Broker

Chapter 051 - Pang of Loneliness

Added 2025-07-08 12:00:11 +0000 UTC

Anna furrowed her brows as she pulled a strip of cloth around a cut she hadn’t paid much attention to during the fight with the skeletons. She tightened the makeshift bandage. It was too small to warrant burning mana on and too big to ignore. Her mouth twitched and she glanced towards the stairs where Catherine was standing, preparing herself for yet another grinding session. Anna felt a small pang of self-satisfaction from the knowledge that while Catherine was far more proficient in dealing with the skeletons one-on-one, she had still refused Beval’s offer to do the same marathon run for her as he’d done for Anna.

Catherine glanced back over her shoulder and met her gaze. Anna held it before shrugging at her and the knight rolled her eyes. “Finish leveling up and get ready for your next round, my lady. You should take the opportunity to accrue some additional essence to put towards your profession levels,” Catherine said blandly and lowered her weapon, glancing up at Beval who gave her the signal, and walking down the stairs.

Anna pursed her lips but conceded the point. She’d rather head back and get started on earning that profession first, but she supposed another round or two wouldn’t hurt. She crossed her legs and got to refining. As she did, she focused the essence not on her whole body, but rather focused on her bones. She’d forgotten to split an even balance while leveling up to 6 so she figured she would make up for it now. Power swirled through her body, essence and mana merging into that refined that suffused her, changed her a little more, and brought her one tiny step further along her path.

Level Up!
You have refined your body to Level 7.

You gain a total +16 Attribute points for this level.

Anna smirked and flipped immediately over to her stats to start spending points. She dropped 4 into agility to bring it up to 40. Then she balanced out her resource stats; 4 into Endurance and 2 into Willpower. That left 6 to play with which she dumped right into strength. She liked the idea of hitting a little bit harder now that she had Rebuke to help her during a fight. More importantly, she had a feeling she knew what one of those waiting notifications was.

She pulled up the first notification;

Title Upgraded!

Undead Hunter I (Mortal-Common-Low)
The walking dead are your prey. You hunt them without mercy or restraint.
Effect: +6% Damage against undead targets.

Nice, just keep slathering it on, System and I’ll keep smashing those fucks, she thought with no small amount of smugness. She crossed her legs beneath her and pulled the next notification. It was as she suspected.

A skill has Improved!

One-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons (Mortal-Common-Middle)

You are proficient in the use of single handed weapons that deliver bludgeoning and crushing blows to your targets. +2% Additional damage with associated weapons and abilities.

The next one was not what she’d been expecting but it was certainly something she had been hoping to pop up soon.

Stygian Bones (Mortal-Rare-Low)
The pureblooded denizens of the Stygian Realm possess an unnaturally rugged physiology. Your black bones are a cut above. You possess sturdy bones capable of resisting significant impacts. Your bones now absorb additional shocks, stamina use from movement and damage taken from falls has been reduced. Continue to refine your bones to unlock further benefits. +2% to Str, Vit, and End.

Another small improvement, but it all piles up, loving the bone upgrade, she thought wryly and rubbed her chin. Flicking her eyes up towards where Catherine was already coming back from her round with the Undead. Anna slipped to her feet and rolled her shoulders, calling her club back up and glancing towards Beval. The elf-Dulin-whatever he was frowned a little at Catherine before quickly schooling his expression when he met her eyes.

“Problem?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “Just wondering how long you two are going to put yourselves through this. The bone garden’s creation’s levels only go so high,” he said warily. “We have also been away from my people for over a day now.”

Anna huffed and got to her feet as a scowl crossed her features. He wasn’t wrong, they’d been away for a while and she should be more concerned about the people they’d dumped back at the precinct. She crossed her arms and thought it over. She could probably squeeze in enough rounds to get some of the essence Catherine had suggested to set aside for her Engraver profession. After that, though, they really needed to get back.

Beval, for his part, just shrank a little as she glanced his way again. “...I mean. I will get the next round set up right away, m-my lady,” he stumbled over his words, quickly dipping back into the control room.

Anna raised an eyebrow at Catherine. “What’d I do?” she asked.

Catherine snorted. “Besides stare right through that boy?”

Anna cleared her throat and looked away, rubbing her neck. “Shit.”

Catherine settled into the spot she’d taken to sitting in while she refined and crossed her legs into a lotus. A small amount of amusement crossed over her usually stoic features as she took a deep breath. “Look at it this way, my lady. You are cultivating an image. It is better than being known as a short tempered, sleep deprived, anxiety prone recluse.”

