BOOK II

Legend of the Time Thief

Chapter 92

In Silence (I)

“Dad!!” a chirpy and unrestrained voice jolted Cain from a half-sleeping state, causing him to jump and look around, appearing lost for a moment. He realized he was in Emma’s apartment -- or, well, their apartment for nearly two weeks now -- and was watching TV when he nodded off.

Looking sideways, he saw Lana standing next to his legs and looking up at him, her cheeks flushed faintly, her two tiny hands cradling a flower-laden notebook. She wore her pajamas, their design equivalent of someone from Disney vomiting all over them, and was barefoot.

“Uh... what’s going on, firefly?” Cain asked, yawning and stretching.

“Could... could you help me with math homework?” a bolt of electricity rammed through Cain as he finally got to experience the legendary ‘could you help me dad’ moment. There was just one problem, however.

“W-Where is mom? She... she’s really good at math...”

“She went out with Aunties!” Lana replied.

“What about Jamal--”

“Him, brother Lukas, and grandpa Rick also went out!”

“...” WHY MATH?!!! “Khm, fine, why don’t you sit next to me and we’ll see what we can do.”

“Yaay!” Lana exclaimed joyously as she jumped onto the sofa and sat next to him, sticking her tongue out playfully as she struggled to pull the table closer to the sofa. Cain stealthily charged some Wind and helped her along, causing the young girl to stare at the wooden behemoth wide-eyed and then at her arms, her thoughts reflected on her expression.

"So, what's the problem?" Cain ripped her out of it, prompting the girl to open up a notebook and show him three assignments she had. Though most of the nation continued to operate relatively normally, it was a bit different from L.A., which was why she had to take her classes online like most kids here. Luckily, or unluckily for quite a few hundred thousand, there was a pre-existing infrastructure so it wasn’t entirely inconceivable.

“These three,” Lana pointed out. “We were learning divisions! But... I... I don’t get ‘em...” Me neither, kiddo... me neither... oh, wait, I do get the first one!

“Okay,” Cain nodded, appearing to be deep in thought for a moment as he ‘observed’ the assignments. “The first one -- do you get what you’re supposed to do?”

“... nuh-uh.”

“Okay... hmm... think about it like this -- if you had nine apples, how would you share them with your mom and me so that we all get the same number of apples?”

“... uh... three each?” Lana replied. “But I only need one. I’d give you and mommy four!”

“...guh!!”

“W-what’s wrong, dad?” Lana jumped at Cain’s ‘painful’ expression, worriedly looking at him.

“N-nothing, firefly, nothing,” Cain said, feeling the swelling sensation of love pound against his chest. “H-how about you and I play until mommy gets back home? She’s much, much better at explaining math than me...”

“Okay!” Lana replied as though she was expecting it. Ah, how sweet--wait just a goddamn second. Did I get played by my own kid?!!

“... touche, kiddo,” Cain said, looking at her with pride. “Touche.”

Most of the past two weeks, ever since they returned from their brief field trip to Germany, were spent like this -- with him lounging around, watching TV and reading up news on the internet, and playing with Lana. Occasionally, Emma would stay at home instead of going out with others, but, for the most part, he was left to his own devices.

It was the sort of luxury that he was rarely able to afford the last go-around. Every time he'd leave the Tower, he'd at most have a week or two to spend on the outside before needing to go back in. And even while outside, he was constantly fishing for new spots to grind his levels or find new items. He was never able to just laze around for the whole two weeks without doing anything to the point that his Stamina dropped by 1 because of it. Even still, his stats had become fairly decent considering his starting point.

//Name: Cain Gregory Age: 32 Race: Human

Class: Elementalist Level: 49

Strength: 48 Vitality: 112 Agility: 50 Stamina: 79

Intelligence: 314 Wisdom: 314 Health: 1120 Mana: 4395

Traits: Labourer(C), Quick-witted(A+), Tenacious(B+), Leadership(SSS-), Analysis(A), Awareness(B), Keen(B-), Charismatic(S+)

Skills: Spell Creation(?), Fire(B+), Frost(B-), Arcane (B), Earth (B-), Wind (S), Blink(C+), Elemental Shield(B-), Water(C), Blood(D+), Mana Burning (D), Mana Surge(D), Nature(C-), Body(B-), Aether(D), Creation(D), Singularity(A), Ruin (E-)

Class Skills: Avatar

Created Spells: Falling Fire(C-), Amnesty Shield(B+)

Talents: Perception(Mythic), Hero(quasi-Divine)

Items: Ember's Quartz(B-), Phoenix's Feather(A-), Crown of Flames(A), 'Velthar's Bracelet(B-), Orb of Deception(S-), Spirited Cloak(A)

Titles: The First Elementalist, Bandit Slayer, Direwolf Slayer, Monster Slayer, Maverick, Spell Creator, The Herald, The One Who Survived Death, Reborn Elementalist, Void Slayer, Slayer of the Nightmares, Blade Mountain Conqueror, The One Who Impressed Spirits, The Master, Usher of the Kingdom, Grandmaster Elementalist, Throne Chaser, Herald of Divinity, Will Divine, Elemental Child, Mankind’s Beacon, The One

Achievements: 22 (+1 to Main Stats for each achievement)//

By now, he had enough Mana that he could start creating some of his mainstay spells from the previous run, as well as enough Health not to worry about being one-shot by the majority of creatures in the Tower. Furthermore, the Crown of Eternity item cemented even further the fact that he was certainly not destined to run at the Tower all by himself since the item was tailor-made for the leader of a party.

