In the end, I let the two of them gush about my supposedly unheard of level of flexibility with my Skills in order to keep them from wandering off. I answered a few of their questions, but most of the time my answers didn’t do much to change their conversation. Instead of focusing on their conversation, I spent time looking over the results of the [Soulfire Monitor]. It turns out that it had the ability to record the results from multiple people and it had done just that for Mindy, Raiju, and Glyph, though his was kind of disappointing.

  [Name: Mindy Emberstone

  Level: 27 - 84% to 28

  Racial Evolution:

  Tiefling → Primordial Demon-Doomtide – 36%]

  Her original [Hydromancer] Class makes a lot more sense now. Her ancestor wasn’t a fiery demon, based on his name, he must have been a lurker of the deep. I’m not sure if that’s scarier than an ordinary demon or not. I’m going with yes, but I could be persuaded either way. Either way, Mindy’s even farther along in her evolution than I am, it must be because of her new Legendary Class, her sister really did her a solid while at the same time ditching her. I can’t help but wonder what she’s up to and why she couldn’t take her sister with her…

  [Name: Raiju

  Level: 30 - 98% to 31 (Locked to Arthur Bajbub Neilson’s growth)

  Racial Evolution: None]

  Well, I can’t say I expected that. I had no idea her leveling would still be tied to me after she got her new body. Then again, we did use our bond to bind her soul to her new body. I’ll have to talk to her and see if she wants to find a way to go her own way, leveling-wise. I paused before chuckling to myself, drawing some strange looks from the peanut gallery. Nevermind. She’ll probably be offended if I even offer. My leveling rate is insanely fast for an S-rank, so I guess there’s not much to it beyond that. No evolution for her race, but that’s totally in line with what we thought would happen. She’s already at her evolutionary peak.

  [Name: Glyph

  Level: 16 - 15…17…25% to 18]

  Well, that’s kind of a bummer. I guess I won’t get to know what [Voxels] might have evolved from or might evolve into.

  My eyes darted back to the number and it showed he’d just leveled up to twenty and the pace was finally slowing down.

  The kid levels from learning new shit, doesn’t he? If that’s the case, I’m a gold mine of XP to him, aren’t I? That must be why Dominus’ friend wanted him to spend time with me. I guess it really was a fair exchange between those two, even if I feel I’m getting the short end of the deal considering how much of a dick Glyph’s been so far.

  Before I could think too much more about that, Gabby’s voice entered my mind through the Party Chat and tore me away from what I’d been pondering. ‘I’ve got it. I know where the shrine is!’ I could practically see her preening. ‘I even know where the exit might be, or at least a region for it.’

  ‘Can you put it on the map we’re making?’ Volta’s voice came through faster than normal, likely due to the [Haste] I was still maintaining, though the persistent pressure in the front of my head was getting to be pretty annoying. ‘Raiju and I just finished boxing in the thing, so knowing where to focus would be a big help. This place is massive, at least two hundred miles in each direction.’

  Curious, I pulled up the Party Interface and found a new tab labeled Maps at the top. Tabbing in, I was able to see in real time as the circle labeled Volta tore around the bottom portion of the map, slowly filling it in. Based on some rough math, I figured out she was probably running around six miles a minute, or three hundred miles an hour. Raiju, on the other hand, wasn’t going nearly as fast, but more details were filling in along her path as her enhanced [Perception] did its work.

  ‘Done.’ Gabby sighed. ‘I even leveled from doing that, I can just feel it!’

  Sure enough, a pair of ten mile wide circles labeled Shrine and Exit appeared on the map, the prior just a bit off the center and the latter in the top right corner. Based on where the circles representing Mindy, Glyph, and I were down in the lower middle portion, it would be quite the hike for us to make it to the exit, but we could be at the shrine’s location in around half an hour if we ran.

  ‘Great work.’ I pressed a bit with my [Charm] to really get my point across. ‘Everyone but Volta and Raiju should gather up in the middle of the shrine circle while the girls isolate what we’re looking for.’

  After a bit more chatter, everyone agreed and Mindy, Glyph, and I set off for the shrine’s supposed location. Glyph didn’t appear to like flying under his own power, so instead he anchored himself to Mindy so he could still talk at her while she panted trying to keep up with me. I heard snatches of what he was talking about, but nothing coherent enough for me to glean whatever it was he was trying to convey.

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  Racing along, I let myself enjoy the feeling of the wind in my hair. Despite how large the Dungeon was inside, we were making great time. Less than two hours had passed since we entered and we already knew where both the exit and the hidden shrine Dominus wanted gone. Feeling unusually confident, I let my hair down a bit and activated [Elemental Surge] to carry me and my nearby companions forward at a pace none of us could have achieved outside of multiple instances of [Haste] as we streaked across the forest floor like wind spirits, barely touching the ground as the wind held us mostly aloft. It may have been a bit Mana intensive, but I was happy to drink a cheap Mana potion to top up in exchange for the time we might need to deal with whatever was corrupting the Dungeon.

  Less than five minutes later, Ylsa messaged to let me know she and Gabby were going to skip the shrine in favor of heading to clear the area around the exit. They weren’t going to make it to the shrine in time to help, so they pivoted and I admired Ylsa’s–admittedly begrudging–acceptance of that fact. She promised to keep my treasurer intact, which I appreciated.

