Manasight has reached level 9!

  Manasight has reached level 10!

  Mansight has reached Tier II.

  +10 Perception.

  …

  Manasight has reached level 11!

  Mana Channeling has reached level 11!

  Mana channeling has reached level 12!

  …

  Mana Channeling has reached level 17!

  Mana Manipulation has reached level 6!

  …

  Mana Manipulation has reached level 10!

  Mana Manipulation has reached Tier II.

  +10 Acuity.

  …

  Due to your insight, Perception has increased by 15.

  Due to your finesse, Acuity has increased by 15.

  You have gained the Rank D skill: Ritual Stabilization!

  Ritual Stabilization has been added to your general skills.

  …

  You have advanced to Rank E.

  Zoe released her hold on the bottled up system notifications, letting them all wash over her in one continuous stream. She was surprised by the scale of the gains—her assumption was that everything until the last message was from her efforts during the ritual, not from any perk of the advancement itself.

  “Correct,” Lilith confirmed. It was the first that the disembodied demon had spoken since beginning the advancement. While Zoe hadn’t given it any thought at the time, Lilith’s total silence surprised her in retrospect.

  As she continued to regain her normal awareness, Zoe remembered Sasha was there as well. It was the other woman who spoke first. “I’m assuming it worked?”

  Zoe nodded, and her housemate relaxed her posture. “That’s good. I thought so from the expression on your face. I’ve only done it myself once, but it was scary enough then.”

  Sasha’s words gave Zoe pause. The other woman didn’t know much about her abilities, and Zoe recalled her assuming Zoe was a couple ranks higher than she really was. Sasha herself was Rank E, making them even now. That’s funny. It’s my first time and I basically did nothing but catch up to her, but she must be imagining I’m the more experienced one.

  Zoe would feel more pride at that if her wolf-eared friend understood more of her full capabilities. As it were, Sasha had mostly seen Zoe use skills casually. The exception was their first meeting, and Zoe in a sense cheated there with some unique circumstances and only seeing the aftermath of her and Lodtvik.

  On that note, I still wonder what was the deal with that guy. He acted like he might stick around the general area and seek me out, which could be interesting. There’s also those elixirs of soul sight I got from completing his portion of the prison quest.

  Also, it’s cute that Sasha was concerned for me.

  And on both of those topics, Zoe still had to play around with one of the other items—the so-called cloak of the hunter forest animal. Aside from having a ridiculous, snarky name, the cloak was beautiful and delightfully soft. It also had some intriguing magic properties and a special living item mechanic that Zoe had yet to explore.

  But she was getting ahead of herself there. The advancement was more than just a letter at the top of her status—it was time to see what the system had in store for her as a reward for breaking through.

  A heavy knock at the front door cut through her plans just as Zoe shifted her position in preparation to stand. She remained frozen through the second and third knocks, only sharing a silent glance with Sasha. Glancing at the door, the other girl mouthed something. Zoe thought it was “I’ll go see who it is.”

  Sure enough, Sasha went to go see who it was. That was a smart decision, given that Zoe was crouched in the center of a pentagram of blood. She also changed her appearance back to that of ‘Olivia’ as a precaution.

  Lesser Disguise!

  And not to soon, because at that moment Sasha cracked open the door. Whoever was on the other side didn’t wait for her to speak before shoving the Lycan aside. Zoe realized her critical, terrible, deadly blunder an instant before the uninvited guest revealed himself.

  I was supposed to be at the clinic to heal that Inquisitor.

  The Inquisitor—Marceus—collapsed against the archway between the entrance and the living areal. His rude entry and stumbling gait made a lot more sense when Zoe saw the state of his health. Or, more accurately, the lack of it.

  Coming up behind him and decorated with spots of his blood as well was Millie, of all people. Zoe didn’t understand that part. What is she doing here?

  The nature of Millie’s involvement in the situation was a distant second concern, however. Zoe locked eyes with a stunned Marceus. The Inquisitor’s eyes flicked down to the blood-infused ritual star, around the rest of the living area, back to the pentagram, and then back up to Zoe’s eyes. “The fuck is going on here?”

