The whole word had, collective, kind of settled into the new normal. Sure, there were gates now. Sure, they often opened around people, as if attracted to them. Sure, there were dozens that didn't, and the oceans were crawling with horrible abominations who were growing unchecked.

  But what else was new? The oceans were full of toxic chemicals a while ago. People didn’t just “go to the beach” anymore. So, the crawling horrors emerging from beaches all around the world really was quite a driving factor for tourism in nations bordering the ocean.

  The creatures there also provided fodder for their mages and cultivators to practice and grow stronger, feeding off the mana stones and cores.

  Funny thing that was. The whole world had changed. Yet soon as it happened, people were shoved into boxes again. The unawakened and the awakened. Mages and cultivators and the rest of the rabble. And, of course, the awakened were segmented too.

  Ranks. E-Rank for the lowest. S-Rank at the top. And, of course, because humans just couldn’t leave it at that, there was something above S. Me.

  Well, not just, of course. The most powerful reflectors from back in Eden could keep up with us - there had been reflectors in the 5th realm after all. The one after wellspring. But they couldn’t access as much of their power as me, with [Transference] tilting the scales in our favour. So, we were about equal.

  And the government called us after cards. Aces. Ace-Rank, to be precise, very different from A rank.

  And, of course, this came with nicknames from the public, and aliases. But those don’t matter for now, because currently, one of those rare Ace-Rank hunters was trying hard to get the blood out of my socks.

  “Dang, a whole lake of it?” Marie asked.

  “Yeah,” I said with a sigh. She used some kind of nature based spell to manipulate the cotton in the fabric, and then some other, blood type minor magic to extract the liquid. “Horrid. Leeches and alligators, and a centipede boss.”

  She grimaced in sympathy. “Gross.” Then she buckled down and focussed for a moment, honing in on the spell. The magic wasn’t powerful, especially since it was a school she wasn’t super intimately familiar with, but her control of magic was so high that the cantrip was turned into a minor miracle of cleaning.

  I smiled as globules of crimson were drawn out of my socks and they returned to pristine white. Was this an entirely tiny thing to get so excited for? Yes, absolutely. But I really hated wasting good clothing cuz of stuff like this. Frankly, I was not more tempted than ever to either acquire some corebound armor piece, or to learn to make one myself.

  Amusingly our guild was one of the main sellers of magical items. The stuff dropped through my [Transference] was far better than what humans on Neamhan had figured out yet. Then again, rifles using manastone based bullets were an invention that came naturally here but hadn’t found its way to Eden yet.

  Sometimes I wondered how things were going on the other side. But with the eclipse over… it was probably fine, right? I sighed softly, placing the thought aside. Instead, I watched as Marie extracted the blood from the bottom of my pants as well. Minutes passed, and they were still stained faintly red.

  I sighed, half resigned to just cutting the stained bits off. Oh well. Whatever. Ivan really needed to get on self-repairing clothing. Who’d have thought that the ability to perfectly restore to a “prime state” was something rather complex, huh? Reality was more complicated than simple durability sliders, sadly, so it would take more time to get those items.

  One day. Surely, one day.

  The only items I’d added to my arsenal in the last half year were an amulet and an earring. I still wore my belt, the Wanderer’s Key, and my glass cape, the Ephemeral Raiment.

  [Treasure: Memory of Shelter

  Owner: Fiona Bellum

  Description: This amulet is a soft golden colour, with a tent carved within it. You may open it up to create a small shelter, warding off the elements. This effect is limited to minor environmental effects. Additionally, while worn, it provides some resistance to elemental damage and enhances the durability of any clothing worn by its wielder.]

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  I truly, truly loved that shiny bauble. It worked as an umbrella when it rained. It kept my shoes clean when the ground was muddy. And my clothing tore much less, even the mundane ones. The effect even applied to temporary armor made from Qi. What a wonderful item it was.

  Sadly, a lake of blood was not a minor environmental effect. I had found that out when trudging through a swamp, and when the water got more than ankle deep it stopped being considered minor.

  But still. It was a wonderful little trinket, and I had broken another cultivator’s wrist for trying to steal it from me before. He was, of course, healed by Reya for a minor fee only a day later. Gave me a glare as I oversaw the healing process.

  The ring I had kept was a little different from the amulet though.