There was a long pause as Anna narrowed her eyes and tried to figure out whether or not to take the statement as a compliment for her ability to cover up her own faults or as the thinly veiled jab that it was. She crossed her arms and just let the whole thing go, deciding it was better just to ignore the bait rather than bite at it. That only seemed to make Catherine more amused which was equally infuriating. She opened her mouth to bite the woman’s head off before just letting out a sigh. This was obviously just another lesson.

Anna marched past her smug knight and teacher and descended down the stairs, eager to take some newly formed irritations out on the skeletons.

By the time she had finished her latest round she’d accrued a solid amount of essence, enough that, if Professions operated on the same experience scale as Classes, she should be able to bump it up to level 3 as long as she didn't refine it into her class instead. She still wasn’t sure exactly how that worked, but she supposed that would become clear after she finally got the damn thing. The only real disappointment that came out of her last round with the skeletons was the lack of verifiable progress with any of her abilities.

Real gains take time, she reminded herself as she looked over her character sheet to assess all of her gains from this excursion.

Name: Anastasia Flitt
Race: Human - Terran
Class: Warmage - 7 (3129/5700) 0.0%
Profession: None
Tier: Mortal - First
Heritage: Born in the Gray (Unknown) - Stirred
Heritage Path: Path of the Gray (Legendary)

Resources:
HP: 231/231 | SP: 231/231 | MT: 0/232

Titles:
The Monument (Mortal - Unique), Inheritor of the Integration (Mortal-Epic), Little Powerhouse of the Integration (Mortal-Epic), Attribute Specialist of the Integration - Presence (Mortal-Rare), Solo Boss Hunter of the Integration (Mortal-Rare), Stygian Apex (Mortal-Uncommon), Stygian Navigator (Mortal-Uncommon), Stygian Seer (Mortal-Uncommon), Youth of the Integration (Mortal-Common), Precursor of Earth (Mortal-Common), Undead Hunter I (Mortal-Common-Low)

Racial Traits:
Mana Touched (Mortal-Rare), Stygian Bones (Mortal-Rare-Low), The Human Spirit (Mortal-Uncommon)

Proficiencies:
One-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons (Mortal-Common-Low), Arcane Magic (Mortal-Common-Base)

Skills:
Stealth (Mortal-Common-Base), First Aid (Mortal-Common-Base), Athletics (Mortal-Common-Base), Scribe Spell (Mortal-Common-Base), Engrave (Mortal-Common-Middle)

Abilities:
Furious Rebuke (Mortal-Rare-Base), Dominant Presence (Mortal-Rare-Base), Wraithsight (Mortal-Uncommon-Base), Temperature Tolerance Training (Mortal-Uncommon-Base), Stygian Endurance (Mortal-Uncommon-Base), Stygian Agility (Mortal-Uncommon-Base), Stygian Insight (Mortal-Uncommon-Base), Identify (Mortal-Common-Base), Power Strike (Mortal-Common-Low), Warcaster (Mortal-Common-Base), Basic Physical Conditioning (Mortal-Common-Base), Contingency (Mortal-Common-Base)

Spells
Mana Barrier (Mortal-Common-Base), Mana Bolt (Common-Base), Pathetic Illusion (Common-Base), Heal Minor Wound (Common-Base)

Currency:
Gold: 1
Iron: 12295

“Looking good,” she muttered to herself before doing a quick bit of mental math. Huh, so I don’t get a new powerhouse thing for hitting 500 total stats? Damn.

Satisfied, she turned to Catherine who also looked about ready to move out. Beval was standing nearby, the man practically jittering with anticipation. It was obvious he was worried about his people, not that Anna could blame him. If she had a way to go into the tutorial and check on her mother, she would. Ultimately, though, that wasn’t an option. She pushed aside the momentary pang of loneliness and jerked her chin towards the doors. “Let’s go.”

As they filed out, Anna paused only for a moment to check the Integration timer.

Time Remaining: 340 Days, 2 hours, 11 minutes.

“...please be safe, mom,” she murmured, and hurried after the others.

–

It was sweltering amongst the trees. The jungle was thick and teeming with life. Little sounds here and there felt like little attacks of their own; tiny attempts to draw attention away from more important details. She raced over a raised root, vaulting it and landing in the mud with a silent curse, hoping the sound hadn’t drawn the wrong kind of attention. A brief moment of stillness followed by silence told her that she might have finally eluded her pursuers. She let out a sigh of relief and set her jaw, focusing on the treacherous path in front of her.

