When Tess wakes up, she is at first surprised by the people around her. Only slowly she realizes that she is in the living room instead of her room.

It was my idea. That's what she gets for making me worry.

Unsurprisingly, Tess deals with people who immediately ask her questions fairly quickly. A harsh look here, some lightning there. Yet, I notice that she is not that mad and realizes that they are just that worried. Even though she is trying to hide it, I can see her smiling a bit.

This is the kind of camaraderie she always hoped for. People going through the same terrible experience because of things out of their control and learning to help and worry about each other.

All the attention is on Tess and even Biscuit is there, and it takes a lot of time until she patiently answers their questions while they keep offering her food, snacks, and something to drink.

Tess's first Beyond trial was different from mine. The area was the same, but the monsters she had to deal with were different, with the end boss being a Giant Troll, a variant of troll with immense regeneration and huge stature that made it quite hard to kill.

A test seemingly to improve or check on her damage output, as Tess usually prefers more and weaker attacks.

Her skills improved and she leveled up, now being close to 150 and to getting her Primary class upgrade. I went to Beyond at around level 120, while Tess went a bit over 140. I can see that it still annoys her a bit as she is quite competitive.

When I check the Beyond community, I see the change.

Beyond 4/10

Unknown guy, Savant, me, Tess, that makes four of us here with probably Lily being the next one. Damn, group 4 is quite dominating this field, not like I will complain. More capable people mean more of me leeching off them.

The others become rowdy as well, and Dennis starts shouting something about them having to celebrate this, and I carefully disappear while masking my mana signature.

When outside, I take in the fresh air and boost myself, flying towards one spot in the city. I get greeted by a few guards Obelia left there when I asked her to. All three of them are over level 150, which makes it quite expensive.

After getting inside, I get welcomed by an older man with graying hair.

[Spellsmith - lvl 79]

“Such a shame, I thought you forgot about it and I will get to keep the items you left with me,” he jokes.

There in the middle of the table lies an Ethercrystal shortsword, an epic weapon that Elydor used to own. It's surrounded by multiple weird contraptions, a few mana stones, and even some metal rods with immensely delicate inscribing.

Parts of my plan to kill the Living Tree.

“Maybe I can beat one guy and get you a nice epic dagger if you want,” I offer.

I’m sure Lorven will piss me off once or twice in the future, so I can take the dagger from him again.

“Yeah, no thanks. Just from your expression, I can tell I don’t want to mess with it,” he says immediately.

Some people are scarily good at reading my expression which rarely changes. Skill, experience? Smelling my mood? All sorts of annoying stuff exists.

“So, how's it going?” I ask.

The man has been helping me ever since the start, to my not-too-big surprise he is one of the best inscribers in the city and was even able to get help from a few others, men and women similar to him who are more excited to work on this project rather than by the amount of money they will get for helping.

The amount of theory crafting they did in the past months is immense.

“We are mostly ready, but the inscribing is something you will have to do. Not even combined do we have enough mana or levels in required skills to inscribe an epic-graded weapon,” he sighs. “It would be amazing to work on it, but I can live with just observing it.”

He points at a few mana stones on the table, “There are some improvements we came up with, so please check them out.”

I nod and take the stones. Then I spend a few minutes examining what they have prepared for me. Some things are just straight-up efficiency improvements, while others are here like crutches to make inscribing easier, but I immediately scratch them up inside the stone. I won't be needing that with the amount of mana I possess and the force in the stones.

For a moment, I close my eyes and replay the frequency of the Living Tree's barrier, and make some changes.

Obviously, the tree might change it up, but I just set the base that I can quickly change when needed. In the end, I take a bigger mana stone and inscribe it all inside, the final version.

When I hand it to the older man, he just shakes his head, “It always terrifies me how quickly you can inscribe something onto a mana stone that is highly rated.” He then spends some time examining it while I'm checking the materials.

Everything seems fine and ready to go. I will take the sword, we will go on an expedition with Obelia in a day or two. Then the auction and after that, I can finish my secret weapon.

Tree Obliterator 9000.

“By the way, the Craft Guild offered you to join again, this time they offer you the position of honorary vice guild master,” he says, and I can see he is smiling.

“Again?” I sigh.

“Yes, they don’t want to give up.”

“One would say they have better things to do. Just tell them to practice.”

“Well, it's your fault for getting out some of your inscriptions. Some of them are revolutionary to the point I think you do not realize.”

Huh, I just did it for fun while working with the old man, “Ask money from them if they are so annoying they can at least pay.”

“Yes, yes,” he says almost absentmindedly and I see he is examining the mana stone I inscribed. His expression shows how happy he is, examining it, and I can almost hear all the new ideas swirling inside his head.

