanting to move past that he suggested, "Why don't we go get ourselves a nice dinner? Celebrate our first day in the Dungeon as a team."

The idea was taken positively. And then when Naaza said she wanted to stop by the pharmacy to let Miach know and check how his day had gone, that was also taken really positively.

The reason why became clear when Rina spent the whole time batting her eyelashes and giggling at everything Miach had to say when he told them about his rather mundane day selling potions and catching up with some of his godly friends who stopped by. Apparently Hephaestus had wanted to compare notes after meeting Ichiban this morning.

Miach wasn't remotely built like Guile was, but it seemed like Rina had varied tastes and when they left she was in a radiant mood. "Ahh, you must have a great time working together with Lord Miach, huh Naaza? Helping each other brew potions, hands bumping as you reach for the same ingredient, your eyes meeting…"

"It's not anything like that!" Naaza huffed, her tone suggesting she wished it was.

Rina cheerfully stuck the lollipop he'd given her in her mouth and went on, "Well, you need to make things more clear for him then. Even a god can be dense."

"Ichiban, where are we eating?" Naaza demanded, clearly eager to move on from the conversation. He knew of two places that served good food, and one was both nearer and clearly more marketed at adventurers, so the four of them soon found themselves outside the Hostess of Fertility, Yankimaru left outside as they entered and were stopped by one of the waitresses, a brown-haired cat-girl who looked past them at the eye-catching brass robot.

"Woah, is that thing yours, Meowster?"

Did she just meow while greeting him? He suddenly wondered why Naaza hadn't made any canine noises in the time he'd known her. Still, he didn't dwell on it and instead answered proudly, "That's right, he's my giant robot, Yankimaru!"

"He's real eye-catching. Say, if you're just going to leave him outside our door like that, do you think you could do me a little favour?" she asked with a mischievous look on her face.

He didn't see any reason to refuse, and soon Yankimaru was repositioned further out on the road where he could hold up a signboard advertising the restaurant. Even without hands, he could hold his arms tightly together and without any movement so that the pole remained wedged firmly in place between them.

"Nyahaha, I'm a genius!" the waitress declared, hands on her hips as she admired the sight which was indeed getting plenty of looks up and down the street, "This is sure to drive up business! Come on in, you're getting the best service tonight, you three!"

The best service in this case appeared to be having Syr join them at the bar while the cat-girl waitress he learned was called Anya shot her dirty looks that were no more effective than Chloe's had been yesterday. It seemed like only the mama was able to reign in the slacker goddess, and for the moment she was letting things slide.

"You made it back, Ichiban!" she'd said cheerfully to greet him. "So did you have an adventure in the Dungeon today?"

Rina looked amusedly impressed and shoved his shoulder, "You've only been here a day and you've already got a girl waiting for you in a bar. You'd have broken so many hearts if you'd stuck around last night!"

Yeah he was more worried about getting his own face broken on Rina's fists, and he gave her a look to try and communicate that but it seemed to wash right over her.

Still, he turned back to Syr to answer her, "Yeah, Naaza and Rina helped me get down to the tenth floor today. We had a monster party with a bunch of killer ants, and then some minotaurs came up from the lower floors, so I guess that counts as an adventure? Honestly it hadn't sunk in yesterday the real scale of the Dungeon, but I'm starting to get why it's such a big deal."

"I told you," Syr nodded smugly. "At least you have a party now, I'd have been worried if you went down that far by yourself."

"Hell, he could probably get people to pay him to take him down to the deep floors now," Rina said, "He managed to copy Dea Saint's famous spell. You can get other people to fight for you if you're bringing along that kind of magic."

"I can see why they call her a saint," Ichiban reflected wryly. "That girl's too pure!"

Naaza growled. Did that count as a dog noise? Either way she glared at him and said, "You let yourself get tricked! I was an idiot to let you visit that pharmacy. We should have gone to Vana Mardoll instead."

"Good luck the way the Freya familia works that girl. Airmid at least has a shop you can walk into, if we went into the Folkvangr they'd kick our asses," Rina scoffed, but Naaza was undeterred.

"He just has to see the spell, we could peek over the wall and catch her healing people when they have their psychotic battle royale."

"Oh yeah, try peeping on Lady Freya's house, that's a great way to get murdered," Rina objected. It was all going pretty well over Ichiban's head, but Syr seemed to be having a great time as she followed the argument with a big smile on her face.

Either way, the argument was ended by the mama putting down their plates of food before them and interjecting her own comment, "They wouldn't kill you, but they might unman Ichiban depending on how generous they were feeling."

"Mama Mia, stop!" Syr broke into outright laughter, slapping her palm on the bar, her reaction seeming amusing enough to Mia that she didn't force the girl back to work right away.

Rina picked up her knife and fork to cut into her steak and slyly added, "It's okay, you could probably reattach it if you had her spell anyway."

This was the problem of hanging out with a bunch of women. The conversation would never have went this way if he was hanging out with Mord's crew! He pressed his knees together and did his best to change the subject, "Say, speaking of Dea Saint, what's with the nicknames? Like Miyal Hound?" he nodded towards Naaza.

"It means Medicine God's Loyal Hound," Naaza answered, "Whenever an adventurer reaches level two, the gods have a big meeting and decide on a nickname for them."

"You've heard mine, Harmothoe," Rina added from his other side. "It's the name of an ancient heroine, a lot of them are like that. Your friend Mord is Ruffian Dog. Don't really know why, he's not even a chienthrope."

That made him a little bit sad that the cool nicknames were gated behind reaching a level with the falna stuff. He wondered what they'd call him. "We had them in the yakuza, but they were kind of rare. There was this one guy everyone was scared of, we called him the Mad Dog of Shimano. 'Cause you never knew what he might do, so best to keep your distance like you would a wild animal. And my boss…" he almost trailed off, kicking himself for bringing it up but it was the first one to come to mind. He should've talked about that guy in the Nishikiyama family that loved older women. "Arakawa the Assassin," he finished, the words heavy on his lips.

"How did he get that nickname, Ichiban?" Syr asked, her earlier mirth thankfully having subsided as she picked up on the mood.

"He was one of the best fighters in the Tojo Clan, but you don't get a name like that just for being good at fighting," Ichiban started. "To me he was always kind, patient… I told you how we first met? A guy that's just a killer wouldn't do that for a punk kid he'd never met. But that reputation came from somewhere…" and so Ichiban told them one of the Tojo Clan's grisly stories that hardened gangsters would whisper about in seedy bars and smoke-filled offices. How Arakawa had been an up-and-comer in a minor family, who so impressed the boss the man offered his daughter to him. But Arakawa already had a woman he loved, with a child on the way. The boss didn't like having his generous offer refused, and sent his men out to kill the other woman and the baby.

What should have been the end of it. A demonstration of the power a patriarch can wield. Except Arakawa fought his way through the entire clan, a massacre that turned him into an underworld legend. And while he wasn't able to find his lover, never knowing if she lived or died that night, his son was saved from the coin locker he'd been hidden in, and Masumi Arakawa became one of the most feared men in Japan's criminal underworld.

"Okay, I know I talked shit about your boss earlier, but now I want to meet him. That's hot!" Rina voiced her strange approval at the end of his story.

Syr sighed herself, her eyes shining with emotion, "It's an incredible story. A man doing all that for love, what woman wouldn't be moved?"

Naaza hung her head. "It would've been easier to just take his boss's daughter, but… I see why you'd care for a man with such loyalty, Ichiban."

Ichiban started on his noodles. They'd cooled a bit while he was talking but they were still good. He was just glad they understood. It was a tough story to tell, it wasn't his own after all, but he was glad his friends understood now there was more to Arakawa than just being the guy who shot him.

"That's the boss," he concluded. "He never bragged about stuff like this, that wasn't him. But he didn't need to, not the way yakuza like to share stories."

"It was a good story. I can see why my good-for-nothing employee here would rather sit and listen to it than do any work," Mia said as she came over to their section of the bar. Given her seeming level and what Rina had shown off herself today, it was little surprise she'd have been able to hear it without joining them.

"Ahaha, Mama Mia's scary!" Syr giggled, hopping off her stool. "I better look busy, but I'll hear more of your stories later, Ichiban!"

"Don't look busy, be busy!" Mia grumbled, shaking her head in dismay.

The exchange made Ichiban smile though. "Heh, it sounds like you've got a harder time with Syr than Naaza has with Miach."

"Huh?" Mia narrowed her eyes at him while Syr froze in place. "What do you mean by that?"

Were they offended at the comparison? Dian Cecht had badmouthed Miach sure, but everyone else seemed to like him just fine – he was friends enough with Hephaestus for her to drop by his store and chat with him after all. "You know, Miach runs the store with Naaza but she's got more of a head for business than he does so she has to cover for him a lot. But he doesn't really slack off or anything, so it feels like you're having to cover for Syr a lot more."

"Right…" Mia drawled slowly, glancing at Syr who still hadn't moved. Rina and Naaza were starting to look a bit curious over the whole exchange while Mia went on, "I wouldn't really compare Lord Miach with Syr, though."

Maybe it was because they didn't like the comparison? But she just spoke more respectfully of Miach than Syr, so it couldn't be that. He looked towards the goddess, and for a moment it looked like her face was obscured with a noh mask while she looked intensely back at him, and understanding dawned.

"Right! Yeah, yeah, totally different, no real comparison between those two," he agreed, not wanting to get in the way of whatever stage play they were doing that had Syr pretending she wasn't a goddess. But really if she wanted to sell that better, "You should probably get waiting on those tables, Syr," he suggested. The very blatant slacking off in comparison to the other waitresses kind of made it obvious she was on a different level.

"That's right, I don't want to get my pay docked again!" Syr winked and flounced off in seeming relief, while Mia still looked a bit ill at ease, offering to get them another round of drinks on the house as thanks for his story.

They accepted of course, and he could feel Mia keeping an eye on them even as she moved down the bar to tend to other customers.

The strange tension hadn't exactly gone unnoticed by his party members. "That was weird, right?" Rina asked.

Naaza nodded. "It didn't feel like Lord Miach was being insulted unjustly, but why did they get so tense when he came up?"

"Beats me!" Ichiban said perhaps a bit too firmly. This felt like the kind of conversational landmine Izzy had stepped on last night, and given all the waitresses and mama were stronger than Rina, he really did not want things to devolve the way they had in the Entertainment District. "So, what are you two gonna do after this?" he asked to move things along from anything that might see Chloe or Anya using him as a scratching post.

"I'm going to help close up the shop and make any potions we'll need for tomorrow," Naaza answered, sounding fairly apathetic about the return to what must be her usual routine.

"Lazy night for me," Rina added, raising up her arms and having a gratuitous stretch, "You don't spend the night working the brothel if you've spent the day working the Dungeon. If I'm lucky I'll get some time with that, what did you call that picture taker again?" He supplied the correct word and she nodded, "The camera, yeah! The way it can take instant pictures of whatever you're doing, you can get stuff that you'd never see in a normal painting, it's the best!"

He smiled at her excitement. Introducing a fantasy world to the concept of photography wasn't anything he would've expected from his journey here, but it was cool to see the enthusiasm she had for it.

They talked a bit more, Ichiban having to explain phones at one point when he'd mentioned how everyone had a camera in their pocket now, and it hadn't been like that before he'd gone to prison. He'd barely had a chance to get acclimatised to the world eighteen years removed from what he knew before he found himself in an entirely different world. It distracted from the earlier weird tension around Syr and Mia at least, and the rest of their post-Dungeon meal passed pleasantly.

Though when he left and the two girls went their separate ways back to their own homes and he went to retrieve Yankimaru, Syr came out to retrieve the sign they'd had the robot holding up to draw in customers. "He certainly is a big robot! Thank you for having him drum up business for us!" she said brightly, carefully taking the signboard that was held down into her reach and then leaning closer with her voice lowered. "I want to talk privately, can you meet me behind the bar in a few minutes?"

He wouldn't mind clarifying things so he didn't get in trouble by running his mouth, so he agreed and with Yankimaru still left on the street he made his way to the darker alley behind the Hostess of Fertility, shade and twilight rendering it in gloom despite the light and noise coming from the busy tavern itself. It would've been nice and private if not for the person he could sense up on the roof of the next building over.

"Haaah, I thought my heart would jump into my mouth earlier, Ichiban," Syr said with a sigh as she stepped out the door at the back, but Ichiban held up a hand, turning to look up at the roof.

"Hold up, someone's watching," he warned, it getting dark enough that it was hard to see, but there was someone up against one of the chimneys that was about as strong as Tsubaki that he could tell.

Syr looked up herself and smiled, "Don't worry, they're here for me. You saw right through me, didn't you?" she asked nonchalantly, walking up to him with a tired smile on her face.

"You mean about you being a goddess?" he asked, just to make it absolutely clear so he wouldn't fumble over any double-speak.

She laughed lightly and nodded, but aloud she said, "Syr's just an ordinary girl!" while winking at him. "Thank you for being discreet back in there, although I think Naaza and Rina are still going to be suspicious. Will you keep it to yourself?"

He wondered what the person on the roof would do if he said no. "It's not any of my business, I honestly didn't even know it was a big deal. I've seen how Miach and Naaza act, that's why I said it like that."

"Hmmm," she hummed at that, rocking on her heels, "Well, things are a little different for Goddess Freya," she tapped a finger against her nose, "So when I want to play around, I do so as Syr."

He felt his knees press together as he remembered what Mia had said earlier, and Syr laughed, reaching out and shoving his chest. It felt like being shoved by a girl. Shocking, but considering the women he'd been dealing with today it actually stood out. "Mia was mostly joking," she playfully reassured him.

It would have been a lot more reassuring without that, "Mostly?"

"They're all very enthusiastic," she said in a fond tone, like a parent looking over a kid's messy finger-painting and not a threat to unman someone. Her hand patted his chest with similar fondness and she went on, "I'd like to have you join them, but then you'll never be able to finish your own story with Arakawa, will you? Still, I can let them know it's okay for you to visit and watch dear Heith's magic at work. It's the least I can do for you keeping my little secret?"

"Hey, none of my business, lets just pretend this all never happened, yeah?" he raised up his hands, happy to draw a line under the whole thing.

"Good!" she nodded brightly. "Now I'd better get back to work. Mama Mia never cuts me any slack!"

As she started to head back inside he couldn't help himself from calling back, "She so does, that's part of what gave you away!"

Her shoulders slumped miserably, and he had a feeling Syr would be doing a lot more waiting tables and a lot less chatting with customers in the next few days.

Leaving the alley himself, he gave a little wave up to the person on the roof, who simply edged back further out of sight while Ichiban rejoined Yankimaru and went to find himself a place to stay for the night. Preferably one that didn't mind having a giant robot standing outside.

This turned out to be not so hard as much like Anya had earlier, many people recognised the inherent allure of a giant robot as something that would draw more potential customers. It was a nice looking place just down the street from the Hostess of Fertility that not only offered a room with an appropriately sized bed, but an actual hot shower – he hadn't expected those to be a thing in a fantasy world, but from what he could tell it worked using magic stones to heat and pump the water. Explained why there was such a market for the things, he hadn't even thought about why the Guild was buying them up.

They also offered a laundry service and clothing repairs that'd hopefully make his suit a bit more presentable. It must have been a high class place, but Ichiban had plenty of money in his pocket and no obligations, so he took full advantage. While working out in his room before bed he also took a proper look at that amulet that had appeared around his neck earlier in the day. It didn't look like anything, just a plain iron rectangle on a leather string. But looking at it gave him the impression of a cheetah in full sprint, and from what he could tell with some testing that matched up with how it had felt since he got it down in the Dungeon. He could run faster with it on. Not punch faster, not jump higher (although jumping longer was a thing with the extra momentum), not touch his toes more easily (the lion cloak actually did help with that one), it simply improved his top speed. By quite a bit.

It wasn't as flashy or miraculous as other stuff he'd gotten, but like the endless water bottle it was solidly convenient and worth having.

He slept well, and come morning was pleased to find his pants and shirt had both been patched up. They were obviously patched and so still a bit scruffy for it, but it was better than going around with holes in your clothes, and he'd buy more today, just to have some spares. Though a few extra changes of underwear were definitely a priority. Just the simple things you have to worry about when transported to a new world.

Yankimaru got left outside the inn, just to save Ichiban the trouble of directing to wait outside stores and keep out of the way, and really just the constant crashing of his footsteps directly behind. He was useful sure, but once he got those pokeballs from the Hephaestus shop it'd be far more convenient to just keep him in storage except when in the Dungeon.

And so Ichiban spent his morning shopping. Like Miach had said when he first got here, fashions were varied. Sure there was nothing with the exact cut of a modern suit, but it wasn't hard to find stuff that was 'close enough'. He also got himself a good pair of boots, as he wasn't sure how well his shoes were going to last through those multi-day Dungeon expeditions Rina had warned about.

This took him up the north end of the city, and amidst the varied and unusual yet mundane denizens of Orario he spotted another goddess doing a normal job, in this case running a fried potato stall.

100 - Animal Rider
Marvel Primal
The people called him the Rider, because they had never seen a man astride a beast before. You are naturally highly skilled in befriending, training and riding animals of all sorts.

Weirdly when he looked at her he felt more knowledge and skills come into his brain, all kinds of stuff to do with training animals. Given he already could talk to them, he could absolutely run a pretty impressive circus if he wanted to. Unfortunately it didn't really change the fact that any animal he brought into the Dungeon was going to be scared and unhappy and not really able to do much against actual monsters, so he just filed that one away while approaching the stall. May as well get something to eat as the morning was wearing on.

After that whole debacle with Syr he was a little worried this could be another incognito deity, but he needn't have worried as she perked right up on seeing him. "Hey, with that lion cloak, are you the guy Miach helped?"

Her speech was friendly and informal, and with her short height and the little waggly antennae things sticking up from her hairband she definitely wasn't giving off much of a grandiose aura of divinity, but all the same he could sense it the same as any god around here, hers burning with a similar intensity to what he'd felt from Hephaestus.

"Yeah, my name's Ichiban Kasuga," he nodded, smiling down at her and giving a pull on the clearly very distinctive cloak draped over his shoulders. "Miach and Naaza saved my life when I appeared here the other day."

"Hmmhmm!" she nodded and rubbed a finger under her nose in evident pride, "Miach's a great guy, you're lucky it was him you ran into first. My name's Hestia. Are you here to buy jagamarukun, or are you perhaps looking for a familia to join?"

"Uh, the first one," he said, figuring that was the food she was selling and hoping this wasn't going to turn into a forceful recruitment pitch. She wasn't giving him the same bad vibes even thinking about Ishtar did, but all the same…

"Bah, I thought I'd try. Hephy talked you up a bunch, and she's got a really big and impressive familia. It's hard when you've just come down from Tenkai and have to start from scratch," she complained, fiddling with the fryer she had under her stall. "How many do you want?"

He looked at the size of them, and he was feeling kinda hungry. "Four," he answered, her words raising a comparison in his mind. "So when you gods come here from heaven, you just appear with what, just the clothes on your back?"

She nodded while parcelling out his crunchy looking snacks, "That's right, we're not allowed to bring anything special with us, and we seal all of our powers. It's not like you with your giant robots. It feels like someone's cheating," she gave a little huff, offering him some condiments to go with his jagamarukun and charging a paltry sum of valis he easily paid before dousing them with sour cream and having a bite of one.

"Mmmh, these are good," he said over the oddly named croquette snacks, pondering her cheating comment. Rather than a spirit, could there just be some god that's not playing by the same rules as everyone else and using him to shake things up? He still didn't know what the meaning behind it all was, and despite that thought he wasn't anywhere closer. But perhaps there was something else he could help with? "You're having trouble finding people to join your familia, though?"

That got her going alright. "It's just me and Bell right now, and he's the cutest and he's really brave and works hard and even though he makes me worry when he goes into the Dungeon alone I know he's trying his best and I love him for it but I worry he's going to be led astray by other women!" she rambled out breathlessly.

"Um, excuse me?" another woman asked softly from behind him, causing Ichiban to turn, seeing a girl with long blonde hair and a white dress holding a gloved hand up for attention. Despite her demure looks, delicate build, and soft voice, he could immediately tell she was as strong as Tsubaki, and her magic gave off a feeling like being tossed around in a gale.

"Oh, sorry. I'm holding up the line, huh?" he stepped aside, but hung around as the girl purchased twenty jagamarukun, filling a big bag and wandering off. Probably buying for her friends? Though he spotted her already starting to munch through them with mechanical efficiency as he turned back to Hestia who'd calmed down from her rant while serving the last customer, "So you're looking for familia members, but it worries you when they go in the Dungeon, huh?" he asked shrewdly.

She nodded back at him. "Of course I worry, Bell's so sweet and innocent and cute, and I like that he wants to be a hero but when he's down there all I can do is wait and try to support us in my own way like this," she gestured over the stall she was working. Which certainly made clear that Miach and Naaza's money troubles could be far worse.

He was pretty sure Miach would still draw a crowd of thirsty girls if he served fried snacks while wearing a silly head-piece like Hestia had on.

"Well listen, I know a guy that's looking to join a familia, but he's not exactly an adventurer. Big interest in the Dungeon as an academic kind of thing, but since he doesn't fight no one really wants to take him on," he suggested, seeing if he could possibly do a solid for Orin.

"Hmm, that's not really a problem for me," Hestia said with a moment's thought, "And if I had someone who could do research, that would still help Bell from running into trouble blind…"

Damn, sounds like this might work out! "His name's Orin, I saw him hanging out at the Pantheon but if I see him I'll send him your way," he promised, getting a cheerful nod from Hestia as he waved her goodbye.

Back at the Pantheon, Rose in fact proved very happy to guide him towards Orin. "He's smarter than most people who come in here every day," she said which he felt was more of a jab at him than praise towards the elf, who was in a reading room up on the second floor poring over a book which at least seemed to have pictures of monsters in it so it wasn't completely incomprehensible to Ichiban.

Actually that camera would've been good for taking pictures of monsters for people to study, wouldn't it? Probably be better for society than just being used by amazons to take selfies. Oh well, he didn't think he'd be able to get it back now, and at least it was making people happy.

"Yo, Orin. Studying up on the Dungeon?" he asked, giving the elf a wave and walking over.

"Oh, Ichiban. Hello!" he looked up and smiled. "Yes, I'm just brushing myself up on the wonders of the Dense Forest Ravine. Did you know the Loki familia just came back from an expedition to the fifty ninth floor? I'm hoping their reports to the Guild will be made public soon, based on how long it's been since they departed it sounds like they must have ran into trouble and had to return early."

"Oh yeah, I met one of them yesterday, they'd set a bunch of minotaurs loose on the upper floors, it was a big mess apparently," Ichiban nodded, filing away that detail of the fifty ninth floor. If Rina said it took days to reach the thirty seventh, and they kept getting bigger, just how long would it take to get that deep and back?

Orin seemed scandalised by that. "Minotaurs! Those normally only appear starting on the fifteenth floor!"

Dimly it occurred to Ichiban that this guy only knowing stuff from books that he takes as gospel means his information might not be the best for dealing with surprising events like that. Well… had to be better than nothing, right? Just the fact he knew where minotaurs are most likely to be off the top of his head like that was impressive.

"Yeah, they were running around like mad trying to clean them all up. Anyway, that's not really important," he got back to his original reason for coming here, "So I was talking to a goddess earlier, and she was talking about how much trouble she's having getting people to join her familia. It sounded like she could really use a knowledgeable Dungeon expert to help her out, someone who wouldn't make her worry the way she does for her adventurers that do go in the Dungeon…" he trailed off to see of Orin would pick up what he was putting down.

"Hmm. Sounds like everyone's having trouble these days," Orin agreed, clearly only meaning it as a pleasantry as he turned his book towards Ichiban and said, "Look, that's a bloodsaurus! It's supposed to stand five metres tall, just imagine what it would be like to look up at such a beast… spectacular, though surely it would be the last sight for many an adventurer!"

He grunted in annoyance, even if the picture did look kind of cool. Like a tyrannosaurus rex drawn with a big mouth full of fangs roaring at the viewer, which made him wonder if other dinosaurs were down there. "Orin, man, that's great, but didn't you say you were looking for a familia that would take you even though you don't want to go in the Dungeon yourself?" he spelled it out more plainly.

There it was. There's the lighbulb going off over his head. "Oh… oh! Where did you say this goddess was?" he got up, suddenly motivated.

Ichiban was glad to see it, and he told the scholarly elf where to find Hestia, watching him run out of the room and down the stairs like a man on a mission. Hoping things would work out for the two of them, he started heading out himself only to bump into Rose in the hallway.

"That was a good thing you did, Mr. Kasuga," she said mildly, looking over to the staircase. "All of us here worry about Mr. Redleaf, even if not in the same way as we worry about the adventurers who go into the Dungeon."

"Yeah, guy kinda needs a minder, huh? Hope Hestia can handle him," he agreed with a chuckle.

"I'm sure we'll find out. Even if he joins a familia he'll keep coming here to further his research. What about you? Taking a break from your quest?" she asked, yellow eyes looking up at him.

He nodded back at her, "Needed to spend a day getting some things together, plus doing some exploring of the town. I'll be going back down with Rina and Naaza tomorrow. Might try getting to that Rivera place on the eighteenth floor," he explained, figuring it wouldn't hurt to run his tentative plan by an expert.

Luckily it seemed the presence of higher levelled adventurers in his party was enough for Rose to not immediately lambast his plans as she nodded to that. "It's do-able with your party. Sometimes adventurers will be paid to take thrill-seeking tourists down there. I suggest you bring your own supplies, as the settlement there charges a considerable mark-up on its goods."

Being compared with a thrill-seeking tourist wasn't exactly the impression he wanted, but at least she was giving some good advice there. He had what felt like a lot of money from Tsubaki, but clearly it wasn't a lot of money to her so he didn't know how far it'd run in the circles of high levelled adventurers. Speaking of however, he bade farewell to Rose and left the Pantheon, finding that his order had been completed over at the Hephaestus familia workshop.

200 - Staying Power
Final Fantasy I
You're the muscle of this party, and that means you need to be able to take hits while the spellcasters do their job - unlocking the secrets of the arcane doesn't leave the much time for jogging, after all. Lazy wizards. Your stamina is much more plentiful, able to run for miles in heavy armor and only breaking a bit of a sweat, and your ability to take physical damage is likewise increased, your pain tolerance being something to be envied. This won't let you survive being vaporized by the strongest magic in this world or being reduced to paste under a giant's foot, but against blade, bow, and even destructive spells, you can keep fighting even under some of the worst of wounds just as effectively as you could before.

Four shiny steel balls waited for him, with simple clasps to hold them shut when they weren't split open down the middle. Hard to believe something so small could contain Yankimaru, or indeed anything else he might want to seal away. Taking them back to the inn he was staying at, his room rented for the rest of the week, he was pleased to see Yankimaru still intact and waiting for him, this street seemingly nice enough that it didn't have people daubing graffiti on a tempting target like that.

Going inside and using some paint and paper he'd purchased while shopping, he drew out the seal design he now knew how to make. He made a bundle of them, as they'd get torn when releasing Yankimaru, and he might need more for if he used it on a monster or something, and once it was all done he returned to the street, placing one of his balls down by the robot's feet.

It seemed like people had mostly gotten used to his presence so the immobile robot wasn't drawing too many stares, but a few people stopped to watch Ichiban himself as he stood back and took a deep breath. His hands moved about, kind of like a kid playing at being a magic ninja, and then he thrust them towards Yankimaru. "Mafuba!" he called out, and then the light-show kicked off. A big green beam of energy shot out and enveloped the robot, which did not react at all to being stretched out like taffy and whirled around like he was in a washing machine before Ichiban dragged his hands down to the ball and Yankimaru shrank down to near nothingness. Feeling winded, he clicked the ball closed and affixed one of his seals over the join, paper sticking as if it were glued there.

Lots of people were staring now, and he grinned and held the ball up. "I caught a Yankimaru!" he cheered.

A little boy watching cheered and clapped too, and Ichiban gave him a thumbs up, glad for a partially receptive audience. Now able to bring his robot anywhere without a fuss, he went inside for a brief sit down. That technique definitely took a lot out of him, though drinking from his magic water bottle helped. It was more of a physical exhaustion than the ache in his head he got from using spells, and so the restorative water proved a convenient way to handle the cost of using it without having to use up his more limited mana potions.

In fact he felt full of energy after a short rest and drink, and so was soon back out again to explore Orario some more. He'd done all the shopping he wanted and there were still hours left in the day. He steered clear of the Entertainment District, even if he kind of wanted to spend time in the part of Orario that most reminded him of home, he didn't particularly care for a repeat of last night. Rina had assured him it would be fine, and sure enough she hadn't caused any trouble herself today, but he still got a bad feeling whenever he thought of going near that part of town.

In fact he got bad feelings about a few areas around Orario. Alleys that yawned like the mouths of predatory beasts. Unassuming doors that seemed to wink at him with leering eyes. They were mostly concentrated around the eastern part of the city, and while part of him thought to investigate regardless of the dangerous feeling, he knew this wasn't a video-game with appropriately levelled side-quests waiting for him. For all he knew checking out those places might see a level six adventurer waiting to use his face as a punching bag.

He'd have enough to worry about tomorrow with the journey, and so Ichiban spent a trouble-free day steering clear of anything that gave him a bad feeling and finding Orario still had plenty left to explore by the time he turned in. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

Author's Notes said:
Hidden Intuition is a very useful perk and is saving Ichiban a lot of trouble he might otherwise be blundering into.

Also Dragon Ball does exist in the Yakuza universe, but Ichiban's not that into it that he recognises the Mafuba. If it had been the Kamehameha on the other hand...

Ebiris · Feb 3, 2025

The next day he got up early enough that when he reached Babel it was actually busy, throngs of adventurers heading into the tower and down into the Dungeon in a crowd that made clear just how big the Dungeon was based on how few people he generally ran into when he was down there the last two trips.

He even ran into a familiar face as Mord called out to him, flanked by Scott and Guile. "Yo, Ichiban! You looking for a party to head down there with?" he asked as the three came over.

"Already got one," he answered with a grin, "But we could still team up, was planning on heading down as far as the eighteenth floor today."

Mord nodded to that. "That could work, three of us were planning on making the same trip. Who's the rest of your group?"

And with impeccable timing, Rina draped her arms over Mord and Guile's shoulders as she pushed her way in from behind the group. "Miss me, handsome?" she cooed, causing both men to react with rather more fright than they had to her advances back when they were in a comfortable room of pillows and silk.

"Gah, it's the psycho amazon!" Mord jerked himself away from her arm while Guile cringed.

Rina made a pouty face as she leaned back. "Nicknames like that are going to tank my reputation, you know. Look!" she reached into her little thigh pouch and pulled out a glossy photograph featuring herself making a peace sign at the camera with a big smile and a great view down her top. "Do you look at this and think 'psycho' or do you think, 'cute girl I'd pay to spend the night with'?" she demanded, thrusting it around in everyone's faces.

The photograph seemed to draw interest from the guys despite the real life model standing there wearing basically the same and showing as much in the way of skin. "Woah, where'd you get that?" "That is cute!" "Definitely worth the money!"

100 - Chakra (Kage)
Naruto
Upgrade your reserves by an amount equivalent to the likes of Sarutobi Hiruzen at his peak, whose spiritual and physical energies blended to create an exquisuite amount of chakra surpassed only by true monsters. This is an additive upgrade, meaning the chakra will add to your existing pool, even if your existing pool is near infinite.

Requires Chakra to purchase.

Free - Chakra
Naruto
The basic Chakra system perk, you start with reserves equal to the average jonin. In future jumps, by channelling Chakra into others you can cause a Chakra system to grow inside them. In future Jumps, abilities that function using the target's chakra, such as by disrupting, amplifying, or sensing it, will continue to function as normal, either using the setting's equivalent energy types, or using life force as appropriate.

Ichiban was a bit distracted himself as he suddenly absorbed a new ability. It wasn't so much a technique or spell though, instead an energy source. Unrefined but large and potent, he had a vague understanding that it could be channelled to improve his physical abilities but that seemed to be barely scratching the surface. This was the basis of magical martial arts stuff like that mafuba technique he'd used, but only the basis. In essence it was like the opposite of where he'd had that library of necromancy magic put in his head, giving him the core element and then leaving it to him to figure out the rest.

But most curious of all, he did know one technique. Simply by pushing his chakra – and that's what he was sure it was called, rather than ki or qi or something like that, but if he pushed his chakra into someone else, it would awaken theirs and put them at the same starting level of figuring this stuff out as he was.

Wasn't this the same as the falna stuff? Giving power to a person? He remembered his conversation with Hestia yesterday and how her experience of coming to this world from Tenkai wasn't that dissimilar from his own experience of appearing here. Would he be stepping on any toes if he started offering this stuff out, would they expect him to make the Kasuga familia with him as its head?

"Come on Ichiban, if this doesn't excite you I have naughtier pictures," Rina's voice interrupted his musings, her finger poking into his chest as she waggled her photo in font of him.

"Oh. Yeah, right," he grinned, trying to get his head together. "What's with the finger thing?" Sure it was common in Japan when taking photos, but he wouldn't have expected them to have that kind of culture here.

"It's cute, isn't it?" she agreed. "Lady Ishtar did it when she was having her pictures taken and it caught on."

"Huh, yeah. That's what they do back home too," he said, starting to wonder if there was some sort of connection between the gods here and earth and how it tied together with his own strange arrival and abilities. But none of them seemed to know anything about earth directly.

Naaza's dully-voiced greeting sounded as she joined the group and then she asked, "Where's Yankimaru?"

That at least was something he was keen to show off, and he took the small metal ball containing his giant metal robot out of his pocket. "He's right in here," he announced proudly, everyone looking at it with skepticism.

"Still been wanting to see this Yankimaru thing everyone keeps talking about, but I thought he was bigger than that," Mord scoffed, unimpressed.

"Heh, just wait. I'll let him out once we're deeper in the Dungeon," he pocketed it and asked, "Everyone all happy to party up together to head down to the eighteenth floor?"

Everyone was in fact agreeable, and they decided on an even split of their takings for the trip, which reminded Ichiban that he might want to keep some magic stones to use as replacement spell components from now on.

Descending into the Dungeon, Ichiban cast his light spell to illuminate the gloomy first floor, and immediately he could tell the difference his chakra made – the spell wasn't much of a strain at the best of times, he could run it for hours without getting tired. Now it felt like nothing at all, which boded well for the rest of his magic.

"Huh, well that's useful for the darker floors. Feels… kinda nice," Mord said, rolling his shoulders while Scott and Guile nodded.

"It's a hero's light!" Ichiban said proudly, the group setting off through the first floor, which was still crowded enough they didn't even run into any monsters that weren't already being fought by other adventurers, who all gave respectful way to their party as they headed deeper and deeper.

He did get to see a new monster on the sixth floor when some big purple moths descended from the ceiling, only to all get shot clean through by Naaza before they could do anything. She was happy to claim one of the wings left behind by one as a useful potion ingredient.

"Yeah, you and Lord Miach put up a quest for herbs from the Large Tree Labyrinth, we were thinking of trying to snag some of them when we were down there," Mord said. "Place is lousy with all those poisonous monsters though, they're the kind I hate most."

"You've got abnormal resistance though, right?" Rina asked, which made Mord grin ferally.

"Why do you think I hate them so much? Training that one's a pain in the ass."

"I took hunter and I kind of wish I hadn't," Scott moaned, getting a sympathetic nod from Naaza.

"I have some antidotes, but we shouldn't need them. Ichiban can cure us if we get poisoned," she said, the day off at least seeming to have put her at peace with the source of that spell.

"I picked up a healing spell from Airmid," Ichiban spoke up to reassure everyone. "Speaking of, I need to pay back Izzy, since I picked up her spell too from watching her."

"That girl needs a lot of paying back," Rina agreed with a sweet smile on her lips.

Mord mostly took that in stride other than giving Rina a concerned look. "Shit, you can copy spells like Thousand Elf? Shame we don't have any, but if you've got Dea Saint's magic that's gonna make this trip a cake-walk!" he laughed boisterously, not even breaking his stride as a group of killer ants came skittering down the hallway towards them, cleaving through the monsters with contemptuous ease.

Ichiban wanted to get involved too though, not having had to fight anything so far on their descent, so he ran forward and summoned his metal rod, pushing chakra through his arm as he swung down with tremendous speed. Instead of merely cracking its shell like last time, this time he went right through it and left a crack in the floor while the ant itself dissolved into black mist.

"Hey, you've gotten stronger!" Rina observed, his display not having been impressive enough to draw much note from the other three guys, but Rina had seen him fighting in the Dungeon before and was clearly attentive enough to see the difference.

Naaza nodded as well. "Before you needed lightning to defeat a killer ant in one blow."

"Heh, it's something new I got back upstairs when I was spacing out earlier," he explained, straightening up and feeling pleased with himself. The other ants had all been easily killed by the others, while Ichiban felt the energy circulating within himself, ready to augment his physique and sustain his magic. "Chakra, it's like a source of energy I can move around my body and make myself better."

There were oohs and aahs and other impressed noises, and Ichiban considered the other part. These people were his friends after all, they risked their lives fighting monsters in the Dungeon, shouldn't he help them? They were helping him after all, he'd never have made it down to the tenth floor last time without Rina and Naaza. "That's not all," he said, making up his mind, "I can give this energy to other people too."

Wham! He found himself slammed against the wall by Rina, her hand cracking the rock beside his head, her body pressed against him in a way that would be exciting if not for… everything. Naaza and the others were making noises of alarm while Rina's dark eyes stared into his own. "Ichiban, you say things like that and it makes me want to go back to how I was the other night. And I'm your friend now. How do you think other people are going to react?"

"I mean… I only said it because we're friends?" he choked the words out nervously as Naaza and Mord were both grabbing at Rina's shoulders, pulling her back. He was pretty sure she only moved back because she wanted to, though.

"I'm not going to do anything," Rina shrugged the pair away as she stepped back. "But just to make sure we all understand – you're saying you can give anyone this extra energy that boosted you from hitting like a normal man to hitting like a level two? Do you know what any familia would do for that kind of advantage? This isn't a cool robot or a useful spell, this completely flips the board!"

Naaza looked worried, hunching her shoulders and saying, "You probably should have kept it secret. That kind of thing is too big, far more than what you've been doing so far."

"Nah, fuck that!" Mord growled, pointing between the two women, "You've both got it all wrong. This shouldn't be kept a secret, or hidden away for one familia's benefit. Give it to fucking everyone! No one gets an advantage that'll cause a fight for the top spot in Orario, instead all us adventurers get a leg-up against the Dungeon. The only one that loses out'll be this evil pit!" he thumped his own fist into the wall, cracking it.

The other adventurers all stared at Mord, and then expectant eyes turned towards Ichiban. He felt the weight of their expectation on him, but Mord had a point. If he gave this kind of thing out freely to anyone, he'd only be helping people overcome the Dungeon. And the closer people got to the bottom, the easier his own path there would be.

"I think I could do it," he said slowly. "It'd take time, but… it's a permanent change, I'd only ever have to do it once for anyone. Any of you guys want to test it, make sure it really works before we go any further?"

"Pffh, no shit," Mord scoffed, before glancing at Rina. "Just maybe do Harmothoe last?"

Rina looked disgruntled but didn't object, and so Ichiban started with Naaza. She looked determined as she met his eyes and they held hands, both of hers in his own. The chakra energy moved easily to his own hands, and then there was a resistance he had to push through to force it into hers. Curiously her prosthetic arm accepted it just as readily as her flesh and blood one after he overcame that however, and he didn't really feel any meaningful loss as Naaza gasped, her eyes shooting wide open.

"Ahh! I feel something!" she said, more excitement in her voice than he'd ever heard from her. Her eyes narrowed as she started concentrating, and Ichiban did his best to try and talk her through it.

"You can feel how it sort of rests at points around your body, and you can push it around, right?" he asked, comparing it to his own sensation. He could tell with his energy sensing ability that Naaza's power had grown – out of proportion to how much he'd fed into her. She wasn't as strong as Rina felt, but the gulf between them was small enough it would be a close fight… assuming Naaza could effectively use the new energy inside of her.

"I can feel it," she agreed, letting go of his hands and touching various spots on her body not quite corresponding to her joints. She looked at her arm under the asymmetrical long sleeve of her top in surprise. "Even here… it's like pressure points, Lord Miach talked about them before…" she murmured thoughtfully.

That was interesting, maybe Miach would have some ideas about how to better use this energy? He turned to the others, "Wasn't hard to do, you guys next?" he held hands with Mord and his crew in sequence, all of them marvelling over this strange new energy and some trying out a few punches and weapon swings as they tried to copy what Ichiban had done with the killer ant.

400 -Landscapist
Endless Legend
There are many anomalies that cover this world, their magic gleaned but not understood. You, you understand it. You have listened to the voices of the Rumbling Stones. You have won a staring contest with a Wizard's Eye. You have eaten the fruit of the Life Tree, and you understand. Whenever you are within an anomaly, your magic is more powerful, growing with the strength of anomaly. Inside a chroma land, your spells would be rainbow hued and blinding. While standing within the whispering confines of the Ice Sculptures your spells would deafen your foes and sound as music to your allies. If you stood upon the Dust Tree, maybe, just maybe, you'd be on par with an Endless. You also have a better understanding of all anomalies, and how to best benefit from them.

There was a pause as Rina held her hands out and she looked disgruntled at the delay. "I'm not going to do anything. Come on," she huffed out, and Ichiban had to hurriedly reassure her.

"It's not that, I just got another ability," he said, looking around at the Dungeon surrounding them. It was the most unnatural place in the world, a place that defied even the gods… and that unnaturalness was exactly what now empowered his magic. In fact the deeper he got in the Dungeon, the more its power intensified, so too would his. It felt like the perfect ability for his plan to reach the bottom.

Ironic that he got it just as he was committing to spending however long was needed to empower the adventurers of Orario with falna.

Everyone was looking at him expectantly and he took Rina's hands while explaining, "Basically my magic gets stronger when I'm in magical places. Like this one," he told them while pushing his chakra into the amazon's hands. Chakra it seemed was magical enough to be boosted here too, and so it was easier with Rina than it had been with anyone else. His estimation of her power rose too, putting her closer to the waitresses at the Hostess of Fertility than before, and it seemed like she just got more out of it than the others did. Did the strength of a falna level feed into the strength of chakra they got?

Rina tried a few punches of her own, little shock-waves in the air from her fists flying and he could sense her trying to move her chakra around based on what everyone else had been talking about with their own experiments. Her punches became noticeably faster after a few repetitions.

"Feels like when I first got my falna, or ranked up, but it's not all around or just there, I have to focus to use it," she said, getting nods from the others.

"Feels like it runs out as you use it, but it'll just come back with rest, right? This is for keeps?" Mord asked, staring at his hands as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

"Yeah, straight up," Ichiban nodded. "It'll get better with practice, but I think this is like the most simple basic stuff, like if you can develop actual techniques with it they'll go way further. Naaza might've been onto something when she mentioned pressure points, someone like Miach might be able to figure out this kind of stuff."

"So we're heading back up?" Naaza asked, looking around everyone. "If we go to the Guild they can spread word… although Ichiban, you're going to be stuck doing what you just did for every adventurer in town, it won't be quick."

"Yeah, I know," he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, "But Mord's right, this is the kind of thing that can help a lot of people survive down here. And if I'm doing it for everyone, it means no one's got any reason to get mad or try to force me into their familia just for themselves."

The others approved of his decision, and so they turned about to retrace their steps out of the Dungeon. Even Mord and his friends gave up their plans, wanting to stick by him to see how this all played out.

As it turned out, offering a free power-up through official channels was not quick and easy. He imagined doing this back in Japan, offering to grant people real actual magic with a touch. The government would be all over that in a heartbeat, and despite being in a fantasy world, Orario had a bureaucracy just the same.

Rose had referred them straight up to her boss, an overweight and wrinkly elf who must have been thousands of years old considering how elves were supposed to age, and that guy had gone running to his boss, apparently the Guild had a god of its own, although he didn't give his staff falnas so clearly it wasn't being run like the other familias. That god never showed up himself but several others did.

Miach was a friendly face of course, joined by Dian Cecht and Airmid as they wanted to get a medical opinion on this chakra business.

Huh, chakra kind of sounds like falna, doesn't it? That didn't really help.

Those two were just the start of it of course. A buff shirtless guy with an elephant mask over his face showed up and Ichiban had already figured it out even before he announced, "I am Ganesha!"

Then there was Ogma, a rather unassuming moustachioed and balding middle-aged man on the surface. A short red-headed woman in a weirdly modern looking hooded tank top with perpetually narrowed eyes that was apparently Loki, of that whole expedition and minotaur business from the other day. Freya made an appearance, except she clearly wasn't a goddess as far as he could tell, her energy feeling similar to Syr's but on the level of an adventurer like Naaza rather than a god. There was some resemblance to Syr but she looked more slender and graceful and… well, the outfit definitely showed a lot more skin than the waitress uniform.

She wasn't exactly alone in that with Ishtar's appearance, the dark-skinned goddess matching her predominantly amazon familia, and putting plenty of it on display. She was nice looking, but Ichiban could feel the menace radiating off of her even as she seemed mostly focused on trying to show how little she cared about 'Freya's' presence.

Somehow though she wasn't the creepiest one there, that honour belonged to the blond pretty-boy god that went by Dionysus. He acted charming and affable but his shadow looked like it was primed to rise up and bite down on anyone nearby like a shark from the deep, and his smile seemed to stretch unnaturally over his face when only Ichiban was looking.

200 - Orange Charred Ring
Dark Souls: War of the Ancients
A ring that was enchanted by a witch, meant for the only son of the Witch of Izalith. Since his birth, he was afflicted with sores that were inflamed by lava, leading to his sisters giving him this ring. While wearing it, you will find yourself more resistant to fire and lava, handling their heat as well as any stone in a campfire naturally would.

"Oh ho, what's that you've got there?" the other blond pretty-boy god, this one wearing a rakish hat and accompanied by a blue-haired adventurer girl that was apparently a big deal magic item expert asked as he looked at Ichiban's hand, having noticed the ring that had just appeared on it.

"Uh, it just appeared, Hermes," Ichiban answered, holding up his hand and looking at it himself. It was made of a burnt looking black metal, with an orange gem set into it. It gave him a feeling of flowing lava, and yet safety. He was pretty sure that meant it would protect him from the heat. "That's just kind of what happens, I think it's a magic ring that protects against fire?" Didn't really look very nice, but burn wounds look worse so he figured he'd take what he was given here.

The woman that came in with Hermes leaned close to get a look at it while another god came into the increasingly crowded meeting room on the Pantheon's third floor. This one he knew, it was Hephaestus. "I was expecting next time I heard from you it would be another mysterious metal, Ichiban," she said in amusement as she weaved past Rina and Ishtar to get closer.

Ishtar was currently running her finger over Rina's back, her tube top pushed up towards her shoulder-blades and a light shining from her skin. "It's written out as a new skill," the sinister feeling goddess announced, most everyone else starting to crowd around and jostle for position to see. "Give the girl some room, I can read it out for you!" Ishtar snapped, clearly annoyed at being so pressed.

"Eight Sealed Gates: Moulds together physical and spiritual energy to achieve miracles. Harmony bestows greater results," she read out, her tone shifting as she added, "She's also gained a point to her magic statistic – this child has never had any magic before."

Rina looked quite pleased to hear that, and nearby Ogma copied what Ishtar had done on Guile's exposed back, the greying deity confirming that it appeared the same on his back. Ichiban shifted around so he could see himself, and while mostly he just saw more of that almost-English writing glowing on Guile's skin, although above it was some kind of lion or dog holding crossed swords in its tongue which looked badass enough to earn respect among any gathering of yakuza.

"What does it mean by sealed gates? Does that mean the skill can be further improved?" Dionysus asked.

"The mention of harmony might be a clue," Miach spoke up from where he and Airmid and Dian Cecht were all poking around Naaza, the dog-girl enduring the presence of her loan sharks with impassive grace. Notably she had her sleeve rolled up and her glove taken off, letting Ichiban see her prosthetic arm for the first time. It was made of bright polished metal, and studded with gems, one of which Airmid was tracing a finger around. Miach kept talking, "The energy circulates inside the body but seems to be influenced by pressure points where it specifically gathers when Naaza tries to focus it towards that part of her body. There are a lot more than eight though."

