“It can’t all be like this,” I observed more to myself than anyone else.

Marcelle and Ulli both followed though I could tell they were nervous. Marcelle looked down the alleys between buildings as we passed. “It isn’t all like this. You arrange transport from your father before you travel? It isn’t safe to explore on foot.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, wondering if my low wisdom score was getting the best of me again. “Is there a lot of crime on Origin?”

“Not exactly,” she admitted, still scanning the shadows for some hidden threat. “Still, it’s not a good idea to wander around outside of your designated city on foot. If we run into anyone out here, it’s not going to be the pleasant sort.”

She had a point. The area around the tower looked like a ghost town. Large warehouses and factories lined the empty streets. The tower seemed out of place, rising above the derelict buildings like a shimmering oasis in a desert.

“Why is all of this around my dad’s tower?” I asked, wondering if Merlin knew the neighborhood was bringing down the property value.

“He chose this area because it’s abandoned,” Marcelle explained. “The Creator made this tower to house the chosen. We are protected as long as we stay within its walls.”

“You can go back if you like,” I offered, still not sure I wanted to give up. “I’ll just teleport back if I run into anything dangerous.”

“Unfortunately, we cannot do that,” Marcelle sighed. “If The Creator found out we abandoned you, the outcome would be worse than death. If you stay, we stay.”

That wasn’t fair. Not only was I trapped on Origin by my dad but now I was responsible for the safety and wellbeing of my two attendants, further confining me to the tower. Deciding to compromise, I asked, “Fine. Please arrange transportation to one of the cities?”

“I’d have to ask permission,” Marcelle replied, looking at me with hope in her eyes for the first time. “We can probably visit my hometown. That should be allowed.”

“Or mine,” Ulli squealed, speaking for the first time since we left the tower.

Since both girls were scared, I decided to call it a day. “Come here. I’m going to take us back to the tower.”

I wasn’t sure either of them teleported before. Once they were close enough, I said, “I’d hold your breath if I were you.”

Then I wrapped my mana around the three of us and teleported. For old times’ sake, I attempted to take us to Kalli, though I knew the result would be the foyer outside of the throne room. I wasn’t surprised when that’s where we ended up. It did come as a shock to both Marcelle and Ulli though as they both fell to their knees, losing the contents of their lunch on the waxed floor.

“I did tell you to hold your breath,” I said with a chuckle, regretting the fact that I couldn’t just DELETE the mess.

Then I remembered. I did have skills that could be used to clean things. A skill Kalli taught me.

“Pvruzth”

I frowned when nothing happened. Then I remembered the words were tied to the system and summoned my mana. Ulli yelped when flames erupted from my hands and started incinerating the vomit while she was still in the process of making more of it. My flames caught the spray in mid-air making it look like she was breathing fire.

Marcelle reached for my hand. “Careful, Lord Murphy. You don’t want to hurt her.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, shifting the flame over to the mess Marcelle made. “I’m very good at this spell. Kalli taught me.”

My daily routine for the next several weeks consisted mostly of physical exercise. Merlin didn’t bother to show up and turned me away the few times I went to see him in the throne room. Marcelle told me that the earliest transportation heading to Ulli’s hometown was two weeks away. I didn’t question it as I was having a rough time moving after pushing myself to level my base stats. While I couldn’t pull up my menu anymore, I did feel like I was getting stronger.

When it came to leveling things like luck and wisdom, I didn’t have the first clue what to do. I guessed it had something to do with making better life choices but there was hardly any decision-making in Merlin’s tower of women. It usually boiled down to what to eat and how late to stay up.

I searched for Kalli every night while I slept. The severed bond between us provided just enough solace to allow me to sleep. While I was cut off from her, the tether that combined our souls was still there, wrapped around my core. I traced it and applied mana to it in a sort of morse code every night. I wished and hoped that something would come back but nothing ever did.

Other than that, my dream world became another place to train. Rather than focusing on my body, I trained my core by further refining my mana and imbuing it with the purest emotion I could muster. With everything else lost, the one thing that remained was hope. Hope that I would find Kalli. I fed that into my core constantly, sustaining my life force with the hope that Kalli was still out there somewhere.

While I couldn’t see my traits, there were some things I still felt. I retained my vision skills from the God Eye trait as well as the Mantis Style kung fu. I still knew how to form a mana blade so I wasn’t exactly defenseless.

One thing that was missing was the artifact armor. I cringed when I realized it was missing. Thinking back to the last time I saw it, I realized to my horror that I fed it to Rasputin. It was probably sitting in his stomach wondering why I abandoned it. Fortunately, I still had the ring on my finger. Even though I couldn’t see it due to Lavender’s enchantment, I felt it resting snugly on my ring finger.

A part of me regretted freeing Maya from the ring. It would have been comforting to have her to talk to during my imprisonment on Origin. She probably would have been just as surprised that I’d met my dad. He was hers too after all, right?

