Their conversation had proven fruitful. Mash now understood something about himself that he didn’t even know before. His presence alone affected the world around him. Since birth there had been nothing, he could do to change that fact. The more he thought about his past, the more he saw the truth in Red’s words. Even without thinking of the things that had affected him directly, he could remember other big events happening when he was a child. There had been that unexpected monster swarm. It was something that had caught the whole city off guard. It had lined up perfectly with imprisonment.

He wondered what other things might’ve happened that he just didn’t know about. He was probably the reason his siblings got the classes that they did. They had worked hard to get their classes, but he still felt like it might have been due to his presence. He was questioning more events of his life. How many things had he really accomplished?

[Stop thinking that way. It won’t help with your meditation, and it is pointless. You are who you are nothing can change that but yourself.]

Priscilla rarely spoke to him in a scolding manner. She did it occasionally when they were talking about lighter topics, but he wasn’t expecting it for something like this. However, her words resonated with him, and he found himself refocusing on the meditation. He needed to recover his energy in order to make a portal to Daniel’s world. The others were wandering around his world, looking to see if there was anything of interest. Mash realized he should probably do that at some point but decided that could be something he dealt with later. Instead, he just focused on getting his energy back in order to make another portal.

Mash wanted to go to Daniel’s world, to gain access to a new form of power. Hopefully, find some new powerful monsters that would give some stats and abilities. The other classes seemed a lot better than his, at least in terms of combat ability. His class had strangely provided him with utility, but his only power increase was in mixing his forms. It was a significant increase, but he couldn’t help but feel like Luke’s class had done more for him. The stat gain alone was ridiculous, though he thought that was intentional. The more he went over his skills, the more he believed that his class was designed to improve rapidly. He focused inward, easily able to check his status while recovering.

Chimera’s Constitution (Passive): Giving up your humanity has improved your body, improving your physical control, natural defenses, animalistic intuition, and mana control. No longer a human in any sense, you are no longer bound by that which limits them. You have created your own race, improving your rate of growth.

The skill mentioned that it improved his rate of growth. The description was vague, and that could mean a lot of things. It could refer to his rate of leveling, his stat gains, or maybe even his affinity with magic. There were too many things that could fill that space. Once he figured out what it meant, it would hopefully let him catch up to the others. It wasn’t like he was that far behind them. If anything, he would surpass them when he mixed his transformation. Especially if he mixed all of them. The stat improvement alone would make him far stronger than them. While he thought about his transformations and how to mix them effectively, he felt the others enter his domain.

“You done, Mash?”

Mash could easily hear Jill’s yelling, and he responded with a shout in return. He didn’t think the yelling was necessary, but he did it all the same. It felt weirdly wrong to not yell back in response. It was one of those things that people just kind of did without really thinking about it.

“Yeah!”

Mash rose from the ground and held his hand out in front of him. He didn’t actually need the gesture, but he had built the habit when using his magic. Wood grew from the ground as the space warped into a swirling mass of darkness. The wood rose to frame the portal, making an archway that seemed to swallow everything. Once it was done, he let the others step through first. He took one last look around, telling Priscilla to memorize it. He wanted to know how much things would change when he returned. It would help him understand how time and distance worked when he traveled outside of the world.

He stepped through the portal and quickly took in his surroundings through his domain. Although in this situation his eyes were a better tool. They were in a wide-open plain, short green grass spreading into the distance. The others were all staring in the same direction, and with a turn of his head, he saw what had caught their interest. The City of the Setting Sun was a breathtaking sight. Seeing the buildings sprawled from the ground all the way to the tip was quite showy. Most of the cities back home were designed more practically.

“That’s where we’re headed. The building at the top is the sect. It actually goes above the clouds too.”

Mash had told them of his experience before, but seeing the place was a different thing altogether. Everything always seemed more daunting when it pierced the clouds. They talked little as they walked toward the city. Daniel had told him that he should report to the sect when he returned and that he would try and meet them if he was around. Mash was pretty excited and tried to speed the group along.

“Let’s go. I want to go and see if we can learn their paths. They seemed pretty impressive.”

