Only a few minutes pass since I left Myrra when I realize that something is not right. There's that weird feeling that keeps bothering me. Something has changed, and it takes me a few moments to realize what it is.

The sword I held in the sheath in my hand is gone.

Huh?

I open and close my hands, but it's really gone; my hand is empty. Did I get robbed?

Immediately, I send a strong pulse into my area, detecting all the signatures around me, looking for something suspicious, maybe a phantom deer or something. Or another corgi with amazing camouflage.

The sword still holds some mana that it absorbed from Myrra, so I locate it fairly quickly. Not caring about the reactions around me, I boost myself high into the air and land on the roof of a nearby house. From there, I run towards where the signature is.

What I find there is a man in a cloak with his face covered by a cape.

[Veilstriker - lvl ??]

Oh, so at least level 182 or higher.

“It's amazing how quickly you noticed, almost the moment I took it away from you,” his voice is soft as he waves my sword he holds in his hand at me, “You are the first one. Not even Obelia was able to.”

The man throws the sword at me, and I let it land on the roof in front of me. I send a short pulse of disrupting mana at it, destroying whatever mark he left on it.

Only then do I take it from the ground and dash at the man, boosting my body and even pushing myself with kinetic energy generated by my kinetic mana heart. As I reach him, I send a thin cone of kinetic energy at his head.

The man dodges; his cape turning into a weird blur. More than being made from cloth, it looks like it's made from pitch-black shadow or smoke.

I track him with [Perception] and [Redistribution] activates to full power, trying to absorb movement from the man and make him slow down.

Surprisingly, it doesn't work; it's like my skill is slipping on him, unable to grab him.

I release more mana into the area and continue to observe his skill while he is dodging cones of kinetic energy. When I have a grasp on his mana, I send a pulse of [Resonance] into the area, and finally, [Redistribution] takes a grip on him, slowing his body to a crawl; his strength isn't enough to fight against it.

I push myself closer and direct a strong kick at him while more shadow-like substance forms in his hand, and he stabs at me. I don't dodge and just create a shield-like barrier in front of the attack. It cracks after getting hit, but that's when my kick hits him and sends him crashing against the chimney nearby.

The man bounces off the chimney, leaving cracks in it, and a more shadow-like substance surrounds him, shaping into spikes that stab at me as I rush at him again.

Another pulse of [Resonance], modified especially against the man, dissolves the attack, and I kick him again, sending him rolling on the roof.

While doing so, I again have this weird feeling and grip the sword in my hand tighter, disrupting whatever he is trying to do.

“Nice one,” I can hear the smile in his voice as he stops rolling after my kick and stands up.

The shadow-like substance that separated from his body as I kicked him, now like smoke behind me, becomes dense again and another spike is created, stabbing at my head from behind.

Such a funny guy.

I pull the Ethercrystal Shortsword from the scabbard and slash against the attack, the white crystal blade turning black and absorbing the mana. At the same time, I change the setting on my Mana Regulator, and nearly all my mana is automatically used through the Reinforcement construct to strengthen my body.

I enter deep [Focus] to be able to handle my increased speed, and the world around me turns into a blur. I reach the man so quickly that he doesn't even have time to react as I grab his hand and absorb my own kinetic energy to stop the inertia of my movement.

The man shows amazing reflexes and activates multiple skills: shadow-like spikes, his body becomes stronger, and he tries to use something similar to when I'm using [Tether].

Shadow spikes reach my body, and I don't even dodge, watching them stop and only slightly poke my skin, unable to reach further into my body that is boosted by the entirety of my mana.

I disrupt his attempts to teleport and even send disrupting mana into his body, making him lose control over his skills.

In a last-ditch effort, he pulls out a dagger and tries to stab at me. This time I dodge, break his arm and take the fallen dagger from the ground.

“Give it back,” he hisses. His voice different from before.

Oh, you're not so confident and funny anymore?

Holding his hand, I swing his body and smash it against the ground, still somewhat careful to not kill him.

A painful groan escapes his mouth from under the black cape over his head which falls down, revealing ashen gray hair. Then one swift kick sends him crashing against the same chimney again.

Damn, that chimney is sure catching strays.

I look at the dagger in my hand:

Painweaver (Epic): Infused with lethal toxins from the deadliest creatures, a single scratch delivers a potent neurotoxin that can fell even the hardiest of foes, inducing symptoms of extreme pain, disorientation, and eventual paralysis.

“Oh, that's kind of harsh of you, trying to stab me with it,” I say to the groaning man on the ground while putting the dagger away after surrounding it with some mana.

Another epic item for my growing collection. Something tells me it shouldn't be so easy to get them.

The man in front of me is very skilled; I can imagine him causing crazy trouble to people with his teleport, stealth, and epic-graded dagger. Especially that weird skill that allowed him to take the sword away from me. That one is really dangerous.

“Are you the guild master of one of the 5, erm, 4 big guilds?” I ask him.

While waiting for his answer, I think: what would have happened if he tried to kill me instead of stealing my sword? It's not a problem anymore, as I already know what to watch for, but back then it could have been dangerous. I believe I would have noticed it sooner if he had gone after my life instead of the sword, but still, that skill is quite something.