  Zoe’s mind scrambled for a conceivable explanation. She didn’t think the Inquisitor was stupid. His tone may be neutral, but Zoe had full confidence that he was interested in seeing how she’d react—and if she didn’t do something soon, he was going to make a move of his own.

  Acting!

  Persuasion!

  “I, uh…” Even with supernatural assistance in the form of system-granted skills, Zoe struggled to formulate a coherent excuse in real time. “So Ms. Stella—you know the shopkeeper next to me—showed up which I didn’t think was weird but then she attacked me and started setting up some kind of ritual and—fucking heavens thank you so much for showing up I don’t know what would have…”

  Zoe was hyperventilating now. She was also running out of breath from the non-stop run-on sentence. “She made a run for it when you knocked, I think she went back that way to go out the back entrance. I think she might actually be some kind of demon!”

  It was totally, completely, and wholly unbelievable. Zoe had a hard time even taking herself seriously. It was natural, then, that the Inquisitor’s eyes narrowed and he didn’t immediately break into a sprint after the supposed escaping demon.

  However, Zoe had just learned something important about Stella, and—wait a moment—wouldn’t the shopkeeper being an undercover demon herself explain the Inquistor’s bewildering interest in teaming up with Zoe to start a stakeout in her clinic? The two events complemented each other too perfectly to be anything but cause and effect.

  Zoe’s story might be ridiculous—but it also confirmed a secret Marceus himself no doubt suspected. It was enough to make him hesitate—and also to make him cautiously limp back into the main hallway and try to get a proper look at the back door.

  Zoe dropped her disguise, braced her talons against the hardwood floor, and lunged.

  Hellfire Blast!

  Blood Whip!

  Rending Touch!

  Cloak of Scorn!

  Surgeon’s Eye!

  Blood Siphon!

  She was also still holding the book of demonic advancement techniques, so she chucked it at the Inquisitor for good measure. Some might call it overkill. Zoe hoped it would be enough.

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  The blast of hellfire struck the surprised Inquisitor at the same time as Zoe’s conjured blood whip. The effect of rending touch activated an instant later, the devastating magic racing down the length of the whip and unleashing itself into her target. That wasn’t what Zoe meant to do, but she wasn’t complaining. Her outstretched claws followed up last a second or so later.

  She missed.

  A sudden inferno engulfed the hallway, and it was blinding yellow-orange, not crimson. It took Zoe a second to understand what happened. During that time, the chilling vortex of cloak of scorn shielded her for a few precious moments. She then realized it was the fire Marceus had used against the bear—which meant the bastard Inquisitor was still alive. Taking a page from how the United States armed forces handled burning Kuwaiti oil wells, Zoe fought fire with fire.

  Hellfire Eruption!

  The power of Zoe’s own destructive magic blew back the offending flames, consuming the lesser magic before it could do more than singe Zoe’s skin and hair. You know, I didn’t expect that to actually work.

  Zoe wasn’t going to complain, though. The fight wasn’t over until it was over.

  “Yes, that’s how fights work,” was the unhelpful and poorly timed commentary from Zoe’s personal peanut gallery. Shut up, Lilith!

  Emerging from through a fiery rift in the molten ash that had one been a quaint bookshelf and receiving hall, Zoe advanced like a vengeful warrior angel. Demon might be the factually appropriate description, but in this case it lacked the same level of stylistic flair.

  Marceus held his own ground. His armor was charred and fractured, one arm hung limply at a disturbing angle, and that alone would be understanding how bad he looked. The Inquisitor held his ground, staring down Zoe with unconcealed disgust. The tough guy act slipped when his body shuddered and he coughed up blood.

  Zoe couldn’t help but be impressed. He literally coughed up blood. I didn’t think that was something that happened in real fights, except against tuberculosis patients.

  Her ongoing use of blood siphon caught the fluid before it could ruin her floor even more. The effect of his own coughed-up blood floating over to join a growing spiral disk around her made Zoe feel truly menacing.