"It works through both her arms, and you can actually see it shining in the controlling crystals of her prosthesis," Dian Cecht picked up. "It gives a clearer look at what's going on, actually quite lucky!"

Naaza's weary gaze spoke volumes on what she thought of her luck right now.

"Well it sure sounds like an interesting skill, I bet most of my kids would love to give it a try," Loki said, sidling up next to Ichiban. "So you're just going to hand it out to anyone who asks? Just like that?"

"I mean, yeah," Ichiban said, firm in his resolve even if it did seem like this would be a pain in the ass logistically, "Everyone keeps saying how deadly the Dungeon is, so this kind of thing will give everyone a better shot against it. I want to get to the bottom myself, so the more people pushing deeper the better. Plus if I give it to everyone that means it won't mess up the balance of power in the city, since no one's got an advantage." Still, he couldn't help but glance worriedly at Dionysus. There was something seriously wrong with that guy, and Ichiban did worry what might come of empowering his familia.

Loki slung her arm over his shoulder so they were almost cheek to cheek. She had to pull him down a bit to do it – she was kind of strong for her size and build, but not really in a shocking way, and Ichiban mostly just let himself be dragged into leaning over as she went on, "There are some people in this city you might not want to have an advantage, hmm? But you've only been here a couple days, and you're buddying up with Ishtar's kid even after causing such a fuss in her district…"

Despite the close position, it's not as if Loki was whispering words for his ears alone. Ishtar clearly heard and glared over while clutching her fingers on top of her subordinate's scalp. "Rina has already apologised. She took responsibility for her mistake, surely you understand that as well after your children let loose some minotaurs that nearly killed him on the upper floors."

"Big strong guy like this can handle a little minotaur no problem," Loki said breezily, patting his back and separating, letting him straighten up. She wasn't necessarily wrong, even if the minotaurs were like twice his size.

"This does present more wide-ranging problems when it comes to the balance of power, such a skill being concentrated in Orario… how will Rakia, or Altena react?" Dionysus asked, smoothly getting between the two arguing goddesses without any fear.

"And what do they matter?" Freya, or at least her body double spoke up, narrowing her luminous purple eyes and sweeping her gaze imperiously across the room. "Is this not simply a mysterious blessing, like when Rakia was given its great magic swords by the spirits who favoured Crozzo? Orario is the world's vanguard against the Dungeon, and this young man is offering to aid its defenders. We will accept his generosity, and protect him from those who would abuse it."

That mostly got nods, even if Ishtar looked fairly openly pissed. It seemed mostly on principal because it was pretty obvious she couldn't stand Freya. Dionysus smiled and bowed his head to acknowledge her point, but Ichiban could swear he heard teeth grinding.

"Look, if anyone wants to come by from those places, so long as they don't seem sketchy I'm willing to help them too," Ichiban spoke up himself now it seemed people were getting towards concluding this business, which would only leave the actual work of infusing chakra into hundreds or even thousands of people which was going to take who knows how long. "But I can't exactly go on a world tour, I'm here for the Dungeon, so I can spend a couple days here at the Pantheon just boosting up everyone who comes by for it, and anyone who missed out after that can just find me."

"Probably not everyone's going to take you up on it anyway," Loki pointed out. "Adventurer's pride, or being suspicious of a free lunch…"

"They should pay then," Naaza stepped away from the trio around her, pulling her sleeve down, "Ichiban can copy spells, so every familia can pay by having its adventurers with magic demonstrate for him."

"Uwah!" Loki recoiled as if struck. "It wasn't even little Lefiya's time to shine and she's already had her gimmick stolen!"

"I am Ganesha!" That guy was standing on a table now and flexing. To be fair those were some big guns. "Lots of magic is too dangerous to use inside a building. We should host an event in the Colosseum where spells can be shown for everyone to admire! Also it's built to handle large crowds and move people around quickly so will be convenient for Ichiban to see everyone that way."

Loki looked as if another blow had struck her, sagging her shoulders and saying, "I hate when that guy talks sense." From the weary nods all around it seemed to be a common sentiment.

But with Ganesha talking sense, and some of the city's major players having agreed to accepting Ichiban's offer, they were now moving past talking and onto doing. Uniformed Guild employees went out onto the streets with loudspeakers, gods gathered their familia members that weren't currently down in the Dungeon, and what seemed like the entire city shifted its focus towards the amphitheatre on its eastern edge.

It was impressive how fast they could get everything set up. Not only were crowds of curious onlookers starting to fill the rows of seats all around the stadium, but food stalls were already set up by the time Ichiban got there. There was a rope-lined queuing system leading towards where they set him up on one side of the open field in the middle, with the other half being cleared for magical demonstrations.

"You've already seen my spell, but I should demonstrate now as well so everyone knows how it's done," Airmid said as she took her place at the head of the line. It had been generally agreed to let her go first, as her good reputation would encourage others, and she wasn't so powerful as to momentarily disturb the balance of power as might happen if he'd started with one of the big familias' heavy hitters.

He doubted it would really matter given the time it took to even figure out and get used to chakra, but the gods were prideful and even just a theoretical adjustment to the relative power rankings of their familias seemed to rankle them.

In any case, she cast her famous spell over the platform Ichiban was standing on, and he had a feeling he might want this thing later after a few hours of standing still and moulding his chakra into others, but for now he was feeling fine as he took Airmid's hands and pressed his chakra into her, the healer letting out a soft gasp as she felt the change take within her. She didn't linger over it though, she just bowed and moved on as the next person came up.

It was Izzy, and even if he'd also seen her spell she seemed keen to show off. "Let me show everyone the fruits of my arcane talents!" she crowed, adjusting her witch hat that was clearly there to lean into the aesthetic before she cast her spell and conjured a line of radiant spheres across the empty space of the stadium, all of them detonating a second later while she already turned to take Ichiban's hands.

Her magical power that he could feel afterwards didn't quite reach up to what Naaza's or Airmid's had been before they got chakra. It did seem like higher levelled adventurers just got more out of it. She seemed happy though, bounding off the platform as the next person came forth. "I don't have a spell of my own to show, that's okay right?" the plain-faced and dark-haired young man asked as he held his hands out.

Despite that he was as strong as the waitresses at the Hostess of Fertility. And after Ichiban reassured him it was fine and pushed chakra into his hands, he could probably go toe to toe with Tsubaki… at least theoretically, if he used his chakra effectively. That was something everyone was going to have to learn, but it seemed Miach and Dian Cecht had ideas, and hopefully as people discovered facets of this power the knowledge would spread, and everyone would be better off for it.

100 – Model Student
Tsukihime
If you find yourself regularly skipping class to go on nighttime hunts for vampires or just general adventure, then it pays to be a good student on paper if nothing else. You're a model student, soaking up what teachers say like a dry sponge and speed reading your required studies in but an hour. You learn about twice as quickly as other top students, absorbing academic and mundane skills with very little trouble, even on a time crunch. Supernatural teachings or things like complicated science take more time, but you're still an excellent learner as long as you have a good teacher – whether an actual mentor or a very informative book.

More followed as the colosseum filled up and the line to see Ichiban surely stretched out through its entryways and onto the street, but he kept infusing chakra into people and having it broken up with displays of magic sometimes spectacular and sometimes unassuming. Blasts of elemental fury, chains that would bind targets, force-fields, healing spells, that waitress Chloe showed off illusory shadow clones when she showed up!

Still. It was a lot to keep track of. He'd have to try and seriously think about what spells he wanted to focus on knowing and keeping in mind during a crisis, as otherwise there were far too many to reasonably sort through under time pressure.

Luckily most adventurers didn't have any magic. Those that did generally only had one spell to show off for him. But now he was watching as a slender green-haired elf was gesturing out with her staff and performing chant after chant. Freezing up half of the stadium in a huge block of ice, calling up force-fields and healing circles, she just kept going!

The awed whispers of, "Nine Hells!" he heard from the other adventurers waiting their turn made clear this was the woman Orin was so smitten by. And that was fair, power and beauty was quite a combination!

He also felt an immense surge of hostility from almost every elf in sight when he took her delicate looking hands to push his chakra into her, starting off a chain reaction that made this woman – already among the strongest non-deities he'd encountered here, surge ahead even more mightily. The woman was unruffled as she merely smiled, flexed her fingers, and walked off the same way everyone else had, while one of the elves who hadn't been glaring – actually one he recognised from when he had lunch on that boat restaurant, stepped forward for his turn, adjusting his glasses and declaring, "Feel honoured that you will witness my magic from safety as few outside the Freya familia ever will."

Very impressive sounding, and Ichiban was certainly keen to add some lightning spells to his repertoire, but he'd just noticed something, his eyes drawn to the winding line of people waiting their turn. It was a motley assortment of people, adventurer fashion being eclectic as it was, and three people in simple brown robes didn't really stand out visually. They had the magical feel of level one adventurers, common to the majority.

Yet they also looked like bombs waiting to go off. Like for an instant as he looked at them Ichiban could see rows of cartoony red dynamite sticks wrapped around their chests.

His heart dropped into his stomach. He knew, he just knew exactly how this was going to go down. As he stared at them he could see it in their faces, two men and a woman, their features scared and tense as they psyched themselves up for… a suicide bombing. On him. To kill him and stop what he was doing here?

He could shout a warning. There were other higher level adventurers around, they might be able to stop the bombers before they could set things off. Or they'd just be in range to all die themselves. This elf with his powerful lightning magic would probably be able to kill them in an instant if he asked, that would certainly make sure of it, but it would still be a massacre. Three people would still be dead.

"Hey, hold on a second," he told the elf before he could begin chanting, summoning the Hero Mage's Wand to his hand. "There's a spell I want to show off to everyone first." Glowing circles manifested around the brass metal rod as it ran through the spell process for him, but he said the words and drew the sigil with his other hand regardless. He needed this to be as strong as possible, and wasn't going to let some embarrassing new age chanting slow him down.

The light shone forth on command. The sun was still up, it wasn't obvious, but it still banished shadows where it radiated from Ichiban in the opposite direction to the westward sun. And everyone could feel it. Backs straightened, lips curled into smiles, eyes met as people feeling the light of a hero upon them looked around and wordlessly communicated with each other that they could feel something special going on.

And the three potential bombers felt it too. Whatever pain or despair had driven them here, to be willing to throw aside their lives on another's word, it became manageable. The resolve they'd been building up crumbled, but in its place came new resolve, resolve to live. Perhaps a temporary thing, but Naaza proved she was willing to overcome her trauma even without the light having to shine on her every step since deciding to brave the Dungeon.

"Hey," Ichiban called out, looking straight at them, stepping off the stage and reaching his free hand out. He was tense, ready to shape a force-field if someone twitched, but he could do this. Reach out to them as a person and give them another chance. "I know you're scared, but it's okay. You don't have to do what you came here to do."

Other people in the line were looking where he was focused, edging away from the three robed figures. The woman fell to her knees and choked out a sob. "Lord Thanatos, I'm sorry, I can't do it! This isn't what he would have wanted!"

A ripple of uneasy murmurs went through everyone else at the name she dropped, the high levelled elf adventurer following after Ichiban and muttering, "Evilus?"

Ichiban ignored it. "No one wants anything like this," he said soothingly, "If Thanatos cared about you he wouldn't want this. So lets just all be calm, yeah? No one wants to hurt anyone here."

"No," one of the men agreed, his wrinkled face wracked with shame, "We just wanted to see our loved ones again, but how could we face them like this?" He tore open his robe, and while it wasn't the cartoon dynamite Ichiban had imagined when he first saw them, the bundle of round devices strapped around his abdomen were clearly bombs.

People gasped and backed off further, but there wasn't a panicked stampede even if the ropes meant to guide the line were toppled. Unfastening the belt of bombs he wore, the old man placed them on the ground and stepped away with his hands raised up in submission. The other two potential bombers followed his example, murmuring apologies as they disarmed themselves of what would have been a deadly threat.

The bundle of bombs were close enough together for Ichiban to create a dome force-field on top of them, which he did just in case they had someone able to remotely set them off somehow, and he spoke up since everyone seemed to be following his lead on this. "It's okay, you were being taken advantage of. That's the kind of thing that can happen to any of us, the only one that's at fault is the one who put you up to this."

"I am Ganesha!"

Oh that's right, there were gods in the audience still watching all this go down, and one of them just leapt from the bleachers with an elaborate jump that had him T-posing in the air before he landed squarely with his feet planted together. "Young Ichiban is right. Thanatos took advantage of your despair and I will see him punished for making a mockery of a child's grief!"

At his declaration, several adventurers Ichiban had seen early on that were sticking around to help run things came over as well, their expressions torn between sympathetic and judgemental even as Ganesha continued. "You won't be punished for no harm was done, but come we should talk about the one who sent you here. Everyone else, please continue and show that Orario will not be threatened. And remember – I am Ganesha!"

With one last flex and pose, he and his followers took away the potential bombers. Ichiban would certainly be keen to find out who wanted him dead that much over this. He'd never even heard of this Thanatos guy.

"That was impressively well handled," the elf said with grudging respect. "My name is Hedin Selland, I see now why my goddess thinks so highly of you, Ichiban."

It was just luck really. Without his strange intuition, without his heroic light, he could've just blindly let them walk up and detonate in his face. "I'm just glad they didn't go through with it. That was… kind of nerve-wracking," he admitted with a laugh of pure nervousness leaking out.

That still left the bombs sitting there of course, and no one really wanted to get close to them. Instead a few people showed off their fire spells to melt down the ice from Nine Hells' display and they shifted everything over to that side of the stadium, and then a few other mages used their barrier spells to protect the crowd while Hedin detonated the bombs with a pin-point lightning strike that put what Ichiban had used against those bad bats the other day to shame. Interestingly they didn't detonate in fiery explosions, but rather a mixture of elements with freezing bursts and electrical discharges among them, as well as some kind of gloopy poisonous seeming sludge.

He followed up with a far more wide-ranging spell that rained lightning arrows all over the field, more or less annihilating the residue from the bombs and seeming pleased with the display as he turned towards Ichiban on the relocated stage afterwards.

"I had thought that would be all I would demonstrate for you, for my last spell I cannot use on myself, and will not use on those I have not recognised. But you have earned my regard, Ichiban Kasuga. Behold my Laurus Hildr," He focused then and chanted brisk words, "Play music eternally, immortal saint!"

The spell hit Ichiban and he instantly felt it supercharge him. Lightning crackled all around his body without harming him, rather surging power through his veins… through his chakra too, he realised. He'd seen a few enchantment type spells today, ones that boosted the user's abilities, but this one felt like it was in a completely different league! Unfortunate he wouldn't be able to cast it on himself, but what a boon for anyone he travelled with!

Hedin seemed drained from the effort, and took out a potion which he quickly drank down before waiting for the lightning to subside from around Ichiban's body. After picking up a bunch of spells like that, he well earned the boost of chakra that Ichiban bestowed upon him, putting him back on par with the green-haired elf who'd gone before him.

Hedin smiled appreciatively at it and went off, the next adventurer stepping up being a fairly anti-climactic level two with no magic to show off, but that's how most of them went. There were no further would-be bombers or further disruptions, but Ichiban still kept picking up a variety of spells that everyone who had one was keen to show off. Despite Dian Cecht's words about intellectual property, it seemed there was actually quite a bit of competition from people who wanted their magic to be recognised by him as worth using out of everyone else's.

It did mean most of the healers made self-effacing comments about not being as good as Dea Saint, which was kind of sad but also kind of true. The vast majority of spells he saw here he'd never actually use.

One girl did show off an enchantment spell similar in scope to Hedin's one, which he'd actually be able to use on himself. A wind boosting tempest she called Ariel which she showed off with some blindingly fast moves before Ichiban gave her the power of chakra. And she walked away looking just as happy as she had when he'd last seen her walking away from Hestia's fried potato stall yesterday.

He could have gone all night, the odd drink of his magic water bottle sustaining him as the sun went down, but the endless crowd did eventually thin out, and the guild staff helping to organise everything certainly looked glad for it to be wrapping up. He hoped they were being paid overtime.

Rose thanked him for his hard work, and he did not blush this time as she led him out of the Colosseum a different way than everyone else was leaving. "Lord Ganesha wanted to speak with you about what happened earlier," she explained, "And we also have to consider your safety until tomorrow. Many familias have volunteered for the honour of guarding you."

Yeah he might have trouble sleeping after a day like this, he still felt pretty wired, and the thought of another bomber or a high level adventurer coming to kill him in his bed was certainly something to keep a guy up at night.

As it turned out, Ganesha wasn't the only god waiting for him. Loki and Freya – actual Freya, not the body double, were there, along with Hermes. There were also a few adventurers around – the blue-haired girl he'd seen earlier in the day, one of those halfling guys with blond hair who'd apologised that he couldn't show off his spell because it drove him insane. No great loss for Ichiban really. A huge guy with animal ears and muscles that put Ganesha's to shame, and was the highest power adventurer Ichiban had seen yet. He'd been by earlier lining up like everyone else and had shown off a spell that boosted the power of his weapon. And another woman with blue hair and a more athletic looking build than the more scholarly looking girl stuck by Hermes. Miach and Naaza were there too, the latter seeming a little out of her element while the handsome god seemed perfectly at ease amidst his peers.

"I am Ganesha!"

"Y-yo. I am Ichiban!" Ichiban tried to match the guy's mood, though he gave more of a wave than a flex.

It seemed to do the trick though, Ganesha smiling in approval, and a chuckle coming from Freya. Damn, compared to her laughter when she was acting as Syr there was something really alluring about it. Or maybe it was just the way her body moved and the fact her outfit showed off so much of it. Safer to look at Ganesha and his muscles so he didn't make an ass of himself!

"Orario is in your debt, Ichiban. Though this Eight Sealed Gates skill you've given will take time to master, our city's heroes are eager and up to the challenge," Ganesha went on, getting determined nods from the adventurers all around. Ichiban could actually feel most of them were actively circulating their chakra even as they stood there, probably trying to work it like a muscle and get used to the new ability. The big guy with Freya had a monstrous amount, further proving that the stronger the base adventurer was, the greater impact they got from adding chakra.

Ganesha kept talking past that though, "And perhaps more importantly, you prevented a tragedy today. The children that were misled by Thanatos were like many in Orario – widows, widowers, parents who outlived their children. Thanatos preyed on their grief and manipulated them with false promises of being able to reunite with their loved ones when they reincarnated. That is not something any god can honestly offer, but even a fragile hope can ensnare the desperate. That weaselly little… ohhh! It makes me want to wring his scrawny neck!" the heartfelt speech gave way to raw angry emotion as Ganesha mimed out doing just that.

"Those kids didn't mind telling us everything they knew after they gave themselves up," Loki spoke up now over Ganesha's growling noises. "About their hidden lair underneath Daedalus Street. We're going to take care of that, so you can keep on doing what you've been doing tomorrow, catch up anyone who missed it today. But there's something I really wanted to ask you about while I had the chance… you saw those bombers before they got near you, didn't you? Like you've got a nose for trouble," she leaned forward, her eyes opening enough for him to properly see them past her usually slitted gaze, "And they weren't the first trouble you saw today, were they?"

"Back at the Pantheon," Hermes picked up the thread, "It was a busy time with a lot going on. And two lovely goddesses of beauty in the room to boot!" The smarmy sounding god leaned forward, "But you kept looking at Dionysus. What did you see when you looked at that charming rascal, hmm?"

Yeah, maybe he should've said something earlier, it seemed like they were all picking up on the connection. "It's not like he's waving a sign saying 'I'm the bad guy'," Ichiban said to defend himself for letting his suspicions pass, "But I get these feelings or flashes around hidden stuff," Freya made a thoughtful sounding hum and he had to resist looking her way, "And it was like his shadow was snapping at everyone even while he was acting all nice and polite, and he just looked… creepy."

"And no one's seen him since then," Loki said, crossing her arms over her exposed stomach, "Plenty of his kids showed up to get the new skill, they didn't act strange either. But we've questioned them and they don't know where their god is. Or Maenad, she's went missing along with him."

"So it seems like Thanatos and Dionysus are working together. Evilus isn't as gone as we thought," Hermes said thoughtfully, and Ichiban really just had to pick at all these names they were dropping.

"Sorry, but remember I just got here the other day. What's Evilus? Hedin mentioned it too," he asked, trying to make sense of all the drama he'd landed himself in.

"They're dumb edge-lords, it's right there in the name," Loki answered huffily. "You've heard the saying that everyone's the hero in their own story? Well these guys even admit they're not. They're evil and that's the way they like it. We thought we'd gotten rid of them years ago…"

"It's more of a loose alliance or ideology than a real faction," Hermes elaborated. "Some want to crack the Dungeon back open so monsters spill onto the surface, some want to provoke wars and conflicts between familias or nations. The only thing that unites them is a hatred for the current peace we enjoy."

"That's messed up!" Ichiban gave the only response he could to such a nihilistic creed. "And they sent people with bombs on their chests to try and kill me?"

Ganesha nodded, seeming to have regained his composure. "Indeed. Those children are being cared for now and kept safe in case anyone would try to punish them for not going through with it. But we're more worried about them targeting you again to stop you from providing your new skill to anyone else. That's why the three strongest familias in Orario are each offering to shelter you until you resume your work here tomorrow."

Ichiban counted five gods in the room and so he glanced around to try and figure out the dynamic there. Although it was pretty obvious in Miach's case as he smiled and raised his hands, "Naaza and I would be happy to let you stay with us of course, but we couldn't promise the same kind of safety as others."

Hermes tipped his hat and leaned back, saying, "I'm just here to satisfy my curiosity."

Which left Ganesha, Loki, and Freya. And a stirring of tension throughout the room. Yeah there was definitely going to be fallout based on who he picked. He glanced back at Rose who was standing by the door and looking studiously neutral. Naaza just looked grumpy when he tried to catch her eye.

Naturally his hesitation to declare which familia was strongest was picked up on by the expectant deities, and it was Freya who tittered musically. "Really Ichiban, why so nervous? We're offering you our homes, not our beds… although I don't think you're to Loki or Ganesha's particular tastes anyway."

"Oh, that's just dirty, you sleazy goddess!" Loki growled, leaning towards Freya with indignation. "This is about safety, not sex!"

"Well, it is the one place I can count on my children to defend to the utmost…" Freya went on innocently, cupping her cheek.

You know what? Ganesha seemed like a cool guy!

"I am staying with Ganesha!" he declared loudly, just to not get caught up in a divine cat-fight.

"I am Ganesha!" the elephant masked god matched his volume, standing up and flexing. "A wise choice, Ichiban, although personally I would have picked Freya if it was me."

"Oh phooey," Freya pouted. "Oh well, come Ottar. Just remember our door is always open, Ichiban," and as she left with the strongest person Ichiban had yet seen here in tow, he wondered if he'd perhaps let nervousness guide him into picking a less safe protector for the night.

Loki just punched Ganesha in the arm with a growl before she left with her own adventurer escort.

"That was probably the safest choice you could have made in at least one respect," Hermes said when it was only the winner and the neutral parties left. "It's never easy being caught between those two. Good luck, Ichiban."

"Haha, honestly you know, it might be good for me to spend more time hanging out with another guy after the last couple of days," he admitted with a strained laugh, causing the blue-haired woman shadowing Ganesha to chuckle ruefully herself.

"In that case I'll try and stay out of your way. You and Lord Ganesha can enjoy your boy time together. Shakti Varma, by the way. Never got to introduce myself earlier," she nodded towards Ichiban and he returned the gesture, a little embarrassed at her phrasing, but still there was no denying the thinking that had gone behind choosing her familia over the other two prospects.

He couldn't deny though, he felt pretty reassured as they left the Colosseum with a half dozen people on Tsubaki's level all screening them through the darkened streets. Hermes vanished pretty quickly, although Rose and Miach and Naaza stuck with them a little ways until Miach indicated where their paths should diverge.

Naaza seemed reluctant, looking awkwardly at Ichiban before saying, "You'll probably have anyone you want offering to take you down the Dungeon next time, so…"

And yeah, sure he'd seen plenty of people today that were way stronger than Naaza, but that didn't really matter. "What are you talking about? You've been there since the moment I got here – don't tell me you want to quit on me now?"

"No," she shook her head, seeming relieved. As Miach smiled proudly behind her she went on, "If not for me you wouldn't have gotten to see all those spells today. Someone needs to actually do your thinking for you."

He was trying to offer a gift, not sell it. But there was no denying the usefulness of the spells he'd picked up, and it had seemed like turning it into an exhibition of magic had increased the turnout and ensured more people showed up just to see what the fuss was and then gotten chakra into the bargain. "Yeah, you're good at that," he agreed, letting her bask in the credit. "I'll come by the shop to see you when I'm ready to go back down there, okay?"

They bade each other goodnight and went their separate ways, Ichiban continuing along with Ganesha and his familia to reach their destination, which immediately made Ichiban recoil as he beheld the hideous structure lit up against the night sky.

"What the hell is that?!"

300 – Chakra (Legends)
Naruto
Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Naruto: shinobi with chakra reserves surpassing even the Tailed Beasts. Like these ninja, you're now peerless when it comes to the quantity of your chakra, capable of boosting even the weakest of jutsu to incredible heights. The amount of chakra you mold in each jutsu dwarves even the Gokage, weaving country-shattering power into every one of your techniques. Only with days-long protracted battles against equal or superior foes while spamming high-level jutsu will you exhaust yourself, and, even then, you might just find that final bit of chakra hidden in that seemingly bottomless pool for that pivotal moment. Unfortunately, you're still no match for the Shinju or Otsutsuki. This is an additive upgrade, meaning the chakra will add to your existing pool, even if your existing pool is near infinite.

Requires Chakra (Bijuu) to purchase.

200 – Chakra (Bijuu)
Naruto
Upgrade your reserves by an amount equivalent to the likes of Hoshigaki Kisame, whose chakra pool was comparable to that of weaker Tailed Beasts. There are few in history capable of matching your sheer quantity of chakra. This is an additive upgrade, meaning the chakra will add to your existing pool, even if your existing pool is near infinite.

Requires Chakra (Kage) to purchase.

The sight was so shocking it caused his new well of chakra to swell by a titanic amount. Just a match for the titanic statue of Ganesha before them that was lit up by magical spotlights against the night sky so all could see its imposing visage… and the stairs leading right up to the entrance in its crotch.

Even for someone raised in Kamurocho, it was unbelievably tacky.

"Haha! The sight of the Ganesha familia home always leaves visitors speechless!" Ganesha laughed while all around the members of his familia adopted sullen and downcast expressions, refusing to meet either Ichiban or Ganesha's eyes.

At least once they were inside it was nice. Well lit, clean, spacious… there was plenty of space going by how huge the statue looked from the outside.

The familia had a big dining hall, and the communal experience reminded him a bit of being in prison or school, even if it was obviously nicer. The curry he was served certainly beat out the government's food, a tangy blend of spices and big chunks of meat that Ichiban was happy to wolf down even if he wasn't necessarily hungry.

He told Ganesha and everyone else lingering in earshot mostly the same story he'd told everyone else, about the Arakawa family back home, going to prison and being shot before finding himself outside Miach's shop with no clue how he got there.

Ganesha cried even more shamelessly than Mord did.

But Ichiban found himself distracted even as Shakti told Ganesha to get a grip on himself. It wasn't unusual for him to sense magic around and under Orario. Even now he felt something way deep underground as an adventurer probably cast a spell against a monster, or perhaps the Dungeon spawning a monster party. Even on the surface he often felt lots of spells being cast to the south edge of the city during the morning, what he assumed were adventurers practising their magic.

But now he could feel magic being used near the surface, not far from the Colosseum. In fact he felt it was somewhere near where he kept getting those bad feelings when he was walking around that part of town yesterday.

He couldn't really make out details, not like he could when he was close enough to look at something. It was just a frustrating awareness of magic flaring up sometimes in rapid bursts and then falling quiet before more pinged at him from somewhere close to the previous one. It was the most frustrating way possible to try and follow a battle, if that's what it was.

"I am Ganesha!" a voice broke through his distraction, and then pointed it out, "You seem distracted, Ichiban."

"Yeah, it's…" he grumbled and gestured at his head and then pointed vaguely south in the direction he kept feeling things, "I can sense magic, and I'm feeling a lot that way, up near the surface. Feels like there's a war going on over there."

The masked god hummed in surprise, "There really is no end to your strange abilities, is there? That would be where Evilus is based, we learned of it from the children who surrendered. They've built a whole artificial Dungeon under Daedalus Street, they call it Knossos. Right now adventurers from all the major familias are scouting it out, and no doubt running into resistance. That's good for us, as it should keep Evilus too distracted to come after you."

He'd mostly been able to put aside the feelings he got of magical battle below the surface. Adventurers went down to fight in the Dungeon, that's just how things worked here, it wasn't necessarily his business. But he felt a personal connection with what was going on now – they were fighting because he'd instigated something by handing out chakra to everyone. He didn't know what that magic meant – who was winning or who was losing, or if people were dying.

He wondered if this was what it was like to be in a war zone. Hearing missiles and artillery in the distance, never knowing who was on the receiving end. And he'd set the fuse.

"Can't help feel responsible, setting this all off," the words slipped out as he sensed another flurry of spells being cast.

"Don't be."

True to her word, Shakti had kept quiet until now, allowing Ichiban to mostly just shoot the shit with Ganesha and enjoy some masculine camaraderie, but she spoke up now, her voice stern and her expression serious. He looked at her and she continued.

"A lot of us here have lost people to Evilus. If they've been hiding and regrouping their strength, it's good that they've been panicked into exposing themselves now so we can root them out rather than them striking when they felt comfortable. You've given us a chance to stop a second dark age falling on Orario…" she trailed off and clenched her fist, and Ichiban could sense chakra being moulded there as her knuckles popped, "And we're going to take hold of it with our own hands."

Damn, what could he even say to that? "I guess you'd want to be out there too?" he asked, wondering if he was just looking for reasons to feel guilty at this point. This kind of awareness messed with his head.

"I will be," she said with calm acceptance, a vicious smile curving up her lips, "Tonight's just scouting. That place goes deep. When the real battle happens, my spear will be there to settle the score."

"The whole Ganesha familia will!" Ganesha declared, having leapt up onto the table and started flexing. "Are we not the defenders of Orario?" he asked, drawing cheers from all around, "Evilus will be dragged into the light and trampled underfoot like the cowards they are!"

More cheering, and Ichiban couldn't help but get caught up in their exuberance, his mood lifting as conversation turned towards lighter topics and everyone got fired up. It helped the rest of the evening pass in better spirits, giving him a chance to learn a bit more about the Dungeon from these adventurers, and he shared some stories from back home. Ganesha had seemed very excited when Ichiban mentioned there was an elephant-headed god back on earth – or at least people believed in one, as no gods had actually physically descended to earth to walk around as they did here.

Unfortunately Ichiban wasn't much of a religious scholar so he didn't know much more beyond his existence and aesthetic, although he did mention, "I'm pretty sure Loki's a guy-"

A firm hand clamped on top of his lips and an elephant-masked face looked at him severely. "Ichiban, whatever you're about to say, keep it inside your mouth. None of us will like what happens if you spread something like that around."

He nodded mutely, deciding that perhaps it would be best not to talk about trivial facts regarding deities back home. "Uh, hey it's getting late, maybe I should go to bed?" he suggested once Ganesha removed his hand.

The room he was given might have been claustrophobic for some, lacking any windows as it was. But having spent eighteen years in a prison cell? It was just fine for Ichiban. The guards out in the hall were actually for his benefit this time.

He wasn't exactly tired though, and sat up through the night messing with his new chakra. It might've been better to have a proper think in terms of cataloguing all the spells he'd learned today, but those were simple knowledge tucked away in his head and waiting to be used. Chakra was a resource, an enormous well of power, that he didn't yet know how to properly use.

As he moulded chakra into his fist, he stared at the glowing aura of yellow light that shone around it, a sensation of boundless power waiting to be released. He couldn't help but chuckle to himself in stupefied awe. Feeling his own power with his magical sensing too, it was like showboating and flexing his muscles in front of a mirror.

"Feels like the carp's reaching towards the dragon gate…"

Author's Notes said:
Sometimes you roll a perk which just changes everything. The ability to give chakra to others feels like a thoughtless jumpchain convenience tacked onto a freebie foundational perk, but it absolutely flips the board if dished out on a wide scale.

No one actually has any ninjutsu knowledge so don't expect Naruto techniques to be busted out (unless Ichiban rolls a perk for that), but brute forcing chakra for physical boosts seems straightforward enough, and it's absolutely something Danmachi natives can exploit, and since it integrates with falna we might see people developing skills or spells that build off of chakra too.

Also random aside, I wanted a bit of levity before the suicide bomber bit, and so Riveria's fans getting outraged over Ichiban holding her hands seemed a good fit. Then I figured the person after Riveria should be one of Freya's, just for how they'd want to balance things out. I picked Hedin more or less at random, figured he'd impressed by Ichiban talking down the suicide bombers, and then I looked up his spells and saw there's one he can only cast on someone he 'recognises'. Totally unintentional, the Ichiban luck is real.

Anyway, there's a lot of spells in Danmachi, and Ichiban has access to basically all of them now. A few missed out – Haruhime is still being kept secret, Lili ignored the whole business as an adventurer thing and she hates adventurers, and she wouldn't have shown off her spell even if she showed up. But it's mostly a free-for-all past that. So if there's any spells you really like and want Ichiban to make use of, feel free to suggest them!

Ebiris · Feb 6, 2025

He didn't really cut loose. Quite frankly he didn't know his own strength, but he'd been able to crack the floor of the Dungeon back when he first got his chakra, and the amount he had now? It was orders of magnitude greater. He had a feeling that a chakra-boosted punch would at least create a boom loud enough to wake up everyone in the building, if not damage the walls.

Instead he focused on circulating it. He wished he could talk to Miach about the pressure points he'd mentioned, but with his own ability to sense energy he could basically feel areas it liked to congregate at, hundreds of them in fact all over his body. Then there were a smaller number of places from his head to his abdomen that seemed to limit the flow. Maybe they were the eight sealed gates mentioned on the skill where it was written for adventurers? He couldn't seem to change the flow or open them – just trying to force more through was like trying to force more water down a pipe, it couldn't take more than it was built for no matter how hard you tried.

Maybe he could break them if he really put his back into it, but that felt like cutting open a vein to get more blood in your body. Besides, he had so much of it now, the flow of it intense enough to visually manifest around his body when he focused. And this wasn't like his little flashes of seeing things he'd been getting lately, no subtle intuition. It was real and consistent…

It kind of made him want to shout and dance around. He had an actual aura of power! Like an anime character!

Could he shoot a kamehameha? Could he make his hair turn spiky and golden?

Sure maybe those were childish thoughts, but he was in a video-game like world of magic and dungeons and monsters, he'd fit right in!

It gave him the enthusiasm to practice something so simple as meditation. Sitting still and just concentrating on his internal energy as it moved around at his will. Like a great ocean, with boundless currents fuelling the flashy waves that showed on the surface.

One of his ideas involved pressing his hands together and trying to pass chakra from one to the other. He could push it into other people, doing this might be a good way to figure out expelling it from his body, leading to something like the famous beam technique everyone dreamed of being able to do.

There was a little resistance but it seemed easy enough to do. What was interesting was he noticed the flow changed depending on how he pressed his hands together. Altering the position of his fingers would speed it up or slow it down.

It reminded him of the mafuba technique he'd used for storing away Yankimaru. What he'd thought of as silly anime ninja hand gestures… well, they worked for that technique, so would they work for manipulating chakra?

Putting it into practice, he was soon whirling his visibly glowing chakra between his hands, somewhat reminding him of how Yankimaru had seemed like he was getting spun around in a washing machine before he shrunk down and fit inside the container.

Wanting to share this discovery, as hopefully other people trying out different patterns might lead to discovering new ways to use chakra, he got up and opened the door into the hallway, where Shakti and another equivalently strong woman were both standing guard outside.

"Ichiban, do you need anything?" Shakti asked.

He shook his head. "It's not that, I was messing around with chakra and I figured something out. The way it flows can change if you make patterns with your fingers. Watch," he brought his hands together and focused, chakra glowing over them as his fingers laced together, middle ones pressed up together in the middle, and then as he pulled them apart the glowing whirl of chakra passed between them as he maintained his focus on it.

Shakti watched, leaning her spear on the wall and then trying to make the same symbol, focusing her own chakra. He'd felt her moving it around her body when he'd seen her earlier but there was no physical glow. Now however? The same whirl of visible chakra formed between her hands, hers having a yellow glow of its own.

"What does it do?" the other guard asked, trying to copy the same technique but failing until Ichiban corrected her on how to make her ring finger cross over her middle finger when clasping her hands. It was kind of awkward to do, but she pulled it off on her second try, though her chakra had more of a blue radiance to it.

"I don't know, it's part of another technique I picked up before I even got chakra," he admitted, "It's a containment technique when you do the full thing. But it shows how gestures can change how chakra comes out. Wanted to see if it worked for other people, and we can all spread it around. The more we all figure out how this works the better, right?"

"Yeah… hmm. Hold that, Ilta?" Shakti asked, her own chakra fading away before she grabbed her spear and poked the butt of it into the whirl of chakra that Ilta was maintaining. She suddenly grunted and her muscles tensed, having to hold it in place against an abrupt jerk as it was pulled into the circular motion of chakra, the physical impact of the technique confirmed.

"Woah!" Ilta gasped, her chakra fading away while Shakti pulled her spear back. "You felt that, Captain?"

"Was like having my spear snagged by a blue crab," she confirmed. "I thought this skill was good enough just for boosting strength, but there's a lot more to it… and you don't know any more?" she looked at Ichiban.

He shook his head. "I'm still figuring it out as much as you are, but I had a leg up from the other technique, it gave me the idea to try using those hand signs, but there might be others… how many ways can you arrange your fingers, I mean?"

"We'll have to experiment, but not tonight. We're keeping our focus on guard duty, and you should rest. Honestly I don't think we'll get attacked here, but tomorrow you'll be more exposed. They'll be desperate to try something."

He didn't feel particularly tired but he still nodded. No one would know or care if he meditated instead of slept in his room after all. "What about you, though? Don't you want to be sharp for tomorrow as well?" he asked.

She smiled at that and shook her head, "We'll trade out in a couple hours so we can get some sleep. You'll have two level five adventurers guarding you at all times tonight – we might not have monsters like Ottar in our familia, but no one else has as much coverage at this level."

Considering how big a deal the equivalently levelled Tsubaki was, Ichiban took some comfort in that even if he had seen people that were stronger. "Alright, well goodnight then," he nodded to the pair of them and went back into his room, settling down to pass the time exploring the exciting new world of magical kung fu that had been opened to him.

He didn't sleep at all, he didn't even get tired enough to need to drink from his water bottle to refresh himself. Though he wasn't able to come up with anything like he'd gotten from messing with the mafuba technique, simply practising the movement of chakra around his body made it come easier and easier by the time his door was knocked on, one of the Ganesha adventurers letting him know it was time for breakfast.

The room didn't come with an en suite shower like at the inn he'd stayed at previously, but he was able to freshen up in a bathroom that much like his bedroom reminded him a bit of prison. Communal living in a familia was just like that, he figured.

He did see some people practising the whirling chakra thing he'd shown Shakti last night as he went towards the dining hall, so clearly that had been spread around. It only seemed to actually be visible for those beyond level one, but even on those he could still sense the motion of energy which made clear something was happening.

In fact Ganesha was enthusiastically suggesting all sorts of different finger patterns for people to try out and see how that adjusted the flow of chakra.

"It feels warmer?" the plain-faced and dark-skinned guy (and thus probably just a human of that kind of ethnicity and not an amazon) said as he concentrated, the yellow glow around his pressed together hands changing to a more reddish hue as he adjusted the position of his fingers.

"Good going, Momonga! We'll discover the mysteries of this skill together!" Ganesha declared loudly while Momonga adopted a downcast expression.

"It's Modaka," he muttered in a tone that suggested his name being mistaken happened a lot.

"Yo," Ichiban greeted them as he came over. "Managed to figure out more from the finger stuff?"

"Can we call it something that doesn't sound as rude?" Modaka asked in a weary tone.

"It sounds fine to me. Ganesha would be disappointed if any of his familia were bad at finger stuff!" the elephant-masked god just laughed deep from his belly. Modaka gave Ichiban a look that conveyed deep suffering, while several of the nearby women just glared at Ganesha.

Ichiban felt bad for them, he really hadn't thought that one through. "Uh, yeah. How about chakra hand signs?" he suggested a more appropriate sounding label for the chakra shaping techniques.

100 – Regeneration
Final Fantasy V
Unlike those mortals that deal with the normal elements, your connection with the Void supplies you with a virtually unlimited regeneration. As long as your head is not destroyed (and even then, as long as it is mostly intact) you can regenerate from your wounds, restoring yourself to whole. The more damaged you are, the longer it will take, but it will never take more than a day to restore yourself to full health.

"That sounds good too," Ganesha accepted before he turned and looked over the room, "But if anyone has doubts about their ability, come and see me privately. Your shame will be kept confidential!"

"Yeah, but the hand signs?" Ichiban tried again, pointing at Modaka who had his fingers arranged kind of like a steeple.

"It feels warmer," Modaka repeated what he'd said earlier, and indeed it looked like his hands were sweating as he kept up the flow of chakra that glowed around them.

"Try it with your forefingers raised instead," Ganesha suggested, which Modaka did and his visible chakra subsided back to its previous yellow colour and he shook his head. A few more were tried but to no visible effect, nor any Ichiban could detect with his magical senses.

"That one seems to make chakra energy more heated, so there must be a cold one. We found one that makes it feel lighter as well," Ganesha explained to Ichiban, holding his hands together with pinkies and forefingers touching and the ones in the middle folded down and laced across.

Ichiban tried it himself, and his chakra became dimly visible around his hands, but rather than its usual yellow glow it seemed washed out somehow. He could feel it too, taking on a kind of airy quality, the already insubstantial energy seeming even more so. It didn't seem to change the way it flowed around his body – it wasn't faster or easier, it just conveyed that feeling to its form.

"Yeah, I can feel it too," he said. "It kind of feels like air, but it doesn't really move around like that, it's just… it feels different." He tried pulling his hands apart like when he'd created the whirl based on the mafuba, and while his chakra moved between his hands it settled into the same circulation crossing from one hand to the other and then going around his body, rather than becoming a stable vortex in place, and after a couple seconds it started feeling normal again. "It feels like this is some way to maybe do wind attacks with chakra, and the other one could be for fire, but there must be more to it we're missing."

It made sense, those kinds of elemental breakdowns were common in video-games, and magical ninja techniques worked the same way at least in fiction. Hell, he'd seen plenty of elemental spells of all types yesterday too.

"Hmm! Good idea," Ganesha nodded. "Where's Ibri? I want to see him try this with his spell!"

Ichiban had a few fire spells he could try, wind ones too for that matter, but he tagged along as Ganesha and several other members of his familia went and grabbed a fair-haired man who wore a pair of goggles that wouldn't have looked out of place on a welder and they went outside (there were apparently other doors outside of the statue that did not involve going through Ganesha's crotch) to a training field around the back.

Ibri took a few tries with the hand sign but once he had it down he cast his spell, one Ichiban had seen yesterday. At its conclusion great roaring pillars of flame erupted out of the ground all around him. He wasn't sure if they looked much different but afterwards a sweating Ibri came back over to where everyone had been watching at a safe distance, "My giant fire storm felt way hotter, I could have been scorched myself using it!" he exclaimed, seeming very happy about it. "It was more tiring physically but I think it didn't use as much mind either – that's what the skill says, it's all about balance, right?"

"You might have hit the nail on the head there!" Ganesha agreed proudly. "We need to find the hand signs for other elements and then we can boost everyone's spells. Everyone!" he raised his voice, looking around the gathered familia members, "Ganesha wants you to try lots of finger stuff! It's very important, you can't skimp on it even if you're excited!

"Lord Ganesha, why are you like this?" Shakti asked in a long-suffering tone as she joined the group.

"I am Ganesha!" the god responded, flexing his muscles. He did not elaborate further.

She seemed to understand there was no point pushing it further as she instead turned to Ichiban. "We're ready to escort you back to the Colosseum after you've had breakfast, Ichiban. The Guild will be directing people there today who missed yesterday, but it was busy enough I don't think there will be as many. At this point it's probably too late for Evilus to meaningfully interfere, but I don't think they'll give up. Now they've put you in their sights it's a matter of pride, and making a statement if they kill you."

Well that was ominous. Maybe he could've had an easier life if he'd just kept chakra secret like Naaza suggested at first. But seeing how happy everyone was messing with the new ability, how he'd been able to learn things from the discoveries they made with their own experiments… well, it was worth it even before Shakti's point last night about exposing Evilus early and giving everyone a chance at rooting them out.

"I got it," he said before bowing earnestly. "I'll follow your lead till we get there. Please take care of me."

It didn't take long for them to set off after that. Ganesha familia members of middle rank went on ahead to clear the streets before Ichiban went out surrounded by four level five adventurers. Politicians back home would kill for this kind of protective detail.

Of course it had to be tested. However Evilus had been pushed by those fights from the scouting expeditions last night, they still had the resources and the desire to take out Ichiban, and they'd managed to put something together despite all their other troubles.

The street ahead of them exploded, adventurers either leaping aside to safety or tumbling down in a collapse of rock to the sink-hole below. A whistle of wind and Ilta's hand snapped out, catching an arrow that had been aimed at Ichiban's head from above and to the side.

"Sniper on the clock-tower. Go," Shakti said, putting herself between Ichiban and it as Ilta sprinted down the street so fast she might as well have been a blur, rushing towards the tower that was clearly an ideal sniping spot. Ichiban threw up a force-field in front of Shakti as well, a second arrow shattering it but then Ilta was already parkouring her way up the structure.

The other two guards, a woman with ram's horns named Anna and a burly guy named Nakeb were both positioning themselves to guard against the collapsed street as huge green monsters that looked like a combination of flowers and snakes surged forth… and with them a wave of magic.

Dark purple tendrils weaved through the air, though they were insubstantial and didn't need to touch anyone for the spell's effect to be felt as it simply filled all the space in a wide radius around the hole. The lower-levelled Ganesha familia adventurers slumped and cried out in distress. The ones surrounding Ichiban seemed less affected, though Shakti grimaced and said, "That spell… Arachnia's here!"

He didn't know who Arachnia was, but he knew this spell was bad news, he could feel it weakening him as well, his breath coming shorter. The ball containing Yankimaru was taken and his thumb tore through the paper seal as he tossed it towards the hole. It popped open and the giant brass robot emerged. "Yankimaru, kill the plant monsters!" The control rod was already in his hand, summoned to his need.

A tremendous gout of steam issued forth, like what had trivially annihilated all of those killer ants before. Against these monsters though it only made them shrivel up their leaves, recoiling from it but no more. Instead they quickly responded by baring mouths full of wetly glistening fangs, hissing and lunging to surround Yankimaru, others slithering up to attack the weakened Ganesha familia members.

"Captain, those monsters are too much for them!" Anna cried out as one of the plant monsters got close enough to snap at a guy shakily holding up his shield while retreating. They were close enough for Ichiban to put a force-field in front of him, though it shattered under the monster's lunge.

It bought him a second to scramble back, while Ichiban prepared another spell, magical circles glowing around the Hero Mage's Wand while he called out a spell he remembered well from yesterday, one both quick to cast and incredibly powerful. "Fight eternally, immortal soldiers of lightning!"

It wasn't the utter swarm of lightning bolts that Hedin had made, but they kept forming overhead in groups until he had about fifty. He could've kept going, he could've made thousands without meaningfully denting his mana supply, but it took time for him to make them, so this would have to do. Swinging his wand forward, the lightning shot in the same direction, striking down over the monsters swarming out of the hole. Chunks were blown off of them, sending them reeling, stunned and crying in enraged pain. One had coiled around Yankimaru like a python, squeezing even as the robot sawed through it with its axe-hand, a test of whether metal or scales would fail first.

"Sniper's down," Shakti's clipped voice reported. "You two go support. Ichiban stay with me, Ilta's providing cover."

He only had time to glance that way and caught the sight of a robed figure bonelessly tumbling from the clock tower, landing in a fashion that suggested they weren't getting up.

