Preparations

"It was honestly really weird, almost unnatural," I find myself saying to my friends after telling them about the conversation that I had with Little Thirteen.

"We told you they've been under a lot of stress," Papi points out. "Especially Thirteenth Incorporated. They're a big name in the gaming sector while this is the newest and hottest game out right now. If anything goes wrong here, the entire guild and its backing will suffer a heavy blow. I'm not surprised they offered to feed you everything to make things easier."

"Did Donna not come talk to you?" Ivana asks curiously, as if she was not surprised about my short meeting with Mr. Thirteen.

Giving Go's sister a narrow eyed glare, I ask, "Why would she need to come talk to me? I'm pretty sure Mr. Thirteen speaks for the both of them."

Avoiding my gaze, Ivana says, "Well, there was a lot of talking on the way back from the last outpost so I figured everybody would want to come talk to you about this or that. There's no reason to glare at me like that, I didn't say anything to anybody."

Next I turned to glare at Go for verification but even he looked away to avoid meeting my eyes.

Thinking about the conversations we had at the sushi bar, I simply shake my head and sigh, "Whatever. Point is, we're going to be heading back to the cathedral soon. We've made an opening in the encirclement, all we need to do now is prepare for the future battles and debate whether or not we clear the other outposts or rush the manor."

Even with the prospective rewards awaiting us at the other outposts, the death toll would probably be high and thus the so-called profit margin would be low. Only the elites of the gathered clans seemed to be making any real gains, the fodder they brought along just could not hold their own in the current combat. Either they were not skilled enough or their strategies were not good enough.

I mean, allowing themselves to literally be boxed in like before was ridiculous. They should have known better than to fight so many so close with only tanks and mages. However, they were at least quick to learn from their mistakes.

After a few more minutes of planning out our next moves, I left my team to organize with the other clans before taking to the air and moving out alone. Little Thirteen really did have a point when he mentioned feeding me all of the enemies. Our strongest fighter was the crutch of our operation and they- I- needed to be as strong as possible.

The flight back to the cathedral took only a few minutes and when I arrived it was to find that Zekrom had gathered all the few thousand skeleton NPC in front of the cathedral. All but a few hundred of the skeletons were now made of crystalline black bones and their previous levels had gone up to level one-sixty, proving that their combat abilities had effective skyrocketed.

While Zekrom was still converting the few hundred, the other numerous hundreds were hard at work crafting a large assortment of spears and ranged weapons. Thinking about the original effects of the lances that I made and the other clans enchanted, I suddenly feel much better about our current situation. Still, the others had only just started learning their lessons.

Even if we loaded up the players with the skeleton made weapons- considering if they did not have any level restrictions- it would only be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. The experience gains would be there but the actual skills and combat ability of the other clans would not go up. However, this was of secondary importance now that they realized the differences.

Gliding over the cathedral property after circling twice to scan the current activities, I land in the empty divine pond in the graveyard.

Still sticking up from the bottom of the pond was Hauntings but instead of one large splitting sword there were now two single-edged swords planted in the ground. One sword was emitting a gaseous dark light that seemed to repel the divine golden rays of the sword beside it and the other suffused the rest of the area with brightness. As well, the pond no longer rippled to feed my swords, proving that the divine empowering process has ended.

Reaching out to grasp the hilts of my swords, I feel a combination of conflicting energies pouring into my arms and coursing through my body from the weapons. One side was a chilling emptiness that brought with it a sense of imposing loss while the other was a warm and comforting lightness that seemed to try consoling the other sword.

With both of them in hand, I could feel not only my stats rising but also a heightening of my senses and a livening of my nerves. Every pore in my body suddenly felt cold as if a chilling wind was blowing through my armor and into me, filling me with a sense of energy that was numerous times stronger than mana meditation.

Looking at the swords in my character inventory, I find that they were both renamed as entirely new weapons. 'Ancient Darkness Haunting' and 'Ancient Enlightenment Haunting'. Both of them, even though I could still wield and use them, had level restrictions of one-fifty even though their damages had gone down to one hundred apiece.

The swords, though, had new effects. The blessings and innate skills remained the same as before but now each sword had an inheritance perk even though no cores had been used on them. 'Darkness' was now imbued with the power of curses similar to my staff while 'Enlightenment' had a perk that raised my resistance to 'debuffs' in general by fifty percent.

As well, like the dual weapons of my other companions these swords' recovery blessings stacked together. Even if I went out to an untouched outpost by myself and used only my 'normal' skills, I felt like I could clear the entire place with just these swords alone. Despite the fact that there were no listed effects toward my stats besides the second blessing effect, all of my stats were thirty points higher than before I grasped my swords.

"How is this even possible?" I ask in an awed whisper, hoping Melpomene would give me some actual enlightenment.