“Are you sure about this?” he steps closer.

As before, there is no hesitation, and I have a feeling that he wouldn't care even if I were a Champion or Absolute, that's how much he enjoys talking about his craft.

This silly old man also refused any form of payment, only asking for a chance to examine the stones and work with me and then, in the end, to watch the process of working on Tree Obliterator 9000.

Somehow, I can't bring myself to be annoyed, no matter how much he is asking or talking about inscribing. He just seems to love it in the same way I love working with mana and being such a person, he also wants other people to like what he does.

I'm about to return to our house when I notice two people in front of the gate. A lynthari woman with red hair and a tail like a fox and a child with the same color tails as her.

[Enthraller - lvl ??]

Immediately I know the adult lynthari is not good news.

The moment I look at her, she notices it and turns towards me. Right after, I feel her mana touch me, leaving a mark. After checking, I realize that it was made so she could track me.

She has impossibly blue eyes, that seem to pierce right through me, and she is easily the strongest person I met on the 4th floor.

Unlike other lynthari, she is shorter, only a bit taller than me. She looks to be a bit over thirty years old, but she also bears this almost ethereal beauty some older lynthari possess. The way she moves is fascinating and unnerving at the same time.

“Underling!” the little girl shouts and rushes towards me, followed by what I guess is her grandmother, the leader of lynthari. The Matriarch.

“It was really hard to find you, you know! But no worries, I was able to do it in the end, nya!”

I carefully watch them, but the matriarch doesn't seem to be angry. She is just standing there, lovingly smiling at the little girl. Towards me, she doesn’t say anything, her silence making me even more nervous.

“Yeah, it’s nice to see you,” I say carefully, still not sure how to treat her in front of this ancient lynthari.

“Boss! You have to call me boss!”

Oh boy, “I apologize, boss!” In the end, I just decide to go with the flow and at the same time, I remove the mark the matriarch left on me.

I rouse up my mana and meet her impossibly blue eyes. I don't push more and only use it to send the message that there is a line I do not want to cross.

In the same way as the lynthari, she doesn’t seem to find my behavior annoying, just amusing, and for a short moment her canines show before they disappear as quickly.

Little Riftwalker, the matriarch’s granddaughter, continues to talk about how much she likes the word I told her about.

“Some other lynthari also started to use it!” she complains, “But it’s fine, nya!” Everyone knows that it came from me. Good job, as expected from my underling.” Even though she is 29, her mental age is even less than that of Izzy. Maybe closer to a 6-year-old?

She also talks a lot, as if getting out all the words she couldn’t say to anyone, and then I start to realize how lonely this little girl must be. Being the granddaughter of the most powerful woman in the city and one of the very few lynthari children.

Just how happy she was when I decided to go with her play on boss and underling, how quickly she talks now as if trying to get out all the things before I disappear again. She is constantly checking if I’m still there with her.

She looks so lonely.

I sigh and lift her up, putting her to sit on my shoulders, her small hands holding my hair.

“W-what are you doing!” she complains, even though she doesn’t seem to mind it that much.

“We can’t have the boss walk around like some… underling,” I add some feigned despise to the last word.

For a moment, I notice a surprised expression on the matriarch’s face, but it quickly disappears, her eyes carefully observing me.

“That’s true,” the lynthari girl muses, “Ahead then, underling, I will tell you where to go!”

For the next few hours, I’m forced to walk around, getting surprised looks from a few humans and lynthari as well.

The entire time, I’m examining my own feelings and questioning myself why I’m doing something like this for someone I just met for the second time.

Is it an attempt to get on the matriarch’s good side? Partially. But for a big part, it was just the look I saw on the little girl’s face that made me do it. An expression similar to one my sister Victoria used to make when she was younger.

So we buy some food, I walk on tops of giant trees while she tells me what she has learned about them.

We break a few windows on the house of the Veilwalkers guild, the ones with Lorver as guild master. My idea, but I have decided to blame it on the little princess in case someone wonders.

I also decide against throwing a tricolored orb inside what I identify as Lorven's quarters.

For the whole time, I continue to listen to her excited blabber, and the matriarch quietly follows us. And when the night comes, the little girl becomes sadder, but she quickly hides it behind a smile.

“I will visit you soon!” she says before creating a rift and stepping through it, disappearing somewhere.

The entire time, the little girl didn’t know about her grandmother being there with us. She thought there were just the two of us.

The matriarch keeps looking at the rift left by the girl, the structure of the skill still in the air. She reaches towards it, about to reactivate it and use it to transfer herself.

“For now I will ignore what you and Champion candidate Myrra are planning to do.” That's the only thing she says for the entire day.

She then reactivates the skill and leaves me there alone.