Even without her there, I still visited the ring. It was the one place I could hide from Marcelle. I made a private bedroom in Maya’s old cell. I’d given her a good amount of furniture and only had to clean the bed five times before I was confident I’d washed all of the love stains out.

It wasn’t until the third visit that anyone acknowledged my presence. Mardella, who hadn’t spoken in quite some time, called out to me right when I was about to leave. “Melvin, is that you?”

Meanwhile in Japan…

Joe Reid tinkered with his latest creation while he sat on the top of a mountain. The wind-powered drone was just big enough for a single rider. He wanted to make it seat two but Wendy assured him it wasn’t necessary. She was the wind. Joe was still somewhat in shock that his girlfriend was a demi-god. Her mother (or was it her father?) was a wind god called Fujin. Joe couldn’t be sure because they seemed to be interchangeable. From what he could tell, one or both of them could be gods. Sometimes at the same time. The only thing they couldn’t be at the same time was human. Wendy explained that to him. “Then there would be no wind.”

Like her parents, Wendy could become the wind. Unlike her parents, she could do this in her human form which looked very cool in Joe’s eyes. Of course, everything she did was amazing to him. He decided long ago that he would marry this girl. There was no one like Wendy in the world and Joe wasn’t the type of person to let a good thing pass him by.

He just had to wait for the right time. The first step was to get her father’s blessing. The problem was that ever since he mustered the courage to ask, Wendy’s father hadn’t come down from the clouds. There was no way Joe was going to ask dad the god for his daughter’s hand, so he was forced to wait patiently until he decided to become human again. He sat on the mountain passing the time by tinkering with his creation.

“Good afternoon, Joe,” a strange voice called from behind him.

Joe spun on the spot, dropping his wrench over the side of the mountain. “Aw, crap. I mean, who are you?”

His wrench appeared magically in the hand of a beautiful blonde woman. She held it out to him. “Hello, Joe. Your friend is in trouble and needs your help. I need you and Wendy to come with me so we can rescue him.”

“What?” Joe stammered, taking the wrench and looking over the edge of the cliff where it had just fallen. “What friend? And again, who are you?”

She sighed, sitting next to him. “My name is Lavender and the friend I’m referring to is Melvin Murphy. He’s been taken to a planet called Origin and I need your help to get there so we can break him out.”

Joe wasn’t sure he trusted this strange woman who appeared out of nowhere but if there was one thing Joe knew, it was that he would always be there for his friends. “I want to help Melvin but I need to discuss this with Wendy first. She should be back soon.”

“She is here,” Lavender said with a soft smile. Joe felt it too, the soft breeze that kissed his cheek, signifying his girlfriend’s arrival.

Moments later she materialized beside him and asked, “Who’s this?”

Joe introduced them. “This is Lavender. She says she’s a friend of Melvin’s and he’s in trouble.”

“That sounds about right for Melvin,” Wendy giggled. “How’s Kalli doing?”

“That’s complicated,” Lavender replied. “Are the two of you ready to go?”

Joe had been expecting a trip to the airport followed by an eleven-hour flight. What he got was a magic door on a mountain that led to a rather lavish house. They were greeted by a couple of children.

Lavender introduced them. “This is Eddie and Sylvie. Eddie is a warlock in training and Sylvie here is in training to be my successor. Kids, this is Joe and Wendy, friends of Melvin’s.”

They seemed nice enough, greeting Joe and Wendy with friendly smiles. Joe idly wondered if Lavender planned to assemble a group of children to help them rescue Melvin. Fortunately, she sent them off before showing Joe and Wendy to their rooms. She gave Wendy a sly smile and asked, “Would you like one room or two?”

Wendy blushed when she answered. “Two please.”

Joe raised an eyebrow at his girlfriend. They’d been sharing a single bedroom for months at that point. Little did he know, Lavender knew everything.

“I’ll let the two of you settle in for the night.” She explained. “Your rooms connect through that door. Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on my plan.”

The next morning, following a lavish breakfast, Lavender sat the two of them down. “Melvin has been taken to Origin by his father. If we don’t get to him soon, he will be warped when he comes back.”

“His father?” Joe asked. “I didn’t think he knew his dad.”

Lavender sighed. “He does now. His father is arguably the most dangerous man in the universe.”

“Who is he?” Wendy asked.

“You know the name.” Lavender began. “But his father is not the lovable old guy with the beard anymore. Melvin’s father is Merlin, the wizard of legend.”

“No way!” Joe exclaimed, letting out a long whistle. “I guess that explains why he’s always doing the impossible and why the gods all seem to love him.”

“So how are we going to rescue him?” Wendy asked, a look of concern on her face.

“Don’t worry,” Lavender said. “I’ve got a plan.”