As the subtle rays of dawn broke through the canopy, Aenon carried Talia down from the atop Nocthrya. The kid had slept peacefully, but Aenon could barely get a wink of rest. His injuries, coupled with the grim realization from last night had kept him up. Just as he reached the bottom, he sensed five people rushing to his location. He put on his mask right as a red headed woman burst into the clearing in a rush.

Aenon casually waved with one hand, his other wrapped around Talia's sleeping form.

Jenny was hyperventilating from exhaustion, probably due to the mad dash she and Ignar's party were in to get here. Her piercing blue eyes were locked onto Aenon, worry clearly etched on her face. But there was relief too.

"You…," she said amid deep breaths. "Are you ok?"

Ever since her eye color changed, and the mysterious connection to the shard in Aenon's soul space, they could point at each other's location. But it seemed that the connection was more than that. It also alerted the others when one of them was in danger. Which was proven true when eight shadows erupted from the ground.

"Are you alright…," Bane started to say but was interrupted by Aenon.

"Shhh," Aenon shushed them while pointing at Talia.

Even Ignar and his party looked like they had something to say, but everyone stayed silent as Aenon walked towards a wooden house at the edge of the clearing. It was a quaint little place Nocthrya had set up for Talia and her grandmother. The older woman was asleep too, so Aenon snuck in and put Talia on her bed before retreating just as quietly.

Fourteen pairs of eyes were trained on him as he closed the door behind him—Thalindra joining them too. The wolf pups remained in Jenny's shadow, but they were observing the scene closely. Aenon sighed and directed them to follow him. The group made their way towards a campfire, the tension in the air thick enough to be cut with a knife. They all sat down around the fire one by one as Aenon raised his hand to stop the oncoming onslaught of questions.

"Yes, I am injured," Aenon began to preemptively answer the most glaring ones. "No, I am not dying. I went up against an opponent that was a tad more difficult than everything I have faced so far. I should be back to full health within a week."

Relief washed over everyone's faces, before worry reared its ugly head again.

"What did you face?" Ignar asked with a frown.

"An Ant Monarch," Aenon said simply.

The color drained from the experienced party's faces as they exchanged concerned looks, while Jenny looked confused.

"A Monarch variant is the pinnacle of a hive species," Velastra explained to the red head. "Extremely tough raid bosses that have a high casualty rate. For Lord Fenrast to have escaped is a miracle."

"What makes you think I escaped," Aenon said with a smile, realizing too late that no one could see that.

He considered using Light Manipulation like usual but stopped. He looked at the baffled faces one by one, reading their emotions closely. There was a wide mix of emotions coursing through them, but at the forefront was genuine concern for his wellbeing. There wasn't a shred of malice or betrayal from anyone.

I have delayed this long enough, he thought to himself before making his mask disappear while maintaining his smile. The looks of shock further increased as Ignar, Velastra, Boff, Toff, and Thalindra saw his face for the very first time.

For a while, no one said a word. But soon the shock and awe on Ignar's face was replaced with a broad smile as he looked at Thalindra and his wife triumphantly.

"Told you he was young," he said before breaking out into a guffaw, joined by the dwarves soon after.

"Bahahaha. Even I thought your nose was losing its touch," one of the dwarves said.

"Hehehe. You still got it," his twin added.

Thalindra and Velastra though, were too shocked to say anything.

"So, you took down this Monarch bug?" Jenny finally asked, not really surprised by Aenon's grand unmasking.

"Bug?" Velastra finally broke out of her reverie. "A Monarch is no bug, Missie. You see one, you run the other way. You hear me?"

Aenon was genuinely surprised by the outburst. For Velastra's tone was one of genuine care, like a teacher's. Aenon's smile widened as he realized his plan had worked. The determined red head had won over the party. And their experienced guidance had done wonders for her. His Identify skill agreed.

<Jenny | Human | Warrior | Level 56>

She was still behind the others, but she was growing quite well. Aenon decided to pull up his own notifications as the others joined in their chastisement of the fledgling adventurer.

Level Up | Void Stalker | Level 27 → Level 32 | +24 INT | +40 WIL | +24 PER

Level Up | Abyssal Warden | Level 36 → Level 37 | +8 INT | +10 WIL

Title achieved: Underdog | +20 all stats | Defeat a foe more than… does it even matter at this point? Your inflated stats, along with your inflated ego, make the calculations unfair to the others. So, take what you get.

