The Class Grafting process was a painful one, though Xavier had endured worse.

  Empress Larona did not explain the procedure as she performed it—apparently, she’d ended up requiring more focus than she’d initially expected. Xavier’s frequent and obsessive use of the spell Soul Harden had made him unreceptive to this particular ritual.

  He’d had to focus on his own soul. Had to delve into the protections the spell had given him and alter them slightly. This was something that he hadn’t been aware was possible, and the empress had told him she had never encountered a need for it in the past.

  She had, in the cold, detached manner that on occasion overtook her, called him quite the specimen.

  He’d had to hold back a shudder at the way that made him feel. This woman was more powerful than him, and she’d been looking at him not as though he was a person, but more as though he were simply a tool.

  I have been on this woman’s radar for a long, long time. Perhaps that is to be expected.

  Xaiver had felt the soul cling to him, as though it was a thin layer overlaying his own, but not interfering with it. He wasn’t sure if he’d felt it because of his particular sensitivity to souls, or if this was something all Denizens felt when this was performed on them—though he couldn’t help but think it was because of the former.

  Once the procedure was done, Empress Larona didn’t let him ask any more questions of her. Not about inscribing. Not about the future. Not about anything. She led him out of the workroom in silence, through the hallway, and eventually back to the bookstore.

  The woman had a look about her. One of sorrow—the same look that had been etched on her face when she’d told him that the threat to the Silver River sector might be here in a mere three years.

  It was clear that was where her thoughts now lay.

  When he stepped back into the bookstore, Xavier half-expected Romalda to be gone. Perhaps he would be able to find her in the mess of Mareketh, and he doubted she had any spirit coins to her name that would allow her to get off world. Still, he was sure someone who’d been as powerful as she’d once been and was no doubt still the same level of crafty, would have been able to escape him had she wished.

  It had been another little test.

  Romalda was sitting on one of the armchairs dotted about the bookstore, reading a book about necromancy called What’s Dead Need Not Stay Dead. She was leafing through the pages with a grin on her face, chuckling at what she read. She didn’t look up at him as he walked over, but she’d clearly clocked his return.

  “This is ridiculous,” Romalda said. “And this man thinks he has enough knowledge to pen a book on necromancy?” She huffed, stood, and, holding the book between her index finger and thumb like it was a dirty rag, dropped it onto the armchair.

  Then she frowned at him. “Something has… Changed.”

  “I did what I came here to do,” Xavier said.

  “Where’s the proprietor?” Romalda asked.

  “Gone.” Xavier glanced at the stairs he’d just stepped down. “Something tells me she won’t be returning.”

  “Well, that sounds ominous.” Romalda’s eyes widened and a gleeful smile lit up her face. “Did you kill her?” She looked excited. “Oh, can I have her corpse?”

  Xavier stared at the woman. “When you were first alive, did you happen to spend a lot of time alone?”

  Romalda waved his words away. “No. I was never alone. Always one for company, me.”

  “And was that company alive?”

  Romalda tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with her pinkie. It was a gesture similar to what Siobhan did but looked entirely different on this woman. “Well…” She bit her lip. “Admittedly, no.”

  Xavier thought a moment of the company he kept. An elf spirit who seemed to have a certain disdain for humans. A bloodthirsty dragon whose hunger was never sated. And a formerly B Grade, reborn necromancer who appeared to lack a moral compass.

  He wasn’t sure, exactly, how he’d managed to gather these people around him.

  It sure does make life a little more interesting, though.

  Romalda tilted her head to the side. “Why does it say you’re a swordsman?”

  Xavier raised a hand and switched their conversation to their Communication Stones.

  Xavier: [That’s something best not discussed aloud.]

  Romalda: [The people hunting you. You’re really taking this seriously, aren’t you? If I’m not mistaken, you just had a Class Graft performed on you. Is that why you killed the proprietor? She seemed nice.]

  Xavier sighed. He didn’t bother correcting the woman about the bookstore owner being alive and well. He was still reeling from the fact that she was the Empress Larona, and that wasn’t information that he was about to share. Not that he would need to share it with Romalda to clear up him not murdering the proprietor—he simply wasn’t to keep the necromancer on her toes.

  “So,” Xavier said, switching to speaking out loud as they stepped out of the bookstore and only the busy streets of Mareketh. “You didn’t run.”

  Romalda hesitated. It was only for a fraction of a second, but Xavier was fast enough that he was able to catch it. She bit her lip. “I considered it.”

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  Xavier peered over at her. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t. I would never want to be locked into a contract like that one either. Though I suppose that’s different—I held a leverage over you that I hope can never be held over me in return.”

  “You’re testing me,” Romalda said. “You want my loyalty, but you don’t want me to sign a contract to get it. It’s not something I would have expected from you. When I first met you in the dungeon… You seemed a lot more ruthless than that. Determined to get whatever you want beyond reason.”

  Xavier chuckled. “Oh, I’m still that person. But right now, you’re right. The thing that I want is your loyalty, and I don’t want it through a contract. Tell me, Romalda, why is it you didn’t run? Why did you stay?”

  The woman bit her lip. She looked over at him, seeming to take him in.

  Xavier didn’t look like himself. Not really. He currently donned full-plate armour, and he had a sword at his hip. The sword happened to be The Lost Bone of a Dead God—handy, how that soul bound weapon could transform—but it was still a sword and not the scythe-staff he was used to carrying around.

  “I stayed for two reasons. The first is… I don’t have anywhere else to go. The home I once owned, well, I imagine it’s been destroyed by now.” Her fingers curled into fists. “I tried to expand too fast. I pushed into territory that I shouldn’t have. I thought myself more powerful than I truly was and paid dearly for that arrogance. Even if my home remained intact, it wouldn’t be safe there for me. Not anymore. And certainly not in this current state.” She looked down at herself, as though looking at something pitiful. Something to be ashamed of. “I’m weak, Xavier Collins. Nothing but a shell of what I once was.”

