Ian curled up in his bed as the morning attacked him.
“No…why are you so bright?” he muttered as he slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.
Jason had eventually drawn in a crowd with his antics, and Ian got sucked right into the craziness as Jen kept giving him shots. The copious amounts of alcohol, combined with the fact he hadn’t had money to drink anything in well over a year, had left him feeling like quite the lightweight. He remembered getting back to his dorm sometime after they kicked everyone out of the cafeteria to clean it up and get breakfast prepped.
Sighing, his headache began to slowly fade as he stood up and stretched. He had obviously remembered to do many things last night, like put his armor and weapons on their stands, and make sure he had his stuff set out for the morning. He had even set an alarm to make sure he didn’t sleep the entire day away. An alarm that was still several hours away from going off.
“How did I forget to close the curtains? I can’t believe even drunk Ian would screw up like this.” Ian said as he turned on the shower. “Huh, I actually feel pretty damn good right now. I think they really undersold the benefits of the endurance stat.”
After getting ready, he headed to the cafeteria to grab breakfast. He had received a text from Claire to come see him after he got up and was around, but made it clear she didn’t expect to see him until after lunch and wasn’t in any sort of hurry.
Walking into the cafeteria, Ian quickly noticed there was a much younger crowd watching the screens, and over half the people eating breakfast were huddled around a single area listening to someone who Ian thought was familiar but couldn’t place.
Internally shrugging, he made his way to the counter and had a bacon, cheese, and spinach omelet made to go with his side of bacon. He didn’t think the sight of all the food would ever stop being exciting. It was something he had taken for granted before he spent weeks nearly starving, before Jen had given him a job.
With a full plate and some orange juice, he made his way to one of the empty tables to enjoy his food in peace. After a few minutes, he became aware that part of the crowd had moved towards him. Looking over, the man who had been the center of attention earlier was standing a few feet away, smiling at him. He had blue hair and wore an expensive-looking dark gray robe with golden trim.
“Greetings! I bet you weren’t expecting to see me here this morning,” the man exclaimed as he looked at Ian expectantly.
“Excuse me?” Ian asked in confusion.
The man looked confused for a second before his smile returned, “Well, I came here specifically to talk with you.”
Ian took another bite of his omelet and slowly chewed as he stared at the man without speaking. Just as the man went to open his mouth, Ian spoke.
“I’m sorry, but who are you?” he asked.
All the noise in the room stopped as everyone turned away from looking at the blue-haired man to stare directly at him.
“That’s Arcane Master Kambis from The Conquerors of Peerless!” shouted one of the young women that was standing near the back of the crowd.
“Oh,” Zero said before turning back to the man. He had a pretty good idea why he was here and had to bite off his initial reaction. He was oscillating between insulting the man for his choice of clan or pitying him for partying with a traitorous monster. However, Ian didn’t know anything about the man, and his own experiences had shown him that acting on secondhand knowledge and impressions could lead to uncomfortable situations down the road.
Deciding this wasn’t worth it, he just shrugged, turned back to his plate, and went back to eating his food. Food was more important than dealing with whatever problem Kambis was going to turn into.
Kambis moved forward and took the seat next to Ian. He placed his elbow down and put his hand carefully on his cheek in what Ian felt to be a practiced pose.
“I’m here to see if you would like to consider joining The Conquerors,” he said with a tone that made it already sound like a done deal. “Obviously, it might take us a bit to get you caught up to us, but we have been keeping our last two slots open for anyone with amazing potential that is dedicated towards adventuring towards the pinnacle together.
“We can make sure you ha—”
“Kambis,” Ian said, cutting the other man off. “I’m not interested in joining Peerless, and I am definitely never joining your party. So, if that’s it, I’d like to eat my breakfast in peace.”
“Zero,” he said with an overly exaggerated sigh. “You just need to spend the time and thi—”
“Kambis!” Ian growled, cutting the man off again before continuing in a calm voice. “I’m sure you’re a nice enough guy when you aren’t pretending to be whatever,” he gestured with his hands towards Kambis, “was designated for you by the old Dinkmeister, but I have no interest in ever joining your clan. I don’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not, and I don’t want to be surrounded by people who do.”
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Ian looked over to see Kambis just staring at him, seemingly shocked. Ian wasn’t sure if it was because he had turned him down or if he just didn’t know what his character was supposed to do in this type of situation.
“Anyways,” Ian said as he got up from the table. “It was good meeting you. Hopefully, next time we can have a real conversation. But please tell Peter that I wasn’t joking, and that he should give up before he embarrasses himself further, though it would bring me joy to see him pulled through the mud like he so desperately deserves.”
As he went to carry his plates away, a young woman called out to him, “You’re going to regret turning down Peerless one day. They are all close and help each other in times of need, and one day you are going to find that you have nobody to help you. Do you think you have the fortitude to overcome being alone?”
Ian put his plate on the counter and walked back over to her, “What makes you think I haven’t already overcome that hurdle? Do you know one of the few ways to be put in the situation you are describing?”
