Max didn't know how long he sat on the bed in the inn, staring into space. At least, that's probably what it looked like to his spirits. Finally, Lavinia manifested visually next to him and softly asked, "What's going on, Max?"

  He shook his head and pointed. "I know you and the other spirits can't see this, but something's here."

  Lavinia cocked her head quizzically at him. "What are you talking about?"

  Max blew the air out of his cheeks. "Do you remember when I met the Morrigan and became a Champion? I haven't really been able to use a lot of the benefits from that, so I haven't called up any of the menus that I got when I became a Champion. Even in the void, I didn’t mess with them after the first few days I was there. The screens were garbled so there was no point.. However, now I can clearly see one of the screens—actually, an entire system."

  He went back to studying the various screens in the air and slowly shook his head. Max muttered, "Eternal Struggle Reward System. What the hell?"

  Up until now, he’d been studying the screen for a while, getting a feel for how it all worked. There was even a help menu that he used a few times, but he hadn't really needed it much. At least, he didn't need it now that he lived on Earth. In some ways, the system reminded him of a gacha video game.

  He’d deep-dive it again later, but the high level fact at the moment seemed to be that it was called the Eternal Struggle Reward System, a type of store and game with prizes for Champions, and that he could get all sorts of things from it. There were ways to invest more points, called Renown Points, in order to get better rolls, or better prizes, but the results were still randomized, and there was still an element of skill involved, at least from the perspective of which “keywords” to use for prizes.

  What kept drawing his attention was the number of Renown Points he had—eleven. He shook his head. Despite being completely new to the system, common sense suggested that this was a lot of renown points for a system where three points seemed to matter a lot for rewards.

  A plan was starting to form in Max's mind—maybe not a good plan, but better than he had before. Finally, he said, "Lavinia, during your life on Albion, or before you were born, do you remember any mention of if any of my caches were found, the ones I put together back when I was Chasa de Milo?"

  "Caches?" asked Lavinia, confusion evident in her voice. "I never heard anything about that."

  "That's exactly what I was hoping you would say," said Max. He abruptly got up and began pacing back and forth across the room. "Okay, so here is the problem. I am in another dimension, or on another world, or in another reality. Back in Albion.

  “I need to find my way back to Earth, and we have no earthly idea, no pun intended, how to do that. Before, I was going to work on my power enough to maybe find a way to bring myself back to earth, and I believe in myself enough that I believed that maybe I could have done it, especially with your help, Lavinia, and especially since I still have all of these ral’tek daggers."

  Max stopped pacing and turned to face Lavinia. "However, it has occurred to me that if I get back to Earth, and let’s say, instead of three adjudicators coming after me next time, suddenly there's ten or maybe an entire army, me going back right away might not be the best thing in the world. I mean, humanity has a chance against monsters, but I don't think they have much of a chance against the adjudicators, at least not right now."

  "So?" Lavinia prompted.

  Max began pacing again and said, "So what that means is I can't go back empty-handed. I need to bring enough firepower with me, whether in people or in artifacts or tools, that I can turn the tide if any more adjudicators come. I need to make my friends more powerful, and that includes some of the other adventurers and Challengers on Earth. I can't focus just on people I know and like anymore, but that also means that I'm probably going to have to take a more active role in searching for and ferreting out any more problems, like when The Victory Guild had a demonic energy infestation."

  Max abruptly took a seat on the bed. "That means just being stronger than everybody else isn't going to cut it. I need to be exceedingly stronger, ridiculously stronger, and on top of that, I know what happened to Ancilla. I can't let that happen to me. And although Ancilla was powerful," his voice trailed off, "I have to believe I can become more powerful. I was Chassa de Milo in my past life. There's nothing stopping me from reaching that level of power again, and I have other Paths and advantages on top of that. I wasn’t able to work on my mana body in the void, no mana, duh, but now that I’m in Albion, I should grow in power…super fast. I can achieve greater heights."

  Suddenly, Anansi popped into existence on the bed in his familiar man-spider hybrid shape. "That's the thinking I want to hear," said Anansi. "You aren’t anywhere close to Ancilla’s level yet, if I'm being honest. But keep in mind, if you become more powerful and restore some of my power, your growth can increase exponentially, too."

  Max gave the divine remnant a skeptical look. "Uh-huh, and you want to be returned to your old form again and come back to life. I'm sure that has nothing to do with your motivational support here, right?"

  "Well, a spider god's got to have dreams," Anansi conceded.

  Max got up yet again to pace, his energy needing an outlet. "So this is what I'm thinking. I need to get money, which I'm pretty sure I can do pretty easily just by trading some things. For instance, I have lots of stuff from earth in my bone storage that Saliron can help me get into. I couldn’t use any of that stuff in the Void, because real matter would be destroyed, but now it’s all useful again. Like, in Albion, if I sell a generator and a microwave oven from Earth, that would probably be novel enough to get me enough money to at least live for a while."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Do you have that kind of stuff in your bone storage? I didn't pay attention to everything you put in there," Lavinia asked.

  Max grinned. "Oh, I have a ton of random bullshit in my storage. Trust me, getting at least enough money to live is not going to be an issue. The problem is going to be raising my power to the point I can not only get back to Earth but also end the monster invasion, or at least get it under control. What I really need to do is start preparing the Earth for a counterattack or invasion by the adjudicators. I think. But there's something even more important than this...at least eventually."

  "What could be more than that?" asked Lavinia.

  Max sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "The reality is that even if we stop or beat back or prevent some sort of invasion by the Quartet or the adjudicators, the Quartet system is massive, and we still don't even know why it exists! So at some point, if I'm strong enough, and I keep the adjudicators from messing up the Earth, that means I need to find out what the truth is behind all of this and address it at the source."

