Meten rubbed at his forehead and sighed deeply after Kay finished his summary of the events since the party of four had traveled into the tunnels and the explanation of what had just happened. "I am not going to try and process this right now."

"I think I understand enough." Eleniah agreed with him, "We can save details and further explanations for later."

Kay shrugged, "Sure, whatever." He pointed down into the giant tear in the surface of the plateau, "I have to go look for the others."

"Or we could go grab Cindy and see if she can find them." Eleniah pointed off the side of the cliff. "That might be faster."

"Can she find people like that?"

"I don't know, but it's worth asking."

Kay stepped to the edge and looked down. "I don't know if I have enough mana left to climb down with blood, and I definitely can't survive that kind of fall."

"Don't worry!" Eleniah swept him up into a princess carry before he could react. "I'll get you down there!"

Kay struggled and tried to get away, but with how tired he was and her strength, he got nowhere. "Put me down!"

Sher smirked at him and stepped off the edge. Kay felt his heart rise up into his throat as they went into free fall and the cliff face started rushing past. Right as he was about to scream, Eleniah stuck out her foot and landed on a tiny piece of rock sticking out into the air. She completely absorbed the impact and immediately stepped off again, repeating the process into they were close enough to the ground that she could just land at the bottom. She smirked at Kay again and dumped him on the ground before he could react.

"Hey!"

"You can walk, lazy."

"Okay, why are you being mean?"

Meten floated down next to them, riding on a cloud formed from shifting symbols of ash. He lightly stepped onto the ground, and the cloud dispersed to nothing. "She's been anxious about how you have been this whole time, and now she's taking it out on you for worrying her."

Eleniah scowled at him and smacked him on the arm. "That's not true."

Meten nodded sagely. "Yes, it is."

"I'm telling your daughter you're being annoying."

He smiled, "She's quite used to that."

Kay looked up from dusting off his legs, his blood armor already dismissed back into his flask. "You have a daughter?"

"I do. She is my pride and joy." Meten gestured at the settlement, "You can meet her and everyone else once we go gather them up."

Kay took stock of his own condition. "There's no more danger that we know of, and if there is anything, two tier fives can take care of it, right? I'm going to take advantage of the privileges of leadership and go sit down for a bit. Send Cindy to me when you find her, will you?"

"See! You are being lazy!" Eleniah called after him.

"I just climbed up the inside of a mountain after a creepy fusion of some eldritch thing and a giant rat-man! I'm allowed to be lazy for a bit!"

"It was an avatar! And that's a plateau!"

Meten laughed at their antics, "Where are you going to be?"

"In my office!"

Kay ignored his teacher's taunts and trudged tiredly to his office building. The exhaustion from the entire day was finally catching up to him, and by the time he made it to his chair, his eyes were already closing. He used his arms as pillows and decided to take a nap while he waited.

"Kay. Kay, it's time for dinner."

Kay blearily opened his eyes and moved his head fractionally to look at the person shaking him. "Wha?"

Ahthia chuckled and patted his shoulder. "Time to wake up; it's been hours. We're about to have dinner."

Kay frowned and glanced out the window. It was dark. "Why didn't anyone wake me up?"

"Things were working out fine, and we didn't need to bother you, so we decided to let you sleep."

"What about Stephen, Claudia, and Leya?"

"They made it back about an hour ago; they're fine."

Kay grunted in acknowledgment and went through the difficult process of standing up and stumbling out the door. He made his way to the eating hall without any real issues. And sat down in an open chair without paying much attention. Someone put a plate of food in front of him, and he started eating mechanically. He absently noticed that people were shifting positions around him, and when he glanced up, his temporary party from the delve into the tunnels was there, along with Eleniah and Meten.

"Hey!" Kay woke up a little when he saw them, "You guys are alright!"

"I did just tell you that," Ahthia told him as she sat down at the table with a plate of food.

"I was still mostly asleep." Kay turned back to the others, "How did you guys make it back so fast?"

"That giant thing ignored us while it was climbing up, and we started following it as best we could, but one of the spaces it tore through on its way up was another big intersection of tunnels, and we couldn't go any further up. One of the tunnels in that section generally led towards home, so we started down it. Leya did the rest of the work connecting us between sections and opening the path." Claudia leaned over a bit and patted Leya on the back. "She did awesome."

