Arianna was honestly surprised that Cassis felt good about her choosing a vanguard class. He usually wanted her as far from danger as possible. It wasn't controlling, he simply cared too much, but still, she'd expected at least a flicker of hesitation or even his endorsement of the mage/healer hybrid classes.

And yet he'd given each of her choices a careful consideration telling her about the pros and cons from his point of view. Sure, the pros of some of the other classes were extremely good. But somehow she just couldn't see herself in the backline anymore.

The vanguard class tugged at something deep inside her. She fit with her current class almost perfectly. She had no idea why it she was so drawn to the vanguard, but the moment she saw Sanctified Vanguard of the Flow, the thought wouldn't leave her alone. Could she really pull it off? Could she hold the front line like Cassis? Protect others and heal at the same time?

No sense thinking in circles. Cassis had given his okay, and despite everything that had happened, despite the raw and tangled mess of feelings she still carried, she trusted his judgement. She always had.

So she took the class.

Immediately, her mana shifted. It felt like her entire mana stream compressed inward, dense and coiled like a deep ocean current. She had much less of it circulating for now; her MS had crashed back down to 8.4%. But the sheer presence of her mana was breathtaking. Potent. Heavy. Controlled.

She wondered if she could now use her full pattern without getting overloaded. Maybe. She'd try it out at home.

Then even more mana weaved through her body and melted into muscles, bones, blood, and her mana stream. The six levels she had gained at once. So that was what the level ups were doing. Arianna knew from the other timeline that every time an awakener gained exp they were actually gaining a part of the mana inherent in the opponent. They stored the mana in the form of experience somewhere in their body, and when it reached the threshold of a level up, the mana was set free to strengthen the awakener's body.

Then the system message unfolded.

[Congratulations! You have chosen Sanctified Vanguard of the Flow.]

[New skill gained:] • Vanguard's Flow (Basic) – A stepping technique that lets you glide through the battlefield like water, enabling swift movement and natural evasion.

[New spell gained:] • Holy Aura (Basic) – A mana-based aura that increases allies' defence and health regeneration while they stand at the front line with you.

[Level gained. Level gained. Level gained. Level gained… Level gained.]

Interesting.

She smiled a little. Holy Aura felt similar to her Warcry, except simpler to activate, more passive, less flexible… but constant. Unlike Warcry which let her choose a buff, Holy Aura had a fixed effect. She liked that. It meant less thinking in an already hectic situation. Still, she also liked Warcry, the possibilities it held. But she had to admit she was underusing it by far.

And Vanguard's Flow was even better. One of her biggest weaknesses had always been close combat footwork. She never quite knew how to shift her weight, how to dodge properly, how to step without losing balance or giving an opening. Her water shields had mitigated that but now she'd be able to actually learn the steps better.

Cassis had tried to teach her, but he'd almost despaired. She was doing well enough, but not on the level he deemed good. Helen wasn't much more successful at teaching her a movement technique. It somehow never quite clicked how one movement should flow into the next. Hopefully, this skill would help her with this problem.

Next she took a look at her status page.

Patron status screen

Name:

Sapphire

Race:

Deity

Title:

[Fallen Patron]

Alignment:

Chaotic

Special Chaotic Trait:

inner scale of virtuous and evil deeds à leans towards evil

Warning: As a Chaotic Deity, you must balance your actions carefully. Both intent and consequence will affect your CP. Should you become too virtuous or too evil, your CP will be reset.

CP:

9 120

Patron Shop:

discount available

Patron's Avatar:

Cassis Walker, Arianna Sloane

Pseudo-Awakener Physique:

Redirect to Pseudo Status Page

FP:

7 612

Fame:

Well-Known

Followers:

2 371

Fame Shop:

open

Patron chat:

open

Pseudo status page:

MS (Mana Saturation):

8.4%

Race:

Human?

Rank:

E

Features:

Awareness (Advanced), Stamina Capacity (Expert), Mana Manipulation (Expert)

Unique:

Pain Resistance (Basic), Poison Resistance (Basic), Mental Resistance (Basic)

Level:

26

Class:

Sanctified Vanguard of the Flow

Profession:

Mentor (28)

Skills:

Bludgeon (Expert), Baiting (Beginner), Willpower (Advanced), Dodge (Beginner), Parry (Intermediate), Deflect (Intermediate), Body Reinforcement (Advanced), Force Absorption (Intermediate), Shield (Beginner)

Ability:

Elemental Affinity:

Water

Unique:

Shared Channelling (Cassis)

Inventory:

50 m

3

Spells:

Heal (Expert), Stealth (Beginner), Warcry (Beginner), Neutralize Poison (Advanced), Water Manipulation (Intermediate): Water Barrier (Master), Holy Water(Advanced), Water Shield (Master), Water Steps(Intermediate), Water Lance (Intermediate), Water Filter (Intermediate), Water Net (Intermediate).