  And while Zoe still didn’t know what rank Marceus was, it was clear he’d already lost. That might not have been the case under less favorable circumstances. Zoe had taken the Inquisitor by surprise, and she’d done so after he had already wrestled with an enormous bear and nearly bled himself out limping across town. The bigger problem was going to be handling then aftermath.

  “I’m guessing you think you’ve won.” The Inquisitor spat out his words. Literally spat them. He was having difficulty speaking without spraying flecks of blood and mucus.

  Zoe took a few more steps but kept her distance. She didn’t want to give him the advantage of proximity for a last stand. Raising her hand to act like she had a skill at the ready—which she did—she cocked her head. “You’re right that I think I’ve won—because I have.”

  The Inquisitor barked a painful laugh. Zoe narrowed her eyes. There was no doubt he had one card left to play, and she had no way to anticipate how much of a threat it posed. The reason she didn’t just blast him with hellfire again was so she could hear his final, self-righteous speech. She hoped he would give something away that would be useful later.

  “I bet you’re hoping—ugh—waiting because I might say something important before I make my last move.” Marceus flashed a bloody grin. “Sadly, I just needed more time for my skill to build up.”

  The Inquisitor exploded.

  A mixture of competing emotions swirled in Zoe’s mind as the blast of the Inquisitor’s self-immolation threw her backwards through the air. Shame at falling for the simple trick, anger for the ongoing property damage, but most of all, simple shock at the casual audacity of it.

  Zoe expected a suicidal attack, but something was different about tricking her into wasting her time so he could blow himself up and rain chunks of himself everywhere. Perhaps using his last words as a punchline and reveal was what made it so striking.

  By this point, the entire house was up in flames. On top of the fight and the subsequent explosion, it left Zoe in fairly bad shape. The upside was that her injuries were mostly burns and blunt trauma, and she still had more than enough mana to work with.

  Mending Touch!

  The blood cost of Zoe’s more potent healing skill was nothing to scoff at, but it was a lot more manageable in these conditions than when she was torn up and bleeding out. Also, the skill had grown dramatically more efficient since she accidentally sacrificed half her blood while bleeding out beside a sacrificial cult altar.

  Cloak of Scorn!

  Zoe also made sure to bring back another layer of protection she’d used before during the fight. As they said, prevention was the best cure.

  It took longer than Zoe would like for her to find her way out of the burning building. She’d wondered before why people couldn’t just make a quick run through the flames to escape house fires. She felt like she understood why that didn’t work, now. She would be dead without her skills and the passive enhancements she’d accumulated from the system.

  Speaking of which—fuck. It was at this moment Zoe realized she’d lost track of Sasha and Millie.

  Losing her house to that bastard was bad enough. Taking away her people as well would be enough to throw Zoe into a fit of animalistic rage. Different people experienced grief in different ways. For Zoe, that was skipping any kind of grief at all in favor of waging total warfare.

  “Zoe!”

  Oh thank the heavens. Zoe whipped around upon hearing Sasha’s voice. Her favorite wolf-person was staggering around the corner of the garden, lugging Millie in a princess carry. Zoe realized she had ended up exiting through the back door. The other two must have escaped through the front before things deteriorated too much.

  That being said, Sasha didn’t look great, and Millie looked worse. Zoe still had no idea what the other girl was doing here They hadn’t interacted much since arriving in Blossomfell together—but that could come later. Zoe would make sure she stayed alive first. She would only let Millie die on her terms.

  “I’m coming!” They converged at a spot in the middle. “Let’s get some more distance. I don’t like the idea of flaming rubble collapsing on me.”

  They left through the back gate. Along the way, Zoe took responsibility for carrying Millie. Not only was Zoe in better shape than Sasha, carrying the other girl herself meant she could go ahead and start healing.

  Surgeon’s Eye!

  To Zoe’s surprise, the most serious injuries weren’t from the fire but broken bones and other blunt trauma. It looked like she got hit with something heavy at some point, or maybe several somethings.