He felt the back-blast of air being displaced when Anna and Nakeb shot forward, slamming into the monsters with fury. Yankimaru was still struggling with his, and Ichiban started another spell from the same source. It only worked if you respected the target? Well Ichiban sure as hell respected his badass giant robot!

"Play music eternally, immortal saint!"

The spell that had fatigued even a level six to cast felt like nothing at all for Ichiban, even with the drain he was feeling from this creepy aura surrounding them. Lightning lanced forth and surged around Yankimaru, turning his figure blinding to look at. The axe-blade he was using to carve through the monster blew up in size, crackling furiously and scything the rest of the way through the monster just as easily as if it were a kobold. His powerful stomping footsteps moved with alacrity, not on the level of Anna and Nakeb but still so fast he almost looked like a glitchy stop-motion puppet, his axe hitting like lightning and his hammer striking like thunder.

The monsters were thinning out rapidly between the two level fives and the super-charged robot, the effect of the draining aura all around them not enough to defeat their sheer power. These monsters were sure big and scary, far more than anything Ichiban had seen in the Dungeon so far, but they'd been weakened enough themselves from his lightning barrage that the heavy hitters were now cleaning them up without them having been able to seriously hurt anyone that he'd seen.

The ones that fell right in the hole the moment it appeared… well, he had a bad feeling about them.

"Arachnia!" Anna's furious bellow was at odds with her overall cutesy look as she sliced through one of the monsters right at the edge of the hole with her naginata, leaping down into the darkness. An instant later the creepy purple magic vanished and Shakti smiled grimly.

"She's running. Always the coward," she said, looking like she'd rather be the one screaming threats and running into the tunnels down there instead of her familia member.

He felt it a second later, magical discharges at the same time as fiery explosions blasted out down the hole, residual flames washing over Yankimaru's still electrically charged form. A force-field was thrown up in time to protect one of the Ganesha familia adventurers who'd been knocked down at the start of the melee, while Nakeb leapt clear.

400 – Hide and Seek
Marvel Zombies
Maybe it'd be possible to beat out the zombified superhuman community if you were some godlike voyager traveling through realities, but what are the chances of that? For everybody else, you're better off keeping your head down and trying to keep a low profile. Even then, the odds are against you. After all, the monsters you're hiding have all sorts of ways to find you outside the mundane - freaky sixth senses, telepathy, divination, and all the fancy toys they've got access to. They'll have a real hard time with you, though. Firstly, you're immune to any supernatural means of gaining information on you - for example, the zombies can use that reconfigured version of Cerebro as many times as they want, but they won't be picking up on you. Any way to scry on you just doesn't work, unless you want it to. Secondly, you're just really, really sneaky. Were you part of the Hand or something? You can move while making nary a sound, are capable of all sorts of acrobatics, and everything you'd expect those red-clad ninja to be capable of sans the fighting skills. Or maybe you're one of those rotten robbies and think that being really sneaky is befitting of a monster.

He felt a new skill settle into him, sneaking abilities worthy of a ninja. Sadly it didn't give him any further insight into chakra, but he didn't let that hold him back as he started rushing forward. "That didn't sound good!" he said, rushing forward and already channelling Dia Fratel through his wand. "Bring anyone wounded over here!" he called, completing the spell and leaving a glowing field of healing magic on the street, the light it gave off just as heartening as his main hero's light spell.

"Don't just rush in!" Shakti ran to put herself ahead of him at the edge of the hole, but he was still able to see down there, the street broken apart and debris fallen down into what might have been a sewer tunnel.

There was no sign of Anna, or this mysterious Arachnia, but the tunnel had collapsed fully on one end, blocking it off where he'd felt all those magical detonations originating. The nearer side was also mostly blocked from the initial blast, the street sloped down in rubble towards the sewers that the monsters had used to rush upwards. There were two people down there that he recognised from the Ganesha familia, their limbs twisted and their skin burnt.

He rushed down without thinking, his wand handling the casting of Airmid's spell once more before he laid it out on top of them. Bones set and skin knit back together, the two perhaps severely wounded but not dead. Not bad enough that saint-like healing magic couldn't reach them.

"Thank you, Airmid," he said with feeling as Shakti joined him.

"Anna's caught up, I can hear fighting," she said, staring at the mass of broken rock and dirt barring the way. "Nakeb! Help me clear a path! Ichiban, you stay back with your creature!"

Hell with that. Sewers were full of rats, right?

"Hey, rats! If you see a blonde girl with horns fighting anyone, help her out!"

He sent out a call for help to any animals able to hear, and then he stood forward where Shakti was grabbing a rock to haul out from the rubble. Sure she lifted it like it was a movie prop, but he could do better. One of the powerful guys he'd given chakra to yesterday had shown off an earth-moving spell. "Step back, I've got a spell for this," he said, channelling magic through his wand and then thrusting it out.

It tore out a big gouge from the rock and dirt, not enough to get all the way through. But he just cast it again, it didn't take long and his mana reserves felt near enough bottomless at this rate. It only took a few seconds to have a tunnel created big enough for people to crouch through, and in enough time for Ilta to rejoin them.

"Ilta, Nakeb, you two defend Ichiban, I'm going ahead!" Shakti shot through the tunnel as soon as it was big enough, but of course Ichiban followed her.

"Hey, I think she meant to stay back here!" Nakeb complained, but he didn't try to physically restrain Ichiban so he'd take it.

"Come on, Anna might need help!" Ilta seemed happy enough for the excuse to follow and get closer to the action. It was dark down here, gloomy but lit up with glowing stones like the upper parts of the Dungeon, and Ichiban ran in Shakti's wake, so desperate to catch up with the lightning fast adventurer he cast that wind enchantment spell, Ariel, which saw him rocketing down the sewer tunnel at a speed that was difficult to even control.

Luckily it was a straight line. And luckily he didn't have to go far. Anna was slumped against the wall, clutching at a ragged wound across her stomach, her weapon on the floor.

But she was grinning, a savage look of triumph on her face as she stood opposite the bisected corpse of a pink-haired woman

"She almost got me with that cursed sword of hers," the sheep-person said in a breathy tone. "Then a bunch of rats swarmed her and tripped her up. Left her wide open… hah, oh I really hope you can cast Dea Saint's spell though, Ichiban, this hurts a whole lot."

Thank you rats! "I got you," he hurried over, avoiding looking at the corpse of Arachne as he cast the premier healing spell once more, its comforting glow further lighting up the sewer and causing Anna to groan as her flesh slowly began knitting together, slower than the other wounds he'd fixed back in the initial hole, but still surely doing the trick.

Shakti wasn't so squeamish, as she kicked over the top part of the body, yellow eyes on a leering face staring sightlessly upwards. "Valletta Grede. The Guild thought she'd died years ago, but I always had a feeling…" Shakti said grimly, staring down into those unseeing eyes. "Good work Anna. This woman gave me a lot of trouble seven years ago."

"Hehe," Anna chuckled, only wincing a little as she took her hand away from her mended stomach, her outfit exposing her midsection so the wound and its recovery was easy to see. "We've come a long way since then. I pushed chakra through my feet to kick off for a big jump when I saw her running, got me through the tunnel before it collapsed. She wasn't expecting that!" Her pride turned to embarrassment as she added, "Then I fell over a bit, I should probably practice that move."

After his experience trying to run while having a wind enchantment boost his movement, Ichiban could absolutely relate.

"So what now?" Ichiban asked as Shakti crouched down and started rifling through Valetta's coat.

"Now?" she asked back, pulling out a stone orb with a red crystal in it, the kind of thing that screamed 'mysterious key item' in a video game. "Now we get you to the Colosseum so you can keep doing what infuriates them so much. And we'll see what secrets we can find in their hideout."

They left the body behind. Ichiban supposed someone would clean it up later, but the priority was to get him safely to the Colosseum. Ilta took the woman's sword but held it away from herself like it was poisonous, which basically matched the feeling Ichiban got when he looked at it. Anna had called it cursed, right?

When they made it back out, the lower levelled members of the familia had recovered and gathered up the magic stones from the monsters. They were bigger even than the minotaur ones, and rather than the consistent purple shade they'd all been before, these ones had a sickly yellow tinge to them.

"Captain, the stones these monsters dropped have a weird colour to them," one of the guys reported, although colour aside they felt the same to Ichiban's magical senses.

"Hey, can I have one of those?" he asked. While he wasn't sure about casting any of his necromancy spells – he sure wasn't going to turn that Evilus chick into a wraith, a few spells he knew had backlash like Naaza's did, and a magic stone could probably be used to pay for it.

"You fought as much as anyone. You and that creature of yours," Shakti gave her approval as one of the stones was passed over, the Ganesha captain looking up at Yankimaru. He didn't seem damaged from the battle, to Ichiban's relief. "I wondered what happened to it, I saw it the other day while I was on patrol. Sure pulled its weight, along with your magic. The lightning of Hildrsleif, the healing of Dea Saint… the kind of combinations you'll be able to pull off boggle the mind."

"Yeah, it's actually a problem having so many spells it's hard to even pick," he admitted, pocketing the magic stone and taking out a fresh paper seal as he went to retrieve the ball he'd been storing Yankimaru in. "Now watch this, it's the technique I was telling you about last night."

He did the hand signs, following them up with an upwards pointing gesture as he called out, "Mafuba!" and caught Yankimaru in a vortex that sucked him down into the ball, which he clasped shut and stuck a fresh seal over. He didn't really feel drained at all by it, his immense chakra reserves handling the strain of the technique easily. "See? Can carry him around easily like this," he held up the now sealed ball before sticking it in his pocket.

"That's an incredible technique!" Shakti marvelled, the rest of her familia watching with similar appreciation, although Ilta and Nakeb quickly stopped gawking to check up and down the street to watch for further attacks. "Can anyone do it with chakra?"

"No idea," he admitted honestly, "I learned this one before I got the chakra stuff, but it seems like kinda similar.

"It would be really good to use with tamed monsters," she said, which by itself neatly explained how the Evilus chick was able to send a bunch of monsters at them and not get eaten herself. "Let me try…" she turned to face down into the hole and did the same gestures as Ichiban, right down to calling out, "Mafuba!"

It wasn't the intense beam of green energy that captured Yankimaru, but something definitely came out, more spread out and barely visible, the same yellow glow as when she'd been manifesting chakra after doing the hand signs last night. It kicked up some rubble, so it definitely did something, but more on the order of a strong breeze.

"Think it needs a target to latch onto as well, but I'm not sure if it'll work exactly the same," Ichiban offered, while Shakti's shoulders slumped. She took out a potion from her belt and gulped it down, seeming refreshed afterwards as she turned back.

"That was a lot more tiring than the other chakra exercises. I'll practice it later, but for now we need to get you to the Colosseum. Come on, we'll have to get around this hole."

And so they did. Someone else would have to clean up all the mess here, and Ichiban didn't envy them for it. But he was soon busy enough as they got to the Colosseum to pick up where he'd left off yesterday. It wasn't as busy as yesterday, suggesting most people who cared had rushed to take advantage of the offer. It did mean however that a lot of the non-adventurers who'd come just to see the magic show took advantage of the lesser crowd to line up and get chakra from him themselves.

Not like Ichiban cared, he wasn't vetting anyone. So long as he didn't get any bad feelings like he had with the potential bombers yesterday he'd give chakra to anyone that asked, no matter how thuggish or creepy some of the adventurers looked. As far as normal people without falna went, chakra didn't seem to do much for them. Maybe barely on the level of the weakest adventurers, and that was being generous.

Still, it was free, so why wouldn't people take advantage?

The members of the Ganesha familia that were helping to oversee things with the Guild employees also shared what they'd figured out in terms of hand signs, hopefully progressing the spread of knowledge and advancement of chakra techniques. As far as he was concerned the more the better, it was mostly going to be used against monsters in the Dungeon after all.

He wondered how Miach and Naaza were getting on trying stuff with pressure points. There seemed to be a lot of potential avenues to explore with chakra, and mastering it would be even more complicated than figuring out the best way to organise all the spells he was picking up.

300 – Talon Bow
God Of War (2018)
A yew bow, created with the purpose of harming even the gods if the need arises. Something that is interesting about the bow is that it scales with the level of Divine Physiology that you choose earlier in the Jump. Someone with an Unnatural physiology would find their bow being as strong as the one Atreus uses when it is upgraded to the max, with it being able to cause flesh wounds even on a god. Whilst someone with a God physiology would find that they would find their arrows going deep into the hides of dragons and gods alike. So long as the quiver of arrows is never spilled you will find an unlimited number of arrows, and once every 10 minutes you will find ten arrows which will deal lightning damage along with the damage they would normally do. These special arrows restock once they are depleted. Once-per-Jump you will find an arrow which will dissolve the magical defenses of whoever you declare the target, this would work even on divine spells such as the one which grants Baldur his immortality.

Speaking of, while he was feeling like an idol at a handshake event and clasping the hands of an excitable looking halfling girl, he felt something else slip onto him. A quiver of arrows latching itself to his belt and a bow hanging off the lion paw draped over his shoulder.

"What's that, Mister?!" the girl asked, eyes shining as the appearance of the weapon distracted even from the sensation of having her chakra system develop.

"Uhh…" he looked at the new arrivals himself. The bow looked pretty normal, less fancy than the one Naaza carried, but he could sense power in it, a feeling of stretchiness or elasticity like it would fit whoever used it, no matter how strong they were. The quiver was more interesting, it seemed to only hold a handful of arrows but as Ichiban looked at it they seemed to bubble up like an overflowing bucket of water. A similar feeling to his endless water bottle, but amidst the endless bounty of arrows? Lightning bolts crackled, potentially endless but slow to charge. And there was one more… just one amidst infinity, yet with seemingly infinite power of its own.

Well shit, he knows what he's giving Naaza later!

"Haha, don't worry about it!" he laughed, looking back at the girl and belatedly letting go of her hands. "Just something that happens around me. You're all set!" he waved her off and the next person came forward to get their chakra developed. The bow and its endless arrows would keep.

With the smaller turnout today, they wound up closing things out earlier, just as the sun was beginning to go down. Once more Rose was there to thank him, giving that warm fuzzy feeling of a job well done.

"Good work today, Mr. Kasuga. I think other than adventurers on deeper expeditions or living in Rivira, or any new adventurers that start after today, you've helped most of Orario," she said, before her eyes narrowed. "I heard about what happened this morning. The fact that Evilus is targeting you is proof enough that you're doing a good thing with this."

"Yeah, speaking of that, are they going to be striking back at them?" he asked. He'd done his part here, but after this morning, both the feeling of personally being targeted, and the knowledge that he and Yankimaru had held their own amidst Shakti's group, it made him want to get involved. He didn't want another night of just feeling magic at a distance and wondering what's going on.

"I'm sure they will, but I don't know the details. You should leave it to the top familias though, you've done enough. The Dungeon will bring you enough trouble without sticking your nose in that kind of mess," Rose said to try and put him off, but he shook his head.

"No way. They made it personal. Besides, I caused most of this too, just sitting on the sidelines of a mess I had a hand in doesn't feel right," he shrugged off her well meaning advice.

Given there were plenty of high level people around helping to provide security here at the Colosseum, it wasn't hard to find someone who could point him in the right direction. It was another of the little halfling guys, one wearing heavy armour who scoffed at Ichiban's question.

"Braver's in charge of the planning, you're best off going to Twilight Manor unless you want to just wander around Daedalus Street yourself. Everyone's keeping an eye there to try and figure out all the entrances to the place after they collapsed a bunch of tunnels on Ottar. Dumb meathead thought he could just punch through the walls to avoid the doors."

Ottar was that guy with Freya last night, right? The strongest guy in the city? "Is he okay?" Ichiban asked worriedly.

"Yeah," the guy sighed in a tone that suggested he wished otherwise. "Take more than a few hundred tons of rock falling down to crack that thick skull.

Adventurers really were jaded, weren't they? "Okay, well I'll go talk to this Braver guy. Thanks," he nodded, heading off. He was sure he could get some adventurers to escort him around like this morning, but wasn't part of the problem that Evilus knew where he was staying and where he was heading, so they prepared that ambush this morning?

When he left the Colosseum, no one saw him. Despite his red suit and white furred cloak and wild hair, Ichiban just vanished into shadows like a ninja of legend, feet not making a sound as he parkoured onto rooftops, and made his way across the city. Not to Twilight Manor – wherever that was, but to the Blue Pharmacy.

It was different seeing Orario from this perspective, but he was starting to get used to the city and he made good time, barely seen by anyone when he had to drop lower and cut across streets before vanishing into alleys and over rooftops, before he made it back to the same spot he arrived in this world. From a dying bum on the street, to the kind of guy that completely changes everything. Had it really only been a couple of days? Well, he wouldn't have landed so well without the two people in here, so he was happy to visit and pay back some of the debt.

"Yo, I'm back!" he called as he opened the door and stepped into the shop, surprised to see it was busier than usual. Miach and Naaza were both there, but there was another god, a dark-haired guy wearing traditional old fashioned Japanese clothes, right down to the geta sandals on his feet. The clothes looked kind of ragged for a god, but having heard of Miach and Hestia's money troubles he was kind of numb to that. The last person there was a young shirtless guy who seemed about as strong as Naaza, holding himself still but clearly concentrating on his chakra as Miach gave what looked like a back massage.

"Hello Ichiban," Miach called back genially. "Don't mind us, we're just doing a little research on chakra with young Ouka here."

Ouka gave a distracted nod while the other god in the room stepped over to greet him properly. "Ichiban Kasuga, thank you very much for being so generous with the gift of this new skill!" he bowed deeply. "I'm Takemikazuchi, and as a god of war let me tell you, I'm excited to see what the children do with it!"

"No shit?" Ichiban's jaw dropped. He knew a guy who had a tattoo of Takemikazuchi on his back! Looked a lot more stylised, but even so Ichiban could buy that this guy was legit. "I've heard of you back home. You ever pin a catfish under a rock?"

Takemikazuchi looked embarrassed while Miach smiled. "It was all everyone could talk about in Tenkai for a little while."

"Well, I'd rather talk about martial arts, but that was one slippery catfish!" Takemikazuchi laughed good-naturedly.

Ichiban would be just as happy to talk that too, but first, "I'll join you in that, but Naaza, you got a minute first?"

She nodded and led him through the back, where out of habit he handed her the water bottle first and she started draining it into a barrel in the corner. Of course she'd noticed the bow and arrows he was now carrying, and he laid them out on her work table. "Had this show up earlier, and I'm not an archer but I know you can use it," he explained. "The bow should be good, but the quiver's the fancy part. It'll never run out of arrows, and it can even make special lightning arrows but needs to recharge a bit between doing them. Then there's… well, there's one special arrow, but only one. I'm not sure exactly how strong it is, but I've got a feeling it'll ruin the day of absolutely anything that gets hit by it, no matter what. But y'know… it's just one and I don't think you can use it again."

He wondered if he was laying that part on too thick. She might wind up never using it, be like when you beat the last boss in a game with a bunch of elixirs that you were saving 'until you really needed them'.

"Ichiban, this is…" Naaza trailed off, leaving the water bottle balanced to continue draining over the edge of the barrel as she picked up the bow and pulled back on the string. He could feel something changing in the bow as it adjusted itself to match the feel of Naaza's magic, and it creaked when she had it at its maximum which she held it a few seconds before easing it back to rest. "It's a good bow. And these arrows…" she pulled one out of the quiver, holding it up even as the number inside it seemed to remain the same.

She smiled widely before it settled back into her more usual expression. "It's a shame not many adventurers use bows, otherwise I'd turn this into the Blue Pharmacy and Fletcher. Still, thank you. I'll look forward to using it the next time we go into the Dungeon together."

Trust Naaza to think of it that way. "Well, hey. It's yours. You deserve it for all the help you've given, and anything that helps you kill monsters is good for all of us," he said, happy to just let her have it and starting to head back out to the front of the shop. "So how you been figuring out chakra? We figured out some stuff with hand signs back when I was with Ganesha's people."

Hand signs. Just keep calling them that, it'll stick and the whole finger business can be forgotten.

"You'll have to show us," Takemikazuchi asked. "I've been working with my familia on martial arts styles, ways to move their bodies that help with the flow of chakra, and then I came over here to see what Miach might know about how it all works internally."

"If I were back in Tenkai I could figure it out a lot more easily, but it's a fun challenge working with it like this. Definitely a lot less emotionally trying than practising medicine without arcanum usually is," Miach said cheerfully. "It's not hard to disturb the flow of chakra by manipulating pressure points. This can block it in some places, but those blockages alter the flow in ways that can be helpful elsewhere, and the act of pushing against those blocks can work to train it as well, like working a muscle."

"It's a weird feeling when it gets blocked up," Ouka put in. "It's not really numb, because it's really just back how I was before, but I'm already kind of used to it."

"Well, lemme show you the hand signs and you can see how they work for you?" Ichiban proceeded to show off the mafuba-derived 'vortex' sign, as well as the 'fire' and 'wind' ones Ganesha had figured out. He'd have to try the wind one with some of his magic, although he probably wouldn't use them normally. Whatever benefit the hand signs gave, he'd be better off holding his wand to automate and speed up the spellcasting.

Ouka and Naaza both tried them out, Ouka's chakra appearing blue, while Naaza's was more purple when it appeared in a whirling pattern between their hands. Neither had any elemental magic to get much out of the other two signs, although Naaza speculated that the vortex sign might change how her magic came out, but she wasn't in a hurry to cast it for a demonstration.

"It's interesting that it works with these hand signs," Miach spoke up after the demonstration, "Because it looks like the chakra's coming out of the hands at pressure points I've noticed there, ones that seem more developed than the others. It's possible training could expand other pressure points to allow chakra manifestations from other parts of the body."

That sounded like some elite old master shit. Firing beams from your eyeballs, or catching a foe off guard with a chakra blast from your elbow. Might take as long as it does to become an old master to learn it though, they were all basically making this up as they went along, but that's what made it cool. Sure he could just get given a library of necromantic spells that were stuck in his head like he'd been robbing graves for years, but everyone was basically fumbling around together when it came to chakra. It really made it exciting.

"Anyway, I was gonna go find this guy Braver who's in charge of the operation against Evilus, any of you know where Twilight Manor is so I can find him?" he asked as they wound down their demonstrations, Naaza going to fetch and return his water bottle.

"It's a huge fancy building up by the north gate," Naaza told him. "You're actually getting involved with that? I thought you were focused on getting to the bottom of the Dungeon."

He took it as progress that she said that without any qualifiers about how it was an impossible task that would take decades.

"Yeah well, I kind of feel responsible for them kicking off all this trouble, and they attacked me this morning too – wouldn't have made it out if not for the Ganesha familia protecting me, that's for sure. I know there's a lot of people stronger than me, but I can definitely help. Me and Yankimaru!" he grinned and patted his pocket where he was keeping the stowed away giant robot.

"And me," she said, glancing at Miach and then back at Ichiban. "If I'm going down into the Dungeon to keep you safe, I should go anywhere else you're going to get into trouble. Although…" she looked momentarily conflicted before asking, "What about Rina?"

"Haven't seen her since yesterday," he admitted. It had been busy enough that he hadn't paid much attention to her absence either, she obviously had a life of her own and there was a lot more going on, but they had made a good team. "We can try getting in touch with her after we speak to Braver?"

He'd even given chakra to a few amazons he remembered from that disastrous night out at the Entertainment District, and they hadn't really started anything. Ishtar… she didn't really seem nice, but at least when she was in a room with a bunch of other gods she hadn't done anything to really stand out to him. Not as much as Dionysus had anyway. It might he safe to swing that way later, but first? He really wanted to get a handle on what was going on with Evilus. And that meant talking to the man that was apparently in charge of fighting them.

Considering how competitive the familias of Orario were, he didn't really envy a guy the job of putting them together into an effective fighting force. Those would be some big shoes to fill, alright.

Author's Notes said:
I'm almost hoping Ichiban never picks up any perks that give him actual Naruto ninja skills, because it's really fun exploring how Danmachi natives adapt and interpret the chakra system from first principles.

Also the Talon Bow was almost a reroll, because of its finicky writing with regard to other perks from God of War, but I just decided to interpret it as the bow adapting to the strength of the wielder – in essence it functions the same way the Hestia Knife does, plus having those special arrows. The one-of-a-kind arrow is definitely giving the same feeling as having a megalixir in your inventory in a JRPG though.

Ebiris · Feb 8, 2025

It was getting dark now, but Orario had street-lights like any modern city, so he and Naaza could see just fine as they headed towards the north of the city. "So what's this Braver guy like?" he asked, figuring Naaza would know.

"You met him last yesterday," she reminded him. "The Loki familia captain, Finn Dieme? The blond pallum?"

"Oh shit, that's what they're called?" he blurted out, causing Naaza to look at him in surprise. He gestured up at his head embarrassedly and elaborated, "I've just been calling them halflings in my head."

"Don't call them that!" Naaza exclaimed in the sort of tone that suggested he'd just committed a heinous faux pas and she was now embarrassed to be seen with him.

"Well I won't now!" he said, feeling similarly awful about the whole business. Then, with the reluctance of ripping off a band-aid, he asked, "What about dog-person?"

"That one's okay," she allowed, simmering down, "But the proper word is chienthrope."

"Huh," he grunted, doing his best to try and remember the weird sounding word. "What about cat-person?"

She shrugged. "They're just cat-people."

That seemed needlessly complicated, why wouldn't cats and dogs have the same kind of style of name? "What about the other animal typed people?"

Naaza raised her gloved hand and started to tick off on her fingers as she named them, swapping over to her bare hand as the list went on. "Chienthrope, werewolf, renard, weretiger, cat-person, hume-bunny, boaz, bull, sheep, raccoon."

"That sounds really inconsistent!" he complained. So if he called Anna a sheep she'd have been fine with it? It wouldn't have been weird? "How do you tell the difference between a chienthrope and a werewolf anyway?"

She raised her hands up above her head with her fingers pointed upwards, "Werewolves have those ears?"

"Pointy ears? Like cat ears? Don't some dogs have ears like that too?" he asked, trying his best to actually nail down the differences now he was getting an explanation.

At that Naaza turned and gestured at her fluffy brown tail, "Cat-people have those skinny tails. As for chienthropes with those kinds of ears… it's like how some human women have darker skin but aren't amazons. No one will get mad at you for making a mistake like that."

He felt like was both a wiser and more understanding person as a result of Naaza's lecture and he nodded appreciatively to her for giving it. "Thanks, I could've just blundered into saying something really stupid without meaning to."

"It's okay. I'm here to protect you from your own stupidity as much as monsters in the Dungeon, it's my burden to bear," Naaza gave him a smile worthy of a saint as they made their way to the Twilight Manor.

Fortunately the only thing it had in common with Ganesha's place was being well lit up, otherwise looking like a fantasy European palace, a huge central building surrounded by cone-topped towers.

Since basically everyone in town now knew Ichiban's face, and the adventurers specifically were enjoying the new skill he'd given them, they got let in without any trouble. The inside as nice as the outside, he wouldn't say palatial, there weren't gaudy diamond chandeliers everywhere or anything like that, but it was definitely a rich family's home like he'd seen with Ganesha.

He and Naaza were taken to a fairly open lounge to sit and wait while other Loki familia members were hanging around and no doubt repressing their curiosity, but they didn't have a chance to ask any questions that were on their mind before Finn showed up, accompanied by the same dwarf who provided that earth destruction spell he'd used this morning and an amazon (despite Naaza's earlier words about dark-skinned humans, Ichiban still felt confident in saying amazon purely because of how little she was wearing).

"Ichiban, and Naaza, welcome to the Twilight Manor," Finn greeted them both easily, "Have you reconsidered our goddess's offer of hospitality after experiencing Lord Ganesha's last night?" he asked with a trace of amusement in his voice.

"Haha, no not that, they were fine," Ichiban shook his head, "I was talking to one of the guys at the Colosseum earlier though, and he said you were the guy in charge of the operation against Evilus. I wanted to get involved, lend a hand myself."

"I see," Finn took a seat on the sofa opposite him and Naaza, while his companions remained standing, "I heard from Shakti about what happened this morning… Valletta was always a lot of trouble back in the dark period, personally I'd hoped she'd died back then, but I'm glad it's been confirmed now. We won't turn down your help, so to start with I'll tell you where things stand.

"Last night members of our familia along with the Freya and Ganesha familias attacked the artificial dungeon Knossos under Daedalus Street. The interior is a maze, with gates of orichalcum that are impossible to breach, which opened and closed under someone's control to split up our scouting parties. There we were attacked by a combination of tamed monsters and Evilus members. At some point Ottar of the Freya familia made it down to the second floor, where I assume Evilus panicked and activated a catastrophic defence by collapsing the first floor onto the second." Finn shook his head ruefully, a look of mixed admiration and envy as he told Ichiban what he'd heard earlier, "Ottar was able to punch through from below, although the forces on the first floor took heavy casualties from the collapse on their side. As things stand now, the upper levels of Knossos are a ruin of rubble and precious metals used in its construction. It'd be a scavenger's paradise, but it's blocking the way further down.

"We know however that there are other entrances. Valletta used one for her attack this morning, and furthermore she had a key to allow opening of those orichalcum doors that Shakti was able to retrieve. Right now we're searching Daedalus Street and the sewers to locate those other entrances, while the Hermes familia works to create copies of that key which we can use in our next assault. It'll likely be a few days before we can attack again, Andromeda said copying the key is going to be difficult and require some rare drop items which we're having to gather for her. Given your talents, I think you'd be most help searching for those other entrances if you're willing to lend a hand."

That was a lot to take in, but it put into context all the magic stuff he'd felt last night. "Okay, so you need help finding other entrances? I should be able to help with that. You got a map of the place with the ones already found?"

Finn looked embarrassed as he answered, "We don't really have any good maps of Daedalus Street, the place was practically built to be a maze. If you talk to Riveria down there she should have the most current one we're working with. She's overseeing the search tonight from our familia."

Orin would be so jealous if he knew Ichiban was making these kinds of connections.

"Alright, we'll head down there and start having a look, see what we can turn up. Thanks for letting me know what's all going on, it's kind of stressful just thinking about what these guys could be doing, so I want to help out and get involved," Ichiban said, getting up, while Finn did the same.

"I should be thanking you, just handing out this chakra skill is going to make a huge difference for everyone. We're all very excited by it, but dealing with Evilus comes first so we'll appreciate your help with that too," he stuck out his hand, which Ichiban took. Despite his hand enveloping Finn's, he didn't doubt the little pallum could do far worse than Mord did with their first handshake, but he kept it restrained and soon he and Naaza were on their way.

"It'll be harder to search at night, although if we end up in the sewers it won't make any difference," she said philosophically as the started heading down the main road towards the other end of Orario where the Entertainment District was.

"Yeah well, I've got a few advantages, like can ask animals to help look for us," he told her with a grin. "Just wish there was something to make getting around easier. Orario's a lot smaller than Tokyo, but I still miss being able to take a cab to get around places quicker."

This led to a brief digression on taxis and the availability of horse-drawn carriages in Orario, though ultimately it didn't even last as long as it took them to reach Babel, far less the Entertainment District.

The gate guarded by women with little in the way of clothes but much in the way of weapons had been livened up since the time he came here with Mord and friends with the introduction of some big wooden signposts that were absolutely covered in a collage of photos depicting nearly naked girls with their names written underneath in sparkly letters.

Of course just like at Twilight Manor, now Ichiban was recognised and welcomed wherever he went, and here was no different. "Hi Ichiban!" a pony-tailed girl carrying a spear giggled coquettishly at him. "Come to enjoy a night of pleasure? You won't have to pay a valis anywhere inside!"

He could feel Naaza's eyes rolling even without having to look at her. "Actually it's not that, I was looking for Rina, you think someone could get her for me?" He still felt a little bit nervous about stepping in here, though he doubted he'd be subjected to a forceful recruitment effort at this point, it would still be… distracting, especially given how grateful the amazons seemed to be.

"Hmm? Harmothoe? I think she's taking the night off, all the upper ranks were busy with special training today, but I bet she'd make an exception for you!" the girl grinned before turning to her colleague and asking her to go fetch Rina for them.

While they were waiting, Ichiban looked at the notice-board of pictures, and despite herself Naaza did as well. "They're very life-like," she admitted.

"Aren't they the best?" the guard enthused, "Look, there's me!" she pointed up in the corner where indeed that pretty pony-tailed visage was seen, showing off a hand bra rather than the gossamer thing she was currently wearing across her chest in real life. The sparkly letters underneath identified her as Pio, assuming he was reading the not-quite-English letters correctly. "I never thought I'd get a painting taken, but these pictures are so quick and easy! I've actually got some spicier ones too, but we don't want to see people getting too excited just at the gate here, we've got to ease them in!"

"Yes, these are quite restrained," Naaza agreed with a slow nod, her voice bereft of sarcasm.

"Looking good there, Pio!" he agreed just to be nice, only for her and Naaza to both give him funny looks.

"Uh, it's Rio," the amazon said in a confused tone.

"That's an R?!"

There was some confusion involving Rio defending her penmanship before Naaza cut to the heart of it. "Ichiban, can you read?"

"I can read!" he insisted defensively. "Just… not this language. It looks a bit like one from home but all jumbled, and I don't really know that one either."

This led to the now relieved Rio and a patient Naaza using the names written around to help teach him letters, which absolutely was not the intended purpose of this amazon signboard of thirst snaps. Still, it helped ease some of Ichiban's unfamiliarity with writing around here, and he was pretty sure he could at least muddle through understanding signs if he saw them from now on.

It was to this scene that Rina joined them, holding herself up well to hide it but showing her fatigue in her slow cadence as she spoke, "Hey Ichiban, Naaza. What's up?" she asked, walking over to look at the pictures and inevitably pointing to one showing a perkier looking version of herself on all fours and showing a smoky look along with a lot of cleavage, "Look, there's me!"

He looked, and indeed he could now properly read the name Rina written below. "Looking good, at least in the picture. You had a hard day?" he cast his eyes over the more wrung out looking real life amazon.

"Oh yeah, spent all day kicking ass and getting my ass kicked with the other berbera. What better way to figure out chakra than under stress, right?" she answered, Rio nodding along to back up this innate wisdom.

He wasn't so sure, but at least it was good everyone was trying different methods. "Here, lemme help you out then," he summoned his wand with a flick of the wrist, letting it run through the spell-casting by itself before the glow of Dia Fratel surrounded them.

"Ohhhh… forget everything else, just having that spell on tap is amazing," she moaned, her voice regaining its vitality as she stretched with her butt pushed out and her fingers laced above her head, a satisfying pop sounding from her arched spine. "Mmmn!" easing back from her stretch and bouncing on her feet, she smiled more naturally and asked, "So, what did you need me for?"

"I'm helping out with trying to find all the entrances into Evilus's base, they've got this second dungeon underneath Daedalus Street," he explained. "Naaza's coming along too, and I figured we could make it the full team, just like in the Dungeon."

"Aww, that's sweet," she smiled widely. "You know you could get basically anyone to party up with you now, it's really nice you thought of me!"

"Haha, well you know, I've seen how scary you can be," he said with an embarrassed laugh, "But we did make a good team, so why stop?"

"Glad you see it that way! Lets go then," Rina said, cheerfully setting off while Rio's fellow guard scooted into place so she could stand in the Dia Fratel's area of effect while it was still there.

"So did you figure out anything with chakra techniques today?" he asked as the trio set off through the night-time streets of Orario. "When I was with the Ganesha familia we figured out some stuff with hand signs." Under no circumstances use the term 'finger stuff' around Rina, "And Naaza was doing pressure point stuff with Miach. And I heard Takemikazuchi's familia was figuring out martial arts techniques with it?"

"Mostly the last thing with us," Rina nodded. "Learning under pressure, throwing punches with all that extra power, and using it to block and dodge, moving around faster, that kind of thing. It really tires you out, but for a little while I can fight like a level four."

"That's going to make a big difference to how deep people can go in the Dungeon, so long as they can manage their stamina. We should be able to get a lot more ingredients that are hard to come by," Naaza said with a contented smile on her face. "And stamina restoring potions are going be a lot more valuable too. I'll have to start making more of them as well." She gave Ichiban an approving look and he thought about that barrel of magic water he sees her fill up from his water bottle every time he visits her store. Yeah. Her and Miach should do alright out of this.

"I haven't even really had a chance to practice my own chakra much, back when Evilus attacked me this morning I was just using spells."

Rina was surprised to hear of the attack, which necessitated filling her in on the events surrounding Valletta Grede's attack with tamed monsters. She was appropriately impressed at his ability to even contribute to a battle involving level five adventurers.

"A boosted Yankimaru sounds pretty cool. Do you think you could cast that spell on me?" she asked, batting her eyelashes at him.

He remembered seeing her tearing apart those rock-men he'd sent to distract her. They might always say fear isn't the same as respect, but… "Uh, yeah. I probably could," he agreed nervously, causing Rina to let out a girlish cheer and hug him. Thankfully without exercising the same muscle that motivated his respect.

Reaching Daedalus Street, he recognised it as the same area he'd skirted around the other day, where the odd alleyway or door gave him bad feelings. Were those entrances to Knossos, or places where Evilus members were hanging out? It was darker here than the rest of Orario, the street-lights that lined the main roads absent, the windows of most buildings darkened. The atmosphere was still gloomy and oppressive, even with the adventurers they saw patrolling around the streets and keeping lookout from rooftops.

They recognised and welcomed Ichiban of course, and it wasn't hard to be led to a building that the allied familias were using as their command post. Riveria was there, standing over a map spread out over a table, a few other adventurers around though other than Alchat who he'd met back with the minotaurs on the tenth floor, he only passingly recognised them from handing out chakra.

"Yo. Heard this was the place to get in on hunting down ways into Evilus's dungeon," he said, waving in greeting to everyone.

"Welcome, Ichiban. That's right, we haven't been formally introduced but I'm Riveria Ljos Alf, vice captain of the Loki familia," the green-haired elf answered, nodding to him.

As pleasant and welcoming as Riveria was, he could feel the burning eyes of another elf glaring at him from the corner and wondered if there was some offence being taken at the lack of a formal introduction before now. Why were they so protective around this woman? It was like dealing with a celebrity and her rabid fanbase back home.

"Nice to meet you," he gave her a smile and a bow, doing his best to brush off any mean looks as he came closer where he could see the map. It was a lot more complicated looking than the maps Rose had shown him of Dungeon floors before, but he could see stars drawn in three locations which he pointed to, "Those the entrances we know about?"

"Yes, this is the one we learned about first, from the people who tried to disrupt things yesterday," Riveria answered delicately, pointing to one of them, "It's in the basement of a warehouse no one has ownership records for. The other two are both in the sewers, accessed by obscured tunnels. One was used in the retreat last night, the other we found earlier today, which we think was used by Valletta Grede in her attack on you and the Ganesha familia. Thank you for that, by the way," she smiled a similar looking smile to one he'd seen on Shakti earlier.

"Hah, if you thank anyone it should be Anna, but yeah, seems like everyone's glad she's gone," Ichiban said, a bit conflicted over killing a woman, but really considering what she must have done with Evilus, and considering how many top level adventurers around here were women, he didn't think it was worth feeling bothered by.

"I'll thank her too next time I see her," Riveria agreed politely, "But if you wish to help find other entrances to Knossos you're welcome to join the search. We're keeping a presence here as much to watch out for uprisings from Evilus as to look for ways in, but we think the collapse of the upper floors makes as much a barrier for them as for us. It's been quiet since this morning."

"Got it," he studied the map, trying to commit it to memory so he could translate it to understanding the layout of the actual streets.

Thankfully Naaza helped him out by pointing to a spot and saying, "This is where we are now."

He wondered if she was only being so considerate because she knew he was illiterate now, but he'd take it. "Okay, lets get started. We'll come back here and let you know if we find anything," he smiled at Riveria and her over-protective elf friend before they headed back out and down to street level. "What is with her fanclub? They acted all pissy when I was giving her chakra yesterday too," he complained to his companions.

"She's a princess and a celebrity," Naaza said blandly. "Elves were actually rare in Orario before she came here, so you can thank her for that too."

"No shit?" that was kind of weird to think about, you'd assume in this kind of fantasy setting things would be kind of constant. They'd been sitting on the Dungeon for a thousand years after all.

Free – Remorseless
Final Fantasy IX
You are the star and for whom the spotlight shines. Your confidence in your role is absolute, and your resolution to put yourself forward is an undeniable force. Concepts of morality are for those who have to consider the feelings and stance of others, insignificant to you. Concepts of morale, even more laughable when nothing can faze you save for your own choices.

Those insignificant masses should pray they do not attempt to subject you to silly mind control spells as they are want to do – or they'll see the attempt bounce right back at them, mentally wounding them.

"You should have went in for a hug, see what happens," Rina said playful lilt in her voice, "So what's your plan here? We going to wander around, you got another trick up your sleeve to make this easier?"

"Actually I do," he grinned at her, "I had a bad feeling about some places last time I came by this neighbourhood, so we can check them out and see if they lead towards Knossos." With that he started leading them around to try and find any of the spots he recalled getting nervous about before. Although with the unfriendly layout of Daedalus Street and the pervasive darkness it actually proved something of a struggle, and they must have been wandering close to half an hour when Ichiban pointed at a door set in underneath a staircase that previously seemed to be waiting to bite down on him but now seemed innocuous. Still, he was sure of the location, "There, this one," he pointed at it.

Wouldn't this be breaking and entering if it was someone's home? Well, they'd deal with that if they had to, dealing with Evilus was more important. He tried the door of course, its boards of chipped paint resting unevenly in the frame. It jostled but didn't open, a deadbolt securing it on the other side.

One that crunched and fell off the frame to land on the floor with a metallic sound and a subsequent scrape when Rina reached past him to give the door a shove, pushing it open and sending that now broken lock falling down the steps that descended into the darkness below.

She looked unapologetic, simply saying, "Give us a light?" before she slid past Ichiban to walk down the steps into a basement store-room, illuminated by Ichiban's heroic light as he less than heroically followed the amazon downstairs with Naaza bringing up the rear.

There were wicker baskets, filled with what looked like old sheets when he looked inside one, dusty and clearly left here for some time. A crate filled with rusted woodworking tools made Ichiban pull away before he caught tetanus from looking at it, while a strange device on a stool by the stairs was identified by Rina as a magic stone lantern.

The rolled up and dusty looking rug leaning against the wall didn't look very inviting, but Naaza pulled it aside all the same to reveal a hole with a ladder going deeper, seeming to have been chiselled out unevenly from the stone.

"The door was locked so you could only open it from the inside, so this has to lead somewhere," Naaza pointed out, climbing down the ladder first before Ichiban followed.

"Are you looking at my butt, Ichiban?" Rina called as she followed him down the ladder.

"No, what the hell?!" he blurted out, resisting the momentary urge to look that came with her suggesting the possibility.

"Well you should, it's great," she told him before Naaza called up to interrupt their banter.

"I think we've found it, you're going to have to jump the rest of the way though." There was a sound of impact before Ichiban looked down rather than up, seeing that the ladder ended with the brickwork crumbling apart, a rather intimidating gap into open space where hole they were climbing down opened into a ruined tunnel, Naaza standing below on an uneven slab of jagged masonry.

He'd picked up some pretty good parkour skills to go with all those stealth tricks he'd gotten earlier in the day, but still just to be safe be created a force-field platform underneath which he dropped onto, telling Rina who surely wouldn't need it if Naaza could make that jump but it would've felt weird to use it himself and not let her benefit.

"Little ladder humour, always got to take advantage of these moments," she'd said as she hopped down to join him and then the two of them jumped the rest of the way to join Naaza. They found themselves in a tunnel of dark grey brickwork and exposed rough looking metal, uneven jagged slabs of both making up the floor that stretched off into the darkness past where his light could reach in one direction, while in the other it led to a door which was hanging to the remaining upper brickwork, a wide gap underneath it where the floor had simply fallen out underneath to create the mess they were now standing on.

He also got a feeling it was looking at him, and as he peered up he was able to make out a creepy stone gargoyle thing carved above the door, which radiated the same sort of energy as many magic stone powered devices he'd seen around Orario. It gave off an intense feeling of being watched and he pointed up at it, "I think that's a camera or something."

"What, like the one we've got?" Rina turned to look up at it in surprise.

Oh, right. "Uh, not exactly. More like… uh, one that can see what you're doing as you're doing it," he said, wondering how to best explain the different types of cameras that can exist.

Luckily he needn't have worried as the strange reference pool of Orario natives had him covered. "Oh, like a god's viewing mirror? That must be how the controllers of Knossos were able to monitor everyone last night and trap them with doors until Ottar started breaking walls and they collapsed the floor."

"Imagine hearing all this tumbling down under your feet last night, I'm surprised we didn't notice all the way over in the Entertainment District," Rina said, poking her toe at some of the exposed metal underneath shattered bricks. "Hey, is this adamantite?" she squatted down to look closer and then cast her gaze around, wide-eyed. "No way, they built all this out of adamantite? Where did they even get this much?"

100- Shaped Like a Fortress: Unreadable
Avesta of Black and White
There is something about your thought pattern that makes it really hard for others to get a read on you, and even those who could peer into your thoughts cannot get a good grasp of you. It may be how well-ordered your mind is, not allowing any unwanted thought to pass through, or how used you are to lies that you can even lie in your own thoughts to conceal your true intentions deep within yourself.

"The doors are orichalcum too," Naaza added, crossing her arms. "I wish I'd brought a pickaxe…"

Tsubaki wouldn't have to worry about copying whatever Yankimaru was made of if she had this much to work with, surely.

"So I guess we've found one of the entrances for sure, want to look around?" Ichiban suggested, figuring they might find something while they were down here. He wondered if he could get a rat or something that'd be able to squeeze down under the rubble and find a way past it, but since they were already here and there were no convenient animals they could make do with their own eyes and ears.

The other two were happy enough to do so, figuring any traps that this place would've had before were now ruined by the floor collapse, although getting around by scrambling over shards of uneven rubble was a pain, particularly when a piece would shift underfoot. His light made it easy to see by, though they heard it first rather than seeing it.

"Hee hee, I hear someone…" an off-kilter sounding voice echoed around a corner of cracked brickwork and exposed metal and rock. "If it's Evilus I'll have to kill them, but what if it's someone from the Loki familia? Ahhh, I came down here to hunt in the dark so no one would see me, what if they want to say hello and talk and… aahhhh, I don't want it! I wanna die!"

Ichiban exchanged concerned looks with Rina and Naaza before a figure emerged into view. It was someone he'd seen before of course, one of the strongest adventurers in the city. He'd shown off a powerful explosive spell at the Colosseum yesterday and then ran off in apparent stage-fright before Ichiban even had a chance to give him chakra. He'd reappeared later having apparently gone to rejoin the line from the back where he cast some other spell that didn't really seem to do anything but calmed him down enough that Ichiban was able to successfully do the whole chakra bestowal thing.

Right now he cut an imposing figure, a wicked looking black sword at the ready as purple eyes peered over the high collar of his black mantle, a shock of white hair not quite hiding the pointed elf ears sticking out on either side of his head.

"Uhh, hey buddy, it's okay, we're not Evilus," Ichiban held up his hands in a peaceful gesture while Rina and Naaza continued to look concerned.

"Oh no, they saw me!" the elf moaned, lowering his sword in one hand but tugging at his collar with the other as if to hide his face, "But wait, maybe we can be friends? Even a cursed dweller in the darkness such as I can still be drawn to the light. Focus Hogni, you can do this, you need to make up for a bad first impression!"

Ichiban was feeling pretty concerned too, but kept up a reassuring smile while the powerful but socially anxious elf tried to psyche himself up for a conversation.

"Hail and well met, fellow travellers under the depths of this man-made Dungeon replica," Hogni straightened his back and deepened his voice as he addressed them, sliding his sword smoothly into its sheath. "I, Hogni Ragnar, greet those who would feast on the carrion of Evilus's wicked domain as fellow adventurers." He subtly but still noticeably pumped his fist afterwards as if pleased with his grandiose introduction.

"Nice!" Ichiban gave him a thumbs up and a big smile. "I'm Ichiban Kasuga, and these are Naaza Erisuis and Rina Saffir." He'd seen Rina's full name listed on her photo back at the Entertainment District, and he was pretty sure on Naaza's from how Airmid talked to her. Neither seemed unhappy with how he introduced them, so he'd take it. "And yeah, we're here to scope out Evilus's wicked domain, just like you."