The woman looked around at her friends, seemingly scared to speak now that the black mist that was Ian’s face was in front of her.
“It happens when you find out the people who you devoted your entire life to decide you are disposable. When you devote your entire future to them, only to be thrown away like trash. As you grow up, you will come to realize that what you see is rarely reality, and that sometimes your heroes are actually monsters in disguise.
“Learn from my mistakes. Make sure you build true friendships instead of being used by those who only see you as a means to an end. I finally have at least a few people who care about me. Not because I can get people to watch me on stream or what I can do for them, but for who I am inside.”
“I-I didn’t mean…” the woman said before she looked away.
Ian shook his head, “I’m sorry, I got worked up and lashed out. You didn’t deserve that.” Ian gave the woman a small bow before turning to Kambis. “Sorry, Kambis, I guess I was a little harsh, though I am still definitely never joining your clan. Maybe you should cheer these fans of yours up. I need to go see my Keeper anyway.”
Ian went to leave as the man just nodded to him with a pensive look on his face.
~*~*~
Safely nestled on the sofa in Claire’s office, Ian shook his head as he finished telling Claire about his breakfast escapades.
“I figured they would send someone, I’m just happy it wasn’t Beth,” Claire said as she played with her hair absently. “You didn’t go too far or say anything to crazy, so there shouldn’t be any issues that arise from this. However, I would be lying if I said I was confident you wouldn’t do something stupid if you were confronted by your ex.”
“That’s fair,” Ian said after a moment of thought. “I’m not even sure what I would do at this point. I hate her, but at the same time, I don’t. It’s all a jumbled-up mess in here.”
Claire looked over to see Ian tapping the side of his head with a finger. She just smirked and shook her head.
“In other news,” she said, changing the subject. “Jason stopped by earlier this morning and said that he had an idea that you were going to be more stats inclined than many of the other adventurers at your level.”
“What made him think that?”
“Well, somebody got pulled into an arm-wrestling contest when they were six shots deep last night,” Claire said, giving him another smirk with her eyebrows raised. “And the fact that you only lost to him—someone over 700 levels above you—gave him the impression that you were going to be a monster.”
Ian felt a little embarrassed as the memory popped into his head before he smirked, “I remember someone challenging me after I won the first round against Kibble.”
Claire laughed and shook her head, “Yeah, I’m not great with whiskey, but at least it wasn’t tequila. I’m told I can get pretty wild on tequila, not that I remember much of it.”
“Keep you away from tequila, gotcha,” Ian chuckled before focusing. “So, what did he say?”
“Oh, he said that you should look into a skill called Magic Soul. He said you are going to start running into a problem unless you get a magic-based attack. After level 400, monsters start to occasionally have resistances to different types of damage, and physical resistance is a common one. The problem most soloists have is that they run into hard counters to their skills because they lack a range of attack types.”
“Right, so if I have only physical damage and a fire ball skill, I am screwed when I run into a magma monster?”
“Exactly. But Magic Soul minimizes that issue by creating an aura of pure magic around whatever weapon you decide to use. It attacks the mana that holds the creature together, which means that it can greatly increase a weapon’s penetrating power to mana hardened flesh, or even directly sever portions of a monster that are held together solely by magic, like a magma monster.”
Nodding, Ian thought about it for a moment. “So, why is this the first time I’m hearing about it? It sounds like a skill that would be amazing for everyone who used it.”
“That is the hard part. Its damage is based on your physical damage; however, you would need equally high wisdom and intelligence stats to continuously use it. You would also probably need to pick up the uncommon skill Mana Regeneration, like most casters do, to be able to use it more than a few times. So, it has a high SP cost and requires a ton of support skills, making it the sole SP focus for a while.”
Ian opened up his status screen and went to check to see how much it would cost. He whistled as he turned his attention back to Claire.
“It’s going to be a solid 2000 SP to just pick up the skill. I think it will be worth it, though, as I wouldn’t have to change my current fighting style.
“Besides, I want to get the status boosting skills for all the stats so I can help out my sister when she gets here on Friday. Though, if I’m being honest, I’m still worried she may blame me for her current situation, even if she doesn’t believe anything Beth said.”
Claire blew a raspberry at him. “Stop saying such stupid things. I’m sure your sister will be ecstatic to see you, and she won’t be going into the dungeon for at least a couple of weeks. She still needs to complete her training courses before she would even be allowed to set foot inside. At the rate you’re leveling, it is anyone’s guess at how far you will have progressed by then.”
“Bah. Speaking of leveling, it’s almost ten. I’ve got to get a move on if I want to sell my stuff from yesterday and get back in there. You down for meeting up for dinner tonight? I am told Wednesday is surf and turf day!”
Claire just shook her head at the excitement on Ian’s face. “Yeah, yeah. I’m actually in the process of finishing up the last few tasks I was helping everyone else with, so I should start having more free time by the end of the week. I may even spend some of my own time in a dungeon here and there.”
Ian stood up and started walking towards the door. “Then I definitely need to get going. I wouldn’t want my Keeper to be better at everything than me.”
“Get out of here,” Claire said with a snort.