//Crown of Eternity(SS-) Helmet

Level: 40

Requirements: Elementalist, Titular Rank (Conqueror), Party Leader

Passive: All members of the party gain +20% to their Main Stats while in Combat

Passive: Prevents a dying blow aimed at a member of the Party (once a day).

Passive: As a designated Leader of the Party, all attacks aimed at you below a specific threshold(80% of your HP) will instead be evenly distributed across the Party

Activation(1) -- rouse the Party's spirits, temporarily decreasing the damage they take by 50%.

Activation(2) -- drain 50% of Mana from all members of the Party and cast a shield on everyone equaling the amount of Mana drained (once every 3 days) //

All things considered, he was more than equipped to have a go at the second floor, but that wasn’t necessarily the case for the rest, especially the two that had joined them recently -- Lukas and Daniel. Though the equipment Rick managed to fleece in the meantime was actually fairly good, it was still a few tiers below what Cain and others had, even if the grades themselves matched.

The key to the good items wouldn't be stats in the long term, but rather the percentiles, the passives, and the actives. For instance, the Crown of Eternity didn't increase Cain's stats even by 1 but was effectively the most valuable buck-for-pound item in his inventory.

There was little to be done, though, as it was impossible to force people to hand over their best items on their way out, nor did Cain want that to happen. While it was possible to clear most of the floors with a small-sized party, there were quite a few that demanded the presence of dozens if not a full hundred people and above. Having others with good equipment would pay off far more in the long run than forcing them to give up gear that Cain's party would replace in a few months anyway.

By the time Emma returned, the sun was slowly beginning to set. She carried with her several bags of groceries, prompting Lana to immediately run over and demand Emma hand over any sweets she bought. The latter, weak to the pleas, quickly caved in and gave the little girl a few candy bars as the latter ran off to play on her tablet.

“You’re really spoiling her, you know?” Cain commented as he walked into the kitchen, kissing her softly.

“Look who’s talking.” she scoffed, slowly sorting the groceries. “What did you two do the whole day, anyway?”

“Play, take a nap, play.”

“Wow. So productive.”

“I know, right?”

“... didn’t she have homework or something?” Emma quizzed.

“Math.”

“Oh...”

“Yeah...” Cain chuckled. “You seen Daniel?”

“Yup,” Emma nodded. “He was sitting in front of the building, reading Nietzsche.”

“... that kid may be talented, but boy does he give me the creeps...” Cain shuddered for a moment, recalling their meeting. Daniel was perhaps more of a doomsayer than most of the ‘end of the world cults’ that Cain was familiar with. Negativity practically took a physical shape around the boy whenever he talked.

“We’ll just toss him to all TV crews that try to interview us,” Emma giggled. “He’ll ensure it never happens again.”

“Wow, and I thought I was mean...”

“Oh, shut up,” she rolled her eyes as she put away the last of the groceries. “Do you plan on staying for dinner or will you go and play cards with your pals?”

“I did that once! Once!!” Cain defended himself. “And I told you three days prior! Don’t turn our relationship into the cliche ‘wife disapproves of every one of her husband’s life choices’!”

“Ha ha ha,” Emma laughed freely for a moment, jabbing him gently. “I’m just bitter you lost, that’s all. Did you see that Rick is trying to turn this entire compound into a self-sustaining city, pretty much? He plans on building a school, a hospital, some government offices...”

“Yup,” Cain nodded as he grabbed two cans of beer from the fridge while Emma tossed herself onto the sofa. “It was my idea.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, seriously. I told him it’d be good if he made a few more parties besides us that worked under him and he decided to build a whole goddamn city for that.”

“Apparently, they found the entrance to the second floor,” Emma said, taking the beer.

“Yup, it’s been on the news all day long.” Cain said. “They appear quite excited.”

“You don’t seem in any rush.” she said, glancing at him. “What’s the secret?”

“The condition for clearing the second floor,” Cain elaborated. “Only appears when there are a thousand people that are at least level 40 registered. So, it’s gonna take a while.”

“Oh?”

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to do in the meantime,” Cain added quickly. “But most of the Quests on the second floor are really long and painful to trek through. Besides, the two that I’m aiming for are virtually impossible to discover.”

“... but they were discovered since you know about them." Emma said.

“Yeah, about fifteen years into the future.”

“Oh.” she exclaimed softly, sighing right after. “I... I don’t know what it is, but I keep forgetting you had a whole life I never got to see.”

“To be fair, it was hardly a life worth seeing.”

“How high did you go?” she asked.

“Not that high,” Cain shook his head. “I pretty much stalled around 45th floor or so. While I could have gone higher, the risks were too great and I was, as you’d say, a bit of a pussy.”

“... I don’t think I’d be able to do it.”

“What? Get to the 45th floor?” Cain quizzed.

“No,” Emma shook her head. “Reset myself mentally. I can’t imagine what kind of horrid shit you lived through, C’. For me, just these few months have almost been too much. If you weren’t around, who knows what would have happened. Yet, you... you manage to still smile, laugh, make jokes, and laze around like a moron despite everything. All else aside, that alone makes you far stronger than anyone else in the world, at least in my eyes.”

“... well, I do know these two hyper-active, never-let-me-catch-my-breath, absolutely-balls-to-the-walls unrelenting women,” Cain said, grinning. “It definitely helps.”

“...” Emma grinned back and shook her head, leaning against his shoulder and closing her eyes.

Cain smiled gently and kissed the top of her head, looking to the side and out through the window where the behemoth of the Tower eclipsed the sky.

Now, he mused inwardly, his smile shifting into a cold frown. The night feels good. I guess it’s time to visit some ‘friends’ and ask a few questions I really want answers to...