A long, deep groan sounded out as Ryan stepped out of the water. It was the middle of the night by now, and he had been walking back for hours. It was a pretty damn exhausting hike, but he had everything that he needed with him.

  When Ryan looked around, he saw a group of Goria's acolytes waiting nearby, talking to each other. Before he could even call out to them, though, one of the acolytes saw him and they all rushed over to him a moment later.

  "Young lord Aglecard, did something happen? How are you back so soon?" one of them asked, and Ryan raised a brow. Soon? This whole thing took so long. But then again, he managed to cut the travel time almost in half.

  "I was running for a lot of it, that's all," Ryan responded, pulling out his phone so that he could call someone to pick him up. But when he did, and his phone connected to the network, a flood of messages and missed calls came in from friends that were trying to reach him to make sure he was okay. Confused, he looked at the acolytes, "What happened? What's going on?"

  The acolytes looked at each other hesitantly, though one of them quickly explained, "Something happened in the city. Some spirits went wild and attacked the Magic Tower's expo."

  Ryan's eyes widened, and he immediately dialled Modak's number. It rang a few times, as the acolytes continued explaining.

  "Of course, you do not need to worry, things were taken care of quite well before things got too bad!"

  They were clearly just trying to calm Ryan down, but he wasn't even really listening to them anymore. He was just focusing on his phone. And a few moments later, the call connected.

  "Hey, I-"

  "Modak, are you okay? What happened over there? I just heard, I didn't have any signal while I was heading down to the shrine, so-" Ryan interrupted the voice on the other end of the call. He was so frazzled that he didn't even realize that it wasn't Modak that answered at all.

  "Calm down, Modak is okay," Yanna reassured him, "He broke his arm, but that's about the worst of it. Some bruises here and there, that's all."

  Letting out a relieved sigh, Ryan dropped down into a squat, "Alright, great. Uh... is he around?"

  "He's sleeping right now, filled up with pain meds. Healing items don't work on him, so they had do it like that..." Yanna explained, "I saw that you were the one calling him, and Modak was talking about you earlier, so I figured I should answer. Where have you been this whole time? What did you say about a shrine?"

  Ryan's heart skipped a beat as he realized what he said when the call connected. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath, trying to think, "I..." he started, trying to come up with some kind of lie. But when he thought about it a few moments longer, he realized... why would he need to lie? Talking about Goria wouldn't reveal anything about the Aglecards, since they weren't directly connected, so Runar wouldn't be able to complain no matter what he said, "After what happened at the lake last night, Goria invited me to come down to her shrine. It's a bit complicated, and I can't tell you any details, but I was underground so my phone didn't have a signal. I left right around when Modak's big presentation should have started."

  There was a bit of silence on the other side of the call, before Yanna asked a very simple question.

  "What the fuck are you talking about? Why would Goria invite you- Huh?"

  "It's one of those details that I can't tell you, sorry. But really, what happened over there?"

  Again, Yanna was silent for a few moments, though this time it was probably more because she was struggling to find the right words to explain everything to Ryan, "... About right when Modak finished his presentation, three spirits showed up. Like, technology spirits, or something. And... uhm... Yeah, they went wild. Hijacked everything. Things blew up and moved on their own. A lot of people got hurt and were attacked by the spirits. And Modak's coworker, Margaret, she... She was found, dead. Apparently it really wasn't pretty."

  Ryan's face went pale as his stomach dropped. That wasn't good. It wasn't good at all. They did it. The shadows managed to corrupt some spirits at the worst time and in the worst place.

  "Fuck, fuck, fuck," Ryan yelled out, as he started to pace around back and forth, "What about Liam? H-He was with Modak's family, is he okay?"

  "He's fine, don't worry. That's actually how Modak got hurt. One of the spirits tried to jump out at the crowd in front of the stage, but Modak managed to stop it. Apparently because of his Mana Rejection Disorder, the spirit was basically weak to him, or something. I don't get it, but... some Heroes showed up pretty quickly and took care of everything and trapped the spirits."

  Ryan let out a long, long sigh of relief, "I'm glad you guys all alright. Tell Modak to call me when he wakes up, okay? I need to call my mom."

