They headed back inside to the comfortable, safe-feeling base, passing Jasper—whose form shrunk becoming almost one with the wall he was leaning on. He didn’t follow when they headed to the dining area.

  As they all sat down, with Leo and Ashley sitting opposite each other in the middle of the table and others situated around them, Cecelia spoke first.

  “Alright, tell us everything. Spare no detail.”

  “Shall I start, Mr Hawkins?" Ashley said with a flourish of her hand.

  “As you wish, Miss Rosewood,” Leo replied, bowing with a sophisticated accent, happy to play along with whatever quirkiness Ashley was going with. The mood felt great.

  Before Ashley could start however, Cecelia jumped up, hands slamming onto the table.

  “Rosewood?! As in the Rosewoods?” Cecelia asked, shock clearly written across her face.

  Leo frowned. He’d never heard of the last name of Rosewood before in terms of any famous context—not that he kept up with anything like that.

  “What do you mean, Cecelia?” Leo asked.

  She regained her composure, sitting down again before speaking.

  “My apologies. The Rosewoods are one of the most influential families in the country. Secretive yet powerful. It’s not surprising that you haven’t heard of them before, I only know the first name of the head of the family and that’s only thanks to my own family and position. I should probably confirm it really is the family I’m thinking of before I go on and risk further embarrassment.”

  She turned towards Ashley and addressed her with a serious look, “Ashley?”

  “Yeah, I’m who you think,” she sighed. “I don’t do any kind of the business my Daddy does though. I’m not interested in all that. I don’t usually tell people my last name either—mostly to avoid the chances of this. Leo only learned it because the system revealed it when I invited him to a party. I’d prefer we not make a big deal out of it,” she finished, her tone being one of disinterest.

  “I should probably introduce myself fully. My name is Cecelia Viremont.”

  “Ah,” Ashley said briefly, before continuing. “I’ve spoken with your dad at those awful cocktail dinners. He seemed nice but it also felt a little fake. No offense.”

  Cecelia’s face dropped at the mention of her father. Her steely visage cracking before it mended quickly.

  “Indeed. The man acts for his own benefit and cares little for anyone else.”

  Things were tense. Leo glanced back and forth between the two women, one who seemed a little bored and another deep in thought. Thankfully someone cut through the awkwardness soon after.

  “Sounds like we have some kind of royal women in our midst,” Bjorn said, laughing. “What were you both doing in such a small town like ours? I must have missed the royal coronation.”

  “I had business in town, some clients suggested Asano’s was a great place to eat. I was there when this happened, following after…” Cecelia’s eyes glanced towards Leo. “A curious individual.” There was a brief pause where they thought she would continue but she remained silent.

  “I live in town,” Ashley said casually, breaking the silence. “It’s nice and peaceful. I was at my anniversary dinner with my boyfriend.”

  “Well, should I be bowing in both your presences my ladies? Your highnesses? I don’t wish to offend,” Bjorn said in a somewhat joking, formal tone.

  “No no, nothing like that. Please don’t treat me differently,” Ashley begged with a laugh.

  “Same with myself. I care not for such acts. Plus, the world as we know it has changed entirely. Who we were before this system showed up will likely not matter,” Cecelia stated.

  “I had a feeling you were some kind of princess,” Leo teased, finally happy to have something in order to do so.

  “Shut up! I’m not a princess!” Ashley argued, but Leo could tell there was no animosity.

  “Um, not to interrupt but I’d really like to know what happened to them in the dungeon,” Amy said.

  “Yes, yes,” Cecelia agreed. “Please, one of you regale us with the story of the dungeon.”

  Leo began the story—how he and Ashley had appeared in a facility choked with corruption. The feelings of dread. An acrid, rotting stench permeating it all.

  Leo described the first encounter where he fought the wolf with Ashley’s help and answered any questions that came up, mostly from Cecelia who wanted to know its prowess—likely for when she attempted the dungeon herself.

  Next he described how the Essence crystal had shown up after its corpse dissolved. Turning around on the bench he was sitting on and forming an Ice Spike and firing it out at the wall. Raised eyebrows and a few amazed exclamations came from Amy and Bjorn, with Lena flinching slightly.

  After the little show, Ashley took this as her cue to continue where he left off.

  Ashley glossed over some of the lesser fights, her voice only growing more animated when things truly went wrong.

  People were pretty enthralled by this point. They were hanging on Ashley’s every word as she vividly described it. She had a great way with words and a clear gift for storytelling. Leo was glad to see Ashley so happy and lively, her mood had been constantly improving since he met her.

  Ashley continued, talking about the treekin they fought, with a laugh from Bjorn saying how bizarre it was that they had to fight the very trees of the forest. It wasn’t something someone could easily imagine without being there for themselves. But Ashley was animated as she described the battle, mimicking Leo’s actions with a dramatic flare.

  Leo took over after that, informing them of the last section.