Hogni looked back at him with the steadfast gaze of a king. Ichiban met his eyes, waiting for a response as awkward seconds ticked by before the elf abruptly turned away and crouched, hunching himself over his knees and clutching at his head as he rocked back and forth. "Ahhh! You made it weird Hogni, you were supposed to say something back there!" he berated himself, seemingly absent any kind of filter.

"Hey, it's cool! It's cool!" Ichiban hurried to reassure him, stepping closer, "Uh, how about we compare notes on what we've found? We were looking for other entrances to help Riveria and that brought us down a ladder into here back that way."

"Yes!" Hogni shot to his feet and turned back around, holding a hand to his brow like he was a model posing for a magazine cover, "I too had come down here to hunt in the darkness that serves as my greatest ally, picking through these bones of stone and steel to find the crooked marrow of Evilus that surely still remains hidden underneath! As allies against the wicked, we should compare stratagems!"

Progress! "Great," Ichiban grinned happily. "So, uh… we came down a ladder back that way," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "And… we… well, we've really just been climbing around over all the broken rock here." Huh, they really hadn't actually found much, had they?

"Truly, to make even the ground under our feet so treacherous, it only shows the insidious depths to which Evilus will sink. I too have had to navigate my way across these testaments to man's folly and failure at aping the grandeur of the Dungeon," Hogni nodded severely.

It sounded like he hadn't actually found anything either. Was he just down here to hide from everyone else searching the streets and sewers?

"Tell him about the cameras," Rina whispered, reminding him that they actually had found out something useful.

"Oh yeah! Those creepy statues you see above the doors? They're like something Evilus can use to see us while we're down here," he said with a pleased nod towards Rina, glad they did in fact have something to show for their efforts.

200 – This is My Power
Rapturous Rhapsody Jump
When Mikael was sent to each new world, his power was stripped away, forcing him to grow and regain his strength repeatedly. Such a situation is unacceptable to you, and you've taken decisive steps to prevent it from happening to you. As a result, your power cannot be stripped away, stolen, or otherwise taken from you. Regardless of the circumstances, your strength remains intact. If you were put through a situation similar to Mikael's, where you are sent to a new world, you would retain all the power you had previously gained. This effect ensures that you remain at your peak no matter where you go, and works on inherently temporary powers, but only if a power has remained active/available for more than one month.

Hogni's eyes widened in horror and he looked around and past them, towards a toppled over door that Ichiban and company had clambered over the top of moments earlier, a demonic looking statue still mostly intact clinging to the fallen frame. "They've been looking at me? Oh no, they… every moment… Aaahh! I wanna die, I wanna die!" he moaned miserably, his breath coming in rapid pants before he shot off towards the rubble fast enough to make Ichiban stumble with the burst of displaced air. "By the power of the demon blade, bring eternal destruction!" he chanted, loosing an impressive pyrotechnic burst that detonated the statue, though the door and much of the surrounding rubble seemed unaffected by the blast. The elf then bolted off further into the darkness and a few seconds later they saw a flash of light and heard another explosion echoing through the tunnel.

"I think that went as well as it could have?" Rina whispered, as the sound of another explosion reached them. "It um, it gave him something to do?"

"Yeah, you know what? Maybe we should leave. Hogni's got this," Ichiban agreed, it seeming like the ruined upper levels of Knossos were just that; ruins. He was also a bit distracted by the ramifications of a new ability he'd just acquired. If he could maintain a boost, such as by casting an enchantment spell or being deep in the Dungeon where he could draw on its power to increase his magic, he could keep it permanently. The only catch was he'd have to maintain it for a month. He'd only been here a few days and he'd picked up all kinds of crazy abilities, who even knew where he'd be in a month?

The distant sound of explosions every few seconds serenaded them as they backtracked out and Ichiban used some force-field platforms to get back to the ladder now sticking out of the ceiling above ruined rubble where the rest of its path down the wall must have previously stood. They revisited the Loki familia command post to tell them about the entrance they'd found, the news received gratefully though Rina was disappointed Ichiban did not go in for a hug with Riveria, before the three of them left the environs of Daedalus Street.

"Do you have a plan for tomorrow?" Naaza asked. "Since it sounded like they'd be a few days before trying to get deeper into Knossos."

"I think I want to do some actual training," he answered. "Rina did her whole battle thing, you and Miach have been learning about pressure points, but I've just been sitting on this chakra stuff since I've been so busy handing it out to everyone and then doing all of this, I haven't really had a chance to properly cut loose with it."

"Oh, you should!" Rina bounced on her heels, "It's lots of fun, and if you're going to be actually fighting with it you need to know your limits, although between Naaza's potions and Dia Fratel you should be fine in the Dungeon. Do you want a sparring partner?"

He appreciated the offer, but, "Actually I was gonna try asking Takemikazuchi. It sounded like he had some ideas. Naaza, you know where he lives, right?"

"I do, and he showed me some of those techniques when he and Lord Miach were working together. They do seem to help – how you move and position your body affects how easy it is to move chakra around," Naaza nodded and proceeded to demonstrate what looked like a martial arts kata, very flowing and elegant looking.

It wasn't at all a match for Ichiban's scrappy street-fighting style, but if it got results he'd do his best to learn this kind of stuff.

Naaza gave him directions on where the Takemikazuchi familia lived and they parted ways, Naaza back to her shop and Rina back to the Entertainment District, which left Ichiban wondering where he'd go. He could probably bum another night at the Ganesha familia place again, but he had a feeling Evilus wouldn't be able to manage anything else after this morning.

Still he didn't want to make things too easy for any potential stalker or assassin, so he went to the inn he'd previously stayed at to pick up the stuff he'd left there, before vanishing out into the night with a bunch of parkour and rooftop hopping that had him moving across the city unseen and unnoticed.

It didn't necessarily mean much when he ended up at an inn where the boaz lady watching over the place recognised him, but he asked her to keep things quiet for him and even gave her chakra when she expressed some curiosity over it even though she insisted she wasn't an adventurer or anything. Plenty of other non-adventurers had gotten it at the Colosseum today, so why not? It was free for him.

It was near the Loki familia's Twilight Manor so if anything did happen there was potentially help close at hand, but Ichiban was able to enjoy a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast when he got up early, before heading to where the Takemikazuchi familia lived not far from this bit of town.

It certainly wasn't as grand as the Loki or Ganesha familia homes, honestly it just looked like a kind of run down apartment block shaped around an empty lot. Though it wasn't precisely empty as he saw Ouka and a few other people all setting off, weapons and bags held and looking like they were setting off for a day in the Dungeon.

"Yo, Ouka, right?" he called to the young man at the head of the group, who bowed his head respectfully to him with the others all following his lead. Reminded him a bit of the dynamic with Mord and his crew, but a bit less rough around the edges.

400 – Auto Reflexes
Bleach
Battle is in your bones, your blood, your very soul. Where others plan out their moves or train themselves to react automatically, it was always instinctual for you. These automatic reflexes for battle allow you to instinctively react with offense or defense to an attack, with no delay needed to judge or begin trained movements. Even when it's something you're not actually aware is an enemy or can't even see, your spirit still guides you to fight as an instant response. If you continue to rely on the auto-reflexes during a fight instead of planning things out in advance, you'll find your speed will steadily increase, as does your ability to counter or dodge things you're reacting to. The gains will fade after the battle is over.

And wouldn't you know it, he just felt himself acquire another ability, one which sort of made training redundant. It was certainly his style to just go with the flow and follow his instincts, but all the same he had a godly martial artist he could potentially learn from here, why wouldn't he try and pick up a few tricks?

"Ichiban, thank you again for all your help," Ouka said, straightening and unaware of what was going on in Ichiban's head. "Were you looking for us?"

"Ah, not you exactly, but your god," he answered. "I wanted to pick Lord Takemikazuchi's brain about the chakra martial arts he said he was working on." He'd kind of been referring to the gods informally unlike everyone else around here, and no one had actually called him out on it, but since he was here to ask a favour it made sense to be a little bit more polite!

"Ah! I'm sure he'd be honoured to help you after all you've done for us," Ouka said forcefully, turning to the rest of his crew and commanding, "Asuka, go and tell Lord Takemikazuchi we have an honoured guest!"

"Yes!" one of the girls in his group turned and… was she just wearing a sack and a headscarf? Everyone else seemed to have stuff like armour and martial arts uniforms, he wondered if it was some kind of power-play to single out the lowest ranked in the group, but she seemed happy enough to run back towards the building, knocking on a door through which Takemikazuchi soon emerged.

The familia loitered a bit, seeming curious enough about where this was going to delay their Dungeon expedition as Ichiban met the handsome thunder god in the empty lot that seemed like a good place for this kind of practice. "Ichiban! I knew that talk last night would pique your interest," he said with a wide smile.

"That's right! This stuff's as new to me, wanted to see if I could learn any moves from you," Ichiban met him half-way, grinning with anticipation. Sure, all the magic was fantastic, and throwing down against monsters with Yankimaru was a blast, but chakra offered a way for an old-fashioned beat-down to keep up with those methods. What kind of man would he be if he didn't jump on that?

"Alright, good! Get yourself comfortable and we'll warm up a little first," Takmikazuchi clapped his hands together, as Ichiban considered. Despite the seeming weight of it, he could move better with the lion cloak on than without, but it was pretty ostentatious for training, and so he reached up to his shoulder and pulled.

"Uwaaah!" "How'd he do that?!" "His shirt was buttoned up!"

As he stood topless before the Takimikazuchi familia, Ichiban had been expecting more reaction to his tattoo, but it seemed everyone was more impressed with the relatively straightforward manner he'd pulled his cloak and jacket and shirt off in one simple movement.

"Children, children, don't crowd the man," Takemikazuchi chided his familia who'd all edged closer in curiosity. "I know it looks flashy but it's nothing special. I can do it too – look!" he grabbed at his own shoulder and pulled and thus everyone beheld a shirtless god. He wasn't as buff as Ganesha, but it was still a sculpted lean physique that had the girls of his familia staring.

"Lord Takemikazuchi, why did you never show us such a wondrous technique?!" a girl with long black hair demanded stridently, one Ichiban remembered for showing off a novel gravity typed spell the other day. Chigusa and Asuka both nodded sharply to back her up.

"It's just a man's technique, it's not anything you'd need in the Dungeon," Takemikazuchi insisted, "I can show you all again later, but for now we shouldn't hold up Ichiban here, and you all need to get to the Dungeon, don't you?"

The girls gave him a look that suggested they would definitely hold him to that, but all the same they trooped off, leaving Ichiban and Takemikazuchi facing each other. "Now, I'm sure you know better than anyone that chakra responds to your effort, so none of this is necessary, but incorporating these kinds of movements into your techniques should make it flow more smoothly. My children seemed to have an easier time managing their stamina and were able to push it to greater effect, so let me show you some of the basics and then you can try."

Ichiban had never really gotten into formal martial arts, and he'd beaten up enough guys who crowed about the colour of their belts to not hold them in particular reverence, but he still knew what he was seeing as Takemikazuchi proceeded to demonstrate a straightforward kata.

Copying it after the demonstration, he moulded chakra to his limbs and though he wasn't sure if it was making a huge difference, it glowed visibly around him and he could feel a weightiness to even these slow and choreographed movements that imitated actual strikes. If he moved fast, if he put his back into it? He'd probably be causing shock-waves like he saw when the high level adventurers cut loose.

In fact he did. Speeding up, he started really going for it, and the air fell out of his path with dull booming sounds that ruffled Takemikazuchi's long hair as he watched. The god called him to stop and said, "You seem uncertain of your strength. I saw it with Ouka when he first ranked up to level two. You haven't really pushed yourself, have you?"

He shook his head. "Not since I got chakra. Even when Evilus attacked I just stood still and cast spells from the back, I haven't had a serious fight or gone all out. Honestly…" he looked at his clenched fist, "Little bit scared to."

"It's important to respect your strength, but if you fear it you will never master it," Takemikazuchi said, dispensing the sage wisdom as befitting of a martial arts master.

He considered that. Obviously he didn't want to throw a punch at Takemikazuchi, he might kill him! Despite being gods they were apparently as fragile as anyone else while in this world. Even punching the ground might do some damage. Maybe he should've tested this down in Knossos last night? Still, an idea occurred, and he created a force-field in front of himself, then wound up and delivered a chakra-infused punch.

It shattered like glass, just like when he'd tested by having Yankimaru hit one. His fist didn't really bounce off, it went right through. He was stronger than Yankimaru now, and that still felt like he hadn't really been giving it his all.

"I know those can hold up to a level three adventurer hitting them," he said, looking at his fist as if he'd see a scrape or bruise, but his knuckles were unblemished. "And before I got chakra I couldn't even crack it."

Takemikazuchi hummed at that, "It sounds like you're getting more out of it than my children, if the increase is beyond two levels' worth. Or three, you don't even have the benefit of even a level one's falna. The usual exercises to get used to it won't work, since chakra's an active ability rather than your base strength…"

While the god was considering it, Ichiban had his own idea though. "I can go cut loose in the Dungeon or something, but for now I had an idea. I just got this new ability where my reflexes and instincts take over in a fight. If you come at me, we can see how I react, figure out how my chakra responds and how to use it deliberately."

"Hoh!" Takemikazuchi seemed both amused and pleased by the idea. "I see what you're thinking Ichiban," he swept his arms out in front of him and a sense of pressure began to emanate off of him, the friendly god giving off a sense of threat like he got from Rina when she was pissed, or saw from upper rank yakuza back home right before something bad happened to someone. "I'll start slow and we'll see what you can handle."

Ichiban didn't take a stance or anything of the sort, he just stood there and waited, trusting his new reflexes and the fact that Takemikazuchi wouldn't hurt him too bad if they weren't up to snuff. Suddenly the god moved, sweeping forward with a palm strike to the chest. And Ichiban moved just as easily – chakra flowed through him, coursing down his legs to speed up his movement as he stepped and pivoted to avoid it. He could already feel it was different to how he'd been moulding chakra before. It was less forceful, rather than just shoving it there like he was trying to fuel a rocket, it circulated and focused on multiple points, perfectly aligned with the actual movement of his muscles to both maximise his initial motion and then balance it so he didn't over-shoot.

It would've been really hard to do deliberately, paying attention to so many factors, but he could see how it was done, he could feel the way his chakra was being directed on instinct with so much more finesse than he'd thought himself capable of. But his body still remembered, he remembered. And as Takemikazuchi adjusted from his initial strike, the god's eyes narrowed as if reappraising Ichiban's capabilities before he flowed into a backfist, a jab, and a leg sweep.

Again Ichiban's body moved and chakra flowed in perfect harmony to allow for his superhuman reaction. Twisting his body with flexibility he wouldn't have really thought himself capable of, he weaved between the two hits while keeping his feet stable on the ground, poised to jump over that sweep. Every motion faster than possible, chakra moving inside of him to adjust and augment his physical motions, giving them the extra boost needed to stay ahead of Takemikazuchi's assault.

That hop only brought him into the air for an instant, but it was an instant he was vulnerable, his flight predictable and having no leverage to change his course. He wasn't using his arms, no blocking or countering, he was just letting his instincts dodge for him. He imagined he must look strange, mentally disassociated from the fight, his expression one of someone not even paying attention as he focused inwards to understand what his body was doing by reflex.

A rising kick came from his sparring partner, already recovered from that sweep and flowing into the next attack with the grace of a literal martial arts god.

His knee met it, his reflexes making their own judgement that a dodge was impossible even with the benefit of chakra. Yet still it moved through his limb and he felt how it diffused the impact when his leg adjusted in the air to meet Takemikazuchi's and pushed off of him, negating the potential impact.

Feet touched the ground and the attack continued. Faster now, Takemikazuchi having taken enough of his measure in that first exchange to begin pushing. His movements weren't the explosive outbursts of an upper tier adventurer. It was likely there were men back in Tokyo who could match Takemikazuchi's raw physical ability. But every motion he made was calculated, not an ounce of wasted effort, his muscles under his complete control in a way that matched Ichiban's automatic reflexes.

He started getting clever with it. Feints mixed in to throw him off, every punch or kick flowing into the next in a seemingly endless combination that never extended him to the point he needed to recover or back off.

But with chakra enhancing his motions, Ichiban could handle it. He kept going, learning from himself and how he automatically responded to every bit of pressure that was heaped on him. Inspiration came over and over as his own body showed him new ways to employ chakra in response to the relentless assault Takemikazuchi was heaping on him. He hadn't broken a sweat, he could have done this all day, but for all his skill the god was limited to a mortal body, and when he finally broke apart he was breathing heavy and his body was soaked with sweat, hair matted to his brow.

200 – A Farther Horizon
Godbound
Whether you were once a baker or a beggar, the consequences of a Word of Creation burning in your veins will take you far beyond the life you once knew. With this you can at least be assured you'll be a natural learner for all kinds of new experiences, and always be able to keep an open mind for new vistas and ways of being. Within days of arriving in a new culture you can learn the customs, figure out how to fit in and sniff out who's in charge. This lends itself well to picking up new skills too. You may not be the greatest swordsman or painter ever to live, but you'll find yourself picking up the trade a lot quicker than most.

"Phew, that was even worse than sparring with my kids, you're slippier than any catfish, Ichiban!" he laughed raggedly, while Ichiban came far enough out of his own head to notice they'd drawn something of a crowd. Mostly women who were looking admiringly at the shirtless god, but he liked to think he was getting a few looks too.

"Yeah, that was… that was huge," Ichiban said, looking at his hands as he tried moving chakra around the way he'd felt it doing when he was fighting. It was easy enough to copy, simply repeating what his own body had done on instinct. His reflexes would be good for just taking care of things in a fight, though it felt a bit like having his own body be puppeted. Achieving it through his own deliberate effort was far more satisfying. As a learning tool this was second to none, an instructor inside your own body coupled with external guidance from a master of masters.

Still, Takemikazuchi looked like he needed some hydration, so he unclasped the water bottle from his belt and held it out. "Here, Miach says this water's really healthy, and you definitely need to replace all that sweat. Don't worry about it running out."

Naaza's concerns about someone killing him for his water bottle honestly felt quaint at this point, so he didn't feel any need to keep it secret. He'd already shown Dian Cecht and he liked him less than he liked Takemikazuchi.

Takemikazuchi certainly appreciated as he drank deeply, and their audience similarly appreciated as he poured some straight over his brow. "Haah, Miach knows about medicine," he said gladly, handing the bottle back. "Want to go another round? Just watching you I was getting all sorts of ideas I can't wait to teach my children."

That sounded good to Ichiban, and he actually found himself forced to block when Takemikazuchi came at him all out from the start, pushed more than he expected. His automatic reflexes seemed to ramp up during a fight, so he was doing far better towards the end of the last spar than he found himself at the start of the second, but he soon found his groove, dancing around the lot with godly fists and feet always a hairs-breadth behind. Takemikazuchi didn't need to tell him what to do, didn't need to physically adjust his stance. All he had to do was attack, pushing Ichiban's reflexes to adapt to whatever he dished out, each exchange further imprinting chakra control into Ichiban's habits.

Then they switched things up. He'd gotten some confidence from blocking and redirecting hits that his reflexes weren't going all out in a fashion that could've easily broken an arm with retaliation, and so he started actually fighting back. This further showed him what he was missing, as these reflexive punches worked chakra through his limbs in different ways than they'd done with dodges, refining his understanding of how to mould it when he wanted to do so deliberately. Not that he needed to worry about hurting his sparring partner – no matter the gulf in physical ability, it was clear Takemikazuchi could see right through his moves. The moment Ichiban tensed his muscles or adjusted his stance to go for a particular hit, the god knew exactly what was coming and simply ensured he wasn't in the way of any hit. Maybe that could have changed if Ichiban put more effort into his strikes, but even his instincts understood what a spar was and moderated his output to a level that wasn't generating sonic booms with his punches.

He wasn't exactly sure if he could make a sonic boom with a punch, but he figured it was definitely in the realm of possibility.

They were still at it when evening settled and Takemikazuchi's familia returned from their own long day of exertion in the Dungeon. The women seemed very happy at their god's shirtless and glistening state, while Ichiban started putting his shirt back on since it was as good a cue as any to wrap things up.

He stuck around a little bit, as a still fresh Takemikazuchi listened to their exploits from a day in the Dungeon, and Ichiban did his best to explain the stuff he'd figured out in terms of chakra control. Embarrassingly despite his outside perspective, Takemikazuchi was often able to put it in better words than Ichiban could, but his familia all seemed grateful for the additional knowledge they could use to improve their abilities, and he bid them farewell feeling like he'd made some really good progress today. Whether it was the Dungeon or Evilus, they wouldn't know what hit them when he went all out.

Author's Notes said:
We're definitely at the point where I think most Celestial X writers say, 'Hey this is getting a bit out of hand, I'm gonna slow down the point gain', but that feels like quitter talk. I'm doing this mostly for the writing exercise anyway so I'll just keep chasing that dopamine hit of the gacha roll every thousand words, what's the harm in giving Ichiban bootleg Ultra Instinct? Hell, actual Ultra Instinct is probably in there somewhere too.

It's definitely a case where the pacing is absolutely crazy though, I should probably avoid criticising Bell given what I've had Ichiban do in less time than it takes him to even get his special knife.

Ebiris · Feb 10, 2025

The sun was starting to set by the time Ichiban made it to the Hostess of Fertility. It was a good place to eat, and he figured it'd be good to check in with Syr since her familia was involved in fighting against Evilus. Though he'd have to be careful not to say anything that could blow her cover.

As it happened there was no sign of Syr anyway. Perhaps she was too busy handling all this stuff as Freya that she didn't have time to play around as an ordinary girl? Anya was happy enough to greet him, though she seemed surprised and disappointed Yankimaru wasn't around to hold a sign for her this time, he still got a seat at the bar where he could look around and watch the place.

Surprisingly he saw Orin, the elf sat at a table with that white-haired Bell kid he saw at Miach's shop sometimes. He wondered if that meant the kid was in Hestia's familia. The goddess herself wasn't around, although Chloe was loitering around that table and doing something to turn Bell's face red.

He left them to it, Orin hadn't noticed him and Anya was asking him something. "Are you going to Monsterferia tomorreow, Ichiban?"

"Monsterferia? What's that?" he asked.

"It's a big event the Ganesha familia host at the Colosseum you were giving us all chakra, they put on displays with tamed monsters. For a lot of people it's their only chance to get within a whisker of a monster outside of the Dungeon," she explained, it sounding like something Orin would love. For Ichiban though he saw enough monsters in the Dungeon, even if taming them sounded interesting. It was nice it wasn't just something Evilus did.

"Hah, I think I'll just be going into the Dungeon tomorrow, I'll see enough monsters that way," he demurred, taking the drink she set down for him.

"I know, I've got to work too, it's not fair having to work on a holiday!" she whined in commiseration before there was a thump on the bar, Mia making her presence felt as she glowered at Anya.

"I'd love it if you worked on regular days you lazy cat!"

With a feline yowl of dismay, Anya scampered off to look busy while Ichiban gave the owner an amused look. "Must be hard keeping everyone in line here, huh?" he asked, which got a grunt in response before he thought of something else. "Never saw you at the Colosseum when I was handing out chakra to everyone." Considering she was in the top ten strongest people in the city not counting gods, her absence was conspicuous.

"Hmph, can your chakra help me cook better? I'm retired, don't need a new skill like that to worry about," she waved him off.

That may be true, but he'd given it to plenty of other people that weren't adventurers, and it felt like a waste someone of Mia's power missing out, even if she didn't intend to fight with it. So he tried poking at her refusal, "Well it'd help you deal with rowdy customers, or lazy waitresses?"

Something flashed in her eyes and she straightened herself up. "I see what you're doing, but I don't need that kind of thing any more at my age."

"That's right, Mama Mia's an old lady, she doesn't need to worry about exerting herself any more," a fair-haired waitress blithely said as she walked past, only to squeak in surprise when a meaty arm shot out lightning-fast over the bar to grab her wrist, Mia's expression now looking considerably more severe.

"Old lady? I think it's time for a demonstration of just how spry this old lady still is, Lunoire," she growled as Lunoire looked to be regretting the wisdom of her words.

There wasn't any work getting done as the other waitresses crowded around, but the other patrons didn't seem to mind the free entertainment as a fired up Mia and a chastised looking Lunoire took positions facing each other over a table.

"Oh nyo, Mama Mia usually only arm-wrestles when she's had a few drinks!" Anya whimpered.

"She doesn't look like she's kitten around this time!" Chloe added, Bell and Orin having come over with her to watch the display as the two locked hands, a red glow forming around Lunoire's. He could see she was moulding her chakra efficiently – not as well as he'd learned in his day with Takemikazuchi, but it was clear she'd figured out the basics and was putting it to work as the elf waitress told them to begin.

Both women gripped the table and gritted their teeth as they exerted themselves, arms pushing against each other with titanic strength. They quivered in place before slowly Lunoire started being pushed back. Even this was impressive going by the hushed murmuring he heard.

"Lunoire's actually holding her back!" "Fight harder Lunoire, you can do it!" "Don't give up!"

The waitress seemed to draw strength from the encouragement, her chakra glowing more intensely and stopping Mia's arm in place, drawing more supportive cheers, both women wearing looks of focused exertion. Ichiban had seen this kind of macho posturing plenty both as a schoolboy and a yakuza and a prison inmate, and the determined expressions of these two women would not have looked out of place among any of them as they gave it their all to prove their muscle and grit.

But if it was a contest of endurance, there was only one result. Lunoire did her best, she held Mia back, but the instant her focus wavered? The glowing chakra flickered and with a yelp and a crash of splintering wood the back of her fist met the table under Mia's merciless grip.

"Hah! This old lady's still got it!" Mia crowed and stood up with her arms raised as Lunoire winced and shook out her arm, everyone rushing to console and comfort the loser with insistences that she'd done a great job. Meanwhile Mia just swaggered back around the bar before she shook out her hand with a disguised wince out of view and met Ichiban's eyes. "Alright fine, that was closer'n I'd like," she admitted, holding her hand out for Ichiban to do the needful.

Of course this didn't go unnoticed as the addition of chakra made Mia's potential power swell enormously. "We were that close to winning, if Lunoire hadn't purrovoked her we could've gotten stronger!" Anya cried out in dismay.

"Good going Lunoire, you ruined everything!" Chloe instantly turned from giving words of comfort and support to the loser to chastising her.

Poor Lunoire looked thoroughly betrayed by her colleagues, so Ichiban felt compelled to throw her a bone. "That was some of the better chakra control I'd seen, you really had it focused. You could've improved it by pulling some back here," he planted his elbow on the bar and gestured down his forearm with his free hand, "To circulate it so less just gets wasted."

It was a little hard to articulate even after hearing Takemikazuchi's better worded explanations, but still Lunoire and the crowd of patrons which was mostly made up of adventurers was happy to listen as Ichiban wound up giving a bit of an impromptu lecture on chakra control. It wasn't what he'd intended when he came here, but it proved to be a good way of spreading the knowledge around to a bunch of people from different familias, so it hopefully would circulate.

When he wound up and everyone went back to their food and drink, his own noodles having arrived, he had a chance to catch up with Orin and Bell too. "So you managed to join Hestia's familia?" he asked the ambitious but cowardly elf.

"Yes! It's been very good – Bell here takes my knowledge well and applies it in the Dungeon. And he actually knows a lot too, about myths and legends, it's been fascinating to hear some of his stories," the elf said, giving the younger human a proud look.

"Haha, gramps told me a ton of stories growing up, they didn't really prepare me as well for the Dungeon as Mr. Orin's and Miss Eina's lectures, but they were good for learning about what it is to be a hero," Bell said bashfully.

"Oh yeah, I'm like that with Dragon Quest," Ichiban nodded, absolutely getting it. Which of course drew their own questions as to what Dragon Quest was, knowledge which Ichiban was only too happy to share with them.

It made a nice change from telling gory yakuza stories as he got to animatedly expound on the game that was so formative to his childhood, to an audience who didn't know what games were and so were taking all his lore with the same reverence one would have to an actual legend.

"… and that's why if someone offers to share half the world with you? You just say no, because they're gonna kill you, guys like that don't share," he concluded.

Orin wrote this down in the notebook he'd been recording Ichiban's exposition in, and he could be sure at least that meant it would be preserved and shared. He hoped one day it would help a hero in this fantasy world make the right choice even after Ichiban had long returned home to Japan.

It had been a good day, and Ichiban gave them and the staff at the Hostess of Fertility a fond farewell as they parted ways and he found himself another out of the way but cosy looking inn to stay the night. He might try and get an actual apartment once the stuff with Evilus was locked down if he was going to be staying here a while, but for now at least he could afford to live like this thanks to all the money Tsubaki had paid him for a chunk of Yankimaru's beard.

The next day he found a place that sold boxed lunches and he bought a couple along with some nuts which he spread out for Pearl and her friends outside of Babel while he waited for Naaza and Rina to show up. If they were going to be heading all the way down to Rivira, they'd want some food for the trip. He remembered Rose's warnings about price gouging down there.

"Good morning Ichiban! Did you have a good day getting all sweaty with Lord Takemikakazuchi?" Rina's voice called out as she jogged over, carrying her hammer and this time having a bag on her back as they were preparing for a deeper trip.

"Oh yeah, had a great time," he grinned back at her. "You get sweaty with all the other berbera too?"

"You know it!" she winked. "Looking forward to trying this all out on some unsuspecting monsters."

"And I'm looking forward to trying out this new bow," Naaza said as she joined them, the gang all set. "I've told Lord Miach I might not be back today, in case we decide to stay longer at the Under Resort."

"Sounds good. I'm curious to see it, and we might check a bit deeper. It sounds like we have time," he jerked his head over in the direction of Daedalus Street and the whole issue there that was waiting to be resolved. "Lets see if we can get down to the tenth floor in a hurry and then explore properly the rest of the way down?"

They were fine with that, and as they descended the spiral staircase down into the Dungeon he cast his light spell, feeling it grow noticeably more potent as they entered the Dungeon proper. It wasn't really brighter, already comparable to the afternoon sun, but it shone further and he was pretty sure its heartening effect was more pronounced.

Maybe if he got deep enough in the Dungeon it would be enough to overcome Hogni's social anxiety?

He started jogging along at a speed that probably would've been a dead sprint for him before all of this, chakra circulating through his legs to maintain the speed which didn't even feel close to fatiguing him. In fact he wasn't short of breath at all, so it was easy enough to talk to Rina and Naaza as they ran along with him, sharing what he'd figured out in terms of chakra moulding, the two of them concentrating a bit to adjust their own chakra while they ran along, only slowing a bit to get down the stairs safely before they were running through the second floor.

A group of goblins could be seen further down the tunnel, and here Ichiban took his chance to cut loose. "Let me get these ones," he said, concentrating and accelerating so fast the tunnel became a smear in his vision, fist reared back and glowing with chakra as he hammered straight into the head of the goblin in the middle of the group.

200 – Bag of Tomes (reusable)
Final Fantasy II
All the standard magical tomes. Once read, it will commit to your memory and the pages will become blank. For another 50CP, the text will remain, allowing multiple people to read them. Contains all the spells aside from Ultima, Revive and Destroy.

It exploded. Ripped apart by the impact, a shockwave released from his strike flung the other goblins like ragdolls, their small pot-bellied bodies striking the walls with sickening crunches before their bodies faded away into black mist and their magic stones tinked onto the ground.

His punches had area of effect damage.

"Holy shit," he breathed, looking at his fist and then looking around. Huh. A sack had appeared by his feet, mostly shielded from the blast wave but still tumbled over, spilling out several archaic looking scrolls.

"Wow, that was a first class adventurer hit!" Rina clapped in excitement as she caught up, while Naaza bent down to examine one of the scrolls, lifting it up as it unfurled in her hand.

"What's this? Barrier?" she read it, her eyes trailing down the paper while Ichiban and Rina looked on curiously, Naaza's expression one of curious focus before she made a choking sound and looked up at them. "It's like a grimoire."

"What?" Rina made a similar choking noise and stared down at the overflowing sack of scrolls.

"Barrier," Naaza said with intent this time, and a bluish-green diamond manifested in front of her before fading into her skin. "It protects against paralysis and… other things I didn't know could happen like being turned into a toad or shrunk down. What it calls 'changeable' element. But it can level up on its own to protect from fire, curses, poison… lots of things, it's all here and…" she looked at the scroll, "The writing hasn't vanished. It's a reusable grimoire."

"And there's how many of them?" Rina stared down at the overflowing sack. "Ichiban, why does this happen every time we go into the Dungeon?!"

"It's been happening the whole time since I got here!" he replied defensively, grabbing another scroll that had tipped out of the bag. Unfurling it, the writing swam in front of his eyes briefly before resolving into Japanese, a mixture of hiragana and kanji that was quite legible.

Teleport.

Banishes foes to another dimension, or transports the party out of dungeons. Using for transport drains the caster's health. This is a changeable element spell. Continuous use improves the accuracy for when it is used as a banishment, up to sixteen times. Sixteen spells from these scrolls can be stored, but existing ones can be forgotten to make room for others. A forgotten spell will not have its levels retained if you relearn it later.

He finished reading the rather clear and easy to understand terms of the scroll, and a spell blossomed into his mind, just as easy to cast as any of the ones he'd seen others cast or had planted in his brain like all that necromancy stuff.

Okay, so he had a fast travel spell for getting out of the Dungeon. But the 'banished to another dimension' business sounded pretty wild, he wasn't sure if he wanted to spread that around. Actually what other dimension? Would this send someone back to Earth? Would he have to test it, could he use it to come back? This raised all sorts of questions!

"Uh, so I can teleport now. Or banish people to another dimension," Ichiban looked up from his scroll at Naaza and Rina's expectant faces. "You can learn up to sixteen from these scrolls, and how many do we have?"

Considering he could cast Barrier by copying how Naaza had done it, albeit his version would be even weaker at first, he had a way around that himself at least. Still, he picked up the sack and started to count through the scrolls, replacing the ones that had fallen out including Teleport and Barrier.

There were thirty nine in total. Thirty nine spells which anyone could learn with a few seconds of reading, though any one person could only know sixteen. And they'd get better with use.

"Okay, I think we better take a break from the Dungeon," he said, looking at the two of them and holding tightly to the sack. "Figure out what all these spells are and what we're gonna do with them."

They weren't exactly deep in the Dungeon, it had only taken a couple minutes to get this far, but Ichiban couldn't not teleport now he knew how. Even if it would drain his health? He had a way around that, and the magic stones those goblins left behind would pay for it. "I'm gonna teleport us out now, so hold on," he warned Naaza and Rina before saying firmly, "Teleport!"

Whooosh!

An instant later they were standing in front of Babel, one goblin magic stone left of the five he'd picked up to pay for the spell. There were still some adventurers heading into the Dungeon who stopped and gawked at their sudden arrival, but Ichiban didn't stick around to field questions, while Naaza and Rina were only briefly disoriented as they took stock before following Ichiban. Though Rina did think to ask, "So where are we going?"

"I'm gonna ruin Rose's day again," he answered with a bit of trepidation, leading them up the street to the Pantheon. Which was entering its quiet lull after the initial morning rush of adventurers picking up quests, allowing Rose to see them in a private meeting room.

"So, this is kind of like when I gave everyone chakra, except now it's spells. Naaza called them reusable grimoires, and I've got nearly forty of them," he explained once they were alone.

Rose looked kind of pale.

"They also break the usual limit on spells, anyone can learn up to sixteen of them," Naaza added.

Rose looked like she wanted to throw up.

"I should have taken today off for Monster Feria…" she muttered under her breath before marshalling her willpower. "So do I understand correctly that you want to offer these spells out the same way you did chakra?" she asked, drawing herself up with the impressive resolve of a career civil servant.

"Uh, maybe?" he felt a bit leery about giving just anyone the ability to banish people to another dimension. That just felt a bit too out there to spread around even if a quick escape from the Dungeon felt helpful, while chakra just seemed like an all around boost to what was already basically there. "First I want to see what all of them do, the bag just appeared in the Dungeon so I never had time to check them all out. Naaza found a barrier spell and I found a teleport one."

"It really worked! It went whoosh and took us from the second floor right to Babel!" Rina nodded, backing up his story and looking avariciously at the sack full of magical potential.

"Yeah, so uh, first lets just sort what we all have? If you want to read one go ahead, they're kind of short, but if you just get the name we can figure out what might be concerning or what'd be really good to spread around," Ichiban said, opening the sack in the middle of the table so they could all reach in and start sorting through the scrolls.

There were basic things like fire and lightning, a healing spell called cure. Then there were familiar names. Esuna. Osmose. He couldn't find Ultima among them, but all the same? "These are spells from Final Fantasy!"

That got him a round of quizzical looks, and he had to explain that it was a game, like Dragon Quest. This still didn't seem to register with anyone. "Gah, it's… it's a story back home. It's like if you suddenly got given a spell from a fairy tale," he tried to explain, but he wasn't sure that quite worked for people who still saw spells as real. For them it'd be like him getting a gun from a movie – a bit of strange coincidence, but still something real that could happen.

Indeed, they didn't really seem to get how this information was rocking Ichiban. "So it's fine if we just pick the ones we want to learn, right?" Rina asked. Rose had already gone through the least offensive one and was marvelling at the golden sparkles that ensued when she cast Cure on herself.

"Yeah, knock yourselves out," he agreed, seeing no reason not to let his friends have a free pick even if he wasn't sure about restricting others, or even how they'd go about restricting them.

Everyone seemed to like the Cure and Life spells, Otherwise Naaza tended towards a balance of debuffs and defensive buffs, while Rina favoured more direct damage spells and offensive buffs.

After enjoying the ability to cast a Cure spell, Rose not only asked Ichiban to give her chakra, she snagged a bunch of mostly buffing spells.

"Okay, so obviously anyone can do a lot of damage with most of these, but it's not really different than the spells and weapons that are currently around," Ichiban said once they'd organised everything. "It's just Toad and Break that seem the most sketchy." Permanently turning someone into an amphibian or a statue was pretty messed up, and it wouldn't be any good to use on monsters since it'd prevent getting their magic stones or item drops.

"Curses have a bad reputation, but many respectable adventurers have spells that work similarly," Rose said, nodding her head towards Naaza. Ichiban had seen plenty more during the Colosseum showcase to know nothing else here was going to be that unusual for Orario.

"What about teleporting to another dimension?" Naaza asked.

And that was a tricky one. Giving everyone a way to teleport out of the Dungeon would be great, but banishing people to another dimension just felt messed up, to say nothing of how it could be used for unsolvable murders by getting rid of the body.

"I think we're going to have to test it," he decided. "I mean, if someone can teleport back from there it's not as bad, right?"

Everyone stared at him for a moment long enough to make him feel foolish and Rina asked, "But what if you can't?"

"Well, I'll have water and stuff, if I wait long enough I might just get another random thing that'll get me out? If we put this spell out there someone's gonna cast it on someone sooner or later, it's better if we know right now what'll happen," he insisted. Besides, maybe it would send him to Earth.

He'd still come back even if it did, just to let everyone know. And also to then stop anyone using the spell because Tokyo was not ready for a swarm of banished Dungeon monsters.

"Alright, I learned it," Naaza relented to his mode of experimental testing, "But if you're not back in a few minutes we'll have to figure this all out without you, so you better be right." The two of them stood up facing each other and Ichiban braced himself as Naaza stared at him and said, "Teleport!"

Whooosh!

Okay, definitely not Earth. Ichiban found himself floating in what looked like a kaleidoscope. Mostly silver and shifting like a pool of liquid mercury, with other colours merging in and out like those puddles you'd see at the gas station. Which was a lot of similes to say he was in basically how most video-games would depict the inter-dimensional void.

He could breathe though, so that was nice. He didn't see anything beyond the shifting vista in any direction, nor could he actually move. His limbs worked just fine he just had nothing to push off of, and it wasn't like water he could swim through. He wasn't really here to sight-see anyway. "Teleport!" he cast.

Whooosh!

Pain.

"Augh!" he staggered as he reappeared exactly where he'd been before, feeling something twist in his insides. Right, it hurts to cast it for transport, and he forgot to pass it on to the magic stone he still had on him from the other day. Still, it quickly passed as he gave everyone a thumbs up.

400 – Path of the Dragon
Dark Souls: War of the Ancients
Though they were defeated in that most ancient of battles, people of all stripes have dreamed of transforming into a dragon themselves, to wield the power of those stone scaled entities that predated even the gods. But these would typically be just that, dreams. Under you, though, such dreams can be made a reality. You know how to initiate a process in others that will transform them into true dragons, though their strength, as well as the speed of the transformation itself depends entirely on how much power you use to kick start this process.

And as if to celebrate this achievement, another bullshit power just dropped on him. And how ironic given the tattoo he wears on his back… the Dragonfish, on the cusp of becoming a dragon itself, and now he has the power to turn others into dragons.

He didn't think it would be useful around here the same way chakra was. Dragons might be badass, but becoming a giant mythological being would necessitate a lot of lifestyle adjustments for most people.

"Did it hurt? You were only gone a few seconds," Naaza said, still standing there.

"Yeah, I forgot casting Teleport for transport drains your health, it's okay," he waved her off. "The other dimension's freaky but if you can teleport you can get back out, so if someone gets banished someone else could bring them back from the same spot. I think that makes that one safe enough to spread around – it's actually better if more people know it."

"Yeah, I'm gonna forget Curse so I can learn Teleport. I probably don't need Curse and Mini. Who ever imagined having too many spells to keep track of? Is this what it's like for Nine Hells?" Rina asked, reaching over to grab the scroll containing teleport so she could adjust her spells known.

Well it was even worse for Ichiban. He wasn't even sure he was going to get much use out of these Final Fantasy spells when he had so many others to play with, not to mention the simple pleasure of having punches with area of effect damage.

"So you want to put aside Toad and Break, and make every other spell freely available for anyone who wants them?" Rose asked to get things back on track, picking out those two scrolls to separate from the rest. "This is a lot more complicated than when you personally gave chakra to everyone. Because these are physical objects, anyone could potentially steal one. And if chakra gets a reaction from countries outside of Orario, it's going to be far worse with this. I'm not sure they can be kept safe without having a full time guard of first rank adventurers. I'll have to talk to my boss again, and… his boss, and you know how it goes, we've already done all this just a few days ago," she concluded, trying to hide her weariness.

"Yeah. At least with chakra I can just control who I give it to, but we can't really make these available for people to use and impossible to be stolen," Ichiban admitted. Hell even if they put them in the most secure vault anyone could build, someone like Ottar could just punch his way in and grab what he wanted. The only way to truly keep these safe would be to dump them somewhere no one knew about, and that would make it impossible for anyone to get any actual good use out of them.

"It's going to be hard to organise today because of Monster Feria, but can you hold onto the scrolls for now? I don't really want to be responsible for losing them if something happens before we've even set everything up," Rose admitted, pulling over the paper on which she'd been writing details of all the spells they'd gone over. "If you come to the Pantheon late tomorrow we'll hopefully have an idea of how we want to organise this. It might be a permanent reading room here or at Babel."

Ichiban kind of didn't want to carry around such a big sack of scrolls, but Rose was right that leaving it with someone else was asking for trouble. That's when an idea struck. "Hey Naaza, can you banish me again?"

She didn't even question it, just cast the spell and sent him to the shadow realm. What a star! Once there he took out a coin, which he discovered floated in place when let go of – in fact there was no momentum, if he pushed them they'd stop in place the moment his hand left contact. Another painful teleport back and he picked up the sack full of scrolls and had Naaza banish him once more. The coin was still there, confirming that relative space was constant between dimensions. He set the bag aside and recovered his coin, before teleporting back to the Guild. The pain wasn't even that bad when you got used to it.

"Okay," he dusted off his hands. "Now the only way to get them back is if one of us three banishes the other in this spot, and then the other teleports back with the sack." Naaza and Rina looked astounded at his quick grasp of exploiting teleportation magic for safe storage, while the ever-efficient Rose took a piece of chalk and drew a circle around Ichiban's feet to mark the spot without missing a beat.

"So we're just going to go back into the Dungeon? After that?" Rina asked, a bit stupefied.

"Unless Ichiban gets another world-shattering blessing before we reach the middle floors," Naaza said, showing both an ability to roll with the punches and basic pattern recognition.

"Yeah, I guess we'll see… hopefully we don't come back to give you more work, Rose," he said, a bit embarrassed.

The lycanthrope – he was able to tell the difference now, smiled though. "I won't say it doesn't have its challenges, but you're doing more to raise adventurer life expectancy than anyone else I've advised. Please be safe in the Dungeon though – if you don't come back after all this I'm going to be very cross," that smile faded and she gave him a severe look.

He nodded in the face her pressure, a different kind than what Takemikazuchi emanated during their spar but all the same making clear the resolve of a civil servant. "We'll be safe. C'mon, don't you want to test out those new spells?" he asked Rina and Naaza, who both seemed enthused by that as they got up to leave the Pantheon.

But as they reached Babel, Ichiban saw a familiar pigeon walking around by the fountain, and he couldn't help but feel an itch to try out that new ability.

"Hey Pearl, do you want to be a dragon?"

Naturally Pearl understood what a dragon was, just the same as she understood every other term Ichiban used when speaking to her despite the gulf in language and brain power. Magic was just like that.

"Hell yeah I do, sonny!"

Yeah, for a human, definitely lifestyle adjustments. For an animal? Straight upgrade, no question.

Of course turning her into a dragon in the middle of the city would surely cause a panic, even during Monster Feria, and getting Yankimaru in and out of the Dungeon was tricky enough before the mafuba, so it would be better to do this once they got deep enough to where the floors really opened up.

She flew over and perched on his shoulder, Naaza and Rina giving her a look. "Didn't your pigeon have a hard time with the bad bats last time? It'll be even less safe when we go to the middle floors," Rina warned.

"Oh no, trust me. She'll be fine," Ichiban grinned, leading the way into the Dungeon for the second time today. It was more like a fast walk now, as he didn't want to dislodge Pearl, but it was still faster time than they usually made walking around with Yankimaru. Especially with Naaza simply shooting every monster that came into sight, her arrows hitting with enough force to blow apart the upper floor monsters.

She'd previously one-shot them anyway, but it definitely seemed more visceral with the new bow.

There were no surprises and nothing really slowed them down until they reached the misty tenth floor. Wide open as it was, there was plenty of space even if Ichiban wasn't quite sure precisely how much would be needed.

"Alright, you all want to see something cool?" he asked as Pearl fluttered down onto the floor amidst the faded white grass. With the two adventurers watching curiously, he crouched over Pearl with his hand on her back and focused, pushing power into her. It wasn't the same as when he gave someone chakra, it followed a different path and drew from him fully rather than through the pathways of his chakra system, but it wasn't hard to see some similarity. And rather than being a simple change like flipping a switch, it was more like turning a dial, one that he could keep twisting around and around, drawing more power from himself.

That seemingly bottomless well of power he'd found in his chakra finally started to show its limits as Ichiban went all out. The more power he used, the stronger Pearl would become, and the faster the transformation would be. Since he had those recovery potions, he held basically nothing back, and for the first time in several days, he actually felt tired, that pounding ache in his head that he knew from over-use of his magic reasserting itself.

But oh did it show results.

From a pigeon that could fit on the palm of his hand, Pearl grew to titanic proportions. Feathers merged into her skin which grew thick crag-like scales of the same white hue as her feathers, almost crystalline and iridescent where the glow of his hero's light spell reflected off her. Little twig-like bird legs grew into something more feline, matched by a pair of forelimbs that grew from nothing. Her wings spread out above her now ridged back, smoother membranes held between rocky ridges. The bird's beak split open into an enormous maw filled with huge predatory teeth as her head grew, a crest over the back of it like a dinosaur's.

Naaza had fallen on her butt while Rina had dropped her hammer and was pointing stupidly at the newly created dragon, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

"Haha, those loud bats are gonna get it now!"

Dragon or not, it seemed Pearl's mind was still pigeon enough for his animal communication powers to work, though she verbalised that comment with a roar that made the mist visibly ripple from its power, echoing through the Dungeon and no doubt causing everyone else on this and the adjacent floors to crap themselves.