  Two minutes later we arrived at the shrine and I was shocked to find it was shaped like an enormous humanoid skull, nearly fifty feet tall at the top of the mouth and over two hundred feet deep from the look of it on the outside. Out in the normal world I’d have assumed it was from something colossal, like a [Dread Titan] or a [Everbelly Giant], but inside a Dungeon I’d be surprised if it was even really made of bone that was dense enough to handle a few blows. We’d have to be careful as we battled, or the whole skull could collapse on us at the worst time.

  The half mouth was held open in a gaping screen, but a barrier of shadow filled the gap and Volta, Mindy, and I all failed to pierce it with our magic. Glyph, ever smug, floated over Mindy’s shoulder, but didn’t offer anything of use, merely chiding us for our ‘bad mortal eyes’ and ‘lack of logical deductive skills’.

  A bit irate, I used an [Air Step] to get my head level with his body over Mindy’s shoulder. “Care to help?” I gritted my teeth. “We don’t exactly have all day.”

  He had the audacity to chuckle. “I’d say you don’t, per your own statements, I’ve gleaned that you’ve been in this Dungeon for one hour, thirty-nine minutes, and sixteen seconds. Time’s a ticking for you to–”

  I snatched his tiny wing and gripped it tightly between my thumb and forefinger. “Either be helpful, or I’ll order you to count the grains of sand in the bag of sand Volta’s been gathering when she doesn’t think any of us are looking.” The Storm Elf jumped a little at the revelation that I’d noticed her activity, but didn’t say anything. “No levels, no conversation. Just counting nearly identical silica crystals for days on end after I use [Elemental Mastery] to pull anything even moderately interesting from her pile.”

  Now that got his attention, as the horrified look on his face only developed more layers to it, from his eyes bunching up to his mouth widening in a wordless scream.

  “In that case,” he shook his body lightly, obviously trying to recover a shred of his dignity, “I should tell you that barrier has a ninety-eight point seven percent chance of having been created by a [Corpse Willow]. From the records I gathered before being du…” My glare changed his tune, “deposited on this wonderful planet, I can tell you that [Corpse Willows] are often used as natural barriers by the servants of Weaver who lean more into her fate aspect, as death is nearly inevitable for most mortals. As they are negative energy attuned, they produce a miasma that buffs undead and debuffs everything else.”

  “How bad are the buff and debuff?” Mindy’s eyes flashed excitedly. “I’ve been hunting [Corpse Willow] bark for the better part of a year, I need it to finish a new lacquer I’m planning on trying on my crystal lenses. All the adventurers I tried hiring to get me some wanted to charge me insane prices to even look for one, so I eventually gave up.”

  There it is, the passion I saw when she was explaining her barriers to me in her shop. I guess she really is more focused on the mercantile applications of her Skills, regardless of her newfound combat power. To each their own, but I can’t say it isn’t a shame that she’ll likely hit it off with my cousin and end up staying in Sunhome full time in a little more than a month.

  Glyph’s eyes rolled back, revealing those strange characters once more for a second before snapping back to normal. “The records state the miasma is more of a buff for undead than anything else, any of them should be treated as if they were five levels higher than they actually are, though level seventy and up [Corpse Willows] have been known to increase their power by more than twenty levels. The debuff is a ten percent stat hit across the board up to that same level seventy, when it can be as much as thirty percent.”

  I grimaced. Losing even ten percent of my stats would be a big hit to my combat effectiveness and without Ylsa around, it’d be up to Raiju, Volta, and I to protect Glyph and Mindy.

  “Any known counters?” I let go of his wing.

  He fluttered a step or so away before stabilizing. “You are in luck, a footnote mentioned the Chosen of all deities being immune to the effects.” He mumbled to himself. “Useless mortals, only giving ‘an agreement between the deities’ as the reason. Lazy!”

  Part of me wanted to jump over and drop kick him, but the rational part of me realized that would be counterproductive. Instead, I bit the inside of my lip and tried to keep it civil. “If that’s the only known counter, I guess it’s good that I’m here.” I tried to smile, but could tell from the way it felt that it came out as a grimace. “What about that shadowy barrier, any idea how to get through it?”

  He shrugged, or at least that’s what I interpreted his tiny bob as, considering he had no shoulders. “Oh, that should be easy for you, but most other parties would be plumb out of luck. You just have to walk through it, as Dominus’ chosen, the barrier is not permitted to harm you.”

  “I alr–” I stopped, staring at his annoying little face as my eye twitched. “Really?”

  “Affirmative.” He did a happy twirl. “That gave me another ten percent towards level twenty-one! This world is a veritable feast for [Voxels], I will need to document…” His eyes rolled back and he slowly floated over to hover over my shoulder.

  “As much of an ass as he is,” Raiju patted my arm, “at least he’s been useful so far?”

  Despite how much I hated his smartassery, I couldn’t refute her statement, so I just grunted. She seemed to take it for what it was as she moved to stand before the shadow barrier. “Well? No time like the present. Let’s wreck this tree.”

  I padded over to join her, marveling at the idea that all I would have to have done was touch the stupid barrier and I could have avoided that painful conversation. Part of me knew it was because I saw a lot of myself in the young [Voxel], but that didn’t make him any less insufferable. In fact, it made him ten times worse as I could see where he was coming from most of the time.

  Putting up my hand, but not quite touching the shadowy barrier, I looked back at my friends with a grin. “Are we ready to kick some undead tree ass?”

  A collective chuckle was my only response, even from Ylsa and Gabby through the Party Interface.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I laid my hand against the wall of shadows and a bright flash of light filled my vision.