  "Of course. I'll let him know... And explain to me a bit more why you were called to meet Goria later, okay?"

  "Sure, I'll try to tell you what I can. Talk to you later," Ryan responded, hanging up the call. Immediately, he dialled his mother's number, and the first signal tone was interrupted as his mother's voice sounded out.

  "Ryan! You're okay! Wait, you're out already? I thought you would take until the morning..." she said.

  "Yeah, I was jogging, but that's not important. I heard about what happened, is everything okay on your side?"

  "Yes, I'm fine, don't worry. I'm at the house with Liam, he's pretty shaken up. And your uncle had to head out and take care of some things, he wouldn't tell me what..."

  Ryan slowly nodded, "Alright, that's fine, then. I'll call him in a second, I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

  "It all happened pretty soon after you walked into the water, so we were still up there when things started," Mary explained, and Ryan clicked his tongue, annoyed. If Ryan had been down there still, he could have tried to help out with the cure and prevented a lot of damage. But like this... he was just useless.

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  "I'll let you know when I'm on my way home," Ryan said, saying goodbye to his mother before hanging up the call. Now, he just had to call Runar. He also answered the call pretty quickly.

  "Ryan? How-"

  "I rushed a bit, that's not important. What happened?" Ryan interrupted his uncle, who thought about it for a moment, but quickly responded.

  "Some spirits were corrupted and attacked the people attending the expo. A lot of stuff happened, but the heroes that were already nearby were able to reduce the damages as much as possible. When I got there, I used the cure you gave me and treated the spirits. We're trying to converse with them and find out what happened, but... we already know."

  Ryan let out a long sigh, "Richie... Fuck, okay. Do you need me for anything right now? I'd like to go home and see mom, and maybe talk to Liam a bit after everything."

  "You're fine, there's really nothing right now. Uhm... I hope I'll be home by morning, and then we can talk about what happened at the shrine. I'll send Yamada to come pick you up, but it might be like half an hour."

  "That's fine," Ryan replied, "I'll talk to you later."

  They hung up, and Ryan let out a loud groan. He turned around toward the acolytes, who were eagerly looking at him, "I'll be picked up in a bit, so I'll just be waiting over there, okay?"

  He pointed toward a rock that Ryan could probably sit and wait on, and the acolytes immediately nodded, "Of course! Please, go ahead!"

  Ryan walked over to the rock and dropped down onto it, grabbing something to eat from his backpack. He had gone through quite a bit down there, but he still had some left. And stress-eating didn't feel like the worst idea right now. Though, as he was eating, he could see the eager expressions of the acolytes, staring at him.

  "Uh... can I help you? Do I need to do anything, still? Like, sign something, or... I don't know how this kinda stuff works," Ryan said, quickly swallowing the food in his mouth, trying not to be rude.

  The acolytes looked at him curiously. They clearly weren't amongst the group that glared at him jealously when he went down earlier. They were all on the younger side. Aquarian folk that probably heard stories of Goria since they could remember.

  "So, what was it like? Was Goria as beautiful as they say?" one of them asked, and Ryan smiled lightly. They were probably talking about Melusine, who was the one that was depicted in most imagery of Goria. Though, whether it was Melusine or Goria herself, Ryan didn't need to lie.

  "She was beautiful, unlike anything I have seen in my life," he explained, and the young acolytes looked at each other excitedly.

  "What was she like?"

  "What did she call you there for?"

  The acolytes continued to ask questions along those lines, and Ryan tried to answer them for a while, but he was pretty quickly quite annoyed, "Listen, guys, I'm sorry but I've got a lot of stuff on my mind right now..."

  "Of course! We're sorry, it's just... people aren't invited down to meet Goria a lot," they explained, and Ryan did understand where they were coming from, but right now? After a literal terror attack in the city? He wasn't particularly in the mood for that right now.

  Though, luckily, it didn't take long until a black car pulled up, and a demon stepped out of it. Ryan quickly grabbed his bag and awkwardly smiled at the acolytes, "Sorry, I've got to go. Uh... thanks for the help with everything? Oh, right, here-" Ryan pushed his hand into his pocket and quickly returned the shell that he was given before heading down to the reservoirs. He then rushed over to the car, signing, 'Thanks for picking me up' to Yamada. She nodded, opening the door for Ryan, before quickly got in.