Rina made an inarticulate noise as the roar died down while Naaza scrambled to her feet. "Ichiban, warn us properly!" she gasped out.

"You turned a fucking pigeon into a floor boss!" Rina managed to find her voice, eyes wide as saucers.

"Yeah, she looks amazing, doesn't she?" Ichiban grinned, looking up at the bus-sized western dragon and taking out his mana restoration potion to drink, fully recovering him from the drain.

Yet as the echoing reverberations of Pearl's roar died down, they were answered by a loud crackling noise of shattering rock. Eyes tracked up to the ceiling where the surface of the Dungeon crumbled away, Ichiban feeling the magic of the Dungeon concentrating as it heard the challenge in Pearl's roar and gathered something to respond.

The glow of twin red eyes stared down at them, framed by a skeletal saurian head. It tumbled free, seemingly ungainly and out of control, before narrow limbs ending in long razor-sharp claws fanned out, adjusting its tumble to land on its feet, a whip-like tail snaking out behind it. Like Pearl it seemed almost made of rock, but its form was more skeletal and dark, like a nightmare dinosaur crossed with an acid-spitting alien.

"Oh shit-" Rina started to say before the monster hurled itself at them. Sparks few from Pearl's rocky scales as claws raked across them, the monster's body twisting like a corkscrew as it shot through the air ripping an attack through the newly-minted dragon's flank but continuing on to the three smaller figures beside it.

Chakra coursed through Ichiban without him having to think about it, his automatic reflexes kicking in as he pivoted his body to avoid the claws coming his way and snapped out a punch that let off a loud boom of displaced air before it cracked into the creature's ribs, launching it off course and causing it to tumble and crush several of the dead looking trees that littered this floor.

Unfortunately it took Rina with it, her arm having been snapped into the jaw of the beast, its speed surprising even the experienced level three adventurer. Naaza had been lucky she'd been further behind Ichiban, as his instinctive strike had hit it before any of those claws or teeth could have reached her.

The amazon screamed as she tumbled in the grasp of the flailing monster, serrated teeth grinding against her shoulder, but still she managed a chakra-infused punch with her other hand, the mystical energy making up for her lack of leverage and poor positioning to at least ensure the impact was felt, cracking its surface. But like a pit bull, its jaw was locked and it left Rina to bounce helplessly in its grasp as it skittered back onto its feet.

"Stop!" Naaza shouted, not a command but a spell. A glowing clock started to appear in place around the monster, but it leapt into the air with a scream from Rina as she was carried along for the ride, escaping the spell's effect even as the clock showed hands ticking slower and freezing. Up the thing went, flipping in mid air to lock its claws into the ceiling, sticking there like a spider.

Pearl's wings beat, a powerful draft of air caused as the creature on the ceiling bobbed its head in a curiously avian fashion before its mouth opened, allowing Rina to fall with her blood-drenched and mangled arm freed. She tumbled helplessly in the air and the creature tensed before pushing off, its sole attention now on finishing the falling adventurer before she could even hit the ground ten metres below.

Ichiban finished his own spell in time, channelled through the Hero Mage's Wand at full speed, losing some power from him not chanting but making up for it in speed to come at just the right moment. "Hold it!" he yelled, unleashing a barrage of freezing projectiles, a spell he'd learned from an elf adventurer that she'd boasted would freeze any monster solid and make them easy prey… but she must never have fought one of these because they bounced right off, flying every which way. A few impacted Pearl, blue frost spreading over her white scales but not seeming to bother her over-much, other than her general distaste for the entire situation.

Fortunately that distaste was firmly aimed at the creepy monster that had just slashed her scales seconds ago, and with a kick of her legs and beat of her wings, Pearl soared into the air, crashing into the monster before it could complete its descending attack on Rina. The two landed with another thunderous crash and splintering of trees as their bodies rolled over and crushed everything in their path while Rina impacted the ground with less fanfare but likely a lot more pain.

It was easy to forget, as skittish as pigeons acted around humans, they could be scrappy little fuckers. Who wouldn't be skittish around things so much bigger than you? But right now Pearl was the biggest creature in the area.

"Don't use magic, it reflects it!" he warned Naaza, though she was already running towards Rina, a different spell in mind.

"Cure!" Naaza yelled with her hands pushed out, golden sparkles settling over Rina as the amazon's eyes widened in realisation and she mimicked Naaza, doubling up the healing effect and causing flesh to knit back together, bone shifting back to its proper alignment as she let out a hiss of pain.

"It's a fucking juggernaut!" the amazon got out as she surged to her feet, her arm mostly repaired but still oozing blood, though the Dia Fratel Ichiban had been charging up on his wand came through and fixed it the rest of the way.

By now Pearl and the now identified juggernaut had separated, steaming blood leaking between the dragon's scales from wounds it had suffered in the tumble from the other monster's razor sharp claws. The juggernaut looked banged up, cracks and dents all over its form but it was still moving, skittering in an unnatural way that reminded Ichiban of how creepy the imps on this floor were.

Pearl was bigger, and undoubtedly more powerful from what he could sense. The juggernaut felt different than any monsters he'd seen yet – stronger than the plant-snake things, but its power felt weirdly unstable compared to every other monster, like every second was wearing it down. That didn't change the fact that it had clearly been built for a purpose, while Pearl was a behemoth being operated by the brain of a scrappy pigeon. Her head lunged out more to peck than bite, and she didn't use her claws at all.

Rina had started running now, back towards her hammer, while Naaza grimly raised her bow and loosed arrows in quick succession that crackled with lightning. Despite its seeming focus on Pearl, the juggernaut twisted its body and moved with jerky speed that saw it evading some. Those that hit however blasted rocky chunks out of its body, and as slender as it was if she could hit its neck or a limb she'd likely sever something.

A force-field sprung into place in front of Naaza, allowing her to shoot through while protecting her if the juggernaut were to break off and come her way. Pearl was getting distressed, rearing back and flapping her wings, the sheer movement of air sending the juggernaut skittering back and knocking more of Naaza's arrows off course, and Ichiban cast a spell of his own before surging forward.

"Tempest!"

He didn't use the hand-sign for air, but simply saying that word while his wand automated the spell was enough to give it a boost over what he could do normally, and now with wind circulating to augment his movement, chakra flowing through his limbs, and his amulet doubling his speed in a straight line?

100 - Unforgotten Nemesis
HighSchool DxD
Monster tamers are those that know how to bend the will of lesser monsters and even sentient ones, to make their bidding. Naturally, a powerful being telling a lesser one what to do is not what I'm talking about, but rather being a good hand at training less intelligent ones, such as Lamias, Yuki-onnas, and various other creatures, even when they are stronger than you in a direct fight. Perhaps with enough time and practice you will achieve the level of skill needed to bind powerful and intelligent creatures, such as Dragons, to you, but it will certainly require a lot of practice.

He hit the thing like a bomb going off.

It had already reacted, twisting and scything its tail out to try and stab him with its bladed tip, but that didn't happen when the metal robot control rod struck the juggernaut's body it went through just as easily as Ichiban's fist had gone through the goblin earlier in the day. The shock-wave of impact tearing its body apart from inside and causing it to explode outwards with the majority of its body shredding apart as it flew off into the mist its different parts leaving whirling patterns cut through the pervasive white fog with their passing.

Also the durable brass looking rod had a nasty looking bend near its tip, yet as he looked at it he felt the object trying to automatically pull on his mana, which he obliged and got to see it straighten itself back out.

"Damn. What the fuck was that?" he asked, sure Rina had named it, and as names went it was in fact pretty descriptive, but still the whole encounter had been shocking in its speed and ferocity.

"That's what you get! Don't underestimate an old lady!"

Pearl was at least basking in her triumph, and while she'd been mostly ineffective she'd definitely saved Rina at one point so he'd let her have it. His ability to train animals had seemingly expanded during the fight to do better with monsters too, and he knew that was going to be seeing a lot of use to have the newly-minted dragon realise her actual potential.

"Juggernaut," Rina repeated as she jogged over, "Something the Dungeon spawns when its structure is threatened. Like setting off a huge amount of bombs all over a floor. They're the stuff of horror stories."

"It must have taken the creation of a new type of monster as some kind of challenge," Naaza suggested as she came over. "We're lucky you've gotten a lot stronger, Ichiban, if you'd done this a few days ago I don't think Rina and I could have won, even with… the dragon," she looked up at Pearl with faint disbelief written over her face.

Well they'd have had Yankimaru too, he was pretty badass! Might as well be standing still next to something as fast as the juggernaut though, that was crazy. He was certainly lucky he had reflexes that could handle fighting without conscious thought, because just mentally trying to keep up with the speed of that kind of fight was taxing on his brain, lacking whatever magic made adventurers able to keep up with their own insane speed, and not having worked out a way to compensate with chakra.

"Yeah, Pearl was definitely stronger than that thing, but she's still thinking like a pigeon," Ichiban said, calling the dragon over and first using a healing spell he'd learned from another adventurer. Dia Fratel was great for humans, but the way it worked over a radius meant it wasn't really practical for a giant dragon. As the wounds sliced between her scales closed up, he touched her snout and gave her a chakra system of her own. He could probably train her how to use it at least a little bit, and if nothing else it seemed her theoretical power as far as he could sense went up. He wasn't sure she could really beat someone like Riveria in a straight fight due to the lack of intelligence and experience, but the metaphorical numbers were on her side.

"At least the healing magic works," Rina said, rolling her shoulder and looking in distaste at all the blood still drenching her arm. Ichiban handed her the endless water bottle and she gladly rinsed herself off, only grunting at the fact the water bottle was in fact endless before she gave it back. "You know she's going to cause a panic with anyone that sees her though, right?"

"We'll tell them she's tame. You know, like what they have for Monster Feria," Ichiban insisted, patting Pearl's snout which was still in range as she loomed over the group. "People got used to Yankimaru!"

"Yeah, what even happened to him?! You teased something back the other day when we went down with Mord but never explained!" Rina blurted out as his reassuring words only brought forth another concern.

They may as well get the whole squad, why not? "He's in here. Watch," he took out his totally-not-a-pokeball and peeled the seal from it before popping it open and causing three metres of giant brass robot to appear, everyone jumping back in surprise. Which in Pearl's case caused the ground to shake. "I can put Pearl in one too for when we leave the Dungeon so she can get out easily."

"That's what you had them made for! I kept wondering!" Naaza said as she recovered, staring at the segmented sphere with intensity as Ichiban scooped it back up and into his pocket.

"Anyway, c'mon. With five of us we should be able to handle anything – I want to train Pearl so she can fight properly, and you can practice all the new Final Fantasy magic on the monsters while we head deeper?" Ichiban suggested, itching to help Pearl realise her full potential after investing so much into her. Seeing a bunch more magic at work would be nice too!

Weirdly they did not actually run into any monsters on the tenth floor before they found some stairs going deeper, though these were big enough for even Pearl to descend with little difficulty. Naaza reminded him of the new monsters they'd likely see down here, and Ichiban couldn't help but feel a little excited about pitting Pearl against another dragon, even if 'infant dragon' made it feel a bit like bullying.

The first attack however came from a swarm of familiar bad bats, their disorienting screeching no more pleasant than it had ever been. It didn't stop Naaza from shooting them, and Rina tried out some of her new magic with her yells of, "Thunder!" "Fire!" and "Blizzard!" causing blasts of the classic RPG element triad to explode amidst the monsters.

"Okay, try like pulling in deep from your belly and then breathing out, just think like you're trying to spark something. Fire! Like that!"

Ichiban spent the fight trying to coach Pearl through how to use her fire breath, drawing inspiration from some of Rina's magic. It was pretty late to the party and that last bat already had an arrow with its name on it, but Pearl did manage to expel a ferocious stream of flame from her maw which blasted up towards the ceiling, cracking rock and burning away the mist for some distance with the sheer heat expelled.

"I didn't know I could do that! Everyone better look out, I'm going to do it a lot now!"

"Alright! She should be able to do that faster next time, finding the right trigger was a bit tricky," he explained to Naaza and Rina who were staring at the primal gout of elemental fury now tapering off.

"I was just starting to feel good about my magic too…" Rina muttered.

That reminded him and he showed Rina the hand sign they'd worked out that synchronised with fire spells so she could try that next time. Could a dragon do hand signs? He looked speculatively at Pearl's enormous crag-like claws and decided to put off experimenting with that until she had a bit more of the basics down.

She did have a lot of fun batting around the hard armoured when they came across some of those next, Naaza practising some of her magic to Stop and Slow the hard-shelled armadillo-like monsters, Rina getting some practice with Osmose to restore her mana from the monsters that were mostly helpless to do anything except serve as practice for Pearl as she learned that her new forelimbs were actually good for more than just walking around on.

"What the hell is that?!"

Of course it was inevitable they'd run into more adventurers down here, a party of mostly humans plus one cat-person in mismatched armour staring as Pearl caught a rolled up hard armoured in her jaw and bit down until something gave way with a crunch, black mist escaping out between her teeth and a magic stone tinking to the ground.

"Hey don't worry, she's tame. Just out training my dragon!" Ichiban gave them a thumbs up while Rina cast her Mini spell to shrink one of the hard armoured down to the size of a more conventional armadillo. It let out an almost adorable squeak right before a considerably less adorable splat marked a draconic hand smashing down on it.

"Uh, yeah. G-good going, Ichiban, sir! We'll just get out of your hair!" the guy in the lead bowed hurriedly before leading his group off in another direction through the mist.

"See, they were fine with it," he reassured his companions as the last hard armoured crumbled under a crushing swat from Pearl, the remaining magic stones theirs for the taking.

"It does help that everyone knows you now," Naaza opined as she did the gathering. "These new spells are really good. They're not the most powerful, but with short chants and no backlash… I might swap one out for Osmose later, it'll save money on mind potions if I'm going to be using them a lot."

"It's great!" Rina agreed with a grin. "Having so many spells, and still being able to change around for more if we need to, this is luxury even first tier adventurers can't dream of!"

They got plenty more practice with them as they pushed through the eleventh floor and made their way down to the twelfth, where the mist was so thick one standing by Pearl's head wouldn't be able to even see her tail. Ichiban's magic sensing was good enough to keep track of everyone though, and spot monsters before they became visible to his eyes.

They did find an infant dragon, but it was already being fought, and by a recognisable group at that. Takemikazuchi's familia were engaged, with the dragon being held in place by one girl's gravity spell as everyone else harried its flanks. It was trying to breathe fire at the spellcaster only to be interrupted by Ouka slamming a chakra-boosted axe-slash through its neck, severing it and briefly showing the liquid flame spewing aimlessly out of its gullet before the monster faded into black mist.

Fresh off their victory against one dragon, they reacted with surprise to the arrival of another far larger and more intimidating one, but luckily Ichiban was able to catch their attention. "Hey, relax. This one's tame, she's with me!"

"Lord Ichiban!" Ouka bowed with perhaps excessive respect, the other members of his team following his example. "Forgive us, our blood was up from battle. Truly, that is a magnificent tamed monster!"

"I've never seen anything like it, is that a dragon from the deep floors?" the side-ponytail girl asked, staring up at Pearl as everyone crowded closer to get a better look through the mist.

"Not exactly, her name's Pearl and she's one of a kind," Ichiban answered, patting Pearl's snout where she'd lowered her head to look at everyone, the yellowish-brown eyes set amidst her intimidating visage of rocky white scales still having a trace of pigeon in them if you knew to look for it.

"Truly an impressive servant, Lord Ichiban! Lord Takemikazuchi was right to speak so highly of you!" she said in a weird of mix of excited and formal.

"I thought I was missing out on Monster Feria by coming to the Dungeon today, but I bet they don't have anything like this up there!" Chigusa seconded, edging closer. "Can I, can I touch Pearl?"

"Yeah, sure. She doesn't mind," Ichiban reassured them, psychically reassuring Pearl too to put up with it as the girls of the Takemikazuchi familia started patting at her rough white scales with admiration and excitement while Ouka and the guys stood back and did their best to look like they were above it all.

"Hah, these kids are showing the proper respect, not like the ones I usually see hanging around that tower and walking right past me like they're so big..."

Everyone made introductions as they hung around for a little bit, but soon Ouka spoke up. "Come on, we shouldn't hold up Lord Ichiban any longer, and we have our own battles to fight. There's less adventurers today because of Monster Feria so that means more magic stones and more training for us, lets get back to it."

They went their separate ways, with Rina wryly reflecting, "They didn't even care about Yankimaru. He's already yesterday's news."

"Ahh, he doesn't have an ego, he's fine with it," Ichiban chuckled, the group finding a nearby staircase that left this misty floor behind, and opened out into what Naaza called the Cave Labyrinth. No more grass or trees, no more fog, though the air still had a moist humid quality to it. Otherwise it was just bare rock, similar to how the first few floors looked except with a more expansive layout rather than the straightforward tunnels the Dungeon started with.

It was still big enough for Pearl to walk around comfortably, and that range of motion was soon needed as the walls cracked and burst forth a swarm of monsters. Not the huge number of killer ants from the monster party they'd endured before, but still more than the number of goblins that would typically burst from the walls up above. And unlike goblins these were were giant man-sized praying mantises made up of refractive white crystal, smooth but jagged, a contrast to the more rough hewn rock of Pearl's white scales.

"Crystal mantises, don't use magic!" Rina shouted, though she actually did use magic. Just on herself, as a dull red aura surrounded her when she yelled, "Berserk!" and smashed one of the mantises to shrapnel with a broad swing of her hammer, ducking under the scything claw of another.

"Yankimaru, kill the bugs!" Ichiban ordered, smoothly dodging one that came for him and severing its arm with a retaliatory swing of his wand, the shock-wave of that attack causing crystal to crack all over the rest of the thing's body as it stumbled and fell and broke apart into black mist.

The robot's hammer arm proved more than up to the task of crushing the mantises with powerful strikes while their bladed arms drew up sparks across his body when they struck. But most of them were converging on the far larger target of Pearl, swarming her with one having even landed on her back and sliced into the base of a wing before an arrow from Naaza knocked it off with a crater blown into its slender body, evaporating to mist before it even hit the ground.

Ichiban simply let his reflexes take over, dodging on instinct and counter-attacking anything that got too close while his attention was actually on Pearl, psychically calming her down and directing her as she got freaked out by the aggressive mantises swarming over her. Their sharp claws struggled to penetrate her scales as easily as the juggernaut's had, but it was still clearly upsetting and distracting to be so beset on all sides.

"Turn towards me, sweep out your tail behind you!"

Pearl used tail sweep as she bounded around with her legs lifting off the ground and landing with a thunderous crash, the scything whip of her tail sending several mantises scattering like ten pins, two crushed and broken outright while the others went sprawling and dug their claws against the ground to recover. Those ones didn't get to recover as Naaza shot them down, while Rina and Yankimaru were doing a solid job of keeping this side clear, the last mantis ending up crushed between the jaws of a huge dragon.

"Whew, nice going! That's a fun spell!" Rina cheered, the glow of her berserk buff fading. As if she needed the help to be more of a wrecking ball.

"Gather up the stones quickly," Naaza advised, doing just that. "Monsters spawn faster and in greater numbers here. Since they're stronger too, it's a big step up from the last floors."

She wasn't wrong. They hadn't made it far through the caverns when an enormous gross toothy worm looking thing burst out of the ground. They'd been forewarned enough by the vibrations that no one was above it, and in fact it met a full force flame breath from Pearl that basically vaporised it before they could get much of a proper look. It would've made a good distraction for the band of rabbit looking things that came racing around a bend to charge at them. They didn't have the horns of those needle rabbits from a few floors back, but they were bigger and just as mean. Some of them even carried crude looking stone axes as they leapt into the storm of arrows that Naaza met them with.

That was the pattern as they pushed through the Cave Labyrinth, monsters frequently erupting from the environment to attack in tandem with ones already wandering around, a constant stream of attacks that honestly made Ichiban wonder how well they'd have done if they'd come down here a few days ago with Mord's group like originally planned.

Rina still basically one-shot everything, but he wasn't sure if Naaza would were she using her old bow. She'd taken a few shots to put down that minotaur before after all. His own reflexes and chakra certainly saved his hide a few times when the erupting monsters swarmed out too close. But with those reflexes it was always easy to dodge, and he kept his focus on directing both Yankimaru and Pearl to contribute to the fights, the robot as ever working with machine-like efficiency while Pearl steadily improved her reactions and her control over her new body, growing into the potential of being a dragon.

100 – Combo
Worm CYOA v17
Your melee attacks get stronger in a geometric progression the longer you attack the same target without stopping. You have to continue hitting your opponent with pauses no longer than 5 seconds between the strikes or your combo will be broken.

He felt a new ability come in as they explored, one that would make his melee attacks grow stronger the more he kept hitting the same target. Since he was still one-shotting everything here it wasn't exactly tested, but he had a feeling it would combine exceptionally well with his automatic reflexes.

For now though, they kept fighting their way deeper into the Dungeon, the constant swarms of monsters it threw at them a threat that never ended, even if none were close to the danger represented by that one juggernaut. They scarcely ran into other adventurers, but those they did had the same initial freak-out on seeing Pearl before calming down and accepting Ichiban's explanation.

Soon they were fighting minotaurs in their native habitat, Naaza confirming fully the power of her improved bow as she was able to kill them in a single shot with lightning arrows or a particularly well-aimed normal one. Even if not well aimed, each arrow still inflicted grievous wounds that would surely hinder the fighting ability of anything so injured.

Finally they emerged into an enormous chamber where Pearl would be able to actually take flight, which Rina introduced as, "The Wall of Grief. This is where the Monster Rex Goliath spawns. Every two weeks, the big familias have to schedule around it because it's great training for those at higher levels, and it needs to be cleared so the lower ones have a chance at getting to Rivira. I actually ranked up after the Ishtar familia fought it about a year ago," she finished proudly.

"Is it going to come out any time soon?" Ichiban asked, feeling his blood pump faster at the thought of battling a huge boss in this kind of arena.

"I think it already did yesterday, the Ganesha familia had it this time," Rina admitted with a shrug. "It's a great fight though – it's more than twice the size of Yankimaru, and kind of fights like him too. A bit slow, but all raw power and toughness. I'd love to see Pearl tangle with it, that'd be a fight for the ages!" she looked up with admiration at the dragon which under Ichiban's direction had turned into a deadly combatant during their descent through the Cave Labyrinth.

He would've liked to see that too. But well, "There's probably nastier stuff even deeper she can show off against. For now, lets finally check out Rivira," he led the way through the boss room, the quietest part of their journey in hours, no other monsters intruding on this hallowed ground even as the boss who was meant to guard it was regenerating somewhere.

Finally, he'd reach the first safe floor of the Dungeon, a significant milestone on his plans to reach the bottom. It'd be nice to see a part of the Dungeon that had been turned to habitation, with no monsters or other trouble at the bottom of the stairs ahead, they could all enjoy a well earned break.

Author's Notes said:
Ichiban, stop, everyone's still grappling with chakra and you're dropping an entire Final Fantasy spell list on them too?!

The restriction of only being able to know 16 of those spells is a restriction from the game I added to make it more interesting than just being able to give everyone all the spells. Also need to reconcile the whole thing between Death killing enemies but only KOing party members. It probably puts you in a near death unconscious state to split the difference. Insert your Princess Bride references here.

Good news is Pearl got to come back and be relevant again, hurray for lovers of avians, dragons, and obatarians alike.

Bad news is after I used her appearance in chapter 4 to vividly demonstrate how terrifying a level 3 adventurer can be, Rina got unceremoniously dumpstered by the juggernaut to show how scary it was. I now fully understand how the writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation felt whenever they looked at Worf.

Ebiris · Feb 12, 2025

"Woah, it looks like the world tree!"

The eighteenth floor was a huge departure from the twisting rocky caverns they'd spent most of their day working through, as the stairs down from the seventeenth floor opened onto a vast open cavern, the centre of which was dominated by an enormous tree which stretched up towards the ceiling of this cave, completely dwarfing the insignificant looking village beside it.

It wasn't just the tree that stood out though. The ground was covered in grass and foliage like one would see on the surface, and jutting out of the ceiling were huge crystals that shone light like the sun, causing Ichiban to end his own illumination spell as hardly necessary when it was so bright down here. Similar crystal formations jutted out of the ground too, bright blue and contrasting the surrounding plant-life, while several lakes and springs were scattered around.

"Yeah, it takes your breath away the first time you see it," Rina said, smiling at Ichiban's reaction. "We're lucky we made good time, the light here matches the surface so it'll get dark soon and then you wouldn't have this view."

"Finally, all those damp caves are no good for a girl's plumage!"

Ichiban wasn't sure how to tell Pearl she didn't have a plumage any more, so he figured he'd let that one slide. She seemed happy enough spreading out her wings and strutting about on the downward slope that continued leading down towards the town beneath that vast tree.

"It's always a relief when you reach Rivira, whether going down or up," Naaza put in her commentary in her usual placid tone as everyone just took a moment to savour their arrival on the Dungeon's first safe floor. They were still underground, sheer white cliffs in the distance marking the limits of this space, but it was still so vast and brightly lit the brain was fooled into thinking you'd escaped the depths.

They'd seemingly timed their arrival perfectly, as the radiance from above steadily began to dim as the group headed towards the actual town that had been built in the Dungeon. Though the arrival of three people, one giant robot, and one even more giant dragon didn't exactly go unremarked. A hue and cry rose from the walls and a throng of adventurers came charging out ready for battle.

The fact the dragon was just casually walking along with a bunch of people naturally drew some confusion from this initial muster to repel what must have seemed like a monster attack, and Ichiban waved his arms to get attention as he yelled out, "It's okay, she's a tame monster, she's with us!"

50 – Chillbite Ring (merged with Orange Charred Ring)
Dark Souls 3
"One of the bite rings native to Carim. This ring would never grace Friede's hand, for the painting and its frost became her home." Like the other rings produced by the Earl of Carim the Chillbite Ring increases one's resistance to elemental frost when worn, making the biting chill of winter a bit easier to bear. A necessity, for those not used to the painted world's frigid temperatures.

Luckily there were a few people among their number who'd previously gotten chakra from Ichiban, so he was both recognised and well regarded. Though one stranger, an older guy with an eye-patch and a gnarly scar running down his face above and below it, shouldered his way to the front of the crowd. "Oi, you can't just rile the whole town up with your pet dragon, you're gonna have to pay a… a stabling fee, yeah!" he rubbed his hands together after coming up with that one.

"That's Bors. Greedy and opportunistic," Naaza muttered, glowering at the guy.

"Hey, rather than money, how about I pay with something better?" he offered, looking over the crowd. Plenty of people must stay down here long enough they hadn't been to the surface recently, though there were enough down here that he'd given chakra to that word must have spread. "I can give chakra to anyone that wants it, that's gotta be worth something right?" Anything that'd help people survive down here was all good in his book.

Sure, plenty of them looked kind of unsavoury, and he had a feeling this was a good place to hide out from the law in the city above, but he wasn't going to vet and judge everyone over their circumstances. Plenty of adventurers he'd given chakra to at the Colosseum seemed pretty sketchy too. Regardless he'd still help out anyone willing to come down here and carve out a place of safety amidst all these monsters.

With enough people down here already reaping the benefits of the 'skill' as it manifested on their falna and talking it up, it wasn't hard to get interest from the rest, especially since most of the town had already come out to see the dragon.

"Also we want free food and lodging while we're down here, don't pretend like you're not getting a good deal, this is a powerful skill," Naaza bluntly spoke up to secure a little more on their end after everyone had already agreed to go along with Ichiban's plan.

"That's Naaza…" Rina started, but she didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to, they were all thinking it. Still, there was no denying it was a good deal, and Ichiban soon got to work with the mass of adventurers lining up to take advantage.

Quite a few were about as strong as Naaza, as expected given the difficulty in reaching here normally, although Bors was at the same level as Rina. He was surprised by the number of level one adventurers, but they must have come down as part of larger groups like how Rose had assumed Rina and Naaza would carry Ichiban's worthless ass down here.

There was one woman who stood out though, not just in terms of her power which was closer to Hedin's pre-chakra, but it felt different. While he could perceive differences like getting hints of elemental affinities, all adventurers felt fundamentally similar, just as all gods did – in fact the adventurers felt a bit like reflections of the gods.

Hers was unique. Though she wore a hooded robe, he could make out a womanly figure underneath it, and yellow eyes that looked intently at him when she held her hands out after waiting in line behind the dwarf he'd just given chakra to.

It was similar to a monster's – though not the juggernaut, that one had been unique too. But still different, like she was something completely different from anyone or anything he'd encountered so far.

She'd picked up on his hesitation and was starting to pull her hands back, her voice husky as though from disuse as she asked, "Do you have a problem with me?"

Did he? She was down here mingling with everyone else. She was certainly powerful enough to have killed everyone in Rivira if she wanted to, and she felt dangerous but so did plenty of other adventurers. He decided to stick with his initial plan of just handing it out to everyone, unless he actually saw action worth caring about, he wouldn't deprive someone of an advantage against the Dungeon.

"No, no problem," he reached forward and caught her hands before she could pull completely back. "Just surprised. You're a cut above everyone else here," he said as chakra passed between them and a new avenue of power opened up to her.

"You're perceptive. That's dangerous," she warned, looking at her hands and flexing her fingers as she felt chakra flow through her. That was the first thing most people did actually, it kind of pointed as a clue to the hand sign stuff right from the start. "But I'll thank you for this. It'll be useful."

She moved off and an elf girl took her place, no surprises or drama there and soon Ichiban had run through everyone in Rivira that didn't already have chakra, and he took some time to run through explaining basic chakra circulation and how to use it for fighting and movement to his attentive audience.

By then it was night as the Dungeon reckoned it, the illumination from above still present but more at the level of a bright moonlit night.

Pearl had to be left outside, but she seemed quite happy to just curl up and nap off to the side of the town gates, and Ichiban left Yankimaru with orders to defend her, as well as asking the adventurers who kept lookout from the gates to keep an eye out and stop anyone from messing with the dragon and robot. It should have been self evident, but you never know when a badass adventurer might roll through and think them a worthy challenge to throw down with.

"Hey, I'm gonna visit the brothel, catch up with some friends down here, you want to come along?" Rina invited as the three of them went into Rivira properly at last, narrow lanes of ramshackle looking wooden buildings surrounding the town. It definitely had the look of a shanty-town.

200 – Knight's Bravery
Magic The Gathering - Iconics
Paragons of honor and justice, knights are those soldiers who keep the law in check. Their martial skills are nothing to scoff at either, and neither are your own martial skills. You have been trained as a knight and have excelled under the tutelage. This has made you one of the best knights across the planes, through martial skill alone you could hold your own against entire bands of lesser knights and it would take a knight of legendary status to best you just in martial combat alone, your skill is sufficient to easily be knighted in four of the five courts of Eldraine with a good chance at the fifth. In addition to this skill at arms, you also find it effortless to weave spells in the middle of fighting with a weapon, not needing to pause as beat back enemies.

As he took it all in he felt himself suddenly know how to use a sword, a shield, and a lance. All the weapons of chivalric knights… wasn't bad for a hero either. More than that, it gave him a handle on how to cast spells while fighting at the same time – not really necessary for his quicker spells, but for the ones with long chants that was quite a useful trick!

"Actually I think me and Naaza are gonna get dinner and a place to stay," Ichiban demurred, the party splitting up as Naaza led him to a place that had actually been dug out into the roots of the tree. The food wasn't anything special, but the price couldn't be beat, and they were soon joined by Rina too.

Curiously someone Ichiban must have seen before at the Colosseum appeared, a heavily armoured adventurer in the level four with chakra range, who drew some notice, but as he kept to himself at a table in the corner they saw little need to bother him. Someone else didn't have those reservations, a chienthrope like Naaza, though at Rina's level of power went to converse with him briefly, some kind of exchange happening before she departed.

Ichiban and crew weren't far behind, leaving the bar to find themselves an inn to stay at following Rina's recommendation, one where they availed themselves of the luxury of individual rooms thanks to Naaza's foresight. "Usually parties bunk up in one room, or even just camp outside the walls, because the prices are so unfair here," she'd said, looking expectantly at Rina and Naaza as they all lined up outside their rooms, hanging curtains over the doorways rather than actual doors.

"Thank you Naaza, you saved us a lot of money," Ichiban said with appropriate gratefulness and not letting the words opportunistic or greedy pass his lips.

She nodded with a slightly pleased smile and the three of them bid each other goodnight, Ichiban getting to sleep in the Dungeon for the first time.

Unfortunately they woke up the next day to find the town in uproar. "There's been a murder!" "Someone's been killed!" "It wasn't even the dragon!" and similar such words were spread amidst the crowd massed outside one of the other inns, dug into the rocks at the edge of the town where a blue crystal formation sprouted.

Exchanging looks with Naaza and Rina who both seemed curious, Ichiban shouldered his way through the crowd, clearing a path for them. He had to push chakra through his limbs, but with it he was able to barge aside adventurers as strong as Mord with ease. That first handshake would've gone differently now. "Hey, coming through, make some room!" he growled, adventurers giving way as he pushed his way towards the entrance.

It seemed his reputation was already good for it as initial grumbles gave way to apologies and a more direct path offered right inside, the interior a mixture of carved stone and jagged crystals, the actual furnishing and light fixtures looking weirdly out of place. The arrangements of candelabras with magic stone 'flames' at their tips reminded him a bit of Castlevania, but before he could dig into that Naaza twitched her nose and muttered, "It stinks of blood."

Following Naaza, Ichiban could soon smell that metallic tang himself as they went down a hallway of curtained off rooms and swept it aside to enter one, where they beheld a grisly sight. A muscular man in his underwear lay face-down on the floor beside the bed, except face-down was a misnomer because his head above the jawline had been completely pulverised, a grotesque splatter of blood and gore arced out over the floor and up the nearby wall.

"Oi, you guys! This place is closed off! What the hell are the watch doing?!" Bors yelled irritably from where he was looking at the corpse, a black-haired werewolf man sat on the bed looking down at it as well with a sickly expression.

"Hey, you think we're gonna sit still when there's been a murder?" Ichiban asked. "There's no police or anything down here, so of course we're gonna get involved. You could use the help, right?"

"Tch," Bors clicked his tongue, "Strong guys always think they can throw their weight around and do whatever they feel like."

"Isn't that how you run this town?" Naaza asked, glaring at him through hooded eyes.

"Geh," Bors made an unhappy noise before he rounded on the werewolf, "Oi Viri! Stop sulking there and explain what happened!"

The innkeeper groaned a sickly noise and tore his pallid gaze up from the corpse on the floor, "The guy had a helmet and full armour on so I never even saw what he looked like. Came in last night with a woman, never saw her face past her hood either, but the two of them asked for me to rent them the entire inn."

"Just two of them for the entire inn? That's so frivolous!" Naaza expressed her disapproval, a hand over her mouth.

"Yeah these places though, not much privacy if you want to get freaky," Rina pointed out, rapping her knuckles on the door-frame.

"I didn't have any reason to turn them away, he paid a lot of magic stones. But then this morning, I found this…" Viri gestured unhappily down at the near-headless cadaver.

A guy in full armour? In fact Ichiban could see the pieces by the bed, and they looked familiar. He'd seen them last night, at the bar. He was sure of it.

Bors meanwhile was standing with his hands on his hips, "So yeah, a man gets killed and the woman he was with disappeared, there's no doubt who the criminal is," he declared grandly as if he'd solved the case.

"But you didn't see her face? What about anything else that distinguished her?" Naaza asked, although Ichiban already had a bad feeling. A woman in robes, strong enough to take out a guy this strong?

Viri however did in fact remember something. "Ahh! You know what? She had a really nice body! You could tell even through the robe!" he gestured expansively over his chest to make clear what he was talking about.

"Oh! I think I saw her too now you mention it! I didn't see her face, but there's no doubt that's a fine woman!" Bors agreed, suddenly excited, both men getting heated up as they grinned over the beauty of the apparent murderer, the grisly corpse at their feet seemingly forgotten.

"Yeah, forget it. Shit, I think I know who they're talking about," Ichiban grimaced. "Come on," he turned and led the way out, Rina and Naaza following, the two other men left to their lechery.

"It's the girl you hesitated at yesterday with the chakra, wasn't it?" Rina asked, clasping her hands behind her head as they walked.

"Yeah. Fuck," he swore. "She probably would've killed him chakra or no, she was way stronger. But she felt weird, more like a monster than an adventurer, that's what threw me off."

"And you didn't think to say anything?" Naaza asked, her tone typically bland, but he could feel the accusation.

"I would've if I thought she was gonna kill someone!" he blurted out in frustration. "Hell, I'm different than everyone with their falnas too, I walked in here with a dragon, I wasn't gonna judge. She looked human, she could talk and wasn't causing any trouble. It's not like I was conducting interviews!"

"We don't even know why she killed him, maybe there was a good reason?" Rina ventured. "I mean, fact is lots of adventurers can be pretty mean. I could pick out a few that have body counts just in the berbera."

That didn't really make Ichiban feel better.

"Adventurers are people, and not all of them are nice," Naaza said more gently. "But I'm still worried about how you said she felt like a monster. Some monsters have humanoid parts, but none can pass that well, far less talk and walk around normally among people."

"She could've been hiding something under those robes," Rina pointed out as they emerged back into the fake sunlight of Rivira. Obviously there was no sign of the robed woman among the crowd all milling around and now badgering the group for answers as they stepped back out, but Ichiban pushed his way back through the crowd without answering, the scowl on his face enough to deter anyone from getting too pushy.

That's when he saw her, not the robed woman, but the chienthrope. Dark-haired and with a reddish tone to her skin, her brown ears stuck out more to the side than over the top like Naaza's, and she was sticking to the shadows underneath the supports of one of the taller buildings lifted up above Rivira. Their eyes met and Ichiban started walking towards her, hoping she might have some answers, but she must have seen something she didn't like in his scowl as she looked panicked before turning and running.

Considering she was as strong as Rina, it really made clear what a difference a few days made.

"No! Hey, wait!" he yelled, taking off after her, Rina casting Haste on herself as she followed him, leaving poor Naaza to bring up the rear. The girl was fast, befitting a level three adventurer, but even with her head start she wasn't capable of outrunning the speed Ichiban was now capable of as he caught up just past the gate into town, Pearl and Yankimaru still hanging around nearby thankfully.

"Hold up, we don't mean any trouble!" Ichiban called, reaching out and grabbing her shoulder, his hand snagging on the strap of her satchel and causing it to rip as the leather couldn't hold up to the force of a level three adventurer going full tilt. She let out a squawk as she stumbled to a stop while the bag fell to the ground and burst open, a green sphere about the size of a volleyball rolling out over the uneven ground before coming to a stop against where a bump rose up off the path.

"What the hell is that?!"

Rina cried out as she skidded to a stop just behind him, Ichiban looking down to see that the sphere was glassy and transparent, something inside that looked like some kind of gross monster baby.

"Hey, you're back sweet-cheeks! I waited all night just like you asked, so can I go flying now?"

Not the time, Pearl. Dismissing the dragon for the moment Ichiban stared at the creepy orb while the chienthrope girl stopped and did much the same. "I was told not to look at it or investigate, I'm just a courier," she babbled out, "I didn't have anything to do with the guy getting killed, but whoever did it, this must've been what they were looking for, I'm sure of it."

The orb was magical. Alive. The thing inside it felt powerful, like a seed waiting to blossom into something far greater than it looked right now, that was the feeling it gave Ichiban as all three of them stared, Naaza catching up herself.

"I didn't think you were the killer, but I saw you with him last night," Ichiban tore his eyes from the sphere to look at the girl, while more adventurers were starting to crowd around the gate, drawn by the chase. "I thought you might know something." And she clearly did going by how quickly and easily she'd spilled her guts.

"Uh, yeah. My name's Lulune Louie. Hermes familia, level thr-two," she gave an embarrassed smile and rubbed the back of her head. "I just panicked, you looked really scary coming at me like that."

Well, she was definitely the most badass level two he'd encountered. Or she was lying about her level for some reason, that was a pretty obvious slip of the tongue. It was hardly the most important thing to question right now, like-

50 – Ultimate Ninja Style
Naruto
No, this isn't some overpowered fighting style. What this does is provide a boost in cosmetic flexibility to your techniques. Simply stated, your techniques are much more stylish and cooler-looking than normal, though no more or less powerful than normal. Even if you make it look as though you're punching your opponent into space with five thousand Shadow Clones, they won't actually be launched into space unless your attack would've done that anyways. This effect can be spread to teammates, allowing team attacks to benefit from the same aesthetic boost. This can be toggled on and off freely.

A shrill whistle pierced the air, and the ground shook in response. All around Rivira they sprouted like tentacles from the ground, those same serpentine plant monsters that had attacked in the city when he was with the Ganesha familia.

"Protect!" Naaza immediately cast a defensive spell, but it sparked just as rapid a reaction from two of the nearby monsters which surged towards her, one met by Rina's hammer which struck with a thunderous clang, scales barely denting however as the two bounced off of each other.

Ichiban managed to get a force-field in place to cover Naaza's other side, that monster cracking it on impact and buying Naaza a precious second to get moving as she readied her bow. "They're reacting to magic!" she called out.

He hadn't noticed that last time, but then hadn't the whole fight been taking place under the aura of Valletta's spell? Maybe that stopped any spells from standing out at the time, but he could hardly not use magic, not if they hoped to fight off this many powerful monsters. The level five Ganesha heroes weren't here this time.

"Yankimaru, kill the plant monsters!" "Pearl, get those things!"

He called for help even as the adventurers of Rivira roused themselves to battle, Lulune drawing a knife while Ichiban looked for the source of the whistle he'd heard that had started all this.

There. Up on the roof of one of the buildings, a figure in black armour. But he instantly recognised her power, the woman he'd wondered about yesterday, the most likely culprit for the murder.

She leapt in the air, everything happening all at once. Yankimaru hissing steam and charging off towards a plant-monster further off, not being particularly helpful in his immediate target prioritisation while Pearl breathed flame that immolated the one that had bounced off his force-field, causing it to shriek and writhe, charring away in a flash before nothing was left but black mist.

Rina was dodging around, a yell of, "Berserk!" as the already hasted amazon drew off the one she'd engaged, a flurry of lightning-trailed arrows flying from Naaza's bow to perforate its length. Scales were pierced and blown out from impact, but the sheer mass of the creature meant her attacks weren't doing enough critical damage to kill it.

And Ichiban was rushing to meet the killer. The strongest person around, made even stronger because of his generosity last night. He could only hope the others could handle the plant-snakes, because other than perhaps Pearl he was the only one who had a shot against her.

With a clang his bronze metal rod impacted her sword as she landed, her momentum pushing him back despite the chakra he'd poured into his arms. Up close he could see her mouth in a thin line, but above it covering down past the nose lay scraps of darker skin that hung over her face beneath the helmet she wore, giving her the visage of a scarred man.

The tone matched the corpse back at the inn. What kind of twisted shit was this?

"You're wearing his face?!" he yelled in disgust and dismay as they broke apart, landing away from each other with a shower of trailing sparks coming from the collision of their weapons.

She reached up and pulled, tossing the helmet aside as if it were trash, peeling off the skin she wore on top of her own. "You can preserve skin with poison vemis, it's a good disguise," she said apathetically, no expression on her face as she stared at him from beneath her short red hair. "Except against perceptive people like you. But as thanks for what you gave me, I'll let you live. You're not what I'm here for."

He tightened his grip on his weapon and glared at her, hearing Rina's battle-cry off to the side as she leapt at a monster with a berserk-empowered and chakra-boosted strike that sent a monster rocketing back and crashing through the town walls. "Like hell I'm gonna let you walk away," he growled, glaring back at her.

She shrugged without changing her expression, and then showed that unfortunately she had been paying attention last night when Ichiban had been explaining chakra to people as she blasted towards him with speed he had to rely on his automatic reflexes to block, the metal rod he was using as a weapon chipping as it took her sword full on, forcing him back before he counter-attacked. She took it on her armour, weaving aside to protect her body and not caring as she allowed a pauldron to be knocked off.

She was wearing her armour shoddily, he realised. Part of those knightly skills he picked up last night also seemed to include the proper care and use of heavy armour like knights wore, and the suit she was wearing definitely hadn't been put on properly.

In fact as they exchanged several more blows back and forth, her armour got further dislodged by impacts before she bounded back from him and just ripped the remnants off, dented and broken metal plates clattering to the ground. "Shit, this was tight and uncomfortable anyway," she muttered, her clothes beneath showing enough cleavage and thigh to match an amazon even if otherwise there was a lot more material going on with her long sleeves, leotard, and boots.

Pearl was ripping apart another of the monsters, those scales giving way to her claws and teeth far more easily than they had Rina's hammer or Naaza's arrows. The two of them were still fighting their initial target which was surging back out of the debris it had been knocked into, Lulune rushing to join them, but Ichiban and the mysterious woman only had eyes for each other. Again she rushed at him, faster now. The armour clearly had been slowing her down, and Ichiban found himself pressed back. Her sword drew blood, cutting through his arm, tearing his sleeve… it didn't hurt as much as he would've thought though, and even after the initial sting it didn't impede his mobility as he kept swinging back at her, a single-handed swing with his rod giving cover for him to land a punch in her mid-section that despite all the power behind it she took with little more than a grunt.

200 – Millwood Battle Axe
Dark Souls 3
"Battle axe wielded by Millwood Knights. Its blade is blessed by the symbol of the Ethereal Oak. A hefty axe normally wielded by the mightiest of warriors. " Much lighter than its description would have you believe, this axe is a fantastic weapon for warriors due to its light-weight and easy heft enabling it to be swung quickly. When properly infused and buffed the deadliness of the weapon increases greatly, particularly if its wielder utilizes the running slash used by Millwood Knights.

An axe appeared in his free hand, the sort of huge single-bladed thing an executioner might wield in a medieval fantasy, its sudden appearance enough to make the woman's eyes widen in surprise.

He took advantage of it, rearing back and hurling it over towards the nearest melee. "Rina, try this!" He wasn't sure if it was better than her hammer, but its size seemed about right for her preference and he could only hope if he was suddenly gifted a weapon it'd be powerful like Naaza's bow.

There was no time to see how that was working though, as the woman took his distraction as an opportunity to renew her attack, forcing him to dodge wildly. She might not be as skilled as Takemikazuchi but she was so god damn fast, and clearly could take a beating. He needed to step things up, like he had with the Juggernaut.

"Tempest!" the wind element spell was easy to cast, hardly even needing his new ability for spell-casting during combat to just do it, his wand helping too and causing a gale of wind to erupt around him. It made his speed and power surge with the magical reinforcement, the initial rush of force pushing her back while her eyes widened in surprise once more.

"Aria-"

He dodged. He didn't even see it coming, but his instincts somehow knew and he twisted out of the way as something shot at him from his flank. He glanced the way it came and saw that green sphere still on the ground, only ruptured and broken apart.

A roar came from the other direction, and a psychic pigeon's voice. "I feel w-e-i-r-d…"

"Shit, all that for nothing," the woman's voice uttered, mercifully not taking advantage of his distraction as Ichiban turned to see a green tentacled thing sinking through Pearl's scales, the dragon stumbling as if drunk.

"Pearl, I gotta help her!" Ichiban started moving towards the stricken dragon he'd brought down here, but the reprieve he was being given ended as the woman crashed into his side, forcing an automatic dodge, though with the speed of his wind buff spell coursing through him he was able to properly evade and then counter, a strike impacting her arm with a crunch and causing her to drop her sword.

"You're mine," she growled, hardly even seeming bothered by her broken arm, though the way her limb jerkily shifted back into position with another unsettling crunch made clear why. "I can't go home by myself now, so you're coming with me," her gloved fists came up, clearly just as happy to do this hand to hand.

Ichiban was fine with that. The chipped and dented wand dematerialised as he clenched his fists in turn and they went at each other. Fast enough now to handle her, they exchanged blows properly. No parries or deflections, the woman clearly counting on her inhuman strength and regenerative ability to overwhelm Ichiban.

Her punches were the real deal alright, Ichiban felt bones creak despite his chakra flowing through them to reinforce them. She struck hard and fast, aiming for his head to disorient him, his joints to immobilise him.

But Ichiban took them on the chin, smiling as his head straightened after being jerked back with a blow that would've snapped most people's necks. Impacts that juddered and twisted his insides were shrugged off as his body just kept powering through, no injury able to actually slow him down as he struck her back.

