System Change

Derek took one final look at his stats once everything was said and done.

Stats

Strength

Dexterity

Endurance

Vitality

Intelligence

Wisdom

Stat Points Remaining

1115

1115

1505

1505

1500

1500

1

Happy with his current stats, he dismissed the window and looked at Silvi. “That better?” he asked.

‘Much,’ she replied.

“Alright, let’s get back to the rest of the group. You can do some cooking while we wait for the dungeon timer to run down,” Derek said.

Without hesitation, Silvi disappeared from in front of him. Derek smiled and turned toward where the group was. In an instant, he was gone. He couldn’t let Silvi beat him back now, could he?

They got back pretty quickly after not being gone for long.

“Are the two of you finished with your super secret meeting?” Avery asked with a smirk.

“Yeah,” Derek said. “We were just discussing who would get to eat some of Silvi’s cooking. It doesn’t look like you made the cut.”

Avery rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how I’ll ever survive. I guess I’ll just have to wait and eat all that mediocre food from the Crown in the capital.”

The two joked back and forth for a bit, then everyone settled in. That was when Derek chose to fill everyone in on exactly what happened, since there was no longer a rush and there wasn’t anything left for him to do but wait. They all took it quite well, and Walter even seemed pretty relieved that Edgar had rushed out like he had.

While everyone was waiting to leave the trial, Silvi got to cooking as best she could without a stove and other appliances. Derek was hesitant to try the faux octopus, but when he finally did, it was delicious. He could see many different dishes being made out of it in the future, and he would definitely be urging Silvi to cook it in as many ways possible.

Silvi was even nice to the rest of the group and gave everyone a piece of the octopus—a single piece. It was enough to get everyone drooling over the rest, but she felt she had shared enough. After that, the same scene that took place with the rest of the raid party happened. Though, this time, she chose not to give Derek an equal amount. She said she had fought hard and needed to refuel, and she didn’t want to cook another of the creatures when she didn’t have all her cooking tools with her.

Finally, not long after Silvi finished up her food binge, the trial orb appeared. Everyone was excited to receive their reward, and Derek just wanted to get it over with so he could check on everyone he left in Savannah. So, Derek walked up to the orb and place his hand on it. Then he received a notification—one he was not expecting.

Trial Complete…

Assigning Rewards…

Assigning Rewards…

Error…

Assigning Rewards…

Error…

Unable to Assign Rewards…

System Interference...

“What the actual fuck!?” Derek cursed out loud, causing the rest of the group to look at him curiously.

“What’s wrong?” Avery walked up and placed his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “The rewards aren’t amazing, but for a trial that took us less than a day, or a day counting the trial timer, a few Skill Upgrade Points and free stat points are nothing to scoff at. Personally, I can use the extra stat points. In my position, they’re the best thing I can get.”

“Wait,” Derek said. “You got rewards?”

“Yes?” Avery furrowed his brow. “I received 20 stat points and 2 Skill Upgrade Points. Why? What did you get?”

Derek’s frown deepened. The system had to be toying with him, right? First, there was the interference with the system was trying to reward him with something for his stat points, now this. He took a moment to think, then thought of the reward screen that popped up after fighting the whale. It also seemed to try to error out before rewarding him with an Achievement.

Now he was wondering if that Achievement was even what he was supposed to get for completing the trial. He’d spent so much time in this Trial Dungeon, now he wasn’t even being rewarded for it. Everything seemed to be off since that third system appeared. First, he evolved like Silvi had when they first formed their bond. Then there were the cryptic notifications he received. Now, it seemed to be interfering with the Great System, but only when it came to him.

Did I do something to piss that other system off? Is it because I refused to break my bond with Silvi? But none of the notification he got seemed to be angry. In fact, if anything, all the messages seemed to be in good spirit. What did it say? It eagerly… no… THEY eagerly awaited my future achievements. And on top of everything else, there was also the weird requirement for advancement that he met that hadn’t been given any further explanation.

