I tried my best, but everything on the board before me may as well have been written in pictographs for how much I understood them. As I stood there, feeling dumb, I felt a soft touch on the back of my head and knew it was Dominus.

  ‘This situation with Glyph is bad,’ she sighed, ‘and while his great-aunt is very pleased with his growth–both personal and in level–she is distinctly unhappy with what’s going on right now.’

  Turning my mind inward, I somehow envisioned standing face to face with her. ‘What am I supposed to do? Banish him? I tried!’ I let slip my most recent secret. ‘The System won’t let him go.’

  She held her hands over her lower abdomen in a way I’d seen my mother do when worried. ‘That’s not good, especially considering the message it sent you that caused all of this.’

  ‘I know!’ I threw up my hands. ‘I know he’s just someone I summoned, but the idea of someone like him, a kid, dying on my watch was just too much for me.’

  She shook her head and laid a hand against the side of my head. ‘It’s going to be OK, Mindy is making great progress and Volta and Raiju can keep Glyph stable for another two hours and forty-three minutes.’ She pulled me in close, despite my resistance. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Why can’t you just tell me the conversion rate?’ I balled up my fists. ‘It would all be so easy…’

  ‘I can’t.’ Her voice trembled. ‘The System has forbidden me to interfere with this situation any more than this, as the Edicts of Eternity state that a deity may always contact their Chosen when they are in distress, even if all they can offer is a willing ear.’

  Pulling back, my eyes were glistening with tears. ‘What are the Edicts of Eternity?’ I’d never even heard the term, but for some reason they had a weight to them.

  She hesitated, but then it was like someone took the wind from her sails as she relented. ‘They’re the rules set by the forerunners to keep the peace between deities and Systems. I really shouldn’t say much more, but they’re the reason the Systems and deities haven’t wiped each other out or destroyed any more planets.’ She winced as if something had just stabbed her before continuing. ‘Trust me, everyone is glad the Edicts are in place. Far too many deities, worlds, and Systems were destroyed before…’ She trailed off as her eyes went milky white. Before I could ask her to continue, she smiled down at me. ‘It looks like Mindy just figured it out. Be careful, Glyph’s [Toughness] is pitiful and [Lunar Tears] is a powerful magical acid, it’s going to need to be diluted–’

  I pulled her in for a hug. ‘Thank you.’

  She patted my back for a few moments before releasing me. ‘Now get back out there, Mindy’s about to turn back to look at you.’

  With a flex of my will, I found myself standing behind Mindy once more just before she whirled around with eyes wide.

  “I know what a quintino is! It’s equal to one fifteenth of a point of Mana, which seems a bit stupid if you ask me. Now I just have to figure out how to measure that much [Lunar Tears] out of the vial and then…”

  I held up a hand. “That, I can do.” I produced a full glass of water from my spatial ring, set it on a nearby boulder, and popped the lid off of the tiny vial of [Lunar Tears]. Focusing my entire will upon the vial, I activated [Elemental Mastery] and tried something new, I gave it an order.

  “Draw two fifteenths of a point of Mana worth of liquid from this vial and deposit it into the cup of water next to it.”

  For a second, nothing happened and I was confused. “What went wrong? What am I missing”

  Across from me, Mindy frowned before her eyes went wide. “That’s ninety-eight percent pure [Lunar Tears], with the last two percent being water. The vial is capable of containing two ounces and every ounce of [Lunar Tears] is comprised of seventy-three and a half Mana.”

  She realized what I was trying to do and it appeared she was right because a moment later a tiny bit of the blue-silver liquid lifted out from the vial before dropping with a plop into the glass of water. The glass of water quickly shifted from clear with a tiny drop of color to fully match the original color of [Lunar Tears].

  Mindy walked over and carefully grabbed hold of the glass with both hands. “Diluting it, smart.” She took careful, measured, strides over to where Raiju and Volta knelt next to Glyph’s prone form. Kneeling down next to him, she smiled at him warmly. “We did what you asked, now open up.”

  He didn’t respond, despite me noticing his eyes flickering, and eventually I had to hold his mouth open for Mindy to pour the liquid inside. I was surprised to see that, unlike most humanoid races, he didn’t exactly have an esophagus. Instead, there was a tiny portal in the back of his throat that I watched Mindy slowly pour liquid into.

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  A few moments in, Glyph’s body visibly relaxed and the lightning began to wane all around him. Emboldened, Mindy sped up the process and soon had emptied the glass of borderline poison into her friend.

  Wiping her brow of sweat, she turned to look at me. “Well, we did what he asked. Now, we wait.”

  Over the next minute, all of the lightning coursing over Glyph faded and we eventually heard him start to snore. It was a cute sound, a bit like a tiny cat hiccuping. The four of us surrounding his now sleeping form all let out awws before letting Mindy pick him up and bring him over to her area of the camp.