And while she barely registered the first hit, the second made her grunt, the third made her eyes bug out, the fourth lifted her off the ground, and it kept getting worse.

ESSENCE OF RAGING TORNADO TEMPEST

Her world was one of pain, the Dungeon melting away around them, leaving the woman alone with Ichiban as his cumulative blows lifted her into the air higher and higher with every punch rising up from below. Rocketing into the air on sheer momentum, the wind formed a physical wall all around them, whirling with a fury before one final strike from Ichiban sent her launching into the stratosphere with a mighty climactic blow and a yell of, "Get the hell out of here!" the clouds above being blasted apart with the speed of her passing into low earth orbit, nothing but a twinkling light in the clear blue sky left to mark her passage.

Then he was standing back in the Dungeon in front of Rivira, the woman collapsed and broken at his feet.

That was awesome.

Oh right, Pearl. He looked over, seeing there had been a momentary lull in the fighting as his stupendous attack had drawn a lot of startled and slack-jawed looks at what had just gone down. Luckily the monsters were distracted in their own way by Pearl's transformation.

Ignoring everyone else, the plant monsters were slithering straight towards what moments ago had been a perfectly decent looking western dragon. Now however Pearl's neck and head were gone, her ribcage split apart at the top where a huge vaguely feminine figure with a similar green, blue, and purple colour scheme as the flower petals on the monsters had emerged.

"Hungry… A-r-i-a… give me more… I-w-a-n-t-t-o-s-e-e… can't stop…"

"The sky!"

It was warbling, erratic and thready, but it was a voice, it was speech that they all could hear. Pearl was speaking, her human-like mouth moving on a blank face that seemed more like a mask with no other features, black eyes set too high up, and a mane of vines falling behind it like hair.

There was no other words however as Pearl bent down and bit into one of the monsters that seemed to be lining up to offer themselves to her, a nasty sounding crunch and tear as she ripped out something vital, the monster disintegrating as another took its place and she resumed her grotesque feast.

Everyone was stunned. Only Yankimaru was unaffected, chasing after and hacking into the tail of a monster that was even now slithering towards Pearl to dutifully present its neck to her jaws. He hit the standby button to pause the robot, it didn't seem helpful at the moment, and he slowly started approaching his pigeon turned dragon turned abomination.

"Hey, Pearl… you still in there?" he asked carefully over the crunch of another monster being bitten into, something swallowed and absorbed, flowing through her and powering whatever changes the dragon was undergoing.

"She's eating their magic stones, they're offering themselves up for it!" Rina called out, backing away with both hands holding the new axe.

There was no reply from Pearl, obsessed with her gluttonous feast as the formerly rampaging monsters swarmed towards her only to present themselves as sacrifices, slavering fanged beasts now docile as lambs going to the slaughter as every one ended with disgusting crunching noises and wet sounding swallows.

No one seemed to know what to do, the adventurers who'd just been fighting for their lives and their town watching in sickened fascination as this new breed of monster developed before their eyes. Ichiban was no better, all he could think of was the helpful if slightly annoying pigeon that had watched his back on his first trip to the Dungeon, the cool dragon that had battled the juggernaut with them… she was still in there, right? She had to be.

The last of the monster perished without protest, and only then did the thing protruding from Pearl's chest turn towards him. There was no expression on that featureless face, but the lips on its mouth pulled back hungrily, exposing rows of gleaming white teeth, and then she charged. Thunderous steps shook the earth as the still draconic body rushed him, wings fanned out and flapping erratically.

"Shit!" he dived to the side. It was all he could do. He didn't want to hurt her if she was still in there.

But she didn't pivot to chase him, she kept going, and…

Crunch!

"Oh, fuck," he swore as he turned and saw that red-haired woman being bitten into, gore spreading from her chest every bit as messily as what he'd seen back at the inn as Pearl devoured something vital. Whatever it was, it was enough to trigger the next stage of her metamorphosis. Flesh bubbled and rippled over the giant humanoid protrusion sticking out of the dragon's neck, pulling it back inwards as it throbbed like a heartbeat before the ripples smoothed themselves out and the mass solidified into overlapping pink petals like a flower about to bud.

No one moved, spellbound by the bizarre and unnatural sight before them, by the immense pressure they all felt emanating from this fusion that should never have been born. A light shone from within as the petals slowly unfurled and peeled back over the mass of green and pink foliage that had overtaken the rock-scaled dragon's chest. Rearing up on its hind legs and fanning its wings, a figure stretched out from the base of Pearl's neck.

Where before it had been suggestive of humanity, now there was no doubt that was a person. Slender arms with dainty fingers stretched out above a face that could have graced magazine covers. Apart from the fact her skin was a verdant leafy green colour. Darker green hair crowned her head, short and curly like it had been permed, and when her eyes opened they shone a luminous yellow.

Also the rest of her body brought to mind the gestures that innkeeper had made when describing the robed woman earlier, at least as far as it went down to her navel before she merged into the floral arrangement that had taken over the dragon's top half.

"Aria!" she cried out, her voice melodious and sweet, a joyful expression on her face as she looked at Ichiban and spread out her arms lovingly, a thunderous crash as the draconic mass of her main body bounded its legs to shift so she was facing Ichiban.

"Phwoar, look at those!" a voice called from the adventurers gathered around Rivira's gate, and Ichiban wished she had longer hair so she could at least do the Godiva censoring bit.

"Shut up Bors, it's gonna kill us!" another voice chastised, and… well. It maybe could. The sheer power Ichiban could sense from her now… only the gods had it beat. Before Pearl had been at the level to match the top tier of adventurers, but she'd handily leapfrogged that benchmark now.

If Pearl was even still in there.

"Hey, Pearl, I dunno what you mean by Aria, but it's me, Ichiban. You remember, right?" he asked, carefully stepping closer to the mutated creature.

"Ichi… ban?" she repeated, cocking her head quizzically and staring at him. Then her features twisted in dismay, hand clutching at her cheeks. "N-no… Aria. I wanted to see Aria, I felt her… y-you're not Aria you're… sweet-cheeks!"

He felt a surge of relief at hearing that annoying nickname. Why would a pigeon have even called him that to begin with? He doesn't know, but it proves his friend is still in there.

"Yeah, it's me, it's… it's your boy, sweet-cheeks!" he agreed, just desperately trying to rebuild their connection.

"Pffft!"

He heard Naaza repressing her laughter but he ignored it as he kept eye contact with Pearl. He was willing to bet most of the guys around here couldn't manage that much, she really needed to cover up!

"Sweet-cheeks, where's Aria?" she asked, draconic claws churning up the ground as she prowled closer, lowering her neck to bring her human body closer to Ichiban. "I felt her, I feel her magic, but you're not her. She's… she's she! You're he! Aria should be a pretty young girl, not a handsome young stud!"

100 – Elemental Proficiency
Final Fantasy XI
All blackmages are specialists in elemental damage from afar and you are no exception to this. You find magic based on the elements is easier to cast, taking slightly less magic to achieve the same result as other mages would need to achieve the same effect.

"What the hell, that's his pigeon, right?" Rina's voice was heard asking in the background. "Is that how she's been talking to him this whole time?"

"He did say she sounded like an old granny…" Naaza pointed out.

"Looks more like a mommy to me!" an unhelpful random adventurer added.

Ichiban did his best to tune out the peanut gallery, but really there was a distraction that needed to be addressed. "Uh, hey Pearl, can you do me a favour and wear this?" he asked, taking off his white lion cloak and passing it up to her. "You really need to, uh, cover up."

She looked a bit confused by the request but she accepted his gift, draping the cloak over herself in order to cover her chest. She couldn't wear it normally of course as that would leave the girls out, and so it wound up trapping one of her arms under it but considering she had such an excess of limbs that was probably a small price to pay.

The lion's head glaring out at everyone from over her chest just added to the unnatural chimeric look she had going on, and somehow just seemed like it naturally belonged there because of it.

"Is this better, sonny? I can't help it if everyone wants to look at me, I've always been the type to stand out you know," she said, nonetheless seeming quite happy with her new fashion.

She wasn't wrong either. He'd picked her to come with him on his first Dungeon trip because her white feathers stood out amidst all the other grey pigeons. "Yeah, it helps a lot," he said supportively. "But what's this Aria stuff all about? Who is she? Why do you want to see her?"

She cocked her head to the side and furrowed her brow, the lines looking out of place on her uncannily perfect visage, "She does," she said slowly. "She's my… mother? She wants to see Aria, she wants to see the sky, she wants to consume Aria. Aria should join us, where is Aria, sweet-cheeks?" her tone grew more erratic and she started looking around wildly, her much larger draconic body moving as if ready to pounce. "I felt her magic, it was here, I felt it!"

Aria must have been that girl he learned the spell from. She seemed nice, so, "No consuming anyone!" he said firmly, giving the pigeon-dragon-plant-granny-supermodel-abomination a severe look.

"But she… nnngh, she wants me to eat Aria, but sweet-cheeks doesn't want me to, who do I believe?" she asked, raising her hand to her brow and grimacing as she looked down.

"Believe me!" Ichiban thumped a hand on his chest. "Believe the guy who's not telling you to eat people! Trust me that's not a hard one!"

She grumbled and frowned and bit her lip, clearly in fact finding it to be a dilemma worth stewing over before she abruptly growled and slammed her tail down on the ground with a thunderous crash. "Shut up you shitty brat! Sonny here says not to eat anyone and he's not as annoying as you! Don't make me come down there or I'll eat you instead, raaaaaargh!" she turned to the side and opened her mouth and proved that even if her head was a lot smaller and prettier now, she still had dragon parts. A beam of condensed flame more like a sci-fi plasma beam spat from her mouth and burned through the ground for several long seconds before tapering off, the air around her steaming and distorted from the sheer heat.

"Holy shit!"

After recoiling from that display, Ichiban crept closer and looked at the hole, too small for a person to fit through perhaps but wide enough to see down the molten path it had carved through rock before the light of the nineteenth floor was visible on the other end.

"You, uh… you good now?" he turned from that display of destruction towards Pearl, who glared at the hole a moment longer before nodding.

"She's sulking now. She doesn't like being told no. She wants to see Aria's magic again," she answered shortly.

Dammit, that was a really good spell too, but if it was going to set off reactions like that he might want to be careful about using it. There were other enchantments he knew, but that one was both powerful and quick to cast. "But you're fine though?" he asked, "You won't freak out if I cast it?"

"I kind of want to see it too…" she admitted almost guiltily, before giving him a sly smile. "You won't deprive your Pearl a little thrill, will you sweet-cheeks?"

He sighed. "How about if you start calling me Ichiban instead?" It was one thing when it was just a psychic conduit only he could hear, but he really didn't like the looks he was getting from everyone else at this kind of pet name.

"Tch, most boys would love a little flirtation from a dish like me. Isn't that right?" she turned towards Rivira and blew a kiss. It might have been more effective if she hadn't just spat out a beam of hyper-condensed hellfire, as rather than lovestruck gazes all her action got was flinches and a few nervous adventurers diving for cover. "Ugh. No guts. Not like my Ichiban!"

At least it seemed like she was getting herself under control, her personality stabilising after the initial shock of her transformation and whatever influence her progenitor was having over her. "So, uh… how about we maybe go to the next floor down? Fight some monsters, get some practice, figure out your new deal?" he suggested, glancing over at Naaza and Rina who'd perhaps wisely been hanging well back until now.

Now called out however, they approached with only a bit of nervousness. "Um, hi Pearl. We're still friends right? Remember when I killed that ligerfang that was clawing at your neck?" Rina asked hesitantly.

200 – Kinetic Learner
Honkai Impact 3rd
You learn faster physically and through experiencing stuff than from classroom environments. This does not mean that you learn slower from classroom environments than you did before – it simply means that you're more of a kinesthetic learner than before, and you learn things about ten times faster when you learn it kinesthetically. And, when it comes to combat, you can learn it ten times faster kinesthetically than you can learn normal things kinesthetically, meaning that you can learn combat one hundred times faster than normal.

"That was good. Dog-girl's helpful as well," Pearl nodded imperiously.

"So we're just going to continue on like this?" Naaza asked, not protesting the name and looking between Ichiban and Pearl.

"I mean… what else can we do, right?" he asked, calling over Yankimaru to resume following him once more. "Uh, there's your murderer!" he called over to Bors and the rest, pointing at the grisly smear that was left after Pearl ate most of the woman's chest. "Case closed, right?"

"Y-yeah, yeah! You just go on to the deeper floors, we'll clean up here!" Bors called back with a desperate looking nod.

"Um, what about me though?" Lulune asked. "I was meant to bring that thing up to the surface and now…" she crept closer, looking between the now broken and empty sphere and at the disturbing but now peaceful abomination that had formed as a result of its hatching.

Ichiban gestured for her to follow as they started heading towards some stairs that would take them down. "I guess to start with you can tell us who hired you?"

"I don't really know, they had robes on," lot of that going around, "I couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman! I was just told to come here, give the code-phrase to a man in full armour, then take what he gave me back up. I thought it was weird, but the money was really good!"

"I guess you're just gonna have to tell them what happened? Considering what happened to the other guy you're lucky you made it out at all, but someone trying to smuggle something like this is probably bad news too," Ichiban said, thinking it over. "Hermes knows what's up though, he's helping with everything against Evilus, so I'd talk to him first before looking for anyone in creepy robes."

"Yeah, I guess I'll have to do that," Lulune slumped her shoulders. "Thanks for fighting that woman though, she definitely would've killed me otherwise. Are you… going to bring that back up to the city, though?" she looked up at Pearl.

He glanced over as well. "Well, she wants to see the sky?" Pearl smiled widely and nodded as she overheard that. "Don't worry, I've got a way to sneak her out of the Dungeon that won't cause a panic." Though now she was half a person he felt a bit bad about the idea of sticking her in a pokeball.

Lulune looked unconvinced, but also couldn't really do anything but take his word for it as they parted ways, descending down another long set of stone stairs until they emerged on the nineteenth floor, the Large Tree Labyrinth. The foliage they'd seen on the eighteenth floor intensified, covering everything in dense bushes and vines with exotic looking plants growing out of the greenery in colourful profusion.

"Look out, mad beetles!" Rina shouted as the bushes rustled and a swarm of humanoid beetle-monsters started rushing towards them, dimly reminding him of those rock-men that had appeared to help him fight off Rina his first night in Orario.

"Arise flames. Rage, rage, rage. Vortex of fire…"

Pearl was chanting. Because of course she could cast spells now, why wouldn't she? He wanted to see where this was going so he started forming force-fields in the path of the mad beetles to slow them down. "Stall them until Pearl finishes chanting!"

Rina gave him a look of disbelief as she clutched her new axe in one hand and her hammer in another, but Naaza got with it and started casting her own spells. "Stop!" a beetle froze, one behind crashing into it in a tumble of limbs. Another shrunk down as Rina followed along and cast Mini.

"The skies shall burn. The earth shall ignite. The seas shall boil. The fonts shall churn. The mountains shall erupt."

Pearl was speaking quite quickly, but it didn't change the fact this was one of the longest spell chants he'd heard yet, and the wording was pretty damn grandiose. "Everyone get behind Pearl!" he called to the others, throwing up more force-fields and backing off under the dragon's wings as he intuition told him this was going to be big.

Yankimaru was already back there, and the other two didn't argue as they retreated while still casting their debuff spells at the monsters who hadn't yet managed to close into melee range, finding Ichiban's layers of force-fields too tough for them to crack.

"Your envoy beseeches you, Salamander. Incarnate of fire. Queen of flame."

She raised her hand up to her lips and blew out a tiny puff of flame over her palm, which slowly tumbled down to the ground…

ESSENCE OF FIRE STORM

That tiny flame bloomed, and everything was its fuel. Surging and roaring, it put to shame every fire spell Ichiban had seen at the Colosseum, reducing monsters to cinders and smoke with the barest lick of its ever hungry flames. Endlessly whirling, they rolled over everything in sight, reducing verdant landscape to charred and cracked ruin. The tunnels and pathways, the twists and turns of the nineteenth floor, they offered no protection as the flames sought all and consumed all. Not even magic stones were left behind, everything brought to ash by the inferno.

Naaza let out a quiet whimpering noise. Rina made a cracked sounding giggle. Yankimaru, bless him, just took it all with his usual stoicism.

Ichiban just hoped there were no adventurers on this floor right now.

"Um…" he looked up and saw Pearl's face smiling beatifically at the destruction she'd wrought. "L-lets put a lid on the spells just for now, yeah?"

"Are you sure? I know lots more, sweet-cheeks, and they're all as good as that one!" Pearl told him brightly, as if she hadn't just set off the equivalent of a low yield nuclear weapon in the Dungeon.

200 – Elemental Resistance (Fire)
Generic Dungeon Crawler
You are 50% resistant to a common source of damage like fire, acid or electricity. This only mitigates damage, not environmental effects, so having resistance to gravity does not allow you to jump higher. This trait can be purchased multiple times, but only one purchase may apply per source of damage.

May be Purchased Multiple Times

"Yeah, it's fine! That one was enough, that one was good!" Ichiban hurriedly reassured her.

"Y-you know what, Ichiban, I take back what I said the other day," Rina stepped forward gingerly to where the pale rock of their path ended just past where Pearl stood and was replaced with blackened and molten near magma, holding her hand above it and feeling the heat that still radiated. "You can probably make it to the bottom of the Dungeon, I don't think anything ever prepared for this."

"All those ingredients though…" Naaza muttered disconsolately, looking over the moonscape that had moments ago been an underground jungle.

"Yeah, I mean… Pearl's definitely the strongest thing I've sensed that wasn't a god since I got here," Ichiban said. "But remember she's got her fake mom somewhere down there too." Even then, she was a powerful dragon, with chakra, could all those weird mixings overtake whatever her progenitor was?

Picking up the axe she'd briefly set down, Rina stepped back and held it in front of her. "Don't get me wrong, this is a solid axe, but you can buy better in Orario. It's not gonna close this gulf, but things are the opposite of how we started. You and Pearl are going to be the ones carrying me and Naaza at this rate."

They weren't wrong. Giving them chakra may have made them more powerful, and all those spells gave them a bunch more options, but he was getting all that and more. Which meant though that there were things he maybe didn't need as much?

"Here," he took off the charred looking ring from his finger, its orange gem now bisected with a blue half – it had changed last night at some point, he hadn't even noticed when. "This protects against fire and cold," he handed it to Rina, as the one more likely to get up close to danger. And for Naaza he took off his iron pendant and offered it to her. "This makes me run twice as fast." It'd help her avoid melee and keep shooting from a safe distance. "You two can use these more than I can at this point."

They both accepted, Naaza looking curious before she took off running down the cracked path and then zipped back, her speed now far more impressive. Rina of course had a little trouble with the ring, sized as it was for Ichiban's larger fingers, but she managed to get it over her thumb and then pinched it tighter.

"Have to get this properly resized later, but it's like undine cloth in a ring so I won't say no," she said, readying her weapons. "Thanks for sharing Ichiban. The fact I didn't even make a comment about giving a ring to a girl I think shows the kind of day I'm having and the effect on my mind!" her smile did look a bit unhinged, yes.

"Yeah, uh… every day's like this now. There are years like days and days like years, huh?" he gave an awkward laugh of his own, thinking of how those monotonous days in prison for all those years had led to this.

"That's a good saying for what this feels like," Naaza agreed. "At least we probably won't get attacked, this much damage to the walls means the Dungeon will be focused on repairing itself over spawning more monsters. Still, I hope that fire didn't spread to the other floors, I did want to gather some herbs while we were down here."

At least Rina was happy to discover she could walk barefoot on the cooling rock with the benefit of her new ring. Ichiban and Naaza's footwear held up to it, and of course neither Pearl nor Yankimaru were bothered about sizzling stone underfoot as the party made their way through the devastated nineteenth floor to find stairs even deeper, where the rest of the Large Tree Labyrinth awaited them.

Author's Notes said:
Eagle-eyed readers may notice the timeline doesn't precisely match for the events in Rivira, but I can chalk that up to Hashana being faster on his mission thanks to having chakra.

Also, Ultimate Ninja Style. When I saw that name and that it was from Naruto my stomach sank, I wasn't ready for Ichiban to become a legit expert with chakra. Then I read it and my heart soared, now the brain damage can truly be contagious! It'll only be saved for big attacks rather than spammed in every fight, and honestly there wasn't any way I could even make fire storm look more impressive than it already is, but any important fight should see an Essence Of move getting deployed, to the amazement and confusion of everyone that isn't Ichiban.

The whole stuff with Pearl was such a wonderful conflux of events and abilities. Being able to talk to animals, the decision to have animals talk like random Yakuza side characters, learning Ariel via a spell copying perk, turning an animal into a dragon, having taming perks to ensure loyalty could be kept even with the influence of a corrupted spirit, and then the fucking lion cloak coming back to complete the Obatarian look on the group's new pet demi spirit. Just everything came together for that all to work, and it makes me incredibly happy. I hope you all enjoyed it too!

Ebiris · Feb 15, 2025

Author's Notes said:
I'm writing a chapter ahead of release, and currently working on one featuring perspectives from other characters rather than directly following Ichiban. Let me know if there's anyone you'd like to see in the spotlight!

The arrival onto the twentieth floor actually wasn't much different from the arrival onto the nineteenth. The brightly coloured landscape of flora greeted them with reassurance that the firestorm hadn't spread beyond the one floor, and then Dungeon fauna burst out to greet them as well.

This time it was a mob of stampeding giant boars and creepy looking bear things who's faces (and thus mouths) were way too big, taking up much of what should have been their chests.

"No magic!" he reminded Pearl, activating Yankimaru with orders to attack the boars while he charged at the bears. He felt the absence of the speed-boosting amulet immediately, but with chakra flowing through his legs he still moved with a speed the monsters couldn't match. He'd already established that his punches had area of effect damage, but he remembered that trick he'd pulled on the amazons back at Rina's establishment and once more coursed lightning through his wand as he swung it in a wide arc that ripped through one of the bears and blasted apart two nearby with shock-waves and thunderbolts that erupted from the impact.

Rina was right behind him, a war-cry on her lips as she danced amidst the bears, crushing their enormous faces under her hammer and slicing limbs with her axe.

The other side of the battle was well handled as Naaza used Pearl and Yankimaru's enormous bodies for cover, perforating boars with accurate shots to their eyes that made them squeal and stumble, spines shattering from Yankimaru's hammer-blows while a whip-crack of Pearl's tail cutting through the air sent several of them careening off their feet and exploding into mist.

As an introduction to proper fighting on the floors past Rivira it went well, no one taking a scratch and showing they could handle the newest tier of monsters even without deploying magic on the scale of tactical battlefield weapons. Also it was kind of cute to see Pearl helping Naaza gather the magic stones after the fight.

100 – Megingjörð
Germanic/Norse Mythology Jump
A simple belt or other garment or accessory which doubles your strength and durability when worn.

"Huh," he looked down as he felt something appear around his waist, now he was wearing two belts. Perhaps it was inevitable with the Final Fantasy magic that appeared earlier? It looked kind of like he saw some adventurers wear, brown leather lined with cream fur, with a big brass clasp. As he looked at it-

"Pearl, stop eating those!"

He looked up at Naaza's voice and saw Pearl clutching an armful of magic stones to her lion-fronted chest, cheeks bulged out and another glittering purple stone halfway to her mouth. She paused at seeing everyone's eyes on her, then loudly crunched down and swallowed. "A girl has to eat! You don't want me to starve, do you?" she asked innocently.

"That's expensive food, those stones are worth twenty thousand valis each. Ichiban, tell her!" Naaza gave him a look of fierce indignation.

"Oh right, she was eating the magic stones from those other monsters before she transformed, I guess that's how monsters get stronger," he said, remembering Naaza had in fact mentioned something like that before. "Look Pearl, everyone gets a share of magic stones, so you're only allowed to eat a quarter of them, okay?" he offered a fair-minded compromise.

The unnaturally photogenic abomination looked down at the armful she'd gathered. "This is a quarter?"

"Uh, close enough. Just let Naaza gather them from now on and we'll divide them properly at the end of the day?" he suggested with a helpless shrug in the face of Naaza's glare. "We can't say she's not earned a share."

Naaza slumped her shoulders and went back to collecting the others on the ground, along with a tusk left behind by one of the boars, "I know what she's capable of, I'm not going to fight it. But does she even need to be stronger?"

It couldn't hurt, he figured, glancing back down at his new belt as he resumed appraising it. It gave off a feeling of strength and solidity, Ichiban imagining his muscles bulging like a heavyweight boxer as he looked at it. He unclasped it and held it out to Rina, "Hey Rina, I think this makes you stronger and tougher. Try it on?"

"Wow, extra generous today, Ichiban!" she laughed, taking it and wrapping it tight around her waist just above the gauzy pelvic curtain thing she wore down there. Looking around a moment, she shrugged and then punched straight down into the ground, rocks flying everywhere from the impact of her fist blowing out an impressive crater.

"Hahaha!" she laughed in a strained voice, looking at her undamaged fist and then the destruction. "Phryne's absolutely going to kill me if she finds out I have this."

"Well don't tell her?" he suggested obviously, to most people it'd just look like a belt after all.

Rina shook her head though. "Lady Ishtar's going to ask, I can't hide things from her and she'll want something like this to go on the captain, not get wasted on a second tier adventurer."

"So just give it back to Ichiban before we leave the Dungeon," Naaza suggested. "That way it can just be a thing for when we're trying to keep up with him."

"Oh," Rina looked perplexed and then disappointed. "I guess that works. She'll be mad I gave you the idea, but not so mad I can't handle it. I'll just have to enjoy it for now!" she picked up her weapons again, the group ready to resume their exploration and training.

They hadn't gone far though before Naaza suddenly ran ahead and into the undergrowth. "Ah! You see these?" she called over, a strict look on her face countered by the wagging of her tail as she lifted up a plant with broad orange petals and feathery purple fronds sticking out of the middle.

"Yeah?" Ichiban asked, following after her along with the rest.

"These are Dungeon orange anther. The stamen's a powerful ingredient for mind potions. It's very important we gather as much as we can, so keep an eye out for them," Naaza insisted before she took out a small pair of shears and snipped off the parts she was interested in, placing them in a leather pouch on her belt. "Keep an eye out for them, and don't burn down the Dungeon," she reiterated, stepping back onto the path.

It seemed there were lots of plants Naaza was interested in down here as she kept stopping to harvest seed pods and leaves and roots as they went, but whenever Ichiban or Rina pointed out one of those orange anther things she definitely got more excited, and Ichiban found he quickly became quite adept at spotting them amidst the profusion of colourful foliage, which felt good comparing himself to Rina who's level three adventurer senses were typically better than his.

Happy harvesting wasn't all they did though, as the monsters here were just as aggressive as they'd been in the Cave Labyrinth, and generally more powerful or tricky in some manner. Scaly red lizardmen who wielded sharp metallic flower petals like weapons proved particularly fun to fight with as it almost felt like duelling when he crossed his weapon with theirs, even if they were too weak to actually stand up to a fight with any of them. Rina once again praised her new magic when a swarm of bugs that shot spiky projectiles at them descended, as she was able to counter-attack with blizzard spells to go with Naaza's arrows and Ichiban's lightning bolts, the monsters losing out on a ranged battle with the group even before Pearl got annoyed and unleashed her plasma beam breath.

"It's funny I think that thing's tame now after seeing her actual magic," Rina said with a nervous laugh, looking up at the deep gouge carved into the ceiling by the sweep Pearl had traced with her beam.

"And she has more. I'm terrified to think of what her other spells are like," Naaza added with a shiver as she went to collect the magic stones left behind by the battle.

400 – The Brave and The Bodolf (knowledge only)
Marvel Magic
For those who seek power beyond their kin, there are methods of achieving their goals. Some strive long and hard, pushing their forms to and beyond their limit. Some turn to study, mastering science or sorcery to bend the world to their wills. And others yet still find other methods, making pacts with dark beings or taking extreme risks to gain power now. You now know of one such method, though whether you choose to utilize it is your own choice to make. This method takes the form of a ritual in which the one seeking power speaks ancient words of power and drinks the still-burning blood of a dragon.

At first, they will notice no change. But then, when adrenaline flows, they undergo a transformation. Gaining several hundred pounds of muscle mass and several feet of height, their skin turns as black as night and their eyes glow red like burning coals. In this form, their strength and durability are massively increased, making them one of the strongest and toughest beings in this world. But they also lose themselves to rage, consumed as a berserker until eventually the rage subsides or they are knocked unconscious, returning them to their original form. they may be able to learn control over these transformations, but it will take time and great effort. If you wish, you may choose to have already undergone this ritual and gained this power.

Everyone stared at Pearl, but for Ichiban it was for a different reason as he felt knowledge settle in his brain somewhere. Yeah, drink some dragon blood, say a few spooky words, and then whenever you get mad you turn into a super-strong giant berserker. Wasn't there a western comic about a guy like that?

Unwittingly his gaze tracked back over to Rina as he considered what such a power would do for her.

"… what?" she asked, noticing his staring as he briefly imagined her already dark skin turning jet black, her body bursting with muscles and bursting her already limited clothing, becoming a being of pure unrestrained violence and impulse. She started giggling coquettishly, "What, Ichiban? You're looking at me so intensely, it's actually making me nervous!"

"N-nevermind," he said, turning away and quickly setting off down the path deeper into the Dungeon. They were soon attacked by more of those creepy bears bursting out of the ground, Rina whooping in delight as she exercised the new strength that belt gave her to crush them with hammer-blows that burst them like pinatas.

Yeah he'd just be keeping that particular ritual under his hat for now.

The fight at least took Rina's mind off his staring, and they continued on with Naaza's frequent stops to harvest ingredients when Rina cocked her head to the side and asked, "Do you hear that?"

Ichiban stopped and tried to pay attention but couldn't hear anything. Naaza however perked up like she could hear something. "It's singing… I saw a quest at the Pantheon about something like that…" she murmured.

Then Pearl started singing and… Ichiban felt his vision blur, the haunting beauty of the melody she was cooing striking a chord deep inside and causing his eyes to water. There were no words, or at least if they were words they weren't in any language he understood. Like the latin chanting you'd sometimes hear as boss music in a video game.

It was like hearing the voice of an angel.

"Ahhh! Mad beetles!" Rina yelled, warning everyone as the local Dungeon monsters proved they had no care for the arts and came scrambling over a leafy ridge to leap down and attack them. They weren't a real threat, more a distraction that were easily brutalised by the group working together, even if Ichiban had to blink out a few tears at the start of the fight.

Pearl didn't even stop singing, her upper human half seeming beatific and joyful as she sang out her arias while giant draconic claws stomped and slashed at the few monsters unlucky enough to come in her reach.

In the aftermath of violence he found himself able to hear what the others were talking about, another beautiful singing voice drifting through the Dungeon. It and Pearl seemed to be singing directly to each other, Pearl hitting some complex sounding melodies before slipping into a more rhythmic backing chant for the other singer to come back at her with an even more complex refrain.

Back and forth they went, somewhere between duel and duet before the other voice faltered at keeping up with Pearl's complexity and a melodious laugh of defeat came out instead. It put a smug look on that beautiful green face as the other singer appeared, flying over a ridge covered in tall leafy fronds to land with taloned feet on the edge above them. It was a woman, but clearly a monster too, like a stereotypical fantasy harpy, with a bird's clawed feet and brightly feathered wings in place of arms, her torso and face that of a human. Or beast person, the wing-like 'ears' at the sides of her head reminded him a bit of Lulune's dog ears, and notably she was wearing clothes. A white bikini top and a green feathered skirt that he wasn't quite sure was clothing or anatomy, but it at least kept her decent either way.

"Siren, they're not usually on these floors," Rina said warily, looking up at her while Naaza held onto her bow without yet drawing an arrow, the singing contest sufficiently strange to disarm the otherwise immediate violence they'd meet a monster with. The fact she was standing there with a smile on her face and not swooping down in a deadly rush probably helped.

"You're friends, aren't you? Humans and monsters travelling together," she asked. "But you're like me, you can think and talk, can't you?" her gaze fixed on Pearl.

"Of course I can," Pearl responded with proud straightforwardness, as if her newfound faculty with speech wasn't the result of a whole lot of incredibly unlikely events piling on top of each other.

"And now there are two talking monsters," Naaza said in a quietly dumbfounded tone.

The siren folded one of her wings over her chest in a pleased gesture, "You must have warm hearts. I always worry what happens to one of us that is found by adventurers before their own kind. Seeing that you've made friends makes me happy. My name is Ray, I'm one of the leaders of the xenos," she introduced herself.

It made sense, she was about as strong as Tsubaki or Shakti before they got chakra, as far as Ichiban could sense. Though she felt just like any other monster, unlike the murderer from Rivira who seemed more like something halfway between monster and person.

"Can monsters have children with humans?!" he blurted out as it suddenly clicked for him.

"Ichiban?!" Naaza's jaw fell and she looked at him in shock.

A blush spread over Ray's face and she murmured, "Oh my goodness!"

"Wow, one track mind on this guy!" Rina sounded impressed as she shoved his shoulder.

"No! No, not like that!" he shoved Rina back, "The chick on the eighteenth floor! She felt kind of like a monster but kind of like a human, so I thought…" he trailed off, just hoping they'd get his thought process.

"Ohhh…" Naaza drawled slowly, glaring at him. "You could have said it better."

"Y-yes, we've only just met, although I don't dislike thinking about the future like that," Ray said, still sounding flustered, her feathers quite literally ruffled.

"Anyway, you can't," Rina said firmly. "Trust me, there are freaks who will try. There's a renegade familia down here that makes a living taming monsters with sexy woman parts that they sell on. The Ishtar familia does business with them sometimes."

"That's disgusting," Naaza said firmly, before she glanced at Pearl and Ray and perhaps realised the implications. "Sorry?"

Pearl at least seemed unbothered but Ichiban was compelled to say, "No, it's still disgusting, that's sex slavery!" while Ray jumped down to their level.

"You know about those tamers?" she asked, her embarrassment fading into a look of angry focus. "They don't just go after normal monsters, they capture my people too."

"Uh, yeah," Rina glanced around the group, "Look, they're just monsters, we kill them like it's nothing so even if it's freaky I don't feel bad for them," she defended herself. "But there's a hideout on the twenty fourth floor, I went there to help pick up a lamia one time. It still wound up crushing a customer to death, whole thing was just not worth it!"

Ray stared intently at Rina before she looked up at Pearl and leaned back. "Normal monsters attack my kind too, I don't care about them. But we xenos only want to live peacefully, to see the sky," Pearl's head jerked up at that and she nodded enthusiastically, "And those tamers treat us like we're rare prizes to capture. Tell me where their hideout is," she demanded, looking at Rina again.

"I can, but just so you know, their leader is a first rank adventurer," Rina warned. "These guys are seriously dangerous."

"It doesn't matter, I have friends who can help, and…" Ray looked up at Pearl again, "Would you join us? You look strong, and we'd be glad to have you."

"I'm with sweet-cheeks here, whatever he decides is fine," Pearl responded carelessly, gesturing to Ichiban with her unhidden arm.

As if they needed to ask. "We're going to help too," Ichiban said firmly. "It sounds like something seriously messed up is going on, and we're going to put a stop to it." And maybe he'd made a mistake with the woman in Rivira, but monster or no? Ray seemed on the level, so he held out a hand towards her. "Give me your wing, I have something that can help you grow even stronger."

"Well at least we know exactly what she is this time," Naaza muttered as Ray trustingly stretched a feathered appendage to him, which he took and pushed something of himself into her to grant her a chakra system of her own.

She wouldn't be doing any hand signs, though.

"What is this power?" she asked softly, staring at her wings and flexing them out, the energy surging inside of her just as easily as it did for the high level adventurers he'd done this for.

"Chakra, it's a thing I've been giving to the adventurers up above to help them fight monsters, but if you're a peaceful monster I don't see why you shouldn't have it too," Ichiban answered. "We can teach you how to use it while we head down to the twenty fourth floor."

"Ahhh, to think a human could be so kind to us, I didn't think it was possible…" she sniffled in a heart-warming way that surely no one would be unmoved by before collecting herself, "Can I ask for a further kindness? We have a village hidden on this floor, I was going to gather my friends there for the mission, but would you be willing to come and share chakra with them as well?"

Ichiban felt very glad the hidden xenos village was on this floor and not the one above. "Yeah, sure. We can do that!" he agreed as Ray started guiding them along.

"Hey," Rina whispered, "Can you keep quiet about the lamia thing? It's actually super illegal and we'd get in a lot of trouble if word got around. Only the Ganesha familia has the right to keep monsters in the city and they… you know, they don't use them like that. I think."

"It seems like your goddess is nothing but trouble," Ichiban muttered irritably, which Rina didn't have any argument against.

"You mentioned someone on the eighteenth floor that you thought was the child of a monster and a human?" Ray reminded him as the group paused for Naaza to harvest some more plants.

He described the red-haired woman as well as the monsters she'd attacked Rivira with and Ray nodded. "I've seen her before, she often travels the lower floors with those monsters. She's not one of us, the monsters attack any of us that get close so we've learned to stay away. The monsters are strange though – they didn't exist anywhere in the Dungeon when I was young, and the older among us had never seen them before either. They all have colour like Pearl's petals actually, I didn't think of the connection until just now."

"They're all her children," Pearl remarked without much interest. "She woke up when she felt Aria's magic, and she's been looking for her ever since."

This feeling. It was like having one of the mid-game boss characters defect to the hero's party and just trivially reveal all kinds of knowledge that was only hinted at before.

"So Aria is Ais Wallenstein, the Sword Princess? Why does some monster deep in the Dungeon care about her?" Rina asked.

"She wants to eat her," Pearl helpfully elaborated. Unfortunately asking for clarification on why only got them a shrug. It seemed there were limits even to this back-channel of hidden information.

They were attacked by more monsters, a mixed group of lizardmen and battle boars this time which proved that they were indeed hostile towards Ray, though she held her own with slashing aerial kicks and some kind of directed sonic attack as the group handily defeated them, Ichiban just letting his reflexes take over while he focused on giving Ray advice on how to move chakra through her body. He was constantly improving that himself, finding further refinements with every dodge and strike.

When they were done Naaza started gathering up the magic stones as usual, though she caught Ray eyeing them and passed over several. "You fought, it's your share," she said, causing the siren to happily crunch into the stones like they were hard candy.

"And what about me? Didn't I fight? I hit that one with my tail! Are you just going to leave a poor woman to starve?" Pearl started whining indignantly.

"I said we're going to split yours at the end, didn't I? It's too much trouble to do this after every fight. Since you're not a child you should be able to delay gratification," the dog-girl stood up to the terrifyingly powerful abomination with a stern glare on her face. The fact Pearl shot Ichiban a beseeching look instead of blasting Naaza with a plasma beam spoke well for the prospect of her socialisation, he thought.

"Hey, Naaza's in charge of this stuff," Ichiban backed his first party member up. "It's just like when you got your nuts at the end of the day, bear with it and look forward to the feast later," he gave her rocky forelimb a friendly pat before they continued on their way, Ray leading them off the more navigable paths and through the undergrowth, a well hidden crevasse leading to a hidden cave.

"Everyone, I've brought friends!" she called out ahead, settling down the monsters waiting in the large cavern that fell down in terraces, the bare rock dotted with big green crystals and a spring of water at the bottom. All kinds of monsters were here, many of them wearing clothes, but the highlight was undoubtedly the enormous green dragon sprawled over one of the terraces. Its size and power both a match for Pearl after Ichiban had first transformed her into a dragon.

"Humans!" "But oh, she looks pretty, and strong!" "What about that guy, he looks cool!" a hubbub came from the monsters, proving firmly that they could talk and that their personalities weren't much different than humans as many of them started to crowd around, admiring Pearl and Yankimaru predominantly but wary and hopeful gazes found their way to Ichiban and the two women from Orario.

"This is Pearl, she sings beautifully, that's how we met!" Ray announced proudly. "And these are Ichiban, Rina, and Naaza, they've agreed to help us rescue our comrades. Er… that's Yankimaru, he's a robot, but I don't really understand it," she finished as a monster wearing full plate armour unsuccessfully tried to engage Yankimaru in silent conversation through miming.

"Yo," Ichiban waves in greeting. "Ray told us about the trouble you've had with kidnappers, and we're gonna help you deal with them. That and I've got a power I can give to people, called chakra. I've already given it to most of the adventurers on the surface, and so long as you guys aren't going around killing people I'll give it to you as well."

"We just want to live in peace!" a girl like Ray but with brown wings cried out indignantly.

"Grrrr! Rrrrrhh! Raaaurgh!" a kobold wearing mismatched leather armour growled and gestured with similar indignation.

"Not all of us can speak properly, but Helck can understand you and has a mind and heart like everyone else here," Ray said, glancing back at Ichiban.

Rina's dark-skinned face somehow managed to lose some of its colour as that sank in. "Oh shit, now I'm wondering about that lamia…"

"Yeah…" Ichiban made a face as well. "We're definitely putting a stop to what they've got going on. Listen, Ray vouched for you, that's good enough for me to help you all out."

"And who says we want help from adventurers?" a deep voice asked as a deep voice asked as a monster that looked like a dragon-man made out of stone leapt up from one of the lower terraces. "Ray, how could you bring them to our village? They're only going to bring trouble."

Ray stood up for herself though, gesturing with a wing towards the group, "Gros, these ones are different. They were already friends with a xenos, they know where tamers have their hideout so they can help us rescue our friends!"

Gros grunted, unimpressed, "And you don't think it's suspicious that they know where the hideout is? That one could've been caught and forced to play a part to trick you, so they can lead us all into a trap," he pointed out, gesturing at Pearl.

An enormous draconic forelimb then slapped his hand aside with a sound of cracking rock. "Don't point at me like I'm some perch to be crapped on, I'm not like that thing over there," her more human-like green arm gestured at Yankimaru and Ichiban had to wrack his brain to figure out what any of that actually meant.

Gros's jaw opened with a soundless wheeze and he clutched at his arm, stepping back and looking with more respect at the draconic plant chimera. "Well… she's not weak," he admitted, carefully ensuring he was not within arm's reach any longer.

"Hahaha," a deep chortle came from the green dragon which had come over and clambered up to rest his own clawed forelimbs on their level while he stood up from below. "I don't believe the tamers could handle one like her, and if they could they wouldn't let her out without a mountain of chains around her body," he said in a booming voice. "My name is Gryuu, I no longer lead the xenos, but I guard the safety of this village. If Ray trusts you so will I."

"Appreciate it," Ichiban gave him a grin, glad Pearl's outburst hadn't done them any harm. "So listen, I'll give everyone here chakra, then we'll get up our posse and head down to this hideout Rina knows about, how's that?"

"Cure," Rina added her piece, golden sparkles falling over Gros who jerked back and glared at her before looking at his arm and grunting. "You were looking a bit chipped there, big guy."

Soon the xenos were lining up just as orderly as the adventurers had been at Rivira yesterday for Ichiban to hand out chakra to all of them, while Naaza had opened her bag up and was parcelling out magic stones. "You eat magic stones to become stronger, right?" she asked as xenos gathered around. "I'll give you these, but in exchange I want you to find as many of these for me as you can," she held up one of those plant frills and described the orange petalled plant it came from. "I'll be back to collect them later, but I want as many as you can find. They grow all over these floors… except the one above this one. Don't bother looking there."

She got plenty of takers, the xenos happy to crunch down magic stones in a fashion that made Ichiban's teeth ache just to listen to before she assured him that she'd counted out the magic stones from her own share so no one else would be short-changed. Then under Pearl's incessant badgering she had to give out her share early too, though just as she'd behaved with the nuts being spread on the ground back in the city, Pearl had no qualms about sharing her bounty of magic stones with anyone else that was hungry, which seemed to win her plenty of friends among the xenos.

After taking a little time to explain the fundamentals of internal chakra manipulation, which seemed to work just the same for monsters as for people, their war party set out containing all of Ichiban's group, along with Ray and Gros, as well as a well-spoken goblin called Let who wore armour and a baggy red cap, an Almiraj named Arles who wore a rather dapper waistcoat but was mute, another mute monster in full armour that was apparently a war shadow callee Aude, and a fierce looking hellhound wearing a cute little bow collar called Helga, who was also unable to talk.

Despite some of them being monsters from the upper floors who he wouldn't expect much of normally, every one of them felt stronger than even those plant monsters that had attacked Rivira. It was clear a diet of magic stones made a big difference in the long term, even if he hadn't noticed any change in Pearl from her feast just now.

"Feels like we're on a proper deep floors expedition with a full group now," Rina had said as they set off, "I just never thought it'd be a group made of mostly monsters…"

"We might be monsters, but that means you won't find any better guide to the Dungeon, Miss Rina," Let smiled at her, drawing a cracked sounding giggle from the amazon.

"You're so damn well spoken! And cute for a goblin too, like you've got a total pretty-boy face, what is even going on, I didn't even know they could look like that!"

"You… you think I'm pretty?" Let asked, suddenly turning bashful and earning a disapproving sounding grunt from Gros. Ray however gave him a supportive grin as she looked over her shoulder.

"Haha, prettier than a lot of my customers!" Rina agreed, catching Ray's eyes and then looking at Pearl, "Honestly it's disgusting," her tone soured, expression doing a one-eighty. "I spend my life fighting monsters down here. The Dungeon's evil and wants to kill us all, monsters are a perfect representation of that. The ones that are pretty, they're just like that to lure in idiots, like a succulent berry filled with poison. When I heard someone was paying millions of valis to have sex with a lamia, I was revolted. Why would you want to do that with a monster when there are so many pretty boys and girls out there already? Is it the exoticism? The risk? I didn't feel bad at all when I heard we'd had to kill that lamia, but I didn't feel bad about the customer it had killed either. That's what you get for being stupid around monsters."

Poor Let kind of looked a bit overwhelmed to have all of that dumped on him and Ichiban felt bad for the guy. "It's not like anyone can choose how they look," he spoke up, "But if something thinks and feels like a person, I think we should treat them like one too. And even if they can't… you know, there's no point being cruel to animals. Killing monsters that only want to fight is just meeting them halfway, but you shouldn't torture them or do creepy sex stuff with them. That's just wrong."

"I don't disagree, but it's not that simple," Naaza spoke up, her tone sounding even more sullen than usual. "I hadn't been in the Dungeon for over a year before I met you Ichiban, because I couldn't stand the thought of seeing a monster again. Most nights I have nightmares," she looked at her gloved hand and clenched her fist. "Something like Monster Feria is a cruel joke to me. Playing with monsters. Admiring them. Doing that with them?" she looked at Rina, expression disgusted. "No normal person can imagine it. I wouldn't care if someone mistreated a monster, why should I? It's a thing that only exists to cause pain itself."

It hurt, hearing such vengeful sentiments from someone like Naaza. He knew she wasn't as much a bleeding heart as Miach, but however she hid it she was still a healer. Yet it was obvious where her trauma came from. When Let spoke up, saying, "But we're not like that, Miss Naaza. We only want to live in peace!" his words were heartfelt but still felt cheap.

"I believe you," Naaza said wearily, "But if I wasn't already numb from dealing with Pearl, I'd have put an arrow in Ray's head the moment I saw her."

Gros let out a grunt and muttered, "You'd have tried." Which wasn't exactly helpful. It gave them all a lot to chew on, and it was almost a merciful distraction when a squad of lizardmen burst out of the wall to attack them. Lacking the strange weapons he'd last seen them with, these ones lashed out with fangs and claws equally at all members of their party, and the xenos showed no hesitation in striking back and showing the gulf that existed between them and ordinary monsters. When they started picking up magic stones to eat immediately after the battle Ichiban just shrugged it off, allowing Pearl to indulge in snacking as well. It wasn't worth the hassle of calculating the division with this many of them, and they'd only be travelling with them for a little while.

Or so he thought. With four floors to cover, even though they'd stopped diverting for the flowers Naaza wanted to harvest, it was a long trip through humid subterranean jungle, and the paths the xenos led them on seemed deliberately difficult, perhaps to avoid adventurers. They hadn't seen any since leaving Rivira though, but the Cave Labyrinth had been pretty sparsely populated too. It was clear there was a sharp drop-off in adventurer activity once you got past the tenth floor.