Leya grinned proudly, "I got a bunch of levels from it too!"

"That's great. Did the rest of the Rittians attack you?"

"No, we didn't see any more of them after we sealed them off the first time."

They spent the rest of the evening chatting and discussing what had happened and their carious gains from the battle. Kay also casually met a few people from Meten's village that had joined them, but that was short and mostly just a random exchange of names with the people that were closest to him.

Eventually, after the meal ended, Kay found himself back in his office again with Meten, Eleniah, Cindy, and Ahthia. Unable to sleep, he decided to have a meeting with his three wise advisers and the other Outworlder. He went over the whole interactions with the system and everything that he knew or could surmise from what he'd learned.

"That's…" Cindy shook her head, "That's a lot to unpack."

"We now know for a fact that the System was made by someone and that there are people in charge of it, these 'Administrators." Meten mused, "That is quite the shift in world views to have to deal with."

"Is there any reason to focus on that?" Eleniah asked. "There's nothing we can do about it, so think about it, sure, but don't let it get to you any. The world is still the way it was; we just know more about how it is." She turned to face Kay, "What were your Quest rewards?"

"You know, I didn't even look." Kay opened his notifications and accepted his Quest rewards. While he did, he noticed that there was something else waiting for him to acknowledge it, a new title.

[————————————————————]

Title: System Access (Minor)

-This title grants a User access to limited amounts of System data, including permissions to see a restricted copy of Patch Notes

(Total Title Holders: 2491001258, Current Title Holders: 5123489)

[————————————————————]

Kay read it over and marveled over the number of people that had had System Access (minor) and the current total that had it, including him. "I guess I'm not that special," He muttered to himself. He did wonder about the count thing though, his other titles didn’t tell him how many people had the title, or had had it. Was it just something from the title being related to the inner workings of the System?

"What?"

"Nothing, I'll tell you in a sec." Kay finalized acceptance of his rewards, and two items appeared floating in front of him. Both items looked like small gemstones, although one was larger than the other. The bigger one looked like a massive cut sapphire, a blue gem as long as Kay's forearm cut into a diamond shape. It was thin and pointy on both ends.

[————————————————————]

Siege Crystal

- A magical stone that reinforces walls and gates that are physically connected to it. Mana can be given to the crystal to further reinforce the structure it's connected to extreme levels for as long as mana is provided. Perfect for resisting sieges. The amount of passive reinforcement depends on the size of the crystal, and the active reinforcement amount is derived from the amount of mana provided.

[————————————————————]

Kay showed it off to the others and described what it did. Everyone agreed that it was a great item for the settlement.

"The ones at the royal palace back in my old home are only a tiny bit bigger than this." Eleniah told the group, "This will make whatever walls we put it into really hard to break. It'll probably let them resist tier fives that aren't specialized in destroying buildings without much trouble."

"What's the other one?" Cindy asked.

Kay used Identify on it the smaller stone. It also looked like a gem, but this one was uncut and shimmered with a greenish-copper color that shifted as the light hit the stone.

[————————————————————]

Unknown Blood Stone

-Solidified blood from an unknown magical creature.

[————————————————————]

"Huh. It's blood apparently, from an unknown magical creature." Kay bent his will against the stone, and it unfolded as he magically made it back into a liquid. It shimmered the same greenish-copper tone as it flowed around him. It was tough to keep his will on it, and the instant he lost control of it, it shrunk back down into the same original shape and landed on the table with a thunk.

Kay picked it up and pocketed it. "Alright. There's a whole lot more to talk about, but it's the middle of the night, and we all need some sleep after the last few days. Let's call it here and head to bed."

"But I want to talk about that stone!" Cindy protested.

Kay gave her a look, "It literally says unknown, and the only skills I have that could tell me what effects it might have are Meld Blood and Enhance Blood, both of which might waste whatever it is. Is there anything else to talk about?"

Cindy crossed her arms and looked away, sulking. "No."

"Then goodnight everyone, I'm going to go pass out."