Their next group dungeon run proved remarkably successful. Conrad took them to a short ridge inside that was both a hotbed of activity and somewhere they could rapidly escape if necessary. Zelda and Hector slayed the flying beasts that swarmed them from all directions. Conrad and Rodrick took care of the land based monsters climbing up to reach them.

Hundreds of monsters died trying to reach them on that ridge. It was like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel. And also a little like the shoot-them-up games in the arcade. Hector just turned in slow circles and lashed out at the air with his cables, taking care only that he didn't strike any of his teammates.

Their time on the ridge ended when Conrad declared the miasma levels were getting dangerously high. It hung in the air about them like a dark mist. Conrad threw several grenades down the steep slope along the side of the ridge closest to the dungeon wall. Then he stepped over and slide down on his side, shooting to help clear a path. Hector went next, cables lashing. Rodrick took up the rear. Above, Zelda dove on her wings.

They sprinted away from the pandemonium they had created, weaving through a maze of thick stone pillars. Conrad guided them along the most efficient path and they were soon close to their target exit. They jogged from their cover and were free.

"Damn, Conrad! You know all the spots!" Rodrick had stars in his eyes.

"I've been working this dungeon for over three years now. Before that I spent a whole decade in the North Dungeon. If I didn't know what I was doing, I'd be long dead."

"How did you know to recruit Hector? Just because he's a Xian?"

"I saw what he did in the gym. Physical fitness goes a long way in the dungeon. When I spoke to him, he said his domain was strong. Xian domains are something my instructors taught me to fear, so I figured I wanted to see one pointed at the monsters. It worked out better than I expected. Xian domain plus Jinn weapons is a hell of a combination."

Rodrick laughed. "I'll say. I wish we could have stayed longer. I had more to give."

Conrad shook his head. "Don't fuck around with miasma. You might have better resistance than a baseline human, but it will mess you up at the concentrations present in the dungeon."

"I've been around miasma plenty."

"On wide open battlefields, I'd bet. The dungeon is an enclosed space designed to draw and contain miasma. All that darkness isn't just a lack of light. It's everywhere in there. When you see visible mist, that's a real cause for concern. I don't wear a respirator for the aesthetics."

They ate a celebratory meal before heading their separate ways. Hector was low on energy, so he returned to intensive cultivation to bring his levels back to full.

Riley reported that her mental statistic reached the peak of level one, so he celebrated by buying an outing. This time, flush with cash, he transferred a thousand credits to her on top of the thousand credit fee going to the brothel. They toured Old Town, visiting the quaint brick buildings with crowds of tourists. They visited a popular museum depicting what life looked like before the Coalition formed.

This world had been a single hop away from both Terra and Maya, so the locals knew about the existence of Jinn and Arahant. They venerated them as gods in times past. There were also legends of the Xian, who they knew as demons opposing the gods they worshiped. At one point in the recent past, just after the Arahants and Jinn entered into a treaty, there was even an attack from an army of Xian not far from Promise City. The Jinn set off a massive bomb that rearranged the terrain but failed to kill the attacking lord….

"Shit, I think this is the world where Volithur betrayed the Lord General."

"What did you say?" Riley was a slow reader even if she was genuinely interested in what life on her world was like before the System.

"Nothing, Riley. What do you think of all this?"

"I like the little buildings. They're cute."

"Very different than skyscrapers beside a dungeon."

"Hector? Are other worlds better for Xian?"

"Riley, you would be like a god on most unempowered worlds."

She snorted. "Only if the people there are really dumb."

"Not dumb. Weak. Get to level four and a baseline human can't do anything to you."

"That would take forever. You keep making me put energy in my mind and body."

"I'm going to teach you a Xian phrase, Riley. It's 'hollow spear' and it means someone who gets to a higher soul level without investing in their four soul apertures. They're weaker than they seem. You don't want to be a hollow spear."

"Hollow spear." Riley nodded as she accepted the lesson. "Am I a hollow spear?"

"I don't think your level is high enough yet to worry about that. And you're being taught better than that. Just keep working hard. Maybe cultivate when I'm not around to force you."

Riley had the decency to blush at that. Despite her claims to the contrary, he knew she didn't do her homework. Her schedule had ample downtime. She just didn't grasp the value of the things he taught her.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Riley, how long do you think I've been a Xian?"

She squinted up at him. "Like… a hundred years?"

"More like two years. You've been a Xian longer than me."

Doubt clouded her eyes. "You're lying, Hector."

"I swear I'm not. I had some very good luck, but I've also worked very hard. Harder than almost every person you've ever met. I'm going to be as strong as a lord some day because I won't ever stop. I like cultivating."

"No one will pay for a room with me if I'm too strong," Riley countered.

"I don't mean this as a criticism of your line of work when I say that you can do better. You have been taught your whole life that being a Xian makes you less than everyone else. It's the opposite, Riley. You can stand above all of reality if you want." Hmm... he had apparently been slacking on his cultivation of humility.