Titles:

[One From Another World], [Chaotic Priestess of Sapphire], [Superior Survivor], [Monster Bane I], [Protector of the Weak], [Healer of Chaos], [Giant Slayer], [Helping Hand], [Untiring], [Poineer I]

Patron:

Sapphire

Hall of Fame:

open

The human still had a question mark behind it. She had no idea why. Was it simply because she came from another world, or did it really have to do with her Patron identity consuming the system? She just… didn't know. And honestly, she was just as confused as to what she actually was.

Another thing she absolutely couldn't wrap her head around was her follower count. Over two thousand? How? She hadn't done anything special. She hadn't advertised herself, hadn't pushed her patron persona, hadn't even spoken about it during their online lessons. What was going on?

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Instead of cracking her head over that mystery, she focused on something at least slightly more manageable: her CP. She had earned so many through fighting, healing, saving people… more than enough to buy better gear now. And that was after she'd already spent nearly everything on upgraded protective sets for her and Cassis before their E-rank dungeon dive. One set had cost 3,000 CP. She'd wiped herself nearly clean with that purchase.

But it had been worth it. Completely worth it. Neither she nor Cassis had been seriously injured in that dungeon, despite how dangerous E-rank enemies had been for them. Now her CP was higher than before she'd bought the gear in the first place. The nice boost from stopping an E-rank dungeon from breaking had certainly helped. It was well deserved since they'd saved countless people with that.

A ripple of mana brushed against her senses.

Arianna blinked and looked toward Cassis.

The mana around him twisted, pulled inward, then surged. Fire mana spread through his entire body in bright, pulsing streams. A rush of neutral mana sank into his body, sstrengthening it, before the fire shrank again, compressing into something denser, hotter, though far less in its amount than before. Its colour deepened into a sharper crimson-gold. A steady, fiery hum radiated from him, far stronger than it had been at F-rank.

She'd noticed this stronger radiation of mana particles in other E-rankers, but she'd never been present while the evolution actually happened.

It was… beautiful. Fascinating. Like watching a star condense into a stronger, hotter form.

Then another message flickered into her vision.

[Guild System Unlocked]

Arianna told Cassis, "Finally we can found our guild."

Cassis nodded. "Yeah. The others waited for us to reach E-rank. Most of them evolved already. Luke and Nadine made their own guild, the Awakener Bureau, but the rest held back for us."

Arianna gave a small smile. That conversation still echoed in her mind. Back then, when Helen, Danielle, Marcus, Benny, Joseph, and Elena had all hit E-rank before her and Cassis, they could have founded a guild immediately. But they'd chosen to wait.

She remembered standing with them in their house, the air thick with excitement and uncertainty. Danielle had turned to her and said, "Cassis and you are the leaders of this party, so you'll need to be the leaders of our guild too."

Marcus had nodded firmly. "Even though we're E-rank and you're still F-rank… I still don't feel stronger than you two. The strongest people should be the ones leading."

They hadn't known her that long, but they trusted her anyway. It had warmed her, but the responsibility weighed heavily, too.

Cassis exhaled. "We'll need three people to found the guild. Then we can add members. After that comes the structure, party leaders, officers for certain tasks. It might even generate new professions, like 'Officer of Finance' or 'Financier' or something."

Arianna mentally agreed, keeping her expression carefully neutral. The soldiers around them were pretending not to watch, but she wasn't about to start nodding to herself in public. She'd seem crazy.

"And we can add F-ranks too," she said. "Can we add the children?"

Cassis hesitated before answering. "I don't know. We'll have to try it out at home."

There wasn't much more they could do now, not without the others and not while surrounded by soldiers, so the conversation naturally faded.

Arianna returned to her medical texts, letting the familiar diagrams and boring factual texts calm her down. Cassis was doing… whatever Cassis was doing. She still felt the sharp little knot of anger toward him, and right now she chose not to care what he did with his free time, just to mess with him a bit.

But she kept their two-person party intact.

Just in case she wanted to talk to him later.

Arianna stepped out of the car and was immediately tackled by a small human. Upon closer inspection, it was Felicia, holding onto her as if she didn't want to let go. Matteo stood behind her, grinning broadly. "Welcome back," he said.