“Give me back my dagger,” he hisses again as he stands up, his body swaying from side to side.

He sounds young, a bit older than me, but who knows how old he actually is; he could easily be a few hundred years old.

“Give it back, you bitch!” he shouts.

Well, maybe he really is young.

I watch as his body turns into a blur, with smoky shadow-like mana surrounding him again, and he moves quickly, almost like smoke.

My mana projectiles pass through his body, as do flames and the kinetic energy cone. Even my physical attack. The entire time, spike-like attacks and projectiles continue to smash against my body. They are strong, quick, and deadly, drawing blood in places even with my body strengthened to a terrifying degree.

But that's all.

He tries to confuse me with his weird skill and I shrug it off.

He tries to surprise me by teleporting behind me and gets a swift kick to his chest instead of hitting me.

He compresses a lot of mana and shadows into a single attack that I cut through with my hand covered in resonating mana.

And even pulls out two more daggers that get covered in red mana. They seem to have an effect that tries to paralyze me, a weaker version of his epic weapon. Most likely rare weapons.

Having had enough, I send another pulse of disruptive mana at him and grab him by the neck. When I check, his hand is already healed, the one I broke. Skills? Tattoo? Item?

I throw him against the chimney once more, and the chimney finally cracks.

Good, I was getting weirded out by how durable it was.

My ability to disrupt mana really feels like cheating against some opponents. But it's fine; they can suffer the same way I did on the third floor against the duo of mana hunters.

“I think it would be annoying if I killed you,” I squat in front of the man, “but I will be taking the dagger as payment for you trying to steal from me.”

“Are you dumb? Do you even have any idea how much something like that is worth? There are just over ten epic items in the entire Virelia!” he shouts at me.

Huh, he is quite hotheaded for an assassin-like type, isn't he?

I take one of his rare daggers and break it just with the strength of my body boosted with my mana.

I do it because he annoyed me.

Afterwards I let him strengthen his body again as he tries to attack me one more time and kick, sending him flying against another chimney.

After that, I walk back to where I left Myrra.

“Feral one, are you actively trying to make things difficult for yourself?”

“Look, he asked for it, and how the hell is someone like that even a guild master?”

“Lorven, the guildmaster of Veilwalkers, is young, but extremely talented and with a powerful skill. There's even a rumor his guild has a few pieces of epic equipment.”

Myrra pauses as I put the man's dagger on the table, and she inspects it, “It's his dagger, isn't it?” she asks.

“Yup.”

“Are you going to return it?” she asks.

“Probably, for a price. Assholes like him would be too annoying to deal with if they went against my group. Can you handle it? Ask a lot of money from him to get it back, and you can keep 20 percent of it,” I tell her.

“Fifty percent,” Myrra says shamelessly and takes the dagger, “and I will get as much as possible.”

Looking at her, she probably doesn't even need the money but does it just for the fun of it.

“Fine,” I tell her.

Myrra continues to quietly think while observing the long sharp dagger in her hands; the blade's color slightly shifts from pitch black to light gray as the light falls on it.

“There are very few epic items in the entire Virelia, around two-thirds owned by lynthari and one-third by humans. And now there are you and Obelia, who both brought back a few epic items each if I'm right in my calculations.” Her golden eyes move from the dagger back to me, then to the sword I hold, and then to the mana stone that is in the inner pocket under my clothes.

“Things will become interesting,” Myrra's tail swings again as she says so.

Annoying, I want to correct her, but I give up.

Well, it's time for me to bullshit my way through all of this. “Angry Kittens will become one of the big five,” I tell Myrra.

Lorven is easy to deal with as my skills counter him, Obelia seems to overestimate my level because of the amount of mana I possess. With a bit of luck, the other two guild masters will be the same, and I will troll the entire Virelia into thinking I'm the biggest dog there before I become strong enough to deal with all of them at once.

I ignore Myrra's excited reaction and interrupt her, “So, I would like to meet with every guild master. Talk a bit, maybe make some deals.”

Or maybe beat them up. Funnily enough, showing strength often works best in these situations. Just enough for them not to want to mess with me. They are all over 200, but I'm not that worried. I'm long since used to fighting opponents of a much higher level, and my skill set makes me really versatile. My constructs, kinetic and thermal energy, disrupting mana, boosting my body with a stupidly large amounts of mana, my high ability to detect stuff, and concentrate.

I don't have any glaring weaknesses, so I trust myself that I can do it.

But only that much wouldn't be enough. They could try to kill me secretly, join together to do so, or threaten me by hurting my group. So there's one more thing I can do.

“I have an offer for them,” I say to Myrra.

They are human, and human needs are easy to read. I just need to dangle a shiny, nice thing in front of them. Something they won't be able to get without my full help. Something that will be much more valuable to them than just messing with me.

“Tell them I will kill the Living Tree.” That simple sentence makes Myrra shut up entirely and stare at me with her mouth open, in the middle of the sentence, “And Myrra, please, explain to them what it means.” They will move how I want, and I will milk this floor dry, “If the Calamity is dead, all the stuff in the old capital will be for us to take.”