It didn’t take long for the party to reach the part of the forest where Logan had commanded the goblins to gather. Spark and Fahrenheit kept up rather well, and even though he had legs Fahrenheit did not falter.

There weren’t many loose ends to tie up before Logan left, these goblins would hopefully be the last remnants from the attackers of Gauntlet. If they weren’t, their death would at least make the surrounding area a bit safer. A lot safer if there were many more fomin in their ranks.

Expectations were exceeded, however, as the party dismounted when Logan’s Echo Radar picked up several dots ahead of them. At a large force of 34, the fomin Logan was ordering around certainly kept his end of the deal.

Utilizing Stealth in their approach, both Logan and Marcus were able to hide behind the trunk of a tree to spy on the goblinoid group.

“Identify.”

Logan was able to spy the fomin he had used Call to War on alongside 2 others. With them were 4 berserkers, 5 archers, 2 hobgoblin leaders, 10 muscles, and 10 scouts. It was a lucky outcome that so many were low levelled monsters, the fomins and leaders posing the biggest threat.

Thankfully, Logan’s more powerful spells would be able to kill a hobgoblin leader in one hit, as opposed to the past where he would have been grappled by such before he could kill them.

The Spellthief would be able to use Call to War on the lesser goblinoids, though with the fomins in play it would be better to deal with them before any commanding could be done. All of them to this point argued Logan’s command, and they were better suited to fight back against a hybrid caster.

Shifting back to their elemental partners, the party made a battle plan.

“Dimensional Jaunt”, Logan chanted. His body warped into its centre with a blast of wind, exploding in a blast of air behind two of the fomins.

Placing a hand on both of their backs, Logan called out twice, “Flame Grasp”, causing their bodies to burst into devastating fires. The Backstab damage of 132 and 124 left no room for their survival.

Before the last fomin could retaliate, Logan looked behind the foe and mentally commanded his ring, warping behind yet again and using his other ring to engulf the goblin in flames.

Volleys of bolts, electricity, and ice came from the woods into the lesser goblinoids, killing many in single hits.

Waving his arms around, Logan let loose two jets of fire at the hobgoblin leaders, igniting their bodies and burning them into crispy mounds of flesh on the floor.

As the berserkers came charging for Logan he continued flowing his hands forwards as he chanted, “Flame Wall”, twice. Two intersecting towers of flames came up from the floor towards the goblinoids, burning them doubly over.

Arrows pelted into Logan but with his much stronger armour, they didn’t even scratch him or his cloth. Aiming at the lesser foes he shot forth countless grey orbs of energy as Force after Force brought them to the floor.

It wasn’t long before the ambushed goblinoids all lay on the floor without a chance of meaningful retaliation. As experience numbers started to rise, Logan gave out a sigh of relief at the fact no surprises came from their ambush.

Logan smiled slightly as he saw the major reward that Fahrenheit received, a total of 7714 XP that put him way into level 4. What was also a bit surprising was that the original fomin granted a full experience reward. Was it because the conditions of the fight had changed? Either way, it was a good boost to the team.

“While I harvest these things for parts, Marcus, I have an idea.”

“Oh yeah?” Marcus replied with anticipation.

“Spar with Fahrenheit, enough that he dissipates back into a core”, Logan said matter-of-factly.

“What? Isn’t that dangerous? What if we get attacked?”

“Echo Radar should pick up anything that approaches, I want to see if you gain anything from fighting my summons. You just do training with the guards, right? No actual fights or sparring matches?”

“I suppose, sure, we can try it.”

Turning to his summon, Logan continued, “Go all out, but don’t aim to kill.”

“Alright”, the hunk of ice responded as he started to stomp over to his ally.

Crouching down to the bodies with a knife in hand, Logan cut his first ear that led to the popping up of a long-awaited window to note his progression in Harvesting.

“I’ve not had a chance in a while to work on this. I wonder if it reaches tier 10 if I just harvest in a second?” Logan thought to himself.

Whilst Logan harvested the corpses for ears, Marcus was busy fighting with Fahrenheit in the background. It was rather easy for the Devout to dodge the slower movements of the Frost elemental to follow up with slams into its side with his staff.

It wasn’t entirely easy, but Marcus was far beyond the skill set of his adversary and was able to knock the elemental to the floor, its body bursting into chunks of ice and coalescing into a shard on the floor.

Checking his ally’s status, Logan saw that Marcus gained 40 XP from defeating Fahrenheit, regardless of how easy it was.

“Heal him up, and fight again”, Logan commanded.

Marcus had a puzzled look but did as he was asked, using Healer’s Caress four times to bring Fahrenheit back to full health. The first time caused the shard to shake and explode into the original form of the elemental.