  Also surprising was the vivid detail the skill gave Zoe. For the most part, the information skill worked as she expected—it was just so much more. It was a quantitative difference profound enough to almost feel qualitative. Is this because I’m now Rank E? Zoe hadn’t been paying detailed attention to all the skills she’d used during her showdown with the Inquisitor, so she might need to do some experimentation.

  Or maybe she didn’t, because Lilith swooped in to save her from ignorance. “Yep, you guessed it. Well, technically speaking, advancing to a higher rank doesn’t actually improve your skills. What it actually does is get you closer to using the full capability of anything that was a higher rank than you were before. For us, that’s almost everything, since we have like—what, two skills that weren’t Rank E or higher?”

  Zoe nearly dropped Millie when Lilith’s words sunk in. She rectified the situation by moving from diagnosis to actual treatment.

  Rejuvenate!

  Mending Touch!

  “Well would you look at that.” Rejuvenate was a weaker, Rank F skill, and using it didn’t feel any different than it did just hours earlier. On the contrary, Mending Touch was far more efficient—and Zoe also felt like she had more control over it. Focusing the magic on a specific area or effect wasn’t new, but it responded better than ever. Damn, Lilith is right.

  Zoe pondered the information as she sat down against one of the trees just beyond the town wall. Sasha joined her, watching the bonfire that had been her new home while Zoe finished restoring Millie to a healthy condition.

  Like Lilith said, almost all of my skills are Rank E at minimum. A lot of them are higher. I didn’t really understand why a person’s rank was such a big deal, but this explains it. A giant proportional boost to the majority of your skills is a pretty dramatic total power boost. I know I have stronger abilities at my rank than is normal, but I’m guessing the overall situation is typical.

  “Sort of,” Lilith confirmed, “I’m fairly confident most people have a decent number of skills at a higher rank than themselves—although yes, we take it to a bit of an extreme. But skills aren’t the only think that has individual ranks.”

  Zoe’s brow furrowed as Lilith spoke. Having done all she could for Millie, she moved on to patching up Sasha as needed. What else are you talking about? Aside from skills, you’d have—oh. Zoe’s eyes widened. You also have your two entire classes—a lot of which I remember being Rank C. And if you’re a demon like me, there are also traits.

  Zoe hadn’t explored traits to the same extent she’d explored skills. She had fewer of them, and the ones she did have felt more passive, or like a baseline feature of her body. Others she had yet to comprehend, like the mysterious heart of alchemy.

  And yet, the utility of traits like bloodshaper, arcane antennae, or personal inventory was hard to overstate. If she had to guess, Zoe would wager many of her traits were doing even more for her than she realized.

  And it’s not only the traits—like my classes, my core itself has a high rank associated with it as well.

  Zoe grinned. With her successful trip through the mines, the new insight she’d gained about Stella, ranking up, meeting Millie again, and learning so much about different pieces of the world and the system—maybe her house burning down was a fair trade.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s real cool, but maybe you should think about how to handle the other Inquisitors that are apparently prowling around. I vote we group up with Stella soon, like, now.”

  Zoe blinked. Lilith was right. Marceus had implied that he wasn’t working alone—and the Inquisitor hadn’t exactly been a quiet guest. The fight had to have been loud, and now her property was a flaming beacon. Who knew what the neighbors were doing about it, and if these other Inquisitors knew where Marceus was headed—shit.

  Zoe stood up. “Okay, that was fun and all, but I’ve got to get going. See you later.”

  “Wait!” Sasha called out to her. “What the hell is going on?”

  “People are trying to kill me, that’s what’s happening. Oh, and don’t tell anyone anything—you know, cause there are people trying to kill me.” Zoe turned away.

  “Okay, but uh—where are you going? I won’t tell anyone.”

  Zoe chewed her lip. Could she trust Sasha? Yes. I can. She already knows what I am, and I literally helped her escape whatever she was being imprisoned for. I trust her. “I have a feeling I’ll be leaving Blossomfell soon—but first, I need to make a stop at Loch Alchemy & Enchanting.”