  [Treasure: Band of Tethering

  Owner: Fiona Bellum

  Description: This unassuming gold ring can change its shape at will to any minor trinket of choice. Currently shaped as an earring, it can store tethers to individuals who voluntarily let it record their mana signature. The ring will heat up and resonate with a high pitch frequency if one of the tethered people dies, and can pull the wearer in the direction of someone it is tethered to with the force of a needle on a compass.]

  By itself, this wasn’t very special. But it did allow me to find my friends whenever they got lost - regardless of distance. And, if someone was in exceptional danger, I could tell, too. This had saved us before, and it would save us again - it was less useful for people like me or Ann… but I’d also recorded Ivan and Butterfly, as well as mom and dad.

  And if someone ever hurt my little sister, there would be hell to pay.

  That minor tangent aside, most of the day passed quietly. I cultivated, taking in the faint wisps of Qi in the air to push my ceiling higher. The edge of the next realm was tantalizingly close, the stars burning and stirring in my chest, but I still wasn’t quite there. Soon, I knew it. So very soon.

  Taking a deep breath, I simply let the hours pass me by.

  By now, that feeling had become normal, but still felt unfamiliar. Most days, almost all of them, passed by without any kind of danger. No one tried to kill me, and the gates that opened up were still subject to dimensional sanctions. The usurpers couldn’t just run into a newly awakened planet with the full force of their entire military.

  In fact, now that I had seen the shenanigans of the keepers for so much longer… I knew that even Eden didn’t face the full power of the usurpers. They had dozens of people at the realms of the divines, hundreds maybe. They were just limited, just like I was on Neamhan, just like all Reflectors were on Neamhan.

  This was somewhat alleviated by our group’s rather special status, given that I held a gateway. The usurpers abused this mechanic, too, otherwise something like the frog demon would never be allowed on Eden. But none of them had a complete gateway, not a single one - they relied on the keepers too much to hold onto anything but incomplete fragments.

  And the keepers made sure they weren’t fed too many fragments. Always monitoring them, keeping each other in check. What a horrible stalemate it was.

  So, knowing that I did have a complete gateway, of course the usurpers were after me. If they could have, there would already be literal gods descending onto Neamhan to try and kill me. But they couldn’t do that, because of the laws of the world, and because the keepers wouldn’t let them.

  Because the keepers wanted my gateway for themselves; they needed it for their monopoly. So, they were actively protecting me from the usurpers. How ironic, wasn’t it?

  And now, with both of these at a halt, I was back on Neamhan, my own world, slowly growing my power, slowly seeing the world get better and worse at the same time.

  In the evening, Ivan came by. He delivered a handful of mana stones and cores, the amount we were owed, and we added it to our treasury - a heavily fortified vault in our basement. Ann had done her best to absolutely fill the place with enchantments and traps, coming up with designs with Ivan and Liam, who also helped test it against intrusions.

  Frankly, it was probably the safest magical bunker on this planet. In the innermost part of it all, Ann had even carved something very special, forging it together with Reya. It was a single circle of runes, infused with divinity from within her. A glimmering remnant of pure, godly power.

  That, too, was budding more within Reya. In fact, with her “saintess” title and the healing miracles she performed on the regular, there were people beginning to pseudo-worship her, and she had genuinely noticed an uptick in the rate she regenerated divinity. Her and Ann were working on shaping that process, something I had little clue on.

  And then, eventually, night fell. The world slowed down, the lights went off, and eventually, people went to bed. Liam was out, keeping watch, lurking in the shadows of our guildhall. And there were idiots trying to convince me to join their guild and journalists camping just outside our grounds.

  None of them noticed when I passed by.

  I ran, and ran, and ran for a while longer. My only companion was the quiet whistling of the wind. I’d taken a pill made by Ivan using a mix of chemistry and magic as he dabbled more in alchemy, and combined with the dark clothing I wore and my skill with Qi, it was enough to make my powers near invisible, and almost untraceable.

  Unless someone from the 5th realm or another Ace-Rank put their full effort to it, I wouldn’t be found. And I wasn’t, not until I wanted to be.

  When I arrived at my destination, it was one of thousands of abandoned buildings. Its windows were broken, its door hung slightly crooked, and the paint was peeling off its walls. But still, the door opened silently when I pushed it.

  And, of course, inside was the person I was looking for.

  “You’re late, Fio,” Olivia said.