  Slumping back on the [Cloud Carpet], Raiju quickly joined me. “That was intense.” Her arms were coated in tiny burn marks, where the System Lightning had struck her before she could stop it.

  “That it was.” I bumped shoulders with her before taking her hand in my own. “Good work with the lightning on Glyph. Without you and Volta working to keep him alive, we’d have been in trouble.”

  She blushed furiously, but didn’t do anything more, likely for fear of scaring me off. As she sat there, drifting off to sleep, I gave her a small kiss on the cheek.

  “Goodnight, Raiju.”

  ***

  The following day Glyph didn’t wake up, but Mindy said he was good to travel as long as she kept an eye on him, so that’s what we did. Over the next week, Mindy kept Glyph fed and watered while we traveled, but he didn’t even flinch once. As we traveled during that time, I learned something interesting. It was possible to stockpile level ups through rests and while I’d done it on accident Ylsa and Volta had done it on purpose after we killed the [Rushrat Hordemaster]. While usually people would stockpile to stop themselves from entering a deep, motionless, sleep out in the wilds, I saw it as an opportunity.

  “Think about it,” I gesticulated to the group on the carpet. “We all know lower level people level up faster, so why not save a few level ups so we can do them all at once before entering the last Dungeon before Sunhome?” I may have been biased, since I needed at least a pair of levels at one time if I wanted a good amount of time with Dominus, but my idea was still sound. “It’s not like we’re going into the Tower again, which was definitely overtuned for our level and we really should have all died. This is a Dungeon Uncle Galloway picked out for us, so it should be totally doable.”

  Notably, the only person who wasn’t on board was Raiju.

  “I know it’s strange, but I really don’t like the feeling of that power hanging over me. It feels like a rain cloud about to dump water all over my fu…hair.” She blushed. “I’ll go ahead with whatever you want, but know I’d rather just level up. Each time I do, I feel like more of this new version of me is coming into focus.”

  We debated as a group for another ten minutes about it, but in the end decided to keep stockpiling levels until at least three of us wanted to level. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked and even Raiju admitted it was a fair decision after I spent some time explaining in private my secondary reason for wanting to stockpile levels.

  It wasn’t until morning of the day we knew we’d arrive at the [Springiron Caverns] that Glyph woke up. The thing is, no matter how much we badgered him he wouldn’t tell us what he was going to say before getting censured by the System.

  “If it ever becomes relevant to any of us directly, I will inform that person. Until that point in time, I ask that you respect my wishes on this matter.”

  He floated up to my shoulder and closed his eyes, removing himself from the world once more, but this time it was his choice. I got that and felt a tiny bit closer to him when I realized I’d have done the same exact thing.

  Two hours later, I spotted the landmark on our map and realized we were only half an hour away from our destination.

  Feeling a bit guilty, I messaged Glyph. ‘I have a quick question if you have time.’

  He cracked an eye to look at me. ‘I am listening.’

  Bracing for impact, I continued. ‘Do you know what the Edicts of Eternity are?’

  Both eyes flew open and his jaw hung loose. ‘You know of the Edicts? How is this possible?’

  As I didn’t suddenly sprout angry red lightning, I continued. ‘I talked with Dominus and she accidentally let them slip. She wouldn’t tell me anything except the rule about deities always having access to their Chosen.’

  He clacked his jaw shut. ‘She is as wise as she is powerful.’ He nodded to himself. ‘The Edicts are not to be trifled with by beings such as you, only immortal races like [Dragons], [Phoenixes], and [Voxels] are equipped to deal with the weight of them.’

  I blinked a few times at him. ‘I am literally descended from the first two of those, does that mean nothing?’

  ‘It means knowing that the Edicts exist, along with that particular portion of them is not going to turn your brain to mush.’ He half chuckled. ‘Trust me when I tell you that even I only know four of the Edicts and I have been studying them since I was brought online.’ He closed his eyes once more. ‘Dominus will tell you if you need to know more. If you do not trust me, trust her.’

  Part of me wanted to smack him again, but I reined it in. He’d dealt with enough because of me the past week that it would have been in poor taste.

  Upon landing at the fifty foot polished pillar of marble that served as the marker for the [Springiron Caverns], I heard a soft ding and noticed a stack of notifications in the corner of my vision.

  Oh good, maybe I’ll actually be able to get access to those Skills now. Stupid System review period.

  [Upon review of the recent System violation, Arthur Bajbub Neilson was found not to be at fault. As payment for a week of Skill Restraint, you will be granted full access to both Summon Celestial and Foresight.]

  [Unique Skills - Mastery

  Skill Dominance - 51%]

  [Active Skills - Mastery

  Summon Celestial - 51%]

  [Unique Passive Skill Learned - Foresight]

  With a whistle, I shot the window over to Glyph. ‘Looks like it was all worth it.’

  He glanced at the batch of notifications before snorting. ‘If you say so.’