"Stand above reality?" She looked at him like he was crazy. "Hector, I'm not like you. I just… why don't you ever do normal things? You never even kissed me. I catch you looking sometimes, so I know you like women. You're the nicest man I know and you make me cultivate."

Hector cleared his throat. "Riley, I'm your teacher. Teachers don't fraternize with students."

"Yes they do. I went to school, Hector. I had a lot of teachers and a couple of them came to see me at the brothel after I reached my majority."

He flinched. "What the hell is wrong with this world? That isn't right, Riley."

"The other girls think we do normal things." She drew herself up. "You hurt my feelings."

"Riley, that's not our relationship. I'm teaching you things you could never learn on this world. These are the secrets of Tian. I'm not your client, Riley. I'm a teacher. Maybe even a father figure."

"You're not my father."

"I know that, Riley. I don't want to claim his place."

"He gave me away." The sheer pain packed into her hissed words gave Hector pause. Riley always spoke of her woes as if they were sad facts that happened to some unfortunate third party. The wound must have been deep to provoke such a response from her.

Hector stood awkwardly, not sure how to help her. He never knew how to handle emotional people. His instinct was to fix the issue so that the bad emotions could go away and stop bothering him. So he brought up the System interface and transferred a hundred thousand credits. Riley reeled away from him and stabbed at thin air. Hector received a notice that his transfer had been declined.

"Don't you want the credits?"

"Why are you paying me? Are you leaving me because I wasn't happy?" Riley shook with rage and fear as she stared him down, a tiny chihuahua challenging a mastiff.

Hector scratched his head, trying to understand how he'd been misunderstood and figure out the best way to deescalate the hostility he sensed. Honest, heartfelt words were the only remedy he could envision. Damn it. "I'm not nearly as clever as you might think, Riley. I'm trying my best to take care of you. My wife used to tell me I tried to fix everything with money when that wasn't what she needed from me. I guess I'm trying to do that with you. I'm sorry. You're in pain and I don't know how to help."

She turned away abruptly. "You're dumb, Hector."

"Sometimes," he agreed.

"You never told me that you have a wife. Is that why…?"

"She is on my home world still. We separated because I wasn't a very good husband even though I thought I was doing the right things. And no, I haven't refused to do things out of loyalty to Jen. I think of you in a different way, Riley." She was a charity project, a vulnerable creature he'd begun to shelter out of sympathy, and also a person he'd begun to care about.

"I don't want a father."

"Your actual one did wrong by you."

Riley turned around to face him. Her cheeks were wet. "You really don't want me?"

"For a few minutes of fun? No, Riley. I'm not interested in that. I want to train you to be a true Xian. You have potential that you don't realize yet."

"Are you even going to come see me again after today?"

Hector tentatively placed his arms around the girl and she leaned into the embrace. "I'm not giving up on you, Riley. You're my first student. You have to become great."

"You're so dumb, Hector."

"Sometimes. Will you keep being my student?"

"Yes. I want more outings."

"Somebody finally figured out how to negotiate."

The mood remained subdued the rest of their outing, but the next day Riley announced to him on his arrival that she cultivated for a full hour on her own. Hector ran the dungeon three days in a row, then used the funds to purchase a wide variety of resources from Master Sirius for their next outing.

Riley drank cherry juice, ate pumpkin spice balls, and sprinkled Tian salt on her restaurant food. They toured places around the local neighborhood while he taught Riley how to perform mental cultivation to drain cosmic energy from the mental band.

His funds had fallen to only a hundred and fifty thousand credits, so Hector began taking his cultivation more seriously. He wanted to be ready for another series of dungeon runs. This time, he planned to continue going once a day until he had enough to pay off Riley's debt and make her balance positive for the first time in her life. Eating at the neighborhood cafeterias was a life goal of hers and Hector thought it was time to cross that one off the list.

So caught up was Hector in mentoring and cultivating that he didn't see his friends for weeks at a time. On the times he did encounter them, Rodrick hinted around that he had some big secret that he was hiding. Hector had some fun at his friend's expense guessing ridiculous things.

You are starring in a new reality television show? You finally figured out how to use the fancy shower controls? You became a regular at a special bar? He tried a different line every encounter, but only the last one caused any reaction besides the smug smile. Mention of the brothel got Hector a kick under the table.

At some point, Conrad pulled him aside when they passed in the lobby. "I saw you coming out of the dungeon. I assume you know what you're doing, but I'll say it anyway. Solo trips are risky. You might have no trouble ten times in a row, but it's never safe."

Fortunately, Conrad agreed to keep Hector's solo runs secret from his other friends. The cyborg special operator valued Hector far more than the others in his group and Hector felt certain that meant he could rely on the man's silence.

Things were going good. Until, suddenly, they weren't.

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