  "The source, huh?” Lavinia paused. “You're going to find out,” she asked."Don't you mean we are going to find out?"

  "Of course," said Max, and he rolled his eyes at the ghost girl. "You’re along for the ride. Do we really need to break down every bit of the equation here and get into semantics when I'm in the middle of my rousing monologue, instead of just curling into a ball on my bed and feeling sorry for myself?"

  "Okay, okay. Point taken," Lavinia said, raising her hands.

  Max looked at his screen again after pulling it up. "Eleven points. Eleven points to use in the Eternal Struggle Reward System. I have no idea what I can get from this, and I plan to experiment a bit, but based on what I am reading into this thing, eleven points could mean up to eleven new powers of some sort. That nuts. Then again, maybe they could be useless without investing extra points. For all I know, what I could get with one point could be like, making sparks like a sparkler, or creating farts that don't stink. But I have a feeling that putting more points into this thing can result in getting something serious."

  He rubbed his face as he thought. Then he said, "There's also my relationship with the Morrigan. I’m her Champion. She may not be in this reality, but I'm sure that back here on Albion, my status still might count for something." He paused and raised a finger. "But like there are other things to consider, too. I was never able to use this Eternal Struggle Reward System before, but me suddenly seeing it clearly now doesn't necessarily mean it's Albion that's doing this. It could be because I went through the void.

  “Either way, it would probably be smart for me to use up all my Renown Points while I'm in Albion. But if it was Albion itself that allowed me to see this system, then there might be something else here that I can use."

  “Like what?” Lavinia looked at him levelly. "I'm still not really hearing much of a plan here. You have a few ideas of how you can get power, some of which you can probably even use immediately. But going back to Earth is not simple. I know because I helped you get there the first time."

  "You're correct, but also not correct," said Max. "You're forgetting something."

  "Pray tell, what am I forgetting, oh fearless leader?"

  Max grinned. "The same resonance that I had before with Momo that allowed me to bring her to Earth, theoretically, should allow me to find Earth if I hone in on her now. Her relative situation with me has reversed."

  Lavinia grew very still. "I'll be damned. You're right," she said, and then she hesitated before quietly asking, "Do you still feel her resonance?"

  Max nodded. "Sure of it. She's still alive. It's one of the first things I did after sitting down in the room here when I had some quiet time."

  "Oh, thank goodness for that.".

  "Agreed," said Max. Then he gave voice to the last thing he considered. "Not only that, now that I'm back in Albion and I'm from this world, I realize that I might have an opportunity on top of another opportunity."

  "What do you mean? You really enjoy being vague at times like this don’t you?"

  "Shut up. But anyway, I've been spending a lot of time reclaiming my Blade Sorcerer power. Things have changed now that I'm back on Albion. Even though the mana is technically a little bit richer back on Earth, I should be able to reclaim my mana body levels much faster here. This is the mana I used in my first life. If I’m right about this, and I believe I am, it means I’ll be able to spend less time building my mana body. And this means I can spend more time focusing on my other powers, which means that I can finally meet more spirits to bond with."

  Lavinia nodded and finished his thought. "And because you're originally from Albion and you even died in this world, you might have the potential to meet some really incredible or powerful spirits."

  "Exactly," said Max. He grinned. "So between my caches and the Eternal Struggle Reward System and meeting more spirits and all the other ways that I have to find little incremental increases in power, I have to believe that I can make something happen."

  Lavinia nodded and crossed her arms. "These caches you keep talking about, how many did you have, and what exactly are they?"

  "Well," Max explained, "back when I was Chassa de Milo, I was the richest man in the world. I mean, I was the most powerful man, so it wasn't exactly difficult to be. People would sometimes just pretty much throw money at me."

  "Must be nice," muttered Lavinia. “Are you just going to brag about how wealthy you were all day?”

  "I guess 'eat the rich' never really took hold on Albion, even during your lifetime, huh?" Max chuckled.

  "Nope, because here the rich can destroy buildings with a punch."

  "Good point. Anyway, I was a little paranoid, which I know is very ironic because I wasn't looking for the dagger right behind my back, from my so-called friends. When I was Chasa de Milo, I always thought that I was in danger from governments, not the people closest to me. The irony has not eluded me here. Anyway, this all led me to have…plans in case something happened. And one of those backup plans was my caches. In three places around the world, I stashed a great deal of wealth, weapons, armor, and also just random bullshit that I never got around to properly learning about or identifying. I sort of used each cache as a dumping ground for stuff I didn’t want to deal with, but I also put a lot of legitimate good stuff in each. So at the very least, if I find one of my caches, I will again be filthy rich on Albion."

  "Must be nice," Lavinia repeated, her face sour.

  Max shrugged. "Haters gonna hate."

  "Okay," Lavinia said. Then she paused, and Max could feel all his other spirits listening in to the conversation too. "What's our next step?" she asked.

  Max grew quiet and didn't answer right away. Finally, he said, "You have no way to recognize this, Lavinia, but the place that we came back to on Albion is actually the exact same spot that I died in my first life. And now that I'm here, I can't deny the need I have to visit my old home, if it still stands, and see the grave of my wife and child, from back when I was Chasa de Milo. But more importantly, there is a cache near that area too, or at least there should be."

  “There is one there? Seriously?”

  “Yes.” Max paused, and then, partially for dramatic effect and partially because he really did feel multiple ways about it, he said, "The goal is to return back to Earth and kick some ass. But right now, before anything else, I think I need to finally go home."

  End of book 3.