  “As we entered the giant lab, it locked us inside. A strange man then spoke to us. He was..” Leo started describing.

  “Evil,” Ashley spat, shuddering. “He said he was going to use us in his corrupt experiments. It still gives me chills just thinking about it.”

  “Did you have to… kill him?” Lena asked in a quiet voice.

  “We didn’t, but it might have been a lot safer if we did,” Ashley admitted darkly.

  “He started pressing buttons and pulling levers on his console. Then the giant tank in the middle of the room started glowing before the glass shattered,” she paused, hesitating to continue—clearly re-living the encounter.

  Leo continued in her stead, “What came out of the tank was a giant wolf-bear hybrid monstrosity. The system called it a ‘Mawroot Alpha’. It was level 15.”

  A gasp came from Lena, while Cecelia looked serious. “What level were you at this point?” she hesitantly asked.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “I had just hit level 10,” Leo replied solemnly.

  “Damn, kid. You sure love picking fights with tougher things. You don't even have a weapon! How did you manage to kill it?” Bjorn asked in concerned admiration.

  “He punched—” Ashley began before Leo cut her off.

  “I did not just punch it!” Leo complained as Ashley broke into fits of laughter. No one else got the inside joke between them and seemed to be confused at why it was so funny to have fought this terrifying sounding beast.

  As the laughing subsided, Ashley blurted out casually, “Leo basically died.” All joviality was gone with her words.

  Heads slowly turned towards Leo. He put a hand to the back of his neck in embarrassment.

  “I wouldn’t say it was that bad, I-” Leo tried to explain but was interrupted by Bjorn.

  “Ashley, please explain what you meant. The kid will downplay it.”

  “He tried punching it,” Ashley began explaining. “But the thing was a big beefy muscle machine. It also had some weird powers where roots would spring out of the floor. The roots were fast, like a bunch of snakes. Eventually he got caught by one around his feet, tripping him up from dodging it. I was so worried, my shield couldn’t do anything to stop the roots as they snaked all over him, pinning him to the floor.”

  She paused before continuing, the tension building. “The beast then got up on its hind legs like a bear would and stomped,” Ashley hit the table as she said the last word for effect, causing Lena to jump a little, a startled gasp escaping her mouth.

  “My shield over him shattered and all I could see was his health bar going down fast. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t help him. He was dying and there was nothing I could do.” She was getting more emotional as she spoke, eyes moistening.

  “Then, something happened. A huge burst came out of Leo and the bear got blasted backwards. Leo's body was held together by sheer will from what I could see as he stood up like some kind of zombie. He managed to daze it, somehow, and landed a really big punch. It was pretty dead after that, I think, but he kept on punching and punching until I stopped him. It was a little scary, honestly.”

  There was a solemn silence as Leo considered his actions. His mind had gone almost blank during the latter half of the fight. His chest quietly thumped as he could feel his storm pulse, awaiting its next release.

  Scaring Ashley wasn’t something he was proud of. Losing himself like that wasn’t something he wanted to feel again.

  The conversation continued at this point, Cecelia speaking up first and addressing Leo.

  “Care to explain how you managed to just blow the creature away? I can't imagine how you went from dying under its foot to winning, all of a sudden. Was it a skill?”

  Leo thought to himself how to best explain things, deciding to take a different approach from just repeating what happened.

  “Let me ask a question, has anyone started to play with their mana yet?”

  Confusion was apparent on most everyone's face after he asked, it was what he had expected. The system didn’t exactly give a tutorial on using mana, even during the literal tutorial.

  It was Lena who spoke up first, in a quiet voice she said, “I have, it’s like a weird power flowing through your veins, right? It helps me cast my magic.”

  Leo nodded. “From what I can tell, it’s something along those lines,” Leo paused a moment before speaking again.

  He then held up a hand.

  “Mana seems to be everywhere, I can feel it in the air. I can feel it coming from all of you. I’m not sure if being able to perceive it is locked behind a stat being high enough or just a higher level, but what I am sure of–”

  He conjured a very small flame inside his palm before continuing, “is that it seems to be the foundation of any sort of magical skill. I don’t have a skill that lets me conjure fire. I draw upon my Fire Essence and change the mana flowing through my body into fire based mana. Pushing it into my hand and out into the world conjures this flame. Is everyone following me so far?” he asked expectantly.

  A few nods came, and a question. “This doesn’t tell us how you managed to push a massive beast back with nothing but your will and this mana,” Cecelia said, still pushing for a proper answer—an explanation of his power.

  “I’m getting to that—just making sure we’re on the same page.”

  With no further questions, Leo continued his improvised teaching lesson he was woefully unqualified for.

  “What I did, I’m not sure I’ll even be able to recreate right now—or should. I pushed every single fibre of mana I could grab all out of me at once in order to push the beast back, helped by some kind of energy within me I can’t really describe.”

  Confusion was evident on everyone else's faces so he tried to explain further.

