Wizardly Dude

[TEA] (219) 5.5. What a Trip

[TEA] (218) 5.4. Do I Have To?

[EOE] (350) 5.46. Well This Sucks

[PLD] 50. Last-Ditch Effort

[TEA] (217) 5.3. Opal Again

[EOE] (349) 5.45. The Band’s Back Together

[PLD] 49. Picking up the Pieces

[TEA] (216) 5.2. Do You Want to Explode?!

[EOE] (348) 5.44. Meet the Spy

[PLD] 48. Ghost

[EOE] (347) 5.43. Ranker Revelation

[PLD] 47. Run that By Me Again

[TEA] (215) 5.1. Preparation is Key

[EOE] (346) 5.42. Right as Rain

Vin blinked as he took in the nervous pulmon sitting on the edge of his hospital bed. His initial reaction had been shock at her unexpected change in color, but it wasn’t nearly so jarring as it first seemed. Her skin wasn’t the same dark, rich purple as her eyes, which took after the color of her mana. No, the blood flowing under her skin and the flexing of her facial muscles that he’d grown so used to were now hidden under skin that was a soft, lavender color. As he stared, she cleare...

[PLD] 46. Good News. And Bad News.

“Have a good night?” Ember smirked, looking knowingly at Leo as he packed up their tent. Willow and Taylor had gone off to try hunting something fresh for breakfast, and Steel was busy scribbling away at his own map of the colossal plane he’d been working on.

“Yeah,” Leo nodded, trying not to let his face heat up as he immediately recalled the very good night he’d had with Taylor. It turned out that one of the benefits of having a soul rank of 17 he’d never even c...

[TEA] (214) 4.56. The True Hunt Begins

[PLD] 45. What is Love?

The next morning was probably the second most embarrassing morning of Leo’s entire life. When he was younger, one of his friends in town had told him how real men slept in the nude, and naturally, Leo had immediately decided to start doing just that. Right up until he woke up one morning to his father coming in to ask him if he wanted to try training with a new weapon that day, only for Leo to realize he’d accidentally kicked the blankets off of himself during his sleep.

He and his ...

[TEA] (213) 4.55. On the Hunt

[PLD] 44. I Can’t Sleep Under These Conditions!

In fact, their new friends did not care to participate in helping them eat the meat from the dual-wolves. Of course, Leo couldn’t exactly blame them.

Even covered in enough pepper flakes to kill a small child, the cooked meat still tasted unbelievably foul.

Once he’d finished suffering through that meal, and received a verdict of ‘meh’ from Taylor as she snacked on her meat without issue, the five of them carried on. The dual-wolves were a low enough Grade that bo...

[EOE] (345) 5.41. He Lives!

Finally, the false restraints keeping them constrained to this limited form were weakening. Soon, they would be adrift through the cosmos once more, free to take whatever form their whims desired. The shackles would be thrown off, the bindings lifted.

The return of true freedom drew ever nearer.

Vin gasped as he awoke, staring up at the familiar beige ceiling of Frank’s hospital as his hands went to his chest, clutching at his pounding heart. He had no idea wha...

[PLD] 43. If it Looks like a Duck…

Willow managed to recover from her near-death experience before long, and Leo and Taylor once more found themselves venturing into the unknown. This time, however, they had three new faces to keep them company.

Leo hadn’t been sure exactly what to expect from the trio after watching their antics under the mushroom back in the other plane, but one thing was for sure. When push came to shove, they functioned surprisingly well.

“No heat signatures, we’re good,” Ember declared...

[TEA] (212) 4.54. Who are you people?

“Uh… I thought Mama Fouger said he wasn’t dead,” Asher said, staring down at Rulfar’s motionless body. At this distance. It was pretty obvious that Rulfar wasn’t breathing. If the fact that they’d found him buried in the ground wasn’t obvious enough as to his current state.

“Maybe he has some sort of skill? Like your False Death?” Samantha suggested, keeping her eyes peeled on the surrounding grasses in case they were ambushed by an opportunistic monster while they w...

[PLD] 42. What are the Odds?

Leo and Taylor didn’t end up running into any more corpses that evening, but they did encounter something just as startling.

A shrill, piercing screech that seemed to echo through the giant forest, giving them both pause as they immediately prepared for battle.

“What was that?” Taylor asked, her eyes narrow as she searched the shadows for any approaching threats.

“I don’t know,” Leo admitted, racking his brain for any sort of creature that would make such a noise...

[EOE] (344) 5.40. Nobody Likes Bats

Vin didn’t even look at the notification that he’d received experience for discovering a new dungeon, his focus solely on putting as much distance between him and the angry rankers chasing after him. Even if that spear wielder wasn’t interested in attacking him for some reason, which was concerning for a whole host of other reasons, there was still the woman who had nearly cut him in half and the two he’d temporarily stopped with his spell combination. He had no doubt the warriors had...

[PLD] 41. Three Times is a Pattern

They found their second dead body on day three.

And their third.

Leo stood there, staring down at the pair of dead gem holders as he felt a twinge of pain in his heart. Based on how they leaned on one another against a large stump and had their hands clasped together even in death, it was clear these two were a couple. Similar to how his own father and mother must have explored together before he’d been born.

“No wounds on them either,” Taylor said, finishing her check...

[PLD] 40. Occupied

That night, Leo and Taylor found their first dead body.

While hunting for a safe spot to sleep, Leo spotted a large cavity about thirty feet off the ground in one of the giant trees. Other than the camouflaged spider beasts, none of the other types they’d encountered so far looked as though they could climb. With his impressive strength and Taylor’s claws, climbing up to the hollow was simple enough, and they clambered into the hollow in no time.

Only to find that it was alrea...

[EOE] (343) 5.39. Mad Dash for the Finish

As useful as falling through the sky was as a method of travel, keeping his gravity redirected for long periods of time was a massive drain on Vin’s mana. Even with his remarkably large mana pool, it wasn’t something he could keep up for long. Not to mention he didn’t want to risk coming down in the middle of the ranker-infested fragment with no mana to work with. What few mana potions he carried on him had been taken along with his pack, which meant running dry was not something he was...

[TEA] (211) 4.53. Hide and Seek

The good news was that despite Mama Fouger pointing to a spot that was completely off the city map when she located Rulfar from the memory Asher had given her, Reggy still knew the rough location of where he had to be. A quick exchange for a more zoomed-out map that showed the surrounding area was all the confirmation he needed.

The bad news was that the indicated location was a very well-known hunting ground for people who were both good at fighting and interested in earning s...

[PLD] 39. Trial Run

Leo spun around and smashed the edge of his new incisor-gauntlet into the enraged magical beast that had tried to jump him from the side, sending it flying backwards and slamming into another one of its pack mates. The rest of the wolf-like beasts didn’t like that one bit, growling in unison as they continued circling around them.

He and Taylor had finally come across their first swarm of weaker beasts while moving through the forest, and he couldn’t have asked for a better trial ru...

[TEA] (210) 4.52. Mama Fouger

“And you guys are sure about this?” Asher asked, starting to regret letting Moxy take the lead in finding them a seeker. After hearing that she had a plan for where to start looking, he’d expected some sort of seedy tavern, similar to the one he’d found seekers hanging out in back in Dormaul.

Instead, they were walking through rows of what looked like cabbages in one of the farming sections of Furora, albeit ones growing from large bushes rather than the ground.

“I know ...