The fox and her cub were also there. The mother fox went straight up to Cassis, sniffed him, then glanced in Arianna's direction and growled. Cassis surprised her with his reaction. "Well, I know. What do you want me to do?"

Was he… talking to the fox? But how? And about what? He couldn't speak to her the way Felicia could. Meanwhile, the cub pawed at his leg. Those were some sharp claws for such a young animal.

Luckily, Cassis was still wearing the Protective Set II from the E-rank dungeon. With a sigh, he crouched down and petted the cub, bringing his face level with the mother fox's height. Then he quietly continued their strange conversation, though Arianna no longer listened. She didn't want to intrude, and she loved how his attitude toward them had changed. She loved how he had changed.

She sighed. She'd forgiven him already, hadn't she? Though there was still some anger to work through, she missed their easy companionship, and it had only been a few days. She wanted it back, and for that, she'd have to work through her issues quickly.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Danielle said, "You're finally home," and hugged her, while Felicia still clung tightly. Arianna's heart warmed. This was her home, just as Danielle had said. Even though Cassis's wish had been terrible, its effects were perfect. She was happy here. She had a place here. It felt like she belonged in this apocalypse.

She teased Danielle while hugging her back fiercely. "It's only been three days. That's not much time to miss us that much."

The time dilation between E-rank dungeons and the real world was even stronger than for F-rank dungeons. Arianna wasn't quite sure, but remembered that the time dilation got worse the denser the mana in the dungeon was. But the exact time depended on some other factors that people in the other timeline hadn't figured out before it all went to hell.

It had been very confusing because while F-rank dungeons were quite stable with the time dilation of one day in this world equalling around one week in the dungeon, from E-rank upwards, it got chaotic. Sometimes you could spend months in a dungeon and only one day had passed in this world, other times the awakener would have also lost months in this world.

Smarter people than her would need to figure that stuff out. She already had other projects that didn't hurt her head just thinking about them.

Danielle laughed heartily. "Why can't I just welcome back my son and future daughter-in-law? I'm happy you're home." Then quieter she added. "I was so worried." And squeezed Arianna tightly.

And it was tight. Danielle, as a knight, was very strong physically. Thankfully, Arianna was a lot sturdier than she used to be, and the vanguard class helped too. Arianna thought that the class of the awakener decided just how much of the exp mana was released into a corresponding body part at a level up.

She'd have to observe it with the others, but she had a feeling the system was guiding the mana more towards muscles and bones for physically active classes and into the mana stream and blood for more magic leaning classes.

Arianna comfortingly rubbed Danielle's back. "We're alright. We came back. Nothing happened to us." Because Arianna knew Danielle had been worried for Cassis, but also for her.

Finally Danielle let go, and also got Felicia to set her free. That was when Arianna found Cassis and the foxes standing right next to them. He was looking at her in that soft way of his, but she couldn't deal with that right now.

She wanted to go into their house and finally found the guild, but Felicia stopped her. She wrote something in her notebook then showed it to them. The foxes have chosen names. The mother fox is called Thalia and the cub is called Kael.

Arianna smiled, then turned towards the foxes. "That's great. Then nice to meet you Thalia and Kael. How did you come up with those names?"

Matteo gave her that information. "Felicia sat with them for hours surfing the internet and looking at names to do with fire since Tailah wanted something that fit them well. They settled on Taliah after a goddess connected to wisdom and fire. And Kael is from a story about some mighty warrior who used fire."

Arianna grinned that sounded like a lot of work, but also rewarding. She could just picture Felicia curled up with the foxes and scrolling through the internet. She wondered just how many naps had interrupted that project.

Cassis also greeted the two newly named companions, then urged them to go inside where the others were waiting for them.

After many greetings and congratulations from the rest of their team, they gathered in Arianna and Cassis's house around the big table in the living room. Cassis started, "It's finally time to found our guild. We need three founding members and a name. First let's decide on the name."

Benny laughed. "Don't we already have one? It should be survivors, just like your NGO." Arianna was surprised but when she thought of it she agreed.

Elena continued. "Your NGO tries to help people by freely sharing your knowledge. A guild tied to that NGO would certainly be well received and help your organization, too."

Cassis nodded. "Then it's decided? Or do we have any other suggestions?"

Everyone shook their head. Cassis stated. "Alright. Survivors will be our guilds name. It fits with who we are, and who we want to be. Then next: who wants to be a founding member with me and Arianna? There have to be three founders."

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