<System Alert: Tutorial Participant Eliminated. 4319/6000 Participants Remaining>

The tutorial had started out so straightforward. Just as he had said it would. Also as he had anticipated, the tutorial had devolved into a mad rush for power. A bloodbath. There were plenty of monsters and resources to go around within the tutorial but that didn’t seem to matter to the others. Some had managed to organize into larger groups to keep one another safe, but the draw of gathering bonus essence from participant kills was too hard to resist.

It really is culling the weak, she thought bitterly as she slipped around a pair of standing stones and came to an abrupt stop. The glimmering tip of an arrowhead an inch from her nose. She stared down at it before looking up at the owner. A young man with red hair and dark green eyes looked at her face for a moment, his pupils small and his chest rising and falling rapidly. Then, he relaxed and let out a weary sigh. “Amanda. Thank goodness you’re back.”

“I’m fine, Scott,” she said quickly, “How are the others?”

He shook his head. “Tammy’s getting worse.” He turned hopeful eyes on her. “Please tell me you pulled it off.”

She nodded to him. “Lead the way. I finished my class ability quest,” she said.

Relief washed over him and he nodded with a smile. “Thank goodness, come on,” he said and guided her into the small cave hidden between the rocks. The cavern had once been a minor dungeon that she and the others had cleared out to take as their own hiding spot. As deep in the jungle as it was, it was far less likely that others would come out hunting for them here. The narrow primary tunnel of the cave wound back and forth. The curving had made it difficult to deal with the previous residents, a group of goblins that used the natural cover to their advantage.

Scott glanced over his shoulder. “Did you find a route to get to Mayor Conroy’s camp?” She shook her head and he cursed. “Damn. Thank you for trying anyway. What’s happening out there?”

“In short, it’s inching towards a war between Mayor Conroy and Fletcher. Fletcher’s spread his people out to keep watch for any of us stragglers trying to reach the Mayor and bolster his opposition,” Amanda said quickly as they dipped through the small opening at the end of the tunnel, leading into a wide cavern that had once been the den of the goblins. Now it served as the campsite for their small group.

There were over thirty of them in all, survivors of this apocalypse from various walks of life. Amanda had become the unwilling den mother of their little band, many of them picking up on how calm she was despite everything early on. She couldn’t admit that she had some minor foreknowledge of what was coming, a promise had been made after all, and now that she truly knew the full scope and power of the System, she was glad she hadn’t slipped up. Her own analytical mind could not even begin to fathom being sanctioned by such an omnipotent force.

Scott led her past the others, several standing and greeting her while a few remained seated, their eyes glossed over with the vacant stare of defeat. The initial phase of the tutorial, the education portion, had shaken the hearts of so many people. Beliefs were shattered and entire fundamental concepts of how the world and universe worked were broken irrevocably. When they were finally cut loose to survive in this forsaken place, the monsters made everything even worse. Both the human kind and the twisted creatures they encountered.

She let out a breath and focused on the task at hand as they arrived at a small cot where a woman half her age lay sprawled out on a mat. The skin of her extremities was pale and pallid while her face was flush with the strain of fever. Amanda glanced at the two members of their group who had been watching over Tammy and smiled at them. “I’ve got it from here,” she said quietly and knelt down next to the cot.

They looked at one another with relief and got to their feet, stumbling off to get some sleep.

Amanda reached into the folds of the robes she’d chosen as her starting armor and slipped the small smooth disk of metal out. A faint engraving on the surface marked with a book, a sword, and a rook. To think this is how I pick up religion, she thought wryly. Though I suppose hard evidence is difficult to dismiss.

She took a deep breath and held her hand out over Tammy, her eyes falling shut. She accessed the ability and the words poured from her lips unbidden. She knew instinctively that once the ability rose in rank it would require less and less of the prayer to be spoken audibly. Still, even this delay was a small price to pay for the benefits. Divine magic had significantly more punch than the other circles in the early stages.

“Mighty Zera, Lord of War, the great challenger, god of wisdom and courage. Your pursuit of peace led to the path of blood. Empower your servant to purge this sickness as you did the corruption of your homeland,” she intoned and light shone from her palm. “Cleanse the Sick.”

As she felt the presence of the deity wash past her, her thoughts turned to another great being and the child he had sired with her. Anna. Survive, I swear I will find you when this is done, and explain everything.