The third upgrade was the last upgrade you could perform; no one knew how to move farther. Wisps still worked if you gained new Abilities, but they couldn't take you through the fourth upgrade. People had tried, both by collecting Wisps before making the jump to third upgrade and very slowly in the Maze after the third upgrade, but sixteenth level seemed to be as high as you could go. No one at the third Upgrade doubted that there was a fourth; the Grand Talent referred to a "First Mastery" that could change the Grand Talent. That had to be the fourth upgrade, but no one knew how to get there.

Sophia was fairly confident that someone knew during the days of the Kestii Empire; the Patrons came from somewhere, after all. Even so, the knowledge didn't seem to have survived. Sophia figured it might be something the Wanderer would help with once they got there, but for now it was something she could put to the side.

She already had her Signature. All she had to do was choose Abilities that took her Signature in a direction that aligned with her Grand Ability and Grand Spell and she'd be all set for the second upgrade and possibly even the third.

Not that she knew what Abilities those were. Jax's advice was that if she wasn't sure, she could wait; both Pierce the Veil and Plumed Insight already had a hint of a connection to feathers, so she might even be able to simply upgrade her Plumed Domain into a Grand Talent and pull everything together as it was.

Sophia wanted to do a little more than that; she was worried that her spells. While they came from Plumed Spellcaster, they weren't tied to her plumes in any way other than the fact that she could only cast them from her feathers. Jax told her not to worry about that, but it didn't really help.

Just as importantly, Sophia really wanted to lean into the fact that she was a dragon. The Guide didn't recognize it, which made it hard, but there was more to being a dragon than feathers. She just had no idea how to get there and it was an area Jax couldn't help with. Humans had Species Abilities … but humans weren't dragons.

While she brooded, Sophia listened to Jax as he worked with the others. Ci'an had it easiest; there were several common Signatures for Night Owls: Owl, Talon, Wing, and Eyes.

Owl was the most general one, with a broad range of Abilities but the least chance of stretching into specialized areas. Talon was the most offensive; Talon-Signature Night Owls could both capture and strike enemies with their talons in ways that didn't entirely make sense. Sophia liked the idea of Ci'an clenching her feet and binding the leg of someone a dozen feet from her, but Ci'an wasn't interested.

Wing leaned into flight, obviously enough, but it also included some elements of stealth. A Wing Night Owl could carry an entire wagon as it flew, then land and cast its wing over the wagon and make it disappear from view. It was an interesting combination but not one Ci'an had any interest in.

The one Ci'an was interested in was Eyes. She'd already prepared for it, even though she hadn't realized that was what she was doing: she had five different effects she could impose on a creature by staring at them plus two different Abilities that enhanced her sight. Oddly enough, Eyes as a Signature also allowed Ci'an to hide herself and potentially others from view. That wasn't something she could manage yet, but she was thrilled to hear about it. The only Ability she needed to pick up before she went for the second upgrade, according to Jax, was an Ability that let her actually harm creatures with her vision. He was confident that she'd get the Signature she wanted.

Taika was a bit more difficult; Jax had never advised anyone with a Species that gave him illusionary Abilities and a Sphere that gave him psychic defenses before. The best he could offer was to look for Abilities that combined the two, whether that was adding a mental effect to the visual illusions or finding a way to use visual illusions to deflect psychic attacks. Taika wasn't sure about either suggestion, but he said he'd look.

Dav was almost as hard for Jax to guide as Sophia herself, at least in Sophia's opinion. Dav had an obvious theme: the use of what the Guide called Eldritch energy. His Calls and Eldritch Invoker Abilities also all acted first on himself, in line with his Anchor. As far as Jax was concerned, that meant Dav was already doing what he needed to do; he ought to be ready for the second upgrade.

Sophia even tried to talk to Cliff about it, just in case. The dungeon core didn't think it would have any issues. It knew what it was and what it wanted.

Now all they needed was the time to upgrade their Level and all of their Abilities, along with their Body and Core. They quickly found out that 4000 Wisps wasn't the windfall they'd thought it was back when they got it; it would let them buy the levels, Abilities, and Body and Core updates they needed, but it wasn't enough to upgrade all of their Ability slots and Abilities. It was a big help but not enough.

Before they headed out, Jax chose a new Mask. Physically, he looked similar to before, but a little younger and with slightly softer features. His hair was black instead of brown and his eyes shifted to green. A pair of hoop earrings and different clothing completed the disguise; he definitely wasn't the same man as before.

When he chose his Mask, he also had to choose the Abilities he was going to be able to use. "Jaycen Deepmist" had to be different from "Jaxucet Willowbloom," after all. While he was trying to figure out what he wanted to be, he got in a long conversation with Xin'ri and came up with an idea he'd never followed up on before: he'd make a Mask whose Anchor was Items. It meant that for the first few expeditions, he'd be limited to only his physical ability instead of his Mask's Abilities, but that was fine; if he had to, he could take off the Mask.

The day after that, they followed Tiwaz's directions out an exit that Tiwaz was certain no one had discovered. Like the exit from Othala's complex, it was hidden in the walls, but this one actually required Tiwaz to open it; no one else could.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

In many ways it was a good thing that they had to follow Jax like ducklings to monster dens that had decent Wisp rewards because they needed to be mostly cleared out. Sophia hadn't realized just how claustrophobic she'd started to feel inside the ruins.