  “I know it’s not the best explanation, but as I was sitting there contemplating death and being done with this whole tutorial and system, I decided to just not lay down and die, and instead to fight. My body seemed to respond and I even got a skill upgrade for my trouble.” Leo finished, neglecting to mention the part where some kind of dream voice spoke to him in his head, nor give full details on the storm inside him.

  “Let me get this straight,” Cecelia said while pinching the bridge of her nose. “You just gathered all this mana up and let it go. Somehow managing to shove a giant bear-wolf creature away? Also what do you mean by a skill upgrade? It feels like the more you talk, the more questions I have.” She was clearly getting frustrated at the lack of a technical explanation.

  It seemed that Leo’s explanation of ‘just do it’ wasn’t as helpful as he thought. Perhaps he wasn’t cut out for teaching, especially when he didn’t entirely understand it himself. He could talk about the skill upgrade however.

  “Sorry, I guess I’m not the best at describing things,” Leo apologised, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

  “Just stick to punching things, you’re better at that,” Ashley added with a little jab.

  He gave her a narrow eyed look that morphed into a smile as he met her own devious smirk.

  “What I meant by skill upgrade is,” Leo began explaining, “the skills you have now, whatever they may be, can most likely be upgraded somehow. I’ll give an example; The pugilist starting skill is called Mana Strikes. It's a common skill that helps me fight with unarmed strikes, you may have seen my fists glowing.”

  His fist glowed slightly as he demonstrated.

  “Anyway,” Leo continued, “After pushing all the mana through me and forcing the beast back, my grasp of mana and how I was using it to fight turned out to be very inefficient and wasteful. I focused more precise mana into my Mana Strikes and it upgraded into the uncommon skill: Refined Mana Strikes.”

  Cecelia nodded in satisfaction. “Thank you for sharing. That is actually very helpful. Gives one a lot to think about. Perhaps you could give us an idea on how to upgrade our skills? Preferably something more than ‘just do it.’”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” Leo suggested.

  “Oh? Why is that?” Cecelia asked with genuine curiosity in her tone.

  “I don’t want to influence your choices on how you upgrade your skills or choose your class or pick more skills. At least as little influence as I can. It should really be your choice..”

  “Hmm, fair enough. If that’s your feeling on the subject, I shall not ask again.” Cecelia said resolutely.

  There was a pause as all the information was digested. Bjorn broke the silence.

  “I noticed you both are wearing rings and new equipment, did you both get married in there? Don't tell me there was a gift shop?” Bjorn joked.

  “It was a strange place for him to propose but how could I say no after all the begging and pleading.” Ashley said with a romantic tone, sounding completely enamoured as she gazed into the sky with a maiden’s sigh.

  Leo was taken aback as was everyone else, wide eyed and staring. No one realised that she was joking until she burst into laughter.

  “Oh man, your faces!” She continued laughing for a bit. Leo decided to take over.

  “They are rings for storing items in,” he said while demonstrating, pulling out his old apparel. It appeared out of thin air and then disappeared right after.

  “Woah!” Bjorn exclaimed. Leo just laughed as he continued.

  “These, and the new outfits we got, were rewards for clearing the dungeon. They have self-repair and stat bonuses on them. Not to mention looking cool as hell.”

  Cecelia looked very intrigued. A look that did not feel like she would be making safe choices.

  “Interesting. We will need to find more of those rings. They sound extremely vital. Perhaps we should attempt the dungeon ourselves—with five people however. No offense, but I have no death wish. Nor some kind of weird energy I can pull upon to blast back giant bears.” She said the last part with what Leo definitely felt was sarcasm. Which was.... fair enough.

  “You want us to fight that big bear thing?!” Lena exclaimed in panic, she had been very quiet so far, barely interacting. “We will die for sure! I'm not going! You're all crazy if you want to go after hearing all that!”

  “If they can do it with two of them, we can definitely do it with five of us,” Cecelia said sternly, not raising her voice.

  Leo could feel the death stare Amy was giving the stern warrior. Cecelia met the challenge, but with a resolute expression that gave away nothing.

  “Let’s save that discussion for another time, yeah?” Bjorn suggested, trying to diffuse the situation.

  A few moments later Cecelia responded. “Very well. We will discuss it tomorrow.”

  From then the discussion became a lot less focused and more just chatting and socialising, Leo and Ashley answering a few questions Bjorn had.

  Lena had already left, brushing her sister off when she tried to follow. The elephant in the room of Jasper pushing Ashley into the portal wasn’t addressed yet but Leo felt that it was just a balloon waiting to pop.

  After a while of people having their own little chats and something to eat, the group briefly talked about their plans for the next day. It was decided that they would continue their efforts of finding more people with some more exploration. Leo still felt the strain of the previous two days and wanted nothing more than to sleep it off, bidding everyone an early goodnight.

  If Cecelia’s attitude today was a hint of anything to come, he knew things would only get more dangerous.