It had been days since Ashen and Alice reunited with Seraphine.
In that short span, a lot had happened—enough that "days" felt like an understatement.
The Narkals had started stirring again. The only saving grace was that their intensity had somehow diminished, as they only attacked using night raids.
But the stress of having to be constantly on guard, coupled with the feeling of being trapped no matter what you did or where you went, seemed to slowly but surely wear at the nerves of everyone in the Ashbastion.
Surprisingly, Ashen felt almost none of it. Maybe it was the addition of his old tutorial team, coupled with Alice's return, but he felt his mental state as clear as day.
Especially after entrusting his letter to Lucia alongside Braun's. He didn't know if she'd be able to get authorization to use the portals to Esperra or if they were even functional anymore, but he'd done what he had to do, and now he could finally devote all his focus to killing monsters.
Another change was his fighting style on the battlefield. Due to his new skills, he'd switched from hyperactive movement to remaining mostly stationary.
It didn't mean he didn't help, of course. He moved when he really had to, and when he wasn't moving, the mana threads covered for him, saving every soldier in his field of vision.
Staying back also came with the unexpected benefit of better command over his division, further lowering casualties.
So while his subordinates found his change weird, they didn't complain because even if the number of their kills lowered, so did their casualties.
They didn't even find it unexpected. Their general was of the Sloth pathway, and it was a given he'd show such lazy behavior sooner or later, especially after ascending to the next step.
Ashen wasn't doing this for any embodiment, though, but only for his new skill, Hourvault, to fill up.
The moment his body stayed at rest, the Hourvault started redirecting every wasted resource to itself—like the mana he breathed in and refined but couldn't be added, since it surpassed his circuits' capacity.
Even the excess vitality produced by Vital Drift was taken in when his body didn't need it.
Ashen also noticed that the synergy between these two skills wasn't bad, since they both worked harder the more still he was.
After thorough testing, Ashen noticed its limitations. First, the Vault's space started really small, barely able to hold anything at all, and he had to wait for it to expand bit by bit.
The more he stayed immobile, the more it expanded, of course, but moving at a walking pace halted the expansion, and anything faster actually shrank it.
However, Ashen found one loophole: his other new skill, Blindstep.
This skill sounded like a movement technique; it even looked the part as he seemed to teleport whenever he activated it, but it was much more. The skill actually messed with the concept of time itself, making it locally ignore him for one fleeting moment.
Since the skill could hide him from time in that fleeting moment, it consequently hid him from all who were under its confines.
People, animals, elements, objects, and even skills… including his Hourvault skill.
Ashen even found that using this skill helped him embody his current step, no matter how slight.
The final change he could name was his bedroom activities, which had gotten a lot more "active." He and Alice went at it for hours after each Narkal attack.
As for Seraphine, beyond the feedback from the bond skill and a few stolen kisses here and there, nothing had happened between them.
Alice had even sent her with a notebook and pen, asking her to go around and ask everyone's desires since it was her job as a Keeper of Desires, which the latter could only begrudgingly do.
She didn't have to ask anyone, though, since Inner Resonance did all the heavy lifting by allowing her to sense the hidden desires of those nearby.
When not bullying Seraphine, the three of them regularly kept each other company, and Braun joined in sometimes after reuniting with Seraphine and being introduced to Alice.
…Just like now.
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"Hey… why are you closing your eyes like some monk?"
Ashen felt a hand poking his cheek and was forced to lift his eyelids and catch the misbehaving hand.
"He's probably using SA." The ever-observant Alice chimed in from Ashen's other side.
Seraphine's body almost left the bench they sat on as she stuck even closer. "Ah! We agreed to no training! Ash, stop it or…!"
"Or what?"
"I'll keep poking!"
"Ah… anything but those pokes, please no…" The dramatic tone only made her poke more.
Eventually, she resorted to using her trump card. "Ally, help me here!"
The amused spectator was forcefully dragged in by the airheaded protester, forcing the rebelling offender to instantly capitulate.
"Alright, alright, no need to call the cops, I was just checking something!"
"I'm curious, what were you 'checking'?" Alice faintly smiled and asked.
She clearly didn't believe him, but Ashen would never confess that he was secretly using the Riven State to temper his body. More than that, he wasn't lying when he said he was checking something, so he instantly blurted it out to cover for himself.
"It's about life force!"
"What about it?" The mischievous voice of the one who'd started it all didn't give him any wiggle room as she picked up the questioning.
And Ashen had to explain… "Uhh… I need to know how much you understand about life force first."
Seraphine put a finger on the tip of her lip as she went into thought. "All I know is the basics… Life force is represented by the purest strand of mana obtained upon birth and intertwined with our body's vitality."
She tilted her head, trying to remember the information she'd read on the subject back in Paradise. "Oh! It's also always located in the core of our heart and spreads from there into the blood to circulate throughout the body with vitality. That's all I know."
Ashen crossed his arms and nodded twice. "Good job, my dear student. A very accurate answer." He then turned to the relaxing Alice. "What about you, Miss Sinclair? Anything to add?"
"Hmm~ teacher, is there any reward for answering correctly?" Since her man was abruptly acting as a teacher, Alice naturally slid into her own "student" role.
"There will be plenty of rewards… in bed later. But so will there be punishments if you're a bad student." Ashen kept the serious note, despite the outrageous placement of the reward.