Another fight ensued, but the same victory was achieved. Checking Marcus’s experience, however, had no change to the total. Logan surmised he could gain the bonus either once a day or through some similar limitation. He hadn’t checked if Marcus gained diminishing results from fighting the same monster over and over, only for when Logan did it, which halved the XP.

To get further results, Marcus was instructed to fight Spark this time. With a few levels over him, Spark put up a better fight than his newly born brother. Electrified slams, ranged bolts, and grappling with Marcus caused the Devout to take several hits, requiring the Devout to use Heal once to keep up.

With the aid of trinkets though, Marcus was able to put up a solid fight and smash Spark into his own shard on the floor with a final staff bludgeon. Just as he had when defeating Fahrenheit, Marcus gained 110 experience from the sparring match.

Just to cover all bases, Marcus healed himself and Spark to full once more and had a final sparring match to round out the time Logan was spending on harvesting. It was a good match, though Marcus did show intuition about his opponent’s fighting style and came out the victor.

No reward, just as before.

“That good enough?” Marcus asked through pants of breath.

“Yeah, it looks like we can boost your progression a bit if you fight my elementals. We’ll have to see if anything changes tomorrow though, and if not it won’t be an easy avenue”, Logan explained. Looking at Fahrenheit he continued, “You don’t mind if I test it too, do you?”

“Go ahead”, the elemental responded.

Before Fahrenheit was able to close the distance, Logan let out a Lightning Shot from his ring into the centre of the ice. It exploded into countless pieces, forming a shard on the floor as Logan Safecasted.

Though Logan gained no reward.

“I guess since they are my summons I know too much about them, or our link via our soul teaches me nothing new”, Logan theorised aloud.

“I do have some time after my training sessions with the guards, do you think I should spar with them too?” Marcus asked, still slightly confused at the changes.

“If you’re going to be doing anymore with them before Lightbeam comes back, that’d be a good idea.”

“Well, it makes sense, I guess. Adventures tend to train in varying ways to get better. Fighters do endurance training, whereas casters study and practice magic. Does that really affect our rank increase much?”

“That’s more for your capabilities, the Strength and such that is examined at the adventurers’ halls. Though saying that, I helped increase the Strength of some guards back in Tinte by sparring with them, I guess sparring can do both.”

“I haven’t researched much on the subject, but I will take your word on it. You can see those parts of us much easier than most.”

“I can easily see adventurers improving capabilities that won’t help their class, such as our travelling increasing Strength or Constitution if we hadn’t already spent our points.”

“Points? You mean when I increase my rank and you improve my Wisdom?”

“Essentially, your rank dictates those extra boosts”, Logan informed.

“Huh. You think the Magi’s Tower has figured those facts out? They spend most of their time researching”, Marcus asked.

“Darius wanted to take my oracle powers and put them into a potion or trinket, no doubt there are theories on it.”

“If they do know about it, it isn’t a wonder why not many others know of it too. They’d more than likely keep it to themselves. If it doesn’t better casters they don’t tell others, if only the casters could focus their power into certain areas then they’d have the advantage.”

“It sounds like the general concept is known to people, train your muscles and you get stronger. It’s just the finite details that might evade people’s minds.”

“Tomes are expensive too, it is entirely possible the bookshops have information on that side of things, but if it isn’t a skill or spell I doubt they’d look for it”, Marcus wagered.

“Maybe, we don’t know unless we ask. But if we ask, and they don’t know everything, it might lead to new discoveries that we don’t want.”

“I suppose. Your identity is also something worth hiding still.”

“Either way, this new discovery has helped us a bit more. Let’s see what else waits down the line”, Logan replied as he stood up from the last body, “I’m done harvesting and collecting gear, by the way, you ready to head back?”

“Right behind you.”

The trip to Gauntlet was a quick ride, or at least it felt like it as Logan spent the time reviewing his spells and status. Any path to quick power or minimizing the possible increase in the difficulty of quests would benefit him greatly. There was also the question about experience.

No matter where he looked or what he asked System, Logan couldn’t find a way to increase Marcus’s gains. The double-edged sword of NPCs’ experience rewards, they gained no increase but also were given no penalties, Logan would eventually gain less than Marcus but that time wasn’t fast approaching.

Selling off the weapons from the goblinoids, Logan took his share of 50 silver and gave Marcus his 27. His harvesting session also brought with it two legendary quality goblin ears, which if used in crafting granted an additional 20% of crafting higher tier trinkets. It would have been a great boon if he was lower level, and lesser geared.

One prevalent concern was spell usage, Logan had a larger tank at this point but it could drain very quickly. He’d either have to spend money on spell slot potions, trinkets to grant spells or MP, or level up Fahrenheit quickly.

The Frost elemental’s progression seemed the same as his kin, so he’d end up at 15 MP at level 11, another 11 MP from where he currently stood. Another 7 MP a day for Logan didn’t sound like a high number, but it added a nice boost to Logan’s 15 he was already getting. It was really only 5, however, as Logan needed to spend 2 MP to bring Fahrenheit out as he did.