The monsters made up for it though, the highlight being what Rina had identified as a mammoth fool, and mammoth was right. It had to be twice the size of the elephants you saw in nature documentaries about the African savannah, covered in shaggy red fur and boasting metallic tusks that were as long as Pearl's forelimbs.

Pearl had seemed discomfited at seeing something larger than her for the first time since she became a dragon, and she had responded by firing a plasma beam from her mouth which cored through the titanic monster and rather anti-climactically killed it in one go.

"Aww, I wanted to see if Mini would work on it!" Rina complained while the xenos all stared, now given a clearer idea of Pearl's power than they'd gotten from just seeing her claw and stomp enemies up until now.

It did leave behind a drop item, one of its tusks which would definitely be a pain to carry around. They wound up tying it to Yankimaru's back with some handy vines. He seemed fine with it.

Finally they reached the twenty fourth floor, and Rina took over guiding them. It took her a little bit to find her bearings, but after they came across a giant pillar surrounded by twisting elevated pathways she announced that she knew where she was now and started guiding them more confidently. "These guys'll have lookouts, and they're gonna know something's up as soon as they see this kind of squad coming at them," she warned.

"Then we hit them fast and don't give them time to prepare," Ichiban said, more than ready to put an end to this operation. It got nods all around, no one else having any better sneaky ideas, and Rina led them once more off the more navigable paths they'd only briefly gotten to enjoy.

"The walls and floor here have been damaged," Naaza noticed, seeing craters and gouges breaking up the undergrowth. "It must be how they keep monsters spawning close to their hideout."

"Shhh," Rina shushed her, although given the kind of noise made by Pearl and Yankimaru stomping around it was probably a moot point, there was no way they were going to be sneaking up on anyone. And indeed as they approached a large earthen mound rising out of the foliage a shrill bird's cry was heard, perhaps expected for a jungle but out of place in the monster-infested Dungeon.

A faint high-pitched noise came from Ray, drawing winces from Naaza and Rina, both glaring at the siren who looked unapologetic. "There are two of them, one moving back the other coming closer – there!" she pointed with a wing and everyone turned to see a lanky guy in leather armour peeking around a giant fern up ahead of them. He felt about as strong as Naaza, which made him weaker than almost everyone in their group. And even if this guy couldn't sense power levels in return, he could certainly see Pearl and Yankimaru as looming physical threats beyond just the sheer numbers arrayed against him.

He didn't even try any kind of fancy distracting talk, he just jerked himself back into cover and bolted.

Smart guy.

"Get him!" he yelled, booking it after him. Ray, Gros, and Pearl all took flight, easily overtaking the rest of them who were having to practically wade through the undergrowth, and a screech from the siren saw the lookout stumble right before Pearl landed on him with an almighty crash that churned up the ground and uprooted a long furrow of plant-life.

He was still breathing when the rest of them caught up, but his leg definitely wasn't meant to bend that way and he was out cold. Gros landed and looked about to settle that definitively, but Ichiban raised his voice, "Just leave him, he's not going anywhere. We need to get inside!"

It was pretty clear where they were headed after all, a cave entrance leading into that mound the guy had been running to practically screamed secret base. He'd see how he felt about bringing these guys up to face some kind of justice in Orario after all this, but right now it was more important to get in there before their enemies had time to prepare.

It was enough to focus Gros, and the xenos grunted before he started running ahead, the ground evening out a bit and giving their staggered group more of a chance to group together, though in case of any traps Ichiban sent the giant robot ahead. "Yankimaru, get in there!" he ordered, the robot stomping in through a cave that was clearly big enough for its inhabitants to move captured monsters in and out of.

200 – Crystallization Of Power (Anemo)
Genshin Impact
These are the crystallised teardrops of a great elemental being, one that in days past might very well have fought toe-to-toe with the gods. Contained within these tears are an incredible amount of pure elemental energy, of a type matching that of the spirit it came from. What exactly that type is, is up to you. This would be a rare and incredibly valuable prize for any able to handle the energy within, enough to power an instrument of the Archons.

He felt something appear in his other hand and almost tossed it in frustration like he had those things that appeared that night in the Entertainment District, but they weren't yet in battle so he had time to simply stuff it in his pocket, but not before noticing the green glow it shone with nor the intense feeling of magical energy emanating from it.

Pearl noticed too. "Sweet-cheeks, what is that?!" she asked, glowing yellow eyes fixed on him.

"I'll show you after," he answered distractedly as Yankimaru's heavy footsteps marched ahead into the darkness. "Come on, after Yankimaru!"

It was only a short passage down a shallow slope before it opened into a long cavern lit by magic stone lanterns in a low enough number that it still felt gloomy. The oppressive air was certainly added to by the rows of cramped cages filled with monsters. He had no way of knowing if any were xenos at a glance, but what was more distracting were the figures at the far end of the cave. Sitting up on a raised ridge was a man loosely holding a spear against his shoulder. Black haired and wearing a leather jacket and a pair of dark goggles, his mouth was turned up in a knowing smirk despite the number of invaders barging into his hideout. He felt as strong as Tsubaki when he'd first met her.

He wasn't the one that most caught Ichiban's attention though. There were other adventurers around, most closer to Naaza's level though one felt a bit stronger than Rina. They didn't stand out either. No, at the very back in the shadows, squatting down and looking like he was wearing a tracksuit of all things, was the unmistakeable energy of a god. Power contained but nonetheless dwarfing anyone else in the Dungeon.

"These are the guys, Dix! They came in so fast, Bort didn't stand a chance!" a man standing before the goggled figure gestured back of them, probably the one Ray had sensed running away at the start.

"Well," Dix drawled, looking over them without a shred of concern for the threat they represented. "They've brought us a nice crop. Those freaks in Eluria will pay a fortune for an irregular like that thing. Heh, and the siren should be good for some fun…" his eyes were hidden by his goggles but one could well imagine the lascivious leer he directed at Ray. But then he addressed Rina. "Harmothoe, right? I remember you. But I don't recall hearing about Lady Ishtar ordering more merchandise, far less delivering any…"

"Yeah, this one's off the books," Rina answered, looking a bit intimidated by the first tier adventurer's attention but still gripping her weapons tightly.

"Don't tell me a berbera like you's gone soft," Dix scoffed lightly, kipping up to his feet. "Feeling pity for monsters? Got yourself charmed by a pretty face? I'd think-"

"Why don't you just shut the fuck up?!" Ichiban yelled over him, tired of the man's posturing. They all knew exactly how this was going to end, and every word out of his mouth just made Ichiban want to punch it, so he was about ready to skip to the part where they do just that. "We're here to shut down your whole freaky operation, so either you stand down, or we're going to put you down!"

"Aha… ahaha… hahahahaha!" Dix threw his head back and laughed as if he found it all deeply hilarious. The other adventurers on his side of the room snickered along with him in that way every flunky knows you're supposed to do when the boss starts laughing, lest you take a baseball bat to the face, before Dix controlled his mirth and spoke while looking directly at Ichiban. "Yes. Yes, you've brought quite the merry band here to stop us, I should be quaking in my boots, shouldn't I? But what will you do, when those friends become your enemies?"

Magic gathered as he spoke, a short chant, a spell cast before they realised he'd switched from posturing to fighting. "Become lost in an endless nightmare."

A wave of red light spread out from Dix, washing over the cages and sending the monsters within into a frenzy, reaching the rest of them and-

"Ah! Fuck!" Dix cursed, holding his head in apparent pain when the magic touched Ichiban. But it wasn't enough to stop the spell already cast, the light touching everyone and reducing them to bestial mindless fury.

Ray's pupils dilated and she let out a shrill scream that made Aude stumble before he lunged back at the siren. Gros roared in fury and lashed out with his claws at Rina, who met his charge with a furious yell of her own. A torrent of flame erupted from Helga's mouth with a howl, washing over the amazon but being mostly diluted by the magic ring Ichiban had given her earlier today. Let unslung his axe and leapt at Ichiban, who dodged without even having to think about it. Arles leapt onto Pearl's back and started biting and clawing, though to seemingly little effect. Pearl unfortunately fell victim to madness as well, letting out a berserk scream and slapping Gros with a claw that sent him reeling from his confrontation with Rina. Showing no gratitude, the amazon simply continued her charge and hacked her axe into Pearl's chest where dragon parts merged with flower parts, drawing blood.

One other person had maintained their sanity however, and a flight of lightning-wreathed arrows streaked across the cave to slam into Dix who was still reeling from the backlash of the spell, knocking him back before a huge bald guy with an axe got in the way, using his weapon to deflect the shots from Naaza who had retreated to the cavern entrance and just avoided the range of the spell.

The first thing he needed to do was stop Pearl from killing Rina. He could see her mouth opening wide, the light gathering within as she glared hatefully down at the woman trying to prune the plant off the top of the dragon, and Ichiban just charged into Rina at full force. She let out an enraged noise like the ones that had haunted his nightmares after that disastrous evening at the Entertainment District but was carried by Ichiban's momentum that had the two crashing into one of the cages and bursting it open while Pearl's plasma breath drilled a hole straight through the floor where she'd been standing.

The melee was getting worse. Let had attacked Yankimaru, causing the robot's self defence mode to initiate and now he'd joined the fight, hissing steam and striking down at the goblin who was proving a far more able combatant than the ones on the upper floors, strong enough for his axe to carve gouges out of Yankimaru's form even as his near suicidal attacks saw him sent reeling by a hammer blow that caved in his armoured breastplate.

Rina showed no gratitude for his save as she headbutted him, while a winged female monster inside the now broken open cage clawed at her back, completely feral but there was no way to know if that was normal monster behaviour or a result of the spell Dix had cast. His nose gushed blood and he stumbled back off of her, not even his automatic reflexes saving him from a hit like that when they were tangled up together.

Pearl was twisting around now to try and get at Arles, her tail sweeping wide to crush several cages, bowling over Ray and Aude who were locked together in melee with the siren trying to cut open the war shadow's armour while finger-blades protruding from his gauntlets cut bloody gashes into her. Gros hadn't even had time to get up from Pearl's earlier swat before Helga pounced on him, jaws furiously snapping but soon finding herself over-muscled by the considerably stronger xenos.

Ichiban had managed to finish his spell though, still gripping the wand and hitting Yankimaru's standby button to stop him from trying to kill Let at least for the moment. It wasn't Dia Fratel, as its radius wasn't enough to hit everyone, but Earth Gullveig surrounded all of them in a golden glow that caused injuries to regenerate, hopefully buying them time even as they kept trying to kill each other.

"Confuse!" Naaza cast from the back, managing to stay far enough away that no one in the berserk melee went for her, but her magic hit the guy who'd been protecting Dix, little yellow birds seen flying around his head as he turned and swung his axe at the same man he'd just been defending.

He hadn't been expecting it, and the axe bit deep into his chest before he recoiled back, a lightning arrow striking his shoulder before he ducked and weaved to try and avoid Naaza's arrows. "Gran you fucking idiot, what are you doing? The rest of you, hold him down!" Despite the punishment he'd taken he was still up, testifying to just how tough first rank adventurers could be.

But at least the in-fighting was now going both ways, Ichiban given a moment's reprieve as Rina deemed the harpy behind her the greater threat, wringing its neck through the cage bars until it burst into black smoke, and Ichiban had to duck when Arles got flung off Pearl's back and tried to claw his face off while flying past and landing amidst another cage with a bone-jarring impact that the healing magic on him saw just shrugged off, the rabbit spending a moment to try and kill the lizardman trapped inside.

Ichiban stayed close to Pearl, ducking and jumping over her wild claw swings, enduring her attention better than anyone else might. He could see the light shining through the hole left by her earlier beam attack he'd saved Rina from, showing it had cut clear through to the next floor down. The others, fuelled by his regenerative healing magic, just clawed and bit at each other wildly, reverting to savage bestial instinct.

"Holy!" another spell came from Naaza, breaking up her flurry of arrows which had now gone back to the regular type, her stock of lightning ones expended for another ten minutes. It send a white sphere, gleaming like an actual pearl, sailing across the battlefield to slam into Dix, while Gran roared and fought with the lower level adventurers trying to bog him down under their numbers. The goggle-wearing man spun with the impact, catching two more arrows in the chest before he toppled.

"We surrender!" "We give!" "Peace!" shouts came from the other adventurers struggling to handle Gran, as the magic that had turned everyone into a frenzy ended. Rina blinked in confusion as she stopped from her lunge at him, while Pearl similarly stopped in place with sanity returning to her eyes. The other xenos, locked in battle with each other, hesitantly disentangled while Ichiban had to put Yankimaru in standby again because he kept getting re-activated every time Let hit him and he didn't much care about the spell either way.

"Everyone okay?" Ichiban asked, getting shell-shocked nods as Naaza started to come closer again.

"They probably would have killed each other without your healing magic. That's an awful curse," she said.

"Yeah, speaking of, little help?!" a voice called from the crowd still dealing with the confused Gran.

Naaza only shrugged. "If my Basuna was able to remove confuse already I'd have used it on our side. It should wear off soon?"

That proved little comfort for the guy Gran headbutted before the little birdies vanished and he displayed a similar reaction to the others recovering from Dix's own curse.

"Ahhh, Dix. You turned out to be boring after all," a disappointed sounding voice was heard, the god at the back rising from his squat and looking down at where Dix had fallen with a tut before he turned his gaze towards Ichiban's party. "Hey, I'm not really with these guys. I just let them do as they like, so we don't have any trouble, right?" his face was utterly apathetic as he gazed over the squalid cave of suffering and confinement, nothing divine about his bland and unremarkable features.

"Lord Ikelos!" Gran sputtered out in a betrayed sounding voice.

Ichiban hated the guy on sight. Bad enough to go along with all the bullshit happening down here, but to then just disavow his own men as soon as it becomes slightly inconvenient? He stormed forward while everyone else was still recovering, fury etched on his features.

"Hey, what's with the angry face?" Ikelos asked, his tone almost playful. "You can take us up for the Guild to sort out, just keep us away from those scary-"

That was as far as he got before Ichiban's fist smashed into his face and sent him crashing to the ground, noises of shock coming not just from his familia but from Naaza and Rina too.

He hadn't used chakra or anything. That punch was one hundred percent Ichiban Kasuga, no souped up battle instincts. Plenty enough to put a scrawny guy like that on his ass.

"You piece of shit," he spat down at the pathetic excuse for a god. "You think this is all a game, that you can toy with people's lives, torture and trade slaves, and then just walk away with a smile because none of it matters to you?"

"Aaatch… oh, that stings!" Ikelos clutched at his jaw where he lay on the ground before rolling over and sitting up in an insolent pose. "You children are getting really dumb these days, huh?" And then for the first time, Ichiban felt the tightly leashed power of a god loosen those bindings just a bit. A palpable sense of pressure emanated from Ikelos, something luminous shining through his skin as he made clear that he was not a man but a god. In response he heard the scuffling of feet as his own familia, and even Naaza and Rina fell to their knees while Ikelos spoke more coldly. "Be a good kid and play nice with my boys until we get out of the Dungeon, huh?"

Ichiban didn't feel a damn thing, though. He reached down, grabbing the front of Ikelos's shirt, and hauled him to his feet, watching in satisfaction as that imperious glare gave way to confusion. "Ah- huh? Wait, that's not how this is supposed to go."

"I don't know what you thought was going to happen," Ichiban said, pulling Ikelos closer until they were practically nose to nose, murmurs of surprise and confusion coming from everyone else, "But the only reason I'm not just going to feed you to the monsters like you deserve, is because I actually have some respect for people's lives." He gave a shove, sending the god sprawling gracelessly to the floor again, "And I wouldn't want even a monster to suffer the kind of stomach ache your sorry ass would give it."

Whatever Ikelos had hoped to gain by his posturing, it had clearly failed and now he bowed his head, "R-right! We'll be good, me and my kids will behave and you can do whatever you want with us, it's all good!" he hurriedly promised.

Ichiban nodded in satisfaction, turning to see if it was even worth healing Dix at this point, but as he did the ground suddenly lurched beneath his feet. A crackling grinding noise he'd heard so many times in this Dungeon to presage the appearance of monsters from the walls, but far louder. A fissure split the ground from one end of the cave to the other, wrenching apart and sinking downwards as everyone began to tumble into the rift that was now forming. And as they fell, towards the grey rock and blue water of the twenty fifth floor, an enormous black shape fell with them.

Ebiris · Tuesday at 3:55 PM

Screams sounded as the Dungeon collapsed under them. Great chunks of rock crumbling apart and plummeting to the floor below, the adventurers and monsters and god crying out in dismay as something vast fell with them. Ray flapped her wings, swooping and grasping Aude in her talons, and Ichiban could only hope the other flyers would be able to do the same. Tumbling in space as he fell, he managed to catch sight of Naaza and blindly threw out a horizontal force-field underneath for her to land on, but that was all he had time for before his dizzying descent through the air ended with a splash into deep water.

It was turbulent, the water churned up by the descent of huge chunks of rock, and that enormous black thing he hadn't even been able to fully take in the details of while falling. All he could tell was that it was strong, titanic among monsters. As strong as Pearl.

The water churned up further as the thing moved, a tail or a limb the size of a truck carving through the water. He was a decent swimmer, but that was it. Even seeing it coming, even with automatic reflexes, he couldn't get out of the way before it struck and sent him careening further through the water.

An Ikelos familia member had fallen into the water nearby and took the impact even less well than Ichiban, bubbles escaping his mouth in panic before a chunk of rock falling down from above struck the man and carried him straight to the bottom.

There was nothing Ichiban could do for him. None of his spells were any good underwater. It was all he could do just to kick his legs and fight his way back to the surface before he ran out of air himself. He moved chakra through his limbs to bolster them, quickly finding that the way he used chakra to run needed to be different from what was necessary when swimming, but his motions in the water rapidly adapted because of it and he was practically cutting through the water like air when his head breached the surface and he sucked in a gasp of precious oxygen.

600 – RADIANCE
MtG - Ravnica
Unity can be a double edged sword, and you know this only too well. Whenever you either share a common aim with your allies, or attack a group with a strong centre of unity, both strength buffs and damage dealt is shared. When one of your enemies is hurt, the whole group feels their pain. When one of your allies receives a surge of strength, their allies are strengthened too. The ties that bind you and your group together will grow ever stronger because of this.

And finally he could see what they were up against.

It had to be over twice the size of Pearl, a monstrous jet black dragon-like thing. No wings, but made up for it by having two heads, set apart by the eyes which glowed red on the right side head, and blue on the left. It was currently being savaged by Pearl, the white and green draconic abomination a contrast to its ebony colour. A familiar beam of radiant plasma erupted from Pearl's mouth, blasting a hole right through the black monster and evaporating water to steam where it struck after coring through her foe's body.

But flesh bubbled and shifted, regrowing to seal the wound that had almost severed one of its necks, before it released a retaliatory blast of eldritch blue flame which washed over Pearl, charring and blackening her more human and flower-like parts and leaving a trail of fire that stayed burning atop the water's surface.

Even as he watched though, Pearl's body regenerated almost as fast as the other monster had, but not before the monster's other head clamped its jaws onto her, crunching scales and then whipping its sinuous neck to the side sending her soaring off to crash into the cavern walls at the side of the underground lake.

Monster cages had fallen amidst the debris from above, shattering on impact where they'd hit the ground and releasing enraged creatures that were attacking everyone in sight. Others had simply fallen into the water and sank. An Ikelos familia member was gored by some sort of deer with bladed antlers, and a battle boar was charging at Let where the goblin was trying to pull himself out of the water at the edge.

Getting out of the water sounded like a good idea to Ichiban, and he started swimming that way too, knifing through the water at a speed Olympic athletes could only dream of despite his waterlogged clothes bogging him down. He burst up like a dolphin and headbutted the charging boar hard enough to send it squealing and staggering back despite the difference in their mass, offering Let a hand up to get him on dry land too.

"Th-thanks, Mr. Ichiban!" the goblin's clawed fingers grasped around his own and he hauled himself up gratefully, his other hand still clutching his axe which he brought to bear on the recovering boar, a slash from him and a lightning-infused punch from Ichiban destroying it and buying them a moment's breathing room.

"What the hell is that thing?!" he asked the most pertinent question on his mind, looking at the enormous two-headed dragon that was roaring in the water, currently bereft of challengers while Pearl was extricating herself from the wall she'd been flung into. Naaza was high up on the force-field he'd made for her, arrows striking down at the rampaging monsters, both bursting free from their cages and pouring in from tunnels leading to this chamber, giant blue crabs skittering side-ways as they swarmed in, huge mosquito things buzzing in the air.

Aude was fighting back against the crabs on the ground but clearly being pushed back, while Ray plunged into the water like an osprey, her talons gripped around Rina's shoulders as she lifted the water-logged amazon to safety. Or at least as much could be had in this place, one of the black monster's heads tracking towards them before Gros fell upon it like a meteor, drawing out a thunderous crack of impact and making its jaw drop into the water with a huge splash.

"It's the Amphisbaena, but it's supposed to be white, and spawns further down," Let answered, gazing up in horror at the monster before them, what Rina surely must have meant when she described Pearl as a floor boss yesterday.

Those mosquitoes were buzzing up towards Naaza's platform and he realised this was about to get really bad, and so summoned his wand and quickly cast magic through it, not taking the time to chant. "Go!" he yelled, a dozen spears of lightning forming above him and then firing out like an artillery barrage when he whipped his arm forward. As soon as they fired he realised how he'd been doing it wrong, and started casting again. Thunder-strikes detonated amidst the encroaching bugs reducing them to ash and causing all the other monsters swarming in to stumble while this time the number of lightning bolts multiplied for Ichiban's second casting.

His eyes tracked the battlefield, marking targets for each one individually, the wand helping to calculate the firing angles for each one, before he unloaded his second barrage.

ESSENCE OF SUPER LIGHTNING MASSACRE

The Dungeon melted away, everyone floating in space with the blue marble of Earth behind them, the monsters a tide threatening to descend on the unwary planet. But Ichiban stood in its defence, piloting a one-of-a-kind super robot, his finger on the trigger as his heads-up display lit up marking target after target after target until all he could see was a sea of glowing reticles marked for destruction.

"This is the end of the line for you!"

Pulling the trigger with relish, missile pods opened and unloaded an endless swarm of crackling projectiles that homed in on every target, a swathe of explosions tracking left to right across his vision as every monster was struck and destroyed. And looming in the background, the king of monsters, the Amphisbaena, was sent reeling and roaring from the multitude of impacts detonating across its titanic body.

The flooded Dungeon surroundings returned, the hostile monsters cleared from the area apart from the big one. Huge chunks had been gouged out of its surface by exploding lightning bolts, but inky black flesh was already bubbling and regrowing to fill those gaps, the monster only temporarily reeling before two sets of malevolently glowing eyes focused his way.

"What just happened?! We were all floating!" Rina yelled as Ray flew over to drop her off nearby, perhaps not the safest spot given the attention Ichiban had just attracted.

"Was that the sky?! It felt like we were so high up!" Ray seconded, eyes wide.

"That was the power of a hero!" Ichiban told them like that was any real answer, "A man with the whole world at his back defending against- shit, move!" he had to cut off his grandiose explanation as the Amphisbaena rushed them, shooting across the water with surprising speed for its bulk and breathing a jet of blue flame in its wake that didn't seem to bother it at all even as the fire stuck to water and surfaces like napalm.

Ray took off, Rina and Let running in opposite directions while Ichiban ran straight with flames licking at his heels. Its attention stayed on him, hopefully giving the others a chance to get out of the line of fire that Ichiban could feel licking at him as he vaulted on top of a crumpled monster cage and leapt at the cavern wall beyond. Feet bent, chakra circulated, and he bounced off the wall like it was a red spring in a Sonic the Hedgehog game, a scything axe kick slamming into the Amphisbaena's snout before it could close its jaws around him, sending the flame-spewing head cratering into the ground deep enough to create a channel for water from the lake to rush into.

Its nose had practically exploded, broken bone exposed underneath mangled flesh, but before his eyes it was rippling and growing back, and then he had to leap aside to dodge the other head circling his way. He ran around the edge of the underground lake, preparing another spell with a longer chant, one he actually said out loud to try and boost its power. "Harbinger of the end, the white snow…"

Pearl had at least managed to free herself from the rock and was flying back at the Amphisbaena's blind-side as it pursued Ichiban, running right past Gran who was dragging Ikelos out of the water only for the crushing dragon footsteps to kick them and send them right back under. Ichiban didn't have time to worry about them, focused as he was on baiting the enormous monster while building up a powerful freezing spell.

He heard Rina shout out her Mini spell but it clearly didn't have any effect as the damn thing didn't shrink even a little.

"Blow with the wind before the twilight. Closing light, the freezing land. Blizzard, the three severe winters," he kept up his chant, more monsters beginning to filter in from other caves to make up for the ones lost to his lightning barrage, the others moving to fight them. Except Pearl and Gros who both descended on the Amphisbaena, one clutching its tail and causing it to skid and falter, the other landing on its back and clawing at tough black flesh that seemed to grow back as soon as any wound was inflicted.

It held the monster still long enough for Ichiban to get his spell off. "My name is Alf, Wynn Fimbulvetr!" A roaring torrent of frigid air erupted from his wand, rime coating the damp cave walls, ice spreading over the surface of the lake, a frozen apocalypse set to encase this thing in a crystalline prison.

And then the red-eyed head roared, a blast of crimson fog piling out in turn to meet Ichiban's spell… and defeating it. The ice stopped cold, proverbially. Whatever that fog was, it ate magic, effectively an impenetrable shield against magical attack. "That's bull-" he started before automatic reflexes saved him from a sudden wrenching lunge, the Amphisbaena escaping Pearl's grasp and striking with the swiftness of a cobra to devour him in the jaws of the blue-eyed head.

Had he been thinking about his defence he probably would have dodged a different direction, as the frigid water he dived into felt even worse than before, his spell having done enough to make life uncomfortable for him without even inconveniencing the monster. His newfound acumen for chakra-assisted swimming at least served him well as he made some distance, briefly looking around under here.

There! Yankimaru was down at the bottom, brass barely visible in the dark water. He didn't know if he could even function underwater given how much steam he typically let out, but at least he was intact. Gran was still clutching his god in one arm, using the other to punch through the ice so he could escape, while Dix was floating nearby, motionless and not giving off any sign of magical power that Ichiban could detect beyond the spear still clutched in his death grip. Whether he'd died from Naaza's attacks, the fall, or drowned, it was immaterial. He wouldn't be a factor in this fight.

Once more Ichiban breached the surface of the water, seeing Pearl and the Amphisbaena going back and forth as they clawed at each other. Despite her excess of limbs, the Amphisbaena had her beat with two heads, clamping down on either side with fang-filled jaws that were fully capable of punching through her scales, drawing an enraged scream and a beam of plasma that she swept in order to almost sever one of the heads attached to her, the blue-eyed one going limp and collapsing as it fell off her blood-drenched flank, crashing right next to where Gran was breaking through the ice and probably regretting every choice he'd made that led to this moment as the Amphisbaena's flesh re-knit together and it stared straight at the dazed figure of Ikelos that he was lugging around.

Ikelos seemed to wake up just enough to realise the shit he was in as the Amphisbaena let out a snorting breath, its other head let go of Pearl and whipped around to focus on the god who'd foolishly come to dwell in the Dungeon with his familia of outcasts, four eyes locked on him with more malevolence than they'd shown Ichiban.

There was no sign of that familia now. The bodies of some floated in the water or lay around the edge, victims to the monsters they'd captured but failed to tame, perhaps some had fled into the caves of the Water City, a perilous journey to safety awaiting them if they did. All Ikelos had was Gran, and he seemed just as unmanned by the sight of the Black Amphisbaena poised to strike.

A shriek sounded, piercing and shrill as Ray swooped in, causing the two-headed monster to flinch and narrow its eyes. Meanwhile Pearl had recovered enough to sink her claws into its flank and pull, while Let and Aude leapt at a head each, axe and claws digging out deep wounds that all the same began healing as soon as they were made.

"We're being saved… by monsters?" Ikelos gasped in disbelief.

"Not even this one…" Let grimaced with exertion as he tried to force the Amphisbaena's head back with his axe as a lever stuck into its chin, his feet being pushed into retreat that dug grooves into the stone around his heels, "Deserves a stomach ache from you!"

Ichiban couldn't help but smile at the genuine heroism on display from the xenos, kicking his legs to push himself out of the water and onto the ice as others acted too. Arrows rained down from Naaza, and the soaring orb of Rina's flare spell sailed over to detonate on the monster's body, rocking it while Helga's flames licked at it from behind with a howl. Gros added his formidable strength to Pearl's, clawing and pulling to unbalance the titanic dragon. Arles bounded in with startling agility, showing superhuman strength despite his tiny size as he grabbed both Gran and Ikelos, running around the edge of the lake with them even as the Amphisbaena began to react, blue flames gathering in its maw.

"Play music eternally, immortal saint – Laurus Hildr!" Ichiban called, directing his spell at Let, the goblin having absolutely won his respect just now. Yet lightning didn't just envelop his form.

ESSENCE OF TEAMWORK

They all stood as one. Naaza. Rina. Pearl. Ray. Gros. Let. Arles. Helga. Aude. Lightning struck down on each from above, their hearts beating as one with the resolve of heroes burning in their veins. Burning so bright that energy crackled between them in resonance before returning to Ichiban, their faith showing in the power they now shared.

It was like Ariel, the magic surging over him as lightning rather than wind but empowering him just as much. The brass rod in his hand lengthened into a glaive of solidified electrical energy, and the effects were just as pronounced on everyone else.

"Yaaaaargh!" Let's impassioned cry led the assault as his axe swelled in size with a corona of electrical power that chopped right down the middle of Amphisbaena's head, slicing it in two and sending arcs of lightning crackling down its neck, the impending fire-breath sputtering out.

Aude did work on his side too, a flurry of strikes with sword-like claws of lightning perforating tough black scales in huge bloody gouges. Ray kicked with taloned feet sending arcs of electricity out that sank deep into the Amphisbaena, making it shudder and twitch, while Ichiban ran across the ice on sodden wet shoes, leaping high into the air and bringing his electrical-infused weapon down in a strike that broke the creature's back. Its body deformed with rippling aftershocks of his attack bulging out scales as the back half and the front half both went up while the middle went crashing down under his attack.

"That's what I'm talking about!" he passionately yelled as he landed, totally fired up by everyone's synergy. "Keep it up, we can do this! So long as we work together, we can beat this thing down!" Spinning around, he delivered a horizontal slash now into the creature's flank, lacking the sheer momentum of his first strike, but still stronger than it could have been with the fresh energy of his combo building. Briefly paralyzed, the Amphisbaena could only take it, an elongated gash torn into its flank by Ichiban's expanded weapon.

But its regenerative ability truly was fearsome. With a shuddering thrash, its spine reset. Despite Ichiban carving open a deeper gouge with his next attack, the first was already beginning to seal shut. Though claws slashed out to push aside and batter down the comparatively tiny foes attacking it, everyone had their speed boosted such that only Pearl was hit, and she hardly seemed to mind that as not only her dragon claws, but her human hands were wreathed in lightning which she used to rip and tear into the larger monster with a rictus of bestial fury on her too-pretty features.

"It's regenerating too fast!" Rina called as she joined the fight, a sword picked up from somewhere turned into an outright buster sword that she sliced half of its tail off when she descended with a lunging overhead slash. And indeed, that tail thrashed and bubbled, bones building atop each other out to the tip just barely ahead of the near liquid flesh that followed to coat it and set back into sturdy black scales.

Worse, it had managed to regrow the red-eyed head which spewed out another cloud of that red mist. Ray and Gros flew back in time, but the rest of them were exposed and suddenly felt the benefit of the Laurus Hildr leave them. Movements slowed, weapons weakened, and though Ichiban struck all the same with his wand and cratered flesh, it was a lesser wound and he had to dodge back, scrambling over ice as the Amphisbaena kicked out with a hind leg at him.

100 - "Carthus Milkring" (merged with Orange Charred Ring)
Dark Souls 3
"Ring worn by the warriors of the sand kingdom, Carthus. The sword technique of Carthus allows for fluid movement with a curved sword. Masters of the technique are said to dazzle their opponents by moving as weightlessly as a grain of sand. They live for their High Lord Wolnir, conqueror of most kingdoms known to their people." Simply putting it on makers the wearer feel more nimble. Additionally, when dodging or rolling out of the wayof an attack, the wearer's movement becomes hazy, clouded, making it harder to predict your path,

Rina dodged too, her form seeming smoky and ethereal for an instant as she dodged before her counter-attack saw her sword barely managing to gouge a line through those rigid black scales. "Back off! We can't fight it in close when it's like this!" Ichiban called, everyone scattering except from Naaza who was still high up and firing down, her arrows remaining bolstered by lightning as the enchantment stayed on her, though they didn't seem to have a great effect either way.

"H-hey!" a shout came from Gran, the big guy who might have looked scary posturing alongside Dix earlier now however seeming out of his depth and afraid as he stood with Ikelos and Arles further back from the fight. "Dix's spear! It had a curse on it that stopped wounds from healing! If you can find it, it'll work on that thing, right?"

Hell yeah, that's exactly what they needed. "Keep it busy!" Ichiban yelled to everyone else, diving into the water and swimming to where that Ikelos familia captain was floating, yanking the spear out of death-frozen fingers. It certainly fit the look of a cursed weapon, two angled prongs of black metal and red crystal crowning it, with smaller jagged ones behind the tip that gave it the look of an insect's legs. It was definitely built for intimidation and to inflict wounds that would be difficult to heal – you sometimes heard guys in prison talk about making those shivs with two razor-blades set into a plastic spoon, to make cuts that couldn't be stitched back up. He'd never actually seen one made far less used, but he wouldn't feel bad about messing up the Amphisbaena like that.

Before he'd have been happy enough to know the pointy end goes in the bad guy. Spears were one of the oldest weapons around, and pretty hard to fuck up with. But among the many knightly weapons he knew how to use, spears were accounted for, and it was with a confident grip that Ichiban emerged from the water to rejoin the battle.

Seeming to have gotten wise to their tricks, the Amphisbaena was now almost constantly spewing out red mist to shield itself from magic, although Pearl was still slugging it out in melee, golden plasma beams and blue flame torrents being exchanged with gusto. This kept both heads occupied enough for Rina and the other xenos to dart in and out, only needing to contend with its claws that were often busy enough scrambling for purchase against Pearl's attacks, though no one was managing anything near as destructive as they'd had under the effect of Laurus Hildr.

Ichiban charged in without fear. This was everything he'd ever wanted. A knight charging in with lance against the evil dragon… there was no hiding the grin on his face when he pierced in deep through the base of the Amphisbaena's neck, a wicked injury made worse when he wrenched the jagged spear back out to widen it.

He felt it try to pull on his own life-force. Clearly cursed weapons had a cost, but without thinking he passed that on to the magic stones he carried, letting them pay for the attack as he delivered another. Two ragged wounds made now, ripping through tough scales with chakra-boosted strength… and they weren't healing.

The Amphisbaena clearly recognised the threat he now posed, the right head giving up on spewing mist so it could coil down and try to strike at him, forcing him to leap back and dodge the toothy slam that impacted the ground and threw up debris. But that just put the head in easy range. He held to spear in one hand, summoning his wand in the other for it to swiftly automate a spell before he vanished it. Both hands held onto the spear now to resume the attack that surrounded it with a corona of golden light, the spell he'd learned from Ottar, the deceptively simple magic of the city's strongest adventurer.

"Eat this!" he yelled out as his lunging stab didn't just penetrate the Amphisbaena's skull, it exploded it. The cursed weapon inflicting area of effect damage just like his fists had done to flimsy goblins on the upper floors, super-charged with magic that detonated on impact. Scales and bone blasted outwards, its neck practically unfurling halfway down, flesh peeled back from bone like a banana being opened. The other head roared in pain and fury, struggling to escape Pearl's grip as she clawed and savaged it, her own regeneration handling its flames while it was discovering its ability to heal could no longer be trusted to carry it through the battle.

And that left the other neck easy prey to Ichiban, repeating the process with his wand. Three seconds to cast the spell, and then the attack that followed continued his combo. Multiplying the damage as a single slash with the cursed spear severed the other head at the base with destructive ripples tearing through its body. Blue light guttered out from the decapitated skull going limp in Pearl's grasp, while thee main body thrashed and collapsed. Rather than regenerate, it started to flake away, a slower process than the death of other monsters but just as final, leaving nothing but a gigantic purple magic stone and a ruby red heart surrounded by thick cobalt blue veins.

They'd done it. They'd won.

Everyone looked disbelieving, first at the remains left by the Black Amphisbaena and then at each other as if to ask, did we really survive that?

Ichiban felt fine. Pearl looked good other than her cloak being a bit burnt, though it still served to provide her modesty. Everyone else looked battered and bruised and burned to varying degrees, so he raised up his wand and cast a Dia Fratel. "Hey, come over here to get healed!" he called, waving the others towards the circle of light generated that was now a match for Airmid's version.

Everyone came over, words of surprise and relief from the xenos as the magic healed them and refreshed their energy. Even a nervous looking Ikelos and Gran approached, keeping distant from everyone else. Naaza leaped from her platform, catching herself on the cavern wall and sliding down before she jogged over and joined them.

"I want that heart," she said immediately. "It's a unique drop I don't think anyone's ever seen before, and I'll be able to make potions that'll sell for far more than we'd get just selling it."

Considering who they'd no doubt end up selling it to if they went that route, there was surely another consideration, but he didn't see any reason to argue with her. "Yeah, that's fine," he nodded.

"What about the stone? It looks too big to eat," Pearl asked, looking at it like she was considering the challenge anyway.

Rina just laughed, "That thing's gotta be worth a hundred million, bare minimum. We can give every other magic stone we've found to these guys and still come out ahead. Although speaking of money…" she turned to look at Ikelos and Gran, before tilting her head up to the shattered ceiling leading up to the twenty fourth floor, "You guys must have had a nice nest egg up there, right?"

The two of them were quite meek and cooperative, not that they could do anything to stop Ray and Gros flying up to loot what was still up there, coming back with a strongbox that Gran had the key for, surely millions of valis there along with documents. Ichiban struggled to read them even now, though he was ahead of the xenos who were completely illiterate. Naaza went through it. "Lots of monster sales, some to familias, lots to Thanatos, others to groups outside of Orario… lots to Eluria. And expenses… what's Barca?" she asked, frowning.

"That's Dix's brother," Ikelos spoke up. "Sad man, consumed by his family's legacy. The two are both descendents of Daedalus. You know his work, you've seen that tower in the middle of the city. Poor man went mad when he saw the Dungeon though, became obsessed with creating his own version and he passed that obsession as a curse on his descendants. Dix was more functional, but he still contributed to the project and helped fund it."

"Wait. His own Dungeon? Are you talking about Knossos?" Ichiban asked, the coincidence too convenient to imagine otherwise.

"You already know about it?!" Gran's jaw dropped in surprise.

"Yeah, you guys have been out of the loop, huh," he shook his head ruefully. "Evilus is hiding out there, they collapsed the first couple floors when everyone attacked it."

That drew a chuckle from Ikelos as he said, "Dix would be happy, that was his idea. Ah, but we're not with Evilus, we just happen to work with them a lot, but we don't care about causing chaos outside of the Dungeon."

At least he was saying 'we' now rather than trying to disassociate himself from his familia. Still looked annoyingly punchable though.

Gros looked like he was on board with doing some punching too as he stepped forward and spoke in his gravelly voice, "What about talking monsters, like us? Does it say anything about that?"

Naaza kept leafing through the papers, eyes tracking back and forth before, "Here. Silverback (talking). Fifteen million valis, Eluria. And here, Troll (talking). Thirty million valis, Eluria." She swallowed and read more. "Hobgoblin (talking), twenty million valis, Eluria. Harpy (talking)… fifty million valis, Eluria."

"They were our best customers," Ikelos said without any particular feeling. "The Elurian royal family has very peculiar habits."

"Talking monsters were this common? And no one knew?" Rina asked in disbelief while the xenos looked a mixture of stricken and outraged.

"And you sold them. Our comrades. For this?!" Gros picked up a wad of valis banknotes in his clawed fist and looked at them with hatred before scattering the bills around like trash.

Ikelos seemed to be recovering his confidence. Perhaps he was used to seeing angered and despairing faces that he knew couldn't do anything to him. "It's a rare human who has any pity in his heart for a monster. Those brats of mine only cared about the money."

Ichiban reached over to grab him by the collar again, taking some small satisfaction in the way his smooth features contorted with indignant fear as he said, "Well we've got you, and all this paper trail too. That'll be enough to track all your buyers. If those xenos are still out there, we're getting them back."

The other xenos looked heartened by his words, but really it was time to get moving. The amount of damage to the Dungeon at least meant it wasn't likely to spawn monsters on them for a while, but more could easily wander in. "I'm gonna go in the water and find people's weapons that got dropped," no sense leaving Rina's axe behind, "Pearl, can you come too and help me get Yankimaru out of there?"

"Oh! I'd wondered where he was during all of that, he's not usually so lazy!" she said in a chiding tone that suggested she didn't quite understand what the robot's whole deal was. Still, she was big enough to hoist him back out to the surface with some difficulty, while Ichiban was able to find Rina's hammer and axe which she accepted gratefully, the sword she'd found already chipped and damaged from the Amphisbaena's scales, and thus cheerfully discarded.

The magic stones they'd gathered on their way down were given to the xenos as compensation for their assistance while Pearl picked up the giant one left by the Amphisbaena, Rina carried the Ikelos familia strongbox, and Naaza kept hold of the monster heart that was as big as her torso. "We'll come back in a couple days where we met last time and tell you what's going on with Eluria," he promised. "We're going to teleport out from here."

300 – Mirror Polish (applied to Millwood Battle Axe)
Legend of Zelda: Hero of Worlds
Upgrade for one of your weapons or a shield, making them capable of reflecting projectile spells back upon the caster.

That got a round of surprised looks from everyone, but then Rina raised another distraction. "Hey, my axe turned all shiny! Oooh, it's like a mirror," she held it up to look her face and soaked slick hair, laid flat rather than showing its usual wavy curls.

Mirror was right, and it made Ichiban recall the Juggernaut's reflective shell as he examined it. "I think it'll bounce spells back, like the Juggernaut did."

Rina made a delighted noise and hugged her axe before she stepped back. "Hey, I gotta try this. Someone launch a spell at me," she asked, holding her axe while swaying her body in a way that made Ichiban think of a tennis player preparing to receive a serve.

With Ichiban putting up a force-field for safety, Naaza obligingly launched her Holy spell at Rina, which the amazon batted back with an excited whoop, everyone watching the pearlescent projectile rebound off the axe and detonate on the force-field, cracking it but not breaking through.

"Oh, that's nice! By the way, here you go," Rina took off her belt and offered it back to Ichiban, and he decided to wrap it around Yankimaru's fairly slender waist. Felt like the robot was due for an upgrade, even if he'd give the belt back to Rina next time they were in the Dungeon.

As everyone gathered around for the teleport, Ikelos and Gran looking uncertain and the xenos watching curiously, Naaza spoke up. "Weren't you going to put Pearl in one of those balls when we left?"

He shook his head though. "Nah. Now we know there are talking monsters, I want her to meet people, show that she's friendly." Besides, the paper seals he needed for the mafuba had all been ruined when he'd fallen in the water. He could hope his money would dry out okay, but even then it didn't much matter when he had plenty more coming in. Bidding one last farewell to the xenos, he cast, "Teleport!" and with a whooosh of magic, the group reappeared in front of Babel underneath the afternoon sun.

"Ahhh, it's the sky!" Pearl cried out joyfully, stomping towards the fountain she and her pigeon friends usually congregated around, sending avians flying as the people around spotting their arrival suddenly started screaming in panic.

"Ahhh, a monster got out!" "Where's the Ganesha familia?!" "Is this part of Monster Feria?"

Ikelos and Gran just looked at each other miserably, while Rina sagged her shoulders and Naaza put a hand over her face. As always, Yankimaru just stood there impassively. Nothing bothered that guy.

"No! Everyone, relax!" Ichiban yelled out, running along after Pearl and dropping the evil looking cursed spear by the fountain so he could wave his hands and get attention. "She's not just a tame monster, she's a friendly one! She can talk! And she can sing, oh man can she sing!"

Pearl's singing had in fact opened friendly dialogue with the xenos, so perhaps it could serve as a bridge towards the humans (and elves and etcetera) too? Right now she was making cooing pigeon noises which was actually kind of weird coming out of her human mouth. "Hey Pearl, lets sing! C'mon, back me up here!" he called up to get her attention, dredging up an old karaoke favourite he'd often sung with the Arakawa family when they went out.

"There are days you'll be weak. There are days you'll be lost. There are times where you feel you'll wanna run and hide."

It felt a little awkward without the music to keep time to, and he was a little rusty despite sometimes singing this one in prison to keep his spirits up, but the melody caught Pearl's attention and she set down the enormous magic stone she was carrying to begin humming along, her lyrical voice serving well to match Ichiban's rhythm.

"There are days you'll be down, and you start to wonder if the world would be better off if you died."

The impromptu singing performance at least seemed to be replacing the initial panic with confusion, which was a step up in his mind. Ichiban looked over the crowd they were gathering and smiled reassuringly as he sang and patted his chest.

"I have those days too. But I believe, I believe I'm gonna make it through, and I won't run away, I won't die."

This was what the song was building to, Pearl seeming to have an instinctive grasp of music and mood as her choral backing caught the rising energy and Ichiban sang out with more passion.

"I'm gonna level up! Be the best that I can be, and I'm not gonna stop questing until I'm a hero."

Rina whistled shrilly and called out, "Whoo! Level up!" and he loved that people in this world absolutely got what that meant and why it was good even though they'd never heard of video-games.

"I'm gonna level up! Be the best that I can be, I swear I'll become unstoppable and you'll beam right at me."

It felt like they were starting to get people on side, the crowd swaying, and even though Pearl's appearance got all kinds of looks, the fact she was just singing along with Ichiban's performance helped disarm the implied threat of her huge chimeric body. Probably the fact she was stunningly beautiful and had the voice of an angel helped a lot.

"I've gotta see this through I can't look back until the end. Rise from rock bottom to the future I've seen in my dreams. So come on, lets go level up."

He stretched his hand out to the crowd, smiling warmly as Pearl brought her backing vocals to a fading close, the magic of music having disarmed the immediate panic. "Yeah, see? That's what I'm talking about! That's a song!" he grinned up at Pearl.

Free – Blossoming Sun
Fate/Legends – The land of The Rising Sun
You had a fortunate birth, whatever you end up being, and find yourself above average for these lands. Japan is not particularly a bastion of mystical heroes in the way of Greece or Britain. Indeed, many of the legends to be found following are made from incredible skill or the command of many soldiers instead of personal feats of might and magic. But even these skillful heroes do tend to stand above the other poppies.

Your body is naturally on the higher end for human fitness, ably competing in modern athletics without any training required. Magically, you possess a number of high quality circuits, equal to the much later coming Tohsaka heir. A prodigy in those times but still notable even a thousand years prior. You lack training for now but magic is not so hidden as it becomes in the modern day, with the presence of spiritual temples and Onmyouji practitioners.

As a quirk of this land, you also have the ability to summon a wide range of aesthetic effects, even when they make no sense. A flurry of cherry blossoms on the wind as you make an entrance, the sun shining down the red rays of a sunset even mid-morning to dramatise your battles. One might claim you're in some sort of samurai movie, with how many dramatic effects tend to occur around you. As part of this national style, you also have the unique trait of never struggling to draw or sheathe your weapons, no matter how impractically sized they are. The katana and sheath longer than your entire body won't take anymore time to draw than a reasonably sized weapon. Not that you're any better at using the weapons, you just won't look like a tool taking them out.

"I didn't know you could sing, sweet-cheeks!" she grinned back at him. "Little rough on some of those notes there, but not bad. Let me try it from the top, I'll show you how it's done!" And then she did just that, humming her own backing as she sang the same song he'd just done. Rina, bless her, banged her weapons together to create some noise in support while a few more people took up the enthusiastic cry when the hook of 'I'm gonna level up!' came in through Pearl's diva-worthy voice.

There were a lot of people around. Mostly just regular people, but adventurers too, and even a god who gave Ikelos a suspicious look where he and Gran were standing very awkwardly under Yankimaru's shadow. And they were all seeing that there was such a thing as a talking monster, and a friendly one at that.