A sultry smile graced Alice's face. "I suddenly feel like being a terrible student~"
"Hey, is there no reward for me? I answered correctly." Seraphine chimed from the side, barely holding a smile seeing their improvised performance.
Ashen reached out and gently patted her head. "Here you go…"
With twitching lips, she glared at him. "Isn't there other rewards…?"
"Those are for the grown-ups; little girls only get head pats."
"Hey!!"
Ashen merely smirked and brought his gaze back to his other "student."
Thankfully, Alice answered honestly this time. "...Life force will diminish with time, and when the strand of mana finally dissipates, so will our life."
"Oh… There was that too, I missed it." Seraphine sheepishly smiled. Maybe it was her optimistic personality that made her unconsciously avoid that detail, since it signified not just a countdown for her death, but for everyone she held dear.
"Yes. That's the detail I'm looking for. If we know this, then we can conclude that the way to keep our life force going, and by extension our life span, is to keep this strand from dissipating for as long as possible."
"...So ascending in steps somehow does this?" Alice asked, finally getting curious about the subject.
Everyone knew that the higher the steps, the longer someone lived, and it was even rumored that when one reached the first step, they were guaranteed immortality.
No one aside from those who'd reached it knew the truth of the matter, but what they knew for sure was that the fifth step was the first real taste of longevity, as they acquired an additional 100 years of life.
"That, it does. I'm using SA to observe the details…" Ashen nodded in agreement to Alice's question.
"So… what actually happens? C'mon, tell us…" Seraphine seemed totally hooked on the subject, despite being the one who'd told him to stop earlier, but Ashen indulged her all the same.
"The mana refined from regular breathing lasts from around sixty to a hundred and twenty years, more or less, and that's also the lifespan range of an Esperrian human."
Ashen paused to gather his thoughts, but the eager looks of the two women spurred him to continue. "...Unsurprisingly, higher quality mana takes longer to dissipate, so the obvious choice is to refine the strand of mana into a purer state, but that's useless because…"
"...Mana can only be refined once," Alice answered for him.
"True." He nodded. "And mana refined through only breathing also has its limits when it comes to pureness."
He then smiled. "Thankfully, there's another way to increase mana quality: a large amount of concentrated concepts. And we, pathwalkers, are just that."
Alice finally nodded, getting the gist of it. "So because of the increasing conceptual power in our bodies with each step, which in turn further refines our newly inhaled mana, that strand also becomes purer."
"Basically."
"...Wait, but unlike the rest of our mana, I don't think that strand can be recirculated, right? If we let it leave our bodies for any moment, we'd die in seconds…"
"You're right." Ashen gave her another pat on the head, which she leaned into despite the pout. "But the first strand of mana that we inhale with our first breath is somewhat special…"
He leaned in and spoke in a low voice, as if conveying a big secret. "I recently discovered that this strand doesn't like it when there's higher quality mana around it… so the more there is, the more it gets provoked and irritated… eventually, when that irritation passes a certain threshold…"
""It will grow purer.""
Ashen nodded, satisfied, and then pretended to wipe off one imaginary tear. "What good students I have… both of you deserve a big reward. Come to my 'office' later, I'll reward you at the same time…"
All he got was two glares in return. What 'reward at the same time'? They weren't babies and knew what he implied there.
Ashen felt the glares and knew he'd slipped a bit too much of his inner desires. Looking for any way to deflect the situation, his eyes suddenly lit up as he found his "savior."
"Hey! Isn't that Braun?"
"Hmm?"
"Oh, you're right… who is he talking to?"
Ashen saw that their attention had shifted and gave himself an imaginary pat on the back. But he soon also focused on the scene.
Braun was standing tall, and a redhead was standing really close to him, talking, sometimes laughing and leaning on his arm.
Braun didn't look like he minded the closeness from his relaxed gait and the way he allowed it.
Ashen focused further on the woman's features… her slim build, the way she wore her uniform, and especially her face… and eventually deduced who she was.
She was one of the soldiers under him, and also one of the people whose stories he'd recorded.
As the trio watched the scene of their older friend being flirted with unfold, the latter eventually managed to extract himself from her hold and finally walk in their direction.
Braun had actually noticed them long before they did. It wasn't because he was more perceptive, but simply because of the sheer presence they exuded, especially when they sat next to each other just like that.
The newly rising general, sandwiched between the saintess candidate and the Ashbastion's treasure. Anyone would stop to look.
…But even without that, they'd still be plenty conspicuous with those looks. The ethereal presence and uncanny perfection of Ashen that Braun guessed was from the integration of his sin, coupled with the two beauties, one serene and the other playful, painted a picture that no one was willing to encroach upon, in fear of being compared and tainting it.
Braun was the same. He didn't feel himself worthy of interacting with them, not only for their looks and positions, but also because he knew their characters and that someone like him, who lived his whole life like a rat, had no place amongst them.
But being a rat was the same reason why his feet did not stop. A rat instinctively knew the way to survive, just like it could smell filth from a mile away.
…And being by their side was what the rat in him whispered.
So even though he considered Seraphine almost a daughter, and Ashen his sole true friend, and even the newly acquainted Alice a person he could interact with without his guard up, the true reason he stayed by their side was none of that, but only because he was…
A rat.
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