Regardless of how the progression stood, Logan was just awaiting the return of Cassius and the chance at an easier clear of the ice cavern. To that fact, Logan would need to be in peak condition, leading him to his next destination of a church in Gauntlet. While Marcus returned to the inn.

Revisiting the previous church, the one Logan had gotten Marcus revived at, Logan entered the large doors to be greeted by a different Devout in red and gold robes.

“Welcome, sir. I see you are an adventurer. Do you require services or are you here to pray?” the man asked formally.

“Regeneration, please”, Logan asked nicely.

“I see you are not lacking any obvious body parts, will this just be scar tissue?”

“Yeah. 2 gold right?” Logan asked as he held two gold coins between his fingers.

“Correct. I believe we have time right now to do that for you. Will you follow me?”

Waving an arm to the side, the Devout led Logan through the same corridor as before though this time they passed through the garden to the other side. Entering into a small infirmary, Logan saw several beds with patients sleeping in them, some sat up straight as they were being healed, and a few spare beds spread out.

Logan was sat at a bed like the others and was asked to remove his coat and shirt, doing so revealed the scars he had accrued to this point. The first scar on his cheek from his escape from Darius, the one across the bridge of his nose from Kreya, the diagonal one across his hip to his right shoulder, and the newest one from the left hip through the centre of his face.

Among the major scars were countless scrapes and pale lines, from the wounds that wouldn’t impede him as much as almost losing an arm.

Handing over the gold coins, Logan had some cream applied to his scar tissue by a different Devout, his hands cold to the touch. The scene reminded the Spellthief of visiting hospitals in the past, though he never had a full physical.

With the cream applied, the Devout placed their hands on the centre of Logan’s chest and his back. “Magicks in my hand, fuse this flesh back together, stitch the wounds, and make them whole. Regeneration. Reta, mora, kana, sin. Reta, mora-” the man chanted.

Logan identified it as a ritual cast as the spell was most likely out of the Devout's normal grasp. The use of the cream was also without a doubt an aid in the casting of the spell since it was fourth-level.

Instead of taking a few seconds to say the words and apply the spell, the Devout chanted the four words over and over for an hour. As time went on, Logan felt that itchy feeling of a wound healing over, though it tickled over wide areas of his body. His skin crawled over itself as it covered the scar tissue with smoothness.

With the spell complete, Logan rotated his arms and felt over his face. He felt like a new man with the body of a twenty-one-year-old. Though his physical might was already far beyond any other twenty-six-year-old on Earth.

“Do you feel good as new, sir?” the Devout asked.

“That I do, thanks”, Logan replied as he gazed over the room, “it’d be a silly question to ask if you did this often.”

“Regeneration is something I do possibly three times a week. Guilds who come back from dungeons and raids typically boost that average.”

“Are there many here that can do it? I had a friend revived and that required a few people to do.”

“Ritual-casting is something held by a lot of the Devout held within the church, this building has just under thirty that can do it for Regeneration or Revival.”

“The pay good?” Logan asked as he finished putting his coat back on.

“For those that can do it, yes. We don’t get any bonus for doing more in a single day.”

“Like any other job then, slow days and hectic ones.”

“It was quite hectic with the goblin invasion”, the Devout reminisced.

“Hopefully nothing like that happens anytime soon.”

“That is all we can wish. Did you need anything else today?”

“No, that should be everything. Thanks for your help.”

“May Desma guide your hunt and Vokka expand your mind, that you bear fewer scars”, the Devout prayed as they made a claw over their heat and moved to put two fingers together on their forehead.

With his business attended to, Logan moved to meet back with Marcus at the inn.

Noticing his ally, Marcus waved and began to speak, “Logan. I’ve heard news. Lightbeam and Harrow are heading back this way. Should be here in four days.”

Logan recognised Harrow as the name of another guild, a modest twenty-three-man group who asked Lightbeam for assistance with a raid. He didn’t know the specifics, but their tax was 25% instead of the 20% of Lightbeam.

“That hurries our plans then, no grand dungeons or quests for us. We’ll have no way of knowing how Cassius will react, or if he wants to leave immediately”, Logan replied as he crossed his arms.

“It might be best if we ready our gear and make preparations that are short then.”

“Yeah. I can do some crafting to make some quick money. You should go to the barracks and spar with as many guards as you can.”

“With your most recent bonus from the hunters you’re not going to get any for a while, so that might be best”, Marcus agreed.

“Gaining power is also a matter of teleportation, I have only a few left and I wager there are plenty of guards on offer for you to train with”, Logan continued as he looked over his inventory, “the rush and influx of goblin-centric trinkets should have died down enough for me to be able to sell off some more, I still have a few other components too.”

“Then we’d best get to work”, Marcus replied as he readied himself.

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