Title Achieved: Limit Breaker | +10 all stats | STOP. BREAKING. THINGS. You are making my life infinitely harder.

The snarky Title descriptions—no doubt updated by the System Nurse—made Aenon chuckle. The stat points weren't overly impressive, but like the Nurse said, he would take what he could get. He had gained five whole levels just in his Void Stalker Class, and one in his Abyssal Warden. Which made sense since the fight against the Monarch was more physical than magical. He was concerned about his net stats though.

Aenon had his stats cut down to a quarter for six more days, the backlash from his unlocking of the multiplier. He didn't know if the debuff amount was linked to what level he unlocked, but he had a hunch it was 0.25 because he unlocked a multiplier of 4. Sadly, his current state meant he could no longer tackle the ant dungeon.

Aenon/Ashryn Fenrast

Race: Ascended Human (M)

Age: 13 years

Level 35

Class: Void Stalker (Level 32)

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Subclass: Abyssal Warden (Level 37)

HP: 17028

HP Regen: 340.3/min

MP: 21348

MP Regen: 481.7/min

Stats - Multiplier: 0.25 (Duration left: 6 days)

STR: 1703

CON: 1702

DEX: 1707

INT: 2135

WIL: 2409

PER: 1837

Titles (1948 points)

Unfettered Soul (+75 all), Alpha (+20 all), Domain Walker (Withheld), Bulwark (+5 all), Speed Runner (+10 all), Hoarder (+5 all), Landlord 2 (+25 all), Planetary Forerunner (+30 all), Ancient Killer (+20 all), Untouchable 2 (+40 all), Archivist (+5 all), Royal Assassin (+30 all), Corruption Cleanser (+5 all) ), Underdog (+20 all), Limit Breaker (+10 all)

Lone Wolf (+2% Title stats)

Prodigious Mage (+10% Title stats)

Nature's Attendant (+200 all stats when within 50 meters of sapling)

Skills (Available SP: 56)

Weapons (Unarmed, Daggers, Traps) | Savant

Stealth and Tracking (Woods, Urban) | Savant

Mana Manipulation | Savant

Cooking | Adept

Internalized Skills

Identify

Mana Sense

Soul Authority – Sovereign's Eye, Soul Beacon, Soul Purge, Soul Syphon (Unfettered Soul)

System's Grace

As Aenon dismissed his notifications, he looked up to find everyone staring at him. Their lecture had concluded, with Jenny looking subdued. But now their focus had shifted back to Aenon.

"Forgive my insolence, Lord Fenrast—," Velastra began, before being interrupted.

"Aenon."

"I am sorry, what?"

"My name's Aenon."

Everyone's eyebrows went up as they finally realized who he truly was. Everyone except Jenny. Aenon sensed the surprise, shock, and even fear from them.

"You…you are the one the Arbiter was looking for?" Thalindra asked hesitantly.

"Uh huh," Aenon replied simply.

"How…," Thalindra stammered as the gravity of the revelation settled in.

Aenon shrugged, not really wanting to explain further. Ignar though had a deep frown on his face, his thoughts focusing on something else entirely.

"Why are you sharing this with us now?" he asked politely. He was more confused than anything else.

Aenon thought about how to respond, looking at each person around the camp. Everyone was wondering the same thing. He leaned back, resting his weight on his hands behind him. He looked at the sky for a while before responding.

"Trusting others isn't easy for me," he stated morosely. "But recent events made me realize something. To face what I am up against, I need to learn to trust my allies. And secrets are severely detrimental to that."

He looked back at the group with a small smile, "Not that I intend for us to bare everything. We are all entitled to our secrets. But some things need to be shared to have some modicum of faith."

Ignar returned the smile and nodded in respect. As did the others, including Thalindra. But the soul mage was still reserved. Aenon sensed uncertainty within her, like something was holding her back from fully integrating herself with the group. And after their last interaction, Aenon had a clue as to what it might be.

"You were saying something," Aenon said as he turned back to Velastra.

"Ah, yes," Velastra replied with a jolt at being addressed. "I wanted to suggest having a personal guard during your missions."

Bane and the wolves nodded, agreeing to the recommendation wholeheartedly. Aenon chuckled but didn't outright dismiss their concerns like last time.

"I will consider it," he replied, making many amongst the group smile. "But, not at this moment."

The smiles vanished; a healthy dose of worry being added to the mix.

"I can't afford to take it easy during the tutorial phase," Aenon continued. Before they could protest, he continued, "I need to build my power as much as I can. And that requires taking risks. But yes, I need to tone down my callous disregard for danger."