  Xavier rested a hand on his Companion Cube, thinking about Volkarin. The dragon had said something similar to him once.

  He seemed to be getting into a habit of collecting lost souls. He held in a chuckle at that thought. Xavier supposed it wasn’t strange for a reaper to gather such things…

  “What was the second reason?” Xavier asked.

  “Hmm?” Romalda blinked up at him.

  “You said there were two reasons you didn’t run. What was the second?”

  “You’re interesting, Xavier Collins. There’s something about you. Something powerful. What you’ve been able to do in such a short time… If I’m going to ever be able to restore myself to my former glory—to surpass it—perhaps in this incarnation I’ll need some powerful friends. You, I suspect, will become very powerful one day. It’s hard to walk away from someone with that kind of potential.”

  Xavier inclined his head in a nod.

  The reasons the woman gave were entirely selfish, but then why shouldn’t they be? She didn’t care about his world. Didn’t care about his sector. The System just happened to plop her down into that Dungeon on Earth. No doubt by pure randomness.

  “So, you’ll stick around, then?” Xaiver asked.

  “You could have forced me into a contract, and you didn’t. I admire that. I’ve been loyal to others before, I didn’t only hang around the undead, but I’ve never been good at trusting those I command—that’s why I commanded the undead. I need not worry about someone’s loyalty if they’re my minion.” Romalda frowned. “Though I don’t know how you’ll be able to trust me.”

  Xavier grunted. “Well, that was surprisingly honest.”

  Romalda shrugged. “Don’t really see the point in lying. That was something I did plenty of in my first life. Maybe that’s something I can leave behind.”

  Xaiver looked the woman up and down, much the way she’d appraised him. He still wasn’t sure if he was making the right decision. Even she didn’t know how he would be able to trust her.

  But it was starting to feel more right. Starting to feel like something he should do.

  He thought, for a moment, about something that Siobhan had said the last time he’d spoken to his old party. They were sitting around their regular table in the tavern at the bottom of the Tower of Champions, and he’d told them about the dragon, Volkarin.

  Siobhan had said it looked as though he was gathering a party around him that could keep up with him.

  In a way, he supposed that was true. Though keep up might not be the right way to put it—Volkarin was still considerably weaker than Xavier, and Xavier wasn’t quite sure how the dragon would ever be able to catch up.

  But that didn’t mean the dragon couldn’t become an asset.

  And it wasn’t only the dragon.

  He had the elf spirit, Rhaalir, who could occupy the Spirit Golem.

  Technically, Xavier could have almost any spirit occupy the Spirit Golem. That was a great part of its utility—to be able to summon a great many spirits with a variety of spells, to give him different strategies to put at his disposal.

  That would take him a long way, he knew.

  But he also knew that it would be Rhaalir who, for the most part, would be the one to inhabit the Spirit Golem, and that was exactly the way Xavier wanted it to be.

  That was two “party members.” Now, he wondered if he had acquired a third party member in Romalda, someone who would round his little team out to four.

  Someone who, like Volkarin, had a vast knowledge of their universe.

  Xavier liked fighting alone, but he couldn’t help but wonder what his life would be like if he were able to take on help. Real help.

  There were a million things he wished to accomplish, and it felt as though he had very little time in which to do it all. Help didn’t seem like a bad thing to have at all.

  But could Volkarin, Rhaalir, and Romalda—all weaker than him—truly help him against the threats that were out there, when the Empress Larona herself, who was vastly more powerful than he currently was, couldn’t face those threats?

  As they walked through the streets of Mareketh, heading roughly back in the direction of the portal platform, Xavier realised he’d been trying to push something out of his mind since the moment he’d left Empress Larona’s Personal Space.

  Three years.

  Three years until the sector-ending threat would reach Silver River. Three years in which to become powerful enough to face it.

  That, he knew, wasn’t a lot of time. He didn’t even have enough information on the threat—hell, he didn’t really have any information about it at all. All he did know was that it was more powerful than the Empress Larona.

  That means I’ll become strong enough to take out The Collector, a B Grade Denizen, long before being able to face this threat.

  “Where to now?” Romalda asked. “Back to Earth?”

  They were standing on the portal platform. Xavier blinked. His mind had been wandering so much that he hadn’t even realised they’d reached it.

  His plan had been to return to Earth after getting what he needed from Elitsa Flian—that had been assuming that she could do what he needed. But now, after finding out what he had from the empress… He wasn’t sure being back on Earth was the right decision for him to make.

  He needed to keep pushing. He needed to drastically increase his power.

  Part of him wished he was back in the Tower of Champions. That was where he’d gained much of his power. There were floors there where time almost stood still. Where he had been able to take full advantage of that. He didn’t know if there would be any more floors like that, and the System didn’t allow him in particular to ask for information about the future floors. Which meant he would be stuck guessing about what would come next.

  I still have a few months before I’m returned to the tower. I need to make sure I’m using that time wisely.

  He had become stronger since returning to Earth, but it had been in small ways. In how he had defeated the C Grade Elite Hunt Squad. In how he had upgraded his Farscope ability.

  He hadn’t actually gained any levels.

  That made him shut his eyes and release a sigh of frustration.

  Romalda waved a hand in his face. “Xavier?”

  Xavier’s eyes snapped open. Romalda flinched, taking a step back. He softened his expression, not realising how angry he must look—the anger borne of his frustration.

  He spoke to her through their Communication Stones.

  Xavier: [Follow me. I need to introduce you to a few people.]

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