In other ways, it was not a good thing at all. The weather was terrible; there weren't regular blizzards like in the Skylands, but the sky still drizzled cold, nearly freezing, rain nearly every afternoon. The monster dens, what Jax called Hollows, were often little more than an unusually large burrow or even a space in a tree; they were usually much larger on the inside than the outside, but they weren't particularly comfortable most of the time. None of them were even vaguely challenging, but each one was worth at least fifty Wisps.

Jax was impressed; he'd expected them to struggle a little since some of the Hollows he led them to were at the bottom of the second upgrade and they were still first upgrade, other than Xin'ri. He hadn't counted on how much Dav and Sophia's abnormally high Body and Core helped them to overcome the fact that some of their Abilities were still not quite caught up.

A few days after they met Jax, Lan'ti came across the interspace conduit. He took one look at their living arrangements and decided they needed help. Over the next week, most of Lan'ti's party crossed over from Othala's complex. They were still exploring the untouched areas, but there was no hurry; they had all winter.

Sophia had to admit it was nice. Jax didn't want them interacting with anyone on the surface until they were past the second upgrade, so it was a little lonely until Lan'ti arrived. She suspected that the combination of Ci'an being in Tiwaz's complex and a ruin that was even larger and less destroyed than Othala's were both big reasons Lan'ti set up on their side of the interspace conduit.

Los'en stayed on the far side to protect the handful of people who were still exploring Othala's complex. He planned to bring them over when they'd completed the first pass, but until then they needed someone who could handle the ruins apparitions and bone remnants.

Two days after that, the Broken Blade finally sent another group to fix the broken sanctions. Jax couldn't explain what took so long, but it didn't really matter; the important thing was that the plan went off without a hitch.

Sophia summoned bone remnants and dressed them in the remains of the dead party's gear, including "Jaxucet Willowbloom's" equipment. It meant Jax lost all of his equipment, including his armor, but it was worth it because it explained why he was gone. The new party fought through that group, a group of rage beavers, and a single large draconic Echo before they found the damage Xin'ri carefully created on one of the spiderweb-like mana collection points. By the time they fixed it, Sophia's group had already restored enough of the mana storage boxes to the creation chamber that it worked. They'd have to be careful about when they used the creation chamber from now on unless they established new damage, but as far as they could tell, no one was suspicious.

Two weeks after they met Jax, Xin'ri finally finished the first two pieces of his equipment. They were a sword and a shield; the sword's blade and the main body of the shield were made of a material she called "crystal metal" Tiwaz manufactured using the creation chamber.

Sophia didn't know what that was, but Ci'an explained that it was the same crystal that dominated the cave roof over Izel. It carried mana well and was particularly good for any enchantment that had to do with light, like the Abilities of "Jaycen Deepmist."

The sword and the shield both looked like ordinary steel until Jax used his Masked Abilities on them; when he did, they both began to glow with internal light and flecks of the crystal seemed to break off and rejoin them both.

Jax had several different options for each, but the one he preferred for the sword was an effect that increased its durability for most of its length and shifted to prioritize sharpness at the far end; while he could manage a sword blade that cut like a laser, it would quickly run him out of mana, so he did not intend to do that as his default.

For the shield, he concentrated the light that gave it strength in the large central shield-shaped boss; around that, he removed the light, which created a weird effect where striking the shield anywhere but the shield boss twisted whatever struck it to the side. Dav could punch through it with sheer power, but Sophia couldn't, and it was especially effective against magic.

After Dav broke the shield once, Xin'ri asked him not to do that again. She was willing to repair the shield after combat but would prefer not to have to do that every time the two sparred.

With his new equipment, Jax was able to start helping more during the daily trips out to gather Wisps. It was a bit of an adjustment, but it worked well and they were able to gather Wisps quickly by rotating through all of the different places that Jax knew about. A couple of times, they'd been cleaned out recently and there was very little there for the group, but most of the time there was plenty to kill. Wisps accumulated quickly and were spent even faster as they got closer and closer to reaching the second upgrade with all of their Abilities.

It took another three months before Sophia was ready to take that step. Dav wasn't ready yet, but Amy had already reached her second upgrade. It was long enough that Lan'ti and his teams were gone again, headed back to Izel to report what they'd found to his mother. Los'en never made it to the other side of the interspace conduit to meet Tiwaz or Jax.

After a lot of thought, Sophia picked up two new Abilities for her Sphere and one for her Species. Rending Plume was the opposite of Piercing Plume; instead of helping her break through shields, she could use it to cause additional damage once the shield was broken.

Bond of Plumes let her attach a plume to something else and treat that object as a plume; it was very similar to what they'd done to let her share her Collected Knowledge during the "Nexus Defense" Tiwaz triggered in response to what it saw as someone trying to take control of the distal recording node.

The Species Ability Death's Embrace was vague and probably unnecessary since Sophia had access to True Death bolts, but it was cheap and made Sophia think of home. That was enough of a reason for her.

When she finally advanced to Level Eight, there were a number of options for possible future Spheres. Sophia spent a while looking through the options, but from what she could tell, they were the same ones she'd been offered back at the first upgrade. It was clear the Wanderer had only customized a handful of them; the Guide's handiwork was sloppier and less descriptive. That didn't make it any more interesting.

In the end, Sophia decided she'd stay with Plumed Domain. It wasn't perfect, but she did like it.

There was one surprise, and it was a welcome one: her Nexus Knowledge Ability Fragment became Domain Knowledge. That seemed like a huge loss if she ever participated in a large-scale Nexus Defense and a huge boon any other time she fought against monsters she'd seen before. The fact that it could apparently be turned against people as well as long as she'd fought them enough times Might well come in handy in the future as well.

END OF ARC 4: LOST RUINS

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