“Derek… Derek… Are you okay?” Avery stood, looking Derek in his eyes—a worried expression on his face. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

Derek broke out of his daydream and shook his head. “Sorry about that, I was thinking. Something’s going on with…” he was going to say that something was going on with the system, but he stopped. He was under a forced system oath by that other system, and he didn’t know what all would be considered a part of the oath. If it was why all the weird stuff was happening, then it was possible he would be breaking or at least bending the oath by talking even a little about it. “It’s nothing… don’t worry about it.”

What about Silvi, though? He thought. With everyone else getting these free stat points, she’s sure to be curious about why I don’t spend them. But we are bonded, and bonding supposedly connects the two souls together, or something like that. Maybe there’s some wiggle room between us since we’re bonded, share stats, and we both went through the same evolution.

Speaking of Silvi, at that moment, she hopped onto Derek’s shoulder and looked at him with her head slightly tilted. ‘What’s wrong?’

Derek took in a deep breath, then let it out. ‘We didn’t get any rewards,’ he sent through their connection, and was happy that he didn’t feel anything indicating he was close to breaking his oath. He really didn’t know much about it—if there would be a warning or something when he was on the verge of breaking it, or if it would just happen.

‘No rewards? Why?’ Silvi asked.

‘I’m not sure, the system says that it’s unable to assign rewards, but that seems to be specific to me… or us. I have no clue what that means,’ he replied. ‘I think it has something to do with our evolution. But that’s all I’m comfortable saying right now.’

‘The evolution?’ Silvi asked. ‘The one caused by the messages not from the Great System?’

Derek’s eyes went wide. Of course, she had received messages from the same system he had. ‘Shh…’ he tried to hush her thoughts. ‘Didn’t it make you take an oath?’

‘No, it made us take an oath. We are bonded, we are one,’ she sent back, like it was the most common thing in the world.

Derek let out a sigh of relief. If nothing else, he still had Silvi, and he was thankful for that. ‘I’m happy that you’re here.’

‘I know,’ Silvi replied smugly. ‘I make all the best food.’

‘Yes, yes, you do.’ Derek reached up and ran his hand through the fur on the back of Silvi’s head and gave her a little scratch. She shivered and shook a little in delight, and her foot even kicked his shoulder a bit—a kick that had enough force that it would probably dislocate the shoulder of anyone who hadn’t made it through the first threshold in endurance. He mentally made a note to keep the pretty bunny away from children and weak adults.

The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for the loss of an arm because somebody helped Silvi scratch an itch. He shivered at the thought. He also decided that he needed to do better by Silvi. Sure, he’d given her everything—well, most things—she wanted in relation to cooking, but he hadn’t actually spent much time with her since they bonded.

Thinking about it, he spent more time with her back when she was playing head-butt the human in the forest with the Undying Dungeon. That was before he got the beast contract… before Silvi tried to make him her beast companion… and before he accidentally initiated a bond with her. Yeah, we’re definitely spending more time together once we get out of this dungeon. Maybe I can pick up the general Cooking skill and she can teach me some stuff.

But no, he immediately nixed that idea. He remembered how she was after spending just a few weeks with those chefs back in Torith. It seemed she had grown out of that since her time away from them, but he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like working with her in the kitchen.

“So, are we just going to stand here, or are we going to get the fuck out of here?” Victor said from behind everyone. “I have to arrange a funeral when I get home, so I would appreciate it if you would stop spacing out and get us the hell out of this trial.”

Silvi shot Victor a glare and the elven man shrunk back. With a smug snort, she turned back and faced forward.

Derek couldn’t keep a grin off his face. Ever since she dropped the wyrm in front of him, he’d been pretty cautious around his companion.

“Alright, is everybody ready to go? Have you all spent your stat points and whatnot?” Derek asked. He was sure that every level 250 knew exactly where they would put any stat points if they ever obtained extra ones. Seeing everyone nod in agreement, Derek stepped forward. “Here we go. It’s time to finally get this thing over with.”

Derek walked forward and placed his hand on the trial orb once again. When the menu appeared asking to leave the trial, he selected yes. Finally, a bright light flashed, and the party disappeared.