Probably the giant magic stone at Pearl's feet was attracting some notice too, or the massive heart Naaza was holding, there was a lot of weirdness to go around, but it was all working to their benefit. "You hear that?" he called when Pearl finished her rendition of his song, "Her name's Pearl, and she's here to sing, so tell your friends because we'll be here a little while." It felt like a good way of ensuring word had a chance to spread and people could see and hear her so they wouldn't cause a panic when they went walking anywhere else.

Wanting a little time to teach Pearl another song, he decided to take advantage of Ikelos's presence. "Hey Ikelos, why don't you tell everyone about our fight against the Black Amphisbaena, keep everyone hyped up while Pearl and I prepare her next set."

The skeevy looking god looked disbelieving before he shrugged and went to go stand on the edge of the fountain. "I'm not usually a fan of public speaking, but alright children listen up…" he kept everyone's attention while Ichiban tried his best to remember the lyrics to some good girly pop songs Pearl could do well with, quietly teaching them to her while Ikelos's godly presence kept eyes on him, his description of the battle not exactly very flashy but people paid attention to what he said about the talking monsters who saved his life. Naturally he didn't mention his own crimes against them, but it was enough to spark all kinds of murmurs before Pearl was ready to perform again.

Seeing a giant draconic monster sing about love surfing where even shy boys whoop it up was definitely something Orario had never seen before, but people were clearly getting into it. He could recognise some of the Ganesha familia high rank members running over and then just stopping dumbfounded at what they were seeing, uniformed Guild employees doing much the same, clearly not at all prepared for this kind of monster invasion.

Then as Pearl finished a song a figure came rushing into the plaza, executing a dynamic leap over the crowd characteristic of a powerful adventurer with her green dress and white apron fluttering as she landed, the cat girl waitress Anya landed breathing heavily and holding what looked like a magic stone microphone. "Nyeheh! That's purretty good, but you weren't thinking of having a sing-along without me, were you?"

"No! You have to stop her!" he heard Freya, or rather Syr yelling, stuck at the back of the crowd and clearly unable to force her way through nor willing to display her divinity to clear a path while she was play-acting as a waitress. It couldn't be that important then, so Ichiban just cheerfully beckoned Anya over to get involved, figuring it was a good sign that someone was willing to sing alongside a monster.

"You'll all be feline amazing after my purrformance!" Anya excitedly bounded over, raised the microphone to her lips, and… well, she had a pretty cute speaking voice, but unfortunately that did not extend to carrying a tune at all as her uneven warbling and thready high notes massacred what was apparently a song about a wife waiting for her husband to return from the sea. Not even Pearl's backing could save it.

"Auuugh, she's terrible!" "Bring back the monster!" "That's not a song that's a sonic attack!"

"I tried to warn you all!" Syr managed to reach the front of the crowd, her face flushed, but she looked excited all the same as she beheld the scene, eyes shining with barely disguised glee.

Still, Ichiban let her finish, having to warn Pearl off with a look from snatching the microphone and ending the performance early. "You did great Anya!" he said loudly as the waitress finished, seeming entirely undaunted by the negative reception her singing had received, "Karaoke's about singing from the heart, it takes real guts to put yourself in front of everyone like that!"

Anya preened at that before a green hand reached down and snatched the microphone from her grasp and Pearl said, "Yeah but she stinks! Let this old bird show you how it's done you toneless cat!"

And within moments her rendition of that same song had people literally weeping for the poor woman who's fisherman husband never came home.

"M-my version wasn't that diffurent," Anya sniffled at the end, wiping a tear from her eye herself.

By now the plaza around Babel was absolutely packed with people who'd come to see the oddity of a talking monster and then stayed for the divine singing, but speaking of divines there were several gods around too. Ganesha arrived with Shakti, he could see Loki and a surly looking werewolf guy, as well as several other less notable deities. Including Freya in her disguise though it meant they had the city's three main familias represented, which he counted as a good turnout for introducing Pearl to Orario. Announcing that this next one would be the last song got its share of disappointed murmurs, but everyone enjoyed the last song and any demands for an encore were put off by the deities and first rank adventurers stepping forward now.

Loki had her hands clasped behind her head as she strolled forward, the white-haired man with her keeping a careful watch on Pearl and staying quiet to let his goddess speak. "Well in all my days I never thought I'd see a monster busking in front of Babel. And Ikelos too, thought you'd vanished," she gave the sketchy god a look merited by such sketchiness. "Hey Bete, you all fought something like this on the fiftieth floor, didn't you?" she then asked while looking directly up at Pearl.

"Something like," he growled, flexing his fingers like he was itching to tear into the monster before him. "Has the same kind of colours as that freaky caterpillar thing, but it didn't have scales or wings, and barely looked human."

"It's the same colour as the leaves on those monsters Evilus attacked us with the other day," Shakti spoke up before her eyes widened in alarm at her god stepping past her.

"I am Ganesha!" he announced as he usually did, "And I've never been so moved by a performance before! Please, beautiful lady, let me shake your hand!" he extended a brawny arm up towards Pearl.

"Oh!" she tittered, a hint of red coming to her green cheeks before reaching down and daintily taking Ganesha's hand. "Finally a man with some taste around here! I bet there's a real handsome face under that mask!"

Ganesha laughed boisterously, pumping his arm up and down as god and monster shook hands before he let go and said, "I am Ganesha, and the mask stays on!"

"Geh, and now they're flirting, I wasn't ready for this," Loki complained. "What are we even supposed to do about any of this?"

"That's what we need to decide," Ichiban spoke up while Ganesha flexed for Pearl's cooing adoration, Rina edging closer to admire the god's muscles with barely hidden interest herself. "There's loads more talking monsters down there, ones that just want to live in peace, and get attacked by regular monsters just like anyone else. And this scum-bucket," he pointed at Ikelos, "Has been selling them off to some freaky place called Eluria where they do all kinds of twisted shit to them."

"First Evilus and now this? Seems like you've got a knack for tripping over conspiracies, Ichiban," Loki sighed. "I had a busy enough morning listening to the Guild yap on about those re-usable grimoires you're offering around, what's a girl got to do to get some peace and quiet around here?"

She could complain, but he could see the excitement practically vibrating through her, the same as Syr. She was loving this.

Ganesha had been distracted enough by Ichiban's words to break off from Pearl and now had Ikelos in a headlock, the other god going limp and unresisting as he was grabbed. "I am Ganesha! And as overjoyed as I am to meet the lovely Pearl, these terrible tidings bring anguish to my heart! Let us depart for the Pantheon, so we can discuss such unpleasantness without disturbing the good people basking in the afterglow of such a performance."

The crowd parted, but they still kept all eyes on the group heading up the street to the Pantheon, far more so than when it had just been Ichiban and Yankimaru walking around. Bete and Shakti both walking very carefully to keep themselves between their deities and Pearl, and the group met near the Guild's main office by Freya, now out of her disguise but wearing a dark robe over what was probably something scandalous, joined with a dark-haired cat person who glowered equally at Pearl and literally everyone else.

"Of course you'd be here," Loki groused openly, which drew a titter from her apparent rival for the top spot in the city.

"Of course I wouldn't miss something so interesting. I had to ride my chariot fast as I could to make it here," she said jovially, which drew groans from most people present and a faint rosiness to her escort's cheeks.

Of course the idea of having a meeting inside the building ran into an immediate pitfall in the form of Pearl's enormous proportions. Rina even tried casting Mini on her to no effect, which after the Amphisbaena suggested there probably was some kind of restriction on it affecting things that were already too big.

In the end they took a third floor room where Pearl could rest a foot on Yankimaru's shoulder and poke her torso in through the window to join them from the outside. The enormous magical stone was handed off to some startled Guild employees for appraisal, while Naaza jealously held onto the drop item. The ancient elf head of the Guild joined them too, along with a slightly frazzled looking Rose and someone new. A slender figure in frayed looking black robes that concealed their face who introduced themselves as Fels, conveying their regret that Ouranus couldn't come in person to speak to Pearl but that they would act as his representative.

"The truth is," Fels spoke in a weirdly echoing voice that was hard to identify as male or female, "We have known about the existence of talking monsters for fifteen years."

It wasn't hard to see the shock ripple around the room at this information. Only Ganesha seemed unmoved by it, though Loki and Ikelos both had calculating looks on their faces as they absorbed this knowledge and probably put it together with other things they knew.

Fels went on to explain how they'd first been found by the Zeus familia, and the Guild had worked to keep their existence a secret until they could find a way to overturn a thousand years of hatred. That Ganesha had been brought in to help by organising events like Monster Feria to help people grow more used to monsters on the surface.

200 – One Source
Trinity Wonder
Ki, magic. Ultimately, they are just energy. They come from the same source, and can be used to supplement each other. You can use one source to recharge or fuel the other. This won't necessarily be an even 1:1 conversion. Some energies may need a disproportionate amount of less potent energy to be substituted in to create an equal 'volume' due to the difference of energy contained within. Similarly, the techniques of different systems and techniques from other worlds may tax your reserves differently. The techniques of Wuxia world are often much more energy intensive than that of their fantasy world analogs, such that what one mage might consider overflowing amounts of magic, the murim warrior would simply consider adequate enough to recharge.

"Fels introduced me to a goblin wearing a red hat, who spoke most eloquently," Ganesha spoke up, arms crossed over his chest. "How could I not be moved by one who spoke our language?"

"A red hat?" Ikelos repeated. "That goblin saved my life from the Black Amphisbaena's jaws down there."

That drew surprised and suspicious looks all around. "It saved your life? When your familia had been targeting them?" Loki asked, her eyes even more narrowed than usual.

"I know," Ikelos shrugged diffidently. "It's enough to make a man feel ashamed. Just like Ganesha said, who couldn't be moved by that?"

Ichiban smiled, glad someone was getting the respect he deserved. "His name's Let. He's a good guy, him and all the others I met down there."

"Cute too!" Rina piped up, before feeling all the eyes turn to her and looking embarrassed, "I mean, you wouldn't expect a goblin to have such a nice face… back me up, Naaza!"

Naaza did not look happy to be put on the spot like that, but she sighed and glanced at Pearl before looking at the gods and first rank adventurers around, "He did have a sort of pretty boy look to him," she admitted reluctantly.

"Hahaha! To think that well spoken goblin would turn out to be such a charmer. I'm impressed, I'll have to ask him for some tips next time I see him!" Ganesha laughed boisterously. "To be honest I'm amazed. Even though Monster Feria went well this year I still thought we were a long way off, but with Ichiban having shaken things up so much, and Pearl giving such a performance in the centre of the city… perhaps we're closer than I thought. At the very least, we can't cover up their existence now."

"Feh, that all sounds like a great way to get yourself killed," Bete spoke up. "Who has time to check if a monster's friendly when you're down in the Dungeon? All that's gonna do is get people killed when they hesitate against something that only wants them dead."

Ichiban stepped forward and gestured at Pearl, "Just check if they're wearing clothes. No one's saying you have to stop and interview them, but if they've got clothes on they're clearly different from every other Dungeon monster. They get attacked too by the regular ones, what you should be able to do is team up. With the places the xenos live being safe, it's like having a bunch more Rivira's down there."

"The problem isn't just from that side though," Shakti interjected, gesturing towards Ikelos and Gran. "The point of keeping the xenos secret is to hide them from people like that. Many adventurers are unscrupulous enough to take advantage, even if it's only for the magic stone and drop item they'd get for killing an innocent."

That drew the attention of Rose and her boss who'd been looking through the documents brought up with the Ikelos strongbox. "Miss Varma raises a good point," Rose said. "Many familias in Orario are already implicated in this smuggling. Respected ones, even. That's before we even get into trade with foreign nations, the sums Eluria was paying for intelligent monsters are significant."

Rina suddenly looked nervous as she realised her own familia's transaction with that lamia and who knows what else must have been recorded in the ledgers. "Hey, uh, just remember, it was the Ishtar and Miach familias that took these guys down!" she blurted out, Naaza giving her a dirty look at being pulled in for the positive association. "We wouldn't have been able to clean up the smuggling ring without, uh, insider knowledge. So just keep that in mind, okay?"

Ichiban felt bad for her, it did not sound like she'd be in for a good time with her boss if there was blowback over this. "What if Ishtar helps get back the ones from Eluria?" he suggested. "After they've had a chance to look at those magic scrolls, she could send some of her adventurers on a rescue mission. Be a chance to show she's not part of any nasty business like that."

Freya giggled at his suggestion, but the others looked to be considering it. "Lady Ishtar is wealthy enough to absorb any fines the Guild might levy, and any deeper punishment could destabilise Orario," Rose's boss spoke up, "This sounds like a worthy compromise."

"It's not like she's helping out with the Evilus situation, I say let her. Just make sure that captain of hers doesn't devour any of the xenos they're out to rescue," Loki made a dismissive gesture to give her agreement, and no one else seemed to care to oppose it.

"Speaking of Evilus, I just want to remind everyone I only did commercial business with those guys, I'm not actually one of them," Ikelos spoke up. "In fact, I heard you're having trouble with Knossos. My old captain Dix had a notebook full of plans for it that you might find useful for dealing with that maze, if you can find it in the ruins of our old hideout. Place got trashed by the Black Amphisbaena, but those flying xenos were able to dig that back out," he gestured to the strongbox full of ill-gotten lucre and financial statements.

"Don't think you're going to be getting away clean from this either, Ikelos," Ganesha gave him a glare from behind his elephant mask. "But your cooperation is noted."

Ikelos responded with one of those punchable smiles as he raised his arms and insisted, "I'm a changed man, Ganesha."

In the end it was decided that the existence of talking monsters would be made public, though the location of xenos villages would remain secret until they themselves decided to expose themselves. Pearl's presence in the city couldn't exactly be hidden (and Ichiban was wondering what he was going to do in terms of finding a place to sleep that could accommodate her), and no one could really stop Ichiban if he decided he wanted to bring some of his new monster friends up to see the sky for a little bit. He was sure Ray could win some fans with her singing too after it worked so well for Pearl.

All that was left after that was splitting up the money they made from selling that gigantic magic stone to the Guild. One hundred and forty million valis made a nice clean split for the four of them. Though Pearl did immediately try to spend her share on buying smaller magic stones from the Guild that she could fit in her mouth.

Author's Notes said:
Naaza, watching as the Black Amphisbaena shrugs off everything they throw at it, reaching towards her single ultimate arrow of destruction… "But what if I need it later?"

I was tempted to have Ichiban go off to Eluria himself to rescue the xenos there, but the place is only a couple lines in the light novel and isn't even mentioned on the wiki, it'd be way too much original content focusing away from Orario and the Dungeon, so instead Ishtar gets thrown under the bus to handle it. In canon the Hermes familia went there a bit later and found a real horror show, but with some heavier hitters backing them up and going sooner we might get a happier outcome.

Next chapter takes a break to go into other perspectives, so please look forward to that!

Ebiris · Thursday at 2:30 PM

Author's Notes said:
This chapter takes the perspective of several other characters so we won't see much of Ichiban. It does not count for the Grimoire word count and no rolls are being made during it. I am strong enough to write even without the gacha pulling me onwards!

Also I'm eating into my buffer a little to post this because Pirate Majima is absolutely going to be taking up my writing time, so next chapter will probably be a little longer in coming.

Tsubaki felt like she was being pulled in too many directions. As a smith it was exhilarating, having so many ideas, so many sources of inspiration, but as a flesh and blood woman with only two hands it was frustrating as hell.

The metal that giant robot had been made out of was an interesting curiosity. About as tough as adamantite mined from the lower floors, yet when melted down and separated it seemed to be a mixture of iron, aluminium, titanium, copper, chromium, and lead. Alloying them back together however only produced an inferior metal expected for the sum of its parts.

If she could figure out the process used to create the end result, it… honestly wouldn't mean much. Not in Orario, with the Dungeon and its endless resources underfoot. But for the rest of the world? It would make her name go down in history. And that's why she was determined to solve it herself no matter how annoyingly smug Lady Hephaestus got with her, 'Oh, that one was really clever Tsubaki! Not what I would have done but you almost had something!' comments after every experiment.

She could have spent months happily working on this problem, if not for everything else going on. Chakra. The new power that flowed beneath her skin… everyone had their own ideas of how to use it. Lady Hephaestus had blathered on some stuff about pressure points she'd heard one of her friends talking about, the Loki familia were sparring and training like crazy to just force inspiration through combat, she'd seen Shakti show off some weird tornado thing she made by making a finger steeple gesture and shouting a load of nonsense, but none of that interested Tsubaki.

Because chakra could flow through metal.

She'd seen it with Jules, one of their high blacksmiths who'd lost his leg to an iguazu. He'd already made it to level three, enough that he didn't have to fight any more and could smith just fine to the high level demanded for the familia's elite. But he'd gone out on his prosthetic leg to the Colosseum where Ichiban was handing out that power like it was candy, and he'd reported afterwards that his chakra could be felt even in the metal leg.

They'd experimented of course. Trying with a cheap low grade one? Nothing. But a high grade one, even if it wasn't his, still worked. Not as well – it seemed like when someone was given chakra, it synchronised with their prosthetic to be a perfect match like it would for a flesh and blood limb, but any one of the artificial limbs that were made to link up with the wearer's nerves was able to conduct chakra through it.

And so why shouldn't a sword be able to? Tsubaki had tested it herself, it was plain to see when she pushed chakra through her arm and swung her weapon, she struck with far greater force than she was used to. But what if that flow carried on all the way through the weapon itself, how would that affect its destructive impact? Its durability?

And so between experiments with that mystery alloy, she'd forged new weapons. She wasn't as good as someone like Airmid when it came to high grade prosthetics that fit with someone's nervous system, but she didn't need to be for this. She knew how to make a magic sword, she knew how to weave together magic stones and exotic materials to create magically conductive and reactive weapons. Hell, she'd had to replace that damn werewolf's custom boots when the Loki familia came back from their expedition, yet another distraction, but those things operated on a similar principle.

And so she held the fruits of her labours. A curved sword made of a mithril alloy, its blunt side marked by a constellation of carefully sized and linked magic stones, its cutting edge sharpened to a deadly sheen.

Breathing evenly as she stood in the yard behind the familia's western workshop, she sliced through one of the straw dummies high up with a carefully calculated cut using a precise exertion of muscle power. This was how she tested all her weapons, always ensuring her own output remained consistent so the worth of the blade could be accurately measured.

Not that it made much difference on a straw dummy, but Tsubaki wasn't one to slack off in her habits. It cut cleanly through, the head of the dummy falling off and showing the perfectly even line of straw sheared in its wake.

For the next swing she pulsed chakra through her arms, and she could feel it bleeding into the sword, a nimbus of red energy radiating over the bottom of the blade as it greedily sucked up what she was pushing through her limbs. It was actually a struggle to pull it back, to confine the energy to just her arms. Chakra wanted to flow, and the sword made a ready circuit which it wished to keep going through now it was available. She was nothing if not disciplined however, and whether it was chakra or muscle, she reigned it under control before executing another slice, the same amount of physical exertion but with chakra flowing through her arms.

The dummy was cut through, but not cleanly. The section above her blade exploded into the air rather than neatly toppling, the rest of the dummy got tipped over. Examining the actual cut showed straw bent and twisted. Despite having been slashed with a razor sharp blade, it seemed more like it had been hit by a hammer. More powerful, but hardly graceful. She wondered if it was simply a flaw of chakra or if she could reign it in to be less aggressive? She often had trouble like that after ranking up or if she left a status update too long, her conditioned reflexes simply being all wrong for the output her body was capable of.

She righted the dummy, still enough of its body left for her to do another cut before the height would mess up her calculated swing.

This time she let her chakra flow into the sword, admiring the fiery red glow that surrounded it for a moment before she settled her feet properly and swung.

The dummy was cut in two.

And so was the wall several metres behind it, a long line tracing the swing of her blade sliced into the brickwork. Powdered stone and mortar puffed out, before with an inevitable tottering creak the wall collapsed down with a crash that had the other smiths watching her demonstration wincing.

"Pretty good for a prototype," she said, not minding the mess. If it had gone all the way through the wall and into the surrounding houses it would've been a problem, but so long as she acted like it was under control everyone else would believe her.

Loud metallic footsteps sounded, and a now familiar middle-aged man with wild hair and an easy smile came into their yard, accompanied by that fascinating robot of his, although it was actually looking a bit beat up now. Bladed weapon strikes rather than monster claws as far as she could tell. "Yo, Tsubaki," he called out, and she wasn't sure whether to sigh or smile at the prospect of having some fresh otherworldly inspiration dropped in her lap.

"Ichiban. Good to see you and Yankimaru. Was just trying out a new weapon to make use of this chakra you've given us all," she rested her unnamed sword against her shoulder as he came over. "Got anything new for me today?" She decided she would smile after all. She couldn't help it.

"Yeah actually," he smiled back at her. "See, I was wondering if I could tap you to do some proper work on Yankimaru, give him a real upgrade. I found this and I think it might work as a power source or something to supercharge him," he explained as he reached into his pocket and then held out on his palm a small green teardrop gem that glowed with power, air seeming to be drawn towards it enough that her hair fluttered from the breeze.

"Oh, Ichiban. You always bring me something fun, don't you?" Yeah her smile wasn't going anywhere.

---

For all its night-time liveliness, the Entertainment District seemed almost sleepy during the afternoon as Rina traipsed through its empty streets. Most of the workers were resting or only beginning to prepare for the night, sweeping the streets or cleaning windows or repairing property damage from anyone that got too rowdy.

The wall she'd flung Mord through had been fixed good as new, although the handholds she'd punched into the perimeter wall were still gaping there for people to tease her over.

It was all so embarrassing. They all knew the pressure Lady Ishtar was under, the way she'd rant and rave about Lady Freya, how they needed to be stronger to overthrow her. For months hope had been poured into Haruhime. The meek and sheltered renard and her incredibly powerful enchantment. The fact that Aisha had beaten Tammuz under its effects made clear the gulf it could bridge, but ultimately it was just one spell.

Even boosted, Phryne would at best be able to fight evenly with Allen or Hogni. The King remained out of reach.

Hearing the Ogma familia newbies brag so carelessly about a man with a spirit blessing, how could they not get interested? If he could use that blessing to support the familia, instead of sitting on it like that Crozzo guy in the Hephaestus familia, it might give them a chance when the inevitable battle with the Freya familia occurred.

They hadn't even needed to discuss it, they all knew what was at stake. Seduce the guy, show him a good time so he wouldn't want to leave, and they'd have another desperately needed ace. Except he obviously saw through their transparent interest and immediately bailed. She was the strongest one in the room, the one the others looked to for direction, and she'd desperately tried to force the issue and everything snowballed from there.

Just beating him up and having Lady Ishtar kiss it all better was the best idea she'd had on short notice, and all she'd managed for her efforts was to throw the district into pandemonium. Those rock monsters had been real pains for the low class to fight, and they still had a few of the rocks left, recovered from the site, waiting to be transformed into nasty little berserkers if struck against a hard surface.

They were pathetic, barely controllable, and not nearly interesting enough for Lady Ishtar to cut her any slack when she'd gone before her to explain after waking up from taking a long chant spell to the face. She was lucky the whole debacle with everyone fighting over the camera Ichiban had dropped was enough to distract the goddess from continuing to tear her down. In fact that simple object had brightened everyone's days afterwards, even Lady Ishtar smiling more often as she posed for pictures and admired the ones her girls had put up all around the district.

They had to put Phryne's pictures in out of the way spots so as not to disturb their patrons, of course.

Fortunately Rina never saw any sign of their captain whether in reality or photograph as she made her way up to visit her goddess in her tower, Lady Ishtar lounging beautifully across a sofa while one of the berbera fanned her and a pretty young boy fed her grapes.

"Lady Ishtar, I've returned from the Dungeon," she approached and sank to her knees in deference. "A lot has happened."

She didn't even know where to begin, but it all came out regardless. Under the goddess's relaxed pose and contrastingly intense gaze Rina spilled her guts, detailing every confusing detail of her most recent expedition with Ichiban and Naaza.

A golden wine goblet impacted her face and bounced off with a clatter over the floor tiles, alcohol pouring into her hair and down her features. She didn't flinch.

"Idiot girl!" Lady Ishtar raged, on her feet now. "What made you think telling anyone of our dealings with Ikelos was a good idea? Now the Guild expects me to send a force to Eluria all over some talking monsters?" Her divine bosom heaved, and she seethed in fury, calculating something behind a beautiful visage that was all twisted up with her anger.

She let out an exhale and things smoothed out. "No. I can work with this. It might even save me some trouble elsewhere, it's clear I can't rely on others… except you, it seems. My stupid little Rina, blessed to have met an even stupider man willing to trust you." She laughed, and after a second everyone in the room laughed with her, Rina chuckling and giving her goddess a hopeful look.

"Come here little Rina. You've had an adventure," she beckoned sweetly, and Rina approached, obediently turning her back, shivering at the feeling of divine ichor on her skin after Lady Ishtar pricked her finger on a needle dutifully provided. The radiance of her falna glowed from her back, and her goddess read from her soul the truth of her journey and her adventure. Lady Ishtar made a pleased sound, and then there was the sensation of parchment pressing onto her back.

Divine arms enfolded her in a loving embrace, the parchment held in front of her so she could see the new numbers as her goddess whispered a congratulation in her ear that made her moan.

Level: 3 → 4
Strength: B799 → I0
Endurance: B792 → I0
Dexterity: C652 → I0
Agility: D533 → I0
Magic: I012 → I0
Abnormal Resistance (H), Fist Strike (I)
Eight Sealed Gates
Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, Scourge, Drain, Osmose, Flare, Stun, Death, Berserk, Haste, Aura, Cure, Life, Mini, Teleport
Available Development Abilities: Crush, Diving, Magic Resistance

---

Level: 2 → 3
Strength: G220 → I0
Endurance: G206 → I0
Dexterity: F312 → I0
Agility: D414 → I0
Magic: G203 → I0
Mixing (I), Mage (I)
Eight Sealed Gates
Darbh Daol
Stop, Confuse, Curse, Osmose, Cure, Life, Basuna, Esuna, Barrier, Protect, Shell, Dispel, Silence, Slow, Holy, Teleport

"Congratulations Naaza, you're level three now," Lord Miach said warmly as he finalised her level up with the selection of her development ability. In the bigger familias someone in Naaza's position would probably have remained at level two for longer, to build up their core abilities further before advancing.

But for her, the addition of a new development ability and the raw increase in power that came from immediately ranking up were too useful to delay. It would let her keep up with Ichiban and everyone else for a little bit longer, and would improve her ability to make potions that supported her and Lord Miach after she stopped going into the Dungeon. As a second class adventurer she was basically set for life now. She was the pharmacological equivalent of the Hephaestus familia's high smiths who achieved level three for the Blacksmith and Metalworking development abilities and then stopped adventuring to pursue their craft full-time.

"Thank you, Lord Miach," she pulled her sweater back on and turned, a small smile stuck on her face as she basked in the feeling of having become so much more.

He smiled back at her, his handsome face open and honest. "Still, it's hard to believe. You only started going back to the Dungeon a few days ago, and now you've fought a first rank adventurer and an irregular monster rex," and the proof of that was sitting on the counter, the heart of the Black Amphisbaena, bubbling with potential to her now even further refined senses. "I'm proud of you, Naaza."

Dammit Lord Miach, how's a girl supposed to react when you give her that kind of smile?

Unfortunately the happy moment was interrupted by the jingle of the door, and even worse it wasn't a customer, in fact it was the opposite.

"Please excuse me," Airmid Teasanare said in her sweet demure voice as she let herself in, as if she could hide what she was really here for. Taking their hard-earned money and trying to seduce Lord Miach!

She turned to face the Dian Cecht familia poster girl and crossed her arms, leaning back just a bit to properly look down her nose at her. "Teasanare. Hmph. Lucky for you, we've got your blood money," she fanned out the thirty five million valis she'd brought home and the fact she was able to do so so dextrously thanks to the quality of her prosthetic arm only slightly dampened her pleasure at seeing how Teasanare's eyes widened.

"Oh my! What kind of drop item is that?"

She wasn't even looking at the money! She was already gravitating right towards the Black Amphisbaena's heart, staring at it with wonder.

Still, that made for a good story too, so Naaza was happy to tell Teasanare all about the terrible Black Amphisbaena she'd fought down in the Dungeon, her rival hanging off of every word while Lord Miach looked on happily, surely enjoying such a tale of excitement and proof that his familia was taking part in big events.

"What could you make from this?" Teasanare asked at the end of the story, peering at it in a way that made Naaza wonder what she was seeing with the aid of her Mystery development ability. "The Amphisbaena's dragon liver that the regular version drops is a powerful component for making elixirs, but the heart is a much more fundamental organ…"

"And it's blue and red, just like the Amphisbaena's two heads. Fire and magic negation qualities can surely be distilled from it," Naaza made her own observation. "But this wasn't just the Amphisbaena, it was an irregular version that could regenerate from almost anything. That tells me the potential for healing qualities is going to be immense. I was planning to render some ventricle and vein flesh together and steep it with blue papillo powder to bring out the healing qualities," she picked up the heart and took it with her back to the work-room at the rear of the shop.

Teasanare followed, walking right through to the back of the shop with her as if she owned the place. The absolute shamelessness of the woman. "Mermaid blood might work better for binding it, and neutralising the fire aspect," she suggested in the way only someone utterly unconstrained by budget would.

But then, this was a completely one of a kind drop. Once she used it up, there would probably never be another. Not unless a god went down to the lower floors and provoked the Dungeon, a now clearly suicidal act.

"You might be right," she grudgingly admitted. "I'm of two minds about the magic negation quality. Reinforcing it with crushed obsidian might make for a potion that can heal even cursed wounds. On the other hand countering it with magic stone resin might further augment the healing to the same kind of supernatural regeneration the Black Amphisbaena displayed."

"There's enough to make both, but… I think the resin would be best for the first dose," Teasanare said, her eyes glancing towards Naaza's fake arm in a way she might have missed if she was still level two. "After all, we don't have any cursed wounds around to test on."

She put up with her rival's presence. Whatever Teasanare's other many flaws were, she knew medicine. She'd rather have been using Lord Miach as her sounding board, but someone had to watch the front of the shop while she and Teasanare worked back here, the other pharmacist even running out back to her own familia to come back with some ingredients they didn't have to hand here at the Blue Pharmacy.

It was hours later when they finished. The sun having gone down, the shop closed, and the vial of luminous purple liquid had cooled enough to stop bubbling. Naaza had her sweater partially off, exposing the ugly stump of her ruined arm to scrutiny in a way that made her stomach turn. Lord Miach smiled encouragingly, Airmid held onto the exquisitely crafted prosthetic that had served in stead of flesh and bone for over a year now, her eyes glittering as she watched. Naaza grit her teeth, downed the experimental potion, and felt fire flood her veins.

---

Rose watched as Riveria took in the floor of Babel that had been given over to her new project. It had been a gallery of sorts, hosting portraits and statues of Orario's heroes through the ages. They'd had to be relocated, but she liked to think they'd approve of it being for a worthy cause.

Mostly though she was trying to see if Riveria was jealous. The woman had made her name for her unique talent of chant connection, extending her three spells to nine. A number that had made her famous the world over. A number that Rose now almost doubled with her own roster of spells.

It's not as if she thought her spells were better. She'd seen what Nine Hells was capable of, perhaps along with most of the city when she'd shown off at the Colosseum. Her spells were minor things in comparison, and ones that Riveria along with anyone else in Orario who wished would soon match. But for this moment, there were only three others who matched Rose's claims to be some kind of legendary arch-wizard.

Maybe four if Mr. Kasuga was sharing his scrolls with that tamed… no, that intelligent monster he'd brought back from his last Dungeon trip.

It was an unreal level of progress. Down to the twenty fifth floor in a week. She'd heard Eina fretting over one of her new adventurers reaching the fifth floor in two. That would have been concerning under most circumstances, but Mr. Kasuga was just bringing so much strangeness with him it was hard not to feel jaded. It wasn't even possible to write him off as a freakish anomaly, not when he was sharing all these gifts to raise up every other adventurer as well. Was this what it was like when the gods first came down? Mr. Kasuga didn't feel like a deity, but he clearly couldn't be human, not with all the strangeness that surrounded him.

Belatedly she realised Riveria had said something and she chided herself for getting lost in her own head. "My apologies, my mind was elsewhere, what was that Riveria?" She had been advising her for years, and it at least allowed for some laxness and informality. Riveria had been adventuring longer than Rose had been working for the Guild, she was a constant unlike the many adventurers she saw go to their deaths in the Dungeon.

Riveria at least gave her an understanding smile as she repeated herself, "I was saying it's an elegant setup, although I'm concerned there's not much room to move if a fight does break out."

It was a valid concern, although in truth Rose was more worried about throughput. There was no way to keep those grimoires safe and allow for the same kind of flow they'd managed at the Colosseum. She'd already asked for a second elevator shaft to be added for direct access coming and going, but building that was a lot more work than the adjustments they'd made to the room itself.

The circular room was lined with two levels of booths each numbered and set to contain a scroll within a glass case with anti-tampering alarms. Unlike a grimoire you didn't have to turn the pages, you just had to read a fairly brief amount of text, and so they could be held more securely to prevent anyone switching out for a fake and walking out the door.

A lower level had a directory listing the scrolls and describing the effect of each spell, so someone coming up here would already have a list of which ones they wished to peruse which they could do so and then leave, ensuring a minimum of loitering.

"True, although the limited space limits the number of participants in a fight as well," Rose pointed out the other side of that coin. "Having the guards be close combat specialists would be ideal though."

Because the greater ability of adventurers with chakra and these spells would see everyone able to make deeper dives into the Dungeon – to say nothing of the reduction in logistics Teleport offered, the Guild had offered to loosen the expeditionary requirements levied on any familia willing to provide first class adventurers as guards for the repository. The Freya familia, with its famously dysfunctional attempts at collaborating for proper expeditions, had naturally leapt on it despite simple guard duty normally being beneath such elites.

Dvalin Gulliver was here as well, already still as a statue and standing by the elevator, while a half dozen Guild employees like Rose were on station to add extra eyes on things and provide advice if needed to speed along visitors. Of course they'd all be getting first pick of the spells themselves before they opened things up properly, just another perk of the job.

Haste provided a pleasant boon for speeding up all kinds of office drudgery, and Warp was mostly a novelty but still fun for instantly getting out of the basement or down from the upper floors. Handy if you were stuck carting around a load of files. And Cure was a luxurious balm for all sorts of minor aches you'd never want to spend the money on a potion for but still absolutely felt the lack of after applying some magic.

She was looking forward to seeing the changes as Orario adapted to such widespread and common magic. Instead of spells being the unique preserve of heroes, there would be a standard set that people could share tips and tricks for. She was less looking forward to when Altena or somewhere sent some first class adventurer to come 'liberate' these scrolls. Just because Orario had more than anywhere else, it didn't mean they were absent in the rest of the world.

Would Riveria and Dvalin be able to beat some amazon terror from the gladiatorial pits of Telskyura? Perhaps it was just local pride and the self-centredness of those who lived above the Dungeon considered the centre of the world, but she thought they probably would.

The elevator dinged and slid open, and with a scenic flutter of cherry blossoms in his wake, (what?) Ichiban Kasuga stepped out carrying his sack full of world-changing magic scrolls.

"Hey Rose," he greeted her with a smile on a his face that looked pleasantly mature without being ruined, as adventurers she usually met either skewed overly youthful or thoroughly battered, and walked over to her. "Got all the scrolls here. And listen, I had an idea for keeping them protected. You get some trained guard dogs, right? And I can turn them into like, little dragons."

Of course. Why didn't she think of that?

---

Whooosh!

The unworked stone walls of the Dungeon that surrounded them changed from green to blue, the Warp spell having taken them from the fifth floor to the fourth floor. Right by the same stairs they'd taken down, if Finn didn't miss his guess.

Raul looked delighted. The High Novice as he was nicknamed, for reaching level four without ever acquiring either a skill nor a spell. Now he had both, and the fact the skill was shared with almost every adventurer in Orario, and a selection of those same spells were steadily being distributed on a similar level surely didn't dampen his pleasure at now having some special abilities.

"Fire!" Elfy let loose on a dungeon lizard crawling along the ceiling, her magic circle only briefly flaring red around her feet to go with the effectively chantless spell she released, flames spewing from her staff as soon as she finished saying the one syllable word.

The monster was atomised, though Elfy looked irritated. "It's quicker but not as powerful. Does that matter if I can cast this three times before I'd cast Surtr Grasp?" she wondered aloud.

"Sometimes a single strong blow is what you need to pierce a potent barrier," Finn pointed out. "Come on, lets hurry down so we can find more to practice on and make ourselves some money too. Don't bother with the small fry." The last expedition hadn't been the success they needed, and with the amount of weapon repairs needed after dealing with those acid spewing virgas the familia was barely scraping by to make itself ready for the assault on Knossos.

The Warp spell did wonders for peace of mind though. Gareth might be the only one who could replicate what Ottar had done when the floor had collapsed on him, but now they had a way to escape as soon as they heard the ceiling shifting. And if that notebook Lord Ikelos had mentioned could be recovered, they'd be able to move far more efficiently through the artificial Dungeon's maze-like layout.

Right now they were taking some time to practice the new magic while earning a little extra money. With Teleport to simplify the return trip, they could make it as far as the Water City and still be able to sleep in their own beds tonight. It would make planning their next expedition a great deal simpler. He wanted to see if he could examine the place where the Black Amphisbaena was spawned.

The Amphisbaena was a regular fixture for the Loki familia to fight, and Finn had refined their tactics against it over the years to the point it was almost rote. Even with the environmental advantage it enjoyed in the water they hadn't lost anyone fighting it in nearly three years, and those battles served well in raising up the levels of the familia's second string like Raul and Elfy.

All the same, he still remembered the first time he'd fought it. That a group of intelligent monsters and a man without a god's blessing was able to beat an irregular variant with only a level three amazon and a level two that was typically seen as a civilian meant that either these xenos were startlingly powerful, or Ichiban Kasuga was in a league of his own.

The ability to cast so many spells was definitely a game-changer. He'd heard from Shakti about him using Hedin's and then Airmid's spells against the Evilus monsters, proving all that showing off at the Colosseum wasn't for nothing. They'd worked out a similar program of their own for advancing Lefiya's development and taking advantage of Elf Ring, and even just adding the magic of the Loki familia's elves to her arsenal made Lefiya an anchor far beyond what her level would suggest.

An anchor that had gotten far more potent as he'd made sure she had a good view at the Colosseum when everyone else was showing off her spells for Ichiban. Though she'd hidden herself in her room for a full day after experimenting with Hogni's spell. Lefiya's admiration for their Sword Princess was well known, but no one had expected her to come on that strongly. Loki had declared it a masterful kabedon and the goddess's approval had filled Lefiya with shame. At least Ais herself didn't seem bothered, but it was sometimes hard to tell what exactly she was thinking.

Except when it came to talking monsters. She'd been very clear in her unwillingness to accept that a monster could be friendly, even after Loki had dragged her out on a 'date' for Monster Feria. Loki had held her hand to keep her from jumping into the Colosseum, and then had cried afterwards about how Ais's grip was too tight. Finn was just glad it had been Bete that had been the first of them to see Pearl, and wasn't it a strange day when he was a benchmark for restraint?

They'd all seen Pearl on their way into the Dungeon today. Two thirds dragon, one sixth plant, and one sixth woman. His thumb itched when he thought about fighting her, she had a presence similar to the monster they'd cut short their expedition after fighting, though it was as much due to the destruction of so many weapons from the virgas that surrounded it. Yet all she was doing was singing, a rather lovely song at that.

It was startling and a bit frightening to see so many people carelessly crowding around. Where giant stone claws could trample them underfoot, where a sweep of that huge tail could cut a murderous swathe through a careless crowd. But all the same her body stayed so immobile that even the ever-present pigeons that flocked around Babel felt brave enough to perch on her spine, while the human part rising from the dragon's neck like the top of a very strange lamia or mermaid had entertained everyone with song.

They'd left her to it and simply gone up to gain those new spells before descending into the Dungeon. He didn't doubt she'd be with Ichiban when they attacked Knossos. It would certainly be an experience to fight alongside something like that.

---

Breakfast had livened up ever since Orin had joined their familia. Not that Bell minded eating reheated jagamarukun, they were delicious, but Orin's parents apparently ran a tofu shop and they provided their son with plenty of care packages to help ingratiate himself with his new familia. He also did shopping of his own while Lady Hestia ran the jagamarukun stall and Bell went down into the Dungeon, so they even had some nice greens to go with it.

A nutritious breakfast would surely help him grow stronger in the Dungeon, so he was all for it!

He was less for Orin sitting him down to talk all about what he could expect today as he descended to the seventh floor. It's not that Bell looked down on having such information at hand, but he got all that from Miss Eina at the Guild. This was like having an Eina at home!

But Lady Hestia was watching with a mixture of sternness and smugness as her two children collaborated, working out his route and suggesting tactics for the kinds of encounters he'd run into. Of course tactics would be a bit flexible to account for the magic he'd hopefully be able to pick up before going down – he stayed up late reading through the pamphlet Eina had given him yesterday listing the details of all the spells that the Guild was making available through the same man who'd already given everyone that new eight gates skill.

Who Bell had already met a couple times at the Blue Pharmacy, and who had actually recommended Lady Hestia to Orin. It was funny how even in a huge city like Orario these little meetings could occur.

Like being saved from a minotaur by the Sword Princess.

One thing he liked about Orin was that he understood what Bell meant when he started talking about Ais Wallenstein. Lady Hestia always came off like she disapproved for some reason, but when Orin started talking about Riveria Ljos Alf and it was clear…

Clear that they were a pair of hopeless fanboys who'd never get close to their dreams as things were.

And that's why Bell left their cosy little church with a determined step, ready to make his mark on the Dungeon, make himself stronger, and become the kind of man that could stand alongside the woman he admired.

He passed by the Hostess of Fertility as he usually did along the road, finding Ryuu sweeping out front. "Good morning, Miss Ryuu!" he called out.

"Good morning, Mr. Cranel," she greeted him gently, always seeming so refined and elegant even in her humble waitress uniform. That's an elf for you! "If you could wait a moment, Syr wished to see you this morning, I will get her for you."

Of course he waited. Syr was always so nice as well, he wasn't in such a rush that he'd blow off someone who wanted to chat in the morning. And a moment later Ryuu emerged with her human friend, the older girl smiling at him with a flushed face as they exchanged greetings and she held out a wrapped box for him.

"I made lunch for you. Please be careful in the Dungeon today. I heard about all these new spells everyone's learning and I think things are going to be extra chaotic," she fretted as Bell gratefully accepted her lunch.

Despite the quality of cuisine her workplace offered, Syr's home-made offerings failed to live up to that standard. But Bell took what she offered with a smile, never about to disappoint a girl who'd gone out of her way for him. "I will, Miss Syr, and thank you," he tucked the lunch into his bag, "I'll come by tonight and tell you all about it!" he promised, knowing well their deal.

"You'd better!" she winked at him and waved him off, Ryuu giving a more cordial farewell as Bell jogged the rest of the way to Babel where he joined the line of adventurers stretching out of the tower waiting for a chance to learn those new spells, crowd far more immobile than the one that usually flowed right into the Dungeon which could obviously admit down its big spiral staircase.

It meant he could listen to the talking monster, or rather the singing monster who'd taken a spot in the plaza to entertain everyone. He really liked her song about levelling up, that's what he wanted to do! Level up, become the best that he could be, and have Miss Ais beam right at him!

It took nearly two hours before he actually got let into the room with the re-usable grimoires. He'd passed the time circulating chakra through his legs to help keep them from turning numb, and it seemed like it was good practice, he'd already gotten his magic statistic up to H rank even before picking up any spells! He hoped that meant he'd be good with the ones he chose.

Stepping off the elevator with five other adventurers, he had to quickly move out of the way as the last ones in went to take it down. The room was arranged in a circle with booths containing the grimoires, labelled and ready to be read. Along with the familiar Guild uniforms he saw Anna Lernil from the Ganesha familia and Tione Hiryute from the Loki familia keeping an eye on things… he almost wished Ais was here, but it was for the best he didn't see her right now. He wanted to be able to impress her when he did.

Moving quickly, as he could already feel the impatient eyes of Guild employees silently bidding him to hurry up, he moved towards his first spell. On a stone plinth with a glass box encasing it rested a scroll of parchment turned up to allow him to easily read the words written there.

Fire.

Inflicts fire elemental damage to a single target. Continuous use improves accuracy and damage, up to sixteen times. The spell can be cast on multiple targets at a power two levels below your maximum. Sixteen spells from these scrolls can be stored, but existing ones can be forgotten to make room for others. A forgotten spell will not have its levels retained if you relearn it later.

It was so blunt and to the point. It didn't exactly feel mystical or special, but perhaps that was the point if everyone was going to be using it. This wasn't a personalised expression of inner nature or heroism, this was a spell for the masses. But as soon as he finished reading, he felt the sure knowledge in his mind that he could cast it.

Of course he didn't. He didn't want to think about what those stern Guild employees would say, far less what the two first rank adventurers would do. He just smiled and stepped back, picking out his next spell and moving on.

Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, Osmose, Warp, Berserk, Haste, Aura, Cure, Life, Basuna, Esuna, Barrier, Blink, Slow, Holy.

He now had so many spells it would be a problem just trying to remember them all! But there were ones to directly attack monsters, ones that made himself more stronger and more agile for fighting normally, and ones he could use to heal anyone else that was in trouble. It felt like a good selection he could use, and if it felt like something wasn't working out he could always come back here and change his selection around.

With a spring in his step he took the elevator back down, returning to the ground floor and entering the Dungeon directly.

The goblins and kobolds weren't even a challenge for him in groups now. He didn't need chakra or magic to defeat them, but that didn't stop him from experimenting. "Fire!" he called out, delighted as a gush of flame erupted from his hand and immolated a snarling kobold, before he slashed through the neck of its friend with his knife, jumping back and casting, "Thunder!" to send the third twitching and spasming before it simply evaporated.

This was incredible! Collecting the magic stones he hurried along down his usual route to reach the next floor down, passing other adventurers that were similarly playing with their new spells. He even saw one guy proudly holding aloft the fabled egg that every adventurer stuck on the first floor dreamed of finding, the drop item of a speedy jack bird.

"I used the haste spell pumped chakra into my legs and caught right up with it! Stupid thing didn't even realise!" he grinned, clearly basking in the jealous and admiring looks he got from other adventurers, Bell not ashamed to admit he was among them.

Down he went though, seeking greater challenges. And soon he was on the seventh floor. The domain of war shadows and killer ants. Rookie killers as they were known. Yet even by himself, Bell was able to take on groups of such monsters, his natural speed and strength able to overcome them even before he used chakra and magic. He made sure to use Osmose whenever he had a single monster to deal with, Orin's recommendation for keeping his mind high, and it seemed to work. He was doing great, he could do this all day.

He could definitely go down to the eighth floor at this pace. There were new monsters down there, but even if they hadn't prepared specifically for it today he'd heard plenty about the upgraded kobolds and goblins, so he felt confident enough to go down there, a confidence that was soon justified as he found himself battling and overcoming these stronger monsters without even needing to rely on his Cure spell.

It was as he finished blasting away a needle rabbit with a Fire spell that was definitely looking more impressive than it had at the start of the day that he felt eyes on him. Looking over he saw some of Orario's most famous adventurers. Nine Hells. Thousand Elf. Sword Princess.

He felt their gazes and all he could remember was that moment when he thought he was about to die and a vision of grace and beauty cut apart his impending death as if she were sweeping a cobweb from the ceiling. Another unpleasant memory too, of being called a tomato boy. Worthless. Weak. Crying.

He didn't want Ais to see him like this, he wasn't ready. Instinct took over and he bolted, not even collecting the magic stone left by his last kill.

Whumpf!

He wasn't fast enough. She'd followed him and he found himself shoved against the wall, her hand on the rock beside his head. Her body was right up against his and as her golden eyes pierced into his own he felt something awakening in him.

Grandpa, you never said the Dungeon would be like this!

Like a Dungeon Crawler (Yakuza/Danmachi, Celestial Grimoire)

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