  Once Yamada pulled away, Ryan let out a long sigh, "Gods..."

  Finally, Ryan had the time to do something he's been itching to do for hours now, but he wanted to get back to the surface first. Plus, being here on a cushioned seat after hours of jumping and running was just heavenly. He closed his eyes, trying to step into his own mind. Ryan quickly found himself in the space between the domains.

  Turning around, Ryan stood in front of the small pond that was created through Goria's help. The sapling on the small island on the centre of the pond was standing there quite solidly. Goria called it the 'Seed of a blessing', so clearly this was something that would be something good if he managed to nurture it properly. He had that other, smaller seed that was left behind when he cured the spirit of the lake as well... maybe he could expand this even further if he somehow got that in here too.

  Ryan slowly approached the water, squatting down in front of it. Putting his hand into it, the water was cool, and almost calming to just look at. He walked through the water, closer to the sapling. Just looking at it like this, he had no idea what kind of tree this was supposed to be. But... maybe he could get the help of someone who did.

  He looked over toward Gaia, who was sitting in her domain. The spirits were all quite nervous after hearing what happened in town, and were trying to distract themselves the best they could. And Gaia did this by just staying calm and practically meditating.

  Ryan used the 'Spirit Link' skill, quickly connecting to the golem. He could see a thick thread connecting the two of them that wrapped itself around Gaia's domain. And then... the walls of her domain disappeared. Ryan didn't know that this was going to happen. He just thought maybe Gaia could use her 'Garden Golem's Eye' skill to identify the sapling so they could get some more info on it, but this was completely unexpected.

  Gaia quickly noticed what happened, standing up from where she was sitting. Before, the walls of the domain didn't allow her to look out beyond it, but now, she was able to see not just Ryan and the sapling, but Maximus and Gregor's domains, as well as the rest of the cores floating in the air nearby.

  "Sorry, I didn't expect that your domain would open all of a sudden..." Ryan apologized, but Gaia seemed pretty excited about it. She walked out into the white space that surrounded the domains. She was truly enormous, and when she was walking like this, Gaia was pretty intimidating. But even so, Ryan was just happy to see her get to walk around with her regular, full size.

  "Can you use your appraisal skill on this sapling over here?"

  Gaia nodded her stone head immediately. After hearing Goria call this a 'seed of blessing', Gaia seemed pretty excited, as you would expect. She approached Ryan and leaned down toward the seed. A sparkle appeared around Gaia's eyes as her skill activated, and a message appeared in front of Ryan.

  [Seed of Blessing]

  [Growth Stage - Sapling] [Growth Rate - 2%]

  [A Seed of Blessing that has taken root in a living being. Connecting to that being's mana, the more the seed grows, the more blessings it will bring]

  Ryan's eyes widened as he saw the message. So he was just going to get some kind of benefit from this over time? He thought maybe he would have to wait until fruit grew on it, but this was even better. Of course, he had no idea how fast it would grow, but if Goria found it so special, then it had to be a great benefit.

  "Awesome," a broad smile formed on Ryan's face, "Thanks, Gaia."

  The golem nodded once again, seemingly quite happy and excited to learn more about this seed, even though there still wasn't a lot of information here. Maybe Ryan could find out more on the internet later.

  But for now, he just had to get home. Liam was probably not doing too hot. He was already a mess a few weeks ago when they were in the channel because of the giant berserker's rampage and the attack of the white shadow society's soldiers, and now he lived through something else horrible that he probably struggled to really process.

  Ryan was about to ask Gaia to go back to her domain so that he could pull back out of his mind, when he noticed the spirit walk over to one of the cores floating nearby. It was the only one that was complete; Jester's core. Gaia stood in front of it, and Ryan could sense something that he hadn't noticed from the golem before. She was... annoyed. Angry.

  Gaia held out her hand toward the core, slightly tapping it, and Ryan quickly saw Jester's core quiver in response.

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