[Your sword is inhabited by a spirit named Geist, Geist has accumulated a large amount of neutral, positive, and negative spiritual energy. The divine power left behind in the reincarnation pool refined Geist's energies into a duality of souls. One soul has become two entities which caused the soul's container to split with those energies. The powers of either sword reflect the concentrations of those energies]

"That explains what happened but not really how…" I point out a little awkwardly, knowing that would probably be the most of an answer that I would receive. And, as I expected, I did not receive any other responses. Shrugging, I simply say, "Thank you for your time," before sitting down to meditate.

Expanding my mana and awareness to encompass the pond and its surroundings, I start condensing the divine mana around me into a dense curtain of shimmering energy. Since Zekrom was busy with the NPC I had no choice but to focus my attention on upgrading my usual Mana Assimilation as well as the Demigod aspect. Since he would probably be another hour or so, I was certain I had enough time to make at least one more advancement.

Time passed both slowly and quickly at the same time while I meditated but the progress I tracked in my mind barely went up at all. Both the fifth stage of MA1 and the second stage of Demigod went up at the same rate, showing how slow it would be to continue advancing either of my assimilation branches. If there was an MA2 I would probably finish it before Demigod.

By the time I had made it through a third of the fifth MA1 stage an hour had passed. Not much had taken place in the cathedral besides the continuation of their previous work and the rest of the clan alliance had yet to arrive. As well, a full day had yet to even pass since we came down into the dungeon.

We still had time before the other clans would come to join us and even then I did not doubt that I could pull politics and make the skeleton NPC prefer my group over the others that join us. Not just because their initial alliance was to me because I woke them with the cathedral bell but also because I was the only one who could hear all of their voices.

If there were any other mediums among the other clans, then I could fall back on the fact that I was the bell ringer. As well, Zekrom's empowering of the NPC would further increase our affinity to one another. If that did not work… I could do my job as the 'bully' and secure my alliance's claim on the dungeon by wiping out those who rival us.

With my new Hauntings, I really could solo an outpost. A rival clan's party of fifty may very well be wiped with a single Mana Slash. With my currently upgraded stats and abilities, I could probably wipe fifty elites and veterans with basic attacks instead of skills.

Regardless of the fact that my weapons did fifty PATK less than the previous Hauntings, the damage output of two weapons was enough to compensate.

Just as I was nearing the completion of the next MA1 stage, though, the approaching noises of people inside and in front of the cathedral soon pulled me from my meditation. Luckily I was only practicing the breathing exercise rather than 'soaking' like Mistress's method or else I would have received some backlash from the interruption.

Releasing my hold on the surrounding area, I get up and walk out of the dried up pond with my swords sheathed together in the giant scabbard meant for a single sword. Since the original sword had simply split down the middle, they both still fit well enough together in the scabbard. If not, I would have had to make a whole knew one to wear under the golem's coffin.

Before I even reached the cathedral there was a large group of bodies coming out of the back doors. These people were my own party as well as the leaders and elites of the other clans. None of them looked exactly happy and they all carried an air of expectation.

Meeting them at the edge of the graveyard, I simply wave hello while hoping the darkness and light produced by the exposed hilts of my new swords over my shoulder would not draw too much attention. Speaking for the group as a whole, Go says, "Leo! Zekrom is still busy crafting and we need help condensing a mana field for our mana training."

Tilting my head curiously while looking to Little Thirteen, I say, "I thought we discussed physiques to increase the advantages of your melee fighters. What's with the interest in our mana cultivation?"

"I already have my people salting themselves, the rest of us are going to increase our mana so we can unload heavier magic on the enemy," Mr. Thirteen replies simply. "So, Mr. Leo, would you be so kind as to teach us about your technique?"

Nodding my head slowly as I think of other ways to enhance a person's defenses with physical cultivation, I say, "Sure, come with me. We actually have two techniques right now, mine and Mistress' and they can be combined. However, Mistress' technique comes with a backlash if you stop before making a breakthrough so you should use it at your own peril."

So, minutes later, I found myself standing in the center of a scattered few dozen players sitting in the bottom of the dried up 'reincarnation pool' while talking them through the methods of condensing and breathing the mana in the air while their bodies more or less naturally refine the energy on their own. The process was fairly simple so it only took around ten minutes for everybody to get started.

Once everybody's joint mana control had condensed the area around the pond into a shimmery veil of divine mana, I simply left them to their own devices while flying out to the front of the cathedral. Here I found over a hundred mostly naked players divided by a large wall working with handfuls of course salt minerals. Everybody had a health bar exposed over their heads and less than ten percent was missing due to the technical self-mutilation of their practices.

However, they remained committed to their efforts so I could only imagine they were making some gains to justify those efforts. Sadly, I could not allow myself to enjoy the aerial view of the few doze scantily clad women. Not only because it was inappropriate but also because it was not exactly pleasant to watch them salt themselves until their arms and chest were tinted red.

Landing atop the wall despite the fact that I would probably receive a label for my actions, I call out, "You have one hour to continue this practice before we move on to elemental resistance training. This will probably hurt more than the salting, so try to focus on the Pain Tolerance buff you all have probably received from the self-mutilation. Also, focus on slow and deep breathing exercises," I add thoughtfully, expanding my mana and awareness to cover the area and condense its mana around the other players.

*