None of them disagreed. Despite having just advanced, they were always eager to get new abilities. It was a byproduct of their world. The desire to grow and gain new skills was shared among everyone. By now everyone had gotten a mark from Jill, and she teleported everyone to the town directly. Since she could only really see the mountain, she had teleported them directly to the side of the mountain. The reduced mana costs made her teleports the most effective form of transportation. No real reason to have long flights, though he would probably enjoy doing some anyway.

Nothing much had changed about the sect, which was a good sign. It probably meant that the invasion hadn’t started yet. Jill was looking over the mountain, and Mash pointed toward the sect’s entrance. However, he chose to point at the top of the staircase. He didn’t really want to waste any time climbing the staircase. The world blurred around him, and before he noticed they were standing right Infront of the entrance.

There were large stone doors blocking his entrance. He hadn’t seen these before, and he wondered why something like this was added. He didn’t feel anything strange from them with his domain. What was the purpose of stone doors? It's not like they would really be able to stop anything. They walked towards it, and Luke easily pushed the stone door open. It dragged across the ground unpleasantly, however it didn’t really look difficult. He didn’t bother opening it all the way either, as they could easily walk through with just a small push.

Several things happened when he pushed the door open. There were dozens of children in matching clothing inside. They all wore similar clothing. Some simple leather armor with a few metal plates in the most important locations. It was very similar to what he had seen before. Almost every person inside fled upon seeing them, and Mash could hear them shout in desperation. Some called for their masters, while others were yelling about monsters. A few froze, obviously terrified of the sudden intrusion. They weren’t that scary right? Mash paused looking over his group and could understand some of the fear.

Mash looked mostly human, but his eyes were strange. Jill was in a similar boat, but Red and Luke were wildly different. Red’s skin was a sickly grey tinge, and she had a tattoo that made it seem like she was crying tears of blood. Luke’s hands looked like they were made of stone, and he had gained a presence about him. None of them tried to calm the kids down and just waited for someone to respond to the commotion. Mash had met with the masters, if one of them arrived he would be able to handle the situation.

“What do you think you are doing? We do not allow demon-kin in the sect!”

A group of around fifteen people was approaching, and Mash was disappointed to realize that he recognized none of them. Each of them looked to be on the older side, and most had visibly greying hair. Like the children, their clothes seemed to match with those around them, though the colors varied drastically. Their tone was not friendly, and Mash considered the implications of the man’s words. The man who had spoken stood at the front of the group. He had a long beard that ended in a small braid. Another oddity was the fact that the old man had no eyebrows. It was a strange look, but Mash wasn’t one to judge someone based on their appearance. However, he would judge them on their actions, and it looked like these people were looking for a fight.

Mash looked to the others expecting one of them to say something, but he realized that they were all waiting for him. He should’ve expected that as he was the only one who had any experience with these people. Taking a long breath, Mash tried to diffuse the situation.

“We are not demon-kin, whatever that is. I’m friends with Daniel and Jeral. I w-“

“Don’t bother. Jeral would never meet with one such as you. Your lies have no place here!”

The leading man cut off Mash’s words. His tirade grew louder, and more people were gathering as he spoke. Mash didn’t know what he could do if the man wasn’t willing to even listen to him. Honestly, he expected everyone to be more like Daniel, and was unsure of what to do. He didn’t want to get into a pointless fight, but he wouldn’t just let them do whatever they wanted either. Plus, his friends wouldn’t let themselves get taken as prisoners or something.

“Your friends, huh.”

Jill’s comment was unnecessary, and Mash gave her a look so that she knew it. It didn’t seem very effective, and he realized that none of his friends looked particularly worried. In reality, Mash wasn’t either. Even on his own, he could easily detain the people in front of him. There were a lot of ways to judge a person’s strength, and he knew that none of the people before him were particularly strong. Even the leading man would only be around level 60. His domain was giving him a good way to gauge a person’s strength now.

That was it, just like that he had come up with a solution. The man in the front was getting louder and louder as more people joined his group. He was clearly getting overconfident, as he gained more support. All Mash needed to do to get what he wanted was shatter their fragile confidence. A demonstration of his power should get the job done. Mash couldn’t help but grin a little as he imagined what he was going to do. Honestly, he knew that it probably wasn’t the best idea, but he thought they deserved it. He was a little annoyed with the one-sided way the man spoke.