"What do you mean?" Jenny asked, calming down a bit.

"As a little girl pointed out," Aenon said while turning towards the Morgan house. "I may have been in a rush to level up. Which made me neglect consolidating my gains and take unnecessary risks."

The others didn't know what he was talking about, but they listened in silence.

"Which is why I am gonna take a little break for some R&R," Aenon said while stretching his arms above his head. "Need some time to heal up and work on developing my Spells and Skills."

He withdrew a piece of paper from his storage ring and handed it to Thalindra.

"Could you please send this over to Pinespire and ask Henry to send me the things on this list?"

Thalindra read the list, her confusion growing with every line. "These are…"

But Aenon cut her off and turned to Jenny, "And how goes your hunt?"

"Huh? Oh, umm…we have cleared about a third of the area around the Treant dungeon," Jenny said. "It's mostly adult variants we are facing right now. Which is why it took us a while to make our way back here."

"That's good," Aenon nodded before turning to Bane. "What about you?"

"We didn't find anything significant, except the undead infected area," Bane replied after some thought. "But the death affinity mana is a cause for concern. We are immune to some degree, but I doubt the other races can handle it. Not to mention the malicious Corruption seemed to be far more prevalent there."

Aenon looked down as he digested the report. He had assumed most dungeons were being manipulated, but the appearance of the Corruption in Neverhelm was concerning.

"Is there a leaking dungeon there?" Aenon asked to clarify.

"I don't think there will be one," Ignar was the one to respond. "Undead dungeons are high level threats that the System doesn't allow to overflow. It assigns more protections around them."

"So, the source of the Corruption is something else," Aenon thought out loud. He gave it some thought before deciding it didn't matter for now. "Continue your respective missions as planned. Leave the ant dungeon to me."

The nervousness in the air was palpable, so Aenon decided to reassure them a bit.

"I will be going in with more preparations this time around. Full stock of potions and every other item that might give me an edge," he said with a placating smile. "So, lets continue our progress."

Aenon felt that most in the group still had reservations, but thankfully no one felt like questioning his authority. They continued having some casual conversations for a bit before everyone dispersed on by one.

Everyone, except Thalindra. She fidgeted a bit before steeling herself and giving a formal bow.

"I apologize for what I implied earlier, Lord Fenrast," she said with genuine remorse.

"We are the net sum of our experiences," Aenon said softly. "I do not fault you for being reluctant to trust me. But to clarify, I have no intention of using the kid for anything. To me she is someone who needs protection. Nothing more, nothing less."

Thalindra looked embarrassed, but hesitant in accepting his words. She gathered some courage and asked, "But why? Why do you want to protect her?"

Aenon stayed silent for a moment, weighing his words. He needed Thalindra on his side, that much was certain. Mainly because he had started to like her. From all their interactions, he could clearly see the care she had for others. Before he could respond, they were distracted by a commotion from the side.

Talia had woken up, and everyone who had scattered all over had converged to her location. There was something about the kid that attracted people to her. Pretty soon Ignar and the others were busy entertaining the jubilant girl with tall tales and childish behavior. Aenon and Thalindra smiled at the scene, forgetting their conversation momentarily.

"Because she is the king," Aenon finally said.

"I am sorry, what?" Thalindra asked in a puzzled tone.

"The weakest piece on a chess board that must be saved at all costs," Aenon explained. "Her and Nocthrya represent that. As does every single citizen of Pinespire who is under my care."

Thalindra's eye widened in surprise as realization dawned on her. The courtyard was filled with Talia's laughter as she rode Ignar's back; the pair trying to catch little birds of fire that Velastra summoned. Aenon didn't explain any further, just enjoying the peaceful scene.

"But what do you get out of it?" Thalindra asked in an almost imperceptible whisper.

"I am assuming you are used to greedy noble houses devouring each other for trivial gains," Aenon replied without looking away from the excited group. "But I am not a noble. Shouldn't it be obvious?"

"It…is not," Thalindra responded.

"Well then," Aenon said while turning to her with a mischievous smile. "Why don't you find out yourself."

He winked at her before standing up and approaching the party of adventurers and wolves. Thalindra too joined them at a slow pace, lost in her own thoughts. But Aenon felt her reservations slowly being put to rest.

A cool breeze blew across the forest as the sixteen individuals enjoyed each other's company. Aenon looked on with a smile, turning to the sky with determination.

Guess the board is set now, Aenon said to himself.

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